Moroccan Dinner, Tyler Florence Style - sorta

Ingredients
Moroccan Spice Mix:
1 cinnamon stick, chopped in pieces
8 whole cloves
1 teaspoon cayenne
2 teaspoons cumin seed
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
11/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Chicken:
1 (31/2 pound) whole free range chicken
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, halved
1/4 bunch fresh cilantro
1 head garlic
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Apricot Couscous:
1 cup couscous
11/2 cups warm water
10 dried apricots
2 green onions, green parts only
2 handfuls fresh mint leaves
2 handfuls fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
To prepare the Moroccan Spice Mix for the Chicken: Combine the cinnamon stick, cloves, cayenne, cumin, fennel, coriander, and paprika in a dry skillet over low heat and toast for just a minute to release the fragrant oils; shake the pan so they don't scorch. In a spice mill or clean coffee grinder, grind the toasted spices together, with 1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt and the brown sugar. (A word of advice: make sure you thoroughly wipe out your coffee grinder before you make coffee again - Moroccan spices taste great on chicken but horrible with coffee.)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Rinse the chicken with cool water, inside and out, then pat it dry with paper towels. Massage the chicken skin with the spice rub; make sure you don't miss a spot. Season the inside of the chicken generously with salt and pepper. Stuff the lemons halves, cilantro, and garlic in the cavity and place the chicken in a roasting pan fitted with a rack. Fold the wing tips under the bird and tie the legs together with kitchen string. Drizzle the oil all over the chicken. If you have time, let the chicken marinate for 30 minutes to really get the flavors down deep into the meat. Roast the chicken for 1 hour; pop an instant-read thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh; if it reads 160 degrees F, it's done. Allow the chicken to rest for 10 minutes so the juices can settle back into the meat. Remove and discard the skin from the chicken. Pull the chicken from the bone and shred the meat, with your fingers or 2 forks. Put the shredded chicken in a large bowl and squeeze the lemon halves that have cooked inside the bird over the meat to moisten.

To prepare the Apricot Couscous: Put the couscous in a medium bowl; pour the water over it, stir with a fork to combine. Cover and let sit for 10 to 15 minutes, then uncover and fluff with a fork. Put the apricots, almonds, green onions, mint, and cilantro on a cutting board and coarsely chop everything up; add this to the couscous. Add lemon juice, drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Toss gently to combine.

Pizza

One of the most surprising consequences of reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was the new found joy of making food from scratch.

This was my first attempt at homemade pizza, something I was pretty hesitant to try. To make it a little easier on myself the first time out, I divided my home-made pizza into three attempts: On the first round, I only made the dough from scratch and used store-bought tomato sauce and mozzarella. It turned out pretty tasty!








My second pizza had homemade dough and homemade tomato sauce:

My third attempt was even better: homemade everything, including basil from my 5 ft basil plant!

It friggin' rocked. :D

Stick to your ribs Chili

Leah made this for us at the office and it was fantastic! For all that a whole crockpot (and then some) was brought, I'm pretty sure all that was left were the scrapings.

Delores Watson’s Almost Homemade Chili

2 lbs. ground beef
1 large Onion
1 46-48 Oz. bottle or can of V-8 Juice
1 Wick Fowlers 2-Alarm Chili Kit
2-3 cans beans – any type of firm bean such as kidney, chili beans, pinto, or black beans
Fritos, grated cheese, sour cream and/or chopped red onion to top each bowl

Chop the onion and sauté in olive oil until it begins to get soft. Add the meat and brown, then drain and return meat and onions to pan (stockpot).

Add all ingredients from the Wick Fowlers kit except the masa. Omit the Red Pepper if you want a mild chili. Mix the spices with the meat until it is coated, then add the V-8 juice. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer and cook, uncovered, for about 2 hours – stir every 20 minutes or so to keep from sticking. Liquid should reduce and the chili should begin to thicken.

Add the beans and cook for another 20-30 minutes. You can also make it without beans if preferred. Mix the masa from the chili kit with a little hot water, making a liquid roux. Stir it into the chili and cook for another 10 minutes.

Serve in bowls, topped with your choice of toppings.

How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

One summer when I was 14 or so, I was watching my aunt iron my uncle's shirts. I think I must have said something about not knowing how to iron, because she remarked that it's high time I learned, since I would need those skills one day when I got married. At that point, I loftily decreed that there was no way in hell I would ever be relegated to cooking and cleaning for a man. I explained that I would work hard enough to be rich enough to afford servants rather than have that be my lot in life. While I loved the food my aunt cooked, I rarely took it upon myself to learn from her HOW to cook. And due in part to that mis-directed sense of feminist liberation (at the time, I doubt I even knew what that word meant), I still didn't know how to cook (or iron, for that matter) well into my mid-twenties. The fact of the matter was that I was afraid of failing at cooking... all the money spent on ingredients, and the pressure to make it look perfect was too much.

But then, I came across Nigella Lawson's "How to Be a Domestic Goddess". I should say up front that I don't actually like many of the recipes in the book. Frankly, some are downright hideous [I'm looking at you, homemade peanut butter chocolate bars]. What made the book such a transformative read was Nigella herself. Her style of writing made cooking and baking seem like such fun. Who cares if it doesn't come out perfectly? The joy is the process of baking, as much as it is in the end result. Her obvious delight in all things culinary made me want to explore the possibilities of cooking. She helped me to overcome my need for instant perfection, the compulsion to view every recipe as a must-be-adhered-to formula. This isn't rocket science, folks. It's food, and it should be fun.

Thanks to that book, I learned to experiment with my dishes. Initially, things didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped. But that was ok. Because I learned about myself, my likes, my dislikes. And learned to adapt and enhance.

I really enjoy cooking now. For my husband. For my family. And for myself, most of all.

Below is the one recipe I DID enjoy: Her Mother In Law's Madeira Cake.

1 cup softened unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 large eggs
1 1/3 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream the butter and 1/4 cup sugar, and add the lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour for each. Then gently mix in the rest of the flour and, finally, the lemon juice. Pour batter into a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan, buttered and lined w/ parchment or wax paper. Sprinkle with sugar as it goes into the oven, and bake for 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack, and let cool in the pan before turning out.

Makes 8-10 slices. (and it's very good with butter and jam)

Animal Vegetable Miracle

What an amazing story. Barbara Kingsolver and her family resolved to live one year eating foods that are only organically locally sourced. If they didn't grow it themselves, it had to come from less than a 100 mile radius of their Appalachian farm. The book is the result of the lessons they learned, personal stories and recipes of a way of living, and eating, that has almost disappeared from our collective consciousness.
The book is separated by month and is written as a combination of memoir and research. Kingsolver details what her family is eating, what is currently in season, etc. Her eldest daughter also includes journal entries and recipes based on what she and her family like to eat. Steven Hoppe adds hard data from studies and research that shows the impact of large scale farming on American diets and lifestyles.
Kingsolver is a writer, and she imbues her own personal story with such wit and poise that it's impossible but be swept along with their journey.

"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to
school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."

By the time you reach August, with its crazy harvest of never ending tomatoes and zucchinis, it's hard to imagine that for the most part, we as a society have completely lost touch with the cycle of life - most of us have no idea that the reason you can tomatoes in August is that by October, they are gone until the following spring. Or at least, they should be. The impact of year round availability of fruits and vegetables has caused such a huge phase shift in how we as a country and a society see food that the ripple effects of such a shift are astounding. We eat food that is tasteless, smell-less, picked before its prime, packaged and sprayed and processed so that it can make its long journey from god knows where to our local grocer.
Kingsolver's resolution is for her family to know what they eat intimately, and that can only come from eating locally.

Freakin' Easy French Onion Soup

This is another staple of our household, not least because our local food delivery service inundates us with onions this time of year. It's been quite a learning experience getting used to eating locally grown foods - it means eating only what is in season, and sometimes, that can get downright boring. But it make the challenge of finding interesting ways to cook all the more fun.
This particular recipe came from a foldout recipe book from a Polish magazine that was lying around my grandparent's place in Warsaw. It is the only dish he ever let me cook for him. He insisted on helping, slicing the onions paper thin, even though he had a cataract and was blind in one eye. His sliced onions would have made a Cordon Bleu chef jealous.


FREAKIN' EASY FRENCH ONION SOUP
4 cups water
2 vegetarian bullion cubes
2 medium white/yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 tblsp butter
1 tblsp flour
Splash of dry sherry, optional
1/4 tsp red chili flakes, optional
salt/pepper to taste

4 slices of toasted bread (can be French/Italian, or any bread you have on hand)
1 cup shredded Swiss Gruyere (or any shredded cheese you have)

Melt the butter in a stock pot over medium heat. Add the onions and sweat for 10-15 minutes. If they start to brown, reduce heat. Add chili flakes, if using. Sprinkle with flour and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring to coat flour in butter. Pour in water, add bullion cubes and stir to dissolve. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Add splash of dry sherry, if using. Taste, and adjust salt and pepper to your personal liking.

In soup bowls, arrange one piece of toast per bowl. Top with 1/4 cup cheese in each bowl. Ladle hot soup into bowls and serve. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Serves 4 (if you're lucky)

Soups, easy as you please

We don’t turn the heat on in our house unless it’s absolutely necessary. Since we live in Austin, it’s not that big a deal. We find we sleep better when it’s cool, bordering on cold, in the house and it brings new meaning to snuggling on the couch. When the temperatures finally dipped into something resembling Fall a couple of weeks ago, we finally got a chance to indulge in some warm, autumnal recipes, perfect for enjoying on the couch, catching up on Dr. Who episodes.

CREAMY POTATO SOUP
4 cups water
2 vegetarian bullion cubes
4 med. red or Yukon potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
1 med yellow or white onion, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, diced
1 tblsp butter or olive oil
¼ tsp chili pepper flakes, optional
Salt, pepper to taste


Melt 1 tblsp butter in stock pot over medium heat. Add diced onions and sweat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and chili flakes, if using. After a couple mintues, pour in 4 cups of water, and add the bullion cubes. Stir to dissolve. Add the potatoes and cook until tender, about 10-15min. Using an immersion blender, puree the entire batch until thick and creamy. Taste, and adjust salt and pepper to your liking. The bullion cubes are typically packed with sodium, so be careful.

Garnish with parsley, dill, or a dollop of sour cream. Serve with crusty French/Italian bread. Or you can sprinkle with French’s Onions or salad croutons. Serve hot.

Serves 4 (but seriously, 2 will devour the entire pot, so perhaps best to make more)