In a departure from our usual programming, I thought is would be fun to feature the remarkable snow scenes we have had in the past few weeks. Living in Central Massachusetts for 51 years, we’ve become accustomed to substantial snowstorms in winter. In fact, not that long ago, the annual snowfall in this area used to average about 10 feet. Global warming has whittled that average down quite a bit, but heavy, wet snows have dusted our landscape this month with regularity.
One of those storms — just a week ago — managed to knock out power and internet to more than half of our town for about 24 hours, That means that most of our homes had no heat, water, telephone service (except for those with a wired landline), or internet service. Even cell phones are unusable in some areas (like our house).
Fortunately, one can still take photos (click on each photo in the gallery to see the full picture)…..
We are blessed with so many ways to make wonderful pasta and rice dishes! Here are just two most recent examples.
Leeks and Scallop Risotto with Saffron
Since I accidentally managed to have two open packages of Carnaroli rice, I decided to make risotto for Wednesday’s dinner. I found an attractive recipe featuring leeks and cream in the book, Risotto, by Judith Barrett and Norma Wasserman. Since I had just been to the fish market that day, I decided to jazz up the dish with a small amount of Martha’s Vineyard bay scallops and some saffron for color and flavor. It worked out very well.
Part of the success (and challenge) was the question of what to use for the broth. We have only a limited amount of vegetable stock in the freezer at the moment, so I ad-libbed by concocting my own broth from various vegetable discards, including the more green portions trimmed from the leeks, tops and fronds from a fennel bulb, celery stalk, and cremini mushrooms. After simmering it all in 8 cups of water for 45 minutes and straining, I was ready to make risotto.
Lasagna Roll-Ups
The next night was my wife’s turn. She cooked a package of lasagna noodles and used them to wrap up sautéed onions, fresh Swiss Chard and Spinach plus Almond Milk Ricotta and Feta cheese. Then she placed the roll-ups in a baking pan, topped them all with Lucini tomato sauce, and layered Provolone cheese to melt over everything. She baked it in a 350 °F. oven for almost an hour. Perfect!
It was awfully hard waiting for the pasta to cool down enough to take a bite without burning my mouth!
Now that I seem to have my sourdough starter and dough development technique under control, I decided to try a small variation on my basic Tartine Bread Country Loaf. The normal recipe calls for 900 grams of Bread Flour and 100 grams of freshly-milled Whole Wheat. This time (January 9), I adjusted the flours (weights in grams):
Bread Flour – 850
Whole Wheat – 100
Freshly-milled Rye – 50
It seems like a minor change, but it seemed to enhance the flavor a bit, so I was happy. It made three loaves — 2 boules and 1 batard. The oven was just big enough to do all three together.
We were very much in the mood for vegetables one night, so I explored the refrigerator and came up with an attractive and healthful dinner. No recipes this time, just taking each vegetable and cooking it in a way that highlights its best qualities.
First, we had a small beet salad — sliced beets, beet greens, pistachios, goat cheese, onion confit, plum tomato fillets, white bean purée, and a splash each of olive oil and red wine vinegar.
Next was the big vegetable platter — a real colorful one from Deruta, Italy. It featured steamed asparagus with sautéed shallots, oven-roasted onions, steamed green beans with sautéed sliced almonds, and one Greek dish — zucchini sliced lengthwise and topped with feta cheese, plum tomato slices, and then broiled. It’s a good thing someone invented color photography; this would be nowhere near as exciting in B&W.
We had some uncooked fresh sole fillets from a recent dinner, so I decided to make a simple, quick lunch by wrapping them in prosciutto and sautéing them in a nonstick pan. This time I substituted Swiss Chard for Arugula, with no loss of quality. For a grand total of eight minutes prep and cooking, it was a very high return on investment.
A couple of weeks ago, Melissa Clark posted an attractive dish in the New York Times Cooking website, so I gave it a try. We didn’t have Arugula, so I used Spinach instead.
It worked out beautifully, especially with the butter and almonds.
In keeping with our pescatarian theme, we started the new year with an old favorite, Gravlax. This Swedish invention for curing fish is a marvelous invention: tasty, versatile, can be part of almost any meal, and it’s not that hard to make. There is a catch, though; it usually takes 48-72 hours before it’s ready to eat.
We had not made it in a few years, but after having some at a friend’s house recently, my wife was inspired to do it again. As you saw in the previous post, I had purchased two large salmon fillets at New Deal Fish Market, and it was for that express purpose. Most recipes I read are similar, so we have the freedom to select those ingredients we like best. My wife generally followed this recipe from California chef, John Ash, and it worked very well. I also provided another version here for comparison, one from Food & Wine.
Her choice for fresh herbs included dill, parsley, and cilantro. For spirits, she used Armagnac. And she did the turning and pouring off the liquid once or twice a day for three days. When it was ready, she took out one fillet, wiped it down, and sliced it so very thin. With a squirt or two of Meyer Lemon, it was ready to be devoured. Repeat with fillet #2 when ready.
The next morning I took a loaf of my homemade rye bread, sliced it thinly, added some gravlax, topped it all with Santorini capers and lemon, and ate many slices, accompanied by a glass of orange-pomegranate juice with a very dry Prosecco….delicious.
Since I am not bound by the timing around Christmas, I chose to do my Seven Fishes extravaganza over a few days at the end of the year. The seafood was purchased during the past week from two key suppliers, Sven Fish and New Deal Fish Market. Here is the receipt from New Deal:
From Sven Fish I had three items: fresh lobster meat (already described for lobster and corn risotto in my previous post) and King Salmon (for dinner at home earlier that week), and Sole fillets for Thursday night’s dinner with our Rabbi Emeritus and his wife.
One other fish item was canned Wild Greek Anchovies from my pantry, used for lunch — toasted sourdough with whipped almond milk ricotta, wild anchovies, and thinly-sliced red onion.
This was quickly followed by Mussels with Tomato, Saffron and Garlic Toast:
In the meantime my wife took the two large salmon fillets from New Deal Fish Market and made Gravlax, which is still marinating in the refrigerator until tomorrow Noon. I’ll blog about that soon, when we eat some.
For the year’s finale today I worked on the leftovers for breakfast and lunch: mussels and saffron, fortified with Ayocote Morado beans, Ceviche made from small pieces of the King Salmon, and a few slices of delicious Neapolitan salami from Eataly Boston.
Often in my cooking, I find it convenient to use 1 or 2 plum tomatoes in a dish I am making. Examples would include adding them to a pasta dish with vegetables or seafood, dicing them into a small salad, or making little tomato fillets to spruce up a sandwich. Usually, taste and texture are enhanced by first peeling the tomatoes before using them in the dish. This makes it much easier to remove seeds and watery pulp, or to cut attractive, conveniently-sized, juicy fillets.
Here is a simple and reliable method to peel them.
Now that the Fall course I’ve been teaching has ended successfully, I’ve had more time to play in the kitchen. This Post is an Omnibus collection of our best efforts.
Breakfasts
Many of my breakfasts feature a couple of slices of my sourdough bread. This one shows Organic Hummus from Trader Joe’s, sprinkled with Lebanese Za’atar from Sheffield Spices. Flavor (and color) enhancers are home-pickled jalapeños and quail eggs colored with turmeric.
Another favorite is smoked salmon. This time it was on excellent toasted bagels (with everything) from Mameleh’s in Cambridge. Instead of cream cheese, the bread is smeared with Kite Hill Whipped Ricotta (made from almond milk). The smoked salmon is from Whole Foods house brand, which we find is lower in sodium than many others. Thinly-sliced red onion and Santorini capers are all that’s need to make a rich, satisfying breakfast.
Lunches
My wife often has meetings or errands outside the house at mid-day, so lunchtime is my preferred window for experimentation and cooking foods she won’t eat. Two such examples are illustrated below.
I love beans, and this time of year, I often have the time to soak dried beans overnight and cook them the next day. Here are three different bean salads in the past two weeks.
Another special food that only I eat is octopus. Normally, I’ve been making dishes with 3-4 lb. Spanish frozen octopus. One time when I was at Portugalia, I also bought a package of frozen “baby” octopus. I believe they were from Indonesia. My understanding is that these are not actually babies, but they are fully-mature versions of a different variety.
In any case I took the package out of the refrigerator the night before, and the next day experimented with two different cooking techniques. One approach was what I learned 12 years ago from Mike Anthony, the chef at Gramercy Tavern in New York.
After braising the octopus I cooked them on the gas grill, rather than cranking up the pizza oven just for a few minutes of searing.
The other method was to try a Sous Vide recipe I found on the internet.
Both batches were good, but the SousVide version took only about one hour, vs. two hours for the slow-oven approach. My conclusion is that sous vide is preferred with baby octopus. They were all good when turned into a salad with beans and peppers.
Dinners
The one dinner I want to tell you about was a Christmas Eve meal, just for the two of us — Lobster and Corn Risotto. I first made this last year, after a trip to Maine, using the fresh lobsters we bought there. This time I was able to get some lovely lobster meat on sale from Sven Fish, an excellent supplier in our area, who also delivers. Served the risotto with a Vermentino from California. Delicious.
My best wishes to you all for happy holidays and a very good New Year 2023.
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