Jalapeno Mashed Potatoes

Obvi, gentle reader, there ain’t nothing wrong with straight-up meat and potatoes. But sometimes you just wanna switch things up a bit. Especially when you’re using a cheapo cut of beef, as I did the other night. I was grilling some none-too-tender, none-too-flavorful “steaks” (this is what I get for cheating on my Key Foods with a slightly closer, vastly inferior market) that had been halfheartedly rubbed in prepared churrasco seasoning, and figured that adding a spicy kick of jalapeno to the mashed potatoes would up the meal’s flavor profile—or simply sear our taste buds so that each gruelingly chewed bite of the meat would seem like a relief and not a letdown. Win-win, amirite?

I used 2 large new (purple) potatoes, peeling just enough to carve out any pockmarks and brown spots but leaving most of the skin on. For expediency and consistency’s sake, I roughly chopped them into cube-ish (not to be confused with Cubist) pieces and added them to a pot of salted water that I brought to a boil, then lowered to a vigorous simmer until the potatoes were fork-tender, maybe 15 minutes. (For mashed potatoes, I would always err on the side of cooking longer; it’s pretty hard to overcook them, but devastating if you undercook them.)

Ribs. Beer. Boom.

Yesterday morning I woke up to find that my man and his friend who had crashed on our couch (this is a different friend from the one who usually sleeps on our couch, but who’s counting) had, the previous evening, left two almost-full bottles of Corona undrunken when they—wait for it—crashed on the couch. (YES, "UNDRUNKEN" IS A WORD, I JUST MADE IT A WORD.)

Gentle reader, I largely do not live my life in accordance with societal conventions, or ethical standards, or...well, probably the less said on this topic the better—but I do have one inviolable rule governing my household and existence in general: YOU DO NOT WASTE BEER. So, I did what anyone else would do in this situation, and dumped the leftover beer into the slow cooker along with some bone-in spare ribs (sprinkled with salt) and a squirt of barbecue sauce.

Adventures in Slow Cooking: Baby-Back Ribs

Gentle reader, you may have noticed that I am no longer numbering installments of the Adventures in Slow-Cooking series, as it has become readily apparent that they are accumulating too quickly to keep track of, and I was told there would be no math on the blog. I don't even like measuring ingredients.

Anyhoo, baby back ribs in a slow cooker, you can’t beat that. Especially if yours, as mine were, are labeled as “pork loin back ribs,” which just sounds so deliciously dirty.

I severed and peeled off the membrane (that plastic-wrap-like layer on the back of the ribs) and rubbed into the meat a dry rub consisting of the usual suspects: kosher salt, paprika, garlic powder. Kept it simple. Let it sit in fridge overnight.

The Silence of the Lamb Roast

Gentle readers, my rollercoaster love-hate relationship with the Key Foods (née Met Foods) continues. Today I fell in love with it all over again when I found bone-in leg of lamb for $2.99 a pound. I purchased a roast that was about 2 1/2 pounds—mind you, knowing that a fair bit of that weight was the bone itself, but still feeling psyched that it was a good value.

I came home (singing “Kiiitty had a leg of lamb, leg of lamb, leg of lamb...”), preheated the oven to 350°, and slathered the meat with a paste of Dijon mustard, panko bread crumbs, garlic powder, shaved lemon zest, paprika, kosher salt, thyme, and parsley. (Tip: Mince your herbs/zest on a bed of the salt and other dry spices, it helps break them down. This works well for garlic too, but to my immense shame, I did not have any fresh garlic in the house.)

I put the meat in a foil-lined baking pan splashed with a bit of olive oil (photo below), and dropped it into the oven, followed shortly by another foil-lined baking pan containing unskinned Idaho potatoes, cut into wedges and tossed in salt and olive oil.

I also sliced and sautéed an 8-oz. package of white mushrooms in butter with a bit of thyme and salt and a splash of balsamic, to serve as a dressing for the lamb. Finally, I tossed some arugula in a mix of lemon juice and Dijon mustard—to echo the flavors of the lamb paste while creating an acidic counterpoint to the meat’s richness—and diced some mozzarella into it, because I didn’t want it tooooo counterpointy.

Cherry-Persimmon Pie (+ Bonus Holiday Party Food Porn)

Now. Normally I pride myself on making absolutely everything from scratch when I entertain. But there are exceptions.

Look, gentle readers, the holiday party I had on Sunday turned out to be quite the freaking production, let me tell you. I made like 6 trips to the Key Foods, formed and froze dozens of meatballs and phyllo triangles, shoehorned some compound butter into a star-shaped cookie cutter … and on and on and on. No rest for the wicked—you might say I was trying to stave off the prospect of getting coal in my stocking.

The menu, which yielded shockingly few leftovers, was as follows:

An 8-pound ham glazed with molasses and studded with pineapples, with sriracha mayo and horseradish sour cream accoutrements.

Two roast chickens, stuffed with orange wedges and leeks for flavor and (dubious) presentation.

An embarrassment of quiches (mushroom-leek, tomato-arugula, and bacon-arugula, all with Swiss cheese).

A tricolor penne salad with goat cheese, roasted tomatoes, and olives.

Don't Throw That Away!

Hi all,

In case you didn't hear, a blizzard hit the east coast!

 

We didn't get hit too hard in NYC. less than a foot of snow down in Red Hook, but as I was waiting for the bus on my way home from work yesterday, I was on the corner of Court St. and Atlantic Avenue, watching around 30 people standing across the street, waiting in a line, to get into Trader Joe's.

 

I made something weird!

Hello readers!

  

So it's hot out. It's so hot that it seems ridiculous to call it hot. It's... Heht. So it's not really cooking weather I get it. It's "if I have to cook I don't want to heat up the kitchen, so let's fire up the grill" heht. Which is why it was so strange that tonight, in the heat, I felt like throwing something together that would require the stove top. And, like I said in the title of this post, I made something weird. I'm going to call it potato leek pasta, and you can just suspend your disbelief while I take you through it, because it came out pretty good!

Ceci n’est pas un potato gratin

This dish looks very much like a potato gratin…but it is not, gentle reader, for it does not contain cheese in the proper manner of a gratin. It’s quite impressive visually (if I say so myself) but nowhere near as complicated to make as it looks—you just have to be a little bit anal about arranging the slices, but it honestly doesn't take longer than, like, 5, maaaybe 10 minutes to layer the potatoes.

This served 2 people with leftovers, but can easily be multiplied; if the pan is much deeper than this cake-pan-like one, plan to cook it a little longer, and cover it with foil for the first half of the cooking time.

Double Leftovers Love: Baked Stuffed Potato & “Taco Shells” Pasta

My two-prong 2012 resolution was to do more cooking at home, and to end up throwing out fewer leftovers by repurposing them for future dinners and/or work lunches. This resolution seemed like a manageable, money-saving one that will yield some good meals and blogging inspiration. Plus, I figured, if the world is going to end this coming December, there’s no point in resolving to exercise, eat healthy, or quit smoking—amirite, gentle reader?

Anyhoo, I have done pretty well thus far—I've brought lunch to work more days than not, and managed to make some creative use of leftovers. The Taco Night I recently blogged about actually occurred twice over the course of a few weeks—once with corn tortillas, once with flour. And following both occasions, I came up with excellent ways to use up the leftover ground beef filling.

Curried Potato Salad With Zucchini and Chives

With July 4, one of the high holy grilling days, at hand, Alyce is having a BBQ tomorrow! And so are our friends who had the Memorial Day BBQ for which The Rob and I smoked a pork shoulder. (Turns out that smoking is highly addictive: Since then The Rob has been over there almost every weekend for a smoking adventure such as ribs, brisket, or chicken… and for tomorrow they’re attempting a Pastrami Project.)

Since Alyce’s BBQ starts at 3 pm and our other friends’ at 6 pm, I’m planning to two-time them by bringing the same potato salad. Except I was at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket today and I saw some lovely-looking little zucchinis, so I decided on a whim to get one and shred it into the Alyce-BBQ-bound potato salad, because, why not?

The zucchini was small, and I correctly guessed that it would not really have any seeds to speak of; if you use a larger, seedy one, I would probably scoop the seeds out of it. I used one zucchini, but I would use two next time to make the flavor and texture stand out more.

I proportioned this recipe for about 5 pounds of potatoes, but obvi, you could multiply it as you like.

Roast Panko-Mustard-Crusted Lamb With Rosemary Potatoes

My friend Jacqueline recently returned from a trip to Portland, Oregon, where she visited our Brooklyn-expat friends J.J. and NeNe and their new bay-bay. Baby is really cute, super happy for them, yadda yadda yadda…point being, Jackie brought me back some rosemary from their backyard and some nice seedy mustard from Kruger’s Farm Market, and I wanted to do justice to these lovely ingredients. And what goes with rosemary and mustard like lamb? Duh.

For two, I got two round-bone lamb chops, about .60-.65 lb. each. This preparation would also be great with a rack of lamb for a dinner party, but I would recommend Googling the cooking time for its weight, and searing all sides of the meat in a pan before you do the mustard schmear/crumbing.

Hey! Don't Throw That Away! Part 2: Potato Leek Soup

Hey all,

If you had a chance to read my last post about chicken stock, you know it was the start to a fun weekend of cooking.

So it was the end of the week, and I had all this lovely chicken stock. We were coming up on labor day weekend, and holiday weekends in New York tend to be a great time when enough people leave that it seems like the city is empty. This empty city led to a text from a friend, asking if i was in town, and if so, i could go and pick up their CSA http://www.localharvest.org/csa/. I happily agreed, not being a member of a CSA myself, to partake in fresh veggies. So on Saturday morning I headed down the block and picked up: 4 carrots, a bunch of beets, 2 leeks, a bunch of kale, 4 heads of garlic, a bunch of yellow wax beans, 4 ears of corn, and two onions.

It was such a wonderful experience, to get to the park and take the allotted veggies from the containers full of freshly harvested, organically farmed beautiful vegetables. When i got home I assessed the bounty and decided (among other things) to make a potato leek soup.

Chipotle Potato Salad

This spicy potato salad is a great side dish to bring to cookouts and picnics as you savor the rest of August. Now, I personally find that a lot of potato salads (especially the premade supermarket ones) are bland if not outright icky-tasting, and have a mealy-creamy hospital-food mouthfeel -- but this has a good kick and a chunky texture, and makes a nice complement to grilled steaks, burgers, and many other charred meats of summer. Plus, the ingredients for a pretty large quantity cost about $5 -- you can easily multiply based on the size of your gathering. (I brought this today to a cookout that featured a roast pig, which was pretty exciting.)

This recipe uses red, or new potatoes, which tend to be the best for potato salad because they hold their texture and don't get grainy or crumbly, as brown (russet) potatoes do. Yellow waxy potatoes are another option, or you could try purple fingerlings sliced in half, for the visual effect. I peel off just the eyes and any brown spots on the potatoes, but you can peel them completely if you prefer (though I wouldn't with the fingerlings).

Happy Potato Pancake Birthday, Brooklyn Girl Cooking!

Today is Kitty's Birthday! and although I didn't get to celebrate with her in person today, we will be seeing each other this weekend.

BUT- in honor of her love for potatoes, I made potato pancakes!

I grated 3 potatoes and a half an onion into a bowl, and then squeezed the excess liquid from the grated potato and onion using a cheesecloth

I added 2 eggs, some minced garlic (because i pretty much add garlic to everything), ~tsp of salt, ~tbsp of flour and ~2 tsps curry powder (I don't always measure exactly, and in this type of recipe, the eggs and flour act as good binders, so a little extra flour won't hurt)

Dude, I Totally Scored With Those Potatoes

As a lifelong potato aficionada, I recently had a life-changing face-palm revelation about a technique that could not be simpler and quicker, yet instantly increases potato deliciousness by, I dunno, at least 300%.

I recently attended a barbecue that featured roasted Idaho (I think) potatoes that were—eureka!—cut in half with the cut surface scored in two directions. This allowed tons of butter to penetrate, thereby preventing that tendency of halved roasted potatoes to be bland and mealy/flaky in the middle.

Of course, when it came time to attempt to replicate those results, I was taking no chances. So I got new potatoes and sliced them in half lengthwise, scored the inside surfaces crosswise (say, 3 cuts across the whole surface in each direction, using a paring or other pointy knife), and then cut each half in half. If you don’t feel like taking the time to then score the other non-peel side (I did, being a butterholic), they will still be buttery and delicious.

Cooking Funemployment

Hello from your other Brooklyn Girl Cooking!

I, like many of us over the past year+, have been experiencing some ups and downs on the employment front. One of the benefits of not having to get up and go to work every day is having the time to play more with food and do some things I don't always have (or make) the time to do. Don't get me wrong, I always try to make time to cook, but I don't always make time to cook everything I have available. For example, a few days ago I took advantage of some over-ripe bananas, and made (an incredibly simple) blueberry banana bread (recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook), the last piece of which is pictured here. I can't even count the number of times I have allowed bananas to go beyond even banana bread ripeness, something I think happens to all of us. As my friend Julie who is currently living in Brazil with her family just wrote me about making her own blueberry banana bread: "Alyce, this... inspired me. I have a loaf in the oven right now. It's super special since the Brazilians are not a blueberry-eating people and they're hard to find. Plus, I usually let my bananas rot to the point that we have a major bug infestation before I think to make bread."



Another fun recent experiment came about because, as usual, when I go to the market, I buy potatos. One of my weird shopping quirks is that there are certain things I feel I should always have in my kitchen, but that I may not always use. Potatos are one of those items I feel are mandatory, but I don't often cook potatos, I am much more a rice girl. (I say that with trepidation, knowing Kitty's penchant for potatoes might result in a rice v potato post? ooh, i like that idea) But then here I am at home with time on my hands, chilly rain outside my door, a hankering for something starchy and salty, and potatos for the taking. So I went on epicurious.com and found a recipe for French Fries. They were baked, and called for a post-baking swim in parsley, garlic, and salt (cue: These are a few of my favorite things). The results were tasty, although I will definitely alter my cooking strategy the next time around: Having two layers of sheets of fries baking at the same time served to trap, and thus magnify, the heat on the lower oven tray, which made them cook faster. It wasn't necessarily bad in terms of taste, but a few of the thinner fries had 3rd degree burns and had to be laid to rest, unfortunately not in my stomach.