Food and The People Who Ate It

White Roughy with cornmeal crust

2010-02-23T11:27:00.007-05:00

Last Week I wanted a quick fish dinner. Unfortunately, none of the supermarkets in walking distance of my apartment have a fresh fish section, so I ended up getting frozen white roughy from TJ's. My mom started buying white roughy several years ago, and I think that as frozen white fish goes you can't do much better. Its pretty cheap, defrosts quickly because its thin, but more importantly, is very easy to cook. It stays soft and moist even when slightly overcooked, making it very versatile and a great fish for people who are afraid of cooking fish.

I decided to bread mine, and combined approx.
1 tbsp white flour
3 tbsp cornmeal
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp onion seeds (I think you can buy these at Indian markets)
1/2 tsp coriander
pepper
salt

Before breading the fish I washed it and spread a thin layer of mayo on it. It then went in a hot cast iron skillet for a couple minutes per side.

I think next time I may try the Roughy in a stew.

Taking Good Photos of Food

2010-02-11T02:10:00.002-05:00

In response to Avi's query, I have been playing on the internet in search of some good information. The real take home message: the glossy pics you see in cookbooks involve a staff, lighting and most importantly a food stylist. The process is not about making delicious food, but in making food that looks delicious. The best video I found on this was not in English, but it still really gets the point across.

So what are us home bloggers to do?
After reading a whole bunch of articles (this one was my favorite), here are my thoughts...
-Buy a plain black, and a plain white set of dishes...and think contrast when choosing which to use
- Be conscious of styling. Add some flair with garnishes and place them thoughtfully
- Get close to the subject
-Use a tripod (I really like the gorillapod)
- Have a couple of lights nearby
- Have fun, and don't let the experience distract you from the most important part: eating and enjoying the dish

Happy shooting, happy eating,
Sarah J.

Does this mean we're posting again?

2010-02-10T20:59:00.005-05:00

I hope so..

I moved recently into an apartment in Coolidge Corner!

The first Friday night we were there we had a nice roomate bonding dinner.

The Lamb chops were marinated in yogurt with cumin and tumeric, and then rubbed with some more spices before broiling for a couple of minutes on each side, making sure to follow Xiaoxi's law: don't second guess your meat and leave it in the oven for a bit longer - it'll be overdone.
The rice was steamed with some cheapo saffron, and then I mixed in some coconut milk after it was cooked.

For dessert, Raina, one of my new roomates, made bread pudding with garam masala spices.
Unfortunately we didn't take a picture.

Hopefully now that I've moved out (which actually happened a month ago) I, and maybe others, will start posting again on a more regular basis, so we can share more food adventures and drool over pictures. Speaking of which does anyone wanna find or write a post about how to take good food photography?

Frank Bruni on Restaurants

2009-08-26T18:33:00.004-04:00

Today Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni compiles his FAQs about restaurants, especially restaurants in New York. If you're a foodie, It's definitely worth a gander.
My favorite is Bruni's advice on what is the best and safest way to navigate a menu:

"Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them.
Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef’s vanity — possibly too much of it — spawned these.
Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.
Choose among the remaining dishes."

Link Here
photo: the dining room at 11 Madison Park, one of Bruni's favorites

Back in April

2009-08-09T15:58:00.005-04:00

Right now it is August and like almost everyone else I know, I can't find a job. This is pretty frustrating, but I should look on the bright side: Not having a job means I have time to do some catch-up blogging!

In April we had a surprise tea-party in our backyard for Emily's birthday. There were finger sandwiches, cheesecake, a chocolate souffle cake with a caramel sauce, fruit, cheese, and of course, tea.

The souffle cake was delicious. It's rich and flourless, but not too dense or heavy, and not too sweet. The sauce, drizzled on top, was good too, but I don't think the cake really needed it. Although, if you like sweeter cakes, then the sauce is probably a good call.

Ina Garten's Caramel Sauce
Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup water
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix the water and sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook over low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, until the sugar dissolves. Do not stir. Increase the heat to medium and boil uncovered until the sugar turns a warm chestnut brown (about 350 degrees F on a candy thermometer), about 5 to 7 minutes, gently swirling the pan to stir the mixture. Be careful – the mixture is extremely hot! Watch the mixture very carefully at the end, as it will go from caramel to burnt very quickly. Turn off the heat. Stand back to avoid splattering and slowly add the cream and vanilla. Don't worry - the cream will bubble violently and the caramel will solidify.

Simmer over low heat, stirring constantly, until the caramel dissolves and the sauce is smooth, about 2 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature, at least 4 hours (actually I think we probably let it cool for half an hour if that, and it was fine). It will thicken as it sits.

Chocolate Souffle Cake
Ingredients:

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus additional for greasing pan
9 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not more than 60% cacao if marked), chopped
6 large eggs, separated
2/3 cup plus
1/2 teaspoon salt

Special equipment: a 10-inch springform pan (I believe we used a 9-inch, and it turned out fine)

Put a small roasting pan filled halfway with hot water in bottom third of oven (to provide moisture during baking). Position another oven rack in middle of oven, then preheat oven to 325°F. Butter springform pan and line bottom with a round of parchment or wax paper. Butter paper.

Melt butter (2 sticks) and chocolate together in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring, then remove from heat. Beat together yolks, 1/3 cup sugar, and salt in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until thick enough to form a ribbon that takes 2 seconds to dissolve into mixture when beater is lifted, 6 to 8 minutes in a stand mixer or 10 to 14 minutes with a handheld. Stir warm chocolate mixture into yolk mixture until combined well.

Beat whites in another large bowl with cleaned beaters at medium speed until they just hold soft peaks. Gradually add 1/3 cup sugar, beating until whites just hold stiff peaks. Stir one fourth of whites into chocolate mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whites gently but thoroughly.

Pour batter into springform pan and bake in middle of oven (do not place springform pan in hot water) until a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center comes out with crumbs adhering, about 1 hour (a crust will form and crack on top of cake as it bakes). Transfer to a rack and cool 10 minutes (cake will "deflate" as it cools).

Run a thin knife carefully around edge of cake, then remove side of pan. Cool cake on bottom of pan 30 minutes. Invert a rack over cake and invert cake onto rack, then remove bottom of pan and carefully peel off paper. Invert a serving plate over cake, then invert cake onto plate.

An Eater's Manifesto

2009-07-08T10:38:00.002-04:00

I just read "In Defense of Food; an Eater's Manifesto" and it was a life-changer. I highly recommend reading this book to understand the impact your eating habits can have on the environment, your community, and on your health. This is a very fascinating read. I have adopted a modified version of Michael Pollan's rules to be our family's food manifesto. We have now been living by them for a week, and it feels good to be putting our food dollars in line with our values. The resulting meals have been memorable as you will see in upcoming posts. I am going to share our slightly modified version of the manifesto with you so that you can understand how we are deciding what to eat (and thereby what we blog about!). This list, while informative, is not an adequate substitute for reading the book itself. It is well worth your time.

Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food
Don't eat anything incapable of rotting
Avoid food products including ingredients that are unknown or unpronounceable
Stay away from high-fructose corn syrup
For the most part, avoid food products that make health claims on the package
Mostly shop the peripheries of the supermarket
Avoid the supermarket wherever possible...try farmers markets! It is best to get food from people you meet personally! As Michael Pollan says, "Shake the hand that feeds you!"
Eat mostly plants - to this end we have been including vegetables all over our meals from the arugula pesto on the lamb brats to the mix of veggies included in our panzenella.
Avoid industrial meats. Only get meat that you KNOW (a pretty farm on the package doesn't count) was raised humanely and ideally on pasture.
Shoot for gastronomic diversity. Pollan makes the good point that "the greater the diversity of the species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all of your nutritional bases."
Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism
It is worth paying more for better food. Fun fact I got from the book: Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food than any other industrialized society
Eat meals, at the table, in the company of others. When snacking, also try to make it a table moment. When you are eating, you should focus on eating...it should not be done as a time filler.
Listen to your gut - eat only when you are hungry and stop when you are full
Eat slowly. For more info on this, check out the slow food movement.
The manifesto is more about celebrating the great foods that you can eat than thinking about the restrictions.

HAPPY EATING!

A Disaster No More!

2009-07-08T10:13:00.003-04:00

Remember the disaster that sent us packing for Z Cucina? Jack and I decided that it would be a real shame to throw out the organic, free-range chicken that I had purchased that day from the Clintonville Farmers market. I had been trying to make it into tandoori chicken (the sauce failed pretty miserably), but to save the chicken we put it in a strainer and gave it a rinse.
The next night, it was just Jack and I for dinner and we were very happy we had saved the chicken. This disaster became the centerpiece of our very delicious dinner! This meal was made entirely from farmers market finds, and that was really exciting.

The Menu:
Peas
- cooked with a bit of bacon from the market...a great way to add flavor!
- There is something very nice about shelling your own peas. The effort of this labor seems to make them extra delicious.
Corn
- Ohio is known for its corn, and this was the first of the season. I was very excited when I saw it at the Schatz Family Farmstand.
Chicken Salad
- onions, garlic, tomatoes, and green beans all from the market!
- A delicious cilantro curry vinaigrette, made with herbs still warm from the sun in our garden
- The rescued chicken

VERY FRESH, VERY LOCAL, VERY TASTY!!!!!!

Fish Arepas

2009-07-06T12:31:00.004-04:00

My friend Talya had just returned from Pakistan with a couple of pounds of fresh mangoes (don't tell the authorities!) , and needed to find a way to use them up before they went bad, so we decided to use them as the inspiration for our dinner. They were so soft and juicy that all you needed to do to eat them was cut a hold at one end and suck the flesh into your mouth!

We bought some haddock and rubbed it with cumin, salt, pepper, and paprika and threw it on the grill. In the mean time, we used some white corn flour to make some arepas to hold our fish, as well as a mango salsa which we were making as a topping
We chopped up some onions and peppers to add, and made a large mound on top of the arepas

For dessert we used the remaining mangoes to make a mango upside-down cake

Z Cucina by the pictures!

2009-07-05T21:39:00.004-04:00

Z Cucina, in the Short North of Columbus, Ohio, strikes a perfect balance between fancy and no-fuss. It has all of the elements that I would consider key to a fine dining establishment: good food, a nice wine list, excellent service, and a clean and simple dining room. The menu also rotates seasonally to keep things fresh and interesting and to allow for the use of local ingredients. What Z Cucina doesn't have is equally important - - it lacks the pretension that can make some restaurants feel inaccessible. From the food to the decor, the people at Z Cucina have figured out how to provide the customer with exactly the right amount of the elegant without becoming overbearing.
We hadn't exactly planned on going out last Friday, but there had been a culinary disaster that was best solved by aborting the mission and heading out on the town. I have mostly ditched the cookbook and begun to improvise in the kitchen - - mostly with delicious results, but sometimes these grand experiments fail. I don't even remember what I was making, but it got to the point where adding things to try to fix the dish was not going to work. It is important to be able to recognize the point of no return for a dish! It was time to go to Z Cucina.
It has now been over a week since this meal and with a new menu up on the restaurant's website I don't remember exactly what went into each dish. What I do remember was that it was a very pleasant experience both in atmosphere and on the palate. I am going to give a picture tour and let the food speak for itself. If you want to know more you are just going to have to try it!

Spaghetti (squash) Night!

2009-06-28T22:05:00.004-04:00

I have always been a vegetable lover, but the same was not true for one of my brothers. One of the ways that my mom cleverly snuck them in was with spaghetti squash and meatballs. With all of the flavors going on, it never dawned on us that we were greedily gobbling up veggies.
With some ground lamb from the farmers market, I made a more grown up version of this childhood favorite.

The sauce:
1) Saute 1 diced onion in some butter in a medium saucepan
2) Add 1 bay leaf and some fresh rosemary
3) Crumble 1 lb ground lamb into the pan and stir until it is well broken up and browned (other meat would do just fine here and the dish would also work just fine vegetarian)
4) Core 1.5 lbs tomatoes (In this case 3 hefty heirlooms; one red, one green and one purple) and then squish the tomatoes into pieces over the saucepan - a genuine tactile pleasure! For the non-squishers among us, dicing with a knife also works.
5) Bring sauce to a boil then reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes.
6) My sauce ended up being a bit too runny. To fix this I added in small crumbs of bread that I had bought at the market that day. It ended up being a delicious addition that really added to the heartiness of the whole dish.

Easy Spaghetti Squash
1) Cut in half
2) Scoop out seeds
3) Put 1 inch of water in the bottom of a 9x9 glass baking dish and put one half of the squash in it, cut side up
4) Cover tightly with plastic wrap
5) Microwave on high for 8 minutes give or take
6) Once it cools enough to handle, use a fork to scrape the inside of the squash. Out will fall a torrent of spaghetti-esque strands.

Brats with a twist

2009-06-27T18:50:00.004-04:00

It is easier to get creative with some ingredients than with others. Boneless skinless chicken breasts are simple. Right away I think of chicken tenders, tandoori chicken, a stir fry, chicken tacos....the possibilities are endless. Brats are a bigger challenge. There is this default of popping them on the grill and then into a bun. At the Pearl Market this week, Jack and I had our horizons expanded by the Dorper Lamb farm. The were offering samples of brat pieces sauteed with green peppers and onions in olive oil. It was delicious. Part of what made it so good was that it is easily the best lamb I have ever tried, but the method also added a lot.
For my rendition, I put a tablespoon of butter and some olive oil into a saute pan and heated them up well. I then added some diced onion to the pan and cooked them until they were starting to caramelize. Next the brats went in until they were fully cooked. Finally, I made a coarsely chopped arugula and rosemary "pesto" and added that to the pan, letting it cook long enough for the arugula to lose its bite. With this meal the brat was fun again - - and especially delicious!

simply delicious

2009-06-25T14:51:00.006-04:00

These locally-grown strawberries would have been an excellent dessert on their own, but I got carried away. Sometimes I am like that fabulous children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie when I cook.

I swear I had intended to just plop the strawberries down in the middle of the table and let them speak for themselves. It is easy to follow one urge to the next though. Here is how it happened for Mr. Mouse.

And here is how it happened for me!

If you give a foodie some fresh strawberries, they will probably start dreaming of things that they could do with them. They will ask you for a cookbook and start flipping through recipes, just to realized that there is no whipping cream in the house. Once they find a recipe, they will want the whipping cream so they will go out to the store to get some. In the store, they might walk down the baking aisle and come up with a new recipe. Scharffen Berger chocolate was the perfect catalyst for a change in direction. Once home, things started to come together.
When a foodie starts to whip cream, they will wonder if there is anything they can do to glam it up. Having heard about the magic of balsamic with strawberries they may add a splash to the whipped cream. Now that the whipped cream is a bit tart, they will probably need some sugar too. Thank goodness that there was sugar in the house. With all of the components ready, they realize that the dish needs a presentation so they pull out some wine glasses. Layers are put in; lightly sugared strawberries (in quarters) , melted chocolate, and balsamic whipped cream. When I realized it looked so pretty, I decided that I needed a garnish. Out into the garden I went to find some chocolate mint (yum!). In the garden I realized that the thyme needed to be trimmed back and I was about to follow that train of thought when my stomach growled. Time for dessert!

Market Fresh

2009-06-25T12:24:00.005-04:00

The Market Inspired Meal!

After all of the work I did with the Wesleyan Farmer's Market this year and all of the great foodie books I have read (Food Matters by Mark Bittman, Real Food by Nina Planck, and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, among others) I decided that it was time to bring my consumption in line with my beliefs. I have gotten my family to agree to a summer full of whole, traditional foods at the dinner table! We are no longer supporting the industrial food industry whenever we have a viable alternative. As an added bonus, we are all having a lot of fun on this journey and it has allowed for a lot of family bonding time between trips to the market, dinner prep and of course, eating.

Focaccia from Omega Artisan Baking

This mission is what brought my mother and I to the Farmer's Market at North Market on Saturday morning. It was really great to connect with the individuals that grow our food and it was a nice opportunity to mingle with other Columbus residents. Sunday dinner was inspired by our trip to the market. We bought a chicken that had been spatchcocked (a method of flattening it for grill-friendly cooking) and sealed in a vacuum bag with fresh lemons and rosemary. We also bought fresh shelled peas and a freshly baked loaf of garlic focaccia bread!
While the spatchcock method allows the chicken to grill evenly, it doesn't make it easy to grill chicken. This is a job that requires full attention and/or indirect heat. When the chicken sits atop active flames, it is bound to catch on fire. As I learned the semi-hard way, this is not a dish you can prepare while watching TV. Luckily I saw the grill smoking before the meal was ruined!

Freshly picked peas! You can't beat the flavor!

Rosendales Modern Bistro

2009-06-24T13:15:00.007-04:00

Rosendale's Modern Bistro

We went to eat at the new, informal rendition of Rosendale's on Father's Day. The Modern Bistro differs in that it is priced more modestly and that the food is more familiar. All in all, I think it was a good business decision, but the restaurant lost a little of what had previously made it so special. While the bistro food was great, I think that next time we will try the more glamorous upstairs. Honestly, with a chef as good as Richard Rosendale, I would rather go on a culinary adventure than play it safe. That said, kudos to the chef for making his food more accessible!

Ahi Tuna Tartare Tacos with Sesame Oil & Pickled Ginger

This appetizer was the favorite of both myself and my father. He thought that they were "uniquely delicious". These tacos were different than anything I have ever eaten! The presentation was sparse and modern allowing the food to speak for itself. Each ingredient was perfectly highlighted and they paired together wonderfully.

Ham and Melon Skewers with Reduced Sherry Vinegar Syrup

These were given to us as a treat from the chef in between our appetizers and entrees. The flavor of the watermelon was very intense; I suspect it had been prepared sous vide. Chef Rosendale advocated this method of concentrating flavors in a cooking class I had taken with him. The prosciutto was very good, but the watermelon is truly the star.

White Truffle Popcorn

The popcorn was Rob's favorite appetizer. Jack commented that "it was the best popcorn I have ever had, but that it is still just popcorn". I agree with Jack, the dish was good, but the truffle flavor could have come through more strongly. I thought the idea of finger food was difficult in a restaurant because my fingers got all greasy.

Baked Potato Poppers with Pesto Aioli and Crispy Prosciutto

This appetizer was Jack's favorite, but was thoroughly enjoyed by all of us. The basil pesto aioli was refreshing and delicious. It was a nice spin on a classic potato appetizer that is traditionally very heavy. The potatoes were small enough that served alone they would make a great amuse bouche. It was a very coherent mouthful.

Black Grouper with a Corn Tortilla Crust and Avocado Lime Sauce

On the new bistro menu at Rosendales, when you pick an entree the protein comes by itself in a ceramic dish. Sides are chosen a la carte and are big enough to share. Jack ordered this fish dish and thought that it was "exquisite" He reported that the avocado under the grouper complemented the other flavors of the dish perfectly. Rob ordered a ribeye steak and I ordered the half chicken in herb butter. Dad chose the 48-hour Osso Bucco.

Cowboy Fries w/ Rosemary Sea Salt

We decided that we needed to try the fries as one of our side dishes. You can't truly judge a place without trying the fries. These fries were crispy and delicious. The other sides that we ordered for the table were the onion rings, steamed asparagus, and french beans.

If you were wondering why the photos are all of a sudden so good, it is because I have hired my brother as our art director. Thanks Jack!

Family Affair

2009-06-20T16:28:00.003-04:00

One of the nicest things about growing up (and having my siblings grow up) is that we are able to have collaboratively prepared meals. It makes the whole cooking and eating experience so much more rewarding to have the family function as a culinary team. Hovering over the cutting board is a good place to learn from each other, both about food and about each others lives. This is one of the rare group activities that we all enjoy together.

For dinner we had a rack of lamb, roasted green beans and quartered new potatoes. We kept the seasonings pretty simple to highlight the delicious ingredients. I made an olive oil rub for the lamb with dried rosemary, fresh ground pepper, salt, and minced garlic. Rob carefully applied the mixture all over the lamb. The meat was then finished by our father aka they "jedi master" of the grill. It turned out deliciously, but next time he thinks he would put tin foil over the ribs and to stick with his instincts on the touch. Part of being the jedi master is to constantly be fine tuning your technique!

Jack's job was to cut the green beans. He treated each green bean as an individual, cutting them one by one into small pieces. These were roasted at 450 degrees topped with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Dad also took on the potatoes. He shook them in a bag with salt, pepper, rosemary, Italian seasoning, Cajun seasoning, and vegetable oil to get them evenly coated. These were then baked at 450 for a good 40 minutes until they were soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. It makes for a very texturally stimulating side dish!

We finished the meal off with some ice cream from Jeni's, a local Ohio chain that was recently written up by Bon Appetit magazine for having some of this country's best ice cream. Now I have some real Ohio pride! What I love about Jeni's is that they support a collection of local farmers for the cream and other ingredients. The flavors are inspired by seasonal ingredients and are unlike flavors found anywhere else. Dad had lemon blueberry yogurt, Rob had Salty Caramel, Jack had Lime Cardamom, and I had Wildberry Lavender. I plan to visit some of the dairies that serve Jeni's and post in more detail on the sustainable and delicious practices that they uphold.

Mulitpurpose Marinade

2009-06-14T23:09:00.005-04:00

After being in Honduras for the past 10 days, I was really excited to cook when I got home. My grandfather was coming to dinner and that was enough of an excuse to go slightly beyond the normal dinner at home. I served a seared tuna steak over brown rice with caramelized asparagus pieces. Since it was the first day back home, it was a very busy day so I took a nice shortcut. I made one huge batch of marinade and used it for the tuna and for the asparagus (with the addition of some orange flower honey!). The marinade was what really made the meal. I didn't measure, but I will estimate the best I can.

1 tbs brown sugar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup sesame oil
Salt and Pepper

Really not to complicated, but when you add that to the fire on the grill you get some delicious caramelization. Especially on the asparagus! Grilling veggies is a nice way to change things up!

His and Her Pizza on the Grill

2009-06-11T14:10:00.008-04:00

We have a long history of preparing pizza outdoors on the grill. This could possibly be related to Sarah J’s father’s obsession with pizza, a meal he would happily consume for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. You have to expand your pizza prep repertoire in order to eat so much pizza! Equally pertinent to this post is my quest to concoct a healthy pizza dough - hearty enough to support the massive amount of meat lovers man-pizza toppings favored by Andy the pizza connoisseur, yet pliable enough to satisfy the stretchy, glutinous demands of Andy the consummate dough crafter. I figure we can do better much than those premade dough offerings in the grocery deli or bakery case.

The June issue of Gourmet magazine includes a recipe for Pizza Rounds. I decided to go out on a limb and use the recipe as the foundation of our pizza on the grill while enjoying a respite in the Adirondack Mountains. But not exactly. I replaced the white flour completely with white whole wheat flour. I added a second round of rising, punching down the dough after the first rise to allow for additional lightening of the whole wheat dough and to avoid critical comments from the pie maker about the inferior qualities of whole wheat flour. Except I goofed and added half the amount of yeast called for in the Gourmet recipe – so perhaps the second rising would have been unnecessary.

All I know is the result was up there with the best pizza on the grill we have ever experienced! The crust was crispy, crackery, tasty. Held up well with lots of toppings! Makes me wonder whether we want to add that second package of yeast after all!!

About the His and Her aspect of this round of our continuous pizza improvement … we each added sliced tomatoes, freshly grated parmesan, sliced local mozzarella, kalamata olives and fresh basil and oregano from our garden atop our perfect crust. The His and Hers part came when I continued to layer my pizza with spinach (from our garden), caramelized onion, sliced mushrooms and local feta cheese. Meat man added pepperoni, salami, sausage, bacon and hot banana peppers.

Pizza Dough

1 c. (or more) warm water (105 – 115 degrees), divided

2 ¼ oz. packages active dry yeast

1 t. sugar

2 ½ c. white whole wheat flour (King Arthur)

½ c. rye flour

2 T. yellow cornmeal

1 ½ t. salt

2 T. EVOO

Place ¼ c. warm water in medium bowl. Sprinkle yeast and sugar over, blend. Let stand until puffed, about 6 minutes.

Mix both flours, cornmeal and salt in processor. Mix ¾ c. warm water and 2 T. EVOO into yeast. With machine running, gradually add yeast mixture to dry ingredients. Mix until dough just comes together, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if needed. Process 1 minute.

Transfer dough to lightly floured surface, knead 1 minute. Brush large bowl with oil, transfer dough to bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic, let dough rise in warm, draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Punch down and repeat for a second rising if desired.

Transfer dough to lightly floured surface; form into 2 balls. Roll/stretch each ball into desired shape.

Makes 2 pies.

Corned Beef Hash

2009-06-06T19:52:00.004-04:00

I am in Roatan, Honduras right now which is why there haven't been any posts in awhile. I did decide to put this post up though because I was so fascinated by some of the things I learned! Why was I researching corned beef while in paradise? It all started with a very corny comment that I made this morning. I really couldn't help myself. My mom was inspecting the hash we had gotten for breakfast and was pondering out loud whether it was corned beef hash or regular beef hash. Jack asked how one would know. I had to go for it...I announced that this was regular beef hash because there was no corn in it. Rob asked if I was stupid. Clearly I was not as clever as I thought.

Anyway this made me wonder what makes beef corned. I checked www.kitchenproject.com/history to find out more. This site is fabulous for answering all of those I wonder why questions. It turns out that the term corned comes from a preservation method of putting beef in a large crock and covering it with big kernels of rock salt known as "corns of salt". This particular method sources back to Ireland, but the practice of salting meat itself goes back to ancient times. Corned beef was served at the inaugural dinner of Abe Lincoln along with parsley potatoes, mock turtle soup and blackberry pie.

The hash part comes from the verb "to hash" which means to chop up. Any ingredients can go into a hash, but typically it comes from leftover corned or roast beef, onions and potatoes.

Anything Goes Granola

2009-06-01T09:55:00.011-04:00

The best part is the strawberry is from my own garden!

At the very same wedding this past weekend, we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast Saturday morning before our yoga class at the spa. (There's a lot to be said in favor of these "destination" type weddings!) The star of the show for me was the Manor's homemade granola. I'd been meaning to make some of our own ever since I encountered the recipe while reading Mark Bittman's Food Matters earlier this spring. (Highly recommended reading!!) Bittman's "Anything Goes Granola" is versatile and so simple to make that there's no excuse for having the expensive, sweet and fattening commercial varieties ever again!

Here's the recipe as I made it this morning, but remember, anything goes!!

6 c. rolled oats (I used Bob's Red Mill Extra Thick Whole Grain)

2 1/2 c. mixed nuts and seeds: walnuts, almonds (whole and slivered), cashews, sesame seeds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds
1 c. shredded unsweetened coconut
1 t. cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
1/3 c. honey
1/3 c. maple syrup
1 t. vanilla
salt
1 c. dried berries (mix of cranberry, blueberry and strawberry)
1/2 c. raisins (golden and regular)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl, combine oats, nuts, seeds, coconut, spices, honey, syrup and vanilla. Sprinkle with a little sale. Toss to combine well. Spread the mixture on a rimmed baking sheet and bake 30 minutes or a little longer, stirring every 10 minutes or so. I like dark, crunchier granola, so my batch cooked for closer to 40 minutes.

Remove pan from the oven and add dried fruits and raisins. Combine. Cool on rack until granola reaches room temperature.

Bittman says this will keep indefinitely if stored in the refrigerator in a sealed container but I question the need for indefinite storage as it will be long gone before it has any chance of going stale!!

Taste of a Weekend Wedding

2009-06-01T07:55:00.004-04:00

My cousin Chris got married this weekend to his longtime girlfriend Nora. The wedding was held in the picturesque Berkshire mountains. With the scene set so beautifully, everything else fell into place. From the flower arrangements to the dress, through the vows and the Hava Nagila it was a memorable weekend. Lots of memories were made and there are many things that could be chronicled. What I ended up focusing on (surprise, surprise!) was the food.

Having interviewed several family members, the weekends menu was deemed "good and thoughtful", "visually appealing", and "creative". The Friday night tapas dinner was really what won the couple the creativity points. The tapas really stood out. As Rhiannon said, " They could have done your stereotypical stuffed mushroom caps and what not, but they didn't - they went for unique and creative fare."

The Tapas included a tuna tartare, a fruit compote topped with Brie on a crostini, beef and caramalized onions on polenta circles and an aioli topped chickpea cake

Some of the favorite dishes from Friday night were the lemon squares, the chicken, the beef on polenta appetizer and the prime rib.

Friday Night's Dinner - Prime Rib, Paella, Salad, Vegetable Medley and Chicken

From Saturday the filets, the crabcakes, the shrimp with mango salsa, and the artichoke appetizers were big hits.

The Famous Shrimp Tower

The wedding cake was also especially memorable. Dorothy described it as "deadly" (in a good way) with lots of coconut and walnut. I really loved the icing.

Carrot cake with cream-cheese icing

With 2 fun-filled days and all the meals that came with it, I could write a small novel, but instead I am going to provide you with the visual experience. The food was really presented so nicely that this is the way to go!

Thanks to Dorothy for the photos!

Vodka Caviar

2009-05-28T12:36:00.004-04:00

Last week I decided to show some people the awesomeness that is alcoholic "caviar."

Now this is not some fish caviar, rather little liquid balls that are made with the help of two chemicals, sodium alginate and calcium chloride. For some reason when they react, they harden. when you drop a sodium alginate solution into a calcium chloride bath, you are left with balls that have a fish roe like shell on the outside, but remaining liquid on the inside.

To make it we took some vodka and added berry juice. In past attempts we found out that alcohol alone is too strong to allow the reaction to occur, so it needs to be diluted.

We then dissolved the sodium alginate in the mixture, and added calcium chloride to a second bowl filled with water. Unfortunately we were not sober enough to calculate the correct amounts of each chemical, and went with more of a guess and check method.

Here you can see the three bowls, the one on the left with vodka and sodium alginate, the one in front with the calium chloride solution, and the one in back with plain water to wash the balls after the process is complete. (calcium chloride doesn't taste so good)

In the end they turned out pretty delicious, though I think we added a bit to much sodium alginate because the vodka mixture was very thick.

Here's a video of the caviar creation in action - its also a great party trick!

If you want to try this on your own you can buy the necessary chemicals here
http://www.willpowder.net/products.html

Beef

2009-05-27T15:52:00.004-04:00

Somehow I had no finals this semester. It left me with a big empty week laying out in front of me. How did I respond? By taking field trips! I went to the dairy farm twice, to a creperie, planted a vegetable garden, and spent a day learning about butchery at Four Mile River Farm. I felt like it was my job as a responsible meat eater to understand where my meat was coming from and to really understand the link between live cows and filet mignon. In a world with meat presented on styrofoam trays topped in cellophane, it is easy to forget that meat is life. There is a huge disconnect between a cut and where it comes from on a cows anatomy. We rarely think about a live animal and our food source at the same time. In case you are curious, here is a chart detailing that information.

This separation does not exist at Four Mile River Farm. We arrived early in the morning and entered the chilled processing room. There a side of beef was hung by a hook and broken down into all of its various cuts. What really amazed me is the amount of artistry and acquired knowledge that go into the process. The lead butcher has been doing it for 50 years and he was like a ballerina with his knife moving swiftly and precisely. Now I understand why we pay more for meat produced on a small scale. No machine could duplicate the finesse with which this man worked.

The other amazing part was how much respect the crew had for the animal. These steer were raised on pasture by someone who knew them by name. This respect continued after the animal's life had been taken. No parts of the beast went to waste! The organs went into a premium dog food mix that was sold direct to buyers at the farm. Every last scrap of muscle was pulled from the bone to go into the twice-ground meat. I expected to leave the experience cringing into vegetarianism, but my time at four mile river farm really cemented my love for good meat. After witnessing the beef industry on a very personal small-scale level, I can't imagine buying meat in a cellophane package again. I do however look forward to meeting other local meat providers and getting to know them and their product well. This ended up being a very powerful experience.

Check out at www.fourmileriverfarm.com

Source 4 Cake: Proof I haven't done anything in 3 weeks

2009-05-18T14:34:00.006-04:00

Last week was finals, of which I had none, leaving me with basically nothing to do. So I decided to make a cake. Since the Valentines one turned out so well I decided that it was time to move up to the big leagues and find a significantly more difficult project. Anna, my cake decorating buddy from last time came over, and we decided to do a cake in the shape of a Source 4, a theater lighting instrument. Our plan was to make a full size replica in cake form.

To begin, we needed an actual light in order to get the dimensions for our project. Source 4's are around 2 feet tall, which we thought was somewhat unreasonable for a free standing cake, so we attached at PVC dowel to a piece of plywood to be the spine of our cake. The plywood was then covered in aluminum foil for sanitary reasons.

Next came the cakes. My estimate was that each cake would be 2-3 inches thick (WRONG!), requiring us to make 12 cakes. We used a basic yellow cake recipe, because we decided that strength was going to be much more important than flavor, though the cake did end up tasting good as well.

Here are our cakes. You may note that there were only 8- our plan was to cut the 9x13 cakes into smaller pieces for the thinner areas of the light. The next step was to flatten the tops of all our cakes, and start stacking. We carved it in sections of around 3 cakes at a time, and placed cardboard squares between every couple of layers for support. Between each layer we spread chocolate frosting- unfortunately not homemade.

We realized pretty quickly that the cakes were not actually 2 inches thick, and that we were not going to reach our goal of 2 feet. We also decided to keep the cake wider than the actual light because it was harder to carve than we had expected, and we didn't want to waste too much cake. Here is the cake will all of the layers.

The next step was to frost the cake to get it ready for fondant. Once again we used store bought frosting. Quick side note: not only did I have nothing to do last week, but I also had an unreasonable amount of meal points left, which is what allowed us to purchase all the ingredients we needed along with a Brita water pitcher and basically a lifetime supply filter replacements.

The frosting did not turn out that pretty, since it was only there as a glue for the fondant. We also removed the top two layers of cake since they were significantly smaller than the others and we thought it would be easier to put fondant on them separately.

Next came the biggest challenge- the fondant. We made our own with marshmallows because it is easier and cheaper than purchasing it. The recipe we used can be found here. We think our marshmallows were having some issues, because the fondant did not come out nearly as durable as it had for the valentines cake. The other major problem was that we needed to make it black. Doing a bit of research on the internet, I found out we either needed to buy black food coloring powder, prepared black fondant, or possibly add black icing to our fondant. Unfortunately, even after calling nearby bakeries, we were not able to find any of these ingredients and did not have time to order online.

Instead we decided to experiment with different mixtures of food coloring, all of which failed. We went with this greenish blue color because we thought we could possibly get the fondant darker on a large scale and then gave up partway through.

Here I am rolling out the fondant to place over the cake - note the color of my hands from all the food coloring experiment. The fondant was not nearly as sturdy as last time, and when we began to place it over the cake it started to fall apart, requiring us to do significant patching on the sides.

We then added on the top layers, also covered in fondant, and decorated the cake. The shutters were made from pieces of cardboard covered in aluminum foil and then fondant.

We even made a safety cable out of a necklace covered in fondant, and placed a C clamp on top for effect. (Had the cake actually been 2 feet tall then it would have gone all the way up to the clamp, but between the thinner cakes and the weight of the cakes and frosting we made it around 18 inches)

A tale of Mango-Ginger Scones

2009-05-17T11:33:00.004-04:00

Have you ever gotten to that point where too much of a good thing can be a stressful thing? The fruit and veggie co-op gave us mangoes two weeks in a row recently. I shouldn't complain. I really really love mangoes. Still, it was distressing when we had 3 mangoes going past their prime on the bottom of our fruit basket. I had decided days before that the mangoes would be perfect for some mango scones, and even went so far as to hunt for recipes. Somehow life got the better of me though, and I hadn't executed the plan.

Once upon a time, Avi and I were hanging out in our very messy kitchen wondering what to eat for breakfast. We made a deal. I would do the dishes and he would make mango scones. I had been thinking about them for too long to get a kick out of making them. Luckily eating them was still delicious. We used a crystallized form of ginger that added a sweet and tangy flavor to the scones. Yum, Yum Yum. Eating the scones was like living happily ever after.

p.s. Sarah liked them too!

Shawarma pie

2009-05-12T15:28:00.006-04:00

I was fortunate enough to dine with Avi and Julia yesterday evening, when we had a quite tasty shawarma pie. The pie was a simple yet effective way to use up left-over shawarma from a party on Saturday (catered by Aladdin in West Hartford).

Pie-master Avi included, along with the shawarma, sauteed green peppers, red onions and cherry tomatoes, as well as turkey broth (left over from an experiment with Turducken, so I'm told) and his first attempt at a full-fledged roux.

The result... delicious! (and quick - done in time to go see a great percussive dance show)

Lamb Burritos

2009-05-12T12:03:00.003-04:00

We had some leftover lamb chops which I was afraid were going to go bad, so I decided to cut the meat off them to make burritos.

I started by sauteing a red onion in some olive oil. I then added some cumin, chili powder and coriander, and threw in a red pepper and the lamb meat. We let it cook until the meat was brown throughout- they had been cooked to medium rare.

The burritos were constructed with some lettuce, the meat mixture, salsa, and some cheddar cheese.

Xiaoxi-Fest!

2009-05-12T08:44:00.003-04:00

Xiaoxi turned 22 on Cinco de Mayo, so we made a feast in her honor. X is from South Carolina and little bits of the south are endearingly part of her persona like the y'alls that slip out of her mouth and her appreciation for truly good food, even if the recipe calls for a bit of lard. This made for the most amazing birthday meal!

The Menu included: Five Cheese Macaroni

The secret to a really good macaroni is using an interesting blend of high-quality cheeses. This particular version included garlic cheddar, brie, plain cheddar, Parmesan, and Gruyere. Making the cheese sauce is very simple. Melt some butter in a saucepan (I think 4 tbs) and then put in a 1/2 cup of flour to make a roux. Allow the roux to cook a bit before stirring in about 2 cups of heavy cream. Once the cream got nice and hot, I dumped in the heavy cheeses and stirred. I seasoned the sauce with salt, pepper (ideally white pepper, but we didn't have any), and nutmeg. Nutmeg may seem a bit counterintuitive but it truly is the secret to amazing macaroni. Once the sauce is made, it is very simple. Just mix al dente pasta with the sauce and put in a baking pan. Right before baking top the dish with bread crumbs and little slivers of butter. We baked this for 20 minutes at 450 while covered with tinfoil and another 10 uncovered.

Collard Greens

Emily truly worked magic with these collards; they were delicious! The secret is hers though since I was too busy with other preparations to notice what went into them.

Pork Tenderloin

The pork tenderloin is only as good as the pork itself. No matter how skilled you are, you can not make bad pork sensational. Knowing this, I went to Stew Leonards with Grace and Olivia to get "Naked Pork" aka pasture raised pork with minimal processing. Olivia marinated the meat about 3 hours before cooking time. The tenderloins were cooked at 450 for about 20 minutes.
Red Velvet Roulade

There were many attributes that had to be combined to make the perfect cake for Xiaoxi...it couldn't involve frosting, it had to be texturally complex, and it had to stick with the southern theme. This led us to a delicious red velvet roulade with a white chocolate cream cheese filling. The filling had chunks of chocolate in it to help with the texture. Xiaoxi loved the cake even though she is violently attacking it in the above picture!

Pizza and Pet Therapy

2009-05-08T11:23:00.015-04:00

Diversionary tactics of some sort were called for in the midst of the tension and uncertainty that shrouded the locked-down Wesleyan campus the day after the shooting that took the life of a fellow student. Sarah J.’s father, Andy, renowned in our family as the “Camp Counselor,” announced he was arriving to provide the sorely needed diversion. As a man who would happily consume pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, Andy declared that our mission was to find the best pizza in Connecticut!

As we prepared for the mission, Sarah W. placed a quick call to a friend in the French Quarter, because doesn’t everyone call New Orleans to get the name of the best pizza joint in Connecticut??!! Sarah’s source is a Wesleyan alum, so he knows his pizza and declared that we should head to Frank Pepe’s in New Haven. Eight adults, a sizable body pillow (hey, we only had seven seats) and one large wet dog piled into our well loved mini-van and we stealthily drove off campus under overcast skies toward Rt. 91. Otherwise known as “R” “T” 91 by Nicole, Andy’s trusty GPS guide with the sultry Australian accent, who led us more or less directly to our destination. (Those narrow one way streets are a bit tricky in the Little Italy ethnic enclave of New Haven.)

As we parked (somewhat illegally?) in the lot for Sally’s Apizzeria, Avi’s eyes lit up and I could tell he was entertaining thoughts of dining at Sally’s instead. Apparently there’s a never ending debate over who makes the best pizza – Sally’s or Pepe’s – but our taste of Sally’s would have to wait for another day. As it turns out, Sally’s is open for dinner only so we trooped to the opposite end of Wooster Street to devour Frank Pepe’s legendary “tomato pies.” We were fortunate to walk right in and sit right down. No lines, no waiting, which is not typical of your usual Pepe’s experience. A sign of the economic times or just three o’clock on an overcast Thursday afternoon??

A word of caution: don’t go to Pepe’s if you think you’d enjoy a salad, bread, pasta or any conceivable dish other than pizza. Frank Pepe’s sells pizza. Period. But as Sarah J.’s Dad is fond of saying, “You’re good at what you do a lot,” and Pepe’s “tomato pies” are worth the trip!

Our waitress informed us that a large pie serves three to four. Our party of eight decided to play it safe and up the ante. We ordered three large pies – a white clam pie that is Pepe’s signature dish, a plain cheese pie for the pizza purists at the table, and a half veggie special (onion, spinach, broccoli, pepper, mushroom) with half meat overload (bacon, sausage, pepperoni, salami) for the ultimate contradictory mix on a single pie.

The people who devoured the pies (l to r): Avi, Maggie, Katherine, Andy, Sarah J., Emily, Sarah W. and Dorothy (the photographer and guest blogger).

My personal favorite was the white clam pie - just crust, olive oil, oregano, grated cheese, chopped garlic, and fresh clams. Turns out that the clams are shucked on the premises and they are as fresh as it gets. The crust was amazing! Crispy with blackened bits from the intense heat of the coal-fired oven, yet chewy and neither too thick nor too thin.

Running a close second in my book was the plain cheese pizza, which is ordinarily my pizza of choice. Other hungry diners in our cozy booth groaned in ecstasy as they devoured blisteringly hot slices weighed down with so many toppings that keeping them all on the crust prior to getting a bite into one’s mouth was a serious challenge. But sometimes you just have to let a little cheese slide and step right back into the ring!

In the end, our waitress knew her stuff and we walked out of Pepe’s with three boxes of leftover slices and a few cheesy crusts for Roxie, who was waiting patiently for us in the car. Perfect, actually, since everyone was able to go home with supper or a late night snack already prepared!

With very full bellies, our Camp Counselor declared it was time to carry out the pet therapy portion of our mission. Nicole guided us across town to the Yale campus, where we thought we would easily find a park to walk off some of our pizza coma and toss the Frisbee for Roxie. In the end, we didn’t locate the elusive park before the raindrops began to dominate the scene, but we did manage to provide Roxie with a romp and the opportunity to pee on the Yale campus!

Mission accomplished!

Kebabs and More

2009-05-04T23:34:00.006-04:00

Some of my friends from Boston came down for the weekend, and since it was nice outside we decided to grill. We were also planning on having dinner with another house leaving us with a mix of vegetarians, kosher meat eaters, and people who eat anything, and rather than make one item that would satisfy everyone, we ended up making a bunch of different things.

As an appetizer, we grilled some polenta slices with cheddar cheese

We then made veggie and chicken kebabs
the chicken was marinated in heavy cream, orange blossom water, sumac, chili powder and salt

Since the chicken wasn't kosher, we also threw on some hot dogs and veggie dogs

For dessert we made a cast iron skillet peach cobbler

We didn't really use a recipe; the peaches were mixed with brown sugar and lemon juice, and the topping was made with flour, vegetable shortening (to keep it non-dairy), brown sugar, salt and nutmeg

And the people who ate it

perfecting popovers

2009-05-03T21:22:00.006-04:00

The popovers Avi made for Sarah's birthday were so good and the recipe was so simple that I decided to try it myself. I made two batches for comps cafe (food for CSS sophomores, who are having the worst week ever), and discovered a few things that I thought I might share:
-like Avi, I found that the popovers needed significantly less time at 375 than 20 minutes. Both batches were at the peak of golden crispiness around 10 minutes, and our oven doesn't run hot. I think it's probably a good idea to start checking around 10 minutes.
-I ran out of flour for the second batch, and ended up with 1/4 cup less flour than the recipe called for. Interestingly, the second batch popped higher and had a fluffier texture. I want to experiment further to determine if less flour really does consistently produce a better popover, but as of right now it seems like a runnier batter might not be a bad idea.

Baking up a storm and working it off

2009-05-01T19:28:00.005-04:00

These are my favorite cookies. The recipe is here, but Becca and I decided that next time we would cut the sugar down to half a cup, because it was so so sweet. I could feel the cavities forming.
Matching shorts make going to the gym fun!

What we feed our pets

2009-05-01T19:13:00.004-04:00

It's about time this blog met Brunnhilde, our dinosaur. We made her for my opera, but now that the opera is done and she's retired, she just hangs out on the front porch. When the weather is nice we take her out for walks. She likes meeting new people, and enjoys the attention. And by that I mean we enjoy the attention.
Anyway, it's been so long since this dinner that I don't remember what we're eating in this picture anymore. I think it's this, but I'm not sure what this is:
Looks like cous cous and collards? Whatever it is, Brunnhilde enjoyed it.

Sarah's birthday

2009-05-01T18:46:00.010-04:00

For Sarah's birthday we woke her up with H&H bagels (Emily made a trip to New York and brought these back), baked her a cake in the shape of a jellyfish, and then cooked a celebratory dinner with her favorite foods. The cake recipe is from (where else?) the Smitten Kitchen, and we topped it with some homemade bubble candy that Emily made. The tentacles are made of bubble tape.

For Sarah's birthday dinner, the main course was lamb loin chops. I put them under the broiler for about four minutes on each side, and they turned out bleedingly rare, just the way Sarah likes them. I marinated them in olive oil, salt and pepper, minced garlic, cumin, coriander, and fresh chopped mint (all to taste) Somehow I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but here's the raw meat:
The best part of this whole dinner was that we ate it outside and played frisbee after dinner: Becca is now good enough to go pro. Finally, it's spring.

2009-04-29T03:39:00.003-04:00

The Food:
We broke in our new grill tonight. Below Xiaoxi reads while supervising the open flames.

The meal in its entirety included grilled corn, barbecue chicken , two bean salad, root vegetable fries and a garden salad.

Here is a close-up of the fries that David made. He used sweet potatoes, beets and potatoes to form an addictive blend.

Here is a close up of the two bean salad. To make it rinse a can a red beans and a can of cannellini beans (the juice in the can is very gaseous) and add them to a big bowl. To the beans add an herb of choice (we chose dill), 2 tablespoons of oil (we used 1 tbs. grapeseed and 1 tbs. olive) as well as some salt and pepper. This dish benefits from being made in advance and having the different components take on each other's flavor as you sit.

The People Who Ate It:

David Baranger enthusiastically munches on some grilled corn

Sam Schilit getting barbecue inspired bunny ears from Avi

Sarah and Avi model our new benches

Xiaoxi, Franni and Emily

fun with addition

2009-04-28T08:55:00.003-04:00

Last night my housemates and I had each invited someone over to cook dinner which meant that by about 7:00 our kitchen was full of 6 people preparing 3 separate meals. Sarah was making pasta. I was roasting veggies. Olivia was putting things together for a cold barley salad. Aliza was preparing to cook some tempeh. Avi and Emily hadn't even started and we had a storm of people chopping, sauteing and mixing. The counters and tables were littered with spices and Brussels sprout ends and dirty bowls and utensils. Things were kind of crazy, when someone had a brilliant idea - - we could combine all of our efforts into one meal for 6. All of the food got combined into 2 delicious dishes that didn't go together that well but were excellent on their own.
Dish # 1 - a barley/rice and veggie salad
What went in:
- Olivia made a base of tomatoes and artichoke hearts
- Olivia had also made some barley. We thought it was going to take too long to cook though so I also started some brown rice which was mixed in as well.
- I roasted some brussels sprouts and green beans
-I also picked some cilantro from our garden and mixed it in
- Avi made a delicious vinaigrette using grapeseed oil infused with orange, rice vinegar, a bit of mustard and some other mysterious ingredients. It was a delicious dressing and its too bad that we don't know exactly what went in it.
- This was all tossed together....yum!

Dish # 2 - Penne with tempeh and cranberries in a brie sauce
- Sarah made some penne
- Emily brought some red onion and chopped it up
- Aliza made Tempeh using the onion, some sherry, dried cranberries and some mysterious add-ins by Avi (Avi, you should comment on the post or edit if you can fill in any of these ingredients. I would love to duplicate this dish)
- Avi made a brie sauce. At the last minute we threw in some cranberries and curry powder.
- Once again this was all mixed together for another amazing dish!

We took our food outside and sat down as a merry group of six. What an excellent last minute dinner party!
-

LobstaFest 09

2009-04-27T21:37:00.005-04:00

Last night's meal had been months in the making. I had never had lobster before, and when I mentioned the idea everyone was really excited. Due to the price, and also our cooking adventurism, we decided that it would be fun to have a lobster boil. We wanted to wait till it got nice outside, which thankfully finally happened.

We went to go meet our lobsters at stop and shop a couple of hours before dinner time. I was a little bit freaked out, since I don't think I had ever seen the exact animal I was about to eat while it was still alive (except for some fish) and the idea that they needed to be cooked alive seemed a bit strange to me. The meat can't go bad that quickly, can it?

Anyway, we decided to go the steaming route, since a couple websites said the meat would come out tastier, and then we wouldn't have to wait as long for the water to boil. We kept the condiments pretty simple, some melted clarified butter and lemon wedges.

Lobsters coming out of the pot:

On the side we had some coleslaw and corn on the cob which is finally starting to be in season, Yay!

Here are the people who at them minus me:

and the remains of what we ate:

Yorkshire Pudding\ Popovers

2009-04-26T16:52:00.006-04:00

Sarah Jeffrey's birthday was last week, and to celebrate we made her many of her favorite foods.(hence the crack pretzel post before this) On the list was Yorkshire Pudding\Popovers, which I had never made before, nor realized were basically the same thing. I also have no idea why Yorkshire pudding is called a pudding. Its not liquidy like an American pudding, and its not even sweet. The word supposedly comes from the French Boudin- meaning small sausage, which I guess used to be placed inside of puddings in Medieval times. This makes sense in terms of Yorkshire pudding, but doesn't really explain how it came to be a term used for dessert as well.

Anyway..

I was excited to try to make it because on the British version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay often gets mad at people for their inability to make a good Yorkshire Pudding. I was therefore also nervous that the recipe would be more difficult than I had expected. They ended up being really easy to make, and delicious. The recipe we used was from Sarah's grandmother.

For 12 Yorkshire Puddings\popovers you'll need
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups milk - we used whole
3 eggs
around 1/2 tbsp salt
a little less than a stick of butter

Preheat your over to 450 degrees, and place the muffin tin in the oven. Mix together all of the batter ingredients- not the butter. Remove the muffin tin from the oven once hot, and generously coat the cups with melted butter. It will probably start bubbling. Immediately pour the batter in the cups, and place back in the oven for around 20 minutes, they should begin to puff up after a couple of minutes. After the 20 minutes are up, turn the oven down to 375, and leave in for another 20 minutes or until the puddings are fully cooked and golden brown. For us this ended up being significantly less that 20 minutes, but we think are oven temperate is usually 10-20 degrees hotter than what it says.

Eat immediately with butter, or jam, or whatever else you'd like.

You can see that our oven temperature problems also meant they got a bit overcooked on top.

Crack Pretzels

2009-04-26T16:40:00.004-04:00

Sarah receives random care packages from her family containing all different kinds of sweets and other foods. One of her (our) favorites are these pretzels which are seasoned in such a way that you can't eat less than a pound at a time. They're really easy to make, but be warned that they will disappear immediately.

Here's what you'll need:
1 lb unflavored pretzel nuggets (we used Snyder's brand)
1 package Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing (not dip!) mix
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tbsp dried dill weed
2/3 cup canola oil.

Preheat the over to 250 degrees. In a bowl, mix together the dressing mix, garlic powder, dill weed and oil. Pour in the pretzels, and stir until all the pretzels are evenly coated. Spread out the pretzels on a baking sheet, and stick in the oven for 15 minutes, mixing them around once halfway through baking time.

Burrito Night

2009-04-24T02:45:00.003-04:00

Inspired by the amazing bright yellow stuff on my scallops at Ibiza, and by the increasingly overripe mangoes from the veggie co-op a few weeks ago, I decided tonight was a good night to make mango salsa. Basically, if you give me a mango, I will either wait for it to get brown on the inside and throw it out, or I will make mango salsa with it. I don't really like mangoes plain-- when I was little I was convinced that mangoes had a fishy taste, and I've never really gotten over it-- and I am not creative enough to come up with other preparations. Besides, I think they taste best when paired with a little acid, and salsa is stupid easy.

So: mangoes cut up as best you can (slightly mangled is okay-- and unavoidable if you're me), red onion, cilantro (lots!), lime juice, and if you want, some peeled diced cucumber (I wouldn't have bothered with this addition except that we had a rapidly aging co-op cuke in the fridge that was looking pretty sad). Mush it up in a bowl and add some salt and pepper to taste so you can feel like you're actually cooking something.

Incidentally, today I learned that my camera's macro feature does not necessarily make all food look tastier:

Eww. Slimy.

The burritos themselves were not particularly interesting to photograph (picture a rolled up tortilla and you've got the idea), but contained white rice, black beans, some sauteed red onion, cheese, the salsa, hot sauce, guacamole, and sour cream. They went excellently with beer.

The only drawback is that I now find myself in a situation I encounter every time I use cilantro. I have at least half a bunch left and no idea what to do with it. I absolutely love cilantro, to the point where I'll sometimes snatch a few leaves at Weshop instead of stealing the bulk candy. But I can never ever use it up. Why can't you buy fresh herbs by the sprig? Any suggestions on how to avoid watching my lovely cilantro slowly wilt and go gross in the fridge?

simply delicious

2009-04-23T10:51:00.006-04:00

There were a lot of influences pushing me towards a simple homemade breakfast this morning. I had spent the day yesterday - which was incidentally earth day - hanging out at a farmers market. I also attended a discussion session with one of our vendors, a Wesleyan professor who teaches a class on the American Pastoral, and a senior who wrote her thesis on farmland preservation. Adding to all of that wholesomeness, I am also reading a book called "Real Food: What to Eat and Why" by Nina Planck. If that wasn't enough, Olivia gave me Alice Waters's "The Art of Simple Food" which I spent much of my morning perusing. Basically, it was like the world was convening to tell me to put time into making a delicious and wholesome breakfast. Luckily my Thursday mornings aren't that busy so I was able to follow the impulse....

Last night Avi and I prepared some olive oil bread dough. At Christmas I was given a book called "How to make Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day" and for awhile we were happily munching on fresh bread. When life got busy, we had fallen behind in our efforts so it was nice to get back to it. The first thing I did when I woke up was preheat the oven and shape a small roll out of the dough.
Next, I ventured outside to dead head my pansies and harvest some fresh parsley. I was so excited to use some of our herbs. I have been chomping at the bit to start using the herbs since I planted them, but all of the information I have read says to wait a week. I made it about 5 days before needing to do the harvest.

When I got back in, I put my roll into the oven and started on the eggs. I checked "The Art of Simple Food" to see what Alice had to say. Her most useful piece of advice was that you should barely mix the eggs because stirring them too much causes the eggs to lose body. I put two eggs, chopped parsley, salt, pepper and a bit of chevre into the bowl and mixed with restraint. When my pan was properly heated, I added a bit of butter and then the eggs. Since I didn't over mix, instead of homogenous yellow blobs, my eggs were very pretty. Some pieces were shiny and white, some were a vibrant yellow, and all shades in between were represented. The tang of the goat cheese and the brightness of the parsley made it an excellent dish.

By the time the eggs were done my bread had a crispy crust and was smelling delicious. You can't beat the smell of baking bread in the kitchen.

I cut the bread in half when it was still steaming and topped it with Farmer's market goodies. On one half I put blood orange marmalade and the other half was topped with maple butter.

La Ibiza

2009-04-21T20:26:00.007-04:00

Its restaurant week in New Haven, meaning that restaurants are offering special menus for cheap prices. Sounds good huh? That's what Avi and I thought when we saw a commercial for it on TV...we immediately turned off our program and whipped out our laptops to check out the website. After checking out all of the available menus we decided on La Ibiza which was described as "creative Spanish". What really swayed us was Mark Bittman's review in which he described La Ibiza was some of the best Spanish food he has had in the States. Here is what we had and what we thought of it.

The Atmosphere:
- You could tell it was a classy place from the table settings and the fact that they filled your water glass obsessively throughout the meal
- The waiters mumbled a bit and didn't make us feel special (although this could be the fact that we were college students!)
- The restaurant could use a bit more ambiance, it felt very sterile and antisepticish. That said, they could have been attempting the minimalist aesthetic and in that case they did pretty well.

Appetizers:

Raviolis de Cordero - braised baby lamb crispy raviolis, cauliflower foamy emulsion, black olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and a scallion vinaigrette

" The meat was very tender and cooked well" Avi

"I think it is less like ravioli and more like a sophisticated spring roll...they need to work on naming things" Xiaoxi

"I thought the dish was perfect. Simple enough for all of the flavors to sing, but presented in such a way that you felt very special for getting to eat it" Sarah

"The olives made the dish; the tanginess helped out so much" Avi

Vieras - Grilled sea scallops, corn flour cake, passion fruit-mango vinaigrette

"I was not a fan of the dish in terms of its texture, but the salsa was good. The scallops on top of the corn cake made the dish too mushy - two mushy things stacked o top of each other. That said, the salsa made it really good." Julia

" The polenta was good on its own; creamy, but firm enough to hold together" Avi

Entrees:

Costilla - Baby back ribs marinated with herbs and honey, smoked bacon potato puree, barbecue sauce aioli.

" They were yummy" Julia

"I really loved the sauce. There was something in that sauce that really made it" Xiaoxi

"The aioli was overpowering" Xiaoxi and Julia. To counter, I loved the aioli and thought it balanced the dish very well.

" The bacon in the potatoes made it a pork overload" Julia

" The potatoes wrapped in cabbage were fantastic" Xiaoxi

Salmon - Grilled Atlantic salmon, potato confit, sauteed spinach and pistachio vinaigrette

"The fish was cooked very well. It had a nice crust, but it was a little too done for my personal preference. I also thought the portion was too small" Avi

"The pistachio vinaigrette was really good, but the pistachio flavor should have been more pronounced. The potatoes were nothing special" Julia

"The dish really showed off the salmon" Avi

Dessert:
Crema Catalana - Traditional Catalan custard

This dish ended up looking and tasting a lot like a creme brulee, which none of us expected. We had assumed we were getting something like a flan.

Comparing it to our prior experiences with creme brulee influenced how we interpreted the dish.

" It tasted like an overcooked creme brulee" Xiaoxi

" The texture was weird, it was thicker than creme brulee and tasted a bit whipped" Avi

Since the experience we have done some research and it turns out that a Crema Catalana is different from creme brulee. The two countries (Spain and France) debate which version came first and inspired the other. The Spanish version is cooked on a stove top and is stirred throughout its cooking time and the French version is cooked in the oven. This is what lends to the difference in texture.

Torrija - Bread pudding, cinnamon ice cream, and coffee cream

"The bread was basically, little croutons that were a bit too crispy...the dish should have been more custardy" Julia

"The cinnamon ice cream was very good and refreshing. It was kind of icy and you could really taste the cinnamon" Julia

" They shouldn't have called the cinnamon ice cream ice cream. It was really more of a sorbet" Xiaoxi

" The coffee sauce was good. The pudding got better the longer it sat in it. The only problem was that it was too literal a coffee sauce. It needed another subtle flavor to complete and balance it" Avi

Overall we gave our experience a 3.5/5. The wine pairings and the appetizers were what bumped it up that extra half point from 3. The normal menu looks very intriguing. We wonder if it would have been better when it wasn't restaurant week.

Tacopalooza

2009-04-19T20:04:00.004-04:00

While browsing through Weshop, Emily and I decided that tacos would make a good summery dinner. We did them pretty basic: refried beans, tofu, roasted veggies (onions, red pepper and squash), shredded cheddar, medium salsa, avocado, and sour cream. It was so good and so easy - a perfect meal to eat on the porch at the end of a beautiful day.

Over the course of dinner, Emily commented that she tends to remake the same simple meal templates over and over without considering other basic template options. The standby that she, and I, and many of our friends go for is roasted veggies + protein + some interesting spice combo + a whole grain (usually brown rice). When we were eating our tacos we realized that it just a simple to prepare and that there infinite directions we could take it. There is no set taco template, but here are some basic components and how they might be varied. I am strapping in for Tacopalooza...now that I have thought of all the variations, I know I am going to be coming back for more!
Tortilla - flour, whole wheat, corn, or you could take a full departure and go for any sort of a wrap (or go without and mix up the fillers as a salad- although you then depart taco-dom)
Protein - chicken, beef, shrimp, fish, tofu, eggs, pork, turkey, beans...
Cheese - the sky is the limit!
Veggies - Ditto. What wouldn't taste good in a tortilla
Salsa - don't be limited by the classic tomato salsa. You can make peach salsa, mango salsa, and probably a whole lot of other salsas given a bit of creativity and enough time to avoid needing the canned convenience
Flavor - lime juice, cilantro and cumin OR ancho chile powder, garlic and salt OR coconut, lime, and cardamom...really there is no end to the possibilities

Happy taco-ing!
Sarah

Breakfast al Fresco

2009-04-19T12:16:00.006-04:00

Sometimes a picture speaks 1,000 words. I know no other way to convey how pleasant my breakfast was!

The food: Scrambled eggs, blueberry pancakes, coffee from our new french press and some farmer's market maple syrup.

The People: The legs in jeans belong to Ms. Worby and the bare foot is mine!

Thor also joined us. Spring is certainly a time to be outside!

Its Spring! Get Down and Dirty

2009-04-19T11:56:00.003-04:00

Like nice weather? Fresh food? The satisfaction of hands-on work? Its spring folks - time to start a garden. Being a perfectionist, I have held off of gardening for awhile because I didn't have enough space to do it right. This Friday though, I was driving around with my sunroof up and just loving spring when I passed a greenhouse. I impulsively turned in and got out. Today was the day I would start a garden, even if it had to be small.
Where does this interact with food? In a space no bigger than 2 square feet I was able to plant mint, sweet basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, parsley and cilantro. I filled the rest of the space with daises and pansies. Even better, it was easy just a few hours later (I had to dig up some grass to make the bed) I had an attractive garden and a massive sense of accomplishment.

Even better, we can now finish our dishes with some sun-warmed herbs - - the perfect way to celebrate spring!

milk and cereal

2009-04-17T08:34:00.005-04:00

This morning, for reasons unknown - even to me, I woke up wondering about the history of cereal. While cereal isn't my favorite breakfast, it is a reliably easy and satisfying start to a day. According to a 1995 poll done for Good Morning America, cereal is the most commonly eaten breakfast food in our country.
Among the most likely to eat cereal: women (35% choose it, compared to 27% of men who incidentally favor bacon and eggs), and people from the northeast (39% of people eat cereal here...it is much less popular in the south).
I researched cereal history for quite awhile this morning, but this set of youtube videos says it better than I ever could. Enjoy!

This first one is a visual history of cereal. The song is gets old, but it is very interesting to see all the old box designs!

The next video is an actual history of cereal. Pretty interesting...

and finally, an old Rice Krispies commercial that was too cute to leave out.

Final bit of trivia: the most popular cereal in 2008 was Cheerios. I am curious about whether this will hold true for our blog readers. Please leave a comment about which is your favorite cereal!

Beet and Shrimp Fritters

2009-04-14T22:50:00.003-04:00

Fritters are one of my favorite foods of all time because they're quick, fried, and can be made with almost any ingredients.

For these I used approximately:
1 cup chopped precooked shrimp (damn you Weshop!)
1 beet, washed, peeled and shredded
1/4 cup shredded cauliflower
3 eggs ( I wouldn't add this many if it wasn't Passover and I could use flour to bind then together)
1/4 cup matza meal (I'd usually use flour, but the matza meal ended up working pretty well)
1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste

This made seven decent sized fritters

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl, and let sit for 5 minutes. Take a small handful of the mixture and squeeze into a patty. If it doesn't easily stick together, add more matza meal ( or flour)

Heat around half an inch of oil in a pan. I recommend something like canola or peanut oil. Place one patty into the oil. Its always important to do a test patty when you're making up you're own recipe in order to make sure it sticks together. Assuming it does, add as many and can fit, and cook for around 5 minutes on each side. I don't usually check the temperature of the oil, but it should be hot enough to form a nice crust, but not burn the outside during the 5 minutes its submerged.

I made a dipping sauce out of mayo, mustard, and relish

Machu Picchu Matza Pizza Part 2

2009-04-12T13:04:00.008-04:00

One of my favorite and least favorite things about Passover is kosher for Passover (K for P) food made to resemble non-K for P food (things like K for P cake, matzaroni and cheese, potato egg noodles etc.). On the one hand, there are so many K for P options that don't pretend to be something they're not - and that we would happily eat during the rest of the year - that it seems unnecessary to make these often mediocre Passover substitutes. These foods also feel like a cop out. Sure, they're still kosher for passover, but the purpose of the laws forcing us to eat unleavened products (and limiting the cooking and preparing time for wheat) seems lost when we find ways to eat wheat-based cookies on Passover.

On the other hand, it's always fun to figure out new things to do with matza farfelle, matza meal, matza cake meal, and all those other things that are basically matza ground down to different degrees. Passover forces us to think and be more creative when we cook since our ingredient options are limited (especially for Ashkenazi Jews). Its also fun to see how versatile matza can be, and non-Jews always love seeing the crazy concoctions we come up with.

Last night for dinner I made one of my favorites - Matza Pizza. But not the take-a-slice-of-matza-and-slather-on-some-KforP-tomato-sauce-and-Mozzarella kind. I find this variety to be somewhat digusting.

To make this matza pizza, you'll need:
-around 12 sheets matza broken into pieces, or a big can or 2 of matza farfalle (the coarsest of the ground matzas)
-5 or 6 eggs
-tomato sauce ( please God not the prepackaged K for P stuff!!)
-vegetables
-cheese- preferably mozzarella, but during passover just use what you can get.
- olive oil
- salt and pepper

Take your ground matza and soak it it water for around 5 minutes. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Drain the matza, and add the eggs, along with a bit of salt and a dash of olive oil. Mix it all together; the matza should be completely covered in egg, but there should not be a lot of liquid pooling at the bottom of the bowl. Press the mixture into a greased baking sheet, pushing some up on the edges of the pan for a crust. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

Now, you may be asking yourself "what should I use for sauce since the K for P ones are so gross?" The answer is make your own!! Another thing that I like about Passover is that we learn how many prepackaged food products, even the ones that we would never expect have some kind chametz in them. This gives us a great oppotunity to make them from scratch. Not only will they taste better than the K for P varieties, but they'll probably be better than the stuff you have the rest of the year. So take a minute to go to allrecipes.com or a similar site and find yourself a tomato sauce recipe. They can be really simple, and who knows, maybe you'll be converted to making fresh sauces during the rest of the year as well.

After the crust has baked for ten minutes, drizzle a little olive oil on the crust, and put on your toppings. ( I usually precook my vegetables for a bit, but its up to you) Place the pizza back in the oven, and bake for another 10 minutes or so, until the cheese has melted and has started to brown.

And the ever popular close up shot

We also made this exact replica of Machu Picchu out of matza pizza with leftover batter

Here are the people who ate it

Read the previous entry for a more scholarly discussion of Machu Picchu Matza Pizza

EDIT: So for lunch yesterday I cut into the Machu Picchu Matza Pizza

Which kind of reminded me of this

- A cross section of skin under a microscope

Machu Picchu Matza Pizza (MPMP)

2009-04-11T19:27:00.005-04:00

Feelings On:
Sarah W - tomatoes, matza, mountainous, Christmas, cheese, tasty,

Aliza - Machu Pichu Matza Pizza
I wanna eat you, I wanna eat ya
Eggs as glue and tomatoes will feed ya
My belly is full don't you know that I need ya

Avi - The interesting thing about MPMP is kind of like a return to slavery as well as a departure from it because it is using matza which is what the Jews ate when they were leaving Egypt and slavery and they stopped building and we are using it to create more buildings (aka the matza machu picchu) Aliza comments: :"will the Master's tools ever dismantle the Master's house?" (Audrey Lorde) Josh: an ax is an ax, why does it matter. Sarah: if the metaphor doesn't work then you can't use it as a metaphor. Are the tools only useable by the master or can they be used by anyone. Hmmm....very sophisticated for a post-dinner conversation on Matza.

David - MPMP Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. For the Incan Jew at heart. It makes great art.

Kara: I think that the creation of a blog about MPMP as a dinnertime activity is the best thing about small schools.

Josh - A brilliant reimagining of a "traditional American" food. Yumzz.

Ruby - The truth that we were originally talking about doing a spinach pesto sauce which would have been grass on the mountains. When I saw Avi pour the tomato sauce go on to it I saw it as the blood of the people who were colonized.

Sarah - It was amazing how pizza-y this MPMP really was.

Shrimp and Gnocci and Spinach, Oh My!

2009-04-09T22:40:00.007-04:00

The People Who Ate It:

Every once in awhile I like to schedule one-on-ones with my friends so that we can put all the group dynamics aside and legitimately catch up. Tonight was my date with Grace! Unfortunately, the odds have been stacked against this meeting...we had already rescheduled once and then tonight we only had about an hour of mutual free time. Why are we all so busy? The answer to that question is far beyond the scope of this blog and will probably take years and years of therapy to get down to the bottom of. For now, lets just say that I am happy that my date with Grace worked out.

The Food:
Because of the aforementioned time crunch, we had a very quick dinner. It it is proof that the taste of a bunch of things thrown together is greater than the sum of their parts. The stuff that was thrown in were some prepackaged basil gnocci, shrimp, and a French variety of spinach that is a brilliant purple color. Grace dressed the whole thing up with a marinade made from honey, sumac, chili powder and some other things (Grace, if you see this you should add a clarifying comment to this post!) before we stuck the shrimp and spinach in a 450 degree oven together. Sure it would have been better if we had made the gnocci and all, but it was a perfect meal to catch up over.
We ended the meal with a marvelous chocolate cake that Grace made. More on that later.

Mismatched dinner, or why menu planning is extremely difficult for me

2009-04-09T21:19:00.009-04:00

Tonight, Kait turns 21. To celebrate, I made her Ina Garten's pumpkin roulade with ginger buttercream. Weshop didn't have mascarpone, so I substituted by mixing cream cheese, heavy cream, and butter. It's not going to fool anyone, but it's still pretty good. For dinner we made pizza margherita. The courses didn't exactly match... After dinner I briefly read Ina Garten's tips on menu planning "I don't have to think about it, I just know it will be delicious", and it dawned on me that we inhabit completely different taste-universes.
I was reared on a particular set of flavors that doesn't seem to apply to the food I cook now. A lot of cooks emphasize putting together dishes and flavors that go together (like lamb and mint, pork and apple), and I never understood what they meant. I think a lot of it has to do with cultural differences--because I didn't grow up eating lamb with mint, I never understood why people think lamb and mint match. In my mind, lamb and cumin is the more natural pairing. Same thing with pork and apple. When I think pork, I think cabbage. I love lamb and mint, and I really like pork and apple. However, a lot of people take those combinations for granted. Ina Garten says that certain foods just have a "natural affinity" for one another. I think she's just a little ethnocentric. Ina, it would be so much more useful if you could explain why you think certain foods just go togehter, instead of just telling me to do it intuitively. My intuition is completely different from yours. Afterall, this is the girl that wanted Jamaican beef patties with sushi for the reception after my opera, which was orchestrated for western instruments and gamelan, and featured a paper mache dinosaur painted like a De Kooning.

Anyway, I really liked the pumpkin roulade. Although the cream cheese really just made it into carrot cake with pumpkin. The only tricky part was inverting the cake from the pan, but I managed. It also doesn't look too professional, but I blame our lack of space (I assembled the cake on a chair because we didn't have counter space), and the fact that we don't have a fine sieve for confectioner's sugar.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar: An Investigation

2009-04-08T21:52:00.002-04:00

Awhile back, Xiaoxi and I had a little spat about this book, which apparently was not a part of her young life in China. A travesty, I say. She thinks otherwise. She thinks, in fact, that The Very Hungry Caterpillar is not a story. Her claim: All caterpillars are hungry. A caterpillar who eats through stuff and becomes a butterfly, therefore, is just a caterpillar, because that is what caterpillars do. In fact, she cried angrily, "That is NOT A STORY!"

This entry will not address the implications this might have for what defines a plot or what the necessary components of a story are. You can all decide that for yourself. My concern here is with just how hungry this caterpillar was. Was his hunger exceptional? Was he, in fact, very hungry, or was he simply doing what any old caterpillar would do to steel himself for two weeks of cocoon napping? (This entry also will not address the inaccuracy here: Eric Carle is aware of the fact that most caterpillars actually pupate in a chrysalis, not a cocoon. I refer you here for his explanations.)

According to my research, most caterpillars are herbivorous, and many chomp down only upon one species of plant. So yes, they eat leaves and not salami and ice cream, but how many leaves? Google (and Google Scholar) searches have yet to yield any helpful information regarding the quantity of food your average caterpillar consumes each day. I'm pretty disappointed, but apparently I have other work to do.

This begs another question, though: Should the book be retitled The Very Confused Caterpillar? Or The Caterpillar with an Exceptionally Sophisticated Palate? Come to think of it, the idea of a caterpillar eating salami is just weird. It makes me kind of uncomfortable. What is in salami anyway? A question for another day, I suppose.

So maybe Xiaoxi wins. Maybe this caterpillar, though his taste in food was rather strange considering his species, was not all that hungry. After all, as someone pointed out to me, he didn't eat EVERYTHING--he just ate HOLES in everything. He being so small and all. How does one even calculate the sustenance derived from a hole in an apple, a hole in an ice cream, a hole in a salami... clearly, the research I intended to do here was a bit over my head. I'm an English major, not a caterpillar expert, and I certainly don't have the time before graduation to follow a caterpillar around all day and see how much it eats.

Instead, I will leave you with three interesting and well-researched facts.*

1) The original title of the book was A Week With Willi Worm. Nothing to do with hunger! And also, probably, no plot.

2) The author was inspired by a hole puncher. He explains: "One day I was punching holes with a hole puncher into a stack of paper, and I thought of a bookworm and so I created a story called 'A Week with Willi the Worm'. Then my editor suggested a caterpillar instead and I said 'Butterfly!' That's how it began."

Aha! Maybe, then, all this hunger stuff is just a misread metaphor. The caterpillar is a bookworm! It's not really lollipops and Swiss cheese that he wants. He is hungry for Lit-tra-ture! That must be it.**

...and finally, and perhaps most importantly (though in no way related to the rest of the content of this post):
3) In 1999, the talented reader George W. Bush called the The Very Hungry Caterpillar one of his childhood favorites. Which is sweet, really, until you consider that he was 23 years old when the book came out. Who am I to judge? Far be it from me to determine when Mr. Bush's childhood ended, if ever it did.

And now we're all hungry and distraught, but full of food... for thought! HAH! Oh god I'm sorry. I'm going to go eat a hole and then crawl in it now.

*from the book's Wikipedia page, obviously
**I told you I'm an English major. Deal with it.

disney princess cake

2009-04-08T20:50:00.002-04:00

For Grace's birthday last year, Emily (the chef who does not blog so I do it for her) baked a turtle cake. It took us a while to figure out how to top that this year, but we finally decided on a princess cake in the shape of a castle. We started collecting ingredients weeks in advance: pink ice cream cones for the towers, pastry tips to make flowers, and princess figurines. The only problem was all the princess figurines we found at stores were ugly and expensive. So we resolved to make our own. Then a few days before the big project Emily started making flowers with decorator's frosting so that they would dry out and harden in time for assembly, and on Friday night (the eve of Grace's triumphant return to campus) we baked the cake. With all the components in place, we started working Saturday morning. It took us all day.

The cake was a simple birthday cake recipe we found on the Williams-Sonoma website, with a thick buttercream frosting (I don't like frosting normally, but I do like butter, and I liked this frosting. It was pretty much just creamed butter). Anyone can bake a cake, and the recipe was certainly not what made this cake exciting. As the Flemish used to say in the early-Rennaisance, "God is in the details."

Emily's flowers were made from a special crisco-based deocrater's frosting (not very good to eat, but better-tasting than the premade flower decorations at the store). This was the most difficult part of the whole process: we didn't have a pastry bag, and the tips that we got wouldn't stay put. We tried parchment/wax paper/ziploc, and nothing worked very well, but Emily perservered and came out with rather nice flowers in the end.

For the towers (the main architectural detail of this cake), we put a marshmallow inside a cone, smoothed out with frosting inside another cone, and stuck a princess cut-out through the marshmallow. I cut crenellations for the cone towers with an exacto knife. How are we ever going to top this?!?

p.s. This post was made by Xiaoxi, but when I changed its date, it made me the poster!

pros and cons of Ina Garten

2009-04-08T20:33:00.013-04:00

For dinner with Sarah tonight I made Ina Garten's French Apple Tart from Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. It turned out very well (more on that later).

Garten is one of the few Food Network chefs that I actually like (Rachel Ray is obnoxious, Alton Brown tries too hard, and Paula Deen is too peppy for comfort... though admittedly, they all have some great recipes). She has a relaxed style, and her recipes are all fantastic. She's really good at balancing flavors and creating food that's both subtle and powerful. Furthermore, while she appreciates and encourages simple food, she's not obsessed with speedy shortcuts the way so many cooking shows are. However, her philosophy and processes are just not very well suited to college, or, as a girl from rural South Carolina-- anyone else I know.

For example, 80% of her recipes call for some kind of expensive, exotic booze. In a section called "how to cook like a pro," Ina advises the novice cook to buy the best possible cookware, (like Le Creuset), and the best possible ingredients. For entertaining, Ina stresses the importance of making flower arrangements a day in advance, and ironing napkins. Ina doesn't trust oven dials -- she gets an oven thermometer to get the oven at the precise temperature. On her show, Ina doesn't break a sweat-- she has so many fancy appliances she barely chops or mixes anything by hand.

That's all nice and great, and don't get me wrong, I would like a set of Le Creuset cookware as much as the next girl, and good ingredients can certainly make all the difference, but a cheap pot in the hands of a good cook is a million times better than an idiot with a Kitchenaid. If someone asked me to make a list called "how to cook like a pro," being OCD about oven temperatures and buying expensive stuff are the last things I would think of.

Finally, the thing that bothers me the most about Ina is that she's extremely wasteful. When Ina makes biscuits, she cuts out biscuits from a large sheet of dough with a cookie cutter, and then she throws away the rest. Why not reassemble the scraps and re-cut with the cookie cutter? Good home cooks do this (I know for a fact that Deb at Smitten Kitchen does). If you're worried about the biscuits turning out a bit lumpy (which is just a cosmetic difference, it doesn't affect taste at all), just cut pieces with a knife and have square biscuits. Duh.

So yes, today I used an Ina Garten recipe, but I did it in our crappy oven with a crappy sheet pan and cheap rum instead of apple Calvados. Instead of using a food processor, I opted for easier cleanup and mixed the dough by hand in a bowl, which only took me two more minutes than if I'd used the Cuisinart. I also used raspberry preserves instead of apricot jelly, because that's what we had on hand. And after I cut the edges from the pastry, I stuck the remaining dough together and created a smaller, irregularly-shaped tart on the side (which didn't taste any different than the square ones). Most importantly: It was delicious!

Recipe Here.

A Celebratory Dinner

2009-04-08T20:17:00.003-04:00

The Food:
Xiaoxi did the most incredible senior thesis. She is a music major and she put on an opera for which she composed the music for the orchestra, wrote the lyrics, and acted as conductor/director. Needless to say, this project made her disappear for awhile so when it was finally over I proposed that we have a celebratory dinner. Xiaoxi and I like to eat meat together, so naturally that had to be part of the plan. On the menu tonight was a rack of lamb, roasted Brussels sprouts, and couscous. Xiaoxi made a delicious apple tart which rounded the feast out nicely.
The lamb was absolutely delicious. I covered the rack generously with pesto sauce which served to lock in moisture. Additionally, it became crispy as the lamb cooked which allowed for a very nice textural contrast. The lamb was roasted, along with some quartered sprouts in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Kiwi Flavored Greens?!?!?!?!!?

2009-04-08T20:04:00.003-04:00

Every other Wednesday, we have a farmers market at our school that is organized by my friends and me. It has been a very rewarding thing to get involved with as I have formed relationships with the vendors and learned a lot about what they do and what they grow. Today, Perry of Two Guys From Woodbridge (to check it out, go to our market's website at www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/wfm) had a full variety of hydroponic greens. As I was milling about and deciding what to buy, I saw that one of them was described as tasting like kiwi. I asked him if it could possibly be true, and he had me try a leaf. Blown away, I of course had to buy some. It turns out it is called Sorrell and Perry told me it is excellent in soups. So far, I have just munched on the leaves and shocked a lot of friends with it, but eventually I will try something more ambitious. To start with, however, I have done some research on sorrell...here is what I found.
- It is a native plant of Europe
- Many cultures view it as an herb more than as a vegetable
- It is very high in vitamins A & C; for this reason it was traditionally used to treat scurvy
- It was also used to quench thirst, to bring down fevers and as a diuretic
- The vegetable was very popular in meals of the court of Henry VIII
- It can be cooked like spinach, used in salads, mashed with vinegar and sugar to make a sauce, or put in soups...I was surprised to find a bunch of recipes online!
I read Animal Vegetable Miracle recently and learned that we only get some minute portion of the varieties of fruits and veggies through our commercial agriculture system. Each time I try something new - like sorrell- I realize what a shame this is. A good way to get around this is to shop at farmers markets, because vendors there tend to cultivate heirloom varieties of plants.

French Toast

2009-04-05T11:59:00.005-04:00

The Food:
There is no better way to round out a hectic week then with a moment of pause over some good food. For me, whether with friends or by myself, Sunday brunch is the perfect time to fill that role. Today I did dine solo, but that didn't mean simply cereal and milk.
My brunch included: a champagne mango and some orange French toast topped with blueberries and maple syrup. Everyone knows how to make French Toast, but I am going to include a few key factors that made mine go from standard breakfast fare to scrumptious!

- I used a day-old loaf of French bread and cut it in half longways so both pieces had some of the gooey insides and some crunchy crust
- For the soaking liquid I used local free-range eggs. These actually make a huge difference- the yolks are a deep orange and the flavor is more intense. I also included a splash of orange juice which gave the toast a more complex flavor.
- I also soaked the bread in the egg mixture for a good fifteen minutes which made it gooey and tender. Yum!

Also champagne (actually called ataulfo in the rest of the world - silly American marketers!) mangoes are a fruit worth mentioning. It is my favorite variety of mango and it is only available for a short time twice a year. I have decided to include some fun mango facts to hopefully inspire you to go out and try this or any other mango. What a nice way to break into spring!

- Contrary to what your supermarket may lead you to believe, there are over 1,000 varieties of mango
-The mango is in the same family as cashews, pistachios, poison ivy, poison oak, and the Jamaica plum
- The first record of mangoes dates back to the 5th century BC
- Mangoes have tenderizing properties which make them good for use in marinades
- More mangoes are eaten all over the world than any other fruit (although this seems pretty hard to confirm, I have found a few sources saying the same thing)
- In some areas of the U.S. (particularly those with a history of mining) the word mango traditionally refers to a stuffed green pepper rather than to the tropical fruit

Dinner according to Emily Post

2009-04-02T13:19:00.003-04:00

Olivia gave me the Emily Post on Entertaining: Answers to the most often asked questions about entertaining at home and in business because I often talk about what Emily would and wouldn't approve of. In the book she outlines 6 rules for a successful dinner party. I am going to share them with you here with some adaptations that make them relevant to college life!

1) "The guests should be congenial - a table full of people with nothing in common can make for strained silences or awkward conversation." This ends up being pretty good advice; if you plan on introducing strangers over your dinner table you should consider whether or not they will get along.
2) " A menu that is well planned and suited to your guests' tastes is another factor." Call me old fashioned, but I do like to ensure that my guests are served a balanced meal. This means that if we are doing it potluck style, I will ask one person to bring a veggie, another a starch side-dish, and a third a dessert to make sure the whole food pyramid is represented. Usually though, unless I am under extreme stress, I really like to plan the meal as a unit and just have people help with the cooking once they arrive.
3) "An attractive table creates a welcoming ambiance - with everything in perfect condition: linens pressed, silver polished, glassware sparkling." This is so not how we live, but I do like to have a table that is at least cleared off and set before the meal. Pressed linens, no way! But definitely a tablecloth or place mats. Polished, sparkling, who do you think we are? I can, however guarantee that each guest will at least get clean plates and silverware and if they ask nicely, even a clean water glass.
4) "A fourth requisite is that food is well prepared." I can't argue with Emily on that one!
5)"Fifth, and very important, are a gracious hostess and/or host who are welcoming and at the same time enjoy their guests." While a hostess's role is not considered so important these days, I do think it is important for guests to feel comfortable in your home - do make the extra effort.
6) "The last factor is that any servants be competent and pleasant." So this one is way outdated, but there is something to consider in it. Since there are no servants, someone is going to have to clean up after a meal, and if you let your guests slip away without helping, thats going to be you! Dinner parties cease to be fun, especially in our busy lives, if they leave a disaster behind so keep it simple, and have all the guests chip in to return things to a state of cleanliness.
For more from Ms. Post, please consider the following video!

A new take on an old favorite

2009-04-02T09:03:00.002-04:00

The Food:
On Tuesday night I enjoyed a Sarah Duo Dinner, where Ms. Weisbuch and I sat at the table together for a simple spaghetti feast. In the interest of keeping my palate engaged, I modified my portion by adding in some quartered roasted brussels sprouts and some crispy prosciutto before topping with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Lately, I have been a brussel sprout addict. They are a regularly stocked item at weshop and I end up having them at least once a week - yum! My favorite way to eat them is roasted. The outer leaves end up caramelized and crispy while the inside is nicely tender. To do this you just cut off the bottoms and halve or quarter the sprout. The sprouts then go on a baking sheet where they are tossed in olive oil and seasoned in some fashion. Popular seasonings in my kitchen include: salt and pepper, salt and cumin, a seasoning mix a bought a the farmer's market, or salt and garlic. Salt is definitely a theme - it does something marvelous to the brussel sprout.
Anyway, with a few mix-ins, my spaghetti was elevated from a simple meal to a gourmet feast. Magic!

Chicken Miso Soup with Orzo

2009-03-31T22:53:00.006-04:00

Here's a recipe for a quick and easy take on Miso soup that I made

For 2 people you'll need

1 celery stick, chopped
1 chopped zucchini
2 cloves garlic, pressed
2-3 heaping tablespoons Miso paste
about 1tsp chili paste depending on how spicy you like it (I used harissa)
about 1/2 lb orzo - cooked
3 scallions, chopped
a bit of fresh or dried basil
1-2 boneless skinless chicken breasts which have been pounded down and cubed
2-3 cups water (this is a complete guess)

* Besides for the celery, my vegetable choice was based mainly on what we had in the house and I'm sure lots of vegetables could be substituted or added, though they may change cooking time.

Saute the celery and garlic in a pot with some olive oil until the celery starts to soften. Add the zucchini and cook through. Add in the miso paste, water and chili paste and stir until they have dissolved. Once the water has begun to boil, turn down the heat slightly, and add the chicken, and a few minutes later the orzo, scallions and basil. Once the chicken is cooked through the soup is done. Salt and Pepper to taste.

This is not the most amazing soup ever, but its tasty and can be eaten as a complete meal.

A good start!

2009-03-30T14:48:00.002-04:00

I am a huge breakfast person! I mean, whats not to love...cereal, eggs, pancakes, waffles, bacon, fruit...all are excellent foods. This morning though, I had to expand my horizons because we were out of eggs, special K, or anything that would be toast-able. This left me with oatmeal. I am not usually a big oatmeal fan because the instant kind is mushy and too sweet. I was converted when I found the silver palate brand of oatmeal. Because it has thicker grains, it really has a nice texture to it. You do have to sacrifice the microwaveable convenience when you switch from the other kind, but trust me - its worth it!
This morning I put a big scoop of maple butter in the bottom of a saucepan and heated it up until it was a liquid. Then I added some chopped apples, and stirred them in the pan until they were deliciously caramelized. To this I added 1/3 cup of oatmeal, 1/3 a cup of raw milk, and 1/3 a cup of water. Once it came up to a boil, I put it down to a simmer and let it bubble away for about 8 minutes. During this time I was able to get dressed and packed for class - - who said cooking from scratch had to be a big drain on efficiency. This smelled so good (and time was ticking away) so I didn't manage to get a picture, but I did have a delicious breakfast and arrive to psych within plenty of time.

Sometimes everything you want to use up just happens to taste good togther

2009-03-28T21:20:00.007-04:00

So Aliza came over last Thursday for dinner right after we received our share from the fruit and veggie co-op. Sarah had also asked me earlier to try to start getting rid of our cheeses, because we had probably 12 different types of cheese in our fridge, and she was afraid some would go bad if we didn't start working on them. Earlier I had also decided that we needed to use nori sheets somehow in our dinner.

The thing that I had been most excited about from fruit and veggie was a leek. I don't know why, but I really wanted to find something interesting to do with it. We also got a big bag of apples, which I thought would go well with the cheese. The only protein we had in the house was a big chunk of tempeh; We decided to combine all of the ingredients into one dish.

We sauteed the leek until soft, and then mixed it in a bowl with ground up tempeh, a mix of 4 different kinds of goat and cow's milk cheeses, and chopped apples with a bit of salt, pepper, and smoked paprika.

This was all put together in a pan with some milk and 2 eggs, in order to make some kind of crustless tart. We shredded and fried the nori and stuck it on top.

It was pretty good, though some of the goats milk cheeses were a bit too smelly for my taste

Pita bread

2009-03-25T09:20:00.008-04:00

Emily and I were back a little early during break, which gave us some time to make pita bread. That's right... we came back early from spring break just to make pita. Ok just kidding. Almost.

Anyway, last semester (our pre-blogging days) Emily and Avi made pita but the dough didn't pouf the way it was supposed to, and it wasn't very flavorful. It wasn't until this post on Smitten Kitchen that we decided we gave up too early.

We made the dough and let it sit in the fridge for two days before baking it, which gave the dough some depth, but I think next time I will reduce the fridge time to 1 day, instead of two. It was just a little too yeasty for my taste. More importantly, the technique of wetting the dough a few minutes before popping it into the oven worked-- the pitas puffed and made nice pockets.

Then Emily made her fabulous hummus recipe, and the world was at peace.

Paella Risotto and Turkey Empanadas

2009-03-24T23:44:00.004-04:00

Tonight we had a pretty large group for dinner, so we decided to go with something quick and easy- risotto. It ended up not being as quick as we thought.

We decided to make a paella inspired risotto since we were looking to incorporate shrimp, one of the few meat options that was acceptable to everyone coming.

To make it we first heated some oil in a pot with saffron, chili powder, paprika, onion and garlic and added Arborio rice to get it lightly toasted. We then slowly added watered down vegetable broth eventually with some peas, cherry tomatoes and the shrimp (unfortunately only precooked is available at Weshop), until all the broth had been added and the rice became soft and gooey. The box told us that this would take around 15 minutes total, which we knew was a lie. What we didn't expect is that it would actually take around an hour.

As an appetizer Xiaoxi made some turkey empanadas, and for dessert we began to work on the Zgougou I made last night. But there's plenty left, so its not too late and come have some for yourself!

Zgougougougougou

2009-03-24T23:04:00.007-04:00

Around midnight last night I decided it was finally time to make my zgougou. Zgougou is a Tunisian pudding made with black Aleppo pine seeds. It is usually eaten on Mouled, the prophet Mohammed's birthday. Unfortunately this year Mouled fell during spring break, and I left the Zgougou at school so we had to celebrate a bit late. I had never made it before, and the instructions were all in French and Arabic, but it somehow turned out similar to how I remembered it in Tunisia. Usually people put ground almonds or pistachios on top with lots of pretty decorative chocolates and stuff; I used grated coconut and pine nuts since that what we had lying around at 1 in the morning.

I bough the seeds preground and packaged in Tunisia, and the box I had ended up making over half a gallon of pudding. So come over and eat some!

Doing a little bit of research I found out that there are Aleppo pine trees in California, however I have no idea if it is possible to buy the seeds. If you find them, send me an email, or better yet, the seeds themselves. I can also give you a recipe.

Here's a picture of them so keep your eyes peeled:

And here's a picture of a kitten named Gigi that my friend found on the streets of Tunisia and brought home. (not to the US) For some reason her picture popped up on google images when I searched for "zgougou seed"

Schnitzel Time

2009-03-23T22:36:00.004-04:00

So we're back from spring break. Sorry I haven't been posting. I got my wisdom teeth out and have been eating different forms of vegetable mush and ice cream.
I also learned that not everything can be put in a blender with a bit of liquid; my fake meat and spinach stir fry smoothie didn't turn turn out so well.

I can eat more solid food now, and for our first dinner back we made some schnitzel.

To make it we took boneless skinless chicken breasts and beat them (with our fists) until they were somewhat flat.
We then dipped them in egg, and coated them in a mixture of (proportions are really not exact. I don't know if I would even trust this at all)
1/2 cup corn meal
1 tsp chili powder
a large pinch of salt
a pinch of pepper
and 1 tsp sumac - I went on a field trip to Formaggio in Cambridge (which by the way is the best store ever- they have their own cheese cave!) with a friend and went through their spices smelling the ones I had never heard of. Sumac kinda has a woody citrus flavor

We then pan fried them for around 3-5 minutes on each side.

On the side we had creamy orzo cooked with parm and butter, and roasted brussel sprouts.

Macaroni a la Fondue and some grilled stuff

2009-03-20T16:51:00.005-04:00

The Food:
Tonight we had a very simple dinner that was much like the ones we used to eat when we all lived at home. The only twist is that this was the culinary adventurous version because me and my brothers can't seem to get enough of cooking. Instead of Annie's, we made homemade macaroni that was inspired by the classic ingredients of Swiss Fondue. In lieu of steaming, we grilled the asparagus to ensure a nice caramelization on the outside. For the flat iron steak, we stayed simple. I am always a no-frills person when it comes to meat. Rob brushed it with a bit olive oil , and then sprinkled it with a red pepper blend. It was absolutely delicious!
The fondue macaroni was something I improvised on the spot, loosely based on a couple of recipes from the food network website. It ended up being very good, something I would definitely do again. Here is the recipe, in case you want to try it.
1) Cook whatever shape pasta you want (I used elbow) according to the package directions. I used a full pound box - I was feeling hungry and you can't beat macaroni leftovers.
2) While the pasta cooks, heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a medium saucepan, over medium heat. When it is nice and warm, I put in about a handful of flour to form a roux. At this stage, constant whisking is imperative! Stir the roux around to allow the taste of the flour to mellow out while keeping it from burning. I did this for about 2 minutes.
3) Start stirring in little bits of milk at a time. I used whole, raw milk, but I suppose that other types would do the trick. To get the richness that made the dish so good, I would hesitate to use a milk that wasn't at least 2% milk fat. I didn't do any measuring, but I thinned it out until it was about the consistency of cake batter. To this I added a half a cup of chardonnay.

4) Into this went the grated cheese. I did about 6 ounces of Gruyere, 4 ounces of sharp cheddar, and 2 ounces of freshly grated Parmesan. Stir until melted, adding more liquid if it seems too thick. Then season with nutmeg (freshly ground if possible), lemon zest, white pepper, salt and ground mustard. I didn't measure, so go forth and experiment to taste!
5) When the pasta is done, drain it and put it into a greased casserole dish. Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta and mix it in well. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top (we had the bottom of a bag of potato chips left so those also got crumbled and put on top - it added a nice saltiness) and then drizzle with a bit of melted butter.
6) Put under the broiler and cook until the top is crispy and browned.

The Creatures that wished they ate it:
Marley, Misty, and in front, Ziggy!

Brownies Gone Neon

2009-03-17T21:35:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, Rachel and I decided to make brownies for our friend Bill from scratch. This was a challenge both logistically (we are spazzes) and emotionally (I've given up sweets for Lent). Nonetheless, we prevailed--despite a fateful vanilla miscalculation that I'll just describe as that classic "oh...a TEAspoon" scenario.

The Food:

We used a recipe from epicurious.com (originally from Gourmet). It involved:

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs

We didn't have brown sugar, or unsweetened chocolate, but we substituted regular granulated sugar and sweetened chocolate. Unfortunately, I can't really tell you if these substitutions worked or not, since I never actually tried the brownies. Anyway, we preheated the oven to 350°F, then stirred and melted the chocolate and butter over low heat on the stove. After letting the mixture cool a bit, we stirred in the (not brown) sugar, (too much) vanilla, and eggs--then beat the mixture until it was smooth. Finally, we stirred in the flour, spread the stuff in a pan, and put it into the oven for 30 min.
We decorated the brownies using frosting (let's pretend it was homemade)--in a ziploc bag, mixed with food coloring. I'm still not sure why we felt the need to spell out "BILL," but I'm pretty pleased that it happened.

And The People Who Ate It (Rachel and Bill):

The People Who Could Only Inhale the Brownie Odors Longingly (Me):

If anyone could take 3+ hours to produce a decent batch of brownies, it's me and Rachel. We were exhausted and Bill was surprised, so all in all, we felt pretty accomplished!

Around the Family Table

2009-03-17T20:52:00.005-04:00

The Food:
It is so nice to be back home again! There is nothing like family, good food, and little black puppy dog noses sticking their noses up from under the table hoping for scraps. We aren't supposed to feed them, but how can you resist. I love to feed the dogs, especially Misty who takes things so gently on the tip of her tongue. Marley is much riskier to feed if you value your fingers....Anyway, I digress.
On the menu tonight was spaetzle, salmon, and caramelized leeks. It was a very springy meal to complement the nice weather we have had here. The salmon was cooked rubbed in a mixture of olive oil and soy sauce and then sprinkled with salt and pepper before it was placed on the grill. The leeks were so good, that I will include the recipe below. It is loosely based on a recipe from last year's march issue of Cooking Light, but I ended up changing it up a whole lot.

1) Take two leeks and cut off the roots and the dark green leaves. Then cut it in half longways so that you can properly rinse the grit out from between the layers. Then you cut 1/4 inch strips down the stalk to create a nice julienne.
2) Melt 1.5 tbs of butter in a deep skillet on medium heat. When it is melted, add about 1/2 tbs of olive oil.
3) Add leeks and let cook for about 3 minutes or until slightly wilted
4) Add a quarter cup of dry white wine (I used a Smoking Loon Chardonnay!) and let cook a few more minutes
5) Add two tablespoons of brown sugar, 1 tsp salt (really to taste), and some pepper
6) Turn down heat and let continue to cook until the leeks begin to brown slightly

The People Who Ate It (Hooray, I finally remembered to take a picture!):
From the left: Brother Rob (19), Brother Jack (15), Mom Lisa, Grandmother Gene, and the dog is Blue who belongs to my grandparents. My dogs are suspiciously absent which is strange considering that there is food on the table!

Vietnamese crab noodle soup

2009-03-15T21:17:00.005-04:00

This is from the dinner I hosted at my house a while ago for the Vietnamese student group on campus. The dishes were (from the top left): veggie skewers, fried tofu, crab noodle soup, rice, salsa chicken, bacon wrapped asparagus and fried meatballs.

The only thing that was truly Vietnamese was the "bun rieu cua" (crab noodle soup). I was quite proud of it because it turned out almost like the real thing I get back home.

That's me putting mashed tomatoes into the soup. The white thing in the other pot is rice vermicelli.

And the people who ate:

spring break thank you, part II

2009-03-15T11:56:00.003-04:00

We made dinner for Becca's mom, for letting us stay with her and for driving us to the airport. Becca's mom is a big fan of Southwestern cuisine, so we made a polenta gratin with roasted poblanos and ancho puree, and grilled salmon with a tequila-lime spice rub. The polenta misbehaved in the beginning (the grain was too fine and got lumpy), but Becca beat it into submission.
We also made pecan butter, which is just pecans in a food-processor. Pecan butter on apple slices is my new favorite snack.

spring break thank-you gift, and a muffin debate

2009-03-15T11:41:00.005-04:00

We baked whole wheat apple muffins for Becca's dad, who was kind enough to let us crash at his beachfront condo in Florida for four days. They turned out great, but the brown sugar topping was a little... eh. I would have made a streusel topping, but Becca and Emily thought that chopped nuts would have been a better idea. Something about preserving the "integrity of the muffin." I don't get it. I think integrity is preserved in a muffin when the muffin is delicious. Not that chopped nuts aren't great, I like chopped nuts a lot and I would happily add nuts to this recipe, as long as it's with streusel.

More Florida, More Feasting

2009-03-11T22:23:00.007-04:00

It was another gorgeous day in Florida. I spent the day shelling, reading, napping, and soaking up some much needed sun. There is nothing like sunshine and salt air for the appetite though. Come dinner time, I was ravenous, and luckily I was in for another lovely meal.
Tonights menu was lamb shanks, a white bean side, sugar snap peas and a pear, gorgonzola and walnut salad.

The salad was truly divine! This salad is one of G-pa's favorites so it always reminds me of time spent with my grandparents. It has such a perfect combination of ingredients!

The lamb shanks were also a real treat! I quizzed my grandmother on her method so that we can avoid another night of disasters. She enjoys lamb shanks because they are quite economical. The real trick is to sear them before baking them in order to get a crispy caramelized outer coating. An added bonus is that this cooks off a lot of the tough outer fat. She reccomends baking them at 350 for 45 minutes (or more to increase the tenderness factor!) and then at 400 for 15 minutes. They are delicious atop the white beans (a recipe invented by G-ma herself), but she also says they are good on brown rice.

And for the recipe de jour, here is how to make those beans!
1) Add 1 chopped sweet onion, 3 cloves worth of minced garlic, and 1/2 cup of chopped carrots to a pan in which oil (or ideally some of the fat used for searing the lamb) has been heating
2) Cover the pan and cook over low heat until the vegetables are softened. You may want to add a bit of chicken broth to aid this process. Periodically scrape the browning off the bottom of the pan.
3) Rinse and drain 2 cans (15.8 oz) of Great Northern bean and add them to the pan. Also add a can of diced tomatos (G-ma prefers Del Monte's blend with garlic in it). Next add 1-2 cups of chicken broth, half the juice from the diced tomatoes, salt, pepper and dried thyme (2 tsp).
4) Put bean mix in a 5 x 10 baking dish. In G-ma's original recipe this was to go with lamb shanks (and this is how we ate it tonight), if you are going for this version arrange the lamb shanks on top.
5) Poke a few bay leaves down into the beans. Check the moisture level, you don't want the beans to be swimming but they should be moist enough to avoid drying out. Cook at 350 for 45 minutes and then at 400 for 15 minutes until beans are creamy and tender!

A Floridian Feast

2009-03-11T08:50:00.007-04:00

The Food:
Yesterday, Olivia and I were lucky enough to leave behind the dreary New England winter to go to Captiva, Florida with my grandparents. After a very restful afternoon reading and napping on the beach, we were treated to a delicious G-ma supper. Right before dinner we had a sunset that looked almost good enough to eat!

The highlight of the meal was the fresh, local snapper. Apparently there is a technique to making fish come out so tender and moist. G-ma says that you have to cook the fish "very gently". First she coats it with a very thin layer of mayonnaise - the thin part is key, you are to apply it "like you apply cold creme to your face". This is then topped with salt, pepper and lime juice and popped in a 475 degree oven for about 7 minutes. A handy G-ma trick is that you know it is done when it feels like the fleshy part of your forearm, if you let it get to the point that it feels like your wrist you are up a creek without a paddle. When the fish starts to feel done, you turn on the broiler for about 30 seconds to give it a nice top. To top the fish off, G-ma cut up some grapefruit and orange and put it in the microwave for about 30 seconds to take the chill off. What a treat!

This was accompanied by a delicious sweet potato, apricot, and cranberry casserole. We will be very happy to have this recipe next time the fruit and veggie co-op gives us sweet potatoes.
1) Combine 1/2 cup water, 1 2/3 cups chopped dried apricots, 3/4 cups craisins, and a 12 oz. can of apricot nectar in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand, covered, for 20 minutes. Drain the mixture over a bowl, reserving both the fruit and the cooking liquid.
2) Combine sweet potato (about 4 pounds, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick) and 1/4 cup of water in a 3-quart casserole dish. Cover with the lid and microwave on high for 18 minutes, stirring about halfway through. Drain well and set aside.
3) Preheat oven to 350 degrees
4) Arrange half of the sweet potatoes in a casserole coated with cooking spray; top with half of the apricot mixture and 1/4 cup of sugar. Repeat procedure with remaining sweet potato, apricot mixture and 1/4 cup of sugar. Pour reserved cooking liquid over the casserole. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

The meal was rounded out by some nice broccoli.

The People Who Ate It:
We were all too eager to dig in to take a picture, but the meal was enjoyed by Olivia, G-ma, G-Pa, my Aunt Betsy, and me!

Curr-tastic

2009-03-09T21:25:00.003-04:00

Another stunning curry happened tonight. I think this might be the best one yet, so I am going to try to make up some sort of a recipe so that we can recapture what happened.

1) Lots of chopping. I chopped up some Tofu Lin, a green pepper, cabbage, and two cloves of garlic
2) Some oil goes into a wok. In go all of the above. They sizzle around for a bit and then in goes a can's worth of chickpeas.
3) Some more sizzling. Then about 4/5's a can of coconut milk is added. After that I added some Tumeric, Cumin, Cardamom, Salt, Chili Powder, and a spice blend from a lady who sells stuff at the Farmer's market (basically a curry powder with some cinnamon in it).
4) Finally I added about a tablespoon of red curry paste and about 1/3 a cup of tomato paste.
5) This hung out on the stove at a simmer for like 20 minutes as we waited on rice and asparagus.

YUM!
p.s. We keep forgetting the people who ate it pictures, but I can at least give you an answer. This meal was enjoyed by me, Sarah W. and Olivia on the night before Olivia and I leave for Florida.

Flashback - Election Night

2009-03-09T21:18:00.005-04:00

At this point, probably all we remember about election night was the glory of Obama winning (or the sadness at McCain's loss depending on your affiliations). I want to bring your attention back to another glorious happening that occurred that same day - our interactive election map cake!

Sure the state lines weren't too accurate and there were maybe even a few extra states in there, but it was still pretty impressive if I do say so myself. We frosted as we eagerly awaited the returns and then were able to celebrate with a deliciously colorful cake.

A quick refueling

2009-03-07T12:21:00.005-05:00

This is Dancemasters Weekend at Wesleyan, a time when various choreographers and dancers come from across the country to perform and to teach master classes. I have just come home from a class with Carla Maxwell, one of the principle dancers with the Limon Dance Company. The class was pretty vigorous and I have returned dripping in sweat and craving a good nap. Unfortunately I am on a pretty packed schedule and soon have to turn around to go to Robert Battle's class. I am beat, but since he is the founder of the amazing company, battleworks, I could hardly skip it. So I found myself needing a refuel...and FAST!
I was ravenously hungry so I knew it had to be carby, but I also needed a heavy dose of protein to sustain me through the afternoon. Peeking in the fridge, I saw we had no quick and easy meat so I started thinking peanut butter. The final dish was highly experimental. It sounds pretty gross and isn't terribly easy on the eye (although the picture doesn't capture the warm curry color - it didn't actually match the table!), but it was absolutely delicious.

First I put some couscous (leftover from the night of disasters - see earlier post) in a saucepan and added a bit of milk. When it was nice and hot I put in about a tablespoon and a half of crunchy peanut butter. Thinking of thai food as inspiration, I added a few liberal shakes of curry powder. Upon tasting, it was missing some tangy-ness. I peeked into the fridge, hoping for sour cream, but only found cottage cheese. I decided to give it a go, so in went the cottage cheese. As it heated up those awkward lumps melted down, and the dish came together nicely. Now I am feeling ready to return to the dance floor! Hooray for experimentation!

Ricotta Gnocchi with Cabbage Sauce

2009-03-06T14:39:00.007-05:00

I have always been a big gnocchi fan, but around two years ago I stumbled upon this recipe for Lemon Ricotta Gnocchi and it changed my life:

http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2007/07/09/pan-fried-lemon-ricotta-gnocchi

Before then I thought that all gnocchi was made with a potato or other vegetable base. The great thing about ricotta gnocchi is that there's no vegetable to cook and mash first. Also I find them much harder to mess up. My potato ones always come out doughier than I would like.

I've stopped measuring when I make them, but here is an approximate recipe. The recipe in the link above is a delicious lemony alternative.

1lb whole milk ricotta
2 egg yolks
1/2 parmesan cheese
1-1 1/2 cups flour - the dough should be somewhat firm and dense, but still a bit sticky
a big pinch of salt

Mix everything together is a big bowl, and then make long logs of dough around 3/4 an in in diameter. Now you have a choice, The link above suggests immediately cutting them up and pan frying them in butter. I have also found recipes that call for putting them in boiling water. The third option, which is what I used today, is to do both. I wrapped the logs individually in plastic wrap, and put them in a pot of boiling water for around 7 or 8 minutes. Afterwards, I took them out of the plastic wrap, chopped them into little cubes and seared them. I find the advantage of this technique is that they get crispy on the outside, but you don't need to leave them in the oil or butter for too long to cook and so they're a bit less greasy. No technique is better than the other, its all about what you're in the mood for. I think for the picture behind the title of the blog I skipped boiling and just sauteed them in butter.

I wanted a somewhat lighter sauce, so I took half of a cabbage which we have been trying to get rid of and boiled it till soft with some salt and garlic. I then took out the water, and pureed it with a bit of milk, salt, pepper, basil and garlic powder.

Unfortunately I forgot the people who ate it picture.

Night of disasters

2009-03-05T20:07:00.005-05:00

There's this Herb Khoresh recipe with lamb shanks form the New York Times that I've been eyeing for months, and I finally found the time and the lamb shanks to do it... but ultimately it was disappointing. I didn't have dried Persian limes, so I did some research and some websites said that it would be ok if I substituted regular limes. Bad idea. Bad bad bad bad bad idea. It made the braise bitter and limey, in a really bad way. I called Avi in a panic and he suggested making a sauce from the braising liquid by adding some wine and tomato paste. Apparently I neglected to tell Avi/he didn't hear me say that there was a ton of lime in the braising liquid, because the tomato paste and wine didn't work at all. Now what would have been delicious lamb stock is just a big pot of bitter limey liquid and my salty tears (ok not really, but almost).
I rescued it, sort of, by taking the meat off the bone and adding some spices and figs and roasting in the oven, but not as good as I desperately wanted it to be. On top of that, Becca over-salted the cabbage salad.

Still, everything was edible.

The one great thing about dinner was Becca and Emily's curried stuffed sweet potato. It pretty much made up for everything else.

pot-stickers

2009-03-05T09:17:00.009-05:00

Last week, at the fruit and veggie co-op, we picked up two giant heads of cabbage. None of us like cabbage that much, but we were determined to use them this time (the last time we got cabbage it ended up going straight to compost after sitting in our fridge for a month). A few nights ago Emily made a lentil and cabbage soup with lots of cumin. Last night we made cabbage pot-stickers.

I called my mom for the recipe, but the conversation went like this:

Mom: "mix some flour with some water and an egg."

Me: "how much flour and water?"

Mom: "some."

Me: "how much is some?"

Mom: "until it feels right!"

My mom can tell when things feels right, but I haven't practiced enough to know when that is. I grew up eating pot-stickers, but I've never made pot-stickers without adult supervision before, and by adult supervision I mean the adults made it and I sat in a corner playing with a lump of dough. Thankfully Becca was there to help. The blind leading the blind.

In the end I think we ended up with three cups of flour and approximately a cup and a half of water and one egg for the dough. The hard part was rolling the wrappers.

Then there was the problem of the cabbage: If it's just cabbage and mushroom and seasoning (as in, no pork), there's not much to hold the filling together in a neat lump inside the wrapper. Instead the filling was loose, which caused our pot-stickers to lose some shape. In the end, though, they were delicious if not entirely attractive.

Buffalo

2009-03-04T19:33:00.004-05:00

The Food:
For tonight's dinner, Avi and I enjoyed some buffalo shoulder steaks. The shoulder is a tougher cut of meat, and it is recommended to either braise it or marinate it for 24 hours. We did not do either of those things (we did marinate it, but we were 19 hours short of the target), and the meat was a bit chewy, but not unpleasantly so.
It was served over a fluffy mound of mashed potatoes and beside a medley of steamed kale and cabbage. This whole ensemble was covered with a spectacular pan sauce that Avi made using some red wine, the pan drippings from when he seared the meat, garlic, brown sugar, worchetershire sauce, ketchup and other things that were added in a moment of inspiration and then promptly forgotten. The combo sounds pretty awful when thinking about it, but it was one of the best sauces I have ever had. It complimented the buffalo perfectly.

The Animal it Came From - some fun facts about buffalo and their meat:

Buffalo meat has 70-90% less fat than beef and half as much cholesterol
The meat also has more protein than beef
The Buffalo is the largest land mammal who has lived in North America since the end of the ice age
They actually aren't called Buffalo, the official name is the North American Bison. Buffalos are only in Africa and Asia.
Bison can run up to 35 miles an hour
During mating season, you can hear a male bison bellow from up to a mile away
They can climb over fences up to 7 feet high.
And a cheesy buffalo (sorry,bison) joke for good measure:

What does the father buffalo say to his son before he leaves? Bi-son!

Samosas and Beer

2009-03-04T10:15:00.004-05:00

Last weekend Emily made samosas wrapped in fillo dough. They were delicious. I lost count, but my guess is that I ate between 12 and 239 samosas.

Becca made the fresh, garlicky cilantro-mint dipping sauce in the food processor.

3-4 cloves of garlic

1 one-inch piece of ginger

1 bunch fresh mint

1 bunch fresh cilantro

1 jalapeno, seeds and stems removed

1 teaspoon sugar

salt

juice of 2 limes

1 tablespoon water

1 tablespoon olive oil

shortbread cookies

2009-03-04T08:57:00.004-05:00

For rehearsal last night I made Dorie Greenspan's chocolate-espresso shortbread cookies. Since I've been sick, nothing tastes right anymore, so I can't really tell you whether or not they were any good. However, they got good reviews from everyone else.

Also, the recipe calls for instant espresso powder, which I didn't have. As far as I know, instant espresso is only good for baking the occasional espresso-flavored thing, so it never made sense to have it around. I substituted one tablespoon of prepared espresso instead, but the flavor never came through. What's the best way to convert instant to real espresso in recipes?

( You can find the cookie recipe here. )

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

2009-03-02T19:21:00.005-05:00

The Circumstance:
Today was (in the word montage style preferred by Ms. Weisbuch):
blizzardy
blustery
bone-cold
bundle up
brrrrrrrrrrrrr
fuzzy hoods, falling snow, freeze fest, frigid......
I wanted, no needed, something satisfying and warm for dinner. I had grand plans to make a lasagna, and then brownies from scratch for my dancers at tonight's rehearsal. But, of course, life had to intervene. Its midterm season, and those plans would have been suicidal - yes delicious - but suicidal nonetheless.

The Food:
Avi and I decided that meatball subs would meet the above criteria of hearty, delicious, and most importantly, fast! We divided and conquered. I made meatballs using beef from Four Mile River Farm. I prepped the meat with salt, pepper, herbs de provence, an egg, and some grated Parmesan. Meanwhile, Avi whipped up a fresh sauce using diced tomatoes and green pepper. Once this was done, we assembled (sauce, meatballs, mozzarella cheese, and more sauce on top of a halved baguette) and broiled for a tasty dinner.

The Method/The People that Employed Said Method:
Avi took the classic sandwich eating approach...open wide, bite down, and repeat. Sure it may be messy, but it gets the job done. Favored by speed racers, superheros, and competitive food eaters, this approach had Avi taking his last bite a good 5 minutes before I did.

I took the civilized approach, using a knife and fork to tackle my prize. This is a technique favored by the seasoned procrastinator, it will guarantee that dinner takes up a nice, big block of time (especially if you decide to make a post about it afterward!)

Baby's all growed up.

2009-03-01T21:22:00.009-05:00

Apparently some day I will have to feed myself without help from my housemates (and honorary housemates). Rumor has it that day is fast approaching. To prepare for this, I have been under their tutelage since September. A year ago--almost to the day--I took on baking for the first time. With Sarah Jeffrey babysitting, I produced a delicious batch of chocolate chunk cookies to be consumed by this boy I was visiting (hmm how little things change in a year, hmm hmm). I spent the spring and summer honing my baking skills, and I have spent most of this year playing helper to my housemates' (and honorary housemates') cooking endeavors.

So what happens when Grace is in Tahiti (luckyyy) and Em and X are at opera rehearsal? I think to myself, "I am hungry. There is food in the house. I can make that food. Right? I can make it yummy and have dinner waiting when my housemates come home."

And man am I amazing. I did it! A simple meal, but I did it aaaaall by myself. If you don't think this is impressive, ask Sarah to describe my baking efforts a year ago.

Baked tofu, mmmm. Marinated for a bit in some soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, and ginger, then baked for nearly an hour at 375 degrees. Attractive, no, tasty, yes.

And roasted green peppers. Green peppers are boring, but roasting is no-fail. They kept the tofu company in the oven. So apparently it's true: Anyone can cook. Even me. I might make it out there in the world. The food was successful: Em and X tested, Stega approved.

Cause I'm Feeling Bad About Losing Iron Chef

2009-03-01T20:55:00.006-05:00

Here's a nice meal I made for my sister before she went to Israel earlier this year:

Broiled Asparagus and Parmesan Sticks with Crema Balsamica

Seared Sesame Crusted Tuna Over a Sesame Cucumber Salad, with Cucumber Ice and Spicy Mayonnaise

Ricotta Gnocci with Tomato Compote and Shaved Parmesan

Deep Fried Hard Boiled Egg Curry with Carrot Air

Melon Caviar with Goat Cheese and Sage

Quatre Quart Cakes under a Pineapple Sorbet and Starfruit Chips with Chocolate Allspice Sugar on a Painted Candy Plate

Iron Chef

2009-03-01T18:30:00.002-05:00

We got 4th place. woohoo!!

Our team was Sarah Jeffrey, Arielle Golden, Emily Busch and me.

Here's what we made - sorry no pictures
the secret ingredient was white asparagus

Spicy white asparagus and coconut milk soup
Asparagus paste crusted seared salmon with bok choy and fried asparagus sticks
Asparagus and mint custard in a sweetened rice bowl

I guess we can't win every time...

Short rib technique

2009-02-28T21:06:00.006-05:00

Tonight we had short ribs braised in coffee and mulled wine with dried chilies and horseradish cream (horseradish, yogurt, and heavy cream). The sides were roasted green beans and polenta with spinach, toasted hazelnuts, and cheese.

I've braised a lot of short ribs by now, and this is what I've decided:

-cook it in the oven, not on the stove. I did it on the stove this time, because Mark Bittman did it, but it's just not a good idea. It didn't cook evenly enough and the meat was less tender than it would have been if I put it in the oven.

(Sarah: "If Mark Bittman jumped off a bridge, would you?"

Becca: "Probably." )

-if it's in the oven (and it better be), cover the pot with tinfoil, then put the cover on. That will keep the braise from evaporating.

-Three hours minimum. Ideally, I like it 1 hour past the time it takes for the meat to fall off the bone.

My favorite part about short ribs is the fat. I got an extra fatty one that had a half-inch layer of fat wrapped around the meat and it was divine. I wouldn't eat fat by itself, but I like fat and meat together so much that I would have a hard time choosing between perfectly marbled meat and a million dollars.

An ode to dried procinis

2009-02-28T20:55:00.002-05:00

I LOVE mushrooms, which is why I hate "mushrooms." I love strong, earthy, mushroom flavor, but the white button mushrooms that are most commonly available at grocery stores are horrible. They don't taste like anything except diluted bleach.

Dried procinis are great-- they leave behind a beautiful broth of big mushroom flavor when reconstituted. I reconstituted them in broth and half a can of PBR, and made risotto from it.

Mushroom Tart

2009-02-28T20:41:00.006-05:00

I am picky about starches. When we made spanakopita, I was more interested in the fillo dough than the filling. I like the chocolate cookies better than the cream filling in an Oreo. When I was growing up I would often only eat the wonton skins and leave the wontons in the bowl. I never liked pie, but I love pie crusts. What makes one pie better than another for me is the quality of the crust.

All of this is just a long way of saying that I made two tarts: one with a prepared pie crust from weshop, and one with a scratch-made yeasted tart dough. The one with the yeasted tart dough was superior in every way. Since I'm such a starch connoisseur, I should have known. What makes one tart better than another is the crust.

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. There's also the roasted garlic puree in the custard, and chanterelles.

hummus, baba ghanoush, and 96 cookies

2009-02-28T04:52:00.009-05:00

The thing is, I'm not really a good cook. Aside from still not reliably being able to chop an onion, I can never do the thing where you take whatever's in the fridge and somehow magically turn it into delicious and interesting dinner. I look at what's in fridge and turn it into scrambled eggs on toast. I'm not good at improvising. What I do, though, is get an idea in my head for a cooking project that renders me unable to think about anything else. My thought process tends to go like this:
Me 1: What can I make for dinner?
Me 2: I dunno, but how about making lime curd instead?
Me 1: Sounds good. Hey...wait a minute! There is still no dinner!
Me 2: So? Lime curd!
Me 1: Fair enough.

The Food
Tonight's project was baba ghanoush, which I've wanted to make for a while, but hadn't connected the dots between the eggplant slowly going bad in our fridge and potential cooking experiments until this week. And since I had a can of chickpeas in the pantry, I extended the thought to hummus.

hummus + sriracha and cayenne pepper = spicy hummus

My dad sent me a bar of nice white chocolate with my last package, which was nice of him. Unfortunately, I'm not a huge white chocolate fan, so eating it straight wasn't really appealing. However, I am a fan of combinations invovling white chocolate and cranberries, so I decided to make white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies. This was a good plan until my dyslexic self swapped the measurements of sugar and flour in the batter. Basically, 1 1/2 and 1/2 look very similar when you aren't paying attention (and, in the interest of full disclosure, I may have been cooking a teensy bit under the influence). So, basically I accidentally tripled the amount of sugar in the batter. Oops. I didn't have enough butter to triple the batter (thank God for that), but I did have enough to double it. What I should have done is dump batch one (sugar is cheap) and start over, but instead I just decided to make two batches' worth so that they'd each have about 1.5 times the correct amount of sugar. This is how I spent my entire Friday night baking eight dozen cookies. I know baking is a science, and I was really worried about the structural stability of the cookies, but consistency-wise they came out fine. Definitely sweeter than I'd like, especially the batch with the white chocolate, but on the other hand, if I didn't know I'd added the extra sugar, I don't know that I would have noticed on my own.

The People Who Ate It
No pictures, sorry, but the diners included me and miscellaneous housemates and their friends, and maybe even...you. Seriously, I have hella leftovers (eight dozen cookies, people!). Please help me out here.

Curry Scurry

2009-02-27T19:23:00.003-05:00

The Food:
Yum curry yum! Chicken, plus veggies, plus curry equals easy and delicious. Also paneer cheese, which makes me an unlimited amount of happy.
A no-fail one pot wonder! (now we sound like we are advertising it)

The People:
Perfect date night dinner! I dined with the lovely Becca Worby - always a treat!

Shrimp and black beans

2009-02-27T09:59:00.004-05:00

Still living off of our Whole Foods purchases, tonight we decided to make shrimp. The only two ingredients we had decided upon were shrimp and black beans, so I challenged us to do something non- Mexican influenced with them. We both went off to our computers to look for other ideas. The majority of the food names we found online were Mexican related, but they just sounded so delicious that we couldn't resist and swung back in that direction.

We cooked the shrimp in one pan with lime zest, and in another mixed together the black beans, a tomato and a green pepper. We then squeezed the lime that we had zested over the top of the completed bowl.

Our shrimp had not been preshelled but I learned that the shrimp shell can be eaten, and also that it contains Chondroitin, an enzyme which is important for joint health. The shell supposedly also helps lower cholesterol levels.

We unfortunately didn't get a picture of the people who at it, who were Sarah, Julia and me.

Basking in the Post-Market Afterglow

2009-02-26T22:26:00.004-05:00

The Food:
Selfishly, my favorite thing about the farmers' market is that it exists as a place where I can go buy delicious ingredients for my cooking endeavors. This week I bought some baby arugula, a half round of aged french-farmstyle goat cheese, a nutty gruyere by Cato Corner, baby kale, maple syrup, a baguette by Wave Hill Breads and a porterhouse steak.
Today for lunch with Emily, I tried to incorporate a lot of this local goodness. We had a bistro style lunch: lobster bisque and a baby arugula salad with grated carrot and a slice of fresh gruyere. So the soup obviously wasn't local, but the salad certainly was. The tart arugula took me back to when I was a kid squatting in my mother's vegetable garden and nibbling on her plants. We were also able to enjoy another market treat with the meal: some delicious wave hill bread that we used to dip in our soup!

The People:
Technology failed me today. My camera wasn't charged and Avi's didn't have a memory card. I took a picture of the food with my cell phone camera, but you are going to have to use your imagination to fill in me and Emily eating it!

Ojja Merguez (kinda)

2009-02-25T23:40:00.004-05:00

Since coming back from Tunisia I have been trying to find merguez sausages. I wasn't even sure if they were available in the U.S., but when I mentioned them to someone they seemed to think they are somewhat common. I still haven't been able to find any, so until today all of the Ojja I've made has been vegetarian.

Then we went to Whole Foods, and though they didn't have any merguez, they did have some other lamb sausage, which I decided was good enough.

Ojja is this tomato sauce type thing that you eat with a baguette.

Here's what you need
1 onion
2 chopped green peppers
3 fresh chopped tomatoes or 1 can diced tomatoes
2 tbsp. tomato paste - which we forgot to buy today
cumin - put in more than you think you need, cumin is not a spice to use sparingly
merguez or other sausage, or shrimp
harissa - a smoky flavored Tunisian chili paste - you can try something else spicy or forget it all together
2 eggs

Since I had never cooked sausage before I put it in a separate pan until it was cooked through.
In a larger pan saute the onion, then add in the cumin, harissa and tomato paste, followed by the green pepper. After the pepper starts to soften add in the tomatoes and cook it they become more mushy like a tomato sauce. Then add in the sausage - chopped, followed by the 2 eggs. I try to clear off a space in the pan for the eggs to start cooking before mixing them in with the rest of the sauce. Salt and pepper to taste. Eat by scooping up the Ojja with a chunk of baguette.
Serves 3

Lamb sausages are not as close to Tunisian merguez as I would hope, but they definitely get the job done.

And the people who ate it