the family table

March 13, 2015

spring session: chicken, mushroom, spinach lasagne with fontina cheese

Love this chicken, mushroom, spinach lasagne with fontina cheese. It is not a light dish, but with a salad on the side, is a really nice EARLY spring supper.

You can make it in the morning or the day before and then keep it in the fridge until you are ready for it. Pop it in the oven for 40 minutes and dinner is ready.

Chicken Fontina and Mushroom Lasagne by The Family Table

November 14, 2014

fall session: chicken pot pie

Chicken Pot Pie. Yum. Flaky crust, chunks of white chicken breast, so good.

We roasted chicken breast in the oven...

Then, thanks to guest pastry chef, Mary Kay, we made our own pastry top.

I will be honest, this is not the fastest dinner you will ever make but it is comfort food at its best.

Chicken Pot Pie by The Family Table

November 07, 2014

fall session: classic beef stew

Sauteeing beef chuck meat in olive oil at high temperatures is a smell that lingers on your clothes. But the smell of beef stew braising in the oven with rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, red wine...that is a smell you could bottle and spray on a winter day to evoke cozy family snuggling over a fire, beef stew in their bowls.

Ok, enough corny imaginings.

I always used to make beef bourguignon for my classic beef stew. A delicious, traditional, french braise. The problem was that the french like to cook stews (coq au vin, osso bucco, boeuf bourguignon, lamb stew) with vegetables in the braise that then get strained out and new vegetables, non mushy, perfectly cooked, get added in. That is all fine and great if you have a lot of time and don't mind arthritic hands from fishing out every little last morcel of beef stew so it does not get strained and thrown away. BUT, this recipe, has the meat cooking with diced celery, onions, garlic and fennel that just melt into the sauce and don't need to be strained out. Then, about half way through the cooking, you add in your dice of carrots, parsnips, potatoes, rutabagas (or whatever root vegetables you have on hand). Still a delicious beef stew, with a lot less work.

I use beef chuck for my meat. I look for the cheapest per pound price, either in bulk slabs that I cut up into stew size, or pre-cut meat. You just want to make sure they are all the same size so they cook in the same amount of time. For this week's class, the best meat deal was pre-cute beef stew from Costco, $5.88 a lb. If you figure 1lb makes 2 servings, basically $3.00 a person, you are looking at a reasonable dish, even adding in the cost for the other ingredients.

Happy Braising.

Classic Beef Stew by The Family Table

October 31, 2014

fall session: beans, white bean and escarole soup

Today in family table cooking we made beans. A lot of them. A lot of different ways. I cooked pinto beans 3 ways: in the crock pot, over night for 7 hours on low; in the pressure cooker for 3 minutes after coming to full pressure (then letting natural release happen for 15 minutes after); and in a plain old pot, for about 1 1/2 hours at a simmer. Conclusion: pick the method that fits with your personality. Planning ahead and cooking in a crock pot is not for everyone, more for advanced thinking people. Using the slightly scary pressure cooker is also not for everyone, you have to follow timing and directions very precisely and have to trust the times as you can't look and stir. Maybe the good old fashioned pot cooking is a happy medium, although you have to be home for the time it cooks to test bean doneness.

We also made bean burgers. You can make them with any type of bean, add any type of herbs, but here is the basic recipe to launch from:

1 1/2 C cooked beans of choice
1 1/2 egg
1/2 C chopped herb of choice
1/4 C grated cheese of choice (parmesan, gryuere, combo of two)
2 tsp. dijon mustard
salt, pepper
squeeze of lemon juice
3/4 C breadcrumbs, mix of fine and panko
panko breadcrumbs for dusting patties with

Mash the beans with a potato masher or fork. Add in egg, herb, cheese, salt, pepper and lemon squeeze, mix. Add bread crumbs and test for consistency, adding more breadcrumbs or lemon juice to make it drier or wetter. Shape into patties, dip into a bowl of panko to coat. Put in fridge until ready to saute or put in the freezer if you are planning to eat them later. When ready to cook, heat up a couple of Tbl olive oil, get the pan and oil hot, add in the cakes and brown on both sides. Remove to a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for about 10 minutes at 325. Serve on a bed of greens with a squeeze of lemon and mashed avocado relish.

I had a very hard time choosing the recipes and the bean types, there are so many good ones around. I am going to attach a lot of links to some great recipes, so anyone wanting to have a bean bonanza can have fun.

Herbed White Bean and Sausage Stew

Giant Lima Beans with Stewed Tomatoes and Oregano Pesto

Giant Lemon Fennel Beans

Giant Crusty and Creamy White Beans

Porotos Granados
(yummy Chilean bean soup with winter squash, green beans, corn and smoked paprika)

Enjoy this recipe for White Bean and Escarole Soup

TFT, SOUP Cannellini Bean and Escarole

October 24, 2014

fall session: quiche

I love a flaky quiche, homemade crust with oozing cheesy insides and tasty fillings. I have a recipe I adapted from the smitten kitchen blog, which she in turn adapted from Julia Child and Marth Stewart. The dough is all made in the food processor so that really cuts down on the time and mess.
The fillings can be so varied, they can use leftovers, they can be mixed and matched. Some of my favorites are: sauteed leeks with fontina cheese, crispy bacon and caramelized onions with gruyere cheese, blanched broccoli with cheddar, roasted mushrooms with tarragon and chevre, oven roasted cauliflower with smoked gouda...you can really put your cooking creativity to work.

The two lovely Y.O.U. cooks, Amanda and Ellen, showing off their knife skills:

Tft, Quiche Basic by The Family Table

October 17, 2014

fall session: pot roast with honey roasted root vegetables

A rutabaga:

A cross between a turnip and cabbage. The farmer's market is brimming with them and I found a recipe for making farm fresh rutabagas and multi-colored carrots meld into a pot roast with chuck roast. Cook in the crock pot for 5-6 hours on high, perfuming the whole house.

Serve with a wheatberry salad and you have dinner.

TFT, BRAISE Pot Roast With Rutabagas and Carrots by The Family Table

October 10, 2014

fall session: coq au vin

Coq au Vin is not as complicated as people anticipate. I think it is just the fancy name that throws them: "Coq au Vin". No one says "old chicken in wine", who really would want to eat old chicken in wine? Yet the name "Coq au Vin" evokes parisian bistros, waiters with long aprons, beaujolais nouveau and chocolate mousse (or it does to me).

Coq au Vin is perfect served for a fall dinner with buttered egg noodles, a simple green salad and crusty bread to lap up the sauces. And, like all braises, make extra as it even tastier the day after. Bon appetit.

The Green City Farmer's market was the perfect place to buy the lovely cippolini onions, the multi-colored carrots, the fresh grown celery and garlic and all the lovely wild and button mushrooms.

This was slab bacon from Fresh Farms in Morton Grove. It was fantastic. It added a smoky flavor and was so tender.

Coq Au Vin by The Family Table

IN THE GARDEN

Four years ago, after generous donations from local garden clubs, we launched the Urban Garden at the YWCA. It started as 6 raised beds and we grew tomatoes, herbs, lettuce, kale, swiss chard, cucumbers, zucchini, collard greens, okra, eggplant and yellow squash. In 2012, thanks to an exciting donation from CoBank, we were able to increase the beds by 3, then 2 the next year 2 more in 2014. In our growing season, from April to December (thanks, global warming), I harvest the vegetables and prepare them in my weekly cooking sessions with the women at Mary Lou’s Place. It has been a great experience for all of us: planting seeds, then seeing them pop up from deep dark soil, then harvesting and eating the vegetables. It is magical. Each week I showcase a seasonal vegetable by using simple and easily repeatable recipes and preparations. As our garden unfolds, I will offer those recipes up to you, entitled “In the garden”.

In 2013, we started offering classes to Evanston women participating in W.O.W. (women out walking) sponsored by the Health Department. I held three part series where we would plant seeds; three weeks later tend the seeds and talk about nutrition; and three weeks later harvest and cook with the vegetables.

In 2014, we continued the outreach classes to the Latino Advisory Committee, to clients at Connections for the Homeless, and to families in Y.O.U.'s community schools. It has been a great journey and I hope to add new cooking groups this year.

A big thank you to those who have helped me along the way: to Margaret, Betta, Missy and Laurel for helping me in the kitchen way back when; to Amy A. for being there, for 4 years now; to Kim F. who helped maintain the garden that first summer; to Courtney and Jean who are so lovely to cook with; to Cie, my outreach cooking companion; to Amy D. who is the green thumb behind garden care 2014 and 2015; to Kim C. for making this blog; to Charles without whom the garden would not exist and to all of the many family table cookers, crock pot buyers and garden waterers who have made my years working with the YWCA possible. Thank you.

FAVORITE COOKBOOKS

River Cottage Veg, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Vegetable Literacy, Deborah Madison

Roots, Diane Morgan

Food Matters, Mark Bittman

Super Natural Everyday & Super Natural Cooking, Heidi Swanson

Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi

Ancient Grains for Modern Meals, Maria Speck

Tender, Nigel Slater

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Judy Rodgers

Simply Ming, One Pot Meals, Ming Tsai

Bills Food, Bill Granger

Art of the Slow Cooker, Andrew Schloss

Slow Cooker Revolution, America's Test Kitchen

Any books by Jamie Oliver

Sunday Suppers at Lucques, Suzanne Goin

Braise, Daniel Boulud

Hello.

I created the Family Table in late 2010 with the goal of helping families, of all backgrounds, share low cost, nutritional family meals. From my distant days of cooking in restaurants in San Francisco, I had learned the joys of braising: simmering pots, filling your house with the anticipation of dinner. Braising is simple, inexpensive, full of vegetables, and provides comfort food for the whole family. When I overcame my snobbism of slow cookers just last year, I realized that they were the missing link that could enable families to eat together, even with the crazy pace of life we all seem to lead.

Over the past years, through my bi-weekly cooking with women, I have discovered that we all share the primal desire to eat fresh, healthy and good tasting food. Standing together at a kitchen counter, peeling, chopping, grating, enables us to connect to one another as we share stories of our lives, our hopes, our insecurities in a safe way. We are nurturers by nature and as we gather together to create food for our family, we are brought closer together.

I choose my recipes for their simplicity, affordability and flavor. Wherever I can, I omit extra fats, add extra vegetables, within reason. I want to confess: I am not a health food fanatic. I believe in real food that people will enjoy sharing every night of the week. Most recently, I have started an edible garden where I plan to cook with the fresh produce as it blooms. I encourage people to visit my blog, read the recipes, and maybe even gather some friends and neighbors to cook together.

alex