Weekend Update, May 25, 2014

"One lives in the hope of becoming a memory."

Antonio Porchia 

Have you ever done that thing- that thing when you run into the grocers for just a few things, a very very tiny number of things, less than three things, really, so you don't even need a cart.

Pot roast and hot dogs. Two things. That's it.
Wait. Do we have potatoes and hot dog buns?
And I think we may be out of ketchup.
And potato chips. okay. Six things...

And before you know it, those one or two things that didn't even need a cart are 9 or 10 things that are ooching out from under your elbow and held precariously in place by your chin. Not to mention your arms are starting to hurt and that gallon of milk is really cold.
There are of course several things that could be learned, each and every time this happens.

One could learn to bring along someone
with large and willing arms.

One could learn to always get a
cart. Even for one or two things.

Or, if you're like me, you could forget learning any of that practical stuff, and as the eggs slip a little further out from under your elbow, you could stand in the middle of an aisle, thinking that groceries

are like your brain.

That is, sometimes we ask our brain to hold so many things, that one or two things inevitably drop off.  You remember and remember and think and think and plan and plan and get to the end of the day only to remember that you forgot. And the most frustrating thing is that you don't get to tell your brain ahead of time which things are too important to be dropped. You remembered the groceries, and you went to work, and you mailed that package, and you picked up the prescription, dropped off things at the cleaners..... but there's something....wait. Why is it so quiet in here??

You forgot to pick up the children. 

Such a human thing, forgetting. And such a human thing to wish to remember. Maybe that's why all over the world, humans set aside a day for remembering wars and those who died in them. If that seems a particularly human oddity, to memorialize war, remember that relatively few people have died while waging peace.  

though there are some...

The funny thing is, that on a week set aside to cook traditional meals of Memorial Day, I forgot. One day, I forgot to cook at all. Then on the day set aside to try the Mediterranean Farro Salad, I forgot to get red peppers and chives and who knows what else...

but it was okay anyway.
There it is next to the Rosemary Salmon.
Which would have been better if I'd remembered to take it
off the grill before it overcooked.

I forgot to only use half of the farro for the Mediterranean Salad, so the Chicken Farro Salad  which was to be made with the other half lives on not in memory, but in possibility.
Here's a plate of Grilled lime and chili chicken and vegetables, and some of you may think that you spot right off a thing I forgot:

that charry stuff in the foreground is a pile of grilled leeks.

But it's not forgetting if you didn't know. Here's what I learned: Leeks, which are wonderful almost all the time, go tough and stringy on the grill. If you love grilled onions, try grilling slices of regular onions or the smaller green onions. Save leeks for things that get them all sliced up into little chewable bits before they're cooked. 

If you're looking for a low-fat high flavor burger, and no one in your crowd is allergic to mushrooms, try these Buffalo Portobello Burgers

The lid and cheese are off so that you can see how much it
does not look like a mushroom burger.

The thing is, what lean meat sacrifices in fat it loses in flavor, and a carnivore is then left with two choices: eat delicious fatty meat, or eat lean meat and find a way to boost flavor and moisture. These mushroom burgers do the trick without looking too suspiciously like they took a walk on the veggie side. 

And yes, that is Alton Brown's potato salad next to the burger. The best basic potato salad ever. Serve it simple, or dress it up with more pickles (though those tiny cornichons in the recipe pack a super pickle punch) hard-cooked eggs, green olives, bell peppers...It's just a great blank canvas kind of recipe. 

Our go-to start here potato salad recipe from now until forever.

And if remembering a potato salad recipe is a worthy goal, then so is remembering a whole lot of other things. 

though sometimes remembering isn't just hard, 

Sometimes remembering hurts.

Still, it matters. 

What you remember. 

Who you remember.

Why you remember.

and what you do with what those memories give you.

It matters. 

Just like it matters every time you try to leave in

this warring world a memory of peace.

a memory of hope.

a memory of love.

True, you may never become famous. 

But who knows?

maybe, if you leave enough memories, 

you may become immortal.

Menus, May 20, 2014

"But there is the need... from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, the room where... we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived." 

Frederick Buechner

Of course, when I walk into the still room that Buechner writes of so beautifully, I am quite likely to stand in the doorway thinking, 

"Now, why exactly did I come in here?"

which is why, for the past day or so, my finger has been decorated with this time-honored memory keeper:

"Remember not to forget...

oh, what was it again?

 And how did this string get on my finger?"

The thing that I was trying to remember to not forget was to prepare for this weekend. Which is, in the U.S. Memorial Day. And I felt a few watts short of a bright bulb about my ironic inability to remember to plan for a day of remembering, until I was reminded that sometimes, even God forgets. 

It's true! Right there in Genesis 8:1 "And God remembered Noah." Now, for remembering to happen, forgetting has to be a possibility, right? So that means that perhaps even God, who is by all accounts pretty brainy,

occasionally gets distracted. 

And maybe while Noah was floating about in the world's first indoor safari park, God was musing to the angels, thinking "Now what was it that we were doing before we beat the bad guys in that last epic universal cataclysm?...something, no...noah.... OH My Stars and Planets! Hold Everything!!!"

" I think I left the water running!"

We humans may forget what day it is, but when we remember, we have a party. And I don't really know why. Who knows exactly how or why or when we started to remember this: 

with this:

but we do. It's a thing that makes me sort of fond of humanity, the way that we memorialize the things we've lost by sharing the good things we've gained. I sort of like the way that sometimes, humans honor the dead by having a good time with the living. 

And since this is the holiday that for us in the States marks the beginning of true Summer, we celebrate by smokin' up the great outdoors with the first big barbecue of the season. Our new grill will be fired up not once but three times this week, with dinners that I'm hoping will set the pace for a Summer full of quick, easy, healthy eating.

Here's how we're starting the Summer:

Wednesday: Grilled Chicken and Vegetables

Fire up the grill and cook up a bunch (a flock?) of chicken. We'll be using chicken breast, instead of the whole chicken in the recipe, because tomorrow night's salad and Saturday's soup will need the leftovers. Don't like idea of holding onto leftover chicken for 3 day? Me neither. Let's dice up one of the cooked chicken breasts, put it in a zip bag and throw it in the freezer for Saturday, ok?

Thursday: Chicken Farro Salad

Last night's leftover chicken dives into a bowl with the fun new darling of the foodie world, farro. Trader Joe's had a package at a price that made experimentation easy. I'll cook up the whole package, and use half in tonight's salad, and half in tomorrow's.






Friday: Salmon and Rosemary Skewers and Farro salad

 Rosemary, so the ancients thought, was for remembrance. Look at this great idea! Using the woody branches of rosemary to serve as skewers for tender chunks of salmon and tomato. Terrific! Rosemary happens to be a garden plant that manages to stay alive in spite of my abysmal gardening skills, so it'll be easy to try this out. If you're not squeamish about a little, ummm, casual pruning of plants that are not your own, you may be able to find rosemary landscaping parks and commercial properties all around you. 


Saturday: Southwest Chicken Soup

My good friend Katherine, who steered me into some great dinners last week, sent me this recipe as well. If you're busy today getting things ready for tomorrow, this soup will stir up faster than you can order a pizza. And be better for you too. 








Sunday: Burgers, Potato Salad and Slaw

Wipe down the picnic table and light the mosquito candles picnic day is here. For some reason that I cannot understand, the foods that are traditional for these summer celebration picnics often star a quart or so of mayonnaise. It really is sort of weird- burgers, potato salads, deviled eggs, pasta salads, ranch dressing dips...all outdoors for hours on a summer day. We remember those who exposed themselves to death in battle by exposing ourselves to death by salmonella. It just doesn't seem to make much sense. Illogicalities of traditional menus aside, there's not much that can beat a good burger, and when I searched "Best burger recipe in the entire world", this was one result. We're going to pair that with the classic and deliciously reliable Alton Brown potato salad.
Party safe out there everyone. And by that I mean keep cold things cold and warm things warm. In other words, practice safe food. We wouldn't want the main memory of Memorial Day to be wretchedly retching in the local emergency room, would we?

In fact, I hope that by some collision of happy circumstance
or by some happy collusion 
of the people you love,
that all your memories of this holiday 
are whole and happy.
I hope that if you remember loss,
you also remember healing. 
That if you remember war
you also remember peace. 
And I hope that when you remember to remember
the life that you've lived
that what you remember

is love.

Weekend update Febrary 2, 2104

 I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.” 

Andrew Wyeth

This morning at 7:30, a rodent got out of bed, brewed a cup of dandelion tea, checked his supplies in the root cellar and popped up for a prediction-

and you have six more weeks of winter.
Which is great news, if you and the kids weren't
really looking forward to finding out what
snowmen do in summer.

This morning Punxsutawney Phil, who has an 80 percent accuracy rate in the weather forecasting biz, predicted another 6 weeks of the gray and gloomy. But what if Phil doesn't just predict the length of winter? What if Phil is in charge? What if we runny-nosed topsiders are sentenced to another 6 weeks not because of shifts in global weather patterns but because Phil 

needs another 4 weeks to finish that scarf
and then wants 2 weeks to wear it?

Well, that's okay.

because

I have a scarf or three of my
own to finish.

Besides, 6 more weeks of winter means another 6 weeks before we have to 

come out from under all these layers

and start 

working off that hibernation insulation.

Like Andrew Wyeth, many of us sort of like winter- the bare bones beauty of the earth, the hundred different grays of the sky, and the story of coming change that lies under the bare earth. Here in Texas this week, the story of the spring below got a teaser trailer- a couple of brilliant blue sky days- followed by a return of the cold and wet. Fortunately, Phil's not the only one with a winter-ready pantry.

Here's how we ate our way through a week that turned out to be a stew of weathers:

First up, this yummy kale and beet salad, which reminded me of how fantastic and versatile roasted beets can be:

The only deviation in from the recipe was the use of red beets instead of gold- if you're serving a salad like this to people you care about impressing and those people are the sort who are unimpressed by goat cheese that has been tinted pink by beet proximity, then use yellow beets. Otherwise, my advice is to use the just as delicious and easier to find red version. No, I take that back. My first advice is to ask yourself why you are cooking for these people. 

My second advice is to cook only
for people who are easy to impress.

Honestly- this is a really nice salad; absolutely worth the time and effort.

Next up was Paula Deen's gumbo (yummy enough to convert a former gumbo avoider like me) and salmon, soaked in this honey-lime marinade and pan fried. Scrumptious.

Then Jaime Deen's chili 

I know, we could fight all day about whether or not
any self respecting bowl of chili would make room
for bell peppers and beans.
Still, this is a mighty fine chili recipe.

and this exciting spin on a slaw, the Mexican slaw with a honey-lime vinaigrette:

The usual salad dressing suspects around here are relatively simple, so I wondered a little about this recipe, but the cumin and paprika in this dressing not only knock the slaw out of the proverbial park, but give it a smokey warm flavor that turns it into a perfect winter side dish. 

Then, what was for me the happiest discovery of the week happened today, as prognosticating groundhogs were curling  up in bed, and the Broncos were curling up to die.

Cheeseburger Salad!!!

Here it is with gluten free chips instead of croutons,
and a sliced avocado.

This is SO fun!!! It's a salad! But it tastes sort of like a cheeseburger! Add to that just enough of a sloppy joe tang to flood the brain with childhood memories, and you've got a winner. The recipe's right- don't shy away from using chopped pickles. It sounds weird, but it's part of the fun. If you find yourself with leftover ground beef, ever, all year round, give this a try.

And since cold dark times aren't always confined by calendars, 

I want you to know that I know-

that there are a hundred verdant possibilities

sleeping under every blanket of frost.

And even if (or when)

 this week feels like a gloomy chapter,

I want you to know

that you have stories under this story

and  that there are always

things in you that wait patiently 

for each coming spring.

Menus January 28, 2014

In the many there are one.
Stephen Lawhead.

Here's a funny thing about things- they're never just one thing. 

here's a simple example:

is this one tree, or many leaves, branches and roots?

now a little harder-...is this a little boy enjoying an unusual snack,

or a psychotot who's just hidden the
lid of this can sharp side up at the
bottom of the sink?

harder still....is this an ocean....

or a vast ecosystem that contains vast ecosystems,
each one of which supports a near infinite variety
of distinct organisms each one of which

is far more than just one thing?

(Whew. I don't know if I'm dizzy because I just spun out my own brain, or because I thought that last sentence without taking a breath.)

Here's the hardest of all- is this guy a fearless, patriotic hero...

Or a remorseless, sadistic murderer?

The easy and unsimple answers are: yes, psychotot, yes, and yes (unless your last answer is who? what? 24?) 

No one thing is ever just one thing- not plants, or people, and certainly not Januaries. Well, at least here in Texas, where a cold and windy week has been bracketed by warm weekends that provoke the sort of giddy talk usually reserved for spring: 

"Really ladies,  I dread turning into someone who talks
with interest of the weather, but OH MY GOSH this
beautiful weather! Let's never go indoors!! I can't wait
to explore this stream with my granddaughter Dora! Who
brought food?  Did I mention weather?"

One day cold, one day warm, heater in the morning, t-shirts by lunch-  it's a fun challenge to plan dinner, when  the soup that sounds good in the morning, may need to turn into salad by the afternoon. 

Here's how I'm hoping to roll with this crazy wonderful mercury:

Wednesday: Pan seared chicken and kale and beet salad

Just look at this beautiful salad!  Kale and winter beets! It's salad! It's winter! I'm so excited!. The recipe is right- giving the kale a good  rub down on its way to the salad bowl makes a heap of difference. The protein here is just a supporting player; a nice honey-brined chicken breast, pounded thin and quickly fried in olive oil should be perfect. Any leftover chicken will go into tomorrow night's gumbo.

Thursday: Gumbo

Mom, I have one, count em- oh wait, you don't need to count em cause there's only ONE bag of your garden's tomatoes and okra left in the freezer, and I'm using it tonight. We shall somehow commemorate this bittersweet occasion- some sort of somber memorial of how much life your garden gave over the summer. And then we'll dig in. There is at last a small packet of a spice called gumbo file (as in feel-ay, with a French thingy over the e. Unfortunately, this keyboard is the Standard American model- it means well, and is easy going, but it only speaks English.)

Friday: Honey and lime salmon and broccoli

The great honey lime marinade that my daughter suggested using on tilapia gets a try out with salmon tonight, and a simple pan sear will let the marinade flavors shine. I'll be roasting the broccoli in a pan or in the oven, for no particular reason. Well, unless taste is a particular reason. Roasted broccoli is just a whole lot tastier that steamed. 

Saturday: Chili and mexican slaw

Hard to believe, but this is the first time this winter that I've broken out this great chili recipe. Cross it with the spices in Deb's Hot Rod Chili if you want to take it up a notch, and spoon out some of the browned meat for tomorrow's salad.

Sunday: Cheeseburger salad

There seems to be some sort of important sporting event going on today (go Denver!!!). You may have your party menu all planned, or you may be relying on the menu of your favorite sports pub, or you may be wondering what I'm talking about. This Pioneer Woman salad looks great, whether you're eating with a crowd, or alone, or using gametime to go somewhere that's usually crazy crowded on a Sunday afternoon. It's a sort of deconstructed cheeseburger that looks hearty enough for winter, and light enough for what could be a relatively warm day. Because it'll be February! And if there's a month in Texas that can be 12 different months, it's February.

We'll deal with the multiple personalities of a Texas February when they get here. 

For now, I want you to know that I know-

I know that you too are never just one thing.

You, and the people you love

are hardly ever only 

just one thing.

And I hope that this week

you and the people you love 

are okay with that.

And that you find a way to embrace

all the wonder 

and beautiful diversity

of the mighty ocean

that ebbs and flows within your soul

Menus, August 27,2013

What's in a name? That which we call a rose 
by any other name would smell as sweet.

W.Shakespeare

It's important to remember two things about this famous line:
 1. Shakespeare put these words into the mouth of a lovesick teenager who was trying to coerce her new boyfriend into staying just a little while longer, and
 2. Lovesick teenagers are a species set apart, even in Shakespeare's day, for the fluency with which they spout emotional nonsense.
Because the truth is that names matter. Names matter quite a lot. The truth is, had that which we call a rose been called instead, say, "lesser swampwort", it might never have become a symbol of love and passion.
 It would perhaps have only ever been "that funny flower that smells really nice anyway".
The power of a name to persuade or intrigue was on my mind last week, as I assembled the exuberantly named "Life-altering Kale salad", and pondered how a salad could possibly alter one's life (other that the time it sucks away from one's life clock during preparation).
What if, during an important lunch with an important someone at a sidewalk bistro in Paris, you lean in for a bite of salad, and by leaning, you narrowly miss being hit by one of these:

the legendary Parisian pigeon bombardier.
His mission: to wreak havoc on
 important outdoor lunches worldwide.

Or what if you took a bite of said salad, exclaimed "Wow! this is better that ice cream or fries or pizza or tobacco or alcohol!", and forswore all such treats in favor of this salad, thus adding 30 years to your life. Thirty years in which you become one of these:

Grandma Moses, who began painting
in her seventies, and spent her next three decades
being a famous artist.

Well, we assembled and ingested that salad last Friday, and there are no signifigant life alterations to report as of yet. Although, pondering the power a name has to influence the way we approach a food we've never cooked or eaten has has shaped this week's menu choices, and who can tell where that may lead?

Here, I'll show you:

Wednesday: Sausages and Marinated Kale salad

Touted by The Chalkboard as "the best kale salad ever" this recipe takes advantage of the way that the acids in dressings (in this case lemon juice) soften up the otherwise tough and chewy texture of kale. Most  kaley salads are substantial enough to stand on their own , but I'll be picking up some nice sausages from somewhere as a co-main. Any leftover cooked sausages will speed up Saturday's dinner too.





Thursday: Lemongrass chicken and Thai cashew salad
Here's my own chance to recreate the thai-coconut ribs we loved so much last week- and to those who
recreate the old, goes the privilege of renaming the new, right? The plan is to spin up a blenderful of the marinade from the thai-coconut ribs and use part of it as a marinade for a few flattened chicken breasts. (I'll be using one of these substitutes for lemongrass if I can't find any affordable stuff nearby). The marinade not actually used as a marinade will be heated up and used as a sauce, and I'll be cooking up a few extra pieces of chicken for Sunday night.


 Friday: Hatch chili cheeseburgers and  Avocado potato salad with hatch chili dressing

In the Southwest, this time of year is scented with the smoke of roasting chilies the way that December is scented by cinnamon and artificial Christmas trees. The smell and the taste of these versatile chilies are spectacular, but until this Wikipedia article, I thought that a chili by any other name would taste the same. As it turns out, the soil and growing conditions of the Hatch valley make a chili that's more of everything a chili oughtta be. I love em, and have a container of them waiting for me in the freezer. Around here, they can be purchased fresh or roasted for the next week or two, or you can buy them canned all year round.


Saturday:  Sausage Clafoutis and Pan roasted cherry tomatoes and kale
Clafoutis is a sort of oven pancake that's usually sweetish (not Swedish) and served for dessert or breakfast (check out this recipe for a fig version). Here's a savory (and gluten-free!) version that will include the leftover sausage from Wednesday night. Pan Roasted tomatoes are a Sunday morning fave around here and since we like ours deeply caramelized, I'll reverse the cooking order in the recipe. The tomatoes will go into the pan and cook there till they're nice and brown, and at the last minute, the kale will wilt its way alongside them. And the department of amusing aliases would like you to know that in British climes, the French clafoutis goes by the more prosaic sobriquet "Toad in a hole", a name which is somehow both repellent and hilarious.


Sunday:  Chicken/Hatch lettuce wraps

You'll note that the actual recipe reads "Hatch chili mole lettuce wraps", but since there's no mole (mo-lay sauce, not mole, the little ground rodent sauce.)  in the ingredient list, I changed the name. Besides, the idea of Hatching up a plate of chicken struck me as funny. Thursday's cooked chicken gets diced up along with the rest of the frozen chilies in this one dish meal, but rice, plain or made mexican, would be a great side if you've got a larger than one dish appetite.




Well, whatever you call the food you have this week
 for dinner, or supper, or whatever you call it,
And whoever you share it with.
I hope that the people you love
know themselves to be safe in your company;
 their names to be safe in your mouth
and their souls safe at your table.
Even (especially) if the only actual human soul at the table

is your own.