Hosting through 3 Delicious Meals

It's surprisingly rare for me to truly enjoy hosting someone through three daily meals, all cooked at home. It's very rare to share breakfast, lunch, and dinner all homemade with a guest, but that, my dear readers, was something I got the chance to do yesterday, and in the process I learned that it's really easy to cook 3 fast and delicious meals in a day (which is something I rarely do for myself as is). The, trick, it turns out, is to go for delicious yet simple. here was my action plan:

Late Breakfast - Herbed Scrambled eggs with fried parsnips and rutabaga
Late Lunch - Fried tofu with caramelized onions, rice, salad with a ginger vinaigrette
Late and small Dinner - Tomato rice soup

Here's the scoop:

Breakfast (10 minutes prep, 15 minutes cook)
For the root veggies, thinly slice up 2-3 parsnips (as thin as you can get it - circles or half moons depending on the size of your parsnip) and a quarter of a medium rutabaga (you can also use potatoes, sunchokes, celeriac or whatever root veg you have on hand). Thin slice an onion. Sautee, covered, with a lot of butter and rosemary (to smell), you can add a quarter cup of water if things are burning. Add a bunch of salt. It takes about 15 minutes. Serve with sour cream.
For the eggs, beat 4-6 eggs (for two people) with sage, thyme, oregano, and a bit of rosemary (a lot - it should smell well-herbed). Scramble.

Lunch (20 minutes prep, 25 minutes cook, with some overlap)
Drain tofu, cube it, and then cover with 2 parts soy sauce, 1 part rice vinegar, and 1 part sesame oil, plus a grated inch or so of ginger (frozen ginger grates really well) a minced clove of garlic, some chives (if you have them) and a pinch of red pepper. let it sit while you prep a basic green salad, set the rice cooking (enough rice for lunch, and dinner! remember tomato rice soup!), and dice an onion.

For the salad dressing (this is the best part, and really ties the meal together) grate about a half inch of ginger into a dressing that is one part neutral oil (olive is fine), one part sesame oil, one part rice vinegar, and one part (or more even) lime juice salt or tamari to taste. Stir really well and don't let anyone pour it in their salad without stirring it well enough.

throw the diced onion and the tofu (reserve some of the marinade or it will burn) into a hot pan with oil, and sautee for as long as it takes the rice to finish. this should be plenty of time for the onions to caramelize and the tofu to brown. While everything is cooking, you can prep dinner.

Dinner (10 minutes prep, simmer as long as you can)
The trick to dinner is that it has to cook for a long time, so prep it while you're doing lunch, or while your guest is checking voicemail/something of the sort. It's the easiest meal you're going to cook all day. Dice an onion, a carrot, garlic, and some celery or celeriac (I didn't have it so I skipped it) throw that into some chicken stock, add a can of tomatoes (I added a can of tomatoes and a can of sauce for extra yum and so I had plenty for leftovers) and sprinkle in some marjoram and a dash of thyme (if you have it) salt, and pepper, and simmer until you're ready to eat it (yes - like 5 hours - that's the trick, seriously). I simmered mine uncovered because it was so watery and it turned out perfect. Dump in the rice a bit before you're going to start and stir in a cup or more of sour cream, half and half, heavy cream (don't overdo it), milk, or whatever combination thereof you have on hand. Serve hot with bread. if you're going to skimp on the chicken stock and use veg stock, you should sautee the veg before cooking. If you don't think you can leave a pot of soup simmering while you run around town for an hour or two, you're too risk averse, and I recommend trying it (unless you have a dog that will want to know what's cooking).

And that, as they say, is that. Very simple.

Sick Days

My dear readers, sorry for the lag time between posts. Between working weekends and getting sick, I haven't gotten a chance to do much. While tossing and turning in bed all day yesterday (not feeling 100% up to snuff today, but a woman's gotta work!) I re-learned one of my least favorite lessons of adult life. All of the knowledge in the world is useless in the face of sickness and exhaustion. Yes, even though I knew, in theory, what I needed to do to get my sorry ass off of the couch and feeling better, I did none of it, since it took more energy than I had to clear my mind enough to go and pull the fennel off the spice rack and start chewing it.

Between lying on the couch all day watching Planet Earth, and lying on the couch some more and reading The Neverending Story (meh), and When You Reach Me (you should read it) (I'm on a children's book kick), I basically only had the energy to make myself some chicken and rice soup out of desperation (I was hungry). Luckily, I had frozen stock in convenient ziplock bags and I grated up some ginger (if you freeze ginger it's really easy to grate it up and it doesn't come out stringy), chopped some garlic, onions, and carrots into the stock and called it soup. For lunch I mixed in some miso (mix miso into a small amount of the broth in a bowl, then add in the rest of your soup - boiling miso kills the nutrients in it).

If I were fully cognizant, or if I had a mommy available to me on site (Mommy called later and reminded me to chew my fennel) I would have been drinking fennel and ginger tea all day with honey and keeping my stomach occupied with crackers (saltines) and rice.

Instead I lay on the couch all day cursing the medicine that wasn't working, drinking water, and doing little else. Spare energy went to keeping the stove well stocked. I think that's what I'll have the energy for tonight too.

More when I feel 100%.

Sauerkraut, Okroshka, and guests

You know how sometimes your weekend gets hijacked by guests who overstay their welcome? Sometimes, even the nicest, friendliest people stay too long. Just a gracious reminder: it is not up to the hostess to kick you out. A good hostess never tells her guests to leave. Instead, she makes hints. Please, take the hints. Offer to leave or, if you absolutely must, ask to stay early on enough that it's still a possibility for you to leave if your hostess tells you she has important plans in the morning (like relaxing because it's Sunday morning). Do so before it becomes necessary for the hostess to offer you the couch and some linens. I don't care how fresh-out-of-college you are, manners are still manners.

Now that we're all clear on that, back to the topic of the day: Sauerkraut (or, as I more commonly spell it to avoid the minefield of german vowel combinations: kraut).

Kraut is the food of the gods. Salt, cabbage, a little weight, and a week or 3 of magic turns into the most delicious, nutritious food you could ever imagine. Eat straight out of the jar (as I was did my whole childhood when my parents weren't looking), on a Reuben, or as a side to just about anything (how my parents would have preferred I ate kraut). My favorite part of sauerkraut (don't knock it till you try it yall) is the brine. I drink it straight or make a variant on a Russian soup (I prefer it as a cold soup) called Okroshka (recipe below) which is traditionally made with Kvass (fermented black bread - eww).

Also, this post includes a basic lesson in Russian


KAPUSTA (aka: cabbage, but generally used to refer to kraut as well)

Seriously - it is this easy.

Materials:

- gallon crock (keep your eyes open at garage sales and flea markets - they're everywhere) or a few wide-mouthed ball jar
- 3 tablespoons canning salt (or any non-iodized salt. Sea salt is expensive. go for Morton's canning salt. it's just as good and cheaper than the iodized stuff)
- 5 pounds (bout 2 small heads) cabbage (green for traditional look. red for a sexy burgundy kraut)
- a lid that is just too small for your crock/jar. The goal is to push the cabbage under the surface of the brine.
- a weight that will fit on top of the lid and into the crock/jar (typically a boiled rock (boiled to sterilize), but you can also use a plastic bag filled with water and rocks if you're using a jar, or a smaller jar filled with water, or whatever)

The process

Chop up your cabbage to the size you like your kraut to be. I like cutting off a chunk and then cutting the chunk into thin ribbon-like slices.

Now layer 1 layer cabbage, 1 layer salt until you've layered all the cabbage and used all the salt. Press down as you go. All of the cabbage should fit into a 1 gallon crock.

Now put the lid you're using (or small plate, etc.) over the kraut, push it down as far as it will go, and put the weight on top. Store it somewhere out of the way. The warmer the spot, the faster the fermentation will go, but the flavors will be less subtle. The colder the spot, the longer the fermentation will take, but the flavors will develop more fully.

Check your kraut after 24 hours to make sure the brine has covered the cabbage. If it hasn't, add a saltwater mixture (about 3 tablespoons salt per quart) to cover, and leave. Taste in about 5 days, and then daily if it's in your room-temperature house, until it's as sour as you want. don't wait to long - or it'll taste off. Once it's done, stick it in the fridge to slow the fermentation (in jars or in the crock if it fits).

Notes:

A note on ingredients: some people put weird things in their kraut, like juniper berries, caraway, coriander, and black pepper. Try it out, but in my humble opinion, nothing beats traditional salt-and-cabbage kraut. A carrot or for color can also be added.

A note on crocks: I found a set of nested crocks with lids. It's perfect for kraut since the medium-sized lid is a perfect kraut lid for the largest crock.

A note on salt content: If you're not into salt, you can soak the kraut overnight in tap water to get a low-sodium kraut for eating the next day. do this rather than making a lower-salt kraut. Salt preserves the kraut, and is needed for the right bacteria to ferment the brine. Traditionally, kraut was made with a lot more salt than we use now, because the main purpose of the salt was to preserve the kraut before refrigeration. Thus crocks were typically held in cold cellars and the kraut needed to be submerged in water overnight or for 24 hours to leach enough salt out of the cabbage to make it edible. The level of salt needed to preserve kraut in brine is 5 tablespoons salt per quart of water. This way, in a cold cellar place, it will take at least a month to ferment, and will last at least a few months, if kept cold.


OKROSHKA

Yes, this is my favorite soup.

This is my personal recipe. It may be blasphemous to my grandma's traditional okroshka made with beef and kvass, but so be it.


ingredients (no quantities because you know how to make soup. Just make soup.)
- The usual suspects: carrots, celery, onions
- Brine (yum)
- potatoes
- optional - meat (if you're into it, I'd go for a chopped up hotdog. That would be traditionally Soviet. If you believe in real food, pork or beef will do, and tofu would be good too)
- garlic
- dill (a lot) parsley if you have some
- black pepper

Chop and saute carrots, celery, onion, and garlic (i'd suggest a medium dice). Substituting celeriac for celery in the winter is great, and I would recommend it in general when you have celeriac in your cellar. If you're using meat, throw it in to saute a bit, then cover with some water or whatever stock you have on hand (use the smallest amount of water/stock possible. This soup is about the brine! you''re going to want a final ratio of about 1-to-1 stock to brine), throw in the potatoes (I'd suggest a medium dice), and simmer until everything is cooked.

Add brine. for hot soup, heat, but do not boil (boiling kills off the good-for-you bacteria). according to my mom, this is a very traditional soup called Sour cabbage soup (kisloy schi). For cold soup, chill. season with black pepper, lots of dill, and parsley if you have it, and adjust the salt by adding more brine or more stock/water. Serve and be happy!

Enjoy!

Leftovers

In case you're wondering what to do with all that leftover turkey, here's my suggestion:

stock.


Simmer the carcass (bones, whatever meat you couldn't get off the thing, skin, etc.) for as long as you can stand the smell in your house - I'd go for overnight.

Ladle off the broth and yummy meat bits into ziplock bags (seriously -it's the easiest storage option for the freezer. It won't burst on you and if you forget to get it out to thaw in the morning (which I always do), you'll be able to get the frozen stock out of the bag easily). Then stack them in the freezer and voila!

Now, when you're sick, you have something quick that doesn't come in a can.

Yum!