Braised Beans and Sardines with Fennel from The Careless Cook

 

Unlike most recipes from The Careless Cook, this takes a little time, but no worries, the time is just chopping and slicing and dicing. Even The Careless Cook can get this done pretty quickly while he’s sipping an excellent white wine from the Alsace.

 

Another good thing about this recipe is it feeds at least four of your freeloader friends. Bad thing is, this is so delicious, they’ll be embarrassed to invite you over. 

 

Ok, let’s get going!

 

Ingredients

 

1 fennel bulb. Hack off the stalks and fronds

1 lemon, cut in half

¼ cup olive oil. I don’t care if you’re sacrificing a virgin oil or now.

2 medium shallots, sliced thin

6 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped

¼ cup Italian herbs (I used The Spice Lab Italian Rustico from Amazon)

½ teaspoon (or more) red pepper flakes

½ cup dry or barely sweet white wine

6 cups chicken broth (I used Swanson Organic Chicken Broth)

2 cans of beans of choice (I used one can of red beans and one can of chickpeas)

5 chicken Andouille sausages, cut in arounds

1 can of oil packed sardines, drained (Someone in my house does not like sardines. She sliced and cut excellent salami.)        Both are delicious and with no fish or meat, it's still delicious.

1 cup coarsely chopped parsley

Coarse salt to taste

 

Serve with toasted bread.  I bake 2 Hour Fastest No Knead Bread by JennyCanCook.com.  Online recipe. Don’t let 2 hours scare you. The dough sits for an hour and it bakes for 45 minutes.  And no, I do not know this woman, nor does anyone pay me, but I do love her bread.

Puttin’ it together!

 

Slice the fennel bulb in half, then slice the halves thinly.

Thinly slice one half of the lemon and pick out any seeds.

 

Heat the oil in a large pot with the top off. Add the sliced fennel,

shallots, garlic, lemon slices, red pepper flakes, andouille sausage rounds, and cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is soft. 

Takes about 5-7 minutes.

 

Add wine to the pot. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil.

 

Reduce to a simmer, stirring for about five minutes. Fennel should be tender.  

Add the beans and cook another 8-10 minutes to let the beans soak up some broth.

 

Stir in the parsley, taste and add more salt to taste.

 

Serve in bowls of your choice, and place the sardines or whatever your heart desires and squeeze the other half of the lemon over the top.

 

There will be some luscious wine left for you! No worries. Your freeloaders are probably Beer swillers. 

With sardines on top.

 

 

Blueberry Muffins from The Careless Cook

 

Sometimes someone snaps the whip to let me know I better get cracking and bake something for a hens’ party that starts within the hour. Normally happens when I have just mixed an icy martini, and settled into my lounge chair, just at kickoff.

 

But, the Careless Cook is one fast cookie, or muffin man. He’ll be back in front of the TV rapidly. 

 

Few know that my muffins are quick.  I say let those of the gentle sex continue to think the Careless Cook is a kitchen marvel. Or as the French say, C’est une merville! !  (Say-toon-mairvay) Sounds better in French. A lot of things do. But we’ll discuss that over a second martini.

 

Dang! My team just fumbled! It's time to get baking!

 

Ingredients

 

¼ cup sugar

1/3 cup butter melted

2 eggs

1 teaspoon or a quick slosh of vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking powder

¾ cup milk

Two cups blueberries, fresh or thawed

 

Puttin’ It Together

 

Oven to 425 F or 220 C. Do it now!

 

Large bowl.  Put together sugar and melted butter and mix well. I used an electric hand mixer.

 

Add eggs and vanilla extract and beat well. 

 

Toss in flour, salt, and baking powder, and beat well.

 

Pour in the milk a little at a time and beat just long enough to be combined.

 

Gently fold in the blueberries.

 

Drop scoops of the batter into greased muffin tins or do as I do and use paper muffin cups (Amazon), as you can see.

 

Bake muffins for 22 minutes.  

 

Took me about thirty minutes or less to get it in the oven and get back to the game. Quelle merveille! Kel mer-vay.

 

 

Simple Lemon and Walnut Cake by the Careless Cook

 

I readily admit you haven’t heard from the Careless Cook in a while. Make that a long while. Have a bunch of excuses. No. Not correct.  Only one. Poetry.  

 

I can hear my three faithful readers gurgling as they chug some of their beer and let the rest spill down their faded, stained t-shirts, mumbling: “Stop with the chatter! And gimmie me sump-ten ta eat! And make it good stuff! I ain’t waitin’ much longer!”

 

Ok, zip up your pants and follow this recipe, drunk or sober, as if you have a choice. Get your wife to help you with the big words.

 

Time to cut to the kitchen.

 

Simply a Lemon Walnut Cake that you can start stuffing in your mouth in 45 minutes.

 

Ingredients

 

1 cup white sugar

½ cup of butter, softened (I used 30 second in a microwave oven.)

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or one glug)

2 teaspoons baking powder, more of less 

¾ cup milk (I use oat milk)

1 tablespoon lemon zest – now is when your wife has to stop in

1 tablespoon lemon juice. (Maybe little more, because the Careless Cook just doesn’t care)

A good hand full of walnuts, crushed (I fold the nuts in a dishtowel and use a rolling pin to teach those nuts a lesson)

 

Very Simple Icing

 

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 teaspoons lemon juice

3 heaping teaspoons powdered sugar

 

Stir well.

 

 

Getting’ it Done and Keepin’ it Simple

 

Oven to 350 deg F (175 deg C)

 

For baking, I used a well-greased 9 by 9 inch ceramic pan

 

Use a large mixing bowl and beat sugar and butter until fluffy. I used an electric hand mixer.

Then add eggs and vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice. Use that mixer and really get it together!

 

Add the flour and baking powder. Use that hand mixer viciously.  

 

Add the nuts and do the same.

 

Then add the milk and do more damage. 

 

Drop it all in the 9 by 9 inch baking pan. Bake for 45 minutes. Top should be lightly brown, but still give it the knife test.

 

Make the icing and paint it on.  The first coating it will glisten. When it’s not so glistening, paint on some more and then some more of the same until all the icing is used. 

 

 

 

 

Floating Poetry

 

Often people ask, how do you come up with these thoughts. Sometimes they're talking about my novels, and even more often about my poetry.  This poem explains it as best I can. But, the fact is I don't know.

                           Twinkle Through the Air

Thin soft blues, light misty greens, pale enchanting yellows

Fingers tapping through random thoughts with chanced excitement 

Bells pealing, led by soft leather clappers

Melodiously whispered words float by, 

Cascading, careless notes, sliding over happy thoughts 

Floating across misty waters, skimming across thin paper,

Chambered poetic music, soothing blinking eyes.

That wander happily across a field of poetry. 

 

A lover’s kiss

 

Come and lie beside me love, share a lover’s kiss

Passing not a single word, absorb ourselves in bliss

 

Wind your arms around me softly, cast off cares within

Surely from the core of heaven comes the warmth again.

 

There is no struggle in our world, the private world we share

Comfort comes with every longing with us lying there.

 

Just as the moon arises to replace the setting sun

A single kiss can light our way and sorrows overrun.

 

And oh the strength of touching, how it overcomes our need

As wistful as the willow, the lightness of the breeze.

 

So cling to me and pass the night as I cling to you

Allow the strength and joy to flow, and our love renew.

 

 

I am a ghost of the forest,

Empty bones snap and chafe beneath  white sheets.

While the forest weeps for lost, fractured leaves.

Silver, cracked, and rotting statues.

Forlorn from times long gone, ignored, forgotten,

Staring at bright roaming stars, hope denied,

For doom has sucked their golden sap,

Dry, cracked and brittle.

No leaves to hide their slithered bark.

Tomorrow begs that they be gone!

Away, away with beauty, pealed and scattered.

Pools of muddy water crawl aimlessly,

Awaiting lost tomorrows,

While through my boney knees,

Brown muck churns against all that's left of me.

A Plainly Elegant Salad by the Careless Cook

 

I admit I adore salads, with a big BUT! (only one T) Lettuce with bottled commercial dressing, carefully concocted to cover up every delicate, fresh flavor, is an insult to your taste buds and if you serve it to friends, you'll hear a loud choking noise and a call for 911, and hope it's not too late.

 

Doesn’t have to be that way. Lots of things you can do with olive oil and a vast array of vinegars, with many flavors. Red and while vinegars. Balsamic vinegar. Rice vinegar, plain and seasoned.  Think of vinaigrette as the baseline and be adventurous!

 

And when it comes to the salad itself, don’t think of “Dang this stuff is exotic and expensive,” think of what you’re got in your refrigerator, your pantry, and what you can do with what you’ve got.

 

First off, start with sipping a sturdy cup of red wine to stir the savage mind and bring it to boil over with a bursting of ideas. Tell no one what you’re doing. You’ll only confuse them. They don’t have your charming and efervescente palate. They probably won’t even pick a decent wine.

 

The Plainly Elegant Salad

 

Ingredients

 

¾  head of iceberg lettuce, cut or chopped as you wish (mine was coarsely chopped)

 

Handful of flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped

 

2 stalks of celery, just a little thicker than thinly cut

 

½ red onion, peeled and thinly cut in slivers about half as long as your little finger

 

A handful of broken walnuts or another nut of your choosing

 

2 tangerines, peeled and pulled apart

 

A table spoon of Herbs de Provence. Look up Herbs de Provence if you’re curious. 

Short answer: Lots of herbs. I buy my packets from The Spice Lab on Amazon

 

Smoked salmon (I prefer Norwegian, that comes thinly sliced and smaller than your palm) Don’t savor smoked salmon? Try another type of smoked fish that’s not canned. Shrimp might work. I haven’t tried it.

 

A can of black beans, strained and rinsed. 

 

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Olives, if you wish

 

Next comes the dressing:

 

Red wine vinegar, seasoned rice vinegar, olive oil

 

Puttin’ It Teegether

 

The dressing.  I start with a few tablespoons of the oil and vinegars in a cereal sized bowl, taste and add more that suits me.

 

The Salad

 

In a fairly large salad dish, toss all the ingredients together except for the parsley, smoked salmon and herbs.

 

Cut the salmon to about half the size they come in the package, and use them to decorate a large salad dish. 

 

Scatter the parsley and herbs on top.

 

Voila!

 

 

 

 

Careless Summer Soup from The Careless Cook

 

 

Right away you may be thinking: Hot Soup in the summertime? I suggest you gather your pitiful thoughts and tell me if you take your burgers off the gill and pop ‘em in the fridge?  Or don’t like BBQ in the summer. Lots of dishes go well in the good old summertime.  

 

The Careless Cook offers a soup so good, even with 90 degrees outside you’ll take a spoon-full and get so excited you’ll wet your socks, and anybody close.  

 

Hey! Summer sun is no challenge for air conditioning or buckets of icy beer!  Speaking of which, The Careless Cook likes a nice tipple whilst he stirs the pot of his deliciously Careless Soup.  Perhaps a Scotch and a splash of ice and cold water?  Don’t overdo it with the water after the Scots worked to make you smile. Be polite! 

 

Take a sip or two and let’s get going!

Adds a lot of flavor to any soup or pasta
Available for about $10 on Amazon

 

My Ingredients (If you use yours, good luck!)

 

A big pot!

1 lb ground turkey

12 oz frozen mixed vegetables

1 large onion (I like to cut mine in thumb sized chunks)

15 oz can of red kidney beans. Empty the can. Don’t rinse the beans and loose the flavor!

A big handful of fresh spinach, or more

Flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped to decorate the soup

1 big handful of shredded carrots

32 oz chicken broth + two cubes of bouillon 

1 heaping tablespoonful of Marinara sauce

1 heaping tablespoonful of Laksa (available on Amazon, see photos above)

Olive oil and salt and pepper as needed

1 Lemon

 

Puttin’ It Teegether

 

Slosh the bottom of the pot with olive oil and heat up the pot.

 

Add the ground turkey and stir to break up the meat as it cooks.

 

When the meant is no longer red, add the onion, mix and cook until the onion is translucent.

 

Add salt and pepper.

 

Add the spinach and allow the leaves to wilt, then mix with the meat and onion.

 

Add the kidney beans WITH the juice.

 

Add the remainder of the vegetables and the broth. Let the broth simmer before crushing and adding the 2 bouillon cubes.

 

As the soup comes to a simmer, add the Laksa and Marinara sauce and stir well.

 

Taste to see if it needs more salt or pepper.

 

To give another taste of summer, grate the lemon, toss the grated bits in the pot and squeeze the lemon juice into the pot.

 

Mix.

 

At this point, I turn off the heat, cover the pot and let the soup rest for an hour or two or overnight.

 

Fill your bowls with soup and sprinkle chopped flat leafed parsley on top. 

 

Then, my three faithful followers, it’s time to see if the Scotch has gone bad. I have some that lasts for days.

Best Burgers You’ll Ever Eat! Says The Careless Cook

 

What’s the best hamburger you’ve ever eaten?  Don’t tell me it was when you were eighteen in the dark of night, in the backseat with…. Be honest or dishonest, I don’t care because either way you don’t remember if you were clutching the hamburgers or the buns. 

 

Let’s stick to your taste buds. Ah, maybe not.  Let’s stick to a hamburger you remember.

 

Most burgers I’ve had were dry and/or tasteless, overcooked, and not worth the calories.

 

Now I’ll stop with nostalgia of your nights in the backseat, or the ruinous burgers and march on to how to make the best burger you’ll ever eat.  

 

Rest easy. It’s not made with beef raised by Japanese farmers in Kyoto and sold at a price that matches what it costs to fix a Ferrari. 

 

This hamburger is made with American beef and you make it in your kitchen.  Which means you can drink wine while you cook and not worry about those sirens and pesky blinking red lights.

 

Ok. Time to pop the cork and get to cookin’!  By the way, I prefer a polite red while I cook, or whatever you say, if you’re buying.

 

Do y’all know that outstanding Chef, Jamie Oliver? He offers a hamburger almost as good as the Careless Cook’s version.

 

Best Burger

 

Ingredients for two burgers

 

2 hamburger buns.

 

6 oz ground beef per burger, with about 84% lean. If you go too lean, your burger will be dry.

 

Cut a handful of strips of onions. 

 

Slice some rounds of pickles. Enough to cover a bun. Any salty pickle will do.  I make my own.

 

Mustard and Catchup.

 

Coarse salt.

 

Black pepper.

 

Unsalted spicy Cajun seasoning

 

Putting it together:

 

Stretch out some parchment paper. 

 Roll the ground beef into two balls until they are solid.  

Slap each ball down on the paper.  Mash it down with your palm.

 

Give each patty a good amount of coarse salt and black pepper, then add a good dose of  unsalted Cajun spice.  Use your palm or a spatula and press the patties to a medium thickness.

 

Add some olive oil to a large skillet and saute the strips of onion until they are browned

 

Before you take out the onions, open and brown each of the buns.  Let them soak up the thin layer of oil. 

 Take out the buns. Don’t let them burn!

 

Put in the beef patties, spices down.  Use your spatula to press the patties down a bit and let ‘em sizzle!  

Add the onions on top of the burgers and flip ‘em over.  I cook my burgers about 2-3 minutes on each side.

 

Put pickles on the bottom buns, then add catsup.

 

Put the burgers on the buns with the onions up. 

 

Put mustard on the top bun.

 

Put the top bun on the burger!

 

Let it sit for a moment.

 

Press it down to allow the juices to absorb into the buns.

 

Cut the burger in half. 

 

Ask your wife if she really wants to eat both halves of her burger.

 

Pour her another glass of wine. Compliment her on how much weight she’s lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortnum and Mason, a delight for the senses

I was first in London as a lad, a millennium  ago, melting my way into the ways of the  world. London smiled and led me into a wonderland of “yes indeed.” For Hemingway Paris was a moveable feast.  My feast was London and so it remains. To this day, the lady is still smiling and offering  a banquet. 

Although there are many,  one beautiful delectable charm is Fortnum and Mason. To label it as a grocery store is akin to mistaking priceless diamonds for rough gravel. This sparking jewel dates back to 1707.

Walk through the beautiful doors and feel surrounded by luxury.  Ladies and male clerks, dressed in black and white livery, coats and tails, stand ready. My first stop is the seemingly never ending array of tins of every known variety of tea, many of which have found a comfortable place in my cupboard. 

Just tea?  Oh poor things! You have yet to go there.  Pies and pastries, mustards, sauces, jams and jellies and on a floor below, fabulous wines and liquors.  Men and women’s attire on floors above. A glory land for selective shoppers! And yet there is more. Tea rooms and delicious luncheons, because in London, Fortnum and Mason is a satin tradition.  Before you leave, be sure to go upstairs and sample the store’s own gin distillery. Yes, they offer tastes of white gin, pink gin, and others. 

Now let's move on.

 Next door to Fortnum and Mason, be sure to step into Hatchards, the city's oldest bookshop, where you'll find, among the many tomes, autographed selections from well known authors.

Time for lunch? Or maybe a noontime cocktail?  Why not?

Around the corner from Fortnum and Mason, you’ll find 45 Jermyn Street, connected and owned by Fortnum and Mason. Delicious meals! My preference is to sit at the bar and converse with loquacious barkeepers.  It’s where I learned how to make a Perfect Manhattan. A hint: it starts with Four Roses! 

With lunch and a tipple behind you, is there more to see and do and marvel nearby? Do some shopping along along Jermyn Street. Mens and women's clothing, shoe shops, famous perfume shops, and a fabulous cheese shop. 

Oh, child! You’ve just begun the trek through a wonderland!