Whole Roasted Trout with Fennel, Lemon, and Potato

This one is a bit spendy compared to most of our dinners. Of course, if we caught the fish ourselves it would be super frugal. But it is most definitely low-maintenance and tasty.

This is all I did:
1.rubbed the fish inside and out with olive oil and salt
2.stuffed them with lemon slices and fennel fronds
3.surrounded them with quartered, salted, and oiled yukon gold potatoes
4. put it all in the oven at 400 degrees for 30-40min

Classic and satisfying. What's not to love, right? I really had no idea what I was doing. And I put a baby down for a nap in the middle of cooking and kind of forgot about the whole thing. But, when I took it out of the oven I was pleasantly surprised that the potatoes were crispy and golden (as were the lemon and fennel fronds on the top, yeah!) and the fish was not overcooked. This is a sure thing for a busy family.

Onion tart with cambozola and olive oil crust

I discovered a great recipe for crust made with olive oil. It's originally intended to make empanadas gallegas, but here I kneaded in a bit of rosemary from the garden and used it for a caramelized onion galette.

Olive oil crust:
2C white flour
1/4C water
1/4C Olive oil
1 egg, beaten
1/4t salt

Instructions: Mix dry ingredients. Mix in wet ingredients. Roll thin, shape and bake. Brush beaten egg over the top before baking to give it a nice shine.

Onion and cambozola tart w/rosemary crust:
1 Olive oil crust with 1-2 table spoons chopped fresh rosemary kneaded in
3-6 onions, halved, then sliced vertically (3 big ones, 6 small ones)
3-4 oz. Cambozola cheese
1 T Brown sugar
2  T balsamic vinegar
2 T Olive Oil
Left over egg wash from olive oil crust (or 1 new egg, beaten)
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan or dutch oven over med heat.
2. Add onions and cook until wilting and starting to brown.
3. Add sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper and reduce heat to low. Cook until well caramelized (about 30 min)
4. Roll out olive oil crust in a large irregular circle.
5. Spread onions in a level layer, leaving a crust border of 2-3 inches. Dot with Cambozola cheese.
6. Fold edges of crust over to make a smaller circle. The galette shape in the photo happens naturally.
7. Brush with egg wash.
8. Bake in a 400 deg. oven for 30-35 min.

Crusty Wheat Bread

Much like my last post, this is not really dinner. This time I'm not even going to try to make a title that sounds like a complete meal. But it can facilitate a lot of dinners (split pea and ham hock soup with homemade bread, anyone? Come on). Plus, it's made using a dutch oven, so it totally goes with this blog's theme.

If you are like me, making bread sounds intimidating, time-consuming, labor intensive, or all of the above. This method is none of those things.

My goal was to make the kind of bread that costs $6 at the store and is stale by day 2. The kind of bread that requires a good jaw. The type that has 4 ingredients, one of which is water. What I call real bread. This is the recipe that got me there.

Read this. Then do exactly as instructed the next time you're going to be home for 3 hours. That includes only about 2 minutes of actual labor, though!. No kneading required. Are you ever home for 3 hours in a row? Do you have 2 minutes to spare? Do you have a bowl, a wooden spoon, and hands? Of course. Just do it. I won't accept any excuses.

If I've changed your life yet again, well, I don't know what to say. I guess you owe me something big.

Chili and cornbread

Have you ever made cornbread that was so good it made you want to cry? If not, I'm guessing the reason is that you have never soaked the cornmeal beforehand in buttermilk, soured milk, or yogurt. By the way, this post is simply an excuse to gush about this cornbread. Forget the chili. It is just a vehicle- it is what I needed for this cornbread to qualify as "dinner".

This is how I make chili, though. I soak pinto beans, black beans, red beans, and white beans for at least a day. Then, a couple of hours before dinner, I saute an onion and ground beef. Add lots of chili powder, a large can of tomato product and sometimes a little water. Then, add the beans and simmer until the beans are tender. Ok. On to the important part.

When you put the beans in water to soak, start the cornmeal soaking as well. That's 2 cups cornmeal and 2 cups cultured milk. If you can find buttermilk that is not ultrapasteurized, great. If not, experiment. Once I used 2 cups milk with 2 tablespoons of live vinegar. But, my favorite was when, in a pinch, I used 1 cup milk and 1 cup yogurt. It was so moist.

The next day, when you have started the chili simmering, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, butter your pan, and add the rest of the cornbread ingredients:

1tsp baking soda
1tsp salt (I use 2tsp of kosher salt)
1/4 cup oil
1 Tbsp sugar (I usually go with 2)
2 eggs, beaten

Check on it in about 25 minutes. Let it rest until the chili is ready. You can thank me later for changing your life.

Sausage, sauerkraut, and potatoes

So. I made sauerkraut. And can I humbly say it is awesome? No? Well, it's not me, it's nature. I owe all the credit to nature. You should run out and buy a cabbage and then brag to your friends about nature, too.

All I did was chop up a cabbage, sprinkle it with salt, smoosh it into a glass jar until the liquid (that is leeched out of the cabbage by the salt) rises above the cabbage, put a weight on the cabbage to keep it submerged, cover with a towel, set it, and  forget it. I tasted it after 2 weeks and it was really salty and I was worried it would never be awesome. But, at 3 weeks magic had occurred and I almost couldn't stop eating it long enough to prepare the other elements of the dinner. I have never felt so German.

Serve with roasted potatoes, a good sausage, and some mustard. Possibly a frothy beer. But, I know who the scene-stealer will be.