The Hurricane Party. And Bean Dip

Apparently we had a hurricane here in NYC this weekend.

This hurricane wasn't like Katrina in New Orleans or anything. This one was a lot of rain and some wind and a lot of really excited weather men, using the word "hurricane" over and over because it is waaaaaaay more dramatic than the word, oh I don't know, "rain".

Weathermen, I believe, must have the most boring job on the planet. They spend most of their days telling us the weather will be "partly cloudy, partly sunny, with a chance of rain". This is our weather in a nutshell. It is always "partly sunny, partly cloudy, with a chance of rain". The weather man is a bore in a TV-ready suit.

But give these weather people some rain and a little 20 mile an hour wind and they are talking "disaster preparation". All of a sudden, their two minutes slot at the end of the news, with their little cardboard, smiley-face suns dotting the big map, becomes a top-of-the-hour, 20 minute meteorological dissertation on how to ride out a hurricane.

They were so excited they nearly wet themselves.

So, we did what any self-respecting family would do if a hurricane was baring down on us and we knew the weather men were full of shit: We had a hurricane party. Which is a fancy way of saying we ate bean dip, drank beer (us not the kids) did a huge art project and then ate Dibs for dessert (Don't tell me you never heard of Dibs - if you've never had a Dib, you are completely missing out). Calling it a hurricane party made it feel more like an event and Lucy was so excited to see the hurricane up close that she decided to dance in it.

I wish I had photos of Lucy soaking wet and dancing in circles, waving her arms and kicking up her heels in the warm downpour, but I don't because it was all so spontaneous. I was transfixed, really. Stuck in one place, blown away by how she can turn anything into joy. Everything is an adventure. Amazing.


This is what I love about having kids. I never would have thought to run around in the hurricane in my underpants, laughing madly, enjoying this thing that seems like a fun day killer. But it was Lucy who saw it for what it was: pure delight.

Take that, weather people.

And let me just tell you, no one laughs like Lucy. It is the stuff of magical elves. The sound is like an untamed gurgle from some bubbly, wild spring deep inside her. She laughs with her whole body. It is pure joy and has been ever since she was a baby. It is my absolute favorite sound in the whole world. If you ask her what Mommy's favorite sounds are, she'll tell you: "Lucy laughing and Lucy singing". I guess I tell her a lot.

I have nothing else to offer you, so here's the very simple recipe for bean dip that we had at our Hurricane Party. I may have posted this before, I can't remember, but it's worth another go around. It's that easy and that addictive.

xo YM
____________________________________________________________________________________


The Yummy Mummy's Hurricane Party Bean Dip

Prep time: 7 minutes, faster if you have the tomato, cilantro and onion pre-chopped

1 can of black beans (small white beans work as well, but black is better)
1 medium tomato
1 handful of chopped fresh cilantro
1 small onion, finely diced
Juice of half a lemon
(a little Jalapeno is optional, but go for it if you like a little heat)
1 generous dollop of sour cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, except sour cream. Get everything mixed together well. Make a small well in the middle of the bean mixture. Add a generous dollop of sour cream. Garnish with a little chopped tomato and a sprig of cilantro. Serve with tortilla chips. Continue Reading...

Be Damned the Political Conventions: Let There Be Tapas

I'll be happy when these political conventions are over.

David has started to repeat things from the speeches. It's annoying. Recently, he's been dropping Obama-isms into everyday conversation.

Several times a day now as I am justifying some parenting technique that I think, even though it isn't working right now, will pay off somewhere down the line or explaining why I should wear a certain style of clothing or why Lucy should do tap instead of Tai Kwon Do or whatever thing I feel needs my thorough analysis and explanation and David will stop, look at me with the kind of smug look that parents give their kids when they know they have won the argument before the words come out of their mouths, the smugness that comes with knowing they will deliver a conversation-stopper that will halt the kid dead in his tracks with no allowable room for whining or pleading.

Like this one, which I never use, but is one that I regard highly and keep for just the right time - "But you said your tummy was super-full and you couldn't possibly eat another pea...I'm sure there isn't room in there for ICE CREAM, right?"

Aaaaaah! Score.

How does a toddler come back from that? The kid is stuck - He must eat the peas to get the ice cream or he can refuse the peas and lose out on the ice cream. This is when parents absolutely SUUUUUUUUUUCK!

Anyway, this is what David has been doing to me, stealing bits of memorable phrases from the speeches and lobbing them into any conversation that comes up.

This one is his favorite:

"I know you care, sweetheart but you just don't get it," he says as a response to just about everything.

And really, there is no retort. Except maybe rolling my eyes and pretending that my husband was accidentally lobotomized in a tragic combine accident. (Okay, that's not funny. Farm equipment is dangerous.)

And thanks to you, Obama speechwriters. You've made me feel like John McCain in my own home.

Okay, I promised tapas last week and have lazed about the Hamptons this weekend as if I had no other mandates or jobs to get done. So, I give you my favorite, worthwhile tapas from the dinner I had last week.

Enjoy with a little beer or Spanish rose!

xo YM

_____________________________________________________________________________________


These dishes are all adapted from Food and Wine Magazine but you should re-jigger to taste. This "food magazine" didn't even include salt and pepper in the recipes. Not that I'm bitter or anything. The food ideas are good, but I did a lot of re-seasoning at the stove. I tried to include my re-seasoning here, but you should expect to do the same.

Chorizo, Chick Pea & Spinach Salad
Serves 6

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
8 small chorizo sausages, sliced
2 garlic cloves
1 onion, chopped
1 can of drained chick peas
2 good-sized handfuls of baby spinach
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, preferably cast iron, over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and saute until clear, about 5 minutes. Add chorizo and saute until beginning to turn golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add chick peas, season with salt and pepper. Let simmer for a few minutes. Add chorizo back in. Add spinach, just until before it wilts, about a minute. Sprinkle with paprika. Dust with parsley. Bring to table in the pan.


Sardines Escabeche
serves 6

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
12 fresh sardine fillets (not from a can)
2 sliced garlic cloves
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
2 fresh bay leaves
6 whole cloves
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1/4 sherry vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook sardines for about 4-5 minutes. Remove from pan and place on a plate. Add remaining ingredients to pan and cook for 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the sardines and serve warm or cool.

Note: I do not like sardines and this dish tasted so tangy and un-sardine like that I will definately do it again. The sherry vinegar and herbs really give the fish a huge hit of acid which just sets it apart from run of the mill fish preparations. In fact, after making these tapas, I am a sherry vinegar convert. It's worth buying the big bottle.


Lamb Cutlets with Fig and Tomato Salsa
Serves 6

12 trimmed lamb cutlets
12 cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 sliced garlic cloves
1 sliced onion
3 fresh bay leaves
6 halved ripe figs
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

To make the salsa: Blanch tomatoes briefly in a sauce pan of boiling water and transfer to a bowl of ice water. Peel off skins. Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and saute garlic, onion and bay leaves until softened or about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, figs and sherry vinegar and cook for another 5-7 minutes.

meanwhile, cook lamb cutlets over high heat in a cast iron pan or grill pan to get a nice sear for about 5 -7 minutes for medium rare. Transfer to plates and smother with salsa.

Note: This dish is gorgeous - the summery green of the figs and the eye-popping brilliant tomato reds make this dish impressive to bring to the table. You can also prep all the ingredients before, blanch and peel tomatoes, chop garlic and slice onions, etc and have them all ready to go in your "mis en place" and then, the dish can be whipped up in under ten minutes.


Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes with Tuna, Parsley, Garlic, Capers & Tarragon
Serves 6

12 ripe cherry tomatoes (the very little ones are unruly suckers, go bigger if you can find them)
1 can of tuna, drained
1 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 tbsp tarragon, chopped
2 tbsp capers
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste.

Blanch tomatoes for 5 seconds in a sauce pan of boiling water. Transfer tomatoes to a bowl of ice water. Peel skin off tomatoes carefully.

Slice off tops and carefully hollow out the insides with a small spoon or melon baller. You can easily mash them, so be gentle. Set on a tray.

Mix together tuna, parsley, tarragon, capers, garlic and onion in a bowl. Ad in olive oil, sherry vinegar.Be generous with salt and pepper. Stuff the hollowed out tomatoes with the tuna mixture and serve on plates.

Note: This dish can be completely prepped ahead. Make the tuna mixture and keep in fridge. Prep the tomatoes and stow in fridge. Put the tuna in the tomatoes 15 minutes before dinner. I included this dish because it is one dish you can make ahead and you won't have to fire it before it gets to the table, which will help if you are making various tapas dishes.


This pate-like dish is easy to make and comes straight from my friend at Art of the Pig. I'm a bit queasy about the handling of chicken liver. Or having it near my person. Or in my house. Or my neighborhood. Or that it simply exists. But this guy makes making meat more manageable. (I think that should be the tag line on his blog.)

If you like the chopped liver, you'll like this. At Art of the Pig, they call it, "Liver Flavored Butter". And it is. But I won't be offended if you just buy pate at the store...

Chicken Liver Parfait

2 lbs chicken livers
1 1/2 lb butter
1/4 Cognac
1 tablespoon oil

Soak chicken livers in ice water for two hours.

Place in 5 cup terrine (glass bread pan will do) with oil, Cognac, two pinches of salt and one of pepper.

Marinate for two hours.

Place terrine in a warm water bath in preheated 300 degree F oven. About 40 minutes, livers should be firm but still pink inside. Let cool and drain them.

Puree the livers and whisk in warm, room temperature butter, adjust seasoning. Wash terrine out. Place liver/butter mix back in terrine.

Chill for 24 hours. Serve with toast. Continue Reading...

Tuscan Bean Stew with Sausage

We have the best neighbors in the world and they are always over here which is a real hoot for us.

Someone is always walking in with a big bowl of mash potatoes to compliment my braised veal breast or I throw together a salad after Kian across the hall roasts a chicken. We end up sharing tables together in different combinations of people four sometimes five times a week and we usually congregate here. We’ve found through some trial and error that the kids can run around like loons in our apartment while we adults sip wine and chat and everyone seems to be able to digest their food while the kids (anywhere from two to five kids, ages 1 ½ to 5) are climbing over us and scurrying under the tables, grabbing bites off of forks, screeching like dolphins and doing “animal twists” off the end of the couch into the giant bean bag on the floor.

It’s super casual, but there’s no special grill cheese orders or Annie’s Mac and Cheese coming out of the kitchen. The kids eat what we eat and sit with us for awhile at the table, but we don’t ask them to sit like statues ad nauseum or force them to glaze over while we discuss brioche or Obama.

That said, I suspect that occasionally our neighbors without kids would like to have a meal here that doesn’t include Edie spitting her partially-chewed food out onto the table or Lucy wearing nothing but pink beads and a tiara trying to do a cartwheel just inches from the dinner table. They might long to finish a story, get to the punchline of a joke or have a whole conversation without Lucy interrupting them with her long-winded analysis of why "Sahara the horse" could not be tamed by anyone but Princess Jasmine.

"Um...um...she has a...um...horse...Sahara...and, and, and, and she, um....jumps around and um...she, she, she, she, she...won't go anywhere..and Jasmine...Princess Jasmine washed her hair." This takes several minutes and everyone loses their train of thought.

Then, this story triggers the desire to actually ride a horse, so Lucy and the neighbor children beg David to get down on all fours and carry them around the living room floor pretending to be Sahara, while they mercilessly pile on top of him and lead him around by the neck with the red satin sash from my prom dress (from 1983) and cut off the circulation in his carotid artery. They also get very demanding and say things like "Giddy App, Horsey! Go faster, you old slowpoke!" and kick his sides with their socking feet to make him go faster.

This pretty much halts all dinner table conversation.

And we never host a dinner that doesn't involve fighting. Quite predictably, one kid finds the "pinky umbrella" or some other pink object of great value and the other kids want it and no one seems to care or notice that the purple umbrella is exactly the same umbrella, only a different color, but the color thing is CRUCIAL and no one wants to concede, so whatever we were talking about must stop because somewhere in the house, a child is shrieking as if she were being burned with lit cigarettes and there is screaming, tears and an open call to any parents that might be paying attention.

And so conversation stops again and the parents all look at each other over their food to see which one is due a turn and they'll stop eating and go into the toy room and try to broker a deal. The negotiation that ensues rivals the mid-East peace talks and a temporary (read: 6 minute) peace is brokered, as one kid gets to control the Gaza Strip and the other settles to wait her turn with the less desired purple umbrella. Oh, there's some sulking and the long pitiful faces come out, but then, it’s all forgotten for a few minutes and the kids pile under the bunk bed to pretend they are bats in a cave and maybe that parent can pop back out to the table and finish his dinner before the treaty is discarded, the bats come flying out of the cave and another parent is dispatched.

It’s pretty much always like this, but people keep coming back for more, so obviously we're enjoying it, although I don't remember ever finishing a conversation with anyone in like 3 years. The night before last when the gang was all here, I made this Tuscan Bean Stew with Sausage from Cook’s Illustrated and it’s a keeper.

As a rule, I am always scared to adapt any recipe from Cooks Illustrated because well, these people are super-anal (Hey, Tammy at Food on the Food...You're one of them, aren't you?) and they live in that little test kitchen of theirs like sequestered mice and test and re-test and re-test all those recipes, so who am I to re-jigger what is probably perfect?

But re-jigger I did. The CI folks call for soaked beans, which are ideal, but I was making this dish on the fly and didn’t have time to soak. Really, sometimes I’m cooking from The French Laundry Cookbook and sometimes I’m just lucky not to spill boiling oil down the front of me, so I adapted the recipe for canned beans. So sue me, Christopher Kimball.

I made this dish in about 20 minutes active time and it was bubbly and comforting and addictive. The neighbors devoured it. I suggest making this now before the warmth of spring takes you over and you feel the need to move on to lighter fare. It’s well worth it.

_____________________________________________

Tuscan Bean Stew with Sausage and Cabbage (adapted from Cooks Illustrated for people with minimal time to fritter around with dried beans)

Serves 8

Ingredients

Table salt
2 large tins of good quality cannelini beans
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (plus extra for drizzling)
1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausage
1/2 medium head Savoy cabbage, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 dash of fresh or dried oregano to taste
1 large onion, chopped medium (1 1/2 cups)
2 medium celery ribs, cut ingo 1/2 inch pieces (3/4 cup)
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (1 cup)
8 medium garlic cloves peeled and crushed
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (I didn’t have chicken stock, so I used home-made beef stock from the freezer. Still fantastic.)
3 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes drained and rinsed (optional: see asterisk and note below)

Ground black pepper
8 slices country white bread, each 1 1/4 inches thick, broiled until golden brown on both sides and rubbed with garlic clove (optional)

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut up sausage into bites and cook in olive oil until it nearly loses its raw color, about 8 minutes. Transfer sausage to paper towel-lined plate. Add onion, celery, and carrots to pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened and lightly browned, 10 to 16 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in broth, water, bay leaves and beans. Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Add sausage. Transfer pot to oven, and cook about 30 minutes, until bubbling hot.

2. Remove pot from oven and stir in cabbage*, oregano and tomatoes*.

* I was supposed to add the cabbage, but there were six hungry faces staring at me from the table and I got flustered and forgot it. No one noticed. Or cared. Use it or lose it - either way, it’s still a pretty great recipe.

*Honestly, I omitted the tomatoes because David told me on New Years Eve that he didn’t like beans and tomatoes together, but then while we were eating this dish, he told me that he didn’t remember saying that to me and that he did, in fact, like beans and tomatoes together. Go figure. But this dish is pretty wonderful without the tomatoes. When I do this dish again, I plan to leave out the tomatoes again.

3. Discard bay leaves and season stew with salt and pepper to taste. If desired, use back of spoon to press some beans against side of pot to thicken stew, but most likely you won’t need to. Serve over toasted bread, if desired, and drizzle with olive oil.

xxxooo YM

PS Thanks to the boys at The Bitten Word for allowing me to flat out steal their photo of this stew, which is much nicer than CI's. If you have too much time on your hands and you want to make this recipe with the soaked beans as recommended by CI, you can check out the Feb. 26th post of The
Bitten Word for the complete recipe.

Continue Reading...