Cooking with Iron

A few weeks ago, I stopped in at the doctor's office for a prick of my finger and a surprising revelation. "You're a little anemic," the doctor told me. This might explain, as I understood him, why I would get out of breath so easily walking a flight of stairs, why I would arrive home at two in the afternoon and think only of sleep, sleep, sleep. I had hoped he'd mention something about how a low iron count would also explain my inability to jump-start a simple exercise plan. However, I suspect that issue has more to do with "lazy" and "stubborn". At any rate, I left the doctor's office and headed straight to the store for supplements.

Here's the thing, though. Vitamins are my nemesis.

A strong gag reflex ensures that any time I have to swallow a pill of substantial girth (or of any girth), I take a series of steps that hint I might also suffer from OCD:

1. Place pill on tongue.
2. Fill mouth with water.
3. Toss back head, one...two times.
4. Feign to swallow.
5. Toss head again, one...two...three.
6. THIS time, swallow.
7. Wait. Gag.
8. One more toss.
9. Choke it down, dammit.
10. Follow with a tight fist, a foot stomp, and the hard crust from a piece of toast.

It's the same every time, so dramatic that my kids join in the fun, imitating me in the middle of a head toss. Since I manage to take only half the recommended amount, I boost my iron in other ways, including one that fires up my Texas roots and honors my grandmother: cooking with iron.

When I got married, one of my friends gave my husband and me a big cast-iron skillet. There's something primal about a cast-iron skillet. You're not messing around when you've got one sizzling on the stove. Mine has seen years of cooking, off and on, but it hits the gas flame much more often these days. This post on Kitchen Daily lists three healthy reasons to cook with iron, one of them being that meals made in skillets really does increase your intake of a necessary mineral.

"While cast iron doesn't leach chemicals, it can leach some iron into your food ... and that's a good thing. Iron deficiency is fairly common worldwide, especially among women. . . . Cooking food, especially something acidic like tomato sauce in a cast-iron skillet can increase iron content, by as much as 20 times."

I cook plenty in my skillet, including tomato sauce. But, this week, I fried up some Catfish.

Catfish is (surprisingly) one of the dishes my son will eat, willingly, so I cook it up knowing I'm killing two birds with one stone: fortifying my diet and tempting his taste buds. Catfish is easy to make, as long as you pay attention, and frying it in the skillet makes me feel old school and Texan all over again.

Pan-Fried Catfish, from AllRecipes.com:

Ingredients

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons ground cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 4 (4 ounce) fillets catfish
• 1 cup milk
• 4 cloves garlic, minced

Directions

In a mixing bowl, stir together cornmeal, cayenne pepper, paprika and onion powder. Mix well. Pour mixture onto a large sheet of waxed paper.

1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
2. Pour milk into a medium bowl. Dip catfish filets into milk and hold up and let the milk drip off. Roll the milk-soaked filet in the cornmeal mixture until completely covered. Set aside.
3. Fry the garlic in the hot skillet, but do not burn. Add the coated catfish filets and cook for 5 to 7 minutes on each side, sprinkling salt on the fish after each turn. Cook until golden brown and fish flakes easily with a fork. Drain on paper towels.

One note, if you make this dish, get everything set and ready to go before you start frying. When the recipe says "do not burn" the garlic, that means watch it close. Really, you only want to let it cook for a minute or two before dropping in your catfish.

For some real Texas fun, cook up a batch of hush puppies for the side.

How do you measure up with your iron? And, what do you do to make sure you get enough?

*Vitamin photo credit: bradley j on flickr.com. The catfish is all mine.

What to do with the chicken bones?

I'm a nay-sayer. A cynic. Suspicious by nature. When someone suggests I try a new dish - like mushroom soup or spaghetti with squid ink (such a thing exists, it's true) - my gut reaction is to pause, dramatic, and scrunch up my face. That's my inner editor butting in, you know. She isn't partial to my writing life alone. More often than not, she sticks her nose into my business at the table and in the kitchen, as well. Even with familiar dishes, if I haven't tried it before, well, there's no guarantee.

A few years ago, I visited my closest and dearest friend in Texas. As our conversation rose and fell over kids, dinners, and grocery budgets, she told me she'd figured out how to make one grocery item stretch over several meals: buy a whole chicken instead of chicken breasts.

"Bake the chicken and serve it for dinner. Use the leftover meat for chicken salad later, or toss it into a pasta dish. Then," she continued, "boil the bones with veggies and make your own broth. One batch of chicken broth can last for weeks." She shrugged, as if to say there's nothing to it, and I dreamed, for a second, of walking out of the grocery store with money left over.

Still, I thought, it couldn't be so easy. I've known her for years and she's never lied to me, but she's good at lots of things I'm not. Baking a whole chicken was one of those things; turning that chicken into broth from scratch was even further out of my league. I imagined a long and arduous process.

But the next time I stepped into the grocery store, I re-considered her idea, tired of paying so much for a few small chicken breasts and using broth from a box or a grainy mixture processed by a company that's boasts theirs is the best. I stood in front of the meat freezer, tapped my fingers on the handle of the cart, picked up a chicken, put it down. Walked away. Walked back. Finally, I reached over and took hold, of the whole chicken and the dream of broth from scratch. Then, I pushed my cart and stomped away, ignoring the voice in my head that insisted I was about to embark on a huge waste of time and a doomed-to-fail project, too much for a busy mom and writer.

That nosy little nuisance in my head was wrong. My friend was right: the chicken was easy to work with and good for much more than one meal.

One whole chicken, rubbed with herbs and cooked in a crockpot for five hours, yields a tender dish for dinner. So tender, that gathering the leftover meat is simple. Use the meat for another dish later that week, or store it in the freezer for when you need a quick addition to a meal further down the road. Then, place the chicken bones into a pot, that same night or even the next day, with an onion or two, a few carrots, some sticks of celery. Add fresh garlic cloves if you like, but don't worry about additional seasoning; the chicken you just cooked has all those yummy flavors built right in.

Bring it all to a boil and let it simmer for an hour and a half. Write about it while the fixings simmer. Better yet, write a draft to a short story.

Once cooked, drain the whole mixture into a separate bowl, using a colander, and let the broth cool. Discard the bones and vegetables, then separate the broth into several jars. Pre-measure some of the broth and store it in smaller jars. Keep them in the freezer until needed. Even more fun, give some away. There's plenty to share. 

Do you make your own broth? And, if you're vegetarian, how do you dress up the veggies for that added boost of flavor?

What's New in Your Kitchen?

When the calendar flips to another year, it's difficult to resist tossing out the old and zooming in on the new, whether we're replacing last year's favorite book bag or a worn pair of gloves or even the preferred kitchen gadget that grew rusty after too many cycles through the dishwasher. Bring on January 1st, and I want all things shiny and clean and in tip-top shape. New. But, if you think about it, "new" is a relative term. Sometimes, the one thing that's been sitting around a while, gathering dust, proves just as exciting.

Take my copy of Cook's Illustrated Special Collector's Edition All-Time Best Recipes. Given to me last year, I admired it from a distance for, well...months, flipping through the pages here and there, but still not breaking the binding. But last week, I decided I would attempt the recipe for "Soft, Chewy Molasses Spice Cookies." Finally.

I love Cook's Illustrated (if I could slip in one day and hang out a while in America's Test Kitchen...oh the joy!). The articles inside are written in such a way that I don't feel snubbed as a novice chef, nor do I feel overwhelmed. I learn from them every time, like with the cookies. When the recipe says to use butter that's "softened but still cool", there's a reason for that. Don't brush over a simple word like cool if a Master Chef mentions it. Butter that's too soft makes for flat cookies. Butter with a slight chill promises a full-bodied cookie just like the one in the picture. I made this recipe twice: the first time I hit gold, the second time I got sassy, poo-pooed the "cool", and ended up with molasses pancakes. They still tasted good, mind you, but they didn't look as pretty.

My point here is not so much about my rise and fall in the kitchen, but that, in a world where almost everything is disposable, so much is worth keeping. And, worth trying again. We've talked about it before; remember those old cookbooks with the yellowed pages? I bet you have a gadget in your kitchen that marks the ages but still works like a charm.

What do you think? Did you revisit an oldie but a goodie this Holiday Season and make it new?

* Photo credit: Calendar image by danielmoyle on Flickr.com

From Marie Callender to homemade, there was always Chicken Pot Pie.

My love for cooking waxes and wanes.

In the beginning, when I first moved to Wisconsin and shared living space with three bachelors (one of whom I had dibs on), any time spent in the kitchen was more cumbersome than fun. None of us really wanted to cook, but we all wanted to eat. So, our meals came frozen from Marie Callender or vacuum-sealed by Ramen or boxed up and tossed into a paper bag marked with the name of the restaurant on the corner. We cycled through the pizza oven, microwave, and one saucepan but rarely paid attention to the dishes in the sink, which would explain why the kitchen was low on the list of places to hang out.

Later, my husband and I married and moved into a one bedroom apartment, and I marveled at the sight and size of the oven: fit for a kid but with a real working gas range and oven space just big enough to tease you into thinking you were really cooking. I tried my hand at formal dinners, removing all but one oven rack to squeeze in a turkey for our first Thanksgiving, and later sweating over the miniature range to cook chicken and carrots. It took a long time to learn the art of getting every dish onto the table at the same time, warm and well...done.

After a few years, a bit of confidence, and a subscription to Martha Stewart Magazine and Cooking Light, I delighted in a little cooking glory. I baked brownies to die for, cooked a Mexican Casserole made with green chiles and chicken that had to be doubled when family ate over, pureed Creamy Asparagus Soup that looked just like the photo and was worthy of a repeat. I discovered an easy Chicken Potpie recipe that could be prepared the night before and thrown in the oven for dinner the next day, giving the appearance that I spent hours on the meal. My Pecan Pie didn’t rival my grandmother’s but elicited oohs and ahhs just the same.

Life in the kitchen was full.

Then, tiny hands graced our breakfast island, and finicky taste buds resulted in too many leftovers. Wanting my kids to "just eat something," I fell victim to the boxed food aisle at the grocery store again. We cycled through fish sticks and tacos and breakfast for dinner (I write that in past tense, though often our weekly menu still rotates through these dishes). We survived on quick, easy, and bland. Making dinner, and eating it, was a chore.

But as my kids grow older and become a little more willing to try new things, I feel the pull towards bigger, brighter, and more exciting menu choices. Maybe not Creamy Asparagus Soup (yet), but I might bring back some old standards like Chicken Potpie -- dishes that say "easy" and "gourmet" at the same time.

I mean, who can resist the pie?

OLD-FASHIONED CHICKEN POTPIE 

(ripped from the pages of an old Cooking Light issue over ten years ago) 

Crust (in a pinch, which is often, I use a store-bought crust, and that works just as well).
1 cup all-purpose flour, divided
3 tablespoons ice water
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable shortening

Filling
3 cups Chicken Stock, divided
2 1/3 cups cubed red potato (about 1 pound)
1 cup (1/4 inch thick) sliced carrot
2 teaspoons butter
1/2 cup chopped shallots or onions
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups diced cooked chicken
1 cup frozen petite green peas
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
Dash of black pepper
Cooking spray

1. To prepare crust, lightly spoon 1 cup flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 1/4 cup flour, ice water, and vinegar in a small bowl. Combine 3/4 cup flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl; cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add vinegar mixture; stir, just until moist. Press mixture gently into a 5-inch circle on heavy-duty plastic wrap; cover with additional plastic wrap. Chill for 15 minutes. Roll dough, still covered, into a 13x10-inch oval. Place dough in freezer 5 minutes or until plastic wrap can be easily removed.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. To prepare filling, bring 2 1/2 cups Chicken Stock to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add potato and carrot, cook 2 minutes. Drain mixture in a colander over a bowl, reserving cooking liquid.
4. Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add shallots; cook 3 minutes. Lightly spoon 1/2 cup flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup Chicken Stock; stir with a whisk. Add to skillet. Stir in potato mixture, reserved cooking liquid, chicken, peas, 3/4 teaspoon salt, thyme, and pepper. Cook 10 minutes. Remove from heat; cool slightly. spoon chicken mixture into a 1 1/2-quart casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Removed 1 sheet of plastic wrap from dough. Place dough on top of chicken mixture pressing to edge of dish. Remove top of plastic wrap. Cut 5 slits in top of crust to allow steam to escape. Gently brush crust with milk. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until golden. Let stand 10 minutes.

What’s your favorite throw-together, toss-in-the-oven, feel-fancy and gobble-it-up kind of dish?

(Below, the Hillbilly Gypsies perform "Crow Black Chicken")

“Easiest work that ever I done was eatin' chicken pie.”

When Cooking Takes You to the Dark Side

Some days, nothing about cooking is fun. Maybe you've been there, when the day runs long and complaints pile high and you shift from refrigerator to pantry, and back again, and repeat the "tired momma" mantra: I got nothin'.

Oh, I've got refried beans, I think. And a box of noodles. And a big bag of rice.

Blah. Boring. Boo.

Not even that open package of Oreo Cookies induces excitement.

It's that same feeling I get when I stare, long and hard, at the opening paragraphs of a story I'm sweating over: there's promise in the skeleton ingredients on the page, but the energy is missing. I need a shake-up. Some spice. A little action.

Or, action figures.

I could learn a lot from cookbooks like this one:

"...and other Galactic Recipes"...I love that.
The official book, as seen on Amazon.

Who knew Jawas liked milkshakes?

This gem of a book was discovered by my son in his school library, and it's filled with spice and action.  Recipes range from Greedo's Burritos to Jawa Jive Milkshakes to Chewbacca's weakness -- Wookie Cookies. I'd love to tell you that we started cooking with Greedo's Burritos or Boba Fett-uccine, but I cook for kids. Certain days, we cut right to the sugar. Right to Chewbacca.

WOOKIE COOKIES

(The official recipe from The Star Wars Cookbook, by Robin Davis)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs (or the right mix of Ener-G if you need an egg substitute like we do)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Put the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Stir with the wooden spoon until well mixed. Set aside.
3. Put the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in another mixing bowl. Using the electric mixer set on high speed, beat together until well blended and creamy, about 3 minutes. (You can do this with a wooden spoon, but it will take longer) Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and stir with the wooden spoon until blended. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Scoop up a rounded tablespoonful of the dough and drop onto a baking sheet. Repeat until you have used up all the dough. Be sure to leave about 1 inch between the cookies because they spread as they bake.
5. Using pot holders, put the baking sheets in the oven. Bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes.
6. Again, using pot holders, remove the baking sheets from the oven. Lift the cookies from the baking sheets with a spatula, and place on cooling racks. Cool completely.

Eat heartily.

And remember, don't get too serious, whether you're standing at the pantry door or staring at a story's first draft.

Keep the pilot light burning

I spent the summer of 2001 watching two little boys during the day and waiting tables in a 50's era diner in the evening. It was the completion of my first year of college, though I was already in my mid twenties, and I had reached a point of utter confusion--the English Composition class I was required to take made me start writing again. My pilot light was lit. My journals were uncovered. My passion was stoked.

That was the first time I considered writing a memoir about my family. While the boys played King of the Suburban Backyard I scribbled questions and anecdotes across pages of flimsy spiral notebooks. I had no starting point, no frame of reference and no story, but I wrote and wrote.

For the entire I summer I questioned my motives. I had started out studying interior design and I loved it completely. I relished architecture and art history. I fell in love with space and light. But still, writing was what made me burn.

Before the fall semester commenced I had changed my area of focus.

I've never been a practical girl, I believe all too much in the finite nature of life and the frailty of dreams. Forget fortune. Forget fame. It's the ticking that keeps me going, the beat and hum of one word following another.

***

In the summer of 2001 the boys had a visit from their Florida grandfather. He was taken with notion of my vegetarianism and raved about a black bean taco recipe his wife liked to make. A week after he returned home he sent the following recipe. I've used it many, many times.

Black Bean & Veggie Tacos

Taco Shells (Sprouted Wheat if available)
2 T  Olive Oil
2 T  Fresh Lime Juice
1 t   Ground Cumin
1 t   Minced Garlic
1 t   Ground Red Pepper


1 Can (16 oz) Black Beans
1 Can (7oz) Whole Kernel Corn, Drained
1/2 C Coursely Chopped Carrots
1/2 C Diced Celery
1/3 C Diced Red Onion

Part 2

2 C Shredded Lettuce
1/4 C Sour Cream
4 oz Shredded Cheddar

Prepare taco shells. Whisk together first five ingredients. Add next 5 ingredients. Stir to mix & coat. Layer lettuce, cheese, Viggie mix & sour cream on hot taco shells.

Three Keys to Success in the Kitchen (and with your writing)

I learn a lot about writing a novel when I watch my husband, Bill, work in the kitchen. He doesn't cook often, but when he is called to the stove, he arms himself with determination, sharp tools, and an apron. A recipe acts only as the structure for a dish that he makes his own, and he rarely experiences (what I like to call) "Dinner Fail." Maybe he's always lucky with a chef's knife and a wooden spoon, but every time I watch him, I see him incorporate the same three techniques.

1. Focus.

When my husband is in the kitchen making dinner, everyone else is out of the kitchen. There's a look in his eye that says, "talk to me if you must, but don't expect a response." He has a plan, and he knows that success depends on his own execution of the plan. Rambunctious kids in the hallway won't pull him away, and status updates or tweets never cross his mind. In fact, he isn't even on Facebook (oh, the horror!).

When he's cooking, he's just cooking.

And, he never walks away from a recipe in the middle of measuring ingredients.

2. Clean as you go.

So, I guess I should clarify that "just cooking" bit: when he's cooking, he's all about the whole process of meal-making. "Clean as you go" is a given. Let the dirty dishes mount while you chop, stir, and simmer, and the whole process becomes overwhelming. You run out of counter space; the recipe goes missing; chaos ensues.

Welcome, Dinner Fail. 

3. Spice it up.

I mean, Really. Surprise your audience.

Once, when my husband was in charge of making chili, he threw together more than just onions, meat and beans. He searched the cabinets and the pantry for something totally unexpected, because what's a cook if he isn't inventive? That pot of chili melded together the flavors of cayenne pepper, Tabasco sauce, coffee grounds, and maple syrup.

That's right. Coffee grounds. Never mind the syrup.

It was a "Bill" original, and, well, we're still talking about that chili.

But cooking dinner and writing a novel aren't exactly the same, you say. A novel doesn't get written in two hours or less, and it's much more complicated than "chop, stir, and simmer."

Okay, but there's still plenty to take away here.

When I sit down to write, I could shut down the internet, focus on my task at hand -- be it word count or page edits, filling in plot holes or looking at structure. And, while shitty first drafts have a definite place in my writing process, there is some planning I can do, before I sit down and after my writing time is finished, that may help me organize my limited time more efficiently. Also, I don't need to be afraid to spice up the story with whatever I imagine. As James Scott Bell says in his book, Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure, cooking - like writing - is "a formula [with] a whole range of outcomes. . . . You still have to add your spices, your skills, your talent" to make the story your own and a success.

And, that's what I'm after, in the kitchen or in writing: a "Christi" original. 

Are there techniques you use in the kitchen that you could be using at your writing desk?

~

* photo credits: 1. Good enough..., Thierry Draus on Flickr; 2. Spices, Maks Karochkin on Flickr

Perfect Sauteed Tofu Cubes Every Single Time

By Lisa

Just a little over a week ago, E. Victoria Flynn and Christi Craig and I were tossing around the idea of a group blog over hot-from-the-brick-oven Flying Cow Pizza from Oconomowoc's Farmers Market (I ordered one with artichokes and olives and left not so much as a crumb) and coffee/tea from Whelan's Coffee and Ice Cream. Thank you to the kind worker at Whelan's for documenting our day (we took it as a good sign that we arrived color-coordinated):

Lisa, Christi, Victoria

The result of our conversation? Writing Up an Appetite: Wisconsin Writers in the Kitchen, and I am delighted to start us off with the answer to a question I hear often, both from seasoned cooks unfamiliar with tofu and from young adults who want to learn to make more vegetarian meals: How does one cook tofu so that it's not a flavorless, unappetizing blob?

The secret to crispy tofu that will absorb the sauce of your favorite dish is a three-step process. First, a towel soaks up excess moisture. Then the intense heat of sauteing browns the tofu. Finally, the dry heat of baking firms it up. Time consuming? A little, but the result is well worth the wait. If you thought all tofu had to be bland and mushy, you are in for a real treat.

1. Start with one pound extra firm tofu. Remove from package and drain.

2. Cut in half to form two blocks, then slice each block to halve the width.

3. Lay the four slices evenly on a clean, non-fuzzy kitchen towel.

4. Wrap the towel around the tofu.

5. Weight down with a heavy bowl or pan for at least 30 minutes. The towel will absorb excess moisture from the tofu.

6. Unwrap the tofu and cut it into cubes.

7. In a wok or large skillet, heat a thin layer of peanut or other oil (I like a garlic-flavored stir-fry oil). When oil is hot (and not before!), add tofu cubes, salt lightly, and saute until golden brown, stirring occasionally. (After this step, if you wish, you can marinate the sauteed cubes for 20-30 minutes in your favorite marinade or sauce.)

8. Transfer cubes to a baking dish, and bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes, until firm and a little "puffy." You can make these ahead of time and refrigerate for later use (warning: very high snack-ability factor, so you might want to make extra). This is another point in the process when you can marinate the cubes, if you wish.

9. Add to stir fry, pad thai, kung pao, spaghetti sauce, or whatever catches your fancy!