Roasting veggies

 Wherein Mr Ullman weighs in on cauliflower

I really like cauliflower. It is fun to work with and lends itself to experiments. It seems to absorb just enough of the other juices to improve itself slightly but doesn't allow these other favors to overcome it. This is a fun recipe because it includes roasting, stir fry and baking.

This is what you need:

A good deal of cauliflower, cut into florets about the size of a grape.

I use small or medium shrimp (41/50 or 51/60) however any size will work.

Four or five cloves of garlic or shallots, minced.

A couple of teaspoons of olive, grape or coconut oil depending our your tastes

A sharp parsley, chopped finely.

Six or seven green beans (organic if you are wise).

Half a lemon.

Ground pepper.

A hard cheese, A hard goat cheese or a cow cheese such as Piave, a

good aged Mozzarella (if it is powered it isn't good) or an aged

Gouda.

Rice (jasmine is a winner here)

First, roast the cauliflower. Put the cauliflower, garlic and the oil in a good sized zip lock bag. Shake victoriously:). Place the mixture in a bowl and put in the parsley and toss. Let the oven to get to 400

degrees, squeeze the lemon on top and place the concoction in a pyrex bowl and roast for about 25-30 minutes (until the tops of the cauliflower's tops are brown and are easily pierced with a folk).

At about 15 fifteen minutes into the roasting stir-fry the shrimp and beans. If you have some the garlic or shallots still around throw them in. Once the shrimp can be easily sliced with a spatula take it

off the heat and put it aside.

Assuming that everything is done put everything into a the mixing bowl and toss. Return to the

pyrex and put the oven on warm. Cook up a short grain rice on the stove and grate the cheese.

When the rice is done put everything into the mixing bowl, add the cheese and toss (add the pepper at this point). Serve with a salad with greens and a sliced apple.

The Squash and Me

 Wherein Mr. Ullman cooks a squash and doesn't screw it up

I have never had good luck with squash. I can kill off spaghetti squash which is saying something. However I got a delicata squash in the organic box a couple of weeks ago and it was sitting there looking at me. It could stay there for some time but the lady who I was hoping would cook it for me wasn't going to do such. So I came home one day and decided to do something with it. The question was what?

So this is fun and surprisingly worked out well. I roasted the squash with seafood. It worked out well and only needs more seafood when I do it next time.

The specific ingredients are delicata squash, pine nuts, fresh fennel (both a bit of bulb and a bit of the greens), salt, some red onions, celery root, some paprika and some allspice.

Put some olive oil in a wonk and added the shrimp, scallops and pine nuts. Stir fry until the shrimp becomes tasty stiff. Put the wonk off to the side on a cold burner.

Take about a third fennel bulb and its greens and put on the veggie board. Chop it up. Take about a quarter of a red onion. Chop that up too. Peel about a half a cup of the celery root. Put all this into the wonk, add some spicy peanut sauce to taste (handle with care) and toss.

Remove that seeds from the squash and put them off to the side. Take the concoction from the wonk and put it into a halved squash. Sprinkle some paprika and allspice on top. Cover with squash with foil and bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

Remove the stuffing and scrape the meat out of the squash. Serve on a bed of short grain rice, A dull salad for a side.

Free Salmon

Wherein Mr. Ullman traces the curious path of a Salmon steak and cooks same.

Given what I do for a living it isn't all that unusual for me to get free seafood. However, the last salmon I got came in a somewhat round about way. A friend had a bunch of salmon she needed to get rid of and gave some to a mutual friend who wasn't likely to eat it. This mutual friend gave it me.

I was going to cook it for a different friend but that didn't happen. The fish was getting somewhat close to the use it or lose it date so I finally decided to say the hell with it and cook it up for myself.

Salmon sells for between $12.00 to $25.00 a lb. here so getting a pound of free salmon is always welcomed. What makes it even more welcome is that screwing up something you paid $12.00 to $25.00 for is more painful then screwing up something that you paid nothing to acquire. I would just as soon have a tasty meal but the free salmon means you can take a shot at something that sounds tasty but not worth betting $25.00 on.

What I was going to do for my friend was a tried and true cold garnish. You put some fennel and lemon juice on the salmon and bake it. After the fish is cooked you cover it with a salsa made of chopped tomato, diced leeks, chopped tomatillo, sliced celery root and roasted pine nuts.

I had all of this prepped. I had free salmon. The only person I could possibly disappoint was  myself. I decided to try an experiment that I was hankering to do anyway-- turn the garnish into a sauce and bake it with the fish.

I did this by adding some peanut sauce (about ½ a table spoon. This stuff is hot so use with care), some olive oil and, since I had it around, avocado vinegar I picked up somewhere and have been wanting to use.

I added some more fennel and salt to the mixture and put the sauce on top of the fish and baked. I put a very light dusting of a hard goat cheese on toward the end.

It turned out just slightly short of wonderful. Next time I will use a whole tomatillo rather then a half and maybe a bit more peanut sauce. I'll also let the sauce sit overnight.

Wild salmon has a rich taste and this slightly tart sauce did wonders. It would be fun to try this as a stuffing on a whole fish.

Starting something new. Writing about Books.

Since I am no longer blogging every week about food I have decided to take the other week and use it for writing about books. These posts are not necessarily about current books so don't look at these as reviews-- think about them as being an old fart talking about good friends he occasionally meets either again or new friends he is meeting for the first time. There might be new books and they might not be.

Two things inspired this. First is a small group of bookish folks who share books they love on occasion. One of these folks is someone I have known as a friend of a couple friends for a number of years without knowing that he enjoyed fiction. Another of these folks is a woman that, the first time we met, one of us mentioned “A Confederacy of DUNCES.” Since we both liked it a the conversation just bounced forward. “A Confederacy of DUNCES” is one of those books that you either love or find incredibly over-the-top and dull. I have known folks whose taste in books I love that have held either opinion. When I first meet someone who loves DUNCES the conversation turns to why you love the book. When I meet someone who does not love (but has read at least part of it) the first conversation is a matter of finding a book that we both have read and loved. (Bring up “To Kill a Mocking Bird” helps.)

The second reason is somewhat odd. I enjoy Morris West, I have read the entire Vatican series and found them fun but simple books. One of the last books of his I read was Master-Class. I found it fun and like it the most of West's books. I loved the way he develops Max Mather-- he is a cad that becomes a good person.

I loaned this to two friends and they were blown away by it. My take on it was it was the best book by an enjoyable writer. I was somewhat taken aback by their reaction and reread it not in the idea of reading Morris West but by reading an author I had not read before. It is an incredibly good book and I missed a good deal when I read it because I was reading it with a background of other Morris West books. Charmingly I loaned one of these folks West's “Clowns of God”. She is slugging her way through it and not enjoying it at all. Had I started with a loan “Clowns of God” it most likely it would be an enjoyable read. I discounted “Master-Class” because I had read a number of Morris West's books-- she is slugging her way through “Clowns of God” because Master-Class was so good.

Which is why loaning books is great. On one hand I am reading books other people whose tastes I admire love and I would not be likely to find much less read. On the other I am getting different prospective on books I like or love. In a slight way you can do with friend's of the heart but most likely they are going to suggest books that, since they know you well, are good books but likely offered through a filter of your known tastes. “Ciderhouse Rules” is a good example of this. I enjoyed the book but person who suggested it to knew me real well. The person who loaned me “The Story of Mr. Y” and the fellow who introduced “The Nine Dragons” might or might not.

So I hope this will be enjoyable and readable. I will offer books that are loaned to me that I at least like and offer books that I like and have loaned to other people.

Garlic Spears or Garlic Scapes? Who Cares?

Wherein Mr Ullman shares his passion for garlic spears.

This week's box brought with it garlic spears (a.k.a garlic scapes). I was looking forward to them, a friend told me about them last year and I was waiting for them to come back into season. I had a recipe in mind and it worked. Note that this isn't all the involved but it does use a good number of ingredients. The recipe uses noodles so make some.

Cut up pork into squares following the grain of the meat. Take a couple of garlic cloves and chopped them fine. Add some grapeseed oil to a wok and cook the pork and garlic for about 10 minutes. Once it is cooked drain the oil and retain it. Put the pork and garlic off to the side and add a couple of splashes of vinegar to the retained oil.

Now it is time to workover the veggies. Start by chopping up a green pepper into chunks. While somewhat tricky julienning the garlic spears. Take some kale and a tart parsley and rip these into small bits and then chop them together into small bits. Place all the veggies into a bowl and toss.

By this time the pork should be cooled. Using you fingers rip it into smaller pieces along the grain and toss it into the bowl. Add a generous spoonful of cream of celery soup and fold in the oil/ vinegar mixture. Add the noodles and toss everything again.

Transfer all this into a casserole dish and cook at 350 for twenty minutes. Add a dusting of tarragon and thyme and digin.

Garlic spears are simply great. I got ten of them and ate them raw, fried with asparagus and mushrooms, with fish and used them up in a Mac and Cheese dish.

Stuff cabbage with shrimp and lots of other stuff.

Wherein Mr Ullman gets a good meal of the cheap

This is easy and quick. Stuff cabbage with shrimp, spring onions, normal radishes, rhubarb, avocado and rice. Throw in some grape seed oil and some flavored vinegar and life is good.

You start it by making the rice per instructions and putting it off to the side. Steam good sized leafs of cabbage making sure you steam an even number. The cabbage should be steamed long enough to it easy to wrap around something.

Slice the onions and radishes in a food processor and chop up some rhubarb with a knife. Chop up a garlic clove and quickly stir fry some shrimp in the grape seed oil just long enough to firm it up. Pay attention.

Once the shrimp is cooked put it into a bowl. Take a leaf of cabbage and lay it on a plate. Add four or five shrimp on it. Add the onion, radish and rhubarb in measure. Crumble some goat cheese and grated Parmesan on top.

Fold the cabbage leaf over the stuff and fold another cabbage leaf over the top. Get out a casserole dish, cover the bottom lightly with the flavored vinegar. Heat the oven to 250 degrees, put the cabbage rolls into the dish and cook long enough to melt the cheese and heat the vinegar enough to give up its taste. Ten minutes works for me.

Spread the rice on a plate and lightly dust it with paprika and a pinch of cinnamon (go light here). Put the stuffed cabbage on top of this and place a generous plop of avocado on top.

Plan on two stuffed cabbages per person.

Sunchokes would be good here (not for me, that's a food allergy of note for me). A mild sausage or pulled chicken might work in place of the shrimp.

By the way, Parmesan cheese sold in the US is the poor relative of an Italian cheese called Parmigiano-Reggiano. Check it out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmigiano-Reggiano

Pork/chicken/shrimp cooked in a Veggie Broth (Select any two as long as one of them is shrimp)

Wherein Mr Ullman announces that he will be slacking off

I don't know a number of the ingredients that went into making a part of this dinner. My crock pot runs full time making a veggie broth. Whatever I don't use veggiewise-- be it stems, overly-enthusiastic chopping or things that are not going to last much longer-- I add. I strain it every other week and start over when necessary, usually with regret.  This also adds a permanent wonderful smell to your kitchen.

So this recipe uses the broth. A store brought veggie broth and a bit of experimenting with spices should do the trick.

The recipe also includes rice so make some. I used brown basmati but any short grain should work.

Oh, heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Since I am cool I strain about a cup of the homemade broth.

Cut up a goodly sized pork shoulder or chicken breast, slightly more then you would use if you were going to eat it whole. If nickles were square that would be the size you are looking to achieve. Put the pork off to the side.

Take some citarto (it does not taste like soap!) and two sharp greens (I used red dandelion greens and kale) and chop somewhat finely with a knife. Don't use a food processor since you don't want the greens extremely fine.

Put the pork or chicken in a Pyrex pie pan and add enough broth to cover the meat about 2/3s of the way. Add the greens and mix everything around. Add some Allspice, tarragon and a bay leaf. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar. Cover with aluminum foil shiny side down (no clue if this is important but it was something my mother believed in) and put into the oven. Cook for twenty minutes.

Take about ten medium sized shrimp and remove the tails and , if necessary, devain. Smash a good sized garlic clove.

Once the oven buzzer sounds remove the pie pan, add the shrimp and garlic, cover again and cook for seven more minutes.

Put the rice in a strainer. Pore the concoction in the pie pan over the rice (I recover the broth and return it to the crook pot). Toss and serve. I put a sweet relish on the side and used it as a dip.

This was very good with pork and chicken but next I am going to try a variation of this with a fish.

This is a one of my favorite “Do it quick” recipes. Another nice thing is that it is a versatile as a stir fry so you can do it with damn near anything you have in the fridge.

A Note:

Thinking about this blog over the last couple of weeks I decide that trying to do this weekly was to ambitious. I have been cooking for something to write about rather then the joy of screwing around with food. Therefore I am going to try doing a cooking entry once every two weeks for a while. Might end up doing this only once a month.