by Sam Tackeff | Nov 5, 2013 | Blogging, Challenge, Vegetables
Fall foods. I decided today that I needed to write a list of fall foods so I wouldn’t miss them. Because it seems like we’re on the cusp of winter already, and I haven’t had my fill of cider donuts and delicate and baked apples. Usually I think of seasonal foods too late, and then I become bitter and cranky. And nobody likes that.
Speaking of bitter and cranky, first, a complaint. The Pumpkin Spice Latte. The pumpkin spice donut. The pumpkin spice pretzel. The pumpkin spice soap. The pumpkin spice dishwashing detergent. (Just kidding, that doesn’t exist…. I hope.) So yes, I just don’t understand it. Peppermint mocha? Okay, I get those. I like the idea of spiced drinks and nostalgia, and feeling homey, but the majority of the PSL’s I’ve tried – not purchased, but obligingly sipped from those who say imploringly “I swear you’ll love it, just try it one more time!” – have been cloyingly sweet, almost metallic tasting. Not to mention the whole zero-pumpkin thing for most of these drinks. The pumpkin spice latte just isn’t for me. But what about warming beverages? I’ll take coffee, tea, chai, or even cider spiked with spiced rum. It’s a thing I “invented” on Thanksgiving one year at the open bar. Yep, that’s a drink I can be on board with.
I’ve been trying to get my fill of fall foods that come (mostly) from nature. Here are some of my favorites:
1. Delicata squash, reigning supreme varietal of squash. I like mine sliced, tossed in coconut oil, with chile, cumin, and salt. Sometimes I add sweeter warming spices, like cinnamon, mace, and clove. Roast, roast, roast.
2. The other squashes: butternut squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash. Okay, these squashes, well, they just aren’t delicata. I still like ‘em anyway.
3. Apples. I didn’t go apple picking this year. I know there is still time, but I’m not sold on having bags and bags in my fridge taken up by one type of food. That said, I did go through about a dozen varietals from Volante Farms, and managed to sample another dozen more. I like them fresh, in salads, and baked – stuffed with walnuts and dark chocolate, and doused out of the oven with a hint of cream.
4. Boiled cider. Here’s how you make it – take fresh cider (not the boozy kind), and simmer down as long as you can, until reduced by half, or if you can wait long enough, by 3/4. This took me a little under an hour for a half gallon. Take resulting cider, and spoon over apple cake, vanilla ice cream, granola, oatmeal, yogurt, and more. When you are sick of it with sweet things, use some to marinate and bake a pork tenderloin.
5. Apple cider donuts. My longstanding favorite have been from Applecrest farm in Rye, warm.
6. Chili. I’ve been waiting all summer long to have my chili back – it’s not that I don’t like eating it in the summer time, it just didn’t feel right to cook something low and slow in my own house until the temperature dropped below 65.
7. Parsnip Fries. Parsnips in general. Sure they look like white carrots, but they don’t taste like carrots at all!
8. Pumpkin whoopee pies. The winning whoopee this season has come from Volante Farms in Needham. Preferably cream cheese frosting.
9. Turkish pumpkin dessert. Pumpkin braised in a simple syrup with coconut and nuts. I haven’t made it this year, but when I do, I’ll post the recipe.
10. Persimmons. Oh, how I miss these in San Francisco, where you could find them ripe, and they didn’t cost $3 a fruit. (It’s true you can get them for cheaper on the East Coast, just never ripe.)
11. Pumpkin chocolate chip bundt. This recipe. My absolute favorite fall food. Tastes good warmed for breakfast. Tastes great at the end of a long hike.
Of course there are many more – cranberries, cabbage, every type of braise. I’ll have to keep on thinking, and get started on the eating!
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 22, 2013 | Challenge, Meal Planning, Seafood
When in doubt, look for the light. I caught the light tonight at the John C. Potter estate right as the sun was starting to set – illuminating the stately mansard roof, and making the house feel magical. Somehow in the past two days nature has gotten the memo – the leaves are already starting to turn bright colors, and well, everything is beginning to look spectacular.
Today I had my first coaching session after a long hiatus – I’m not sure what prompted the shift, but I realized a few months ago that I was missing something, and working with women to help them reach their health goals is something that I really love to do. I always hear coaches and trainers going on about how much they cherish their work, and how much they learn from their clients, but I’d forgotten how true it is: listening to a client be open, honest, and trusting with you is a very special experience – and an incredibly inspiring one.
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The rest of my day was low key and relaxed. I spent a good deal of time cleaning the house, organizing, and tidying. I didn’t need to do much batch cooking today because this week will be full of evening activities and most of my dinners will be solo. My meal plan will be simple: salads, eggs, some chicken are on the docket. Last minute cooking for one is so much easier than last minute cooking for two. My reluctance to cook when tired stems directly from anxiety about the meal not being fulfilling for both of us – but when I’m on my own, I’m happy enough with the simplest of foods: a mess of greens, a tin of sardines, leftovers, poached eggs.
The kitchen did get some use today – first order of business was making a pitcher of green juice to sip on for the next few days. This version has fistfuls of spinach, a large cucumber, the juice of three limes, a few green apples, and some filtered water. Typically you don’t need water with a juicer, but I made this in my Vitamix and you need a little bit of liquid to get things going.
And then there was dinner. Sunday is fish night in this house, and flounder was on sale for $6 off a pound. I grabbed a pound of fillets from the fishmonger, and brought them home with me with plans to make a riff on rollmops – stuffed pickled herring filets that are often served with buttery potatoes. I’m pretty sure that rollmops wouldn’t be appreciated by anyone other than me in this household, but stuffed flounder is another story. I preheated my oven to 400, then I took my fish and stuffed them with Whole Foods feta salsa – a mix of feta, sun dried tomato, parsley, and dill. Then I rolled them up, put them on a bed of pre-steamed baby potatoes (which I had nuked in the microwave for 6 minutes), nestled in a few halved tomatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper, and slicked everything with some olive oil. They baked for 20 minutes, and dinner was served.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 22, 2013 | Holidays
The summer’s end is always bitter sweet, but this one ended pretty much as well as I’d have liked – starting with getting locked out of our house (okay, that part wasn’t so great), walking a mile to pick up the set of spare keys in some really glorious weather, stumbling across a free Jazz festival and sitting on the grass listening to some great music for an hour, and spending a last hurrah warm summer evening eating dinner with family outside under the stars.
Heading over to Joe and Susan’s house tonight – Joe is technically my dad’s first cousin, and while I did grow up calling him Uncle Joey, that had to stop after watching years of Full House – I tried to explain to Devon what the Jewish holiday of Sukkot is like. While we’ve hit many of the major holidays several times, somehow we hadn’t made it to a Sukkot dinner, and I was excited to share the tradition. “Well, it’s sort of a Jewish harvest holiday where we’ll be tailgating on the porch under a hut.” I can see the great rabbi’s rolling over in their graves at that. Devon looked at me skeptically. “And there will be chili!” I proclaimed!
Aside from the celebration of fall, and the harvest, Sukkot is a week long commemoration of the Israelites in pilgrimage and exile. The Sukkah is an outdoor hut that is built to remind us of the fragile nature of exile dwellings, the joy that can be had with simplicity, and we eat outside (and some sleep outside) in the hut each night of the seven days. There is great symbolism represented in the lulav (a frond of the date palm, willow and myrtle branches) and the etrog (a yellow citron), which are sort of shaken about after waiting for three stars to appear in the sky. It’s tradition to have friends and family gathered each night of Sukkot in the sukkah, and because we don’t actually have one at home, I was happy to head out to Hingham for this shindig – Sukkot is one of my favorite holidays!
Being a Saturday, it was also the end of the sabbath, and the beginning of the new week, so in addition to Sukkot blessings, we also performed the Havdalah ritual – ending the sabbath with blessings over the wine, the lighting of a traditional many-wicked candle, the smelling of spices, and finally extinguishing the candle in the wine.
Tonight marked a nice transition into fall, and I’m looking forward to the adventures and excitement that this season holds. Happy Sukkot, and happy Fall everyone!
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 29, 2012 | Braises, Meat
Waking up to the whistle and hiss of old metal heaters in our house just starting to kick in, I’ve been thankful these past few nights for my L.L. Bean comforter. Summer has left us, and we are on to crisper weather and shorter days. Fall necessitates comfort, warm sticky stews, roasted root vegetables, bowls of mashed potatoes, spice breads, and poached fruit.
Around this time of year I start thinking of cooking traditions again, after exploring out and about all summer long, I long to be home in the kitchen, the oven filled with roasting vegetables, or the rising batter of my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip cake. One of my favorite fall dinners is my mom’s Osso Bucco (braised veal shank). When she cooked it, the house would smell delicious for hours, and the reward would be a big meaty treat in each of our bowls. We’d impolitely gnaw down to the bone, and loudly suck out the wobbly marrow.
When chilly air hits us, this is the first thing I want to make. It’s a wonderful project for a Sunday afternoon, requires minimal effort and leaves plenty of time to curl up with a good book while you wait for supper. This stew is largely put together with bits and pieces in my kitchen, but that’s sort of the beauty of it – you can make it how you want. I use lots of carrots, but adding potatoes would be good too. Finding quality pastured veal is difficult, so usually I’ll substitute beef shanks, but you could even make this with stew meat and you’d be rewarded at the end.
To start, I turned the oven to 350 F. These are cross-cut beef shanks I picked up at M.F. Dulock, which I seasoned with salt and pepper. I then heated up my big skillet over medium heat, and cooked some onions in a little schmaltz (chicken fat!) with some La Quercia pancetta.
Then seared off the shanks, a few minutes on each side.
I then took out the meat, added a large chopped carrot, deglazed the pan with some stock and tomato sauce (I used Rao’s Marinara), nestled the meat back in, added a handful of whole garlic cloves, seasoned it all with some dried porcini mushrooms, rosemary and bay leaves, salt and pepper, covered it, and let it cook for a few hours.
After two hours, I added some thickly cut carrots, and cooked it until they were tender, about one more hour. Devon got his served over a big bowl of mashed potatoes.
I got mine with an extra serving of carrots. To finish off the dish, I added the winning combination of parsley and lemon zest, a sort of deconstructed gremolata.
beef shank stew
serves 2 – 4
1 tablespoon good fat (I used schmaltz, you could use butter or olive oil)
1 small onion
1 ounce pancetta, chopped
2-4 large beef shanks (1 per person, 3/4 – 1 lb. each)
1 large chopped carrot
several whole cloves garlic
1 cup tomato sauce
a few cups homemade chicken stock
water (or one part water, one part red wine)
a few dried porcini mushrooms
a bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon. dried rosemary (or a sprig of fresh)
3 large carrots, chopped into coins
for the gremolata:
zest of a lemon
a small handful of parsley, chopped
Start by turning on your oven to 350 degrees. Season your beef shanks with salt and pepper, and set aside. Heat up the fat in a large heavy bottomed skillet or large dutch oven over medium heat. Chop up your onion and add to the pan with a good pinch of salt. Cook for a few minutes and add the pancetta, and a few grinds of fresh pepper from a mill if you have one. Stir about for a few minutes as you chop your carrots, and set them aside.
Raise the heat to medium-high, push aside the onions and pancetta, and place the shanks in the middle of the pan, searing them off a minute or two on each side to brown them. Then, take the meat out, and set aside. If you have four shanks, do this in batches to avoid crowding the meat to get a good sear.
Lower the heat back to medium, add the carrots to the pan, and cook for a few minutes until just slightly softened. Add the stock to the pan to deglaze all the sticky brown bits, stir, and add the tomato sauce. Put your beef shanks back in the pot, add the garlic cloves, and add a few cups of water just to make sure the shanks are almost covered.
Stir in a few dried porcinis, a bay leaf, and a 1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary, or preferably a sprig of the fresh stuff. Bring to a simmer, cover, and pop in the oven for two hours. After two hours, add the carrot coins or other vegetables you’d like (potatoes would be good), and cook for another hour until the carrots are tender. Serve as is, or over a heaping portion of mashed potatoes. Top with a generous zesting of lemon, and some chopped parsley.
The next day, add some extra cooked meat you have on hand, or use the meaty broth to poach a few eggs in. Here’s mine on day two with some crumbled pork sausage.
by Sam Tackeff | Sep 22, 2012 | Challenge
I’m not sure how it happened already, but it seems that Fall has arrived. While New Englanders are already bracing themselves for what is likely to be a horrendous winter, I’m just so thrilled that my favorite season is here. Fall foliage, creative layering, mulled apple cider, pumpkin chocolate chip cake (though, not for a while yet for me), pumpkins, warm blankets and lingering in bed in the morning.. I love it all.
Fall also feels like renewal to me. For someone who loved school, I was always excited to be back in action come September. Even though I’m no longer a student, I always feel the urge to pick up new books and read all season long. Things happen in the fall.
Physically, I’m much more suited to fall. You don’t get overheated or sweaty, and you don’t freeze. In New England, there could be snow tomorrow, or 85 degree weather for the next two months, so I’ve learned not to take any good day for granted. And today was a glorious day. Temperature in the low 70’s, and it felt like summer, but this tree had eagerly shifted outfits. I’m so looking forward to the next few months.
This morning I had a late start, or at least, as late as my adult brain would allow me to go. Gone are the days where I could sleep in until noon. This is not a bad thing. After a few hours with a book, we headed out to Needham to pick up my race packet for tomorrow!
We opted for a brunch at Whole Foods, and each parted ways at the salad bar to find our own meal. I made a big colorful salad, with eggs, tomatoes, roasted peppers, squash, onions, carrots, cabbage, a little bit of sweet potato, a spoonful of cashews, oil and vinegar. On the side I treated myself to “dessert” – a Coconut Cream Pie LÄRABAR. The ingredients in these bars are great – dates, unsweetened coconut, almonds, cashews and coconut oil, and they taste delicious! (Dates however are super sweet, and this definitely was a treat for me, given that I’ve now had them two days in a row. Danger!)
After brunch, we finished up our errands with a trip to Pinkberry. Which I abstained from. Devon tried out their seasonal chocolate hazelnut flavor, and I had this delicious iced tea from the Starbucks next door. We sat outside for a while, people watching, chatting, and upgrading Devon’s phone to iOS 6. I’m likely going to switch to the iPhone 5 next month, and am looking forward to everything except for the switch from the awesome Google navigation to the travesty that is the current Apple dot thing. Even with the new turn by turn… y’all don’t know what you are missing.
In the late afternoon I headed out for my daily walk. An hour around the neighborhood listening to a podcast before returning home to make dinner. I finally found a good little route with walkable hills! My legs miss those Noe Valley walkabouts, and I’ve been yearning for steep inclines lately!
For dinner, I took out two lamb shoulder chops from the butcher, which I seasoned with salt, pepper and cumin. I then started on some cabbage – I chopped up a small 1/2 head of green cabbage which went on the stove with some of my homemade chicken stock, salt and pepper. I let it wilt down for about 10 minutes, seasoned it with some cumin and lime juice, and took it off the heat.
Then, I quickly fried up my chops. 3 minutes on each side for mine, and a few extra minutes for Devon’s.
I set them aside to rest, and fried up a single fresh pork sausage, and a tomato for myself. Here’s my dinner plate:
After dinner we watched Top Chef Masters (go Chris!) and Kenneth Brannaugh in Wallender. I can’t say enough about every single show from the BBC these days, and PBS for airing several incredible seasons of Masterpiece in a row.
Dessert, because I reckoned I hadn’t eaten enough today – a chopped up apple with a spoonful of coconut butter and a spoonful of almond butter.
Now, to bed, so I can get sleep before the race!
