Magazines to the rescue

I knew I wanted to cook last night, but I didn’t know what.

I checked the freezer for meats and took a huge bag o’ chicken wings and a tray of stewing beef out to thaw.

Now what?

I headed out to the library and thought I might see some inspirational ingredients on the way.  Lucky for me, I got Food & Wine‘s February issue and Fine Cooking‘s Feb/Mar issue that filled in the blanks.

From Food & Wine, I made Classic Hot Wings (recipe below) which Grace Parisi recommends you flour first, bake on high (500 degrees) and then finish with melted butter and hot sauce.

My fella came home from the office starving, so I don’t know whether it was his crazy hunger or whether they were that good, but he kept saying how much he liked them.

While the wings were baking, I made Food & Wine‘s Celery-and-Celery-Root Salad (which would’ve been much easier if I’d used my mandoline instead of my Chinese cleaver – what was I thinking?).  What a beautiful looking salad and really, just the simplest of ingredients.

My guy does not like the look of celery root before it’s peeled, so while he’ll eat it, he’s not too crazy about it.  This of course, I didn’t know the extent of until he came home and said, “Yeah, not for me.” After spending about 20 minutes whacking the beast and all the other ingredients (my celery root came out not like matchsticks, but like wide watercolour brushes – hey, you do what you can with what you have), I was disheartened, especially because now I had to eat a honkin’ bowl of root veg on my own.

Luckily, one of my closest pals dropped by in between meetings  today and I made her an ad hoc lunch of sliced chicken breast and a side of the celery salad.  She loved it so much, I gave her the recipe!  Phew.  Now there’s only a tub the size of a beer cooler left …

The main course I made was thanks to Fine Cooking. 

Spicy Red Lentil Dal with Winter Vegetables & Lamb might sound heavy for June, but it’s been cold and rainy on and off, so it felt like a good night for something hearty.

I replaced the red lentils with green and substituted beef for the lamb.  Otherwise, I followed the recipe as written.

Spicy comfort food with a modern edge.  It was absolutely perfect and exactly what we needed on a chilly night.

I am so grateful to these magazines.  They made what started out to be a panicked cry of “What will we have for dinner?”, into  a wonderful, memorable, nourishing night.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 500°. Line a large baking sheet with foil and spray with vegetable oil. In a bowl, mix the flour with the salt. Add the chicken and toss to coat. Spread the chicken on the baking sheet in a single layer and spray with vegetable oil. Roast the chicken for 45 minutes, turning once or twice, until browned and crispy. In a bowl, toss the chicken wings with the hot sauce and butter; serve.

Surprises abound

What I love about cooking is that you don’t always get it right.

But sometimes you absolutely do.

That beef curry was fanfreakintastic.  Best beef dish I’ve made in years.  YEARS.

I learned two vital things that night:

1.  My method of cooking stewing beef for only an hour and a half is why my stews are never memorable.

2.  Cooking Light Magazine has a piece a couple of months ago about The 25 Most Common Cooking Mistakes that offered a lot of advice I already knew but one that really stuck out – You don’t know your oven’s quirks and idiosyncrasies.

See, a couple of months ago, my sexy fella and I were making dinner together (something that doesn’t happen very often because we both cook very differently and because there’s not a heckuva lot of room to move around one another).  We were making Korean pancakes – MMM! – and I was pouring them into the pan while he flipped them (you’ve got to be quick with those l’il ones) and we noticed that they would slowly cook on 7 but once we upped the element to 8, they started to burn.

We had noticed inconsistencies separately before but not thought much of them – ’til now.

Which I confirmed when I made Beef Vindaloo Curry this past Friday night.

Wanting to brown the beef before adding the other ingredients (did you know that Jamie Oliver no longer believes/does this?  Gasp), I started it on 8 to get a nice seared side, but before I knew it they were blackening.  Oh no, I’ve got like 8 veggies and 5 other ingredients yet to add!  It can’t be ruined already!

I managed to save them by quickly turning the range down, and then up.  Down and then up again, until all the beef was done.

I thought that ordeal was over as I set everything to a low simmer.

Hmmm.  When I turned the dial down to 3 – nothing.  It wasn’t until I brought it back up to 6 that it started bubbling.  So back down to 3 it went.  I left it to stew, literally, while I went back to my desk to do work.

I heard this weird popping noise.  Now, sometimes Cosmo likes to clean between his toes and makes this awesome crunching sound, but he was sound asleep just a few feet away at the end of the bed.

I went out to the kitchen and the stew was bubbling away like it was on 6 or 7.  So I turned it down to 2.  15 minutes later, nothing.

It went on like this for the 2 1/2 hours that it was on the stove.

Our stove is not just quirky.  It’s possessed.

At first, I was miffed.  Great, here I am trying to learn to be a great chef and I’m working with an old jalopy!  But now I realize that if I can cook great meals on this puppy despite its massive weirdness, then I will be a great chef after all.

The roast chicken dinner I made tonight was okay.  The sides were what made it – summer crisp corn, wild and long grain rice and Swiss chard with petit haricots.

That chicken could have been better.

That’s why I’m going to work on figuring out the oven’s quirks next.

Why you should decide what you’re making for dinner BEFORE you leave the house

So today I head out to get another baking sheet (I spilled some of that egg custard on ours a couple of nights ago and despite days of soaking it in powerful chemicals, it wouldn’t budge) and I’m returning a DVD, picking up library books, when it occurs to me that I should make tourtiere tonight.

I had taken organic ground beef and pork out, thinking I might do a meat loaf or something and it wasn’t until I was all the way across town, hands and shoulders loaded down with stuff that I realize that tonight has just been deemed meat pie night .

So now I need to make one more stop, just enough out of the way that carrying all of these bags is going to be a minor trek.

I am not prepared.  My collar flaps in the intense wind, my e0-friendly bags slip from my shoulder to my wrists.  I make it to the store – just – and pick up the last essential ingredients.

I slough it all home and feel like I’ve just had an hour’s workout at the gym.  My shoulders ache, my neck is stiff and my hands are so sore.

And I haven’t even started the prep, cooking and cleaning up.

Oy.