My 30 Minute Meal....

It's actually pretty easy to accomplish. It's Teriyaki Tuna Steak with Spicy Sugar Snap Peas.

Start by taking one absolutely gorgeous half pound yellowfin tuna steak that's 3/4-1 inch thick. Rinse it and pat it dry and put it in a non-reactive dish or a resealable plastic bag. Douse the steak liberally with Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce and Marinade from the bottle which keeps for friggin' ever in your fridge. Turn the tuna steak to be sure both sides get teriyaki sauce on them. Let the steak marinate for 10 minutes while you go play a couple rounds of Text Twist or catch up on some e-mail. Turn the tuna steak over.

Heat a non-stick skillet over medium high heat and add some wok oil (or just plain ol' vegetable oil). Put in about a teaspoon of minced garlic from the jar that keeps forever in your fridge. Use your microplane grater to add about 3/4 tsp. of freshly grated ginger (which is kept forever in your fridge by putting it into a small mason jar and covering it with dry sherry) to the skillet. Sprinkle in some crushed red pepper flakes, to suit your particular tastes. Add about 1/2 of a package of Trader Joe's frozen sugar snap peas. Toss everything around for 2-3 minutes, then add a good splash of soy sauce, a teaspoon or so of toasted sesame oil and a few grinds of black pepper. Toss everything around for a couple more minutes, until a sauce forms. Put the skillet on the back burner and cover, just to keep things warm while you cook the tuna.

Heat a cast iron skillet, griddle or grill pan until smokin' hot. Drizzle some vegetable oil into the pan. Take the tuna steak out of the marinade, pat it dry, and sprinkle it with black pepper and a smidge of kosher salt on each side. Put tuna into the screaming hot pan and leave it the living hell alone for 3-4 minutes. Do turn on your vent, as there will be some smoke. Flip the tuna and cook for another 2-3 minutes on the second side. If desired, you can sear the sides off using a pair of tongs to hold the steak. Set the tuna steak on a plate and let it rest for a few minutes, while you get yourself a beverage and divide the sugar snaps between a couple of nice dinner plates. Go ahead and rinse out the skillets/pans while the tuna rests, too. Divide the tuna in half. It should be a very nice medium rare, with a pretty pink center and a nice brown crust on the outside. Enjoy! Especially since there isn't a mountain of dishes to contend with after you're done eating.

Notes on a Few New Recipes

This past week, while I've been on vacation, I've tried some new recipes. Having a clearly Oriental bent to my taste buds, I've tried Korean roast chicken thighs, orange soy salsa chicken, ham fried rice, ma po tofu and szechuan green beans. These recipes have either come from Recipezaar or About.com's Chinese food guide.

I did a search on Recipezaar a while ago and found the recipe for the chicken thighs and saved it to my cookbook there. Being in a mood for all things involving soy, ginger, garlic and hot chili sauce, and my local megamart having a sale on chicken thighs, I delved into that cookbook. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the recipe, but it's clearly got an oriental bent. You mix soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger, green onions, and if you're me, a good squirt of sriracha hot chili sauce, put chicken thighs, skin side down in a baking dish and pour the sauce over it. The recipe doesn't call for marinating time, but for future reference, I can't see that it would hurt any. The chicken gets baked, uncovered, in a 400 degree oven. Basting the chicken is a good idea. The finished product has a glorious mahogany color and plenty of nice juice to put over some steamed rice. It's a recipe that can be made from my pantry on an average day in no time at all. I think it would be good with pork tenderloin, too, and it's one of those recipes that can be adjusted to suit individual tastes and preferences. A definite keeper.

The orange soy salsa chicken recipe also came from Recipezaar. I was in a mood for orange chicken with broccoli and was cruising my cookbook and the 'zaar site for recipes when I found this one. You mix orange juice, your favorite salsa, soy sauce, cornstarch, garlic, ginger and some dijon mustard to make a sauce that you pour over some browned chicken cubes in a baking dish. I tweaked this recipe by adding the broccoli with the sauce and baking it all uncovered in a 375 oven. It's not classic orange chicken with broccoli, but it was close enough to satisfy my craving and it was so easy. For the future, I'm not sure I'd feel the need to bake it. Chicken could be browned and broccoli sauteed for a bit before you put the sauce in your skillet and let it simmer a bit. I might also bump up the orange flavor with a bit of orange rind. I'd make it again, though.

One of my favorite tofu dishes in the world is ma po tofu. I'd been using a recipe I'd gotten out of Cooking Light magazine to make it at home, but decided to try a newer recipe from Rhonda Parkinson, About.com's Chinese food guide. It wasn't all that different than the Cooking Light recipe except that it used black bean sauce. The black bean sauce gave the dish the note that my Cooking Light recipe was missing. I'll never make ma po tofu again without including either black bean sauce or mashing and chopping up some fermented black beans.

The Szechuan green beans, as done by me, are probably better described as Szechuan style. I strayed furthest with this recipe. I didn't have fresh Chinese long beans or haricot verts. I did have a big ol' bag of Trader Joe's haricot verts. I threw the beans into a hot wok with some heated vegetable oil that I'd drizzled sesame oil into, and cooked the beans until they were thawed. I took them out of the wok, wiped it out, and then cooked a little ground pork that I'd marinated with sherry, soy, cornstarch and the sriracha chili sauce, adding a little fresh minced garlic and grated ginger. Added the beans back in along with the sauce, which was chicken broth, soy sauce, more cornstarch and a little sugar. Cooked the beans until the sauce thickened and the beans were just tender and heated through. The TJ's frozen beans worked perfectly okay to suit me, although I want to try this with fresh ones when they come in season!

No real notes about the fried rice. I consider most recipes guidelines, as you can make fried rice out of anything on hand. I do like my fried rice with the chopped scrambled egg, a little sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger and garlic. Green onions are also a must for me. And I use frozen peas and carrots, too, for extra color.

I also played with my classic oil & vinegar dressed coleslaw to give it a slightly more oriental bent. My "normal" recipe consists of mixing 1/3 cup white vinegar, 1/3 cup sugar, a little less than 1/3 cup of canola or vegetable oil, 1 tsp. celery seeds and a little salt and pepper in a small saucepan, whisking it to combine and heating to the boiling point. Then I pour the hot dressing over a bag of finely shredded coleslaw mix. My tweaking involved substituting rice wine vinegar and brown sugar, leaving out the celery seeds and using crushed red pepper flakes, and adding just a dash or two of fish sauce and soy sauce. I chopped a bunch of green onions to mix with the cabbage, too. It turned out just fine. I think that adding some finely diced fresh hot chilis and/or some julienned red bell pepper would be great additions. And chopped peanuts sprinkled over it all right before serving might not be a bad idea.

My Dream Kitchen

I'm on vacation, so why not update my blog with a little wishful thinking? If money were no object and I didn't have to give a damn about cleaning it and maintaining it, my dream kitchen would be like this.....

I love the look of professional equipment. I''d have a big honkin' stainless steel professional range. Lots of BTUs. Lots of grates. Gas as my fuel option of choice. A couple ovens. A wok station like I saw on an episode of "Ultimate Kitchens". The featured kitchen was with a guy who'd bough Ken Hom's old house, and the wok station had a special burner to hold the wok, running water around the base, to catch any food that spilled out of the wok during vigorous stir-frying, and a hot water faucet right there to clean out the wok whenever you needed to or when you were done. It was waaay cool. I'd probably pass on the Peking Duck oven, though, since I can't imagine making Peking duck at home. Not when there are Chinatowns all over the country that are lousy with Peking duck shops and restaurants. I'd have a wine cooler. I'd have a baking station, with a Kitchen Aid stand mixer in a cupboard that could be pulled out whenever I needed it. There'd be a marble countertop there, and storage for all my baking pans and baking equipment. Built in bins to hold flour and sugar. I'd have a wood-fired oven to make pizzas and for ambiance. A great big refrigerator with all the bells and whistles and a freezer. A walk-in pantry. An island with a prep sink or two and a cooktop for when I wasn't in the mood to fire up Big Bertha's BTUs. I want plenty of seating at that island, because I don't mind having people in my kitchen while I cook and it would be nice to have a place to sit and have breakfast when I didn't feel like setting a table. A warming drawer, to keep plates and bread or dinner rolls warm. I want a deep fryer in the counter, like Emeril has on his set, and if there isn't a grill on the range (which there surely should be!), then I want an indoor grill with good ventilation in there somewhere. A professional dishwasher. I want my pots and pans and knives on display. With all those honkin' stainless steel appliances, I want lots of windows and lots of light and a cozy little seating area with a fireplace that's suitable for snuggling up with a hot cuppa tea and good book in a comfy chair. I knew someone who had something like that once, and I loved the idea. I think I want rich, warm southwestern colors. A copper hood over the range. Mission style cabinetry in some warm, rosy wood. I want easy access to a wide outdoor veranda or screened in room with a table, so I can eat outside. My friend Scott in North Carolina had french doors that opened onto a wide porch with a roof, and I loved that idea, too. Besides, it will be close to my outdoor kitchen. Which I think I'd copy right from Rick Bayless' outdoor kitchen that I saw on a PBS show once. My dream kitchen would be warm and tranquil and invite you in so that we could do some SERIOUS cookin'.

Fried Chicken

I love fried chicken. It's one of my weaknesses. Love those little drummies at my local Kroger. Love nice crispy KFC. What I really, really love, though, is the kind you make at home. Up until now, I've always done oven-fried chicken when I've made it, just like I learned as a girl. The chicken was rolled in seasoned flour and browned off a bit in a big cast iron skillet that was then covered and put into the oven to finish cooking.

This week, however, I was in the mood for crispy home-fried chicken. The kind that involves a copious amount of oil in the big cast iron skillet. The kind of thing I rarely do because as a single woman I rarely have that much oil on hand. Seriously, the stuff tends to go rancid on me because I just don't use that much vegetable oil. But this week I had a relatively full bottle of canola oil on hand and my Kroger had big old split fryers on sale for a measly ninety-seven cents a pound. I bought a 4 lb. package and some buttermilk so I could try a recipe I'd seen on "Boy Meets Grill" with Bobby Flay. The episode had him making this friend chicken for his missus, who doesn't LOOK like a girl that eats much fried chicken, being about as big around as a number two pencil. But the recipe looked simple enough and it sounded good and looked good.

I cut the fryers into pieces, splitting the gigantic breast portions in two so that I wound up with two legs, two thighs and four pieces of chicken breast. Now, when I say that I used a recipe, I mean I used it as a general guideline. I mixed kosher salt, Louisiana hot sauce, cayenne pepper and kosher salt into about two cups of buttermilk. LOTS of hot sauce and cayenne, too. Then I put the chicken pieces into it for about four hours, turning it occasionally. After four hours, I let the chicken parts drain in a colander while I heated the oil in my big cast iron skillet over medium heat and mixed two cups of regular all-purpose flour with salt (regular table salt this time, for the sake of more even distribution than you get with kosher salt), freshly ground black pepper, and a teaspoon and a half each of sweet paprika, onion powder and garlic powder. I divided the flour evenly between two gallon ziploc bags. I mixed the remnants of my quart of low-fat buttermilk with some additional hot sauce in a pie plate.

Half the chicken went into one ziploc bag and I shook it around to coat it. Each piece was then swirled through the buttermilk in the pie pan and dropped into the second bag of flour, and I shook it around some more to coat it. I tested the oil for temperature by sticking the end of a chopstick in it. When the bubbles came up around the chopstick a certain way, I knew the oil was hot enough and I put the chicken in. While it was cooking, I did the remaining chicken in the flour, buttermilk and flour and set it on a plate to await its turn in the skillet. After about 10 minutes, I turned the chicken in the skillet. It was looking gorgeously brown and crisp. I let it cook another ten minutes or so. I tested it by sticking a little paring knife into a piece to be sure the juices were running clear. When it was done, I put the pieces on a cooling rack set over a cookie sheet I'd lined with paper towels to drain, and then I cooked the rest of the chicken.

After it was all cooked, it was time for lunch. I tested one of the breast pieces. The coating was deliciously crisp, and, in spite of the rather copious amounts of hot sauce, cayenne and black pepper, it wasn't ferociously hot. It wasn't even as spicy as KFC original recipe, truth to tell. But it had good flavor. Definitely not bland. And juicy. Really, really juicy, which is an accomplishment for most white meat no matter how you cook it. I've got lots of leftover chicken for the week, too. It will be good cold and it reheats quite nicely in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Which was just enough time to heat some Glory Foods Sensibly Seasoned collard greens and bake some biscuits. And I use those jumbo flaky ones that come in a can in the refrigerated section. When it comes to making biscuits, my north of the Mason-Dixon roots show themselves, and, besides, I've got plenty of SOUTHERN born and bred friends that swear by those things. And if they are good enough for them, they're more than good enough for me.

At any rate, I'll definitely make my fried chicken this way again. Not often, but it's on my list of things I'd make for company. Or when I get that deep-seated craving that only the real deal will serve.

Salad Days

Ah, just a short post here. The holidays have come and gone since I last posted. Nevermind that I still have a Christmas tree sitting in my living room. Things are gradually returning to normal. Of course, we are now entering the serious part of winter, where unless you work for the government, there's not a holiday in sight until Memorial Day. (Easter doesn't really count because very few of us get Good Friday off these days. Yes, I know the store will be closed on Easter Sunday, but you're missing the point....)

At any rate, the surfeit and excesses of the holidays are past, and I begin to long for signs of spring, even though the weather can become truly frightful with cold temperatures and biting winds that still demand something heartier than teensy delicate little salads. What's a girl to do, especially when she'd like to keep her holiday weight loss rolling? You make a big pot of some kind of soup that's heavy on the vegetables and light on the cream, and one of my favorite salad combinations at this time of year.

The salad starts with romaine lettuce that has been torn or cut into bite-sized pieces. You then top the lettuce to your taste with sliced red onion, julienned cooked beets, mandarin oranges, toasted walnut pieces and crumbled goat cheese. To dress the salad, make a very basic vinagrette by combining sherry vinegar, a nice dollop of dijon mustard, a teaspoon or two of minced garlic, salt and pepper in a small mason jar. Shake until the salt has dissolved and the mustard is thinned out. Gradually shake in your favorite extra virgin olive oil, until you have about twice as much olive oil as you did sherry vinegar. I usually wind up with about a cup of dressing when it's all said and done, which is plenty to dress this salad lightly and still have plenty left to dress several others in the coming days.

I love the combination of the creaminess of the goat cheese with the crunch of the walnuts, and the contrast between the sweetness of the beets and mandarin oranges against the bite of the red onions and the tartness of the dressing. The dark leafy greens, beets and mandarin oranges are all visually pretty and pretty good for you. The walnuts and olive oil add some healthy types of fat, and between the walnuts, olive oil and goat cheese, you feel pleasantly satisfied, like you've eaten something rich. I figure the goat cheese adds a bit of protein to keep you feeling full, especially when combined with the carbs in the walnuts, beets and mandarin oranges. Best of all, it all comes together in about 15 minutes. With some soup and/or nice crusty whole wheat bread, you can feel downright virtuous about what you're having for dinner or toting for lunch, especially while you whittle away the excesses of the holidays!

Soup, Soup, Beautiful Soup!

"Do you have a kinder, more adaptable friend in the food world than soup? Who soothes you when you are ill? Who refuses to leave you when you are impoverished and stretches its resources to give a hearty sustenance and cheer? Who warms you in the winter and cools you in the summer? Yet who also is capable of doing honor to your richest table and impressing your most demanding guests? Soup does its loyal best, no matter what undignified conditions are imposed upon it. You don't catch steak hanging around when you're poor and sick, do you?"
Miss Manners

This is, perhaps, my favorite quote about soup, which just happens to be one of my favorite things. I like all kinds of soup, and have an impressive collection of recipes and cookbooks that are nothing but soup. There is no cuisine in the world that doesn't have some kind of soup. Soup comes in all temperatures and there is very little that can't be made into some kind of soup. I think the story "Stone Soup", in which the protagonist starts a kettle full of water in the marketplace and throws in a stone to the curiosity of the locals, who in turn bring various and sundry meats and vegetables to add to the pot, exists in practically every culture.

There are many soups that recall fond memories for me. I don't make my grandmother's fish chowder without remembering the summer fishing vacations spent with my parents, my brother and my grandparents at Alexandria Bay, New York, right on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The preferred fish for the chowder was northern pike, which I remember Grandma Jobes patiently de-boning with tweezers while the broth ingredients simmered. The only kinship to true chowders is in the salt pork that is rendered to give the fat to cook the onions in, there being nary a speck of cream or butter involved in the preparation. It was a family tradition, though, to have Grandma's fish chowder for supper at least once on vacation, though. The soup itself is a broth with carrots, onions, celery and potatoes cooked with thyme, salt and pepper, to which the fish is added after the vegetables are simmered to tenderness. The tiny bits of crisped, browned salt pork are sprinkled on the soup at the table and lend a crispy texture that contrasts with the flaky white fish and soft veggies.

While other people stop at the store to pick up cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup when they are sick, I stop to pick up chicken broth and a package of kluski noodles. I have never been too sick to dice onions, celery and carrots to simmer to tenderness in chicken broth with lots of pepper. The noodles go in at the end. I am convinced that this soup, along with a little orange juice and copious amounts of strong, sugary tea, taken at the first sign of a cold or the flu have done more to heal me and keep me on the move than any number of over the counter remedies.

Potato and greens soup, zucchini soup and French onion soup all remind me of my mother, and I never make them without thinking of her and how much I still miss her after ten years. Broccoli cheese soup and taco soup are probably among the things I've kept from all my trips to Weight Watchers, and they remind me of all the things I do right and that I've incorporated into my life on a regular basis.

I am a good cook, and routinely praised for my efforts, but soup is where I really shine. I read cookbooks the way other people read the latest efforts by John Grisham, and it is soup that lets me explore my culinary bounds. I've made soup from around the globe. Armenian red lentil soup, Thai shrimp and coconut milk soup, African peanut soup, French onion soup, Russian and Ukrainian borschts, Japanese miso soup, Vietnamese pho, Spanish gazpacho, Portuguese kale soup, Transylvanian bean and potato soup. Some of the recipes were interesting to make, but not added to my repertoire because they took too much work. Some I adapted. Most, however, reflect the need that people from every culture have had throughout history for food which is simple to prepare and that doesn't need a lot of fussing over because there are other things to do. We didn't invent that situation here in America in the twentieth century. Great-great-great-great grandma had fields to plow and plant, cloth to weave, a household to manage and keep clean, and animals and children to tend, without the aid of modern conveniences like electric or gas ranges, automatic dishwashers, drive-through windows and pizza delivery.

Soup is part of who we are as a species. It was probably one of the first things to cook over that new-fangled fire there in the cave. It sustained us when times got lean and the food had to be stretched to last until spring or the next antelope or buffalo hunt. In fact, it didn't need meat at all if things were really rough. And that is still true today. Give me ten or twenty dollars for groceries, and I guarantee that some kind of soup will be on the menu and it will last all week long.

I do keep canned soup on hand. I admit it. It's there because it's something I won't make or don't have enough interest in to make and eat a whole pot of. It's a quick grab and go kind of lunch. But my preference is to have a container of soup that I made on hand. That's grab and go too.

Can you tell I'm passionate about the virtues of soup? And that I obviously LIKE pease porridge in the pot nine days old?

Soup Weather

One of the things I love about fall, heading into winter, is that soup returns as a regular item on my menu. Sometimes it's something that simmers away in the crockpot, sometimes it simmers on the stove, and sometimes I throw it together out of what's on hand.

The weather has taken a decided turn to the cool here in central Ohio. Downright bitter when the wind blows, as it did yesterday, even when the sun is shining. I was in the mood for something that wasn't heavy on the tummy, but that would still be immensely satisfying. One of the definitions of soup, in my book. And it had to be quick, too, because I wasn't hitting my front door until about 6:40.

Upon arriving home, I put a pot on the stove to heat. Took some bacon out of the freezer and chopped off about 2 or 3 slices worth, crosswise. Tossed them into the pot with a little bit of olive oil to brown while I chopped an onion and some garlic. While the bacon, onions and garlic were softening, I sprinkled them with a smidge of salt, some black pepper and some crushed red pepper flakes. Threw in a bay leaf and a teaspoon or so of dried Italian seasoning. Opened a can of petite diced tomatoes and a couple cans of chicken broth and poured them into the pot. Tossed in a Parmesan rind. While that simmered, I drained and rinsed two cans of great northern beans. Discovered a bag of frozen chopped spinach in my freezer. Let the soup simmer away while I preheated the oven to do a little garlic bread out of the freezer and changed clothes. Tossed the beans and the spinach into the soup pot, then put the garlic bread in the oven. Put on the electric kettle for some tea. Had a very comforting, satisfying supper on my table by 7:30, and didn't feel like I rushed around to get it there. I've also got two or three days of leftover soup to warm my soul.

I love soup weather!