The anniversary menu

A couple of you have checked back in to ask how Friday night’s dinner turned out. Well, if I do say so myself – and I think Curt would agree – it was pretty freakin’ fabulous! And not just because I have mad skillz in the kitchen. I can’t tell you about the rest of the evening because, well, my mom reads this blog, and also, some things are better left to the imagination. (Seriously, Mom. Don’t ask. Don’t.) But I will happily share the dinner menu:

Jumbo Lump Crabcakes. We enjoy dining at Clyde’s restaurants in this area, and the have their crabcake recipe posted on their website.  I found a great sale on jumbo lump crabmeat at Giant – only $22 for a pound (compared to $33 at Whole Paycheck Foods).  There’s little else in the recipe… I substituted a dab of ginger-lime aioli from this recipe for some of the plain mayonnaise to add a bit of extra kick (and was glad I used only one garlic clove in the aioli instead of the two called for in the recipe).  The crabcakes barely held together. I made 4 piles of the mixture on foil on a cookie sheet and broiled them, then carefully transferred to our plates.

Risotto with balsamic reduction. That sounds super-glamorous, but really, it couldn’t be easier.  A friend and loyal reader has a relative who’s a chef and she was nice enough to pass along a real, chef-tested, professionally-endorsed risotto recipe. But you know what, I’ve been making this risotto recipe for years in – shhh! - my microwave (I know!), and it turns out pretty darn good.  And balsamic reduction? I had to Google it, but you know what it is? You put balsamic vinegar in a pot on the stove and boil it till it reduces and becomes thick and resembles – yes – motor oil.  That’s it. I added a dab of sugar and I probably cooked it too long because it darn near solidifed once it cooled.  WARNING: Don’t put your face over the steaming pan of vinegar; just stir at arm’s length with a really long spoon. (You’re welcome.)

Roasted baby asparagus spears wrapped in roasted red pepper strips.  I tossed super-skinny asparagus spears in some olive oil and kosher salt, then broiled for a few mins. Then I laid two thin roasted red pepper strips on the plate, piled the spears on top and wrapped the strips around. Then I sprinked some toasted sliced almonds on top. Because it’s all in the presentation, y’all.

Garnish.  I would love to say I had a picture to share with you, but my flippin’ camera is still with the good folks at Nikon, apparently waiting for some backordered parts so they can make the warranty repair.  To say I’m a little bit annoyed is like saying that my dog sheds a wee bit, or my husband kinda likes ice hockey. You’ll just have to use your imagination. I laid sprigs of flat-leaf parsley (the only thing that grew as a result of my pathetic attempt at gardening this year) on the plate and on top of them placed two overlapping thin slices of lemon. Then I took two strips of roasted red pepper strips and fashioned them into the shape of a heart. (All together now: awwwwwww!) Can you stand the cuteness? I know – neither can I.

Dessert ended up being, quite simply, some melted semi-sweet chocolate, into which we dipped strawberries and black raspberries. Or maybe they were blackberries. Whatever they were, they were juicy-good in a berry sort of way.   The wine was a Jacob’s Creek Chardonnay.

Best thing of all? We had the house to ourselves. The kids (and dog) were elsewhere. (Thanks, Steph!) Dinner is not usually a leisurely occasion in our house, so it was nice to be able to take our time, to talk without being interrupted, to not have to censor our words for the G/PG-rated audience.

I want to thank you all for your suggestions – your comments gave me some great ideas and really were helpful. The ones I didn’t use this time, I’ve tucked away with thoughts of future romantic dinners in-house, because this was a scenario worth repeating.

And THAT is all I’m going to say about THAT. Because, like I said, my mom reads this blog.

How (not) to make pepper slaw

There’s a big party in our neighborhood tomorrow. An end-of-summer bash! Everyone’s supposed to bring a side dish to share with the masses.  I thought that a mass of pepper slaw would be the perfect thing to bring… it’s not mayonnaise-based, it’s easy to eat, people love it, and it’s a Central PA classic. Best of all, I was sure I had all the ingredients in the house, except for the cabbage.

This morning, I loaded the Peezer into the car and off we went to the grocery store, to purchase a head of cabbage and a cartful of things he asked for and I couldn’t say no other Very Important Things (cat food, Oreos, Fleet Fiber Gummies [the kid won't poop without 'em], a new electric toothbrush with a skateboard handle – you know, the essentials in every four-year-old’s life).  One head of cabbage was a buck-ninety, and considering that the recipe I use yield enough to feed an entire platoon, I was feeling exceedingly thrifty. Well done, me, I thought as I imagined patting myself on the back.

Once home, I commenced to making the slaw.  An account of how it all went down follows. But if you want to jump to the actual recipe itself without the rest of the story (and I hope you don’t because it’s kinda funny but if your time is limited, g’head) – go to my other blog, My Grandmas’ Recipes, where I posted the recipe with noticeably less commentary.

 I got out the Cuisinart and all of its parts and put it together. I found my largest mixing bowl. Processed a few baby carrots, one green pepper, and one onion, separately, until each vegetable was finely chopped, and transferred each to the mixing bowl.

Chopped green pepper, onion, and carrot

 Then, I combined 1/2 cup of cider vinegar, 1/2 cup of water, and a cup-and-a-half of sugar in a microwave bowl and cooked it, stirring every minute, until the sugar was dissolved. Total cook time was 3 or 4 minutes.  I set it aside to cool.

Next, I went back to the food processor. This is really the messy part of this recipe because I can’t seem to do it wihtout getting bits of cabbage everywhere. I removed the outer few leaves of cabbage, then cut the rest of the head into chunks (tossing away the hard part at the base). I completely filled my processor bowl, then began pulsing to make it into a super-fine chop. Only what happened was this - 

Learn from my mistakes. Don't fill the bowl full of cabbage.

So I removed the unchopped leaves on the top, then finished processing until it looked like this: 

Choppety chop chop.

Then I returned the unchopped cabbage to the bowl, chopped ‘em up, and that is how I learned that you can only fill the bowl half-full of cabbage leaves, or else it won’t chop evenly and you will make significantly more work for yourself that way, and if ever there were a good example of the saying, “do as I say, not as I do,” this is it.  

Each half-bowl of cabbage was super-finely chopped in 6-8 pulses of my magical wonderful Cuisinart (whose main purpose in life is to make slaw, because otherwise, I just don’t use it that much).

Finally, with all the chopped veggies now scattered all over my kitchen island in the giant mixing bowl, I was ready to add the spices. A teaspoon of salt, a generous teaspoon of mustard seed, and a generous teaspoon of… well, I was sure the celery seed was in here somewhere…. could I be out of it? No, it’s not possible, one little jar lasts forever…

I stood on a chair to get a better view and twirled my spice turntable around three times. I finally found the jar – empty! – rolling around in the back corner of the cupboard, like a lone tumbleweed.  Celery seed is a crucial ingredient here. You can’t not have celery seed in this slaw.  There is no substitute. It’s probably illegal in Pennsylvania to make pepper slaw without celery seed, it’s that important.

I should’ve known to check for the spices first! Rookie mistake!  I got back in the car and drove over to Safeway, even though I swore I would never again return after my last visit, when the young man who rang up my groceries refused to put the bags into my cart, then gave me the evil eye because I wasn’t clearing the bagging area fast enough. Still, at a mile away it’s the closest grocery store, so that’s where I went, and my head exploded in Aisle 4 when I saw that a tiny jar of McCormick’s celery seed was $5.69!  For an ounce and a half! And then I was super-mad at myself because I much prefer to buy my spices at the Penzey’s store in Rockville, because they’re soooo much better than the grocery store spices and they’re less expensive and hello? A store full of spices! But I didn’t want to take 40 minutes (and waste the gas) to drive down there and back, so I took the stupid 1.62 ounce glass jar to the Express Checkout and waited impatiently behind two guys with 15 items each, wondering why Safeway doesn’t have some self-checkout lanes but does have automatic change dispensers so that the cashiers, what, don’t have to count coins to make change??  WTF, Safeway? And then I didn’t feel so very thrifty after all because now I was $7.59 into the slaw, not counting the ingredients I already had when I started this odyssey seven hours ago making the slaw.

Fifteen minutes later, I arrived home and went straight to www.penzeys.com and looked up celery seed and discovered that they sell an EIGHT (8!) OUNCE BAG of whole Indian celery seed for $3.89!, which is a lot of celery seed to buy at one time, considering I only use one teaspoon at a time for pepper slaw, but I could keep that giant bag of celery seed in the freezer and refill the stupid little McCormick jar for years to come.

….Anyway. You add a generous teaspoon of celery seed to the bowl o’ veggies and spices (remember the veggies and spices? Probably not because it was like 20 minutes ago) and pour the cooled dressing over it all, then you stir and stir and stir and stir and stir some more to make sure everything is evenly mixed. It will look like this: 

Finally! Pepper slaw!

Then throw it  in the ‘fridge and let it chill for at least a  few hours because the flavors will blend, the mustard and celery seed will soften, and it will taste super-good.  Heck, leave it in overnight of even for a couple of days. It lasts in the ‘fridge for forever.

To recap: Buy your spices at Penzey’s. Visit My Grandmas’ Recipes for the actual recipe. Do as I say, not as I do. Got that?

Comfort food

Today was downright dreary… it was rainy and chilly, the kind of weather that inspires laziness.  I’m happy to report that there have been no further snake or centipede sightings within the walls of our house.  I did, however, pull two ticks off of The Boss this morning, so I can’t say that the day was entirely critter-free.

This afternoon, we puttered about, doing laundry and picking up clutter.  My heroic husband spent hours sorting and matching our giant basket of socks, which was a good way to remain productive while watching the hockey playoffs. I sorted the boys’ clothes, putting away winter and pulling out summer, getting rid of things too worn to pass down to The Peezer, and boxing up things I can’t believe he’ll fit into one of these years. The shocker was not that Bubta (the oldest) has, like, zero clothes to wear all of a sudden, but that he also had very little worth handing down to The Boss.   A shopping trip is in order and soon! Meanwhile, there must be, like, 17 boxes of stuff just waiting for Peezer to grow.

Anyway, today was the kind of day that begs for comfort food to be made and consumed. And so I answered the call and made one of my go-to dishes, a family favorite: Chicken Pot Pie.  Not the kind with a pastry crust, but Pennsylvania Dutch-style, with homemade egg noodles. And because I’ve little else to write about today, I’ll provide you with the link to my recipe for Chiken Pot Pie as posted on my other blog, My Grandmas’ Recipes.

Enjoy your Sunday evening. Get a good night’s sleep, because Monday’s comin’.