I was making dinner tonight, and although everything was really simple, I thought it might be useful for some of my readers - especially those who are afraid of the kitchen - to see a typical summertime dinner here at Chez Widow. People frequently ask me if dinner every day is a culinary extravaganza. (As much as I'd love to maintain the illusion) Ha! Hardly. Why, in the past 12 hours I have eaten Hounddog's, for the love of Italian sausage! But when we cook, which we probably do on a largish scale (like this) once a week, this is typical; natural, unprossessed food, fresh from the market, seasonal; there's very rarely a cookbook involved, just intuition. And especially during this season of bounty, everything is very simple in our kitchen, and ingredient-focused. This is the way I love to cook, and I think the more people get used to cooking with the seasons, using great ingredients - which, contrary to popular opinion, are generally not more expensive than those from the grocery store. At least not when quality and taste are taken into account - the more people will become excited about food, and passionate about eating in season and locally. Even though I have a pork chop here, and bacon, the meat could easily be removed for a vegetarian meal - maybe through some mushrooms on the grill or something.
So, here's the dinner plate:
Clockwise from the upper left, we have crushed red thumb potatoes, pork chop, sweet corn with bacon and scallions, broccoli raab, and glazed carrots with spring onions. Whew! It sounds like a lot, but in truth it can't take any more than an hour to get together, if even that. Everything cooks in pretty much 15 minutes, so it's mostly a matter of having a few spare pans lying about.
Recipes - all for 2 servings
Crushed Red Thumb Potatoes
1 pint red thumb or other delicious potaotes, scrubbed - skins on for optimum health, please, and halved
1 tbsp good extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
Boil the potatoes in heavily salted water until they are fork tender and drain. Crush them lightly with the back of a wooden spoon. Drizzle the olive oil over the potatoes and sprinkle with the salt. Give them a little stir and serve. Easy as pie.
Sweet Corn with Bacon
4 slices of bacon, cut into lardons
6 scallions, sliced - white and green parts, but separated
4 ears sweet corn, kernels cut from cob
1/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock, or water
1 tbsp cream 1/2 and 1/2
Salt and Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Render the bacon in a nonstick pan over medium heat until the bacon is crisp. Remove the bacon to drain on paper towels and strain all but a tablespoon of fat out of the pan (save that delicious bacon fat, please). Place the white parts of the scallions in the pan and saute for a minute, then add the corn kernels and the chicken stock. Bring heat to medium-high and cook until the chicken stock has cooked down, then add the cream/1/2 and 1/2 and season with salt and pepper, and cayenne pepper (to taste). Add the bacon and scallions and stir briefly until everything is nice and creamy and the cream is mostly cooked out. YUM!
Broccoli Raab
Large handful of broccoli raab or other bitter green, washed in several changes of water
olive oil
red pepper flakes
Salt and Pepper
Remove the leaves and florets from the stems of the broccoli raab; you can also use the stems, but chop them into thin strips and begin cooking them first.
Wash any grit or sand from the broccoli raab - you don't need to cut the leaves, because they will shrink down. Heat a pan over high heat and add a good glug of extra virgin olive oil to the pan - add the leaves to the pan - be careful, because the water left on the leaves will splatter - and give them a sprinkling of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Toss lightly with tongs and cook until the raab is wilted down and the water in the pan is gone (don't let it burn!); this only takes a few minutes (3 or so).
Glazed Baby Carrots and Spring Onions
2 tbps butter
1 tbsp olive oil
10 or baby carrots, scrubbed well, a few millimeters of tops left on, for cuteness, if desired, and halved lengthwise
2 largish Spring onions, halved and tops removed
1 cup chicken stock
1 tbsp sweet rice wine, white wine or vermouth
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper
2 tbps brown sugar or palm sugar
Heat a pan over medium high heat (I like to use nonstick) and melt the butter in the olive oil. Add the carrots and onions; if you like, you can put everything face down so that they get all nicely browned. Leave them alone to saute away for about 2 minutes, and then add the stock and the rice wine and add the sugar. Cook until the chicken stock is mostly gone, then add the lemon juice. Cook until everything is nice and syrupy and season with salt and pepper. If the carrots aren't soft to your liking after the first cookdown of stock, add more and cook until it's cooked down again. This method of cooking - browning something in a fat and then adding a liquid and cooking until it is absorbed, is known as a "fondant," and is very affective for lots of veggies, especially hard vegetables such as potatoes, rutabagas, and carrots.
And there you have it! Dinner is served! And in truth, other than the produce from the farmer's market, you only need a few pantry staples to get everything from market bag to table.
Happy Cooking!
Local Sources I used for this dinner: Broccoli Raab, Carrots and scallions from my Wayward Seed Farm CSA (North Market, Clintonville, and Worthington markets), but everything was also available for sale at the market. Cream from Snowville, and butter was homemade from Snowville as well. Sweet corn from Rhoads' (North Market), potatoes from Arbor Hill Organics (Clintonville & Worthington farmer's markets). Spring onions came from a farmer at the Clintonville market whose name I can't remember. Bacon and pork chop came from Weiland's.
