Thoughtful winter cooking in the sprawl zone

We're staying in more than we used to lately. Suburban living, I guess. And without a steady supply of fresh Alaskan salmon (or, this time of year, Dungeness crabs), I find myself running out of recipes faster than usual. I'm also trying to be a healthier and more environmentally thoughtful cook - at least marginally - which knocks out some of the recipes I grew up on (no offense intended to my mother -- we just worry more and maybe know more now about what impact certain foods have).

We've also joined a CSA, which has been an interesting experience in a Northeast winter. This CSA approaches winter with a massive root cellar and a greenhouse, so while the root and vine veggies aren't that different from what you might find in the grocery, freshness-wise, they are hyper-local and organic, and also sometimes out of my comfort zone. The greens are a revelation. Living in the PacNW, I got through winter by buying jumbo tubs of salad greens, never doubting they would last as long as I ate them consistently. Here, it's another story. No matter which brand and which grocery they often are slimy very soon after opening, and buying the loose greens is often just as much a depressing process. Lettuce from the farm, though? Crisp, fresh, and sweet, and lasts as long as I need it to.

Anyhoo, I digress. The other night found us with a significant surplus of squash (half a butternut, plus a ginormous Blue Hubbard), and some dark thick-leaf Asian greens which for the life of my I can't tell you the name of. I rummaged in the freezer for some protein and turned up some pork cutlets, and the following ensued.

Menu:

• Balsamic Rosemary Pork Cutlets
• Butternut Squash Puree
• Sauteed Greens

The cutlets were maybe a touch overdone - the sear wasn't good enough initially, so cooking them through took longer than planned, but the flavors were good. The puree was a little chunky, due to my lack of interest in transfering the whole thing to a food processor, but still tasty, and the greens were darn good. (I approached them like collards and it worked out great - lesson of the day, it's safe to guess and wing it sometimes)

Balsamic Rosemary Pork Cutlets

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaf, chopped (I saw this too late and used dry, and it was fine.)
• 1 lb pork tenderloin, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices (or a bunch of cutlets - it's essentially the same thing and allows for quantity adjustments
• Kosher salt & fresh black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup canned chicken broth
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons honey

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium high heat.

Sprinkle pork on both sides with rosemary, salt, and pepper.

Add to pan and sear for about 3 minutes on each side, or until a good bronze is there. Remove the pork from pan and set aside.

Combine broth, vinegar and honey, stirring with a whisk. (NOTE: these are porportions. If you're making less, just reduce accordingly - it's a general guide more than anything else.)

Add to pan, scraping to loosen browned bits, and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer about 5 minutes or until reduced and thickened somewhat.

Return pork to pan, turning to coat, and cook until thoroughly heated (you can use a meat thermometer here if you don't trust your eyeballing, but watch carefully as cutlets can go from moist and tender to overcooked and tough very quickly.)


Butternut (and other squash) Puree

• 2 whole Butternut Squash, Halved And Seeded (or whatever squash you have laying around, in the amount you want to eat - leftovers are fine.)
• 6 Tablespoons Butter, cut into pieces (approximate)
• 1/4 cup Pure Maple Syrup (also approximate, to taste)
• Dash Of Salt
• Ground Cinnamon, For Sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the squash halves, cut side down, on a baking sheet and roast for 30-40 minutes or until fork-tender. Cool briefly to avoid burning your hands, and then scoop out the innards into a bowl and add butter, syrup, and salt. Mash with a potato masher OR puree with a food processor. Spread into a small casserole dish and sprinkle with cinnamon. Keep warm in the oven until serving, then serve by the spoonful! (Or just mash into a bowl, cover it in foil, and set aside. We stuck in the microwave for insulation, OBVIOUSLY not turning on the microwave with metal in there.)

Sautéed Greens

• One bunch dark greens like collards, or in this case Google suggests I probably had yokatta na
• Olive oil
• herbal mix - some garlic, thyme, etc. I used an herbed oil. 
• salt
• crushed red pepper

Rinse the greens thoroughly and pat dry. Remove the stems and spine, leaving you with a pile of half-circles. Roll them into a long tube and chop, leaving you with 1-inch wide strips of leaf. Toss in a bowl and set aside.

Heat a skillet on medium-high, and add a glug of oil. (Not too much, maybe a tablespoon or two - depends on how many greens you're using, but you don't want a ton of oil. Just enough to slide around the pan.) When the oil is shimmery, add the greens and salt them, adding a sprinkle of the crushed red pepper. Toss continuously with tongs - they will wilt very quickly, and as soon as they do, remove from the heat and set aside till you're ready to serve plates.


The greens were a sort of bed for the pork, with the squash along side. It was all quick and easy, and surprisingly good.

The parting of the (cardboard box) sea

Hello from our (town)house! 

We're slowly tiptoeing towards being fully settled in and unpacked -- it'll be a bit yet, but I can say with confidence that we are more unpacked now than we ever were in Seattle. Which is exciting and sad all at once. There've been a few broken things but not too many (and one mug that I'm secretly glad to see go), and then the exploded green food coloring that I'm so glad I double bagged. I've seen quite a lot of family already, with plans to see more of them soon, and we even made it down the shore one weekend in September. We've found a couple farm markets, including one that's part of the local ag school and promises to have fresh produce all winter (no small thing here in Pennsylvania). And I've had oh so much delicious scrapple. 

We're getting to know our kitchen - storage quirks, oven that runs closer to true than any of the ovens I've worked with thus far, fridge door that is prone to swinging back open if you aren't paying attention...that sort of thing. A nice feature of this kitchen is that the design elements were clearly thought through by a cook - the long skinny cookie sheet cabinet in just the right spot, the sliding shelves for easy loading, the deep pantry for...everything. And a big island, which is AWESOME for cooking - consistently clear counterspace is my friend. So far I haven't had any dramatic cooking episodes to report on here - there's been red sauce, coq au vin, carnitas, a pork roast that I sadly overcooked, your basic baked chicken thighs. All tasty, but nothing to write home(page) about. Plus EPH has been traveling quite a bit, and I'm much more likely to do something simple and pasta based when it's just me. 

I'm cooking a double birthday dinner for my parents this weekend, though -- trying to find that menu that is interesting and festive, but without committing the cardinal sin of dinner parties: the slippery slope of overambitious experimentation. I'll keep you posted, friends. 

Autumn! One of the two top cooking seasons...so much comfort food and baking to do. (Late spring, with fresh produce coming from every which way, is the second best)

Autumn: when I get it together, usually

You've all been pretty patient with me this past month as I've veered way off topic - nothing food or plant related in the nomadic life! Today, though, a recipe.

We are currently living in my parents' home. Our movers haven't arrived and won't till next week, so while we have keys then new home stands empty for now. Such is life. I have run out of patience with take out, restaurants, other people cooking for me. Last night, I made dinner. My mother happened upon a lot of eggplant at the farm stand last week, so I asked her to leave one and last night I made the eggplant parmesan I have mentioned in a couple early posts but never actually shared. This is a fairly simple recipe and not wildly unhealthy, and fast enough that it could be a weeknight meal (plus you probably have most of the ingredients on hand, save the eggplant). As we get back into the fall, with the busier schedules and cooler weather, it seems like as good a time as any!

Easy Baked Eggplant Parmesan
(adapted from Whole Foods)

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant, sliced lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick pieces (about eight) [I do the more traditional crosswise slicing - makes it tidier]
2 eggs, beaten with a fork
1 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs (sundried tomato or plain) [I suppose you could use regular bread crumbs, but the panko gives it that nice crunch that you would normally get from frying the slices]
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 (25-ounce) jar pasta sauce (roasted vegetable or any variety) [I make my own tomato sauce, and know many people who do, but jarred is actually good for this recipe. I don't use sugar when I make my sauce and the extra sweetness that the jarred stuff has actually balances the salt of the cheese nicely.]
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Preheat oven with a baking sheet inside to 375°F. Coat eggplant slices with beaten egg, then bread with panko crumbs. Spread oil on hot baking sheet and place eggplant slices on it in a single layer. Bake 15 minutes, flip and bake another 10 minutes.

Increase oven temperature to 475°F. In an 8x10-inch ovenproof dish, layer pasta sauce, then eggplant, and top with cheeses. Repeat, finishing with cheese. [It's almost like an eggplant napoleon when you're done...using a bigger baking dish will help you have less density in the end result if this seems like an issue for you.] Bake until the cheese melts and turns golden in spots, about 15 minutes.

The recipe suggests a side dish of sautéed broccoli rabe. I agree that this sounds delicious, but two things -- that's something you can't put on and then walk away from, which makes it somewhat less weeknight-friendly. Also we don't happen to have any right now, but we do have whole grain thin spaghetti, which I like. I made a small amount of that with some garlic oil, added a salad, and felt fine about it. As, apparently, did everyone else.

That one time where we accidentally drove to winter

It's been quite a couple of days, friends. So we went to Yellowstone on Sunday -- really beautiful, well worth the price of admission. Waterfalls and steaming slopes of hot spring-laden rock and herds of bison and elk wandering about.

Then, we left the park.

(Dramatic pauses for a reason)

We took US 212 out of the park, the far northeast entrance - the one going the way we were headed. I didn't notice till we were well en route the map's note about how the road is closed in the winter. This may seem irrelevant as it was August 31st but living in the shadow of the Cascades and Olympics, I know this is not generally a good sign and that winter is more of an elevation difference than a season in the West. I didn't think too much of it, though, and figured we'd be fine. Well, we were, but that's probably because EPH was driving and he is much less inclined to panic. We were cruising along, headed up a series of switchbacks through what the map told us is known as Beartooth Pass. (At the time I hypothesized that this was due to the jagged silhouette of the mountain but now I wonder if people get stuck and eaten up there) As we climbed, I was a little nervous about the extremity of the switchbacks, as well as the odd tendency to NOT put guardrails next to sheer drops. But it was beautiful so I tried to not worry, and EPH was driving slowly to keep me calm. Early on we noticed that there was snow at the top of the mountain - again, very far up so didn't dwell on it. But then the snow got closer...and closer...and the GPS elevation told us we were passing 10,000 feet and suddenly the snow was along the road and the "fog" was extremely dense and the ground all around was covered in thick frost. Keep in mind we're still on extreme switchbacks and we're in the middle of nowhere with no cell signal at all - rural Montana. This is how survival movies start, amirite?

Then it got scarier -- we had to go DOWN the other side. Still switchbacks, only now we notice the road surface itself is, uh, shiny. So we're going down twisty windy roads, on the side of a mountain, on ice-covered roads. We're going super slow and I'm praying every prayer I know while mentally alternating with swearing a blue streak, and we're hoping that a) we stay on the road and b) nobody comes along behind us and can't slow down in time and we both go off the mountain.

Needless to say, since I'm typing this we clearly survived, but in my head I was definitely running through the various provisions and blankets in the truck and thinking I might actually have to use them. Scary. Pro tip - AVOID BEARTOOTH PASS if driving in/out of Yellowstone!!!

Just inside the western edge of North Dakota.

Not long after, though, we encountered more bison - these were just roaming free near a rest stop. Amazing.

So, that was Sunday. Monday we got to Fargo, which was surprisingly adorable, and where we had a fantastic dinner in a place called the Beefsteak Club. Check it out if, for some odd reason, you are in Fargo. The next morning EPH hopped a flight off to work, and I drove on. My adventures, such as they are, in the next post.

Homer lost patience with this road trip business and spent some time sulking. 

Life in the west

Wenatchee, WA yesterday morning

Good morning from Butte, Montana. I've stayed in Montana before, but not in Butte. It's...interesting. We checked out the hotel-attached dive bar late last night (seems to be a trucker hotel here so I guess there's a clientele). We learned that the front desk manager doubles as the barkeep ("beer and wine only, folks"), that he has lots of opinions on the US Postal Service, and also on Anna Nicole Smith. We also learned that coming through his bar three, four times a year qualifies as a regular. 

It seems there is a pretty big Irish and Chinese population and culture out here. I guessed at railroad workers being the immigration trend, but a little research by EPH turned up the fact that it was actually mining work.

Today: Yellowstone, then the booming metropolis of Miles City, MT!

Living la vida local

So, it's another day in paradise. Sorry, people who aren't here. I just can't get over it.

I went out today, with intent to check out a new park and/or go for a hike in an old favorite. I found the new "park" - really a forest - but for the life of me couldn't find an entrance. I'm not quite local enough yet...it was actually over on Maury, which is called Maury Island but seems to be attached to Vashon. Per Wikipedia, it was originally freestanding but in 1913 was attached by a locally constructed isthmus. There's your trivia for the day, kids.

Anyhoo, I abandoned that plan, and figured I'd tool around a bit before heading over to Island Center Forest, where I've had many blissful deep woods hikes. I meandered along, ended up along a beach road, and pulled over to get some salt air and sunshine therapy. As I was gathering up camera and binoculars (I'm always hopefully watching for some interesting marine mammals), a battered old pickup pulled up next to me. The driver, a grizzled dude in a fisherman hat, mutt by his side, watched me get out and (out of habit) lock the door. I got about three steps before I heard "you don't gotta take your purse, you know. Vashon people won't mess with your stuff." I called back that I only had it to carry my assorted gadgets, to which he replied "oh good, I thought maybe you were just being a tighta$s." What can one do there but laugh? No, I told him, not a tight$s - just practical. This apparently was enough for him to feel like I deserved an inside tip, and he told me if I went down a ways, turned at the corner, parked by the metal bar after the dip -- I'd find the best beach on the island. "30 years here, I know a thing or two," he said. I thanked him, headed back to my car to check this out, and wished him a good day - to which I got a "you too, sweetheart." There are some from whom that offends a woman, and some from whom it's just endearing. This, obviously, was the latter.

Dunes leading up to the beach

The beach was wide, nearly empty, and gloriously salty and sunny. Moral of the story: always listen to the locals - particularly when they tell you the water is warm enough to wade in. Despite it being Sound water, so typically icy, it was in fact warm enough for wading, and clear as glass. I never did get to the Island Center Forest, but that's okay.

Just another day in paradise. Now off to collect some mainland friends from the ferry for a fun night out, island-style.

It's too clear to tell but my feet are both underwater...in the Puget Sound! Without numbness! Unheard of.

Real glad I met this big daddy on dry land.

Island Life

I want to live on Vashon.

Boarding the ferry eastbound, 5:45am

I mean, not really -- we're moving back east and looking forward to it -- but Vashon is absolutely my happy place. Tiny, woodsy, friendly, farm and beach and small town and engaged citizens all in one. I had great grand plans of roaming and hiking and kayaking -- haven't done so yet, but maybe tomorrow. In the meantime I've spent time on the water (even if it's a ferry), we've gotten the hang of where to get what in town (pro tip, the IGA is a sad sad supermarket. Thriftway is so much better I can't quite get how IGA is still in business...something I'd know if I lived here, I guess), where the best coffee is (Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie -- which most places serve anyway, but the place itself is charming. There are mugs hanging on hooks for the regulars). Farmstands are on the honor system (bring exact change, but if you don't you can can probably bring it by later). There is a wine tasting room, a delicious bakery, a forest in the center of the island for hiking and roaming and - apparently - trail riding (horses, people).

Honor system farmstand

There is the kind of small town friendliness and familiarity only seen now in Hallmark movies, only without the schmaltz. Everyone generally knows who is who and what is what, but the development is so NOT overdone that most people seem to have quite a lot of land, so they aren't all tripping over each other.

Main Street/Vashon Highway, early evening

So, anyway, great trip so far. We're in this guest cabin that has tons of land around it. There are owls hooting during the night, roosters throughout the day, and in the evenings the next property over plays reggae. Not meant for us but it adds a certain something. Other than that, it's so quiet we can hear leaves falling. It's spectacular.

The "backyard". That's a hammock in the lower left.

Catching my breath: a photo album

The movers came. The movers left. We ran all the heck over South Seattle saying goodbye to people and having adventures. Our extended stay in Tukwila was...functional, if not exactly luxurious. But it was definitely efficient and convenient, so it's hard to complain. Now, we're on Vashon Island in a guest cabin and it is basically paradise. 

We had a little more stuff than the mover expected....awkward. 

"Where IS ALL MY STUFF!" says Homer 

Visiting my friend V up on the coast near Bellingham

Hotel room birthdays!

Pink Martini on the lawn

5:45am, eastbound from Vashon to West Seattle aboard the WSDOT ferry Issaquah

Our current "backyard". Island living sure is rough. 

The eyes are burning...the eyes are burning

It's Saturday morning. We're at T-2 hours for the movers. We're in zombie state and I've accomplished a major fail already -- instead of cooking the remaining pieces of salmon last night, I gave up and we ordered...pizza. So we have even more leftovers now. But at least all the plants are adopted and the stuff is pretty much dealt with....

Here we go.

Lessons learned!

It's been a morning of small discoveries. Small in that they are inconsequential, but also in that they are probably obvious to others.

First, that herb harvest. I was puzzling over how I was going to dry them all quickly enough to get them moved somewhere -- there's just no way I can use all that up that quickly -- and it occurred to me I could probably do it in the oven. A little googling and 45 minutes later, and voila! Not only are they all perfectly dried, but they even kept more color then the traditional hang-dry - and my main floor is beyond fragrant with herbal aromas. Here's the deal: wash and fully dry the fresh herbs. Spread them out on a cookie sheet (or tin foil in my case, as the cookie sheets didn't fit and are now packed anyway). Heat the oven to as low as it will go, which was 170 degrees in my case, and slide those sheets in. KEEP THE OVEN DOOR OPEN A TINY BIT! I used the dough hook for my not-yet-packed KitchenAid so I wouldn't have to be paranoid about a wooden spoon or mitt (recommended on various sites) catching fire. The air movement seems to be key to the drying as opposed to scorching. If you have a convection oven, perhaps that will do the trick, but I don't know. Different herbs seem to take different times - seems to be based on the amount of oils in them - but start with 30 minutes. Mine were close at that point, so I turned them around and did another 15 minutes, and they are now cooling and ready to bag. Very exciting.

Second, which I haven't actually tried yet -- I packed up my toaster the other day (or it was packed, by my helpful friend). It didn't occur to me till hours later that this is something I use for breakfast every morning. (It's been a long week, okay?) I thought about oven toasting, but previous efforts have led to one large crouton. So back to the google and it dawned on me: I have a grill pan, one of two stovetop items that I set aside for leftover consumption use before packing. Tomorrow, I'm pan toasting bread. Cross your fingers!

Third: gratuitous product placement. Here's the backstory: I brew my own iced coffee. I love iced coffee, and during the summer absolutely cannot drink hot coffee. Paying $2.50 a cup is insanity to me when I can buy a bag of coffee for $8 and brew many pots' worth. So, I brew and cool it. However, again with the kitchen -- packing up both the coffee maker and the cold pitcher. I was bracing myself for a long expensive three weeks of iced coffee when I saw in the grocery: Starbucks iced coffee, now in a half gallon jug and completely unsweetened. Now, I'm not a fan of Sbux coffee -- iced tea and espresso, yes, but their drip is like burnt battery acid and I just can't handle it. But every other supermarket option is half sugar and gross, and this was only $5 for the jug (still high but lower than the retail option), so I figured I'd try it and see. Well. I don't know what goes so wrong in those Sbux stores but this iced coffee is DELICIOUS. It's completely different - no burnt flavor at all, just a smooth nuttiness. It's SO good. It's way better than what I brew at home, too. Which will be a quandary for another day, but for now...yum. Try it. You'll thank me. (although, as my head buzzes...word to the wise: it ain't weak.)

** 8/14/14: UPDATE: the pan grilling of the bread - or in this case a bagel - worked out remarkably well. Another small win! 

Pruning and defrosting and sweltering

So I massacred my herb garden today. I know I can't keep them and they're just plants - and I harvested as much as possible, so it wouldn't go entirely to waste - but I still feel irrationally sad about it. It's not just move projection, either - I'm always sad when I have to kill a plant. This makes no sense. I KNOW it makes no sense. And yet there it is. I didn't harvest my basil - it's practically a bush, so I'm hoping it will be adopted. We'll see.

I also packed up much of the kitchen this evening. (Or, more accurately, a good friend came over and packed it up -- which was AMAZING, since a) I HATE packing kitchens and am awful at it, and b) it was 96 degrees here today, and - like most of Seattle - there's no a/c in this house. Three cheers for amazing friends.) Given how much time I spend in there, that was almost more bizarre...knowing I've cooked my last meal in that kitchen. I did keep out a couple pans to help use stuff up during the rest of the week, but it's really just leftovers at this point and cobbled-together smorgasbords at this point, which may or may not resemble meals.

The thing I'm probably struggling with the most is the volume of food I always end up wasting when I move. I've got a bag where I'm setting aside things for the food bank, but there are so many things that are opened and half eaten. Some I hope to pass off on friends, but there's only so much of that I can do. I absolutely hate wasting food. I always have -- being part of the food bank family has just exacerbated this.

So... anybody out there want some buttermilk, frozen in 1/4 cup increments??

This is not so bad...and I'm sure I just jinxed it

So, we've all heard the tale/recording at this point of the guy who tried desperately to cancel his Big Evil Cable service, right? Well...I just had the exact opposite experience. When the very chipper young woman inquired as to why they were losing me as "such a valued customer", I informed her we were going nomadic and would be off the grid for the foreseeable future. Granted that's a tiny exaggeration - three weeks is not the foreseeable future - but that is neither here not there. She was utterly bewildered, and after a moment of dead silence exclaimed "that is SO.COOL. I would never think of that!" And just like that, everything was canceled. No hassle, no harm, no foul. Compared to the other guy's experience I feel like a big winner right now.

On a more blog-related note...I've cultivated a bit of a container garden here, and have been trying to figure out what to do with it all without a) throwing everything into the compost and/or passing them on to people who I KNOW will kill them, b) having to part with all the planters. Turns out that what they say is true: people will take literally anything from the free section on Craigslist, even if it involves them digging up a plant and carting it off in a plastic bag. Two huge bamboo plants: rehomed! A friend from the neighborhood has agreed to adopt my cherry tomato plant (which is LOADED with little green tomatoes, sniff sniff), which is great. Now I only have herbs and house plants to address.

Teasers and returns

So, it's been a minute. Sometimes the bloggage (it's a word) just isn't there. Plus, you know, I got MARRIED (read in Oprah voice, please) and that kind of took of every single waking moment of my life.

It's three months later, and EPB...EPF...I guess he's EPH now, huh? That sounds like an illegal substance...might need a new name for him. Anyway, he and I are picking up and hauling across the country. We've got a week and a half to pack everything from our home, make all the related plans, and get out. (How it came to this is another story and not for this blog) We then will have two weeks to kill before leaving Seattle, so will be somewhat nomadic but within the Puget Sound region. Then week three is the grand cross country road trip! With cat! Oh my.

The only tie-in to this blog is that I'm going to do my best to figure out how to eat on the move in a way that doesn't involve 3 restaurants a day. I think we'll at least have a fridge each place we stay for the first two weeks, so we'll see what happens. Let the adventures begin...