Sunday Conundrum

A typical Sunday morning

• wake up (late) and get ready for church
• worship
• start to feel peckish while talking afterwards
• start to feel a bit hungry (at least 1/2 hr. later) while finally thinking about making a move
• chased out of the sanctuary by deacons (themselves now positively hungry), you realize, hey I'm hungry

At this point, you have a choice:

1. Invite the people you've been talking to for the last hour to go out to lunch with you
   
2. Go home hungry and wonder why there isn't much in the store cupboards (namely, because it's Sunday and the budget week starts on Monday)
   

Choice 1 gets pricey sooner or later (usually sooner). Choice 2. comes with kicking yourself for not thinking ahead and having something at the ready. But then you think to yourself, "Wouldn't it be great if waiting for me at home was a sizeable cooked lunch (so that you could invite over on the spur of the moment) that I could sit down and eat in a chilled-out 30 min. or less?"

The probem is, of course, that you've been out of the house for the last 3 hours or so. The typical <30 min. options are things that often require last-minute hustle and bustle, so that's out. All you really want to do is slide things in and out of ovens or microwaves or rice cookers. A small amount of measuring and garnishing is acceptable.

So I'm looking for recipes for Sunday post-church lunches with the following qualities:

• stretches easily to accommodate 2-4 unanticipated guests
• not just those listless variations of pot roasts with onion soup mix
• filling and warm - this should be the main meal of the day, paired with a light meal / snack at supper. Pancho can't just eat salads, I'm afraid.
  
• small amount of AM prep (e.g., browning) and moderate amount of Sat PM prep ok
• modest cleanup - not loads and loads of sticky pans!
• affordable on a modest budget
• ready in less than a leisurely 30 minutes from arriving home from church
  
• well-balanced, nutrition-wise
  
• and (do I have to say it?) delicious - this should be something we look forward to, not sigh about!

What could work:

• Slow-roast lamb shoulder, served with couscous and yummy garnishes and salad
• Carnitas?
• Artisan bread in five minutes a day (including pizza dough) - but then the oven is taken up...which may or may not be a problem
  

What doesn't work:

• Standard 1 1/2 hr roast chicken with trimmings - too much last minute faff and too many pots and pans, and it roasts too quickly to put in before church and too slowly to put in after. Otherwise, it's perfect.
  

I would like to make a collection of suitable recipes, starting with my slow-roast lamb and then possibly adding Jamie Oliver's 3-hr pork goulash. Slow-cooked cheap-cuts of meat seems like the best strategy, but I don't want lackluster pot roasts (which is what you're directed to if you google "sunday lunch church") and slow-cooker specials that all taste alike. I'm also interested in collecting quick and easy side dishes (especially if they can be prepared and served in the same dish). Here's the rub - I just know there's stuff out there that families do, or at least used to do, in order to avoid being consumed by meal preparation and clean-up on days of worship and rest. I just don't know where to look for the recipes! Any ideas or tips would be very welcome.

Weeknight supper: Chicken with orange, ginger, and white wine

We had a lovely meal the other night -- and it was fast, cheap, and easy! I got the main recipe for Pan-grilled chicken breasts with orange and onion shards from the website for the APM radio show I've been listening to on the ishuffle, The Splendid Table. I then added rice and a stir-fry of my own concoction (see below), but Drumstick spearheaded the shopping, chopping, and prep. The original recipe is fairly flexible, and has a 'flavoring' set of ingredients that you are free to choose from or improvise on your own. I followed the recommendation for the ginger (shredding in about 3/4 in. of that lovely root) and just added that for flavoring, which was refreshing and delicious. The chicken cooks up very quickly and needs virtually no preparation if you just use a fine grater to zest the orange and grate the ginger. If you're really speedy, I bet it's a 30-minute meal or less, and from our experience, minus a short snag on the timing (Drumstick read '30 minutes' when it actually said '30 sec', but I rescued us at the 15 minute mark and it wasn't too terribly much the worse for wear), it is something that you don't need a lot of cookery know-how to do. So click through the link and check it out. Here's my stir-fry:

Orange and Ginger Stiry-fry
Serves 4, thereabouts
15-20 minutes from start to finish

• chinese cabbage / bok choy, either shredded (for the cabbage) or leafed (for the bok choy)
  
• a bunch of green onions (use about 6-8), julienned or cut on a sharp diagonal
  
• 2 carrots, cut into matchsticks
• 1 in. piece of ginger, cut into tiny matchsticks
  
• 1/2-1 tsp. sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• rice to serve with
• 1/2-1 orange, juiced (use the orange you zested for the chicken, and then eat the remaining pieces if there are any)
• salt and pepper
  

1. Heat the oil in a wok or large fryping pan and add sesame oil
2. Add carrots and ginger and stir fry for a few minutes
3. Add all the greens and salt and pepper to taste
   
4. As it comes together and is cooked to your desired flabbiness (or lack thereof), squeeze the juice of the orange over, stir it around briefly and then serve over rice

The orange-ginger combo is pretty dang refreshing and goes well with the chicken! And it's easy and good for you...highly recommended. If we make it again, I'll post a pic.

Oh yeah, and have a listen to The Splendid Table - it's often a pretty interesting show, having the editor of Cooks Illustrated as a guest certainly convinced me of the host's good taste, and I was captivated by the conversations about the production and distribution of food, wines, foraging,...all sorts of interesting stuff. The only downside is that you start getting a bit peckish while you listen.

Eating all by my lonesome

My beloved husband is still in California for the next few days after we flew out all of a sudden for a family funeral. Work constraints have me back in the UK, and I'm faced with the prospect of eating alone for the next few evenings. Now I could in theory invite myself over for dinner with friends (which I may yet do tomorrow), but much as I seriously and actively dislike being without my dear Drumstick, I am rather looking forward to cooking just for myself. Hector, Drumstick's digestive alter ego, seems to require meat in large quantities in order to feel satisfied, whereas I can be happy noshing on bits of this and that. Case in point: when we were apart a couple weeks ago for the same reason, I moved away from spaghetti with meat sauce and starting eating spinach salads with pancetta cubes, chicken liver pate spread on french baguettes, yoghurt, and apples for my meals. Prospective menus (ones which leave Hector still a little rumbly) for this evening include:

• sauted filet of some white fish with pancetta and white wine sauce, served over a bed of spinach with wild rice on the side
• seared tuna, dressed with soy, ginger and honey and served with noodles and bok choy

Leon Kass in The Hungry Soul talks about taking time to dine, to relish a meal, even when eating alone. This means, at a minimum, eating for over more than 15 minutes, not watching tv while eating, and just generally observing the same proprieties one would in company. Part of the point is that one tends towards a particularly human sort of virtue when one takes the time to eat in a way that goes beyond necessity, beyond mere re-fueling and feeding and towards dining. This, I confess, is difficult for me when alone; dining for me typically reaches beyond necessity because it is also time with my husband to discuss things, chat over the day, and generally just talk and talk away until it gets so late that the dishes get left 'for tomorrow'. When by myself, I often turn the radio on or put on a dvd to keep myself company instead of missing Drumstick, paltry as the substitution is. I find reading while dining to be generally awkward, even with a bookstand, and I can't remember if that's even allowable by Kass' high standards. I suppose, though, at the end of the day as with all virtues it's not about a certain list of rules to apply, but about being a certain sort of person. Perhaps the care I take in shopping and preparing for the meal evinces the same sort of human virtue as leaving the dvd on the shelf for the moment, so I shouldn't worry too much about the temptation of watching the first episode of Firefly during dinner tonight.

Update: Menu turned out to be sesame-encrusted tuna, seared to medium-rare and served with a stir-fry of egg noodles, chestnut mushrooms, carrot, green onion, and chinese leaf cabbage (no bok choy at Sainsburys last night) dressed simply with soy and ginger. Drumstick called me right when I was tucking in, so I had a leisurely meal by default :)

When you've bought too much lamb for Easter

Sometimes, whether out of exuberance or in ignorance, you buy too much meat. Sometimes, it might be as much as twice as much. After the initial chagrin, that's when handy leftover transformations are great, and you can't get much more English and much more homey than shepherd's pie. Shepherd's pie is of course not to be confused with cottage pie, which is essentially the same thing but with beef instead of lamb. (Although it is tempting to think that perhaps the Shepherd should actually prefer cottage pie, out of loyalty to his charges?) Traditionally, both are made with leftover roast, but rumor has it that making it with fresh, raw ground beef or lamb (dry-fried with the aromatics at the beginning) is actually better. The following is a version of shepherd's pie that I've cobbled together from Nigella's How to Eat, Jimmy Doherty's A Taste of the Country (which by the way is not only a good guide to classic British farm fare, but also one of the most quirky and literally 'down-to-earth' cookbooks I've ever read, and has inspired my obsession with owning chickens one day), and a recipe adapted from a back-issue of Cooks Illustrated for 'smashed potatoes' - the yummy peeling-free version of mash. This is a recipe that calls for a lot of judgement calls, but if you're fearless in such situations and you have any leftover lamb hanging about, give it a go!

Di’s 'Souped Up Easter Leftovers' version of Shepherd’s Pie

Filling:
1 lb. leftover lamb roast, very finely chopped or minced (can dry fry ground lamb with onions first too)
1-2 cans of chopped tomatoes in tomato sauce
1 small can of tomato paste
about 3/4 c. of beef broth
2-4 Tb. Worcestershire sauce (to taste)
salt and pepper (to taste)
3 large carrots, minced
2 medium onions, minced
3-4 stalks of celery, minced
a large handful of parsley and stalks, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced

tip: for the last 5 ingredients, using the food processor is quick and easy

1. Cook this mixture in a few Tb. of olive oil over low heat 10-20 minutes or until carrots are cooked
2. add cooked lamb and flour, stir to combine thoroughly
3. add 1 can of tomatoes slowly; add 2 Tb of tomato paste and some broth and Worcestershire sauce. Taste and add more tomatoes/paste/broth as needed to reach the desired consistency, namely moist, but not soupy, like a filling for a meat pie. Simmer until meat is heated through. Dump into 9x13 pan and finish topping.

tip: While you're waiting for the carrots to cook, you can start the smashed potato topping

Smashed Potato Topping:
2 pounds or more of large red potatoes, washed but not peeled and generally all the same size (cut them down if you have to)
3 bay leaves
8 oz. (1 pack) of light cream cheese
4 Tb. butter or margarine, melted
½ c + warm milk or reserved water from boiling the potatoes (which is actually better than milk)
salt and pepper, to taste

1. Bring potatoes to a boil with the bay leaves and then turn down to a low heat and let simmer for about 30-40 minutes, or until a paring knife can pierce the potatoes with no resistance
2. Drain potatoes, reserving some of the potato water; remove bay leaves and let the potatoes dry out back in the pan for about 5 minutes with the lid off
3. While the potatoes dry, whisk together the melted butter, cream cheese, and salt and pepper, adding ½ c. milk or potato water to create a smooth creamy consistency
4. Smash the potatoes with the back of a wooden spoon on the side of the pan. Leave lumps in: lumps taste good. Fold in cream cheese mixture. Add more milk/potato water as necessary to reach the desired consistency (not too wet - you want a chunky topping that can spread, not a gummy topping)
5. Adjust salt and pepper to taste

Assembly:

1. Top the meat filling with potatoes, and grate over a small amount of cheddar cheese if desired
2. Put under the broiler for a few minutes to brown the top

Fennel Tea

We had this last night for the first time at a lovely dinner party hosted by Remi, a friend from Nigeria (via Canada). It is naturally non-caffeinated, and Remi said that it aids digestion too.

• 1/2 tsp. (or to taste) fennel seeds per cup
• Pour over boiling water
• Tea is ready when most of the seeds have sunk to the bottom. Aim for a very very light green color, don't blame me if you don't strain out the seeds.

Try it out - it's a very interesting taste, a sort of savoury-sweet.

It suits nibbling on pieces of dark chocolate...

Lentil and Chicken Curry

This is a recipe from my Auzzie friend Di Lister here in Cambridge, infinitely modifiable, easy, cheap, and able to feed a crowd! I'd post a picture, but it kind of looks like brown sludge. Don't let looks fool you - it's nice and heart-warming food, and freezes very well. I'm calling it a curry, but that's because it's not a stew or a soup and I couldn't think of a better name; it is not in any way authentic. We have it a lot at the Listers because it's one of their 'Bible study recipes' - a pretty great use of the recipe!

Lentil and Chicken Curry
serves 10

Ingredients:
700 g. lentils
chicken or vegetable stock or water

500 g. chicken, poached, de-boned (if necessary) and cut into bite-size pieces
2 zucchini, chopped (opt.)
1 fennel bulb, chopped or ½-1tsp. fennel seeds
1 can of mushrooms, drained
2 onions, chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes and their juices
1 can chickpeas (opt.)
4 cloves garlic, minced
½ - 1 inch of ginger root, chopped or grated
1 heaping Tb. cumin
1 heaping Tb. coriander
½ tsp. turmeric
any other veggies on hand that you fancy (carrots, celery, eggplant, spinach, etc.)
salt and pepper, to taste

Before serving stir in:
1 heaping Tb. garam masala
1-2 red chillies, finely diced (opt.)
handful of roughly chopped cilantro (opt.)

Serve over rice with:
mango chutney, or a dash of apricot jam and a splash of white vinegar (or the vinegar from a jar of jalapeno chiles, if you’ve got it on hand)

1. Wash and drain lentils twice. Put in large pot with some stock and boil as you normally would. Prepare the rest as the lentils are simmering away, adding more liquid as necessary
2. Chuck everything else into the pan and simmer until lentils are cooked; add chicken in the last 10 minutes or so.
3. When the lentils are cooked, smash a few or use a hand blender to blend the curry to the desired consistency. I don’t mind if bits of anything else get blended, so I just stick the hand blender in and go for it.
4. Check seasoning, stir in garam masala and cilantro and serve with mango chutney. Grating over some fresh ginger at the end is also a good idea. Also, don’t skip the chutney; it really sets off nicely what would otherwise be a little dull and chili-tasting.

Who says that even if I like chicken pie, it can't like me back? See, it's even smiling at me!


Basic idea:
1-2 slices of bacon (opt.), sliced thinly
2 leeks, chopped roughly
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 carrots, chopped finely
2-4 chicken breasts (or whatever), chopped into small pieces
1/2 - 1 tsp. thyme
handful of mushrooms, chopped roughly
2 large handfuls of peas, straight from the freezer
hefty slurge of dry sherry or marsala wine
1 can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
puff pastry

• Preheat oven to 400 F. Heat a little oil over medium heat and throw leeks, garlic, and carrots in (and bacon, if you feel like it); cook for a few minutes while you chop the mushrooms and chicken
  
• Toss in chicken and stir around furiously; sprinkle over thyme; cook, stirring infrequently until the chicken doesn't look super-pink, like it will give you salmonella (you know what I mean), but don't over-do it. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  
• Throw in mushrooms, peas, sherry/marsala, and soup, stir together and let it simmer away while you roll out the puff pastry to the size of your pan
• When pastry is ready, pour chicken mixture into a 9x13 or similar type baking dish and top with pastry. Cut a vent or two and use any scraps to make pretty or silly designs
• Bake at about 15-25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Let it cool 10 min or so, or you'll burn your tongue and it will slide all over the place.
  

Add also small cubed potatoes, celery, turnips, parsnips, etc. Whatever will cook quickly... :)

Accompaniments: Newcastle Brown Ale or Blackthorn Cider for lighter tipplers like Ladybug

How to do Thanksgiving, from two greenhorns flushed after a modest success

So we had our first ever "on our own" Thanksgiving last Thursday, which was a blast. A few people brought drinks and starters--including a lovely tart by Anne and a salad by John--but we handled all the classic dishes, which is no mean feat when you don't have a car and live in a country that: (1) doesn't understand the use of pumpkin in desserts and the wonder of cranberries, and (2) thinks stuffing ought to be little balls of gluey breadcrumbs.

Well, it all came off ok, although I still find turkeys stressful. And we learned a few things for the record. First of all, I realized how much can be done ahead of the day to make the day easier! Second, I realized the IDEAL Thanksgiving is a potluck, where everyone brings a part of the show, and the host just handles the bird. So here's what we did:

Wednesday PM
- make cranberry sauce
- bake sweet potatoes and puree
- prepare pie crusts

Thursday AM

- finish pies
- make up and bake: stuffing, sweet potato casserole, honey-roasted parnsips

Thursday afternoon
- pop in turkey and prepare gravy
- peel potaoes

Just before dinner
- take out turkey and pop in rolls to warm/bake
- boil potatoes
- take out rolls and put in stuffing, sweet potato casserole, parnsips in oven to re-heat
- finish gravy
- warm peas and any other veg
- carve turkey

then...FEAST!

So here's the deal - if other people bring the stuffing, sweet potatoes, veg, potatoes, rolls, cranberry sauce, and pies, then all you have to do is pop other peoples' work into the oven for the 30 minutes while the turkey is resting. Then all you've done is turkey and gravy! OR if you're 'people' all you've done is one casserole or some such. Ahhhhh....sweet bliss...

For us, it all turned out amazingly well, although not the hottest food ever, and one of the 3 (!) small birds for 22 people+ was a leeeetle underdone, but no matter. We expected bumps in the road, so that when they came it was quite all right. The pumpkin chiffon pie plooped on us, but still tasted nummy. It was a great feast too, lovely atmosphere, good friends, lots of wine but never too much quaffed, just good fun, and much generosity of spirit.

Moroccan food, anyone? - updated

In other news, I'm working on a Moroccan feast for Friday night's graduate student Christianity Explored course. I'll try to take a camera and post a picture on this post then! Here's the plan so far:

• hummus, marinated olives, and spiced carrots, served as a starter with warmed pita bread (closest I can get to Moroccan flat bread and broad bean dip)

• lamb and date tagine for the meat eaters, pumpkin and lentil tagine for those veggies, served with buttered couscous with raisins, pistachios, roasted almonds, pine nuts, and cinnamon

• figs with a dollop of greek yoghurt, topped with honey and pistachios, and served with macaroons. I'm going to quarter the figs lengthwise so they look like flowers with honeyed yoghurt pistachio centers - pretty!

• coffee, tea, etc.

UPDATE: Here's the main course! Click here for more