Warm Weather, Finally

This weekend, with the warm, intoxicating breeze of ALMOST summer coming in through my windows, all I could think was how I needed to be sitting outside on the fire escape (my own little “patio” of sorts) eating dinner that night. And, so, my next thought was, a nice hot bowl of chili would be perfect to stave off any slight chill that might waft through the night air.

This is one of my favorite recipes to make a big pot of and share with everyone I know. The first time I ever made it was my senior year at BU, with my roommate Tina. For whatever reason, we didn’t have a bottle of beer in our fridge (surprising for an apartment where four 21-year-old college kids lived, huh?) so Tina called upon her friend Matt, who lived in the building next door to us, and bribed him into giving us one in exchange for a bowl of chili when we were done cooking. Since then, this is something I’ve become famous for making for family barbecues, during New London’s annual Sailfest in July, and time’s in between. And, ALWAYS with some freshly baked cornbread. The basic recipe for this is a Rachael Ray recipe, you can find it here. I’ve tweaked mine a little, substituting a can of black beans for a pound of ground turkey, and minor adjustments to the amounts of certain ingredients.

MY FAVORITE CHILI

• 3 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 lb ground turkey
• 4 T chili powder
• 2 T grill seasoning
• 1 T cumin
• 2 T hot sauce, more or less to taste
• 2 T worcestershire sauce
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 large peppers, any color, chopped
• 1/2 bottle beer
• 2 8oz cans tomato sauce
• 3/4 cup smokey barbecue sauce
• 1 can black beans, with liquid
• 1 bag frozen corn kernels

• 1 box Jiffy corn bread mix

Begin by heating the olive oil over medium high heat in a large pot. Add the turkey and season with the chili powder, grill seasoning, cumin, hot sauce, and Worcestershire sauce, breaking up the meat as it browns. Add the chopped onions and peppers, and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the beer and cook another 10 minutes, until the alcohol cooks off. Add the tomato sauce, barbeque sauce, black beans, and corn. Heat to a simmer. Serve with warm cornbread.

So I made my pot of chili, brought some over to my mom’s, gave some to my downstairs neighbor Frank, at his store, Muse (an art gallery/shoe store- quirky huh?), and had the rest for my weekly Sister Sunday dinner with Angie.

You can add any toppings to the chili that you’d like, but personally, I prefer to keep it simple, with just a scant sprinkle of shredded cheese and sliced green onions. But I mean, go nuts, add whatever you want.

Also, I had leftover cornbread, and used some of it to make cornbread croutons for salads. I just chopped the leftover bread into small squares, toasted them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes (watching them carefully), and voila!

The Wellness Kitchen

Last week, I was at the Durham Public Library waiting for a local author, who I was assigned to photograph, to arrive. Waiting is a game often played by newspaper photographers… in college studying photojournalism, I was taught that it’s always better to arrive early and have to wait a few minutes, than to arrive on time and miss some integral part of your assignment. Nevermind being late. So, as a rule, I’m almost always a few minutes early to assignments. And so, I wait.

As a perused the shelves of books in the downtime, naturally, I gravitated towards the cookbooks, and my eyes became fixed on this one:

The Wellness Kitchen, which focuses on the nutritional aspects of food. It’s full of healthy recipes, complete with a nutrition guide for each, and tons of little facts about the nutrients found in different foods, and the best way to get those nutrients from them.

I’ve mentioned before the fact that I don’t eat red meat. I am certainly not someone who thinks it’s “wrong” to kill an animal for food. Personally, I think it’s all part of a cycle, and we’re all part of a food chain. Really, I stopped eating meat one day when I was in seventh grade, after listening to my geography teacher lament about how chock-full of artery-clogging fat red meat was. I got home from school that day, and just decided “starting tomorrow morning, no more beef or pork.” Also, let me state, for the record, I was an overweight child- that is one of the defining factors in my childhood. But, starting that day, I made a conscious decision to eat healthier. Now, I know that a lean cut of red meat is perfectly fine once in a while, but, it’s been nearly thirteen years, and I don’t have even an inkling of desire for it. So, to this day, I only eat poultry and fish.

During my freshman year in college, I tried going completely vegetarian, but found that I wasn’t having a well balanced diet, so I went back to only not eating red meat. Now, I consciously make an effort to eat healthfully, but I don’t deny myself anything. I don’t believe in “diets.” I don’t think it’s smart or sustainable to cut entire groups of food, like “white” or “carbs” from your daily diet. I think that you should eat things that taste good and are good for you. But indulge yourself a little- I have a sweet tooth, obviously.

So when I came across this book I grabbed it and checked it out. I skimmed through the book, looking for something to try out, and settled on a black bean soup recipe, using dry beans, and some simple, clean flavors. I decided to jazz it up a bit, so added two sweet Italian turkey sausages, corn, a little chipotle flavored Mrs.Dash, and about a quarter cup of barbeque sauce to the recipe. I thought it seemed like a great dinner for the rainy, dreary day that Saturday was, and would be pretty low maintenance, since I was planning to remove wallpaper, and repaint the kitchen that day- always a multitasker. The recipe is as follows:

BLACK BEAN SOUP

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 sweet Italian turkey sausage links
• 2 cups dried black beans
• 9 cups water
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 ½ teaspoons oregano
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon Mrs. Dash chipotle seasoning
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup smoky barbeque sauce
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• sliced green onions, and (low fat) shredded cheddar cheese, to top with
• tortilla chips

In a large pot, sauté the onions and garlic in the olive oil. As they are cooking crumble the meat from the sausage links into the pot.
Cook until the sausage is browned. Add the black beans, then the water. Stir in the tomato paste, oregano, cumin, Mrs. Dash, salt, and barbeque sauce. Bring to a boil, then simmer for one and half hours, until beans are tender. Remove about 1/4 of the beans and liquid from the pot, and puree in a blender (or use a hand blender if you have one). Return the puree to the pot and stir in. Add the corn kernels and heat until cooked through. Top with the green onions and cheese. Serve with tortilla chips. Makes 4 servings.

So I got the soup started, set it on a simmer, and began removing wallpaper, sanding, and painting. By the time I had finished one wall, the soup was ready. The barbeque sauce added a little zingy sweetness to it, and the chipotle finished it off, giving it just a hint of heat. I served it up with some blue corn chips, and had my dinner. The only thing I would mention is that if you want it to be a thinner soup, you may need to add a substantial amount of additional water to the recipe- not that it was bad. It was actually great to dip the tortilla chips in, and the following night, my sister, her boyfriend, and my mom were over for dinner, and I served it to them as a dip.

All in all a pretty good recipe (with a few additions on my part, of course). And even though we did add in a few extra ingredients, turkey sausage has only about 1/4 of the fat in traditional pork sausage, and using just a sprinkling of shredded, low-fat cheese adds tons of flavor without doing too much damage. According to the book, the basic recipe (without the turkey sausage, corn, Mrs. Dash, barbeque sauce, and shredded cheese) has the following nutrition information:
Per serving: 374 calories, 4.5g total fat (0.7g saturated), 0mg cholesterol, 24g dietary fiber, 65g carbohydrate, 21g protein, 689mg sodium. Good source of: fiber, folate, magnesium, potassium, and thiamin.

Small Hands, Big Lessons

Yesterday, I went to Saint Sebastian’s School in Middletown, where preschool teacher Nicole Milardo runs a 5-week after-school cooking club for students of all ages. I met kids from 5-12 years old, and took pictures of them for picture page that will run in Monday’s edition of The Middletown Press. The kids were elbow deep in chocolate chip cookie dough when I arrived, and gave me plenty of opportunities to laugh and smile as I observed them.

Above: Students of Saint Sebastian's School in Middletown make chocolate chip

cookie dough Wednesday, March 4, 2009 during a cooking club meeting.

Bella, a five-year-old in kindergarten, remarked to me about how her grandmother does a lot of cooking, when I asked them about who they help in the kitchen at home. When I queried a group of about 8 girls if they planned to share their cookies with their parents and siblings when they got home, I was met with a mixed chorus of “yeses,” and (more emphatic) “NO’s!”

Nicole Milardo, who runs the school’s cooking club, told me that she loves to cook, and wanted to share that with the students. She did admit that she prefers cooking to baking (like me) and said that Lisa Nettis, who is a paraprofessional in Milardo’s classroom, is the go-to person when it comes to baking.

Last week, at the club’s first meeting, the group made an oatmeal-based, no-bake, type of cookie, which, to Milardo’s dismay, the kids weren’t thrilled with. But this week, they watched, wide-eyed, full of ready-to-burst excitement as Milardo carefully removed the trays of hot cookies from the oven.Above: Students of Saint Sebastian's School in Middletown watch as Cooking Club
instructorNicole Milardo, who teaches preschool at Saint Sebastian's, takes a
sheet of chocolate chip cookies out the oven Wednesday, March 4, 2009
during a cooking club meeting.

The students, like my neice, Nadya, who regularly gets “culinary lessons” from my mother, seemed as excited at the prospect of warm, melty, chocolatey cookies as they were to dig their hands in the bowl of dough and get dirty. They are learning the lesson of what it means to create something with their own two hands, and the happiness that that creativity can bring themselves, and others.

Above:Top- Four-year-old Nadya Murphy decorates a cake for her grandfather,

under the guidance of her grandmother. Bottom- Murphy makes a homemade pizza
decorated with basil for eyes and bacon for a smiling mouth.

To view more photos of Saint Sebastian school students making chocolate chip cookies with teacher Nicole Milardo, go here, to the Press' online photo gallery.

Sister Sunday

I’m the middle child among three girls. My older sister, Mely, is 26, and lives in Colorado, with her husband Aaron, who is a Warrant Officer in the Army, and their new four-month-old son, Jackson (who I’m going to visit next week!). Angie, my younger sister, is 23, works as a pharmacy technician, is a full-time student at Uconn (graduating this spring) and has a four-year-old daughter, Nadya. Needless to say, Angie has a very busy schedule, but I’ve always been very close with my sisters, and in order to make sure Angie and I get a little time to see each other every week, we started having “Sister Sunday,” a weekly dinner date at my apartment, since we are both off from work and Nadya spends Sunday nights with her father. This Sunday, our mom joined us since my father is away for the week.

This week, we actually thought out our dinner in advance, and settled on linguine with scallops in a lemony wine sauce, and Caesar Salad on the side. It was a first for me, so I looked at a few different recipes and combined different elements from each that I thought would work, adding in a few of my own touches. Angie doesn’t cook. Usually, she sits at the kitchen table, or on one of the bar stools at the counter, munching happily on whatever appetizer I’ve set out for her (shrimp cocktail this week), while I cook. I don’t mind. She’s happy, I’m happy, and we have a great meal ahead of us.

So here is what I started with:

• 1 pound of Spinach Linguine
• 1 pound sea scallops, seasoned with salt and pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 small yellow squash
• 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
• About 1 cup dry white wine
• One lemon, zested and juiced
• 2 stems of fresh basil, about 15 leaves, shredded
• 1 tomato, chopped

SPINACH LINGUINE WITH SCALLOPS IN A LEMON-WINE SAUCE
Boil the water for the pasta, and begin cooking the scallops once you put the pasta in the boiling water. Boil the pasta according to the directions on the package. Heat about 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat in a large skillet until they combine. Add the scallops and cook for about 3 minutes on each side, being careful not to overcook. Scoop the scallops out with a slotted spoon into a bowl, and cover with foil to keep warm. Pour the liquid cooked off of the scallops in a separate container to reserve. Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the same pan and sauté the garlic and shallots for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the wine and cook off the alcohol for 5 minutes before adding the squash. Cook another 5 minutes, until squash is tender. Add the liquid reserved from cooking scallops and the lemon juice, and stir together. Add the cooked linguine, chopped tomatoes, thyme, and shredded basil. Stir together until pasta is coated in the sauce, and serve.

The only pitfall I experienced making this was the horror I felt when I realized that I forgot to pick up a bottle of my favorite white wine, a Luna di Luna chardonnay and pinot grigio blend, and since it was Sunday and we live in the great, conservative-on-liquor-sales state of Connecticut, ended up stuck using a bottle of COOKING WINE from the grocery store. Imagine.

I used basil and thyme from my Aerogarden, a Christmas gift from my parents that keeps on giving. I have fresh herbs year-round, and am never short on flavor. That, and, you pretty much can’t kill it. It lets you know when it needs watering, nutrients, etc. The grow lights even run on a timer to simulate daylight. Also, you can use it to grow cherry tomatoes, green beans, etc. So far, I’ve only used their herb pod kit, but it really is fail-proof and can’t wait to try growing something new.

We had our linguine with a Caesar salad tossed together quickly from a head of romaine lettuce, prepared croutons and creamy Caesar dressing, and grated parmesan cheese, with warm multigrain bread on the side.

The result was pretty good. The lemon-wine sauce was light but flavorful, with notes of basil and lemon combining to balance out the strong, sweet taste of the sea scallops. The tomato added a nice contrast to not only the color palate of the dish, but to the overall impression it leaves you with. I was very happy with the result and Angie told me that it was her favorite meal we’d had, out of all of our Sunday night dinners.


For dessert, I served some prepared tiramisu rounds and New York style cheesecake from the bakery at Stop and Shop. I chopped up a few strawberries, and tossed them with a teaspoon of sugar to get their juices flowing, and topped the cheesecake with them, and a sprig of mint (also from my Aerogarden). I finished my dessert platter off with a few whole strawberries. Our meal was complete and our bellies were full, and another “Sister Sunday” had passed.

Love is for Losers

Valentine’s Day is not my favorite holiday of the year. In fact, it may just be my least favorite. But this year, since my college friend Annette was coming to visit, I decided to make fun, whimsical cupcakes for the girls in my life. I made one for my mom, sister, niece, roommate, and of course, for Annette. I had a little batter left over so I made one for myself. I made the gift cupcakes very ornate, but underplayed mine a lot, and decorated it simply to suit me:


When I brought my mom’s to her, she promptly showed me up, completely and utterly, with her gift for me:


I had some great ideas for what Annette and I would do over the weekend. I thought of taking a ride out to the Jonathan Edwards Winery in Stonington, taking advantage of the mild weather, and exploring the shops and pier in downtown New London, where I live, or maybe even a day at the slots at MGM Grand. The possibilities were endless. The only problem was that Annette arrived to me sniffling and headachy Friday night, and by Saturday morning, was convinced that she would be better off if someone “put her out of her misery.” I know how she felt. I just days ago got over a cold from hell, that lasted nearly three weeks, complete with fevers, never-ending sneezes and coughs, and, the icing on the cake, uncontrolled asthma that I thought may land me in the hospital, despite several prescription medications that were supposed to quell those symptoms.

So all of our plans were nixed, and Annette slept while I went out and got cold medicine and delivered valentines to my family. I decided that since I had nothing to do, and Annette would be sleeping for hours, I would make some chicken soup, and hopefully help her to feel better.

I guess I should preface this by saying that the kind of homemade chicken soup I am used to is made Puerto Rican style, the way my mom and grandmother have always made it. It is flavorful, reminiscent of arroz con pollo (yellow rice with chicken), and is made with a lot of the same tastes. This soup reminds me of relaxed afternoons, sitting in my Guela’s kitchen (when we were little, we couldn’t pronounce abuela, and so my grandparents have been “Guela and Guelo” ever since), sopping up the rich, piping hot broth with just made dumplings, in the company of my sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, whoever was around. It’s the food equivalent of a big hug.

For those of you who don’t know what sazon, sofrito, or adobo are, here’s a quick lesson: Sazon is a seasoned salt mixture, usually with the flavors of cilantro, achiote (annatto seeds), and garlic. Sofrito is a blend of green peppers, cilantro, onions, garlic, and spices in olive oil. Adobo is a blend of garlic, oregano, and other spices. I get all of these things from the Latino section in my local grocery store (I get the sofrito in a plastic tub the frozen section).



MY GUELA'S CHICKEN SOUP AND DUMPLINGS

DUMPLINGS

• 1 cup flour
• 1 packet yeast
• salt, to taste
• 1/2 stick butter, room temperature

SOUP

• 1 1/2 – 2 lbs chicken thighs
• Extra virgin olive oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pot
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1/3 cup sofrito
• 1 packet sazon
• 2 T tomato sauce
• Adobo, to taste
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 3-4 carrots, sliced
• 3 celery stalks, sliced
• 2 large potatoes, cubed
• small pasta, such as elbows or bow ties

Dumplings: combine flour and yeast, and then add water to it until it is a soft, doughy consistency. Add the butter, and combine until well mixed. Let the dough rise in a bowl on the stove or counter where it is warm, covered.

When the dough has doubled (around the time your soup is almost done), form into 2-3 inch round patties and fry until golden brown.

Soup: To start, boil the chicken thighs in a large pot filled with water about 1 1/2 inches from the top of the pot. Once the chicken is cooked through, remove is from the water. Reserve the water in another container. Now, begin combining the seasonings in the pot you used to boil the chicken. Start with the olive oil, and add the onions and garlic, over medium heat. Add the sofrito, sazon, and salsita. Add the potatoes, carrots, and celery, stirring until they are evenly coated with the seasoning mix. Pour in the water reserved from boiling the chicken and stir together until evenly mixed. Season with adobo, salt, and pepper, to taste. Let the vegetables simmer in the liquid for about 20-25 minutes, until they are cooked through. Add the cooked chicken (you can shred it off the bone, or leave it on, whichever you prefer), and about 1 cup of pasta, and let it come to a simmer until the noodles are tender. Serve with dumplings.


So we had soup for dinner, and by the evening Annette was feeling up to going out for a bit. We went to see the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona at the Garde Arts Center, which is a few blocks from my house, and was followed by a dessert reception at the theater, for Valentine’s Day. Our weekend wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, but still, it turned out great.