Outstanding Orzo

Orzo.  Where have you been all of my life?  Orzo is a pasta that looks like a large grain of rice before cooking.  Lucia’s has a pretty good orzo dish, but it has raw onions in it, and more olive oil than I’d use.  In my opinion, raw onions can ruin a perfectly good “fill in the blank” - anything!  I just don’t care for it.  I blame my older brother for the onion thing.  He didn’t like raw onions.  I think he was trying to rally up the troops against my mother using them.  Generally, it worked.  She would often put them in the blender, so we wouldn’t complain too much.  I’m sure she complained about us not liking them!  Oh, well.  I still don’t like them.  BTW, cooked onions are fine, in most cases.  Onion soup?  Love it, as long as it’s not too salty.  Crazy.  For a really subtle, onion flavor:  leeks.  I had ordered some leeks, fennel, and, of course, kale last week from my new grocery delivery service.  I had planned to make risotto.  Only one problem, no rice for it!  Duh, me!  Again, my creations often stem from my lack of desire to run to the store on the weekends, when I do most of my cooking.  This is a classic example.  

None of my PBS cooking shows were on yesterday.  They are fundraising.  I’m usually inspired by something I see on one of the Saturday PBS cooking shows.  

I had make an olive ciabatta bread this morning.  Yum!  I used the recipe that I posted last week and just added some kalamati olives (the Greek kind).  I had some extra black olives that I’d planned to add to the dough this morning, but was afraid of losing the bubbles that form overnight in the dough.  I had already opened them.  That’s how this got started!  I also have some ricotta cheese that I’ve been trying to use.  I couldn’t figure out how to use that. I froze it to use in lasagna another day.  

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Place 2 cast iron pans inside to heat.

• 1 cup of uncooked orzo.
• Olive oil.  Use just enough to coat the orzo (a few tablespoons).
• 1 fennel bulb, chopped.  Save the small, airy, green tops for later in this recipe.
• 3 leek stalks.  Cut off the root end.  I use 3-4 inches above that and use the rest for compost.  It’s too tough.  The white part is the most tender.  Rinse what you plan to use really well.  There is often dirt in between the layers.
• 1 bunch of kale.  Remove greens from stem and chop.
• 3 tsp. butter.
• Airy green top from fennel bulb.  It looks a lot like fresh dill.  Too pretty to waste.  
• Fresh herbs.  The more variety, the merrier.  I had rosemary, thyme, arugula, cilantro, and fresh parsley.)
• Cayenne Pepper (dash).
• 1 small can of black olives.
• Shredded cheese (asiago , feta, or moz.).
• Toasted nuts (I used pine nuts).

1. Cook the orzo (al dante) for about 8 minutes in lots of boiling water.  Drain.
2. While cooking the orzo, roast fennel bulb, leeks, and kale in cast iron pans with a little bit of butter.  I cook each of the veggies separately.  They don’t all cook evenly.  This mitigates over-cooking some and under-cooking others.
3. Add roasted veggies to the cooked and oiled orzo.
4. Add the fennel green top, fresh herbs, and black olives.  
5. Before serving, top with a little bit of cheese and some toasted nuts.  I don’t add these things until serving.  They would get too damp, to be at their peak, after sitting in the fridge.

This can be served cold or at room temp.  It is a dish that you will want to eat slowly to identify the fresh herbs, roasted veggies and complexity of the different textures.  The leeks provide a mild onion flavor.  The fennel, actually has a licorice kind of “cabbagey” flavor.  Kale is always delicious!  With the olive ciabatta bread that I made.  Even better.

Tomato Soup

This is a healthy and foolproof recipe.  It’s also easy to keep the ingredients in the house, and quick to make!  It’s not the best tomato soup that I’ve ever had (bad introduction, but full disclosure), but it’s non dairy, low in fat/calories, and easy to make.  I’ve adapted this recipe from the stock class I took at Kitchen Window a couple of weeks ago.  http://www.kitchenwindow.com/.  This recipe starts with chicken stock.  More on that later.  I cheated on this one, since I didn’t have any chicken.  This is a critical ingredient to make chicken stock.  I made veggie stock with Chicken Soup Base that I had in the fridge.  Reasoning:  I had two bags of groceries to carry home from the bus the other day and couldn’t bear to add a chicken to the load.  That was poor planning.  I just signed up for grocery delivery.  One less chore to do in my free time.  Yeah!  Is this a great country, or what?

Ingredients:

• 1 can whole peeled tomatoes (I use an imported brand from Italy.  Kind of snooty, but delicious!)  Strain out the juice and keep to add later.
• 2 tbsp. extra butter.
• 1 cup yellow onion, chopped.
• 1/2 cup carrot, peeled and chopped (doesn’t need to be pretty)  This soup gets blended at the end.
• 1/2 cup celery (chopped).
• 2 cloves garlic.
• 1 cup chicken stock.
• 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (or other seasoning).

Garnish with fresh parsley, cilantro, other herbs, cream, sour cream, or whatever you like.

Process:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  On parchment paper, place tomatoes topped with garlic.  You don’t want to cook tomatoes on a metal surface.  Place onion, carrot, and celery in hot cast iron pan with butter.  Put all veggies in the oven for 10 minutes or so.  The tomatoes will blacken pretty quickly.  They’ll need to come out first.  Leave the other veggies in for another 10-15 minutes.
2. Heat the stock while the veggies are in the oven, in a saucepan.
3. Add veggies when they are caramelized and tomato juice that was strained earlier.  Add other veggies.  Heat stock and veggies until carrots and celery are soft. This takes 15-20 minutes.
4. Puree.  I used a blender, but you can do this a lot of different ways.  Make sure the blender can breathe.  Place a towel over the top, rather than the lid.  If it’s airtight, it’ll form pressure that will make a mess, at a minimum, and may even be dangerous.
5. Serve with garnish and some fresh bread.  This would be really great with a grilled cheese sandwich.  Even though this soup sounds kind of light, it’s actually really filling.  

Cast Iron Pans

I use two Lodge Cast Iron Frying Pans, consistently.  I’ve gotten rid of all of my non-stick pans.  A few years ago, they started talking about the damage those do to your lungs.  Gross!  I have a gas stove, for the first time in my life, so it makes even more sense.  Top Ten Reasons that I love my cast iron pans:

1. Easy clean up.  I just wipe the cooled pan down with a paper towel.  You can then put it in a really hot oven, if you’re a clean freak.  You can also hand wash and hand dry, but really???  I leave mine out on the stovetop.  I put them in the oven if I don’t want to look at them.  Mine are really well seasoned.
2. Fast cooking.  You always heat the pan up before cooking.  This is not a good idea with non-stick pans.  You can cook at much higher temps., too.  You can roast meat or veggies in the cast iron pan, too.  I bake bread in mine, as you may already know.
3. Beautiful browning.  I especially like this for veggies.  Again, they cook up fast.  You can just put the pans with a layer of veggies (2) in the oven and go and do something else. 
4. Even heat.  Since the pan is heavy, the heat is even.  This is forgiving.  Who doesn’t need a little bit of this, every now and again?
5. Inexpensive.  This is one of my favorite things.  I don’t think I’ve ever spent $100 on any pan in my life.  They still got trashed.  I have two cast iron frying pans.  I spent less than $50 on the two of them.  I did splurge on glass lids for both of them and a panini press that looks like an antique iron.  Cute!
6. Available at big box stores.  Because they are inexpensive, you can get them at Target, Walmart, or Fleet Farm!  
7. Health benefits.  Some of the “granola heads” say that food cooked in an uncoated/untreated cast iron pan provide essential minerals/metals that we don’t often get in our cooking.
8. Versatile.  These pans go from stovetop to oven and from the grill to the camp fire!  
9. Cooks at high temps. without killing the canary!  Do I really need to say any more?
10. Self defense weapon.  I’m just sayin’.  If an intruder got in to your house, you could just clock him with one of these.  Careful.  Make sure he falls/collapses IN the house, not outside.  Otherwise, the other nine reasons would likely be offset by our criminal justice system! :-)  I’m just kidding about this one, of course.

Ciabatta Bread

I’ve tried and failed to make a decent ciabatta bread, until now!!!  Very exciting!  I’ve adapted this from lifehack.org.  He calls it “one minute ciabatta”.  This may be stretching the truth a little bit, as the dough has to rise/rest for 8-12 hours.  I mixed it and covered it  in a few minutes, just before “retiring” last night.  I was so excited when I woke up and saw that the dough was still sticky and had tripled in size, just as it was supposed to!  That hardly ever happens to me!  Another option would be to mix it up and let it rest all day.  You’d have warm, fresh bread for dinner!

Again, I used my Kitchenaid mixer to mix this up.  Easy and fast!  This is not the way a lady wants to be described, but I’m not talking about a lady.  I’m talking about the hard working and versatile equipment in my little kitchen!  I have the professional model, which is really not at all like me.  I pretend to be a professional, but am usually to cheap and practical to buy the biggest and best.  :-)  I blame that on my very practical Wisconsin roots.  Speaking of practical, I baked this in my cast iron pan.  More on this, too.  Let’s do it!

Ingredients:

2 cups of hot tap water (not microwaved, just from the tap).

1/4 tsp. yeast (keep it fresh).  It should bubble a little when added to warm water.

3 1/2 c. bread flour (can use all purpose).

1/2 tsp. salt.

Process:

• ADD.  This sounds like a math problem, but it isn’t!  Add hot tap water and yeast to the warm mixing bowl.  You can mix this up with a whisk or fork.  Then, let it sit for a few minutes.  Add the flour.  Add the salt.  Add some dried herbs, if you want to be really fancy.
• MIX.  I use the dough hook on the mixer for this.  Just mix until all ingredients are incorporated.  The “ball” of dough is not really a ball here.  It’s pretty sticky and wet, much more than a french or italian dough.  It looks pretty small, but don’t get discouraged.
• RISE/REST.  Leave the dough in the mixer bowl.  (Why dirty another big bowl?) Cover with plastic wrap or a clean towel.  Place in a warm and draft free place for 8-12 hours.  (I put it in the oven, mostly so Belle doesn’t decide to have a midnight snack!)
• BAKE:  As noted below, heat up one pan of water.  (I use my 2 qt. sauce pan for this.)  Place the cast iron pan (or baking sheet) in the oven to preheat at 450 degrees.  You don’t need to put flour, corn meal, or parchment paper on the cast iron.  GENIOUS!!!!  When the oven is hot, carefully pour the dough in to the hot cast iron pan.  Gentle, gentle, gentle.  The air bubbles that are in the dough make this work.  I carefully scraped the side of the bowl as the dough was coming out of the bowl.  Bake until brown (20-30 minutes).
• COOL.  Just be cool.  Carefully, place the finished loaf on a cooling rack.  Let it cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing, so the bread does not collapse.  
• Slice and enjoy!  This is the best part!  So delicious! Mine was a little bit mis-shapen, but looks like “the real deal”, when sliced.  

Tips:  

Warm up the mixing bowl before adding the water and yeast.  Cold kills yeast.

I leave the yeast and water in the warmed up bowl for a few minutes before adding the flour.  Then, I pour all of the flour on top of the water and yeast.  I put the salt on top of the flour.  Remember, salt kills yeast, too.

When preheating the oven, boil a pan of water (about an inch in the bottom of the pan), put the cast iron pan in the oven, or heat it up on the stove.  Note:  the pan with boiling water is not the same pan that you will be baking in.  Oddly, a pan of hot water in the oven, helps to crisp up the crust.  I place this on the rack below the rack that the bread is on.  Having water in a spray bottle and spraying the oven walls just after placing the dough in the hot oven helps, too.  

You can add dried herbs or some nice parm. cheese.  Again, not the stuff in the green can.  Adding a little bit (1 tbsp.) of melted butter will help to brown the loaf.  

Some recipes call for a baking stone or pizza slider thingy (not it’s technical name).  Again, I have a really tiny kitchen in a house that was built in the 1930’s or 40’s, so less is better.  I don’t need either one of those things, since I have the cast iron pan!

Easy clean up!  I used just one measuring cup, one measuring spoon, my Kitchenaid mixing bowl, and the dough hook.  You could live really large with one more bowl.  After mixing the dough, pour half of it in another bowl.  You could make two smaller loaves.  You could also top the first “layer” from one bowl with cheese, add the other half of the dough, and top that with cheese!  The possibilities are endless!

My friend, Tadd, would toast this bread.  I’ll probably take a couple of slices, lightly butter both sides, and “grill” in a hot cast iron pan! 

Cheese Chicharron

Cheese.  I’m a cheese snob.  It’s partly Sam’s fault, but Angie enables this habit.  I often spend more on cheese than all of my other items combined!  Plus, you’d be disappointed if I didn’t share some cheese recipes!  Speaking of the Packers...

This is a really yummy, snack or appetizer.  It is easy, peasy, lemon squeezy to make!  I saw this on Rick Bayless’ show.  He’s also on PBS and has several restuarants in Chicago.  I’ve been to La Frontera.  It’s really great.  It was summer, we ate outside, in Chicago!  

For the first time in my life, I have a gas stove.  If you know me, I’m always yammering on about how great cast iron pans are.  I don’t think that they’d be as great with electric.  I have two cast iron pans.  I’ve found glass lids for each of them.  I don’t think that “non stick” pans are good for us.  Plus, I like to cook things fast and super-hot.  That is very bad in a non-stick pan, but very good in a cast iron pan.  It takes some getting used to, but I make everything in my two cast iron pans, a 2 quart stainless steel sauce pan (like for boiling pasta), and my pressure cooker.  I even make toast in the cast iron pan!  It makes the items cooked nice and brown.  It can go from the stove top to the oven, and clean up is easy!  I just wipe them down with a paper towel, when they are cool, of course.  You can always just stick them in a really hot oven (450 or 500 degrees) for cleaning.  Mine are really seasoned, so nothing sticks.  You want to get the pan really hot before adding ingredients.  I often heat mine up while I’m preparing the ingredients.  

This is such an easy recipe, I feel a little bit bad (not really).  One ingredient!  Cheese!

About 1/4 to 1/2 cup finely shredded cheese.  You can try different kinds.  I used mozerella.  

Get the cast iron pan nice and hot.  Sprinkle the cheese around the pan, evenly.  You can roll the pan around to spread out the melted cheese.  If you use a cheese with more fat, you’ll need to “blot” the oil off of the top with a dry paper towel.  This is not necessary in a cast iron pan with a low fat cheese.  The edges will brown first, but be patient!  Start to loosen up the edges with a spatula and work your way in, toward the middle.  Once the whole piece will come lose, flip it over.  Both sides will be crisp and brown.

Remove from pan and fold in half.  It’s pretty “moldable” while it’s warm.  It’ll become brittle, like a chip, as it cools.  Serve on a large plate with salsa or guacamole.  Break off pieces and dip!  This is really good with a glass of red wine.  You’ll need to practice a little bit to see how much cheese works in your pan.  

French Bread

I deleted this recipe on my blog a few weeks ago, inadvertently.  I’m putting it back out there because it’s one of my favorites.  This is the first bread that I tried baking after I took a bread baking class last fall.  It is pretty foolproof!  It is made with love.  My cooking generally involves very few ingredients.  This bread is inexpensive to make and really doesn’t take very long.  While the dough is rising, you can do other things.  I’m not a very good baker, but have had success with bread and rolls.  To insure your success, buy some fresh bread or all purpose flour and quick rising yeast.  Why take chances with ingredients that may result in failure.  You can make a lot of delicious bread by spending less than $10 on fresh flour and yeast.

Yeast is a living organism.  Time, cold, too much heat, and salt will kill it.  Recently, I invested in a $20 food thermometer and a food scale.  My tap water does not get that hot, so I put some water in the microwave for 30 seconds.  That is too hot.  Just plain, hot, tap water.  This works.  What could be more simple?   Professional bakers often weigh their ingredients, rather than measuring them.  I’m not there yet, but it is convenient to weigh each piece of dough when making rolls.  I’m not a freak about everything being uniform and looking factory made.  I am a freak about improving the odds of evenly cooked rolls for a better product.  

I only have a few items in my kitchen that I regularly use that I spent more than $30 on.  My Kitchen-aid mixer is one of them.  I love this tool!  It makes bread making super easy.  The mixer is not necessary, but you don’t even need to knead it (get it? need to knead it?), if you have one.  The mixer does it for you!  This recipe is adapted from Food.com’sl Old Reliable French Bread. One more thing:  Don’t worry.  The worst thing that can happen is that it doesn’t turn out.  IThe ingredients don’t cost much and you’ll learn.  n cooking, and life, we learn a lot from our mistakes.  I should be really smart, by now!

A couple of more quick tips.  My kitchen is really chilly in winter, so after I run the hot water for the dough, I fill the mixing bowl with hot water, just to warm it up.  Of course, I dump that in to my plants before adding the ingredients.  When baking, I set all ingredients out on the counter before I begin combining ingredients.  There’s not much more frustrating than realizing that you don’t have quite enough of something when you’re half finished mixing the ingredients.  

French Bread - with a Kitchen-aid Mixer.  

1 1/4 cup warm water (hot from tap)

3 tsp. quick rise yeast

3 1/2 c. flour (bread or AP)

1 tsp. salt

2 tbsp. melted butter

Place warm water in warmed mixing bowl.

Add yeast and mix with water.

Add 3 c. flour.  Keep the 1/2 c. on the side.  Add if needed.

Add salt and melted butter.  Try not to let the salt or butter touch the yeast yet.  Notice that the mixer as no yet been powered up.

Knead with dough hook until ingredients are incorporated, but don’t over do it.

Wash out the bowl with hot soapy water.  When dry, add 1 tsp. oil.

Form the dough in to a ball.  Place the dough in the clean, warm, oiled, bowl.  Turn it over in the oil, so it’s oiled all over.  Otherwise, it’ll stick to the bowl and the plastic.  Yuck!

Cover bowl with plastic wrap or a clean, cotton dish towel.  Place it in a warm, draft free place.  Let the dough rise for about an hour.  The dough ball will double in size.

Remove the dough from the bowl and press it down.  They call this “punching”, but be gentle.  What did that dough ever do to you?  Don’t ever take out your aggression on bread dough.

Divide the dough in to half.

Shape.  You can just shape this in to a ball.  I like to roll it (or press with my fingers) into a rectangle.  Again, this is more gentle than rolling with a rolling pin.  Then roll up into a loaf.  Pinch/finish off the edges, if you’d like.  I prefer a more “rustic” look.  You can put the loaves in loaf pans, but I don’t.  I just bake them on a baking sheet.

Let the two loaves rise for another hour (about), again until about double in size.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Cut diagonal “vents” in to the top of each loaf.  Not real deep.  Maybe 1/8 to 1/4”?  These will look very cool when baking is finished.

Bake for about 25 minutes, turning the pan 180 degrees for even baking about half way through.  Bake until nicely browned.

Remove from oven.  Cool for 10 minutes before slicing.  This is the hardest part!

I like this bread with about everything.  My fav is to slice off the end, when it’s still warm, dipped in olive oil, vinegar, and diced, fresh herbs.  

I’ve probably made this bread about 15 times, and it works, EVERY TIME!  My goal is to use that entire little brown jar of yeast!  This bread lasts, wrapped in a plastic bag, in my cupboard for a week.  If I’m getting toward the end of the week and have lots left, make croutons or bread crumbs.  Trust me, you won’t want to waste any of this!

"Braised" short ribs (in the pressure cooker).

My friend, Maria, is always talking about her short ribs.  She can’t believe that I haven’t made them.  So, she talked me in to trying them.  She talks me in to a lot of things by convincing me how fun it’ll be.  I drew the line when she wanted me to “support” the Vikings before this last season started.  They had a pretty good year last year, with Favre at his finest, but I can not like the Vikings.  At the end of last season, I said that he was hurt.  I had a feeling.  I just teased her about how thankful I was that I never routed for them!  I didn’t dislike the Vikings as much as I did when Favre came here.  Enough about that. 

I went to the meat counter and picked out some lovely beef short ribs, not too fatty.  I’ve made pork ribs a bunch of times, but haven’t really used a recipe.  This recipe is adapted from “dadcooksdinner.com”.  This  can be made a day ahead.

4 lbs. short ribs

f/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 cups chicken stock

1 cup red wine

1 onion (I cut this in large chunks)

4 cloves of garlic

1 bay leaf

2 tbsp. ketchup (or tomato paste, if you have it)

You can brown the ribs a little in the pressure cooker before the pressure cooking process.  I didn’t do this, to save time.

Put all ingredients in pressure cooker.  Bring to full pressure.  Reduce heat, but maintain pressure.  Cook on full pressure for 25 minutes.  Then start to release pressure.  Try to release pressure within 15 minutes.  Open the lid away from you, so the steam escapes from the back.

After pressure has been released, put ribs on one platter.  Pour sauce in a “fat separator” if you have one.  Otherwise, put all of the sauce in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate.  The fat will rise to the top of the bowl.  This sounds horrible, but it beats the alternative!  Refrigerating the ribs is an easy way to  further reduce the fat.  Mine had just a little bit - hardly worth the exercise.

If refrigerated, heat the sauce and the ribs.  

Top the ribs with the sauce.

Sit down and enjoy with plenty of napkins!