oeufs pour un

Though surely it's not, tonight's dinner feels like the first from-scratch meal I've prepared for myself in months. More likely among 2 in 10 days, which isn't anything to be proud of. As I sat down to eat tonight, the entire mood struck me as odd. The television was off. I was listening to music that wasn't Chicago or The Rolling Stones. I was cooking from a recipe. I was opening a bottle of wine just for myself. It was all so civilized, which hasn't been the dominant mood here in some time.

Between blah and blah blah blah, as mentioned in nearly all of my posts, life has been busy. Or maybe I have just been lazy. Who knows, but for a change, eating has been more of a chore than a pleasure. There's been the introduction of carbo-loading for my "long distance" runs (8-10 miles on a weekend) which is proof that when there is a general rule about what you should eat, ie mostly carbs the night before a big run, you crave the exact opposite, ie steak and salad. There's been a tightening of belts in the budget department which means cleaning the freezer out of last summer's corn chowder and taking home leftovers from a free lunch to serve as dinner.

So tonight I had run out of excuses. After making a post-run lunch of fried rice from leftover chinese (which was delicious), I wanted to eat something for dinner that wasn't pasta or rice. I've been getting a twice-monthly delivery of farm eggs but I didn't feel like an omelette or frittata. While perusing Judy Roger's Zuni Cafe Cookbook for an oxtail recipe I came across the perfect solution to my dinner: Fried Eggs in Bread Crumbs. It's even written to serve one person. It's great when the universe confirms your're being single is still ok.

I have to say that as much as I love improvisation and cooking from instinct, sometimes it's nice to just follow a recipe and enjoy the consistent results. The recipe has you toast some olive-oil saturated breadcrumbs in a pan and, when they're hot, cracking some eggs on top. After the eggs are cooked and plated you deglaze your with some sherry vinegar and then pour it over the eggs.

I reserved some of the breadcrumbs so that I could cook them over-easy safely, without fear that my non-nonstick pan would disturb the yolks. With the indulgent purchase of some arugula, I made a salad bed featuring greens, thin slices of lemon, minced garlic and olive oil. I decided to open the wine as a token of my commitment to enjoying a meal, and it was the right choice: a ridiculously cheap and good Oregon Pinot that, if I were smarter, would snatch a case tomorrow.

Oeufs Pour Un

with thanks to Judy Rogers

3 T. bread crumbs, homemade

salt

about 2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 eggs, the better, the better

1 T sherry vinegar (red wine or balsamic also ok)

freshly ground pepper

handful of peppery arugula or chopped radicchio

1/4 lemon, sliced paper thin

1 clove of garlic, minced

olive oil

salt and pepper

The salad greens:

Toss lemon and garlic with arugula in a mixing bowl. Add enough olive oil to glisten the leaves and toss with some salt and pepper. Plate the greens.

The eggs:

Sprinkle the crumbs with salt, then drizzle with enough of the oil just to oversaturate them. Reserve 1/4 of the crumbs to sprinkle on top.

Place the crumbs in a 6-8 inch omelette pan or skillet and set over medium heat. Let the crumbs warm throughout, then swirl the pan as they begin drying out. They will start to brown. Watch your heat so they don't blacken, and quickly add the remaining oil (and fresh herbs like thyme or marjoram, if you have them handy) , then crack the eggs directly over the crumbs. Let the whites firm a bit and sprinkle the remaining crumbs over the eggs. when the whites are solid, gently flip the eggs over and cook until over easy.

Slide onto your plated greens and then add the vinegar to the hot pan. Swirl the pan once, then pour the sizzling vinegar over the eggs.

Late Jan/Early Feb

The number one rule of blogging is, or should be, never start a post with an apology for not blogging. So I'm not going to apologize. But I am going to say that this post is mostly a photo essay of my last few weeks not blogging, because life has just been that busy.

We begin with an amuse bouche of Korean chicken wings, prepared the week after the Golden Globes, when I was not quite done with the exploration of bar-food-cuisine, as per the last post for taco salad. These particular wings marinated in garlic, ginger, rice syrup, soy and gochujang, pan fried then broiled in the marinade. Finger lickin' good:

The following weekend I went out to Goldendale, WA with my friends Laura, Piper and David to Piper's family farm. The weekend was worthy of several blog posts covering the topics of roasted organic chicken with seasonal root vegetables and panade, the incalculable value of real friendships , incorporating vibrantly fresh eggs into every meal, what to (or not to) eat and drink before and after an 8 mile run, dog-pack order and why Victor isn't a 'real' dog, pizza making in an outdoor wood-fired oven and the 14" lemon tart that sustained us for days and kept getting better:

The following week I volunteered to make a spaghetti and meatball feed for my newly former roommate David's birthday:

There was also a Super Bowl party involving freshly shucked oysters, po-boys, gumbo, red beans and rice, pork tenderloin sliders, broccoli cheese casserole and Indiana sugar cream pie. Sadly, my hostessing duties prevented me from taking any pictures or even having fun. Sigh. Let's move on.

Finally, in honor of Valentines Day, which is today, I made a meager but meaningful batch of my Valentine's heart cookies. As indifferent as I am to this holiday, I really do enjoy making these cookies and wish Valentines Day didn't follow so closely on the heels of the Super Bowl. It would make life so much more manageable:

Today also marks the Chinese New Year. Having failed at commemorating it by wearing new clothes, or purchasing flowers or getting my house clean or doing anything remotely symbolic, I am still hopeful that today marks the beginning of a prosperous new year. With a few too many competing irons in the fire, I'm trying to both simplify and enrich; let's say that I'm looking forward to turning life into a beautiful, clear consommé.

Nacho Salad

To know me is to know that I love nachos. This has been discussed before and I'm quite certain it will be again. For every single one of my lofty rules pertaining to gastronomy, local, seasonal and sustainable gets thrown out the window when it comes to nachos. If I see nachos on a menu, it's hard for me to think of ordering anything else, even when I should know better, or have made that mistake before. Call it faith or stupidity, but I am constantly ordering and then regretting ordering nachos.

Actually, it has been awhile since I've indulged, and I'm not counting a really weird and scary version of bbq brisket nachos at Esparza's restaurant because I should not have even gone there in the first place.

Last night the Golden Globes were on TV. Which means I spent 2 days thinking about what I wanted to make for myself and my roommate while we get drunk and efface celebrities. Even though every fiber of my being wanted to make a giant tray of nachos authentico, I resisted the temptation because, well, I am training to run a half marathon and I think it would go a little easier if I lost a few pounds rather than packed them on. My knees would appreciate it. With enough ingredients lying around to only warrant the purchase of an avocado and a head of lettuce, I concocted a mildly healthy chopped salad that satisfied almost every nacho-craving impulse and left me with no regrets. No regrets over the food, at least.

Nacho Salad

serves 4

6 cups crisp romaine lettuce, washed and chopped into 1-inch pieces

2 tomatoes, diced

1/2 cup pickled onions (see below), chopped

6 radishes, diced

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese (or, let's be honest, more)

1/2 large avocado, diced

small handful tortilla chips (I julienned and fried up a couple corn tortillas)

optional: sliced pickled jalapenos, black olives, more cheese...

+++

for the pickled onion

1 yellow onion, thinly sliced

1/2 cup white vinegar

1 T kosher salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds, toasted

a few hours ahead of salad time, place onions in a bowl and bring a pot of water to boil. Pour boiling water over onions and then immediately drain. Return onions to bowl and combine with the rest of the ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap and toss--refrigerate until ready to use. Will keep, refrigerated, for several weeks.

+++

for the seared beef:

10-16 oz round steak or other lean cut.

1 tsp ground chile powder (I use ground New Mexico chile)

1/2 tsp cumin

salt and pepper

2-24 hours prior, pat steak dry with paper towel and season with spices and plenty of salt and pepper. Refrigerate, but bring to room temperature 30 minutes before cooking. Heat a heavy-duty skillet on a high burner and drizzle a little oil on the pan. Might want to turn on your exhaust fan at this point. When the oil starts smoking, sear the steak. I like about 3 min per side for a 3/4 to 1-inch thick steak to cook medium rare. Remove from heat and let the steak rest while you put the rest of the salad together.

+++

chipotle and sour cream dressing:

1 garlic clove, minced

salt & pepper

juice of one lime, about 2 T

1 chipotle from a can, chopped

2-4 T sour cream

2-4 T olive oil

Place garlic in bowl, sprinkle on salt, chipotle and lime juice, let sit 10 minutes.

To Assemble: When steak is rested, slice thinly against the grain and toss in a large bowl with the rest of the salad ingredients. Add dressing to taste. garnish with some extra tortillas if you're feeling indulgent.

I forgot to art direct the salad and take a photo, but it was too good to not capture, along with the award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical.

Spiced Pork Crackling Peanut Brittle

I sat here trying to come up with a clever name for this post, one that would convey the psychic weight of a candy enriched with the byproduct of a Saturday lard-rendering. But, in the end, I think the confection can speak for itself.

There is a wonderful book out there, which I don't yet own, called Fat. I have Ms. McLagan's earlier Bones and for all the irrelevant cookbook titles that are out there (pretty much anything published by The Food Network), these are a gold mine for cooks like me, who first acquire the ingredients (in this case, odd cuts of meat) and then go in search of a recipe. While leafing through Laura's copy I found a recipe for spiced crackling brittle, in which you first roast rendered pork rind in an improvised 5-spice powder, then mix with sugar that is melted and brought to the hard crack stage. Pretty simple. Not so simple when you are improvising with cracklings and peanuts, as I decided to try. First, I roasted my cracklings in a mixture of star anise, allspice, black pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt, with a little lemon in for brightness.

Then, I proceeded to make an old-fashioned peanut brittle, from a recipe supplied by the eternally reliable Joy Of Cooking. This involves melting sugar, adding cream of tartar, baking soda, butter and vanilla at crucial stages, heating the sugar to the hard crack stage (305) without scorching it, adding nuts at lighting speed, pouring it out to cool, and finally, pulling the only-slightly cooled candy with your hands thus incorporating enough air bubbles to qualify it as a true brittle and not just some average piece of hard candy with nuts (and in this case, pork fat).

Working with the cracklings was not quite the same as supplementing a second kind of nut. I wanted to add them early, at the stage where you'd normally add butter. You know me, always looking for ways to shave off some fat here and there! The pork being spiced, and the temperature being hot, and also my candy thermometer being unreliable, resulted in some premature scorching. It all happened so fast. I was pretty sure I hadn't hit the sweet spot of 305 with my sugar before I poured it onto a greased cookie sheet, but miraculously it pulled and hardened just like brittle should.

The brittle was pretty special: sweet, salty, spicy and, in places, deliciously fatty. Co-workers made quick work of it and I'm looking forward to perfecting it on round 2 when I incorporate smaller pieces of crackling a bit later on in the cooking process. In the meantime, I'm saving up for Fat so I can figure out what the hell I'm going to do with all my lard.

Lard 101

Back in early November, my friend Laura Ohm and I went in on a pig together. No, not as a pet (though I did have a pet pig in college, ask me about that sometime), but as dinner. Many, many dinners. This is the second or third pig that Laura and I have split in as many years, and we go in on cows and lambs together too. If there's anything my 7 years as a vegetarian taught me, it's that I love eating meat but I do have a conscience. For me, buying animals directly from your farmer is a responsible and guilt-assuaging way to have your cake and eat it too. And don't think the cachet of pulling out, "yeah, I've still got about a third of a pig in my freezer" at parties doesn't rake in the men. It totally does.

Our 'season' for buying our animals is usually late fall. In brief, the life-cycle of our meat is such: we reserve a pig. Pig is born, weaned, raised and fattened. During this time, Laura and I frantically try to cook off the remains of last year's meat and also put in our cutting order for current, living pig. Farmer slaughters pig or hires a slaughterer to do the dirty work. Pig, who lived and grew on a small family farm and hopefully had a happy life, is slaughtered, then brought to a processor, where it is butchered and packaged. Laura and Robin pick up about 180 lbs of pig parts wrapped in butcher paper. Every year is a little different from the last. Sometimes we change farmers, sometimes the farmers change processors, sometimes the processors change their packaging. These variations may result in a pleasant surprise or niggling annoyance, like a new 'splitting' fee which is the equivalent of being charged for an extra plate for sharing at a restaurant. This year, along with 2 different cures for our hams (good) and the all of our ground pork seasoned as breakfast sausage (bad) our pig came with a heavy, double bagged pale lump of what we hoped was fat.

This weekend we decided to make lard. Lard is fat, but fat is not lard. Fat needs to be rendered, lipids melted, solids separated. Cobbling together our shared experience of rendering chicken and duck fat, we broke our fat down into manageable pieces and placed them in heavy enamel pots with just enough water to keep the fat moist before it melted.

then it cooked,

then it melted,

then it was done. It's so clear and pure, you can see your reflection though I don't really recommend doing this. It kind of felt I was giving myself a lard facial.

Now Laura and I each have a little over 2 quarts of solid lard and nearly the equivalent in delicious, deadly cracklings. Luckily, both byproducts are going to keep a long time in the fridge, even longer frozen. Which is good because there's only so much pork crackling you can nibble at for "research" at a time. Here is just one container of fresh, homemade lard, chilled overnight and still aromatic enough to pique Victor's interest.

Eat It, Bitchezzz

Here are the brilliant ideas you come up with when you're drunk on Christmas with friends;

hosting a blog of portraits of people in front of food they've prepared, posing with mock gang hand symbols.

At the time, I would have given you an impassioned though unarticulated (and poorly enunciated) diatribe about overwrought food photography and how I'm sick of looking at beautiful pictures of food in rich tones and low f-stop settings, but really, this is more about taking pride in one's accomplishments, and having the guts, or lack of shame, to pose with the fruits of your labor.

Here, I'm representin' a Yorkshire Pudding made on Christmas Day for my friends Joe and Jessica Staples, a Cockney/Australian duo with the most ridiculous accents you've ever heard. Being "proper" citizens of the British Empire, they hosted a holiday dinner with all the traditional trimmings. Though a Prosecco-and-Oregon-cranberry-liqueur cocktail we christened the "Oregon Royale" was a Fusion/Artisan Cocktail Movement interloper, and really the impetus for the coffee table book (to accompany the blog) due out for Holidays 2010.

I've made Yorkshire pudding a few times, always accompanied by a standing rib roast. Tonight we had a Christmas turkey, so in lieu of pan drippings (which we saved for the gravy), I brought my own rendered duck fat along with a simple dutch baby/ Yorkshire pudding/popover batter consisting of flour, eggs enriched with yolks, milk water and salt. Thank you Hugh Fearnley Whittinstall for your impeccable and "dead simple" recipe. The secret is mixing the batter well, letting it rest for at least 30 minutes (and in this case, more than 2 hours), getting your fat and cooking vessel scorching hot, and consuming enough Oregon Royales to create a gentle, festive atmosphere in which any proper oven pancake would perfectly leaven and brown to perfection.

If only I had been encourage to drink more, I would have had my new blog, eatitbitchezz.com tattoo'd across my forehead.

Muesli

Today, I woke up feeling like the cold-flu thing that has been persistently hanging on me like a bad case of dandruff is finally on its way out. Generally I am a healthy person, which makes me a bad patient, and for all my ministrations about hot liquids and plenty of rest, I rarely follow my own advice, or at least not with conviction.

So, this morning, feeling like I might actually accomplish something with my day, I made something that I'd been meaning to for weeks: Muesli. Muesli takes minimal preparation but for some reason it felt too extravagant to prepare on a weekday. I took a few seconds to search recipes online that are pretty much all the same: 4 parts grain to 1 part nuts/seeds to 1 part dried fruit. If you have rolled oats and raisins in your pantry, you have muesli. If you have rolled barley and wheat flakes and sunflower seeds and dried dates, you have better muesli. As it was, I had oats, and slivered almonds, and raisins and dried apple. So, I'm ahead in fruit, but could use some diversity in the nuts and grains categories. For this reason, I made a small batch, which will last me the work week. Hopefully by next weekend I'll have ridden my bike to the co-op and picked up a more robust supply, HA!

The one thing I like to do is toast my grains and nuts--bake off the staleness of the pantry. And tossing everything together while your grains are warm gives your dried fruit, especially raisins, a little plumping, which in this case is a very good thing.

Pantry Muesli : make 5 1/2 cup servings

2 cups rolled oats, or combination of rolled oats, barley, rye, wheat flakes, etc...

1/2 cup chopped or slivered nuts

1/2 cup dried fruit

preheat oven to 350. Spread oats and nuts on baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes, then toss with dried fruit. Store in airtight container, use within a week. If you're feeling indulgent, toss in some wheat germ or flax meal too, but only incorporate flax after the baking lest you destroy all its healing properties with heat.