Thursday Night Smackdown: The Slowest Hurry Ever
So there’s this BlogHer Food thing this weekend in San Francisco you may have heard about. And I’m going, flying out after a half-day’s work tomorrow. Here is a partial list of things I have not yet done: (1) laundry, for the clean clothes I will need to ; (2) pack; (3) shower and wash my hair; (4) figure out how to get from the airport at 7pm to dinner in the city at 8pm; (5) check the weather; (6) check in for my flight; (7) everything else in the entire universe.
So I needed a Smackdown that would provide a lot of bang for the buck without sucking up too much of my Thursday night, because it’s also vitally important that I watch Fringe. (So expect more pictures and fewer words tonight.)
I recently got a review copy of Forking Fantastic!
I decided to go with the overnight-braised chuck roast with salt-boiled potatoes and anchovy-spiked greens. This was partly because the weather’s been getting chillier and I thought something hearty would be a nice way to usher in autumn, and mostly because I got to chuck a bunch of shit in a pot, go to bed, and have dinner the next day.
Not that it involved no work on my part: I did have to saute a shit-ton of mushrooms, and carve out little garlic-holding pouches in the meat which I’m not going to lie, creeped me out unnecessarily. I also had to squish canned tomatoes through my fingers, which also creeps me out unnecessarily.
Then I dumped in some olives and most of a bottle of wine left over from my sister-in-law’s wedding two years ago, stuck it in the oven and went to bed. Note the time:
I’m a little surprised Brian let me do this; he is very caution-oriented and I wasn’t sure he’d go for the whole leaving-the-oven-on-all-night thing. I think the prospect of a weekend’s worth of pot roast was enough to do it.
On the other hand, I am completely willing to risk burning the house down for a nice roast
This is what you wake up to along with, as promised, the best-smelling apartment on the block.
Then you stick it in the fridge while you go to work, and you come home to this:
Yum!
FYI, it’s a quarter after 10, and I’ve still done NOTHING.
Anyway, the grotesque congealed beef fat goes away as you re-heat the roast, obviously, melting back into the meaty juices to enrich them. Because the fat? She makes things delicious.
It takes about 45 minutes to re-heat this puppy (which re-invigorates the luscious smell in your home), so I made the side dishes so’s everything’d be done at the same time. I am notoriously awful at being able to coordinate like that, but this seemed fail-safe. I put a pot of salty, salty, salty water on for the potatoes; the water is supposed to be salty enough that the potatoes float, but I didn’t have enough salt in the pantry, so mine were more “treading water.”
Crap, now Project Runway is on.
While the potatoes were bobbing away I started the greens, which were supposed to be escarole but ended up being chard (they told me I could!) because I have horrible, haunting memories of childhood weeping at my refusal to eat escarole soup. They’re wilted down in a mixture of olive oil, anchovies and red pepper flakes.
Which could be fantastic, or could be a hot tranny mess. Only time will tell. And yes, I know that descriptor is very mid-2008.
I stuck a fork into a potato to test it; the potato was done, and the fork came out of water looking less like a fork and more like Lot’s Wife. I fished them out of the pot, crushed them roughly with a fork and added a few pats of butter on top. I think I was supposed to add a few knobs, but I still don’t have the whole dab-knob-dollop thing worked out; I’m really only comfortable with the pat.
I heaped the wilted chard into a serving bowl, fished the hunk of meat out of the pot to cut a few slices, and dinner was served. And thankfully, the temperature shot up to the mid-80s today, so we ate this sitting at the kitchen table with the air conditioner going full blast.
At the end of the day, you end up with some pot roast on crack. And some really, really fucking good potatoes. And some chard that I’m not entirely sure about but it might just be me because Brian dug ‘em.
Although I gave Brian all my olives (I love the taste, hate the texture), the beef had a rich beefy flavors that was augmented by the 17 pounds of mushrooms and cut by the briny olives and brash rosemary and was perfectly cooked. The potatoes: you show me the person who can resist a farm-fresh baby yukon gold crusted with salt and kissed by good butter, and I will shut this blog right down. The chard I’m still not sure about; I love chard, but something about the flavor combo was not up my alley. I think I got the idea, it just wasn’t a good idea for me. I think.
Tell me your favorite cold-weather comfy food and win your own copy of Forking Fantastic! Giveaway open until September 10th, winner chosen by random-number-picker Brian.
And now, I’m finally going to pack my fricking bag. As soon as the dryer is done. And I take a shower. And pack my various electronic gadgets. And Project Runway is over.
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Chicken peanut butter vegetable soup with a side of crusty bread. Sounds vaguely gross, but it’s delicious and comforting, especially when it’s March in Portland and it’s been raining for 5 straight months.
grilled cheese- non-smoked gouda on thick crusty french bread- with homemade tomato soup. mmmmmm delicious.
That’s a slam dunk for me. French Onion soup in all it’s cheesy, oniony..glory. One of the things I like about FO soup is the work it takes to get it just right. It’s a labor of love.
roasted winter veg – lots of onions, celery root, pasnip, various squash. very simple olive oil, s&p. i could eat plate after plate of this in the winter
Pho, as others have said — and also I agree with the insightful comment that it’s not worth the hassle at home but definitely worth the trip across the street (for me, until Thursday when I move). I like it straight up with rare beef and lots of that rooster sauce (o how I want to say ‘cock sauce’ every time..).
As for homemade, red lentil soup with various veggies, or a French lentil-spicy chorizo meal with something dark green, some red wine and lemon, lots of garlic, and served over something hearty and toothsome like red rice. Mmm.
Or roasted root veg, yes, but I’m all about balsamic vinegar & rosemary as my flavourings of choice.
When it’s really cold, I like to make a thick beef-barley soup with lots of chunky veggies and serve it up with spicy cheese biscuits, hot from the oven.
And I know from cold. In my hometown, we’ve been known to spend weeks in temperatures from -30C to -40C (or -22F to -40F – weird how they converge at -40, isn’t it?) before windchill.
When you have to plug your car in, and avoid freezing your eyelashes shut with your own breath, you need something hearty for dinner!
Tonight we had homemade pierogies, saute’d with bacon, cabbage and onions. I can’t imagine a more perfect dinner for the cold!
my favorite is chicken & dumplings..so yum and so southern.
My favorite would have to be brisket served with either mashed potatoes or spaetzle and roasted brussels sprouts.
“Then I take the bacon grease and heat it in my cast iron pan, stir in an equal amount of maple syrup, then pour in a cornbread batter and bake until the maple/bacon caramelizes on the bottom to form a crust. I turn it out of the pan and cut into wedges and serve with honey butter.”
Dear sweet baby Jesus. I am making this tonight, with homemade tomato soup. I almost had an orgasm from reading it.
Grilled cheese (one slice provolone, a couple hunks something soft and goaty) with grilled onions and mushrooms, consumed with hot chocolate (made with cocoa powder, vanilla, rum, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg) and a cube of mozzarella cheese thrown into it for deliciousness and texture.
Homemade baked potato soup– tons of potatoes, onions, garlic, milk and a flour/button roux, then mix in a large dollop of sour cream, grated cheddar cheese and little chunks of bacon at the end.
Homemade tomato sauce with marble-sized meatballs made from half ground beef and half ground lamb, served over linguine with some chunks of fresh mozzarella tossed on top.
my favorite cold weather meal is pinto beans, collard greens, cornbread and ham. freaking awesome!
My favorite cold weather food has to be a good roast chicken with roasted potatoes mmm…
Whoa! mention a giveaway and everyone comes out of the woodwork!
I like chicken and noodles.
My mom’s lentil soup. I’m much heavier on the snark than the nostalgia, but this is one very clear exception. I make it every year. I even call mom when I do and see if it’s cold enough where she is for a batch too. Now that she’s retired up in the mountains, I may have to take a mid-fall trip to visit because I know she’ll have a batch before I do.
Now make me the winner!
Mmmmmmmmmm….comfort food. The bestest comfort food for cool-ish type weather – which we are currently experiencing in the mid-west- is homemade cheesy potato soup made extra thick and delicious with extra cheese and copious amounts of cream, topped with crispy shallots and bacon, and a glorious blob of sour cream, served with warm-from-the-oven cheddar chive biscuits, which encourages the large pat/dab/nob of butter to slowly melt into a drippy puddle, followed by also warm-from-the-oven chocolatey fudgy nutty brownies topped with hot fudge sauce. *sigh*
Potatoes–either sweet or regular–baked on top of the woodstove, where they get a lovely crust on the bottom. (Of course, I haven’t lived in a house with a woodstove for years, but where there’s life there’s hope!)
Definitely chili, thick and chunky with ground beef and kidney beans and lots of crackers, along with a side of buttermilk cornbread. Mmmmmmmmmm!
[...] new Top Chef tonight. But don’t worry, here are some options for passing the time: Enter the Forking Fantastic Giveaway. Catch up with last week. Run down the street nude, tossing candy to passersby. (I really just [...]
It’s hard to choose, but a hearty vegetable beef with barley is great, or three bean beef chili. Both are easy, compared to other food that I love but takes more effort to prepare. Thanks for the giveaway!
Roast chicken (with lots of salt and pepper and at 500 degrees) with mashed sweet potatoes with hot sauce and lime juice and quickly sauteed spinach with garlic. That’s it…favorite I’m tired and it’s cold outside food!
Nothing has quite the healing power that pho does. But in terms of what I would make at home…
First, I want a big, steaming bowl of either velvety pumpkin curry soup or chicken rice (sometimes rice and barley when I’m feeling adventurous) soup made with lots of fresh veggies like carrots, zucchini, potatoes and broccoli, stewed tomatoes. For the main course, open faced tuna melts on a really good everything bagel. The tuna is mixed with both mayonnaise for creaminess and mustard for the bite, capers and a blend of spices. Tomato, onion and avocado all sit between the tuna and melty cheddar cheese. On the side are oven roasted sweet potato fries, cut about 1/2″ square and tossed in crushed garlic, rosemary, salt and olive oil before going in the oven and served with a creamy horseradish curry sauce. I’m not much of a dessert person, so would take more fries. But, if there were a nice, warm apple crumb pie topped by a scoop of vanilla ice cream, I wouldn’t complain.
My absolute favorite cold weather comfort food used to be lentil soup. Then I met my father-in-law. My favorite is now a Depression Era recipe of his – Pork and Sauerkraut. It has six ingredients, including the salt and water, and it’s Tasty Food For The Lazy. Now I understand – sauerkraut is iffy for some people, but I promise there’s no sour left in this ‘kraut. It’s served over boiled potatoes or macaroni (I use rotini… I’m fancy apparently), and it’s just plain tasty.
OK, no laughing at this one:
Ultimate cold-weather comfort food
Fry 1 lb. hamburger with chopped onion. Add 1 large can tomato juice, bring to a boil. Throw in a bunch of salt, macaroni and basil (oh, and some black pepper). Cook until macaroni is done and serve with cheese on top and bread on the side. Call it goulash (my mom does). Do not add a bunch of other spices or veggies: what you get might be delicious, but it’s not Mom’s goulash.
[...] way back in September, when I posted this giveaway? We have a [...]