Applesauce

It has been more than a month since my Grandma passed away. She was such an important part of my childhood, my idea of what family and home means--I still can't believe she's gone.

But it's good to remember that one way she lives on is through the dishes she taught us all to make. Grandma was a fantastic cook and baker. A favorite easy recipe for a cold fall day (today is close--a cold spring day) is her applesauce.

This recipe isn't really a recipe because you can vary it any way you like. Wash, core, and cut into half-inch pieces four (or more) of your favorite variety of apple. Mix a few together--a sweet golden delicious and a sour granny smith, for example. Braeburn also are very good. I leave the peel on for color, but you could take it off if you don't like it.

Place the apple pieces in a heavy pan and splash in a few tablespoons of water. Next add spices to your taste: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, etc. Start with scant amounts because you can always add more. Leave out anything you don't like.

As for sugar, Grandma would always say she didn't like it too sweet, and I agree. The apples have so much natural sweetness, white sugar just overwhelms it. If you are used to commercial applesauce, this homemade version will taste much spicier (and more interesting, in my opinion). I wait until the end and add a dash of sugar if the sauce is too sour. Other options: honey or maple syrup.

Put your pan over a low heat and cover. Keep an eye on it, stirring every few minutes, and let it cook down slowly. Add a little more water if it gets too dry; boil some water off if too soupy. There's really no way to mess this up. Remove the pan from the heat when the texture looks right--sooner if you like chunky applesauce. And if you're really persnickety, you can puree it.

What can you do with this? Eat it out of the pan, hot. Pour over vanilla ice cream. Drizzle over pork chops. Stir into yogurt or hot oatmeal. And thank my Grandma for the treat!

Minnestrone--an actual recipe

My friend mentioned the other day that she enjoys this blog but hasn't tried any of the dishes because I tend to be a little inexact with the details. She's right, of course. "Grate cheese until your arm falls off" isn't very instructional.

It's only that I think people's belief that they must do everything exactly as the recipe says is what makes them afraid to cook. Some would disagree with me, but in my view there is nothing sacred about a recipe. The fun is in substituting, combining, and streamlining recipes so that the dish matches your needs and not the other way around. Part of my hope in starting this blog was to talk about foods that are healthful, easy to make, and utilize ingredients you may have lying around. The only way people will start taking better care of their bodies through what they eat is if food is convenient and satisfying. I think we all love Chicken Mole, but the real deal calls for three kinds of chiles and real Mexican chocolate. If you are planning to make it, please invite me over, but alas, I will not be making it for myself anytime soon.

So, here is a real recipe, complete with measurements, for Minestrone. The word means "big soup" in Italian, and it is hearty enough to make a meal all by itself. I may be violating sacred Italian law by varying the ingredients, but I don't really care. I needed to clean out the crisper and had no meat on hand, so this one's vegetarian.

Home Food Minestrone

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
3 carrots, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces
5 ribs celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp thyme
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes (organic really are better)
splash red wine or sherry
1 quart broth (vegetable, beef, or chicken would work)
1 can white or romano beans
3/4 cup gemelli pasta (you could use any small-ish style--I just love the shape of this one).
7 large leaves red swiss chard, deribbed and shredded
3/4 cup frozen peas

Place a large pot over medium-high heat and add olive oil. Heat until it become fragrant, about a minute. Add chopped onion, carrots, and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions become transparent. These three aromatic vegetables give a lot of flavor to the soup, so don't rush this step.

Sprinkle salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, and garlic over the vegetables and stir. You may need to turn down the heat slightly--it's ok if onions are sticking, but you don't want them to burn. Cook about 1 minute (your kitchen is going to start smelling heavenly at this point). Splash in enough wine or sherry to coat the bottom of the pan and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon, scraping the bottom of the pan to remove the stuck-on bits that are full of flavor. This is called deglazing and makes a huge difference (both for the recipe and for when you have to clean the pan later).

Add broth and beans. You may need to add some water as well, if the soup seems too thick. You'll have to eyeball this one. Just remember that if you add too much, it's ok--you can boil it off. And if you add too little, you can always add more later. Bring to a boil and turn down heat. Simmer ten minutes.

Bring back to a boil and add pasta. Cook at this temperature until pasta is done. Then turn the heat back to low. Add the swiss chard (powerfully nutritious stuff) and peas and give it one final stir. The heat of the broth will cook the peas almost instantly, even if they came right out of the freezer. Add more salt or pepper as needed, and serve with grated parmesan and a loaf of crusty bread. Yum!

How'd I do, Evi?

Goodness in a three by three square

Last Night's Lasagna (not pictured: the first two pieces)

The lasagna was outstanding! And it was wonderful to be able to pop it in the oven and lie down on the living room floor for an hour while I waited for it to cook. That's about all I can manage at the moment.

It was a little bit soupy. Just a little. But I'm afraid if I had left out some of the liquid from the tomatoes, say, it would have been too dry, which is a much more dire tragedy in the world of lasagna. I removed the foil about halfway through, rather than waiting until the last ten minutes, and that seemed to help.

Good Ol' Lasagna

As some of you know, I am anticipating some news in the next week or so on my first attempt at a novel. I keep imagining my manuscript as a figurine (with arms and legs kind of like Gumby's, except that it is made out of paper and wearing a top hat for some reason) strolling around Manhattan to meetings with publishers, shaking people's hands and fanning out his pages seductively while editors nod with approval.

And then, in some of the darker daydreams, he gets a little touristy and goes to the top of the Empire State Building, where he promptly blows off the edge, scatters all over Fifth Avenue, and disintegrates under the tires of taxis.

[insert nervous laughter here]

And that is how I decided to make something really time consuming for tomorrow's dinner.

Instructions:

Take everything that isn't milk out of the crisper (if you don't live somewhere with milk-in-a-bag, you won't get this) and dice it up. Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a big pot. Dump in onions, carrots, parsnips, and anything rooty that takes a long time to soften. Cook until soft, five to ten minutes. Add several garlic cloves, minced, and cook another minute. Splash in something liquid (I love sherry, and sometimes it even makes it into the food) to deglaze. Then put in one large can of crushed tomatoes and one large can of whole or diced. Add whatever other vegetables are lying around. I had two zucchinis and some swiss chard, which I sliced into strips, plus a couple fresh tomatoes.

Now, some people would say that I should have added meat back there, and the thing is, I intended to, but blinding anxiety has a way of impeding cognition. When I realized my mistake, it was too late, as I wasn't about to dump raw hamburger into the mix. So I browned it in a separate pan and added at the end to the sauce. No big deal.

Add to this a lot of black pepper, basil, oregano, etc. No salt is needed with canned tomatoes but if you have a death wish, be my guest.

Now for the cheese. Shred mozzarella until your arm falls off or you have three cups, whichever comes first. Then add enough cottage cheese to make a thick spread. Or ricotta is even better, but I didn't have any on hand.

Spray a 13x9 pan and begin your layers with a scoop of sauce. This keeps everything from sticking. Add the pasta sheets (I had a multigrain fresh in the freezer but whatever is fine--I never cook them first regardless), then a layer of cheese, and repeat until it is going to overflow and make a mess of your fridge. Don't do what I did and continue adding ingredients like some deranged person and be surprised when it overflows.

I really was surprised. It's like I'm stupid or something.

Finish with parmesan cheese, cover with foil and cook at 375 for an hour, removing the foil in the last ten minutes to let the parmesan brown. Mine is still in the fridge to wait for tomorrow, which will come in handy, since by then I will probably be spending most of the day crouched in the back of the closet.

It's quite possible I've left out a major step here. I'll post a picture tomorrow and let you know how it turns out!

Bon Appecheap!

Today's New York Times has a great article on food magazines downshifting from luxury ingredients to less expensive recipes and teaching people how to use leftovers to make a dish stretch. There's also a nice description of how food magazines have evolved since WWII.

Bravo to a more economical approach to cooking! Fancy food is fun, but overweight, in-debt Americans need help learning to cook simple, nutritious dishes that are inexpensive and easy.

All hail bacon!

This post might seem to contradict some things I've said in the past about eating healthy. Bacon is full of saturated fat, calories, and sodium. But you know what else it's full of? Happiness. And the USDA recommends happiness as part of a balanced diet.

It is in that spirit that I give you potato cheddar soup with bacon, based loosely on the Epicurious recipe.

Fry half a pound of bacon in a pan. Before you do, though, watch this tutorial. What can't the internet teach you how to do? It must be how W. got through his first term.

Remove the cooked bacon to a paper towel-lined plate, reserving the grease in the pan. That's right--the basis for this soup is bacon grease.

Chop up one onion and cook it in the grease. Let it get soft. As I've mentioned, I hate an undercooked onion. When it's just about ready, deglaze the pan with some sherry or wine to get all the sticky yummy bits. Then pour the mixture into a soup pot.

Stir 1/4 cup flour into a measuring cup containing 1 3/4 cups water. Then add to the onion mixture, along with 2 cups give or take of chicken broth and a pound of cubed potatoes. Bring to a boil and let simmer until the potatoes are cooked through and the soup is thick and bubbly.

Now here comes the lily-gilding part. Stir in a cup of shredded cheddar cheese or some plain yogurt. Or not. Puree in a food processor if desired, or not. We had it chunky and it was great. At this point you could also chop up the cooked bacon and add it to the soup, but we elected for BLTs instead.

Enjoy!

Roasting Vegetables

I almost feel guilty posting about this because it is so easy--like explaining how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But this was what we had for dinner last night, and it was good.

We had invited our neighbors, who are from Vietnam, to come over for dinner. They were very sweet when we asked about food allergies, vegetarianism, or dislikes, saying they liked everything, but I was nervous. We have made lots of international friends in our time here in Ontario (we are some of the only Americans where Bob works) and I have learned that "We eat everything" means different things to different people.

I decided the best course of action was roasted vegetables tossed with pasta and chicken. I love roasting vegetables. It fills the whole apartment with a wonderful smell and it's so easy a monkey could do it. The most time-consuming part is all the chopping.

Seasonal is best, of course, but I am not afraid to admit I'm getting a little tired of parsnips and potatoes. I am craving green! So I did my part to prop the Californian economy and bought green beans, broccoli, red pepper, carrots (these were local, actually), and a big luscious red onion.

Clean and chop everything into pieces roughly the same size, except for the red onion, which is the secret to this whole deal, in my opinion. Slice it into the finest long slivers you can. They practically melt in the oven. Heaven! Toss all the vegetables with the onion, a lot of minced garlic, a few glugs olive oil, and generous salt and pepper. Lemon would be good too. I find the easiest way to do this is to use your hands. Just tumble it all around in a big bowl, the idea being that everything should be covered in the oil. Let it all rest a while on the counter or in the fridge.

When you're ready to cook then, spread the veggies on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Use two pans if one seems too full--it's best if the veggies roast in a single layer. Pop into 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes. If you are using two sheets, you'll have to switch them around a couple time to be sure they cook evenly. They will start to brown. Grab them out before they go too far. They can burn fast or dry out at this point.

This is hands-down the best broccoli you will ever taste. It seems smoked or something.

Boil your pasta, drain (reserving a little liquid in case you need it), and add veggies, chopped chicken, a little cheese if you like. Toss it all together and serve with big bowls.

Incidentally, I did cheat by buying a precooked chicken from the deli. Inexplicably, the cooked chicken is cheaper than a raw one, and I didn't have the time to cook one myself anyway. I'm not even going to think about all the additives it probably contains. As we speak I am boiling the carcass with lots of celery leaves, whole black peppercorns, onions, garlic, carrot, and thyme. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Butternut Squash Day Two

I felt a little cheated after not getting to eat very much of my brilliant ravioli filling from yesterday, but I didn't fret because I knew I could turn it into something equally brilliant today.

Home Food Waste Not Want Not Soup

Take 1 1/2 cups filling left over from a ravioli disaster or mix together:

Flesh of one butternut squash
1 clove garlic minced
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Set aide.

In a big pan, melt 2 tbsp butter or olive oil. I like butter for fruity soups. Add one finely chopped onion and cook until soft. I do not like undercooked onion, so I let it go a long time, but it probably makes no difference.

Add another minced clove of garlic and one granny smith apple chopped fine. Saute this all together until the apple gets soft and fragrant. Add the ravioli filling and splash in a little water or broth. Let this heat up and combine. It will be very thick.

Transfer to the processor and puree until smooth. Transfer back into the pan, add salt and pepper and about one cup more broth. At this point I thought it was still too thick, so I added about 3/4 cup milk (give or take) and maybe 1/2 cup yogurt. I challenge you to give me a recipe that is not improved by yogurt. It doesn't exist. You could also use coconut milk as with the pumpkin soup from a couple weeks ago. Oh, and don't forget a splash of sherry.

Add one can of well-rinsed black beans, which go phenomenally well with sweet things like squash and sweet potatoes, in my humble opinion. Bring to a boil and simmer. If it's too thin, boil off some liquid; too thick, add more.

You will know it's done when you are pacing around the kitchen with drool on your chin because it smells so good.

If you are not completely undone by ravenous hunger, make some cornbread. If you are still riding the coattails of birthday laziness like me, open a bag of tortilla chips and serve.

The filling is the most important part anyway, right?

Today's Home Food is a cautionary tale.

Perhaps there is some broader life lesson in what I'm about to say, but it's also pretty useful as a literal piece of advice: Don't try to make ravioli if you don't have a pasta machine.

Here's the deal: Yesterday was my birthday and I thought it would be fun if Bob and I cooked something from scratch together for dinner. I've made fresh fettuccine before but have always wanted to try something with filling. I had an idea for butternut squash ravioli with lots of herbs and cheese--it sounded so good. I found any old pasta dough recipe online (mistake #1). I won't reveal the identity of this so-called food blogger because the result was, as Bob described it, a good raw material for the creation of leather goods.

Now, if we had a pasta machine and all the time in the world to crank away, the results probably would have been fine. But as all I have is a rolling pin and a husband willing (within reason) to earn his keep, rolling these suckers out was a long, arduous process--for him. I stood idly by advising him and sniffing my beautiful birthday flowers. Pasta dough (or at least this pasta dough) is really tough and the more you roll it the more it just sort of migrates back to itself. You can get it only so thin without the machine.

When we finally did get a semi-thin sheet, I realized I had nothing to cut the pieces out with except a heart-shaped cookie cutter. So it was all becoming more ridiculous by the minute.

What I have for you today is a really good recipe for ravioli filling. As I was mixing it up I tasted it and said, "God, I could eat this all by itself." I would have been well-advised to heed that instinct.


Home Food Butternut Squash Ravioli Filling

Serve in one big bowl with two spoons.

Cut a butternut squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Brush with olive oil and roast in the oven cut side down about 45 minutes at 400. Check for tenderness with a knife blade. When it's done, remove and let cool.

Melt some butter in a pan. Maybe 1-2 tablespoons. Scoop squash into the pan and saute in the butter. This will help reduce away the moisture if it is too soupy. Add 1 clove garlic finely chopped, 2 teaspoons or more of fresh thyme, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, and 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese. Stir until combined and remove from heat. Allow it to cool.

If you dare, roll out some pasta dough and add filling. We tossed the finished product in a little more melted butter and herbs, more cheese and some toasted walnuts.

I think I will make soup with the leftover filling. There's quite a lot of it as two hours of hard labor yielded only nine raviolis. Good thing it was burrito night at Jane Bond.

Brown rice saves the day (again!)

Today was one of those days when the clock just kept spinning and it got to be dinner time and I thought: You mean, we're going to be hungry again? For pete's sake.

Plus it was warm out and hot in the apartment--not that I'm complaining, mind you--and I didn't want to turn on the oven. Heidi Swanson has some great fast and satisfying meal ideas, including one for a citrus-infused wheat berry salad that can be eaten warm or cold.

Unfortunately I did not have any pine nuts on hand, and since they cost about as much as our rent, I knew I wouldn't be picking them up anytime soon. Walnuts are the working gal's pine nuts and work just as well. On that note, I realized I'd also be trading down from my beloved wheat berries to brown rice, as it is one of the only things I never run out of. And I was really hungry, so I was hoping for something with a little more protein. Here is what I came up with.

Home Food Brown Rice Salad

2 cups cooked brown rice (God love you if you have some lying around--I had to cook mine)
1 cup cooked black beans (canned are fine but fresh-cooked dried have the most wonderful texture and also cost pennies)
1 cup toasted walnuts
3 cups spinach, roughly chopped
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Dressing:
Zest and juice of one orange (grapefruit might also be interesting)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tbsp finely diced onion
generous salt and pepper

Other things that might be good: dried cranberries, some other kind of green like arugula or chard or dandelion greens . . .

Mix the dry ingredients; whisk the dressing; toss it all together. Yum!

Breakfast for Dinner

Last night with no meat in the house and a car stuck in the snow, I decided instead of crafting clever death threats and sending them to our no-good landlord from hell (who has not once this winter plowed the parking lot), I would cultivate inner peace in the form of breakfast for dinner.

Scrambled eggs with cheese and broccoli. I don't need to tell you how to do this.

But this was the real centerpiece of the meal: Oatcakes with yogurt and apples.

I love pancakes. I recently had some at a Tennessee Cracker Barrel over the holidays, when we drove all over the southeast and I was feeling a little like I had violated so many of my own food rules that nothing mattered anymore and I might as well jump right off the cliff. And they tasted so wonderful--like clouds made of butter.

About ten minutes later, though, I honestly felt high from carb overload. Between all that white flour and the high fructose corn syrup-based "maple syrup" on the table, I felt like I might just let Bob drive through the North Carolina Piedmont while I ran alongside the car.

We got back on the road, and about an hour later, I fell into a deep coma in the passenger seat. Bob poked me with my knitting needle a couple times, but I did not stir. When I finally woke up I couldn't remember my name and didn't recognize him. He drove around until he found a grocery store, brought some broccoli to the car, and after a few bites I came to. Then the weeping started.

Turns out there is such a thing as too many carbs.

But last night's pancakes were something different. I started with this recipe for Whole Wheat Oatmeal Pancakes, but I didn't have any buttermilk. So instead I used plain yogurt thinned with a little milk. I also wanted some fruit in there, so I diced up half a granny smith apple with the skin left on very fine. Pear would have worked too and maybe better because it would have mushed down a bit more.

Bob saw the batter with the oats soaking in the yogurt and said, "What is that?"

"It's a real recipe--I promise," I said.

"Have I ever doubted you?" he asked. And isn't he glad he hasn't!

They weren't the most beautiful things--they probably could have used a little more liquid due to the addition of the apples--but holy cow. Please take the rest of the afternoon off work and go make them. I can't believe I didn't think of this last night, but they would be good with a little yogurt spread on top or just syrup, or just plain. I am so sad that I already ate all the leftovers.

Pumpkin Soup and Brown Rice

And now for another food I bought on sale: coconut milk. I've had a couple cans in the pantry forever. Last week I added a splash to some cupcake frosting in lieu of regular milk. But that left me with about a cup and a half and not a clue what to do with it.

I don't have all the right spices to make curry, so that was out. A search on Epicurious for recipes containing coconut milk yielded Silky Coconut Pumpkin Soup, a recipe from a new book I've been wanting to take a look at: Hot Sour Salty Sweet, about Asian cooking.

But I didn't really have all the ingredients for that either. Undeterred, I decided I would make something like it and just taste as I go to get the flavor right. Beware: there aren't really any exact measurements here.

Home Food Pumpkin Soup

Dice an onion and caramelize it in olive oil. This takes about 15 minutes. Start at medium heat and turn it down. Keep stirring the whole time so the onions don't burn. Deglaze the pan with a little sherry or broth or water and keep cooking until golden brown.

Stir in a large can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling), however much coconut milk you have left over after making frosting (about a cup and a half) and chicken broth until you get a thick soup consistency. You can always add more or boil some off. Add about a teaspoon of coriander, lots of black pepper, sea salt to taste, a couple tablespoons of maple syrup, and some balsamic vinegar. The idea is to balance the sweet and sour, so just keep adding and tasting. Bring to a boil, simmer ten minutes or something, and then hold on warm while you cook the brown rice. Or, if you are known for planning ahead, perhaps you cooked the brown rice at the same time as everything else. If so, you are not really the sort of person I'd like to spend a lot of time with.

Other possibilities for this: plain yogurt (there you are again, my love!), cloves, curry powder or peppers or something spicy, fresh pumpkin instead of canned, in which case you could keep the chunks large, fry them first, and then serve the whole thing over rice rather than side by side. Or thin it out a lot more and add some pasta. It doesn't get any easier or beta-carotene-ific than this!

Figs 65 % off

Coconut milk. Flax meal. And now figs. I have a problem: If the grocery store gods mark something down enough, I will buy it. Even if I have no idea what the hell to do with it.

Of course, there are plenty of desserts a person can make with a pound of dried Italian figs. But I wondered whether I could come up with something a little more interesting. I found two recipes. Fig Spread with Black Pepper and Toasted Sesame Seeds, from Super Natural Cooking (a book about wholesome eating, not telekinetic carrots, just to be clear) and a fig jam to accompany a pork roast from Epicurious.

Neither of these was quite right. I wanted something that would make a spicy, savory appetizer, not too runny, definitely not too sweet. There's a restaurant in Providence, RI called La Laiterie (if you ever have the chance, GO) that served a cheese plate with a fig jam that was very aromatic and herby. It cost about ten thousand dollars for a teaspoon. I wanted it to be like that. But cheaper.

So here's what I did. I would like to tinker with this a bit more, but it's close.

Cover a pound of dried figs with boiling water and let sit for an hour. They will plump up and be easy to slice.

Remove from the water and cut them into 1/4 inch pieces--but reserve the sticky sweet water. Put them into a bowl and add about a tablespoon of honey, or none--honestly they probably don't need it. Figs are really, really, really sweet. Especially the dried ones. Anyone who tells you to add sugar to them is highly dubious, in my opinion. Grind about 1/2 tsp of black pepper and crush a teaspoon of dried thyme in your palm and sprinkle in. Stir it all together. Leave it alone for about ten minutes so the flavors meld, then dump it into a saucepan and add a little of the water. Bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer. Cook it down, continuing to add water and allowing it to boil off until you get a nice thick jam consistency. Taste it--if it's still too sweet, add a little cider vinegar.

I didn't have sesame seeds lying around, so I added chopped pistachios. I think any kind of salty nut would do, but the sesame seeds would have been better--they won't get soggy like the larger pieces of the nuts seemed to. Serve it on lavash.

We took some to our friends' Superbowl party. It stuck out like a . . . nerdy writer girl at the Playboy mansion, next to all those foods we lust after: chicken wings, fried mozzarella, pizza, the best potato chips I have ever had. But people ate it--I saw them!

It was good, in its humble way. And I think it might also make a great sandwich spread and go well with yogurt.

Roast Chicken Day Two: Broth

As promised, I culled two dinners from the four-pound chicken I brought home the other day. The first was roasted breast with rosemary. Simple and delicious. The following day I submerged the carcass, with some of the dark meat still attached (and the rest chopped and set aside in the fridge) in a deep pot with about eight or nine cups of water. I added one onion quartered, one carrot cut down the middle lengthwise and then in half, a stalk of celery, and two parsnips cut in large chunks.

As directed by Alice Waters, I brought the pot to a boil, then immediately turned it down to a simmer. I skimmed off the foam, which she said can make the broth cloudy if allowed to stay. Mine ended up cloudy anyway, but that didn't seem to matter. I simmered it at medium-low heat for about five hours, adding a bit of salt every so often and giving it a stir.

The picture above is from the third hour.

The chicken carcass eventually broke down completely as the cartilage dissolved. When it was finished (and there's no exact time, but I think four hours is minimum) I strained it and threw away the bones and depleted vegetables.

I let the broth cool and skimmed off the fat. Meanwhile, I melted butter in a clean pan and sauteed some chopped onion, one carrot sliced, and, because we were both feeling a little sinusy, a lot of garlic (the cure for everything, I believe in my heart). I poured the skimmed broth back into the pan with the reserved dark meat from the day before and a generous teaspoon of oregano, more salt, and black pepper. I brought this to a boil, then added two big handfuls of fettuccine, broken into pieces. I wish I would have added a little more because I like a noodleful soup.

The main event here is the broth, though. It was so rich, so flavorful--I would have enjoyed it without anything in it at all.

Please go forth and do this immediately.

Foods you should really be eating: Part 1

Lima Beans. Wait--come back here. Just give me a second to explain . . .

If you've only ever had them out of the can, you haven't really had them. Dried lima beans are about a dollar a pound (and half a pound is plenty to feed two). Fresh are best, but I've only ever had them once in my life. They can be pretty tough to find. Considering the nutritional bang you get for your buck, these babies are quite possibly the most valuable food in existence.

One quarter pound serving contains:
19 grams of fiber -- that's 74% of RDA!)
21 grams of protein -- almost as much as a piece of fish
42% of your RDA of iron

Vegetarians, rejoice. You'll be able to give blood and maybe even lift things over your head again. The rest of us: LBs will go perfectly well with some bacon!

More Home Cooking has a great recipe for succotash. I have modified it as to be unrecognizable. The thing about this dish is, you can't really fail.

Soak a half pound of lima beans overnight. Rinse, cover with four cups of water, then boil vigorously for ten minutes. Turn the heat down and leave them for a long time. Write a couple chapters of your novel. Alphabetize your books. Braid a rug. Whatever. They'll be done in about an hour and a half. Drain.

If it's summer, shuck some fresh corn and cut it off the cob; if you are in the bitter depths of January, as we currently are, stoically remove one bag of frozen corn from the freezer.

Chop up a small onion and a couple cloves of garlic. Sautee until very soft in olive oil or butter. Add salt and pepper. If you are brazen and unafraid of the seasonal food police, this would be the time to chop and add that four-dollar red pepper from Chile. These are too rich for my blood, honestly. It's not a guilt thing--I just can't pay that much for one vegetable. Also, as mentioned above, bacon could be a very good thing here. Or ham. Or even sausage. Chorizo . . . Dios mio! Yes, please.

Now add your cooked lima beans, about a cup or so of the corn, and whatever else you have lying around. I love peas, but you could add just about anything. Laurie Colwin says to add some ginger. Add about a cup of water. Simmer 8 minutes, then remove the lid and boil off the water.

Heat up a little garlic bread and voila! A healthy dinner that easily costs less than five dollars.

Eat it, McDonald's! No, really--eat it. You're looking kind of fat.

Three cheers for good bacteria!

If I was trapped on a desert island in some weird scenario where I still needed to cook (and had a fridge), I'd be calling Peapod to deliver some yogurt. In which case I could probably hitch a ride back to civilization . . . So, yeah, this desert island lead is kind of falling apart on me. Perhaps I should change gears.

Yogurt has wooed me away from many of my former condiments. Allow me to let them down easy.

Mayo, I am sorry to report that I am in love with someone else. Plain yogurt can do everything you can do, but it doesn't taste like a petroleum product. Chicken salad with yogurt, walnuts, grapes, curry powder, and celery. Check. Tuna salad with yogurt, grated carrot, onion, and lots of dill. Check. Poached salmon with a yogurt lemon sauce. Check. Baked artichoke dip. CHECK.

Bottled salad dressing: You are dead to me. Your list of ingredients is about three inches long and includes stabilizers, thickeners, corn syrup, and cheap oil. Yogurt makes a wonderful base for a creamy dressing. Add olive oil, white wine vinegar, dried onion, and herbs and you have something almost like ranch dressing but not disgusting. For a sweet dressing: Yogurt, white wine or cider vinegar, honey or maple syrup or jam. Maybe a little ginger.

Sour cream, we had a good thing going, but yogurt is so much leaner than you are and, frankly, could totally kick your ass in a fight. Spicy foods and soups, plus starchy potatoes, are nudged toward the divine by yogurt's lively cultures.

Canola Oil: I would still like to keep you around on an as-needed basis. But yogurt makes sweet breads and muffins moist without your help.

Sorry guys. I'd like to be able to say, "It's not you--it's me." But it's you.

Wheat Berries and Roasted Root Vegetables

If this isn't cold weather comfort food, nothing is.

First, let me expound on my love for the wheat berry.

I mustered the courage to try cooking these babies after reading about them on 101 Cookbooks. Heidi Swanson is my hero. Her recipes are always beautiful, always wholesome, and usually pretty easy.

Wheat berries are a slow-cooking grain. The texture, taste, and nutritional value in these little gems make them worth the wait. As with beans, you can soak them in water overnight to reduce the cooking time. Or you can just rinse them and boil them in water for about an hour. They're finished when they plump up and retain a chewy texture. This is a versatile base for salads, pilafs, and even hot breakfast cereal.

So, while the wheat berries are boiling away, peel and cut whatever root vegetables you happen to have lying around. Winter is the time for these hearty standbys: carrots, parsnips, potatoes, turnips, onions, fennel, squash, celery root, beets, what have you. Cut them into one to two-inch pieces, and try to keep them all about the same so they cook evenly. Put the prepared vegetables in a large bowl and toss with olive oil to coat, sea salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, lots of finely chopped garlic, and/or oregano. Spread them on a large baking sheet with a lip to catch the juices. Roast at 400 degrees for about twenty minutes, turning them once in a while. The sugars in the carrots and parsnips will caramelize and the olive oil will make them a little crispy on the outside.

Drain the wheat berries and toss it all together. Make sure to scrape all the juices from the vegetable pan into the mixture--this adds a lot of flavor. Maybe a little cheese on top. Whatever. It's good.

Roasting a Chicken

Yesterday, I conquered what I now know to be a very silly fear. I roasted a chicken.

For some reason I had come to believe that this was a task best left to the experts. A whole chicken? What will I do with it? Will I have to pull anything disgusting out of the cavity? How the hell are you supposed to know when it's done?

I knew if I could figure out how to do it, roasting a chicken would be a frugal choice. A 3 1/2 lb. free-range bird costs about $12.00 and can produce a dinner for two, a lunch, and a soup if handled with prudence. Perhaps Obama's inspiring inaugural address gave me hope: After lunch I set out in the snow for the market. Walking down King Street with the bird in my bag, I caught sight of myself in a store window and felt a flood of joy. I didn't know how to articulate it ten years ago when I was just starting college, but when I looked ahead at what I hoped my life would be someday, I am now fairly certain that my wistful fantasy involved trudging through the snow in a bright-colored hat with a chicken I planned to roast for my husband. That's a pretty happy spot in one's day.

So, still believing I was attempting culinary rocket science, I cleared the afternoon and read through the instructions in a couple tried and true cookbooks. Alice Waters kept saying it was simple, but I knew she was obviously lying.

As she recommended, I salted the skin on the breast and back thoroughly and put it back in the fridge to rest for an hour or so. Then I let it come to room temperature for an hour before I put it in the oven. This helps ensure it will cook evenly. While I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, I cut a lemon into quarters for the cavity, shoved a little rosemary under the skin as directed, and put it in a greased pan the same size as the bird--in a large pan the juices will pool away from the bird and burn.

I put it in the oven for an hour, uncovered, breast up for twenty minutes, breast down for twenty minutes, and then breast up again to finish. And people--that's it. I paced back and forth in front of the oven, waiting for something to catch on fire or need basting, but nothing happened. After an hour I removed a beautiful brown masterpiece from the oven.

I would have taken a picture, but we promptly descended on it like dogs. Check back for Roast Chicken Day Two: Broth.

Welcome to Home Food.

I work from home--at the kitchen table, actually--and because of this have the luxury of cooking our meals at home almost every day. I do this because I love everything about food and cooking: planning meals based on what's in season, selecting the ingredients, learning to use new techniques and create flavor. But I also cook because I believe we spend too much money on food that doesn't nourish our bodies, and we have to change, for both our economic and physical health. This blog isn't a diatribe about organic food or militant seasonal eating (though I will talk about them both). It's about reclaiming joy in simple food, thinking about what we put in our bodies, and learning how to cook things from scratch.

Choosing the title for this blog, Home Food, was easy. I first learned to think about food that way reading Laurie Colwin's food essays in Home Cooking and More Home Cooking, which originally appeared in Gourmet Magazine in the 1980s. Home Food is just what it sounds like: familiar, simple, easy-to-prepare dishes that remind us of home. I have read everything Laurie Colwin wrote about food--and life--in her essays and novels, and I love her work so much that I tear up every time I remember there won't be any more. She approached cooking, writing, and life with humor, insight, and pragmatism. This one's for you, Lady Colwin!

So, welcome to the kitchen! I hope you're hungry!