Days 7-14: Everyday dinners

Yes, I am a waste of a blogger. I promised you two weeks of whatever we eat for dinner, and you got 6 days. Pathetic.

In case you're agreeing with me, I'd like to defend myself. I don't really blog for the same reason other people blog, I think. I mean, really, that I don't know why other bloggers blog, but I blog mainly to keep track of my recipes and share them with you when I have something worth sharing. And by "you" I mean the few readers I have plus the bizillions of googlers that find my site when I have something relevant like canned salsa or M&M cake. Seriously my biggest draws. Followed frequently (it varies) by carne asada, cinnamon cookies (for my non-chocolate loving son), and Puerto Rican flan.

But that's beside the point. Back to the argument. I did say I would tell you what we were having for dinner for a slightly different-than-usual purpose. For the most part, I don't cook intense, 6-hour meals on a daily basis, but I do try to cook from whole foods. Not only does food taste better when it starts from good quality whole foods, it's better for you in so many ways. So I thought I'd run down the list a little farther and see if I can fill in the rest of the two weeks.

My daily meals are often but not always quick and easy, ranging in preparation time from 20 minutes to 2 or 2 1/2 hours, depending on the interruptions.

These next three meals are fast.

Nice plate, huh?

First,  it was bread making day, so I made some whole wheat bread when I had time earlier. As it grew closer to dinner, I threw a butternut squash in the oven. When it was done, I removed all the squash from the exterior and mixed it with butter and salt. Then I added some sliced apples and called it good. And, the big test, it had at least two things every child at my table would eat. Kate prefers meat above all other things, but toast and apples will do. And she'll always venture a bite of squash if I ask.

Second, I made a bulgur salad and some quick yogurt naan. In fairness, I had to think about the naan an hour before I wanted to bake it, but it mixes up quickly. The yogurt naan is like a creamy pita, and it gets nice and toasty baking on a very hot stone.

The bulgur salad was new and a great discovery for me. First, I hydrated the bulgur. To do this, place the amount of bulgur you want to use in a bowl. Then top the bulgur with very hot water until it is covered to a half inch above the surface. Once all the water is absorbed, taste it to see if it needs a bit more (if it's too firm). It will have some texture to it even fully hydrated.

While the bulgur was hydrating, I chopped up and prepared some various items I had in the refrigerator and pantry, then added them: red onions, cucumbers, slivered almonds, lemon zest, basil, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

To complete the meal, I served it with some sliced cheese. Another winner in the kid category, though they ate the bulgur salad very well.

My third really fast meal was less than 30 minutes. Sliced fresh tomatoes, homemade biscuits (amazingly fast to make!), and cole slaw.

If you have cabbage and carrots, you can throw cole slaw together in the time it takes for your biscuits to bake. First, follow the recipe in the link above and make the biscuits. (As a side note on them, these days I double the recipe and roll them out twice as thick. We like the biscuits tall.)

While your biscuits are in the oven, core the cabbage, cut in quarters, and thinly slice half of it. Shred a carrot or two and toss together. If you're interested in having onion in there (totally optional), finely dice a small, fresh white onion (nothing too pungent) and add it to the mix. In a small bowl, stir together 1/2 c. mayonnaise, 1 T. white wine vinegar, and 2-3 T. white sugar. And about 1/2 -1 t. Kosher salt and some fresh black pepper if you want it. Add most of the dressing to the cabbage mixture. If it needs more dressing, add the rest.

Slice the tomatoes, pull the biscuits from the oven, and serve. Seriously fast, especially if, like me, you don't need to have meat and potatoes every night.


Slightly longer to make, but not by much, are enchiladas. It usually involves leftover chicken, pork, or beef. I make a quick enchilada sauce helped out by smoked almonds. It gives the sauce body and flavor that would take hours to get normally.

Here's the quick sauce:

Enchilada Sauce
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 c. smoked almonds
2 serrano chiles or more, if you're looking for some spice (jalapeños will work), sliced in half
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes
2 c. chicken broth
olive oil

In a large saucepan or pot (to avoid splatter down the road), heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the onion and sauté for about 5 minutes, until translucent and starting to brown. Add the chiles and garlic for just a minute more of cooking. Add the onion, garlic, almonds, chiles, and tomatoes to a blender. Purée until smooth.

Add a bit more olive oil to the saucepan. Once it has heated, add the purée all at once and start stirring. It will sizzle and pop. Keep stirring until nicely thickened. Add the chicken broth and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the consistency of spaghetti sauce.


To prepare the enchiladas, mix together the leftover meat, some of the enchilada sauce, and some sour cream. Warm some corn tortillas wrapped in a towel in the microwave for 1-2 minutes, depending on how large a stack you have. Assemble the enchiladas at the table (so you don't have that soggy casserole mess) by placing some meat filling inside a warm tortilla, then topping it with more sauce and a sprinkling of grated cheese.


So I've made it to day 10. Not bad for one post, but here are a list of some more random items I've served for dinner recently:

Rotisserie chicken, roasted red potatoes, roast pie pumpkin with butter and salt, salad

Tacos

Cereal

Pot Roast

Adobo-Basted Pork Roast (I'll definitely post about this another time)


Seriously. Cereal.

Dinner, Day 6: Pozole

Before I write anything, I need to make sure you pronounce this properly. It's a Mexican soup, and it's pronounce "poe - SOE - lay". Now we're talking about the same thing.

So I mentioned last week that I was quite sick. I'm all better now, thanks for asking, but my husband was hit at the beginning of this week with the same knock-your-socks-off cold I had. This was no ordinary humdinger, but rather the kind where you can do nothing but lay in your bed and avoid everything. There was only one thing I could do for him: make pozole.


What?! What about chicken soup with homemade noodles? I'll answer your question, but just because I'm so nice. Back in my single days, anytime a friend got sick, I would make the very best homemade chicken soup and use my grandmother's recipe for homemade noodles. It was delicious at the time, and I especially loved the noodles, but I was burned out on chicken soup before I ever got married. Lucky for me, Mark has never been a chicken noodle soup fan. He does, however, like soups that are aromatic, spicy, and have a good broth.

Pozole is a combination of many of the best flavors Mexico has. You start with a strong stock (though you can cheat, as it gets stronger) then add the flavor of chiles, lots of garlic, pork, hominy, onions, cilantro, cabbage, and lime. I'm convinced that if you only had that garlic, chile-infused broth, you'd be delighted, but everything else puts it over the top. When you're sick, this is the best thing you can eat. It's satisfying and healing. When you're healthy, this is still one of the best things you can eat. It's satisfying, fresh, and packed with vibrant flavors.

I learned how to make pozole soon after I married Mark, as he's long had a strong affinity for good Mexican food, and learned to make it better from Rick Bayless. If you want to make good Mexican cuisine at home, or even just want to improve your Mexican repertoire, he is the master. And if you live nearby, you can come over and browse a cookbook. I have three or four from him, all very useful.

This is a fairly simple version of the recipe. I include my instructions on making a good chicken stock, but if you buy a good variety in cartons at the grocery store, you'll still get a decent soup.


Pozole

5 lbs. chicken drumsticks
1 large head garlic
2 lbs. pork (sirloin roast or Boston butt works well; even pork chops will do), sliced or diced, 1/2" thick
2 oz. dried guajillo or New Mexico chiles (or more, if you like it extra spicy; or less, if you don't)
1/2 medium onion, roughly chopped
1 t. dried Mexican oregano
1 30-oz can white hominy, drained, rinsed
cabbage, thinly sliced
onions, thinly sliced
limes, wedged or cut in half
cilantro, roughly chopped
radishes, sliced

To make the chicken stock, lay the drumsticks in a single layer on a baking sheet or in a pan. Drizzle with olive oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake at 400˚ for an hour. Cool the chicken until it is manageable. Remove the meat from the chicken and save it for another use.

Place the bones, skin, and anything else remaining from the chicken in a large pot. Cover with water. Bring just to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 3 hours. Strain the stock and return the stock to the pot. You should have about 6 cups of broth, give or take. Season lightly with salt, but not too much, as the stock may further reduce a bit.

Remove all the garlic cloves from the head. Set two cloves aside. Peel and slice the rest, then add them to the chicken stock. Add the pork to the stock as well. Place the Mexican oregano (not even remotely the same thing as regular oregano, this is found in inexpensive plastic packets in the Mexican section of most grocery stores) in the palm of your hand. Rub your hands together over the pot to crush the oregano as it falls into the soup. Bring the stock to a simmer again; simmer for about 90 minutes, until the pork is tender.

After about an hour, remove the stems from the chiles and shake out the seeds. Place the remaining chile pods in a bowl. Cover with very hot water (or microwave the bowl with chiles and water until water is nearly boiling); set aside and let the chiles rehydrate for about 20-30 minutes.

Once the chiles are soft, place them in the blender with the 1/2 onion, 2 cloves garlic, 1/2 t. salt, and about 1/2 c. water from the chile bowl. Blend until smooth, adding a touch more water if necessary.

Here's an optional extra step: you can pass the chile purée through a strainer before adding it to the pot if you like. If you don't, you'll have very small pieces of chile skin that you will feel occasionally as you eat the pozole. This doesn't bother me, but it is more pleasant without them. If you thin the purée with a little more water first, it will be slightly easier to strain. The soup will be very good either way.

Add the chile purée and hominy to the soup. Simmer for about 30 minutes to let the flavors come together. Taste for salt and season as necessary. If it's not spicy enough for you, add some cayenne as well.

Set out the aromatics: cabbage, onion, radishes, cilantro, and lime.

Ladle some soup into a bowl, then add aromatics as desired. Don't miss the squeeze of lime; it's essential!

Enjoy. You'll be better soon.

Dinner, Day 5: Pop Tart (Slab Pie)

First, I have to admit I'm cheating a little, but you should have known it was coming if you read my blog. I never blog daily. Even when it sounds like a good idea. So to prevent myself from being way behind (and move myself to only slightly behind), I'm eliminating a few dinner nights.

In the spirit of truth, however, I will fill you in on what dinners I will not be posting about: 1. Nothing. This was two nights in a row, actually, when I was feeling sick as a dog and my good husband continued to make sure the kids got random food or found some good leftovers for them. 2. Costco hot dogs. This is actually part of number 1. 3. Little Caesars. Sometimes we're just busy. This is decent, inexpensive fast food. Probably the fastest, now that they have $5 pizzas always ready to go.

I guess I just posted about those. But we're not counting them in my 14 days of meals because I don't care for them. And it's my blog, so I get to say.

So Day 5 was actually Sunday, Day 6 was Tuesday, and Day 7 is tonight (Thursday). See how it works?

Day 5 was our turn to host family dinner, a favorite of mine. Not only do I love, love, love cooking/baking/toiling in the kitchen, I love hosting. I don't know why, and I'm not going to figure that one out, but I love it. I don't put doilies on the tables and vases with flowers throughout the house, but I do vacuum. I think I just like being home, and I like other people being in my home, rather than going to them.

Anyhow.

My father-in-law took a trip to Alaska with his brothers and they caught some mighty fish – salmon and halibut, to be exact  – and he brought some to us to grill for family dinner. Mark marinated the fillets for about an hour in olive oil, salt, sliced onions, garlic, and lime zest. They were very good.

Family dinners are a little potluck, with the host choosing what to base the meal around. Since we had the fish already planned, I made ciabatta, sourdough, peach pie, and nectarine slab pie. What's slab pie, you ask? Well.

Slab pie is a pie made on a sheet pan (with edges). It contains roughly one and a half times the pie dough used for a double-crust pie with the same amount of filling. And when you drizzle a little frosting over the top, it looks very much like a large Pop Tart. Well, more like a Toaster Strudel, I guess. But it tastes a wee little bit better. At least. And it serves a large amount of people, which is a bonus. Still great with ice cream.

My sister-in-law and her husband planted a nectarine tree two or three years ago and asked me a bit ago if I could use the nectarines for pie or something. Never one to turn down free ingredients, I gladly peeled, sliced, and froze the nectarines until it was time to host dinner. Their generosity was a benefit to me: I wouldn't have tried using nectarines otherwise, and I think they may be one of the best fruits for slab pie. They formed a dense, smooth, soft filling, rich in flavor, that was a nice center for such a thin pie.

Let's talk about the crust for just a minute. It's important that you still use the very best crust for this dessert, as the crust is even more predominant than in a regular pie, but keep in mind that you will need to roll it out until it is quite thin, thinner than a regular pie. This is probably the most difficult part of putting the dessert together, but it's not rocket science. Just take your time and be mindful of trying to make a rectangular shape.

My half sheet pan that I used is about 17" x 12", or perhaps just a bit more, with sides that are about 1/2" high. This recipe should work for any pan that is no larger than this size and any pan that is smaller. If you're only going to make a 9" x 13" pan, you'll want to cut back on the pie dough and a third of the filling.

I lined my baking sheet with parchment paper to be sure I could easily remove all the pie pieces. That part is optional but recommended.

I also think this recipe would be terrific with apples. No matter what fruit you use, it really looks perfectly created for breakfast.


Nectarine Slab Pie

for the dough (adapted from Sherry Yard):

3/4 lb. (3 sticks) cold unsalted butter
3 3/4 c. all-purpose flour

3 T. sugar
1 1/2 t. salt (table, or finely ground Kosher)
3/4 c. ice water
3/4 t. white wine vinegar

 

Filling:

6 c. peeled, sliced nectarines

3/4 c. sugar

1/4 c. flour

Topping:

2 c. powdered sugar

3 T. milk

1 T. fresh lemon juice

For the dough:

Cut the butter into 1" pieces and place in the freezer for 15 minutes (no more).

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix the flour and sugar. This lightens the flour to make the dough more tender. Add the butter and salt. Mix on low speed for at least 30 seconds and no more than 2 minutes, until most of the butter is about the size of walnut halves. Stop the machine and pinch all the large pieces of butter flat. Be careful not to just mash the pieces; the goal is to create flat, flaky layers in your dough.

Combine the ice water and vinegar, then add the liquid all at once to the flour mixture. Blend for no more than 15 seconds, until much of it is just coming together.

Spread out two sheets of plastic wrap. Bring the dough together just a bit with your hands, just enough so that it's not all crumbs, but do not work it much at this point, as working the dough while it's slightly warm from this process will damage the layers of flakiness and cause the dough to be tough. Divide the dough into two rounds, one larger by about 25%. Wrap in plastic and square off the edges. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. If you refrigerate it an hour or more, let it set at room temperature for a few minutes before rolling out. 

 

Just before rolling out the dough, prepare the fruit and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400˚.  Line your baking sheet with parchment paper if desired.

On a well-floured surface, heavily dust both sides of the larger piece of pie dough and roll into a rectangle slightly longer and wider than your baking sheet. Be sure to dust the dough with flour a few times, brush the flour around, and flip the dough over to be sure it doesn't stick to the work surface. Once it is large enough to fill the sheet, come up the edge, and lean over the edge enough to crimp later, fold it in half and transfer it to the pan. Then unfold. 

Roll out the top dough. Fill the bottom dough with the nectarine filling, making sure you get all of the extra juice into the dough. Top with second rolled dough and crimp edges.

Bake at 400˚ until golden brown, about 45 minutes. Since the filling is thin, it will be done as soon as the crust is done. You can reduce the oven temperature to 375˚ if you feel the crust is browning too quickly. Remove from the oven to a cooling rack.

Stir together the confectioner's sugar, milk, and lemon juice. If it needs to be thinned a bit more, you can add a little more milk or lemon juice. Drizzle over the slab pie.

Let cool. Slice into 20 pieces. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature. 

Dinner, Day 4: Tomato Soup (for the soul)

As I mentioned previously, I'm feeling extraordinarily under the weather. Enough that all I've done over the last 24 hours is sit at the computer or in front of the tv. Okay, that's not true. I took the kids to school, picked them up from the stop, made lunch, fixed Em's hair for ballet, cleaned the kitchen, scrubbed the floor, and worked on my new crochet stitch. And I made tomato soup.

Tomatoes are high in vitamin C. Not as high as oranges, which are crazy-off-the-charts high, but a good source of vitamins C and A with a little fiber to boot.

I was planning on tomato soup with grilled cheese for dinner as a celebration of my son's first day of kindergarten, since he's a grilled cheese fan suddenly. But I was slightly hungry at lunch and nothing - NOTHING - else sounded good enough to ingest except water. So I made tomato soup. I didn't have any chicken stock or vegetable stock on hand, so I cheated by adding a few extra vegetables at the beginning. Also, I had a little less tomatoes than I would have liked and supplemented with a can of chopped tomatoes.

I roasted the tomatoes and carmelized the onions to give the soup some depth. I only added a small amount of milk, so it was not only very healthy but a good soup for me on a sick day. I ate very small bowls of it most of the day and found it very comforting.

We didn't have the grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner. My kind husband whisked the children away as soon as he was home from work to their various activities (ballet, back-to-school night, grocery shopping) and left me alone to lay perfectly still and nearly catch up on Top Chef Masters. And he found some food for them on the way. But I didn't mind at all. Now I have more soup leftover for today. Which I am happy to consume.


Tomato Soup

4 lbs. tomatoes (or at least 2; you can supplement with good, canned diced tomatoes)
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, thinly chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
4 T. butter, room temperature
1 1/2 T. flour
2 sprigs fresh thyme
water
1 c. milk
salt
pepper

Turn the broiler on in the oven and set the rack six inches below it.

Spray a sheet pan with non-stick spray. Core the fresh tomatoes (not as essential with Romas) and spread them out on the pan. Broil on both sides until the skins are blackened. Remove from oven and set aside to cool for a few minutes.

In a large saucepan (larger is better so it doesn't spit at you), sauté the onion and a couple of pinches of salt in 2 T. butter for about 5 minutes over medium high heat. (Adding the salt immediately with the onion helps to bring out the sugars in the onion, which will help it to carmelize faster.) Add the carrot and celery and continue to cook until the onions are starting to brown, then reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 5 more minutes, until they're more thoroughly browned but not burning. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for another minute. Remove the pan from the heat.

Place all of the contents of the saucepan in the blender. If you're supplementing with canned tomatoes, add a 15-oz. can, juice and all, along with the onion mixture to the blender. If you're not supplementing, add a tomato or two, removing the skins first. Blend until smooth, then return to the saucepan.

Remove the skins from the tomatoes and purée the tomatoes, in two batches, in the blender. Add to the saucepan. Stir everything together and return to heat. Add 1 cup of water and leaves from the thyme sprigs. Bring to a simmer and let it cook for about 5 minutes.

Stir together the remaining 2 T. room temperature butter and flour to make a beurre manié. Stir the beurre manié into the soup and continue stirring as the soup thickens slightly. Stir the milk into the soup and remove the pan from the heat. If you prefer a thinner soup, you can add more milk.

Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as desired.

You can, of course, strain the soup if you don't like the tomato seeds in there. It wasn't a big deal to me, and straining would take a while. Plus I really liked the consistency of the soup, which would smooth out more upon straining. Removing the skins before puréeing the soup takes away the biggest reason to strain, but use your own judgment.

Also, one or two tablespoons of chipotle purée would be a great addition if you're not serving it to spicy-sensitive kids.