Boswell Chili

Hey guys. Hope you've been enjoying your latkes, and now you can have the authentic Boshenke accompaniment. Boshenke being the communal name for Emily, Iain and myself, a merger of our last names that is an inevitable title for our forthcoming restaurant (forthcoming being in approx. three decades). This is based on my Dad's recipe, and is only slightly modified from it because I couldn't find some of the right ingredients in Ireland, where I first learned how to cook for myself. If you want to make this a meat recipe, you can sub out one of the cans of beans for 1lb. ground meat, cooking the ground meat in a skillet over medium-high heat until no longer pink, and draining off the grease that sweats from the meat for later use. Add it in with the beans, corn, tomatoes and spices.

Boswell Chili

Ingredients
2 bell peppers
2 15oz or so cans of beans, whatever kind tickles your fancy
1 32oz/28oz/whatever big variety of can diced tomatoes
1 onion
5 cloves of garlic
10oz package frozen sweet corn, about 1 1/4 cups
1/3 or so of a thai pepper or as much as you like of another spicy variety
160z broth of some kind. I made my own from some leftover broccoli stems and scallions and the husks of onions and garlic I chopped for this meal. Pretty straightforward, just cut everything up, saute it in butter on medium or so heat to soften and release flavor, but don't let anything brown or cook too much, then cover in water and boil/simmer for 45 minutes - an hour. Instant veggie broth. Just be sure to drain it and toss the solids, they're kind of gross.
2 Tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
1 Tablespoon salt
olive oil

Supplies
Large pot
Cutting board
Knife
Wooden spoon

Tuneage
Minnesota Public Radio! They had some sweet harp music on the air at cooking time.

1. Cut things - dice your onion, cut out the stems of the peppers and cut everything into nice little chunks, 1/4-1/2". Mince the garlic and spicy pepper. SAFETY WARNING: always wash your hands after you cut spicy peppers, *especially* if you are male and plan on going to the bathroom. There are certain things that are OK to visit a man's secret regions, chili oil is not one of them.

2. First saute - drop some olive oil into your large pot - a couple tablespoons, maybe? I never measure oil. Just put enough so that whatever you're frying doesn't burn, but not so much that everything gets soggy and greasy. Heat it up to just above medium and throw in all your sauteables - the onion, peppers, and garlic, and this is when you cook your meat, too, if you're eating omnivorously. Cook this until the onions are translucent, stirring well to keep things from sticking to the bottom.

3. Add and stew - throw in the tomatoes, corn, beans, broth, and spices - the salt, cumin, and chili powder. You don't have to be exact with the cumin and chili powder. I usually add a little more. This most recent recipe was blessed by fate and my approximate heapings turned out to be exactly right. Let this boil first, then reduce down to a gentle simmer and let it go for at least 45 minutes, preferably and hour and a quarter. Don't cook it so much that the peppers get really mushy. I have never had this happen but I believe it to be theoretically possible.

And you're done! Taste it at the end to make sure it's good. If it's not flavorful enough, add more salt and/or oregano; if it needs more of a kick, add chili powder; if it's too thin or needs fortification add some cumin. Dress it with grated cheddar. My dad puts cilantro on it and while I like cilantro, too, they didn't have it in Ireland so I never remember to get it.

Peace, love, chili!

Aerarbran Stew

Hello denizens of the internet! My post of a na latha (of the day anns a Ghaidhlig, which I am speaking in for no good reason) is a little bit dorky. Today, I bring you the best in regional foods of regions that don't exist!

Perhaps I should explain myself. Here at Yummies Kitchen, we do more than just cook. All three of us are also writers of fiction, and all of our works deal with fictional cultures. The other day, a thought struck us: what do they eat in these places? And then we decided to answer that question by cooking their food!

The culture I was exploring that created this dish is based in a forest with flora and fauna greatly resembling the North Woods. That means there were such things as edible roots, cherries, wild rice and mushrooms, which is exactly what I decided to make this dish out of. Exactly half of us were skeptical of combining these things (Emily and half of me) and the other half were really enthusiastic about it (Bozzie and the other half of me). It actually turned out better than I could have hoped, and the results caused Emily to say "I never would have thought it, but this turned out really well!"

Aerarbran Stew with Cherries and Wild Rice

Ingredients
3 cloves garlic
1 white onion
1 turnip
1 large potato
5 mushrooms
2/3 cup wild rice
1/2 cup rice
2/3 cup dried sour cherries
2 cups Veggie broth
1 tbs butter
salt and pepper

Materials
Knife and Cutting board
Medium-large skillet
Lid that fits over skillet
Wooden Spoon

Music Listened To
Amal and the Night Visitors was playing on MPR, I believe

1. Chop the onion and garlic. Peel the turnip and cube both the turnip and the potato. Slice the mushrooms.

2. Sautee the garlic and onions over low-med heat until translucent. They should taste generally sweet before proceeding.

3. Add turnip and potato. Add the broth, rice, wild rice, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer 5-10 minutes.

4. Add the cherries and mushrooms. Simmer 10-15 minutes, until the rice is soft enough to eat.


It's really quite a simple recipe, when it comes down to it, but it turned out delicious. It can work either as a main course, or you could have it alongside other dishes. Perhaps you may want to try it for your Christmas dinner, side by side with your favorite savories (or your fave saves as I have just decided I like to call them).

And, as is our philosophy at Yummies!, don't just do it by the book! Improvise a little! I was thinking that next time I'd try to get some wild mushrooms instead of button or crimini. Maybe you're more carnivorous than me, so try putting some white meat in it! Or maybe a splash or white wine? The choice is yours!

We now close with the prayer of thanks I came up with on the bus knowing one would be required:

We thank the forest
We thank the earth
for our food
and for our birth.

Latkes!

Ok. So basically what happened is that I didn't get to make latkes on Sunday (the day I'd planned because my friends came over to bake cookies and we had tons of fun but didn't finish up until almost 9 and we'd all eaten so many cookies/so much dough that something as heavy as latkes was completely out of the question. So instead I waited until Tuesday, which was the next day that the Ia(i)ns and I would be able to eat dinner together. This also happened to be the day Bozzie was making chili. He'd thought about cornbread as a side, but that just didn't happen.

Latkes go as deep into my memory as anything. I don't remember the first time we made them, but I have a number of images of my Dad standing in the kitchen, apron on, potato in one hand and grater in the other. (Ok, so sometimes we used the cuisinart too). Latkes are deep-fried, so there's no point in trying to make them healthy, but they taste amazing. Believe me. I'm not normally one to go for fried foods. Since latkes are a traditionally Jewish food, there are probably as many recipes as there are Jews in the world. This is the one my family uses. Happy Hanukkah!

Potato Latkes

Ingredients
Note: This recipe is given in proportions rather than exact amounts. The numbers in parentheses are what I used, and I made about 20 latkes from the batch. Each person ate about 3-4 and we had leftovers.

• Potatoes(6 medium)
• 1 onion for every 2 potatoes (3 medium)
• 1 egg for every 1 potato (6)
• 1/4 cup flour for every potato potatoes(1 1/2 cups)
• 1/4 tsp salt for each potato (1 1/2 tsp)
• Black pepper. Lots.
• Ditto on the canola oil

Procedure

• Put up a pot of water to boil
• Scrub the potatoes. You can peel them if you like, but I wouldn't suggest it. Grate them into little bits like hashbrowns. You can use a food processor, but, as my Great Grandma Rhea from what is now Belarus said "Latkes are no good unless they have a little bit of knuckle in them." (Apparently this phrase was not her invention--I've heard it tossed around by other Jewish grandmothers).
• Parboil the potatoes for about 5 minutes. You don't need them to be completely soft, but you want them to get cooked enough that they run no risk of tasting like raw potato once finished. You may have to do this in batches, depending on how many potatoes you have.
• Meanwhile, grate the onions and stick them into a large mixing bowl
• Drain the potatoes into a colander, rinse with lots of cold water, and squeeze out the excess moisture. I found the method for this to be picking up handfuls and squeezing them repeatedly, then tossing them in the mixing bowl.
• Throw in the eggs, flour, salt and pepper, and mix well. It'll look pretty gooey and white at this point, most likely. That's a good thing.
• Get the oil going. I pour 1/4-1/2 inch depth on the bottom of the skillet and the way I test its readiness is by throwing in a little tiny piece of latke. When it starts sizzling, you're in business.
• Using a spoon (or whatever really) scoop latke mix from the bowl and throw it into the skillet. I usually do three at a time. Let them sizzle along and press them down a bit with a spatula or spoon. The time will vary wildly, and so will the temperature you need to keep the skillet on, because the oil keeps getting hotter. When it's nicely browned on one side, flip it and let it cook until it seems done on the other side. Taste the first one to make sure it doesn't need more salt. If the batter seems too thin, add some flour.
• When the latkes come out of the skillet, have a plate layered with paper towels ready so they can drain. Once they've drained a bit, it's a good idea to put them into an oven on "warm" until it's time to eat. You can cook all of the batter and reheat the leftovers in the oven (a microwave will do too, but that doesn't lend the nice crispy quality of an oven or toaster oven). You can also store batter in the fridge for a few days.
• For the record, applesauce is a much better accompaniment for latkes than chili, but chili worked surprisingly well. Some people like sour cream on top. I'm not really sure why. In fact, I'm not really sure why people like sour cream on top of anything....
  

Hmm?

Emily (while cooking latkes): Oh darnit, we don't have any applesauce!

Bozzie: That's ok. We have chili.


Explanation/Recipes coming soon...

Grilled Spinach and Cheese Sandwich

When I get home from my job at the Cheeky Monkey Deli, unless I've grabbed a sandwich there I'm usually pretty hungry, 'cause I've been working through lunch and I don't get to eat it myself until I get off. So I want something pretty quick, but I also want something really tasty, because I've been surrounded by great food all day. So just the other day I came back and made this:

I probably could have taken a better picture, but I think you get the point. It's a grilled spinach and cheese sandwich, and it's about the easiest and most rewarding thing to make when you have the three magical things in your fridge. The key here is to use *good* quality bread, spinach, and cheese. I mean, don't go overboard and get super fancy stuff, I'm just talking about regular-good. I baked the bread myself (you don't have to do that, but it sure is fun and you get some delicious, delicious bread for super cheap, if you've got the time), the cheese is from an Iowan dairy that uses milk from Amish farmers (so freakin' good: http://www.miltoncreamery.com/ if you're in the area, it was at our co-op in Minneapolis), the spinach was organic, blah blah blah but I think it's important that you start with good ingredients that weren't treated with nasty chemicals. Did you know that a big reason why we use so many pesticides and fertilizers and stuff is that after WWII we weren't making as many bombs and poisons, so they converted the chemical factories so they would make things we could dump on our farmland to make stuff grow better? Weird, no? You'd think that since we've been doing fine without industrially produced agricultural chemicals for, say, all of human history, maybe it wouldn't be so weird to try farming without them.

OK, rant's over, let's get to the food.

Grilled Spinach and Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients

• Bread
• Spinach
• Cheese
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Kitchen Supplies

• A skillet
• Spatula

Tuneage

93.7 The Current

Wash your spinach well. It sucks to have dirt as a flavor, as great as it is in other contexts. You don't even need to cut it up. Just heat up a dash of olive oil (not too much, the spinach sweats a lot and you end up with a lot of liquid that you just pour out) (this is on medium heat), throw in your spinach leaves, and throw on a little (!) salt. Never oversalt, it really stinks to try and fix it. Just remember, you can always add more salt later. Grind on some pepper and stir it around until it starts to wilt. At this point, there should be a little green puddle in the bottom of the skillet. Hold back the spinach with your spatula and let most of it drain out. Now add in the cheese that you've already chopped up or grated, as much or little as you like. Continue to cook, stirring a lot, until the cheese is melted in and the spinach is a vibrant green and well wilted, but not overcooked. While this is happening, stick your slices of bread in the toaster. When your bread pops up and the cheese and spinach is ready (really, it's ready whenever, because you could eat it uncooked if you were in the mood), scoop out the spinachcheese and stick it between the two slices, forming the essential sandwich structure. Now stick the sandwich into the skillet, where there should be some residual mix of oil, spinachy water, and cheese. Let the sandwich fry in this awesome mixture for a while, turning it over before it starts to blacken or smoke. You could turn up the heat a little bit if you wanted but you don't have to. It should take 2-3 minutes on each side. Keep turning to check to see that it's being fried properly, and acquiring an excellent orange color. You could press it down, too, if you wanted. Once the sandwich is solidly together, it is done - it shall be one unit, rather than a loose collection of bread and fillings, and shall move and act as one. Cut it into two triangles because it tastes better that way.

Sabor!

Toffee Triangles

Happy Holidays to one and all! Hanukkah is in full swing (third night coming up-- I have my JCC menorah that I made when I was three, and I found candles at target). You can expect a post on latkes later this week. Also sufgoniyot, but only if I get really ambitious. For now, however, I have a Christmas tradition to share. For those of you going "But I thought you were Jewish," I should point out that my mom is Quaker (and for those of you now going "Well, then you can't be Jewish," we should have a nice little chat.) Anyway, since my mom grew up with Christmas, we've always had a Christmas tree in our house, and on Christmas Eve we sing Christmas carols and have a candlelit tea party with lots of lots of cookies. It's great fun. These particular cookies have been a staple for our tea party since I can remember. I made this particular batch for a Christmas party that I didn't end up going to because we went to see Bozzie's play and got home later than expected (sorry Eric!). But they're still fantastic cookies (and freeze super well). I mean, this is a recipe that I actually follow instead of improvising my way through. Ok, so I may not have measured the flour exactly (sorry Mom).

Toffee Triangles

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk (fat free or not--but keep in mind that condensed milk is not the same as evaporated milk)
• 2 TBS butter
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups chocolate chips or chopped chocolate. These are sweet bars, so I like to use semi-sweet chocolate, but milk would be fine too
• 1 cup crushed heath bars or other toffee bits (if they're coated in chocolate that's fine)

Procedure

• Preheat the oven to 350°F
• Cream the butter and sugar (always an auspicious start--I mean, how can something that starts out like this not be good?)
• Add in the egg yolk and mix well. For those of you who don't know how to separate eggs, basically what you want to do is crack the egg over a bowl and tip the yolk back and forth from one half of the shell to the other, letting the white drip into the bowl (if you're not saving the white, you can also do this over a sink and save yourself having to clean a bowl).
• Mix in the flour and salt. The dough will be very, very crumbly. When everything's incorporated, tip it into a well-greased 9x13 pan (I prefer the glass ones, but we don't have one here, so metal works too). Pat it down and lick your hands, because they'll taste really good (why yes, of course that's in the original recipe). It should look like this.
• Bake for about 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown
• Meanwhile, pour the sweetened condensed milk into a small-medium saucepan and put in the butter. Cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a low boil. Then keep cooking for 3-5 minutes until it's thick and creamy. This is the most difficult part of the recipe because this stuff burns super, super easily. Like, it'll go from good to charred in seconds. So keep a close watch on it and keep stirring. According to my mom, if brown bits start to come up from the bottom, stop cooking it immediately, pick out the biggest brown pieces, and don't think about it anymore because it'll still taste good.
• Once the milk has reached the desired consistency, pour in the vanilla and mix it in, then quickly remove from heat.
• When the cookie layer is done, pour the milk mix on top, using a spatula to spread it around, and bake for 10-12 minutes more, until set and golden.
• Here's the fun part. As soon as the bars come out of the oven, sprinkle on the chocolate and stick them back in for a minute or two so it melts. Then use a spatula to spread the chocolate (if the chocolate isn't spreadable, stick it back in the oven for a minute until it is. Mmmm.
• Sprinkle the toffee bits on top and let the whole thing cool for a bit. Looks heavenly, right? The longer you let them cool, the easier they'll be to cut (theoretically). The chocolate will eventually harden, and if you're trying to layer them on a plate like I was yesterday you can stick them in the fridge to quicken this process.
• When you cut them, I find it easiest to cut squares/rectangles first and then cut each one diagonally to form two triangles. I suppose ultimately there's no reason these must be toffee triangles and not toffee squares, but I like that shape much better (as well as the resulting alliteration). Hey, try it, see what works for you. Dangerously enough, these are just as good right out of the freezer as they are right out of the oven, so if you're trying to do Christmas yummies in moderation (or hide some of the cookies until the candlelit tea party, like my mom does,)the freezer is not an adequate deterrent. Just sayin'....
  

Spinach and Mushroom Alfredo

So, quick post this week. Is this week's recipe extremely inventive? Not so much. Is it delicious, warm, filling and easy to make? Why, yes! Glad you asked!
I (Iain) first prepared this dish on the fly when cooking for a large group and someone else had already procured the ingredients. I just followed my cooking instincts and put together the ingredients I thought sounded good, and the result was deemed "orgasmic" in the words of one of the eaters. After getting such a good reception for it that first time I've gone on to prepare it several more times since, and it never fails for a good dinner in not a lot of time.

Spinach and Mushroom Alfredo

Ingredients
1 lb fettuccine
1 cup heavy cream
1 stick of butter
1 cup Parmesan
salt and pepper
15-20 mushrooms
4 medium-large cloves garlic, minced
3 hefty handfuls of spinach
butter for sauteing

Materials
Knife and Cutting Board
Skillet
Large pot
Wooden spoon
Tongs

Music Listened To
"Dublin Lady" by Andy M Stewart

1. Bring the water to a boil and add the fettuccine. In the meantime, slice your mushrooms and mince your garlic. Heat the skillet with some butter (don't go too skimpy - if you're making this dish, throw your fat content worries to the wind). Saute the mushrooms with most of the garlic - I usually add some basil to this step.

2. Once the pasta is done, drain it (promptly!) and throw in the butter, cream and Parmesan. Add the remaining garlic, salt and pepper. Stir together over low heat and turn off once combined. In the meantime, add the spinach to the mushrooms and stir until the spinach is cooked down.

3. Dump the spinach and mushrooms into the pasta and suace. Stir together with tongs and serve!

Pretty simple, eh? Despite my previous comment, if you DO want to make the dish less heavy, saute the mushrooms in a little olive oil instead (it'll go farther than the butter) and sub milk in for the heavy cream. You can also cut down on the butter in the sauce. It won't be quite as delicious, but it should still taste good and it won't be quite so much of a heavyweight. I personally like the heaviness of it now that it's winter and it takes probably twice as much food to fill me up, but I also, as has been observed, am a black hole when it comes to food.

Enjoy!