5 Reasons Palouse Folk are Awesome

I haven't posted in a little while, and it's not just because I'm not cooking. I'm kind of lulling in creation of any kind. 

Sometimes it's just hard living a place that you know you'll never feel at home. It's a bummer thinking about how I've partly adjusted here and how I won't be able to just jump back in when I do get home to NYC. 

I had a phone conversation recently with a start-up manager that brainstormed as she spoke. I couldn't keep up with the flow of conversation and could sense her frustration with me. I realized then that I was losing skills while semi-adapting to this slow Palouse lifestyle I never wanted a adapt to. All in all, I'm turning into Elf: I don't fit in in the city and I don't belong in the North Pole!

So in an effort to stop moping around and to focus on the positive, here's a list of five qualities that Palouse people possess that New Yorkers (and New Englanders) will probably never adapt:

1. They are courteous drivers -- It's true! If they see a car coming, they will never pull out in front of them. In fact, they will probably wait much too long to pull out onto a main road because there is usually a car coming at SOME distance. I can't decide if they are just bad judges of time and space, but let's go with super courteous, shall we?
2. They are polite phone people -- When I answer the phone at work, the person on the other line addresses me BY NAME! And this line of work involves answering the phone to people who are not always in the best mindset. But you know what? They greet me by name. Almost every single last one of them. Even the kids. 
3. They are community-focused -- It would be strange if they weren't. I don't even know that many people and can't go to the grocery store, out to dinner, out shopping, nothing, without running into people. I can't stand it because I'm usually telling a story that I don't want that person to hear. Or I am wearing the same thing I wore yesterday and now someone knows it. People who live here thrive on seeing others out and about. I think it gives them a notion of safety when you're living in a town surrounded for miles on all sides by wheat fields. 
4. They want what's best for the kids -- I've noticed that a lot of kids out here are special needs. I think the schools here are really good and have special areas of focus for special needs. I met a special needs teacher at a party once and could tell how much she truly cared for her kiddos. The parents need a strong support group, and they find one simply embedded in this community. It's very different from hipsters who have kids and focus too much energy and buying that perfect jaunty hat for their little wiggle worm at approximately 250% markup.
5. They are troopers -- They need to go to Seattle for the weekend? No big deal; 5.5 hours in the car is nothing. It's starting to snow? No biggie, they got their snow tires on weeks ago. Their kid has a game after school 2 hours away? They'll just pick up a pre-made dinner at the grocery store and hit the road. Often times I wonder "Why? Why put yourselves through all this?" But to them, leaving has never been an option. I have never met anyone who lives here (that isn't a student) that does not have an exit plan. They love it here.

I just wish I loved it here, too.

But for now, I'm going to try and learn from them. Accept what I like. Take it with me. And who knows, maybe New Yorkers will start greeting callers by name and hesitating before cutting people off. I think I'd enjoy a nice taxi ride where I'm not fumbling for the seatbelt halfway through the fare.

Taco Sundays

Warm tortilla. Slow simmered meat. Sharp cheddar or tangy queso fresco. What's not to love about a taco?

Back in Brooklyn there were so many taco shops and food trucks to hit that very specific craving. My personal favorite was the Endless Summer truck that was parked out on Bedford Ave. What a sad day when I learned that summer is, in fact, a mere mortal season. I miss the intention of bringing home a few pork tacos but eating them along the way back to Greenpoint instead. 

Needless to say there is no taco truck here in Pullman. They say Mexican is fantastic out on the west coast, but I guess we are too inland to benefit from that. Lucky for me, they're easy to make. 

I'm sort of obsessed with America's Test Kitchen's 6 Ingredient Recipes magazine I grabbed off the racks recently. So many great and easy dinners that balance flavors intricately for a handful of ingredients. They have two pretty amazing recipes that rival those Brooklyn street taco favorites: one steak and one pork, like I used to get when I ordered a la carte. I adapted them a little to fit my tastes. Enjoy!

Spicy Chipotle Steak Tacos

I have to admit I'm super impressed with how good these incredibly simple-sounding tacos came out. It's all in that chile-in-adobo-sauce stuff. You use it as a marinade and that's it! Deeply flavored steak from a 1-ingredient marinade. Color me impressed.  

Ingredients:

1 can chipotle chile in adobo sauce

1 (1 lb) flank steak

1 red onion

Guacamole (avocados, cilantro, red onion, lime juice, salt)

Tortillas

Instructions:

Blend chiles with salt and pepper in a food processor. Put in a plastic bag with steak and marinade for about a half hour. 

Meanwhile, make a guacamole (I like 4 avocados + handful of cilantro + good splash of lime juice + about 1/4 a red onion).

Broil steak on an aluminum foil-lined pan, about 10 minutes each side. The recipe says to broil the onions with the steak, but I found that mine got too crispy that way. I would sweat them on the stovetop instead. 

Let the steak rest before slicing against the grain. Fill warmed tortillas with steak, top with onions and guacamole. 

Spicy Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

The awesome cheat with this one is kind of like the canned chipotles, only it's two canned ingredients -- pineapple and diced tomato with chiles. Granted, the recipe calls for fresh pineapple, but I went the easy route. I also found a way to use the food processor twice to quicken the prep time. And they thought I would just do all that chopping willingly. Ha!

Ingredients: 

1 can pineapple chunks

1/2 small red onion, divided

Fresh cilantro

1 10-oz can Ro-tel Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies

1lb ground pork

Tortillas

Instructions:

Drain juice out of pineapple and pour about half into the food processor with 1/4 onion and about 5 stems of cilantro. Add salt and pepper to taste. Put salsa aside.

Pour tomatoes with their juice and the rest of the pineapple into the food processor and blend until smooth. Cook pork with the remaining 1/4 onion until no longer pink. Stir in tomato mixture and simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

While pork simmers, make the guac. You can't have this without guacamole.

Scoop pork into taco shells and top with pineapple salsa and guac. You can add cheese if you like, but I think the sweet-spicy pineapple flavors work better without. 



Also I like to use Fritos scoops for taking care of the rest of that guacamole before it gets brown and unusable and who likes to waste food, right?*


*I am clearly no longer on my wedding diet

Kale & Tomato Baked Eggs

A few nights ago there was a knock at my door. It was my neighbor, of course, with a bag of fresh kale for me, naturally. "Had to harvest it all before the frost tomorrow," she says. 

And it was a good thing, too, because Veteran's Day I woke up and could sense that chill outside. I checked my phone: it was under 20 degrees! I lounged in bed for a few minutes before my breakfast plans roused me: kale, sauteed in butter, simmered in tomato sauce, baked with eggs. 

I've never actually baked my own eggs, but I loved getting those individual cast iron pots of warmth on chilly Saturday mornings in New York. Five Points on Great Jones Street, the old Paloma in Greenpoint (before it was Paulie Gees and who knows if that's even still there), Juliette in Williamsburg. This was basically the reason I registered for these little cast iron beauties for our wedding, and I hadn't even used it for this purpose yet!

I checked a few recipes before I just invented my own and flew with it. Honestly though, I bet you can use whatever veggies and sauces you want. Maybe a garlic cream next time for me. Enjoy!

Cast Iron Kale & Tomato Baked Eggs

Ingredients:

1 Handful of Kale

1 TBS butter

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 can tomato sauce

Salt & pepper to taste

3 eggs

Parmesan

Mozzarella

Parsley

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. Put a small cast iron pan over medium heat. Sautee kale in butter. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add tomato sauce, salt and pepper and cook until warm and bubbling. Crack eggs into a cup one at a time, and slip into divets made in the sauce. Sprinkle with fresh mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Bake for about 15 minutes. Top with parsley and serve. 

Sunday Supper: Crockpot Lamb & Roasted Potatoes

This past weekend I had a hell of a time spinning my wheels. I felt like everything I tried to get accomplished just wouldn't give. At one point I found myself in Lewiston, 40 minutes away, arguing (and losing) with the Subaru car dealership people and then trying to seek solace in Costco, before I realized I didn't even have the AmEx! The only credit card they take! But at least they take debit cards.

So clearly I had to take advantage and get something I can't get at Safeway or any other little grocery in Pullman. Which I guess is pretty much anything. I mean I have a pretty hilarious list of foods employees at Safeway have never heard of (chia seeds, hazelnuts, prosciutto!). But I wasn't here to make a meat & cheese board. I needed something hearty, for the slow cooker.

I found a leg of lamb and did a quick Google search to see if I could crockpot it. Dinner with Julie said I could. So I decided to do the whole lamb and potatoes her way. Only I made a few modifications, as I tend to do these days. I amped up the lemon, garlic and rosemary and cut the lamb in half, because it was still plenty. Then Rob whipped up a gravy with the drippings. The potatoes I kept exactly as was written. I was a little skeptical of adding liquid at 15 minute intervals, but they came out well-roasted, if not a little under-salted, which always surprises me considering how many turns of Himalayan pink sea salt I cracked onto it. Easy fix at least. 

In the end, everything came out great! Which is fortunate, because we had company.

It was nice to have something go my way.

Slow-cooked Leg of Lamb with Garlic, Lemon & Rosemary

1/2 boneless leg of lamb (cut down the middle so the remaining pieces are relatively square)

1 lemon
5 garlic cloves
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. coarse salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup red wine

On a chopping board, pat your lamb dry with paper towels. Grate the zest off the lemon and grind into a paste with the garlic, rosemary, oil, salt and pepper using a mortar and pestle or food processor. Rub the paste all over the lamb. If you like, let it sit on the countertop for half an hour or so, or refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

Put it into the CrockPot. Add water and wine. Squeeze the juice of the lemon on top. Cover and cook on low for about 5 hours.

Lamb Gravy

There will be all sorts of delicious liquids in your crockpot when the lamb is done. While it's sitting out to rest, put the liquids into a saucepan and add a little sage, salt, pepper, a splash of wine and enough flour to thicken, stirring constantly. 

Lemon Potatoes with Garlic and Oregano

3 lbs. Yukon gold or baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup olive or canola oil
4 garlic cloves, crushed or thinly sliced
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano, crumbled
1 tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup beef or chicken stock
1/3 cup lemon juice
chopped fresh oregano (optional)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Spread the potatoes in a single layer in a 9″ x 13″ baking dish and pour the oil over them. Add the garlic, dried oregano, salt and pepper to taste and toss well to coat with the oil.

Roast the potatoes for 15 minutes. Add the stock, toss and bake for 10 minutes more. Add the lemon juice, toss and bake for 10 to 15 minutes more, or until the potatoes are golden and cooked through. If you like, sprinkle with fresh oregano.

Churning out that Apple Butter

I'm thinking I might do a string of posts about apples. Because I still have that bushel of apples from my friends' yard and I'm running out of things to do with it! 

But I do have to hand it to myself for finding new ways to use them up. Life gave me apples and so I made... apple butter.

The plum butter was good and all, but this apple butter tops it. By a lot. I slow cooked the apples in cinnamon and spices for 24 hours and the next thing I know I'm spreading liquid apple pie on my toast. Cracker Barrel ain't got nothin' on me!

I adapted this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:

6½ pounds apples, peeled, cored and sliced (I used as much as would fill up 3/4 of the crockpot)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup honey
1 cinnamon stick
A dash of nutmeg, salt and allspice
A splash of vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place apples in slow cooker. Mix in sugar, honey and spices. Cook on low for 23 hours.

2. Stir in vanilla extract, breaking up any large chunks of apples that remain. Uncover and cook for an another hour to thicken.

3. Use an immersion blender to puree the apple butter until completely smooth. 

4. After sterilizing Mason jars in boiling water, spoon mixture to the top of each jar. Boil jars with apple butter inside for 10 minutes. Make cute labels because you feel like it. Give them out to your friends to buy their love and affection.

Aunt Ruth's Apple Cake

I have a confession to make. While this apple cake recipe originates from someone who is technically in my family, she is not actually my aunt. In fact, I've never even met her. Ruth was my cousins' great-aunt. At least, I think she was. Maybe she was their regular aunt. All I know is that everyone always gushed about Ruth, including my own grandparents, who apparently loved Ruth more than they cared for their own daughter-in-law. Ah, families by marriage.

Anyway, it well well-known in my family that this Ruth person had a knack for cooking in the kitchen. So when I saw on Facebook recently that a friend of my cousin's posted Ruth's apple cake recipe (with permission from my cousin, of course), I'd barely scanned the ingredients before I was off the grocery store to make this thing happen before the recipe disappeared or something. Ruth's apple cake! I wasn't even quite sure what apple cake was, but I was ready to make it appear.

I had the typical meditative joy I get from baking a long-favored family recipe. Ahh, the apple chopping, the egg beating, the flour sifting. But then. Then I stuck the thing in the oven and within a few minutes, the kitchen smelled eerily amazing, like I was being visited by the ghost of October pastries. I felt as though I should be someone's grandmother, baking up this delicious, old-fashioned thing. And that this baking apple scent right here? This should really be someone's first memory. I wished my godbaby was not 3,000 miles away because I feel like this apple scented air wafting from the oven could really bring her into consciousness.

The second mind-blowing thing about this recipe is the glazed topping. Butter, brown sugar and evaporated milk. That's it. HOW did I never know that these three simple ingredients blend together to create this thick, syrupy caramel of the gods in about two minutes flat? How can I live with this knowledge now? I want to put this stuff on everything. Pancakes, cookies, bananas, apples, gummy bears, EVERYTHING. But yeah, it works pretty well on top of the cake too, because you punch holes in the top layer and let it melt on down into the moist interior of the fluffy cake.

And so, because I'm sure I didn't talk it up too much, here it is. Aunt Ruth's apple cake. 

Aunt Ruth's Apple Cake

Ingredients
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups cooking oil
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon 
1 c. pecans, chopped
3 cups apples peeled and chopped

Topping
1 c. lt brown sugar
1 stick butter
1/4 c. evap. milk. 

Directions
Grease a 9x13x2 pan. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Beat the eggs. Add the oil, sugar, and vanilla. Sift together the dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture. Fold in apples and nuts. Batter will be stiff. Pour in prepared pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. 

To create the topping, combine ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and beat with a spoon until thick. Poke holes in cake with a toothpick and pour the topping mixture on the care in the pan while cake is still hot.

Pumpkin Chocolate Eclair

When I was a kid, I remember my parents having two go-to recipes for bringing dessert to a friend's house: Lemon Delight and Chocolate Eclair. Both were no bake, no fuss, easy to assemble. Mom and Dad usually preferred the lemon stuff because they made it in that glass trifle dish that added to its 70s appeal, but I would usually beg for the eclair, and they would usually give in. Also I loved it so much they would make two of them so I wouldn't be tempted to eat it all at the guest's house. You know, manners and all that.

Anyway, fast forward to an invitation to a dumpling party a few weeks ago and I was like: a-ha! I know what I can bring. Chocolate eclair! So I hunted down my Dad for the recipe and, at 31, I finally made it myself to bring to a friend's house. Only I forgot to make a second one to stash at home and dang! No leftovers. I was hungry for more.

Fast forward another weekend or two and I'm invited to a Harvest Party by my friend with the chickens and the apples and all that (of course). I was skeptical that they would put us to work harvesting their crops. But in reality the harvest party involved lots of chili and spiced cider and a fire and a couple pinatas. 

Aaanyway, to add to the October feel of this whole party, I decided I wanted to amp up the chocolate eclair and make it... with pumpkin. Because surely no one in the history of October has ever done such a thing. (A quick Google search proved me wrong, but you know what? No one out there has THIS recipe).

And so it is with pumpkin-spiced relish that I will share this recipe, one that is 95% my childhood and 5% my own heartfelt contribution of autumn (Read: pumpkin pie in a can)*.

Pumpkin Chocolate Eclair

Ingredients
1 package graham crackers
2 small packages instant vanilla pudding
1 8oz package of Cool Whip
15 ounces pumpkin pie mix


Frosting
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 teaspoons agave nectar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
3 tablespoons milk

Directions
Make pudding according to package directions, but leave out 1/2 cup milk. Fold in Cool Whip and pumpkin pie mix.

Line a 9x13 pan with graham crackers. Pour half the mix on top. Add another layer of graham crackers, the rest of the pudding, and the top with a final layer of graham crackers.

To make the frosting, prepare a double boiler by placing a mixing bowl over a pot with a small amount of boiling water. Melt the butter and chocolate. Then add the rest of the ingredients and beat until smooth. Spread on top.

Refrigerate at least 24 hours to let all the flavors marry and the graham cracker to get nice and mushy. I'm not kidding! 24 hours at least.

Cut into squares and serve.

Don't forget to make a second one to hoard at your house and delve into when no one is looking.



*I also replaced white karo syrup with agave nectar because, what the heck is karo. Also the original recipe uses a microwave for the chocolate but I'm a sucker for the double boiler method.