Crisis Brownies

Corn and Crab Cake over Cheese Grits

2012-01-19T08:02:00.003-05:00

Plowing through post-holiday depression is like overcoming inertia: the longer you let things lie, the harder it is to get off that couch, or out of the cozy confines of your bed and move. Part of it is no doubt the result of being bogged down by the excesses of rich food from Thanksgiving until New Year's Eve. To that end, as a sort of detox program, I often dive into vegan recipes in the beginning of January, only to find myself with an insane craving for bloody meat and creamy cheese after about 10 days. I imagine a Paleolithic Me hunkered over a fresh kill by the light of some fire, hands and mouth dripping with blood as I howl to the moon.

Yeah ok, I know. Over the top.

So, the vegan interlude over, I am back to my normal routine of cooking anything I like from scratch, and trying to delve back into the realm of Cooking As Therapy. The girls wanted a little plate of "something fancy," so I thought what better way to use the crab and leftover corn than as a crab cake. I have been attempting to broaden their horizons when it comes to starches and grains, and figured that cheesy polenta would provide a nice counterpoint to the crab. A dollop of sweet red pepper relish (bought, I'm afraid, and no doubt including that evil of all evils, high-fructose corn syrup) rounded it out.

Corn and Crab Cake over Cheese Grits

Makes 8 small or 4 large servings

Ingredients:

For the corn and crab cakes:

8 oz. lump crabmeat, precooked
1/2 cup corn kernels
1/2 cup minced onion
1/4 cup minced red bell pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 - 3 heaping tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons Old Bay
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 egg
1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
panko
peanut oil for frying

For the cheese grits:

1/2 cup corn grits or polenta - I like Bob's Red Mill Corn Grits
2 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded white cheddar
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon cream
sweet red pepper relish (optional)

Directions:

For the cheese grits:

Place the corn grits, water and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and stir occasionally to be sure that it isn't going to stick and burn on the bottom. After 10 minutes, give a little taste to check for seasoning and add more salt if needed. I like to use homemade chicken stock which has no salt in it, so I usually add a bit more salt. If you are using chicken broth from a base, granules or a carton, you may be all set for salt. The gits will thicken up as you go. If you really prefer looser, more runny grits, add more stock or water as you go.
After another 15 minutes, stir in the shredded cheese until it has melted, then add the butter and cream to taste. Set aside as you make the corn and crab cakes. You can quickly reheat them once you are ready to serve, or you can keep them over a very low heat as long as you check it frequently to make sure that it isn't scorching on the bottom. If you are really talented, you can make the corn and crab cakes as the grits are cooking. :)

For the corn and crab cakes:

Saute the minced onion in olive oil over medium-high heat until translucent. Add the red onion and corn and saute for another 5 minutes or until the pepper is soft. Set aside.
In a bowl, mix together the lump crab meat and sauteed veggies. Fold in the mayo, Old Bay and granulated garlic until everything is nicely mixed. Feel free to taste a little bit to check that you like the amount of seasoning and adjust as needed.
Crack the egg into a small bowl and beat slightly and then add to the crab mixture, stirring well. Gradually add the soft breadcrumbs and mix well.
Pour panko crumbs into a pie tin or a large shallow bowl.
Shape the mixture into 8 patties and dredge in the panko crumbs, slightly pressing them into the surface. Set each crab cake aside on another plate to rest while you make the rest. Once they're done, you can cover them with plastic wrap and let them sit in the fridge or you can fry them right away. I've done it both ways with good results.
Heat some peanut oil in a large skillet and fry the crab cakes in batches until golden brown on both sides.
Serve on a bed of the cheese grits and top with a dollop of sweet red pepper relish.

Vanilla Cupcakes

2011-12-16T06:13:00.000-05:00

I've been busy lately preparing for Christmas and a birthday. We made a gingerbread house (pictures to come), I've been knitting scarves as gifts, and I've been planning Cookie-Palooza. Also, my younger daughter's birthday was yesterday, so I made a batch of vanilla cupcakes to bring into her class AND a whipped up a batch of chocolate cupcakes for home. Next up for today, make the ice cream cake for her party this weekend.

I'll be back with more food soon, but until then, a teaser: Best-Ever Vanilla-Bean Birthday Cupcakes.

Be back soon!

'Tis the Season

2011-12-10T06:26:00.000-05:00

...and today we're going to be making a gingerbread house!

I have turned to King Arthur Flour for ideas, and wouldn't you know it, they have a pdf document on Building a Gingerbread House.

A friend of mine also turned me onto this site where they demonstrated making a gingerbread castle, and I spent some time on Google looking for images for inspiration and found Gingerbread House Heaven, so we should be well-prepared in the inspiration department. Yesterday I bought a variety of candies for decorating this house - Twizzlers, Andes mints, gum drops, candy canes and many more, so we'll see what genius my kids can come up with.

Pan-Fried Cheese Grits Cakes with Lemon and Olive Oil Marinated Shrimp

2011-12-09T06:44:00.000-05:00

I have been having fun pan-frying lately what with the Schnitzel, goat cheese rounds and catfish. With the right sized item, it really is a pretty quick and easy method of cooking. Plus, there is a real satisfying crunch and texture to something that has been breaded with Panko crumbs and then fried in really hot oil.

The catfish strips from the other day inspired me to make another southern-inspired dish. I had entered an idea for a different take on shrimp and grits in that contest using California Olive Ranch and Bob's Red Mill products. I had come across this delicious-looking recipe from Food & Wine for shrimp marinated in lemon and olive oil that I thought would be nice with cheese grits cakes.

Pan-Fried Cheese Grits Cakes with Lemon and Olive Oil Marinated Shrimp

Serves 2 as an appetizer

Ingredients:

4 large cooked shrimp
lemon from half a lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
salt and pepper
1/4 cup stone ground corn grits
1 cup water
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 teaspoon Old Bay
1/2 - 1 cup extra sharp cheddar, shredded
flour
1 egg, beaten
Panko breadcrumbs
soft breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried basil

Directions:

Make the cheese grits by bringing 1 cup of lightly salted water to boil and add the corn grits, lowering the heat to low. Stir frequently to be sure that it doesn't stick. Careful, like oatmeal, bubbles might burst out and splatter you with wicked-hot starchy grain.
After about 10 minutes, add 1/2 teaspoon of Old Bay. Stir well and let cook another 15 - 20 minutes.
Once it has cooked through and is the thickness you like, add the shredded extra-sharp cheddar, starting with 1/2 cup and adding up to 1 cup to suit your taste - I used about 3/4 cup. Stir well to let the cheese melt, then remove from heat.
Place a long piece of waxed paper in a plastic container so that the ends hang out of the sides - this will let you remove the grits easily when they've set up - pour the grits into the container and out in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
Mix together the cooked shrimp in the olive oil, lemon juice, thyme, basil and salt and pepper. Let marinate in the fridge for at least an hour.
When you are ready to make the grits cakes, set up 4 bowls, one with flour, one with a beaten egg, one with panko mixed with thyme and basil, and one with soft breadcrumbs.
Take the grits out of the fridge and lift them out of the container and set them on a cutting board. Cut out rounds using a a biscuit cutter and dredge them in flour, dip in beaten egg, and then passing through the breadcrumbs, first the panko and then the soft crumbs, to fill in the gaps that the panko crumbs missed.
Fry in hot peanut oil until golden brown on both sides, drain on a paper towel and then serve with the marinated shrimp.

A closer look...

Fried Goat Cheese on Roasted Golden Beet and Savory Cracker

2011-12-07T10:38:00.001-05:00

We do love our appetizers around here, often making a meal out of a spread of finger foods, dips and spreads with fresh bread. In addition to the usual spread of cheese, I like to have a more elaborate or interesting choice or two to allow me to test out new ideas. Plus, it's always a good way to get the kids to try out new things.

I especially love the combination of beets and goat cheese. The goat cheese & roasted beet amuse bouche is the most-viewed blog entry here, and for good reason: the roasted beets offer a wonderful sweetness, which is the perfect foil for the smooth and tangy goat cheese. Breading and pan-frying the goat cheese rounds seems to bring out the creaminess of the cheese as well as adding a wonderful new texture. I put it on a savory cracker to make it a little easier to eat as a finger food.

The end results provides a rich combination of smooth and crunchy, creamy and tangy, sweet and savory. Not bad for an appetizer.

Fried Goat Cheese on Roasted Golden Beet and Savory Cracker

Ingredients:

1 golden beet
olive oil
salt
pepper
log of herbed goat cheese
flour
egg
panko bread crumbs
fresh thyme, chopped
soft bread crumbs
peanut oil
savory cracker, wasa bread or some other thin and crisp flatbread or cracker

Directions:

Roast the beet: Preheat the oven to 400 F. Pour a thin layer of olive oil in a bowl.
Wash and scrub the beet carefully, then roll it in the oil until it is all coated. Sprinkle some freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt over it and then place it on a sheet of aluminum foil and seal it up into a packet.
Place into a roasting pan and roast for 45 minutes.
Take out and let cool. Slip off the skin and then slice into 1/2 inch slices.

Make the pan-fried goat cheese rounds: Grab four shallow bowls, pie tins or plates. Pour out about 3/4 cup of flour on one, the beaten egg on the middle plate, the panko bread crumbs mixed with fresh thyme leaves on the third, and unseasoned soft bread crumb on the fourth.
Slice the goat cheese into 3/4 inch rounds and then squish them down slightly until the diameter of the round almost matches the diameter of the beet slices.
Working one at a time, dredge the goat cheese rounds through the flour until it is all coated, then dip into the beaten egg, making sure to let the excess egg drip back into the plate. Then press into the panko and thyme on both sides, then dipping it into the soft breadcrumbs to cover what the panko missed.
Heat some peanut oil over medium-high heat in a skillet. Once the oil starts to shimmer, carefully lower the goat cheese rounds into the oil and fry until both sides are golden brown, once per side is best. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels to drain.
Place a slice of the roasted beet on a cracker and top with a goat cheese round and serve.

A closer look at the melty cheese....

Bourboned-up Eggnog Bread Pudding

2011-12-06T04:55:00.008-05:00

'Tis the holiday season.

Although for some people that may mean the joy and fellowship of gift-giving and shared meals, for other people that may mean stress and insanity associated with gift-giving and shared meals. For still others, it is a mixed bag of both joy intertwined with stress, fellowship commingling with insanity.

It's no wonder so many people spike their eggnog during the month of December.

A friend of mine talked about a bourbon-spiked eggnog he made and I read something recently about an eggnog bread pudding based on this White and Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding from Eupicurious, and my ears perked right up. All signs seemed to indicate that I would smash the two together in some sinful way.

As luck would have it, I had just bought a quart of eggnog the other day on impulse, and just yesterday when I was rummaging through the fridge, I came across a bag of the bits and pieces of a few recently purchased, but never finished, baguettes. Leftover bread like that usually gets stuffed into a ziplock bag and stored in the freezer for future use as bread crumbs, but for some reason, these baguettes had escaped to the back of the fridge until Sunday, when I sliced off the crusts and let the baguettes fulfill their life's ambition of being mixed with chopped chocolate, drowned in egg, bourbon and cream, and then baked to golden-brown deliciousness.

I didn't stop there. I made a custardy sauce of eggnog, cream and bourbon as the final touch.

Let me tell you, it makes the stress and insanity of the season just a wee bit more bearable.

Bourboned-up Eggnog Bread Pudding

Serves 2 generously or 4 or even 6 judiciously - don't even attempt to eat the whole thing by yourself

Ingredients:

For the sauce:

½ cup eggnog
splash of heavy cream - 2 or 3 tablespoons
generous 2 tablespoons bourbon - it may have been closer to 3 or even 4 tablespoons
1 tablespoon sugar
splash of vanilla
touch of nutmeg
½ teaspoon cornstarch
½ teaspoon water

For the pudding:

3½ cups leftover French bread cut into 1 inch cubes, crusts cut off - stale is ok, moldy is not
1½ oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped - I used Scharffenberger's 70% cacao bittersweet chocolate
1 oz. good quality white chocolate, chopped
1 egg
2 tablespoons sugar
½ cup heavy cream
¼ cup egg nog
1/8 cup milk
1/8 cup bourbon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:

Make the sauce by placing the eggnog, cream, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg and bourbon in a saucepan and heat to a gentle boil.
Make a slurry of the cornstarch and water, whisking it well until it is smooth and then add it to the eggnog-cream mixture. Keep it bubbling gently over medium to low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens, about 3 minutes. Take it off the heat, stir in the nutmeg and cool. Refrigerate until needed.
For the bread pudding, I like to go beyond even day-old bread and use stale French bread. Very simply, I cut off the crusts and then cut the bread into 1 inch cubes. Toss that into a large bowl.
I was feeling lazy, so I chopped the chocolates in the food processor. It made a hell of a racket, but it was great - I had chunks of chocolate as well as "chocolate dust." Add the grated/chopped/pulverized chocolate to the bread cubes.
Beat together the egg, sugar and vanilla until frothy, then add the cream, eggnog, milk, nutmeg and bourbon, whisking well. Pour the liquid over the bread and chocolate and stir well. Let it soak for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure that it all soaks evenly.
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Find a smallish casserole dish. I used an oven-safe 5 x 7 inch stoneware dish for this amount of bread pudding. Give it a good spray with cooking spray and dump in the soaked bread pudding mixture. Sprinkle a bit of brown sugar over the top if you like, and then bake for 30 minutes or until the edges of the bread cubes are brown and the custard is set.
Take out and let cool 10 minutes, then serve warm with the eggnog sauce spooned over it.

A closer look...

Fried Catfish Strips

2011-12-05T05:46:00.003-05:00

A Syracuse, NY favorite, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que has a menu that will have you drooling all over yourself before you even get to the entrees. I could happily make a meal of the appetizers and sides alone. Their Cuban-style black beans and rice are absolutely sublime, there is no other word for it, and the cucumber and tomato salad adds that note of freshness that rounds out whatever big heavy hunk o' smoked meat you may have on your plate.

If I were to make a meal of the appetizers, I'd have to start with their Fried Green Tomatoes, really the best use for green tomatoes that I know of. The contrast of the crispy cornmeal coating and the still-firm and green tomato are as perfect a combination as malt vinegar and salt are for fries. Every time I bite into one, I get that zing at the back and sides of my throat. Love that.

Next up would be the drunken spicy shrimp boil, which features one of my favorite spice mixtures, Old Bay. You could put Old Bay on just about anything and I'd probably eat it. Well, except for offal. I doubt anything could dress up tongue or kidneys so that I'd find them appetizing.

Finally, my favorite app, catfish strips. I would gladly eat these every day. True story, I'd never had catfish before my fist visit to Dinosaur. I guess that the pre-seasoned catfish fillets I saw in the market never looked appealing to me. Well shame on me. Catfish is wonderful, especially soaked in buttermilk, crusted with cornmeal and fried.

This is not, as far as I know, the exact recipe they use at Dinosaur*, but it is pretty easy and yields delicious, crispy and nicely seasoned catfish strips, perfect for a snack, a sandwich or a meal.

Fried Catfish Strips

Ingredients:

½ lb. fillet of catfish, cut into 4 strips
1 - 1½ cups buttermilk
½ cup cornmeal
1¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon Old Bay
peanut oil for frying

Directions:

Put the catfish strips in a plastic container with a lid and pour in enough buttermilk to completely cover them. Cover securely and put in the fridge to marinate for 2 hours.
Once the fish has finished marinating, mix together the cornmeal, flour and Old Bay in a shallow dish or pie plate. Take the fish out of the buttermilk and dredge in the cornmeal mixture until thoroughly covered. repeat with all catfish strips and set aside on a plate.
Heat a 1/4 inch of oil in a skillet. When the oil starts to shimmer, carefully place each piece of fish into the oil and cook until light golden brown, about 4 - 5 minutes, then flip until the other side is also a nice light golden brown. Turn again and let the fish cook on each side another few minutes, letting the crust develop a deeper golden brown color. Whether or not the fish is cooked through depends on how thick the pieces are. Don't be afraid to cut into it to check if you aren't sure. The fish interior should flake with a fork and have lost its translucence. All told, my fish cooked for about 12 minutes total.
Take out and let rest on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb some of the extra grease, then serve with your favorite tartar sauce. I like a simple mix of mayonnaise, sriracha and Old Bay.

Notes:

You can check out their recipes and stories of how the restaurant came to be here in the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Cookbook.

Semolina, Olive and Rosemary Focaccia

2011-12-04T06:53:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I came across a contest sponsored by California Olive Ranch and Bob's Red Mill for recipes featuring their products - or so I thought when I first glanced it over. Call me bad, I have a problem with skimming. I checked out a variety of recipes through Google for inspiration, but didn't find exactly what I wanted, so I thought, "Well hell, I'll improvise."

So I hustled my ass right into the kitchen, worked some of that culinary alchemy that bakers live for, and a few hours later, I had this: Semolina, Olive and Rosemary Focaccia.

When I sat back down at my computer to enter the contest, munching on the delicious focaccia I might add, I saw that they only wanted ideas for combining their products, not actual recipes.

*dope slap*

What the hell, I entered anyway, and as a bonus, I have a very lovely recipe for a savory focaccia made from semolina.

Semolina, Olive and Rosemary Focaccia

Ingredients:

1-1/3 cups water
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cups bread flour
1-1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Semolina Flour
1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
Pinch of sugar
¼ cup chopped kalamata, oil-cured, green and Greek black olives, mixed
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon sea salt or kosher salt
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

For thte rosemary-infused olive oil:

½ cup olive oil
5 sprigs fresh rosemary

Directions:

Sift together the vital wheat gluten and bread flour in a small bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl, mix together the semolina and salt.
Heat the water to 110 F and add the sugar and yeast. Let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes. Then make a well in the center of the semolina and pour in the proofed yeast mixture and the olive oil.
Stir well to combine and add the bread flour and gluten mixture ½ cup at a time, stirring well after each addition.
Once the flour has been mixed in and the dough has come together to form a rough mass, dump it out onto a floured surface and knead for 8 minutes, then fold in the chopped mixed olives and 2 tablespoons of rosemary.
Continue to knead until the olives and rosemary are well incorporated and the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, adding more flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to your hands.
Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm spot for about an hour, or until doubled in size.
Make the rosemary-infused olive oil: combine ½ cup olive oil and 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary in a pan and cook over low heat for about 5 minutes, then take it off the heat, let cool and put into a container and refrigerate until needed.
Preheat the oven to 400 F and prepare a 9 x 13 inch baking sheet by coating it with a thin layer of olive oil. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down to deflate it, then press it to fit into the baking sheet, making indentations with the tips of your fingers to create dimples in the dough.
Cover with a towel and let rise a second time for 45 minutes.
Remove the towel, drizzle 1 tablespoon of rosemary-infused olive oil over the dough, then top with another tablespoon of chopped rosemary and sprinkle with sea salt, then bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until golden brown.
Let cool on a wire rack, warm the rosemary-infused olive oil in the microwave and then serve the focaccia warm with the dipping oil.

Bread machine directions:

Place the ingredients in your bread machine according to the manufacturer's specifications, set it to the dough cycle and walk away until step 8.
Make the rosemary-infused olive oil: combine ½ cup olive oil and 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary in a pan and cook over low heat for about 5 minutes, then take it off the heat, let cool and put into a container and refrigerate until needed.
Preheat the oven to 400 F and prepare a 9 x 13 inch baking sheet by coating it with a thin layer of olive oil. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down to deflate it, then press it to fit into the baking sheet, making indentations with the tips of your fingers to create dimples in the dough.
Cover with a towel and let rise a second time for 45 minutes.
Remove the towel, drizzle 1 tablespoon of rosemary-infused olive oil over the dough, then top with another tablespoon of chopped rosemary and sprinkle with sea salt, then bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until golden brown.
Let cool on a wire rack, warm the rosemary-infused olive oil in the microwave and then serve the focaccia warm with the dipping oil.

Hasselback Potato

2011-12-03T07:33:00.000-05:00

I'd been looking for something new to do with potatoes and came across these elegant potatoes which allegedly originated in Sweden at the Hasselbacken restaurant in Stockholm. The images I came across showed them with skins on, like mine, and skins off and garnished with a variety of toppings. The prep was rather time-consuming, but I enjoyed the visual end result and thoroughly loved the crispy edges with the soft and fluffy potato interior.

Next time, I'll try peeling them and really dousing them with olive oil and see what happens.

Hasselback Potato

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1 russet potato
1 clove garlic
1 shallot
fresh thyme
fresh rosemary
salt
pepper
olive oil
butter
parmesan

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425° F
Scrub the potato very clean and then with a sharp knife, slice the potato into very thin slices, being careful not to cut all the way through.
Slice the garlic and shallot into paper-thin slivers and carefully put them in between the potato slices. I alternated the garlic and shallot slivers.
Chop the rosemary and thyme and slip them in between the potato slices.
Brush the potato with olive oil, grind some salt and pepper over the top, sprinkle a few more chopped herbs on top and bake for approximately 60 minutes or until some of the edges start to crisp up. Place small pats of butter and sprinkle some parmesan on top and serve.

Notes:

This recipe, though time-consuming and painstaking, is very easy to adapt to however many people you have to feed. Allow extra time for assembly though, because it can become quite an involved process.

Wienerschnitzel

2011-12-02T06:25:00.001-05:00

I've been having serious comfort-food cravings lately, and few things are more homey or comforting for me than German food. A platter of Schnitzel or Sauerbraten with Spätzle, Rotkohl, and Kartoffelpuffer, is practically Gemütlichkeit on a plate.

The kids have been asking for a German dinner, and I got a good price on veal cutlets the other day, a package of two large cutlets which I'd cut in two for more reasonable portion size. Since there are three of us, instead of cooking up four of the small cutlets and then having all three of us fight to the death for the last schnitzel, I cooked one up for my lunch yesterday. Win-win.

Since the cutlet is pounded so thin - technically this is called a "paillard," escalope," or "scallop" - the schnitzel cooks really quickly, so it's a good idea to have everything else ready to go in serving bowls and even already set on the table before you fry the schnitzels. Then all you have to do is just stick them on a plate and run into the dining room and eat them while they're hot. The crispy, hot breading encases the tender meat and the little bit of lemon juice and parsley add a brightness that simply makes your tongue sing. :)

Guten Appetit!

Wienerschnitzel

Ingredients:

veal cutlets, pounded to at least 1/4 inch thickness
flour
1 egg, beaten
unseasoned, soft breadcrumbs
peanut oil for frying
lemon slices
chopped parsley

Directions:

Set up three shallow bowls (I use pie pans) with flour in one, beaten egg in the next, and breadcrumbs in the third.
Make sure your cutlets are pounded very thin- at least 1/4 inch thick, thinner if you can manage it without tearing holes in the meat. Pat the cutlets dry.
Working one cutlet at a time, dredge it in flour very well so that it is completely coated. Shake off the excess flour and dip the cutlet in the beaten egg and then pass through the bread crumbs. Don't press the crumbs down into the egg, but make sure that the entire cutlet is totally covered. Repeat with other cutlets and let them rest on a plate.
Heat a good 1/4 inch of peanut oil in a large skillet to medium-high - it seems like a lot of oil, but I've found that it is the key to keeping the breading from sticking and burning. It also gives you a lovely puffed-up crust.
Once the oil starts to shimmer, carefully put the cutlets into the oil. Don't crowd the pan, though. You can do this in batches of 2 cutlets at a time if you have to.
Cook for 2 - 4 minutes until the breading is golden brown on the bottom and then carefully flip over (I use tongs for this) and cook until the other side is also golden brown.
You're done. The thinner cutlets cook really fast. Garnish with lemon slices and chopped parsley and serve.

Slow-Roasted Duck Leg

2011-12-01T05:14:00.003-05:00

For some odd reason lately, everyone seems to be talking about duck, whether it's duck confit, almost duck confit, or spicy duck empanadas with fire sauce and cilantro cream. Actually, I just got duck confit on the brain last week and then everywhere I turned, I saw people mentioning duck. I saw that Wegmans had single servings of duck legs from Maple Leaf Farms, and I wanted to cook something a little bit decadent for myself, I thought I'd go for it.

I'd read about duck confit and knew that I was not in the mood for a time-consuming, multi-stage process, so I decided to try out the slow-roasted duck recipes. I found a wide degree of temperature variation between the recipes, so I thought I'd just use the lowest setting on my oven and just wing it.

Well, hell. Duck is amazing, no joke.

I cooked it low and slow at 200° F for 3 hours and then raised the temp to 250° F for the final hour or so of cooking. When it was done, the house had that warm, cozy smell of a roasted bird, but richer, and it looked absolutely incredible. Even though everything I'd read about the duck indicated that it would release a ton of fat, I could not believe how it actually seemed to be swimming in a pond of golden fat.

See what I mean?

And yes, I did what people everywhere recommend and I saved that fat.

Apparently potatoes crisped up in duck fat are nothing short of revelatory. Well, yeah, I have to try that!

I had planned on making an orange sauce as a kind of play on combining two iconic dishes for an (Almost) Duck Confit a l'Orange, and whipping up a puree from roasted garlic and Jerusalem artichokes, but in the end I just ate the duck by ripping all the meat off the bones as I stood in the kitchen. What blew me away about it was the texture. The meat was actually silky, and the skin crispy. Sadly, I had no duck meat left over for even a single spicy empanada. Maybe next time.

Slow-Roasted Duck Leg

Ingredients:

duck leg
1 tablespoon kosher salt
thyme
olive oil

Directions:

Set the duck on a cutting board and with the tip of a very sharp blade or a sterilized safety pin, poke holes through the layer of skin and fat. Be very careful not to piece the meat. These holes allow the fat some escape routes, which helps crisp up the skin.
Rub the salt all over the duck and let sit at room temperature for a half hour.
Brush off about half the salt and pat the duck dry. There will still be salt on the duck, that's just fine.
Place a small coating of olive oil into a small casserole dish and set the duck inside, skin-side up. lay some sprigs of thyme on the duck.
Put in a cold oven and turn the heat to your lowest setting. I was able to go to 200° F. Roast for 3 hours, then increase the heat to 250° F and roast until the internal temperature at the leg joint reaches 175° F. It took about another hour and 45 minutes to get to that temperature.
Let rest for 5 minutes and then serve.

Sausage and Potato Breakfast Casserole

2011-11-30T03:47:00.002-05:00

Breakfast is my favorite meal, usually because by the time I wake up, I am ravenous and anything I find to eat is going to taste delicious. It is a rare day that I skip breakfast, and I usually enjoy a substantial meal in the morning rather than a few bites of something light. I'd rather have eggs and potatoes for breakfast than something sweet and fruity, although the occasional plate of waffles and syrup suits me fine. In general, give me something packed with protein, carbs, cheese and sometimes a bit of grease, and I'm satisfied for hours.

I also love one-dish meals, with everything mixed together - easy to make, easy to serve and totally delicious. This breakfast casserole is very forgiving because you can toss in a variety of vegetables - I often include sauteed mushrooms and green pepper. You can use 2 cups of egg substitute in lieu of the whole eggs, and frozen hash browns work in a pinch if you don't happen to have any leftover baked potatoes. Use whichever sausage you like best, maple breakfast sausage, a spicy chorizo, or my favorite, a bulk pork sausage heavy on the sage.

Any way you cut it, it's a deeply satisfying dish and a great breakfast for those days you need something solid in your stomach.

Sausage and Potato Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients

1/2 lb. bulk pork sausage - I like Bob Evans Savory Sage sausage
1/2 medium onion, choppped
2 large russet potatoes, baked*
1 cup extra-sharp cheddar, shredded
8 eggs**
1/4 cup milk
pinch salt
pinch pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease an 8 in. x 8 in. baking dish.
Brown the sausage in a large skillet until browned. Break up any large clumps of sausage. Add the chopped onion when the sausage is mostly cooked through and cook until the onion has softened and all the pink is gone from the sausage.
Shred the leftover baked potatoes with a box grater into a large bowl and beat together the eggs and milk in another bowl or a measuring cup.
Layer half the shredded potatoes in the baking dish, followed by half of the sausage and onion mixture and then half of the cheese and repeat with the remaining potatoes, sausage and onion and cheese.
Season with salt and pepper
Pour the egg-and-milk mixture evenly over the other ingredients and bake for 40 - 50 minutes or until the eggs are set. You can bake it longer if you want it to come out golden brown.
Let cool 5 minutes and then serve. I added a bit of sriracha on mine.

Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Tart

2011-11-29T08:30:00.000-05:00

I am back to creating dishes by throwing together the leftover bits and pieces from other meals. I hate throwing away perfectly good food, and do it more often than I would like, despite the fact that I have been reducing recipes several times over to yield smaller amounts.

I have been challenging myself to find new and exciting ways to repurpose leftovers. I almost always have a box of puff pastry in the freezer, and really I think that just about anything can be gussied up by wrapping it in puff pastry or presented as a tart. Slap some cheese on it, garnish with a sprinkling of fresh herbs or a drizzle of some sort of sauce and presto, you've got "something fancy for supper," which is something that my kids are really big into at the moment.

They don't have to know that those are the leftover caramelized onions from the French Onion soup 2 weeks ago that I froze. All they know is that it looks nice and tastes delicious.

Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Tart

Makes 2 small tarts

Ingredients

1 oz. herbed goat cheese
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed*
1/2 cup caramelized onions
2 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup Emmenthaler cheese, shredded

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375. Cut two 6 inch rounds out of thawed puff pastry and press them into 5 inch tart molds.
Break the goat cheese into pieces and add them to the pastry shells.
Divide the caramelized onions between the two shells and top with shredded Emmenthaler and crumbled bacon.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until the edges of the shells have puffed up and browned.
Let cool 5 minutes and then serve.

Notes:

One sheet of puff pastry yielded 4 rounds, and some scraps, but I only made use two of the rounds for these caramelized onion and goat cheese tarts. I used the other two rounds to make ham and cheese tarts, recipe coming soon.
I will put the puff pastry scraps to use soon, most likely as a dessert or a snack.

Cheese Parathas

2011-11-23T08:48:00.004-05:00

I needed a last-minute lunch before I had to hit the road to leave for our Thanksgiving road trip, so I settled on 2 cheese parathas. Quick, easy, tasty.

Parathas are very easy to put together and cook; you'll be done before you know it. It took me longer to get my camera set up and take these pictures than it did to make and cook the parathas from start to finish.

Parathas are an unleavened whole wheat Indian flatbread, often stuffed with some sort of spiced deliciousness. My favorites are the potato-stuffed parathas (Aloo Paratha) and cheese-filled parathas (Paneer Paratha), but you can find them stuffed with cooked, mashed cauliflower, and probably a variety of other ingredients.

When I came across this video from Manjula's Kitchen, I knew I wanted to try making the parathas her way. She made it look effortless and tasty. No doubt she has years of working that tiny rolling pin under her belt, and although I did a pretty good job of filling and rolling my parathas, they were not as thin and lovely as hers are.

Like so many other things, it just takes practice.

I wanted cheese parathas, but I didn't have paneer or plain yogurt, or even cilantro. I had to fudge the filling a bit to use what I had on hand, but I think that it worked out fine. I also reduced the recipe quite a bit to make just 2 medium-sized parathas instead of 6 larger ones.

Cheese Parathas

Makes 2 medium parathas

Ingredients:

1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/8 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon of salt
3/4 teaspoon oil
approximately 3 tablespoons lukewarm water
2 tablespoons green onion, minced
1 heaping tablespoon sour cream
1 tablespoon chopped cheese curds
salt
pinch of granulated garlic

Directions:

Sift together the salt, whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour in a bowl.
Add the oil and mix briefly to moisten the flour, then pour in the water.
Stir the mixture together with a fork until it forms a ball, then turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until it is smooth.
Let rest for 10 minutes.
In a small bowl, mix together the minced green onion, cheese curds, sour cream salt and granulated garlic until well combined.
Divide the dough into two pieces and roll them out into a circle about 1/4 inch thick. Place half the filling in the center of the dough and then bring all the edges together and pinch them closed so that you have a ball of dough encasing the filling. Repeat with the second piece of dough and let them rest for 2 to 3 minutes.
Carefully roll out the stuffed ball of dough to a circle about 4 inches in diameter - the first few times you do this, the filling may squeeze out a few holes. Don't worry too much about this, it will gtet better with practice.
Lightly oil a griddle or a large skillet - I use my cast iron skillet or griddle and raise the heat to high. Place the rounds of bread on the hot griddle and cook until the edges begin to brown slightly, then flip them over. If the rounds puff up a bit as you're cooking, that is a very good thing.
After about 3 minutes, flip them over again to check the color, they should be speckled golden brown. Cook for another 2 to 3 minutes and then place them on a plate lined with paper towel to absorb any excess oil if needed.
Serve hot.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

2011-11-22T04:19:00.002-05:00

Cupcakes.

Cake. Mmmm, cake. This reminds me of my kids' all-time favorite blog post not written by their mother (they are a loyal couple of kids, I give them that): The God of Cake. You should read it if you haven't already. The kids love it when I read it aloud, complete with funny voices and the occasional sound effect.

But anyway, back to cupcakes:

Sometimes I just get a hankering for some cake or a cupcake, but I never actually need an entire cake or 3 dozen cupcakes. Yesterday it was carrot cake that I wanted badly, but I couldn't justify baking an entire carrot cake or 3 dozen cupcakes the day before I head out of town for Thanksgiving, so I did my best to cut my usual recipe way down. I ended up with 8 tasty little cupcake morsels, which is a good number for the 3 of us to demolish in 24 hours without feeling gluttonous.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Makes 8 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)
3/4 cup carrots, shredded
heaping 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
heaping 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup chopped pecans

For the frosting:

2 tablespoons butter, softened at room temperature
2 tablespoons cream cheese softened at room temperature
approximately 1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F and prepare a 8 wells of a muffin tin with cooking spray or paper liners. I used silicone cupcake baking cups sprayed with a bit of cooking spray.
Sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon into a large bowl.
In another bowl mix together the egg, oil and sour cream until smooth, then add the vanilla extract.
Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. Then add the grated carrot and combine.
Fold in the chopped pecans and fill the muffin cups about 3/4 of the way with the muffin mixture.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
Place the pan on a cookie rack to cool and then frost with cream cheese frosting when totally cool.
Make the frosting by beating together the softened cream cheese and butter with a hand mixer on medium-high speed until everything is mixed together and smooth. Add the vanilla and mix well. Slowly add the confectioner's sugar a bit at a time as the mixer is running. Stop occasionally to scrape down the bowl. Mix until smooth and use immediately.

Notes:

Potatoes Romanoff

2011-11-21T11:32:00.003-05:00

Potatoes are a common comfort-food theme for a lot of people, and make an appearance as a side dish on a lot of dinner tables:. They can be roasted, fried, mashed, boiled, and of course, baked, and they can be as humble as oven-roasted potatoes or as elegant as Potatoes Dauphinoise.

Another fancy-sounding potato side dish is my version of Potatoes Romanoff, also a quick and easy way to use up leftover baked potatoes. I almost never have leftover baked potatoes, but it is criminally easy to bake a russet and then chill it, so I don't let the lack of an extra baked potato hanging around in my fridge stop me from making this dish. Since my kids are not potato fans, I did have to scale this recipe back a bit, but it's just as easy to make this for one person as it is for 8 or 16.

Potatoes Romanoff

Serves 4 as a reasonable side dish, or 2 generously and 1 gluttonously

Ingredients:

1 large russet potato (about 11 oz.)
1/4 cup shallots, minced
3/4 cup extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated (about 3 oz., moderately packed down)
1/4 teaspoon dried dill
1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon sea salt
pinch of cracked black pepper
3/4 cup sour cream
grated cheddar
chopped scallions

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 F. Scrub your russet potato and pierce with a knife or fork in several spots. Wrap it in foil and set it right on the racks and bake for about an hour. Take out, unwrap and let come to room temperature and then chill in the fridge for a few hours.
Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a small casserole dish or 2 small gratin dishes.
Take the chilled baked potato and grate it, skin and all, with a box grater.
In a large bowl, mix together the shallots, grated potato, salt, pepper and dill, taste to adjust seasoning.
Fold in the sour cream and 3/4 cup of grated cheddar and combine well.
Pour the mixture into the casserole dish or gratin dishes and top with more grated cheddar and bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
Sprinkle with chopped scallions and serve.

Notes:

This doubles, triples and quadruples easily if you need to serve more people.

Huffington Post Kitchen Daily

2011-11-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

How have I not seen this page before?

Huffington Post Kitchen Daily appears to be their revamped food section, and I approve. I've only begun to dive into it, but this section on dealing with the avalanche of Thanksgiving leftovers looks terrific. It would be even better if the links to their recipes worked. Hrmm. :/

I am salivating over the image of the Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Shells, but alas, no recipe to be found. Let's hope that they work out the html kinks before Black Friday. All of those manic shoppers are going to need sustenance.

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

2011-11-18T05:13:00.001-05:00

What is is about potatoes that make them so satisfying as comfort food? It's got to be the dense starchiness. It gives a sense of solid fullness, and it also turns from bland starchiness to sweet on your tongue as you eat it. Add salt to that, as many of use do with potatoes, and you get that double-whammy of sweet and salty.

Baked potatoes in particular serve as a vehicle for other lovely flavors and textures, especially creamy. The smoothness of the the fat in butter and cheese is really one of the more simple and sublime parts of enjoying foods, and the main reason I could never sustain veganism. Cheese, sour cream, butter on a baked potato - hardly makes your waistline happy, but it certainly results in happy tummy syndrome.

So, what could be more satisfying than a loaded baked potato? Making it into a soup.

This is a great recipe to deal with leftover baked potatoes - as if there could even be such a thing - or you could do what I did and bake a potato for the express purpose of making this soup. You'll thank me.

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:

1 russet potato
¾ cup leeks
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon flour
½ teaspoon salt
pinch of pepper
¼ teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder
½ teaspoon dill
2 cups milk
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
crumbled bacon
shredded cheddar
sour cream

Directions:

Bake a russet potato for an hour at 400 F. Take out and let cool. Then scrape out the potato and mash up with a fork. You'll have about 1 cup. You can used a leftover baked potato if you have one lingering in your fridge.
Meanwhile, saute ¾ cup leeks over olive oil or some sort of fat (I used a smidge of butter) until soft. Then add 1 heaping tablespoon of flour and stir until it's all mixed in, about 2 minutes.
Add ½ t salt, a pinch of pepper, ¼ t granulated garlic or garlic powder and ½ t dill.
Pour in 2 cups of milk and heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture has thickened (about 10 minutes).
Puree it with a stick blender or in small batches in a regular blender if you want a uniformly smooth texture, otherwise, enjoy the rustic texture.
Add ½ cup shredded cheese (I used an extra-sharp white cheddar) and stir until the cheese melts. Taste to adjust seasoning - this soup can really take a lot of salt before it's noticeable.
Serve in a bowl garnished with your favorite baked potato toppings. I had shredded cheddar, crumbled bacon and sour cream.

French Onion Soup

2011-11-17T07:00:00.003-05:00

The main reason I made that beef stock the other day was so that I could make French Onion soup. Last year, when I made beef stock for the first time, I had been inspired by Thomas Keller's French Onion soup recipe, but life events conspired in such a way that I never did get to make the soup, and I ended up freezing the stock for use in other recipes during the year, like my (inauthentic but still delicious) spaghetti bolognese, mushroom wine sauce, pot roast, crockpot chili and beef stew.

Well, the vision of that French Onion soup never left me, and I knew that I was going to make it with the freshest batch of beef stock I could, and let me just start by saying, I felt that it was totally worth the 14 hours it took me on Monday to make the stock, plus the 5-hour caramelization time for the onions yesterday.

I think that time is of equal importance in developing the flavor. I read that "the difference between a home cook and a professional chef is that the latter has the guts to keep the dish on the fire longer to get that extra flavor." - from Chowhound

This recipe fulfills that requirement. I started prepping at 8:30 am and ate my first bowl of this soup at 4:15 pm. Well worth the wait.

I did not keep faithfully to Keller's recipe, mostly by accident (I totally forgot to add the flour), and I halved it since I would be the only one eating it and my freezer is jam-packed with various stocks and containers of other soups, but it was still far and away the best French Onion soup I've ever had.

I started with 4 lb. of sweet onions, Maya Sweets from Peru, though I'd have used vidalias if they'd been in stock. Peel the onions, cut them in half through the root and then slice thinly widthwise. Toss them into your largest dutch oven (I used my 7-quart pot) along with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 4 tablespoons of salted butter and cook over very low heat, stirring to incorporate the melted butter and olive oil evenly. Stir occasionally, every 15 minutes or so.

As you can see, at the 1-hour mark, the volume of the onions has reduced significantly:

Still at the 1-hour mark, the onions will have released a great deal of moisture. Keep stirring every 15 minutes or so and keep the heat low so that it does not simply brown without caramelizing or, worse yet, burn. It will seem very slow going. That's what we want.

After 2 hours, the onions have really reduced to just a fraction of what they had been and most of that moisture has evaporated and you might noticed a slight bit of coloration.

Also, after 2 hours, the onions start to get creamy.

Keep stirring every 15 minutes.

At 3 hours, oddly enough, the onions looked a lot like they did at the 2-hour mark, but the kitchen smelled much more strongly of that sweet smell of onions slow cooking. At this point, I started to check the onions more frequently, every 10 minutes, and stirring when needed.

When you stir, you'll notice a buildup of the sugary juices from the onions on the bottom of the pot. Watch that carefully, because that is where any browning and burning will begin. In my experience, that gets to be like a chain reaction, once it starts to burn, it moves VERY QUICKLY, and there is no recovering from scorched foods.

At the 3 ½ hour mark, a real change in color. There may be a few spots which are a little bit darker, which is ok, as long as you keep a watchful eye and be diligent about stirring every 10 minutes. I scraped up the film on the bottom to incorporate it back into the onions and keep it from burning. It seemed to work.

4 hours in, the onions are a deeper brown color and quite sticky and sweet. I tasted some. Even after 4 hours of cooking, they still had some bite to them, so another hour to soften is a good thing.

4 ½ hours in, a bit darker, and much stickier. At this point, for the last hour or so, I am in the kitchen prepping everything else and stirring pretty frequently and checking that it does not burn.

5 hours later... a mess of sticky, sweet, caramelized onions lounging on the bottom of the pot. Only 5 hours earlier, the onions had filled this pot to nearly the top. How magically simple, just applying low heat and time.

For the soup, reserve ¾ cup of the caramelized onions - store the remainder in the fridge or freezer for future use.

Make the croutons: preheat the oven to 450° F. Slice up a baguette into ½ inch rounds, pour some olive oil into a bowl and add 1 teaspoon of granulated garlic and brush both sides of the bread with the garlicky oil. Place the rounds on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil, parchment paper or a baking mat and toast for 10 minutes, then take out, flip over and bake another 5 minutes or so or until golden brown.

See? Lovely garlicky croutons.

Prepare your herb sachet by placing 2 bay leaves, 4 or 5 sprigs of fresh thyme and 8 black peppercorns into a cheesecloth bag.

Place the ¾ cup of caramelized onions in a 3-quart soup pot,* (See Notes) add 1½ quarts of beef stock, 2 teaspoons of sea salt and the herb sachet. Bring to a boil and let simmer uncovered for an hour and a half or until reduced to about 3 cups.

Season with ¼ teaspoon of sherry vinegar, though I'm betting balsamic or champagne vinegar would be nice too. Ladle into oven-proof soup bowls, top with the croutons and shredded cheese: Emmenthaler, Comte or even Gruyuere. Ideally, you'd pop this under the broiler until the cheese melts and browns, but I don't really have a broiler (long story there), so I stuck it in a 400° F oven for 10 minutes.

French Onion Soup

Ingredients:

4 lb. sweet onions, sliced thinly
4 tablespoons salted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1½ quarts of beef stock
2 bay leaves
3 - 4 sprigs fresh thyme
8 black peppercorns
cheesecloth
1 tablespoon flour * See Notes
1 tablespoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon of sherry vinegar
French baguette, sliced into ½ inch rounds
olive oil
granulated garlic
shredded Emmenthaler cheese

Directions:

In your largest dutch oven or a large stock pot, melt the butter and olive oil and add the onions. Lower the heat to the lowest setting and stir the onions every 15 minutes.
After the 1-hour mark, the onions will have reduced in volume and released a lot of moisture. Keep stirring every 15 minutes and let the onions slow-caramelize for another 4 hours, stirring every 15 minutes until they really start to change in color, then stir every 10 minutes to be sure that they don't burn.
Once the onions have cooked down and caramelized, make the croutons: Preheat oven to 450° F. Pour some olive oil into a bowl and add 1 teaspoon of granulated garlic and brush both sides of the bread with the garlicky oil. Place the rounds on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil, parchment paper or a baking mat and toast for 10 minutes, then take out, flip over and bake another 5 minutes or so or until golden brown.
Place the bay leaves, thyme and peppercorns into your cheesecloth bag.
Reserve ¾ cup of the caramelized onions for the soup. Keep the remainder in the fridge or freezer for other recipes or a second batch of this soup. Place the onions in a 3-quart soup pot over medium heat, add the flour and and stir until incorporated. Add the beef stock, salt and sachet, bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low and let simmer uncovered for an hour and a half or until reduced to about 3 cups.
Season to taste with more salt and pepper and add ¼ teaspoon of sherry vinegar, and ladle into oven-proof bowls. Top with croutons and shredded cheese and stick under the broiler until browned and bubbly.

Notes:

Keller's recipe calls for a bit of flour stirred in with the caramelized onions before the addition of the stock but I just completely forgot about it. I was still pleased with the end result and I am not usually a huge fan of flour-thickened soups anyway.

Beef Stock

2011-11-16T09:34:00.000-05:00

Here is the end result of the other day's 14-hour beef stock process.

All told, I got just over 1 gallon of stock: 9 ½ quarts of deep, rich brown beef stock.

I froze 2 quarts of stock in ice cube trays and put the cubes into labeled freezer bags so they'd be ready to go, and yesterday I reduced 1 quart of stock to about 1 ½ cups of a concentrated stock and froze those in ice cube trays as well.

I still have 6 ½ quarts in the fridge ready to be used, and I plan on putting at least 1 ¾ quarts of it to use today as I attempt Thomas Keller's French Onion soup. His book, Bouchon, is on my Christmas wish list, and just might be the gift I gift myself this year. :)

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Blondies

2011-11-15T05:09:00.001-05:00

Brownies may be my favorite sort of cookie, but sometimes I have a hankering for the non-chocolate, blondie version. They are great with butterscotch chips, but they are phenomenal with peanut butter and chocolate, a time-honored flavor combination that never lets me down.

These come together really quickly and I hardly ever wait for them to cool before I dive into the pan.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Blondies

Ingredients:

1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½cup butter, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup peanut butter chips
½ cup chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 9-inch square baking pan.
Sift together flour, baking soda and salt, whisking well to break up any clumps and set aside.
In a large bowl, with an electric mixer at medium speed, cream together the butter with sugar and brown sugar until fluffy.
Add the egg and vanilla and beat well. Gradually add dry ingredients, beating on low speed until thoroughly combined.
Fold in the chips and make sure they're all well incorporated into the dough.
Spread the dough in prepared baking pan and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until set.
Cool on wire rack and then cut into bars.

Making Beef Stock

2011-11-14T12:08:00.003-05:00

I first made beef stock last winter and was amazed by the difference between homemade stock and stock from a cube or a granule. There is no doubt that this is a time-intensive endeavor requiring maintenance as you skim the impurities from the surface of the stock, but I think that it is worth the time and effort.

I was inspired by this video and make stock basically the same way, with a few of my own changes.

I started with 8 lb. of bones and meat: 4 lb. of oxtails on the left, 2 lb. of beef marrow bones in the middle, and 2 lb. of beef shanks on the right.

Preheat in the oven to 450 F.

Cover the bones with 12 oz. of tomato paste.

Add 2 large carrots on top of the beef and then roast for an hour.

Meanwhile, grab your largest stock pot. I use my monster 20-quart pot for beef stock.

Heat some olive oil and sweat down onions, leeks, carrots and celery. I used 2 large onion, chopped roughly, about 2 cups of leeks, both the white and the green parts, 2 more large carrots, roughly chopped, and a large bunch of celery, chopped.

Cook until it starts to soften.

Then add 2 bay leaves, a large amount of parsley, fresh thyme and 2 large roma tomatoes, quartered.

See the lovely roasted bones?

Take the roasted bones, carrots and tomato paste and add it all to the stock pot.

Deglaze the roasting pan with some white wine and a bit of water and and scrape up all of the lovely fond at the bottom and then add it to the stock pot as well.

Add enough cold water to cover the everything in the pot and bring up to between 180 and 200 F, and let simmer uncovered for 8 - 12 hours.

As the stock simmers, skim off any fat, scum and impurities.

In about 10 hours, the stock will be finished, at which point I'll strain it and cool it in an ice bath and then freeze in ice cube trays. Stay tuned...

Crab Tartlets

2011-11-06T10:27:00.003-05:00

We love finger foods here. I am always on the hunt for new appetizers to serve at the various family functions. Puff pastry is always a good place to start. You can create strudels out of it, layer it with ingredients and fold it over, cut it into rounds and place them in muffin tins, it provides a near infinite variety of snacks and dishes.

The family also goes nutso over seafood, particularly crab, so any opportunity to fold together something crabby with something creamy is always welcome in this house.

Crab Tartlets

Makes 12 tartlets

Ingredients:

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed and cut into rounds with a 3 inch biscuit cutter
½ cup lump crab meat, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons of mayo
2 tablespoons garlic and herb Boursin cheese
½ teaspoon sriracha more or less to taste
1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
1½ teaspoons minced shallot
1½ teaspoons minced celery
¼ cup shredded cheese - I used a mixture of extra-sharp cheddar, parm and romano
Old Bay to taste
¼ cup soft, unseasoned bread crumbs

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375° F.
Place the rounds of puff pastry into the bottom of a 12-well muffin pan.*
Mix together the crab, mayo, sriracha, mustard and Boursin in a bowl, then add the minced shallot and celery and the shredded cheese. Stir well to combine.
Taste and then season with salt, pepper and Old Bay to suit your taste.
Add the bread crumbs and toss to combine well.
Put a heaping teaspoon on top of each pastry round in the muffin pans and then bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until the pastry starts to get golden brown.
Carefully pry the tartlets from the muffin pan and let cool on a wire rack and then serve.

Notes:

I put the pastry rounds into an ungreased muffin pan and then stuck like hell, but for some reason, with this particular muffin pan, that is always the case. Next time I might try greasing it liberally with Crisco or even resorting to muffin liner papers or using my new silicone muffin cups.
Any leftover crab mixture makes a wonderful crab cake mixture with the addition of a bit more soft bread crumbs. The resulting texture is soft and somewhat bready, like what you get with baked stuffed clams. It was an unexpected delight.

Butternut Squash Risotto with Caramelized Onions and Crispy Sage Leaves

2011-11-05T07:04:00.003-04:00

Risotto is one of my little indulgences. The kids have only recently decided that they like rice, and they are still very particular about which rice dishes they find acceptable. My quinoa and rice pilaf is at the very top of their list, but risotto is my favorite.

Risotto is more of a technique than a dish, and it is open to an almost infinite variety of combinations. The first risotto I ever had was a spinach risotto with toasted pine nuts, and my standard is a wild mushroom risotto with pancetta and thyme.

I came across this recipe from Williams Sonoma and knew that had to make a variation of it. I love the combination of butternut squash and sage, and I thought that the addition of the sweet, sticky caramelized onions would be a lovely addition to the creaminess of the risotto.

It was.

Butternut Squash Risotto with Caramelized Onions and Crispy Sage Leaves

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, sliced thinly
4 tablespoons of butter
olive oil
3 tablespoons minced shallot
¼ cup Carnarole rice or another suitable risotto rice like Arborio or Vialone Nano
¼ cup sherry or white wine
1 quart warm stock
¼ cup roasted butternut squash, cubed
¼ cup roasted butternut squash, pureed
salt
pepper
½ cup freshly grated parmesan
whole fresh sage leaves

Directions:

Make the caramelized onions by cooking down the thinly sliced onion in 2 tablespoons of butter over low heat for an hour or until the are richly browned and sticky. Stir frequently to be sure that they don't stick and burn. Set aside.
Make the crispy sage leaves by melting 1 tablespoon of butter and sauteing the leaves until crispy. Set aside.
Melt 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet and saute the shallot until soft, then add the rice, stirring until everything is nicely coated. Cook for 2 minutes.
Pour in the sherry or wine and cook, stirring frequently, until all of the liquid has been absorbed.
Start adding the warm stock 1 ladleful at a time, stirring frequently, and continue to cook until the rice is done al dente - it will still have some bite to it, but not be chalky or crunchy. The grains of rice should have lost the white opaque center. This could take 10 minutes or up to 20 minutes depending on hte type of rice. Taste as you go.
Add your salt and pepper and stir in the caramelized onions and grated parm. Stir well.
Serve topped with crispy sage leaves.

Notes:

I made a few changes from the original recipe because I wanted both pureed squash and cubes of squash for a little textural contrast, and I used sherry instead of white wine because that's what I had on hand.

Pumpkin Bread

2011-11-04T05:49:00.004-04:00

Look! More pumpkin!

Yes, we've been hot-and-heavy with the winter squashes lately, but that's ok, because they are equally delicious in sweet and savory dishes alike. Some people think that pumpkin's only reason for existence is to be carved into some gruesome jack o'lantern for Hallowe'en or magically whipped up into a pie for Thanksgiving, but it is so much more versatile than that.

Truth be told, pumpkin pie isn't even my favorite pumpkin dessert. No, that would be spiced pumpkin cheesecake. Coming in after that, and still before the pie, are pumpkin gingerbread and pumpkin bread, and those are still in the realm of desserts. Dishes such as pumpkin lasagna, pumpkin ravioli in sage brown butter and curried pumpkin soup do a fantastic job of showcasing pumpkin's savory side.

If you want something pumpkiny and immediate, a quick bread like this one really delivers. It took me longer to assemble my ingredients than it did to get the batter in the oven, and the scent that filled the house while it was baking was just indescribably wonderful. Those fall baking smells are one of the reasons I look forward to fall so intensely.

This loaf is richly scented and moist, with the bits of pecan studded here and there providing nice texture.

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh pumpkin puree, or about ½ of a 15 oz. can
2 eggs
½ cup pumpkin-apple butter*
1/3 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1¾ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon**
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
½ cup chopped pecans

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350° F
Grease and flour a large loaf pan.
Ina large bowl, mix together the pumpkin puree, eggs, pumpkin-apple butter and water until thoroughly combined. I did this in the food processor when I realized that the pumpkin puree I had processed the other day still had some chunks of pumpkin in it.
In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix well.
Stir in the pecans.
Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 50 - 60 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack and let cool.

Notes:

I replaced the oil that is usually found in these recipes with pumpkin-apple butter, but if you don't have any, you can substitute with the same amount of applesauce or a mild oil, like canola.

If you do use the same pumpkin-apple butter, you can cut down on the spices provided in the recipe, because the pumpkin-apple butter is very generously spiced already. In fact, I added no extra spices at all. If you decide to use oil or applesauce, however, you will need to add the spices listed in the recipe.

Butternut Squash and Crab Bisque

2011-11-03T06:20:00.004-04:00

I had this recipe in mind when I first got my hands on a butternut squash at the farmers' market back in September. I went so far as to make my own shellfish stock by simmering crab shells and leftover shrimp tails with white wine, onions, celery and carrots and a hit of tomato paste. The house smelled like a crab house down by a Maryland pier, and the cat was going out of his mind, taunted by the smells of seafood.

As it turned out, by the time the stock had finished simmering and I had cleared out the detritus of stock-making, I lost my will to live and felt no urgency to clean, roast and then puree the squash, so I ended up freezing the stock for "some other time."

Well, that time came, and was it ever worth it!

Butternut Squash and Crab Bisque

Ingredients:

olive oil
1 medium onion and 1 small shallot, chopped - about 1 cup, total
1/2 cup chopped carrot - I also tossed in some leftover parsnip
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 cups butternut squash - I used already roasted cubes and puree
2 - 3 quarts of stock, simmering - I used homemade shellfish stock, but chicken or vegetable will work nicely too*
Old Bay
salt
pepper
crab meat
cracker crumbs (optional)
heavy cream (optional)
sherry (optional)

Directions:

Saute the chopped onion and shallot in olive oil over medium heat until softened, then add the carrots, parsnip (if using) and celery and cook until the vegetables are soft.
Add the butternut squash and 2 cups of the warmed stock and bring to a boil, then add another 2 cups of stock and simmer, covered until the squash is fully cooked, adding more stock as needed.
Puree the soup with a stick blender or in batches in a blender, adding more warm stock as needed to reach the consistency you like.
Season with salt, pepper and Old Bay. You can be generous with the Old Bay. This soup can accept a lot of seasoning.
Ladle into bowls, hit with a shot of cream and/or sherry and top with lump crab meat and cracker crumbs and another dusting of Old Bay.

Notes:

When I make pureed soups like these, I generally keep a large pot of stock simmering on the back burner. I can never say with certainty how much stock goes into these soups, but I'd rather err on the side of having too much stock at hand than not enough. Any remaining stock gets refrigerated or frozen in ice trays for other uses, so stock never has to go down the drain.

Chicken Fricassee

2011-11-02T11:31:00.003-04:00

Chicken fricassee is, as you might guess, a French dish. I've heard it described as French comfort food, and why not? Basically you take some chicken and simmer it to wonderful succulence in a thickened sauce with aromatic vegetables and then, the pièce de résistance, go that extra mile and cook down that sauce to a rich, cream-bolstered gravy. How can anyone go wrong with that?

Here in central NY, I've heard this dish called, fondly, "Chick Frick," or even "Frickin Chicken," and everyone seems to have pretty strong opinions of what is or is not Chick Frick. Kopp's Canteen in Chittenango was known for its chicken fricassee and had a loyal following who were pretty bummed when the restaurant closed a few years ago. Not too long ago, there was even a piece in the local paper announcing that another restaurant had the original Kopp's Canteen recipe for chicken fricassee. Big news. Seriously.

The thing is, this is not a difficult dish. I was fortunate enough to have the Chick Frick at Kopp's before they closed, and the fans are right - it was really good. I don't claim to have Kopp's original recipe, but I will say that this one I make is pretty damned tasty. It is tasty enough to get my kids to devour 2 full servings of it, and let me tell you, that's pretty good.

Aside from how delicious and satisfying this meal is, one of the things I like the most about this dish is how it fills the house with a wonderfully inviting smell that lingers... in a good way. Now, I love fish, and it smells divine while it's cooking, but that smell is not one that improves with time. Hours after a seafood meal, the kitchen does not smell especially inviting, and I'm usually rubbing everything down with lemon juice and spritzing the joint with Lysol to fight back the odor of once-cooked fish. Hours after a chicken dinner has been cooked and devoured, the kitchen still has that cozy comfort-food scent to it.

Feed the body with nourishing food, feed the soul with coziness. It works for me.

Chicken Fricassee

Serves 2 hungry kids

Ingredients:

4 chicken drumsticks, rinsed and patted dry
½ cup flour
1 teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder
butter
½ cup chopped onion
¼ cup diced parsnip
½ cup chopped mushrooms - I used royal trumpet mushrooms, but any of your favorite mushrooms would be nice
a good glug of sherry, 1 - 2 tablespoons
1½ - 2 cups warmed chicken broth
sprigs of fresh thyme
2 small bay leaves or 1 large bay leaf
salt
pepper
heavy cream

Directions:

Place the flour, paprika, black pepper and granulated garlic (or garlic powder) in a large ziplock bag and shake gently to mix. Add the drumsticks to the bag, seal and shake to coat the chicken with the flour mixture thoroughly. Remove the flour-coated chicken to a plate to rest and reserve the flour and spice mixture in a bowl and set aside.
In a dutch oven or a large, deep skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium-high heat and brown the chicken until all sides are nicely golden. Remove the chicken to a plate and let rest.
If the chicken released a lot of fat, you might want to drain off some of that grease, otherwise leave it there and add to the sizzling fat + butter combination, adding more butter if needed, your chopped onions and let cook until softened. Then add the parsnips and cook for 2 minutes before adding the chopped mushroom.
Cook for another 2 - 3 minutes or until the veggies are soft, then add 1 cup of your warmed chicken broth and a few glugs of sherry.
Stir in the reserved flour and spice mixture that you used to coat the chicken, stirring well to make sure that the flour is incorporated and the sauce is not lumpy.
Add the sprigs of fresh thyme and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Place the chicken back into the pot and pour in the remaining ½ - 1 cup of broth, cover and reduce the heat to low and let simmer until the chicken is thoroughly cooked, with an internal temperature of 165° F, about 45 minutes to an hour.
Once the chicken has cooked through, remove it to a plate and cover loosely with foil to keep warm, and work on the sauce. Skim off any pools of grease floating on the top. Fish out and discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs, raise the heat to medium-high and let the sauce cook down, stirring frequently to make certain that it does not scorch.
Once it has thickened to your liking, maybe after 10 minutes, maybe after 20, it's up to you, add a shot of heavy cream and stir. I start with about 1 tablespoon and go from there. If you like, you can finish the sauce with a squeeze of lemon juice or a tiny splash of sherry vinegar to add a little acidic bite, but my kids prefer it without.
Taste to check for seasoning and add salt or pepper as you feel necessary and serve with your chicken over biscuits, noodles or rice.

Notes:

These 4 drumsticks were enough to feed my 2 kids. Obviously, if you are cooking for a crowd, you'll want to make way more.
Instead of parsnips, you could use some carrot. I have grown fond of onion-parsnip-mushroom combination, but do what works for you.

Maple-Walnut Butter Tart

2011-11-01T13:36:00.001-04:00

I am a huge fan of maple, particularly with walnut. Maple-walnut ice cream is one of my all-time favorites, and a few years ago, I made mini maple-walnut apple crisps, which my kids devoured pretty quickly. Even though I live in a maple-producing state, and real, good-quality maple syrup is abundant and relatively easy to find in any grocery store, you'd be surprised find that, short of visiting a maple sugar house, it is very difficult to find granulated maple sugar or maple butter.

This summer at the downtown farmer's market, I found a vendor there one day with locally produced granulated maple sugar and maple butter, and I quickly snagged the largest jar of the sugar that they had, knowing that I could find at least 101 uses for it.

This is my maple-walnutty version of the classic Canadian sweet, the butter tart. It's similar to English treacle tarts, or Southern pecan pie, and not dissimilar to the molasses-based Shoofly pie of the Amish - it basically seems to be a buttery crust filled with a sugar-intense, gooey filling. Everything else is optional, except for the sighs of delight, and maybe the wish for a vial of insulin.

Maple-Walnut Butter Tart

Ingredients:

For the press-in butter crust

1 cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1 egg yolk

For the filling:

1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons packed granulated maple sugar
2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted and then cooled
1 egg
pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
golden raisins
chopped walnuts, almost to the point of being pulverized
granulated maple sugar

Directions:

Make the crust by mixing together the flour and sugar and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add the egg yolk and mix well, pressing it into a ball.
Rip off a portion of the dough and press it into your tart pan. Repeat with more dough - you will likely have some of this dough left over. Wrap it in plastic wrap and keep it for another use.
Lay down a small piece of parchment in the tart shells and add some baking weights or dried beans and and blind bake them at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes.
Remove and let cool.
Raise the oven temp to 400 degrees F.
Mix together the maple syrup, 2 T of brown sugar and 2 T of maple sugar.
Add the melted butter and stir to combine well.
Add the egg, stir. Add the salt and vanilla and mix until it is nicely smooth.
Place a few golden raisins and some of the chopped walnut in the bottom of the tart shells.
Sprinkle some granulated maple sugar over it and pour in the sugar mixture.
Top with a bit more of the chopped walnut and sprinkle some granulated maple sugar on top and bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until just set.

Pumpkin-Apple Butter

2011-10-31T04:41:00.002-04:00

It was a pretty good year for sugar pumpkins in my neck of the woods, so I got 3. They've been hanging around the house for a while, and although I know that these beauties do hold well in a cool spot, I wanted to work on getting some of them processed and frozen, so yesterday I grabbed two of them and set to work.

How adorable, right? They have no idea what's in store for them.

Using your largest, sharpest knife, I used an 8 in. chef's knife, just cut them in half:

And then scrape out all the seeds and the fibers - save the seeds for roasting, though!

See? They should be fairly clean. I used a toothed scraper, which is why you see marks. A large spoon works well, too.

Now, set them cut-side up in a large roasting pan, add about an inch of water to the bottom of the pan and roast them in a preheated, 400°F oven for 45 minutes.

Scrape out chunks of the flesh once it's cooled a bit and not too hot to handle, and you're ready to puree it. I find that it purees better when it is warm than when it has cooled off, so I try to puree it all as soon as I can handle it without giving myself 3rd-degree burns, then I use it or pack it away in 2-cup portions in freezer bags and freeze or refrigerate it.

Ready to go!

I packed away 4 cups of the puree in the freezer, set aside another 2 cups in the fridge for this week, and used 2 cups for this delectable pumpkin-apple butter, which makes a nice spread on buttered toast. I am also thinking of possibly making baked stuffed French toast and mixing some of this with softened cream cheese as the filling.

Just a thought.

This is also incredible eaten right off a spoon.

Pumpkin-Apple Butter

Makes approximately 3 cups

Ingredients:

1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 - 3/4 cup apple cider, enough to almost cover the raisins. I used 1/2 cup, but had the remaining 1/4 cup ready to dilute the butter if needed.
2 cups pumpkin puree
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 whole cloves
2 allspice berries

Directions:

Soak 1/2 cup golden raisins in 1/2 cup - 3/4 cup cider for an hour.
Blend together 2 cups fresh pumpkin with the raisins and cider and 1/2 cup applesauce in a food processor until nicely pureed.
Place the puree in a sauce pan and add 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup packed brown sugar and your favorite pie spices - I crushed up 3 cloves and 2 allspice berries, shaved in about 1/4 t of nutmeg, 1/2 t ground ginger and 2 t cinnamon - and heat over low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring to make sure it doesn't stick and burn.
Serve :)

Notes:

This has the consistency of a thick applesauce; if you like your apple butter thicker, I'd say cook it down for another hour, but take care to stir it so that it doesn't burn on the bottom.

Rösti

2011-10-30T08:25:00.001-04:00

Rösti is basically a large skillet potato pancake, kind of like a huge latke. I've mentioned my potato pancake preferences before, but this morning I wanted something potatoey and hashbrown-like. Last night I made some rough applesauce* and I had a smidge of crème fraîche left that needed using up, and really, what better vehicle to showcase both delicious sweet-tart applesauce and smooth, creamy crème fraîche than a gigantic potato pancake?

It is also the perfect autumnal pairing, and quite easy to make. I had fun working my Benriner Japanese mandoline, though for the life of me, I can not figure out how to use the finger guard while slicing, so I am just super-duper careful not to add shreds of finger to the fingerling potatoes.

Rösti with Chunky Applesauce and Crème Fraîche

Serves 1 generously or 2 judiciously

Ingredients:

2 tiny fingerling potatoes, I used a Peruvian purple and red creamer
1/4 of a medium-sized onion
1 royal trumpet mushroom
1 egg
fresh thyme
1 - 2 t flour
salt
pepper
applesauce
crème fraîche or sour cream

Directions:

Grate the potato on a box grater or a mandoline that has serrated razor settings. I used the medium blade on mine which produces 1/4 inch shreds. Grate about 1/2 cup of potato. Soak the shredded potato in a bowl of cold water and set aside.
Grate an equal amount of the onion and as much as the mushroom as possible - I probably only got about 3 T of shredded mushroom.
Put the onion and mushroom into another bowl along with some fresh thyme leaves, salt and pepper and mix well.
Drain the potato shreds and squeeze out as much of the water as you can, then add to the onion and mushroom mixture and mix well.
Crack in the egg and stir to combine, then toss in 1 t of flour and mix well. You can add a bit more flour if the mixture seems too runny.
Heat up a large skillet and melt some butter over medium-high heat
Spread the mixture out as thinly as possible, lower the heat to medium and then cover the skillet and let cook until the edges of the pancake are golden-brown and then carefully flip over and let cook on the other side until it, too, is golden-brown and delicious.
Remove from heat, top with applesauce and crème fraîche or sour cream and eat.

Notes:

Rough applesauce - I simmered 2 Ginger Gold apples, peeled, cored and cut into quarters in 2 cups apple cider with about 8 inches of stick-cinnamon, 4 whole cloves and 4 allspice berries until the apples were soft and falling to pieces and the liquid had reduced. I pulled out the spices and let the sauce cool and then refrigerated it.

Kaiser Rolls

2011-10-29T05:40:00.002-04:00

Not too long ago, I made another batch of pulled pork, bascially the same as this recipe, but with a few tweaks in the spice rub to go along with the very different apple-maple-bourbon-chipotle barbecue sauce** I dreamed up. The sauce worked, let me tell you, and the kids devoured the pulled pork sandwiches. It had been such a beastly sized pork butt - 6 pounds, if you can believe it - that I set some of the pork aside and froze it for a future meal.

Well the kids didn't want to wait long, so I defrosted the pork the other day and planned on making sandwiches as usual. There was only one problem: I had no kaiser rolls and I was in no mood to get dressed and drag myself out to the store for just one item, so I went to the King Arthur flour site and looked up kaiser rolls.

Sure enough, they had what looked like a simple but killer recipe. They were such a success that I had to make them again yesterday. I did have to make a change or two to the procedure, and without thinking, when I made them the second time, made a substitution to the list of ingredients, but this recipe really works either way. The kids were very impressed with the rolls and thought that they looked like something you might be able to buy in the store's bakery.

Yes, that is high praise. :)

Kaiser Rolls

Makes 6 rolls

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons yeast
1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
1-1/4 teaspoons salt
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup milk or water*

Directions:

Manual method:

In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients, stirring until the dough forms a rough mass and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Knead the dough for 5 minutes, then let it rest for 10 minutes, then knead the dough for another 5 minutes. The dough should be smooth and silky, but stiff to work. If it is too sticky, knead in a bit more flour until it is nicely smooth.
Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm spot in your kitchen for an hour. I usually preheat the oven to 425°F at this point to get it good and hot and help warm up my drafty kitchen.
Once it has risen for an hour, place the dough on a lightly floured surface, and divide it into six pieces. Roll the pieces into balls, dusting them slightly with the flour and place them on a cookie sheet lined with a Silpat baking mat or parchment paper. Alternately, you can grease the cookie sheet.
With a large chef's knife, cut 3 slashes down into the top, making a star pattern. You'll want to press down and in one motion, slice down almost all the way through to the bottom. Don't saw through the bread. You want nice, clean cuts.
Cover the rolls and set them in a warm part of the kitchen and let rise for 1 more hour, or until they've just about doubled in size.
Bake the rolls in a preheated 425°F oven for 15 to 17 minutes until golden brown.
Remove the rolls from the oven, brush the tops with cold butter, and cool on a wire rack until ready to use.

Bread machine method:

Place the ingredients into the bowl of your bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer, set on the dough cycle and walk away.
Then follow steps 4 - 8 above.

Notes:

The original recipe from King Arthur Flour calls for 3/4 cup of water instead of milk, and when I made them the first time the other day, I did indeed follow the recipe exactly as it was written, but when I made these again yesterday, I inadvertently used milk, probably because my favorite multi-grain bread recipe uses milk and I had just made 2 loaves of it this week and had that on the brain. Whatever the reason, I liked the resulting texture of the milk rolls better.
I also changed the shaping procedure somewhat, since I do not have a kaiser stamp. I had to use my chef's knife to slash the tops.
The first time I made these, I flipped them over after they were cut to let them rise cut-side down, but I thought that they turned out a little too flat for my taste, so the second time I made them, I let them rise cut-side up.
Apple-maple-bourbon-chipotle barbecue sauce recipe to come soon.

Yellow Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup with Bacon

2011-10-19T06:56:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned before my love of soup. I especially love soup on blustery fall days. I have a new 5-quart soup and chili pot which is just perfect for making a good-sized amount of soup to carry me through a good portion of the week. I'm trying to be good about freezing meals for my brown-bag lunches and quick, no-time-to-cook dinners. Soup works for me.

Although I like all varieties of soup, from the brothy kind to thick chowders, I have a special fondness for bean and legume soups. I could happily eat lentil soup every week, and same goes for Split Pea with Some Sort of Pork soups.

This is a good one.

Yellow Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup with Bacon

Ingredients:

4 slices thick-cut slab bacon ( I used peppered bacon), cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
2 cloves, garlic
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup carrots and/or parsnip, diced
1/2 cup celery root, diced
1 cup sweet potato, diced
1-1/2 cup yellow split peas
1-1/2 t cumin
1/2 t salt
1/2 t smoked paprika
6 - 8 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock (In this case, I used Better Than Bouillon's No-Chicken Base)

Directions:

Cook down the bacon until nicely crisp. Remove the bacon pieces and drain on a plate lined with paper towels
Saute the onion, parsnips, carrots and celery root in the bacon fat until softened.
Add the cumin and split peas and stir to coat.
Add the broth, reserved bacon pieces and salt, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1-1/2 - 2 hours. Add smoked paprika and taste to adjust seasoning and serve of follow the next step for a pureed soup.
(Optional) When the split peas are soft enough to your liking, fish out all of the bacon pieces, puree the soup with a stick blender or in small batches in a blender, then toss the bacon back in and let simmer for 5 more minutes and then serve.

Cranberry-Almond Scones

2011-10-02T15:29:00.000-04:00

The other day, someone asked me for a scone recipe that didn't require cream. Oddly enough, I had one, so I sent it along to her and that was that.

Or so I thought.

Ever since the word "scone" had popped in my head, I couldn't stop thinking about how wonderful they are straight from the oven, about that delectable texture, and in the case of this particular recipe, the lovely combination of almond and cranberry.

So I caved, and this morning I baked a batch. True to form though, I finagled with the usual recipe which calls for a standard 2 cups of flour and made some crazy substitutions. The oringal recipe also calls for you to grate a stick of frozen butter into the dry ingredients with a box grater, but I had discovered mid-recipe that my box grater was in the dishwasher, in the middle of a cleaning cycle.

Time to improvise!

I tried tossing the dry ingredients and the frozen butter chunks (butter is very hard to cut when rock-solid, let me tell you) into my food processor, but that frozen butter did little more than whirl around and make disturbing "I am so going to break your food processor" noises, so I quickly put an end to that.

I ended up dumping the flour mixture and butter back into the bowl they'd originally been in and just walked away for about 15 minutes to let the butter soften. Then I worked it in by hand.

Moral of the story: Always make sure that absolutely everything you need is on hand BEFORE you start cooking, but be ready to improvise if you have to. :)

All's well that ends well though, these scones are almost perfumed with the scent of almond and have a delectable texture, not hard at all. I had a funny thought while I was making them. I've had some rather hard, rock-like scones in the past, and I got to giggling when I remembered an English professor of mine telling us about the Stone of Scone - and I swear he pronounced it like "Stane of Skoon," - and I got to laughing thinking that if these turned out rock-hard, I could call them the Skoons of Stane.

Click for crickets

Ok, ok, I might be the only person to find that amusing, but I liked the pun. The stone of scone (stone of destiny/coronation rock) versus the scone of stone (inedible baked good).

These scones were neither rock-hard nor inedible, and they are very, very easy to make, even with a mad dash around the kitchen looking for the box grater.

Cranberry-Almond Scones

Ingredients:

1 cup All-Purpose flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup oat flour
1 tablespoon flax seed meal
1/4 cup chopped almonds
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
8 T butter, cold and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup sour cream
1 egg
Turbinado sugar

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat baking mat.
In a large bowl, mix together the All-Purpose flour, almond meal, oat flour, flax seed meal, chopped almonds, baking powder and salt until well-combined.
Work the butter into the flour mixture with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs.
Stir in the dried cranberries and give a quick mix.
Whisk together the egg, almond extract and sour cream until smooth, then pour it into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Work it together into a rough ball and then turn out onto a long piece of waxed paper coated with flour. This dough is going to feel like a sticky mess - don't worry, it will come out right.
Flour the top of the the dough and fold over the wax paper onto the top of it and gently smoosh the dough down until you've shaped it into a 1-inch high rectangle.
Peel the waxed paper back off the dough and with a biscuit cutter, cut out rounds or cut the dough into triangles with a knife.
Place the scones on the baking sheet, sprinkle lightly with turbinado sugar and bake for 15-17 minutes or until they start to turn golden-brown.
Let cool 5 minutes, and then serve warm.

Mini Dulce de Leche Brownies

2011-09-28T05:48:00.002-04:00

On occasion, I am wary of my own opinion of my food because although I know what I like and don't like, sometimes I wonder if I have such odd tastes or a warped palate that I am the only person who finds my food palatable. It's true that I do enjoy some unusual foods and odd combinations; as far as food goes, I have very few hard-and-fast dislikes.

Now, family and close friends like my food, and often ask me about recipes or for cooking and baking tips. My offers to bring a dish to pass to a potluck are rarely refused, and invitations to dinner at my house are usually greeted with enthusiasm, maybe it's that I always have good booze, though, who knows? However, these people also love me and have some fixed notion in their heads that I am a good cook, so I often wonder if they might not be biased in my favor at the start or if it's like some sort of perception, "Babs is a good cook so this must be Good Food even if it tastes odd."

I brought some of these to work a few weeks ago, and as I may have mentioned, they were gone by lunchtime. One of my co-workers told me, and this is a direct quote in case the 3 people reading this get to accusing me of immodesty, "Those are about the best brownies I've ever had. If there are any left at the end of the day, I'm going to take them home."

I'm not kidding, on the inside, I did a little *squee* of excitement, while on the outside, I was attempting to be all gracious and casual: "Oh, really? I'd be happy to share the recipe if you like."

So, some validation can be a good thing. I guess my palate is NOT cracked. :)

But fear not, lest you think I'm going to get a huge head, I know that taste is subjective. No doubt there are folks out there - namely those who prefer a tall, cakey brownie - for whom these brownies would NOT be the be-all and end-all.

The rest of you might want to give this recipe a whirl, though.

Mini Dulce de Leche Brownies

Makes 24 miniature brownies

Ingredients:

1/4 cup All-Purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch of salt
4 T salted butter
1 T heavy cream
5 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla extract
1/2 cup dulce de leche, store bought or homemade, La Lechera is a good brand

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 and spray your mini brownie pan or mini muffin pan with cooking spray.
Mix together the flour, cocoa powder and salt in a small bowl.
Put the butter and sugar in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Once the butter starts to melt, add the cream and chopped chocolate and melt. Stir to keep the mixture from scorching.
When the mixture has all melted, remove from heat and let cool. Add the vanilla extract and beaten egg and stir to mix well.
Add the dry ingredients to the melted chocolate and stir to make sure it is all well-incorporated.
Drop a small teaspoon of the batter into the prepared wells of your brownie pan, then add a teaspoon of the dulce de leche and swirl it together slightly, then top with more brownie batter.
Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until done. I always test with a cake tester. I also tend to under cook brownies slightly, so if a few bits of moist brownie are still clinging to my cake tester or toothpick when I test the brownies, that's ok by me.

A teaser: Dulce de Leche Brownies

2011-09-23T18:34:00.000-04:00

What have I been up to lately?

Baking.

Oh, and work, and cleaning. The ceiling of my art studio caved in a few weeks ago thanks to all of this God-awful rain, so I've also been paying for a new section of roof.

I felt the need for Crisis Brownies, so I baked some and brought them in to work, where they were devoured rather quickly.

Recipe to come soon. :)

Beans and Greens with Sausage

2011-08-21T20:43:00.003-04:00

This summer has been the summer of greens and beans, separately and together. I've picked up a bunch of rainbow chard or Swiss chard just about every week at the Tuesday Downtown Farmers' Market, and I've most often been tossing it into a pot of lentils and cooking it down to something between a lentil mash and lentil soup. Season it with a generous squeeze of sriracha and finish it with a splash of vinegar and lemon juice, and you have a fantastic dish.

Another favorite has been kale.

More often than not, in this house, kale ends its days as salty, crunchy kale chips, though I also enjoy a really simple preparation braising it in olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes. I'd heard people for years rhapsodizing over Tuscan white beans, escarole and sausage, and I thought I could make something similar using kale and a Portuguese spicy sausage like chouriço or linguiça. It's a lot like the Portuguese soup Caldo Verde, though minus the potatoes and not as brothy. The beans break down and release some of the starchiness into the broth, thickening it into a spice-speckled sauce, just begging to be sopped up with a crusty Portuguese roll.

Beans and Greens with Sausage

Ingedients:

olive oil
1 lb. chouriço
1 medium red onion, chopped
1/4 cup roasted red bell pepper, chopped
2 cans white beans, drained and rinsed well
1 large bunch of kale, washed and leaves ripped from the central rib (about 4 cups)
2 cups chicken broth
2 t cumin
1/2 t smoked paprika
1/2 t granulated garlic
salt and pepper
1/4 cup white wine vinegar

Directions:

Slice the chouriço into 1/2 in. rounds, and then cut those into fourths. Saute them in olive oil over medium-high heat until browned, then add the chopped onion and cook until the onion is soft.
Toss in the roasted red bell pepper and cook for 2 minutes, then add the drained beans and cook over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes.
Add 1 teaspoon of the cumin and 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika and then toss the kale leaves on top and cover it tightly and let steam for 5 minutes.
Stir to mix everything well and add 1 cup of the chicken broth and cover tightly and let cook until the kale is well wilted, and the beans are starting to break down and become creamy.
Uncover, add the wine vinegar, granulated garlic, the rest of the cumin and salt and pepper to taste and more broth. Stir well and let cook uncovered another 5 minutes, then mash down some of the beans with the back of your wooden spoon or spatula and serve.

Minted Fava Bean Puree

2011-08-19T17:52:00.000-04:00

Fava beans are tricky. Not only do fresh favas need some extra-special care in getting them to the point of edibility - who knew there could be so many layers to a bean - there is also the Hannibal-Lecter factor to consider.

Here you go, get it out of your system:

But fava beans, also known as English beans, broad beans and pigeon beans, are wonderfully creamy with a slighty nutty flavor. They have a firm bite to them when parboiled just right, and yield an amazing buttery texture when made into a puree. Like most legumes, they pack a powerful punch loaded with fiber, and these babies also carry along a goodly amount of iron.

Pick up a couple pounds at your farmers' market, then roll up your sleeves and get ready. First, you need to string the beans and shuck them. Next, parboil them and then you can remove the waxy coating from the outside. Once you've done that, you get to the center where a creamy, pale green nugget awaits. Trust me, it's worth the wait. Or, for the faint of heart, you could buy them already shucked and shelled in the refrigerated section of the grocery department, but that'll cost you more. If you're not as enamored of the zen-like process of food prep and getting your mise en place en place as I am, I'd suggest you take the hit to your wallet and opt for the pre-shelled beans.

Favas work wonderfully in salads, pasta dishes and pair uncommonly well with an assertive cheese like pecorino. I'm not kidding - shave a piece of pecorino and stick a bean or two on it and chow down. Repeat at will. It's heaven. Mint is another flavor that seems made for fava beans, and I'd suggest you reach for the fresh mint whenever you can. Pureed together, they create a creamy and satisfying puree that makes a fantastic dip or the perfect spread for crostini.

Minted Fava Bean Puree

Ingredients

8 oz. fava beans, shelled & cooked
1 clove garlic
Juice of half a lemon, appr. 1 T
2 T fresh mint
olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions:

Puree the fava beans in a food processor until well chopped.
Add the minced garlic, mint leaves and lemon juice and pulse until blended.
Drizzle in olive oil and continue processing until you reach the consistency you prefer.
Season to taste with sat and pepper.

Cappuccino Pudding

2011-07-18T19:17:00.002-04:00

I have a few recipes that are what I call my Sandra Lee Specials.

Don't know who she is?

Check it out:

Once you finish laughing, you can go here to check her out for real.

She's infamous for her "Semi-homemade" dishes - to say nothing of her cocktails - using mostly pre-made ingredients, tossing them together and voila: Semi-homemade fabulousness, sometimes horrifying; sometimes intriguing; sometimes downright mystifying.

I whipped this bad boy up in the spirit of Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade ethos, and ohmygoodness, it's not half-bad! And since I used skim milk and a package of sugar-free instant pudding mix, it's ok for phase 1 of the South Beach diet.

Cappuccino Pudding

Ingredients:

1 small (1.34 oz) box of instant vanilla pudding
1-1/2 t espresso powder
2 cups skim milk

Directions:

Mix according to the package instructions, BUT... add the espresso powder when you add the pudding powder.
Eat, probably out of the same bowl you made it in.

Notes:

If you want to get all fancy-schmancy like I did, you can put it in a martini glass (Cocktail Time, anyone?) and add a chocolate swizzle stick as a high-falutin' garnish.
As you can see, mine is melting because it is as HOT AS HELL here.
Side note, heat and humidity do not bring out the shining best of my personality.
But this pseudo-recipe rocks because it's ready in 2 minutes. You just can't beat that.

Roasted Baby Squash with Basil and Lemon

2011-07-14T05:21:00.001-04:00

I think that roasting veggies is the easiest way to add flavor in a hands-off way while you cook them. All that's required is a hot oven, some olive oil and salt and after a half hour to 45 minutes, you've got an easy side dish. I'll roast beets, potatoes, onions, leeks, garlic, asparagus, almost any vegetable. Even the denser winter squashes like butternut squash and pumpkin benefit from a nice roast to deepen their flavors, and it's so easy to do.

Baby summer squashes, in addition to being insanely cute, are incredibly tender and delicious. Fresh basil leaves, when roasted, become crunchy and lend that basil flavor that just screams "Summer!"

Put it all together, and you get a great side dish with minimal prep and fuss.

Roasted Baby Squash with Basil and Lemon

Ingredients:

Assorted baby squash, pattypan, zucchini, summer squash
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Purple basil leaves
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a roasting pan with foil.
Toss the squash and basil leaves with olive oil, salt and pepper and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
Pour into the lined pan and roast for 20 minutes.
Take them out and shake the pan to flip them over and roast for another 15 minutes.

Roasted Asparagus Soup

2011-07-13T05:13:00.000-04:00

Soup is good food. I like all sorts, from the lighter brothy soups to hearty bean soups, to thick, satisfying chowders. Pureed vegetable soups, though, are among the quickest and easiest to make, and they can be incredibly tasty.

Asparagus is amazing lightly steamed or flash-cooked in a stir-fry. Toss it with olive oil and salt and then roast it, though, and you deepen the flavor immensely. I'll often prepare asparagus and shallots this way and serve that as a veggie side dish.

See how delicious it is?

Sometimes I'll take it step further and combine the roasted asparagus with roasted shallot, add some fresh herbs and puree it with some broth for a criminally easy soup.

Roasted Asparagus Soup with Herbed Cheese Crisp

Serves 2 as a starter or 1 as a main course

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 shallot, peeled and cut in half
olive oil
salt and pepper
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
fresh thyme
1 T creamy-style cottage cheese

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Toss the asparagus and shallot with olive oil, and hit it with a little salt and pepper and roast for 20 minutes, then take it out, shake the pan or flip the asparagus and shallot and roast for another 15-20 minutes.
Let the asparagus and shallot cool for about 10 minutes, and then puree in a blender with the 1/2 cup of the broth.
Add some thyme, salt and pepper and cottage cheese and continue to blend until it is the right consistency for you, adding more broth as needed.
Mix together the shredded parm, salt and 1/2 teaspoon of fresh thyme and drop it into mounds on a Silpat-covered cookie sheet.
Bake for 5-8 minutes or until lightly browned and starting to crisp up - I didn't let mine cook enough so they were chewy rather than crunchy, but they were still addictive.
Top the soup with a crisp, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Quick-and-Dirty Guacamole

2011-07-12T04:45:00.000-04:00

Raw veggies are a staple snack for me on South Beach phase 1. I usually like some sort of dip as an accompaniment: ranch dressing, hummus and white bean puree are among the top 5. Standing in at number is guacamole. Thank God that according to The South Beach Diet: Good Fats, Good Carbs Guide, avocado is ranked as a good fat, suitable for all phases of the diet.

Avocado is great in a salad with mango and jicama, as a topping for gazpacho, even just sliced and drizzled with cream. Sprinkled with salt and eaten straight out of the shell is also a not-uncommon prep around these parts. My favorite preparation of avocado is in guacamole, whether it's made with a fresh, homemade pico de gallo, cumin, and a shot of tequila or this quick-and-dirty version. When a fast craving for the green stuff hits, it's good to know that I can have guacamole in about 3 minutes - as long as I have an avocado on hand! :)

Quick-and-Dirty Guacamole

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado
2 T salsa
juice of 1/2 lime
1 T chopped fresh cilantro

Directions:

To cut the avocado: With a large, sharp knife, slice the avocado in half the long way. When the knife hits the pit, rotate the avocado so that you make one long cut all the way around. Twist the 2 halves of the cut avocado as if you're opening a jar. Take your knife and gently whack the pit and twist it off the avocado half.
Scrape the avocado in a bowl.
Mix with salsa, lime juice and cilantro and serve with bell pepper slices.

Parmesan-Coated Baked Tilapia

2011-07-11T05:04:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned my pizza-love on occasion. I've also mentioned that I'm doing the South Beach diet. The first phase of the diet involves pretty stringent restriction of carbohydrates, not just refined carbs like white sugar and flour, but also fruits, starchy grains like rice and bulgur and vegetables with a high-glycemic index such as carrots, beets and other root vegetables. Basically my favorite foods.

As you can imagine, restricting carbs is pretty difficult at first, but once I get on a roll, I can really get into it. After the three-day hump, I don't crave the carbs as much, and by three-day hump, I mean three solid days of absolutely no carbs whatsoever, not even a trace of sugar. During those three days, I am ravenous, my body seeking quick energy from the carb foods I crave. I even dream about my favorites: bead, potatoes and pizza, oh my God, the pizza.

My last pizza before embarking on South Beach was an especially carb-o-rrific one topped with slices of roasted beets and roasted potato and topped with herbed goat cheese and fresh thyme. It packed a serious carb punch.

Ah, some day, I will make this again.

*wistful sigh*

In the meantime, there are plenty of delicious vegetables and protein sources waiting. Fish is on the Phase 1 South Beach menu. I make a chopped salad using canned tuna and brocoli slaw mix for a filling and satisfying lunch quite often. For dinner, I also like to make a pan-fried fillet of white fish or roasted salmon. One of the easiest ways to cook fish is baked in the oven, because it's fairly hands-off and yields great results every time.

My usual fish recipe uses parmesan , Old Bay and bread crumbs as a coating and a touch of mayo so the breading will stick. To make this South Beach friendly, I just omit the bread crumbs. I use Old Bay, paprika an Creole seasoning pretty interchangeably. The Creole seasoning is really nice with the juice from the lemon slices in this variation - it's bright and the only way I can describe it is to say that it makes my mouth sing.

Parmesan-Crusted Baked Tilapia

Ingredients:

tilapia fillets - or other white-fleshed fish
finely grated parmesan
Creole seasoning
salt
pepper
lemon slices
chopped parsley
olive oil cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a roasting pan or a cookie sheet with foil. Spray with olive oil cooking spray.
Mix together the Creole seasoning and the parmesan in a pie plate.
Dredge both sides of the fillets in the cheese and place on the pan. Season with a bit of salt and pepper and hit with another spray of olive oil
Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the thickest part of the fillets are opaque and flake easily with a fork.
Top with thinly sliced lemon and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

2011-07-10T06:09:00.000-04:00

I'm back on Phase 1 of the South Beach diet for a while, so that means no carbs for the foreseeable future. It means plenty of fresh vegetables and lots of creativity so that I don't end up eating the same 5 dishes over the next several weeks.

I try to get in as many cruciferous veggies as I can when doing South Beach: slaw mix with tuna makes a great chopped salad, raw broccoli and cauliflower florets with hummus or a white bean puree is a favorite snack, kale tossed into a lentil soup or cut into ribbons and braised is another popular side dish. Then there are brussels sprouts.

Like many people, I used to hate them. I'd only ever had them boiled into an unrecognizable mushed-up mess of flatulence-inducing leaves until I stumbled across a recipe for roasted, salted sprouts. Roasting them brings out some sweetness and also adds some crunch, while the salt really boosts the natural flavor.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients:

1 lb. Brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Shaved parmesan

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and line a roasting pan with foil.
Toss the brussels sprouts with olive oil and salt liberally - trust me, the more salt, the better with this dish
Roast for 20 minutes, take out the pan and shake them or flip them over. Add a bit more salt and some pepper and roast for another 15-25 minutes until they are nicely browned and some of the outer leaves are crisping up.
Add a touch more salt to taste if needed and top with the shaved cheese.

Yellow Cherry Tomatoes Stuffed with Purple Pesto

2011-07-09T15:39:00.002-04:00

Tomato and basil is one of my favorite flavor combinations out there. I often use pesto on pizza and top it with slices of tomatoes, top it with aged mozzarella and dot it with fresh mozzarella. Not a bad pizza.

I love cherry tomatoes. I've had some recently that were so sweet that snacking on them was almost like snacking on candy. I also like stuffing them with a variety of things: herbed goat cheese, feta & kalamatas, pieces of marinated or smoked mozzarella, the list goes on and on. By far, my favorite stuffing is pesto. Today I wanted to do a mix-up using yellow cherry tomatoes instead of red, and purple pesto instead of green.

Still pretty damned tasty. :)

Yellow Cherry Tomatoes Stuffed with Purple Pesto

Purple Pesto

Ingredients:

1/8 cup garlic scapes, roughly chopped
1/4 cup pine nuts
1-1/2 cups purple basil
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup good quality Parmigiano-Reggiano, you know, the fancy parmesan

Directions:

Place the scapes in a food processor and pulse until pretty well minced
Add the pine nuts and process until the mixture is very well chopped.
Toss in the purple basil and parm and process. Drizzle in the olive oil until your get the consistency you prefer.

Purple basil

Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownie Bites

2011-07-06T05:59:00.002-04:00

The concept and title of this blog revolves around comfort food. Food can be classed as comfort food either because of the warm-n-fuzzy memories we have associated with it or because of an almost therapeutic effect it has on us, whether it's like a chemical addiction for a bona fide carboholic, or the actual cathartic process of making it, like anger-management bread-dough therapy.

Crisis Brownies, the food, arose because, put simply, sometimes there are just those occasions that are so harrowing and stressful - like a break-up or extreme PMDD - that you need a fudgy, deeply intense, dark chocolate brownie. You may need just one; you may feel as though you have to eat half the batch straight from the pan. Whatever, why waste that burning need on something from a box when you can melt the best quality chocolate you can find and use real butter?

I love adapting and tinkering with this recipe to try out various flavor combinations and create different textures - by far, I prefer fudgy, dense and moist to cakey, but that's just me. I also prefer dark chocolate brownies that border on bittersweet to those that use milk chocolate. This is the first time I made them into miniatures by baking them in a mini-muffin tin. You end up with what is the perfect mouthful of brownie. Very satisfying.

I had wanted to top these with an espresso glaze or ganache, but when I ate my first tester brownie after I'd taken the out of the tins, I realized that these need nothing else except maybe a tall, cold glass of something milk-like whether it's milk, soymilk or almond milk. They are the perfect dark chocolate morsel.

Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownie Bites

Makes 16 mini brownies

Ingredients:

1 T espresso powder
1/4 cup All-Purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup turbinado sugar
3 T salted butter
1 T strong brewed coffee
6 oz. semisweet chocolate
1/4 t vanilla
1 egg at room temperature, beaten

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 mini muffin tins with butter, shortening or cooking spray - I filled up one whole 12-muffin tin and had enough batter to make four more in another tin.
In a small bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder and espresso powder with a whisk. Make sure to break up any clumps of cocoa powder.
In the top of a double boiler, gently heat the butter, sugar and coffee until the butter starts to melt.
Add the chocolate and as it starts to melt, stir with a baking spatula. Once most of the chocolate has melted, take the top of the double boiler off the heat and keep stirring until it has all melted and is well mixed. Let it cool for about 5 minutes.
Add the vanilla extract to the chocolate mixture. Once the chocolate has come down in temperature to the point where you don't burn yourself when you stick your finger into the mix to test it, add the beaten egg and stir well.* See Notes
Add the dry ingredients to the chocolate and stir well.
Scoop the batter by spoonful into the muffin tins to fill the about 2/3 full. I had enough for 16 mini muffins.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out fairly clean. I usually underbake them slightly.
Let cool in the muffin tins for about 45 minutes before turning them out.

Notes:

Usually when incorporating eggs into hot liquids, you'll want to temper them by adding a tiny bit of the hot liquid to the beaten eggs and whisking it pretty vigorously to raise the temperature of the egg, then you add that to the rest of the hot liquid mixture and keep whisking. This is so that that the egg won't curdle immediately upon meeting the hot mixture. No one wants scrambled eggs in gougeres, custards or brownies, right?
It's worth noting that the magical temperature at which egg starts to curdle is 175 F. Sometimes when I am dealing with a pretty thick liquid mixture, like the chocolate mess with these brownies, it is a pain in the ass to use it to temper the eggs. Sometimes I'll scrape the chocolate mixture into a bowl nested in an ice water bath and let it cool before adding the eggs. The problem with that technique is that if it cools too far and you add the egg and try to stir it in, the chocolate mixture is grainy and won't accept the egg as well.
That's when I decided to check the temperature manually. I've been making these for so long this way that I can tell by feel when the chocolate is cool enough but not too cool. It is important to stir the chocolate as it cools so that it is a uniform temperature with no blazing hot spots in there just waiting to curdle the eggs.

Rustic Swiss Chard Tart

2011-07-05T19:00:00.002-04:00

Tuesdays in summer is the Downtown Farmers' Market. The best thing about working downtown, aside from the whole getting-a-paycheck thing is that I am steps away from a terrific farmers' market. No longer can I use laziness as a excuse not to visit the market and revel in truly fresh and local produce.

I stop in Tuesday mornings on my walk to work from the parking garage and pick up whatever strikes my fancy, as they say. The first week, among other items, I got a loaf of cracked pepper-cheddar bread that was so insanely delicious that it was gone by 10:00 that evening; the next week, I scored some granulated maple sugar that will be a key player in an upcoming maple-walnut apple strudel ; last week the highlights of my produce bag were garlic scapes and a lovely bunch of Swiss chard. Those scapes made a scrumptious pesto which I devoured on rosemary & olive oil Triscuits with slices of provolone while watching Midsomer Murders on Netflix at 2 in the morning, and the Swiss chard - along with a few scapes - realized its happy vegetable potential by ending up as the star of this Rustic Swiss Chard tart.

When I got to the market today, I found the same vendor and told her how delicious her chard and scapes were. She had some absolutely gorgeous purple basil and some 8-ball zucchini that just begs to be stuffed with something - I'm thinking artichoke hearts, some of that purple basil, sun-dried tomatoes and fresh parmigiano reggiano. Look for those in the coming days here. :)

The next time you visit the farmers' market, be sure to check out Daily Harvest Farm.

Now for the tart.

Look at it. There could be anything in there.

But cut it open and taste a delicious mixture of chard, cheese and herbs.

You just can't beat that.

Rustic Swiss Chard Tart

Ingredients:

1 lb. Swiss chard, washed and dried well
olive oil
5 garlic scapes, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, smashed
1 shallot, minced
1 (15 oz) container of ricotta
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano - or the stuff in the green can if that's what you like
1 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
1 T fresh thyme
1T fresh oregano
1/8 t grated nutmeg
1 package of frozen puff pastry - 2 sheets

Directions:

Thaw the puff pastry.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Remove the leaves from the stems and slice the leaves into thin ribbons. Set aside.
Slice the stems thinly and saute in olive oil of medium high. Add the scapes and let them cook until the stems and scapes are tender.
Toss in the smashed clove of garlic and the minced shallot and raise the heat to medium-high and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the chard leaves and let cook down until any moisture that has been released has evaporated, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Roll out one sheet of the thawed pastry between sheets of waxed paper until the pastry is at least a 12 inch square and set it in a 9 inch tart pan. Trim off excess pastry until there is a 1 inch overhang of pastry.*See Notes
To the cooled vegetables, mix in the ricotta, beaten egg, parm, herbs, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Mix thoroughly.
Put this vegetable-cheese mixture in the tart pan and roll out the second sheet of pastry to a 12 inch square and trim it to an 11 inch circle.
Place it on top of the filling and pinch the edges together and then fold the joined overhanging pastry edges inward and crimp the seam. I like to tuck it inward, even.
Slash a few vent holes in the top of the pastry and bake for 40-45 minutes or until starting to turn golden brown.
Let cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into it.

Notes:

Ever wondered about what to do with scraps of leftover puff pastry?

Check it out: Cinni-minis

Coming soon...

Dark Chocolate Espresso Brownie Bites

Egg Baked in a Potato Shell with Salsa, Cheese and Chives

2011-07-04T11:22:00.001-04:00

I've never been a fan of cold cereal for breakfast; I'm an eggs-for-breakfast kind of girl. Add potatoes to that and I'm in heaven. Eggs and hash, potato-filled omelette, peasant breakfast, scrambled eggs with a thin German potato pancake, I can't think of an egg-and-potato preparation that I wouldn't love.

I love the presentation of oeufs en cocotte, and I've done my own take on that by baking beaten eggs and cream in leftover mashed potato. Yesterday I was pondering the pile of roasted potatoes I had leftover from making my roasted beet, potato and goat cheese pizza (recipe forthcoming), and I decided to try baking an egg in a hollowed-out potato shell.

Tasty, plus it had that satisfying comfort food feel to it.

Egg Baked in a Potato Shell with Salsa, Cheese and Chives

Ingredients:

1 medium potato, baked and cooled
1 egg
1 T salsa
2 T shredded cheddar
chives
salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Slice off the top of the potato - about 1/4 of the way down.
Place the potato in a ramekin.
Scoop out the insides of the potato, leaving a shell with about 1/8 in. layer of potato - I like to use a grapefruit spoon.
Season the insides with salt and pepper
Put 1 T of salsa on the bottom, followed by 1 T cheese.
Carefully crack the egg into the potato and top with the remaining 1 T of cheddar.
Bake for about 20 minutes, then top with chives and a few more shreds of cheddar if you like and serve immediately.

Spicy Kale Chips

2011-07-03T10:42:00.002-04:00

I'm a sucker for anything salty and crunchy. I can't even buy potato chips on a regular basis because I am utterly powerless against that combination of crispy and salty. I also really enjoy greens, and while my usual way to treat kale and other greens is the standard braise or a light saute in some sort of fat - usually olive oil or occasionally bacon grease - or tossed into lentil soup, I am always looking for a new way to eat greens.

Why not oiled, salted and baked?

It almost defies logic that leafy greens can yield such a perfect, salty crunch with so little work, but they really do. They have that satisfying light crispiness that dances on the tongue and for God's sake... it's kale. What could be more virtuously packed with goodness than kale?

Spicy Kale Chips

Ingredients:

1 bunch of kale
olive oil
chipotle salt*
dusting of parm

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375.
Wash the kale and rip the leaves from the thick stems and tear them into large pieces.
Toss with olive oil and chipotle salt in a bowl.
Place on a large cookie sheet and bake for about 8 minutes, flip the kale over and bake for another 8 minutes or until the edges are nicely browned, but be careful not to let it burn.
Dust with a bit of parm and serve.

Notes:

I bought this fancy-schmancy chipotle seasoned salt, but I imagine you could make your own by pulverizing a dried chipotle and adding it to the salt and then crushing that together in a mortar and pestle. Use only the dried chipotles sold in bags, not the canned chipotles in adobo.
You could also add red pepper flakes for more heat.
Really, you could use any seasoned salt you like.

Yellow Split Pea Soup with Cilantro-Lime Yogurt

2011-06-05T21:41:00.001-04:00

Still going with my idea of cooking from the pantry as much as possible, I remembered that I had some coconut milk left over from the coconut-curry jasmine rice and recalled this curried split pea soup. Bam, easy, easy, easy. It's an excellent quick meal, done within an hour, counting all the prep time. One small bowl is enough to satisfy, starting with the thick pureed texture to the curry flavors to the tangy notes of lime and cooling effect of the yogurt in the creamy garnish.

Yellow Split Pea Soup with Cilantro-Lime Yogurt

Ingredients

olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup diced peeled potato
1/2 t gingerroot, minced
2 T chopped garlic
3/4 cup yellow split peas
1 t red curry powder
1/2 t turmeric
1/4 dried jalapeno flakes
2 cups chicken broth
7 oz. unsweetened coconut milk
salt and pepper
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
3 T chopped cilantro
2 t lime juice
grating of lime peel
hot sauce
salt and pepper

Directions:

Saute the onion in olive oil over medium-high heat for 1 minute, then add the carrot and cook until the onion is soft and translucent.
Add the ginger and garlic and cook for 1 minute, then add the potato and stir to coat.
Add the split peas, curry powder and turmeric and cook for 1 minute.
Add the jalapeno flakes, 1-1/2 cups of broth and coconut milk, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and let cook until the peas are soft, about45 minutes, stirring occasionally, adding more chicken broth if it seems too dry.
After 45 minutes, taste to check seasoning, adding salt and pepper as needed.
Puree the soup with a stick blender to achieve the consistency you like, adding more broth to suit your preference.
Make the cilantro-lime yogurt by mixing the yogurt, lime juice, lime peel and chopped cilantro in a bowl. Season to taste with salt, pepper and a drop or 2 of hot sauce.
Garnish the soup with a dollop of the yogurt.

Cheddar-Dill Biscuits

2011-06-02T06:00:00.008-04:00

Biscuits were one of the first things I made myself when I was about 11, and by "made," I mean assembled from a box of Bisquick, just add milk and butter and presto, you've got biscuits. The results, lumpy-looking golden little bites of deliciousness with that distinctive bite of baking powder, were a bit homely, but totally satisfying.

Still, it was that accomplishment of having mixed together fairly authentic ingredients in a bowl, gotten messy up to my elbows mushing it all together, shaping them and then sticking them in the oven that had me hooked on the magical alchemy of cooking and baking.

I will never pass up a biscuit, ever. I love the flaky biscuits that fall apart into layers; I love the doughier baking powder biscuits; buttermilk, powdermilk, cheese biscuits, biscuits drenched in butter, I love them all. I have been searching for the ultimate from-scratch biscuit recipes for every type of biscuit.

This recipe has that nice baking powder bite to it, and the cheese and dill pair together so well. Cut these open while still hot, add a slice of sharp cheddar cheese and a few slices of a really sour dill pickle, and you have a terrific little sandwich bite.

Cheddar-Dill Biscuits

Makes about 9 biscuits

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 t salt
2 T buttermilk powder - I like the Saco brand
2 t baking powder
1/2 T sugar
1/4 cup butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup shredded cheddar
2 T fresh dill
1/3 cup milk
melted butter

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Line a baking sheet with a Silpat or a silicone baking mat, otherwise be sure to use an insulated cookie sheet.* See Notes
Mix together the flour, salt, buttermilk powder, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl.
Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add the chopped dill and shredded cheese and mix well.
Pour in the milk and mix with a fork until well incorporated and the dough starts to form a cohesive ball. It will still be sticky.
Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by folding over until it feels smooth, then pat it down into a rectangle about 3/4 in. high
Cut with a biscuit cutter, cookie cutter or a drinking glass.
Place round on the prepared cookie sheet and bake for about 10 - 12 minutes.
Brush with melted butter as soon as they come out of the oven and eat.

Notes:
I made these this weekend without the cheddar and dill and used a regular cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. When I pulled them out, the bottoms were fairly dark - ok, ok, they were burned on the bottoms, although the tops were that perfect golden brown and they were absolutely the ideal texture inside. I actually quoted Yosemite Sam "Mah biscuits are burnin'! Mah biscuits are burnin'!" and then I laughed. Then I scraped the bottoms as best I could. The biscuits were a base for chicken fricassee anyway, so they were definitely salvageable.

At any rate, that's why I recommend the Silpat baking mat or some other silicone mat.

Can I confess something? I have always had the same problem with cookies. Until I bought a Silpat mat, the bottoms of my cookies always, ALWAYS burned, sometimes even when I used insulated cookie sheets. It was maddening. I think that it's probably because I use butter instead of shortening, and butter's melting (and therefore burning) point is way lower than shortening's so you have to be careful not to scorch things laden with butter.

Since I've started using baking mats, both the Silpat one and a straight silicone one my mom bought for me, I never burn cookies or biscuits or pirozhki. This is totally not a paid endorsement (hah, I wish!), I'm just saying that I have had excellent luck with a thick, silicone-based baking mat. If you do a lot of baking, it is totally worth the investment, I think.

Pulled Pork Sandwich

2011-05-30T10:28:00.004-04:00

This holiday weekend is the traditional kick-off of summer, as they like to say. For lots of people that means cookouts, barbecues, drinks and parties. Alas, I have no grill - my ex-husband took it with him when he left. I have no real outdoor dining area, no deck or patio. Some day I'd love a large patio with plenty of room to host cookouts. I daydream about the killer grill and smoker I'd have.

But I digress. I got pulled pork on my brain earlier this week. I may not have a grill or a smoker, but I do have a crock pot. I knew I could could cook the hell out of a pork butt in a large crock pot and with the right spice rub and barbecue sauce, I could recreate some cookout favorites right in my kitchen.

Results don't lie - this meat was tender and flavorful, and the sauce added a lovely sweet and tangy zing.

Pulled Pork Sandwich

Ingredients:

6 - 8 lb. pork butt (pork shoulder, preferably bone-in)
Spice Rub (recipe below)
1 onion, quartered and separated into layers
1/2 cup water
1/2 t Liquid Smoke
BBQ sauce - Use your favorite jarred brand or make your own. My recipe follows
Creamy coleslaw - Recipe follows
Buns

Directions:

Make the spice rub and place the pork butt in a large bowl. Coat the meat with all of the spice rub, massaging it into the surface. Wrap in a double-thickness off plastic wrap and place in a large bowl and refrigerate 12 hours.
Place the onion sections in the bottom of a large crock pot with the water and Liquid Smoke.
Unwrap the meat and put it in the pot and turn the heat to low, cover it and let cook about 10 hours or until the meat is fork-tender and falling off the bone. For smaller piece of meat, start checking at about 8 hours. This 8 pounder cooked for a full 10 hours. Crock pots vary in how hot their settings are, so be sure to check.
Take the meat out and place it in a large pan - I used a disposable lasagna pan. Discard the liquid in the crock pot.
Remove the bone and the fat and discard. Then pull the meat into shreds with two forks, or cut it with a knife and fork.
Put the shredded meat back in the crock pot along with 1 - 2 cups BBQ sauce. Stir to coat and warm up on the lowest crock pot setting, ten serve on a bun with more BBQ sauce and coleslaw.

Spice Rub

Ingredients:

4 T paprika
2 T chili powder
2 T dark brown sugar
2 T table salt
2 T cumin
1 T granulated sugar
1 T oregano
2 t cayenne
2 t thyme
2 t granulated garlic
1/2 t smoked paprika

Directions:

Mix well.

BBQ sauce

Olive oil
1 onion, quartered
4 cloves of garlic, cut into large pieces
1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes with juice
1-1/2 cups ketchup
1 cup orange juice
6 T fresh lemon juice (2 lemons)
6 T red wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 T Liquid Smoke
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 T dark molasses
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1/4 t hot pepper sauce -I like Cholula
2 T chili powder
1 T ground coriander
1 T dry yellow mustard powder
1 t granulated garlic
1 t salt
1/4 t smoked paprika
small knob of dried chipotle chili

Directions:

Saute the onion in olive oil over medium-high heat until the edges start to brown up, then add the garlic chunks and saute for another minute.
Add the remaining ingredients, stir well and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for an hour, uncovered. Stir occasionally to make sure the mixture doesn't stick and burn.
Fish out the knob of chipotle pepper and puree the sauce with a stick blender or in small batches in the blender.
Taste to adjust seasoning, adding more hot sauce or a pinch more cayenne if you want it spicier.
Cool to room temperature and store, refrigerated, for up to 1 week.

Creamy Coleslaw

Ingredients

1/2 head large green cabbage
2 carrots
1/2 large vidalia onion
3/4 cup mayo
2 heaping T creme fraiche or sour cream
2 T sugar
2 T white vinegar
1 T mustard powder
2 t celery seed
1 t salt
1/8 t black pepper

Directions:

Shred the carrots and onion with the shredding disc of a food processor.
Put in a large bowl and add the mayo, creme fraiche, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, mustard and celery seed. Mix well.
Shred the cabbage with the same disc and add the cabbage to the mix, stirring well.
Serve.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

2011-05-26T05:48:00.002-04:00

My sister is on bedrest in the final stages of her pregnancy, so for the past 2 weekends, I've brought over some meals for her to make foraging for food a bit easier. This past weekend, I figured it would be easier if I just invaded her kitchen and made the food there rather than trying to find some way of transporting gallons of sauce and meatballs.

When I was driving there, for some reason, I had that line from the old Alka-Seltzer commercial running through my head "That's a spicy meatball!"

Anyone else remember that gem from the 1970s?

However, for some reason, I kept hearing the line in Father Guido Sarducci's voice, remember him? Another gem from the 1970s/early-1980s.

So there you go, a little glimpse of the craziness inside my head. :)

I make spaghetti and meatballs fairly regularly now. My kids are thankfully past the picky-pasta phase. When they were younger, the only way they would accept spaghetti was coated with butter and parm cheese. They were vehemently anti-tomato sauce, which mystifies me. Tomatoes are one of my favorite foods in all of its forms, sauce, dried, fresh and raw. A thick sauce, perfectly seasoned is a joy all on its own. I have, in fact, been known to skip the pasta and just eat a bowl of sauce, with garlic bread to sop up the remainders, of course!

This recipe is double what I usually make, so feel free to halve it if you feeding fewer hungry mouths.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Makes approximately 30 meatballs and 12 cups of sauce

Ingredients:

3 slices stale sandwich bread
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup bread soft crumbs (NOT panko style)
1/2 cup onion, chopped fine
1/3 cup freshly grated parm
3 cloves garlic, minced or put through a garlic press
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley (also called Italian parsley), chopped
5 leaves of fresh basil, chopped (about 2 T, loosely packed)
1 t granulated garlic
2 t sea salt, kosher salt or other large-crystal salt
1 t black pepper
2-1/2 lb. of ground meat - I like 1 lb. of straight ground chuck and about 1-1/2 lb. of what they call a "meatloaf mix" here, which is a combination of beef, pork and veal; sometimes I use ground turkey
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated parm
1 T Italian seasoning
12 cups of marinara sauce
spaghetti, cooked

Directions:

Tear the bread into very small pieces or grate it with a box grater and soak it in the milk for about 10 minutes.
Add the bread crumbs and stir well.
Add the onion, garlic, grated parm, parsley, basil, granulated garlic, salt and pepper and mix well.
Add the meat and - here's the fun part - squish it all together with your very clean hands. Be sure to mix everything very well.
Add the 2 beaten eggs and squish some more until it is all one huge gloppy mess.
Mix together 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 1/4 cup grated parm and 1 T Italian seasoning in a bowl.
Grab a piece of meat mixture and roll into a golfball-sized ball. Take a little bit of the crumb mixture in the palm of your hand and roll the meatball in it. You don't want these meatballs coated so that they're breaded, but you want a bit of a dusting on them.
Place the shaped meatball on a large plate.
Repeat about 30 more times.
Cover the meatballs with plastic wrap and put in the fridge to sit for 1 hour.
You can bake them in a preheated 400-degree oven for 15 minutes or saute them in olive oil until browned.
Once they're browned, add them to the pot of simmering sauce and let cook for another 45 minutes.
Serve over spaghetti.

Marinara Sauce

makes about 12 cups of sauce

Ingredients:

olive oil
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
6 large cloves garlic, chopped
3 T minced sundried tomato (I prefer the oil-packed ones)
4 T tomato paste
4 (28 oz) cans of whole roma/plum tomatoes in juice
Granulated garlic
Italian seasoning
Dried basil
salt and pepper
pinch of sugar
Fresh basil for garnish

Directions:

In a large pot heat about 2 T olive oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers.
Add the onion and saute until it is soft and translucent.
Toss in the chopped garlic and minced sundried tomato and cook until the garlic is fragrant, not burned, about 2 minutes.
Add the tomato paste and stir really well together, breaking down the clump of tomato paste as best you can.
Pour in the 4 cans of whole tomatoes, juice and all and with the flat end of a spatula or your trusty wooden spoon, mash down the tomatoes a little bit.
Cover, reduce the heat to low and let cook for about an hour. Stir it occasionally to make sure that the tomatoes aren't sticking and burning to the bottom of the pot.
Add some seasoning. At this point I start with 1 T of dried Italian seasoning, 2 t dried basil, a pinch to 1/2 t of sugar, 1 t salt, a few grindings of cracked black pepper and 1 t granulated garlic (my new favorite seasoning agent ).
Stir thoroughly, let cook covered another 10 minutes and taste again and season until it's about where you want it.
Cover and let cook another hour, stirring occasionally.
After it has cooked for about 2 hours, puree it, either with your handy-dandy stick blender or in small batches in a blender or a food processor. If I had to choose between those two, I'd say go for the blender.
Once the sauce is all pureed, it'll be nice and thick. Taste again for the final seasoning adjustment and if you are not using it for meatballs, let the sauce cook another hour and then serve.
If you are using this sauce for the spaghetti and meatballs recipe, now is when you'd add the browned meatballs.

Notes:

This sauce is phenomenal with pasta, on pizza, over spaghetti squash or in a lasagna. Half of this recipe (6 cups) works well in my lasagna, cooked in a 9 x 13 in. pan. (recipe to come)
This recipe does freeze very well, if you do make the full amount.
This recipe halves and even quarters very well for smaller meals.

Coconut-Curry Tofu and Jasmine Rice

2011-05-25T05:20:00.003-04:00

Day 2 of living out of my pantry was a success. I had a can of coconut milk I wanted to use up, and my favorite use for that is usually some sort of curry. I usually make a coconut-curry jasmine rice in which you cook the rice in the coconut milk which is to-die-for delicious (recipe to come), but I wanted to make a creamy curry sauce with the coconut milk instead.

Since I was feeling sort of vegetarian-ish, I rummaged around in the freezer for a block of tofu for my protein and pretty quickly got this meal together - once the tofu had thawed and all the excess moisture had been pressed out. The tofu cubes really sucked up the sauce; in the end, they were like little coconut-curry sponges, very tasty. Using the toasted coconut shreds in the coconut milk really amped up the coconuttiness, but I think that it works well with the other flavors, especially the peanut and lime.

If fat content is an issue for you, you can use light coconut milk, but don't be fooled, that still has some fat in it. You wouldn't be wrong to put chopped cilantro in the coconut milk puree which you add to the rice. I love cilantro usually, but I was out of it and was feeling too lazy to go out to the store JUST for that one item, so I said, "No cilantro today." It was just fine and tasty without it.

Coconut-Curry Tofu and Jasmine Rice

Ingredients

1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1 3/4 cups water
1 t salt
1 cup jasmine or basmati rice

3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 T minced fresh ginger
1 T fresh lime juice
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 t dried jalapeno flakes

2 T canola oil
8 ounces extra-firm tofu, pressed, drained, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 t curry powder
1 t ground cumin
1/8 t dried jalapeno flakes
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, chopped

hot sauce to taste
2 T chopped peanuts
lime zest

Directions

In a dry skillet over medium-high heat, toast the shredded coconut until light golden, about 5 minutes. Stir constantly and be careful not to let it burn. As soon as it starts to smell toasted and reach a nice golden color, remove it from heat and transfer to a bowl.
Bring 1-3/4 cups water and salt to boil in heavy medium saucepan. Add the rice and let boil again.
Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until all the water is absorbed, about 18 - 20 minutes.
Puree 1/2 cup of the coconut milk, 1 teaspoon ginger, lime juice, and 1 clove of garlic in a blender. Add the toasted coconut and blend for a few seconds.
Mix the coconut milk mixture into the rice and set aside.
Heat some canola oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the tofu cubes and saute until golden.
Add the onions, curry, cumin, jalapeno flakes and the rest of the ginger and garlic. Cook for 2 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and stir everything well.
Serve over the coconut jasmine rice, add hot sauce to taste and top with chopped peanuts and lime zest.

Cinni-Minis

2011-05-24T05:25:00.000-04:00

I am trying to cook from my pantry for the next few weeks, designing my menu around what I already have on hand rather than shopping from a list of things I don't have. My pantry of canned goods and canisters of things may not resemble a fallout shelter just yet, but it has gotten unwieldy, so it is time to be creative and resourceful as I hack my way through the jungle that is by kitchen pantry (really just my kitchen cabinets).

I was going through the cheese drawer in my fridge the other day and found a ball of leftover puff pastry scraps. Wracking my brain, I thought that this ball of scraps could be re-purposed easily into mini cinnamon rolls. They made a fast, easy and delicious sweet snack, and there's no reason to wait until you have puff pastry scraps. I would gladly make these again using a full sheet of puff pastry.

Cinni-Minis

Ingredients:

Puff pastry scraps
melted butter
turbinado sugar
3 T walnuts, chopped
1 t cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mix together the sugar, chopped walnuts and cinnamon.
Press together the puff pastry scraps, folding them over onto themselves in a large ball.
Place the ball on a piece of parchment paper and with a rolling pin, roll it to a thickness of 1/8 in.
Brush melted butter over the surface and sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar and nut mixture over the top.
Roll the pastry up like a jelly roll and brush it with more melted butter.
Slice into 1/2 in. slices.
Place the slices on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, and bake for 12 minutes or until nicely golden brown.

Crispy, Pan-Fried Smelts

2011-05-23T06:55:00.002-04:00

I've never met a fish I didn't like... baked, broiled, pan-fried or battered and deep-fried. I used to love sushi, but a year spent in Korea had me overindulging on raw fish and I haven't really been able to enjoy it since. But give me a nice piece of fish soaked in a beer batter and then fried to golden-brown deliciousness and I am a happy camper.

Growing up, my grandmother used to make us a big mess of smelts, and as I recall, they were just about the best thing I'd ever eaten. It's not just the wonderful, fishy taste, but the whole experience of ripping the backbone out of the cripsy-on-the-outside-yet-tender-on-the-inside flesh and then devouring the little fishies in a bite or two - it's very satisfying and appeals to the inner savage.

I hadn't really thought about smelts much in the intervening 30 years and stopped short when I saw them in the fish case at the grocery store the other day. I bought a pound of the dressed smelts on total impulse, driven by childhood memory of weekends at my grandparents' house. It's interesting how inextricably food, smells and tastes can be bound with memory. When I was cooking the smelts yesterday, I had very clear visions of my grandparents' kitchen and dining room, almost as if I had been there just recently instead of decades ago. It was as comforting as it was delicious.

But careful, have the windows open and a fan running, or your house will smell like a Friday Night All-You-Can-Eat Fish Fry!

Crispy, Pan-Fried Smelts

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. dressed smelts
canola oil
1/2 cup flour
salt

Directions:

Pour a goodly amount of canola pil into a heavy-duty skillet. I like my cast-iron skillet for this job. I pour in enough oil so that the bottom is fully coated with a thick layer, maybe 1/8 in. of oil.
Mix flour and a pinch of salt in a large Ziplock bag.
Toss the smelts into the bag and shake until they are totally coated.
Heat the oil over medium heat. Once it starts to shimmer, carefully lay down each smelt.
Fry for about 3 minutes, and then carefully turn them over - tongs are great for this job.
Let them cook on the other side another 3 minutes.
Serve with a bit more salt and that's it.

Momofuku Crack Pie in Miniature, My Version

2011-05-22T09:31:00.002-04:00

I don't have an especially pronounced sweet-tooth; I am much more inclined to reach for something salty and crunchy or savory than run for a piece of cake or a handful of cookies, but I'm always interested in what tastes good. After hearing all the web-hubbub about the Crack Pie from Momofuku Milk Bar, I figured I had to check it out.

The recipe cited by the L.A. Times uses an oatmeal-cookie base for the shell, but to suit my taste, I knew I had to use a less-sweet crust, so I made a tartlet shell out of bittersweet chocolate and walnuts. I also am only baking for 1, so I halved, then quartered, then eighthed the recipe and adjusted it a bit and ended up with 2 miniature tarts.

The end result was total indulgent deliciousness, especially after it had been refrigerated overnight (and devoured for breakfast on this Post-Rapture Sunday), though my idea of food whose addictive qualities borders on crack is still going to be something on the order of a bowl of fresh guacamole with homemade tortilla chips or a big mess of cooked potatoes.

The filling is a lot like a pecan pie filling, minus the pecans, or like some chess pies I've had. Very silky when eaten warm; dense and smooth when cold. I am pretty sure that my kids will love these when I make them again, though I may have to sweeten the crust a bit for them since they are not as enamored of dark chocolate as I am.

Crack Pies in Miniature

makes 2 mini tarts

Ingredients:

For the tart shell
1/4 cup flour
3 T walnuts
2 T confectioner's sugar
1 T unsweetened cocoa
1 T espresso powder
2 T unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 in. cubes
1 yolk
For the filling
3 T brown sugar
pinch of salt
2 t powdered milk
4 T unsalted butter, melted
1-1/2 T heavy cream
splash of vanilla extract
splash of bourbon
2 yolks
Directions:

Make the tart shell
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In the food processor, pulse the walnuts, flour, confectioner's sugar, cocoa powder and espresso powder until the nuts are finely ground.
Add the butter and pulse until the mixture has the consistency of coarse crumbs.
Add the yolk and pulse until the mixture is crumbly.
Divide the dough into 2 pieces.
Spray 2 miniature tart pans with cooking spray and pat the dough into the pans. This is a very sticky dough, so I dipped my fingers in a bit of flour first.
Press some non-stick foil into the pans over the top of the crust and bake for 20 minutes.
Take out the pans and let cool.
Lower heat to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Make the filling:
Whisk together the brown sugar, milk powder and salt, making sure that there are no clumps.
Add the melted butter and cream and stir until all the dry ingredients have dissolved.
Whisk in the egg yolks and stir to combine, but don't over-beat the mixture.
Pour into crusts and place the pans into a roasting pan and pour in boiling water until it's about halfway up the outside of the tart pans.* (See Notes)
Bake for 12 minutes, then lower heat to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and bake another 8 minutes or until the center has just set. It should still be jiggly.
Take out and let cool. Chill in the fridge, even better.
When you're ready to serve it, sift confectioners sugar over the top.

Notes:

My tart pans are the kind with removable disc-bottoms, so since they're n a water bath, it is important to wrap the outsides with foil so that none of the water seeps in. If you have 1-piece tart pans then there is no need to wrap them. I made the mistake once of baking a cheesecake in a springform pan without wrapping the pan before putting it into the water bath.

Yikes.

Green Pea and Saffron Risotto

2011-05-21T17:11:00.001-04:00

Risotto is one of my "feelin' fancy" comfort dishes. The end result can be elegant or homey, and the process of making it is fairly involved, what with the constant attention and stirring. It's nice too, because it's so simple to make for one person. It's better that way too, because I've found that risotto, like fettucini alfredo, does not reheat well. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still edible, and delicious, but the I think that the texture is drastically different.

Risotto is also a classic example of how quality ingredients can make all the difference in the world. Sure, you can whip together a cheesy-rice concoction of long-grain rice finished with parm-from-a-green-can, and while it would have the starchy comfort of rice and the umami-ness of the powdered parm, it won't have the same creaminess. The first real risotto I had was damn-near transcendent, and I've loved them ever since.

Green Pea and Saffron Risotto

Ingredients:
1 T butter
1 T olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup rice - Arborio, Vialone Nano or Carnaroli (see Notes)
1/4 cup white wine
pinch of saffron
2 cups chicken broth, simmering over low heat
1/4 cup green peas, cooked
1/4 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano plus more for garnish
salt and pepper (optional)

Directions:
Heat the chicken broth in a pot and keep at a low simmer.
In a large saucepan, melt the butter and olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the chopped onion and cook until the onion is soft.
Add the rice and stir to coat well. Cook the rice for about 2 minutes, then add the saffron and the wine. Stir well , and once the wine has been absorbed by the rice, start adding the chicken broth 1 ladleful at a time, adding more as the liquid is absorbed and stirring well the whole time.
Continue until the rice is al dente, firm, but not chalky when you bite into it. You want there to be some creaminess and looseness to it. There will still be liquid, but it will be thick and creamy from the starch released by the rice.
Add the peas and 1/3 cup of the parmigiano reggiano and stir well. Taste for seasoning, you can add salt and pepper, but I usualy don't with this dish.
Serve garnished with a bit more parmigiano reggiano.

Notes:

I used to use only Arborio rice for my risottos until I was turned on to the Vialone Nano and Carnaroli varieties. Just as Arborio is heads and shouders above regular long or medium-grain rices for risotto-making, so are Vialone Nano and Carnaroli far above Arborio.

I totally recommend using Arborio when you're just starting out making risottos. Once you make the switch though, you'll notice how different the rices are. Carnaroli stays the firmest of the 3, yet it still yields the creaminess that makes a risotto a risotto. Vialone Nano seems to absorb liquid faster than the other 2.

French Lentil Soup

2011-05-18T21:21:00.001-04:00

Lentil soup is one dish that manages to amaze me every single time I have it. I know, logically, that I love lentils and all, but for some reason, I am always blown away when I have the soup because somehow I've forgotten just how wonderful they really are. It's weird, I know.

My usual lentil soup has some spice to it, and is fantastic on those cold, blustery days when a little heat with your dish is what you need. The chiles and the tomato add zing and heat and this sharpness to the soup. It's intensely delicious.

This recipe, on the other hand, is pretty simple. It starts with the aromatic base of the mirepoix and then builds on the earthiness of the lentils and the flavorful herbs. Doesn't sound all that amazing, does it? But wait... The balsamic vinegar is the element that really adds the Wow!-factor to this fairly simple recipe.

French Lentil Soup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup leek, white part only, minced finely
1/2 cup white onion, chopped
1/2 cup parsnip, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup celery root, peeled, cleaned and chopped -- See Notes
2 T butter (or olive oil)
3/4 cup green puy lentils rinsed and picked over for stones and grit (brown lentils work really well too)
1 T balsamic vinegar
3 cups warm chicken broth or vegetable broth
bay leaf
5 or 6 whole sprigs of thyme
6 or 7 stalks of parsley
1/4 cup celery tops (the leafy portion)
salt
pepper
creme fraiche (or sour cream)
thyme for garnish
balsamic vinegar for drizzling (optional)

Directions:
Saute the leek, onion, parsnip and celery root in butter over medium-high heat until the veggies are soft and the onions have become translucent.
Add the lentils and stir to coat, then add the bay leaf, warmed broth and balsamic vinegar, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low and let simmer for 20 minutes.
Add the sprigs of thyme, parsley and celery tops, cover and let simmer for another half hour or until the lentils are soft.
Remove the bay leaf, parsley, thyme and celery tops, taste to adjust seasoning. Now is when I add salt and pepper.
With a stick blender, puree the soup until you get the consistency you like, or blend it in batches in a blender. I still like some whole lentils in my soup, but others like a smoother puree. You may have to add a bit more broth or water if it becomes too thick when you puree it.
Serve topped with creme fraiche or sour cream, a bit of thyme and a teensy drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

Notes:

I started this soup with a variation of a white mirepoix. Usually when I make lentil soup, I use a traditional mirepoix of 2 parts onion to 1 part carrot and 1 part celery, but I didn't want the orange and green in this soup, so I subbed parnsips for the carrot and celery root for the celery. I was in a leek mood, so I replaced half of the onion with an equal amount of leek. I imagine that this recipe would work just fine with the regular onion - carrot - celery base.
You can reduce or increase this recipe easily if you remember that the dry lentil to liquid ratio is 1 : 4. So, 1 cup lentils to 4 cups broth or all the way down to 1/4 cup lentils to 1 cup broth.

Sausage and Pepper Roll

2011-05-15T19:08:00.000-04:00

Saturday night Pizza-and-Movie Nights are a common occurrence here, and the girls generally like to have their own personal pizzas so that they can each have whatever toppings they want without the bother of their sister's loathsome choices touching their own.

So, on those nights, I generally make a huge ball of dough for their pizzas plus my own, and often have a small ball of dough left over. If I don't make a 4th pizza right then, I just stick it in the fridge and use it the next day, usually on another pizza, though occasionally I like to do something a little bit different with it. Strombolis are one of my favorite uses for extra dough, though I don't always feel like going to the deli and asking for 3 slices of capicola, 3 slices of soppressata, 3 slices of the large sandwich pepperoni, and so on.

This is basically a version of a stromboli , though here in central NY, they tend to call it a sausage roll. Most strombolis here are certain to have pepperoni, capicola and cheese in them whereas these sausage rolls are a lot like a Gianelli's sausage and pepper sandwich, which is de rigueur for politicians to grab at the New York State Fair, but this one is all rolled up in pizza dough and baked to golden-brown deliciousness.

.

Sausage and Pepper Roll (Stromboli)

Ingredients:

For the dough:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 T RapidRise Yeast
3/8 teaspoon salt
Italian seasoning (optional)
garlic powder(optional)
onion powder (optional)
1/2 cup hot water (between 120-130 F)
1 T olive oil
For the filling:
olive oil
1 sweet Italian sausage, sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1 vidalia onion, chopped fine
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped fine
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped fine
1 T minced sun-dried tomato
1 T Italian seasoning
1/2 cup marinara sauce
1 cup shredded cheese - I used 1/2 cup mozzarella and the remaining 1/2 cup was a blend of provolone, asiago, parm and romano
olive oil
basil leaves
shredded parm

Directions:

Make the dough: Preheat the oven to 450. You want the kitchen to be good and warm.
Put 1 cup of the flour in a large bowl along with the yeast granules, salt and Italian seasoning, garlic powder and onion powder.
Mix very well with a whisk, breaking up any clumps.
Test the temperature of the water (very important when you are using RapidRise yeast). When it is about 125 F, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix well with a wooden spoon until all of the water is incorporated.
On a well-floured surface, dump out the dough. At this point it is a wet, scary-looking, shaggy mess. Don't worry. You still have 1/2 cup of flour nearby.
Knead the dough and work in the extra flour one small handful at a time. It takes a good 4-6 minutes to get the right amount of flour in. Because there is oil in it, the dough will still be slightly tacky, though not sticky. If it's sticky, keep adding flour.

How I like to knead: I fold over half the dough and press it in, then I turn the whole ball of dough a quarter turn, and keep on folding and pressing, adding more flour to the counter and to the dough as it absorbs. You may need more or less flour depending on the humidity.
Once the dough is slightly silky, shape it into a ball, re-flour a bit of the counter, set the ball on it and dust it with more loose flour then cover it with a cloth. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes, longer is better, you can even make this a day ahead and let it have a long, slow cool rise in the fridge, but this dough works well the same day too.
Crumble the Italian sausage and cook in some olive oil over medium-high heat until it starts to brown.
Add the onion to the sausage and saute until the onion becomes translucent. Then add the bell pepper and cook until soft.
Toss in the minced sun-dried tomato and Italian seasoning and cook until the veggies are all soft and sausage is all browned.
Add the marinara sauce and stir to coat. Cook another 2 minutes, then turn off the heat.
When you are ready to shape the dough, remove the cloth. It ought to have risen nicely - if it did not, chances are the kitchen is too cold or the yeast died.
Punch it down.
Lower the oven's heat to 400 F.
Oil a pan with olive oil (or cooking spray).
Place the ball of dough on a piece of parchment paper on top of a 15 x 10 in. cookie sheet and starting in the middle of the ball, flatten it gently. DO NOT PULL or STRETCH THE DOUGH That will just rip holes in it. With your fingertips, press down, gently flattening the dough until it is a large rectangle the fits your cookie sheet.. Take your time. If the dough seems stiff and unyielding, let it rest in a warm place for 5 - 10 minutes and then continue shaping.
Let it sit in a warm spot and rise 10 minutes.
Now to assemble: Leaving an 1 inch border around the dough, lay down a layer of 1/2 the shredded cheese. Next, add the browned Italian sausage, onion and pepper mixture. Finally, top with the remaining cheese.
Very carefully, roll it the long way pretty tightly, pinching the seams.
Brush the top with olive oil - I make a garlic-infused olive oil, but any olive oil is ok.
Bake in a preheated 400-degree F degree oven for 12 minutes. Take out and brush the tops with a bit more olive oil and sprinkle the tops with shredded parm. Bake for an additional 5-7 minutes until golden brown.
Remove to a wire rack to cool, and let sit for a good 5 minutes before slicing.
Top with fresh basil and a wee bit more shredded parm if you like.

Rotkohl (Sweet & Sour Red Cabbage)

2011-04-26T05:48:00.003-04:00

Anyone who has had a German meal has mostly likely had rotkohl, that sweet and sour stewed red cabbage, as an accompaniment. It might be habit, or it might just be my personal bias, but I don't think that any German meal is complete without some sort of red cabbage side dish, and this one is my favorite.

Red cabbage is often shunted to the back of the class, relegated as a sometime slaw ingredient or an occasional burst of color and crunch of texture in a green salad, or tossed into borscht and then largely forgotten. Sometimes people will stew it beyond recognition into a purple mush.

It is the red-headed stepchild of the vegetable crisper, and there is no need for that.

Marry the cabbage with the right combination of flavors, certain spices and, mostly importantly, avoid cooking it down to a flatulence-inducing mess of stewed leaves, and you've got a wonderfully fragrant and comforting dish.

The apple, the cloves and juniper, the vinegar and sugar all combine to create a satisfying dish that lures you in. The first bite grabs you with tartness, but then mellows out with a hint of sweetness and then rounds off with the notes of clove and juniper. Each mouthful always leaves me wanting another, wondering if that same progression of flavors would appear with the next forkful.

It always does.

Rotkohl

Ingredients:
1/2 head small red cabbage, shredded
1/2 Granny Smith, peeled and julienned
1/2 onion, julienned
1-1/2 T butter
1 t sea salt
4 black peppercorns
2 cloves
3 juniper berries
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3 T sugar
Directions:
Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat.
Add the cabbage, onion and apple and mix so that everything is nicely coated with the butter.
Add the water, vinegar, sugar and spices and bring to a boil.
Once it boils, cover and reduce the heat to low and keep simmering for 1-1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Notes:

I saw some recipes that called for a slurry of cornstarch and water to be added once the dish had finished cooking, but I didn't see the need for it. I don't mind if my cabbage is a little bit juicy. The spaetzle can always soak it up. :)

Apple and Goat Geese Galette with Honey-Vanilla Sauce

2011-04-25T05:14:00.003-04:00

I was traipsing though the grocery store yesterday, uncertain if I was going to make a mini Black Forest cherry cake or some sort of apple thing for my dessert. I have always liked the flavors of apple and goat cheese together, and when I went to check out the goat cheese selection, I saw that in addition to the usual herbed and peppered varieties, they had this:

Honey vanilla goat cheese.

Oh my GOD. Thank you, Woolwich Dairy, Inc. for bringing us this wonderful flavor!

When I saw the honey vanilla goat cheese, I knew that I had to pair that with a Granny Smith apple. I had read several apple galette recipes that included a layer of frangipane beneath the apple slices, and I thought that this honey vanilla goat cheese would be a wonderful substitution, so I decided on an apple galette. I immediately grabbed the goat cheese and headed off to the freezer section for a box of puff pastry - no time to make my own today - and hurried back to my tiny kitchen.

Top it with a simple vanilla sauce spiked with honey, and you've got this:

Apple & Goat Cheese Galette with Honey-Vanilla Sauce

Makes four 4 in. galettes

Ingredients:
1 sheet of puff pastry
Honey-vanilla goat cheese
1 Granny Smith apple, cored, peeled and sliced into paper-thin slices
1 T butter, melted
1 T honey

For the Honey-vanilla sauce:
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 vanilla bean
1 egg yolk
2 T honey
Make the honey-vanilla sauce:
Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add them to the cream in the top of a double boiler and heat until warm, not boiling. Let simmer for 15 minutes, then remove the bean pod.
Whisk together the egg yolk and 2 T of honey. Add a small amount of the warm cream to the egg, whisking fully. Slowly add the warmed egg mixture to the cream in the double boiler, whisking well.
Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until it starts to bubble a bit around the edges.
Remove from heat and refrigerate.

Prepare the galette:
Preheat the oven to 375.
Thaw the sheet of puff pastry for about 45 minutes.
Cut out four 4 in. rounds from the pastry by using a bowl as a guide. Lay a slightly smaller bowl on top of the rounds and press down to leave an indentation in the pastry. This will be the lip of the galette.
Spread goat cheese on the pastry and top with overlapping slices of apple.
Mix together the honey and melted butter and brush on top of the apple slices and the edges of the pastry.
Bake for 25 minutes or until the edges start to brown.
Drizzle the honey-vanilla sauce on top and eat warm

Shrimp and Grits with Roasted Corn

2011-04-24T05:12:00.002-04:00

I had grits once when I was younger. They were gray, lumpy, gluey and looked totally unappetizing. I was unimpressed.

Then I actually tasted them.

Color me even more unimpressed.

Over the years I've heard people talk longingly of shrimp and grits and cheese grits and I would shudder and think, "How can anyone possibly EAT that?"

Then Renée set me straight about grits and corn grits. She gave me her favorite recipe for corn grits with roasted corn, told me exactly what type of corn grits to buy, what to serve it with, and I was very interested. It sounded good, for sure- what's not to love about roasted corn, butter and heavy cream? So I filed it away for future reference.

For some reason, when I woke up today, I said to myself, "Now is the day for those grits, and I feel the need for spicy shrimp to go with it." Maybe it's the cold and dreary weather making me yearn for something hot. Maybe it was the fact that I caught sight of the bag of corn grits yesterday when I was hunting around for the bag of tapioca pearls. Who knows? Long story short, the recipe is fantastic and I am a grits convert.

The spicy and still sweetish shrimp contrast perfectly with the creaminess of the grits. It's insane.

I can't wait to try out cheese grits next. :)

Shrimp and Grits with Roasted Corn

Serves 3

For the grits:
3/4 cup stone-ground corn grits
3 cups water
salt
1 t Creole seasoning or Old Bay
2 T chives
2 T butter
heavy cream

For the corn:
corn from 2 ears of fresh corn (about 1-1/2 cups kernels)
1/2 cup diced red onion
1 T butter, melted
1/8 t granulated garlic
1/8 t smoked paprika
salt and pepper

For the shrimp
9 medium cleaned shrimp, raw
Old Bay or Creole seasoning
chopped green onion

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400. Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil.
Toss the kernels of corn and onion in a bowl with salt, pepper, granulated garlic and smoked paprika.
Add the melted butter and toss well.
Spread in the foil-lined pan and roast for 25 minutes, stirring them once half-way through.
While the corn is roasting, bring 3 cups of lightly salted water to boil and add the corn grits, lowering the heat to low. Stir frequently to be sure that it doesn't stick. Careful, like oatmeal, bubbles might burst out and splatter you with wicked-hot starchy grain. Ouch.
After about 10 minutes, add 1/2 teaspoon of Creole seasoning or Old Bay and fresh chives. Stir well and let cook another 15 - 20 minutes.
Once it has cooked through and is the thickness you like, add about 1/2 of the roasted corn and onion to the grits and stir well. Set aside the remaining corn and onions.
Add the butter and stir well to let it melt. Then add heavy cream to achieve the consistency you like. I only used a few tablespoons. Taste to check and adjust seasoning. You may want more spice or more cream.
Season the shrimp with Creole seasoning or Old Bay. Heat a heavy skillet over high heat and sear the shrimp for 2 minutes on the first side, then flip them, cover the skillet and let them cook another minute or two until done, but be careful not to overcook them.
Divide the corn grits between 3 bowls and top with the remaining roasted corn and onion. Sprinkle with chopped green onion and top with seared shrimp.

Fun With Food

2011-04-23T12:05:00.001-04:00

The Easter Bunny came a day early to my house since I won't have my kids on Easter morning. The Easter Bunny is accommodating that way. Anyway, I the Easter Bunny recalled that the kids had been screaming for Peeps, so I, that is, the Easter Bunny got some purple and yellow Peeps.

So today, I suggested PeepS'Mores.

Yum. Even I had one.

PeepS'Mores

Here's how you do it:

Catch a Peep and skewer it. Assemble your chocolate and graham crackers and get a reliable source of flame. I used my new little blowtorch until I ran out of butane.

*blink*

So then I just used one of the gas burners on the stove and prayed that I wouldn't have a melted mess of blackened marshmallow to clean off.

It worked great.

Before:

Torch the Peep. He may catch fire.

That's ok. Blow out the flames.

Smush the Peep down

Make sure he's melting and oozing and then eat it.

Kid #2's PeepS'More, chomped.

Another view of melting marshmallow:

Coming Soon on Crisis Brownies

2011-04-22T06:46:00.001-04:00

I am 99% certain that I will be making Jaeger Schnitzel for myself this weekend. I don't have my kids this weekend, so I can really feel free to make only what I know will appeal to me, and the German Potato Pancakes from earlier this week got me craving German food. I haven't had a good Jaeger Schnitzel since the Gasthaus Edelweiss days. Another dish would would be yummy now, and ironic, considering it's Easter weekend, would be Hasenpfeffer, but where in the hell would I get a rabbit?

Anyone?

So, it may be a German-food weekend. In keeping with the German + Easter theme, I'll probably be listening to the St. Matthew Passion all weekend long, taking a break only long enough to squeeze in the Rachmaninoff Vespers, so maybe I'll make Russian Black bread or something.

And now, for your listening pleasure, my favorite aria from the St. Matthew Passion, the gorgeous bass aria "Mache Dich, Mein Herze Rein," performed by one of my favorites, Matti Salminen:

And a beautiful choral piece from the Rachmaninoff Vespers, the Hail Mary:

Omelette

2011-04-22T05:57:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite quick, I-have-no-idea-what-to-cook-for-dinner meals is a simple omelette. It's quick, it's versatile, and you can tart it up any way you like. I'm sure the French would scoff at my omelettes and my omelette-technique - though they'd probably approve of my spelling - but eggs are one area where I don't really care about what others think is "the only correct way" to do them.

For example, I will not, ever, eat eggs that are sunny-side-up, and rarely will I eat them over-easy. I like my fried eggs over hard, yolk cracked and cooked all the way through. Bonus points for a little browning on the egg and the crispy edges on the egg whites. Likewise, the scrambled eggs I saw Jacques and Julia doing on one of their shows once were way too moist and loose for my taste. I like them scrambled a bit more on the dry side, still fluffy, but drier.

They'd probably shudder at the fact that I usually use an EggBeaters-type of liquid egg product, though if I have an omelette on the weekends, I usually make a 3-egg omelette and go crazy. The whole eggs and touch of heavy cream make it fluffy and monstrous and delicious.

Omelettes are great because they are such a versatile vehicle for so many different ingredients: smoked salmon, caviar and dill; taco-seasoned ground beef, cheese and vegetables; pesto, tomatoes and mozzarella; hey I've even put leftover potatoes in an omelette. Vegetables? Yes. A smidge of seafood in a cream sauce? Why not? Go CRAZY.

Of course, they are just as delicious on their own with just a bit of cheese and topped with some salsa.

Omelette with Cheese and Salsa

Ingredients:
butter
1/3 cup EggBeaters
cheese
salsa
Directions:
Over medium-high heat, melt butter in 9 in. skillet.
Pour in your liquid eggs (or 3 eggs beaten with a bit of milk), tilt the pan so it's spread out evenly.
Sprinkle some cheese on the top and cover with a lid to let cook for 2 minutes or so until the edges are set. Then fold in half and sprinkle a little more cheese on top.
Cover again and let cook for 1 minute, then turn off the heat and let it finish cooking for another minute or so.
Plate and top with salsa.

Fettuccine Alfredo

2011-04-21T04:52:00.004-04:00

Pasta is another classic comfort food, and although my favorite pasta dishes number in, oh, probably all of them, fettuccine alfredo is pretty near the top of the list for me. The thing about alfredo is that it is almost always a disappointment when I go out to eat and order it.

I really am not a fan of the Olive Garden. I think that their food is overpriced and mediocre, although I will admit I love their butter-drenched breadsticks. The times I've gone there, I've usually ordered the alfredo and when it came, it was already a mess of separating sauce and overdone pasta, or it was a pile of pasta absolutely drowning in sauce. I prefer a lighter touch with the sauce, with the fettuccine barely moistened by the sauce, but that's just me. Another great thing about making it yourself is that you can add as little or as much of the sauce as you like.

The thing is, it is so easy to make you'll never go out for alfredo again. Alfredo should be ~~devoured~~ eaten almost as soon as it hits your bowl. You may curse me when you try this for yourself and see how easy it is.You can suit just about anyone's taste for ingredients and the amount of sauce, too, so it is totally win-win.

Fettuccine Alfredo

Serves 2

Ingredients:
4 oz. whole wheat fettucine
3/4 cup heavy cream
3 T salted butter, cut into 1/2 T slices
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan or romano
granulated garlic
salt
pepper
parsley

Directions:
Cook the pasta until it's al dente, still firm when you bite into it, not mushy, but not still crunchy. Drain and set aside.
Heat the cream in a skillet until it starts to bubble at the edges. Add the butter, a smidge (oh, a pinch, less than 1/8 t) of granulated garlic, salt and pepper and let cook until the butter melts into the cream. Taste it to check for seasoning.
Add 1/3 cup of the cheese and stir well until it melts into the sauce.
Toss the pasta into the skillet and mix well, serve, topped with fresh herbs like parsley or basil, plus additional grated cheese and eat immediately.

Notes:

You can mix in all sorts of things: shrimp, chicken, vegetables, but I like it plain with just the peas and really good-quality cheese.
I used some locatelli pecorino romano which I usually use in risotto, but man, it works nicely in this too.
I used whole wheat fettuccine, which is why it looks a bit dark in the photo. I usually try to make the dish a little less of a perilous assault on my blood sugar levels.
If you like a lot more sauce with your fettuccine than you see in the photo, you can easily adjust the amount of pasta.
This recipe easily doubles or quadruples to feed more people or people with enormous appetites.

German Potato Pancakes

2011-04-20T05:38:00.000-04:00

Here's another favorite from the annals of comfort foods: Potato Pancakes. The thing is, what most people know as potato pancakes bear no resemblance to the potato pancakes we had growing up.

Most people know the kind of potato pancakes made from shredded potatoes (latkes), or those made from leftover mashed potato which have been mixed with egg and then fried. I've never cared for latkes because it seems that sometimes they'd be burned on the edges and pretty-near raw in the middle, and the mashed-potato kind are usually too gluey and lumpy. These pancakes are smooth-textured, with a definite potato flavor and even a bit fluffy, unlike the other two types.

These were the potato pancakes I'd been looking for when I had my German dinner on Christmas Eve in 2009. It was surprisingly difficult to track this recipe down. most of the recipes were for some variety of latke, with the occasional Leftover Mashed Potato Pancake recipe.

Finally I found Ann Chandler's German Potato Pancake recipe, and I knew as soon as I saw the pictures that these were the potato pancakes we'd had growing up. When the batter hit the sizzling-hot oil in the skillet, again, I knew that these were them, and then when I had the first bite of the first "tester" pancake, I had flashbacks to childhood at the Oktoberfests and Schlachtfests at Gasthaus Edelweiss.

Yep. These're them.

Herbed German Potato Pancakes (Kartoffelpuffer)

Makes 12 small pancakes

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 medium onion
5 medium potatoes
fresh rosemary and thyme
1/4 to 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
pinch black pepper

Directions:
Wash, peel and quarter the potatoes and onion.
Puree the eggs, herbs and onion in a blender, not a food processor.*
Carefully add the potatoes one piece at a time and continue to blend until everything has liquefied.
Pour the mixture in a large bowl and slowly add enough flour to thicken to the consistency of pancake batter, stirring well. I like to add the flour 2 Tablespoons at a time.
Add the salt and pepper and stir.
In a large skillet, heat some olive oil over medium-high heat. Once the heat starts to shimmer, add the batter by the ladleful and cook until nicely golden brown around the edges. I use a 12 in. skillet and fit 4 pancakes in it.
Once the edges are nicely browned, carefully flip the pancakes and let cook a few minutes. The pancakes will puff up slightly, and you want to flip them only once, so check the color underneath.

You'll want them to look like this on both sides:

Add olive oil to skillet for each new batch of pancakes. Let them rest on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb extra oil.

Serve hot with salt and pepper, butter, sauerkraut or sour cream. If you omit the herbs, you can top them with applesauce, jam, vanilla yogurt or even maple syrup.

Notes:

A food processor isn't strong enough to really liquefy this into a batter, so use a blender.
A word of warning: Do NOT attempt to bend the potatoes, eggs and onion all at once, because the potatoes will gum up the blades. You want to liquefy the eggs and onion first and then gradually add the potato for a smooth batter.

Peasant Breakfast

2011-04-19T04:35:00.001-04:00

Crisis Brownies and other comfort foods is the title of the blog. Yesterday I brought you the crisis brownies - so named because sometimes when you have a crisis, the only solution is chocolate - today I'll bring you one of my favorite comfort foods; but first, a comment.

Sometimes, I derive comfort from making something elegant or fancy, like crèmes brûlées:

Other times, I'll be comforted by taking something simple and homey and presenting it attractively, like kimchi bokeum bap:

But then there are those dishes which are neither fancy nor plated professionally. I have been known to eat Stovetop Mac and Cheese straight off a wooden spoon from the saucepan as I stand in the kitchen.

This next dish is never plated attractively, does not use an elaborate recipe or expensive ingredients. There is no real name for it, and I've called it many things: Potatoes, Eggs and Vegetables, Mess-in-a-Bowl, but most often, I call it Peasant Breakfast.

It is just chunks of potato cooked in butter with vegetables, usually onion, bell pepper and mushroom, and once they've cooked down and browned nicely, I crack some eggs over it, let them set, and then mix it all together. Top it with a little grated cheese and serve. Presto. Yum. Really, for pure comfort bang for your buck, you just can't beat it.

When I was in Korea, I used to make this dish for my friends after a long night of partying in I-Tae-Won. We'd go back to my place, usually at 3 in the morning, and I'd make a huge mess of this in the name of hangover remedies, then we'd crash, sleep late and go out for kong namul guk (spicy bean sprout soup) or budae jjigae ("troop" stew) as additional help with staving off the hangover.

I also craved this dish throughout all of my pregnancies, and still crave it at times when I am cold and need something deeply warming. I made it last night as a mini-celebratory meal. I like to adjust with slightly different ingredients and spicing it differently.

Yesterday, I found hedgehog mushrooms:

They were almost too cute to eat. But I ate them, and yes, I washed them first. :)

Peasant Breakfast

Ingredients
butter
potatoes
onion
green bell pepper
mushroom
Creole seasoning
Old Bay seasoning
eggs
grated romano
salt and pepper

Directions:
Brown potatoes in butter. You can use leftover boiled potatoes if you have them, though I usually just use fresh. If you use uncooked mushrooms, you'll want to cover it and let them steam. Season with Creole seasoning.
Add the chopped onions, bell pepper and mushrooms and stir well. Add Old Bay or more Creole seasoning to suit your taste.
Cover and let cook through until the potatoes are tender and the vegetables browned. I like it when the onions get almost crispy.
Push the vegetables aside to make three holes, and crack an egg into each. Cover and let cook until the eggs are set, then stir the whole mess together and let cook. Dump into bowls and top with a bit of cheese and season with salt and pepper.

Notes:

I change up the seasoning, sometimes using fresh thyme and rosemary, but I usually go for something spicy, and this does it for me.
I also will add in bits of leftover ham or sausage if I have them. I really like linguiça and chouriço in the spicy version or maple sausage in the rosemary and thyme version.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Brownies

2011-04-18T04:57:00.002-04:00

I've been absent thanks to a new full-time job, so I no longer have the luxury of indulging in meals that take hours to prepare. I have been seriously into baking lately - mostly on the weekends - and today, though we had those marvelous crèmes brûlées yesterday, I had a serious craving for chocolate, so I whipped up a batch of the Crisis Brownies, but with a few modifications: coconut extract and flaked coconut instead of vanilla and nuts, and the Dutch-process cocoa.

Very good, very deep and intense, these are not cakey or milk-chocolatey.I needed a full glass of milk after one small brownie, bit wow, did it hit the chocolate craving square in the face.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Brownies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
6 T cold, unsalted butter, cut into large, 1-T pieces
2 T heavy cream
8 oz. unsweetened chocolate
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1/2 t coconut extract
2 large eggs at room temperature
½ cup chocolate chunks
1/4 cup flaked sweetened coconut
Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 F and spray an 11 x 7 inch baking pan with cooking spray.
In a small bowl, mix together the flour and cocoa with a whisk to break up any clumps of cocoa.
Bring about 1 ½ inches of water to a boil in the bottom of your double boiler; reduce heat and then in the top pan of the double boiler heat the butter and sugar until the butter starts to melt, add the heavy cream, and then gradually add your chocolate, stirring constantly to be sure that the mixture doesn't burn.
Once the chocolate is all melted, add the coconut extract and then remove from the heat immediately and scrape into a large bowl.
Set this bowl inside a larger bowl which has some ice water in it and let the chocolate mixture cool before adding the eggs.Or you can temper the eggs by whisking in a bit of the chocolate mixture while it is still pretty hot.
Add the eggs, mixing well.
Gradually stir in the flour mixture and mix until smooth. add the chocolate chunks and flaked coconut and mix well.
Spread the batter into prepared pan.This is not a loose, pourable batter like some recipes - this is thick, almost like cookie dough. Don't worry. It's supposed to be like that.
Bake 25 minutes until a toothpick jabbed into the center comes out clean. This recipe makes very dense, moist and fudgy brownies.
Transfer pan to a rack to cool before cutting the brownies.

Crème brûlée

2011-04-17T10:45:00.002-04:00

We've been on a custard-kick lately. For my older daughter's birthday a few weeks ago, she requested that I make a layered pound cake with strawberries as her birthday cake. We decided that the cake needed more than just sliced strawberries in between the layers, so I made a thick vanilla pastry cream and set the strawberries in that in between the cake layers. Wow, was it ever good!

May daughter was impressed with homemade stove-top vanilla custard and we've been looking through various recipes lately. She decided that she really wanted me to make us all crèmes brûlées as a treat, and using this as justification to buy a mini blowtorch, I said "Sure thing!"

The torch was a bit of an odyssey in itself. I didn't read the box carefully enough, so I didn't realize that the butane canister was sold separately. Naturally, by the time I had made this discovery, I was already in my flannel lounging-around-home clothes and was in no mood to get dressed again and haul us all back out into the pouring rain. I did eventually, though, and then was faced with figuring out how exactly to fill the torch; long story short: I filled it, it worked, it was delicious, and everyone was happy, The End.

Crème brûlée

Ingredients
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 vanilla bean
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 yolks
turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw is one brand)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 325.
Place the cream in a heavy saucepan. Slice the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Place the seeds and the bean into the cream and scald over medium-high heat until it almost boils. Remove from heat and let steep 15 minutes.
Beat the 1/4 cup sugar with 3 eggs yolks until light yellow and smooth.
Place a fine-meshed strainer over the egg-sugar mixture and carefully strain a bit of the warmed cream mixture to the eggs, whisking constantly. Gradually pour in the rest of the cream mixture, stirring well.
Divide the mixture between four 4 oz. ramekins.* Place the ramekins into roasting dishes or even cake pans and pour hot water (near-boiling) into the pans about halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
Bake in a preheated oven until the custard has set, but still jiggles slightly in the center, about 40 minutes.
Remove and immediately cool on wire racks until cool. You can refrigerate them if you like.
When you are ready to serve them, check that the tops of the custards are dry. You can blot them with a paper towel to get rid of any condensation. Then coat the tops of the custards with turbinado sugar and, using your handy-dandy mini blowtorch (see right), to melt the sugar until it turns browns and hardens into a lovely caramelized crust.

This video gives a good demonstration of how to do it:

Then I'd say serve immediately :)

Notes:

This was my first time with the brûlée aspect; I've made this type of custard cooked in a water bath before, but my first time with a blow torch. After looking at the video (which I only saw today for the first time) I think perhaps I'll scorch the sugar more next time. I was wary of turning the sugar into an inedible, burnt-solid black mass. Don't get me wrong, even lightly-torched, it still was an amazing dessert.
* Yeah, this recipe made way more than could be filled into four 4 oz. ramekins, but then I did not fill them all the way to the top because I was afraid that they may flow over. I had enough left over for about 2 more 4 oz. ramekins (I filled two 8 oz. ramekins halfway), so I'm not sure exactly what's going on there. I am always very careful about my measurements - "Measure twice, dump once" is my motto - lol So, just be aware that you may need an extra ramekin hanging about just in case.

Pan-Seared Filet Mignon with Mushroom Wine Sauce

2011-02-22T05:07:00.001-05:00

I am not a big beef-eater. I mean, I like it just fine when I have it, but I don't feel the need to gorge on red meat every day. I think that stems from the fact that my dad is a Meat-and-Potatoes guy who didn't think that it was a real meal unless there was some sort of 4-legged animal on the plate. Growing up, beef was on the menu at least 3 out of the 7 days, and of course, in order to swing that, we had a lot of the cheaper cuts: ground beef, cube steak and pot roast for example.

I remember the first time I ever had filet mignon I was stunned at how tender it was with no sign of gristle running through it interrupting every bite, which was my recollection of cube steak. Last night I wanted to treat myself to something special, and I was craving beef, so I opted for a little home-cooked filet. I started by pan-searing the meat on both sides to develop a crust, and then roasting it in a preheated pan really hot oven. Topped off with a mushroom-wine sauce, and you've got everything you need: the tender meat which literally almost melts in your mouth, and the rich flavor of the sauce.

Pan-Seared Filet Mignon with Mushroom Wine Sauce

Ingredients:
beef tenderloin cut into two 1-1/2 in. - 2 in. thick filet mignons
butter
salt
pepper
For the sauce:
3 T butter
2 T chopped shallot
1/4 cup cremini mushrooms, finely diced
1/2 cup dry red wine (I used a Bordeaux)
1 cup beef stock
1 T tomato paste
1/2 t sugar
2 T fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 450 F.
Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil and spray lightly with olive oil cooking spray and place in the oven to preheat for 30 minutes.
Season the filets with salt and pepper on both sides and let come to room temperature
Place a heavy skillet over high heat and melt 1 T butter. Sear the filets for 3 minutes on each side, flipping with tongs, NOT a fork. You don't want to pierce the meat.
Once the meat has browned on both sides, remove from the skillet and place in the preheated roasting pan and roast for 4 to 6 minutes for rare, 6 to 8 minutes for medium-rare, or 8 to 10 minutes for medium. If the filets are thicker cut, opt for the longer cooking times of the ranges given.
Take the meat out and let rest on a plate, tented with foil.
While the meat is roasting, melt 3 T butter over medium-high heat in the same pan you seared the meat in. Add the chopped shallots and mushroom and stir up all the browned bits (fond) from searing the meat.
Cook for 2 minutes and then add the wine, bring to a boil and really scrape up all of the fond. Once most of the wine has cooked down, add the beef broth, thyme, sugar and tomato paste and let reduce. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary.
Additionally, you can stir in 2 T cold butter to the sauce, but this is good as-is.
Slice the meat across the grain and serve with the sauce.

Chocolate Cake

2011-02-20T14:10:00.000-05:00

In addition to Crisis Bownies, cookies, pie and cheesecake, I like cake.

Not just this kind of cake:

But cake, cake.

You know, Devil's Food cake, pound cake, Angel Food cake, red velvet cake... Just, cake. I decided that today was a good day for cake - a lazy Saturday at home with my kids, unrelenting snow outside, yes. Time for cake. I didn't want a lot of cake though, just enough for the 3 of us for a few days without leaving use feeling like complete gluttonous deviants. I also was out of eggs, so it limits what kind of cake I can make.

For our super-chocolate cravings, this vegan chocolate cake really delivers. You really would not know that this cake is vegan unless someone told you. Of course, there is nothing vegan about the buttercream frosting. Nothing dietetic either, but it is so worth it. :)

Vegan Chocolate Cake
Makes one 10 in. round cake

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 cup brown sugar*
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/8 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cold water
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350.
Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cocoa together in a large bowl.
Add the vinegar and stir. Pour in the oil and stir well. Pour in the cold water and mix until everything is well-combined.
Pour batter into a round 10 in cake pan that has been buttered or sprayed with butter-flavored cooking spray.
Bake for 30 to 35, or until cake tester inserted comes out clean.
Put the pan on a rack and let cool for a half hour and then turn the cake out onto a rack to finish cooling before frosting.

Simple Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:
3 T salted butter
1/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar (approximately)
3/8 cup milk (approximately)
Directions:
Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl.
Add the cocoa power and stir to combine well.
Stir in the vanilla extract and mix.
Add the confectioner's sugar 1/2 cup at a time and alternate with a litlte milk to moisten it, and beat, not stir, but really beat it well to break up all the clumps of the powdered sugar and get it into the mixture.
Continue to add the sugar and milk and beating, tasting as you go, until you have the taste and consistency that you like.

Notes:

I really prefer brown sugar to regular white granulated sugar in chocolate baked goods. I swear I read something once that said that the molasses in the brown sugar enhances and intensifies the chocolate flavors. I think that brown sugar also tends to make baked items moister because it is already wetter than regular white sugar.

Steel-cut Oats with Cranberries and Almonds

2010-12-08T07:45:00.003-05:00

Well, it's snowing again. Still. We've got another snow day for the kids, another day of shoveling a foot of snow at a time, and that means another day of warming, filling foods. My mom gave me an unopened canister of steel cut oats when I was there over Thanksgiving. I'd been meaning to try them out - I'd heard good things about them - and we love oats in this house anyway. I was intrigued by others' description of the chewy texture, rather than the glue-like paste of some rolled oats' dishes.

This version is pretty low-maintenance to boot. Instead of standing over a pot for a half hour, stirring constantly to keep the oats from sticking, you start these the night before and then let them sit overnight to soak. In the morning you just heat them up, sweeten to taste and then serve.

Steel-cut Oats with Cranberries and Almonds
Makes 3 servings

Ingredients
3/4 cup steel-cut oats
3 cups water
1 teaspoon orange peel
1/4 cup chopped salted roasted almonds
1/4 cup dried cranberries
Agave nectar
Directions
In a large saucepan, boil the oats, dried cranberries and orange peel in the water for 1 minute. Cover, remove from heat and set on a heat-resistant surface.
Let sit overnight.
The next morning, uncover the oats and bring them to a boil over high heat.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring frequently, until the oatmeal is hot and creamy, about 5 minutes.
Garnish with the chopped almonds and some additional cranberries if you like and sweeten to taste with agave nectar.

One serving is worth 6 WW points.

Notes:

There is a very large discrepancy between the points I got when I entered this recipe into the WeightWatchers online calculator and when I entered the nutritional data generated by Living Cookbook software. Like, a HUGE difference. I don't know what bit of pixie dust they have in the WW algorithms, but, man, it makes no sense.

They revamped the points system to get away from assigning points value strictly on calories and to account for specific nutrients: fat, carbohydrates, fiber and protein. Still, when I entered that specific data which my software generated from the exact same recipe, I got a points value of 10 per serving. I think that the food database in my software might be hinky. :/

Vegetarian Chili

2010-12-07T13:33:00.003-05:00

It's still cold here. I burned off god knows how many calories shoveling snow today and it looks as though I'll be trekking back out there today to shovel some more. I am still in my soup/stew kick, and today made up a pot of vegan chili. I was not in the mood for a long time spent on the mise en place (lol I love saying that "mise en place"). I really wanted to toss stuff in a pot and let it simmer because I just wanted to sit and catch my breath and rest before I had to go back outside into the snowstorm. Right? So I thought to myself: "Hmmm. Chili. Yes."

Now, chili is one of those foods which can attract controversy and strong opinion. There are those who believe that beans have no place in chili, like the chili con carne often also called Texas chili. Others like a lot of beans and minimal meat in their chili, while still others like to call a chicken and white bean stew by the name "chili." Many vegetarian chili recipes will also include high-protein grains like bulgur, though many chili purists would turn up their noses at it.

Honestly, if it's good, I like it all.I won't fight to the death over some literal interpretation of what a dish is supposed to be called, I'll just eat it.

Vegetarian Chili
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:
1 15-ounce can chili beans in sauce (I used Full Circle Chili Beans)
1 15-ounce can dark red kidney beans
1/4 cup red quinoa
1/4 cup bulgur
1 20-ounce can diced tomatoes, with the juice
1 T tomato paste
1 cup water
1 cup Morningstar Farms crumbles
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 small dried chipotle chili pepper
1 T dried minced onion
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon oregano

Directions:
Put all ingredients in a large pot bring to a near-boil and then reduce the heat and let simmer on low for about an hour. Stir frequently so that nothing sticks to the bottom and burns. Or you could just throw everything in a crock pot, put it on low and walk away.
Taste to adjust seasonings, remove the chipotle and serve.

One serving of this chili is 5 WW points on the new PointsPlus Plan.

Amount Per Serving

Calories

259.25

Calories From Fat (10%)

24.72

% Daily Value

Total Fat 2.83g

4%

Saturated Fat 0.4g

2%

Cholesterol 0mg

0%

Sodium 884.16mg

37%

Potassium 888.31mg

25%

Total Carbohydrates 46.75g

16%

Fiber 12.87g

51%

Sugar 9.08g

Protein 15.75g

32%

Notes:

This chili is flavorful but not spicy. The chipotle gives it a little bit of heat, but even better, a wonderful smokiness which I think rounds out the flavor. Of course, if you have to have a number of alarms on your chili, feel free to add diced jalapenos or hot sauce to taste.

Potato, Leek and Celery Root Soup

2010-12-06T12:54:00.001-05:00

There's been a lot going on lately, not the least of which is that I have joined Weight Watchers for their all-new PointsPlus plan. One of the changes is that most fruits and vegetables are freebies, with 0 points. You can read more about the changes here. So, this means that I am going to be slimming down my recipes, at least for the next three months, although if I do a Cookie-Palooza again, I just won't be the one eating many of them.

Ok, maybe one or two, to "test" them. ;-)

Today, I kick-started it with a nice, warming and filling soup. It's a blustery winter day here in Syracuse, with a forecast for Lake Effect Snow until Wednesday; the kids have a snow day and we're all trying to stay warm, so I opted for a nice pot of soup. I had a celery root languishing in the vegetable crisper, and a few fresh leeks and potatoes.... can you see where this is going? I adapted the classic vichyssoise by adding the celery root for that crisp celery flavor and omitted the cream. The result was a thick, luscious soup that clocks in at 5 points per bowl, or 29 points for the whole thing, so you can divide it up as you like.

Potato, Leek and Celery Root Soup
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients
4 Tbsp butter
4 cups thinly sliced leeks
1 celery root, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
4 cups chicken broth
3 medium red potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
Salt to taste (optional)
1 sprig fresh thyme, plus additional for garnish
celery seeds

Directions
Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Add the leeks, cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the celery root and cook, stirring often, 5 minutes.
Add the chicken broth and potatoes. Bring to a boil over medium high heat.
Reduce the heat, then simmer 25 minutes, covered, or until vegetables are soft.
Remove the sprig of thyme and discard.
Puree the soup using a blender until nice and smooth.
Season to taste with salt- though this will probable not be necessary if you used regular chicken broth. Garnish with thyme and celery seed.

Notes:

I am trying out a new recipe software for maintaining my recipe library, and it includes an option to create a table with nutritional date for the recipe.

Amount Per Serving
Calories	173.07
Calories From Fat (44%)	76.93
% Daily Value
Total Fat 8.68g	13%
Saturated Fat 5.13g	26%
Cholesterol 20.35mg	7%
Sodium 519.77mg	22%
Potassium 614.77mg	18%
Total Carbohydrates 19.31g	6%
Fiber 1.53g	6%
Sugar 1.63g
Protein 5.26g	11%

Brownies

2010-11-19T12:35:00.002-05:00

I made some changes to my Crisis Brownies recipe.

They are really good. Fudgey, chocolatey, gooey.

MMMM.

I'll add the new recipe soon.

Have a great weekend!