5 second rule

Stuff it.

Spending time online has real hazards. You can get spammed, hacked, unfriended, and cyber-stalked, all in a single afternoon. And that's just on the regular internet. On the food internet, you might encounter something far scarier: an endless barrage of photos showing foods shoved unceremoniously inside other foods.

I suppose it all started with the turducken, but soon even that became tired. Like, really, is a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey all you've got? The internet responded by wrapping the turducken in bacon, creating the turbaconducken.  Because that's what we as a society apparently needed. We needed a turbaconducken. 

Let's also not forget the Cherpumple -- a three-layer cake stuffed with an apple pie, cherry pie, and pumpkin pie. For those who need a sweet nibble after finishing their turbaconducken.

The problem is, since those illustrious items were invented, the bar has been reset quite high, and now people everywhere are trying to scale it. Apparently no food makes sense anymore unless it's cooked inside the cavity of another food. This is where we now find ourselves.

Happily, major food companies are right on trend. Kraft, for example, offers up a recipe on its website for an Oreo baked inside a cupcake. Why? I have no idea. Can't we just eat a cupcake, and THEN eat an Oreo, and then go about our business? Can't we carboload sequentially?

No, we can't. Fortunately, when we get bored with that -- it will happen! -- we can then enjoy Oreos crammed inside chocolate chip cookies or hidden inside peanut butter blondies. For some reason, Oreos are prime candidates for being thrust inside other edibles.

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Honestly, I was going to end this diatribe with a plea for my fellow citizens to get back to eating foods consecutively, or at least side-by-side. But then, just for kicks, I stuffed a roasted squash half with some leftover chili, sprinkled it with cheese, and broiled it until bubbly.

And you know what? 

Right. It was awesome.

Suddenly, things look different. I get it now. There's a beautiful efficiency to eating a food and its vessel simultaneously. It just feels good.

I challenge you all to predict the next big stuffed thing.

Obviously, it has to include Oreos.

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Recipe for Chili-Stuffed Carnival Squash

First off, people tend to have a favorite chili recipe, so I encourage you to use whatever recipe you like.* And second, I'm not giving specific quantities for the remaining ingredients as they’re completely flexible.  Scale up or down, depending on how many you’re serving. Serve with cornbread. 

A few Carnival squashes (count on 1/2 to 1 whole squash per person)
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
Your favorite chili, prepared to your liking*
Cheddar cheese
Cilantro 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.

Carefully slice each squash end to end. (Use caution.) Scrape out the seeds and strings. Rub the cut sides and cavities with a bit of vegetable oil. Season the flesh with salt and pepper.

Roast cut-side down until tender and nicely browned, about 40 to 50 minutes, or longer, depending on the size and weight. 

Fill the cavity with your favorite chili. Sprinkle with cheese. Return to the baking sheet and broil, face-up, and watching carefully, until the cheese melts and bubbles. Garnish with chopped cilantro, and serve.

*For this recipe, I made the Beefed Up Bean Chili from Almost Meatless, which continues to be one of my favorite cookbooks. It was terrific. If you don't have the book, or a chili recipe in your repertoire, I'd suggest trying Susan Russo's boozy beef chili (for you meat-eaters) or this vegetarian chili from my archive.

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Learning to love the dirt and grit.

We're all foragers, in a sense. Seekers, searchers, lookers, lurkers. We upturn rocks and unearth stones, hoping to find a hidden gem beneath the mossy overgrowth.

And occasionally we find it. A gem, that is. And we polish it until it gleams, and then we polish it some more. Eventually, we polish it so much we can see our own reflection in it, and this is not necessarily a good thing. Remember Narcissus?

I lost perspective last week. I got caught up in my work. Got too close to it, too entangled in the minutiae of this and that, and by Thursday, I needed out. I went to a farm, took some pictures of hens and collards, saw okra sprouting from the earth, met a woman who is living her ideals, and had lunch with a friend. My heart rate slowed back to normal.

When I woke up the next morning, things were better. I could once again see the forest for the trees.

But I'm afraid I'm wired this way.  You may be, too.

So let's make a deal: When we head back into that forest, let's promise each other we'll go slowly next time. We'll pick up our projects, and look at them, and deal with them, and work on them, but we'll do it with a calmer tack. When we forage, and see something beautiful, and upturn rocks, and unearth stones, and find a hidden gem, let's promise ourselves we'll only polish it so far. 

That fine, subtle, imperfect layer of dirt and grit, it's good for us.

It tells us we're human. It reminds us we can't be perfect, and that the very act of trying to be can do us all more harm than good.

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Recipe for Mixed Mushroom Brisket Soup

I bought a large brisket. Half went into the slow cooker with a jar of salsa for tacos, and the other half I diced up for an earthy, autumnal, meaty mushroom soup. (This recipe served as my jumping off point.) Later in the week, I added leftover rice for one lunch, and leftover white beans for the next. That brisket stretched for days, which made a tough week a little bit easier.

Serves 4

1 pound brisket, about half the fat cap trimmed and the rest left on, cut into small cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 large carrot, diced
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (or 1 teaspoon fresh)
1 pound mixed mushrooms, trimmed and sliced 
2 cans low-sodium beef broth
2 tablespoons sherry

In a large soup pot, warm the oil over medium-high heat. Brown the brisket on all sides. Remove with a slotted spoon. The beef will have given off some fat. Before proceeding, see how much fat is in the pot. You want about two tablespoons total. (Add a bit more oil if you have less than that, and if you have more, pour some fat off.)

Add the onion, celery, carrot, garlic, and thyme, and season with kosher salt and pepper. Saute until the vegetables begin to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms. Saute for 5 minutes longer.

Return the brisket to the pot, and pour in the broth and sherry. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to very low and simmer, partly covered, until brisket is thoroughly cooked, and the meat and vegetables are very tender, about 1 hour. Serve hot.  (If you have leftovers, stretch the soup with cooked rice, barley, quinoa, wheat berries, or beans.)

printable pdf

 

Crack some eggs, and fold your pants along the inseam.

There was a time, not so long ago, when they could do nothing.

My kids, I mean. They could do nothing.

They couldn't sit, stand, or walk. They couldn't dress themselves, or take a bath alone. They couldn't run, swim, ride a bike, or speak in grammatically correct sentences. They couldn't do crap.

And then, kaboom.

They could.

Now they can read 600 page books, write elaborate stories about mythical lands, and name more Beatles songs than I'll ever know. (I mean, come on. Who the hell has ever heard of Savoy Truffle?) They can whoop me at ping pong and often at Scrabble, and their command of international coins far exceeds my own. They can get their clothes on, and off, and wash them, and dry them, and fold them up, and put them away in square little piles. (Haha! Just kidding. But they can get them on, and off, and then squish their pants into a ball and heave them towards the closet, where they fall on the floor.)

The one thing they really couldn't do, at all, I just recently realized, with a mixture of shame and embarrassment, was cook.

Ooops.

But I'm rectifying that.

We've just completed Part 1, Lesson 4 of You'd-Better-Listen-to-Me-And-Pay-Attention-Because-I've Got Things-To-Do Summer Cooking Boot Camp. Part 1 is egg cookery. We've covered scrambled (lesson 1), fried (lesson 2), omelettes (lesson 3), and poached (lesson 4, this morning).

I even started making them type up the recipes after they cook them, so they can refer to them later, and so they'll have a little cookbook to print out when the summer's over.

Tomorrow's lesson? Frittata.

Followed by a remedial laundry folding seminar.

Bring your sons by. Door opens at 8am.

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Recipe for Three Meat and Goat Cheese Frittata

When you want a light dinner that comes together quickly, and you've got some scraps of cheese and meat lying around, crack a few eggs and grab a skillet. Frittatas are infinitely variable, and while I usually stuff mine with vegetables, this time I went for the bacon, sausage, and prosciutto.

Serves 4

5 strips bacon, cooked, blotted of excess oil, and crumbled
1/2 to 1 chicken (or pork) sausage, cooked and diced
1 to 2 pieces prosciutto (or ham), torn to bits
6 large eggs
2 tablespoons cream
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 yellow onion, diced
2 to 3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
Goat cheese (as much as you like)

Preheat the broiler, with one rack towards the top of the oven and a second rack in the center.

Toss the 3 meats in a bowl and set aside.  In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and cream, and season generously with salt and pepper.

In a 9-1/2" to 10-1/2" ovenproof, nonstick skillet, heat the oil and butter over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute gently until soft and translucent.  Sprinkle the meats on top and pour in the egg mixture.  Dot the goat cheese on top in little blobs.

Cover and cook over medium-low heat for a few minutes, until the bottom sets but the top is still runny. Pop under the broiler, on the top rack, until the frittata starts to brown and looks set, about 4 minutes, then move to the center rack and cook another 2 to 3 minutes longer to get the inside cooked through.

Serve immediately, or at room temperature.
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John Cougar, Meatball Subs, and Me

The year was 1982, or thereabouts. My hair, frizzy. My braces, metallic. My whole look, somewhere between lanky giraffe and eager poodle, but not a show poodle with its coat just so, more a scruffy poodle who likes to roll in the grass but basically aspires to greater things.

But enough about me. Let's talk about meatball subs.

Because it was around this time that I discovered the strong pull of the meatball sub, that classic sandwich in which giant spheres of meat loll about in a crusty roll, with just enough cheese to increase your chance of a coronary.

That the meatballs are soused with tomato sauce, which oozes out of the sandwich and onto the table, your t-shirt, and your lap, somehow ups its value prop. This is not prissy food. This is tomboy food, or at least it was for me.  The me who, in 1982, spent a long time listening to Jack & Diane on an endless loop, dreaming that someday, somehow, someone might want to share a meatball sub with me, assuming that once my braces came off I'd be far cuter if only I could figure out how to get my frizzy hair under control, which, if you've ever met me, you've probably figured out by now that I never really learned how to do.

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Recipe for Classic Meatball Sub 

A fun little book called The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches by Susan Russo (Quirk Books, 2011) recounts the quirky lore of a wide array of sandwiches, from the commonplace (peanut butter and jelly) to the bizarre (the "chip buddy," a french fry and mayo sandwich).  When I saw the meatball sub, I was hooked.  I made very minor changes, only around the edges.

Makes enough meatballs for 6 to 8 sandwiches, or make fewer sandwiches and serve leftover meatballs with pasta

MEATBALLS: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.  Spray the foil.  Combine 1/2 pound each ground beef and ground pork in a large bowl with 1 cup breadcrumbs, 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, 1 beaten egg, and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Mix until well-combined with one clean hand. Scoop into 1-1/2 inch balls and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes.

SAUCE: Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. Heat 2 teaspoons olive oil in a medium pot and saute 2 diced shallots and 4 minced garlic cloves until translucent.  Stir in one 28-ounce can crushed San Marzano tomatoes and one 15-ounce can tomato sauce, 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper, and 1 teaspoon salt.  Reduce heat to  medium-low and let bubble until the meatballs are ready.  Add the meatballs to the sauce (they need a bit more time to cook through, so don't nibble them yet) and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes longer.  Stir in 1/4 cup fresh minced parsley.

ASSEMBLY: Split 6 to 8 (or less, or more) rolls (I used Dutch crunch rolls) in half.  Pull out a bit of the doughy bread from the bottom rolls so the meatballs don't roll around.  For each sandwich, nestle about 4 meatballs in each roll, spoon on some tomato sauce, and top with a slice of provolone. Lay the roll tops face-up, and flat, alongside. Broil 2 minutes, or until the cheese melts and the rolls turn golden. Watch carefully.  Serve immediately.

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Turkey

I had to choose Katherine.  For the cookbook giveaway, I had to choose Katherine because anyone who wants to give her German chemistry teacher her last piece of crumb cake, and invite him over for a chat, is someone who deserves a cookbook. I also just like the idea of inviting one's former teacher over to shoot the breeze.  I'd probably invite Mrs. Bierbauer, because even though she was a math teacher and not a chem teacher, she was incredibly nice to me in 9th grade. 

You know what I'd say to her?  I'd say, "Mrs. Bierbauer, thanks for being so nice to me in 9th grade.  I really appreciate the extra time you took explaining byzantine mathematical errata and making me feel smart.  Unfortunately, when I got to college, I pretty much forgot everything you taught me.  More crumb cake?"

And then we'd eat more cake and talk about non-mathy things.

The other reason I had to choose Katherine is this: so many of your entries were beautifully melancholic, and tenderly heartfelt, but although this is exactly what I'd asked for, they ended up canceling each other out.  How on earth could I choose between a dying grandparent, a dying father, an already dead parent, and a friend hit by a truck?  Impossible.  Therefore, Katherine and her chemistry teacher win. 

Today's recipe is a completely practical one: a simple roasted turkey breast perfect for dinner this week.  If you're traveling, you can toss the leftovers in the freezer.  If you've got family visiting, they'll have sandwich meat for the week.  And if your chemistry teacher rings the bell and you've eaten all the crumb cake, offer him some poultry.

Now balance this equation: C2H6 + O2 --> CO2 + H2O.

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Recipe for Simple Roasted Turkey Breast

Roasting a turkey breast is so much easier than manhandling an entire bird.  Just before serving, you can even make a quick gravy by deglazing the roasting pan with a little white wine and stock, and whisking in a paste of flour and soft butter to thicken.  Squeeze in some lemon, and voila.  Dinner.

Serves 6, with plenty of leftovers

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon regular or smoked paprika
3 garlic gloves, minced
One 5-pound bone-in turkey breast
Onions and potatoes, if desired
Olive oil
1 scant cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth (more if you're making gravy)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the lower third position.

In a small bowl, mash the butter, paprika, garlic, and 1 teaspoon of salt until smooth.

Rinse the turkey under cold water and pat as dry as humanly possible with paper towels.  Slip your fingers under the skin of one turkey breast, and massage some of the seasoned butter underneath.  Repeat with the other breast.  Rub the remaining butter all over the rest of the exposed turkey skin, and sprinkle generously with additional salt and some pepper.  Set skin-side up on a v-rack set in a roasting pan.  If desired, quarter a few onions and potatoes, drizzle with a thin stream of olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.  Scatter in the bottom of the roasting pan.

Roast the turkey for 45 minutes.  Baste with 1/2 cup of the chicken stock and turn the roasting pan 180 degrees.  Roast 45 to 55 minutes longer, or until the meat is juicy but cooked through and the skin is crispy and deep brown, basting with a little additional stock two or three more times.  Remove to a cutting board and let rest at least 20 minutes before carving.  (If making gravy, see the head note, and make it while the bird rests.)

 To carve, hold a sharp, heavy knife at a 45-degree angle and remove one entire breast in a single piece.  Slice the meat crosswise.  Repeat with the remaining breast.  Freeze the carcass for stock.

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Acceleration

At a gorgeous wedding this weekend in Carmel-by-the-Sea, with a bagpiper piping and woolly sheep bahbahing, I saw a woman I hadn't seen in a while.  I didn't do the mental math to quantify the time, but when she saw me she blurted, "I had a baby, and she's 14 months old!"  And I was like, wait, what?  When were you even pregnant?  And you already had the baby, 14 months ago?  What kind of rock have I been living under, and did I see any good movies while I was there?

Somehow, much to my surprise, time marches apace, and when I don't pay attention it speeds up double-time.  And that's all well and good, because I love 2010, it's a great year and a fine vintage and all that, but the fact is, I used to have 16 months to write a cookbook and now I have 8.  In other words, holy hell-almighty-expletive-unmentionable-unprintable-inappropriate exclamation.

So, by the calendar at least, I'm halfway there.  And this very fact lights a fire under my arse and inspires me to eat a lot of bacon.

The reason is simple.  As a meat-free cookbook, ours is baconless, and that means all of the recipes in the book will be noticeably devoid of pork, not to mention beef, chicken, and duck à l'orange.  Not eating bacon is pretty much what I do all day.  It's my job.  I'm like a surgeon, but I don't save lives.

However, on days when I'm not book-working?

This green-beany, fried-sagey, bacony side dish is pretty wonderful, and when I made it, Alex, who's 9, and one of his little 9-year-old friends of the female persuasion were hanging out together in that innocent way 9-year-old boys and girls can sometimes do. And they kept popping into the kitchen to pilfer the green beans, giggling as they downed the crispy bacon slivers and bits of fried sage.  Little thieves, those two.

Promise you won't let me fall asleep.  I have a feeling if I do, when I wake up, they'll be married, and they'll be like, Hey Ma, can you watch our 14-month-old while we head to the movies?

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Recipe for Bacon Green Beans with crispy sage

Green beans and bacon are a pretty classic pairing, but still -- there's something a little naughty about including a little bacon fat in the mix.  Turns out it makes a lovely medium in which to fry sage.

Serves 4, as a side

1 teaspoon olive oil
2 slices bacon, sliced crosswise into 1/2" slivers
8 leaves fresh sage (6 left whole, 2 thinly sliced)
1 pound green beans, stem ends snapped off
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and add the bacon.  Fry until crisp, nudging it around a bit so it cooks evenly and doesn't burn, and lowering the heat as necessary to avoid sputtering.  Use a slotted spoon to move the bacon to paper towels to drain.

Add the whole sage leaves to the hot bacon fat.  Cook about 3 minutes or until crisp, using tongs to flip leaves gently two or three times.  Remove to the paper towels.

Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat in the skillet.  Add the green beans and the thinly sliced sage, and saute for about 5 minutes, turning often with tongs, until beans are bright green, speckled brown in spots, and crisp-tender.  Season with salt and pepper, garnish with the bacon and fried sage, and serve immediately.

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Accessories

For those who, like me, are fashion-challenged, it's all about accessories.  Need to perk up a boring shirt?  Grab a scarf, and earrings! I implement this philosophy with alarming frequency, and so far it has served me reasonably well.  Of course, I could always just buy nicer clothes, but then I'd have to iron.

When it comes to food, garnishes are scarves.  They're your earrings, your belt with the chunky buckle, your bracelet with the sweet, little charms. Toss some fresh, colorful garnishes on a gray piece of meat and you can even serve it to company.  The meat still has to taste good, obviously, but from a purely aesthetic point of view it can be the equivalent of an ugly t-shirt with deodorant-stained underarms. If you garnish it well, no one will care.

This pork is your deodorant-stained T. 

Mmmmm.  Deodorant.

So how do you achieve this enticing result?  By unceremoniously plopping a pork butt in your slow cooker with an onion, some garlic, and a jar of salsa.  Over the course of the day, while you field emails, drink a latte, and get yelled at by your boss, the pork cooks, softening into a tender porcine puddle. You'll be able to shred it with just the slightest pull of two dinner forks.

Then the fun begins.  Accessorize with lime, avocado, warm corn tortillas and fresh salsa.  Or go Lady Gaga, adding sour cream, olives, fresh cilantro, and cheese.  At this point, the amount of effort is your call, the hard work already done.  The deodorant stain has long since been forgotten.

Where did she buy that fabulous scarf?   

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Recipe for Slow Cooker Pork Soft Tacos with accessories

I got the idea to plop meat in the slow cooker and pour a jar of salsa over it from my friend Jess Thomson, who made these beef and egg breakfast burritos a few years ago.  She used beef stew meat, I use pork butt, but the idea is the same.  The meat slowly cooks, and its connective tissue dissolves, producing a tender, perfect-for-tortillas result. 

N.B. If you refrigerate any leftover pork, the fat will solidify in a somewhat unappealing manner.  Consider scraping it off before reheating the meat.

Serves 6, with leftovers

1 onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
Salt and pepper
3 pounds pork shoulder (may be called pork butt, which is part of the shoulder)
One 12-ounce jar of your favorite salsa (I use salsa verde)
Corn tortillas, warmed
Any combination of: fresh lime, sour cream, shredded cheese, sliced olives, fresh salsa, cilantro, or beans

Place the onion and garlic in the bottom of a slow cooker.  Sprinkle the pork generously with salt and pepper, and lay it atop the vegetables. Pour the salsa over the pork.  Cover, turn slow cooker to low setting, and cook for 9 hours, or longer.  Remove meat to a cutting board and shred with 2 forks.  (You may discard the liquid.)

Serve pork with warm corn tortillas and garnishes of choice.

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Gyoza

I love my children.  I really, really do, but every time we order gyoza when we go out and they eat five apiece and I get maybe one, I wonder who died and made them King Lord of Gyoza Dispensation.  Everyone who tells you, oh, kids are so sweeeeet, and they make your life so whooooole, they canoodle you, they admire you, yada yada yada forgets to tell you the most important and yet under-acknowledged fact of parenthood: you pretty much have to sacrifice the last cookie, the cake with the tallest crown of frosting, and the best bite of anything even remotely tasty to your kids all the goddamn time until you've turned 90 and croaked in your rocker.  And if no one admits that very fact to you, they're lying.  Case closed.

I love pouffy, chewy, gingery, porky, scalliony gyoza, and I finally realized, after many years of maternal suffering, that the only way I'd ever get to eat as many as I truly wanted would be to make a ridiculously obscene quantity at home.  That way we could all have an unlimited supply.

Even better: I forced my kids to make them themselves.

(insert evil laugh here)

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Recipe for Pork Pot Stickers (Gyoza), adapted from Nancie McDermott's Quick & Easy Chinese (Chronicle, 2008) (And look! I recently interviewed Nancie on iVillage here.)

This recipe isn't hard in the least, but it is a bit time-consuming.  From personal experience I can guarantee it's not only much more fun but far quicker to enlist unpaid laborers who may be living in your home. 

Makes 40 to 45  dumplings

1 pound ground pork
1/4 cup thinly sliced scallion
1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup thawed and chopped frozen spinach, squeezed dry
36 round gyoza / won ton wrappers
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup water

Combine first eight ingredients (pork through spinach) in a large bowl and stir to combine well.

Working with no more than two gyoza wrappers at a time (keep the rest covered so they don't dry out), lay the wrappers on a cutting board.  Place a small ramekin of water close at hand.

Place 1 rounded teaspoon of pork filling in the center of each wrapper.  Dip your index finger in  water, then swirl it around the circumference of the wrapper.  Fold in half, tucking the filling securely inside, and press the edges to seal.  Make a few pleats if you're feeling fancy.  Transfer to a baking sheet and keep covered with a tea towel while you prepare the remaining gyoza.

Continue until you've finished filling and folding the dumplings.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Swirl in oil.  Lay twelve filled gyoza in the pan and allow the undersides to brown undisturbed for a few minutes.  Scatter the cold water along the edges of the pan, cover tightly, and let gyoza steam for exactly seven minutes.  Uncover, and continue cooking one to three minutes longer, or until water has mostly evaporated but before gyoza stick too firmly to the pan.  Transfer to a large platter.

Continue pan-frying and steaming gyoza in this fashion until they're all cooked.  Serve hot with dipping sauce of your choice.

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Meatballs

The word I'm about to say is going to cause mayhem.  Some of you will stick around, but others (you know who you are) will run screaming for the hills.  I'm afraid to even say this word.  The blog might explode. Dinosaurs might take over the earth.  Snookie might show up for coffee.

The word is quinoa.

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Is anyone still here? 

I'm eating a lot of red quinoa these days.  I can't help it.  I cook up a big batch and let it linger in a giant glass container in the fridge.  Every morning I scoop some into a cereal bowl, splash it with skim milk, sprinkle it with toasted pecans, cinnamon, brown sugar, and cardamom, and then nuke the bejeezus out of it until it spits forth hot, steamy plumes.  Then I sit down and watch the rain try to swallow my house. 

(The whole red quinoa porridge idea was Heidi's. Go yell at her.)

Then last night I set out to make chicken sausage meatballs, but instead of breadcrumbs, which I find boring and dry, I dumped in a generous mound  of red, cooked, straight-from-the-fridge quinoa.  With all the sausage and Parmesan, I figured no one would even notice.

And they didn't, which made me feel kind of sad for the quinoa, because now perfectly normal people will continue to avoid it, and snicker behind its back.

Poor quinoa. 

Poor, poor quinoa.

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Recipe for Chicken Italian Sausage Meatballs with red quinoa

You can buy red quinoa at Whole Foods in the bulk aisle. To prepare, first rinse it very well in a fine-mesh strainer, then place in a medium sauce pot, cover by an inch or two with cold water, bring to a boil, and boil gently for 12-15 minutes.  Drain.  When it cools, store in the fridge for quick morning porridges or meatball making.

Makes 25 meatballs

1 pound chicken Italian sausages (I used sweet ones, but you can use hot)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup cooked red quinoa
Your favorite marinara sauce, for serving (from a jar is fine)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Coat a broiler pan with cooking spray and set aside.

If your sausage has casings (mine did), slit them and force the gooey meat into a large mixing bowl.  Add the cheese, egg, and cooked quinoa, and stir well with a fork to combine.

Set a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat.  Coat with cooking spray. Portion the meatball mixture using a 1-1/2" scoop and drop about half of the balls into the hot skillet.  (Do not crowd.)  Brown deeply on all sides.  Using tongs, carefully remove to the greased broiler pan. Repeat with the second batch.

Place the meatballs in the hot oven and cook for about 16 to 20 minutes, or until the meatballs are dark brown and cooked through but still juicy inside.

I served these on little skewers with some marinara (from a jar!) for dipping.  They really don't require pasta, and I do not say those words lightly.

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Grandmas

I sat next to a very, very old lady yesterday.  I don't say this lightly, or disrespectfully: she was 94, and in my book, that's old.  My kids were playing in a piano recital at a local nursing home, and she pushed her walker right up to me and took the seat next to mine.  When the concert was over, she folded my hand in hers and called me "lovely." 

Old people like me.  I have no idea why, frankly, because most young people could take me or leave me, but old people generally find me agreeable.  

Which makes it doubly sad that all of my natural grandparents died more than 10 years ago.  Happily, I have phenomenal step-grandparents, and they like me well enough.  Three cheers for divorce!  If my parents hadn't split and my dad hadn't remarried, I'd have neither grandparents nor step-grandparents, and then I'd just be awash, floating like a leaf, untethered from the family tree.

Perhaps all this thinking about older people explains why Pat Tanumihardja's new book, The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook (Sasquatch Books, 2009), resonated with me. 

 
The book profiles real life Asian grandmas and offers little stories about their backgrounds, educational achievements, work experiences, and family lives.  Of course, this is a cookbook, so the featured women also share their favorite recipes.  Dishes with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, Nepalese, and Indonesian influences, plus several others, are included.

As someone who has never had an Asian grandmother, a few recipes intimidated me with their length or unfamiliar ingredients, but I still found plenty to bookmark.  And the two I tried, Chinese Barbecued Pork and Amma's Rice (chicken biryani), pictured above, fed my family for days.  The upfront time that went into the cooking paid me back with phenomenal leftovers. 

Disclosurama:  Do I know Pat?  Yes.  (Here's her blog.)  Did I get this book as a free review copy? Affirmative.  Would I have dinner with your grandma? Sure. Would I eat whatever she served me?  Within reason, but no stuffed derma and no eel, please.  Will I one day be a grandma?  A cute grandma?  I'd better.  In fact, it's a goal of mine.  All babies are cute, but to pull off being a super-cute grandma... that's on my to-do list, for sure.

...

Recipe for Chinese Barbecued Pork

Adapted from The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook by Patricia Tanumihardja (Sasquatch Books, 2009)

A long marinade is key to the terrific flavor in this dish, so plan ahead.  Pat's original recipe called for boneless pork shoulder, but I used country pork ribs to great effect.  I also forgot to glaze my ribs with the reduced marinade (whoops), so if you want to do this, just boil the reserved marinade for 10 minutes and brush it on the ribs before serving.

Serves 4 to 6

2-1/2 pounds boneless country pork ribs, or boneless pork shoulder measuring 8 by 6 by 3 inches

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1/2 teaspoon 5-spice powder

2 scallions, smashed

2 stems cilantro, smashed

1 pod star anise

Cut the ribs into 8 equal sized strips.  (I started with 4 long ribs and cut them in half width-wise.)  If using shoulder, cut it into 8 strips about 1-1/2 inches wide and 7 inches long.  Place in a single layer in a rectangular casserole.  I used a Pyrex dish.

Whisk the sugar, soy sauce, sherry, and 5 spice powder together in a small bowl.  Pour over the pork.  Nestle the scallions, cilantro stems, and star anise pod in the dish.  Cover with plastic wrap and marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours, turning once if you remember.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Line the inside of a broiling pan with foil.  Remove the pork from the marinade and place atop the grated broiler pan.  (Transfer marinade to a small saucepan.)

Bake pork for 25 minutes, basting once or twice with reserved marinade.  Flip the pork, baste again, and bake an additional 15 to 20 minutes, or until the pork caramelizes and just begins charring at the edges.  

Transfer meat to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, boil reserved marinade for at least 10 minutes, if using.  Cut meat crosswise into thin slices.  Brush with boiled, reduced marinade, if desired, before serving.

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