Omnomicon

The holidays, as far as I’m concerned, are over. That’s because, to me, Halloween is like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve all in the same day. Just awesome. I also tend to throw caution to the wind with one hand, while unwrapping and cramming fun size bars and waxy orange sugar into my mouth with the other. This would all be well and good if I were one of those people who can eat forever and never gain weight, but sadly, I am not, and if I’m not losing weight, I’m gaining it. As such, I’m back on the wagon.

Now I’ve heard that it’s in poor taste for a chef to discuss calories (and if I could find that quote I might even link someone), but my foodie license feels a little safer knowing that I regularly blog baked goods that are not safe by the stretches of any diet’s imagination. And you know, even though *I* am a little calorie-conscious, that doesn’t stop me from reading all manners of delicious baking blogs (among my new favourites is Patticake), and I get really excited when I see something low cal enough to eat for dinner.

And this brings us to POACHED EGGS.

With a little somethin-somethin.

In this case somethin-somethin is a combination of a light (90 calories! 9 grams of fiber!) English muffins, fat free plastic American cheese (30 calories! No fat!) , a real live egg (twice the calories of the fat-free version, but it pays off here), and sliced ham, which is surprisingly not-that-bad-for-you (30 calories, just 1.5g fat). And then an attempt at veggies, a la the ever-versatile tomato and onion.

To poach an egg is a special process, and Smitten Kitchen goes through it pretty thoroughly at that link. My strategy involves the following

• put your egg in a little dish before putting it in the water
• having the water boiling pretty furiously when I throw the egg in, then immediately turn it to medium-high
• stir the water so it’s got a good whirlpool going and the egg has a chance to curl in on itself
• cook for only 1.5 minutes so as to preserve as much of that beautiful gooey egg yolk as possible

You can’t see it, but there’s an egg cooking here.

Then stack that thing on an already-high stack of the other stuff, and uh, voila! Diet dinner.

Put whatever you want on there, and even on your plate. It’s your dinner, and your eggs. Everything tastes especially yummy coated in that delicious creamy egg yolk which, for the calories, is a pretty good deal. You don’t have to be a dieter to appreciate this dish.

So what do you do with your poached egg, the creamy caviar of eggs that don’t belong to fish?

Also, a note on fat free fake cheese: don’t knock it til you try it melted on something. And of course, you can use whatever cheese you want.

Nutrition Information for Dieters
as pictured

230 calories
5.5g fat
9g fiber
4 weight watchers points

As a wee lass, my mother would, from time to time, break out the box of lemon poppy seed muffin mix and proceed to make muffins on a Saturday morning. I never really understood *why* this was a big deal, other than it had these weird black things in them. At the same time, I ate these with some relish and with two visitors arriving Saturday afternoon (including Dano’s banjo teacher), I got the bug to make some muffins. These popped into my head, though I wouldn’t be doing it with a mix.

I got the recipe from eat me, delicious, and it’s her take on Dorie Greenspan’s recipe. I agree with her preference for sour cream (density) and personally, I like butter in muffins instead of oil–the latter seem to end up soggy.

Armed with a lemon, some poppy seeds and fat free sour cream from Stop & Shop, I set out to create heavenly lemony delight. This is a really beautiful recipe, start to finish.

Fun step #1: blending the zest with the sugar with little pinches.

Add some flour and leaven (this isn’t the pretty part yet, we’re getting there).

Wet stuff (shout out to fat free sour cream: Lookin good lady!).

Oh man, by now I’m impatient for the licking of the bowl ritual.

Enter poppy.

I bet you’re totally into this by now. I told you, heavenly! Like, when I think of heaven, this is what the clouds we’re all walking on look like.

Now I’ve always wondered what’s truly better: buttered muffin pan or muffin cups? I like the muffin cups at this stage . . .

. . . but the boys and I agreed that for eating, for eating specifically these muffins? They need to be au natural.

eat me, delicious’s adaptation of Dori Greenspans’s Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Grilled cheese. Mmmmm. Nothing quite like it on a rainy Sunday afternoon beside a bowl of hot soup. Or a night when mom doesn’t feel like really cooking. Crispy, gooey, warm, always fresh, eternally comforting, grilled cheeses are truly an amazing thing.

But what if I told you it could BETTER?! Yes, you heard it, better than you remember. This was Dano’s claim upon our first rainy Sunday together, and I’m all like “psh, yeah right, dude.” But he was right. The secret?

Spices. This is my traditional grilled cheese spice mix: salt, pepper, paprika, oregano, basil and just a smidge of cayenne pepper. And what’s more, the spices add enough savour that you can make this with just a teaspoon of margarine (for the whole thing) . . .

. . . some light bread . . .

. . . and fat free cheese singles. I have a feeling a few people are going to call for my foodie resignation, but those people have not had these sammiches! You don’t have to make this light; my first experience was with thick-cut cheddar, a meaty and flavourful whole-grain bread and lots of butter. It was certainly delightful. Make your grilled cheese your favourite way, but the spices are key.

Now, there is a method to the spices. All your leafy spices go on one slice, and all your powdery ones on the other.

Take your knife and pretend you’re spreading more butter/margarine on there to smear all the spices in real good-like. Check out your fridge for any miscellaneous vegetables you might like on there and chop them up pretty finely. This will prevent you from burning your lips on a length of onion that drew out some damn hot cheese with it. I always use onions, tomatoes, fresh basil if I have it, and just a single slice of ham. Be generous, you’re making a sammich here!

And then you construct your perfect grilled cheese on medium-hot. I think the picture says it all.

Btw, that black stuff on there is actually purple basil. I like to let my cheese cook veerrryyy slooowwwwlllyyy. You don’t have to do that. I think I just like watching it.

Now no squishing with your spatula, okay? Flip!

And once it’s all melty like that, you are ready to eat! Serve as one does grilled cheese.

I like to try all kinds of different mixes of things depending on what I’m eating for bread at the time and what I’m in the mood for. So with sandwich-sliced raisin bread I’ll use sage, basil, cinnamon, chili powder. With a wheat bread maybe I’ll try mace instead of cayenne. You see? Whatever you like in food, you’ll probably like on your grilled cheese. Except garlic powder, that has never quite worked out for me!

Grilled cheeses. Totally omonom.

Dano’s Gourmet Grilled Cheeses
highly adaptable to your liking

2 slices bread of your choice
Margarine or butter to your liking
2 slices cheese of your choice
Sliced onions, tomatoes, avocado, basil, cilantro, parsley, green/red peppers, ham, turkey, or whatever else tasty and sammich-able is in your fridge
Spices! (again, I use a generous pinch each of basil, oregano, paprika, salt & pepper, and then a tiny little amount of cayenne pepper) Also works well is chili powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, pre-made spice mixes, Tony Chachere’s, whatever’s in your spice rack.

Sprinkle your leafy spices on one slice of buttered bread, and your powdery spices on the other. Smear both sides good with your knife, just don’t get too overzealous and tear the bread.

Craft your grilled cheese over medium to medium-high heat, stacking one ingredient at a time onto the pan. Heat up some soup, keep an eye on the cheese, and enjoy when it’s all ready.

It’s getting chilly, isn’t it, friends? Time to bust out the belly-warming goodness of winter veggies and heavier fare.

This is yet another recipe belonging to the Family Cookbook. My Memere Rita INSISTS that she has the best beef stew recipe. Once my father made the mistake of mentioning “well, Doris [my mother] has a pretty good recipe herself,” my memere was in complete disbelief. No no, her soup was clearly the best, and none would compare.

I’m not sure how long ago this battle raged, but when my mother requested recipes of the Mater Familias, this one was sent, no doubt to prove a point. Now I love my mother dearly, and her beef stew is excellent, so I was a little defensive about the whole situation and didn’t want to like this stew. It contains veggies I’d never used before, but I went outside my comfort zone and, ironically, ended up with a new comfort food.

The broth is sweet owing to these mysterious turnips and parsnips, standard fare in many households, but not the one in which I grew up. I thought the recipe could use a bit more colour, so I threw in some celery. And oh my, if you serve this to a friend with some Tuscan bread, you may very well earn a friend for life.

Here we go! Don’t tell Memere I let the veggies get that close to the meat before it was cooked okay? Thanks dude, I appreciate that.

Now we do the choppy chop.

First step is to sear the beef. Memere wisely used the oil and butter method, in which you use two tablespoons of each. I try to keep my recipes lower cal wherever possible, but I am a meat LOVER and searing your meat on high in oil and butter is hands-down the best way to do it. For stew, it is no different.

At this point, I sauteed the onions and almost broke down and just dug in the way it is. Because there is no more amazing combination in my world than steak and onions.

Now we’re gonna start with our other veggies. Each is added one at a time in league with a cup or two of water. At first I was a little frustrated at the vagueness of this. “One to two cups?! Memere, just tell me how many cups already!” I think the idea is to make sure that all your veggies are at least partly in the water with each addition. Oh, and every time you add something, let it return to a boil before adding the next.

Carrots

Celery

Turnips

Parsnips

And potatoes!

Now you let this bad larry simmer for a little while and you end up with this little number here.

Wrap yourself in a blanket on the couch and enjoy!

Memere Rita’s “Back to My Roots” Beef Stew

2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp butter
1.5 lbs sirloin beef, lean cut, cut into 1/2″ cubes
1 yellow onion, chopped
4-5 carrots, peeled & sliced
4 ribs celery, sliced (editor’s addition, optional)
1 purple tap turnip, peeled & diced (I googled this term, and I think she means the small turnip. I could only find a large, so I used half of it)
4-5 parsnips, peeled & sliced
4-5 potatoes, peeled & diced

Let oil and butter get HOT on the stove, then sear beef for about two minutes. Reduce heat, add chopped onion and sautee to caramelize.

Now add each vegetable in turn with 1-2 cups hot water (just enough to cover most of the vegetables). After each addition, allow the pot to return to a boil:

Carrots
Celery
Turnips
Parsnips
Potatoes

After the potatoes, give it a good stir. I wouldn’t recommend stirring it again after it’s simmered, or your veggies will kind of fall apart in a mushy mess. Let simmer, uncovered, 30-50 minutes. Season to taste (and salt is an excellent idea here).

Serves 8 exhausted, growing farm boys. Reheats well.

Let’s make cheesecake! This one is considerably better than the Failed Pesto Cheesecake of yore. I followed a recipe from Cooking Light, and I gotta say, it’s just alright. It’s neither amazing cheesecake nor super diety, but it’s light for a cheesecake, and if you’re serious about a diet, it might be worth a shot. They used a mix of Neufchatel and fat free cream cheese, which makes it a sight more palatable than five blocks of fat free!

The cherry port sauce is what really shines. Besides the impressiveness of it being home-made, it really does beat a can of cherry pie filling in terms of richness, without being TOO rich, since it is, after all, topping a cheesecake for crying out loud. Halve your favourite cheesecake recipe to make five ramekins this size and top with ruby beauty.

It all begins with graham cracker crumbs.

After throwing in some sugar and butter, we have the makings of a crust. These ramekins are a very generous size (yours might be more modest) and don’t need to be greased because they’ll be the serving receptacle.

While that’s baking, we get going on the cheese part of this cake.

Make your own dessert sand art!

Onto the cherry topping. This is my favourite part. It’s just sugar, tawny port and two bags of cherries.

Besides making your kitchen smell lovely, if you’re anything like me, you’ll have so much fun admiring the syrup that comes of this.

After your cakes have cooled and your cherries have chilled, you, my friend, have lovely cheesecakes for your efforts. Bravo! A good idea might be to serve with the leftover port, as you’ll have almost an entire bottle left, it’s a dessert wine, and you know for sure it will complement the dessert.

Now go ahead, dig right on in.

For all interested, the recipe can be found here.

Heya cats and kittens! Remember when I said I was doing that family cookbook? Well, I finally got crackin, kicking it off with a recipe from my first cousin Nikki. And hey, while I’m at it I’m going to share my secret for making blueberries more pronounced in my recipes.

Nikki is maybe 6-7 years older than me (like all my cousins, my parents are both the youngest of four), and was there the day that I smashed all of my front teeth on the bike. I was 6 and have had to have lots of dental surgery since, so it’s not the fondest memory, but definitely the most memorable! She’s a very sweet gal, and I’m sad I haven’t seen her in several years owing to some missionary work she’s doing in some other country to which I’ve never been.

One of the first steps is to make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients.

As you can see here, my "make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients" skills are wanting.

Moving right along, I decided to use frozen blueberries for my muffins, as blueberry season is over and I’m kinda broke at the moment.

And now, folks, is the moment in which I share my super secret blueberry method. Put your blueberries in a container for which you have a tight-fitting lid, and scoop about 2 tsp of sugar on there (per cup of blueberries).

Now put your lid on and shake it, shake it good. You want to coat the blueberries with the sugar. If you’re using fresh berries, I recommend shaking them with a tiny amount of water first so the sugar can stick. You’ll be left with beautiful crystallized-lookin blueberries.

Look how pretty! I feel like recipes that call for berries are always really sweet, but the berries themselves are actually pretty tart. While this is refreshing when eating them fresh by the handful, in the context of the recipes they feel, to me, a little bit like an interruption in the flavour. While the sugar-shake method doesn’t eradicate this entirely, it seems to help with a smoother flavour transition. Yes, I just made up that phrase.

Next! Gently stir ingredients and remember, just until moist. Lumpy batter will always be lighter. Then fold in the berries.

Now the recipe says to use paper liners, but I only caught the part about liners (general category), and I don’t like liners for my muffins at all because it gives the bottoms an excuse to get soggy as they cool. The result is a pan of batter, some of which is in foil wrappers, the rest of which are in none. I wanted to be able to present the muffins as written, and though I failed, the liners attest to my best intentions. Also, note how I got my grubby little fingers in the bowl before I even took the shot. Mmmmm, batter!

Oh oh and I almost forgot! I read a really good idea somewhere (that I forgot while making the muffins): save some blueberries to put right on top of the muffins just before you put them in the oven. This will better distribute the berries all around (instead of just sunk at the bottom).

Now for the last shot. I took like a bajillion trying to show the muffins as appetizingly as possible, and survey seems to say that this shot is best. And of course I like it because I’m a slave to low f-stops.

But since I had to crop to a square, this one ended up in the book.

So there you have it! The first of my paternal family’s recipe collection.

Nikki’s Low Sugar Berry Muffins

1 3/4 cups sifted flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking power
3/4 tsp salt
1 well-beaten egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup vegetable oil or melted shortening
3/4 cup milk
1 cup berries

Preheat oven 400 degrees.

Directions:

Sift dry ingredients in bowl and make a well in center. Add in wet ingredients and stir until moist. Fold in fruit and nuts, if desired, to taste.

Fill paper lined muffin pan 3/4 full. Bake 35 minutes.

Yield: 12 Muffins

Last night we had paper_wings and her husband over for a proper dinner party. It went to so well! They make for truly great company. In advance, I mentioned that I was going to make pork chops to Dano and he expressed concern over the fact that every pork chop he’d ever had managed to be too dry while somehow also being too oily. Usually I agree, but I knew there must be a way, and I discovered it!

I had an idea to make, rather than an apple sauce topping, a peach topping that would take advantage of the peach season in Massachusetts (ongoing). Unable to find the perfect recipe, I set out to create my own.

We begin with a brine. Lacking brown sugar, I improvised some out of sugar and molasses.

After adding some liquids in there, simmering and letting cool, submerge the chop.

Now flip again (to the original side) and cover. Lower the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for five to seven minutes.

Then remove. Your porkchop will be tender, juicy, fully cooked and absolutely delicious. Now my first recipe involved creating a chutney, so my final result looked like this.

Sautee onions and garlic for a few minutes, then toss in the peaches with some allspice along with a dash or two of this and that (see recipe). You’ll notice this time I tried white peaches, but while they are probably more refreshing fresh, they’re not sweet enough for these purposes. So if you want to take my advice, use yellow peaches.

Now top your chop with this revised sauce. Drizzle with a small amount of maple syrup, then sprinkle finely diced red peppers for a little bit of a colourful pop!