Seafood Fideos

SEAFOOD FIDEOS // smoky shellfish soup

Happy New Year, everyone.  I hope 2015 brings some new adventures to your life, and to your kitchen.  If you're looking for a bit of culinary experimentation with some potentially unfamiliar ingredients, here's a seafood dish you might try.  Personally, this was my first time procuring and cooking clams and mussels at home, and I found it pretty brainless and delicious.  

If you generally like shellfish and seafood, you're going to love fideos.  I think most versions of the recipe you'll find online mimic Spanish paella - cooking seafood and rice in a flavorful broth until it gets completely absorbed and the shellfish steam open.  Fideos more or less replaces rice with a pasta (called "fideos"), but angel hair works just fine.  You'll see that this recipe is also modified to get more of a soup at the end, but you could easily increase the amount of pasta or decrease the amount of stock for a more traditional outcome.   

While the dish isn't that complicated to make, it really does depend on a few fancy ingredients of good quality.  It took a trip to the fancy grocery store (a.ka. Whole Foods) to make sure I got good bacon, sausage, and seafood.  Of course, saffron doesn't come cheap, either.  While you obviously want the seafood to be as fresh as possible, the smokier your bacon and chorizo are, the better layers of flavor you're going to get when all is said and done.  That smokiness, and the richness of the saffron, are the real backbone of the dish.  So, while I used a traditional mix of clams, mussels, shrimp, and cod, you can choose whatever shellfish and firm white fish you want (or eliminate anything you don't want).  Ideally, you buy the shellfish the day of, and keep it on ice until use, but I don't see why you couldn't make the broth ahead of time and return it to the stove to cook the seafood when you want it served.

Fideos is easy to make in large quantities with the right sized pot, so this is a great recipe for your next nice dinner party or date-night in.  It's pretty healthy, too.  And don't be worried about having leftovers, I found it reheated very nicely to finish the following day.  

Moroccan Braised Chicken with Apricots and Citrus Couscous

MOROCCAN braised chicken with APRICOTS // ORANGE ZEST couscous 

Each week I revisit my list of travel-inspired dishes I want to recreate to post on the blog with some witty/inspired story behind them.  It includes Basque salted cod pintxos, Turkish simit, Peruvian lomo saltado, and French pork rillettes smeared across a tartine and topped with little gherkins, to name a few.  The beautiful images of food are paired with even prettier pictures I dig off of my external hard drive, exporting all the readers to a different place and time (like 2009, or something) where life is always simple and food is always good.

And then I just make another Moroccan dish instead.

While I actually have been to Morocco (truly one of my favorite places and I break a little inside thinking I might never see it again), I never had a dish like this when I was there.  But, instead of this being a dish tied to rosy memories of exotic locations, it's tied to one of those memories which triggers a visceral nose-scrunching embarrassment - the surprise party for my 30th birthday that I handled poorly, to say the least.  While the birthday girl was not very gracious, the food was delicious and I'm glad I walked away with this recipe to make 6+ months later.

I guess Moroccan is a frequent go-to cuisine for me because it combines the hearty warmth of dishes like a Mexican posole or Thai noodle with the flavor profile of the Middle East.  In general, anything that combines braising and warming spices is a win for me.  In many ways this dish is perfect for fall in that it combines braised, tender meat with citrus and spices you might find in Western seasonal meals.  It's also a quicker, less spice-intensive version of a North African tagine, and probably would be fantastic with the addition of Moroccan preserved lemons.  If you've just been looking to take your side dish game up a notch, the orange zest couscous is a good one to add to your repertoire.  

Raw Zucchini Salad with Tzatziki

RAW ZUCCHINI SALAD w/ ZIPPY TZATZIKI DRESSING

Has it really been less than a month since my last post?  I feel like I've been away for much longer than that, but maybe the transition to summer life just makes my previous life of blogging and teaching seem much further back.  

To be honest, not only have I not been blogging, but I haven't really been doing all that much cooking.  Instead, time has been made for some new hobbies (gardening), and the revival of some old, missed hobbies (French, reading).  Conducive for all of them, Garrett and I have really souped up the back porch, and the first days of summer have been spent sitting among the budding flowers and birds reading, listening to French language podcasts, and scientifically monitoring the growth of dill, basil, tomatoes, and peppers.  The scenery has even made getting work work done very non-stressful.

Speaking of the garden, thus far my research has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that fresh-from-the garden herbs are a million times better than even the fresh stuff at the store.  The smell, flavor, and texture...all superior.  Here's a recipe you can use with fresh dill.  It's a great, refreshing salad for meals on the porch, and will only keep you in the kitchen for about 10 minutes.

Poached Cod, Fennel, and Citrus Salad

POACHED COD, FENNEL, & CITRUS SALAD

Last week, one of my students said to me: "My greatest fear is that I'll turn 50 and look back and my life and feel like I've done nothing."  I told her that was a really good fear.

Bearing in mind that to a 15-year-old being 50 is, like, way old, I think this way of goal-setting is quite healthy.  We are taught to set goals for the future, but not to set goals about how we desire to perceive our past in the future.  Perhaps we're so future-oriented that we forget that all we have to define our selves is by our past.  If we don't take care of our future past (follow along with me), then we're really just going to hate ourselves.  As much as we'd like to think so, we don't feel accomplished or any feeling of self-worth for what we haven't yet done.  I hate this post because it's reminding me a little bit of that one guy's egotistical Oscar speech...what's his name...Matthew McConaughey (had to Google it), but it's true, and I've been thinking a lot about it.

I guess my big problem is that I never really set any goals - for the future or for the future-looking-back-at-the-past.  Sure, from a young age I wanted to be financially stable and intellectually accomplished, but other than that I was trying to keep my head socially-emotionally out of water.  So now that I've reached the mile-marker age of 30 I don't really know how to measure how well I've done, but I certainly feel like I'm supposed to be measuring something.  Have I reached my intellectual potential?  Have I traveled enough to understand (something)? Am I saving enough money?  Will my friendships be life-long?  Am I a good family member?  Will my students go on to save the world like I hope?  And most importantly, is this it?  Answers range from "kinda-sorta" to "nope."

I approached my brother yesterday about sitting down to look at my financial situation and figure out what to do with the heaps of cash over-paid and under-worked teachers get.  I knew I would have to address the dreaded question: what are your goals?  And he said something like, "Well, you can't assess whether you're achieving the goals you don't have."  I guess that's the "planning" half of financial planning.  So, here I am with no clue whether I've done much with my life at all, and no idea what accomplishments I want to look back on when I'm 50.  

Except for this: I can now look back at my life and say I made the perfect salad.  It's crazy healthy, super easy, but fancy, and is perfectly balanced between sweet and citrusy.  I'm not even going to tell you much more about it.  But, chances are, if you don't make it then your future self will have major regrets. 

Mediterranean Arugula Salad with Green Olives, Farro, and Crispy Baked Chicken Strips

With a bunch of leftover olives after last week's tapenade, I ended up tossing together a salad mid-week that was worthy of recreating for the blog.  I love salty, briny olives, but discovered that these mild green olives were great for bulking up a salad without a salt overload.  Between the olives, farro, and chicken, the salad is hefty enough for a winter meal without feeling like a brick in your stomach.  

Another thing I really like about this salad is that it keeps well overnight.  Even after being dressed and tossed, it won't seem limp and soggy the next day.  So, it's great for premade lunches.  I even warmed it up in the microwave for just a bit and it tasted great transformed into a warm winter arugula salad.

I'll leave you with that, considering I have a final paper due Tuesday that I haven't even started.  Good luck to me. 

Roasted Garlic and Shallot Olive Tapenade

I knew telling myself that this weekend would be a good time to kick start a pre-winter health reformation would wind up a huge joke.  Who even tells them that before Thanksgiving?  Idiots do.  I'm an idiot.

So, while I stood in front of a rack of vegetables for a long while in the grocery store today hoping I'd be inclined to roast some leeks or do something new with cauliflower, none of it looked good.  I resorted to flipping through numbers of cooking magazines looking for something inspirational, but came up with nothing.  It didn't help that I wasn't hungry in the least.  I ate half a large pizza for dinner last night.

I mustered up enough motivation to act on the idea that I could make something out of the usual stash of olives I keep around for snacking.  Tapenade would definitely help wean me off bready, rich holiday food (and pizza).  It was also a very low-maintenance option, which is key for finding enough time to break away from the hundreds of pages of Thucydides I'm trying to speed through to catch up in grad school.

This tapenade is going to be much smoother and richer than other recipes thanks to the addition of a heavy dose of roasted garlic and shallots.  It would be great on a sandwich which some of your leftover turkey, or on pizza... I went the simple route with some crusty bread smeared with fresh tomato and topped with arugula. 

Edamame Falafel and Red Bean Hummus

This was a really fun meal to dream up and transform into a tasty dish, so I'm particularly excited to share it with you, loyal blog followers (new and old).

Overall, I'm really drawn fusion and mash-ups because it signifies the world we live in today - cultural diffusion on a global scale.  As I've written about many times on the blog before, I love to teach about culture and cultural diffusion through food, and the lesson here is definitely that we live in a world of no cultural boundaries.  Studying the anthropology and geography of food consumption practices fascinates me, and perhaps in retirement I'll go back to school and write a thesis about it.

The original idea was an edamame burger, but conjuring up appropriately Asian toppings was leaving me in a creative desert.  While grocery shopping it occurred to me to try falafel instead, as the burger patty was sort of leading in that direction.  The falafel concept was much more inspiring for carrying the fusion theme through to all the accoutrements of the dish.  Of course, many others got to the idea of edamame falafel before me, so I hope the addition of the red bean hummus and kimchi tabbouleh offers some originality here and allows for the "fusion" concept to permeate the whole meal.

You could certainly pair this alternative falafel with traditional versions of hummus and tabbouleh and it would still taste great.  Or,  feel free to just take away from this post an awesome hummus recipe that uses the red beans so common to Asian cuisine. 

Chorizo, Kale, & White Bean Soup

Maybe if you've been poking around, you've noticed I've changed the design of the blog a bit.  The latest addition was a new travel log, which is something I've debated adding since the blog's inception.  I saw a really inspiring version of a travel log on one of my new favorite food blogs, My Name is Yeh (a blogger whose work/design I really love, and turns out she happened to grow up pretty much down the street from me).  So, anyways, I added that new page and writing those little blurbs sort of brought me back to one of the blog's major missions: to share my global food finds.  Making it also brought me a deep sense of saudade...and inspired this post.

By no means have I exhausted my list of flavors that I've found while traveling, particularly from Morocco and Portugal.   It's just that sometimes the practicalities of life get it in the way of recreating these finds.  But this weekend I tackled a version of Portugal's caldo verde, or a kale and potato soup spiced up with a choirço (chorizo).  We ate this as a first course at almost every restaurant we went to in Portugal.

The thing about caldo verde is that it is truly a simple soup, a sort of home cooked staple.  The flavor is mild, if not muted, hence the need for a few slices of spicy sausage.  Moreover, Garrett didn't find anything too mind-blowing about it (although I loved it).  So after he nixed the idea of making traditional caldo verde, he dreamt up a soup with greens and white beans.  I interpreted this as "caldo verde with beans," and this is the result.  Relationships are all about compromise.

I went ahead and made the nearest thing I could to chorizo with lean ground turkey, just to keep this as healthy as possible, but you could certainly save yourself a few steps and get pre-made chorizo.

Chicken Tagine

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: my preserved lemons were a success. 

The long-awaited moment arrived last Thursday when the four-week anniversary of my first preserving attempt proved fruitful.  The rinds were perfectly spiced with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, coriander, and anise.  The flavor was supremely lemony, briny, and was basically like eating Morocco.  My next step was obvious: make tagine.

Tagine is amazing.  And, no, you don't need the traditional tagine cooking apparatus to make it.  The method is essentially a braise using a North African spice mix called ras el hanout (below), so a dutch oven will work just fine.  While you have a chicken recipe here, the method would essentially be the same for a vegetarian version (seven vegetable tagine being traditional), simply skip the first step of browning the meat and go straight for the vegetables.  Perhaps go a bit lighter on the spices, as well.  Of course, you could also implement the same exact process with lamb (in which case, keep the spices coming).  

Yes, tagine is traditionally served with North African couscous because it functions as a fantastic sponge for the ultra-flavorful braising liquid.  I skipped the couscous, opting instead to lap up the broth with a spoon (it worked).  For me, the carrots and potatoes made the dish hearty enough, but the couscous certainly makes for a pretty presentation. 

If you go vegetarian or use a leaner cut of chicken (I opted for the breast instead of the thigh or wings), tagine is an extremely healthy dish.  Don't be deterred by the list of spices here, either go stock up your spice cabinet or cut out the whole cardamom, cloves, and coriander seeds.  The homemade preserved lemons were delicious, but if you can't wait a month for this awesome dinner I'm sure you can find them in more specialty grocery stores. 

Gazpacho

GAZPACHO 
W/ GINGER-CILANTRO 
GRILLED SHRIMP
 

After months of anticipation and teasingly warm weather that seemed to come and go throughout May, summer is finally here.  Its finals week at school, and as academics wind down preparing for travel winds up.  Perhaps best of all, anticipating the change of pace has helped me find the motivation to get my mind and body back in shape.  With a new pair of running shoes, I'm back to running about 16 miles a week.  Since the relationship between my consistency working out and consistency eating healthy is basically a direct correlation, I'm also back to doing really healthy things in the kitchen.  I don't think it could get much more clean and raw as this gazpacho.  Unless you just ate a pile of vegetables.

This was my first time making gazpacho and I was sort of shocked by how easy it is to make.  For something so delicious to be so healthy and speedy, its a wonder we don't eat it more often.  I found lots of fancy recipes for strawberry or mango gazpacho, and I suppose you could really do a twist on gazpacho with any of the salsa fads going on these days.  You could also roast your vegetables first or strain the soup for a more refined taste, but I think that's really unnecessary.  Plus, this would be perfect to make in large batches and ahead of time for summer entertaining.  All in all, its basically a perfect food.  

Oh, and the grilled shrimp!  That was a nice, complimentary addition to the summer latin flavor spectrum.  Sorry vegetarians/vegans, you can just ignore that part and stick to the gazpacho.

Roasted Rosemary Tomatoes & Zucchini Pasta

What a fabulous weekend I had out in D.C. for Bree's wedding shower.  Well, actually, it was to Maryland for a stay with the Rodgers - Bree's adopted D.C. family, relatives of her maid-of-honor, Lizzie, and hosts of the shower.  Before I get much more into the lovely company, let me just give Maryland a big "wowza!"  My travels within the U.S. are relatively poor, but Maryland's natural beauty was a rare moment of encouragement to see more of my own country.  Check out the gorgeous Potomac River that runs through Great Falls Park, separating Maryland and Virginia.

Now that I've misled you to believe that I spent a weekend outdoors checking out the Chesapeake, let me outline exactly how many completely-worth-it calories inspired this week's blog post.  The shower was a totally homemade affair from the drinks all the way down to the table decorations.  Ten small dishes were served, followed by a completely homemade decorated cake with edible flowers and white chocolate dipped Oreos that easily could have sold for $4 each in some fancy confectionery.  These dishes were my favs: roasted rosemary tomato bruschetta (inspiration for this post), baked goat cheese stuffed crimini mushrooms with rosemary breadcrumbs, crab cakes, and zucchini tots.

Judy Rodgers and her best friend, Connie, (with some help from the rest of the gang) pulled off an incredible feat: cooking and preparing for this party without completely losing it or turning into she-devils (like me, whenever I host).  In fact, it was totally the opposite.  Apparently, planning and preparing an elaborate meal of small dishes can actually be an occasion for friends and family to laugh at their blunders and collaborate lovingly!  This was a foreign concept to me, as holidays and hosting growing up were pretty anxiety-ridden affairs.  I woke up each morning to laughter and delicious smells wafting from the kitchen.  Perhaps the only thing better than the food this weekend was the great company - I haven't laughed (or eaten) that much in a long time.

So here is Judy's delicious recipe for a bruschetta topping that I knew would be great tossed with zucchini pasta.  But, trust me, it was awesome on top of toasted bread.  The oven will fill your house with the scent of rosemary, and that will last much longer than the food itself.

three grain salad

Let me start by saying this: I'm not a doctor.  Or a dietician.  But as a casual observer, it would seem that carbs are the enemy of man.  I see more and more students needing gluten-free diets every year for serious health reasons, and I also note that many a friend has had lots of success loosing weight on the paleo diet.  In the case of the former, I hope medical science soon explains the cause of rising gluten intolerance, but I have a bone to pick with the latter (pun intended!).  Not with the paleo diet, per se, but with the (mis)use of the terms "paleo" and "caveman."

Again, I'm not a doctor or a dietician,  but I know as a historian that our paleolithic, pre-agricultural, "caveman" ancestors ate tons of carbs.  Any anthropologist can tell you that hunting alone isn't a reliable and efficient enough source of energy to support human groups.  Perhaps we forget that gathering of grains has always been central to human survival because we imagine grain growing in perfect rows of industrially fertilized farmland, but grains are wild and can be gathered as plentifully (if not more so) than fruits and vegetables.  Grains and carbs aren't the enemy of human genetics: in and of themselves they don't make you plump (although carbs in the form of twinkies, do).  Eating grains and carbs and not burning off the complex carbohydrates that provide you with really efficient little packages of energy will make you plump.  We're programmed to store this energy that is meant to eventually be expended.  So if you were more plump eating carbs than on your paleo diet, it just meant that your body was working exactly the way it was programmed to work: saving your padded ass in the case of drought or famine.  It's just our lifestyles that have changed (decline in drought, famine, and general energy expenditure). 
Really, I'm not trying to bash my paleo friends at all.  Your fit, post-industrial bodies are getting all the energy and simple carbs needed for your lean physique.  Chances are, you're in better shape than me.  All I'm saying is that this salad full of three unrefined, whole grains is just as "paleo" as steak.  (Maybe more).

So go eat like a caveman and make this three grain salad recipe.  It's perfect for finding yourself with random and smallish amounts of barley, farro, wheatberries, quinoa, millet, or whatever whole grains you might have around.  Special thanks to Mandy over there at Lady & Pups (my favorite food blog of many months now) for her arugula pesto inspiration.

moroccan stuffed eggplant

MOROCCAN STUFFED EGGPLANT

Whoo hoo!  It's finally springtime in Chicago.  How do I know?  Obviously because it snowed Saturday morning and was 70 degrees and sunny Sunday.

Given this about-face, I feel its appropriate to share some springtime resolutions in hopes that making them public on the world wide interweb will hold me accountable.  First, I'm going to lose the winter weight, 10 lbs (gulp).  I have been aware of that fact for months, but even now just typing it for you all to read is making that number very real.  WAIT, I have excuses:

1. You.  I've sort of done more blogging than working out lately.  100% more blogging than working out, to be mathematically precise.  Or, 1:0 ratio of blogging to working out, if you prefer.
2. Okay this one is better - I've acquired a geriatric hip.  Last summer I exploded my calf muscle a little playing soccer and my entire right side has been out of wack since.  It has become a serious problem.

So, I suppose in addition to starting a exercise regimen I need to get down to seeing a doctor.   Given my hip couldn't take 1.5 miles of running yesterday, maybe I should reverse that order.

So how does this all relate to Moroccan Stuffed Eggplant?  Gosh, I don't know...but I'll make something up.  I will lose 10 lbs prior to July 22nd, when I get on a plane to Marrakech. Better yet, eating this recipe is a good way to start that journey, so go make it and coach me on.