Author: Isabel Montclaire

Last week, I wrote about caramelized onions and how nice it is to have that delectable treat on hand. Why had I not made them in a couple of years? Then I pondered. An onion can be difficult to cut uniformly, so it becomes a cumbersome task. I remembered a gadget I once had called a mandolin. Its sole purpose is to uniformly cut fruits and vegetables with a sharp blade attached to a platform. Even a person with excellent knife skills cannot do what a mandolin does; it can cut almost any vegetable or fruit paper thin. It also waffle cuts and juliennes.

Once upon a time I had a mandolin. It was stainless steel, clunky, and bulky with multiple parts that I found very confusing. Try as I might, I never could get the hang of using it and eventually passed it on. There were a few times where I did have the patience and the result was awesome: vegetables cut with precision and accuracy which elevated my creations to an art form. Curious, I wanted to know if the mandolin had evolved over the years.

When I googled “best vegetable slicer mandolin” I was dismayed to find myself lost in a sea of reviews. Consumer Reports wrote that there were over 100 models currently available. I read reviews from Bon Appetit, Food Network, Good Housekeeping, New York Times, Serious Eats, All Recipes, and a few others. There was even a site that reviewed the reviews. Really? Add to that all the reviews written by professional chefs. To further muddle matters, some models were touted by one site as being the best and then the same model was dissed by another. Each site had a different favorite. Will the real mandolin please stand up?  I read so many reviews and articles about mandolins that I started to lose interest and think that a sharp knife would work just fine. The price range was from $20 to $200 but more money didn’t correlate to a better product. Down the rabbit hole I went and after over two hours of perusing, a clear winner did not appear. I was mentally exhausted from sorting this out. I’ve heard of a phenomena called “decision fatigue” and yes, it’s a definitely a “thing” in our modern society. There were so many versions and options that no matter which choice I made, it seemed it would not be the right one. After reading the many reviews, there wasn’t a mandolin that was a cut above the rest.

I finally decided on one that was twenty dollars, easy to store, and razor sharp. Stay tuned next week; I will reveal who the winner is!

Recently I was shopping at the Mercantile in Fossil and in the produce aisle was a cook’s bounty; a basket heaped with attractive sweet onions. A hand-written sign said “organic locally grown”. Wow! These onions had varying sizes, shapes, and colors and were more interesting to me than the “regular” yellow onions sitting on a nearby shelf. Those onions had been graded for size and appearance and had an orderly look, but were uninspiring. The organic onions stood out, as if they had vibrant personalities and even notoriety. They seemed to say “Look at me, I’m sooooo special”. Lured in, I bought five pounds and started my walk home.

As I walked, I remembered my caramelized onion recipe and wondered why I had not made it in quite some time. This condiment gives food remarkable zing. A boring baked potato, scrambled egg, burrito, or sandwich suddenly becomes a delicious special occasion treat, as if the fare was made by a five star chef who just happened to drop by. They are ridiculously easy to make, too. 

A caramelized onion differs from a sautéed onion because caramelized onions cook very, very slowly, and deep, rich, sweet flavor develops as the natural sugar in them reduces down. The result is an intense, savory condiment that keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge. You will love having these on hand to transform your meals into gourmet treats. You can make these with any amount of sweet or yellow onions. I like to cook six or seven at a time. There really isn’t a recipe – just a list of ingredients and a cooking procedure. And don’t let the simplicity fool you; simplicity is enormously powerful.

Caramelized Onions

Medium or large onions
Butter or butter and extra virgin olive oil; one generous teaspoon per onion
Salt (I like to use sea salt or kosher)

Slice the onions about ¼ inch thick. Heat the butter/oil in a skillet until bubbling; add the onions, sprinkle the salt, and stir to coat. Cook for thirty minutes to an hour on low heat. When they start sticking to the pan, let them brown a little and then stir. The trick is to leave them alone enough to brown. If you stir them too often they won’t brown and not often enough, they will burn. Add more oil/butter if the onions seem on the verge of burning. At the end, you can add some balsamic vinegar; I like to add thyme as well. 

Yesterday I bought some more of those onions. They not only taste fabulous, they sparkle. Food has not only taste, but “feel” too. I can definitely feel that vibe, as if they absorbed the tender care of the farmer. Caramelized onions make anything taste better!

Recently, I found in the pantry a glass jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil that had an expiration date of March 2015. Were they still fit to eat? Curious, I mustered up some courage and opened the jar. They looked and smelled fine, so I tasted them. Surprise! They were savory and delicious, to the point where I wondered if they got better with age, like fine cabernet wine. I used them in a salad made of fusilli pasta, capers, green olives, roasted red peppers, Italian parsley, hemp seeds, and a red-wine vinaigrette. The salad was unbelievably delicious.

That same day, I read a startling statistic: that every day, America throws away enough food to fill the Rose Bowl stadium. Yes, that Rose Bowl — the 90,000 seat football stadium in Pasadena, California. That’s every day, not every week. Uggh! I wondered how much of that food waste was caused by expired food that was still good enough to eat.

I began to research the expiration dates that manufacturers use: use by, best before, best if used by, expires on, sell by, display until. What a muddled matter! I wondered about the criteria that experts use to determine the shelf life of food. Is it when the food loses its flavor intensity or appealing texture and appearance? Loses nutrients? What? Home cooks may assume that suddenly when the clock strikes twelve, the food goes over the edge, and then into the garbage it goes.

During my research, I came across a phrase I had not heard before — organoleptic testing: the sensory assessment of flavor, odor, appearance, and mouthfeel of a food product. Or, simplified: trust your senses to tell you if a food is safe to eat. I call this “tuning into sense-able shelf life”. Our senses are very acute and reliable. After all, they don’t want us to die from food poisoning! By learning to trust our senses, we can discern subtle changes in the appearance, smell, flavor, and texture of food. They will tell us if a food is stale or rancid and might be unsafe or even poisonous. The other day, I opened a bag of sliced almonds that had not expired yet. They looked and smelled slightly off as if they were on the verge of “going bad”. But my senses said NO— do not eat! When in doubt, throw it out. So into the garbage they went and I substituted pecans in my recipe.

The pantry still has some expired food in it, but I won’t throw the food out until I’ve tested it using the organoleptic way. Then, a little less unnecessary food waste will exist in the world; one person can make a difference and that person is me! And that person can be you, too.

A while back, I went to Germany. One evening, a friend invited me to dinner at her home. She served me a fabulously tasty soup and a week later, I was still thinking about it— it was that good. The soup was made of perfectly cooked carrots, peas, and egg noodles in a clear soup base. Simple! During our next visit, I asked if she could share the recipe. “It’s not a recipe,” she said. It’s just Maggi’s Klare Brühe — German for “clear broth” (I later learned Nestle owns the company). I asked to see the container of Klare Brühe and before I left for the states, I went to the grocery store and bought a few jars.

When I add Klare Brühe to my soups, stews, and sauces, they bloom; I get a big roasty, toasty, meaty, and savory flavor. The flavor comes on gradually and lingers. Klare Brühe is a powerful seasoning, potent and full of energy. This magic soup powder mysteriously intensifies the food without calling attention to itself. I can cook black beans, for example, in this soup base and they go from being ho-hum to stellar.

Eventually I ran out and much to my dismay, I could not find Klare Brühe anywhere, not even on the internet nor at the German grocery stores. Darn. A good friend had a son who was traveling to Germany on a student program and I asked him to bring some back for me. Eventually that supply ran out too.

Why not try to copy it? Good idea! I asked a friend of a friend who was fluent in German to translate the list of ingredients on the jar. But my several attempts to replicate the powder produced a “NQR” result, the acronym for “Not Quite Right”. Then recently, it occurred to me to look Klare Brühe up again on the internet and . . . drum roll . . . it was there! I ordered some. My being instantly filled with thousands of bubbles of happiness. I felt the excitement of reconnecting with a long lost friend who I wondered if I would ever see again.

Now the red and yellow jar sits in my herb and spice cabinet waiting to transform that next dish. Klare Brühe has magic powers and moves whatever it touches with grace —“potion magique” (other vegetable soup bases are just not the same). Recently, I went on a long road trip with my beau, taking Klare Brühe with me. We stopped at a roadside produce stand and I made the best vegetable soup ever for dinner that night. Klare Bruhe: simple, sophisticated, delightful, and just in time for the fall vegetable harvest. Available on Amazon.

Recently I had the funniest dream. I received a formal, engraved invitation to attend Thanksgiving dinner with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Wow! I arrived at the palace wearing long white leather gloves and a full length, scarlet red velvet gown. A long table set with white linen, china, crystal, silver, candelabras, and flowers awaited me. I sat down and on my gold-rimmed plate was —a big mound of spaghetti!! What? No pheasant under glass? Yes! Spaghetti can be fit for a queen or a king, if it’s out-of-this-world delicious.

My friend, Jerry, has a fabulous, easy spaghetti recipe that his mother made when he was growing up and it is out-of-this-world delicious. The recipe has just a few ingredients and takes only about fifteen minutes to prepare. This spaghetti could become one of your favorite “go-to” recipes; the one you make when you want something delicious to eat NOW and don’t want to think about it. How can simple spaghetti be sooooo tasty? The secret is the Golden Mushroom soup. 

E-Z Spaghetti

Half a pound fresh mushrooms, or two 4-ounce cans
Two tablespoons olive oil or butter
One yellow or sweet onion, diced
Two cloves minced garlic (optional)
One pound ground beef (or ½ pound sausage and ½ pound ground beef)
One can Campbell’s Tomato soup
One can Campbell’s Golden Mushroom soup
One tablespoon Italian herbs
½ pound spaghetti noodles
Salt to taste
I use my Dutch oven to cook this dish. Fill a big pot with water, add some salt, cook the noodles until al dente, and drain. Put the noodles back into the pot with some of the spaghetti cooking water (save some of it when you drain the pasta) and add a dab of butter or oil to keep the noodles from sticking together. Keep warm on low heat. If you use fresh mushrooms, slice them and sauté in olive oil or butter and set aside. Cook the meat and onions together until browned then drain the fat. Add the undiluted soup, the mushrooms, and the Italian herbs, and then give it a good stir. Bring it to a boil then simmer until it takes on a glossy appearance. That’s it!

I like to add the noodles to the sauce and combine it all together; the noodles absorb the sauce. If the mixture is too thick, add some beef broth, red wine or the pasta cooking water. Serve with parmesan cheese and top with chopped parsley —if you want to dress it up a bit. The soup must be Golden Mushroom. The more commonly available Cream of Mushroom won’t work in this recipe. You may have to special order the Golden Mushroom soup from your grocer. There you have it —spaghetti fit for a queen or a king!

My first ever trip to Baskin‒Robbins, the 31 flavors ice cream shop, was when I was in fifth grade. I went with my friend Elizabeth. The long glass cases filled with a kaleidoscope of colorful ice creams and pretty cakes caused uncontainable excitement to bubble up in me. My universe suddenly expanded! Jamoca Almond Fudge, Cookies and Cream, Butter Pecan, Nutty Coconut, Peanut Butter Chocolate. Caramel Turtle Truffle! I had to narrow my selection down to only three flavors. I can’t now recall the other two but I do remember one was Pink Bubble Gum and after the ice cream was gone I had a big sticky wad of bubble gum to chew on.

You can easily make your kitchen into your very own Baskin‒Robbins ice cream shop. In my last column, I wrote about my epiphany when I discovered that an ice cream machine was not necessary to make ice cream. Simply make the mixture and pour it into a pretty container a couple of inches deep. Before getting ready to eat, let the ice cream thaw a bit, then it will easily scoop out. So far, my favorite homemade flavors are peppermint (peppermint candy plus peppermint extract), Heath Toffee, and Oreo cookie. The following recipe can be doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled.

Homemade Ice Cream

¾ cups sugar
3 tablespoons flour
¼ tsp salt
3 cups milk
2 beaten eggs
2 cups whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Combine sugar, flour, and salt in a saucepan. Stir in milk. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly using a whisk. Let it cool some, then add the eggs and stir very fast because you do not want to have scrambled eggs in your ice cream. Add the cream and vanilla. Remember, if you add candy or cookies that sweetens the ice cream so you may want to add less sugar. Adding an extract can bump up the flavor, so for example, if you make peppermint ice cream, you can add some peppermint extract. Instead of giving you measurements, I suggest that you add a teaspoon or two of the extract and taste the ice cream. Imitation vanilla is surprisingly good and costs a fraction of the real extract. I always add vanilla to the base no matter the flavor I decide on.

I looked up my friend Elizabeth and discovered she has spent her entire adult life working with primates in Africa. If I ever meet up with her again, I’d love to go to Baskin‒Robbins and hear the amazing stories she must have to tell. And enjoy a bubble gum ice cream cone, one scoop. Along with one scoop of the new modern flavor Oreo n’ Cold Brew.

My friend refers to those times in life where things just don’t go as planned as “plot twists”. Life just takes an upper hand and in my experience, it’s usually for the best. Being flexible and able to turn on a dime is the way to handle these uncomfortable moments with grace. Go with the flow.

I was looking forward to making ice cream in two flavors, Oreo and peppermint candy. The machine we have is the old-fashioned kind that uses electricity, salt and ice and it sits outside on the back porch. When the ice cream has frozen, the machine automatically turns off.

I opened the freezer only to see that the bag of ice that I needed was half gone. Well ok. Maybe I can use ice cubes from the trays to supplement. After I poured the creamy mixture into the metal insert and packed ice and salt around it, I could not for the life of me get the lid to fit in place. When I finally did get the lid to shut, the machine made a growling noise because the mixing blade inside was stuck. I fiddled with it and finally the blade started to turn. The machine usually takes about twenty minutes to finish, so I left. When I returned, the machine was still vigorously running. What’s wrong!!? It should be done by now. The ice had melted so the mixture was not frozen. To the store I go to get a bag of ice and when I got back, I started over.

Twenty minutes later I return to the porch. The machine sounded like it was in labor; it’s stuck again. I lifted the lid in order to properly diagnose the problem and saw that an inch and a half of ice cream had frozen hard like ice on the sides but the middle was still liquid. By now I wonder why I did not just buy &*# $%@ ice cream while I was at the store?

I pondered. What are my options? Make it into eggnog or vanilla custard? Hmmm. I chiseled the mixture off the sides, let it thaw and put it into Pyrex dishes then into the freezer for the night. The next morning, I pulled the containers out only to see that they were solid like a block of ice.  Now what? I let it soften for about twenty minutes and the consistency was beyond perfect. Rich and creamy and packed with little tiny crunchy ice crystals, it felt like I was eating sparkles!

How wonderful to discover that I did not need an ice cream maker to make fabulous ice cream. What a happy accident.

A few years ago, I had dinner with my friend Jenny. She is a vegetarian and is also a fabulous cook. She can even make tofu taste good! Whenever I go to visit, I usually come away with a wonderful recipe or two.

That evening, she made a simple black bean and brown rice dish, topped with roasted vegetables, sharp cheddar cheese and a splash of salsa. The first bite produced an OMG! moment, the kind that could jolt you off your chair if you weren’t sitting squarely. The flavor exploded over my entire mouth, including under my tongue. The taste lingered with a rich savory flavor and even sent a shiver down my spine.  What was in this, I asked? I absolutely had to know. After all, wasn’t I just eating beans and rice, which of course can be delicious, but tend to be ho-hum?

Jenny went to her recipe box and pulled out the recipe for her magical sauce. It’s packed with ingredients that have the umami flavor. Umami is the fifth flavor – the others are salt, sweet, bitter and sour. In 2002, scientists discovered umami receptors on the tongue so then it became a recognized flavor. But the Japanese have known about umami for over 200 years. Umami adds the savory flavor; some call it the essence of deliciousness. The flavor is very intense and food goes from ordinary to extraordinary when the umami flavor is present.

This sauce takes only a few minutes to prepare and it keeps in the fridge for a couple of months. I store it in a recycled bourbon bottle. Bottles that once contained liquor are often quite beautiful and have tops that provide a good seal. I’ve always preferred glass over plastic for storing food.

Jenny’s Sauce

½ cup nutritional yeast flakes
⅓ cup tamari
⅓ cup soy sauce
⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp tahini (sesame seed butter)
2 cloves garlic
1½ cups vegetable oil
⅓ cup water or more if it’s too thick

Put the first six ingredients in a blender. Blend until the garlic is pulverized. Add the oil, blend again. Pour into a bottle. That’s it!

I like to use grapeseed oil. The flavor is clean and neutral and is healthier than soy, canola, or corn oils.  Both grapeseed oil and nutritional yeast are available at Three Boys in Condon.

Having a bottle of Jenny’s Sauce always on hand is like having an insurance policy in the fridge. You can always whip up something tasty to eat even if you are short of time or your fridge is somewhat empty. Jenny’s Sauce is good on pasta, rice, beans and vegetables. Add some cheese for a mouthwatering dinner, pronto.

A while back, I was rummaging around in the pantry and saw sleeping in a dusty corner a long-forgotten ice cream maker, the old-fashioned kind made out of wood but with an electric motor instead of a crank handle. I perched it atop a small table, plugged it in and heard a very robust and determined sound, as if the machine was coming out of its long slumber wide awake without the preamble of yawning.

Every time I went into the pantry I’d see it sitting there and it seemed to say “Hello, it’s me!” and then I wondered, is this machine really an adult toy disguised as an appliance? Is making ice cream easy, or one of those trial and error thangs that takes a few tries to get it right along with a dose or two of frustration? And then back into the pantry the machine would go to be forgotten all over again?

The perfect excuse to overcome my inertia about using it came in the form of a birthday party and I wanted to do a trial run just in case something went awry. I chose a recipe for vanilla ice cream, thinking I could add peppermint candy to one batch and cookies to another. I wanted to use the best ingredients available, so I bought some organic cream, milk, and eggs of the kind made by chickens that live outside and scratch around for bugs, slugs and grubs and the other morsels that chickens like to eat. The yolks were a rich orange color.

Making the ice cream was easy, much like cooking a cream sauce with a lot of vanilla added at the end. After it cooled, I poured the mixture into the insert, packed the bucket with ice layered with salt and turned the machine on. While waiting, I ground up a whole box of candy canes leftover from Christmas and pulverized some Oreo cookies (did you know that every year 40 billion Oreo cookies are made in 18 countries?)

Twenty minutes later, the machine stopped and I lifted the lid. Wow, velvety soft ice cream like Dairy Queen’s, but a beautiful pale yellow! I had a lovely chill of goosebumps, feeling excitement like a little kid. I divided it in half, stirred in the candy canes and then the cookies, and left it to cure in the freezer overnight.

Who said you can’t eat ice cream for breakfast, especially if it’s beyond delicious? We even ate some before dinner. If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun (Katherine Hepburn). Back into the pantry went the machine. I thanked it and said see you next time and that will be soon.

A few years ago, I bought a brand new Cuisine Art bread maker at Goodwill. I brought it home, used it a few times, but never got into the habit of using it. Then one day, I gave it to my friend Sunny. She was thrilled.

When I went to visit her, I’d often smell the aroma of freshly baked bread as I approached the house and I would want to run in. We’d do a ritual – slice off a piece, toast it, smear it with butter and enjoy one of those “just right” times where the conversation stops in order to savor the moment in silence. Sunny got really creative with her bread recipes. She made bread with spices, dried fruits and nuts, herbs and aged cheeses, seeds and sourdough. Sometimes I felt a twang of regret for having given it away thinking that’s mine! Then in the next breath I was happy she was the one who had it and not me.

One day, I was back at Goodwill and on a bottom shelf was a brand new Hitachi bread maker. So I bought it and there again it sat mostly unused. Recently, Sunny came to visit for a weekend and I seized the opportunity to have her show me how to use the machine her way with simplicity and ease. She uses this basic recipe:

E-Z Bread

3 cups flour
1 cup warm water
1 tbsp sweetener
3 tbsp oil or butter
1 tablespoon yeast
1 tsp salt

She encouraged me to switch the recipe up a bit, to try different kinds of flours, sweeteners and oils because bread making is not an exact science. Don’t be afraid, the bread maker does not bite. What is the worst thing that could happen? The bread might turn out like a dog biscuit? Well then, happy dog. I began to think of the bread machine as an adult toy – something that I could play with, be entertained by and experiment with. Oh what joy!

I bought several different brands and types of flour: King Arthur, Bob’s Red Mill, Navajo Pride, Stafford County Mills, Gold Medal. All-purpose, bread, whole wheat, rye, artisan bread flour, unbleached white. I used different sweeteners too – honey, raw sugar and date syrup. I mixed and matched the flours, acquired a sourdough starter. I’d shake the loaf out of the pan in anticipation of the first slice. How is the texture? Light or spongy? Chewy and dense, is the crust crunchy?

I put all the ingredients in one location so in four minutes I can put the ingredients together. Now I’m definitely in the habit of bread making.