Category Archives: FOOD & RECIPES

CHASING THE WRONG VILLAIN

Perhaps it is my age that I am conditioned to love a good chase scene. The cop in pursuit of the bad guy of course is the classic. Running down the lanes, and jumping over the fences. The famous car sequences like Steve McQueen in Bullitt, or the Bond films with car and boat chases come to mind.

But what if you are chasing the wrong villain?

Now you may think that this is where I pivot into talking politics and after giving a little acknowledgement to some of the current political monsters in the world (you know who they are) move to talk about Xi Jinping and how he is that sleeper that is going to really make a mess of the world during, or shortly after the American presidential election. No. I am not that smart.

What I am referring to is a nasty villain I learned about on my last trip to the Doctor. In various other posts I have covered some of the things I have learned at such visits. My “Doctor” is actually a clinic with several practitioners, all of whom seem to enjoy messing with me and my aging body.

But this time my usual designated General Practitioner at the clinic, wanted to talk about a villain I had ignored while trying to pursue the big nasties in my hypertension life: Fat, Sodium, Sugar, and Carbohydrates. While judiciously trying to cut down or avoid these four, Cholesterol was often there lurking in the wings I learned. Damb, I like brie cheese and milk, and eggs and croissants and….well, it’s a long list once you start into it. Those four current components I am already avoiding make me feel like a pinball. Just bouncing away from one only to bounce into another. And now there is one more pin to hit in trying to complete the course. Its not that I was chasing the wrong health thief, just that while chasing the right ones, another was picking my pocket.

My doctor is a bit of a character and I was leaving the office she called to me down the hall with a little afterthought that I should also think about joining a fraternity. My puzzled look was her queue to snicker: Omega 3

So last week there I was at the grocery store, with my glasses on, scribbling on my pad looking at some of my favourite foods and dutifully not letting them make it to the cart as they all have at least one of these five problem components in abundance, and most have many of them represented. I already eat a mess of vegetables and fruit but really need to up the beans, lentils, oats and oatmeal and some fatty fish like salmon for this cholesterol component. Dark chocolate is a crazy one. Its good to reduce the bad cholesterol, and to increase the good cholesterol but comes packaged up with lots of sugar and fat.

I take this health business personally and when I am not getting good blood pressure numbers indicating my hypertension is winning it gets me down. But you have to take it all in stride and not let one days bad numbers dampen your spirits if the day before you didnt go for a nice walk or were not as diligent in your food choices. Don’t beat yourself up, just resolve to do better the next day. I also know that there are a lot of people in the world who would love to trade their problems for mine.

Stay tuned. I will may survive this.

Django

MYSTERY SOUP

POSTED: APRIL 1, 2024

Just about year ago today I got a call from Janice. Now regular readers will know that I have a good relationship with Janice but my real history with Janice and Jim is with my buddy Jim I went to elementary school with and then high school, and after that toured around Europe with. So, getting a call from Janice instantly puts me on edge, sure that some terrible thing has happened to have her pick up the phone at a strategic hour to span a few time zones from Toronto to Malta. I was relieved to hear it was nothing like a health scare.

She was gearing up to make a nice meal for Jim and over a period of time heard a couple of people mention a soup that she had never heard of but thought it would be interesting to try as she and Jim really like soups of all kinds. I think it is the northern climate thing, where warm and cozy foods and beverages are comforting on a cool, cold or damp day. Soups, stews, hot chocolate, tea, coffee all do the job after digging cars out of snowbanks, shoveling snow, skating or skiing.

She had been all over the internet and could not find it and thought that with my history working in kitchens that I might have a lead on it or be able to reach out to some of my friends who are chefs, cooks, or otherwise working with food.

Square soup. Yeah, square soup. No, I had never heard of it but would put out some feelers with a bunch of chefs I had worked with over the years. Janice knew that having worked in the kitchens of cruise ships, I have a long list of friends all over the world who still work in kitchens, some as chefs, some as cooks, some bar and restaurant owners and some just working to survive. It took the better part of a day to get a number of responses as they reflected a lot of different time zones – Asia, America, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, mid Pacific and mid Atlantic. Most of the responses were the same, (other than the personal updates) “nope – never heard of it”.

After spending a lot of time on this I was frustrated to not have something more definitive but sent her the two leads I had come up with.

The first was Square Meal Soup from a girl I had worked with who today was involved in a little restaurant in Reykjavik. It is a stew of meat and vegetables and potatoes or other root vegetables. It sounded like a pretty flavorful meal in a bowl and I have enjoyed some with these ingredients myself. Nope that was not it.

My second one I knew would probably even be further off the mark: Square Grouper Soup. Now this one is not well known and is a local joke in the Florida Keys. When people would smuggle in bales of marijuana by boat and coast guard officials would come up to the “fishermen” to ask what they were catching they would often respond Grouper, but then when the official would leave, joke about the bales of marijuana they had thrown overboard as Square Grouper. Square Grouper Soup is a soup made with seaweed. I know that does not sound appealing but there are some very tasty, and nutrient rich seaweeds out there, and when cooked in a soup all look like marijuana.

Nope that was not it she assured me.

SQUARE SOUP

She did however say she had a lead on it and would get back to me later in the day.

So just after midnight on April 1^st she sent an email with the following recipe and picture and hoped I would enjoy my first day of April.

SQUARE SOUP RECIPE

INGREDIENTS: You can use almost any vegetable you like, as well as various meats, seasonings etc. Really there are no limitations.

STYLE: Consommé’s, broths, cream soups, bisques, chowders…again, its pretty wide open.

VESSEL: This is the key. In contrast to the traditional bowl, designed for a spoon to hug each arc of a conventional soup bowl, square soup needs to be served in a square container.

Django

P.S. Just a few little shout-outs to:

Salute On The Beach,

1000 Atlantic Blvd, Key West, Florida Salute! On The Beach | Key West, Florida (saluteonthebeach.com)

Square Grouper Bar and Grill

22658 Overseas Hwy, Cudjoe Key, FL https://squaregrouperbarandgrill.com/

Matarkjallarinn (The Food Cellar) Adalstraeti 2, Reykjavik, Iceland.

Home – Food Cellar (matarkjallarinn.is)

REPLACING CREAM SAUCES WITH SAWDUST

POSTED: July 1, 2023

Some time ago I started into this challenge of getting my blood pressure numbers in line. In my January 1 post My Doctor Does Not Know Jack, I introduced the issue of getting those numbers down. Part of the equation is getting some exercise, part is consistent sleep, a good dollop of cutting back on the alcohol and getting into a good head space. But a substantial portion is simply changing a diet from one that has an abundance of fat, sugar, carbohydrates and salt to one that eliminates or significantly reduces these components.

What complicates things is that each individual responds differently to the various elements. One person might have sugar as their real culprit, while another may be more affected by the carbs. So its important to experiment and find out which one is your real problem and then build a diet to respond to that. But with that said, if you are managing hypertension, cutting back on all of them is good plan.

Now this is easy to do on the short term, but if you like food, it is a bit of a challenge on a longer term basis. You just can’t replace a nice crème sauce with sawdust and expect to get the same effect.

What are the tricks? Well one that is not really a trick at all but something every gardener knows: fresh = flavour. It is pretty hard to beat anything that is just off the vine or out of the ground. I have heard my buddy Jim go on at some length about being a young boy and going to his great uncle Charlies big garden behind Aunt Josie and Uncle Charlies house in a little village close to Jims parents cottage. Uncle Charlie would go take him down one of the many rows and pull up some fresh carrots and then wash them in the rain barrel and eat one, still wet from the rain barrel with Jim right there in the garden. Fresh. Really Fresh.

So either growing your own vegetables, or buying at a fresh market is a good start. A sliced tomato that is super fresh doesn’t need a lot of dressing up.

But what of sauces? I really like using sauces as a way to take some rather pedestrian proteins like chicken in a more tasty direction. A good starting point is to move away from the ones of my heritage – the really heavy crème based French ones, and move to more of the vegetable based (often Italian) ones.

Tomatoes, green beans, broccoli all are full of nutrients, and onions and garlic and mushrooms can add texture and flavour without adding anything else.

The “sauce” I have been working with most recently is diced tomatoes. I know that in the winter I may have to move to canned diced tomatoes and even that will be fine if needed but getting a variety of nice fresh tomatoes, especially the ones that have peaked and may not be as attractive visually just sliced up can be a very powerful sauce. I have also taken to using mushrooms as a substitute for potatoes. Because I cook for several people, most of which are not having to watch their blood pressure numbers I will prepare some nice Yukon gold potatoes for them and have some cremini mushrooms for myself.

What follows is a simple one pot dish that I enjoy, has great specs for anyone watching those blood pressure numbers or wants to lose some weight, and is nice enough to be served to guests.

INGREDIENTS

Skinless, boneless chicken breasts – one small piece per person cut in half to make two roughly square portions. I am moving away from the whole carnivore consumption so while not becoming a vegetarian the size of the meat portion I have really cut back on, and a dish like this one allows that to happen rather organically. Not a bad way to go with the price of meat these days anyway.

One medium tomato per person, diced – More is better but a minimum of one medium or a couple of smaller ones. If small roma’s are at a good price go with two or three for each person or two thirds of a big beefsteak tomato but the key thing here is that you want to end up with about a cup of diced tomato or more per person. At the end of the day these are going to be cooked so if there are some on sale that are really ripe, but don’t look quite like the super models of the basket those will be great.

Small Potatoes and Cremini mushrooms – why are these together ? Well four or five small potatos each for those who are not looking at the specs and a similar number of mushrooms for the ones who are is a nice route to go.

Green Beans – A handful of fresh green beans, or French beans per person makes a good bed for the dish, both in terms of a component of the meal as well as the visual.

Other Vegetables – this is a matter of taste. You can put in broccoli or some carrots cut up finely and onions, garlic or zucchini or bell peppers etc. This is all a matter of personal taste but you don’t need to add any if you don’t want to as those flavourful tomatoes will carry the day.

Herbs – if you are adding a bunch of veggies to this sauce then I would not add herbs but I have found just going with the diced tomatoes and some nice cilantro or parsley makes a very nice sauce without creating too many conflicting tastes.

Spices- Some people are spice crazy and at times I will add them, particularly in the winter or in a context where I don’t have the fresh components to really carry the meal but if you have made this with the fresh tomatoes and it is going over some fresh green beans, I would leave the spices in their drawer or rack for this one.

PREPARATION

As usual you clean, cut and otherwise prep all components first. While I call this a one pot dish and if camping you could do it that way I prefer to have a second pot of water with a steamer as well as using a larger pot, jumbo cooker or large covered sauce pan.

The starting point is the little potatoes go into the pan with the water and bring to a rolling boil. We are starting the boiling process with them as they take a bit longer.

The washed and cut chicken gets a light dusting of canola or vegetable oil and then jumps into jumbo cooker, or sauce pan brown each side. If you have a grill it is a great way to go. The key thing here is whether in a pan or on the grill, this is all about the visual. No one wants to eat something that looks like a big white erasure, so we are giving it a bit of character before we actually cook it.

If you are working with onions I would then put the meat aside for a moment and just put in your cut onions to soften up a bit before proceeding, otherwise just leave the chicken in the pot or pan and add your tomatoes.

If you are adding any other vegetable this is where they would go in.

The pot is covered and then goes into the oven at 375 f and set a timer for 30 minutes.

Whenever those boiling potatoes have lost their really hard texture (but have not become soft to a fork) we are going to get them out of the water and add them to the pot in the oven.

When the timer is getting down to about seven or eight minutes put the green beans in the steamer insert and a few minutes later add the mushrooms on top.

When the timer goes put a thermometer in the thickest portion of the chicken pieces and if it is at 160 or higher you can turn off the oven and check the green beans that should now be soft to a fork.

Plate up the green beans with two pieces of chicken on top of each and a dollop of the tomato sauce. Place the potatoes around the outside of the plate for those able to have them and the mushrooms around the plate for others. The chicken will be moist, the beans will not need to be seasoned as the diced tomatoes will also have helped with that.

This meal I also find lends itself very well to doubling up and reheating a day to two later but you will want to do the mushrooms and green beans on the day you are eating.

Django

P.S. In my little vegetable pot garden I have stopped committing the space to tomatoes and just buy those fresh but have had great success with lettuce this year. I cant bear to cut up some of those amazing leaves for a salad though so just clean them and put them down whole for a salad. I have also found that n contrast to the specs for using any kind of vinaigrette or oil based salad dressing the numbers are pretty good to just use a drizzle of balsamic glaze. If you are eating with others who can have it, a piece of focaccia or other nice bread can really round out the dish.

ANOTHER KILLER ADDED TO THE LIST

POSTED: Sept 1, 2022

I like eating and drinking. There I said it. Flavours, textures, smells, umami. I like holding burgers and corn on the cob in my hand, cutting fresh bread, and breaking a just out of the oven scone. I also like cooking and smelling the change when zucchini slices just start to grill or onions begin to caramelize, or a simmering Irish oatmeal wafts through my little kitchen in the morning.

So as I have passed through the last few decades it has been a real disappointment for me to learn at various points about the perils of many of the elements that make food so great. Those scientists want us to live forever, and keep identifying the bits that close up our arteries, screw up our hearts or brain or cause cancers.

Now we don’t need to manage these things. Like exercise, a “proper” diet will mean we will probably live a normal life but a “perfect” diet will result in us outliving our friends and there will be no one to say nice things about us at our funeral. But on the other hand if we want to hang out a little longer than otherwise we really have to manage our intake of these monsters, especially if we aren’t about to submit to an exercise regime!

Fats of course were the first nasty to be identified, particularly those trans fats. The latter had never been a big part of my life but conventional fats of course were. Yes, you can reduce their component in a dish, use substitutes and other tricks to reduce if you are cooking at home but if you go out to dinner or buy take away food or prepared dishes at the supermarket – there they are, lurking behind the proteins and green vegetables ready to ambush you.

The same is the case for salt. My buddy Jims paternal grandmother used salt like she was melting an icy winter road. Almost killed the taste of everything with it on her own plate but when making a nice tourtiere or pie for others she would restrain herself. Virtually any product you buy in a grocery store that is not a vegetable or a meat is full of sodium. Almost anything in a can or jar is loaded up with it. I have almost cut it out as a component in my cooking but must admit that there are a few things that I still will put a little pinch on.

Being a baby boomer, an ever-present part of my childhood was sugar. Everything was better with sugar. And if the massive dose of sugar in the products was not enough well lets just put a few extra spoonful’s on your cereal Django.

Some things are the holy trinity of these three – Ice cream – fat, sugar, salt and you might just want to put some more sugar sprinkles on top. I love a good ice cream cone but it has been ruined for me given what comes hidden in that lovely treat. Now sometimes I make homemade frozen yogurt, or a nice fruit sorbet that are better on the nasty components but just don’t measure up on the taste front.

You may wonder why I am ranting on about fat, salt and sugar. Well, I was watching the BBC last week and they ran a piece on a recent study. Apparently, alcohol is a carcinogen. Yeah, that age old favourite is killing us. When I dug a little deeper I learned this has been fairly well documented for some time, but of course the industry does not want to promote this, nor the governments who tax the product and enjoy the employment numbers from its sale directly as well as the sale of wine beer and other alcoholic drinks in restaurants. And beyond governments own self interest the alcohol lobby is massive. It may be bigger than the NRA in its various efforts around the world.

At this point in time it is becoming clear that a good time is to be had with a glass of water and a celery stick and its only a matter of time before we learn just how terrible that celery can be.

I am not about to cut out all the fats and salts and sugars and alcohol but want to be around a bit longer so will do my best to try to keep them in check but not beat myself up when I fall off the wagon. This week I have taken to only having wine on the weekend. Boy its hard to do. It has been a long week so far and its only Wednesday!

Django

LEFTOVERS

Posted: April 1, 2022

Leftovers. Just the name has a bunch of strange connotations for people. I knew a couple of kids in high school who cringed at the idea. They had moms who were workaholics who would make something totally unmemorable on Sunday and make a big batch of it so that is what they would have each night of the week. YIKES. One was the kid of a doctor. Her mom must have had some idea of nutrition, but she would make this monster mound of rice or pasta with lots of pork and chicken and vegetables, and it would start out as fresh, and could have been good but always was executed badly, and by the end of the week would resemble what I imagine boiled brains to be like.

So those are not the leftovers I am talking about. My notion of leftovers is cooking with leftovers in mind. It has become one of my most popular demonstration courses in the little cooking classes I have been doing at the marina. Some people who are living on their boats have families but most are couples or singles so the classes have been popular and anything that can make meal prep time more inviting is welcomed.

My passion for leftovers comes from three sources. Living on a boat means I am not as cavalier as some who have kitchens with an abundance of refrigeration and preparation space so that drives part of my motivation. Part of it comes from my time with my Bebe, my paternal grandmother for those of you new to this website, who lived in a time and place where farm to table was not a new notion but the only way it was done. Whether it was a fish from the ocean or vegetables from the field they were picked, taken to market, and mainly eaten that day – and no parts wasted as the remaining elements were worked into the next days meal. And the third part of my passion for leftovers comes from my experience on the big cruise ships as an application of conventional commercial techniques. Any product that is brought onto the ship as an edible makes its way to a plate. Where waste is generated on a ship it is with the consumer once it hits the plate.

But before I dive into this topic further, I should reveal my passion (borderline lust) for refrigeration. Refrigeration is just about the coolest innovation in history. Yes, I realize what I just said. I think it is a bigger deal than the microchip or the internet or putting some inbred scientist on the moon. Refrigeration, particularly in hot climates has done so much for nutrition and disease reduction and for the rest of the world for time management. It has also been particularly beneficial for the female gender. Living on a boat, I don’t have as much fridge and freezer capacity as most people so I use it judiciously, but there have been times in my past where when I have been working in land-based kitchens, the most important appliance in the room was always the fridge and freezer. While it is true that we all have preferences in ranges and kitchen layouts and steamers and countertops, a good cook or chef can cook with a little butane flame on the hood of car, but still needs a way to keep ingredients fresh until use.

Some of the notes I get from readers remind me that more pictures are a good thing. Well I recently discovered a couple of images from Walters kitchen. It was full of refrigeration. A large fridge with freezer space as well as a couple of under counter freezer drawers and a pantry with another freezer as well. If you are new to this website you can read about my life with Walter in posts from April and August of 2016.

THINKING ABOUT MEAL PLANNING WHEN SHOPPING

Some people think about ingredient shopping as one-off exercises for each meal, other than those staples we keep on hand that have many applications. For these people cooking is a new hobby. The recipe is consulted, the list made and ingredients purchased, the meal prepared and enjoyed, pictures taken and posted on Instagram. When I reference meal planning or grocery shopping this is not the model I am talking about. Grocery shopping is an exercise to get all those components for multiple meals, where the orchestration of the next several days meal planning has been considered.

This whole process of what is being acquired, how its being used and the associated meal planning is something that commercial kitchens do very well.

In a commercial kitchen a whole chicken is cut up and those fresh chicken supremes or breasts are on the menu for tonight. For tomorrow, the thighs, and other good proteins go into the chicken pot pie, and the remainder goes into the pot for chicken stew or chicken stock/ soup the day after. It is a matter of mindset going into the exercise. It is very efficient if planned and very cost effective as often a whole chicken does not cost much more than two breasts.

Planning a week of meals, even if you shop multiple times a week sets you up for using different components over that time, with fresh elements being added as you go.

FOOD PREP FOR MULTIPLE MEALS

While the prep stage is hyped up as a sexy fun thing to do, with wine flowing, lots of conversation and nibbling on some apps while prepping the main course with some nice music on in the background, it is often something less exciting than this – particularly if its food prep just for yourself or a regular meal for the family and not a special dinner. So using that preparation time for multiple meals really helps.

One thing I really like when I am not cooking for a group but only for one or two is to prepare the protein the way you would for a dinner for six, but pull all but the components you would be serving that night aside early before fully cooked. Grilling for example. Prepare six fresh chicken breasts, grill them and then take four of them off the grill after they get their marks for presentation, but before being fully cooked and put two of them away in the fridge and freeze the other two. The next night or the one after, take out the two from the fridge, and just put them in a covered heatproof container with a little white wine in the bottom and cook at 350f for 20 minutes. They will be fresh, tender, and often moister than the original ones.

A similar trick is when you come home from the market or grocery store with a bunch of pork fillets or chicken that was on at a good price and you are not even planning on having for several days and planning on freezing. Get them all on the grill, or in to roast to give them their presentation and do the heavy lifting on cooking, then freeze them all. When you want them, just pull out the quantity you need, let them defrost in the fridge and they are ready for that same reheat technique.

Similarly, if you have worked up a pretty nice salad dressing, make up enough for a couple of servings and put it in the fridge, making the salad a little less time consuming in a couple of nights.

MAKE THE WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF THE PARTS

Ciara has been living on the boat long enough that she is really onto what I do. She has come to asking me whether we will be having end of week soup. As the week progresses and the fresh green beans are not as fresh, and the wonderful mushrooms are looking tired, I just grab a basic can of vegetable soup (when working land-based and not on a boat, it would have been a nice vegetable stock I had made some time before and divided and frozen) but instead of adding one can of water (or store bought stock) with it I will add three, then put in a lot of past-their-peak green beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, slice up a few potatoes fairly thin and perhaps a carrot the same way, and maybe a stock of celery and a half an onion cut up pretty roughly. The components are just what you have left at the end of the period before your next shopping. If you don’t have much that week for the pot throw in a handful of dry pasta or rice. This is what you do with the rice or pasta that is left after accurately measuring for rice or pasta dishes and you have some small orphan amounts. We all have these.

It just all goes into the pot and after simmering away for half an hour I will try it, usually adding a few fresh herbs and sometimes some garlic and pepper. I never add salt to soup I make this way as the little can of soup I start with always has too much sodium to start with, so this treatment really rounds it out.

I then have this as a little side soup for the next several days.

And sometimes on the second day or third day I will then, with the soup ready to go and only taking a heat up time, I put my effort into making a little focaccia bread or a foucasse to have with it.

SOME THINGS ARE BETTER AS LEFTOVERS

Its easy to think of ways to work all of your food products as left overs and plan your meals accordingly once you get your head into it. I love a slice of fresh baguette with piece of brie cheese on it and a little dab of red pepper jelly. Equally there are few things worse than a day-old baguette with anything. But it can be fabulous for a bread pudding, or cut into cubes, tossed with some olive oil and dried herbs and put in the oven at 375f on a baking sheet for just a few minutes (turn them at least once) and they are the best croutons for a Caesar salad.

The result is that the second day or third day is a meal as good as the first, but with a different application of the original product. The trick of course is to plan your meals ahead based on the sequencing. Most big commercial kitchens have boards letting the prep staff know what the big plan is for a moving multi-day cycle. You just need a little notepad.

I do this same application a lot with my little fresh herb garden I keep in a few pots. When I get a bit too much basil ahead for example I will just roast up some pine nuts and make some pesto to use that excess. Another one I like for the herbs is making herb infused oil. Sometimes I use olive oil but other times vegetable or canola and just wash the herbs that are extras, cut them up (not too fine) and put them in the oil for a few days, then strain off the herbs and the oil will have a nice herb taste.

LEAPFROGGING

When I am cooking for just one or two, I will also leapfrog dishes so the leftover stigma doesn’t kick in. The grilled chicken on Monday (that I did a couple extra breasts and pulled out early as described above) will appear again two days later, but with different vegetables and perhaps a sauce I have made with the extra prep time available. Any day I am doing a protein from scratch I will just do steamed vegetables but on the days I am just doing a reheat of the protein that’s the day I will spend more time on a better vegetable recipe that will also last a couple of days. It makes the exercise of preparing a meal for one or two much less overwhelming as part of each days main meal everyday is already done.

So those are my thoughts on leftovers. I know that sometimes in my little posts I dive into heavier topics but in a world that has a lot of problems and many of us have the associated anxiety that comes with each of them, sometimes meal planning, including thinking about leftovers is just a nice way to put one foot in front of the other to move forward.

Django

P.S. When I was working on this post, Martha strolled by and asked what I was working on. She was dropping off the bottles of wine she and Malcolm buy for us every week in exchange for me preparing most of the meals. Now Martha is a bit older than I, in her late seventies I think, but when I told her the topic was leftovers she immediately asked if they were “the ones remaining without a connection after speed dating?” I may never think of leftovers the same way again.

MEASURES

Posted: Sept 1, 2021

I was cooking one afternoon a couple of weeks ago for our usual evening dinner with Malcolm, Martha, Gabriel and Gerhard and was watching the Olympics. I am a bit of an Olympics junkie, watching whatever event the live feed is spitting out and absorbing all the minutiae offered whether about the athletes personal bests to date, their training regime, the diets, previous records or performing in different weather conditions. Now when the Olympics are not on, I have no interest in diving or running or throwing a shot put, but during the Olympics … well that’s anther matter.

So leading up to the Olympics I go into training. The exercise of watching hours of coverage is just the opposite of exercise so you need to be in shape. Nevertheless, by day three or four of competition my gut is large, my eyes the size of saucers and I should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery.

To offset these perils of binging the Olympics, I try to do other things while watching, like cooking or refinishing part of the mahogany on some of En Plein Airs trim. It is actually a nice combo. While cooking and enjoying the heptathletes competing in the long jump I realized how my relationship with measurement has changed over the years. The Olympics is all about measurement of course. Whether it is the length they have flown through the air on a pole vault, thrown a javelin or the time it takes to run 400 meters it is all about those measures.

Growing up when I did (born in 1954) and where I did (Canada) we had a legacy of Imperial measures from before the enlightenment (when we changed to metric in April 1975) so like many of my age from Canada, I use a crazy mix of measures. I drive in Km/hr, do my carpentry in inches, think of temperature in Celsius and weigh myself in pounds. Add to this the other common measures – teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, half cups, B cups and C cups. I envy the younger people who have a more streamlined life.

It got me to thinking about an old buddy who has an interest in measurement. He collects various old instruments for measuring and has a particular fixation on those measuring or calculation devices that were the state of the art – until they were not. Its tough to decide where his interests fit on the fetish spectrum. Watching the Olympics from Tokyo reminds me that the Japanese have a term Otaku which means: an interest that is more than a passion and less than an obsession. Good term if you don’t want to call it a fetish, I think.

Of course, he as an Astrolabe and a Sextant, the original GPS devices for sailors to determine where they were in the ocean from the location of the stars and would be seriously messed up on cloudy or rainy nights.

Slide Rule With Holster

He has several slide rules of course. The slide rule was the device that was the best tool we had until electronic calculators took over that role. Right up to the early 1970’s this was a compulsory math instrument for high school students. It was what many of the calculations were done on for the Americans to put a man on the moon. If you were an Engineering student in the 1960’s wearing one in a holster on your belt indicated you had a license to calculate.

This took on a competitive aspect of course when various universities would compete for doing calculations and these competitors would use both their eye/hand coordination, and muscle memory skills with much too large a mental processor to zip the sliding parts back and forth to come up with the answer in record time.

One of my buddy’s valued objects is a slide rule he bought from the University of Chicago Engineering School of computing.

Engineering Lab Slide Rule

It is almost eight feet long and was attached to a wall behind the instructor in a large lecture hall. The professor would demonstrate its use to the eager engineering students and they would follow along using their regular sized slide rules.

Tech Nerds In Foreplay

So what happened in 1974? Well, the electronic calculator cost had come down enough to make it suitable for general use by the public and overnight the slide rule was not only second fiddle, but was eliminated. Poof.

Some measurement devices do endure of course. He has an Omega Seamaster Professional Chronometer– the same one that James Bond had in one of those thrillers but my buddy claims his malfunctions because all it does is tell time. And the time it tells of course while not as precise as the least expensive of smart phones today is pretty damb accurate and based on a technology that has not changed essentially in hundreds of years.

I think that part of his interest in these technologies and their obsolescence is looking to find what are real measures that last and have meaning, like the measure of a person. Relationships, integrity, loyalty. It is interesting that none of these are really quantifiable yet are more highly valued as measures than the quantifiable ones.

When I worked on the food prep areas of cruise ships, we had to be precise in our measures so Mr. Mcgillicutty’s soup would be exactly like Mrs. McGillicutty’s and so when he raved about it over cards, Dr. Garfunkel would order it the next day and have the same dining experience.

And as a guy who likes to cook and occasionally bake, I get the importance of the use of measures, but increasingly I am drawn to those things that are more fluid or nuanced than precise. If you read many of my posts you will know of my bromance with Jamie Oliver and Jacques Pepin and the whole movement to experimentation, adaptation, and interpretation. Those concepts require some structure, and a goal but not as precise a measurement. Now I am talking cooking here, not baking – and measures in baking are a bit fixed.

It was only after I wrote this and was relating to Ciara the focus of this piece, that Ciara pointed out the obvious.

Django’s Measuring Cup

I use a measuring cup that was given to me by my Bebe. Now, if you don’t know who that is I would suggest going back to my posts from 2020, 2019 and few from 2015 and earlier. She is my paternal grandmother, from a little island off of Brittany, who has now passed. She gave me an old glass measuring cup when I was first starting to work on the kitchens of ships and she mistakenly thought that my job related to making food, more than the truth of it which was working in a food preparation plant for pigs at sea. It was very tired even then, and over the years with use, and too much time in dishwashers, all the numbers have worn off completely but because it was from her it is one of the few measuring cups I have on En Plein Air, and it is what I use almost exclusively and think of her when doing so.

But the point here is that it is reflective of my take on the world today. I know that when it is largely filled, its one cup, and when its about half full it’s ….well you guessed it – half a cup. It is important that we get things largely right and measure them properly but perhaps not as important that we be precise and beat ourselves up or beat up others for not being as precise. This “sorta measure” is where I am today in trying to understand how to move forward in understanding life, particularly life in Covid times.

After reflecting on this clear glass object a bit, I decided to introduce another item in the Django shop. It is the Django Bisous Measuring Cup. There are no measures, but you will still know how to use it. Coming soon….

Django

Measurement Park

P.S.

After posting this I received a note from the partner of the buddy who is into collecting all the measuring stuff.

I had called it an interest and his partner pointed out to me that when they moved to their current house they did so partially because the little park that is close to them is called MEASUREMENT PARK and has various measures shown on poles.

Ok, so that definitely puts his interest on the fetish spectrum.

JACQUES PEPIN – QUICK & SIMPLE

Posted: July 1, 2021

Regular readers will know I have a thing for Jamie Oliver and not that long ago did a review of his new cookbook and something of a critique of his other books. Well, I have been known to get some cookbooks by other chefs out of the library too. This one, JACQUES PEPIN- QUICK & SIMPLE, is one I put my name down for some time ago and have watched over the months my progress on the list and a couple of weeks ago it arrived.

Jacques Pepin

So the rest of this little review is scattered with Jacques art work from the book just as the book itself has at times flourishes of art and at other times just little pinches.

To put things in historical context, in 1970, when Nigella Lawson was ten and learning some things in the kitchen, Jamie Oliver was not even born, and Gordon Ramsey was in his parents kitchen throwing knives at his teddy bear and screaming at the little bear that it had no place in his kitchen, Jacques had already earned his stripes apprenticing in French kitchens, worked as a chef at Maxims, been the personal chef to three French heads of state including De Gaulle, and had moved to the U.S. The move to America was intended to be a short tack on his ultimate course but became a permanent diversion. He went on to a culinary teaching career and a new television career introducing the American public to great everyday cooking through various shows on PBS.

So how has this book stood up over time? Well even with the update and the artwork it is a bit dated. Two hundred and fifty recipes are still there but with not enough photos, by current measures, and many are so basic by todays standards you might not consider them a recipe at all.

With that said this book as a great starting point when learning what to do in the kitchen and for many, could work as the only cookbook they buy.

And that is because Jacques likes technique, so while you are preparing a recipe he is secretly teaching you technique. The recipe for Jamie Oliver is the deal, the use of a recipe as a way to teach technique is Jacques.

What the book is also pretty good for is one comprehensive cooking course from soup to nuts giving you lots of recipes but teaching you the methods of preparation along the way.

The table of contents tells the story: BASICS; APPETIZERS & SALADS; SOUPS, PIZZAS & HOT SANDWICHES; PASTA & RICE; LEGUMES & VEGETABLES; SHELFISH & FISH; EGGS, POULTRY & MEAT; DESERTS.

As a result, when perusing the Bread section it is actually a little course in bread baking. Its not Paul Hollywood for 300 pages but it’s a great way for those of us who are not bread bakers to try it.

I have made a half dozen of the dishes now and one that stands out for me in this recipe technique businesses was Scaloppini of Turkey with Scallions. This recipe teaches how to sauté any thin meat – veal, turkey, chicken etc. Most of us think of grilling for several minutes, roasting or baking for an hour, but Jacque gently takes us through the process of sautéing for only one and a half minutes per side, then letting that cooking process finish off in a low temp oven (140f). Is the recipe simple -yes, is the little course in technique a good one – yes. That’s Jacques.

Scaloppini of Turkey

Another recipe I liked a lot was Poached Cod with Black Butter and Capers. Poaching has a really nasty connotation for some of us over a certain age. It comes dangerously close to boiling meat – something that some of our mothers did.

Now strap in, I am going off on a bit of a tangent here.

When I was a young kid, some moms worked at paying jobs and were looked down on by regular moms, even if those working moms were discovering a cure for some disease or other noble cause. It is because after the war there were often not enough jobs for the men who were returning and taking those positions was considered taboo. Long after that rationale for the bias, it remained a snobby perspective. Some moms did volunteer work and that was considered alright if they did not get paid. A mom’s job was as a homemaker and part of that was to keep the house organized, keep us kids on the straight and narrow, and to make sure there was always something good for meals on the table.

Yeah, they were pretty stupid times.

Not every woman was cut out for this limited scope of work, and while some absolutely relished it, others were absolutely terrible at it. This later group had no idea how to cook and would regularly produce the most awful of dinners.

Why am I off on this tangent? Well, its about the poaching. Some moms had no idea what to do with a nice roast and would boil it. The mom that comes to mind is Joey H’s mom. She was not a regular mom at all. To start, she looked like more of an older sister than a mom. She dressed like Marilyn Monroe and drove a Thunderbird convertible. Their house was not very traditional, both on the outside and the inside and was what today we would call mid century modern.

Joeys’ dad was always away on business. I mean ALWAYS away on business. I never met the guy.

The first time a few of us were over at Joey’s for dinner she was drinking a martini and about to go out with friends to dinner. Our parents only did that for their anniversary, but she went out at least once a week. She had bought this expensive roast at the butcher, because she and Joey always ordered food in, and he had asked her if she could get some stuff that would be like what his friends moms made. The huge roast was sitting in a big pot on the top of the stove with lots of water in it and she had cranked up the burner so it would boil. She kissed Joey and left in a cab.

There was this big piece of meat in the pot with the water, a raw potato on the counter and in the fridge a lemon, some olives and some milk. She looked like a million bucks but wasn’t much of a mom.

Fortunately, one of the guys was Gino T and he told us to turn off the stove, get the meat out of there and he would be back. He came back with some olive oil, some pasta, Italian parsley and a big piece of cheese. I was told to cut the big piece of meat into little strips, joey was on the task of scrapping the big block of cheese to get a big bowl of scrapings and Gino got the pasta going in the big pot Joeys mom had set out. The other guys set the table and turned on the record player. Gino found a skillet and put in some oil and the little meat strips I had cut and before long we were sitting down to a dinner that was better than I had at home usually, and Joey, Gino and the few other guys and I were pretty pleased with ourselves.

We all told Joey’s mom that we had loved the dinner and from then on about once every couple of weeks she would get in a big roast, leave us to go out for the evening and we would pull out various things Gino had set us off to pilfer from our parents pantries during the week. When asked by the other moms what the secret was that we all loved when over at their house Joey’s mom would proudly announce the trick was that she boiled a roast. Many a regular mom ruined some good meat after that trying to duplicate her boiled roast.

Joeys mom appreciated the positive comments and as a person with some of her own challenges in life, and with us kids liking our night out without any supervision, we all kept the secret, and she got to walk a little taller when seen by the other moms. She still wasn’t regular but now she was ok.

Until today the secret has been kept by Gino, Joey a few other friends and me. Sorry Joey but it’s been over fifty-five years that I have kept that secret but now its out there.

Poached Cod, Black Butter & Capers

So how is poaching different than boiling? It’s all about the timing. Poaching just heats up the protein quickly and while keeping it moist, then you get it out of the water dry it off and marry it with a nice warm sauce. For this to work of course it also is not a big roast but a delicate piece of fish in this Poached Cod with Black Butter and Capers example. Bring two cups of water to a boil in a saucepan, add the fish and bring back to a gentle boil then only leave it there for about two minutes (or up to an extra minute if the fillets are really thick). Dry off the fillets and put on some capers, shredded basil leaves and some brown butter sauce. If you have not made it before black or brown butter sauce is four tablespoons of unsalted butter, and one tablespoon of olive oil with a little salt and pepper, you have heated in a skillet until it has turned to a consistent light brown colour.

My baking skills are pretty rudimentary but I love to eat baked goods so I was very pleased with the Bread section in this book. This is basically a set of recipes to teach Cheats. Cheats I have referenced before. They are the short cut techniques used by commercial cooks and chefs to get to the finished result the easy way. The three very simple recipes for Fougasse (that leaf shaped bread), breakfast rolls and Focaccia are all really great ones for both the results and learning those cheats. I am going to be making these a lot in the future.

Fougasse & Breakfast Rolls

Is this book the new hottest thing? No. But it is a very worthwhile, large, comprehensive cookbook for novice home cooks to learn from, and for more seasoned home cooks to expand their skill set. Since handing back my library copy, I have bought my own, and that’s something for a guy with limited space on a liveaboard.

Django

CHICKEN CACCIATORE WITH MUSHROOMS FOR VEGETARIANS?

Posted: Feb 15, 2021

I did a little review of the book, JAMIE OLIVER 7 WAYS several weeks ago. As I make it through the recipes some that are particularly good I will do a little shout out on. I have made about a dozen of the recipes from this book to date and one that stands out for me (I have now done it a few times) is in his Mushroom section – Chicken Cacciatore with Mushrooms.

My experience with cookbooks is that most recipes you make the first time faithfully to the recipe. The next time you adopt it for your own tastes or what you have available. If it is something you enjoyed or saw some potential in, and are going to make it a third time you don’t pull out the recipe, but just reproduce it for memory and that’s when you really start to find which ones will come back into your repertoire regularly and you start to adapt them to you, instead of taking what’s offered.

In this dish, Jamie seasons up six chicken thighs, throws them in a large pan with a lid with a tablespoon of oil for ten minutes. After flipping them a few times, he then marries them up with a couple of handfuls of ripped apart mushrooms, about four sprigs of stripped but not chopped rosemary, half a cup of red wine, a couple of red onions finely chopped, and a jar of roasted red bell peppers and keeps it on the burner for about ten minutes. He then puts in a couple medium cans of plum tomatoes, bakes it in the oven at 175 c or 350 f for about an hour. It makes four servings and it’s a good dish, but I found the first time it needed to be put on a little bed of rice to really flesh out a meal.

For me what I found I enjoyed more was rough cutting those onions instead of finely chopping them, and adding a can of mixed beans (lima, kidney, pinto, black). The effect is a bit of a really quick mock cassoulet. This way it also doesn’t need anything else if it is your meal, other than perhaps a nice piece of baguette or two.

This variation also allows you to throttle back on the chicken thighs. There was a time when vegetarianism was a binary thing – you embrace it whole hog – (oops -whole potato?) or you remain a Fred Flintstone type of carnivore. But today, the merits of vegetarianism are not lost on many of us who still eat meat, but have dialed way back on, or eliminated our red meat, and go with a pretty small portion of any kind of animal protein on the plate. So, a dish like this lets you find that place on the carnivore- herbivore spectrum you fit. Perhaps those six chicken thighs can be four or three. You are still getting lots of protein in those beans we have added. At four thighs, this dish is producing four servings so that is a good way to get that animal consumption down but keeping your proteins and complex carbs up.

Next time I am going to see about substituting some big (chewy protein) Portobello mushroom strips or some tofu for the chicken.

Django

JAMIE OLIVER SEVEN WAYS

POSTED: January 15, 2021

I usually have a bunch of ideas on the go for my posts. Some are things I will start and then let sit and simmer for a while as if they are a stew, or bouillabaisse, while others just slop out. For some time I have had a little post on the go on cookbooks. The range of topics they can cover, some weird ones I have seen, some recommendations etc. The problem is that I have gotten off track on a regular basis – that pesky U.S. election last year for example.

So now I am off track again and that’s because of Jamie Oliver and Jacques Pepin. They both have new cookbooks out and I have borrowed them from the library and am consuming them like mad.

Now this discussion of Jamie’s new book Jamie Oliver Seven Ways, is not a very objective review. I love this guy. So the most critical I get with him is in comparing one of his books that I LOVE in contrast to another of his books I might LIKE.

Janice and Jim’s daughter Jade does book reviewing for her regular gig and brings lots of insight and depth of knowledge to bear so the reader is not only introduced to the book but often many of the same genre or focus or at least a few that she will use to compare and contrast. So I am going to try to do that as well.

So where do we start? He has written twenty-four books including this one. Of those, some are just his regional diversions – Italy, America, Great Britain, Food Escapes etc. I like those as reading about the area as a bit of a travelogue and intro to the regional or cultural aspects of cooking.

Some are theme based: Superfood, Christmas, Friday Night Feast, Save with Jamie, Ultimate Veg. These are all good reading and interesting and fall into my LIKE category. He does as good a job as most current celeb chefs on these topics.

But where this guy really comes alive is in teaching self confidence in the kitchen and that just oozes out in his books on bigger themes. In this regard three of his early ones really stand out.

The Naked Chef, from 1999

Happy Days With The Naked Chef, 2001

Jamie’s Kitchen, 2002

Jamie at Home, 2007

Jamie’s Food Revolution, 2008 (UK) 2009 (everywhere else)

I referenced earlier Janice and Jim’s daughter Jade, the book reviewer. Several years ago when she had just moved into her first condo, a very small studio unit, she would come home each Sunday to Janice and Jim’s big kitchen and make a dish or two to get her through much of the week for her main dinners. She worked from Jamie’s Happy Days With The Naked Chef. It was when the movie Julie & Julia had just come out and those Sundays were called Jade & Jamie Sundays.

Most of those other books I referenced in the LIKE Category were written during the period 2004 to 2016.

Then in 2017 he wrote the book that I think he will be known for long after he is gone. It is the one that I recommend to anyone who has not spent much time in the kitchen and really wants to enjoy themselves and produce some great meals with not a lot of effort: 5 Ingredients – Quick & Easy Food. If you are buying just one Jamie Oliver book – this is it. If you have the space and money for a second one – Happy Days With The Naked Chef would be the next one to get. Later in this piece I will do a bit more of a ranking of his books.

So where does this new one fit in? Well I think Jamie scared himself a bit with the 5 Ingredients book. He was on a regular thing producing good cookbooks on various themes and running a business and being a good dad and all that and then that 2017 book just flowed out of him and bam – he was back at what he does best – building confidence in the kitchen in lots of people new to this cooking hobby. In it he takes five conventional ingredients and makes a fabulous dish.

Since the launch of the 5 Ingredients book he has put out four books the last one being Jamie Oliver 7 Ways. It is really (and he acknowledges this in his intro) a sequel to 5 Ingredients and building on many of the same elements. Instead of starting on the premise of only using five ingredients in a dish he has identified the 18 ingredients most of us keep on hand and then packaged each of them up in chapters with seven recipes featuring each of those individual ingredients.

He has structured the book with a good index at the front organized as : Fakeaways, Onepan wonders, Traybakes, simple pastas, Salads, soup & Sandwiches as a quick reference to the recipes. But the body of the book is built around each of those 18 ingredients most of us have: Broccoli, Cauliflower, Avocado, Chicken Breast, Sausages, Salmon Fillet, Sweet Potato, Eggplant, Eggs, Ground Meat, Potato, Peppers, Shrimp, White fish Fillet, Whole chicken, Mushrooms, Steak, Pork.

The list would suggest a lot of carnivore dishes but the reality is that about half are vegetarian.

What also makes it attractive is that for the most part he is focusing on ingredients that are not expensive, prepared using simple cooking techniques and as always teaching a lot of “cheats”, those shortcut tricks that every person who has prepared thousands of meals commercially has learned. Traditionally for example cookbooks from celebrity chefs never referenced a freezer for anything other than chilling your sorbet. Well Jamie gets it – we are busy or we live in places that don’t always have fresh components on hand and being able to take something from the freezer to make a great meal is a lifesaver.

For some time Jamie’s books have been formatted with the text on the left hand page showing the ingredient list, the technique & description and a generous image on the right page, and that format continues with this book. On the bottom of the page with the text the components of Fat, protein, sugars etc. are detailed.

So what’s left to tell you? Well, at this point I have made several of the dishes and they have all been crowd pleasers.

The image below ranks Jamie’s books from my perspective.

Ranking Jamie’s Books

I have a few other posts I am working on but sometime in the next few months I will review Jacques Pepin’s new book. I am just starting to try some of the recipes.

Django

CHRISTMAS DINNER FOR THE NOVICE

Posted: Dec 17, 2020

I was just minding my own business working on my next post, a review of Jamie Oliver’s new book Jamie Oliver Seven Ways, when I received an email from Andrea in Chicago. She was pretty stressed about this Christmas. Her parents are on the wrong side of seventy and her dad has experienced some respiratory issues in the past so her usual routine of going to their place and showing up with a very nice Sancerre and a bottle of prosecco is not going to happen.

I would not have been concerned about the note as much, and was just going to send her back a response but I had received a similar email from Luc in Lyon not that long ago on the same topic. Again, his problem is that Christmas always happens at his grandparent’s place and this year he will just be with his partner and they eat-out, order-in and otherwise just pick-away at leftovers a lot.

So this is an emergency post to all those novice cooks who, in a conventional year, at Christmas show up at a relatives house with a contribution to a big Christmas meal, and this year will be eating alone or with a partner or a couple of room-mates. IF YOU ARE A SEASONED COOK (I mean experienced, not really seasoned, LOL) YOU CAN STOP READING, BECAUSE THIS IS CHRISTMAS COOKING 101, AND I DON’T THINK YOU WILL GET MUCH OUT OF IT.

So Andrea, Luc and anyone else out there who is doing Christmas for the first time, here we go.

HOW MANY PARTICIPANTS?

If you are away from home and at university for example and living with some other people, make this an event you all do together. Either divide up the various tasks – shopping, cooking, serving, clean up, or have each participant do one dish. I like the former as in these days of Covid you should really just have one person out doing the shopping. The number of participants will determine the amounts you are going to prepare.

What follows here assumes two people with leftovers for a couple of days, so if you are one person, you will be able to pig-out for a week, and if its three or four you won’t have any leftovers unless you double the recipe.

THIS AINT YOUR GRANDMAS CHRISTMAS DINNER

Typically, Christmas is an excuse for an all-out feast, and depending on where you live, that will take on a variety of forms but it almost always involves some special dishes, sometimes passed down from one generation to the next, some serious scale involving a monster turkey that will barely fit in the oven, or some level of exotic such as pheasant, quail, etc. I have been at events with a pig on a big spit over a fire on the beach, and others with whole pheasant stuffed with bread and olives and rosemary.

This, is not that. This is an easy but very enjoyable Christmas dinner.

You need to figure out if anyone in the group is a vegetarian, vegan, has allergies to shrimp or doesn’t like mushrooms or your hair style and design a dinner around some of those considerations. I love that so many places now prepare various great vegetarian options if you want to mimic the carnivore meal. An alternative is various veggie pies and veggie quiches as good easy ways to go in that regard as well if its only one person who you are satisfying. But if most of the group are vegetarians, I would just focus on it being a veggie Christmas feast and not try to mimic the classic Christmas dinner.

Beyond the vegetarian consideration, I would also think about whether it’s a time you just want to have something that you don’t usually splurge on to make the meal special. A great lobster dinner is something a lot of us won’t spend the money on most of the time but perhaps it will be a special thing for this Covid Christmas. If you are going that way, do your planning, go shopping and enjoy. But if your still with me, the rest of this post is on how to do an easy but traditional Christmas dinner.

EASY TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS DINNER

At one point in 2021 I am going to do a post on cooking for leftovers, and from when I started doing these posts I have been meaning to get back to doing a post comparing Jim’s Nanas tourtiere with my grandmother Bebe’s tourtiere. But today, its all about turkey & trimmings.

TURKEY

Turkeys, like all birds have a lot more of everything than you want to eat. Yes, its true that if you’re into it you can use many of those excess bits for making turkey pie, or stock and some people like dark meat etc. but our goal here is to focus on the simple. So don’t buy a turkey, buy a turkey breast or two turkey breasts. It will cost more per pound but you’re not buying as much bone and other mischief. I prefer bone in, skin on, but no bone or no skin is fine.

So buy a breast that is about three pounds for a couple or three people. While its great to buy it fresh, these are nutty times for accessing stores and if its your first time doing this I would instead buy it now, freeze it and the day before you want to cook it let it defrost in the fridge. Many stores will have frozen Turkey breasts and they are usually smaller (under 1 kg or 2 lbs.) so you will need one of these minimum for two people without much left over, but more realistically you will want three of these for four people and that will generate some leftovers.

Three Small Turkey Breasts Seasoned

I am going to talk about cooking times later but to prepare the turkey breast, wash it, dry it, and once fully dry rub it on all sides with some olive oil. Season with salt, pepper, and fresh herbs if you have them (rosemary, thyme, oregano- whatever you like) or just sprinkle with a prepared mixture like Herbs De Provence (rosemary, sage, fennel, thyme, basil, marjoram, lavender) or an Italian mixture (oregano, basil, rosemary, marjoram, coriander, savory, thyme and sometimes with garlic or onion salt).

Now in commercial kitchens they will use a steam oven to keep the bird nice and moist but a simple home cooks cheat to duplicate that is to put the bird on a rack in a roasting pan and fill the pan with water almost up to the bottom of the meat. One that I like as well or better is to put it on the rack over the roasting pan and to put a little chicken or vegetable stock, or orange juice and some olive oil in the bottom of that roasting pan.

Then put another pan below all of this in the oven with lots of water in it. As the turkey cooks and looses its juices they drop into the upper pan mixture, making a pretty nice juice to pour over the meat later, or to use to make a gravy. The lower pan with the water is creating the nice steamy environment to keep the whole thing moist.

ROAST POTATOES

You may want to not roast potatoes if you are going heavy on dressing and on other root vegetables. But I really like roast potatoes and you are already going to have the oven on for some extended time, so they are easy to do. I like working with little round ping pong ball size new potatoes or Yukon gold ones, but its visually great to also use various heritage ones in different colours.

You will need about five of these little guys per serving but remember you will want leftovers so double whatever number of people are going to be dining.

Just wash them up, let them dry, then put in a bowl with a glug of olive oil, give them a hit of pepper and if you have not used rosemary on the turkey some nice rosemary is nice on these. Put them on a pan with some parchment paper or in an oven proof glass pan and they are set to go. I will cover cooking times later.

RUTABAGA PUFF/ SWEET POTATO MASH / SMASHED POTATOES

In the post from July – Covid Comfort Food, I did an introduction to these three. They are easy to do and any one of them can really do the job here, but if you are doing the roast potatoes (easiest) you might want the rutabaga puff, but certainly don’t need it, and the other two are certainly root vegetable overkill if you are doing the roast potatoes. Some will substitute a Yorkshire pudding for the roast potatoes or any of these root vegetable options but that’s a topic for another day.

DRESSING

To start, dressing and stuffing are the same thing. Stuffing is the mixture that goes into a whole bird, dressing is the same mixture cooked on its own.

I usually make dressing from scratch, using a good home-made chicken stock, a selection of nice day-old multigrain breads etc. but that’s not how you are going to spend your time if you are doing a Christmas dinner for the first time.

If you can buy a nice prepared dressing from a high end food shop, that you just put into an oven safe dish and heat – do it.

If that’s not available, then buy a prepared box of dressing, and follow the instructions, but instead of using the prescribed water use a good low sodium chicken stock (vegetable stock if you have vegetarians in the group) a handful of chopped walnuts, an onion, a large carrot cut shredded and chopped up a bit, and a stalk of celery chopped up to have it mimic a homemade one.

The next time you do it just replace that box of ingredients with some day old cubed multigrain bread, that you have put in the oven at 175c or 350f and watch until they are dried out, turning a couple of times. Let them cool, and then use these with some dried herbs a 30 ml of butter and the walnuts, onion carrots and celery and you can eliminate that box and start to play with different herbs to make it your own. But I am getting ahead of myself – I am now talking about next years Christmas.

OTHER STUFF

To complete the program you will need a few more things. A nice whole cranberry sauce, a packet for a poultry gravy (its not worth the time working on a homemade gravy, but you will mix in the juices from the bird into the mixture).

With all that root vegetable and dressing action going on you will need to add something green to break it up – green beans are easy to just trim, steam and serve without much effort. Trim and wash them ahead and just steam them when everything else is ready.

You will probably have enough on the go to not prepare a desert so I would either buy a desert or make some shortbread or sugar cookies ahead. This is particularly good if you have others involved as that can be their contribution.

You will need some nice decorations and a Christmas table setting, with candles, lots of wine and some non-alcoholic alternatives, and get out your Jimi Hendrix Christmas album. Again, put someone else on this stuff if there are many of you.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Most people only have one oven so that is what I am going to assume here. If you have two ovens, set one to 60c or 120f and treat it as a warming oven. Put a bowl of water in it to keep things moist.

Everything is worked backward from the time you want to serve your meal. If you are new to all of this write down your dinner time, work back each component from that and it will help you stay calm through the process. It also helps to not consume too much wine until the food is on the table or you might be ordering pizza!

The turkey is going to take the most time so it will dictate the schedule. Plan on it to cook for 30 minutes per half kilo (or one pound) at 175C (or 370f). So that’s going to set the timing. Work back from the serving time you want to have dinner for a time to put it in the oven and allow some time ahead to pre-heat the oven.

Note: if you are cooking multiple small turkey breasts instead of one larger turkey breast, you will want the turkey breasts to be about the same size and it will be the size of one breast that will set your approximate timing, not the total weight. So whether you are putting in one, two or three of those smaller 1 kg (2 lb) breasts, your calculations will be 30 minutes [per .5K (1lb)] for those 1k (2lb) breasts= 60 minutes.

Roasted Turkey Breasts

Ovens really vary, so if you are using one with a fan assist or convection setting, go with that and you wont need to cover the breasts but if you are using a more basic oven sometimes it helps to loosely cover the turkey breast with aluminum foil for the first half of the time, and then take the foil off for the last half to help the skin crisp up without really turning it into charcoal.

If you have not done this before I would just put the potatoes and the turkey in at the same time and if the potatoes are ready early then take them out and cover with aluminum foil and if you have that warming oven put them there. Otherwise, they will be fine once roasted just sitting out but covered with the foil. The potatoes will take less time so if you want to get the Turkey breasts in then prepare the potatoes and put them in that’s fine too.

When you are getting close to the end of the time the skin on the turkey breast should be browning up. Put in a thermometer and see how it is cooking. Its only ready when it gets to an internal temperature of 165f. If its not there, let it go another ten minutes and check again at the thickest point in the breast. If you don’t have a cooking thermometer- get one, or plan on ordering a dinner!

The dressing will keep its warmth and you prepare it on the top of the oven so once you have the turkey and potatoes in the oven you can get your things prepared for the dressing but not start it until about twenty minutes before the scheduled end of the cooking time for the turkey.

Set the table and get your serving pieces ready – a bowl for the gravy, a small bowl for the cranberry sauce, large bowl for the dressing and a serving tray for the turkey, and a bowl for the potatoes.

Christmas Dinner For The Novice

This will hopefully set you up for a pretty nice Christmas dinner, and generate a number of leftovers. It will also turn you on to how much work your Grandma or parents or whoever else usually prepares a feast for you to just show up and enjoy.

So next time, when you are invited for a regular Christmas get together, volunteer to bring that rutabaga puff or a fabulous desert and put some serious effort into it and nail it. That’s Christmas.

Django