by Caroline
Search Results for: rice
That Meal That Shall Not Be Named
with apologies to the non-breeders, and the breeders who’ve already run this particular gauntlet…
Because I know the world doesn’t really need another school lunch post…
But: if we’re going to talk learning to eat, I can’t avoid the fact that I have to re-learn the school lunch thing every. single. year.
Because every single year the situation changes. In the beginning there were bentos, with baby vegetables, and dipping sauces, and Japanese stickers. Then there were bentos with sandwiches in cute shapes, and hard boiled eggs molded like kittens or fish, and rice pressed into hearts and stars. And notes. I kid you not. But back then, in the beginning, there was only one meal to pack every morning, and only one child to feed before 7:30 am, and actually, back then I wasn’t the one making breakfast, which was a very nice situation. But that situation changed.
Then there were two, and one of them was older, and she only wanted to eat what her friends were eating. There were a lot of things that were Not Allowed in The Lunch. There were a lot of sandwiches for a long time. Routine, repetition, predictability, comfort–these were paramount. In lots of ways, they still are.
Then there was the year my book was published, which included a lot of joy but also relentless fatigue. This year happened to coincide with a whole lot of growing and eating. Both kids seemed bottomless pits of insatiable hunger. Thankfully, this year also coincided with a new school lunch program, and slowly, those after school blood sugar crashes subsided. Mostly.
But this year is different. I’m taking a sabbatical from teaching, which means I can’t quite bring myself to shell out $4.50 meal x 2 every day for that hot lunch. I did, however, shell out the money for two good thermoses. And they have changed my life. For one thing, they work. Unlike the old ones we had, in which mac & cheese congealed into a clotted mess of cold pasta by lunch, these actually keep things hot. They also keep things cold. It’s not rocket science, I know. Now the options seem manifold: think anything with rice, anything canned, frozen, stewed. The frozen food aisle at Trader Joes is my new favorite place. Also, I’m finding it easier to prep these things in the morning. Fewer steps. Less mess. No crumbs.
A short list of Things They Will Now Eat For Lunch:
- Turkey Chili + corn bread
- Mac & Cheese
- Swedish Meatballs
- Orange Chicken + rice
- Strawberry smoothie + Nutella sandwich
- Pasta with tomatoes, eggplant, + mozzarella
- Pasta with pesto
- Mini hot dogs
- Pot stickers + rice
Making lunch is not really my favorite part of the morning. But it’s not too terrible, either.
Mac & cheese, apples, wasabi peas, mini chocolate chip cookies
Kale Salad with Poached Egg and Anchovy
You will have to trust me here, this recipe without a picture. Some months ago, Caroline fed me this delicious salad. Then, I’d been reading Dash and Bella, one of the terrific writers contributing to our forthcoming book, whose love of the irresistible umami of anchovies (and salt, and garlic) seeps into your own cooking life, making you lament that you’ve gone so many weeks, months even, without mashing up some for yourself. I figured it was time I jumped on the kale salad wagon. I started with this recipe, subtracted a few ingredients, tweaked the dressing, and layered on some new things, ending with a poached egg, which Phyllis Grant knows makes anything better. We’ve eaten this salad now–okay Kory and I have eaten it, the kids being not quite convinced it’s edible–four times for dinner. But I still haven’t managed to get a good picture.
Kale Salad with Poached Egg and Anchovies
- one bunch curly kale
- pine nuts
- Parmesan cheese
- a handful of fingerling or baby Yukon gold potatoes
- eggs, one per person serving
- anchovies, chopped into 1/4 inch pieces. Use a good, jarred variety, one per person or more to taste
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 7 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon honey
- Combine olive oil, vinegars, salt and honey. Mix thoroughly and set aside.
- Cut ribs out of kale, and then cut leaves into small, bite-sized pieces
- Toss kale with a small amount of salt and dressing to lightly coat. Let sit 15-20 minutes or longer to slightly soften the leaves.
- While the kale is resting, cook the potatoes in very salting boiling water until tender, about 10 minutes. Let cool, then cut into small pieces or slice.
- Poach the eggs. Remove from water and drain on a paper towel. These will keep until you’re ready to serve.
- Just before serving toss the kale with a handful of pine nuts–about a 1/4 cup, a generous shaving of Parmesan cheese (use a vegetable peeler), the cooked potatoes, and the anchovies. Add additional dressing as needed. If you’re serving anchovy-haters, you can add the delicious chopped fish separately to each plate.
- Separate the salad onto four plates. Top each serving with an egg and the anchovies.
Cookbook Giveaway: Antonia Lofaso’s The Busy Mom’s Cookbook
by Caroline
Marion Cunningham’s death last month has had me thinking about the importance of voice in cookbooks. Her voice was the best combination of brisk and encouraging. Reading her cookbooks filled you with confidence that you could make the recipe at hand. The cookbook of hers that I use most, The Baker’s Dozen Cookbook, offers step-by-step instructions for some of the most daunting tasks in the kitchen (pie crust, meringue, buttercream) and makes them all seem eminently doable. Her cookbooks are not, like Elizabeth David’s or Julia Child’s, ones with which I curl up to read on a foggy day, they are ones that push me into the kitchen to cook.
That’s the welcoming tone in Top Chef finalist Antonia Lofaso’s new The Busy Mom’s Cookbook. Her goal is to get families together for meals, and her unpretentious but satisfying recipes work well to achieve that goal. As she writes in her introduction, “It could’ve been Rice-A-Roni with scrambled eggs, or a big dinner I helped my mom or my dad make. Either way, it was very important to my parents that we all sit togethr and share meals when I was growing up. They demonstrated to me how people learn about family and community through food.” It sounds like somehow Chef Antonia has already read Lisa’s and my book!
There’s not much I need to say about the recipes except that they work and they taste good, from coriander roasted cauliflower to caramel-almond popcorn. There’s a good range of recipes for vegetarian dishes (veggie sushi rolls; quinoa-corn salad; lasagna) and recipes kids can make (lemon crepes; mini frittatas; hummus). I love the movie night section (which offers that popcorn recipe, fondue, smoothies, chicken wings and more) and especially the section titled Multi-Meals, in which each dish (roasted chicken; oven-roasted broccoli; brisket) connects to another dish you can make out of the leftovers. All of it is written in the kind of warm, approachable tone that reminds me of Marion Cunningham’s writing, which is about the highest compliment I can offer.
Leave a comment (with your email address) by August 15th to enter a drawing for a free copy of the book!
Banh Mi Summer
by Caroline
Within two blocks of my family’s San Francisco home, we have two taquerias plus a Mexican restaurant, one burger place, one salad and sandwich place, one seafood restaurant, three sushi restaurants, two Thai restaurants, two Indian restaurants, one Peruvian restaurant, one Ethiopian restaurant, one place for gyros, three pubs, three pizza places, three Asian-vegetarian restaurants, a Vietnamese restaurant, a couple greasy spoon diners, a donut shop, two ice cream parlors, and several bars and cafes.
It’s a wonder we cook at all, really.
But we do, and Tony often takes inspiration from the local restaurants to make something new at home. He’s made the shiitake mushroom dumplings from the now-sadly-closed Eos, a roasted tomato and pumpkin seed salsa from a nearby taqueria, and a lemon and chard pasta dish from the Italian place near the boys’ school. His latest homemade version of a local dish is vegetarian banh mi, from the Vietnamese place I didn’t even know we had (maybe because there’s nothing in the name to indicate it’s Vietnamese food?) Their version has some glass noodles and shiitake mushrooms and I have to say, I prefer Tony’s, which we’ve all been eating a lot this summer. It takes a few make-ahead steps, but once you’ve done them, you can be eating banh mi quickly. Here’s how he does it.
First, make a batch of roasted chili paste.
Next, shred a few carrots into matchsticks and toss them into a bowl. Cover with a simple pickling liquid of equal parts rice wine vinegar and sugar. Add a sprinkle of salt, stir, and let sit for 30 minutes. If you like cucumber or radish, go ahead and add them in matchsticks, too, and just increase the amount of pickling liquid to cover.
Then, make a batch of caramelized golden tofu, cutting the tofu into long fingers. If you like, cook some sliced shallots with the tofu.
The pickled vegetables and chili paste will keep indefinitely in the fridge; a batch of tofu will keep a couple days.
Once you have those three basic elements in place, all you need is a soft roll and some cilantro. You might also want some fresh mint, jalapenos, and a squeeze of lime juice. Spread some chili paste on the roll, stack the tofu, vegetables and cilantro on your roll in proportions to taste, and eat.