"vegan" mashed parsnips

As our loyal reader knows, we love to mash vegetables here in the F,NRS NYC office. Recently, parsnips have come under the masher, to good effect. I only post it here because we mash these babies for Liz and Lisa, who eat kosher and therefore can't have milk or butter in the mash (if it is to be eaten with chicken, as it so often is), and Liz needs the recipe. These mashed are vegan so that we can all eat meat, if you know what I mean.

Before starting, if you want them garlicky, put many peeled cloves of garlic into a dish with many tablespoons of olive oil and put it into a low oven (say 300 F) to soften and sweeten. Then cut up—no need to peel, as far as I am concerned—parsnips, potatoes, and carrots into substantial chunks for boiling. I usually go something like four parsnips for every potato and carrot, but mix it up! Boil the parsnips for 30 minutes and the carrots and potatoes for 20. That is, you want the parsnips very done. Save some of the cooking water (remember, no milk will be permitted). Mash it all with the garlic and olive oil from the oven (or just plain olive oil if you don't want to go garlicky), insane amounts of salt and some pepper, and just enough cooking water (not much) to get them mushy.

These mashed parsnips are so sweet, you can't help asking: Parsnips, where have you been all my life?

Moroccan-style chicken stew

These days, in high rotation at home, and inspired by our friend Ness, I have been making this ultra-simple crowd pleaser: Heat up a dutch oven and put in as many pieces of chicken as people (double up if you are serving Marines). Once the chicken gets to releasing some fat, throw in about as much chunky chopped leeks, carrots, and celery (if you have it) you can stand to cut up, and anything else you like. Add one chopped preserved lemon for every five or six people, and about the same volume of salty olives (like Kalamatas for example, pitted if your crowd is liable to break teeth). Add a mixture of red wine and water (or just water if you are out of wine) to nearly cover, and obscene amounts of salt, some pepper and a bit of harissa (maybe half a teaspoon per four people), and simmer for enough time to give the chicken a total start-to-finish cooking time of 35 minutes. Don't over-cook!

Serve with couscous and extra harissa for the heat-lovers. You can extend this with chick peas if you are short of chicken or heating up leftovers. As you can imagine, it is even better the next day.

sweet popcorn

After V asked for popcorn for dessert, I had to improvise. This worked well—not too sweet but definitely dessert: Heat an oil-butter mixture (I used a generous tbsp of each) in a saucepan over medium heat until a few test kernels of popcorn start to pop. Then pour in about 4 tbsp of unpopped popcorn kernels, about 2 tbsp of sugar, and a few shakes of salt. Agitate while the popcorn pops. Enjoy! (Caution: Contents may be hot.)

hot pot

The Tragintyres—who have adopted the customs of their home country the Netherlands—taught us this one this summer: Cut up a few potatoes and similar vegetables (tonight we used carrots and cauliflower, but you could use beets or turnips or parsnips or cabbage, of course) and boil them to tender. Meanwhile, saute bacon, then onions, and then finely chopped greens (we used kale that had been blanched). Mash the boiled vegetables with cream, butter, salt and pepper; then add the sauteed part and mix it up. Serve.

This is meat-as-garnish, kid-friendly, hearty, simple, and delicious.

hand-chopped pesto

At the suggestion of the 'fuzz, I took a small handful of pine nuts, a small handful of hazelnuts, a few cloves of garlic, a large bunch of fresh basil leaves, a small hunk of hard cheese, a bit of salt, and chopped and chopped and chopped. Then I mixed it with enough olive oil (home-made, thanks Kate and Yanni!) to make a solid mass of pesto. We mixed this with spaghetti and ate it with a side of fresh tomato and mozzarella to make a surprisingly awesome late-summer dinner.

(rhubarb strawberry) crisp

Working from this recipe, I made a rhubarb strawberry crisp today. For the fruit, you proceed as for pie. In this case, about 6 cups of sliced rhubarb and strawberries were tossed with about a cup of sugar, a few tablespoons of corn starch and a big pinch of cinnamon. I used a 9x13 pan, which I did not butter (although the recipe calls for buttering). Other crisps/crumbles that I'd made recently had a topping that was too starchy; I was using flour and rolled oats but too little sugar and rubbing cold butter into the dry. For today's crisp, I used

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup rolled oats (I like large flake)
• 3/4 packed brown sugar
• a pinch of salt

and here's the surprise

• 1/2 cup melted butter

The dry ingredients are mixed and then drizzled with the melted butter and everything is tossed to combine. The resulting mixture does not hold together but is rather more like dark brown pebbles. This is spread over the fruit and the dish is baked at 375 for about 30 minutes until the topping is browned (I would say "browner"). This was a delicious crisp, and the topping was awesome. As soon as I find my copy of the "The Best Recipe" (we're still unpacking), I want to cross-check with their approach.

strawberry shortcake

Pie season has returned; I have baked an apple pie and there is a red currant tart in the oven right now. But a few days ago I finally got strawberry shortcake to work:

Before starting, cut up as many strawberries as you can, and mix them with a bit of sugar. Let them stand, the longer the better; the syrop that emerges from them is the key. Make one large, thin biscuit (I made it with 1 cup of flour), but add to the recipe 1/4 cup sugar for every cup of flour. You could go even sweeter. When the biscuit is done, let it cool a bit, and split it carefully into two thin layers. On the bottom layer put all the strawberries, and all the syrop from them. Add some whipped cream, and then replace the top layer. "Ice" the shortcake with more whipped cream and some leftover strawberries.

waffles and pancakes

I have been remiss in posting, despite having learned many useful things in the last few months. Here is one:

When making waffles or pancakes, you do much better to separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs and beat the whites separately till they are stiff (or close). Make the batter with the yolks and then fold the beaten egg whites into the batter. Fluffy, light waffles!

One thing I am interested in is whether you could replace all rising agents with this technique. After all, how did they make pancakes before there was easily available double-acting baking powder?

meat loaf

G-ma2005 (otherwise known as Grandma Jan) came by a few weeks ago and taught me the ancient secrets of meatloaf. I very slightly modified it into this ridiculously simple recipe:

Mix equal volumes of ground beef and crushed saltine crackers, plus a significant amount of chopped onions, plenty of salt and pepper, and enough eggs to make it stick together (roughly 1/2 lb meat, one egg, one onion, and half a sleeve of crackers). Form this into a loaf an put it into a 375 F (190 C) oven.

After about 10 min, pull out the loaf and cover it with a mixture of ketchup, brown sugar, and worchestershire, mixed to your liking (comparable quantities of each does well, although G-ma2005 prefers a larger fraction of ketchup). Continue baking for another 30 min or so. It is hard to over-cook it.

Fuzzmama notes that this is not meat as garnish. It is transcendant the next day in a sandwich.

latkes

I love potato pancakes. It turns out their preparation does not involve rocket science. Grate four potatoes and one onion (prepare to cry). Mix with two eggs, a few tbsp of flour, and a whole heck of a lot of salt and pepper. Fry large, flattened spoonfuls of the mixture in plenty of hot olive oil until very dark brown, turn, and make the other side dark brown too. Serve with sour cream and smoked fish, or apple sauce. These quantities make about twelve pancakes (serves about four).

As you proceed with the frying (with two pans doing two or three at a time), you can preserve the cooked pancakes on paper towels in a 170 F (80 C) oven.

An expert variation is to drain the shredded potato, let the starch settle out of the drained liquid, and mix it back in, but that may qualify as rocket science. One night we added shredded celery root, to good effect.