Mediterranean Lunch

Look at the great lunch Abbey packed me: a spinach salad with browned hallumi and baba ghanouj! Yum.

If only there were two of me

I've been taking a hiatus from the Cooler to establish a health-oriented blog (Mike's Health Magazine, you'll find it in the sidebar) with my wife. Currently we're in the beginning throes of taking a stab at South Beach. It seems contrary to what I stand for, typically; every fiber of my being is objecting. I don't respond well to restrictions placed upon my diet, and I think it's usually incumbent upon mature diners everywhere to explore the world around them, not shut it out. But the winter weight is especially heavy this time around, and, being in my mid-forties, a little extra weight is making me feel a lot more tired, sore, and grumpy that it might have ten or twenty years ago. Abbey and I have friends who have indeed lost their extra baggage on this plan, so we are going for it.

And just when Jefferson City finally has a decent (nay, GREAT) full-service bakery! I can't eat any of it. It makes the baby Jesus cry.

If you aren't me or Abbey, you probably don't know me (yet!), but I can tell you this: I do not suffer boring food gladly. Yes, I do have a few comfort food holdovers from childhood that I feel the need to indulge in from time to time (is there anything better than thickly sliced, genuine bologna and sharp cheddar with Miracle Whip on homemade bread with Pepsi from a glass bottle? Not much!), but overall I think I have pretty eclectic tastes, and plenty of opinions to share. I don't intend to hang on a thread eating egg beaters and salad with skinless chicken breast. Check out the spice-heavy ragout we had just tonight. Some of this will spill over from the health blog to the Cooler, inevitably. Stay tuned.

Paleo Girl

I've been reading up on the Paleo diet, mainly through the interesting blogs Free the Animal and Mark's Daily Apple. I'm especially interesting in light of our friend Rob revealing he'd lost 60 lbs following the South Beach diet, which has a lot (mainly no refined carbs) in common with the Paleo diet.

Tonight, it occurred to me maybe my diet guru could come from a closer, unexpected source.

Our six-year old girl, Olivia, mainly subsides on chicken nuggets. We're trying to get her off of the kid chow and into a more eclectic mode, figuring even if the alternatives aren't ultra-healthy, getting her used to variety is more important than any specific nutritional goals right now. So tonight, the parents had spaghetti carbonara with bacon and a lovely green salad. Olivia saw the carbonara and requested its distant cousin, ramen, for her dinner. We made it but it turns out of the two we have in stock, "red" ramen (beef) and "orange" ramen (chicken), she indulges in the orange variety exclusively. As we had only red ramen and are clueless parents, the ramen was red, and she rejected it.

Along with the ramen were several sliced strawberries. Also on the table were extra slices of bacon left over from creating the carbonara. Now, bacon is a provision for which olivia has great fondness. In no time Olivia ate all of the strawberries and all of the bacon, four pieces in total. The perfect Paleo dinner. Mark Sisson would be proud. And her obstinance gives me something to think about, too- what are we doing eating so many carbs at this dinner when Abbey are I were so knocked out about Rob's accomplishment, vowing to do something similar in the new year to shed our extra inches?

Food for thought...

But the carbonara, by the way... was awesome.

Pumpkin-riffic

Punkins everywhere! Why waste such an opportunity?

Guts

Seeds

Inside

Pie

Autumn Salads: Potato-Egg-Spinach salad

There's a local place called Cafe via Roma which serves a splendid version of farmer's salad called the Dolomiti.   It consists of crispy diced potatoes, eggs, red onions and a sweet vinaigrette mixed with field greens. (My current theory this is a delicious, westernized edition of Cretan Potato Salad.) It's one of my favorite things. I was hungry for something along those lines today but wanted to take a crack at it myself.

Being lunchtime, but willing to follow my vision, I decide to take out a little early and dash over to the grocery store. I didn't have time to dice and boil red potatoes, as I would have preferred, but, amazingly, Ore-Ida of all companies has a product called Steam-n-mash potatoes, which consists of nothing but diced cooked potato. remembering this from a former dinner emergency that demanded mashed potatoes in the blink of an eye, I hypothesized that this product would work equally well for pan-fried potatoes. Now, some people call pan-fried diced potatoes "hash browns," including Martha Stewart, from whom I learned the exact method used here, which is why around our house we call it "Martha 'Taters." Personally I consider hash browns the byproduct of browning shredded potatoes on a diner grill, and sometimes in my nonstick skillet. Which one is correct? Who knows. Let's not get bogged down by semantics.

I also picked up some precooked bacon- lately it seems like all the pre-made breakfast product I buy that's made by Jimmy Dean has been golden. They make the best precooked turkey breakfast sausage on the planet. (At least of the kinds that can found in grocery stores in the midwestern US.) I also grabbed a new dozen eggs, as we were in need. And would nearly be again, after this meal.

I put some oil in an iron skillet, brought it to temp, put in some of the frozen spud cubes and covered it, cooking them on medium. Meanwhile, I hard boiled some eggs. We use a method that either comes from Julia Child, or James Beard. Neither Abbey nor I can remember anymore. It's devastatingly simple- and I say "devastatingly" because for a long time I couldn't make a properly boiled egg to save my life. Since Abbey turned me on to this method, I haven't messed up one boiled egg, not one. Suffice to say the first perfect egg was devastating enough, but it always knocks me out how foolproof this is. Simply place the eggs (six, in this case, as Olivia likes hard boiled eggs), cold, in a sauce pan with maybe five inches of water and turn on the heat. Bring it just to a boil, turn off the heat, lid it and take it off the burner. Do something else for a while. If I recall correctly, wait three minutes for soft boiled, five to seven for hard boiled. Is that right? I waited about seven and it was perfect.

As you know, my initial vision of this salad was a mixed green salad with warm potatoes. While describing my project to Abbey, she was forming a vision of a take on German potato salad. That seemed better to me,  and a bit more comforting. October 2009 is about to go in the history books as the soggiest and coldest October in Missouri history. Today, it's raining and a little nippy- no surprise at all.  So something warmer than a green salad was sounding good. We decided to use up our fresh baby spinach for this meal, and I made a sweet apple cider vinegar vinaigrette to help everything meld.

So, for your pleasure, our potato-egg-spinach salad, which is half farmer salad, half warm German potato salad.

Ingredients

One standard grocery store container of baby spinach
Two bacon strips, thinly shredded or minced
half of a red onion, sliced very thin, in half rings
2 cups cooked and cubed potato
2-4 eggs, hard-boiled
1/3 cup canola or other light oil
3-6 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp dijon mustard (not country style)
3 to 5 tablespoons sugar (I used normal granulated, but I bet brown or demerara would be good)
a piece or two of homemade or artisanal whole wheat bread (I used La Brea's Organic Wheat loaf- yummy)
salt to taste

Wash and dry the spinach and place in a salad bowl.

put a tablespoon or two of canola oil in an iron or nonstick skillet on medium heat. When warm, put the potatoes in there, more or less in one layer, and lid it.

Meanwhile, start your eggs- cold from the fridge, in cold water at least 5" deep, on high temp, and thin slice onions.

Doublecheck the potatoes. When the bottoms are browning, daub potatoes with a little butter, put a plate that is wider than the skillet on top of the skillet, and carefully flip it all over, being careful not to burn yourself. Pick up the skillet, put it back on the burner, and slide the potatoes in one gesture into the pan, so they stay browned side up. Takes a little practice but it is totally doable. re-lid, unless you need to cook bacon- here's a great place for it. Chop it finely and toss it in with the half-finished potatoes. Don't re-lid in this case.

take the eggs off the heat when it's just coming to a boil. put the lid on and take off the burner. Make a note of the time- they should sit there three minutes for soft boiled, five to seven for hard.

Meanwhile start the dressing. Add three tablespoons of cider vinegar to the third cup canola oil, add three tablespoons sugar, the mustard and a dash of salt. whisk.  test for sweetness and acidity. I usually use twice the amount of vinegar and another tablespoon of sugar, you may not like it that strong though. Whisk until smooth and thickened.

when the potatoes are almost done, put in the onions and let them cook a little. Also add the precooked bacon, if you are using that. After a couple of minutes of sauteeing, dump it all into the salad bowl.  Follow with the dressing and toss.

Toast the bread. Peel and chop the eggs into quarters. add as many as you like (we used three). toss them in the salad lightly, taking care not to tear them up too much. Cut the toast into cubes and toss on top.

That's it! Hearty, warm, sweet, sour, filling, green-y... Perfect for a gray, wet day. We followed up with a nice cup of black Assam tea. Feeling pretty good right now.

Refrigerator Pickles

It's the time of year that I like to make refrigerator pickles. The temp is cooler in the house, so the pickles can sit on the counter for a few days and marinate before I put them on ice. The shelf life of refrigerator pickes is only a few weeks, but they don't last that long. The local market frequently has smaller cukes available, which struck me as odd until I started making pickles. Now it makes perfect sense.

By the way- we moved our stove back into its traditional location a few days ago. Yay! More than one burner! Cookies! We are pretty psyched right now.  The electric skillet, though it performed like a champ, is already back in storage!

Local Places: Time For Pie, Hermannhof Winery

We woke up this morning to an unbelievably bright and crisp autumn day. I have been itching to return to Hermann after having passed up three years of Oktoberfest, so we decided to drive there today. It's a very picturesque forty-five or fifty minutes from Jefferson City on Highway 94, which hugs the northern shore of the Missouri River all the way to St. Louis. We could have taken 50 East, but the view, while not bad in some places, is just not the same as the 94, which runs through the river valley, into the hills, runs startlingly close to river bluffs, and affords a couple of dramatic glimpses of the river in such small towns as Portland.

Missouri has only one world-class grape, the Norton. Local vintners are capable of making a superb dry red with this grape. A mid-Missouri Norton is almost guaranteed to be a good bottle if it was a good year. Less reliable are the various sweet and sweetish-dry German style whites that were pioneered by German immigrants who

transplanted varietals from the Rhine valley to this area. Some are pretty good, but some are too foxy, others too sweet. But it is definitely worth looking for the best of the latest vintages.

Hermann, settled in 1839 by German immigrants,  is a lovely town, full of stunning mid-to-late nineteenth century buildings, many in excellent condition. The vernacular architecture is interesting as well, reflecting many styles that can be found in river towns throughout the state along the major waterways. We arrived at lunchtime and grabbed bratwurst and kraut from street vendors only forty feet from the parking lot. I've never minded eating on the street, as long as it's good, and these brats were tender and tasty. But in retrospect, I wish we had waited, for a much more interesting place neither Abbey nor I, despite being veterans of several Hermann Oktoberfests, ever remember seeing. Perhaps it's a new place.

We crossed the street and the creek to sample wines at Hermannhof Winery, which has the strategic advantage of being right in the middle of downtown; there are several wineries in the area, in more remote locations, some more worthy than Hermannhof. But Hermannhof has a few decent wines, and there were two grownups and three younguns along for the ride, so we were looking for a streamlined winery experience. Abbey tasted wines while I shepherded kids. The kids and I picked out snacks, and Abbey ultimately picked out a not-too-sweet white, a 2007 Vidal Blanc, which we had later at home with some fresh Manchego (also purchased at Hermannhof) and honeycrisp apples. We resisted the delicious smell of cinnamon sugar almonds from a vendor right there in the weingarten, holding out for unknown treats within walking distance.

After picking up some kettlecorn on the street and scoring some homemade cookies at an animal shelter fundraiser, we felt like he were doing pretty well. But as the afternoon wound down, we found ourselves in need of a bit more sustinance, and an interesting place to enjoy it. We found it quite by accident. Called Time For Pie, a couple of blocks off of the main drag, few words had to be exchanged to convince everyone to go there. Located in yet another antique storefront, the interior sported plain wood floors, a black stamped tin ceiling, and vintage tables and chairs. The menu is an interesting blend. Like all restaurants that wish to take advantage of the Oktoberfest crowds, they offer bratwurst and kraut, but unlike any other place I've been in Hermann, they offer multiple types of sausage from local specialists, the Swiss Meats Company. We had already had our brats for the day, but I know where I'm getting mine next time we go to Hermann. Also on the menu was a hearty, delightful beef and barley soup, quite savory and delicious, not too salty as some beef stews tend to be. In addition, they have a full-service espresso drink bar, and a number of interesting fruit smoothies. But most notable of all is the pie, available by the pie or the slice, in, among many others, cherry, blackberry, mixed berry, apple and apple-cranberry. We ordered a slice of cherry to share, along with other goodies, and swarmed a table covered with puzzle toys to wait.  Soon it arrived warm and ready to devour. The crust was light and tasty, the filling tart with the flavor of cherries with a lovely hint of vanilla. It's the best cherry pie I have had in a long time. We will be returning soon, in fact that place alone will be bringing me back to Hermann a lot sooner than the next 'Fest.