Category: food and cooking

Worth the Soul Toll?

July 12, 2023 / dancallaway

My taste in music’s like my taste in cuisine.

My favorite food’s a cheeseburger. WITH french fries. Bring me ranch dressing for dipping? Heaven.

I love risotto, boeuf bourguignon, any iteration of potato, omelettes, biscuits, and BUTTER.

I want it to be rich, satisfying, comforting, delicious, and I want it to be worth the time and effort to prepare it.

I want cooking it to be a joy.

This is why I subscribe to the Joy of French Cooking school of music making; I’ll have my ballad in a nice béchamel, please.

I could never pierce the meaning of 20th Century atonal musical (or anything that sought to deconstruct.)

While I empathize with the need to howl at the chasm in the early 20th Century, I still need cadences.

And if I’m going to work my ass off to learn a piece of music, it better fill my soul and make an audience go “yuuuummmm” and say, “My compliments to the chef.”

We have a phrase in our house — soul toll.

We bandy it liberally, apply to myriad situations, and even musicalize it.

It describes end-of-day emotional dysregulation (child and adult), traffic, shopping at Market Basket on a Saturday, and stoplight texters. (Of course, I’ve never done that.)

So, when it comes to life choices, the question becomes, “Is this worth the soul toll?”

Just because you have that block available on your calendar doesn’t mean you have adequate soul units to fuel that activity.

So I invite you to use this Q when you face choices.

Another way to ask this was something I heard Marie Forleo say: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

Caveat: not every lime in your life is going to yield ample zing to your G and T. Some you just have to squeeze, be glad you bought the Bombay Sapphire, and then take a nap.

But where you do have agency, check in with your soul tank, and get all Mary Oliver with yourself: What are you gonna do with that one wild and precious life?

Whatever you choose, I recommend butter.

Carrot Ends and Parsley Stems = Stock Money

April 2, 2021 / dancallaway

I keep a freezer bag where we put onion skins, garlic peels, the woody parts of asparagus, bell pepper cores, celery stubs, anything that might contribute to good stock.

When the bag fills, time to get out the Instant Pot or just the pot. Either works.

Here’s my bag. And here’s the end of a roast chicken.

Put that in an Instant Pot or a big ole pot of any kind. Add water, salt, bay leaf, and anything else you want your stock to taste like.

For the Instant Pot, High Pressure for an hour and a half. For your regular pot, bring to boil and simmer for a long time until it tastes like you want it to taste.

Pour it out, and you’ve got veggie/chicken/bone broth gold.

And you can use it for all kinds of things. This day, I used it for a rice and beans bowl riff. Using what you got. Another pro tip, broth makes you fuller, so you’ll feel all cozy and ready for your afternoon.

leftover rice, beans, crushed tomato, chicken stock, cumin and salt, roast chicken, cilantro, some sour cream, and avocado.

Use-What-You-Got Picnic Salad

March 31, 2021 / dancallaway

We had a family picnic last week, and I made this salad out of our end-of-week fridge:

For your own salad brain, these are things that dance well together: good dressing (many possibilities in the pantry), greens, some crunchy things, a protein (beans, meat, egg, etc), other textures (starches, soft things like avocado, sweet potato, goat cheese).

Here’s how this one worked out.

Ingredients:

Dressing: lemon zest and juice, Dijon mustard, salt, maple syrup
kale
bell pepper
leftover chicken breast, brown rice, mushrooms
cherry tomatoes
sweet potato
Everything but the Bagel Seasoning

Start the dressing in the bottom of your bowl. You need an acid, an emulsifier, salt, and something sweet if you want that.

This is lemon zest, juice, Dijon mustard, salt, and a little maple syrup;

Then see what kind of greens you have. We had a big ole bag of untouched kale, so that’s what I grabbed. Put it in your dressing and squeeze those greens. Kale needs encouragement.

We had leftover chicken breast, brown rice, and shrooms, so I threw that on there. Leftover starches and proteins are great in sallets.

I added cherry tomato, an orange bell pepper, a leftover sweet potato, and Everything but the Bagel Seasoning from TJ’s.

And there you have picnic deliciousness. Don’t forget the forks.

This Bread Recipe Will Make You Feel Like a Competent Baker and Your House’ll Smell Great

March 25, 2021 / dancallaway

This recipe is a riff on Alexandra’s Peasant Bread. Our friend Scotty Humphries brought us a fresh baked loaf of this stuff soon after our second son was born, and = life changed. She shared the recipe with me, and this is the way I like to do it.

Flour (4 cups) [I use 2 all purpose 2 whole wheat]
Salt (2 tsp) Go ahead and add a lil more if you want
Sugar (2 tsp)
Instant Yeast (2 1/4 tsp, pre-measured in the packet)
Lukewarm water (2 cups)

You don’t need a mixer for this. You can do it by hand in a bowl. I like using the mixer because it was my Grandma’s, and I like to let the dough hook do some kneading for this no-knead recipe.

Mix or sift the dry ingredients together then add your water and bring the dough together. Again here, I appreciate the work the dough hook does for me. I’ve done this in a bowl with a mixing spoon and bare hands as well.

Cover with a damp tea towel and set out in a warmish place for an hour and a half.

It’ll double in size.

Coat two pyrex bowls with butter, divide the dough in two, and place uncovered in the bowls. Preheat the oven to 425 and let them rise a little until the oven comes to temp.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temp to 375. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

Turn them out and let them cool. And you have delicious homemade wheat bread.

Brunchy Bouge in Fifteen Minutes

March 19, 2021 / dancallaway

whole wheat toast + chevre + scallions + salt + soft boiled eggs + Everything But the Bagel Seasoning = yum, a lil brekkie luxury, and keeping you full until lunchy.

The Secret in that Languishing Dill Pickle Jar

March 14, 2021 / dancallaway

To make a kickass salad dressing, you need acid, an emulsifier, and salt.

The other day I was outa lemons, and I needed a little somethin somethin. Then I spied the dill pickle jar in the back of the fridge. And magic ensued.

Here’s a recent lunch construction featuring my own hillbilly Tzatziki riff.

Here’s what I pulled from the quickly-emptying fridge:

Yogurt, dill pickle juice, scallion and salt. Mix that and add your chunky cucumbers. (I only had a little bit of yogurt left, so I put everything in the container together and shook.)

Chopped romaine and carrots done with the veggie peeler on top of that. There’s some chicken breast I batch cooked in the Instant Pot a couple days before.

Mix that with your hands and into some salad bowls. Thanks for the pretty bowls, Mama.

Toss the chicken in the remaining dressing.

Add hummus, whole wheat pita, use a rubber spatula to get all that dressing out of the bowl, and there’s a yummy lunch.

These Are Bananas and Eggs

March 12, 2021 / dancallaway

A recent discovery in our house is the banana and egg pancake. They taste like crepes, and they are delicious.

What we do:
two eggs to one banana (you can experiment with this ratio)
pinch of salt/to taste
a lil bit of vanilla extract

Mix all that together (an immersion blender is very helpful)

Non-stick skillet
TJ’s Avocado spray
Make them like pancakes
The flipping part was a learning curve for me, so be patient with yourself.

Top with what looks good to you or nothing at all. These are delicious leftover right outa the fridge.

In the pic, these are topped with berries zhoozhed with some good balsamic vinegar.