Random Cookbook of the Week: Roots

One of the things I was most looking forward to about finishing my manuscript was having time to cook again, including rebooting my Random Cookbook of the Week feature. I love to cook. There's something so satisfying about transforming ingredients into dinner with my handy knife, cutting board, whisk, stove, etc. 

I've included every cookbook I own in this round of random cooking, including ones that I consider beyond my skills--the French Laundry Cookbook and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, to name two--and those I keep around for sentimental reasons but rarely cook from because they're just not how a 21st century foodie cooks. Think fundraiser cookbooks with lots of casseroles heavy on the cream of mushroom soup. That's 64 cookbooks. I just can't seem to stop collecting more of the things.

For this first week, I drew one of my newest volumes: Diane Morgan's Roots.

(I need to get better about taking pictures of what I cook, but for this week I'll make do with the book cover.)

It's an encyclopedic cookbook of edible roots, from the common (carrots, potatoes, turnips, etc.) to the exotic (salsify, burdock, crosne, etc.). It's fascinating to page through just for the sheer variety of root vegetables and ways to cook them.

But because I'm just easing back into cooking a lot and trying new recipes again, I didn't go looking for crosnes or decide it was finally time to embrace the Jerusalem artichoke. No, I picked a nice, straightforward carrot recipe, and one that's unusual for this cookbook in using some shortcut ingredients:

Moroccan Carrot and Chickpea Salad with Dried Plums and Toasted Cumin Vinaigrette

- 1 T cumin seeds

- 1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil

- 2 T fresh lemon juice

- 1 T honey

- 3/4 tsp kosher salt

- 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

- freshly ground black pepper

- 1 10-oz package shredded carrots

- 1 15-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

- 2/3 c. dried plums (prunes), chopped into chickpea-sized pieces

- 1/2 c. coarsely chopped fresh mint

1. To make the dressing, first toast and grind the cumin seeds. Place a small, heavy frying pan, preferably cast iron, over high heat, add the cumin seeds, and toast, stirring constantly, until fragrant and lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate to cool. Using a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle, grind the seeds to a powder.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, lemon juice, honey, ground cumin, salt, and cayenne pepper. Season with black pepper.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the carrots, chickpeas, dried plums, and mint. Add the dressing and toss gently to coat evenly. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. (The salad can be made up to 8 hours in advance. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving.)

I recommend this one highly. It's quick, the only remotely challenging technique is toasting and grinding the cumin, and it's colorful with lovely bright flavors to match. 

2014 Reading, Books 31-33

31) Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, by Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan is known for his writings about food, but before writing this book he didn't consider himself much of a cook. So he apprenticed himself to an assortment of culinary masters of the ancient elements of fire (in the form of whole-hog barbecue), water (braised meats and stews), air (yeast bread), and earth (fermented foods, e.g. sauerkraut, cheese, and beer). As always, he's an engaging storyteller, and reading his description of North Carolina whole-hog barbecue while eating a particularly dire Healthy Choice meal at lunch was almost enough to make me weep. (Don't try the Healthy Choice spaghetti and meatballs. It's disgusting--the pasta is mush and the meatballs are all but flavorless.)

The book is a giant hymn to the joys of slow food. Pollan understands we can't cook like this all the time, but I still would've liked to see him acknowledge how fast-but-real food is also a legitimate use of say, fire and water--I can do a nice quick stir-fry, f'rex. I'd also LOVE to see one of these writers who claim you can cook a meal in the time it would take to heat enough frozen meals for a family or wait for your pizza to be delivered factor in the time it takes to clean up your kitchen afterward. I love cooking. I hate cleaning up and washing dishes.

All that said, I did enjoy this book quite a bit. I can hardly wait till my current writing deadline is past, not least because I'll have time to do a lot of cooking again. And one of these days I want to invest in the right technology and take the time to learn to make my own barbecue. There is NO place in Seattle that makes 'cue that fully lives up to my Alabama definition of the word.

32) A Song at Twilight, by Pamela Sherwood.

One of the better historical romances I've read in a long time. It's set in the 1890's, an era that doesn't inherently grab my interest--if I go outside my Regency home turf I'd rather go earlier than later--but this is just a lovely, romantic story with beautiful writing. I especially liked the three-dimensional feel of the hero and heroine's world. They and the secondary characters felt solid and developed, and there was more to the characters' lives than just their romance--something you don't always get in the genre, but that I always appreciate for making the story feel more textured and plausible.

33) Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham.

Wrangam posits that the key to our transformation from relatively small-brained upright apes to humans may have been triggered by learning to master fire and use it to cook food. Cooked food is much easier to digest than raw--which means we spend less time chewing and digesting to get the calories we need. This allows us to "afford" a small gut and use that energy toward big brains instead. He also sees cooking as a key to the human social structure and as possibly more important to the development of marriage than sexual exclusivity. I.e. men may have wanted wives not so much to be sure of the paternity of their children (since that's never reliably worked and isn't even important in some hunter-gatherer societies) as to be sure of having a cooked meal waiting for them regardless of how the hunting went that day. By the same token, the woman with a husband gained a protector of her hearth and a share of any big kills the hunters made for herself and her children.

Certainly thought-provoking, and it's a short, quick read for a book on science.

Random Cookbooks - Julia's Kitchen Wisdom & Good Eats 2

Catching up on two weeks' worth of random cooking:

Last week I drew Julia's Kitchen Wisdom, a brief book by Julia Child focusing on basic techniques of everyday cooking. Because I'm trying to eat more fish, I chose:

Fish Fillets Poached in White Wine

For sole, trout, and other thin boneless fillets, 5-6 ounces per serving. Cooking time: about 10 minutes.

For 6 fillets. Score the skin sides of the fish and season with salt and white pepper. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of minced shallots in the bottom of a buttered baking dish; lay in the fillets, skin side down and lightly overlapping. Scatter another tablespoon of shallots on top. Pour around them 2/3 c. of dry white and 1/3 c. of fish stock, chicken stock, or water. Cover with buttered wax paper and bring just to the simmer on top of the stove, then set in a preheated 350F oven. The fish is done in 7-8 minutes, when just lightly springy to the touch and opaque. Drain cooking juices into a saucepan and boil down rapidly until almost syrupy. For a simple sauce, whisk in droplets of lemon juice and minced parsley and, if you wish, a tablespoon or two of butter. Spoon over the fish and serve at once.

I used trout and chicken stock. This turned out pretty well, though I think I like my trout better sauteed or pan-fried than poached. I'm finding trout and salmon are my favorite fish despite their strong fishy taste because they have such a nice, meaty texture, and the poaching gives it more of that soft, flaky fish texture I'm not so crazy about.

(I really wish I could wave a magic wand and make myself like fish and shellfish better. I'm going to France, Spain, and Portugal next year. My taste buds are looking forward to the inland bits more than the coastal ones, which makes me sad.)

This week Alton Brown's Good Eats 2: The Middle Years came up, and I chose:

Bananas Foster

2 T. unsalted butter
1/4 c. dark brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg, freshly grated
1 T. banana liqueur (I substituted water)
2 under-ripe bananas, cut in half lengthwise
1/4 c. dark rum
1/2 tsp grated orange zest

1. Melt the butter in a 10-inch heavy skillet over low heat. Add the brown sugar, allspice, and nutmeg and stir till the sugar dissolves. Add the liqueur and bring the sauce to a simmer.

2. Add the bananas and cook for 1 minute on each side, carefully spooning sauce over the bananas as they are cooking. Remove the bananas from the pan to a serving dish.

3. Return the sauce to a simmer and carefully add the rum. If the sauce is very hot, the alcohol will flame on its own. If not, using a stick lighter, carefully ignite the sauce and continue cooking until the flame dies out, 1-2 minutes. If the sauce is too thin, cook 1-2 minutes more, until it is syrupy in consistency. Add the orange zest and stir to combine. Immediately spoon the sauce over the bananas and serve with waffles, crepes, or ice cream.

I had some leftover plain polenta I needed to use up, so I cut it into rounds and sauteed it in butter to use as a base for the bananas foster and frozen yogurt. It was a good idea, but I cut the polenta a little too thick, and I probably should've sweetened it a bit when cooking instead of counting on the sauce and frozen yogurt to provide all the sugar needed. Still, on the whole, this was a quick, delicious dessert which I will make again.

Random Cookbook of the Week Rebooted

Now that I'm back from RWA and my life has settled down a smidgeon, I'd like to bring my random cookbook challenge back. In it is I randomly select one cookbook per week from my rather extensive collection, pick out a recipe from it that I've never tried before, attempt it, and blog the results. I'm not going to bake in a heat wave, since I lack AC in the kitchen, nor am I going to grill when it's snowy or rainy. But other than that, I have to work with the cookbook random.org assigns me.

In the last version of this challenge, I'd narrowed my list to the kind of cookbooks I normally work from--I ignored all the tough chef-y ones, along with all the older ones I was hanging onto for sentimental reasons, especially the local collections put together for fundraisers. However, a certain husband of mine opined that that's cheating, not to mention cheating myself and my readers of the best culinary challenges. Of course I can cook from a Mark Bittman or an Alton Brown book. But can I successfully a Thomas Keller recipe or find something interesting and tasty from a 1970's home ec teachers' collection? Watch this space to find out.

Below is a list of all the cookbooks I currently own. Each week I'll blog my selected recipe along with the cookbook drawn for the next week's challenge.

First up will be The Food You Want to Eat, by Ted Allen. It's one of my more recent acquisitions and the source of my current ribs recipe, but I haven't tried much else from it yet.

1. How to Cook Everything
2. Mom and Me Cookbook
3. Cook it Together
4. Colorado Cache Cookbook
5. Favorite Recipes of Alabama Vocational Home Ec Teachers
6. Chicken: 150 Great Recipes for All Seasons
7. Ratio
8. 1950's Joy of Cooking
9. The Science of Good Cooking
10. Fresh Food Fast
11. Book of Soups
12. Old-School Comfort Food
13. Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times
14. Home Economics Teachers' Bicentennial Cookbook
15. Life after Pizza
16. The Minimalist Cooks at Home
 17. Southern Biscuits
18. More with Less
19. Express Lane Meals
20. Starters & Closers
21. Mariners Wives' Cookie Book
22. The Gourmet Cookie Book
23. Les Halles Cookbook
24. A Feast of Ice and Fire
25. Best One-Dish Meals
26. Process This!
27. Food Matters
28. Mastering the Art of French Cooking
29. In My Kitchen
30. Julia's Kitchen Wisdom
31. The Food You Want to Eat
32. Pig: King of the Southern Table
33. Calling All Cooks
34. Calling All Cooks 2
35. Calling All Cooks 3
36. West Point Cookbook
37. 1990's Joy of Cooking
38. Route 66 Cookbook
39. Ruhlman's Twenty
40. The Barbecue Bible
41. 30-Minute Meals
42. Chili Madness
43. The Pie and Pastry Bible
44. A New Turn in the South
45. I'm Just Here for the Food
46. I'm Just Here for More Food
47. Good Eats 1
48. Good Eats 2
49. Good Eats 3
50. The Bread Bible
51. Ad Hoc at Home
52. The French Laundry Cookbook
53. Great Food Fast
54. Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood
55. Old-Fashioned Desserts
56. The Best Recipes in the World
57. The Gourmet Cookbook

Random Cookbook of the Week - Good Eats 2

This week's chosen cookbook was Good Eats 2: The Middle Years, and I settled on a recipe from the Field of Greens episode:

Lemon Sesame Glazed Greens

- 1 to 1 1/4 lbs stemmed hearty greens such as mustard greens or kale, weighed after stemming but before washing
- 1 T olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- zest of 1 lemon
- 2 tsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
- 1 T honey
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 T sesame seeds

Wash the greens thoroughly; it's best to do this in a sink with at least 5 inches of water. Move the leaves around in the water and let them sit a few minutes so any sand or dirt will fall to the bottom of the sink. Dry them thoroughly in a salad spinner and coarsely chop the pieces.

Heat a 13 x 11 inch roasting pan over 2 burners on medium heat. Once hot, add the oil. Add the garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, honey, salt, and pepper and stir to combine. Add the greens and saute for 4-5 minutes, stirring continuously. Add the red pepper flakes and the sesame seeds. Toss to combine. Adjust seasoning if needed. Serve immediately.

I used chard, since my choices at the grocery store were chard and collards, and I thought collards might be a bit too robust and hearty for this application. And it turned out tasty, but didn't blow me away with its spectacularness. Still, since it's fairly quick and simple, I may add it to my repertoire of leafy green preparations.

Random Cookbook of the Week: Southern Biscuits

Awhile back I stumbled upon the Kindle version of Southern Biscuits on sale for $0.99, or maybe it was $1.99--a price point that silenced the voice in my head that says, "You don't need another cookbook."

I grew up eating, and taking for granted, my mother's amazing homemade buttermilk biscuits. She whipped them together without a recipe or even measuring her ingredients, and they were wondrous tangy, buttery, airy bits of deliciousness. Unfortunately I spent my entire childhood trying my hardest to prove I wasn't like my mother AT ALL, thank you very much, and by the time I wanted to learn to make her biscuits, she'd stopped making them. You see, she'd found a frozen brand she liked, and she thought they were just as good for far less trouble. I didn't quite agree. To me the frozen biscuits, though far better than any national brand I could get up here in Yankee country (I'm using the Southern terminology by which the Pacific Northwest is every bit as Yankee as New England), were nowhere close to my mom's. (And, for those of you NOT in Yankee country, I unfortunately can't recall the brand she swore by. She bought them at Piggly Wiggly, and they came in large quantities in a clear plastic bag.)

Anyway, this week's cookbook. I've tried to make biscuits in the past without any grand success, so I deliberately picked something from the beginner chapter, knowing full well I wasn't going to resurrect Mom's biscuits, but hoping for something better than what I can buy frozen or refrigerated up the street at Safeway.

Rachel's Very Beginner's Cream Biscuits

- 2 1/4 c. self-rising flour, divided
- 1 1/4 c. heavy cream, divided
- Butter, softened or melted, for finishing

Preheat oven to 450 F.  Select either a 8 or 9-inch cake pan or oven-proof skillet if you want to nestle to biscuits together to create a soft exterior, or a baking sheet or pan where the biscuits can be placed wider apart for a crisper exterior, and brush the pan with butter.

Fork-sift or whisk 2 cups of flour in a large bowl, and set aside the remaining 1/4 cup.

Make a deep hollow in the center of the flour with the back of your hand. Pour 1 cup of cream into the hollow, reserving 1/4 c. of cream, and stir with a rubber spatula or large metal spoon, using broad circular strokes to quickly pull the flour into the cream Mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened and the sticky dough begins to pull away from the side of the bowl. If there is some flour remaining on the bottom and sides of the bowl, stir in 1 to 4 T. on reserved cream, just enough to incorporate the remaining flour into the shaggy wettish dough. If the dough is too wet, use more flour when shaping.

Lightly sprinkle a board or other clean surface using some of the reserved flour. Turn the dough out onto the board and sprinkle the top of the dough lightly with flour. With floured hands, fold the dough in half, and pat dough out into a 1/3 to 1/2-inch thick round using a little additional flour only if needed. Flour again if necessary and fold the dough in half a second time. If the dough is still clumpy, pat and fold a third time. Pat dough out into a 1/2-inch thick round for a normal biscuit, 3/4-inch for a tall biscuit, and 1-inch for a giant biscuit. Brush off any visible flour from the top. For each biscuit, dip a 2 1/2-inch biscuit cutter into the reserved flour and cut out the biscuits, starting at the outside edge and cutting very close together, being careful not to twist the cutter. The scraps may be combined to make additional biscuits, although these scraps make tougher biscuits.

Using a metal spatula if necessary, move the biscuits to the pan or baking sheet. Bake on the top rack of the oven for a total of 10-14 minutes until light golden brown. After 6 minutes rotate the pan in the oven so that the front of the pan is now turned to the back. When the biscuits are done, remove from the oven and lightly brush the tops of the biscuits with butter.

Behold, biscuits! The lumpy-looking ones were made from scraps, and were indeed tougher, but they all tasted good. Southern, even. We had them for breakfast Monday, half sandwiched with sausage and half with jam, and we three Frasers, even the finicky 9-year-old, made short work of ten biscuits.

Though this is a recipe for beginning biscuit makers, I wouldn't call it one for beginning cooks. Sure, there are three ingredients, and it takes maybe fifteen minutes to assemble counting the time spent rummaging for the right pan, but it takes a certain amount of culinary judgement to know when the dough is just right. I doubt I could've pulled it off before I started challenging myself as a cook a few years ago.

Random Cookbook is back! The Best Recipes in the World

Even though I'm still busier than usual, I decided I missed randomly cooking. All work and no play and all that.

So, this week I drew The Best Recipes in the World, by Mark Bittman, wherein he offers a sampling of recipes from the great world cuisines made accessible for the home cook. (It's a long cookbook.)

Busy as I am, I wanted something with a nice short ingredient list, so I selected...

Chicken With Vinegar
(A French peasant classic, though Bittman cut the butter content from a whole stick to two measly tablespoons plus an optional extra.)

- 2 T butter or olive oil (I used butter)
- 1 chicken, 3-4 lbs, cut into serving pieces, or 2 1/2 to 3 lbs chicken parts, trimmed of excess fat (I used ~2.5 lbs of drumsticks and thighs)
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- 1/4 c. minced shallot
- 1 c. good-quality red wine vinegar
- 1 T butter, optional (I exercised the option)

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Set a large skillet, preferably with steep sides, over medium-high heat. Add 2 T butter and wait a minute. When it is good and hot, place the chicken in the skillet, skin side down. Cook undisturbed for about 5 minutes, or until the chicken is nicely browned. Turn and cook for three minutes on the other side. Season with salt and pepper.

(I did this step in two batches, because even though all the pieces fit in my skillet, I didn't want to brown them all at once because the pan would've been too crowded and they wouldn't have had as much of a Maillard reaction.)

Place the chicken in the oven. Cook 15-20 minutes, or until it is just about done (the juices will run clear, and there will be the barest trace of pink near the bone). Transfer the chicken to an ovenproof platter and place the platter in the oven; turn off the oven and leave the door slightly ajar.

Pour most but not all of the cooking juices out of the skillet. Place the skillet over medium-high heat and add the shallot, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and cook, stirring until tender, about 2 minutes. Add the vinegar and raise the heat to high. Cook for a minute or two, or until the powerful smell has subsided somewhat. Add 1/2 c. water and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring, until the mixture is slightly reduced and somewhat thickened. Stir in butter if desired.

Return the chicken and any accumulated juices to the skillet and turn the chicken in the sauce. Serve immediately.

Not too exciting to look at, but this is a very good recipe--straightforward and simple but with a distinctive, interesting taste. I bet it'd be AMAZING with the full stick of butter, but I'm on Weight Watchers (I've lost 25 lbs since December 1!), so I should probably stick to this version.

Random Cookbook of the Week: A Feast of Ice and Fire

This week I drew A Feast of Ice and Fire, the Game of Thrones companion cookbook that arose from the Inn at the Crossroads blog. Authors Chelsea and Sariann typically take a dish mentioned in a George R.R. Martin tome, then find or develop a pair of recipes for it: one medieval (or Roman or Elizabethan) and presumably closer to what Martin's characters would eat, and one modern and therefore easier on the modern cook/palate.

One of these days I want to try the Elizabethan Lemon Cakes or the Roman Honeyfingers, but this week I selected...

Modern Bean-and-Bacon Soup

3 strips of bacon
1 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 15-oz. can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 tsp dried thyme, plus extra for garnish (I used a T. fresh instead)
2 c. chicken stock
1/4 c. feta cheese, plus extra for garnish
1/4 c. orzo
1 c. water (I left the water out, since once I got to that step I decided it would make the soup too thin)
Salt and ground black pepper to taste

In a small skillet, cook the bacon over medium heat until it is well browned but not burned. Remove to a plate covered with paper towels to drain. Pour off all but 1 tsp of bacon fat from the pan. Add the olive oil to the remaining fat.

Add the diced onion to the skillet and saute for 3-5 minutes, or until it is just starting to brown. Add the beans, thyme, and stock, then raise the heat to high. Bring the soup to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. Half cover with a lid, and cook for 10 minutes.

Puree the soup either with an immersion blender, or in batches with an upright blender. Return to medium heat, then add the feta, orzo, 2 strips of crumbled bacon, and water. Cook for 5 minutes or until pasta is tender. Season with salt and pepper.

Ladle the soup into serving bowls, crumble a bit of the remaining bacon on top, garnish with thyme and feta, and serve.

This turned out SO WELL. The basic flavors are subtle, but the feta, bacon, and thyme keep it from being dull. I'll definitely make it again, maybe even double the recipe and make it my contribution (along with pies) to the family Christmas dinner. It's a perfect light meal with a salad, but I think it'd be equally good as a first course for a winter feast.

Because winter is coming. (Sorry, I had to go there.)

Fast and frugal cooking - pasta with greens and sausage

I have the iPhone app version of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything cookbook, and it tends to be my go-to source for everyday culinary inspiration. I love the search function because I can put in an ingredient and immediately pull up a variety of options for how to prepare it.

A couple weekends back I picked up some kale at the farmers' market.  One of the recipes the app offered me was Pasta with Greens, a variation on a main recipe for pasta with broccoli or cauliflower.  I had several boxes of pasta on hand, bought when they were recently on sale (see, frugal!), and I generally make some form of pasta once or twice per week because it's so fast. A second variation suggested adding sliced Italian sausage. I wanted to add some meat, both for flavor and because Mr. Fraser is a bit of a carnivore, so I picked up some bulk Italian sausage.

Once in the kitchen, I set a pot of water on to boil for the pasta--heavily salted and with a generous dollop of olive oil to impart some flavor to the pasta as it cooked. I chose radiatore, because the recipe recommended penne, ziti, or other cut pasta, but any shape you happened to have on hand would work, I think, including spaghetti or linguini.

While the water heated I washed my kale and roughly chopped it into long, thin strips.  Once it boiled, I added the greens (but not the pasta yet). I let the greens boil for about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, I browned half a pound of the Italian sausage (frugally freezing the other half of the package for a future meal) in a large saucepan.

Next I reduced the heat on the sausage, fished the greens out of the boiling water with a strainer, and added them to the saucepan, along with salt, freshly ground pepper, and a pinch of crushed red pepper. I added the pasta to the water (now slightly green) and let it cook as directed, occasionally stirring both the pasta and the sausage-greens mixture. With about a minute to go before straining the pasta, I dipped out some of its cooking water and added it to the sausage and greens to make it a bit more saucelike.

Then, I drained the pasta, tossed it with the sausage and greens, and served with parmesan cheese. Quick, easy, tasty, and reasonably frugal. I'll definitely make it again with either kale, spinach, or chard. (I like collards too, but they're slower-cooking and more strongly flavored. I doubt I'll try the broccoli or cauliflower of the main recipe because I only like those veggies raw or lightly roasted. Boiled, steamed, or baked for more than ten minutes or so and they get all mushy and bleah, for my taste.)

Blog updates

As often happens when I go to RWA, I've been making midsummer resolutions. One of them is to get back on a regular blogging schedule. I figure I've got two main topics:

1) Books, and the reading and writing thereof
2) Food, and the cooking and eating thereof (with occasional side discussions on health and fitness)

So my new goal is four posts per week, two on each topic. For books, that's one post on what I'm reading and one on something to do with writing--what I'm working on, or aspects of craft, time management, or the business of writing.

On the food side, I'm reluctantly abandoning my 52 Cookbooks series. I'd fallen too far behind on posting, and the blogging was becoming a chore, though the cooking wasn't.  So I'm starting fresh. I'm going to keep doing one new-to-me recipe per week from a random cookbook, though I'm going to cull the ones I know aren't very good and add those I've gotten since starting the project.

But I also want to blog a bit about day-to-day cooking. Because my husband has a long commute while mine is quite short, I do most of the weeknight cooking.  It's a constant challenge to come up with a variety of interesting and nutritious meals that are FAST, and therefore don't eat up my precious writing time.  And as groceries get more and more expensive, I'm looking for ways to eat more frugally.  So...fast, frugal, tasty, and nutritious.  All at once. Methinks that won't be easy...and therefore that anything I discover might be worth sharing.

Saturday cooking, 8-6-11

This Saturday I was neck-deep in editing a proposal for my latest historical romance (a Waterloo story!) to send to my editor, so I didn't go as elaborate with the cooking as last week. I did, however, try out our brand new grill, just installed on our brand new deck. I combined a couple of suggestions from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything and marinated some boneless, skinless chicken breasts in sesame oil, soy sauce, and lime juice, then threw them on the grill. They came out looking like this:



Tasted almost as good as they looked, too, served with leftover rice from Friday's Thai take-out and broccoli and green beans cooked (and, frankly, slightly burned) in a grill basket.

I could get addicted to this grill business. At least for a simple cut of meat like this, it's so quick and easy, and easier to clean up than the same recipe broiled or sauteed.

Susanna Has Too Many Cookbooks (an occasional series): Chili Madness

As I mentioned in my 2011 resolutions post before I took a break for the holidays, I have way too many cookbooks, some of which I've never cooked from, others that are kept on hand solely for the sake of a single recipe. So I thought, what the heck, why not try to at least use each cookbook once this year? And I'll make something other than pumpkin bread from the West Point Officers' Wives Cookbook, something other than Pakistani kima from More With Less, and something other than that sweet potato and spinach salad from Food Matters.

And why not blog about my culinary experiments, even on my mostly writing-related blog?



The Cookbook: Chili Madness: Second Edition, by Jane Butel.

What's it like? Assorted chili recipes, mostly from cook-offs.

What recipe? Chocolaty Chili. A pretty standard veg-beef-and-bean chili, with the addition of semi-sweet chocolate.



How was the cooking experience? OK. Not challenging, but too time-consuming for anything but a weekend dish.



Will I make it again? No. I thought it was OK but wasn't blown away. And Mr. Fraser is an Okie with purist ideas about chili, and he didn't finish his bowl.