Today, to absolutely no one’s surprise, is the first day of 2012. I said last night that I would do as much as I can of what I want to do through this year, and once this is written, I will have done that.
I’ve had some disastrous physical setbacks this year starting in late summer. Were they enough to keep me from blogging? No, but somehow not talking about it would be like ignoring the elephant in the room and talking about it seemed really out of place on a friendly expat and cooking blog. But when I see something special or hear something interesting I always think of this place and I want to tell it here, so I’ve decided to plug Think On It back in if only for my own good.
This is my first sight when I top the hill.
So about that elephant eating hay in that corner over there. He represents four herniated disks in my lower back that have put a stop to my hour and a half rambles and climbs every morning. Just when I was getting used to the idea that a slow and exercise-filled period of physiotherapy was going to have to happen before I could be back on those hills, spinal arthritis or a near cousin jumped on my shoulders. Some time later generalized tendinitis and muscle sheath inflammation made activities a crap shoot.
It's full afternoon, but the sun never reaches parts of this basin.
This past week I have been getting up feeling better. Really better, not just less painful, but capable of doing things at least for a while. Nothing will cheer you up more effectively than being able to think up fun stuff knowing you can probably do it. I sort of want to say “Whoopie!” a lot.
The surface is icy and blurred.
Today I have eaten healthy foods in small portions and haven’t touched seasonal treats. That was number one.
I have started sorting out what really doesn’t need to live in my house and out it will go. Number two.
Ice and spoor.
And my reward is number three. I went for a walk in my hills. I went to see the lake and to see who drinks there in winter. I went to see the goats along my path and I discovered two kids no bigger than an adult cat. Unfortunately, I had used up my batteries and didn’t capture them, but I will another day this week, because I mean to start again no matter what it costs me. The price for not doing what you love is just too high.
Someone has hacked the site. Technicians are working on it right now, so I hope it will be ready for new articles soon.
I hope you didn’t receive any mass mailings of spam from me, but if you did, be assured I didn’t send them and we are working at being sure there will be no more.
This is the last one, folks. If you can’t make picnics with at least two of these tarts, you are doomed to eat inside all summer.
I have filed these as supper recipes because they were invented for such an occasion, but I would serve these as an elaborate antipasto, as lunch or dinner and certainly for brunch.
Here is another of the tarts from Friday night’s supper. It seemed almost too pretty to cut, but we did. I ate the leftover bits cold the next day and they were still good.
It’s time for another video. This one describes five savory pies that I made yesterday for a supper for the neighbors. I will add the recipes one by one over the next day or two. I think I’ll probably get better at videos as time goes on. One can certainly hope, anyway.
These torte salate (tohr-tay sah-LAH-tay) were eaten as one dish meals with a salad because it was supper time in Umbria. They also can be antipasto or first course as well as swell picnic foods. All but one are vegetarian.
All of these can be made with purchased crusts, making them quick and practical for a cook who works, but all can be made from scratch if you want to save money. I always make the bread crusts from my Sloppy Dough Revolution recipe, then knead more flour into it before rolling out so that it won’t be too wet to form.
All of these except for the Pepper and Salame torta were served at room (or garden) temperature, so they’re perfect for carrying along to a get together or for the concert in the park. Click on the link for the recipe. You won’t be sorry!
This is not tomato this or tomato that, it is tomato, and it feels right now like it may be the best thing I have eaten all year. It came into my mind when I saw the pile of San Marzano tomatoes in a bowl but I didn’t want to eat pasta. Summer is ending. The tomatoes are plentiful but soon will be no more. What’s to eat right now should be tomatoes.
What this really is is stewed tomatoes, but the canned version has frightened so many children over so many decades that I refuse to use the name. Freshly cooked tomatoes do not resemble those guilty tins at all. What I cooked and ate yesterday was sweet in the way only a tomato knows how to be, salty to bring out the tomatoey sweetness and had an underlying umami flavor provided by the two other vegetables. I was wowed by the first taste and not finished when the bowl was empty. I ate more, then more and finally it was all gone. My vegetable side dish had become lunch.
21 Tomato Salute
1 pound fresh, ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoons chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped bell pepper
a couple of sprigs each of herb leaves only (I used basil, thyme and parsley)
1 tablespoon or more butter
salt and pepper
Boil a pot of water for skinning the tomatoes. When it is boiling, toss the tomatoes in and leave them for a minute or so. Don’t let them stay too long, because they will cook too much and too much flesh will come off with the skin. You can test by pulling one up in a spoon and rubbing it with a finger. As soon as the skin starts to move a bit, it’s ready to peel. Remove the pot from the heat and put it in the sink under running cold water to stop the cooking. Peel the tomatoes with a paring knife. It should be very easy. If there appears to be a lot of core at the stem end, remove some of it with the knife tip.
In a medium pot, heat the butter and cook the onion and pepper in it until it is softened but not browned. Add the tomatoes and about a level teaspoon of salt (be conservative) or even better the same amount of the perfumed salt we made a couple of weeks ago. Put the herb leaves on top and then cover the pot. Reduce the heat to simmer and simmer about ten minutes and check to see if the tomatoes are cooked. Moderately sized tomatoes probably will be done. If not, continue to cook them until they are just done. Check for salt. Serve in small bowls with some freshly ground pepper.
The only way this can taste better is if eaten with buttered toast.
Maybe you’ve read the news reports and wondered what, if anything, an outbreak of e. coli in Germany means to you. Maybe you’ve read them and you know what it potentially means. Maybe you haven’t seen the reports.
The Telegraph has a report that seems to make sense, neither whipping one to a frightened fury nor glossing over it as not applying to the rest of us at all. The truth is these days what happens in a far off place often has implications for the rest of us. The unfortunate thing in this case is that early on it was reported to be a problem with cucumbers. Now they realize they don’t know where this superbug came from. That’s a problem because a lot of people will just not eat cucumbers and think they’re safe. They are not.
So why talk about it here? Because one of the things you learn and learn and learn again in culinary school classes is food safety. Everybody knows you should was your hands before cooking, but do they realize they should wash in a particular way? Do they realize when hands should be rewashed during cooking? Do they know when washing might not be enough? Do they know what things may be used to wash fruits and vegetables and render them safe?
Here are my suggestions:
Wash hands with soap and water before cooking anything. Wash thoroughly for at least half a minute and rinse well. I keep a nailbrush next to each faucet, too.
Re-wash hands every time you touch something outside of the kitchen equipment and food. Telephone call? You just picked up whatever was on that phone, and so far we have found no way to enforce a law that one must wash hands before using the phone. Likewise answering the door, taking a child to the bathroom, or wiping his nose, or even just tying his shoes… motherhood or nannyhood are charming but dirty.
Think about buying disposable vinyl or latex gloves that are not powdered. When moving from possibly infected foods to foods that won’t be cooked, it’s much safer to strip off a pair of gloves and toss germs out with them. I wear them when handling raw meats.
Peel fruits and vegetables, even if you usually don’t. For berries etc., seek out a sanitizing wash you can safely use. Don’t just use bleach water, because for one thing it will stink and make the product disgusting and besides you shouldn’t eat bleach. If you need a fruit peel, like grated rind, then carefully scrub with soap and water, rinse and then dry before grating. Believe me, this will make a difference to me because i usually leave a bit of cucumber skin, almost never skin tomatoes and treat berries like little pearls with no more than a gentle flush of cool water to remove sand. Those days are over at least for a while.
Let’s hope they get on top of this and figure out why this super-potent germ has developed and how to handle it. It’s a bacteria that lives safely within each one of us, but suddenly a mutant refuses to be peaceful and is killing people. The only way to defend yourself is to make sure you don’t come into contact with it except in ways that you can wash off.
I’m not sure if I ever published this essential mainstay of my summer life. We are preparing it in class today, so I reckoned if it isn’t here it ought to jump onto the page right now.
I was wondering yesterday if I knew anyone who doesn’t like porchetta, that ubiquitous Italian marketplace treat. I think I don’t. Hardly anyone is in a position to make it at home, however, because the first ingredient is a whole pig of about 100 pounds and where are you going to cook that?
We do, however, cook other things in that style, which is boned , filled with delicious spices and rolled up in skin before roasting. Duck porchettata is a dish you sometimes see on menus. I’ve done smaller pork pieces like that, although you have to buy at a butcher to get the all-important skin for crackling. It wouldn’t be porchetta without crackling.
This version uses the economical turkey leg and thigh, which happened to be on sale here this week. Admittedly, I was very hungry while it was cooking, but the perfume of this roast almost drove me crazy. I can’t think when I have ever cooked anything that smelled so good. I ended up eating cold asparagus in vinaigrette to hold out until it was done. And then, oh my goodness! Delicious almost seems like not enough of a word and I search for another one and can’t find it. This is good food, special food and worthy of any company. The slice you see is a bit thick because the roast is still blazing hot and dripping with juices, but as it cooled it became possible to cut thinner and more elegant pieces.
If you are an experienced cook you can skip a lot of the directions and photos, but I think anyone could make this if they pay close attention to it all. Read the rest of this entry »
