I mentioned in one of my more recent posts that I’ve come a long way in the past couple of years with the help of a couple of cookbooks and someone named Tom. You can tell from our postings (I think) that my core of inspiration centers not around dinnertime but around the dinner table, the chairs we sit in, and the plates we eat off of… all things for the home.

But! That doesn’t mean I can’t share cooking tips, too. It just means that you probably already knew the ones that I share, vs. some of the more crazy-advanced-wow-factor ones from another writer on this site. In this case, it might even be just an excuse to share a colorful photo with you all.

Below you’ll see just about everything that went into a minestrone that I made this time last year. Soup is usually a great example of a “one pot meal,” but in order to assemble this mise en place (French for you should probably read that recipe and prep a few things before you start cooking), I dirtied a bowl or two as well:

I share this picture because the Amelia in me wants you to know: before you cook, check that part of the recipe–the ingredient list–where it tells you what you’ll be using for your task. Notice how it says “1 cup x, _______ed.” That verb after the stuff tells you that you have to do something! Chopped, minced, zested, boiled, etc. True, this is probably obvious to most, but when I was first making things I tended to begin where step one was located in the recipe–heat 2 T of olive oil over medium heat, set the oven to 450 degrees? Sure! This led to me reaching points a few paragraphs later with a hot kitchen, burning fat on my hands, and words flying that I won’t mention here because–uh oh–what I’m making actually has to refrigerate overnight and dinner is supposed to be ready in an hour. I’m now officially committed to reading a recipe through in its entirety at least once before I leave the blocks. Reading it a couple of times? Double plus good.

Like most people my age, I grew up on microwave popcorn. Actually, I have a memory of an air popper with a yellowish-brown plastic top that melted butter and shot popcorn into a bowl, but most of the popcorn eaten in my life has been made in a microwave. Which is amazing because microwave popcorn is really really bad. It is always either burning or leaving half the kernels un-popped, or both. Horrible and frustrating, but it was all I knew.

All I knew until a few months ago, when my life changed. Did you know you can make popcorn on the stove? I don’t mean with one of those exploding foil pans either, but in a pot. It’s as simple as pouring a layer of fat (we usually use olive oil but as long as it’s a lipid it will work) and then covering the bottom of the pan with popcorn kernels. As it happens, the Wedge is an excellent source for local popcorn in Minneapolis. Keeping the pot uncovered, apply high heat. As soon as the popcorn starts to pop, cover the pot and reduce the heat to medium. If you don’t cover the pot, you will soon have popcorn all over your floor. Once the popping slows down significantly, to about one pop every five seconds say, I uncover the pot and reduce the heat to low for another minute or two. At this point all that’s left is to add salt or other flavorings, which I usually do by pouring the popcorn into a large paper sack, adding salt and whatever else, and shaking.

This method has really increased my appreciation of popcorn. For one thing, I have yet to burn a kernel. A burnt kernel of popcorn can turn you off to the whole batch, so this is a major plus. Probably the best thing is being able to control exactly what goes into your popcorn. If you’re concerned about excessive salt, fat or chemicals, making popcorn the old-fashioned way lets you control exactly what goes in rather than being left to the whims of the diabolical Mr. Redenbacher (You only have yourself to blame when you go overboard with lard-popped, bacon-salt corn). This also gives you a lot of room to experiment with flavors. As I mentioned, you can use whatever fat you like, all for different flavor effects: olive oil, butter, lard, bacon grease, suet, other vegetable oils, really anything. For the batch that inspired me to write this post, I used ghee, Indian clarified butter that, at least in the case of my probably too old jar, has a kind of funky, goaty character.

You can play with the fats at the front end of the popcorn process, and then at the back there is an even bigger range of possibilities to be explored with flavorings. Salt is fundamental to all of this, but an obvious variation might be to use the assorted flavored salts, like celery salt or garlic salt. With the garlic salt you might add a little dried dill. Our most recent batch of popcorn involved olive oil and freshly grated parmesan cheese and ground black pepper added at the end. For my popcorn with ghee I decided to embrace Indian flavors and added some garam masala. When adding spices as flavorings always keep in mind that your ability to taste them is wholly dependent on there being enough salt; don’t be shy with the sodium chloride. On the other hand, overly salty popcorn gets fatiguing to the tongue fast; mastering the yin and yang of popcorn salting will probably take a few batches. As Martha reminds me when I get too salt happy, it is easy enough to add more but pretty hard to take it away.

Since starting to make popcorn this way I’ve been eating and enjoying it a lot more. It really doesn’t take much more time than making it in the microwave and the end result is so much better that the two aren’t even comparable. The ability to play with the flavoring offers a lot of entertainment, but even if you were just to go the traditional butter and salt route the sound of popcorn popping around inside your pot is reward enough for any extra effort.

In Sweden, Waffle Day is celebrated on March 25, called VÃ¥rfrudagen (Our Lady’s Day). For Catholics, today is known as the Feast of the Annunciation–celebrating the annunciation given by the angel Gabriel to Mary that she was to become the mother of Jesus.

According to our friends at the American Swedish Institute, VÃ¥rfrudagen was in some Swedish dialects pronounced Vafferdagen, and later it became VÃ¥ffeldagen (Waffle Day). As as result of all of this calculated, waffle-inducing pronunciation, every March 25 people in Sweden bake waffles, eating them with lingonberry jam and whipped cream. And, so did we.

I’m trying to decide what to make for the week and I’m in my usual bouncing around cookbooks I’m comfortable with. One of these is the CIA’s Gourmet Meals in Minutes. It occurred to me that I ought to share a little about this book with you because of how much I enjoy using it in my own kitchen. Gourmet Meals is an easy recommendation; it is a great cookbook whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned cook–I know I’ve sung its praises to many of your already. Some basic reasons this is a good buy:

• The photos in the cookbook itself are an inspiration to get cooking (hopefully some of the pictures from our table will inspire you, too). When I was just starting out in the kitchen, I had no sense of “that sounds good” from reading a list of ingredients or a recipe. But “that looks good” is a much easier thing to master. Tom gifted me the book a couple of years ago and the pictures were a big reason he chose it for me, knowing how visual I am in my approach.
• Everything can be made very quickly. They’re not kidding when they say “in Minutes.” 
• I don’t think I’ve made a single thing from this cookbook that wasn’t a pleasant surprise when it arrived at the table. Even when I’ve doubted things in the process of cooking they always turn out better than expected.

A few downsides:

• The book is presented in some ways as a party cookbook, so many of the recipes make a LOT. This can be a challenge when cooking for one or two, but I’ve found it an advantage in the past year as we intentionally plan for leftovers with all of our meals (we don’t actually buy any food specifically for lunch).
• Again, an up and a down… the book tends to use canned ingredients in many cases for the sake of time. But, it’s easy to sub in fresh things (like I did with the Thai soup below, using fresh Enokis instead of canned).
• When they say “gourmet,” they mean a huge variety from around the world. The diversity in this cookbook is a great thing, but if you don’t regularly branch out in the kitchen you may have to give your spice collection a boost and invest in some more “international” staples, if you will, in order to make some of the recipes. 

How much I’ve used this cookbook is the best evidence I can give in its favor. See below for what I think is a complete list with (an incomplete sampling of) photos from my kitchen. I can easily say that I credit this book with giving me confidence in the kitchen. I can be a little Amelia Bedelia sometimes, and this was the first cookbook that helped me make things that were approachable, quick, and pretty (!) at the table. I’m sure Tom is thankful I’ve gone beyond my rotation of macaroni & cheese, frozen ravioli, chili (from cans), lasagna, grilled cheese, cholé, Santa Fe chicken salad, Mexican pizzas, enchiladas, and taco salad… that’s a lot of cheese. 

Last week I made Thai Hot & Sour Soup with Enoki Mushrooms and Shrimp:

Here are a few other pictures that I hunted down in my photo library… Asparagus with Shiitakes, Bowtie Pasta, and Spring Peas:

Risotto with Scallops Shrimp and Asparagus (I love that this page is sticky and flecked with food, I’ve made this a few times!):

Fennel and Chorizo Strudels (why were the photos so terrible from this one?):

Belgian Endive, another not-so-fabulous photo (this one gave me a major oil burn on my foot. Lesson: don’t wear Mary Janes while frying),

Baked Goat Cheese with Mesclun, Pears, and Toasted Almonds:

Soba Noodle Salad:

Hlelem–a Tunisian Vegetable and Bean Soup:

Not pictured: Satay of Beef with Peanut Sauce, Reuben Sandwich, Grilled Steak Salad with Horseradish Dressing, Roasted Beet Salad, Seared Scallops with Fiery Fruit Salsa and Coconut Rice with Ginger, Spicy Vegetable Sauté, Goat Cheese and Red Onion Quesadillas, Capellini with Grilled Vegetables, and Cream of Mushroom Soup.

I’m not a fan of the lazy bread movement. All the no-knead breads that are so in vogue right now for me miss the basic fun of breadmaking, not to mention the satisfaction. I enjoy taking the time to plan my bread formula, mix the ingredients, knead the dough, allow the dough to rise for as long as it needs and to bake the bread in a pre-heated hearth set up. Using natural yeast only prolongs this process. But it also makes the final bread feel more like your own.

Good bread takes time. It can take up to three days from start to finish to make a loaf of my standard wild-yeast bread, from refreshing the starter to waiting for the yeast to decide to rise to finally getting the loaves out of the oven. That’s fine if you’ve planned ahead, but what happens when it’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon and you need bread that night? Even No-Knead bread uses an overnight rest in the refrigerator to develop gluten. Some people might reasonably say, “you go buy some,” but I have managed to develop a pretty strong guilt complex about buying bread. Instead, inspired by this post at The Paupered Chef (via Serious Eats) I decided to test the limits of lazy, carefree bread with focaccia in less than three hours.

Focaccia is a rustic bread, which means it should be made from very wet dough. My target hydration was 80% and I wanted to use 16 oz of flour, so I was looking for 12.8 oz of water, which I rounded to 12 3/4 oz due to limitations of my scale. After whisking my pound of flour with about a teaspoon and a half of salt and two teaspoons of instant yeast, I added in my water and stirred to combine. The dough looked like this:

At this point the dough would probably have benefited from some kneading. This could easily be done in a stand mixer (as in the Cook’s Illustrated ciabatta recipe) or, less easily, by stirring with a strong arm. But since I was shooting for lazy I left it like that, covered the bowl and put it in the oven, where I figured the pilot light would give my best chance of a rapid rise. I headed to the store to get the rest of dinner.

The oven rising worked wonderfully; in about an hour the dough looked ready to pan. I spread a thick layer of olive oil in a smallish sheet pan and pressed the dough out. At this point, it was behaving like any other dough, albeit a very wet one.

After about another hour the dough was looking bubbly and puffy, like focaccia should. I had already preheated my oven to 450° with my stone in place. For toppings, I decided to follow the Paupered Chef and use parsley, as well as sea salt and a lot of olive oil.

After 25 minutes in the oven (about two and a half hours since I began the project) it was golden brown and crispy. I let it cool for a half hour and then it was ready to slice and eat.

How was it? Well, definitely not bad. All the olive oil I used ensured that it had a crunchy, crackly crust as well as big flavor. The texture was pretty solid but not as chewy as I would have liked. This was pretty obviously going to happen since it was never kneaded nor really allowed to rest; the gluten never stood a chance. You can see the lack of gluten development in the crumb, which is extremely tight for such a wet dough. If I had kneaded or rested this more, there would be the nice big holes that I like so well. But I just didn’t have enough time to make this bread perfectly, and for three hours from flour to mouth on a lazy Sunday, I’ll take it.