Busy days here at the Nooney household. Presidents week is a hectic at work, a 50 inch snowstorm came rolling thru and then our son finally got home from Afgannyland. Relief. I'm sure your life gets just as busy. When this happens to me my diet suffers. No planning, just grabbin' and goin'. Time to make a nice meal for me. Easy breezy and fun to eat. I dig using my hands over utensils any day.

Let's see what went down in the AgaKitchen.

Roast Veggies and Barley Pilaf slow roast tomatoes, baked onions, broccoli, yellow squash and carrots with a side of red pepper barley pilaf mixed with dark kidney beans.

• Slow roasted tomatoes, click here for recipe, takes about three hours but can be made ahead
• Baked onions, click here for recipe, or simply wash and bake at 375 for about an hour, do not peel
• Barley pilaf, sweat 1/2 an onion small dice and 1/2 a peeled red pepper small dice, add one cup barley. add 1/4 cup white wine and 2 cups stock or water. Bring to a boil and let simmer until all liquid is absorbed. I throw it in the oven for about 30 minutes. Don't forget to season as you go
• Roast broccoli and carrots. Cut broccolli into spears and carrots into sticks, drizzle with olive oil, season and into a 425 oven for about 10 minutes
• Roast summer squash, pick out a small one, split lengthwise, season and into an oiled baking pan and in the oven with the broccoli and carrots, about ten minutes. I put a cool cross hatch pattern on mine but I like to show off. Look closely and you can see them. I t also helps the heat penetrate a bit deeper
• Simple vinaigrette, I used capers and lemon, 3 to 1 oil to vinegar ratio with a splash of wine and mustard

That's it, add some nice greens, I used some cool living greens upland watercress, and build a plate full of great tasting fun to eat healthy vegan food that carnivores will love.

Welcome home Sgt Nooney!

My wife makes the best banana bread in the world. Then I went and bought an Aga. The banana bread suffered. It burned on top, raw in the center. All the wonderful things we heard about Agas being a bakers best friend went out the window. But she pressed on, learning the nuance, switching ovens, longer cooking times. The result: My wife's banana bread is now out of this world. The Aga will make all sides of the bread crispy and chewy with a moist center that is worthy of a throwdown with Bobby Flail and his gaggle of traveling cooks.

Originally she was going to do this post but a bout with the flu has kept her at bay. I'm sure she would have gone on about how I stepped in and tried to improve her recipe. I whipped the eggs, swapped out butter for oil, sifted and folded. No avail. I even made one with no sugar. She thinks it was a mistake on my part. I'm pretty sure I wanted to try it with no sugar, yeah that's it, no sugar. Me over think a recipe. Blasphemy!

Let's see how it went down in the Agakitchen

step one: get bananas

step two: mix it all up

Eileen's Banana Bread

pre heat your oven to 350, Aga owners use the Baking Oven & Simmer Oven

• 4 crazy rotten bananas, we hang them from our pot rack so they rot nice and even, when good and rotten you can freeze them
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup veg oil
• 2 cups flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup sugar,
• demerara sugar to sprinkle on top

Crush the bananas with a fork

Mix all dry ingredients in bowl

Add the wet ingredients and mix, don't over mix

Fill a greased loaf pan with the batter and sprinkle liberally with demerara sugar on top

Bake in a greased loaf pan for 90 minutes in a 350 oven. I use a 5 x 11 silicone pan

Check after an hour and cover with foil to protect from over browning. Isn't over browning really a fancy group of words for "burning"? Guilty. A skewer should come clean when you test the bread. Better to over cook than under cook. Over cooking will be a little more crusty.

Aga Instructions

With the rack on the floor bake for 30 minutes in the Baking Oven and an hour in the Simmer Oven. A skewer should come clean when you test the bread. Better to over cook than under cook. Over cooking will be a little more crusty.

step three: eat the bread

I know, I know, boiled chicken! I must be a brave cook to take on such a challenging topic. Get a pot, drop in a dirty bird (that's what my grandmother called chickens) and boil until done. Pretty easy.

Maybe we can introduce a little more flavor. Maybe we can involve the Aga while others are content to have the simmering kettle in plain sight. Maybe with proper technique we can transform the mundane into the sublime. Holy cow! That is some lofty prose. Hope I can back them up.

Let's see how it all went down in the AgaKitchen.

"that's a lot of pulled chicken there son, you gotta permit for that?"

Here's a shopping list.

• 1 whole quality chicken, resist the urge to buy one cut upfor you
• 1/4 of a turnip,  you should always have a turnip in the fridge anyways, peeled and cubed
• 4 celery stalks
• 1 leek split and cleaned
• 3carrot
• 1 onion
• Simon & Garfunkel herb collection, parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme. See if they come bundled as a poultry blend in the produce section,\
• 4 peppercorns & 2 bay leaf
• sea salt

Now lets cut up the chicken. First thing, rinse it off and pat it dry.

 Using a serrated knife and a sawing motion split the breast. Next cut out the back bone by sawing one side then the other. My wife said the picture wasn't very appetizing so sorry no pics of the back bone

 Split the leg  from the breast following the natural seam. Flip the leg over and look for a line of fat where the drumstick meets the thigh. Seperate the leg at the fat line.

Split the breast into two pieces of roughly equal size. And there you have it, a chicken cut into eight even pieces. This will help all them cook at equal times.

Let's Boil that Chicken

• Start with a large pot, I used an 8 qt stainless stock pot with a lid
• Add the chicken
•  Cover the chicken with enough cold water so it's 3 inches over the chicken 
• Bring it to a boil, bang the side of the pot occasionally and stir the contents a little. This will allow the impurities to rise up and float on the surface. As they collect on the surface we skim them away. It's Ok if you take a little water away with the scum. It hasn't simmered long enough to hold any flavor.
• After you have skimmed the stock add the veggies, herbs and spices. Don't forget the salt. I used about 1/2 a teaspoon.
• Let this simmer for 30 minutes. When you simmer some bubbles should be breaking the surface on a constant basis. Not rolling bubbles on the entire surface. Aga Tip: Put the stock pot with it's lid on in the Simmer Oven for 45 minutes.
• Remove chicken and strain the rich chicken broth
• Remove the chicken meat  once it's cool enough to handle. Discard any bones and skin.

Now What

 Here is where the fun starts. With the broth you can make soups & stews, the meat can be used for salads, Chinese food, burrito, chicken pot pie (that's what I did) chili etc...

I'll post the pot pie recipe in a few, it was way good.

Cook like you mean it, G

There are not really too many finites in cooking. I think that's one of the things that keeps me interested. Hard to believe, but I like being wrong. It means I learned something. I think a therapist would call it "growth". Here is a finite I can sink my teeth into. Write it down and commit to memory. Never cook a special meal that is so laden with fat and calories that you and your mate are too stuffed to "get busy". Makes the dinner date not so special anymore. "We ate and drank so much the only reason we unbuttoned our pants was to keep them from splitting apart" sounds more like something to forget.

Back to the shrimp. Love it when the fresh Maine shrimp come into season. I picked up some at my not so local (50 minutes away) fancy food store. Cucumbers and shellfish always taste good together. The textures play well off each other and respond similarly to seasoning. Both ingredients are delicate and can be overpowered by assertive type of seasonings like raw onion or garlic.

Let's see how this went down in the Agakitchen.

Cook the shrimp

• 3/4 lb of fresh Maine shrimp. Drop into simmering salted water for 90 seconds. Overcooking makes the shrimp mushy. No wine or lemon, the acid has a tendency to denature these small crustaceans. Drain and layout on a flat plate to cool. No need to rinse them under cold water. On a plate and in the fridge. Takes about 30 minutes to cool.

Make the dressing   mix everything together in bowl big enough to add the shrimp and a cucumber

• 3 Tablespoons of mayo. Homemade is really much better and crazy easy. I'll give you a recipe at the end of the post.
• 3 teaspoons of Heinz Chili Sauce. This not some Asian offshoot of Americas best loved condiment. It's ketchup for big boys, a little less sweet with a little more kick. Beats ketchup anyday.
• 1 teaspoon dry sherry
• 1 teaspoon of prepared horseradish. Be sure to squeeze the liquid out of it first.
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika, picks up the smoky notes in the sherry

Put it all together

• peel and quarter your cucumber, remove seeds with your knife tip, dice into medium size uniform pieces. About the same size as the shrimp. Salt the cukes
• toss cukes and shrimp in bowl with dressing, add a little chopped dill or parsley if you have some
• place some fancy greens (I use the herb blend in the winter) tossed with a little oil and vinegar on the plate
• mound the shrimp salad in the center
• D-U-N spells done, rhymes with fun!

As promised, mayonnaise

• 1 egg and 1 egg yolk
• 1T mustard
• 1T cider vinegar
• squeeze from 1/4 of a lemon
• 1 cup olive oil, not EVOO
• salt to taste
• pepper, white if you have it, again to taste
• 1 Tablespoon of hot hot water

Mix everything but the oil and water in a food processor. With the motor running slowly add the oil. After the oil add the hot water. Taste, season and taste again.

I loved cheese strudel. Strong words, chosen wisely, no typo, past tense. My strudel love affair began in the early days of my culinary training. The Chef would get raw milk fom the farm up the road and tie it in several layers of cheese cloth and hang it behind the line for a few days while it thickened up. This fresh cheese would get sweetened, seasoned and rolled in crispy strudel dough. It was "verboten" to eat anything we could sell but I did get to eat the ends off the long roll. Crispy and not too sweet with little bits of soft dried fruit. I had to be fast to get to them before the Chef did.

But how do I know I loved cheese strudel? There are a few dishes in my life that stand out on a personal note. My Nana's stuffed cabbage, a special salad dressing from Hopkins Inn and cheese strudel. These are dishes I was happy to never make again. The memory was enough. My oldest sister brings up stuffed cabbage every Christmas. Close, but still not my Nana's. Just as much love but still missing that little something. I get a taste of the salad dressing every few years. Again close but not like it use to be. I can close my eyes and still smell that salad dressing mixing in the Hobart. But no luck with the strudel. Never saw it anywhere. Memory would have to suffice.

A few years back I tasted some Quark cheese from the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company. This was pretty close to the cheese we would make from the fresh raw milk. It had a slight tang and very creamy. Time to take the leap and see if I could live up to my memories. This recipe is as good as I remember. Time to take the strudel off the list of things I love so much I won't cook. I still love it I just don't love it in that special way.

Special Note Lyndsey Vonn Olympic Downhill Champion used the cheese to help heal her badly bruised shin. The power of cheese. No lie, check it out. Vonn heal with Topfen

Let's see how this went down in the AgaKitchen.

 Cheese Strudel Filling

• 1 8oz package Quark cheese (try Vermont Butter & Cheese Company)
• 1 8oz package cream cheese
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup golden raisins or dried apricots small dice
• 1 1/2 to 2 Tablespoons semolina flour depending on how thick the quark is
• drop of vanilla

Place the Quark in a fine mesh strainer and let drain while you prepare the filling

Put cream cheese in a mixer with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed. Be sure to scrap down the sides a few times

Gradually add powdered sugar and blend

Add Quark to cream cheese and mix

Add egg yolks, semolina, dried fruit and vanilla to cream cheese and mix

Chill while you prepare the dough

Filo or Phylo  Dough

Phylo pastry is a good substitute for the labor intensive and mad skill required strudel dough. Just use lots of butter and follow my little trick.

• 1 package of filo pastry sheets
• 1 stick of butter melted
• 1/2 cup or so of finely ground nuts

Read the instructions on the package about thawing and keeping covered etc..

Layout a sheet of pastry and brush with warm butter. Lay another sheet next to it overlapping about 1/3 of the sheet. Brush well with butter.

Lay another sheet on top of the first two expanding the size of the rectangle you are making. Lay another one next to it covering the first layer completely.

Repeat this until you get 4 layers of pastry. If you skimp with butter it will get brittle and crack.

Sprinkle the ground nuts over the dough. If you look at the small picture above (right side) you can see the overlapping pastry and the nuts.

Add 1/2 the filling along the bottom third and roll like a burrito. Fold the ends in before you roll to prevent leaking.

Place on a baking sheet and into a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes or until the dough is nicely browned.

Let rest for 20 minutes before slicing. Do not cover any uneaten strudel. Leave it on a cutting board uncovered with a knife next to eat so you can just slice a little piece off when you walk by. Plus the dough will get soggy if you cover it.

I served mine with a hard cider poached pear filled with lingonberries. Awesome!

 Repeat with the remaining filling and dough.

That's it, enjoy and cook like you mean it, G

PS it makes an excellent breakfast pastry

Everyone knows Brussels sprouts are really baby cabbages. Just like all baby vegetables the flavor is a bit more pronounced then the big boy grown up version. Not as much water and seeds to dilute the taste. Brussels sprouts are no different. One of the cute things we fancy cooking people like to do is put a  twist on a classic. Ratatouille made with whole roasted baby vegetables, petite eggs Benedict made with quail eggs and mini English muffins or a baby lettuce salad. Who knew there was so much food money in babies, besides Jonathan Swift of course.

I tried making baby stuffed cabbage but my fingers are out of practice. Back in the day I'm pretty sure I could have rolled a mean baby stuffed cabbage. Next was  the traditional boiled dinner with baby baby potatoes, teeny tiny carrots, mini corned beef and and my baby boiled cabbage aka Brussel sprouts. It reminded me of a slogan from the nouvelle cuisine days. "Children's portions at adult prices".

How about a version of coleslaw, that should work. I sliced the Brussels sprouts nice and thin with my mad knife skills. Soaked them in some salted water and covered them with a warm dressing. Breezy easy and you really don't need many sprouts so the slicing goes pretty quick. You could use a thin slicing blade on your food processor and get good results.

Here's a blow by blow of how it went down in the AgaKitchen.

• 12 oz Brussels sprouts sliced thin
• 4 oz thick cut bacon julienne*
• 3 shallots or half a small red onion julienne
• 1 clove garlic smashed
• 1/4 cup dried fruit chopped small, I used cranberries
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 T Balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon cider vinegar
• salt & peppa

Boil 1 cup of water with 4 Tablespoons salt. Add one cup water to the salted water and pour into a bowl large enough to hold the sliced cabbage and the water/brine. Put the cabbage in the bowl and press down so it's all covered.

Crisp the bacon on a stove top stirring often or in the Roasting Oven for about 7 minutes if you are in the know and own an Aga.

Remove crisped bacon from fat, sweat shallot/onion in reserved bacon drippings. Add garlic, dried fruit, olive oil and Balsamic, let simmer for a minute. Remove from heat and add cider vinegar.

Drain the purged sprouts and squeeze as much excess water from them as you can. Toss with the dressing, add the reserved bacon, taste and season, taste and season, then taste and season one more time to be sure.

We had it over baked haddock with small dice of parsley potatoes and tomato sauce. Works well as a little canapé or on a bed of greens. Try it tossed with cannelloni beans over pasta.

* Garbage in, garbage out. Not all bacon is created equally. Spend the money and buy the good stuff. That factory farmed, water pumped and smoke seasoned bacon is truly a mystery meat. Better yet, raise a pig and smoke your own.

Cook like you mean it, peace, G

I grew up eating a version of these noodles that my Hungarian grandmother called "nuculee noodles". They appear in no cookbooks I own and even the Google comes up with nothing but a blank stare when queried. My Nana seasoned hers with poached beef liver and served them in a clear broth soup with big chunks of veggies, parsley and a marrow bone. Notice I said seasoned with beef liver. Try using stronger flavored ingredients as a small player, a little bleu cheese blended into your balsamic vinaigrette. No need to hammer home every note.

Once the noodles are made you have many options. Chicken paprikash poured over the top is classic. Floating in a soup, sauteed in brown butter with herbs or baked with a cheesy sauce are all good. In the photo I used a wilted onion, garlic and spinach steamed in a little veggie broth. I added the noodles, warmed them in the oven and grated fresh nutmeg over the top. Top it with a mustard crusted pork loin, a little cranberry pan sauce and we'll call it a meal.

Let's see what I did. Feeds four as a side. Pretty cheap to make, under $1.50. I used canned pumpkin and froze the leftovers in 1/2 cup measurements. You could use a leftover baked sweet potato with similiar results. It's not the overwhelming pumpkin flavor I'm going for. It's the way the vegetable lightens up the dough. Reminds me of a lazy mans' gnocchi. By lazy I mean smarter because this way is easier.

• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk or water, choose milk when possible
• 6 nice big sage leaves, small dice
• 1 shallot very fine dice, sweat until soft
• salt, white pepper and a touch of cayenne. If you do not season these well you will be disappointed

In a bowl mix the flour, sage, salt, pepper and cayenne. Make a well in the middle.

In a bowl mix all the wet ingredients including the shallot. Pour into the well and incorporate the dry into the wet using a fork. This is the same technique you use for spatzle. Once it's all mixed cover and let rest.

Bring a 4qt pot of salted water to boil. Fill a steel bowl with cold water to put the cooked noodles in.

Put your noodles on a cutting board close to the edge. Using a knife cut pinky finger sized noodles with your knife and drop into the gently boiling water. Repeat until you used about a quarter of the dough. Stir and let cook until they all float. Takes about 2 minutes after all the noodles are in. You can check for doneness by cutting one in half if you need to. If undercooked you will see a doughy center. Once they are all cooked lift from the water and drop into the bowl of cold water.

Repeat until all the dough is gone. That's it. I suggest you try it with the spinach I described above. A tart counter point on the plate (cranberry pan sauce and tang of the mustard on the pork) will keep the savory muted flavors in balance.

Cook like you mean it, think happy thoughts, G

No chance! Busy with holiday party and holiday business. Caught my breath, took the dog out for a long ski and now I'm ready to get back to sharing the nonsense that is AgaKitchen. Today is the 1 year anniversary of this little blog. I started it to help pass the time while Sgt Nooney was in Afgannyland making blankets of freedom. Those blankets are so warm and cozy I hope W. and rest of the neocons got one for whatever holiday they celebrate. I think Cheney celebrates Deferment Day. He's lucky. He celebrates three times a year. I digress again, sorry. After a year I learned plenty about myself and enjoyed all the feedback. With the help of Strunk & White my prose even taok a turn for the better now & then.

Anywho. Schwinerschnitzel tonite as soon as my wife gets home to run the camera,

Peace, always, for everybody, G

Abigail made some nice pig cookies dubbed H1N1 cookies by our coat checker Nick

Over 90 friends managed to find parking for their cars and came over to visit. The big ham I made was rock solid and enjoyed by all. Wouldn't be much of a cook if I didn't want to tweak it a little. Just a bit more smoke and a slightly longer cure.

Our Valley's pig contingency had a strong showing with much talk of bigger & better next year. There is no going back after raising your own meat. Tom is looking at a big sausage stuffer, Randy has a new smoker and Abigail is thinking about a bigger herd this year at her place. One of the best parts of the whole Pigskin Butcher thing is spending time with people. After a few days of working towards a common goal you really start to know someone. New friends,yay!

Kitchen island was full of food and drink. From left to right we have Jack, Marty (gold star for clean up detail), Mitch, Chris, Sofia, me and Charlie. We ended up with some cool truffles from pro's and enthusiasts. Carrot soup was sweet and creamy. Wine flowed like....wine.

Funny how things come together. I planned on a ground beef dish and ended up using some Afgannyland saffron and Vietnamese cinnamon. I got both from some adventurous world traveling friends. I called the dish my Great Military Blunder Burrito in honor of the spices. I just can't wash the hippie out of me no matter how hard I try.

 one of the many still lifes in our home

We are having a holiday party. 80 or so of our closest friends will stop by this Sunday for our Soup & Sweeties Party. This is our son's second deployment over the holidays and we throw a party. It's a nice distraction for us. Seeing so many friends adds to the sense of community that helps us get through a difficult time. Hopefully Sgt Nooney will be heading out of Afgannyland by the end of January.

Here is a before photo. We will follow up some after photos. I'm very excited about the big ham up front. Cider brined and cured for three weeks, smoked and then simmered. The pork is from one of the nicest pigs I butchered this Fall. The woman who owned the pigs raised them with great care and it was a joy to fabricate them for her. After I made a large boneless ham for her I commented on how nice it was. Her reply, " Why don't you make one for yourself?". No need to ask me twice. Thanks Robin!

Another holiday test for the Aga. I'm sure it will pass with flying colors.

Here's the menu,

Local Organic Cider Cured Ham

Vermont Farmhouse Chowder

Onion Soup Fondue

Baked Brie & Cider Marmalade

Hummus & Homemade Flour Tortillas  pickled hot peppers from my CSA share

Romaine Hearts & Caesar Dip

Something using either my local beef or lamb, negi maki? not sure.

More Cookies and Sweeties than you can shake a stick at. I hear the Byrnes will be bringing their truffles and my friend Michelle is a seriously skilled professional pastry chef. No pressure Michelle

Stay tuned for the follow up.

Peace, G