#2 - The protein that never fails

In the fifth grade, I learned to bake the cookies because I wanted them, and I thought they tasted better slightly soft when pulled from the oven.  Along about the seventh grade, I prepared the “relish” plate at holiday dinners because I wanted to make sure the best part of the celery was served so that I could eat it; and, yes, there’s no doubt that I’m a control freak, but is there any other aspect of life where control is actually important than in what one eats?

Surely, I’m not alone in thinking this.  And the best part of the celery is the heart with those practically translucent yellow-green leaves, correct??

Those early cooking-to-eat experiences are why I am adamant that a cook needs to be satisfying only one person, first and foremost, and that person is her/himself.  I think this has always been my guiding philosophy, and because she said it better, I’m quoting from Jenni Ferrari-Adler’s introduction to another book I’d recommend, Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant:  Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone, (Riverhead Books, 2007) to wit:

“A good meal is like a present, and it can feel goofy, at best, to give yourself a present.  On the other hand, there is something life affirming in taking the trouble to feed yourself well, or even decently.”

Someone has to control what is served at your house for Supper, and it might as well be you.

The first component of any satisfying Supper, then, has to be protein, and sometimes it’s hard to get it in there if you don’t want a lot of it left over.  Take a pork roast, for example.  You spend all that time cooking it, and, indeed, it is comforting and yummy and so satisfying that you wonder why you don’t do this all the time.  And then the next day, you remember, because you’re faced with leftover pork in sandwiches for a week, at least, and that’s only IF you remember that it’s in the fridge!  That’s why I never learned to roast a chicken or to make Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon.  I’m not fond of dark meat chicken. Leftover meat can’t be easily reheated without tasting leftover, and, furthermore, cold is not a satisfying temperature for food at Supper.  You need something hot, cooked for the occasion; after all, you’ve been waiting allllll day!

Back in my aforementioned days of cookie baking and raw vegetable tray fixing, cheese was Velveeta, and, thus, Campbell’s Tomato Soup and a grilled cheese sandwich could be “protein.”  Never mind that a simple look at the ingredient list of either product would have announced quite a different makeup.  The protein in our Supper was generally from our own cow or pig (we didn’t do chickens on our farm; nasty, pecking things), and there was a lot in the freezer.  Mom was a school teacher, and it wasn’t always practical to defrost and then prepare a major roast requiring a long braise in the oven.  Still, I grew up knowing that protein was the essential in the meal, so much so that when our family was once caring for my aunt’s wonderful vegetable garden and the sweet corn “came in,” I was so shocked that my mother prepared sweet corn at Aunt Elnora’s house and we ate it without giving one thought to the normal accompaniment of pan-fried hamburgers.  As we drove home that evening, I kept expecting to faint from the lack of protein in my body.     

It’s funny, then, that I had to wait until I came to Seattle to think of chicken as a solo option which can be multiplied as necessary to feed the masses at the Supper Table.  The Barefoot Contessa changed my life with chicken when she roasted skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts, almost as an afterthought to get chicken for her Chinese Chicken Salad:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chinese-chicken-salad-recipe/index.html

That’s the link to the whole recipe, but the part I’ve used for several years now is just her preparation for the chicken, and cooking it with the bone on makes the most marked difference in the world.  The technique produces a moist piece of chicken to eat on the spot—serving it with roasted vegetables done alongside—or you can save half (because chicken breasts on the bone are enormous these days!) to slice for a cold lunch entrée.  I’ve dedicated a nonstick, quarter-size jelly roll baking sheet to be my chicken “roasting pan,” so that I don’t have to worry about how the pan looks when I can’t clean off all the dark, burned on chicken and olive oil goodness.

I think you’ll like this, and it’s not much work, and it might be the personal Supper Cook gift you need that keeps on giving. . .but not too long!

Next time:  The family green vegetable legend

The recipe:

Roast Chicken Breasts, Barefoot Contessa Style

A 35 minute effort

4 split chicken breasts (bone-in, skin-on), less than 8 ounces each

Olive oil, a half teaspoon for each breast

Kosher salt, a liberal pinch between your thumb and forefinger for each breast

Freshly ground black pepper, three hefty grinds for each breast

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Sprinkle the chicken breasts liberally with salt and pepper, a pinch of kosher salt and three grindings of pepper for each, and place them on a sheet pan.  Rub the skin side with olive oil.  Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is just cooked.  Set the pan aside and let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before slicing it to serve.  It can also be cooled further until handling is easier, and then remove the meat from the bones, discard the skin, and shred the chicken into large bite-sized pieces for use in salads or casseroles.  Saved in the refrigerator, it lasts about two days without tasting leftover, so use it fast.

#1

I’m a cook who believes in a meal, a family meal, the kind for which everyone comes to the table  and, by golly, they’d better enjoy themselves while they eat!  Everyone has always been happy to eat what I cook, but they’ve never been particularly interested in my method for getting it on the table, nor do they seem to appreciate, beyond how good the food is, the considerable meshing of time and effort that make my meals efficient as well as delicious. I think my talent is actually that, making it all come together, and so I’m launching a blog, in heavily-populated food blog Seattle, to explore that tenet. 

I hereby promise that if you keep checking back every two weeks, you’ll get another insight into maintaining an efficient kitchen and getting a meal on the table.

Since I moved from Kansas City to Seattle nine years ago, bringing my parents so that they could be local grandparents to my niece and nephew the way they were to my daughter as she was growing up in KC, I’ve been wrestling with “identity,” that kind of identity which earmarks one’s place in life, lets people categorize the talent you have and see if it helps them.  After all, we exist to help each other, in my book-of-life-as-it-should-be-lived, so I’ve spent 8 years now wondering where I was on that ladder. 

More specifically, I’ve been wondering who I’ll be after my parents are gone, because right now, my identity is closely tied with caregiving—thankfully, not on a live-in, daily basis, but, nevertheless, caregiving to parents.  About four years ago, I thought I had the answer.  I knew that one of my talents was cooking, and I had categorized myself as a “gourmet” cook for at least a decade before that, so I was primed to teach cooking.  After all, I’d been an English teacher and a librarian, and I clearly had a gift for teaching, as well as for getting a meal on the table, sometimes even in adverse circumstances, so I imagined myself teaching and planned how I’d do that and commissioned one of my daughter’s college colleagues to design the logo you see here.  I gave a few cooking lessons, never charging for them, because, after all, I was neither a culinary school graduate nor an expert on any type of cuisine.  And then, life happened, and I felt my contacts for free lessons run out, and I still couldn’t imagine charging anyone for this vast store of knowledge and instinct I seemed to possess.  

Why Supper Cook?  Supper is when the family gathers to be together after a day spread out across the world, and that is so whether or not the primary cook has left the house to work elsewhere during the day.  Supper is when you, as the cook, feel it’s time to start the prep work for the meal; you look out and the light has changed,  the sun moving down the sky the opposite of the way it streamed in your windows,  the birds chirping differently, than either did this morning. So, you pour yourself your evening drink, set out something that will serve as an appetizer to keep the wayward hands and queries out of your way while you cook, and then you cook, keeping in mind my first rule:  cook for yourself!

I cringe inwardly as I say this, because it sounds so selfish, particularly coming from a liberally guilt-ridden, but nevertheless, 80s feminist Baby Boomer with a WASP background.  But you won’t enjoy the process if there’s not something in it for you, so it actually doesn’t matter a whole lot that you’re cooking for kids who won’t eat anything but macaroni and cheese or someone with allergies.  You’re the one who needs to enjoy what goes on the table.  Eventually, you’ll make adjustments so that you can both please and provide the necessary for the other eaters, but if you don’t start with the idea that you’re cooking for you, it will never be any fun.  And it has to be fun, or there’s not any reason to do it.

This time, I think I’ll just share a good book which might make a difference for you, because it did for me, even though “Selfish Cooking” had already my ingrained philosophy for 20 years.   Look for What We Eat When We Eat Alone, by Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin (Gibbs-Smith, 2009), and read it with an eye turned to what pleases you in food, as did all of the people who responded to Madison when she asked them what they cook for pleasure and comfort.  You’ll discover what makes you tick in food—whether or not your only requirement is healthy food, or perhaps you need a starch to feel comforted and full, or maybe you just need your cooking result to be incredibly easy before you’ll make an attempt. 

Whatever you discover about yourself is fine, but adopt the stance that it’s all about you!  Nothing else matters.

Next time: my easy comfort protein which never fails.