Darkest Day: Darkest Blog

Happy Winter Solstice to everyone!

I'm checking out for real life this week and will not be posting until after the Christmas holiday. Thank you for reading and see you next week!

Tamara

The Confessional Gourmand

I confess to the following recent food-related thoughts, actions and observations...

• I am always proud of the soups I make out of leftovers.  
• It's really hard for me to eat salads made primarily of greens during this season, with the exception of spinach or napa cabbage. 
• Is it possible to pig out on vegetable sandwiches? Yes. 
• What is this new fast food thing: pasta in a bread bowl? What? Why not just throw in some white rice and mashed potatoes and chase it with a shot of insulin... 
• I wish my family would eat more whole grains. I find myself buying brown rice, wild rice and bulgar combos, quinoa etc. and having to make it for myself.  
• I wish we could find a decent Chinese food restaurant on this side of the Sound.  
• I crave black beans. 
• I'm not in the Christmas spirit at all and expect that this weekend, when I make cookies for next week's exchange, I'll be a changed woman. But I'm not optimistic. 
• I'm thinking bouquet garnis for food gifts this year.  
• I don't look forward to Christmas ham as much as I look forward to raclette on New Year's Eve and gumbo on New Year's Day.  
• I've eaten more toasted sourdough bread and butter this week than I have all year long. Sore throats and laryngitis inspire specialty diets, eh? 
• My daughter invented a cashew penuche over Thanksgiving without even knowing it. I am so proud. 
• I think the reason why I don't drink tea more regularly is that it ends up being my first defense against illness in the winter and the assocations it has with being sick or in pain kinda ruin it for me. 
• Today I broke the rule of consuming dairy products while congested and drank about 5 cups of drinking chocolate. That's what too much hot tea will do to you. 
• I can hardly watch those Challenge shows on Food Network regarding cakes and candy sculptures because the stress is just way too much for me. Same reason I can't watch Hell's Kitchen; having worked in a restaurant in the past, I already know how highly stressful it is to crank out food at a busy restaurant even without the torture of an a**hole yelling at me. 

Public domain image: "Interior with a Woman Seated by a Hearth (1654)" by Jacobus Vrel.

Recipes That Work: Linguine with White Clam Sauce; Quinoa Salad with Garbanzo Beans, Parsnips and Spinach; Al's Norwegian Apple Cake

I've found (and I'm sure most of you will concur) that the best way to know whether a recipe works (besides just making it) is to get a first-hand recommendation from someone else.

Enter RECIPES THAT WORK!


I'm here to tell you, the recipes that follow are worth the effort and may even become new family favorites. This is an ongoing series. For more Recipes That Work, click on the link under "Topics" in the lower right hand sidebar of this blog.

Bon appetit!

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RECIPES THAT WORK #24

LINGUINE WITH WHITE CLAM SAUCE
Source: Based on multiple recipes my husband found one night while trying to perfect a recipe we've been in search of for more than 10 years now.

We fell in love with Linguine with White Clam Sauce while living in Chicago but could never seem to find the right combination of flavors and the right consistency of sauce to replicate it on our own. Out of desperation we would buy the Progresso prepared White Clam Sauce, knowing it coulnd't be that hard to make. Finally, Mike discovered the right blend and lo! our kids like it, too!

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 cans chopped minced clams, undrained
2 cans whole clams, undrained
2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
1 pound linguine, cooked and drained

Heat oil and butter in a heavy skillet until butter is melted; add garlic and shallot and sauté 4 to 5 minutes. Add salt, pepper, and clams with liquid. Simmer for 5 minutes. Toss with parsley just before pouring over hot cooked linguine to serve.
Makes 4 to 6 main dish servings

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RECIPES THAT WORK #25


QUINOA SALAD WITH GARBANZO BEANS, PARSNIPS AND SPINACH
Source: I started out with a recipe from CDKitchen and added and subtracted accordingly.

I made this for the Hugo House Write-O-Rama lunch spread and was quite pleased with the outcome. So were the folks who ate it; I took home two empty bowls not long after the lunch line dwindled! This is vegan and vegetarian, not because I was trying, but because it simply is.

3 tablespoons olive oil
3 medium carrots, scrubbed and cut into dice-sized pieces (I recommend purple carrots, if you can get them, for their beautiful color)
3 parsnips, scrubbed and cut into dice-sized pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup dry quinoa
Juice of 1 small lemon
2 cups vegetable broth
½ cup dried fruit (any combination of dried cherries, cranberries, golden raisins and or currants)
Boiling water
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves (or ¼ teaspoon dried)
3 to 4 cups stemmed raw spinach leaves
1 (14-ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
½ small red onion, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped Italian flat leaf parsley (do not use dried)
Sea salt (or herbed sea salt) and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Additional olive oil and a dash of ground cumin

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Toss carrots and parsnips in olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Place on a jelly roll pan in a single layer and bake about 40 minutes, stirring after 20 minutes, until roasted. Remove from oven to storage bowl; cool completely.

While vegetables are roasting, thoroughly rinse dry quinoa in a fine mesh sieve until rinse water runs clear. Place rinsed quinoa with lemon juice and broth in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat; lower heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, 15 minutes, until quinoa is swollen and tender.

Meanwhile, soak dried fruit in boiling water to cover for 5 minutes until plumped. Drain and set aside.

Remove quinoa from heat; stir in plumped dried fruit and thyme. Allow quinoa mixture to cool to room temperature.

Just before serving, combine roasted vegetables with spinach, garbanzos, red onions and parsley. Stir into quinoa mixture, mixing well. Check seasonings and add salt and pepper as necessary. Drizzle salad liberally with olive oil and sprinkle with cumin.

Makes 12 side-dish servings

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RECIPES THAT WORK #26

AL'S NORWEGIAN APPLE CAKE
Source: This recipe originally appeared in The Victoria Advocate on August 15, 1968. My mother gave me the clipping recently and I was able to trace it back to a newspaper archive. Read the story about Al here.

My mother made this recipe a long time ago and recently resurrected it for a post-Thanksgiving treat, substituting Splenda for the sugar with success. I was suddenly reminded of the cake that had inspired so many of my attempts at a hybrid apple gingerbread I've been trying to make for a while now. My kids gobbled this up for dessert, breakfast and snacks. Though I've given the recipe some updates, I've left the sugar in this version.

4 cups diced peeled tart apples (about ¼-inch pieces)
1¼ cups granulated sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ cup safflower or grapeseed oil
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
Whipped cream for garnish

In a medium bowl, combine apples with sugar and corn syrup; let stand 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F; grease a 15×10×1-inch jellyroll pan and set aside.

Meanwhile, sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a separate medium bowl.

In a large bowl, beat together oil, eggs and vanilla until foamy. Stir in apple mixture and walnuts. In batches, stir in flour mixture until just combined. Turn cake batter into prepared jellyroll pan.

Bake about 45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool slightly to serve or cool completely in the pan. Cut into squares and serve warm with whipped cream.

Makes twenty 2½×3-inch squares


Public domain image: "Apples." Image courtesy US Government Agricultural Research Service.

TV Dinner Dish: Chef Academy, Chopped, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, and Top Chef Las Vegas (Courtesy of Tivo)

It's been a while since I've blogged about Food TV but that's not for lack of viewing it! Here are some comments about recent programming:

Chef Academy: I kinda like this show. Kinda?

What I like: The charming Chef Jean Christopher Novelli and his adorable pregnant fiancee, Michelle. Novelli seems fairly human and down-to-earth for a high-caliber Michelin chef (not to disrespect other Michelin chefs, but they do seem a tad inaccessible in personality and status). I also like the Pass/Fail format of the show. Novelli's assistant, Steve Kitchen, is charming as well. There is a personal nature to the show that I like as well; personal, as in "we're all trying to learn something here, but it doesn't have to be all work and no play." Also, I cracked up when I watched Chef Novelli have a fit about the inferior juicing machine. I also like it that Joel, the personal assistant, is not a cook and still, Chef Novelli treats him respectfully. Finally, I liked it that Novelli pointed out the importance of not smoking (a huge problem in the restaurant industry), as it affects one's ability to master tastes.

What I dislike: All the swearing. This could be a good show for my aspiring 11-year-old chef except for all the rough language. Well, that, and some of the sexual innuendo. The nudity and the discussion of Emmanuel's history as a porn actor. This means I can't comfortably watch this show with my family, so kids with a growing interest in the culinary arts might miss out on some good basic techniques taught on the show because of it. I also dislike Suzanne for her makeup and cleavage and high heels and painted nails. These are just not things that I find acceptable in any kitchen and I wish Novelli would send her home for it. At least he made a big to-do about her lipstick to get across the point that a chef's first priority is knowing flavors, and who can know flavors with all that lipstick in the way? She's a ditz, besides, and way out of line in asking Joel to arrange a tailor to adjust her chef's coat. Gimme a break.

Chopped: Despite my displeasure with the way some of the judges "embrace" their roles (oh, the tyranny of critics!), I'm still watching this show because I am in utter awe of these people who are thrown into a huge challenge and come out more or less unscathed. I'd like to name names and gossip about some memorable chefs of late but Food Network doesn't have a list of competitors at its website for some reason, and their episode summaries do not include the competitors' lineups. Why's that?

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef: I've been catching up on my Anne Burrell of late and thrilled to be doing so. She offers recipes for things that real people will want to make, and she gives not only a solid recipe for making each of these things, but she always delivers at least one new tip or technique that I haven't thought of.

I'm not sure about this lawsuit that accuses Burrell of making sexually harassing remarks toward women staffers in her restaurant, and I'd be disappointed if it was true. It's definitely something that women have come to expect in the high-end world of restaurant entrepreneurism, but typically such abuses come from men. Doesn't make it right, either way. All I can say is that I hope it's not true.

I find Burrell to be charming in a down-to-earth and non-snobbish tomboy's way on the show. I especially like the idea of having a "thank you for coming" bowl for those ingredients which are meant to make an appearance but not "stay" for the whole dish (i.e. garlic), and I also like that she demonstrates the importance of saving vegetable ends to make broth.

Top Chef Las Vegas: I'm disappointed that redbeard Kevin Gillespie didn't win, especially since he pretty much lost because he had a single bad day. What about the body of his work? To me, that was consistent enough and a true rendering of his chef's "voice." I would definitely choose his food over all the others'.

Still, the Voltaggio brothers worked it hard and were also deserving of the top 3 accolades. I preferred Bryan over Michael from a personality standpoint, but I think Michael won it based on his derring-do and willingness to experiment and take his art beyond expectation. I do agree that a Top Chef should be a trailblazer and risktaker, so for that reason, I'm happy for Baby Brother.

This was my favorite championship of the series. They are all deserving.

Original image: "TV Dinner Dish" icon copyright Tamara Kaye Sellman. All Rights Reserved.