I continue to try, but…well. Practice practice practice…

Ina’s Outrageous Brownies without the nuts…

I am a big believer in being prepared…I check my calendar. I plan. I make lists. And I always have certain things in my kitchen so I can make something with just a moment’s notice. To wit:

1. Ina Garten’s Outrageous Brownies. Full credit to Ina for this awesome recipe, but bigger props to my friend Rachel for introducing me to that recipe. It is easy and it makes a gazillion brownies. So I always have on hand the unsweetened chocolate and the chocolate chips required for this one. (I usually don’t add the walnuts. I’m a brownie purist like that…)

One half-sheet pan FULL of Outrageous Brownies

2. Spinach Artichoke Dip. This is relatively new to my rotation, but after making Alton Brown’s spinach artichoke dip (five minutes to mix it up, tops) and getting raves on it, I always have artichoke hearts and chopped spinach (both frozen) and cream cheese on hand so I can make this. The other ingredients (mayo, sour cream, garlic powder, Parmesan) are always in my cupboard. I’ve altered the recipe slightly to use weight (see below) because I’m not saving ANY part of a box of frozen …anything. This is open, use it all.

3. Italian tomatoes, preferably San Marzano. I try to always have at least one 28-ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes. I just buy the whole tomatoes. I can make a  homemade sauce for deep-dish pizza or a sauce for Bolognese. I don’t chop them or anything–add the can, use potato masher to pulp them up. Done.

4. Lemon, extra-virgin olive oil, fresh rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper–Pound chicken breasts (boneless, skinless), marinate them in those ingredients, grill, enjoy. This is a go-to meal for me.

5. Canned white beans. I love a simple bean salad of white beans (drained and rinsed), olive oil, lemon, garlic, rosemary and lots of black pepper. Thanks to my sister, Pat, for introducing me to this easy side dish (main dish if I am home alone)…change it up by adding finely diced red pepper or sliced green onion or a good handful of freshly shredded Parmesan cheese…or your own favorite add-in.

So, we make sure our kids can write a check and balance a checkbook. (Right? Or is that moot in the era of online banking?)…We make sure, sometimes, that they can do their own laundry. That they learn to drive…but what do we do for them in the kitchen? Here are five things I think everyone should be able to do in the kitchen.

Learn to make great bread–it’s easier than you think.

1. Make a good salad dressing. Look, I am sure there are some good bottled dressings out there. I used to be a big fan of Newman’s Own Caesar–until they changed it some. To me, all bottled dressings taste the same…or there is a certain note (preservative? thickening agent?) that is common to all of them, and I really don’t like it…So learn to make a great dressing. When I guest blogged the other day for La Belle Dame de Merci, I wrote about my little lettuce garden and gave a basic recipe for balsamic vinaigrette..

2. Learn how to make bread AND biscuits. Basic french bread? Flour, water, yeast, salt. A little muscle and a little time. Biscuits? Well, a few more ingredients, but none of the time for rising..Here’s Dorie
Greenspan’s recipe for biscuits and her tips on making flaky biscuits. For simple bread recipes, check out this NYT recipe for no-knead bread. And if you REALLY want to get into bread-baking in a big way, check out Tartine Bread by my friend Chad Robertson, co-owner with wife Elisabeth Prueitt, of Tartine  Bakery and Cafe in San Francisco.

3. Roast Chicken. To me, a great roast chicken is heaven. It needs salt. No, you don’t need to “wash” it.  Add a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and a cut lemon to the cavity. Roast away. Here’s a basic roast chicken recipe from America’s Test Kitchen (you’ll have to sign up to read it, but sign-up is free). You should also check out the magic that is Marcella Hazan’s Roast Chicken with Two Lemons.  (Scroll down that page for the recipe.)

4. Steak. Learn these things: Prime is best. Choice is second best. Pick one of those two. Get to know YOUR favorite cut. I’m a big fan of choice ribeye. I save a few bucks per pound and get a great steak. Look for even marbling (the light veins of fat that run through the meat), not too much. Talk to the butcher, yes, even the men and women behind the counter at the local grocery store. They DO know what they are talking about. Then use my cast-iron skillet method. I found this video of me cooking the perfect steak for Boca Raton Magazine. This is cooked to medium–the way my family likes it. Things that don’t get said: pat the steak dry before cooking it (use paper towel). Season well. Let steak rest AT LEAST FIVE MINUTES before cutting into it. (And this: I’m a lot thinner now…wow. Who knew what training for a triathlon would do…my ego had to say that..)

5. Fish. Learn not to overcook fish. Educate yourself about what you like. Do you like flaky fish (think sole or flounder)? Meaty (tuna, halibut, salmon)? Same advice applies here about talking to the men and women behind the counters–they’ll be able to tell you something. Pay attention to the Seafood Watch from Monterey Bay Aquarium- learn what fish is being overfished and which fish is safest (you probably have all read about mercury in fish already). Two of my favorite techniques are a simple sear in that black, cast-iron skillet I used for the steaks and cooking fish on cedar planks–soak the planks for at least 30 minutes, place on super hot grill, lower heat, place fish on cedar planks, close lid and let cook/smoke until done. When I do fish this way, I usually make up a spice rub with cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, paprika (sometimes smoked paprika), and a touch of sugar…Play around to see what you like.

This post is three years old, but I still love it. And I still break these rules EXCEPT for the cast-iron pan. Now I heat it over a high burner until anything on the pan starts to burn away. I add oil and salt–the salt absorbs all that blackened “stuff.” I wipe it clean and keep moving. But aside from that? Still breaking the same rules. 

There are some absolutes in a professional kitchen, some from home kitchens–things we do just because…well, we do… And some of them are great…and some simply don’t work for me. So here you go…things that might make my first chef (Hi, Peter Hoffman, owner of Savoy in Tribeca!!) or my mom or my nana shudder…

1. I wash my black cast iron pan. Look, I get it–layers of flavor settle into the very being of the pan. Romantic. Flavors down the centuries. Blah blah blah.

No. Just no. Here’s why. I might be cooking up onions and garlic one day…and then making biscuits for shortbread (sweetISH if not sweet sweet) the next. I don’t WANT the flavors to be there.

So while I may not scrub with Dawn and a scrub brush, water always hits the pan after use. Mind you, so does a coating of oil and then I pop it into a still warm oven. It is pretty damn nonstick at this point and I love it. (Buy Lodge: Made in America….) But really? Wash it.

2. While we are on the subject of washing, I give my mushrooms a rinse. I was taught to patiently wipe the shrooms with a damp paper towel…washing them would make them act like sponges, I was told. Well…I’m not that patient. Now I toss them into a colander and give ’em a quick shower, shaking off excess water before popping them into a hot pan. Me? I don’t think they suffer.

3. I cook ALMOST exclusively with extra virgin olive oil. I’m told it’s a waste of money, but…hmm. I like the flavor…(sometimes, I know, I really DO want the non-flavor of vegetable oil and that is in the house..)…and it’s what is at the side of the stove. And I like the flavor, did I say that already?

4. I don’t buy expensive nonstick pans. Don’t put your money into nonstick pans if that coating is on the inside of a $100+ pan. Heck, don’t do it if the pan is $30+…I haven’t come across a nonstick surface that lasts forever–not the way I cook, at least. And no, I don’t use metal, I wash them by hand…but ultimately, I toss them and buy a new set of nonstick pans…once a year. And I don’t spend a lot (check out Ikea)…(or do what I  plan to do and replace them all with cast iron eventually…cast iron that I WASH…)

5. I use skim milk almost every time they say milk, no matter what–yes, even in baking. This is another form of lazy, because unless I plan, skim is what’s in the fridge. I’ve never had it not work…I think some things may lack some depth of flavor, but…not enough that the family notices.

6. I keep butter and some eggs always at room temperature. I have never used margarine, only butter–and I do not like rock hard butter…not at home, not in a restaurant (it’s always a mark against a place if they bring be bread and rock hard butter…) Now this doesn’t mean there’s a pound of butter on the counter…At most, there’s one stick in a covered glass butter dish. I guess if you don’t have A/C, this wouldn’t work in the height of summer, but other than that? Always there. Same goes for some eggs. I go through eggs relatively quickly, so this isn’t a problem for me (although if my mom visits, we play the she-puts-the-eggs-into-the-fridge, I-take-them-out-of-the-fridge dance…until I snap and say: LEAVE THEM ON THE COUNTER. IT’S WHERE I WANT THEM..) Again, I used them up quickly and if I’m baking, I want eggs at room temperature…So if half a dozen are on the counter for a few days? No. Harm. (Again, YMMV if you live in a hot climate with no A/C)….

Bonus Item: SUBSTITUTE, PEOPLE, SUBSTITUTE!!! I have experienced cook friends and family call me now and then and ask: Can I substitute red onions for yellow? Can I use white wine if I don’t have sherry? Can I use sherry if I don’t have white wine? Chicken thighs instead of breast? Will bourbon work for whiskey? YES, OF COURSE YOU CAN AND OF COURSE IT WILL.
Again, these are some experienced cooks asking. No, of course sherry doesn’t taste like white wine. (But onions DO taste like onions)–I can’t begin to tell you the recipes I make…when I at times only have half the ingredients. Be bold. You really can’t ruin it by subbing one veg for another or one wine for another. (Okay, so there’s the time DH wanted a whiskey sour and subbed Scotch for the whiskey? That? THAT didn’t work…) (Caveat: The same doesn’t hold true in baking, as I bear witness to time and again in my rough attempts at baking…Baking is for precision…cooking is not!)

I will tackle making my own video (new video) later this month. For now, I am linking you to a couple of videos I hosted when I traveled Florida for VISITFLORIDA, the tourism arm of Florida…first one about the Seafood Festival in Apalachicola, Florida, one of my favorite parts of that state, then one about Florida Stone Crabs, an incredible, sustainable protein source…I arranged the whole thing, meeting the guy who sells the crabs and working with him to coordinate going out on the crab boat. It was an incredible two days (he also arranged for me to stay by myself on a houseboat in a rather lonely spot. I didn’t sleep well that night…to this day if I see the TV show “Chuck,” I am taken back to that night because I watched Chuck to help me get to sleep. Over and over again.)

Have fun watching…and watch this space for my own production soon enough!

Wait! I forgot I made this video of my dog on the beach more than a year ago. Music and everything!

Gia at The Beach from Barb Freda on Vimeo.

Tango. It just makes me smile. Here’s my Sunday Smile…this is definitely one of my happy places.
Try tango sometime. You’ll like love it.

Oh, a fine piece of writing on memories in a kitchen from David Leite of Leite’s Culinaria

What you want to know before you marry a chef and think you’ll be eating gourmet food every day.

Our kids don’t need much, truly they don’t–our time, our love…not stuff. When we watch them participate in life, they should hear these six little words from us.

Party antics caught in slow motion. Awesome.

Ooh, imagine discovering a bomb shelter in your backyard, with everything still there from the day the previous owner built it…

Google doodle shows some love to Maurice Sendak.

I found these brief seconds of Anne Frank watching a wedding very moving.

I have no new watercolors to show you, so I wanted to show you some deliciousness. I got to have dinner with friends Pat and Rob last night…their house is filled with wonderful ephemera (that’s the word for the day). Ephemera AND good food and good company. We had a lovely dinner of grilled pork chops and a salad dressed with some kinda awesome dressing: blood orange olive oil and cinnamon pear balsamic vinegar.

Back to the olive oil and vinegar: Sign me up for some more. This came from High Country Olive Oil in South Carolina. High Country is a tasting bar and bring oils and balsamics in from the world over. These? Pretty spectacular. These oils are supplied by Veronica Foods from California–worth a click over to read their story, too…

We had the dressing on a salad with strawberries…It was pretty much summertime heaven. Thanks, Pat and Rob! Great way to pass an evening.

So a local bar (hi, Cowfish!!) has half off martini nights on Tuesday nights. Trouble for me is the martinis are all “cocotini this” and “berrytini that.” In other words, sweet. I don’t do sweet drinks. (Okay, the occasional swizzle. And once a year, mint juleps.)

In the past, I’ve asked after a “margarita-tini,” which they used to make. Then they took it off the menu but the bartenders would still make it for me and honor the promotion. But last night, it was only what’s on the menu.

007 it is, then. That’s a classic vodka gin martini. Packs a punch, but I don’t slurp it down. I sip sip sip sip (enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy). I like mine dirty with those blue cheese olives. Mmmm.

Then the sun hit the drink and lit it up and I knew I’d picked well….

Let me introduce Mikaela D’Eigh, my guest poster today…It’s cherries, folks!!