Post-holiday happy chowing

We all know we overdo it, maybe slightly, maybe a lot, during the season between (let's be real here, including Halloween) November and January. This is followed by eater's remorse, the whole fake resolution thing and then the dreary march on through the rest of the winter days until we can redeem ourselves outside with exercise and fresh food.

OR you can be strolling through your local market and find on the fast-sell rack three great green peppers and realize all kind of really great fruit is on sale.

The mental cooking computer clicks in pretty quickly and comes up with - stuffed peppers and lavish fruit salad.

Which is tonight's menu. Instead of using rice, Trader Joe's brown rice/black barley/other grains mix that had been lingering in the pantry sprung into action. Not exactly sure if I like the outcome as I added pearl barley as well. But, how bad could it be with ground round, good onions, Worcestershire and homemade tomato sauce tucked into those halved peppers.

Turned out, pretty good. Not totally on the top 10 crave list, but a very decent effort for several meals to go into the freezer. And decent daily cooking after the weeks of feast-making.

The fruit salad is glistening, fresh, delicious and full of all kinds of stuff you should be wanting - antioxidants, fiber, nonprocessed stuff.. and etc., etc.

So let's admire it again:

Best thing is, this tastes really good. Made on a balmy and sunny day that ended with  a feeling of  solid creative, daily cooking.

Pat yourself on the back if you're doing the same...

A simple fondue makes a holiday

New Year's Eve is never our favorite time to be out and about. Not only is it amateur hour on the roads, but after the warmth of family and friends at Thanksgiving and Christmas it always seems a little like forced fun. So we always downsize the night.

 This year the force for fondue was strong. There were only two of us. So some Emmenthaler cheese, picked up that night, along with a little Gruyere from the house, some white wine and a non-stick pot yielded up a luscious, warm and cheese-y light dinner to graze on. Include some great crusty bread, some crisp green apples, pickles sweet, dill, and hot (and Michigan product or two), eaten on a coffee table with some atmospheric votive candles = one great and simple meal. Add a nice red Beaujolais Villages to enhance the party.

Best of all, it's easy to produce as a hearty appetizer or a light meal when the force calls:

Cheese Fondue 

 1 1/2 lbs shredded Emmenthaler (we added about half Emmenthaler and half Gruyere. Has to be the good stuff.)

 Toss cheese with 3 T flour and 2 tsp dry mustard. 

 Boil 1 1/12 cups dry white wine (best in a good nonstick pot).

 Toss in a handful of cheese mixture - stir with wooden spoon till melted.

Proceed to add the rest of the cheese by the handful.

You might need to add more wine if the cheese seems too thick. Be generous with the vino.

Serve to admiring eaters. You will feel like a genius! (We didn't have a fondue pot. Added smaller amounts to a heavy ceramic bowl, re-heated in microwave if it thickened.) Great the next day reheated as well.

Chicken Marsala

A quick trip to one of our favorite markets, Holiday Market in Royal Oak, MI, offered a fast inspiration for dinner on a cool, breezy autumn night. 

I always like to check out their ready-to-eat entrees and yesterday, the chicken marsala just rang my bell. Dark, mushroomy gravy did it. So, what to eat that night was taken care of in a snap. 

Picked up a nice, hefty full chicken breast, package of cremini mushrooms and a small, good bottle of marsala - thanks to the great wine folks there. 

Now to make. Checked through the usual suspects -- couple of Marcela Hazan cookbooks, Silver Spoon cookbook (translated to English from the very popular Italian version), Batali, NY Times/Craig Claiborne, Joy of Cooking. Not a recipe to be found. 

The interweb offered up a good and simple recipe from the late, great Gourmet. Dredge chicken in flour, brown on both sides till done, saute shallots and mushrooms in butter, add marsala and some stock (beef stock on hand worked well though it called for chicken.) 

End result was a gorgeous plate of golden chicken, topped with a savory dark mushroom and jus, served with the just-picked spinach from the farmer's market. A side of buttered linguine was the vehicle to soak up all that winey/chickeny goodness. 

This will be a keeper - fast, delicious and good enough for company, or for a relaxing night before the cold winds of October blow and the World Series game three starts. 

Julia's Boef Bourguignon

My first attempt at Julia Child's boef bourguignon

As the temps dropped a bit and I spent a good part of the day at a farmer's market and Michigan food tasting both outside, I had the urge for boef bourguignon. Just came to me out the blue, or should I say gray sky. Why? I'd never made it, but I can take a hint when I get one.

Got about a pound and a half of stewing beef, some cremini mushrooms, a decent bottle of pinot noir from Castlerock, downloaded Julia's recipe and I was off.

What I found really interesting was browning the meat before flouring. She directs you to brown the chunks well, then the carrots and onions, add back in bacon you'd already fried and THEN, only then, sprinkle about 1-2 T flour over the beef and shoot into a 425 degree oven for four minutes. Toss again and throw in for another eight minutes. Then add the stock and wine and let it cook in the oven for three or more hours or till meat is fork tender.

It yielded a wonderful, shiny and glaze-y sauce for the meat and vegetables, very subtle hint of wine and just wonderfully rich and flavorful.

There are a couple of steps to it, but no harder than making your everyday beef stew. I've got to say I was impressed myself by the end product.

I loved Julia before but now she makes me look like a genius and my regard's only gone up.

Try it yourself!

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe/julia-childs-beef-bourguignon-8222804

An Early Easter fest

Due to a variety of circumstances we held Easter brunch today. We did the whole nine yards -- deviled eggs, a new addition of dill pickle soup, and our adopted Polish brunch of fresh and smoked kielbasa, mushroom/sauerkraut pierogies and potato/cheese and meat pierogies. An addition of a gorgeous fruit salad and a middle European/Hungarian salad of thinly sliced cucumbers and onions in sour cream along with fresh steamed asparagus and rye bread and butter completed the meal.

Chocolate bunnies, Peeps and jelly beans are a given.

Nothing like the comfort and fun of family, a celebration of spring and a huge and delicious meal to celebrate the new season!

Vinsetta Garage = Great news for Woodward food

Couldn't be happier at the news that Vinsetta Garage is morphing into a real, local restaurant. Not theme stuff, T-shirts, Woodward cruise memorabilia.

I can't think of a better way to respect and re-use this iconic place on Woodward.
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2835026110778263099&postID=1048982849333378756&from=pencil

An old favorite from my peeps

                                                               

                                                                 Chicken paprikash

My grandfather grew up about six hours outside Vienna, near the Hungarian border, and about 15 miles from the Yugoslavian border. My grandmother was born and grew up only several miles away from the village of grandfather, Rabfidisch, but over time it made all the difference. As the imperial Austro-Hungarian Empire gradually contracted from its wide world domination, the little village of Theresia Yost's became part of Communist Hungary.

Way before then, they had both emigrated to the U.S., landing in Allentown, Pennsylvania. That's where they met, not in the cozy landscape of their native land. My grandfather was a high-level professional waiter in Europe, and started his own restaurant in either Newark or Manhattan...a white table cloth place with a dining room and gentlemen's grill. My father remembers sitting in the kitchen with the very tall cook making small things.

So the upshot is, we grew up with a variety of Austro-Hungarian foods -- my German/Irish mother tried to keep up now and then.

And in this finally really cold chapter of winter, I decided to go back to the old school dinner. Hungarians make everything delicious -- meats, salads, vegetables, chicken-- with the addition of a little flour and sour cream.

Several chicken thighs, onions, some fresh Hungarian paprika, sour cream made a warming and nostalgic dinner.

And a loving salute to family.