Single Cooking Philosophy

I’ve been playing around with single serving dishes for a while, and I’ve come up with some tips and tricks that work for me.  Most of these came about because of some annoyance that I had to solve.  The problem with these kinds of things is that some amazing little trick that works for me can be just another quirky little idea that has absolutely no practical utility to you.  Maybe these don’t work for you, but they may give you inspiration to come up with your own quirky little solutions. 


My freezer is my friend
    
     I use my freezer a lot.  I freeze leftover stuff in small chunks to use later.  I buy red peppers when they are on sale to use in dishes with cooked red pepper.  I flatten out tomato paste in a plastic zipper bag so that I can break off a tablespoon at a time.  I make a meatloaf (once or twice a year) slice it up and freeze it for sandwiches or cube it for easy to eat lunches I take to work.  I buy a package of bacon, roll up single strips, freeze them sitting on their flat sides then place in a plastic zipper bag.  I can easily use a single piece of bacon any time (they thaw in the skillet).  I have individual frozen raw prawns that can be added to any dish.  I keep brownies and other baked goods in the freezer for a quick dessert or workday lunch.

Get the idea?


What do I do with ½ an egg?

    A couple of years ago I got the book Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos.  I was very inspired by her recipes for tiny batches of cookies, cakes and gooey baked things.  Unfortunately, I have never tried any of the recipes.   Why?  Because most call for 1 ½ tbs. of  beaten egg (or something like that).  The author says she bakes often that she can use up the rest of the egg within a couple days.  Good for her.  I can’t.  I don’t bake that often and I don’t use many eggs in my cooking.

     I’ve come up with a philosophy about baking.  I scale down my favorite recipes so that I use 1 egg.  I bake brownies that use 1 egg, I bake almond cherry bars that call for 1 egg,  I even bake a tiny 1 egg  birthday layer cake in my tiny 6” round cake pan (which comes in handy for having 1 or 2 people over for a quiet birthday dinner).   I should add that Debby Maugans Nakos's book helped me learn how to bake small amounts of baked goods  (lower temp and a shorter time-  small things heat up quickly).
    
     This philosophy holds for other types of cooking.  I don’t want ½ a tomato sitting around or ½ a potato, onion, etc.  I tend to buy smaller tomatoes, onions, eggplants, etc. so that I can use up the whole thing in one meal.  That can throw off a recipe a little, but I’ve never made anything I didn’t like because it had too much tomato in it.




Vegetable madness   

    This is a really quirky thing that works for me, but it may not for you.  In the summer I tend to eat a lot of salads and vegetables, especially the lunches I take to work.  On a day off I will set aside a couple hours preparing vegetables for these salads.  The cooked vegetables should last for 5 days, but if they don’t, another half hour of labor later on in the week will fill the void.

     I’ll rinse and dry lettuce, then store in a plastic box.  I’ll steam all sorts of veggies, like broccoli, leeks, green beans, kale, etc.  I’ll boil new potatoes, sauté zucchini or red pepper.  In barbeque season I’ll toss the veggies on the grill.   I go to my local summer farmer’s market and get seasonal veggies like fava beans, baby artichokes, sugar snap peas.  I’ll have some raw vegetables to provide crunch.  I’ll make a variety of dressings and sauces that I put in little squeeze bottles from the Japanese 99 cent store. 

     Pack a variety of veggies in a water tight container, add a dressing, some frozen chunks of meatloaf, roast chicken or garlic shrimp and you’ve got lunch.  Put together a different combination each day for variety.  Make a big plate and add whole wheat toast with garlic, olive oil and parmigiano and you’ve got a quick after work supper.


Roast a chicken

     Once a week or so I’ll roast a whole chicken for dinner.  The next night I’ll pick off the meat and freeze it in a plastic zipper bag (loosely packed so I can break off frozen chunks).   I’ll add the chunks to my packed lunch, toss into a small cheesy noodle casserole, add at the end of  a stir fry.  If I’m industrious I’ll save the bones and make a stock, reduce it, pour into ice cube trays and keep in my friend, the freezer.  Once in a blue moon I’ll make a pot roast or cook some other hunk of protein.  Cut up in small chunks and freeze.

You get the idea.


A toast to toast

     I’ll put anything on toast to make a meal.  Mac and Cheese on toast under the broiler.   Quick and dirty pizza sauce and mozzarella.   Leftover garlicy tomatoey shrimp and feta on crunchy  whole wheat toast.   Chopped raw broccoli, a couple chunks of frozen roast chicken, olive oil and a thick slice of cheddar cheese, under the broiler until bubbly and brown.

Middle Age Fitness

As I mentioned before, I get frustrated looking online for clues about exercise because most advice out there for the over 40, over 50 crowd seems to be for people who are already athletes. Even the articles and interviews with people who weren’t (athletes or really athletically inclined) seem to say “I did it, so can you. Don’t give up.” While that help might help for Day 1, it doesn’t go much further.

I’m not a specialist in sports medicine, but as an everyday guy I can at least tell you what I went through, and maybe why certain advice is worth noting.

Get a physical exam

If you haven’t had one in a while, it’s time. Once you reach a certain age, you need to keep track of things. If you aren’t in very good shape now, chances are you’ve let other things slip. Tell your doctor you want to get more exercise, make sure your heart and knees are up to the challenge.


Find something you like to do

You’ll see this when you look for advice on how to start exercise. Try to pick things you genuinely enjoy doing. Why? For a few simple reasons. 1) You’ll enjoy yourself. 2) Enjoying the activity means you won’t need lots of motivation to do it again, you already ARE motivated. Also, if it’s something you actually enjoy doing, you won’t look for excuses on rainy, cold days. 3) You’ll meet other people who enjoy the same activity. You’ll associate exercise with fun.

A friend of mine likes to go walking. That is, she likes to go walking as long as the sun is shining, it’s at a beach (not any beach, one specific beach), she can take her dog, Someone goes with her, the tide is low, etc., etc., etc.. In other words, she doesn’t really like to go walking. She’ll tolerate it if her long list of conditions is met. Because all these conditions rarely happen all on one day, we rarely go walking together.

On the other hand, I just love to go walking. I won’t list all the reasons, because they don’t really matter to you. It’s just an activity I love doing. I’ll walk in forests, busy city streets, early morning, noon and night. I walk when it’s sunny, rainy and when there is snow on the ground. That’s because I love to go walking. There are plenty of physical activities I don’t love, quite a few I hate. I don’t do those.

So, find something you like to do. Whether it’s walking, bowling, playing golf, waltzing, or kayaking if you love to do it, you’ll go back for more. And even if you don’t think it’s enough exercise, the more you do it, the more exercise you get. Five years ago I took a swing dance class. I wasn’t very good at it, I was very self conscious about it, I could never remember the steps. I kept showing up. I loved taking those classes. After the first few classes I had no idea how much exercise they involved. I worked up to some intermediate classes, was taking 2 or 3 classes in a row, I got plenty of exercise. Same with walking. You may start with a leisurely stroll today, but a five mile walk that makes you break a sweat is exercise.


One final thought, if you haven’t gotten much exercise in the last few years, take it easy. In middle age, it takes longer to recover form exercise, just as injuries take longer to heal. Don’t expect changes overnight or in a week. You should pace yourself enough that you actually want to go back and do it all again.

Food Quest January: Salumi Cured Meats

I think the first food quest I went on was to find huitlacoche.  It's called Mexican truffle, or the somewhat less appealing corn smut.  It's a fungus that grows on corn.  Doesn't sound very inviting?  Well, I love corn and I love mushrooms, so it sounded wonderful to me.  When I went looking for it in Seattle a few years ago, it was generally not found fresh outside Mexico.  I bought canned huitlacoche in a little latino/filipino grocery store.  I wasn't won over.  The lumpy, wet purple goo didn't look like the photos of firm, chunky, pale blue mushroomyness, I had seen.  Maybe someday I'll get my chance at some fresh huitlacoche, but until then I'll just have to keep looking for new things to tickle my fancy.

     My most recent search for interesting foods was my visit to Salumi, a little cured meat shop in the old section of Seattle, near Pioneer Square.  The shop was started in 1999 by Armandino Batali, who started making salami after he retired from engineering.  If his name sounds familiar, it's  because of his better know son who is single-handedly responsible for 3 people I work with wearing cheap orange crocs in the kitchen.  The shop is a narrow little thing, maybe 10(?) feet wide and looong.  The young women at the tiny deli case and meat slicer had the air of people in the service industry who talk to hundreds of people every day.  Big personalities, instant connection, patient and willing to lead a newcomer like me by the nose.  They were running out of things (last hour before they close for their normal 3 day weekend.  Yes, only open Tue.-Fri. 11-4!)  They were busy.  There were two tables in view, a two seater and a large communal table.  The large table started to leave as I stared at the blackboard overhead, a couple people stay behind.   I sat down at the 2 seater with my culatello sandwich, waiting for my order to get sliced 10 feet away from me.  In the tiny little seating area at the end of this long hallway there were two more open door arches, one lead to a closet filled with another communal table.  The other doorway looked punched through to the adjoining building, probably the kitchen that produces oxtail and pork cheeks for lunch.  Friday nights it serves private dinners booked months in advance.  As I finished my sandwich, the red haired meat slicer set down my bag of salty treasures.  I watched a dwindling, but steady line of newcomers stand at the deli case and stare at the blackboard ordering sandwiches or packets of sliced meats. 

    And now for your benefit alone, dear reader, I will munch and describe what I got.  That's right, as an online experiment I will be eating and writing in real time.

    While I enjoyed my on site culatello sandwich, I didn't fully appreciate the flavor of this wonderful meat until I got back home. Culatello is prosciutto made from a specialty cut of leg,  handled with a little more care.  Eating a slice all by itself allowed me to appreciate the sweet, robust flavor that also delivered delicate little surprises hiding off in the background.  This probably had the most balanced flavor of all the meats, less salty, the flavor of the meat shines through.   Lomo, the cured, air dried pork loin was salty and peppery.  More chewy, less subtle, it still has unidentifiable spices that add to the layered taste.  The hot coppa,  a spicy pork shoulder, wasn't as spicy as others I've had, but I think I like this better.  More care and better ingredients are showcased with lighter seasoning.  But speaking of spicy,  chocolate,  chipotle and cloves go into the Mole salami.  It's a taste explosion.  It's exciting,  but even keeled, no one taste dominates.   Last of all comes the lamb prosciutto.  That's right, prosciutto made from lamb.  It's funky and gamey (they use the word gamey on the blackboard).  Probably only for true lovers of lamb.  Nowadays most meats eaten by most people in this country cannot be described with the adjective gamey.  If chicken breast is at the top of your list of meaty favorites,  things like kidneys, stewed goat and lamb prosciutto are likely near the bottom.  For lamb lovers, the tangy, unctuous taste will thrill (in small quantities).

     Since salted and cured meats can store so long, I'll be able to use these for appetizers and savory palmiers.  I'll definitely return to Salumi, and next time I'll call in my order ahead like I was advised.  But with my salt and meat quota filled for the rest of the month, I think now I'll dine on unseasoned broccoli and brown rice.
    

My first entry

 
-or-

Another drop in the ocean of food blogs


So, what makes me think I have something to contribute to the world of food? With the approx. 7 billion food blogs out there, why should I bother? Because I want to.

My main inspiration for this blog is a now defunct food blog from the stone age of blogging. Noshblog, by Jon Borresen, was curious little food diary from 2004-5. Sadly, the blog has gone on to the sweet hereafter of extinct websites. I am here to share the memories. Apparently, one night Mr. Borresen (a math guy in England) was down at the pub with some mates. His mates challenged him to cook a different meal each night for a year. Mr. Borresen, emboldened with a pint or two, accepted the dare. He decided to document this experiment with witty humor, sarcastic observations and photographs of food (a relatively new concept). He allowed himself eat at the homes of friends and dine out on occasion, but managed to keep his promise for 309 meals.

I have no intention of working as hard as Mr. Borreson, but I have to admire his dedication, the time he spent searching food import shops and the time and money he spent.


A few years ago I made a New Year's resolution. Not one of those impossible resolutions that like whipping my middle aged body into a that of an underwear model in 6 weeks!!!. No, my resolution was to try a new food or ingredient each month. Now let me explain. For decades I have carried around a mental list of things foods I would like to try someday. Over the years I have ticked off some of these, but I realized that I had better pick up the pace if I really intend to try these things while I still am the one who decides what I spoon into my mouth. Mind you this was before 100 Things You Should Eat Before You Die, but maybe I'm not the only middle aged hedonist who has realized I have fewer dining experiences ahead than I have behind. Some of my food quests have been olio nuovo (newly pressed olive oil) , bottarga (salted and dried fish eggs), fiddle head ferns, marrons glacés (candied chestnuts), Onigiri (stuffed rice balls), not the nice ones found at sushi restaurants, but the cheap machine made variety that come in complicated high-tech wrappers sold in convenience stores.

I have both high and low tastes in foods. I want to eat fresh truffles and Nikujaga (the Japanese equivalent of hamburger stew). I want to try all sorts of things things, not just the haute cuisine of each culture.


What I hope to write about in this blog:


Food Finds- my quest for new (to me) ingredients that have tantalized me for years.

 
New Recipes- I know, it's not original, but I want to.


Out To Lunch- I live by myself and don't relish eating alone in restaurants. Let's face it, there are foods that I'll never have unless I have them served to me by professionals. Time to face my phobia.


Serves One- Did I mention that I live alone? A few years ago I found myself living alone for the first time in my 50+ year life. It was quite a struggle to learn how to cook for myself. I started collecting cookbooks and searching websites for advice. Now I will share the bounty of my wisdom.

Home Cooking- I have become aware that there are many foods around the world that don't show up in cookbooks or American ethnic restaurants. These are foods that get cooked in homes, but rarely appear outside homes. Nikujaga and Curry Rice from Japan. Mince and Dumplings and Dublin Coddle from the British Isles. I have a killer recipe for chicken curry from Kenya. By the way, I don't eat ground beef very often, I'm just fascinated by all the recipes around the world that use it.


Forgotten Foods- Another obsession I have is with foods that we no longer want to eat. There are foods that I ate as a child and that my 19 year old nephew would never consider eating. There I foods that my grandparents ate in order to survive the winter that I would never consider eating. In the last 40 years new ingredients and fresh foods have replaced what many of us once ate without question. While I clearly run at full speed toward new ingredients with open arms, I feel some remorse at turning my back at foods that fed people for generations.

Middle Aged Fitness- With all this eating going on, I'll have to make some attempt at getting some exercise. I've noticed that the internet quite a bit of exercise information aimed at middle aged people. This advice usually comes from triathletes who are approaching 4o and bodybuilders who let themselves go for a few years. Nearly none of it applies to me. Speaking as someone who is not athletic and never was athletic, I'm going share my experiences at getting a little more fit than I used to be.



So, there it is. I hope that some of my posts will be of interest to you. I'm sure that if I keep this up and anyone actually reads this, the blog will change over time. I'm going to start with these topics and see what happens.



If you are interested in the meat heavy Noshblog (some links are broken), some of it still exists in a ghostly shadow form. Thanks to http://www.archive.org/ and the Waybackmachine, this website graveyard has archives of sites that are no longer with us. An introduction to this blog might start with Stew and Dumplings and Lukic Spacik (I think). Isn't the internet a strange and wondrous place?