Pad Try

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Who knows what puts these thoughts into your head, the “You know what’d be great for dinner tonight that we haven’t had in ages?” thoughts. But there’s no such thing as “I’ll just stop at the market on my way home for those six or seven ingredients we don’t have on hand” because it’s the middle of a pandemic and you’re recovering from heart surgery and they don’t sell lemongrass at the snack counter in the lobby of the hospital where you go for cardiac rehab. (Well, maybe they do, but you’ve never gone to the snack counter.)

Sure, you could order take-out from that place you hardly ever go even when there’s not a pandemic, but the last time you did that was the night of “How about a thick-crust pizza?” when you called to order from a new place and then you got there and you could see it was wildly overcrowded and the guy behind the counter had a mask around his chin! and you drove home furious without the pizza and made peanut-butter sandwiches—so, yeah, ordering take-out on a whim from a new place is not going to happen any time soon. But, hey, the astronauts on the International Space Station can’t exactly go to Five Guys whenever they feel like it, either.

But you are resourceful. After all, did your mother not teach you to cook with lessons like “What do you do if you don’t have tomato paste? Reduce some ketchup”? And have you not been enjoying Mr. Jamie Oliver’s kitchen-flexibility instructions? (Have you not been enjoying them unto the point of parody? “Today we’re going to make a hamburger. But if you don’t have proper rolls, you can use slicing bread, and if you don’t have ground beef you can use peanut butter, and if you don’t have ketchup you can use grape jelly! Fill your boots, lovely people!”)

So, yes, you could add scallions and lemongrass and tofu and mung bean sprouts to the shopping list and wait for the double-masked-6AM-once-a-fortnight grocery run your family is allowing itself, but by then the urge for Pad Thai will probably have passed. But a little red onion is as crunchy as a scallion and every bit as colorful. And who really knows what lemongrass is, anyway? And let’s be truthful: you wouldn’t have added tofu to the shopping list in the first place. And—best of all!—your beautiful, intelligent, and eminently resourceful spouse has been sprouting broccoli seeds in a mason jar.

So you gather the ingredients, such as you are able: that tamarind paste and those dried shrimp that have been in the bottom of the crisper for ages because they keep forever; a chicken breast from the fridge, a few shrimp from the freezer; a lime, though you would not have been above using bottled lime juice if there hadn’t been one; some peanuts; a handful of snow peas she found at the market on the last trip; soy sauce, fish sauce, garlic; No palm sugar? Who cares? Brown sugar will be fine. Angel hair, because honestly at this point noodles are noodles. What’s that, dear? Yes, of course, I can serve yours over rice instead.

Would you call this authentic Pad Thai? Of course you wouldn’t. Would you say it was good? Why, yes. Yes, you would. And as you eat it, think of mom. And Chef Jamie. And your resourceful wife and her Mason-jar sprouts. And raise a glass to those astronauts on the International Space Station who only get grocery deliveries every six months. And know that one day you will stop at the market on a whim. But until then you’ll be fine.

Where Credit Is Due

I’ve been doing some work for a company that is building a virtual holiday community. Not a community for virtual holidays, but a virtual community where folks might enjoy some of the social aspects of the winter holidays that they’d otherwise miss during Covidtide. It’s not just for Christmas; the site opened with a celebration of Diwali, with Indian dance lessons, meditation sessions, and fireworks. There are virtual restaurants—”bring your own everything”!—where friends might gather around a virtual table, with backgrounds simulating the restaurant’s decor, and pages of recipes from the cultures whose holidays are being celebrated.

My job has been to edit the text in the various sections—and, since I have some experience in writing them here, in editing the recipes that were contributed by the writers of each section. This isn’t cookbook-level editing; I’m not making and taste-testing each dish. I’m looking for spelling errors, making the format consistent from dish to dish, and reading with the eye of an average home cook to check for ambiguous or missing instructions. Call me crazy, but in a pastry recipe, I think there should be some indication of what to do with the dough after it’s prepared. Like, say, put it in the oven. And maybe tell me how long to leave it there, or how I should know when it’s time to take it out. I sent a lot of them back to the site-runners with notes like, “Ask for clarification…” or “Don’t put this up until we get the oven temperature!”

In one section, many of the recipes seemed extremely vague—the sort that might have been found on a tattered, grease-stained piece of paper handed down from somebody’s great-great-grandmother. And then, all of a sudden, there were several that were really detailed. Down to a listing of Nutrition Facts: how many calories per serving, how much sodium, and so on. The sort of thing virtually no home cook would include in a recipe, even if they had access to the information. The hairs on the back of my neck would have raised, if they weren’t too long for that sort of thing since I’m so overdue for a haircut.

I did some quick web searching and, sure enough, found the exact recipe on a well-respected cookery-instruction site. (I won’t say which one, but it rhymes with “Snood Let Jerk Plot Bomb.”) I did some searching on the next recipe, and it showed up on another site, too.

I sent the site-runner—my employer and friend—a heads-up that those couple of recipes should be pulled, and why. I kept searching. It turned out that every single one of the recipes in that section was found on another site. Even the vague ones. I was heartsick, and so was my friend.

So, of course, we’ve had all the recipes pulled, at least until we can check their contributors, and provide proper links to their sources. It’s sad, but it’s necessary, and it’s only right.

It’s not that I think recipes shouldn’t be shared. Heaven knows most recipe sites offer a way to save and print the ingredients and instructions. But if you end up sharing such a recipe, don’t do it without proper attribution. That’s just not cool. Food isn’t intellectual property, but the compilation of ingredient lists and instructions is. Even if the recipe was originally typed up from a tattered, grease-stained piece of paper handed down from somebody’s great-great-grandmother. Nana and Aunt Sylvia and the test cooks at ATK—they all deserve to be recognized. Credit where credit is due.

A Little Holiday Treat

It’s a little odd that in a year in which we’ve done more cooking than usual we’ve posted even less here. But, hey, everything about this year has been strange, so I guess that our erratic posting habits shouldn’t be such a surprise.

Since she’d used all of her available leave time helping to care for me as I recovered from surgery, Christmas Eve was a workday for her—though the evening commute only took a couple of seconds; her office is our former guest room. We’d already carefully planned a not-extravagant menu, unlike that year when making dinner took so long to prepare and contained so many courses we barely finished before Christmas morning. A little shrimp cocktail, some crab-stuffed mushrooms, and clam chowder and fresh-baked biscuits: it all had easy prep and cleanup, and was incredibly tasty.

I’d taken the rest of the semester off from teaching in order to concentrate on recovery, and there were no late-night rehearsals and performances for theatre projects, so for the first time in forever our holiday marshmallow-gifts and Christmas cards were prepared and shipped early; we even had a little time to bake some cookies for us, and as gifts for helpful neighbors. Nana’s molasses cookies are fabulous, but the recipe is a family secret I’m not sure I even have access to. Snickerdoodles are reliable, as any recipe from America’s Test Kitchen should be. I finally realized the secret to making Peanut Butter Blossoms: however pretty they might be, ignore the Hershey Kisses and use high quality dark chocolate. About the Almond Linzer cookies she was so excited to try, perhaps the less said the better, save that any recipe with dough so fussy ought to deliver cookies that stuff themselves with jam.

It’s now the Monday after Christmas, when some Grinches have already taken down their decorations and left trees by the curb, but I’ve got one belated Christmas treat to share. (Or maybe it’s early for next year; you decide.)

Not so long ago—in fact, on the Monday after Thanksgiving—just as I was about to leave for my Cardiac Rehab session, I received an email from a composer-friend. Although we’ve known each other, and admired each other’s work, for more than twenty years, it was only this summer that we collaborated for the first time, when we wrote the closing number for a virtual version of the youth theatre program on whose faculty we serve. John’s email said, “Want to write a Christmas song?” It had attached the recording of a piece of music he had in mind—and with which I fell in love immediately.

Writing the lyric was as much fun as I’ve had in a very long time, and receiving the recording made by a terrific actress we know was maybe the happiest thing to happen this year. I hope that the expiration date for Christmas songs hasn’t passed in your holiday celebration, and hope even more that we will all share a peaceful, happy, healthy, and creative 2021.

Maybe It Will Snow. Music by John O’Neill, lyrics by Clay Zambo, performed by Gabrielle Stravelli.

I hope, too, that the New Year will be sweet and not so prone to breaking as these temperamental cookies.

Do not be fooled into thinking this is the only sample that cracked into many pieces. We lost nearly as many as we saved.

The Best of Both Popcorn Worlds

She was in the mood for popcorn. I was, well, not so much. I make perfectly good popcorn, but dinner had been plenty salty and I was thinking something sweet was a better idea. I thought about s’mores—but since we had neither marshmallows nor graham crackers, that was a non-starter.

Yes, I make perfectly good marshmallows. But not instantaneously. (Also, I’m not sure we have gelatin.) And, yes, I should probably look up a graham cracker recipe (or at least add graham crackers to the shopping list), but that’s still not going to help now.

But we do have plenty of chocolate. What would happen if I added chocolate chips to a bowl of hot popcorn? (Probably nothing much, I decided. I Googled. I got an idea. I got out the Dutch oven.

Fifteen minutes later I put the pot between us on the coffee table.

“Write it down,” she said forcefully. “In exact detail.”

Peanut Butter Cup Popcorn

Put 3 Tbsp oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over high heat. (Peanut oil is best, but we were out; I used canola and kept a close eye on the pot.)

Add 3 popcorn kernels to the pot and put the lid on, slightly ajar.

Meanwhile, add to a microwave-safe bowl or measuring cup:

3 oz. peanut butter
4 oz. good quality chocolate
1 Tbsp butter

Heat, stirring every 30 seconds, until all the chocolate is melted. Stir to combine.When the third kernel pops, remove the pot from the heat and add 1/3 cup popcorn kernels. Put the lid on the pot and wait for 30 seconds.

Put the pot back on the heat, with the lid ajar. Shake the pot now and again so nothing sticks or burns. When the popping slows to once every 2 or 3 seconds, remove from heat and carefully remove the lid.

Pour the chocolate-peanut butter mixture over the hot popcorn (which is still in the hot pan) and stir until all the popcorn is coated. Add a bit of salt as desired (depending, mostly, on how salty the peanut butter is).

Serve, along with napkins. This stuff is sticky and messy and wonderful.

Here’s where it gets tricky. She said to write it down in exact detail. I used half of a Godiva Masterpieces Milk Chocolate Caramel Lion of Belgium Bar (1.5 oz) and half of a Theo Dark Chocolate Coconut bar (1.5 oz). But that’s what I used because that’s what I had at hand—both bars were already opened; the caramel bar had been in our shared Easter basket, and the chocolate-coconut bar had been left over from a batch of brownies she made a week or so ago. I think the caramel in the Godiva bar was useful in making the chocolate sauce more gooey-licious, but I would have happily used chocolate chips instead if neither bar had been opened.It was not too salty, it was not too sweet; it was crunchy and gooey. It was sort of the best of both popcorn worlds. We’ll definitely try it again.

By the way, here’s the way I usually make perfectly good popcorn.

Perfectly Good Popcorn

Follow the popping instructions as above.

While the oil is heating, combine

2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 oz. finely grated Parmesan cheese

Toss the hot popcorn with 3 Tbsp melted butter, then add the spice mixture; stir to combine.

 

You Can Only Stretch So Far

She misses burritos more than almost anything. I mean, obviously not more than the freedom to be outdoors, and the feeling that it is safe to go to the market, but quite a lot.

So okay. We have everything we need for burritos: chicken, veg, spices, cheese, sour cream, a bit of not-too-wilted cilantro, even the last of a container of guacamole. But not tortillas. There’s a market within an easy walk that I’m sure has them in stock, this is not the time to just make a quick run to pick up one thing.

I am resourceful. If I can make tater tots, I should be able to make tortillas. Not as well as a commercial bakery, but well enough. Flour, water, salt, shortening—these we have. I mixed up the dough and let it rest in a covered bowl on the counter during my afternoon of teaching.

She came downstairs after her long day, beat. “Would you like a burrito for dinner?” “YES!—but no,” she said; no restaurant trips for us yet. I showed her the bowl. “You’re making tortillas!” It was like I could spin straw into gold.

I sautéed strips of onion and pepper, then the strips of chicken, and got them all toasty with cumin and paprika and just a little heat from chili powder, and sauced just a little from some tomato paste and a bit of water stirred in just before everything was cooked through. That was the easy part.

I portioned the dough, heated the pan, got out the rolling pin. Try as I might, I just could not get the dough rolled thin and wide enough to bake something that would wrap appropriately into the snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug shape of a proper burrito. I was frustrated, but the toasty not-quite-flatbreads that were coming off the hot pan smelled amazing.

“Soft tacos, then,” she said with commendable adaptability.

Soft tacos it was, then. The best soft tacos ever? Maybe not. But certainly the best ones I’ve ever made. Surely not the best tortillas, but definitely the freshest we’ve ever had. I may put tortillas on the grocery list; I may poke around on-line to see if I can find an instructional video with tips on how to get homemade ones thinner; I may say burritos are something we’ll wait for until we feel like visiting restaurants again. As for homemade tortilla dough, it may be that, like a budget or a frisky kitten’s patience–“Play with me now, Papa!”–some things can only stretch so far.

Thankfully, and well fed, we haven’t yet reached the breaking point.

Close Calls and Grits

You know those signs they hang in factories–“X days without an accident”? Well, I nearly needed to reset the one in the kitchen to 0.

I had defrosted some shrimp for dinner. “Are we going to have shrimp and grits?” she asked hopefully. I hadn’t gotten that far in my planning, but it sounded good to me.

I looked up the recipe (I know, right? I looked up a recipe!), I gathered the vegetables, I got the grits from the pantry, I started a skillet heating; I was ready. I got out a saucepan to make some quick stock from the shrimp shells–and then I realized that the beautiful shrimp had no shells. They had tails, but those really weren’t enough to flavor a stock.

Okay; I checked the freezer inventory. “Chicken stock, 1 qt jar.” Excellent. I’ll add the tails to the stock; that’ll do the trick. I diced and sautéed the vegetables while the stock defrosted in the microwave. I toasted the grits in a little butter.

Wow, that’s really thick stock, I thought. And it’s kinda lumpy. Was it gravy we’d mistaken for stock? Was there something wrong with it? I gave it a taste.

Mashed bananas.

Clearly the jar was mislabeled.

Good thing I didn’t just dump it into the pan with the toasted grits. I boiled some water for the grits, salted it liberally and laid the shrimp shells on top before lidding the saucepan. The cooked grits got a little more butter, and plenty of shredded cheese; if they weren’t quite as tasty as I’d hoped they were certainly fine. And the shrimp gravy had a little more tomato than usual to account for the stock I couldn’t add to it. Not perfect, but not bad.

I wrote a comic sketch for an industrial show some years ago–at the client’s request–making fun of the corporate language distinguishing between the words “incident” and “accident,” and how the phrase “near miss” seems to indicate that there was, in fact, a collision of some sort. That script was lost several moves ago, but the intention was to riff on the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First?” routine. I’m sure my sketch wan’t as funny as theirs, but it was certainly better than shrimp and grits and mashed bananas.

Happy-as-Possible Meal

“Oh, and I also vacuum-sealed the Dino-Bites,” I said when she came down to collect kitchen towels for the next load of laundry.

“The what?”

“Dino-bites. Little dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. Organic chicken. The kids left them.”

(“The kids” was what we’d taken to call the pair of my beloved former students who’d been our house-and-cat sitters while we were away. Upon our earlier-than-expected return home, and the news that the university wasn’t going to re-open for on-campus classes, they had decided to decamp to stay with relatives in Florida. They’d bought groceries while they were here, and I guess hadn’t had room for the Dino-Bites in their cooler for the trip to Florida.)

“Dino-Bites,” she said, amused.

“Organic Dino-Bites,” I clarified, and she went back to the laundry.

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Fast-forward a couple of weeks, to my first-day of on-line teaching, which had also included a two-hour on-line writing workshop and a bunch of other projects that involved staring at the screens in my office, not least of which was getting the tech working properly so I could do all this remote stuff; while, upstairs in her office she was dealing with work problems of her own. We were both in a mood, is what I’m trying to say. It was the sort of day when we’d have stopped at the burrito place for take-out on the way home; or, if she’d been on her own for dinner she would have visited the drive-through for some chicken nuggets and fries. Because however much meal planning you do and how careful you are about choosing only the best, sometimes you have to do that. It was definitely that sort of day, but we weren’t going out yet, not even to pick up something quick.

“Go take a shower,” I said. “I have a plan.”

She came back a while later, with damp hair and fresh jammies, and I presented dinner. Some vegetables, sure–we’re grown-ups most of the time–along with a pile of French fries and some dinosaur-shaped organic chicken nuggets.

Dinnerasaurus Rex

Closest thing to a Happy Meal I could provide. Some days close is good enough.

Taking Stock

We did a freezer inventory on the morning after we got home. (Also one of the pantry, and of the shelves in the garage. We’d made a quick stop at the market on the way home from the airport, but planned no shopping until we cleared the 14-day better-safe-than-sorry-since-we’ve-been-out-of-the-country hermitage. We were in good shape, and would continue to be so, but it’s always good to know what’s where.

I found two bags of chicken bones I was saving for stock. Now is the time. They went straight into the Instant Pot along with some celery, onion, and carrot. I covered it all with water, sealed it up, and let pressure do its thing for an hour. I removed the bits and pieces, turned on the slow-cooker setting, and left it ‘til the next morning. A little straining and a little skimming later, and I had two quarts of really good chicken stock. It felt like insurance against hunger—or, at least, against bland food.

I’ve been using it a bit at a time—for rice, gravy, and whatnot—but there was a quart left. “How about chicken and dumplings?” I asked. “Would it be more like stew than soup?” she replied. I confirmed that it would. She was in. I took out a pair of chicken breasts, crossed them off the inventory, and set them to defrost. I knew I’d have to look up the dumplings recipe to get the proportions right, but the rest would be easy.

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Chicken and Herbed Dumplings

Set a quart of chicken stock to warm in a big pot. Check the fridge.

• The last carrot. Okay, then, one carrot it is. (I added carrots to the grocery list.)
• A couple ribs of celery. (Plenty of that left; I crossed it off the list.)
• Half a package of mushrooms that need to be used. Yup.
• A big, fat onion. Check.
• A little jar of gravy made from the same stock. Definitely; it’s already got some thickening power. (Barring this, you might want to add a little cornstarch slurry to the stew before the dumplings go in.)
• A third of a tub of store-bought pesto (divided). This is your time, my friend. A fat tablespoon of it went into the pot—hey, I would have used fresh herbs, but it’s been two weeks since we’ve been to the market!
• Salt and pepper to taste, and a bit of Worcestershire sauce to bolster the umami.

Simmer until the carrots are not quite tender, then add the chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces, and simmer until the chicken is poached (another 10 minutes or so).

At this point I fed the cats, who had been very patient during all this peeling and chopping and stirring.

I prepped the dumplings, mostly according to The Joy of Cooking, stirring together in a big bowl:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• A good grind of pepper (hey, I said mostly according)

And bringing to a low simmer in a small saucepan:

• 1 cup milk
• 3 tbsp butter
• The rest of the pesto (definitely not part of the original recipe, but what fun to have herbed dumplings!) if you don[t have leftover pesto but like this idea, add some chopped herbs and grated Parmesan cheese to the dumpling dough.

Pour the wet into the dry, stir just to combine, turn out onto a board and knead very slightly. Working quickly and lightly, form into 18 or so balls. Don’t compress the dough.

Lay the dumplings atop the stew, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve in warmed bowls, topped with the last bit of parsley in the fridge.

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Would I have thought of chicken and dumplings if I didn’t have a quart of really good stock? Probably not. I was kind of in the mood for pizza, but that for another day. Same with the pesto. Resources are not scarce, but it would have been a terrible shame to let that stock go sour, or the pesto spoil. What could have been clean-out-the-fridge night turned into a rich, comforting meal.

I look forward to our next market trip; I really look forward to a day when we can go back to feeling like we can go to the market whenever we please; but, meanwhile, cooking with what’s at hand is pretty much what I do. Knowing that I can might be the biggest comfort of all.

Not-Waffles

Even those of who enjoy cooking at home regularly are trying to have a little more fun with it these days. Sometimes this means comfort food. Sometimes this means gourmet dinner preparations. Sometimes it’s a cross between Survivor and Chopped. And since we can’t invite each other over for dinner, the next best thing is sharing photos of our kitchen accomplishments. And, often, trying to make each other laugh.

And sometimes it’s all of these things at once.

Witness the story of Tot-waffles.

I don’t know the creator of the Tot-waffle, but I do know that our friend V heard about this culinary innovation and went straight to hi freezer. And became the envy of all the others, as the Coolest Dad Ever. To be sure, this is a guy whose waffle-iron game is strong: at every community-theatre potluck his Broffles (brownie batter baked in a waffle iron) are the dessert descended upon with the greatest delight. To be further sure, this is a guy whose engineering skills are unparalleled among our friends. He’s the one who hacked his espresso maker with a water supply hose so he’d never have to refill the reservoir, and who 3D-printed a larger hopper for his coffee grinder so he wouldn’t run out of beans in the morning.

So of course he made Tot-waffles. And Sriracha-maple ketchup to go with them.

I don’t like Tater Tots all that much and even I wanted one of those waffles.

But we have no Tots. They’re not something we buy.

But we have science. And potatoes. And a subscription to The New York Times. And wouldn’t you know, there was a recipe for Tots.

Simple enough, really. Parboil potatoes; shred them on a box grater or food processor; add some salt, garlic powder, and cornstarch and mix gently (you don’t want mashed potatoes); form into little nuggets; fry very briefly; cool, then bake to finish.

Mark Bittman’s recipe said to leave the skins on; I didn’t, because I was working with some older potatoes that were pretty wrinkly. I added a little paprika, too.

She proclaimed the Tots the Best Thing in the History of Ever. I’ll take that with a grain of salt; she had worked late and hunger is, I know, the best sauce. But I liked them, too. In fact, if this is what Tots taste like, then I like Tots. No waffling about it.

Don’t Stew About It

One day it’s sunny and bright, the next grey and chill—in other words, March. While we were in Antigua a couple of weeks ago, it seemed to rain every night, overnight, leaving everything fresh and clear in the morning. I like that idea but don’t know how to get our climate to adopt it. These days it’s hard to be sure we know anything.

I am pretty sure, though, that on a damp, cool day we’re going to want something comforting and warm for dinner. With two hours of video that I needed to screen for work playing in the background, I could come up with something.

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Don’t-Stew-About-It Stew

Put a film of oil in the Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Set the oven to 350F. Open the window a crack so the smoke detector doesn’t get fussy. Sprinkle cubes of beef chuck with salt and pepper. Working in batches so the pot doesn’t get crowded, brown the beef on all sides.

Deglaze the pot with a little stock. Roughly chop lots of vegetables: lots of carrots; a couple big, fat onions; plenty of celery; a few cloves of garlic. Add a bit more oil to the pot and lightly brown the vegetables; give them a little salt to help draw out moisture from the onions. Make a little well in the middle of the pot and sauté a couple tablespoons of tomato paste, then stir to distribute it among the vegetables.

Add the beef back to the pot, atop the veg. Sprinkle with a couple tablespoons of flour. Put the pot in the oven for 10 minutes or so to lightly brown the flour.

Remove the pot from the oven and stir in a couple cups of stock and a cup of red wine, salt and pepper, some thyme, a little paprika, a couple bay leaves. Put the lid on the pot, return the pot to the oven, and walk away.

Finish watching the stupid video. Take the quiz, passing it a perfect score and the knowledge that you would have scored just as well without watching the video. Don’t stew about it. The house is starting to smell wonderful. Go for a run and shower afterwards; there’s plenty of time.

After a few hours, check the beef. When it’s just shy of falling-apart tender, lower the oven temperature a bit and put the pot back in without its lid so the sauce can thicken a bit. At the last minute, warm a couple of serving bowls in the oven. Serve the stew in warm bowls, topped with a little chopped parsley, along with some nice, crusty bread.

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No need for a cookbook, no need for exact amounts or fretting over lacking ingredients. Just a cutting board, a Dutch oven, a sharp knife, and little confidence that, though there’s a lot I can’t control and even more I can’t predict, there will be dinner.

And probably some leftovers. It’ll probably rain again tomorrow.