In a comment on my Easter post, Anne asked for the recipe for white beans. It’s hard to know what to say about these beans, there is so much behind how I came to this particular batch on this particular day, I really don’t know where to begin. I guess I could tell you how I’ve been bean obsessed for a long time and in the last year or so had the epiphany of adding baking soda to the cooking water to make the beans soft, but I’ve already told you to do that. I could also explain where I buy my beans, the now famous Rancho Gordo, but I already wrote about them as well. I could also talk about my new secret weapon, veal stock, but you’ve also heard a lot about that and it appears that Anne is vegetarian, so she’s probably not going to get too excited about the baby cow juice. Writing about food necessitates a story and I could also tell you about my friend Heather, who is one of those people who turns out fabulous food by shopping for what looks good and then seems to effortlessly throw together a delicious meal without using any recipes. She lived in Greece for a year working in her uncle’s olive groves and often cooks Greek fare. It’s from her that I picked up the combination of white beans, tomato, feta and parsley, but I can’t really tell you her story, it’s not mine to tell. So, minus all of that, I’m left with the tomato paste.

I cooked the beans on Saturday with the plan to let them cool and do their special bean thing. If you let them rest overnight, they get softer and creamier. I was planning on making the sauce and finishing them in the morning. I took out a Dutch oven, put in some olive oil, a chopped onion, let that sweat, added a few cloves of minced garlic, some chopped oregano, parsley and mint, some red pepper flakes, because just about everything needs red pepper flakes, right? Then I let that cook for a while and opened a can of tomato paste with plans to let it caramelize and make those tasty brown spots on the bottom of the pot before adding the rest of the ingredients. I opened the can of Contadina, dug into it with a small spatula, turned the tomato paste out into the pot and then it hit me. That awful smell, like cafeteria food or Chef Boy R U nasty. I looked at the tomato paste, it had funny green flecks in it. Then I looked at the can and underneath the big letters TOMATO PASTE were smaller letters with Italian herbs. What? Oh no, quick, quick, scoop that stuff back out of the pot, yuck, ick, ewwww, I’m going to ruin it. Into the trash went that godawful tomato paste and the can it came in. Disaster averted. But now what? I needed tomato paste to get that flavor, needed to coax that umami thing out of the tomatoes in order to maximize the deliciousness of my dish of beans. After a few deep breaths, I asked my husband if he would go immediately to the store and get me some plain tomato paste, but he was already in his running clothes, needing to get in some exercise in order to burn off enough calories in advance to justify eating all those shrimp wrapped in bacon and also all the leftover bacon he’d be putting on the grill as well. Have you ever done that with bacon? If not, try it, you won’t be sorry. Just be careful not to burn your fingers.

Left to my own devices with not much time, I also still needed to get the bread from Zingerman’s. There’s a little market across the street from that famed deli, so I figured I could pop in there on my way to get the bread and everything was going to be ok. Except, duh, the market was closed Easter morning. I dejectedly walked over to Zingerman’s, picked up my bread and asked the person at the counter if they had any tomato paste, fully expecting a negative answer. That’s when the magic happened. The Zing-magic. A disarmingly charming fresh faced young woman in a white apron appeared as if out of nowhere behind my left shoulder and beckoned me to follow her gaze. She let out an “Oooooo,” and then said, “You are going to love this.” Her hand moved to a shelf of Italian goods, you know, with the fancy pasta, the expensive Arborio rice, the gazillion dollar an ounce truffles and she pulled out a jar and looked at it with an expression usually reserved for babies and puppies, then she cooed, “This is from Sicily; it takes 10 pounds of tomatoes for just one jar of this stuff. A-mazing.” And she really did talk like that, with the semicolon and the hyphen and a breathy voice like she had a crush on the tomato paste. Feeling relieved, I took the tomato paste from her hands and she disappeared into the crowd. I took my goods to the cash register, paid and left. That’s when it hit me, I had fallen for it again. The Zing. How is it that they can get away with making a person feel as though it’s a perfectly normal thing to pay $9.99 for a jar of tomato paste? That’s right people, almost ten dollars for tomato paste, that 79 cent supermarket staple. This had better be good, I told myself.

I got the jar home, opened it up and took a whiff. Oh my. Then I took out a taste on the tip of a spoon and put it to my mouth. Oh geez, was that ever good. It’s as though they were able to get the best of the tomato flavor, almost a sundried tomato flavor reduced down to its very essence. And the texture, cleaner, less sticky, than regular tomato paste. And while it’s much darker than the usual red stuff, it also has a transparency to it, a not so murky color. And I was a convert. How will I be able to go back to regular old tomato paste? I swear those Zingerman’s people should sell drugs, they’d have us all immediately addicted and happily begging for more. Just think, single source organic coca leaves! I looked the tomato paste up later on their website, it’s even more expensive if you mail order, so be warned, ordering some of this Sicilian strattu might set you down a dangerous path. But maybe you should try it just this one time, you know, to see what it’s like.

I finished the sauce with some veal stock, put in the beans and had my brothers each taste them. More salt, they both said. Okay then, more salt it is. Then they went onto the table topped with crumbled goat’s milk feta and a shower of parsley and freshly ground black pepper.

Anne, you said you’re vegetarian, the beans will be fine without the veal stock and they’ll also be fine if you don’t buy Rancho Gordo beans and if you don’t want to have to mail order 180 grams of tomato paste for $12 plus shipping. You could easily make all sorts of variations of this, dill instead of parsley or shaved parmesan instead of feta or you could add in some Calamata olives. There are any number of things you could do with them, but really, this is a good basic recipe for beans. I hope you make them.

white beans with feta

• 1 lb dried white beans, the biggest ones you can find, I recommend Giant White Limas or Runner Cannelini
• 1/8 t baking soda
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 onion, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
• 1 t red pepper flakes
• 1 T chopped fresh oregano
• 1 T chopped fresh mint
• 1 T chopped fresh parsley, plus tons more for garnish
• 3/4 cup tomato paste or 1/4 cup Sicilian strattu
• 2 cups veal stock (optional), reduced to 1/2 cup or 1/2 cup of water
• 6 oz. goat’s milk feta
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Place beans and baking soda in a large pot and cover with water, place over high heat until the water just boils, reduce heat to a simmer and cook until beans are just soft, stirring occasionally and adding more water to keep the beans covered if necessary. Let beans cool and chill overnight. Heat olive oil in large pot and add onion, cook 2-3 minutes and then add garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, mint, parsley and about 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. Cook until onions are translucent and soft. Add tomato paste and cook until it is slightly stuck and browned on the bottom of the pot. Add veal stock or water to deglaze the pan. Add beans and stir to coat them with sauce. Add more water if desired and remove from heat. Once the beans have cooled slightly, taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Place them in a serving dish, crumble feta and sprinkle parsley on top. Add more black pepper and serve either warm or at room temperature.

We moved in September and it took me until this month to finally locate the box with the couscoussier. It was just in time, too, because my mother’s birthday was at the beginning of the month and un grand couscous is one of her favorite meals. Plus, I’ve been promising you this recipe for a while. I finally got around to putting it down on paper, testing it out on my family and taking its picture.

Couscous is traditional to North Africa and refers not just to the miniscule pasta-like specks, but also to the stew that is served over it. I like a combination of lamb and chicken in my couscous and I try to always come up with the traditional number of seven vegetables; I use onion, red pepper, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, butternut squash and garbanzo beans. I’m not superstitious or anything, it’s just that seven different vegetables along with the two kinds of meat offer variety in taste and texture that is part of what makes it good. Harissa, the spicy pepper paste that is served on the side is also essential. If you can’t buy it anywhere near you it’s not hard to make.

couscous aux sept légumes – couscous with seven vegetables

• 1 lb. skinned chicken thighs (optional)
• 1 lb. lamb (optional, use equal parts cubed lamb shoulder and meaty neck bones)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into strips
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1½ tablespoons freshly ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes
• 6 cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 carrots, peeled, cut in half crosswise then into quarters lengthwise (you should end up with 3″ lengths like carrot sticks)
• 2 zucchini, cut like the carrots
• 4 large potatoes, skinned, cut into eighths (preferably yukon gold)
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 3 sprigs parsley
• 2-3 cups cooked garbanzo beans (you may use canned)
• 2 cups uncooked couscous grains
• 1/4 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
• harissa

Heat oil in heavy large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté 2-3 minutes on medium heat, until onion is soft and translucent. Add peppers. Cook for 2-3 minutes more, making sure that the onions and garlic do not brown. Stir in tomato paste, cumin and red pepper flakes; stir and let cook about 3 minutes, allowing the tomato paste to change from red to rust in color. Add water and bring to boil. Reduce heat and put chicken and lamb (if using) into pot along. Add salt and the rest of the ingredients except for garbanzos and couscous. Simmer on very low heat for about 1½ hours. Meanwhile, begin to prepare the couscous (see below). Add garbanzos to the stew and allow to heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Place cooked couscous into a large serving dish and arrange meat and vegetables on top using a slotted spoon. Serve harissa, cilantro and some of the cooking broth on the side.

couscous

Place couscous and raisins on a large baking sheet and add one cup of water. Mix couscous with water and spread evenly over baking sheet. Cover with a kitchen towel and let sit for 1/2 hour. Add one more cup of water and mix into couscous and break up any lumps with your fingers. Place couscous mixture in top portion of couscoussier or into a colander lined with cheesecloth, cover and sit atop stew to steam. Fluff with a fork before serving.

I’ve been wondering about this expression. Why does a watched pot never boil? I’m thinking that we’ve had it all wrong since the beginning. Itå’s not that an impatient cook will watch a pot and not be happy about how long it takes to boil - though that did often happen in the last kitchen I inhabited. I think it might be that if you carefully watch a pot, it will not boil. Let me explain: when you have protein or vegetables cooking in a liquid, stock or water or whatever, if you boil them, you rupture the cells and create tough meat or mushy vegetables. A never boiling pot is a good thing.

I received Michael Ruhlman’s new book, The Elements of Cooking, as a Christmas present. Before I even finished the first ten pages, I realized there was a project I needed to start pronto, as in sooner than soon. Veal stock. That’s right, the stuff that makes the difference between restaurant cooking and home cooking. Ruhlman rightly points out that almost nobody ever makes this at home and that the most popular comprehensive cookbooks, Fanny Farmer, The Joy of Cooking, The New Basics, don’t even mention it. But, as Ruhlman says, this is the essential. He also writes, “From such simple material comes not only one of the most exquisite tools in the kitchen, but something more akin to a natural wonder or a great work of art. Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations, or Plato’s cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes me. There’s a reason why veal stock is considered the backbone of the finest culinary tradition of the Western world, what many consider to be, in the hands of the right chef, true artistry.” (7) While some may think this an exaggerated comparison, you might want to try making and using veal stock before reaching a conclusion on this point.

I reviewed Ruhlman’s recipe and advice and looked at several variants. He is careful to stress the importance of a long slow, not boiling of stock. The only ingredient I didn’t already have kicking around for this recipe was the star of the show, the veal. I walked down the street to the butcher and dragged home a ten pound bag of bones. Then I got to work roasting them.

After a blast of heat in a hot oven, I let them cool and then threw them in a stockpot. The only problem was, they didn’t all fit. I took out stockpot number two and divided the bones among the two pots, added water and brought them up to a boil. Then they had an extended hot bath overnight in the oven set to 200 degrees. After that I added the aromatics, simmered some more, cooled, strained, reduced and was left with about 3 quarts of dark brown liquid. I used some of it in a soup (more on that later) and reduced the rest of it a little more and put it in the freezer.

I’ve got to admit something to you now. That part in recipes that says to strain out the vegetables and meat and discard them…I can’t do it. I’m too frugal. I strained out the carrots, onions, celery and bones, picked off all of the meat, and moistened it all with some of the stock. We ate a pot au feu, the classic French-style boiled dinner, with spicy Dijon mustard and sea salt on the side. If that watched pot never boils, the reward is a clear stock and silky smooth poached meat and vegetables.

veal stock (adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s The Elements of Cooking)

• 10 lbs. veal bones (knuckles, breast, shank)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large carrots, peeled
• 4 ribs celery, cleaned
• 2 large onions peeled and quartered
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons peppercorns, cracked
• 5 stems thyme
• 5 stems parsley
• 2 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and rub two large baking pans with oil. Place veal bones on pans and put in oven and roast for 30 minutes, turn and continue roasting another 15 minutes or so. As Sara Moulton always says, use your nose on this one, when it smells good, it’s done.

Place the bones in a stock pot (or two as I had to do). If the what’s left in the baking pans that you roasted the bones on doesn’t look burned, you can pour off the oil, deglaze the pans with a little water and pour this liquid over the bones. Cover the bones with water by about two inches. Bring the water to a simmer (remember, no boiling) and skim off an scum and/or surface fat. Put the stock pot(s) in the oven and set it to 180 to 200 degrees (200 is fine if that’s as low as your oven will go). Let it cook for 8-10 hours. In the meantime, prepare your aromatics. An optional step is to roast the carrots, celery, onion, garlic and tomato paste for 20 minutes in a 375 degree oven (I did this and I think it makes a difference, but you can decide for yourself if you need an added step). Add all remaining ingredients to the pot(s), bring to a simmer, skim if necessary and put the pot(s) back in the oven for another 2 hours. Remove pot(s) from oven and strain first through a colander and then again through cheesecloth. Refrigerate the stock until the whole thing congeals and remove the fat from the top. At this point, you can use the stock or reheat it and put it in containers and freeze it. You could also reduce it if there’s too much of it to fit in your freezer.

Just before Christmas, some very close family friends invited me to help make their annual pile of pierogi. Joanne and her daughters Jane, Anne and Sara are the neighbors I had while growing up that were like an extra mother and sisters for me. They are of Polish ancestry and have a yearly tradition of making these for the holidays. I haven’t written about it until now because I was having a really hard time coming up with something to say that didn’t sound all sappy and nostalgic. So instead of a long intro, I’m going to give you more pictures than usual and the recipe at the end. If you want to make these, I suggest you invite a group of friends over the help you put them together; it is a little time consuming, but if you do it while sipping on some wine and reminiscing about the past, it won’t be tedious at all.

This is the set up. You can see on the right next to the bowl of filling the white plastic pierogi shaper, they use this, but also use just their fingers to crimp the edges.

This is Jane, Anne and their Aunt Suzy rolling out dough and filling the pierogi

This is Joanne cooking the pierogi and making the brown butter to drizzle on them.

Before boiling.

This is Anne eating and acting goofy.

After we put them in the pans and poured the browned butter over them, we covered them with aluminum foil. We got some to take home with us and Joanne put the rest in the refrigerator; they make them a day ahead of time and reheat them when they need them.

pierogi

Joanne makes two traditional fillings for pierogi: potato with cheese and sauerkraut with mushrooms. When they are boiled and drained, she pours a small amount of browned butter on them. That’s right, brown butter. Some people like their pierogi with applesauce or sour cream, but the brown butter really obviates the need for any other accompaniment.

for dough

(ingredients listed below are for one batch of dough; Joanne makes about 10 batches to use up all of the filling in the recipes listed below)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, not sifted
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup cold water

Place flour and salt in a bowl large enough to contain all ingredients, whisk to combine. Add egg and cold water and mix until dough forms a shaggy mass. Gather dough together and form into a ball. Let dough sit for at least 10 minutes or refrigerate for 1-24 hours. To make enough dough for all of the filling in the recipes below, repeat this process 10 times to make 10 balls of dough.

for potato cheese filling

• 2 1/2 – 3 lbs. Yukon gold potatoes
• 3/4 cup half and half, more if necessary
• 4 T butter (1/2 stick)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 small onion, diced

Peel potatoes, cut into quarters, place into pot and cover with water. Heat on high until just boiling then turn heat to a bare simmer. Cook potatoes 20 minutes or until fork tender. Drain and return potatoes to pot. Add half and half and mash potatoes using a potato masher (alternatively: use a ricer and then add half and half). Melt butter in a sauté pan and cook onions are just soft. Stir into potatoes, mix in cheddar cheese. Let cool before using. May be made and refrigerated up to two days in advance.

for sauerkraut and mushroom filling

• 1 32 oz. jar vlasic sauerkraut, drained
• 1 4-6 oz. package dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted with 1 cup boiling water, diced (do not discard liquid)
• 1 T butter
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt 1 T butter in pan an sauté mushrooms for 2-3 minutes, add mushroom liquid and reduce until almost completely dry. Add sauerkraut and salt and pepper as needed. Let cool before using. May be made and refrigerated up to two days in advance.

for assembly and serving

• 1 stick butter (or more to taste)

Roll dough out to about 1/8″ thickness. Use a 3″ cookie cutter or other round implement (such as a pint glass) to cut rounds of dough. Place one tablespoon of filling in center and moisten edges of dough with water. Fold dough over and pinch edges to seal or use a pierogi crimper. Cook pierogi in boiling water until they float to the top (not all of them will always float, so check for doneness after about 8 minutes). Remove pierogi with slotted spoon and drain on paper towel. Heat butter in a small pan over medium heat until solids separate and fall to the bottom of the pan and butter begins to brown. Arrange pierogi in 2 large roasting pans and drizzle with browned butter. You may serve them immediately or cover them with aluminum foil and refrigerate until needed; reheat in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

The weather’s turning colder and I can now start to revisit my repertoire of winter soups and stews. When I decided to make lentils this week, my first impulse was to tell you about how healthy lentils are and how everything added in this recipe is also really good for you – I mean garlic, onion, spinach, carrots, a bit of potato and an eensy amount of sausage. In the end, though, I don’t think I need to tell you how good this is for you. I make this in the winter months not because it’s healthy, but because it’s just so tasty and warming and satisfying.

I don’t call this a soup, because it’s a little thicker than that, especially if you make it a day ahead of time. I’ve tried all sorts of different vegetables in this, but I’ve settled on this as my favorite combination, but you can feel free to substitute or add different vegetables (I’ve used peppers, zucchini, stewed tomatoes, mushrooms, kale among other things). If you decide to skip the sausage, I recommend adding in some (reconstituted) dried porcini mushrooms and their liquid, not that this is the equivalent of that little bit of pork goodness, but because you need something to give this some depth of flavor.

lentils with sausage, spinach, carrots and potatoes

• 1 t olive oil
• 2 links mild Italian sausage, casings removed (optional)
• 1 large or 2 small onions (about 1 cup), chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 t red pepper flakes
• 1 T oregano
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 8 cups water
• 2 medium Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 carrots, peeled and cubed
• 2 cups lentils (1 16 oz. package)
• 1 package baby spinach

Heat oil in a stockpot on medium-high and add sausage, if using. Stir the sausage breaking it up into small bits as it cooks. Add next 6 ingredients in the order listed (onions through pepper). Cook 5-6 minutes stirring occasionally. Add water, potatoes, carrots and lentils. Turn heat to high, let mixture come to a boil and turn it down to a simmer. Cover and let cook on low heat for 20-30 minutes. Add spinach and replace lid. Cook 10 minutes or until spinach wilts. Remove lid and let cook another 5-10 minutes, until lentils are tender and sauce is thickened. Turn off heat and let cool 10 minutes before serving (can be made a day or two ahead). Serve with bread.

Yield: 8 servings (1 1/2 cups per serving)
Approximate calories per serving: 280

My sister Kate has found facebook and she added me as her first friend. I’ve been a facebook user for a while now, not as an aging wannabe hipster, mind you, but as a way to be in touch with my students (we’ve got groups for Paris summer study abroad and also for the French club on campus). I get requests for letters of recommendation that way, I get to see what my students who are in Paris are doing this year and I had a recent request for an apple recipe (Jason, did you make the apple tart?). It’s also a way to connect with colleagues all over the world - ok, so we’re not talking discussion of post-modern theory here, we send each other booze mail on Friday afternoons. Recently, facebook has opened its network to include people other than those affiliated with a university or high school and I’ve become facebook friends with several fellow food bloggers - I love to see their status messages - "Leland is making mushroom quiche" made my mouth water. Rebecca recently wrote a post about facebook here. Now it looks like the sis and I are going to be able to keep in touch this way too. Here’s the first message I wrote on her wall:

Wow, I’m your first facebook friend, that’s really cool sista! Now you gotta get yourself a picture. Love you.

Then she wrote:

I’m still dreaming of your empanada.

And this is what followed:

Me: Does that mean you want the recipe?

Kate: I’d love the recipe. I wish I would have watched you make it.

Me: The empanada recipe is not hard. I can write it down with specific instructions or else you can just wait until Christmas and we can make it together.

Kate: Well…if you send it to me by Friday then I’ll probably make it for my party this weekend. Otherwise, we can make it at Christmas.

Me: Working!

I don’t know why I didn’t give you all this recipe when I wrote about empanaditas last fall, because this really is one of those things that you dream about eating long after the last crumb is gone. So, here’s the recipe for empanada that I’ve worked out to imitate the exact thing I ate when I was starving to death during a forced march to Santiago de Compostella.

The dough is an easy puff pastry (really easy, I promise) adapted from Penelope Casas’ Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain, which recently came out in a newly revised edition. I like her dough recipe much better than the one from The New Spanish Table.

I worked out the filling on my own, it has tuna, but you could also use little bay scallops, tiny shrimp, or any firm-fleshed white fish, cooked ahead of time and flaked, or just skip the seafood component and put in more ham or add some chorizo. You could make it vegetarian by skipping the ham and tuna altogether and increasing the vegetables.

Here’s a picture of my sister eating empanada when she was in town a couple of weeks ago. I think it would make a good facebook image. Have a good party sista, do you want the recipe for Erik’s killer sangria, too?

empanada de atún (tuna empanada)

dough

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 t salt
• 4 t red wine vinegar
• 2 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 cup vegetable shortening at room temperature (these come in one cup sticks now)

Mix flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Whisk water, vinegar and egg yolks together in a small bowl and pour mixture into the well in the flour. Use one hand to combine wet and dry ingredients until dough forms a rough ball. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes to an hour. Flour a dry surface and a rolling pin and roll dough out to roughly a 10 by 15 inch rectangle. Use a rubber spatula to smear 1/3 of the vegetable shortening over the surface of the dough and fold the dough over onto itself business letter style. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour. Repeat two times to incorporate the rest of the vegetable shortening. Dough can be made a day or two ahead of time.

filling

• 1 T extra virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 red pepper, seeded and diced
• 1/2 green pepper, seeded and diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 1 can tomato paste
• 2 T chopped parsley
• 2 t pimentón (smoked Spanish paprika)
• 1 can tuna (you can use the fancy Spanish stuff packed in olive oil, or save calories and use plain old white albacore), drained and flaked
• 4 oz. of cooked ham, diced
• 1/4 cup green Spanish olives, rinsed and chopped (use the cheap kind, keep the pimientos if they have them)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• water as needed

Heat olive oil in a dutch oven or large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and peppers and cook until completely soft, about 20 minutes, make sure they don’t brown. Add garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes until garlic turns translucent. Add tomatoes, parsley and pimentón and cook until tomatoes break down somewhat. Add tomato paste and a tablespoon or two of water to thin out the mixture and cook for about 6-8 minutes more. Add tuna, ham, olives and salt and pepper to taste (you probably won’t need much salt because of the saltiness of the tuna, ham and olives). Let cool or make ahead and refrigerate until ready to use.

assembly and baking

• 1 egg yolk plus 1 t water, whisked together

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut dough into two equal halves. Roll out one half of dough and fit it into an un-greased baking sheet. Spread dough with filling and roll out remaining half of dough a little bigger to cover. Crimp edges of dough together first with fingers then with a fork. Make decorative slits in top crust to allow steam to escape. Brush top of dough with egg wash. Bake in pre-heated oven for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool for 15-20 minutes. Cut into squares or triangles. Can be served as a light meal with a green salad or as part of a tapas menu.

The previous owner of our house must have loved green. The porch was covered in grass green astroturf, the porch itself is painted a hunter sort of green. The bottom half of the house is painted Necco wafer green as is the whole garage, including the doors. I don’t have anything against this color; in fact it’s a good fashion choice for the golf set, but for a house? I think the neighbors agree. When I met them, the first thing they asked was whether or not we’re going to paint it. You should see the inside I told them. It came with mint green carpeting, green linoleum and kelly green blinds. I’m going to banish green from making an appearance in our décor, but not on our table.

Salsa verde, or green sauce, is a standard Mexican cooked sauce. You can eat it with chips like any salsa, but it’s also excellent when used in tacos, on enchiladas, with grilled pork or chicken or as a topping for chalupas, which is today’s recipe. The main ingredients are green: tomatillos, jalepeños, cilantro and lime, with some onions and garlic thrown in for flavor. Have you heard that myth that there is some sort of gene that makes about 40% of the population hate cilantro? I’m not buying that one, because that would mean that 40% percent of Mexicans and Thai hate it too and that’s just not possible. If you grow up with the taste, you love it, if you encounter it for the first time later in life, you might say yuck it tastes like soap, or you might love it. My virtual friend Luisa, aka The Wednesday Chef, recently had a cilantro epiphany and is jumping on the Mexican food bandwagon. She is looking for more Mexican recipes and also said she’d like to see more pictures of the house. And that’s about as close as I can get today to tying these two unrelated paragraphs together, aside from the green part, of course.

chalupas de pollo con salsa verde (chicken chalupas with green sauce)
adapted from epicurious.com

For the salsa verde

• 1 lb fresh tomatillos, husks discarded and tomatillos rinsed and quartered
• 1-3 jalapeños, coarsely chopped (use just one for a milder sauce, up to 3 for more heat)
• 1/2 cup chopped white onion
• 3 garlic cloves, quartered
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 T vegetable oil

For the chalupas

• 1 to 2 T vegetable oil
• 12 small corn tortillas
• 1 cup shredded cooked chicken (from 1 chicken breast half)
• 1/4 cup sour cream mixed with the juice of one lime (put this in a squeeze bottle if you have one)
• 1/3 cup finely chopped white onion
• 1/3 cup finely crumbled queso fresco (Mexican fresh cheese)
• 1/3 cup finely chopped cilantro
• For serving: 1 lime cut into wedges

Put all of the salsa verde ingredients except the oil in a blender and purée until smooth. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Carefully add purée (the oil might splatter). Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes. This mixture can be made ahead of time and keeps well in the freezer.

Heat 1 T vegetable oil in a skillet until hot but not smoking. Cook tortillas three at a time turning every minute or so until they are crisp on both sides. Add more oil as needed. To serve: top each tortilla with a little chicken, some onion, cheese, salsa verde and some of the sour cream mixture, then top with a sprinkling of cilantro (but only if you like it) and put a wedge of lime on each plate. Serves 3-4 people (or two really hungry ones).

I wish you could have come over for dinner last night. It was the first real meal in our new house and it was so good I would have loved to feed it to everybody I know and all of the rest of you. We’ve bought a 1913 Dutch colonial style house that needs extensive renovations. The kitchen is a disaster both functionally and aesthetically. It has a mishmash of poorly made cupboards from the 1940s and the 1980s with green 1970s linoleum that could be cool except it doesn’t go with the turquoise formica or with anything else in the room. Before we’ll be able to fix its myriad problems, we first need a new roof, a new furnace, new bathrooms and repairs to the leaky basement. And the purple trim in the living room and dining room? We’ll cover that up with a fresh coat of white semi-gloss sooner rather than later.

Moving on now to a positive development, I’ve got a new stove, but it’s really an old stove and of course there’s a story behind it. About a year ago a childhood friend contacted me to see if I wanted her Magic Chef, a gorgeous old monster with red bakelite handles (Thanks Jane!). I didn’t know it when I accepted her offer that I was going to need this puppy. Our new house came without a functioning stove. Whatever did I do with the Magic Chef in the last year? I told you a little about my best friend, Nancy, right? Well she really is a solid gold friend. She picked up the stove for me, took it to her warehouse, had it shrink-wrapped and kept it for me for the last year. The big adventure of last week was borrowing my brother’s old pick up and driving to her store to get the stove, getting it home, in the house, hooked up and working. All of these were major efforts, of course, not the least of which was extracting myself from conversation with Nancy’s wonderfully talkative father; he heads up the hardware store that is Nancy’s family business. You remember that part, right? My best friend’s family has a hardware store. Isn’t that awesome? She held on to my stove for the last year, she brought us a new Weber grill on the first day we were in our house, she took care of my shower issues and I’m sure she’ll be bringing me a hose, or some other equally useful household item, the next time she comes over (right Nancita?). Erik says he can’t imagine me having a better best friend except for maybe if her family business were a brewery.

Let’s get back to the food. Maybe you want to know what that first supper was last night? It’s something I’ve been making all summer whenever we’ve wanted a very quick, very satisfying meal. It doesn’t take a lot of cooking, but it’s not just a summer weather dish. Around here we call it simply milanesas, the Spanish term, because it’s something we ate a lot when we were in Spain doing the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. In French it’s escalopes à la milanaise and in Italian, cotoletta ala milanese. Traditionally made with veal, these can also be made with pork. In German, this is good old wiener schnitzel. So the German speakers think it’s from Vienna, while the rest of Europe says it’s from Milan. In fact, it’s not known if this dish comes from Renaissance Italy, originating in Milan of course, or if Austrian general Josef Graf Von Radetzky invented it in the nineteenth century, though he is said to have been the first one to write the recipe out. I’m sort of a purist when it comes to this and I don’t serve it with anything other than a little lettuce and tomato with the pan juices and lemon drizzled on top, though in Spain you’ll find it served with French fries and in France I’ve had it with cheese covered macaroni, the cutlets laying on the cheesy pasta and pan juices poured on top; I might make it like that this winter sometime.

We’ve finished pulling out most of the mint green 80s carpeting. Does anyone want to come over for a redo of this meal and help pull staples out of the wood floors? We could also use some help dragging the drop ceiling out of the basement and shoving it into the purple dumpster in our driveway.

cotoletas milanesas (breaded and pan fried veal or pork cutlets)

• 4 thin cut boneless pork chops, trimmed of fat
• or 4 veal cutlets
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 egg
• 1 T water
• 1 cup plain bread crumbs
• 3 T butter or vegetable oil
• 1 small head of Boston lettuce, washed, dried and torn into bite size pieces
• 4 plum tomatoes, cut into wedges
• 1 lemon, quartered
• salt, freshly ground black pepper

Using a meat mallet (or the bottom of a heavy skillet or an empty wine bottle, etc.) pound each cutlet to about 1/8 of an inch thick. Put flour on a plate and season with salt and pepper. Place egg in a shallow bowl, whisk in water and add a pinch of salt. Place bread crumbs in a plate and season with salt and pepper. Heat butter or oil in a skillet over medium heat. Dip each cutlet in flour, then egg and then bread crumbs, patting the breadcrumbs on thickly and place each cutlet in the skillet. Turn after 2-3 minutes when the underside is golden brown. Remove from skillet when the other side is also golden brown. To serve: divide lettuce and tomato among 4 plates, arrange one cutlet on each plate, divide the pan juices among the four plates and finish by squeezing a lemon wedge over each one. Add more salt and pepper as desired. Serves 4.

Options: you can make these with chicken or turkey or even a thin slice of tofu. If you are watching your calories, substitute cooking spray for the butter or oil.

French toast is not French. I just needed to get that out of the way at the beginning, since that’s the recipe you’ll find below and the rest of this post is going to be a mish mash of family history and a small glimpse of the U S of A from the perspective of three French children. I’ll also tell you a little about our trip up north as they say here in Michigan, and because this site is about food, I’ll try to get around to telling you about some of the things we ate. In my last entry, I described my brother Ken as a shaggy dog story teller. I’m afraid that one might come back to haunt me with what follows.

I’m from one of those families where the door is always open, there’s always more room at the dinner table and a few extra people around was never a problem. This is how my parents ended up with three French women in their 20s staying with them in the summer of 1989. They were part of a group who had been lured to the states by a publishing company (whose name I won’t divulge) with promises of fast cash and fun in America. What they got was a cultish experience and virtually no greenbacks. And no place to stay. Can you believe they were told they could get a cheap room at the Salvation Army in downtown Detroit and survive on peanut butter? Friends of friends told them to knock on our door and they did and they stayed for three or four months. Laurence was one of them and the only one who has stayed in touch. That summer of ‘89, my mom advised ditching door-to-door book selling and found Laurence a job working (under the *cough* table) as a hostess in the fanciest restaurant in town. I was away for the better part of that summer, playing nanny for a friend, so I was there for only about a month of the French girl circus (which is a good thing, because they were in my bedroom). One of my memories of Laurence was that she had only one nice outfit that she fastidiously cleaned every day after work and put on again the next day. She must have confirmed all sorts of stereotypes her colleagues had about the French.

We’ve seen her on trips to Paris, but this summer she came back to visit for the first time and brought along her three children, Jean, Louis and Marie. I was once again reminded that I really wouldn’t mind having a child if it could be a French one. They help in the kitchen! They eat everything! They stay at the dinner table for hours with no complaints! They sit up straight - well, especially with their mother poking them in the back to remind them not to slouch over, I guess I’d have to be a French mother to have French children.

These kids were liking the soda and the beach and the big cars, but had lots of questions and some negative reactions. These are my favorites. On entering the house through the screened in porch Jean asked me, "Why all the screens on all the windows? Are there lots of bugs everywhere here? Don’t you get claustrophobic?"

At lunch after a crab salad stuffed tomato on Boston lettuce, Louis asked, "Can I help bring out the next course?" Poor boy, he thought that was just the starter and was expecting a roast and potatoes and then green salad and cheese and some sort of dessert. All he got were cookies and peaches.

Marie’s astonishment at not being understood by my nieces was charming, "They don’t know what babyfoot is? These Americans are crazy." I explained that while babyfoot is indeed a combination of two words in English, it is used in French to designate the game that here we call foosball. Hand smacks forehead.

Other highlights of the French monkeys include the following. Louis confided to me that he abhors smoothies. Jean’s zizi was hanging out of his bathing suit and Marie wouldn’t keep her suit on. She also complained about the fat on my arms.

Because Laurence and her brood lived for a time in England, they have good English skills, but not perfect. The biggest blooper of the weekend was when she asked my seven year old niece, "Jessica, give me a French kiss." You should have seen the look on that kid’s face. This obviously led to discussion of all of the things we call "French" here in the U.S., like French dressing, French fries, Frenched green beans and lamb chops, and Sunday’s breakfast, French toast. There’s a similar preparation in France, called pain perdu (lost bread, because you usually make it with the stale leftovers, this can sometimes be prepared like bread pudding as well). Laurence and her kids had never eaten it. "It’s peasant food," Laurence told us.

This is my niece, Jessica. After breakfast, we had a short rain storm and she’s pictured here belting out her rendition of singin’ in the rain. She was recently diagnosed with an allergy to eggs. It’s taken years for her parents to figure out why she was not interested in eating and why she’s in the smaller end of normal for her age. She seems to be thriving on her new egg-free diet. We’re trying to make meals with no eggs and that’s an awfully tall order for Sunday breakfast. I happened on a vegan recipe for French toast with a banana to replace the egg and thought we’d give it a try (I don’t remember where I read about it or I’d cite the source). The vegan recipe used soy milk instead of cow’s milk, so if you swing that way, feel free to make that substitution. If you like the flavor of bananas, you’ll love this one. We ate every last crumb. I’m left with a question. If there’s no egg, is it still French toast? Erik calls it monkey toast.

monkey toast (eggless French toast)

• 1 loaf white bread, sliced
• 1 banana
• 1 cup milk or half & half
• 1 t vanilla
• optional (and truly not French): a pinch of cinnamon or other flavoring of choice
• butter or cooking spray

Place banana, milk or half & half, vanilla and optional flavoring (if using) into a blender and mix until smooth. Place mixture in a shallow bowl. Heat skillet over medium-low. Place a small pat of butter in the middle of skillet or spray skillet with cooking spray. Take one piece of bread and soak it in the milk mixture, then put it in the skillet. Repeat with as many slices of bread as will fit in your skillet at one time. Cook until bottom of bread is golden brown, flip and brown the other side. You can put the finished slices on a platter tented with aluminum foil while cooking the rest, or dish them out to your monkeys as they are ready. Serve with butter and maple syrup.

P.S. We have my best friend Nancy to thank for opening her family lake house up to us for four days of swimming, boating, eating and general whooping it up. If you’d like to see more photos of our trip, they’re over here.

I hope you all don’t mind, but I’m going to give you another recipe for pork roast. In fact, it’s the same method as the other one, but I’ve made it with a marinade that turns into a glaze on the pork and served it room temperature for summer with a salad and so you see, it’s really not the same thing at all. I already told you how the idea for the peaches came about with the mango peach chutney. Then I developed this sauce to put on the pork and used a peach in the vinaigrette, so my sister had a really peachy birthday, but like I said, that suits her.

You can make this ahead of time, even a couple of days ahead and it’s good served warm, room temperature or cold. It’s great as leftovers; we loved it the next day on toasted baguette with a mix of sriracha chile and mayonnaise along with lettuce and some of the peach chutney.

Pork roast with tomato peach glaze on Boston lettuce salad with peach vinaigrette

• 1 6 oz. can tomato paste
• 1 onion, peeled and quartered
• 1 peach, pitted, peeled and quartered
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
• 3 T brown sugar
• 1 t good quality salt (kosher or fleur de sel)
• 1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
• 1 boneless center-cut pork roast, 3-6 pounds
• Butcher’s twine
• Meat thermometer
• Water, as needed

Place first seven ingredients (tomato paste through pepper) in the blender and pur?e. You may need to add a little bit of water to get it to blend together well, but add only a little bit at a time. Tie the roast with butcher’s twine (use the instructions here, don’t let it scare you, it’s easier than learning how to tie your shoes). Place tied pork roast and sauce from the blender in a re-sealable plastic bag, seal bag and rub to completely cover roast with sauce. Refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Place roast in a pan on a rack (if you lack the proper equipment, just put it on a baking sheet, if will be fine). Pour marinade over top of roast and place in oven and cook for 30 minutes. Remove roast from oven. Let rest for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees. If you’re going to cook some potatoes or vegetables in the oven to serve with the roast, now would be the time to put them in. After the 30 minute rest, insert the meat thermometer and put the roast back in the oven (if you don’t have a fancy digital meat thermometer, you can take it’s temperature from time to time with the simple instant read kind or just take a chance). Once the roast comes up to 145-150 degrees, you can take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 20 minutes before slicing (the juices won’t run out so much that way). The final temperature will be somewhere around 160, which is what the USDA recommends. We like it best at around 150-155, but you can take your own chances. This can take anywhere from 30-60 minutes, depending on the size of your roast, I estimate it’s about 10 minutes per pound. After the 20 minute rest, slice the roast and serve. You can put the roasting pan or baking sheet on the stove top, deglaze the pan a little with water and pour these juices along with any on the cutting board over the top of the roast, or if there’s a lot of juice, serve it on the side in a gravy boat. Serve on top of Boston lettuce dressed with peach vinaigrette (see below) and mango peach chutney on the side.

Peach vinaigrette

• 1 peach, pitted, peeled and quartered
• 1 shallot, peeled and quartered
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 T brown sugar
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Place all ingredients but olive oil in a blender and turn on high to combine. Add olive oil and mix again.