MacGyver gnocchi

The pace of work and home life this week continued to dictate yet again the need for dinner solutions that could be produced on a short turnaround. Gnocchi in the pantry and leftover sausage and kale in the fridge came to the rescue to help produce this cheesy gnocchi bake when MacGyver night rolled around on Thursday. 

It’s still a work in progress, but the basic infrastructure involves preheating the oven to 425F/210C; browning gnocchi in butter and bacon fat in a cast-iron skillet on the stovetop, then mixing in chopped, cooked kale and Italian sausage. I then added about 1 cup of stock and milk mixed together, and slid the whole thing into the now-hot oven to let it heat through for about 10 minutes. Then I mixed in somewhere around 1.5 cups of cream cheese, grated cheddar cheese, and grated pecorino romano, and put it back in for another 5 minutes or so. The sauce isn’t quite right yet, so I’ll be continuing to fiddle with it, but even as is, it was still pretty tasty and hit the spot at the end of a long, busy day. And since I'm on a short turnaround yet again, that's all from me for today.

Day 265

One afternoon recently I got a Slack message from one of my co-workers who lives in a different state in my time zone.

“I bought a pre-seasoned steak at the supermarket,” it said. “How should I cook it?”

I wrote back the following instructions.

1. Place a frying pan on the stove over medium-high heat. Drop in a couple of tablespoons of fat (butter, olive oil, etc).

2. When the fat starts to sizzle, put in the steak. For a medium steak, cook 5-6 minutes on one side, then flip and do the same on the other. 

3. Remove steak from pan and rest for about 5 minutes. Eat.

I received the following response: “That’s it?”

Yes, I confirmed, that’s it. I could have added a few extra steps: I skipped the “salt generously before cooking” step, because they said it was pre-seasoned, so that was taken care of. I didn’t send instructions on how to make a quick pan sauce, which is how I usually use the 5-minute rest. And I didn’t tell them to open all the windows, no matter how cold it is, because even with the fan on, I usually set off the smoke alarm when I cook steak. 

But although you can add on as many extras as you want, it really is that simple to make a good steak. I was reminded of this myself a few nights later, when I made a flank steak for the first time ever. I was nervous about messing it up and ending up with a piece of shoe leather, so I spent some time trawling my online collection for flank steak recipes. After looking at about a dozen, I came back to the basic method I’d outlined for my workmate. The only things I changed were to do my own pre-seasoning, liberally salting, peppering, and garlic powdering the steak several hours before cooking. And to remember to cut across the grain when serving - apparently cutting it any other way does make it tough.

It came out great, garnering praise from steak-fiend DP and steak-skeptic Miss B, who both declared it their cut of choice from now on. I'm calling that a win-win and putting it into the regular rotation.

Late winter

Just when I was getting into a regular routine of publishing on Sundays, winter school holidays began and poof went the normal schedule! Here's what's been going on since my last post:

Traveling

Lots of Canberrans go to the snow during July school holidays, but I find the idea of getting away from the cold much more attractive, and that's what we usually do. This year we went to New Caledonia, a Pacific island which is also a French territory. July is the "cool" season, which means temperatures are in the 20C-23C (70F-75F) range - perfect beach (and tropical flora) weather for us, although we did notice several locals wearing puffer coats.

The sunset view from our balcony - a nightly highlight of our visit.

Celebrating

Miss B is 13! I didn't manage a birthday post this year, but we celebrated twice - once with dinner and cake for family and a few close friends (can you guess this year's obsession?)...

...and again a couple of weeks later with laser tag, pizza, more cake, and friends. (13! How did that happen?)

Cooking

I recently tweaked my method for cooking homemade pizza after reading something online that I've now lost track of; my takeaway was to put my biggest cast-iron skillet in a very hot oven and heat it thoroughly for about 10 minutes. Then, remove the skillet carefully and throw in a pizza crust. Stick it back in the oven for about 5 minutes, remove again, and flip the crust. Spread it with sauce, top it with cheese, and put back in for another 5 minutes or more, until the cheese is browned and bubbling. This method has produced the best homemade pizza I've made yet, and I tested it on Miss B and two visiting friends who seemed to agree; of course as guests they were very polite - but they also devoured nearly two whole pizzas among three adolescents, which I took as an endorsement.

Speaking of my giant cast-iron skillet, I put it to good use again soon after, making a batch of polpette for the first time in far too long - certainly the first time since we moved here 2 years ago. They were very well received at Miss B's birthday dinner; and even though the recipe makes about 40, I'm going to have make another batch soon because we're already running low!

Baking

Holiday in New Caledonia meant daily access to boulangeries and croissants, and going into withdrawal when we got home compelled me to do something I've been contemplating for years - making my own. It's definitely a project for a weekend when you don't have much else on - the recipe I used has you start 36 hours before you want to eat them - but the actual hands-on work was less than 2 hours total. And it was totally worth it, for the eating and the sense of achievement. I'm already planning my next batch.

Today I baked something a little less ambitious: a variation on this cake from Melissa Clark for snacking and lunchboxes this week. It's a simple recipe, but notable because it marks my official initiation as a user (and fan) of the Eat Your Books website - which indexes thousands of cookbooks, magazines, and blogs and allows you to register and search your own collection, and dig into what you have. (Apparently I have 60,000+ recipes on my shelves.)

That's what's been happening here - although before I finish I must note that I feel lucky to have the privilege to focus on these things as a distraction from recent events in the US - and to come from a city from whose response I can take heart and courage. 

Three countries

Good morning from cold and rainy London! I woke up early to Skype with DP and Miss B back in Canberra, and I have some time to kill before our train to Oxford later this morning. So I thought I would use my time profitably by lying in my hotel bed and updating my blog.

Yesterday was a first for me - I ate breakfast in Freiburg, lunch in Paris, and dinner in London. My friend and colleague C. (okay, technically my boss) makes this trip regularly, and prefers to do it by train. I'm always happy to opt for a mode of travel that doesn't involve planes, especially when it incorporates a planned four-hour stop in Paris for lunch. We went to the oldest covered market in Paris (Marche des Enfants Rouges, near the Place de la Republique, thanks to a recommendation in Clotilde Dusoulier's Paris guidebook), and browsed around the stalls before settling on a one-man show offering enormous toasted sandwiches and savory galettes. I always associate the term galette with a rustic-looking pie or tart made with pastry crust on a baking sheet, but this galette was a huge buckwheat crepe, filled with a haddock salad and lots of other goodies. The sandwich, crusty bread drizzled with olive oil and piled with ham, cheese, veggies, and then grilled, was equally fantastic. Then, after loading up on cheese to bring to England and a fortifying glass of vin du table in a sidewalk cafe, it was back on the train - the Eurostar to London this time. Shopping for jeans on Oxford Street, a pub visit (of course), and then we had dinner at my hands-down favorite Mexican restaurant, wahaca. I've been there once before, three years ago, and I've been dreaming about it ever since. No Mexican food I've had in the interim, and certainly not in Canberra, even comes close.  

And now I'm hungry again. Time to go hunt down some breakfast. More from Oxford.

Northern hemisphere

Guten tag from southwestern Germany! Yes, I'm on another glamorous international road trip, to attend my .org's week of staff meetings (like last year in Paris). This year's meetings are in my old stomping ground Oxford, but given the distance I was already coming, I decided to tack on a few extra days at my team's home base in Freiburg (in Australian terms, just down the road from Oxford). I arrived on Tuesday after 3 planes, 1 train, and 33 hours of traveling - and, luckily for me, about 5 hours before Frankfurt airport was closed by a late-winter snowstorm. The jet lag has been manageable, I'm having a great time being in an office for a few days (working by yourself gets really old after a while), and of course there have been plenty of opportunities to sample regional food and wines, from the savory breakfast pastries available in the ground-floor bakery at our office building, to last night's dinner - a DIY toasted cheese extravaganza known as 'raclette' that I thought far superior to its better-known culinary cousin fondue. I've even been enjoying the blast of unseasonably cold and snowy weather; I haven't seen snow for more than a year, and after all this is much more what I'm used to experiencing in March. I've got one more day here, and then head off to Oxford tomorrow by train, with a stopover in Paris for lunch. (I know, tough life, but what can I do? My boss insisted.) More updates to follow as the RL European Tour 2013 continues!

Detox redux

Hey, remember how I kicked my 25-year Pepsi habit a couple of years back? How I developed various creative ways of getting my fizzy fix without resorting to a can full of HFCS? How I was pretty sure I didn't even like the stuff anymore?

Wrong again. I fell off the wagon.

As with so many other things, I blame last year's intercontinental move. You'd think I would know this by now, and have figured out some way to combat it, but the chaos engendered by packing up your entire life and shipping it halfway around the world is pretty much total. It disrupts routines that you thought were so embedded that they were part of your DNA, and it takes months for the dust to settle. In the meantime, your household, eating, and exercise routines fall apart completely, and suddenly you find yourself guzzling Pepsi by the liter, morning, noon, and night.

Or at least that's how it is with me. Please feel free to weigh in if you've also experienced the Intercontinental Discombobulation Phenomenon. (Or not -- maybe I'm just weak-minded.)

Anyway. We've been back in Canberra for eight months, and moved into our house for five, and with every month that passes I find the brain space to re-establish another disrupted routine. This month it's getting back on the no-Pepsi wagon. I didn't even cut back this time; I just stopped. I know I can, because I've done it before; plus this time I think I've figured out a way to get the caffeine, and the fizz, that kept me hooked for so long.

Green tea fizz
In preparation for making this, I cold-brew four green teabags in a quart (~1 litre) of water. Feel free to fiddle with that ratio if you like yours weaker (or stronger!).

1/2 cup/4 oz/120 ml green tea concentrate (see above)
1/2 cup/4 oz/120 ml sparkling water
1 tsp/5 ml lime juice
1 tsp/5 ml simple syrup

Half-fill a drinking glass with ice. Combine all ingredients, stir and consume. Congratulate yourself for resisting the lure of Pepsi yet again.

Serves 1. Can be multiplied to share.

Tiny omelettes

Like millions (billions?) of other people, many of whom you’ve probably encountered on the internet in the past few weeks, I annually buy into the whole ‘January-Fresh-Start’ mentality. On top of the general zeitgeist, my birthday is in January, so this month is the start of my personal New Year as well as the one indicated on the Gregorian calendar in widespread use worldwide.

I don’t make resolutions as such, but in the few weeks that elapse between January 1 and my birthday, I try to give some thought to the things I want to focus on in the coming year to make the most of my time. These usually boil down to living more mindfully in various ways: working on replacing sloppy or unhealthy practice with good practice, focusing on habits I want to develop, eliminating various kinds of physical (and mental) clutter, and so on. Some of this is directed toward food, generally with a view to making the most of what I’m eating while practicing moderation. I told SP last year that my personal food philosophy is “make every mouthful count”. One of the ways in which I do this is to eat a variety of different foods, since when I fall into eating ruts I am more likely to lapse into unrestrained and mindless snacking. So I’ve been working on coming up with different things to eat for breakfast, and ideally to develop a schedule where I eat a different thing for breakfast every day of the week, which to me is the ideal combination of repetition and variety.

Paradoxically, my latest addition was inspired by reading a blog post where its maker talked about eating it for breakfast every day for the last several months as part of a weight-loss program: an egg-and-cheese omelette that clocked in at a mere 220 calories. But what caught my attention about this was her note that it was a 2-egg omelette. Revelation! Omelettes don’t have to be made with 3 eggs, the way they are in restaurants. I could even make one with just 1 egg, add a little filling, have a bit of starch alongside, and still not break the caloric bank.

One-egg omelette
Eggs, in addition to being a pretty reasonably-priced source of protein (even if you buy the free-range, no-chemical, gold-plated kind), are filling, tasty, and versatile. Probably the reason why most cuisines offer some variation on the omelette.

1 tsp olive oil
1 egg
~2 teaspoons filling of your choice*
salt & pepper

Heat the olive oil over medium-low heat in a small frying pan.** Meanwhile, break the egg into a small bowl and beat the yolk into the white until consistently mixed.

Pour egg into hot pan and allow mixture to cook for 30-45 seconds or until the edges are just starting to set. Sprinkle over fillings, then season with salt & pepper. Using your preferred spatula, gently flip one half of the omelet over the other half. Allow to cook for 1-2 minutes more, then slide out onto a plate.

Serves 1. Tastes great with a toasted whole wheat and olive oil biscuit alongside (if you've still got some calorie allowance left).

* I have been using chopped bacon and shreds of cheddar cheese.
** I have a 4-inch cast iron that’s perfect for a tiny omelet, but you can use whatever you have that's good for cooking eggs. The omelet won’t look as neat in a bigger pan, but will still be fine.

Brown rice

Certain foods have something of a stigma attached to them in my house. For example, DP, as a child of Baby Boomers, was exposed to all sorts of groovy 70s food experimentation that completely passed by me, a child of an immigrant/ Depression/WWII household. Thus, while I was helping can tomatoes and roll out homemade pasta, DP was trying out tofu and brown rice. He seems to have been scarred by the experience: the very mention of either of those things still makes him shudder.