Simple End-of-Summer Sangria

My friends and I were looking for an easy, refreshing drink to ease out the summer and welcome in the fall. Of course, here in Texas where we are enduring another record-breaking day of 100+ degree heat, "fall" is a term we use kind of loosely, but at least we can dream of cooler weather ahead!

We were tired of wine served straight up, and craving some Sangria, but no one felt like running to the store to buy all the ingredients.

Looking in the fridge, we decided to use what we had on hand: a nice, dry Crios Rose of Malbec, some lemonade and a few bottles of Topo Chico sparkling water from Mexico.

It seemed like the perfect recipe of ingredients for a great poolside drink.  We mixed everything together, played with the proportions a bit, and finally got it just right. Delicious!

Try this little drink outside by the pool, at the lake or take it to the next tailgate.  I promise you and your friends will love it.

Simple Summer Sangria

Ingredients

Dry rose wine or any wine of your choosing (our first batch was made with a dry Rose of Malbec from Crios vineyards, we also tried this with red wine and it was great!)

Fresh lemonade (such as Good Flow lemonade or Simply Lemonade)

Sparkling water (such as Topo Chico or San Pelligrino)

To make

Over ice, pour two parts wine to one part lemonade (or to your taste) and add splash or two of sparkling water to make it fizzy (also to your taste).

Garnish with sliced lime or other sliced fruit(s).

You could also make this up in big pitchers and let everyone serve themselves.

 

 

 

Loving China

I just got home from a 2 1/2 week trip to China where I fell hopelessly in love with everything there: the people, the food, the culture, the old and the new, the future and the past.

It's easy to get the feeling these days that the world is shrinking, that everywhere you go things feel oddly familiar, the same.  But I now know that really doesn't apply when it comes to China.  It is different -- it gets your attention, it wakes you up to the size of the world, and the diversity that does still exist on this planet. 

First crush: Everywhere, the unexpected.

In China, I grew to love to expect the unexpected. Whether it be the Subway sandwich shop at the base of the Great Wall of China, the notice for Slow Food Saturday, or these lovely food stalls lining the route to the aerial tram taking you to the Wall itself, China asks you again and again to drop your expectations and utterly surrender to what she has to offer. 

On my first night in Shanghai, I scribbled in my journal, "China slips through my fingers."

It was an odd thing to write, but I know where I was coming from on those first few days there. I just couldn't get a firm hold on the place. Senses overloaded, I was puzzled, a bit lost. And I wanted desperately to strengthen my grasp, to dive in and take advantage of all that was on offer.

Quickly, my feelings for the people and the place began to evolve: from disorientation to an unsteady balance, then eventually to enchantment and some kind of love.

Travel has a way of breaking our routines, shaking us up a bit, allowing us to see the world with fresh eyes. It is good for the soul. Xie xie, China, for the experience.

 

New Recipe Adventure

My sister, Margaret, and I are both working again, and having a hard time making dinners that are creative and fun.  We both felt that we were making the same recipes over and over. At the same time, we felt overwhelmed by the number of recipes available to us in all the cookbooks and magazines in our kitchens. Obviously, there were lots of new recipes out there for us to try. All we needed was a reason to venture outside of our tried and true family favorites.

So, we decided that once a week, we will pull out a recipe book, open to a random page, and cook the dish that we opened to. We have to make that recipe! Okay, we did agree to one exception: we don't have to make anything with offal or truly disgusting ingredients that our families would never eat. 

We'll be sharing our weekly adventures in new recipe-finding here!

Dispatch from Dallas: Margaret's recipe adventure #1 

My first recipe came from Cooks Illustrated "The New Best Recipe." My daughter Sarah and I opened it to "Ricotta Calzones". Sarah and my middle son, Henry, were enthusiastic about trying them. The kids in our family have a shared memory about calzones. When we lived in Bangkok, we went to a restaurant often called "L'Opera". It was an italian restaurant, and opera music played all night. I took the kids there when Jaime was out of town on Sundays. Henry always ordered the calzone. It was so big that the ends drooped over the sides of the plate. Since Henry was only 8 or 9 at the time, the sight of him with this huge calzone was very funny to the waitstaff and to all of us. He always ate the whole thing.

I had tried re-creating calzones, but none of them had measured up to L'Opera. This recipe tried to counter-act the tendency of calzones to be heavy and doughy. I enjoyed reading the steps that the Cooks Illustrated testers used to perfect the recipe.  However, the price for the improvements was that the recipe was time-consuming. The dough had to rise for about 2 hours, but since the dough is made in a Kitchen-Aid, it is not very difficult. The cooked dough was delicious too, so the effort made in planning ahead paid off. But, it means that if you are work or otherwise busy in the day, it would be hard to cook this on a weekday.

 We decided to choose the "Red Pepper, Spinach and Goat Cheese" option, over the plain ricotta. This option added those ingredients to the ricotta filling. Although this added more steps, I think it was worth it, since the plain ricotta was too bland for our tastes. If I made them again, I would add more veggies and goat cheese and cut down the ricotta. I might also make the tomato sauce that was recommended (although I didn't have time to make it this time).

I learned one new technique in trying this recipe that I did not know before. This recipe calls for putting the calzones on parchment before putting them on the pizza stone. The parchment makes getting the calzones on and off the pizza stone very easy. Since I have struggled in the past with getting pizza on and off a stone without making a mess, I think I will try this the next time I make pizza. I can see making mini-pizzas and putting them on the stone with parchment. 

The finished product was very pretty. The family seemed to love them. Henry had two. All in all, it was a good recipe that I am glad I tried. I would not have made them without the "adventure", because of the time involved. 

So, week one was a success!

 

Game Day Hospitality

We are a UT Longhorn family. And with the approach of the fall football season, game day rituals return to our household.

In the pre-dawn dark, my husband and 11-year-old son rise, shower, and pack the truck full of all the essentials for successful tailgating: tents, chairs, chips, salsa, fixings for fajtas or whatever else we plan to serve that day, coolers packed with ice, water, tea and beer.

They then head down to the stadium at the tender hour of 6:30 am to set up and prepare to greet our guests throughout the day. Kick-off is not until 6:00 pm.

I will join a bit later in the day (the early morning arrival is only for the hardy few) and we will offer up a heavy dose of game day hospitality to our family and friends.

Hospitality can come in so many forms: a gracious table set with flowers, candles and nice china; cold lemonade on a covered porch; a meal served to friends or strangers making them feel cared for and welcome.

In the east parking lot across from UT's Royal Memorial Stadium it means a boisterous gathering of friends, family, and any stray fans who want to drop in and share a drink or bite. 

We like to extend this kind of hospitality to anyone who wants to join. The bigger the tailgate the better.

We love the game of football and all the pagaentry associated with it. Most of all, we welcome the opportunity it gives us to bring people together and enjoy some good, old-fashioned hospitality, game-day style.

 

A New Road

I recently went back to work full-time, a decision we made as a family that we all feel really good about.  I have an interesting job, and work with great people on projects that are creatively and intellectually stimulating.

My husband appreciates the steady income and benefits, so he is happy, and my son is old enough to get his chores and homework done before I get home, so we can all relax and enjoy each other in the evenings during the week.

And while my weekdays are now consumed with the needs of my new job, I will continue offering At Table classes on evenings and weekends.  I can never give up this satisfying work that feeds and nourishes all of us, while enlightening our minds and delighting our souls.

All of that is very comforting. And I must say the transition has been an easy one for the most part.

That is, until we talk about dinner.  There we've had to make some changes.

For the past two years, I have pretty much been the master of my own schedule.  I've had long, blessed afternoons to think about dinner, shop the markets, and prepare lovely, innovative, thoughtful meals at a relatively easy and unhurried pace.

Now that I get home at around 6:00 every evening, the languid pace of dinner prep has changed.

I still am committed to the act of making dinner at home, and having us all sit together and share the evening meal.  And I still want to cook for and feed my family with love, care and intention. But I just can't take all night getting us there.

I've found that simplicity, to no surprise, is what works best.

I've gone back to the basics of great ingredients made according to classic techniques often jazzed with modern twists and adaptations.

I've gone back to some of my old favorites like Marcella Hazan and Ann Clark and also some of my newer friends such as Jamie Oliver and Giada De Laurentiis. These people really get it in terms of making great food that is not fussy. They tend to use good, honest ingredients in fantastic combination and the results are almost always a hit.

I'll be sharing my experiences and recipes from this new road on my journey. 

And we'll still be having classes on evenings and weekends -- so look for our new schedule of summer classes coming soon!

Until then, here's to eating well in our busy world...and taking the time to share good food together.

Lovely Jubbly Baked Cod with Avocado, Cream and Cheese

Thanks to Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef, for yet another fantastic, easy recipe. We had this the first week I went back to work and it was pure bliss. It took minutes to prepare and we all loved it.  This is adapted from Happy Days with the Naked Chef. That recipe includes shrimp, but we left it out since we didn't have shrimp on hand. We also substituted orange roughy for cod. It was delicious. Any relatively lean and firm white fish would work. In Jamie's words, "Lovely jubbly."

Serves 4

Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 8-oz cod fillets (or halibut, orange roughy, tilapia, etc.)
2 small handfuls of fresh basil, ripped
2 avocados, peeled, pitted and sliced
3/4 - 1 cup half and half or cream
10 oz good white cheddar cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Rub a baking dish with a little olive oil, season the fish on both sides with salt and pepper, and place in the dish.  Sprinkle the fish with basil and avocado.  Drizzle over the cream and sprinkle on the cheese.

Cook for 15 - 20 minutes until golden and bubbly.  Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve.

Comfort

My mom's parents were older when she was born; both her mom and her dad were approaching 40 when she came into their world. These days it's almost the norm to have kids later in life, but in mom's day it was pretty unusual.  And since her parents were older, her childhood was different from most of her friends' -- her growing-up was quiet, more mature, and in many ways more worldly.

Grandma and Grandaddy, as we knew them, were sophisticated and well educated. They stood out and were different from most other folks in the west Texas town of Brownwood where they lived and raised my mom, their only child.

Grandma was an artist, an eccentric, a lady. Grandma was not a cook.  A woman named Simms was the cook in the family.

I was never really clear what Simms formal role was. She wasn't quite housekeeper, not really a nanny, not officially the person in charge of cooking. She lived in a little cottage behind the house my mother grew up in, and seemed to have her own life in addition to the one she shared with my mom and her parents.

My mom and I share lots of recipes, but I always know that when it is an old recipe, one from her childhood, it most likely came from Simms.

This past week, my son was in bed with a bad cold. I wanted to make the comforting chicken and rice soup I remembered my mom making every time we were sick as kids.

I asked mom for the recipe, and whipped up a batch. It was just as I remembered it: simple, pure and good. The essence of comfort.

When I asked mom how she ever came up with the recipe, she just smiled and said, "Simms came up with that.  It's her recipe." Of course.

Simms' Chicken and Rice Soup

Resist the temptation to add carrots or other seasonings, the idea of this soup is that it is so simple and pure.

1 whole small- to medium-sized chicken

4 - 5 stalks of celery, sliced

1 medium onion, chopped

Water to cover

Salt

1 cup uncooked white rice

Wash the chicken and pat dry. Put chicken in a large stockpot and cover with water. Add celery and onion, and a good amount of salt. Bring to a boil over high heat.

Once the water comes to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for at least one hour, until the chicken is cooked through and tender.

Remove the chicken from the pot and allow to cool a bit while finishing the soup.

Add the rice to the stock and simmer until cooked (about 15 minutes).

Meanwhile, remove all the meat from the bones and shred into bite-sized pieces. Add the chicken back to the pot when the rice is done.  Adjust seasoning and serve.

Sites for Feeling Good in 2010

I've been looking for fun and interesting support to get myself back in shape now that 2010 is well under way and I have no more excuses for skipping workouts and sitting around eating holiday pate and sipping red wine.

Here are links to a few sites I'm enjoying that are motivating me to eat right, be healthy and get moving again.

I'd love to add to the list so please send me your comments and add your own!

SparkPeople Useful daily exercise tips, or more extensive support in your goals if you so desire.

Vital Juice Good, non-intrusive daily e-mails on health, fitness, nutrition.

Super Natural Cook (101 Cookbooks) An absolutely wonderful blog with great photos and recipes from Heidi Swanson whose thing is "natural, whole foods and ingredients - vegetarian recipes that are good for you and for the planet."

My Grown Up Christmas List

 

 

There's a song out by Amy Grant that I seem to hear everywhere I go. It's called "My Grown-Up Christmas List," and it always gets me to thinking about what I care about most, and what I want for my life, my family, and the world we live in.

I've heard it in church, sung by a soulful Gospel singer. I've heard it on the radio, I've heard it in stores filled with holiday shoppers.

Most of all I hear it in my head. It's a simple song, and I love its message. Especially this year when Christmas feels more basic and pure than it has in years. The gifts under the tree are mostly for kids, and that feels right. For us grown-ups, we are giving ourselves the gift of time and connectedness.

It feels kind of funny not to be doing all that shopping. But it also feels really good. The kids will love their gifts, and we will value not feeling stressed, taking the time to relax and focus on what we love about our friends, our families and our faith.

I've given a lot of thought to what is on my grown-up Christmas list.

I want my family to be strong and sure. I want to live with integrity and consistency. I want to be a woman of noble character.

2009 has been quite a year, but this holiday season is helping me get clear on what I want, and who I want to be going into a brand new year.  

Take the time to reflect and maybe even listen to the song. What is on your list?

With love and gratitude this season. Merry Christmas, Laura

Keeping the Season Simple

This Thanksgiving, I am determined to keep things delicious and simple.

We always have at least 12 or 14 people over to share dinner with us, and I've learned over the years that the best times are when everyone brings something and we all pitch in to help.  It makes the planning and prep so much easier and everyone enjoys the freedom of making a favorite dish without the weight of having to prepare the entire meal alone.

I've been a bit torn about what I wanted to make this year, but I got my answer in yesterday's basic skills class. It was a meat class (Meat Preparation II) where we made a number of meats with different preparations: grilled lamb chops with rosemary, garlic and thyme, sauteed breaded chicken breasts with an orange marmalade cream sauce, and deep fried eggplant. Yum.

We also made a roast pork tenderloin with the most delicious fig sauce. Oh it was good! And we all agreed it tasted of the holidays with its port wine reduction, mission figs and hints of cinnamon and rosemary.

I plan to serve it as a side to our turkey (our group just can't give up having the bird). But one of guests shared that her family skips turkey altogether in favor of other meats. This year, they will  be serving roast pork with fig sauce.

Keep this recipe in mind for Thanksgiving, Christmas or any holiday gathering. It is outrageously good and would be great on turkey, pork or slathered on bread and eaten as jam. I promise you'll love it!

Roast Pork Tenderloin with Fig Sauce

Serves 4

For Fig Sauce

2 ½ cups port (such as Tawny port)

1 ¼ cups low sodium chicken broth

8 dried black Mission figs, coarsely chopped

2 sprigs fresh rosemary

2 cinnamon sticks

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper



In a medium-sized, heavy saucepan, combine the port, chicken broth, figs, rosemary, cinnamon, and honey.

Boil over medium-high heat until reduced by half, about 30 minutes.

Discard the rosemary sprigs and cinnamon sticks.

Transfer the port mixture to a blender and puree until smooth.
Blend in the butter, salt and pepper.

Note: The sauce can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Warm over medium heat before using.





For the pork

Two pork tenderloins, roughly 1 ½ to 2 pounds each

Salt and pepper

Olive oil


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Season the pork with salt and pepper.  
Put a small amount of olive oil in a large sauté pan and bring to medium high heat.

Sear the pork tenderloin in the pan, browning the meat quickly on all sides.

Place the pork in a baking dish and roast for 25 to 30 minutes depending on the size of the tenderloin.




Cut the pork crosswise into slices. Drizzle with warm fig sauce and serve.



Adapted from Everyday Italian by Giada De Laurentiis

Honoring Gourmet

Our book group met earlier this week and the book we happened to be reading was Ruth Reichl's first memoir, Tender at the Bone.

We were all struck by the timing of the meeting and the choice of the book (we had chosen the book months before). All of us were still stunned by the news of Gourmet being shut down, and were glad to have the chance to get together and process the news and work through our emotions.

We wondered what it says about our world today where "quick and easy" seems to be taking over everything and thoughtful discourse on diverse topics is harder and harder to find, especially in the mainstream.

We loved Gourmet for its lavish photos, its thoughtful essays, its sometimes challenging recipes. So what if you weren't going to make every dish, or that some recipes called for obscure or hard-to-find ingredients? These were often the very recipes that exposed us to new cultures, and to tastes and traditions not our own. That is what we loved about Gourmet.

We'll also really miss the letters from the editor. We always looked forward to reading what Ruth had to say. And we always loved looking at her photo with her broad smile, confident posture and wild and wavy hair.

I just got the final issue in the mail, and I still haven't brought myself to take it out of its plastic protective cover. It's too sad. Too final. Maybe I'll crack it open this weekend, and start thinking about Thanksgiving. I'll be making their menu, whatever it is, in honor of Gourmet.

Thank you, Gourmet, for a lifetime of thought and inspiration around food, culture and the arts of the table. We will miss you.