beef mani--err, rigatoni (WCC #14)

there was lots of meticulous planning happening today on account of my impending birthday and my intense, izzie-stevens-like baking craze.

so of course i got clobbered at the grocery store. i had this grand list, i’d been working on it all day. i’d plotted out my strategy to make dinner and also start making a cake from dorie in time for wednesday (yellow buttermilk cake, with alternating layers of white chocolate ganache and bittersweet chocolate pastry cream). i even remembered to defrost the beef for the manicotti.

i stood in the dry goods aisle, surrounded by cans of tomato products and bags of rice and boxes and boxes of pasta. in spite of this overabundance of carbohydrates i could not find a single box containing manicotti. all i could find was rigatoni. oh, hell, i figured. surely i could mix up the filling and just layer it in a baking dish full of the pasta.

this, as it turns out, was completely true, and very reassuring. the beef was so moist and tender, which i chalk up to the fact that it was local and organic and all of that good stuff you look for in meat. i decimated my stock of cheese, pulling out ricotta and mozzarella and parmesan.

i should mention my other clobbering, which was my complete lack of cornstarch. i should have expected it. just last week i was cleaning out the crevice i call a “pantry” and found an empty box of cornstarch. forgot to replace it while i was shopping today. so even though i had gone so far as to triage my cooking tasks for tonight, i had to shelve my plan to make the pastry cream until tomorrow. i suppose i could make the pastry cream without the cornstarch, but i have enough trouble with pastry cream as it is without removing an ingredient that will help thicken and stabilize it!

today at work i was reading old journals and marveling in my delight in the fresh fruits of summer. it’s cold, and blustery and still winter and i usually try to not buy non-seasonal fruit in january but i was reading about the fresh july strawberries and i couldn’t help myself when i saw the piles of chilean and california fruit stacked up all neatly at whole foods. a small basket of strawberries, a container of raspberries and a container of blueberries found their way into my cart, along with what i expect will be a final sack full of blood oranges (these were noticeably less tangy than usual).

in order to make the best of this unusual harvest, i present my WCC #14 - a fruit salad. while i was digging through all of the cheeses in my fridge, i also found half a tub of farmers market mascarpone. the solution was obvious: cannoli cream fruit salad. it’s a giada de laurentis recipe that i usually keep handy during the summer months. i decided to bring it out of hibernation a bit early...

fruit salad with cannoli cream
(adapted from giada de laurentis)

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
sugar, to taste (i used splenda)
1/4 cup chocolate chips
fresh fruit: 1 segmented blood orange, a scattering of blueberries, a double handful of raspberries and 3 strawberries, hulled and halved

mix cheeses, sugar and chips until creamy and smooth. dollop on a plate with fresh fruit (macerated, if you like that sort of thing, maybe with a squirt of lemon juice to keep everything tangy)

since it is winter and i can’t live in complete denial, shivering here in my apartment, i whipped up some hot chocolate.

triple chocolate hot chocolate
(adapted from emily lucetti’s a passion for desserts)

1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
pinch salt
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz. white chocolate
1 oz. semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

simmer milk and cream, then temper all 3 chocolates and salt until melted and smooth.

found - pancetta!

another entry from the kitchen diaries on this fine winter’s evening.
if you can call it winter when the high today was in the 50s, of course.

but blood oranges are still in season, so it must still be winter.

planned all week to make a nice dinner after my class today, and decided to pull something new out of the unfailingly excellent kitchen diaries. the only caveat: i was determined to finally find some pancetta, which is inexplicably absent from both of my local D.C. whole foods locations.

the columbus circle location, however, suffered from no such lack, and i arrived home this evening in proud possession of a duck breast, a bag of fingerling potatoes, and a pound of pancetta bacon to roast in the oven. the potatoes got sliced and a cold water bath before being roasted for an hour in pancetta drippings with onions, olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. the duck got seared and then finished off in the oven as the potatoes were reachcing the final stages of roasted perfection.

the result? salty and rich potatoes, a slightly overcooked duck, and a segmented fake blood orange to cut through the richness with its acidity.

oh, and a nick and nora charles movie in the background.
bon appetit!

the most perfect fried egg EVER (and some polenta)

attempted a totally new food tonight, which for some reason i thought might be difficult but in the end couldn't resist the simple elegance of the recipe--polenta. and not just polenta, but buttery polenta with cheese and an olive oil fried egg, adapted from a recipe that appeared, i think, in the new york times.

it was a last-minute whim.

it was easy. and delicious. and the cheese (i used jack, because the polenta box encouraged me to experiment with cheeses) added this extra touch of decadence to an otherwise light and sensible meal.

and i knocked another leftover out of the fridge--some chicken stock.

next time, i want to use mozzarella cheese or parmesan and top it with some tomato sauce, because i think that would be out of this world.

third time's the charm - "julie and julia"

it seemed so simple, and so brilliant and so the perfect type of book for me, i remember thinking as i perused--i forget what, probably the new york times--and saw a reference to julie powell's julie and julia project.

a woman who dedicated her year to learning how to cook.
like me. i hoped for inspiration--for my writing, for my cooking, for ideas that i could incorporate into both.

i immediately ordered a copy. or maybe i went straight to borders after work. i started reading the night i got it. that's how eager i was.

and then i put it down in disgust. it wasn't her language--i'm from new jersey, i can swear like a sailor and appreciate the release it offers in one's vocabulary. it was her attitude. whiny. despairing. woe-is-me.

that was my first turn-off.

several months later, i picked it up again, convinced that i had just given it short shrift. it's pretty rare, after all, that i don't bother to finish a book that i've started. i got much farther into the book this time--nearly halfway--and again, i got distracted and annoyed by her writing style. this, i rationalized, may have been because i had started the book all over again from the beginning instead of merely picking up where i left off, giving all of the original prejudices a chance to rear their heads again. i donated the book to a used book store.

and then, in spite of myself, i picked up another copy off of a discount table at barnes and noble. surely, surely the third time would be the charm. surely the information and hope that i had envisioned were somewhere within the pages of this conceptually brilliant book.

so this time, just last week, i decided to throw it into my weekend travel bag for a 3-hour train ride and give it one last try. i started from where i'd left off, approximately. i read it non-stop for 3 hours. and it did, at last, begin to grow on me. i shared her affinity for buffy, her inability to make pastry cream even after a dozen practices. i loved her chapter about her murderous rampage of the lobsters in new york city. and here is where i really found the weakness of this book--not in the tone, or the despair, or the language or the attitude. it was actually in the structure of the book itself.

julie seemed incapable of adhering to a timeline. everything was an anecdote that tied back to something else. and since she wasn't really writing chronologically, on a recipe-by-recipe basis, each anecdote had to be explained before it could be joined with the cooking example at hand. she interrupted her best chapter, about the lobsters, with a story about being home for christmas and finding out that her best friend wants to have an affair with a punk rocker from bath.

every successive example of seriously good writing was similarly misspent. her chapter about preparing to cook for a food reporter--interrupted. her chapter about the final month of the Project--scattered to the winds.

and above all, she doesn't write enough about the food, which is what i really wanted to hear. yes, i sympathize about her government-secretary-syndrome, but i don't want to hear abotu how your day sucked, i want to hear about cooking that day's recipe and how it affected your day. were you mad while you were shopping? did the recipe turn out? what, for heaven's sake, were you even making? how far into the Project are you?

(these tidbits were scattered across the chapter heads, but there was nothing more specific than that)

her writing lacked the consideration, the sensuality, even the day-to-day rhythm of, say, nigel slater's kitchen diaries. he made everything sound sexy. even the recipes that failed were still fantastic to read about. it made me think about how incorporate food and cooking into my daily life and how shopping for lunch can be a hassle, but it can also be the highlight of your day.

nigel made the food sound sexy.
julie talks about how cooking ruined her sex life.
enough said, right?

a day of two soups

in spite of my determination to be freed of the tyranny of my leftovers, i found myself once again scouring the fridge this morning. only because i was tired of spending so much money on lunch, i swear.

fortunately for me, all i found was a half-bowl of potato chowder, which gave me a perfect excuse to bring the soup and indulge in a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch (which i guess isn't quite the same as getting to leave the gun, but bring the cannoli...).

however, coming home tonight and finding my apartment just as freezing cold as it usually is on a winter's night, i decided to heat up a simple miso soup (a la nigel slater) while i stir-fried out of the exquisite kylie kwong's simple chinese cooking.

the problem was merely that i dumped too much miso in the mug, convinced that it couldn't be nearly as simple as nigel claimed--"heat water, and stir in a teaspoon of miso paste."

kylie's book has been getting a lot of press, including my local daily, the washington post, which did this entire rave dance about her stir-fried chicken with cashews and how revolutionary (not to mention delicious) it is.

revolutionary, maybe. delicious? the jury is still out. the revolution springs from her lack of a classic chinese-restaurant style brown sauce for the chicken. i did like the lightness of the marinade--just some shaoxing wine mixed with a few drops of water and some cornstarch--but as i ate the shaoxing-drenched chicken (extra shaoxing having been added during the frying process), i realized that i miss the thickness and flavor of a brown sauce. as much as i might ridicule the sameness of a lot of marinades--shaoxing, oyster sauce, a swirl of sesame oil and some cornstarch to thicken--i love that texture and the way it clings to the ingredients.

sorry, kylie.
maybe we'll have better luck next time.

risotto #6 - rice cooker risotto with porcini, proscuitto and mozzarella

call the risotto police, 911. i have committed a crime...

came home tonight tired but still in the mood for risotto, so i decided to try once again the technique of cooking risotto with the aid of a rice cooker. mikey always tells me that this is anathema, and for a while i waffled, first disagreeing, then agreeing most heartily. tonight i found the in-between happy place where one can cook risotto properly, if one has the time, or can throw it all into the bowl and let the machine do the work. the key to my success--the first real one i can claim with the rice cooker--was cutting off the porridge cycle early instead of relying either on the complete cycle or the regular cook cycle (both of these result in cloying, thick and sticky rice soup instead of a proper risotto texture).

clearly i am not yet finished with my quest to empty the fridge. tonight’s effort used another half-quart of mikey’s stock, the rest of the fresh mozzarella, and another layer of the parma-style virginia ham masquerading as proscuitto. the porcini were a last minute inspiration for an extra flavor and some texture, and i used the mozzarella instead of parmesan, inspired by a recipe from one of my books of risottos.

leftovers, leftovers and more leftovers

i desperately need to cleanse my palate. all week and this weekend, i’ve been subsisting on nonsensical combinations of cooked meals from last weekend and early in the week. it all feels heavy. it all feels the same. all week, i’ve been snatching pieces of leftover meals in order to make a fresh one--skirt steak smothered in brie with potato chowder. half a bowl of rice with a crumbled meatball on top. supermarket gnocchi with sweet potato soup sauce. chicken fingers. cold quinoa. partially-cooked risotto pancakes.

i long for a fresh meal.

pizza rustica (WTSIM...Pie)

it started off as a pipe dream. i was flipping through my copy of baking with julia, looking for some new ideas, and the page fell open to the section on tarts and pies. mostly out of boredom, i started reading the recipes. pie dough scares me. all i’ve heard about is how difficult it is to make, and my one attempt last year was such a disaster that i am still in recovery from it. almost in spite of myself i found this recipe for a savory pizza-like pie. i didn’t read the recipe that carefully, but the idea of it seemed creative and appealing. still, because of the pastry crusts, i chalked it up as “pie in the sky.” literally. and i put the book back on the shelf.

i couldn’t get the idea out of my head. a stuffed pizza, baked between sheets of pie crust instead of pizza dough. what a bizarre thought, right? it would be impossible. i’d never pull it off.

and then i met nigella. there i was, innocently sitting in a secluded corner of the smallest cafeteria in my office building, gobbling up page after page of nigella lawson’s how to eat. right there, in her basics section, she had several pages of material about savory and sweet pie crusts, and how making them used to drive her insane, until she took a deep breath, practiced, and figured it out. her technique seemed foolproof. simple ingredients, not too time-consuming. surely i’d have a few failures but it seemed well worth trying. i became determined to make the pizza rustica.

of course, life interfered. i usually save a lot of time on the weekends for cooking experiments, but due to a fluke in the calendar i’m scheduled to be out of town for practically the next month. to add further insult to injury, if i wanted to participate in WTSIM...#2, i’d have to find the time before february 26. which meant cooking the pizza on a weeknight.

i’m a big fan of weeknight cooking, really i am. it’s a great way to unwind after a horrible day at the office, and then have something yummy and warm and filling to show for it. but i usually like to keep it simple during the week. stir-fries are a big favorite. the occasional batch of cupcakes, if there is something special going on. i’m long over the days where i’d stay up till 1 baking during the week. on top of everything else, this particular week was one of refrigerator intimidation and a lot of useless stress in the office.

i took a deep breath. i planned carefully. i made a supplementary trip to the supermarket after work on tuesday. i laid out all of the ingredients for a stir-fry, put some rice in the cooker, and made my move on the pie dough. it seemed to be working, much like my pate sucre from the weekend had. i became optimistic--until i had to roll it out. it was ornery stuff. i had to beat it into submission. i made a huge mess on my kitchen table. i had piles of pie crumbs surrounding me and flour all over my hair and clothes (because foolish me, i had doubled the recipe in order to get two crusts--it worked, but it was not a pretty sight). and then, at long last, i had pressed into the pie dish a layer of crust, a sheet of waxed paper, and another layer of crust, all wrapped up and ready for use on wednesday.

driven by this early success i came home today like a girl on a mission. i preheated the oven. i attacked the fridge, looking for anything that might make an intriguing layer in my pizza. i pulled out a tub of ricotta, a bag of mozzarella, some parma-style virginia ham, two fresh sausage links, some cremini mushrooms. i browned these with a vengeance (and a lot of garlic) in the leftover sausage grease. with baited breath, i pulled out the pie crusts (nigella had suggested that they could be stored for a day, but i was less certain of my cooking than of hers). aside from a few minor cracks along the edges of the dough, they seemed in good condition. i didn’t have to blind bake, so i started layering the flavors. mushrooms on the bottom. a layer of mozzarella. some ham. another layer of mozzarella. the sausage. topped it all with a ricotta-egg mixture and, for good measure, another sprinkling of mozzarella. i clumsily arranged the top crust over the dish, pinching the sides unevenly and haphazardly until i was sure it was sealed.

it was then that i realized i had put the pie in the wrong kind of dish (the recipe i was working from recommended a springform). but it was too late to turn back, and i vowed that keep a vigilant eye on the pastry so as to save it from my ineptitude (and keep it from burning). half an hour into the baking, it looked golden brown. surely it wasn’t done already? i decided to trust my instincts. i tented a sheet of foil over the crust and put it back in for another half an hour.

the result was the closest thing i’ve found to a culinary masterpiece (at least so far as my own kitchen efforts go). the layers melded together in a delightful dance of flavors--earthy, salty, spicy, and tangy. the crust, into which i’d thrown a spoonful of ricotta during the mixing stage, was buttery and light without being overpowering.

i had, in short, something yummy and filling and warm to show for all of my weeknight effort.

pizza rustica
(inspired by dorie greenspan’s baking with julia and adapted from two versions of giada delaurentis’ recipe, culled from the food network website and giada’s family dinners)

2 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces mild Italian turkey sausage, casings removed
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 (15-ounce) container whole milk ricotta
12 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
4 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced and browned in grease and garlic
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
4 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, coarsely chopped
4 large egg yolks, beaten to blend
2 pieces of pastry dough, rolled out to fit a 9" pie plate
1 large egg, beaten to blend

Position the rack on the bottom of the oven, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a heavy large frying pan over medium heat. Add the sausages and saute until golden brown, breaking the sausage into pieces, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of oil in the same frying pan over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and sautee until light brown and starting to give off liquid, about 5 minutes.

Into a large bowl, add egg yolks and beat lightly. Stir in the ricotta, mozzarella, and 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese. Add the sausage, the mushrooms and prosciutto to the mixture and stir to combine.

Set up the dough in a 9-inch pie plate by placing the bottom crust in the plate. Trim the dough overhang to 1 inch. Spoon the ricotta mixture into the dough-lined pan. Roll out the remaining piece of dough into a 12-inch round. Place the dough over the filling. Pinch the edges of the doughs together to seal, then crimp the dough edges decoratively. Brush the beaten 1 large egg over the entire pastry top. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons Parmesan over the top. Bake on the bottom shelf until the crust is golden brown, about 1 hour.

Let stand 15 minutes. Release the pan sides and transfer the pizza to a platter. Cut into wedges and serve.

did she really make fresh bao?

i’m feeling totally intimidated by the refrigerator this week. after my completely self-indulgent comfort food weekend, what do i hit back with? especially when i have piles of leftovers in little ziploc jars inhabiting every inch of space?

i decided today to cook my way through the leftovers, incorporating what i can into new meals and working from scratch where necessary. with the mood i was in today, this felt like a total revelation instead of mere common sense--i went all out. there were lists involved, and a supplementary trip to the grocery store!

first, i worried about all of the fresh cheese i’ve accumulated. the mascarpone was easily disposed of by making a batch of ice cream with the black forest brownies from sunday afternoon. the ricotta took more creativity. i decided on a pizza rustica, which takes care of not only the ricotta but the virginia cured ham masquerading as proscuitto, the quickly-failing white button mushrooms, and an excuse to keep practicing the pie crust. the brie is easy--a steak and brie sandwich, which has the added bonus of using up the little piece of flank steak i’ve been saving as well as giving me a foil for the potato chowder that’s hiding somewhere on the bottom shelf (the result of yet another weekend experiment to use up ingredients).

then i have the issue of the raw chicken. i wanted to make a teriyaki chicken salad with rice vermicelli, but this takes too much cooking and doesn’t address the half-pint of buttermilk crawling through the depths, left over from last week’s red velvet. so that got all dunked together to make a few more chicken fingers, which will pair with the cheesy quinoa casserole i finally got around to making on monday afternoon.

but wait, there’s more. i haven’t even scratched the surface of cooked leftovers. there’s the pseudo-soupy stew that failed, full of sweet potatoes and veggies. there’s at least a cup of cooked risotto. there’s the aforementioned casserole. i’ve got meatballs and rice left from saturday, and zasai beef from last week (obviously these will become lunch fodder).

back to the bao. sunday’s last-minute foray to the farmers market endowed me with more fresh pork and lamb than i had previously ever seen in my life, so i chose something out of kylie kwong’s ‘simple chinese cooking’ that would take care of a pound of ground pork as well as the straggling shiitake mushrooms, remnants of last week’s zasai beef. (on an unrelated note, i was suddenly struck by the fact that nearly all of my really good asian stir-fries are exactly the same when you get down to the liquids: shaoxing, oyster sauce, soy and sugar, with a swirl of sesame oil) i threw some brown rice into the cooker and started prepping the pie dough for the pizza rustica before i remembered to dump the chicken bits into the some buttermilk. it wasn’t until i started the mise en place for the pork bao that i realized i had completely mis-interpreted the recipe. far from a basic stir-fry, this was meant to be a much cooler and crunchier prandial experience: lettuce leaf wraps, bean sprouts and carrots were all active players for the final stage.

alas, i had none of these things in my fridge, even after my impulse trip to whole foods. all i could do was let the rice cycle finish and stir-fry the beef, mushrooms, garlic, ginger and liquids and mix it all together in the regular boring way. i’d never stir-fried with pork before, though, and i was pleasantly surprised by the flavor and texture. it’s almost milder than chicken, with a very different texture, and it melded well with the salty-sweet sauce and the shiitakes. i may have to revise my thinking on the other white meat and utilize it more often.

i’m forced to admit, however, that the salty sweetness of the fried pork and mushrooms would have kicked ass wrapped in a cool, crisp lettuce leaf and topped with some julienned carrots and sprouts...

risotto #5 - comfort food weekend (monday)

i decided to save my risotto for tonight since i had the luxury of a 3-day weekend and risotto is my ultimate comfort food. oh, how i love risotto. i’m sure i ate it as a child, because i’ve seen my mother cook it, but it was not until an evening on my own in rome in the campo di fiore that i really experienced the bliss that is a well-prepared dish of risotto.

it was warm outside, even warm enough to eat out, at the small, deli-like (in lighting, at least) trattoria on the edge of the campo near where the city buses stop. the waitstaff thought i was hysterical, on my own with my dog-eared paperback novel and little map of the city. i remember that i wasn’t in the mood for pasta, or meat, and that i noticed a dish of rice and mushrooms. but first i devoured a plate of parma ham and fresh mozzarella, all wrapped up with each other, while i waited for the risotto to arrive.

most people, i think, go on vacation and come back dreaming of local pastries, or gelato, or the special teas or wines or home-made pastas or baguettes or croissants or macaroons or a myriad of other things that one can seemingly experience properly only while traveling. for me, my life-changing meal was this plate of risotto--which was, incidentally, an enormous bowl that was much too much food for poor little me. and yet i was so taken with it that i could think of little else for the rest of my trip. i even went back to the same trattoria on another evening just to experience it--the creaminess, the bite, the texture of the rice--all over again.

it was nearly two years after my return that i first ventured into a kitchen to attempt the feat on my own. silly me, i thought it would be simple, the matter of less than an hour, surely, on a quiet friday night. but the risotto had the last laugh. it quite kicked my ass. there was too much of it, it was undercooked, underspiced, i had no cooking wine, and i hated onions and so declined to saute them with the aromatics. i bravely left it in the fridge for nearly a week, convinced that i would find the stomach for it, but i was forced to admit defeat when it started growing little burrs of greenish fuzz.

however, two years again since my first failed attempt, i am pleased to report that risotto served as my comfort food, my indulgence, as the cap of a 3-day weekend. with porcini mushrooms, parma ham, and fresh mozzarella, if you please.

risotto with porcini mushrooms
(adapted from williams-sonoma's italian cookbook)
8 cups chicken stock
½ cup porcini mushrooms, dried
½ cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
½ lb. wild mushrooms, fresh, stems removed. shiitake, portobello, oyster
½ lb. white mushrooms
3 cups arborio / carnaorli rice
1 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
bring stock to a simmer, remove from heat.

add dried porcini. let soak for 20 minutes.
drain mushrooms through cheesecloth, reserving the stock.
return stock to saucepan and simmer over medium heat.
maintain at a gentle simmer, low heat.
chop dried porcini.

heat olive oil in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat.
add fresh mushrooms and cook until softened (about 5 minutes).
add porcini and 1/2 C of the simmering stock and cook until thickened (about 5 minutes).
using a slotted spoon, transfer the mushrooms to a bowl. set aside.

add the rice to the same pan.
stir over medium heat until each grain is translucent with a white dot in the center (about 3 minutes).
add the wine. stir until completely absorbed.

add the stock 1 ladleful at a time, stirring frequently. wait until stock is absorbed before adding next ladleful. reserve 1/4 C of stock for the end.

after about 18 minutes, add the mushrooms and extra ladleful of stock.
cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are heated (2-3 minutes).

remove from heat and stir in the butter and reserved 1/4 C of stock.

my first pie crust

today i attempted pie crust for the first time!
i spent the first half of the morning procrastinating by making stock lunches for the week.
then, of course, i had to do the dishes, because who can cook in a dirty kitchen?
i deliberated most seriously over the pros of regular pie pastry versus pate sucre.
and finally, i could delay no longer.
the moment of truth had arrived.

i was working out of nigella lawson’s ‘how to eat’ and the first crisis came immediately. i had forgotten to defrost a stick of butter. yes, of course i realized that most recipes recommend freezing the little chunks of butter for a time before making it, but i was worried that they would be too frozen to properly incorporate with the flour! i settled for leaving the stick out while i cleaned the dishes and hoping for the best.

my second crisis was the matter of flour. nigella recommends italian 00, a flour i’ve been hearing much about of late but which is not easily obtained (and is backordered from king arthur’s besides). all i had was AP and i worried, would this be good enough? nevertheless i combined it with the chunks of butter and settled the bowl in the freezer whilst i prepared an egg/vanilla/sugar mixture, per ms. lawson’s instructions.

now was the time to fire up the trusty kitchenaid. had a bit of a scare when the butter didn’t incorporate as quickly as nigella suggested. i kept in my head the image of scone dough as i worked, thinking that the process seemed very similar. i held my breath and poured in the chilled egg mixture. surely that couldn’t be enough liquid! grasping at the pages of my book, i poured ice water in, “drop by precious drop,” and i fancied i began to saw some clumping action within the dough. now i worried, was it clumping too much?

when i could stand it no longer i poured the crumbling mixture onto a sheet of plastic film and left it in the fridge for 20 minutes while i recovered my breath and prepared a set of mini-tart pans (mini because i am just one person, after all, and the idea of keeping a few bits of pie crust at the ready, well-wrapped, blind-baked and frozen, is utterly appealing) to receive the dough. when i pulled it out, it looked a bit like pasta dough as it absorbs the egg and i hoped it would be as pliable.

at first i tried rolling it out, well-floured, between two sheets of wax paper. d’oh! too much flour on the sheet gave me little traction as i rolled. undaunted, i flipped it over and continued working until it seemed thin enough, and round enough, for a regular pie pan. at this point i quartered it and worked with individual slivers, rolling them out just a bit thinner and pressing them tenderly into the tart pan.

also, i nearly spilled the pie weights everywhere while i waited for the oven to preheat.
10 minutes and 400F later, i was well on my way. i fear i could not take the time to wrap bits of foil along the edges, and so i just waited for them to brown at a lower temperature as i attempted to whisk up a sort of orange curd for my inaugural treat (this, in comparison to the pie crusts, was a complete disaster).

another 10 minutes in the oven and voila--could it be? four neat little crusts. had i really made them all on my own? dare i hope that i can repeat it someday?

only time will tell...

saturday - comfort food weekend

skipped breakfast, although i had planned on steaming up a bowl of oatmeal, and concentrated on my croque monsieur for lunch--which prompted a revelation. i was using a martha stewart recipe--it was closer to hand than my grilled cheese book--and i realized that she’s sort of the like ATK. efficicent, works every time, but sort of soulless. and her macaroni and cheese is not nearly as good.



but i’m really getting good at whipping up a bechamel. and kings to me for not setting the oven on fire when i melted the cheese under the broiler!

finally up and made the autumn stew with potato topping tonight--a sort of a shepherd’s pie, i suppose. the prep was easy enough, and i did it this afternoon so as not to be bothered after av left. i regret to say that the result was not at all what i had hoped for! there were, i think, several factors--firstly, i put too much liquid into the mix, and perhaps not enough cornstarch. i don’t think i cooked it long enough, and i forgot to spray the top with some cooking spray, so it didn’t brown or crisp at all.

but mostly, i just didn’t like the flavor. i felt like i was eating mush that mostly tasted of sweet potato and apple, with the occasional bite of sausage (although i am pleased that i got the chicken apple sausage for the dish, because that flavor was quite lovely). i’m not really sure what to make of it. i nearly threw it away, but decided that it might work with some of the leftover macaroni, or perhaps some chicken, or as a quickie side dish during the week.

i also made a batch of brownies, the recipe from my ‘passion for desserts’ book. it’s my plan to whip up a batch of mascarpone-base ice cream and make a sort of black forest gateau flavor. these brownies are much fudgier than my usual preference, so i’m excited to see how the ice cream works out. i’m usually on the cakey side of the brownie fence.



For the Vegetable Stew:
(adapted from a recipe at Je Mange la Ville)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium leek, cleaned well and sliced
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
15-20 button mushrooms, sliced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 apple, grated
1 ear of corn or 1/2 cup frozen corn
3 cups vegetable broth (+ 2 tbsp more)
3 chicken apple sausage
2 fresh sage leaves, chopped
½ teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon corn starch
sprig of fresh rosemary and 3-4 sprigs of thyme, bundled together by a little string if you are feeling very organized or — just loose if feeling lazy
salt & pepper
For the mashed Sweet Potatoes:
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 tablespoon butter
2% or fat-Free milk
Fresh sage leaves
Fresh thyme leaves
salt & pepper
2 tablespoons seasoned bread crumbs
cooking spray

This starts like many stews start, by adding the olive oil to a large soup pot, over medium heat. Toss in the onions, garlic and mushrooms. Let it all cook for about 5-6 minutes, then add the stock. Stir.

Next comes most of the vegetables. Add the carrots, squash and grated apple. Also add the poultry seasoning now along with the fresh herb sprigs. Let the stew simmer for about 10-15 minutes, until the vegetables are getting pretty tender.

Meanwhile, in a separate pan, brown the veggie sausage. When it’s done, crumble it and set aside.

Add the spinach and corn kernels next. Also, mix in the veggie sausage. Combine the cornstarch with the extra broth and stir that in as well. It should thicken a bit. Add salt and pepper to taste and also the chopped sage leaves now.

Adjust the other seasonings and fish out your herb sprigs. Next, ladle the stew into small oven proof bowls (this will make at least four servings with some likely leftovers) and set aside.

You can also do this while the stew simmers…
Add the sweet potatoes to a pot of water and let simmer/low boil until the potatoes are done — about 12 or so minutes. Test with a fork to be sure. Drain and either use a potato ricer to mash or a potato masher.

Myself, I couldn’t love my potato ricer more. It is my best friend at Thanksgiving. Well, the ricer and my oven, actually. They are my best friends. Oh, and the wine. The wine is a very good friend at Thanksgiving.

Anyway, add the butter, milk, salt and pepper to the potatoes. You want the potatoes creamy but not soupy. Add enough milk to do that. Add fresh thyme and sage. Fresh chopped chives would also be nice if you have some.

Let the potatoes cool a little and then spread some on top of each stew bowl. Try and get it even, this is best achieved by dropping little spoonfuls of potatoes over the whole top and then spreading it out. Cover each with a little bread crumbs. You can either bake it now at 375 for about 20-25 minutes or you can let it cool completely, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Before you do bake the stews, hit the to of each with a a little cooking spray. This will encourage browning. From the fridge give them about 35 minutes in the oven.


When done, top each with a sage leaf and serve.

friday - comfort food weekend

decided today at work to spend the weekend doing comfort food. usually, i dedicate saturday lunch to this sort of thing, but after discussing with mikey the sunday evening menu, and pondering my desire to finally make that sweet potato-topped veggie pie i’ve been salivating over, and coupling that with the fact that i had no idea WTF to cook for dinner after i got home, comfort food weekend was born.

started tonight with what is quickly becoming my all-time favorite, the ATK macaroni and cheese. i made a few buttermilk-soaked and breaded chicken tenders as a way to use up some of that extra buttermilk (also made a loaf of bread, but it was far less successful than the chicken) and baked those while i was whipping up the bechamel sauce.



bellisimo!
skipped dessert, although i had wanted to have a hot mug of cocoa, and just had a smirnoff. sometimes it’s so cold in my house that i get too lazy to even boil the water for cocoa. plus, the kitchen was, as usual, disgusting after so much cooking, and what with all of the lights still being out it’s obnoxious to clean in the dark.

who knew i had so many excuses for baking? cherry vanilla cupcakes

finally found an excuse to make the cherry-vanilla cupcakes AND use not only the mascarpone in the fridge but some of the cherries in the freezer. unfortunately, it is a sad occasion--yet another deserter from our office. i’m not sure if people are going to get as into these as they did with the red velvets, mostly because i think we’re going to have a ton of food. but that just means more for me, yeah?

i used a LOT of vanilla in this recipe, more than it called for, and i also threw in some dried flecks of vanilla into the batter. while i was filling the cupcakes, i kept snacking on the scraps. also, bonus points for my first filled cupcake experiment. next on the list--boston cream cupcakes!

also, i’m not sure exactly how i felt about the resulting cherry filling. part of me is seriously convinced that they would work better with a high-quality cherry jam or preserve instead of a half-assed cherry compote. and i think the compote could have used more water.



cherry vanilla cupcakes with vanilla mascarpone frosting
(adapted from the cupcake bakeshop)

Cupcakes:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2-¾ cups all-purpose flour
1-½ teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
Vanilla Mascarpone Frosting:
8 oz mascarpone cheese, room temperature
2 tbsp butter, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla paste (extract is fine)
1 tbsp milk
1 1/4 cups confectioners sugar
Cherry Filling:
2 cups cherries, pitted, fresh or frozen
½ cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch

1. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
2. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds between each.
4. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Add to mixer bowl. Add the milk and vanilla. Mix to combine.
5. Scoop into cupcake papers about half to two-thirds full (depending on whether you want flat or domed cupcakes).
6. Bake for 22-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Note: These cupcakes tend to rise quite a bit and will overflow if you put too much batter in the cupcake paper. Keep it under two-thirds full. They also tend to pull away from the papers as they cool. It should be minimal if the cupcakes were baked enough and shouldn’t be an issue. (At least it isn’t for me.)

1. Sift powdered sugar into a bowl or onto parchment
2. Beat butter at medium-high speed until creamy
3. Add half of the sugar, the vanilla and the milk. Beat until combined
4. Gradually add remaining sugar until you get to the consistency and sweetness you like.

1. Add cherries, water, and vanilla to a pot. Cook for 10 minutes over medium-high heat.
2. Stir together sugar and cornstarch then stir into the cherries.
3. Cook until thick, about 20 minutes.

Assemble
1. Fill each cupcake with filling. I used the “cone method”, but many methods will do.
2. Frost filled cupcakes.
3. Top with a rinsed and patted dry maraschino cherry.

"i don't care if it's jersey" red velvet cupcakes

in spite of my fights with mikey over the validity of red velvet cake as a food, i can’t resist. it’s nearly valentine’s day, i sacrificed my red velvet craving for the potluck, and here in front of me is a genuine excuse to make red velvet cupcakes.

plus, i saw them on martha stewart last week.

cupcakes are sort of a recent thing for me, i guess that is why i get excited by them. and i haven’t had red velvet cake since camille made me one the day before passover, a week before i left the city, so i have a fond memory of the deep red hues (she covered hers with candied flowers). i’m going for a more chintzy angle: red velvet conversation hearts. i’ve prepped tirelessly--getting icing over the weekend, and extra food coloring, and buttermilk. i dug out my bottle of cider vinegar. i looked up a wikipedia on necco’s sweetheart candies. i made the cupcakes on monday night, and spent all night tuesday watching studio 60 on the sunset strip and frosting the cakes. i’m all set.

i decided not to make martha’s buttercream, mostly because i dislike buttercream, but also because i don’t feel like taking quite that much time. i’m equally sure that my office will completely devour the cakes regardless of whether or not the icing is homemade!



red velvet conversation hearts
(adapted from martha stewart and matt lewis)

Mini Heart-Shaped Cakes

Makes six 4-inch heart-shaped cakes


1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tablespoons red food coloring

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons vegetable shortening at room temperature

1 2/3 cups sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

Speckled Cinnamon Frosting

1/4 cup melted dark chocolate, for decorating

1. Preheat to 325 degrees with rack in the center of the oven. Butter an 18-by-13-inch rimmed baking sheet, line with parchment paper, butter parchment, and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, food coloring, and 1/4 cup boiling water. Set aside to cool.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and shortening on high speed until smooth. Add sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

4. Stir buttermilk and vanilla into cocoa mixture. Into another medium bowl, sift together flour and salt. With the mixer on low, add flour mixture alternating with cocoa mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat until incorporated.

5. In a small bowl, mix together vinegar and baking soda until baking soda dissolves; mixture will fizz. Add to batter and mix until just combined.

6. Pour batter into prepared baking sheet, smoothing the top. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 20 to 30 minutes, rotating pan after 10 minutes.

7. Cool cake completely on a wire rack. Using a 4-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out 12 hearts.

8. Place 4 strips of parchment paper around perimeter of a serving plate or lazy susan. Place 1 layer on the cake plate. Spread a thin layer of frosting on the cake; top with another heart, bottom side up. Cover entire cake with a thin layer of frosting and transfer to refrigerator for 10 minutes. Repeat process with remaining ingredients.

9. Remove cakes from refrigerator and cover each cake with a generous layer of frosting, smoothing as you go around to create a flat surface.

10. Place chocolate in a pastry bag fitted with a small plain round tip; decorate as desired.



Note: Recipe courtesy of Matt Lewis from Baked

risotto #4 - cauliflower risotto

pulled this one from a new blog i’ve been following, the traveler’s lunchbox. she wrote about it so eloquently that i couldn’t help myself, describing the cauliflower as “a silkiness and subtle umami” so i had to try it even though i don’t like cauliflower. i was completely skeptical at first, especially as the scent of steeping cauliflower filled the kitchen and again as i started tasting the risotto for done-ness. i felt like all i could taste was cauliflower.

but.

when i finally reached a nice consistency, threw in the parm, butter and seasonings, and let the rice relax for a few minutes, i did in fact taste the silkiness and the umami, and it was subtle and pleasant, just as promised. i’m already looking forward to making croquettes or stuffed cakes or suppli telefono with this rice, because i feel like the flavor of the cauliflower will help overcome the leftover-ness of the risotto, and taste very nice with some cheese besides.

potluck dessert - solved

i've been agonizing--or at least thinking really hard when i should be doing other things, like my day job--about what sort of dessert to bring for my photopgraphy potluck. it's so rare that i get a real opportunity to make a cake or something especially dessert-y that i really want to have fun with it. my first thought was a red velvet cake, but mikey gave that a quick veto--"you can take the girl out of jersey, but you can't take the jersey out of the girl"--even though urband legend has red velvet as a southern specialty.

whatever.

then, while perusing over at the traveler's lunchbox (yet again while i should have been working), i stumbled over the author's rave review of dorie greenspan's far breton (which, coincidentally, i had recently seen dorie bake with martha stewart. ALSO while i should have been working!). i was inspired.

the far breton was nothing short of sheer delight. i ended up not soaking the cherries (cherries instead of prunes or raisins, because i like cherries but i don't like prunes or raisisns) in anything--mostly because i went out for drinks on saturday night, intending to stop at the liquor store for some amaretto on the way home and just never made it--but they lent this gentle sweetness to the cake, and a nice bit of something chewy besides. the far flavor was subtle--although i could definitely taste the extra schlug of vanilla i threw in there--and the lightness of the cake itself made even the confectioners sugar stand out as a flavor.

i ended up using half-and-half as a base because all i had was skim milk, and half a bottle of fresh cream. i rather fancy i could taste the cream flavor in there, adding a bit of thickness, but that could just be me.

happily, the far was very well-received by my fellow photographers!
all that was left was a tiny sliver, which i left for mikey when i went to pick up firewood after our kaffee-klatsch was over.

sugar high fridays #28 - blood orange truffle cake

Sugar High Fridays #28:
Sweet Seduction...

the first boy to ever try to seduce me with home-cooked food and sweets had a fondness for cheesecake that i still can’t quite comprehend. perhaps it was the fact that doing a no-bake cheesecake required little effort, and with the use of an oreo crust and a pile of cherry pie filling provided a pretty impressive sweet when one considered that it came out of a dormitory kitchen! but this was a full-court-press type of meal, with multiple courses and wine and even, dare i say it, place settings on the living room coffee table, and he was very proud of his cheesecake.

our second meal was crowned once again by cheesecake, only this time in the form of ice cream, dotted by small bites of blueberry. this was rather more impressive, and required more effort, because all he had was an old-fashioned hand-crank machine. i do confess that we got tired of waiting for the cream to fully freeze, but he--and i--were pleased with the result. (in a manner of speaking. i DETEST cheesecake! i really should have taken that as a sign--but i, i must confess, was dazzled enough by the effort that i ate the cheesecake. both times.)

what i really prefer is chocolate. not a deep, dark chocolate but a more mild, semisweet variety will do me just fine. brownies, cookies, cupcakes, cake, little bits of chocolate chunks stuck in my ice cream, candy bars--if it comes from a cocoa bean, i will most likely devour it. these days, my other favorite flavor is the tart sweetness of the blood orange. i save recipes all year, waiting for blood orange season to arrive. i love the red flesh, and the strange taste, and the way they make duck and sorbet and most especially chocolate taste even better. were a gentleman to find a way to mix these flavors, i’d probably melt right along with the chocolate...

Blood Orange Truffle Cake
(adapted from a recipe found on an old usenet newsgroup posting, because i made it for just myself instead of in a 9-inch pan! it rises a lot, almost souffle-like, and collapses just as quickly, but if you can eat it while it is still warm, you will know what nirvana really is)

Ingredients:
1 blood orange
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
½ cup sugar
6 eggs, slightly beaten
½ cup softened butter

Heat the oven to 350F.
Melt chocolate with butter, then stir in 1/3 cup or blood orange juice, and
the finely grated peel of the orange (reserving 1/2 tsp), and the sugar.
Stir until all is well combined and sugar is dissolved. Add the eggs, a
little at a time, and combine well. Butter a 9" springform pan and dust with
cocoa. Add a layer of foil around the outside of the pan and place in a
water bath that goes halfway up the side of the pan. Bake for 55 minutes.

i served the cake with a freshly segmented blood orange and a few dollops of blood orange-honey mascarpone icing.

more cupcakes! (and icing issues)

pomegranate-blood orange cupcakes. it seemed like a good idea at the time--as in, when i saw the recipe on the cupcake bakshop--and i even made a small batch, but they were foul. not sweet enough, not enough flavor (either pom OR orange) and the inclusion of the pomegranate seeds in the batter made for a very unpleasant crunch.

adapted the tangerine-honey cupcake frosting i found online (also, i think, at the bakeshop) to make blood orange mascarpone frosting, but all of the recipes i found suggested incorporating butter, which to my taste left this very intrusive butter taste in the midst of a light, fluffy pillow of honey and fruit floating on the mild mascarpone flavor. turns out that mascarpone is a delightful substitute for standard cream cheese.

comfort food on a cold and strange night

kitchen diaries to the rescue again. not completely substantial, but ideal for a later-than-planned comfort food type of supper on a chilly friday evening. soothing and warm and starchy.

followed up saturday morning with the ricotta pancakes



i confess, i didn’t love them, but i also didn’t make them quite the way mr. slater suggested. i didn’t separate the eggs and get that extra air into the whites to make them fluffy. still i thought that the cheese flavor was a bit much, and the pancakes a bit dry.

more from the kitchen diaries

my fatal error on these chicken patties--which smelled so good when i first mixed them with the rosemary and garlic--was baking them instead of pan-frying them. they completely dried out! the sweet potato fries were an easy compliment to the mixed flavors of the proscuitto and the chicken. especially good were the bites where i picked up a blend of chicken and ham--light yet salty and flavored.

risotto #3 - chicken confit

another saturday, another risotto. i wish i could have tried the confit with duck fat, but the olive oil was light and unintrusive, and it blended really well with the risotto. the texture of the rice was a bit different--presumably because i used olive oil instead of butter--and the rice actually reheated well! the one off note was the carrot. in future, i should only add carrot if i have fresh ones from the market, so as to borrow their sweetness and easy texture.

chocolate bread and bread puddings

chocolate bread turned out to not be chocolate-y enough, and making the candied cherries was a waste of time (should have just used straight dried cherries with sugar). but the bread pudding cupcakes (cupcake bakeshop) turned out to be delightfully tasty! since i had the chocolate in the bread already, i used a white chocolate cream base to make the pudding and served it up with a creme brulee cocktail (pulled the recipe from the cook and eat blog). the little cakes were sweet and chewy and warm, perfect for a late sunday night snack.

proscuitto bread and what became of it

was totally stupid with the bread machine and accidentally turned it off! fortunately, it had already kneaded and was in the middle of its second rise, so i just baked it as-is. turned out noticeably flatter than before, but still didn’t get that proscuitto taste. next time, i’ll just make a straight bread.

did get several perks out of it, though! toasted it, smeared it with brie, and made it divinely dunkable with a bowl of mushroom soup:


and then used some of my fresh mozzarella and even more soup to make a mozzarella en carozza:

quickie "quesadilla" for a bone-chilling night

dreamt all day of something gooey and casserole-y, possibly the peruvian potato and quinoa “macaroni” i’ve been saving for almost a year, but found when i came home that i lacked the energy--and the warmth--to do much of anything at all. decided to do something completely un-weekday-like and crank up the heat, light a real fire, get straight into pajamas and have a quickie dinner. i pulled one of the huge market portabellos out of the fridge, sliced it up--didn’t even bother browning it first--and plopped it on a tortilla with some jack cheese. while the cheese was melting--i didn’t cook it much more than to melt the cheese--i simmered some pre-made sweet corn soup and spiced it up with some pepper, paprika, cayenne and a dash of cumin and drank it out of a mug.

light, i admit, and pretty weak sauce, but it definitely hit the spot.

tomorrow for lunch--leftover risotto with the tomato soup.

notes while reading nigella's 'how to eat'

definitely another cookbook worth reading cover to cover, recipe by recipe. she’s very engaging, chatty even, and makes everything seem simple and doable.

i like her mantra of picking a skill to work on and then practicing it until it feels natural instead of a challenge. will apply this to making pie crust (pastry crust?) over the next several weeks...

i’m just in the “basics” section right now--it seems to dovetail with the ease and serendipity of the nigel slater’s recipes. which makes sense, given how many times he states that nigella lawson is one of his favorite cookbook authors!

the section on stocking your fridge, freezer and pantry strikes me as totally common sense and yet utterly useful. i often fantasize about starting a kitchen from scratch, and i well recall how the last two times i moved i lugged along boxes of canned and boxed goods that ended up being useless, because i was trying to stock the pantry.

i’m less enthralled by her cooking in advance section, because although the advice is again sound and quite sensical, i’m less impressed with the recipes (largely for soups and stews that i can only assume are british-type favorites) but her writing is really shining through (“i loathe the acrid dustiness of standard-issue sherry,” she explains when she describes why she uses orange liquor in her trifles).

into the actual cooking sections now (one and two; fast food) and i’m starting to see very tempting ideas and recipes, instead of just “mere” inspiration for goals. i particularly liked the pasta recipes in “one and two” and am now enthralled by the simple soups and suppers of “fast food.”

gnudi (ricotta cheese gnocchi)

i pulled this recipe from epicurious.com, and as i trolled my recipe file for ideas this week i was struck with inspiration for the tub of ricotta i had sitting around, waiting to be eaten. aside from the obvious cannoli cream, the two possibilities that appealed to me me were for pancakes of some kind or, in a stroke of seeming genius during work one afternoon, this recipe for “gnudi.” (which i had never heard of, but have since seen by other names on several blogs and other sites)

so, the prep: while a bit time-consuming (albeit in an inactive prep sort of way), the overall preparation of this recipe was so easy that i was able to prep three other recipes whilst this one was going (cherries for the bread, brining some chicken for tomorrow’s risotto, and starting a new loaf of proscuitto-stuffed bread (although this time, i used more of the ham and in larger slices in hopes of evoking more flavor).

then i did the sauce, which consisted of sauteing some mushrooms and reducing some chicken broth, and as this was boiling i formed the bits of pasta. which was also easy.

so then we are left with the eating. the consistency was so cool--like a little ricotta scrambled egg, and the taste was particularly enhanced by the earthiness of the mushrooms and the saltiness of the ham. on its own, the cheese was a bit strong, but i chalk this up to me having made he individual bits of pasta much much too large for any normal person. they were at least twice as large as i should have made them, perhaps even more. so herein lies the major flaw in my meal for the evening. with such large lumps of the pasta, i was quickly overwhelmed by the cheese flavor and as such didn’t eat nearly a full plate. which also explains why epicurious suggests them as an appetizer--which i can fully agree with, having tried to eat them for dinner.

bang-on with the bangers and mash, and weekend goals

so, this weekend will be another cookfest, although i think i will take it easy on sunday. for a change.

tonight, it's the ricotta pasta. not sure about dessert yet, but while the pasta is chilling, i'll make a batch of candied cherries (for the bread), i'll prep the confit for tomorrow's risotto, and maybe i'll start a batch of the proscuitto bread for tomorrow's lunch.

tomorrow, i'll probably stay light on the breakfast so i can do a soup and sandwich lunch, and then for dinner the confit. in between, i'll do the chocolate bread (leaving a few slices to dry out for bread pudding), and maybe a cookie. i've a fancy to try one of the weirder cookies i've been collecting instead of a basic drop cookie (since i have muffins, brownies, and a log of chocolate chip in the freezer). dessert saturday, maybe i'll try the bread pudding cupcakes, since i can make a small batch of them and decide how i actually feel about bread pudding.

sunday, i'll finish off the ricotta with some ricotta pancakes, either cherry or orange or raspberry. i'll go easy on the lunch and do one of the veggie stews for dinner. maybe the sweet potato stew? not sure yet. maybe more cupcakes. :-) if i end up defrosting any of the frozen cherries for pancakes, i'll do the cherry-vanilla cupcakes, because one of my winter goals was to use those damn cherries.

in other news, dinner last night was awesome. the mashed (whipped, really) potatoes were bang-on and i loved the combo of the bangers and the mash. didn't end up eating a whole lot of it, because it was seriously rich and filling, but i did plate it with a side of green beans that i had fried in the rendered sausage grease. yum. with lots of leftovers. make a quick batch of brownies--love the KA recipe because there is no chocolate melting involved and it's easy to halve. just like the nigel slater entry that inspired the meal in the first place.



i had never used the mixer to make mashed potatoes, although i know a lot of people covet the mixers because it makes that sort of dish so easy. little did i know how delightful it would be! i just boiled some baby yukon golds, threw them in the mixer, turned it on, and as they whipped i threw in some spices and some cream until i saw a consistency and taste that suited my mood. nothing could be simpler.

p.s. am just reminded of the far breton cake. hmmm.

two promising but ultimately bland new recipes

item 1 (red cooked chicken legs) would be yet another disappointment from my book “spices.” i’m sure the recipe had a lot of promise and somehow i made it bland...maybe with my dried spices or my lack of pretty food styling (the picture in the book, which used whole star anise instead of dried anise seeds, for example, was quite tempting). i mean, i simmered the red sauce, let it infuse, and then poached the chicken for a while and all i got was...vaguely spiced chicken. truly, i don’t know why i should have been so upset. this was just a quickie dinner anyway, meant to use some of the chicken and the last of the rice and maybe play with some of the spices.

item 2, however, is more easily fixable, i should think. nigella’s ‘crepes cannelloni’ recipe suggests meat sauce and a tomato puree. i didn’t feel like making meat sauce, and i sure as hell didn’t feel like pureeing anything, so i spiced up some diced canned tomatoes and threw in a few portobello slices for each crepe and topped it with more tomato chunks and a fresh hunk of mozzarella from blue ridge. the promise was there, i could taste it, especially the way the melted cheese blended with the tomato blended with the crepes, but it definitely needs 1) more spice and 2) a meat sauce. at least i got in a meatless meal for the week!



was so overwhelmed by all of the tomato i needed to seriously cleanse my palate for dessert, so i just had a few spoonfuls of my new improved blood orange sorbet (which had more sugar, zero lime juice and, for some reason, a beaten egg white).

am feverishly looking forward to the weekend and what might lie ahead. for tomorrow, bangers and mash (from kitchen diaries). friday my tub of ricotta meets its destiny. saturday will be fresh bread, soup (since i finally have milk, cream, white mushrooms AND porcini mushrooms) and a new risotto for dinner; and sunday will be one of the vegetarian stews i’ve been pondering.

next week: lamb-filled flatbreads? one of the tempeh or seitan sautees? i love the new butcher counter at the tenleytown whole foods. everything looks so trim and delicious, it fills my head with ideas. twice now, i’ve been drawn to the lamb--and i don’t even like lamb--with a notion of trying either a tagine-style stew or one of nigel slater’s recipes. he seems to have no issues whatsoever with lamb.

becoming a domestic goddess

piles of cupcakes!!



used up the seriously overripe bananas in this cupcake recipe pulled from nigella’s “how to be a domestic goddess.” since i don’t have a proper muffin pan, and i like them on the tiny side anyway, i made mini-cupcakes (although they really have the consistency of a muffin, especially with the bananas). but they were very tasty and made a great dessert after my tragically overcooked pizza.



tonight was a great night for cooking with what was on hand. made the mini-muffins, then i made the pizza, which took care of the tomato sauce left from the ragu, the mozzarella ball i got at whole foods, and some of the sliced portobello mushrooms i had in there.

i’m having a serious cupcake fetish these days. spent the entire afternoon--again--browsing cupcake blogs and pulling recipes. i figure i’ll try to halve most of them and make mini-muffins like these little goddess-worthy ones. they’ll make excellent breakfast treats with a bowl of special K and some milk!

as for the pizza...it was looking so beautiful and perfect, and i didn’t want it to burn, so i pulled it out early. not 100% sure if i just got overeager or if it really wasn’t cooked through, but it started falling apart so i put it back in the oven. and then didn’t hear the timer.

fortunately the result was still completely edible...just not as pretty and all over with the cheese as the original.

weekend cooking roundup

hit up whole foods friday night for some basic necessities to go with what i already had in the fridge to make a weekend wonderland of meals. started off friday night with a butterflied stuffed pork loin. usually i like to do it with curried apples and cherries, but i forgot to get the apples (i mean, i realized as i was leaving, but didn’t have the heart to go back through the line), so i made it with cranberries sauteed in curry powder and a dash of fresh-squeezed orange. i fear i overcooked it a bit, but my modified couscous salad recipe was an excellent side dish.



i wanted to use up the navel oranges that have been sitting in the crisper bin of my fridge, so in addition to using them to sprinkle over the cranberries and couscous, i made the orange marmalade cake out of my new kitchen diaries book. the marmalade was excellent, but i detest the candied peels that are hidden in the jell, and i think the cake is a touch too sweet. but it was a lovely dessert with some chocolate madelines (enhanced by zest from one of the oranges)



the madelines were perfect. much better than the last batch i made, where i used the splenda and accidentally used twice as much as necessary. they were hard and sweet and foul. but not these. these were lovely. and i ate at the table like a civilized person. the cake and the madelines finished baking just as i finished my pork. rounded out the night with the end of pride and prejudice. perfect.

saturday i took it easy all day, even though i had some baking i had originally planned to do. i did whip up some pizza dough, and had wanted to make a chocolate cherry bread (so that i could do a bread pudding for dessert tonight, sunday), but that was before i realized that i’d need to cool the candied cherries for 8 hours. so i worked most of the afternoon and then started off with some of the dessert--juicing blood oranges for a second go at the sorbet, and starting to simmer the ragu for the risotto. it smelled (and tasted) so devine--and the risotto was much easier to cook this way, although i had serious doubts at first (even in spite of the devine-ness of the smell of the simmering ragu). very gradually, the risotto began to absorb the stock and ragu until it was cooked to perfection. i regret to say that i didn’t quite get to enjoy dinner the way i had planned--i got painfully, violently ill just as i finished the risotto. my only thought is that maybe the cheese? it was a bit old, and i imagine that it may have smelled off. or perhaps the chicken i used for the ragu...i had a lot leftover, and i think this type of risotto might actually reheat well, but i am afraid.



i used the last egg, and a few drops of milk leftover from lunch (macaroni and cheese, but it was too liquid-y and had too much cayenne, which even then didn’t stop me from eating every bite over the course of the afternoon), and some of the cream to make a single chocolate pot de creme. it was basically a heated chocolate pudding. i added some extra chocolate, which was a mistake because the chocolate was too strong. and i think i should have added a dash of vanilla. but after the sick, it was basically all i had for dinner!

eggs for dinner

all day today i supposed that i would cook for dinner but could not settle on a dish. nothing called me from my ‘wish’ list, or my quick list, or even from the ingredients in the refrigerator except the presence of eggs, milk, fresh cheese, cremini mushrooms and proscuitto all teamed up with the epiphany that i had half a loaf of bread in the fridge to make an egg sandwich.

i had planned to have some of the sweet potato fries from the stash in the freezer, but they burned in the oven.

so i just had my sandwich: mozz, turkey and mushrooms scrambled with eggs eaten as an open-faced sandwich, and i lined the bread with proscuitto for a bit of extra punch.

thirst was cured by a glass of apple juice.

cookbook reviews: kitchen diaries, the breath of a wok, and my total love for nigella lawson

the breath of a wok: the recipes are lovely, but the prose leaves quite a bit wanting. i got the impression from kim o’donnell that it was part cookbook, part homage to chinese cookery, and indeed it is. the problem is that the homage is dreadfully written--trite, repetitive, and not enough detail. i’m sure that the intricacies of her family’s history with the wok and chinese cooking are delightful, but her difficulty in putting them to paper is too much for this reader, at least, to overcome. but, as i said, the recipes are quite nice and i look forward to adding a few of them to my cooking program.

the kitchen diaries:
(1/31/2007)
earlier this week, i finally finished my much-anticipated read of nigel slater's "kitchen diaries," a year-long account of what happened in his kitchen and garden in london. i had hoped it would provide me with some inspiration, especially for writing about my food, and as an added bonus might have a few pictures or a pleasant recipe.

oh, how it was everything i hoped for and more. the writing was like food poetry. or porn, if one must be more graphic about it. every word conveyed this complete delight in food, even on those days where he was lazy or tired and just pulled a hunk of cheese and a slice of bread out of his refrigerator. i can only hope that with more concerted practice, i can express myself so eloquently about how much fun i have in my kitchen.

and then there were the recipes. they were all of them simple, elegant, and making the most of whatever fruit or veg might be in season (although he did demonstrate a love for fish and fennel that i could never get on board with). one of the reasons it took me so long to read this book was because i didn't want to read it away from my computer, where i would forget about all the gems i was unearthing. i wanted my recipe collection right in front of me, so that i could add each morsel as it came. i've already played with one of the recipes--a marmalade cake--and even though it wasn't perfect, it was still exactly what i wanted from 'diaries'--simple, relatively fast, with easy ingredients. i must have pulled between 30-50 recipes from the book, and the only thing that stopped me from pulling more was the fish factor. i even started pulling his two-line paragraphs about his formula for miso soup, or frittatas, or a ham and mushroom sandwich, just because the prose was so lovely it seemed to express more inspiration for such simple fare than i could ever muster.

and so, with this, i hope to step up my efforts to document my kitchen adventures, and my projects in general. i definitely need to work harder on my food photography (not just vis a vis slater, but after spending much of the week thus far browsing food blogs i am ashamed of my own efforts). and i hope to embrace the simplicity that nigel brought to his cooking. each day, he'd hunt for ingredients. he rarely planned ahead (although i don't fancy giving that up any time soon, as i get so much pleasure out of anticipating what i might cook) and took his time with everything. each day was a new challenge, even when he was just considering a salad for his own lunch. it was truly...delicious.

a perfect night for bulgogi

why is it a perfect night? one might ask, and i say this: it’s cold outside, it’s dark, it’s january, and i stuffed myself with bad cafeteria pizza and a non-diet soda for lunch. the ginger/garlic/soy sauce will be light and spiced; the meat is tender, and best of all, the asian pears will clean my palate and fill me up as i scarf it down with a pile of sushi rice...

veal stew

finally had some good stew weather today--chilly, indoors, and snow outside. there was a delightful hiss most of the day as a light snow fell outside. even stuck a little bit! i feel like a little kid looking out the window hoping for a snow day!

so i didn’t quite have all of the proper ingredients. didn’t have any marsala wine, for instance, and didn’t have any “stew meat” at whole foods when i was there yesterday for a massive shopping spree. but i DID snag some serious quality bacon, and the fresh green beans, and some mushrooms, and some osso bucco shanks. i figured that since one has to stew osso bucco for several hours, it should be suitable in my own little stew. i was worried about how long they should stew, since osso bucco usually goes for 2 or 3 hours and my recipe was only for one, but my fears were totally unfounded. the veal positively melted into its sauce (mostly consisting of mushrooms and broth, with a splash of red cooking wine just to deglaze the pan).

as is my usual custom, i served it on a bed of brown rice with some steamed green beans, and a glass of water.

tuffled egg risotto

so, as beautiful as it looks and as delicious as it sounds, i was not a fan of the truffled egg risotto. the texture with the eggs was definitely interesting and i was fascinated by the idea of making a little paste with the egg yolk and the truffle oil (i used the good stuff from fauchon, and i totally noticed a difference in taste from the chemical stuff i got from whole foods), but it was still too rich, and it left a bizarre taste in my mouth.

i should mention that i made the risotto in the rice cooker, but i really think that didn’t affect what was going on here...the texture is NOT as authentic and al dente as a proper pot of risotto is, but the convenience was lovely and it was still more-or-less edible...the problem was definitely the truffles and the eggs. i think it’s quite possible that i don’t like truffle oil! i hated it when i made the macaroni with it; i could barely eat the macaroni. and despite the considerably higher quality of tonight’s ingredients (i used not only the fauchon truffle oil but the italian olive oil that mikey brought back) and a nicely flavored mushroom stock instead of chicken, i could still barely eat it. i ended up throwing the majority of it away, cringing with every movement. i HATE throwing food away.

other things that got thrown out today--the blood orange sorbet i made a few weeks ago. it was too bitter, for starters, and i got too eager with the lime juice. i didn’t put enough sugar in, and i’m convinced that the texture was off because the incredible sorbet i got at etc etc for ron’s birthday was in the italian style--that is, with some milk or cream, almost like a sherbet. i’m tempted to try it again, this time adapting a sherbet recipe instead of the sorbet recipe. i got a fresh lot of oranges today and i still have others in the fridge. i think i’ll be glad i did, what with the deep freeze in california and all that.

made chocolate grapes for dessert. incredible. but next time i want to use red grapes.

tried another loaf of bread today--it was a bread kind of day--the proscuitto-stuffed bread. i had, again, really good ingredients (including the italian olive oil), but i think i didn’t put in enough proscuitto. the bread has a nice crumb, and brie spread over it like butter, and i love the idea of making a creamy mushroom soup for lunch tomorrow and dipping this bread into it. i just wish i could taste the proscuitto!

finally made a log of cookie dough today. KA chocolate chip, which is definitely my standard as far as chocolate chip recipes go. tomorrow i might do some brownie bites.

cooking resolution update -- week #1

well, for my first week i made a pretty solid start on my cooking resolutions. so far as quick meals went, i did chicken/apple curry, grilled cheese, two braises, some meatballs and spaghetti, stovetop macaroni and cheese from the ATK best recipe, and managed to make lunches out of the leftovers for most of the week. off the 'to-try' list, i nailed at least 1--riz l'indienne to go with the chicken curry. i also tried some stir-fried rice to go with hamburgers i modified from some food network recipes i found last year--i mixed teriyaki sauce and minced ginger in with th meat. yum!

as far as baking goes, i did a recipe of scones from ATK--which were incredible, and better, i think, than any other recipe i've tried--and made a fresh loaf of bread. was going to make honey whole wheat, but saturday morning i didn't have any milk, so i used some defrosted buttermilk leftover from a baking experiment months ago and made regular whole wheat bread. the second the bread was done, i sliced it and made grilled cheese (with fresh cheddar) and cream of tomato soup. again, from ATK. i don't even LIKE tomato soup and this stuff hit the spot. i could have kept dunking my sandwich for hours.

(today, in fact, i used some of the soup as yet another dunk--for a meatball and mozzarella sandwich)

was perusing chocolate, chocolate last night with (at first) the idea of maybe selling or donating it, since i don't enjoy any of her cookie recipes and have already purloined the scones, and then i stumbled on the chapter of chocolate breads. that, and the mouthwatering pictures, brought me back to the fold. i came up with a new idea for a brownie -- wafer cookie bottom layer, blondie middle layer, topped with kit kats. this is because i've finally given up the idea of re-tooling the peanut butter cookie bar recipe into something i'd willingly eat, although i have determined to give the nougat cookie bar recipe another try. (this time, lessening the cooking time and perhaps freezing the candy pieces to prevent the utter carmalzied mess that emerged)

this week's task will be to find a good dessert to make for dinner on sunday night. right now, i'm tentatively scheduled to have dinner in NJ with the family and alicia. i'm hoping this pans out, as it gives me another go at the darkroom and my van dyke series. (note to self: get some stonehenge paper to bring home with me)

two stews and a weekend out of ATK. this particular shot is of the un-beLIEVEable tomato soup i made. and i don’t even like tomato soup. i hate it, in fact. but i had a craving for a fresh loaf of bread and some grilled cheese (with fresh cheddar), and taking my inspiration from mikey’s new year’s eve menu, i couldn’t resist.

new year's eve menu and notes - final draft and photos

Dim Sum – Appetizers

Edamame
Spiced Tofu Katsu
Marinated Beef Skewers with Egg Noodles
Duck and Green Apple Spring Rolls
Bok Choi Rolls with Chicken

Ginger, Blood Orange and Pomegranate Martinis

Soup and Salad

Japanese Fresh Corn Soup
Trimbaugh Riesling 2002

Indonesian Gado-Gado with Spicy Peanut Dressing
Domaine Zind Humbrecht Gewurztramainer 1999, Clos Windsbuhl

Intermezzo

Main Course

Asian-Style Short Ribs with Laquered Baby Carrots
Served with steamed Thai Jasmine Rice
E. Guigal Cote-Rotie 1995, Chateau d’Ampuie

Dessert

Warm Chocolate Cakes with Lemon Mousse and Citrus Compote
Mueller-Catoir Riesling 1999, Eiswein