Down to hEarth

 I was really making lasagna - and that dish did happen but its for a family gathering in a couple of days. I had left over red sauce, homemade pesto and some spinach. Sounded pretty good to me for pasta. Anyway - it tasted so good I thought I'd better write it down. The red meat sauce was a bit of a mix today. I used a pound of ground buffalo meat along with a pound of chicken mild Italian sausage (PCC). After this browned in some olive oil, I scooped it out of the pot and then added in a diced onion, leek, and a lonely shallot that had nowhere else to go. I like to cook onions and their ilk slow to soften, not burn. I add a little salt and pepper too. After the onion mixture is starting to get a little golden (and soft!) I add 3 cloves of chopped garlic. When the garlic gets aromatic, I add back in the meat and then follow that up with two 24 oz cans of crushed whole tomatoes and one jar of marinara sauce. I usually wash out the cans and jar with about a cup of water, adding that...

 It sounds so simple, right? Faraway child is cooking Thanksgiving dinner for some friends in Malaysia. Mashed Potatoes are a family favorite and of course she wants to make them from scratch. Er, I should say that she wants her loving husband to make them from scratch. Son, I swear this is easy! This dish just needs some time and patience! :) Making anything from scratch takes time. I love the boxed varieties too - but, honestly, nothing beats homemade mashed potatoes. You can start with different kinds of potatoes but I really like russet - or baking - potatoes best. White or Yukon gold are great mashed as well - you just need to peel them before boiling and then watch that they don't start disintegrating in the pot. Let's prep these potatoes as russet baking potatoes.   These are really big potatoes! scoring the tops   Baking potatoes range in size and sometimes its hard to figure out how much to buy. If a potato is the length of my hand - I want 1.5-2 potatoes pe...

Many years ago, a friend gave me this recipe and its been a family favorite ever since. It was one of the dishes that my faraway child asked me to help her cook in Malaysia and it turned out to be very easy to get all the ingredients from her local market.  RECIPE: 1-2 Tbsp. Vegetable oil  2 medium onions 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 3 cups chicken broth 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro (coriander) or 1/2 tsp dried/ground coriander seeds 2 Tbsp. lime juice - or more to taste 1 tsp ground cumin - I like to add a bit more but I wait for final seasoning taste 1 tsp dried oregano 1/4 tsp. red pepper sauce (peri peri sauce would work great) - optional salt and pepper  1 small can of corn kernals. In the USA white "shoepeg" corn or hominy works great too 1 can (15-16 ounce) great northern beans - or cannellini beans I can (15-16 ounce) butter beans 2 cups boneless chicken thighs - chopped into bite size pieces. 1/2 cup flour - might take more to coat the chicken. You can se...

 I just have to write this down... because... wow... I went to roast a chicken in my dutch oven soup pot. I spatchcocked the chicken to save some time - and also because I could then make stock with the backbone and bits. With my handy-dandy new poultry shears, it was super easy, by the way. Feeling a bit lazy but also wanting to keep the chicken up out of the juices (fat) that would accumulate in the bottom of the pot - I sliced a whole onion into big thick rings, laying them on the bottom. In went the chicken, olive oil, garlic salt/pepper and - zatar spice.  Oven was at 350 with lid for about 30 minutes. I checked the temperature, removing the lid and left to roast another 15-20. The chicken was good - but the stuff in the bottom of that pot was pure gold. Caramelized onions, juices and fats from the chicken and spices. I added back in the raw back bone, water, loosely chopped up some celery and a few heads of garlic - and set to simmer. Those caramelized onions crafted su...

I love making stuffing. It is basically a savory bread dish served as a traditional side for Thanksgiving. I've found many types of bread dishes from a variety of cultures; and yet, this particular dish is all about the fall harvest. Wild mushrooms, vegetables, herbs with homemade focaccia and simmering stock. My local farmer's market is my guide - what are they selling at their last harvest market of the season? Onions, leeks, mushrooms, celery - all are available late November where I live in the PNW. I can get fancy and add in some of those oyster or chanterelle mushrooms - or just stick to everyday white mushrooms. It all works. The trick to good stuffing is to make each part of the dish tasty in its own way. Using a carton of stock? Simmer it with herbs and half a head of garlic. Try the stock - does it taste yummy? Buying bread from the market? Get a loaf of uncut sourdough and dry out big thick slices to cut up. No fresh herbs? Find dried sage and thyme in the spice aisl...

* Updated April 2022 as I visited my faraway child in KL...  This is a family favorite and one of my daughters, my faraway child, is craving this soup. The challenge is to bring what is a fairly simple chowder recipe to her high-rise apartment in Kuala Lumpur. I'm crossing my fingers that she can enjoy this tasty chowder while abroad.  We found everything - except crab. There are small clawed crabs in the market - but not what you want to sit and pick apart to make chowder. So we used scallops and one lobster tail (that wasn't worth the cost). My hope is that my daughter will play with the recipe to find ways to make it her own. Different chilies for the pesto; fish or other seafood for a crab substitute. Homemade fish or chicken stock made with green onions and ginger - there are so many ways that she will be able to experiment and have fun. For now, however, she wants the 'taste of home' - so we tried to make it as close to our NW favorite as we could. Let's get s...