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Perfect Crispy Bacon

Bacon

I love bacon.  I really do.  However, over the years I haven’t had the best luck cooking it, even though it seems so simple in theory.  When cooking it on the stove top – the only way I’d been taught – I’d always get grease spatter on my hands (ouch) and the bacon would cook unevenly.  I kind of gave up on preparing bacon, to be honest.

However, I’d recently heard about cooking bacon in the oven, and since I wanted to make a cobb salad on Friday, I thought I’d give this technique a chance.  Well, I am a total convert now!  This method works beautifully and turns out amazing crispy bacon, with no grease spattered hands or burnt bacon.

I took my inspiration from a method described on about.com, which is as follows:

Line a baking sheet with foil. This will make cleanup easier later.
Arrange bacon slices on the foil and place the baking sheet on the center rack of a cold oven. Close oven door. Turn oven on to 400°F. Walk away.

Come back 17 to 20 minutes later. As soon as the bacon is golden brown, but not excessively crisp, it’s done. The exact time will depend on the thickness of the bacon slices, and also on how quickly your oven reaches the target temperature.

Remove the pan from the oven. Transfer the bacon to another sheet pan lined with paper towels to absorb the fat. You can pour the liquid fat into a heat-resistant container to save for other uses. I like to pour it through a strainer lined with cheesecloth to filter out any crunchy bits.

My observations:

  • The foil was a really good call.  I wouldn’t want to do it without foil because it really does make cleanup easy.
  • At about 15 minutes, I turned over the bacon slices, using tongs to grab them. I think that gave the bacon a chance to cook more evenly than just cooking it on one side.
  • One way to drain the bacon is to set the slices on a baking rack which sits over a paper towel.  That way, the bacon won’t be sitting in its own fat and will have a better chance to more thoroughly drain off the fat.

My household was really impressed by this bacon. It was perfectly crispy without being burned or overcooked. In fact, you could hold the bacon horizontally and there was no bending. It snapped off and almost melted in your mouth. It was perfect in our cobb salad (which was delicious), and for breakfast this weekend.

I will forever cook my bacon this way.

Photo credit: (cc) Porge, via a Creative Commons License.

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Radish, Orange, and Mint Salad

radishes

Usually, I am not a big fan of radishes – they are bitter-spicy and taste a little like dirt.  I’ve always wanted to enjoy them, mostly because my grandma loves them and I love my grandma; she will eat them raw, out of hand, like tiny apples.

So, I’m happy to say that I’ve found a way to enjoy these round red radishes – finally!

orange

These radishes star in a salad I first tasted at an underground supper club called The Sunday Night Dinner, run by my friend Tamara.  The whole meal was fabulous, but this salad stuck out in my memory as spectacular.  It presented an amazing combination of flavors – earthy, sweet, bright, perfumed.  It was made with minimal ingredients: oranges, radishes, mint, and orange flower water.  The combination is simply amazing.  And addictive.  I had three servings that night.

orange blossom water

As I was planning out my meals for the week, this salad came to mind, and I knew I had to make it.  I searched the internet for it and came across a recipe from Saveur that resulted in this same salad I loved from that original dinner.  The orange juice really ameliorates the spicy nature of the radishes without breaking their spirit, and the mint is another refreshing touch.  The orange flower water perfumes it all beautifully.

This will be the primary way I eat radishes from now on, I expect.

radish, orange, mint

Radish, Orange, and Mint Salad
adapted from a recipe by Saveur

1 to 2 bunches red radishes, about 1/2 lb., washed and trimmed
1 1/2 tbsp. unrefined sugar – rapadura or sucanat work well
1 tsp. orange flower water
1 1/2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp. fresh orange juice
salt
1 seedless orange
4 sprigs fresh mint, chopped

Shred radishes or slice thinly and julienne. Place in a small bowl and sprinkle with sugar. Stir and set aside to macerate for 15 minutes. Drain off excess liquid, if any. Cover and refrigerate, about 20 minutes, until well chilled.

Whisk together orange flower water, lemon juice, and orange juice in a small bowl, and season to taste with salt. Pour dressing over radishes and lightly toss.

Peel and section orange. Add to radishes.

Chop the mint and add it, mixing everything together.

Serves 2-4.

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Melted Leeks, Quinoa, and Poached Egg

poached on top

I can’t remember exactly what originally brought me to Married …with dinner, but it was probably through a tweet or a blog post by Shauna.  Oh wait, I remember! I was led to the site because of this post.  It is part of the discussion about the importance of cooking meals at home, something that I do believe is important.

However, as someone who works a full time job, has a lively social life, and is active in the community, I know how challenging it can be to put together dinner at the end of the day when you have competing interests vying for your time and attention.  There are evenings when I get home, when I can’t think straight, and just want to order-in something, or eat a bowl of cereal, or even forgo dinner altogether (not a good idea).  It can be really hard to figure it all out when you’re beat from the workday.

As it turns out, my solution to this is planning out my meals for the week.  Granted, I’ve only been at this practice for a couple of weeks, but I’ve noticed a difference.  It helps to have the evening’s menu all written out, and I definitely eat more consistently well these days.

quinoa

Last week, MWD posted this intriguing recipe that includes a number of my favorite ingredients – leeks, quinoa, broth, and egg.  It could be considered a soup, but it’s much more than that.  It’s surprisingly filling for its size, too.  The nutrition will also increase if you use a nourishing homemade broth (I had broth from my stewing hen, which was delicious).

I can see myself making this again and again because it’s just that awesome.  It was easy to prepare, too – and it can be made piecemeal over a few days, combining everything on the day you want to eat it, or you can make everything on the same day, which is what I did.  It took me about 45 minutes to put everything together.

leeks

These “melted leeks” – which are basically soft, caramelized, salty leeks – are a wonderful condiment all by themselves and would be good on other things, too, like pasta, roasted tomatoes, or even toast with cream cheese.  They would be excellent on top of salsa verde chicken, too.

Melted Leeks and Quinoa with a Poached Farm Egg and Parmesan Broth
Mildly adapted from Married …with dinner, who was inspired by a first course at Range.

For each serving — multiply as needed:
1/3 cup melted leeks (recipe below)
1/2 cup cooked quinoa (I prefer red)
1/2 cup simmering chicken stock
a handful of Parmesan or other hard cheese, grated as finely as possible (about 1/2 oz by weight)
1 large egg, preferably pastured
minced chives, for garnish
salt, as needed

NOTE: Soak the quinoa in water and an acid (I use raw apple cider vinegar, but lemon juice works well, too) for 8-12 hours before you start preparing this dish.  I find it convenient to put this together in the morning before I go to work.

Cook the quinoa: rinse the soaked grain and add it to a pan with water (1:1 – I used 1/2 cup quinoa to a 1/2 cup water).  Cook for 15-20 minutes until all the water is absorbed by the grain.  Makes a 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cups of quinoa.

Make the melted leeks:  cut off and discard the root and the woody tops, slice the leeks in half lengthwise, then slice the white and light-green parts into half-rings about 1/4- to 1/8-inch thick. You should have about 2 cups.  Rinse leek slices well in a bowl of running water. Melt 4 tbs butter in a heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Add leeks and a couple of tablespoons of water. Simmer slowly until leeks are tender and almost all water evaporates, adding more water if needed to further soften the leeks. Season well with salt. If using immediately, remove pan from the heat and set aside.

Mince the chives.

Bring the chicken broth to a lively simmer and whisk in the Parmesan.

Just before you’re ready to serve, soft-poach the eggs.

While the eggs are cooking, divide the melted leeks among individual bowls, spreading to cover about 2/3 of the bottom of the bowl. Scoop the quinoa over the leeks, and top each serving with a soft-poached egg. Sprinkle with chives, and pour the Parmesan broth around the edges of the bowl.

Enjoy.

This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

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Mish-Mash Friday

So, it’s been a crazy week – lots going on at work, and meetings in the evenings for community things I’m involved in. Celebrated my 4th anniversary with my guy this week, too, which was nice. We had dinner at a local Italian restaurant and had lots of delicious treats there, including some anisette at the end of dinner.  I’d never had anything like it before. I relax my eating practices a bit for celebrations like that. I feel the way I eat is really good right now, so a diversion doesn’t yield the physical wallop it used to.  This was one of my goals in changing my eating habits, so I celebrate my success.

In other news, you might have noticed the new “running” tab at the end of the nav bar above.  I am feeding in my little baby running tumblelog, which is a record of my success, goals, and observations as I get back into running.  I explain why I’m running on that page – take a gander and check back, as I hope to update it as often as I run, which is currently 4 days a week.

After WordPress, tumblr is my favorite blogging platform.  It is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.  If you are currently on tumblr, feel free to follow my running tumblr from the convenience of your tumblr desktop.

arugula sprouts

Even though our celebratory dinner was delicious, my eating highlight of the week was a simple salad of baby arugula that I grew myself!  The picture above is when my arugula was even smaller, but you get the idea of their appearance.  They have grown so much since I took that shot!  Big enough to thin the sprouts and eat the ones I pulled out.  Let me tell you, this is the tastiest arugula I’ve ever had.  I dressed it with a combination of olive oil, orange juice, salt and pepper.  The orange juice ameliorates the spiciness in the arugula, but not enough to destroy it.  It balances it out, in other words, with its inherent orangey sweetness.  I loved it.  I plan to keep the arugula at baby stage because I don’t care for older, tougher leaves.  I look forward to eating more simple salads like this.

The cilantro and french tarragon that I mentioned earlier this week continue to do well!  It’s so cheery to see them through the window on the back deck.  I just hope the stray cats don’t screw with that planter.  This weekend is transplant weekend for me, now that the downstairs hose and leaky valve have been fixed.  The idea of carrying water up and down a long flight of stairs has kept me from moving forward with planting in the garden downstairs.  My tomatoes are also getting bigger and many of them are now good candidates for transplanting.

The other big news in my life is that CSA season is approaching!  In about a month I’ll start getting bags of delicious fruits, veggies and more.  My hope it to report on what I receive and how I use it.  Look for that!

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Omelet – a Quick and Delicious Dinner

omelette

I don’t remember how I came up with this dish, but it was probably inspired by having a bunch of leftovers combined with my love of eggs. Basically, “omelet”, as I call it, is vegetables and meat sauteed in a pan, topped with uncooked scrambled eggs and cheese, and steamed until the eggs are cooked through. It doesn’t sound exotic or fancy, and isn’t the prettiest thing around, but it is tasty, nourishing, and easy to prepare. It’s an excellent dish to cook when you have little time or are just plain tired and want something to eat fairly fast. It’s also a great canvas for improvisation.

I mentioned leftovers above – it’s a great dish for leftovers – greens work especially well, as do onions, potatoes, carrots, summer squash, and tomatoes. You can mix in some pesto with the eggs, add diced or ground meat, sausage, or cured meats. You can also make it very simple with just onions, potato, egg, and cheese. You can even add a sauce you like at the end. This dish is incredibly flexible, which is one of the things I like about it.

Last night, I used half a white onion, leftover garlic lemon greens, chopped cooked chicken, pesto ricotta, eggs, and grated Locatelli (a salty hard cheese). In this case, everything but the eggs and cheese were leftovers from last week. It was a very tasty combination.

So, what I did was:

  • Diced up the onions and sautéed them in olive oil (about 1 T) until they became translucent.
  • Added the chicken and cooked that a little bit.
  • Then came the greens, and I cooked everything together until it was heated through.
  • I also made sure that the pan was completely covered with this mixture, so that eggs would not leak through to the pan surface; it’s best if they sit atop the vegetables.
  • Scrambled the eggs and poured them on top (I used 5 eggs this time, which was perfect)
  • I then put small dollops of pesto ricotta across the top of the mixture, and sprinkled on the grated cheese.
  • I put a lid on it, turned the heat down to low and let it steam. I’d check on it from time to time to make sure the eggs were cooked through. It took about 10-15 minutes for the eggs to cook and the dish to come together.
  • I only salted the onions a little bit, as the leftovers had all be seasoned when I cooked them originally, so extra salt was not needed.

If I were skipping the pesto ricotta, I’d probably use a sharp cheddar in place of the Locatelli and eat it with hot sauce!

So, in general, the order of ingredients would go as follows:

  • aromatics (e.g. onion, garlic, bacon)
  • ground/chopped meat (if using)
  • hard veggies (e.g. carrots, potatoes)
  • soft veggies (e.g. greens, summer squash, tomatoes, sauce)
  • herbs
  • eggs (solo, or combined with sauce like pesto, tomato, or salsa)
  • cheese
  • The order of things can even be re-arranged if it works better for you.

Like I said, there is room for improvisation and the dish is extremely customizable.

It’s been a quick and delicious dinner staple in my household and has provided us with delicious and nutritious meals numerous times. I hope you find it a useful and enjoyable dish as well.

This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

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Kitchen and Garden Update

This weekend was hot – like summery hot, in the upper 80s.  I was totally loving it, but it was a little bit of a shock to have to all of the sudden adjust to hot weather practices, like not exerting too much in the middle of the day.  I’m used to more freedom of movement in the spring months, to be honest.  Everything worked out, though, and I got a lot accomplished.

My week of meal planning and being on a running schedule last week was a rousing success!  I have planned out this week, too, so we’ll see how it goes.  I expect I’ll learn new things, and that it will be a success, too.  I have planned to make one of my old standards for dinner one day this week, which is wonderfully flexible and open to improvisation, and I look forward to sharing about it here.

It’s a crazy week for me in the evenings, which means not much time to cook.  So, we made 2 pans of lasagna today for ready-to-eat meals, which came out fantastic – these lasagnas are some of the best we’ve ever made.

two lasagnas

meat cooked

veggie cooked

This was the first time I’d used fresh pasta sheets, and I’ll have a hard time ever going back to dried.  The sheets were made up the street by local pasta maker Cassinelli, the ricotta and mozzarella cheeses made just around the corner at a local salumeria.  In one of the lasagnas I used pesto, which I made last summer from CSA basil, that was frozen until today.  Overall the lasagna is almost creamy in texture, yet has substance.  I will enjoy eating this lasagna throughout the week.

I was also able to make my soaked granola this weekend, which I’ll have with raw yogurt and milk this week for some breakfasts.  This time I’m using cranberries and pepitas, along with apricots and hazelnuts, which should make for some interesting tastes.  This is my favorite cold cereal ever and will be a great option for this coming week of warm/hot weather when I don’t want to heat anything up.

oven granola

nuts and seeds

fruit

Over the past couple of weekends, I’ve been digging in the dirt.  I’ve added compost twice now to the garden plot, and really turned up the ground.  My friend Charlene came over to help out, too, which was a lot of fun.

compost

I am so fortunate to have this space in which to garden and grow my own food.   I also have a good sized planter on my deck, which originally was going to live elsewhere, but has found a home with me, which is filled with dirt and compost.  There is a volunteer cilantro plant growing in it, and the french tarragon that was in there last year has new growth.  I’ll sow some thyme seeds probably, or perhaps even some parsley.   Photos to come.

I’m also surrounded by lots of sort of ambient greenery, which makes a huge difference living in a big city like NYC.

greenery

That’s the view from my back deck.  So, so nice.