Good Stuff comments: 60

Today would have been my dad's 64th birthday. In his honor, I give you our family's classic chili recipe, perfected by my dad over many winter weekend afternoons. I make my version of it on his birthday every year. It's sweet and smoky and wonderful, and tastes like home to me. My recipe uses the measurements that my dad used (in case you are wondering who measures out things like "5 tablespoons of mustard" in tablespoons) and includes that magic elixir, Liquid Smoke, which freaks some people out. If you had asked my dad whether or not you could omit it, he would've responded gruffly, "Just do what you're told." So I do.

Chili Lobo
by Albert Ieronemo

2 lbs. ground turkey (or ground beef)
2 c. chicken stock (or beef stock)
8 oz. tomato sauce
1/2 c. dark molasses
16 oz. mild bottled picante sauce
1 16 oz. can of light red kidney beans, drained
1 16 oz. can of dark red kidney beans, drained
5 tablespoons yellow mustard
5 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 cloves minced garlic
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon Liquid Smoke
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 tablespoons dried minced onion

1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

Ditallini pasta

Brown the turkey in a large stock pot of Dutch oven and drain off excess fat. Add all of the other ingredients except the onion and pepper. Bring to a boil, then turn heat down and simmer for 45 minutes. Add the onion and pepper and simmer for another 45 minutes. To make it Ieronemo-authentic, you would serve this over ditali pasta. They never have this at my grocery stores, so I usually use ditalini, which is just wrong (Dad would say). But what can you do (he would say that, too). Top with a dollop of sour cream, or cheddar cheese, or whatever you like on your chili.

Happy birthday, Dad. Miss you. Thinking of you. xo

"Okay, who's sick?" or, the best chicken soup you'll ever have someone make for you. comments: 57

[The following is copied from Andy's personal cooking notebook, with credit and apologies to the authors of The New Basics Cookbook, which originally inspired this soup for us many years ago. Whatever you do, don't omit the fresh dill here. Trust me.]

Chicken Soup

1 whole chicken (about 4 lbs)
2 onions, halved
4 celery ribs, with leaves
4 carrots, peeled
3 parsnips, peeled
4 whole cloves
3 cloves of garlic
6 sprigs of fresh dill + 1/4 c fresh dill, chopped
6 sprigs of fresh parsley + 2 tablepoons fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
3 quarts water
2 chicken boullion cubes
8 oz medium-sized shell pasta
1 1/2 c frozen baby peas, thawed

"Rinse the chicken well and place it in a big soup pot. Throw the onions, celery, carrots, parsnips, garlic, cloves, sprigs of dill and parsley, salt, and pepper in. Add the water and bring this stuff to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 2 hours. Every once in a while, skim the foam off the top. Remove the chicken from the soup and let it cool off a little bit. Remove the skin and bones (not as gross as you might think -- I wear insulated rubber gloves which I scrub before and after use) and then pull the meat apart, shredding it. Set this aside in a bowl. Strain the soup, getting rid of the veggies. Return the liquid to the pot and add a boullion cube. Bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes. This will intensify the flavor. At this same time, start some water boiling for the noodles. Throw a boullion cube into the pasta water to cook that flavor into the pasta. Cook only as much pasta as you will eat at this meal (leaving the pasta in soup that will be reheated overcooks the pasta and grosses Alicia out). When the pasta is cooked, divide it into individual bowls. Reduce the boiling soup to a gentle roll and add the peas, shredded chicken, chopped dill, and chopped parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. When this stuff is all heated through, pour it over the pasta into the bowls. Good with Airborne and pulp-free orange juice as beverages."

[Worked for me. I feel great today. THANK YOU HONEY!]

The Sour Cream Apple Pie comments: 163

To know me is to know that in my world of pie, there is really only one pie — the golden lady, the duchess, the dowager queen — please allow me to introduce, once again: The Sour Cream Apple Pie.

[Pauses for roar of applause.]

This pie is the greatest. It's buttery, it's cinnamon-y, it's crusty, it's creamy, and of course it's apple-y. It's easy, it's fast, it smells amazing, and I don't know that I've ever served it without having it receiving curtsies or salutes. It just happens.

This recipe was first given to me by my friend Kristin Swanson, and I think she got it from Bon Appetit magazine, over fifteen years ago now. Andy and I have made it probably thirty or forty times by now, and we try to put it together several times each fall. If one person does the apples and the other does the topping and filling, you can have it put together in fifteen minutes. This is its creamy filling, being mixed. I used raw sugar, and that takes a bit longer to dissolve, but don't you love the way it looks, those golden freckles?

Sour Cream Apple Pie

Topping

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 c. plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 t. cinnamon
2 tablespoons flour

Filling

1 1/3 c. sour cream
2/3 c. sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 or 5 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced

Pie crust (you can make your own, or use a pre-made one from the refrigerator section of the grocery store — I always do) fitted into a deep-dish 9" or 10" pie plate and chilled

To make the topping, in a bowl blend the butter, sugar, cinnamon, and flour until the mixture is combined well. Cover and chill the topping.

To make the filling, whisk together the sour cream, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, and flour until the mixture is smooth. Add the peeled, cored, and thinly sliced apples and stir the filling and apples together.

Spoon the filling into the chilled shell and crumble the topping evenly over it. Bake the pie on a baking sheet in the middle of a pre-heated 350-degree oven, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. (You might need to put a bit of tinfoil on top of the pie during the last 15 minutes to prevent the top from burning.) Transfer it to a rack and let it cool completely. Dig it.

I hope the pie will keep you good company while I take a little break here! Andy has next week off so we are going to hang out, do some stuff, see some sights, have some fun, and finish eating this.

See you soon!!!

Bready in No Time comments: 64

I have been a very bad blog reader of late, and am barely checking in on everyone. Naughty. If I would read more carefully, I would've noticed that Amy said the no-knead bread she and half the world baked took . . . 24 hours. I missed that part. I got all my stuff out and then saw that part. And then decided to do this one instead. So Aim, if you're jonesin', this is crazy easy and good and fast.

This is no-knead bread that seems especially appropriate for breakfast because it's sort of sweet. I like it hot out of the oven with a bit of butter and some honey, but it's also amazing as toast the next day. It was my college roommate's recipe so I don't know where it came from, but we often had it with chili for dinner, too — something about that hint of sweetness with the heat of the chili. While the weather is still a bit damp and cold as now, it's so nice. It gets mixed up with a spoon, rises for almost an hour, then dumped straight into its pan.

Ann's No-Knead Bread

Combine and set aside:
2 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 T. salt
2 pkgs. dry yeast (1/4 oz. each)

Heat until warm:
1 c. water
1 c. milk
1/4 c. vegetable oil

Have on hand:
1 egg
2 to 2 1/2 c. flour
butter

Mix egg with liquids, then stir all into flour mixture. Blend at lowest speed on mixer, then blend on medium for 3 minutes. By hand stir in another 2 to 2 1/2 c. flour. Cover, let rise 50 minutes until light and doubled in size. Stir down. Spoon into greased  6" x 9" loaf pan. (If your pan has short sides you might want to split it up and put it in two smaller pans; it rises quite a bit.) Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes. Brush top with butter.

Stick a bamboo skewer in the center to test. You want it to come out clean but this is kind of a soft bread, so don't overdo it.

Munch munch.

Have a good weekend, y'all. Oh, and thank you for the crock-pot cookbook recommendations! Going to the library to test some out. Your suggestions are really helpful — thank you!

Lovely River, then Delicious Dinner comments: 21

This is kind of what I imagined Oregon to look like before I moved here. That's Andy, in his orange swim trunks. He spent a good chunk of the late afternoon sitting on his floaty raft, paddling around. I laid in the shade and read, and took deep soul-searching woodsy breaths, inhaling that soft, soft pine-needle smell of the forest. I have rarely been in the forest since my accident, and although as a child I hated the forced marches our father took us on in our neighborhood forest preserve, as an adult, living in Montana and Oregon, I realize that I do love the huge, quiet pine-treed woods (so often to be found within city limits here) and do not get to them near enough. If I could manage to set up camp like Amy does, I would live there, I think. How in the hell and the hootenanny she managed to get a full-size bed into the tent I really don't know but . . . is that allowed? Wow. This changes everything.

We left the river around 5:30 and made it home an hour later to start dinner; I thought eating by candlelight might be nice. I made something that we call "Lasagna Rozale," named after the apartment building where we lived when we were engaged in Missoula, and where we first made this. From the February 1996 issue of Martha Stewart Living, these lasagnas are not smothered in red sauce (which I personally can't stand) the way so many seem to be; they are layered with bechamel and an only vaguely tomatoe-y sort of Bolognese sauce.

Though the recipe originally called for polenta "noodles," dried porcini, and veal, we modified things to be much more Orange-Street-Food-Farm (our very small neighborhood grocery store) friendly, using regular noodles, button mushrooms, and Italian sausage. Nevertheless, it is our hands-down all-time-favorite romantic meal. I thank you all quite sincerely for the kind anniversary wishes you left for us yesterday. I share this recipe with best wishes for many happy years and romantic dinners of your own.

Lasagnas Rozale
Serves 2

For the sauce:
8 oz. mushrooms, chopped
2 t. olive oil
2 t. butter
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
3 oz. lean ground beef
3 oz. ground pork
3 oz. Italian sausage
Salt and pepper
1/2 c. red wine
12 oz. chopped tomatoes (boxed or canned)
2 c. chicken stock
1/4 t. nutmeg

For the bechamel sauce:
2 T. butter
2 T. flour
1 c. plus 3 tablespoons milk
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. nutmeg

Other ingredients:
6 lasagna noodles
10 oz. frozen spinach, thawed and drained
3/4 c. freshly grated Parmesan

To make the sauce:
1. In large skillet, heat olive oil and butter over medium-low heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are soft and have let off their liquid, about 5 minutes. Add carrot, celery, onion, and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are translucent, 3 to 4 more minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in separate skillet, break up and brown all meats over high heat, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Add 1/2 t. salt and 1/8 t. pepper. Drain off fat and add meats to skillet containing vegetables; mix everything together. Add wine and cook until liquid has evaporated, about 2 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, stock, and nutmeg. Lower heat to medium low and slowly simmer, stirring occasionally, about 35 minutes. Much of the liquid will evaporate but sauce will remain very moist. It can be made 2 days in advance and stored in refrigerator. You will have extra sauce after lasagnas are assembled to use over pasta, etc., for lunch the next day, too.

To make the bechamel:
1. In a saucepan, melt 2 T. butter over medium-low heat. Add flour and cook, stirring frequently, 5 to 6 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, bring milk and salt to a boil. Slowly whisk the milk into the flour mixture until completely incorporated and smooth. Add the nutmeg and reduce heat to low; simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

To assemble the lasagna:
1. Boil lasagna noodles in large pot of salted water until about a minute before you normally like them to come out. Drain and rinse with cold water, then cut (shorten) to fit two 12-ounce individual ovenproof casserole dishes.
2. Heat a medium skillet over medium-high heat; add spinach and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until wilted and tender. Remove from heat and drain in a colander. Set aside.
3. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Spread 5 T. meat sauce into each of the casserole dishes. Cover with 1 lasagna noodle and spread 5 T. meat sauce evenly over. Spread 2 T. bechamel over the meat sauce and evenly distribute 2 T. chopped spinach over the bechamel. Sprinkle with Parmesan and cover with 1 lasagna noodle. Repeat layering process. Spread 1 heaping tablespoon of Parmesan and dot with butter.
4. Bake until tops of lasagnas are golden and juices are bubbling, about 20 to 25 minutes. If the tops are not yet brown, increase heat to broil and place lasagnas under broiler until tops are speckled brown. Let stand 10 minutes; serve with red wine, simple salad, crusty bread, fancy deserts, and lots of love.

Oh — and I forgot to tell you a tip about the parasols hanging from the pergola thing (thanks for the reminder, Hildy!). So, we have one of those trellis things, I never know what it's called, over the patio area, pictured here. (The lantern is several years old, from Smith & Hawken.) My friend Nancy told me about something she'd seen her friend do over her trellis thing in Italy once, while she was waiting for stuff to grow up and cover it. She floated parasols above the boards on top to give a bit of shade and extra romance. You just push the parasols up between the boards while they're closed, then open them. I would say that if you do this, it would be best to weight down the handles of the parasols somehow; I had four up there and two blew out and across the yard, even though there wasn't much of a breeze. The things act like sails. But I would think a couple of little bags of rice attached to the handles, or something like that, would help? Pretty idea — I'd been meaning to do it for ages. Would even be lovely with jelly-jar lanterns hanging from the handles for a little extra candlelight, no?