Cookbook Corner

Among other hobbies, I collect cookbooks.  Surprise!  From what I've read, lots of people collect cookbooks - they like to collect books from a certain author or a certain region (Southern US) or a style of cooking. I tend to lack that kind of focus, and get whatever looks interesting and organize it as I go along.  International cookbooks were my main passion for awhile.  I do like to cook from them when possible, but sometimes it's just interesting to read them and wonder who first thought that a certain food (rotted shark, sea urchin roe) would be a good thing to eat.  In some cases (rotted shark), I wonder why no one has thought maybe it would be a good thing to stop eating.  (Rotted shark fans, I welcome your responses!  If it's really super-tasty, that would be an interesting thing to know.) 
   For awhile I wanted to get some Canadian and Australian cookbooks to compare with generalized American ones.  Since all three nations began as English colonies but landed in different climates with different resources, I thought it might  be interesting to look at the differences and similarities in the cuisines.  Not now, since everyone is all globalized, but maybe between 1940-1970 or thereabouts.  But years of pestering online cookbook enthusiasts from those two countries did not yield a suggestion for a good cookbook or two to represent their nations.  I have no idea why, but I could not get a straightforward response.  So I gradually let it go, for the most part. 
     Right now, I'm mostly interested in local community cookbooks.  Again, not recent ones, for the most part.  Those are mostly full of things people got off of epicurious.com or out of magazines, and don't really represent any kind of regional cuisine in any meaningful way.  Oh, occasionally you'll get a gator casserole from a Florida book or mooseburgers from Maine, but usually that's one recipe out of 200 or so.  That's a long run for a short slide.  Also, I'm suspicious they are in there for a joke.  No, I like old cookbooks.  And Mr EA and I found a doozy in a recent trip to Value Village (we like junking).

     It is the awesomest, darlingest book I have seen in a good long while.  Originally published in 1959, my version was printed in 1969 and has a few bits that had been added on.   One of the things I love about these books is that they are a window into another time with their chatty introductory notes and household tips.  The recipes themselves are also interesting, even where they aren't really reproducable.  For instance, this tome contains recipes for making pickles out of sea kelp. One starts with instructions for gathering the stuff.  Apparently, the Alaska version of "first catch your rabbit" is "first, get out your rowboat".  Of course there are many, many salmon and seafood recipes.  Almost every mention of vegetables refers to canned vegetables, which jibes with what I have been told life was like by friends that grew up here. As is usually the case with this kind of cookbook, I have some recipes bookmarked to try, but the whole thing was a fascinating read.  I have no idea how available copies of this book are, but if you like this sort of thing too and  have a chance, I strongly urge you to grab one if you see it.  In the meantime, I'm thinking about getting a rowboat - there's kelp to pickle! 

Day 7 - a pretty good finish!

This evening I went to the freezer and found, among other things, a pound of frozen ground lamb and a bag of frozen chopped spinach.  Then I checked the spice rack and auxiliary spice rack and found the appropriate seasonings and created the following dish:

Greek-ish Lamb-Stravaganza

Ingredients:
1 tsp. olive oil
1 lb ground lamb
1 onion, slivered or chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 package frozen chopped spinach (I used a 16 oz bag, but whatever should work)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)
1 Tbsp oregano
1 tsp lemon peel ( I used dried, but fresh would probably be even better)

Proceedure:
Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until starting to soften.  Add the lamb to the pan and break up into small bits, but not too small.  Try not to drool from the delicious scents that will be wafting from your pan about now!  When the lamb is not showing any more pink, add the spinach.  Stir well and add the rest of the ingredients.
Eat with rice and/or pita bread.  If I do say so myself, it tastes pretty awesome!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a week's worth of meals to plan...

Day 6 - Back in the saddle again!

Today we regrouped with stuffed peppers - sort of.  We didn't have some of the things I normally stuff peppers with - corn and limas and hot peppers and Monterey Jack cheese.  However, we did have rice and canned tomatoes, so we just used that.  It got pretty good - I will have to remember this combo when we don't necessarily want the full-blown veggistravaganza I normally make. 
One more day of this, and I can get back to my normal life!

Day 5 - We give up, via the eating out method

We ate out tonight.  Tomorrow night, we pick up some bits and pieces from Fred Meyer's on the way home and try the non-planned cooking thing again. 
In other news, I picked up a couple of new cookbooks tonight in an attempt to master my old nemesis, baking.  I'll let you know how they are in a future report, so that's something to look forward to!

Day 4 - Going downhill quickly

Today started off pretty good - we heated up the rest of the broccoli-salami-swiss egg pie for lunch, and it was even better the next day.  This afternoon I made a couple of loaves of ciabatta using a starter begun last night.  I used the recipe from Epicurious, which originally came from the late, lamented Gourmet.  It got OK - not amazing, but pretty good.  It was just a bit sweeter than I expected it to be.  But it's a good basis for improvement.
     Then for supper, we have parts of a couple of meals, but not everything we needed for any of them.  Today was a lazy pajama day, and we were pretty adamant about not leaving the house for anything short of a fire.  So, we relied on emergency apocalypse supplies - Spam and Kraft macaroni and cheese.  I am feeling considerable shame as I type these words, but there you have it.  That's what we ate.  I did dress up the mac 'n' cheese with dried leek flakes and smoked paprika, but that was mostly to make myself feel better.  Don't get me wrong, we eat mac 'n' cheese every couple of weeks, but I usually make it from scratch (though not to the point of making my own noodles - that's a bit far for me).  After mac 'n' cheese with real actual cheese, Kraft doesn't taste great.  But it gets the job done, so there you have it. I make no apologies about the Spam - it tastes as good as any other processed ham and Mr EA loves it. 
   So tomorrow we'll be out of the house for work, and able to pick up the bits and pieces we need for the other meals we have most of, so that will be a relief. 

Day 3 - Egg-pie day

So back to our regularly scheduled story!
     Tonight I made an egg pie (or refrigerator pie, or quiche) out of the leftover broccoli from last night.  I had a frozen pie crust, so that saved some stress.  I am hit or miss on homemade pie crust, so I avoid it when I can.  But what to put in with the broccoli?  By itself it's a little dull.  We had 3 slices of hard salami left - they got diced up and thrown in the mix.  The bag of shredded cheese I though we had was nowhere to be found, so I diced up 4 slices of swiss cheese we had for lunches.  Now for the binder - we do have eggs for which we have no other plans, so that was a go.  However - cream?  Not so much.  Well, we had 2% milk, which isn't an exact substitute, but close enough is good enough - more or less.  In the oven it went, and emerged somewhat moister than I think it should have, but still done well enough.  It tasted pretty good, and we have a good bit left over for lunch tomorrow.  So that's another meal done.  Yay!

F Street Station

I take a break from our regularly scheduled column about our planless week to write about our visit to F street station today for lunch.  We were downtown running some errands, and having a tough time figuring out where to eat - so many good places we wanted to get back to, so many new places to try!  We have heard good things about F Street Station for some time now, so after some discussion we decided to check it out.
     In decor terms, F Street actually is what places like Red Robin try to be - a funky, interesting-junk-encrusted, neighborhood joint.  It is a very comfortable place with a relaxed atmosphere. The lunch menu, at least, is somewhat limited - burger, fish and chicken sandwiches, and a reasonable selection of seafood entrees. What is on the menu, though, sounds pretty good, so we were a while deciding.  Mr EA chose a halibut sandwich, and I got onion soup and a side of homefries (which turned out to be french fries).  Mr EA immediately fell in love with his sandwich - the fish is perfectly cooked - moist and tasty, and the batter is light and a bit spicy but not overwhelmingly so.  Mr EA said it is one of the best fish sandwiches he ever ate.  He reports that the roll was also very tasty, and he appreciated that the fixings came on the side so he could dress the sandwich himself.  On the side were tomato, onion and pickle slices, and a little cup of tartar sauce.  My onion soup was delicious - the cheese was nicely browned and the soup itself was richly beef with lots of good tender onion.  It came with some bread that I was too full from the soup and fries to eat.  The fries were medium-thin cut with the skin still on, fried to a good crisp brown.  In my lifetime pantheon of best fries ever, they are now second to White Spot fries.  I would guess that they are fresh cooked, but I can't swear to that.  We dipped them into the tartar sauce left in Mr EA's cup, and that made them even better.  All in all, an excellent lunch at an interesting place.  If you already haven't, check out F Street Station - you'll be glad you did!

PS - a little later in our downtown trip, we stopped by the Cake Studio, where Mr EA had a key lime pyramid and I had a cherry-champagne dessert - they were both delicious :)  So far, 3 out of 3 stops there have been successes.  Check them out for sophisticated treats when you are downtown!