As You Wish: A Party from the Pantry

-->

Be ready. Stock the fridge and the pantry with big, happy, wintry foods that set up quick and settle deep (beany-beery chili, corn chips and hearty veggies, a few good breads and cheeses). Make sure you’ve got plenty of firewood, some beer and wine. Pull out the folding table, extra chairs, some board games, plastic utensils. Nothing fancy. All you need now are one or two very good friends and a miracle.

With almost no planning and a great deal of luck this weekend, I conjured such a miracle in the middle of a storm of foul moods and foul weather.

Every December my husband’s impending birthday seems to suck him down into the Pit Of Despair. He’ll shackle himself with worry over possible ideas for celebrating. He’ll list, and then methodically reject, all kinds of outings, meals, cakes, and general family merriment. He will mope around the house for days, terrorized by the threat of another year passing with nothing to show for it.

“I don’t want a party,” he’ll declare. But then, inevitably, about 18 hours before the big day, he will realize that only being around friends and family will cure him of his annual birthday blues.

I’ve spent the last twenty years building up an immunity to his birthday malaise, so I refused to be sucked into his Fire Swamp of drama. Instead, like the raspy old Albino, I set about nursing my poor husband back to his pre-birthday health.

Thankfully this year the winter weather predicted for his big day forced the cancellation of many regularly scheduled activities, and our neighbors were feeling a bit restless. So when we summoned them over on the morning of the event, they gratefully agreed to storm our castle for a few hours of merry-making.

We spread out a lavish buffet of mis-matched munchies. Ben happily chunked together a pot of his famous turkey chili while I steamed up some ciabatta (recipe here). There was no time for cake, so our friends brought a big tray of homemade holiday cookies. (Even with no chocolate coating, they went down easy.) 
Brave wet friends tramped in, dragging dominoes and soggy children behind them.

Wine flowed, fire crackled, sarcasm reigned. Songs were sung, games were played, and no one bothered to keep score. My husband was revived. Love and laughter had conquered all.

Ironically, this is the second consecutive year that we’ve thrown an impromptu birthday party for my husband. I should have known it would come to this.

Next year, I’ll be ready for my true love’s annual drama, but still I’ll wait for him to figure out the solution. Just when he’s almost dead from the stress of facing another birthday, I’ll remind him that we simply need to take stock of our assets, then call in the reinforcements. With my brains, his chili, and maybe a holocaust cloak thrown in for good measure, we’ll be prepared to be spontaneous.

As you wish, dear, As you wish.

(photo credits: MGM)

Ben’s Turkey Chili: A Loose Guideline

2 lbs ground turkey

5-6 peppers (sweet red and green, banana, chili – whatever combination you like)

6 cloves garlic

2 cups celery

6 dried ancho peppers, reconstituted and seeds removed

28-oz can of crushed tomato

1-2 bottles of dark, malty beer

4 tablespoons cumin

3-4 cans of beans (pinto, black, roman, cannelloni – whatever combination you like)

Garnishes: chopped cilantro, tomatoes, shredded cheddar, chopped jalepeno peppers, variety of hot sauces, sour cream, etc.

In a large skillet, brown turkey and remove to a large pot.

In the same skillet, sauté peppers, onion, celery and garlic until soft. Add this to the turkey.

Place dried anchos in blender with a little water and grind. Dump this into the pot with meat and vegetables.

Add beer, tomatoes, cumin and beans. Throw in a little water, until pot is 1/3 full

Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes. Taste. Add more water if necessary, or replace with beer.

Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Simmer for another 30 minutes or all day until guests start getting cranky.

Serve warm with fresh bread and allow guests to garnish to their hearts’ delight.

Cook For Your LIfe

Scarlet Runner beans, courtesy of Ranchogordo.com

All last weekend, the skies warned us there’d be trouble. A colossal grey duvet of pre-blizzard clouds, combined with a grumbling angry wind, threatened an impending Armageddon. For several days, it felt as if the entire country was heavy with anticipation of Hurricane Sandy.

And so here in CT, we got ready. We gathered our flashlights and candles and firewood; we scoured every grocery store for disappearing ice and water bottles; we filled the car with gas, dragged the patio furniture into the garage, purchased emergency pump supplies and considered investing in a generator. We dutifully followed all the instructions given to us from our governor, our mayor, our parents and our meteorologists. And then we waited for the sloth-like storm to inch it’s way north. That white pinwheel of doom on every TV station weighed down our hearts and souls for four long days as we waited for the storm to hit land.

As we entered the final 24-hours of anxious anticipation, I succumbed to a familiar urge:  the need to hunker down and cook. For most of the day, I cooked as if my life depended on it. I made comfort foods of every variety to carry us through the storm…

I cooked lasagna and pork loin and hard-boiled eggs and potato bacon hash and espresso-laced chocolate chip cookies. I prepared three different salads and yeast waffles and homemade granola and bought lots and lots of cheese. I even invested in emergency salty snacks, power bars and shelf-stable fruit.

And of course I made a pot of hefty beans. A serious storm called for serious beans, which meant diving into our stash of Scarlet Runner beans from Rancho Gordo.

photo courtesy of Ranchogordo.com

Cooking rich foods under threat of a hurricane seemed entirely justified, so after starting the beans a’boiling, I felt no guilt at all when I next fried up a pound of bacon and harvested the precious grease from the pan. I used a little bacon grease for sauteing some onions and garlic, and the rest for cooking cubed potatoes later on.

Once the beans had softened, I dumped the onion and garlic into the bean broth, and, as always, this was all we needed to soothe our frayed nerves.

If you’re not a big fan of beans, you probably just haven’t tried any of the Rancho Gordo varieties yet. We stocked up on their Scarlet Runner beans this year after becoming hooked on their voluptuous texture and enormous, purple tortoise-shell appearance. There are about a million ways to prepare beans, but simplest is usually best for these buxom beauties.

Bean-o-phobes: never fear. They’re as velvety as veal – if veal were a bean. Even if Scarlet Runners turn out not to be your favorite food in all the world (though I can’t imagine this possibility), I would venture to say that one of the Rancho Gordo varieties will make you a bean believer. Adam Roberts of Amateur Gourmet thinks so too. Even the folks at Martha Stewart agree.

Sandy ended up sparing our corner of the world, and we survived the storm with all our trees intact. School was cancelled for four days due to weather-related issues in the neighborhood, but thankfully our biggest nuisance was dealing without electricity for a short time.

Once the storm passed, my genius of a husband figured out how to reheat the pot of beans on our gas grill. We feasted outside as the skies morphed back into soothing shades of blue. Harmless cottonball clouds floated overhead as we enjoyed a quiet, thankful family meal on a perfectly calm autumn night.

After dinner, I donned my cool new headlamp to wash the dishes in the fading dusk. But before I could even finish scrubbing the pots, the power snapped back to life, and our kitchen once again hummed and shone in all the right places. Our adventure in darkness was over after just 20 hours. We had weathered the storm.

How about you? How did your area fare in the storm? What comfort foods helped get you through? Leave me a comment below.

_________________________________________________

Scarlet Runner Beans in Broth plus Potato Bacon Hash

Fry 1 lb. bacon, then, for beans:

Ingredients:

1 lb scarlet runner beans

1-2 Tablespoons bacon grease

1 to 2 cups onion, chopped (any variety)

2-3 cloves chopped garlic, to taste

1-2 Tablespoons salt

Place beans in a large bowl with water for 6-8 hours to soften, then simmer in water for about one hour or until tender. If you don’t have time to pre-soak the beans, don’t worry. You can bring the beans to a heavy boil, then reduce the heat to simmer and cook the beans until tender. It will just take a little longer (1 and ½ to 2 hours total). Add water as necessary to keep the beans covered while they cook.

Sauté onion and garlic in bacon grease until soft.

Add onion, garlic and salt (to taste) to bean mixture. Simmer for another 10 minutes before serving. Pair with a salad and a nice crusty loaf of bread.

For the hash:

Ingredients:

Remaining bacon grease after cooking 1 lb. of bacon and preparing beans

5-6 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 medium onions, coarsely chopped

1 tsp. salt

1-2 cups frozen peas

About 6 slices chopped, cooked bacon, for garnish

Cook potatoes in bacon grease until fork-tender. Remove from heat.

Sauté onions with the salt in the same pan until soft and translucent. Add to potatoes.

Stir frozen peas into potatoes and onions. They will defrost from the residual heat.

Chop bacon and set aside.

Serve bowlfuls of hash with chopped bacon on top for garnish.

Detox In A Box: Quick (or Slightly Longer) Kale and Sausage Soup

Re-entry into my version of reality after a trip to the ancestral homelands in Buffalo, NY is always a bumpy ride. After eating my weight in fried foods and custard, not to mention the survival food consumed during 16 hours on the road, there is always a serious adjustment period.

Like most of the Midwest, Buffalonians eat lots and lots of heavily salted meat. It's also hard to find a meal that doesn't include french fries. Salad, the primary vegetable offering, comes in one variety: iceberg lettuce, a tomato and a cucumber – although sometimes croutons make an appearance. And no one skips dessert. Ever. In fact, double dessert is not uncommon. And of course mom’s cookies are available for snacking on 24/7.

This lifestyle is fun when I’m on vacation, but any more than a day or two of this and my digestive system begins plotting terrorist activity. By day three I’m ready to declare myself a full-fledged vegan and I’m silently pledging to kick up the workouts, become a personal trainer, a nutritionist, and/or a full-time health foods writer upon my return to Connecticut.

But being the sensible girl that I am, I usually begin my new regimen with my own version of a detoxification diet. And by the time the cruciferous veggies, whole grains and beans begin working their magic, all thoughts of career, um, change? have vanished.

I have no shortage of detox remedies. This week, because I was in a hurry and craving kale, I pulled out my quick and easy Kale and Sausage Soup recipe. Yes, it has meat in it, but once it’s all cooked down, you can drain and/or skim off most of the fat, and the soup becomes a lean, mean, body-cleansing machine.

This recipe is quite flexible, and once in a while I give myself permission to Sandra Lee it. That is, I simply remove the pre-bagged, pre-canned and pre-boxed packaging and dump it all into a pot. By the time I’ve loaded the travel laundry into the washer and sifted through the junk mail, the soup is ready to eat.

Conversely, when I have any time at all, I will buy, clean and chop my own kale and tomatoes, and if I’m uber-prepared and have made stock the week before, I’ll use my own chicken broth. Any one of these touches can take this soup from very good to great, and with the exception of the stock, none of them takes that much extra work.

Still, if you need a quick fix for settling that rebellion in your belly, there’s no need to get fancy. This is digestive warfare -- do what you need to do.

Quick (Or Slightly Longer) Kale and Sausage Soup

If you’re in a hurry	If you’ve got a little more time
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 lb of Italian sweet sausage (loose sausage meat, not casings, is easier)	Buy the good stuff from the butcher
4 large cloves of garlic, sliced
1 – 3 tsp crushed red pepper, to taste
6 cups (1 ½ boxes) of chicken stock	Use your own stock, or even “Better than Bouillon” works well and lives up to its name
1 can peeled, chopped tomatoes	Place 2-3 fresh tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds, until skins begin to tear. Remove from water, cool for a minute, then peel skins. De-seed the tomatoes (if you’re ambitious -- and wearing an apron), then chop. Discard skins and seeds before adding to soup.
about 8 oz (½ bag) of chopped, cleaned, frozen kale	Buy loose kale and clean and chop it yourself –- use about 3/4 of a bunch, and cook for an extra 10 minutes or so once you’ve added it to the pot.
1 can chick peas	(Okay, you could cook your own beans and also use some of the bean water to thicken and flavor the soup, but let’s not get crazy.)

• In a large pot, brown the sausage in the olive oil over medium heat.
• When sausage is almost fully browned, add the garlic and crushed red pepper (start out conservatively – you can always add more pepper at the end).
• Let mixture cook for 2-3 minutes. When garlic begins to brown, add the liquids.
• Add chicken stock and tomatoes, including the tomato juices, to the cooked sausage mixture.
• Let simmer for 10 to 15 minutes before adding the kale.
• Cook the kale in the soup until tender.
• Drain chickpeas and add them in the last few minutes of cooking.
• Check the heat. Add more crushed red pepper if necessary.
• Serve with a crusty ciabatta and a good red wine. If you’re in detox mode, substitute these with whole wheat bread and good clear water.

________________________________

Survival food for a long road trip across a food wasteland

Here is the list of fundamental travel foods we’ve identified after many many many hours and days on the road. All food groups are represented: sweet, crunchy, salty, caffeinated and the pure junk needed just to keep your jaw moving and your eyes open. Of course you could add to this list (trail mix is a nice treat, along with coffee, if that’s your thing), but this is our idea of the bare minimum that you must pack if you 're going to survive the journey across the long, dreary culinary wilderness of I-90.

Note: although many similar items are now available at rest stops on I-90, waiting to stumble upon said rest stops, the quality of said items and/or the price of "fresh" produce on the road should be enough to deter you from taking a risk. Just pack these up ahead of time and the trip will be more pleasant for everyone. Trust me. I know.

• Pita chips or pretzels
• PB&J sandwiches
• Baby carrots
• Apples
• Twizzler’s or Swedish Fish
• Real, homemade chocolate chip cookies
• Lots of water
• 64 oz. iced tea, to start