Local Dish Posts

New Recipes

2013-03-05T08:49:54-07:00

Since late last year, I’ve been considering a change of face for Local Dish. Though the concept is a valuable one and served as great inspiration years ago when the site and recipe archive were born, the name and URL just don’t describe the space I want to create today, here in the far-out future world of 2013. (I feel old.)

The husband and I have decided to move Local Dish to a new location with a new name, but that’s going to take some time. Because life. Due to that flux, I’ve been unmotivated and unsure about creating longer, photo-heavy posts on Local Dish lately.

But duh, we still must eat. I still must cook good food. New food. Shareable food.

Until we get the new ball rolling, check out a few of our recent favorite recipes.

Curried Red Lentil Soup with Chickpeas and Quinoa

Hearty. Healthy. Filling. Cheap. And IMO opinion, delicious for a weekday supper. Husband is less convinced, but I didn’t see any soup remaining in his bowl to back up that argument.

Eggplant Rollatini!

The time-intensive rolls are damn tasty, but the time-intensive part can be dissuading. I’d totally make them again nonetheless. Even better, I may steal the method of breading and baking the eggplant — so crisp and delicious straight from the oven — to use as a side dish or a component of another meal.

Creamy Polenta with Roasted Mushrooms

Holy shit, nom. Nom in the sense of “another bite, just one more bite, I know I’m full, but one more” until you’re scraping the pot clean. For this cheese- and fungus-loving lady, this is in contention for best comfort food ever.

Related Recipes

Hit and Miss: Roasted Chicken Pasta

2013-02-15T10:50:31-07:00

It’s no secret that I love Pinterest, though perhaps I don’t use it the way many other users do. For the most part, I don’t pin motivational quotes or hair styles or fashion or work-out routines or pretty photography of any kind. Especially mine, because I don’t take much pretty photography. We broke our camera in China. I have my iPhone, and that’s as high-res as I’m going to document my life right now. Granted, that level of quality is likely better than what I oft see with my eyes when my glasses are smudged with oil splatters and/or flour, spices and everyday fingerprints.

Ninety percent of what I pin are recipes to my To Cook board. (250+ pins and counting!) When I’m putting together my store list, I then pull up the board and peruse for what sounds good to cook in the next few days, supplementing that perusal with already cooked recipes here on Local Dish. My pins aren’t there to be shared, though hey, feel free. There’s no social element to my use of this social medium. My pins are for me, for my reference.

That said, my hoarding mentality doesn’t stop me from swiping the pins of my friends. Like Gina, from whom I culled this hit-and-miss pasta dish:

Pasta with Roasted Chicken, Raisins, Pine Nuts, and Parsley Recipe

The hit parade:

The spices are some of my favorite: smoked paprika and chopped, fresh rosemary. A great earthy combination ideal for a hot winter meal.

The method: I love that you roast the chicken, separately boiling some noodles. Then the pasta is tossed with the meat directly in the roasting pan with all the luscious juices, heated over the burners. Also makes for easy clean up.

(Note: The iPhone can do panoramics way better than a camera! OK, not in this stutter-y case — look at the bottom of the pan and the bend in the knife — but let me have my little victory in my camera-less world.)

The raisins: Plumped up in hot water, man were these sweet bombs great against the starchy pasta and roasted meat.

But, yeah. The misses weighed down on that scale to make it hang even.

Greasy. The pan drippings used were excessive and dominated the other flavors, including the great spices. Half of the drippings should be poured off before adding the pasta. The original recipe even calls for the chicken skin to be chopped and added back to the pasta along with the meat. I omitted that step, and the meal was still napkin-messing greasy.
One-note. While hearty and wintery as promised, there was little else going on other than the pops of raisins (which I’ve doubled the amount of in the recipe here on Local Dish). In an effort to add some greenery and variety, I sliced up some Swiss chard to add to the pan, but even that wasn’t enough. We need something. Something else. Broccoli maybe? Mushrooms?

Not good. Not bad. Bad enough that no one wanted to eat the leftovers in the fridge, and we’re leftover lovers. We’re weird like that. Don’t judge me. I hate this kind of kitchen situation. Here I am with these photos I took of a process that I didn’t wind up liking over much, and they sit in my Dropbox folder lonely and heavy and unedited for days and days. So I do post this recipe? Do I not?

It’s Friday, and I want to post to wrap up the week, so I’m publishing the recipe and mostly for one reason: that method! Roasting, tossing pasta, one dish, easy, hearty. It’s stuck in my head and my culinary imagination. There is a stellar dish somewhere in what I learned from this lukewarm one. I just know it.

I’ll let it marinate, and when some meal finally springs from that marination, this post will have been worthwhile. I hope.

Related Recipes

Pasta with Roasted Chicken, Raisins, Pine Nuts, and Parsley

Cabin Improvements

2013-02-12T10:30:27-07:00

I was taking pictures of our dinner one night last week, and the husband noted, “Didn’t you already post this recipe?”

Why yes, yes I did, but I was taking new photos on purpose for a specific purpose, I said: to take two of my cabin Kitchenette Cooking posts and show how they could be improved. You know, now that I’m in a real (brand new!) kitchen in our new home.

“Um, isn’t it pretty easy to improve on anything you made in the cabin?” he asked.

Why yes, yes it is, but that doesn’t mean I can’t show you how.

Like how to take Enchilagna, which I mentioned was messy and somewhat unsatisfying for the amount of effort involved, and turn it into this satisfying meal…

… of the Enchilagna roasted vegetables served on their spiced, delicious own as a side to old-favorite Pecan Chicken. Wow, was that good, from the first bite and into the next day’s leftovers. Wow, was that 1970s lighting awful. I’d almost forgotten. I can’t remember to never forget how lucky I am to have escaped cooking in a time warp. That sentence totally makes sense in my head.

Outside of the cabin confines, I also took a dish we really love, Turkey Tacos …

… and made it even better …

… by creating “fried” taco shells in the oven. I found the idea over on Pinterest, and it works better than I ever could have hoped. My mom used to pan-fry tortilla shells when I was kid, and I loved them so, so much. Now, I can get the same results with a microwave, cooking spray and my oven rack with far less fat.

Oh, and I also now have the cheese grater that was missing from my kitchenette experiment when I first documented the tacos. Another thing for which to be thankful. Or rather, another thing with which I am thankful not to deal. See above: Makes sense in Kate’s head.

When you cook good things (as I strive to do most of the time), it’s inevitable that you re-cook good recipes. As a food blogger, that means original content can be difficult to construct. As an eater, that means you’re happy. I’m choosing to focus on the latter, the happiness, and cook what sounds good, be it old or new — because even good recipes can always be improved upon.

Related Recipes

Far from white

2013-01-22T09:57:17-07:00

Oh Friday, happy Friday. Today is Tuesday, of course. Sorry to get your hopes up there. But let me lighten your week with a trip back to last Friday and make Tuesday a little tastier.

Friday meals at Casa Local Dish are fun. In addition to being the start of the weekend, they are usually accompanied by a glass of great beer and an evening free of work for the husband. (Unless he’s on call, when I cross my fingers he won’t get paged.) (He’s not a doctor.)

Last week’s a new tofu dish, followed by popcorn and Battlestar Gallactica on BluRay. I was tweetably happy.

Yet a friend sent me a message: Sounds rather white.

The popcorn, sure. But let me assure my friend and the whole audience (which may be just that friend!): This tofu was far from white.

Spicy Vegan Peanut Butter Tofu with Sriracha

This tofu, culled from the Pinterest page of friend Driven Witless, was not only colorful, but was also eyes-closed, moaning, plate-scraping delicious. Spicy. Nutty. Tangy. And it bears repeating, spicy.

The sauce is composed of condiments I usually have hanging around the house and comes together in a snap. Take a look at the flavor punches here, tofu haters. You’ve likely heard before and dismissed the blandishment that tofu is a blank slate. It is what you make of it. It’s trite but true. And with the combination of peanut butter, Sriracha and agave nectar, this sauce would make cardboard palatable. Or at least lickable.

Point being, it makes tofu great. Knock it if you like, but risk being wrong and try this kick-ass painting of the blank slate.

Also, yep, this is really how I cook, on a daily basis. Yes, my iPad screen is smeared and greasy. Hazards of the job.

The food-blogging “job”? Will you pay me? I’ll feed you in return!

The most time consuming part of this snap-easy dish is pan frying the tofu in your wok or heavy pan. The browning is key for great texture on the tofu. The seal creates a nice, light crust which gives way to the creaminess inside. If you (think you) hate tofu, you may have just gagged. If you’ve (seen the light and) love tofu, your mouth is watering.

Take your time. Work in batches. Use an awesome plate.

Don’t worry about the tofu cooling too much; you can heat up all the pieces in the sauce together at the end of the recipe. Add rice and snap peas — I even served the peas simply washed and raw to great effect — and you have yourself a great Friday meal in the same amount of time it would take for Chinese delivery.

And this is bounds above Chinese delivery.

Don’t count on leftovers.

Note: The beer is the last of our Upslope Brewery’s Christmas Ale.

Related Recipes

Spicy Vegan Peanut Butter Tofu with Sriracha

Middle Eastern Sloppy Joes

2013-01-17T12:13:32-07:00

As someone who loves to cook, one of the first things you want to know about a new sumthin-sumthin someone special is their taste in food. Their sensitivity to certain vegetables, regional preferences, portion sizes and general culinary adventurousness. All these are easy questions to ask, yes, but truly mapping another’s palate is a more subtle art. After a while, it becomes something you feel more than something you can describe.

In the case of me and the husband, I’ve long been able to spot recipes with his name all over them, something surely crafted just for his delight. I know it when I see it, but again, that knowing is often intuitive and can be hard to describe.

Except for one category. One strangely narrow and precise category: anything cross-cultural that is also handheld. Just try to get more specific than that!

Granted, it took me some time to make that connection, to find the linking characteristics of some of his favorite dishes. Now that the connection has been made, duh, it seems so obvious.

Like Meatball Banh Mi, wherein a traditional Vietnamese sandwich meets the beloved American meatball.

Like the Korean Burrito, which takes Korean marinated meat and rolls it in Mexican tortillas.

And like this dish, the Middle Eastern Sloppy Joe. When I ask about upcoming meals, his eyes light up. “Can we have sloppy joes?!” When we sit down to dinner: “I love these!” How were the leftovers? “Great!”

Which is all great for me because, No. 1, they’re very healthy, made with fresh veggies, ground turkey or chicken, and served on whole-wheat pitas. More importantly, No. 2, they’re seriously as easy to make as browning beef in a skillet, with only a little more chopping.

One.

Two.

Three, and done, served here with whole-wheat cous cous (5 minutes) or often with a side salad.

We all have such specific tastes in some arenas. His is cross-cultural, handheld treats, and given that the above recipes are all stand-out favorites, I cannot argue with that tasty preference. Not that he eschews “regular,” non-crossed sandwiches, mind you.

I also get cheers for great, more one-culture recipes like…

Jerk Pork Sandwiches and …

Lamb Gyros.

And shit. Now that I brought it up, when I next ask what should be on the menu in the coming days, methinks the answer is going to be gyros, jerk pork, Korean burritos and Banh Mi. And no, there would be no problem with so many handhelds in a row.

I’d bet good money on it.

Related Recipes

Middle Eastern Sloppy Joe

How to get a hungry man to consider a vegetarian soup a main dish

2013-01-11T14:29:19-07:00

You make biscuits. Grandmother Walters’s Biscuits.

Which makes one of my favorites — Roasted Root Soup — as satisfying a meal to hubby as it is to me.

Such is what I’ve learned from four years of marriage. To add carbs and butter. I’m hoping the real deep wisdom and relationship brilliance comes later in marriage?

Carbs and butter will still work then, too, I’m betting.

Related Recipes

Holiday feasting

2013-01-02T08:19:28-07:00

The holidays — Christmas, New Year, Hanukkah, Festivus or whatever you happen to celebrate — connote lots of different rituals and emotions. Most of mine are centered on my family, especially my wonderful husband and the warm, close traditions we’ve crafted for ourselves over the years. They’re about being home, being present and grateful in life; they’re about many different kinds of savoring. Still, there is one thing that is the heart of my holidays. And this thing covers many, many, a-gluttonous-many things.

Food.

As you can tell by my Twitter feed, by 8:30 a.m. on Christmas, I was obviously knee-deep in my holiday worship.

By that weekend, the fridge (a new fridge, a wonderfully cavernous fridge) was groaning.

By New Years Day, it was actually difficult to search my brain and question my tubby stomach about what we had consumed, but my iPhone photos do help jog the memory. Oof. Let’s not talk about jogging, OK?

For family dinner on Christmas Eve, there were Maple-Glazed Carrots.

Easy to transport, as was the other side I brought, Crispy Potato Roast.

The treat that night was a fantastic prime rib roast courtesy of a great family friend, followed by presents. The beef was a really fun change from turkey.

But there still had to be turkey. On actual Christmas Day, I followed our Spatchcocked Turkey recipe, which requires brine, herb butter and butterflying.

A whole turkey. For two people. Because that’s totally sane. The husband and I make a point never to go overboard on spending, presents or consumerism. Overboard on turkey is tradition, though, on hubby’s side of the family. Seriously, they compete over who is cooking the heavier bird.

The first of many plates, which boasts more sides:

The meal/meals were completed sweetly with another hubby-family favorite, his childhood Chocolate Chip Cake.

That cake is more for him, though I still find it luscious and decadent and wonderful. He’ll eat it for breakfast, snack and dessert. For New Years, I made a similarly versatile food that’s more my style: fruity.

Strawberry Balsamic Tart

As if that wasn’t enough, there was also marinara sauce, pork carnitas, two-bean turkey chili, puppy chow Chex mix and more, but my mouth was too busy chewing for the phone to do the documenting. I hope your holiday season (now done. sniff.) was equally full of food and love — and food as love!

Welcome back to the real world, and to your regularly scheduled food blogging. One resolution of mine: to visit, photo and blog about some of Boulder’s great specialty markets. Indian, seafood, Spanish, Mediterranean… It’s gonna be a fun year.

Related Recipes

Chopping presents

2012-12-22T09:27:10-07:00

There are some people who are hard to buy for at Christmastime. They have everything. They don’t need anything. On my list, I even have people who eschew useless possessions, so I guess socks and nice-smelling candles are out.

Well then. It’s not like I can show up empty handed. It’s not in my nature, nor my nurture (meaning the ideas of generosity and holiday spirit with which I was raised). Therefore, when I cannot buy, I make. (I’m sensing you’re not surprised.)

Therefore, I’ve spent the last few days cooking up presents, the first of which began like this:

A good mirepoix base of carrots and celery, chopped super fine. I’ve told the husband many times over the years: You can witness my love in my knife skills. For simple roasted carrots for a weeknight meal, I’ll hack them into 2-inch hunks in two minutes. For maple carrots for Christmas dinner, those carrots will be sliced thin and perfectly even on a lovely, long diagonal edge.

The person for whom this present is destined? How loved are they?

That’s all you get. I’ll share my recipe for this tasty, hopefully well received culinary gift once it’s been “unwrapped” on the holiday by the much loved recipient.

OK, one more hint.

And that’s all you get. I’m such a Scrooge. The Scrooge of A Christmas Carol’s conclusion, that is:

“I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody!”

Spicy Thai Coconut Quinoa

2012-12-18T13:11:37-07:00

Ways in which things are returning to normal at Casa Local Dish:

Out with the lunch meat! We’re eating dinner leftovers for lunch the next day, which has been our habit and preference for years. You can only eat so many sandwiches. No matter how you vary the ingredients, it’s still a sandwich.
A full pot of tea every morning! No more heating up water in the microwave or kettle to make individual mugs. Our “coffee” maker is full steam ahead, using our favorite loose-leaf teas to make 12-cup pots of warmth for early winter mornings.
Also full dishwashers! No more paper plates. No more take-out containers. You wouldn’t think I’d be happy about dishes, but, well, life can be surprising.
Welcome back tofu! Welcome back spicy! Welcome back Asian! Three of my favorite things to cook myself, all included in:

Spicy Thai Coconut Quinoa

Is that a Kate dish, or is that a Kate dish? (Hat tip to Gina on Pinterest for the recipe.)

But not everything is business as usual. How could it be in such new surroundings?

What’s not normal:

The vast, lovely amount of space I have in my new kitchen to arrange my ingredients for blog photography.

The amount of Sriracha hot sauce this recipe calls for: 1/3 cup. Hoo whee.

The shiny, white counters, which are awesome but reflect more light than I’m used to when I take food photos.

The vast, lovely amount of space I have in my new kitchen to arrange my ingredients for blog photography. Oh, I said that already.

(Sorry, I’ve probably crossed the line into bragging now. I’ll stop.)

(I’ll try to stop.)

As the last pictures show, the key to this recipe is preparation. This is not something to throw together after a long day of work or on short notice. This requires reading all the steps in advance and staying organized, which at least in the kitchen, I’m usually pretty good at. Even so, I wouldn’t label this recipe as the original CHOW post did: “It’s still simple enough for a weeknight dinner and you won’t use every pot and pan in the house.”

Yeah, even I don’t consider it simple. Not hard, but not simple.

The quinoa, broccoli, carrots and tofu all have to be cooked in separate stages. Then the dressing, tasty but thick and sticky, is difficult to stir evenly through all the ingredients. There were a few pockets of nothing but dressing that took me by surprise.

It’s a Kate recipe, and one which I’m glad I made. It was good. Not good enough for me to eagerly put it back into rotation right away, though.

Surprisingly, the best part — the new bit I’ll take away to put into use in the future — was simple: the preparation of the quinoa…

… which is cooked in broth and coconut milk. Why have I never thought of this? Talk about flavor! The healthy whole grain becomes creamy and craveable all by itself. Perhaps it could be used as a simple side dish? Perhaps the same method would work well with other grains like rice?

You eat every day, my friends. Might as well learn something new, too.
special-occasion recipes to re-emerge to be enjoyed at holiday meals — hopefully with some new photos to accompany. Happy holidays!

Related Recipes

Spicy Thai Coconut Quinoa

Still-Sharp Skills and Pumpkin Chipotle Cream Pasta

2012-12-14T09:25:56-07:00

Wow, it’s been since … June 12 that I last published what I consider a real post with Welcome Home: Spicy Korean Grilled Pork. Side note: Nom. (The Waldo Canyon Fire started June 23, BTW.) That means it’s been just over six months since I created a new, novel and non-circumstance-hampered meal. It’s no wonder, then, that I seriously questioned in my last post if maybe I’m rusty, if maybe I’ve lost some of my (self-taught, oft-hacked) kitchen skills.

Specifically knife skills.
That would be kind of embarrassing. Especially considering I now have the words “chop, mince, dice” tattooed on my leg. Hrm.

Well.

Starting slow.

Ending strong.

With this Tomato Cucumber Salad. I make versions of cucumber salad often, from this basic no-cook version to Korean style, the latter which was paired with the aforementioned Spicy Korean Pork. (Nom.) Perhaps due to my extra attention to chopping detail or more likely because of the awesome Raspberry Blush White Balsamic Vinegar I used in the dressing, this version was a huge, huge hit.

As in, the husband insisted upon finishing his salad before starting the meal, even though the meal was pasta. Pasta. His carby lover.

As for the pasta, oh, people. This pasta — Pumpkin Chipotle Cream Pasta — is landmark, and in multiple ways.

1. It’s a “Welcome to Boulder” meal. The recipe is culled from Toni Dash of the Boulder Locavore blog. I began following her after searching out Boulder bloggers before moving up, hoping to get the lay of the land. Now, she’s a daily treat to read. Not only does she post recipes; she’s also lucky enough to be invited out on the town to restaurants and food tours, giving readers the low down and excellent pictures of her adventures.
2. The tools! The previously packed kitchen items I got to use making this pasta include a strainer (imagine!), a full set of measuring spoons and my immersion/stick blender. My grandma bought me the latter and asked, “What on earth will you use that for?” Lots of things, Grandma, but especially pumpkin pasta.
3. It’s absolutely delicious. This is a keeper. It feels fancy and you can fancify it, but you can also speed it up by skipping some of the steps: not toasting the pumpkin seeds, choosing to keep the sauce chunkier, etc. Either way, the smokey and spicy notes of the chipotles in adobo sauce light up the pumpkin, and the cream makes it decadent and filling. Hence the cucumber salad, actually, freshness to balance the rich.

It will not be six more months before I post. In fact, I already have another recipe in the bag, on my phone, with photos of way higher quality of anything in the cabin, where the 70s photo filter was built in straight out of the camera.

See Exhibit A:

Versus the upcoming recipe of Exhibit B:

Not perfect. Not SLR, pro-food blogger quality, but oh so much better! I really can’t wait.

Related Recipes

On the "local dish" part of Local Dish

2012-12-14T09:04:04-07:00

When husband Brooke and I first started this site in 2004, the aim was to make locavorism and seasonal eating accessible, and the audience was Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak area. A little * cough * has happened since then, including:

Putting the blog into near stasis when I became Gazette food critic
Husband finding amazing, fulfilling work that limits his time to update the site, despite his love and best intentions
Moving from Colorado Springs to Boulder
Leaving my job as Gazette food critic

Just take a look at our About page and FAQ to get an idea of the original vision as well as how the description doesn’t quite match the content you’re seeing recently. Do I still have some of the same goals? Yes. Nonetheless, all these changes have thrown up in the air the original concept of Local Dish and which direction (or even with what new name?) we should progress in the future.

Panic not! I do not want to give up blogging and posting recipes, nor do I want to abandon four years of archives. The name Local Dish does have a resonance with me after so long, so maybe it needs to stay put. I’m just curious about your thoughts.

As a reader, how would you classify the site?
What parts of the site (recipes, photos, personal stories, etc) do you enjoy the most?
What would you like to see on the site in the future?
If you could put a name on Local Dish based on its current personality, what might that be?

We’re not making any changes right now. An outdated About page does not interfere with whatever kind of new content I want to post, and the name Local Dish does no harm. Plus, we’re only now settling into the new house, which means our schedule has not yet settled down. I’m just looking for outside input from family and friends.

Because really, I’m pretty sure those are the only people reading. Hugs to y’all for that!

Mwha ha ha, it's alive!

2012-12-12T14:04:47-07:00

So. Kitchen remodels from the ground up. There are stages to these things. Remember this picture from Curry in a Hurry ?

That’s step one. The demo, the blank slate. And while on HGTV they make it appear like the whole new kitchen appears at once, believe me, it’s a step-full process.

2. Measure for cabinets
(weeks pass…)
3. Install cabinets
4. Install flooring
5. Install lighting
(Paint walls if desired)
6. Measure for counter top
(weeks pass…)
7. Install appliances
8. Install counter top
9. Install sink

And I know I’ve been complaining a lot here, even though people live in far worse conditions on a daily basis. Even so, that cabin deserved it! A week there, I’d have called it great. Three weeks, charming. After two months, good riddance. So the complaints were valid. But holy shit does the finished product deserve all my heart’s love. Dear Maude it is far better than any of us could have imagined.

(In case you forgot my favorite color…)

The roughest patch recently has been living in the house through steps 8 and 9. When you’re stuck at 7 with no counters, you can use the microwave and fridge, put cardboard over the cabinets to hack a surface. A week goes by and at step 8, the counters are so damn purdy. So purdy. But cooking is still like camp cooking. Need water for pasta? You have to go to the bathroom. Need to wash a dish? Well, you get it.

So what did I first once we had water at step 9?

~~Macaroni with hot dogs.~~ Shells in cheese with chicken sausage. But don’t worry. The package assures that it’s Made With Goodness.*

*SEE NUTRITION INFORMATION FOR SODIUM CONTENT

None of that mattered, because stove.

Which I still can’t believe belongs to me, even if it is cooking ~~macaroni with hot dogs~~ shells in cheese with chicken sausage.

“Witness, Igor, as I create life!” Lightning strikes. “Mwa ha ha! Dinner! … Hey babe, time for dinner.”

The counters are ready for their close up, Mr. Deville.

It’s just magical to me. Even two days after the meal. That it was made, and in this kitchen. Which is mine? If I ever, ever forget this magic or how very, very lucky I am to have this kitchen in my house — or does the awesome kitchen own the house and I just live here — please slap me across the face.

Next time I hope to actually use the chef’s knife instead of just artfully posing it. Hope I remember how.

Kitchenette Cooking: Enchilagna

2012-11-27T11:34:15-07:00

I’m not usually the type to be sappy or overly sentimental, to read meaning and inspiration about my life or myself from random things or events. If a black bird perched on the roof of a house where someone soon after died, I offer a “huh, strange coincidence.” When I learn a new vocabulary word and suddenly see it cropping up everywhere as if for the first time, I find it amusing rather than coincidental. And other than the fact that my cooking and eating are intrinsically linked to the seasonal produce and emotions of the year, I rarely find links between my food and my life. I don’t often strike epiphanies with my fork or stir up sentiment in my soups.

Not often. Except lately, when I linked my loathing of high salt in my diet with disgust at the closeness and vehemence of the presidential election or when I conflated food I’d recently cooked with grief I recently experienced.

Not usually. Except again, now, with this pan of Enchilagna.

So I guess I’ll have to change “not often” to often enough, at least lately, at least for now. This fall (and summer) (OK, this year) has hit me from every angle with dramatic emotions and events, fires and deaths, travel and moves, goodbyes and letting go’s, coupled with joy and love, bonds made closer, new doors opened. It’s enough to bring out the sap in even this dry, stoic tree.

Yes, this steady, logical Ent, getting sappy about a casserole, because that’s basically what this meal is. A casserole with a very cute name. Enchilada + Lasagna = Enchilagna. Two meals together, made hybrid, bridging a gap between one firm thing (traditional Mexican enchiladas) and another solid thing (classic Italian lasagna).

It’s a journey between. Like, you see, I’ve been experiencing for two months. Bear with me on this tenuous analogy as I explain.

From the beginning, this is my kind of meal. It’s a clean-out-the-produce-bin, healthy and colorful vegetable festival with seven different items of produce. Yams, peppers, zucchini, corn and even chard. CHARD. Roasted together into a fragrant mountain of paprika, chili powder and cumin.

I could stop here and serve this. The spiced aroma filled the cabin into every dog hair-filled corner, over the smell of old linoleum and general mustiness. The chard crisped to crunchy, the yams soft and sweet.

But this is not a side dish, but an entree of melded cultures made with enchilada/chile sauce and tortillas in the place of marinara and noodles. (Could it be as good with the latter combination? I’d rate it likely.) And cheese, naturally. (Cheese in both cases!)

In my case, the enchilada sauce canned and the pan disposable. Because cabin.

A foot in each culture, straddling two places, finding a personal and unique way to balance the gulf.

And a tasty, hearty way to feed the family for dinner, though mine was somewhat mushy. The addition of I too much sauce made the meal messy. Because Kate.

The vegetable content alone, yes, makes this recipe representative of who I am. But the sentiment rises from the idea of change and transmutation, of the messy process of finding your way along to the next destination. The “enchil” meeting the “lagna” with the force of old meeting new, Colorado Springs meeting Boulder, the windy chaos of doors closing as other windows open. Oh, and the addition to the chaos of dealing with construction, rough living, hacked kitchen tools, cabin-smelling clothing, missing sweaters, plumbing disasters, paint spills, short tempers, lumpy pillows, a dirty dog and an worth-*@$&-all Internet connection — as well as career, family, financial and philosophical turmoil…

I’ve just exhausted myself. Somebody make me a casserole.

And with that, maybe I’ve also exhausted this streak of meal-focused sentimentality and my need to see my life in my food. Well, maybe.

Next up: Fresh in the midst of stale

Kitchenette Cooking: Baked Chicken Parmesan

2012-11-19T14:49:33-07:00

Forgive me my recent absence.
Forgive me my brevity.
Forgive me for taking for granted that tragedy is something that happens. Not to other people, far away, comfortably distant. But here. In my family. To my sister, niece and nephew.

We suffered a tragic death recently, and it’s kept me away. Or when not away, distracted.

Thankfully, the recipe for Baked Chicken Parmesan and the accompanying photos were already in the bag.

Even better, they feel appropriate to share, because this is something I would make my sister right now. Something hot, familiar, comforting, loving. I’m just making it on the Internet.

Soaking the chicken in buttermilk, to insure a moist result. Meanwhile making a from-scratch marinara, which made the cabin smell like home. Instead of like a dirty, growingly loathed non-home.

Adding some health with sauteed squash, zucchini and summer. In two batches, of course, because: cabin.

And my plate of love, shared on a night quite a long way back with my beloved husband. But today, it’s for my sister.

She has so much love right now. So much help. It’s almost overwhelming, the outpouring of support. She doesn’t need me making her dinner tonight. That’s taken care of, will be for quite some time.

But when she needs it, well, I’ll be there. With something like Baked Chicken Parmesan. Or if she wants, some old-favorite Grandma’s Macaroni and Cheese.

My non-food-based love, she has that all the time. All day. Every day.

Next: Enchilagna

Related Recipes

Baked Chicken Parmesan

Kitchenette Cooking: Boo, salt! Boo, saltiness!

2012-11-06T09:07:54-07:00

As you may have noticed — in Colorado, there is no way you didn’t notice — today is the presidential election. Last night on Conan O’Brien, his monolog did a round-up of media calling these last few days “salty,” meaning racy or coarse. I guess salt granules are rougher than sugar, harder to swallow, and yes, politics has not been sweet at all during the last part of this election.

This bit of Conan’s did more than make me think about the possible origins of the term salty humor. I thought about salt. And how processed foods have a shit-ton of it. And how I loathe eating them.

And yet how I am.

Eating processed, high-salt foods like the chicken chili above. It’s was mixture to which you just add:

Canned tomatoes (I can find those salt-free)
Canned green chiles
Dried preserved beans
And you know what, I even went with packaged chicken. This kind, which adds another 20% of your recommended intake of sodium.

Was it good? No. We really didn’t want the leftovers, but we ate them anyway out of our hatred to waste food and money. The latter is geared just a wee bit more toward our renovation. I really shouldn’t eat this kind of thing personally, because salt has been shown to affect joint inflammation, which I’ve had annoying and painful bouts of recently.

But sometimes you just don’t have the time or energy. Sometimes you just have to hack it, get something on the table.

Tangent: Witness my latest kitchenette tool hack. This is my 1/2-cup measuring ~~cup~~ glass. I made it using eight Tablespoons, one measurement tool to which I do have access.

You see the tiny pen line? 1/2 cup, baby. Right there.

So the chili was something salty, yet something quick and necessary, to wind around back to my point. This cussing election has been anything but quick and, in my opinion, much of what was said or did was absolutely uncalled for. The link between the two is that something quick (leftovers) will be on the table tonight out of necessity, because I won’t have time to cook. Instead, I’ve decided only this morning to volunteer for a couple hours with a Get out the Vote program for President Barack Obama. That action feels like a necessity, too.

Down with saltiness, no matter your political leanings! Down with salt (in moderation), no matter your personal health reasons! Today will end the politics — I hope — and I’m now counting down about two weeks — I hope — until the end of my personal struggle with salty prepared foods in my wee kitchenette.

It’s kind of sad I have to add the parenthetical hope to both of those statements…

Next: Baked Chicken Parmesan

Kitchenette Cooking: Curry in a hurry

2012-10-24T15:03:11-06:00

Hi, remember me? The girl of the homemade noodles? The gnocchi maker, and the canner of tomatoes and pickled beets ? Where is that Kate?

Oh, holy crap. You remember that kitchen of the pickling beets?

Wow. The walls were painted! I had fresh herbs growing, and photos of family and friends displayed! I had a kitchen. A kitchen! In a house that no longer belongs to me in a city in which I no longer live. Those were the days. Earlier this week, this was my (lack of) kitchen in our new house:

Our contractors said that when they hauled all the demo-ed trash to the dump, the final weight was almost 2 tons. Tons and tons of junk, gone.

My last post may have been nothing but complaint, but I’m shifting attitude here. Am I currently a maker of gnocchi and pasta, a canner extraordinaire? No, that Kate is on hold, in hibernation. I am not currently the owner of a stable, or even wholly standing, kitchen. But think of all the junk gone.

All the stuff I don’t need, that it was time to let go of, to take to the dump and clean the slate to start fresh.

Which when my ever-present need for curry strikes, actually means going for frozen and pre-packaged.

And from concentrated bouillon rather than broth or stock.

It means reaching for a Curry in a Hurry.

And being thankful I’m getting the hang of this whole cutting-board-balancing-act chopping routine on the kitchenette’s gas range.

No fish sauce? No problem, sub in soy. No green curry paste at the store? Red will be just fine. We’re in improv mode. We’re rollin with in, dogs, while we’re tripping over dogs trying to grab any dropped ingredients off the close-carpeted floor of the cabin. (Eww, Ein. Cut it out!)

Add in what greenery and freshies the mini fridge will hold…

And you know what? Not bad. Actually, this dish is firmly on the side of good, though far from the realm of great. It’s no Tikka Masala or Dahl, but it’s hot and it’s healthy and it’s on the tiny table to sate our hunger.

Our spiritual hunger for a home to call our own, to make our own, will have to be sated with hope for a while. Now that the walls have been torn down, every step from here on out will only bring us closer to that goal.

Next up: Chorizo and Sweet Potato Hash

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Curry in a Hurry

Kitchenette Cooking: Gar, minor annoyances

2012-10-23T15:58:20-06:00

Forgive me for bitching. What’s that you say? This whole Kitchenette Cooking series is kind of about bitching? I didn’t hear you.

My complaint is about my cabin’s plates.

What you can’t see in that lovely photo I posted previuosly is the hairy little detail that’s been bugging me daily.

Get it? Hairy? It seriously looks like a curled hair is stuck on the plate, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve recoiled or begun to rewash the dish before realizing that this is some china designer’s idea of a joke. A curling tendril. That looks just like something you don’t want touching your food. Granted, I’m a little hyper sensitive to cleanliness at the moment with all the leaky windows, mice, dirt, dog hair and now baby wolf spiders emerging from drains of this small, confined space in which I am cooking and eating. But mark my words, I will never buy a flowered plate again. Or at all, because I don’t think I ever have.

Secondly, forgive me while I whine. What’s that you say? This whole Kitchenette Cooking series is kind of whiney? I didn’t hear you.

My whine is about the Internet, which is wonderful because of how it’s created a vast and free flowing stream of excellent recipes. And is evil because because of how it’s created a vast and free flowing stream of excellent recipes that I cannot cook at the moment and am itching to try. And so I just simply pin them, and twiddle my fingers. And whine, obviously.

A short list of recent pinned recipes, and the reasons I’m unable to make them:

Chai-Spiced Cinnamon Rolls from Joy the Baker: no mixer, no rolling pin
Creamy Tomato Soup from Bon Appetit: no blender
Veal Ragu with Porcini from Food and Wine: no crock pot (which itself would be a hack for no pressure cooker)
Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream from Serious Eats: no ice-cream maker
DIY Homemade Greek Yogurt from Serious Eats: no fridge space
Itty Bitty Nutella Cakes from Pioneer Woman: no freezer space
James Peterson’s Spinach Gnocchi from Serious Eats: OK, I admit it. On this one, I just don’t have the will or patience.

All kidding aside — and yes, I am kidding in my serious tone — the cabin can be uncomfortable. But I am still very much aware that despite these minor inconveniences, I am an incredibly lucky human being. I get to fall asleep with the person I love each night. I have the unconditional love of the cutest dog in the world.* I am healthy, clothed and well fed. I have not yet had to worry about making my next mortgage payment. I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from, and instead only whine about how good I can’t make it. Poor baby.

Looking back on this stressful summer of transition and separation, there is no place I’d rather be. There is no place I’d rather find myself re-washing dishes and putting aside tasty recipes for a hopeful future.

Just maybe send a peeler? Or a pint of ice cream? Thanks. You’re a doll.

*True fact!

Next up: Curry in a Hurry

Kitchenette Cooking: Vegetable fries, dangerous vegetable fries

2012-10-18T14:54:29-06:00

So this post was supposed to be about a new recipe for Veggie Fries , a great alternative to heavier side dishes and, I thought, perfect for burger night. Instead of being a typical trying-new-recipe evening, however, my meal instead devolved into a cautionary tale about the dangers of food photography.

Because, you know, I kind lit some stuff on fire.

It all began with the frying pan, my lone little frying pan. Little being the operative word. I was planning a simple but tasty, relatively healthy meal of turkey burgers and said fries. Ah ha! I thought. This is ideal material for my Kitchenette Cooking blog, which lately has become a rambling discussion of handy items I take for granted going missing, requiring minor and amusing kitchen hacks. Hacks like using a wee frying pan to cook my turkey patties, one burger at a time.

Yes, great shot. I tried to position the food in what non-70s-yellow light I have from the one window in the early evening fading light. A little closer. Get it all in frame.

I aimed the iPhone camera using my favorite Camera+ app, took 2-3 shots as usual. Because with the extra shots, one is certain — OK, fairly likely, knowing me — to be nicely in focus. I turned around for one moment. I think I was taking this photo of my fixings:

And my paper plate, brought in close to be in frame, caught on fire, ignited by the front gas burner set to medium high.

Husband shouted. I quickly and calmly blew out the one flame licking at the plate’s rim, then splashed some water on the still-red embers remaining. It’s not like it was a calamity or anything, of course. No mountains out of molehills made. I’m simply unaccustomed to cooking on a gas range, I admit. Plus, I’m a food blogger, and we of this breed sometimes lose track of the actual cooking in the quest for the photographic documentation of the cooking. Guilty as charged.

Anyway. I didn’t kill anybody or damage any property. Dinner went on as normal, and was quite tasty.

But all this explanation has been necessary only to explain that, those veggie fries? Well, they’re more roasted vegetable strips than traditional fries, but those roasted vegetable strips that were supposed to be the new recipe at the center of this blog post? Didn’t get a single photo, other than as part of the meal.

Rest assured, they were good, and I’ll make them again many times. That slight caramelization and crispness of the roasting process brings out the best of the simple veggies, and the fries are really more of a process rather than a recipe. Veggies, oil and the spices of your choice, and the veggies can be carrots and zucchini, as I did, or mushrooms, green beans or sweet potatoes. Whatever you crave.

As for the not killing anyone…

This kitchen hack of stapling the lettuce shut due to lack of rubber bands, twisty ties or clips seemed like a brilliant idea. Until I opened the bag the next day and a sharp, unbent staple dropped into the lettuce leaves. That lunch was the most carefully and slowly eaten, well inspected salad of all time.

Next on Kitchenette Cooking: Gar, Minor Annoyances

Related Recipes

Veggie Fries

Kitchenette Cooking: A matter of scale (and sweet potato biscuits)

2012-10-15T15:31:30-06:00

As housing fell mostly under my purview and responsibility, when I booked our stay at this retro motel cabin in our new hometown, I remember reading and getting a big kick out of the history of our motel on their Web site. Construction began right after World War II by a husband-and-wife team who raised their family here. The husband served in the war, both surviving Pearl Harbor and taking part in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. The wife worked at home as a beautician, saving money for land. The building was an exercise in reconciliation and healing for the both of them, I suppose, but I would want to think that even if they were insufferable people. Somehow, I don’t think they were.

The other night, husband noted that one window only stays shut if you close the blinds, which hold it up. The space heater was whirring away on the floor at the time. Super efficient. I pointed out that it’s possible to see daylight chink in all the way around the front door, so really, it’s all one big leak anyway.

It’s old, I said.
How old, he asked.
I looked it back up on the Web site. Our row of cabins was constructed in 1947.

Much has changed since 1947. Many of the changes, I’m finding, are a matter of proportion. You know, like proportion of heat lost per hour during chilly fall nights.

Proportion of hot beverage being another.

No, I don’t think these mugs are 60 years old. But the cups only hold – gasp! – a cup. A liquid cup. Well, I’m guessing with my decent amount of experience that its 1 cup of 8 ounces, because I don’t have a measuring cup. These two mugs in the microwave are both for me, for my morning tea, because I’m of the generation of Starbucks’ ascendency who expect a bowl of a cup rather than a literal liquid cup.

Oh, and I make two batches of these two mugs (from only one teabag) every morning.

In other matters of proportion, did you know that I don’t have a liquid measuring cup? I have only a partial set of measuring spoons, the largest of which is a Tablespoon. Much like the cheese grater and strainer and peeler, I only realized this when I went to cook something that needed it:

Sweet Potato Biscuits (for a recent pig roast we attended)

These biscuits require 2 1/2 cups flour. Do you know how many Tablespoons are in 2 1/2 cups of flour? iPhone does.

I could have cheated on the rules. I could have bought a measuring cup. It’s too early and I’m too stubborn to do that, though. So, 40. FORTY. Tablespoons it is. I don’t think I lost count. I don’t trust myself that I didn’t lose count, too.

As well as 4 teaspoons baking powder measured using only a 1/2-teaspoon spoon.

( Note: The orange cast of these photos is due to the glare of the 1960s and 70s bouncing off wooden cabinets, despite my attempts to color correct. This is honestly what it looks like to the naked eye cooking in this kitchen.)

I’ve made these biscuits once before to rave reviews. This haphazard measuring in the exact science of baking might have consequences, I knew, as well as inconveniences. I had to cut the butter and cut it into the dry ingredients by hand because I don’t have my pastry cutter. Wah, boo, cry. That’s a luxury, so I’m more than willing to hack it.

There is one concession to Kitchenette Cooking I never thought I would make, though. Baby food. Yes.

I needed boiled or baked, then pureed sweet potatoes.

I have no blender. I have no Cuisinart. I don’t know who I am anymore or how my brain works, but the thought emerged: baby food! These have no significant additives. They’re just potatoes, right?

So, let’s eat some Gerber, babies! Each container was 2 1/2 ounces, and I needed 1 1/2 – 2 cups.

6 containers did the trick.

Well, I use that term loosely. They weren’t tricked out. Again, baking is a science. This time, this recipe made drop biscuits (meaning scooped out of a spoon and of lumpy shape) rather than cut biscuits (using a shaped cutter). I had to add more flour to make them non-sticky enough to accomplish even that.

On the flat underside of the bottom of a broiler pan. Because there’s no cookie sheet or flat pan. Of course.

They were NOT as good as before. They were not even close cousins of the previous decadent result. But they weren’t bad either. They were biscuits good enough to take to a party, lest we show up empty handed, and only one or two was left uneaten after the feast, at which I did not brag about my ownership of said biscuits. No one complained.

Some people will never make biscuits at all. Some will never bother (or are turned off by) sweet potato biscuits. I can now say I’ve baked sweet potato biscuits in a cabin. Despite lackluster results, I’ll always be proud of that.

I can also now say I’ve cooked using baby food. Unsure how to feel on that count…

Coming up: Vegetable Fries

Related Recipes

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Kitchenette Cooking: No-cook cucumber salad

2012-10-11T16:44:54-06:00

Despite my green leanings, despite my from-scratch, do-it-yourself mentality, I have never composted. Rather, I have never been able to compost, having only lived in homes of the apartment/condo/town house variety all of my adult life. At the home we recently sold (leaving us technically homeless for a while, and hence cabin-ing it), the HOA very rightly banned outdoor composting because the smell would attract nearby wildlife, including deer, raccoons, mountain lions and bears. Of the latter, I caught one going through our regular trash earlier this year, and had a handful of other sightings over the years we were there.

Further attracting the beautiful but frightening animals is not something I want to do. And composting indoors seems… yucky, even with the supposed no-odor carbon filtering. Besides, in a town home with no yard, what use have I for composted soil?

In our wee wittle cabin, what brings to mind this uber-first-world-problem pondering about composting? Cucumbers. In an effort to keep it simple (stupid), I paired microwavable veggie burgers with:

No-Cook-Cucumber Salad

A summer favorite, and I thought perhaps a cabin favorite because of the whole few-pans, no-dish-washer situation. “What could possibly go wrong?” she asks rhetorically and sarcastically.

Remember my lone Miracle Blade knife I brought from home? In addition to being super handy in other ways, it’s now my vegetable peeler. Much like a cheese grater, I overlooked the fact that the utensils drawer did not in fact contain a peeler. It’s just one of those tools that are just there, you know? You walk into a strange kitchen, it’s just there. In the workshop where they make kitchen drawers, they drop a peeler in before they ship out. It’s that common, a necessary staple. Like a bottle opener (which we do have, attached old-school to the wall, which is AWESOME) or wooden spoon (which we don’t have, only a slotted one).

Whenever will I truly take to heart the whole assumptions-ass-you-me truism in regards to my Kitchenette Cooking?

When in doubt, hack it. Improvise. Seriously, the miracle blade of all knives kicks ass at peeling. I have nothing to complain about.

I could have left the peels on, of course, but I don’t have a clean food-only sponge or brush to scrub off that thick layer of wax. Instead, I was left with peeled cucumbers of a much smaller size than originally, seeing that the peels are just a wee bit thicker than usual.

Scooping up the detritus for my organics bag destined for immediate dumpster disposal (because the mice will get nothing from me!), I thought of my friend G, who composts for her beloved tomatoes and peppers. I thought of a chef friend B, who has gathered bags of my kitchen scraps for his chickens in the past. Instead, these scraps of possibility were wasted, in the both definitions of waste.

But my cucumber salad was as tasty as ever.

And a meal of reasonable healthiness got on the table with less effort than most in this small, sparsely equipped space. For less money — which we need every penny of for our new house — than going out, despite the surfeit of excellent Boulder restaurants. I don’t downplay that minor but necessary success.

Last lesson (of this post) learned: That mini fridge’s upper shelf, near its freezer, is a bit too cold for cucumber salad. Or much of anything, even turned down to 2.5 out of 10.

Lastest lesson (of this post) learned: Thawed frozen cucumbers soaked in vinegar and coagulated olive oil is slimy and disgusting.

Coming up: A matter of scale

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No-cook cucumber salad