Chag Sameach

I know that it's Holy Week, and at the risk of sounding irreverent, I've found God in a macaroon.  As you well know, I'm not a baker, but recently I've discovered the perfect macaroon.  It's just  shredded coconut, condensed milk, and some flavorings.  Less is oh-so-much more.  It's the perfect cookie--a little crunch on the outside and soft sweetness further in.  I find myself breaking off small pieces to slowly chew and savor every coconut-laced morsel.  It's macaroon turned into a religious experience, but not as it turns out--my religion.

As I was sharing my recent discovery with a group a work colleagues, one young woman chimed in that she had to have the recipe because it's the perfect cookie for passover.   Passover?  As I tried to persuade her that this was the perfect cookie for anything, she gently reminded me that passover meals exclude any sort of of leavened product.  (Precisely, no  doubt, why we Catholics inherited that flat little flavorless disk that is a Communion wafer).   But for the Twelve Tribes, a dessert that's nothing but coconut and condensed milk is exactly what Yahweh had in mind.  So here I am a lapsed Catholic offering up the perfect passover dessert.  Chag Sameach.  Happy Passover.  God so works in mysterious ways.

Passover Macaroons


1.  Mix together the following:  4 cups shredded sweetened coconut flakes, one cup condensed milk, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp almond extract and 1/4 tsp salt.

2.  Drop about a teaspoon-size mound onto a well-greased cookie sheet.  It's a little sticky here, but then most religion is. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees until lightly browned--about 9-12 minutes.  Cool and serve.

3.  That's it.  I told you this was easy.  Thanks be to God.

Cafe Renaissance

There are a few things that happen when you start working a lot of hours at the office.  At first it sort of exciting to roll up your sleeves and tackle the project.  It's new work. Interesting work.  Challenging work.  And then the reality hits that it's- well, work.  And  every hour at the office is one less hour to do the laundry, help with homework, and cook.  And when there's no cooking, the time and material for a cooking blog gets really thin--unless, of course, your husband decides to make the one thing he makes better than anyone I know:  Reservations.








Ah.  The pleasure of having someone else cook for you, and then have it all served up to you with fresh roses on white linens in a candlelit space--proceeded by a salmon-colored cosmo.  Hard work has its benefits.  Most people who like food have a favorite eatery.  We foodies may branch out or do take-out, but ultimately we have a spot where we prefer to dine out.   Ours is a restaurant in Vienna, Virginia called Cafe Renaissance.  

It's a bit bizarre to find such a treasure positioned at the end of a strip mall, right down the sidewalk from a dry cleaner and a barber, but once you walk through the double doors you're transported to an entirely different dimension.  The walls are donned with faux-impressionist paintings, the flowers are fresh, and a sure sign that I'm getting older:  it's quiet.  The owner is Iranian, our favorite waiter Jordanian, and the chef is from Turkey, but the food is pure French--and some of the best on this side of the Potomac.  Bring an appetite, your wallet, and good friends.   Even though it isn't cheap, this is a culinary experience that you'll want to share.  But make a reservation, especially on weekends.  This place is busy.   Just like me these days.  Sigh.

A different kind of cheesecake

It's no secret that I'm a cheese gal--even for dessert.  Although a deep rich dark chocolate anything is up there, in the end, I'll choose a triple cream brie every time.  There's something sexy about licking it off my finger--even as I engage in total disbelief and pretend that it won't end up on my thighs.  So recently when I offered to bring something to a fundraising champagne and dessert gala, I immediately opted for a brie cake.   You've seen it before.  It's behind the glass case in the cheese shop at Wegman's or Whole Foods.  It's outrageously expensive--more outrageous when you realize how utterly easy and cheap it is to make yourself.  Indeed, the fact that these grocers persist in such abject thievery wholly exonerates that I've copied it whole cloth and am posting the results here.

Brie "Cake"

1.  Go buy a small wheel of a good rich and creamy brie.

2.  In a small bowl mix together the following:  1/2 cup apricot preserves, 2 Tbsp. golden raisins, 2 Tbsp. dark raisins, 2 Tbsp. craisins, 2 Tbsp. chopped dried apricots, and 2 Tbsp. of chopped walnuts or pecans.  You will have a gloopy concoction.  If it's too gloopy, add more dried fruits and/or nuts.  If it's too dry, add more preserves.  You can be creative with this step.  I have substituted caramel sauce, maple syrup and  raspberry preserves for the apricot preserves, but in the end, I think that the apricot preserves are best.  Your choice.  It's a free country.

3.  Slice the rind off the top of the brie.

4.  Slice the brie wheel in half, horizontally, to obtain two layers of your "cake".

5.  Spread about half the mixture on top of one of the layers, and top it off with the other layer.

6.  Pile the remaining mixture on the top layer.  The mixture should be thick enough that you can pile it into an attractive rounded pyramid.

7.  Garnish with walnut or pecan halves or dried apricot halves.  Serve it with crackers, french bread, or my favorite:  just slice it into wedges and serve it like the cheesecake that it is.

P.S.  The beauty of this dish is that any leftovers can be cut up, rolled up into raw puff pastry and baked for another entirely different and decadent dessert or appetizer.  

The Great American Melting Pot

My children spent their formative years in the home of a lovely Afghani woman.   No, scratch that--she's an American.   They grew up on rice laced with carrots and raisins, and she could stew an eggplant until it tasted like candy.  If I could only repeat that feat, my children might actually eat vegetables.  But besides feeding my children, she did the only thing that really mattered to me as a working mother:  she loved my children.

My hairdresser, who depending on the day, I might actually love more than my children, is Iranian- or was, I should say.  He's an American now too.  He is living in suburbia with his wife and two kids, and he's an absolute artist when it comes to hair color.  No one knows when my roots show because he has managed to match his dyes to my natural hair color.  At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, if there was a Nobel prize for hair color (and why isn't there?) this man would be standing on the Stockholm stage every year.

Queso-blanco; diced small

Another "new" American is a friend of mine, who like my grandfather, came to this country when he was 17 and taught himself English.  Unlike my grandfather,  this guy makes a mean macaroni and cheese.   It  uses-of all things-queso blanco, a cheese from Latin American that I didn't even know existed until he told me about it.  It must be good because they sell it at Costco in a two pack.   It's a subtle and mild cheese, and for those who grew up on the macho of cheddar for their mac-n-cheese, you may find it too mild.   Nonetheless, this version of mac-n-cheese is remarkably simple--you take this Mexican cheese, cut in up into small pieces, melt it over pasta with a little milk and butter, salt and pepper, add some parsley,  and voila!.  It's the perfect metaphor for what should be our immigration policy:  something simple that let's good people come to this country to share their best gifts and talents.

Macaroni-n-Queso-blanco

1.   Cook one pound of your favorite macaroni, al dente.


2.  Add 1 cup finely dice queso-blanco and heat over low heat, with a tablespoon of butter until the cheese begins to melt.  Stir constantly.  A word of warning here, queso-blanco doesn't melt into a nice creamy roux; even with the coaxing of some butter, it's a cheese that stubbornly keeps its shape.  By the end a lot of the cheese had glommed onto my stirring spoon, and I had to keep scraping it off.  Eventually, I managed to get the cheese fairly evenly distributed, but if look elsewhere if you want an alfredo-like sauce.

3.  Add fresh chopped parsley--about 1/3 of a cup, a generous dose of pepper, and salt.

The Final Product

4.  Voila: a macaroni-n-cheese that doubles as pasta salad.

Bee in my bonnet about buns in the oven

Let's face it. All of the baking in the world is done by women.  It's not our fault; sometimes biology is destiny.  Now men have an integral role in getting the bun in the oven, but while it's baking, they're pretty much AWOL--doing things that men do, like trying to win the Republican nomination for president.  Now don't get me wrong, I have an imminent respect for the miracle of baking.  It's a beautiful thing--a mystery really, how the union of flour and yeast can culminate in a perfectly brown bun.  And I fully respect that for some people this union of flour and yeast is a sacred thing.  Having done my fair share of baking, I actually count myself among them.

There are times, however, when things go wrong in the kitchen. The recipe was wrong or the dough didn't rise. Sometimes it's not the right time for baking.  Sometimes the oven is broken and it's too dangerous to wait for the buns to be finished before you fix it.  Sometimes there are enough buns in the pantry already.  Who knows?  Just don't forget whose oven it is and who is doing the baking.  The baker is the best person to figure out what to do.  Scratch that.  She's the only person who can figure out what to do because its her buns and its her oven.  So to the politicians and clergymen and whoever else is trying to control, regulate or otherwise take the baking away from the baker, your ideas and your laws are half-baked.  Please.  Do us all a favor and stay out of the kitchen.    

Happy Anniversary

The one year anniversary of my blog was this month.  It sort of got away from me, and I find myself surprised that's it's been a whole year.  Just like each of my kids' birthdays, my wedding anniversary, and well--ok, my age, I find myself perplexed by the passage of time.  Really--how in the hell does it happen?

But it's been fun, and when I started, I questioned whether I'd be able to keep it going.  I worried whether I could find enough material to scratch out an essay every week about life through the lens of food, or perhaps it's food through the lens of life?  Whatever.  I'm still here.  Along the way I've reconnected with old friends and made some new ones--much how I've reconnected with old recipes and tried some that I never would have otherwise.  A year ago when I googled "minivan cook", I came up with stories of minivan murders in Cook County and how to cook crystal meth in a minivan.  Now the same search pulls up this blog.  Say what you will, but I'll take that as an accomplishment.  Many thanks to those of you who follow me, encourage me, or feed me ideas.  We're a small little cadre, but look at this way, we're keeping crystal meth off the internet.   Happy Anniversary, Minivan Cook!

Anniversary Cake

Yeah right.  If you've been following this blog, you know that I don't bake.
Best I'll do is open a box of mix and add water, eggs, and oil.  Better yet--maybe I'll go buy one.  They're big and cheap at Costco.

Garlic: Stat

So if you read last week's post, there's no surprise about this week's: chicken thighs in garlic and lemon.  To the extent that not having garlic in the house was a crisis, obtaining some became an emergency.  A house without garlic is simply not a home--or at least any kind of home I'd want to live in.   It's like culinary feng shui--without garlic, there is an emptiness in the kitchen that generates negative energy.  Suffice it to say we were without garlic for less than two hours--long enough so that I could not make the recipe that I wanted to, but short enough that our house was still invulnerable to  neighborhood vampires. Now that the garlic stores have been replenished, equilibrium has been restored, evil spirits are at bay, and all is right in my world.

Garlic Chicken  

1.  8-12 chicken thighs on bone or 6 leg quarters cut up, skinned.  You are going for the dark meat here.  Set aside.


2.  3-4 potatoes peeled and sliced into 1/4" thick pieces.  Layer a large Pyrex roasting pan with the potatoes.

3.  Crush a whole bulb of garlic in a large bowl.  Put a note on the kitchen bulletin board to buy more garlic, because it really is a problem when you run out.  

4.  Add about 1/4 cup olive oil to the garlic and the juice of two lemons.  Add salt and pepper.  Mix well.

5.  Add the chicken thighs and coat them well with the garlic mixture.  Place over the potatoes.

6.  Bake on 350 degrees for about one and a half hours.  Check to make sure the internal temperature of the chicken registers at about 180 degrees.  Remove the chicken from the pan.  Stir the potatoes with the pan juices, and broil for about 3-5 minutes to get the potatoes a little crispy and brown. 

Before

After

7.  Take the garlic pact:  if you eat this dish, anyone you intend to kiss has to have eaten it too.