Your Best Vinaigrette

Salad season is here.
Spring Salad

Right after college, I moved to NYC and lived with two roommates in an apartment in Chelsea. We were all working in magazines earning pitiful salaries. Pre-1990, this downtown Manhattan neighborhood was still rough around the edges, and we lived across the street from a major shipping center, waking up at 5 a.m. to air brakes reverberating off the brick building. But, oh, the glory of it!

On the rare nights we were all at home, we three sprawled out on a futon and listened endlessly to Ladies of the Canyon. I hardly remember eating much more than bags of Smartfood in that spare apartment. But I recently received evidence to the contrary: a single hand-written recipe for vinaigrette on magazine letterhead.

My friend Jim has kept it for over 20 years and told me that he uses it all the time. There it is in my twenty-something script, a time capsule from another life. Lynne Elle

In celebration of the abundance of greens–are you indulging in all the green smoothies you can stand?–I made this dressing once again. Handily, I had a fresh bottle of walnut oil.

It certainly did not taste familiar to me or cast me back to that time when I wore only black, rode the subway to work and went clubbing.

But, when I served it for dinner with a friend, he said, “What is this dressing? It’s so light!”

It certainly did accentuate the lovely mix of Backyard Gardens salad greens in my bowl without masking the individual flavors of kale, mustard, romaine, spinach and beet greens.

I stare and stare at that recipe and can’t recall where I got it. As a recipe writer, I’m very sensitive to crediting everything I use to the original author. (“S + P” is salt and pepper, but you probably knew that.)

So I pass this one on as “anonymous.” Use it as you enjoy a long springtime of salads and make it your own.

Happy, happy springtime!

Milestones

Let’s just ditch everything and have cake.Lemon-Raspberry Birthday Cake

Yesterday, Cece turned 5. I turned on my email auto-responder to spend the day immersed in her world.

This is the last year she’ll be at home alone with me on a Wednesday. I wanted to make the day special for her. I also needed to mark the day for myself, to recollect the dramatic morning of her birth. With 3 inches of snow on the ground, Benjamin raced past cars on Main Street to make it to the hospital on time. I’m still amazed she wasn’t born in the car. She’s been ready to rock ever since.

Now, I see her quickly turning the corner from her youngest mommy-centered self and catch glimpses of the big girl she is becoming. It makes me want to sit and rock her and read her stories, which she would do all day long given the option. Magic Tree House, Mercy Watson, Fancy Nancy, you name it.

But, for me, staying present was hard. On a typical Wednesday when she’s not at preschool, we “work” together; me at my laptop and she at her writing, crafts and playdoh. We bake together. I read her a story in between doing the dishes and sweeping the floor while I drink a cup of coffee. She plays in the sandbox while I make lunch.

Yesterday, I kept my laptop firmly closed, but I couldn’t fully disconnect from my professional anxieties and mental to-dos. I worried about a current story-in-process that’s important to me and the editor and I don’t see eye to eye. My agent called with suggestions for a book proposal.  I thought about Friday when I’ll juggle Cece’s afternoon birthday party with a dinner party I’m cooking for 9.

In the afternoon sun, I simply sat and watched Cece play. I admired her ease in herself and her activities, moving from the swing set to the woods. She pumped herself to the swing’s fullest arc. She drummed sticks on a stump and tried to turn a long branch into stilts. In all of this, she strived. She succeeded and she failed, and it flowed. It was all part of her play, the joys and the efforts of doing.

She wasn’t ever trying too hard.

Unlike me.

(The pictured lemon raspberry cake is from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours, and it is the best butter cream I have ever made.)

One Chicken, Three Meals

The rewards of poached chicken are many.
Vietnamese Chicken Salad

When I can’t think of what to make for dinner, I troll for ideas online at magazine sites and the odd food blog. Many of the recipes start with chicken, which catches me by surprise. Most of our protein comes from our freezer of beef and pork and beans, and I forget how ubiquitous this white meat bird is for family meals.

As I’ve mentioned in this turkey post, I don’t typically cook chicken because I can’t abide by the industrially raised chickens from the supermarket. But, I keep my ears out for local chickens.

At a recent party, a friend was talking about offing her old hens. “I’m not going to eat them,” she said.

“I’ll take them,” I said, feeling a little bloodthirsty.

But, honestly, what are we all going to do with the hens when they’re no longer laying eggs?

Only days later, another friend called offering some of the chickens she raised for meat, and soon I had a whole bird at my disposal. Naturally, my first thought was roast chicken, When my world is still mostly frozen (hello, April?), a bird roasting in the oven is as warming as a fire in the hearth.

But a second thought came, an old-fashioned notion that’s somehow gone out of style: poaching.

It’s so simple and so out of the ordinary, this gentle simmering technique. It’s not flashy with flame or dramatic with sizzling and sear. It’s a quiet method that feels like coaxing the food into a state of being cooked.

Poached eggs are, for me, a special occasion. And poaching is ideal for salmon, vegetables, like asparagus or carrots, and yes, chicken, too, often served with a rich sauce, like hollandaise. But it’s far from fussy or difficult, nor is it only for dieters.

Poached Chicken Breast

Here’s how I do it: Put 1-3 bone-in chicken breasts in a saucepan. Add enough water just to barely cover them and bring the water to a simmer uncovered over medium heat. (Add a pinch of salt and a bay leaf, garlic clove or parsley or cilantro stems for more flavor.) Reduce the heat to low to maintain a simmer for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and remove the pot from the heat to let the chicken stand in the water for 5 minutes. Transfer the breasts from the broth into a bowl until cool enough to handle. Skin, pull the meat from the bones and leave whole, chop, shred as desired.

The deal maker for me is that when you poach a chicken you get 3 for 1. And that makes Poaching capital P for Practical:

  • warm meat for a dinner of chicken breasts to serve with some of the broth and wild rice or barley
  • golden broth for homemade chicken noodle soup
  • cold leftover meat for chicken salad, like this one

Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Cabbage and Peanuts

Serves 4

A very long time ago, I taught English as a Second Language in Bellingham, WA. One day a lovely young woman from Vietnam brought in this chicken salad, and I asked her for the recipe. After 20 years and I still have her original written in a neat and delicate, albeit faded, script so that I can share it with you.

2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 large shallots, very thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 pound poached chicken breast, finely shredded
4 cups (about 1/2 medium head) very finely chopped red or green cabbage
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fish sauce
juice of 1/2 lemon
black pepper
1/4 cup loosely packed mint leaves
1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves
1/4 cup roasted peanuts

  1. Heat 1 teaspoon of the oil over medium-high heat in a medium skillet. Add the shallot slices and cook, stirring now and then, until they are begin to brown on their edges, about 6 minutes. Transfer them to a large mixing bowl.
  2. In the same skillet, heat the remaining 1 teaspoon oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and shredded chicken and cook until the garlic is fragrant and the chicken begins to turn drier and crisp in a few places, about 8 minutes. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
  3. Add the cabbage, sugar, salt, fish sauce, lemon juice and black pepper to the bowl with the shallots. Toss well. Add the mint, cilantro and cooled chicken. Toss again and taste for salt, fish sauce and lemon juice, adding any more of those ingredients to taste. Chill until ready to serve.
  4. Serve in bowls topped with peanuts and a side of hot sauce, if you like.

Dinner 911: Pasta & Beans

Quick, frugal and comforting is pasta e fagiole.
Pasta e fagiole

What’s to love about some old pot of beans?

For me, a ready-to-go pot of beans is so much more than it seems:

sustenance & comfort ~ preparedness & possibility ~ generosity & luxury

I spent 10 days living alone in Tuscany one rainy April. I felt like I was eating like a queen sampling dishes from la cocina povera–cheap peasant food–at a roadside restaurant every day at lunch. I learned there how a simple bowl of pasta and beans (pasta e fagiole) with a healthy dose of garlic can feel downright indulgent.

You can have your foie gras, capons, branzino and bone marrow. My protein of choice is the one I always have on hand. They decorate my pantry in mason jars: dried beans of every stripe, from lentil to fava.

During a week when I’ve been working to clean out my food stores in anticipation of a new growing season and thinking about those who live with so much less, I’m drawn to the practice of making do with what I have.

Truth be told, I get far more satisfaction coming up with something to make from what I already have on hand than having access to all the goodies at Zupan’s in Portland. (Naturally, a trip through such a wonderment of goods in said store does quicken my heart.)

It also seems apt to think about frugality in the days leading up to tax day, April 15th. But I’d eat pasta e fagiole even if I had all the money in the world.

Here are the basics for making your own bowl of plenty–pasta and beans for Dinner 911:

I try to make a habit of cooking up a pot of beans every week, which is like having a leg up on multiple dinners. I freeze leftovers in their bean water for quick defrosting. If you don’t have ready-to-go homemade beans, substitute drained and rinsed canned beans. Put them in a pot and cover them with vegetable broth, chicken broth or water. Add a bay leaf and a peeled clove of garlic and bring to a simmer until the garlic is softened. Mash the garlic and stir into the broth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

  • You are now ready to assemble your pasta and beans with some boiled wide ribbon pasta or egg noodles. (Hint: boil them in well-salted water.) For each serving, put a nest of noodles in the bottom of a large bowl, add a handful of stemmed spring spinach and ladle over it the steaming broth and beans. It will wilt the spinach just so.
  • For the finishing touch, sprinkle over the bowl the best olive oil you have on hand to look like giant golden raindrops in the bowl. (My neighbor, Amy recently sent me a wonderful gift of MoonShadow Grove single varietal extra-virgin olive oils from California produced by her sister from an old-growth organic grove and I am expressly reserving it for salads and this soup.) Finally, use a vegetable peeler to shave off curls of parmesan cheese to crown it all.
  • For kids, you can keep everything separate: noodles with olive oil and cheese, beans with some broth and raw spinach to eat with their fingers (that’s how my kids do it).
  • For company, I add Italian pork sausage in the form of tiny meatballs.

Trust me: one serving of pasta e fagiole and you’ll feel incredibly rich.

Before the Bounty

What treasures dwell in your freezer? Find out for a cause.
Farmer's Market peaches

In Portland, the blossoms may be bursting on the magnolia trees, the daffodils rising their faces to the sky and the farmers’ market beginning to bustle. But here we’re still waiting for rhubarb and chives, and I’ve been lucky to sample fresh greens after helping my friend Beth weed her greenhouse.

Spring in this community is calving and lambing, turning over the compost once it’s defrosted and waiting. The season of preparation.

My spring ritual is to use up as much of last year’s stored goods–in the pantry and freezer as I can. Not only to make room for the crop of new foodstuffs, but also because it’s a reminder of the bounty I, like most people, keep on hand and forget to use. But stored food–until it’s unusable or unappetizing–is just a waste. Trust me, there are pots of soup, stews, baked goods and desserts waiting to be created!

Today, when many bloggers are posting to raise awareness of childhood hunger in this country, food waste is one of the top issues on my mind. We live in such food abundance at restaurants, supermarkets and at home that as a nation we waste half of all the food produced, according to Wasted Food author Jonathan Bloom. It’s hard to appreciate the monumental costs of all this wasted food, from fossil fuels to your own hard-earned dollars.

Most troubling of all are the startling numbers of people, including 1 in 4 children, who go hungry amidst this bounty. Unthinkable and yet real.

In honor of Food Bloggers Against Hunger, I have a challenge for you in the style of a Chopped cooking competition with a call to action:

Go into your freezer and select 3 items to make a single meal. Post your comment describing what you made and your plan for reducing waste in your own home for the chance to win this Wusthof boning knife. (For extra credit post a photo on my Pure Beef Cookbook page.) Contest ends on midnight Friday, April 12th and the winner will be announced.  is Erin Donovan who posted via Facebook on 4/10!

If you do nothing else…

  1. Make a pledge to reduce your own food waste by planning meals, using leftovers (we always have leftover night at our house) and only buying what you need.
  2. Send this letter to your congressman urging them to protect funding for federal nutrition programs, including SNAP (formerly food stamps), WIC, a program for women and children, and reduced and free school meals.
  3. See A Place at the Table, a new documentary about how we can band together to solve the immense problem of hunger in America (available on demand from Amazon and iTunes)

Here are more organizations to lend your support:

Here are my 3 favorite recipe ideas for using leftovers: