Showing posts with label the yachtsman doesn't recommend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the yachtsman doesn't recommend. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
gruel patties
I was going to call this next recipe Herbed Chickpea Patties With Baby Lettuces, or perhaps Italian Garbanzo Burgers With Arugula Salad. But let's be honest: This blog is called Gruel for Dinner, and this dish is called Gruel Patties.
I like to make a batch of Gruel Patties on Sunday night before a busy week, and then eat them for lunch and dinner over the coming days. I would never, ever serve them to guests. The yachtsman won't touch them. But to me they're an old standby, a weeknight classic, a spring comfort food (I like to serve them over the tender arugula or baby lettuces or clovery mesclun that's in season now). They're easy, they reheat quite well, and I'm not exaggerating when I say I think they're quite good.
What they are not is glamorous. But according to the recipe I worked from, they're Italian, and nothing Italian is entirely unglamorous, is it?
Let's put it this way; they're about as glamorous as a can of chickpeas.
(I know there is a case to be made for cooking your own chickpeas, but Goya chickpeas are nearly as good as the ones you'll spend hours soaking and boiling and blah blah blahing, and they take about twelve hours less time to prepare.)
So, you start with a couple cans of chickpeas; you add some of that most versatile of herbs, (Italian!) parsley (if you have other fresh herbs around, feel free to add some of those, too); there's garlic, naturally; a little cumin; some hot red pepper flakes. Give it all a whirl in the food processor, and then turn it out into a bowl. Add a little Parm, an egg and some flour for binding, form the patties, and sauté them in a film of olive oil. Nod when your husband asks, "Is that really what you're eating for dinner?" And then eat them for dinner all week.
A few notes:
* Like I said, I serve them warm over greens dressed with something acidic, usually either lemon and olive oil and salt, or that red wine vinaigrette I told you about a while ago. I eat them two at a time, and when I reheat them, I do so in a toaster oven. I’m sure they’d be fine reheated in a microwave, too, though perhaps not as crispy. They’re not that great cold; plus, I love the way the warm patty softens the greens.
* The original version of this recipe was vegan—no egg, no cheese. The cheese is not essential, but I found that the patties crumbled when I tried cooking them without the egg.
Gruel Patties
Adapted from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop
2 15-ounce cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
½ cup packed fresh parsley leaves
2 medium garlic cloves
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1 egg
¼ cup flour
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
Salt
3 tablespoons evoo
A cup or two of greens (per serving)
Dressing
1. Place the chickpeas, parsely, garlic, cumin, and pepper flakes in the bowl of the food processor. Process, stopping to scrape down the sides, until relatively uniform and smooth.
Move the mixture to a bowl and stir in the egg, then the flour, and finally the Parmesan and salt to taste. Shape the mixture into patties (I usually get eight or nine).
2. Heat 1½ tablespoons of oil in a large, nonstick skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add the patties and cook until golden brown. Carefully turn the patties and drizzle the remaining oil around the edges of the pan. Continue cooking until the patties are golden brown on the second side.
3. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, place some greens in a bowl and toss with either dressing or equal parts lemon and olive oil and a sprinkling of salt.
4. Once the patties are cooked, let them sit briefly on paper towels to absorb some of the cooking oil,
then serve immediately on a bed of dressed greens.
Bon appétit, bitches! Or, as they say in Italian, bueno appetito, biatchos!
I like to make a batch of Gruel Patties on Sunday night before a busy week, and then eat them for lunch and dinner over the coming days. I would never, ever serve them to guests. The yachtsman won't touch them. But to me they're an old standby, a weeknight classic, a spring comfort food (I like to serve them over the tender arugula or baby lettuces or clovery mesclun that's in season now). They're easy, they reheat quite well, and I'm not exaggerating when I say I think they're quite good.
What they are not is glamorous. But according to the recipe I worked from, they're Italian, and nothing Italian is entirely unglamorous, is it?
Let's put it this way; they're about as glamorous as a can of chickpeas.
(I know there is a case to be made for cooking your own chickpeas, but Goya chickpeas are nearly as good as the ones you'll spend hours soaking and boiling and blah blah blahing, and they take about twelve hours less time to prepare.)
So, you start with a couple cans of chickpeas; you add some of that most versatile of herbs, (Italian!) parsley (if you have other fresh herbs around, feel free to add some of those, too); there's garlic, naturally; a little cumin; some hot red pepper flakes. Give it all a whirl in the food processor, and then turn it out into a bowl. Add a little Parm, an egg and some flour for binding, form the patties, and sauté them in a film of olive oil. Nod when your husband asks, "Is that really what you're eating for dinner?" And then eat them for dinner all week.
A few notes:
* Like I said, I serve them warm over greens dressed with something acidic, usually either lemon and olive oil and salt, or that red wine vinaigrette I told you about a while ago. I eat them two at a time, and when I reheat them, I do so in a toaster oven. I’m sure they’d be fine reheated in a microwave, too, though perhaps not as crispy. They’re not that great cold; plus, I love the way the warm patty softens the greens.
* The original version of this recipe was vegan—no egg, no cheese. The cheese is not essential, but I found that the patties crumbled when I tried cooking them without the egg.
Gruel Patties
Adapted from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop
2 15-ounce cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
½ cup packed fresh parsley leaves
2 medium garlic cloves
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1 egg
¼ cup flour
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
Salt
3 tablespoons evoo
A cup or two of greens (per serving)
Dressing
1. Place the chickpeas, parsely, garlic, cumin, and pepper flakes in the bowl of the food processor. Process, stopping to scrape down the sides, until relatively uniform and smooth.
Move the mixture to a bowl and stir in the egg, then the flour, and finally the Parmesan and salt to taste. Shape the mixture into patties (I usually get eight or nine).
2. Heat 1½ tablespoons of oil in a large, nonstick skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add the patties and cook until golden brown. Carefully turn the patties and drizzle the remaining oil around the edges of the pan. Continue cooking until the patties are golden brown on the second side.
3. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, place some greens in a bowl and toss with either dressing or equal parts lemon and olive oil and a sprinkling of salt.
4. Once the patties are cooked, let them sit briefly on paper towels to absorb some of the cooking oil,
then serve immediately on a bed of dressed greens.
Bon appétit, bitches! Or, as they say in Italian, bueno appetito, biatchos!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
over and outage
It's been in the 90s the past few days. That is NOT a complaint.
Nor does it explain the fact that I've eaten the same exact thing for dinner every single night this week. Very gruelalicious. Both the food itself (let's just say it involves a legume and the word "patties") and the fact that I've been subsisting on it for days. More on that later. Because right now I'm typing to you in the dark, using the last of my computer’s battery as a thunder and lightning storm crashes and crackles outside our building. The power has gone out, which means the A/C is off, which means soon the yachtsman will go crazy from the heat, strip off his clothes, and walk naked around the house begging the gods to save us from this hell. So, like I said, more later.
Nor does it explain the fact that I've eaten the same exact thing for dinner every single night this week. Very gruelalicious. Both the food itself (let's just say it involves a legume and the word "patties") and the fact that I've been subsisting on it for days. More on that later. Because right now I'm typing to you in the dark, using the last of my computer’s battery as a thunder and lightning storm crashes and crackles outside our building. The power has gone out, which means the A/C is off, which means soon the yachtsman will go crazy from the heat, strip off his clothes, and walk naked around the house begging the gods to save us from this hell. So, like I said, more later.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
the yachtsman does not recommend eye surgery
The yachtsman had to have a little outpatient operation on his eye today. I was hoping to share with you a post-op photo of the damage (I was told he'd have a badass shiner), but in fact his eye is too scary for me to look at directly, let alone photograph and post on a bl*g that is ostensibly about reading, writing, and eating. So instead I offer this pre-op picture of the doctor's initials indicating which eye he was going to maim.
And because this bl*g is ostensibly about, among other things, eating, I will tell you that the patient requested breakfast for dinner when we got home, specifically pancakes and bacon. And I will also tell you the secret to very fluffy pancakes: Separate the eggs and beat the whites before folding them into the batter. I learned that in medical school.
And because this bl*g is ostensibly about, among other things, eating, I will tell you that the patient requested breakfast for dinner when we got home, specifically pancakes and bacon. And I will also tell you the secret to very fluffy pancakes: Separate the eggs and beat the whites before folding them into the batter. I learned that in medical school.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
personal finances
Sometimes when I'm lying on the couch procrastinating doing work or longing to be on a beach in Bali or coveting the boots I saw in the window at my favorite shoe store, I'll announce to the yachtsman that I wish we were rich.
"But we are rich!" the yachtsman will reply, alarmed. "We're rich in so many ways! We're rich in love!"
This is why I married him, of course: He's made me rich in love.
What I did not marry him for are his eating habits. We may be rich in love, but my husband has an impoverished palate. And not only is the yachtsman a picky eater, our tastes are completely different: While I love beans, legumes, whole grains, whole wheat, and green, leafy vegetables, the yachtsman prefers burgers, cheese pizza, white bread, and fried chicken.
So usually we just don't eat together. Or we eat at the same table at the same time, but we consume different foods—I cook a pot of gruel and the yachtsman "cooks" a meal of prepared foods from the grocery store, or I nibble on some leftover gruel while the yachtsman noshes on takeout. Even the simplest of weeknight meals, spaghetti and red sauce, requires either some compromise or four pots crowded on top of the stove: one for the yachtsman's white spaghetti, one for his sauce from a jar, one for my whole wheat spaghetti, and one for my homemade sauce.
I recognize that we have different tastes, I've accepted that the man will never eat gruel, I don't even bother offering him a bowl of homemade soup. But for god's sake, we can't eat the same red sauce on top of our two different spaghettis?
Awhile ago I took a stand, goddammit, and its name was homemade spaghetti sauce.
Let me be clear: My homemade spaghetti sauce is nothing special. It wasn't passed down from an Italian grandmother, it doesn't bubble on the stove for an entire Sunday, there are no meatballs involved. It's basically some onions and garlic sauteed in a splash of olive oil, a can of plum tomatoes, some herbs if I have them, red pepper flakes if I'm feeling feisty, and a long, slow simmer. Like I said, it's nothing special, but I think it's better than what you can buy in a jar. The yachtsman does not agree.
So I've made adjustments, starting with a soffritto of garlic, onions, carrots, and celery, varying the herbs, adding red wine and sugar. I've pureed it all in the blender (the man does not like lumps). I've broken out cookbooks, making everything from a fussy Cook's Illustrated recipe to a hippie version with crumbled, fried tofu (which, by the way, was delicious). And each time the yachtsman will politely thank me, he'll spoon my sauce on top of his white spaghetti, and he'll eat it, a tepid look on his face. Then, the next time we're at the grocery store, he'll make sure to drop a couple of jars of sauce into our cart, a tactic that may win him the next battle, but I will never concede the war.
I didn't think much of this recipe the first time I read it—it seemed almost too simple, and I'd been leaning in the other direction, toward adding more ingredients, not using less. But on a snowy evening a few weeks ago I found myself home alone and hungry, the cupboards nearly bare, the night too cold to venture out. I did have one lonely onion, some butter, a can of tomatoes spinning on the lazy Susan, so I dumped them all in a saucepan, let everything simmer for nearly an hour, fished the onion back out, added a little salt, and poured the warm sauce over a tangle of whole wheat spaghetti. And my secret weapon was born.
A secret weapon with a secret ingredient: butter.
Butter! In tomato sauce!
And an onion that is not chopped or sauteed, it's halved and stewed and removed. The butter gives the sauce a depth and richness you can't get from olive oil or even a grate of fresh Parm. The onion adds flavor without overpowering, without adding any of that texture the yachtsman finds so pesky.
When I finally made it for him last weekend, I considered putting the sauce in a jar and pretending I'd bought it, but this is so much better than anything you can find on the shelves of a grocery store, I feared he would not be fooled. So I cooked it right in front of him, served it without a word, and waited for that polite but lukewarm smile. But it turns out we're not only rich in love, we're rich in tomato sauce now, too. Reader, I'm so glad I married him.
Homemade Tomato Sauce, Goddammit
from here and here, originally adapted by someone from here
28 ounces whole, peeled, canned plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste
1. Combine the tomatoes and their juice, the butter, and the onion in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, reduce heat to low, and keep at a slow, steady simmer for 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomato. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pan to break them down. Remove the onion, taste the sauce, and add salt as needed.
[I ate my sauce like this...
and pureed the rest for the yachtsman,
which he ate over white spaghetti.
And I almost hate to tell you this for fear that you won't trust me anymore, but you were probably a fool to trust me in the first place, so here goes:
I combined the leftover sauce and pasta, heated it the next day for lunch, and it was really good. Trust me.]
"But we are rich!" the yachtsman will reply, alarmed. "We're rich in so many ways! We're rich in love!"
This is why I married him, of course: He's made me rich in love.
What I did not marry him for are his eating habits. We may be rich in love, but my husband has an impoverished palate. And not only is the yachtsman a picky eater, our tastes are completely different: While I love beans, legumes, whole grains, whole wheat, and green, leafy vegetables, the yachtsman prefers burgers, cheese pizza, white bread, and fried chicken.
So usually we just don't eat together. Or we eat at the same table at the same time, but we consume different foods—I cook a pot of gruel and the yachtsman "cooks" a meal of prepared foods from the grocery store, or I nibble on some leftover gruel while the yachtsman noshes on takeout. Even the simplest of weeknight meals, spaghetti and red sauce, requires either some compromise or four pots crowded on top of the stove: one for the yachtsman's white spaghetti, one for his sauce from a jar, one for my whole wheat spaghetti, and one for my homemade sauce.
I recognize that we have different tastes, I've accepted that the man will never eat gruel, I don't even bother offering him a bowl of homemade soup. But for god's sake, we can't eat the same red sauce on top of our two different spaghettis?
Awhile ago I took a stand, goddammit, and its name was homemade spaghetti sauce.
Let me be clear: My homemade spaghetti sauce is nothing special. It wasn't passed down from an Italian grandmother, it doesn't bubble on the stove for an entire Sunday, there are no meatballs involved. It's basically some onions and garlic sauteed in a splash of olive oil, a can of plum tomatoes, some herbs if I have them, red pepper flakes if I'm feeling feisty, and a long, slow simmer. Like I said, it's nothing special, but I think it's better than what you can buy in a jar. The yachtsman does not agree.
So I've made adjustments, starting with a soffritto of garlic, onions, carrots, and celery, varying the herbs, adding red wine and sugar. I've pureed it all in the blender (the man does not like lumps). I've broken out cookbooks, making everything from a fussy Cook's Illustrated recipe to a hippie version with crumbled, fried tofu (which, by the way, was delicious). And each time the yachtsman will politely thank me, he'll spoon my sauce on top of his white spaghetti, and he'll eat it, a tepid look on his face. Then, the next time we're at the grocery store, he'll make sure to drop a couple of jars of sauce into our cart, a tactic that may win him the next battle, but I will never concede the war.
I didn't think much of this recipe the first time I read it—it seemed almost too simple, and I'd been leaning in the other direction, toward adding more ingredients, not using less. But on a snowy evening a few weeks ago I found myself home alone and hungry, the cupboards nearly bare, the night too cold to venture out. I did have one lonely onion, some butter, a can of tomatoes spinning on the lazy Susan, so I dumped them all in a saucepan, let everything simmer for nearly an hour, fished the onion back out, added a little salt, and poured the warm sauce over a tangle of whole wheat spaghetti. And my secret weapon was born.
A secret weapon with a secret ingredient: butter.
Butter! In tomato sauce!
And an onion that is not chopped or sauteed, it's halved and stewed and removed. The butter gives the sauce a depth and richness you can't get from olive oil or even a grate of fresh Parm. The onion adds flavor without overpowering, without adding any of that texture the yachtsman finds so pesky.
When I finally made it for him last weekend, I considered putting the sauce in a jar and pretending I'd bought it, but this is so much better than anything you can find on the shelves of a grocery store, I feared he would not be fooled. So I cooked it right in front of him, served it without a word, and waited for that polite but lukewarm smile. But it turns out we're not only rich in love, we're rich in tomato sauce now, too. Reader, I'm so glad I married him.
Homemade Tomato Sauce, Goddammit
from here and here, originally adapted by someone from here
28 ounces whole, peeled, canned plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste
1. Combine the tomatoes and their juice, the butter, and the onion in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, reduce heat to low, and keep at a slow, steady simmer for 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomato. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pan to break them down. Remove the onion, taste the sauce, and add salt as needed.
[I ate my sauce like this...
and pureed the rest for the yachtsman,
which he ate over white spaghetti.
And I almost hate to tell you this for fear that you won't trust me anymore, but you were probably a fool to trust me in the first place, so here goes:
I combined the leftover sauce and pasta, heated it the next day for lunch, and it was really good. Trust me.]
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
pina coladas & pea soup
The yachtsman: What are you doing?
Me: Trying to write a bl*g post.
The yachtsman: How's it going?
Me: I got nothing.
The yachtsman: Why don't you do a Yachtsman Recommends?
Me: What do you recommend?
The yachtsman: Pina coladas. Getting caught in the rain.
Me: I don't know.
The yacthsman: I'm into champagne?
--------
What the yachtsman does not recommend is pea soup, but I ate it today in dip form
and thinned out, as soup.
It tastes just like ... peas -- sweet and fresh. Like summer.
Possibly the Best Pea Soup
From Bitten
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup finely sliced shallots (about 3)
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
1 pound shelled fresh sweet peas
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 tablespoon salt
Pinch pepper
1/4 cup half and half or light cream
1. Heat olive oil in soup pot. Add shallots and garlic and cook over med. Heat until shallots are just wilted. Add 3 1/2 cups water, bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer for 1/2 hour.
2. Add peas, tarragon, salt and pepper and bring back to boil. Turn down heat and let simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temp. Purée in a blender in batches until very smooth. Force through fine sieve into clean pot, discarding small amount of pea skins left in sieve.
3. Stir in half and half and add salt if necessary to taste. Can be reheated and served hot or chilled and served cold.
Me: Trying to write a bl*g post.
The yachtsman: How's it going?
Me: I got nothing.
The yachtsman: Why don't you do a Yachtsman Recommends?
Me: What do you recommend?
The yachtsman: Pina coladas. Getting caught in the rain.
Me: I don't know.
The yacthsman: I'm into champagne?
--------
What the yachtsman does not recommend is pea soup, but I ate it today in dip form
and thinned out, as soup.
It tastes just like ... peas -- sweet and fresh. Like summer.
Possibly the Best Pea Soup
From Bitten
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup finely sliced shallots (about 3)
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
1 pound shelled fresh sweet peas
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 tablespoon salt
Pinch pepper
1/4 cup half and half or light cream
1. Heat olive oil in soup pot. Add shallots and garlic and cook over med. Heat until shallots are just wilted. Add 3 1/2 cups water, bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer for 1/2 hour.
2. Add peas, tarragon, salt and pepper and bring back to boil. Turn down heat and let simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temp. Purée in a blender in batches until very smooth. Force through fine sieve into clean pot, discarding small amount of pea skins left in sieve.
3. Stir in half and half and add salt if necessary to taste. Can be reheated and served hot or chilled and served cold.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
rebellion
The yachtsman and I had the following conversation last week, as he watched TV and I looked at recipes online.
The yachtsman: What are you reading?
Me: A recipe for pea soup.
The yachtsman: [PAUSES TV] Why?
ME: Why not?
The yachtsman: Let me be clear about one thing: We do not enjoy pea soup in this family. [RESTARTS TV]
Me: [LAUGHS]
The yachtsman: [RE-PAUSES TV] It's not funny. We do not eat pea soup in this family. [RE-STARTS AND RE-PAUSES TV] Put that on your bl*g and post it.
I did not do anything this weekend except proofread, go to the farmers market, go out for a creemee, and disobey my husband, which in some countries would get me stoned (not high, killed -- biblical-style).
At the farmers market I bought 2.5 pounds of shelling peas, thinking that would yield the 1 pound of shelled peas I needed for the recipe. I thought wrong. I ended up with 12 ounces of peas, which meant I had to 3/4 the recipe, which meant I had to deal with fractions, which did not turn out well. (When I dropped out of high school after my sophomore year, I was fairly certain I was not missing anything, and I was mostly right, with one little exception: math.)
I did not make pea soup, I made pea dip. Delicious pea dip, but dip, nonetheless.
(The yachtsman: [LOOKING DOUBTFULLY INTO MY POT OF GRUEL] That looks awfully thick.)
I'll take photos when I thin it out and eat it at work tomorrow. In the meantime, a stay-in-school public service announcement brought to you by all of us high-school dropouts here at GFD:
Click to enlarge.
The yachtsman: What are you reading?
Me: A recipe for pea soup.
The yachtsman: [PAUSES TV] Why?
ME: Why not?
The yachtsman: Let me be clear about one thing: We do not enjoy pea soup in this family. [RESTARTS TV]
Me: [LAUGHS]
The yachtsman: [RE-PAUSES TV] It's not funny. We do not eat pea soup in this family. [RE-STARTS AND RE-PAUSES TV] Put that on your bl*g and post it.
I did not do anything this weekend except proofread, go to the farmers market, go out for a creemee, and disobey my husband, which in some countries would get me stoned (not high, killed -- biblical-style).
At the farmers market I bought 2.5 pounds of shelling peas, thinking that would yield the 1 pound of shelled peas I needed for the recipe. I thought wrong. I ended up with 12 ounces of peas, which meant I had to 3/4 the recipe, which meant I had to deal with fractions, which did not turn out well. (When I dropped out of high school after my sophomore year, I was fairly certain I was not missing anything, and I was mostly right, with one little exception: math.)
I did not make pea soup, I made pea dip. Delicious pea dip, but dip, nonetheless.
(The yachtsman: [LOOKING DOUBTFULLY INTO MY POT OF GRUEL] That looks awfully thick.)
I'll take photos when I thin it out and eat it at work tomorrow. In the meantime, a stay-in-school public service announcement brought to you by all of us high-school dropouts here at GFD:
Click to enlarge.
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