A couple of months ago, I was inspired by Maggie Mason’s Mighty Life List (a Bucket List for the young, healthy and positive-minded) to make my own (though I’m not so young and some might argue the other two points). As you probably could guess, quite a few cooking-related items are on there, despite their relative unimportance to the bigger stuff. But I’d argue that perfecting my smoker technique or turning out a sublime focaccia could add more value to my daily existence than seeing the Northern Lights, becoming fluent in French or going on an Auntie Mame-style journey around the world. (OK, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea.)

Not one to dawdle when I have a goal in mind, I took my first steps to making the Weber Smokey Mountain my bitch this weekend. I’ve selected Gary Wiviott as my mentor/guru/pitmaster for this journey, based on Jason Perlow’s review of his program at Off the Broiler. I used my smoker a few times last year with imperfect results, so I consider myself enough of a novice to follow Wiviott’s program to the letter (begging forgiveness for changing the marinade to something more of my liking). The entire thrust of this book is that everything you know about BBQ is dead wrong and what you really need to do is learn to build a proper fire, arrange the meat correctly, leave it the hell alone and trust your instincts. No futzing with a fancy thermometer or different fire-building techniques for different meats for him; because I run from complicated grilling/smoking setups, this works wonderfully for me too. He gives explicit instructions in the book, so I’m confident that someday I’ll be able to get all Jedi on that BBQ.

Anyway. I marinated chicken halves in harissa with some olive oil, sauteed onion and the juice of a small (and old and somewhat withered-but-still-going-strong) lemon. Building the fire proved a bit, um, challenging with the windy day I chose, but I eventually got the whole thing built to spec, assembled the smoker, and let it go. An hour and a half later, I opened the lid to find The Most Gorgeous Chicken I’ve ever seen (at least at my house):

Daaaaamn…

After the chicken came off at the perfect temperature and at the exact moment Wiviott said to start checking for doneness, I threw a few hard boiled eggs on the top grate for smoked deviled eggs. As a mini experiment, I peeled three of them and heavily cracked the shells of the other three before smoking, hoping to get a Chinese tea egg effect on the whites. (It didn’t work; the eggs were much less smoky-tasting even with the cracks in the shells, so live and learn.) Because the fire was so low after 90 minutes with the chicken, I smoked the eggs for about 45 minutes, until the shelled ones turned a gorgeous amber color.

Homemade mayo has been vexing me lately, separating at the drop of a hat just to mock me. For these eggs, I wanted to give it one more try, and used the milk mayonnaise recipe from Food52 (which I’ve just joined – yay!). It came out thick, creamy, thoroughly delicious and was much, much easier for me to make than egg-based mayos (but also much, much messier).

I made a couple of fillings for the eggs and was pretty happy with both (though I lean more toward pickle flavor in my deviled eggs – personal preference).

with sun-dried tomatoes, up front

also, chives

So all told, it was a pretty good weekend for the Life List (which I’ll have to rename for myself sometime). Changes I’ll make for next time:

• Marinate chicken for 8-12 hours — it was a pretty powerful marinade, but didn’t come through as strongly as I wanted, which was also the fault of…
• Use pecan wood instead of hickory for chicken — hickory was delicious, but overpowered the marinade
• Peel all eggs before smoking (and make the deviled eggs right away — a night in the fridge didn’t do them any favors in the looks department)

Recipes after the jump

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In the late 90s, when the first anti-Gwyneth Paltrow backlash was in the news gossip pages, one of my contrarian friends made the conscious decision to become a Paltrow supporter. If something negative came up (and working at a sports magazine with grizzled black-hearted former newspapermen, it did), he’d extol her virtues, her beauty, her cerebral screen presence — basically, anything he could do to get under a detractor’s skin.

Now that the second wave of backlash has come around, I think I might just find myself taking on his old role. Like many people, I signed up for the GOOP newsletter looking for a laugh, but something odd happened — I didn’t always delete them. In fact, I’ve kept nearly every recipe sent from the beginning. (I make no such claim about the lifestyle or shopping tips, but this is a food blog after all.) And let’s be honest — who among us wouldn’t want to be in her position, culinarily speaking? She’s buds with Batali hisownself and probably picked up a thing or two traveling through Spain with him. So when she speaks (and mentions him in the newsletter), I listen.

Last week’s menu featured a few dishes from a meal she had at his home — a meal to which Emeril was invited, btw. Yes, the eyes do roll, but damn, this meal sounded pretty fabulous. And it didn’t disappoint, even with a few changes made to the menu. The chicken dish pictured above is a Spanish affair, complete with thinly sliced onions, lemons and fennel sautéed together with white wine and pimenton, then roasted in the oven. As if all of that weren’t enough, the whole cloves of garlic that baked and softened in the broth were absolute heaven and force me to apologize here and now to anyone who happened to be next to me at the gym yesterday. (I confess to being agnostic about preserved lemons, so when I ran out a few months ago, I didn’t bother restocking. The pomegranate pips were another story. There were none to be found in the few markets I visited, so they were a necessary deletion, but sorely missed.)

Blood oranges. Mmmm. They’re one of my favorite things about this time of year. We’re all just barely hanging in there, waiting for a Spring that seems to retreat the closer we march to it, but at least these beauties bring a dash of color and verve to the last gray days of winter.

The fennel and blood orange salad recipe offered with the chicken was incredibly simple to make and tasted fresh, light and healthy. Because the oranges aren’t terribly acidic, I added a splash of white balsamic to the mix to brighten up the flavors a bit. I’d imagine some thinly sliced red onion would be very good in here, too.

The flatbreads were a bit problematic. My kitchen was a little too cold, so the dough didn’t rise in time to have them with our meal. That’s ok, though. I made them later, and we snacked on them with agave nectar all afternoon; they worked just as well for dessert.

So I don’t know where you stand on GOOP, but I’d heartily recommend the newsletter if you’re looking for a few (mostly healthy) ideas for dinner. And if you don’t enjoy that, you can join in the schadenfreude, I suppose.

As you can see, I’ve been cooking. Oh, how I’ve been cooking. But there hasn’t been a lot to say about the food. I mean, we can all get behind a great roast chicken, but really, what more could I possibly tell you about it? Well, OK, just a word about this one, then we’ll move on…

I was craving another Zuni roast chicken for dinner during the week, but my way-back machine was in the shop and I couldn’t have one seasoned in time for that evening’s meal. So I did the next best thing; I used Thomas Keller’s method of seasoning and dry roasting a chicken in a 450-degree oven for an hour. (Thanks for the heads-up, Dietsch.) It’s very similar to the Zuni method, only it requires no advance planning. It’s also very similar to my grandma’s roast chicken: 500-degree oven for an hour, but she bastes it in butter whereas this one stayed completely dry, the better to crisp the skin, my darlings. It was a delicious bird, only not seasoned through the way it would have been if I’d started the project three days earlier. Live and learn.

One thing among many I’m grateful for is that my husband remains unmoved by chicken butt. Rufus and I go crazy for it, so there must be some primal instinct that Gil’s missing. Whatever — more for me. (What? You don’t really think I’d actually share this little morsel with a dog, do you? He got a few bites of chicken skin after we’d finished eating, which was all the reward he was getting. Did he help me lift the heavy cast iron pan into the oven? No. Did he help me make gravy from the salty pan drippings? No. He just napped cutely while I did all the hard work.)

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This slushy winter weather has pressed my cast iron skillet into heavy rotation lately. As our mothers and grandmothers knew, cast iron cookware is perfect for homey meals or stove-to-oven cooking with a minimum of mess.

Awash in laziness last weekend, I decided to try my hand at a Spanish torta, as it required the relatively simple journey from living room to kitchen instead of a more arduous trek to the grocery store. The recipes that turned up in a Google search varied only slightly from each other, so I got the gist of them, used Martha’s (yes, we’re on a first-name basis) as a guide to ingredient amounts and oven temperature and set out to create my own vegetarian version.

To the basic recipe, I added diced red bell pepper, sautéed broccoli rabe (leafy greens only), garlic and a hefty dose of hot pimentón. (Several of the recipes I found called for chorizo, which I agree would be a superb addition, but there was that whole going-out thing to avoid. The pimentón seemed an acceptable substitute under the circumstances.) Since I don’t have much experience with cast iron pans, I was concerned that the potatoes would stick, but with the pan preheated and coated with a thin film of oil, that wasn’t a problem in any way.

The torta alone was our lunch, but I had a few tricks up my sleeve for dinner. OK, only one trick, but what a beauty — Zuni Café roast chicken. I made the turkey version for Thanksgiving and was so shockingly pleased with the outcome, I had to try the chicken sooner rather than later. And it didn’t disappoint. All of the raves you’ve probably read across the internet are absolutely true — the chicken is moist and perfectly seasoned with delicious crispy, browned skin. Mmmmm. We managed to keep some of it for leftovers the following day, but only just. I think it’s likely to go into the weekly rotation.

recipes after the jump

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Today’s post is brought to you by the letter P. You may recognize it from such words as Parsley, Pecorino, and my favorite word of late, Procrastination.

Last weekend’s kitchen adventures were spent in the service of Cinco de Mayo with a chicken and hominy soup and a recipe for beans that took the better part of a day to make, but were worth every last stinkin’ second.

But by the time the fifth rolled around, I just couldn’t bring myself to post anything about it.

What’s that word again? Oh yeah, Procrastination.

Which brings us to today.

The aforementioned soup.

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We wish you a Merry Christmas …
and a happy new year! Take care, everyone, and thanks for stopping by.

For all Advent Calendar posts, click here.

recipe after the jump

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Thanksgiving dinner was a big, rich, traditional affair, followed Friday by pizza and Saturday by dim sum, all of which left me craving nothing more than fresh, bright flavors with a minimum of fat by Sunday. Because dim sum was preceded by a stockpiling expedition to the Asian market, I had big, new jars of sauces whose expiration dates hadn’t passed who-knows-when calling out to me and a recipe from Cookthink that served as inspiration for that light meal I was craving.

For our Sunday dinner, I brined a chicken in kosher salt and brown sugar for a few hours, rinsed and dried it, then marinated it for about 30 minutes in a mixture of sambal oelek, dark honey, and heroic amounts of garlic. In the meantime, I halved a two stalks of celery and laid them out in a roasting pan with two carrot sticks, half of a red onion, and some peeled, chopped fuyu persimmon. Just before I put the bird in the oven (at 500 degrees for an hour), I stuffed the cavity with the remaining half of the red onion and another peeled and chopped persimmon.

Because the chicken was so moist from the brining, I didn’t need to add any water at all to the pan, but did tent it with foil about 30 minutes in to keep the honey in the marinade from burning the skin to a crisp. The chicken was succulent again, but the real star was the persimmon chunks, which picked up just enough chicken flavor to add savory to their list of qualities, but almost no fat and definitely no greasy feel. I served the chicken and persimmon with a little fresh sambal and nothing more on the side than boiled greens topped with a little sesame oil and sea salt and felt nearly virtuous after our weekend of gorging and lounging.

Last night, I wanted to use some of the leftover chicken, so I threw together a quick soup when I got home. I sautéed a thinly sliced stalk of celery with a clove of minced garlic for a few minutes, then added enough chicken broth to the pot to make about four servings of soup. (Sorry, no measurements — I just eyeballed it.) I shredded the remaining chicken breast and added that to the pot, brought it to a boil, and lowered the heat to simmer. While those flavors were melding, I chopped a package of baby mustard greens and added them about 15 minutes later, letting them cook down for a few minutes before adding the final ingredients — chopped green onion, parsley, and celery leaves, about a tablespoon of Korean red pepper paste, and a drizzle of sesame oil.

The soup was more green than gold, which suited me fine. More vegetables, please! Oh, and a gym, if you don’t mind.

Posting will be light for the rest of the week, but will pick up again this Saturday, when I unveil my brand new project! You’re on the edge of your seat, I can tell.

When Gil’s traveling, I like to take advantage of my time alone to tackle projects I just never seem to get done when he’s around — things like cleaning, winnowing down my enormous stack of magazines, and outlining design/photography/home projects I want to do over the next few months. So when he left for Vegas yesterday afternoon, I got right to work. Literally. I offered to help a friend with a design project, so I spent some time brainstorming while cooking and cleaning and whenever a good idea hit me, I took a break to jot it down or do a little work on it.

Somehow, I’ve gotten a LOT done this weekend, even though I watched a ton of football, finished the last Harry Potter book, and even squeezed in another viewing of American Splendor after LSU’s 20-bazillionth turnover to Alabama. So I felt I’d earned a nice dinner this evening.

My weekend cooking experiment was supposed to be a smoked chicken, but I dry cured it instead of brining and wimped out when the time came to fire up the smoker. I thought it might be too dry without the extra moisture from brining (and trust me, smoking meat is too much work to attempt if you have doubts about the outcome), so I oven roasted it instead, using my grandmother’s time-honored technique: One hour at 500 degrees. After 15 minutes, I added some water to the pan and at about 30 minutes, covered the chicken with foil because the skin was starting to burn from the sugar in the cure. This cooking method never fails to deliver moist, tender chicken, so I knew it would be a winner, and set my sights on other parts of the meal I hadn’t yet tested.

Earlier in the week, I saw a recipe for cherry barbecue sauce on epicurious and thought that would be a good match for the chicken. Why is it that homemade barbecue sauces always surprise me? I’ve made them often enough to know they’re usually greater than the sum of their parts, but I always find myself making surprised “Oohs!” and “MMMMMs!” when I try them. And this one was no exception. Alright, it was maybe just the teensiest bit too sweet for me (I might try sour cherry jam next time), but it didn’t stop me from going back for seconds.

Rounding out the meal, I made wild rice with cherries and porcinis to tie it all together. And so at 5pm, I finally poured myself a glass of wine, put my feet up, tucked in, and enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment that comes from Getting Stuff Done.

recipes after the jump

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R – red bell pepper
O – carrots
Y – yellow bell pepper

G – green cabbage, cilantro, basil, mint, lime juice, green onions

B – OK, the conceit breaks down a little here
I – yeah, yeah, so sue me
V – purple bell pepper! Ha-HA!

To look at this site, you’d think we only eat brown or red food around here. I guess my weekday meals are more multi-hued than the dishes I make (and post about) on weekends, but still: They say you should eat the rainbow to get the most nutritional benefit from foods, so I thought I’d give it a go in one dish last weekend with a Vietnamese chicken salad from the pages of my beloved Cooking Light.

For once, I didn’t really depart from the recipe much, except to use a little less chicken and a little more veggies than called for. I might use the proper amount of chicken next time, but this salad already was delicious with its balance of salty, sweet, and sour, with unami thrown in for kicks. In fact, it was Gil’s favorite dish of the weekend!

Goooo, Roy G. ‘v!

recipe after the jump

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I’ve been kicking around the idea of making a coq au vin for a while now. But it’s a two-day process, according to the Les Halles Cookbook, and I just never remembered to start it a full day before I planned to serve it. But finally, this weekend, I got my act together.

Do you have the Les Halles Cookbook? No? Quel dommage! It was one of the better Christmas presents I got two years ago. Not only do you have Anthony Bourdain guiding you through recipes with his no-bullshit banter, but the recipes themselves are wonderful. And the design is gorgeous. I mean, really, a lot of thought was put into this book from start to finish. The butcher paper cover (hardcover ed.), the plain, serviceable, but elegant fonts, and the pictures announce exactly what you’ll get when you start reading — a no-nonsense approach to cooking some damned fine no-nonsense food.

So I started with the easy part — marinating the chicken and vegetables in red wine overnight. Even though I was warned right there in the recipe that this dish would start off pretty nasty, I didn’t think what 24 hours in red wine would really do to a whole chicken, and found myself unprepared for the horror that emerged from the fridge 24 hours later:

You know, I’ve been a carnivore all my life, but until today, I’ve never once thought of my food as a corpse. I may submit that photo to David Fincher for consideration in his next opening credits.

Soldiering on, I browned the wine-bloated chicken corpse in butter and olive oil, and the promised alchemy soon took place; it really did result in something magical, considering the — ahem — humble beginnings. But when a recipe calls for an artery-clogging amount of butter and 1/4 lb. of bacon, magic is bound to happen.

All in all, it was good. Satisfying. Tasty, even. And I got a real feeling of accomplishment just from seeing it through to the end. But it isn’t something I’ll be making again soon — while good enough for a Sunday lunch, it just didn’t seem to be worth the effort.

Sigh.

Oh, if you ever decide to make this, take his advice and clean as you go along. It’s something I do anyway, but you’ll appreciate tackling the dishes before they grow into a mountain in the sink.