In Vino Veritas, 1st Tasting

I have been struggling this week. I don't know if it's because it's the first week back after a vacation or what, but I am just underslept, overworked, and cranky. Fortunately my week tapers off after Wednesday, so I can cruise a bit until the weekend. What better way to kick off my increased relaxation time than with a wine tasting?

I'm in a group here at Harvard Law called In Vino Veritas (latin phrase meaning "in wine, truth" - and a play on Harvard University's motto, plain old "veritas" or truth). They host lots of wine tastings throughout the academic year. Believe it or not, we had to write personal statements to get into this group. I guess they can only accept so many members because of Massachusetts liquor laws, so we had to write a 100-word statement about why we wanted to join. Only at Harvard.

Anyway, tonight was the first tasting of the year I've been able to attend. It was really enjoyable. I wish I had remembered to bring the list of wines home with me, but I'm going to try to construct the list from memory. Unfortunately you're probably just going to get the kind of wine, not the name of the wine maker. I'm going to email the girl who was in charge of the tasting and ask for the names of the wines, so I'll come back and edit this entry later for those who are curious.

The tasting featured six wines, two whites and four reds. They were all served in pairs so we could taste different ones together. Each pair combined an old world wine with a new world wine. Very interesting! I really did learn a lot. I also won a free prize because I happened to know the chemical equation for fermentation (I know.. dork) and because I knew that in France, sauvignon blanc is typically grown in the Sancerre region. Whee!

Pairing one (whites)

• Pierre Sparr 2003 "One" (Riesling blend from Alsace) - very fruity, but still dry, I tasted apple and peach
• Sauvignon Blanc (New Zealand) [unfortunately I can't remember the name] - excellent, very acidic and tangy, I tasted grapefruit and lime

Pairing two (reds part 1)

• Ranceau (from the Rhone region of France) - not great, too tannic
• [I can't remember this one's name except that it was from California and the blend was just called RED, in all caps] - didn't like it, way too oaky for my taste, smelled funny, like wood

Pairing three (reds part 2)

• Cotes de Bordeaux - really smooth, well-balanced, earthy
• Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina [don't remember the winery] - very cherry! lots of fruit, not too tannic

Sorry for the lack of detail. Like I said, I'll try to get more specific info. Also, sorry for the lack of food entries... I've been botching dinner pretty badly recently. Life lesson from yesterday: don't leave dinner cooking on the stove while you go to class for two hours.

By Popular Request

All right people, here's the recipe for my super duper pumpkin tiramisu. This is seriously one of the easiest desserts I have ever made. No baking, no fuss. And feel free to be generous with the booze.

Pumpkin Tiramisu
(courtesy of Bon Appetit)

• 1 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream
• 3/4 cup sugar
• One 8-oz container mascarpone cheese
• One 15-oz can pure pumpkin
• 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1/4 tsp each cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg)
• Two 3-oz (or one 7-oz) package halved ladyfingers
• 4 T rum, divided
• 2 oz crushed amaretti cookies

Beat whipping cream and sugar until peaks form. Add mascarpone cheese, pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice; beat just until filling is smooth. Line bottom of 9-inch-diameter springform pan with half of the ladyfingers, overlapping and crowding to fit. Sprinkle with 2 T rum. Spread half of filling over ladyfingers. Repeat with the rest of the ladyfingers, rum, and remaining filling. Smooth. Wrap tightly in plastic and then foil. Chill overnight. To unmold, run a knife around inside edge of pan. Release pan sides; sprinkle with cookies.

***

After the holidays, it's back to healthy eating for me. Keep an eye out for South Beach friendly recipes this week (and possibly next week).

Gobble Gobble

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious! I ate until my tummy hurt, but even so, I doubt I consumed the 4500 calories that the average American eats at Thanksgiving dinner. (Isn't that number absurd?) I forgot to take a picture of the crab crostini, but here are some pictures of what we ate. I might post recipes later on, but right now I am just too tired from all the tryptophan.

Butternut Squash and Apple Bisque

My plate! Clockwise from top: Cauliflower with Mustard-Lemon Butter, Roasted Green Beans and Radicchio with Garlic, Roasted Turkey with Port Wine Gravy, and Caramelized Shallot & Sage Mashed Potatoes. Mmm mmm good!

Pumpkin Tiramisu (so good it deserves 2 pictures!)

Now if only the Bucs-Cowboys football game had turned out as well as the food...

Thanksgiving Eve

I know, I know, it's been forever since I've blogged. I haven't cooked a meal for myself in about 10 days. Yes, I am serious. Between night meetings with free food and eating out this weekend while friends were in town for Harvard-Yale, I haven't needed to cook! But now I'm home in Tampa for Thanksgiving, and there is a LOT of cooking going on. So expect several updates over the next couple days. Whee!

Here's our Thanksgiving menu this year. My mom picked out the recipes from Bon Appetit (of course). We're going to have way too much food for 6 people, but hey, there's nothing wrong with leftovers (or gluttony).

Appetizer
Crab Crostini

Soup
Butternut Squash and Apple Bisque

Main Course
Roast Organic Turkey with Port Wine Gravy
Roasted Green Beans and Radicchio with Garlic
Cauliflower with Mustard Lemon Butter
Caramelized Shallot and Sage Mashed Potatoes

Dessert
Pumpkin Tiramisu

This afternoon I made the tiramisu. The soup is in progress, and we're starting the crab mixture for the crostini.

Law School = Junk Food

It's been a busy week. I haven't been cooking because almost every night I've been to a meeting where I've been fed something or other. Indian food, Thai food... tonight I'm going to an Environmental Law Review meeting and I'm pretty sure we're having pizza.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been eating anything at home. This week I've been staying up late at night attempting to work on a brief that's due soon. Here's a photo summary of what I've been relying on for sustenance.


(Note that the thing in the blue plastic wrap is a hunk of raw cookie dough that I've been eating with my bare hands.)

Martha's Pumpkin Cupcakes

My boyfriend, Steve, is in an all-male a cappella singing group, the Harvard Din & Tonics. These guys are truly wonderful - they have the best voices ever and are total sweethearts. I'm lucky enough to have the honorary position of "Din Mom" as Steve's girlfriend and probably their biggest groupie. My duties include coming to all their concerts, loving them as if they were my babies... I even went on part of their world tour with them this summer. One of my most important jobs, though, is to feed them during their "hell week," the week leading up to their big concert of the semester. This week is hell week, and the poor guys have rehearsal from 6pm to midnight every day until their concert on Saturday (which I can't wait for!).

Tonight I decided to bake the lovely Dins some scrumptious pumpkin cupcakes. I got this idea into my head and ultimately decided on Martha Stewart's recipe (when it comes to baking, Martha often knows best, am I right?). When I took these cupcakes over to the Dins' rehearsal tonight, the cupcakes disappeared in about 10 seconds flat. They're light, fluffy, pumpkiny, everything I imagined they would be. I even made some home-made cream cheese frosting that was, literally, the icing on the cake.

Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Cupcakes
(makes 18-24, depending on size)

• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. coarse salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg (or freshly grated if you've got it)
• 1/4 tsp. ground allspice
• 1 c. light brown sugar
• 1 c. granulated sugar
• 2 sticks (1 c.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 can pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before icing.

Martha's Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature
• 1 c. confectioner's sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Put cream cheese into a large mixing bowl and soften with a spatula. Gradually add the butter, beating until smooth. Continue beating while you gradually sift in the confectioner's sugar. Finally, add vanilla, and beat until smooth and fluffy.

Lentils & Rice with Caramelized Onions (WHB #58)

As a law student who puts in a lot of study time, let me tell you that the last thing I want to do on a beautiful sunny Saturday is study some more. Yet that's exactly what I found myself doing today - the price I had to pay for letting myself get behind last week. When dinnertime rolled around, I was definitely not in the mood to go grocery shopping, so I skimmed a few cookbooks for a recipe that I could make with ingredients I had in the apartment.

I settled on Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions, a phenomenal recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything cookbook. This dish is really delicious, and it's healthy - even perfect for South Beach phase 2 or 3. It was so easy, and although it took about an hour, a lot of that was downtime, so I was able to keep doing work/reading as I cooked. I was feeling lazy and contemplating leaving out the caramelized onions, but I stuck with the recipe and now I'd definitely encourage you to do the same: those onions make the dish something special.

I've always been a big fan of lentils. They've been a part of the human diet for thousands of years and in fact were one of the very first domesticated crops in history. Lentils have been so crucial in our diet for good reason - they have 25% protein, more than any other vegetable beside soybeans. Not only that, but they also have tons of fiber. And they're delicious!

There are many different kinds of lentils. The most popular among chefs is the French green lentil (Puy lentil) because they stay firm after cooking and have a rich flavor. The most common kind of lentil, and the kind I used in preparing this dish, is the Indian brown lentil, which tends to get mushy if you cook it too long, so be careful!

This dish is a really great way to prepare and serve lentils. As you can see from the picture, I sprinkled some Hawaiian black lava salt on top, which has a really awesome flavor. You can experiment with different kinds of salts and spices with this dish, if you like, because the lentils and rice are truly versatile.

One more fun fact about lentils: the optical lens is named after the lentil, whose shape it resembles.


Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions
(serves 4)

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped, plus another onion, halved and sliced
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups lentils washed and picked over
• About 6 cups chicken, beef, or vegetable stock
• 1 cup long- or short-grained rice

Place 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large, deep saucepan and turn the heat to medium. A minute later, add the chopped onion and cook until it begins to become tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper, and cook 3 minutes more. Add the lentils, stir, and add about 4 cups liquid. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the lentils begin to soften, about 20 minutes. Add enough of the remaining stock or water so that the lentils are covered by about an inch of liquid. Stir in the rice. Cover and turn the heat to low. Meanwhile, place the remaining oil in a medium skillet and turn the heat to medium-high. Cook the onion slices, stirring frequently, until they are dark brown but not burned, about 15 minutes. Scoop out the onions and let them drain on paper towels while you finish cooking the lentils and rice. Check the rice and lentils after 20 minutes. When both are tender and the liquid is absorbed, the dish is ready. If the lentils and rice are not tender, add more liquid, cover, and cook for a few more minutes. If, however, the rice and lentils are soft and there is much liquid remaining, raise the heat a bit and cook, uncovered, stirring, until it evaporates. Serve the rice and lentils, garnished with the caramelized onions (and fresh parsley if you like).


This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging #58, which is hosted this week by Meeta of What's For Lunch Honey?. Make sure to check it out when she posts her round-up of this week's yummy recipes!

Best Lawsuit Ever

I am tickled pink by one of today's articles in the Boston Globe. This article touches on two of my very favorite topics: food and the law. Evidently, a Panera Bread Co. franchise out in Shrewsbury, MA had a lease with the owners of their shopping center. The lease contained an exclusivity clause that said that the shopping center wouldn't rent out space to any other "sandwich shop." This summer, the shopping center owners started negotiations to lease space to a Qdoba Mexican Grill franchise. Panera pitched a fit because they said this would violate the exclusivity clause. The shopping center landlords filed a suit with the court trying to get a court order declaring that leasing space to Qdoba wouldn't violate their lease with Panera. Panera counter-claimed trying to stop Qdoba from moving into the shopping center.

The absolute best part of this case is that the entire lawsuit turned upon the definition of "sandwich." Panera claimed that Qdoba's burritos fell under the category of "sandwiches" and thus violated the exclusivity clause of their lease, while Qdoba argued that a burrito is, in fact, not a sandwich and that Qdoba could therefore exist in the same shopping center as Panera.

Tons of experts testified in this case. Chris Schlesinger, a former USDA official, was quoted as saying in his affidavit, "I know of no chef or culinary historian who would call a burrito a sandwich... Indeed, the notion would be absurd to any credible chef or culinary historian." Qdoba's lawyer quoted to the Webster's definition of "sandwich" and distinguished the sandwich's two slices of bread from the burrito's single tortilla. The Qdoba team even turned to the origins of each food, claiming that sandwiches are of European descent, while burritos are specific to Mexico.

This is all clearly preposterous, but I love it. This is what the law is all about... making silly distinctions between various things that may or may not be similar, just to prove your own point. Clearly, foodies are going to laugh about this (a judge deciding whether a burrito is a sandwich?), but we'll also smile to ourselves and think, well, obviously a burrito is not a sandwich. Duh!

In case you're wondering about the outcome, Worcester Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Locke ruled that a burrito is not a sandwich, and since Panera failed to include burritos in its "sandwich shop" exclusivity clause, Qdoba was free to move into the shopping center. Thanks, Judge Locke, for clearing that up!

Two Classic SB Recipes

Tonight I made two very classic South Beach recipes for dinner. They're old stand-bys; I know they'll serve me well when I'm trying to eat healthily and cook yummy things at the same time. No introduction is really necessary, so without further ado, here are the recipes (for those who aren't familiar with standard South Beach meals) for Turkey Swedish Meatballs and Stuffed Baked Tomatoes.


Turkey Swedish Meatballs (3-4 servings)

• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 3/4 cup lower-sodium chicken broth
• 4 tbsp reduced-fat sour cream
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Mix together salt, allspice, and pepper in a mixing bowl. Add turkey and gently mix with hands to combine (don't overmix!). Shape into 1-inch balls. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add meatballs and cook until browned, about 3 minutes; lower heat to medium and cook 3 more minutes, gently shaking the pan. Using a slotted spoon, transfer meatballs to a plate. Add broth to the same skillet, increase heat to medium-high, and simmer until liquid is reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Whisk in sour cream and cook 1 minute more. Add meatballs. Sprinkle with parsley and serve hot.

Stuffed Baked Tomatoes (4 servings)

• 4 plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise
• 3 oz shredded part-skim mozzarella (1/2 cup)
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped basil (fresh is better, but I used dried)
• 2 tbsp freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Scoop out the inside of each tomato half with a melon baller and roughly chop the scooped pulp. Combine tomato pulp, mozzarella, basil, parmesan, garlic, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Place tomatoes, cut side up, on a baking sheet. Spoon in tomato mixture and bake until cheese is melted and lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Cheap but Disappointing Wines

So I've been detoxing this week, which normally means no wine. However, as anyone who has had any contact with me in the last 3 days can attest, I have been stressed out and exhausted and just generally cranky. The combination of mounting schoolwork, the desire to get a job this summer (and perhaps even an internship this spring), and a lack of sleep has made one unhappy Becky. Today was another long day: two back-to-back classes (3 hours' worth), then a 90-minute long debate on Massachusetts v. EPA (I don't have time to discuss this right now but it's an extremely interesting upcoming Supreme Court case) and, finally, my 2-hour-long climate change reading group. When I got home, I was more than ready to pop the cork on a bottle of wine and relax a little bit.

Now, I'm not generally a wine snob, in the sense that if a bottle of wine tastes good to me, I don't care how much it costs - I don't discriminate needlessly against cheap wines. I do believe, as a rule of thumb, that the quality of wine increases as you move from a cheaper to a pricier bottle, other factors being the same (which, honestly, they rarely are). However, I am always more than willing to give dirt-cheap wines a try because, let's face it, I'm a student and I don't have unlimited funds.

Tonight I opened a $5 bottle of wine. That's even cheaper than I'll usually allow myself to go, but it was on special at my local wine shop, so I decided to give it a try. Sadly, I found myself let down. I was really hoping that this would be decent - imagine how excited you would be to find a great bottle of wine for $5! - but alas, my hopes have been dashed.

The wine's a 2005 Cerejeiras, a red wine from the Estremadura region of Portugal. It's a mixture of Castellao, Aragonez, and Tinta Miuda varietals. The wine shops calls it delicious, but I beg to differ. In fact, I am not alone in disliking it. The Boston Globe said of this wine, "Unpleasant enough to leave the impression (hope?) this was a faulty bottle." Ouch. I haven't been able to find any other review of it, and at first I thought it was because this wine is too young to drink. 2005 is fine for white wines, and for a lot of reds as well. But this wine is just too rough around the edges, and I figured that had to do with too little aging. It doesn't smell all that nice - kind of dirty, almost sulphurous, and the taste is a little too bitter.

However, it seems as if the other vintages from the same winemaker have similar qualities: I found one review of the 2003 Cerejeiras that calls it muddy, unfocused, and "lacking pleasure." So maybe it's not the youngness at all, but just poor quality. Hmm, too bad. Oh well - at least it helped me to drown my sorrows this evening.

Do you have any favorite inexpensive bottles of wine? Or, in the alternative, have any promising-looking cheap bottles let you down recently?

Indian Spiced Shrimp

After an extremely long, tiring, and overwhelming Monday, I could not have been more relieved to find that the meal I'd planned for tonight - Indian Spiced Shrimp - is a very quick and easy dish. Hallelujah! I may not know how to go about finding an environmental law job for next summer, but at least I can take solace in my ability to cook up something tasty and nutritious.


Indian Spiced Shrimp
(serves 2)

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1-inch piece ginger, chopped, or 1 tsp ginger paste
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 2 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 1 lb large shrimp, shelled and deveined
• 3 cups cooked rice, if desired

Heat oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Add ginger, garlic, spices and tomatoes to pan and simmer 5 minutes. Add shrimp and stir continuously on high heat until shrimp are cooked and sauce is thickened, about 3 to 5 minutes. Serve over rice, if desired.

Recommended wine pairing: a spice-friendly, off-dry Riesling.

Week O' Detox

I've been a bad girl recently (when it comes to food and drink, that is.) Here's the menu I devised for this week's South Beach detox:

Pop! Exploding Cranberries! (WHB #57)

I'm on a roll. Last night I made cookies with vaporizing marshmallows; tonight I made rice with exploding cranberries. Ok, so they didn't explode. But they did pop open as they got hot, and if your face happens to be over the pot at the time, you may get splashed with hot cranberry juice in the eye. (I speak from personal experience.)

So this is my first foray into the Weekend Herb Blogging experience. Kalyn at Kalyn's Kitchen has organized this thing where every week, people pick any "herb, plant, vegetable or flower," cook something with it, write about it, and then one designated blogger writes a "round-up" of all the various recipes and shares them with everyone. Sounds cool so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring. This week Kalyn herself is hosting.

For my first WHB recipe, I picked cranberries. I happen to have a big bag of them in my fridge (leftover from my apple-cranberry quickbread, which I just finished eating this evening). Also, they're in season, and I'm really into cooking with seasonal ingredients lately. So what is the cranberry (besides the name of a gay bar in Zurich)? Well, cranberry plants are creeping shrubs or vines that hug the ground and have small evergreen leaves. The plants have pink flowers, and their fruit is the berry that we eat. The cranberry is a close relative of the blueberry and huckleberry, both of which are also favorites of mine!

The name "cranberry" supposedly derives from the fact that cranes like to eat them, but it's also possible that it became called the "craneberry" because of the way the parts of the plant, just before its flowers bloom, resemble the head and neck of a crane. (I've gotta see this to believe it.) One of the neatest things about the cranberry is the way in which it's harvested, with the cranberry bogs being flooded with water. Living in Massachusetts, I've seen a few cranberry bogs, and they're pretty nifty looking.

Last but not least, cranberries have tons of health benefits! Cranberries contain a chemical that blocks pathogens that cause tooth decay. Drinking the juice often also decreases the risk of urinary tract infections, and plus, cranberries contain flavonoids, which are antioxidants. These are all great reasons to eat more of this tart but yummy fruit!

I decided to experiment a little bit with cranberries by incorporating them into a savory dish, rather than a dessert (which I think is rather overdone). I came up with the idea for making cranberry rice. This was an interesting concoction, probably not something I would make again, but it was a different and unexpected taste, which I always appreciate.

Cranberry rice aboil:

The finished product:

Cranberry rice

• 1 ½ cups long grain rice (I used brown rice)
• 2 ¼ cups water or chicken stock
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 handful fresh cranberries

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cover. Cook until done, between 15-25 minutes depending on the kind of rice.

Poof! Vaporizing Marshmallows!

Two days ago, for Halloween, I attempted to make gooey caramel popcorn balls. They were a failure, hence their conspicuous absence from the blog (I couldn't even bring myself to document with a picture the globby, messy clump of popcorn that resulted). However, because of this endeavor, I find myself in the possession of multiple bags of mini marshmallows. That got me thinking. Why, I wondered, does no one mix mini marshmallows into cookie batter? Wouldn't a cookie full of mini marshmallows be delicious? I set off to find out.

The reason, I learned, is because when you put mini-marshmallow-filled cookies into a hot oven, the mini marshmallows in the dough simply melt (and, in some cases, vaporize!) so that there is almost no trace of them left in the final product. Nonetheless, the cookies will still taste great. What I did specifically was to make up a batch of plain old butter-cookie batter and mix in a handful each of mini marshmallows and dried unsweetened coconut flakes. I won't post the recipe because you can do this with whatever simple cookie dough recipe is your favorite. Just don't get too excited about the prospect of having big plump marshmallows in the cookies...

Foodie News

I just wanted to post a little comment on something I saw in the Boston Globe food blog today. Evidently a few days ago Alain Ducasse (the only chef to have Michelin 3-starred restaurants in 3 different countries) started sending food up to the astronauts in the international space station. Of course, when the Americans learned back in 2004 that the French had this up their sleeve, we sent Emeril Lagasse's food up to our own astronauts. An MSNBC article on Ducasse's astro-cuisine makes it sound as if he was copying Emeril - how like the American media to make it sound like we thought of the idea first. Bam!

In other foodie news, KFC is phasing out trans fats (this is important information if you're from the South, as I am). Even more exciting, researchers at Harvard's own medical school did a study on obese mice, giving them red wine extract (the equivalent of what would be 100 bottles of red wine a day in humans!) and the mice derived all sorts of health benefits from it. Lower rates of diabetes, liver problems, and other fat-related illnesses. Pass the corkscrew and the pinot noir, friends - we've found new meaning in the phrase "drink to your health."