by Sam Tackeff | Dec 9, 2013 | Holidays, Meat
When I committed to eating down my fridge before our trip to Canada this coming weekend, I wasn’t quite sure what I had on hand. Which is to say, I was pretty sure that there were some edible things in my pantry, but perhaps not enough to create cohesive meals, and certainly not enough fresh leafy greens. Nevertheless, I set off with a mission, and I’ve been largely sticking to my resolve.
For the last night of Hanukkah, we feasted on latkes with sour cream and apple sauce. There was salad with butternut squash, pepitas, and feta– and (please don’t smite me food gods) Lasagne Hamburger Helper. You just can’t recreate that with real food and hit the perfect ratios. You can’t make it paleo. You can’t make it wholesome. I don’t drink soda, I rarely drink booze, I keep my home largely free of processed foods, but sometimes, something’s gotta give.
Thursday night, we each had our holiday parties, so dinner was provided – I held back from over-indulging on too many passed appetizers, and introduced several of my coworkers to the sidecar. Friday, we had our date night, at the Cottage, in Wellesley – we’re pretty much regulars there – mostly because their lamb burger is divine, and they are highly accommodating to my penchant for substitutions (even the few times I’ve been on Whole30).
On Saturday, I defrosted a lamb’s neck in my freezer – with about enough meat on it for only one very patient person – and you really have to pick at it. I decided to braise it sweet, spicy, any sour, and made a braising liquid of two shallots, a few cloves of garlic, a knob of ginger, some salt, cumin, and a few large scoops of orange marmalade – processed with some water in my Vitamix. I cooked the lamb in this for nearly two hours on the stovetop, turning the neck every half an hour or so. At the very end, I tossed in a few warmed Swedish meatballs for Devon. To go with the lamb, I made some bulgur with orzo, mint and goat cheese – cooked to consistency of polenta.
Sunday night, I cooked a batch of Rancho Gordo red beans, which I warmed with a little bit of salt, cumin, and salsa. I cooked some chicken thighs between two hot cast iron pans, and made myself a big bowl of collard greens. I topped my greens with a little bit of the beans, and added a few spoonfuls of whole milk yogurt.
Tonight, I simmered meatballs in some tomato sauce. I rummaged around for something to go with it all – a vegetable perhaps? There was a package of frozen pizza dough that I had defrosted – and I thought to myself that I could make rolls. When the dough failed to rise, perhaps because it was nearly two years old, and then seemed to be dried out, and then baked into lumps of hardened play dough consistency, I gave up and dumped the failure into the trash.
And so meatballs were all we had.
I think I might have to give up and get us some vegetables.
by Sam Tackeff | Dec 2, 2013 | Meat
After making three reservations for our vacation in Montreal in a few weeks, I’ve decided that it would be best to reduce superfluous spending on food, and start cooking through my fridge and freezer. I think I’ll permit myself fresh vegetables if I need them, but I have weeks (if not months) of food in my pantry, so I’m just going to have to be a little creative.
Tonight I defrosted some bone-in goat stew meat from the butcher, about a pound of it. Unsure what to do, I picked up my favorite Bruce and Mark tome – Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese for inspiration. Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough have written several dozen cookbooks in the past few decades, and were two of my favorite authors to grace Omnivore during my tenure. Goat the cookbook is full of punchy, robust recipes, and ridiculously aromatic Vietnamese inspired shanks caught my eye as a launching point for my dinner tonight.
The recipe calls for an overnight spice rub, and some large pieces of meat, but I thought that I could adapt it fairly well for my needs tonight, and cut some corners without sacrificing too much flavor. I seasoned my goat stew meat with a large spoonful of chile powder, a teaspoon of brown sugar, and a teaspoon of five spice. I then browned my meat in my All Clad with some leftover drippings from the sausage last night. Yep, I’m a girl who doesn’t like to waste. While the goat browned, I chopped up a few cloves of garlic, a knob of ginger, and a large shallot. I pushed the goat to one side of the pan, and added in the chopped aromatics, and let them cook for a minute or two. I then added a spoonful of Red Boat fish sauce, a spoonful of soy sauce, a spoonful of cider vinegar and a spoonful of honey. I topped everything off with about two cups of beef stock, brought it all to a boil, turned it down to a simmer, and let it cook for an hour. I added a small handful of orzo and let it all cook for another 25 minutes until the pasta was mostly cooked through, and had absorbed much of the liquid. I determined that it was a little too salty near the end, so I added just a tad more beef stock and let it cook for a few minutes more. The resulting sauce was sweet, salty, and a little sticky – with just enough punch of chile and ginger to make the back of your throat tingle.
by Sam Tackeff | Dec 1, 2013 | Meat
The last day of this long holiday vacation is bittersweet – I’m looking forward to getting back to the office and doing good work, but my couch is so very comfortable, and being home has been a treat. For dinner tonight, I had lofty goals, I’d cook something long and slow from scratch. I’d start cooking by mid day. But by 6pm, we were hungry, so we made a quick stop at the store. Devon got cream soda to replace a black cherry that I had dropped and shattered yesterday. Suddenly the hot bar was calling, and so I picked up some mashed potatoes and spinach to go some fat little pork sausages – sweet Italians from the local sausage shop, DePasquale’s. When we got home, I spent 15 minutes at the stove listening to the sausages sizzle, assembled our plates, and then sunk into the couch to watch Dark Shadows.
December is always an adventure, we still have a few more days of Hanukkah, holiday parties on the docket, and a trip to Montreal in the works. I suspect it shall be a very full month.
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 13, 2013 | Eggs, Meat, Pantry Staples
See that? That’s my one cup of coffee that I committed to yesterday. I nursed that cup for four hours, microwaved it three times, and resisted brewing a second one. For the rest of the day I drank hot water steeped with a nob of ginger. I keep a root on my counter which I snap off piece by piece into tea. I always try to find the ones at the market that have the most little nobs for this purpose – it’s like popping bubble wrap, but you get a whiff of spicy goodness at every snap! Sometimes I stir a spoonful of honey into my ginger water, but usually I just drink it straight-up.
On Wednesdays I work from home, it’s the day I have set for several morning calls, and I plan to tackle projects that require critical thinking with limited distraction. It’s wonderful for so many reasons – I find myself more productive than normal, it breaks up the week, and I find the quiet to be restorative. And I don’t have to wear pants.
I’ve been feeling a little bit under the weather this week, so I decided to feed myself comforting foods, take it easy, and hopefully ward off anything germy that could be brewing. Normally I head to the gym on Wednesday, but by mid afternoon I was exhausted, so I took a well-needed rest day.
Lunch was a pair of eggs fried in coconut oil, and topped with Trader Joe’s frozen vegetable curry. (This is one of my favorite items at Trader Joe’s – and generally, they do quite a good job on these frozen south asian meals. The ingredients are minimal, and the flavors well developed. I could rotate between this one, the Lamb Vindaloo, and the Butter Chicken for days.)
For dinner, I was craving something warm and filling. Last week, while trying out a few recipes from my newly acquired cookbook – Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese (by the lovely Stephanie and Garrett!), I loved the tomato soup in the book so much that I had to make a second batch. So tonight I decided to make meatballs – with ground beef from the butcher, salt, pepper, cinnamon and garlic powder, and simmer them for an hour in the tomato soup. I tossed in a large handful of orzo pasta, and let it bubble gently until cooked through.
Devon walked in the door right when dinner was ready, and we both loved this meal.
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 8, 2013 | chicken, Meat
When I attempt to produce any sort of creative work, there’s often a lot of “what I should have produced” that holds me back from sharing the actual thing that I did produce. No clear picture of a dish? Well, then scrap the entire post. And then I have to remind myself that Nigel Slater writes these great little essays about food for the Observer, and rarely do I ever need to see a picture…to get the picture. No, I’m not comparing myself to Nigel here. Just giving myself a little pep talk. So here’s dinner, from a few days back.
Trader Joe’s has these boneless skinless organic free range chicken thighs, and they are my kitchen salvation, despite their only flaw – a lack of delicious chicken skin. While not the whole chickens from the farm that I’d get in San Francisco (sigh…), these chicken thighs are my favorite quick chicken option – because they have taste, they cook quickly, and they are forgiving if you forget them on the heat a little too long. Also, admittedly I do not love having to cut off the head and feet of my chickens before eating them, sorry. Also, while I very much enjoy roasting whole chickens, I do not enjoy eating whole chickens, mostly because I think that white meat is a waste of time. It’s all about the thighs, guys. All about the thighs. Because everyone seems to need another recipe for chicken in the rotation, here’s what I did this week.
This is more of a method that I use, and I’m not sure that it’s the best method, but it’s quick and easy. Basically, it’s taking a fat of some sort, browning the chicken on one side for a few minutes, then popping the lid on the pan to steam it a little bit. Then you flip them in the fat, cook a little more, add some vegetables, cover the lid, steam those, take the lid off, cook a few minutes more and by the end you get sort of crispy chicken that’s caramelized, and soft vegetables. I do this most often with pancetta, chicken and greens. But you don’t have pancetta, you could use bacon, or even salami. And you could choose whatever vegetable you’d like, providing it doesn’t take too long to cook. (Or you could pre-steam it.)
In my large All-Clad skillet, I tossed in 4 ounces of cubed Citerrio pancetta (the small container they sell at Trader Joe’s), and turned the heat to medium to cook it slowly and let the fat start rendering out, about 5 minutes. Then, I seasoned my raw chicken thighs (about 1.5 lbs.) with salt, pepper, and garlic powder (yep, the powder…), pushed the pancetta cubes to one side and put the chicken in the melted fat in the center of the skillet. I then added a few springs of fresh thyme, turned the heat to medium high, and covered the lid for five minutes. The bottom of the chicken seared to golden while the top part steamed, and then I flipped the chicken, making sure to let the oil from the pancetta coat the surface of the pan before laying the chicken down. I cooked another five minutes, added an entire 12 ounces of shredded brussels sprouts, and covered the lid again, until the sprouts were tender, about four minutes – I tossed everything together, and that was dinner. (If you eat cheese, you can add a little of that in at the end too – a bit of brie, or gorgonzola, or if you are on a Trader Joe’s binge, a few laughing cow garlic herb wedges – they have those too.)
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 30, 2013 | Challenge, Meat
Za’atar Goat Chops. Goat is one of the world’s most widely consumed meats, but around these parts it’s a little hard to find, and I never see people actually buying it. Goat can be a little bit tough, but lends itself well to curries, stews and other braises. In chop form, it can be cooked quickly and has a nice depth of flavor beyond what you can get from beef – and stands up well to bold spices. Ground, it’s delicious as burgers or meatballs provided that you add some fat back into the mix – I love it with onion, parsley, and Turkish spices, and call them goat köfte. A few local restaurants have goat featured on their menu – Highland Kitchen has a spicy coconut curried goat stew, and I hear that Darbar has some legendary Pakistani goat dishes, but I don’t eat it nearly as often as I’d like.
This week there were two goat chops in my meat share, one for each of us. With frightening stories in the news from abroad, I’ve been thinking a lot about my family in Istanbul lately. It’s not that I’m particularly worried about their safety – Istanbul is quite a cosmopolitan city, and largely progressive compared to its neighbors – but just knowing that they are close to regions of instability makes me anxious. Za’atar isn’t particularly Turkish, but it’s a lovely Middle Eastern herbaceous spice mix that reminds me of family. There are many Za’atar recipes out there, some with thyme, oregano, or marjoram, but the version I’ve been using lately is a mix from Sofra, with two ingredients: Jordanian summer savory, and sesame seeds. To cook chops, I heat up my cast iron to medium-high with a little bit of oil, season the chops with salt, pepper, and a heavy pinch of za’atar, and put them in the pan to cook for six minutes on one side, without touching them. I then flip them over, cook them for six more minutes, and put them on a plate to rest before serving – long enough to prep a salad of dry farmed tomatoes, and feta. This is my usual method for chops of any kind if they are about an inch or so thick. If you can’t find goat chops, you could certainly prepare lamb chops this way, but go for the goat!
