Crab salad with avocado toast

OK, this is experiment II.
Actually, III, because over the weekend I returned to my roots and realized there is a reason people often put mayonnaise -- or in my case, Miracle Whip -- with crab, in potato salad, in chicken salad, in ham salad. It's good. Just don't overdo it, especially with crab, or you might as well be eating chicken salad.

In fact, I like this so much with Miracle Whip that I felt fine leaving out the bacon. Sort of. I also left out the Old Bay seasoning to go with a fresher approach.

So for this dish, which will also supply enough crab salad for my lunch tomorrow as long as it is in the fridge:

• 4 slices of rustic whole wheat bread, or whatever you have. These would be the equivalent of 2 slices from a big loaf. Don't toast it until the last minute unless you like cold toast. Right.
• 8 ounces of crab meat. I used pasteurized claw meat because it was less expensive and tastes great. Rinse in a sieve and pick through to make sure there are no shell pieces -- or live dangerously.
• 1 large, ripe avocado or 2 little ones.
• juice of 1/2 lemon or lime. Please don't use the stuff from the bottle.
  
• about 1/5th of a red bell pepper, minced. Well, maybe that's just me. I don't want to get a bite that's mostly bell pepper. You could use green bell pepper, but I won't.
  
• 1 shallot, minced
  
• 2 T Miracle Whip, approx.
  
• salt, a few dashes
• freshly ground black pepper, about four grinds, or whatever
  
• dill weed
• Smoked Spanish paprika (to replace the bacon; contributes a nice smoky flavor that isn't overpowering)
• two dashes of cayenne pepper
• a splash of soy sauce, maybe
• lettuce or other greens, tomatoes for garnish
  

Chop the bell pepper and paprika and add salt and pepper. Rinse and check the crab meat and stir in. Add 1 T of the Miracle Whip (or mayo) and the other spices and herbs and TASTE it. Adjust seasonings, including MW, to taste. The crab meat is pasteurized and there's no raw egg in this, so tasting is the way to go. No double dipping, though, at least not if you are sharing.

Refrigerate the crab mixture. You could actually refrigerate it for a few hours, but here it's just while doing other things.

Squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl. Cut the avocado in half. If it isn't completely ripe, the pit might be a little stubborn, but I still say it is safer to pry it out with a tablespoon, or even scoop out all the meat and scrape it off the pit. Dunk the avocado flesh into the lemon juice and smash it up with a fork until it is spreadable. You might want to add a teensy bit of salt.

Toast the bread. Spread the mashed avocado on the toast and top with the crab mixture. To me, the avocado means I don't need to butter the toast or put olive oil on it, but that's your call. The lettuce and tomato on the plate are mostly for garnish, but yeah, edible garnish.

Note: instead of the red bell pepper, you could add a little finely chopped radish, which would punch it up. Just remember to let the crab be the star!

Avocado Crab Salad

• 1 avocado, ripe
• 1/2 lemon to 1 whole lemon, depending on how tart you like things; if you have a lime sitting around, use it instead! You could probably use orange or tangerine juice -- anything acidic.
  
• 2 Tablespoons of olive or other happy oil
• 3 strips bacon, cooked (optional -- to you, maybe)
  
• 1-2 handfuls of greens -- I had green leaf lettuce and spinach
• one shallot or a couple of tablespoons of chopped red onion
• Old Bay seasoning or a collection of spices of your choice, probably including salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, garlic powder. I could also imagine going in a completely different direction with this and using various Asian spices. Or really simple with a little salt, pepper and dill.

Cook the bacon any way you like. Easiest is on two sheets of paper towel on a microwave-safe plate for 1 minute per slice. So, 3 minutes. Take it out right away and remove the bacon or it will stick to the paper towel. Trust me.

Rinse the crab and pick out any shell pieces, unless you really like your dentist.

Wash the lemon and roll it on the counter. Grate some of the rind (zest) or take some with a parer, or both, in either case making sure not to get the white pith, just the yellow part. Set aside.

Cut the lemon in half. If seeds are visible, poke them out with the tip of your knife, just because it saves trouble later. Squeeze at least half the lemon into a bowl. For this recipe, a cereal bowl will be the right size.

Cut the avocado in half and pull it open. You can probably just pull the pit out. If not, take an ordinary flatware tablespoon and pry it out. I've seen chefs on TV whack into the pit with a chef's knife to pull it out. Unnecessary, potentially dangerous, and probably does the knife no favors. Use the spoon to scoop all the flesh out of the avocado onto a cutting board and use any old knife to cut into one-inch cubes. Immediately dunk into the lemon juice to prevent browning.

Arrange greens on a plate. Place the avocado chunks on the greens, reserving the lemon juice.

Chop the shallot/onion if you haven't already. Add the Old Bay or whatever seasonings you've chosen. Add those, some grated lemon peel and some olive oil to the lemon juice and stir. Taste. If it is too acidic for you, add more oil or add some honey. I won't tell.

You can either crumble the bacon and add to this dressing, or just mix it with the crab, which is what I did. Or wait until last and use it as a garnish.

Drizzle some of the dressing over the avocado and mix the rest into the crab mixture and add to plate. Garnish with a little more lemon zest.

That's it. Especially with a piece or two of whole-wheat toast, this is a meal.

Braised Chicken with green beans and cous-cous

I love starting with whatever protein is on sale and whatever veggies look good, then coming up with something that tastes good.

This week, chicken legs (thighs and drumsticks, still attached) were on sale at my store for 49 cents a pound. That's a 1978 price. Had to buy the "family pack," so most are in the freezer. Here's what I did with one leg. The green beans looked good, and I could buy only as many as I wanted. Yay!

More philosophy. I love all those "30-minute" cooks, especially Rachel Ray, but when I come home from work, the last thing I want to do is spend another 30 minutes multitasking and rushing around the kitchen like a mad woman. So this is a recipe that takes 3 minutes upfront, rests for an hour, takes 5 more minutes, then goes in the oven for 45 minutes, then takes 5 minutes at the end. In between, I can do whatever I want, which is my kind of end-of-day multitasking. I'm really only working for 13 minutes.

Marinade:
Put the chicken in a zip-top bag. I only use them for cooking; otherwise I use re-usable containers. And you could. But a zip-top bag is good for this. One leg/thigh combo fits in a quart-size bag.
In a 2-cup measuring cup (because it has a pour spout), put 1 cup of apple juice, a couple of splashes (Tablespoons) of soy sauce, a couple of splashes of balsamic vinegar, a couple of splashes of sesame oil, a splash of canola or other oil, 2 tablespoons of garlic jam and a few drops of chili oil. (Or whatever marinade you come up with that has salt, sweet and flavor.)

Pour it into the bag. If you need more liquid, add water to which you have added salt, or add chicken stock. Mostly, just make sure there is liquid surrounding all the chicken.

Let sit in the fridge for an hour. Wisely, you will put the bag in a bowl or other container in case there is a spill. Watch your favorite TV show.

Hour's up.

Get out your cast-iron skillet or any oven-proof skillet, put in 2 Tablespoons of canola oil or other high-temp-tolerating oil and get it hot. Turn the oven on to 350.

Take the chicken out of the bag and dry it off. This is one of the few things I will use paper towels for. SAVE the marinade. (Good thing it is in a bowl, huh?)

Sear/brown the chicken on both sides. It will only take a couple of minutes on each side if the pan and oil are hot.

Once the chicken is nice and brown on both sides, pour the marinade into the skillet and add one chopped shallot, or some minced garlic. When it comes to a boil, cover and stick it all in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes, take it out. Take the chicken out of the liquid. Put the skillet on a burner to return the liquid to a boil

Put water on to boil for the couscous, following the recipe on the box; it's usually about 1 cup of water to 3/4 cup of couscous.

While things are coming to a boil, wash and de-stem the green beans. Put them in the boiling broth from the chicken for 1 to 2 minutes.

When the water boils, add the couscous, put the lid on, turn the burner off and wait a minute. Fluff it with a fork and put some on a plate.

Add the chicken, cutting it off the bone if you wish.

Fish out the green beans using a slotted spoon.

Spoon some of the sauce over top.

Done.

Pork tenderloin stir-fry

This time, with cabbage, onion, carrot, mushrooms and black sesame seeds (optional, but I happened to have them!)

Pork tenderloin is really great to stir fry. It comes out tasty and moist and, well, tender. Stir-fry can use just about any vegetables you have. I happened to have these. I posted a pork tenderloin stir fry with bok choy a while back, so check that out, too.

Ingredients -- approximate amounts, don't be too fussy -- to serve two really hungry people or even four people if you make rice, noodles or couscous. I skipped the extra carbs. What's on the plate is about one-third of the batch:

• 1/2 pound pork tenderloin, cut into large bite size pieces (1-inch to 1-1/2 inch)

1/2 cup or so each:

• shredded cabbage (I just took narrow slices with my chef's knife)
• onion, cut in half, peeled and sliced
• sliced mushrooms (I used creminis, aka baby portobellos)
• carrot, "shaved" into ribbons using vegetable peeler
• fresh ginger, peeled and chopped very fine, about 2 teaspoons. More if you really like the zing. (You might be able to use candied ginger, although that would add a sweetness that you might need to counter with something sour, like vinegar, but do not try to use the ground ginger in your spice cupboard. Different taste.) Be sure to mince this very fine, because fresh ginger is very potent, and you probably don't want to get a bite of food that has a whole slab of the stuff.
  
• canola or other high-temp oil (peanut would work)
• soy sauce
• a couple of dashes of hot chili oil, if you have it. If you don't, pepper or cayenne pepper or pepper flakes. Of course, if you happen to have fresh hot peppers around and like them, sure
• garlic, two cloves or as much or as little as you want, peeled and minced
• sesame seeds, optional
• any other Asian type seasonings you might like, from five-spice to curry. Probably not both!
  

Heat about 2T oil in your wok or large skillet, on high heat. Carefully add the pork and allow to brown a couple of minutes, stir/turn, let brown, repeat, until all sides are nice and brown and the pork has cooked for about 6-8 minutes. Remove from pan. The pork will keep cooking itself as you cook the veggies, never fear.

If needed, add a little more oil to the pan and put in the onions and mushrooms. Stir occasionally. In a few minutes, when they've softened a little bit and gotten some "golden" brown spots, either remove from the pan or scoot them to the side to make room for the cabbage, garlic, ginger and carrots. Let those soften/fry a couple of minute, stirring frequently. Add the sesame seeds, soy sauce and other flavorings. Stir the pork back in.

Dish it up. Grab a fork or a pair of sticks.

If I had been making rice, at this point I also would have added a little chicken or vegetable stock and some cornstarch to make a little sauce, so there would be something to give the rice some flavor and a reason to exist. But in this case, I didn't want extra sauce, just the little bit of naturally occurring sauce from the ingredients themselves.

You know, if I chopped up a bunch of different veggies on the weekend and had them ready to go in bags or bowls in the fridge, I could do a different stir-fry for dinner every night with no prep and little cleanup. Hmmm.

London Broil and "Pommes Patricia"

My grocer had London broil on sale, 2 for 1, which worked out to $2.65 a pound for a cut of beef that has virtually no visible fat and is boneless. It isn't the world's most tender cut of beef, but it's pretty versatile, and quite flavorful. The important thing, no matter how you cook it, is to slice it across the grain when it's done, and as thinly as possible. If you slice it with the grain or in big chunks, your teeth and jaw have to deal with the long muscle fibers. If you cut it across the grain, the knife has done the work and it "feels" as tender as, oh, filet mignon!

Each package was about 1-3/4 pounds. I wrapped one in foil and labeled it and stuck it in the freezer. If you calculate it at about 4 ounces a person, one of these pieces would serve 4. Or 1 meal and three magnificent sandwiches to take to work.

Most recipes I've seen for London broil call for marinating it, at least 4 hours and up to 24. While marinating might not really do much to tenderize it, it might help a little and it definitely adds flavor. What flavor depends on the marinade, but the basics are garlic, herbs, salt, pepper, and two kinds of liquid: something sweetish and fruity, and something acidic, such as vinegar. I had a little peach-white grape juice sitting around, so I used it for the sweetish fruity part. Other options include wine, ale or even tequila. For the vinegar, balsamic is nice, but anything you have on hand will work. Some recipes add Worcestershire sauce or Dijon mustard. Or honey or cherry preserves. I would avoid using more than 4-5 ingredients other than salt and pepper, just because it might get, well, weird. So if I used tequila, I wouldn't also use mustard and cherry jam.

So here's what I did.
For the marinade
In my biggest Pyrex measuring cup, stir up:
--6 cloves of roughly chopped garlic
--1 shallot (because it was leftover and I might as well)
--six inches worth of fresh rosemary (strip the needles or leave the stems on, because this will get tossed out anyway, so no worries)
--about 1/4 cup of peach-grape juice
--about 1/4 cup of wine vinegar
-- salt and pepper


Some recipes call for mixing up the marinade in a food processor or blender. If you like washing yours, fine, use it. I used a fork.

Put the meat in a non-reactive container -- either a zip-top plastic bag or a Pyrex or ceramic dish that has a tight fitting cover. Add the marinade. If using a plastic bag, squeeze out as much air as you can before sealing. And put it in a dish or pan before you put it in the fridge, just in case. Marinate for up to 24 hours, turning at least once or twice. Do not be dismayed as the outside of the meat turns brownish in the marinade. It is supposed to do that.

I marinated mine for 5 hours and only turned it once.

Now, very important: Before cooking, dry the meat off very thoroughly. Otherwise, the outside will not brown, it will steam. Ick. This is one of the few things I use paper towels for. You could be even more eco-friendly and use clean dish towels, but then they wouldn't be clean any more, would they? I do compost the paper towels. Also be sure to wipe away the garlic, etc., which will burn. Do not be afraid to press down firmly on the meat. I have not heard of actually using a meat pounder, but I have heard of putting weights on while grilling. I think a good firm press down, in conjunction with thorough drying off, is effective enough.

You could slap this on a grill, or heed the wisdom of Alton Brown, who points out that an outdoor gas grill is just an upside down gas broiler, or vice versa. I used my indoor gas broiler and STILL got two mosquito bites. No way I was going outside. Six inches from the heat source is a good guide, but you are the only one who knows your grill or broiler.

I like mine brown on the outside but red in the middle, so 4 minutes on one side, 4-5 on the other. As always, let it rest for 10 minutes or so before slicing. As I mentioned above, slice it thinly across the grain. It will probably be a rectangle, so across the grain means the short way.

This is unbelievably tender for such an inexpensive cut of beef. And no, there was no obvious peachy-grape juice flavor from the marinade. It just helped keep things juicy and flavorful.

Could you do more? Sure, make a mushroom sauce or a wine sauce or ... but I didn't feel the need. But maybe that's because I had home-grown vine-ripened itsy bitsy "Sweet Million" tomatoes. And fresh basil. And Pommes Patricia, which is the associated recipe.

"Pommes Patricia"

Pommes Patricia

I love "Pommes Anna." Julia Child's recipe calls for 2 sticks (one-half pound) of butter for 3 pounds of potatoes. Well, of course that is delicious. And there are many recipes that try to pare down the butter. And they are still good. But they still use a lot of butter. And I love butter, but ...

I also love any combination of potatoes and cheese, including, and I'm not kidding, Tater Tots and brie. You bake the Tots first until they are golden brown and crispy, then add some brie (or whatever cheese you have) until gooey. But that's not going to help our national health care crisis. Scalloped potatoes, potatoes au gratin -- all in the family. Can we make them easy and (relatively) guilt-free?

I wanted to try a combination that has the essential goodness without too, too much fat. You can cut some or all of the salt and use other seasonings.

--2 pounds of potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/8 to 1/4 inch. I love getting out my mandolin for this, but a knife and cutting board would work. This was four largish, but not mutantly gigantic, russet potatoes. If you use a mandolin, cut the spuds in half to make it easier to use the finger guard. Do not not use the finger guard!
--1-2 T Canola oil
-- 2-3 ounces of cheddar cheese, or whatever meltable cheese you have. Parmesan doesn't melt. Remember, as the cheese melts, some of its fat goes into the potatoes, which is why this is delicious without all that butter. And the cheese has calcium and protein, as well as cheesey goodness. So even if it is adding fat, it has redeeming qualities. And it still isn't 2 sticks of butter!
-- salt, cayenne pepper and Spanish smoked paprika. You don't have to use cayenne, but that's just the way I roll
--2 cloves of shallots, chopped (optional for you onion-haters, and you know who you are)

In a shallow oven proof vessel -- I used a small au gratin dish -- put about a tablespoon of canola or other healthy but high-temp-tolerant oil. Arrange one layer of the potato slices. Salt. Add about an ounce of crumbled, grated or chopped up cheese. Add another layer of potato, more salt, sprinkles of cayenne and paprika. More potato. Salt. More cheese, but only an ounce or two.

Cover with foil and bake for about an hour at 400. If the taters on top are fork tender and the cheese is bubbly, you are done. If not, cook longer. If fork tender but not bubbly, take off the foil and broil for a minute.

To serve: Well, the traditional way is to invert the whole thing on a plate or platter. Or you could slice off a portion and flip it onto the plate. Unless you have stuck it under a broiler, the "bottom" should be the top, for presentation.

This makes four generous portions, and remember that the "generous" adjective comes from a person who could possibly live on potatoes and cheese. You might be able to serve six.

Of course you could be decadent and add more cheese, but, really, these tasted fantastic. Of course you could add (already cooked) bacon or ham or sausage and make a meal of it. Of course you could add -- well, be careful about anything that would add water, like frozen peas, because the potatoes wouldn't get as crispy. But if you dried them off ...

Smoked Salmon, purist style

I know I posted something like this last year, with the addition of clementines and arugula. And it was tasty. But for those who don't go into archives, or don't have clementines and arugula handy, here's the purist version of a great late supper or snack. You could go fancy and build an appetizer from it. The only thing you have to cook is, well, toast. If you can't make toast, we need to talk.

Simple list of ingredients:

2-3 tablespoons of chopped onion, depending on how much you like onion. This time I had red onion.
1 4-oz. package of smoked salmon. I do prefer wild to farmed, but that's your call and maybe your grocer's call
2 or more pieces of good bread. I like whole grain, and recommend it.
2 or more tablespoons of good Greek yogurt, which I prefer to sour cream and usually have on hand.
Butter, or whatever your doctor lets you have. I hope it is butter. Just this once.
(p.s., a little bit of chopped shallot, or green onion, or any kind of onion -- wouldn't hurt! If I have it, I use it.)

Put the bread in the toaster oven (or toaster if you have one). Chop some onion and put the rest in a sealed container of some sort in the fridge.

Open the salmon package and do your best to peel the little filets apart and make them into curls. Doesn't affect the taste, only the presentation, so don't get worked up about it.

Put a couple of dollops of Greek yogurt and the chopped onions on a plate. If you have other garnishes such as oranges, capers, arugula, radishes -- go nuts. Well, but don't get too complicated. I would limit it to two accoutrements.

When the toast is the way you like it, pop it out and butter it. Cut it into quarters -- the triangular way is sexier, but no one really cares.

Serve. If sharing or obsessive, provide implements for scooping the other ingredients onto the toast. Serve while the toast is still hot, though, for best appreciation.

As an appetizer on a more formal occasion, build the little bites on pieces of toast with a little salmon, onion and yogurt, put on a tray and let people grab them. But this "country style" way is more fun.

Feel free to click on the photo to enlarge it. The butter literally glistens.

Lasagna, II

Well, it is a work of art, isn't it? When the hostess at the potluck dinner party opened the lid on the whole pan, she said, "That is a thing of beauty."

This is a riff on my sister-in-law's recipe. As you know, I can't follow recipes exactly, and made this up using hers for guidance. (Hint: She uses a different quantity of tomatoes, and tomato sauce, where I used more tomatoes and tomato paste. I think it comes out about the same. But this way, it's my recipe! heh, heh, heh)

Tomato sauce:
Chop and "sweat" one huge onion (comes to about one and a half cups, give or take)
add about six cloves of garlic, smushed and chopped
add
1 32-ounce can of plum tomatoes
1 16-ounce can of diced tomatoes
2 of those little cans of tomato paste
salt, pepper and Italian herbs, including fresh basil if you've got it, which I do, and of course oregano

Meat:
Brown ground meats. I used 1 pound each of ground beef, ground pork and ground veal. I added salt, pepper and more Italian seasonings to each meat. Plus some garlic. Add to tomato sauce.
Simmer as long as you want, longer is better.
Note: this is too much meat and too much sauce. It won't fit, with all the other ingredients, in a standard Pyrex rectangular pan. You will have extra. To fit in the pan, use only 2 pounds total of meat. (Or just save some of the sauce for later, yum!)

You can refrigerate (or freeze) the sauce separately, or assemble the whole thing and refrigerate.

Cheese mixture:
32 ounces ricotta (that's the big tub)
1 egg
salt and pepper
parsley and/or basil (I used fresh basil)
Italian herbs ( aka oregano and whatever)
1/2 cup Parmesan, freshly grated

Additional cheese component: Shredded/chopped mozzarella, about 1 pound

Lasagna noodles: boil salted water, cook 'em, drain 'em. Do not fall for the "oven ready" variety. No good.

Put a thin layer of the sauce on the bottom of a rectangular Pyrex or metal pan. Put in one layer of the noodles. Layer sauce, cheese mixture, mozzarella, noodles, sauce, cheeses, etc. End with sauce and cheese on top. Cover with aluminum foil.

You can stop here and refrigerate.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes if you haven't refrigerated either the whole thing or the separate sauces. One hour, at least, if you have. Uncover for the last 15-20 minutes.

Let stand at least 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

I was stuck in traffic for literally an hour, and this was still hot when I got to the potluck dinner party. I was very late. People had already stuffed themselves. Some took a taste anyway. Others just took some home in whatever container they could find. It's quite tasty.