Little Gordon

I am still laughing at "this tastes like hydrogenated dog shit".

My Brudda: Pork Master

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My brother, who makes me look like a bit of a lightweight when it comes to coffee, is a meat guy. He knows meat. He's meticulous. He's fastidious. I am, I must say, gifted when it comes to poultry, although I don't much like poultry (except the skin, straight out of the oven). My brother is a pork master. He does amazing things to a pig. It is nothing to him to spend hours searching New York (where he lives) for the right cut, the right fat. Who has the best pork belly in Brooklyn? My Brudda can tell you. Looking for pancetta on Arthur Avenue? My Brudda knows. He is to quality pork as pigs are to truffles. He is a Pork Chowhound.

When My Brudda tells me that a meat recipe is worthy of note, I pay attention. When his wife says "This was worth driving out in my car in the middle of a long day to find emergency ice at Pathmark" I pay attention. They give four thumbs up to a recipe from Jaden at Steamy Kitchen which involves poaching AN ENTIRE CHICKEN. Huh? It was a wild success in the Eastern House of Coffee (I live in the Western House). I am anxious to give it a try. Check it out at:

Singapore Hainanese Chicken Rice Recipe

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"Bit of Ingenuity and a Can Do Attitude"

I'll say. This has been making the rounds. Next time you're in a hotel looking for something to eat, refer back to this, then let me know how it goes:

Breakfast with the Punks

I mentioned yesterday on my uber-wordy and tedious blog, Med Marg, I have a new meal to incorporate into the day. My kids used to get their breakfast at their childcare center. No more. Mommy has to come up with five more meals every week. I'm picky about said meals, too, because if you're gonna do it, may as well do it right. Unless I've worked like a dog all week, cooked dinner every night without called Cafe Courier even once, then even made pancakes Saturday morning. I have been known to serve the kids a Happy Meal at lunch, but with milk and apple dippers.

A few weeks ago, trying to solicit some buy-in and introduce the kids to the idea of having another thing to accomplish in the morning (where exactly the time for all this is coming from I do not know) I had them make a list of stuff they like. They did really well:

• Yogurt with fruit: I use 2% Greek Yogurt with a mashed up banana and some honey. Cinnamon if they're in the mood. Substitute fruit or in a pinch, fruit preserves.
• Puffins (or other cereal) with paper thin slices of banana: I pretend to be a jeweler slicing up a diamond. The kids think it's quite hilarious because of course I ham it up. It works to get some fruit down their tummies.
• Waffles: I use whole grain Eggos. Boy, I've tried all kinds of frozen waffles at Whole Foods and man, do they taste like curdled dried paste. I take a little fruit--say blueberries--and warm them up in the microwave with a little maple syrup.
• Cheesy eggs and bacon: One slice of precooked bacon, and one egg each with lowfat cheese I cook on the stove with a smidge of olive oil. They also split an English muffin usually.
• Oatmeal: This is a family favorite. On weekdays I make a quickish pot of whole rolled thick organic oats (just because I like the Bob's Red Mill brand a lot). I cook them in 1/3 1% milk and 2/3 water. We usually have it with a smidge of half & half and a little honey or real maple syrup, a handful of no-nut or sugar whole grain cereal or raisins. And cinnamon if the kids are in the mood.

I included in my MedMarg post yesterday a handy little article including some more breakfast ideas. These good ideas include:

• Smoothies
• Breakfast burrito
• Stuff with peanut butter, which unfortunately is verboten in this house.

I got a lot of suggestions from readers with kids over the last 24 hours. Good suggestions. Here goes a few:

From Rain Domino:
"Oatmeal with a few spoonfuls of applesauce. Daughter Susan Lucci loves it."

From Dr. Jardin Green Jeans:
"I am feeling your pain with the early morning schedules. Honestly, we just do cereal most mornings, since we have tons of different cereals and they are nutritious. Add fruit or yogurt and you are good to go. We did French toast this morning since I had 15 extra minutes, but yep- it's usually cereal."

From Dr. Vera Bradley:
"Breakfast casserole is all I can say. And freeze extra pancakes left over from the weekend. Just some of my favs for the morning rush to get kids to school and you to work!!!"

From a fellow Coffee Whack Job:
Two things. One, cottage cheese with any fruit, but mostly good old retro pineapple folded in. Two, yogurt parfaits with fruit and granola layers.

From Frenchie:
Oh, Mon Dieu. Why do you make things so difficile? Hunk of bread, a touch of beurre, a slice of cheese, et l'orange.

Mon Dieu indeed, Frenchie. I'm open to ideas. You know you have 'em. Rules are they can't be gross, they must taste good, and they must take no more than 10 minutes or use more than one hand because the other hand is going to be French pressing coffee or pulling espresso.

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I have a friend with a farm.

Image via Wikipedia

I was trying to channel Isak Dinesen's line, "I had a farm in Africa..." This friend COULD have a farm in Africa or anywhere the hell else she wants vegetables to grow. If she wanted vegetables to grow on your couch, grow they would. She is almost all-powerful. She can't prescribe medication in the state of Ohio like I can, but aside from that, I can't think of a single thing she can't do.

She has a recipe on her website today, a skeleton of a recipe, really, for ratatouille. Her site is worth checking out if you are interested in gardening, have ever looked at a garden or wondered what it might be like, especially if you are interested in community gardening. She knows everything. EVERYTHING. I mighta mentioned her before. And the recipe makes me want to grab some warm pita and dig right in. At this time of the summer, when tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini are everywhere, and an eggplant can certainly be had SOMEWHERE, make this. Put some in the freezer. In February, when it's cold, gray, depressing, and you think your mortal soul is in peril, thaw your summer goodness. You'll make it another week, I promise.

Too Much Garden Bounty? Ratatouille to the Rescue!

Slim Jim is icky

From Slashfood today, serious grossness. You know how that old "What are little boys made of" rhyme? Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails? Turns out that's a Slim Jim through and through:

Perhaps not as appetizing as it seemed at first, the second ingredient on the list, "mechanically separated chicken," is, according to the USDA, "a paste-like and batter-like meat product produced by forcing bones with attached edible meat under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue.

Ah, yes, perhaps not as appetizing as it seemed at first, second, third, or 99th.

Yes, please. Immediately.

This sauce seems divine. Must try soon.

Asian Shrimp Cocktail

Smitten Kitchen does it again!

These get an 8/10 on the Food Swoon scale.

Read about 'em and get the recipe at:

Peach cupcakes with brown sugar frosting

Wine Bottle Torch

It might be that you have some empty wine bottles laying around. I might. Well, it's likely that I do. It's likely that I have a few laying around with wine still in them. Today I chance upon (via Lifehacker) these gems. AS IF I needed an excuse to drink the wine!

Read all about it, then race to both the wine and hardware store for a very lovely DIY Monday project:

Recycled Wine Bottle Torch

Grilled Pizza

Yesterday for dinner we had grilled pizza. It was fabulous, and I made it in maybe 20 minutes flat. It was loved by the grown-ups and the kids in mi casa. My inspiration was from Martha Stewart Living this month. Today, though, I chanced upon something I might have to try this coming week from Smitten Kitchen: Grilled Eggplant and Olive Pizza. Hold the phone, Ethel, Deb's recipe looks fabulous, but not quite as easy as mine, particularly when you are rolling in the door with two hungry and cranky small people at 5:45pm who should have eaten about 5:30pm. Her picture looks better than mine, though, so I'm using hers. Plus she's more talented and generally more wonderful.

In any event, here's what I did to have dinner on plates by 6:10pm.

Oops. Forgot. I had prep the night before. I pulled two loaves of frozen bread dough (from the grocery store) out of the freezer and put it in a covered bowl in the fridge. That's it.

Next day at 5:45pm I walked in the door and pulled the bread dough out of the fridge. I threw it on the counter and punched it down. Actually, I did threw the bread on the counter to punch it down after I punched the glass in the glass bowl and screamed. Then I ran upstairs to change my clothes.

Once downstairs in my bad-lady attire, I flipped on the grill to high. I generously oiled two baking sheets (say 2-3T on each), and on one stretched out the dough slowly. Stretch, rest, stretch rest. There's so much gluten in the dough that you have to kinda work with the elastic and give it time to relax before you can stretch it again.

During rest cycles I cut zucchini and yellow squash--one of each--into 1/2 inch slices. I threw them on one baking sheet and tossed them in a bit more olive oil, then salt and pepper. If I'd had them I would have used green onions, too. I also threw about oh, 6 or 7 ounces of fontina cheese in the food processor to grate.

Once I had the pizza dough stretched out (about 12" x 18") I flipped it over so that both sides would be oiled. Then I let it rest again while I threw the veges on the grill to cook until lightly charred. They came off the grill and were set aside after I squeezed two halves of a lemon over them. As soon as they came off the dough got flopped on the hot grates. Top down, then, after three or four minutes I flipped it over, threw the cheese on top, then closed the grill and let it cook another three or four minutes. Off the cheesy pizza came.

Once inside I tossed on about 2 ounces of crumbled feta, about a half pound of cleaned pre-packaged, seemingly E. coli-free baby spinach, and topped it all with the whole grilled vegetables. The veges wilted the spinach and the whole thing was a gorgeous meat-free meal in one. There was plenty left over for lunch today.

Pesto, basil, rosemary--any of these would have been welcome additions to a straightforward and easy after-work meal.

Bread pudding worthy of killing a guy for

From Simply Recipe archives

Bread Budding

I'm not sure about a big dish of bread pudding on a hot summer day, but I could probably force myself. If Elise says this is the best ever, I believe her, however, I believe my pumpkin bread pudding with ginger-infused cream could give her a run for her money. But mine is more of a holiday delicacy. I will give her the nod for every day other than holiday.