Man Bread

A while back we were passing through our local market one Sunday morning, trying desperately not to eat everything in sight. There was a woman promoting her new book and handing out recipe cards, which Poppy needed to have.

The card got filed in with the shopping. When we got home it got removed from the market bag, a little damp from something or other. I put the card in a catch everything basket on the counter. It stayed there for a couple weeks. Then, in a flurry of tidying up, it got put in a drawer.

I remembered the card and started a little search for it which turned into a frustrating and exhaustive tidy up and sort out of the drawer. There it was, finally, nestled between some cookie cutters and cupcake wrappers right up against the last six weeks worth of supermarket receipts and an empty package of throat lozenges.

It was a recipe aimed at men to promote a book aimed at men, insinuating that men need to eat different things than women, or at least cook different things. I am not sure. Regardless, it looked like this recipe could turn out well so Tilly and I made it.

The whole time, I thought about the man recipe thing and my thoughts turned to this. I realized that, at our house, the man drawer is mine. It is in the kitchen, it isn’t full of lightbulbs and batteries. It is full of piping tips that haven’t made it back into the case, clips and closures, thread and pens, chokey bits of toy hastily hidden from a curious baby and lots of random notes, recipes and clippings and it is full to spilling out. The kind of spilling out that takes a hip to shut it while you smooth the top layer down while carefully trying to extract your hands before you scrape your knuckles.

The man area at our house is very well ordered. Sure, there are some useless bits of junk and some empty wrappers but it is all tucked away in a quite carefully organised corner of the basement, so far from the bottom of the stairs that I only venture down there in the direst of cases. Safe from the clutter and mess of the rest of the house. A dark and peaceful little haven.

So, I did what I do and we made this man recipe an little trickier, if sautéing onions is tricky. And, I lightened it up using a lighter beer than it called for - the original called for a stout and I used Stone Levitation Ale, a hoppy little local number. I foofooed it up with the tiniest bit of oregano, dried because I can’t stomach fresh in any quantity. If my children weren’t eating it, I would have chucked it full of something spicy too.

The result was a loaf worth accompanying even the ladiest of winter pots. It is quick enough to make after a day out to go with whatever has been in your slow cooker all day. It is tasty enough to want to make more than once. It is really gorgeous toasted and would be pretty damn fine with some eggs and mushrooms.

Technically, it isn’t Man Bread, it is Anybody Bread. Unfortunately, this means you’ll have more competition getting a slice.

Cheddar Onion Beer Bread adapted from a recipe by Susan C. Russo

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup grated cheddar cheese, I used a 2 year old number

1 cup sautéed onions, cooled

A few grinds of fresh ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

12 ounce (350 mL) flavourful ale of your choice

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Butter an 8-inch x 4-inch loaf pan.

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Stir in cheese. Stir in onions.

Pour beer in and mix all ingredients until combined.

Pour into prepared tin.

Bake for around 40 minutes. When a tester comes out clean, it is done.

Cool for a few minutes before slicing.

Enjoy.

Eat Your Greens

There are lots of greens in our CSA lately. Luckily, Poppy shares my love of them so with two avid eaters, one reluctant partaker and one hysterically unimpressed refuser, we manage to get through our allotment each week. Along with a big bunch of kale, dandelion or spinach and the huge bunches of greens on top of the beets and turnips, we have been getting a big bag of ‘braising mix’ for the last few weeks. I usually whizz it up into undetectable pieces and throw it into just about everything. You see, as soon as the green bits get too big everything in the mouth is spat out in a big head shaking, literally tongue wiping, dining room spraying mess. Until now, because of this, we haven’t been able to enjoy our greens as they should be. Or, at least as I have decided they will be.

The braising mix would not make its way into the food processor today. The greens would be supper.

I had a little look around for the right way to cook the greens, which were a mix of collard, mustard, spinach, kale and turnip greens, by looking up recipes for collard greens mainly. I was surprised by how long they all told me to cook them for. I was also dismayed that most recipes called for bacon fat or ham hock baths and various other cured pork remnants. I am not opposed to said pork remnants but after the consumption of the last two weeks I was looking for something a little less hearty. So, I strayed from the right way, favouring my way.

Years ago, that makes me sound so old, we served creamed spinach with raisins and pine nuts at Lolita’s Lust. It was pretty damn tasty. Our braising mix had spinach in it, the rest was green, this was where I would start.

The resulting bowl of greens probably took a little more chewing than your average Southern greens eater would approve of but delicious nonetheless. I would happily sit down to eat a bowl of these with nothing else but the rest of my family, save for Tilly who, after one bite, spat, wiped her tongue and pushed her plate away, had them with the Man Bread I made today, post to follow.

The raisins add a little chewy sweetness to the slightly bitter green while the almonds give a toasty crunch. Onions and garlic sweeten and deepen a tiny bit of cream that ties all the flavours together without them seeming too rich.

This couldn’t be much simpler and can be made with whatever type of greens you have to hand, just adjust the cooking time accordingly. Spinach will take less time, a greater proportion of collard greens will take more. How long you cook them also depends on how soft you like them to be. I cooked the mix, covered, for twenty minutes and a further 7-10 minutes to reduce the liquid before I added the cream.

If you do use spinach alone, you may want to use two pounds instead of one as it will cook down quite a bit more than the others do.

Braised Greens with Raisins and Almonds

1 medium onion diced

3 large cloves garlic minced

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup stock - vegetable or chicken

1 pound mixed greens, cleaned and chopped into strips

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup toasted slivered almonds

Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Melt butter in a pot large enough to hold the greens. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until translucent. Add the stock and bring to a boil. 

Add the greens. Reduce the heat and cover. Simmer until the greens are tender. Remove the cover and reduce the coking liquid until it is almost dry. 

Add the raisins and cream. Bring to the boil and reduce just until it coats the greens. 

Add the almonds.

Season with salt and pepper and eat.

It's Getting a Whole Lot Meatier Around Here

We are back in the company of our husband/dad/carnivore figure, that would be for me/the girls/our borderline vegetarian tendencies in that order. That means there will be a couple of changes. The first is that I can reasonably expect someone else to share in the nappy changing duties. The second is that I will cook and eat more meat than I do in the absence of the aforementioned figure. I even start to think about meat I can cook and actively shop for it.

When I say actively shop for it, I should clarify. Now that I am in America, and away from home, I need to find new, safe and happy sources. I can’t rely on the usual market purveyors and our semi-annual trip to Windsor to stock the freezer. I need to ask questions and read labels and generally be less trustworthy than I am at home, in the familiar.

While that will, likely only temporarily, be a shopping hiccup, there are other things I don’t need to think of. I am in California. This is where lots of the unlocal produce that I am not supposed to buy at home comes from. I can buy avocados and tomatoes and broccoli and fresh fruit all year round. It grows here. Woot woot!

The little holiday complex we are staying in has a little courtyard full of barbecues, for those who want to use them. The idea of dragging the family down there and trying to quietly and civilly have supper is unthinkable, but the idea of getting it all ready and sending the husband/dad/carnivore down to cook his meat is entirely workable.

I found the meat, after a brief read of the butcher’s signs and only one question, at the very nice supermarket which is not nearly close to our little holiday flat, but it is around the corner from the more permanent neighbourhood we will be relocating to. The gorgeous heirloom tomato was, the sign told me, grown a mere five miles away. The onion just said local and I would expect nothing else, at this time of year, pretty much anywhere below the tree line.

The marinade was a little thrown together, with only one brief shopping trip worth of ingredients in the cupboard, but it worked really well. It provided a tiny bit of sweetness from the tomato sauce caramelizing which was nicely offset with a slight tang from the chipotle.

I kept the salsa mild, because of the children and all, but I would happily spice it up with some grilled hot pepper peeled and diced with the onions and tomatoes.

We cooked it to rare/medium rare and personally, I wouldn’t cook it much more. Once sliced, I could, and did, cut it with a spoon. And, I am not the one to rave about a bit of steak but this made me wonder why I don’t eat more.

Grilled Flank Steak with Grilled Onion and Heirloom Tomato Salsa

2lbs 4oz.(1.09kg) flank steak (let’s call it 2lbs or 1 kg)

Marinade

1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle 

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground oregano

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

3 tablespoons tomato sauce 

1/2 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salsa

1 medium onion thickly sliced into rings

1 heirloom tomato thickly sliced

1 teaspoon (or so) of olive oil

Juice of 1 lime 

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Handful of cilantro/fresh coriander

Maldon sea salt to serve

Mix all the marinade ingredients together and rub it into the flank steak. Leave, covered, in a non-reactive dish in the fridge for at least four hours. Remove from fridge 30 minutes before cooking.

Toss the onion rings and the tomato slices with the olive oil and some ground black pepper.

Preheat your barbecue to a high heat. Place the meat and the vegetables on the grill. The barbecue will likely need to be turned down. After a minute or so, check the vegetables and turn them. The tomatoes will get soft very quickly. Don’t worry if they are about to fall apart but try to get them off the grill before they completely melt in. The onions will take a little longer. The flank steak will need about five minutes on each side for rare/medium rare.

Remove the steak from the barbecue when it is cooked to desired doneness. Cover and let rest for ten minutes. Meanwhile, chop the onions and tomatoes and mix with the remaining salsa ingredients and season.

After resting, slice the flank steak very thinly and across the grain. Pile it on a serving plate, sprinkle with a little finger-ground Maldon sea salt and top with the salsa, or serve it beside.