Meat and potatoes, well done: Beef Pot Roast and Potato Hash

Leftover pot roast (or whatever meat you may have on hand) combines with potatoes (and not a lot else) to make a hash that shows why meat and potatoes rock. Recipe below.

SOME FOODS ARE JUST MADE FOR EACH OTHER. A grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup; black beans and rice; pizza and beer; apple pie and vanilla ice cream.

And, of course, beef and potatoes.

These days we are not eating meat as often as we once did, trying to be more mindful of the way we live on the planet. But when we do, we still love it. And we don’t waste any of it. Continue reading “Meat and potatoes, well done: Beef Pot Roast and Potato Hash” →

Tea and cookies, pre-assembled: Chocolate-dipped Green Tea Shortbread Cookies

Japanese matcha green tea and bittersweet chocolate make these buttery shortbread cookies deliciously decadent, with coffee or tea. Recipe below.

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN when people are streaming in and out of our house, and we are streaming in and out of lots of other houses too. To help with all the festive to-ing and fro-ing, we like to have some lovely treats on hand. This year, for the first time, we’ve added green tea shortbread cookies to our arsenal.

Shortbread cookies are so wonderful—buttery, delicate, crumbly goodness. Adding matcha (Japanese powdered green tea) gives them a faintly herbal, haunting note—still delicate, but with a slightly sophisticated edge. Continue reading “Tea and cookies, pre-assembled: Chocolate-dipped Green Tea Shortbread Cookies” →

Chengdu meets Paris: Pork Chestnut Kale Stir Fry with Fried Soba Noodles

Ginger, garlic and chili paste flavor pork stir-fried with chestnuts and kale and served over gently fried soba noodles. Recipe below.

We’ve often talked about our love for Chinese food, which for us is the ultimate in comfort food. In the last year or so, our adventures have led us away from our friendly old favorites in the kitchen, but some recent enjoyable dinners in Chinatown, and a memory of past pleasures, put it front and center for us again. Continue reading “Chengdu meets Paris: Pork Chestnut Kale Stir Fry with Fried Soba Noodles” →

Tastes like… victory: Quick, delicious Potato and Cherry Tomato Salad

Fingerling potatoes and cherry tomatoes tossed with a lively mustard vinaigrette—something this easy shouldn’t taste this good. Recipe below.

Summer is drawing to a close—we have a real blanket on the bed, we are wearing sweaters in the evening, and we are casting around for ways to use the bits and bobs that we harvest here from our apartment garden. The nation’s corn crop may have gone to hell this year, but our tomato crop is record-breaking. Outside, we have just a tiny scrap of ground under cultivation, but it is giving us a quart of cherry tomatoes every day, on bad days—and that is to ignore the big tomatoes, which are coming in with a vengeance. Continue reading “Tastes like… victory: Quick, delicious Potato and Cherry Tomato Salad” →

The corn-free challenge: My week without corn

My week-long corn-free challenge is at an end, and these are the things I learned.

The food was the easy part. That’s the first thing I want to say about my week trying to live without corn.

During my corn-free challenge, I did have to avoid a lot of food items. Among the foods I did not eat were chicken, pork or beef unless we were assured it was grass-fed and grass-finished. I didn’t eat eggs, milk and most cheeses because they came from animals that had eaten corn. Continue reading “The corn-free challenge: My week without corn” →

Step away from the corn: The Corn-free Challenge

This summer’s drought and its devastating effect on corn points up just how much we rely on this single crop. Today, I’m beginning an experiment to see how long I can go without it.

The other day, my sister and I were noodling through the neighborhood farmer’s market and passed a farmstand offering fresh picked ears of corn. Look how small they are, my sister said. Tiny.

Yes, they are. The table corn we’ve been seeing coming to farmstands and grocery stores here in Illinois is not like last year’s. The ears are tiny, and the price is high. And that is just a glimpse of what is happening more broadly across the country, as record-busting heat and drought do their ugly work. The corn crop, Reuters wrote today, is harmed beyond repair.

This does not mean only that the price of table corn will rise. The price of anything that involves corn is going to go up. Field corn is one of the basics of industrial food, and the uses we have put it to are breathtaking. If you eat beef that is not grass fed, you will see prices rise. In fact, ranchers out west have been sending cattle to market for weeks now, way ahead of schedule, because of the murderous heat—a move that will make future beef prices even higher. If you eat grocery store chicken, you are going to see prices climb. Continue reading “Step away from the corn: The Corn-free Challenge” →

Globetrotting flavors and history: Lamb Meatballs with Saffron, Lavender and Paprika

Lamb meatballs are seasoned with a global mix of flavors and served over pasta—or made smaller and served as a canapé. Recipe below.

Terry’s comment last week about always liking the flavors of a braise, whatever the weather, had me asking myself how to achieve that depth of flavor without several hours of stoveness. At the same time I happened to be reading Roger Crowley’s City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas, about the way Venice was a prime mover in the growth of global trade, “the first virtual city,” “the central cog that meshed two economic systems—Europe and the Orient—shunting goods across hemisphere, facilitating new tastes and notions of choice.” And reading about this adventurous time, when “Venice was the middleman and interpreter of worlds,” started me looking at medieval recipes that involved great wallops of flavors like saffron and combinations that are unfamiliar to us today.

This dish is about travel and the global economy. It is a hat tip to the Venetian merchants of the Middle Ages, when trading could mean being gone for years, at enormous personal risk; when the great empires, so long in isolation, were getting their first little views of each other; and when cooks boldly began mixing together newfound flavors, in part seeking cures and in part because they came to love these daring new tastes. These were the first fusion cooks, picking and choosing flavors from a lush global toybox. Continue reading “Globetrotting flavors and history: Lamb Meatballs with Saffron, Lavender and Paprika” →

The heat goes on: Fight back, with Cold Cucumber Avocado Soup with Radish Garnish

Cucumber, avocado, potato, buttermilk, Greek yogurt, half and half, chicken stock and lime juice create a cool, creamy, tangy, refreshing summer soup. Recipe below.

Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. Dry. Hot. Right now is a breezy, refreshing 98. We are crawling around on the surface of the planet like miserable bugs.

As Terry has sometimes mentioned, I used to address weather like this by making cold cucumber soup. The trigger for this was the legendary cold cucumber bisque we would have at the former Balaban’s in St. Louis. My versions varied tremendously, and they were always interesting, but they were never like Balaban’s. That recipe was a closely guarded secret—one of those instances when everyone who worked there would get all coy and diffident if you asked about the ingredients. “Oh, I don’t know, some people think it has summer savory in it,” they would say in a demure tone. “I’ve heard it might have yogurt in it.” Sometimes they would turn it into a question: “Sour cream?” Continue reading “The heat goes on: Fight back, with Cold Cucumber Avocado Soup with Radish Garnish” →

Why your food will cost a lot more, starting soon

The weather. More than half the United States is in a drought right now. What had looked like a world record corn crop is now vanishing before our eyes; across the Plains, many farmers are plowing under what little they have left—not enough has been growing to pay for the cost of harvesting. US soybean crops are failing too—on foreign exchanges, the price of soy is nearing record highs.

The biggest reason for this is drought; when drought is accompanied by drastic temperatures, as it has been, things get worse. For many of our typical crop plants, when the mercury climbs, photosynthesis can slow and even stop. That means the plant is dying. Continue reading “Why your food will cost a lot more, starting soon” →

Chocolate Chunk Cherry Brownies and the evilness of squirrels

Bittersweet and white chocolate, a touch of espresso and dried cherries soaked in red wine give these brownies a nice grown-up finish. Make them ahead—they’re twice as good the next day. Recipe below.

BEFORE I EMBARK ON THE STORY OF HOW I CAME TO MAKE THESE BROWNIES, I would like to say death to all squirrels. All squirrels, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

A few weeks back, I was seized by the baking bug and to my amazement found that we actually had ingredients that would make it possible to both bake something delicious and to avoid a trip to the store. The product of that frenzy was double chocolate chunk cherry cookies, which turned out to be rather unexpectedly fiddly to make. Continue reading “Chocolate Chunk Cherry Brownies and the evilness of squirrels” →