Wednesday digest

Sydney, May 2013 - nearly-winter here not quite the same as nearly-winter in Canberra!

 

Here I am again, getting caught up with the latest happenings around casa RL.

Work/school Pleased to report that DP worked from home one day last week! I can’t remember the last time that happened. He did school drop-off and pick-up, and we went out to lunch alone together for possibly the first time since before we left Missouri last May. Miss B is immersed in Term 2, and the other day ran in the school-wide cross-country event. Each senior student (years 3-6) in her school is assigned to one of four houses, which compete against each other in various events, so on cross-country day they divvied up the entire school into houses, who sat on the junior oval, cheering on their housemates and generally making a ruckus when it wasn’t their turn to run an event. With the rest of the kids born in 2004, Miss B ran two circuits of the grounds, for a distance totaling 2 km. Given that a) Miss B is the smallest kid in Year 3 and b) kids who were born in 2005 who tower over her only had to run one circuit, I was thoroughly impressed with her perseverance and spirit in finishing the course. As for me, I am already up to my ears in preparations for my .org’s next major meeting, which happens in mid-September. Even though I know rationally that this is four months away, it feels as though it’s just around the corner because there’s so much stuff we’ve got to put in place now, before people start booking their travel arrangements.

Recreation This kind of overlaps with work, but I was thrilled to discover another member of my .org who is based in Canberra. (This brings the total, as far as I know, to three of us.) She brought her two little ones over for tea (adults), slab scones (everyone), and a play (children) the other day. Between bouts of wrangling three children among two adults, we managed to have some grownup conversation about work stuff that we’re both interested in and might collaborate on – very nerdy and enjoyable. Makes me realize how much I miss having people around who understand what the heck I’m talking about most of the time. In other news, we took the new car out for its first road trip and went to Sydney for the weekend. DP not only voluntarily went shopping on George Street (Sydney’s main shopping district) on Saturday afternoon, it was his idea. (This is ‘what have you done with my real husband?’ territory.) He took Miss B to a hobby shop so that could look at trains and planes and so on, and I got to browse in Dymock’s by myself. For a whole hour. It was blissful.

Food Nothing revolutionary to report on the cooking front; I’ve been trying out some other people’s recipes, and revisiting some of my own favorites:

• gnocchi with bacon, spinach, and cream (roughly based on this recipe)
• roasted pork belly (I sat this on top of a bed of chopped carrot, celery, fennel, and red onion, and roasted some potatoes for Italian potatoes with oil alongside)
• a variation on the chicken soup with orzo recipe from the Dinner a Love Story cookbook (you can see a picture of it here)
• and more soup – a fridge-clearing vegetable soup using my soup spec
• and a batch of sweet and spicy nuts, just to have something around to nibble on

Weather All the soup is because it’s suddenly cold for real in Canberra – as in, time-to-break-out-the-winter-coats cold. And getting dark at 5pm. Still weird to have that happening in May.

How about you?

Gratin dauphinois

This is a dish that has frustrated me for years; I love it, but I never seemed to get consistent results when I made it. One time it would be cooked to perfection; the next time the potatoes would be cooked inconsistently, or the sauce would be too thin and sloppy, or some other disappointing variation. (And the latter seemed to happen much more often than the former. Even though I thought I was doing the exact same thing every time.)

Then, a few years ago, I came across a book called Don't Sweat the Aubergine: What Works in the Kitchen and Why, which actually explains what happens when you follow the steps of a recipe. In the section on gratin dauphinois, I found the following sentence: "It is impossible to give a recipe that you can guarantee will work every time." (What a relief to know it wasn't just my ineptitude!) The author, Nicholas Clee, then goes on to enumerate the many variables that can affect how the recipe works, including size and composition of the cooking vessel, absorption of the potatoes, etc. He also suggests - revolutionarily, for me - that you should heat all the ingredients on the stovetop before putting the gratin in the oven. He proposes using a saucepan to start, and then tipping the heated ingredients into a casserole dish to go in the oven, but when I revisited this recipe recently, I decided that this made unnecessary work and washing up, plus made the final presentation somewhat sloppy. Therefore I called one of my beloved cast iron skillets into service to do double duty. I've made gratin using this method twice in recent weeks, versus once using the cold-into-the-casserole-and-the-oven method, and the skillet/heating method wins hands down. Try it for yourself.

Gratin dauphinois
Adapted slightly from Don't Sweat the Aubergine by Nicholas Clee
This is a great dish to make when you're having company for dinner, as all the prep is done well ahead of time and then the potatoes can bake away quietly in the oven while you get on with other things. Plus anything made with this much cream is probably better shared with a group.

1 medium-sized potato per adult being served
butter
1 clove garlic, minced
salt 
1 cup/8 oz/240 ml full cream*
.5 cup/4 oz/120 ml milk*

Heat the oven to 325F/160C. Slice the potatoes thinly ("no thicker than a pound coin" - about .25-inch thick, or .5-cm; I use a mandoline for this) into a bowl of cold, salted water. They can be held like this for a bit if you have other things to do before assembly.

When ready to assemble the gratin, grease the inside of the skillet lightly with butter. Drain the potatoes and arrange in the skillet in layers, sprinkling strategically with salt and bits of garlic. Continue until you have used up all the potatoes.

Mix together the milk and cream in a small jug or measuring cup and pour over the potatoes, until the liquid is level with the top layer. If necessary, add more milk to ensure that this happens.

Place the skillet on the stovetop over medium heat and leave until liquid is bubbling around the edges and you can feel warmth coming from the potatoes when you hold your hand above the skillet. (I usually put a lid on the skillet to help this process along.)

When the gratin is heated through, remove the lid (if using) and place the skillet in the oven uncovered. Leave to cook for 1 - 1.5 hours, or until the surface has browned and the liquid has reduced and thickened.

In my experience, this holds together better and slices more neatly if you can let it sit for about 10 minutes after coming out of the oven.

Serve directly from the skillet.


* These amounts should provide enough liquid to cover about 4 potatoes' worth of slices, insofar as it's possible to predict with this recipe.

No raisins

I don’t really like raisins. I never have. On my cereal in the morning, in my lunch every Wednesday (see: food schedule), in my mother’s apple cake. No thanks.

*shudder*

As a result, I spent a good part of my life avoiding oatmeal-raisin cookies. I wanted to like them, because I like oats and oaty things, but I couldn’t, because raisins.

Then one day (when? sometime in the 90s, I think) I discovered craisins – sweetened, dried cranberries. And as much as I dislike raisins is how much I like craisins. And thus was a whole new cookie vista opened up to me.

Oatmeal-craisin cookies
Adapted slightly from the recipe inside the lid of the Quaker Oats tub
I am pretty sure I have my longtime friend (and college defense partner, and fellow cooking junkie) N. to thank for the inspired idea of substituting dried cranberries for raisins in oatmeal cookies. But even if that idea wasn’t hers, she’s the one who first introduced me to this classic recipe, so I will forever associate it with her anyway.

1 cup/4 oz/120 g dried cranberries

½ cup/4 oz/120 ml juice

1½ cup/6 oz/180 g all-purpose/plain flour

1 tsp/5 g baking soda

1 tsp/2 g cinnamon

½ tsp/2 g salt

1 cup/2 sticks/250 g butter, softened

1 cup/5 oz/150 g firmly packed brown sugar

½ cup/3 oz/90 g granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp/5 ml vanilla

3 cups/9 oz/270 g rolled oats

Heat cranberries and juice to simmering point in a small saucepan. Cover and set aside.*

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Line baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium-to-large bowl, beat butter and sugars together until creamy, 2-3 minutes.

Add eggs and vanilla; beat again until uniformly combined.

Add combined dry ingredients and mix in thoroughly.

Add oats to batter, then drain cranberries and add. Fold in until evenly distributed.

Drop batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets, leaving at least 1 in/2.5 cm between cookies.

Bake 10-12 minutes or until cookies are golden brown, rotating sheets halfway through cooking time for even baking.

Cool 1 minute on baking sheet, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 3 dozen.

* I find steeping the cranberries in juice makes them even better and helps keep them from drying out in the heat of the oven.