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Children’s dinner | Cowboy food

6 July 2011

I take no credit for this meal, which is Thomas’s creation. He makes lentils with a fried egg and calls it “cowboy food,” because apparently cowboys ate beans and eggs; so naturally, lentils and eggs… In any case it’s a great meal, a brilliant name, and I have fallen for it, too.

I have decided to write about the easy, quick, weeknight dinners I prepare for my children, and it seemed fitting to start with “cowboy food,” which is an uncontested favorite. The other day as Balthasar asked what I was preparing and I replied “something with egg” (I hadn’t yet made up my mind), completely unprompted – and somewhat surprisingly as we haven’t had lentils for a while – he cheerfully exclaimed “cowboy food!”

I had mentioned cowboy food before in connection with a two-step lentil recipe. This is the quick version of lentils – the whole meal takes only about 35 minutes to prepare, and most of that is the lentils simmering away by themselves.

***

Two cups make a lot of lentils, but it’s always great to have lentil leftovers. They can easily be reheated, or made into a salad.

2 cups green lentils (preferably Castelluccio or du Puy)

1 small onion

Some vegetables: for example 1/2 bulb fennel, one or two stalks celery, a carrot

A few sprigs of flat-leaved parsley

2 bay leaves

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Very good olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice to serve

1 egg per person

***

The lentils

Pick through the lentils to look for small stone intruders that must be discarded. To wash the lentils, cover with cold water and drain in a fine mesh sieve.

Peel and cut into large chunks the onion and the vegetables.

Place lentils into a large saucepan with 4 cups (double the volume) water. Add the vegetable chunks, the parsley, and the bay leaves, bring to a boil and let simmer, covered, for about 25 minutes. Remove from heat when the lentils are done to your liking – I like them al dente, with a bit of bite.

Discard the sprigs of parsley, bay leaves, and vegetable chunks. Season the lentils with salt, pepper, good olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste and adjust.

The eggs

**It’s better to cook the eggs once the lentils are ready, because while the lentils are just as delicious warm, the egg should be eaten straight off the pan.**

Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan. Once hot, crack the eggs into the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Fry until the white is set but the yellow still runny. Serve over the lentils.

*

Related posts

Lentils

Finger food | Leek and manchego frittata

Lentil and fennel salad with parsley

 

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Posted in Children, Easy, Eggs, Lentils / Chickpeas / Legumes, Year-round | 2 Comments »

Busy-day cupcakes

22 June 2011

I’ve made this recipe so often in the past month it’s not even funny.

I was looking for a simple vanilla cake for a friend’s sixth birthday and remembered reading about this cake when I first came across a mean-sounding poppy seed cake on Lottie + Doof. The busy-day cake caught my eye because of the name, and because it came from Edna Lewis, a Southern cook whom I know through the lovely cookbooks she has written. I own one, The Taste of Country Cooking, which I read as I would a collection of short stories. Each recipe recalls a memory, a way of life, a moment in time.

The book is organized by seasons and menus. There were many lovely excerpts to choose from, but I liked this one because of a personal memory – the first time I had shad roe in Portland, Maine. The menu is called A Spring Breakfast When the Shad Were Running. The introduction begins: “Because shad was practically the only fish we ever ate and spring was the only time it was ever seen, we were always much too excited to wait for dinner, so we’d cook it for breakfast whenever it was caught…”

A “busy-day cake” sounded just like Edna Lewis. It is very easy to make and delicious – light and moist, simply scented with vanilla and nutmeg. And it lends itself very well to cupcakes.

Both Leo and Balthasar were born in June, so I made these cupcakes twice, for each of their birthdays. And one more time because a fierce summer storm hit New York and postponed the party. I’ve lost count – it was a lot of baking and (cup)cakes in one month. I have promised to bake a marble cake for a picnic on Saturday but at this point all I really want to do is roast chicken and make rhubarb ice cream.

***

Barely adapted from the Busy-Day Cake on Lottie + Doof. The recipe is doubled and makes about twenty-eight 2 1/2 inch (6.35 cm) cupcakes.

1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups (400 g) sugar

6 eggs

4 cups (400 g) flour

1 cup (250 ml) buttermilk*

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

3 tsps pure vanilla extract

4 tsps baking powder

1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

*

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

With a wooden spoon beat the butter and sugar thoroughly, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring to incorporate each one before adding the next. Then add, alternately, about a third of the flour, half of the buttermilk, another third of flour, the second half of the buttermilk, and the last part flour, stirring to combine the ingredient every time. Finally add the salt, vanilla extract, baking powder, and nutmeg.

Scoop a large spoonful of batter into each cupcake cup (the batter should barely reach the top of the cup – it will rise.).

Bake for 14 to 16 minutes, until the batter is just set and as soon as a toothpick comes out clean.

* An easy substitute for buttermilk is to stir 1 Tbsp lemon juice into 1 cup of milk and let sit for 5 minutes

I made mascarpone lemon icing for the cupcakes:

2 cups (500 g) mascarpone

1/2 cup (40 g) icing (confectioner’s) sugar

1 or 2 untreated lemons, depending on the yield of your grater

Mix the mascarpone with the icing sugar, grate one lemon and blend the zest into the mascarpone. Taste, add some zest if you want a stronger lemon flavor. Ice the cupcakes just before serving and add a thin strip of lemon rind or a raspberry for decoration.

*

Related posts

Poppy seed and almond cake

Oatmeal raisin walnut cookies

Banana cake

Orange almond cake

 

 

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Posted in Children, Dessert, Easy, Year-round | Leave a Comment »

Oatmeal raisin walnut cookies

25 May 2011

I’m in a baking state of mind, and a bit perplexed by it.

As much as I love to cook, I don’t bake very often. Except when I want to make dessert for dinner with friends, and even then I usually manage to devise a non-baked sweet. But these days I’ve been baking walnut tarts and banana cakes, and, most surprisingly, the other day at 10 pm I felt compelled to try to recreate my childhood memory of a seriously addictive chewy almond macaroon. (It was an improvisation and not an entirely terrible first attempt. To be continued.)

This weekend I baked oatmeal raisin walnut cookies, for no particular reason.

The recipe is very slightly adapted from the Once Upon a Tart… cookbook. It has less sugar, fewer raisins, and leaves out the cinnamon. I wanted something subtle and understated.

When I first tasted one, straight out of the oven, I was worried it lacked something: some spice perhaps, or some sugar — why am I always compelled to tinker with recipes? But the next day I felt vindicated. They were exactly as I wanted. These cookies don’t wow into submission at first bite; they seduce stealthily, enticing, unwittingly, to reach for another, and another, and another…

Resist the temptation to eat the cookies straight off the rack. Wait a few hours and they will be exactly what you were hoping for.

***

Slightly adapted from the Once Upon a Tart… cookbook

1 cup (225 g) butter
1 1/4 cup (250 g) sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup (100 ml) liquid honey
1 1/2 cups (175 g) flour
4 cups (400 g) rolled oats
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups (175 g) coarsely chopped walnuts
1 cup (125 g) raisins

***

Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

Take the butter out of the refrigerator to soften.

In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy. **It’s important here to beat the ingredients thoroughly, for 5 to 10 minutes.** Add the eggs, one at a time, beating with a whisk to combine well. Add the honey and mix.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, the oats, and the salt.

Combine  the butter/sugar/egg/honey mixture with the flour/oats/salt. Mix until the flour has disappeared.

Stir in the walnuts and raisins.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Butter the paper. With a large spoon or ice cream scoop, transfer small balls of dough to the baking sheet, flatten and shape them with your fingers, making sure to leave about 1 in (2.5 cm) between each cookie.

In the oven for 12-15 minutes, until the cookies start turning brown at the edge. The cookies will still feel soft to the touch but will harden as they cool.  [12-13 minutes works for 2 in (5 cm) cookies. Adjust time according to the size of the cookies.]

Wait until tomorrow. Store in a cookie jar or other airtight container.

*

Related posts

Banana cake

Busy-day cupcakes

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Posted in Children, Dessert, Homemade and preserves, Year-round | 4 Comments »

Banana cake

10 February 2011

I have had this recipe since I was 7 or 8 years old. I must have been in second or third grade; a friend in my class brought a banana cake to school to celebrate his birthday and offered photocopies of the recipe. I kept the photocopy, and it appears that I have collected recipes ever since. Not obsessively or excessively, but, every once in a while, I wrote down a recipe I liked.

Some years ago I copied these recipes into an orange, cloth-bound dummy book (a sample with blank pages) on the architect R.M. Schindler that I was editing at the time. The recipes compiled in the “Schindler book” (as I now very personally refer to it) are not anonymous, they are not newspaper clippings I fell across and found enticing – they are all linked to memories, and people.

This banana cake reminds me of my first school in France, of Jacob (my school friend) and his family with whom we have not completely lost touch; it evokes their music and a lemon tree in their San Francisco garden that I have seen only in photographs.

Also, it is a very good banana cake. I resisted tweaking the recipe except for the walnuts, as I seem unable to refrain from putting nuts in a cake.

***

10 Tbsps (125 g) butter

3/4 cup (150 g) brown sugar

3 eggs

3 very ripe bananas

1 lemon or orange

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups (200 g) flour (half whole wheat)

2 tsps baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1 cup (100 g) shelled walnuts (optional)

***

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating with a wire whisk to incorporate until smooth.

Mash the bananas well with a fork and add to the butter/sugar/egg mixture.

Grate the zest and juice the lemon (or orange) and add to the batter with the vanilla extract. Mix well.

In a smaller bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt and add to batter. Stir just enough to blend everything together. Gently stir in the walnuts, if using.

Line a baking pan with parchment paper, butter the paper, and pour in the batter.

Slide into the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle of the cake comes out dry. (If, like me, you like the cake to be very moist, take it out of the oven a little sooner, when the tip of the knife is still wet.)

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Posted in Baking, Breakfast, Children, Dessert, Easy, Year-round | 12 Comments »

Baby food* | Lentils

16 November 2010

The other day I decided to make one of my favorite recipes from Moro cookbook: lentil soup with cumin. It’s a wonderful recipe that requires little else besides lentils and cumin – with cumin, of course, being the key. We had friends over for dinner and I was quite excited about making this soup. It’s simple and delicious, and perfect just as it is.

But I must have underestimated how often I have made this recipe recently, because the guests had already arrived and I was about to start the soup when I realized that I had run out of cumin. Thomas went out to get the indispensable spice from a store close by and returned with deceptively labeled coarsely ground black pepper… So, I had to improvise – I used curry powder and fresh sage leaves instead.

Typically the story should end with a revelation, a new wonderful recipe discovered by necessity. But no, unfortunately, Moro’s lentil soup with cumin has no cause to envy my lentil soup with sage and curry. Sage did seem like a good idea, however, and since I cannot resist tweaking recipes, even those that need no tweaking, this week I made lentils with sage and cumin for Louise.

***

1 medium onion

Olive oil

1 garlic clove

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

2 sage leaves

1 cup (200g) red lentils

***

Slice onion finely. Heat a good drizzle olive oil in a small heavy bottomed saucepan, add onion and let sweat, stirring occasionally, over medium heat.

Thinly slice garlic clove, grind cumin seeds in a mortar, and wash lentils under running water through fine mesh sieve.

Once the onion starts to brown, add garlic, cumin, and sage leaves. Stir well and let cook for about a minute. Add lentils, stir well again. Add 3 cups (750 ml) water. Cover and cook at a lively simmer for about 30-40 minutes, until the lentils are soft.

Blend the lentils, squeeze a few drops of lemon juice before serving.

*This doesn’t have to be just for babies. Add Maldon sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, a drop of excellent olive oil, and a hint of harissa and it makes a very decent soup.

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Posted in Children, Lentils / Chickpeas / Legumes, Soup, Year-round | 1 Comment »

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