I’ve come to learn the hard way that it’s not a good idea to introduce new food on a weeknight, especially not after a long afternoon on the soccer field.  When the kids sit down to eat at 6:40 (if we’re lucky) on Monday nights, it’s cold, it’s dark, they’re covered in turf dirt, and all they want is something warm and familiar. You can’t really them. It takes energy to try new things, and an hour before bedtime is not a good time to ask them to rally.

So this week, I made the new (to them) soup in the slow cooker on Sunday. This way, if there were tears, at least it would be early in the night, bedtime wouldn’t be jeopardized, I could mitigate the damage.  As a precaution, I served the soup with the pannini they love.  They could decide what to eat.

We all pitched in with the final prep.  The soup, which is about as far as I’ve ever gotten in Julia Child’s classic cookbook (in case you don’t know, it’s the first recipe…), was delicious.  And even though they were reluctant to stop eating the warm bread and various kinds of pork on offer (Finley has taken to repeating, “Ham? Yes! HAM!!” and bouncing in ecstasy whenever said meat is offered to him), both kids  admitted they liked the soup and drank their cups without complaint.  Small victories.  More: the leftovers have kept Kory and I fed these past few cold nights.

pannini prep: ham & swiss, salami & swiss, just swiss

Dad’s kidtinis

Finn tests the immersion blender…

no kids harmed…

Ella’s table

Potato and Leek Soup

• 3 large baking potatoes, peeled and chopped into 2 inch pieces
• 2 large leeks, cleaned and sliced into rounds, including white & tender green leaves
• 2 quarts water
• 1 tablespoon salt, more to taste
• 3-4 tablespoons butter

1. Place all ingredients in large pot or slow cooker, cover, and bring to simmer.
2. Simmer soup 1-2 hours, until leeks and potatoes are tender.
3. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. Add butter and blend until mixed. Taste and adjust seasoning.
4. Serve immediately.

]]> http://www.learningtoeatbook.com/2012/02/something-slow-something-new/feed/ 0 http://www.learningtoeatbook.com/2012/01/pasta-factory/ http://www.learningtoeatbook.com/2012/01/pasta-factory/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:07:54 +0000 lisa http://www.learningtoeatbook.com/?p=4681 By Lisa

Some people eat long noodles, other families eat blackeyed peas, but we have a pasta-making tradition on New Years Day.   Actually, the tradition has been that I make the pasta and everyone else eats it.  Mostly, I don’t mind. Mostly, I love making pasta the way other people love meditating, or running, or taking a nap.  There are few other tasks in the kitchen that I find more therapeutic, and even fewer that have a better reward.  But this year, I just didn’t want to make all that pasta only to have it disappear a few hours later, nor did I want  to make the extra batches all by myself.  Plus, there’s no kitchen gadget my kids love more than the pasta roller. So I decided: It was about time the kids and Kory learned how to make pasta.

First, you clear the table and dump 2 1/4 cups “OO” type flour into a small hill at each work space.

Next: you make a pit in the center of your flour mountain, volcano style.  Crack 3 eggs into your crater.

(Even Finn could do this–mostly.)

With a fork, puncture the yolks, then scrambled the eggs.  Slowly incorporate the flour into the eggs.

When the dough begins to comes together, you drop the fork and begin to knead, incorporating flour bit by bit until the dough is no longer sticky. Eventually, it will be smooth and elastic and will spring back when you poke it.

It’s messy teaching kids how to knead, so I couldn’t take pictures. But you’ll trust me when I say we ended up with 4 beautiful batches of pasta.

3 batches were packed away, unrolled and uncut in ziplock bags and stored in the freezer for another day.

The last batch, we rolled into fettucine.  Actually, Ella and Finn rolled it,with some help, then cut it on their own. Teamwork. We don’t have it every day, nor did we even have it all day on New Years Day, but we had it in this moment.  This is one of my goals for this year: remembering that harmony, in small ways, matters.

I don’t use a lot of kitchen gadgets. I have a couple appliances which I use regularly — like the ancient rice cooker and my big stand mixer — but otherwise, when I need to chop things I get out a knife, and when I need to stir things, I get out a whisk. Most gadgets just seem to take up too much room in the drawer or be too finicky to clean easily. For a long time I even resisted buying a cherry pitter, but that five dollar purchase has more than paid for itself and the cherry pitter doesn’t get in my way the fifty weeks of the year I don’t use it.

I can’t remember now who gave us the salad dressing mixer and garlic chopper — whether it was Santa or my brother-in-law (who are not much different in my sons’ eyes) — but these two gadgets have been immediately, happily adopted by my sons. Ben just loves a gadget, and Eli thinks they make the kitchen more “modern.” I am happy that these two (small, easy to clean) devices have the boys back in the kitchen, experimenting with various combinations of ingredients and inventing new dressings each day. Last night, Eli mashed raspberries into his vinaigrette (yes, I even bought terribly unseasonal berries to support his dressing habit; tomorrow we’ll try pomegranate juice). The only problem now is the boys’ competition to use the dressing mixer every day — and the volume of dressing they are producing. But these are not problems I’m going to complain about too much, yet. For now, I like having these young scientists back in the kitchen with me.

We love bread. And while it is very easy, living in San Francisco, to buy a different kind of delicious bread every day, we love to make it, too. I learned by watching my mom make bread every week, and my kids are learning the same way. In fact, if I can send my children out into the world with one lesson learned in my kitchen, I’d like them to feel that producing homemade bread is not a tricky thing.

I think we’re off to a good start. Ben invented his own bread recipe (which is really not half bad) when he was five, and now we’ve added another easy bread recipe to the repertoire. “Quick” and “yeast” rarely come together in bread recipes, but they do in this new one from Heidi Swanson (which she adapted from another source; I do love how recipes travel).

The next time you’ve got a hankering for fresh bread, give this a try; it’s barely an hour from the idea till you’ve got a piece of warm bread in your hands.

1 1/4 cups warm water (105-115F; if it feels neutral — not too hot nor cold — on your wrist, it’s the right temp)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (one packet)
1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
1 tablespoons butter, to grease the pan

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water and stir until the yeast dissolves. Stir in the honey and set aside for a few minutes, until the yeast blooms and swells a bit – 5 – 10 minutes.

In the meantime, mix the flours, oats, and salt in a large bowl. Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir very well.

Grease an 8-cup loaf pan with butter. Turn the dough into the pan, cover with a clean, slightly damp cloth, and set in a warm place for 30 minutes, to rise.

Preheat the oven to 350F, with a rack in the middle. When the oven’s hot, bake the bread for 35-40 minutes, until golden and pulling away from the sides of the pan.

Remove from oven, and turn the bread out of the pan quickly. Let it cool on a rack so it doesn’t steam in the pan. Serve warm, slathered with butter.

Makes 1 loaf.

Adapted from Gran’s Kitchen: Recipes from the Notebooks of Dulcie May Booker.

Salmon Backs are a seasonal favorite around here. If salmon is in season, we’re sure to eat this cut of the fish nearly once a week. It’s fast, flavorful, and really economical.  I can’t afford to keep my family in salmon filets or steaks, but I can afford to feed them piles of salmon backs: in tacos, “ceviche” flavored, lox style, etc.

Earlier this week I made some on the grill and we ate it in soft Middle Eastern flatbread with cream sauce, cabbage, and lime.  As usual, it was delicious. I had to stop myself at two, and Finn at a pile with his spoon. But we still had some leftover, which Ella called dibs on, but then I had not a tortilla in the house.  I offered her crackers, a range of breads, fresh sesame rolls. She chose the rolls and made this sandwich, which is basically taco fillings on a bun. Of course  you can use another cut of fish, but it wouldn’t be the same, because this is basically the fish equivalent of a sloppy joe:  piles of light, loose grilled fish, a creamy sauce, a squeeze of lime for flavor, a bit of cabbage for crunch.

I was happy to let Ella take control of her meal, and even happier that she gave the family another way to keep seasonal eating fresh.

Grilled Salmon Back Sandwich

• 1-1 1/2 lbs Salmon backs
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/4 cup Meyer lemon juice
• 1 tsp salt
• two handfuls of cilantro, leaves and stems + chopped cilantro for serving
• 2 cloves garlic chopped
• Cream sauce:  equal parts mayonnaise, sour cream or plain greek yogurt, and cumin to taste
• shredded cabbage
• lime wedges
• Sesame Buns

1. Marinate salmon for a few hours in white wine, Meyer lemon juice, salt, a few handfuls of cilantro,  garlic
2. Grill salmon on high heat for five minutes, until just cooked through.
3. Let salmon cool, then flake meat off the bone
4. Pile fish on fresh sesame buns and garnish with cream sauce, cabbage, and extra cilantro and lime  as desired

Over the weekend I went on a juicing binge brought on by an unexpected CSA delivery, which brought us an extra melon,which brought our household total to 3 ripe melons. Usually its no chore to eat one in a day, but all three of these beauties weren’t going to wait. So I brought out my Breville juicer, which is the only thing in my life I’ve ever won, and which is a pretty great machine. It’s lightning fast and powerful, and we do use it all during citrus season.  But because it takes an awful lot of (often expensive) produce to make juice, and I don’t love cleaning the pulp, I don’t use it regularly.   Most days, I’d much rather hand an apple (or plum or carrot) to the kids and just say, “Eat.”  But when I met my husband, he drank all sorts of juice and smoothies, and this was long before Kris Carr (who, for the record, I think is pretty terrific. I contributed to her site here.)   So in the spirit of economy and nostalgia, I broadened my juicing repertoire.

First, I chopped up the watermelon and passed it to Ella, who had a great time feeding it to the maw of the machine. It happened so fast I didn’t get a picture of the juicing or the juice, but believe me when I say there is nothing more refreshing on a 90 degree day than ice cold watermelon juice.

Then, we went to work on the melon, which I chilled and served after dinner with a spoonful of vanilla yogurt and a strawberry garnish.  Kory and I thought it was great. The kids, not so much.. But I saved their portions and the melon soup made a great, drinkable breakfast for me the next morning as I made the kids pancakes.  I think the soup would work nicely as an appetizer, too, served in  little shot glasses with a  garnish of creme fraiche (or greek yogurt) and some cubed, fried pancetta. I will get back to you on that.

For now, if you have any quickly ripening produce, I suggest the juicer.  I am going to get to work on those tomatoes soon.

Also: I’d love to know: what do you juice?

I am learning — slowly — that while San Francisco doesn’t offer the summer weather I grew up with (and long for) when school lets out each year, there are ways to compensate for that. Here at home it may be 60 degrees, with fog swirling in the street and a wind so strong it picks up our deck umbrella and tosses it into the neighbor’s yard (we only open the umbrella a couple days in the spring and then again not until our real summer in October, so I hardly know why we bother.) But we can drive half an hour north to the swimming pool or half an hour south for a sunny oceanside hike and that gets me in the mood to make summer in the kitchen, too. So when school let out last week and we faced another foggy day, I summoned my sunniest mood and said to the boys, “It’s summertime! What kind of ice cream should we make?” Ben was first to answer: “Honey ice cream!” And Eli was the one to help. Happy summer.

The recipe is from my go-to ice cream book (everyone should have one): Bruce Weinstein’s The Ultimate Ice Cream Book.

1/2 c mild honey
6 large egg yolks*
1 1/2 c milk
1 c heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the honey with the egg yolks until thickened and pale yellow. Set aside.

Bring the milk to a simmer in a heavy saucepan. Slowly beat the hot milk into the egg and honey mixture. Pour the entire mixture back into the pan and heat slowly, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of the spoon. Be careful not to let the mixture boil or the eggs will scramble. Take off the heat and pour through a strainer into a large bowl. Cool slightly, then stir in the cream and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until cold, or overnight.

Stir the chilled custard, then freeze in your ice cream machine according to its directions.

*Tune in next time for a way to use those 6 egg whites.

Do I really need to give you another pancake recipe? We’ve already given you Lisa’s classic griddlecake recipe, and I’ve contributed recipes for quinoa, pumpkin and lemon pancakes. But I am going to give you one more, because this recipe is so easy you can make it in your sleep, which, frankly, is often my state when pancake-making for my children: vertical and sufficiently responsive, but not entirely awake yet.

The recipe comes from Eric Carle’s picture book, Pancakes, Pancakes!, a book I have been reading to my kids for years about a boy named Jack who asks his mother for pancakes. She tells him she’s busy and will need his help, and then proceeds to direct (but not assist) him in each step, from cutting wheat for the miller to grind into flour all the way to milking the cow for milk (and churning some of it into butter) and gathering the wood for a cooking fire. Jack’s quite happy to do all the chores, and at the end he and his mother flip the pancake together, she spreads it with jam, and he tucks into an enormous, strawberry-jam topped pancake. It’s an excellent story — I revere Jack’s mother — but I have never dreamed of actually making the recipe with which the story concludes:

Until one day recently, as we finished reading, Eli said, “Let’s make these pancakes!” and he caught me at a moment when I was in the mood to say yes. I really didn’t think they’d be very good — no sugar, no baking powder — but I couldn’t sneak in any extra ingredients because Eli was determined to do the cooking himself, plus he can read now. He hardly needs my permission or participation at all:

And I have to say, the pancakes are perfectly good. They don’t hold up very well (no snack pancakes here), so eat them while they’re hot, whether they are stacked with jam:

Or poured and sliced into a homage to Giants’ closer Brian Wilson:

I’ll give you the ingredients, but pick up a copy of Pancakes, Pancakes! to get the whole story, read it with your kids, and then make some pancakes.

1 c flour
1 egg
1 c milk

Stir into a batter while your frying pan is heating, melt a bit of butter in the pan, then proceed, one ladleful of batter at a time, to cook your pancakes.

Every year, I hope that maybe our Easter trip to my parents’ home in Connecticut will line up with sugar season, that window every New England spring when the temperatures sink below freezing at night but rise into the 40s during the day, with enough sun to warm the trees and encourage the maple sap to flow. Even though I don’t really like that kind of weather, I want my boys to experience what I did as a kid, tramping along in the mud and snow in my grandfather’s booted footsteps as he gathered maple sap and boiled it down into syrup. It takes 40 gallons to make a single gallon of syrup, so a couple energetic helpers would be useful, I know, but so far we’ve missed all the work, instead always getting to enjoy the sweet results of my dad’s labors.

At Christmas time, we make sugar on snow; now that the snow is gone, we made maple candy inside, with nothing but syrup, some simple kitchen equipment, and — because after a visit to Old Sturbridge Village we were feeling old-fashioned — a great deal of arm strength. You can make this, too, with any maple syrup and even an electric mixer.

Pour 2 cups maple syrup into a large pot and bring to a boil. Let it boil gently until it comes to 240 degrees on a candy thermometer (soft ball stage: test it by letting some of the boiled syrup drop off the end of a spoon into a glass of water; if it forms a ball, it’s done). Pour it out into a large mixing bowl (or two) and start stirring:

Here’s a close-up action shot of the stirring:

Stir the syrup until it lightens and thickens to the consistency of peanut butter, about five minutes. You can use a hand mixer if your arm gets tired (or your children refuse to stir anymore). If you want to add some toasted walnuts or pecans (a fine idea) stir them in now.

If you have candy molds, by all means use them. We just spread some waxed paper on the counter and experimented with different dollops. Let the candy set at room temperature for about ten minutes. For long-term storage, you’d want to keep it in the refrigerator, but it likely won’t last that long.

For a while when I was a kid, my dad kept a couple burlap bags in the trunk of the car. He never knew when he might drive past a nice-looking patch of dandelions, or day lilies, or elderberries, and he wanted to be ready to gather them. It was the 70s, he had read Euell Gibbons, and although he cultivated an enormous garden in our front yard, he also liked to make food out of what he found growing locally. Initially, this foraging delighted me, but of course as I got older I would shrink down in the front seat when Dad pulled over, wishing I were invisible, praying that none of my friends would see me as they went by. Now, I’m back to admiring his foraging impulses, grateful that he still gathers hickory nuts for our cookies and pies every winter.

Apparently, the foraging instinct skips a generation. Last week, Ben spent his school’s Day of Service with his teachers and classmates in Golden Gate Park, the latest in a series of terrific 3rd grade field trips. They learned about the resident birds from local ornithologist Josiah Clark, they learned about the park’s plants from a couple Park & Rec employees, and then they did some weeding to help restore a bird habitat. At dinner that night, Ben told us all about the weeds they’d pulled and the plants they’d tried to protect — one of which, miner’s lettuce, I’ve seen (and purchased) from the farmer’s market for over $5 a pound. The following day at Eli’s baseball game, he spotted a patch of miner’s lettuce, and picked a few leaves to nibble. A couple days later, at Eli’s baseball practice, he found a great big patch of miner’s lettuce:

I didn’t have anything to collect our harvest in but my purse, but we filled it up:

And then made a delicious foraged salad to accompany our dinner that night:

Foraged Salad:
miner’s lettuce or other salad greens
a handful of dried cherries
a handful of toasted, slivered almonds
a sprinkling of ricotta salata
balsamic vinaigrette

Toss all the ingredients in a salad bowl and serve.