Dinner with friends, and a simple breakfast

Last night we had good friends over for dinner. It's been very wintery up on the top of the hill where we live, with wind whipping over Twin Peaks and rattling our little flat. We've been cranking up the heat and piling on sweaters. So, pot roast seemed like a good idea.

As with most recipes, I turn to Marcella Hazan. I like her Pot Roast of Beef Braised in Red Wine. It's reliable, and it manages to seem both elegant and rustic. I served it with mashed potatoes (which always get the short end of the stick when I'm cooking--this was proved true again last night when the cream and butter boiled over and I ended up haphazardly mashing them in the pot they boiled in in a rush to the finish) and roasted asparagus--the cheating cook's vegetable, because it is so easy and everyone seems to like it.

The pot roast turned deep brown from the initial searing, then got velvety and sweet from three hours of slow braising. As has become my habit, I added a few things to Marcella's recipe (sacrilege, but not only does she not call for any sizeable vegetables, but she calls for miniscule measurements of them, such as 1 1/2 T. chopped tomatoes. Yes, tablespoons.) I got some good carrots at the farmer's market and the husband put in a request for pearl onions. Impossibly cute and delicious, he reminded me. I agreed, so long as I could use the frozen and pre-peeled ones. I am not about to go blind for some pearl onions, painstakingly marking the little x in the root and struggling to get a grip on their slippery little skins.

But the star of the evening if I do say so was the dessert, a delicate apple crostata. Braeburn and Fuji apples (I know, not traditional, but that's what I picked) tucked into a golden and flakey crust, with a sparkly sugary shine on top. The secret to this delicious pastry is that the dough is very short, resulting in a very tender crust. Served with vanilla bean ice cream, this launched the four of us into a temporary coma.


As you'll see, I'm trying out something new here, food photography. I'm a borderline terrible photographer so bear with me. So far what I understand is that you need light, not too much background crap, and it's imperative that you get weirdly close to the food.

This morning I woke up surprisingly refreshed, after sleeping deeply and undisturbed for a good eight plus hours. It is so great to wake up on a Sunday and have no plans but coffee and The New York Times. And, currant scones.



Later tonight: roast chicken and freakishly large Brussels sprouts.

The hungry dog's hungry dog

As you might have guessed from the title of this silly thing, in addition to just being a hungry person who likes to cook, eat, and think about food, I also have a hungry dog that lives in my home.

My dog likes to eat almost everything. Sometimes I share my breakfast with her. Usually I eat yogurt (which, P.S., I hate, but I have no breakfast ideas, since I really don't like breakfast but force myself to eat it), with raw almonds and fruit. Whatever the fruit is, the hungry dog gets a couple of bites. She will eat any fruit. She's very partial to apples and bananas, but I've seen her eat honeydew, cantaloup, pears, persimmons, peaches, kiwi, and oranges. When she was a puppy, she did not care for citrus, but like a human, as she grew up, she developed a taste for bitter and even sour things. Now she'll gobble an orange segment, no questions asked.

She also likes all raw vegetables, with the exception of lettuce and onions. When I'm chopping up veggies, she' s at my feet waiting for bits to drop. In fact, she knows that the phrase, "Uh oh" is usually accompanied by something falling to the floor, and if you say these words, she'll snap to attention and stare at your feet, prepared to dive for the lost bit of diced carrot.

The dog has been known to eat celery, zucchini, green beans, potatoes, and fennel, but her all-time favorite vegetable (I guess technically fruit) is the tomato. When she was a little puppy and I was living in the 'burbs, she would steal tomatoes from the garden. She'd bite into every single one, leave the green ones (too tart!) and take care of all the ripe, juicy red ones in a few quick bites.

And of course like any dog she likes cheese, peanut butter, and any kind of meat--especially roast chicken. She now recognizes the smell while it's roasting in the oven. If our oven door wasn't so incredibly dirty, I like to imagine her sitting in front of the oven, staring at the bird, quiet and still in its hot little box, getting crispy and delicious. It's no wonder why she likes it so much--it's one of the few non-produce items we cook that she actually gets to sample.

I like that I have a hungry dog. For one thing, she was real sick a few years ago, and we didn't know if she would live. The first sign of her being sick was that she didn't want to eat. But we were very, very lucky, and the vet fixed her up. So now, when I see my hungry dog, it fills me with joy, because I know she feels good.

Also, I like to think of her as my kid, to whom I've passed my food-loving genes. You might think I'm crazy, but me and my dog, we are connected. I'm sure we're a little bit the same even though we couldn't possible be. I do know if I were a dog, I'd be a hungry dog: I'd be her.

Eating my way through the weekend

This weekend I did a lot of cooking.

On friday, I made really good macaroni and cheese. This recipe is artery-clogging, heart-stoppingly good. You make a bechamel sauce and melt cheese into it. Then you mix that with the pasta, and you layer it with more cheese. Then you pour heavy cream over it, and top it with buttered breadcrumbs. This time I added some Niman Ranch ham, cubed up. I can't believe I'm alive to write about it. It was great.

On Saturday night, I tried a new recipe from the Times for roast chicken. Now, in general, I don't branch out with roast chicken. I use Marcella Hazan's recipe for chicken with two lemons and to me, there is no improvement. But this one sounded interesting. You stuff the chicken with a whole head of garlic, lemon, herbs, etc, but the thing that drew me to the recipe is you roast the chicken over slices of stale bread drizzled with olive oil. So in theory, the bread gets crispy, and absorbs all the chicken juices. I loved this idea. Unfortunately, all the bread that wasn't covered by the chicken burned to inedible crisps. However, to give credit to the Times' Melissa Clarke, the bread that under the chicken was some of the most delicious crispy, chewy, croutony goodness I've ever had. Note to self: email Melissa Clarke.

To go with the chicken, I made creamy grits, and slow-cooked collard greens and swiss chard.

Last night I roasted up a pork loin with sage. I still had a lot of veggies to use up still from last week's produce box. So I roasted up carrots, potatoes, beets and fennel. Then I sauteed broccoli rabe with garlic and a squeeze of lemon, and flash-cooked up the tiniest, cutest white mushrooms in olive oil, butter, and parsley over high heat.

I should start taking pictures of my food. I'm not really a good photographer though. It seems, from the food blogs I've looked at, you need to get real close to the food. Otherwise it just doesn't look that good.

One hour until mac 'n' cheese leftovers for lunch!