Lazy Woman's "Fried" Rice

A couple of weeks ago, Friday happy hour couldn't have come any sooner. There had been such a mix of events and emotions throughout the week. In seven days, we threw a surprise baby shower, went to a Buddhist funeral, drove twice through the hell that is evening rush hour on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, attended two lovely July 4th cookouts, and contended with expensive car trouble that warrants the search for a brand new car and the battling of salesmen. Like I said, Friday happy hour couldn't have come any sooner. As usual, I found myself in the basement of Brewer's Art with Pat (he'd like to be known as Patrick, thank you very much) and my coworker and her husband. By seven-thirty, I'd had three house brewed ales and a few rosemary garlic fries stolen off of L. and J.'s plate. Home and food were now in order.

While we were now nicely buzzed and giddy from the beers, our stomaches gave us no chance to lie back on the couch and watch our Netflix arrival. My stomach and my wallet were in no mood for takeout but my now slap-happy mood didn't warrant a complex homecooked dinner either. The Baltimore summer day had made our apartment humid and muggy, making cooking on the stove or oven out of the question. I immediately turned to Lazy Woman's "Fried" Rice for the nourishment and comfort I needed.

Quick, easy, and filling, I'm not sure when I first encountered this recipe. According to my mom, I'd eaten it all my life, especially during my early years. (Nope, can't dredge this food memory up from within the depths.) Within my small circle of friends (and their siblings), I had become known for stirfrying up enormous piles of rice and diced veggies and meat in my early post-college years, rendering my right forearm sore from trying to turn over a mound of flavorful rice twice as high as the wok's height. Pat became a voracious consumer of this rice, leaving me with barely a serving leftover for lunch, if I was lucky. At some point, I mentioned to my mom that her fried rice recipe was terribly popular but also terribly time consuming with its many steps. If only I could make this more regularly without doing so much prep work, especially on a weeknight. Thus came the passing of the Lazy Woman's "Fried" Rice recipe, no stirfrying required.

Thirty minutes and no stove time later, Pat and I sat down to a big pile of fluffy, egg-coated rice, garlicy and gingery with bits of Chinese sausage for protein and broccoli for our vegetable requirement and a pop of bright color. Just the thing for taking the edge off of a post-Friday happy hour hunger.


Lazy Man's Fried Rice

This version of "fried" rice involves the use of a rice cooker. For those of you without one of these handy but space-eating gadgets, I recommend cooking the rice over the stove according to package instructions and adding in the egg, meat, veggies and aromatics about five minutes before the rice has finished cooking. Leftover meat and frozen vegetables help to shorten the cooking time and process, making this a wonderful "everything but the kitchen sink" sorta meal.

1 cup uncooked rice, preferably jasmine rice
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 inch ginger root, peeled and minced
2 green onions, root ends discarded, sliced
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 links Chinese sausage (sausage can be substituted with any other meat; leftover ham is particulary good)
1/2 cup frozen or leftover vegetables such as peas, chopped broccoli, or diced string beans
white pepper
salt

1. Put rice in rice cooker and wash in several changes of water until the water runs fairly clear. Drain rinsing water. Add approximately 1 and 1/2 cups of water.

2. If using Chinese sausage, place the links on top of the rice. Cover the rice cooker and let steam.

3. While rice is cooking, the garlic, ginger, green onions, and eggs can be prepared.

4. When the water has evaporated from the rice cooker but the rice still looks a bit too moist, pull out the Chinese sausage and set aside. Add the beaten eggs, garlic and ginger and stir thoroughly to mix. Replace cover and let the rice finish cooking.

5. Let the sausage cool and slice. When the eggy rice looks dry, stir in the sausage, vegetables and green onions. Add salt and white pepper to taste. Cover again and let sit for five minutes.

6. Fluff everything up one more time and pile onto big plates or bowls to enjoy.

If starting with uncooked meat and vegetables, there will be an additional step to cook them separately in a frying pan. Chicken or shrimp are particularly good - just salt and pepper, sautee until cooked and reserve until step 5.

Hostess, What Hath Thou Wrought?

Gourmet? So, so wrong. (and, incidentally, inferior to their low-market cousins.)

Pumping Iron

This is my 10 inch cast iron skillet. It is my favorite tool; everything about it perfection. Sure it could be a bit bigger. I should probably buy a 15-inch skillet soon. And one of those awesome square griddles. And a cast iron dutch-oven like my grandma Cassie’s. In the interest of full disclosure: a deplorable amount of my disposable income goes to shoes. And clothes. And hand-bags. It’s a problem; I’m working on it. But I digress.

I love the pan’s heft and texture - the way that it smells. I love it for its versatility and uniformity of heat distribution. I love it for its durability. If you’ve cooked with cast iron then you know where I’m coming from. If you haven’t, then get yourself a pan and watch it become one of your favorites. I come from a long line of terrific southern cooks* and I’ve never seen any of them use anything but cast-iron on top of the stove. A few glass casserole dishes here and there – maybe a stock pot or two made from stainless steel. But cast iron dominated the cookware of the women who made me passionate about food. And, you know, if it ain’t broke…

I have two smaller pans as well, the set was a Christmas gift from my uncle. I was so excited to get them, ripped them out of the box only to discover what a smarter person would’ve already known: they weren’t cured.

I’m not going to go into how you cure a cast iron skillet. If you’re interested you can check the links. I did a little internet research, followed the steps and waited patiently for the pans to cool in mouth-watering anticipation of a breakfast to rival those served throughout my childhood. The first egg I scrambled stuck to the pan like scorched rice. I cleaned it out and re-cured all three. The results were better but there was still some sticking. And the pan was nowhere near the glistening, inky, black that I’ve loved my entire life. I kept frying things on the stove, adding more oil than necessary, and occasionally sneaking it back in the oven for another shortening-coated bake. It was serviceable but, still, not quite right.

I called my grandma Cassie and she sweetly explained that I just had to keep cooking with it because, “No pan gets right, right-away.” I needed to cook, and oil the pan, and heat the pan, and clean the pan in the course of regular use in order to make it perfect. And one of the first things I made after this revelation was cornbread. In the skillet. The bread didn’t come out of the pan as cleanly as my grandma’s. But it was mostly intact and as delicious as I remembered. I ate more than half of it.

Umm… You should probably share it.

Cast- Iron Cornbread**

Ingredients

1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup sifted flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup soft shortening - I use unsalted butter
1 cup milk
1 egg beaten
2 tablespoons of oil; Canola or vegetable oil will do nicely. Whatever you use make sure it has a high smoke-point.

Place oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees.

Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Cut in shortening, blending thoroughly and set aside. Add the two tablespoons of oil to your cast-iron skillet (10 or 12 inch skillet) and place skillet into the oven. Mix beaten egg and milk together and add to dry ingredients quickly with as few strokes as possible. Seriously, don't over mix; cornbread batter is lumpy. Carefully, remove the hot skillet from the oven and pour in the batter. You can smooth the top lightly, if you care to, with a spoon. Place pan in the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Run a spatula or butter knife around the edges of the pan and turn out bread onto a plate.

Do yourself a favor and check the cornbread with a toothpick at 15 minutes. Oven temperatures vary and when bread cooks in a cast iron skillet it cooks very quickly. You'll note the slight discoloration in this loaf. The bread was delicious, but I didn't pull it out of the oven quickly enough and the result was this bi-colored -though perfectly delicious- cornbread.





*I’m sure I’ll be talking about all of these women (and some men) a lot on this blog. I just want to mention that they are/were all very fond of clothes, shoes, and handbags as well. In fact, apart from eating their food and working in their gardens, playing dress up in their closets was my favorite thing to do when visiting. I do not exist in a vacuum.

**This cornbread recipe is pretty basic. I understand that Patti Labelle has an excellent recipe for cornbread and there are probably thousands more. This recipe is really about the technique; baking the bread in a lightly oiled cast-iron skillet to give it a fantastic crust and, I think, richer flavor. Most good cornbread recipes can probably be adapted to this method of cooking and this method can be used in a baking pan. FYI.

Introducing Wino

Hi, I’m Wino. And I’m late. I’m usually late. And for the purposes of this blog, this is me:

This is my kitchen. Its measurements are roughly 5 ft. x 10 ½ ft. In fact, it’s so incredibly narrow (with a 10 ft. ceiling no less; go figure) that I had to post several photographs to show what it looks like. I feel that some explanation is warranted.

Believe me, I’ve had better.

Clearly an after-thought in the process of carving up the three story house into rental units, it was beige (just like every other room*) and utterly unusable. I mean, yeah, you could make a grilled cheese sandwich or spaghetti, I guess. But I tend to like elaborate dishes – not fussy, so much, but with lots of ingredients, lots of assembly, and chopping, etc. On my best days I’m a messy, distracted cook. It’s essential that I be able to lay everything out. There was no real counter space and the largest cabinets are positioned so high they’re impractical for storing pots and pans, let alone staples. The previous tenant was a medicine resident, read: rarely home and never cooked. My roommate subsists on a steady diet of take-out and corn beef hash* * so he didn’t give a fuck.

Cheap rent and great location be damned. I needed a kitchen where I could prepare food. I refused to believe that being kind of broke made these goals mutually exclusive.

The stove, sink, refrigerator and cabinets are all situated on one wall with less than a foot of counter space separating them at intervals. The other wall was a high, wide expanse of nothing on to which some idiot had super-glued a large cork board. It took me the better part of a Saturday to scrape that sucker off the wall and I almost asphyxiated from the Goo-Be-Gone fumes. I spackled, sanded, taped and painted. And painted. When the walls were finished and I’d gotten the doors just right I sat down with a gin and tonic –or two- and thought long and hard about work space and storage.

Now, I don’t want to advertise for a certain large home furnishings store which, despite its many draw-backs, manages to consistently provide creative space solutions for those on a budget. I only resorted to the “box” after striking out at several smaller kitchen supply stores. Kitchen supplies are expensive. I don’t have that much cookware but I needed to maximize space with a rack that would lie flush against the wall and hang pots and pans with hooks. I needed a shelf that would be sturdy but not protrude too far into the negative space. Those items were easily found. But how to create counter space? I’d resigned myself to mounting a large section of counter top with brackets. The options available in my price range were discouraging. They either took up too much of the available space or weren’t deep enough to provide a good work surface. Then I found these:






Hell to the yeah! They weren’t in the kitchen section and were listed as fold-up tables that could be used to create a “breakfast nook.” I call them “Murphy Counters.” Easy to assemble and mount***, these babies made all the difference in the world. They created separate work areas, allowed me to set out, prepare, and assemble ingredients easily. I could manage an entire meal without working on a single dish at a time.

My kitchen works. It’s small and bright and, though imperfect, functional. It is a very tight space to work in and I like to imagine that I'm working in a galley. When entertaining, I appreciate the offer of help from friends but there is only room for me. And, secretly, I kind of like it that way. The blue and green maybe garish to some (don't judge me) but feel right and restful to me.

One day I’ll have a big beautiful kitchen with loads of shiny counter space and an island topped with a butcher’s block. There will be lots of drawers that glide smoothly and many cabinets custom installed at me-accessible-height. My pot rack will hang from the center of the ceiling. I’ll have a pantry and many gleaming utensils and a full set of Le Creuset cookware. And a dishwasher. I miss having a dishwasher so much. I will probably still paint it like Miami, though. I like what I like.

But for now this is my kitchen. And I love to cook. So, for this blog, this is me.

* My entire apartment is painted in deep, vibrant colors with contrasting trim and every room is a different color. All ten paneled door are painted to emphasize pattern. The ceilings are all 10 ft. high and each color could only be applied after a coat of tinted primer was used to keep the color true. It took three months to complete. I. Hate. Beige.

**Seriously, the food he eats is disgusting. And I had to give him exclusive use of a set of dollar stores skillets and sauce pans because he insists on scraping my pans with metal utensils. I know. I know. Did I mention how cheap the rent is?

***"Easy" in this case is a relative term. I mean, if it isn't obvious from the paint job, my landlord doesn't give a shit what I do to my place. Your mileage may vary. That said, they go up with screws -you can use a drill or not- and are pretty easy to take down. Be wary of wall studs and make sure the supporting wall is strong enough to hold them.

Act II - We meet Fyn

Who is Fyn, this second player in Voramancy's trio? Let's have a look around and see, shall we?

Enter the kitchen.


Note the ample counter space, starting from the quasi-island dotted with garlic and fragrant summer fruit to the area against the wall where some of my basics - salt, sugar, rice cooker - lie. This space, my friend, is where I am most comfortable. This rectangular space provides me with more than enough room to entertain while its compactness allows me to take only a few steps here and there in order to access all of my cookware, utensils, and ingredients. I am never far from my kitchen. Whether at home alone or entertaining a dozen or so guests, I am most likely to be found here.

The fruit and garlic on the counter belie some of my food interests, or more specifically, food profile. Freshness, flavor, and homemade sums it right up. I mean, if you just took one look at those apricots lying on the counter, you'd understand. The soft blush along its roundness, the velvety-soft skin hiding plush flesh...oh, but I digress. Ahem.

My thoughts never stray far from food. I am always thinking about my
next meal, or two meals ahead. I will eat any and everything, or at least give it a try. I am an equal opportunist. I search for food that my tastebuds cannot quite tolerate and then I work to teach them differently. Olives are a case in point. I don't quite get it, but I will try. Perhaps you will help me understand their briny meatiness.

I am not a baker. I will roast, steam, fry, sautee, grill - you name the cooking method and I'm right there with you. Baking, on the other hand, remains an enigma to me. I leave the baking to Cerulean. Every once in a while, though, bravery - or bravado - overtakes me, and I attempt to overcome my battle with flour and batter, usually with hilarious consequences.

Before I head out, please meet two favorite items in my domain. First off, we find 6 3/4 by 3 inches of stainless steel - a Chinese cleaver. This baby can slice tomatoes, shred basil, smash and mince garlic, chop through meat and bone. Oh, while I now long for the lightness and dexterity of an 8 inch chef's knife, this sturdy, powerful knife has gotten the job done for years.

Let me also introduce you to my wok. This scaled-down version is perfect for a household of two people. It's dexterous - it stir-fries, it pan-fries, it deep-fries, it steams! I've even heard of people "roasting" chickens in this thing as their poultery lies blissfully under 5 pounds of salt. Mmm, I need to get on that! Yes, you can see that I have not treated my friend well. The scrapes and nicks only emphasize its underseasoning, but it also does give me a great excuse to do some deep-frying to remedy the situation!

Besides writing this post with some of my bestest friends in the world, I hope that this blog will force me to try recipes, dishes, and foods that I might not have if I weren't pushing myself to step outside the boundaries. These boundaries have gotten mighty comfortable and I think it may be time to get a little antsy here. Now you'll have to excuse me, because for some reason, I'm in the mood for some blueberry pie.

A Not-So-Short History of Cursed Pie

Ah, 4th of July is almost upon us, and last night someone was setting off fireworks in the parking lot. Now, I like fireworks as much as the next girl, and picnics probably more than the next girl. I miss having the two together, even while I am aware that trying to repeat that experience would probably cause me to have a PTSD flashback and wind up gibbering in a corner, due to an experience I had a few years back. Allow me to post, in honor of this holiday, the sordid tale of the Cursed Blueberry Pie.


11:30 - wake up, having slept for some nine and a half hours. Feel
icky and fuzzy brained.
3:10 - begin work on my part of the picnic to be taken to the Oregon
Ridge fireworks display to share with JR, Eka, Cory, Fyn and Pat. Said
part is One (1) blueberry pie, a quart of chicken and andouille
sausage gumbo, and one batch 'effing good biscuits.

3:20 - realize that I am an idiot, it is actually 4:10, and I am going
to be very, very late.
4:25 - discover I only have enough flour for one pie crust. Root
through freezer to find premade crust for bottom of pie.

4:30 - Blueberry jailbreak. Anarchy ensues as I attempt to scoop up
fallen pint of blueberries and fend off cat, who thinks the little
exploding blue balls are the most fun toys ever. Step on a handful of
berries while chasing after cat, fall down, skid across floor and grid
blueberry juice into carpet. Despair of ever seeing my security
deposit again. Change clothes.

4:45 - mix up bowls and accidentally double the amount of salt in pie
filling and leave salt out of crust.
4:47 - Knock vinegar off top shelf of pantry, spilling vinegar all
over self and new shirt. Curse. Attempt to replace vinegar, but
instead knock down bottle of Karo syrup. Try to catch bottle, but
succeed only in flipping the top and covering self in Karo syrup as
well. Take deep breaths to calm down. Note pungent vinegar aroma.
Change clothes.

4:55 - Assemble pie, then discover that frozen crust had a layer of
wax paper on top of it. Swear colorfully. Remove homemade pie crust,
watch it disintegrate in hands.. Remove pie filling, get blueberry juice on shirt. Remove wax paper. Reassemble pie, reroll out pie crust.

5:01(officially late) - discover biscuits need to cook at a different temperature, although I could have sworn they both baked at 350. Stomp around and glare at cat, bemoaning how late I am going to be and still smelling like vinegar.

5:40 - FINALLY everything is cooked, begin to pack bag. Overbalance blueberry pie while putting into bag. Stare in horror as pie crust ruptures and blueberry filling spills out of pie plate, down side of bag, and splotches onto nearby kitchen chair at about chest height and begins to drip down. Note that chair now looks as though someone sitting in it got shot. Feel oddly jealous of now-restful imaginary dead kitchen chair occupant. Change shirt.
[5:45 (TMI) Discover that, of course, I've also gotten my period in the midst of all this. Change clothes. Pack extra shirt to bring to park, convinced that it will be needed, one way or another]

6:20 - Get to parking lot where shuttles take attendees to the park for fireworks. Note that current shuttle is almost full, and happily gage that by walking at full tilt, should be able to arrive just in time to snag last spot on shuttle and immediately be whisked off to park to regroup with friends. Start walking, only to be stopped by A NUN in a full-on penguin habit asking for help getting to the shuttle. A fucking nun. Note that I am now officially a character in a joke being told in a bar somewhere. Shift hot pie to right hand and take nun's arm while watching my would-be shuttle putter away into the distance. Get burned by hot pie. Walk ninety-year-old nun to shuttle, wait ten minutes in hot schoolbus (You remember that hot schoolbus smell, don't you?) for shuttle to fill. Drive to Oregon Ridge.

6:46 - Arrive, find group. (1hr, 45 min late) Relate the above story
of crappy day with much grimacing and gesticulation. As story draws to
a close, accept the very last remaining cup of Coke as a peace
offering from Pat. Finish bit about nun. Put Coke down on top of cooler. Cooler promptly overbalances and falls, spilling the last of the Coke as well as several cubic feet of ice across picnic blanket, down hill, and onto nice family sitting nearby. (Realize I have said the F-word in front of nice family's small children.) Wish I could pay a visit to Australia via the shortest route possible, molten core of the Earth be damned.


Should you, for some insane reason, wish to replicate this (I am told that the pie itself was quite good, which makes sense, after all, cursed objects have to be someone attractive in order to enact their evil directives upon the unsuspecting.) The recipe is below. I strongly encourage you to not to get fancy with it; please use only a perfectly round pie plate. I fear using anything approaching pentagonal will produce a many-tentacled Pie of the Old Ones instead.

Cursed Blueberry Pie

Pie pastry for 2 crust pie
1 quart plus 1 pint blueberries
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons dry tapioca
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 450 F. Wash and drain berries, then mix with sugar, salt, lemon juice, and tapioca. Pour into pastry lined pie plate and dot with butter. Put remaining pastry on top of pie and use a fork to prick a pattern of whatever arcane symbols of protection you feel are necessary. Bake in preheated oven (450) for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 F and bake for an additional 25 minutes.