Special Weekly Menu - Memorial Day

This week starts with Memorial Day weekend. My good friends are all up in Maine hanging out, grilling, lobster-eating and enjoying a relaxing and beautiful New England weekend. I couldn't join them because of an enormous backlog at work, but I wanted to capture the feeling of the first summer weekend with our menu:

Saturday: Lobster rolls with coleslaw and corn on the cob

Sunday: Grilled vegetable quinoa salad, indoor grilled burgers with blue cheese

Monday: Shrimp remoulade with okra dirty rice

Tuesday: Grilled zucchini pasta with walnut pecorino crumble

Wednesday: Mussels with fennel and crusty bread

Thursday: Work event (dinner provided)

Normally, I try to identify recipes where I can use a lot of the same ingredients, or double up a recipe for leftovers. This week, however, we're not expecting a whole lot of leftovers, or using one ingredient for several things. I'm home for the long weekend, so I know I can cook whole meals for 3 nights. I like to try new things when I have extra days to experiment.

Anyway, when I write my grocery list, I don't group ingredients by recipe; instead, I group ingredients by where they are in the store. So, at my local grocery store, I start in the veggie/fruit section, move past the seafood and meats, then pantry and dairy. As we move through the aisles, it's easier to be sure that we got everything on the list.

Vegetables:

red onion

jalapenos

asparagus

tomato

asian eggplant

cilantro

zucchini

tarragon

lemon

parsley

scallions

carrots

green cabbage

red and green bell pepper

okra

Pantry:

frozen shrimp

burger buns (or English muffins)

hot dog buns

PB&J

fettuccine

mayo

eggs

milk

kalamatas

queso blanco

blue cheeses

pecorino

pickles

sriracha sauce

Butcher: hamburger meat, pate

Oh, and I forgot to note in my kitchen staples post that we also always have onions, garlic and shallots around, as well as lemons and limes in the fridge. We buy those pretty often too, but it's a strange week if we don't have them all in the house somewhere.

Kitchen Staples

On a recent outing with friends, I was asked to provide (i) tips on my blog for creating and sticking to weekly menus and (ii) ways to use leftovers. I was told people would be interested just in seeing my weekly menu items. I'm not so sure that's very interesting, but far be it from me to refuse a direct request (since no one reads this blog as it is).

First off: strategy. My husband and I generally grocery shop on Friday evening after work or Saturday afternoon if we have plans on Friday night. We shop once for the entire week, and in summer months, we can add vegetables during the week from local farmers markets (I will be posting shortly about local community supported agriculture shares and farmers markets). We also make a lot of use of our freezer and pantry, which house a ton of staples. Each week, we think of ways to use fresh seasonal ingredients to punch up our staples, but we eat a lot of the same things from week to week.

What's in our freezer today? Whole Foods mini baguettes and dinner rolls; Trader Joe's Thai shrimp dumplings, chicken gyoza and pork gyoza (these are amazing - you have to try them); Trader Joe's Brittany Blend; green beans; bacon slices; chorizo; chicken sausage; Whole Foods shell-on raw shrimp; Whole Foods sea scallops; salmon fillets; petite peas; sweet corn; chicken breasts; various leftover homemade frozen soups; pearl onions; whole leaf spinach; brown rice; calamari; store-bought ravioli; hot dogs; my husband's homemade pasta sauce (minus the meatballs, which we already ate); pine nuts; walnuts; peanuts; summer tomatoes (frozen last fall when they were gorgeous and cheap); blueberries; various whole spices. Note I have no chicken or beef stock right now, because I haven't had time to make them, and we're doing fewer roasts now that it's gotten warm out. We usually have ice cream too, but we overlooked it this week. Also frozen fruit bars in the summer.

What are our pantry staples? Polenta, various pasta shapes, red and green lentils, split peas, quinoa, bulgur, brown rice, arborio, couscous, rice noodles, soba noodles, barley, fire roasted no salt added canned tomatoes, coconut milk, anchovies, Cento tuna in olive oil, chipotle chiles in adobo, sliced jalapenos, jarred salsa, truffle oils, various vinegars, olive oil (regular and flavored with lemon) and honey. Every week we also have an assortment of kettle chips and popcorn for snacking. I am not going to go into our spice collection yet.

Finally, what's usually in our fridge? Parmesan, Pecorino Romano, eggs, milk, butter, sour cream or creme fraiche, pb & j, bread, olives (various), anchovy paste, jarred red peppers, tabasco sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, mirin, red bean paste, sriracha and chile garlic sauce, capers, horseradish, various mustards, red and green Thai curry pastes, hoisin, tamarind sauce, maple syrup, store-bought chicken stock and ketchup. Oh, and right now, tons of white and rose wines!

From these staples (which we obviously don't buy every week and which last for weeks on end), we build our grocery list each week, depending on what's fresh, seasonal and (if we can swing it) local. Next up: our Memorial Day week menu.

Rounding Cape Horn and Puerto Montt Excursion

After Montevideo, we missed the Falklands due to severe weather, had a wonderfully calm trip around Cape Horn, hiked in Tierra del Fuego and in Patagonian Chile and finished out the cruise with a stop in Puerto Montt in the Chilean lake district. My girlfriend and I took a culinary tour with a local chef, while our husbands went kayaking. We went shopping with our chef/guide at the local fish market and vegetable market, where we were able to see all sorts of wondrous sea creatures (many of which I had never even imagined, much less imagined eating!). Chile is lucky to have miles and miles of coastline, and takes full advantage of the different kinds of life teeming in the Pacific Ocean.

We were introduced to "sea squirts", which looked like barnacles from the outside but were bright red inside and full of iodine and brine, too strong to enjoy on their own, but mashed into a ceviche, they lent a seawater flavor that added a lot of depth. The gentleman at the top of the post was breaking open the "shells" of the sea squirts to get the meat out. The picture just above is of smoked sea squirts (the red things), mussels and barnacles - Chileans apparently like to smoke some of their seafood and then use the smoked items in their cooking. We also learned about "green" eggs laid by the Araucana hen, which are indigenous to South America, and got to smell and purchase a wonderful spicy chili blend, known as merken, and derived from the Mapuche indians.

The picture below on the left is of the finished ceviche. Sea kelp, octopus, whitefish, bell peppers, onion and cilantro rounded out the flavors. We also enjoyed a soup of plump mussels, which were cooked in a toasted merken spice blend and finished with milk and cream (see picture on bottom right). We saw several mussels at the fish market that were bigger than an adult shoe (appropriately referred to as "zapatos" mussels), but were told they had quite tough meat. Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to say on how the chef made the delicious dishes we sampled, since we were generally plied with pisco sours and not allowed to assist in the kitchen. But we did watch the ceviche being made, and tasted each of the ingredients that went into it (including the chopped up sea squirts, which are (to say the very least) an acquired taste).

Montevideo, Uruguay

After spending one night in Buenos Aires, we boarded our cruise boat, and set sail for Montevideo, Uruguay. After dinner on the ship, we went on deck with our friends and a glow-in-the-dark star map and tried to find familiar constellations. We found Orion's belt, but it took us a minute to realize that Orion was upside down in the southern hemisphere. We didn't sample any local cuisine in Montevideo-just spent a couple of hours on the beach and headed back to the boat. It was a gorgeous day - 75 degrees and sunny. The beach was relaxed, full of locals who had spent the last night partying and were working through their hangovers while snoozing on the beach. I even took a swim in the water, which was very warm, but full of silt, which got everywhere and stained everything.

An interesting thing about Uruguay is its beef production. According to a NYT article, it appears that Uruguayan farmers are claiming the "grass-fed" cattle market, as Argentina moves toward a feedlot cattle-raising culture to respond to increased worldwide (and domestic) demand.

Grass-fed beef in Argentina

Our first and only night in Buenos Aires, we had dinner at the Duhau Restaurant and Vinoteca. Our reservations included a wine and cheese tasting at the Vinoteca, and we assumed it would be a cheese or two with a glass or two of wine. Boy were we wrong. 6 cuts of cheese and two bottles of wine later, we were stuffed with local cheeses and tipsy with excellent wine. Halfway through our tasting, the head of wine buying for the hotel deceided to stop by to see how we were doing. That led to a one-hour wine tasting class and lesson on Argentine wines. We had an amazing torrontes, which is a grape native to Argentina, and two malbecs of terrific quality for the price. That led into dinner which was a rib eye for me (have I mentioned I love ribeye steaks?). The beef was delicious, but I wouldn't say it was the best I've ever had- just really good steak. The differnce was the price - only about $15 for a pretty good-sized steak grilled to a perfect medium rare.

The next day, we went shopping for leather goods, and found some great handbags. But the highlight of the trip was the empanadas store - El Sanjuanino in Recoleta. We got carnes picante empanadas, as well as a cheese and onion one - both were delicious, but the meat one was better. The crust was impossibly light and flaky - like pastry - and the filling was a perfect ratio to the crust. Delicious!! We definitely preferred Argentine empanadas to Chilean empanadas, but that's another story yet to come...

What A Braiser Looks Like

I realized that I keep referencing my braiser, so here's a picture of it in case you don't know what one is or don't already have one. Mine's from Le Creuset, but I would imagine any wide, shallow, heavy, oven-safe pot with a tight-fitting lid would work for most of the recipes where I mention it. That being said, I love my braiser - it cooks very evenly and releases food easily. The lid stays put, even when food is at a full boil. And it's a breeze to take from stove to oven and back again, and then to the dinner table.

Now, getting it in and out of our ridiculously small apartment-sized kitchen cupboard is another story, as it is heavy as sh*t (it is iron, after all) and unforgiving on your fingers when you accidentally drop it.

Roast Chicken Three Ways

During the winter months, my husband and I go through a lot of chickens. Sunday is roast chicken night, and since we don't want to get bored eating roast chicken, we have a few recipes we work from. I've already mentioned my standby roast chicken, based on Ina Garten's recipe, but I also like to do a roast chicken provencal, loosely based on Gourmet's braised chicken recipe, and a spiced chicken from Claudia Roden's Arabesque cookbook. In any case, I roast the chicken at 400 degrees for about 1.25-2 hours, depending on the size of the bird.

I usually get my chicken from Savenor's, after years of being disappointed with supermarket chickens and Whole Foods. The chickens would not last in my fridge even for a day or two, and would often have an off-smell from the packaging. I have tried three kinds of chickens carried at Savenor's: grade A, Giannone air-chilled, and Misty Knoll Farms. I have found that the Misty Knoll chickens are head and shoulders above the others for taste, juiciness, freshness and size. They are definitely more expensive, but since changing over, I have found that one chicken can feed my husband and me for at least 2 dinners, sometimes even 3. For that, it's well worth the extra cost to me.

My standby roast chicken: 3-4 vegetables (choose from quartered onions, yellow potatoes, carrots, parsnips, fennel, beets and sliced acorn squash) in the bottom of the roasting pan with olive oil, salt and pepper. Lay on top of the veggies a roasting chicken, with salt and pepper both inside and out, and the cavity stuffed with a head of garlic (sliced through crosswise), a couple of lemon quarters, a celery stick and a handful of parsley. Serve with roasted brussels sprouts or a crisp salad.

My provencal roast chicken: quartered tomatoes, fennel bulb, onions and black brined olives in the bottom of the roasting pan with olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh thyme sprigs and herbs de provence. Lay on top of the veggies a roasting chicken, seasoned as above, with herbs de provence, garlic, lemon, fennel stalks and celery in the cavity. Serve with Alice

Waters's fingerling potato coins for a rich and homey, stick-to-your ribs dinner, or with couscous for a lighter spring dinner.

Finally, my spiced chicken: lots of quartered onions (or whole peeled shallots) on the bottom of the roasting pan with olive oil, salt and pepper. Lay on top a roasting chicken, seasoned with a pasty mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, salt and pepper and honey. Serve with couscous or rice pilaf and some lemony, garlicky sauteed greens.