Category: food

is dinner ready

The Thursday night menu plan now includes this basic lentil thing, where we then add whatever else happens to be available. The first time I made it, the extra new thing was Leeks.  The Resident Expert said it was good, but also added, you might think about using bacon.  She said that kind of quiet, yet forcefully, with a riveting gaze, which I attribute to the mention of bacon. Serious business. This week I did work in the bacon, which, as you would fully expect, was a welcome addition.  Along with the leeks, we got the Turnips into the game. I’ll come right out and say it – First Time Turnip Eater over here. If you haven’t had turnips before, you don’t know what you’re missing.  Same thing after having had turnips – they’re not super exciting. Now, the Resident Expert is floating the notion of adding sausage to the Thursday Night Lentil Feed. I’m all in with that idea.

the reichl-waters method

I’m continuing my apprenticeship in the kitchen, and yesterday’s objective was the Roast Chicken. Now, it sounds simple; get a chicken, then roast it. I mean, the name is pretty much the recipe. My attempt yesterday involved a conflation of two sources; the Ruth Reichl directions provided in Garlic and Sapphires, and the Alice Waters approach described in The Art of Simple Food. They both strongly advised me to get a good chicken.  We had a Foster Farms bird, which probably wouldn’t exactly meet their standards. It doesn’t have the free-range cred.  On the outside of the package it said “no added hormones”.  Does that mean none added beyond what the chicken naturally would have, or does it mean they gave it a bunch of hormones, but then stopped and didn’t add any more? Now you’ve got me thinking. Beyond the bird itself, their techniques varied. It is Reichl’s view that chicken roasting is straightforward; pre-heat to 400, put some olive oil and seasoning on, and toss it in there. The steps in the Waters approach don’t include any advanced techniques, but there are a lot of steps.  Get that bird seasoned well ahead of time; 24 hours would be great. Let it sit around for an hour on the countertop (hey, bacteria! over here!) before it goes in the oven (agreement here: 400 degrees). After 20 minutes, rotate your bird. What? Yes, you will turn the chicken over 20 minutes into the roasting time, then spin it again after 20 minutes so it’s facing the  right way.  When the chicken is done, it should sit around again for 10 (Reichl) to 15 (Waters) minutes.  Who wants hot food anyway.

I wanted to try the pre-seasoning, but I only had about 5 hours to let the salt do its magic. Again, following the Waters direction, I had the chicken sitting on the counter slowly warming to room temperature for an hour, and I did the 20 minute flip rotation as well. From the Reichl program we included veggies in the roasting pan – too good an opportunity to miss that, and I’m a little surprised that they weren’t part of the Waters regime. Instead of the recommended Yukon Golds, we had brussel sprouts, mushrooms, onion, garlic. And another Reichl thing is to jab a fork in a lemon a bunch of times, and then put that inside the chicken. That I did.

So how did it come out? Very moist and evenly cooked.  But in some respects that seemed non-roasted to me. I guess I’m expecting to have some areas of the chicken roasted beyond recognition, and the hidden away parts just edging into FDA recommended internal temperatures. I didn’t mind all the advance work in the Waters scenario; the advance seasoning, the hanging around for an hour on the countertop, the spinning. But who knows if that does any good? I felt sort of like a witch doctor doing that. And if there’s a next time, I would definitely add the olive oil on the outside of the chicken as Reichl does, so it browns up real nice. The roasted veggies stole the show.

be prepared

The Resident Expert alerted me to the fact that we were “out of wine” and that “we need to get some wine”.  Good information, and I know it’s Friday and everything, but it’s also 7:20 AM.  We can hold off on the wine for a little bit.

keeps the doctor away

I had an excellent apple with my lunch today.  The Lunch Provisioner tells me that this is a “new kind” of apple, because they were out of the “regular kind”.  Whatever kind it is, I found it to have marvelous properties; it was like a little bundle of Autumn.  Crisp temperature, brisk wind, low-angled bright sunshine, geese flying overhead.  “How do you like them apples,” you ask?  I like them quite a lot.

did not know that

Some links that I followed led me to this informative chart showing how much water is used for various household activities and food production.  I knew already about some of them, but the one about beef was a real surprise.  It takes 1500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef.  They must be figuring all the water that goes into the production of corn, which is pretty much all that “beef” gets to consume, other than antibiotics.   Although maybe they wash down all those antibiotic pills with glasses of water.

the weekend is upon us

And the agenda includes: continued work on The Project; bracing the unstable recycling center, planting the Victory Garden, a 10-mile run somewhere great, visiting the shelter cats, and our first Sunday Night BBQ of 2009.  Which will require firing up the Weber Q ahead of time.  Last fired up sometime in October 2008.  New York steak, sweet potato fries, big salad, maybe some good sourdough, beverage of your choice.  Kitty cat wandering in and out.  Did I mention that the weather forecast as for increasing “awesome” this weekend?  Yesterday morning there was frost on the rooftops when we left for work.  Sunday will probably get well into the 80’s.