Eating Dirt

Roast Chicken Tacos

Tonight's chicken tacos were the best dinner ever. In addition to both kids eating it, my daughter ate five radishes. Five!  I've been putting beautiful little radishes - in red, pink, purple - on the table and eating them with great relish around my family for years now, but I I've never seen her eat more than one tiny nibble, until tonight. Truth be told, I don't even like radishes that much. I used to worry about what to do with the bunches we would have stacking up in our produce drawer, and at one point resorted to making a sort of radish cream cheese spread, which actually is quite good on toasted brown bread. The funny thing about radishes is that the longer you keep them, the spicier they get. So depending on whether you like them hot or not hot, leaving them in your fridge for a while may not be such a bad thing. And now that the majority of my family will eat them, I can grow them in the garden!  

But I digress...the tacos were grand. Really delicious. Everybody loved them. They were easy, though I mistakenly waited to roast the chicken until after picking up my daughter from preschool, which seems to have led to one of her more massive bedtime meltdowns this evening. The chicken could have easily been roasted this morning, or even last night or the night before. Of course, then we would have missed out on the crispy salty roast chicken skin, which is one of the most delicious things on earth (it goes soggy after a night in the fridge), but I guess we could just eat it with breakfast or whenever the chicken comes out of the oven. 

When you're making this, be sure to get really good produce - a rancid avocado or flaccid radish would be a deal breaker. This afternoon my son and I picked up a chicken over at Alpha Market in Cole Valley, where they also had baskets of little organically grown apples that look like they came from someone's backyard, for $1.85. I know, I know, apples aren't really in season yet, but my son keeps asking for them. He is one of those kids who never wants to eat what we have a lot of. Then we swung by Fresh Organics on our way home, which is expensive as hell, but has great produce. I love shopping at Rainbow Grocery, but we cannot walk to it. When I'm heading east and staying close to home, these places are the next best thing.

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Roast Chicken Tacos (adapted from Canal House Cooking Volume 4):

1 whole roasted chicken

a dozen or so corn tortillas (taco size)

1 avocado (or more if your family likes them), peeled and cut into slices

1 fresh poblano chile pepper, roasted, peeled, seeded and sliced thinly

cotija cheese (as much as you want), crumbled

2 limes, sliced into wedges for squeezing

1 bunch fresh radishes, scrubbed clean with the leaves left on

salt

This recipe will feed four, with lots of chicken left over. If you want to feed more people just get more tortillas, another pepper, avocado and pepper. To make it into a really quick dinner you can roast the pepper and the chicken ahead of time. Both will keep for a day or two in the fridge. I suppose you could even buy a chicken already cooked at the market and bring it home, were that a more convenient option.

To roast the pepper, hold it with a pair of tongs over one of the gas flames on your stovetop. If you have an electric burner that heats up, you may be able to just lay the pepper on top, but I've never done it. Either way, be very, very careful to pay close attention to your chili, otherwise you may burn the house down. Have ready a small paper bag before you roast the pepper, and when the pepper is blackened and charred all over, drop it into the bag and close it. The pepper will steam a little bit, and in twenty minutes or so you can remove it from the bag and peel its skin off. Then slice it in half, cut out the stem, scrape out the seeds (being careful not to scrape out the flesh) and cut it into thin strips.

To roast the chicken, first make sure that it is brought up to room temperature before you put it in the oven. Otherwise, what should be an hour cooking time will become much longer. It takes at least a couple of hours out on our kitchen counter to warm up, but then we live in a place where the temperature is 55° on the first of August. At your house, the chicken may come to room temperature more quickly. You don't want to leave it unrefrigerated for too long in a warm location because bacteria will grow that can make you sick. 

After the chicken has been out of the fridge for however long seems appropriate, preheat the oven to 400°. Lay out some paper towels on a big plate, and wash your chicken in the sink, then pat it dry on the plate. Next rub the inside of the body cavity and the outside of the bird with salt. Lots of salt. If you want your chicken to look pretty, use some cooking twine (you buy it at the grocery store) to tie its legs together, as though it were crossing them. You can even throw a few fresh herbs in the body cavity beforehand if you want, thyme, parsley and rosemary give the meat a nice flavor. Place the chicken breast side up on a shallow oiled baking dish or baking sheet with high sides (at least a half inch or so) and put it into the oven. It will need to cook for about an hour, you can check it after 30 minutes, and when the skin is starting to look nice and browned, slice a knife into the thigh joint. If the juices run clear, then the chicken is done. Let it rest for a few minutes before carving.

Once the chicken is done, and the other ingredients have been prepared and put out in small bowls, call your people to the table and then toast the tortillas. Like roasting the chile pepper, lay a single tortilla over a low gas flame on your range for a few seconds, then flip it over using tongs. Once it is warm enough to fold in half, put it on a plate and pass it to the table, the lucky recipient can assemble their taco and eat it. Also like the pepper, be very careful not to let it catch on fire. Stovetop tortilla heating requires vigilance, and I'm willing to bet that your local fire department would recommend you use the microwave instead. Should one happen to light up, quickly grab it with your tongs, drop it in the sink and douse it with water. If the fire is too big for your tongs, grab the fire extinguisher that you (should) have installed close to your stove. Its easy to keep one hidden in a cabinet.

To assemble the tacos (all ingredients should be out on the table in small bowls, with the sliced chicken on a larger plate), just put a couple small pieces of chicken on the tortilla, then add avocado, roasted chile, cheese, salt and pepper, a squeeze of lime. Radishes should be eaten separately, you can sprinkle a little salt on your plate and dip it in that.

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Tortilla Soup for 24

 Deborah Madison's tortilla soup recipe is a longtime favorite of mine. We meet up, the soup and I, from time to time, like childhood friends and reminisce about the old days. Back before my husband, way before the kids.  Long ago when tortilla soup's cookbook cover was new and shiny and its pages white and pristine. 

When this year's first bunch of tomatoes appeared in the CSA box last week, along with avocados and some cilantro. I knew it was time to get together again. Soup is perfect for a big group on a cool evening, so with a little multiplication and extra tomatoes I made a small vat for our Memorial day camping trip, where our family was responsible for one third of two different meals for twenty-four people. 

Half of the people were children, all under the age of eight, I believe, so this was really more a kids camping trip than a relaxing romp in the woods for grown-ups. But the beautiful thing about camping with a large group of children is that they entertain themselves. They broke into two bands of roaming beasts, the four and five year old girls, and the seven and eight year old boys, and conquered the campsites. 

There was a stream, with roaring rapids and horsetails, freshly stocked with trout. There was lots of dirt, for digging and throwing and rolling in. There was a stretch of road and a few bikes, for riding and arguing over. And lots of gold, oh so much gold. We were all rich! 

As parents, we spent most of our time by the firepit, where our weekend kitchen lay. There were lots of Chef-fy type people gathered together - a former caterer, a past restaurant cook, software geeks and a writer, all of whom liked to cook for their families. We got the fire going and feasted for three days.

We had a log of foie gras freshly smuggled from Paris. Quinoa salad and chicken grilled over the fire. Oatmeal and yogurt and crepes with a line of children reaching to the moon. Hummus (nearly entirely eaten by my son), polenta and more sausages than I've ever encountered before. And, of course, steaming bowls of tortilla soup.

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Tortilla Soup (adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone):

This recipe is more involved than what I usually cook, so I like to think of it as a labor of love. I actually managed to whip the whole thing up, times four, in about two and a half hours last friday morning, so it doesn't really take that long. This recipe serves four.

For the broth:

6 cups Red Stock (see recipe below)

2-3 Tablespoons vegetable oil (canola is my favorite)

1 1/2 onions, sliced into half inch rounds

4 garlic cloves, unpeeled

2 jalepeno chiles

2 1/2 pounds roma tomatoes

1 teaspoon chipotle chile (the dried, ground kind)

salt

For garnishing the soup:

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1 avocado, diced

tortilla chips

crumbled queso fresco cheese

1 lime, quartered

Start by making the red stock. You can prepare everything else while the stock simmers.

Preheat the broiler. Use half of the oil to toss the tomatoes, onions, garlic cloves and chiles. Put them on a cookie sheet and broil four to five inches below the heat. When the onions brown, turn them over and brown the other side. Remove the garlic when browned, and peel. Turn the tomatoes several times so that the skins pucker and brown. Remove vegetables as they finish cooking. When they are all done, puree them in a food processor -  remember to leave the top slot open so that it doesn't get too hot, explode and make a huge mess. This is why I don't like to use a blender for this - I'd rather not wait for the veggies to cool down before pureeing.

Heat the rest of the oil in a wide soup pot over medium heat. Add the vegetable puree and cook, stirring until it thickens, about five minutes. Add the strained stock and simmer, partially covered, for thirty minutes. Stir in the chipotle chile and taste for salt, add more if needed.

Ladle the soup into bowls, then add the avocado, tortilla chips, and crumbled cheese. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve with a lime wedge for squeezing into the soup.

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Red Stock:

1 1/2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

2 onions, sliced

2 celery ribs, sliced

2 carrots, sliced

5 white mushrooms, sliced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

6 garlic cloves

6 outer lettuce leaves

stems from 1 bunch cilantro

1/2 cup coarsely chopped parsley

2 teaspoons salt

Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms and herbs. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are browned, about ten minutes. Add the tomato paste and mush it around the pan for a bit, then add the rest of the ingredients and two quarts of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 45 minutes. Strain the stock when finished.

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Beans, Beans the Musical Fruit...

 

I had another positive experience with the slow cooker today - Mexican Bean Soup from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker. In the past year or two I would say there has been an absolute explosion in slow cooker cook books, and I am attempting to be a proud consumer of them. But, as my friend Shelley reminded me today, I haven't found that many great recipes. I love the idea of loading up the slow cooker in the morning, going out and about to attend to things during the day and returning home to the illusion that someone has cooked me a fabulous meal. But, really, most of those meals have not been so fabulous.

I do have one favorite, the short ribs I've made a couple times this year. Those turn out great and can be eaten with rice and sauteed kale. Its like a slow cooker wet dream when I can use one of our produce box ingredients with it, in this case the kale. So I still hold out hope for the slow cooker, but my dream of using it at least twice a week has us eating either too many beans, or way to much meat. Both are bad, and there seems to be a very fine line separating one from the other. 

But today's bean soup was nice - very, very simple. The ingredients are beans, water, an onion and salt. I don't really see whats Mexican about that - maybe a little Mexican oregano would have spiced things up? Nonetheless, it was fine. Another of those foods that gets by on the perfect amount of salt. We ate it with chips (home fried - which is much more exciting than a bag) and guacamole. I think cornbread and a salad are really better table mates, but I needed to get rid of a glut of avocado. Sadly, I seem to be the only one who loves avocado in my house, and when we end up with ten of them after three weeks of avocado heavy produce boxes, I get kind of stuck. An avocado just isn't one of those things I can eat in mass quantity and not feel guilty about, as I can strawberries or blood oranges.

The kids loved the chips, the bean eaters enjoyed the soup and the avocado eaters enjoyed the guacamole. We also put out bread with soft cheese, which is always a hit with everyone.

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Guacamole:

3 avocados

1 garlic clove

1 lemon

salt and pepper

This is probably the simplest guacamole recipe you will ever find - but it works like a charm. Its easy to double, and pretty forgiving if you happen to have an extra avocado. One thing that you need to know about avocados is that they get a bit rancid sometimes when they are overripe. Maybe someone out there likes this flavor, but I don't. So, before you use your avocados, slice them open and make sure they smell good to you. If they don't, don't use them.

Slice the avocados and remove the pit. To remove the pit, hold the avocado half with the pit in it in your left hand (right if you're left handed). Take up a chef's knife in the other, and with the blade straight down, smack the center of the pit. Your knife should stick into the pit, allowing you to twist it a bit and pull it out (the pit, not the knife). If it doesn't stick enough, try again until you get it. To get the knife out of the pit, just scrape it along the side of your compost bucket as you drop the pit in, bumping the pit off the knife. Use a spoon to scrape out the avocado flesh into a bowl. Then peel the garlic clove. This is best done by smashing the clove with the flat side of your knife blade, then taking the clove out of the papery skin. Put it through a garlic press and into the avocado bowl.

Next squeeze a lemon into the bowl, then throw in some salt and grate in some pepper. Next, mix it together with a hand blender or a fork. Adjust spices to taste if necessary.

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Crockpot Mexican Black Bean Soup (adapted from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker):

2 cups dried black beans

8 cups water

1 onion, finely diced

Salt and pepper

Yogurt and cilantro (for garnish)

Cut the onion into very small bits.

Sort the beans to make sure there are no rocks in with them, and put them into the pot, along with the water and diced onion. Set them on to cook at low heat for at least eight hours, in the crock pot. When you are ready for dinner, use an immersion blender to blend the soup just a little bit, you want to leave some beans whole for texture. Spoon into bowls and add a teaspoon or so of yogurt, then sprinkle on some cilantro leaves.

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Tortilla Chips:

12 pack of 6" corn tortillas

canola oil (olive will work in a pinch)

salt

In a medium frying pan, pour 1/4 to 1/2" of oil into the bottom, and heat it up. While the oil is heating, cut the stack of tortillas into four pieces each. When the oil is shimmering (you don't want it to smoke, turn it down if it does) put in as many of the tortilla pieces as you can, probably four. Let them fry for a few minutes, then flip them over and do the same for the other side. You want to make sure the chips are crispy enough. Remove the chips to a plate lined with paper towels and let them drain for a few minutes.

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