Chefty

I have been eating for the last seven months.

2009-08-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

I have. Really. I just haven't been telling you about it. What I've been eating has not been strictly low- or no-carb. Nor has it been particularly interesting. 2009: a year of nearly windless culinary sails, so far (this is a theme). There have been a few choice baking adventures, like the croquembouche assembled for a friend's birthday. That was fun. But mostly I've been throwing together mid-evening pantry dinners. Eggs, many ways. Pasta with anchovies and cauliflower. Mustard pork chops. Arugula and pine nuts. Did I mention eggs?

Anyway. That last post was so uninspiring I figured I should provide a brief (if perhaps equally wanting) update on what's cooking. Summer usually gets the fires burning around here, but not this year: here it is already the middle of August and have I made one fantastic dish with tomatoes, wax beans, basil, peaches, corn or blueberries? Not. A. One. Okay, that's not true: I did make a honey caramel peach pie back in July. It was the most perfect pie crust I've ever made and that's no lie. It made me ridiculously, heart-swellingly happy. (I did, however, skimp on the cornstarch for the filling which made it all kind of a runny affair. That was too bad.)

I hope my kitchen apathy is not here to stay. Help a lady out. Give me a cooking challenge, any challenge. I'll take it. And tell you about it.

Croquembouche. It's supposed to be more like a pyramid or tower. This is a well. But delicious all the same.

Honey caramel peach pie.

Egg muffins.

2009-01-26T19:10:00.001-08:00

I realize that, as much as I love my Kashi in the morning, it may be a good idea to give this low-carb thing a try. In the spirit of living lighter, I offer you my first foray into low-carb/no-carb cooking: the egg muffin.

These look like muffins (not oh-so-pretty, so that's why no picture) but they're all egg. I just gave one a quick taste-test and they're not bad at all. Eggy. Mushroomy. You know, like an omelet! Better than no breakfast at all.

You could mix up the vegetable quotient in any fathomable way, I just happened to have mushrooms on hand. E-Z P-Z. Let's just hope I don't get sick of them too quickly!

Egg Muffins
makes 6 jumbo or 12 standard

2 cups of mixed fresh mushrooms, diced fine (I just dumped them in the mini-chopper)
1 shallot, minced
1 small clove garlic, minced
1-2 TB extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp fresh thyme
1/2 cup low-fat shredded cheddar
1 dozen eggs, egg whites, or combination thereof (I used whole eggs), beaten
butter or cooking spray for greasing muffin tin
salt & pepper

*Preheat oven to 375.

1. Heat olive oil in saute pan over medium heat, add shallot and garlic and a shake of salt, saute until softened and translucent, about 3-5 minutes.
2. Add mushrooms and thyme and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat until soft and fragrant, about 5-7 minutes.
3. Beat eggs until they begin to look frothy.
4. Portion mushroom mixture among muffin tins, sprinkle with a bit cheese, and pour egg batter over the filling until it reaches about 3/4 up the side of the muffin cup.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes until puffy and golden (might be even shorter than this if you're using a standard 12-cup tin--just keep an eye out after about 15 minutes).
6. Cool on a rack, then store in the fridge for up to a week or freeze for up to a month.
7. To reheat: I'm going to guess pop in the microwave for about a minute. (Will advise tomorrow if it takes longer!)

Neiman Marcus cookies.

2008-11-23T22:03:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like Thanksgiving to put an end to blog hibernation. Last week I pulled my November issues of Saveur and Gourmet from their stacks and started flipping through looking for inspiration. Along the way I came across an article about Neiman Marcus cookies and their fabled high price tag. You remember getting those email chains, don't you? About the department store's cookie recipe that cost one unwitting customer $250? Of course it's not true, and in fact is just one example in recent memory of a certain brand of recipe lore that's been going around since the 1940s. I do love little sidebars like this. I also happen to love chocolate chip cookies and these sounded like a good spin on the Toll House variety. I made a few changes of my own but nothing revolutionary--I've noted these below in case you want to play by the book.

What surprised me the most about these cookies how light they are. When I picked one up I thought it must be nearly as light as a meringue. There's so much grain in them (equal parts flour and oatmeal) that I thought they'd be a lot heavier. That said, I had two small cookies and felt rather full (there's that oatmeal!), so be careful: you're eyes will be bigger than your stomach. They're crispy on the outside but they have a nice chewy bite. Just the way I like 'em!

Neiman Marcus Cookies (makes 4 1/2 dozen)

1 c unsalted butter, softened
1 c sugar (I used 2/3 c)
1 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c all purpose flour
2 c Quaker oats, ground fine in the food processor
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon (my addition)
1/2 tsp espresso powder (my addition)
2 c semisweet chocolate chips
4 oz Hershey chocolate, grated (I used 4 oz bittersweet chocolate ground fine in the food processor)
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (I ground mine instead, since I was already doing so much grinding)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1. Cream butter with sugars until smooth, about 3-4 minutes in the mixer
2. Add vanilla and 1/2 tsp of salt.
3. Add eggs one at a time and beat until incorporated. Then scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat batter until the eggs are well mixed and the mixture begins to look fluffy.
4. Blend flour, oatmeal, soda, powder, remaining salt, and seasonings with a fork in a separate bowl, then add to the batter gradually, mixing on the lowest speed until incorporated.
5. Stir in chocolate chips, grated chocolate, and walnuts by hand.

Chill dough while your oven preheats to 375 degrees.

When the oven's ready, pull out your dough and using a teaspoon to measure, form dough into small balls, about an inch or so big. Make them as big as you want, just make them all roughly the same size, and if you decide to make them bigger, you'll just need to leave them in a bit longer.

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes until nicely domed and slightly golden brown.

Remove to a rack, cool, and enjoy with a glass of cold milk or a mug of tea. Mmm!

Black cod, two ways.

2008-11-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

Woah! Two posts in one night? (Note that this one had its genesis almost a month ago.)

Tonight we talk about black cod. It's a pretty damn good fish. It's richer in texture than the Atlantic cod & haddock I know and love. It has more flavor, and yes you could say that flavor is fishy, but in a good way. Now, I love a strong-flavored fish but a lot of people prefer milder ones, so when I say "in a good way" I mean it's lovely and luscious and not overpowering at all. Better yet, it will complement most side dishes very nicely and pick up a lot of flavor from any additional seasonings you decide to use.

In both dishes, I pan-seared the cod. I wanted to get the skin nice and crispy. The skin isn't thick like salmon, it crisps up pretty quickly and provides a welcome crunchy bite to the fish but is still pretty light and melt-in-your-mouth. Pan-searing is an easy method. Put your pan on medium high, add a knob of butter and a bit of olive oil, heat until the foam from the butter subsides, then add your fish (seasoned well with salt & pepper) skin side down. Bring the heat down a touch and then let it cook. You can use a big spoon to baste the skinless side of the fish with the liquid in the pan, this will help it cook faster. Turn the fish after about five minutes. If you've left it long enough, it won't stick and the skin will have a nice edge to it. Cook for another five minutes or so, depending on the size of the fillet. The ones I cooked were between 6-8 oz. You'll know when it's done, the fish will be white and opaque and tender but not falling apart.

In the first dish, I prepared the cod with a mix of black lentils and kale and topped it with a lemon vinaigrette. (Juice and zest from half a lemon, salt, pepper, a little olive oil.)

(Silly date stamp. Fortunately I have since found out how to get rid of this.)

Next dish was black cod with a squash & vegetable curry, inspired by cooky's Autumn Hellfire Pumpkin Curry. Mine was more Purgatory than Hellfire. Earlier posts notwithstanding, I don't really love the spicy pepper. Here is cooky's recipe lineup, adapted for those who like me are also in Spicyland Limbo. She made hers with chicken, which would work just fine in this version too, as would pork, tofu, or any other vegetable you might want to add. You could put fish in here, too, but I would probably opt for prawns or a lighter white fish like haddock or cod. Seared black cod is a really nice way to top this dish.

This is not the most artful picture, but it's also not the most blurry!

2 T thai red curry paste
1 can light coconut milk
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
1 medium onion, julienned
1 clove of garlic, smashed
1 medium or two small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced into uniformly sized chunks
1 small head each of cauliflower and broccoli (use 1/2 head if they're big)
5 stalks of thai purple basil, including buds
1/2 cup diced tomatoes or one fresh tomato seeded and diced
Fish sauce (nam pla)
Lime wedges for serving

1. In large saucepan, saute onions with salt and pepper in a little vegetable oil until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Add red curry paste and stir, then add coconut milk and chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and stir until the curry paste is dissolved.
3. Add squash, cauliflower, garlic, and a few sprigs of thai basil. Stir and bring back to a simmer, check seasoning, and cover for about 15-20 minutes until squash is almost tender. *If you are making this with chicken/pork/tofu, you would add that at this point.*
4. Add broccoli and tomato and continue cooking until squash is cooked through and broccoli is steamed/simmered to your taste (I like to try and keep it sort of crunchy.) *If you want to make this with shrimp or haddock, you would add it at this point. Cooks quick!*
5. Finish with fish sauce to taste ("for salty")
6. Slice some basil into ribbons, serve curry in a bowl with a sprinkle of basil and a lime wedge (and that black cod if you're making it).

Stuffed peppers, who knew they could be so good?

2008-09-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

So there's this stall at the market called Tonnemakers. They have a huge variety of produce--apples, melons, cherries, pears and peaches, tomatoes and corn, you name it--but it seems like peppers and apples are among their specialties.

See?

When I was at that market a few weekends ago, I decided to get a bag of peppers. I'd been eyeing them for awhile but kept deciding against them because I had no idea what I'd make. I practically never cook with peppers and really don't know how. Truthfully, they are not one of my favorite foods. My good friend Hans* said to me once, in college, that when she ate peppers, she ate them all day. Also true of doughnuts. I'm paraphrasing. The point is, they make you burp, and that's not something I can get behind. Can you? Spicy peppers are a breed apart and I think my next pepper project will involve these. Historically my tolerance for heat has been pretty low but it's getting better and I like a good spicy dish every now and again.

Maybe cooky will post again one of these days and tell me how to make it spicy. *hint*

I got a mix of sweet peppers, the names of which I can't entirely recall, but most of them were recommended as good for stuffing or frying. The long curly frying ones I still have and they are beginning to shrivel up, so what their fate will be is anyone's guess. The others, however, were either diced or stuffed in a haphazardly conceived but otherwise well-executed Sunday supper.

Stuffed peppers did not excite me as a prospect, initially. I kept thinking of the those frozen Stouffers peppers, which I remember making for my grandmother. They always looked sort of watery and mushy and as such are not among my favorite food memories. (However... homemade applesauce? Kitty Dukakis?** Hot milk sponge cake? Now we're talking.) But then I considered my other options--sausage & peppers, some kind of stir-fry, a roasted pepper sauce for pasta--and figured they were worth a shot.

Getting to supper was something of a journey. All the recipes I could find for stuffed peppers--online and in print--were very uninspiring. Beef, rice, ketchup or tomato sauce, breadcrumbs and cheese cropped up in most. Those could taste pretty good, but I didn't have those ingredients on hand. (As an aside, leftover risotto or a really nice ragu or chili might make an amazing stuffed pepper, too.) What I did have was some ground lamb and a pantry, so I worked up a kind of middle-eastern mix for the stuffing. Since the peppers were red and sweet, I think this was the right call flavor-wise. I ended up producing a fragrant savory-sweet heap of delicious.

And when I say heap, that's what I mean. Since my peppers were an odd shape, I had to cook them on their sides instead of standing, as you'd do with a traditional bell pepper. It was a little more messy that way, but I don't lose sleep over this kind of thing. I had a lot of stuffing leftover and topped with a quick egg poached in olive oil, it's been a great quick supper.

Moral of the story: stuffed peppers are much better than you may think! If you try these, let me know how they turn out. For vegetarians, you could easily substitute chickpeas for the lamb and add some chopped olives, too.

Stuffed Peppers a la Chefty

4 peppers, bell or otherwise--they just need to be big enough to accomodate a filling
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 or 2 small sweet peppers or 1 medium bell pepper, diced
3/4 -1 lb ground lamb
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tb cumin
1 tsp caradamom
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger (you could also use the same amount of fresh ginger, peeled and grated)
1/4 cup black currants
6 oz of feta cheese or paneer, diced
1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted (optional to toast, I just like to)
1/2 cup brown rice or rice pilaf, dry (I used a packet of this Kashi pilaf, yum)
1 cup diced tomato, canned or fresh
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly oil. If you're using bell peppers and want to stand them up all pretty, you can lightly oil a bundt, angel-food, or 9x9 square baking pan so they keep their form while they cook. Otherwise, if you have irregularly shaped peppers, you can just cook them on their sides and sacrifice aesthetics.

1. Slice tops off of peppers, remove core and seeds, and blanch peppers in boiling salted water for about a minute. Remove peppers to drain on a paper towel until you're ready to stuff them.

2. Using blanching water, cook brown rice or rice pilaf according to packager's instructions. You won't need to use all the water, just measure out what you need for 1/2 cup of dry rice. Of course, you can make as much rice as you want and save the leftover for something else. For the stuffing, you'll need about 1 cup of cooked rice.

3. Saute onion and pepper with salt and pepper in olive oil over medium heat until soft and beginning to color, about five minutes. Add ground lamb and cook through until brown but still juicy. Check for salt.

4. Add garlic, cumin, cardamom, coriander, ginger, and red pepper flakes and stir to combine.

5. Add tomatoes, cheese, and currants and stir to combine. Now's a good time to take a nice big whiff of the steam rising from the pan--guaranteed to make your stomach growl. Check again for seasoning.

6. Remove pan from the heat, add pine nuts and cooked rice. Taste.

7. Fill peppers to just shy of the top (not overflowing), you'll probably have stuffing leftover. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until peppers have softened slightly and filling has begun to sizzle.

8. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and serve with salad greens or just by themselves. If your peppers are on the small or skinny side, you could probably eat two (I did).

*Name changed.
**"Kitty Dukakis, you say? Is that code for rubbing alcohol?" Shame on you. No, it's a recipe by Kitty Dukakis that was printed one year in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette (or maybe the Boston Globe) around the holidays and has since become a family favorite of ours. I don't remember exactly how you make it, but it's basically cranberry jello with sour cream and walnuts. Like stuffed peppers, much better than it may sound at first.

Everyone's favorite Parisian pistachio and chorizo cake

2008-09-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

Warm and sliced open. So pretty! This is probably a good party conversation piece.

Baking chemistry pleases me in a way I can't really describe. I love nooks, crannies, flaky layers. Leavening, it's cool.

This is definitely one for the recipe box, all credit due to two favorite Parisians.

A vegetarian version might be good with olives instead of chorizo and maybe some parmesan cheese. The cake delicious just by itself, but I also bet it would be nice sliced thin with a bit of goat cheese, or toasted with some olive oil, tapenade, or butter.

Oh, and I did not end up having any eggs or salad with this. Instead I munched on some more string beans with pesto while the cake was in the oven. And because I know how scintillating this is-- how suspenseful, even!--let me tell you: these particular beans, which were purchased from the same stall that gave me last week's amazing beans, were not nearly as good as that first batch or as tender and sweet as the ones I had last night.

Change really is the only thing you can count on.

Update: people at work *hated* this, in fact someone spit it out! But my supperclub friends seemed to really like it so... who knows?

A rare but happy occasion.

2008-09-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

I just came across this recipe (thank you David Leibovitz--he of the amazing salted caramel ice cream) and realized I have *all* the ingredients at home to make it. Well, except for the sun-dried tomatoes, but those are easy to pick up.

I think I'll have this tonight with some poached eggs and a salad. Sounds good, doesn't it? I have no idea what to expect from this curious mix of ingredients, but I'm hoping it will be sink-your-teeth-in delicious.

More to come...

Wise up.*

2008-09-03T22:21:00.000-07:00

Pink peonies.

Well, it's been a slow few months here. I have not taken on too many Chefty challenges, I suppose my sails have been wanting wind, and now fall has pretty much arrived, if the cool temperatures and cloudyish skies are any indication.

I went back to the market this weekend after being on vacation and was really beside myself with delight. The bounty of gorgeous fresh food in this part of the country never fails to thrill me. Sometimes it feels like the saving grace of this place. Tables and tables piled high with peaches and plums and armloads of lettuce and beans, baskets of curly lettuce and buckets of dahlias and sunflowers, bright waxy peppers of all shapes and colors and flavors, heaps of berries all lined up in pints and flats. Everywhere! I will try to document what I'm talking about this weekend. Every farmer has everything, it's so hard to know where to shop. This past weekend, I did buy two different sets of wax beans (my most favorite) from different vendors to see whose might be better. I've yet to try the second bunch, but the first was near-perfect--they didn't need anything after a quick steam but a drizzle of olive oil and salt. I also bought a box of peaches--fourteen! That may have been a little ambitious of me--and they are huge, each weighing close to half a pound and perfectly drip-down-your-chin juicy. I froze half of them so that some time in winter when it's miserable and wet here and all I can eat is kale and apples, I can make a pie to remind myself of what's to come.

Peaches, arugula, and chevre.

Tomatoes are also unbelievable. I picked up a few little heirloom tomatoes with the plan of having them in a salad, but last night I chopped them up to braise with some chicken, onions, and garlic. Now, you know what a bad tomato tastes like, right? Mealy and bland and just plain awful. These. Were not that! Entirely the opposite: deep ruby red, tangy and sweet. Flawless.

I've taken to having yogurt & fruit for breakfast lately, instead of my usual cereal. I used to hate plain yogurt, but I'm quite fond of it now--I suppose luscious blueberries and a dose of honey don't hurt--and so this weekend I thought I'd try my hand at making yogurt at home. It was a lot of waiting (and then, straining) for a pretty low yield--one quart of milk made about one cup of yogurt. My yogurt didn't taste like anything the store-bought yogurt I used to "pitch" it. In fact it tasted more like ricotta cheese, with a vaguely fermented aftertaste, so I'm not sure where I went wrong. Ultimately, tasty, but I'm not sure I'll be doing that again anytime soon.

What's next, then? Well, current fridge contents include purple cauliflower (huh?), more of those wax beans (potentially inferior), kale and chorizo (for that cold-weather staple: lentil soup!), blueberries and strawberries. And about four more peaches. We'll see what I can cook up this weekend. I feel like I should give canning another go, but I might just end up with a peach & blueberry concoction. In the meantime, feast your eyes on some recent-ish pretty things. (Please forgive the blurry ones, the lighting in my kitchen + my limited photography skills = uh, blurry pictures.)

Buttermilk pie with strawberries in red wine syrup.

Jacques Pepin's oeufs Jeanette with arugula.

Thin spaghetti w/roasted cherry tomatoes, breadcrumbs, and arugula (a regular Chefty star)

Cheesecake--and I have to say, a perfect, crack-free cheesecake--with minted blueberries

The only unbroken ranbow I've ever seen, and the brightest--taken from my deck. That's the Fremont bridge in the background.

*Not a recommendation to anyone (except maybe myself!) I was listening to Aimee Mann is all.

Long time, no post.

2008-07-28T21:34:00.001-07:00

I have been cooking, nothing so inspiring to make me pick up my camera, though. There were several weeks of asparagus and young broccoli, yum yum yum, but summer's bounty has arrived a little late here. Berries and cherries are finally here, sugar snap peas and corn and all kinds of wonderful lettuce and onions too and fresh garlic. And tomatoes, at last! So this weekend expect some market drive-by photos. My camera has been a little fritzy lately but we'll see what we can do. This weekend I made a blueberry pie with almond streusel topping which did in fact look beautiful enough for a photo, so if the opportunity comes for a repeat performance I'll be sure to document. I also made spare ribs for the first time, with a spicy cherry glaze -- delicious. I have a rack of ribs in the freezer so those will be coming up here sooner or later.

Again, though, if only I had a reason to cook magnificent feasts all the time! People who read this blog, come visit and quick!

Photo-post.

2008-05-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some things I made this weekend. Want to guess what they are?

Happy Memorial Day everyone. I most definitely swam in memories this weekend. I'm sad that it's over and that I am so unprepared for the week ahead. Lordy.

Madeleines

2008-05-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the madeleine. Dainty, sweet, and delicious. The madeleine pictured here doesn't look as quite as darling as it might were it dusted with powdered sugar and in the company of its madeleine friends, but even in this jail-like setting you can still admire its buttery, golden shell.

Sadly, my batch of little ladyfingers is not long for this world. Madeleines are best eaten same-day, since they dry out pretty quickly. I only made a dozen of them so they should not be hard to dispatch. I'm not going to include the recipe I used here just yet. I want to do some more testing to see if I can achieve better flavor. The texture of the batch I made today is pretty nice--light, melt-in-your-mouth--but the taste is on the bland side: mildly sweet with a little creaminess from the melted butter that gets folded into the batter right before you bake them. They remind me a little of a Twinkie cake, or one of those strawberry shortcake shells you can buy in the grocery. I'm hoping that the addition of strawberries in red wine syrup later tonight will be a good one. At least with this topping I may be able to extend their life for a few days (and save my waistline from extinction)!

Lentil soup with kale and sausage.

2008-04-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

A co-worker recommended this recipe to me and I wanted to pass it along. I've made it twice now, two weeks in a row, so that should tell you something about how delicious it is. Does it compare to a certain lentil & sausage soup I had (god, six years ago now) in Chicago, at the home of my dear friend's mother? It might hold a candle to it, but it's definitely not superior. Sometime I'll try to recreate that recipe successfully, but for now, definitely give this a try--before the kale gets replaced (finally!) by tender asparagus, baskets of pea-pods, and all the other long-awaited spring favorites.

A few notes:

I've been using sweet italian sausage instead of kielbasa. It's good.
Tonight I skipped the onion because I didn't have any. (Note to self, always keep one behind before you cook up a whole bag of onions.) It's still good but use onion if you have it.
Tonight I tried deglazing the pot with a little red wine (~2 tb) after I cooked the sausage. I like the results--it has a richer taste and more of a layered effect with the acidity that comes later from the tomato and vinegar.
Don't skip the balsamic vinegar at the end. It really ties the whole thing together amazingly well.

Lentil soup with kale and sausage
Serves 4 (I guess. I am just me, so it also serves one, for as long as you can stretch it.)

a 2 1/2-inch piece smoked kielbasa, sliced thin (or: same quantity of chorizo, or: 1/4 lb of sweet or spicy italian sausage)
olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced (I left mine mostly intact. I like the way a whole clove perfumes the overall dish. Also, minced garlic burns easily, and there's nothing that will ruin a recipe more quickly than burned garlic.)
1 small onion, diced

2 carrots, peeled and sliced into half-moons (my addition)

1 sprig rosemary
1/2 cup lentils, picked over
3 cups of cooking broth
1/2 bunch kale, stems and center ribs discarded and leaves sliced thin (about 2 cups)
1/2 cup good quality canned tomatoes (pre-diced or roughly diced by hand--not crushed)
1 tablespoon balsamic or red-wine vinegar
Grated cheese

In a 3-quart heavy saucepan brown sausage over moderate heat. If you're using the Italian sausage make sure you cook it through, then transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain.

*****

Quick tangent/question:

At this point, the recipe as it was given to me presents this direction:

"If there is more than 1 teaspoon fat in pan pour off excess; if there is less, add enough oil to measure 1 teaspoon fat."

Now, doesn't that seem like a messy hassle, particularly with a hot heavy saucepan? I say, take a look at how much grease there is in the pan. If it looks like a lot, take a paper towel with your hand or a pair of tongs and give the pan a quick wipe to blot some of the grease. Otherwise, just let it alone and don't add any more oil. Efficiency, let me show you it.

*****

Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until softened and golden. If you want to deglaze the pan, add 2 tb red wine now and let it cook down for a few minutes, scraping up the bits (real chefs call this "fond") as you go.

Add lentils, broth, rosemary (whole--you'll pull it out at the end) and sausage and simmer, covered, 25 minutes. Add kale and tomatoes and simmer, uncovered, until tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in vinegar and salt and pepper to taste, then yank out the rosemary--and the whole garlic if you're afraid to get that in a bite (I'm not). Ladle it up and finish with a little swirl of olive oil and fresh grated cheese.

PS: Italy recaps are coming, someday soon. Prego!

Impromptu frittata.

2008-04-01T21:02:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, I'll buy a bag of yellow onions. Most savory recipes can take an onion, so I figure it's good to have them around in bulk, even though they never keep as long as I expect they should and I end up having a surplus that need to be used before full-on shriveling begins. The reason I buy the bagged onions, ultimately, is for their size. They are almost always a perfect pool-ball size. There are few things that bug me more (on the irrational pet-peeve spectrum) than having to save a cut onion for later. And the loose onions are always so gigantic!

So, anyway, the onion surplus: it's not really hard to dispense with them, since caramelized onions are so delicious and easy to incorporate in any number of things. I made a pan of them on Sunday, then made a little sauce with the brown bits using red wine and stock and stowed the whole lot in the fridge. I toyed with the idea of a provencal onion pizza-thing featured in Gourmet recently, in which you make a yeasted dough and spread it with mustard and onions and herbs and grated cheese (yum) but...in truth, I was too lazy to deal with the dough part. Plus, who needs all those excess carbs? (Says the girl who made tapioca pudding two nights ago.) But I liked the sound of the mustard with the onions and the provencal herbs, so those ingredients found their way into tonight's frittata dinner.

No pictures, since my camera is wonk, but it wouldn't have been that attractive anyway. With all the gooey brown onions in there it basically looked like a big flat latke. Looks aside, though, it tasted pretty great. Here's the recipe. You could substitute the onions easily for any number of vegetable mix-ins: sauteed spinach or chard, mushrooms, zucchini.... Everything goes with eggs. You could also be a lot more creative and generous with the cheese if you've got it.

Caramelized Onion Frittata
Serves 4

1 lb yellow onions, sliced thin
1 tb Red wine
Cooking stock
extra virgin olive oil
1 tb butter

6 eggs
extra virgin olive oil
1 tb dijon mustard
1 tsp of herbes de provence or: your choice of dried thyme, fennel seed, basil, lavender
2 tb grated parmigiano, romano or grana padano cheese

salt & pepper

Caramelize onions: (this can be done ahead of time, the onions will keep refrigerated for a couple of days)

Heat butter and olive oil together in a 10- or 12-inch pan over medium heat until the foam from the butter subsides.
Add onions and toss to coat, season liberally with salt and pepper. Turn heat down to medium low.
Cook onions, stirring occasionally, until they're a rich golden brown and very soft--this will take about an hour. (Slow and low, slow and low).
Remove onions to a mixing bowl, add red wine, turn the heat up to medium, and deglaze the pan, scraping up all the brown bits.
Once the wine has reduced some, add stock and let reduce by about a third--this should only take a few minutes. Basically, it will just start to look homogeneous and, if you're using a really good stock, develop a sheen.
Pour pan sauce over onions and let them cool to room temperature.

Make frittata:

Whisk eggs with about 2 tb of olive oil, mustard, salt & pepper, and herbes de provence

*****
If you have a spice or coffee grinder, I would toast the herbes de provence lightly and then grind it up very fine. If you don't have a grinder (like me), try this: take a wire mesh strainer and rub the dried spices (and dried lavender if you're using it) over the mesh with your fingers over the beaten eggs. You'll get a fine sprinkling of herbs, which I think is more pleasant than whole dried herbs (they can be chewy).

*****

Add cooled onions & sauce mixture to eggs and combine well, then add the cheese.
Heat 2 tb olive oil in a 10-inch saute pan over medium heat. Make sure you get a good measure of oil, this will help you turn the frittata later.
Pour in eggs and cook for about five minutes. While cooking, swirl the eggs and pull them away from the sides of the pan as they start to set so you're distributing the liquid. When you're ready to flip, the top of the frittata will still be a little runny but the bottom should be set.
Slide the frittata out on a plate, then add another quick glug of oil the pan (about a tablespoon).

*****
Now, there may be a more delicate way to do this but... flip the plate over your saute pan so the frittata lands runny-side down. There may be some frittata bits that splatter the stove. If you have a really wide spatula that might prevent potential mess, but it also might break your frittata in half. You decide!

*****
Once you've maneuvered the frittata back into the pan, let it cook for about three minutes or so, then slide it back out, finish with a quick grating of cheese, and slice into wedges. It's flat like a pancake, so 4 servings from a 10-inch disc is a nice serving.

I also made a little rosemary cream to put on top (which made it seem even more like a latke), but it's just as good by itself.

General Wow's Pork

2008-03-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

Happily, I've gotten through half of my sugar busting week ok. Part of my strategy has been to cook satisfying tasty meals rather than attempting to snack my way through mealtime. And, in order to facilitate that strategy, I've been keeping a lot of fresh veg and meat handy. Tonight's impromptu pleasure was a healthy version of general tsao pork. Here's what I did, and apologies in advance for no photos (it's all eaten already).

1/2 lb. pork, cut into 1-2" pieces
2 T flour
2 t garlic powder
soy sauce
salt
pepper
canola oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 T slivered fresh ginger
thai chilis or sliced jalapenos to taste
1/2 cup onion, chopped into 1" pieces
1/2 cup green pepper (more is cool too), chopped into 1" pieces
lots of broccoli
water
1 T sambal oelek (a jarred asian chili sauce that has a nice vinegar and garlic flavor to it)
1-2 T oyster sauce
zest from 1/2 orange
juice from 1 orange
lemon juice

The ingredients list admittedly is kind of long, but it's stuff that can be used frequently in bits. Really this is an attempt to codify mixing a little of this and that and voila.

The meat. Marinate with some soy sauce and some pepper for as long as convenient. Mix flour, garlic powder, and some salt. Dredge pork in the flour mixture. Heat, say, 4 T of oil at medium-high and fry pork so each side is nicely seared and meat is cooked through. Remove and set aside.

In the same pan, using the same oil, add garlic, onion, green peppers, broccoli, ginger, and chilis or jalapeno. Stir fry for a few minutes, about the time it takes for the onion to soften. Pour in some water, maybe 3 T worth so it gets all steamy. Add oyster sauce, sambal, and orange juice. Mix around until desired consistency is achieved, add more water if needed. Return meat to pan and incorporate with stir fry. Take off heat, mix in orange zest and lemon juice. Salt to taste.

It's good.

Going public.

2008-03-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

It's nearly April, and there's still snow in Chicago. This may well happen every year here, but it's a shocking every time. The one positive aspect of having an extensive winter is also having an exension of cover-up time. This year's holiday season, domestic and international, has left me with a few extra "pudges", as a friend likes to call them, in addition to a tenacious sugar addiction. So, in all honesty, I'm a little happy to have a bit more time to hide under my coat while I ramp up gym time and reform the ol' eating habits. To wit:

May it here by be known that I, Cooky Monster, is going on a full on sugar rehab program starting Monday, March 24. The terms of my plan, subject to future amendment in the more strict direction only, are as follows:

Starting Monday, March 24, Cooky Monster (hereafter known as, "CM") will not eat anything containing refined sugar for one full week (the first day on which CM may have refined sugar is April 1) in order to purge herself of a very nasty sugar addiction.

CM may eat fresh fruit.

CM may eat sugar substitute products, although they're usually not good tasting.

We will see how this program evolves after the first week. I hear that the first 3 days of sugar withdrawal are the worst, so hopefully it won't be too hard to keep dessert-y items at bay after a full week of going sugarless.

Yours truly at a wedding reception, post sugar bender. I had at least a little of everything from the dessert bar - chocolate cake, strawberry napoleon, mango mousse cake, fruit tart, chocolate covered strawberries, and ice cream, oh and champagne of course. Once the photographers came by, I quickly removed evidence of my binge away from my person. One plate managed to make it in the shot. Can you make out the contents?

File under "someday."

2008-03-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

I want to go to Le Cirque and drink Cristal. Coming off a 10-day vacation this sounds like a sick luxury, but I didn't say I wanted to go tomorrow, after all.

More to come on that vacation. I'm still not home yet but this time tomorrow I'll be hard at work on the first of at least two re-entry posts, complete with eating recaps. So. Much. Eating. And somehow I lost two pounds. (The Mediterranean diet: it works!)

Perhaps my favorite food in Phuket

2008-03-01T15:45:00.000-08:00

It's so freaking cold in Chicago! Arghhh!

Ok, just had to let that out. I was lucky for my balmy reprieve in the tropics. Here's a look at one of my favorite places to dine in Phuket, Thailand. I don't know the name of the place, but I can tell you what they serve: roti and curry.

Roti and curry shop and, what I think is safe to assume, a regular.

Roti is a fried flatbread. It used to only be served in Thailand either plain, with egg, or as a dessert with various sugary accoutrement such as condensed milk, sugar, bananas, and/or chocolate syrup, among other condiments. It is wonderful.

Roti in raw and cooked form.

These days you can also find, usually in the southern region, roti as part of a savory meal with curry. The best I've had is with a beef mussamun curry. Sometimes it's served as a wrap with a thick, sloppy-joe-like curry interior. In this case the flatbread is smooshed, cut up, and literally served just like rice alongside a thin, soupy curry.

The shop had chicken and beef curry and you could have it with or without a fried egg on top. The beef curry was the best one in my opinion.

Part of what is so genius about this concoction is the fact that the curry does not have coconut milk and thus is not so fatty. The delicious fatty satisfaction comes from the crispy, greasy bread.

Upon asking the chef about how he makes the dough, he did not reveal his recipe. However, he did impress that it's not easy. In order to have everything prepped for lunch service, his dad - the original owner of the establishment - wakes up at dawn, mixes the dough, lets it rest and then thoroughly massages the dough in a very particular style. No machines can do it quite right, apparently. All that said, you can also buy roti frozen in the asian grocery. Somehow I doubt the flavor is quite the same.

The cook at work. The pan is super hot and heated by coal fire.

Roti and curry is not indigenous Thai fare. Given the crescent and star symbol of Islam on the front of the counter as well as geographic liklihood, I would surmise that this version came from Malaysia, although there are versions of roti and curry in India and Caribbean countries too. What I'd like to try is an addition of fresh herbs or leafy veggies atop or on the side of the curry and roti. I think it would brighten up the fatty bread and spicy curry and add a harmonious Thai element to the dish.

Should you find yourself in Phuket, I highly recommend checking it out.

You can find this shop at the Thaew Nam intersection in the Sino-Chinese part of Phuket Town.

Paw laow.

2008-02-20T05:22:00.000-08:00

In thai that means, "that's enough". I'm on my third week in lovely, crazy, foodilicious Thailand, and I cannot tell you how many times I've uttered the phrase "paw laow!" - usually when it comes to eating. The food is really good. There's lots of it. And it's very inexpensive.

I've garnered much inspiration for various posts here, but I just wanted to check in as a reminder that I do still exist... with atleast 3 more kilos of me to love. Let me know if you have any burning questions about Thai food. I'm here for 4 more days!

Beautiful, bountiful dessert items at an outdoor market. The little, glossy fruit-shaped loohk choop shown here are kind of like marzipan but they actually taste good.

Braised red cabbage. Don't turn your nose up, just keep reading.

2008-02-18T21:17:00.000-08:00

I read about this red cabbage a little while back on The Wednesday Chef and it's been bouncing around in the back of my mind ever since. It's a recipe from Marco Canora, whose kitchen I worked in for a brief spell not so long ago (though it feels like a lifetime). I loved everything that came out of that kitchen. Really tasty, satisfying food that could impress you with unimaginable flavor but resisted pretension. I don't recall this cabbage ever being on the menu, but it no doubt would have a place there in the winter.

I went to the market on Sunday and was disappointed in the dearth of vegetables available: beets, carrots, potatoes, and kale. Not much else. I did get some kale (watch for that later this week), and then I spied some small heads of red cabbage and felt a little less disenchanted with February produce.

I've never prepared cabbage at home, and I rarely eat it outside a slather of kraut on a hot dog or a piece or two of kimchi from the Asian buffet. After tonight's cooking session, that's all going to change. This dish is unbelievably good, and really easy to make. Cabbage gets a bad rep, though I'm not sure why. Stinky, sour, and limply textured is the slander that springs to mind but, as with all vegetables, cooked properly it can be pretty fantastic.

Here's the recipe. When all's said and done, what you have is a fragrant, sweet-and-sour pile of beautiful purply ribbons, soft to the bite but not mushy and deeply satisfying. You'll see I prepared it with a link of sausage (lamb), which was fine but couldn't hold a candle to the cabbage. (I need to work on my sausage cookery. I hate how it gets all sputtery. Grilled sausage is best, I think.)

Braised Red Cabbage
adapted from Wednesday Chef/Marco Canora
Serves 2 generously, 4 frugally

1 tb butter
1 small onion, red or yellow, sliced thin
2 small heads red cabbage (1 lb total), quartered, thick center spines removed, then sliced thin
1/4 c cider vinegar
1/3 c dry red wine
1 tb caraway seed
1 tb mustard seed (or mustard powder, which is all I had)
1/4 c brown sugar (if you're more into sour than sweet, I think you could cut the sugar in half safely. I liked the sweetness in the finish, but next time I might cut back to see how it's different.)
1 small apple, Granny Smith or any kind of tart-sweet variety, peeled and coarsely grated
Salt & pepper

Melt butter over medium/medium-low heat in a good-size pot or saute pan with lid and add onion and a bit of salt. Sweat for 5 minutes until onion is soft.

Add cabbage and stir for a few minutes until it begins to wilt, then add remaining ingredients and stir well.

Lower heat to a simmer, cover cabbage and cook until the cabbage is soft and the liquid is reduced to about half--it will take about 40 minutes.

**I know, this is not really the fastest dish, but have a bit of that red wine while you're waiting and maybe a quick salad or (in my case) some bread and cheese and you'll be tucking into this colorful wonder in no time at all.**

Marcella Hazan's Barley Soup in the Style of Trent

2008-02-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

I was going to delay this post to tomorrow, but I'm too beside myself with delight to wait.

This barley soup is, without a doubt, the best soup I have ever made ever. I know, don't say it. A lot of "ever made evers" pile up in these posts. Pretty soon you won't believe anything I say! But I always really mean it. Maybe I just have short-term taste memory. Or maybe what makes something better than what came before it is the sheer fact of its novelty. In any case, this barley soup does kick my sunchoke soup in the knees. This is because Marcella Hazan is brilliant. Dare I say, infallible. The only reason this soup turned out so well is because of her amazing recipe. If you took the same ingredients, set them before me and said, here Chefty Lass, make me a soup, it would have turned out entirely different and not nearly as swoon-worthy.

That's right. Swoon. Worthy. You suspect I'm getting caught up in Valentine's hype. After all, this is barley we're talking about: the stuff of beer, porridge, and animal feed. Foie gras it ain't. But I say, no matter. If you could walk through my apartment door right now, the scent of rosemary mingled with crispy pork (sorry, Happy Luddite) and simmering aromatic vegetables would disarm you. You would drop to your knees and beg for food. I swear.

So, the recipe, let me share it with you already. It's a cure for cold, rotten February nights everywhere. Plus, if you ask me, cooking up a pot of this savory dish is a far more romantic gesture than one of those fussy multi-course deals that stress you out. If you're prowling around for inspiration, this is it: the ultimate (wink) tuck-in meal. And you'll have room for dessert, which is really what you should be expending your efforts on anyway if you're celebrating Valentine's Day.

Marcella Hazan's Barley Soup in the Style of Trent
Serves 4

1 1/4 c pearl barley, rinsed well
1/4 c, plus 2 tb, extra virgin olive oil
1/2 c onion, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced (not in the original recipe, but for aromatic purposes it's wonderful)
1/3 c proscuitto, pancetta or country ham, unsmoked, chopped fine (I only had regular bacon, no problems there)
2-3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 potato (I used a sweet potato), peeled and diced
1 tsp fresh rosemary, minced
1 tb parsley, minced (I used celery leaves since that's what I had and thought it tasted good; parsley will give you a brighter, I guess more earthy taste, so do what you like)
1 bouillon cube (I used vegetable, recipe doesn't specify)
Salt and pepper
Freshly grated parmigiano reggiano or other Italian hard cheese (grana padano, pecorino)

Pour barley into a soup pot, add enough water to cover by about 3 inches, and hit it with some salt (MH doesn't do this and I wonder why). Cover the pot and bring to a slow but steady simmer. Cook for about one hour until barley is fully tender but not mushy--al dente!

While the barley is cooking, warm all the olive oil in a skillet, add the onions (& celery if you're using) and season; sweat for about five minutes until translucent, stirring occasionally. Do not brown.

Add your pork of choice to the onions (I crisped up my bacon a little in the oven first) and cook for about three minutes. Then stir in parsley or celery leaves and rosemary and take the pan off the heat.

When the barley is done, add the onion mixture to the pot, along with the diced carrot and potato. (MH tells you to rinse the peeled carrots and potato in cold water before dicing. I'm not sure why--to clear off residual dirt from the skins, or maybe rinse off some of the starch? I didn't do this and detected no ill effects in the finished product.) Add the bouillon cube and season with salt and pepper.

I'm mostly paraphrasing this recipe, but here's a direct quote from MH:

"Add a little more water if the soup appears to be too dense. It should neither be too thick nor too thin. Cook at a steady simmer for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time. Off-heat, just before serving, swirl the grated cheese into the pot." Followed by my favorite:

"Serve promptly."

She's all about the business, no flim-flam.

My only suggestion would be that unless you plan on polishing off the whole pot in one night (and you might), add the cheese to individual servings instead. And, finish with a little drizzle of olive oil.

For this meal I'd also recommend a hunk or two of crusty bread with butter. A little sinful, a lot of awesome.

Tumbleweeds, almost.

2008-02-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

My friend the Happy Luddite once exhorted that the scene at our college subterranean cafeteria--part lovingly, part loathingly referred to as the "skellar," where every Tuesday night kids turned out in droves to use up all their meal points on crappy fruit drinks and junk food-- was like "post-Communist Russia: empty shelves! Nothing!"

I was reminded of that last night after inspecting my refrigerator.

There are a few items on the door too, but nothing notable--your basic-ish condiments. Want to try and name those foods? It shouldn't be too hard, though in taking a closer look I realize there are some containers whose contents you probably won't be able to guess.

It's times like these that I really want a life like Laurie Colwin once described, where all she had was a tiny fridge and a electric burner in her NYC studio but still managed to make scrumptious little meals all the time and there was simply no space for space.

It's nice having room, maybe not so much in the fridge but certainly at home. But you know, it really reminds you that...there's a lot. Of empty. Space. Everywhere. It's a new and unusual experience for me.

No cooking tonight, too tired and, obviously, low on food. (Though, note that in my preceding post I forecasted two weeks of coverage. Hmph! It probably just felt like more because I practically plucked my arms from their sockets carrying everything home.) Tomorrow, however? Tomorrow holds the promise of a barley & vegetable soup taken from Marcella Hazan. See, I looked at my empty fridge and said to myself, but wait! You have grains, and lots of them. Time to focus on the dry goods. So even though I've been trying vaguely to replace carbs with vegetables, the contents of my cupboards must be put to good use. Expect future meals starring farro, lentils, quinoa and perhaps risotto if I can work up a batch of stock this weekend.

Sunday morning sweets

2008-02-03T12:48:00.000-08:00

Good morning (ok, afternoon, but I'm still in my pajamas so I cling to morning).

My shoulders ache. This is because I schlepped to the grocery store yesterday and instead of buying just the essentials, as planned, I did my shopping for the next, well, two weeks probably. It is hard for me to argue with the "I'm already here, why not" rationale, even when the basket is already getting too heavy to carry comfortably around the store. I insist on conquering inconvenience. And I succeed!

I also had to pick up my dry cleaning, and while I considered dropping off the two overflowing bags at home first to make the errand less frustrating, I could not reconcile myself to such inefficiency. Upon leaving the dry cleaners (after figuring out how to hold both bag and cello-wrapped hangers in one hand), the nice woman said "You do lot of shopping! You be careful!"

Anyway, I was glad to get home and now that I'm all stocked up, the sore shoulders I can deal with. But what do you think: is it time to get a car? I've been here two years and survived just fine without one, but lately I've really been wanting to have a means to escape the city and just...drive. I don't know though, there's a finality to getting a car that I'm somehow just not ready for. (Commitment, how I elude you.)

What I am ready for, however, is the opportunity to give away this absurdly delicious banana chocolate walnut bread that I made last night. I cottoned to this recipe immediately when I was flipping through the February Gourmet. Banana bread is (after chocolate chip cookies) one of the first things I learned how to bake and over the years it's definitely become one of my favorites. The original recipe called for a cake pan and streusel topping, but I agree with Wednesday Chef that the loaf pan (with streusel ingredients incorporated) is the way to go. Nobody really wants banana cake.

I won't replicate the recipe here because, yes, I'm lazy, but also, I didn't make any changes of my own (except that I used Nestle chocolate chips. Also, note that if you opt for the loaf pan, it will take about 45-50 minutes to cook.) I urge you to click through either of the links above and get to work. The addition of yogurt to the batter makes this bread sing. It's just a little bit more rich, velvety, and fragrant with the yogurt and I can tell you I'll never make banana bread (even the plain old chocolate-free variety) without it again. Have a look.

In other sweet news, I am pleased to report that I did make the cranberry jam, which is wonderfully tart and chewy and easy to make. I skipped the whole canning part (I admit I'm wary still after the apple butter) so we'll see how long it lasts. Gooey cranberries found a good match in the orange-nutmeg muffins from last week (which do reheat like a dream--as if they'd just been baked!). Mmm. I love jam.

So, you can see with all this baking why I can't wait to get rid of the banana bread. It is dangerous to have around. This is the downside of being both a motivated, restless cook and a party of one: there are always too many leftovers and not enough eaters.

Sunday morning muffins: orange-nutmeg

2008-01-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

Muffins are a satisfying Sunday morning project. Mix the dry stuff, mix the wet stuff, mix them together and 20 or so minutes later: muffiny goodness. Tear into one of these warm fluffy things with a nice cup of coffee and you're ready to sail just a little less woefully through the last day of the weekend.

This morning I tried a recipe for orange-nutmeg muffins that I found over on Orangette. They sounded really lovely and flavorful and kind of perfect for winter when nothing but oranges and bananas are available for mix-ins. I made one substitution--buttermilk instead of heavy cream, only because while at the market I'd thought that was actually what the recipe called for--and while mixing up the batter it occurred to me that the tang of the buttermilk might bring out the zingy nutmeg and orange even more. (Oh happy accident!) However, the finished product didn't really taste all that spicy or zingy. It didn't actually taste like much at all! (Oh unhappy accident!) But I don't think it was the buttermilk's fault. The texture of the muffin was nice: moist and crumby, with just a little bit of chew (which I owe to the buttermilk and the fact that there's no butter and just a little bit of oil in these guys), but the flavor was really very light.

In retrospect, I should have expected this. Orange and nutmeg are great flavors, but they can't really carry a recipe on their own. When paired with a more dominant fruit like cranberry (and in the case of nutmeg, apple or pear), you can identify and appreciate their presence with much more lip-smacking gusto. I'd recommend keeping this recipe in your repertoire as a great base for fruity muffins. If you want to give it a whirl, try adding 3/4 cup of one of the following to bump up the flavor: cranberries, peeled and diced apple or pear, or diced dried apricots.
I froze the remaining muffins in this batch and plan to break them out next weekend and try them with a spoonful of this cranberry jam I've been wanting to make.

Orange-Nutmeg Muffins (adapted only ever-so-slightly from Orangette)

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup light brown sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg (Chefty note: I added closer to a full teaspoon)
½ tsp salt
Zest of ½ to 1 orange, to taste
1 large egg
¾ cup heavy cream (Chefty note: or buttermilk)
¾ cup milk (I used whole, but any type is fine)
4 Tbs canola oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray. (Chefty note: I only have a 6-cup tin, allow for an extra ten minutes in the oven if that's what you use.)

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and zest. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg well. Then stir in the cream, milk, and oil, whisking to blend well. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir to just combine (overmixing will develop the gluten in the flour and make for tough muffins).

Scoop the muffin batter evenly into the wells of the greased muffin tin. Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes (or 30 minutes if you're using a 6-cup tin), or until domed and nicely golden. Serve warm.

Orangette notes that these muffins freeze really well. [Allow them to thaw at room temperature; then reheat them gently in a 300-degree oven.] As I mentioned above, I've frozen the rest of my batch and will report back on how they taste reheated.

Yield: 12 smallish muffins (or 6 big fluffy ones).

Nostalgic eating: when things taste the same...but not.

2008-01-10T20:16:00.001-08:00

The other night when it was cold and raining (yeah, that's like every night but go on), I needed cocoa. Not your fancy cocoa. Nestle Quik cocoa. And the only acceptable toppings for Nestle Quik are Fluff or Cool Whip. Fluff was not to be had, so with the Cool Whip and cocoa in hand I trotted home. Once it was defrosted (which in itself is kind of weird) I scooped out a spoonful with gleeful anticipation.

Only to realize: Cool Whip isn't really that good. It's basically whipped sugar and oil. Eww. And it kind of tastes airy and oily and sweet, but not...really like cream. But somehow, it's not bad enough to stop eating it. I've been having it in my Quik and it's much better with the chocolate (although, it does dissolve awfully quickly and makes this weird fizzing sound when it hits the hot milk. Hmm.) It's also making me crave a host of other childhood sweets that only Cool Whip can make complete: gingerbread specifically! So I may try my hand at some homemade gingerbread this weekend, but I'll leave the Whip as a fond memory.

Addendum February 3: Bologna and cheese sandwiches: still good, if a bit slimy.

If on a winter's night a bowl of soup.

2008-01-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

I appreciate a clever turn of phrase, particularly when it conjures up an image so clear and familiar, you can't help but be delighted. Such delight is what I'm after tonight, so I'm taking inspiration for the title of this post from Italo Calvino's book of a similar name. It's not one I've read (yet), but it is one of my most favorite titles ever. Do you wonder what the author was thinking of when he came up with it? To me it's absolutely Robert Frost.

In any case, per my occupational habit I'm familiar with the general premise of the story, which chronicles a reader trying to read a book, and its oft-noted experimental style. In a fashion, that resonates with the stories you'll find here, of a cook trying to cook a meal, experimenting along the way. So begins tonight's story...

Well, it actually begins last night (or, more accurately early this morning) with a few shards of a dream in which I made two things: mustard custard and sunchoke soup. Now, mustard custard I can't even begin to explain. (My dream self must is perhaps a distant relative of Dr. Seuss.) On waking I did actually believe that I'd made this weird thing and was completely confused as to why or, more importantly, how. I let this drift away however as I thought more about the sunchoke soup, which sounded entirely viable and possibly quite delicious.

Jump to this evening. I take stock of my fridge and decide to give this dream concoction a go, adding a few more vegetables and seasonings along the way. What I ended up with is a fragrant, tangy, melt-in-your-mouth vegetable soup. From my subconscious to the soup bowl! This was really fun to make. The recipe follows, with slapdash commentary along the way. Don't skip the gremolata garnish (taken from my new Molly Katzen cookbook): it adds an earthy, peppery punch to the soup, but the orange zest softens the bite and ties the whole dish together.

No photos tonight, my battery kicked it, but I'll see if I can set up a leftover shoot for tomorrow.

Mid-Winter Vegetable Soup
Looks like it serves 4

Equipment: 4-5 qt soup pot, immersion blender, fine-mesh sieve, large pitcher, etc.

6 stalks of celery, leaves removed, sliced thinnish
1 large or two medium onions, rough dice
1 cup baby carrots, rough dice (or 2-3 regular carrots, peeled and diced)
2 cloves roasted garlic, lightly mashed (If you only have fresh garlic, I'd use one small clove, minced to a paste. Roasted garlic has a sweet, mellow flavor that really works here, you can taste the difference, so try to use roasted garlic if you can.)
1 tsp of fresh mixed herbs diced fine (I believe I used thyme, marjoram, and rosemary)
1 smal bay leaf (I didn't use this because I didn't have any but I'm certain it would bring a welcome note of flavor to the mix.)
2 parsnips, peeled and diced
5 small to medium sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes), peeled and diced
1 small apple (medium sweetness, Braeburn or Golden delicious are nice) or 1 small pear (this would give a bit more sweetness to the soup): peeled, cored, diced
2 tb honey
1 tb fresh lemon or orange juice
1 quart of cooking stock (I used chicken but vegetable would of course be fine too)
Salt & pepper to taste
3-4 tb extra virgin olive oil
3-4 tb half and half or whole milk
Spices to finish: grated nutmeg, ground ginger, ground cardamom, ground cumin

For the gremolata:
1 c arugula (if it's big leafy arugula, remove the stems)
2 tsp grated orange zest
2 cloves of fresh or 3 cloves of roasted garlic (again, I like the roasted)
salt & pepper to taste
A good drizzle of olive oil (Molly's recipe didn't call for this but I thought the mix was too dry without it. You'll only need what amounts roughly to 2 tb of oil.)

Make the soup:

Heat the olive oil over moderate heat and add the celery, carrot, onion, garlic, and bay leaf. Season liberally and saute until softened--the celery and onion should be partially translucent.

Add 1/2 tsp of mixed herbs, parsnips, and sunchokes. Stir to coat and season. Then stir in honey and lemon juice to combine, and finish with cooking stock. Bring soup to a boil, then turn heat down to medium-low and cover partially. Cook until parsnips and sunchokes are tender but not mushy, about 20 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, make the gremolata:

Drop arugula leaves, zest, and garlic into a food processor and pulse until they're finely chopped together but not yet a paste. Add olive oil, salt and pepper and give it another quick pulse. Check seasoning (don't skimp on the salt) and then you're done.

Finish the soup:

When vegetables are done cooking, check for seasoning, then puree using immersion blender. Strain pureed soup through the sieve. This process should take you a solid 4-5 minutes, you want to push as much of the thick soup mush through the sieve as possible so the strained soup has nice body and texture to it. You'll know when it's done because the soup will be lustrous and glossy and smooth. Return soup to pot and keep over low heat.

Now begins the taste-testing. First, check for salt and pepper, as always. I seem to have a heavy hand with pepper when it comes to soup, though this time I barely overdid it. Watch for this! You can always add, but you can never take away. Then, move on to your ground spices. I used about 1/2 tsp of ginger and nutmeg each, 1/4 tsp of cardamom, and maybe 1/8 tsp of cumin. You could bump the cumin up to 1/4 tsp with good effect. I wanted to retain more of the tang you get here from the sunchokes, the carrot and the citrus, so I used more ginger instead. My advice: start out with small quantites, stir, let it simmer for a few minutes, then taste and improvise until you're happy. (Cue lip-smacking here.)

Once you've got the seasoning down, swirl in milk or cream (a dollop of creme fraiche would add a silky decadence) and keep the soup on a low simmer until you're ready to eat.

Oh, you're ready now? Then get yourself a big ladle, dish up the soup, top with a round teaspoon of gremolata, and sprinkle with a nice salt if you have it (I used fleur de sel). Even though it has a good amount of starch from the veggies, this soup sits light on the stomach but still delivers a deep, hearty, satisfying taste.

Winter offers few saving graces, but tucking into a piping hot bowl of soup is certainly one of them.

Dinner with Chet.

2008-01-06T20:32:00.000-08:00

Tonight I made a scrumptious swiss chard gratin while listening to Chet Baker. Cozy food, familiar melancholy, the end of the weekend.

Taken from (and mildly tweaked) Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food:

1 bunch swiss chard (I used ruby)
1 onion or 2 leeks, green stalks discarded
1/2 - 3/4 c milk
4 tb butter
2 tsp flour
1 c fresh breadcrumbs
Parmesan cheese
Nutmeg
Salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Liberally butter a gratin dish or similar weighty baking dish. A pie dish would work just as well in a pinch.

Melt 2 tb of butter, pour over breadcrumbs and toss. Toast in preheated oven until golden brown, 8-10 minutes.

Slice the chard leaves off the stems. Trim the stem ends and slice thin. Wash chard leaves well and slice horizontally into thick ribbons.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the sliced stems for about 2 minutes and remove. Add the chard leaves and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and gently squeeze excess water from leaves.

Dice onion into small cubes or slice leeks thin (I used leeks and thought their earthy taste was a better match for the chard than your standard onion, but both are good.) Heat remaining 2 tb of butter in a large saute pan, add leeks and saute until soft but not browned. Season.

Add chard leaves and stems and toss to coat. **Note: in retrospect, at this point I might have added a good squeeze of lemon juice or white wine to liven up the flavor a bit. I think it would provide a good acidic point of contrast in the milky sauce. If you decide to do this, just let the lemon or wine (a tablespoon or so is all you'd need) cook down before moving on to the next step.**

Sprinkle chard with flour and stir to combine. Add 1/2 c milk and toss to coat, allowing sauce to form. If the pan begins to dry out, add the rest of the milk and cook until slightly thickened. The chard should be moist and coated with the sauce, not floating in milk, not sticking to the pan. Give the whole lot a good dose of freshly grated nutmeg. Taste and check for salt & pepper.

Turn chard mixture into your gratin dish, top with toasted breadcrumbs, and give it a once-over with fresh grated parmesan (Alice Waters said to dot the top with butter, but I opted for cheese instead). Cook for 20-25 minutes until golden and lightly bubbling. Let sit for a few minutes before digging in.

End-of-year experiments and exploits: a list.

2008-01-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

In reverse chronology from December 31.

Ricotta cheesecake. Lighter and, well, more curdy--that is to say, less smooth--than your traditional cheesecake. More reminiscent of a custard. But: flecked with vanilla and lemon zest? Delectable, I say!

Red snapper crusted in salt. This preparation is becoming kind of a theme. I am now convinced that a superior salt-brushing tool is in order for any salt-crusted food, else that pursed-lip, too-much-salt-in-that-bite moment remains inevitable.

Gougeres. Basically, cheese puffs. Made from...pate a choux! Fun! Good for arm muscles! I fantasize about making a croquembouche someday. I really do.

Bagna cauda. This translates to: hot garlicky anchovy dip. Sounds like a frightening choice for a party, and it was. Still, pretty tasty with a spear of crisp celery and a hunk of good bread.

[Tangent]
I have this strange craving for anchovies lately. I was in NYC for a few days before Christmas and I went out for pizza and had a side of anchovies with my two slices. Ridiculously good.What I haven't dared to try (yet) are sardines. Fresh, they are amazing. But preserved? I don't know...
[End tangent]

Pork loin chops with wild mushrooms, rosemary, and white wine

Roasted parsnips and pear with thyme and honey. I suspect that if you went ahead and pureed the parsnips after roasting, it would make a killer soup. Garnishing the soup with a seared scallop, or maybe even a piece of seared foie gras, would be stratsospherically elegant. Anyone who dares to make foie gras at home, feel free to try this and report back.

Salted butter caramel ice cream. Overall, this was pretty amazing. Thank you, David Leibovitz! This is the first of his recipes I've tried and will certainly go back for seconds. I only had a few quibbles (resulting from my own foibles, though fortunately no combustibles were involved...):

The praline was a little darker (tasted like burnt sugar: caramel cooks lickety-split!) and a little saltier than I would have liked, though the intensely sweet ice cream helped cut that.

The ice cream was cavity-inducing sweet. One good tablespoon full is pretty much all I could stand. This is good, though, because that means it will last! In theory.

The first serving was kind of gooey. At first I attributed this to the milk that gets added to the custard after cooking. A friend who also made it recently thought that the custard might have cooked for too long, making the caramel extra gooey. However, the second serving (coming after the ice cream had spent a night in the freezer) was pretty near perfect texture-wise. So, I guess M. Leibovitz's direction to chill the ice cream mix for eight hours or overnight before churning was given for good reason. Je suis chump.

Here is my attempt at documenting this gooey confection. The pictures on DL's website are better. I would definitely make this again (and try cutting the quantity of caramel for the custard by a third) and serve it with roasted pears or apples or a fruit crisp (barely sweetened!)

P.S. Do you want recipes? This year I want to start doing some more regular recipe writing and testing, so you can expect those sorts of posts down the pike, but should you want any mentioned here, let me know and I shall produce!

P.P.S. There was also much cooking over Christmas, but I'll save that for a later post. I have to figure out how to do jump cuts on this here blog of mine.

Best Food Blogs of 2007

2007-12-17T17:42:00.001-08:00

Chefty, of course, is not on this list. But maybe some other year! Anyway, for those of you who like to poke around the food sites, these are the year's best.

2007 Food Blog Award Winners

A cooky trip to Costa Rica

2007-12-10T20:18:00.000-08:00

View of Costa Rica from the Cesna we rode from San Jose to Tamarindo.

I am back from a lovely two-week trip to the Central American country of Costa Rica. It was grand. It was a vacation in true cooky style - lots of activity tempered by plenty of eating, sleeping, drinking, and smoking (hooray duty free!). Here's my recap of our tour of the Playa Tamarindo, Arenal, and Monteverde regions of the country.

Playa Tamarindo is all about surf and sun. We stayed at the La Laguna Del Cocodorilio hotel, which is, we learned, owned and operated by French surfers.

Front desk at La Laguna del Cocodorilio and its crack team of surfer staff. Seriously though, they were great.

I highly recommend this spot as long as you stay away from the lower-end "street side" rooms. Though less expensive, these rooms were noisy, basically had no bathroom door, and came equipt with a ceiling fan that threatened to decapitate if turned on. More like the lodging of choice for transients with questionable motives. It was a stitch in the tapestry of our adventure, but I was pleased to move on to one of the "garden view" rooms.

Perks of the French hotel: attached French bakery and daily breakfast of coffee and pastry surrounded by blue sky and tropical fauna. Picture taken from the patio of our garden view room.

Availing ourselves of local activities, we surfed, took yoga classes, and bummed around town. It didn't take us too long to target some key eateries.

The sign for Frutas Tropicales. The establishment also offers a lodging.

Frutas Tropicales was a standout restaurant for providing the best comidas typica - typical local food, usually black beans and rice, some protein, and maybe a little salad - at a moderate price.

Casados pollo, not actually from Fruitas Tropicales, but still pretty alright.

Surprisingly, most restaurants and cafes only sell coffee per cup. As much as I crushed on my beloved French bakery, I was hemorraging currency to feed my morning arabica habit. Fortunately, we found Nogui's, a delicious but notorious "gringo eatery" that offered bottomless cups of coffee. Ahhhhhhh.....

I should also mention that Tamarindo is a partying kind of place as well. If you have the inclination, there are all sorts of opportunities to inebriate. Just talk to the the front desk attendant or the guy on the corner whispering, "You doing ok?" as you walk by. Rumor has it the people hanging out below sneakers dangling from trees or electrical lines can also facilitate a transaction, but that information has yet to be confirmed. My group consisted of overworked ladies looking for relaxation, not so much glow sticks and grinding teeth, so we stuck to the occassional happy hour.

Many coconut-based cocktails were had, but the best was the Miguelito shot served at Nibbana. Sweet and very coconut-y....

The next leg of our trip was to the Arenal Volcano. We stayed at the Tabacon Grand Spa Thermal Resort and enjoyed daily dips in the most extensive complex of thermal springs I've ever seen or even heard about. Apparently it's among the top 10 hot springs resorts in the world. The springs consist of rainwater that has trickled into the base of the volcano where it's heated by magma and enriched with minerals.

Who knew really hard, hot water was so blissful?

Although we were able to make out the volcano in the daytime, we didn't get a chance to catch a glimpse of the lavaflow at night. Oh well.

Arenal is the nearest township to the volcano and resort. Honestly, it wasn't worth the taxi fare from the resort except to go to the supermercado for a change, well downgrade actually, in scenery. We scored awesome, kitschy sourvenier gifts there though.

On the next leg of our journey, we took the "Jeep-Boat-Jeep" travel service to get from Arenal to Monteverde. It was far more comfortable, inexpensive, and picturesque than making the entire trip strictly by road. Oddly, no jeep was ever used in the commute, but it was pretty cool taking a boat across the lake.

A view of Arenal Volcano from the lake.

Monteverde, I'm thinking, is kind of like the Vermont of Costa Rica. Lots of rolling green, organic this and that, dairies, farms and the like. Plus, there's fun jungle all around you. Monteverde held the most interesting food experience, as there are a lot of local products - cheeses, coffee, fruits, etc. - used in town.

Whole coffee beans picked on the way up to Monteverde. Eaten raw they taste kind of like a not-so-tart cranberry with a large soft seed in the center (the coffee bean itself). It was good.

We stayed in Santa Elena, the twin township of Monteverde. For those familiar with central Illinois, Santa Elena is the Champaign to Monteverde's Urbana - it's the more commerical, less hippie side. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure it would also be the Minneapolis side of the twin cities. Our hotel, the Arco Iris Lodge, featured a breakfast buffet of local coffee (bottomless, by the way), eggs laid from the hotel owner's own hens, among many other locally produced yummies. Even the biodegradeable soap provided in the rooms was made of glycerine and local honey.

A view of the verdant Arco Iris compound from our terrace.

A selection of fresh beverages at the breakfast buffet: guava juice, water, and fresh milk.

The only disappointment of the hotel were shoddy shower doors.

In town we came upon a pleasant handful of inexpensive eateries. The most notable, Donde Henry, is a one room canteen of comidas typica. Had we found it earlier, I'm sure we would eaten at Donde Henry daily.

Donde Henry, located in the Supermercado Vargas building, next to Super Licores. If their patrons' rides are any indication, the complex's patrons enjoy a rugged, rustic lifestyle.

The entire interior of Donde Henry - a true cooky eatery.

We ate fantastic pork tamales steamed in banana leaf. They were not blurry in real life.

Another delicious discovery were the local bakeries, where you can have a small inexpensive meal of empanada along with coffee.

There were empanadas stuffed with beef, chicken, or vegetables.

As I mentioned earlier, the coffee consumption experience in Costa Rica was surprising. First, coffee was not sold every 10 feet and in varied permutations as I had hoped it to be. Second, it wasn't tremendously cheap either. A small cup of coffee in Tamarindo and Arenal was usually a little over $1 - about the same price as those from streetcarts in NYC. In Monteverde though the coffee was excellent and less expensive, I reckon because of the ready supply of local beans. Third, the majority of coffee makers were the same brand - a very high-tech contraption, with a built-in grinder, and settings to make all sorts of fancy drinks. It was pretty curious.

The multi-purpose coffee machine ubiquitous in Costa Rica.

So that was my cooky holiday. We spent a couple days in San Jose, which I'm sure has all sorts of interesting Chefty-worthy things going on, but we really just hung out long enough to catch our flight.

Some people think Costa Rica's "over", and, indeed, it's not quite as bohemian and no longer as dirt cheap as it used to be, but the country remains very conscious of over-development and maintaining its environmental integrity. As long as its world-class surf remains though, Costa Rica will probably keep a strong backpacker vibe and cheaper food and lodging options catering to that market. It has mountains and jungles, monkeys and dogs (jesus, the dogs...), partying and yoga. Tickets from the U.S. are pretty affordable too. I say go.

Yo heart Costa Rica.

Bring on the new foods.

2007-12-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

I went for sushi on Thursday night and had some very tasty miso soup. Therein were these perfect little cubes of...something. They were nearly translucent, but still had some bite and a sweet, barely starchy kind of flavor. I was confounded. Chefty, I asked myself, is this potato? Some sort of radish? What it is?! I decided it must be daikon and asked the waitress and she said, "It's winter melon."

Winter melon! Never heard of it (have you?), but I want to eat it again. Here's what it looks like. I bet it would be equally delicious in a stir-fry.

PS: Don't they look like little sugar cubes? Kind of darling.

My favorite salad.

2007-12-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

Bresola, sliced thin (proscuitto is nice too)

Big handful of arugula or mixed greens
Artichoke hearts and picholine olives, chopped rough
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Toss toss toss.

Pile greens on bresola, top with one more slice, add some curls of whatever hard italian cheese you like, and voila: delicious salad.

I made some noises earlier in the week about my birthday dinner. Quick recap: it turned out alright, but I don't really remember making all of it. Champagne kind of has that effect on me. In any case, I do remember that I did not brush enough of the salt off the salt-crusted pork tenderloin, which resulted in some intense dehydration the next day. Water never tasted so good! The greatest thing about this recipe, though, was the herbs in the salt. I used sage and I wasn't sure if the flavor would really come through, with all the salt. But it did, and it was quite savory. I seared the pork first, then sealed it up in its salty-sagey igloo and roasted it for about half an hour, along with some little yukon gold potatoes. The result? Fragrant, crusty on the outside, but lovely and juicy and chewy on the inside. Pork: good.

Also, the apple cake we made (thank you, Happy Luddite--sous chef extraordinaire!) was exactly what I wanted. Spicy, overloaded with apples, baked up into a rich, craggy brown crust. Fall in food form. I could have just had cake for dinner and been in heaven.

Oh, and the kohlrabi. Everybody go out and get some, right now. Roasted with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, it is delicious. I think there's a good amount of sugar/starch in there because mine got a nice brown crust on it and tasted something like a potato, but lighter and sweeter, almost like a daikon. But it's not chunky or fibrous like a squash or other root vegetables--it gets very tender and velvety. No wonder it was so good in soup.

Tonight I'm going to make Marcella Hazan's bolognese and serve it up with some porcini pasta. It's rare that I eat pasta but yesterday I just kind of got the craving. Good blustery day food. I'm excited to see how the sauce turns out. It's a pretty traditional preparation, made with milk and nutmeg and a mix of ground meats, with tomatoes added almost as an afterthought. Definitely not the meat sauce I'm accustomed to making.

I'll also be making some more brussel sprouts, in an effort to counteract the calorie-laden meat/pasta/dairy trifecta. (But it's OK if I make the sprouts with pancetta, right? Cue arteries seizing.)

Stay tuned, faithful three readers....

Birthday eve.

2007-12-04T00:05:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went to see Iron & Wine. They were really fantastic. Sweet, strummy, and beautiful songs. It was like being in a trance. I will be purchasing all of the rest of their albums this week, as I only have the second one and clearly, clearly I need them all. In fact, I would purchase this song on iTunes right now if I could get my account to open! (iTunes is such a tease. Am I the only one trying to buy music at midnight on a Monday? Seems unlikely.)

Flightless Bird, American Mouth
I was a quick wet boy
Diving too deep for coins
All of your straight blind eyes
Wide on my plastic toys
And when the cops closed the fair
I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map
And called for you everywhere

Have I found you?
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big bill looming

Now I’m a fat house cat
Cursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl through the wide/white fence cracks
Kissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you?
Flightless bird, brown hair bleeding
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big bill, stuck going down

These lyrics may seem a bit strange, but the music makes all the difference, honestly.

Before the show I had a scrumptious dinner at Le Pichet with my friend Julija: white bordeaux, my favorite butter lettuce salad with dijon and hazelnut dressing, and moules frites. Tres yummy!

All is right with the world. Now if only my carpet would dry out from the flooding. (Boo. Rain. Also, boo: 31. My profile updated already. Don't I get a 24-hour grace period after passing the 30-year mark?)

Does anyone understand this?

2007-12-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

cooky sent me this crazy (cooky?) e-mail forward with tons of holiday cookie recipes. I'm beginning to plan out my experiments (to commence next weekend) and I came across this concoction.

Sand Art Brownies

2/3 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup vanilla-flavored baking chips
walnuts to fill jar (about 1/2 cup)

Place ingredients in order listed in a quart-sized jar. Tamp ingredients down. Attach the following directions to the jar: Mix with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, and three eggs. Spread into a greased 9x9 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until done.

I'm confused. "Attach the following directions to the jar?" What's the whole point of preparing this in the jar if you're just going to pour it into a pan? Also, if anyone's ever seen vanilla-flavored baking chips, I'd like to know.

cooky: I believe this one is going to be filed under "bizarre."

Mulled is a good word.

2007-12-02T13:14:00.000-08:00

I made some mulled wine last night with some leftover Zinfandel. Heated up today, it's ten times better. I took a mug of it into the shower with me! How's that for a rainy day treat? (Fortunately my shower has a handy little shelf that's out of the way of the nozzle and any errant soap suds.)

Anyway, mulled wine is really easy if you've never made it: just red wine, a few heaping teaspoons of sugar, a couple cloves, a cinnamon stick, star anise if you have it, a few black peppercorns, and a few peels of orange zest. Turn it on low, cover, simmer for half an hour, then strain and sip. There are recipes that include brandy, which seems like a bit much to me (also I don't really like brandy). Some people add hunks of apples and orange and pear along with the spices--I like that, too, but the fruit doesn't hold up for long. Which is fine because honestly, would a delicious wine-poached pear or apple get left behind? Not by me. I think you could probably use any red (save for maybe a light red like pinor noir)--I've seen a lot of recipes that recommend rioja or merlot. This zinfandel tastes pretty good to me!

Alright, off to lunch (grilled cheese and Campbell's tomato soup...mmm) and then to work. I did venture out into the rain today and picked up some goods at the market. Nothing too interesting, except for kohlrabi--a new ingredient for Chefty! I had some kohlrabi soup a few weeks ago that came with a grilled scallop, it was a really interesting flavor, kind of nutty but with a tang that tasted a little like turnip (minus the sour). Yum. I'm planning to roast this with some acorn squash as a side dish for my birthday dinner this week.

This week's fresh list

2007-11-25T21:16:00.000-08:00

After a pretty rich few Thanksgiving days, the pendulum must swing back. (Darker marker coming soon, click to enlarge for easier reading.)

For tonight's meal: pork loin with Kashi pilaf and kidney beans. Pretty tasty, but it could have used a little more than salt and pepper to spice it up. I'll see if I can't make it over to Market Spice (again, perhaps virtually) this weekend and fill in my pantry some. Any spices you're partial to that I should check out? I'm looking for things that dress up vegetables and beans, specifically, but that can also work well with pork and chicken. I feel that lean pork and chicken are often interchangeable; their flavors are different of course but taste-wise both are pretty light and can work well as a background for more interesting flavors.

On a cold rainy day...

2007-11-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

...you need soup. This one's lentil and carrot. Now my fresh list is totally empty! Except for a few asian pears and, yes, a few eggs.

I need to take a break from eggs. Between the omelets and the custard and the scrambled eggs I had for breakfast, I can feel my blood cholesterol creeping up. No eggs until Christmas!

Cup custard

2007-11-17T08:46:00.000-08:00

Cup custard has been one of my favorite desserts for as long as I can remember. My mother made it often when we were young, usually in the fall. It's really simple to make, just eggs, milk or cream, sugar, and vanilla, baked in a water bath in a low oven. My mother always put nutmeg on top, now I realize that was probably a trick--and a good one--to make them look like creme brulee's burnt sugar crust. The nutmeg tastes really nice with the cream, though. I prefer it to a burnt sugar crust, which, while delicious, inevitably gets stuck in your teeth. (When I was little I used to save the nutmeg-crusted corners for last, they tasted so good. Chewy and sweet.)

Last night, I opened the fridge and realized that I still had a lot of duck eggs to use, so I made them into a batch of custards. I used a mix of half-and-half and milk. My mother's original recipe is just whole milk, which produces a lighter, firmer custard then this one. As you'll see this is soft and a little loose without being runny, almost coddled in texture. Begging for a spoon. It tastes rich (almost too rich, I think next time I'll stick to just milk) and velvety, like a creme brulee, and it's nice and eggy just the way I like it!

When I was whisking the duck eggs I could definitely see their potential for making great cakes. But who has time for that? I'll take custard please.

Cup Custard (makes 4 large ramekins or 6 medium)

This is not my mother's recipe, because I don't have her cookbook, but it's probably not wildly different. If you wanted to get creative with the flavoring, you could infuse the milk/cream with something other than vanilla when you're heating it.

6 large egg yolks
3 cups of milk (or half-and-half or a mix of both, depending on how creamy you want it)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean split in half and scraped, or 1 tsp of pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Grated nutmeg (I used fresh but the powder is fine)

First: put a kettle of water on to boil. Pre-heat the oven to 300-325 degrees. (My oven doesn't have a 325 option, so do what you can.)

1. Warm milk with vanilla bean (scrapings and pod) until hot but not boiling.
2. Whisk egg yolks vigorously until smooth and a little lighter in color, then add sugar and salt and whisk to combine.
3. Add the warmed milk/cream, slowly at first so you temper the yolks (tempering, this sounds fancy but isn't--just want to make sure the yolks don't scramble). Whisk to combine.
4. Pour the custard through a sieve into a pitcher if you have one for easy pouring.
5. Portion out the custard among your cups taking care not to fill them too high. Sprinkle generously with nutmeg.
6. Place cups in a roasting pan and fill the pan with warm water from your kettle until the water reaches halfway up the side of the cups.

7. Bake for 30 minutes until the custard is set and barely quivering. Remove from the pan with tongs if you have them (easier than maneuvering a pan filled with hot water) and cool to room temperature, then refrigerate.

Breakfast for dinner: omelet with swiss chard

2007-11-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

I love eggs. I hope I never develop an allergy to them. That would be most tragic.

Tonight I made a little omelet with my duck eggs and some of the swiss chard I braised yesterday. It doesn't look pretty, but as you must know by now, I am unafraid of ugly food shots.

This could have been prettier if I hadn't been hungry and lazy. As such, I let it get brown and my circle of fluffy egg broke when I folded it hastily over the filling. Next time: lower heat, oil instead of butter, no milk in the eggs, all fillings portioned out ahead of time!

I'd like to master the brown-free omelet. I'm told this is what chefs will most often ask a cook to do when they're applying for a job on the line. (That and chop something really awesome-like.)

In other news, today I met Michael Ruhlman. He's a great food writer and blogger and he came out with this book, copies of which I am going to try to procure for all my food-loving friends because it's fun to read and also, handy. Anyway, I had lunch with him and a few others from work and it was a great time. We talked about salt! And measuring versus weighing. And recipes. And homemade bacon. I was in heaven, obvs.

Curried Cauliflower Risotto with Apples and Leeks

2007-11-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks to an inspired suggestion from cooky last week, I just made this risotto. Very tasty. I'd describe it as warm and toasty with just a tiny bit of sweetness.

This is easy to make. Check it out.

For 2 meal-size servings (or 4 side-dish portions):

1 medium-sized cauliflower
1 large or 2 small leeks, cleaned, halved lengthwise, and sliced thin
1 large apple (Fuji, honeycrisp, or Granny Smith would all be nice), peeled, cored, and diced
Mild curry powder--just keep it handy with a teaspoon nearby. In total you'll probably use 3 T, I just added it as I went.
2/3 cup arborio or carnaroli (risotto) rice
1/4 cup white wine
1 T unsalted butter
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 pints of stock (can be chicken, veg, or a mix of both)
salt & pepper

First things:

Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Put your stock on the stove. Add a spoon of curry powder to the liquid and bring it to a simmer.

1. Use your hands to break cauliflower off the stalk and into very small florets (big florets like you might usually eat won't mix into the risotto very easily)
2. Toss florets with salt, pepper, 1/2 of your olive oil, and a spoonful of curry powder.
3. Spread cauliflower in a single layer on a sheet pan (use foil for easy cleanup). Roast cauliflower in preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes until tender and toasty.
4. While cauliflower is roasting, heat butter and the rest of the olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add leeks and stir/saute until softened but not brown. Season with salt and pepper, add apples and cook until they start to soften.
5. Add risotto to leeks and apples and stir, then add white wine and stir until the risotto has absorbed most of the wine. There should be very little liquid in the pan.
6. Using a ladle, add two measures of your simmering stock to the risotto. Stir gently but continuously until the liquid is absorbed, then repeat. You'll continue to repeat this step for roughly 18-20 minutes. You want to add liquid, stir, and cook until the risotto looks nice and creamy and tastes al dente (not crunchy, not mushy). As you add stock and stir, taste intermittently and add salt and pepper and more sprinkles of curry powder as you go until you're happy with it.

Here's what it will look like when it's just about done:

7. Fold in 3/4 of the roasted cauliflower, then top with the rest for prettiness.
8. Dig in!

Turkeycakes - sounds strange, tastes good!

2007-11-10T12:29:00.000-08:00

Turkeycakes are my modification of the Thai fishcake starter, tod mun – small, pungently flavored fish fritters often served with a sweet and sour cucumber salad. Unable to make it to an asian grocery for the requisite ground whitefish, I altered the recipe in order to utilize the ground turkey more conveniently located in my refrigerator. The experiment, I dare say, was a success.

Here's what I did:

1 lb. ground turkey
1 T flour
3 T low sodium soy sauce
2 T red curry
1/4 cup shredded kaffir lime leaf
1/2 t garlic powder
3 thai bird chilies, sliced (optional)
1/4 cup frozen corn (frozen peas or sliced fresh green beans would also work well)

Take all the ingredients and mix them together. Form patties about 1-2" in diameter and a half centimeter thick, basically just thick enough to maintain shape through the cooking process. Shallow fry on medium-high in canola or vegetable oil.

Between the hot oil and ocassionally errant corn kernal, this gets a little messy.

Flip once one side has become dark brown, then drain on paper towels.

It's not a pretty cooking experience, but let me assure you it is delicious if you're a fan of strong spicy flavors. I recommend at least having the turkeycakes with a side of fresh cucumbers if not a sweet and sour cucumber salad. But if you felt like it, you could make a simple one with quartered cucumber slices (so they look like pie pieces), enough white vinegar to cover the cucumber, some sugar, and a little onion and garlic, chilies may also be added if desired. I'd make the salad first and then prepared the meat so the flavors can stew a bit.

Squash soup addendum.

2007-11-07T21:10:00.001-08:00

I decided to blend and strain the rest of the squash soup for the sake of comparison. It was very thick at the start so out came the cream and the veg stock. I think I do like the overall taste and texture a lot better blended, it's just more uniform. I also have to take into account that all the flavors had some time to mellow out together over the last two days, which helped even things out too. And the cream? While I was hoping to convince myself that cream doesn't make a difference, it does. It softened the heat from the pepper and the cumin without blanketing it and, well, who doesn't love cream. At least I used half and half!

Perhaps my next squash-themed soup should be of the chunky vegetable variety. Maybe squash miso soup? I kind of like the sound of that.

Beacon's squash soup, maybe.

2007-11-05T19:43:00.000-08:00

About this time of year maybe four years back, I had a business lunch at Beacon. I attended with my boss at the time, who informed me that it was a Very Important Lunch. To which declaration I nodded serious assent, but what I was really thinking about was my meal, since I'd heard Beacon was pretty spectacular. I was a younger, less experienced Chefty then (as opposed to my current only moderately experienced self) and NYC lunches were one of the few high points in an otherwise hand-to-mouth existence.

Anyway. The lunch was actually pretty unmemorable, save for the best squash soup I have ever had. Ever. The best part of the Beacon soup experience was the presentation. They brought the soup out ladled into a heavy silver cup, which had been placed in the middle of a wide, shallow white bowl. Then the waiter picked up the soup and poured it swiftly into the bowl right before my eyes. Without sloshing! The whole effect was breathtaking. A gorgeous deep orange soup, fragrant with herbs and spices but with not a fleck of any other ingredient in sight (that's good blending). Undiluted deliciousness, I declare.

So tonight I tried to recreate this wonderful soup. It's quite tasty, but not at all the same. Mostly because I don't have an immersion blender, so it's more chunky-rustic, with the diced onions and sage and pepper floating around. It's also just a little more peppery than I remember Beacon's being, but I like the pepper. In the spirit of recipe sharing, here's what I did:

1. Cut in quarters, seed, and peel (if you want--you can always scoop the squash out after roasting) two small to medium squash (I had honey delicata and buttercup varieties)
2. Season squash with salt and pepper and seasoning of your choice. I used a little honey, cinnamon, sage leaves, a few dots of butter.
3. Cover with foil and roast at 425 for about an hour, or until you can poke a fork in the flesh without any struggle.
4. Remove squash and let cool to almost room temperature. Scoop it out and into a food processor or food mill (if you're that fancy) and puree it with a little milk or water until it's less like mashed potato and more like a thick puree. You should end up with a yield of about 3 cups or so.
NOTE: In the immortal words of Julia Child, steps 1-4 can be done ahead of time. When you're ready to make your brilliant squash soup, you can plunk that puree straight from the fridge into the pot.
5. Dice 1 medium or 1/2 large yellow onion and saute with olive oil, salt and pepper over medium heat until soft. Don't brown.
6. Add half a whole clove of garlic, a small cinnamon stick and a few more sage leaves. Let cook over medium-low for about 10 minutes.
7. Add squash puree and stir to combine.
8. Add 3 pints of liquid. I used 2 pints chicken stock (the best for making soup, homemade even better but storebought is OK too) and 1 pint of vegetable stock. You should probably have more liquid on hand if you want a soup that's a little thinner.
9. Season! I already had sage and cinnamon going, then I added one good shake of ginger, about a teaspoon of ground cardamom, and probably 1-2 tsp of cumin. Usually I don't love cumin, but it really worked here.
10. The result? A thick hearty stick-to-your ribs squash soup.
11. If you have an immersion blender, lucky you. Once you're pleased with the taste, remove the cinnamon stick, give the soup a good buzz, strain if you're fussy, and check again for seasoning.
12. Voila: (as per the above, this version is without the blending)

I didn't even have to use any cream. But if you ended up having less squash or using more stock, you might want to hit it with a little cream at the end to give it that extra smooth and creamy finish.

Fresh list.

2007-11-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

This is pretty ghetto. I need a darker marker. In the meantime, suggestions for what I should make this week? Pass them along.

Snapshots.

2007-11-03T23:42:00.000-07:00

Huzzah! The camera cord has been located. I realize, however, that the few food shots I had didn't really come out that well. So...here are some pretty fall pictures that are worth sharing, and a couple shots of the new digs.

Lenin, with leaves. I'll need to go back and do a better study of this. Across the street while walking...not the best stance for picture-taking.

Spaghetti squash (this one's for you, sister!)

My living room on a rare sunny day.

A bit of clutter and stuff. Fireplace: rocks.

My deck. I can't wait to have a grill and some plants out here. And a hammock too! Yes. (Oh, there's a strange green napkin in the corner. We had some big windstorms a few weeks ago and this found its way onto my deck. Bing saw it through the blinds and started going nuts, I thought somebody was out there. But it was just the napkin. I have since disposed of it.)
Stairs leading up to my hilltop spot. Picturesque during the day, hard to see where you're going at night.
Looking up at a flame-colored tree. (I hate that Fall is almost over.)
Has anyone seen the movie Superbad?

He of cozy repose who needs no introduction.

Who doesn't love a list?

2007-11-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

When I go grocery shopping, I list everything I just bought on my whiteboard (it's my "fresh" list) so that when I come home after a long day, I can look at what's there and get inspired, instead of griping, oh woe, nothing to eat. Somehow writing it down motivates me to cook, even though I'd see it all sitting there anyway upon opening the fridge.

I derive great satisfaction from crossing things off the list. I can't wait for the food to be gone, because then I get to go shopping again. I love picking out all the things I'm going to get. Plus, most of the time my fresh list is all fruits and veg and I'm proud of myself for eating all the good stuff and not letting it go to waste.

Sunday is my grocery day, so tomorrow morning I'll be heading out for a restock. Here's the latest version of the list. If I can find my dang camera cord, I'll document the new list tomorrow and post it here.

~~Swiss chard~~
~~Salad greens~~
~~Asian pears~~
Apples
~~Carrots~~
Miso
Eggs
Smoked salmon
Amy's frozen pesto pizza
Buttercup squash
Honey delicata squash
Lemons
Thyme
Shallots

I will definitely be getting some swiss chard again. It's so delicious. I braised it with some olive oil, shallots, a clove of garlic, a bit of thyme and lemon juice. It doesn't look that pretty when it's done, kind of an off-green and a bit clumpy, but it's really silky in your mouth, not stringy or mushy in the least, and it has this lovely rich garlicky smell that wafts up when you pop the lid off. MMM. Good cold weather food. And so easy to make. I just ate the whole bunch for my dinner, but this would be a great side dish with a juicy meatloaf, roast chicken, and especially lamb. Leftovers would also make a tasty filling for a quiche or omelet, with a bit of hard cheese thrown in.

Now, the carrots were also a big hit this week. I sauteed them with some shallots and then made a glaze/sauce for them with the miso paste. There are a number of kinds of miso out there, but I'm partial to what's typically labeled "mellow white." It's got a good salty-meets-tangy flavor and it has a lot of body to it. It's thick, and it looks like it would be really heavy, but when you mix it up with some other liquids it gets smooth and creamy and doesn't drop a hammer on your taste buds. All good sauce-making properties! I used a little bit of my latest batch of chicken stock (more on that later) and some water to thin it out. Then I added honey, ginger, salt and pepper, some lemon juice and zest, and poured it over the carrots and let it cook down for maybe 10-12 minutes, then finished it with a drizzle of toasted sesame oil. Very tasty, the carrots cooked just long enough to keep their bite and the sauce was a nice match for their natural sweetness. I think next time I'll use orange instead of lemon, and I'll try adding some chili sauce or powder to give it a little heat. Some garlic with the shallot might be good too.

I do still have some squash to use, however, which I'd been planning on turning into soup, but I think I may try roasting it instead with a miso sauce and see how that turns out.

I also need to get some meat. Lately, though, I've had a resistance to meat, and I don't know why. It's just that meat is such a diva. I go shopping and I look at the long counter filled with beef and pork and hunks of chicken and I feel like it's all just sitting there begging for a plan, wanting a whole meal created just for *it*. Right? You can't just pick up a piece of sirloin or pork chop without wondering: how will I season it, and what do I have to make a sauce, and I need potatoes, and so on and so forth. Meat, I say. I love you, but I don't have time for these shenanigans.

I think the solution is to take a page from cooky's book and work on some good one-pot meat and veg meals. Chili. Yeah! And curry for sure, which I've never made. I am going to make a trek here this week (perhaps a virtual trek, since I see that they are now powered by the mothership) and go hunting for new pantry items. (cooky, come with me!)

Autumn Hellfire Pumpkin Curry

2007-10-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

Savvy cooks and environmentalists aren't the only ones enjoying the full flavors and nutritional benefits of seasonal cooking. Even Satan is in on the joys of stirring up a cauldron full of fresh-picked garden delights with this yummy mouthful of eternally burning damnation.

At its core, Autumn Hellfire Curry is a Thai red curry featuring pumpkin. I substituted habanero chili for the usual Thai bird chilies, for the most part because habaneroes were still available at the farmer's market, but also I like to think that they compliment the pumpkin better somehow. Maybe?

2 T thai red curry paste
1 can light coconut milk
1 small pumpkin, peeled and cubed into 1" squares
Sprinkle of cinnamon sugar
3 chicken breasts, sliced
6 peppers of the season, sliced, (I used a mix of green and red jalapeno and Ukrainian heirlooms)
1 habanero chili
5 stalks of thai purple basil, including buds
2 tomatoes, cut in eighths
Fish sauce (nam pla)

Preheat oven to 450. Cut up pumpkin until you can't stand it anymore. Ideally you can peel and dice the whole raw pumpkin and cook it in the curry, but that was too hard for me, so I roasted it to soften the thing. I managed to slice it up into 1/6 sections. If you need to par-roast like me, toss in a little canola oil and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and salt. I'm not certain this added that much flavor, but I like to think maybe it did. I cooked it just to the point of softening. My only purpose was to get it to the point where I could cut and peel the gourd without severing a finger… ghoulish indeed.

Heat half the can of coconut milk on medium-high and sauté curry paste until dissolved. Add chicken and cook at least halfway through. Add the rest of the coconut milk and, say, a half can of water. Stock would do nicely too. Bring to a low boil.

Add pumpkin, peppers, habanero, and half of the purple basil. Depending on your spicy tolerance, you can hollow out the peppers before adding. Add tomatoes last. Add about 2 teaspoons of sea salt. Simmer the curry until pumpkin has cooked through. Taste the curry and add fish sauce (for salty) and additional purple basil as desired.

On a crisp fall night, this dish warms the soul, and palate, like tasty bites of fire and brimstone. Enjoy!

Welcomes, realizations, vittles

2007-10-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome welcome welcome cooky-monster! This is so belated, but my elation is pure and true. Readers, ignore cooky's comment about being a poseur. She is the genuine article--adventurous, sophisticated, curious, and always willing to take on any exploratory kitchen project! My most memorable cooky creation is her tuna rangoon. A whimsied yet practical spin on one of my most favorite East-Coast-Chinese take-out snacks. I have yet to try and recreate it, but now that cooky's my blogger-in-crime, I may be so inspired.

Speaking of inspiration (and other -tions), I like my blog. I still wish it could be chefty.com but, alas(s), this impostor Chefty got there first. (Chef Ty. Come ON!)

And, last but not least, the foodstuffs. I have been doing a good bit of cooking of late (though not so much with the photography). Pear crisp, apple honey cakes (with the apple butter incorporated...more on that later), and a pretty delectable no-frills chicken soup are the most recent among them. In the fridge a buttercup squash (looks kind of like the acorn, but lumpier...should be fun to cut that) awaits me. Not sure what I'll do with that, but it will likely find its way into soup or some kind of squash chutney that I can eat on a salad. I am very bored with my (admittedly limited) salad repertoire lately. On my short list of projects is a salad lab. I think this could be a good group activity--have everyone bring over their pantry oils and vinegars, stock up on some general (and maybe not so general) salad components, and do some experimenting. If you're going to eat 5-7 servings of fruit and vegetable every day, you might as well have fun doing it.

I've Been Promoted!

2007-10-05T09:34:00.000-07:00

From pesky commentator to full-fledged Cheftylass contributor that is. I'm not sure how I earned this place of honor, but I promise to do my best to retain the post. And what surefire way to position future approval than by setting the bar low as early as possible. Ooh, maybe I should change my name to Chefy-monster...? Cookylass? Hyphen or no....

Some info about me - let it be known that I am a mere Chefty poseur. I never went to culinary school or a single cooking class for that matter. I really wouldn't have the necessary discipline to attend anyway, as I never follow recipes to the letter. An issue perhaps, for a cooking blog, but let's play along for now. In addition, I'll consume just about anything once and am no stranger to adventures in questionable eating judgment (just hack off the mold, I assert!). All that said, I enjoy cooking very much, was raised on great food of the Thai persuasion, and have darn good taste - trust me.

My brand of cookery can be characterized by the confluence of yummy and healthful, usually cutting fat and carbs when possible to do so without sacrificing the dish's integrity. Superfoods are one of my main sources of inspiration, as are good deals at the market (yeah, I'm also cheap). If it sounds like my cooking is no fun, I guess that depends on what you'd consider fun food. Having budgetary and nutritional boudaries helps stoke the fires of my creativity, and I'm the first to throw a whole dish out in disgust if it isn't tasty.

Occasionally I just want to make horribly delectible, full-fat, empty-calorie treats too, but that's what homemade food gifts and parties are for, heh heh. Here, I made a birthday cake, yellow, layered with mascerated strawberries, lemon curd and whipped cream, decorated with whipped cream and raspberries.

There weren't any complaints.

But what about the healthilicious stuff about which I went on and on? Next post, I swear.

Just open it already.

2007-09-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

So...I'm a little obsessed with the apple butter. I made two jars of it last November, as you may recall. I gave away one and it was, I'm told, eaten promptly with no complaints. (Yay!) The other one I've kept in the cabinet. I decided to wait a full year before cracking it open to see if I canned it properly.

Every time I open the cabinet, though, I have to pick up that jar. I peer at it intently, looking for any suspicious formations that would indicate a failure in canning. I turn it upside down and watch the contents slide back down the sides of the jar. I'm convinced it's not thick enough. And is there a coating of apple butter that's adhering to the inside of the lid? That can't be right.

I am horrified at the thought of opening it to see some primeval colony of mold sitting atop what appears to be sweet, luscious applesauce. All that waiting for nothing! But the end is nigh, only about six weeks left to go. For the grand opening, I think I'll try my hand at a loaf of homemade bread (oatmeal, I think) for slathering. That way, if the butter is bad, at least I'll have something good to eat. This is assuming, of course, that the bread turns out.

In other news, I enjoyed some new recipes earlier this week cooking with a friend in anticipation of her potluck feast for Yom Kippur. We made sweet kugel (I didn't get to sample the finished product, but starch+sweet custard=how can you go wrong?) and an apricot honey cake that might be the best quick bread I've ever tasted. That's a big claim for me, having grown up making loaf after loaf of different kinds of these dense, fruity breads. None of them compare in taste or texture to this honey bread. The batter for it is very wet, with two cups of honey, at least that much lemon and orange juice, and rum, plus eggs and oil and apricot preserves (no butter). The batter is also surprisingly thin, even after incorporating the flours, but it bakes into a rich, loamy, fragrant cake. The texture is velvety without being heavy (the beauty of no butter and a good dose of baking soda) and with the citrus, honey, and rum you get these waves of flavor. So, so, lovely. Once I get my kitchen in full working order (cookbooks have yet to be unpacked), I hope to revisit some of my old quick-breads and try adapting them with this honey base.

What's cooking.

2007-08-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

I've been mostly MIA this year on the blog (boo! hiss!) but that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. Here and there, there have been some nice results. In reverse chronology:

Fresh raspberry jam. Not the real kind, with the pectin and jar-sterilizing (remember the apple butter? *shudder*). It's a refrigerator version, made kind of like a pie filling, which means it's less of a headache but also has a much shorter shelf life. No matter, I'm sure I'll find plenty of uses for this tangy, technicolor delight.

Farro salad with tomato, basil, and pecorino cheese. I love farro, it's like risotto rice but a) chewier (especially when it is just a smidge underdone, woops) b) nuttier, and c) better for you. All wins in Chefty's book.

Chicken filled with arugula and proscuitto, with braised romano beans & garlic. Hard to see the beans here, but they're not exactly pretty so no loss. What they lack in beauty they make up for in melt-in-your-mouth taste. (Thank you, Zuni Cafe. Although, I should note that even though you told me do not substitute yellow romano beans--with no explanation as to why!--I used them anyway and they were just as good as the green ones.)

Yogurt biscuits. The recipe called for sour cream, but I only had yogurt. They turned out nice and fluffy with a good tangy flavor. I'll be experimenting with yogurt and baked goods again!

Here's one biscuit split open getting a dose of honey (and being subjected to my poor attempt at dramatic effect). I ended up serving these with fresh sliced peaches and a basil-cinnamon custard sauce.

Bruschetta in Chicago, courtesy of cooky-monster's fabulous grill, kitchen, and local market!

cooky-monster, ferocious, with peaches.

cooky's man, a pro grillmaster, tending to some pretty choice bbq pork. Oh for a grill and a deck to hold it! That's fine living.

Strawberries in June. I tried out an open face strawberry pie, the crust (made with almonds) was pretty good, but the filling was a bit of a berry overkill. Less is more with these babies.

Arugula salad with fava beans, pecorino cheese and oregano. Toothsome green goodness.

So those are the summer highlights so far. It's peach and blueberry season (and I still have pounds of blueberries from last year) so surely those will find their way into the kitchen this month. I'll also be doing some testing with corn-based desserts for a friend who's doing a fundraising Iron-Chef-type event. Right now I'm thinking about ice cream, pudding, "candy" corn, possibly a pavlova filled with a corn custard and topped with berries...hit me with any inspirations you think of in your travels. A corn & fruit salad could be nice, too, with basil maybe? Mmm.

A Quest for American Food

2007-06-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

So last night I was watching a pretty bad show on Food Network (that tour of diners with the spiky-platinum-haired dude) but it got me thinking about American food. I'm inspired to go on a quest for classic American recipes (at least for those that don't include lard) and revisit some of the favorites of my youth--one of which has been featured of late in said bad show but also in an issue of Saveur a few months back: American chop suey! In my house this particular dish was also known as "slumgullion." Sounds appetizing, don't you think? It's basically canned tomatoes, ground beef, and elbow macaroni. Not glamorous but total comfort food. Send me your favorite only-in-America dishes and I'll keep you posted on fun recipes I track down.

Well, duh.

2007-05-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

You Are an Excellent Cook

You're a top cook, but you weren't born that way. It's taken a lot of practice, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning.
It's likely that you have what it takes to be a top chef, should you have the desire...

Are You A Good Cook?

Speaking of cooking, last night I made a tasty improv pasta: penne (the fiber-fortified kind, but not whole wheat. Suspicious, but tastes like the real semolina kind and has 5g of fiber per serving--not bad!) with italian chicken sausage, artichoke hearts, fennel, sage, and pine nuts. Finished with a bit of cheese, a glug of olive oil, and a little lemon juice--presto! That's a thirty-minute meal I can get behind.

Springspiration

2007-05-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

I went to the U-District farmers' market yesterday and shopped my little Chefty heart out. I love Spring! Pictured here are some chive blossoms. I also brought home a bundle of asparagus, lots of mushrooms, butter lettuce, a whole bunch of herbs, fresh flowers... I'm so glad market season is back.

Oh my.

2007-03-23T22:58:00.000-07:00

Well, my blog readership has pretty much ground to a halt. Sorry guys. I have been a shitty blogger. And even worse, I've barely been cooking. Thank God Spring is here. Culinary inspiration doesn't feel very far away.

Now, I started out the year with a lot of grand ideas about how I was going to make this blog better. That's January for you, all bleary-eyed optimism. Anyway, lately I've been thinking it's time I stop making endless promises to myself I can't possibly know if I'll keep. I feel like everything I do must involve the setting and striving for a goal. It's exhausting, and I realize I am much happier just doing things like writing and cooking and whatnot just for the sake of doing them. I cook when I cook, I blog when I blog, and the rest will come to me later. What this means (for any readers still lingering) is that my updates will be consistently inconsistent, but they'll keep coming.

On that note, I'm looking forward to making dinner tomorrow. I have some beets and asparagus that could be promising, but beyond that the shelves are bare so we'll have to see what can be done!

Night-night.

PS: I'm not loving this new layout. Expect changes soon...

Predictably...

2007-02-19T15:50:00.001-08:00

You Are a Chocolate Chip Cookie

Traditional and conservative, most people find you comforting.
You're friendly and easy to get to know. This makes you very popular - without even trying!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

Why I love the Wednesday Times.

2007-01-31T14:29:00.000-08:00

I am so making this.

At Hearth they made a lemon confit that got mixed with roasted red pepper as a garnish for crudo. I used to make the lemon confit. It was painstaking but I enjoyed it. Theirs was a savory confit made with salt and olive oil. Once prepared the lemon slices remained stored in the oil and the mixture became intensely perfurmed with the oils from the lemon rind. Mmm. I think it might be kind of delicious to make a lemon confit focaccia--could be very tangy and dense, a nice compliment perhaps to a cioppino or other sort of fish stew.

I might also make this. I sure love me some fennel.

In other news, was anyone else surprised to find out that Padma of Top Chef fame is married to Salman Rushdie?

Blowing off Top Chef steam.

2007-01-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

So, honestly, what is the deal with this season's cast? They can be some mean SOBs. Marcel thinks he's hot shit, sure. But who doesn't in that kitchen? They've all got egos to battle. I think Marcel is really soigné, even if his instincts are sometimes spotty (like, what was that weird coffee-essence steak quickfire thingie?). Cook and let cook, people!

Now, Marcel's dessert tonight looked really luscious to me, what with the fresh cherries and cream and chocolate. I think his presentation was too cool and arty, though, which is probably why the judges didn't think it screamed lust. Had it been me, miss-Chefty-Lee, who pulled the Lust knife, I would have prepared a trio of oysters: one spicy (sambal & orange zest), one warm (poached in a ginger-infused cream) and one sweet (splashed with a rosewater-champagne mignonette). And, assuming my budget allowed, I would have accompanied the oysters with a glass of champagne or prosecco. That, my friends, is the way we talk about lust.

Alright, so at this point you may be completely lost. Go here if you're not already familiar with this show. It's total brain candy, but I just can't stop myself.

Christmastime is here!

2006-12-25T14:18:00.000-08:00

Just some assorted holiday pics, which for some confounded reason I was not able to add to my last post.

Thanks to all, I don't know, ten of you who keep coming back to the site for updates. With New Years' on the horizon, I have lots of good ideas for making this into a much more playful and experimental place as I test out new recipes and try to come up with my own creations. For those of you who are both regular readers and Chefties, I'm always eager to hear what you're up to in the kitchen, so don't be afraid of leaving a note whenever you're inspired. If I can't have all my pals here in the kitchen with me, blog chat is the next best thing. :)

Onto the slideshow....

Eggnog & Christmas tree. Homemade eggnog is not exactly trivial to make--at least, it isn't when you have limited counterspace, but it's well worth it.

Christmas morning. Here's the tree, with a closeup of my paperback angel. She's a bit worse for wear, but a little glue and some fresh silver spraypaint should be just the thing to get her ready for next year.

And last but not least, Bing. Just another day for him. I believe he's up here on the table because the Christmas tree has temporarily displaced his top-of-the-bookcase perch. I did not make a Christmas goose this year, but it appears that he could fill in for that job, just based on plumpness alone. Mwah-ha-ha-ha....

Cookie monster.

2006-12-25T13:44:00.000-08:00

Behold this year's cookie-making!

First, the classic peanut butter blossom. MMM.

Then, butter cookies laced with cardamom and cinnamon, drizzled with an espresso glaze and melted chocolate. I think I enjoyed this one the most. The espresso was a great match for the spicy cookie.

And on the right, what Gourmet called a pine-nut tassie*, to which I added chopped dates and a little orange zest.

Someday when I have my own little bakery, all of these will make it on the holiday menu.

Until then, Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

xoxo
Chefty

*tassie: noun, Chiefly Scot.
1. a cup or small goblet, esp. an ornamental one.
2. the contents of a cup or goblet; a small draught, as of liquor.

Jump in the mouth

2006-12-19T10:44:00.000-08:00

Did you know that's what saltimbocca means? I discovered this over the weekend when I prepared saltimbocca for dinner. I love how vivid a description it is. And accurate--proscuitto gives the veal a nice salty bite but the sage makes for a pretty velvety taste. Mmm. I'm now on a quest to find more fun food idioms like this one, so stay tuned...

My cooking of late has been a bit herky-jerky. I've not yet baked a single holiday cookie, but I expect I'll be making some butter cookies over the weekend that sound pretty good. They have a lot of spice--cardamom particularly--in the dry mix, and you finish them with a drizzle of both bittersweet chocolate and an espresso-chocolate glaze. Other notable feasts (in reverse chronology) include...

The aforementioned saltimbocca, served with spinach & ricotta dumplings (tasty but structurally unsound).
Panettone bread pudding with a cinnamon-orange caramel sauce. This is a surefire hit and very easy to make. Recipe to follow (courtesy of Gourmet & Chow.com for inspiration) tonight.
Chicken fricassee with plum tomatoes and white beans. Anything braised is a winner in my book.
Roast prime rib with horseradish & garlic. I think this may have been my first time having prime rib. It's a lot more tender than I expected. I surprised myself by cooking it to a perfect medium-rare--in the past my beef cookery has been a bit hit-or-miss.

On the menu for Christmas? I'm inclined to make my aunt Marguerite's delicious meatballs, but a nomination has been cast for ham. We shall see...

Leftover Chronicles #1

2006-12-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

I fired up the kitchen this weekend and dealt with the most of my holiday leftovers. The turkey, bones and all, found its way rather predictably into a soup, to which I added barley, cranberry beans, and carrots. Tasty, but it took forever to make the soup stock. Soup is definitely a project you should begin at least in late morning if you want to eat before 10:00PM.

The leftover stuffing seemed to me the perfect filling for a wonton. At first, I planned to make turkey soup with stuffing wontons. I thought the wontons might also be good by themselves, pan- fried and served with some kind of dip made from the leftover cranberry sauce. Unfortunately a whole lot of other people in Seattle decided to involve wontons in their leftover creations, because there was not a package to be found at my grocery store on Sunday. I'll head back tonight and see if they've restocked. The filling is ready, though it doesn't taste quite as good as I thought it might.

I still have some leftover pumpkin puree, though I dispatched most of it in two loaves of pumpkin-pecan bread. Here's the thing I've found about pumpkin: it has a really distinctive flavor before you bake it into something, but that flavor doesn't really carry through to the end product. I used a mix of canned pumpkin and puree I had made myself. The canned pumpkin does seem to have more concentrated flavor--I used just canned puree in the ice cream I made, and it retained that tangy flavor. Perhaps homemade pumpkin is best in its pure form and used as a filling for pasta or base for soup. Someday when I have enough counter space to make pumpkin ravioli, I'll let you know.

Six days later.

2006-11-28T14:22:00.000-08:00

You'd think I would have rushed to the computer after my final bite of mashed potato last Thursday to regale you all with tales of my intrepid Cheftiness. I mean, I thought I would have. Such excitement no woman or beast could contain! My first soup-to-nuts Thanksgiving! But no. I had zero inclination to recap. And I didn't even really eat that much. I owe both of these conditions to sensory overload. After all that shopping, cooking, cleaning, stirring, and hand-wringing, I ran out of steam.

But all things considered, it was a delicious meal and as sensible it may be to scale it back next time, I'm not sure I'd be able to resist a yearly opportunity for such a festive meal. I guess the moral of the story is: next time, if you want to cook enough food to feed an army, invite more people.

Here's a little photoblog of my Thanksgiving.

First course, butternut squash soup with a swirl of cider cream and toasted pumpkin seeds. I liked having a little taste before diving into the main event. Soup will become a staple for Thanksgivings to come. Shout out to my brilliant older sister for the suggestion!

Here's a shot of the apple pie and the two sauces I made to serve with the turkey. I think I achieved perfection with this pie crust. It had a nice subtley buttery flavor and was both tender and flaky. Unfortunately Megnut beat me to the punch in claiming crust nirvana. Now I have to try the recipe she recommends and compare. Can Crisco really make that big a difference?

I made a cranberry-persimmon sauce and a kind of butternut squash relish. The cranberry sauce was good, a little on the tart side, but the flavor improved tenfold by the day after Thanksgiving. Giving the persimmon a little time to bloom with the cranberries gave the sauce a welcome note of sweetness and spice. I wasn't sure how the squash relish would be. The recipe called for golden raisins, but I used currants, and it was made with a reduction of sugar, white wine, and dry mustard. It was really wonderful, sweet but not overpoweringly so and cut with that mustardy bite. This would be just as delicious with any roasted meat and would probably also be a nice match with cheese or as a topping for a salad.

And here's the whole meal. Per my last post, brining was not fun, but I do think I tasted the difference. The white meat wasn't dry at all, even though I was fairly certain the breast had been overcooked. I made a pomegranate gravy that was OK, but it was a lot of work (it required pomegranate caramel. Caramel? It would have been wise for me to prepare this ahead of time.) and I think a little too sweet for my taste. Everything else was pretty straight up--yukon gold mashed potatoes, green beans with cippolini onions, and sage-rosemary stuffing with figs & walnuts.

Needless to say, the only thing that's been working overtime in the kitchen this week has been the microwave. But I'm gearing up for some cookie and perhaps bread-baking this weekend, so stay tuned.

Never again

2006-11-22T14:20:00.000-08:00

Barring the outside chance that the turkey I eat tomorrow is the most flavorful and succulent I've ever had, let it be known throughout the land that I will never brine a turkey again. Man. It's not worse than apple butter, but it's up there. And blast you, brining bag! Early evidence indicates you are not, in fact, leakproof.

Ingenuity

2006-11-20T21:51:00.000-08:00

You know how when you make muffins or a cake, the recipe tells you test it for doneness with a toothpick or cake tester? Tell me the truth: does anyone ever have toothpicks lying around? I never do (and what is a cake tester, anyway? I've never seen one.) Typically I'll just use a butter knife and deal with the divot in the surface of the cake. I'm not that fussy. Cake is cake. But! I caught a few minutes of Nigella Lawson a few weekends ago, she was making this ridiculous four-chocolate loaf cake and she said, 'Just poke it with a piece of uncooked spaghetti.' Genius! Finally, a use for the whole-wheat spaghetti taking up space in my pantry.

A Very Chefty Thanksgiving.

2006-11-19T23:23:00.000-08:00

Here's what I'm thinking for a menu. Let's hope I can pull it off! I expect I'll be eating leftovers until Christmas. Recipes courtesy of a few years' worth of magazines, my aunt Marguerite, and--maybe--you.

Butternut squash soup

Brined & roasted turkey, with giblet gravy
Mashed potatoes
Creamed leeks
Marguerite's stuffing
Cranberry-persimmon sauce

Apple pie, with pumpkin spice ice cream*

*I haven't found a recipe for this ice cream yet. Anyone ever made pumpkin ice cream? I've made a squash custard base before, but it didn't make a terrific ice cream, so if you've got the wisdom of experience on your side I'd welcome some tips.

I'd also like to include some kind of light palate cleanser in here, either for the start of the meal or to have in between dinner and dessert. Not sure what it would be, though. Sorbet? Turkey consomme? Ha. Consomme. No way.

Apple butter: Don't try this at home.

2006-11-16T21:20:00.000-08:00

This fall, it seems like everywhere I go (virtually, that is) people are raving about apple butter and cooking up there own batches at home. I wondered what the all fuss was about. I mean, it's basically applesauce, right? I figured I'd give it a try and see what I was missing.

After roughly twelve hours, a few gallons of boiling water, and an impossibly sticky saucepan, I came to the conclusion that all the effort involved in making apple butter was not entirely worth the end result.

I followed a pretty standard recipe--peeled apples boiled in cider then pureed, seasoned with a mix of white and brown sugar and my favorite apple spice mix (cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, orange zest, star anise), and then cooked on the stovetop (some recipes recommended putting it in the oven) for what seemed like an eternity until it became a dark, rich caramel color. I added my own twist by including a good-sized knob of peeled ginger with the apples. What I ended up with was a tangy, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth...applesauce. Folks, you heard it hear first: the "butter" of "apple butter" is a complete misnomer.

All that aside, though, it was pretty damn tasty. What ruined it for me was the canning. Oh, the canning. This is really a labor of love. In my first go-round, I scrubbed the cans and lids, dried them, then heated the cans in the oven. When the butter was ready, I filled the hot jars, screwed the lids on tight, then boiled them for ten minutes. After boiling, I took them out and waited. Waited and waited and waited for that mythic ping that is supposed to sound when the air releases from the can and indicates that your can is sealed and ready for safe storage.

The ping never came.

Another sign that the can has sealed properly is a concave lid. If the lid is bent, that means the seal has formed and your canning was a success. I couldn't tell if the lid was down. It looked the same as it did screwed onto an empty jar. What to do?

That's right, princess. Can them again.

So I opened up the jars, emptied my apple butter into a saucepan to reheat, and got to work on sterilizing a new set of jars. This time, I scrubbed them, boiled them empty, and then kept the jars hot in the oven. Again, I filled them (just to within 1/4" of the top of the jar, mind you), and boiled the jars for ten minutes. A wiser cook than me, schooled in the ways of apple-buttery, recommended I turn the jars on their heads upon removing them from the water. That I did, and guess what happened? My lids were concave and my jars were sealed. Still no ping! But I did some more research and learned that sometimes the ping happens while the jars are boiling, so nothing to fear there.

Exhausting, right? It's too bad, really, because before this butter-making I was entertaining some pretty ambitious ideas for making blueberry preserves (you remember the blueberries) and giving them away as Christmas presents.

I think this holiday season I may just get more creative with cookies.

New favorite vegetable.

2006-11-03T20:13:00.000-08:00

Romanesco broccoli.

First of all, I love how its shaped with all these pointy little turrets. Such a cheeky little plant! Its flavor is a lot more subtle than regular broccoli, and it doesn't smell horrible when you cook it. It also seems to be a lot less fibrous. That's three wins in my book.

I cut off the florets and chopped up the stalks of a small head and tossed them in the steamer. After about 6 or 7 minutes, they had a nice crunch and the color had blossomed to a lovely lime green. I tossed the broccoli with a small pat of butter, some lemon zest and juice, and salt. After a few bites I wondered how they would taste with a sprinkle of toasted pumpkin seeds. Delicious!

Got to get back to dinner now, I'm working on a big pot of stew with chicken sausage, kale, buttercup squash and white beans. Will report back on that later.

The Chefty who cried wolf.

2006-11-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

The second half of October was stressful, lots of changes at work and not a small amount of uncertainty about my future there. Things are beginning to normalize, though, and I'm a lot busier than I have been since I started nearly a year ago. I like the surge of industry and the sense of accomplishment that comes with that. But it's still not cooking. I continue to keep my eyes on that prize, and I'll probably be using this blog over the next few months to sort out my thoughts on the right path ahead. I hope you'll bear with me! Don't worry, I plan to do a lot of cooking in the meantime, particularly with the holidays on the horizon. This will be my first time making Thanksgiving dinner, start to finish, and I will be pulling out all the stops! Granted, I'm cooking for a very small group, but no matter--that just means I'll have lots of opportunities for fun leftover creations.

Kind of redacting

2006-10-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

I wrote a post back in September about how America is a big shameless copycat when it comes to food. I've continued to think a lot about this issue, and (as with most things) I'm of many minds on it. Ultimately, I have to appreciate that living in America provides so much exposure to different cuisines and ways of cooking. Perhaps my frustration comes from wanting to pursue everything back to its source. The longer I live, the less authentic life feels.

Whatever philosophical crisis I may be having with food and culture at the moment, one thing that will never falter is my admiration of Julia Child. She flung open the doors to the wide world of cooking and without her, well, I wouldn't be me.

Back to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow. This week is going to be all about fruits and vegetables and oatmeal, all of which I plan to eat by the cartload to try and counteract the indulgences of this weekend. You don't really want to know, but I'll leave you with a few hints. Eggs. Bacon. Strudel.

Yeah.

Eggs in the (lime)light

2006-10-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

This method sounds a lot easier than the traditional simmering-water technique. I wonder if the shell is less hot, making the egg easier to peel? I can definitely see this innovation making its way into a nifty little home appliance. The new-generation egg cooker! On a nostalgic side note, I always loved the electric egg cooker my mom had, where you added a little water to the bottom, pricked the egg using a little spike in the center, then placed the egg in a tray to soft-steam. Mmm. Then she would serve them in these funny little cups.

Don't be fooled, peach-lovers...

2006-10-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

...the season is officially over. I snagged a couple of peaches at the market this weekend and brought one for lunch today that seemed ripened to perfection.

I plucked it out of its brown paper bag, held it under my nose to inhale its sweet, airy perfume, and took a bite, with a napkin held just under my chin to catch that first trickle of juice...

which never trickled.

This peach, beautiful and fragrant as it looks, is mealy and mushy and not fit for eating.

Ah well. I had a lot of good peaches this summer so I can't complain. (And I can't promise that I won't try to buy one last great peach this weekend, should the opportunity present itself. Maybe I just got a bad one? It can be hard to tell with peaches.)

What is red and white and delicious all over?

2006-10-05T13:56:00.001-07:00

(And kind of rhymes with Pinnochio?)

I've never been a huge fan of salami. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love an Italian grinder as much as the next girl, but generally, cured meats aren't that fun to eat. They are hard and chewy and salty. Plus, that smooth, unctuous film of what is usually pork fat on every slice makes it hard to deny how much cholesterol you're ingesting. (You know I'm not such a stickler about avoiding unhealthy foods, but still...salami always gives me a touch of heartburn.)

All that being said, I'd read a lot about Salumi and have been wanting to check it out. I picked up one of their sandwiches yesterday and I think I can safely say that it was the best salami sandwich I've ever had. At $9 it wasn't cheap, but at the same time, I think they put about a half a pound of meat on there, not to mention two thick slices of fresh mozzarella, a heaping spoonful of onions and peppers, and two different types of dressing, one garlic and the other pesto. This all sandwiched in a luscious foccaccia-type roll, which was nearly the circumference of my face. So, in that context, it was actually a pretty good deal. And to boot, I stretched it across lunch AND dinner.

I ordered some of their famous proscuitto which I'll pick up later today. They make a lamb proscuitto which sounds very intriguing, but it's pricy ($26/lb) and they were out of it anyway. I think maybe I'll try to get some next year to include in an Easter feast. For now, I'm looking forward to trying the pork variety. I've made it in omelets and also in a chicken-arugula-hazelnut roulade sort of thing. I'd like to try it with seafood, either as a wrap on scallops or halibut. Got any favorite proscuitto preparations?

And in prime beer season too!

2006-10-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

Certainly worse things could be visited upon this nation than a hops shortage, but still--what's Oktober without beer?

Finally, someone understands.

2006-10-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

Eggs are great dinner food!

In other news, I've been cooking, but not with enough inspiration to warrant recaps (hence the gap in posts). Going forward I'm aiming to post something new every day, even if it's just a link or various Chefty flotsam. Stay tuned! With fall now here in full swing, I expect my culinary pursuits will start getting interesting again (well, at least interesting to me.)

Puyallup Fair

2006-09-24T23:35:00.000-07:00

Puyallup is a town about thirty minutes south of Seattle. They have a huge fairground there that's open for about four weeks in late summer/early fall. This was the last weekend, so I went on Saturday with some friends to check it out. It was gorgeous and sunny all weekend--if I believe the warnings from local DJs, we probably won't be getting any more sunny days for quite awhile, so I'm glad I was out to enjoy it.

The fair was crowded, and hot, but still pretty fun. I was too impatient to wait in line for the rides, but I did tolerate the lines for a some good eats, which were well worth the wait.

My favorite snack from the fair were the Fisher scones. They are a longtime local favorite and I can see why--tender and fluffy, served hot from the oven and smeared with honey butter and raspberry jam. I waited in line a second time so I could have one for the road. Here are some pics of the big bakers oven and the scone assembly line.

Saturday was a banner bad-eating day, I'll admit. Of course, I had to have a corn dog. Right? You can't go to a fair and not have a corn dog (or in this case, a Krusty Pup). I resisted elephant ears, cotton candy, burgers, funnel cakes, and every other kind of junk food imaginable...except for fudge (Penuche! Brought home for just the occassional nibble.) Oh, and then there was this German food cart outside the fair, selling these little fried pastries filled with beef. I can't recall how to spell or say what they were called, but they sounded interesting so in service of culinary exploration, I tried one. It was tasty, but not remarkably so, and too greasy. You win some, you lose some.

Overall, the fair was larger and more commercial than I expected. But they did have prize-winning vegetables and cows and goats and stuff, so it was like a state-fair-meets-amusement-park. Here's a picture of a pretty squash that won some ribbons. I didn't take any pictures of the giant squash--they'd been graffitied, strangely enough, and it kind of took away from their otherwise impressive girth.

So, there goes the weekend. This week, I have a lot of kale to make. I've also got some tomatoes to use up, so those will probably go into a soup with basil, garlic, perhaps carrots. I've got SO MANY ONIONS AND GARLIC! I think I'm going to roast up the garlic, in paste form it lasts for awhile. As for the onions, who knows. I'm taking suggestions!

Apple season

2006-09-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

I made these baked honeycrisp apples last week. That one in the back is, as you can see, just a little past done. No matter. Still delicious.

Ah, autumn.

I also made a few caramel apples (and one caramel asian pear, front left). Tasty, but hard to eat!

But really, just how do the French do it?

2006-09-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

Tart-making is not easy!

Tonight's project resulted in a slightly shrunken tart shell. For those of you not familiar the ways of tart production, a lot of French-style tarts require a pre-baked pie shell to be in place before you can begin the fun filling stuff. Getting the tart shell right is important and it takes a good measure of skill and practice. First off, dough from scratch is risky the first 100 times you do it and if you're me, you seem to be always doubting the answers to the following questions.

Are those crumbles of butter in the dough 'pea-size?'
This dough sticks together, kind of, when I smush it in my hands. Should I add more water? The recommended 3-6 tablespoons makes for a large margin of error.
I'm trying to touch it as little as possible, but they keep cautioning me about overworking the dough. How can I tell?

After reaching satisifactory enough conclusion on these points, there is the rolling. I always look forward to rolling out the dough as I kid myself into thinking that the cosmic pie-making tumblers will click into place again (for I have made some exemplary pie dough in the past) and I will have sprinkled just enough flour on my mat and pin to prevent sticking.

Tonight was not one of those nights, but fortunately I was able to heave my misshapen circle into the tart pan and make it look pretty. What I didn't do was double up the dough on the sides, which--combined with the fact that I don't have dry beans or pie weights and had to use a foil packet filled with rice and barley--is probably why the tart shell shrunk when I pre-baked it.

That, or I overworked the dough somewhere along the way and it is now just a huge mass of gluteny...gluten.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

No matter, I filled that puppy up anyway with a creamy hazelnut frangipane and topped it with sliced pear halves that I poached in red wine. I'm confident this will make up for any crust shortcomings.

I like poached pears. They look pretty and taste great and they are really easy to make. I was thinking the other day how poached apples might be, using a dessert wine or mead or something like that. I'm not sure if the texture would work, since apples don't ripen like pears. But it's worth a shot.

Speaking of apples...watch for a photo post coming soon.

Do you like American cooking? I like American cooking. I like all kind of cooking.*

2006-09-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

I've had a lot of bits and pieces of posts rattling around in my head for the last week, so this one will be a bit random I guess. Bear with me.

I did crack open On Food and Cooking (McGee) and was happy to learn from a quick scan that mold is indeed essential in basically all cheese- and bread-making, though the role it plays from cheese to cheese and bread to bread seems pretty varied. I have a lot more to learn on this topic, but I was gratified to know that I kind of knew what the hell I was talking about. Let it be known that Chefty is not an authority on anything. :)

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the food culture in America, more specifically about how as a nation we simply don't have a true food history or foundation in the way that a country like France or Italy does. (OK now, I know it's fall and all of you are going to start talking about turkeys and cornbread and cranberries and the like-- and yes, I agree, Thanksgiving is probably the only culinary tradition we can claim, even if we did steal the corn from the real Americans.)

I go to a store like Williams-Sonoma and look at the towers of Le Creuset cookware and bottled olive oils and pestos and think how eager Americans are to appropriate the trappings and labels of other traditions. Of course, there is in all culinary pursuits a reliance on the cooks and methods that came before us and, in an increasingly monocultural world, certainly the notion of a purely original cuisine is one that seems an impossible (and, maybe, pointless) goal. Cooks all over the world, even those with a hard and historical culinary legacy on which to stand, look to other cuisines and flavors to breath creativity into their dishes. I'm not condemning this practice, as I don't think there's any more fun or effective way to develop your palate without opening yourself to as many tastes as you can.

What I'm finding, at least in the media presentation of food here, is that food doesn't have this kind of integrity, that those who espouse other culinary traditions don't really pay it homage. Even in the most precious and sophisticated and savory presentations, cooking in America somehow feels too glossy and plastic. And the way we glorify this food often strikes me as desperate and vacant. How come? Is it simply that old familiar American insecurity?

Back when I was young, I had the habit of copying my older sister a lot, saying what she said, wanting to do everything she did. Naturally this would frustrate her and in response to a complaint, my mother would tell her that imitation is the highest form of flattery.

I wonder, does this hold true when it comes to food and cooking? Or is the highest form of flattery to seek knowledge and show, in your earnest pursuit, your own humility?

On that note, just so you know how far I have to fall from my soapbox here, it's time for me to complete my poached pear frangipane tart. Word to the wise: do not attempt to begin such a project from the very beginning (dough and all) at 9pm on a Tuesday night.

Will be back shortly with certainly less weighty questions to pose.

*This does not really do justice to the lyrics it echoes, but there you have it. Perhaps this illustrates my point about trying to do well something someone else already did better.

Mold

2006-09-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

Now, I know this title doesn't really compel you to keep reading, but stay with me here.

Mold is, of course, kind of icky.

I was away last weekend, back in Massachusetts, and when I got back the fridge was in need of a good purge. Two things that got tossed were a container of yogurt and a half-used jar of tomato sauce; both had begun to host mold. Never a pleasant sight, but as I was rinsing these out I got to thinking, mold in general is actually a pretty impressive family of bacteria when you look at from a food point-of-view.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I haven't yet consulted my McGee for corroboration), but without mold, there would be no cheese or bread as most of us know and enjoy it.

That means there would be no grilled cheese sandwiches.

Or fondue.

Or...croque monsieurs!

The list could continue indefinitely.

Moral of the story is, throw away your moldy foods, but don't be disrespectin' the mold.

More culinary tales to come. Recent travel + short, intensely busy week = no time for Chefting! But things are expected to return to normal as soon as tomorrow, when I will be concocting something with apples.

With Fall around the corner, apples are about to become the new blueberries...which makes me wonder, how could you get these two luscious fruits in one fabulous dessert? Perhaps with an apple-blueberry upside-down cake? Caramelize the apples like you would for a tarte tatin (mmm), then line a bundt pan with them and top with a spiced blueberry cake batter. Might be overkill, might be scrumptious. I'll mull this over some more. In the meantime, feel free to hit me with your $0.02. I can't say I've ever tasted an apple-blueberry combination, but I think it could make for a nice changing seasons kind of dessert.

Why does butter have to be so bad?

2006-08-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

As I was cooking last night I realized that I tend to use butter pretty regularly. (Menu included mashed potatoes and corn on the cob -- each featuring a different compound butter.) It's hard to cook without it. Butter has so many excellent properties -- flavorful, malleable, great for caramelizing, finishing sauces, you name it. I like to use olive oil too, but nothing can really take the place of butter. I suppose this means I have to resign myself to a future involving either high cholesterol or less perfectly flavored (and fattened) foods.

Fete recap

2006-08-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

I had wanted to post the full fete recap on Monday as quoted, so that the details would be fresh in my mind. As tends to happen, the week got away from me and here I am at home on a Friday, nursing the gaping holes where my wisdom teeth used to be. Apologies if you're of the squeamish persuasion...I'm only sharing this fact to let you know I'm on a soft food diet for the next day or so, which means my Chefty tales will (if all goes according to plan) involve things like swiss chard risotto, carrot soup, and (later today) poached eggs & grits.

But, back to the fete last Saturday. It was quite a feast. The food we had to work with was so fresh and delicious, you just can't beat summertime as the season for parties! I can't take credit for the menu--I was there to work and work (not to mention cavort) I did. Here are some shots of the fruits of our labor, taken by various partygoers.

First, the canapes. One is a crostini with goat cheese and a cherry Pinot Noir confit. The other is walnut crostini with dolce gorgonzola and blackberry honey.

The trio of chilled soups was a big hit. Cucumber wasabi...Radish buttermilk...Cantaloupe amaretto. Melon soup, when made with heavy cream and liqueur, is a beautiful thing. I loved the array of colors, the soups were festive and easy and also a great conversation piece.

I wasn't sure how these were going to turn out, these mini chicken and apple sausages. We grilled them and popped them into regular buns with a forkful of caramelized onions, some arugula, and a succulent grilled peach. I was pleasantly surprised with how the flavors came together. Smoky, sweet, pungent, with just enough of a peppery kick from the arugula. With these we also served some little lamb burgers with tahini and grilled radicchio -- quite yummy. Not surprising that those didn't make it to the photo shoot.

The real piece de resistance was the paella, made by our fantastic hostess right on the Weber. Very dramatic and worthy of an Iron Chef episode. Look at the size of that pan--you could sled down a hill in that thing.

And last but not least, the cake, also made by our hostess and also delicious. This is a delectable mascarpone frosting, a nice match for the lemon curd in between the cake layers.

So there you have it! I've left out the picture of the great cocktail we made with cucumbers and vodka, but I'm including the recipe for you here. This is of course great for a party but would probably be just as happy hanging out in your fridge for you to sip on whenever you feel like it.

The Cuke
New York Times Dining section Summer Cocktail 2006
submitted by reader Adam Frank

Makes 6 servings.

6 limes, rinsed
1 cup packed mint leaves, no stems, plus 6 sprigs for garnish
3 medium cucumbers, unwaxed (or 1 1/2-2 English cucumbers)
1/2 cup superfine sugar (or simple syrup if you've got it)
2 cups vodka or gin
Sparkling water

1. Thinly slice 3 limes and place in a pitcher. Juice the rest and add juice to pitcher. Add mint leaves. Slice 2 cucumbers and add, then add sugar. Muddle ingredients. Add vodka or gin. Place in refrigerator to steep for 30 minutes or longer.

2. Peel remaining cucumber and cut length-wise into 6 spears.

3. Fill highball or other large glasses witih ice. Strain mixture from pitcher into each. Top with a splash of sparkling water, garnish each glass with a sprig of mint and a cucumber spear, and serve.

Cheftigued.

2006-08-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a long, fun, food-filled weekend. I am beat! I'll log in at some point tomorrow to record all the juicy details...highlights included cucumber cocktails, grilled peaches, and a trip to another farmers market that totally blows my neighborhood one out of the water.

Do I seriously have to go to work tomorrow?

I would be eminently more happy staying at home, daydreaming about farming, and cooking.

So much food, so little time.

Here's something to chew on: what do you do when you want to cook but have no one but yourself to feed? I need to figure out how to host willing diners. For a reasonable flat fee, people could just come over and eat whatever it is I'm playing with that day.

Sounds kind of like a restaurant. But at my house! And only sometimes! And for less money than a restaurant meal. I dunno. Clearly the mental faculties are slowing down over here, but I feel like I have a seed of an idea...

Melons, soup...melon soup?

2006-08-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I had a brief discussion with one of my readers (let's call him No. 2) about the merits of melon. No. 2 is of the mind that melon is gross, but he chokes it down anyway for the sake of good nutrition.* Now, I have not been a lifelong lover of melon--once upon a time it was one of the many foods that I didn't like--but I've come to appreciate its unique natural sweetness and juicy texture. Also, melon is darn pretty. I've been going to my local market on Sundays, where there's a great selection of varieties I've never tried, like orange-fleshed watermelon and Magic Pumpkin. Intriguing, no? This week I'm hitting the melon cart first so I don't get bogged down with other purchases and end up with no room to carry one of those sluggers.

Further to my title here, I think I've had melon soups before, but since my recall is poor on this point they can't have been too memorable. Ultimately I'd rather eat the melon by itself then take it in liquid form, but I can see how it might be a nice palate cleanser or part of a light summery dessert.

Savory soups are much more gratifying, I think. With fall coming on I'm looking forward to some good soup & stew projects. Earlier this week I made a tomato bread soup that came out pretty tasty (and was a nice complement to a grilled two-cheese sandwich), but it didn't quite suit the warm weather we're having. I added some banana and anaheim peppers along with beefsteak tomatoes, spicy garlic, and thyme. Next time I'll need to use some hotter peppers to give it a little kick. Also, the blending was kind of tedious -- hand-held immersion blender is now on my kitchen tools wish list.

Happy Friday kids. I'm back to the grindstone over here, but I'll be getting my Chefty on tomorrow. A friend is throwing a birthday fete which includes a fairly elaborate menu, so I've volunteered to lend a hand. There's nothing I love more than a day full of cooking.

*I always thought melon was low on the nutritional totem pole, but it turns out that cantaloupe (my favorite, No. 2's least) has got loads of good stuff going on, including antioxidants and nitric oxide, which helps to prevent heart attacks. So, it looks like you can have your bacon as long as you have your cantaloupe too.

Non sequiturs abound.

2006-08-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

I had a Quizno's sub for dinner that was serviceable but is now sitting like a brick in my stomach. Hereby committing to fruit and veg for the rest of the month, with limited alcohol consumption.* A mini-detox, if you will, in preparation for a trip back to Massachusetts (birthplace of Chefty) which in order to be a fully satisfactory trip will have to include lobster as well as mocha chip ice cream from Pinecroft Dairy.

Speaking of Pinecroft, I just tried to find a link for y'all but they're not online. Fair enough--I will assume they are too busy making delicious ice cream to worry about a website. What I did find in that search was a curious little link from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette:

Gone But Not Forgotten

Hard-core Worcester natives are nothing if not nostalgic. Even if you're not from Worcester, I think you'll enjoy scrolling through this message board. It may be the second or (ok, Springfield?) third biggest city in New England, but when you come down to it, it's a place where everybody knows your name. For those readers hailing from the heart of the Commonwealth: don't miss the Spag's link and the call out to Cottage Donuts.

Alton Brown beckons. Gotta run.

Stay tuned tomorrow for thoughts on melons and the joys of homemade soup.

*This time, however, I'll not bore with you the details.

Patience is a virtue.

2006-08-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

I'd say there's no greater fault to have in the kitchen than impatience. It's easy when you have a lot of things to cook to make hasty decisions and try to find shortcuts. These inevitably lead to frustration and compromised results.

Take for example the vegetable tart I made on Saturday. I used some frozen puff pastry and in my rush to get the thing in the oven, I filled the pastry while it was on my board and realized too late that I still had to get it on the baking sheet. That was a messy, frustrating affair. Did it come out OK? Sure, it was tasty if a little wonky-shaped. But as soon as I took it out of the oven I knew my impatience had cost me the satisfaction of seeing my original vision for the tart (complete with puckered edges and neat rows of roasted vegetables) come to fruition.

I should also mention another flaw in this tart was the tomatoes. I sliced them and put them in a low oven to dry out, so the tart wouldn't be mushy. However, I underestimated how long this would take--in fact, I didn't know how long it would take, because I'd never done it before and I didn't consult a reliable reference--so by the time I was ready to assemble the tart, my tomatoes were well on their way to sauce consistency.

There were other slip-ups throughout the afternoon, not worth mentioning here except that one slip-up seems always to lead to a whole series of them. Moral of the story: think about what you are doing. Mistakes can be good lessons (now I know I have something to learn about tomatoes and the heat-drying method), but--as with the pastry--they can also be stupid mistakes made in haste.

Onwards & upwards!

Food p*rn

2006-08-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is another post about blueberries. I realize this may be getting a little old, but don't fret:
I'll be putting this ingredient on the back burner after today. (Though I still have roughly 6.5 of the 8 pounds I picked, so expect posts on various experiments from time to time.)

Since my kitchen has been something of a monoculture lately, I thought photoblogging my adventures with blueberries would spice things up a bit. It's been fun and I kind of like how my pics came out. Certainly these wouldn't make the cut at Gourmet--easily the grandest of the food pimps--but overall they tasted as good as they looked.

Here's where it all began. The bounty and beauty of U-Pick.

Big fluffy blueberry muffins.

A great recipe from 101 Cookbooks, which I actually didn't make until this very Saturday morning. I loved the whole grain pancake--it had a really good crumby texture and you could taste the nuttiness of the wheat flour. I expected them to be more dense than the traditional pancake but they were actually pretty airy. The next time I try these I think I might substitute a quarter of the flour with some coarse cornmeal and see what happens.

The blueberry maple syrup was a nice match for these. I cheated and used fake maple syrup ($10 for an 8 oz bottle of the real stuff! This is what I get for leaving New England). I added a few shots of the blueberry syrup I made earlier in the week and a heaping cup of blueberries. When it was all finished I added another handful of fresh berries (but frozen) and they plumped up nicely...as you can see:

Last but not least...lavender ice cream with blueberry maple syrup. The lavender flavor is subtle, but it's neat how you can smell it and taste it at the same time. Tangy fruits like blueberries and marionberries are a nice match with it.

I don't know how food photographers manage to photograph ice cream so well. They must work in freezing cold rooms! You can see that my little wannabe quenelles are melting quickly. I like the second picture because one of the berries slid down the ice cream just as I snapped it. Food in action!

And yes, to answer your question, I did have (most of my) pancakes and ice cream for breakfast. I'm a slave to my art.

PS--I know my counter looks less than spotless, but try as I might, I cannot get these old tiles to sparkle. Old apartment, old kitchen -- everything gets prepared on my cutting board.

Blueberry Cocktail Test #1: The Huck Finn

2006-08-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

This submission came from a faithful reader in the Windy City. I've christened it the Huck Finn because it is adventurous, sweet, and would absolutely be the thing I'd want to drink were I rafting down a river.

The original recipe included Jack Daniels. I tried it with Jack, and then with bourbon. Both versions were delicious, though the one with bourbon was a tad sweeter.

My favorite element here was the basil. It added a really fresh, green note, with an underlying licorice-like sweetness that was the perfect complement to the whiskey and ginger ale.

Golf clap, all around!

Here's the recipe as I tested it.

Makes 2 drinks.

4 good size basil leaves, torn in pieces
Handful of fresh blueberries
Shot of blueberry syrup (recipe follows)
4 oz Jack Daniels or Jim Beam (your preference)
Ginger ale
Lemon slices, small basil leaves, fresh blueberries for garnish

1. Toss a good handful of ice into a shaker. Add basil leaves and blueberries and muddle hard for a minute or so until the ice starts to break up and the fruit is mushy.

2. Add blueberry syrup and whiskey or bourbon. Shake vigorously.

3. Pour over ice, fill glass with ginger ale, garnish with lemon, blueberries, and basil leaves.

Blueberry syrup (makes about 2 cups)

2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
Juice from one lemon
Lemon zest from 1/2 lemon
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup water

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and stir to combine. Bring to a roiling boil, then lower the heat to simmering and cook until the liquid loosely coats the back of a spoon. (The blueberries will burst and release pectin that, along with the sugar, will thicken the syrup. The longer you cook it, the thicker it will be. Since this is for drinks, I recommend keeping it on the loose side so it will mix easily).

Strain the syrup through a sieve and cool to room temperature, then pour into a squeeze bottle and refrigerate. Give it a good shake before using.

If you want a sweeter syrup, you can increase the sugar up to 1 1/2 cups and the water to 1 cup.

Postscript on cocktail contest

2006-08-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

I am removing the deadline on the contest offer outlined below, for several reasons. First, I really didn't give y'all enough time to get to my blog, read all about it, and come up with a brilliant idea. Secondly, I've got gazillions of blueberries, enough to make cocktails through Christmas, easily. So feel free to send along drink ideas (alcoholic or non) whenever they might occur to you. Test kitchen is open 'round the clock. For now, I've got three very nice suggestions (two of which you can read about below) which I'll be mixing together this week. In preparation for the task before me, I've made some blueberry syrup (and have a blue-spattered stove to prove it). It's quite yum.

On the menu for Saturday morning...

2006-08-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

Whole grain pancakes with blueberry maple syrup!

Thank you, 101 Cookbooks. :)

A glaring omission from my last post!

2006-08-03T12:28:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I forgot to mention that some portion of my harvest will certainly need to find its way into a cocktail or two. Blueberry cosmopolitan... mojito...sloe gin fizz... shandy? The possibilities are endless.

Get your drinking caps on and come up with your dream blueberry beverage. I'll recipe-test all entries and provide sip-by-sip coverage, complete with photos! All entries due by Friday, August 4, 5:00pm PST. The winner gets...to be a winner, obviously, and will receive a dedicated Chefty post and the inaugural place in this blog's yet-to-be created Hall of Fame.

Why I heart U-Pick, and why U should 2.

2006-08-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

This weekend I found myself in North Bend, Washington. It's not far from Seattle but it feels like it is. It sits in the shadow of a tall craggy mountain, which I think (but I'm not positive) is part of the foothills of the Cascades. Pretty. I was there on business of sorts, having made the decision to be a good corporate citizen and attend the company picnic. Tres blah, sayeth Chefty.

In the end, though, it turned out to be the right decision. On the way out there we saw signs for a local blueberry farm inviting all would-be U-pickers to head on over and fulfill their blueberry dreams for just $1.30 a pound.

OK, the signs didn't say that. But that's what the signs said to Chefty.

So. We put in our time at the picnic and...three beers, several half-eaten meals, and one ice-cream sandwich later, we found ourselves with bucket & coffee can in hand, making our way down the rows of blueberry bushes and plucking clusters of dark, plump berries at every turn.

U-Pick is the best!

And just how many blueberries did we pick?

The final haul came out to eight pounds. (Beams.)

I froze about 3/4 of the berries, figuring my indecisiveness around what to make would last long enough to jeopardize their shelf life.

My first effort with the remaining 1/4 resulted in a nice batch of Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins. They came out very big and fluffy, chock full of blueberries and just the right touch of sweetness. I was toying with the idea of a blueberry panna cotta, but that seems a bit froofy. I'd love to try my hand at blueberry jam. Pancakes and pies will also be on rotation for the rest of the year. But what I'd really like to do is come up with a good savory use. I may investigate a blueberry vinegar to use in salad dressings...maybe a sauce or chutney that could accompany fish, or perhaps pork. Inspired suggestions are welcome, don't hesitate to post them now.

Pokey cook ISO her inner speed demon.

2006-07-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

There was lots of culinary action @ Chez Chefty last night. I was impressed that my stove held up. It may be tiny & electric, but it gets the job done.

The night began with chicken stock. I started with a whole bird. It took me forever to section that chickadee into parts. As I hacked away, with very little attention to form or efficiency, I toyed with the idea of going to Costco and buying a box full of whole chickens so I could butcher one every day for a week. That's a lot of fowl, I know--though I could make heaps of stock, which would be great to have on hand to satisfy my occassional risotto cravings.

***Tangent Warning***

The point is, I am in desperate need not only of skill practice, but also speed & knife drills. Being out of school and out of a professional kitchen has not helped me in this department, where I've always needed all the help I can get anyway! I received my evaluation from Hearth a few weeks ago and overall it was pretty strong except for...

Areas of Weakness: Speed

I recall the first day I trailed there. I had to dice very finely and uniformly carrots, fennel, and celery for a sardine dish. It took me about four hours, seriously. I asked the cook how long it typically took him to do that same piece of prep and he was like, uhh...45 minutes? (Slaps forehead.) Needless to say, I never got to do that job again. But with time I got better and faster. I know it's all about continuity and repetition, and the task before me now is to find a way to recreate these patterns in a home kitchen. One solution may be to invest in a stopwatch. Timing all my prep tasks will probably take some of the fun out, but it will be good training.

***Tangent Over***

After the mildly frustrating chicken deconstruction, I tossed the pieces into the oven to roast up a bit. I got the stock on the burner at around 9 and let it simmer all night. This morning it was a lovely golden hue and I was very pleased indeed.

With the cooked chicken, I made a sandwich salad for lunch. The dressing was an experiment and it came out pretty tasty... two types of mustard, a spot of mayo, some white wine vinegar, minced chervil, and a spoonful of honey. Also added some green apple for crunch. I love it when you can cook one thing and get multiple dishes out of it. Ah, economy!

Between the stock and the chicken salad, I made a dinner that was unexpectedly terrific: kale & cannellini beans. Sounds very vegan, I know--and it was!--but it was delicious. I had never eaten kale before and if you haven't either, I recommend you check it out. It is a curly green, so when you cook the leaves, they soften but they don't lose their structure and become mushy. The texture is pleasant and silky. Taste-wise, I'd say kale beats most other cooking greens easily; it's mild and almost sweet. Oftentimes you'll see recipes for collards and other greens that include ham or bacon--with kale, that amount of fat would probably be overpowering. I made the kale last night with onions, roasted garlic, a mix of sweet dried herbs (fennel, lavendar, thyme) and some white wine. I reduced the wine till it was almost syrupy, then added the kale (which got simmered in salted water first for about 8 minutes) and a can of cannellini beans. With a final squeeze of lemon juice and a bit of zest, dinner was on the table. Really satisfying and flavorful. I'm going to look for kale at the market this weekend so I can experiment some more.

So that was Wednesday. I've got a pile of dishes awaiting me at home, even though I washed as I went! The plight of a cook with a small kitchen, limited supplies, and no dishwasher.

On the menu tonight:

Whole wheat pasta gratin with beans, fresh pesto, tomato & ricotta.

Reality check.

2006-07-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

There are a lot--and by a lot I mean THOUSANDS--of really great food blogs out there. Chefty needs to be competitive.

I met a woman here recently who is equally mad for food & cooking--let's call her FGF (foie gras fanatic). She suggested we start a food blog together that focused on Seattle & the PacNW. I like this idea, and feel it could have the potential to become a kind of local blogging collective.

So, dear reader. If you're reading this blog you're no doubt bright and creative and love to eat & cook & all that good stuff. You may also be my friend or relative. It of course goes without saying that you are an arbiter of exquisite taste. What do you think?

*Fleshing out Chefty into a really excellent blog would mean a considerable allocation of resources on my behalf.

*Working with this other fine foodie would also be expensive in terms of commitment, but it would be a shared one that would likely produce more content and better content (scroll down for a digressive footnote on 'more' and 'better').

*I'm uncertain how much of what I might have to say--at this early point--is really distinctive compared to some of the great blogs already out there. Not sure that I need some kind of challenge to sustain me, but there should be a cohesive thread. I have some thoughts about what a compelling angle could be and welcome your feedback--particularly since many of you are pretty familiar with my (virtual) voice.

*What are the chances that I could make a really terrifically fun and informative blog and land myself a job at Gourmet let's say four years from now? Gotta dust off your crystal balls for that one. :)

I have to say, I am feeling bubbly about a new enterprise. I know my posting practices have not been stellar thus far, but I know that they can be!

********************************************************************************

Digression: Hip hop slang doesn't work once you're off the streets.

In a work meeting last week I flubbed and said 'more better' to describe something and then, because I thought it would be funny and felt the need to counteract my flub, I said immediately 'mo' betta,' while donning what I would assume to be a gangsta-type cadence.

Crickets.

Chicken Soup for the Toothless Soul

2006-07-24T14:34:00.000-07:00

I picked up some chicken soup on my way back from a meeting. I went to this place Specialty's that is usually pretty reliable with the lunchables, soup in particular.

I like my chicken noodle soup brothy, with lots of chicken, lots of crunchyish veg, and a good handful of noodles. Up front the Specialty's preparation looked like it would fit the bill. And hey, peas and corn in there too? Swell.

Sadly, all sensory recepters were disappointed today. What they managed to choke down instead was a low-sodium, chewing-not-required, mush. Now, if I were in the practice of gumming down my food, this would be a perfectly fine lunch. But I'm not -- my bicuspids are alert and ready to go! They want al dente noodles! And tender, buttery bites of chicken--white and dark!

I write this not to bitch & moan necessarily--but to bemoan a poor take on what is a universally loved dish. If I were the soup guy , I'd keep the noodles (cooked until just shy of al dente) in a separate pan and scoop them to order--so that every cup had nice, fresh, chewy noodles, bathed in a rich chicken-and-vegetable soup.

Hale and Hearty in NYC used to do their noodle soups this way...yet another reason why I love that town. But more on that later...

Hullo, what's this?

2006-07-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

A new post! Fancy that.

Apologies to all faithful readers for the lag in new content. Given my current occupation and my general tendency towards chattiness, you'd think that writing regularly would be a cinch. I'm putting my best clog forward today and hope to have something new up each and every day.

Coming up later in today's broadcast...

Reflections on my old stomping grounds
Some thoughts about what's next for Chefty
A culinary challenge: can I make dinner tonight w/o having to go to the grocery store?

Redemption!

2006-07-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I made a kick-ass dinner that made up entirely for Saturday's disaster. Roasted pork tenderloin with rosemary and shallots. Red Bliss mashed potatoes. Sauteed zucchini with pine nuts. Not entirely detoxified, but not over the top either.

I'm hopping back on the wagon today. The last few days of weak will have actually been very instructive (yes, that is the smell of a grand rationalization wafting towards you). I really felt the difference when I started eating the restricted foods (booze, toast, gelato, etc). I felt more tired and puffy in the morning, and then, puffy again after I had eaten. Now I understand why gluten is an inflammatory food. I am looking forward to experiencing the leaner, more energetic feeling of Week 1 again (well, Week 1 after the cravings anyway). The hardest thing, my Achilles heel if you will, is beer and wine. I like my libations.

Got to get back to the grindstone over here but more to come later.

I did not end up making the fava bean salad, but it's on deck for tonight.

I am thinking about making a blueberry pie for my co-worker's birthday. Does anyone have any more creative suggestions for a blueberry dessert that's not too high maintenance and easy to transport?

Swing and a miss

2006-07-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

I made salmon with a mustard garlic glaze & sugar snap peas for dinner.

The salmon was a wee bit past its prime going in. But I figured the mustard would perk it up.

It didn't. Tastes funny. Not edible.

But there are the peas! Crisp and delicious. Or rather, they should have been. But they taste dry and stringy, not sweet and delectable like they usually do. It's possible I undercooked them, or that I just got an old bunch. In any case, I'm left with a plate full of bad food. This depresses me. I know how to cook, this dinner should have been a cakewalk! Where are my mad Chefty skillz?

I wish John Irving would write a sequel so I could find out what Garp's been up to. Surely if he were here (and existed, and, like, came over for dinner), he'd know where I went wrong.

In other news...detox during week two has been up and down. I did OK during the week and was feeling pretty good. Um, except for 4th of July--when the rest of the country was scarfing down burgers and potato salad, I had Mexican, and then some pre-fireworks candy. But last night, I really fell off the wagon. Got on the booze train, then joined the P-funk revolution.

This morning...felt a bit bleary and knew that the only cure was eggs & toast & coffee.

This afternoon...there was the hazelnut gelato that, seriously, no one could have resisted.

And tonight...is Bollywood night. Which can mean only one thing:

Gin & tonics.

Phaedras said last week that sometimes, life assaults. Ain't that the truth.

Menu for tomorrow still under review but likely to include a delicious corn/pea/fava bean salad from this month's Food&Wine.

In the meantime, how good does this sound?

Ramekins would be a swell present for Chefty, if anyone's asking.

Chocolate isn't always what you want.

2006-06-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

Seems like a strange statement to come from Chefty's fingers (particularly given yesterday's post).

Perhaps I should amend that to: chocolate isn't always what you want...when you're making soup.

I thought that the recipe for Black Bean Cocoa Soup with Lime sounded pretty choice. Hey, it's like a mole thing, right? I like Mexican. Cool.

So I sweated my veggies, rinsed the beans, measured out all my spices, seasoned dutifully as I went along. Looks interesting! Once everything is added, stirred, and simmering, I give it a taste.

Hmm. More salt?

How about some chili paste?

OK, I'll just drop a whole half-lime in there, that will do the trick.

But no. This soup is thick, chalky, and tastes like dirt. Dirt with salt on it. I'm blaming it partially on the cumin, which I never cook with because it tastes so musty and dusty. I was willing to give it another chance, and again, I was disappointed. Cumin no more!

And chocolate too was disappointing, for the first time ever. The cocoa didn't really bring out the flavor of the beans like I thought it would. I should have known it would taste anything like mole. Wishful thinking!

The worst part is I have like a quart of soup leftover. I brought it for lunch today and will attempt to choke some down with a heaping spoon of guacamole. Of course, some shredded cheese and sour cream wouldn't hurt either...

The dairy demon roars within.

Summer, in edible form

2006-06-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Right now I am enjoying dainty, bright red strawberries. They are delish. I urge everyone to find their local farmer's market and go get some. There are a couple of different foods that capture summer in just one taste, and certainly strawberries lead that pack. Other contenders? I'd say peaches, corn, tomatoes, blueberry pie, lobster...and frozen Milky Way bars. Post your favorites, inquiring Chefty wants to know.

Mighty tasty

2006-06-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

That's the tagline for the gluten-free cereal I ended up getting. (No amaranth, anywhere! I'm ashamed and appalled at you so-called earthy-crunchy, soy-eating, gluten-hating Seattleites. Where is the amaranth?) Truth be told, it is...mighty tasty. Bob, of Bob's Red Mill, says it contains all the health-giving nutrients of the grain from which it is ground. Um, great. Just help wean me off wheat, for the love of God.

Yesterday, while contemplating dinner, I started making a mental catalogue of some of my very favorite foods. See if you can find the pattern here...

Pizza
Macaroni and cheese
Burritos
Beer
Toast
Poached eggs

I like me some wheat and dairy. Disagree with me if you want, but it is a subversion of the natural order to expect one to abstain from eating both.

Feh. That's just the cravings talking. Once I turn the corner on Day 3 things will start looking up.

Speaking of Day 3, here's what looks to be on the menu

Mighty Tasty with apples and walnuts: done (smacks lips)
Pink grapefruit
Baby greens with hazelnuts and pears
Spinach with tahini sauce (thank you, Produce Issue of Gourmet)
Some yet-to-be-determined protein
A white peach if it's ripe
Almonds

And tonight...probably Black Bean Cocoa Soup. If I'm not slayed by low blood sugar by the time I get home.

Chow.
CL