Roasted eggplant & tomato salad

"Make everything [salads] as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein

In the six months since I got back from Bulgaria, I've really gone to town on the chopped vegetable salads. As I showed you back in August, the Bulgarian salad is a pretty simple thing; there few dressings in Bulgaria, so it's oil and vinegar, maybe some lemon, or often just the vegetable juices themselves that dress the salads. Fine by me.

I ate every salad I could while there, and found that they were always different, even when they were comfortably similar. Once back, I re-enacted my trip by making and eating the most common combinations of salad vegetables. But, as summer waned and good "salad" produce was harder to find, I veered off track, forging my own trail, making substitutes when possible, until I was finally taking huge liberties with the Bulgarian salad, because... Well, because I'm American!

Throughout the past six months, I've made summer salads, fruit salads, roasted veggie salads, and combinations of all these. Almost every one has been the best salad so far! I have to admit that someone, somewhere has most assuredly made my salad combinations before, so I can't won't claim to be original.

The other night, we had these and were out of that, so it was creativity time. Tiny eggplants were roasted, without their specific usage in mind, then this salad formed from what coalesced on the kitchen counter, as ingredients were pulled from crisper, oven, and pantry.


Roasted eggplant & tomato salad

Ingredients

8 tiny eggplants
1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 green onion
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste

Directions

Roast the eggplants in a 400° oven for 20-30 minutes. The little eggplants should be soft enough to start sinking into themselves. Set aside so that they cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile, slice the cherry tomatoes into halves, saving all the juices for the salad. Chop the green onion into tiny circles and toss with the tomatoes. When the eggplants are cool enough to touch, pull or cut the stems off.

Roughly chop the eggplants, then stir them into the tomatoes. Add the olive oil, salt to taste, and stir again.

For best results, allow the salad to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, then stir again and serve.

This salad might seem small, and it is. I tend to make one or two little salads (or one and a some cooked vegetables) using the ingredients on hand to make each salad simple and unique, rather than force things into one bigger salad that's complicated and so overwhelming that the tastes get lost in the shuffle tossing.

Engagement at Starbucks

As you may already know, Galya and I were recently engaged, but most of you don't know the way in which it happened. To say it occurred at Starbucks would make many people cringe, so please bear with me.

You see, it was several years ago, at a Starbucks in Little Rock, Arkansas, where I fell in love. I looked across our little table, where we went to spend a mere thirty minutes talking, and eventually realized that over two hours had passed. In retrospect, I barely know what was said, but I know that I thought and dreamed of what "could never be."

All those years ago, knowing that this girl lived on the other side of the world, I felt doomed to love, but never have her. Like an ancient and classic tragedy, pulled into modern day times.

What force could draw a beautiful, brilliant, and amazing girl to want to pick up her life and move it to a foreign land? We know that only love can do that, but the time of a trip is never enough time, except in a fairy tale or Ethan Hawke movie, and so we both went home.

Three years had passed since that first time in that first Starbucks, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I hold a special place in my heart for this coffee house – Starbucks – and I hoped that Galya would to.

It was Galya's first day back in the United States, and I had carefully planned out what to say and how to say it, and I knew it would be easy. I live within walking distance of a very bright, happy, and open Starbucks, so we walked over to Antonio Plaza for coffee.

As prepared as I thought I was, on the way out of Starbucks, I still hadn't built up the nerve to ask. As we stepped outside and the door closed, I took a deep breath and ask her to sit back down.

I must have been very nervous, because she asked if she'd done something wrong. I shook my head "no" and have virtually no idea how I said what I said to her. I know I told her how much she means to me, how much I love her, how fondly I recall our time in Starbucks so many months ago, and how much I cherish those first moments alone together.

Sitting in the warm California sun, in front of Starbucks, surrounded by people, but somehow alone, I told her how much I loved her and how much I wanted to spend my life with her. I asked her to marry me and held out the ring. She said yes.

I guess this Starbucks is now "our" Starbucks

pan seared lambchops and scallops, all rosemaried up...

They actually do have real food at the supermarket 

Everyone will tell you to get to know your farmers market vendors and to make pals with the guy at the butcher shop; it helps to get the better stuff than the people who just show up to shop, you know? But, do you make friends with the meat cutter at the supermarket? What about the produce guy? You should!

It's not every day that the farmers's market is even open, and it's not always close by. My nearest true butcher shop is 20 minutes away, assuming good traffic. When I need food tonight, I still turn to the supermarket down the street.

Ralphs isn't top of the line specialty food by any stretch of the imagination, but they have enough good stuff that I'm usually good to go. In fact, like many supermarkets, they get a few small portions of lamb, wild caught salmon, and grass fed whatever to keep those people happy, but not enough to have to toss them out every few days when the regular Joe's don't buy them in time. One benefit of stopping in every day or so is catching these food treats before they are gone, and as a bonus, they are sometimes marked down to move them before they go past "that date." Because I'm friendly with the guys at the store, they point out the good stuff and often let me know what's particularly good or a good deal.

Enter tonight's find of lamb chops and scallops.

Neither the lamb chops or the scallops could have been a complete meal for two (.73lbs of bone in meat? 9 scallops?). No wonder they were the last packages of each, marked down 50%, with many days of "sell by" date left on the label! Score for me. Add some fresh rosemary, green onion, and a cast iron skillet and we are good for dinner!

Lamb chops and scallops with rosemary

Ingredients

2 lamb chops
9 scallops (one of them is for testing for doneness)
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 green onion, chopped
1-2 tbsp red wine (optional)
black pepper to taste
sea salt to taste

Directions

If possible, salt the lamb chops and allow them to rest for 30 minutes to an hour before cooking. You can add more salt at the table, so don't go crazy. It really helps them to retain some moisture if you allow the salt to do it's duty, but sometimes you have to eat NOW.

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high heat and add the chops! Sprinkle the top of the chops with a bit of the rosemary and allow things to sizzle. Resist the urge to keep turning them, as most steaks, burgers, and chops will fare better with just one episode of turnage. With medium high heat, things go quickly, so three minutes per side should be about right for medium-rare chops.

At three minutes, flip the chops and sprinkle more rosemary on the cooked side, along with a good portion of the green onions and some fresh ground pepper. Allow to cook three minutes for side two. Galya likes her chops cooked longer, so I removed mine (it was the larger one, but shhhh...) and put it on a plate to rest.

With one or more chops out of the pan, you have space for the scallops. Put the scallops in the hot pan and allow them to sizzle. Add the remaining rosemary, green onions, and a sprinkling of sea salt and stir or shake the pan. Scallops cook quickly, so you only need to sear them one or two minutes per side.

When they are done, you have the option of adding a splash or two of red wine to deglaze the pan and giving the scallops one more quick stir! If there's enough liquid, consider drizzling it over the chops, too!

Always let your chops rest for five minutes before cutting into them, for the sake of their juiciness and your enjoyment. That should also make the scallops slightly less than scalding, so win win.

Serve with more salt and pepper, and the wine that you stole one or two tablespoons from, if desired.

For a side dish, go for a simple salad, because life is already complicated enough.  Here's ours...

...details coming soon on this delicious salad, but in the meantime just chop some fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, more green onions, a colorful bell pepper, add salt, pepper, stir and let it sit for ten to twenty minutes, then eat it.

Enjoy!

Final note on the store

If you're not a stickler -- requiring free range apples or triple distilled hydroponic sausage at every meal -- stop by the neighborhood grocery store or supermarket regularly, chat with the guys behind the counters, just enough to not annoy them and be one of "those guys," then move along. Eventually, you might score a 12lb ham for $3 because "We got so many more than we'll EVER sell!" Or at the very least have the in on what's good and what's a good deal that day.

Vanilla bean mini-cheesecakes with strawberries

Last weekend, Galya and I were invited to a little housewarming party, where we had some wonderful food, great company, and some tasty pomegranate wine. ...which paired beautifully with a slice or three of my vanilla bean cheesecake, as it turned out.

I will state up front that dessert is something that should be eaten in moderation, carefully, and selectively. It's shouldn't be a daily part of your diet plan. In the spirit of that, I give you a calorie bomb cheesecake that I urge you to eat less of, but less often.

Vanilla bean cheesecake

Equipment

4 mini-springform cheesecake pans. Makes four mini-cheesecakes or one really big one. I use these mini springform pans, from Kaiser. I have two sets, and actually made six cakes because that's what fit on my oval platter.

1-2 cookie sheets. The butter from the crust will seep out, so baking on the cookie sheets will make cleanup easier.

Crust ingredients

1 plastic package honey graham cracker crumbs (about 2 cups)
2 tsp sugar
.25 cup melted butter

Crust directions

Crush the crackers into crumbs - personally, I like to leave some chunks of larger cracker pieces, but that's just me - and stir in the sugar. Drizzle the melted butter over the crackers and stir well. Divide the mixture evenly throughout the four pans. Using the base of a jar or cup, press the crumbs firmly into the pan bases.

Filling ingredients

16 oz cream cheese or Neufchatel, softened at room temperature
.5 cups sugar
2 eggs

Filling directions

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Set the cream cheese in a bowl for an hour or so. While you are at it, set the sour cream from the next step out in a bowl, too. Softened, they will be much easier to mix. Add the eggs and sugar and start mixing. If you have a mixer, feel free, but a large wooden spoon also works. I have a mixer out in the garage, but it's too much trouble to go get it. I used a large wooden spoon and a mixing bowl. Once it's well combined, you can switch to a whisk to smooth things out. To be honest, some lumps still existed in the end, but who can tell?

Pour filling over each crust, using the back of a wet spoon to smooth things out and fill in the gaps.

Bake at 375° for 20 minutes and remove to a save place, allowing them to cool for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, increase the oven temperature to 425°.

Topping ingredients

1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
2 tbsp sugar

Topping directions

Stir the sugar into the room temperature sour cream. Gently spread the topping over the slightly cooled cheesecakes. Use the back of a wet spoon to smooth things out.

Return the cakes to the over for about 10 minutes. 

Beware that seeping butter, at 425°, tends to smoke a bit. Crack a window and turn on the vent hood, lest your smoke detector start to scream.

Remove from the oven and cool enough so that they can be safely covered with foil or plastic wrap. Chill for several hours or overnight.

Presentation directions

I cut each cake into four wedges, arranging all of the cakes on the platter. Galya hulled and cut two pints of strawberries, which decorated the cake tops, and were nestled between them.

Fried gnocchi -- don't try this at home

More stock around the web

As a follow up to last week's Chicken broth, chicken soup, and an eco-friendly chicken stock post, I present a few alternate options for learning more, and learning what and what not to do.

John Durant's How to burn the bone broth (which illustrates why I tend to use a slow cooker to make my own stocks)

Spilled Milk Podcast, Episode 30: Chicken Stock (Molly and Matthew explore store bought and homemade). Notes, here.

The best valentine's day EVER

and it not even really going yet!

We're still in the midst of it, and already it's like no other.

I'll admit that I was unprepared. ...a bit. When your girlfriend lives in Bulgaria, you need to plan ahead. Like waaaaay ahead. A Valentine's Day gift needs to be mailed a month in advance, fingers crossed that it arrives in time, yet with a big ol' note that says "do not open until February 14th," lest it arrive in a mere five days. This happened once. In fact, one package passed the other, arriving two weeks before the one that was mailed weeks earlier. That's back in time in some books. This is what you get when you've fallen in love with a chick from Bulgaria.

So, here we are. She is here now. No longer "there." This is much closer to me, so far more convenient by nearly all sense of measure. Our only real challenge is reminding her to put the toilet seat back up where it belongs when she's done, but I'm nothing if not patient.

Since she's here and not there, the package-it-up-and-ship-it-early requirement is gone; for good and for bad. I know what I want for her, and have known for weeks, but in the end, I'm a man, and a man always does tomorrow what should be done today. Like wrapping and signing cards.

It's not that men can't wrap, they can. They just can't wrap well while driving down the cul-de-sac, praying you aren't watching for the car to pull up.

It's not that we have nothing to say in a card, it's just that we knew it walking into the store, but the card said it better. We know what we want to add in the empty spaces, but now this pen looks like it's running out of ink, and if that happens before "I love you" comes out, then what? Forgive the brevity, and know that every drop of ballpoint ink came with the prayer to have you forever, to hold you always, and "please God not let me make a mistake, because I can't handle a scribble that makes me look like an idiot in this Valentine's Day card."

As I wrapped up my work day, my friends and coworkers made me very happy -- huge smiles, shaking my hand and patting my back, and telling me how happy they were that my girl is finally here with me, and in time for Valentine's Day no less.

"What are your plans?" "What are you going to do?" they asked. It won't matter, I told them. "I'm going home, and that's were she is."

Chicken broth, chicken soup, and an eco-friendly chicken stock

Many soups started life as just a bunch of leftovers -- minestrone, tortilla soup, etc. Often, soup is not made for it's own sake, but because there's a bunch of stuff that no one wants to eat the way it is.

From time immemorial, soups and broths have been the worldwide medium for utilizing what we call the kitchen byproducts, or as the French call them, the 'dessertes de la table' (leftovers), or 'les parties interieures de la bete', such as head, tail, lights, liver, knuckles and feet. -- Louis P. De Gouy, The Soup Book (1949)

I've never read that book, and I'm afraid to ask what part of the animal the 'lights' are.

Since soup was historically made of leftovers, the cooks didn't often start with a broth. Instead, they made the broth right along with the soup. But, in the modern world, we make stock and broth ahead of time, keeping it on hand in case we want to make soup at a moment's notice. Sometimes we even buy stuff just to make broth, or worse, are forced to buy broth in cans. Buying broth isn't the end of the world, but you can do better.

Chicken broth (or the chicken soup starter kit)

I learned how easy it is to make broth from an old recipe for Matzo Ball Soup, which was really tasty. I don't know that Matzo Ball Soup is a leftover soup recipe, but most people say matzo isn't the tastiest of stuff, and since it seems to be cooked already 'stale,' you decide.

This recipe is Matzo Ball Soup, hold the matzo balls. A purist would make the balls, then not use them. However, you do not have to do that. it's just the broth you want, so the broth you will make. According to science, it should taste nearly the same, either way. Yet, if you want to make Matzo Ball Soup, make this stuff and use google for the ball part.

Ingredients

1 chicken
1 onion, halved
1 bundle of parsley
3 bay leaves
10 peppercorns
1 tsp salt
3-4 quarts water

Directions

Remove the bag of giblets from the chicken and set them aside until you get down to the next recipe. Feel free to put them into the broth if you'd really eat them, but do you really want to find a heart on your spoon, nestled between a carrot and potato? You choose. But, be extra careful with the liver; it's gross and makes things taste like liver.

Put everything in a big pot...

I used my slow cooker. Fool proof!

...and bring it to a simmer. Allow it to gently simmer for an hour and 30 minutes, but do not boil it.

Remove the chicken from the broth (yes, that liquid, formerly water, is now actual broth. True fact!) and set aside. At this point, you have chicken broth, so you can strain it, make soup or whatever with it, put it in jars, or freeze it in tupperware-like containers.

Allow the chicken to cool until you can handle it comfortably. Do what you will with it, but if you pull the meat off for soup, salad or what have you, make sure to save the skin and bones! See below...

Chicken stock (eco cooking at it's best)

We made chicken broth in the previous recipe. Chicken broth is light and clear(ish), made by gently simmering chicken and a few simple ingredients (see above). Chicken stock, on the other hand, is rich and bold, made by long simmering of chicken bones, skin, and misc. I usually use the parts of the chicken that one usually won't eat (go grab that bag of giblets you set aside for later).

In this chicken stock, we go green, mean it's eco friendly; recycling ingredients and using things that only a compost bin would (and will still) appreciate. Now, to make this stock its very best, I need you to go back in time a month or so and start then! So do that now, okay?

Now that you've gone back in time a few weeks, get a big zipper bag and stick it in the freezer. Every time you cut up veggies or chicken, I want you to pull out this zipper bag and put all of the scraps in there, then stick it back in the freezer. It's all fair game; chicken backs, necks, giblets, chicken skin, chicken bones. All of it.

In addition to the chicken, put all veggie remnants in there, too. Onion skins, onion tops and bottoms, that ugly outside layer of onion that you don't want to chop because it's sorta funky, garlic papers, garlic cloves that are too small to waste time peeling, parsley stems, carrot tops, zucchini ends wilted lettuce leaves, wilted anything! All veggies that aren't beautiful -- yet aren't spoiled -- are perfect for that zipper bag.

Ingredients

1 chicken carcass or about that in misc spare parts

scraps of veggies, herbs, and stuff

water

Directions

Put everything in a big pot...

...and bring it to a simmer. Simmer, but do not boil it. Allow it to gently simmer for many hours. ...and 30 minutes! 

At this point, you have chicken stock, not broth. See how rich and thick it is? It's pretty hearty stuff, with tons of flavor for adding to sauces and things like that. 

Cool it, strain it, make soup or whatever with it, put it in jars, or freeze it in tupperware-like containers.

In closing

You now have what it takes to make chicken broth and a chicken soup base (just add your stuff) AND chicken stock, and if you do it in the right steps, all using one bird.

As a recap, broth is light and thin, made from simmering chicken, vegetables, herbs, and spices. 

Stock is hearty and bold, thicker and richer, and made from long, long simmering of chicken, chicken bones and skin, vegetables, herbs, and spices.

Do you have a favorite use for stock or broth, one or the other? Let me know!

Mr. Instant Coffee

The good father was onto something...

But it took Starbucks forty years to get to it.

The Bodum Via Instant Coffee Machine

Maybe the Father's patent ran out? Most likely, too many Via customers lost the recipe for boiling water...