My Mother, the Blogger

My mom has a blog. And its a cooking blog!!!!
http://debbysegura.blogspot.com

The Shabbos That I got Everything Done Thursday night

So, seeing that HB and I might go to a conference most of friday, I decided to make my shabbos night meal tonight and warm it up right before shabbos. This was pretty successful, and took less time than cooking shabbos dinner usually takes. I'm serving...
Chicken soup (leftover from last night, ill make new matza balls tomorrow afternoon)

Chicken in wine and herb sauce (defrosted 4 chicken thighs, poured the rest of a mostly empty bottle of wine on them, capers, basil oil, and a splash of lemon then pinched a few oregano buds from my miraculously still alive herb box and some dried basil, thyme, and pepper)

Purple potato kugel (not as gorgeous as i would have liked, i grated two large purple potatoes, sliced a small onion very thinly, and added 4 eggs, a splash of oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder and baked it in a greased muffin tin. unfortunately, they stuck to the pan so that is how I will serve these mini kugels.)

Romaine salad with grape tomatoes (just cleaned some lettuce really, I'll make a dressing on shabbos)

I want to make some form of dessert but im not really sure what... maybe baked apples with nuts inside?

Cooking with my new La Chamba pot!

Things I've made in the La Chamba
Delicious Soups (a few, so far, and they all came out great, even though most of them were leftovers thrown together)
--Yeminite soup (Hawaaj spice mix, some frozen leftover soup from a few weeks ago, potatoes, some lima beans, and dill)
-Potato-zucchini soup (I even blended it in the pot, with fantastic results)
---1 onion, sauteed in a bit of olive oil. A few garlic cloves. 3 potatoes, 3 zucchinis. Salt, pepper, bay leaves, maybe a pinch of soup powder (peccavimus!) Cook. Puree.
-Two-Nut soup- Coconut/Butternut squash.
---Take 2 frozen blocks of butternut squash and unwrap into the pot. Open a can of coconut milk and add it to the pot with an equivalent volume of water or maybe slightly more. Add freshly ground black pepper, a few whole peppercorns, salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg. Boil. Thats it. It is supremely delectable.

Brown Jasmine Rice- which comes out deliciously separated and perfectly fluffy- I think the La Chamba clay conducts heat very slowly and evenly, making this the most perfect rice I have ever had the pleasure of cooking, and I've ruined a few pots of rice in my day.

And......
Mark Bittman's famous no-knead bread!!! More on this exciting development later.

Wow, its been a long hiatus

but NOW... I am the proud owner of a La Chamba soup pot! Expect fun things to be cooked, and posted. Culinarily, I've been so busy with school that most of my effort with food goes to the effort to keep body and soul together while at school (where the food options are atrocious and expensive) untill I get home. Many packed soups-in-thermoses, stuffed vegetables, etc.

Party-Shabbos!

So I did something I havent done in a long while- make a large shabbos meal for lots of friends.
This meal ended up being 12 people, so I went with cooking lots of a few main dishes and some plainer sides for picky people.

Morrocan Vegetable Tagine for 12- see below, only doubled or tripled most of the quantities

Charmoula Chicken
Defrost more chicken than you thought possible. For me, this meant 2 family-packs of leg/thighs (resulting in 10pcs total) and 1 pack of breasts (2 largeish ones which i later split into 4). Pound a bunch of cilantro with 2 cloves of garlic, salt, olive oil, pepper, and a spoon of harissa. Mix with a bit of water and some vinegar, spoon over all the chicken thighs. Season the chicken breasts with mustard and paprika for anti-cilantrites. Bake till it wont food-poison your guests.

Couscous
Really easy, just boil up about 4 cups of water and add 4 cups of whole wheat couscous. Cover, remove from fire. When this turns out not to fill up your serving pan, make one more of pinenut-flavored couscous mix you have sitting around and mix it in with the plain stuff. Add more pine nuts (stroke of genius!!)

Fennel Salad
Slice up a bulb of fennel and a clove of garlic. Lemon, salt, oliveoil, pepper. thats it.

Roomie made cake and edamames. Esti brought salad, HB brought humus and eggplant salad and breads. His roomies brought wine and soda.

Overall, A Smashing success with many people crowded into half of a living room!

Rock the Casbah, Veggie-Style

Delicious Vegetable Tagine With Couscous
First I cut a red onion into large, flat peices, sauteed them in a very small quantity of olive oil, cut and seeded a small Kabocha squash and placed this skin-side down on top of the onions and added water to cover. Then I added 2 chunked red potatoes, 2 chunked and peeled carrots, 4 ribs of celery and 4 garlic cloves, more water, some peppercorns and let it simmer for a while. Added 2 bay leaves, a shake of turmeric, a bit of powdered ginger, some cumin, some dried parsley, salt, and some hot paprika and then a dab of harissa paste. Added a can of chickpeas. Let simmer untill all the vegetables are tender and the spices no longer can be individually
discerned.
Serve over whole-wheat couscous.

Tzatziki Salad

Peel and seed 3 largish or medium cucumbers if theyre the kind that need that sort of treatment. Otherwise, use your discretion. Chunk them up. Toss them with lemon, olive oil, a pinch of salt, and some peppermill. Oh, how I love the peppermill... I chilled mine for a while in the fridge, scooped out a bowl-full, and topped with a few spoons of Fage 2% Yogurt and a shake of hot paprika (untraditional for tzatziki I know.) Very cool and refreshing. Add some chickpeas for protien and fiber if you want.

Succotash Soup

This post is special for LutC who expressed a desire (indirectly) for healthy things. Please, comment all you want, and I'd link you if I could figure out how the darn thing worked.

Succotash Soup

I sliced the kernels off 3 ears of beautiful white corn. I cut an onion into halfmoons and sauteed it in a bit of olive oil, added carrots, zuchhinis, and lima beans. Added water, salt, pepper, and some garlic cloves. Let it stew for a bit. Added the kernels. Cooked for a small while, didnt let the corn get too un-crunchy. Dished up with a bit of low fat greek yogurt and a dash of hot paprika on top. Yummy. I ate the whole pot.

Sorry About the Lack of Pix

But I've been eating my food before I get a chance to photograph it, really....
I made a fake cream of cauliflower soup the other night- really just an onion and a few garlic cloves and a head of cauliflower boiled in a mixture of milk, water, and a soup cube for a while. Sounds very spare but it was actually great- very soothing. Lovely with parmesan and ground pepper on the top.

Meatless Moussaka

This one is in the oven, we'll see how it comes out

Slice up a robust eggplant into thin slices, toss with a pinch of salt and a very small dribble of oil. Roast in a large aluminum baking dish (no need to seperate out on trays) at 400 while you make the sauce, tossing occasionally.

Fry up an onion and a red pepper. Add whatever wine you have around, a can of crushed tomatoes and a little can of tomato sauce, cinnamon, allspice, oregano, parsley, and garlic, salt, pepper. I also rehydrated a few dried mushrooms and added them and their soaking liquid. Let it cook for a little bit, then add a package of soy crumbles.

Take the eggplant slices out of the oven and transfer to a plate. Oil the bottom of the pan you used for the eggplants- I used a 9x13 aluminum disposable- and toss some pinches of breadcrumbs on it. Place a layer of eggplants on the bottom, spoon half the sauce on top, then the rest of the eggplants, then the rest of the sauce. Top with more breadcrumbs. Lower the oven to 350, Pop back in untill the eggplant slices are fully cooked and the sauce is thick.

Sometimes Everyday Food is Nice, too.

So I'm settling in to more of a routine in my new apartment lately- get up, go to work, work, leave work, stop at the 175th farmers market for vegetables for dinner, start cooking something, go to the gym for a bit while it cooks, come home, tidy up a bit, water the plants, and eat dinner. Optional activites include- hanging up curtain rods, organizing the kitchen, and planning where all the clutter is going to be contained once I get everything out of the moving boxes. Understandably, food has to be rather simple. A few nights ago I stewed some lentils and served them with watercress and pine nuts. Last night I made a black bean chili and turmeric rice. The color contrast made it really special, I thought- purple and yellow.

Black Bean Chili
Chop a large onion, a handful of celery ribs, 2 large garlic cloves, 2 carrots and a red pepper. Let fry a bit in some olive oil. Add 2 chopped tomatoes when reasonably soft. Add 2 cans of rinsed black beans and a few cans of water. Pepper, cumin, chili powder- and I threw in some sprigs of fresh oregano from my windowbox. I went out to the gym and let this simmer.

Turmeric Rice
When I got back from the gym I tossed 1 drinking glass of brown rice into a pot with 2 drinking glasses of water and let it boil with a dribble of oil, a pinch of salt, and some shakings of turmeric. Bring to a boil, cover, and let steam untill all the water is absorbed.

Too busy to sit there and check leaf lettuce, I chopped up a head of iceberg and served with vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper. Maybe a few pine nuts.

Suprise Tomato Watercress Salad

Last night, Hippoboy and I decided to take a break from our strenuous 4th-of-July vacation of putting together large pieces of furniture and moving heavy boxes upstairs by making dinner for the first time in my new apartment. While I boiled some whole-wheat penne, HB graciously stepped out to the bodega for some tomatoes and basil for a quick tomato-basil-caper sauce. He returned however, with not basil, but a lovely bunch of very basily-looking watercress. On discovering this, I scrapped the idea of basil sauce, made a lovely sauce just with capers, tomatoes, and spices and had the penne and sauce.

Later that evening, after a very patriotic fireworks viewing over the bridge, I concocted a salad to fuel our continued moving efforts- I chopped 2 largish tomatoes, pinched handfulls of watercress off of their stems, chopped up a hard boiled egg, and added salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. It was so delicious that I made two more variations on this salad tonight- and I havent even begun to make a dent in the large bunch of watercress.

Variation One- Omit egg, add pine nuts.

Variation Two (pictured above)- omit salt, egg; add feta, pine nuts.

Delicious!

The Last Shabbos

...in my current apartment, that is.

I'm moving. It's chaotic. It's messy. My kitchen is more than messy. Somehow I managed to cobble together a fantastic Shabbos. My beloved grandparents were in town and joined a merry crowd of hippoboy, myself, and my friend batya for dinner. Batya stayed over and joined us for lunch. All things considered, it went swimmingly

Shabbos Dinner

Whatever Is in the Fridge Chicken
Defrost chicken parts- back quarters and/or breasts. Slather with a bit of dijon, Pour on some balsamic and capers. Sprinkle on some pepper. I tossed in a bit of my tomato-basil salad for good measure and poured about 1/2 a cup of moscato d'asti over it all and baked it at 350 till the juice ran clear.

Roasted Red Potatoes
quarter a mixture of red and yukon potatoes. Toss with olive oil, salt, garlic powder, pepper, and paprika. Roast with whatever you've got going in the oven as long as the potatoes can stand it. They take a very long time....

Roasted Asparagus (Deborah Madison's Recipe)
Snap the bottoms off the spears. Arrange in a roasting pan. Drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few sprinkles of water. Cover with foil for 10 mins at 425, then uncover untill done.

Tomato Basil Salad
Seed and chunk a bunch of tomatoes. Wash a bunch of basil. Tear up latter and scatter over former. Toss with oil, balsamic, capers, salt, pepper. Let sit.

Picked up some good bread from Fairway for both meals.

Shabbat Lunch
Hippoboy brought me back a smoked salmon, so I made a rather untraditional Nicoise.

Nicoise
Flake the salmon over salad greens. Add 2 sliced hardboiled eggs, the leftover asparagus and tomatoes from last night, and some capers. Balsamic, mustard, honey, olive oil dressing.

Steamed Artichokes

A Cholent that hurt my stomach a bit- marrowbones, onions, and potatoes. Who knew...

Now, the Moving continues....

A Mediterranean Shabbat Picnic

This Shabbat, I was going to make a southwestern picnic- turkey chili, cornbread, the whole deal. However- my plans were derailed when I happened to stop in Grand Central Market and found a beautiful package of yellow tomatoes, and two flats of baby artichokes. That, plus the rustic bread I picked up from Zaros, was enough to inspire me to make a Mediterranean-Basin-Themed Shabbos Meal.

Provencal Tomato Salad
Chop and de-seed red and yellow tomatoes. Add capers, salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, and torn fresh basil leaves. Marinate in Fridge.

Steamed Baby Artichokes

Tunisian Tuna Salad
1 largish can white tuna, waterpacked- really it should be ventresca in olive oil, but we work with what we find in the bodega.
Added a bit of lite mayo, dijon mustard, a generous amount of chopped cilantro, a finely chopped green onion, two ribs of celery, a dab of harissa, lemon juice, and cumin. A hit, I tell you!

Syrian Potato-Egg Salad
Boiled 2 large and 1 small baking potato. Let cool overnight, peel, cube. Hard-boil 2 or 3 eggs. Peel, cube. Combine. Add salt, ground pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, granulated garlic, and cumin. Fresh chopped parsley would have been nice with this.

Pesto Cauliflower
Steam or boil some cauliflower. Make a loose pesto (I made mine with my stickblender) of basil leaves, a garlic clove, salt, oil, and a few pine nuts. Pour over the chunked cauliflower. Let marinate in the fridge. Garnish with a few pine nuts before serving.

Tuscan White Bean Soup
Soak a bit less than a bag of white beans overnight. Sautee an onion, a few garlic cloves, 2 celery ribs and 2 carrots with some rehydrated porcinis and some oil. When the vegetables are partly cooked, add some kind of crushed tomato product and then combine in crockpot with the beans. Add some salt, pepper, dried oregano, and granulated garlic. Let cook untill lunchtime.

Rustic bread- buy somewhere good. Dip in olive oil.

Dessert- soak a box of strawberries in a bit of vanilla, a splash of good scotch, and a shake of sugar. Marinate in fridge. Tear up and top with some mint leaves, serve over bryers vanilla ice cream along with assorted chocolates. Delicious.

Hippogirl goes on a diet...

ok, its offical folks. I have two weddings this summer and I'm worried that my shapely curves are beginning to be a bit out of a nice shape and my muscles are not as toned as they once were. henceforth, i will be nobly attempting to hit the Curves circuit 3x a week (i hope) and elminating the following foods...

Refined flour
Sucrose
fatty things- i will allow myself 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil/day- i cant cook or feel good about my food without that. But transfats are out and the earthbalance margarine in the fridge is only to be used on very special occasions.
cheese- ah, the big temptation. I can eat a whole wedge of kashkeval in one sitting. cheese is henceforth restricted to ancillary roles, no more eating of cheese by itself and never in unreasonable quantities, and preferably not more than once a day.
Chocolate- actually, ive been very good about this one lately. I bought myself a bag of nibs for very bad cravings.
Ice cream- I'll admit ive been slipping with this one lately. I will buy 1 pint of tastidelite and have bits of that instead.
Eating untill really really overful- yikes, this happens alot. Strategies to curtail- will try to drink more beverages with meals and/or soup. Helped tonite at cafe viva.

There. These all sound like good, well reasoned and healthy moves on my part. Hippogirl POWER!

an exotic pilaf

composed of qinoa and rainbow chard and yummy yummy pine nuts.

I sauteed the chopped chard in warmed olive oil with crushed garlic and let it steam with a little bit of water untill it was tender. I dished it out and rinsed a cup of quinoa, then placed it in the same pot with 2 cups of water and some salt and freshly milled pepper and let it steam. I toasted some pine nuts in the oven which was already on for the chicken breasts roasted in capers, lemon juice, thyme, and olive oil which went with a romaine lettuce salad with the delicious avocados I picked up for a fraction of their usual price at an open market on 175th on thursday afternoon and a dijon mustard dressing.

I composed the qinoa and chard, stirring them and enjoying their lovely colors. I strewed the pine nuts over and had to take it to Malka's to stop picking at it with little tastes and nibbles.

when you give a hippogirl an apple.....

she will use the integrated camera to take digipix of her creations, what else?
of course, this means that I couldn't really get all the angles I wanted, but this chocolate cake, the simple chocolate cake of shabboscooking fame, looked very pretty in all of its bundty goodness. I also added pecans. Maybe I should whip up a glaze to put over it? with icing sugar and vanilla? I'm bringing this cake to a dinner at becky's this shabbos along with a bottle of wine, and Im thinking of making a quinoa pilaf (quinoa, pine nuts, dried nectarines; or, quinoa, chard, and pine nuts????) and a chicken ceasar salad.

Purple Artichokes, Continued

I cut the stems and peeled them rather thickly, placing the artichokes and their stems in my saucier with water- the artichokes with a portion of their beautiful purple-thorned crowns sliced into a flat top so they will steam, inverted.

The artichokes retained their purple and imbued the steaming water with a rich rosy hue reminiscent of my favorite purple roses.

I ate one. I composed a sauce of lite hellmans, grey poupon, and lemon juice. The artichoke was a deep, exquisitley bitter vegetal flavor, more artichokey than ordinary green artichokes, with the uniform purple of the leaves giving way to two-tone, then striped leaves, putting me in mind of their thistly relatives. It was like eating a flower.

Purple Artichokes!

In our peri-monthly trip to Fairway, I was entranced by a beautiful bin of purple artichokes with long green stems.

Too Much Food and Not Enough Blogtime

I simply have too much food to write about, seeing as I ended both of my last two posts with caveats that I had more to say. With that in mind, here is the brief lowdown on what I made for this past shabbos

Brought to the meal I attended- Dinner
a big pan of whole wheat macaroni with artichoke arrabiata sauce
a big pan of balsamic roasted green beans with walnuts
a little pan of savory cornbread

Made for the meal I hosted- Lunch
Crockpot Turkey Chili (a hit!)
Sweet cornbread
Romaine Salad with balsamic/dijon dressing
Broccoli/Tempeh/Chickpea baked curry
one of my guests brought wine, another, sesame green beans
and i made a big chocolate sheet cake with cinnamon topping and chocolate chips