Bread is something I think about a lot, probably because, for now at least, we’re not on speaking terms. Oh sure, we gaze longingly at each other as I pass by a sandwich shop, and I’ve been known to cop a sniff as I slink by the Ciabatta at Trader Joe’s. But for the most part, the sum of going gluten free and South Beach almost simultaneously means bye-bye bread, hello salad bar.
One of the most exciting things about summer (besides being coerced by your beach-loving partner to wear the equivalent of your underwear in public) is tomatoes. And yes, I know what you’re thinking: really, another tomato pasta recipe? And roasted besides, in summer?!
But I’m giving you one precisely because you didn’t know you needed it. Here we roast the tomatoes. Yes, roast them. Of course I’m aware that it’s the height of summer, when you’re fanning yourself with adverts for Antarctica and wishing with all your might that someone – anyone! – would do you the courtesy of handing you an ice cold drink, preferably one that involves vodka.
So hang tight, my dear hot reader – if you’ve got a toaster oven, the temperature in your kitchen won’t even rise a notch. From high-end to entry-level, many toaster ovens are convection ovens as well, and double as mama’s little helper, whipping up chicken nuggets in the time it takes to wind down those whiney kids in the background.
Back to this tomato sauce. Between us, I like a fresh sauce as much as the next girl, but this one is a bit deeper, richer, more robust, if you will. I mean, it tastes like you actually took some time in the kitchen, when all you really did was toss some veggies about and turn a dial. And boil water, I’ll give you that.
What I’m trying to say here, in so many words, is that this dish is something you can serve to company, at a picnic, as leftovers…I mean, really. Is there anything this pasta can’t do?
Okay. So it might not help you look great in a bathing suit. But then again, if I wanted to rock a swim suit, I probably wouldn’t have become a food blogger. Bon appétit!
If you live outside San Diego, then you’re probably wondering why I’m sharing a soup recipe with you in the early breath of summer. Sure, you’re most likely sitting outside, mint ice tea in hand, the smell of freshly cut grass mingling with the shouts of canon-balling kids.
I, on the other hand, am bundled up in a fleece attempting to distinguish cloud from swirling gray surf. You see, summer in San Diego is predictable in that it’s almost always gloomy (May gray turns into June gloom). So in lieu of sun, I’m heating up the kitchen with this, chicken tortilla soup (minus the tortillas, for those of us on South Beach Phase 1).
This comes from my friend Dani, who is an amazing cook, even though (I think) she tries to keep this a secret. I’ve managed to pry this recipe from her; it’s a combo of a recipe she found online and her own additions. Next on my list? Her Caesar salad dressing recipe. I love having friends who cook. Now if only they could make the sun shine, too.
Surely I’m not the only one rolling the charcoal grill onto the patio and dragging the lump charcoal out of the garage. But maybe I did get a wee bit of a head start on the whole Memorial Day grilling thing. Yesterday found me in the kitchen right before school pick-up with just a few minutes but a whole lotta meat to marinade, as in three pounds of flank steak and enough bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts to feed my family of three at least through Monday.
So being short on time and long on meat, I took a cue from my favorite after lunch beverage: coffee. I dumped a cup of the morning’s cold, leftover coffee into a 2-cup measuring glass, poured in a half cup of olive oil and, while I intended to add a half cup of balsamic marinade to the mix, I soon grew tired of waiting for the liquid to fall into the glass and ended up with a mere quarter cup instead. But what I lost in balsamic vinegar I gained in inspiration: lazy girl marinade. (Sometimes I like to call myself a girl; you know, for old time’s sake.)
The steak got the lazy girl marinade treatment while the chicken ended up drowning in a Dijon vinaigrette I’d made the day before. While my intention was to make my garlic rosemary marinade for the chicken, I had neither the time nor the patience to chop, chop, chop.
And if you, like me are inclined to start marinating now for the weekend ahead, please check out these recipes and by all means, chop away!
Happy grilling!
I read Maurice Sendak’s obituary through blurry eyes on Wednesday, thinking of my childhood hero for the first time in a while, although he’s never too far from my heart.
With little Gigi snuggled in my lap, her hair mussed from sleep, we poured over the New York Times’ tribute to Sendak. She pointed to “Where the Wild Things Are”
where his trademark goblins take on human form and vice versa, and replied, “Of course.”
So it was with misty-eyed melancholy that I opened the food section to be greeted by Melissa Clark’s spread-eagle chicken. And I laughed out loud, memories of old mingling with a bird which, in its normal state, is funny enough, but when spread-eagled on a bed of ramps, well, you really can’t help but laugh.
And so, with shopping list in hand, I headed back to Trader Joe’s for the second time in three days, eager to add to my South Beach Diet Phase 1 recipe repertoire. The fact that the produce guy at Trader Joe’s had never heard of ramps (Melissa’s addition of greens to her chicken) didn’t deter me. I grabbed a package of pre-sliced mushrooms, asparagus and onions, a five-pound kosher chicken and a few lemons. Into the cart they went, along with a few heads of garlic.
Much like Sendak, since going South Beach, I’ve had to call on my creativity at levels I didn’t know existed. Seriously – I had no idea how much I relied on carbs and sugars until eliminating them from my diet; my longing for oranges and grapes is stronger than I experienced when giving up beer (to go gluten-free).
I followed Melissa’s method for snapping and splaying the chicken’s legs; I’m also in agreement with her on high-heat roasting (not to mention the use of cast iron cookware
whenever possible). But because ramps weren’t available I improvised and added a head of garlic with the top cut off, hoping it would roast to perfection along with the chicken (which it did).
Once roasted to a lovely brown, I let the chicken rest while I sautéed the vegetables in the juice of the chicken – one pan cookery at its best. After a 10-minute sauté, I drained the vegetables and used the drippings as a kind of gravy (flour-free, of course). While there’s enough chicken and vegetables for two in this recipe, the gravy really is enough for only one person: the chef.
As I photographed the bird and moved it about the kitchen in its cast iron pan, I thought again and again of “Where the Wild Things” are, of Max, sent to bed without supper; of the beasts that he tames; and of the hot dinner that awaits him when he returns.
Melissa asks if we really need another recipe for roast chicken. When it’s something that warms the heart, feeds the stomach, brings smiles to a husband tired at the end of a long day, and makes a six-year old laugh as I claim to be a beast and she Max, the answer is yes.
I’ve been to Israel only once. I’d like to go back again. There was so much we didn’t see, and so much I’d want to do again, like swim in the Dead Sea, explore the labyrinthian passageways of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or bask in the rainbow colors of Marc Chagall’s windows at the Hadassah-University Medical Center.
One of the best meals of my life was at the Zuni Café in San Francisco. Seriously. It’s one of those nights that will stay with me the rest of my life. Mr. Gonzo and I stole away for a mini-vacay in San Francisco last July. Imagine it: 24 foot-loose-and-fancy-free hours while Gigi had the time of her life with her cousins. Win win!
This was the view from our table that night at Zuni:
I know. Amazing, right?
And this was THE meal, the one I’ll always remember. Salty, succulent chicken that fell away from the bone with a mere tug of my fork, crisp yet just-soggy-enough bread dressed with the juices of the chicken, all atop a bed of fresh spring greens. So the second I got home I did what any cookbook-obsessed food blogger would do: I ordered the The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
Then, a few weeks ago, lolling about while recovering from eye surgery, I watched Michael Symon make this recipe. Maybe it was the pain killers, maybe it was his no-nonsense approach to cooking, but I became convinced that I, too, could salt a chicken 24 hours ahead of time without the world coming to an end. And so I instantly thought of the Zuni Café chicken, and how finally, finally I would attempt to recreate that July night in the comfort of my home. While wearing yoga pants.
Yet there was just one thing stopping me: gluten. More specifically, the gluten in the bread salad portion of “Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad.” And while I could, conceivably, make a loaf of gluten-free bread to use for the salad, I’m not that far along in my GF baking, and since I’d already procrastinated long enough, I figured I needed to work out another solution.
So here it is: Zuni Roast Chicken with Breakfast Potato Salad.
(And if you’d like to take a stab at the original recipe, check out Deb at Smitten Kitchen’s version.)
I’ve never in my life felt better than I’ve felt the past two and a half weeks. I’m sleeping through the night, my skin is clear, my stomach is (relatively) flat, even the whites of my eyes are, well, whiter.
Why? I gave up gluten.
Gluten is all around us, and not just in our bread, pizza and cereal. It’s in our bottles of salad dressings, our boxes of chicken stock, our packets of chili spice mix, our bags of cookies, chips and treats we’ve grown to love in our processed-food culture. It’s even in our cosmetics.
But for me, it’s no longer in my system.
What started as an experiment after my stomach ballooned up alarmingly following an innocent bowl of cereal has turned into the beginning of a way of life. When faced with pizza emerging fresh from the oven at book club last week, I enjoyed the undeniably intoxicating whiffs I caught from my friends’ plates as I tucked into a giant green salad. In considering how to make the famous Zuni Café roast chicken with bread salad, I decided to experiment with roast potatoes instead.
I haven’t mastered, or even attempted, for that matter, the art of baking gluten-free bread. The store-bought example I had was inedible (I suspect, in the bread’s defense, I should have toasted it first). But other than bread, I’ve had cereal every morning (Rice Chex or Corn Chex) and enjoyed pizza and movie Friday nights with my family (thanks to Bob’s Red Mill pizza crust mix).
For lunch, I’ve relied on this salad, inspired by the original chopped salad at California Pizza Kitchen. With a mix of butter lettuce and Mesclun, sliced green scallions, julienned basil, handfuls of Italian parsley and a diced tomato, I’m easily getting more than my daily allowance of vegetables; I like my salads big. Add to that some chopped salami and leftover chicken, and you’ve got yourself a meal.
Even if you can’t pass the bread.
“Mommy, I love it!”
Nothing sounds as sweet as those four words emitted from the mouth of a picky eater.
