There weren’t any REAL shockers in this article but I would be interested to see if #2 works effectively, who thinks to freeze mashed up avocado?  #4 seemed the most creative, since avocados are high in fat it makes sense that they would be good in baking, maybe I’ll put that on my kitchen to do list.

Here’s a few that I came up with:

Salad Ingredient- Dice up avocado and toss them with citrus juice and poppy seeds.  I think orange works well here but lime, lemon, and grapefruit are all prime candidates.  Add the diced avocado to your next garden salad for some richness.  Staying on the salad theme you could also add avocado to make a creamy vinaigrette like Miz Emily shared with us last June- Orange Basil Dressing.

Sandwich Ingredient- I know this is old news but since I am an anti-mayo Crow, my new favorite substitute on a BLT is Avocado.  The key here is to use a mushier avocado and spread it on the bread rather then adding huge slices that fall off and add to the overall messiness of the sandwich.  You need to save room on the sandwich for the extra bacon as you can see in the picture below.  Note: this was constructed by my Man Crow who happens to love Mayo & Bacon.

Soup Topping: It’s common to add a dollop of sour cream on certain soups such as black bean or chicken tortilla but you can step it up a notch by pureeing avocado with sour cream or creme fraiche and adding a dollop of that!
Breakfast: Avocados and eggs are a match made in heaven whether you eat them on the side or stuffed in your breakfast burrito.  There is a brunch spot just around the corner from my apartment called Bon Savor that has the best options for omelets with avocado, check them out:
French Omelet Stuffed with fresh avocado, sautéed asparagus, tomatoes, and melted Swiss cheese
Richie Omelet Stuffed with fresh avocado, crispy bacon and melted Swiss cheese
It’s always so hard for me to decide between asparagus or bacon but the important description to pay attention to is the word “stuffed” because they pack atleast a half an avocado in each omelet.

Some of these ideas may or may not be new to you but if you are a lover of this delicious fruit (yes i checked on Wikipedia and it is indeed a fruit) then you probably share the belief that adding avocado to almost anything makes it better.

I left out the apple brandy because I didn’t have any on-hand and upped the amount of cider instead. Next time I may leave out the pearl onions (not a big fan) and substitute with a chopped vidalia. The finished product was very thick and sweet. The pork was so tender- it just broke apart and mingled with the other ingredients leaving each spoon full of flavor.

Black Beluga Lentil Salad

By reading the ingredients and quantities you can tell that this salad is PACKED full of flavor.  Start with a smaller portion of feta and herbs and keep adding until you have reached your desired taste.  Also keep in mind the longer it sits the more the flavors meld!  The black lentils were fun to experiment with, they definitely hold their texture in cooking.

The next star in our Adventurous Dinner Menu was a soup that I have been wanting to make for some time, and now that i’m equipped with an immersion blender, the timing seemed perfect.

Sweet Potato, Chipotle and Apple Soup

Unfortunately I was missing one of the main ingredients (chipotle) but made up for it with some red pepper flakes and cayenne.  To take the savory route I passed on the cinnamon-sugar tortilla chips and went for sliced baguette and shredded gruyere (apples and gruyere yum!)

We ended the evening with some Birthday cupcakes compliments of VBar, hot whiskey drinks and some games (crow favorites are rummy, rummikub and our newest addition- phase 10).

Roasting the chicken was a great way to use up a lot of root veggies (parsnips, carrots, onions, fingerling potatoes) and was a great way to warm and smell up the apartment on a cold Sunday.  I took a tip from Miz Emily and used celery stalks as a roasting rack- this is a great idea!

This was all really simple, just rubbed some olive oil, salt and pepper all over the bird and shoved some lemon wedges, rosemary and thyme into the cavity.  The vegetables were tossed with the same seasonings and some olive oil and scattered around and underneath the bird as well as some broth to keep everything moist.  Next time I am going to chop the carrots and parsnips a little smaller, they were still a bit fibrous after an hour and 15 minutes roasting at 375!  I also put a few unpeeled, crushed garlic cloves into the mix which I mashed up and whisked into the gravy for extra flavor.

Once we ate our filling of the bird I picked off the rest of the meat and saved the carcass for a stock.  I also saved all the vegetable tops/ends that I didn’t end up roasting so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice as many fresh ingredients for the stock.  I often do this throughout the week as well, saving mushroom stems and onion ends and by Sunday I have enough misfit veggie pieces for a hearty stock!  I add salt, pepper, fresh herbs on hand, bay leaves, then cover the contents with water and let simmer away until it reaches your desired flavor.

Day 1: Roast Chicken
Day 2: Make stock
Day 3: Make soup with stock and side dish with left over chicken

Here was my day three menu that I drew up:
Black Bean Soup topped w/ Creme Fraiche and Scallions  Served with Shredded Chicken Potato Hash

Black Bean Soup

1 onion, 1 celery stock, 1 carrot, 1 green bell pepper, 1 colored bell pepper-diced; 3 garlic cloves- minced; 1 can black beans; 1 can fire roasted tomatoes (preferably with green chilies); 1/4 C pale ale; 5 cups chicken stock; 1/4 C jasmine rice; salt, pepper, cumin, and cayenne to season throughout

Saute veggies in olive oil until onions are translucent.  Deglaze any brown bits with 1/4 C pale ale (or any beer you have on hand).  Stir in black beans, tomatoes and stock and simmer for 45 minutes.  Depending on your consistency preference you can puree the entire batch or just a portion of it.  Once soup is pureed return to low heat and add rice and let simmer an additional 15 minutes.  Top w/ a dollop of creme fraiche and some chopped scallions and serve with a side of Chicken Potato Hash!

Shredded Chicken Potato Hash

I used a mixture of sweet and golden skinned potatoes cut in half lengthwise and then sliced fairly thin.  Boil until fork tender and then saute with onion, garlic, bell peppers, salt pepper and red pepper flakes.  Once the vegetables get tender stir in the shredded chicken.  I like to get a good crisp on the hash so I suggest sauteing over a high heat (cast iron would work great for this!)

There you have it- it took 3 days do use the WHOLE bird, well 4 including the soup and hash leftovers I ate for lunch the following day!

To commemorate his birthday, the germs of all-hallows-eve have stripped him of his newly renewed (thanks to bilateral endoscopic surgery of the sinuses) voice. How will I nurse this birthday boy back to health, you ask? With a nice portion of clean and fresh chicken soup. This recipe makes sooo much soup, so if  you don’t want to eat chicken soup for the whole week, I suggest cutting back a bit

Using the store bought, pre-roasted chicken opened up some major possibilities, the main one being that I could use the meat for soup, and make a nice stock out of the bones/left over bits. To make the stock, I simply boiled the bones with carrots, celery, a rosemary branch, and some lemon (I suggest omitting the lemon if you don’t like the cooked lemon flavor, its quite strong) for 1 hour. It smelled better than the soup I was making.

Emylou’s Chicken Soup

1 Roasted Chicken *, picked to the bone of all meaty goodness
5 carrots, chopped in big chunks
1 whole celery bunch, chopped in large chunks
2 Leeks, coarsely chopped
1/5 onion, diced
1.5 cups uncooked rice
1 bunch chard, chopped to 1 inch piece
1 bunch cilantro, loosely chopped
6 garlic cloves
water
S&P

Soy Sauce
Ginger root
Rooster Sauce

Method: Begin by cooking the onions until translucent. Add the carrots and celery, followed by the leeks. Drop in 6 crushed cloves of garlic. Cook until very wilted. Cover with water, add rice. Cover with a lot of water, probably 10-15 cups of water. You will need enough liquid to cook the rice, and also leave room for the chard and cilantro, to be added after the rice is cooked. This is a personal preference thing. After the rice is cooked,drop in the chard/cilantro, and cook until wilted.Don’t forget to S & P throughout each phase, to taste.

To serve: ladle in the soup to your bowl of choice. Drizzle in 1-2 T of Soy sauce, and some rooster hot sauce, to taste. Complete by grading some fresh ginger over the bowl. Enjoy!

*pre-roasted or roast it yourself. the other day the store-roasted chicken was significantly cheaper than the whole uncooked chicken in the meat section, so I went with that. One could also just wait to make this after thanksgiving…oh the possibilities!

Also, I finally got a new camera! Check out this persimmon-chocolate cheesecake I made!

Cheesecake is so easy to make, if you can put up with the amount of animal goo you will consume. 4 8 oz cream cheese packages, 3/4 c sour cream, 1 cup persimmon puree, lemon zest, 1/2 c-1 c sugar, vanilla extract. Pour over crust of your liking in a spring -form pan, and bake 1 hour Breakfast anyone?

For the amount of stock I purchase I have been meaning to bunker down and start making my own.  A while back I had a tremendous amount of celery and carrots and thought I would give it a whirl, needless to say I either didn’t simmer it long enough or added too much water because it turned out bland and unusable.

It took some time to recover from my cooking defeat, but gained new inspiration this weekend when I found a promising mushroom stock recipe in my Vegetarian Times Magazine.

Unfortunately the Mushroom Stock recipe isn’t available online but here is how I made it (with minor alterations) and it turned out perfectly seasoned.  Feel free to venture out and use whatever mushrooms you have on hand.   Can’t wait to use it for a Mushroom and Pea Risotto tonight!

INGREDIENTS:
1 10 oz package of white button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 10 oz package crimini mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 5 oz package shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 large onion, quartered
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced (include the leaves)
3 carrots, thinly sliced
1/2 tomato, quartered
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled and crushed
2 bay leaves
4 thyme sprigs
2 TBS olive oil
3/4 tsp coarse salt
5 peppercorns
dash of cayenne pepper
splash of white wine vinegar

Combine all ingredients into a large pot and saute for 5-10 minutes.  Add 6 cups of water and let simmer for at least an hour.  Strain and bottle or freeze for use.

When my boyfriend asked me what I wanted him to bring home from his vacation in Barcelona, I told him that when he saw something that made him think of me then that was what I wanted my present to be.   True to form, when he came back after a long three weeks away he pulled a jar of olives and a bottle of wine from his bag, handing them to me with a flourish. Perhaps unlike other girls interested in receiving jewels or handbags, I was totally delighted.  Olives and wine are two of my favorite food groups.

Although he returned home in early August, we had yet to crack open the bottle of Prioriat Legitim Crianca De Muller 2005 that sat, taunting us, in first one wine cabinet and then another.  I would have sudden moments of panic some nights thinking that one or the other of my roommates had opened my precious baby in a moment of drunken madness, but that thankfully never happened, and so their lives were spared.

Saving the wine for the perfect meal had gotten kind of old when an actual perfect meal suddenly materialized in my brain this wintry night in early October. With a storm a-brewin’ in the Western hemisphere, I hurried home from my shitty job with dreams of a delicious meal to accompany the wine that was now sitting on the dresser at my mother’s house, where boyfriend and I are housesitting for a week.

On the BART ride from work I thought about what I could snag at Chenery Park, the bougie grocery store down the hill from my mom’s house that I adore and really, really can’t afford.  Thanks to said shitty job, I was bemoaning my poverty as I stood over the $23.99/pound wild halibut when I was struck with a moment of pure genius, encapsulated in two words: Beef Stew.  With Spanish wine.  And the organic carrots I’d lugged over from my house, bought yesterday at a roadside stand.

Yes. The nice man began cutting up some beef, and I grabbed a bag of new potatoes.  Beef STEW. And not just any beef stew; Helene’s Drunken Beef Stew, a recipe created by my grandmother (adapted from Julia Child) and passed down through my mother to me. I hurried home with my precious cargo and set to work. Not actually remembering the whole recipe, I improvised quite a bit, but I am very pleased with the results. Feel free to add any additional veggies/herbs you might have lying around—beef simmered in wine goes with everything, after all.

Helene’s Drunken Beef Stew

3 carrots

1 yellow onion

2-3 cloves garlic

1 small bag (10-15) baby new potatoes

1 pound beef, cut into small pieces

1 can diced tomatoes (8 oz is fine)

1 bottle very very cheap wine (or in my case, 2 bottles of stupidly cheap and disgusting wine in 4oz containers that originally came 4 to a pack)

Rosemary

Thyme

Bay Leaves (3-4)

Kosher salt/gound pepper

Olive oil

Butter

Flour

Equipment:  stew pot, preferably cast iron but anything will do, plate with paper towel

1.  Cut beef into small pieces, and pat dry

2.  Mix together flour (about ½ cup should be fine) with a pinch each of salt and pepper

3.  Chop carrots, onion, and potatoes into stew-sized chunks, and put aside.  Peel and dice garlic.

4.  Over high heat, melt 2-3 Tablespoons of butter with an equal amount of olive oil.  As oil/butter is getting hot, rub the beef in the flour mixture.

5.  Once hot, place the floured beef into the pot, and let brown on each side, about 2-3 minutes on each side.

6.  Take the beef out of the pot and place onto a plate covered with a paper towel

7.  In the still-hot pot, add some extra olive oil and dump in garlic/onion/potato/carrot mixture, and cook until soft.  Add a handful of salt, some pepper, and about 2 tablespoons each of thyme and rosemary, crushed.

8.  Once the veggies are soft, add the beef back in, and add the canned tomatoes, juice and all, then pour wine (3/4 of a bottle or two whole little bottles) over the whole mixture.  Add more salt, stir, and cover with a lid.   Let cook on high for about 20 minutes, or until bubbly, then turn down the heat.

9.  Do some laundry, talk on the phone, take a bath, etc.

10.  After about 2 1/2 hours, the stew should be ready to eat at any point. I let it cook for 3 hours, and it was great.

Quick and Chunky Noodle Soup

Soups with broths scare me off because of the time constraints. HOWEVER, I figured out a way to make a tasty chicken noodle soup in less than an hour and a half, though it of course tastes better the next day.

1 whole chicken
bunch of celery
4 carrots
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
3 medium turnips (or parsnips! or both!)
cilantro! forget that nerdy parsley.
package of egg noodles
and salt and pepper, our good friends

Chop up the chicken as best you can, about five or six pieces, leave the fat on, and boil it for about a half hour, till it gets to falling apart. While that is going on, chop all your veggies up. When the chicken is done, drain most of the water, but save about three cups of the oily goodness. Add three cups of fresh water to the pot, salt the shit out of it, and then add your veggies all at once. While you have them cooking, pick apart your chicken and throw the meat in before the veggies are done. When things have about five minutes (you can tell by the turnips) add the egg noodles and cilantro. And when the noodles are done, that’s it! Pepper to taste.

Even-Quicker, Extra Smoove Roast Tomato Soup
courtesy of my man crow.

tomatoes
garlic
cup of fresh basil (from our garden! yeah!)
salt salt salt pepper pepper pepper
olive oil
and half
*makes about four portions

Slice thin enough tomatoes to fill three cookie sheets, that have been doused in olive oil. Lay ‘em out and thin slice a clove of garlic per sheet, setting those slices on top of the lucky tomatoes. Broil the sheets one at a time for about five-six minutes, until some of the tomatoes start to burn. Drop them in the food processor/blender, making sure to drain the leftover olive oil in. Then the basil, blending, and add the cream as you see fit.

My next recipe is going to be for the watermelon, tequila, lime and cayenne pepper cocktail I’ve been perfecting. Summer is ending, so it’s time I solidify the recipe to my tribute drink. Or maybe now that you know the ingredients, you can mess around with them yourselves!

Although, I will, I promise. Eventually.

While Billy is away enjoying the sights and sounds of Yosemite with his childhood christian brethren, I am at home attempting to not freak out about the mess left behind; and the toilet seat that was up- a clear indication of man-boy rampage prior to their departure this morning.

How do I relax? I brief clean up, and immediate cooking adventure and a characteristic analyzation of my day.

Today was the Castro Farmers Market- a savior on a day where fumes were emitting from my ears for approximately 8 hours straight. After consuming a delicious lunch of Hummus and Tabbouleh* with sesame pita, around 4 o’clock I felt it was time to go for a walk.

I enjoy eating my lunch at my desk, and then going for a stroll later in the day, in lieu of a full blown lunch out. On this day, I decided that I did not crave cookies (although that was tooootally what I needed on Monday, from Hot Cookie)

I craved strawberries. Sweet Delicious strawberries.

Now it is not strawberry season, so I question the integrity of these apparent fresh market berries, but god damn you these were stupendous! They saved my day.

But I digress. Savior of Soup. Simple, delicious, my mind is a-flutter as to what to do with the savory leftovers.

Red on Red on Red Lentil Soup

1 small onion diced
1 large carrot grated
5-6 gypsy or lipstick peppers
1 excessively large ripe heirloom tomato, diced
about 1 cup frozen corn- although fresh would suffice

1/2 cup red lentils
4 cups water

larger bits of ground fennel seed
1 T crushed black pepper
pinches of salt
sprinkles of onion powder
1 pinch cumin
some garlic powder
a little mustard powder
some nutmeg

Methods:

*a great lunch btw

I got a call from my pops this weekend: “Hey Holl, Lobstah’s only $3.99 a pound!”

Its moments like this when I realize how much I love being in Maine during the Summer. Where else could you buy a fresh lobster for cheaper than a pound of sliced deli ham?

My personal favorite way to eat lobster is boiled then dipped in fresh butter with a squeeze of lemon juice. Using these butter warmers really makes a difference; you end up using less of it because its not getting cool and coagulated and there’s just something about piping hot butter that makes all the difference in taste. In terms of the actual lobster I prefer the younger chicks-their shells are so soft you can crack them with your hand. Sure there’s less meat than the honking hard shells but it packs way more flavor and sweetness.

I was skimming the Portland Press Herald this morning and found a great Lobster roll and stew recipe for when you want to jazz it up:

To make the best rolls or stew, let the lobster shine through