Roast Beast - 3 Ways

A roast beef is such a special occasion item in our family. But, I've come to realize that it tastes so much better when I do it than when we go out for it (not to mention, it costs a whole lot less too). So for Christmas this year, we decided to have roast beef, and I can't think of a better way to have it than as a standing rib roast (rib-eyes are my favorite steak, so how can you go wrong with a roast that's just multiple rib-eyes?). But the best part of making your own is that you get the leftovers (including the bones) for other yummy dishes. Here are three beef part recipes (the second of which involved buying a wholly separate beef part, which I will never allow in my house again (ahem, are you reading this, hubby?).

First Way: So after the snafu with the ham on Christmas Eve, we decided to start cooking the roast beef early on Christmas evening, and even took the roast out of the fridge around noon to let it come up to room temperature. We had a 2-rib standing rib roast (approximately 3 lbs, I think). I covered the outside of it with a paste made out of minced garlic, rosemary, thyme, black pepper and kosher salt with olive oil, and stood it up in a roasting pan (it had a little trouble standing on its own because it was so skinny) with onion wedges. I put a digital meat thermometer in the center of the meat, and then roasted it in a 450-degree oven for about 20 minutes, and then reduced the temp to 325 and roasted until the thermometer had the internal temperature at 125. Then we just let it rest while we waited for the rest of the meal to finish- roasted brussels sprouts (trimmed, halved and tossed with salt, pepper and olive oil) and roasted rosemary potatoes (quartered and tossed with salt, pepper, rosemary, garlic and olive oil). To serve, I cut the ribs off the roast to save for later, and then sliced the meat as thinly as I could and served with the pan juices.

Second Way: My husband wanted something authentically British to go with our meal on Christmas night, so he found a recipe for figgy pudding in the Gourmet Cookbook. What does this have to do with roast beast, you say? Well, it turns out that many traditional English puddings use beef suet. So my husband had to shred beef suet on a box grater in my kitchen (needless to say, I refused to enter the kitchen while he made his figgy pudding because I was so disgusted). Unfortunately, my husband used ground hazelnuts (which I had ground for my chocolate-hazelnut cookies) instead of the called-for bread crumbs, and forgot the baking powder entirely. But, despite that, the pudding came out tasting okay - oddly beefy, but okay. Of course, given the ingredients, we only ate a small bit...

Third Way: I was thrilled to have a leftover beef bone in my fridge after dinner; it's not often we do a roast beef. So there was no way I was letting that go to waste. It was time to make beef barley soup, with homemade beef stock. First I browned the beef bone all around in a hot stockpot, along with a carrot, cut into thirds, a stick of celery cut into thirds, and a whole onion (unpeeled) cut in half crosswise.

Then, add plenty of water to cover the bone and vegetables, add the woody bottoms of some mushrooms, sprigs of thyme and parsley and black peppercorns. Bring all of it to a boil and then simmer for 2 hours, skimming off fat along the way (there will be a lot of fat). Then we strained the whole mess and let the stock sit. If I had had more time, I would have put the stock in the fridge so the fat would solidify and be removed easily. I didn't have the time, so I skimmed off as much fat as I could.

After wiping down the stock pot, I sauteed some onion, carrot, celery, and a bay leaf until soft ("no, it won't be a boring soup - carrots and celery are just the base!"). Then, based loosely upon a Gourmet recipe, I added chopped mushrooms and the beef that was surrounding the bones (so tender it was falling apart!) and sauteed for a minute more. Then the barley and the stock goes in, and simmer until the barley is tender, again skimming off any fat that comes to the surface. Serve the soup in large bowls, and sprinkle with chopped dill. The result is rich beef broth, tender vegetables and melt-in-your-mouth beef. Served with a glass of red wine and a hunk of crusty bread, it might just be better than the roast beef itself!

Happy Holidays!

Our holiday dinner(s) were very quiet this year. We were able to enjoy time with one another and our cat, but we didn't see much of our family and friends because everyone seemed to go in different geographic directions this year.

Unfortunately, if we don't go to my husband's family's house for Christmas dinner, I don't get my annual ham fix. I love ham. Part of my fascination is that my parents never cooked ham when I was growing up, so I always had to rely on my friends' families at Easter and Christmas. There's something about salted and smoked pork that I've never been able to turn down.

Anyway, since there would be no easy ham for me this year, we determined to have a small one for ourselves on Christmas Eve. Yes, Christmas Eve, not Christmas. We forgot to take the roast beef (which we were supposed to have on Christmas Eve) out of the fridge in time for it to get up to room temperature before cooking it, so we went with the ham.

My husband got a small (2-3 lb) Corn Cob and Maple smoked (but uncured) ham from Vermont Smoke and Cure, which was already fully cooked, so all I had to do was wrap it in foil and warm it up in the oven for 10 minutes per pound, according to the website. That was crap. It took well over an hour in a 400-degree oven to get our meat thermometer to register even a lukewarm 90 degrees in the interior of the ham. But, despite the wait, the ham was the best we've ever had - smoky with a roasted corn scent, maple-syrup flavor, not too salty, and perfectly moist and delicious. Too bad we were eating it around 9:00.

With the ham we had roasted acorn squash - slice the squash in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, and fill the resulting cavity with maple syrup and butter, salt and pepper. Bake in a baking dish covered with aluminum foil at 400 degrees for about an hour, or until the squash is tender. Finally, we made a big romaine lettuce salad with a lemon-mustard vinaigrette to go with it all.

And for dessert, baked pears with maple syrup. We whipped our own cream to go on top - so easy. Just get a metal bowl really cold (put in the freezer for 10 minutes or so), then add your cream, a little sugar and vanilla extract, and whip until frothy with a whisk (it takes about 1-2 minutes of steady whipping). I try to tell myself that the calories expended while manually whipping the cream make up for my eating the whipped cream. In any event, it's better than the plastic stuff that comes from a tub, and you can control how sweet it is and what flavor you want. Now that I think of it, I probably should have put a little apple brandy in the cream instead of the vanilla...

Something Smells Fishy

In the "you can never win" category of food politics, there was an interesting Op Ed by Paul Greenberg in the New York Times last week on the facts about fish oil. It seems many of us have added fish oil supplements to our diets, rather than eating fish. I can understand, since certain fish have been overfished, and others contain high levels of mercury that can be harmful to humans. So in order to get the recommended Omega-3's, people have been purchasing supplements. But, how are the supplements made? Well, according to the article, "a considerable portion of it comes from a creature upon which the entire Atlantic coastal ecosystem relies, a big-headed, smelly, foot-long member of the herring family called menhaden, when a recent book identifies in its title as "The Most Important Fish in the Sea."" And that is a problem.

Why? Because many of the fish we like to eat (and are trying to protect from overfishing) eat menhaden. "Bluefin tuna, striped bass, redfish and bluefish are just a few of the diners at the menhaden buffet. All of these fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids but are unable themselves to synthesize them. The omega-3s they have come from menhaden." And so it turns out we're now overfishing menhaden, and that means we could be dooming the other fish we like to eat, which we were trying to protect from extinction by overfishing, to extinction by starvation. Not only that, but because the menhaden perform a water filtration function ("an adult menhaden can rid four to six gallons of water of algae in a minute"), it appears that the overfishing of menhaden to produce fish oil is also contributing to increasingly dirty waters.

So what does this this all mean to me? Well, for one, it's frustrating to know that in our attempt to keep certain fish from being endangered or extinct, we are at best inadvertently (I'll give the fish oil company cited in the article the benefit of the doubt) overfishing an unheard-of fish that is a major link in the food chain whose extinction could lead to the extinction of several other, more popularly-known fish. Second, it's interesting to note that a high concentration of omega-3s (even higher than in fish oil) may be found in flaxseed oil, which takes no fish to make. Of course, now that I say that, I wonder what a substantial increase in flaxseed oil demand would do mean for sustainable agriculture...

Red Lentil Stew

A few years ago, my mother recommended I buy Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" for vegetarian meal ideas. I have to confess that although it's been on my bookshelf for years, I never really turned to it for any ideas until recently.

My husband and I decided to try making a red lentil soup recipe from the book because we had a bunch of red lentils that we had accidentally purchased a while back and didn't know what to do with them. We were skeptical, since the recipe looked super-healthy and terribly fiber-filled; but it said we would be able to make the meal in no time, so we went for it.

First, we simmered the lentils in a saucepan with water, a little butter and turmeric until the lentils were soft and fully cooked. While that was cooking, we sauteed onions in butter with mustard seeds and ground cumin until they became very translucent and soft. Once the onions were done, we poured them into the soup and added the juice of a couple of limes. In the same saute pan, I sauteed the stems of rainbow chard in a little butter until they were softened, then added the chard leaves and sauteed until they wilted.

Now the assembly. Microwaved Trader Joe's brown rice goes into the bottom of the bowl. Then, top the rice with the sauteed chard mixture, and pour the lentil soup over that to fill the bowl. Finally, top the soup with a dollop of greek yogurt and enjoy!

Weeknight Pasta Redux

One of the things that really surprised me when Gourmet announced it was going under was the number of haters who wrote into newspaper and blog sites to rail about how out-of-touch the magazine was because its recipes involved difficult techniques and specialty ingredients. So, here's one of my favorite recipes for a vegetarian weeknight dinner:

Fettuccine with Brussels Sprouts and Pine Nuts: you won't believe how nutty Brussels sprouts can taste with brown butter and pine nuts added to the mix. When we're feeling particularly healthy, we'll use whole wheat pasta, but this can be overkill if you're not used to so much fiber in one sitting! We don't have a proper mandoline, so we just use a hand slicer to shred the sprouts.

Leftover Night - Part I

My husband hates leftovers. I mean, he really won't eat them unless they look qualitatively different than the original meal. So, I often have to gussy up leftovers so that he'll eat them. The easiest leftover meal is homemade chicken soup after having a roast chicken on the weekend. In less than 30 minutes, I have a weeknight dinner on the table that's so satisfying on a cold winter night. But sometimes, I need to be more creative.

For instance, I made ginger-marinated pork tenderloin over the weekend, but since there were only 2 of us, we had a lot of leftover pork. Since it already tasted like ginger and soy sauce, I decided to make a stir-fry with the leftovers. So, we made pork stir fry with bell peppers and baby bok choy with sesame oil. Accompanied by some microwaved frozen brown rice from Trader Joe's, we had a feast. Here's my recipe:

Pork with Bell Peppers:

Leftover roasted pork tenderloin (about 3/4 lb or as much as you have)

1 green bell pepper, seeded and sliced into bite-sized pieces

1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced into bite-sized pieces

1 small onion, halved and sliced

1-2 TBSP olive, peanut or vegetable oil

2 TBSP fish sauce, or to taste

1 TBSP garlic, minced

1 TBSP ginger, minced

Handful chopped cilantro leaves*

Handful thinly sliced scallions (white and green parts)

Sesame oil, to taste

Heat oil in a wok or saute pan over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and ginger and stir-fry, for about 1 minute or until fragrant and golden. Add onion and cook, until onion softens, stirring frequently. Add bell peppers and cook, until peppers are just crisp-tender. Add pork and toss, until pork is warmed through. Add fish sauce and cilantro leaves, and stir until incorporated. Remove from heat and top with scallions and a few drops of sesame oil, if desired.

Stir-Fried Baby Bok Choy:

3-4 heads of baby bok choy, rinsed and quartered lengthwise

1-2 TBSP olive, peanut or vegetable oil

1 TBSP garlic, minced

1 TBSP ginger, minced

1 TBSP soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil (no substitutions)

Heat oil in a wok or saute pan over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and ginger and stir-fry, for about 1 minute or until fragrant and golden. Add bok choy and let sear on one side. After about one minute, turn bok choy to get color on the other sides. When bok choy is crisp-tender and browned on some edges, turn down the heat, add soy sauce and stir. Remove from heat, add sesame oil and toss.

*Trader Joe's puts about a tsp of chopped flash-frozen herbs into these little ice cube trays and sells them. You can keep them in your freezer until you need them. I imagine you could do the same thing at home, using your ice cube trays, chopped herbs and a little water, and then putting the resulting cubes in a zip-top bag.

"There is a lot more juice in a grapefruit than meets the eye." - Anonymous

Since my parents moved down south where they have abundant sunshine all year long, they believe I'm at risk of scurvy during the long winter months here in New England. So every year we receive our annual citrus shipment.

Usually, we get a mix of grapefruit and tangerines or oranges. This year we got some whopping big grapefruits, and quite a lot of them.

The fruit arrived on a Friday (which is usually the night my husband makes cocktails for us to enjoy while we decompress after the week and cook our dinner). This time, my husband was making dinner (spaghetti and meatballs), so it was my turn to make up a cocktail. I'm usually no good at that sort of thing, but the fruit inspired me.

I decided to juice the grapefruit, combine it in equal parts with a citrus-y spirit (I chose Tanqueray 10 gin, but I bet it would work with vodka or maybe even a light tequila), and top it off with some fizz. Since the grapefruit was so sweet, I used seltzer water, but if your grapefruit is bitter at all, just add 7-up or Sprite.

My husband was floored-he proclaimed it the best drink I had ever made without a recipe (which I must admit is not that great of praise, given my past attempts). But, I know he enjoyed it because he drank all of it, rather than "forgetting it" somewhere in the house, and even asked me to make it a second time on the weekend. My mother, on the other hand, was dismayed to hear we drank (rather than responsibly ate) our vitamin C.

"Tastes like...burning." - Ralph Wiggum

This weekend I went to a Balvenie scotch dinner at the Omni Parker House in Boston. I can't say that I'm much of a scotch drinker (having tasted my father's scotch and soda when I was a curious pre-teen and thinking I was drinking fire), but the dinner was billed as being less about tasting the scotch than about cooking with the scotch. So I was game. The dinner was very underwhelming. It included:


1) oysters on the half shell with a drizzle of the 12-year old Balvenie, which ended up tasting more like straight scotch with an oyster dunked in it (perhaps more of a scotch oyster shooter?);


2) sirloin with a 15-year Balvenie tarragon "glace", which was tasty, but the accompanying sauce, which did have a nice complexity that I've never been able to accomplish using wine to deglaze the pan, had these little whole green peppercorns that were so tiny they were hard to avoid, but packed such a pepper wallop that you had to pick them off your steak before taking a bite (and while we're at it, why do restaurants use perfectly good vegetables as merely window dressing--baby carrots and broccolini can be very tasty if they're sauteed, rather than par-boiled, and seasoned with at least some salt and pepper);


3) creme brulee (which honestly didn't show many signs of having been "bruleed") topped with Balvenie 17-year aged in Madeira barrels, which was nothing special except that, for me, it was the very first time I was tasting scotch and rather enjoying it (maybe I'd had too much wine?); and


4) a cheese tasting with Balvenie Vintage Cask 1978. I asked the Balvenie representative if I could try the Madeira barrel one instead, since I liked it so much on the creme brulee, and they actually brought out both for me to share with my dinner mates, which was a much-appreciated and memorable gesture.


I've never cooked with spirits, but after this dinner, here's what I might do next time (with blended, not single malt, whiskey):


Roast a chicken with aromatic spices like ginger and cinnamon, honey and lemon (Arabesque-style) and make a pan sauce from the drippings by deglazing the pan with whiskey; make glazed carrots with brown butter, whiskey and brown sugar (or, alternatively, whipped sweet potatoes with butter, whiskey and honey-roasted pecans), and have my husband make his fabulous bread pudding with whiskey-kissed pound-cake.


At the end of the night, I wasn't much more of a scotch-lover, but I am starting to think about cooking with spirits and even found the first scotch I didn't hate (my gateway scotch, if you will). I'm looking forward to buying a bottle for myself if I can find it in a store somewhere!

Weeknight Pasta "1-Up"

Friends of ours got us the ultimate food present last year: white and black truffle oils from Oliviers & Co. One of my favorite things to do with either oil (although I prefer the black for this purpose) is to saute some shallots and garlic in mild olive oil, add some sliced mushrooms (button or cremini work perfectly well, but it can also be fun to experiment with other wild mushrooms if you have access to them) and toss with spaghetti, parsley and parm or pecorino. At the very end, drizzle on a little bit of truffle oil (like a teaspoon - this stuff goes a long way!). Heavenly, and so easy!

I had always believed France to be the only producer of true black truffles. But no, it seems that American farmers have been able to cultivate these stinky, tasty, luxurious beauties. For more information, check out this article from GQ, which highlights black truffles grown by a Tennessee (yes, Tennessee!) farmer. American locavores take note-you can eat truffles now!

"Chicken pot, chicken pot, chicken pot piiiiiiieeeeee!" - David Cross as Earl on The Drew Carey Show

Each year, my husband and I go to his family's Thanksgiving. But, since I like to cook too, we have a second Thanksgiving at our house on Friday evening. We don't bother with a turkey, since there's only two of us (and our cat, but she can only eat so much), so we do a roast chicken Barefoot Contessa style with the fixings.

Neither of us likes stuffing all that much, so this year we made roasted acorn squashes with maple syrup, corn pudding, sour cream mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts with bacon and garlicky green beans. Oh, and we made homemade cranberry sauce and then completely forgot to eat it (and I just forgot to include it in my list).

Needless to say, we had some leftovers. So on Saturday, I wanted to make something with all of the leftover chicken, corn and mashed potatoes. I sauteed some onion, garlic, carrot and celery in olive oil, and added the leftover chicken. Then I added a couple of tablespoons of flour and sauteed for about a minute. When the flour turned a little darker (sort of a golden brown), I added leftover chicken stock and milk and simmered until the sauce thickened and coated the back of a spoon, at which point I added frozen peas. That mixture went in an oven-proof casserole, topped with my leftover corn pudding (and some extra frozen corn for good measure) and my husband's fantastic mashed potatoes. Then the whole thing went in the oven for about 25 minutes, and it came out like a cross between a shepherd's pie and a chicken pot pie - absolutely delicious!!

"I'm a good cook...in theory. I've eaten a lot." - Buffy Summers

So I never thought I'd be writing a blog; but, this year, my favorite magazine on food, drink, and thinking about the same was suddenly and devastatingly canceled. For the past 9 years, since my then boyfriend (now husband) gave me a subscription for our 5th anniversary, I have looked to Gourmet magazine for various things: when I was 22, I looked to the "Gourmet Every Day" recipes for fast and inexpensive recipes and read the travel logs to dream about going to the ends of the earth to sample strange and new foods; when I got married, I looked through all of my back issues for great cocktail party nibbles and drink ideas for the reception; when traveling to another part of the world, I looked for travel logs from Gourmet contributors and tried to check out a restaurant they recommended; when I was in grad school and didn't want to read my homework assignments, I started reading the "Politics of the Plate" articles and became alternatively disgusted and outraged; when my husband and I would have to road trip to anywhere, I would go through all of the Roadfood articles to find places where we could make a tasty pit stop; when my husband and I started working in an office for 12 hours a day but we committed ourselves to cooking dinner on the weekdays (rather than ordering in), I went back to the Gourmet Every Day recipes; and when I wanted a show-stopping dinner party menu or even a cozy Sunday night dinner for two, I mixed and matched my favorite recipes from different menus throughout the years.

By the time it was canceled, I read Gourmet cover to cover for excellent recipes, well-matched wines and spirits, great restaurants around the world, travel logs that focus on eating your way through new places in order to experience the "real" culture of the place, and articles that force you to think hard about what you eat and where it comes from. Without Gourmet, I have struggled to find a new source to feed my varied interests in food consumption, and ended up having to cobble together several different websites and blogs to feel like I was getting the full picture. But no more. I've decided to create a space for people like me (or not like me, but interested in these things nonetheless) to get their food and drink fix.

A few things you should know about me. I live in the greater Boston area, home to Julia Child's butcher, Savenor's, and many nearby farmer's markets and organic food markets. I am an unabashed "foodie", but to me, that means I love a perfectly fried potato chip as much as a 10-course tasting menu with wine pairings. I am an omnivore and these days I struggle to find a middle ground between eating all kinds of meat but wanting that meat to be sustainably raised and without unnecessary cruelty. Unfortunately, that means I am constantly feeling guilty for my love affair with goose liver pate, and hate myself just a little when I enjoy my husband's wonderful spaghetti and meatballs made with veal, pork and beef. I am lucky to be able to find without much effort sustainably and locally raised meats, which I have found to have more flavor and juiciness than their mass-produced competitors. I generally try to purchase produce that is local and seasonal, but sometimes I just want a strawberry in February. I love to cook, and after a long day at the office, I often enjoy the feel of a strong, heavy, sharp knife in my hands and an onion that needs chopping. My husband and I also stay within a weekly grocery budget to maximize our dollars and find multiple uses for leftovers. Over the years, I have become much more comfortable with trying different recipes and making my own tweaks to save time or money or just change things up a little.

I hope this blog will be a home for people who like to eat, drink, cook and talk about food. If I find interesting articles about food or food politics, I'll post them here, and I hope readers will too. I still work 12 hours a day in an office and cook dinner with my husband when we both get home, so you may have to help me out a little if you see a great article or read a great book that I've missed.