a p p a r e n t l y

The title says it all. Read on for the easiest way ever to improve your cooking.

The Food Lab: A Better Way to Caramelize Onions (Plus, French Onion Dip!) | Serious Eats, via not martha

After weeks of research and deliberation over whether to introduce a new appliance to our smallish kitchen, I bought a slow cooker. And then I promptly sent it back. The reviews I’d been too hasty to read said that the model I’d purchased has a tendency to shut off randomly, and the last thing I needed (other than a new hobby – stay tuned for that post) was some random thing to worry about, like whether my slow cooker was actually consuming electricity.

In the interim, I pored over two books I’d ordered, The Gourmet Slow Cooker and The Indian Slow Cooker. I was intrigued by the idea of making a soup or stew without constant attention or stirring. And I’d read enough recipes to understand that the slow cooker is not magic; it’s basically a very hot metal box – not unlike an oven – that uses heat plus liquid to simmer delicious food. So a decent amount of prep work can be involved in a good recipe. This is not the 1970s, when one dumped several cans of soup and vegetables into the pot and was rewarded with a mushy bowl of “stew.” I could see that a lot of searing would be involved in producing anything newsworthy.

The new slow cooker, a 6-quart oval Crock-Pot, arrived last week. And my home has never smelled so good as it has during the past three days.

On Day One, I made the Provençal Beef Stew from The Gourmet Slow Cooker. Mr Apparently is still talking about it, and we’re racing to see who can claim the leftovers first. It was without a doubt the best stew I’ve ever made. Browning three pounds of beef at six turns per cube is a lot of work with the tongs, but the results were worth every moment. I wish I’d thought to take a photo. I remembered this for the next experiment:

Whole chicken, before cooking

One Day Two I discovered Harvestland chicken on sale on my local grocer, and so a whole chicken went into the slow cooker. I used an amalgam of various recipes found on the web as follows:

1. Remove skin and excess fat from the chicken. (The Ghost of Apparently Past, who was a vegetarian for twelve years, still can’t quite believe I did this.)
2. Place halved new potatoes on the bottom of the pot to prevent the chicken from stewing in its own fat.
3. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Place sprigs of rosemary and thyme on top of the chicken and slices of lemon on top. Quarter an onion and place it on the cavity. Distribute whole cloves of garlic around the chicken. (I had only a bit in the house, and so have been referring to this recipe as “Chicken with Five Cloves of Garlic.”)
4. Cook on high for four hours.

The chicken was tasty, if a little boring. I like Maillard reaction, crispiness and burnt-sugar flavors, and so while the chicken tasted quite good, I was vaguely underwhelmed by eating it as a meal along with some wild rice and fromage d’Affinois. I’d be more interested in using the cooked chicken in another dish, such as tacos or pulled chicken sandwiches, or perhaps chicken noodle soup. I think the next chicken foray will involve sauce.

Whole chicken, after cooking

Day Three: Oh, if you could only smell my kitchen right now – it’s like being in a bakery. I took three egg rolls (not the fried Chinese kind, but rather the eggy sort of bread), a day-old baguette and some plump raisins and dried cranberries and more or less followed this recipe for Slow Cooker Bread Pudding. It’s taking all of my resolve not to stick a fork in it right now, but I want to take a pretty photo when it’s done.

Just before the "lid ajar" step

Update: OMG, incredibly yummy bread pudding. But, the edges burned to a crisp during the first ten minutes of the “set the lid ajar” phase. I’d recommend either not following this instruction and letting it sit for a few minutes before serving, or just keeping a close eye on the dish while the steam escapes. I’d also recommend trying to keep any dried fruit away from the edges. Burned raisins are not so delicious. But the fruit in the center? Perfectly plump and redolent of milk and vanilla.

My favorite part of this whole adventure – other than the actual eating of the Provençal stew, which was really most delectable –  has been the three distinct moments when I thought, “What’s that delicious smell? Oh, it’s the slow cooker. And I’m not even in the kitchen!”

So, what’s your favorite slow cooker recipe? I’m ready to try it.

I’ve had several conversations recently about foods that kids eat. Foods that were practically unheard of when you and I were kids. Sushi. Avocados. Even kiwi fruit was rarely seen in the U.S. until the 1980s.

Then I was reading the February issue of Food & Wine when I came across a comment by an avocado farmer (and apparently a rock star, too) that he’d never had an avocado until he was 20. I hadn’t, either. Avocados weren’t so popular in Massachusetts in the 70s. I had to move to California to try one.

This has me thinking about the foods I eat now…

Foods I Never Ate As a Kid Because I Thought They Were “Gross”

Mushrooms

Veal

Kasha

Coffee (until I was a teen)

Chicken (when I was a teen, and until recently)

Foods I Never Ate As a Kid Because My Mother Didn’t Like Them and She Did All the Cooking

Beets

Brussels sprouts

Artichokes

Cauliflower

Chard, kale, mesclun, leafy greens other than spinach

Leeks

Oatmeal

Waffles

Foods I Never Ate As a Kid Because We Didn’t Know They Existed

Couscous

Farro

Tuna in steak form

Bok choy

Arugula

Jalapenos

Lichees

Mangoes

Panko

This is obviously not a comprehensive list, and it doesn’t include whole categories of regional foods, including Japanese, Thai, Indian, Mexican, and one that still makes me hesitate, Foods of the Southern United States.

What foods do you eat now that you never had as a child?

edited to add: Check out The Food Timeline!

Mmm, homemade Twix®. I think I gained two pounds just reading this recipe.

I’m rich, I’m rich! Thousand Dollar Bars | King Arthur Flour – King Arthur Flour – Baking Banter.

More internet awesomeness: the Bacon Cheese Turtleburger. I don’t know if there’s anything more to say that these before-and-after photos don’t address.

Interwebs Randomness and Other Inspiring Tales: Super Bowl Bacon Cheese Turtleburger.

via Humerus, via Editorial License

Stone and Thistle Farm, a family farm “located in a lush, quiet valley in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in central New York state,” is a charming place to spend a Sunday morning. Their lovely farm tour is followed by a delicious brunch at the communal table of their stunningly attractive yet simply built farm-to-table restaurant, Fable.

I planned to expound thoroughly upon the farm’s virtues in this post, but then I discovered this recent article from Chronogram Magazine that lays it all out in more detail than I previously knew. So read the article and then come back here.

Okay, did you read it? (No? Seriously. It’ll take four minutes. Go read it.) Here’s what I can add:

1. The farm tour was led by Denise Warren, who is charming and blunt as only a farmer can be.

2. We came face to face with dogs, hens, goats, sheep and bunnies. The bunnies are adorable but their red eyes are a little bit creepy.

3. Their brown Berkshire pigs are the most attractive pigs I have ever seen. And it was completely refreshing when Denise said she doesn’t really understand why people like Berkshire pork better than any other pork, but it’s what chefs want, so they raise it.

4. I understand that border collies are supposedly the smartest dogs, but even after a demonstration of sheepdog prowess, I still don’t quite get it. They had to be instructed a dozen times. Isn’t it just easier to herd the sheep yourself? I know, this kind of thinking is surely why I am not a farmer.

5. Stone and Thistle has one guestroom available. I was talked out of ever staying in it by Denise’s description of the sheepdogs working – that is, barking – all night.

6. Brunch was one of the best meals I have ever eaten. It was entirely simple, straightforward food: scrambled eggs, muffins, granola, ham, bread pudding. But the eggs tasted eggier, the mushrooms (local) tasted mushroomier, the ham tasted hammier. You get the idea. All the ingredients are from the farm or within twenty miles, except for the butter. (But you knew that because you read the article, right?)

7. And the granola was the best granola I have ever tasted. I expressed my enthusiasm to Denise on my way to the farm store to purchase some, and she told me, “It must be because it’s made with love.” She paused. She laughed. “And a lot of maple syrup. Probably more maple syrup than I should use, but it’s so good.”

Denise blogs here, in the rare moment that she’s not tending to animals, visitors, guests, batches of granola and the business of running a farm. And I am not telling you where the bag of granola is hidden.

Storkbite Stew nearly had a conniption when she heard that Hugue Dufour, formerly of Au Pied de Cochon, and his wife planned to open a new restaurant in Long Island City. Despite a complete lack of signage, the old dining car has indeed been transformed into a vibrant new diner called M. Wells.

Thanks to the complete ineptitude of my local branch of Bank of America, which does not deserve a link, I had the pleasure of pushing fifty pounds of stroller to LIC yesterday, where only the thought of some newfangled old-style Québécois food saw me through. (Yes, we could have taken the subway, but would you want your toddler loose in the bank while you signed all sorts of papers? I didn’t think so.) So we hiked across the trainyard overpass and squinted curiously at the unadorned dining car. A lovely server came outside and held the door while I carried the stroller up the steps, at which point I knew this was going to be pleasant in a way that the bank was not.

Let me veer off on a tangent to confess that I am a complete and total lightweight where alcohol is concerned, and the previous evening I had consumed an entire Corona (the horror!) followed by a 4-hour car ride marked by winding twists and turns. I also had not drunk enough water. So I’d awoken vaguely hung over and still slightly carsick, and the menu at M. Wells spoke deeply to me: in which form would I take my grease? Egg-Sausage sandwich? Bacon, Egg and Potato Hash? Oh no, gentle readers, like the wise Superfast Reader, whose visit we apparently had followed by mere minutes, I chose wisely and shared with Apparently Jr the Crab, Egg and Potato Hash, the subdescription of which promised “Corn Chowder & Hollandaise.” And this is what appeared:

Isn’t it lovely? Don’t you just want to paint it, or photograph it? I did. And then we ate all of it, along with a hefty slice of Blueberry-Banana Bread and a tall glass of lemonade, which I thought needed sugar but Apparently Jr deemed “not too sour.”

Consider this not a review but rather an impression, because obviously one cannot judge a restaurant solely on the basis of one trip and three items, but suffice it to say that everything was delicious, the Elvis on the stereo perfectly matched the old-style dining car and the service was a perfect blend of friendly/attentive and hands-off. They were not at all concerned about stashing my stroller in a corner, and although we happened to be the only party at our communal table, I would have found it entirely pleasant to share. The clientele was a diverse mix of hipsters, blue-collar workers and a dad with his son, twirling on the stools at the counter.

I fully intend to bring Mr. Apparently to M. Wells for a next visit, and I look forward to seeing what items they’ll add to the menu when they start serving dinner.

Did you know that the average American eats 29 pounds of French fries and 42 pounds of corn syrup each year?

via Food Consumption in America.

This CHOW article will make me think twice before trying to help…but only in nicer restaurants! I don’t think the servers at my local (and delicious) Korean noodle shop are whisking off my napkins to the linen basket. (In fact, they wheel a bus tub through the place, so my pile of plates is actually saving someone some time in this case.)

Does My Waiter Hate Me? : What you can do to make his job easier – CHOW.

All of the July cooking magazines are packed tightly with recipes for grilling, and as an urban apartment-dweller (that’s two posts in a row now where I have used this phrase, which must be a sign of something), I find these issues all but useless. Fortunately I have a friend who had the good sense to give birth recently, offering me a good excuse to plumb the depths of Epicurious for a new recipe. Or two.

Cassoulet might be an absurd thing to make when the temperature hits one hundred degrees, but this faux version, Easy Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet, was just mildly silly. It required only stovetop cooking, and not for long. I used sweet Italian sausage instead of spicy in the hopes that the bug would eat some. His tastes are varied, but he doesn’t like “spice.” I do have enough sense not to bring this very wintery dish to someone else’s home, however, and so it was both last night’s dinner and today’s lunch.

What I settled on to bring to my friend, and which is currently browning in the oven, is Smitten Kitchen’s cauliflower and caramelized onion tart. We bought an enormous and beautiful cauliflower at last week’s farmers market, and the lovely photographs on the recipe page drew me in. Perhaps she will report back on the results; I know I will, because I made two…

eta: The tart was delicious! If I make it again, I will roast the cauliflower longer, just to give it more color and depth. I’ll also caramelize the onions, which of course is part of the recipe, but in an effort to keep down the heat in the kitchen I substituted spring onions. I used the sour cream substitution for the mascarpone and half-and-half for the whipping cream, to cut down on fat. And I also added dried basil, grape tomatoes and a bit of salt, because eggs always need salt. The bug asked for “just a little piece” and deemed it “pretty good” but preferred raw broccoli.