Thursday, February 28, 2013

Rethinking Fishcakes




As many of you know, I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where blue crab is King. Steamed crabs, crab imperial, soft shell crab sandwiches and crab cakes were regulars on our table. If the crab was the king than my great grandmother Maggie was queen of cooking them. She was the best and her secret crab cake recipe is still the best in the world as far as I'm concerned. To this day, I will not order crab cakes anywhere because I know they will not live up to hers. Before my Food Revolution, there were only a few things that I could manage pretty well in the kitchen and thanks to my mom (who carries on the crab cake legacy), duplicating Maggie's crab cake recipe was one of them. Unfortunately, making crab cakes every night is not economically possible and I needed to learn how to cook other things. Tonight, that other thing was fishcakes….

The menu:
Swedish-Style Fishcakes
Roasted Baby Potatoes
Sprout salad
Fresh Zingy Salsa

pg. 148 Meals in Minutes


Now, I was intrigued by Jamie's Swedish fish cakes when I made a similar recipe out of the Food Revolution cookbook during Round One of Amy's Food Revolution. But as I was making them I couldn't stop comparing them to crab cakes. They turned out fine, everyone else liked them, but they just left me wanting a crab cake. In fact, that was all I thought about while making them. After watching the TV episode for the Meals in Minutes version of Swedish fish cakes though I had high hopes of redemption. I decided to give the fishcake a second chance.  I knew the first step was that I couldn't compare it to my yummy crab cake. Mind over matter, as they say. I gave them another chance and they turned out crispy, full of flavor and I ended up liking these fish cakes!



There's a video that goes with this one too so take a peak, and maybe give them a try. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqIRDcLqgUU


Meals cooked: 20
Meals left: 30
Weeks left: 9




Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Chicken to Impress Your Friends!


The Menu:
Stuffed Cypriot Chicken
Pan-fried Asparagus & Vine Tomatoes
Cabbage Salad
St. Clement's Drink
Vanilla Ice Cream Float


One thing that I love about Meals in Minutes is the accompanying videos online to help with various techniques. This video on stuffing the cypriot chicken for this recipe saved me. 


Mine still did not come out all neat and tidy but I can't imagine how bad it would have been if I hadn't watched the video. I am already excited to try this one again because even with the stuffing falling out, this chicken ROCKS! The stuffing is a delicious mix of Italian parsley, basil, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, feta cheese and lemon zest that you whiz up in a food processor before stuffing it into the chicken breasts. It tastes like you are eating al fresco on a hillside in Tuscany and would be a great meal to make if you had company. It is unique and different without being too much work and have I mentioned how good it is yet?





This whole meal has everything: a main course, two sides, a drink and a dessert.  Despite the fact that the five recipes seemed a bit overwhelming at first, it was still one of the most fun meals to prepare so far. It is also a great one to get the kids involved in (except for the chicken stuffing part). My oldest made the St. Clement's drink all by herself while I told her Jamie's story of how he used to make it when he was her age for the people in his families' pub. Don't be surprised if you pull up to my house one day and she is serving this curbside at a fancy lemonade stand!



Meals cooked: 19
Meals left: 31
Weeks left: 9





Monday, February 11, 2013

Chowder for Lena




I grew up living next door to my great-grandfather and his wife, Lena. My great-grandmother died and my great-grandfather remarried a decade before I was born. In my eyes, Lena was the real deal. I never considered her anything less than my great-grandmother. Lena was a strong, amazing woman who was born in 1903 and passed away when she was 92 years old. She is a major inspiration for this blog. One of Michael Pollan's Food Rules is don't eat anything your grandmother or great-grandmother would not have recognized. She is the first person that comes to mind when I hear this rule. She was a tough cookie who had survived the great depression and had worked in Washington D.C. during World War II but I think a go-gurt or a bottle of electric blue sports drink would have frightened her!

In my small coastal hometown, she had a huge garden in the backyard, a grape orchard, peach trees, she grew potatoes in galvanized trash cans and canned everything for her cold cellar. On New Year's Day everyone had to eat black eyed peas for good luck and her basement was the epicenter of all social events. Something was always cooking in one or both kitchens and people would go out of their way to bring her venison, seafood or their other culinary prizes to prepare.
She also wasn't afraid to get the food stuffs herself, I remember her surf fishing well into her 70s.

I think our society has come so, so far from this lifestyle. And like me, we don't have the time or the need to learn these skills. Families are busier, and with hundreds of choices of fast food and restaurants in a local radius, its just easier to grab something quick instead of making it yourself. But there is more to cooking at home than just the food we eat. Its time with family, food made with love and also knowing just what is going into our bodies. Lena's lovely boisterous laugh filled a room and when I took her the mail in the afternoon after I got home from school she beamed and couldn't wait to hear about my day. She was almost always in the kitchen and there was usually a little something set aside for me too. 

This Jamie Oliver recipe reminded me of her and something that would be simmering on her stove. 

So, find your inner Lena and try something new and adventurous this week!

On the menu:
Finnan Haddie Corn Chowder
Spiced Shrimp
Rainbow Salad
Raspberry & Elderflower Slushie

The whole menu is delicious but if you'd like to try the chowder, here is the recipe

Chowder, Jamie Oliver's Meals in Minutes, page 166.

Ingredients:
4 slices of smoked bacon
a small bunch of scallions
8 oz. red skinned potatoes
4 corn cobs
12 oz haddock
3 fresh bay leaves
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 quart organic chicken broth
2/3 cup heavy cream
8 oz. cooked salad-size shrimp
1/2 10 oz box large matzo or plain crackers

Thinly slice the bacon and put it into the saucepan with a good lug of olive oil. Stir until golden. Trim and finely slice the scallions, add to the pan, and stir. Wash the potatoes and chop into 1 inch chunks. Add to the pan and mix well. Keep an eye on the pan, stirring often. Meanwhile, put a clean tea towel over a board and ruffle up the edges to catch the corn. Hold a corn cob upright on the board and run a knife gently down to the base of the kernels, all the way round. Repeat with the rest of the cobs, discarding the cores. Tip the kernels directly from the towel into the pan. Add the haddock to the pan with the bay leaves and the thyme. Cover with the chicken broth, then put the lid on and cook for 12 minutes. (confession: Since I was making this in the winter, I used frozen corn)

Add the 2/3 cup heavy cream and the salad size shrimp to the chowder and stir well. Put the lid back on and turn the heat down to low.
When you are ready to serve, you can leave it corse and chunky or use a potato masher to mash it up a little bit and make it silky, or puree.

I highly recommend checking out the book to add the other recipes, this was a great meal!

Meals cooked: 18
Meals left: 32
Weeks left: 10



Saturday, February 2, 2013

Motivate


I clearly remember the day I was standing in my kitchen in January 2010 when I made the only New Year’s Resolution I’ve ever kept. I guess I had just had one too many nights where I was feeding my family junk, or one too many house guests that got take out pizza for dinner, or one too many home cooked meals from neighbors that I couldn’t reciprocate. It was the final straw. I found myself in my kitchen with two children and a husband and I had no idea how to feed them. How did I get here, I wondered? My family was full of amazing cooks who used real food every day to make wonderful meals full of love for their families to eat. They all asked me to help them in the kitchen, but time and time again I politely declined and now, here I stood, with a family of my own to feed and no idea how to do it. 

All of those memories of shared family meals around the dinner table filled my brain and I wanted my kids to have those same memories. Some day I want my kids to say, "Well that was good X, Y or Z but it wasn't as good as MOMs." At the moment, I did not corner the market on anything. That was my motivation for my Food Revolution three years ago.  When I cooked my way through Jamie’s Food Revolution cookbook, the writing part came very easily; it was the cooking that I struggled with. This time, it’s the other way around. I’ve had a bit of writer’s block and I decided to return to that initial motivation, my family of great cooks and what I learned from them.  Many of the meals I’ve cooked this year have reminded me of these important people in my life, many of them are now gone and the memories are bittersweet. Bitter because I wish I had pulled up that stool and helped chop while hearing their boisterous laughter and fascinating stories. Sweet because I’m so glad I have the memories of the table where we shared the food and the examples of food made with love.

When I made this next meal, it made me think of the one important lesson that we have all probably heard at the dinner table from the cooks in our lives.

“You are never too old to try new foods,” And of course, “your taste buds change every 7 years so even if you didn’t like it before, you might like it now.”

In that vein, my family tried (and to my amazement liked) smoked salmon. I cannot believe it was my first time trying the stuff too!

The Menu:
Smoked Salmon
Potato Salad
Beets & Cottage Cheese
Rye Bread & Homemade Butter

Serves 4
Page 162 of Meals in Minutes


You won't believe how ridiculously easy it is to make your own butter and (more importantly) how impressed your family is when they hear you did it!


Meals cooked: 17
Meals left: 33
Weeks left: 10