WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: Bruce is still cooking for the ailing Mark!

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Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is

the podcast, Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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I'm alone, again, because Mark is

still recovering from his broken

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leg, so I'm going to take you

through a one minute cooking tip.

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I'm going to talk about what kind of

foods to make when you're not feeling

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well and when you're recovering

from things like broken legs.

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And I'm going to tell you what's

making me happy in food this week.

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So let's get started.

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Our one minute cooking

tip, don't break your leg.

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I know it doesn't sound like a

cooking tip, but as you know,

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Mark did break his leg last month

and he's still fairly immobile.

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and non weight bearing, and

no, he's not been able to cook

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anything in all this time.

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I even make his tea for him, but if

you do break your leg, be kind to

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the person who does cook for you.

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Mark is so nice to me, and in the

rest of this podcast, I'm going

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to tell you what I've been cooking

for him while he's been healing.

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Before I get to the next segment, I

want to ask you to please rate this

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podcast, wherever you get your podcast,

you can give us a rating, you can leave

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a review, just scroll down the page,

you'll find a place to leave a review.

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We are unsupported, we'd

like to stay that way.

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And what really helps is

ratings and great reviews.

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So thanks for that.

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When you're sick, you need certain kinds

of foods to help you recover faster.

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Protein is huge, which is why chicken

soup is so good when you're sick.

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If you make it yourself from chickens,

the soup sets up like jelly in the fridge,

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and that gelatin is simply protein.

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All the cartilage and skin

breaks down as it boils and

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cooks, and it turns into gelatin.

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You don't get that jelly from canned or

boxed chicken soups or chicken stocks.

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You only get that when you

make it yourself from scratch.

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So I do that.

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And I'm really lucky because I have

a local farm Howling Flats Farm in

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Litchfield County, not far from us.

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And Kelly, who runs it, raises chickens.

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And I'm not sure how she sells

the chicken meat, but she always

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gets back from the processor the

carcasses with the legs and thighs

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cut off and the breast meat cut off.

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But otherwise, it's this fabulous chicken

carcass with the back, with the wings.

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And she lets me have them in five pound

packages, which come to about three

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to four chicken carcasses per package.

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And I pile them into the biggest

stockpot I have, which is

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like a 20 quart lobster pot.

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And I add onions and I add carrots

and I add parsley and dill and some

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garlic, which I know is controversial,

especially in the Jewish chicken

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soup world, but I do add garlic.

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and I fill it with water and I let

that simmer all day and by the time

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I scoop everything out, I have the

richest, chickeniest, proteiniest,

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rich broth you can imagine.

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So that is one of the things I've

been putting into all of the soups

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and stews I make them as a base,

is that homemade chicken soup.

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When I was a kid, my grandmother

always put chicken feet in the soup

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because they have a lot of protein, a

lot of cartilage breaks down, into the

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soup, and they becomes even richer.

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And while I think that richness

is really great, feet do give

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chicken soup a very particular

taste and one or two feet is fine.

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I once found a giant bag of

chicken feet at a Chinese market.

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And I thought, Oh, wow, this is going

to make the best chicken soup ever.

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So the only chicken I put in this

soup was this bag of feet and.

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Really it ended up being foot

soup and it wasn't anything I

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would have served to company.

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So if you do find chicken feet or if

you like putting chicken feet in your

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soup, I recommend limiting it to one

or two chicken feet per pot of soup.

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Otherwise, not my favorite.

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Mark asked for chicken and dumplings

the other night, and that's a lot

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of protein, a lot of dairy and fat,

which is also good for healing.

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I'll talk about that in a minute.

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I had made chicken and dumpling recipes

for our copycat books, like the Instant

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Pot copycat book and I know they have

chicken and dumplings like at Bob

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Evans and we had to come up with a way

to do that and it is sort of like a

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creamy, rich chicken stew and in those

restaurant versions, the dumplings are

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usually just almost bits of dough, almost

thick pasta kind of dough or even pie

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crusty dough that you then cook in the

stew, but that's not what Mark wanted.

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He wanted it with light fluffy dumplings

that get dropped on top of the stew

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and then they steam when it's covered

and they become really light and they

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almost fall apart and thicken the stew.

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So here's what I did.

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I had a package of those chicken carcasses

from Howling Flats Farm and I put

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them in my big 10 court instant pot.

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And I threw in a carrot

and an onion and celery.

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So here's a trick for using

celery in stocks when you're going

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to throw the vegetables away.

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I took a new whole head of celery out

and I cut off the bottom, you know, the

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part you're going to throw away anyway.

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And I threw that in the pot with the

chickens and the carrot and some parsley.

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And I let that go at high pressure,

oh, for about an hour and a half.

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It took another hour

for a natural release.

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And then when I opened it,

I took out the carcasses.

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Now, they were falling apart,

so I had to be really careful.

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And I used one of those

big Chinese strainers.

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They call them spiders.

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Well, I used that to pull out all the

chicken and I laid it out on a lipped.

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baking sheet for it to cool.

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And I pulled off all the

meat from those carcasses.

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I ended up with six cups of chicken meat.

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It was incredible.

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So now, I put a pot on the stove,

and I melted some butter, and

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I threw in chopped onions, and

carrots, and garlic, and celery.

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And I sauteed that all

up for about ten minutes.

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I really wanted to get those

vegetables lightly, lightly browned.

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Then, I threw in a couple tablespoons of

flour, and I tossed that around until the

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flour was cooked, then went in six cups

of that delicious chicken soup I had made.

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It thickened up a bit in culinary

terms that is now a velouté when

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you thicken broth without any

dairy, but this is chicken and

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dumplings, and it has to have dairy.

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And so I opened a can of condensed

milk, not sweetened condensed milk.

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It has evaporated milk.

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I used the full fat.

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I I added some fresh thyme, some fresh

sage, and I let that simmer for about 15

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minutes, threw all the chicken back in,

and then I made these amazing dumplings.

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Was just flour, and baking powder,

and salt, and sour cream, and

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melted butter, and it's just

a dough that you drop on top.

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It's almost like if you're making

a cobbler, it's that kind of dough.

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Covered it.

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Let it go 20 minutes and those

dumplings rose and became light and

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the soup was delicious and rich.

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Man, if that didn't heal his

bone, I don't know what would.

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But he also asked for another soup

and this one Killed me because he

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said make me a beef vegetable soup.

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Doesn't that usually

just come out of a can?

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So of course, it's me.

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So I had a rack of prime rib bones

in the freezer Of course, who doesn't

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and I threw them in the oven and I

roasted them at 400 degrees for an

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hour Until they were really well done

Those went into a pot with just water,

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green beans, carrots, parsnips, onions.

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That cooked for a few hours.

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All the cartilage of those bones came off.

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All the meat came off.

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I chopped up the meat,

I threw out the bones.

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When that soup was cold,

it was so jellified.

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It was like head cheese.

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I don't know if you've ever had that, but

that's like when you boil a whole head

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of an animal and all the meat comes off

and the liquid turns into jelly and you

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slice it and eat it like charcuterie.

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That was basically this

beef vegetable soup.

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But I want to go back to

talking about dairy and fat

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because I brought it up before.

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You know when you break a

bone, you need more calcium.

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And we found out that calcium needs fat to

be absorbed and do its magic in your body.

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So, while nonfat dairy has a lot

of calcium, it's not as useful

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to your body as the calcium in

full fat or reduced fat dairy.

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So, I switched Mark's morning lattes.

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from skim milk to 2 percent milk.

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He's gone from nonfat yogurt to 2%,

but I will admit I made the mistake

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of getting him sweetened vanilla

on the last trip to the store.

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Whoops, he likes plain, so he

just skipped the honey and still

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piles on the blueberries and

everything is fine in the morning.

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What else have I made for

him while he's been sick?

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Well, we did a goat tagine

with figs and olives.

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Sort of a riff on a recipe from our

book, Cooking Know How, which tells

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you how to do a whole bunch of dishes

step by step, breaks it down, there's

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pictures as you go, and I used that

tagine technique using goat stew

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meat, also from Howling Flats Farms.

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And I used dried figs and green olives.

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And that was amazing yesterday for lunch.

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Yes, just for lunch.

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I made a tray of eggplant parm.

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And yeah, pulled out my homemade

marinara from the freezer from last

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summer from the fresh tomatoes.

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Tonight we're having red.

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Cooking pork belly, which if you

don't know what that is, it's a

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Chinese traditional way of braising

meats, usually fatty meats, with

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soy sauce, which when you braise

it a long time gets on a red hue.

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But you also caramelize some sugar

and you toss the meat in that.

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You add star anise, there's cinnamon.

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I'm gonna probably put a piece of

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dry tangerine peel in it.

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It's gonna get chestnuts and parsnips

and we're gonna serve it with brown

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rice normally I think I would make

these steamed buns because then you

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could take the pork belly out and Just

sandwich it between the steamed buns,

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and I would like it better that way, but

Painkillers can cause constipation, so

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eating high fiber is really important.

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So I have a large stash of sumo

oranges, which we eat a lot of, and

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we're eating a lot of brown rice,

and I've been baking whole grain

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breads to go with all of those.

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And the other thing, it's hard because

I'm trying to balance calories and

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comfort, and it's great to have all these

wonderful foods to heal, but Mark's not

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exercising right now, he can't really

move easily, and know he does not want to

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gain much weight over these two months.

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And I will end this segment by

saying that just this morning, Mark

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said that if I ever break my leg,

I had better like scrambled eggs,

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because that's all I'll be getting.

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What's making me happy in food this week?

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Peanut butter chocolate chip biscotti.

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I have been getting Mark out of the house

every week to teach his lecture at a local

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library on Henry James and Paul Cezanne.

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Yes, he is comparing the two of them

and what they each do in their art and

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it's really an Amazing lecture series.

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We get him out into the car.

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He has a knee scooter that

helps him get into the library.

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There are no steps.

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And since I'm going every week, I'm

baking and bringing treats with me.

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And these peanut butter chocolate

chip biscotti are amazing.

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super thick, super double baked,

crunchy, crunchy, crunchy.

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And even our friend Helen, who comes to

the lectures, sent me an email to tell me

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that she thought they were life changing.

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So that's our podcast for this week.

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Thank you for listening.

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Please go to our Facebook group, Cooking

with Bruce and Mark, and tell us there

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what's making you happy in food this week.

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I know Mark would love to find

out what is making you happy.

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And if it's really good, maybe

I'll make it for him, or we'll talk

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about it here on another episode

of Cooking with Bruce and Mark.