chicken salad

Added champagne grapes (left from 4 weeks ago, still good!) for a little sweetness. This is the second time I made this. I didn't cook the chicken according to the recipe, I just use the method in How to Cook Without a Book.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/chicken-salad-recipe/index.html

Posts

I got it to work :)
food posts to come...

Processing Produce, Part Two: Improvising

Don't worry, posts won't always come with such frequency. This initial burst results from all the vegetables I need to use up combined with the novelty of taking pictures of the process.

The three eggplants had soft spots without and brown blotches within, but I've learned even defective eggplants taste good roasted. Roasted eggplant is supposed to be soft and brown! For a change, I tossed sliced onions with olive oil and salt and scattered them over the lightly oiled slices of eggplants. I love the smell of onions roasting so I'll repeat this, I think.

I had planned to puree them with garlic and lemon juice but the sweetness of the roasted onions made me worry it would end up tasting like garlicky lemonade, so I just added minced garlic and chopped the eggplant up a bit with the end of a spatula.

I also made guacamole a la George and ate two peaches, so I'm down to green beans, lettuce, carrots, lemons, and a few peaches still to use. Not bad.

Processing Produce, Part One: From a Recipe

Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is very easy and, as Marcella Hazan writes in the recipe's headnotes, tastes good "directly out of the pot with a spoon." I haven't tried it on pasta yet, but I'm expecting it to be good for dinner tomorrow.

My favorite thing about making this sauce was that it made me get out my food mill which surprised me once again by its ease of use. I don't know why I always expect it to be so high maintenance when each time I use it (maybe three times total at this point) my only difficulty is figuring out how to put it together, which would cease to be a difficulty if I used it more often so I'd remember from time to time.

But don't let my digression on food mills discourage you if you want to make this. If my reason for trying the recipe weren't to use up fresh plum tomatoes, I'd have taken the even easier route: Marcella approves of canned tomatoes. Or fresh tomatoes can be peeled and chopped for "a meatier, more rustic consistency" instead of milled for "a silkier, smoother sauce."

The tomatoes are halved and cooked briefly before being put through the food mill, then simmered with onion, butter, and salt. And that's it! You don't even need to chop the onion, just peel and halve it, then fish it out again at the end.

I grilled!

While Aunt Timmy was in town I planned a vegan lunch (which became merely vegetarian when I added a plum crisp to use up two-week-old plums and citrus left from Jamie and George's (your? blogging directed at communicating with one person leaves me uncertain about whether to use second or third person. Third person feels strange but if this works out maybe more family members will get involved (I could add a subtitle like "Ratners united by love of food" (despite none of us being literal Ratners) which would make second person confusing)) and completely non-vegetarian when I decided to serve the steaks that, not wanting to waste the hot coals, I'd grilled after the vegetables.)

I'm glad these posts can be edited after they're posted as the thought of all those parentheses may nag at me to come back and fix the structure of that paragraph. But for now, on to the food. I made quinoa with grilled zucchini, garbanzo beans, and cumin and creamy gazpacho from the July/August 2010 issue of Cook's Illustrated 

The grilling wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd feared. It helped that I was working in advance: I'd want a lot more practice before attempting to grill at mealtime when guests are present. The quinoa was gorgeous, the shiny green zucchini contrasting with the rusty-golden of the turmeric and smoked paprika (below are pictures taken both with and without flash, trying and failing to capture its true colors).

My opinions: The quinoa was good but not worth the effort of preparing the three elements separately--there must be quinoa salads just as good and easier (I'm looking forward to getting the recipe for the one Erin and Dan served at their wedding); the gazpacho was outstandingly delicious and thoroughly worth the effort. Other people's: Everybody liked them both except Betsy and Hedy who requested grilled cheese. Dorothy preferred the quinoa, and I think my mom was with me on the gazpacho.

The plum crisp was actually just a plum pie that I didn't bother making a crust for and was enjoyed by all except Hedy who is in such an anti-fruit-and-veg phase that she doesn't even like fruit desserts. We ate it with ice creams and plum caramel sauce left from your visit. The vanilla had firmed up nicely. The ginger that was too strong the day it was made had mellowed into perfection. And the grapefruit-tequila sorbet...I'd eat it every day if it didn't involve so much grapefruit-squeezing.

Clean-Out-the-Refrigerator Hash

Not the most beautiful or appetizing item to start this new attempt at sharing our adventures in food, but I've been impatient to post pictures of my first non-George-assisted grilling somewhere so figuring this out was top of my to-do list today and I dove in by taking a picture of breakfast. Next post will be full of lovelier pictures if this one works.

Last week I was craving Doritos and had to move my car out of the street anyway so I headed to Marc's. Perhaps because they cost so much more at this supposedly discount retailer than at Target, a sudden adherence to my you-love-to-cook-so-don't-buy-junk resolution overcame me and I instead came home with multiple bags of fruits and vegetables. My self-satisfaction was short-lived because the first week back to school is not the time to stock the refrigerator; it was all in danger of rotting while I treated my end-of-summer blues with take-out for dinner.

I'm feeling better about it now because last night I used zucchini, onions, and garlic, along with the ends of a carton of Chinese-restaurant rice and tubs of slivered almonds and crumbled feta, to make a meatless Friday dinner that was delicious with the end of a bottle of chenin blanc and Lovejoy dvds. Potatoes, more onions, Hungarian and jalapeno peppers (hotter than expected), and the wilted parsley and scallions from the bottom of the crisper tasted pretty good cooked with smoked sausage this morning. And it's nice to know I have avocados, red onion, limes, and more jalapeno to make guacamole later without a grocery run.

On the other hand, lemons, peaches, lettuce, green beans, carrots, tomatoes, and three eggplants still might rot before I use them.