About
My name is Michelle but my friends call me Mitch. I live in New York City. These are my adventures (and boring weekday evenings) in home cooking.Find
I’ve posted about oatmeal in the past, but this topic deserves an update. I’ve done savory oatmeal here and there, but my favorite is still my (almost) weekly bowl of steel-cut oats with fresh fruit. My current combination of toppings is a spoonful of almond butter, some plain yogurt, apples or pears cooked in brown sugar and cinnamon, and a big drizzle of maple syrup. Delicious enough to get me out of bed on chilly mornings.
Okay you guys, I am back from a spectacular vacation that included a wedding in California and a family trip to Taiwan and Hong Kong. No (publicly noticeable) jet lag, but I am suffering from that warm, fuzzy, wistful feeling that comes with missing the family members and friends who are practically family members I spent time with. Also, I miss the food in Taiwan. This is the first time I’ve come back from vacation completely un-excited to return to my usual way of eating. I thought I’d have wild cravings for a good slice of pizza, a crunchy bowl of my favorite homemade granola, cheese on everything, and maybe Indian and/or Mexican food. Not so much. What (John and) I want more than any of these things is more warm, sweet, freshly made soy milk with egg pancakes and shao bing for breakfast, a cheap bowl of minced pork and stewed eggs with rice for lunch, and a humble serving of rice porridge with an array of small dishes for dinner like I had one evening at a bustling little eatery whose location I’ve forgotten.
Between six people we shared a big pot of plain rice porridge (aka congee, “jook” in Cantonese, or “jou” in Mandarin) and something like 10 small dishes of bite-sized things like three-cup chicken, crispy small fish with boiled peanuts, strips of tofu with bamboo shoots, marinated seaweed, fried wheat gluten, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and the requisite plate of lightly sauteed greens (pea leaves, sweet potato leaves, and water spinach are among my favorites) that were ordered with every meal. The meal was light but satisfying, everyday but memorable.
It just occurred to me that this is sort of a metaphor for how I feel about this whole trip and visiting my family. We are enormous in number; my mom has 10 siblings and my dad has 11. I lost track of how many first cousins I have so I just did a count and the grand total is 45. We live all over the world, in California, New York, Wisconsin, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and France. But when a bunch of us are together, it’s like putting a whole mess of different dishes that came out of the same kitchen on the same table for a night, and there is a palpable sense of harmony. Leaving all that great food in Taiwan gave me unexpected pangs of longing, but being there with my family (with my very own newish 2-person family as a subset) gave me a very hard-to-describe deep sense of belonging that I will never miss, despite the double-digit hours of air travel time and a bit of a language barrier that separate us (I probably have the Chinese vocabulary of a 6-year-old minus all the up-to-date slang… and then I turn around and try to translate things to John). I am beyond fortunate and beyond grateful. </sentimental thought-sharing>
To make basic rice porridge:
Bring 1 part short-grain white rice and 7-9 parts water to a boil in a large-enough pot. Season with a bit of salt, then lower heat and simmer partially covered, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes or until rice is softened. You can also toss in brown rice (might take a little longer to cook), peeled chunks of sweet potatoes or taro root, mung beans, or other dried beans at the beginning of cooking. Since rice porridge is wet and unflavored (okay fine, bland), I think it makes sense to have it with dishes that are on the dry side (as in not eaten with big puddles of sauce), crispy and/or fried, and a little heavy on flavor (spicy, salty, tangy, fermented, yes!). At home (in the photo) we had pressed tofu and peanuts with soy sauce and hot chiles, sauteed mustard greens with edamame, a basic omelet with scallions, and store-bought fried tiny fish coated in sesame seeds.
And finally, Happy Lunar New Year! I will be celebrating on the first night with the usual vegetarian dinner.
This granola is fantastic and I will probably make it over and over, especially because the recipe is easy and so very straightforward. It’s unconventionally salty and crisps up in olive oil instead of butter, but I eat it in the most conventional of ways: sprinkled heavy handedly on top of plain yogurt or shoved straight into my mouth by the fistful. I never thought I’d say this about something as… granola as granola, but this stuff has upgraded my weekday breakfasts to something a little more alluring than usual.
Lazy weekends are meant for baking sweet things for breakfast while sipping hot coffee and catching up on music podcasts. I found this recipe on 101 Cookbooks (an ever-reliable source for healthy-but-not-boring food). The muffins are sweet but not too sweet, and you can add whatever fruits (dried or otherwise) and nuts you’d like. I halved the recipe and gently folded in about a 1/2 cup of chopped fresh, tart-sweet apricots (4-5 small apricots) at the very end. The muffins ended up being very moist (even though I used a little bit less yogurt), so next time I might try tossing the fruit pieces with a bit of flour before mixing them into the batter.
Here’s a lentil salad I threw together for a weekend trip/beach picnic in Montauk. I scraped up some French green lentils from the back of the pantry and combined them with leftover cooked bulgur, chopped artichoke hearts, crisp radishes, minced red onion, lemon juice, olive oil, and lots of fresh scallions, mint, and parsley. (Tip: add a tiny splash of plain white vinegar to the cooking water to keep the lentils from getting too mushy.)
Pairs well with: half a baguette, a hunk of soft cheese, mixed olives, a sneaky carton of white wine, sunshine, the sound of the ocean, and a 1-year-old marriage. Anniversaries, Mitch & John style.
I figured out a repeatable, easy, not-too-sweaty dinner the other night. Boneless skinless chicken breasts seem like the most boring cut of meat in the world, but I think I’ve found my favorite way to prepare them that keeps them from becoming tough and dry and let’s face it, awful. I wish I had a cute patio to grill and eat on, but a lightly air-conditioned apartment will do just fine. The other good news is that the seasonings in both the bulgur and the chicken are very changeable. You (or I) can use different herbs and vegetables next time and different seasonings in the marinade.
To make the bulgur:
Bring 2 parts salted water to a boil. Add 1 part coarse bulgur, turn heat down to low, cover and let simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and let the bulgur stand for 10 minutes before fluffing it up. Toss with minced shallot, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, chopped vegetables (responsible eater recommendation: whatever’s in season), and lots of fresh herbs. I used cucumbers, parsley, mint, dill, and chives.
To make the chicken:
Combine plain yogurt with chopped garlic and whatever other seasonings you’d like (or none at all). I did Sriracha chili sauce and turmeric, but almost any other powdered or pasty red stuff will do (ideas I had: harissa, or curry powder, or a chili powder blend). Cut chicken breast into pieces about 1/2-inch thick. Season with salt and pepper, then coat with yogurt mixture in a dish. Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours. Lightly coat a foil-lined baking sheet with oil, then broil for 15-20 minutes, turning the chicken over halfway through. (I actually do this in my toaster oven because it’s the perfect size for 1-2 servings and it doesn’t make the apartment all hot on 90-degree days.) Garnish chicken with chopped herbs.
I may never buy packaged granola bars at a grocery store ever again. (Unless you count the plastic-wrapped ones priced by weight in the Whole Foods bakery section.) These do not taste like cardboard. Or pure sugar. And they don’t contain any freaky ingredients like soy protein isolate. The other best thing about homemade granola bars is that you can have exactly the types of mix-ins you like, in exactly the right proportion. I added dried cranberries, dried apples, sliced almonds, wheat germ, and flax seeds. They are so good that they’ve crossed over into “healthy dessert”/hungry daydream territory. Recipe and inspiration here (I’ve had this bookmarked for a long, long time).
One of the assignments for my community nutrition class is the food stamp challenge. Some 43.5 million people (about 1 in 8) in the U.S. are enrolled in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and the week-long experience is meant to be a take-home exploration of what it’s like (a little bit, at least). John (always a good sport) and I spent seven days on a food budget of $60 ($30 per person). To be blunt, I don’t have any earth-shattering revelations or provocative insights to report. Cutting a two-person weekly food bill down to $60 is doable, but not fun. Yes, I got hungry and missed being able to have cheese whenever I want, on whatever I want. But it was entirely possible to eat a reasonably healthy mixed diet. In fact, most of the dinners we had resembled what we normally eat: rice (the brown kind) with beans, rice with tofu and eggs, pasta with sausage and beans. All with vegetables and heavily doused with hot sauce. Breakfast was muesli with milk or yogurt, lunch was peanut butter sandwiches. Very monotonous, but peanut butter and banana slices smooshed between squishy wheat bread and eaten on a subway platform have never tasted so good.
The part that challenged me most wasn’t trying to put together a decent meal for a few bucks or not being able to grab dinner at a restaurant with my friends. It wasn’t about the horror that is 99-cent packs of imitation American pasteurized process cheese food slices or the self-discipline it takes to cross the street to avoid bakery smells, pizza smells, and the mere thought of ice cream on a 60-degree afternoon. The hard part was staying full and cheerful throughout the day, at the risk of not having enough to eat in the coming days. By looking at this blog, you can probably tell that I care an awful lot about food, for better or worse. For a week, it became all about staying as full as possible for as long as possible.
Here’s the first thing we made for dinner. Filling, nutritious, and cheap.
Beans & Greens Stew with Rice
serves 4 (total cost: $3.56, excluding seasonings)
8 oz dried kidney beans ($0.75)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil ($0.10)
1 small onion, chopped ($0.10)
1/2 large carrot, chopped ($0.15)
1 large clove garlic, minced ($0.07)
water
10 oz package frozen chopped collard greens or spinach ($0.99)
2 tablespoons tomato paste ($0.40)
a few shakes of dried oregano
salt, pepper, hot sauce to taste
1 pound long grain brown rice, cooked ($1.00)
Soak beans in cold water overnight or for 8 to 12 hours.
Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onion and carrot and cook for a few minutes, until soft. Add garlic and cook for another few minutes. Add beans and enough water to fully cover them. Bring to a simmer, then add salt and oregano. Lower heat and continue to simmer until beans are cooked through (40 minutes? something like that… just keep testing them). Stir them every now and then and add more water if necessary.
Stir tomato paste into cooking liquid. Add frozen greens and cook until they are un-frozen. Add more salt if necessary, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Serve with cooked rice.
