Oat Groats Salad with Carrots and Raisins
Holiday weekends at my house remind me of two things: Tel Aviv Airport, with its zillions of people trying to get through security, which takes about 3 hours, and a scene from the movie The Godfather where Connie, crying her eyes out, calls her mother, who holds a baby on her hip while she stirs a pot of sauce and people are talking and kids are screaming and no one can hear anything.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a balagon, to be sure, but worth everything because I get to see my kids and grandkids and despite the noise (when you get older you forget that children up to a certain age cry at least once a day) and the mess and the unbelievable amount of fruit we go through, I love every fatiguing minute of it and look forward to the next one.
When that many people come to the house (we are 6 adults and 4 children ages 14 months through age 10), you have to keep the food simple. So we do. We’ve managed to work out the kinds of stuff we like to eat over the years although we have some differences among us. But we all like Spinach Pie and Grand Finale Cookies (both from my book, Hip Kosher) and salads, depending on the season. We had end-of-summer tomato salad during the Labor Day weekend (tomatoes, basil, avocado, lime juice and olive oil) and corn on the cob and grilled stuff.
We also like salads made with whole grains. My daughter Gillian recently suggested that I experiment with oat groats, so I made this salad, which seemed to go over well and was really easy to cook. You can make the dish with any cooked whole grain. I consider oats somewhat sweeter than, say, farro or bulgur, so I liked the idea of including carrots and raisins, which are on the sweet side.
Don’t pay attention to the package instructions for cooking the groats. Most instructions for whole grains call for too much water and too much time, which make the grains mushy.
Oat Groats Salad with Carrots and Raisins
1 cup oat groats
3 carrots, coarsely chopped
3-4 scallions, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill, optional
3 tablespoons olive oil;
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Place the oat groats in a saucepan, cover with 2 cups water and bring to a boil over high heat. Turn the heat to low, cover the pan and cook for about 35 minutes or until the groats are tender but still a bit chewy. If there is any remaining water, strain the groats to discard the water. Spoon the groats into a bowl. Cook the carrots for 3-5 minutes or until tender but still firm. Drain and add to the groats. Add the scallions, raisins and herb, if used and stir the ingredients to distribute them evenly. Pour in the olive oil and vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper. Toss ingredients and let rest for at least 15 minutes before serving. Makes 6 servings
Hurricane Irene and having extra cookies
Okay, 4 days without electricity isn’t exactly overwhelming. Just inconvenient. Friends of mine are still in the dark after Irene.
And during the days of darkness my husband Ed and I discussed whether, even given the facts that we had no lights, no internet, email or hot water, and the cold water was beginning to become a trickle (so there was the potential pesky flushing issue), maybe even so we were still much better off than our great-grandparents, who never got any warnings that a storm was coming and even if they did, they couldn’t have prepared the way we did. I did all the laundry, filled the freezer with ice, bought extra butane tanks for the portable cooktop, had plenty of batteries and flashlights. I have a loyal battery-operated radio. They didn’t even have Scrabble or Monopoly.
As long as I can make hot coffee in the morning I can feel human. I made coffee the way my mother did back in the day: old fashioned, pre-electric drip pot.
The reason so many people in Connecticut lost power is because so many trees fell on wires. The ground is extremely wet from all the rain we’ve had this year so the big old old trees are just giving up.
A day after the power went out all the cleanup and repair crews were out in full force. These photos show the mess on the street next to mine. We were lucky the weather was warm and sunny so cleanup could proceed and I could also go out and watch. For hours. Four hours. And I took photos of almost the entire process.
I wasn’t there when they cut the first large limbs. But for a steady four hours the tree people buzz-sawed the enormous trunk and limbs, the City Operations staff picked up the debris and loaded it into containers, more City of Stamford workers trucked the stuff to a center where the trees would be chopped down into mulch. The telephone repair people, the internet repair workers and the workers from the electric company worked steadily for hours. All this included the drilling of a deep deep hole for a new pole (an amazing process to watch as an enormous drill gets into the ground and the drill truck shakes like it’s in an earthquake). I left just as the men had finished putting the new pole in place and the electric company workers began bundling the wires.
If anybody grumbles and tells you that these workers aren’t doing their job or that it’s taking too long, they should call me. This was one tree on one street and the entire process of getting it cut and carted away, drilling a new hole for the pole, putting the pole in exactly where it needed to go to be safe and bundling the wires and putting them in place took hours and hours. And even with hundreds of crew working around the clock, they couldn’t get everyone back to normal because there was so much damage in Connecticut.
Anyway, we did have some goodies in our freezer so we nibbled. I was really happy to have some of these Lemon-Oatmeal Cookies to eat as I listened to the latest hurricane updates on WSTC, our local station.
Lemon-Oatmeal Cookies
1 pound butter
1 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups quick (not instant) oats
1 tablespoon grated fresh lemon peel
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
confectioner’s sugar
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer set at medium speed, for 2-3 minutes or until well blended. Add the flour, salt, oats, lemon peel and vanilla extract and mix to blend ingredients thoroughly. Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Remove small portions of dough to form 1-inch balls. Place the balls on ungreased cookie sheets, leaving some space between them for the cookies to spread. Spoon some confectioner’s sugar onto a plate. Press the bottom of a drinking glass into the confectioner’s sugar and press the balls with the bottom of the glass to flatten the cookies. Add more confectioner’s sugar to the glass bottom as needed. Bake the cookies for 13-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool for 10 minutes on the cookie sheet, then remove to a cake rack to cool completely. Makes about 100
Power of a Painting
She Can’t Be a Hero If Obama Likes Her
The power of the painting rests in this: An ordinary little girl, in her ordinary dress, on her way to what should be an ordinary day of school, who can’t do any of this without several police protecting her from the violent actions of hate-filled, venomous people who loathe her because of her skin color.
That little girl grew up into the adult Ruby Bridges, now 56 years old and living in New Orleans, who successfully lobbied President Obama to hang the painting in the White House. He opted to have it hung not down some dark hall, but right outside the Oval Office. More than two months after the painting was installed (it’s on loan from the Normal Rockwell Museum, in Stockbridge, Mass.) the media has sat up and made this a big news story. Is Obama sending a message here? Why does a painting with such “difficult” subject matter have to hang right outside the Oval Office?
I spent a lot of time reading dozens of comments on various sites carrying the story. There are a surprising number that run along the lines of, “Obama is playing the race card,” or, “Can’t blacks get over it?” or “Obama is doing this only because of the opening Sunday of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington,” or (best yet, for those of us who are educators), “That was long-ago history. Why drag it up now?” More than one sunny person asked why Obama couldn’t put up “something positive” about race.
All these comments criticizing the painting and its placement, and not one recognizing the simple truth that for all the scathing indictment lurking in the painting’s title, “The Problem We All Live With” is a heroic painting? It fits in with a long tradition of such paintings, alongside “The Death of Socrates,” “Liberty Leading the People” and “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”
I can’t believe this needs spelling out, but it does. The painting of the little Ruby Bridges inspires us to behave with dignity and courage in the face of adversity. She is what’s called a hero.
HT: PoliticalProf.
The fact people still make those comments, show how relevant that painting still is today.
Art often imitates life. Why should we be afraid to face the truth? Introspection helps — hopefully helps — us become better people doesn’t it?
Roasted Tomatoes with Cheese
OH! for those end-of-summer tomatoes and the glory days of bygone Augusts when my big worry was what to do with the enormous bounty in my garden. Those days are gone. :(
But back then we ate a lot of tomatoes out of hand, like summer peaches. Fresh-from-the-vine. They didn’t need salt or basil or olive oil. They were so memorably sweet, juicy and wonderful that even my daughter Meredith, who was, at the age of 3 or 4 or so, what we mothers call a “fussy eater,” asked for them as a snack.
But then came the building boom in my hometown, with all the usual consequences. The deer, who once lived in the forests, had fewer places to run and live. So they decided to live near me because we still had some woods at the back of our house.
They found my tomatoes and ate them. And all the tomato flowers that never grew into tomatoes. And tomato plant stems. They ate it all.
I tried again, for two more years. Those deer were smart. You gotta love a fresh tomato off the stalk! And frankly, when I looked out the window and saw them nibbling I couldn’t be angry at them anymore. Deer are beautiful and of course, they need some food too.
These days I buy end-of-summer tomatoes by the bucket at the farmer’s market. I don’t worry about what to do with them. We still eat most of them plain or sliced as a sandwich (Tuscan bread or firm white bread and mayo). But also as a salad and if there’s enough I make fresh sauce for pasta. And soup. Yesterday I made these stuffed tomatoes. They are just wonderfully sweet and tender and make a good side dish especially for grilled or roasted fish or as part of a vegetarian dinner.
Roasted Tomatoes with Cheese
4 large beefsteak tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup plain bread crumbs
3/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the tomatoes in half. Remove the flesh and seeds, chop the flesh coarsely and place the tomato insides in a bowl. Brush the surfaces of the tomatoes with some of the olive oil. To the bowl with the tomato flesh add the bread crumbs, cheese, basil, garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Mix ingredients to distribute them evenly. Stir in the remaining olive oil and mix thoroughly. Spoon the stuffing inside the tomatoes. Place the filled tomatoes on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the stuffing is golden brown. Makes 4 servings
Meatballs
Irene! There goes my weekend cookout. Have to think hurricane cooking rather than warm, blissful, August weather with sunny skies and no clouds cooking.
The cousins are probably still coming. So I have to think ahead. I remember one time when I was a kid and my parents had invited family for New Year’s Eve and there was such a big snowstorm that no one could go home. Fortunately my mother always had a freezerful of food so no one went hungry.
I am going to spend today following my mother’s lead.
Chicken cutlets: already made.
Tomato Sauce: already made.
Really, you can’t get enough of that kind of dinner can you? Add a salad, sauteed spinach and a bowl of pasta and we’re done! Assuming we have power, that is.
I also made some meatballs. Here’s where I am like my mother-in-law, who always made at least 2 main courses when company was coming, just in case someone didn’t like one of them, there was always the other.
And I will make some delicious dessert that we can eat whatever happens with the weather and whether or not anyone comes.
Here’s the meatball recipe.
Meatballs
1/2 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground veal
1/2 pound ground turkey
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
2 large eggs
3/4 cup flavored bread crumbs
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
optional: 1/2 cup grated Parmesan and/or Romano cheese
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees (375 for convection). Mix the meats together in a large bowl. Add the parsley, eggs, bread crumbs and salt and pepper to taste (also the cheese if you use it). Mix thoroughly. Make 12-16 meatballs, depending on the size you like. Place the meatballs on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, turn, bake for another 12 minutes. Use plain or place in marinara sauce for about 15 minutes and serve with the sauce. Makes 12-16, serving 4
Chef: the world's oldest profession? Beer Can Chicken.
If you don’t believe in evolution, stop reading here. This article is about scientific evidence that backs up the theory that cooking helped humans become smarter. In case you don’t know this or never thought about it, humans are the only animals that cook their food.
The article states that cooking
“had huge implications for hominid evolution, giving the ancestors of modern humans time and energy for activities such as running, thinking deep thoughts and inventing things like the wheel and beer-can chicken.”
Wow, I didn’t realize that beer-can chicken was such an ancient recipe.
But seriously, according to the scientists, when we compare our body weight with those of other primates we spend much less time chewing (humans about 4.7% of the time, other primates about 48%). That gives us time not only to invent beer can chicken but also watch TV (um —- and chew while we’re watching?).
Which I suppose makes Chef (to which I will add ALL HOME COOKS who make their own food instead of getting takeout) the world’s oldest, but more importantly, most important profession.
In honor of the world’s oldest profession, here’s a recipe for Beer Can Chicken. Most beer can chicken recipes call for seasoning with dry rub. I think chicken on the grill is better without it, so that you can taste the smoke and subtle beer vapors that gets drowned out with too much seasoning.
Beer Can Chicken
1 whole chicken, about 4 pounds
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
dry spice rub, optional
1 can beer
Preheat an outdoor grill to high. Remove the giblets from inside the chicken (use for other recipes such as stock or chicken soup). Wash the chicken, inside and out and remove excess fat. Rub the outside of the bird with the vegetable oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with dry rub if you wish. Open a can of beer and punch 3-4 holes around the top (with an old fashioned bottle opener). Drink about 1/3 of the beer (or otherwise spill it off). Place the chicken over the beer can through the hollow middle. Put the beer can with the chicken on the grates in the middle of the grill, balancing the chicken by moving the legs forward.
Use indirect heat to cook the chicken, if possible. That is, immediately turn the middle burners off and turn the other burners to medium. Or, if you have a small grill, use medium-low heat. If you have a small charcoal grill, set the grill up with the charcoal around the edges, leaving the middle empty. If you have a medium size grill, heat one side and cook the chicken on the other side but turn the chicken every 20 minutes so that it cooks evenly.
Cook with the cover closed for about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours or until the juices run clear when you prick the thigh with the tip of a sharp knife. (A meat thermometer will read 165 degrees.) Makes 4 servings
Honey Poached Figs with Lemon and Cardamom
Green figs are here! I saw a basketful yesterday, soft, round bulbs of sweet flesh that remind me that although summer is almost over, a new season and a harvest of good produce is almost here too. Like purple prune plums and apples and these figs.
Green figs remind me of days long ago at Northwestern University, where I attended college. In September, after settling in for the year, I would take myself on Sundays to the local hotel, then known as the Orrington, sit down in the dining room, and order fresh, poached green figs in syrup, and eat them with a lot of cold cream. It was an indulgence no one else I knew cared for so I’d go alone, me and my newspaper, and have a quiet breakfast.
I loved those figs. They ushered in a year of art history and contemporary literature, of dormitory-living stress and impending snow. They helped get me ready for the year ahead.
The fig season didn’t — doesn’t — last long. So whether or not they conjure memories for you, they are memorably delicious. I prepared them yesterday in a honey-wine sauce spiced with cardamom. It was delicious. Here’s the recipe:
Honey Poached Figs with Lemon and Cardamom
1 cup sweet white wine
1 cup water
1/2 cup honey
4 green cardamom pods, slightly crushed
2 strips lemon peel, 2-inches long
8 large green fresh figs
1-2 tablespoons crushed pistachio nuts
Combine the wine, water, honey, cardamom pods and lemon peel in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Add the figs and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the fruit is tender but not soft or mushy. Remove the pan from the heat, remove the figs to a dish and let cool. Strain the liquid, then pour the strained liquid back into the pan. Boil the liquid over high heat until it is syrupy. Let the syrup cool. Cut the figs into quarters and place 8 pieces on each of 4 dessert dishes. Drizzle with syrup and sprinkle with crushed pistachio nuts. (If the syrup has firmed, heat it for a minute or so over medium heat to liquefy it.). Makes 4 servings
Scallion Cakes
Franks-in-blankets are probably the favorite hors d’oeuvre of all time. Just watch next time you serve them or you’re at a party and a tray-ful of them comes around.
See those crowds swarming the server? Really, anyone in an outer circle or more than 10 feet away doesn’t stand a chance.
People make snarky remarks about franks-in-blankets and elitists say they don’t eat them (but take a closer look at the mouth crumbs they try to wipe off when caught polishing one off).
Yep, no matter what anyone says, these are #1.
So next Sunday when I have some cousins over for the afternoon, I’ll serve them. I could make my own, but the frozen kind is so good and so familiar that I will probably take the easy way out.
Instead I will heat up these Scallion Cakes. Another winning recipe I learned from Florence Lin at the China Institute many years ago. I made them today.
Of course I nibbled a few. The rest will freeze well in a plastic bag and I’ll get them hot for serving in a preheated 400 degree oven for 5-6 minutes (turn once). These are salty, crispy and yummy. Try some!
Scallion Cakes
3 cups all-purpose flour, approximately
1 cup boiling water
1/3 cup cold water
vegetable oil
kosher salt (about 1 tablespoon)
3-5 scallions, chopped
Place the flour in the bowl of an electric mixer (or food processor). Add the boiling water and mix at medium speed (or process) until a rough dough has formed. Pour in the cold water and mix until a dough forms. Knead (or process) for 3-4 minutes (or until a smooth dough has formed). If the dough is too sticky add some more flour. The dough should be soft and very slightly sticky. Cut the dough into 6 parts. Roll each piece on a floured surface into a circle about 10-inches in diameter. Brush each circle with vegetable oil. Sprinkle with equal amounts of chopped scallion. Roll the dough tightly into a snake. Form the rolled snake into a coil. Press down on the coil. Roll the coil on the floured surface into a circle about 1/8-inch thick (some scallions may pop through the dough). Repeat with all the circles. Keep the circles separated with foil or waxed paper. Heat a small amount of vegetable over medium heat in a saute pan large enough to hold the circles. Cover the pan and cook the circles one at a time for about 2 minutes per side or until browned and crispy. Remove the cover and cook for another minute or so if necessary. Add more vegetable oil as necessary. Drain on paper towels and cut each circle into 8 wedges. Serve plain or with hot chili oil and/or vinegar. Makes 48 pieces