Sometimes, Simple Is Best

Freestyle Weekends #4

I tried to get all fancy last night with short rib sandwiches. The dish turned out good—you really can’t go wrong with beef and bones simmered all day in red wine, and, admittedly, a list of ingredients the length of my forearm—but the star of the dinner was the roasted butternut squash.

And all I needed was squash, olive oil, salt and pepper, and, on a tip from my friend Bethany, a drizzle of honey.

The squash was soft and sweet, and the caramelized bits, which I greedily pried from the pan, were smoky and crunchy. Delicious.

Roasted Butternut Squash

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

1-2 teaspoons honey

Preheat the oven to 425˚. Toss the squash, olive oil and salt and pepper on a large, rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with honey and toss again. Spread in a single layer. Roast until squash is soft, about 25 minutes. Turn once.

A Dessert to Die(t) For

Freestyle Weekends #3

My husband and I have accepted a weight-loss challenge from our employer. The target: lose 20 pounds in 11 weeks. The reward: a $20 gift card to Kohl’s.

It’s $20. It’s Kohl’s. I’m in.

This does not mean I’m dieting. I have never dieted and I don’t intend to start now.  People on diets don’t eat pear-cranberry turnovers, something I just ate yesterday. Freestyle Foodie is not going to turn into a diet blog. A diet is something you do so that you can fit into that sleek black dress you bought on a ridiculous sale. Or so that you can get into that cute bathing suit. Or so that you can slim down for an anniversary trip with your husband. It’s a crash course in weight-loss. A diet implies something temporary, something short-term, something New Year’s Resolution-ish. I don’t diet. I also don’t make New Year’s Resolutions.

What I do is try to follow some simple eating rules I made up for myself a few years ago when I noticed that my metabolism, up to that point always in overdrive, was slowing down. My body was developing padding in places it hadn’t had it before, not entirely a bad thing, you understand, given my former Olive Oyl-ish physique. A little padding turned out to be a good thing, but I didn’t want to keep adding it until I looked like Courtney Cox in a fat suit.

Hence the rules. They’re really just for maintenance. I try to be flexible; I’m not a slave to rules. But by and large when I follow them it helps.

Now that I’m past my mid-thirties, though, my metabolism is slowing even more. It’s becoming harder to maintain. This challenge presents the perfect time to set in motion some things I’ve been thinking about for a few months now: losing a few pounds, improving my overall health, and preparing for life in my 40s. With that in mind, here are my eating rules; the first two original, the others added recently:

1. Don’t take seconds.

2. Don’t eat after 7 p.m.

3. Eat more plants.

4. Eat more whole grains.

5. Eat fewer animals.

And that’s it. Not a big fan of rules, except in grammar, I try to keep things simple. And wouldn’t you know that when I opened my January issue of Bon Appetit magazine, there was an article by cookbook author Mark Bittman who started doing almost the exact same thing a few years ago. Lucky for me, he included a few delicious recipes that have helped him with his rules, recipes like the one for Pear-Cranberry Turnovers.

Pears, softer, juicer and more mellow than apples, are probably my favorite fruit. They’re best in the winter, too. So here I saw an opportunity to eat more plants. I used red pears in this recipe, my favorite.

Turnovers, heavy on fruit and light on pastry, are a win-win dessert, even for someone in a weight-loss challenge. Even though you use butter, there’s less fat in each turnover than in a piece of pie or frosted cake or a bowl of ice cream. The pear juice and sugar make a delightful syrup, and there’s really nothing better than the crisp layers of phyllo pastry. Add to that the occasional tart bite from the cranberries, and round out the flavors with citrus zest, (I used orange because I had no lemon in the house), and you have a perfect dessert.

I definitely recommend the parchment paper; the turnovers will ooze a little juice and the parchment paper will save you some scrubbing time.

I think I need to accept a challenge to eat more pear-cranberry turnovers.

Pear-Cranberry Turnovers

1 ½ pounds ripe Bosc pears (about 3), peeled, quartered, cored, diced

½ cup dried cranberries

¼ cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel

16 17x12-inch sheets fresh or frozen whole wheat phyllo pastry or regular phyllo pastry (thawed if frozen)

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375˚. Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment. Combine pears, cranberries, ¼ cup sugar, cornstarch, and lemon peel in large bowl; toss to coat.

Stack phyllo sheets on work surface; cover with plastic wrap, then damp kitchen towel. Place 1 phyllo sheet on work surface. Brush with some of melted butter. Top with second sheet; brush with butter. Fold phyllo in half lengthwise, forming 17-inch-long strip. Place scant ½ cup pear mixture on phyllo strip, about 2 inches in from 1 short side and in center. Fold 1 corner of strip over pear mixture, then fold phyllo back and forth (like a flag), enclosing filling. Brsh top with butter after each fold until entire strip is folded, forming triangle.

Transfer turnover, seam side down, to 1 baking sheet. Brush top with butter. Repeat with remaining phyllo, butter, and pear mixture. Place 4 turnovers on each sheet.

Bake turnovers until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Transfer to plates. Sift powdered sugar lightly over turnovers; serve warm or at room temperature.

Jam!

Speaking of Christmas and foodie gifts, here's another one I received. This came from the kitchen of my friend Jen.

Isn't that light from my front window great? That, and the jellies are so beautiful I had to show them to you. They came with names like Jen's Backyard Red Grape Jelly, Wisconsin Rhubarb Strawberry Jam, 1st Batch Pepper Jelly--HOT, Orange Jelly, Blueberry Jam, and Hot Peach. There was a jar of apple butter and another of mint jelly, plus a few others. Though we wanted to try them all right away, sensibility prevailed and we opened only the Blueberry Jam. It's mostly gone now.

I got salt for Christmas. I kid you not. But don't feel sorry for me, I asked for it.

On Christmas morning, I opened up several foodie gifts from my lovely family: an apron embellished by my daughter, a book by Michael Pollan, an electric griddle (makes good pancakes!), a gift card to Whole Foods, and a box filled with salts. The apron touched me most deeply, but the salts were my favorite.

Yes, I said salts. Plural.

Check these out.

Hiwa Kai, or Black Hawaiian sea salt. Activated charcoal gives it
its color and minerals. I finally got coal for Christmas!

Smoked sea salt. The best varieties are flavored with natural wood smoke,
 not liquid smoke flavoring.A bit saltier than kosher salt with a strong smoke aroma
and slight smoke flavor. Can't wait to try this on chicken.

Sel gris. Quite salty, slight mineral taste. The minerals come from the clay lining the
salt ponds along France's coast where this is harvested.

Himalayan sea salt. Is often sold in a coarse grain, where its pink color is truly pronounced.
This fine-grained version is only slightly pink, with dots of red throughout. Has a pure
salty flavor and a fairly high mineral content. Good for use at the table.

Alaea Sea Salt (Red Hawaiian). Volcanic red clay is added to the salt to give it its color
and a boost of iron oxide. A good table salt. Clean flavor.

I like to use sea salt instead of regular ol' table salt. Most of the table salt available in the grocery store is mined from rock. After mining, it is refined so that all the minerals are removed and what's left is pure sodium chloride. Sea salt, on the other hand, is minimally processed and retains trace minerals. In addition, sometimes table salt doesn't taste very salty; therefore, it's easy to shake on a little more, thus increasing sodium intake, never a good thing. But sea salt is often quite a bit saltier than table salt; less salt is required for the same flavor. On top of all that, table salts are sprayed with an artificial iodine solution as part of the refining process, while iodine, necessary in the diet for healthy thyroid function, occurs naturally in sea salt.

Best of all, many sea salts come in a coarse variety that doesn't dissolve as easily as table salt. I like to see the grains of salt on my food and I especially like to crunch them.

This Is What You Should Do with Fresh Cranberries

Freestyle Weekends #2

This Thanksgiving, I tried making my own cranberry sauce. I don’t know what drove me to do that, having been perfectly happy with canned cranberry sauce for decades now, but I would like to blame the produce manager for stacking bags of brilliant berries on the right-of-way leading to the oranges, where I couldn’t have missed them if I had wanted to. As a person given to shopping with my eyes, I found it futile to resist, even though I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do with them.

I brought home the cranberries with some vague notions of tinkering with Thanksgiving tradition. Being married to a history professor who thrives on tradition, I should have murdered that thought as soon as it rose up. I am, alas, a person given to bucking tradition.

I do wish I had remembered one thought: You really can’t lose with canned cranberry sauce. Think about it. It always has that perfect sweet and tart taste, it always emerges from the can with the same irrepressible color, not to mention the unmistakable sucking sound as its gelled sides lose contact with the sides of the can, and its consistency is always—well—consistent.

That’s the thing about cranberry sauce from a can—you know what you’re getting. And unlike cranberry sauce recipes, you get the same thing every time.

I’m sure you can see what’s coming—I did not like this new-fangled cranberry sauce cooked on the stovetop, made with sugar and shallots and orange juice and actual real cranberries that popped as they got hot. I think the problem was the shallots. I’m pretty sure cranberry sauce is not supposed to taste like onion. I suppose I could try it again, leaving out the offending ingredient, but why bother? It’s much easier—not to mention traditional—to open a can.

(Canned cranberry sauce will make my family happy, too, for though they are much too polite to say so, I got the distinct feeling that none of them liked the recipe either.)

Making the recipe left me with something of a dilemma, however, a dilemma in the form of half a bag of unused cranberries. Since I have now sworn off homemade cranberry sauce, what to do with the rest of the bag?

Fortunately, I have in my Freestyle Weekends folder a recipe I’ve been holding onto for quite some time now, at least as long as I’ve been eating canned cranberry sauce. It is called, appropriately enough, “Cranberry Muffins” and lists, as its first ingredient, 1 cup fresh cranberries, quartered.

Half a bag of cranberries, in case you’re wondering, comes out to about 1 cup.

I clipped this recipe years ago from a Taste of Home magazine. The only thing I changed was to substitute lemon peel for orange. Their website calls the recipe “quick,” a designation I disagree with only because it took me a little while to quarter the cranberries. Not a lot of time, of course, but a lot longer than scooping the equivalent amount of dried cranberries from a bag.

The extra time, and stained fingertips, were worth it, however, for the muffins emerged from the oven splotched with brilliant color, not to be outdone by sweet-tartness and moist texture.

This recipe is a keeper, and now I need not fear walking the cranberry gauntlet on my way toward the oranges. I can even smile at the produce manager as I sling a bag of cranberries into my cart. Of course, since I need only half a bag for the muffin recipe, that gives me some leftovers to play with. Maybe I could try that sauce again, this time without the shallots.

Cranberry Muffins

1 cup fresh cranberries, quartered

8 tablespoons sugar, divided

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon grated orange peel

cinnamon-sugar

Preheat oven to 400˚. Lightly grease 12 standard muffin cups.

Sprinkle the cranberries with 2 tablespoons of sugar and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and remaining sugar. In a small bowl, beat the egg, milk, and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in cranberries and orange peel. Fill muffin cups two-thirds full. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until muffins test done. Cool for 10 minutes, if you can wait that long. Consume rapidly while warm.

Winter Supper

Freestyle Weekends #1

Picture this: The first snow of the season covers the ground. It’s evening, dark outside already, but inside the glow of kerosene lamps lights the table around which you and your family gather for a supper of apples, hot buttered popcorn, little pickles, hot cocoa, and cake doughnuts.

Homemade doughnuts, of course.

This tradition is “First Snow Supper,” and it comes to me via the New Hampshire home of my friend Bekki, whom you met a few weeks ago. She sent me this recipe and some Green Mountain coffee to try to save us from the evil clutches of Starbucks. We haven’t tried the coffee yet, but the doughnuts, which we made on a sleepy Saturday morning, sans snow, certainly passed muster.

The dough is very soft, so don’t skip the refrigeration step. I chilled mine overnight and it was still soft in the morning, but rollable.

A word on the potatoes. Russets make the best mashed potatoes. Bekki also uses sweet potatoes in this recipe, so feel free to try those. Whatever potatoes you use, mash them really well. If you leave them lumpy, it won’t matter too much for taste of the doughnuts, as long as the potatoes are cooked through, but aesthetically-speaking, lumps in the middle of a doughnut do not make a pleasing picture. Ask me how I know this.

After the doughnuts emerge from the fryer, drain them briefly and give them a little shimmy in sugar. And then bite into one, still warm, and discover a texture so light you can barely feel it even as you taste its spices and its sweetness.

Kind of makes even a thin-blooded Floridian wish for snow. Not that I’m waiting for it to try these again.

Wicked Good Doughnuts

(makes about 2 ½ dozen)

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 cups cold mashed potatoes (mashed with milk and butter)

¾ cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

4 ½ cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ginger

oil for deep-fat frying

additional sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs and the sugar. Add the potatoes, buttermilk, butter, and vanilla; mix well.

In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger; add to the egg mixture and mix well. Cover and refrigerate 1 – 2 hours.

Heat oil to 375 ˚On a floured surface, roll the dough to ½” thickness. Cut with a 2 ½” doughnut cutter. (Or, if you’re like me, with two glasses—one big-mouthed and one small-mouthed.) Fry the doughnuts, a few at a time, for about 2 minutes on each side, or until browned. Fry the doughnut holes, too, for about a minute on each side. Drain on paper towels layered over brown paper grocery bags. Roll in sugar, if desired.

Kissing Is for the Kitchen

My friend Bekki has been an inspiration to me on a number of household fronts, including cooking. We like to trade tips and questions on Facebook. I told her about chipotle and she reminded me that toast is greater than world domination. A couple weeks ago I asked her to write something for you. You can believe everything she says here, except the part about my being a gourmet cook. I prefer the term “junior foodie-in-training.”

Please leave her lots of comments telling her how wonderfully humorous her writing is and how much you enjoyed the soup (you are planning to make it, aren’t you?); maybe the pressure will finally catapult her to start her own blog. (Please, Bekki? Please!)

 “Kiss the Cook” Chicken Soup

Hi, I'm Bekki, Rachel's friend from New Hampshire. Rachel has been teasing me to start a cooking blog for almost a year (not going to happen) and then sweetly requested a guest post for her blog last week. Mmmmhmmmm. Guest post for a gourmet cook/English professor. No pressure there.

Rachel's writing and cooking appear effortlessly graceful. I'm quite sure she's never had to fish the box out of the trash because she forgot how long the cake had to bake. After 27 hours of paper grading I envision her whipping up a pot of homemade sauce and hand-rolled tortellini while Kevin entertains her with his witty banter, not scrounging through her couch cushions to find enough change for the Dollar Menu at McD's.

And her writing? Wow, just wow. How does she make you feel like you're standing in her kitchen chatting with her while she cooks? Every time I try to write I end up channeling Martha Stewart or Mr. Rogers. Understandably, I'm nervous. But I love Rachel, and if she wants a guest post, I'll give it a whirl.

I also have a very different cooking style from Rachel. I don't own a T.V., so I missed that inspiring Iron Chef episode featuring gilded badger spleens on couscous. (Can I use so as a conjunction? See what I mean? This is stress with a capital “S”. Or is it capitol “S”? Maybe that question mark is supposed to be inside the quotation marks. I need coffee...)

I don't subscribe to any cooking magazines or have a besplattered copy of The French Laundry on my cookbook shelf. Eighteen years ago when I first married, I realized that even a hamburger was outside my skill set and started collecting recipes. Then I began noticing that technique made a lot more difference than whether or not I used Herbs de Provence or celery salt. Now I know whether I want to sear, saute, or braise the meat, and how to put together a colorful, tasty salad in the middle of February without breaking the budget. My passion is Bistro cuisine: I like to riff on simple classic menus using fresh local ingredients.

During the fall and winter I make soup once a week. Even my kids love soup. Of course, that could be because I always serve a dessert on soup night, but I prefer to think they actually enjoy the soup. My first soups weren't particularly memorable. Meat has a tendency to assume the flavor and texture of three-day-old bubblegum when it's been simmering for hours. Rice, noodles, and potatoes dissolve into a gelatinous mass, and vegetables become mushy. I was quite disappointed to discover this after all the stories I had read portraying the homey pot of soup bubbling away over the fire.

As it turns out, soups are much tastier when you prepare the ingredients to maximize their individual flavors and then combine everything just long enough to meld those flavors at the end of the process. I suppose it would spoil the fairy tales to stop and dismember whoever is ending up in the soup pot so you could roast the meaty bits and use the skin and bones to create a kickin' broth, though. (Maybe that should be “whomever”? And I still don't remember where that pesky question mark belongs. Time for a chocolate break...)

Without further ado, I present the speedy version of the Page family's favorite chicken soup. The idea for using a pre-roasted chicken and enriching a commercial broth is from Pamela Anderson (no, not that one!). If you, like me, prefer to start with a whole raw chicken, go to the library, check out a copy of The Perfect Recipe (also by Pamela Anderson), and flip to page 19. Unless you taste the two recipes side-by-side, however, you probably won't be able to tell the difference.

 “Kiss the Cook* Chicken Soup”

3 quarts water

3 Tbsp Chicken base. If you don't have or can't find base, replace 2 quarts of the water with a quality boxed chicken stock.

1 fully cooked rotisserie chicken. Beware of weird flavors like lemon pepper or Bubba's BBQ that will ruin the soup.

2-3 Tbsp. vegetable oil, just enough to coat the bottom of your soup pot.

1 large onion, finely diced so it will fly under the kid radar

2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4” x 1” sticks

1 large stalk celery, halved and sliced fairly thin

2-5 cloves garlic, depending on how important kisses are to you

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley, or 2 Tbsp dry

Bay leaf

1 teaspoon dried ground marjoram. Marjoram is a sweeter, more delicate version of the flavors in oregano. A favorite in Europe, it blends well with other French spices like parsley and thyme.

2 tsp lemon juice from a contented lemon grown on a south-facing slope in Spain or a bottle of ReaLemon, whichever you happen to have on hand.

¼ tsp white pepper

Dash of cayenne pepper

3-4 cups cold cooked brown rice or barley. If a starch is refrigerated after being cooked it chemically changes so that it will not absorb much more liquid. The soup will taste better if the rice/barley was originally prepared in chicken broth.

2 cups fresh baby spinach or chard leaves torn into bite-sized pieces, optional

Bring water and base to a simmer over medium-high heat in a large soup kettle. While the water comes to a boil, pick the meat off the chicken and put it aside. Pop the bones and skin into the simmering water. Reduce heat to low, partially cover, and simmer 20 to 30 minutes until flavorful.

Strain, reserving broth, and discard the skin and bones. Return the empty kettle to a burner set on medium-high.

Add oil, heating it until shimmering, then onions, carrots and celery. Saute until soft, stirring occasionally, about 6-8 minutes. Add garlic and parsley and cook just until they release their aroma. Do not allow to brown. Add chicken and broth and bring to a simmer.

Add bay leaf, marjoram, lemon juice, white pepper, red pepper, rice, and spinach/chard. Return soup to a simmer until spinach/chard is fully cooked, about 3 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and seasonings if necessary. Serve immediately with a great crusty French bread. The person you love the most always gets the poisonous bay leaf or a stray bone to choke on. (Oh dear. I just ended a sentence with a preposition. I think I'd better call it quits!)

*We have a tradition in our home that if dinner is so fantastically delicious that it all gets devoured, the cook gets a kiss. Unless, of course, you simply didn't make enough. Then you get kicked instead.

Toast to Summer

I have recently had a revelation about toast. Specifically about garlic toast.

Toast is not one of those things you need a recipe for, though I'm going to give you one anyway. Whether it’s the perfect triangle of white bread toast from the local Waffle House (a particular favorite of mine), or a more sturdy piece of whole grain bread emerging golden brown and delicious from the toaster, or a browned circle of English muffin with its trademark nooks and crannies puddled with butter, toast is a pretty straightforward treat. Furthermore, it’s true, as a friend has told me, that “toast is one of the few things nicer than world domination.” It’s just as satisfying, but you don’t have to work nearly as hard to get it.

One of the most crunchy and flavorful versions of toast known to man is a delightful thing called bruschetta.

Bruschetta is slices of Italian bread toasted, rubbed with garlic, brushed with olive oil, and topped with whatever the chef desires. On first look, it seems pretty simple, as all toast does. But here’s the thing—with bruschetta, it doesn’t stop at the first look. I’ve seen bruschetta topped with tapenade, with sautéed porcini mushrooms and feta, with stewed fig and mascarpone. I recently watched an Iron Chef America episode on the Food Network during which Iron Chef Michael Symon topped bruschetta with uni. Uni, in case you’re wondering (and there’s a definite ewwwww factor coming, so be warned) is sea urchin gonads. You may not want to eat it, but you will definitely take a second look.

I’m fascinated by different ways of making bruschetta, but the bruschetta I like best to eat features a far more humble ingredient than those already mentioned. My favorite bruschetta features summer’s best ingredient—tomatoes.

When tomato is paired with basil, you can’t go wrong with this bruschetta. What I find most pleasing is the pronounced, but not overpowering, garlic flavor. This method completely tops both ways I used to make garlic toast. In the first way—mixing softened butter with a fair amount of garlic powder before spreading it on the bread—the dehydrated garlic sometimes tasted bitter. In the second way—topping buttered bread with minced garlic—the garlic sometimes burned. But in my new way of making garlic toast—and here’s the revelation—the garlic tastes like garlic and nothing else. It doesn’t taste like bitterness and it doesn’t taste like burnt. So you have garlic, olive oil, tomatoes, basil, and salt. And what could be more satisfying than that? Not even world domination.

Classic Summer Bruschetta

1 1-pound loaf Italian bread, sliced on the bias ½-inch thick

1 whole head of garlic

6 to 8 large basil leaves

about ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

6 medium Roma tomatoes, seeded and roughly chopped

kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 375˚. Cut the garlic head in half along the equator, leaving the cloves intact. Set aside. Stack the basil leaves; starting with a long end, roll them up and then cut the roll into ribbons. Set aside.

Lay the bread slices in a single layer on a baking sheet. When the oven is hot, toast the bread for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once and watching that it doesn’t burn. (You can also grill the bread; it won’t take nearly as long.) Immediately after removing the pan of bread from the oven, begin rubbing the cut side of the garlic onto each slice. I have found it easier to hold the bread in a mitted hand rather than rubbing it while flat on the pan. Ignore the little bits of garlic paper that might flake off, or, if you’re persnickety, pick them off with tweezers.

After all the bread has been rubbed, brush each piece with the olive oil. Top with tomatoes, basil ribbons and a sprinkle of salt.

A New Kind of Coffee Cake

You know summer has come to Florida when it’s time to pick blueberries. In northern states, blueberries may signal that summer will soon wind down, but here we kick off summer with them. The other day, looking about for a new way to use them, I remembered a recipe I read about quite a while back, Blueberry Boy-Bait.

You have to sit up and pay attention when you read a title like that. I do, at least. Even though I have a man and a boy (husband and son) who will come slobbering no matter what I bake, it’s nice to know there’s a fail-safe treat to beguile even the most sports- or action-figure-absorbed male around. The recipe was created by a teenager in Philadelphia in 1954 and entered into the Pillsbury $100,000 Recipe and Baking Contest, where it won second place in the junior division.

The first time I came across this recipe was in Nigella Lawson’s delightful book How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Nigella gives the same history of the recipe as I have given, and then proceeds to re-invent it. Her version features a crumb-thickened custard base, a gooey fruit layer, and a meringue topping.

But the original recipe, which I found in The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook, 2001-2010 and which is the source for the recipe repeated here, was more what I was looking for at the time, a moist coffee cake studded with blueberries and sprinkled with the simplest of cinnamon-sugar toppings.

Blueberry boy-bait indeed. Maybe I’ll just have a second piece myself.

Blueberry Boy Bait
2 cups (10 ounces) plus 1 teaspoon unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup packed (5 ¼ ounces) light brown sugar
½ cup (3 ½ ounces) granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
½ cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (unthawed if frozen)
Topping:
½ cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (unthawed if frozen)
¼ cup (1 ¾ ounces) granulated sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the cake: Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 13 by 9-inch pan.

Whisk together 2 cups of the flour, the baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated. Reduce the speed to medium and beat in one-third of the flour mixture until incorporated; beat in ½ cup of the milk. Beat in half of the remaining flour mixture, then the remaining ½ cup milk, and finally the remaining flour mixture. Toss the blueberries in a small bowl with the remaining 1 teaspoon flour. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the blueberries. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

For the topping: Scatter the blueberries over the top of the batter. Stir the sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl and sprinkle over the batter. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then turn out and place on a serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (The cake can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.)

Summer Is Made for Salad

My typical church picnic or potluck dish is potato salad because it’s do-ahead-able, cheap in large quantity, and almost universally liked. Plus it goes well with grilled hamburgers and hotdogs or with Sunday ham, typical picnic and potluck dishes. But the heat of Florida in June had me contemplating some other sort of side dish for the past weekend’s church picnic. Something cool, yes, but something not heavy with mayonnaise. Paging through Everyday Pasta by Giada De Laurentiis, I found a recipe for saffron orzo.

Orzo is a curious ingredient because it looks just like rice, but it isn’t. This dish fooled just about everyone going through the buffet line. I know this because I hung out while people were serving themselves, to see what they might say about this salad. “What is that?” I heard a few times. “I think it’s rice,” came the response. I had fun pretending ignorance for a while, but then I revealed the truth. Orzo is pasta.

Like rice and small pasta shapes such as ditaline, cavatelli, and orecchiette, it’s very good in soup. But this is summertime, and I already foisted one soup dish on you, so on to the salad.

Giada’s recipe is a meal unto itself, with sautéed shrimp tossed in at the last minute. It’s also an expensive dish, requiring a teaspoon of saffron threads. (In my grocery store, saffron sells for about $13 a teaspoon.) I didn’t need anything so over-the-top as that. Without the shrimp, and with a less expensive substitution for saffron, this orzo salad, light and refreshing with olive oil, parsley and lemon, is my new go-to potluck dish.

Fooled-You Pasta Salad

Saffron is the dried stigma of a kind of crocus and is prized for both the color it imparts to dishes and for its distinctive bitter flavor. Tumeric comes from a rhizome in the ginger family and has abundant anti-oxidant properties; it is also slightly bitter and gives food a similar yellow color.

4 cups chicken broth or stock
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 pound orzo
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons salt
freshly ground black pepper

Bring the chicken broth to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat so that the broth is simmering and add the tumeric. Simmer for about 5 minutes, giving the tumeric time to infuse the liquid. Return the broth to a boil and then pour in the pasta. Boil pasta until al dente, or about 8 to 10 minutes. Watch the heat carefully and stir frequently; you’re using just enough liquid and there may not be any to drain off.

When the pasta is cooked, drain any excess liquid. Turn the pasta out into a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Stir well. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Is There Any Food Word Sillier than “Kumquat”?

If you didn’t know what a kumquat is, you might not be able to guess its nature from its name. Say the word a few times—“kumquat.” It’s a bit of a tongue twister; try to say it five times fast. Or say it slowly. I can draw out the first syllable pretty easily, but somehow the final syllable clips itself off in my mouth. It’s not a very attractive word, is it? Not like orange, or lemon, or even citron. All the graceful words got taken first.

It’s too bad, too, because a kumquat is actually a very beautiful thing. Picture a citrus fruit the size and shape of a robin’s egg, with the brilliant color of an orange. That’s a kumquat.

You can eat it by itself; you just pop the whole thing in your mouth, rind and all, and work out the seeds with your teeth and tongue, kind of like working out watermelon seeds. Or, you can eat it slice by thin slice, which is what I like to do. The juice is very tart, but the rind is very sweet, so a thin little kumquat coin has a shocking contrast of flavors. Be prepared to pucker and smile.

Because they’re so small, kumquats in my grocery store are sold by the pint and stacked with all the berries. But because they’re so orange, they caught my eye one day last week, and the berries didn’t have a chance. I took a pint home and immediately thought “citrus chicken.” The sweet tartness of the kumquats is balanced by a touch of brown sugar and a kick from serrano chiles. Serranos are pretty hot, so try the dish with one and add more if you like more heat. I served the chicken over polenta, but you could just as easily cook pasta, rice or couscous, making this a fast dish that’s perfect for some night in the middle of the week. And there’s nothing silly about that.

Chicken with Kumquat Pan Sauce

2 tablespoons canola oil, plus more if needed
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, pounded ½ inch thick, patted dry, and seasoned with salt and pepper
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
2 serrano chiles, diced small (more or less to taste)
1 inner stalk celery, with leaves, diced small with leaves chopped
½ cup white wine (preferably with citrus notes) or orange juice or chicken broth
juice of 1 lime
½ pint kumquats, thinly sliced, seeds removed
1 tablespoon brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1-2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Cook the chicken about 5 minutes, or until just cooked through, turning once. Remove to a plate and keep warm. Reduce the heat to medium. Add a bit more oil to the pan, if needed, to make about a tablespoon and a half. Add the shallot, chiles and celery to the hot oil and cook until softened, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Deglaze the pan with the wine, orange juice, or chicken broth and the lime juice; stir in the kumquats and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste. Return the chicken to the pan and spoon the sauce over; cook until the chicken is heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle the parsley on top.

A Welcoming Soup

With temperatures over 100 degrees, it’s definitely summertime in Florida. Which makes it weird that I’m giving you a soup recipe, particularly one bearing hearty winter ingredients such as kale and smoked sausage. But soup is one of those comfort foods you might take to a friend’s house, particularly one you haven’t seen in a while. With soup in hand, you’re always welcome. And I’m hoping you welcome me back to writing.

I’ve been thinking about this soup for a week. I recently read The Gastronomy of Marriage by Michelle Maisto, in which she cooks an excessive number of dishes containing either kale or white beans or both. I have never eaten kale, but have wanted to, and we don’t eat many kidney-type beans around here. But the gusto with which Maisto cooked, ate, and wrote about these ingredients got me thinking. And so I’ve been composing this soup in my mind ever since.

It starts with smoked sausage. Well, no, even before the sausage, this soup starts with tomatoes, a good summertime ingredient. Use them from your garden, if you’re fortunate to have such a thing. Or, if you must procure yours from the supermarket, like I do, ramp up the flavor by roasting them first. The trick to a good roasted tomato is to put the half-sheet pan in the oven while it is pre-heating. When the oiled, salted tomatoes hit the hot pan, the sizzle tells you you’re one step ahead on caramelization. You can roast the tomatoes a day ahead.

So, then, after the tomatoes comes the sausage; slices of it browned on both sides form the flavor base. After that, this soup is pretty straight-forward: aromatics and veggies are cooked in the sausage fat, a little wine deglazes the pot, and the white bean puree thickens the broth. I kept the seasonings simple—using only rosemary, black pepper and garlic—to keep the flavors clean.

Kale and Sausage Soup with Roasted Tomatoes and White Bean Puree
1 pound Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise, quartered if large, pulp removed
3 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 pound smoked sausage links, cut into ½-inch thick slices
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large zucchini, quartered lengthwise and then sliced
½ teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large bunch kale, ribs removed, leaves roughly chopped
more olive oil, if needed
½ cup white wine, optional
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cans cannellini beans, pureed
more kosher salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 425˚. Put a half-sheet pan or jelly roll pan into the oven while it is heating up. Toss the tomatoes, olive oil and salt in a medium bowl. When the oven is hot, slide the pan out and pour the tomatoes onto it. Enjoy the sizzle. With tongs, turn the tomatoes skin side down. Roast for about 10 minutes, or until the skin is lightly charred in places. Remove the tomatoes and then roughly chop them when they are cool enough to handle. Set them aside.

In a Dutch oven, brown the sausage slices on both sides over medium-high heat in batches, removing to a paper towel to drain. Reduce heat to medium-low. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat. Add the chopped onions to the hot fat and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are beginning to become translucent, but not browned. Increase heat to medium and add the zucchini, rosemary, and black pepper. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring a time or two. Add the garlic and cook about 30 seconds. Add half of the kale and stir as the kale on the bottom starts to wilt. When all has more or less wilted a bit, add in the rest of the kale. If it looks a little dry, add more olive oil. When the kale is wilted, but still bright green, deglaze the pan with the wine, if using. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the wine is reduced; then pour in the chicken stock and bean puree. Bring the soup to a low boil; reduce the heat and simmer about 15 minutes. Add the roasted tomatoes and browned sausage to the pot and simmer another 15 minutes.

If you have it, you can toss a bit of the rind of Parmigiano-Reggiano into the pot as the soup simmers. Your friends will thank you and will probably welcome you back, no matter how long you’ve been gone, and no matter how hot it is outside.

Be My Valentine

My husband and I have a grand Valentine’s Day tradition that sprang up a few years ago in response to overcrowded restaurants and jacked-up menu prices on the big day of love. We cook at home. Together. We plan the menu, shop for the ingredients and heat up the kitchen, just the two of us. We’ve cooked rib-eyes and Cornish hens weighed down with a foil-wrapped brick. We had our first risotto on Valentine’s Day. Once we did potato nests with shrimp. We’ve made crab cakes. We try out extravagant desserts like Molten Chocolate Cake and Mocha Ricotta Cream.

Coming up with this year’s menu went something like this:

Me: “What do you want to cook for Valentine’s Day this year?”
Him: “Pork chops.”
Me: “That sounds good. How should we fix them?”
Him: “Let’s stuff them with something. How about crab meat?”
Me: “Mmmm. What else should we have?”
Him: “Potatoes au gratin, grilled asparagus, and chocolate bread pudding.”
Me: “Done, done, and done.”

And now my secret is out. I am useless coming up with ideas. I like to think I can, however, execute to perfection.

These pork chops, for instance, are succulent and juicy. The crab meat with its sautéed aromatics adds a nice touch of the sea, and the port reduction sends them over the top. Feel free to use jumbo lump crab if you have extra money to blow; I found the claw meat, at a third the price per pound, more than satisfactory.

Crab-Stuffed Pork Chops with Port Reduction for Two
2 1½- to 2-inch-thick bone-in pork chops
brining solution made from ¼ cup kosher salt dissolved in 2 cups of water
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup finely diced celery
2 tablespoons grated onion
1 clove garlic, minced
4 ounces crab meat
2 tablespoons beaten egg
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1 teaspoon kosher salt
freshly-ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon butter
additional kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper
1 shallot, diced
¾ cup port
¾ cup low-sodium beef broth

Place the pork chops in the brining solution. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Remove and dry thoroughly. Discard brine.

Preheat oven to 325˚.

Pick over the crab meat, removing any bits of shell. Place the crab meat in a medium bowl.

Melt the butter over medium heat in a small heavy skillet. As soon as the foaming subsides, add the celery, onion and garlic and sauté until softened, but not browned.

Add the sautéed vegetables, egg, mustard, salt, pepper and cilantro to the bowl of crab meat. Stir gently but thoroughly and set aside.

Cut a pocket in each chop about 2 inches wide and deep starting from the side opposite the bone. Do not cut all the way to the bone. Lightly stuff 2 to 3 tablespoons of the crab mixture into each pocket, reserving 2 heaping tablespoons. Refrigerate remaining crab mixture.

In a large, heavy, oven-proof skillet, heat the canola oil and butter over medium heat until foaming subsides. Season chops with salt and pepper. Cook chops on one side until browned, about 2 minutes. Turn carefully so that crab stuffing does not fall out.

Insert a meat thermometer into one chop, preferably into a portion of the chop that has not been cut, and not touching the bone. Transfer the skillet to the oven and cook until the thermometer registers 155˚, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove chops from skillet and place on a warm platter. Cover with aluminum foil and let rest until temperature reaches 160˚, about 10 minutes.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the skillet. Heat skillet over medium heat until fat is hot. Cook reserved crab mixture until it is heated through. Transfer to a small bowl.

In the same skillet, cook the diced shallot until tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Pour in the port and bring to a boil, stirring and scraping the browned bits from the bottom, until port is reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Pour in beef broth and bring to a boil. Cook until liquid is reduced by half, stirring occasionally.

To serve, plate each chop and mound a heaping tablespoon of hot crab mixture on top. Spoon a bit of the sauce over and around the chop.

The chocolate bread pudding was truly a delight, and comes to you courtesy of The Gourmet Cookbook. I left the crust on the bread and was very happy with the result—a pudding that was chewy in spots and soft in others. Using Ghiradelli 86% chocolate in place of the lower quality unsweetened chocolate available in my grocery store gave me a custard that was rich and balanced. The accompanying cherry sauce is our own invention, inspired as we were standing in the grocery store aisles.

Chocolate Bread Pudding
from The Gourmet Cookbook
4 cups cubed (3/4-inch) day-old Italian bread
½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
Accompaniment: whipped cream

Toss bread with butter in a large bowl.

Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring milk and cream to a simmer in a 2-quart heavy saucepan and pour over chocolate. Let stand for 2 minutes, then whisk until smooth. Add eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt and whisk until well combined. Pour custard over bread. Cover pudding loosely with plastic wrap, then place a smaller bowl or plate on top and weight with a heavy can. Let pudding stand for 1 hour so bread absorbs custard.

Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350 F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan.

Transfer pudding to pan. Bake until just set but center still trembles slightly, 40 to 45 minutes; do not overbake (custard will continue to set as it cools). Serve warm or at room temperature, with whipped cream [and cherry sauce; recipe below].

Sweet Cherry Sauce
12 ounces frozen dark sweet cherries, thawed
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon honey
1/8 teaspoon chipotle powder

Puree all ingredients in a blender. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve.

If You’re Snowed In, This One’s for You

Chili is one of those dishes. You know the kind I’m talking about. Chili is the thing you crave when it’s been snowing, and it’s cold, and the wind knifes through your coat on your way home from work or the store. It’s the dish you make on a cold, dreary Saturday with everyone trapped in the house because it’s cloudy and freezing and precipitous outside. On a day like that, you need a big pot of chili. You make it, and it’s delicious. It’s so good you eat some more the next day. It’s even better. On the third day, tired from work, you have another bowlful. By the fourth day, you’re royally sick of chili and want something like fried chicken. You put away the big chili pot and swear you’ll never crave it again.

But along comes another cold front, another snowstorm, God forbid another blizzard, and you start to long for the warmth of a big bowl of chili. That’s the kind of dish chili is.

When that urge strikes, this is the chili you want. It has big chunks of beef, not the ground stuff that disappears underneath the kidney beans. Mind you, this chili has kidney beans, and tomatoes, and all the flavors you look for in chili, plus a few surprises. One of those surprises is chicken. I love how the smokiness of the chipotle infuses the chicken. The chipotle is another surprise. Here I use it in two ways—chopped in its adobo sauce, and powdered. Coriander, cumin, chili powder, and red pepper flakes round out the heat. And don’t be shy about the cinnamon. It’s probably not the most orthodox of ingredients for a savory dish, but this is food we're talking about, not religion, so go ahead and throw it in. It’s the thing that brings all the flavors together.

Sometimes when I cook chili, I add a few handfuls of elbow macaroni at the end of cooking, just to give more body to what is essentially a stew. Feel free to do the same.

All you need to go with this meal is a big spoon. A pan of cornbread wouldn’t hurt, either. For all you folks snowed in, you have my sympathy, and now you have my chili recipe. Hang in there, spring’s coming. Make this chili before it does.

Smoky Beef and Chicken Chili
2 pounds beef for stew
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1- to 2-inch cubes
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons canola oil, plus more as needed
1 large onion, diced
1 large sweet green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 stalk of celery, with leaves, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped chipotle in adobo
3 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved
2 16-ounce cans light red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
about 2 cups beef broth
1 tablespoon chipotle powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons chili powder
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ of a stick of cinnamon
toppings: shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, thinly sliced scallions

Pat the beef and chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat the canola oil in a large heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the beef in batches, then the chicken, and remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Add more oil as necessary. Reduce the heat to medium. Cook the onion, bell pepper, and celery in hot oil until softened, but not browned. Add the garlic and chopped chipotle in adobo and cook another 30 seconds. Stir in the tomatoes and kidney beans and cook until tomatoes start to break apart a little, about 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour the reserved tomato juice into a measuring cup and add beef broth to equal 3 cups. Pour the liquid over the vegetables and beans in the pot. Add the chipotle powder, cumin, ground coriander, chili powder, red pepper flakes, and dried thyme. Stir well to combine. Drop in ½ stick of cinnamon. Return beef and chicken to the pot, along with any juices accumulated in the bowl. Bring just to a boil, cover, reduce the heat, and simmer 2 to 3 hours, or until the beef is tender, stirring occasionally. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.

Serve with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and a few sliced scallions scattered on top.

Tinkering with Tools and Toys

Let’s talk about kitchen utensils. I took a shopping trip recently to spend a hardware store gift card that I’d been given for Christmas. Of course I spent the whole thing on gadgets.

You’ve probably got your favorite gadget you couldn’t do without, and you’ve probably got something in a kitchen drawer or cabinet that you haven’t used in years. I do, too. Funny thing is, the chances are pretty good that what I can’t do without you’d consider junk. But the reverse is likely true, as well.

So the beauty of a gadget is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Or in the hand of the user. Or on the user’s countertop. Here are some gadgets I consider very beautiful.

Like these cutting boards, for example. Now that I have enough to have separate surfaces for slicing apples and chopping onions, our apple crisp will not also have a faint flavor of raw onion.

This knife sharpener is pretty handy, too. I’m not sure how I’ve survived so long without it. I have a very nice set of Victorinox Fibrox knives which my husband gave me a Christmas or two ago (the best knives I’ve ever used), and though I’ve been using a steel and a cutlery stone, nothing honed these knives like the Wüsthof sharpener.

One of the things I’m most excited about is my new utensil crock. An admission here: I’ve never been a big fan of countertop utensil crocks. To me they seemed more decorative than useful and in a kitchen like mine, where every square and cubic inch is allotted, I never thought I could have much space for decoration. But after destroying one large whisk by cramming it into a drawer with other assorted utensils, I realized I needed to store my new one up and out of harm’s way.

Decorative, yes. But since it sits right near both stove and cutting board, it’s useful, too.

Finally, check out this little bit of tin.

I am so tickled by this doodad designed to keep butcher’s twine clean and unsnarled. I don’t use kitchen string all that much, but I never seem to have any left when I do need it. And for some things, there just are no substitutions. Believe me. I’ve tried paper-coated wire ties and they make a lousy stand-in for twine. Armed with a clean supply standing by, however, I might just tackle something ambitious like boned and stuffed duck. All I need now is a trussing needle.

A big thank you goes to my husband and my mother-in-law who provided the ways and means for the shopping excursion. I can’t leave out my children who lent their uncanny buying advice and were sorely disappointed that I didn’t get the apron that said “One Hot Mama.”

All You Need Is Love . . . and Sauce

Quick; who said, “Hunger is the best sauce”?

If you guessed “Shakespeare,” you would be in the company of most people. He, along with King Solomon and the Apostle Paul, with honorable mention going to Ben Franklin, is the go-to guy for quotations.

But in this case, you would be wrong, at least according to WorldofQuotes.com. It was actually Cervantes who wrote, in Don Quixote, “Hunger is the best sauce in the world.” Honorable mention must go to Socrates, who, according to Cicero, said that "the best seasoning for food is hunger; for drink, thirst."

I tested this saying recently with a recipe from one of my favorite books, Everyday Pasta, by Giada De Laurentiis. You have to wonder about a lot of cookbooks or sections of cookbooks labeled “Everyday.” Are these recipes really suited for using every day? On one of my typical days, if I’m not working until closing, I get off at 6:00 and come home to feed my family, the hungriest member of which is usually me. Would Giada’s recipes stand up to that kind of day?

I decided to find out by cooking “Chicken in Lemon Cream with Penne.” Chunks of skinless, boneless chicken breast are first seasoned and then browned. A pan sauce is constructed from the fond, some chicken broth, heavy cream, lemon juice and zest, cayenne, and parsley. Then all is tossed together with penne. That’s it. Couldn’t be simpler.

When I first made the dish, I cooked some broccoli on the side and then, on a whim, tossed it in with the chicken and pasta, too.

Truth be told, it didn’t look like much, not really, despite Giada’s calling its presentation “elegant,” but it turned out to be a really delicious dish. The chicken was tender and had that yummy brown crust in patches. But the sauce, the best part, was rich with chicken flavor and a burst of lemon, with a kick of heat at the end. That night, I bolted my food, murmuring all the while, “This is good; this is really good. Mmm. So good.” And to my husband, “Don’t you think this is good?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s good. Uh-huh,” he replied.

I thought about that later. While we both liked the dish, we obviously experienced differing degrees of enjoyment. He thought it was an adequate, maybe even good, weeknight meal, while I was ready to open a restaurant with this dish in the lead-off spot. It made me wonder—why did I think it tasted so much better than he did? Was it because I was hungrier? Food tastes better when one is hungry, doesn’t it? In fact someone, it might have been Shakespeare, I thought, once said that hunger is the best sauce.

So I performed a scientific experiment. The next week, on a night when I again got off at six, but when I wasn’t quite as hungry, I made the dish again, replicating it exactly, down to tossing in cooked broccoli. I took a tentative taste. There was the flavor of chicken, the burst of lemon, the finish of heat. It tasted exactly the same, and it was still just as good as it had been the week before. I bolted another plateful.

I’m no Socrates, but here’s what I think—no matter what day it is, hunger does make a good sauce, but sometimes all you really need is sauce.

Chicken in Lemon Cream with Penne
from Everyday Pasta, by Giada De Laurentiis

1 pound penne pasta
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, diced into 1-inch cubes
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence*
Pinch of salt, plus ½ teaspoon
Pinch of freshly ground black pepper, plus ¼ teaspoon
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 cups heavy cream
Zest of 1 lemon
Pinch of cayenne pepper
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Season the cubed chicken breast with the herbes de Provence and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook the chicken until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the chicken and set aside. Pour off any excess oil from the pan. Add the chicken broth to the pan and ook over medium0high heat, using a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Add the cream, lemon zest, and cayenne. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the pasta, chicken, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, chopped parsley, and lemon juice. Toss to coat the pasta and chicken with the sauce and serve.

[*Herbes de Provence is a French herb blend usually composed of thyme, marjoram, fennel, basil, rosemary, and lavender. If you can’t find it premixed in your grocery store, feel free to substitute your favorite herbs. An Italian seasoning blend of thyme, basil, and oregano is good with this dish. The flavor is different, of course, but still good.]

Letter to Kevin

Dearest,

I wish I could be with you tonight to put the finishing touches on dinner, because food eaten with those we love is most savory. Since that cannot be, however, I leave you these instructions for getting cold short rib ragú and dried egg noodles into warm and supple shape.

First, fill the large pot on the stove about 2/3 with water. Add a couple teaspoons kosher salt and bring the water to a rapid boil over high heat.

Meanwhile transfer the ragú into the large glass bowl I left on the counter for you. Heat it in the microwave for two minutes to a minute and a half at a time until it is hot, stirring after each interval.

When the pasta water is boiling, pour in all the egg noodles and stir. When the water returns to a boil, begin timing. It shouldn’t take much more than five minutes to cook the pasta, but begin tasting after four minutes. When it is al dente, carefully scoop out about half a cup of the water, more or less is fine, using the small measuring cup, and set it aside. You will use it to thin the sauce, if needed. Using the colander, drain the rest of the pasta and return it to the pot.

By this time, the ragú should be hot. If it is thick, stir in a little pasta water, a tablespoon or so at a time, until it has a more flowing, but not runny, consistency. Be sure to taste it to see if it needs a little more salt or pepper. Pour the hot ragú over the pasta and toss gently.

If you want something green to go along with the meal, you can fix up a simple salad while the pasta is boiling. Toss the salad greens in the fridge with about a tablespoon of olive oil, a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar, which you will find in the very back of the bottom shelf of the cabinet to the right of the stove, a pinch or two of kosher salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

And that’s it. You asked for detailed instructions, and I feel clever couching the directions within this little love note. Perhaps it’s not a traditional declaration of the emotions of the heart, but I know how you can read between the lines.

With all my love,
R