Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews cooks! I feel strongly about a couple of things mentioned here:
1. Corn bread with a lot of sugar is cake.
2. Your skillet probably would be coated in germs and whatnot if you weren’t heating it to 300 degrees or more every single time you used it. I think this is more or less the definition of “clean it with fire.”
This also reminds me that I burned something in my cast iron skillet a while back and need to re-season it.
Things have been a little stressed around here, this last week. Industrious needs surgery on his shoulder, so he’s not able to boost the old dog into the car twice daily for walks, and he can’t really look after the baby on his own, so I’ve been exploring some mother’s helper options so I can get out to the barn. Which is obviously something I could let slide, but I missed all of last season, and it’s also My Thing, which I really need and enjoy.
So, naturally, I’ve been making cornbread. Authentic cornbread! Which means no sugar. Sugar in cornbread = cake. I love cake! Go make some cake. I mean, look, I’m Canadian, so what do I know about Southern cornbread, etc., but you have to draw the line somewhere, you know?
Anyway, you need to use cast iron. Cast iron is the greatest of all things. You might be scared of cast iron! You might say, oh, my God, you don’t wash it with soap, it must be filthy and full of germs. WELL, people say that about something other than cast iron, and they’re wrong too. You know what I’m talking about.
Cast iron. It’s cheap, it’s non-stick, it heats evenly and it’s oven-safe. I have a 12inch, a 6 1/2 inch, and a Dutch Oven from Lodge, and I would save them first in a fire. Or, whatever, let them burn, they cost sixteen bucks, and you could probably haul them out of the ashes and discover you’ve made an amazing cassoulet.
Bacon drippings. Don’t say Crisco. Don’t say vegetable oil. Goddamn bacon drippings. Just toss in some bacon, eat the bacon, pour off some of the fat, and add it to your ingredients. You can get a real recipe anywhere on the web, I won’t blather on (it varies depending on the size of your skillet, etc.), but you need cornmeal (white or yellow, stone ground has the best texture), an egg or two, buttermilk, baking powder, salt, and BACON DRIPPINGS. I like taking the hot skillet I’ve just made the bacon in, adding the batter, then popping it in a 425 degree oven for 15-20 minutes. The cornbread will get golden-brown, and the edges will pull away from the sides of the skillet.
Douse that mother in butter, eat it.
It tastes weird, if you’re used to cornbread with sugar. For me, it tastes like Westeros. It tastes like Winter is Coming. This is some gnarly, earthy shit. It’s filling and good and savoury and great with milk. Give it a whirl, k?
The taste was pretty good, although a bit bland, but the texture was like egg-drop soup, a little slimy. One of my guests really enjoyed it, but I probably wouldn’t make it again.
Yesterday I decided that I wanted to make an arugula soup. And then I decided it should have lemon, and then I ended up with the rustic spinach and cornmeal soup recipe. I read this review, and decided to ignore it, thinking that the soup would be fantastic anyway because every soup I have made ever has been the best ever!
I am sorry, A Cook from Flagstaff, AZ. You were right, and I didn’t heed your advice. It was a bit bland. The texture was slimy. I probably won’t make it again.
[…] but this might not be standard, because my local health food store is old-school and structured like a nested nautilus that grew extra nooks as it needed them.
This is the best sentence fragment I’ve read on the internet all week. The recipe, on the other hand, makes my skin crawl.
I would like to point out that when you forbid your child from ever eating things like processed peanut butter or the cheapest bag of sour cream & onion chips that the Rite Aid down the street stocks, you run the risk of them growing up and wanting to eat something called a “vegetarian enchilada pie” made with refried bean flakes and topped with light sour cream. Moderation in everything!
I don’t know how it happened exactly, but I think I’ve spent the past month writing to you about soups. And since I’m just now chewing again (hello, salmon!), it’s basically all I’ve been eating, too.
But soups are legitimately wonderful, and they are problem-solvers. Here! Another listicle!
1. They tend to be flexible, so you can use up ingredients that are about to overstay their welcome in your fridge.
2. A soup with stock, vegetables, and beans is a pretty well-rounded meal, all in one pot.
3. They make amazing leftovers. By and large, soups are better the next day once everything has marinated a bit. And I can’t even express to you how nice it is to open the fridge and see a good, healthy meal in there just waiting for you.
4. Generally speaking, they’re inexpensive. I’m not saying it’s impossible to spend a bunch of money on soup ingredients (anything is possible), but it’s harder. Stock, beans, vegetables, those are not expensive ingredients. Even if you add some meat or fish for flavor, you’re using much less per serving in a soup than you would if you grilled the fish, or made a roast.
I just came into possession of one and it is wonderful.
A few caveats:
1. I don’t think you need a stock pot with a pasta insert to cook pasta. That’s what a colander is for.
2. I think the vegetable steamer insert is kind of useless, because you can more efficiently steam vegetables in a smaller pot with one of those silicon steamers and save yourself washing a huge stock pot.
3. You don’t need to buy an All-Clad version, you could get something much cheaper. I think Marshall’s or TJ Maxx often have reasonable options.*
It is, however, incredibly useful for making stock. As Jolie “A Clean Person” Kerr pointed out recently on the Awl, the big hassle in making stock is straining. And I’m a little neurotic about straining, which makes it even more of a pain in the ass (I strain twice— once to remove the big chunks of bone and vegetables and then another time with a cloth laid over a fine mesh strainer to get the little bits of particulate). It’s just a logistical hassle that often results in dripped chicken stock everywhere and the dog compulsively licking the floor for the next day or so (followed by investigative licks every few days for the rest of his life).
But! When you use the pasta insert, you just lift out the pasta insert along with all the bones and vegetables! Then you’re just left with the fine-grain straining, which you can do directly into a measuring cup. It’s fantastic! It makes such a big difference in the whole process.
A few points now if you’re considering making this purchase:
1. I would strongly urge you to get a very large stockpot. I make chicken stock once every two or three months, and I don’t really want to make it more often that that. I also really want to use up all the chicken carcasses in my freezer in one go, you know?
2. I would also strongly urge you to get a stainless steel version rather than a non-stick version.** I don’t know why they even make non-stick stockpots. Nothing in a stockpot should ever be sticking. It’s not like you’re cooking eggs in the thing. Non-stick finishes are finicky and couldpossibly be poisoning you. You can’t ever use metal implements with them, and you shouldn’t be stacking them when you store them, and ultimately, they’re going to get scratched up or wear out anyway and you’ll have to replace them. I only buy a non-stick pan if it’s really, really worth it to me (see: one skillet for cooking eggs). A decent stainless steel version will last forever and your children can give it to your grandchildren when you die.
* I restrained myself from getting into a long and involved discussion of my feelings about buying super expensive cookware.
** I refrained from the expensive-cookware diatribe in order to save room for the pointlessness-of-nonstick-cookware discussion.
In a burst of energy and hubris, I decided yesterday afternoon that I was well enough to go off the painkillers and make some more soup. I have since decided that actually, the painkillers were sort of key to my positive recovery experience and that I am only really equipped to sit on the couch and watch TV at this point.
I cut the mushrooms up into little pieces to minimize chewing, but you could leave them in slices. I also browned them a little bit before cooking anything else because I wasn’t sure how much water they’d give off and I didn’t want to drown the other aromatics, but I think you could probably cook them all at the same time if you used a large enough pan.
I used a homemade stock. If you don’t have homemade stock and live in Portland, you might try the chicken stock at Rosemont— they have a great butcher and the stock appears to be made in-house. It would warm my heart if you started making your own chicken stock, but if it’s not in the cards for you, that’s okay.
1 cup sliced or chopped mushrooms (or more, mushrooms are delicious)
4 scallions, white and pale green parts halved and chopped into 1/2” or so pieces (I cut them smaller than the original recipe called for in case they presented a chewing problem). Slice the green parts for garnish or freeze them for the next time you make stock.
1 1” piece of ginger, minced (again, the original recipe called for matchsticks)
1 garlic clove, smashed and peeled
4 cups chicken stock
1 tablespoon fish sauce*
Heat a bit of vegetable oil over medium high heat. I cooked the mushrooms first, stirring until they were soft and beginning to turn brown, then scooped them out and cooked the scallions, ginger, and garlic together until softened. You could probably cook them all together.
Once the aromatics are softened a bit, add the fish sauce and broth. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 5 minutes or so. It’ll smell very fish-saucy at first, give it some time to mellow. Add the mushrooms (you could add in other vegetables like thinly sliced carrots or spinach, or fish or chicken if you’re able to chew, in which case, bully for you). Stir and continue to cook for another 5 or so minutes, or until the stuff you added in is cooked.
Slightly Heartier Version with Spinach and Egg
(This is for one large serving, if you want to make the whole batch into this heartier soup, you should use a bit more spinach and two eggs) To make the soup into more of a meal, bring a serving of the broth to a boil, then turn down the heat so the soup is simmering. Add a handful of chopped spinach leaves. Simmer for a minute or two til they’re cooked. Break an egg into the soup, wait a few beats and then stir (if you stir immediately, the egg just dissolves into the soup; if you wait too long, you get bigger chunks of egg). Serve immediately.
* DON’T SMELL IT FROM THE BOTTLE. It smells terrible, but it’s wonderful in recipes. If you don’t have fish sauce, you can use soy sauce.
I have eaten the broccoli soup for three different meals since I made it. Yes, I have been on hydrocodone*, but I stand by my assessment that it is very good. What have I been doing all my life not eating broccoli soup? It’s as good cold as it is hot! It’s easy to make!
Also, my left cheek is basically the size of all the rest of my face, and I keep icing it because that’s supposed to help with swelling and bruising but really it just means that my left cheek is both enormous and very cold.
* Except that I got cocky and decided that I was doing so well I didn’t even need the painkillers, and it turns out they are the key to 1. not being in pain and 2. enjoying Millionaire Matchmaker.
The New York Times recently had an article about cookbook ghostwriters that was the perfect combination of newsy and a little bit gossipy. So interesting!
And now there’s a bit of blow-back happening in which cookbook authors express somewhat sanctimonious disappointment at the fact checking (or purported lack thereof) at the New York Times via tweet.
(Thanks to Edible Obsessions for the heads up on the Huffington Post article!)
This post has been brought to you by the Tumblr queue. I am likely still drooling on myself and popping pain meds post-oral-surgery.
While I am out, let me implore to try making the Curried Red Lentil Soup. We’re gonna do this in a listicle!
1. Unlike many soups, it cooks very quickly.
2. Also unlike many soups,* it requires very few ingredients.
3. Like all good soups, it’s better the next day.
4. It is crazy filling.
5. It’s VEGAN. I KNOW. I’m kind of a jerk, and judgmental about vegan food, but I didn’t realize this was vegan, and I still loved it. And then I made it again!
