One Quick Weekend

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Julie

When Rachel and her friend Michael decided they wanted to spend a grand total of 24 hours up at the Red House, I had to think about what I could possibly make for them to eat.  Correction, I had to think about what I could bring up that was cooked and just needed to be reheated.  While Rachel will eat just about anything, Michael is still learning to try new foods.  First and foremost, he told me shortly after I met him that he doesn’t eat anything green.  (Although the other night he did surprise me with the news that he had actually tried a Caesar salad.)

Since we were going up on Saturday morning, I had all Friday night to cook up a feast.  I also didn’t want to spend a lot of money on this 24 hour adventure of theirs so I limited myself to what I would make by what was in the fridge and/or freezer.

When I opened the freezer, I came across packages of chicken, frozen goat shanks, a pork tenderloin, duck fat, and two packages of London broil.  Since I didn’t think the goat shank or the pork tenderloin was going to fly with either of them, I decided to make a stew out of the London broil.

I cut up the meat into decent sized chunks and popped them in a fry pan to sear.  Adding a generous sprinkling of real Hungarian paprika, salt and pepper, I browned the meat in batches and then added the chunks to a pressure cooker where onions had already been sautéing.  (Does sauteing have two “e'”s by the way, let me know.)  My liquid of choice to get the pressure cooker whistling was a can of beer and a couple of cups of water.  I also washed some Baby Bella mushrooms that I figured I could throw in at the end.

SEARING THE MEAT

PAPRIKA FROM BUDAPEST - REALLY

BELLA MUSHROOMS

OLD SCHOOL PRESSURE COOKER AND IT STILL WORKS!

Setting the pressure cook on a medium flame, I let the beef stew cook for nearly an hour.  That would be dinner for Saturday night.  I knew I had some bags of homemade potato gnocchi in the Red House freezer which would be a nice accompaniment.  Main course made, I decided to make a quick banana chocolate chip Bundt cake that could double as dessert for Saturday night and work equally well as a snack and/or breakfast sweet on Sunday morning.  Following an old New York Times recipe for this cake, it’s a dessert my kids fell in love with when they were little because it had chocolate chips and bananas and was always really moist. (Meaning it was a fool-proof recipe even if you were baking-challenged.)

I put a stick and a half of butter in my Kitchenaid mixer with some sugar, added three eggs, one at a time, two mashed up bananas, the dry ingredients, and finally the chocolate chips at the end.  The batter was spooned into a Bundt pan and put in the oven for a little over an hour.  With the stew still simmering in the pressure cooker and dessert in the oven, I started backtracking.  What could I make for lunch that would be quick and easy to put together if everyone was hungry after a four hour plus drive?

BUNDT READY TO GO - BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP

I decided on chicken cutlet sandwiches.  I quickly scrambled some eggs, rinsed off the chicken cutlets and dipped them in the egg mixture then tossed them in a bowl filled with breadcrumbs.  I quickly fried them in some vegetable oil and then let them cook a tad more in the oven.  After the cutlets were done, I started packing.

YUMMY CHICKEN CUTLETS

Sandwich rolls, potato chips, bottled water. Check.  Container to put the beef stew in when it was done. Check.  Bottle of wine to drink with the beef stew. Double check.

You would think we were heading into the “wilderness” with all these provisions.  Not, in the least.  Thing is when I’m up at the Red House and not sheetrocking or spackling or either tearing something down or putting something up – I just like to relax. That means I don’t want to do any grocery shopping unless I have to, at least not the moment I pull into town.  Since eating and drinking are pretty much sacred activities in my book, having everything I need to eat and drink just makes my life so much easier.

The chicken cutlet sandwiches were a hit and some of us liked the beef stew, others didn’t. ( I won’t say who!)   By the time Sunday morning rolled around, I found myself cooking again.  This time, I made French toast, from scratch.  Luckily at the Red House we always have bread and eggs and milk and real maple syrup that we get from a guy up the street who taps his own trees.  HOW COOL IS THAT?  But then I panicked thinking French toast by itself wouldn’t be enough so I scrambled up some eggs and cooked AN ENTIRE PACKAGE OF PANCETTA in lieu of bacon.

ONE-BURNER PANCETTA

BATTER, EGGS, NOTHING ELSE

I’m looking forward to future Sunday morning breakfasts – feasts actually – up at the Red House once I have a “real” kitchen.  But for now, I’m still going to be lugging provisions.

BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP BUNDT CAKE TRAVELS ANYWHERE

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A Meat-Filled Week

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Julie

Lynn joined me for a week up at The Red House.  That means I’ve fallen back into the routine of cooking bigger meals (sigh!) and inevitably the meals involved us eating some sort of animal.  I have to say being with Nicholas for a week was a lot easier.  We’d have an omelette for dinner or chick pea patties and a salad or a simple pasta dish and we were content.  While Lynn always says I’ll eat whatever you make, I know if I say we’re having “salad” he’ll ask “and what else?”

When I started to think about all the chicken, pork and beef we had consumed in the last seven days we were at the house together, it made my head spin.  Some days we had meat (or a meat product!) for lunch and for dinner!  Some days he even made little amuse bouche hot dogs (topped with a potato chip no less) to try to get me to eat what he wanted to eat (which was hot dogs).  Surely all the weight I had dropped being by myself and eating quasi-vegetarian coupled with the fairly hard physical labor I was doing would be in vain with all this fat I was consuming.  (Actually, I got on the scale and haven’t gained or lost an ounce — could the scale be broken?)  In any case, here’s a look back at the week’s meals.

SUNDAY DINNER

Pork cutlets in a mushroom cream sauce with roasted potatoes and broccoli rabe. (At least we had a vegetable and I’m not talking about the mushrooms.)

MONDAY LUNCH

Curried chicken salad with grapes. (Would he have noticed if I had just made a curried grape salad?

MONDAY DINNER

Chili made with chopped meat, black beans, red kidney beans, and onions. Granted I could have made a veggie chili using just the beans but the truth is I had two packages of chopped meat in the freezer that I wanted to get rid of.  Once dished out on our plates, we topped the chili with sour cream, green onions and some chopped up cherry tomatoes that my very lovely neighbor, Sue, had brought over with some fresh basil.  (Why if I made enough chili to feed four did we eat the entire pot with half a box of pasta to boot?)

AWESOME CHERRY TOMATOES

TUESDAY LUNCH

Lynn ate the leftover pork cutlet (UCK!) and I ate some of the aforementioned tomatoes and leftover cheese and crackers. (As he was eating the cutlet, he kept pushing a forkful towards me asking “Are you sure you don’t want any of this?)

TUESDAY DINNER

I was already on meat overload and convinced Lynn that I would drive back to New York City and/or pay $100 for a piece of salmon if need be.  (Well, not really but you get the idea.) Luckily, we only had to drive five miles to the supermarket where salmon filets were to be had, on sale no less for $3.99 a pound. Besides the salmon, I also put some corn on the cob on the grill and some fresh carrots sprinkled with olive oil and oregano.  Going through the August issue of Food & Wine, I came across a recipe for grilled watermelon with feta.  That went on the grill too (the watermelon, not the feta).  (Yeah, a decent and meat-free meal!)

CARROTS ABOUT TO HIT THE GRILL

WEDNESDAY LUNCH

We went out for lunch and since I had been raving about the fish tacos I had eaten at this restaurant a few weeks prior that’s what I convinced him we were both ordering. (Why then around us did I see everyone else eating burgers?

WEDNESDAY DINNER

The original plan had been to put some steaks on the grill.  Problem was the steak at the local supermarket was looking less than appealing but surprisingly the short ribs looked decent.  I bought the short ribs. I wrapped them in tinfoil and put them on the grill for a little bit over an hour to slowly cook then made a nice sliced tomato, basil and mozzarella salad as a side dish. When the meat was done, I grilled some slices of Italian bread. (If the meat won’t kill me, all this bread I’m eating surely will.)

FRESH MOZZARELLA, HOMEGROWN TOMATOES, BASIL

THURSDAY LUNCH

Why exactly did we have to have hot dogs for lunch?  Just because they were in the freezer didn’t mean we had to eat them.  Couldn’t we just have a salad?  To entice me to eat one, Lynn made me an amuse bouche hot dog.  This meant he took a hot dog and cut it in half.  I had to take a picture of it because I didn’t think anyone would actually believe this story.  The first half of the dog went down fine.  To get me to eat the second one, he put a potato chip on it.  Lynn had three hot dogs; I had “two” amuse bouche.   Although impressed with the potato chip garnish, the spongy white roll stuck to the top of my mouth like the 61.7 pound container of spackle sitting in the dining room.  (There is absolutely nothing else to say about this lunch.)

HOT DOG AMUSE BOUCHE

TOPPED WITH A POTATO CHIP!

THURSDAY DINNER

Well, let’s recap.  So far we’ve had pork, chopped meat and short ribs.  Guess it was time for chicken.  I picked up some chicken thighs that were on sale,  found a couple of chicken cutlets in the freezer and stuck everything in a bowl with some olive oil and spices.  Everything got wrapped up in tinfoil and put on the grill.  An hour later I went out to check the chicken and realized we had run out of propane.  Luckily by then I’d also had two cocktails and the chicken looked reasonably done enough to eat. (Surprisingly, no one got sick that night eating partially cooked chicken.)

FRIDAY LUNCH

We went out for lunch and had fried halibut.  (Interesting isn’t it that our lunches out consisted primarily of fish?)

FRIDAY DINNER

After a day of sightseeing (Yes, we really weren’t working!) we decided to do takeout from the local BBQ place. The sampler platter consisted of “Texas-style” ribs (meaning they were really big) a good beef brisket with a side each of cole slaw and potato salad.  Since I knew the sampler platter wasn’t going to be enough for Lynn, I also ordered a large pulled pork sandwich.  (I’ll admit the BBQ was good and if nothing else I didn’t have to do any grilling or cooking the entire day.

SATURDAY LUNCH

We both had a kielbasa sandwich from the local Polish church which was topped with sauerkraut mixed with chunks of what looked like pork sausage or chunks of pork (I couldn’t tell) on a hot dog roll. The kielbasa was a tad strange so I tried not to look too closely at it as I was eating it. (What exactly were all those flecks in the “meat product?”)

SATURDAY DINNER

We put some steaks on the grill and I made a salad with green beans, beets, leaf lettuce and fresh goat cheese.  Also made half a bag of fresh spinach fettucine and tossed them with olive oil and butter.  I loved the pasta and the salad.  I ate as few slices of the steak as possible.  (After this week, I really could become a full-time vegetarian.)

SUNDAY

We were heading back to Long Island.  Lynn has offered to cook for me the rest of the week.  I will encourage us to have a lot of salad and grilled fish. What did we have for dinner when we got back?  Chicken cutlets.

p.s. There’s a reason I posted pictures primarily of vegetables…

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Toaster Oven Pie

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Julie

It was a Saturday morning and Nick was coming up to The Red House with his uncle and my brother Jack.  While I had provisions for grilling (steak, hot dogs, ribs) and I had picked up some vanilla ice cream and chocolate cookies thinking if I was really ambitious I would make ice cream sandwiches (I wasn’t), I didn’t really have anything yummy for dessert.

I did have a watermelon that a new neighbor had given me a few days ago as a housewarming present (thank you Sue!) but the reality is I wanted something zaftig.  Looking in the fridge I found lots of overripe fruit – blueberries, nearly a pound of cherries and a couple of peaches. Could I whip up some sort of fruit pie with these leftovers?  Without a stove to bake them in?

Earlier in the week I had gone to an “antique” (mostly junk) store in the area to see what kinds of things they were selling.  I ended up buying a funky tray with pictures of the Chateaux of the Loire Valley ($2), a pretty yellow creamer ($2) and a set of four dark green gratin dishes ($5).  Since I had made a zucchini and tomato gratin for dinner one night, I knew at least one dish would fit in the toaster oven.  Could I do a pie in a gratin dish?

I realized I hadn’t made crust by hand in a long time.  Usually I put the flour, butter and ice water in a food processor or my KitchenAid mixer.  Up at The Red House I had access to neither.  I needed to make the crust the old school way so I put flour and half a stick of butter in a bowl and using two knives cut the butter up into the flour until it was crumbly.

MAKING PIE CRUST

Adding a bit of ice water to the mixture, soon I had the dough for the pies.  It was a little looser than I was used to so I wrapped the dough in wax paper and stuck it in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

AFTER LETTING THE DOUGH REST

In the meantime, I cut up the peaches and tossed them with the blueberries and a couple of tablespoons of sugar.  I washed the cherries, took out the pits and tossed them with some sugar, too.

THE FRUIT

By then I retrieved the dough from the fridge, cut it in half and rolled out each half into an oval shape.  I spooned each of the fruit mixtures into two of the gratin dishes, then placed the dough on top of each dish.  Using the tines of a fork, I flattened the dough around the dish and made a decorative edge.

Since the toaster oven was small, I could only bake one “pie” at a time.  Even at a 400 degree setting (or so the dial on the toaster oven said) this took about 35-40 minutes a piece.  I kept checking the crust to make sure it wasn’t burning and when I thought it was done and lightly brown I took out the first pie and popped in the second.

And how were they?  I thought they were pretty damn good.  And the ice cream I bought?  It was perfect as an à la mode topping.

TOASTER OVEN PIES!

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