culinary adventures in a culinary wasteland

my fellow bat-cave (we call it the bat cave because we don't turn the lights on) denizens are out at various meetings, so i’m playing music on my computer right now (k’s choice). music aside, i finally got paid at work, so i finally have money for food again! no more subsistence living for this one! (actually, i'm trying to save money right now because i'm taking my sister out to dinner twice when she comes to visit. to be more specific, i'm dragging her along to restaurants i want to go to - because eating is a social thing, and thus something you shouldn't do by yourself. we're going to alinea and one other restaurant that will remain unnamed for now, since it's a surprise and she periodically looks at my blog, or so i like to think...)

as food is consumed within x period of time, it’s one of the few things that is feasible to buy while i am here in chicago – since everything i buy, i’ll have to take back with me. i learned my lesson in seattle, where i had this stupid idea that buying books would be fine. then i realized that they’re heavy when combined with the rest of your belongings. but buying food, i can be totally guilt-free! i am, however, planning to buy a knife while i'm here. a wonderful, beautiful, chef's knife. right now i have my eye on a misono knife, but i need to figure out what length i want.

i’ve been disappointed with the supermarkets here. there are two chain supermarkets within a block or two of my apartment – the co-op and village foods. neither is really any good. the produce at the co-op is particularly terrible, but not to fear – the produce at hyde park produce, four or five blocks down 53rd street, is wonderful, and very cheap. cheaper than star (the coop and village foods are about star-level, price-wise), which makes me happy. i like carrots much more when they're 50 cents a bag. i guess i’ve been spoiled with the wonders of trader joe’s and whole foods, which only exist in the lincoln park/wicker park areas of the city (waaaay north). there is only one whole foods and only one trader joe's in the entirety of the city, which to me is just ridiculous. where am i supposed to shop???

at any rate, the nice thing about my apartment’s location is that it’s a block away from the farmers market, which comes by every thursday morning. there's also a farmers market in daley plaza downtown in the loop, but who's going to buy produce on the way to work? where do you put it? anyway, the last time i went to my farmers market, last thursday, i bought a pint of morels, which had been tantalizing me since i first went to the market four weeks before that (but then i ran into budgetary problems with the absence of paychecks). i didn’t actually get paid on friday – specifically, it was too late to deposit the check by the time we had them in our hands at 5:45pm – but that was good enough for me. i spent my last credit at the supermarket on food to make dinner with my friend shen.

i spent a while looking at recipes in an attempt to calm myself down from being late on my credit card payment for the first time (as it turned out my mother helped me out), and nothing caught my fancy as much as the oatmeal-spiced plum shortcake at epicurious.com. whoever invented this dessert is a genius. to go with dessert we made chicken and rice (with sautéed morels) and moroccan-spiced carrots. the chicken and rice was the typical, no-frills deal: sauté some onions and garlic, add rice, then wine, then chicken broth, then the chicken (which you brown beforehand). we brought it to a boil, then stuck it in the oven for about half an hour or so. the carrots are also easy – boil them, then sauté them briefly with sugar and spices.

the real excitement was not only the food, but also the three explosions during the night. hyde park is a fairly safe neighborhood and based on the fact that no police cruisers made their way into the area (at least with sirens), we figured that it was just some leftover firecrackers, maybe set off in trash cans or something. all three explosions came from different places.

dinner was pretty good. we got a cheap bottle of wine at the supermarket that was a fizzy white wine from california, i think. very serviceable and summery. i was a bit disappointed with the morels, which were a little less assertive than i had thought they would be. then again, i’ve only ever had morels twice in my life: once at craigie street bistrot and once at no 9 park, so the bar was set pretty high. the chicken and rice was really quite good for chicken and rice, though – i discovered that my choice not to put any spices into the thing was the right choice. i don’t know how something can taste clean and earthy at the same time, but that’s the best i can do description-wise. the carrots were a bit too garlicky, but it was a nice respite from the typical steamed carrot treatment that they usually get.

i think we all liked the dessert the best (by the time dinner was ready my roommate kashfia had returned home). i hadn’t checked the kitchen before i picked it, so i had no idea that we didn’t have a whisk or an electric mixer before i chose something that had whipped cream in it. oops. i whipped the cream a bit with a fork, before conceding defeat. to my defense, there was a bit of foam in the top layer of the cream… it didn’t matter, though. the shortcakes were great – really like sugar-crusted scones – and the plums (cooked a bit with sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and slices of ginger because they were cheaper than the ground spice) were fantastic. i prefer this to strawberry shortcake, though that’s partly because usually the shortcake i’ve had was made from bisquick, which is always a bad idea.

the shortcake recipe is below - it's from epicurious. some notes, first, though. i would buy more plums than this calls for - a pound of plums yielded closer to three portions for us than six. i also cut the plums into smaller wedges, and we used slices of ginger (three, to be exact) instead of ground ginger because it's cheaper.

oatmeal shortcakes with spiced plums

for shortcakes:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons sugar

for fruit:
1 pound firm but ripe plums (about 6), halved, pitted, each cut into 4 wedges
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter

3/4 cup chilled whipping cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Make shortcakes:
Preheat oven to 425°F. Line large baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Using fingertips, rub in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk; stir until dough forms.

Drop dough onto prepared baking sheet, forming six 2 1/2-inch-diameter biscuits and spacing 3 inches apart. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons sugar. Bake until biscuits are golden and tester inserted into biscuit comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer to rack. (Can be made 8 hours ahead. Cool. Store airtight at room temperature.)

Make fruit:
Combine plums, 1/3 cup sugar, lemon juice, ginger and cinnamon in heavy medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until plums release their juices but are still firm, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Add butter. Stir until butter melts. Cool slightly.

Using electric mixer, beat cream and powdered sugar in large bowl until stiff peaks form. Using serrated knife, slice off top 1/3 of biscuits. Transfer biscuit bottoms to plates. Spoon half of plum mixture over biscuits. Spoon whipped cream atop plum mixture. Spoon remaining plum mixture atop cream, dividing equally. Place biscuit tops over plum mixture. Serve immediately.

[serves 6]