EDF -> EDK

EDF = Eating Down the Fridge: a fun challenge where you commit to not going grocery shopping for a week and getting creative with what's already in your kitchen.

EDK = Eating Down the Kitchen: when you are three weeks away from an intercontinental move and frantically trying to consume every scrap of food in your possession, because US Customs says you can't bring it with you and you hate wasting food.

If you run out of something, you can't replace it. (Goodbye, beloved cinnamon! I'll see you on the other side.)

If you've got something lying around that you only use once in a while, you've got to figure out a way to use it up. (Anyone have suggestions for using up ¾ of a jar of cider vinegar?)

Here's one concoction I've already come up with. I expect others, increasingly bizarre, will follow.

Storecupboard shuffle couscous
The one box of couscous I had lying around was parmesan-flavored, so I went with an Italian-flavors theme. But I think this would probably work just as well with plain couscous.

Please note: all measurements are approximate.

~12 sundried tomatoes
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Italian sausage
~4 zucchini
1 box couscous
1 glass white wine
salt & pepper
pecorino romano cheese, for topping

Heat up some water. Chop sundried tomatoes and throw into about a cup of hot water to soak while you do everything else. (If yours are packed in oil, you can probably skip this step.)

Heat a large skillet to medium and add oil. Remove sausage from its casing and crumble into hot pan. Brown sausage, stirring occasionally.

While the sausage is browning, quarter the zucchini and chop into chunks. (You can also do this step earlier if you want to salt the zucchini as I describe here.) Add the zucchini to the hot pan and cook, stirring every few minutes but also leaving alone so it can brown.

While the zucchini is cooking, boil some more water. Put the couscous in a pan or heatproof bowl. Pour boiling water over couscous, cover, and leave to cook according to the package directions. (This usually takes about five minutes.)

When the zucchini has cooked to your satisfaction, throw in the white wine and stir around, scraping up any good stuff that has stuck to the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat to low. Dump in the couscous and the softened tomatoes (and some of the soaking liquid if you think that would improve things; I did). Stir to combine everything thoroughly, then taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve, topped with grated cheese, hot, warm, or at room temperature. (Also good eaten cold out of the fridge.) Serves 4 with leftovers.

PS EDK also = the reason I'm not attempting to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year. But I'm still remembering to give thanks; see my list from last year, all still valid. And Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours if you're celebrating!

Kitchen alchemy

I don't know what it is about some recipes. You stir a few perfectly straightforward ingredients together, slap the mixture in a pan, and bake it. You let it cool, cut it, and serve it to a random gathering of people. Women swoon. Men ask to marry you. Hell, women ask to marry you. Children smear it all over their faces. In very short order, you are left with nothing but an empty container and a circle of smiling people with chocolate in their teeth.

I've watched it happen with this one over and over again. My mother has been making these my whole life, and I've watched relatives gobble them up, friends embarrass themselves, and brothers-in-law swear they've only had two (not five) when they go for the last one. And it's not just a Boston thing: I swear there are still people in England who know me only as So-and-so's friend who brought those…things…to that party that time.

This weekend I was invited to a barbeque, and asked to bring a dessert, so I tried these out on an Australian contingent: partly because the recipe was about all I had the mental energy for, and partly out of curiosity to see if I would get the same reaction.

The result: the only reason I had those two available for picture-taking is because they wouldn't fit in the container that I took to the party.

Please try these and tell me if you get the same reaction. I'm always looking to broaden my data sample on just what it is about this recipe that drives people crazy.

Congo bars
Adapted from Rosie's Bakery All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed No-Holds-Barred Baking Book
My mother's recipe uses Crisco, but I've found English and Australian vegetable shortening to be quite different in texture and density, and producing different results when used in baking. So I hunted down this version that uses butter, and now I like it even better, if that's possible. (Oh, and no, I don't know why they're called congo bars either. If you do, please enlighten us.)

1 1/3/280 g cups plain/all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
9 Tbsp (1 stick + 1 Tbsp)/125 g butter, softened
1 ¾ cups/350 g light brown sugar*
1 ¼ tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup/120 g semisweet chocolate chips
½ cup/60 g coconut

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease an 8 in x 8 in/20 cm x 20 cm square baking pan.

Blend dry ingredients and set aside.

With an electric mixer on medium, cream butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Add eggs, mix on high briefly (about 3-5 seconds), then on medium until well blended (about 7-10 seconds).

Add dry ingredients and mix on low until combined (8-10 seconds).

Fold in chocolate and coconut until thoroughly mixed through. Spread evenly in baking pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes, rotating pan halfway through, or until it has a rich golden crust and the center has sunk. Cool in pan for at least 30 minutes before slicing.

Makes 25 1-inch bars.

* I use whatever kind of brown sugar I have on hand. It changes the texture somewhat, but they're pretty much always good.

Puffy bread

Have I mentioned that it's hot? Stinking hot? Late-January hot? (Or, for those of you up north, Boston-in-August hot?) So hot, in fact, that I'm starting to think longingly of mid-winter in Kansas?

(Yes, of course, I realize that that means eventually I'll have to contend with summer in Kansas, which I hear is not much different from what I'm currently experiencing, but I'll think about that later. Allow me my escapist fantasy for the moment.)

So hot that I'm avoiding turning the dryer on because it heats up the bathroom too much. And as for the oven…ugh.

I've been doing pretty well with finding work-arounds to avoid using the oven (hello, my darling slow cooker). I especially wanted to not do any bread baking, since that involves turning the oven up as hot as it will go—not a desirable prospect when the whole house already feels like an oven. But I still wanted some bread. Actually, more to the point, Miss B wanted some bread, and was prepared, in the way of all self-respecting five-year-olds, to ask for it as many times as it took to convince me to make some.

From somewhere I dredged up a memory of reading a blog post about cooking pita bread in a skillet, and (without actually going back to check) decided to try that with some of the bread dough that is ever-present in my refrigerator. So I followed the usual procedure for rolling out pita bread (see below), and preheated a cast-iron skillet; threw in the flattened disks of dough, one by one; and with very little fuss or sweat produced some very tasty flatbreads. They even puffed a little bit!

Miss B devoured all of hers and part of mine, and I've made them another three times this week. It was only when I went back to track down the link above that I noticed that, while you do cook the pita bread in a skillet, you're supposed to put the skillet in a very hot oven.

Oh well. I'm sticking with my method. At least until the temperatures drop below 30C/90F.

Puffy skillet bread
This bread cooks up like a cross between pita and naan. You should get enough puff to be able to rip them open and stuff things in them.

1 batch bread dough, already made and risen in the fridge*

Figure out how many flatbreads you want to make. Pull off that many lumps of dough and roll each into a smooth ball. (I do this by cupping my hand over the dough lump and rolling it around on the counter. A good size lump is one that fits comfortably under your cupped hand.) Leave to rest and rise on the counter for 10-20 minutes, depending upon how cold the dough is.

After the dough has rested and risen a bit (it won't look too much different, but a bit), flatten into thin disks with a rolling pin. Sprinkle with flour as necessary while rolling to keep from sticking. Leave to rest for another 10 minutes or so. While this step is happening, preheat a skillet (nonstick or cast iron).**

Cook each disk for 2-3 minutes a side in the hot pan or until starting to brown in spots. It may puff up,*** but will probably collapse when you take it off the heat.

Serve immediately, with hummus, soup, salad, dip….

* I'm working on a batch I made three days ago. The fridge makes it rise very slowly, and develops the flavor.
** You may need to experiment with how hot to make it, depending upon your stove and pan. I started off with mine turned way up high—bad idea. I am now preheating the pan thoroughly on low-to-almost-medium heat.
*** Sprinkling or spritzing with water may help with the puffing...but it will probably still collapse shortly.