Ratatouille

Did anybody (or did everybody) see that Pixar movie, Ratatouille? It was surprisingly entertaining, especially if you are the sort of person who would read a food blog. Without trying to give away the ending, let it suffice to say that at some point in the movie, they make ratatouille. And their recipe looks really delicious, to the extent that computer animated food can look delicious. But I've made a few different ratatouille recipes in the last few years, and while they all look about as colorful and well-presented as the dish in the movie, they also end up tasting... well... a bit bland.

It is really unfortunate, because whenever I've served ratatouille, my guests tend to be really impressed with how beautiful the dish is, but then I notice that there is plenty left over once dinner is over. I suspected that there is more to this classic dish than just carefully overlapping colorful vegetables.



The thing that sparked my determination to try it again was a recent episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, where Bourdain goes to Provence, France. He attempts to treat his Provençal hosts to his own take on the local cuisine and one course that he serves is "ratatouille."

Now, quotation marks might be appropriate there because when the hosts come to the dinner, they tell Bourdain that he has made a very nice dish of vegetables, but that it is NOT ratatouille. So what is ratatouille? I have no idea really. The people of Provence surely reserve the right to discredit any American attempt. But there is someone that I trust who has graciously provided us with a fantastic ratatouille recipe that, if not authentically ratatouille, is at least not bland.



In fact, if this isn't ratatouille, then I don't really care because Julia Child's ratatouille is amazing! No, it's not a carefully presented stack of colorful veggies. It is more like a stir-fry really. And it is damn good.




Just in case a fantastic vegetable recipe isn't sufficient to keep your attention, I also made garlic aioli, another Provençal specialty that is basically garlic-bomb mayonnaise. If you think of garlic less as a seasoning and more as a food, then you're going to love this stuff. I ended up spreading some of it on my ratatouille, because the only thing better than enjoying your vegetables is enjoying your vegetables with some emulsified olive oil on them.

So, without further delay, I present my adaptation of Julia's ratatouille:

Ratatouille
Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck

1 large eggplant
1 zucchini
2 tomatoes
2 green bell peppers
1 medium yellow onion
2 cloves of mashed garlic
3 Tbsp parsley
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp olive oil

Peel the eggplant and cut it into pieces approximately the size and shape of steak fries. Slice the zucchini the same way. Toss the eggplant with salt and let stand for 30 minutes.

Saute the eggplant in olive oil for a minute on each side in order to brown lightly. Then remove the eggplant from the pan and put it in a dish off to the side. Saute the zucchini in the same manner as the eggplant. Remove the zucchini to the same side dish as the eggplant.

Slice the onion very thin, and slice the green pepper about a 1/2 inch thick. Cook the onion and pepper together in the pan with olive oil for about 10 minutes, until tender but not brown. Stir in the garlic towards the 8th or 9th minute.

Remove the inner seeds from the tomato so you just have the outer pulp. Slice the tomato pulps into 3/8 inch strips and lay them over the onions and peppers. Cover the pan and cook on low for 5-8 minutes until the tomatoes have begun to render their juice. Baste the tomatoes with the juices, using a baster or a spoon. Salt and pepper to taste.

Layer the tomato/onion/pepper mixture between layers of the eggplant zucchini mixture, starting and finishing with the tomato mixture in a casserole dish. Sprinkle minced parsley atop the tomato mixture.



Cover the casserole and bake for about 15 minutes, then uncover and bake for another 20 minutes. Baste occassionally. Julia's recipe actually calls for cooking the casserole on a stove, but because of the dish that I used, I ended up using the oven and it worked just fine. I think you can make due either way. You'll know its done when most of the juices have evaporate and become pure flavor in your veggies. Be sure to say something in French when serving.

Some Stale Bread

Well, the first batch of maple sap came in. Much of the bucket contained snow, despite it being mostly covered. But it seems to me like I had a decent amount of sap, about a gallon or so, and that I was on my way to making at least, like, two tablespoons worth of sap. Alas, another setback. Once I boiled off most of the sap, I had a maple syrup-like substance. It was sweet, with the sort of smoky rich flavor that real maple syrup has. But it also came with a shockingly bitter sort of flavor that really overpowered any good effects from the sweetness. It basically tasted like a combination of maple syrup and poison.



There's a pic of sap boiling off. Anyway, I've taken steps to better cover the spouts and will come back and check my containers on Friday for more sap. I did have a good time drinking beers with my grandfather while we tried to boil off the sap on his wood burning stove. It didn't boil much, but I had a few Long Trail IPAs that were really nice.

This past week, I made a few noteworthy dishes. Most of them are pretty basic. For instance, last night, I made some pea soup. Sorry, I'm not going to write out a pea soup recipe for you. Mine is pretty straightforward. Have a ham bone left over, buy some Goya split peas, soak 'em overnight, and follow the directions on the bag with the exception of bouillon cubes and flavor packets. Use your homemade broth dummy!

The croutons I threw onto my pea soup are worth expounding on, though. This is especially true since I've been making a lot of bread lately, and not all of it is great. So, as discussed previously, one of the things you can do with crappy old bread is make croutons with it. And it's really easy too. I used a food processor, but you really don't have to. If you have a garlic press, that would be helpful, but you could just chop the garlic and rosemary very finely.



Rosemary-Garlic Croutons

Ingredients
1 Tsbp. Chopped Rosemary
1 Clove Finely Chopped Garlic
1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Cups of "Experienced" Bread, cut of shredded into crouton-sized bits.
1/2 tsp. salt

Notes: I don't generally condone cooking with extra virgin olive oil. The point at which extra virgin olive oil begins to smoke, chemically decompose, and lose its flavor and nutritional value is often lower than the temperature that it can reach while in a hot pan. This is called an oil's smoke point. But, our croutons aren't getting pan-fried or broiled, they are just going to soak up that oil, garlic, and rosemary flavor and get a bit of a crunch.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix oil, garlic, salt, and rosemary in a medium sized bowl. Use a food processor if possible, or just chop and mix with a spoon or fork. Add the bread and gently stir the bread so that it soaks up as much oil as possible. Spread the bread around on a flat surface. Discard any extra oil (or put it on your salad if you really love garlic and are in the sort of relationship where garlic breath won't be a dealbreaker). A baking sheet works best, but a casserole dish works too (just takes longer if the croutons are piled up). Put the mixture in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Stir if necessary halfway through. After 25 minutes, check to see how crunchy the bread got. It will vary depending on how stale the bread started out, how much oil it absorbed, the size and depth of the container, and whether you had to double stack the croutons. Give 'em another 5-10 minutes if need be.



Sorry I didn't take a picture of the final product. We were hungry! Besides, you know what croutons look like.

A Poached Pear, A Tapped Maple, and Some Momofuku-like Homecookin'

By now you might have recognized that I like to make things from scratch. So, the first of many announcements for today is that I tapped some maple trees at my grandfather's house this weekend. I've got my mom and grandfather recruited to the cause of homemade maple syrup, and will be back at the house to check on the trees sometime over this coming weekend. I don't have extremely high hopes for this project, but it seemed easy enough, and if it works, what a grand success! Of course, my Vermont-based family members have all made syrup before and are not at all impressed. But, the NJ crowd will surely be in awe when I douse my blueberries pancakes with syrup that's fresh from Lake Hopatcong.



In other news, you may find that many of my recipes over the next couple months are vegetarian or pescatarian in nature. I've given up meat for Lent, so there it is. I did it partially because I like to really challenge myself for Lent and give up something that is very dear to me. Additionally, I've been struggling to reconcile my love for the taste of animals with the ethical implications of supporting an industry that profits off of disease and torture. I'll kill animals and eat them, but that doesn't mean that I don't care about how they are treated.

Apparently David Chang of Momofuku fame agrees with me. He had something really interesting to say about sustainable meat in his new cookbook, which I got a chance to peruse over the weekend:

"Pigs have heads. Every one of them does. Farmers do not raise walking pork chops. If you're serious about your meat, you've got to grasp that concept. And if you're serious about sustainability and about honestly raised good meat-which is something we're dead serious about at Momofuku and we try to get more in touch with every day-you've got to embrace the whole pig.

A farm turns out a head on each beautiful, well-raised pig, but nobody's rushing eat it. That's where the cook steps in: you take it, cook it, make it delicious. That's the most badass way you can connect with what you cook: elevate it, honor it, lavish it with care and attention-whether you're slicing scallions or spooning out caviar or boiling up half a pig's head. Turning ingredients into food, and sometimes almost literally turning a pig's ear into a silk purse, is what cooks do in the kitchen" See Momofuku Cookbook, p. 201.

Chang goes on provide a recipe for "pig's head torchon" which looks nothing like a pig's head and sounds pretty amazing.

Speaking of Momofuku, I did make a Momofuku inspired ramen with shrimp, some scallions, and a slow-poached egg. The slow-poached egg concept is another thing I pulled out of that cookbook. Pretty cool. Basically, you put an egg in hot water, kept around 140 degrees or so for 40-45 minutes. Keep the egg off the bottom of the pot though to prevent overcooking. I put it in a metal vegetable steamer-type colander. Whenever you're ready, crack open the egg and you've got a perfect poached egg that is cooked whites and goey, beautiful yolk. Made me feel like a rock star when I tried it.



The shrimp ramen came out really, really good. I have become somewhat of a master broth maker, and this time I used a mixture of chicken broth that had also simmered with some mean-as-hell roasted Jamaican hot peppers, combined with some shrimp shell broth. It just made it extra-seafoody. You could try it with the shrimp broth or just regular broth.

And since we're sharing pictures. I took a picture of a super freak of a mushroom that was in the package of mushrooms that I bought from Whole Foods. It was too weird not to take a picture of it and share with you.



The recipe that I want to leave you with, though, actually comes from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. It is really simple and, if presented well, an absolutely beautiful dessert. Did I mention that it's freaking delicious? Here it is:



Poached Pears
Adapted from Les Halles Cookbook

Ingredients
1 bottle of somewhat cheap red wine
1 cup of sugar
1 cinnamon stick
3 star anise pieces
4 pears, peeled and cut lengthwise

In a medium pot, combine wine, sugar, and spices. Bring to a boil, and let boil for 5-10 minutes. Add the pears, cover, and let simmer for about a half an hour or until the pears are soft and could be eaten with a spoon. Remove from heat, uncover, and let cool. Serve the pears with the sauce they were cooked in and/or with vanilla ice cream.

Serves 8 meager appetites, or 2-4 gavones.

Winter Root Stew

After our rich Saturday eating extravaganza, beginning with lunch at Les Halles (which is my new favorite restaurant by the way) and ending with dinner at Egan & Son's new location in West Orange, NJ, I figured I would make something less rich and more wholesome for Sunday dinner. Based on what I had left around from the food co-op, I decided to make a stew of various winter roots. My only concern was that it could end up being somewhat boring.

We've all made those dishes before where you know that it will be edible and you know that it will be more or less good for you, but you don't know if it will be exciting or something that you'll want more than a few bites of.

So, in the quest for flavor, I ended up using my chicken broth and about a pint of beer to give the stew a hearty, yet tasty flavor. Once that broth and beer mixture combined with the juices of the carrots, parsnips, onion, celery root, etc, it was pretty damn flavorful. I was also a little stumped on how to season it. I could toss in some maple syrup, maybe throw in some apples and cinnamon. I ended up with salt, pepper, some cinnamon and some nutmeg. Not too much though! The spices were subtle, which made it really nice. Boring, it was not. Although, it was interesting how the flavors of the root vegetables all seemed to blend together. It was difficult to tell whether you were eating a piece of turnip or a piece of celery root. It all sort of blended together into a delicious flavor; one that is sweet, but savory and evokes sitting by a nice warm fire on a cold winter day.



Next question was whether or not to add a meat. I happened to have a really nice piece of smoked Kielbasa that my upstairs neighbor gave me after a trip to the Polish butcher. I chopped into bite sized pieces and threw it in there. This way, there really wasn't enough meat to take over the thing and turn it into a meat stew. The Kielbasa just added a little something, turning the stew from a side dish to a main course. Vegetarians could totally go without the Kielbasa and substitute vegetable stock for the chicken stock. Carnivores can go crazy and throw in a slab of bacon-which I had considered, but decided against in light of the order by the Mrs. to "don't make anything rich". Another idea would be some beef to stew in with the veggies. You get the idea here. There is ample opportunity for improvisation.



Winter Root Stew

Ingredients
1 pint of dark beer (I used my homemade brown ale)
About 1 Quart Chicken Stock (can substitute with any stock, including vegetable)
1 onion, minced
3-6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 celery root
2 sweet potatoes
1 turnip
1 acorn squash
2 white potatoes
2 red potatoes
4 carrots
4 parsnips
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp fresh ground pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp olive oil OR butter
1 Kielbasa sausage (or 1 lb of thick cut bacon)

Note: You'll want to use a dutch oven for this. If you don't have a dutch oven, you could just use a pot and keep it on the stove, although I liked not having to tend to it by putting it in the oven.

In a large dutch oven or large pot, warm the oil (or butter) on medium-low heat on the stovetop. While the pot is warming, mince your onion if it is not already minced. Add the onion and saute while mincing the garlic. Add the garlic and saute until golden brown. Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees.

Chop the root vegetables into pieces approximately just small enough to fit onto a tablespoon. They will soften up after they are cooked and can be broken into bite-sized pieces with a spoon by the eater. Add the root vegetables to the pot. Next add the chicken stock and beer to the pot so that it just about covers the vegetables. Use as much stock as necessary to cover most of the vegetables.

Next, chop the kielbasa into spoon-sized pieces and add to the pot. Stir all of the contents of the pot around so as to mix them up and disperse the sausage throughout the pot. Now turn off the stovetop and put the pot into the oven for about an hour. Cooking time will vary depending on the size of the vegetables and amount of liquid added to the pot. Cook until the vegetables are soft and steamy. Add salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg after removing from the oven and then stir the contents again. If you do not have a dutch oven, simply the pot the on low heat, stirring occasionally for about an hour.

Serves 4-6


Don't forget to save any leftover broth from the pot. Freeze and add it to your next dish!

Fish, Chips, and Other Fried Sources of Delight

Many great meals are the result of careful planning, but some others follow the spaghetti on the wall strategy: let's throw everything we've got at it and see what sticks. I find that some of my best work is of the second category. Not to say that I don't do careful planning. I do. But, here's the thing. I LOVE to cook. And not it's because I love following directions, wandering aimlessly through the grocery store, or slicing and burning my hands on a near daily basis. No, I love to cook because I love the freedom that it brings me. It is an escape with a fantastic reward at the end. It's also a way to express myself. My personality definitely comes through on the plate. Not to say that I think that I am like the food I make. I recently saw an episode of Chopped where one of the cooks kept saying that she is like a spicy fish or something like that. It made her sound insane.

I don't purport to be sane, but I do know that I'm not similar to fish and chips. That said, my personality definitely comes through in my cooking. It is bombastic, it is bold, and it revels in experimentation.

Last night was definitely a night of reckless experimentation. I caught a deal on wild-caught Cod and figured that I'd try my hand at some fish and chips. My mom came over for dinner, so I wanted to make something nice.

Let me tell you. It kicked ass. I've had fish and chips all over New York City. It is the go-to dish when my wife goes out to eat and doesn't know what to order. Mine was superior to anything we've had out. Now, granted, this was an exquisite piece of Cod. It was really nice. It was such a beautiful piece of fish before I even touched it that it made me want to rent a boat to find some fishermen and thank them. But, even still. My fish and chips is the bomb. I suspect I'll be asked to make it again at least 5 more times by the end of the year. Killer fish dishes aren't always easy to come by, so when you get one, you gotta hold onto it like, well, like you got a fish on the line.

Since I already had a vat of hot oil and a bowl of flour batter, I figured it was a good opportunity to experiment after dinner. I added a whole bunch of sugar and a little vanilla extract and tried to make a funnel cake with the beer batter. No, it did not taste like fish. What did happen was that I put too much batter in there at one time, and it cooled the oil too much and wouldn't turn golden brown until it turned almost black. I burned it.

Next I made a new batch of batter, added A LOT of baking powder to that mixture, and instead of putting strings of batter in the oil, I just plopped a ladle full of batter all at once. That was the key! The baking powder made it puff out while it cooked. The batter blob was big enough to not get burned on the inside, but small enough not to overcool the oil. I took my fry cake out of the oil, put it on a paper towel and sprinkled it with a good amount of powdered sugar. Awesome! Of course, by this time I had eaten fried cod, french fries, a burned funnel cake, and two delicious fry cakes. I ended the night with a tummy ache, but satisfied in the knowledge that I had mastered the baking powder/hot oil combo technique. Make sure you eat a salad with this meal. Or better yet. Make the fish and chips on one day, and the fry cake on a different day. Nobody should eat that much oil in one day.



I've made a few other things since I last wrote, and I'm trying to take some nice pictures, so there's a few of those around too. That salad picture really gets me excited about taking more pictures, although I have to admit that I just went to Whole Foods and bought salad greens and then very thoughtfully and carefully drizzled store bought salad dressing on it. Goes to show how nice something can look even if you didn't do shit to make it be so beautiful.



The noodle dish is sort of a Thai chili-basil chicken concoction based on a recipe in the January/February 2010 issue of Cooks Illustrated. It was delicious. I couldn't stop eating it. I ate it until it was gone, and then I paced around the apartment thinking about going to the store to get more chicken. My only gripe was the lack of color in my version. It looked dull for such a spicy, sweet mess. Also, I could have used more basil or at the least the right kind of basil, but that's for another day. My basil plant is growing tall and strong and I'm not going to kill it over one noodle dish.

Today I made my own Yogurt, which was shockingly easy. Be that as it may, I still managed to mess something up. I was keeping it warm in a warm oven when I turned the oven on to keep it warm and then got distracted with the rest of my life and forgot to turn it off. Plastic yogurt cup. Melted plastic yogurt cup. But hey! It still made yogurt, and I saved it before the Yogurt couldn't be salvaged. Next time, I'm going to use hot water. Then I strained the yogurt through some cheesecloth to make it more like Greek Yogurt. I actually overstrained it and add to go back and add a dab of milk before eating it. It is sort of weird to have dry yogurt, but its possible. Anyway, it was good and really easy to make. You can use just about any kind of milk too, so, you could use goat milk if you want or skim milk or lactose-free milk or whatever. I used organic whole milk. That's how I roll.

I'm still working on the header picture up at the top of the site. Let me know what you think. I suspect this new one looks more professional than the last one, but it might hurt your brain to look at for too long. Let's see how it goes. I like it because that is the pattern of my apron, although if you didn't read this post you'd never know that and you'd always wonder why I chose such an odd pattern as my header. Of course, if anyone wants to donate a header for the site, by all means, hook me up!



Classic Fish and Chips

Ingredients

2 lbs. cod
2 cups flour
2 Tbsp. baking powder
1 bottle of beer (preferably dark beer)
2 Tbsp. salt
1 Tsbp. pepper
1 quart peanut oil
4 white potatoes, skinned

In a medium-sized pot, warm the peanut oil on low heat. While the oil is warming, slice the potatoes, lengthwise, into half-inch thick slices. Next, turn the potato and slice it lengthwise again, to form french fries. By the time you've completed slicing the potatoes, the oil should be warm to hot. Now heat the oil on high heat until the oil is 300 degrees F. In small batches, approximately a full handful of potatoes per batch, cook the fries in oil for about 3 minutes. Batches that are too large will cool the oil and prolong the cooking process, if not ruin it entirely. Remove the fries with a slotted spoon and spread the fries on a baking sheet. Once all of the potatoes have been fried the first time, put the baking sheet in a warm oven about 200 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, 1 tsp of salt, 2 Tbsp. of black pepper, 1 Tbsp. of baking powder, and a bottle of beer. Mix the ingredients with a whisk until they form a thick batter. Slice the cod into approximately 2-3 inch thick pieces by cutting across the width of the fish. With tongs, coat the fish with the batter by dipping the fish into the mixing bowl. Be gentle with the fish while ensuring that the entirety of the fish is coated with batter. Next, carefully put the battered fish into the oil in batches of no more than 4 pieces of fish at a time. Cook for approximately 4-5 minutes, being sure to turn the fish over halfway through cooking and removing the fish from the oil only after the batter becomes golden brown. Cooking times will vary depending on the the size of the pot, the heat of the stove, the amount of oil used, and the size of the fish. When the fish is cooked, place the cooked fish on a plate covered with paper towel. The paper towel will soak up excess oil.

Next, return to the baking sheet and re-cook the fries in oil until they are golden brown. Small batches should not take more than 5 minutes. Remove the fries to another paper towel covered plate, coat with the remaining salt, and serve.

Serve the fish with malt vinegar and/or tartar sauce. Serve the chips with ketchup and/or mayonnaise. Serves 4.

All The Great Things

I've been feeling guilty. This might just be a general condition of my Catholic upbringing, but I prefer to think it is because of some actual transgression on my part. In November, I wrote 16 blog posts, more than every other day. Since baby arrived though, it's been tough. Not only because it is hard to find time to write, but because it even harder to find time to cook something that is worth writing about. I've been dying to try my hand at bread again, there is a can of malt extract that is calling for me to brew more beer, I've got three new cookbooks that are worth my attention and all around me the foodie universe continues to go on without me.

And, as I mentioned recently, there have been plenty of culinary failures in my house. No sense giving you a recipe to something that tasted like crap so there are a few blog posts that could have been but weren't due to performance errors on my part.

That said, there is lots of cool stuff going on in the world, and even a couple of success stories in my own kitchen. For instance, my cyber-buddy Chuck sent me a kick-ass wing recipe. It seems as though everyone and their cousin are discovering Sriracha for the first time, which only confirms my belief that the obscure things that I embrace fully will all sooner or later become super popular (note also that I brought back the high-five, brought back beards, brought back saying "rad", popularized premium tequila around 2002, and made it O.K. to prefer small batch Bourbon over Single Malt Scotch, which, at least in the North-East, was a pretty big deal). Sriracha is just latest example. We used to only find it in Asian specialty stores and the occasional enlightened Whole Foods, now it's on sale at nearly every neighborhood supermarket. Sriracha has now reached the pinnacle of popularity since being featured in the January 2010 issue of Bon Appetit. Since then, Sriracha recipes are everywhere. It's nearly impossible to watch the Food Network for 15 minutes without hearing a mention of Sriracha. So, I decided to give these wings a try, resolved to share my own wing recipe at the next convenient time. In the meantime I'll give you a recipe for crab cakes that, yes, calls for a dollop of Sriracha, but more importantly, will introduce you to Sriracha's more rustic cousin, Chili-Garlic Sauce.



The wings came out great. I ended up using lime juice instead of lime zest, which I think ended up amping up the lime flavor a bit, and not in a bad way. The wings were more or less perfect, any gripe with them would be merely stylistic. Of course, Chuck promised that they wouldn't be very spicy and I do disagree on that count. I loved 'em, but they weren't really for people who don't like spicy food. Just a warning. Then again, almost nothing that I cook is for people who don't like spicy food. Those people should go to Mickey D's for dinner.

Beyond my kitchen, I wanted to alert you to someone who successfully made french bread at home, rather than, like yours truly, merely attempting the endeavor twice and failing both times. OK, perhaps I am being hard on myself. My bread was totally better than store bought. But it didn't look like this! That is what I believe in the journalism business is called being "scooped". Looks delicious though and I think we all have something to learn from Kissmyspatula (not the least of which is that if I ever go to Paris, I should rent an apartment, rather than stay in a hotel).

Last but not least before we get to the crab cakes: These people make sausage! I love them. The world is better place when more people make sausage. And people who cure sausage, there is a special place in heaven for you!

Ok. Crab Cakes. Now, I make traditional crab cakes with the Worcestershire sauce and a bit of mustard served with tartar sauce. And it's great. But I wanted to do something different here. I did a few experiments and I ended up a spicy but slightly sweet teriyaki crab cake. They are necessarily smaller than regular crab cakes, mostly because I crisped the outside by frying them in oil. Normal crab cakes are also fried, but not as hot and not in deep oil. Mine were done in a pan of hot peanut oil. I wanted to crispness to lighten it up bit, which I think it did, although they are only as light as crispy fried food can be. I also tried just broiling the cakes and that worked as well. I served them with a dollop of sour cream and a dot of Sriracha on each cake. The sour cream was a superior choice to mayonnaise since my aim was to make the cakes seem less dense and heavy, which is my usual complaint about good crab cakes. (My complaints about good crab cakes are, obviously, different.) Upon completion, they were fantastic, lighter than normal crab cakes, and had a really unique and interesting flavor. Definitely worth trying if you are tired to the same old usual mid-Atlantic take on crab.

There are a couple of pointers about crab cakes in general that are worth considering. The first is that you get what you pay for with crab (I find this to be true of most food, except at the farmer's market). Want crappy crab cakes? Buy crappy crab meat. Want excellent crab cakes? Buy excellent crab meat. End of story. Second, use too much bread and your cakes can be dry, but use too little and they are hard to cook and don't stay together. If the pan is consistently spitting hot oil towards your eye (yeah, that really hurt) then your cakes are too wet, add more crumbs. Third, here is a great opportunity to use day or two old french bread for breadcrumbs. You can sub with a canister of 7 month old breadcrumbs, but it's better with better ingredients.



Terriaki-Chili Crab Cakes

Ingredients
16 oz. Premium Crab Meat
2 Eggs
1 1/2 cups packed French Bread Crumbs
1/4 cup Chili-garlic Sauce
1/4 cup Teriyaki Sauce
1 Tbsp Fish Sauce
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
2-4 Shallots, minced
2-4 cloves of Garlic, minced

For frying, 2 cups of peanut oil

In a large bowl, combine crab meat, eggs, chili-garlic sauce, teriyaki sauce, fish sauce, shallots, garlic, and mayonnaise. Mix well with a large fork or spoon. Next, mix in bread crumbs with your hands. Be sure all the ingredients are evenly distributed throughout the mixture, especially the bread crumbs and egg.

In a medium-sized cast iron skillet or another pan with high side walls, heat peanut oil to about 300 degrees. Pack the crab mixture into little egg shaped cakes. The cakes should also be approximately the size of an egg. Gently place each crab cake into the hot oil and cook for about 1 minute on each side. Cook the cakes in small batches so as not to cool down the oil too much.

When each cake is crisp from frying in oil, remove the crab cakes and place them on a foil covered baking sheet. Bake the cakes at 275 degrees for about 20 minutes if there is any concern that your crab cake is raw on the inside. This is generally only an issue if you oil is very hot but your crab cake is too large. The outside will be cooked but the inside will be raw.

Serve with sour cream and Sriracha. Alternatively, serve with sliced avocados and whole basil leaves. These make a great appetizer, or will serve 4 as a main course.



P.S. - I finally a logo for the site, I know its not perfect but it's a good start. Hopefully I'll get a chance to clean it up at some point in the future.

Food Co-op

I finally did it. I joined a food co-op. We got our first delivery yesterday, mostly the basics: celery, carrots, some apples, and pineapple among other things. As of right now, we're just trying it out to see if we like it. I kind of like the idea of getting a box of vegetables and being challenged to try new things with it.

I'm also trying to begin doing Meatless Mondays. Lent is coming soon, and I'll be meatless on Fridays too during Lent, but as a general matter I've always found the Lenten Fridays to be precisely the days when I could use a steak. Monday is more a detoxification day. But, to be sure, I'll be doing both this Lent. I've actually given up meat entirely for Lent in the past, but I found that if the purpose of the Lenten fast is to get some perspective, then I somewhat miss the point if I spend 40 days feeling hungry and moody. Yes, I admit it. Going without meat made me cranky.



Anyway, back to vegetables. Once I got all this nice produce, I wanted to put together something that would use some of the veggies that I already had, as well as show off some of nice reds and greens in peppers and leaks (peppers and leaks that needed to be eaten soon, or thrown out). I also got a good deal on some wild caught shrimp at the supermarket, so I wanted to use that too. Of course, Fuchsia Dunlop comes to the rescue again. Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, people! Get it! You need it!

I just flipped through the index for "shrimp" and found a nice recipe called "Fisherman's Shrimp with Chinese Chives". That was enough to inspire me. I fried up the shrimp in a small cast iron skillet so that I could get the shrimp deep into the oil without using a gallon of the stuff. Oil ain't free you know. I cooked some red peppers and leaks in a separate skillet and combined them at the end. If I had to do it over again, I would have actually never combined the fried shrimp with the veggies. Instead, I should have just put the shrimp on top of the veggies in the dish. Mixing them up with the moist vegetables made the shrimp a little less crisp than they were when I first fried them. It was still pretty fantastic though. Here's the recipe.



Spicy Garlic Fried Shrimp with Peppers and Leaks
Loosely adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop

Ingredients
1 lb. Shrimp, uncooked, cleaned, and de-shelled.
2 Tbsp. Flour
1 Egg White
1 cup Peanut Oil
1 tsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tsp. Crushed Red Pepper
3 cloves fresh Garlic, minced
1 tsp. Fish Sauce
1 Red Pepper
1/2 of a Leak

Gently mix shrimp, egg white, and flour in a medium bowl to coat the shrimp. In a small pot or skillet, heat oil to around 300 degrees. Cook the shrimp in the oil in small batches for a few minutes on each side until the shrimp is crisp and fully cooked. Remove the shrimp from the oil and set aside on a paper towel.

In a separate, larger skillet, saute sliced leeks and thinly sliced red pepper in peanut oil over high heat. When the peppers start to soften up, add the minced garlic. A minute or two after the garlic is added, mix in fish sauce, vinegar, and crushed red pepper with the leaks and peppers.



Remove the vegetables and lay them along the bottom of a bowl or serving dish. Put the cooked shrimp into the large skillet and gently mix around the pan in order for the shrimp to soak up some of the seasoning and juices left over from the vegetables. Arrange the shrimp on top of the vegetables. Do not cover, otherwise the steam is likely to make the shrimp soggy.

Postpartum Christmas

Long time no post! I know, I know! As you might have guessed by now, the little man with an apron was born. He came home Christmas morning, and is happy, healthy, and HUNGRY!

We opened Christmas presents after we got home from the hospital, but not surprisingly the presents were pretty underwhelming compared to coming home with our baby. Parenthood is kind of like becoming a vampire. I spend a lot of time awake in the night; I'm aware that a very familiar part of my life is now over; but I know that this new state of being has given me some super powers. I am far more efficient now. I was never one for sitting around or not keeping busy before, but now I'm a whirlwind of errand-running, chore completing, home appliance repairing, and diaper changing.

In terms of my foodie life, I continue to need to eat, and I continue to insist on eating good things. So, while I haven't had a chance to bake any more bread, I have made about 5 gallons of sauce, roasted a turkey for (a day late) Christmas dinner, and churned out a steady supply of soup for the Mrs. and my Grandma, who, with 8 siblings and 2 children of her own, has plenty of experience and energy to help us get situated.

I got some pretty cool food related presents, among them a pizza stone, 8" and 6" cast iron skillets, a pasta maker, and two cookbooks, Momofuku and Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game. I'm really pumped try out some Momofuku dishes, and I'll be sure to share pictures and recipes when I do. Admittedly, a book about butchering will cover a lot of things that don't come up for me. For instance, I will likely not slaughter any cattle in my suburban apartment. But I wanted the book to learn about how meat is prepared. Plus there is a recipe for venison pate in there that I'm looking forward to trying.

Last, I have a recipe to share. It's an eggplant parmesan that I've become locally famous for. And by "locally famous" I mean by my friends and family. I like it because if you ever have to deal with vegetarians and omnivores at the same dinner table, this is something that you can serve to everyone without complaint.

As a general rule, I don't like eggplant parm. I find it starchy, difficult to digest, and not particularly tasty whenever I've had it. But this is different. The recipe is my own concoction, developed in an effort to impress my then girlfriend, now wife. She used to be a vegetarian, and suggested that I make eggplant parm. Rather than saying that I didn't like it and didn't know how to make it, I went and did it. It turned out better than anyone else's that I've had.

I say this is my recipe, but it is not as though the ingredients are non-traditional in any way. I think it is the approach to the eggplant that makes it really good.

Before you start though, just a note about the sauce. While I usually make homemade sauce for my eggplant parm, for the most part you can get away with a decent jar sauce. If you do choose to make your own, you'll want to make it a consistency that is similar to store bought. Don't make your sauce too watery, and don't make it too chunky, otherwise the sauce somewhat distracts from the eggplant/cheese interaction. In a bowl of spaghetti, the sauce is the star, but in a plate of eggplant parm, the sauce is a supporting character, and the eggplant and cheese are the stars.



Family-style Eggplant Parmesan

Ingredients
1 large eggplant
About 2-3 quarts of spaghetti sauce
olive oil
canola oil
2 cups of breadcrumbs
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 cup of Parmesan cheese
1 lb. mozzarella cheese

Directions

Skin the eggplant and slice the eggplant longways as thinly as possible. I can't stress how important it is that the eggplant be sliced very thin. That's what makes my eggplant good. In a large bowl, mix the eggs and milk and whisk. Coat the eggplant slices in the egg wash and then coat the eggplant in breadcrumbs by tossing each slice individually in a large bowl of breadcrumbs. You might also add some dried basil and oregano to the breadcrumbs. Be sure to give each eggplant slice individual attention by coating with egg wash, then immediately coating with breadcrumbs. I usually bread the eggplant as space becomes available in the pan, rather than all at once.

Heat a large skillet (or two) on medium heat, add one part olive oil, one part canola oil. Use enough oil to moisten each eggplant slice, but not so much that you're deep frying the eggplant. Be aware that eggplant absorbs liquids, so the eggplant will suck up the oil. This softens the eggplant up, but be careful not to keep too much oil in the pan at once. You'll probably have to add more oil for every five eggplant slices.

Fry eggplant in skillet until golden brown, taking care not to burn the breadcrumbs. While frying the eggplant, preheat the oven for 300 degrees. Put cooked eggplant slices in a large casserole, laying them out in a layer on the bottom of the pan. When the bottom of the pan is covered in a whole layer of eggplant, cover the eggplant with sauce, then cover the sauce with some of the Parmesan cheese, then apply sliced mozzarella cheese on top. Add another layer of eggplant slices on top and repeat until you either run out of eggplant or space in your casserole. When completely assembled, cover in foil and put it in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, long enough to melt all of mozzarella cheese. Serve.

The important thing about the treatment of the eggplant is that you want to really break the eggplant down. You slice it thin, fry it thoroughly, then bake it. By the time you eat the eggplant, you get the flavor of the eggplant, without any of the starchy-ness.

Beans are kind of like Meat

People think I am meat obsessed. They are right. But, that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a fine vegetarian meal. Just not everyday please. The problem is that while I will eat nearly anything with fins or feet, my wife doesn't. We eat a lot of chicken at home, and quite a bit of turkey too. But, for the most part, beef and pork aren't what's for dinner at our house.

Most days I can live with that, but sometimes I feel like if I have to eat one more chicken I might explode. It's gets old, even if you love chicken. So, I'm always struggling to find stuff to cook that can break up the monotony without having to make two separate meals. Enter kidney beans.

Kidney beans have significant amounts of protein, which is important both for big men in aprons as well as pregnant women (we have one of each in our house). And, of course, they have no cholesterol and are high in fiber, which regulates blood-sugar, keeps you full longer, and is just all around good for you. Oh, and by the way, they taste pretty damn good.

So, I throw tofu into the mix sometimes to get us away from poultry for a day, and occasionally I just make a vegetable pasta dish, but right now I'm really into trying to find more uses for kidney beans, since they seem to pack a lot of nutritional punch and can be used in some dishes where tofu isn't appropriate. In general, I find that tofu is great when it's done well, but it's very easy to do poorly and that just makes me want to eat the chef who served it. Total dinner guest faux pas.

So, I've already given you a pork and bean noodle dish. But I think this one is better, and it has no meat in it. It is inspired by Orangette's recent recipe for Tagliatelle alla Romagnola, which is essentially pasta, butter, Parmesan, and prosciutto. I was so excited that Orangette had posted something and I really wanted to try it out, but I needed to find something to replace the prosciutto. I also had some leeks that were getting to the "love 'em or leave 'em" phase of our relationship.

Anyway, this dish could be served hot, as I did serve it, or it could be chilled and eaten as a salad. Then again, at 39 degrees outside right now, chilled pasta might not be at the forefront of your priorities right now.



Kidney Beans and Ziti in Butter

Ingredients
1/2 lb. uncooked Ziti
5 Tsbp Butter (4 Tsbp to melt with the pasta, 1 Tsbp to saute the garlic and beans)
1 Tsbp fresh chopped basil
4 Cloves of fresh chopped garlic
1/2 cup of coarsely chopped Leeks
1 15oz. can of Kidney Beans
Grated Parmesan Cheese to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste

Boil a pot of water. You can chop your garlic, leeks, and basil as well as drain and rinse the beans during the time the water is heating up. When the water is near boiling, melt butter in a pan over medium heat. As soon as the butter is mostly melted, add the garlic. Be sure not to let the butter get too hot before adding the garlic, otherwise it will burn. Stir the garlic into the butter for about 1 minute. Add Leeks, stir and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the beans, stir gently and cook for about 5 minutes. By the time you've added the beans, your water should be boiling and ready for the ziti. The ziti is best served al dente, so give it about 6-7 minutes in rapidly boiling water, uncovered in the pot.

When the ziti is ready, drain thoroughly and return to the pot. Put the pot on low heat and add the mixture of beans, garlic, and leeks. Also add the chopped basil and 4 Tsbp of butter at this time. Stir the pot gently, making sure to coat all of the pasta with melting butter, while taking care not to crush the soft kidney beans. As soon as the butter is completely melted, it is ready to serve. Best to serve immediately, since this dish is light and doesn't retain heat the way a heavier dish might.

Add Parmesan if desired. I didn't, but it would be good either way. Resist the urge to add more vegetables or ingredients. The beauty of this recipe is its simplicity. It's nice to actually taste the beans and the leeks. They both have a lot of flavor to contribute that would be drowned out if you added too many other ingredients. Serves 4.

Hunkering Down

Somehow there is a lot to report, but not much that has gone on of late. We're still waiting for baby to introduce himself to the world. Not yet at the due date, but close enough to keep a close vigil for signs of the little man with an apron.

In the meantime, I'm cooking as usual. I guess I should have already mixed the bread dough if I was planning on putting it in the fridge overnight tonight, but I always like to think there is tomorrow for these things. It is officially exam season in law school, so while I tend to have very little time to mess around in the kitchen, I do get the benefit of not having to be in class during the day. Sometimes that results in a little extra time here and there.

This weekend, the Mrs. and I went to the Christmas tree lighting in Montclair, New Jersey, where we live. Afterward, we went to our new favorite pizza spot, Leone's. I swear it had a website not long ago, but I can't seem to find it now. You'd be surprised to find out that even though we live in an area that is choc full of Italian-Americans, it can still be challenging to get a truly good pizza. Too many places serve some doughy pizza-like substance. Not to mention, we're surrounded by Papa John's and Dominos. "Better Ingredients" my ass. The Papa delivers up MSG and partially-hydrogenated oil in his garlic dipping sauce and dressings.



So, imagine my delight when we discovered that a restaurant sitting on our list of those to check out in our fair city turned out to have awesome pizza. No kidding. Really awesome pizza. So, after the tree lighting, we went to Leone's for a pizza and some calamari. Their calamari was surprisingly good too. I prefer my calamari with spicy asian sauce, but they have a garlic-bomb marinara that while difficult to digest, was an absolute joy to consume.

On the home front, I've been toying around with a few ideas, and I might as well share a recipe for one of them. It's not perfect, but it was tasty.

Remember the roast pork I wrote about in my first post? I had lots of fun coming up with all sorts of ways to eat the leftovers. But, like any resourceful person, I also froze some for a rainy day (or in this case, rainy/snow).

So, while in mood for some of that delicious pork, I used the last of it for this Pork and Beans dish that I dreamed up. It came to me as many good things do, while flipping through the pages of Fuchsia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. If I could only bring one book to a desert island, and that desert island was well stocked with chickens, pigs, chili peppers and shao tsing wine, then this would be my one book.

Not to say that this recipe is in the book. It's not. But I just sort of flip through and close my eyes and get my imagination working. I look really silly when I do it. Also, the pictures have navy beans in the dish in addition to kidney beans. They were tasty too, but they didn't hold up to the stirring quite as well, so I didn't include it in the recipe. You could use black beans or any other beans you want for that matter.




Pork and Beans Noodle

Ingredients
2 cups of cooked roast pork, preferably leftovers, cut into bite size pieces
1 can of kidney beans
1/4 cup of shao tsing wine
1/4 soy sauce
2 cups of water or stock
2 Tbsp of Garlic Chili Sauce
1/2 cup of chopped leaks
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tsbp fresh ginger, minced
2 Tsbp fresh Basil, course chopped
1/2 lb. Shandong Ramen noodles
1/4 cup peanut oil



Boil water in a large pot first. When water is close to a boil, warm up a large wok or skillet on high heat. Add peanut oil and swirl to cover inside of wok. Add pork after the pan is warmed up a bit but before the pan gets extremely hot. Stir in the pan to coat pork with oil. Gently stir in beans, taking care not to crush or misshape too many of the beans. Put noodles in boiling water. Add garlic, ginger, leaks, and chili sauce. Stir gently. Add wine and soy sauce. Stir gently to coat all ingredients with wine and soy sauce. Don't let the mixture sit in the wok too long for any given time, be sure to stir often. After 8 minutes boiling ramen, strain the ramen noodles. Add the noodles, the water or stock, and the basil to the wok. Stir gently so that all of the indregients are mixed together, and the water in the wok is boiling hard. Turn off heat, continue to stir for another 2 minutes. Serve hot.

Meatloaf Again and Again and Again

Meatloaf gets a bad rap. There is always a "Not Meatloaf Again" joke waiting to rear its ugly head whenever anyone suggests making some. But in terms of comfort food, or "hunkering down for the winter" food, meatloaf just can't be beat. This is especially true in my house, where my wife is the primary maker of meatloaf in our family. And since she mostly cooks when I'm going to be home late, meatloaf spells comfort not just because it tastes like being a 9 year old kid at Grandma's house, but because chances are, if we're eating meatloaf I've had a long day and really appreciate a steaming, ketchupy meatball waiting for me.

So, this is her recipe, which I'm told comes by way of Martha Stewart. It features two other things that I think are under-appreciated in the culinary world: ground turkey and a muffin tray. Purists will scoff at my blatant disregard for the traditional pork, beef, veal combo found in classic meatloaf. But hear me out. Try this. It's good. I promise. Besides, if you ate ground turkey once in a while instead of gorging on pork, beef, and veal, you might be better off. Also, I think I've already made my views on veal known, but to recap: I try not to eat animals that I think have been mistreated or tortured, including most veal. Just try it. The little muffin sized loafs are the best part, I think. It's just prettier that way.



T's Turkey Meatloaf Muffins

Ingredients
1/2 cup ketchup (plus another 1/4 cup to spread on top)
1 1/2 to 2 lbs. ground turkey
1 medium onion, chopped
2 slices of whole wheat bread, torn into small pieces
1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
2 heaping tablespoons of relish
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 egg
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsps dry mustard powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
Optional: 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper or a few dashes of Tabasco Sauce


Preheat oven to 350. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Fill 6 cups of a muffin tin with heaping mounds of the meatloaf mixture. Brush each meatloaf muffin with ketchup.

Bake about 45 minutes, such that the inside temperature of the loaf muffins reaches 170 degrees. Serve hot. Serves 4 (2 if you're hungry).

They'd probably make great leftovers too, but we've never had any left over to find out.

The New Turkey Sandwich

As inevitable as turkey on Thanksgiving, there is the post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwich. After all of the trimmings and stuffings and dressings and gravies and potatoes and sweet potatoes and pies and etc. etc. etc, there is something really comforting about the simplicity of a turkey sandwich.

Mine was a little less simple than most, but no less comforting. Sometimes change is comforting too. Besides, I forgot to take white meat leftovers, and only took a turkey leg home with us. The Mrs. prefers white meat, so getting her to dig into a turkey leg isn't as easy as it should be. When we started going together, she was a vegetarian. So, in the grand scheme of things, I'm making progress on her. But, we still get stuck on dealing with animal bones.

So, instead of being the only person who gets to eat turkey, I took all the meat off of the leg and chopped it very fine. My aim was to make a sort of turkey burger patty. Any stringy pieces and ligaments were thrown into my broth pot and not into the bowl of chopped turkey. I then opened up my frozen chicken broth container (which you should always have in your freezer if you are serious about eating well at home) and scraped some of the chicken fat off the top of the broth. I mix a little of that chicken fat with the turkey, after its been given a chance to thaw. I then pound all of the meat and fat together with a meat hammer. After pounding, shape the meat into two patties and cook on the skillet. The meat is already cooked, so you don't have to stress about getting it back up to 170 degrees in the center. You're just trying to warm it up. Even the microwave will do the job. Not my style though. While the patties cooked, I toasted a couple pieces of french bread, melted some swiss cheese on the bread, spread the bottom piece of bread with Lowensenf, a mustard for people who love mustard and wasabi. Put the patty on the bread, garnish with fancy salad greens, put top piece and melted swiss cheese on greens, and toothpick it together.

Everyone has their own favorite way to make a turkey sandwich. I want mine to be a sandwich worthy of the time and care put into making the turkey dinner in the first place. And this is it.

Mushroom Espagnole Sauce

I could have named this post "What Anthony Bourdain taught me about cooking." Not that Anthony Bourdain knows me, or that he would tolerate my amateur skills. But still, it would be true.

I've been reading his book, Kitchen Confidential, at nearly every moment that I can spare. Which, as a law student, is not many moments. But still, I've stolen enough time to be two-thirds of the way through it.

It's not a cookbook. It's more of a memoir about the ups and downs of his career as a chef, full of heavy drug use, hirings, firings, and punk rocker attitude. It's pretty spectacular if you like that sort of thing. And I might.

Anyway, aside from being thoroughly entertaining, the book has a lot to teach an amateur chef about cooking. For instance, this is probably pretty basic information to a trained professional, but did you know that French cooking divides sauces into five "mother sauces" out of which most other sauces are made? The basic mother sauces are made out either a white roux or a brown roux and mixed with light broth or milk or a darker broth. There is also the tomato based mother sauce, which is a more recent addition to the mother sauces.

I'm probably not the best source for this, but it's worth reading up on. I didn't even know that anything like that exists. Here is a link explaining what the mother sauces are, how they are made, and what sauces are derived from them.

It's been a fairly important concept for me to understand since it has the potential to formalize my approach to cooking sauces. Usually I just mix and match the flavors in my head. But by actually learning what a million people before me have already figured out, I should be able to mix and match a little more easily. Anyway, I never claimed to be the best cook. I'm just the cook whose blog you are reading right now.

Tonight I made what I would call an Espagnole Sauce, although truth be told I used chicken broth instead of beef or veal. I've give you the recipe for the sauce, and you worry about how you want to cook the meat. I just baked some chicken breast, but since this sauce could go with almost anything, I don't see the point in telling you how to bake a chicken breast.



Mushroom Espagnole Sauce

Ingredients
2 tsbp of unsalted butter
2 tsbp of flour
1 quart of broth
1/4 cup of white wine
2 cups or so of baby bella mushrooms
1 tsp thyme
2 bay leaves

Pour broth into a small pot and bring to a simmer uncovered. Add bay leaves and thyme. Let simmer while making the roux and sauteing the mushrooms (see below).

In a small saute pan, melt butter on medium heat. Add flour. Using a spoon or spatula, mix flour with the butter to create a paste. Crush lumps while stirring almost continuously. Cook until the paste starts to thicken and brown. Do not burn. Remove from heat.

In a separate and larger pan, saute the mushrooms in olive oil or butter. Stir mushrooms about 10 minutes on medium-high heat until water is released and mostly cooked off.

Add broth to mushrooms through a strainer to remove bay leaves and thyme. Add wine to the mixture. Bring to a simmer. Using a whisk, stir the roux into the sauce. Stir vigorously until the roux is fully dissolved. Let simmer briefly and remove from heat. Pour the sauce on chicken, beef, veal, tofu, toast, or just about anything that needs sauce. Salt and pepper to taste.

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Betty Croaker vs. My Inner Food Nazi

I have a confession. Or rather, I have quite a few, but they all boil down to my inner food nazi. He has been making more and more appearances lately. I've debated whether to post something about it, but I think if the mission statement of BigMan is that it is a blog about putting time and care into the things that I eat, then I think I ought to speak up. Most days that just means doing a good job sauteing some chicken and then occasionally spending all day cooking for loved ones. This is a little different.

Let me start by acknowledging that my inner food nazi takes a variety of forms. There is the judgmental inner food nazi who thinks that people who only eat white bread are crazy and that smoking is probably less dangerous than the average American's eating habits. Not to mention that he judges people who think that the only food worth eating is some form of candy. And there are the people who are afraid to try new things. Or who don't like anything that tastes like anything. I'm willing to confess that I judge those people and that I think their boring eating habits are a character flaw. There. I've said it. I'm sorry. Some of the flawed are my own flesh and blood. I still love them. I'll still be friends with them. But, I hope no one ever expects me to respect their food choices.

But the food nazi gets turned in on myself just as often, perhaps more so. That version of the inner food nazi is sincerely concerned about where my food comes from, whether it is safe to eat, and how I can do my part to make the world slightly better through the choices I make at the check-out counter. Who knows, maybe even be healthier in the process.

And to make things even more confusing, now I've got this little guy coming along and it can be kind of hard to figure out. What sort of foods should we let our son eat? When I was a kid, we ate some fresh foods, but we also ate a lot of trans fat packed, completely processed, garbage food. My family definitely appreciates food in the same way that I do, but not everyday is Sunday and sometimes you're just trying to get home from work, feed everybody, and get the place cleaned up in time to watch Roseanne.

Since then, some things have changed. The first is that food companies seem to be taking more shortcuts than ever. Perhaps I'm wrong and our hamburgers always contained E. coli. Either way, it is a result of the food industry not taking the same time and care that I am trying to. Second, we know more now about trans fats and additives and their harmful effects. Third, there is more that we can do about it. For instance, a lot of people have food co-ops available to them. In fact, click here to see if there is one near you. Fourth, we have more access to information about how some of the animals are treated in many of the huge corporate farms. I'm not going to link to anything there because, frankly, it is too disturbing to watch. Just trust me. Many animals get tortured before we eat them. I don't have a satisfying moral solution to that problem, but I have taken the steps of not eating veal and boycotting banquet foods. After all, you should be skeptical of any sausage that costs $1.33. I just don't think that because I'm willing to kill something and eat it that the living thing that I'm eating should also be tortured in the process. And finally, there is more information suggesting that human consumption of meat has some serious environmental consequences. This is a really cool site that talks about that some and has a nifty idea about how to reduce those consequences.

So, given all of that, I've been in the habit of cutting more and more processed foods out of my diet. First, I cut out fast food. I used to go to Burger King just about everyday. Now, I'm not even sure I would enjoy a whopper. Wouldn't know since I haven't had one in so many years. Next phase was more gradual, but I've really tried to cut out any microwave dinners and processed meals as much as possible. I've noticed that the more I take care about what I'm eating, the better I feel. I know lots of people who say stuff like that about all sorts of things. I have friends who say that running makes them feel great. It makes me want to run up to them and punch them in the nose. And perhaps you'll feel the same here, but, really, I feel better when I don't eat processed food.

But, here is the next big challenge in that effort: how do I cut out even more? Today was not a cooking project day, so I really just planned on making a small pizza from a betty crocker dough mix. Just add water. Kind of makes you think though, no? How can an entire pizza dough be in this package, just waiting for water? Well. It's because it's full of trans fats.

Really, the company should probably be called Betty Croaker. I'm sure if you did a complicated mathematical formula of the estimated number of people who have died from heart disease because of their trans fat consumption, divided by General Mills' market-share (Betty Crocker is owned by General Mills) of trans fat products, it would look pretty bad for General Mills. Anyway, that is more the sort of thing that we'd talk about in Torts class (not to be confused with Torte law), rather than food blogs. It's a bit risque.

My point is just that lots of products made by Betty Croaker contain trans fats. Bacos are an obvious no-no. If I have to explain why Bacos are a bad food choice, then you probably aren't reading this post. But what about some not so obvious ones? Did you know that Bisquick has trans fats in it? Yeah. Pancake mix has trans fat.

Now, it took me a good 15 minutes to get off my high horse. But now that I think I have, here is me doing my little part to make the world a better place. Including in my own kitchen.

This recipe is for homemade pancakes from scratch. And I'm going to suggest something really revolutionary. Let's try it together. I'm going to mix the dry ingredients together beforehand, so that when I'm ready to have pancakes, I can just add my milk and eggs and oil just like I would with a regular mix. So I'll present the recipe first on how to prepare the mix, which I want you to do as soon as you get a chance, and then I'll write out the rest of the recipe which treats your prepared concoction as your "pancake mix." I can't think of any reason why this won't work, and we'll all save 1 gram of trans fat per 3 pancakes. And by the way, I eat more than three pancakes in one sitting. Just putting that out there and hoping that I'm not the only one.

Pancake/Waffle Mix

Ingredients

For the Mix (Makes enough mix for about 24 to 32 servings)
12 cups of all-purpose flour (could also use 6 cups whole wheat flour and 6 cups all-purpose)
3/4 cup of sugar (optional)
1/2 cup of baking powder (OR 3 tbsp baking soda)
1 tbsp of salt

For the Pancakes
2 cups of Pancake Mix (see above)
2 eggs
2 cups milk
3 tbsp of oil (do not use olive oil)

So, to make the pancake mix ahead of time, just mix all that stuff together. Use a sifter if possible. If you don't have a sifter, you could use a clean, dry, whisk. Store in an airtight container. It should last almost forever.

When it's time to make the pancake, just combine the pancake mix with the eggs, milk and oil. Mix well, but not too well. Small lumps are normal. Pour a ladle full of pancake batter onto hot, buttered or oiled griddle or pan. To make waffles, use 1/3 of oil instead of 3 tbsps. The griddle should be hot, and the pancakes should be flipped when the bubbles coming up no longer close back up. Not exactly rocket science.

Serves 4.