Pierogi

Thanks, blue dolphin ! Believe me, when I was working, *I* didn't cook like every day either. I made gumbo for an office pot luck a few years back, and even though I'd left work at like 2 p.m. to get home and cook, it was still close to midnight by the time I was out of the kitchen. I'd save stuff like that for the weekends, for sure. The sausage and grapes were a stand-by in my working days. Under an hour start to finish. Can't beat that. Yes, we will be seeing the CSA. I have a pickup today, so I'll take my trusty camera (and extra batteries, just in case). I had the same quandry about joining a CSA. For now, and we'll see what happens moving into spring and summer crops, I've been able to get through everything in the share before it either rots or its time for my next pickup. That said, I only get a small share, every two weeks. And the produce has been, because it's winter, mostly hardy stuff like sturdy greens and winter squashes that are going store a while without too much damage. It did take me a couple of times to get into the swing of planning meals to use the veggies. As you can probably tell from the assortment of cookbooks I've used this week, I'm not a tremendously intuitive cook. I do better using recipes. And I tend to plan out my entire week or week and a half of menus before I go to the store, so I avoid those "oh crap, I need XXXX for this recipe and I'm out/don't have it/can't find it" moments. I had been in the habit of going to the grocery store early in the week, and my pickup day is Thursday. That sort of messed up my schedule until I waited to see what the CSA brought me, then went shopping around what was in my share. All in all, it's been a really worthwhile experience. I've been very pleased with the quality of the produce I get, and it is REMARKABLY clean. With all the hardy greens and salad greens I've been getting, I've found only one, little tiny slug when I was washing them. And very little dirt. They do a good job preparing the harvest for the members.

Thanks, baroness ! Glad you've come along for the tour.

Back from the morning road trip, with a very, very full tummy from our deliciously guilty junk food hit. I had thought for a bit about making an "In 'N' Out" pilgrimage during my blog week. But then I got to thinking about it more, and realized that while it's stil my personal burger Nirvana, it doesn't have quite the cachet it did when it was only in Southern California. I don't begrudge them their expansion and success, and to my taste, the quality hasn't suffered (which is so often the case, sadly), but well it's not something that only *I* have access too any longer. Besides, I think everyone's seen what a DoubleDouble looks like. It's a burger. With cheese. So I decided to go to a local joint, in one of the strip malls in my 'hood. This one is across the street from the high school I went to (shout out to R.A. Millikan class of '73 !). I give you...John's Hamburgers The building is actually the remains of a McDonald's that I spent many a senior year lunch hour at. *I* was one of the cool kids. *I* had an off-campus lunch pass. School was very very different in the '70's wasn't it? John's took it over probably about 20 years ago, at first just using the building as it was. They tore down most of it about a year ago, and did a big remodel/upgrade. Thankfully the food stayed just as good when they reopened. ...and the glory that is a John's breakfast burrito: Because I care for you guys so much, I took one for the team and had one of these bad boys. Just for the cause of the blog, of course. I'd certainly never consider eating this otherwise. How did I know about them, you ask..... Um, someone told me about it. Yeah. That's it. So what's actually in a John's breakfast burrito? That'd be a lovely mix of shredded, grilled hash browns, salsa, egg, cheese and your choice of bacon, ham or sausage. Again, strictly for the sake of the blog, I had both bacon and sausage. And, again, *someone* told me they were best that way. I had no personal knowledge of that.... Oh man is that a delightful little tummy bomb. The contrast of the salsa, and the crispy bacon and the juicy sausage (wait, that's the FOURTH instance of sausage in this blog, good thing I had my cholesterol checked LAST week ) and the little crunchy bits from the hash browns, and melty cheese. Oh. Yeah. Good stuff. I will definitely not need to have anything else to eat before dinner time.

Wednesday odds/ends and wrap-up and Thursday preview ! (whoo-hooo, don't all applaud at once.... ) The sausage and grapes dish is soooooo good and sooooo easy. It's a great weeknight dish for when you're working. It has that perfect balance of what the Italians call "agrodolce", the balance of the sourness from the vinegar and the sweetness of the grape juice. Throw in the sausage juices and it's heaven on a plate. Mark Bittman also has a version of it in his "Minimalist Cooks At Home" book, that's done all on the stove top. That was where I initially found the concept of Italian sausage and grapes. Both are good. It was a nice, low-test dish after a hugely busy week and busy day. Gave me a chance to get my feet back under me. Plus it was good. Brunch-y stuff was another of my hummus/olive spread/tabboule "tartines" on my bread. Oh, and a couple of these... Trader Joe's dark chocolate nonpareils. Good stuff..... Added to the leftover list, 2 Italian sausages (one sweet, one hot). Probably destined for a pizza. Or maybe sauteed with the pierogies (THERE'S an idea....). Dishwasher load was only "Normal/Heated Wash" tonight, instead of "Heavy Load/Heated Wash". YIPEEEE ! The girls had this... for dinner tonight. OK. Fine. Maybe a bit of sweet sausage too. Just a bit. Really. A tiny bit. Tomorrow, more field trips ! We *may* go back to the Asian store I tried to hit this afternoon when I was camera-less. If not, we'll go on Friday. For sure, tomorrow we're going to the farm ! Yep, a farm. With chickens even. And we'll have a guilty junk food outing. A very, very tasty junk food outing. Thanks for playing along ! You guys, and your comments, are making this so fun, and so fulfilling, I can't even begin to tell you. Have a great night/morning, and I'll see you on the other side.

So, after a brief interlude for an adult beverage, cooking and eating dinner, and watching "Top Chef" (NOT happy with the ending, not at all, nope, not one little bit), here's the wrap-up of the day. Adult beverage time. Tonight was a "built" Margarita, with Sauza gold tequila, Citronage orange liqueur and fresh lime juice. A tiny pinch of kosher salt on the ice, and away we go: The source for tonight's meal: One of my Top 10 cookbooks. So many great recipes, fresh corn polenta with tomatoes (slurp), chipotle roasted pork shoulder, roasted fresh tomato sauce, frozen lemon curd and creme fraiche sandwiches, on and on and on. I really love this book, and I recommend it to everyone I can. But tonight, this is the cast of characters: Just a bit more, ummmm, *basic* than the last few days, eh? From this short list of ingredients, trust me, we'll make magic. And... One of my favorite meals, and definitely one that proves, sometimes, simpler is better. Start with the sausage. That's 2 hot and 2 sweet Italian sausages. While the oven is preheating to 500°, put the sausages in a saucepan, cover with water, and parboil for a bit to help get rid of some of the grease. Put the potatoes in a pot, unpeeled, and cover with water. Bring that up to a boil, too. I'm also gunna have a small side salad. I cheated and used bagged greens: And bottled dressing. I'm not worthy (tired, but not worthy.... ). But I give me points for tarting up the bagged greens with some chopped red onion and chow mein noodles: Meanwhile, the sausages are done, and need to be pulled and drained. Take a roasting pan, and put on a burner, with some buttah (ok, *I'm* seein' a trend here this week...butter, sausage, sausage, butter, oy.) Melt the butter in the pan, and then toss in the grapes, and stir them around to get them nice and coated with butter. Then, nestle the sausages in the grapes. You don't want them on top only, so they don't burn. Into the raging hot oven they go for about 25 minutes. Turn the sausages about halfway through: See how nice the grapes are cooking down? There's yummy stuff happenin' in that oven. After the rest of the time, pull the grapes and sausages, and using a slotted spoon, put them on a plate, leaving behind all the lover-ly grapey, porky, buttery juices. Cover the plate with foil and let rest while you finish the potatoes and the sauce. Look at those sausages. That's some good looking browning... There's my food resting again, instead of me. Gotta work on that. Meanwhile, put some balsamic vinegar in the roasting pan with the juices, and put it back on a burner over high heat. Boil to reduce to a thin syrup. Oh, look. The potatoes are done, too. Let's get them ready. Drain them, and then mash them roughly with your Grandma's potato masher. Or two large forks. Or *your* potato masher, but don't rice them. We want chunks. Add some heavy cream (another trend this week, methinks) and, wait, is that BUTTER? No, it couldn't be......*I* never use, (gasp) butter ! Stir that in, until it's nicely combined, but still chunky. And look at that lovely sauce: Pour it over the grapes and sausages: Plate and enjoy:

I'll have to do some cookbook research on that as well as on the dal. I *do* remember seeing recipes I've used in the past that needed it, so it went into the memory file cabinet of "buy if you ever see it". I do know I've had naan made with it sprinkled on top, so that may be a good starting spot. I like the idea with the cheese. Pioneer Cash & Carry had loads of fresh paneer. Good excuse for another trip back. I also, somehow, and *this* is a minor miracle, managed to remember that nigella seeds were also called "kalonji". I asked a couple of people in the store, and they all said, "no, that's kalonji". I was like (goodness gracious I hate that term, but it fits)..."I can see it's labeled kalonji, is it the same as nigella seeds?" But, I figured it was cheap enough, and it looked like what I'd seen called nigella seeds, so I took a flyer. Turns out I made the right bet ! Yeah. 23k ain't happenin' in ANY of our lives right now. I think it's one of those things where, if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it !

Loving this blog Roberta thanks! Shucks, thanks Jon. Good to know another local thinks I'm doin' right by our town.

Thanks gfweb !! Yes, tragically, that is my reflection in the window of the sari shop. Picture Manager didn't have a way to edit *that* out, unfortunately....

Yes ! I do it all the time, although not for the gumbo I made yesterday. I learned about it from Alton Brown on "Good Eats". He's got a gumbo recipe on the FN website that's pretty good. It works FANTASTICALLY.

So did I buy anything....? But of course ! Some spices I'd been looking for: That's a bag of fresh curry leaves, a bag of kalongi (which is nigella seed, also known as onion seed), some tamarind paste and some citric acid. Hey, maybe I can start doing molecular gastronomy with the citric acid??? Yeah. Prolly not. Some dal I couldn't get before: I believe both the Urad dal and the Dhana dal are primarily used as garnish, or as an ingredient in other dishes, but I'll have to do some research and playing around. But I've been lookin' for these little guys ! And finally, the best treasure of all: FROZEN IDLI !!! I haven't had idli in probably 20 years, since the ex-wife of my first boss used to make them and bring them for lunch. THAT find was worth the trip alone. So, even though the batteries crapped out, I decided, since I was close, to check out the Asian market as well. We'll go back there with new batteries, because it was also really, really cool, and I think all y'all will enjoy that too. Plus, I have stuff I want to buy there too ! Back after dinner (an adult beverage or two) and clean-up. Hope you enjoyed Little India. *I* certainly did.

Ahhhhh, here's where we're going - "Pioneer Cash and Carry" (gotta love the name): It's a tiny little store, just jammed with all foodstuffs Indian. My mind was, as I say, well and truly blown. I can't wait to come back again and really take the time to look at everything. Here's a shot from the back, parking lot entrance. It doesn't really begin to show how compact the place is: Along one wall are the bulk spices, masala and curry mixes, and seeds: Anyone need a 5-pound bag of tumeric? (sorry for the glare off that one, I tried to fix it as best I could...) One aisle is all dried pulses and legumes: And the other side is every kind of dal (lentils) you can imagine ! Lots and lots of bottled pickle... ...and cooking/simmer sauces.... ...and some pre-packaged foods. Along the other opposite wall from the spices and seeds is the small produce area. Which also had fresh naans, chapatis and rotis under refrigeration: I just saw them use this on "Chopped" on Food Network ! No, I didn't buy it today, but that doesn't mean I never will ! Indian munchies: Need some ghee? Or some jaggery? And a little more culture clash... At that point, sadly, our tour of "Pioneer Cash and Carry" came to an abrupt, unplanned end. My camera batteries crapped totally out ! Major bummer.....I'd been getting the low battery warning all day, but thought I could squeeze out enough juice for the whole field trip. Yeah, fat chance there, bucko ! I'm actually very happpy I got that shot of the naan pizzas, I thought it didn't take.

OK, we're back from Little India, and it was a totally mind-blowing experience. I have to say, I'm ashamed to admit it, , but even though I am such a huge fan of Indian food, and even though I love to make it from scratch, and even though I've lived in this area for many more years than I care to cop to in public, I'd never been to go food shopping there. I have no excuse. I kept thinking I want to, I should, but never motivated to actually do it. Well. Now, I'll be a regular. What a fun place to shop I found ! As 6ppc mentioned above, Little India is a stretch of Pioneer Boulevard in Artesia, roughly from 178th Street north to 183rd Street. There's a ton of restaurants, sari shops, jewelers, Bollywood video stores and little markets. Artesia has a very interesting demographic/history. Back in the early 20th Century, it was settled primarily by Dutch and Portuguese dairy farmers, so much so that the original name of the area was "Dairy Valley". You can still see some of the Dutch influence in some of the old architecture and a few shops. There still is a large population of both Dutch and Portuguese in the area, along with Asian (Chinese, Korean and Filipino, primarily), and of course, Indian. Next door to the Indian market we'll see in a minute, is a furniture store called "Postma Furniture". Postma, is I believe, a Dutch name, and the style of the building is similar to others I remember from the area when I was a kid. In this whole stretch of very exotic smelling foods and spices, and the glittery sari shops and very Asian/Eastern furniture, Postma's was selling stuff that would look right at home in Granny's parlor in the middle of Wisconsin. Very traditional American stuff. Talk about culture shock ! Anyway, here's the intersection where the grocery store is. I walked a bit down the street, and then back up, to see what there was to see. Couldn't go too far, but I went as long as I could. I wanted to try to go to this store as well, "Standard Sweets and Snacks", since I'd heard of it before, but alas, they've closed down: That's our destination, but we'll looky-loo a little first: Look at the pretty sari (and the not-so-pretty reflection, yikes). I've always thought saris were very closely akin to fairy princess dresses. So elegant and glamorous. And this one was one of the "plainer" ones ! And for the gentlemen: Need a bauble or two? Indian goldwork is some of the most elaborate and stunning I've ever seen. And it's usually 22 karat !

Rick Bayless uses a similar technique in his "Mexican Everyday" cookbook, only he starts the rice in a saucepan on top of the stove, and sautes it like a risotto, along with onions and garlic. Then he adds the liquid and spices/herbs/tomatoes (if its a red rice) and so on. Then he puts the covered saucepan into the oven. I believe the temp is the same, but he doesn't bake it as long as Prudhomme recommends. I think Bayless' only cooks for about 20 minutes. His technique works quite well also. Prudhomme's rice is a bit more dry, probably because of the longer cooking time. Stove top rice is hit and miss for me as well, although I've been having more success following the Cook's Illustrated method of rinsing the rice, using 1 part rice to 1.5 parts water, and then letting the rice steam, with a towel under the lid of the pot, off heat, for 10 minutes after it's done. I can get much more consistent results that way.

Rhonda, I know *you* know a thing or 3 about gumbos, so coming from you, that's a huge compliment. I'm on a roll, I ain't stoppin' now...

Thanks Genkinaonna. As I said, if you can make ravioli, it's a piece of cake. Or, maybe a piece of dough.

Awwwwwww, that's so sweet Bruce, thank you so much.... That means a lot to me. It's good to see you here, and hope you get your computer fixed soon. We miss ya, especially in the Dinner, Asian and Mexican threads.

They are a very nice drink, I must say.

Hi Cass, and welcome to eG. Hope you enjoy it here. Thanks for the kind words, I've been having a lot of fun.

Some day, maybe next winter, since winter officially seems over here on the Left Coast, I'm going to make bigos. I've been wanting to for a long time. It sounds wonderful. Thanks for the compliment. Pierogies really aren't that difficult, just tedious and time-consuming. If you've made fresh pasta, and especially ravioli, you can make pierogies.

Hi Hayley, and thank you. Cajun/Creole is really a marvelous cuisine, the flavors are so rich and deep. A lot of people think of it as "knock you over the head hot", but it doesn't have to be. It *is* spicy, but its usually a balanced, flavorful heat. Much like a good curry, although the flavor profiles are completely different, of course. Any good, heavily smoked sausage will do for the andouille, although andouille is better ! They also use a marvelous spice-rubbed, smoked ham called tasso in jambalayas and red beans and rice. Again, though it won't be 100% authentic, any very good, very smoky ham will work. If you're looking for a good beginning cookbook, I'd recommend the Prudhomme. He gives you great basics, and also what you can use as substitutions. Both the Besh book and "Cooking Up A Storm" assume a bit of knowledge about the food.

Good morning all ! It's another absolutely lovely day in SoCal, so I thought we'd take our show on the road today. It's time for a bit of retail therapy. Since the grocery chains I frequent are far, far more mundane than some of the ones back East (like Wegmans, Fairway and Stew Leonard's, all of which give me serious grocery store envy), and even as much a I love Trader Joe's, if you've seen one TJ's, you've seen them all. Couple that with the fact that all the major chains around here prohibit picture taking, I figured shots of my normal grocery haunts were't going to happen. But, because this area is such a cultural melting pot, we are lucky to have an absolutely limitless amount of ethnic grocery stores. So today, we'll head off to Litle India in Artesia, one of the cities just to the east of Long Beach. If we have time (and I have energy) we may also go to an Asian market there as well. Back in a bit.

Random notes before I collapse: Tomorrow we have at least another field trip (or possibly two, we'll see), and then a MUCH more mellow, less involved and more representative dinner planned. I deliberately front-loaded the blog with BIG STUFF for several reasons. I knew I wanted to make gumbo today, Monday was the only day I could get help to shoot the pierogi making process, I knew I wanted to make a King Cake, and Saturday seemed best like the best day, and the same for bread and ribs on Sunday. Plus, I figured, and I was right, that I would run out of steam as the week went on. And, I had some appointments/stuff to do on Thursday. And, I was also planning for a couple of late week field trips. We'll have another on Thursday. Normally, I would NOT have done so much, and so many involved projects in such a compressed amount of time. While the intensity may not be typical, the projects are. Just not so close to each other, yeeeesh ! So, the leftover count stands at: 1 chicken breast from the Indian curry. Probably going into the freezer... A boat load of short ribs from Sunday. I'm planning on reheating some of those after y'all go away, and then I'll probably freeze the rest. 2 servings of gumbo already in the freezer (happy happy) for the next time I get a gumbo jones. About 1/3 of the bread left, but I'll use that up as toast before it goes totally bad. And I can always make bruschetta...actually *that* would go well tomorrow. And tonight's dishwasher load, while still a "heavy wash/heated scrub" cycle, was much more normal. And this... ...was the only thing that was hand-washed Night all. See you tomorrow. P.S. How do you know when you're writing an eG foodblog? When you're cleaning up the kitchen as usual, and you stand there staring at the doggie water dish, and for the life of you, you can't remember if you changed it ! Byyeeeeeee.

So, the gumbo's been simmering (and Rosie's been rooting in the trash) for a bit now. The house smell AMAZING. It must be showtime. Finished gumbo. "Don' dat be purty?" I pulled the chicken because I wanted to get rid of the slimey, nasty, flabby skin, and pull it off the bone. One of the major gripes I have with trying to eat gumbo at home is trying to wrest the meat of the chicken off of the bone, in a soupy, stewy dish. And that icky skin. So, eventually I got the lightbulb moment to pull the chicken, remove the skin, chunk it off the bone, and then return it to the pot. Et, voila ! The debris: The good stuff: The shredded chicken back in the pot. "Don' dat be purty?" Take some of the rice, and put it in a bowl: And top it with the gumbo: Scarf it up, just as fast as you possibly can. Verdict - HUGE SUCCESS ! A great gumbo. Absolutely stellar. Made me a very happy camper to taste it, very complex, the spice from the sausages was spot on, and although I put in a wee bit too much file powder, and it got a bit too thick, the taste was great. This is now the 5th or 6th recipe I've made from the Besh book, and all of them have turned out well. This gumbo will go into my regular rotation.

Before I start on the gumbo post, I have to say how much I respect and admire the people, culture and traditions of New Orleans and southern Louisiana. I fully realize how lucky I am to live in Southern California, it's a pretty darn special place, and I love it. But there are two other cities I've been to where I would live in an instant. Manhattan and New Orleans. Problem is....I can't afford Manhattan and I can't take the New Orleans weather. I *hate* when that happens ! But New Orleans, from the first moment I saw it, just spoke to me. I loved the vibe, I loved the food, I loved the people I met, I loved the architecture, I just was smitten. My deep respect and affection for New Orleans actually was the reason that I wanted to do this blog *this* week, since I knew it would include Mardi Gras, and for the title of the blog. Let those good times roll, babe, wherever you are. In both Manhattan and NOLA, one of the things I fell for hardest was the food culture. God knows, you can find anything you want to taste in Manhattan. And in New Orleans, man, it's just history on a plate. So, even though I'm a Polish/Norwegian Midwestern girl raised in SoCal, it is with all deep homage and respect that I show you how I made Chicken and Sausage Gumbo to celebrate Mardi Gras. As I said in another post, I was really interested to try John Besh's technique and his recipe, so this was the perfect opportunity. The beginning was standard enough. You gots to have your Trinity: That's onion, celery and green bell pepper. The onion isn't chopped yet, because Besh doesn't cook his trinity the way other recipes I've seen do. So, here's the green portion of the trinity joined by a sad, winter Roma tomato and some minced garlic: Hey, nice lady....we heard veggies being chopped. You got any to spare? Yeah, probably.... Apparently dogs like the trinity (sans onion) too. Then you take your chicky-bird, and sprinkle it with lovely Cajun spices, and slice up the smoked sausage: The spice blend is a recipe from the Besh book. I made it a while back when I made his grillades recipe. It keeps well in the cupboard. I only used (again, since I'm *trying* to limit the actual amount of end product I produce) one breast, one thigh and one drumstick from that huge package of chicken I bought. The rest got packaged in meal-sized freezer bags and stuffed into the freezer. For the smoked sausage, I used smoked beef hot links. OK, off camera, the onion's been chopped, it must be time to make roux. So we must need oil (or fat) and flour: Besh says to use rendered chicken fat. Would've loved to, but don't have it. So, it was corn oil instead. Let the oil get REALLY hot in a heavy pan (how do I love thee, Le Cruset, let me count the ways, starting with the fact you give good roux). When it's almost smokin' sprinkle in the flour. It'll sizzle up and you should start whisking, like now. Whisk, whisk, whisk. Have some good New Orleans music on the CD player (yeah, Shelby, it was Harry), and keep whisking. They say, to get a good roux, you have to cook and whisk as long as it takes you to drink a Dixie Beer. Sadly I had no Dixie beer. But I did have Harry.... . You want to get it to what Besh describes as a "deep brown". Not yet, but darker than when we started: Keep on a 'whiskin'....and whisking.....and whisking..... Ahhhhhh, there we go: Smells like toasted flour, too. Important note....toasted, not burnt. I actually could've probably let this go a bit longer, but I'm chicken about burning it (don't ask me how I know...), so I stopped it now. Besides, it will continue to darken as you... Dump in the onions and continue to cook for another 10 minutes or so: This is the major difference between Besh and Prudhomme. Prudhomme puts all the trinity in at the same time to stop the darkening of the roux. Then, he has you add hot stock in ladle-fulls to make the base. Besh has you just put in the onions, which he then continues to cook and caramelize in the hot roux for quite a long period of time. He says in the book that he feels this gives the gumbo a deeper flavor. Then put in your chicken, and let it brown, turning as need be, in the roux/onion goodness. "Don' dat be purty?" Add the sausage, then the celery, green pepper, garlic and tomatoes. Stir that around for a bit, then toss in the bay leaf and some fresh thyme sprigs: The thyme didn't make the class photo, guess it ran out of 'thyme', or couldn't keep track of 'thyme' or....never mind. I know, keep my day job ! Pour on some chicken stock/broth, and bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. "Don' dat be purty?" After a good, long simmer, chop up your andouille and add it to the pot along with some okra. Besh wanted fresh, not an option here right now, so frozen'll have to do: Season it up with some of this stuff: And you'll need to keep skimming the grease off the top: Evidence of a baaaaaaad Rosie dog: That's the wrapper from the andouille when dumb Mommydog left the trash unattended for a moment ! Up next: The final steps and the verdict.