Fantastic pizza

I used my oven dried tomatoes to make a pizza the other night.  I picked up Portland Pie Co dough - the beer variety (with Shipyard beer!).  This was the first time I've used this particular dough and I was really pleased with it.  Thanks to a comment from DelSo, I was thinking about caramelized onions so that's the route I went - white pizza with oven dried tomatoes and caramelized onions. Soooo yummy

So I'll file this one in the "completely off the cuff" and "has potential but needs refining" categories.  I had some thinly sliced steak that I planned to use in some carne asada/rice and beans/tacos type thing tonight.  Before I headed off to the gym I whipped up a quick marinade with some chile, lime juice, salt, cumin and oregano.  I had every intention of popping into the grocery store to grab some tortillas, but just didn't feel like it when I drove by and went straight to the gym.  I figured instead I'd do some rice with lime/cilantro and black beans.  Then I got home and discovered I was out of black beans (unheard of!) and didn't really feel like rice after all.  As I was spinning my grain and starch lazy suzan and pouting at my rice selection, my container of egg noodles caught my eye.'

I love egg noodles.  I think it's a childhood thing.  You know, those fond memories of cube steak and egg noodles that really should remain memories because I don't really crave cube steak.  Or noodles and butter. Now that I'm an adult, I love me a good beef stroganoff.  Odd, I know, for a mushroom hater, but I just pick them out.

All of a sudden I really wanted egg noodles, and I had beef but the flavor profile of my marinade seemed a little, well, not quite right.  But I figured what the hell...

I sauteed some white onions, garlic and cubanelle peppers, then tossed in diced steak and an extra squeeze of lime juice and tossed a cover on the skillet.  When the noodles were just about done, I tossed them in and let everything cook together.  The juice from the steak made a nice, light sauce and I only had to tweak the seasoning a bit.  I didn't bother to take a picture - the steak was a tad gray and only the cubanelles added some color.  I think next time I will use a different cut of meat and give it a good sear.  The chiles were a good addition, I will likely play around with the combo and maybe toss in some corn.

For something borne out of not really wanting anything I'd planned on, dinner didn't turn out so bad.

Oven-dried tomatoes

Before...

For all my bragging about speedy meals, I really love laboring over something that takes hours.  Taking the time to make a good risotto is one of the most therapeutic things ever.  Tonight, I decided to take my first stab at oven-dried tomatoes.  I snagged a bunch of plum tomatoes at the market this weekend for a good price.  You may recall that my friend the Tomato King passed along a jar of these last year and I loved them.  His approach involves roasting all night.  I've struggled with keeping the temperature in my oven low enough to pull that off, but not quite three hours in and I've made some progress.  Once again the house smells awesome and I have something I can check on and fiddle with for hours.

About two hours in

I quartered the tomatoes and cleaned out the seeds and guts.  Then I stuck them in a strainer over a bowl and gave them a good sprinkle of kosher salt and let them sit for a bit to draw some more moisture out.  Then I tossed them with a count or two of olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, finely chopped garlic and a bit of oregano.  I think I have a little way to go but they're starting to taste great.  I doubt I'll preserve them, they will either end up on a pizza or in a pasta later this week.

Navy bean and ham soup

Last weekend I grabbed a small ham from Oscar's when I was up north closing up camp.  Of course, it would be a mortal sin to let any go to waste, so today I decided to use some in a soup.  The nascent idea involved white beans, spinach and the ham, but other than that I had no idea what I was doing.  It came out great and I did a little social network bragging about how awesome my house smelled, prompting recipe requests.  Y'all know me when it comes to measuring anything, but here's my best shot as describing the process..

I started by building a nice sofrito base, cooking down some chopped onion, garlic, and black pepper in a little bit of chicken stock.  When the onions were getting all nice and melty, I added about half a bag of dried navy beans, rinsed but not soaked.  I think this is the first time I've ever cooked with dried beans.  As long as you have the time, it's great.  For the next hour or two, I just let the beans slowly simmer in the sofrito, chopped rosemary, thyme, a bay leaf and stock, adding a bit more stock and then a couple pints of water as needed.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do about adding the ham - I wanted the smoky flavor to build into the soup but I didn't want the ham to get all chewy or anything.  In the end, I put the ham in about an hour after the beans, maybe a little less.

Still bubbling...

That was pretty much it.  I just let the soup simmer until the beans softened up, playing around a bit with the spices along the way until it seemed right.  A pinch of kosher salt here.  A shake of boquet garni there.  Once the beans were finally soft, I tossed in some chopped spinach, let it cook just a bit more, and that was it.

While the soup was cooking, I whipped up a quick apple crisp.  Although a normal person would eat soup and then dessert, I'm not going to lie.... straight for the crisp for dinner.  Like magic, the chill in the air seemed to drag me right back into the kitchen.  Yay!

Dried Milk?! No, it's not 1963

I've been very neglectful of Green Peccadilloes lately.  In all honesty, I've felt fairly uninspired and haven't spent much time in the kitchen, and when I do, it's nothing to write home about.  I've also been fighting this change of seasons bug or something for a week or two, which has had my palette all messed up.  I mean, who wants to hear about ramen and ice cream for dinner. (Although I know you all secretly love it too...)

Tonight I decided to get back on the horse and come up with a way to cram a whole bunch of vegetables down my throat in a last ditch effort to get back on track.  I figured some spice wouldn't hurt either, so I planned a thai red curry/vegetable dish over rice.  Easy to make and good for me.

Typically I just stir fry up some veggies, dump in some coconut milk and a healthy dollop of red curry paste and I have an easy, inexpensive, reasonably tasty dinner.  I'm often frustrated, though, because I only use about half of the can of coconut milk and the rest goes to waste.  What the heck do you do with leftover coconut milk?? I've searched for smaller cans to no avail.  One day I found a powdered version and was intrigued, especially as it's really only a vehicle for the curry paste.

I had some serious flashbacks to home ec while playing with the powdered milk.  Was it just my school that was super cheap and only used milk in a box when teaching kids to cook?  Unsurprisingly, the result was less than perfect and my sauce wasn't nearly as creamy as it normally is.  The flavor was fine though and the meal served its purpose.  I did feel better that I wasn't as wasteful, but it's certainly not something I'd serve to company.  Ah well - maybe I'll just keep searching for smaller portions of coconut milk that's actually hydrated.  Lesson learned.

Stripping as metaphor

Paint, folks.  I'm stripping paint.

Lately I've undertaken home improvement projects with new zeal.  I guess I'm finally ready to accept this home as my own and I'm taking steps to get it to a state where it feels that way.  My biggest project at the moment is redoing the spare bedroom  Bye bye pre-teen boy cammo colors.  The first major accomplishment in the room was ceiling painting.  Gross.

My house is pushing 85 years old and there must be at least 50 years of paint slathered on my window moldings, especially in the room I'm working on now.  You could hardly see the detail in the molding and I knew yet another coat of primer and paint would only make it worse so I'm undertaking the very messy project of stripping the wood.  My first adventure in this realm has taught me many lessons:

1. Sometimes something that won't open isn't meant to be opened.  The first can of stripper I bought was IMPOSSIBLE to open.  I tried multiple times, and while I'm not a brute, I'm also not a weakling.  A return trip to the store yielded me a better smelling, more protective product that works better than the first even claimed to.  Giving up on the old and moving on to the new was a good call.

2. Patience is a virtue.  The new stripping agent can sit on the wood for up to 24 hours.  If you just back the hell off and let it do it's work, life is much easier.  I'm not so good at patience.

3. A little hard work never killed anyone.  See # 2.  As I'm not patient, I've been working harder than I should have to.  I find it therapeutic to dig and scrape at 10 layers of paint.

4. You can only put so much work in to something.  While I've enjoyed digging and scraping, it comes to a point where I just had to chill out, sit back, and let the chemical do its job.  At some point, work for work's sake becomes futile and you need to step back, have a beer and take a break.

5. Don't worry if what you find under the surface isn't perfect.  Nothing is.  My plan all along was to repaint right over the wood.  I thought maybe if I found something spectacular under all that paint I'd work extra hard to get it perfect and stain instead of paint.  I'm not yet sure which conclusion I reach.  If I get what I planned for, great.  Should I find something unexpected, fantastic.  Either way, I win.

Ok, time to inhale some more fumes.

Roasting Chiles

As chili season is rapidly approaching, I grabbed a handful of peppers at a farm stand recently and I've begun to build up my supply of roasted chiles.  I'm very much looking forward to chilly fall mornings, spending hours slowly building a flavor base for a big 'ole pot of chili and I learned last year that taking the time to roast my own chiles makes a difference.  However, if I can cut some time off a dish, I most certainly will and pre-roasting and freezing chiles is a great way to go.  I have a handful of packets of jalapenos already in this fridge and this was a mix of fairly tepid peppers.  I need to grab some gloves before playing with anything too spicy...I've learned that lesson before!
 roast
The process, while sometimes time-consuming, is fairly simple.  Toss the peppers in some oil, throw them in a hot oven and away until the skin starts to pucker and blacken in spots.  If you're lucky like I was this go around, it will be fairly easy to separate the skin from the pepper with a sharp knife (I keep both my favorite chef's knife and paring knife handy).  Give the seeds a scrape - this is where the heat is, so adjust accordingly - and you're set.