by Sam Tackeff | Oct 17, 2012 | Challenge, Meat, Soups
A few weeks ago I went into the gym with a cold, a red face, and a killer sinus headache and nearly had a panic attack when I saw Evan in the gym with his camera. For those of us who live behind a camera, being in front of one is not something we are accustomed to. In fact, I may have rudely let Evan know that in no uncertain terms was he to take a photo of me. I was a total jerk about it – I blame the headache!
Well, he managed to sneak one. And I think it’s awesome.
* * *
10.15.12
Coffee this morning was a little fancy. Although I grew up in a house where my mother drank her coffee black, I much prefer mine with a heavy dose of cream. Having kicked the cream for this challenge, I’ve been doing quite well with black, but I decided to doctor my mug with a little bit of coconut oil to add back a little bit of that creamy texture. I won’t do this everyday, but it certainly was a treat!
There was no breakfast. I wasn’t hungry, and had to go out and about on a few errands. I’ve been really struggling to get in a good breakfast. Part of my problem is that I much prefer to eat a big lunch, a good size snack, and a big dinner. I’m on the fence about whether or not to actively change this habit as long as I’m getting in proper amounts of nutrient dense foods…
For lunch, I had a very specific craving for Tortilla Espanola– a Spanish frittata with eggs, onion, and potato and lots of olive oil. Seeking similar textural consistency, I made myself a big frittata with leftover roasted cauliflower, over a spinach salad with a bright mustard vinaigrette. I let the eggs cool down to room temperature before eating, which is really the best way to eat frittata.
In the late afternoon I went for a walk and grabbed a gala apple and some Justin’s Maple Almond Butter as I walked out the door. Portable snacks!
When I got home, I set to work making dinner: Mel’s Chocolate Chili from Well Fed. I can’t recommend this book enough. I don’t often actually cook with cookbooks (I usually just read them for inspiration), but I’ve actually gone about and cooked several of the recipes in here to the letter, and they’ve been marvelous.
I have a few tried and true chili recipes, and make a similar version, but I thought I’d stick to as close to the book as possible for the sake of an honest opinion.
I made just a few small adjustments to the recipe: halving it because I didn’t have enough beef, using the ultimate cheater move onions, shallots and garlic pre-chopped from Trader Joes, and omitting beef broth because I had a limited supply of tasty bone broth and needed to re-stock. (I just used the whole can of tomatoes instead of halving it, and added a little bit more water.)
The chili takes literally 10 minutes to put together, and then you just let it simmer away on the stove top for a couple of hours. Your house will smell fantastic.
I served it with a dollop of guacamole, and ate two bowls full.
My biggest mistake? Not *doubling* the recipe. This one is definitely a winner.
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 15, 2012 | Meat
Sorry for that title. Really. The puns and bad jokes are getting worse and worse around here. I’ll let the management know.
Saturday
On Saturday morning, I woke up and picked up my race packet for Sunday’s 5k. I was having a bad morning, worried that my car was dying, and then running late to Jeremy’s gymnastics clinic. I normally only go to the gym twice a week, but the focus was on handstands, and bar practice (toes to bar, kipping, and pull-ups), all of which are skills that I desperately want to improve on. Mostly for the street-cred, really.
When I finally made it (with about a minute to spare), I was psyched to see that the class was really small: D-Paine and Melody, Alexann, Mary and myself, which meant that we each got a lot of hands on attention. By the end of class, we were all working on being able to kick up into freestanding handstands, and my kipping on the bar may be getting somewhere.
When I got home, I made myself brunch: fried eggs and mini lamb merguez sausages from the butcher. I always forget how much I enjoy merguez. It’s a rich and spicy sausage common to North African (and French) cuisine, and is so completely satisfying.
In the afternoon, I took a pomegranate break, and spent a good 40 minutes or so picking out the jewel-red seeds one by one, popping them like popcorn.
For dinner, I had garlic-thyme sausages from the butcher, and these perfect little lamb kidneys to play with. I debated what to do with them – as the bulk of my rognons-eating occurred in France nearly 15 years ago, I was unsure what I wanted to do. So first I set about cleaning them.
I then butterflied the kidney, to assess how much I’d have to clean from it. Most of the recipes I consulted were for whole kidneys with minimal cleaning, so after breathing in the smell of the kidney to make sure it wasn’t ahem… uric smelling, I opted to do as little to it as possible. I trimmed off most of the attached fat, and saved it to render later.
Kidneys are a lusciously textured, strongly flavored (a little bit like a barnyard, in the best way) cut of meat, and stand up well to assertive spices. I debated Chichi Wang’s version of Fuchsia Dunlop’s deep-fried, huo bao slices of kidney in Serious Eats, and Nigel Slater’s classic devilled kidney recipe. Ultimately, I decided on a riff on these grilled lamb’s kidneys with rosemary anchovy butter from Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal by Jennifer McLagan.
To prep the kidneys, I drizzled them with olive oil, seasoned them in salt and pepper, and stuck some rosemary in the middle. I then set about making my dressing. Because I’m not cooking with butter (for now), I made a dressing with anchovies, olive oil, salt and pepper.
I cooked my kidneys for two minutes on each side, so they were just cooked through but still pink in the middle. They were served on a bed of baby spinach, with my garlic-thyme sausage on the side, and the anchovy dressing poured over. Delicious.
For dessert, because I was craving something a little sweet, I made a small chocolate mug cake. I’m still trying to tweak the formula – they tend to come out a little bit dry.
I went to bed early to get some sleep before Sunday’s race.
* * *
Sunday
I’ll be posting my race recap separately, but the race went well! Despite the cold, rainy weather, and a near meltdown when I woke up in the morning, no coffee, and a single banana 20 minutes before the starting line, I made it through the race, and P.R.’d!
When I got home, I set about making lunch.
I sauteed brussels sprouts with a little bit of bacon.
And served the bacon-y brussels sprouts topped with sardines and lemon juice, and a side of guacamole. This is one of those meals that you eat alone and don’t tell anyone about, but I swear it was good.
In the afternoon, I realized that I hadn’t had a cup of coffee yet, so I remedied that quickly.
Because our house was freezing, I put my oven to good use, and roasted some romanesco and cauliflower, and this ambercup squash with some salt and pepper.
For dinner, I had another off-cut from the butcher to use – lamb neck. I was first introduced to lamb neck in 2009, thanks to (top chef winner!) Chris Cosentino – during this spectacular meal at Incanto.
I wanted to prepare it as simply as possible, so I adapted this Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe.
I rubbed the neck in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and browned it on all sides in a small pot in a few more tablespoons of olive oil. I then added the juice of two small lemons and a cup of water to the pot, added about a teaspoon of dried thyme, a teaspoon of oregano, and a sprig of rosemary on top. I brought it to a boil, turned it down to a simmer, and covered the pot. I then cooked it for an hour, turning it every 15 minutes in the braising liquid. (My neck was about a pound, but if you had a larger one, you’d just cook a little longer, until tender.)
While the meat was cooking, I microwaved cauliflower for about 15 minutes until super tender, and added salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and pureed with my immersion blender. Voila! Mashed cauliflower!
I then took the lamb out of the pot, and shredded the meat – all 4 ounces of it… this was a very small lamb.
Devon got his shredded on a bed of mashed cauliflower, with a side of cheesy toast. I got mine in a bowl with the neck to gnaw on, and the rest of the braising liquid poured on top. While I would have liked a little bit more meat, the flavors were outstanding, and I’ll be making something similar soon.
Dinner was served in front of the television – for good reason (brace yourself) – it was my first time watching The Shawshank Redemption. I should clarify, first time, aside from the 50 + times I’ve seen various 20 or so minutes of it on TV*.
(Via)
I’m not sure what I was expecting. Actually – I was expecting to be let down. There’s no way that the movie (#1 rated on IMDB of movies of all time) was going to be that good. But it was. Thank you Stephen King, Frank Darabont, Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and everyone else involved in this motion picture for being awesome.
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 13, 2012 | Challenge, Meat
My morning started with no coffee because I was running late, but this gorgeous Spencer apple which I grabbed on the way to the gym for an early workout. To warm up, we did several rounds of medicine ball torture – burps, squats, ball tosses and lateral tosses with a partner, more squats. By the end of the warm-up, I was dying. We then set to work on the strength: back squats. I like back squats! I’m still trying to get used to squatting deeply – my left leg isn’t as strong as my right, but I’m working on it.
Strength: Back Squat – 6 sets of 2 @ 80% of max., rest 2:00 between sets (I used 80#, and knocked these out no problem.)
Workout of the Day: “Snatch Balls” (Snicker…)
AMRAP 7 (As many rounds as possible in 7 minutes):
7 Power Snatch 95/65 (I used 45. I could go heavier by weight, but my form…is lacking.)
10 Wall Ball 20/14 (I used a 10 pound ball.)
Now, these two moves happen to be some of my least successful ones, so this workout did not go well. I ended up finishing only two rounds, the 7 lifts, and 5 wall balls. I wish it had gone better, but not every day in the gym is a personal best, so I’ll accept it as valuable practice.
After out workout, several of us hung around to watch Coach Steve perform 20 rounds of “Cindy” (5 Pullups, 10 Pushups, 15 Squats) with a 20 pound weighted vest, to raise money for Barbells for Boobs, an awesome non-profit raising money for breast cancer prevention.
* * *
For lunch, I had the leftover eggplant from my braised lamb shanks two nights ago. Because there wasn’t really much lamb, I topped it with two eggs and called it a meal.
After a busy afternoon, I didn’t manage to get to the butcher (M.F. Dulock) until well past six, and I was worried that they’d be out of everything. I shouldn’t have been worried! Here are some shots of the gorgeous cases this week.
I ended up going home with some ground beef, garlic-thyme sausages, bone in pork chops, lamb neck, baby merguez sausages, and lamb kidney. Unsure of what to do with the kidneys (no soaking in milk!), they lent me a copy of Jennifer McLagan’s Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal to play with. I adore her books – excellent monographs on meat (Fat, and Bones) – truly inspired histories and recipes on the subject.
For dinner, despite having purchased a week’s worth of meat, we ended up going out to Strip-T’s, one of our hands down favorite restaurants. Hidden away in Watertown, the place has been open for three decades, but recently went through a renaissance when the owner’s son came back from New York, working in David Chang’s empire.
I wish I could tell you that it was a welcome relief, but it was kind of a bust. The wait was longer than usual, service was spotty, and the kitchen was having a serious off day.
For an appetizer I had the roasted brussels sprouts and sardines (minus the romesco, which contained bread). This was a good combination. The sardines were fresh, but cured slightly like pickled herring.
For my entree, I opted for my usual flank steak, but had to modify it for my challenge. Unfortunately, this meant that most of the delicious accoutrements were missing, so I got a medium rare flank steak over a big bed of braised greens. This would have been fine, save for the fact that someone may have dumped three tablespoons of salt accidentally into my greens. At this point, almost two hours since we had arrived, I was starving, so I asked for some lemon to see if the acid would cut it enough. It did not.
They were kind enough to make me a fresh batch of greens, but the experience left me feeling like I had done something wrong.
After dinner, because I can’t have my favorite mocha sheet cake of theirs, I had a double espresso. (Which was delicious.)
To say that we were disappointed would be an understatement, but the dozens of stellar meals we’ve had there make up for this fluke.
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 12, 2012 | Braises, Meat
There are two Nigel Slater recipes for lamb shanks that I use often. The first is his lamb shanks with anchovy (you can watch the video of him making it), and the second, his Moroccan spiced lamb shanks with aubergine from Real Cooking. Left with what is likely my last eggplant of summer (there’s supposed to be a frost tonight!), and an abundance of good anchovies from Eataly, I decided to combine the two. I love throwing anchovies in braises because they lend a salty-umami taste without screaming out “there’s a fish in here!”
To make this dish, you’ll want two lamb shanks. These were actually quite small, but you could easily get larger ones if you are feeding more people.
I drizzled them with a little bit of olive oil, seasoned them in salt and pepper, and seared them off in my deep skillet in a little bit of tallow (rendered beef fat, a gift from the awesome folks at M.F. Dulock). A dutch oven would work well for this, but my dearly beloved Le Creuset 7 1/4 Qt. is currently injured, and I haven’t been able to send it back to get a replacement. While doing this, I turned the oven to 300 F to preheat.
After browning the shanks, I added the chopped onions and a few cloves of garlic to the pan. I sprinkled on some rosemary and added a few Turkish bay leaves my mom smuggled back from a tree in Istanbul.
I then chopped the anchovies, added them to the pot, added tomato paste, an eggplant chopped into large cubes, and some water to come halfway up the shanks. You could easily use some red wine and stock here if you had some. The anchovies are quite salty, but I tasted the broth and gave it a final seasoning.
I brought it all to a simmer, put on the lid, popped it in the oven, let it cook for an hour, turned the shanks, and braised for an hour more. The result:
I served Devon’s off the bone over some pasta with parmigiano, and my bowl with a double portion of eggplant, and a grating of lemon zest and sprinkle of parsley.
Braised Lamb Shanks with Tomato, Eggplant, and Anchovies
2 lamb shanks
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 whole cloves garlic
2 sprigs rosemary (or about 1/2 Tbs. dried)
2 bay leaves
4 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 medium eggplant, chopped into large cubes
1 can diced tomatoes (15 oz.)
about a cup of water
lemon zest + parsley to serve
Preheat the oven to 300 F. Season the shanks with salt an pepper, and brown them in a dutch over or deep skillet in some olive oil or good fat (I used tallow). When the shanks have browned, add the onions and garlic. Nestle in the rosemary and bay leaves. Chop the anchovy fillets and add them to the pan, then add the tomato paste and gentle stir. Add the chopped eggplant, pour over the diced tomatoes and the water to reach about half way up the shanks. Bring to a simmer. Once simmering, put the lid on, and bake in the oven for two hours, turning the shanks half way through.
Serve topped with lemon zest and parsley. Or, remove the meat from the bone, and serve over pasta with a grating of parmigiano. Leftovers taste particularly good on day two with a few poached eggs.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 29, 2012 | Braises, Meat
Waking up to the whistle and hiss of old metal heaters in our house just starting to kick in, I’ve been thankful these past few nights for my L.L. Bean comforter. Summer has left us, and we are on to crisper weather and shorter days. Fall necessitates comfort, warm sticky stews, roasted root vegetables, bowls of mashed potatoes, spice breads, and poached fruit.
Around this time of year I start thinking of cooking traditions again, after exploring out and about all summer long, I long to be home in the kitchen, the oven filled with roasting vegetables, or the rising batter of my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip cake. One of my favorite fall dinners is my mom’s Osso Bucco (braised veal shank). When she cooked it, the house would smell delicious for hours, and the reward would be a big meaty treat in each of our bowls. We’d impolitely gnaw down to the bone, and loudly suck out the wobbly marrow.
When chilly air hits us, this is the first thing I want to make. It’s a wonderful project for a Sunday afternoon, requires minimal effort and leaves plenty of time to curl up with a good book while you wait for supper. This stew is largely put together with bits and pieces in my kitchen, but that’s sort of the beauty of it – you can make it how you want. I use lots of carrots, but adding potatoes would be good too. Finding quality pastured veal is difficult, so usually I’ll substitute beef shanks, but you could even make this with stew meat and you’d be rewarded at the end.
To start, I turned the oven to 350 F. These are cross-cut beef shanks I picked up at M.F. Dulock, which I seasoned with salt and pepper. I then heated up my big skillet over medium heat, and cooked some onions in a little schmaltz (chicken fat!) with some La Quercia pancetta.
Then seared off the shanks, a few minutes on each side.
I then took out the meat, added a large chopped carrot, deglazed the pan with some stock and tomato sauce (I used Rao’s Marinara), nestled the meat back in, added a handful of whole garlic cloves, seasoned it all with some dried porcini mushrooms, rosemary and bay leaves, salt and pepper, covered it, and let it cook for a few hours.
After two hours, I added some thickly cut carrots, and cooked it until they were tender, about one more hour. Devon got his served over a big bowl of mashed potatoes.
I got mine with an extra serving of carrots. To finish off the dish, I added the winning combination of parsley and lemon zest, a sort of deconstructed gremolata.
beef shank stew
serves 2 – 4
1 tablespoon good fat (I used schmaltz, you could use butter or olive oil)
1 small onion
1 ounce pancetta, chopped
2-4 large beef shanks (1 per person, 3/4 – 1 lb. each)
1 large chopped carrot
several whole cloves garlic
1 cup tomato sauce
a few cups homemade chicken stock
water (or one part water, one part red wine)
a few dried porcini mushrooms
a bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon. dried rosemary (or a sprig of fresh)
3 large carrots, chopped into coins
for the gremolata:
zest of a lemon
a small handful of parsley, chopped
Start by turning on your oven to 350 degrees. Season your beef shanks with salt and pepper, and set aside. Heat up the fat in a large heavy bottomed skillet or large dutch oven over medium heat. Chop up your onion and add to the pan with a good pinch of salt. Cook for a few minutes and add the pancetta, and a few grinds of fresh pepper from a mill if you have one. Stir about for a few minutes as you chop your carrots, and set them aside.
Raise the heat to medium-high, push aside the onions and pancetta, and place the shanks in the middle of the pan, searing them off a minute or two on each side to brown them. Then, take the meat out, and set aside. If you have four shanks, do this in batches to avoid crowding the meat to get a good sear.
Lower the heat back to medium, add the carrots to the pan, and cook for a few minutes until just slightly softened. Add the stock to the pan to deglaze all the sticky brown bits, stir, and add the tomato sauce. Put your beef shanks back in the pot, add the garlic cloves, and add a few cups of water just to make sure the shanks are almost covered.
Stir in a few dried porcinis, a bay leaf, and a 1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary, or preferably a sprig of the fresh stuff. Bring to a simmer, cover, and pop in the oven for two hours. After two hours, add the carrot coins or other vegetables you’d like (potatoes would be good), and cook for another hour until the carrots are tender. Serve as is, or over a heaping portion of mashed potatoes. Top with a generous zesting of lemon, and some chopped parsley.
The next day, add some extra cooked meat you have on hand, or use the meaty broth to poach a few eggs in. Here’s mine on day two with some crumbled pork sausage.
by Sam Tackeff | Jun 18, 2012 | Lunch, Meat, Quick and Easy, Vegetables
Last month I realized that I had spent nearly three months without doing any real exercise… at all. It happened slowly, crept up on me. First, my three mile walks to work stopped, then my 45 minute long lunch walk was traded for a meal at my desk. My weekend outdoor sojourns with my beloved RadioLab (the best!) ceased to happen. The gym? What gym. Weights? No. I had turned into a sedentary blob.
As I stopped moving, I started getting more and more tired, which of course made it so that I had no more energy to move… or read.. or write. It’s a vicious cycle. I thrive on being fit and healthy, so finally, I decided to do something about it. And that something… was CrossFit. You may have heard of it, it’s basically giving your body a beating, in order to get stronger, fitter, and awesome-er. It’s non-repetitive, challenging, and most of all a lot of fun – which is exactly what I need to stay motivated. Watching Annie Thorisdottir bring it at the CrossFit games on ESPN was pretty much the most exciting thing ever – so I’ve been trying to channel her every time I step into the gym to get my ass handed to me.
This is her doing handstand pushups. Ridiculous.
I’m… not quite there yet.
(Photo via a random tumblr on the internets – I couldn’t for the life of me find the original source. Edit: actually by Fitbomb – see below! )
The one thing that becomes clear when you are doing this type of intense exercise is that in order to sustain energy you have to clean up your diet, and clean it up fast. Many CrossFitters have jumped on the Paleo bandwagon, and while I don’t subscribe to diets that cut out major food groups, I do tend to gravitate towards an eating style that champions proteins, vegetables, and slow-burning carbs.
Recently I’ve been getting a whole bunch of culinary inspiration from my blog-crush Michelle of Nom Nom Paleo, who to my absolute delight won a Saveur Best Food Blog award this year!
Now before you get all worried that I’m obsessed with a crazy-person-woo-woo-nutrition blog, you should know that Nom Nom Paleo is first and foremost a food blog with delightful food photography – it ain’t no preachin’ blog. Michelle and her husband Fitbomb, and two adorable kiddos Lil-O and Big-O live in the Bay Area. They have a gorgeous kitchen filled with some fun toys including the Sous Vide Supreme, and some beautifully seasoned cast iron pans. By night she’s a vampire drug-pusher (she works the graveyard shift at a hospital pharmacy), and yet she still manages to make meals for herself and her family daily.
The recipes on her site are just great. Things that I’ve made and savored: her damn fine chicken which, is in fact, damn fine, her rice-less Asian cauliflower fried rice, world’s best braised cabbage (a Molly Stevens recipe, but I love her too!), and her sister’s phenomenal grilled green chicken to name a few.
She also has a well-designed iPad app that I’ve taken in the kitchen and cooked from as well – last night we had her roasted pepper salad with dinner, and her magic mushroom powder seasoning is next up on my kitchen docket.
So, today, I have a recipe for you of sorts that I’ve adapted from her blog. It’s another one of those not-quite-a-real-recipe, core concept meals that I try to use every day to feed myself when I’m not feeling very creative in the kitchen.
Nom Nom Paleo’s Emergency Protein
Adapted from the original recipe here
1 pound organic ground meat or protein (I most often use ground turkey)
2 tablespoons delicious fat (ghee, coconut oil, lard)
½-1 cup of an allium – onions, leeks, or shallots – diced
A few handfuls of vegetables (mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots, asparagus, zucchini, etc.)
Several handfuls of leafy greens (baby spinach, kale, chard)
1-2 tablespoons coconut aminos (or Braggs, tamari, soy sauce, or dried spices)
Salt & Pepper
Here’s today’s version:
I first started by sautéing a shallot and a handful of garlic scapes in some organic ghee with a pinch of salt. Garlic scapes are some of my favorite summer vegetables that I usually make into this pesto. They are great in stir-fries because they impart a sort of sweet-garlicky flavor, and excellent crunch. If you can’t find garlic scapes, by all means use some more shallots, or an onion, or some leeks. You could also use scallions, but I find them to be a little too zippy.
I used ghee here, because it’s sweet and buttery and delicious. You could also use coconut oil, or lard, or good olive oil.
After the shallots and scapes softened, I added the longer cooking veg – in this case two chopped portobello mushroom caps – and stirred everything around until they cooked down a bit. The mushrooms are a great addition because they add some heft and volume, and are supremely nutritious.
You can add any sort of vegetable you want to this dish. Sometimes, I’ll add carrots, or chopped tomatoes, or asparagus. I typically try to use what is in season and looks the freshest at the market.
After a few minutes of stirring, I added my ground turkey. I like using ground dark meat because it tastes better and has some more fat. Sometimes though I’ll use lamb, chicken thighs, ground beef, or bison. To season, I added a good pinch of salt, a grind of pepper, and a tablespoon of coconut aminos.
Coco-whats-ohs?? Think of these as magic seasoning liquid. Coconut aminos lend some funkiness and depth of flavor, or umami similar to fish sauce or Worcestershire (which you could use here as a substitute) but are soy-free, gluten-free, and vegan. You can pick up a bottle of the stuff at Whole Foods for about 5 bucks, and it’ll last you a while.
When the turkey was cooked through, I tasted for seasoning and opted to add a pinch of my grandmother’s Turkish spice mix she makes in the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul. It’s a combination of a million things, but the main notes are cumin, hot pepper, and oregano. Another favorite addition is taco seasoning – I have my own mix, although in a pinch the Trader Joe’s taco seasoning works well here.
Finally, after giving it a few more minutes to let the flavors meld, I turned off the heat and added several big handfuls of baby spinach. Sometimes when I make this I use kale, or swiss chard, but baby spinach is my favorite.
Let the spinach wilt down, and voila!
The great thing about this dish is that it’s easy to make, keeps for a couple of days, and is really flexible. Leftovers work great for breakfast (topped with an egg), or for lunch in your lunchbox.
I could eat a variation of this every day without getting bored.
