Concrete Jungles Etc.

I'm such a deadbeat blogger, sorry about that.  Since I last posted, I've completed dental school and moved to New York City, amongst about a million other things.  I'm approaching my two week milestone of arriving in New York, and only now it is setting in that I moved here.  I have an amazing (amazing, seriously) apartment with an equally amazing roommate.  I pretty much skipped that whole hazing/right of passage of living with a sketchball and having a kitchen shower.  I'm too old for that shit anyway.

My front yard (otherwise known as E 12th Street)

Cooking in NYC is going to take some adjustment.  One - I gave/threw away everything in my Denver fridge and pantry with the exception of a few spices I couldn't bare parting with - which includes some bay leaves from Farrow Ranch and a few things Carol brought back from India.  Two - grocery shopping here is...well, it's hard*, and the nearest markets are Whole Foods and Trader Joe's in Union Square.  WF is crazy but logistically (not financially) do-able.  Trader Joe's on the other hand...holy shit.  You do not fuck around at Trader Joe's Union Square.  You best have a game plan son, because that lolly-gagging/hemming-hawing bullshit does not fly at this store.  I've only been once, but it's the only time I've left a store and breathed a sigh of relief upon exiting.  There are a few other NYC locations, but for now, I think I'll stick to grazing in random stores I happen upon, like this awesome Italian market in the Chelsea Market.

* pain in the ladyballs

Olives olives everywhere

Tonight I hiked my skirt up and finally did some cooking (unless Annie's mac and frozen broccoli counts as cooking, which it absolutely does not).  My roommate Laura mentioned she had a beef tenderloin in the freezer she didn't know how to cook, so I offered to make dinner.  I salted the meat and let it sit on the counter to come to room temp, washed and dried and then seared the cuts in ol' Stauby.

Check it out - gas range!

Finished in the oven for 5 minutes (next time - 3 minutes.  Goddamnit).  Sliced and drizzled with a cilantro and jalapeno pesto ala Aunt Barb.  Side dishes included an edamame and radish salad (courtesy of the South Beach diet, embarrassingly enough) and quinoa.

Tasty

So, quinoa.  Proper preparation of this ancient grain** has always seemed elusive, and coupled with it's highly touted nutritional reputation I've pretty much steered clear of it.  However, every time I have it I like it.  A lot.  I found this method of preparation in an Epicurious.com quinoa recipe that I thought might solve that little water logging problem I've noticed when I've had quinoa before (and liked anyway, I might add).  Boil in salted water for 10 minutes, drain, and then steam for 10-15 minutes to achieve a light, fluffy texture that's perfect - not water logged and not dried out.  For flavor, I bastardized a Martha Stewart spicy lemon quinoa recipe (forgot to buy pine nuts and no peppercorns) by adding shaved parmesan and a handful of arugula.  I added everything else as directed (lemon zest, half a lemon, cayenne pepper, salt, and a glug of olive oil).  Now that I think about it, a review on Epicurious saying how much I loved the recipe but changed pretty much everything is in order.

**Food bloggers/health food marketers are not allowed to refer to quinoa without qualifying it as an "ancient grain."  I don't make the rules. 

Don't worry, I ate two chocolate chip cookies afterwards.

So, New York.  Loving it so far, even if grocery shopping is a pain in the ladyballs.  Until next time (hopefully not 6 months from now).  As always, sorry about the poor quality photography.  Besos! 

And...we're back.

Whoops - bit of a hiatus there.  Not sure what you've been up to but I went ahead and finished dental school.  Noticed that since I went radio silent, other blogs had a touch of .gif fever, so I used this fancy little website to make one FoKC stylie (double click the image to see the .gif).

Cute, huh.

You can make one too at PhotoFunia.com! 

I've been rather unenthusiastic about cooking, especially my own, in the last few months.  I might have a few photographs to post and muse about, but if any of my lovely family has something to share I could use some inspiration.  

Reflections on a summer past

Ok, maybe summer has not quite past yet, but it's definitely getting there.  The nights are cooling off, preseason football has started and I'm sweating through my t-shirts way less often.  When dead of summer hit, my desire to cook dropped to NONE, which is pretty typical for me.  Actually, usually as soon as spring hits and it's warm enough to sit on a patio all I want to eat is beer and nachos from 5pm-12am, but I've been much more restrained this year due to my domestic partnership blissitude.  Anyway, we have been eating a lot of sandwiches and meals that require little thought (with the exception of a newly discovered authentic Chinese joint that I will post about next time we go).  Therefore, I had to look into my archives for something to write about when the bug hit me tonight.  Shamefully I never managed to post these pics, taken when mi Mama was in town the first week of June - she sprung for some seriously fancy steaks and brought from Minnesota a bottle of very precious, very difficult to find zinfandel.  I hear the winemaker for this particular label is quite handsome, but step off single ladies, I also hear his wife a big time hottie.

Just a little meat here.

Obviously it's been awhile, but I believe those are the first field greens from our garden (now all gone to seed) with shaved manchego, thinly sliced pear and spiced walnuts or pecans (I can never remember which is which until they are side by side.  Or in a labeled bag).  And of course, THE ZIN.  

I'm going to miss summer.  

PS.  I just wanted to mention how much it annoys me when people type, or say, "YUM-O!".  Thanks for listening. 

Chicken Piccata. Again.

** EDIT: Whoopsie daisy! My lovely mother pointed out today that this dish was NOT chicken piccata (NOR was it chicken piccaTTa - I'm just going to go ahead and fix that titular typo and we won't mention anything else about it, hmmmmkay?). It was chicken MARSALA. Which you'd think I'd know, since immediately after arriving back in Denver I made it for Mike. With marsala wine. However, if I just go and replace all the piccata's with marsala's, half my post will not make sense. Let's just chalk this one up to early-onset dementia and pretend it never happenend. **

Dude prior to a few months ago I had tasted chicken piccata ONCE, at a flipping wedding banquet, but judging by this blog you'd think my family has had a decades-long tradition of maniacally developing/cooking/eating the perfect chicken piccata.  We don't...at least we didn't used to.  But anyway, this post isn't really about the piccata, which was EXCELLENT, thank you very much Mom.  First of all, check out this salad:

Brought to you by the letters A and M

My Mom and I picked up some lovely arugula from the Sioux Falls farmers market when I was home for a few days.  I haven't had any arugula all summer (my life is so hard) so it was rather exciting to see perfect, peppery leaves all bagged up and ready to go home with us.  The salad was pretty simple - I shaved some parmesan and I think I dressed it with lemon and olive oil and a generous sprinkling of salt.  My mom came up with the idea to add pistachios, which I think is what actually made the salad.  

Mom's got this idea that adding pasta to the piccata sauce makes the dish.  IT DOES.  Hello, who doesn't like a creamy-but-not-too-creamy pasta with fried chicken on the top?  Probably not you, and definitely not me. 

Le Chef Michele

The meal was fantastic, which brings me to the photo that made this blog post necessary.  Anyone who's eaten dinner at the Malters' residence will know this scenario well:

Just a bite.  C'mon. 

Fried Chicken Quest: Day 2

A little late on the update, but here it is anyway.  I'll save you the suspense and just flat-out tell you that it was pretty good - not perfect.  One thing to mention - brining was definitely worth it.  Also, not as big as a pain in the ass as I expected.  I used a big pasta pot to make the brine, let it cool and tossed all the chicken in the pot and shoved the whole thing in the fridge.  Easy.  One little thing, Thomas Keller's brine recipe calls for 12ish cloves of garlic, which I obliged but in hindsight it was too much.  Fried chicken is supposed to be simple, the garlic and herbs tasted...unnecessary.  If that makes sense.

Coated chicken resting - you're supposed to let it get pasty to get a good crust.  In theory.

Anyway, so the big problem I had last time - bland chicken - solved.  Of course, this time the breading was really tough, which is strange, because I used the exact same recipe and technique from the last batch, and that batch was better.  After the chicken rested (we took it to Rena and Ben's for dinner) the breading softened, which solved the toughness but of course, there goes lost the crisp coating.  Sigh.

Bubbly.

I was more than a bit tempted to give up (disposing of all that oil sucks) and leave the chicken frying to the kindly folks at KFC, but I think I'll give it another shot.  Maybe fry it at a higher temperature and then finish it off in the oven.  Suggestions?

For all my bitching it was pretty good. 

Hope you all had a Happy 4th! 

Fried Chicken Quest

I just finished a book, "Cloud Chamber" by Michael Dorris.  It was awesome, for the record. There is a great chapter near the end where the characters essentially take over a KFC in Montana and make homemade fried chicken for the unsuspecting, and extremely lucky masses.  When my friends Rena and Ben asked if Mike and I wanted to do a bike tour/picnic on the 4th of July, I was all over making the fried chicken.

I'm not huge on frying food, but this isn't the first time I've made fried chicken, nor the second.  That was a little over a month ago.  It turned out ok, but I thought the chicken itself was bland.  Then I remembered a recipe I read a long time ago for "Thomas Keller's BEST Fried Chicken", recalling thinking "well, no shit it's awesome" when I read the recipe: first he first brines the chicken, then soaks it in buttermilk.  Each step gets a good 8-12 hours.  Geez. The rest is pretty much the standard flour/paprika/s&p dredging.  I thought that was pretty intensive, but considering the previous batch results, I've reconsidered.  So, here's my attempt at TK's Giant Pain In The Ass Fried Chicken: Day 1.

Check out this brine:

Rosemary, thyme, garlic, peppercorns, sugar, salt, and bay leaves from Carol's trees in CA - almost out of those.  Think it's time for another trip west.

The Body of Christ Compels You (to eat a sandwich)*

Have you guys seen these yet?  The first time I saw them in Safeway I laughed my ass off - thought the Catholic Church finally caved and decided to sell the Eucharist to pay some lawyers- not those puny ones you could easily get for free on Sunday, either.  The BIG one, the one Father Whoever specifically blesses and gives a shard to those other Upstanding Citizens who do the readings and distribute communion and such.

I went with Original & Favorite, obviously.

My instinct was to laugh and walk away (which I did multiple times), but then Mike and I went camping with my friends Wes and Andrea.  They are healthy eaters - packed Mahi Mahi and salads for a camping dinner that shamed my hastily packed hot dogs and potato chips (I'm new to camping - next time I'll get more creative).  Boring story short - they had some in their camping cooler and told me they were good and I felt ashamed at my recent lack of healthful-eating.  So, next trip to the store I picked a package up and made a tasty sandwich.

Blessed Diet Sandwich Bread

Looks promising...

Verdict?  Eh.  If you're watching your carbs (ha your diet is so 2001) and have a bold sandwich going, knock yerself out, you'll be satisfied.  I made mine with tuna fish (light on the mayo, please) and it was pretty good. Personally, I would compare this Eucho-bread to a blank canvas - it's not getting in the way of flavor, but it's not adding a thing either.  The texture isn't terrible, but it's not great - at least it didn't stick to the roof of my mouth like glue. 

Still snarfed it down!

For the record, I actually purchased, made, and photographed this sandwich at least a month ago, but out of the six wafers, five are still in the fridge.  Let me know if you want them. 

* Apologies to those who are shocked by aforewritten blasphemy or near-blasphemy.