Manly meals

Whenever I make something from the Sacajawea Cookbook, I feel like I should be wearing buckskin and have either an axe or a long-bore rifle over my shoulder.  It's all so manly, dammit!  (maybe because most recipes start with "one pound of meat")

This is one of the best examples of that.  Granted, I didn't have any dear handy, so I used beef, but that's ok.  It even says so in the recipe.

"start with one pound of beef," onion, oil, and bay leaves. I always tend to use more bay leaves than the recipe suggests, which is why I had to buy more of them today.

As is my custom, when a stew or soup recipe calls for a large pot, I employ my Lodge Combo Cooker.  It was just large enough, and adds to the manliness of anything you cook.  I have to say "manly" a lot, because I mostly stay in the apartment and cook things, and I need to remind people that it's ok and perfectly masculine.  By "people," I mean "me."

There are also lots of veggies, which probably means it's healthy.

When the beef is cooked, add all the veggies, broth, tomatoes. beans (also manly), and seasonings.

You really can't fit much more in this pot.  It would be too manly.

The recipe suggested serving it with Sunny Corn Biscuits (same book), and I've never in my life turned down biscuits, so I worked up a batch of those, too.  Fun fact: if you don't have a biscuit cutter, you can make one from a tuna can.  Just punch a hole in the bottom to let air escape.  I've had mine for years, and it makes HUGE biscuits, which is another benefit.

I was excited to try these, but they were not as good as I had hoped.  I blame the sub-par sunflower seeds, which were neither roasted, nor salted.

The Chief Taster's manly dinner, in her pretty little bowl.

June 23

Happy Birthday, Mom.  I miss you, I love you, and some day--some beautiful, glorious day--I hope to be half the cook that you were.

Carne Asada

Sometimes the recipes I try are chosen strictly by curiosity.  I want to know what carne asada is, so I look it up, choose a recipe that looks approachable, and head to the grocery.  You'd be surprised how often that works.  This one starts with a marinade full of fresh cilantro and garlic.  It also called for the juice of two limes, and without any sort of juicing appliance, I got by slicing the limes into quarters and trapping the individual sections between my palms, crushing them in a double fist.  My nose is more decorative than functional, so I know my hands smelled like something for the rest of the day, and while I don't know whether it was the lime or the cilantro, it was better than the weird minty soap we have in the bathroom, so I was happy with it.  The marinade also included a single jalapeno pepper, chopped and seeded, and later I wished that I had used two, because I didn't notice its effect at all.  Maybe I picked a weak specimen.

Marinade, sans meat

The recipe above calls for "flank or skirt steak."  I had no idea what that was, but I managed to find approximately the right amount of it at the grocery (a little on the light side, but I figured that would let the marinade flavors come through stronger, and I was happy with that).  It turns out what looks like a short slab of beef is actually a very long, thin ribbon of meat.  I had to fold it back and forth in a baking dish, spreading marinade between the layers.

You may notice some beef under all that cilantro, but there's no guarantee.

Bereft of a backyard or porch, our grilling option is a panini press/griddler appliance in the kitchen.  It was nowhere near as long as the beef ribbon I had marinated all afternoon, so I cut the meat into smaller, more manageable portions, and I didn't bother brushing the marinade ingredients off the meat before cooking it.  If I were worried about cilantro falling into my gas jets, that might have changed, but it's not an issue for me.

Try to limit your sampling size before serving so whoever eats dinner with you doesn't notice half a pound of beef is missing from the menu.

I also made Spanish Rice that night, and we paired the two in flour tortillas with avocado, cheese, salsa, and sour cream.  I might have growled a little while eating, but only because the Chief Taster reached for something near me, and I thought she was moving to steal my food.  That won't stand.

There are veggies in the rice, so this is healthy!

How To: Bake Cookies

When I lived in Oregon, I gained a reputation among hikers because I always brought cookies.  Since many central Oregon hikes include a mountain, and the cookies were usually extracted from my pack at the geographical high point, we called them summit cookies.  It didn't matter what kind they were; we always called them summit cookies.  I came to believe that I was invited on most of those hikes because people assumed my presence included cookies.  They did nothing to dissuade me from this belief.

Soft Molasses Cookies with vanilla frosting

The first time I ever made cookies was under my mom's watchful eye.  The recipe came from a magazine I loved called Cricket.  I think they were called Stress Cookies, and drew their name from the procedure of mixing all ingredients directly by hand, squishing your fingers through it and punching it into the bowl.  I don't remember anything else about them.

Over a decade later, when I was living at home after college and Dad and I went about the countryside repairing people's porches and plumbing, he bought me my current favorite cookie compendium, and I started making cookies again.  After a couple batches, I got pretty good at it, and soon started working my way through the book and trying recipes from other sources.

Pear-Ginger Cookies with lemon frosting.  One of my favorites!

Here are some general guidelines that will help with almost any drop cookies recipe:

• The first step is usually "cream butter and sugars," or maybe they'll say shortening instead of butter, or maybe there's some cream cheese or sour cream involved, or maybe it just says to blend them.  The exact words don't matter.  The texture does.  When a recipe says to "cream" something, they want a smooth, even consistency.  With butter and sugar, this starts with softened butter.  If you forgot to get the butter out of the fridge hours before you start, just put it in a glass bowl and pop it in the microwave for a few seconds.  You will quickly get an idea of the perfect time in your microwave.  (Mine takes about 22 seconds to soften two sticks of butter)  When is it soft enough?  When you can easily mash it with the back of a wooden mixing spoon.  Add your sugar, and use the back of the wooden mixing spoon (see also: Nature's Finest Mixing Device) to mash them together.  At first, you will get a lot of streaky mess, more obviously if you're using brown sugar, but as you continue to stir and mash, it will become homogeneous.  Then you're ready for eggs and vanilla.
• Maybe.  Not all recipes call for those two, but in my mind, we're making chocolate chip cookies, and almost all of the recipes I've used employ at least one, and often both.  Gwen Steege's book has some advice on eggs, but I think she's a little too careful in this respect.  As long as your eggs are safe to use and you don't get any shell in the cookie dough, you're ok.  Usually vanilla is added at about the same time.  I haven't measured vanilla in five or six years.  Eyeballing it is close enough, but you may want to practice that if you're not the vanilla fan that I am.  Mix in the eggs and vanilla until it's homogeneous again; in fact, with every step except the addition of chunky things like chocolate chips and nuts, mix until homogeneous.  (chunky things don't homogenize, or they wouldn't be chunks, right?)

Mocha Dreams, a rare eggless cookie.

• Most recipes I've found advise sifting together dry ingredients like flour, salt, and baking soda in a separate bowl, then adding them to the creamed ingredients and egg.  I never do that.  I am lazy, I don't own a sifter, and I see no need to get another mixing bowl dirty (it's just something else to wash).  However, some recipes advise adding these dry ingredients gradually, and I will do that.  I'll drop in the first cup of flour with the salt and baking soda (also baking powder, if that's an ingredient), stir it smooth, then add the rest in roughly similar amounts, stirring after each addition.
• You want to buy a Cuisinart, go ahead.  I have a tiny apartment kitchen, so I use a wooden spoon that might have cost $6.  It's great.  I can stir anything with it, it has a stout handle so I never worry about breaking it off in some thick bread dough, and it fits in the drawer beside the silverware.  Plus, after years of cookie and bagel baking, I'm developing pretty ridiculous forearm strength.
• Chips and nuts go in last.  Stir until evenly distributed.

Toffee Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Some recipes call for greasing baking sheets, but I don't like the spray cans of non-stick coating, and my alternative is to rub butter or Crisco on the sheets with my fingertips, which is a TERRIBLE IDEA if they've just been in the oven with the previous dozen cookies.  Use parchment paper instead. You can use the same sheet for an entire batch of cookies, scooping them off easily to cool on waxed paper on a wire rack or kitchen counter.  Not all recipes require this; use that first sheet of cookies to decide.  If they stick, slap on some parchment paper.  Just be careful to grip the paper and the baking sheet at the same time, because nothing holds the paper in place, and if it slides off, you've just lost a dozen cookies to the floor monster.
• When are cookies done baking?  Depends on the recipe.  My baking times and my cookbook almost never agree.  For lighter cookies, look for a pleasant golden color to develop.  With darker cookies, you may have to poke them gently.  They shouldn't yield too easily, but if they're rock hard, it usually means that you left them in too long, and smoke has filled your kitchen.  Keep an eye on them, and try the same recipe a couple times until you're really happy with the results.  Then leave yourself notes in the cookbook.

Cheesy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies with pecans

• There is one final important rule to cookie baking: feel free to experiment, innovate, substitute, and make mistakes.  Chocolate chip cookies were invented by accident (there are different versions of the story, but they both involve accidents, so the lesson is sound), and they seem to be a prevailing favorite.  Mistakes can be delicious.  Roll with it.  I ran short of brown sugar once and substituted some honey to make up the difference, and the results were great.  I just wish I remembered the rest of the recipe.

The Bread-Winner's Bread Baker

The Chief Taster is a creature of habits.  When she (and later we) lived in Arlington, she would go to the Farmers' Market every Saturday morning.  On alternate Saturdays, she would buy a single loaf of a very particular bread, slice it, and have one piece of it toasted every morning until it was gone.  Then she bought a new loaf.

Until we moved.

There is still a local Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings, but this one doesn't have the same bakery.  She bemoaned the loss of her ritualistic loaf.

I stepped up to the challenge.  Keep in mind, the loaf detailed below is not a perfect match to her original choice, nor do I consider it a final draft, but to get a closer approximation, I need to include a sourdough starter.  This alone is a three to five day project, and I'm not always sure five days in advance of whether I'll be in my kitchen, or even in the same state as my kitchen, so this version will have to do for now.  Luckily, she's already pretty happy with it, and there is every likelihood that this new habit will become so ingrained by the time I can revise the recipe that she will thumb her nose at the new version.

Do you have a wire rack where your bread can cool?  It will allow airflow under the loaf and keep the bottom from getting soggy.

Bread-Winner's Bread

2 C warm water

2 T molasses

1 C rolled oats

1 C rye flour

2 C whole wheat flour

4 t dry yeast

2 T melted butter

2 t salt

4 t sunflower seeds

4 t sesame seeds

4 t poppy seeds

4 t caraway seeds

4 t flax seeds

2-3 C all purpose flour

1. Pour water into a large bowl.  Add molasses, oats, rye flour, and 1 C wheat flour, and mix.  Add yeast.  Stir well.  Cover with a dish towel and let it "sponge" for about 20 minutes.
2. Add 1 C whole wheat flour, melted butter, salt, seeds, and about 1.5 C all-purpose flour.  Mix together, drop the dough ball onto a clean, dry surface, and knead until cohesive (about ten minutes).  Add flour as necessary.
3. Put in a clean bowl, cover with a dish towel, and rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
4. Lightly grease two 8"x4" loaf pans.  Punch down and divide into two equal dough lumps.  Gently squeeze and shape each lump into loaf shapes, roughly the size of the inside of your loaf pans, and put each loaf in a pan.  Cover with a dish towel and proof for half an hour.
5. Apply an egg wash, slit the tops of each loaf, and bake in a preheated oven for 30-35 minutes.

This was taken during Step 1, after ingredients have been mixed together. Then you put a dishtowel over the bowl and leave it on a warm area of the counter for twenty minutes.  Now go look at the next picture.

This is the same bowl of stuff after "sponging."  The yeast has started its work, and bubbles are forming.  You can tell even in this picture the dough is slightly risen, and looks like it's been inflated a little.  Think of this as a very rudimentary starter.

This recipe makes two loaves, which I can slice pretty thin, and the Chief Taster only eats one slice a day, so this batch can be frozen after slicing, and it will last her for a month or more.  Your results may vary.  I know I eat two or three slices of this every time I make it when it's still warm from the oven and the butter melts right into it.  I think it's best then, but it also toasts well.  When it's fresh, I can pick up the sweetness of the molasses and smell the caraway seeds.

Counter clockwise from center: melted butter, whole wheat flour, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, caraway seeds, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds.  You don't have to add yours in orderly lines, but I thought they'd photograph better like this.

During early trials of this recipe (which started as an adaptation of one I found online and quickly mutated to a unique creation through my efforts and her feedback), she once told me, "this is good, but make it more like this."  After I pointed out that nothing can ever be more like itself than it already is, she asked for more whole wheat flour and more seeds.  I added a little more yeast, because I wanted larger loaves with a more open crumb.

Here's another before-and-after.  This is the doughball after kneading, before rising.

This is the same doughball, one hour later.  Pretty impressive, huh?  Be sure to put a dishtowel over your dough while rising to keep it from getting too dry.

The recipe we have now has a nice, soft crumb that is still strong enough to be easily sliced, and even used for sandwiches, if you like a somewhat undersized sandwich.  The crust is softer than I would prefer, but it's still well-suited to her purposes, and the addition of an egg wash gave it a nice color.  Slicing the top of each loaf corner to corner about 1/2" deep just before baking allows the loaf to expand a little in the oven without producing irregular tears and cracks.  Think of it as a crumple zone for your crust.

section view

Finally, a word about intellectual property.  I don't know how it works with recipes, but here's the thing: I invented this.  This loaf is my brain-baby.  I encourage you to make it for the breadwinner in your life (yourself, for example), or anyone else you choose, but if you start selling it, I want a cut.  Blogging does not pay my rent.

The bread-winner does.

Blackened catfish

The Chief Taster likes to tease me about my affinity for spicy foods.  She claims it is because I can not smell things, so I like those strong, spicy flavors.  I think she teases me because she's envious of my high pain threshold, and secretly disappointed and ashamed that her delicate German palate can't handle those delicious Cajun dishes.

Blackened catfish is a happy medium.  Heavy on flavor (while still allowing the catfish itself to feature prominently in your mouth), and just enough spice to warm you a little.  I used this recipe, and I offer this warning: remove the batteries from your smoke detector before you begin cooking.  Then--this is key--put them back once the air has cleared, and before you go to bed.  Don't even bother thinking your range hood fan will keep the smoke moving enough.  You're fooling yourself.  Open all the windows, turn on the fans, but silence that smoke alarm, because if you have one, it'll activate.

On the other hand, if you need to test the efficacy of your smoke alarm, this recipe has an added benefit.

I only missed one thing: I forgot to drizzle butter over the fillets when I put them in the pan.  It didn't seem to matter, because I swear upon all the dogs I have ever loved that this stuff is amazing.  I almost wept twice that night: once when I had to run down the hall with a chair to kill the smoke alarm while I was still trying to manage things in the kitchen (I also had a barley millet skillet and some popovers in the works) and just felt frustrated and stretched thin, and once when I first took a bite of that delicious fish.  If it weren't for all the smoke (which is normal, and to be expected when you cook something with "blackened" right in the name), I'd make this twice a week.

Barley-Millet Skillet

If you can find a copy of the Sacajawea Cookbook (at the time I wrote this post, Powell's had two copies left), and you like big game and grains, it's an Off Belay Cafe-endorsed investment.  On the one hand, some of the dishes are a laughable, because so many of them--even in the "vegetables" section--open with "1 pound of elk/bison/venison/beef.  A friend, leafing through while I made the Barley Millet Skillet for the first time, noticed that there is one recipe which appears twice in the book, with different names, but with identical ingredients and procedure.  On the other hand, I've never made anything from this cookbook and reflected later that I feel no need to ever make it again.  It's all good.  Maybe because most of it starts with a pound of meat, but not necessarily.

I like this dish as an all-purpose side because it's full of vegetables and grains, and pairs well with everything to which I've introduced it.  Plus, it's more interesting than just another serving of rice, and the name rhymes, so it's fun to say.  Go ahead, try it!  I'll wait here.

I bought our barley and millet bulk, and it wasn't until after I'd made this the first time that we realized that the "quick-cooking barley" specified in the recipe might be something we could have found in a box elsewhere in the store.  By then, we'd already figured out how to fake our way through with what we had, and we were happy with the results, so I bought bulk the next time we wanted it, too.  Here's the catch: barley cooks in about 45 minutes.  Millet only takes 15.  Solution: I toasted the barley in the skillet first, then dumped it into the simmering broth to cook while I toasted the millet.  When my timer was down to about fifteen minutes, I added the millet.  Stir well with this addition.  I forgot to stir it once when I was too busy and distracted in the kitchen, and the millet was a little too crunchy.  While the grains kept each other company, I stir-fried the veggies.

Barley, toasting in a big skillet.  You may hear little pops, like tiny popcorn.  That's normal, but remember to stir it so you don't get a bunch of burnt grain.

Toasting millet.  Use just a little olive oil for both grains.  It will cook better, and make it easier to scrape everything into the broth later.

Carrots, bell pepper, and red onion.  This is a slight diversion from the recipe, because these are the veggies I had.  That's the nice thing about recipes; they're usually pretty flexible.  This is also good with broccoli or celery.

Blackened catfish is in the background; we'll talk about that next week.

When the grain is done cooking, it will probably have absorbed all the broth.  Then you can dump it into the skillet with the veggies and let everybody get warm and cozy together before you lean out the kitchen door and bellow, "come gitcho vittles!"