Eating Dirt

Paella!!!

Today was a really good day. It started with a successful drop off of my daughter at her first day of Kindergarten, followed by a chicken fried steak with hash browns and a bloody mary. My son had a cheeseburger topped with grape jelly. Then a little bit of back to school shopping, an episode of Sesame Street, an iced coffee at Blue Bottle's sunny Kiosk location and after picking up the Kindergartener, a madcap dash through the Castro to Bi-Rite for ice cream, where the salted caramel is absolutely fantastic.

Four new Kindergarteners accompanied me to the ice cream shop, plus four of their younger siblings, four additional parents and three strollers. We set off at a trot through the streets to Dolores Park, where the sun was warm, the grass green and small wiggly dogs numerous. The kids sat still long enough to devour their treat on a low window ledge adjacent to the creamery, and then it was time to go back. It must have been a combination of being sun blind and sugar drunk that made us think herding twelve people, eight of them under the age of six, along 18th street was a good idea, but I suppose its important to have adventures. There was trash to kick and flowers to eat, old people to giggle at and hundreds of front stoops to climb on. Mission High School was there to explore, and so many dank bars to peer into, each spilling its own individual beery stench out onto the sidewalk. There was at least one sex toy shop - "Mama, what's that?!!"..."I'm not sure dear, I think those are decorations" - and a multitude of hair salons, flower shops, cafes, possible medical marijuana clinics and other curiosities along the way.

By the time we arrived home it was after five, hours later than when I'd planned to start cooking dinner, which was to be a great grand paella to celebrate with. Actually, we were having paella because the CSA box delivered a brown paper sack of red peppers last week, a key ingredient that we don't have very often. I've been itching to make paella since last summer's Canal House Cooking featured a recipe cooked out in the backyard, in the biggest iron pot in the world, propped atop cinder blocks over a fire on the grass. As much as I would love to risk burning the neighborhood down, the fog at our house kept us inside and me at the stove. But not for very long, because paella is a remarkably quick dinner to make.

I had no idea, really, that the dish most restaurants ask for extra time to prepare is nearly as easy as boxed mac and cheese. Well, plus a little chopping and slicing here and there. From start to finish it took me forty-five minutes. Thats less time than it took my kids to finish watching their second episode of Sesame Street. If only there was something so wonderful and easy to be made from zucchini and tomatillos.

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Paella (adapted from Canal House Cooking volume 1):

Serves 4-6

This is really infinitely adaptable, you can change the ingredients and the amounts you use, I think the real soul of the dish is the manner in which you cook it. This recipe makes enough for four people, but you can easily adapt it to feed more. You don't need to use all of the chicken, just as much as you'd like. Save the rest for stir-fry, and the bones to put in the crockpot overnight with a quartered onion, two celery sticks cut into 3 inch chunks and one carrot cut similarly. Fill the crockpot with water and let it cook on low overnight. In the morning,  strain the stock into freezer jars and put them in to freeze once they have cooled.

a chicken, cut into parts, skinned and chopped into 2-3 inch pieces, lightly salted

chorizo, a big link or two sliced into bite sized pieces

shrimp or mussels, as many as you want 4-6 per person is probably good

8 cups chicken stock

1/2 cup olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 red peppers, seeds and membranes removed, sliced into long thin strips

1 clove garlic, chopped

rice (arborio works well, any is probably fine), 3 cup

half bunch parsley, chopped

1 teaspoon pimentón (smoked paprika)

salt

Find the biggest pot you have, preferably cast iron. Put it over medium-high heat on the stove and warm the olive oil. When it is hot (toss in a piece of onion to check, it will sizzle) add the chorizo and chicken pieces. When they are beginning to brown, add the onion and peppers. Let that cook until the onion softens, then add the garlic, parsley and rice. Give it a stir to mix everything together. If your stock is unsalted, add some salt to it (at least a Tablespoon) and the pimentón. Then add about 3/4 of the stock to the rice pot. stirring it a little, but not enough to disturb the bottom layer of rice. It should turn nice and crusty, eventually.

Drop the shellfish on top, then let the paella bubble for about half an hour, or until the rice is tender (that means the crunchiness of raw rice is completely gone). If it gets dry before the rice is tender, add a bit more stock. Once the rice is tender, turn off the heat and cover the pot with clean dish towels. Let it sit for 15 minutes, then serve and eat!

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Spicy Shrimp, Cilantro Rice and Zucchini

My daughter has a dirty mouth. Today at preschool she said "poopoo head". She ran around and around the table. She hid under the table. She ignored her teacher. She was so naughty that the story she wrote was confiscated, and when she and a co-conspirator told a teacher they didn't care about their bad behavior, they lost their show-and-tell privileges.

At pickup time there was a talk with her teacher, a talk with her other teacher, a fountain of tears and howling and then, finally, we buckled up to go home.

"Why you no story, Yee-yee?" asked her three year old brother, deeply concerned. 

She didn't respond, so I explained that the text of her story had been "Head. Head, head, head!". Over and over again. And that it wasn't funny. At least not to her teacher, or, I was told by the offended teacher, the other kids.

"Bwaahahaha! You so funny Yee-yee!" he guffawed, slapping her on the back. Peering up from the depths of the chasm into which we had fallen, I saw a lifetime of bad-sense-of-humor inflicted shame and exasperated teachers' loathing ahead of me.

It hadn't been a terribly good string of days. My daughter's birthday party hadn't gone particularly well. The other three we had attended that week had just been exhausting. Thank you notes were undone. Bags were not yet unpacked from the last trip and repacked for the next. There had been ruined dinners - one especially sad destruction of two perfect little heads of lettuce due to my own inability to pay attention. And now here I was, again, ready to muck up more ingredients and attempt to feed them to my children. My poor, sad, children, who sat on the sofa looking forlornly at the television.

For a moment I considered throwing in the towel and calling for pizza. Then I too could hunker down and gawk at the t.v. But we'd had pizza a few days ago. And besides, my son doesn't like pizza. He eats it only under duress, complaining that he prefers cheeseburgers or fish. Plus, this dinner was really easy. It would take about five minutes. It would use the ancient shrimp blocking up the freezer, get rid of some summer squash and clear out the cilantro. With a great sigh I dumped the shrimp into a colander to thaw, started up the rice and heated a pan. 

Then, it all came together like a dream. Each course easy to prepare, quick to cook, delicious to eat. Pragmatic in its use of seasonal and stored ingredients, elegant in its simplicity, this dinner saved me from despair. Even my kids ate it. Or at least ate part of it, with some complaints - the shrimp, though it was too spicy, and the rice, though it was too green. We gobbled our meal, wiped our mouths clean, neatly folded our napkins and were reinvigorated for another day.

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Spicy Shrimp, Cilantro Rice and Zucchini:

For this meal to work perfectly, start by putting the shrimp (if frozen) out to thaw in a colander in the sink. Run some hot water over them. Second, make the rice. While the rice is cooking, make the squash. Turn the heat off when you finish the squash, it will wait for the rest. Also turn the heat off when the rice is done. Last, cook the shrimp.

You'll need the pimentón, be sure to get some if you need to. It really is good. As is the sesame oil.

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Cilantro Rice (adapted from Bon Appétit):

1 cup jasmine rice (or other white long grain variety)

2 one inch long pieces of fresh ginger, peeled and cut each into four round slices

1 2/3 cups chicken stock

1 1/2 cups finely chopped (minced) fresh cilantro 

1 shallot, finely chopped (minced)

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil (or not toasted, if that is all you've got)

1 teaspoon or more seasoned rice vinegar

1/4 teaspoon salt (or so)

Combine the rice, ginger rounds, chicken stock and salt in a small pot on the stove. Bring it to a boil, stirring often, then cover and reduce the heat to low. You'll want it to simmer gently until the rice is tender and the stock is absorbed, about 18 minutes. While it is cooking chop the cilantro and shallot. Combine them in a measuring cup with both oils and the rice vinegar. When the rice is done, stir in the cilantro mixture. Season with salt and pepper.

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Zucchini (adapted from Nigel Slater's Tender):

In the U.K., zucchini are called courgettes. Nigel Slater calls this "a quick way with courgettes". You can cook any sort of summer squash, not just zucchini, this way.

a few summer squash (zucchini or otherwise), sliced into short pieces

1-2 Tablespoons olive oil

juice of half a lemon (or so)

a handful of fresh herbs (whatever you happen to have around - chives, basil, tarragon, thyme, etc.)

salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil in a pan, and when it begins to shimmer add the squash, stirring occasionally. When they are tender and golden at the edges, turn off the heat. Sprinkle the lemon juice over the squash, add salt, pepper and the herbs and stir it up. 

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Spicy Shrimp (adapted from Mark Bittman's Summer Express):

3 cloves garlic thinly sliced (or more if you'd like)

1 Tablespoon or so olive oil

1 teaspoon pimentón (this is spanish smoked paprika, usually found in a tin on the spice aisle)

1 teaspoon ground cumin (use less of this and the pimentón if you don't want it spicy)

one dozen (or so) shrimp

salt and pepper

parsley, minced (optional)

lemon, sliced for sqeezing (optional)

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. When it begins to shimmer add the garlic. When the garlic begins to turn golden (don't let it get darker than that), add the pimentón and cumin. If you are serving kids, or grown ups who do not like spicy food, you should use less than a teaspoon of each. Stir it together and a minute later, add the shrimp and some salt and pepper. Cook the shrimp, stirring occasionally, until they are bright pink and opaque. Serve the shrimp garnished with parsley and a lemon to squeeze over it, if you want to be fancy.

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