...and an Early-Fall Stew

Two weeks ago we were complaining that our A/C was broken and dug out the extra fans from the closet.  This morning I was digging around for my coat.  Fall has arrived quickly this year.  I still have to reset my brain, but in general Mark and I love the fall.  To welcome in the cooler weather, we made a hearty – but not too hearty -- stew the other night.  

White Coq au Vin

2 pounds chicken thighs – we trimmed most of the skin off

1 jar pearl onions (the recipe called for frozen, which I couldn’t find)

1 8 oz package baby bella mushrooms

3oz prosciutto, minced

3-4 minced garlic cloves

¾ teaspoon dried tarragon

¼ cup flour

1 cup dry white wine

2 cups chicken broth

1 can artichoke hearts

1 ½ pounds baby yellow potatoes

Mark trimmed up the thighs and seasoned them with salt and pepper.  We heated some olive oil in a deep pan and browned the chicken for a few minutes on each side.  Set those aside.   

Add a little more olive oil and add the onions, scrapping up the good bits from the bottom of the pan.  After they get soft, put them aside with the chicken.

Add a little more oil and sauté the mushrooms until they get brown and season with salt and pepper.  Then  add the prosciutto, garlic and tarragon and stir around for about one minute or so.   

Dump in the flour, then pour in the wine and broth.  Now time to add the chicken and onions back in the pot along with the artichoke and potatoes.  This is the part of the recipe that gets weird, in my opinion.  It says to bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.  Our potatoes were nowhere near soft enough after 15 minutes, and we figured the longer the better anyway, so we simmered our stew for 45 minutes. 

Mark has taken over spaetzle duties in our house.  He whipped up a batch.  Pour the stew on top and eat!

                                          (And yes, I see that spaetzle could look like brains...)

A Perfect Summer Soup

I am pretty bummed that our first trip to the outdoor farmer’s market this year happened just last week.  The upside of our delayed farmer’s marketing is that tomatoes are perfect now -- they really can’t be compared to the things that call themselves tomatoes the rest of the year. 

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Last year we stumbled across some sun gold tomato beauties at the Green City Market and whipped up Thomas Keller’s recipe for Sun Gold Tomato Gazpacho from Ad Hoc at Home.  This is not the first time we’ve posted about this cook book and probably will not be the past – this book is the best.  Unlike most of the recipes in Ad Hoc at Home, this soup comes together really quickly and does not get every pot in your kitchen dirty. 

With tomatoes being as awesome as they are right now, we had this gazpacho on the brain when we stopped by the market the other day.  It is definitely worthy of a post.

Sun Gold Gazpacho, the Perfect Summer Soup

1 cup cold water

2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

¼ cup coarsely chopped onion

2 lbs sun gold tomatoes, we used two heaping cartons and called it a day, stemmed and cut in half

1 cucumber, peeled and cut in half lengthwise with seeds scooped out

1 large yellow pepper, but in coarse pieces

1 large red bell pepper (honestly, half of one will do the trick)

1 T sherry vinegar, then maybe just a splash more

½ tsp smoky paprika

¾ - 1 cup olive oil

Handful of chives, diced

Put the water in a big bowl and add the garlic and onion.  Get the tomatoes ready if they are not already and add all but one cup to the bowl with any juices leftover on the cutting board.  Save that cup you set aside for garnish.

Slice half that cuc into half moon shapes and toss into the bowl.  Save the other half for garnish.  Toss the coarsely cut yellow pepper into the bowl too. 

Let these guys hang out for five minutes, stirring around once or twice.  Get the garnishes ready if you haven’t yet.  Dice up the chives, finely dice the red pepper and the other half of the cucumber.  Put the garnishes in the fridge.

Now back to the veggies in their bowl of water.  Pour the whole thing into your blender.  Or food processor if you want a mess.  Keller calls for a Vita Mix, which I am sure is very awesome, but who has that?

Blend it all up.  Strain through a fine-meshed strainer.  You will probably have to do that in batches since the tomato skins get caught and you end up pushing the concoction through.  Rinse out the blender.  Toss the strained soup back in and add the paprika, sherry vinegar and some salt and pepper (Keller calls for white pepper, which I did not have so I used black). While blending, slowly start pouring the oil in until the soup gets “velvety.” 

Add more vinegar or paprika, salt or pepper if you think it needs it.  Garnish with your collection of garnishes and voila!  Perfect with a grilled sandwich of prosciutto, fontina, goat cheese and basil.

Arancini: The Noble 10th Century Sicilian Treat That Forced Me From an Early Blog Retirement

There are but a few places I've made a consistent habit of visitng throughout the past 10 or so years of living in Chicago. Bridget and I have definitely added to that list which once seemed only to include Hot Doug's, Kuma's, Cafe Central, Borinquen, the Flying Chicken and Aloha Grill (to get a rather infrequent Hawaiian plate-lunch fix). Of those, I can only claim to have discovered the Flying Chicken's Colombian-style Pollo a La Brasa (roasted chicken) I love so dearly. It moved from Lincoln Ave to 3402 W Montrose in Albany Park a few years ago but I continue to make the trip. Anyway, go there and get 1 of everything to go.

Strangely, almost every other place I crave and cannot imagine living without came from Eric Kraus, close friend of my brother Brian and later myself. We worked together for years and our lunch options got creative lest they get monotonous. We mourned the closing of Randolph St.'s strange, giant, sterile, and short-lived "Market" as we simply called it: an Italian grocer that had some choice hot grilled food and a ridiculous salad bar--the source from which I developed my true, lasting love affair with hard-boiled eggs simply but heavily salted and peppered. Eric loved the subsequent car rides, I know.

Another, more important Italian place that Eric introduced me to was Bari. Now I've heard the hubbub about Graziano's, but I continue to give my quick and convenient dinner-shopping and sandwich business to Bari. This place is no flash in the pan and so I feel as though I can give them my heart completely and not live in fear of their doors closing. The barese sausage, its casing filled with basil and garlic, is almost too flavorful to eat regularly. Their selection of fresh pasta, cheese, and cured meats remains second to none, in my opinion. I am half italian, but I never ate prosciutto, salami, or romano/parmesan cheeses like it was my job until about 8 years ago when I first walked into Bari for an italian sub. I rarely eat the sandwiches anymore, but their meatball with provolone or the sausage with sweet are both revelations. The meatballs, geniously sliced in half for easier face-jamming, are tucked into a slightly crusty but warm bread with marinara and thinly sliced provolone...see below.

Anyway, two doors west of Bari is D'Amato's Bakery, which supplies a lot of area restaurants with French and Italian loaves, rounds, etc. This, of course, is also where Bari sources the breads for their fine sammies. They also have an amazing selection of focaccia's and pizzas as well as sweets (cherry slices, cannoli) that are well worth checking into. Anyhow, I began heading into D'Amato's after Bari as part of my dinner shopping ritual-- rather Euro of me, to grab fresh things I intend to cook and enjoy that night, rather than hitting Strack or Costco for frozen things or skids of Ragu sauce. One fateful day at D'Amato's I decided to try what looked to be an oversized scotch egg or some bastardization of an empenada-- of course, it was an arancini filled with beef and peas. The arancini is essentially a risotto ball stuffed with any number of things-- most typically you will find beef or spinach and cheese-- and then rolled in bread cumbs and lightly fried. The resultant crust is more soft n' spongy than KFCextracrispy. Bridget and I have taken to grabbing a couple of these from D'Amato's every few months and have proceeded to serve them to (and melt the faces of) not a small number of dinner guests. Based on our love of these treats, we decided to give them a whirl and I'm happy to report that it was a smashing success and that they will become an integral part of our Italian repertoire. Here, with pictures, is the recipe for Arancini. Keep in mind that you can stuff the risotto with whatever meats or veggies or cheeses your little heart desires. Also bear in mind that this is rather time-consuming and labor-intensive-- so make sure you're armed to the teeth with Barolo or beer.

Ingredients:

2 Tblsp butter
olive oil
2 cups arborio (sp?) rice
6-8 cups water or chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
3/4 cup grated parm
2 eggs, beaten

Breadcrumbs

Optional Fillings:

Ground Beef & Peas

Spinach & Cheese (cubed Mozz or Ricotta)

Mushrooms

Sausage

Basil

Prosciutto

Here is our spread:

Instructions:

Get water simmering over med-high heat. (This will be added to risotto in another pot but needs to be hot)

Heat oil and butter and saute onions and garlic together for a few minutes, until transluscent and fragrant.

Add some salt and pepper.

Add rice and stir around until toasty, about two minutes.

Rice toasting with sauteed onion and garlic:

Add wine and stir until mostly absorbed.

Add water/broth a ladle full at a time, stirring until the rice absorbs it before adding more. You may not need all the liquid, so start testing doneness as you cook.

Once risotto is done, transfer to a bowl to cool for 15 minutes or so.

Stir in cheese and beaten eggs once risotto is cool. Let cool some more in fridge until ready to form into balls.

Heat oil in a pan to 375 degrees (med-high)

Once you're ready to do the dirtywork, get your breadcrumbs in a bowl.

Dirtywork:

Form sticky risotto into your palm and load with any desired fillings, covering filling with more risotto and forming a ball. This doesn't need to be an exact science: some of ours were golfball-sized and others baseballs. Some filling was completely hidden inside while others resembled sloppy Lush bath bombs with spinach hanging out or sausage dotting the exterior. The important thing is to cover as much of the exterior with risotto, as that creates the glue to hold the breadcrumbs.

Cover risotto balls with breadcrumbs (panko works though we enjoyed italian-style) and drop into hot oil, turning every few minutes or until golden brown.

Drain excess oil when done, frying arancini in small batches

Once finished, serve with any sauce that sounds good with your particular brand of arancini.

Here is a shot of me preparing my famous red sauce, but since I have no actual recipe written that will have to wait for another day...

Enjoy! We certainly hope your arancini experience turns out-- but if it doesn't please know that you're always welcome to come over to our place and sit down to a piping hot plate of this:

A Plant Project

We've covered a lot of "taste" in this blog so far, but have left the "sight" and "sound" parts seriously neglected.  To that end, here's something to file under "sight" -- a little home decorating project.

While we've been in our new place for a little more than two months now, this summer has been really busy and some of our ideas for decorating the new place have fallen by the wayside.  A few weeks ago we hung up our birch tree mural. (Hanging up that birch was kinda a bi*ch, so to speak.)  During the last week we finally got around to painting our dining room (beach grass).

Here is an action shot of Mark mid-painting.  He's so good and fast at painting, he's a blur in this picture!

One feature of our new place that we loved right away was the built-in planter connecting our spiral stairs to the wall.  It is right next to a huge window and is perfect for viney plants, which can hang down into the dining room. 

This weekend we ventured up to Gethsemane Garden in Uptown, which ranks as one of my favorite stores in Chicago.  I could go broke here, and I'm not even much of a gardener.  We got a bunch of different plants for the house, including the planter box.  We didn't want the black bottom of the planter to show through, though, and we weren't up for filling the entire box with soil, so we got two big bags of river stones and Home Depot and a bunch of bags of preserved moss in different varieties.  We arranged the plants, dumped in some rocks, and spread the moss on top.  Here's the result:

Mark nixed my idea of putting a tiny gnome in there.  Here's what it looks like from below:

We still have more ideas for around the house, but this may end up being my favorite!

Eating My Way Through Paris

Last week I got back from a fantastic trip to Paris.  I am lucky enough to have parents who come up with brilliant ideas like renting apartments overlooking Notre Dame.  We walked, we shopped, we saw the sights, but mainly we ate.  Here are some of the highlights, many of which I may try my hand at reproducing at home. 

French onion soup (check out all that cheese!)

Smoked Duck Salad from Chez Toinette in Montmarte

Beef Tenderloin with Madeira Sauce also at Chez Toinette

 

Roquefort Fondue, yum

Sometimes the best thing is just a hot latte.

 

The only thing that would have made the trip any better would be if Mark had been there with us, but for now, I will have to try to make the French onion soup for him.

No New Posts Lately, But a New Home!

Haven't posted lately because we've been busy busy packing up and moving into our new apartment!  Here is a picture of Millie nervously navigating the spiral stairs in our new place:

After much initial nervousness, she's a pro at it now, and if you come over she will probably show off her walking up and down the spiral stairs skills for you.

We have some ideas to spruce the new place up, so expect a few crafty-type posts mixed in with the usual recipes.  Until then, here's the quick dinner we made last night before heading out to see the hilarious TJ Miller at the Lincoln Lodge. 

Quick BBQ Chicken Pizza

This one is not much of a recipe since we used pizza dough from Trader Joe's and you can top pizza dough with pretty much anything (Cuban pizza from Boiler Room...mmm...), but here is what we did for our pizza last night:

• Caramelized onions
• Chicken, cooked and chopped up
• Tomatoes, chopped (Mark got some great heirloom tomatoes at Stanley's, the best tomatoes I've had this year by far)
• Red pepper, sliced and sauteed for a couple minutes with plenty of...
• Garlic, minced
• Green onions
• BBQ sauce (we used Sweet Baby Ray's, which we had in the fridge)
• Cilantro
• Fresh pizza dough from Trader Joe's
• Shredded cheddar and shredded Italian cheese blend, also from TJ's

Aside from the cilantro and green onions, throw everything on top of the rolled out dough and pop it in the oven until the crust is crispy.  This was about 20 minutes for us.  Top with the cilantro and green onions and eat!

Getting Rid of the Cabbage (A Salad Recipe)

My New Year’s resolution this year is to cut down on stuff.  This is partly motivated by an upcoming apartment move, but also seems like a good idea in general (except when Mark catches you sneaking his things into the box destined for Goodwill).  One of the small ways I am trying to declutter is to not hold onto magazines.  Pre-resolution, I’d hold onto cooking magazines and old issues of The New Yorker for years – yes, years – thinking I’d need a recipe or really be in the mood for that 2008 article on the economics of cashew nut farming in developing countries that I skipped the first time around.  

I mention all this because it serves, in a way, as the inspiration for this dinner.  A few weeks back I clipped a red cabbage salad recipe from an issue of Bon Appetit magazine before it made its way into the trash.   Last week we had half a head of red cabbage a few days away from desperately needing to join the magazine in the trash.  I tweaked this recipe using other ingredients we already had and served it with tilapia.  We got rid of the magazine and we got rid of the cabbage.  Here is the original recipe and here is the version I made:

Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon & Pecans

• Half a head of red cabbage, finely sliced (I used our mandolin)
• ¼ cup dried cranberries
• 3 T balsamic vinegar
• 4 slices bacon
• 1 shallot, finely diced
• 1 T olive oil
• ½ cup pecans, toasted and roughly chopped

Soak the dried cranberries in the vinegar for at least 20 minutes.  Set aside like so:

 
Put your sliced cabbage in a large bowl (aka, the bowl you'll serve it out of).   Finely dice the shallot and set it aside.  Roughly chop the pecans.

Saute the bacon until crispy.  Add the shallots and cook for just a few minutes more with the bacon.  Remove from heat and stir in the cranberry/vinegar mix.

This will be the salad dressing.  Its sweet and tangy qualities work really well with the cabbage.  Add the chopped pecans to the cabbage, then the dressing and season with salt and pepper.  Mix well:

This went really well with some tilapia that I quickly crusted with panko and sauteed: