Monthly Archives: January 2009

this is for you

13

the easiest pot roast

If you live anywhere near the Midwest and have had to drive to work every day this week; if you shoveled your driveway Tuesday, then Wednesday, and felt your nose hairs crystallize while you got into your car Thursday; if you (heaven, help you) were on Metra Wednesday morning, in the midst of the gun scare that turned out to be just a misunderstanding; this is for you.

[By the way, if you also, I don’t know, had to go out and buy the biggest, cheapest puffy parka you could find, one with a crazy fur collar and an extra layer of lining underneath, just so you could survive through the rest of your Chicago winter: well, send me an e-mail, would you? I’d like to know I’m not alone.]

Maybe it’s the fact that so many of the storms this year have hit during my commutes to and from work, maybe it’s the fact that I am always, no matter where I am, cold, down to my toes. Whatever the case, I have to tell you something: it’s high time for some comfort food.

[I'm glad to know I'm not alone in this, at least.] Yesterday, @ChicagoBites: “I need comfort food but I don’t want to go out to get it.” Well said. Maybe you feel the same?

pot roast on blue table

This pot roast may not be the prettiest, but it makes up for its modest appearance with a very dependable character: you can really count on this one. The first time I made it, I was in college, I think, home for an extended period of time. It was the kind of meal you make when you’re pretty green in the kitchen, not completely sure of what you’re doing. You make it because it’s easy, with a short list of ingredients and an even shorter list of instructions. You make it again, though, (and again and again) because it’s delicious. Really delicious.

Pot roast, essentially, is as good as it gets this time of year (well, short of a vacation to someplace like Miami, but I digress). It’s warm and hearty, paired with chunks of potatoes and chopped carrots, and it’s tender, succulent, flaky, falling onto your fork and moist with its own gravy.

Because it’s so easy, this is the perfect recipe for a lazy weekend: assemble everything into the crock pot before going to bed and have it ready for the next day, or start it all when you wake up and have a satisfying dinner.

It’s the perfect way to get your comfort food without leaving the house, and, let’s be honest, at least around here, that’s what we all need right now.




Crockpot Pot Roast
Adapted from Fix It and Forget about It

Ingredients:
4 baking potatoes, cut into chunks (halves or quarters)
2 large carrots, cut into large pieces (or a desired amount of baby carrots)
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 to 4 pounds pot roast, cut into chunks
1/2 cup water

Directions:
Put vegetables in bottom of crock pot, and stir in salt and pepper. Add chunks of pot roast meat, and then add water.

Cover pot. Cook on low for 10 to 12 hours.

a few excuses

9

There’s a reason these photos are so bleh. Well, actually, there are two reasons, one of which is a little incriminating. So if I tell you the whole story, will you promise not to hold it against me?

fougasse bread

First, and this is just a fact we must learn to accept, much like regular exercise is a part of being healthy or you can’t eat an entire chocolate cake every night in good conscience: Food looks a lot better, generally speaking, when it’s photographed in natural light. (Everyone says so, and I finally believe them.)

Second, and here’s the part where I start to look bad: I may or may not have accidentally almost burned down my kitchen Saturday afternoon, during the last bits of natural light I had left.

Here’s what happened: That morning, the tart I was making overflowed in the oven and made quite a mess—a mess, which, after I pulled the tart out, I forgot about completely. So a few hours later, when I turned the little temperature knob to preheat the oven again, ready to bake some bread dough, I had no (!) idea (!) that doing so would make the goopy mess burn and send clouds of dark smoke all over my kitchen, enough to set my heart racing, have me screaming things like “Is there a fire?” and “What do I do?”

There is some mercy here, as you can probably guess from the statements of maybe and almost above. When I opened the smoking oven, there was no fire or serious damage—just A. LOT. OF. SMOKE. And all things considered, this was no catastrophe. Things did smell a little, well, let’s just say s’mores sounded strangely fitting—but nothing was truly harmed.

hot flat bread

And when all was said and done, fans set up to cool the kitchen and draw remaining smoke out, I still had to do something with the dough that had been rising. Eventually I was able to bake it, and when it came out of the oven, golden and shimmering with crystals of sea salt, decorated with flecks of herbs, I knew I couldn’t very well wait until the next day to photograph it. I had just had a near-death experience, and the hot fougasse dough smelled rich with rosemary and thyme, scents of healing and warmth. You understand, don’t you?

Fougasse is the French version of Italian focaccia, which is a savory flat bread I’ve always really enjoyed at those Macaroni Grill chain restaurants. In fact, this fougasse tasted almost exactly like that bread, but with a different texture, less spongy and maybe more dense. Its slightly crisp shell gives way to soft, downy insides, and the herbs and toppings create incredible flavor.

What makes fougasse distinct is its shape, somewhat like a tree or a large leaf. Slits create a lattice effect in the appearance, which, I should add, is also very handy for tearing chunks off with your hands. And, let’s just say, even near-fires aside, tearing fresh bread with your hands is always a good thing.

herbed fougasse




Herbed Fougasse
Slightly Adapted from The Art & Soul of Baking

Ingredients:
(Biga, pre-ferment)
1/2 cup (4 ounces) warm water (110 to 115 degrees F)
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast, or generous 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast
1 cup minus 1 Tablespoon (4 1/2 ounces) bread flour or unbleached all-purpose flour

(Dough)
1/2 cup (4 ounces) warm water (110 to 115 degrees F)
1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast, or generous 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
2 Tablespoons (1 ounce) olive oil
1 1/2 cups plus 1 Tablespoon (7 ounces) bread flour or unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons finely chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 to 1 teaspoon kosher salt or coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon finely chopped mixture of rosemary and thyme

Directions:
MAKE THE BIGA
Pour the warm water into a medium bowl and whisk in the yeast. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes, or until the yeast is activated and looks creamy. Stir in the flour and mix until it forms a rough dough. Turn onto a work surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Return to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 4 to 6 hours (or up to 12 hours) at room temperature, or 24 hours in the refrigerator.

MIX, REST and KNEAD THE DOUGH
Pour the warm water into the bowl of the stand mixer. Add the yeast, whisk by hand to blend and let the mixture stand until the yeast is activated and looks creamy, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the biga and the olive oil and mix on low speed for 1 minute. Add the flour, rosemary, thyme and salt. Knead the dough on low speed until it comes together in a cohesive mass, about 2 to 3 minutes. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp lint-free cotton towel, and let the dough rest for 20 minutes to allow it to fully hydrate before further kneading. Turn the mixer to medium-low and continue to knead until the dough is firm, elastic and smooth, 4 to 6 minutes.

RISE THE DOUGH (FIRST RISE)
Lightly oil the tub or bowl, scrape the dough into the tub and lightly coat the surface with a little oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let the dough rise until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours (longer if the room is cold). If you are using a tub, be sure to mark the starting level of the dough with a pencil or piece of tape so it’s easy to tell when the dough has doubled.

PUNCH DOWN AND SHAPE THE DOUGH
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Press down on the dough firmly to expel some of the air bubbles, but don’t knead the dough again or it will be too springy and difficult to shape (if this happens, simply cover the dough with plastic wrap or a lint-free cotton towel and let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes to give the gluten some time to relax). Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet. If you will be using a baking or pizza stone to bake the bread, place the parchment paper and dough on the bottom of the baking sheet so you can slide them easily onto the stone. Press the dough into a large half circle that is about 12 inches across the flat bottom, 11 inches tall at the peak of the circle and about 3/8 inch thick. Let the dough rest, covered with plastic wrap or a lint-free cotton towel, for 10 to 15 minutes. To make the design in the dough, use a very sharp knife to make a slit down the center then two or three slits at a angle on each side of the center so they resemble veins in a leaf. Each slit should go all the way through the dough to the baking sheet. Gently stretch each slit so the cut edges are about 1 1/2 inches apart, making decorative holes in the dough.

PROOF THE DOUGH (Second rise)
Cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap or a damp lint-free cotton towel. Allow the dough to rise until it is almost doubled in size and looks like it has taken a deep breath, 30 to 40 minutes.

PREPARE THE OVEN
Place a baking or pizza stone in the oven, if you’re using one. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. If using a stone give it a full 30 minutes to an hour to heat.

BAKE THE BREAD
Dimple the dough by gently pressing your fingertips into the dough about 1/4 inch deep, taking care that you don’t deflate the dough by pressing too vigorously or making too many indentations. Gently brush the surface with olive oil and sprinkle salt and hcooped herbs on top. Bake for 20 to 25 mintues, until the bread is golden browl and the internal temperature registers 200 degrees F. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

As Easy as That

11

apples for apple chips

There aren’t a lot of elementary school projects I look back on fondly. The year we had a class rabbit, which I took home with me for a weekend? All I got was a mess to clean in the basement one night and a strange cedar-chip smell in our classroom year-round. Making a scaled-down solar system? That wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t something I’d like to do again, either. Then there was the annual Great American Day where I’d go in dressed as Mary Todd Lincoln, basically every year, wearing the same brown polyester dress and bonnet. I can’t remember where we bought that costume, but boy, it saw a lot of Halloweens.

One project that stands out in particular memory was something you’d think I’d have loved, especially with the alternatives: a class cookbook, with one recipe coming from each child, being printed up and made into copies for each of us to keep.

Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t ask my mom for help with that cookbook—in fact, judging from the barbeque chickens and vegetable casseroles that filled the completed copy, I think I was the only one who didn’t. But, I swear, in my little six-year-old mind, I thought the teacher said we had to come up with it on our own.

I was very diligent about rule-following back then; I still remember the guilt I’d felt after saying I read an entire book for BookIt!, when I’d actually skipped two pages. [A certain person I know recently admitted to lying his way through every one of those monthly reading competitions, all in the name of free personal-pan pizzas, and this made part of me felt a lot better. The other part thought I should write a confession letter tomorrow. ] So I don’t need to tell you that if I thought I had to do it myself, I was going to do it myself.

I knew I couldn’t make cookies unless someone was there helping me and I hadn’t the faintest idea of how to make any main entrée or a meal. So, wracking my brain for something—anything—I wrote down the only recipe I really knew I could make, the thing I’d bring you, as a six-year-old, if I were treating you to a meal at my house: cereal.

The short ingredients list of milk, cereal, bowl and spoon was followed by an equally short set of directions, something to the effect of: Pour cereal into bowl and add milk, then use spoon to eat. It’s a little embarrassing now that I think about it.

It’s especially embarrassing when I think of how many easy, easy recipes are out there, recipes simple enough for a child to remember them, although maybe not always safe enough for a child do (as in, knives or ovens required).

I could’ve explained how to make a hot fudge sundae, right? Ice cream, toppings, what more do you need? Or maybe a fruit salad? Just cut up fruits and throw them in a bowl, maybe mixing them around with yogurt, if you’d like?

apple chips

Or, if I had been just a little precocious, I could’ve explained how to make apple chips.

When I first saw this recipe, I almost didn’t believe something so easy could really taste good. But Kelly at Eat Make Read called them, well, I think, addictive was her word, and, in my experience, foods that are addictive are foods I like most.



You only need two ingredients: apples and powdered sugar. Couldn’t be simpler, right? And as far as directions, it’s about as basic as pouring cereal into a bowl: slice apples as thinly as possible. Cover two cookie sheets with powdered sugar and top with layer of apples then another layer of powdered sugar. Bake at 250 degrees for two hours, alternating the sheets halfway through.

If you’d like to see the original recipe, head over here (and while you’re there, look around: Kelly’s got a beautiful food blog with great design and quality recipes).

But, I promise, I’m not oversimplifying. This is as easy as it gets, and the chips, well, they really are addictive. Plus, despite the sugar, you’ll feel like you’re healthy for eating them since, you know, they’re just apples.