In the kitchen at Chez Dog and CycleItalia

February 16, 2012February 16, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

You’ll be pleased to know that despite it being February, which sucks, I have yet to eat grease, drink whiskey or buy things.

Instead, I decided to amuse myself with a couple new recipes.

The first, which made its triumphant debut Tuesday night, is a chili con carne in which the carne is ground lamb. And y’know what? Despite its origins in Noo Yawk City and a distinctly minimal approach to tomato products it was purty damn’ good. First time I ever used cilantro stems in anything. Live and learn.

The second, assembled last night, was also from The New York Times, courtesy of Martha Rose Shulman. It involved chicken and chiles, plus a big-ass can of tomatoes to make up for the dearth of same on Tuesday. Alas, it proved a bit sweet for my taste. Next time, fewer red peppers, more chile.

One thing I like about Martha’s recipes is that they normally involve ingredients the average well-stocked pantry already has on hand. I was a little light on chicken and bell peppers for this one, but that was easily remedied.

While I was out scoring bird and bells I swung by the Fine Arts Center and collected a few pounds of Pueblo chile from Doug Wiley of Larga Vista Ranch. I hadn’t known that he was still coming up on Wednesdays despite the farmers’ market being on hiatus for the winter, and there was quite a crowd of Bibleburg foodies on hand to greet him. So now you’ll know where to find me on a Wednesday afternoon.

Last but not least, while we’re speaking of food and the cooking thereof, longtime Friend of the DogS(h)ite Larry T. provides the following. I may test-fly this one over the weekend while Herself is off visiting kin in San Antone.

CycleItalia’s Quick Red Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

Half a small onion, chopped fine

1 clove garlic, crushed and minced

1 pinch red pepper flakes

A splash of red wine

1 cup tomato sauce (the better your basic ingredient here is, the better the sauce will be, but the cheapo canned stuff works fine).

Salt and additional pepper to taste

In saucepan over medium heat sauté the onion, garlic and red pepper until just soft, not brown.

Pour enough wine to just cover and let evaporate for a minute or two.

Add in the tomato sauce and stir well, then reduce heat until it’s just bubbling on the edges. Simmer for at least 20 minutes and up to an hour if you have time.

Variation: Pasta all’Arabbiata (Angry Pasta)

To make a spicy version of red sauce, just add more red pepper flakes to the sauce—about ¼ to ½ teaspoon, depending on your taste, and garnish with chopped parsley rather than basil.

Italians do not sprinkle grated cheese on arabbiata — drizzle on a bit of the best extra virgin olive oil you have instead.

Pigskin? Nope — posole

February 5, 2012February 5, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

My sources tell me there’s some class of sporting event going on today. “The Stupor Bowel,” or something like that.

There are no bicycles involved in the Stupor Bowel, which seems designed to paralyze the digestive tract with a one-two punch of grease and salt while clouding the mind with watery industrial lager and subliminal electronic commands to buy things you don’t need and can’t afford.

Some home viewers are said to prefer watching the ads that ostensibly support the “game,” a ritualized re-enactment of World War I trench warfare in which the gas attacks afflict the spectators rather than the combatants.

Here at Chez Dog the TV will remain in its usual mode — we call it “off” — and if the temperature ever rises above freezing I will patrol the neighborhood via bicycle. With all eyes glued to the tube this would be a perfect day for the Chinese to invade. Nobody would even notice until they woke up chained to a table full of iPhone parts, with a biscuit, a cup of tea and an assembly manual written in Mandarin.

Herself, meanwhile, will pull the traditional Sunday shift as a volunteer at the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, where everyone will no doubt have one eye on Animal Planet during Puppy Bowl VIII. There will be pigs on the sidelines, none of them named Newt (I hope).

Afterward we will enjoy a light repast of chicken enchiladas smothered in red chile, posole and pintos with chipotle, supported by a couple of fine craft beers recommended by tech editor Matt Wiebe of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News: Happy Camper IPA and Imperial Java Stout, both from the Santa Fe Brewing Co.

At no point will a cat be used as a football. Not even during halftime.

By request: Cycling and foodie things

January 25, 2012January 25, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

The FridgeaDog — Leftovers — they're what's for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch. Annnnd dinner. ...

Egad. Eighteen degrees with a high of 57 forecast. That sort of thing is a shock to the system. It’s also SOP in Colorado. The trick is finding the sweet spot for a longish bike ride in that temperature range. That, and trying to stay out of the wind.

I’ve been road testing bikes again — a Pashley Clubman and a Bike Friday New World Tourist — but I feel like riding one of my own machines today, maybe the Voodoo Nakisi MonsterCrosser®.

The thing is a tank but it’s become my go-to bike for some reason. The 700×38 rubber suits pavement, gravel and single-track alike, and the low end of 22×26 means I can climb a tree if being chased by an angry reader.

Speaking of angry readers, James wants “more cycling and foodie things, less politics.” We’ve covered cycling, so let’s move on to foodie things.

I’ve been trying to stretch the food dollar lately, having bid adios to Los Zopilotes de San Diego. And it ain’t easy, because I dearly love to commit eating.

Pork chops are a fave, and the other day I pulled a pound and a half of same from the freezer to thaw. But I got to thinking that a pork chop disappears pretty damn’ fast, as in during one meal, unless you’re a nibbler, which I am not.

Enchiladas, beans and posole — Leftover enchiladas, beans and posole. Much more of this sort of eating and Tom Tancredo will demand that I produce a birth certificate or be deported. Hah! Slipped some politics in there, didn't I?

So I diced a pound of the chops and made a pot of posole, which inspired the cooking of a pot of pintos with chipotle and the assembly of some sausage-and-cheddar enchiladas in red chile sauce. We’re still eating on that mess — in fact, Herself brown-bagged a small container of leftovers to work for lunch.

The remaining red sauce, beans and sausage, meanwhile, will get turned into tonight’s dinner of sausage-and-bean burritos smothered in red with a side of posole and salad.

And that half-pound of pork that didn’t make it into the posole? It was featured in last night’s nuclear kung pao pork with rice. The leftovers from that will be my lunch today.

So there you have it. How to stretch your swine into a fine line, by Chef Dog. Bon appétit.

Thorazine is on my Xmas list

November 29, 2011November 29, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Miss Mia Sopaipilla views with alarm — "You said a bad word," says Mia. "And another. And another. And another. ..."

What’s been going on around here, you ask?

Well, let me think here for a minute. Hmm. …

We had the big Thanksgiving Day U-turn from Bibleburg to Fort Collins and back on Thursday; a full day of VeloNewsery plus dinner with our across-the-street neighbors Larry, Jill and Wendy on Friday; lunch with (and saying adios to) our wonderful next-door neighbor Judy on Saturday, with an extra-large side of work; and work work work on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, culminating in yet another dinner with friends tonight, a northern New Mexican project to which I tended between bouts of pixel-pushing for the Boulder boyos.

Whew. Long week for an old dog. And it ain’t over yet.

As you might imagine, something’s had to give around here, and that something is exercise. My ass is approaching critical mass, and I ain’t talking about the traffic-snarling bicycle parade, either.

I did sneak out for a 20-minute “run” this afternoon before putting the beans on the stove. Folks probably thought they were seeing a particularly ugly, sluggish zombie on the prowl.

And I probably managed to sweat off a couple of grams running around the kitchen, chopping, mincing, slicing, sautéing and stirring bits of this and that until in desperation, running out of time, I finally dialed down the menu from cheese enchiladas in green sauce with one side of beans in chipotle and another of red chile roasted potatoes to a bare-bones platter — bean burritos smothered in green with a side of the aforementioned spuds.

The bad news is, I probably put those lost grams right back on by going back for seconds. Plus pie. Did I mention pie? Oh, Lord.

Meanwhile, we will return to our regularly scheduled snark come Thursday, when I have a day off — and the weatherman is calling for wind-driven snow and a high in the 20s. I foresee much grumbling and the first stationary-trainer ride of the season, not necessarily in that order.

Fries with that?

October 5, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

Posole — A pot of posole simmering at Chez Dog. Soups and stews were the first dishes I ever tackled, and they remain a favorite because of their relative simplicity of preparation and quantity of leftovers.

Mark Bittman of The New York Times takes issue with the conventional lefty wisdom that fast food is cheaper than home-cooked meals for cash-strapped families. Meanwhile, Tom Philpott of Mother Jones takes issue with Bittman’s taking issue, noting that he failed to consider the cost of labor in planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning up after a meal for four.

And labor it is, as any amateur hash-slinger will tell you. Cooking is something you must want to do in a society where underpaid people in paper hats hurl greasy feedlot meat and potatoes at you as you drive past from home to work and back again. We have TV to watch, goddamnit — we don’t have time for all that grub-rasslin’. Chaz Bono is on “Dancing With the Stars,” f’chrissakes!

I mostly want to cook, but I also have plenty of free time, being a professional unemployable whose tenuous grip on three part-time jobs depends upon my co-workers rarely having to deal with me in person.

And there was a time when I didn’t want to cook, mostly because I didn’t know how — nobody had ever taught me. When I was a kid, food showed up three times daily as if by magic. In college there were cafeterias. As a young journo’ I patronized restaurants, cadged meals from married colleagues or reheated ghastly frozen dinners.

I don’t recall the impetus, but eventually I taught myself to cook a few basic dishes — mostly soups and stews, one-pot meals that would have plenty of leftovers. I’ve branched out a bit over the years, tackling American, Asian, Italian, French and Mexican dishes, but my cookery remains fairly simple.

And yet even I sometimes find the process too laborious for words.

Now, granted, I tend to overdo. I roam all around town collecting mostly organic ingredients from Whole Foods, Ranch Foods Direct, Mountain Mama and Savory Spice Shop, occasionally scoring specialty items from the Santa Fe School of Cooking, Asia Pacific Market, the Colorado Farm & Art Market or Spencer’s Gardens.

I’ve acquired enough stainless pots and pans, cast-iron Dutch ovens, rice cookers, food processors, knives and cookbooks to open a very small and ultimately unsuccessful restaurant.

And I spend hours scouring the Innertubes for tasty treats like those served up in Martha Rose Shulman‘s New York Times column, Recipes for Health.

Thus, when sloth overcame me last evening I didn’t waddle out to the car for a quick trip to Mickey D’s. Instead, I consulted my refrigerator and pantry, then whipped up a simple Shulman dish — sautéed spinach with mushrooms — poured it over some al dente fusilli and sprinkled the lot with Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Now there’s a happy meal for you.