My First Chow Mein Christmas

To carry on in the vein of non-traditional traditions I seem to have acquired this year I was invited to spend Christmas with the Cute Gardener and his family for seafood and chow mein dinner.

Christmas dinner for me has always meant turkey. While growing up, the holiday morn meant waking up early to the smells already wafting in from the kitchen as mom cooked a trough of stuffing for the basted bird that would soon go into the oven. The family would converge in the living room around the tree with a big black garbage bag for discarded gift wrap and we would gorge on trays of brie en croute, goose liver pate and my mom’s famous white trash dip alongside cracker bread from San Francisco and miniature pumpernickel and rye bread slices while opening our stockings stuffed with treats. Throughout the day guests would arrive as my mother always claimed the day for all our orphan friends who had nowhere else to go. Hot toddies and white Russians would be poured long into the evening and clean up would be saved for the following day when we would scour the pots for leftover food and slices of pecan and pumpkin pie. As an adult, I continued on with the turkey to feed my own orphans but developed my own recipes for things like my famous (and constantly requested even from other people for dinner at their own houses) sausage and sage stuffing and tarragon green beans.

But this year it all started for me at Santa Monica Seafood, which became a strange Dickensian scene of mass people gathered around the fish monger deli counter five deep waving their hands in the air as their numbers were called in a frantic symphony of buyers and sellers of fruits of the sea. We danced around the crush of bodies, weaving in and out to choose salmon and crab and other tantalizing things to eat.

Later on our holiday destination, I watched as the CG prepared chow mein, something I have never participated in but have always been strangely fascinated by. For, like the CG says, “Chow mein is an odd meal in that you take a dry noodle and make it wet only to make it dry again and then make it wet again before it even reaches the dinner plate.”

In laymen’s terms this meant watching him first boil the special chow mein noodles in a large pot.

Then he painstakingly fried handful batches of the cooked noodles and then put them aside.

Next he stir fried cubes of tender pork that had been marinating in dark mushroom soy sauce all morning.

Then, he prepared vegetables: carrots, yellow bell pepper, mushrooms, and bok choy for the wok, cutting them all into roughly the same ratio of julienned strips. This was all stir fried together in a strategic order before a dousing of chicken broth, corn starch and oyster sauce that married all of the flavors together.

The noodles were then added and everything was tossed and plated along with the body, legs and head of this shell-y beast. 

I had the pleasure of cooking the salmon, simply baked, lain with thin, whole rounds of lemon slices under a sprinkling of fresh chopped parsley.

Although I am typically a red wine drinker, I find that it's really hard to find a libation that goes with Chinese food. Although, for this meal we found the perfect accompaniment in a Corpse Reviver cocktail that consists of gin, Lillet Blanc, lime juice, Cointreau and absinthe. 

I have never really cared for chow mein in Chinese restaurants because it tends to be oily, mushy and fat-ridden – not worth the calories. But after having this version, I am now an ardent fan and even may try to copy it in my own kitchen experimenting with the types of veggies, meat and sauces.

I also didn’t mind being the orphan for a change!

Unorthodox Meals: Cassis Dijon Zucchini Pockets

I tend to eat out a lot on the weekends. I’m usually with the Cute Gardener, trying a new restaurant, from a never-ending list perpetually compiled throughout a life spent reading newsletters like Eater LA and magazines like Food & Wine for fun. Because of this, I have to watch what I eat during the week in order to make sure that my physical body’s health is balanced and consistently restored.

During the week, I make sure I stick to a relatively simple diet, absent of meat and filled with yogurt and greens, maybe some fish here and there, and plenty of antioxidant-rich probiotics and superfoods like berries, nuts, chia seeds and cacao nibs sprinkled over everything. My main meal of the day comes once only and is typically accentuated by small bites throughout the rest of the day, keeping it under 1,500 calories on the whole. This keeps me fueled and burning fat and allows me to turn into a complete glutton on the weekend and eat whatever the heck I want.

So while at home during the week I need to get creative with my green foods and enjoy creating special recipes that are vegetarian, unique and tailored to my specific palette. There is certainly a lot of trial and error that goes into this because in my quest to create new things, I am typically just pulling ideas out of my head for whatever is currently in the fridge. Sometimes, my experiments work and sometimes they dismally fail but that’s part of the fun of cooking and learning and fine-tuning the flavor-prediction skills.

My recent foray into creating a new kind of veggie wrap turned out surprisingly savory and all with the help of a slightly sweet yet hearty gourmet cassis dijon mustard and some zucchini squash.

CASSIS DIJON ZUCCHINI POCKETS

Ingredients

½ small white onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, diced

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small tomato, chopped

5 medium zucchini, skin on, sliced into ¾ inch. coins

¾ c. water

½ c. shredded, organic white cheddar

2 tablespoons gourmet berry flavored mustard of your choice (I chose cassis!)
Wheat pita bread

Salt and pepper to season

Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil, salt and pepper on medium heat till onions are limp and garlic is browned.

Place the sliced zucchini into the pan in one layer and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Pour in the water. Put a lid on the pan and steam on medium-low heat for 15 minutes.

 

Take off lid, turn heat down, season all with plenty of salt and pepper, mix around the zucchinis and then sprinkle the cheese over the top.

Cut a whole pita into two halves and spread the mustard on the inside. Stuff with zucchini mixture and enjoy! You will have enough for two whole pitas (four halves).

Unorthodox Meals: Heartstring Melty Mac and Cheese

A big problem of mine, being a foodie and a lover of cooking, is that I live alone and although I love cooking for others, especially those I love, I am usually hard pressed to want to cook a meal for myself. Part of it is that I come from a family that on my mom’s side was from Iowa, the land of huge one crock meals, and my grandmother needed to feed ten kids on a daily three meal basis. This means I have some strange in-bred peasant casserole mentality when it comes to cooking and I tend to make enough food to feed an army of snot nosed kids every time I turn on the stove. I always pre-think that the recipe amounts look paltry until I have a finished meal that could feed my neighbors, for weeks.

So I am a little boring when it comes to cooking for and feeding myself, only have mastered a slim repertoire of meals for one that actually only really do feed one.

One of them is my Heartstring Melty Mac and Cheese, something so heart-attack inducing that I don’t cook it often, but that I instantly run to when it rains really hard, which it did for about three days last week in Venice Beach. Pouring rain, a pile of newspapers to catch up on, and a cheesy bowl of noodles became sweet elixir to the hermit side of my heart.

Heartstring Melty Mac and Cheese

1 cup of whole-wheat corkscrew pasta (the corkscrews work best at catching various textures of cheese in its squirrely nooks and crannies)

2 cups shredded organic, sharp white cheddar

1 tablespoon organic 1% milk

1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper

1 tablespoon fresh lemon thyme

2 tablespoons butter

Boil water with a dash of olive oil and some salt. Cook the pasta till done. Strain the water from the pasta and return to the pan and place heat on medium low. Add the milk and butter and stir till butter is melted. Add the cheese and fold in till melted and mixed well. Season with salt and pepper and mix in the thyme. Put into a broiler safe bowl dish and put under the flame for half a minute till top browns.

Serve and enjoy!

Unorthodox Meals: An Affair With Fava

I am currently embroiled in a love affair with fava beans. The interesting thing is that I never tried them until meeting the Cute Gardener and being the recipient of his lovely, homegrown variety interspersed in a perfect bowl of pasta. I remember the scene in Silence of the Lambs when I eat them now, where cannibal Hannibal Lecter was remarking upon eating them with chianti and flesh. I can see why he'd choose them, they are rich, meaty and sensual in a land of otherwise nubby legumes and I just can't get enough of them. 

I got a special big bag bounty of them last week and crafted an original savory meal from them that informed my lunches for three blissful days. This made a batch big enough for three or four meals.

First step requires de-podding the beans. It's simple with favas. You snap off one crisp end and pull the string down one whole side which creates a seam to split apart of pop them out of.  I came out with four cups worth.

Next, I sauteed a pound of ground turkey in a pan started with two tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon each of salt and pepper,  half a tablespoon of cumin, one tablespoon of curry powder and one squirt from a tube of harissa chili sauce till browned.

I made a pool in the middle of the pot and added some more olive oil and sauteed the favas till they crinkled up with translucent shells. Note: some people, okay, maybe most, take these skins off the beans first but I am too damn lazy for all that work and don't mind the taste and the texture of the skins staying on, so choose your battles...

The result was a nice, warm and spicy bowl with a side of cold, snap peas. A lovely hearty and healthy meal for one!

The beauty of this recipe is that I ate a simple bowl of the concoction on day one followed by the addition of the mix to an omelet and then to a cold salad on pursuant occasions. This would be good thrown into many things.

Unorthodox Meals: Passion-Inspired Rustic Tomato Soup

The tomato is the perfect symbol of passion in the vegetable world. It’s a plump, red, round gem that produces an exquisite juice and symbolizes the shape and depth of a ripe heart overflowing with goodness. I have been reminded of this time and again over the course of the last two months as my boyfriend with the green thumb has been depositing a fresh batch in a brown paper bag on my counter on his visits to pick me up for our whirlwind of various dates. So forgive me if a little romance sneaks into my blog this time because I made a soup with his latest batch that makes my heart swoon and my belly bulge with warmth. Food is also a metaphor for comfort, nurturing and love and what better way to express that than a warm and simply good soup.

I scoured the web for an appropriate recipe to depict my latest endeavor with the homegrown tomatoes and found nothing but pureed versions. I didn’t want to create something that was pureed into an equal and base consistency but wanted something that had a little more depth and oomph to fully express my multi-textured feelings poured into a pot to produce something rich and worthy.

So I read all the pureed version recipes and adapted them all into my own recipe which I proudly now call “Hearty Rustic Tomato Soup.”

After making this, I discovered that it is perfect served hot in small ceramic bowls that keep the chunks warm. I also laid some Whole Foods brand horseradish cheddar spread onto dark rye crisps that when dipped into the hot sop, melted into a deep and toasty moment of bliss that crunched in the mouth ever so slightly; a perfect accompaniment in lieu of bread for the dish.

RUSTIC TOMATO SOUP

2 1/2 pounds fresh tomatoes cut into one-inch wedges
7 cloves peeled garlic

2 small yellow onions, sliced erratically

½ cup of extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

3/4 quart chicken stock
2 bay leaves

4 Tablespoons of butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Spread the tomatoes, garlic cloves and onions onto a baking tray. Drizzle with 1/2 cup of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 to 30 minutes, or until caramelized.

Remove roasted tomatoes, garlic and onion from the oven and transfer to a large stockpot. Add 3/4 of the chicken stock, bay leaves, and butter. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until liquid has reduced by a third.

Remove the bay leaves. Use a hand potato masher to loosely mash the soup so that all the roasted veggies are broken down into a consistent texture but not pureed. Continue to heat on low after seasoning to taste with salt and pepper for about ten minutes on low. Serve garnished with a dollop of heavy cream in the center.

Unorthodox Meals: "Worthy of its Rainbow Moniker" Trout

You know how it is when you first move into new digs, the kitchen is usually the last thing you unpack and replenish. Especially when there are colorful art supplies to arrange, clothes to arrange and all your favorite photos to place around your new space. The pantry suffers until exhausted from your efforts you realize suddenly on a Sunday afternoon that you are hungry.

I had made a trip to the Farmer's Market for greens but hadn't gone much further and was living on salads for a week when I realized I would finally have to go shopping the next day but alas wasn't ready to put on the shoes and make the trek to a local Whole Foods yet on a grey, gloomy beach afternoon. I finally opened the freezer to see what bounty a close friend had brought over to hold me over and found an odd assortment of things: frozen fiber bagels, some stir fry veggies, a whole turkey leg, a piece of rainbow trout and some jars of exotic condiments.

Rainbow trout! I have never really been a friend of trout. I think the last time I ate a piece it was seriously smoked and laid on a bed of greens at lunchtime years ago when I worked for an insane artist who had a penchant for dry fish. I wasn't really impressed and usually am a bit of an embarrased snob when it comes to filets of the sea, preferring salmon and halibut and scallops and shrimp and other bizarre bits. But I was determined to try and make something glorious with the glowing pink steak and ended up making something that was worthy of its "rainbow" moniker.

My Midwest mother raised us on dishes where every protein on the plate could easily be mashed in a pile with the veggies and potatoes and cream sauces that seemed to accompany everything so that the whole mushed together bite would deliver a delight. I am proud to say that this meal qualifies in that realm as well, albeit in a signature to Southern California way.

Rainbow Chutney Trout and Green Beans

Cut a beautiful one inch thick filet of trout from the middle, most wide portion of the steak.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup of crudely diced white onion, 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro, 1/2 cup of chopped fresh mango, salt and pepper and one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Let sit for ten minutes so the flavors have a chance to meet and mingle.

Oil a piece of tin foil and place the trout filet on it and cover that with the chutney mixture. Pull the tin foil up and pinch at the ends so it makes a nice little boat for the fish but leave a hole open in the center for steam to escape.

Separately, fill a baking dish with green beans. Chop up two cloves of garlic and throw them in the dish around the beans. Throw in three pats of butter and sprinkle rosemary on top from three long, fresh sprigs. Salt and pepper to your liking.

Put the trout and the beans into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes and voila! The trout comes out beautifully moist with a sweetness accentuated by crunchy onions and exquisite cilantro scents. The beans get all shriveled and crusty with the fragrance of rosemary. Put on a pretty plate and enjoy! My mother would be proud...

Unorthodox Meals: Sinless Squaw Sandwich

Squaw bread is a beautiful thing. Dark and rich, it's typically made with unbleached, whole wheat and rye flours, yeast, milk, butter and not much else. My latest purchase of a loaf came from The Breadman, an L.A. based bakery that specializes in all natural artisan breads and pastries. They add a tiny bit of honey and brown sugar to create just the slightest hint of sweetness to the taste.

It is the bed of choice for one of my favorite sandwiches that includes all the right textural ingredients for a blissful mouthful. Creamy, crunchy, and popping with bursts of juice!

Sinless Squaw Sandwich

Cut two slices of squaw bread from a fresh loaf about half an inch thick.

Spread a layer of lowfat ricotta cheese on one slice.

Spread half of a soft avocado on the other slice.

Stud the ricotta layer with sliced, ripe cherry tomato halves.

Grab a handful of leafy artisanal lettuces and pile on the avocado side.

Salt and pepper to your liking and fold together.

Voila!