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Aperitifs seem to be pretty popular here, and almost every time I have gone out to eat, we socialize and drink from the cocktail menu before ever thinking about ordering food. It’s a type of restauranting that is very different from what I am accustomed to in the States. For one, I have yet to see a sit-down chain restaurant here, and two, no dinner has been under two hours yet, even at the most casual of places. Contrast that with my myriad experiences in large national chain restaurants in the States, where everything is so rushed that before you even realize it, you are out the door and never really had a chance to think about what your food tasted like. All of a sudden you realize that you’ve really missed being able to take time to actually enjoy food and the company around you. Going out to eat can be more than just a way to grab some grub because you don’t want to cook, it can be an experience all in of itself.
Part of that experience has often started with aperitifs, a nice taste to sip on while you start to become tantalized by the beckoning aromas wafting from the kitchen. One of my favorite drinks that I have had here is a combination of champagne and crème de cassis, a sweet blackcurrant liqueur. I have a penchant for champagne-based cocktails, mainly because I love how the fizz laughs and dances on my nose every time I lift the glass to my lips. A dry champagne helps temper the almost sickly sweet of the cassis, and the addition of a little bit of peach nectar really rounds out this drink as well.
Luckily, these drinks are super easy to make at home, and serving drinks with little bites before a meal can help create a social atmosphere for visiting with family and friends. After all, while eating and tasting delicious food is well and good, it is the memories that we make with each other that we really cherish. Sometimes it’s better to not focus solely on getting a meal out. Delay the food for a bit, and enjoy spending a bit of time with each other.
Ingredients (for each serving):
3 oz. champagne brut
1 oz. crème de cassis
1/2 oz – 1 oz. splash of peach nectar (optional, but recommended)
Directions:
1. Open champagne – gently and discreetly keeps the champagne in the bottle.
2. Pour champagne in a glass, and then add the crème de cassis and peach nectar. Give it a swirl or stir, and then serve and enjoy.
Ideally one would serve these in cute champagne flutes. We don’t own any yet, please bear with us as we navigate home and kitchen shopping in a language we really need to learn more of quickly!
Simplicity can come in a bowl.
There are days when it takes all the energy I have to convince myself to drag my feet down the icy sidewalk, wind whipping at my face and chapped lips, hunching my shoulders up to try to keep my scarf in place as I walk home after a long day at work. By the time I make it through the two subway lines, over the hill and up the stairs, the last thing I want to do is stand on my feet for 2 hours to cook dinner, and I am craving something simple.
Shauna of Gluten Free Girl got me thinking about leeks after her post and ever since, leeks have been on my mind. I picked some up at the market and decided to cook them the other day. Nothing pretentious here, I wanted to make a meal that did not require much thought or care when cooking, because sometimes when I get home I just want to shut off the world and forget it exists. This dish is the perfect remedy for nights like that.
Potatoes – chopped quickly and tossed into boiling water. Done. Bacon – sizzling quietly in the skillet. Done. Now I sit down and lean back, and closing my eyes I clear my mind to conjure up the most calming image I can conceive – nothing. Yes, pure black and shapeless nothing, accented only by the constant sizzling and bubbling from the stove of the bacon and potatoes happily cooking away, which is just enough distraction to invoke a trance-like state of calm. I focus on the sound of the kitchen, slow my breathing, and think about nothing for 15 minutes. In 15 minutes I can change my entire state of being. This can be a good thing. But 15 minutes of nothing – really nothing, not even that little voice in your head that loves to nag you about your upcoming responsibilities, is harder than you think. It means not checking your email. Not logging into twitter, and not turning on the TV. It takes some practice to do nothing. But once you figure it out, clearing the mind of literally everything can be one of the most refreshing events of a busy day.
The smell of the bacon wafting up my nose reminds me I am cooking dinner. I, now a bit more recharged, get up and walk over to my quaint oven-less (for the moment, this will be corrected shortly) two-burner kitchen. I lift out the bacon, strain the potatoes, and throw everything together into the skillet with some leeks, garlic, and a little spinach tossed in at the end. A quick sauté in the bacon fat, and only a few short minutes later I have the perfect effortless dinner. A simple bowl of delicious food, for those days when sophisticated just seems a little too much effort, and what I really want is simply, food.
Potato bowls are very flexible recipes. Check out Lauren’s of Celiac Teen for a totally different but also tasty looking bowl.
This dish is greatly aided when your husband gets home before you and remembers to chill the wine. At David Lebovitz’s suggestion, we sought out a bottle of Sancerre wine. 15 CHF later, I was convinced this was the perfect marriage to my potato bowl. If you find it, I highly recommend it. Just perfect.
Ingredients:
2 potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
2 slices bacon
3 leeks, white and light green part chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
a few handfuls fresh spinach
Directions:
1. Bring a pot of salted water to boil and cook the potatoes until tender enough to easily pass a fork through them.
2. On med-low heat, fry the bacon in a large skillet until crispy. Set bacon on a paper towel or napkin to soak up the excess grease. This will make the bacon a bit crispier. Leave the bacon fat in the skillet. Once the strips are cooled, crumble up the bacon.
3. Once the potatoes are done, sauté them in the bacon fat with garlic and leeks until the potatoes start to brown. At this point add in the spinach and continue to fry it all together until the spinach is just wilted. Add salt and pepper as necessary. Serve in a bowl, crumble the bacon on top, and enjoy.
Winter is the season for endives (pronounced ahn-deev in French), and nothing could have said that more than their prevalence at every single stand at the market last weekend. Red ones, white ones, Belgian endives are totally in their prime right now. They are a crunchy and slightly bitter salad green whose flavor pairs well with a variety of foods. I particularly like to match them with the sweetly acidic blood orange, also in season right now.
My husband and I literally created the idea for this salad as we were perusing the fresh produce stands in the city center. I saw beautiful Belgian endives, and though my husband was at first a little skeptical, agreed to humor me that this would turn out well. I bought them from my favorite vendor, who is a middle-aged woman that each week very politely and patiently helps me out with my lack of French while I ask her the names of each kind of produce I buy. Last week I learned that leeks are called “poireaux” and she called curly endive “salade Lyonnaise“. Not only is she helpful, but her produce is exquisite. Living here I feel like I am learning how to taste and eat food for the first time all over again, finding out that there are foods I never knew I was in love with, and others that I am falling more in love with than I ever imagined.
For example, consider the radish. Oft neglected, at least in my experience, this colorful root vegetable can be quite bitter and require teeth of steel to bite into. At least that is my memory from say around 15 years ago, as I am sure that was the last time I had ventured to eat radishes. Maybe it was just an unfairly biased viewpoint I held, but now I cannot get enough of them. I love the crunch they have and am not turned off by the bitterness at all. Maybe they really are different here, or maybe it was just the right time in my life to rediscover this great veggie. Either way, I am now officially a fan of radishes.
So this salad is blend of all sorts of things, containing a contrast in flavors and textures all at once for the tongue to dance upon, with just a very light dressing to tie it all together. I love how the color of such a dish can cheer up an entire room, even in the dead of winter on these grey days. Such brightness speaks of the yearning for warm sunny spring days hopefully soon to come.
Printer Friendly Recipe
Ingredients (Serves 4):
4 Belgian white endives
200 g (about 1/2 lb) of salade Lyonnaise (curly endive)
2 blood oranges, peeled and segmented, each sliced into quarters
1 avocado, sliced
4 fresh radishes, thinly sliced
If desired – 2 slices bacon per person
For the vinaigrette:
2 tbs walnut oil
2 tbs. white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
a little squirt of lemon juice
Directions:
1. Separate the leaves of each endive and arrange on a plate. On top, add the greens (curly endive).
2. Arrange blood oranges, avocado, and radishes, and bacon (if desired) on top of salad.
3. Combine vinaigrette ingredients in a small bowl and whisk quickly to make the dressing. Drizzle on top of salad. Enjoy!
I was so excited to see my boxes of stuff arrive in the mail this week, but until the moment where I ripped them open with the glee and enthusiasm matching a six-year-old’s on Christmas morning, I had totally forgotten that in one of those boxes was a great set of gluten free lasagna noodles. So of course we had to make some lasagna! Despite the number of times I have eaten lasagna, I had never actually made it myself. And, true to tradition, I simply glanced at a couple of recipes to figure out proportions of cheese required and then set off on my own.
I wanted to cook something a little lighter than a typical tomato based lasagna, if for no other reason than I’ve been eating a lot of “mountain food” lately, and my physical activity level really doesn’t justify that as a regular eating habit, even though it tastes so good (mmm pasta & cheese = heaven)! So I decided that chicken and spinach would be a good alternative the a slow-cooked bolognese style meat sauce that my mother is famous for. Ha. This turned out to be “lighter” than I originally anticipated, because when my husband went to the store the only chicken available to buy was 53 CHF/kg!! So we only got 100g of chicken (a little less than 1/4 lb.). And then we stretched it out to four entire servings of lasagna. In a way it is good, because we should probably be eating more vegetables and less meat anyways. Better for health, better for the environment, yada yada yada – insert latest study about meat in diets here. I guess I should clarify that last statement. I do care about how food relates to health and the environment, almost obsessively so. I really do. But you’ve all heard it before, and my last cafe crème has not kicked in yet, so I don’t really have the energy at the moment to explain all the benefits of eating less meat.
Anyways, back to lasagna. Because there is no weighty sauce here, it really does have a lighter feel than a traditional lasagna. All I did for a “sauce” was add a bit of milk, which just helped to keep everything moist while baking. I love the combination of spinach and chicken, which were definitely the predominant flavors and textures here (the shallots and garlic were pretty subtle after baking), except for the sporadic zap of flavor from the occasional piece of sun-dried tomato. Actually, maybe sun-dried tomatoes should be part of the name of this lasagna because of their potency in this dish. Even though baked, the flavor of the sun-dried tomatoes does not mellow out one bit - something that I love about them. I added them specifically because I love that punch of sweet and tart that they bring all at once. It’s a wonderful contrast to the mild and comforting creamy ricotta and mozzarella that blends so seemlessly with the chicken and spinach. I love contrasting flavors in the same dish. I think it’s what keeps taste interesting during a meal. Contrast doesn’t have to mean an unlikely pairing, just a difference in flavors and textures. For this lasagna, the sun-dried tomatoes served that purpose, and did it well.
Ingredients (Serves 4):
100g (around 4 oz.) of GF or regular lasagna noodles
2 tbs. olive oil
100g (around 4 oz.) chicken, tenderloin or breast or your favorite cut
2 tbs. butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp. italian herbs
pepper to taste
2 shallots, sliced
8 or so slices of sundried tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
100g (around 4 oz.) spinach
1 tomato, peeled, deseeded and chopped
1/2 cup milk
1 cup ricotta
6 oz. mozzarella, grated
1/4 cup milk
parsley for garnish
Directions:
1. Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions. Drain, toss with a little olive oil to keep from sticking, set aside. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Saute chicken in olive oil until fully cooked and browned. Slice and set aside.
3. In the same pan, add butter, and then saute garlic, herbs, pepper, shallots, sun-dried tomatoes, and mushrooms until the shallots are softened and the mushrooms start to brown a bit. Then add in the tomato and spinach. Once the spinach is wilted, stir in the milk and saute for a few more minutes to let everything come together.
4. In a casserole dish (around 8″ x 8″), layer noodles, then spinach mixture, then half the ricotta, then 2 oz. mozzarella and the chicken. Pour in about 1/4 cup of milk just to help keep everything moist while baking. Top with noodles, then spinach mixture, then rest of the ricotta, 2 more oz. mozzarella and one final layer of noodles. Finally, top with 2 oz. of grated mozzarella.
5. Bake dish in the oven for around an hour, or until the top is quite browned and you can see melted cheesy goodness seeping out. Sorry I didn’t really time this and don’t have a more specific metric.
6. When done, remove from oven, plate, and garnish with parsley for a little color. Enjoy!
Dianne Jacob is a celebrated food writer who led a workshop at Food Blogger Camp on writing (which, by the way, I would LOVE to attend one of these someday). While I did not go to Food Blogger Camp, I saw her post about the workshop and her writing contest, challenging people to write sensuously, or rather, about bringing the senses into one’s writing. The goal was to “get readers to see it, smell it, hear it, touch it and taste it in their minds.” While I didn’t win or even get a mention, I had a lot of fun with this exercise. Here was my entry -
The chocolat aux noisettes morsel sat patiently, inviting, just waiting for me to embrace it with my lips. Already I can feel the outer shell melting in my hands, a grim reminder of its coming end. Subtly aromatic, the chocolate calls to me, whispering sweet nothings for my nose. Like a fine wine maturing into its prime, I bring it close and take a deep breath. My tongue dances as my taste-buds ache with anticipation. I open my mouth and begin to take a bite, liberating the soft delicate ganache imprisoned inside. An exploding concert of flavors and textures hits me, first the smooth creamy sweet of the chocolate and then the small crunch of lingering hazelnut bliss. Only I and the chocolate exist during our transient acquaintance. Then, all is silent. As suddenly as it began, the flavor quickly extinguishes, one last gift of pure joy.
This little 147 word paragraph seemed so easy to write until I actually sat down and tried to literally pry words out of my head and onto my laptop screen. For all the effort I put in wracking my brain for words that just wouldn’t come, I might as well have tried to pull the sword in the stone out of its merciless rock. Let’s just say writing does not come naturally to me. At least, not writing that requires abstract thought of any kind. Maybe that is the scientist in me. If you want to me describe a result of an experiment and its relevance in the scientific community, ok. But then metaphor and simile don’t really find themselves at home in scientific literature (with good reason). However, ask me to describe something as primal and emotional as the act of eating food, and I feel like I am sitting at my desk in 6th grade all over again writing those essays for standardized tests.
In fact, until this blog, I avoided writing at almost all costs. I think my last actual writing class was in high school lol. My past English teachers would probably cringe at that fact. In college I did take a couple of great literature classes (afterall I do love to read), but I somehow managed to escape all of the writing ones, using my few electives on other topics that interested me more at the time (like statistics and math! oh yes I am a nerd).
Despite my lifelong aversion to what I have often envisioned as a rather tortuous task, over the course of this blog I have actually come to really enjoy writing. There, I said it. I like writing. It’s still difficult for me. But I love how words can be used to convey so many things (if you can find the right ones and put them in the right order), and how food is a constant in our lives that touches all the great moments worth writing about. There is so much that I want to be able to articulate to you, the reader, and with time, albeit slowly, I feel like I am getting better and better at doing just that, and actually starting to find something of my voice and style.
Why do I write? Why not just post a pretty picture and a recipe? Because I love exploring the flavor of food. Taste is such an ephemeral thing, which I think is why communicating it is so hard. But it is essential to communicate that taste and the experience that surrounds the food, because while pictures are pretty, how else are you going to understand why I liked eating/cooking/serving what I did? Food blogging, at least to me, is more than just putting up a recipe with a picture. It’s about sharing and writing. The writing should never be neglected in a blog, especially a food blog. It is as important as any recipe or picture.
It doesn’t matter that I didn’t win. Ok, it does matter. I am sure winning some time with Dianne Jacob could have definitely helped me in a gazillion ways, probably more than I can even bring to mind at the moment. But, for me, this little writing contest went beyond simply causing me to spend some time coming up with a paragraph about my favorite chocolate in the world (well, as of now – there are still I don’t know, about 20,000 more kinds here in Switzerland to try) – it helped me realize the importance that I place on quality writing, and helped remind me of my goals with this blog. I hope my writing has improved since I started. And, along with my cooking and my photography, I hope it continues to do so, if only so I can better talk about delicious food and their place in my life memories – so that you can see and understand a little more of me, and how cooking and eating find their way in so many other themes of this world, and in the end, maybe learn a little bit more about yourself in the process and make some memories of your own.
So thank you, Dianne Jacob, for hosting this contest. My set of 147 words up there did a lot more than sit in your comments section as just another entry. Somehow the process was completely inspiring and motivating. I never expected that when I originally decided to enter, and it was an extremely pleasant surprise.
Did I ever mention that it is really cold here in the Winter? Well, the temperatures aren’t so cold (usually +/- 5? C), but so far it has been a very wet Winter with some type of precipitation almost every day. My husband even took a picture during one of the snows we had last week – the snow is beautiful for sure! But that dampness combined with the wind and chill is enough to make anyone want to curl up in their favorite wool sweater with a large mug of tea and just forget the outdoors. Part of that comes from the amount of walking outside that one does here on a daily basis, which is not the most pleasant when it’s cold and rainy/snowy/icy/etc. out. This risotto was meant for just one of those days, made with wine, squash, chanterelles, and sausage, specifically saucisson vaudois.
We (my husband and I) debated for a while about putting cheese in this or not. In the end we didn’t. It had so much great flavor we wanted to just leave it alone and enjoy it as is. If you make this, and decide to add some cheese, let me know what you added and how it came out, I’m curious. As for the squash, I have no idea what type of squash it was. It looked like a slice from a giant pumpkin, but the woman selling it at the market didn’t call it potiron (French for pumpkin), she simply called it courge when I asked her its name, which in French simply means “squash” according to my trusty Google translator. So I have no idea. It definitely wasn’t a pumpkin though, I could tell that immediately by the taste, and also by the fact that its skin was more akin to a butternut squash. Maybe someone can let me know. But if you find a giant pumpkin looking veggie with a butternut squash type skin, that was it. It was delicious, definitely pick it up!
Oh, and for those of you curious about the saucisson vaudois, which I also used with chanterelles to make an awesome omelette, this is what it looks like:
Isn’t that marbling of fat and meat together just beautiful? So far I think I could very much enjoy the Swiss culture of food. And I still love how every time I walk into a grocery store I find a good 2 aisles dedicated solely to chocolate. I could write a whole post about chocolate haha, so I should leave that for another time. For now I’ll just say, it is great.
Ok back to risotto. Squash, fresh chanterelle mushrooms, and local smoked sausage along with white wine make for a great flavor profile. Instead of using a veggie or chicken broth as is typical of risotto, I instead used the water from boiling the squash. It was bright orange and quite flavorful. I decided to boil the squash because I wanted it to literally melt into the risotto. Risotto is one of those dishes were texture is extremely important. While flavor can vary widely in the dish – I myself had made several varieties – the texture must be perfect. It can NOT be underdone at all. Risotto al dente is not risotto. On the other hand, overdone risotto is gummy and chewy, and not in a good way. The trick to risotto is 1) patience and 2) careful babysitting/timing. Just make sure to add a little bit of liquid at a time, stir often, and be patient. Taste often until you get a sense for the timing that you will need to achieve the perfect texture. When you lift the spoon up to your mouth and taste a few grains of rice, and every flavor swirls seamlessly in your mouth leaving you wondering how you ever got on before eating such creamy smooth rice like this, then you are at the right place. It took me a couple of times before I really understood that point with risotto.
Once you grasp the technique of risotto, you can really do anything with it. Risotto can be the backdrop for so many flavors and varied it in countless ways. But this, this might just be my favorite yet.
Printer Friendly Recipe
Ingredients
500g (about 1 lb) of courge or squash, peeled and diced
5 c. water (will become the broth)
2 tbs. butter
1 cup arborio rice
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
150 g (about 1/3 lb.) saucisson vaudois (or smoked sausage), casing removed and chopped
pinch dried rosemary
1 cup white wine
100 g (about 4 oz.) chanterelles, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Add water and squash to a medium pot and bring to a boil. Boil about 30 minutes, or until all of the squash is very soft. Take the squash out, mash and set aside, reserve the broth and keep it on a low simmer.
2. Melt butter in a large (10″ or bigger) saute pot, and add rice, garlic, shallots, sausage, and rosemary. Saute until rice is golden. Deglaze with a healthy splash of white wine, giving a good stir. Then, pour in the rest of the wine and turn the heat down to an active simmer. Add in mashed squash and chopped chanterelles, stirring often (every 30 s or so).
3. Using the “broth” from the squash, gradually add about 1/2 cup at a time to the rice, still stirring frequently, until the rice is tender and at that perfect texture. You want to add a little at a time as this is what will give it that creamy texture. Once risotto is done, remove from heat and serve immediately.
So last weekend I successfully navigated the market (very similar to a farmer’s market in the States), and was able to buy things – speaking in French! Woohoo! The market here is insane – there are SO many different types of food along with produce. One stand just sold olives – there must have been over 20 types of olives! Some stands sold spices, and breads, oh it was amazing. And it was packed. It turns out the entire city must come out on the weekend just for the market, and with good reason!
One of my prize purchases were chanterelles. So fresh, and perfectly golden. They are one of my favorite types of mushrooms and I was so excited to see them! Chanterelles are not as strongly flavored as say, morels, but they do carry their flavor well even through a lot of cooking. I gave them a tough competitor to build a flavor profile with, the saucisson vaudois (sausage from Vaud). This is the local sausage of the area, very well marbled, and a great smoky taste. One thing about Switzerland is just like every area is known for a certain type of cheese, almost the same variety exists in cured meats. Despite using such a flavorful meat in these omelettes, the chanterelles did not disappear, but rather blended quite nicely. A little bit of a very mild soft cheese (camembert) to bring it all together, some green spinach for garnish, and a tasty Swiss Winter omelet is made 
In the States, I doubt you can find saucisson vaudois. I know I had never heard of it before I came here. If you do find it, I encourage you to try it because it is so delicious. But if you choose a decent smoked sausage it would work fine. Omelettes are pretty flexible. In the background you can see a delicious croissant that I ate, because even though my husband cannot enjoy the bread, I still indulge Don’t think he is missing out that much. OK in bread terms he is. But he had a hazelnut yogurt with his omelette that was freaking amazing. We both love hazelnut, and are so glad to see hazelnuts incorporated into so many foods here. For some reason hazelnut flavor doesn’t seem to be as popular in the States.
Printer Friendly Recipe
Ingredients (for 1 omelette, scale up as needed):
2 eggs
2 tbs. oil
1 large shallot, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
50 g fresh chanterelles roughly chopped (about 1/3 cup)
75 g saucisson vaudois, or smoked sausage (about 3 oz), chopped
1/4 wheel camembert, cut into pieces
fresh ground pepper
handful fresh baby spinach
Directions:
1. Crack 2 eggs in a bowl and beat until uniform. Set aside. In a large skillet, heat up oil and saute shallot, garlic, chanterelles and sausage until the sausage is fully cooked and browned. Set the mixture aside.
2. On a medium heat, pour eggs into the skillet and let sit for a minute or so, until it just stops being runny. Place your sausage and chanterelle mixture on one half along with pieces of camembert and a few leaves of spinach. Fold over and let cook another minute or so. Flip once to brown the other side, then transfer to your plate.
3. Season with pepper if needed. You don’t need to add salt because the sausage will add plenty. Garnish with spinach. Enjoy!
I don’t think I’ve ever met a nicer group of people than the Swiss. For example, one evening my husband and I went to buy some food at a local shop, and much to our dismay realized when we went to pay that they only took cash. Being total rookies in the country still we had no idea that credit cards were not accepted as many places as we were used to in the States, and felt quite embarrassed as well disappointed at the thought of not being able to get food that night. Much to our surprise, the young clerk manning the shop was like no big deal – “Vous êtes près d’ici? (Are you from near here?)” he asked, and let us take our groceries anyways saying that we could come back in tomorrow when we had the cash and pay. We were totally shocked that someone would be so trusting and totally thankful – there was nothing at all obligating him to be so nice! But that just seems to be the culture here. Everywhere we go, people have been extremely helpful and friendly. We try our best with the French (which has amazingly improved quite quickly to a point of near-mediocrity where along with hand-gestures we can attempt to communicate) and end up conversing in a mix of English/French/(sometimes Spanish too) and somehow can communicate
Speaking of nice people here, when we first moved across the ocean, it was tough getting used to the fact of living in a hotel for at least a month with nothing to prepare food with besides a microwave and a little fridge (which is pretty good for just a hotel room). Luckily, to our great fortune, one of our colleagues was so generous that while he was traveling let us use his kitchen and cook in his apt. as we are still waiting for a place of our own.
We have not figured out the gluten free thing very well yet here, mostly because we need to get a better mastery of reading ingredient labels and finding the right stores. But one thing we do know is that Indian and southern Asian cuisines tend to be a pretty safe bet. Unfortunately for my husband, most of Swiss cuisine revolves around one of my favorite foods ever – bread. So eating out has been a little tricky so far, until we get our bearings a bit better and know our way around the city more. Two very important sentences when dining out – “Je suis allergique à gluten. Je ne peux pas manger du pain.” (I am allergic to gluten, I can’t eat bread.) But for now, we have a kitchen that we can use – yay!!!!!
Going along with the theme of foods with an Asian flair, we have made a simple and easy stir fry with a coconut curry quite a few times now. It may not seem obvious to many, but curry is a generic word for sauce and can actually mean a number of different things depending on what flavors you are going for. Using fresh herbs and spices I find tastes a lot better than a pre-made mixture. I did not grind all of my flavors together to make a paste first. I just cooked them into my meal. They are still tasty that way.
One awesome thing about being in Switzerland is that produce is always fresh, and quite affordable (once you remember that prices are per kilo and not per pound). Meat, however, is a bit pricey. So we buy a little bit of meat and supplement with lots of fresh veggies, which is healthier anyways. For example, the chicken we used here was equivalent to about $17/lb. This dish is pretty quick to cook, uncomplicated, and quite satisfying, especially on these cold snowy days that we were inundated with our first week. All good things on a cold blustery day
Printer Friendly Recipe
Ingredients:
1 c. dry perfume rice
2 tbs. canola oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 small onions, chopped
1 tbs. coriander seed
4 kaffir lime leaves
2 red chiles, finely chopped (with seeds for extra heat)
2 stalks lemongrass, finely chopped
1 lime
1/2 lb. chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
1 small eggplant, peeled and chopped
1/4 c. cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 c. thai basil, finely chopped
2 c. coconut milk
1 small head broccoli, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
Directions:
1. Start rice cooking according to package directions. In a large skillet, heat up oil and add in garlic, onions, coriander seed, kaffir lime leaves, red chiles, lemongrass. Stir together and let cook a bit, until onions are softened and your kitchen smells awesome, and then add in juice from half of the lime.
2. At this point, It’s really just a matter of adding in the ingredients at the right time so they all cook to your preference. I added in the chicken and eggplant next, and squirted the rest of the lime juice over both – eggplant is great because it really soaks up a lot of flavor while cooking. Once the chicken is fully cooked and the eggplant has softened, add the fresh herbs and coconut milk – stir, and let simmer covered until eggplant is fully cooked. Then towards the end add in the broccoli and pepper, cover and continue simmering until broccoli is steamed and just starting to get tender.
3. The rice was done somewhere in the middle of step two – when done, fluff with a fork and remove from heat.
4. Serve chicken and veggies with coconut sauce over a bowl of rice. Enjoy!
This seemed an appropriate post for the recent passing of the New Year, given that many people have resolved to be a bit firmer with their budgeting under the current economic conditions. Just remember, eating good natural food does not have to break your bank. And neither does eating cheaply mean being stuck with instant noodles. My husband and I were grad students together for quite some time and learned very quickly how to live and eat (gluten free even) on a rather strict budget. We’ve learned a few things over the years about how to best get a great value for quality food and I wanted to pass these tips on, in case they may help:
1. Shop at the right places. Not everything at your local large chain supermarket is necessarily the best value, despite the weekly specials and your member card. For us, we buy at farmer’s markets as much as we can in the summer. Buying fresh local organic produce is often cheaper than our local supermarket, or at the very least a comparable price to the non-organic equivalent in the supermarket. Using the same logic, if you can, participate in a CSA. You don’t get as much say over the produce you get, but you get tons of it for what you paid, and it directly supports your local economy. Another alternative market if one is available is your area is a community run market, or co-op. When we were in grad school, we used to be members of a market to whom local farmers sold their produce directly. It was great because they were open every day (unlike a farmer’s market) and though one had to pay for the membership up front, one more than made up for it in the savings on purchasing food.
2. We cut back on both dairy and meat. Ha I know it doesn’t look like it by the looks of this blog, but we really did only eat meat a couple times a week. Cheese, yogurt, and meat are the most expensive things we regularly buy, so cutting back on those saved a lot of money.
3. So did eating smaller portions. There was a time when we were both strictly calorie counting and limiting our calorie intake and it was amazing how much less $$$ we ended up spending at the store because we were simply eating less food. We chopped off a good 25% of our grocery spending that way.
4. Also avoid prepackaged/prepared foods. For example, buying a 2 lb. bag of black beans that you need to soak yourself overnight costs about 5x less than buying beans already in a can (and by not buying canned food, you can reduce your bisphenol A exposure as well). This is generally true with other staples too – like buying actual rice that you have to cook for a while rather than minute rice, buying actual potatoes rather than from a box, making your own bread rather than buying it, buying a head of lettuce instead of a bag of precut rinsed salad, etc. are all generally lower in price per unit food. It’s generally healthier to avoid all the crap that is put in prepared foods anyways, and one really does pay quite a bit for “convenience”.
5. Don’t let food go bad. This was probably the single hardest thing to do and the thing that saved the most money. Wasting food is like directly throwing your good hard-earned money in the trash. Sometimes it’s hard when you just don’t feel like finishing those leftovers or the rest of the broccoli or whatever that is in the fridge that needs to be eaten, but just remind yourself that once it goes bad and you end up tossing that food, you just also threw that money away. Half of my daily cooking is from playing the game “This needs to be eaten now what I can I make with it before it goes bad”. We’ve gotten a bit creative with some of our meals, but that’s ok – experimenting can sometimes be fun!
6. Buy your pantry staples in bulk for cheaper. There is nothing wrong with having a big pantry full of staples. Things like grains and pasta, beans, nuts, etc. don’t go bad easily so buy them in bulk and save $$$. It’s also useful when you don’t feel like going to the store and need to find food around the house to throw together into a meal.
7. Keep your freezer well-stocked and full. A full freezer means easy meals for you to reheat when you don’t feel like cooking (like we always have tons of homemade marinara sauce, frozen fish/shrimp, and we are constantly freezing leftovers), and a full freezer uses less energy to stay cold so helps save on your electric bill. When you’re stuck in a situation where you can’t control the appliances you own or buy new ones at the moment, things like this really actually help.
8. Grow your own herb garden. There is no need to spend $2 every time you want to use fresh herbs for a meal. Herbs like basil and rosemary and thyme are pretty hardy (as in easy to keep them alive) and add lots of delicious flavor to a meal.
9. Cruise the ethnic markets, as they often have much better prices for many of your favorite foods. Asian and Indian food markets are our best place for a number of naturally gluten free products (like rice noodles, yum)!
10. The other tip that was hard for us to do and still often is hard is to only buy what you need. Impulse food buying almost always leads to extra food laying around causing you to have to deal with tip #5 in really hard ways. The best advice that I have for this is don’t go to the store hungry. I’ve walked into a grocery store with a craving for fruit and come out having bought 10 lbs of fruit that I know we couldn’t possibly finish before it goes bad. Also, if you make a list and plan ahead, it is a lot easier to purchase only what you originally intended. Grocery stores and food markets can be a great place for culinary inspiration, but don’t let that inspiration run away from your budget.
Do you have other tips for saving money on food? I am very curious how much (if any) of these tips will change for us as we adjust to the financial freedom of no longer being grad students and also adjust to living life in Europe…
Hope you all had a great New Year!
I wanted to make something different this year for Christmas, something a bit away from our traditional desserts. Don’t get me wrong, my dad’s pecan pie is the absolute best version of pecan pie that this world has ever seen. But I wanted to make something a little lighter to have as well. The idea of poached fruit came to mind because it’s a great way to add rich flavor to some of autumn and winter’s best fruits. Poaching fruit in of itself is pretty easy – all one really does is simmer a fairly meaty fruit like apples or pears in a sugary syrup concoction until beautifully tender. However, the trick is all in the timing. If you don’t let it go long enough, the fruit will be hard still. If you go too long, your fruit will fall apart into a mushy mess in the middle of your poaching liquid. So the key to success here lies in actually babysitting the process. But other than that, it’s pretty simple. Simple is good, because simple means low-stress. And that’s exactly what the holidays should be. What fun is a holiday if you are running around worrying about everything? It’s better when you can relax and have fun with it, and use the experience instead to create fond memories with friends and family. Not that I was really worried about freaking out, my family is a pretty forgiving crowd so I am fine presenting to them my first runs of my food
Actually, the hardest part of making this dessert was all brought on by myself. The frangipane cream recipe called for crushed macarons. I took this as a sign that I was meant to attempt the macarons cookies again (since finding premade ones that weren’t made on machinery that came in contact with wheat seems to be hard where we were), and I spent a good two days trying to finally get them right. I came pretty close this time though. Actually, really close. So my Christmas morning started off with a great feeling of accomplishment from tackling the notoriously challenging cookie.
Speaking of frangipane cream, wow is that rich delicious stuff that I could just eat by the spoonful if I could shut off my brain from what would be the surely inevitable calorie-guilt that would immediately follow. And again I have to sing the praises of millet flour for working so well in this. But using it with the poached apples works really well. The entire dessert is rather small in portion, but delectably rich as only almond and sugar combined with apples can be. What really finishes the whole thing then is adding the apricot syrup from poaching the apples on top. Yum. I can put that stuff on just about anything. Ice cream, fruit, cookies, you name it
Another great thing about this dessert? You can pretty much make everything ahead of time, and then all you have to do right before serving is assemble. Super convenient when you are making lots of other stuff for a get together with family and friends, or packing a lot because this was the last thing that you made in the States…
Printer Friendly Recipe
Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook, Volume II (1972)
Ingredients:
For poaching:
4 cortland apples, peeled, cored an halved
2 c. water
1 c. apricot preserves
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. orange zest
For the frangipane cream:
1/3 c. millet flour
3/4 c. sugar
pinch salt
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 c. whole milk
1/4 vanilla bean
2 tbs. butter, cubed
6-8 French macarons, crushed
For garnish:
1/2 c. toasted almonds, chopped
Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan (2 qt), add water, preserves, sugar and zest and bring to a simmer. Add apple halves, a couple at a time (because they won’t all fit at once), and simmer (try to keep them submerged), flipping every few minutes or so until tender enough to pierce with a fork, which will be around 25 -35 minutes depending on the size of your apples. Be careful not to over-poach them or they will just fall apart. Once successfully poached, set apple halves aside and chill in the fridge for 2 hrs. Keep the poaching liquid.
2. In a medium pan start the frangipane cream. Combine flour, sugar and salt, and whisk in gradually one egg, then egg yolk, then egg, then egg yolk until well mixed. In a separate pan, heat up milk (slowly on medium stirring frequently so nothing burns on the bottom) and scrape vanilla bean seeds into the milk. Then just drop the whole bean in. Just before the milk comes to a simmer, gradually whisk it into the egg/flour mixture until well mixed.
3. Heat up the frangipane cream mixture on medium, stirring constantly with the whisk. When it just comes to a boil, it will start to thicken. Keep cooking for about 2 more minutes until quite thick. Then remove from heat, find the vanilla bean and discard, and whisk in the butter and the macarons. The crushed macarons should dissolve nicely into the cream and impart the almond flavor. Allow the cream to cool to room temperature stirring every few minutes, then cover with plastic wrap until needed.
4. To assemble, place apple halves (core side up) in serving dishes. Fill a pastry bag with frangipane cream and pipe cream on top of the apples. Garnish with chopped toasted almonds. In a small saucepan, heat up the reserved poaching syrup, and then spoon a couple of spoonfuls on top of everything. Serve and enjoy!
Photography Note –
I used my tripod this time, woohoo! I was so glad that I actually remembered to get it out and use it. Both of these pictures were lit by candlelight actually, one candle on either side, about the same height as the glasses. They were 6 s and 3.6 s exposure times respectively, which I could do so easily on a tripod. Just wonderful! I did need to play with white balance a lot because candlelight is very yellow, but that is really it. The long exposure times that I sorely have been needing in many previous pictures meant that I did not need to do nearly as much in photoshop. Even when you don’t have ideal neutral light, getting the proper amount of light to enter into your camera is always a bonus. In such low-light conditions, my tripod became my best friend
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