Thyme For Food

Kufta and Rice

2010-12-24T16:52:00.001-05:00

Every once in a while I make a meal for the sake of eating something but not really expecting great things from it. Every once in a while those meals, simple as they may be in preparation and ingredients, surpass all the expectations I never had. This meal was one of them.

I had defrosted some ground beef with the intention of making enchiladas but then decided I didn't want enchiladas again and I wanted to try something else. I looked through some books and finally opened one I had not opened very often before. The book had some pages doggie-eared and I opened it to the first one. Kufta Mishwiya. Bingo! Of course, I needed a starch because that's how we roll so I looked in the same book for a rice recipe. Rizz Mufalfal. The name of the book is From the Lands of Figs and Olives and I've had it for a long time. It is a book with traditional recipes from the Middle East and North Africa. This is probably one of the first cookbooks I ever bought so I've had it for about 10 years or so. I had not made anything from it yet and now I wonder what took me so long.

I haven't traveled much through the Middle East and North Africa. I've only been to Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain but, for the most part, I have fond memories of the area. Mostly about food but that's the case with most places I've been to. I am a big carnivore so I'm always drawn to rotisseries, spits, etc. When I was in Egypt someone I knew locally took me to a small hole in the wall type restaurant in the middle of a souq in an area of Cairo that tourists would probably never find on their own. I had the best kufta of my life there. This person, a Canadian living in Cairo and working for National Geographic, took me some other great places I'd never have found on my own but I digress. I also had a lot of kufta on my own in the two weeks I was there. So, when I think Middle Eastern food, I think kufta.

The kufta and the rice are very, very easy to make but man, do they taste good. The process of almost frying the rice in butter before cooking it in the water makes this taste like no rice I've ever had. It cooks up beautifully. I added some yellow coloring just for kicks but it does not impact the taste at all. The picky eater in the house, my husband, agrees with me in that this is seriously good stuff so I suppose I'll be making it again.

This isn't actually Egyptian style kufta, it's Syrian and Lebanese. The recipes are adapted from the book. Now that I look at them in the picture, they are not very good looking once cooked, they look rather hhmm....shady. However, I can guarantee they do not taste like what they look like!

Kufta Mishwiya

1 lb beef (it does not have to be ground but it's fine if it is)
1 small onion
two handfuls fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of ground allspice
pinch of ground cayenne pepper
4 tbsp butter if frying

In the bowl of a food processor, chop the onion and parsley. Add the beef and the rest of the ingredients and process until it is all combined and looks like a paste. Form the meat into cylinder shapes around a skewer. If using wooden skewers, soak before using.

Broil in the oven or over charcoal or fry in a frying pan in heated butter, turning frequently to brown evenly.

Serves 4

Rizz Mufalfal (Arabic Plain Rice)

1/4 cup butter
1 cup long grain rice
2 cups water
salt to taste
(yellow coloring if desired)

Place the butter in a saucepan with a lid and melt. Add the rice and stir-fry on high heat for a few minutes. Make sure not to burn the rice. Add the water and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and cook for 15 minutes or until the water has been absorbed. Remove from the heat and allow the rice to finish cooking in its own steam, covered. for 5 minutes.

Serves 4

Dang Life

2010-09-07T12:54:00.002-04:00

I haven't cooked a real meal in so long that I think I forgot how.

Cake!

2010-08-07T20:17:00.001-04:00

This week I made a cake for a friend's baby shower. It was Devil's Food Cake with Oreo Swiss Meringue Buttercream filling. I don't like chocolate normally and even I ate it! It was good and yes, I realize I'm tooting my own horn :P.

The guts:

Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

2010-07-12T14:11:00.001-04:00

Being the shopping addict that I am (to some degree anyway), sometimes I just can't resist a sale. A couple of weeks ago I was grocery shopping and the blueberry punnets were BOGO so I got two. My husband had bought a lot of those green plastic tubs that are supposed to keep your produce fresh for longer and I stuck the blueberries in there. I made some pancakes at some point but that didn't use much fruit, I still had a lot to figure out how to use.

I considered pie, jam, preserves, you name it. I finally decided to make some ice cream. Well, frozen yogurt to be exact (I also had a large pot of yogurt waiting to be used). Turns out, I had just the right amount of berries!

Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

2 cups blueberries
3/4 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 1/4 cups whole milk, natural, plain yogurt (NOT LOW FAT)

Put the blueberries, sugar and water into a saucepan and heat over medium low until the sugar dissolves and the berries start to give out their juice. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 30 minutes.

Put the cooled berries and yogurt into a blender and process until the mixture is smooth. Pour into a strainer set over a large bowl and push the mixture through in a circular motion with the back of a spatula. Discard the solids that remain in the strainer. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for one hour.

Churn using an ice cream machine until frozen. Transfer to a freezer safe container, cover and freeze for 3 hours before serving.

If it is frozen for longer and becomes too hard, remove the lid and place in the refrigerator to soften about 30 minutes before serving.

I'm not a huge fan of frozen yogurt, mostly because the ones I've had before are crap, but this one is good! It does freeze rock hard though and needs to be left to soften so it will help curb your impulse frozen yogurt binges!

Sgroppino al Limone

2010-07-12T13:54:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Pampered Chef party at a friend's house where frozen lemon martini type drinks were served. They were delicious and I really wanted to make them at home but we don't have any vodka and I really didn't want to buy any just for a little bit. So, one afternoon this past week I decided it was time for happy hour and I made the closest thing to that drink, my version of sgroppino.

Sgroppino is an Italian drink made with Limoncello (or vodka most likely), lemon sorbet and some sort of sparking wine. There are other ingredients added such as sugar, ice, etc, depending on who's making them. There isn't one true and authentic recipe and thus I don't claim this one is either. At any rate, it was decidedly delicious and I didn't make a second glass because, you know, drinking alone in the middle of the afternoon, no matter how difficult your toddler has been, is frowned upon ;)

June's Sgroppino al Limone

sugar
1 large scoop good quality lemon sorbet
2 - 4 tbsp Limoncello (you can add as much or as little as you like. I like Limoncello.... alot)
sweet sparkling wine such as Moscato d'Asti

Put highball glass in the freezer for about 15 minutes. Spread some sugar in a small plate and dip the rim of the glass into it to coat. In a blender or using an immersion blender, blend the sorbet and Limoncello. Pour into the glass. Pour enough wine in the glass to almost fill it, or to taste.

Makes 1 drink.

This is the kind of drink you can get seriously sloshed on really quickly because you can't really taste the alcohol. Then again, I'm a cheap date (no, I wasn't drunk after one drink though).

2010-07-09T09:20:00.001-04:00

Basil Glazed Chicken and Sauteed Broccoli

2010-07-08T22:05:00.001-04:00

I threw this dinner together in about half an hour, including prep. I wasn't really expecting it to be anything special but I was very pleasantly surprised. The chicken in particular was really good. My husband doesn't really eat a whole lot of broccoli and he finished mine off! The best part? It's a Weight Watchers friendly dinner!

The cannellini mash recipe can be found here.

Basil-Glazed Chicken

4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil

Pound the chicken thighs with a mallet to even out the thickness. Sprinkle both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook until lightly browned. Turn the chicken and cook until done. Stir in the balsamic vinegar, honey and basil. Cook 1 minute, turning the chicken to coat with the glaze.

Serves 4

Sauteed Broccoli

I pound broccoli florets
2 tsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp salt

Steam the broccoli, covered, in the microwave for 3 minutes; drain.

Head the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute or until it begins to turn golden. Take care not to burn the garlic, it will taste bitter. Add the broccoli. Saute, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and sprinkle with salt; toss well.

Serves 4

I used basil from my very own garden! The honey was from our local CSA and I've been eating it by the mouthful.

Ya Think We Like'em?

2010-07-07T22:58:00.002-04:00

I just realized that my last three entries have been about potato. I don't know why I'm surprised, we love potatoes!

Leek and Potato Soup with Ham

2010-07-07T22:51:00.002-04:00

I'm a self-professed Francophile so I'm always eager to try French dishes, especially if I've never had them before. Although not technically French (it is an American version of a traditional French soup), I've wanted to try Vichyssoise since I first heard of it. The name alone I found extremely sophisticated and I liked the idea of leek and potato, however, I couldn't get passed the fact that it was a chilled soup. I try to be open minded (within reason) when it comes to food but I simply cannot wrap my head around cold food. I should specify that by that I mean cold savory food, food meant to be eaten at dinner time, before dessert. Clearly ice cream and other desserts I'm fine with, but not soup, entrees, sides, etc.

Something I find very interesting, and odd, is that I grew up in a tropical country where houses don't have AC and it is bloody hot year round yet cold food is unheard of. I never, not once, heard about cold soups or anything of the like. People there like their food hot, or at least warm, nevermind the heat and the buckets of sweat. You would think that in such a climate people would WANT to eat cold food but not so. Because I was brought up thinking that table food had to be hot, I've never even tried Gaspacho. I suppose this is one of my food hang ups and one that, I suspect, I will probably never get over.

So, fast-forward to a few days ago. We were at Whole Paycheck, I mean Whole Foods, on Saturday buying some things for the cookout we were having on the 4th. I saw some huge, beautiful leeks and I decided I'd be making Vichyssoise this week ... or at least hot leek and potato soup. Matt loves both leeks and potatoes so, price of the leeks aside, I heard no complaints from him.

I finally got around to making the soup a couple of days ago. When I think French (or pseudo French) food, I think Julia Child. The irony! I looked through my Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Vichyssoise and it was right there in volume one. I sorta mixed two of the recipes, the Vichyssoise and the Potage Parmentier, as my base. My own tweaks included sauteing the leeks and adding the ham. So hot indeed that we were both sweating by the time we were done eating. The fact that I had mine sprinkled with cayenne pepper made it even hotter.... in a good way. I tried the leftovers cold for lunch the next day, just to see how it went, and I still could not get past the cold. I warmed it up and devoured it a second; then a third time for dinner. Julia has yet to lead me astray.

Leek and Potato Soup with Ham

2 tbsp olive oil
3 cups leek whites and tender greens, thinly sliced
3 cups peeled sliced starchy potatoes
1 1/2 quarts (6 cups) chicken broth
1 cup diced cooked ham (good quality, please!)
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
salt and pepper to taste.

In a large dutch oven or heavy bottomed pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the leeks and cook, stirring often, until they are starting to cook down and become translucent. You are sweating the leeks, not browning them. If they start to brown, your heat is too high.

Add the potatoes, broth, salt and pepper and stir. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered and stirring a few times, for about 30-40 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Starchy potatoes will tend to fall apart and that's desired here.

Remove from the heat and, very carefully, blend using an immersion blender. If you do not have an immersion blender, wait until the soup has cooled somewhat before blending it in a blender or food processor. How much you blend it depends on how much, or little, texture you want. If you used a blender, return the soup to the pot.

Add the ham and cook until the ham has warmed through, 3 or 4 minutes. Correct the seasoning if needed. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

I really liked this soup and I REALLY liked it with the cayenne pepper. My husband, who LOVES potatoes and is usually picky picky, said that he liked it better without the cayenne. He also said that that soup would have been just fine without the ham, just leek and potato. I added the ham but you don't have to, it's a mighty good soup either way.

Bon Appetit, Mon Ami!

Potato and Chickpea Curry and Saffron Risotto with Butternut Squash

2010-07-03T23:34:00.001-04:00

I am SOOOO behind in posting it's not even funny! Because I'm so behind, I'll only post two of the best recipes I've cooked lately.

The first recipe is a potato curry that has become a staple in our house. I was sure that I had blogged about it before but I cannot find the post so I guess I didn't. It can be spicy or mild depending on the amount of ground mustard and cayenne pepper you use. We like it spicy but not blow-your-brain hot.

Potato Chickpea Curry

3 tbsp ghee
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground mustard (powder)
1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper
6 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
2 cups of water
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt
1/2 cup frozen peas

In a large skillet, melt the ghee. Add the spices and mix well. Add the potatoes to the mix and stir to coat well with the spice mixture. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring often.

Add the water to the potatoes. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 20 minutes. Add the chickpeas and cook for a further 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Add the yogurt and the frozen peas, mix well. Cook until heated through.

Serves 4

We eat this with rice and it's so flipping good.

Next up is a really good take on risotto. I was watching the food network one morning while I was recovering from surgery and Ina Garten, aka The Barefoot Contessa, was on. She was making what she claims was a quick lunch for a friend. It was risotto with roasted butternut squash. No, watching Ina is a bit painful I think but as far as her cooking and her recipes, she has yet to lead me astray. Being a lover of seafood, butternut squash, etc, I decided to give this a go a few weeks later. I was very happy with the results. I made a few substitutions, mainly to accommodate for ingredients I actually had, but it was SOOO good.

Saffron Risotto with Butternut Squash

1 butternut squash (about 2 pounds)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
2 ounces bacon, diced
1/2 cup minced shallots (2 large)
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice (10 ounces)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon saffron threads
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Peel the butternut squash, remove the seeds, and cut it into 3/4-inch cubes. You should have about 6 cups. Place the squash on a sheet pan and toss it with the olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, tossing once, until very tender. Set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the chicken stock in a small covered saucepan. Leave it on low heat to simmer.
In a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter and saute the bacon and shallots on medium-low heat for 10 minutes, until the shallots are translucent but not browned. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains with butter. Add the wine and cook for 2 minutes. Add 2 full ladles of stock to the rice plus the saffron, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Stir, and simmer until the stock is absorbed, 5 to 10 minutes. Continue to add the stock, 2 ladles at a time, stirring every few minutes. Each time, cook until the mixture seems a little dry, then add more stock. Continue until the rice is cooked through, but still al dente, about 30 minutes total. Off the heat, add the roasted squash cubes and Parmesan cheese. Mix well and serve.

Serves 4 to 6

I used smoked bacon and the sweetness of the squash went beautifully with it as well as the saltiness of the cheese. It was really, really good. The leftovers were almost even better the next day!

Loaded Creamy Potato Soup

2010-05-30T21:35:00.000-04:00

I'm not feeling particularly chatty right now but I do want to share this recipe. Well, I really just want to write it down before I forget it because it came fully from my head and easy come easy go! This soup is really good and really hearty. Even my son, the picky eater, liked it although he didn't eat much of it.

Creamy Potato Soup

2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/8 tsp ground cumin
4 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
chicken stock/broth, approximately 3 cups
1 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
crumbled bacon
grated Cheddar cheese
chopped scallions

Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add the garlic, oregano and cumin and cook, stirring, for approximately two minutes taking care not to burn the garlic. Add the diced potatoes and cook, stirring, for a further two minutes. Add enough chicken broth to cover the potatoes. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until the potatoes are tender; approximately 15 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat and using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. If you prefer some texture blend until only a few pieces of potato remain whole. Add the cream and whisk well to combine. Check for seasoning and season with salt and pepper as needed. Return to the stove and cook until heated through.

Ladle the soup into serving bowls and top with the bacon, cheese and scallions. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

I'm not gonna lie, Matt and I ate everything except for the small bowl Liev had. It was good. I felt like I needed a nap after that meal. The scallions came from my very own Square Foot Garden!

Kaiserschmarren and Arancini di Riso

2010-05-30T12:15:00.004-04:00

I think it's no secret that I have a thing for everything vintage and historical. I am particularly interested in the history of food and cookery which is why I have a pretty respectable collection of historical cookery books ranging from ancient Rome to 1950s. I think that's where I draw the line when I mean "historical cookery". I do consider vintage cookbooks up to the 50s historical and if you've ever read such books you will know why. First, while the name of many recipes is familiar, the procedures and even ingredients are quite strange at times. Then there's the measurements. For example, a 1956 book I recently acquired calls for "gills" of this and that and it doesn't mean fish breathing organs!

I actually had to look that up because I had never come across that reference before. Turns out a gill is a archaic unit of measure that is equal to 1/4 pint. Of course, this means that an Imperial gill and an American gill are different since the pints are different in those two systems. An Imperial gill is 5 fluid ounces, roughly 142 ml. An American gill is 4 fluid ounces, roughly 118 ml. This particular book was published in the UK so I will assume it uses Imperial gills.

Anyhow, that's just a little trivia for you. I bought this book, The Constance Spry Cookery Book on eBay along with a 1955 copy of The Perfect Hostess Cook Book by Mildred O. Knopf. The books original prices were 50 schillings and $3.95 respectively. I wish cookbooks were that cheap these days!

I was looking through The Perfect Hostess book the night it arrived and I found a recipe I wanted to try right then and there. That's not unheard of but it's not all that common either. I waited until the next day, yesterday, to try it. It was Kaiserschmarren; pretty descriptive name, no? Not. By reading the name and the ingredient list I knew that it was Austro-Hungarian and I knew that it was sweet. Those two things combined are rarely bad so I felt compelled to make it. Just to be sure, I looked it up on good old Flickr and it looked even better than it sounded. Kaiserschmarren is a caramelized pancake that is cooked in butter and broken up into pieces (thus the "schmarren") and served with powder sugar, fruit compotes, etc for dessert. It was first made for Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph I, hence the "kaiser" part. I made one substitution beacuse I didn't have brandy, but I think my substitution made it even better!

Kaiserschmarren

3 eggs
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 cup flour, sifted
pinch of salt
2 oz unsalted butter
1/4 cup raisins
2 tbsp vanilla cognac
powder sugar

Separate the yolks and the whites.

Beat the egg yolks with1 tablespoon of sugar until light. Add the milk alternately with the flour.

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff but not dry. Fold gently into the yolk mixture.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over moderate heat. Pour the batter into the skillet. Brown slightly and turn. Turn once again and brake up into fairly small pieces using two forks.

Add the raisins and vanilla cognac, turning the pieces of pancake over with a spatula as they cook. Place on a serving platter. Serve sprinkled with powder sugar to taste.

Serves 4

It's so easy and so good! I'm used to American style pancake batter so this batter seemed very heavy and thick before I folded the egg whites in. I was tempted to thin it out but I figured that since I've never made this before I'd follow the recipe and see what happened. I'm glad I did because it was fine after I cooked it. It was SOOOO good. The vanilla cognac really made this dessert. I had mine with powder sugar and then with some breakfast syrup. I was delicious both ways. I will definitely be making this again!

My son has gotten to the stage where he refuses to be spoon fed. He will fight tooth and nail at meal times if I even try. It doesn't matter what it is, he doesn't even open his mouth so it's not a case of him not liking the food. Turns out, he wants to feed himself all the time. This poses an enormous hassle for me because every day I figure out what finger food I can make for him that won't take me ages and that is somewhat nutritious and varied. Ideally he'd always eat the same thing we eat but until he can successfully use utensils, that's just not going to happen.

I was looking through some books yesterday trying to figure out what the heck to make for him and I remembered arancini. Arancini are little rice balls that I used to have in Italy all the time. They are normally fairly big but they can be made child-bite sized and that's what I decided to do. They are not difficult to make but they do take some time. If you made a large batch I'm sure you could freeze the balls and then just fry them from frozen since the rice is cooked prior to forming the balls. Arancini would normally be served with a sauce of some kind, a tomato sauce usually, but I didn't bother. Liev loved them and we ate them too. I made 12 little balls without mozzarella for Liev and then 19 or so larger balls for us and fried them separately. The outside of these balls is beautifully crisp and then you get that nice melted mozzarella surprise when you bite into them. Campania in every bite!

Mount Vesuvio from my balcony in Gricignano.

Arancini di Riso

1 cup Arborio rice
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 tbsp tomato puree
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1/3 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
fresh mozzarella cut in small cubes (one cube for every ball)
fine, dry bread crumbs
oil for deep-fat frying

In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the rice until tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Drain the rice and run it under cool tap water. Drain again.

In a mixing bowl, combine the rice with the beaten eggs. Add the tomato puree, salt, pepper and the grated cheese. Mix well and refrigerate until cold.

Place the bread crumbs in a shallow bowl or on a plate and line a cookie sheet with wax or parchment paper. Keeping your hands moist to prevent the rice from sticking. Use a small cookie dough scoop to measure the rice mixture. Place one scoop on the palm of your hand and flatten out slightly. Place one mozzarella cube in the center and then bring the rice around the mozzarella making sure that it's fully covered. Shape into a ball and place on the prepared cookie sheet. When all the balls have been shaped, roll them in the bread crumbs and coat well.

In a deep-fat fryer or deep pot with enough oil to fully cover the balls, heat the oil to 375°F. Fry the balls 5 or 6 at a time for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. The balls will be done when they have a deep golden-orange color. Serve immediately.

Makes 20 to 24 balls

This is an instance when a proper deep-fat fryer is golden. I'm Cuban so it would be almost heresy for me not to have one. I don't use it often but I'm glad I have it for times when I do need it. I have tried deep-fat frying on the stove but it's so hard to maintain the oil at the right temperature. Not only that but after you are done frying you are still left with a pot of oil you don't know what to do with. It usually sits there for a while until you realize it's gone rancid so you put it in a empty milk gallon and throw it away. Ask me how I know. The deep fat fryers are much better; they keep the oil at the right temperature AND they store the oil! You don't have to throw the oil away every time you use it and because most fryers have a lid, it takes longer to go rancid.

Lunch AND Dinner!

2010-05-05T21:30:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was an odd day for me, I actually cooked lunch. Lunchtime came around and, as usual, I had nothing ready. I was famished because I had been cleaning the house all morning so I needed something hearty. I remembered that I have a crapload of frozen pasta from my recent pasta making binges. I love Carbonara but Matt does not so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for me to enjoy some. It had been a while since I made Carbonara so my first instinct was to grab my authentic Italian cookbooks for a refresher. That quickly reminded me how many different ways to make Carbonara there are! The end result is always the same though, the cooking method is just a means to an end. I did not have pancetta so I had to use bacon, no big deal.

Fettuccine alla Carbonara

7 oz fresh fettuccine
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
4 oz bacon, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1/4 cup grated Pecorino plus more for garnish
salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Brown the bacon with the garlic in the oil, remove the garlic when the bacon begins to brown. Cook the pasta in the boiling water as instructed in the package or pasta recipe.

While the pasta cooks, mix the egg, egg yolk and Pecorino in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix to obtain a creamy sauce.

As soon as the pasta is ready, drain it and immediately toss it with the bacon and egg mixture. Sprinkle with more grated Pecorino.

Serves 2

The truth is, I ate all that myself but it IS enough to serve two as part of a bigger meal; or two people who are not piggies like me. This is really good and it's not eggy at all. It is not as good as the amazing carbonaras I had in Italy but it's the next best thing, especially with the homemade pasta. I was stuffed to the gills.

Of course, I still had dinner to think about. Luckily I actually made a meal plan a few days ago which I've been following so I knew what I was making. This was the first time I had chance to try my brand spanking new knives, chopping sun-dried tomatoes, chicken and potatoes. The knife cut through the chicken breast like it was air. LOVE.

Rosemary, Brie and Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken with Corn Mash

30g dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped finely
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
4 chicken breasts
60g firm Brie, quartered
1kg red potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp fat free milk
2 tbsp light sour cream
1 310g can creamed corn

Preheat the oven to 375°F

Combine the tomato and rosemary in a small bowl. Using a sharp knife, slit a pocket in one side of each chicken breast taking care not to slice all the way through. Divide the tomato mixture and cheese among the pockets.

Spray an oven-safe skillet with nonstick cooking spray and heat over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken breast on both sides, taking care not to spill the filling while flipping. Once browned, transfer the skillet to the oven and cook for 20 minutes.

In the mean time, boil the potatoes with the garlic in salted water until tender. Drain the potatoes and mash them with the milk and sour cream. Fold in the creamed corn and season to taste.

Serves 4

My favorite part of this meal was the mash. It was GOOOOOD. REALLY GOOD. We love mashed potatoes around here but it would have never occured to me to add corn, which we also love. I will definitely be making mash like this again

A Sharp Delivery

2010-05-05T13:38:00.004-04:00

I stalked the FedEx delivery man yesterday until he finally arrived with the package I was expecting. I tore the box open as soon as it arrived, I was just that excited about it.

Shun knives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been using crappy knives since we got married. They are so dull that I've had countless accidents and slippings and not once have I cut myself. It took so much force to cut into anything that it wasn't even funny. These puppies though cut through everything like it's butter. I'm almost afraid to use them lest I dull them or slice my fingers clean off. I'm in love. LOVE. I suppose they are my Mother's Day present.

We got them during the Wootoff last week at a great price, we wouldn't have been able to afford them otherwise. The two big ones are 8 1/4 inches long and the little one is 4 1/8 inches long and they are from the Pro line. They are not top of the line but they are worlds away from my crappy 16-knives-for $60 set which I will not miss. Needless to say, these babies will get the handwash treatment. No dishwasher for them!

An Afternoon at the Farm

2010-05-03T21:26:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the end of season potluck lunch and gleaning day at Bee Heaven Farm. They are the people that run the local CSA and where we've been going every Saturday morning since November to pick up our vegetable box. We had a great time, I had actually been looking forward to this since I found out we'd be able to pick vegetables to our hearts' content!

There was so much food that I couldn't try it all. I took homemade Banoffee Pie and I was actually rather surprised to find out no one I talked to had ever heard of such a pie. I wish I had taken pictures of the pie but I actually finished it at the very last minute (I AM a slacker). I can tell you however that it was finger-licking good and that there was not a crumb left. The turnout was great although I only recognized one person, Caroline from the Occasional Omnivore.

Crappy iPhone pictures.

As for the vegetables, we (well, I) picked quite a bit. I picked so many carrots that I have no idea what I'm going to do with them. I think I'll freeze some for the summer. Aside from two kinds of carrots, I picked parsnips, kale, some sort of pea, scallions, young onions, tomatoes, plantains, rosemary, oregano, parsley and sage. Quite the loot!

Liev had a great time running around, picking parsnips and just being a little boy who was able to roam free and get dirty. He ate tomatoes right off the vine and mulberries right off the tree. The potluck was right during his nap time and he didn't even miss it. He did nap on the very short drive home and then on me on the couch. We thought he'd be cranky and we were prepared to leave early but he was so great. I guess he was having too much fun to think about sleeping.

The CSA season is over but I am very much looking forward to the summer fuits and those enormous avocados they have. Great times. Everyone should have the opportunity to do this, it is so satisfying and that's coming from a city girl through and through!

Lentil Cottage Pie

2010-04-29T22:15:00.002-04:00

Lentils have become a staple around here. They are so versatile and tasty. They've gone and done it again here. I didn't miss the meat one bit! We should really have more vegetarian meals. We rarely eat red meat at home as it is but we do eat a fair amount of chicken.

Lentil Cottage Pie

2 pounds red potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 tbsp butter/canola oil spread (I used Land O' Lakes)
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 450g can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup water
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/3 cup dry red wine
2/3 cup red lentils, dry
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
3/4 cup frozen peas
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375°F

Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender.

Melt 1 tablespoon of the spread in a large, deep skillet. Cook the onion and garlic, stirring, until the onion softens. Add the next 7 ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the peas and Worcestershire sauce. Cook, uncovered, for 5 more minutes.

Mash the potatoes with the remaining tablespoon of spread. Spoon the lentil mixture into a shallow ovenproof dish. Spread the potato mash on top. Bake uncovered, for 25 minutes. Let the pie stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 4

This is a good, hearty meal. Not fancy in the slightest but good nonetheless. If you are into calories and what not, each serving has 320 calories, 7.2 grams of fat and 11.3 grams of fiber. That's 6 Weight Watchers points. Not too shabby. I made the full recipe and froze half, I should really freeze meals more often.

Ricotta and Basil Ravioli

2010-04-27T21:52:00.001-04:00

OK, I was on a pasta roll before but it's even worse (or better I guess) now that I got a pasta attachment set for the mixer!!!! It has the pasta roller, spaghetti cutter and fettuccine cutter. LOVE it. LOOOOOOVE it. LUUURVEE it. It's SOOOOO quick and easy to roll the pasta now. Really, I'm in love. Is it wrong to love a hunk of metal and some gears?

The weekend before last we went to Whole Foods for a few things. We try to avoid that place cause you can easily spend your child's inheritance there but we do go every now and then. I picked up a tub of fresh ricotta hoping to make some ravioli with it. I also picked up a basil plant, the hydroponics type that is not meant to be kept alive. A couple of days later I made these ravioli and froze them for a quick meal some other time. Tonight was that time. The filling was so nice and rich. You could definitely taste the basil but it wasn't overpowering. I used tomato sauce as a complement rather than to drown to the ravioli in it and it was great, it did not mask the flavor of the ricotta filling. Again, Matt gobbled it right up. I guess he's really starting to like pasta!

Ricotta and Basil Ravioli

For the dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
3 large eggs, beaten

In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the flat beater, mix the flour and eggs for about 1 minute. Scrape the dough off the beater and change to the dough hook. Knead for about 3 minutes. The dough will look dry and pebbly. Bring the dough together with your hands and knead, by hand, until it has come together fully. You may need to add a small amount of water but not much. Flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

For the filling:
1 cup ricotta cheese
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup minced fresh basil
1/2 tsp salt
ground black pepper to taste.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until well integrated. Can be covered and refrigerated overnight.

Assemble the ravioli following these instructions if working by hand. You can also follow these instructions or your preferred method.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, add a small amount of olive oil. Cook the ravioli in batches until they float. This may take as little as a minute or as much as 4 if frozen. It really depends on a lot of factors so watch the pot. Serve with your preferred sauce.

Serves 4

There are a ton of resources on the internet about rolling and filling ravioli and they do a much better job at describing it that I can in this post so check them out. I think I will at some point do a demo but until then, I'm outsourcing my dirty work ;)

The dough will look really, really dry but trust me, it works! Ask me how I know. OK, I'll tell you! I actually made two batches of this dough. The first one I made just as I posted here. I seriously thought I had messed up because it looked so dry in the mixer bowl. I did put it together into a ball quite easily and it was really easy to work with later on. For the second batch I decided to add more water while kneading and it was easier to knead but not so easy to work with later on while rolling and forming the ravioli. As little water as possible is the way to go.

I'm so in love with this pasta business. Fresh pasta is just so much better than the dry commercial stuff and homemade pasta is MUCH better than fresh pasta at the supermarket. It is true that it is time consuming, but it's not hard. If you can devote an afternoon to making a few batches you can freeze it and be set for a while..again ask me how I know. I have so many more combinations in my head, flavored pasta, colored pasta, shapes, etc and I can't wait to try them all. Cliche alert......Oh, the pastabilities!

During the photo shoot a little somebody saw some food on the table and grabbed the fork. I guess he figured it was on HIS table so it was his. LOL. It was the cutest thing ever, so cute in fact that I will inflict the cuteness upon you. I love this little guy even more than I love the pasta making junk. Check out my other blog for more pictures!

Braised Oxtail

2010-04-26T21:40:00.001-04:00

Every now and again I come across a food or ingredient that I never thought of buying before and that I would not have specifically set to buy but I buy it anyway. Just for kicks, just for the heck of it. I was at BJs (the wholesale club) a few days ago when I spotted some oxtail in the meat section. I immediately thought about the fiery oxtail stew my mom makes aptly named "Rabo Encendido" (flaming tail or something along those lines). It is called that because it is hot, black pepper hot (Cubans don't really use hot chiles). I don't know how to make it but I do know it's delicious. On a whim, I picked up the oxtail and took it home. For 3 days I tried to decide how to cook it. I looked for a recipe for "Rabo Encendido" in the few Cuban cookbooks I have but I couldn't find any. I finally settled for a simple braised oxtail recipe from a Williams Sonoma book which, sadly, contains a mistake.

Of course, I adapted it because that's just how I roll. This was the perfect day to braise, it was rainy and yucky outside so I didn't feel I was missing out on anything by staying home and slow cooking the oxtail. It smelled delicious while it was cooking and now the whole house smells of food. I have to admit that as much as I like food and cooking I hate the smell that it creates after the fact. This is why I hate open plan kitchens almost as much as I hate washing dishes. In theory, open plan kitchens are great because you are not cooped up and alienated from the family or the guests while cooking....but only in theory. In reality, they stink up the house and goodness forbid you should fry fish. Not to mention that kitchens that are actually used more than to boil water for ramen noodles or nuke some TV dinners are not usually perfectly tidy (unless you are super anal about that sort of stuff). I use my kitchen, clearly, so it is not usually in a state I am perfectly happy to let the UPS man see when he knocks on the door. Yes, my kitchen can be seen from the front door. So, when I build a house, it will have a closed kitchen. It will be French Country style and have a big farm sink. It wil also have a 60 inch La Cornue dual fuel range and an excellent ventilation system. For entertaining and family gathering purposes, it will have a long farm table. A girl can dream.

Braised Oxtail

2 tbsp all purpose flour
salt and pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
2 lbs oxtail cut into individual joints
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 slices thick cut smoked bacon, chopped
1/3 cup tomato paste
1/2 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup red wine
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 carrot, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1/2 tsp dry oregano

   On a plate, mix the flour 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper. In a large Dutch oven heat up the oil over medium-high heat. Roll the oxtail in the seasoned flour, shake off the excess and cook in the oil, turning occasionally, until all the sides are browned. Remove from the pot and set aside.

   Add the onions to the pot and saute, stirring constantly, until they begin to soften and brown, about 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and bacon and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato paste and sugar and stir to combine, cook for about 1 minute. Add the wine and deglaze the pan, stirring and scrapping the bottom with a wooden spoon. Bring the wine to a boil, stir in the broth and bring to a boil.

   Return the oxtail and any accumulated juices to the Dutch oven. Add the carrots, celery and oregano, stir. Cover and cook over very low heat stirring and turning occasionally until the meat is very tender, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Uncover and use a ladle to skim the fat from the sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

   If you prefer to make it in a slow cooker, after you have brought the broth to a boil on the stove, place the oxtail and the sauce along with the carrots, celery and oregano in the slow cooker. Cook for 3 1/2 hours on high or 7 hours on low. Skim the fat the same way as for the stove top. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 3

Most of the cooking time is actually not active so you can do other things around the house whole the meat braises away. I served it with garlic mashed potatoes and it worked beautifully. This dish was a great success and definitely worth the cooking time. Fast is not always better!

By the way, the carrots are from my very own container garden!

Coconut Key Lime Mini Cupcakes

2010-04-26T11:35:00.000-04:00

I made some cute little cupcakes for a picnic I went to yesterday. They were bite-size Coconut Key Lime cupcakes and they were really good, especially if you like the tartness of key limes. I might make this in regular size at some point.

Advancing With The Times

2010-04-24T23:50:00.001-04:00

I took the plunge! This blog now has it's own Facebook page!!! Find it here: Thyme For Food on Facebook. Go like it, pretty please with a cherry on top!!!!! I'm shameless.

Food and Garden Festival

2010-04-24T18:46:00.002-04:00

We spent our late morning and afternoon at the Fairchild Tropical Garden's Food and Garden Festival today. We went mostly because the local farm that runs the CSA, Bee Heaven Farm, would be there but also because we are very interested in local food and sustainability. It was actually far busier than we expected it to be but we had a good time and did some shopping.

The best part was a panel made up of local food bloggers (I was contacted about it but wasn't selected). The panelists were Tinkering With Dinner, Edgy Veggie, Mango and Lime, MiamiDish and The Occasional Omnivore. It was very entertaining plus I won a cookbook! I guess I was a talker, I mean, obnoxious enough that they thought they better give me a book to shut me up. The book is called Eating Well in Season, The Farmer's Market Cookbook. I can't wait to go through it and mark the recipes that sound good. The festival was good overall and we are thinking about going back tomorrow. Ingrid Hoffman will be there, she's a bit annoying but hey, I'm up for it.

Here are some pictures.

Conch Fritters

What's your number?

2010-04-18T23:07:00.002-04:00

The last time I counted my cookbooks, probably a couple of years ago, I had somewhere around 200-210. Today I discovered a website called LibraryThing which lets you catalog your books. I painstakingly entered every cookbook I own into my personal database and finished a little while ago. The magic number is ~~308~~ 315. WOW. That's a lot. I still haven't entered the small, pamphlet like books because I consider them more like magazines but I will input them at some point. This should bring the number up to 350 or so. That's scary. Like, I could run a private cookbook library scary.

Now you can have a peak into my cooking library through the new widget on the side bar! You can see every cookbook I own, just click on the LibraryThing widget. I wonder what my cookbooks say about me.

What's your number?

Bella Napoli, How I Miss You!

2010-04-17T21:14:00.003-04:00

We go through life often taking things for granted. People and come into our lives and go and only then do we realize how important they were. The same goes for places, especially places we live in. We spent our time there saying how much we dislike this or that about it but rarely see the positive. Then we leave for good and we realize what a big impact that place had in our lives. Years down the road you still find yourself yearning to go back, even if just for a little while. For me this place is Naples, Italy (and London to a lesser extent).

I can't say that I wasted my 3 years there but I definitely did not appreciate them to the fullest or enjoyed them to the fullest. There was so much left undone that it made my departure bittersweet. While I lived there it never occurred to me that one day I'd miss it. As a matter of fact, I was certain that wouldn't. Little did I know that the dump that is the Campania are, literally, had grown on me and would be with me always. This is sappy, I know, but it really is how I feel.

I remember the food the most (DUH!) and it was good. Boy, was it good! I had never had food that fresh in my life. I remember the very first time I went to a restaurant there I ordered scampi and the waiter brought me the plate the scampi was so fresh it was looking at me....cooked but intact. It does not get any fresher. This freaked me out but once I got past the ick factor it was SOOO good. One of my favorite dishes from Campania is saute di vongole (sauteed clams). It is served as an antipasto and it's out of this world. They make it very simply, the clams are just steamed in wine, olive oil and garlic then served with bread on the side to soak up the delicious juice. Seriously one of the best things I have eaten my life. So simple yet so incredibly delicious. I remember sitting in the outdoor area of a particular Aversa restaurant (can't remember the name) on several occasions enjoying the vongole before my pasta came. I miss those days and I wish I could turn back time, I'd take more advantage of it.

I'm not telling you all this just for the sake of reminiscing, although reminiscing was what prompted me to make this in the first place. Today I made fettuccine alle vongole and of course I used a traditional Neapolitan recipe. It was so good; not quite like that of Naples but good nonetheless. This is the same saute de vongole served in Naples except that pasta is used to soak up the clam juices instead of bread. I'm so glad I made it, every bite was a like a trip back Naples and I liked it.

Fettuccine alle Vongole

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white wine
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
a pinch hot red pepper flakes
1 pound clams (I used littleneck)
4 oz dried fettuccine

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

In a lidded pot over medium low heat combine the oil, wine, garlic and hot pepper flakes. Cook until the garlic just begins to color. Add the clams, cover the pan and shake a few times. Increase the heat to medium high and cook, shaking the pan a few times, until the clams open, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the clams and set aside.

Cook the pasta until very al dente. Drain it and turn into the pot with the clam juices. Toss and cook over medium heat until the pasta is done to taste. It will absorb all of the the clam juices. Pour the pasta onto a plate and top with the clams. Eat immediately.

Serves 1

I made just one serving because Matt does not like clams. A pound of clams seems like a lot but most of the weight is the shell. My pound of clams had 10 clams.....I needed 20 more...but I LOVE clams.

This quick and simple dish was a trip down memory lane. I miss Naples, chaos and all.

Ravioli!

2010-04-17T11:24:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I bought a ravioli press because I really wanted to make my own. Since I actually got Matt to admit that homemade pasta was actually good, I decided to go ahead and try making some ravioli yesterday. I took inspiration from another food blogger, La Tartine Gourmande, and made some changes to her recipe. I didn't use her pasta dough recipe.

I have to say that I really enjoyed making ravioli. I love the little press although the ravioli it makes are larger than I expected. Over all, it's an enjoyable process, especially when done in absolute quiet. Very relaxing!

Squash Ravioli with Orange Sauce

For the dough:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 large egg
1 1/2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt

In the bowl of a food processor mix the flour and salt and pulse a few times. In a measuring cup, whisk the egg, water and olive oil. While pulsing the food processor pour the egg mixture in a continuous stream and keep pulsing until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. You may need to add water in very small amounts, 1 teaspoon at a time, until the dough reaches the right consistency. If you are going to use a pasta machine to roll the dough you may stop at this point. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. If you are going to roll by hand, you need to to knead the dough on a floured surface for 8 to 10 minutes.

For the filling:
9oz cooked winter squash puree ( I DO NOT recommend canned puree)
1 oz grated Parmesan
3 tbsp hazelnut flour (ground hazelnut)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tsp fresh sage leaves

For the sauce:
juice of two large oranges
2 oz butter
a pinch of ground mace
salt and pepper to taste.
1 tsp potato starch

grated Parmesan

Mix all the filling ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Process until everything is well combined and the sage is chopped.

Roll the pasta dough into thin sheets. Place approximately 1 1/2 teaspoons of filling in each raviolo and seal well. (See this for directions on how to fill and seal ravioli).

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In the mean time, bring the orange juice and mace to a boil in a skillet. Add the butter a few pieces at a time until melted. Add the potato starch and cook until slightly thickened. If you don't have potato starch you can use another thickening agent like cornstarch, just make sure you add it in such a way that it will not become lumpy or too thick.

When the water is at a rolling boil, add the ravioli, a few a time and cook until done. They will float when done and it should take less than one minute with fresh ravioli.

Serve the ravioli with the sauce and sprinkle with the grated Parmesan.

Serves 2.

I'm not gonna lie, it's time consuming but it's not difficult. It's also delicious and totally worth the time, ask Matt, he ate most of it. I'm already thinking about what filling I'm going to make next!

Great, Fresh Lunch

2010-04-04T16:25:00.001-04:00

A little while ago I had one of the most satisfying Weight Watcher friendly meals I've had in a long time. I don't know if it was because it was so tasty or because I made it from absolute scratch but it was sooo good. Before you ask, yes, I made it from scratch...I even made the pasta.

I spent all of last night making pasta and so far all the effort seems worth it. I made two types, one herb pasta and one chili pepper pasta. I used chili pepper pasta for today's lunch. It was SO good! It wasn't necessarily hot but it definitely added to the flavor and I could feel a bit of spice in the back of my throat. It was delicious. I am a bit hesitant about posting the recipe away because I'm currently pondering adding homemade pasta (dried) to my Etsy store and this will be one of them.

This recipe does not belong to me, it's is literally a Weight Watchers recipe. I did a few modifications though, I used 8 oz of my fresh pasta instead of the 5 oz of dried pasta they called for and used a bit more bacon only to round it up to 3 slices. I also cooked the bacon before adding it to the pasta and used chicken instead of vegetable broth. I guess this is then, technically, a new recipe LOL.

Fresh Pasta Alfredo

8 oz fresh chili pepper fettuccine (or regular fettuccine)
3 slices Canadian bacon, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 tbsp chicken broth
1/2 cup fat free evaporated milk
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp water
3/4 oz grated Parmesan cheese
black pepper to taste
chives, chopped

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the bacon in a small skillet until it is starting to brown.

Spray a medium skillet with nonstick spray, set it over medium heat. When hot, add the garlic and onions and cook, stirring occassionally, until the onion is soft. In the mean time, mix the water and cornstarch. Once the onions are soft, add the broth and milk. Bring to a boil and add the cornstarch mixture. Cook until thickened, about 4 or 5 minutes.

While the sauce cooks, drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook until done. Fresh pasta will need very little cooking time. As little as 30 seconds for angel hair. Fettucine will need about 1 minute to a 1 minute and a half.

Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Add the drained pasta and the Parmesan cheese. Cook for an additional minute or until the cheese melts. Serve sprinkled with the bacon and chives.

Serves 2

So yummy. I'm already thinking about what I'm going to make using the rest of the pasta! Even my husband who does not "like" pasta devoured it. He told me "if this is what homemade pasta tastes like then you might convert me!" He has so much to learn!

Good Eats Indeed

2010-03-27T15:26:00.003-04:00

A few nights ago we were watching the Food Network and Good Eats came on. It was the Pantry Raid: Lentil episode, which I had seen before, but I sat through it anyway. The next evening I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner (the story of my life) and I remembered Good Eats. For some reason we had a lot of different kinds of lentils in the pantry so I decided to take some inspiration from AB and make lentil soup. I came up with a recipe that was not only delicious but VERY Weight Watchers friendly as well. As a matter of fact, it was so good that we scrapped the bowl and wished I had made twice the amount and our son inhaled a bowlful.

Lentil Soup with Ham

1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup brown lentils, dry
4 cups good chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground oregano
3oz cooked ham, finely chopped

In a pressure cooker, heat up the oil over medium and cook the chopped onion until translucent, 3 or 4 minutes. Add the lentils and chicken broth, stir. Place the lid on the pressure cooker, turn the heat to high. When the pressure cooker has reached full pressure, turn the heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes. Remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let it rest for 5 minutes to finish cooking. Carefully let out the remaining pressure.

Add the salt, pepper and spices. Blend with an immersion (stick) blender for approximately 30 seconds. If you use a traditional blender, let the soup cool down a bit before blending and work in batches. Add the ham and cook uncovered for a further 3 or 4 minutes.

Serves 4

(This is NOT AB's recipe)

I don't know why anyone wouldn't have a pressure cooker but if you don't, you can just cook the lentils in a saucepan until they are tender, about 45 minutes and then proceed as per the recipe. This soup was so freaking good that I actually made it again last night and I am eating leftovers as I type this.

I know a lot of people are afraid of pressure cookers because they think they are dangerous. This reputation is not entirely unjustified, pressure cookers used to be fairly fickle. However, they have come a long way and modern pressure cookers are quite safe and probably nothing like what your grandmother used to use. I have two pressure cookers and they are vastly different. One of them is the most basic type. It does not have a pressure gate or any other fancy gadgets. It has a weight that goes on the steam/pressure release nozzle. Once it has achieved pressure it lets out the excess pressure though that nozzle and it hisses and makes the weight "dance". This weight is actually removable. Come think of it, I need to replace the rubber seal. The other pressure cooker is a fancy job I got because it was so damned cool and the lid was green. It has a gauge (which I never really look at since I always want the highest pressure) and the weight is not removable. It has a fancy locking mechanism and looks kickass on my range. It is also huge so I don't use it often. I wouldn't be a good Cuban if I didn't have at least pressure cooker.

BTW, this recipe is about 3 or 4 WW points per serving.

Healthier Alternative to Chinese Take-Out

2010-03-23T14:35:00.001-04:00

I'm not sure why I bother to post here anymore since I doubt many people have kept up with me through my food blogging dry spell post baby but here goes anyway.

I finally made a meal plan for the week. It was about dang time. I don't know why I find it so difficult considering my sources for recipes are nearly infinite but I do. However, I hate the question "So...what's for dinner?" far more than I hate meal planning. I should say that I don't hate meal planning; I hate meal planning when I have to find recipes that sound good AND are low in calories, fat, etc. This was not one of those times, I have no idea what the caloric content of this week's recipes is as I was trying to use up the produce from the vegetable box before it went bad.

Last night we had Pork Chow Mein. It was nothing like the saucy stuff you get from Chinese take out places but I bet it wasn't nearly as unhealthy either. It was actually pretty tasty, too bad it was also very little. We needed twice the amount but we are piggies sometimes.

Pork Chow Mein

6 oz lean, boneless pork chops
3 oz diced ham
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 7.1oz pack Stir Fry Hokkien Noodles (precooked)
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
a handful fresh green beans, thinly sliced
4 large scallions or onion tops, finely chopped

Cut the pork chops diagonally into thin strips. In a bowl, combine the pork with half of the soy sauce, vinegar and 1/2 tbsp of peanut oil. Let the pork sit in the liquids, seasoned with salt and pepper, for 15 minutes.

Set a wok or frying pan over high heat. Add 1/2 tbsp of the oil. When the oil is hot and you can see a little smoke rising up, add the pork with the juices and the ham. Cook over high heat, stirring continuously, for 2 minutes. Remove the meat to a plate.

Reheat the wok and pour in 1/2 tbsp of oil. When it is hot add the garlic, green beans and scallions. Stir fry for 2 minutes without letting the garlic burn. Add the noodles and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring constantly. Add the meat to the wok and cook until heated through, 1 or 2 minutes. Pour in the remaining soy sauce, vinegar and oil. Cook until hot, about 3 minutes.

Serves 2

You can slice the beans in any way you want, you just have to make sure they are able to soften up a bit during cooking.

This is a pretty easy dish and I think I'll probably be making it again at some point.

Cuban Meringues

2010-03-21T00:54:00.003-04:00

A few days ago (OK, two weeks ago), I had my whole family over for lunch. My husband's parents were visiting from the UK so we wanted to have one big family get together. It was in our house, we had a total of 17 people to feed and I have to admit to the fact that I catered the food. I did, however, make the dessert. There really wasn't much to make, I served strawberries we picked the day before macerated in sugar and Chambord. To go with the strawberries we had cream and the star of the show, meringues.

Now, I know there's a zillion ways to make meringue but I never knew any of them until fairly recently. My parents made meringue in my presence a few times and I was mesmerized by the process. I still am to some extent. You take egg whites and through the magic of incorporating air into them you make a big white cloud. Add sugar in some form or another and you have meringue! I debated which way of making the meringues I would use for a couple of hours then decided I would use the way I knew best, which was also the quickest. The Cuban way, or at least the way Cubans do it! Cubans like meringue...a lot. As a matter of fact, Cuban cakes are not iced in buttercream but meringue. Think about it, Cuba is a tropical country... buttercream does not stand a chance! I remember buying a ton of these when I was a kid. There was a lady a few streets down that made them and sold 10 for 1 peso. One peso wasn't much but I guess she made a killing, she always had a line of kids. I'm so glad I rediscovered these, they brought me back to my childhood and many good memories.

This is by far the quickest way (as far as active and cooking times go) to make meringues. The other common way takes 2 hours in the oven to cook but with this method, the oven is optional. I personally like to put them in the oven to get crunchy outside but rest assured the egg whites are fully cooked without having to go in the oven. It isn't much of a recipe, more like a formula, but here goes any way.

Cuban Meringues

egg whites
one tbsp plus one cup sugar for every egg white, separated
1/4 cup of water for every cup of sugar
a few lemon juice drops (one or two for every egg white)

Put the water and corresponding cups of sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan and insert a candy thermometer. Cook over medium heat until the syrup reaches soft ball stage, 238°F.

In the mean time, in a large mixer bowl, whisk the egg whites until they reach soft peak stage. Add the corresponding tablespoons of sugar and beat for a few seconds. Add the sugar syrup to the egg whites and whisk until the streaks from the beater/whisk do not disappear when the whisk is lifted. The meringue will look watery at first but the syrup will soon be incorporated.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Spoon the meringue mixture into a piping bag and pipe meringue "kisses" onto the parchment paper. Size and shape are not important. If you do not have a piping bag simply spoon the meringue onto the sheet. Let the meringues dry overnight if you do not want to bake them.

If you decide to bake them, place the meringues in an oven that has been preheated to 250°F for 25 to 30 minutes or until they start to become golden. Do not let them get brown, this means they are burnt. The meringues are ready to use/eat.

Easy peasy right? This is an instance where having a stand mixer REALLY helps. It takes a while for the meringue to reach the right consistency and I pity those who have stand there and hold a hand held mixer...or worse. If you have issues with raw egg whites and salmonella or what have you...rest assured that the egg whites in this meringue are FULLY cooked even if they never go in the oven. The heat from the sugar syrup cooks the egg whites during mixing. This method , especially if you put them in the oven for a little while, produces a meringue that is crunchy outside but nice and soft on the inside.

You don't have to pipe this meringue, if you work fast you can use it for frosting cakes. Watch out though ,it is SWEET! My favorite way of eating them, after strawberries and cream, is just by themselves. I demolished the ones we kept after the family lunch all by myself. Not terribly Weight Watchers friendly!

Light Banana Bread

2010-03-08T20:26:00.000-05:00

Short, sweet, and to the point! Tasty...even my toddler loved it!

Light Banana Bread

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp apple pie spice
2 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 4 small)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup craisins

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Stir the first 5 ingredients together. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites, sugar and banana until well mixed. Add the oil and mix well. Stir flour into the banana mixture. Gently fold in the craisins.

Spray an 8x4x2 inch loaf pan with non-stick spray. Pour in the batter. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until a wooden toothpick near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes.

Cupcakes!

2010-02-27T11:32:00.001-05:00

I went to dinner at a friend's house last night and I made these cupcakes to take with me. No recipe, just pictures to drool over.

Naughty Giveaway Round Up and Results.

2010-02-17T19:13:00.001-05:00

OK, I'm a bit disappointed. There were only two entries for this giveaway. I've had more entries for a fleece diaper soaker! I guess that makes the chances of winning 1 in 2!

The first entry was from Julie from Lame Adventures. Her cupcakes are super cute!

The next entry was from Kizzy at Culinary Annotations. These look delicious!

And the winner is.....

Kizzy!

Thyme for Cookies and More!

2010-02-07T13:08:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago (maybe a bit longer) I went to a get-together with about 30 other girls. One of them brough the best guacamole I have ever had. I couldn't stop stuffing my face, it was that good. A couple of days later I asked her for the recipe and she gave me a list of ingredients; a little bit of this, a little bit of that, etc. It wasn't until yesterday that actually gave it a shot though. I still had 3 avocados from the CSA box and they were ready to eat. I couldn't think of a better way to use the last avocados of the season than to try this awesome guacamole. It just so happened that the rest of the main ingredients, onion and tomato, were also in my fridge thanks to the CSA box. This isn't her exact recipe, I modified it to use what I had in hand but man, it's pretty damned good! I found it best freshly made but I just had the leftovers in a sandwich and it was still very tasty.

June's Karen's Guacamole

2 small avocados, mashed
1 tbsp minced young onion (the whites only), or shallots
2 roasted garlic cloves, minced
1/2 medium tomato, chopped
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper (or to taste)
a dash of garlic powder
pinch of salt
juice of half a lime

Combine all the ingredients well. You can make it as smooth or chunky as you want. It's just that simple!

I liked the guacamole Karen made because it was spicy but did not taste like jalapeno which is what you'd expect in guacamole. I love the idea of using cayenne pepper as I am a fan of it and use it quite often.

We still haven't fully unpacked so every now and then I open a box, usually containing cookbooks or cooking magazines, and start putting the contents away. I was doing that yesterday when I came across a Christmas cookie magazine. I started flipping through it and and found a recipe I had tagged. It was for Lemon-Thyme cookies. How convenient since we got a loads of thyme in the CSA box yesterday. I also have some organic lemons I bought to make marmalade but haven't gotten around to it. I thought this would be a perfect way to use some of the thyme. I ran it past Matt and he approved so I got to work this morning.

The cookies turned out to be pretty tasty. You can definitely taste the thyme and the lemon. Then again, thyme does taste lemony. They are probably not the kind of cookie I'd pick up at a store based on the name alone but they are definitely very good. They are not diet friendly at all though so I'm going to take the majority of them as a gift to my mom.

Lemon-Thyme Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp snipped fresh thyme
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a mixer, cream the sugar and butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. The time depends on the mixer, it will take longer with a hand held mixer. Beat in the thyme, lemon zest, lemon juice and cardamom. Add the flour slowly and mix until combined.

Remove the dough from the mixer and shape into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour.

Lightly dust a clean surface with flour. Roll the dough until it is approximately 1/4 inch thick, dusting with flour if necessary to prevent the rolling pin from sticking to the dough. Using a 1 1/5 inch square cookie cutter, cut out shapes and transfer to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Gather and re-roll the dough as needed.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until the edges of the cookie are just slightly browned. Transfer to a wire rack and cool.

Makes approximately 35 cookies.

Can be stored at room temperature for up to 3 days.

The actual instructions for the recipe were different but they would have been impossible to get decent looking cookies with their method. I'm glad I did it this way because in my opinion, the recipe writers were probably drunk when they wrote it. They had you roll the dough and cut the cookies right out of the mixer. Huh? The dough was just too soft, this kind of cookie needs to be refrigerated before rolling. I am not sure what they were thinking. I also found that a nonstick mat will make your life infinitely easier with these cookies, as will a good metal bench scrapper, which is what I used to lift the cookies off the mat and onto the cookie sheet.

The cookies are a bit short though nowhere near as short as shortbread. They are definitely tasty and very easy to make. You can also form a log with the dough, refrigerate it and then slice round cookies. You can even use a cookie press and press the cookies without refrigerating the dough. So many possibilities, same tasty cookie!

Clearing the Backlog!

2010-02-06T14:52:00.001-05:00

I have been horrible at blogging about food lately. I haven't really made anything extraordinary but we have been using the stuff from the vegetable box in great ways and I should at least keep up with blogging that. I have a lot on my proverbial plate right now though with school and a bunch of school related stuff. Not to mention that I don't know what I want do when I grow up but I have to decide soon. But I digress.

As I have mentioned before, stir fries have become a very common occurrence in our house. They are quick and filling and we can use a lot of the vegetables from the CSA box. My least favorite part of stir frying is trying to keep the stuff (mostly garlic and onions) from burning. It is still very much trial and error for me. The most recent stir fry used not one but two of our box stuff, broccoli and green beans. The green beans are from a few weeks ago but they still good, much to our surprise. We still have some to use but that shouldn't be too difficult.

Beef, Broccoli and Green Bean Stir Fry

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp vegetable (or peanut/sesame) oil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 lbs beef tenderloin, sliced into thin strips
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 cups chopped broccoli
1 cup green beans, ends trimmed and cut into 1 inch lengths
scallions for garnish

In a gallon-sized sealable bag combine the first 6 ingredients, add the beef. Seal the bag, squeezing out the air, and turn to coat the beef. Marinade for at least 15 minutes, turning once or twice.

Drain the marinade into a measuring cup; add enough water to make 1/3 cup of liquid. Add the cornstarch and stir until it dissolves.

Heat a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add the vegetable oil and beef. Stir fry until the beef loses its red color. With a slotted spoon, remove from the wok and transfer to a plate. Reduce the heat to medium-high and add the broccoli and green beans. Stir fry for 3 minutes then cover and steam for 1 minute. Return the beef to the wok and add the marinade. Increase the heat to high and stir fry for 3 minutes. Serve sprinkled with the scallions.

Serves 4

This recipe is adapted from a Weight Watchers recipe and it's 4 points per serving. You can serve it over rice, like we did.

Next up is last night's meal. I had been trying to figure out what to do with the broccoli raab all week. I hadn't heard great things about it so I wasn't really interested in it. However, I don't like to throw CSA produce away so I found something that I could use it in. Turns out Weight Watchers has one recipe that uses broccoli raab that caught my eye so I adapted it a bit and used it. It was not as quick as I had hoped but sure was good and hearty. It was very filling, I could't finish my portion.

Pasta with Broccoli Raab and Bolognese Sauce

2 tsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 lbs 92% lean ground beef
28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp dried oregano
12 oz uncooked short pasta like macaroni, pene, etc
1 lb broccoli raab, ends trimmed, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Meanwhile, to make the sauce, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, cook stirring frequently until the onion is translucent, about 6 minutes. Add the beef, cook until browned, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon, about 4 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes, salt, red pepper flakes, and oregano; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

While the sauce simmers, add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package instructions. Add the broccoli raab to pasta water 5 minutes before the pasta will be done; cook until the pasta and broccoli raab are tender.

Drain pasta and broccoli raab; return to pot. Add the sauce and toss to mix and coat.

Serves 6

I've been studying for a math test!

This makes a lot of food! I made the entire sauce amount but only half of the pasta and broccoli raab. I froze the rest of the sauce because it is actually really good (and spicy) and will work great in some short order cooking. This is a very easy recipe to make and aside from the broccoli raab (which can be easily left out) all the ingredients are pretty much pantry staples.

Now, on to the new box. We got yet more canistels and I have no idea what to do with them since we still haven't used any of the old ones. I traded the cilantro for more komatsuma so I foresee more stir fries. We got a lot of thyme and I have something special (albeit not very diet friendly) for it. There was more of course.

Stay tuned!

Giveaway Reminder

2010-02-02T22:36:00.002-05:00

Don't forget about the giveaway!

Five Spice Beef Stir Fry

2010-01-28T23:43:00.001-05:00

We've been on a tight budget lately and I've been having to rummage through the freezer, pantry, etc finding things to cook that will work well, or at least OK, together. This is no easy task even though we have two freezers full of food that we somehow manage not to eat otherwise. Today's concoction was one that turned out to be really good. Not mind-blowing but definitely worth making again. Best of all, I used a lot of the remaining CSA chard and get this....radish tops from my own vegetable Square Foot Garden! Matt ate the radishes this past weekend but I couldn't bring myself to throw the greens away. They were not enough for a soup but I knew I was going to use them in something. This was perfect for them and I still have some left.

Five Spice Beef Stir Fry

6 oz beef, thinly sliced
Chinese Five Spice powder to taste
salt taste
2 tsp peanut oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 cups green chard, stalks and greens separated and sliced into strips
1 large handful radish tops, sliced into smaller pieces if necessary
1 1/2 tbs soy sauce
1/2 sweet sherry (or other sweet wine)
4 oz Pad Thai noodles, soaked as per package instructions

While the noodles are soaking, season the beef with the five spice powder and the salt.

Heat 1 tsp of peanut oil in a wok or frying until very hot over high heat. Add the garlic and stir fry for 30 seconds. Add the second teaspoon of oil, heat for 30 seconds, remove the garlic from the wok and add the beef.Stir fry for 3 or 4 minutes. Add the chard stalks and stir fry for an additional 2 minutes. Add the noodles and toss well to mix. Stir fry for 1 minute. Add the chard greens and the radish tops, toss and stir to mix well. Stir fry for one minute. Turn off the heat under the wok and add the soy sauce and sweet sherry. Toss well and serve immediately.

Serves 2

That's pretty much it! The five spice powder works beautifully here and you can definitely taste it. Yummy, yummy in my tummy! I think I'll be making this one again.

The Black Zapotes Get Their Day

2010-01-27T13:12:00.003-05:00

As I've mentioned before, the problem with the CSA box is that we often find ourselves with a refrigerator full of produce and no idea how to utilize it. We don't cook every day, as we should, and that makes the problem even worse. The first black zapotes we got rotted because they became ripe while we were out of the country. This time around we have about 7 zapotes sitting around, 3 of them REALLY needed to be used so I started researching ideas.

I had never had black zapote and for those who know, it is often called chocolate pudding fruit because its flesh has the same color and consistency of, you guessed it, chocolate pudding. I tried one a few weeks ago and to me it tasted like avocado. Very strange, turns out that in larger quantities (sweets, shakes, etc) it tastes a lot like mamey zapote, the kind of zapote I AM familiar with.

I had ice cream in mind but I didn't have any eggs in the house. I immediately thought of kulfi. Again, for those who don't know, kulfi is an Indian frozen dessert much like ice cream with a few differences. I did some research into how kulfi is made and the varieties of ways is astounding! They all end up the same way though so they are just means to an end. I only had condensed and evaporated milk so I came up with my own recipe based on my research. I was not expecting much to be honest but I felt like I had do something, anything, with the black zapotes because I couldn't let them go to waste.

As soon as I put the mixture into the ice cream churner I knew I had done good. GOOD. Yum. I'm so glad I gave it a chance!

Black Zapote Kulfi

6 oz black zapote pulp (approximately 5)
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
6 oz 2% (low fat) evaporated milk

Blend all the ingredients together in a blender or with a hand mixer. Pour into an ice cream churner and churn for about 15 minutes. Pour into popsicle or kulfi molds and freeze until solid. If you don't have a churner pour the mixture straight into the molds and freeze. The kulfi will just be denser.

Easy peasy! No cooking, no custards, no mess.

What is the difference between ice cream and kulfi, you ask? Well, the main difference is that kulfi is not whipped like ice cream is. The result is a much denser consistency which makes kulfi very, very slow melting. I personally find kulfi much creamier than ice cream, even the custard based types.

Kulfi is traditionally served on sticks but there is no law that says you can't just freeze it in a plastic tub!

Enjoy....I know I will!

PS. There is some debate in the Thyme For Food household as to whether the correct spelling is zapote or sapote. Spanish is my first language and while I admit that I have not had to write that particular word often before the CSA box came around, I am pretty sure it's zapote.

Naughty Giveaway!

2010-01-25T12:49:00.001-05:00

Valentine's Day is coming up in less than a month. While I'm sure you don't need an excuse to bake your valentine some cupcakes or even a cake, I'd like to give you one! I am giving away a brand new copy of Debbie Brown's Seriously Naughty Cakes! Can't find it on Amazon? Of course not, it's not available in the US! This book is a compilation of the content from the naughty cakes books Naughty Cakes and Xtra Naughty Cakes.

The giveaway rules are simple.

1. Bake a cake (or cupcakes) and decorate it with a Valentine's Day and/or naughty theme
2. Post about it on your blog between now and February 15th.
3. Link back to this post on yours.
4. Email me a link to your blog post on or before February 15th.

The email address is (without spaces) thymeforfood @ jqhawkins . co . uk

On February 16th I will choose one winner at random and announce it on this blog. Simple, right? Don't miss your chance to be the owner of this cute, quirky and naughty book!

Get baking now!

Never Say Never

2010-01-24T11:45:00.002-05:00

This meal is a perfect example of how we all too often say we don't like something and refuse to eat it without ever having tried it. Then one day, by whatever act of fate, we try it and love it. I didn't grow up eating vegetables and thus never really liked them....but I never tried many. Cabbage? No way. Broccoli? Nope. Lettuce? What am I, a sheep? I could go on and on. While living in the UK I was exposed to a lot of new (to me) foods and while I did take to many, I flat out refused others just on principle. The particular example today is colcannon.

For those who don't know what colcannon is, it's an Irish dish. It's mashed potatoes with onions and kale, sometimes cabbage instead of kale. The reason I always refused to it was because of the kale/cabbage and my whole "I don't eat that stuff" thing. We still had some kale from last week's CSA box and my husband REALLY wanted colcannon so I figured I'd indulge him. He wanted to make it but I have a feeling his wouldn't have been anywhere near as good. I looked in my cookbooks and found a good recipe in Gary Rhodes' New British Classics. Gary never disappoints and this time it was no exception. Of course, I didn't follow the recipe to the T, I did make changes that I think made it SO much better. The colcannon was definitely the star of the show but the protein was fish, and it was good too!

Colcannon

3 cups kale, stalks removed and chopped

4 large Russet Burbank potatoes, peeled and cut into large cubes
3 tbsp butter

1/2 medium red onion, chopped
1/2 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Fill a stockpot halfway with water, add salt. Bring to a boil. Blanch the kale in the boiling water for 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain. Add the potatoes to the boiling water and cook until fork tender. Do not overcook the potatoes, they are starchy and will disintegrate.

In the meantime, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, for about 7 minutes. They will be soft and slightly caramelized. Add the blanched kale and cook for a further 2 minutes.

Drain the potatoes and mash. Add the remaining butter and mix well to melt. Add the milk and mix. Combine the mashed potatoes and kale mixture. Mix well and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 2 (hungry people)

Pan-Fried Fish

2 fillets of firm, white fish like halibut, mahi, etc
flour to coat
3 tbsp butter
salt and pepper
1 tbsp cooking oil
juice of 1/2 lemon

Dry the fish fillets well. Dust with flour on one side. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter and brush the floured side of the fish. Season with salt and pepper.

In a skillet large enough to accommodate the fish, heat the cooking oil over medium high heat. Place the fish on the skillet floured side down and pan-fry for about 5 minutes per side. Remove the fish to serving plate.

Add the remaining 2 tbsp of butter to the skillet. It will sizzle, melt and brown very quickly. Add the lemon juice and stir until all the butter is melted. Pour over the fish (through a strainer if you prefer) and serve.

Serves 2

This was one of the tastiest meals I've had in a long time. The downside to being on a weight loss program is that you can't cook all this yummy stuff. I'd hate to think how many calories this meal was, but I guess calories are flavor's unit of measure ;)

If you've never had colcannon, or even if you had, I recommend you try this recipe. It is amazing and I will never again say I don't like colcannon! As someone once told me, "it's not that you don't like something, it's just that you've never had it made right!" Truer words have never been spoken.

On a different note, my vegetable garden is doing great for the most part. I'm having a hard time with the herbs but everything else seems to be doing OK. The Square Foot Garden is doing is doing amazingly well. I harvested the radishes yesterday, all 25 of them. I'm so happy with the turn out so far as I wasn't sure it was going to work. I am ready to replant that square but I don't know whether to transplant the cabbage I have been growing in a peat pot or whether I should plant something else and plant the cabbage when I harvest the pak choi.

Click on the picture for more.

If You Can't Go to Dim Sum....

2010-01-17T16:11:00.002-05:00

Let me first get this stupid sentence off my chest: I find the term dim sum ridiculously hilarious. Why? Because I say dim sum and I think "stupid math". Get it? dim sum = stupid math? Get it? No? I did say it was stupid! I guess that says a lot about me.

I was WELL into my 20s the first time I eve heard of dim sum and the first time I had it was at Oriental City in Colindale London. My friend Kavey took me there one day and I was very hesitant at first since I'm somewhat picky but by the end of the meal I was ready to come the next day. I loved it. My favorite was the BBQ steamed pork buns. YUMMY! Oriental City is now closed, shame.

Miami has a lot of Chinese take out places but very few eat ins and only TWO dim sum restaurants. One of them (the closer but by no means close to us) has subpar food at an OK price. The other one, in South Beach, has great food at exorbitant prices. Needles to say, we never have dim sum (OK we did twice and that's how we know what the food and prices are like). That is really, really, really sad considering Miami is supposed to be a melting pot. Sure, it's a melting pot....of Hispanic cuisine! I can get that at home thank you very much!

So, if you can't go to dim sum....what's a girl who is REALLY craving it to do? Bring the dim sum to you! I have had a couple of dim sum books for over 2 years now but had not gotten around to using them. Making dim sum is an involved process and to make it worth your while (and be authentic) you really have to have more than one type of food. So, in a nutshell, I was very intimidated by the thought of making dim sum.

I grew a pair today and decided that today would be the day I ate...no, MADE....dim sum. I planned to make 5 different types; two chicken, one beef, one pork and one shrimp plus possibly a sweet one. I defrosted the meat and got to work in the dough for the pork buns. Halfway through assembling I said "screw it!, pork and beef plus dessert is enough!". I spent the better part of 3 hours preparing the dim sum but it was worth it and I can't wait to do it again. Next time though I will stagger the preparations over a couple of days so on the day I just have to prepare the yeasted rolls and cook the rest of the stuff.

Steam Fried Pork Rolls

Dough:
150g (1/3 lb) all purpose flour
23g (1oz) sugar
1/2 tbsp oil
3/4 tsp baking powder
75 ml water
6g active dry yeast

Filling:
150g (1/3 lb) cabbage
75g pork (raw)
1/4 chopped garlic chives (or any other chives/green onions)
1/2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp cooking oil
1 cup water

Mix all the dough ingredients and knead until smooth. You can do this in a mixer or food processor. Allow rise in a warm place for 40 minutes.

Place the cabbage and pork in the bowl of a food processor. Process until everything is well minced and mixed together. Add the rest of the filling ingredients and stir to incorporate.

After the dough has risen, knead it lightly and divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece until they are approximately 3.5 inches in diameter. Place 1 tablespoon of filling in each piece of though. Gather the edges at the top and press to seal.

Heat the cooking oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Arrange the filled rolls in the pan. Add one cup of water, cover then allow to cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes. After the water has boiled away, continue to fry the rolls until both sides are golden brown.

Beef Won tons

16 won ton wrappers

Filling:
100g lean ground beef
1/4 cup chopped garlic chives (or any other chives/green onions)
1/2 tsp minced fresh ginger
2 tbsp water
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp baking soda
dash of white pepper

dash of rice wine vinegar

Mix all the filling ingredients well. Place 1 tsp of filling in each wonton wrapper and seal. To boil the won tons, bring a large pot of water to a full boil. Add the wontons and cook for 8 minutes.

To fry the won tons, bring a large part of oil to 350°F over medium heat. Fry the wontons until golden brown turning to fry all sides.

Serve with a dipping sauce.

Fried Banana Won tons

3 rice but firm bananas, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
3 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

10 won ton wrappers
Oil for deep frying
powder sugar

Bring the oil to 350°F over medium heat.

Combine the banana, sugar and cinnamon. Fill the won tons wrappers with the bananas, seal the edges well. Deep fry until light golden brown. Remove from the oil and place them on a wire draining rack. Dust with powder sugar and serve.

And this is what my kitchen looks like after this operation (NOT looking forward to the clean up!)

For dipping, we used soy sauce and my hot and sweet dipping sauce. The hot and sweet dipping sauce worked beautifully with everything (except the banana ones!) and the more I have this sauce the more I like it!

Our favorites were definitely the pork rolls. So good! This was a very succsefull operation and I'm glad I took the time. It is a lot of work but worth it, especially if you have no other dim sum options, like us. Next time though I will definitely spread the work out!

That's A Lot Of Green!

2010-01-16T12:35:00.003-05:00

I have been very bad at NOT cooking lately. The CSA produce is not being used as much as we would have liked. There was so much produce in the fridge that I was starting to worry it would just spoil. Lucky those green bags do keep produce fresh for longer.

A couple of nights ago we decided that a stir-fry was in order. We really needed to use the produce and I just threw something together using quite a bit of it. I just winged it and it was actually surprisingly good (and SPICY!) I wasn't going to blog it but I figured, why not?

Hot and Sweet Chicken and Noodles Stir-Fry

2 tsp canola or peanut oil
4 oz dried pad thai noodles
1 small piper betel leaf, julienned
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 medium bok choi head
1 cup komatsuma leaves (or spinach)
1 cooked chicken breast, shredded or diced
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp hot and sweet dipping sauce
2 tsp cornstarch

Fill a bowl with hot water, place the noodles inside and let it sit for 10 minutes. In the meantime, separate the stalks and the leaves of the bok choi. Tear the leaves into smaller pieces and cut the stalks into bite size pieces. Combine the chicken broth, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, dipping sauce and cornstarch until smooth.

Place a wok over high heat, add the oil and heat up until VERY hot. Add the garlic, ginger and piper betel leaf. Stir fry for 1 minute. Add the bok choi stalks and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the noodles and stir fry for 1 minute. Add the chicken, bok choi leaves and komatsuma stir well to combine. Add the chicken broth mixture and cook for 1 minute, making sure that everything is well combined. Remove from the heat when the greens begin to wilt.

Serves 2

To be honest, I had no high hopes for this stir fry as it was a "throw stuff in and hope for the best" kinda cooking. Much to my surprise, it was really good. We used up all the bok choi, all the komatsuma and some of the piper betel leaves. If you don't have piper betel leaves, don't sweat it, it will be fine without.

What gives this stir fry it's spiciness is definitely the sweet and hot dipping sauce. I don't know where you can buy that commercially but coincidentally, you CAN buy some from my Etsy! I may be tooting my own horn here but this dipping sauce is damned good. I love it with just about anything and it hadn't occured to me to cook with it until this stir fry.

While I was cutting up the piper betel leaf we decided to try some. Well, it REALLY does taste like smoked sausage. I only used a small amount in the stir fry so it wasn't quite as obvious but I am thinking about using more of the leaves in something like a lasagna, spanakopita or something along those lines.

Arroz Con Pollo.....On the Down-Low

2010-01-05T21:06:00.000-05:00

Let me start by saying that this is one of the few instances when I'm glad my mom doesn't speak/read a lick of English and thus not follow this blog. Heck, I don't think she even knows what a blog is. But I digress.

I haven't made a meal plan in eons and that is horrible because most days 6:40pm comes around, Matt gets home and I get the million dollar question "So...what's for dinner?" My answer is usually the same: "What do you want?" This does not normally translate into "I'll make whatever you want" but more likely into "Not a clue, can you just go to Burger King and get something?" So yes, meal plans are really essential around here especially considering I am still trying to lose weight, I'm only halfway there.

Today I decided that was not going to be the case. I had some freaking expensive organic boneless skinless chicken thighs that I bought for Liev at Whole Foods a few weeks ago. They had been in the freezer ever since until I thawed them out and cooked one for him. I could not let them spoil so today I had to cook the chicken. I also didn't want to have to use a whole bunch of pots and pans or prep tools cause, quite honestly, my kitchen looks like a pigsty right now and pretty much everything is dirty (I'm working on it!). So, a one pot chicken meal it was.

Now, this is the part I'm glad my mom isn't reading. All my life I have sworn up and down I do not like "Arroz con Pollo" which is basically rice and chicken cooked together and tinted yellow with saffron or something similar. I still say I don't like it and it's true, I don't like it the way most Cubans make it. It's always greasy and they invaribaly use dark meat WITH bone, which I dispise. So, guess what I made...Arroz con Pollo! In my defense, I used the white meat part of the thigh, no bones and NO skin. It was also very not greasy and it even had vegetables.

It ended up being a two pot meal because I needed to brown the chicken but the best part of all is that the recipe is for the rice cooker! It could not get any easier than that! It turned out much better than I expected it to and all three of us gobbled it right up, even Liev. If you don't have a rice cooker then obviously this recipe won't do you any good but if you do have one and it's just collecting dust on the counter or in a cabinet, pull it out and get cooking, most if not all of the ingredients here are pretty much pantry and fridge staples.

By the way, the only reason I have a rice cooker is because my mom left her old one behind when she moved out. She claims it's a piece of crap, and I agree but it served me right today. This recipe is very loosely based on a recipe from a book called The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook. I've had this book since 2002 or so when I was stationed in Bethesda, MD and I thought I'd be doing some cooking in the barracks. Turns out I couldn't be bothered so I had not made a single thing from it until today.

I served this with cabbage salad, great way to use my CSA stuff (the bell pepper is also from the CSA box). The salad, if you can call it that, is nothing more than thinly sliced cabbage with salt and olive oil. Simplicty at its best and the only way I eat cabbage.

Arroz Con Pollo

4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into fourths
juice of 1 lemon
salt
pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 bell pepper (seeded), cut into 3 pieces
2 cups long grain white rice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 cup lukewarm water
2 packets Sazon Goya with Culantro and Achiote (Coriander and Annatto)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, drained and liquid reserved
12 oz chicken broth
1 cup frozen peas

Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper to taste and half the lemon juice. Let it marinade for about 15 minutes.

In a medium-sized skillet, heat up 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over high heat. When hot, add the chicken and cook, stirring often, until browned on both sides. Remove from the heat and set aside. Set the rice cooker for a regular cycle and heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the rice cooker bowl. When hot, add the garlic and onion and cook, stirring, until the onion starts to soften (about two minutes) without letting the garlic burn. Add the bell pepper pieces, rice and cumin. Stir well to combine. Cook until the rice is opaque, about 10 minutes.

In the mean time, dissolve the Sazon Goya packets in the cup of water and add the remaining lemon juice. Add the tomatoes to the rice cooker along with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Add the chicken stock and Sazon Goya water. If the reserved tomato liquid is less than 3/4 cups, add enough water or chicken stock to bring it up to 3/4. Add to the rice cooker and stir to combine. Add the chicken to the rice, stir. Close the lid and set the rice cooker to full cycle (if it has gone into Keep Warm mode). Approximately 10 minutes into the cooking, very quickly open the lid and add the frozen peas. Close and let it finish the cycle.

Stir to incorporate the peas and serve.

Serves 4

You will need at least a medium sized rice cooker for this and it doesn't really matter if it's one with all the bells and whistles or one that you have to keep pressing the "Cook" button down because it keeps going into "Keep Warm" while you are cooking the damned onion. Ask me how I know. If the cooker goes into Keep Warm while you are cooking the rice without the liquid, it's OK, don't freak out, my did and the rice turned out delicious!

So, I would tell my mom about this, I'm pretty sure she doesn't know you can cook stuff other than plain white rice in the rice cooker, but I'd risk having to eat Arroz Con Pollo next time I go over for dinner. Let's keep it between you and me, alright?

Produce and Plants That will Produce

2010-01-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

This weeks CSA box had a mostly familiar things like lettuce, cabbage, parsley, tomatoes, and black zapotes but also had a couple of "mystery" items, beets and "Asian Mix". I haven't had beets since they were force-fed to me in the 2nd grade (in all meaning of the phrase!) school cafeteria and I don't know what is in Asian Mix. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the beets, it's not something that's ever even crossed my mind to cook but alas, I'll have to play Iron Chef. As for the mix, I suspect it will end up in a stir fry or something along those lines.

I was reading Tinkering with Dinner and he mentioned the lettuce looks good to wrap things in. I have to agree, the leaves are enormous but I was also thinking that maybe the cabbage could save the same purpose since we have two of them and have to get creative. I don't like cooked cabbage. I think it smells like a really stinky fart, I have thought this ever since I can remember. My grandmother cooked cabbage in the house and made the whole place reek.

There were other things in the box like dill and mushrooms but we traded them in for the parsley, the asian mix. The extra cabagge was aslo for the extras box. I just realized how greedy that was. I guess the mushrooms make up for it :P

Now, to the thing dear to my heart....my vegetable garden. It is full speed ahead in my porch! The Square Foot Garden is sown and everything is sprouting. The radish plants are big and we'll be eating radishes and bok choi in the next 2 or 3 weeks. WOOT! I'm so excited about this, really, I can't believe I'm actually doing it. This is what I'm currently growing in the SFG and the rest of the containers: butterking lettuce, turnips. cherry belle radish, spinach, sweet onions, lettuce mix for cut and come again, toy choi (baby bok choi), scallions, butternut squash, carrots, cayenne pepper, three different peat pots with a hot pepper mix and I don't know what I planted so we'll see when they fruit, rosemary, Greek oregano, chives, dark opal and Genovese basil, thyme, Copenhagen Market cabbage, sweetie tomato and gartenperle tomato. Phew! I sure hope that harvest doesn't coincide with the same produce from the CSA box!

Here are some pictures of the plants. For more check out my Flickr Vegetable Garden Collection:

Stir Fry With Italian Flair

2009-12-27T20:54:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, after we started collecting the CSA box, I was at Bed Bath and Beyond and decided on a whim to buy a pack of those green plastic bags that are supposed to keep produce fresh for weeks. I didn't have any high expectations as I've been burned by infomercials before. The weekend before last was the last time we collected the CSA box because we were in Mexico last weekend. Anyhow, I put the produce in a few of the bags and went on vacation. I checked on the stuff today and I was completely prepared to take it to the trash while holding my nose. What do you know...it was as fresh as the day I put it in bags. The bags really do work!

Of course, I didn't wanna push my luck so I cooked half of the produce for tonight's dinner. I had planned to make a curry but I don't have any grated coconut. I settled on a quick stir fry instead using some of the fennel and some of the chard. I had never used fennel before and I was quite surprised by the strong anise/licorice smell as I was slicing it. I was even more surprised when the cooked fennel, and stir fry, didn't taste one bit like anise or licorice.

Now, I know I said stir fry and then said fennel, it wasn't a mistake. Fennel is a very Italian ingredient and stir fry and Italian aren't usually used in the same context as stir fries tend to be Asian but this works. Don't think about it as stir fry, think about it as a quick chicken saute and then it will make more sense.

Chicken, Fennel and Chard Stir Fry

4 oz fennel bulb (about 1/2 a medium bulb), thinly sliced
oil for cooking
1 tbsp butter
2 chicken breasts (about 1 1/4 lbs) cut into thin strips
1 tbsp fennel leaves, chopped
3 chard leaves, cut into strips
1/4 cup chicken stock
juice of 1 lemon
grated Parmesan to serve

Blanch the fennel in boiling water for one minute. Drain and rinse under cold running water to stop the cooking process. Drain again.

Heat a wok or large frying pan until very hot. Add 1 tablespoon of oil and half of the butter. Swirl to coat the sides. When the butter begins to sizzle, add the sliced fennel. Stir fry until golden brown and tender. Remove from the wok and keep warm.

Reheat the wok, add 2 tablespoons of oil and half of the remaining butter. Stir fry the chicken in two batches until cooked through and browned on the outside. Add more oil and the remaining butter between the two batches. Return the pork and the fennel to the wok and mix well. Add the fennel leaves and chard. Stir fry for one minute until the chard is just beginning to wilt. Add the stock and lemon juice, stir. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately, sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

Serves 4

I served this over plain white but I bet it would be really good over wild rice or even mashed potatoes. Now I have to figure out what to do with the other half of the fennel bulb and pretty much ALL the top.

Cookied Out

2009-12-13T20:51:00.002-05:00

On Friday night, I attended a get together with a few girls from a local board. The theme was cookies. We all had to bring cookies, store bought or homemade, to share and then take some home. There were 14 of us there....that was a lot of cookies! They were all delicious but I'm cookied out!

I brought some spritz cookies. Why? Well, because considering the amount of cookies I had to make, pressed cookies seemed like the easiest route and it was. One single batch made about 100 cookies but it depends on the design. The Christmas tree die is apparently not a dough hog. This recipe is very loosely based on a Martha Stewart recipe.

Vanilla and Cinnamon Spritz Cookies

1 cup sugar
1 tbsp vanilla powder (or vanilla extract)

3 sticks (12 oz) unsalted butter
2 large egg yolks
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
sanding sugar as needed

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Beat the sugar and the vanilla powder on medium speed until incorporated, about 3 minutes. Add the butter and beat until pale and fluffy. Add the egg yolks, 1 at a time making sure to beat well after each addition. Reduce speed to low. Add flour, salt and ground cinnamon and beat until smooth.

Working in batches, fill the cookie press and press cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 1 inch apart.. Sprinkle the dough with the sanding sugar and bake until the edges are just golden, about 10 minutes.

Let the cookies cool in the sheet. Cookies can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 4 days. Raw dough can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

I get my vanilla powder at Williams Sonoma and it's Nielsen-Masseys. It measure tablespoon for tablespoon with vanilla extract and I haven't noticed a difference in the consistency of the final baked good. I got it for the novelty of it but I think I won't get it again once this pot runs out.

I baked a similar version of this cookie some time last year but they were wreaths then. I also dyed the cookies green this time since I wanted to make Christmas trees. These is an easy peasy cookie to make and the press just makes it even easier.

Happy baking!

CSA Week 3 Start Up

2009-12-13T18:42:00.001-05:00

I look forward to every Saturday morning now because it's CSA box day. I enjoy the drive to Bee Heaven Farm almost as much as I enjoy getting the box. I always drool over all those houses with enormous plots that I will never own. But I digress.

Yesterday was the first time we didn't leave anything from our box behind in exchange for something else, although we did take a goody from the extras box. This time the box had one eggplant, thai basil, green chard, one green bell pepper, one pint of cherry tomatoes, 3/4 pounds green beans, one cucumber and a bag of 5 piper betel leaves. We took fennel from the extras box.

The only thing in this box that I am 100% unfamiliar with is the piper betel. I have no idea what it is nor what do use it for. The newsletter has some suggestions but we'll see what comes of that. The fennel has the top attached so it huge, though the bulb itself isn't. I don't know what I'm going to do with it but I hope I can use it all. There's not much I have planned for this stuff since I am going on vacation for a week on Tuesday and Matt will be home alone. I really doubt he'll be doing any cooking so I gotta figure out a way to make this stuff last until I get back. I still have some things from the previous box plus there will be the box next weekend. I guess we'll be eating a lot the week I get back!

I did give the green beans to my mom because we still have some from the first box (assuming they are still good). I also gave her one of the avocados from the previous box. I think I'm gonna make a curry from the eggplant tomorrow but our AC broke today and hot curry is the last thing I want to eat in the heat.

For more picutres and info on the box, check out Matt's blog.

Vegetable Garden On Its Way!!!

2009-12-12T19:58:00.001-05:00

Well, the vegetable garden has been started!

I am doing a Square Foot Garden as well as some containers. Neither one of us is particularly handy so we just ordered the box for the Square Foot Garden. It is not here yet though. I went ahead and started a few seeds in the garage three days ago. I sowed Genovese and Dark Opal basil, thyme, chives and Sweetie tomatoes. MUCH to my surprise, everything but the chives had sprouted this morning. SO fast. I guess the garage is pretty warm :P

A couple of days ago I sowed chantenay carrots directly into the container. Instead of following the packet instructions and spreading seeds everywhere and then thinning the seedlings, I used the SFG method and just poked small planting wholes the same distance away as the plants need to be and sowed 2 seeds in each hole. Hopefully at least one of the seeds in each hole will germinate and become carrots. That's 32 carrots in potentia. I had great success the other time I grew carrots so I am hoping for success here too.

Today I sowed red shallots into a container and potted two transplants I bought, cayenne pepper and butternut squash. Both went into a container and I will stake the butternut squash at some point though maybe a small trellis of some sort will be better.

I cannot wait until the actual Square Foot Garden is started! I am going on vacation on Tuesday so I'm gonna have to wait until I get back but I do hope the box is here by then. I'm so excited about this whole thing that it is ridiculous. I hope to have be able to start harvesting some things by mid February or so. Hopefully the vegetable garden (if you can call it a garden) plus the CSA veggie box will be enough so we don't have to buy produce again until the season ends.

Chinese Minus The Take Out

2009-12-12T11:39:00.003-05:00

We got a new camera this week and my image processing software did not support the files. Easy fix, right? Not so. There are no upgrades to my software for this file because Adobe is greedy and they just want you to keep buying their products. Then there's the fact that this new card the camera uses crashes My Computer 95% of the time I hook it up to it so getting the pictures off the card has been...interesting. I have had pictures for the post on the damned camera for days but only yesterday was I able to actually get them on the computer and process them.

As I mentioned in the previous CSA post, I had never had bok choy and I was looking for some recipes to use it. First, let me say that I do not like cooked cabbage. I think it smells like fart. Nasty, I know but that's what it smells like to me. However, I do like a nice RAW cabbage salad. The thought of putting cabbage in soup was 100% repulsive to me so I kept looking for other ways to use it up. I ended up finding several recipes for stir fried bok choy and in the spirit of trying new things, I decided to brave it.

As I was slicing the bok choy, I tried a little bit of it. Man, it was good! Like...where-has-this-cabbage-been-all-my-life good. It was sweet and crunchy and the white stalks were juicy...just loved it. I was also very surprised by how good it was stir fried. I do like it better raw but the stir fry was very good. Now I'm thinking about growing the baby bok choy variety in my new Square Foot Garden but more on that later.

Stir Fried Bok Choy

400g (14oz) bok choy
1 tbsp oil
2 garlic cloves, mashed
3 thin slices of fresh ginger
3 tbsp chicken stock/broth
1 tsp sugar
salt or light soy sauce

Separate the white stakes and the green leaves of the bok choy. Roughly slice both. Heat a wok over high heat, add the oil and heat until very hot. Stir fry the garlic and ginger for 30 seconds. Add the white stalks and stir fry for about 2 minutes. Add the greens and stir fry until they begin to wilt, then add the stock and sugar and season with salt or light soy sauce. Simmer, covered, until the white stalks are tender but the leaves are still green, approximately 2 minutes. Serve hot.

Serves 4

I made half that amount and it used up almost all of the bok choy. We still have some green left and a lot of stalks so I may try something else with it.

For the main dish I just made a simple Lemon Chicken and I believe the recipe hails from Canton. I used the garlic chives from the CSA box here.

Lemon Chicken

1 egg, slightly beaten
2 garlic cloves, sliced
2 small pieces of unwaxed lemon rind
1 pound skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1/4 inch slices
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp canola or olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
2 small garlic chives, roughly chopped

Combine the egg, garlic and lemon rind in a bowl, add the chicken and marinate for 15 minutes. Remove the lemon rind and add the cornstarch to the marinated chicken, making sure to stir and evenly distribute. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over high heat until very hot. Add the chicken, turn down the heat, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked. Turn the heat up to high, add the lemon juice and stir. Remove from the heat, add the garlic chives and serve.

Serves 4

Why order Chinese when it's this easy to make?? I served this with white rice.

While making this chicken, I inadvertently tested a theory. I have always heard that food sticks to pans (I dont normally use nonstick) not because the pan is hot but because it isn't hot enough. I always let my pans get hot yet everything still stuck. Well, this time I added the oil and then went to do something else (check my email, shame on me) and totally forgot about the frying pan. When I remembered, I ran over the the stove and the oil had begun to smoke. I went ahead and added the chicken anyway. What do you know....know a single thing stuck! I guess I was just not letting the pans get hot enough.

Vegetable Growing

2009-12-06T11:39:00.001-05:00

I was born in the biggest city in my home country and aside from the odd few years I lived in a provincial town when I was a small child, I have always lived in big cities. Havana, Miami, the Washington DC area, Naples, Italy, London, etc. You get the idea. I'm a city girl through and through and I have never made any excuses for that. I love high rises and crowds and I would give my first born (OK, not really) to live in Manhattan. However, there are a few country-life things I have come to yearn for in recent years.

I never had any interest in gardening of any sort until I moved to the UK in 2006. We rented an apartment in North London and there was a pick your own farm within a 15 minute or so drive. We were in the outskirts of London proper so there was some aspect of country/rural life to if you just drove a bit. Vegetable gardening is big in the UK, there are several magazines about it and they even have local government support community garden type schemes.

These gardens are called allotments. These allotments (of land) are in a large plot of land and subdivided into small plots, the allotments themselves. The individuals rent (if you will) these small pieces in the large plot and plant it, tend to it, etc. Each individual is responsible only for their own plot. This is a great way for normal people to grow their own vegetables. Most houses in the UK have very small yards, if at all, so growing in your backyard is not necessarily an option. I think allotments started in WWII but I am not sure.

Being exposed to all that made me really want to give growing vegetables a shot. We were lucky enough that our apartment had a small garden (though we had to leave the building and go through two gates to get to it) so I said "why not?" and got to it. Because we rented, we couldn't really dig and plant and raised beds would damage the grass so I decided to just do container gardening. I planted herbs, lettuce, carrots and strawberries. Turns out, I didn't have a black thumb at all. The carrots were delicious and the little salad we got was good too. The herbs served me well (until I let them die) and the birds enjoyed the strawberries cause I didn't get to them fast enough. I loved it.

Then we moved to the US and trying to keep it up, I planted tomatoes in three containers. They were prolific but it just so happened that they were prolific at the point in my pregnancy where I could not stomach anything and the thought of food alone made me want to run to the toilet. My husband does not like tomatoes so they went to waste. What a shame. That put me off but I really want to get back into it. We bought this house in March and even though it is a house, we do not have a yard. We do have a big porch so I am currently considering Square Foot Gardening in raised patio boxes. We'll see what comes of that.

As for the allotments, I REALLY wish the US had this sort of thing, even if not government supported. I have looked high and low for any sort of garden that rents out lots in our area but they do not exist (or they are very well hidden and kept secret). We have even considered buying land either for us or to start an allotment type business but alas, we cannot at this point. If I was friends with anyone that had a big enough piece of land I'd beg them to let me use a small piece of it to grow things. We live right next to Redlands, Florida, an huge agricultural area, you'd think it would be esay to find a small plot of growing land, no?

So, I hope we can at least make something with what we've got and gived SFG in raised patio boxes a shot.

PS. As a side note, we often talk about how next time we buy a house (in 5 years or so) we are definitely going to buy one with some land, nothing huge, just enough to grow a few things and maybe even keep a few animals. Remember how I said I was a city girl through and through? Yeah? Well, I wonder where this suppressed country girl is coming from but my family would be horrified!

Here are a few pictures from my UK garden, if you can call it that.

CSA Week 2 Start Up

2009-12-05T19:39:00.000-05:00

The second week of the CSA organic vegetable box is here! Yes, I know I only posted one recipe from the previous box but rest assured we ate nearly all of it, I was just too lazy to post about it.

We picked up our box this morning and were surprised to see a few others there, including Margie (the farmer). It had been raining and the grass was wet but we thought we'd let Liev run around anyway since he rarely gets the chance to be that free. Leave it up to the spawn of a city girl to take a tumble right into a muddy puddle. I was (almost) horrified but he just got up and kept walking. Of course, the front of his clothes was soaked in muddy water. That was hilarious.

The box this week has a lot of things that I haven't tried and would not have normally bought. Again, this is the beauty of vegetable boxes, you get to play Iron Chef a bit. Improvise and see what happens. I won't go into details about the contents and what the more exotic ones are (I'll leave that up to Matt) but the box had avocado, green bell pepper, garlic chives, zucchini, yellow squash, bok choy, dandelion, black zapote and romain lettuce. We swapped the zucchini for another avocado although we wanted eggplants but there werent any in the extras box. I don't have any set plans for any of it yet but I do think I want to make dandelion pasta. The recipe on the newsletter caught my eye and I've been wanting to make pasta for a while so why not. I'm researching other recipes.

Leftovers

2009-11-24T13:23:00.000-05:00

I don't normally post about stuff like this but I felt at I had to! I am currently enjoying the leftvoers from the Thai Pork and Green Beans meal and it's even better reheated! How is that possible? I have no idea how but it is! The lemongrass is even more noticeable now and it is lovely! I am also eating it with basmati rice from last night's vegetable korma (not blogged) so maybe that's it. Either way, I'll be making this again!

Lemongrass Virgin No More!

2009-11-22T19:52:00.000-05:00

I still didn't what I was going to do with lemongrass so at about 4ish I started doing some recipe searches. I figured it would be something Thai since they use lemongrass a lot. I was ready for a soup or something along those lines. I came across a recipe that called for lemongrass AND green beans! Score! I modified it, as I always do, to use what I had. It was a light recipe and we count our calories so I did keep it light but still yummy.

After I started mincing the lemongrass it occurred to me that I had NO idea which part was the edible part! Google (and Matt) to the rescue! I'm glad I had him look it up cause I was about to use the non edible part. Turns out, the part that is used in cooking is the lower 3rd which is the white part and the light green part. It was SO aromatic! I had never cooked with lemongrass so I had no idea how citrusy it really smells.

Thai Pork and Green Beans

1 cup uncooked green beans, washed and cut into bitesize pieces
cooking spray
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 cup light coconut milk, divided
2 tbsp green curry paste
1 tbsp packed light brown sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp minced lemongrass
1 pound lean pork tenderloin cut into thin strips

2 cups cooked rice (jasmine prefered)

Steam the green beans over boiling water for 5 minutes or until tender. Drain well and set aside.

In a measuring cup, combine 3/4 cups of the light coconut milk, the green curry paste, brown sugar, soy sauce and lemongrass. Coat a large skillet with cooking spray and set over medium heat. Once hot, add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the coconut milk and curry paste mixture. Bring to a simmer.

Add the pork and reduce the heat to medium low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the pork is cooked through, about 12 minutes. Add the green beans and remaining 1/4 cup of light coconut milk. Simmer until hot, about 1 minute more. Serve over rice

Serves 4

I *think* green curry paste can be purchased in the Asian section of the supermarket but I am not sure. I got mine at Whole Foods. This is actually not coconuty at all so if you don't like coconut, like I used to, don't shy away from this recipe. This is also a mild dish (I made it mild so my 15 month old son could eat it) so if you like it spicy (and who doesn't??) you can minced jalapeno or Thai chili when you cook the garlic.

I'm so glad we are actually using the stuff from our vegetable box. I was worried we'd just throw it all out. Of course, that's only a small portion of the box used to, we still have a long way to go!

Organic Vegetable Box

2009-11-21T11:22:00.002-05:00

I'm so excited! After years of talking about signing up for a vegetable box thing, we finally did it! Unlike in other areas, the season here goes from November to April, and that's the only times we get the box. That's fine by us though. They don't deliver, we have to pick it up but it is a local farm and it's only a 10 minute drive from our house (we live in the boonies!). Today was our first pick up and the box contained dill (we left it for others to take cause we hate it), curly leaf lettuce, green beans, cherry tomatoes, one avocado, callaloo, lemongrass, sweet corn ears, and hibiscus flowers. We could have added honey, eggs, hummus, etc but chose not to since this is our first year and we didn't know what to expect.

Some of those things we had never seen and had no idea what they were. Callalo, otherwise known as edible amaranth and pigweed, is supposed to be a great spinach substitute though it needs to be cooked. It is also known as bhaaji in the Caribbean and India. I have no idea what we're gonna do with that but maybe I'll experiment with it for Thanksgiving dinner. I don't know yet what I'm going to do with the hibiscus flower. That's the nice thing about this sort of boxes, you get things you've never had before and wouldn't otherwise try. It broadens your culinary horizons and encourages you to think outside the box, or in this case, INSIDE the box :P I'm looking forward to find yummy recipes to use all these vegetables we will be getting every week from now until April.

These vegetable boxes are sold and put together by the farm close to us but they are a collaboration among several local organic farms. This is a small operation so they have very limited numbers of shares and they sold out very quickly, I'm glad we got it at all as only a few days after they started taking subscriptions they had sold out had a waiting list. They are trying to get the local food movement going in this area as well as raise awareness of local organic farmers. I'm glad I'm getting all these yummy local, fresh and organic veggies but I'm also very happy to be helping local farmers because in these day and age, they are a dying breed. I live in the outskirts of suburbia and I just have to drive 3 minutes to the west to get to the are where most of the food in Florida is grown yet we hardly ever see local produce in the supermarket. It's a shame really because it is grown RIGHT HERE! I'm glad we have box schemes like this one, everyone is a winner. We have also considered the idea of getting local milk, especially since you can get it unpasteurized (GASP!!!!).

I'm off to eat my sweet corn now...the longer it sits the less sweet it gets!

There's A Root In My Soup

2009-10-21T19:16:00.002-04:00

I make a lot of soups because they are usually easy one pot meals but every now and then I come across a soup that blows my mind. Today's dinner was one of those soups. I didn't think it would be anything special but I was very pleasantly surprised. If you limiting your calorie intake (and we are) this is a great soup. Nice and filling and not crazy high in calories.

Root Vegetable-Split Pea and Ham Soup

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion (about 1/2 small)
1 cup chopped carrots
3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
7 cups beef stock
2 cups diced sweet potato (about 1 large)
3/4 cup dried split peas
1/3 cup orzo or other small pasta
1 cup diced cooked ham

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook the onions, carrots and garlic for 3 minutes or until softened. Add the stock, sweet potato and split peas. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for 40 minutes or unitl the peas are tender.

Transfer the mixture to a food processor working in batches if necessary. Puree until smooth. Return the soup to the pot and bring to a boil. Add the ham and pasta and cook covered for 10 minutes, or until the pasta is tender. Stir frequently as the pasta may stick to the bottom of the saucepan.

Serves 6 as part of a larger meal

Now, I was in a hurry so I actually made the soup in a pressure cooker. If you have a pressure cooker you can cut the time back to only 15 minutes once full pressure is reached. Then you can proceed as directed on the recipe.

This soup is just delicious. The sweetness of the carrots and the sweet potato comes through but you can still taste the split pea. It's like split pea and ham soup on steroids. Delicous. This one will definitely go into the "favorites" file.

Cakes, cakes and more cakes!

2009-08-23T21:35:00.005-04:00

Tap...tap....is this thing on?

Hello! I am still alive and kicking! Always tired and sleepy but kicking! Life with a baby (now toddler) is crazy crazy crazy. Yes, I cook because I have to eat but by the time I'm done cooking the last thing I want to do is take pictures of the food and blog about i! That's OK though, I've come to terms with it.

I have been making a few cakes in the past couple of weeks. My son turned one on the 18th so I made a smash cake for that day and then made a cake for the party today. I'm also taking a class so I had to make a cake for that and have one more to go.

The two cakes for my son were scratch cakes. The smash cake was an eggless chocolate cake with mint flavored buttercream. The party cake (the monkey) was a buttercake with pina colada filling and pina colada flavored buttercream. I made the fondant for the class cake because I didn't have time to buy any and I refuse to use Wilton fondant, it tastes like toxic waste.

The cakes are not perfect but they don't have to perfect to be beautiful :D

I've Fallen....

2009-05-04T21:45:00.002-04:00

...and I can't get up.

One day, when my child no longer needs to be held and/or entertained whenever he's awake; one day, when I am able to sleep more than 6 or 7 hours every other night; one day, when I am not tired and sleepy all the time; one day, when I truly into my newfound lack of independence, I will pick up where I left off.

Life happens and at this point, I am unable to continue food blogging on a regular basis. I kept it going as long as I have had to take an involuntary hiatus and it seems it will remain so for a while.

I might post sporadically but I make no commitments. I truly hope I can resume this blog soon!

I am sorry I have let all of us down.

Roasted Vegetable Soup

2009-02-21T19:37:00.006-05:00

Our baby is already eating solids and I make his food at home. It's pretty simple and I know exactly what goes into it. He's already had a few things and most have been a success so I was ready to start mixing things. I came across a recipe that was absolutely perfect for him AND us. With just a tiny bit of planning, I could kill two birds with one stone. This way I could introduce something new (shallots and garlic), feed ourselves and feed him all with one meal. Score!

Roasted Vegetable Soup

1 sweet potato, about 12 oz
1 acorn squash
4 shallots
olive oil
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
3 3/4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 regular whipping cream
ground grains of paradise (or ground black pepper)
salt

Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Cut the sweet potato, squash and shallots in half lengthwise, through the stem end. Scoop the seeds out of the squash. Brush the cut sides of the vegetables with olive oil.

Put the vegetables cut side down on a baking sheet or shallow roasting pan. Add the garlic cloves. Roast in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes, until tender. Set aside to cool.

When cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh from the potato and the squash and put in a saucepan. Remove the peel from the shallots and garlic and add the soft insides to the other vegetables.

Add the broth and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are very tender.

Remove the saucepan from the heat. Transfer the soup to a food processor or blender and process until smooth, working in batches. If you will be feeding a baby that cannot eat dairy yet, reserve some of the pureed soup now. Return the soup to the rinsed out saucepan and stir in the cream. Season to taste with salt and grains of paradise. Simmer for a couple of minutes.

Serves 6

This was the best vegetable I've ever had. We all loved it, including the baby. He just couldn't get enough! I reserved just over one cup of the pureed soup before adding the cream. I left two baby servings in the fridge for today and tomorrow and froze the rest. There wasn't any left with the cream to freeze for us...it's all gone. Delicious!

Quick Dinner

2009-02-20T17:43:00.004-05:00

We have been eating out a lot lately because the baby does not give me a chance to make dinner. As you can imagine, this is getting really expensive so it was just a matter of time before we had to find another solution to the dinner problem. I can't let the kiddo scream while I cook so we decided it would be best to find quick things I can make once my husband gets home from work and watches the baby. Great idea. We only started yesterday so ask me how it's going in a couple of weeks.

Just because things have to be quick, does not mean they have to lack in the quality and flavor departments. For this reason, I picked Chicken with a Pan Sauce for the first dinner. I paired it with good old mashed potatoes and it was a success.

Chicken with Pan Sauce

2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
salt
ground grains of paradise (black pepper will do in a pinch)
2/3 cups dry white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 tbsp whipping cream
5 tbsp butter, cold

Place each chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap. With the flat side of a meat mallet, pound the chicken until it's an even thickness of about 1/4 inch. Remove plastic wrap and season with salt and grains of paradise.

In a 10 inch skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and cook the chicken for 6 to 8 minutes or until no longer pink, turning once. Transfer the chicken to a platter and cover with foil to keep warm.

Add the wine, chicken broth and shallots to the skillet. To deglaze the skillet, stir and scrape the brown bits from the bottom of the skillet with a wooden spatula. Bring to the boil. Boil gently for 10 to 15 minutes or until the liquid has reduced to 1/4 cup. Reduce the heat to low.

Stir in the cream. Add the remaining butter, one tablespoon at a time, stirring well after each addition until the butter melts. The sauce should be slightly thickened. Season to taste with additional salt and grains of paradise. Spoon over the chicken and serve.

Serves 2

For this, as with any other pan sauce, you cannot use a nonstick pan. Pan sauces rely on stuck bits and there is no such thing on a nonstick pan. As for the wine, I have found that the four packs of the little bottles (the ones that are supposed to be one glass) works best for cooking. The quality is not excellent but they are not bad either and the best part is that no wine goes to waste because they are so small. Of course, if you drink wine with your meals then it shouldn't matter as it probably wouldn't go to waste.

This is a simple, relative fast and definitely good recipe. The best part? It's MUCH cheaper than eating out!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T20:20:00.003-05:00

I have to admit that I have always dreaded Valentine's Days. Well, not always, just when I've been alone. I'm convinced this holiday was created to make single people feel miserable the world over. Why else would it be??? Hallmark makes who knows how much out this so called holiday alone. It's all about making money, then again, so is Christmas these days. So, while the rational part of me believes this, there romantic at heart in me gets a little sparkle in her eyes thinking about all the romantic, cheesy, cliche things going on in the world today. Everything from red roses to walks on the beach, to romantic dinners to champagne and chocolate covered strawberries by candle light. Hey, I AM a girl after all!

Even with all my Valentine's Day cynicism, I couldn't resist baking cupcakes with pink icing. I admit, it was just an excuse to get in the kitchen because I haven't done in so long. What used to be an almost daily occurrence is now a sporadic thing. These days I take any opportunity to at least try to bake something....anything.

I've wanted to try the Magnolia Bakery vanilla cupcake recipe for a long time. I figured this occasion was as good as any. I have heard nothing but wonderful things about the Magnolia Bakery and their cupcakes. In case you have been living under the proverbial rock, the Magnolia Bakery is a small bakery in New York that has one of the best cupcakes in the entire city, if not the country. The lines for this bakery, which is take out only, can be ridiculously long AND they have a 12 cupcake per customer limit due to their popularity. The Magnolia Bakery cupcakes have been featured in Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada, etc. The owners have also released at least two books, one of which contains this recipe.

In all honesty, I don't understand why they have decided to share the most popular recipe. True, they are probably not losing much business since they are not a country wide chain and thus anyone outside of the NYC area are not really their target demographics but still...the competition could very well use it against them. At any rate, I'm glad they've decided to share because had it not been for this recipe, I would have probably never tried a Magnolia cupcake. The recipe is all over the internet right now and I guess I'm just jumping on the bandwagon. The recipe also comes with an icing recipe but I used a different recipe since I don't like buttercream that is just butter and powder sugar.

Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing

1 1/2 cups self rising flour
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F. Line two 12 whole muffin tins with cupcake liners.

In a small bowl, mix the flours and set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until soft. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the the ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until all the ingredients are combined but do not over beat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

For the buttercream:

2 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/2 a cup vanilla sugar
6 oz (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

Combine the egg whites and sugar in the bowl of a mixer or in a metal bowl and whisk together. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, being careful not to let the bowl touch the water. Insert a thermometer in the bowl and whisk until the mixture reaches 100°F (warm to the touch). Remove the bowl from the saucepan and place on the mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, or use a hand mixer. Beat on high speed until the egg whites form soft, shiny peaks.

Make sure the butter is soft and lump free. Add to the meringue a tablespoon at a time while beating at high speed. Continue to beat on high speed until the mixture looks smooth. Use right right away by spreading the buttercream on the cupcakes.

The cupcake part, the part that comes from the Magnolia Bakery, is absolutely delicious It is one of the best vanilla cupcakes I have ever had. The icing, which is a slight modification of the buttercream found in "Desserts by the Yard" by Sherry Yard is also one of the best I've had. Over all, these cupcakes are excellent, even my picky husband loved them

Just a Quick Fix

2009-01-23T21:50:00.005-05:00

It is no secret that I am kitchen gear whor......hhhmm....lover and not even having moved to a MUCH smaller place with a MMUUUUCCCHHHH smaller kitchen has tamed me. I cannot help myself...it's just in my genes. I was out today and I saw a mini bundt pan and I just had to have it. I had been wanting one for a long time and today was just as good a day as any to get it. It is also no secret that I quite possibly the world's most impatient person so I knew I needed to use it and quick. Luckily for me, I had dropped the baby off at my mom's in hopes of tidying the house up (yeah right) so I had the afternoon to myself. I did tidy the kitchen up (some) so I don't feel like I totally slacked but baking.....I just needed to do it.

I haven't baked in so long! I miss, I really do. I also miss cooking and I haven't done any of that since Christmas Day and that was the first time in months. The deal is, I just can't do it. The baby does not let me and I don't kid! He wants to be entertained and/or held all the time. Most days I can't even eat breakfast let alone make dinner. I still haven't mastered the art of wearing him on my back in the sling or the wrap so I can't cook with him on me either. So, we have been living on take out. Sad, so sad!

Anyhow, the pan came with a recipe for rum cakes and having done no prior research, I just went ahead and made that because I just couldn't wait. I modified the recipe slightly just because I refuse to follow recipes verbatim and because I like to experiment. The result was a tender, melt-in-your-mouth cake. It is not the be all and end all rum cakes but they are not bad at all.

Rum Cakes

1 cup cake flour (or all purpose)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract 2 eggs

for the syrup
1/2 cup vanilla sugar
1/2 cup water
1 fl oz (1/8 cup) dark rum

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a mini bundt pan.

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients; beat on low speed until moistened, then beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour the batter into the pan cavities until 3/4 full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

In a medium saucepan combine the sugar and the water to make the syrup. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and stir in the rum. Using a fork or skewer, pierce the hot cakes still in the pan at 1/2 inch intervals; immediately pour the syrup over the cakes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a plate.

I actually found that the batter didn't actually fill my 6 cavity pan, it was only enough for 5. Shallower cakes can be made though by putting less batter in each cavity. I served them with a good sprinkling of powder sugar but it is by no means necessary.

I will definitely be looking for other cakes to make in this pan because I need to get my money's worth!

Christmas Day Feast

2008-12-26T14:06:00.009-05:00

I am not going to make any more excuses for not blogging....life happens. From here on, I will blog (and cook for that matter) when I have the chance and I will not feel guilty about it. As much as I love cooking, baking, and blogging about it, I love my baby more and he takes priority right now.

Santa was good to me this year and I got not one, not two, not three but SIX baking books! SIX! Some of them have been on my wish list for ages but they were too expensive to get. My husband, whom I love very much, got them all for me. Here they are!

He also bought me a beautiful Tiffany necklace, which I was NOT expecting at all! It was a nice surprise.

For some reason I still can't explain, I volunteered to HOST the Christmas Day meal....at MY house. I still don't know what came over me but it was obviously a lapse in judgment. I spent a week going nuts trying to figure out how I was going to pull this off after all, we still haven't fully unpacked from the move AND I can't really do much during the week because the baby insists on being held and/or entertained (how DARE he???)! On Christmas Eve, I decided on the side dishes and it was nothing complicated because well, I was a big overwhelmed.

Things turned out alright though and since it was my family that invited to dinner, they watched the baby while I cooked. I will admit though that I didn't make dessert....I just served the Christmas Pudding we brought from the UK in November. Christmas is all about tradition, right??? ;) I did, however, make the cognac butter to go with it.

The main dish was Apple Glazed Baked Ham. For not EVER having baked a whole ham before, it turned out great. I looked through a few recipes to see how things were done and then came up with my own version of the glaze. The ham took longer than I expected to cook which makes me VERY thankful for meat thermometers because we would have eaten undercooked ham otherwise. Well, not really undercooked since it was already fully cooked, but still.

Apple Glazed Baked Ham

1 fully cooked bone in ham, 8 to 9 pounds
4 cups apple cider or juice
whole cloves
1/3 cup apple jelly
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Place ham on a rack in a roasting pan. Trim the fat and skin; score the surface of the ham, making diamond shapes 1/4 inch deep. Insert one clove in each point of the diamond shapes. Add the cider to the pan. Loosely cover with foil and bake at 325°F for 1 hour.

Combine the remaining ingredients, brush some over the ham. Bake, uncovered until a meat thermometer inserted in the ham reads 140°F and the ham is heated through, brushing occasionally with the glaze.

Let it stand for 15 minutes before carving.

The sides were fairly easy and definitely tasty.

Bacon-Smothered Peas

3 slices of bacon, diced
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 lbs frozen green peas
1 1/4 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

In a medium saucepan, cook the bacon until crispy and all the fat is rendered, about 4 minutes. Add the onion and cook for a further 5 to 6 minutes until they are tender. Add the peas and chicken broth and cook, stirring occasionally, until flavorful and cooked to the desired degree of doneness, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the salt and pepper and let sit off the heat for 5 more minutes. Serve hot.

Mashed Potatoes

2 pounds starchy potatoes like Russet Burbank, peel and sliced in 1/4 inch disks
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 milk
5 tbsp unsalted butter
salt and pepper to taste

Put the potatoes in a large, deep pot and cover with cold water. Add a large pinch of kosher salt and bring to a boil. Keep the water rolling until the potatoes are done. The potatoes are done when a sharp knife inserted into one meets no resistance. Drain the potatoes into a colander and let them sit for a bit.

While the potatoes are draining, wipe the pot dry and put it back on the stove over medium-low heat. Add the milk, heavy cream and butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. When the butter is almost melted, remove the pot from the stove and rice the potatoes (using a potato ricer) directly into the milk mixture (you can also add the potatoes to the milk mixture and mash them). Return the pot to the heat and stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the desired consistency is reached, adding more milk if necessary. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper.

Braised Butternut Squash

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil infused with roasted garlic
1 1/2 lbs butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2 to 1 1/2 inch cubes
1/4 cup stock (chicken or vegetable)
salt and pepper to taste

Put the oil in a large deep skillet with a tight fitting lid over medium heat. When the oil starts to shimmer, add the squash and stock and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover and turn the heat down to low. Cook, stirring once or twice, until the squash is tender, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

All that was made for 4 adults and 1 child and while the sides were all gone, I still have quite a bit of leftover ham. That's fine with me though, I can totally see the bone flavoring a nice split pea and ham soup.

This was also the first time I used my new All Clad Copper Core cookware! I had used the small saucepan but I got to use two other pieces and let me tell you, it felt GOOD. Now I just need a new stove because I HATE the one this apartment has. HATE it!

Just in case, here is the recipe for the cognac butter:

Vanilla Cognac Butter

85 g unsalted butter, softened
85 g, powder sugar
3 tbsp vanilla cognac such as Navan

In a small food processor, process the butter until smooth. Add the powder sugar and process until well mix. Adding one tablespoon of the cognac at a time, process until it's all incorporated.

Transfer to a serving ramekin and chill until ready to use.

Just for kicks, a couple of other pictures. First, my best interpretation of a Stepford Wife:

and my cute monkey wearing his Christmas Day bib. I don't know why he was so serious, he usually isn't!

Happy Holidays!

Daring Bakers November....It's a Piece of Cake

2008-11-29T21:33:00.002-05:00

It's Daring Bakers posting day again and I'm sorry to say, I have no pictures to post today. I did complete the challenge and I did take pictures but I moved this week and my computer is still in pieces...with my pictures in it. I will come back when everything is hooked up and post pictures but just text will have to do for now.

This month's challenge was actually one of my favorite and one of the few where nearly every bit was eaten. It was Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting. Definitely not diet friendly, it tasted like a heart attack on a plate but OH SO GOOD. I made it for my grandmother's birthday and while it wasn't a pretty cake in the decorated sense, it sure made up for it in flavor.

The hostess for this month was Dolores from Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity and the recipe is by Shuna Fish Lydon from Bay Area Bites.

A Local Eats Blogging Event

2008-11-16T14:05:00.005-05:00

I haven't really been cooking or baking much since the baby came so I haven't participated in any blogging events for a while. I've barely had time to participate in the Daring Baker's challenge! I was browsing through www.ismyblogburning.com a few days ago and one specific even caught my eye, Local Eats Blogging Adventure hosted by the lovely Joelen of Joelen's Culinary Adventures. I had been thinking about making something very local to this area for a while but hadn't gotten around to it and this was the perfect opportunity.

What is it? You ask, well, let's see...What is named after something that grows mostly south of Miami-Dade County? It's not seafood, it's not an entree of any sort. It's tart but sweet.....it is Key Lime Pie! I learned a lot about the history of Key Lime Pie while doing research for this event. It's surprising how little we know about local dishes on the whole. We eat them regularly without giving it much thought because you know, they've always been there and that's that.

Originally, Key Lime Pie was not cooked at all. The acidity of the limes cooked and set the eggs thus setting the filling. Nowadays, because of health concerns, nearly all recipes call for a short baking period which sets the filling even more than just the lime juice. On July 1st 2006 Key Lime Pie was made the official Florida state pie. Who would have thunk it???

Luscious Key Lime Pie

for the crust:

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted

for the filling

5 eggs, separated
1 14oz-can sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup FRESH Key Lime juice (a one pound bag)
3 tbsp sugar

Combine the crust ingredients. Press into an 8 inch deep tart pan with removable bottom. Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes; cool.

With an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks until they are thick and pale colored. Slowly beat in the condensed milk and blend well. Add the Key lime juice and mix until smooth. Pour into the baked pie shell. Bake for 15 minutes or until the filling is firm.

In a clean bowl, whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until the meringue forms stiff peaks. Pile the meringue on top of the hot filling and spread all the way to the edges to make sure it doesn't shrink. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the meringue is light golden brown. Cool to room temperature and chill before serving.

Serves 6 to 8

Purists seem to think that it isn't real Key Lime Pie unless a pastry crust is used but I much prefer to eat, if not to make, the cookie crust. Not only is it tastier, but it doesn't get soggy. They pie is tart, no question about it, but it's creamy and well, it's almost gone and I only made it yesterday.

Thanks to my genius husband I didn't spend half an hour squeezing tiny limes with my hands. He came up with the ingenious idea to use get this.....a garlic press! It worked like a charm! Alton would be so proud because our garlic press is no longer a unitasker!

Check Out My Buns!

2008-11-10T16:43:00.005-05:00

Late last night, as I was getting ready to go to bed it occurred to me to get some dough for hamburger buns started and let it proof overnight in the fridge. I went straight to Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's apprentice knowing it would not disappoint. I found a recipe and got to mixing. Thank heavens for Kitchenaid!

This morning it was just a matter of shaping, proofing again and baking so the buns were ready for lunch! I made half hamburger buns and half hot dog buns but the recipe can be made into dinner rolls or loaves too.

I would post the recipe but the recipes in this book are SO long, then there's the shaping instructions, variations, etc. That said, this recipe is not difficult, just long. If you are really interested, you should at least check out the book at your local library. It is a GREAT book for any bread baker enthusiast or even those who want to start baking their own bread. It's not just recipes, he also explains why things are done the way they. This information is invaluable when you want to experiment with your own recipes.

Ladies and gentlemen....my buns....no, not THOSE buns...the flour ones ;)

They are soft and tender and just perfect. They were a huge hit. My mom said "WOW, they look and taste like they came from a bakery!" I'm pretty sure that was a compliment! LOL

Cookware Heaven

2008-11-09T09:48:00.006-05:00

A few months ago I created the fantasy wishlist you see on the right hand column of this blog. As the name implies, it's all fantasy and most likely unattainable. I have been lucky to have gotten one of the items on it as a birthday present, the All-Clad Waffle Maker. I don't really expect to ever get any of the other stuff but yesterday I got the next best thing to one of them.

Ladies and gents, I am the PROUD owner of a 15 piece set of All-Clad Copper Core cookware! Can you see me doing cartwheels????? It's not quite the 25 piece set I have on the wishlist but I am NOT complaining! We went into Williams Sonoma and after much deliberation, we went ahead and slapped it on a card. I nearly puked at the thought of spending so much money on cookware but they ARE a lifetime investment and lucky for my kiddo, he won't have anyone else to fight for it! Along with my Le Creuset pieces, they make a pretty nice cookware inheritance!

The set includes the following:

1o inch frying pan:

12 inch frying pan:

2qt and 4qt covered saucepans:

3qt and 6qt covered sautee pans:

5 1/2 qt Dutch oven:

and a 7qt stockpot with pasta insert. I couldn't find a picture of the Copper Core one so here's one of the normal Stainless Steel one:

As a gift from All Clad (or is it Williams Sonoma?) got a Cast Aluminum 5.5 Qt. Round Oven with stainless steel lid, and two All-Clad branded, red cotton oven mitts at the store. We also got a boucher for another gift, a Cast Aluminum Au Gratin pan. Total retail value of the gifts? $300. Here are two small pictures:

There still are some individual pieces I'd like to buy at some point but really, I hit the motherload!

My English pudding Achilles Heel

2008-11-06T16:21:00.007-05:00

Before I moved to the UK I was under the impression that British food was anything but exciting. I mean, lets face it, England isn't exactly known around for the fabulous cuisine. What can really be said about a country whose national dish (of sorts) is not even their own but an import from a former colony? As it turns out, lots! Sure, it is no French cuisine but it is not always boring or bland. I'm talking about staples like Cottage Pie, roast beef, Yorkshire Puddings, etc but especially about my all time British favorite....Sticky Toffee Pudding.

For those who have not experienced this dessert, I'm sorry but I cannot describe in such a way as to do it proper justice. You just have to have it. I've had my fair share (OK, more than my fair share) of it and I still don't get tired of it. We were just in the UK visiting family and my first order of business was to get my hands on some. We are now back and I decided it was about time I tried making it at home so that I no longer had to wait for a trip to the UK to indulge.

I searched high and low trying to find a recipe that was easy but authentic. It also required that it didn't contain chopped dates because my husband and I preferred no dates. In the end I adapted a recipe by James Martin and even though it did include dates, they were pureed and they made the cake incredibly moist.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

75g unsalted butter, softened
175g dark brown sugar
200g all purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp black treacle
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g pitted dried dates
1 tbsp baking soda

for the sauce:
100g brown sugar
100g butter
200ml heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Melt 25g of the butter and butter a 12 whole muffin pan.

In a mixer, blend the remaining butter and sugar together. Slowly add the golden syrup, black treacle, eggs and vanilla extract to the mixture and continue mixing. Turn the mixer down to low and add the flour and baking powder. Once all the ingredients are combined, turn off the mixer.

Place the dates in a saucepan with 300ml of water and bring to the boil. Puree the water and date mixture and add the baking soda. While it's still hot, quickly add the mixture to the egg mix. Once the mix is combined, divide it evenly between the 12 muffin cups. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of one cake comes out clean.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Once the cakes are cool, remove them from the pan.

To make the sauce, melt the butter and sugar together in a small pan, add the cream and bring to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes until the sauce reaches the desired consistency.

To serve, reheat the sponge in a microwave or heat for 5 minutes in a 350°F oven. Place on a plate with lots of the sauce on the top.

Serves 12

For American standards, these desserts are small but do not let their small size fool you, they are RICH! I had a hard time finishing one and that's virtually unheard of for me. While some people like it with ice cream, I prefer mine unspoiled by foreign substances :P

Golden syrup and black treacle are not readily available in the US but can be found. If you have a Whole Foods near you, they carry golden syrup and possibly treacle but I'm not sure. If you don't then mail order is probably your best bet. The British Depot carries both and although we are lucky enough to be only about 40 minutes away from one of the branches, they do ship. Their website is http://www.bestdeal.org/british_store/

I hope that I have helped change the bad image British cuisine has, even if just a little. Sure, there are some rather disgusting things on their menu (Piccalilli anyone???) but it isn't all bad and not every dessert have such unappetizing names as spotted dick!

Happy Birthday Sis!

2008-10-05T19:56:00.005-04:00

Today is my little sister's birthday and she asked, no, told me to maker her a cake. I needed to practice my (modest) cake decorating skills so I obliged. My original idea was to make a much more elaborate cake but then reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I have a newborn, even with other people watching him, I still can't engage in very involved projects.

Turns out, she didn't like it. Well, she liked the look but not the taste of the filling. It was a Butter Cake with Sweet Lime Curd Filling and buttercream frosting. Everything except for the buttercream came from The Cake Doctor and I actually found it really good, then again, I like citrus curd. After she took a bite she said "I told you I wanted strawberries in the filling!" Hhhmm....no you didn't. Ha! Nine year-olds!

The flowers and leaves are fondant.

Upside Down Goodness

2008-10-03T11:22:00.005-04:00

The first time I made Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, it was from an Alton Brown recipe and it was a disaster. It was my first and so far only AB disaster so I figured the problem was me. It probably was too, I burned the caramel but he called for a ridiculous amount of heat for a cast iron skillet! I went ahead and baked the thing but I had throw it away. Who wants to eat bitter burnt sugar? Not me!

Yesterday I decided to give it another go but I used a different recipe. I did not want to fail this time besides, I really wanted some cake. I didn't want anything complicated, I didn't want to cream butter, make caramel or anything of the sort so I ended up slightly modifying a recipe from TKAF All Purpose Baking Book. As usual, KAF didn't disappoint. The cake was a breeze to make and it was delicious. Really, really good. The adaption wasn't anything major, I just left some stuff out (the cherries and nuts) so they still deserve all the credit!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

5 tbsp (2 1/2 oz) butter
1/2 cup (4 oz) packed dark brown sugar
1 can (16 oz) pineapple rings, drained and juice reserved
1 cup (4 1/4 oz) unbleached all purpose flour or cake flour (4 oz), sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup (2 3/4 oz) reserved pineapple juice
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2/3 cup (4 1/2 oz) sugar

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Melt the butter in a 10-inch skillet or heavy 10-inch round cake pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar evenly over the butter and place the pineapple rings on top.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together; set the mixture aside. Combine the juice and vanilla and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs until they're thick and lemon-colored and the whisk leaves tracks as it travels through them. With the mixer still running, gradually sprinkle in the sugar. Add the juice, then slow down the mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients all at once and beat on medium speed for 1 minute.

Pour batter over the prepared fruit in the skillet. Bake the cake for 45 minutes, until its center springs back when touched lightly and it's just barely starting to pull away from the sides of the skillet, approximately 40 to 45 minutes. Remove it from the oven and place a serving platter over the skillet. While keeping a firm grip on the both, flip the pan over and place platter and cake on a rack. Leave the pan on top for 5 minutes while the hot topping drips back down on the cake. After 5 minutes, remove the pan and arrange any fruit that's shifted.

This was really, really good cake and my favorite part was the edge where it was touching the sides of the skillet. The contrast between the moist and tender interior and the slightly crunchy exterior was amazing. I have personally eaten most of the cake but my husband, the picky eater, ate lots of it too and didn't find anything wrong with it (or at least he hasn't told me anything!). My family liked it too. Mission accomplished!

Sweet Request

2008-09-30T17:34:00.004-04:00

Yesterday afternoon my grandmother asked if I was planning on making any desserts soon because she was craving something sweet. She doesn't really have a sweet tooth according to her but I guess everyone craves sweets every now and then. Because I have to feed the baby every couple of hours, I can't really get into anything too involved so I thought cookies would be good. I didn't want to take a trip to the supermarket and I because it was already the afternoon (today), I didn't want a recipe that required the butter to be at room temp.

With all those things in mind, I started browsing through a few books to get some ideas. I remembered a cookie I had been thinking about making for a while and as it turns out, required that the butter be chilled. Excellent! The cookies are called alfajores de dulce de leche and this specific recipe came from Martha Stewart's Cookies. The recipe for the dulce de leche itself takes forever (5 hours according to her) but I couldn't wait that long so I made it Cuban style, and really, the only style I have ever seen used by real people. You can use Martha's recipe but if you have a pressure cooker, my way is MUCH faster.

Alfajores de Dulce de Leche

4 cups all purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp confectioner's sugar
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks, 3/4 lbs) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup water
sanding sugar for dusting
Dulce de Leche

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour and confectioner's sugar. Pulse a few times to combine and aerate. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal about 20 seconds. With the machine running, pour the water in a slow, steady stream and process just until the dough comes together, about 20 seconds. Form the dough into two flattened disks and wrap well in plastic. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mat. Preheat the oven to 350°F. On a well floured surface, roll out one disk of dough to a scant 1/4 inch thickness. Using a 2 inch round cookie cutter, cut out rounds form the dough and transfer to the baking sheets. Repeat with the other disk of dough. Gather up the scraps from both batches, reroll and cut. Sprinkle half the rounds with the sanding sugar. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Before serving, spread about 1 1/2 tsp of dulce de leche on the bottoms of the unsugared cookies. Top with the sugared cookies to form a sandwich. Serve immediately.

Dulce de Leche

2 cans condensed milk, unopened and label peeled

Place both cans in a pressure cooker that will accommodate them. Cover and bring up to pressure over high heat. When the pressure cooker begins to hiss, lower the heat making sure it is still enough to maintain pressure and cook for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the cans from the pressure cooker when cool enough to handle and let cool completely before using.

If you do not have a pressure cooker, you can cook the cans in boiling water for one and a half hours, making sure not to let the pot boil dry.

The pressure cooker is my preferred method but I realize not every household has one. There is nothing wrong with using a plain pot if you have time. If you do use a pressure cooker and are not very familiar with it, please, please, please follow the manufacturer's instructions! Pressure cookers can be dangerous! That said, I have yet to witness a pressure cooker accident and I have seen them used my entire life. Heck, I don't even know anyone who has had an accident.

The cookies were a hit and grandma's sweet tooth has been appeased.

Easy. Breezy. Beautiful. No-Knead Bread

2008-09-29T17:10:00.005-04:00

I first heard about no-knead bread last year when I started blogging. I kept coming across recipes and photos here and there and I really wanted to try it. The only reason I hadn't, aside from laziness, was the fact that the lid knob of my cast iron dutch oven (Le Creuset) is not rated for 500°F, the oven temperature called for in all the recipes. Sure, I had seen other people do it but I was a bit apprehensive about ruining a piece of cookware that costs hundreds of dollars. Of course, the knob could be replaced but what if it melted onto the lid???

Well, after reading about it on a magazine by a publisher who shall not be named, I figured it was OK. Still, it took me 7 more months to give it a shot. Eager to get back in the kitchen now that I am able to, I finally decided to give it a go last night. I was a bit apprehensive because even though every raves about the bread, I kept wondering how good it could really be when it was so hhmm...simple...for lack of a better term. There was no kneading (almost), nothing fancy, nothing that screamed GOOD BREAD. That's probably silly but that's what was going through my mind.

Easy it was indeed, tasty...definitely! I was actually very impressed and I LOVED the crust. I am a sucker for crusty bread (oh Italy...how I miss you!) and the crust on this bread is to die for. I was really satisfied with the result especially considering how uninvolved the recipe is. Of course, not everyone shared my enthusiasm. My husband didn't think it was anything special but was expecting something more like ciabatta. I don't really know why because I never, ever mentioned ciabatta when talking about the bread. He was setting himself up for disappointment by expecting something completely different to what was being made. Serves him right!

Almost No-Knead Bread

15 oz (3 cups) all purpose flour, plus additional for dusting the work surface
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 tsp table salt
7 oz (same in weight and volume) water at room temperature
3 oz (1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp) mild-flavored lager
1 tbsp white vinegar

Whisk the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add the water, beer and vinegar. Using a rubber spatula, fold the mixture, scrapping up the bottom of the bowl until a shaggy ball forms. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.

Lay a large piece of parchment paper on a 10 inch skillet and spray with non-stick cooking spray or brush with vegetable oil. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead 10 or 15 times. Shape the dough into a ball by pulling the edges into the middle. Transfer the dough to the greased parchment paper lined skillet and spray or brush the surface with vegetable oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until the dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked, about 2 hours.

About 30 minutes before baking, adjust an oven rack to the lowest position and, place a 6 to 8 quart cast iron dutch oven with a lid on the rack and heat the oven to 500°F. Lightly flour the top of the dough and u sing a razor blade or sharp knife, make one 6 inch long, 1/2 inch deep slit along the top of the dough. Carefully remove the pot from the oven and remove the lid. Pick up the dough with the parchment paper and lower it into the pot. Let any excess parchment paper hang over the edge of the pot. Cover the pot and place in the oven. Reduce the oven temperature to 425°F and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and continue baking until the loaf is a deep brown, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Remove the bread from the pot and transfer to a wire rack. Cool to room temperature, approximately 2 hours.

It takes a long time but 99% percent hands off. It's so easy I really think my kid sister could make it. ANYONE can make artisan bread that is this straight-forward! I get the feeling I'll be making it again and will experiment with flavors.

I was worried over nothing, my precious Le Creuset pot survived :)

Yet More Pancakes

2008-09-28T10:43:00.007-04:00

My quest for great pancakes seems never-ending. When I made the KAF Simple But Perfect Pancakes, I really thought I had nailed it. I have made them a few times since and the end product is incredibly inconsistent. They were perfect the first time but far from it every other time. I was bummed because like I said, I really thought that was THE recipe.

Since I got the waffle iron for my birthday, I haven't been making pancakes at all but we decided that we'd had enough waffles lately and that it was time to make pancakes again. I looked for another recipe, one that was easy but good. I used a recipe in a book by a publisher who shall not be named and modified it. The results were really good. Not quite as good as the first KAF pancakes but a million times better than the subsequent attempts. I hope this recipe is reliable and consistent because it is easy to make and pretty tasty.

Light and Fluffy Pancakes

1 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 cups milk
2 cups (10 oz) all purpose flour
2 tbsp vanilla sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
vegetable oil for greasing skillet/griddle

Whisk the vinegar and milk together in a large bowl or measuring cup. Set aside to thicken while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Whisk the flour, vanilla sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl to combine.

Whisk the egg and melted butter into the milk until combined. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour in the milk mixture and whisk gently until just combined. The mixture should still be slightly lumpy, do not overmix.

Heat a 12 inch non-stick skillet over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes. If using an electric griddle, heat it up according to the manufacturer's instructions. When the skillet or griddle is properly heated, grease with the oil using a brush to coat the bottom. Pour 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake onto separate spots on the skillet or griddle. Cook the pancakes until large bubbles begin to appear and the edges are dry. Flip them over using a thin, wide spatula and until golden brown on the second side. Serve immediately. Repeat with the remaining batter oiling the skillet or griddle as needed.

Makes approximately 12 pancakes

Obviously, the vanilla sugar isn't imperative but I used it because I had some and I wanted to see if it made a difference. Of course, to really know I'd have to make these very same pancakes using plain sugar. If you have buttermilk, just use 2 cups of it instead of the milk and vinegar mixture.

The pancakes were good and I had mine with good old Aunt Jemima syrup and some sliced strawberries. Matt had his with some pecan maple butter from Williams-Sonoma and butter pecan syrup. The possibilities are endless!

Daring Bakers: Lavash and Veganism

2008-09-27T08:53:00.010-04:00

Has it really been almost a month already? It's Daring Bakers time again and I'm finding it hard to believe! Where has the last month a bit gone??? Well, it went into the diaper pail! There's a lovely image for you ;) But really, where has it gone? I really didn't think I would be able to complete this month's challenge and had it not been for some rather unfortunate circumstances, I wouldn't have been able to. We are all well, don't worry.

When I read that this moth's challenge was lavash from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice, I was ecstatic because I love that book and because it was something I had wanted to try for a while. Then I read there was a twist which I will admit I was NOT thrilled with. The dips/spreads for the crackers had to be vegan. I don't know anything about veganism, much less vegan cooking. I didn't even know know honey wasn't vegan although now that I know, it makes perfect sense. After a few days, I came to terms with the vegan part and started looking forward to making the dip, if I ever got around to it, and see how it turned out.

Since lavash is Middle Eastern flatbread, I wanted to make at least one dip that was Middle Eastern. I figured lots of DBs would make it too but that didn't deter me from making hummus. I had never made hummus before because I didn't really want to buy a whole jar of tahini just for a few tablespoons but I bit the bullet. It was an expensive bullet. Since I only completed the challenge 3 days ago, I was in a bit of a hurry so I didn't have time to shop around for the tahini. I ended up buying it at the health aisle of Publix for almost $7. Ouch, especially since I'm probably never going to use it again.

Now, I knew I wasn't crazy about hummus so I also wanted to make something I would eat more of. I'm a big fan of white bean dip and anything Italians make with white beans so that was my choice for the other dip. I remember my days in Italy and all the white bean topped bruschetta I had....those were the days. But I digress.

The hummus recipe came from a beautiful book called Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros. If you've never seen this book (or Apples for Jam), you are missing out. Not only are the pictures beautiful, the binding perfect and the page maker a lovely shade of blue, the cover is actually textured. There is embossed shiny text over a matte picture background. The cover image is beautiful and the spine is covered in a beautiful pattern. Just beautiful and I admit that is why I bought both of those books but they turned out to be full of delicious sounding recipes too. Win-Win! The white bean dip recipe is a slight adaptation from the one found in Williams-Sonoma Mastering Hors d'Oeuvres. To make it vegan, I substituted the chicken stock for vegetable broth.

Hummus

1 (450g) can chickpeas
1 large garlic clove
3 tbsp tahini
juice of 2 lemons
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sweet paprika

Drain the chickpeas and reserve the liquid. Crush the garlic with a little salt until it forms a puree. Put the chickpeas, tahini and garlic in a blender, puree a little and then season with salt. Add the lemon juice and continue pureeing until smooth. Scrape out into a bowl and thoroughly mix in the olive oil. If it's a bit too dry, add some of the reserved chickpea liquid. Check there is enough salt. Sprinkle with the paprika and drizzle a little more oil if you like. Hummus will keep in an air tight container in the fridge for up to a week.

White Bean Dip

1 cup (7oz, 220g) dried white beans such as Great Northern beans or cannellini beans
4 shallots, 3-4 oz (90-125g) total weight, finely diced
5 3/4 cups (46 fl oz, 1.4L) vegetable broth, water or a combination of the two
1 bay leaf
1 small bunch of fresh chives
2 or 3 sprigs of tarragon
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tomato, deseeded and finely chopped

Place the beans in a large colander. Sort through the beans and discard any that are wrinkled or blemished, along with any pebbles or grit. Rinse the beans well under running cold water and transfer to a large saucepan. Add enough water to cover the beans by two inches. Let the beans soak in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours or up to overnight. Discard any husks that float to the top. Drain the beans in a colander rinse the pan.

Return the beans to the saucepan. Add the vegetable broth, diced shallots and bay leaf. Place over high heat, cover, and bring the stock to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally. As soon as you see bubbles start to form, reduce the heat to a level where small bubbles occasionally break the surface of the liquid. Partially cover the saucepan and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until the beans taste creamy in the center and are completely tender, 45 to 55 minutes but may be longer for older crop beans. While the beans are simmering, prepare the herbs. Mince the chives into small pieces. Remove the leaves from the tarragon and mince.

When the beans are cooked, drain them through a sieve set over a large bowl to reserve the cooking liquid. Discard the bay leaf. Transfer 2/3 cup ( 4 1/2 oz, 140 g) of the beans to a bowl and set aside. Transfer the remaining beans to a food processor. Using brief pulses, process the beans until they are coarsely pureed, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

With the food processor running, slowly pour 1/2 cup (4 fl oz, 125 ml) of the reserved cooking liquid through the feed tube. Stop the machine and check the puree, it should be light and thin, but thick enough to hold its shape. Add a little more of the liquid if necessary. Process the mixture 2 to 3 minutes longer, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl, until a fine puree forms. With the motor running, drizzle the olive oil and the lemon juice through the feed tube. With a rubber spatula, scrape the pure into a bowl.

Add the reserved whole beans, the herbs, and salt to the puree. Stir well with the rubber spatula. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 5 hours or up to overnight to allow flavors to develop.

Stir 3/4 of the diced tomato into the bean dip. Taste the dip. It should primarily taste of the white beans, with accents of the herbs and lemon juice. If you feel it tasted dull, stir in a small amount of salt and lemon juice until you are happy with the flavor balance. You can also add a touch more minced herbs if you like a stronger herbal flavor.

Transfer the dip to a serving bowl and garnish with the remaining diced tomato. Serve right away.

As you can see, the hummus recipe is pretty simple and straight forward but the white bean dip....well, not so much. However, it's worth it.

As for the lavash, it was delicious. It was very easy to make and very quick too. I didn't do any hand kneading, that's what I have a work horse for, I mean, Kitchenaid Pro 600. As usual, I let the dough rise in the oven (turned off) with the oven light on. For toppings, I used sesame seeds, poppy seeds, cumin seeds and paprika. My favorite topping was definitely the cumin seeds. After I baked the lavash, I realized that once I had put the toppings on, I should have ran the rolling pin over it a couple of times just to press the seeds into the dough and prevent most of them from falling off later on.

For the lavash recipe, visit the hostess' blog Musings from the Fishbowl.

Eclairs From My Pâtisserie...err...Kitchen

2008-08-31T09:20:00.008-04:00

It's that time of the month again and the Daring Bakers are once again taking over the blogosphere. If you see hundreds of eclair posts on foodie blogs, don't panic, you have not gone crazy! It's just us, doing our thing again.

Knowing I'd have a baby coming this month, I went ahead and made the eclairs early on because I knew I wouldn't have the time to do it once the baby arrived. As it is, it's difficult to find time to post about it. I'm doing so while Liev is on his swing. He's not asleep but is not fussing. But I digress.

I was really excited when I read that this month's challenge was eclairs. I had been wanting to make eclairs for a while but hadn't actually gotten around to it. As (almost) usual, there was a chocolate element to the challenge. Well, more like two elements but we were given the choice of leaving one of them out. As most of you know by now, I despise chocolate but since I had already skipped July's challenge and wanted to make the eclairs, I figured I could make some chocolate and some not.

The recipe was for chocolate glazed eclairs filled with chocolate pastry cream. I did not do the pastry cream but used a different recipe instead, Julia Child's recipe to be exact. I had made pastry cream once before and it was a total disaster. It was lumpy and tasteless. This one, however, was very nice. The vanilla extract made the pastry cream a bit brown but taste and texture wise it was great. I was really impressed.

I was not at all intimidated by the pate a choux as I'm usually not intimidated in the kitchen. I had never tried it before but I was very surprised at how easy it all was. There were complaints from other DBs about their pastries not puffing up or falling after baking but I had no problems whatsoever. One of the rules for the challenge was that we had to use the given pate a choux recipe so I did that. However, in the cooling process, I followed the advice of the great Alton Brown (who else if not him???).

AB insists that a crucial step in cooling eclairs and other pate a choux goodies is to, as soon as they are cool enough to handle, take a small knife and insert it in one end of the pastry to let the steam out and stop the pastries from becoming soggy. I did this and it worked great but I have nothing to compare it to.

I used that same hole made by the knife to insert a piping tip into the pastries and fill them with the pastry cream. I did not want to slice the pastries in half, as the recipe suggested, to fill them. That would just make them messy to eat. My plan was to glaze half of the eclairs with semi-sweet chocolate and the other half with white chocolate. Turns out that I didn't have any semi-sweet, only bitter-sweet and that my silly husband had eaten all the white chocolate chips. So, I ended up glazing them all (well, the ones I didn't eat while filling them LOL) with bitter-sweet chocolate.

After all that trouble, my husband didn't like the pastry cream. I guess he's just not a big fan plus most eclairs I ever saw in the UK were filling with whipped cream rather than pastry cream. So, I ate most of them. "But they have chocolate!" you may be thinking. Yes, but I peeled it off before eating :)

Creme Patissiere

1 cup granulated sugar
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup all purpose flour (scooped and leveled)
2 cups boiling milk
1 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract

In a 3 quart mixing bowl, gradually beat the sugar into the egg yolks with a wire whisk or an electric beater. Continue beating until the mixture is pale yellow and forms a ribbon.

Beat in the flour.

Beating the egg yolk mixture, gradually pour in the boiling milk in a thin stream of droplets.

Pour into a clean, heavy bottomed 2.5 quart saucepan and set over moderately high heat. Stir with a wire whisk, reaching all over the bottom of the pan. As the sauce comes to a boil it will get lumpy, but will smooth out as soon as you beat it. When boil is reached, beat over moderately low heat for 2 to 3 minutes to cook the flour. Be careful the custard does not scorch in the bottom of the pan.

Remove from the heat and beat in the butter, then the vanilla. If the custard is not used immediately, clean it off the sides of the pan, and dot the top of the custard with softened butter to prevent a skin from forming over the surface (alternatively, cover with plastic wrap making sure the plastic is sitting right on the surface of the custard).

The creme patissiere will keep for a week in the refrigerator, or may be frozen.

Makes 2 1/2 cups.

That is the pastry cream recipe I used. For the rest of the eclair recipe, you can visit the hostess' blog here.

Bun Out of the Oven

2008-08-23T22:18:00.005-04:00

After a LONG baking time, my bun is finally out of the oven!

I had my beautiful baby boy, Liev Matthew, on August 18th at 3:47 PM. He weighed 7lbs 13oz and measured 20 inches. He's as cute as can be but then again, I am biased. My husband and I are so in love with this little guy that it's not even funny. It is rough at times but we are enjoying being parents to this perfect little boy.

Needless to say, I probably won't be blogging, or cooking, much for a while but I promise to be back once we get into a routine.

Soup for Now and Later

2008-08-13T20:02:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had a great butternut squash soup and that I was going to freeze half of it to for an easy meal when the baby came. I didn't actually post the recipe for the soup and I got a few requests for it. My husband also said that I should blog about it since it was so good and simple. I didn't take any pictures the first time so last week I went ahead and bought another butternut squash to make the soup.

The first time around, we ate a lot of the soup he day I made it and only had about 1 serving left to freeze, which we did freeze but Matt ended up eating it a few days later. It was really that good. This time we supplemented the soup with bread so we have a lot more left to freeze since I made the entire recipe with that intention.

The soup really couldn't be any simpler or quicker. It just takes a few ingredients, half an hour and it's done. To be honest, I think it's something I can very easily whip up even when the baby arrives and I'm short on time. Squash keeps for a very long time and I nearly always have chicken broth and cream in the house so I probably wouldn't even have to think about getting the ingredients.

Butternut Squash Soup

2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 3lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into even small chunks
6 cups chicken broth (48 oz)
1/4 tsp dried thyme
pinch of nutmeg
1/2 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the squash, chicken broth, dried thyme and nutmeg. Bring to a simmer and cover. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook until the squash is tender, 20 to 30 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Puree the soup in batches in a blender or food processor, or in the stockpot with an immersion blender until smooth.

Return the pureed soup the heat. Stir in the heavy cream. Bring to a brief simmer, then remove from the heat. If the soup is too thick, thin it out with additional broth or water. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 4 to 6 as a main meal

I like it just like that but my husband prefers it a bit spicy so he adds Tabasco to it. If you want to make it a bit spicy, you can add chili flakes along with the dried thyme and nutmeg. I don't like the taste of Tabasco so the chili flakes would be my preferred way of making the soup spicy.

I am still amazed at how good this soup is, especially considering it is so simple to make and has so few ingredients. The day my husband reheated the bit we did freeze, my mom was around. I asked her if she wanted to try the soup and after she heard what went in it, or rather what did NOT go in it (meat) she wasn't convinced but agreed to try it. Well, she finished the rest of the soup but had to share with my little sister!

Who says you need meat to have a good meal???

Yet More Bread!

2008-08-09T14:59:00.005-04:00

The more I use the bread machine, the more I like it and the more I want to use it. It's a bit addictive. I mean, what's not to like? All you really do is put a bunch of stuff in a pan and 3 hours and 18 minutes later, voila, you have bread! If you want it in the morning, just set the timer and you'll wake up to fresh bread. Really, it's a no brainer.

I said a couple of days ago that I wanted to make rum raisin bread but thought about it too late so I skipped it. Well, yesterday I remembered with enough time to soak the raisins. I thought I'd make the bread with a purpose other than eating it straight up. What better way to use sweet raisin bread than in French Toast? So, with today's breakfast in mind, I got to work, if you can call it that, on the bread yesterday afternoon.

We don't keep dark rum at home so I thought I'd a bit more adventurous (not really) and use some vanilla cognac we have. Turns out, it's great! I don't really think the alcohol you soak the raisins matters much as long as it's something you'd drink....and it's not beer! You can use pretty much anything and it would still be great bread.

Vanilla-Cognac and Raisin Loaf

For 1 2lbs loaf

90g / 3 1/4 oz / 2/3 cup raisins
30 ml / 2 tbsp vanilla cognac
1 egg
240 ml / 8.5 fl oz / generous 1 cup milk
500 g / 1 lb 2 oz / 4.5 cups unbleached white bread flour
1/2 tsp ground ginger
40 g / 1.5 oz / 3 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
50 g / 2 oz / 1/4 cup unsalted butter cut into cubes
1.5 tsp easy blend (instant/rapid rise) yeast
15 ml / 1 tbsp clear honey, warmed

Place the raisins and vanilla cognac in a small bowl and leave to soak for 2 hours, or longer if you can. Add the egg and milk to the bread machine pan. If the instructions for your machine specify the yeast is to be added first, reverse the order in which you add the liquid and dry ingredients.

Sprinkle over the flour, ensuring that all the liquid is covered. Add the ground ginger. Add the sugar, salt and butter, placing them on separate corners of the bread machine pan. Make a small indent in the center of the flour and pour in the yeast.

Set the bread machine to the basic/normal setting, medium crust. Press Start. Add the raisins when the machine beeps to add extra ingredients (check your machine's instructions for the time), or after the first kneading.

Remove the bread at the end of the baking cycle and turn out onto a wire rack. Brush the top with the honey and leave to loaf to cool.

This is a sweet bread so unless you're really strange, sandwiches are out! The bread can be eaten as is, buttered, jammed or like we did, as french toast. There are countless recipes out there for french toast and it's really easy to make so I won't bother to post a whole recipe for it, however, I can give you a rough idea of how to make it. For two people, just take 3 eggs, about 1/3 cup of milk or cream and whisk them together. Dip both sides of the slices of bread in the egg mixture and immediately cook on a hot, buttered, skillet or a griddle until both sides are golden, brown and delicious. That's really all there is to it. Well, that and good maple syrup! This was 100% from-scratch breakfast and it was good! Well, as close as it will ever be since I don't have a maple tree!

The slices were big and thick so they were quite filling, however, we still have about half the loaf left. I think I'll use it to make bread pudding even though my husband doesn't like it. I do so what the heck!

Bread Gone Nutty

2008-08-07T10:23:00.007-04:00

Being home all day, every day, I get tired of being hungry or eating the same thing all the time. I'm too tired (and lazy) to go out and buy things, much less actually make them if they take more effort than throwing stuff into a pan. That's when the bread machine comes into play! Until now, I've been making basic sandwich loaves. I've had success but I wanted to be a bit more adventurous and go for something that didn't need jam or ham to be eaten. I wanted something I could just eat on its own when I got hungry and be tasty and satisfying.

I really wanted to make rum raisin bread but because I was starting so late in the night, I didn't have time to soak the raisins. Then I looked into Cajun Spiced Plait but it would require me to actually bake it outside of the bread machine. Too much work to eat in the morning! I finally settled on a Garlic and Herb Walnut bread that sounded really, really good. The best part was that I didn't need to be awake to put half the ingredients in during the kneading and I didn't need to take the dough out of the bread machine to bake it. As with previous breads, it was just a matter of dumping everything into the bread machine pan, setting the timer and waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread. I can do that!

Garlic and Herb Walnut Bread

For a 2lbs loaf

185 ml / 6.5 fl oz / generous 3/4 cup milk
105 ml / 7 tbsp water
45 ml / 3 tbsp roasted garlic extra virgin olive oil
450 g / 1 lb / 4 cups unbleached white bread flour
50 g / 2 oz / 1/2 cup old fashioned (rolled) oats
50 g / 2 oz / 1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp salt
2 tsp granulated sugar
1 tsp instant (rapid rise) yeast

1. Pour the milk, water and olive oil into the bread machine pan. If the instructions for your bread machine specify that the yeast is to be added first, reverse the order in which you add the liquid and dry ingredients.

2. Sprinkle over the flour and oats, ensuring that they completely cover the liquid mixture. Add the chopped walnuts, garlic, oregano and thyme. Place the salt and sugar in separate corners of the bread machine pan. Make a small indent in the center of the flour but don't go as far down as the liquid and add the yeast.

3. Set the bread machine to the basic/normal setting, medium crust. Press start. Remove the bread from the bread at the end of the baking cycle and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Because I was up with my husband this morning, it was too early to cut into the bread, which had just been taken out of the machine. I sat here on my computer for a whole hour, starving, waiting for the bread to cool so I could have some. The smell was killing me, it was SO good and I just wanted to tear into the darn thing. However, I was patient. I was even patient enough to photograph it before slicing it, after all, I'd kick myself later if I just tore into the loaf and it turned out to be great.....which it did. I thought it would be very garlicky because of the olive oil and the clove but it isn't. The flavors work really great together and I'm trying really hard not to eat the entire loaf before my husband comes home for lunch.

Creamy, Sexy, Cool

2008-08-05T14:17:00.006-04:00

A long time ago, I bought a couple of bags of frozen blackberries which I was planning on making cake filling with. I never got around to it and they've just been sitting in the freezer, taking up space. We had a box of Omaha Steaks meat coming and needed freezer space, which is limited considering how much junk we have in there, so I decided to come up with something to use the blackberries. I had previously considered cobblers, grunts, pies, etc but never made those either.

I love ice cream and gelato and it IS summer in South Florida so I figured the best use for the berries was something frozen. Never mind pies or cobblers, those are wintery desserts but gelato....now, THAT sounded good. I have made blackberry ice cream before and it was alright but it wasn't custard based and I made it by hand in the UK when I didn't have an ice cream churner. It was a bit crystallized and pretty tart. I wanted something creamy and sophisticated this time, something that would remind me of the beautiful Italian gelaterias, especially those on the Amalfi Coast, that I so miss.

Nostalgia kicked in as I was preparing the gelato. Honestly, I never thought I'd miss Italy so much at times. Granted, Naples itself was chaotic but it wasn't without its charms. The food is definitely the best part, be it bread, pasta, pizza, gelato, etc. It's pretty hard to come back to the US to bland so called Italian food when you have been spoiled in such a way by the awesomeness of true Italian food, especially Neapolitan. But I digress.

Although it may not seem so, and certainly not from gelato made commercially in the US, there IS a difference between gelato and ice cream. For starters, gelato is not eaten fully frozen but in a semi-frozen state, at a higher temperature than traditional American ice cream. Gelato is made with less cream and more milk than traditional American ice creams but usually contain more eggs and more sugar. All of this makes a difference in the texture and consistency. The difference is very clear when you try the real thing in Italy.

Blackberry Gelato

150 ml (5 fl oz) double (heavy) cream
350 ml (12 fl oz) full cream (whole) milk
4 large egg yolks
100 g (3.5 oz) sugar
1 1/2 tbsp skimmed milk powder
250 g (9 0z) blackberries (fresh or frozen)
1 tbsp powder sugar
3 tbsp raspberry liqueur such as Chambord

Put the cream and milk in a saucepan and gently heat until bubbles start to appear around the side of the pan.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks, sugar and skimmed milk powder together in a heatproof bowl until pale in color. Pour in the hot milk mixture and stir well.

Wash out the saucepan and pour the mixture back in. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture reaches 75°C / 167°F on a thermometer, 8 to 10 minutes. Do not let the mixture get any hotter or boil because it will curdle. The custard will thicken a little as it cools. Transfer the mixture to a wide bowl and leave to cool.

In the mean time, put the berries and powder sugar in a pan. Cook over medium-low heat until the juices run and they are soft enough to squish with the back of a wooden spoon. Set a strainer over the custard mixture and pour the berries in. Strain, pushing the juices through with a wooden spoon until all that is left in the strainer is the solids. Scrape the outside of the strainer to collect all the remaining juices and discard the solids. You can skip the straining if you prefer to have chunky pieces in your gelato, just mash the berries well before mixing them in with the custard.

Mix in the raspberry liqueur and stir to combine well. Chill the mixture for at least 30 minutes. Churn using an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions until frozen. Transfer to a freezerproof container, cover and freeze for 4 hours before serving.

If it is frozen for longer and becomes too hard, remove the lid and transfer to the refrigerator to soften about 50 minutes before serving.

A small machine will work here, the recipe makes about 1 1/2 pints of gelato. This beautifully creamy gelato is a far cry from the previous blackberry ice cream I made and, thanks to the Chambord, the taste is very sophisticated, if that makes any sense. The creaminess, the taste, the color, etc make it a very sexy gelato. If gelati modeled, this one would be a Victoria's Secret Angel ;)

Quick, Sweet and Spicy

2008-08-04T20:16:00.004-04:00

I wasn't going to blog about today's dinner, heck, I wasn't going to make dinner, but my husband insisted I take pictures before eating just in case it was good. Well, I'm glad I did because it turned out to be really good. Not only was it good but it was fairly easy and quick to make, not to mention different. Chili Pork Skewers with Chunky Banana Sweet Potato Mash isn't normally something we have on the menu!

We are creatures of habit and our starch of choice is potatoes so it was nice to have something a bit different and expand our eating horizon. The meal was something I had planned on so it was just a matter of actually getting things together and cooking it. I wasn't sure it was going to work for us (read: I'd like it) but I was pleasantly surprised. I even went ahead and used the jalapeno, which I would have normally left out, and I'm glad I did because it added a nice kick to the whole meal.

Chili Pork Skewers

1 tsp light brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/4 lbs pork tenderloin (or 2 thick boneless pork loin chops), cut into 2 inch chunks

In a medium bowl combine all the ingredients except the pork. Whisk well to combine. Add the pork chunks and toss to coat. Thread 5 pieces of pork onto each of 4 skewers. Leave to rest while the grill preheats on medium.

Once the grill is hot, grill the skewers for about 8 minutes, turning once, or until the pork is cooked through but not overdone. Remove from the grill and rest for a few minutes before serving.

Makes 4 skewers (2 servings)

Chunky Banana Sweet Potato Mash

1 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
1/2 ripe banana, sliced
1 tbsp honey
1/2 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
2 tbsp orange juice

Boil the sweet potatoes in salted water until very tender, about 15 minutes. Drain, return the potatoes to the pan and dry over over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from the heat and add the remaining ingredients. Mash to the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 2

As you can see, it's really fairly simple and quick. I used the loin chops because we buy our meat in bulk and it has to be used but the tenderloin will work perfectly too, even if it's a bit more expensive. I thought the jalapeño would be too much but it isn't. The spiciness of the meat and mash is well balanced with the sweetness provided by the banana, honey and brown sugar. While not burning hot, the heat does build up nicely but it is by no means painful, just a nice tingly feeling on your tongue and lips. It really does work well.

There's an old wives tale that says spicy food induced labor...perhaps I should have used the entire jalapeño! LOL

Happy Belated Anniversary!

2008-08-04T15:25:00.002-04:00

I knew that the first anniversary of my blog was coming up soon and then I totally forgot about it. I could have sworn is was a bit later in the month but I was wrong. I just realized that it was actually two days ago. Shame on me! I had planned to bake a cake, or maybe cupcakes to celebrate but that obviously didn't happen. I blame the baby, he ate my brain!

Happy Blogging Anniversary to me!

A Tastier Dutch Baby

2008-08-02T12:57:00.006-04:00

I'm one of those people that when I try something and like it, I keep on making it until I get it right or find a recipe that is better than the original. This has been the case with pancakes, waffles, muffins, cakes, Tarte Tatin (which I haven't gotten right yet) and now with Dutch Babies. The first Dutch Baby was good, no question about it but it was a bit too eggy for my taste.

I decided to go back to the person who I learned about Dutch Babies from, Alton Brown, and try his recipe this time. Yes, I know I've been making a lot of his stuff lately but it is obvious that they work, otherwise I wouldn't keep going back to him. The difference between the previous Dutch Baby and and Alton's recipe is that Alton's call for less eggs and for sugar. AB's recipe is indeed, in my very humble opinion, better. It doesn't make quite as an impressive looking Dutch Baby but it wins in taste, hands down.

Alton Brown's Dutch Baby

3 tbsp butter, melted and divided
2 3/8 oz (about 1/2 cup) all purpose flour
3 tbsp vanilla sugar, plus more for serving
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
Lemon wedges

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Place 2 tablespoons of the melted butter into a 10 inch cast iron skillet and place in the oven. Set the remaining tablespoon of melted butter aside to cool slightly. Wait 10 minutes before assembling the other ingredients.

Place flour, vanilla sugar, salt, milk, eggs and remaining tablespoon of melted butter in the bowl of a food processor or blender and process for 30 seconds. Carefully pour the batter into the preheated skillet. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until the edges are puffed and brown. Sprinkle with additional vanilla sugar and serve with lemon wedges.

AB doesn't say how many people this recipe is supposed to feed but based on our experience, I will say two people. Mind you, we weren't exactly full after we were done, each one of us could have easily eaten the entire Dutch Baby and perhaps will next time.

What I love about Dutch Babies so far is that the ingredients are usually already in the pantry, they don't take too long to cook and the hands on time is very minimal. So, they are easy to make but very tasty and satisfying. They take a lot less time to eat than they take to cook, interpret that how you will!

I think that maybe I'll try to make a fruit topping of some sort for the next time I make a Dutch Baby, just for variety. However, they are perfectly good, OK, delicious, with just sugar and lemon.

On a side note, please remember that cast iron remains very hot for a long time after it gets taken off the heat or out of the oven! Be careful, don't end up with a burnt forearm like me!