A Thousand Bites

You Know You're Southern When...

2011-04-17T14:58:00.000-04:00

I once told a co-worker I had eaten black-eyed peas for dinner. She asked what I had them with - the answer was nothing. I like sweet potatoes, and have eaten a sweet potato for dinner. I love black-eyed peas...from a can...fresh...in "cakes"...in pretty much any form. So for dinner, when I needed something quick, I went to my quick favorites.

I started a sweet potato cooking in the microwave, then put a pan on the stove to heat up. When it was hot, I swirled in some oil, chopped a small link of andouille sausage, and sauteed until it seared and sizzled. Then I dumped in a half-drained can of black-eyed peas.

As the peas heated, the potato finished, so I cut it open and made a few strategic cuts to make it easier to eat.

I swirled the pan of sausage and peas, and when it was hot, dumped it on the plate with the sweet potato. It was such a warm, satisfying dinner - yes, it smacks of southern tradition - that took me less than 15 minutes to pull together. This is true comfort food!

Family Brunch

2011-04-16T13:26:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while we have a confluence of family in the area. A few weeks ago this happened, and we decided to host everyone for Sunday Brunch. With nine adults for brunch, I knew we'd need a spread. Being my usual self, I decided to have fun with this!

Menu:

+ Fruit Salad

+ Monkey Bread

+ Biscuits with Homemade Peach Preserves, Homemade Plum Preserves and Honey Maple Butter

+ Sausage, Egg and Cheese Casserole

+ Smoked Salmon Pinwheels

+ Shrimp Cocktail

+ Mimosas (of course!)

Obviously some of these items were store-bought and required little effort on my part, but it was fun to put together the whole spread, and boy was it yummy! I bought the shrimp and the salmon pinwheels, and in the interest of time baked biscuits from a can. One fun feature was that my homemade jams were made with fruits from my CSA last summer, and I had the last few frozen peaches to put in the fruit salad!

It was such a yummy and relaxing way to end the weekend, and I loved everything!

Fruit Salad with Mint and Honey

Peach Preserves, Plum Preserves, Butter and the Little Lady (hiding my Honey Maple Butter!)

Shrimp Cocktail and Salmon Pinwheels

Monkey Bread and Egg Casserole

The Sausage, Egg and Cheese Casserole was easy - I put it together the day before and just popped it into the oven on Sunday morning. Here's how I did it - it's based on a Cooking Light recipe for a Sausage and Cheese Breakfast Casserole, but I made a few adjustment of my own!

12 ounces sweet Italian turkey sausage

2 cups skim milk

2 cups egg substitute (like Egg Beaters)

1 tablespoon dry mustard powder (like Colman's)

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 eggs

16 slices of bread, crusts removed

1 cup shredded low-fat cheddar cheese

1/2 teaspoon paprika

Brown the sausage, stirring to crumble it. Remove from heat and drain any excess fat. Allow to cool.

Stir together the milk, egg substitute, mustard powder, salt, peppers and eggs in a large bowl, whisking gently.

Cube bread slices. Add bread, cheese and cooled sausage to egg mixture.

Spray a baking dish (I used a lasagna dish, which is a little deeper, and is about 8x12) with cooking spray, and pour in the mixture. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours, up to one day.

When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove casserole from fridge and let stand at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Sprinkle top of casserole with paprika. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until top is lightly browned and eggs are set. Let stand for at least 10 minutes, and serve. It's also great at room temperature!

Warming Trends

2011-04-15T12:35:00.006-04:00

When it starts to warm up for the season, I love having salads for dinner. My husband enjoys them too, but then sometimes complains about being hungry soon after. Solutions: more protein and more fiber in the salads!

This week we FINALLY had two consecutive days of warm weather (now I'm holding out for warm AND sunny!), so I decided to make a lovely salad for us for dinner! I usually start with store-bought salad greens, for speed. I added a can of black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed, for more fiber, protein and general staying power. I added some toasted almond slices, and chopped up an avocado as well.

The other major addition was quinoa - a plant-based, complete protein. It's quick to cook and is a great grain side for many meals, and it was a wonderful addition to the salad. I put the saucepan on the oven, and while it cooked I put together the rest of the salad and the dressing.

For the dressing, I went for a light, citrusy vinaigrette.

juice from 1 tangerine

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon honey mustard

1/3 cup oil (I usually use a combination of olive and canola)

salt and pepper to taste

Whisk together the juice, vinegar and mustard. Add the oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking constantly. Dip a piece of salad green into the dressing and taste for flavor. Add salt and pepper to taste. I like dressings on the tangy side, but if this is too tangy for you, just add a little more oil.

I about half the dressing on the salad and mixed it, then gave the rest to my dressing-happy dining partner! This salad was delicious, and it kept us both satisfied! I can't wait for the warm days to come...

Happy Spring!

2011-04-12T17:23:00.002-04:00

Now that it's finally warming up again, I'll get back in the saddle and post more food (and fun!) here! I'm excited about some new things I've been trying, some new cookbooks that I've been reading and the impending return (two months isn't long!) of my beloved CSA! Keep your sets tuned in here for coming adventures and an occasional recap of some lovely meals over the winter... Enjoy every last bite!

2011-01-28T20:21:00.000-05:00

Mmm...a warm and hearty dinner for a cold winter's night!

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2010-12-31T18:19:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year!

2010-12-04T10:32:00.001-05:00

Brioche cinnamon bun and morning bourbon at craftbar!

2010-11-14T15:16:00.001-05:00

The dusty road sundae at The Parlour at Fortnum & Mason in London. Mmmm!

2010-10-16T20:50:00.001-04:00

Bacon week at Restaurant 3!

A Love Letter for My CSA

2010-10-15T15:22:00.000-04:00

This Wednesday evening was both happy and sad in my kitchen...it was the end of the season for my CSA with Bull Run Mountain Vegetable Farm. It's been one heck of a run, as you can see by perusing the posts over the summer.

I am incredibly glad I tried it. I am even more glad that I did all the research on local CSAs available to me. The Washington Post Food Section publishes a list of local CSAs every winter, usually in February. When the 2010 list came out, I narrowed it down to those that deliver in Virginia, then began by looking at all the websites. I will confess that one didn't get considered because it didn't have a website, even though the description sounded great. I narrowed it further to those that offer fruit shares, because I wanted to get fruit as well. I researched and read and explored online and then took a plunge - I emailed Bull Run to inquire about shares. I got a pleasant email response from a person, Leigh, within a day and a half - and decided that response was enough to make me commit. A real person was on the end of the line there, and that means something. I may not go to the bricks-and-mortar bank often, but when I do, I still bank with the same inconvenient credit union because of the people. I figured this CSA would work for my first run.

On my CSA's website, the farm has a link to an opinion piece about CSAs not being for everyone. I read all of those details, that you can't always know what you'll get because of the weather and animals eating the greens and onions that refuse to grow, and I thought "I'll try it - I think this is for me." I know folks who have gone the CSA route and had a wonderful season, but hated the bureaucracy associated with that particular CSA. I know folks who have had a poor experience with a CSA. It truly runs the gamut, and you can never know what to expect. Feeling a little unsure about what to expect from Bull Run, I was relieved that the CSA folks acknowledge that not everyone enjoys the CSA experience. Thus I entered the experience thinking it would be okay if it was terrible, too - I would just know it's "not for me."

The first day, I showed up, gave my name, got a bag, and walked down the row of bins picking up my vegetables. Leigh was the guy there checking names, the farmer, the delivery guy - the one-man wonder who served as the face of Bull Run to me. He was pleasant and full of information about the vegetables and ideas on how to use them, but only offered advice when asked. He was honest, telling us a few weeks into the season, that the onions weren't growing, and he was going to pull them and give us baby onions. When I missed my first of two weeks of plums, he gave me extra plums the second week to make up for it because I told him I LOVE plums. He told us not to saute the sorrel, as it would turn into a gray blob. Other than that first week, I don't think I told him my name again, but Leigh became a part of my weekly routine.

Now at the end of the summer, I realize I won't be stopping in Alexandria every Wednesday to pick up vegetables, apples and eggs, and I will miss it. I still have two dozen eggs in the fridge, a bowl full of apples, and - an end of season treat! - honey from Bull Run's bees. I ate one of the sweet potatoes and an apple from this week's haul already, and as it dwindles down, I'll look back at my pictures of the summer's bounty and smile. For now I get to eagerly await next spring, when I return to that parking lot, to the fresh eggs, to the wonderful vegetables, and to summer's fruit...when I return to my Bull Run Mountain Vegetable Farm CSA - I can't imagine a better CSA for me.

Curry-ing Favor

2010-10-10T11:38:00.000-04:00

So I recently cooked for two, after a long spell of cooking for one. My proportions seemed a bit off (I had way too much rice!), but the dinner was fun - and it's so much easier to cook for two!

I had some lovely sweet potatoes, some peppers, a load of garlic, some frozen shrimp, canned coconut milk, canned pineapple tidbits, a lime and some jarred Thai red curry. All the ingredients necessary to concoct a lovely curry...except Jasmine rice. I did have some sushi rice, and while the short grain is not ideal in my mind, it certain serves the grain's purpose in a curry dish, soaking up some flavors and serving as a conduit of the mixture.

I started by sautéing the peppers and garlic in a little bit of sesame oil. While these heated and began to soften, I popped the sweet potatoes in the microwave. While this is a little cheat, it cuts out so much time, making it very appealing for hastening dinner to the table. They cooked in the microwave, then I peeled and chopped the hot potatoes, and added them and the canned pineapple to the pan with the peppers and garlic. I also added approximately two teaspoons of the red curry paste. Stirring and heating, this was making the kitchen smell so yummy!

After most of the water had evaporated from the addition of the pineapple, I added in the frozen shrimp, stirred and let heat for a few minutes. Then I added in half a can of coconut milk, stirred, and let it cook and mingle the flavors.

I salted the rice, put it in bowls, and topped the rice with the curry. What a lovely way to use the sweet potatoes, as they took on some of the heat, but maintained their rich flavor and consistency. A wonderful, and fairly quick, weeknight dinner!

Plums Galore!

2010-10-07T10:03:00.001-04:00

This summer I missed a week of my CSA while I was away. That week there were PLUMS in the fruit share. I simply adore plums. The following week, I expressed my excitement about the availability of plums that week, too, as I had missed the first week. My wonderful CSA farmer exclaimed, "Oh you missed them last week? Let me give you more!" And thus I went home with 30 plums.

I am not kidding when I say I love plums, but a person can only eat so many plums in a week, before they start to go bad and get a little soft. However, finding myself newly interested in making jams, I decided that plum jam could be a lovely adventure!

I pulled peels from the plums, and measured out how much fruit I had, then used a little over one part sugar to two parts fruit (it was about 60% sugar to 100% fruit). I added some lemon juice and let it cook down. Those plums broke down quickly into a soupy, sweet, fruity compote, but still required some intensive cooking time to take on that jammy consistency.

Sweet and richly purple, this jam was not very chunky with fruit, but was still very thick and amply fruity. I quickly used the funnel to pour jam into the sterilized jars. I sealed them, processed them and let them cool until they made that lovely little POP that told me they had sealed. One jar went away as a gift, but the other is awaiting opening for some lovely hot biscuits, or perhaps with some pork tenderloin. I can't wait!

Veggie Chowdah...

2010-10-03T10:27:00.000-04:00

So the bounty of late summer left me with a drawer full of veggies in my fridge, and I was thinking about creative ways to use all of them, perhaps even in a manner that I could enjoy later this year! My mind turned to soups, and I smiled. I love chowders (or chowdahs, as New Englanders in my life like to say!), so decided I would make a non-traditional veggie chowder.

I started by cutting up all my veggies. I used potatoes, corn, mushrooms (not from my CSA, but I love mushrooms!), bell peppers, a couple hot peppers, some onions and some garlic. I started by boiling the potatoes until they were relatively soft. I then drained them, added some fresh water to the pot, and pureed some of them with my immersion blender.

Separately, I sauteed the mushrooms, then added those. I then sauteed the onions and garlic together, then when they began to caramelize I added the bell and hot peppers. I added all of this to my potato mixture, pureed a bit more, and added my corn. At this point, I added a bit more water and let it cook down a while as the vegetable flavors melded. To this point, the only seasoning was the hot peppers adding a nice bite to the soup.

After another quick puree, I added a bit of salt, stirred and cooked. Then I tasted again, added a bit of cream to make it a touch richer, and stirred. It was spicy, fresh and rich, with only a touch of cream to make it less healthy.

I poured most of the soup into freezer containers, and have it in the freezer for later in the fall, and even winter! Some of it, though, I had to have for dinner then. It had a nice, slow heat to it, and tasted like a garden of fresh vegetables. I am excited about enjoying it in the cold weather, too!

Belated Birthday Baking Bounty

2010-09-30T01:34:00.000-04:00

In our home we celebrated a birthday (or two!) a little late this year, but with great fanfare. Having recently made an AMAZING chocolate cake, I knew where to begin - with the Deep, Dark Chocolate Cake in BakeWise. This cake is truly great. Having now used it twice, with folks who really know and love chocolate, it is a decided hit, and will be my go-to chocolate cake now.

I decided to top the cake with The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook's Vanilla Buttercream frosting. While the proportions are estimates, certainly, their instruction to whip the frosting for much longer than you think you need to is well taken. The frosting is utterly light, yet so rich!

I also tried something new, a suggestion from BakeWise (this Shirley O. Corriher knows what she's doing around a cake!). A variation on the chocolate cake recipe calls for a "Cake Soaking Solution." While I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I did use it to create a light syrup, which is poured over the cake layer when the syrup is hot, melting a bit of the chocolate and adding extra moisture to the cake before it is frosted.

When I had frosted the first layer and placed the second layer, this looked like a giant whoopie pie, which made me giggle and consider (if only for a moment) simply leaving it in this state.

However, I decided to continue with the rest of the assembly. I added another drizzle of the hot soaking solution to the top layer of the cake. It lends the cake something of a glazed effect, and makes the cake remain moist and luscious much longer! Then I added in the remaining frosting, swirling the top into a slight, snowy peak.

As a final touch, I added some dark chocolate shavings to the top of the cake - a mature finish for a decidedly indulgent cake.

When it came time to serve the cake, I cut small pieces, as this is RICH. However, everyone devoured it, and my 10-year-old niece enjoyed a second piece, in honor of her belated birthday too.

Even three days after the cake was baked, and two and half days after assembly, it had not dried out at all. The remaining piece was gobbled up, and just as enjoyable, on day four! Mmm...

Preserving Summer

2010-09-27T22:59:00.000-04:00

This summer I enjoyed some of the best peaches EVER. However, toward the end of the summer, I started to get a little sad about the fact that they would soon be no more. I pondered how to save them in such a manner that I could enjoy them later in the year - especially when it's cold and dark and there is no fresh, local fruit available!

Some peaches simply got peeled, cut into chunks and frozen. These will be yummy either in smoothies or just thawed and eaten as-is. However, I still had a lot of peaches. Having never experimented with making jams, I figured I might as well!

The experiment began with some exploration of recipes and methods. I found the University of Georgia's National Center for Home Food Preservation to be very helpful; it had instructions on how to do the actual canning, complete with times for sterilizing jars, processing the jars and how long it should take to cook the jams, even. For recipes, I trolled the internet and looked through a few cookbooks, too.

Ready to begin, I started by peeling and cutting up my fruit. I dumped it, along with the sugar and lemon juice, into a dutch oven over medium heat, and stirred as it slowly degraded the fruit. I used about two parts fruit to one part sugar, with the juice from half of a large lemon (it was a juicy lemon). This cooked down and cooked down, filling the house with the smell of fresh peaches.

In the meantime, I had the jars boiling to sterilize them. When the jam seemed ready, based on my using a spoon and seeing how gelatinous the mixture was, I pulled the jars out of the boiling water. I then used a funnel to dump the jam into the jars, capped them, and quickly put them back in the boiling water to process.

After processing, I removed them and let them sit on the kitchen counter. A bit later, I was rewarded with a reassuring POP as they sealed. They are now in the cabinet, awaiting slightly cooler days that call for warm corn muffins, maple butter and fresh peach jam...I can't wait!

The Adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever, Part 3: The Big Reveal

2010-09-09T15:39:00.000-04:00

The final part in a multi-part series on bang-up birthday cakes gone ballistic!

I know what you're thinking...this cake is insane. But you know that can't be it...there's MORE!

The cake you saw in the last post lived overnight in the refrigerator (which was taped shut by the lady of the house to prevent the birthday boy from peeking at his surprise of a culinary creation). The next morning, a quick heat to a saucepan of cream poured over some dark chocolate, set, and then stirred, yielded a gorgeous chocolate ganache to top the cake. Poured over the chilled cake, it quickly settled into thick, luscious ribbons of chocolate across the top of the cake.

This concoction was almost perfect, but it still lacked pizazz. Still having those chocolate chip cookie chunks (remember these?), they were crumbled more and sprinkled across the top of the cake.

At last, the cake was prepared! It looked gorgeous as is, but as it is THE MOST AWESOME BIRTHDAY CAKE EVER, we HAD to have candles!

The birthday boy was overwhelmed with joy at the glorious cake that was his, on the occasion of his birthday. For more on the celebration, and a cross-section of the cake, see this blog.

Everyone enjoyed the cake, though it was VERY rich. About two thirds of it gotten eaten during the party, more at a Dither rehearsal the next day, and still more in an office the following day. This left one final piece for the birthday boy to enjoy ON his birthday! I think it's safe to say that this cake took the cake!

Thus concludes the adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever!

The Adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever, Part 2: The Saga Continues

2010-09-08T22:37:00.001-04:00

The second in a multi-part series...

It was a calm, clear day in New York when the two lonely chocolate cake layers arrived. They were seeking adventure in the big city, and were hoping to find some companions, too! However, soon, disaster struck. Hungry for a doughnut, the cake layers wandered across Manhattan to the home of the chocolate blackout doughnut, only to find it CLOSED!!!

Not to be deterred, the cake layers quickly sought out other chocolate doughnuts. Walking back across Manhattan, the cake layers found friends at Balthazar. While not part of the original plan, disaster was averted.

Returning to the kitchen, it was time to bake again. The effort began with a wonderful chocolate chip cookie recipe, baked in grand form.

After the cookie was baked, the mixer was kicked into high gear making chocolate buttercream frosting. This is not just any frosting, but the very chocolate buttercream frosting used at Magnolia Bakery and outlined in The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. Of course, for a cake this grand, we needed a double batch of buttercream - which entailed a pound of butter, 12 ounces of chocolate, and a pound and a half of sugar...

Finally, it was time for assembly. It began with a careful surgery of the giant cookie base. Using a cake layer as a reference, the base was cut to size. The remainders were chopped into small pieces for a later use - who throws away perfectly good chocolate chip cookie?

Once in place, the cookie was ready for its topping - a layer of that luscious chocolate buttercream frosting.

The cookie layer was frosted, topped with a layer of chocolate cake, then more frosting, and then...the surprise ingredient, a layer of chocolate doughnuts. The doughnuts were not added whole, but were split to cover more surface area with the doughnut cake. Buttercream frosting was then used liberally on top of the doughnuts to "cement" them into place.

At this point, your teeth may be hurting, but we're not done yet. On top of this concoction went the final layer of chocolate cake, and then the entire thing was coated in chocolate buttercream. Mmm...

Beautiful, right? Rich, indulgent and downright sinful. But that's not all!

Stay tuned for the startling conclusion to this adventure in baking...

The Adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever, Part 1

2010-09-07T21:51:00.001-04:00

The first in a multi-part series...

It all began with a little harmless conversation about how much my brother likes chocolate...in cake, in doughnuts, in cookies...and this spun wildly out of control, into a diabolical plot. And thus the weekend before Labor Day I found myself, and my kitchen, covered in chocolate and filled with the scent of cake...

The first step in making our dreams reality was the cake itself. I have a new book, BakeWise by Shirley O. Corriher (and published by Simon & Schuster), that is a phenomenal resource not only for recipes, but also for the ins and outs, the hows and whys of baking. Inside this tome, I found the recipe for this dream cake.

Thus began my adventure...which started with boiling water mixed with sugar and cocoa, then blended with oil and eggs, then the dry ingredients. This is NOT a cake for the faint-hearted.

This batter was enriched with buttermilk, and boy was it dark, yet light. I got it into the oven, and watched it turn into a lovely set of 9-inch cake rounds, and one little sample cake in a ramekin.

I sampled the little cake, just to ensure the cake was a success. It was light and moist, with a tender crumb and rich, chocolatey flavor. This is GOOD cake!

After the layers cooled, I wrapped them carefully (and perhaps a bit obsessively) and froze them. Freezing not only makes it easier to put a cake together in just a little time, as the baking is already done, but it also makes it easier to transport the cake for final assembly for birthday celebrations in far-off cities.

Mmm, cake...

Stay tuned for more of The Adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever...

2010-08-20T23:12:00.001-04:00

It's no Motorino, but Birch and Barley does a nice summer veggie pizza!

Thai Sorbet

2010-08-20T19:32:00.000-04:00

For the last few weeks, I've been getting a lot of Thai basil from my CSA. Loving Thai food, and basil generally, this has not proven to be a problem for me. However, this bounty has also had me considering some less conventional ways to use this basil, too!

Since I like sorbets, and the weather has been ridiculously hot, it seemed like the right experiment to try. I thought basil alone might be a little bland, so sought out some lemongrass too. Little did I know that finding it would be so difficult! I've seen it in my local grocery store a number of times, but now that I was looking for it...well, it just wasn't there! I finally went to a Whole Foods, where I bought the last lemongrass they had. Maybe there's a run on it, or a worldwide shortage, and I just didn't know!

I took to the basil and lemongrass, slicing and chopping a little, crushing some others, and generally trying to get both the tender basil leaves and the hardy lemongrass stalks to open up to release their flavors.

I put all the basil and lemongrass into a saucepan with about two cups of water and put it on to boil, then reduced it to simmer. This part is like making tea, and allowing it to steep! Once it had boiled and then simmered for about 10 minutes, I added a bit of sugar. I didn't want it to be so sweet as to overpower the subtle lemongrass and basil, but it did need some sugar to help it become something other than tea-colored ice cubes! (Nerdy science fact: adding sugar to water turns it into a different substance, obviously, but it also lowers the freezing point, which is why you get a soft freeze that you can eat with a spoon, instead of a block of ice.)

I simmered for another 10 minutes, then let the entire mixture cool, steeping the entire time. When it had cooled, I strained the mixture, added in a couple small, whole basil leaves, and put it in a container in the fridge. The best part about sorbets is this natural stopping point - I do not have to freeze it that night!

The next night, I pulled out the mixture, which is a little sweet, and very fragrant with herbal notes. I poured it into my trust ice cream freezer, and let it whir. Because it has a little less sugar, it took a little less time to freeze up, but I let it continue to spin to achieve a creamy consistency.

I can admit that I am biased in favor of my own cooking, but this truly was lovely - flavorful but restrained, cool and creamy, and just plain good!

Indian-Spiced Vegetables

2010-08-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

My fabulous sister-in-law knows I am a sucker for cookbooks, so last time I saw her she showed up with THREE for my reading pleasure. One of them was an Indian cookbook. In flipping through it, I saw some lovely recipes for fresh vegetables, simply sauteed or pan-seared with a strong flavor profile.

While I eat Indian food sometimes, I do not cook with those flavors often. It was a simple approach to vegetables with some flavors I knew I would enjoy. I chopped my eggplant and squash, and then got to cooking. First, some cumin is toasted lightly in some oil in a very hot pan. Then the vegetables are added to the spicy oil and cooked for a few minutes - with an occasional turn of the veggies. You can stir some, but you get a nicer sear on the veggies, and some darker marks, if you let it sit some. Once those veggies were cooked through, I added some freshly diced pepper, some turmeric and some salt. A few more minutes of stirring, and the lovely, fragrant and richly flavored vegetables were ready for my dinner!

Lobo Date

2010-08-14T20:42:00.001-04:00

Mmm... Lobster roll in New England!

On Friday I had a lobster date - I had a lobster roll at Red Hill Dari in Center Harbor, New Hampshire!

Motorino

2010-08-14T20:41:00.000-04:00

Pizza at Motorino in Brooklyn!

Winning Produce

2010-08-13T12:19:00.001-04:00

My most recent haul from the CSA brought in lots of the usual goodies - tomatoes, Thai and Italian basils, zucchini, squash, eggplant, potatoes, garlic and peppers.

This garlic really is phenomenal - I'm planning to roast a head of it to make some garlic butter - perhaps I'll freeze that to bring me the flavors in the winter.

This week also brought, of course, more peaches! Every week I keep looking at them, thinking "I'll try a new recipe with the peaches this week." And every week, I simply cut them up and eat them just as they are. They've been wonderful with no additions at all.

This week I also got a few more tomatoes, and combined them with a couple more for a slow roast. I simply cut them in half, sprinkled them with olive oil, salt, a little thyme and a smidgen of sugar and put them in a hot roasting oven. Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express includes a recipe for what she calls "Moonblush Tomatoes" that she puts in a very hot oven right before bed, and then turns off the oven and leaves the tomatoes in the oven overnight as it cools. I'm a fan of her methods, and while I toy with the ratios in her recipe, it offers a nice flavor profile.

These tomatoes are slightly roasted, and get just a bit wrinkly as the flavors are concentrated. I love eating them on their own, but they also make great additions to salads, and are wonderful sauteed a bit and put over pasta. This is just a generally fantastic way to enjoy some tomatoes!

Ground Cherries, Take 2

2010-08-11T10:10:00.000-04:00

A week or so ago I got some ground cherries from my CSA. I've never eaten one before, much less cooked with them! I did a bit of research, but unfortunately it appeared that most recipes were for muffins, and a couple for pies. I didn't have enough for a pie, and muffins seemed as though they'd disguise the true flavor of the fruit - something I did not want for my first adventure with ground cherries.

In the end, I simply peeled the papery skins away from the berry-like golden orbs, and ate them. Mmm...

Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?

2010-08-10T01:41:00.000-04:00

While there may be Grey Poupon in my fridge, my biggest fascination (hence the bad joke) is with the mustard greens I got this week. I've never cooked with them before, so I did a little reading!

In the end, I washed my greens well, added them and a little water to a saute pan, and put it over heat. I added a shake of sea salt, covered the pan, and let it go to town over medium to medium-high heat for about 18 minutes...

And then I ate these greens. They were so good, I only wish I'd had more!

Tortilla Espanola

2010-08-08T21:59:00.000-04:00

In concept, a tortilla espanola is a Spanish-style egg dish, similar to a frittata, that has potatoes and onions in it. I understand this very well! This time around, I got all the flavors there, but it wasn't pretty.

I started by cutting and boiling the potatoes - they wouldn't cook enough if put into the egg mixture raw! I also chopped some red onion and sauteed it in some oil.

Once the potatoes and onions were ready to go, I cracked open a bunch of eggs, stirred them together, and added in the potatoes and most of the onion. When my bowl of eggy goodness was combined, I heated some oil in a saute pan and then added the egg and veggie mixture and cooked it over medium heat for 10 minutes.

My troubles began at the 10 minutes cooking mark - when I tried to loosen the tortilla from the pan to flip it. Parts of it came away easily, and some parts stuck like crazy. I ended up not being able to flip it well, so it never looked lovely. I simply cooked the parts of it through to doneness.

While it was NOT pretty at all, the flavors were there. This is a fun dish, because once it's cooked you can let it sit - it is actually meant to be eaten at room temperature. I let mine cool a little while I made myself a side dish.

I also had some young broccoli, so I added that to the saute pan with the remaining onions. I added a little bit more oil and some crushed red pepper flakes, and sauteed the broccoli for a few minutes until the green became more vibrant.

This bright color, contrasted with the muted tones of the tortilla espanola, made a lovely plate - and a yummy dinner.

Dinner - tortilla Espanola and broccoli with onions

The First Summer Corn

2010-07-30T23:30:00.002-04:00

One evening this week, I realized I still had an ear of corn in the vegetable bin, and wanted to enjoy those fresh kernels of summer. However, with only one ear of it I also knew that would not be enough to be my entire dinner, so I improvised. I sliced the kernels off the corn cob and sauteed them with a little butter. When they were just a little tender and fragrant, I added in my chopped Tokyo Bekana, which is simply a lovely, slightly curly green. (I'm not too proud to admit that I also ate several spoonfuls of corn kernels at this point, as well.)

Corn and Tokyo Bekana

I also cooked up some little cheese ravioli to add a bit of protein to the plate. When the pasta was done cooking, and the greens were softening a bit, I added a few spoons of ricotta to the pan with the greens and corn. I then dumped in the pasta.

After about another minute of stirring it together, the ricotta began to soften and melt, making a sauce that held the greens and corn to the pasta, melding it into a plateful of light, summery scrumptiousness.

Ravioli with Ricotta, Corn and Tokyo Bekana

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!

2010-07-30T11:25:00.001-04:00

Sometimes the best gifts come from unexpected places. I work with someone who has a LOT of pepper plants, and they're producing like mad right now! Imagine my surprise when I managed to come home from work one day with this beautiful haul!

Thai hot chiles.

Beautiful jalapeno pepper.

Cow horn pepper!

Summertime Squash!

2010-07-30T01:19:00.005-04:00

The squash and zucchini, faithful summer vegetables, were sitting in my fridge, and just begging to be eaten. However, the awful heat makes me want to prepare things without heat. I've explored a couple recipes for a squash salad, and decided to test out the idea. I started with my beautiful yellow zucchini, and shaved it into thin slices with my mandoline (fingers intact!). I love the colors of the flesh in this beauty!

With all the shaved pieces in a bowl, I added salt, pepper, olive oil and some lemon juice and stirred, then added some crumbles of ricotta salata.

Once it had marinated just a bit, I dumped it on a plate and dug in - a delicious summer dinner, cool in the kitchen and cool on my plate. It was both aesthetically and flavorfully pleasing - just look at this!

This Week in the Bull Run Mountain CSA

2010-07-30T01:11:00.004-04:00

This week was more fun, not only because I got more yummy, gorgeous produce, but also because I got several things I've never cooked with before - including one I've never even tried!

As with past weeks, the haul included more cucumbers, eggplant, squash and zucchini, all of which I am enjoying immensely. I also got more Thai and Italian basil. I've started freezing the basil, because I'm just getting too much of it, but I know I'll use it! Also included were more potatoes, and some teeny, tiny onions - the size of pearl onions. He pulled them early because the heat has done a number on their growth, but I can't wait to use them. There was also more garlic. This garlic is to die for...it's just so fantastic. I'm hoping to roast some this weekend (it should not be as hot, so having the oven on for an extended time is a more bearable concept) and making a garlicky compound butter.

Let's not forget the half dozen eggs...which are proliferating a bit. I need to do more baking, or more frittatas. Of course this week's fruit share was more peaches - if possible, these are even more gorgeous. I've been so lucky to be eating these peaches...I really am loving it!

New this week, and new in my kitchen (though not to my tastebuds) were mustard greens and tomatillos. I'm particularly interested to fiddle with the tomatillos!

And brand new in Amandaland this week - ground cherries! These are amazing little bits of goodness, wrapped in tissue-thin, papery skins that peel away to reveal golden fruits. The flavor is quite unique...a little pineapple, a little raisin, a little vanilla...almost intoxicating. I look forward to experimenting with them!

Some Like It Hot...Very Hot...

2010-07-24T20:09:00.006-04:00

It's a record-breaking day for heat here in the mid-Atlantic, so I have not turned on the oven or stove at all.

What am I eating? Well, I'm lucky enough to be pulling in some gorgeous produce from my CSA that requires virtually no treatment at all to be delicious!

I'm eating some gorgeous peaches, fresh from the trees earlier in the week. These peaches are so succulent and sweet that they need NOTHING added to them. I shared some of last week's peaches with my sister-in-law and she asked what I'd put on them...the answer was nothing. If possible, this week's are even better. Perhaps it's the heat making them so delicious to me, but they're fabulous.

I've also been eating cucumbers. I had two - this week's and last week's - and sliced them into half-moons and prepared them a la David Tanis. His Vietnamese cucumbers (here's a newspaper's publication of a version of the recipe - I don't want to come afoul of copyright law) are right up my alley, and the heat of the chiles combined with the cool cucumbers seems all too perfect on a hot day like today.

I may cut into a block of cheese later, but maybe not. At this rate, I'll end the day having only eaten cucumbers and peaches, and that's perfectly fine with me.

CSA Summer

2010-07-24T20:04:00.003-04:00

This week, my camera battery died, and it was such a busy week I've just gotten a new one. So while I do not have pics of all the wonderful produce from this week, I have wonderful produce all the same.

This week we got more garlic, a beautiful and vibrant yellow zucchini, some lovely broccoli (if all broccoli were like this, I think I'd love broccoli!), more tomatoes and cucumbers, potatoes, arugula, a new green called Tokyo Bekana, and more Thai and Italian basil.

I also got my weekly egg share, and this week for fruit I got about a dozen beautiful and fragrant peaches. Again, they were so soft and tender they filled the car with the smell of nectar on the drive. Mmm....

Eggplant Krapow

2010-07-19T11:04:00.000-04:00

There was so much good food from the CSA, I had to cook a vegetarian meal. I decided to utilize some of the eggplant , and use a preparation similar to the Drunken Noodles I made a few weeks ago! I started, as always, by cutting and chopping all the vegetables so they were ready to go.

The chiles and garlic, ready to go.

Once ready, I sauteed the chiles and garlic in some sesame oil. When softened and fragrant, I added some sauce, stirred for a minute, and then added in all the vegetables.

I stirred them into the mixture and flipped them in the pan a few times, then allowed them to cook through, stirring occasionally.

When the vegetables were softened and cooked, I added a smidgen of sugar, some kaffir lime leaves and some fish sauce. I stirred all of this together, allowing the sauce to thicken a little and coat all the vegetables.

Last, I added the Thai basil to the pan, stirring it into the hot mixture to wilt the leaves.

The mixture was fragrant and steamy, as I plated it. As I'd considered, I lessened the amount of sauce ingredients, as the saltiness was overpowering last time, and increased the garlic and chiles. This time, the plate was a perfect meld of tang, salt and heat.

Sunday Scramble

2010-07-18T09:47:00.000-04:00

Confession: I watch cartoons on Sunday mornings. Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that I like making breakfast for these mornings. Since I’ve been getting these beautiful farm-fresh eggs…I had to have eggs for breakfast!

I started off with some bacon. After it was cooked and crisp (I like crispy bacon!), I spooned out some of the grease, and left some in the pan. I added a little butter, the scrambled eggs and some salt and fresh ground pepper.

After the eggs began to cook through, I added the crumbled bacon, some chopped arugula, and some grated parmesan cheese.

All told, this took about 20 minutes to prepare, most of which was time cooking the bacon! It was yummy...and perfect for my date with Skipper.

Moving to the Country, I'm Gonna Eat a Lot of Peaches

2010-07-17T13:59:00.001-04:00

Those peaches I got...oh my. They're just swell. As cling peaches, I couldn't get quite all the fruit cut off, but I got plenty of juicy, peachy goodness. They're so sweet and succulent. I'll be eating them all weekend...and eagerly anticipating getting more next week!

The Italian Job

2010-07-16T23:50:00.001-04:00

Some nights there is too much to do to spend much time on dinner. On such nights, the preparation work I've done earlier in the week comes in very handy! I quickly cooked some angel hair pasta, which only takes a few minutes. While the pasta cooked, I sliced a clove of garlic and cut up two tomatoes.

When the pasta was done, I drained it, leaving a little of the pasta water in the saucepan, and added a bit of olive oil. I added the tomatoes and garlic and sauteed them until they softened. Then I stirred in some of the pesto I had in the fridge.

I then added the pasta to the mixture, and stirred in two spoonfuls of ricotta cheese. As I stirred it together, the cheese melted into it and the pesto coated the pasta. It smelled great. I added a little salt and fresh ground pepper to season it, and then served it up!

While it was a quick dinner, it still tasted fresh, flavorful and filling. I'll have to use this combination again!

Just Peachy

2010-07-15T23:46:00.000-04:00

This week, the CSA email that came was the most exciting in a while - FRUIT IS STARTING!!!

I arrived to a line of folks, all excited about the produce. It smelled wonderful. I wandered through, grabbing my eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber, garlic, broccoli, Italian basil and Thai basil. Then, over to the van...to get some lovely little tomatoes, and of course, I am still getting those beautiful, farm fresh eggs.

Most exciting, I got two Summer Mac apples and 11 (yes, 11!) peaches. These fruits are not huge, but boy are they pungent. The relatively short drive home filled my car with the sweet scent of fresh peaches. When I unpacked the bag, some of the peaches were so soft and juicy their nectar had run onto the basil, which made me ponder peach and basil as a combination...there is probably a good sorbet, or cocktail, or maybe both, in there!

I can't wait to peel, cut open and indulge in those peaches!

Thank You, David Tanis

2010-07-15T13:26:00.003-04:00

In my most recent CSA bounty, I got a beautiful cucumber. It’s still early for tomatoes, and thus my favorite use for those two bits of produce, gazpacho (I’m sure it’ll come soon enough!). Thus I went hunting through my cookbooks and cooking magazines (of which I am not lacking) for a good recipe using a cucumber. Sure, I could slice it and eat raw, or make cucumber water, but I wanted something different.

In paging through one of my more beautiful cookbooks, A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes, byDavid Tanis, I found a recipe for salmon with Vietnamese cucumbers. I was hooked, and had to try it. This book is gorgeous, but I also love it in concept, too. Tanis’ thesis is that the best meals are those that feature fresh, fabulous ingredients. With a past at Chez Panisse (which is on my list of must-eat-there-someday restaurants), Tanis has a knack for celebrating the best in food. If the ingredients are good, the preparation does not need to be elaborate to highlight the flavors.

Knowing a bit of his basic philosophy, I was excited to see if this was as simply and tasty as I hoped. I sliced the cucumbers into the half moons and mixed them with the dressing ingredients, which included (among other things) some chili pepper, ginger and fish sauce, then stuck the bowl in the fridge to marinate and meld. This took about 15 minutes, total, and I was not hurrying.

The next day, I pulled the cucumbers and a wild salmon filet (I always ask the fishmonger to skin it for me before it gets wrapped up – convenience!) out of the fridge. I decided to cook up some quinoa, which is a high-protein grain that cooks quickly, too. I cooked it only in water, knowing the cucumber liquid would season the entire plate. Then I quickly pan sautéed the salmon filet.

Not only was the plate beautiful, but it was delicious. The rich fish was nicely balanced by the tang and spice of the cucumbers. The quinoa acted as the perfect base, adding texture and serving as a vessel for the flavors. Though I had cucumbers left over after serving myself, I went back and ate them all. I can’t wait to make more of these cucumbers!

Mise en Place

2010-07-15T08:39:00.000-04:00

It’s been so hot around here, I’m not even hungry every night. On days where I have a very late lunch, cooking doesn't always appeal. However, looking ahead to a busy few nights, I know I should at least make a few things…easier on myself for later in the week.

It’s a perfect time to chop, slice and process a few things…no cooking required!

My first stop – slicing up some veggies for use later in the week. I do not do this will ALL veggies, but some are just fine. In this instance, I took a few hot peppers and some garlic and sliced them, then chopped a few slices as well. This can be the basis of a dressing, or a spicy Thai-style dish, or generally anything I want to be spicy and pungent. If tomatoes magically appear in my world any time soon, this could go in my gazpacho too!

Next up, I had some lovely Italian basil, and some sprigs of Thai basil as well. While I can use Thai basil in those spicy dishes I mention, above, the Italian basil is begging to be made into pesto – especially since I finally found some pine nuts! I put the basil in the cuisinart mini-prep with some parmesan, some salt and freshly ground pepper, and some toasted pine nuts. This time, I toasted them in a skillet on the stovetop, but you can also toast them in the microwave too – they key, using either method, is to monitor them carefully to ensure they don’t burn.

After a few pulses of the cuisinart, I added a few glugs (yes, that’s a technical term) of olive oil, and whirred it again. I scraped it a few times, tasted, adjusted with salt and pepper, and added an additional dollop of oil. Voila…pesto!

I put it in a pyrex container with an airtight lid, topped with a little extra oil to maintain the freshness, and it’s in the fridge, waiting for use.

The last little adventure in not cooking was cucumber…in preparation for the next night’s dinner.

Feeding a Crowd

2010-07-14T20:48:00.005-04:00

It was recently Family Day at work, and in my group we always do a pot-luck luncheon, as not everyone has family attending the event. Knowing we needed more hearty main dishes, I thought about what I could make (more or less) at home, ahead of time that transports well and that would be good to eat!

I started with some store-bought cheese tortellini, cooked and drained them. I mixed in a couple teaspoons of olive oil to prevent sticking. I then chopped tomatoes (fresh) and roasted red peppers (from a can). I also tore some arugula and basil leaves for inclusion in the pasta. Finally, I marinated some perline mozzarella (little balls of mozzarella) in balsamic vinegar, a little olive oil, salt and freshly ground pepper. I also planned to use the last of my pesto on the tortellini.

Perline mozzarella marinating in balsamic vinegar, oil and seasonings.

I packed it up separately, with the mozzarella in one container, the pasta with some tomatoes and peppers in another, and the rest of the peppers and tomatoes, with the arugula and basil on top of it, in a third container. They were all in the fridge overnight at home. After the drive to work, I put the pasta and mozzarella in the fridge at work, but left the tomatoes, peppers and greens container out.

The tortellini with pesto, tomatoes and roasted peppers.

When it came time to serve, I simply mixed it all together in a large bowl, using the marinade from the mozzarella to dress the salad. It tasted fresh and flavorful, and was a nice, lighter treat on a hot day. The leftovers kept well enough that I even ate the rest (over three more meals)!

The finished dish.

Vegetable Parade

2010-07-14T20:32:00.008-04:00

Last Wednesday evening, I was supposed to be three different places at 5:30, one of which was picking up my vegetables. I wasn’t going to skip that. On my way to pick up my CSA vegetables, I must have been distracted by the other places I should be…I’ll also blame the intense heat for my absent-mindedness. I didn’t go the usual way to the pick-up point, and instead headed directly home from work. Knowing enough about the area that I could get there, even if in a round-about way, I headed up the highway. When I got there, I realized that way, while less scenic, was much quicker…apparently my brain was working at a higher level than I realized!

The haul for the sixth week of my CSA engagement presented the first real bag chock full of vegetables. I came home with small potatoes, more eggplant, some delicious garlic, additional Italian basil, a cucumber, a yellow squash and a zucchini! I can’t wait to get to eating these. They smell marvelous and, being so fresh and yummy, require little effort to be delicious.

The Veggies Are Coming, the Veggies Are Coming!

2010-07-14T20:30:00.008-04:00

For the fifth week of the CSA, I could see the transition beginning. With the heat coming on, and summer going into full swing, the spring herbs and greens are starting to wane, and the full summer vegetables are making their first appearances.

This week, there was more Thai and Italian basil, some fresh arugula, the last of the garlic scapes we’ll see, a beautiful garlic bulb which smells heavenly, oregano, a potted sage plant and some baby eggplants. Next week promises more vegetables, which is exciting to me!

The garlic scapes, in a vase.

I have mixed feelings about accepting the sage plant. I’ve gotten two calendulas, a cilantro plant and two little pots of basil…none of which have survived. While I can blame the calendulas on weather – I had them outside, and it’s been oppressively hot – I must accept the blame for the others. Alas, my thumbs appear to be decidedly brown.

The sage I hope to keep alive...

Purple Rain

2010-07-14T19:32:00.008-04:00

It was raining when I got home the other night, making me less likely to walk somewhere to get dinner, even though there was not much in my fridge. What I did have…three beautiful baby eggplants, waiting to be eaten.

With this in mind, I decided I would see what we could do with them. I consulted the Betty Crocker Cookbook first. While it does not have a lot of beautiful recipes with fancy ingredients, it does include some very handy references on ingredients, including a section on vegetables.After consulting this, I decided to simply forge ahead with my eggplant, some garlic and butter and a skillet.

I chopped the eggplant. Because these were small, I cut off the ends, then quartered and sliced them into roughly cube-like shapes. I was NOT exact (where is the fun in stressing over exact dice – this is not Top Chef!).

I then chopped some of that lovely garlic I got from the CSA, and chopped a few of the last garlic scapes. I melted a little butter in the skillet, then added the garlic and scapes, with a smidge of salt and freshly ground pepper. When the garlic began to soften, turn golden and become aromatic, I added the eggplant.

The gentle hiss and wafting aroma made me want to sample the dish almost immediately, but I waited, letting it cook a bit, then swirling and flipping the eggplant in the pan to continue to cook it. After about 10 minutes of stirring and cooking, I sampled it.

The eggplant still had its structural integrity, maintaining the cube shapes, but the insides melted in your mouth. It was divine. I added a bit of salt and pepper and some fresh oregano, gave it a quick stir over the heat for about another 30 seconds, and removed it from the heat.

While it might be nice to serve this over pasta, for example, or as a super-simple caponata on bruschetta, I simply ate it just like this, off of a plate. It was perfect.

A Slice of Yum

2010-07-14T19:17:00.002-04:00

Last night, I got home a little late from my class, but had a quick dinner plan in mind. I’d bought a Maryland-style crab cake at the grocery store, and had a zucchini and a yellow squash in the fridge. Perfect for a quick and tasty meal!

I turned on the oven for the crab (I bake them) and got out my benriner slicer. I quickly peeled the veggies, though not perfectly. After all, a little skin adds color! I sliced the squash onto a little plate. At this point, I put the crab cake in the oven to bake, which only takes about 15 minutes. Then I continued by slicing the zucchini.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If your slicer comes with one of those handy-dandy slicing guards, when your zucchini cylinder is less than an inch tall, USE IT. I sliced my thumb open on the slicer last night. Ouch. Nothing dire, but I spent so much time going back and forth to the bathroom to clean it and the stove to cook, that I took no pictures of this meal.

I melted a tablespoon of salted butter in a skillet, then tossed in the veggie slices and let them cook. As they start to smell yummy, flip them in the pan (like on TV…do a quick scoop with the pan to flip the slices into the air!). You can also use a spatula.

After a few minutes, I added some salt and freshly ground pepper, and continued to toss and stir the veggies. When the crab cake had been in the oven for 10 minutes, I added a very thin slice of butter on top of it, just for moisture.

In about 15 minutes, my dinner was done – and I ate the entire squash and the entire zucchini. Hooray for veggies!

CSA Bounty

2010-07-06T08:43:00.002-04:00

So it's taken me a while to post again, but never fear, more is coming soon...with pictures of such yummy treats as my Sunday morning scramble, my new sorbet (in a very lovely flavor!) and some other things I've been eating. Stay tuned for pictures soon!

I Like My Thai

2010-06-24T21:39:00.005-04:00

If I were told I could only have one cuisine forever...I would likely choose Thai. I love the flavor profile - the subtleties of the heat, the sweet and the salty - in all presentations, from papaya salad to Tom Yum soup to Kee Mao, more commonly known (when Pad Kee Mao) as Drunken Noodles. This dish features the fresh flavor of Thai, or Holy, Basil (pictured left) with chiles and garlic. While it certainly has some heat, it has a lovely, balanced mix of flavors.

This week my CSA had an abundance of Thai basil, so I helped out by taking a few large handfuls! It was perfect for making some Drunken Noodles, and I knew I could also use my baby onions and some garlic scapes.

By now you've noted my interest in mise en place, having all my ingredients ready to go before I turn on the heat of the stove top. With a stir fried dish like this, it's even more important to have everything ready to go.

I started by cutting up three Thai chiles (often called Bird chiles). One, I sliced into thin strips, and the other two I chopped and crushed a bit with the side of my knife. I then chopped and crushed five cloves of garlic, and thinly sliced the soft stems and bulbs of two garlic scapes. These are the flavorful aromatics that form the base for this dish.

I then sliced up a milder chile - I used an Anaheim pepper - in thin strips. I cut a plum tomato into wedges, and thinly sliced three baby onions. These are additional vegetables for the dish.

I measured out the sauces. In one bowl I added oyster sauce and light soy sauce. In another I measured out fish sauce. A bit of lime zest and an equal bit of sugar were also prepared.

Finally, I laid out the ground chicken meat (though any protein, from ground pork to cubed tofu, will work!) and separated a small (at least I tried for it to be small!) portion of rice noodles.

I put on some water to boil and salted it. This was on a back burner, to be out of the way. In a large frying pan or wok, some oil was heated and then the garlic, scapes and hot chiles were added. Over medium heat, they rendered down a bit. When the garlic started to turn golden and the mixture was very aromatic, I quickly added in the oyster and soy sauces, swirled the pan, and added the chicken.

After stirring to ensure the chicken breaks apart enough and mixing the sauces and spices into it, it was almost cooked through. Overall, this was about 6-8 minutes; no need to rush it! When the chicken was almost cooked through, I added the tomatoes, onions and mild chile and stirred so they could soften.

When the vegetables have softened a bit, the fish sauce, sugar and lime zest are added and mixed in. After about 30 seconds of sautéing, the basil went into the pan. I adore basil, and love the flavor it adds here, so I added lots.

After a few more minutes of stirring to wilt the basil, the dish was complete. Total cooking time was about 15 minutes - manageable on a hot summer night.

This picture makes me hungry, and I just ate this!

This dish was delightful! While I think I'll adjust the amount of sauces added (downward) next time, the flavors were wonderful, and I ate all of it...and loved it! I even enjoyed in with a Brooklyn Brewery Pennant Ale '55, in honor of my favorite Brooklynites.

Hot Town, Frittata in the City...

2010-06-24T12:54:00.000-04:00

It was still 96 degrees when I got home a little after 7:00 tonight. I have these lovely vegetables and gorgeous eggs, and virtually no desire to do anything that requires heat or will be served hot. With the arrival of a dozen more eggs, though...I had to do something. A frittata seemed in order. While it does require the use of both the stove top and the oven, it goes relatively quickly.

Here's how I created my dinner this evening:

6 1/2 eggs (half, you may ask? well, these are farm eggs, and one of them I cracked funny and lost some of the yolk in being stuck to the eggshell - you can use 6 or 7)

3 Tablespoons basil, chiffonade (roll the leaves into cigars, and slice across the roll to create strips)

1 Tablespoon oregano, chopped

1 baby onion, sliced thin into discs

2 garlic scapes, bulb and soft stem sliced thin

1 inch of a cylinder of salami, sliced thin and slices quartered

1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

olive oil

Prep all of your ingredients. Put the sliced/chopped herbs aside. The garlic scapes, onion and salami can be together too. Have the ingredients ready to go!

Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to a skillet/frying pan - mine is a 9 inch pan - that can go in the oven (specifically, under the broiler). Put over medium heat and add scapes, onion and salami. Stir occasionally and let cook down a bit. The salami will render fat into the pan, and the onions and scapes will soften and smell lovely. This part takes about 6-9 minutes, depending upon how high your heat is.

While the scapes, onion and salami are cooking down, crack your eggs into a bowl and stir them together to make a homogenous mixture. My farm fresh eggs make a thick, glossy and sunny mixture!

When the salami, onion and scapes are cooked sufficiently (getting a little golden), remove from heat and use a spatula or spoon to remove most excess fat from the pan. Set pan down, still off heat, and gently pour in eggs. Use spatula to stir salami, onions and scapes into eggs.

Place pan back on medium heat, and occasionally swirl the pan. You can also use the spatula to lift the edges every now and then, allowing the uncooked egg to run along the edges. After about a minute of cooking, add the herbs and stir into egg. Then add parmesan and stir into the egg mixture as well.

Now you should turn on your oven's broiler.

At this point, let it cook over medium heat,

occasionally swirling the pan and lifting the edges with a spatula. Once the edges are set and only the top center is still runny, which took about 7-8 minutes for me, remove the pan from the heat on the stovetop and put it in under the broiler.

Leave it under the broiler until the top of the frittata begins to turn golden brown, which took three minutes for me. USING A POTHOLDER remove the pan from the oven. Ensure your stovetop and broiler are off, too! Let the frittata cool for about ten minutes.

Golden goodness.

Once it has cooled a bit, use a spatula to loosen the frittata from the pan, and remove to a plate. At this point you can cut it into slices and serve, or let it cool further.

Frittata!

I served mine with some fresh salad greens, lightly drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with a quick grind of pepper and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

Hot weather dinner.

There is leftover frittata; I cut it into slices too, wrapped each loosely in waxed paper, and stored it in tupperware in the fridge. This could be breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow - and tomorrow it'll require NO heat!

Greens are Good for You!

2010-06-24T00:48:00.011-04:00

This week, I arrived a little later than I have been to pick up my CSA veggies from Bull Run. Because it was later, he had run out of the limited supply of cherry tomatoes, eggplant, cauliflower and broccoli (the latter two did not concern me...). Because of this, he gave me an extra half dozen eggs and told me to take as much of the Thai basil and as many of the garlic scapes as I liked!

In addition to those, I got some BEAUTIFUL baby onions, more fresh basil (of the Italian variety), a few springs of Oregano, and some salad greens. I also got two potted calendulas. I put them in a larger ceramic planter I have at home, out on my balcony. I've been impressed that I have kept the basil and cilantro alive thus far, but am skeptical about my abilities to keep these plants all alive for the long haul...we shall see!

Stick around...there's more to come, and I will continue my endeavor to use ALL the vegetables I get every week!

Baby Onions

Salad Greens and Garlic Scapes

Thai Basil, Oregano and Salad Greens

Teriyaki Table

2010-06-22T19:23:00.000-04:00

Tonight's dinner was a stir-fry of the last of my CSA ingredients for this week. As with all my stir-fries, I first complete my mise en place to ensure I'm ready to go. I chopped garlic scapes, washed pac choi, sliced tomatoes and sliced a Hungarian wax pepper that a coworker was kind enough to give me!

I also stirred up a little teriyaki-like sauce, made from equal parts sake and soy sauce, with about 2/3 as much brown sugar (give or take).

I started the stir-fry with some store-bought chicken sausage, sliced thin and sauteed.

When it was almost done after about six minutes, I added the tomatoes, scapes and pepper. I also added some of the sauce and let it all simmer away.

The juices from the tomatoes mix in the sauce to thin it a little, which is fine. I tend to let the sauce cook down to a little more than a glaze, about 8-9 minutes.

At the very end, I added the pac choi, large leaves first, to simmer in the glaze quickly and wilt a little. As the bigger leaves cook down, I add the smaller ones, and add in a few fresh herbs as well.

By now the kitchen smells fantastic, and the sauce has reduced down to a lovely glaze on all the vegetables.

I quickly added a couple turns of the pepper grinder, gave it all a stir, and dumped it onto a plate. It was a lovely plate of vegetables, with a little Asian flair. Yum! I am also particularly proud that, for the second week, I've eaten all of my vegetables! This is proving to be a good exercise in both cooking for one and in eating all my vegetables. Waste not!

Saturday Lunch

2010-06-22T06:49:00.000-04:00

It was a hot Saturday here, so a simple, veggie-laden lunch sounded lovely. I still had my lettuce from the CSA, and it was fresh, though not as crisp as it had been. I decided to wilt it fully over some heat, so washed the lettuce and put it in a saute pan over medium heat.

Wilting lettuce.

After about 30 seconds of stirring, I added some sliced tomatoes to the pan as well. These released so much juice that the lettuce was able to cook a little slower! I adore tomatoes (these are campari tomatoes, commonly available in grocery stores - we don't have local tomatoes yet!) and put them in a lot of my food.

After cooking down the tomatoes for a few minutes, I added some pesto and a few slices of prosciutto, torn up. I sauteed this together for about two minutes.

While this did involve the stove top on a hot day, the entire cooking time was less than 10 minutes, and the flavors and colors were beautiful. It was such a lovely lunch!

More Devils...Still Mayonnaise Free!!!

2010-06-21T23:50:00.001-04:00

I was asked about a recipe for deviled eggs. I am not the best with recipes...I tend to change them, or simply look at them and then not refer to them while cooking. That said, here's my best attempt. Let me know how they turn out!

Anti-Mayo Devils

4 eggs

mustard powder

country-style dijon mustard

chives

prosciutto

skim milk

sea salt

fresh ground pepper

Hard-boil the eggs. Let cool in chilled water, until they are cool. Peel the eggs (it's easiest when they're cooled!). Slice in half lengthwise, and scoop yolks into a small bowl. Put whites on a plate.

Crush yolks a little with a fork in the bowl. Chop chives, and add about a tablespoon of chives to the yolks. Chop prosciutto and add about one and a half tablespoons. You can add more chives and prosciutto if you want! Add a scant tablespoon of mustard powder, and a heaping tablespoon of dijon mustard. [Warning: I like the mustard flavor, so you may want to start with less.]

Crush and mix with a fork. Add about a tablespoon of milk, stir into yolk mixture, and repeat until the mixture achieves a nice, creamy consistency. I added about five or six tablespoons, I think. Taste and add salt and pepper as appropriate. Depending upon how salty the prosciutto is, you may not need any salt.

Carefully spoon the yolk mixture into the egg white shells. Top with a small slice of prosciutto, and enjoy!

Presto Pesto!

2010-06-21T21:27:00.008-04:00

This week in my CSA goodies, I got a large handful of basil! I adore fresh pesto, and was excited to make some pesto with the fresh basil!

In my kitchen, I always make the pesto with basil, and perhaps a little parsley if I have it on hand. Often pesto recipes call for a mix of basil and parsley, as the basil has a sharper flavor...but I like it!

I began by toasting some nuts. Normally I use pine nuts, but I only had hazelnuts at home this time. I put them in a pan over medium-high heat, and let them start to get fragrant. Then I tossed them in the pan for a minute or so, until the skins began to darken.

Toasted hazelnuts, with their skins.

After they were toasted, I rubbed them in a paper towel to help remove the skins, and put about a handful of the toasted hazelnuts in my food processor. I added the leaves from my large handful of basil, about a two-inch chunk of fresh parmigiano-reggiano cheese, and some olive oil. I blitzed it for a minute or so.

Blitz de pesto!

At this point, I also put two garlic scapes in the oven at 350 to roast a bit. After about 15 minutes, they were soft and fragrant. I cut off the tender, curled ends, and tossed those soft, garlicky stems into the processor as well, with some additional basil leaves from the potted basil plant from the first week. [Side note: I am VERY proud of myself for keeping all three potted plants alive!]

Garlic scapes, basil and goodness.

I continued to pour a slow stream of oil into the processor until the pesto reached the right consistency, almost creamy and smooth, with small chunks of basil. It looked beautiful! At this point, I put on some water to boil for some store-bought cheese ravioli. When it was done cooking and drained, I put a few dollops of pesto into the pan and swirled it around. I put the leftover pesto in a little pyrex dish I have with a lid, and poured a little extra oil over it to keep it from drying out or oxidizing too much and turning black (it still tastes the same, but it is not very pretty!). I plated my ravioli and pesto and put a few shavings of parm on top...yum!

Mmm...ravioli, parm and pesto!

Funny Little Devils

2010-06-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

I love my new fresh eggs, but I have not been eating as many eggs these days - it's hotter, so scrambled eggs for breakfast just don't have the same appeal for me! I had a lot of eggs left over, and needed to use them - I just got another half-dozen. So, in pondering what sounded good, it hit me. I love deviled eggs, and so rarely get to eat them. They're high protein, low carb and generally delicious! With these beautiful eggs, what better way to utilize and showcase their goodness for some light summer dinner?

Hard-boiling my eggs.

I started with four eggs, because I invariably have a hard time peeling the eggs; while I knew I'd have four yolks to work with, I wasn't sure I'd have eight white "shells" to fill! Sure enough, the first egg I peeled came apart. I rescued the yolk, intact, and managed to have about half of a white left. I had better luck with the others, but was only able to peel one perfectly (25% was satisfying in this particular challenge!).

My yolks and whites...or pieces of whites.

After my adventure in peeling eggs, I moved on to the filling. I chopped some chives, added some Colman's mustard powder, fresh ground pepper, salt, and some country style dijon mustard. I also pan-friend, for about 30 seconds, two slices of prosciutto, chopped, and added. I mashed it all together with a fork, and it tasted good, but wasn't creamy enough. I know that most people achieve that lovely creamy texture with mayonnaise, but not I. I have "issues" with mayonnaise (YUCK!) so I added a little milk at a time, slowly stirring to incorporate, until I achieved that lovely creaminess. My brother would approve - mayonnaise-free deviled eggs! I filled the egg white shells with the filling, and then I topped each egg with a slice of the prosciutto. I will definitely do this again, and will experiment with other flavor profiles as well! I tried one, and then shamelessly ate only deviled eggs for dinner.

Deviled Eggs for dinner...mmm...

Hot Spearmint Summer Treats

2010-06-16T23:50:00.000-04:00

Last week's CSA came with some spearmint, and I thought perhaps I would try a sorbet. It's a traditional Mexican summer treat and palate cleanser, so recipes are readily available on the internet. That said, I don't use recipes all the time, so I simply measured out my spearmint leaves, which were drying a bit by now, and added three times the water. I brought the mixture to a boil to let the spearmint leaves steep.

Steeping spearmint leaves.

After boiling for about five minutes, I took the mixture off the heat and added some sugar, about half as much as the water, and stirred vigorously to dissolve. At this point, the mixture was infusing the kitchen with the refreshing smell of spearmint. I sat the pan aside to let it cool.

Adding the sugar.

Once cool, I whizzed the mixture with my immersion blender to further break up the spearmint leaves and release those flavorful oils into the syrup. I poured a bit of the mixture, with the spearmint leaves, into the freezing canister of my ice cream maker, and then strained the rest of the spearmint leaves. I wanted a few green flecks for color and contrast, but not all the leaves.

After running through my ice cream maker for about 20 minutes, the sorbet was light and creamy. I quickly scooped myself a serving, and put the rest into a container for another night. I can't wait to have more on a hot, humid night - a perfect treat for a summer night!

The cool, refreshing sorbet - it's beautiful, and it's amazingly refreshing!

Second Haul

2010-06-16T21:39:00.005-04:00

It's week two of my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) with Bull Run Mountain Vegetable Farm, and I was excited to pick up more herbs and veggies! I was proud that I ate all my veggies last week, having only a couple eggs, which I planned for tonight's dinner, and some oregano, which I can dry and use in the future. With this first week successfully, behind me, I looked forward to more this week. Below, see my new CSA haul. There are some repeat appearances, too, so I look forward to trying them in new ways!

This week's haul of herbs - chives, basil and thyme.

More scapes!

More, younger, pac choi.

More greens, eggs (but not green eggs).

Hot Friday Night Dinner

2010-06-12T09:28:00.000-04:00

It's getting warmer here on the eastern seaboard, so I wanted to cook as little as possible. I had a plan for this evening, and fortunately it involved some quick sautés, which meant the kitchen did not get as hot as it might!

My CSA haul on Wednesday night included garlic scapes, these lovely green curlicue stems of garlicky goodness. I sliced them up on a diagonal, rather thin.

Then I washed my CSA pac choi (commonly known as bok choy) in the sink - it did require a couple rinses, as all farm fresh veggies likely will - and sorted the leaves by size, with the smallest on the bottom of the bowl. Then I decided to utilize some dried mushrooms I've had in the cabinet for some time, so I reconstituted them in hot water, with a splash of wine; after 35 minutes, I sliced them.

I pulled out some butter, some sesame oil (mine is toasted sesame), some fish sauce and some rice vinegar. Now my mise en place (to put in place) was complete (the French way of saying I had prepped all my ingredients and had them ready to cook), so I hauled out my big saute pan. I do not own a wok, but use this curved saute pan in the same manner, even flipping veggies in it.

I started with some butter, which I let melt, and then added the scapes. After a few minutes, I could smell the lovely garlic aroma wafting through the house, and turned the heat from low to medium to give them a little more caramelization. After I was satisfied with their doneness, I took them out, leaving behind as much of the garlicky butter as possible.

I added the biggest pac choi leaves. I added a dollop of sesame oil, and swirled them. After about 45 seconds, I added the next smaller size of pac choi leaves, and about another 45 seconds later, added the last of the small pac choi leaves. They quickly saute and wilt, looking beautiful. I couldn't help but eat one then! I removed them to the same bowl as the scapes.

I added a bit more sesame oil, a bit of the mushroom soaking liquid, and the sliced mushrooms. After some of the liquid began to evaporate, I added some shrimp. I shamelessly purchase frozen peeled, deveined shrimp in the bags in my grocery store frozen seafood section whenever they are on sale - they are great for such meals! I sauteed carefully, stirring to ensure the mushrooms and shrimp got even heat. When most of the liquid had evaporated, I added a splash of fish sauce, a splash of rice vinegar and turned the heat up.

I know it takes longer to cook all the veggies separately, but I like doing it because it allows me to control the doneness of every ingredient. When there was very little liquid left after those additions, I added the pac choi and scapes back to the pan, swirling all of the food together. I also added some chives and basil, but that's just me.

I tasted, added some sea salt and fresh ground pepper, and when I was satisfied with the flavors, I simply dumped the pan of food onto a plate. Gorgeous! I really hope to keep up this type of cooking with the CSA - it is nourishing in so many ways!

Mmm...Dinner!

2010-06-10T23:07:00.009-04:00

For my first CSA dinner last night, I took stock of my haul and decided that the fresh, tender salad greens were likely to expire first, so I decided I would make myself a salad. Of course, I do not buy salad dressing, so I made my own herb vinaigrette. I hard boiled one of the fresh farm eggs, and quartered it over the salad, which was finished with a perfect chive blossom. It was so lovely, I even opened a bottle of chardonnay to complement it. It was a nice treat to make such a pretty dinner for myself!

The vinaigrette.

juice of one lemon

one teaspoon dijon mustard

one teaspoon honey

approximately 1/3 cup oil (more or less to taste)

chopped herbs to taste

salt and pepper to taste

Mix lemon juice and mustard in a small bowl with a whisk or fork. Slowly add in oil in a slow pour or in small amounts, stirring vigorously after each addition to create an emulsion. Add oil to taste; I use a little less because I like tart dressings; some people will prefer more oil. Stir in the honey. Use a piece of the salad greens to taste it, so you have the flavor as you'll eat it! Once you're satisfied with the tart flavor, stir in the chopped herbs (I used finely chopped chives and oregano chiffonade (which means I rolled the leaves and cut it into thin slices, which make thin strips)). Add some fresh pepper and salt and taste it again. Adjust as necessary.

The greens.

The perfect egg.

The complete salad.

Community Supported Agriculture

2010-06-09T21:46:00.008-04:00

It's been a while, and a lot has changed. Over the last few months, I've seen my dining partner off to Iraq, and it's drastically changed my cooking and eating habits. There's less pleasure for me in cooking for one. I'm hoping that is about to change, however, because I joined a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) effort this summer. This is a neat concept in my mind - people buy into the crops in shares, and then reap the rewards in fresh produce.

Tonight was the first pick-up. I got some herbs, both freshly picked and potted. I also got some lovely veggies, and my favorite...I am getting a half-dozen eggs every week for the next few months!

Here's a look at my first haul, and stay tuned...I'm hoping this inspires me to feed myself well...

This Time of Year

2009-11-14T12:25:00.007-05:00

Autumn has a certain heft to it - you can smell the change in the air when true fall weather sets in, you want to dress a little warmer and wear coats, and in my house, the food starts to change a little too. I love certain dishes that I just find too heavy for warmer weather, but now that it's cooling down at night, they are reappearing in my kitchen. There are also smells and flavors intimately tied to this season in my mind. One of those is maple. In the last weeks, I've been enjoying a couple of maple treats. One was just for my house, and one was for sharing with family and friends.

A few weeks ago, I got a hankering for having some compound butters around the house. I certainly didn't need them, and if I really needed them I am sure I could find somewhere to buy them, but there was an underlying current of wanting to do it myself - so I made some maple butter. It was ridiculously simple, and we've eaten it all. It is phenomenal on corn muffins for a weekend breakfast, served with coffee, and some bacon if you like. In fact, corn muffins were the primary vehicle for almost all of the maple butter I made.

I simply softened a cup (two sticks) of salted butter (I wanted the slight saltiness to counter the sweetness of the syrup - you could use unsalted). When it was completely softened, after about an hour or so, I put it in the food processor with a quarter cup of real maple syrup and let it whir. This is no time for artificial maple syrup - it won't have the same depth or consistency. After about 30 seconds, I stopped the processor and tasted it. If you'd like it sweeter, add more syrup and process more; if you like it, stop now. It will be very liquid, which is okay. Scrape/pour it into a container - I used a pyrex dish with a lid - and stick it in the fridge. That's it, but boy was it a wonderful way to enjoy buttered biscuits or muffins.

The other maple treat I've recently enjoyed reminded me so much of the maple butter, but it was not at all the same. I found a recipe in How to Be a Domestic Goddess, one of my Nigella Lawson cookbooks, for an "Autumnal Birthday Cake" that featured maple. It sounded so lovely, I wanted to try it. She had adapted it from The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook, which I also have thanks to my sister-in-law, so I was able to compare and see which recipe sounded better. I went with Nigella for the cake, because she did not use the ginger. As the cake baked, the house began to smell like waffles and pancakes.

This cake calls for a cooked frosting, which is supposed to be beaten as it cooks over a double boiler. While I know how to jerry-rig a double boiler easily, I don't have a hand-held mixer! I used my heartiest whisk and went to town as it cooked. It fluffed up, turned white, and came along as it should! It took longer, and did not thicken quite as much as it would or could have with a mixer, but it worked well. I put together the cake on its cake stand, and took it out for a drive.

Traveling with a whole layer cake can be an adventure. Here I was fortunate to have a driver (a.k.a. my husband) so I could hold the cake. 80 miles later, we arrived at our destination to share the cake with an office of people I'd never met, but who knew me. They had said they didn't mind being guinea pigs for my baking, and this was put to the test. However, at the end of the day, they said I could come back any time and only one meager piece of cake remained. It must have tasted okay, and it certainly tasted and smelled like this time of year.

The Daring Kitchen: Adventures in Sushi

2009-11-14T11:50:00.017-05:00

The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

The challenge is in four parts:-
Part 1: Making proper sushi rice – you will wash, rinse, drain, soak, cook, dress, and cool short grain rice until each grain is sticky enough to hold toppings or bind ingredients. Then the cooked rice is used to form three types of sushi:
Part 2: Dragon sushi roll – an avocado covered inside-out rice roll with a tasty surprise filling
Part 3: Decorative sushi – a nori-coated rice roll which reveals a decorative pattern when cut
Part 4: Nigiri sushi – hand-shaped rice rolls with toppings

Caution to those reading at home: I made this on a Saturday. I made the rice around 4:00 in the afternoon, so it had a nice little spot of time to cool off. Handling hot rice can burn your hands! When making the actual sushi, I was a little lazy about it. Making the rice is a little bit time intensive, but easy if you follow the directions! I had no trouble getting it to turn out as it should - glossy and a little sticky. The recipe DID make a LOT of rice though, so you may want to make a little less. As someone (as my husband reminds me) who doesn't always eat all the rice in sushi, perhaps we did not need quite as much rice!

Making the rolls was fun. I started with the Dragon Roll, and used crab meat and cucumber as fillings. I cooked the jumbo lump crab meat (the kind you buy at the grocery's seafood counter) in some salted butter over a skillet. I also salted and drained the cucumber slices. I actually made cucumber shavings using a benriner (which is like a mandoline, only smaller), but batons would have worked just fine, and maybe even better! I did not add the avocado until I'd made everything else, though - because it browns quickly, I simply waited until the very end, then used the benriner to slice the avocado into thin shavings and placed them in a scaled pattern over the roll.

For the Spiral Roll, I wanted six different fillings. I used crab meat as in the Dragon Roll, but also used some poached shrimp, with each shrimp sliced in half length-wise, some smoked salmon cut into thin strips, and carrots, asparagus and mushrooms. With the vegetables, I chopped the mushrooms and sauteed in a little butter to soften and bring out the flavors. That took about 10 minutes. I cut the carrots into thin batons and sauteed them in some butter too, just to soften them. I also did the same with asparagus. I could have achieved the same effect by steaming them. I filled the roll, and...I was overzealous. It was huge. Beautiful, extremely tasty, and huge. I cut slices of the roll, and ate them like a cookie! Less really is more.

For the Nigiri sushi, I made the little pillows of rice first. Then, I added the "raw" ingredients to the top. I used smoked salmon, poached shrimp, some carrot batons wrapped with a cucumber shaving, and some asparagus. It was lovely. A word of caution, however - the recipe calls for using wasabi paste to "bind" the ingredients to the rice. My wasabi paste was VERY powerful! It all tasted good, but the wasabi was almost too strong. Be careful, and when in doubt, use less!

Overall, the adventure was a success. We had a filling dinner of sushi, and could have fed many more guests! While I certainly won't be making sushi on a regular basis, it is nice to see that it's entirely manageable, and as you can see below, it really does look lovely!

A New Frontier: The Daring Kitchen

2009-11-14T11:19:00.008-05:00

In September, The Washington Post published an article about online kitchen and cooking clubs, including the Daring Kitchen. I enjoy trying new things, and thought the Daring Kitchen sounded like fun. How could I make it more fun? Enlist someone to join with me, of course! I told my sister-in-law about it, and she is so wonderful she agreed to join with me.

The Daring Kitchen has a monthly cooking challenge that is "hosted" by one of its members. Each month, the challenge is posted, and members then create the recipes in the challenge. At the end of the month-long cooking period, they publish results. I can absolutely admit that the mechanics of the Daring Kitchen were a little confusing at first. When I finally was able to access the site's forum on the challenges, I was still confused about what I had to do when! However, the first challenge was to make Pho, a lovely Vietnamese soup with noodles, vegetables and protein. I love Pho in the chillier months of the year, and was excited to try it!

ONe Friday evening, I went to the store to stock up on a few essentials I needed to make the Pho. I used the quick recipe for Vietnamese Chicken Pho, but being me it still took me a while, as I fussed with the condiments longer than necessary and spent a while chopping vegetables just so. The only alteration I made from the recipe online was to both toast the spices and char the onion and ginger. In order to do the latter, I simply put the onion, halved, and the ginger root, with the skin still on, about 3-4" under the broiler and let them go until I could see some char appearing on the onion.

When it was done we had steamy, fragrant bowls of lovely soup, and tons of leftovers. I ate Pho leftovers, and the flavors in the broth always deepened a little more. I even had lovely photos (my mother can vouch for this!) of my soup, but they've since disappeared. I SHOULD have posted about this wonderful success back in October but missed the date because I was travelling. Why post now? Well, today is the day for the next challenge results to be posted - this is context. Any time I post about the Daring Kitchen, you'll be seeing a new adventure in the kitchen!

Lobster Spec-Tac-U-Laaarrrrr: The Main Event

2009-09-27T22:36:00.005-04:00

In our home, lobster is an anytime-event, but we do try to make it an event. A lobster dinner for eight cannot be anything but an event in our apartment, but we had such fun. We generally steam our lobsters, so the cooking involves putting on to boil big pots half-full of water. When they (finally!) come to a boil, in go the lobsters. There is a science to this, and I rely upon the man of the house to monitor all whole-lobster cooking, as he truly is a master.

For this event, we separated lobsters; the biggest goes into the water first, claws and head down, and the lid immediately goes back on the pot. Because we were cooking eight lobsters, we used two pots and put in all the lobsters over the course of about four minutes. From the time the first one went in they were in for about 14 minutes. While they are on, make sure the lids stay securely on top of them (this is how they can steam!) and you also want to put on your butter to melt over low heat. We always use a combination of salted and unsalted; how much you'll need is a matter of how you serve it and personal preference. For eight people, I used six sticks so everyone could have an individual dish of butter; it didn't all get used, but this way everyone could reach his or her own! Also make sure you put a colander of some sort in the sink. We tend to dump the pots as we can, and use tongs to get the lobsters out quickly.

Once those hot lobsters hit the sink, start running cold water over them. This serves multiple purposes. It stops the cooking process, so they taste sweet, soft and succulent (and are NOT chewy, gummy or some other weird texture!). It also helps the meat loosen from the shell. Finally, the cold water makes the lobsters cool enough to handle. Don't worry about cooling them down too much - you won't. But if they're not cooled at all, no one will be able to handle them to take them apart to enjoy!

This time, we also snipped off the tips of the claw shells, and let the water drain from them. I learned this trick at Mabel's Lobster Claw this summer in Maine. It made a world of difference in the amount of water in the lobster (as that steam condenses back into liquid form!) at the table. We served a platter of lobsters, eight little bowls of butter and a heaping plate of corn "grilled" in the oven as a last-minute emergency solution when we couldn't get to our building's grills. The feast was fabulous, and every morsel was deliciously devoured. You would think we couldn't eat any more.

Lobster Spec-Tac-U-Laaarrrrr: Spicing It Up

2009-09-27T21:48:00.007-04:00

One of my favorite kitchen pastimes is to try new recipes...and then fiddle with them. It drives my mother crazy, as she doesn't see how I can recreate anything with my constant fiddling, and it makes it hard for me to tell her exactly how to replicate a dish of mine. I worry about this less, and simply try to enjoy it. Recently, I found a new recipe for a "Spicy Adobo Shrimp Cocktail" in the August issue of Gourmet. I made it the first time just as directed in the recipe. I enjoyed it a lot - it was a huge hit in my house!

The next time I made it, I changed it a bit...in some areas more than others. They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Just in case this is true, I serve lobster fairly often! I swapped in some lobster meat for the shrimp in the recipe, making it a "lobster cocktail" instead. As you've gathered that lobster is popular in my house, this was a strategic alteration. The shrimp are great, but the sweetness of the lobster meat was an even better play against the adobo's heat. Still, I wasn't satisfied. The recipe, as you see, calls for celery. There's just something about celery that doesn't quite work for me. I'd cut back, but not enough to suit my tastes. And I added more other vegetables, but still could have gone with a higher veggie volume.

When the time came to plan the Lobster Spec-Tac-U-Laaarrrrr, I suggested this instead of a salad. You still get the goodness of a healthy spoonful of vegetables, and it is spiked with some heat and a yummy helping of lobster. This was met with immediate approval, but I knew I still wanted to make some adjustments.

What I did differently:
Protein: instead of all shrimp, I used about a half pound of shrimp and the chopped lobster meat from three tails, about 3-4 oz. each
Celery: omitted completely
Avocado: increased to two
Tomatoes: increased to three or four - I like tomatoes
Sauce: all components (ketchup, lime juice, adobo sauce, water) increased to 1.5 times the recipe amount (e.g., instead of 2 Tbsp. of water, I used 3 Tbsp.)

This does present a dish a little more like a fresh seafood salsa, but the flavors are very balanced, with the sweet meat, spicy sauce and fresh vegetables. If you like spicy, add in a little extra adobo sauce too (I confess - I added a little more!). The heat, sweet and sour mingle to create a clean flavor that is deeper than you'd expect.

A few tips that worked for me: I make the sauce first, in a big bowl. Then I chop the rest of the vegetables, piling them into the big bowl on top of the sauce. Gently stir together, cover and refrigerate. This lets the flavors meld and deepen. Then prepare your protein. My preference is to stir in the protein about a half hour or so before serving, so the sauce can permeate the meat a bit. Do as you wish!

This makes a lovely light dinner for two, perhaps with a salad and some bread. When I served it as such, it made me a very popular lady. It's also a lovely first or second course, as it was for the Lobster Spec-Tac-U-Laaarrrrr. In this instance, I served it in simple glass bowls or cocktail glasses. This made it a little fun, and sharing good food with good friends should be, above all, about fun, about enjoyment, about the pleasure of all of it - the food, the company, the evening.

Lobster Spec-Tac-U-Laaarrrrr: First Bite

2009-09-21T22:53:00.004-04:00

Deciding upon a menu for the End-of-Summer Lobster Spec-Tac-U-Laaarrrrr seemed simple enough at first. We had an entree plan to anchor the meal. I had a lovely "first course" idea, covering a second lobster dish. The pressure was on to come up with a third element to round out the lobster trifecta. Someone (who shall remain nameless) pointed out that I did not HAVE to do lobster three ways, but really...everything is better in threes. Branches of government, major points of emphasis in a speech, and lobster dishes at my house - all work best in threes!

I'd initially thought about a salad, which I've served several times before. It's very simple, but delicious...but also not as unlike my "first course" as I'd prefer. Sitting around on Thursday night I suggested crostini. From there, the idea flowed and I went shopping for my ingredients, relying upon flavors that I like together. I felt happy about the idea, pleased by the possibility of putting together something fun, and excited about the tastes I hoped to create.

In my kitchen on Saturday afternoon my confidence had waned a little bit. I more or less mangled the first grapefruit, and wasn't sure about the flavor profiles. I put together a sample, and fed it to my official taste-tester. He took a moment to respond, which made me a bit more nervous - what if my third dish didn't work? Could we survive with lobster only TWO WAYS? Then he smiled, and said he loved the flavors. He said they were distinct, and perhaps not everyone would like it, but that it was good. I grinned; that was the point. I love playing in the kitchen, putting together flavors that I love in new ways to see how they react. In the kitchen, sometimes the taste of the resulting dish is greater than that of the individual ingredients. This time it was.

End-of-Summer Lobster Crostini

Makes ~18 appetizers

- 3 lobster tails, about 4 oz. each
- 1-2 grapefruits (this depends entirely upon your knife skills with citrus - I needed two!)
- Approx. 3 inches of fresh ginger, as thick as two fingers (or two thumbs, if you have small fingers)
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise (can be plain, jarred mayonnaise or homemade - for this small an amount the effort of homemade did not appeal to me)
- 1 Tbsp ground ginger (make sure it still smells potent when you open the jar; if not, get a new jar of it, as ground herbs and spices lose potency over time!)
- 1 small French bread loaf, sliced into 3/4 inch thickness; should yield 18-22 slices

1. Find a medium saucepan. Ensure saucepan is big enough to comfortably fit all three lobster tails on the bottom. Set lobster aside, fill pan with water and bring to boil over high heat. Place a colander in your sink. When water in saucepan is boiling, add lobster tails to boiling water. Carefully stir to turn tails. They are done when the shells turn red and curl. Depending upon the size of the tails, this can be in as little as 6 minutes or as many as 10. [You will not be cooking the lobster any more in this recipe, so if you're not sure, you can go for the higher end of the time range. I recommend 7-8 minutes for four-ounce tails.]

2. When lobster is cooked, dump the water and lobster tails into the colander in the sink and run cold water over them. This stops the cooking, and also helps the meat release from the shells. When the tails are cool enough to handle, remove the tails from the shells. Try to do this in a single piece for each tail, in order to have the prettiest results!

3. Slice the tail meat into half-inch thick, coin-shaped slices, give-or-take. You should end up with about 18 slices of lobster meat. If the tails need cleaning, for this preparation I prefer to clean each individual slice of meat with a paring knife and pick, to maintain the lovely shape of the tail slices. Place clean lobster "coins" in a small dish, place a damp paper towel over them, and place in the fridge until ready to assemble.

4. Peel the grapefruit and separate into small segments with no pith or seeds. This is always the hardest part for me - It took me almost two entire grapefruits to get the 18-20 segments, or a similar amount of fruit, for this recipe. As you separate each segment, put it into a shallow bowl. Let the juices from the segments collect in the bowl, too - this is fine and how you want it to look!

5. Peel and mince the ginger. Mix half to two-thirds of the minced fresh ginger into the grapefruit bowl, stirring within the fruit and its juice. Let sit for at least 20 minutes on the counter.

6. In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise, remaining minced fresh ginger and ground ginger. Taste; if you like, add up to a half-teaspoon more ground ginger. Set aside.

7. Turn oven on to broil. Spread bread slices in single layer on baking sheet. Spritz lightly with olive oil. Broil for a few minutes, until bread begins to feel crusty to touch but is not browning much. Pull pan from oven. Turn over each slice, spritz with more olive oil and broil again until same doneness. Remove crostini from oven and from pan, letting cool slightly.

8. When crostini are cool, spread each with a little of the ginger mayonnaise. Top each with one lobster coin and a segment of the ginger-marinated grapefruit. I encourage you to try to get some of the minced ginger on the crostini with the grapefruit!

9. Put on a beautiful plate, share with friends and enjoy!

End of Summer Blowout Lobster Spec-Tac-U-Laaarrrrr: Introduction

2009-09-21T10:57:00.009-04:00

Dinner with friends is always a fun way to mark an occasion, the passage of time, or simply to unwind a bit. With this in mind, and the time flying by, we decided to host an end-of-summer dinner with a few friends. I'm not entirely sure the idea wasn't (not-so-)secretly about eating more lobster. I grew up in the mid-Atlantic region; I learned to eat crabs when I was pretty young. My husband, on the other hand, is a true New Englander, and loves lobster (this is the understatement of the year...honestly). We have lobster on a not-infrequent basis - because it's a holiday, because it's the beginning of summer, because it's Saturday, because the store had lots of lobsters. Any excuse for lobster! The latest excuse: a relaxing shared evening with friends to mark the end of summer...what else could we serve but lobster!?!?!

So, up to this point, one would assume a simple steamed lobster feast, right? Maybe a side of corn or something. We run in a slightly more...lobsterific...crowd, though! A few weeks ago, we had dinner with some friends, all of whom were planning to join us for the end of summer feast. That night we had pork in three different dishes, and the gauntlet was thrown. "Are we going to have lobster three ways?" With such a statement on the table, what else could I do, but plan such an event?

In true celebratory fashion, we served (and ate!) lobster, three ways. I'll cover the details in coming posts!

Celebrate Good Times...

2009-09-14T22:18:00.005-04:00

I have a reputation at work for asking, any time there is an event, if there will be cake. Growing up, I had amazing birthday cakes for many years - a beautiful butterfly, my favorite My Little Pony, Cheer Bear from the Care Bears...the list continues. At a certain point, though, I stopped having cakes. In recent years I've returned to the idea of celebration being marked with cake.

This weekend we celebrated a birthday in our house, and I made a birthday cake. After inviting a few friends to enjoy the cake with us, I discussed the plan - a lovely chocolate cake and a rich vanilla buttercream frosting. After poring over a number of cookbooks, I settled upon Lisa Yockelson's Velvety Chocolate Cake, from Chocolate Chocolate. Using so much butter, I knew it would be rich.

After the layers cooled, I decided to go for broke, and split each of the two layers in half. I made a bittersweet chocolate ganache and filled the layers with the chocolate. Then I made a simple vanilla buttercream and constructed the entire cake. Sometime during this time, the household "taste tester" came in and sampled the frosting. Deeming it worthy, I finished the cake.

While we only got through half the cake last night with our friends, the rich, sumptuous dessert seemed a fitting end to a celebratory weekend - a little more indulgent than necessary, but fun! There is something so lovely about a homemade cake on a cake stand that I just love. It looks ready to celebrate. The time it takes to make it is a labor of love, and to me means that the celebration is special - deserving of both the labor and that level of indulgence, of excess. Something beautiful and fun to share with those you love. Cake makes every occasion a little more fun, a little more special, a little sweeter.

A Girl's Gotta Eat!

2009-09-11T10:16:00.003-04:00

I've always enjoyed food. As a baby, I enjoyed carrots so much that I turned orange - literally. (Scientific factoid for you: beta-carotene is fat-soluble, and if you eat enough, it builds up in your fat tissues.) There are pictures of me standing on the countertops getting into the cabinets to find ingredients. I made my first cheesecake at 10, having seen a picture of it in Bon Appetit. I cooked with my parents, with my grandmother, with friends. I enjoyed making things, especially things that people enjoyed.

As an adult I continue to enjoy it. There's something amazing about trying something new for the first time, or recreating at home a dish you enjoyed in a restaurant, or simply putting together a beautiful plate of food. My mother sends me pix messages asking what ingredients are. My brother and sister-in-law and I discuss different ways to cook vegetables. I send pictures of food to friends and family. My father suggested the title for the blog, as perhaps these pictures are worth not a thousand words, but a thousand bites.

It's not all easy, or simple. Much of my adventures in the kitchen are messy. I've still not mastered making custard-based ice cream (I stick to Philly-style, with no eggs). I manage to splatter the kitchen with whatever I have on the stove top more often than not. In part, this led us to have a backsplash installed this summer - easier cleanup! Despite the challenges and failures, it's a labor of love. At the end of a workday, I like coming home and going to the kitchen. It occupies my hands and my mind, which allows me to relax.

Life is an adventure, and spending time in the kitchen is one of the important ways to enjoy it for me, and to share it with others. We can all enjoy other people over a shared table. Here I'll share it with you, too. Welcome to my table...I hope you enjoy and find it worth the bites.