Did you know this? That there was a way to peel potatoes that involves boiling them first then simply pulling the skins off?

I didn’t.

Seriously. I’d never read about this. Never heard mention of it. Not one foodie friend made mention of this technique. And yes, these days I do read cooking magazines and blogs and listen carefully to people who know how to cook from my perch in the corner. I’m on the internets all day long. I read Boing-Boing. I also read Epi-curious. It’s likely that I would have come across this technique before now, but no.

Abject ignorance.

How’d I find out? I couldn’t find my potato peeler in the chaos that is my kitchen utensil drawer.

“Why don’t you just do it the other way,” said Marisa.

“I don’t want to do it with a knife. I value my digits.”

“Not with a knife, the other way. You boil ‘em and then the skin just slides off.”

“What?”

Yeah you know.

No, I did not know.

She called up this video on her smart phone and showed me.

It’s in Japanese. But I got the gist. You boil the potato for, it said, 15 minutes or so, then take it out with tongs and put it in a bowl of iced water. You count to ten, then just peeeeeeeel off the skins. So cool!

So what the hell, I tried it.

When Marisa said “score” the potatoes in a circle, my mind translated that to mean, “in a spiral.” So I scored half the potatoes in a spiraling method (many circles the length of the potato) before she set me straight. Duh.

Did it work? Sorta.

So yeah, it works. Unfortunately, the potatoes weren’t cooked through after only 15 minutes, so I had to microwave them to death before throwing them back in the pan and adding butter and milk and mushing them through. It worked out in the end, but it was touch and go for a while…I can’t be expected try something new and make a recipe I already know how to do…it throws me off.

fortunately, nobody noticed. The boy ate his shephard’s pie with gusto.

Try it and let me know how it goes…I’m gonna try it again, but I’ll do it right this time.

Stay tuned…

I like to think I eat pretty healthy, but in truth I still eat way too much processed food. Especially processed, regular pasta. And since I’m deeply engrossed in reading The China Report, I’m learning why this will kill me in the end, along with the rest of my miserable American compatriots.

Recently I’ve been taking sneaky little steps to feed everyone better. Fruit smoothies, for example, are a good way to get all the fruit needs taken care of …although the boy has always been a fruit bat and will never refuse anything that came off a tree,  while the Drama Teen continues to refuse the smoothies I hand her. It’s actually been a zero sum game in that regard. At least I’ve learned how to make them…

I also bought some whole wheat pasta the other day. Tonight I decided I’d try to sneak it past the nits.

Here’s what I did:

As I boiled up some whole wheat fusilli pasta, I…

Toast, my lovelies...

Toasted up some chopped walnuts…

sign of the red pepper

… diced up half a red pepper …

Feta, my love

… cut up some Feta cheese …

The most righteous herb

… and some cilantro. Also some olives.

When the pasta was done I drained it quickly, threw it back in the pot, tossed it with some olive oil and Parmesan cheese, seasoned it expertly with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and tossed the red pepper, olives, walnuts and feta in. Whooshed it around some.

The results were lovely. Way more lovely than the photo reflects. Maybe if it were daytime, or if I knew how to work my camera’s flash function, or if I learned Photoshop. Most definitely if I were Matt and Adam…

...But I'm not. This is what you get. Better than it looks!

But you want to know how it turned out, right? Even more importantly, did the nits eat it?

They did. and with gusto. Only after they’d brought their plates to the sink did I mention that this was whole wheat fusilli. They shrugged and asked for tea.

A small victory, perhaps. But not bad for a Thursday night.

Because this is my blog, and it’s Valentine’s Day, and I have no one special to cook for this year, and I’m a grown-up…I’m going to fantasize instead about all the men who could cook for me. Professionally, I mean.

Akhtar Nawab is the first. Because, Damn. I’m a sucker for the swarthy. And should the swarthy wear glasses? So much the better. Ultra special bonus points? This guy grew up in Kentucky. All this and he’s got a southern accent!

I'm cooked.

Anyone who knows me at all knows that dark men with glasses and snark have me at hello…So yes, Akhtar — can I call you Ocky? — Any Indian dish you want to cook up would be lovely. But if you’re not in the mood you can make me some fried chicken instead. I hear you’ve got a secret recipe.

The thinking girl's foodie crush

I have a HUGE crush on Mark Bittman and I can’t be the only one. He’s clever and funny and on message about the joys of cooking at home and the importance of eating more consciously. I’ve read all his books.  His “How to Cook Everything” is my bible (and also in three pieces held together with rubber bands after more than a decade of heavy use).

Because of him my kids get pancakes from scratch every Sunday. (to paraphrase: That packaged pancake mix ever got marketed shows just how alienated Americans have become from the kitchen. It’s just eggs, milk and flour!)

Ah yes, and he’s not a chef. He makes that clear. But he does cook. And in a New York City kitchen that makes mine look like the Taj Mahal. He comes across as a regular guy who loves to cook, and is trying to convince everyone else that they should — that they can — cook too. Plus he’s a working journalist. What’s not to love about this guy? If I have a guru, he’s it.

Emmanuel Delcour isn’t the thinking woman’s crush. He’s not the thinking girl’s anything. He’s just beefcake, or whatever the French equivalent is. He is a chef, yes. He’s also a model and and actor, which sort of kills it for me, but what are you gonna do? He is hot though. And I don’t need him to think. I don’t need him to speak. I need him to feed me lovely morsels by hand with his chef’s jacket unbuttoned…

Emmanuel. Food was never like this...

Mourad, Mourad, Mourad...

Middle Eastern men are my weakness. I swear I was from somewhere on the Levant in another life. It’s really the only explanation for my lifelong attraction to the food, the music, the poetry, the landscape, the decor and, um, the men, of this region.

And here’s this Moroccan chef Mourad Lahlou…. GAHHHH!!!!

Lahlou is the chef behind San Francisco’s Azziza and has a cookbook out called Mourad: New Moroccan. Which I need to rush out and buy as soon as it’s on sale.

Because I’m also stupid for Moroccan cuisine. I own four Moroccan cookbooks.  I’ve even got a tagine, for God’s sake. One day I’m going to make those preserved lemons, I promise. What a blogpost that will be.

In the meantime, let me just drool at the man that is Mourad. Yeah, he’s another good looking chef who knows he’s good looking, which takes much of the fun out of oggling him, but it’s Valentine’s Day. Let me just oggle the pretty chefs, ok?

Last but not least, what list of hot chefs would be complete without the bad boy of the kitchen, Anthony Bourdain.

I got your bad boy right here, pal...

Who doesn’t know about Tony Bordain, he of the best selling Kitchen Confidential and all those Food Network Shows I’ve never seen. His cockiness (and writing ability) just drive me wild. Me and millions of other women (and men). Such a bad ass gets my Irish up. He can come over and cook me anything at all as long as it’s not my neighbor’s dog.

These are all men I think are hotter than broiled brisket. The Drama Teen, however, just looked over my shoulder and grimaced. Not her type at all.

I don’t care. She’s a child. And this is MY blog.

Gotta cute chef you wanna share? Hit the comments section…

We loves beer!

Like many beer drinking women, I got the taste from my Dad. When I was a little girl he would always give me a sip or two from his Mickey’s Big Mouth (which I understand now is a malt liquor, but never mind), and as I got older I found the taste of Coors in a can refreshing. Give me some credit at least for never finding Bud Light at all satisfying.

But like with all food and drink I grew up ignorant of the larger potential. Over the years I’ve been slowly learning about the wide-variety of styles out there, letting my taste evolve from Coors to Heineken to Sam Adams to stouts and various IPAs and bocks (of the many Friday Bock nights I’ve had at my house, I remember so few) and am now venturing into craft brews in strange little bottles and cans. I can’t wait to try Arrogant Bastard Ale (but it’s true I’m not worthy. Yet.)

So many beers. So much to learn.

I recently spoke with Dave Forrest, head brewer at the CraftHaus Brewery in Las Vegas and his wife Wyndee for a little blog assignment, which I basically took because I’m interested in the topic. I got three times the material I needed because I kept asking questions. That night I dreamt I worked in a brewpub, and searched the whole evening for the delicious bottle of beer I’d had one sip of but then put down…somewhere…

I’ve culled some of the more fascinating bits of knowledge I gleaned from that interview for you here.

Here are five things I didn’t know about beer. Maybe you did. If so please keep it to yourself and don’t harsh my blogpost.

1. Make sure you’re getting enough beer. Craft brewers are getting behind the “true pint” movement. There’s a 12-ounce glass that we think of as a pint, or at least I always have, being bad with measurements and not prone to notice details.  But a real pint is 16-ounces. When you go to a brewpub or a restaurant, make sure you’re getting an actual pint and not paying $5 for four-ounces less beer than you should be getting.

2. Another reason chicks like beer: We invented it. The Sumerians had a goddess of brewing and brewers. All Hail Ninkasi! The earliest depictions of brewers are women, who brewed the stuff at home until things got commercial and men took over.

3. No frosted mugs. Seems a low temperature will ruin the aroma and flavor of the beer you’re drinking. In general, this is ok with some pilsners that are light, bright and meant to be drunk very cold. Otherwise, you’re doing your beer a disservice. Malt and hops like it warmer. And I always thought a glass in the freezer was the height of beer sophistication. “It’s not a rule,” says Wyndee. “It’s just a suggestion.” But she laughed when she said it, so…

4. You can’t tell a beer by its color. I would have thought darker meant more alcohol but not so! Guinness Stout, known affectionately as “the black stuff” is only 4% alcohol. A barley wine is much lighter in color, but runs up into the double digits in terms of alcohol content.

5. Drink American. The Great American Beer, Budweiser, isn’t even an American company anymore. It’s owned by a multinational conglomerate known as InBev, which is headquartered in Belgium. Apparently it was a hostile takeover in 2008, when nobody was paying attention. These mega-brewers spend a lot of money trying to convince you that what you’re drinking is actually a small “craft” beer. The popular Blue Moon witbier, for example? The one served with an orange? That’s actually owned by MillerCoors.  The best solution to corporate beer is to find and drink your local craft-brew.

I’ll do my part by reviewing a beer every now and then. Any suggestions for my first one?

SouperBowl Surprise

This is the sixth year we’ve done some variation on the national Soup Swap, so obviously we’re playing fast and loose with the rules.

The original Soup Swap day of Jan. 21 wasn’t convenient for anyone. Super Bowl Sunday was, however, So that’s when we gathered our troops, bringing various and sundry wines and soups to Kelli’s house.

I’ve said this before and it bears repeating: Teenagers got nuthin’ on a bunch of middle aged women when they’ve got their food and wine on.

But this soup shut us right up:

Tom Kha Gai – that is, Thai chicken coconut soup. One of the bad-ass mom friends, Maria, brought it.

Who knew you could actually make this stuff?

And the Souperbowl connection? None. It’s just delicious, damn good tom kha gai soup.

Here’s the recipe, as adapted by Maria from Real Thai, by Nancie McDermott.

I didn’t make this myself, and honestly, since I know absolutely nothing about Thai cooking, I’m afraid to try. Wild lime leaves? That shouldn’t stop you, though.

Here’s what you need:

1 lb boned and skinned chicken meat, cut into bite-sized chunks
4 stalk fresh lemongrass
4.5 cups coconut milk
1.5 cups chicken stock
20 quarter-sized slices of fresh galangal (or fresh ginger)
assorted chopped vegetables: carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, green chili, baby corn and broccoli, in sensible amounts. Maybe a half cup each?
10 whole black peppercorns
12 fresh wild lime leaves
1 cup canned whole straw mushrooms (drained)
2 tbls fish sauce
2 tbls fresh lime juice

Cut away and discard the grassy tops of the lemongrass stalks, leaving them about 6-inches long. Cut away any hard root section to leave a clean smooth, flat base at the end below the bulb. Remove and discard touch outer leaves. using the blunt edge of a cleaver, bruise each stalk, whacking it firmly at 2-inch intervals and rolling it over to bruise the stalks on all sides. Cut each stalk crosswise into 4 pieces, set aside .

Combine coconut milk and chicken stock in a 3-quart sauce pan and add the seasonings. Simmer for about 20-30 minutes, then strain out the lemongrass, lime leaves, peppercorns and anything else you don’t want to eat. Add the chicken and veggies, simmer and cook until the chicken is done and the veggies are crisp tender.

When chicken is done, add mushrooms and remove from heat, stir in fish sauce and lime juice and 1/4 cup fresh cilantro. Taste and season with more fish sauce and lime juice if desired. Serve hot to marveling and grateful women.

Here’s a good blog showing you step by step how to make Tom Kha Gai. I stole the picture from her, too. Thanks, Rachel!

Try it and let me know how it goes!

DO: Make this soup if you like chickpeas. Because you use three cans of them.

DON’T use baby spinach as your green, because they will get slimy (Yes. Sorry) and will be the worst thing about this soup.

DO use one of those hand blender things (or even a potato masher) to mash this up a little if you want. Or…

DON’T if you want chunky soup to throw over cous cous or rice.

DO bring this to your next soup swap.

DO you like chickpeas as much as I do?

Rainbow Chard with Chickpea stew

Smashed chickpea sandwich

The Chickpea stays in the picture (or all about my first time soaking raw chickpeas)

I bet you DON’T!

This is why I’m the Bad Home Cook and you’re not.

I tried to make a simple fruit and spinach smoothie this afternoon and nearly failed. Why? Why can’t I do the simplest things?

I have a big ol’ Osterizer blender. Why did it take me FOUR tries to get the thing to actually blend?

No, I didn’t Google “how to make a smoothie,” because I was assured by my yoga friend that all you needed to do was throw a cup of mango cubes, one banana and some spinach into a blender and blend away. Looking up precise instructions would take the fun out of it and besides, it’s a smoothie, right? It’s not like cooking up a rack of lamb or something.

And yet. When I put everything into the blender, the blender wouldn’t blend it. ARRGGGGG!!!! So TYPICAL! WTF??

OK. Here’s what happened:

I’m at yoga, and my friend Manjuree is telling me how she’s always trying to eat healthier and how she’s gotten even her two little boys hooked on fruit smoothies. So easy to make, she said. And so easy to get them to eat more fruit and veg.

Smoothies.  I know, it’s not even a trend anymore. Everyone does it. Everyone but me. There’s even a whole green monster smoothie thing going. A few years ago a friend came over and made me an avocado smoothie and, well, meh. It was ok, I suppose, but honestly, way too green and healthy and…well, I prefer my avocados spread on toast or chopped up in a nice guacamole.

But I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, and In the Defense of Food, and also The China Study, and I’ve been thinking I need to sit down and look at what I’m really eating. Hence the idea to try a mango and banana smoothie today. It would be a good way to get more fruits and veggies into my diet. And the boy would love it, probably.

So that afternoon I go to Trader Joe’s and I buy frozen mango chunks. Bananas. A bag of spinach.

And I follow these simple instructions:

Chunks of frozen mango...

Then chop up ONE banana:

the chop of one banana

I added a handful of spinach leaves too. As long as I was being healthy…

The triptych...

“Don’t I need some kind of liquid?” I asked Manjuree. “Like hemp milk or coconut water or something?”

“Nothing but the fruit,” she said.

OK, I said. BUT…

It won't blend...Why not?

When I tried to blend it, the blade just went around and around at the bottom, blending nothing.  I couldn’t figure it out. It’s a BLENDER, right? What was I doing wrong?

So I took the jar off the motorized based and tried to mix up the fruit etc. with a wooden spoon. Then I tried again. Nada. I tried a third time, completely perplexed. I could see some movement at least. The blade would catch a chunk of fruit and blend it, which I hoped would jumpstart the rest of it. I let it blend for a good minute on high. But it didn’t blend any further.

So I added a glurp of rice milk, just to see what would happen. I turned the blender on high and waited.

And waited.

And FINALLY, the thing caught, and all was blended per the original plan.

Jebus. This smoothie had better have some properties addressing high blood pressure.

I used a little too much spinach, because everything turned an unappetizing shade of green, circa my mom’s 1972 kitchen remodel. The boy will never eat that, I thought. And after all that trouble.

Tastes way better than it looks

But I tried it and although it was pretty thick, it was also pretty dang tasty. I brought it up to the boy and asked him to try it. He did, and deemed it worthy. “I like it,” he said, taking another slurp. “But some constructive criticism?”

Hit me, I said.

“It’s a little too thick and hard to drink,” he said. “And why is it green?”

Well never mind, I told him. As long as you like it and I like it. I have no plans on showing the Drama Teen because I can imagine the look she’ll give me. And I don’t need that sort of abuse right now.

So. My first ever fruit smoothie. Eventually, it worked out. I’ll be trying this again, and ideally, I’ll get it down to a science, but you never know with me.

Feel free to chortle at my expense in the meantime. At least I got a blogpost out of it.

Another day, another question of what in Hades was I to make for dinner that both nits would eat. My life is so predictable.

But wait!

Vegetarian skillet gnocchi with chard and white beans. From Dorothy’s ever-worthy Shockingly Delicious blog.

That did indeed sound shockingly delicious. At least to me. But would the nits eat it?

I decided I didn’t care anymore. They can eat breakfast cereal for dinner. I would be making this.

Here is Dorothy’s recipe, itself a riff on an Eating Well recipe of a few years ago. Dorothy made some changes, because, well because she knows what she’s doing.

Me? I made some changes myself, and because I’m getting a little better, the results were happy indeed. But I didn’t have chard and I didn’t have cannellini beans. Nor do I have a non-stick skillet that big, with a cover.

As always, I worked with what I had. Here’s the recipe:

• 1 1/2Tablespoon olive oil, divided

• 1 16-ounce package shelf-stable gnocchi (Trader Joe’s has this – two kinds, even!)

• 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced

• 4 or 5 cloves garlic, finely minced

• 1/2 cup water

• 6 cups chopped chard (I didn’t have chard, so I used mixed greens from TJ’s…again, no problemo)

• 1 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes in juice. Dorothy gussied hers up with a variety of spices. I tossed in a few shakes of “pasta seasoning and was done with it.

• 1 15-ounce can of white beans. The recipe called for cannellini beans, but I used butter beans instead, which is what I had. I imagine garbanzos would be nice too, but the boy doesn’t like those. (The butter beans were soft and mimicked the gnocchi, which I enjoyed).

• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• Dorothy mentioned next time she made this she’d try a splash of red wine. I tried this and it didn’t seem to hurt.

Starting to smell good...

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large non-stick skilled. Saute the gnocchi until they’re plump and just starting to brown. About 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer these into a bowl and set aside.

Add the other teaspoon and saute the onions. Cook for about 2 minutes, then add the garlic, stir, wait a few seconds until you can smell them, then add the water.

Cover and cook on low, about 4-6 minutes, until the onion is soft. Add the chard or whatever green you’re using. Toss lightly with the onions and garlic and, just as it’s starting to wilt, stir in the tomatoes, beans and pepper. Season expertly. Bring to a simmer. Stir in the gnocchi and sprinkle with the cheeses. Cover and cook until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling. About three minutes.

Throw in a splash of red wine whenever you think is best. I did after the tomatoes and beans…

Serves 5 to 6.

So quick! So Easy!

One glitch (because what kind of tedious blog would this be without my glitches?)

The only skillet I had that was big enough isn’t non-stick. Frying up the gnocchi, even in olive oil, stuck to the pan and promised an even bigger mess down the road.

carbs and protein and dark leafy greens, Oh My!

So I switched over to my paella pan – a lovely large non-stick surface and that worked fine. BUT, I don’t have a cover for the paella pan. So nothing got to simmer under cover.

No matter. It all worked out.

Good enough for me!

Yeah, but did the kids eat it? The girl did. The boy turned his nose up. I never know who’s going to eat what around here.

I ate some for breakfast the next day. And lunch. And I’m putting it into the weeknight rotation, too. Try and stop me.

I can't hear you, I have peas in my ears.

This dish didn’t go over too well with me first time I made it. Something about peas, onions, Parmesan and first trimester pregnancy didn’t play well together, and after I’d served everyone else I ran to the bathroom to heave for the next 30 minutes.

This was when I was pregnant with child number two, the boy, so you’d think I’d have known better than to soldier on making it after that first inkling of nausea.

I couldn’t even look at orecchietti for years after that without urping.

But, time heals everything, and 11 years on, I pulled this recipe out of my well-thumbed Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home and thought it sounded good and easy enough to make for a weeknight dinner.

I riffed on this recipe:
4 medium onions (about 4 cups, sliced)
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cups fresh or frozen green peas (about one pound)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound orecchietti (“little ears”)
Freshly grated Pecorino cheese (about 1 cup)

While pasta water boils, slice the onions and saute them until they begin to brown. Add the peas and salt and pepper to taste, and cook a few minutes longer. Add two tablespoons of the hot pasta water to the skillet, stir, reduce the heat, and cover.

Cook the little ears until they’re al dente, then drain, throw it back in the pot and toss it with the grated cheese. Top with peas and onions and serve immediately.

I only sliced one onion, I used about a cup of frozen peas, and I used Parmesan cheese. Still delicious.

Strangely enough, the boy wouldn’t eat it. Memories from within the womb?

Who cares.  It fed me well for dinner and lunch the next day.

Where have you been all my life?

First, the name made me smile. “Found Object.” Clever. But since it was part of a large display in the aisle of Trader Joe’s, it wasn’t hard to find.

Secondly, it’s a Carmenere. No idea what that’s supposed to be.

Thirdly, nobody working at the time had tried it. None of the checkers, not the manager, not my go-to wine guy. So this Found Object was a complete mystery.

I like a good mystery as much as the next gal. I procured. Here’s the verdict:

Decent, in a bright and shiny sorta way. A little fruity on the palate, and a few snarly tannins, but what do you expect from a $6.99 wine?  Overall, however, I found this Found Object to be quite drinkable.

Come to find out, a Carmenere is the Chilean signature grape. And come to find out, about a month later, that the crew at my Trader’s seems to prefer the Found Object Syrah. Hmm. Well, I’ll tackle that mystery next time then.

For now, I’m glad I Found this Object. Try it. You might be glad you stumbled upon it too. Let me know what you think.