by Sam Tackeff | Sep 14, 2012 | Challenge, Seafood
This morning I woke up groggily, not understanding why the whole house smelled like chicken. And then I went to make my coffee, and remembered that the chicken stock was still in the slow-cooker bubbling away. Jewish penicillin! Except, I don’t have a cold, and I want to keep it that way.
I set to work making my coffee, and then immediately after I finished, I realized that it was trash day, and I had an entire room full of cardboard that I had made a resolution to get rid of – the first official step in “making my house more of a home”. And get rid of it I did. A metric ton of cardboard was broken down with a knife and my brute strength, and stuffed in three large recycle bins. By the time I finished, the coffee was forgotten, as was breakfast, but I was rewarded with this beautiful clean room. Wonderful!
Well, I skipped breakfast. It’s something I have to work on. It was a “rest day”, which means that I wasn’t fueling for a workout, but it also means that I’m lazy when it comes to taking care of myself. It’s so much easier to do good when you are focused on good choices.
Lunch, however was a different story. My mom gave me the first of her eight ball zucchinis from the garden. It’s a hybrid zucchini squash – tastes like a zucchini with the firmer texture of a squash.
I doused it with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted it in a 450 degree oven for 45 minutes.
And then I put together a simple salad – zucchini, some of the roasted chicken in the fridge, parsley, mint, lemon juice and olive oil. I took it outside to eat on the porch.
In the late afternoon, I polished off an apple from Applecrest, and headed out for a walk.
Because it was a “rest day”, I decided to listen to a podcast and take a short walk around Fresh Pond. It’s one of my favorite places to escape to, because it is full of people at all times of day, you see dogs everywhere, and yet the paths are large enough that you don’t have to dodge people. You do however, have to dodge the wet dogs coming out of the pond. Today I learned my lesson and was totally soaked from an overly-excited sopping wet corgi.
After my walk, I headed over to Formaggio Kitchen for a late snack, hoping that I’d find something despite the fact that I can’t gorge on cheese or honey or anzac biscuit samples. When I realized that I couldn’t have my favorite fennel sausage because it had both milk products and sugar in it, I decided to splurge on something that I’ve been eying for months: Stumptown Cold Brew Coffee.
Honestly? It just wasn’t that great. I mean, it was good, for sure. But, for half the price, Formaggio brews pretty excellent George Howell iced coffee, and I’ve realized that it can’t be beat. Sorry Stumptown, I wanted to love it…
In another failed moment, I went next door to the Fishmonger to see if I could pick up some seafood for my dinner. I noticed that the board said that shelled lobster was $8.50 a pound, a moderately good deal (although Market Basket sells whole lobsters for $3.99 if you can deal with the crowds) but was informed that it was actually $50 per pound. Yes, in this bountiful season, they were attempting to sell the stuff for a good $47 dollars more than market value. Sometimes I don’t understand this world.
After this escapade and all that disappointment, I was feeling a little hungry, so I devoured two small hard boiled eggs.
Instead of lobster, I decided to splurge on crab for dinner to make myself feel better. Devon had a work dinner catered by Barbara Lynch, so this was another day of fending for myself. Actually, I’ve been trying to get the stuff for the past week, but every time I head to the store, it’s sold out. I finally found some, and grabbed it.
Dinner was dead simple fresh crab salad. I peeled a cucumber, chopped up an avocado, some colorful tomatoes. I made a dressing of one part Red Boat fish sauce to one part lime juice, with a pinch of chile. I dressed the salad with half of the dressing, and dressed the crab in a separate bowl with the other half. To guild the lily, I added just a few spoonfuls of coconut milk to my crab, and then served it on the bed of veg. Here it is!
A bright crab salad
serves 1
6 oz. fresh wild crab
1 medium cucumber
1 avocado
2-3 ripe colorful tomatoes
juice of 1 lime
1 Tbs. fish sauce
pinch of chile flakes
a splash of full-fat coconut milk
Start by making your dressing. Juice a lime, and add an equal amount of fish sauce (about 1 Tbs.). Add a pinch of chili flakes and whisk or shake up in a small jar.
Then prepare your vegetables. Peel and chop your cucumber and put in a bowl. Take an avocado, cut it in half, and score the flesh into cubes before spooning it out into the cucumbers. Then, chop up your tomatoes into wedges. Take half of the dressing, and dress the vegetables, and arrange on your dinner plate.
Then prepare your crab. In a small bowl, pour the remaining dressing on the crab. Add a generous splash of coconut milk (a tablespoon or two), mix gently to combine. Pile your crab onto your vegetables, and tuck in.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 13, 2012 | Challenge, chicken
The start of any challenge can be, well, challenging. I’ve been easing myself into things, cooking at home every night, making Pinterest boards with dinner ideas, and stocking up on necessities. With a few exceptions (mostly chocolate), I’ve actually been eating challenge-friendly food for the past week, so I’m hoping not to lose my mind too quickly.
In the morning, I started my day with a light breakfast – a sliced banana with a few spoonfuls of almond butter. Typically I like to eat a little bit more protein for my breakfast (and usually, it doesn’t even look like breakfast), but I was going for a run early, and didn’t want to overload myself. Now that I’m doing shorter, more intense workouts, I usually don’t like to eat much before exercise because I find that my stomach doesn’t cooperate as well as I’d like.
A few weeks ago, I signed up for a race. Let’s be clear, I don’t race. I don’t really run. At the gym, I spent months barely getting through 400m. warmups, because I had been sedentary for 8 months. But for some reason, I caught the crazy, and signed up. It was the middle of the night, I blame exhaustion. And so now, I have a little over a week to get ready for this thing, and so I’ve been running 3-4 miles a few times a week, in addition to two days a week of CrossFit.
Before convincing myself otherwise, I headed out to Fresh Pond to run (very slowly!) around the path. This place is pretty magical.
Fast forward to lunch, and I was hungry again. Steamed kale, and smoked fresh kielbasa, with a large side of raspberries. Kielbasa is one of those “minimally processed” foods I’m willing to partake in for this challenge – but I made sure to choose one with no additives or sugar. This is the turkey kielbasa from Trader Joe’s. It’s a little on the dodgy side of the “happy meat” requirements I subscribe to, but it’s really good. I just need to get the sausage grinder attachment for my KitchenAid.
In the evening, I got to pick up Devon from the airport, and we headed to the store to pick up dinner. Every so often we do the “choose your own salad bar meal” at Whole Foods, and this was one of those nights. Except, in anticipation of hungry afternoons this week, I opted to buy two rotisserie chickens (the second is half off), and shred the meat for the fridge.
I put together my dinner: spinach salad with lemon vinaigrette and raspberries, and a chicken leg with some mustard to dip. After shredding two chickens (and eating a quarter of one as I worked), this was all I could manage on my plate.
Before heading to bed, I froze one of the chicken carcasses in the “miscellaneous bones for stock” bag, and put the other in my very small slow cooker to make some overnight chicken broth.
One day down, 59 to go!
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 12, 2012 | Eggs, Turkish
Yesterday was a long day. I tried to avoid the television, but the tweets and messages and blogs of my friends remembering 11 years ago were sobering. I made the mistake of turning on NPR while in my car, and choking up while driving and listening to the short memorial stories.
And then I met my mom for a walk on the ocean. The air was the warm end of summer air, the sky was bright. The Atlantic was flat and deep blue, and seemingly endless. We talked about life, food, her first day of preschool. This walk – the same one we’ve gone on since I was a small child – always puts me in a better place.
Reluctantly, I came home again to an empty house, and although it’ll be the two of us again tonight, it was lonely. It was also late, and I was tired. My mom had given me several ripe tomatoes from her garden, and some fresh parsley, so I set to work putting together a riff on Turkish menemen – scrambled egg with peppers and tomato. Because I was pepper-less, I just added an extra tomato. I find that you can never eat too many tomatoes at the end of summer, because soon they’ll be gone, and you’ll regret your missed opportunities.
This is one of those dishes that I come back to again and again, the type of food that I eat alone. It’s dead simple, cooks up quickly, and works just as well for dinner as it would for breakfast. It also, for the record, tastes great when you come back at 2 am after a long night out.
Turkish Tomato Eggs
serves 1
1 tablespoon olive oil (or 2!)
2 or 3 ripe tomatoes, chopped or grated
salt
pinch of chile flakes (Such as Urfa Biber or Piment D’espelette)
pinch of thyme
3 large eggs, whisked
small handful of chopped parsley
In a non-stick skillet over medium heat, pour a generous amount of olive oil (a tablespoon or more if you can rationalize it). Add the chopped tomatoes to the pan, and season with a little bit of salt, a large pinch of chile flakes, and a small pinch of thyme. Stir, and let it bubble for three to five minutes.
In a bowl, whisk three eggs with a small pinch of salt. Pour the egg mixture over the tomatoes, and let it set for a bit, and then stir gently for a few minutes. This dish is fairly soupy, and not dry, but you are looking to cook the whites. When cooked, add a large handful of chopped parsley, and eat right away.
by Sam Tackeff | Jun 23, 2010 | Books, Chocolate
Alright, almost wordless. These lovely spoonfuls were made for us at Omnivore by Barbara Passino, author of Chocolate for Breakfast, and proprietress of the Oak Knoll Inn in Napa, California. She bakes them right on the spoon! I found them delightful when dipped in her home made chocolate sabayon.
by Sam Tackeff | Oct 3, 2009 | Breakfast, Seafood
Smoked Fish. I love it all. Smoked salmon, smoked trout, smoked whitefish, smoked sable… I’m the type of girl who would rationalize a one day trip to New York City – as long as I could pick up some smoked fish at Zabars before heading home.
This adoration started early. Growing up in New Hampshire, my parents and I would frequent Seaport Fish every week to get all our seafood needs. I was always on board for this trip, because from the age of about one, the staff at seaport fish started bribing me with smoked salmon. Honestly, I must have gotten an entire salmon’s worth of smoked salmon for free over my childhood.
While I generally interchange the terms smoked salmon, nova, nova lox, and lox, there is technically a difference between them- here’s a simple breakdown:
– Nova or Lox are usually what we see when we order the platter from the deli, or on the bagel – the fish has been cured in a liquid brine and cold smoked.
– Scottish style salmon is cured in a dry brine, and then cold smoked.
– Nordic smoked salmon is salt cured and then cold smoked.
– Gravlax is generally cured in a mixture that has more herbs and spices including dill and juniper berry.
These are not to be confused with hot-smoked salmon, which you may see in packages by the fish counter – hot smoking makes the fish feel like cooked fish, whereas cold smoking makes it a little more like the consistency of sushi.
(Photo: Russ and Daughters)
Where to find good smoked fish:
If you live on a seacoast, particularly in New England, you would be in luck. Most local fish markets will carry good quality salmon. If you are near a city, you might try going to an old style Jewish deli. When buying packaged, I like Ducktrap, particularly the “Kendall Brook Variety” which comes from Maine. I find that packaged however are sort of luck of the draw – I like being able to taste a little bit before I buy it, to make sure it’s not too salty for my taste.
I picked up mine for breakfast at our new Whole Foods in Noe Valley, so if you live near one of these you might check out their fish department, and see if they will give you a little sample.
If all else fails, you can just order it from either of the two golden sources – Zabar’s fish counter, or Russ and Daughters and they will ship it to you, right quick. While you are at it, order a jar of salmon caviar from either of these guys and you won’t be disappointed.
A few things you can do with smoked salmon:
:: The composed breakfast (see above) – toast, dry farmed early girl tomatoes, and ripe avocado – spreads like cream cheese.
:: Smoked salmon on a bagel (or brown bread, or rye bread, or seedy bread ie: anadama) with *full fat* cream cheese, and slices of onion if you are so inclined. *Please note, unfortunately, I spent several years of my life with nothing but fat free cream cheese in my refrigerator. Don’t make the same mistake.
:: Smoked salmon pinwheels – great for the lunchbox (either just salmon and cream cheese, or wrap style in a tortilla)
:: Smoked salmon with scrambled eggs.
Any brilliant salmon ideas? I’m always looking for more!
