Making Beef Stew

The harvest from the garden turned out to be really meager. We had a couple decent potatoes and lots of pathetic ones, about four beets the size of marbles, a single beautiful zucchini, a nice handful of carrots that Milly ate pretty fast (she said they tasted just like carrots from Ghana!), and some cherry tomatoes that we think weren't supposed to be so "cherry." And one mournful, twisted, tiny purple pepper. But the time had come! And so we harvested and cooked it all up into a stew and fed it to our favorite masses. Also with some pumpkin soup, courtesy of "our pumpkin" (we nabbed it off of U of R campus), lots of nice autumnal bread, a blueberry tart that turned out weird, and a pumpkin-cream cheese pie.

Honestly, I haven't eaten any stew so I don't know if it turned out well. For some reason, yesterday, I had no appetite for meat. But I think it turned out well-- a lot of it got eaten (then again, there were 11? people there). It looked and smelled wonderful! So I will transcribe Mom's stew instructions. Thanks Mom!

Beef Stew

If you want to thicken the stew:
Mix about 2 T. flour with some salt and pepper and paprika in a gallon zip lock bag. Put your meat cubes into the bag and toss them about until the meat has picked up all the flour. Brown the meat in your stew pot in 1 to 2 T. oil or fat. Then add your liquid (beef broth or water) and stir until the flour is all distributed in the liquid. You can also saute your onions, but it isn't necessary.
If you prefer a clear broth:
You don't need to cook the meat first. Fill your pot about halfway with liquid of your choice. Turn on the heat fairly high and add your meat. As the meat begins to cook, prepare your vegetables.

Add the vegetables as you get them prepared (in most cases). Carrots are hardest, so add them first. Then onion, then potato. Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat down to let the stew cook at a high simmer. Count on 1 1/2 to 2 hours total cooking time. Add fresh green beans and fresh corn and bell pepper about 40 minutes before the end. Add herbs about 1/2 hour before the end, except for bay leaves, which should be added at the beginning. If you used canned tomato, you can add it at about any time. I would wait until about half way through, so that the carrot and potato have a chance to soften. Add garlic at the beginning. At any point you can add more broth to attain sufficient liquid. Remember also that anytime you add something you will cool down the stew, so the temperature needs to raised temporarily to maintain simmering. Salt according to taste, but a rule of thumb is 1 t. per quart.

Bruschetta alla Caprese

Continuing to build the entertaining repertoire. Amy and I fed the Elders and some friends a few days ago. She wanted Italian, and we both wanted to create a menu that, though plentiful, would create the impression of lightness and coolness. We didn't want anyone sweating over soup or slogging down fettucine alfredo-- our house can get quite warm and muggy on summer nights, especially when it's full of people, which it so often is. Amy made some turkey-vegetable skewers, and I made a dish I remembered eating at restaurants, a bruschetta (toast) topped with a cut caprese (tomato, mozzarella, and basil salad). I thought it turned out quite tasty and sophisticated, and it got eaten quickly. For dessert I made the lemon curd and berry pavlova that I made for Mother's Day, and people seemed to really enjoy the looks and flavor of that too.

Brushcetta alla Caprese

Topping
somewhere around 2 c chopped (into 1/2 inch dice) well-flavored roma tomatoes
about 8 oz fresh mozzarella (not low-moisture pizza cheese), in 1/2 inch dice
a handful of fresh basil, shredded with scissors
1 1/2 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste


Blend topping ingredients and season to taste. Refrigerate about 2 hours. Before serving, drain of excess moisture.

Toasts
a long, thinnish crusty Italian-style white loaf, cut into 1/2 inch slices
garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half, as needed
extra-virgin olive oil

Broil the bread until it is crisp on both sides. Rub one side of each piece of toast with cut garlic. Sprinkle with olive oil. I think guests should be allowed to spoon on their own caprese topping, so that the toasts don't get soggy.

Zucchini Bread

The garden yielded up big sudden zucchini a couple weeks ago, good pretty much only for zucchini bread. Our first zucchini bread making appointment happened before I could get Mom's recipe, so I used the one from the Joy. It was a well-tested, successful recipe, but it wasn't the same. The next time, I used Mom's recipe. The beautifully domed, finely crumbed and very tasty loaves were vastly superior, even though about 6 cooks worked on the recipe, which can spoil even the best of recipes.

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
2/3 c. oil
2 c. sugar

Beat the above together. Stir in

2 c. grated zucchini
2 t. vanilla

Mix together.

3 c. flour (can use part whole wheat)
1 t. salt
3 t. cinnamon
2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder

Stir into the liquid mixture. Add

2 c. chopped nuts if you like.

Pour into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees F. for 60 minutes.

Stromboli Chop Bread

This is a particular specialty of my friend Melissa's, and we have enjoyed it together many times during our three years together in Rochester. Sadly, she's moving to Texas, so I thought I would gather the recipe to carry on the flame of Stromboli Chop Bread.

Stromboli Chop Bread

1 loaf's worth bread dough; Melissa uses frozen, thawed, about 6 hrs
1 t oregano (not ground)
1 c shredded mozzarella
1/4 lb hard salami, cut thickly
3 cloves garlic

Preheat oven to 350 F. Chop up all the ingredients aside from the dough and mix together. Punch down dough, spread it out, and put the other ingredients upon it. Fold it up into a little closed purse. Chop loaf in thick strips one way, and then again on the perpendicular axis. Move the clump of dough to a greased baking sheet (or, I imagine, a sheet with parchment paper). Adjust its form as necessary. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes.

Soba with Smoked Salmon

A dish representative of my healthy-eating quest. I like smoked salmon, but this time I got a different variety which was a little too fishy for me. But I really liked the soba, especially with the pea shoots, and I'd like to eat this again with normal smoked salmon. The earthiness of the buckwheat with the smoke of the fish, the fresh crunch of the sprouts, and the sweet spiciness of the dressing is really quite nice. This recipe is from The Every Day Chinese Cookbook editted by Linda Doeser. The picture of soba is, in fact, the brand I used.

Soba with Smoked Salmon

8 oz soba (buckwheat noodles)
1 T oyster sauce
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 T light olive oil
4 oz smoked salmon, cut in strips
4 oz young pea sprouts
2 ripe roma tomatoes, blanched, peeled, seeded, cut into strips
salt, pepper, chives

Cook soba, it shouldn't take long. Drain, rinse with cold water, drain. Season them with oyster sauce, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Add salmon, sprouts, tomatoes, chives. Serve.

Chicken Riggies!

This is a specialty of Utica, NY. A few friends and I had a small dinner party a few days ago and Josh, who is from Utica, made this for us. It may have been how he made it and perhaps I couldn't reproduce how delicious it tasted to me that night, but I sure enjoyed it. The name is silly, as often names of regional dishes are; "riggies" comes from the use of rigatoni.

Chicken Riggies

1 pound rigatoni
1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken meat; half white and half dark
black pepper
6 T extra-virgin olive oil, in total
1 large onion, chopped
7-8 cloves garlic, finely chopped, in total
2 large cubanelle peppers, seeded, chopped
3 roasted red peppers, chopped
6 pickled hot cherry peppers, seeded
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
about 1/2 c cream
1/2 c grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

Cook pasta al dente. Reserve 1 c of the cooking water. Cut chicken to bite size pieces, season with salt and pepper. Heat 3 T oil in a large skillet over med high to high heat. Add chicken; brown 7-8 minutes, remove. Add onions, about half the garlic, and cubanelle peppers; season with salt and pepper and cook 6-7 minutes to soften. Add roasted red peppers and cherry peppers. Stir in tomatoes and chicken. Simmer sauce and add about a cup of the pasta cooking water and up to half a cup of cream. Bring heat to low and simmer for a few minutes. Stir in cheese and pasta.

Flan

1 1/2 c sugar
1 t water

Over medium heat, stir sugar till hot. Add water, keep stirring, and break up any lumps. When sugar is liquid amber, pour in a custard dish. Coat the dish.

1/4 c sugar
8 eggs
1 t vanilla
12 oz sweetened condensed milk
12 oz whole milk
14 oz evaporated milk

Beat eggs. Mix in sugar, vanilla, and milks. Bake 1 to 1 1/4 hours in the custard dish, set in water, at 350. Cool and unmold.