Let the wild maple rumpus begin

I accept your challenge.

You have touched a very near and dear place to my heart with the golden words 'maple syrup.' You are also edging close to the truly wacky side of me that would love to try homesteading. More on that later...

The first thing that comes to mind is pork. Yes, that magical animal from which both bacon and pork chops come. On a cold Fall day in New England (January for us here in Houston), cut up some apples into slices along with some onion. I am partial to sweet vidalias but a plain yellow onion will do the trick. Dump all the slices into a roasting pan or pyrex dish to fit a pork loin (center cut or tenderloin). Pour in a little low sodium chicken broth to keep everything from burning and sticking, lay the roast on top of the slices and roast at 350 until the meat reads about 145 on an instant read thermometer. This should be anywhere from 35 - 90 minutes depending on the size of the roast. About halfway through cooking, glaze the roast with a mixture of maple syrup and melted butter. I use about 1 tbsp of butter for a 1/4 cup of syrup. Feel free to change those proportions to your taste preferences. Serve this with any great starch to soak up the delicious juices in the pan.

Other wonderful maple-y options are:

Mashed sweet potatoes with some bourbon, butter and maple syrup
any winter squash roasted and coated with olive oil, maple syrup, salt and pepper
Roasted brussels sprouts with maple syrup and hazelnuts
Bourbon or whisky and maple glaze for a grilled steak
Duck or vension with cranberries and maple syrup

And don't get me started on dessert...

Cooking the AA Way

I come from a long line of cooks. Food is a serious thing in our family and through all of our get togethers, good food and a little cheap champagne were always there and welcoming. Most of my mom's best dishes came surprisingly enough from her father who stayed at home with the kiddos in the 1950's while his wife, the chemist brought home the bacon. And most of his recipes had one common attribute -- alcohol. It wasn't until I was an adult that I discovered that my grandfather was actually a recovering alcoholic. I guess cooking with booze was a great way to make up for the fact that he was no longer able to drink the stuff.

The following is my own recipe based on his beef "stoup" that was one of his staples. In case you are wondering a stoup falls somewhere in between a stew and a soup. Either that, or he was secretly sloshed when he made up the name . . .


Vegetable Beef Stoup

3 pounds beef stew meat
3 tablespoons olive oil
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 large onion, chopped large
8 whole cloves
2 Bay Leaves
2 (14.5 oz) cans of Italian Style Stewed Tomatoes (snipped with scissors in the can to make the pieces smaller)
¼ cup orange vinegar
¼ cup sherry vinegar
4 cups beef broth
1 cup red wine
1 tbs. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbs. Tomato paste
¼ lb. Green beans, ends trimmed and sliced into thirds
½ yellow squash, cut into bite sized slices
1 small zucchini, cut into bites sized slices
6 oz. Sliced button mushrooms
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh cracked pepper to taste

Heat 2 tbsp. olive oil in large dutch oven over medium high heat. Sear beef stew meat in batches, browning well on most sides. After browned, take meat out and place in a bowl.

Add the additional tbsp. of oil to the pan and cook the onion over medium high heat until soft and just starting to become golden in color. Add the garlic to the pan and cook for one additional minute.

Remove the pan from the heat and return the beef back to the pot. Place the cloves and bay leaves into a bouquet garni bag and tightly tie it closed. Add the Bouquet garni, stewed tomatoes, vinegars, beef broth, red wine, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on low for about 1.25 hours or until the beef is just starting to tenderize (this number can range from 1 – 1.5 hours depending on the size of your stew meat. As a general rule of thumb I buy my stew meat from Costco which is large and usually needs 1.5 hours of cooking time). Add the green beans and continue to cook for another 35 - 40 minutes. Then add the final vegetables and mushrooms cook for a final 15 minutes. Add the salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Let's Do Lunch

Today I did something decadent. Something out of the ordinary, definitely not part of my normal routine. I met my husband for lunch. At a hole-in-a-wall Vietnamese place near his hospital, we giggled over Pho and spring rolls.

My husband works. A lot. Some friends think he is only a figment of my imagination because they never see him. But, despite his long hours- he does call me. All the time. Seriously. Like 20 times a day. I'm supposed to fill his drive home with witty banter, or occupy his time if he has to walk across the street. It can be charming, it can be disruptive, but it's never boring.

This morning he called to find out what I was up to. I had an hour to kill before picking the kids up, so he suggested I swing by and pick him up for a quick lunch. Over a Vietnamese iced coffee (Guys! Have you ever tried this? The coffee is mixed with condensed milk to give it a caramel, rich flavor that puts Starbucks to shame), we wondered why we didn't do this more.

We started our stolen lunch with spring rolls. Perfect for the heat wave we are currently experiencing. Rolled in a rice wrapper were freshly steamed shrimp, mixed with cilantro, bean sprouts, basil and mint. After dipping it into a hoisin sauce, it's like a bit of summer exploding in your mouth.

We then moved on to Pho. Ours was chicken broth based, with floating pieces of poached chicken breast, cilantro and glassine noodles. Our server brought over a platter of bean sprouts, basil leaves, lime wedges and spicy peppers to add to our soup. Matt and I also liberally added the chili sauce on the table, and a couple of unmarked bottles that I have no idea what they were.

Maybe it was the coffee. It could have been the fresh ingredients and the awesome combination of basil, mint and lime that flavored everything. But I think it was the company that made this impromptu lunch get away the most fun of all.

Sap's running...

O.K., fellow Forks.... I have a challenge for you.

I recently spent a week in a fruitless search for new digs up in the woods of New Hampshire.  Most of my time was devoted to viewing ugly 1960's ranch homes that, tragically, are in my price range.

My spare time, however, was spent in a friend's barn standing over a giant vat of boiling sap, watching my hair curl in protest.  It is sugaring season in the great Northeast.  This means that enterprising young pseudo-farmers like my friends devote entire days and evenings to the hot, sweaty, sticky process of making their own maple syrup.  The ritual involves lugging heavy vats of yucky sap from collection buckets to the barn, followed by hours upon hours of standing around, ruminating on the boiling mess in front of you. 

The children entertain themselves by courting death in various ways - falling from the loft of the barn through the open doorways, swinging from the chains suspended in the barn (used to haul the huge vats of sap up), and attempting to examine the boiling sap up close.   

We discovered that, as visitors, we were hot commodities:  people to help with the sugaring who were not committed to their own trees on their own property.  My husband bonded with his Vermont buddies over boiling sap.  I lingered with my best friend, who was stuck sugaring solo that week.  Alcohol was consumed.  Kids ran wild and muddy through the place. 

The culinary aspects of this ritual are limited.  There's beer, as I've mentioned.  Aside from that, the highlight of the day/evening is hot dogs boiled in the sap.  Really.

Now that we're safely back in the land where only oil and strawberries are in season, we're left with a lot of questions about our choice to live in a place where watching boiling sap is good fun.  Oops!  I mean... we're left with... a lot of syrup, fresh from our friends' farms.

So, forks in the road.... I'm looking for ways to cook something yummy and maple-y that is NOT a breakfast food.  Any great maple-syrup recipes out there?

Captain, My Captain

Part of my OCD condition in the kitchen is directed at my extreme love of my cookware. Even though housekeeping is definitely not a skill that I possess easily, I will obsess about any little blotch on my cookware and clean it with Bar Keeper's Friend until it gleams.

Enter the new All-Clad Deluxe Slow Cooker (http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/sku8260341). I love this piece of machinery. First of all it is very, very pretty. And as we have all noticed so far, I really like pretty things. Its second most important feature is that it has a removable insert that is stove top safe. That way you can actually brown your meats, caramelize your vegetables and reduce your sauces before actually dumping it all in the slow-cooker. Because as most of you already know and have inadvertently discovered, the idea of dumping a whole bunch of ingredients into a slow-cooker and walking away for 10 hours almost never turns out the way one had intended.

So, I have made it my mission over the last 2 years to make this beautiful and definitely not cheap piece of machinery work for me. The following recipe was a result of a recent successful night of experimenting. It is for Country Captain chicken which is supposedly legendary in the south, despite the fact that I had never made it before and had only tasted it once or twice previously. It draws on exotic spices such as Madras curry and paprika and is often served with a bevvy of garnishes (although I have to admit I prefer it without). And it usually served over rice.

The following recipe also works on several key principles for slow cooker success:

1. You do not need a ton of liquid for your recipe. The slow cooker creates a lot of liquid on it's own. I almost always omit water or broth when it is called for in a recipe. Minimal liquid is key - no more than 1/2 cup is usually needed to keep it from scorching.

2. Most, but not all recipes do better with browning the meat first in your pan. If you skip this step many cuts of meat end up tasting like what they are -- boiled meat.

3. Concentrate flavors, don't liquefy. This Country Captain recipe opts for tomato paste instead of tomato sauce and Mango Chutney instead of fresh mango.


Put this on your agenda next week. it might just help you fall in love with your slow cooker again!



Slow-Cooker Country Captain

Serves 8

8-12 Chicken Thighs, with bone and skin

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, chopped coarse

1- 1.5 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped coarse (depending on your preference for savory ingredients)

1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes, undrained (Italian or with added green bell peppers and onions if you can find it)

1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste

1 - 1.5 jars of Major Grey's Mango Chutney (depending on your taste for sweetness and the number of chicken thighs that you use)

6 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon Madras (hot) curry powder

2 teaspoons paprika

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 cup chicken broth

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup light or dark raisins

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Fresh cracked pepper to taste (10-12 rounds on the Puegot pepper mill is my preference)

Season the chicken liberally with some of the salt and pepper. Heat the oil in your stove top safe slow cooker insert or in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the chicken, skin side down, and cook until golden brown on both sides, 5 to 7 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Remove all but a spoonful of drippings from the pan. Add the onion and green pepper and cook, stirring, until softened and just starting to turn golden, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic and saute another 1 - 2 minutes until everything starts to lightly caramelize.Add the curry, paprika and cayenne and cook, stirring, just until fragrant, no more than 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and their juices, tomato paste, broth and mango chutney and bring to a boil, stirring to distribute the spices. Stir in the bay leaf, thyme and raisins and sprinkle with remaining salt and pepper.

Remove the skin from the chicken thighs and trim off any excess fat. Place the chicken in the slow cooker and distribute the sauce evenly over the pieces. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours.

Chicken can be deboned and served over a bed of brown rice cooked that has been cooked in chicken broth with a few pats of butter. Or just as elegantly, the chicken can be served with a crispy green salad.

Happy Eating!