Key Lime & Coconut

Hiatus

2008-04-27T15:45:00.002-04:00

No blogging till exams are over. Sorry, Charlie. See you after May 6.

The Daring Bakers Do Dorie

2008-03-30T22:33:00.006-04:00

As I recently wrote, I'm a new Dorie Greenspan cult follower, so I was pretty psyched to see that this month's Daring Bakers recipe was to be Dorie's own Perfect Party Cake. If Dorie Greenspan herself is calling something "perfect," you know it's going to be good. When Joe was here visiting a couple weeks ago, we set off on this baking adventure with great relish.

The Perfect Party Cake is a layer cake lightly scented with lemon, and between each set of layers it's got both raspberry preserves as well as buttercream frosting. More buttercream frosting finishes the outside of the cake, along with some shredded coconut for good measure.

Everything went perfectly this time around, and the flavor combination of lemon, raspberry, and coconut was truly sublime. However, I've come to realize that I simply don't care for buttercream frosting. It's just...too much. Too rich, too much butter. Nonetheless, Joe and I had a great time baking the cake, and an even better time eating it. I would definitely make this again with another, lighter kind of frosting.

To see hundreds of other takes on Dorie's Perfect Party Cake, head on over to the Daring Bakers Blog Roll. While the host doesn't appear to have the recipe on her site, many of the other Daring Bakers have posted it.

Easy Eggplant Caponata

2008-03-21T00:18:00.005-04:00

I don't know about y'all, but I am really ready for spring and some warm weather. Luckily for myself, I'm headed home to Florida this afternoon for a weekend of fun in the sun. This post is going to be short since I still have tons of packing to do...

This recipe for Eggplant Caponata comes from the newest issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine. So far I've really enjoyed most of the recipes that I try from it, and they're usually fresh, fast, and easy. I was really intrigued by the ingredient list in this one, and I think it would have been a 5-star winner if not for the overly vinegary taste. (Maybe that's how caponata's supposed to taste? But I found it to be way too much.) My word of advice to you: cut down the vinegar to a half cup at the most.

As you can see, I had my caponata over rigatoni with a little fresh-grated parmesan. Some of Martha's other serving suggestions: use as a topping for crostini; layer on toasted country bread, top with mozzarella, and broil until melted; or spoon over broiled flounder or other white fish.

Eggplant Caponata
makes 5 cups

1/4 c. olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1/4 c. golden raisins
1/4 c. pine nuts
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 to 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/2 c. tomato paste
2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 to 4 Tbsp. sugar
2 large eggplants (2-1/4 lbs. total), cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2/3 c. white wine vinegar (I recommend 1/2 c. or less--BH)
coarse salt

In a 5-quart Dutch oven or pot, heat oil over medium high. Add onions, raisins, pine nuts, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are softened, 6 to 8 minutes. Add tomato paste, cocoa powder, and 2 tablespoons sugar. Cook, stirring, until tomato paste is fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggplant, vinegar, and 2/3 cup water. Cover, and cook over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until eggplant is tender and mixture is thick, 7 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and more sugar, as desired. Serve caponata warm or at room temperature.

To freeze: Cool completely, then transfer to resealable freezer bags, filling only halfway. Freeze bags flat, and store in the freezer, up to 2 months.

Ramen Made Classy

2008-03-18T00:28:00.004-04:00

Can you remember the good old days as a student when you ate ramen noodles for nearly every meal, enjoying their deliciousness while also delighting in the fact that you could buy a package for as little as 10 cents? If you're young (or my boyfriend), those days may still be upon you.

When Joe came to visit me this past weekend, we were trying to come up with something quick and easy to make for dinner, since we'd spent all afternoon working on this month's Daring Bakers project (coming to a blog near you on March 30). Then I remembered this ramen dish that my mom always used to make when I lived at home. (And I know Joe loves ramen because, like I said, he eats it almost every single day.) This recipe takes no longer than 5-10 minutes to make, and it's a good way to get protein and veggies even while indulging in what many consider to be a very lowbrow junk food. It's also fantastic because you can throw in whatever you want, as long as you give it a generous squeeze of lime juice at the end. The recipe I'm including below is just a starting point -- feel free to make this dish your own.

Big Eth's Special Ramen
Multiply these ingredients by the number of people you intend to serve (e.g., serving 4 people -- start with 4 packs of ramen noodles).

1 package of ramen noodles, any flavor
1 thin-cut pork chop, cooked
1/2 pound of shrimp, cooked
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 carrot, sliced into bite size pieces
1 scallion, chopped
1 lime
optional: mushrooms (yuck), other kinds of meat...

Break the dry ramen noodles into smaller, bite size pieces and place them in a large bowl. Sprinkle the ramen seasoning on top. Boil some water while you're prepping the veggies and meat. When the water boils, sprinkle it slowly over the dry noodles until they are moistened but still crunchy. Add more water if you want them softer. Toss the semi-cooked noodles with the meat and veggies. Lastly, squeeze the limes over the mixture and toss again. Serve with extra lime wedges.

Just Make Yourself a Dang Quesa-Dilluh!

2008-03-09T23:33:00.005-04:00

Because I am a giant nerd, every time I make myself a quesadilla I think of that gloriously nerdy movie, Napoleon Dynamite. Despite the fact that Napoleon and his grandma seem to think quesadillas are a boring fallback meal (not to mention a difficult to pronounce word), I tend to disagree. You can put all kinds of yummy things into a tortilla. Just look at this Potato, Greens, and Goat Cheese Quesadilla from the March issue of Bon Appetit. It's vegetarian and healthy but also has lots of delicious cheese, including goat cheese, which gives it a nice earthy flavor. Easy and fast, but still a hell of a lot better tasting than whatever it is Napoleon feeds that llama his grandma keeps in the backyard.

Potato, Greens, and Goat Cheese Quesadillas
makes 4

1-1/3 c. half-inch cubes peeled Yukon Gold potatoes (about 2 medium)
2 tsp. chili powder
1-1/3 c. packed coarsely grated hot pepper Monterey Jack cheese
1-1/3 c. jarred salsa verde
4-2/3 c. coarsely chopped stemmed mustard greens, divided
4 eight-inch flour tortillas
3 oz. chilled fresh goat cheese, coarsely crumbled
olive oil

Steam potatoes until tender, about 8 minutes. place in large bowl; sprinkle with salt, pepper, and chili powder. Toss to coat. Cool potatoes 15 minutes. Mix in Jack cheese. Meanwhile, blend salsa and 2/3 cup greens in mini processor until greens are finely chopped. Arrange tortillas on a work surface. Divide remaining greens between each. Top greens with potato mixture, then goat cheese and 2 tablespoons salsa mixture for each. Fold tortillas in half over filling, pressing to compact. Brush both sides with oil. Heat large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Place 2 quesadillas in skillet. Cook until quesadillas are brown, about 3 minutes per side. Cut each quesadilla into 3 or 4 wedges and serve with remaining salsa.

Sign Me Up for the Dorie Greenspan Cult

2008-03-05T02:04:00.004-05:00

Tonight I got the baking bug at midnight (a not infrequent occurrence) and decided to make my first recipe from Dorie Greenspan's oh-so-praised tome Baking: From My Home to Yours. I chose the Cardamom Crumb Cake because for some reason I crave breakfast goods at night, and also because I had all the ingredients on hand.

Let me just say -- all you bloggers who rave about Dorie constantly, you were right, she is a freaking genius. To be fair, this crumb cake was bound to be an instant hit with me because cardamom is far and away my favorite spice. But adding orange zest? And espresso? What seemed like a strange combination of flavors melded together into a miraculous epiphany in my mouth.

Not only is the cake to-die-for delicious, but the recipe was extremely clear and easy to follow -- no guesswork required. I am eagerly looking forward to trying more of Dorie's recipes in the very near future. For now, I've officially joined the cult following.

Cardamom Crumb Cake

For the Crumbs:

1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
1/3 c. sugar
1 Tbsp. grated orange zest
1/2 tsp. instant espresso powder
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 stick (4 Tbsp.) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature

For the Cake:

2 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1+1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1 tsp. instant espresso powder
2/3 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. finely grated orange zest
1 stick (8 Tbsp.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1/2 c. whole milk
1/2 c. strong coffee, cooled
1+1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan (I used a 9-inch round--BH), dust the inside with flour and tap out the excess. Put the pan on a baking sheet.

To make the crumbs: Put all the ingredients except the butter in a bowl and toss them together with a spatula just to blend. Add the butter and, using your fingers or the spatula, mix everything together until you've got crumbs of different sizes. It's nice to have a few big pieces, so don't overdo it. Set the crumbs aside. (The crumbs can be made up to 3 days ahead, covered and refrigerated.)

To make the cake: Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cardamom, and espresso powder in a large bowl. Turn the dry ingredients out onto a sheet of wax paper, and put the sugar and zest in the bowl. Rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange strong, then return the dry ingredients to the bowl and whisk to blend. Put the remaining ingredients in another bowl and whisk them to blend. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and stir--don't beat--to mix. Stir only until you've got an evenly moistened batter. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and top with a thick, even layer of the crumbs. Pat the crumbs ever so gently into the batter. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cake has risen (it will crown), the crumbs are golden, and a thin knife in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a rack to cool in the pan before serving warm or at room temperature.

Food Shouldn't Be This Dangerous

2008-03-03T13:04:00.004-05:00

Last night, making dinner almost killed me. Well, not quite, but it was moderately disastrous. So I decided to make this Chicken Goulash with Biscuit Dumplings from this month's Food & Wine. I had all the ingredients and everything, but I completely messed up the timing of the recipe. This led to me trying to chop onions in a hurry. Life lesson: DO NOT chop onions in a hurry. I somehow managed to chop through the side of my thumb so deeply that it went halfway through my fingernail, leading to me having to sit down on the floor to avoid passing out from the sight of all the blood. This was a very Becky thing to do; I'm known for my capacity to hurt myself at any time. Nevertheless, it was still upsetting, and my thumb hurts like a mother.

After I recovered from that trauma and got the dish into the oven, I realized that I had forgotten to place it on a baking sheet. How did I realize this? When I heard the sizzle of bubbling-over sauce hit the bottom of my oven and started to smell my kitchen filling up with smoke. Oops. In addition to a sliced-open thumb I now felt like I was about to burn the house down. What a mess.

Fortunately, the dish was pretty good. This would have been much easier to make if I had had an oven-safe skillet, avoiding the need to transfer the chicken to a casserole dish before putting it into the oven. I wasn't crazy about the recipe calling for chicken thighs; they were a little fatty. What I liked best about this meal were the biscuit dumplings. Mine were slightly under-cooked, though, so make sure you don't take this out of the oven prematurely. Also, put it on a cookie sheet in case it bubbles over. And don't slice your onions in a hurry.

Chicken Goulash with Biscuit Dumplings
serves 4

2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into 2-inch pieces
salt and pepper
1-1/2 c. all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
5 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cubed, divided
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp. baking powder
2-1/2 c. chicken stock or broth, divided
1 c. sour cream, divided
1 large white onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp. hot paprika
3/4 tsp. caraway seeds
1 tsp. thyme leaves

Preheat the oven to 425. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and dust lightly with flour. In a large, deep skillet, melt 1 Tbsp. of the butter in the olive oil. Add the chicken and cook over high heat, turning once, until browned, about 7 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken to a plate.

Meanwhile, in a food processor, pulse the flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Pulse in the remaining 4 Tbsp. of butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Whisk 1/2 cup of the stock with 1/2 cup of the sour cream and drizzle over the dry ingredients. Pulse until a dough forms.

Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic to the skillet and cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 3 minutes. Return the chicken to the skillet. Stir in the paprika and caraway and cook for 30 seconds. Add the remaining 2 cups of chicken stock and 1/2 cup of sour cream and stir until smooth. Add the thyme leaves and bring to a boil.

Scoop twelve 3-Tbsp-size mounds of biscuit dough over the chicken. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake for 20 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the biscuits are cooked. Turn on the broiler and broil for 2 minutes, until the biscuits are golden. Serve the goulash in bowls, spooning the biscuits on top.

Delinquency

2008-03-02T16:39:00.004-05:00

It has been a full month since I've posted. That is very bad of me. I don't know what my deal is -- it's not like I haven't been cooking, I've just been too lazy to blog about it. Like, two nights ago I made the Orzo Risotto with Sausage and Artichokes from this month's Food & Wine, and I was so hungry I couldn't even wait to take a picture of the food before I started devouring it. And I hate blogging without photos, so...

Okay, here's one meal that I successfully photographed. Actually, that's a lie. I made this meal, but the only reason it got photographed was because I was in Philly with Joe and he took a picture of it before we ate. It's a recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food mag, and I was going to link to the recipe on the magazine's website, but it's not on there (weird). So I'll try to reconstruct it from my memory.

Balsamic Skirt Steak with Polenta and Roasted Tomatoes
serves 4

1-1/2 lb skirt steak
2 pints grape tomatoes
6 scallions, sliced into 1-inch pieces, white and green parts separated
extra virgin olive oil
coarse salt, black pepper
1 c. yellow cornmeal
1/4 c. freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp. butter
1 c. balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 400 F. Toss the tomatoes and white parts of the scallions with about a tablespoon of olive oil, spread on a baking sheet, and sprinkle with coarse salt and black pepper. Roast in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the skins of the tomatoes start to pop open. When they are done, toss them with the scallion greens. While tomatoes are cooking, season both sides of the steak with salt and pepper and pan-sear over medium-high heat with a little olive oil for about 4-5 minutes on each side (for medium rare). Meanwhile, bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan, then gradually whisk in the cornmeal. Continue whisking every couple of minutes until the polenta is thickened, about 10-12 minutes. When it's done, whisk in butter and parmesan and keep warm over very low heat (whisking in more water if it starts to get too thick). When the steak is done cooking, remove it from the pan to rest on a plate. In the pan the steak was in, add the balsamic vinegar and boil until reduced by half. Add any juices that accumulated from the resting steak. Slice the steak and, on the plate, drizzle with the balsamic sauce. Serve with polenta and tomatoes.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

2008-02-02T13:12:00.000-05:00

I realize I'm about a week late on this -- shame on me! -- but I decided to go ahead and post my January Daring Bakers challenge anyway. Better late than never, right? This month the DB were assigned the challenge of a Lemon Meringue Pie, which my Mom was quite happy about because it's one of her favorites and I had planned to cook it while I was home visiting. My boyfriend Joe also did me the honor of being my talented and attentive sous-chef.

The recipe we were assigned was a bit challenging. The dough was the difficult part for me -- it didn't hold together very well, and it ended up being a bit too thick (and, in my opinion, too sweet). If I were to make lemon meringue pie again, I'd definitely use my own pie crust recipe, which always serves me well. The lemon custard part was easy, except that Joe and I got to the part where you're supposed to add the lemon juice and realized that we had forgotten to pick the lemons off the lemon tree. So I had Joe stand over the stove stirring the custard, to make sure it stayed smooth, while I sprinted out back and picked a half a dozen lemons from our tree. In the end, no harm done, and the custard was delicious with the fresh juice. The meringue itself was super easy and turned a pretty golden brown in the oven.

The recipe warned that the pie should be eaten within 6 hours, but we ignored that advice and kept it in the refrigerator for leftovers. In fact, the pie was even better (we thought) chilled the next day. (Oh, and sorry for the poor picture quality -- I took these pics in my Mom's kitchen, which has the worst lighting ever.)

To see hundreds of other takes on this Lemon Meringue Pie, head on over to the Daring Bakers Blog Roll. If you're feeling particularly daring, you can find the recipe over at this month's host's site, The Canadian Baker.

Shrimp 'n Beans

2008-01-20T17:35:00.000-05:00

This dish doesn't exactly have the most sophisticated name, does it? I suppose you could jazz it up by calling it Gamberetti e Fagioli alla Toscana, since evidently this is a classic Tuscan meal. People dig Tuscany -- it's trendy, you know.

Anyway, it's really important to make this dish with dried beans. You can't just start off with canned beans, even though it would cut the cooking time. The reason is that the fresh sage infuses the water that cooks the beans so that the beans themselves taste like sage. Remember to buy U.S. farmed shrimp, not wild-caught or imported. Bottom trawls used to catch most wild shrimp damage sea floor habitat and unintentionally kill unwanted fish and sea turtles. U.S. fisheries are generally well regulated to prevent this kind of damage.

Tuscan Shrimp and Beans
serves 4

2 cups dried white beans (cannellini, navy, pea, Great Northern)
20 fresh sage leaves
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp minced garlic
1 pound shrimp, rinsed, dried, cut into 3-4 pieces each
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Place the beans in a large, deep pot with water to cover. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Skim the foam if necessary. Turn the heat down so the beans simmer. Add the sage and pepper and cover loosely. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans begin to soften, about 30 minutes. Add 1/2 tsp. salt and some more pepper. Continue to cook until the beans are very tender, usually at least 1 hour. Add additional water if necessary. Drain the cooking liquid if necessary, then add the garlic, additional salt to taste, and shrimp. Cook over low heat until the shrimp turn pink, 3 to 5 minutes. Drizzle with the olive oil and serve.

Open Sesame

2008-01-14T22:19:00.000-05:00

So it's been one of those Mondays. I woke up this morning and there was over 6 inches of snow on the ground, with the flurries still coming down hard. I trudged my way to class but listened to very little of what went on. Then tonight I went all the way back down to Harvard Square for my first French class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, only to find that it was cancelled because of the blizzard. Figures.

Fortunately, dinner was quick, easy, and healthy. I'm still doing the whole diet thing, especially after my Friday night involved beer and stolen bites of other people's desserts. This stir-fry isn't the most exciting thing in the world, but it did help make me feel a bit better about my weekend indiscretions.

Tofu, Broccolini and Sesame Stir-Fry

1 package extra firm tofu, cubed
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp dry sherry
1 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced, divided
1 Tbsp fresh garlic, minced, divided
1 tsp peanut oil
1 large onion, sliced
1 large bunch broccolini, cut into 2-3 inch pieces
1/2 tsp arrowroot
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
brown rice, if desired

Put the tofu in a bowl. Combine the soy sauce, sherry, 1/2 Tbsp ginger and 1/2 Tbsp garlic. Pour over the tofu and set aside. Over medium-high heat, warm the oil, then add the rest of the ginger and garlic. Cook for a few seconds and then add the onions and broccolini. Cook for a few minutes until they start to become tender. Remove the tofu from the marinade and combine the marinade with the arrowroot. Mix into the onion and broccolini and stir to thicken sauce. Lower the heat to a simmer and add tofu. Cook a few more minutes until the tofu is warmed through. Serve over rice (if desired), and top with sesame seeds.

I'm in Love With a Salad

2008-01-09T18:03:00.000-05:00

It's not often that I make a recipe that's so incredibly awesome that it instantaneously gets added to my arsenal of go-to meals, but this Spinach Salad with Warm Feta Dressing was one of them. My mom and I made it for Christmas dinner this year, and I think it was the biggest hit of the night, my special honey-and-lavender duck included. A few days later, I flew out to Arizona to meet my boyfriend's family, and I volunteered to make this salad as my contribution to their New Year's Eve dinner. Huge hit there, too. Since then, I've made it twice, and my boyfriend's family has made it at least four more times.

The thing is, it's incredibly quick and easy, and it's so delicious. The red onions add sweetness, and the creamy feta just kind of coats the spinach leaves, and the sherry vinegar gives the whole thing a lightly acidic but nutty flavor. Sherry vinegar can be hard to find (Williams Sonoma sells it, but it's not cheap), so if you can't find any, you can just use equal parts white wine or red wine vinegar and real sherry.

Spinach Salad with Warm Feta Dressing
Serves 4

one bag fresh spinach leaves
extra-virgin olive oil
one small, or 1/2 large, red onion, sliced thinly
one 8-oz package feta cheese, crumbled
2-3 Tbsp sherry vinegar (or vinegar + sherry)

Put all of the spinach leaves in a large bowl. Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat, then add the sliced red onion and cook until the onion is soft and translucent and lightly browned, about 5-10 minutes. Dump the onion out of the skillet onto the spinach. With the skillet off of the heat but still warm, add the feta cheese and the sherry vinegar (plus a little extra olive oil if the skillet is too dry). Stir until the cheese is softened and slightly melted. Season to taste with salt and pepper, if desired. Add to the spinach and onions, toss, and serve.

Catching Up...Again

2008-01-09T17:49:00.000-05:00

Sorry, people. I don't know what it is these days, but I am having a hard time staying on top of my blogging duties. I'm back at school (class started up again on January 2 - how cruel is that?) and doing the requisite post-holiday diet. I don't need to shed a ton of weight, so I'm kind of playing fast and loose with the South Beach rules. Here are a couple things I've made this week.

I made this Lentil Chili with Cumin and Green Onions last night. As it was cooking, I kept tasting it and feeling unsatisfied with it. It was fine, but not great. Things improved after I salted it well. But the flavors really came together and popped when I stirred in the green onions at the end. Not something I'd make again, but it was healthy, and I enjoyed eating it. I'm not going to bother with the recipe, but it's in the February 2008 edition of Bon Appetit. I'd link you to it, but I guess the February recipes aren't on the website yet. Sorry :(

My mom gave me a cookbook called The Gourmet Slow Cooker for Christmas, and a few days ago I tried the recipe for the Indian-style Chicken in Saffron-Tomato Cream Sauce. I was pretty disappointed with it, but I think my slow cooker technique is just lacking. Actually, I'd love some advice on this, if you've got any. My problem is that I put the skinned, cut-up chicken into the cooker with only a small bit of liquid, and a couple of hours later, it's floating in a bubbling bath of its own fat. So, the chicken ends up tasting really greasy, and the "cream sauce" is non-existent because I try to avoid eating as much of the liquid chicken fat concoction as possible. What am I doing wrong? Was the chicken too fatty? Should I periodically dump the grease out of the cooker? Inquiring minds want to know. Oh, and here's a picture of the finished dish.

The Daring Bakers Do X-Mas

2007-12-22T18:31:00.000-05:00

This month was Round 3 for me in the Daring Bakers challenge, and it was by far the hardest one yet, involving not one but multiple snafus and do-overs. The Daring Bakers are a group of over 300 food bloggers who prepare the same elaborate recipe each month and post about it on the same day. This month, our recipe was holiday-themed: a beautiful Bûche de Noël, or Yule Log. A Yule Log is a genoise sheet cake rolled up with a buttercream frosting filling into the shape of a log. I baked mine this afternoon in preparation for a little holiday gathering I'm hosting later tonight.

The Yule Log involves three steps. First, you bake a thin sheet genoise cake, whose batter has lots of eggs and is made fluffy by beating air into it. Second, you make a coffee buttercream frosting (potentially the most difficult step - at least for me). Third, after assembling the cake, you make little "mushrooms" out of marzipan to decorate the log.

The cake was easy (dare I say - it was a piece of cake). The hard part was the frosting. This frosting is not the healthiest thing in the world. I'll be straight with you and tell you that it involves three sticks of butter. The first time I attempted to make it, I got a little overzealous with the "softening" of the butter that the recipe calls for. I wasn't thinking, and I didn't realize that if I softened it too much, the frosting would be too liquidy. That first batch had to go down the drain. The second batch I didn't soften the butter at all, and it was solid enough, but it kind of ... curdled. Like, the butter just was kind of lumpy and not incorporating fully into the frosting. Fortunately, I kept beating it until it started to look like normal frosting, and all was well. The marzipan mushrooms were a breeze to make.

To see hundreds of other takes on this Buche de Noel, mosey on over to the Daring Bakers Blog Roll starting today. Some of them probably have the recipe posted, which I'm too lazy to do ;) Happy holidays, everybody!

Catching Up

2007-12-22T17:59:00.000-05:00

Holy crap, it's been forever. I have a good excuse, though. I've been in the midst of final exams for weeks and really just have not had time for blogging. Fortunately, I have had time to do a tiny bit of cooking, so now that I'm home for the holidays and have all the blogging time in the world, here's a recap of some highlights from the last month or so.

This was one of those times when watching Food Network on the treadmill inspired me. I never watch Barefoot Contessa, but she happened to be making this chicken dish that looked yum. She marinated chicken in rosemary, lemon, and garlic, and then grilled it. I decided to bake it instead, but still, it was quite good. She also made broccolini in a balsamic vinaigrette. I replicated that as well, and I liked it even better than the chicken.

These cookies got me through studying for my Corporations final. Unfortunately, I don't have the recipe to share with you all because it's in a cookbook that I left at school (Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything). They were your basic oatmeal-raisin cookies with a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips thrown in for good measure.

This pasta dish was seriously the best thing I've made in a long time. I made a HUGE batch of it and then ate it for like five days in a row during finals. The sauce on this pasta was so yummy - a light cream sauce with ground turkey, sausage, spinach, and nutmeg, with lots of parmesan cheese melted in.

Oh, I also made a Moroccan chicken pot pie, but forgot to take a picture of it. Lately I've been obsessed with the raisins-olives combination. It's so salty-sweet and addictive. This pot pie was delicious and extremely fast to make.

Coming very soon: my December Daring Bakers post!

Tender Potato Bread

2007-11-26T00:12:00.000-05:00

This month was Round 2 for me of the Daring Bakers challenge, in which over 300 food bloggers prepare the same elaborate recipe and post about it on the same day. This month, our chosen baked good was savory, not sweet: a Tender Potato Bread with mashed potatoes mixed right into the dough. I decided to make this as my contribution to my family's Thanksgiving dinner (fortunately my Mom took care of a good bit of the rest).

Before setting out to bake this delicious bread, I perused the Daring Bakers internal blog to see if anyone had any tips or suggestions. Fortunately, in this manner I was warned that the dough was incredibly sticky due to the mashed potatoes. In fact, sticky would be an understatement. While I was kneading the dough, I had to get my Mom to gradually add in the flour for me, since my hands were literally stuck to the ball of mush. It didn't take too much flour to wrangle it into control, though, and even though it was incredibly soft (I didn't want to add too much flour for fear of making the bread tough) I decided to shape it into rolls to go with Thanksgiving dinner. Well, the dough was so soft that it couldn't hold the roll shape. When I put the balls of dough onto the baking sheet, they just flattened out into one big...sheet of bread. It was odd. But when I tore it apart into pieces to put into the bread basket and carried the hot-from-the-oven mini-loaves to the table, no one was complaining. The bread had a nice crusty top and was chewy and moist on the inside. Definitely well worth the effort.

To see hundreds of other takes on this Tender Potato Bread, formed into all sorts of shapes and topped with yummy extras, cruise on over to the Daring Bakers blog roll starting today. If you're feeling particularly daring, check out the recipe over at My Kitchen in Half Cups, whose creator, Tanna, selected this tasty treat. (Don't let the recipe's length scare you; it just contains a lot of variations.)

Everyday Yum

2007-11-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

After all the Thanksgiving fuss has died down a bit, I finally have time to post a recipe that I tried out earlier this week that I really loved. Sunday night I made a recipe out of Martha Stewart's new food magazine, Everyday Food, and I was pretty disappointed with it. The recipe was for "lighter" sesame chicken, and it just didn't have a whole lot of flavor. The next night, with some apprehension, I tried a different recipe from the same magazine, this time for Pork Paprikash. Fortunately, it was much better, and is definitely going to be added to my catalog of go-to recipes that are fast, easy, and delicious.

Pork Paprikash
serves 4

coarse salt and ground pepper
8 oz wide egg noodles
1 Tbsp butter, cut into pieces
1 pork tenderloin (about 1 pound), excess fat and silver skin removed, halved lengthwise, then cut crosswise into 1-inch-thick pieces
2 Tbsp sweet paprika, divided
2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can (14 oz) whole peeled tomatoes in juice
1/2 c. sour cream

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook noodles until tender; drain and return to pot. Stir in butter; cover and set aside. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine pork with 1 Tbsp paprika. Season with salt and pepper and toss to coat. In a large skillet, heat 1 Tbsp oil over medium-high. Cook pork, tossing occasionally, until lightly browned on all sides, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Return skillet to stove, reducing heat to medium. Add remaining Tbsp oil and onion; cook until onion is soft, 4 to 5 minutes. Add pork, remaining Tbsp paprika, tomatoes with their juice, and 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cooking until sauce is slightly thickened, breaking up tomatoes with a spoon, 2 to 4 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and stir in sour cream. Season with salt and pepper. Serve paprikash over noodles.

Happy Turkey Day

2007-11-23T00:34:00.000-05:00

Well, folks, two chipped teeth didn't stop me from pigging out like a fat cow today. Wow, I really mixed up my animal metaphors in that last sentence. Anyway, my Thanksgiving dinner was fabulous, and I hope yours was too. No recipes for now unless I get specific requests. In the meantime, here's our menu and a picture of my plate:

Mixed Greens with Beets, Orange Slices and Goat Cheese
Potato Bread
Mustard and Herb Turkey with Scallion Gravy
Lemon Roasted Green Beans
Sweet Potato-Bourbon Mash
Cranberries in Port Wine and Cinnamon
Texas Pecan Pie

In the picture: turkey, cranberries, sweet potato mash, green beans.

Itsy Bitsy Pieces

2007-11-14T09:25:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the hiatus, faithful readers. Two weekends ago I had a bit of an incident, in which I managed to chip my two front teeth pretty badly. While I wait for the verdict as to whether they can be saved, I've been forbidden from using my front teeth for any purpose whatsoever. This has made eating somewhat tricky. For the first week I subsisted almost entirely on oatmeal, soup and pudding until I realized that I could eat solid food as long as it was made up of small pieces that I could place into the back of my mouth and chew with my molars, bypassing the front teeth entirely.

Last night I made a goat cheese, lentil and potato salad that fit the bill pretty well. Everything in it is in little pieces - no incisors necessary. Also, it's fast, pretty healthy and tastes good. If anyone has suggestions for other meals that are front-teeth-free, please, pass them along. It'll be at least another week and a half until I have recovered full mastication ability.

Goat Cheese, Lentil and Potato Salad
serves 2 as a main course

1-1/4 c. French green lentils, rinsed and drained
3 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 scallions, thinly sliced
2 medium tomatoes, seeded and finely diced
1/2 c. finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/2 c. extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 c. fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper
8 oz. fresh goat cheese, crumbled

In a large saucepan, cover the lentils with cold water and bring to a simmer. Cook over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender, about 18 minutes. Drain the lentils well and transfer to a large bowl. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, cover the potatoes with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook over moderately high heat until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Drain very well and add to the lentils. Add the scallions, tomatoes, parsley, garlic, olive oil and lemon juice, season with salt and pepper and toss. Spoon the lentil salad onto plates and top with the goat cheese.

I borrowed this recipe from the October 2007 Food and Wine. They recommend a Semillon as a wine pairing, since its lemony/zesty flavors partner naturally with the earthy lentils and tangy dressing and goat cheese.

Food Quote of the Day

2007-11-02T16:37:00.000-04:00

"She's incredibly powerful and more loved than I am. But she genuinely offends me. Julia Child, for example, raised people's expectations of food. When Rachael tells you that it's perfectly O.K. to buy prechopped onion from the supermarket ... I mean, how hard is it to chop an onion? The takeaway is, I could cook, but instead I'll finish this bag of Cheetos and that gallon of Diet Pepsi before dying of diabetes."

--Anthony Bourdain on Rachael Ray - Nov. 12, 2007 issue of Time

Where's the Beef?

2007-10-30T10:27:00.000-04:00

I don't normally eat a lot of beef when I'm trying to eat healthily. (Me + a week in Philadelphia = sweet baby Jesus, I need to go on a diet.) Also, beef is not the most environmentally friendly food. Sometimes, though, I make an exception, like yesterday, when I went to my local butcher and saw a gorgeous little piece of sirloin that I absolutely couldn't live without. To balance out the fact that I was eating a hunk of red meat (although, to be fair, one of the least fatty varieties), I decided to grill it - rare, of course - and put it on a salad with a light Asian-inspired dressing. Fresh, yummy, relatively healthy. Not bad for a Monday night.

Beef Salad with Mint
serves one

one 4-5 ounce sirloin or filet mignon
2 c. salad greens, your choice (I prefer romaine)
1/4 c. minced fresh mint
1/4 of a red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 a small cucumber, thinly sliced
juice of one lime
2 tsp. fish sauce (or soy sauce)
pinch cayenne, to taste
1/4 tsp. sugar (or Splenda)

Preheat the grill or your broiler. (I used a grill pan on top of the stove.) Grill or broil the steak until rare or medium-rare about 8 to 12 minutes. Set it aside to cool. Toss the lettuce with the mint, onion, and cucumber. Combine all remaining ingredients, and toss the greens with this mixture, reserving about 1 tablespoon of the dressing. Slice the beef thinly, reserving its juice. Lay the slices over the salad. Mix the juice and reserved dressing, drizzle over the beef, and serve.

Sweet Like Victory

2007-10-29T10:42:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my first entry in the monthly Daring Bakers challenge, in which hundreds of food bloggers prepare the same elaborate recipe and post about it on the same day. It's mighty coincidental that the selected posting day this month is the day after the Boston Red Sox won the World Series - and that the chosen recipe is for a dessert modeled after Boston Cream Pie.

Meet the Bostini Cream Pie. Whereas the traditional Boston Cream has two layers of vanilla sponge cake filled with vanilla custard and topped with chocolate ganache, the Bostini begins with a thick vanilla custard in a bowl, throws a mini orange chiffon cake on top and drizzles the whole thing with warm chocolate glaze. Needless to say, it's delicious, although so rich that I'm pretty sure it took at least a week off of my life - the custard alone called for 10 egg yolks, not to mention the rest of the heavy cream, butter, sugar, and chocolate that went into the entire production.

Although the Daring Bakers are instructed to follow the recipe to the letter, we were allowed to reduce the recipe this time because of the massive portions of dessert it was designed to produce. I halved mine, and it still turned out beautifully. I made it while Joe was here visiting earlier this month, and he was the best sous-chef any girl could ask for. (I hope he forgives my baseball-related gloating; he's not exactly a Sox fan.)

To see hundreds of other Bostini Cream Pies, presented and plated in all kinds of creative ways, visit the Daring Bakers blog roll starting today. If you're feeling daring yourself, you can check out the recipe over at Alpineberry, whose creator, Mary, is this month's host and selected our delicious recipe.

Life of Pie

2007-10-28T17:15:00.001-04:00

Well, I'm back in Boston after an amazing week in Philadelphia with Joe. It was so relaxing, and I got quite a bit of satisfaction out of feeding Joe and his roommate. While I was in town I baked them not one but two delicious pies - pecan and apple. See, I really wanted to make a pie, but Joe didn't have a rolling pin. He ended up buying me one to keep in his apartment in exchange for my promise to bake him a pie every time I come visit. Of course I will gladly oblige. I even overcompensated this time by making more than one.

I used the same crust recipe for both pies because it turned out so very well the first time. It's flaky and buttery and everything a pie crust should be. The trick is to cut the butter into the dry ingredients the old-fashioned way, with a pastry blender. You could use a food processor, but I think that just creates more mess than it's worth, and really it's the uneven results of the handmade method that make the crust so good - the pockets of unincorporated butter in the dough are what create the flakiness. The other key thing to remember is to use very cold butter and to give the dough enough time to chill in the fridge before you roll it out and then again before you put the filling into it.

Both pies turned out spectacularly. The only other thing I should note is that no matter how badly you want to eat it right away, you have to let the pecan pie sit and cool for a few hours before you serve it. Otherwise, hot pie juice will gush out at you when you cut into it. It still tastes good, but no one wants liquid pie.

Pie Crust

1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 c. ice water

Mix together the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the dough chunks are the size of peas. Sprinkle on the ice water and blend just until the crumbs are evenly moistened. Turn the pastry onto a work surface and gather it into a ball. Flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 30 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to a 13-inch round. Ease the pastry into a 9-inch pie plate and trim the overhang to a half-inch. Crimp the edges decoratively. Refrigerate until firm.

Georgia Pecan Pie

3 eggs
1 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. light corn syrup
1/2 c. dark corn syrup
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
5 oz. pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350. Position a rack in the bottom third of the oven. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar and salt. Whisk in the light and dark corn syrups, butter and vanilla until combined. Stir in the pecans. Pour the filling into the pie shell and arrange the pecans in a decorative pattern. Cover the rim of the pie with foil strips and bake the pie for 50 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is puffed but still slightly jiggly. Remove the foil strips and let the pie cool completely before serving.

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie

Filling ingredients:

about a half-dozen Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced thin
2/3 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp. melted unsalted butter

Topping ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. golden brown sugar
1-1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. chilled unsalted butter, cut into half-inch cubes
vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 400. Mix all filling ingredients in large bowl to coat apples. Blend first 5 topping ingredients in processor. Add chilled butter cubes; using on/off turns, cut in until mixture resembles wet sand. (You could also do this manually with a pastry blender.) Toss filling to redistribute juices; transfer to crust, mounding in center. Pack topping over and around apples. Bake pie on baking sheet until topping is golden, about 40 minutes (cover top with foil if browning too quickly). Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake until apples in center are tender when pierced and filling is bubbling thickly at edges, about 45 minutes longer. Cool until warm, about 1 hour. Serve with ice cream.

P.S. Just to prove that I didn't make ONLY junk food this week, a picture of Tuesday night's dinner - beef rib-eye and vegetable stew with homemade buttermilk biscuits.

Cupcake Hero to the Rescue

2007-10-23T18:00:00.000-04:00

Greetings from the City of Brotherly Love! I'm in Philadelphia for the week, and my boyfriend Joe and I have been having a blast eating out at various spots in the city. Tonight we're taking a break from that and I'm cooking a delicious Southern meal for him and his roommate. Needless to say, I enjoy feeding him. In that vein, I baked a batch of cupcakes on Friday night and brought a bunch of them with me when I flew down on Saturday, just as a kind of thank-you present for letting me crash with him on my week off.

These cupcakes are my entry for the October edition of the Cupcake Hero challenge. The theme ingredient this month is cloves, those delicious ground-up dried flower buds. Cloves are pungent, sweet, and strong; you have to be careful not to go overboard with them. I worked up a recipe from a spice cake recipe in the classic Joy of Cooking that balances out the cloves with some other spices, and threw in a handful of chopped-up figs for good measure. Chocolate butter frosting serves as the perfect creamy topping to these crumbly bundles of autumnal goodness.

Velvet Spice Cupcakes with Figs

2-1/2 c. sifted cake flour
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground or grated nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 sticks (3/4 c.) unsalted butter
1-1/2 c. sugar, divided
3 eggs, divided into yolks and whites
3/4 c. plus 2 Tbsp. plain yogurt
6-8 fresh black mission figs, coarsely chopped
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350. Grease or place paper liners into cupcake pans. Whisk together first seven ingredients (flour through salt) until thoroughly blended. Beat butter in a large bowl until creamy, about 30 seconds. Gradually add 1-1/4 c. sugar and beat on high speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 4 minutes. Beat in the 3 egg yolks, one at a time. On low speed, add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the yogurt in 2 parts, beating until smooth and scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary. Stir in the figs. Using clean beaters, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar in a large bowl on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 c. sugar and beat on high speed until the peaks are stiff but not dry. Use a rubber spatula to fold one-quarter of the egg whites into the batter, then fold in the remaining whites. Spoon the batter into the cupcake pans so that each cup is about two-thirds full. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool, remove from pans, and frost.

Dark Chocolate Butter Icing

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/4 c. warm milk
1-1/3 c. confectioners sugar
pinch cinnamon and ground cloves

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Remove from heat and stir in milk. Add spices, then gradually add confectioners sugar, beating on medium speed until spreadable.

Pork Fat Rules

2007-10-19T18:11:00.000-04:00

Having company over for dinner is something I haven't done enough of this year. There's not much in the world that I find more gratifying than feeding people. Well, even more gratifying is feeding people while watching the Red Sox win Game 5 of the ALCS. Especially if I'm feeding them slow-cooked pork shoulder, white beans with sage, and sweet potato oven fries. With lots of red wine.

So I bought this giant 7.5 pound pork shoulder at my local butcher on Wednesday with the intention of cooking it last night for my guests, my friends Jackie and Stephanie. The only problem was that it was so large that it wouldn't fit in my slow cooker. I ended up cutting off and freezing about a third of it, but even still, we had more meat than we could finish. I've never made pork shoulder before, and boy, that is a fatty piece of meat. Fatty and delicious. We were remarking last night how odd it is that pigs get fat in their shoulders. Not that I'm complaining - as Emeril would say, pork fat rules.

I don't really have recipes for what I made; I was just winging it left and right. Fortunately everything turned out great. Here's the play-by-play:

For the pork shoulder, the night before I wanted to cook it, I roasted 3 big bulbs of garlic for a half hour in a 400-degree oven, then peeled it and put it in a blender with about 2 T each of salt, coriander, and dried rosemary; 1 T each of mustard powder and dried thyme; and about a teaspoon of ground black pepper. After blending it into a paste, I rubbed it all over the pork and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Before I went to class the next morning, I threw it in the slow cooker with just a bit of water in the bottom (1/4 c. maybe) and let it go about 8 hours on low.

For the white beans, I just soaked a half-pound of them overnight, then cooked them with 3 cups of water, a few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, and about a tablespoon of chopped fresh sage.

For the sweet potato oven fries, I peeled 3 yams and then cut them into french-fry-sized pieces. I tossed them in a bowl with some olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then baked them in a 500-degree oven for 30 minutes. When I served them, I sprinkled some fresh thyme on top.

Black Beans and Baseball

2007-10-15T19:51:00.000-04:00

It's officially autumn, and that for me means two things: baseball playoffs and soup. Tonight, along with some nice crisp weather, I'm getting to enjoy both of those fall classics. (Although to be honest, I'm enjoying the baseball a bit less right now; my Red Sox are losing 2-0 as I write this.)

I've made my fair share of black bean soup in my time, and I've tried a bunch of different recipes. I'm always on the lookout for a new one. Tonight, since I've been going through Mark Bittman's fantastic culinary compendium How to Cook Everything, I tested out his recipe. Pluses: it was fast and easy, it had great flavor (good and spicy), and it was versatile enough that I would feel comfortable using it as a base for some future tinkering. Minuses: it's a little thinner than I was expecting. After it was done, I put a bunch of garnishes on top, and they kept sinking into the soup. Which would have been 100% fine if I hadn't been trying to take a picture of it.

Overall, a delicious, satisfying soup. Now if only the Red Sox would perform as well as this recipe...

Black Bean Soup
Serves 3-4

2 Tbsp vegetable/canola oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp chili powder
3 c. drained cooked black beans
4 c. chicken/beef/vegetable stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice
sour cream
optional (but recommended) garnishes: cilantro, chopped scallions, grated cheddar cheese, chopped tomato, chopped avocado

Place the oil in a large, deep saucepan or casserole and turn the heat to medium. A minute later, add the onions and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and chili powder and cook, stirring, another minute. Add the beans and stock and season with salt and pepper. Turn the heat to medium-high and bring the soup just to a boil. Turn the heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat. Puree half the contents of the pot in a food processor or blender (or just mash the contents with a potato masher or large fork). Add the lime juice and stir; taste and adjust seasonings as necessary. Serve, topped with any or all of the optional garnishes.

No Vampires

2007-10-11T17:03:00.000-04:00

Have you ever butchered a chicken? You know, taken a whole chicken and hacked at it with a large knife to dismember it? I did yesterday for the first time. It was not pleasant. Actually, that's an understatement - it was kind of awful. It made me want to become a vegetarian immediately. I'll spare you the gory details, but it involved breaking bones. Ugh. I guess it was a good experience, though, because now I know how to do it. If you're ever faced with cutting up a whole chicken, there's a pretty good explanation with diagrams and stuff on p.368 of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, or you can look here.

Anyway, the butchering was worth it because this chicken with 40 cloves of garlic is amazing. This recipe really just screams "autumn" to me. Between the roasting garlic and the cinnamon, the smell it emanates as the chicken is cooking is one of the most delicious aromas ever to grace my olfactory organs. My apartment has never smelled better than it did for an hour last night when I had this chicken on the stove.

Added bonus: all this garlic is a pretty potent vampire repellent.

A glimpse into the pot:

And on the plate:

Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic
Adapted from How to Cook Everything (Mark Bittman)

1 whole chicken, cut up, trimmed of fat, rinsed and patted dry
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
at least 2 heads garlic, separated into cloves but not peeled
1/2 c. minced fresh parsley leaves
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 c. white wine or chicken stock

Place the chicken, oil, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, and cinnamon in the bottom of a large saucepan, casserole, or Dutch oven. Pour the wine/stock over all and mix together. Turn the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Cover tightly and reduce the heat to low. Cook, undisturbed, for about an hour, until the chicken and garlic are very tender. Eat the softened garlic cloves spread onto good crusty bread.

Gettin' Figgy With It

2007-10-09T08:37:00.000-04:00

(I'm sorry about the title of this post. Really. Sometimes I just cannot control myself.)

Fig season is pretty much over, which is always a sad occurrence for me every year. Fresh figs are my absolute favorite fruit (rivaled perhaps only by Rainier cherries), and their growing season always seems so short. They're such a tease. But I love them anyway, despite their coquettish ways. Imagine my joy when I discovered that my local grocer still has a precious few left in stock!

This weekend Joe was in town visiting from Philadelphia. I usually try to cook for him, since he evidently never does so for himself and I worry about him wasting away into nothingness (Joe, EAT SOMETHING), but this weekend for some reason all we ended up making were desserts. Sunday afternoon was devoted to the Daring Bakers challenge, coming to a blog near you at the end of October. Saturday night, though, while he watched the Purdue/Ohio State game, I made ice cream out of the fresh figs that still seem to be hanging on into autumn.

Of course, my first instinct was to turn to David Lebovitz, he of the most incredible ice cream recipes known to man. (Maybe a slight exaggeration. But they're always good.) His fig ice cream has surprisingly little cream in it. In fact, it's so overwhelmingly composed of fig that you can leave it out of the freezer and it won't exactly melt, it just kind of sits there. The plus side of that is that it doesn't freeze rock hard, but stays nice and soft. And because you can keep it in your freezer for as long as you like, your figginess doesn't have to end with the close of summer, but can last all year long. No more teasing.

Fresh Fig Ice Cream

2 lbs fresh figs (about 20)
1/2 c. water
1 lemon
3/4 c. of sugar
1 c. heavy cream
1/2 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

Remove the hard stem ends from the figs, then cut each fig into 8 pieces. Put the figs in a medium, nonreactive suacepan with the water, and zest the lemon directly into the saucepan. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 8-1o minutes until the figs are tender. Remove the lid, add the sugar and continue to cook until it reaches a jam-like consistency. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Blend together with cream and lemon juice, chill in the fridge and then put in your ice cream maker per the manufacturer's instructions.

A Sustainable Seafood Stew

2007-10-01T23:06:00.000-04:00

This week is crazy busy for me for some reason. Tons of reading for class, work for my internship, errands to run and events to attend. Somehow (not sure exactly how) I found time to make a pretty delicious meal tonight. Fortunately I have leftovers, so if I'm too busy to cook tomorrow, I won't have to starve.

This Spanish Fish Stew with Peppers, Almonds and Saffron is really quite healthy. I'm on phase 2 of South Beach, so I served it on top of some brown rice to make a really filling and awesome meal. I try to be really conscious about what seafood I eat; this summer I worked for an environmental non-profit organization called Oceana that does a lot of marine conservation, and I learned a lot about unsustainable fisheries and the damage to the oceans that a lot of fishing practices can do. Fortunately there are some kinds of seafood that aren't so terrible to eat, and those are what I put into my stew. Farmed clams are one of those OK seafoods - they don't have to be dredged off the ocean floor to be eaten. (Dredging kills everything that lives on the sea floor, like coral reefs and turtles.) Pacific halibut is also a fish you can eat with a clean conscience, because that's a fishery that's responsibly managed and not in huge danger of overexploitation. For a complete guide to ocean friendly seafood, Oceana publishes a great list and you can find it here.

Spanish Fish Stew with Peppers, Almonds and Saffron
Serves 4

1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 large red bell pepper, cut into strips
2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
salt and pepper
1 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 tsp. Spanish smoked paprika
1 bay leaf
1-1/2 c. dry white wine
one 14-oz. can crushed tomatoes
1-1/2 c. water
1/4 tsp. saffron threads, crumbled into 2 Tbsp. hot water
1/4 c. salted roasted almonds
1 dozen littleneck clams, scrubbed
1-1/4 lbs. Pacific halibut, meat cut into 1-inch pieces

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy casserole. Add the onion, bell pepper strips and garlic and season with salt and black pepper. Cover and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add the rosemary, paprika, and bay leaf and cook for 1 minute. Add the white wine and bring to a boil. Simmer until the liquid is slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, water and saffron and bring to a boil. Cover the casserole and cook over medium high for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, finely grind the almonds in a food processor. Stir in the almonds into the stew and simmer until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Add the clams, cover and cook until most of them open, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the fish and season with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer until the fish is cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Transfer to bowls; serve over brown rice if desired.

Just Stuff It

2007-09-30T12:07:00.000-04:00

Before I get to my featured recipe, two things:
1) A public service announcement. If you bake homemade pita, make sure you put it in the refrigerator. Otherwise it will grow mold and all of your hard work (and burned hands) will be for naught.
2) A recommendation. If you have $400 to burn on dinner for two, go to L'Espalier for their seasonal degustation with the grand vintner's tasting. It is three hours of pure magical delight. You will not be disappointed.

Okay, so this week I made yet another delicious South Beach friendly meal. I'm not really into chicken these days, I don't know why, I just haven't really had a taste for it. But this was pretty good and I didn't mind eating it for dinner two nights in a row, with just a side of salted sliced tomatoes. (When you live alone you have the ability to live off your own leftovers.) That's possibly because I've been obsessed with goat cheese recently and have been using it in everything. I used to think I hated goat cheese, but sometime this summer I had an epiphany and realized that it is actually a little piece of cheesy heaven. So don't be surprised if you see more goat cheese pop up in my recipes in the future.

Goat Cheese-Stuffed Chicken
Serves 4

1/4 c. walnut halves
1/4 c. fresh goat cheese
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1 garlic clove, minced
four 6-ounce boneless/skinless chicken breasts
1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 c. low-sodium chicken broth
2 Tbsp. walnut oil
1/4 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley

Preheat the oven to 400°. Spread the walnuts in a pie plate and toast for 6 minutes, until fragrant. Let cool, then chop. In a small bowl, mash the goat cheese with the lemon zest, garlic and half of the walnuts; season with salt and pepper. Using a small knife, cut a pocket in the side of each chicken breast; keep the pocket opening as small as possible. Stuff the chicken breasts with the mixture and gently press to flatten them. In a large ovenproof skillet, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and cook over moderately high heat, turning once, until browned, about 6 minutes. Transfer the skillet to the oven and roast the chicken for 5 minutes. Transfer the chicken breasts to a platter and keep warm. Add the lemon juice and stock to the skillet and cook over moderately high heat, scraping up any browned bits stuck to the pan. Simmer for 3 minutes. Stir in the walnut oil, parsley and the remaining chopped walnuts. Transfer the chicken breasts to plates, spoon the walnut sauce on top and serve.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging #102, hosted this week by Ulrike from Kuchenlatein. WHB is a weekly food blogging event where bloggers post recipes using their favorite herbs, plants, veggies, and flowers. In my goat cheese stuffed chicken, the flat-leaf parsley in the reduction adds a nice herby flavor to the dish that would otherwise be dominated by the rich tastes of the goat cheese and walnuts. Flat-leaf parsley is one of two kinds of parsley (along with curly), and is thought to have the stronger flavor of the two. Flat-leaf parsley is also better adapted to cooking because it can better withstand high heat.

Pita Patter

2007-09-24T19:51:00.000-04:00

I almost died in the process (okay fine I just burned my hand in the oven), but I successfully made my own whole-wheat pita! I weighed myself this morning and decided it was time for phase 2 of South Beach, which means I can slowly reintroduce some fruits and whole grains back into my diet. I racked my brain for something I could make myself, and at first I thought about making a loaf of bread, but most recipes call for dry milk (??) and I do not have that. (Seriously, what is dry milk?)

Anyway, I decided on homemade whole-wheat pita bread. The recipe is simple, and even with my crude and unrefined technique, I managed just fine. So basically, that means just about anybody can do it. I also got to use my brand new baking stone that I got for my birthday! The pita got all puffy in the oven just like they were supposed to, and they taste great, just as good as (if not better than) pita that you would buy in the store. And did you know that pita splits naturally? I thought that when you bought store-bought pita, the pita-people split the pita for you so you could make it into a sandwich. Turns out that just happens on its own. Magic!

After my pita were done I decided to stuff them full of delicious goodness, limited only by my imagination. No, actually I was limited by what I had in my refrigerator. Fortunately I dug up some chicken sausage, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil. After adding a dash of salt and pepper, I was in heaven.

Whole Wheat Pita
Makes about a dozen little pita

about 4 cups whole wheat flour
1 package yeast
1 tsp salt
2 cups warm water

Stir 2 cups of flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in water gradually; beat until smooth. Add 3/4 cup more flour; beat again. Stir in enough flour to make a soft dough - about another cup. Beat well. Turn out onto a floured board; knead until smooth and elastic. Let rise 1 hour; should be doubled. Punch down; let rise 30 more minutes. Divide into 12 equal pieces and shape into balls. Roll out into 5- to 6-inch circles. Bake on a baking stone on the bottom rack at 450 degrees for about 2-1/2 to 3 minutes on each side until pitas puff and both sides are brown.

Sometimes Diets Aren't So Bad

2007-09-21T19:28:00.000-04:00

I've been really frustrated recently because A) dieting sucks because you can't eat anything fun and B) if you're going to bother dieting you should at least be able to lose weight, right? Well, there's nothing I can do about that second thing right now (except bitch to anyone who will listen), but tonight I was determined to at least make something South Beach friendly that I would actually enjoy eating. A piece of wild Alaskan salmon solved all my problems. Behold a meal that is both delicious and healthy.

Seared Mediterranean Salmon
Serves one (because I'm a loser)

1 T extra-virgin olive oil
salmon fillet (5-6 ounces)
1/2 cup chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tomato, coarsely chopped
1 T chopped black olives (Nicoise or other)
1 T fresh Italian parsley, roughly chopped
squeeze of juice from half a lemon
1 t capers, drained
roughly torn fresh basil leaves (2-3)

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a heavy skillet until smoking. Sprinkle the salmon with salt and pepper. Cook to desired doneness. I like mine crispy on the outside and a bit rare in the middle, so I cooked mine about 3 minutes per side. Remove from the skillet to a plate. In the same skillet, add the chickpeas and all remaining ingredients except basil. Stir until warm. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the chickpea mixture on top of the salmon and top with the basil.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging #101, hosted by Myriam of Once Upon a Tart. WHB is a weekly food blogging event where bloggers post recipes using their favorite herbs, plants, veggies, and flowers. My herb of choice is fresh basil, showcased delightfully in this dish.

The MTV Video Baking Awards

2007-09-09T22:50:00.001-04:00

Today has been, as Andy Samberg would say, a lazy Sunday. I spent most of the afternoon reading for class tomorrow, but I took a break to do some baking (despite the fact that I couldn't eat the fruits of my labor). But I was going over to Chris's to watch the VMAs, and in anticipation of the train wreck that was to be Britney Spears' "comeback" performance, I decided to bake him and Kate each a loaf of glazed strawberry bread with the leftover strawberries from the ice cream I made last week. Chris and Kate dug into the bread as we discussed the fact that we were witnessing what could be the death of American pop culture. I mean, the awards show was terrible, not just Britney's performance, but especially that. Did you see her eyes? Seriously, my strawberry bread was not the only thing that was glazed over tonight. What. A. Disaster. The whole thing. Watching me bake my two loaves of quickbread probably would have made better television. Okay, maybe not, but I'm just saying.

This post isn't going to be very exciting because not only did I not eat the bread, I also failed to take a picture of it because my camera battery is dead. However, word on the street is that this bread is delish, so here's the recipe.

Glazed Strawberry Bread
Makes 2 loaves

3 eggs
2 c. sliced strawberries
3 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. cooking oil
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. milk

Preheat oven to 350. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs until thick and lemon-colored. Mash the strawberries in a separate bowl. Add the berries, sugar, and oil to the eggs. Mix well. In another separate bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the berry mixture and mix until just incorporated. (It's important not to over-work the dough when you're making a quickbread.) Divide the batter evenly between 2 greased 9x5 loaf pans. Bake for about 50 minutes. Cool in the pans on a wire rack for at least 5 minutes. Meanwhile, mix together the ingredients for the glaze (the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk), adding more milk as necessary to get the glaze to the consistency of a liquidy paste. Poke holes in the top of the bread and spread the glaze evenly over the hot loaves. Allow the bread to cool. Wrap and store overnight before slicing, if possible.

We All Scream for Ice Milk

2007-09-07T22:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am food blogging on a Friday night. Yes, I am moderately to severely depressed by what a loser I am right now. Just kidding, I'm having a nice relaxing evening at home instead of going out to bars because tomorrow morning I have to wake up at 6:30 to go sailing. Sailing! On a professor's giant boat! I'm excited, so obviously I made ice cream.

Actually this is more of an ice milk. I'm on a diet, and ice cream isn't really allowed (although if you know of a diet in which I'm allowed to eat real ice cream to my heart's content, PLEASE TELL ME), so I used mostly 1% milk and Splenda instead of cream and sugar. The consistency is definitely not the consistency of ice cream -- it's very slushy, and it melts almost instantaneously upon contact with air or any other surface. But the taste is pretty much the taste of normal vanilla ice cream, and I threw in some unsweetened coconut flakes for texture. Basically, if you go into this expecting not ice cream but rather some completely different frozen icy treat, you won't be too disappointed.

Vanilla Ice Milk with Coconut

2-1/2 c. one percent milk
1/2 c. half-and-half
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. Splenda
handful unsweetened coconut flakes

Combine milk, half and half, vanilla, and Splenda well in a mixing bowl. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions. About five minutes before it's done, add the coconut. Slurp immediately, or put in a container in the freezer for later.

Back to School (and Good Cookin')

2007-09-06T17:42:00.000-04:00

Apologies to all for the unexpected summer hiatus. I was living in Washington, DC for the summer doing my first-summer legal internship, which was a lot of fun but didn't leave a lot of time for cooking. Especially after I met and started dating someone new. But now I'm back at school, in my own kitchen, and I'm looking forward to cooking and baking all kinds of fabulous things this fall. Just yesterday I broke in my new ice cream maker with strawberry creme fraiche ice cream with lemon and coconut. I couldn't eat it because I'm on a diet, so unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to photograph it.

However, I did snap a quick photo of my dinner from two nights ago: curried lentils. I'm doing the South Beach Diet for a few weeks to try to undo the damage I did to myself this summer, so bear with me while I cook some moderately healthy (read: less fun/exciting) meals.

Curried Lentils
From the South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook

1/2 onion, diced
extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup lentils, rinsed and picked over
1 tsp curry powder
1 1/2 c. chicken stock
salt and pepper

Saute the onion in the oil until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the lentils, curry powder, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. (I used black Hawaiian lava salt, as you can see in the picture.)

Cookie Mysteries

2007-05-15T19:11:00.000-04:00

I just finished up with my 1L finals. I'm one-third a lawyer! Well, kind of. Anyway, I've been studying for the past two weeks straight. The only culinary thing I accomplished was to bake a batch of cookies that was puzzlingly odd. Why did the cookies baked on the dark baking sheet turn out so different from the ones baked on the light baking sheet?! It's a mysterious world these days.

Fast Easy Fresh

2007-04-24T19:31:00.000-04:00

This warm weather we've been having in Cambridge is really perking up my spirits. You honestly can't appreciate spring until you've survived a Boston winter. I've survived 5 now, so let me just say that the first days of spring are like manna from heaven. Over the weekend I celebrated the warmth by grilling up some yummy burgers, which I always associate with summer cookouts. Tonight I went with a fast, easy, fresh-tasting pasta dish perfect for spring, from a recent Bon Appetit. I need to enjoy this weather while I can - it'll be back in the 40's later this week. That's Boston weather for ya.

Linguine with Shrimp, Asparagus, and Basil
Serves 2

8 oz. linguine (I used fresh black pepper linguine from my local grocer)
3 T olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 T butter
12 uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined
12 slender asparagus, trimmed, cut diagonally into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1 T fresh lemon juice
2 cups (packed) fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced, plus extra for garnish
2 lemon wedges

Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and saute 1 minute. Add wine and butter; boil 2 minutes. Add shrimp, asparagus, and lemon juice. Toss until asparagus is just tender and shrimp are just opaque in center, about 3 minutes. Drain pasta and add to skillet; add 2 cups sliced basil leaves and toss until basil wilts and sauce coats pasta, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Divide pasta between 2 plates. Garnish with fresh basil leaves and lemon wedges and serve.

The Boston (Junk Food) Marathon

2007-04-16T22:27:00.000-04:00

Today thousands of people accomplished the impressive athletic feat of running the 26.2 miles of the world-famous Boston Marathon. Today I baked cookies. I don't feel too bad about this because I got my own exercise this afternoon in the form of Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease Vol. 2: Fit to Strip. I was gonna go to the gym and do some running myself, but I have blisters on my feet from the evil, evil shoes I wore out on Saturday. Anyway, I digress. These cookies are really good.

Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Recipe from March 2007 Bon Appetit
Makes 2 dozen

2-2/3 c. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips, divided
1/4 c. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1/2 c. (packed) golden brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. chopped crystallized ginger
3-1/2 oz. high-quality white chocolate, very coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (or grease). Stir 2 cups chocolate chips with butter in heavy small saucepan over low heat until melted and smooth; cool 10 minutes. Beat eggs and sugar in large bowl until well blended. Beat in melted chocolate mixture and vanilla, then flour. Stir in ginger and remaining 2/3 cup chocolate chips; let stand 10 minutes. Drop cookie dough by rounded spoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets, spacing cookies 1-1/2 to 2 inches apart. Press white chocolate pieces into top of cookies, dividing equally. Bake until cookies look puffed and slightly dry on top, about 13 minutes. Cool on sheets.

Ok, I feel like a total cow doing this cookie post immediately after the cinnamon roll post. Let me prove to you, faithful readers, that I actually ate something nutritious for dinner:

Warm Gooey Goodness

2007-04-11T00:22:00.000-04:00

Tonight I got one of those sudden inexplicable urges to bake something, so after a quick straw poll (okay, I only asked one person) I settled on some homemade cinnamon rolls. I planned it so that they'd be out of the oven just in time for a warm, gooey midnight snack. Healthy no, indulgent yes, delicious double-yes.

These cinnamon rolls remind me of ones that my mom used to make when I was little. She didn't make the dough from scratch, she used that Pillsbury dough that comes in the tube that pops open when you twist it, but they taste almost exactly the same. And hers probably took a lot less time (and made a lot less mess - as usual, I managed to make flour explode out of my food processor and coat every surface of my kitchen). Ah well, c'est la vie. Regardless, these babies are yum, and my school friends can look forward to getting one or a couple when I see you in the next couple days. :)

Cinnamon Rolls
Recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything
Makes a dozen

2-1/2 c. all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
1-1/2 tsp. instant yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. plus 1/2 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. plus about another 4 Tbsp. butter
1 egg
1/2 c. milk, plus more as needed
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 c. raisins and/or nuts, if desired

Combine the flour, yeast, salt, and 1/3 c. sugar in the container of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and process for 5 seconds. Add the 2 tablespoons butter and the egg and pulse a few times, until well combined. With the machine running, drizzle most of the milk through the feed tube. Process just until a dough ball forms; add more milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, if necessary. Knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for a minute or two longer, adding a little more flour or milk if necessary, until the dough is silky smooth and elastic.

Butter a bowl; place the dough in it. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, at least 2 hours. (Hasten the process by putting it in a warm place.) Roll out the dough into a 1/2-inch-thick rectangle. Brush liberally with the 4 tablespoons butter (melted), then spread with a mixture of the 1/2 cup of sugar and the cinnamon. If you like, dot it with about 3/4 cup raisins or nuts (I didn't). Roll it up, lengthwise, then cut into 1- to 1-1/2-inch thick slices. Place in a buttered 12-compartment muffin tin and let rise until puffy, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 400F. Brush the tops of the rolls lightly with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until nicely browned, about 20 minutes.

Crunch Time

2007-04-08T13:16:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've updated, mostly due to my 10-day absence during spring break at the end of March. (It was lovely - I spent a weekend in New York City with my best friend from high school and then the rest of the time lounging on the beach in southwest Florida with some college friends.) Since getting back, I've been trying to eat healthier, since I always tend to binge on vacations. Over the last week I've made a lot of very simple, not-quite-blog-worthy meals: marinated and grilled chicken, steamed vegetables, fresh fruit, and the like.

Last night I stuck to my healthy theme but got a bit more elaborate. My friend Chris came over to watch a movie and we decided to make big, beautiful salads. The results were so pretty that I had to take a picture and post the recipe, which I adapted from one by Rachael Ray (yes, again).

Incredible Crunchy Salad
Serves 3-4

Coarse salt
3/4-c. long grain rice
1 green apple, peeled, quartered, cored, and finely diced
1 small red or green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and finely chopped
1/4 medium red onion, minced
6 radishes, finely chopped
2 T plus about 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 T white wine vinegar
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Coarse black pepper
1/4-c extra-virgin olive oil
1 small package croutons or crostini
2 packages pre-washed lettuce mix (pick your favorite)
1-lb. chicken cutlets

Heat 1-1/3 cups water in a small pot. When it comes to a boil, salt it and add the rice. Cover and reduce to a simmer and cook the rice for about 18 minutes or until just tender, with a bite remaining. Remove the lid and fluff the rice, then spread it on a cookie sheet to quick-cool.

While the rice cooks, combine the apples, bell peppers, onions, and radishes in a small bowl, adding them to it as you chop. Dress them with about 2 tablespoons of the fresh lemon juice and lightly toss the crunchy mixture with your fingertips.

In a bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, the white wine vinegar, the chopped garlic, mustard, and some salt and pepper. Add the olive oil gradually as you whisk.

Season the chicken cutlets with salt and pepper and saute or grill over medium-high heat (I used a stove-top grill pan). While they cook, crunch two big handfuls of the croutons/crostini into small pieces. When the chicken is done, slice it into half-inch-thick slices crosswise.

Arrange the lettuces on plates. Scatter the cool rice across the salad, layer on the crunchy apple/pepper/onion/radish mixture and the croutons/crostini, and arrange the chicken slices on top. Drizzle the dressing in a slow, even stream all over the salad.

Weekend Herb Blogging Round Up!

2007-03-18T17:24:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my first stint at hosting Weekend Herb Blogging, the weekly food blogging event where bloggers around the world submit information and recipes using their favorite herbs, plants, vegetables and flowers. WHB is the brainchild of the lovely Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen. This week for WHB #74 we've got a nice even 25 entries (according to my somewhat dubious counting skills). So, without further ado, in order of submission:

Arroz con Pollo with Recado Rojo
Asha from Aroma!
North Carolina, USA
Asha creates a beautiful chicken-and-rice dish flavored with annatto, a spice from the exotic achiote plant. She mixes annatto with other spices to create recado rojo, a bright red paste often used in Mexican cuisine. Her colorful post features beautiful step-by-step pictures.

Salmon & Fatoush
Ruth from Once Upon a Feast
Toronto, Canada
This summery meal is full of flavorful herbs: mint, parsley, coriander, and the star of the dish, ground sumac. Not only will Ruth's fresh fish and fatoush (try saying that five times fast!) transport you to a time of warmer weather, it's healthy and South Beach Diet friendly.

Spinach and Tofu Paneer
Emily from Superspark
Pasadena, California, USA
Whether you call it saag paneer or palak paneer, or even if you don't know the difference, Emily's first attempt at cooking Indian food looks like a success to me. It's spicy, full of good-for-you spinach, and less buttery/oily than restaurant fare.

Nettle Soup
Joanna from Joanna's Food
Henley on Thames, England
Joanna cleverly turns nettles, a stinging weed common in the UK, into a yummy soup. Nettles are full of iron and vitamin C, so hopefully they'll help Joanna get over her cold!

Chicken and Quickly Roasted Asparagus Served with Tahini Sauce
Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Kalyn, the original creator of Weekend Herb Blogging, created yet another delicious-looking dish this week, continuing on her asparagus kick - this time served with chicken and tahini, made from sesame seeds. Kalyn, no matter what you have to say about your drizzling skills, your photographs are always beautiful!

Turmeric
Sandeepa from Bong Mom's CookBook
New Jersey, USA
This post provides lots of great information about turmeric, a spice used a lot in Indian cooking and culture. Sandeepa tells us why turmeric is good for you, and offers a suggestion for how to prepare fresh turmeric.

Goan Style Fish Curry with Tamarind
Ros from Living to Eat!
London, England
Despite having to deal with some irritating flatmates, Ros successfully made a yummy-looking fish curry that gets taken to another level with the addition of distinctively sour-tasting tamarind paste.

Sweet Potato Soup
Angie from My Kitchen, My Laboratory
Singapore
Angie turns the sweet potato, one of many root vegetables that she's been discovering, into a sweet soup that can be served warm or chilled as a refreshing dessert. This recipe is flexible and can be adapted to your own personal tastes.

Bear's Garlic
Helene from News from the Kitchen (Neues aus der Kuche)
Landau, Germany
This bilingual (English/German) post gives lots of information about bear's garlic, an herb that tastes like a cross between garlic and chives and is sometimes called ramp in the United States. It also gives a recipe for "amaranth crackers," which I am not familiar with but look great!

Emerald Soup
Katie from Thyme for Cooking
Vendee, France
Even though St. Patrick's Day isn't celebrated in France, Katie made a festive Irish-inspired green soup made from spinach - based on a recipe she got straight from a London chef. It's colorful, looks delicious, and is good for you!

"Quintessential" Roasted Vegetables
Sher from What Did You Eat?
Davis, California, USA
Sher's gorgeous step-by-step photos walk us through the making of this incredible-looking mix of roasted vegetables. The secret to equally cook all of the various vegetables is to parboil some of them first.

Red Lentil-Cauliflower Coconut Curry
Burcu from Almost Turkish Recipes
Bloomington, USA
This improvised curry turned out so well that it's going to become one of Burcu's standards. It's full of interesting spices and flavored with bay leaves.

Achiote Potatoes and Black-Eyed Peas
Sheela from Quick and Easy Recipes: Delectable Victuals
Portland, Oregon, USA
First-time WHB blogger Sheela gives us another post featuring annatto/achiote seeds, this time using achiote paste to create a yummy red rub for potatoes. Achiote is something I am going to have to try sometime soon!

Cauliflower with Crab and Balsamic Vinegar
Rinku from Cooking in Westchester
Westchester County, New York, USA
Rinku re-invented a scallop recipe to use up some crab she had on hand, with great results. Her substitution of white balsamic vinegar helped the dish keep a light, pretty color.

Genoa Figs with Buffalo Mozzarella "A La Pearl"
Haalo from Cook (Almost) Anything at Least Once
Melbourne, Australia
This post gives lots of information about my favorite fruit in the world, the fig, which is currently in season in Australia. The dish that Haalo creates is a stunning salad of fresh figs, pomegranate, and buffalo mozzarella - it almost looks too good to be true!

Falafel Sandwiches
Nupur from One Hot Stove
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Nupur shares her love of falafel and tries out a new favorite recipe. She gives some good tips on preparing the chickpeas and frying up the falafel balls. Her tahini sauce recipe is also a bit hit - overall a very delicious looking meal!

Yoghurt Bread with Caramelized Onion
Anh from Food Lover's Journey
Melbourne, Australia
Onion, the "humble ingredient," looks anything but humble in this yummy treat. The yogurt in the bread gives it a nice tangy flavor similar to sourdough, and the caramelised onions are lightly sweet. If you have any tips for chopping onions without crying, let Anh know!

Catfish Salad with Green Beans and Toasted Almonds
Christine from Christine Cooks
Trinidad, California, USA
A special herb blend just for fish makes this catfish salad special. Christine really brings out the celery flavor in the blend by adding some extra celery salt. She tops the dish off with a really great-looking champagne-raspberry vinaigrette.

Alice Arndt's Seasoning Savvy
Eve from In Mol Araan
Greenwich Village, New York, USA
Eve put together some especially neat excerpts from Alice Arndt's book about cooking with herbs and spices. There's some interesting tidbits on coconut, dill, rose water, and marigold.

Lithuanian Pickled Fish
Anna from Morsels and Musings
Sydney, Australia
Anna's been cooking her way around the world, and this week she was inspired by the cuisine of Lithuania. She brined some white fish in a sweet-sour sauce and used dried bay leaves to give the brine an intense flavor.

Chinese Cabbage and Cumin Sour Soup
Virginie from Absolutely Green
Nantes, France
This bilingual French & English post gives us a recipe for a quick, easy-to-make, unique soup inspired by Chinese, Belgian, and Mediterranean cuisines. This soup looks smooth and warming, good for a cold winter night (like we're still having here in Boston).

Potato Hummus with Beans and Lamp Chops
Ulrike from Kuchenlatein
Kronshagen, Germany
Ulrike makes good use of the rosemary growing her garden in this hearty dinner. Tahini sauce gives it an international flavor as well.

Braised Pork Chops with Leek
Pookah from What's Cooking in Carolina?
The Triangle, North Carolina, USA
Another blogger inspired by St. Patrick's Day this weekend created a green meal with "shamrock pasta" but focused her WHB entry on another meal, braised pork chops, featuring the always popular bay leaf.

Penne with Pumpkin and Ham
Astrid from Paulchen's FoodBlog?!
Vienna, Austria
After celebrating St. Patrick's Day with a lot of food, today Astrid created a yummy light lunch of pasta. It looks so good I want to reach into the picture and take a bite!

Brown Butter Soda Bread
Becky from Key Lime & Coconut
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Finally, I made a St. Patrick's Day inspired Irish soda bread with fresh rosemary and cracked black pepper. Enjoy it with some Guinness!

Thanks for visiting this week's WHB round up. Next week our host will be Kate from Thyme for Cooking, so you can send your entries to her at kate DOT zeller AT wanadoo DOT fr. Happy food blogging!

Luck o' the Irish

2007-03-15T15:39:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty psyched for St. Patty's Day on Saturday. I live in Boston, so it's one of the biggest, rowdiest, and funnest (ok, not a word) holidays of the year. Naturally, then, I decided to make my WHB post this week Irish-themed. Since beer with green food coloring doesn't really qualify as an "herb, plant, vegetable, or flower," I settled for a hearty Brown Butter Soda Bread chock full of fresh rosemary.

Soda bread is a popular kind of bread in Ireland and has been since 1840. (Don't you love useless Wikipedia trivia?) I used to think it was called "soda bread" because they put Coke into the dough, but I am a silly person, and not surprisingly, I was wrong. It's called "soda bread" because instead of yeast, baking soda is the leavening agent helping the bread to rise. The baking soda reacts with buttermilk in the dough to form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. Fun, and delicious!

A lot of people add raisins or nuts to their soda bread, but my recipe, from the February 2006 issue of Bon Appetit, incorporates fresh rosemary, making it WHB-eligible. Rosemary is one of my very favorite herbs, mostly because of its incredibly fragrant smell. In addition to its yummy scent and flavor, rosemary is actually a stimulant and mild analgesic that can be used to treat headaches and poor circulation. For all you fellow beauty product addicts, it's also believed to revitalize your hair and prevent dandruff if you massage rosemary oil into your scalp. I'm a little skeptical, but it could be worth a try?

Either way, this bread is easy and delish. I'll eat a slice on Saturday morning, toasted, with lots of butter... and of course, a big pint of Guinness.

Brown Butter Soda Bread
Makes 2 loaves

1/4 c. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
3-1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. old-fashioned oats
1 T. sugar
1 T. chopped fresh rosemary
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. ground black pepper, plus more for topping
1-3/4 c. buttermilk
1 egg white, beaten to blend

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 375F. Stir butter in heavy small saucepan over medium heat until melted and golden brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir flour, oats, sugar, rosemary, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in large bowl to blend. Pour buttermilk and melted browned butter over flour mixture; stir with fork until flour mixture is moistened. Turn dough out onto floured work surface. Knead gently until dough comes together, about 7 turns. Divide in half. Shape each half into ball; flatten each into 6-inch round. Place rounds on ungreased baking sheet, spacing 5 inches apart. Brush tops with beaten egg white. Sprinkle lightly with ground black pepper. Using small sharp knife, cut 1/2-inch-deep X in top of each dough round. Bake breads until deep golden brown and tested inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool breads on rack at least 30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, which I'm hosting this week! Get me your entries by Sunday, 3pm Utah time (5pm for us East Coast-ers). Send them over to me at rhammer AT law DOT harvard DOT edu.

Getting My Groove Back

2007-03-13T15:44:00.000-04:00

Like I mentioned in my last post, it's been a while since I've done the whole food blogging thing. Honestly, I haven't been doing much cooking at all. In the post-breakup weeks I indulged myself in ordering junk food and letting my friends feed me. Which was great, and what I needed, really, but now I'm finding out that I'm a bit rusty in the kitchen. Oops.

Last night I decided to cook myself an honest-to-goodness meal, and while it started out a little rocky, in the end I was pleased with myself. I didn't want to get too ambitious, so I picked a Rachael Ray recipe: Honey Chicken with Snow Pea Rice. Yeah, I hate Rachael Ray, but I felt like a 30 minute meal was about all I could handle. Also, I'd been craving Chinese food after watching an Asian-themed episode of the Phantom Gourmet. I figured this would hit the spot.

Well, I started off on the wrong foot as I put too much oil into the rice and then burned it by turning the heat up too high. Not my finest culinary moment. But I somehow managed to get my mojo back, and by the time the meal was finished (more than 30 minutes later, I have to admit) I was pretty darn happy. Small accomplishments, people... sometimes that's all you need.

Honey Chicken with Snow Pea Rice
Serves 4

3 T vegetable oil, divided
1 T unsalted butter
1-1/2 c. long-grain rice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 c. dry white wine (I used pinot grigio)
4-1/2 c. chicken stock, divided
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 large handfuls snow peas, thinly sliced across the width
2 lb. chicken tenders, cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 large onion, sliced
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
3-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3 T honey
1 T cornstarch
5 scallions, thinly sliced

Heat a medium saucepan or pot over medium-high heat. Add 1 T of the vegetable oil and the butter to the pot. Once the butter melts, add the rice, season with salt and pepper, and lightly brown the rice for 3 to 5 minutes. Add the wine and allow it to evaporate entirely, 1 to 2 minutes. Add 3 cups of the chicken stock and the lemon zest to the rice. Bring the liquid to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat. Cook the rice for 18 to 20 minutes, or until tender. Once the rice only has about 3 more minutes of cook time, remove the lid and add the sliced snow peas. Don't stir the rice; just add the snow peas on top and put the lid on. The steam will lightly cook the snow peas. Once cooked, fluff the rice and with a fork and stir in the snow peas. They should still have some crunch to them.

While the rice is cooking, preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat with the remaining 2 T of vegetable oil. Add the chicken, season with salt and pepper, and brown for about 3 minutes. Add the red pepper flakes, onions, garlic, ginger, and honey. Stir frequently and continue to cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the onions are tender. Add the remaining 1-1/2 c. of chicken stock to the pan and bring to a simmer. Once at a simmer, combine the cornstarch with a splash of water, and mix to create a thin paste. Add the cornstarch mixture to the simmer chicken, mix thoroughly, and continue to cook for 2 minutes, or until the liquid is thickened. Add the sliced scallions and the lemon juice to the chicken and stir to combine. Serve the honey chicken over the snow pea rice.

Recipe from Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats

Just an Update

2007-03-12T14:26:00.000-04:00

Some of you have probably noticed that I haven't blogged in a couple of months. Without going into too much detail, I just wanted to give a quick explanation why. My boyfriend of two years and I split up in late January and it's been kind of a rough patch, but things are finally settling back down into normal and I am just now starting to get back into cooking again. I'm going to start blogging again too this week, probably tonight or tomorrow, and of course I'll be hosting Weekend Herb Blogging this weekend for the very first time! A pretty good way to get back into the swing of things, I do believe. So no worries, keylime & coconut is going to be back up and running before you know it. Can't wait to cook with you all again! :)

I <3 Lentils

2007-01-14T21:15:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that I love lentils. I dedicated one of my Weekend Herb Blogging entries to the lovely lentil, which is quickly becoming my favorite go-to ingredient on rainy days when I don't want to go to the grocery store. After contemplating making a dal and realizing I didn't have the right ingredients, I settled on this delightful recipe from an old Food & Wine: Curried Lentils with Tomatoes and Yogurt Cucumbers. The name doesn't really do justice to how great this dish is. The "yogurt cucumbers" are in a sauce similar to a raita, and they are so cool and soothing on the palate after the heat of the jalapeno in the lentils. All in all, the flavor profile of the spices in the dish is very nice.

This recipe is very healthy, especially if you use turkey bacon instead of real bacon, as I did. (Make the meal vegetarian by omitting the bacon altogether.) In fact, it's pretty much fine for phase one of the South Beach diet, which I'm trying to follow at the moment. The recipe makes a ton of lentils, so it's plenty to feed a family or to feed a single person (like me!) for several meals.

Curried Lentils with Tomatoes and Yogurt Cucumbers

2 oz. lean bacon (or turkey bacon), cut crosswise into 1/3-inch strips
1 medium onion, minced
3 Tbsp. minced fresh ginger
1 Tbsp. curry powder
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 lb. lentils (your favorite variety), rinsed and picked over
2 c. water
2 c. low-sodium chicken broth
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and thinly sliced crosswise
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/4 c. reduced-fat sour cream
1/2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

In a large saucepan, cook the bacon over moderate heat, stirring often, until crisp, about 5 minutes. Drain the bacon on paper towels and set aside. If you used real bacon, reserve 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat in the saucepan and discard the rest. If you used turkey bacon or no bacon at all, add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to the saucepan.

Add the onion to the pan and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the ginger, curry powder, jalapeno and cinnamon and cook until fragrant, about 4 minutes. Stir in the lentils, water and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the lentils are tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 35 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, sprinkle the cucumber slices with a large pinch of salt and let stand for 15 minutes. Drain and pat dry. In a small skillet, toast the cumin and coriander over moderate heat until fragrant, about 1 minute; transfer to a medium bowl and whisk in the buttermilk, sour cream and lemon zest. Stir in the cucumber slices and season with salt and pepper.

Transfer the lentils to a large bowl. With a rubber spatula, gently stir in the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the cucumber salad over the lentils. Sprinkle the bacon and tomatoes over the cucumbers and serve warm or at room temperature.

The Junk-Food Masquerade

2007-01-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

It's official. I'm bored out of my mind. This is my third day in a row free from exams, and I hardly know what to do with myself. I very well could have decided to make an elaborate meal for dinner tonight that would have taken hours and hours to complete, but I was just cooking for myself, and that seemed like a waste of energy. Instead, I decided on quick and healthy fare masquerading as junk food.

These Lettuce Wrap "Tacos" are, believe it or not, South Beach Diet approved. Extra-lean ground beef, reduced-fat sour cream, low-sugar tomato sauce, and lettuce "tortillas" give you all the flavor without the fat and carbs. Great for feeding a crowd, or just yourself (hooray for leftovers!).

Lettuce Wrap "Tacos"

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 lb. extra-lean ground beef
1 yellow onion, chopped
1/2 red or green bell pepper, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 c. low-sugar tomato sauce
1 head of iceberg lettuce
Low-fat cheddar cheese, grated
Reduced fat sour cream

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the meat. Add the onions, bell pepper, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, spices (cayenne/cumin/ oregano), salt, and pepper. Cook for another 5 minutes or until onions and peppers are starting to soften. Add the tomato sauce. Turn off the heat. Serve the filling in heaping servings on single leaves of lettuce. Top with sour cream and cheese. (I sprinkled a bit of black lava Hawaiian sea salt on top as well for garnish.)

Suggested Wine Pairing:
I like my tacos with a nice big red wine, like a cabernet or a malbec. If you make these tacos really spicy, even though they're made with beef, you might enjoy the sweeter mouth-soothing taste of a California riesling. Of course, don't forget the classic Mexican food pairings: margaritas and cerveza!

sssssspicy!

2007-01-12T18:57:00.000-05:00

First, some good news. I'm done with my fall exams! YAY! It's such a relief to not have to spend every waking minute thinking about torts or property or civil procedure. And now I get a week and a half off before classes start again. Lots of time for cooking!!

I got my new issue of Bon Appetit in the mail the day before my last exam and had to set it aside until after I was done with my tests. Today I picked it back up and immediately knew what I wanted to make. As of today, I'm trying to do phase one of South Beach, at least for the next week until I go on vacation with some friends to Vegas. The recipe I picked out for my dinner tonight, Andouille Sausage and Shrimp with Creole Mustard Sauce, isn't technically phase-one friendly because andouille sausage has a fair amount of fat. I made it anyway, though, and just had a smaller portion. Next time, I'm going to substitute hot Italian turkey sausage, which I think would work just fine with the flavors of this dish.

This recipe is great because it's a one-skillet meal. I love food that you can prepare in one dish so that you aren't trying to figure out the timing of finishing different components of a meal at the same time. Oh yeah, and this recipe is terrifically delicious. And it is SPICY! The recipe called for 1 Tbsp of cajun seasoning, and I cut that back to a teaspoon - and I was still crying as I ate. But it was worth it because even Steve, one of my most demanding critics, gave it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

This post is my entry for this week's edition of Weekend Herb Blogging because of the yummy fresh thyme that lends its unique flavor to this cajun-inspired meal. Thyme is native to the Mediterranean, but it is extensively used in creole cooking. Thyme is one of the few herbs whose flavor is actually enhanced when dried. The flavor of dried thyme and fresh thyme is actually fairly different overall, since fresh thyme has a softer and less smoky taste. Thyme is thought to have some medicinal qualities as well - it may help out with some chest and respiratory problems.

Some fun facts about thyme (courtesy of wikipedia): the ancient Egyptians used it in embalming, and the ancient Greeks burned it as incense in their temples because they believed it was a source of courage. In the Middle Ages, people slept with thyme under their pillows to ward off nightmares. It has even been placed on coffins to assure passage into the next life!

This week, WHB is being hosted by Sue over at Coffee and Cornbread, so make sure to check out the round-up of recipes when she posts it at the end of the weekend!

Andouille Sausage and Shrimp with Creole Mustard Sauce
(serves 2-3 hungry people)

1 lb. uncooked peeled deveined large shrimp
1 Tbsp (or, if you're a wimp like me, 1 tsp) Creole or Cajun seasoning
2 Tbsp vegetable oil, divided
1 lb. andouille sausage, cut crosswise on diagonal into 3/4-inch-thick slices
1 large onion, halved, thinly sliced
1 large red bell pepper, cut into half-inch strips
1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 c. low-salt chicken broth
5 Tbsp Creole (or Dijon, if you can't find Creole) mustard
2 tsp red or white wine vinegar

Toss shrimp with Creole seasoning in medium bowl to coat. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in heavy large skillet over high heat. Add sausage pieces, cut side down. Cook until browned on both sides, about 5 minutes. Transfer sausage to bowl. Add shrimp to skillet; cook until browned and just opaque in center, about 3 minutes. Transfer to bowl with sausage. Add remaining 1 Tbsp. oil, onion, bell pepper, and thyme to skillet. Saute until vegetables are beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Add broth, mustard, and vinegar. Stir until sauce thickens, about 2 minutes. Return sausage and shrimp to skillet. Simmer until heated through, stirring occasionally, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper.

Pre-Exam Comfort Food

2007-01-07T18:50:00.000-05:00

My property law exam kicked my butt in a serious and extremely depressing way. The night before the exam, I pre-emptively comforted myself with leftover chipotle chicken stew and a delicious Grilled Cheese x3. My one and only study break that day had been a dash down to the corner market to buy myself some interesting cheeses for this very purpose. I ended up with:

Extra-sharp Tillamook cheddar from Oregon
Double cream Gouda from Holland
Reblochon from France

Grilled Cheese x3

You don't really need me to tell you how to make grilled cheese, do you? Just pick some cheeses you like. Don't be afraid to experiment. Delight in the greasy goodness.

Apologies regarding the delay in the posting of this post. I originally intended to post it on Sunday night, before the exam. Now it's Tuesday. Blogger hates me. First it gave me font problems. With this post, it was the picture. What's next?!

Warmest January Ever!

2007-01-06T19:13:00.000-05:00

This has got to be the warmest January I have ever experienced in Boston. Granted, this is only my fifth winter in the city, so my sample size is somewhat limited. But really - it was almost 70 degrees today. In Boston! In January! In protest, I decided to make cold-weather-appropriate soup. Actually, it was mainly because I was home studying all day and felt like using my slow cooker, but I can think of it as a weather protest if I want, ok?

So you know how you're in line at the supermarket and they have those little mini-magazines with recipes and stuff in them on the shelf above the check-out conveyor belt? I actually bought one while I was at home for break. It's all slow cooker recipes, which is why I bought it. The soup I made tonight is the first recipe I've tried, and it's not bad for coming from one of those crappy little grocery store cookbooks. It's a Chipotle Chicken Stew and, yes, it probably would have tasted even better if we'd been having real January weather today.

The most important ingredient in this stew – and indeed, the stew's namesake – is the chipotle pepper. Chipotles are smoked jalapeno peppers that date back to Mexican civilization before the time of the Aztecs. Nowadays, a full fifth of the Mexican jalapeno crop is dried and smoked to turn into chipotles. The natural heat of the jalapenos is preserved in the process, so the chipotles end up at between a 5,000 to 10,000 on the Scoville scale used to measure hot peppers (this is usually considered a "medium" heat level). Chipotles are often used to add a smoky, hot flavor to Mexican and Southwestern dishes.

You can buy ground dried chipotles, whole chipotles, or, most commonly, chipotles canned in adobo. Adobo sauce is made of spices, vinegar, tomato sauce, and sometimes other chilies. I've never made anything with adobo sauce, but I hear it's great on its own. That could be something new and fun to try in the future!

This is my entry for this week's edition of Weekend Herb Blogging, in which food bloggers write about their favorite herbs, plants, vegetables, and flowers. This week, WHB is hosted by the event's creator herself, the famous Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen.

Chipotle Chicken Stew

1 pound boneless/skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1 bay leaf
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, minced
1 medium onion, diced
1 can navy beans, rinsed and drained
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can crushed tomatoes, undrained
2 cups chicken broth

Combine all ingredients, along with a generous squeeze of lemon if desired, in slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high about 4 hours. Remove bay leaf before serving.

Remember, if you want to make this on the stove top, cook the chicken first, and add more liquid because it will boil off during cooking. It should probably cook for about 30 to 45 minutes.

*note: apologies for the formatting errors in this post. Stupid blogspot doesn't want to let me publish all my text in the same font. Boo!

Simple & Healthy Brain Food

2007-01-04T12:52:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back in Cambridge, and my first round of law school exams starts tomorrow. I'm much less panicked than I thought I'd be, but this week is still pretty hectic, with all the studying and whatnot. Cooking elaborate meals is something that is definitely not happening right now - I just don't have the time. Last night I was craving something fresh and simple after a working lunch of macaroni & cheese earlier in the day (hey, my pantry's pretty empty after 2+ weeks out of town for the holidays).

After running down to the store and picking up some fresh haddock, I decided on an easy recipe from the revised Joy of Cooking, which I got for Christmas. The recipe was for Baked Fish Fillets in White Wine, which I served with asparagus (steamed and sprinkled with some Herbes de Provence) and a crusty French dinner roll. Cooking the fish in the wine really kept it moist and gave it a delicious flavor. It was good healthy food to help me get through the next few days of exam time.

Baked Fish Fillets in White Wine
(from the revised Joy of Cooking)

1 1/2 pounds sole, flounder, cod, haddock, or other white-fleshed fish fillets
1 cup dry white wine
2 Tbsp. dry sherry
Salt & pepper
Lemon wedges

Preheat the oven to 350. Place fish in a greased baking dish. If the fillets are large, they may be cut in half. Pour the wine and sherry over them. Bake until firm and opaque throughout, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve drizzled with the liquid from the dish, which you may boil to reduce slightly. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and garnish with lemon wedges.

Suggested wine pairing:
I drank the same wine that I cooked the fish in, an inexpensive Portuguese vinho verde. A pinot grigio/pinot gris or sauvignon blanc would also be great choices that would compliment the asparagus as well as the fish.

Hot Soup for a "Cool" Night

2006-12-27T19:48:00.000-05:00

In Florida, when the temperature drops below 70 degrees, the natives put on their parkas and long underwear. I used to be like that until I moved to Boston and realized what cold really felt like. When I come home for holidays and my parents are still layering up with sweaters while I'm wearing t-shirts, I mock them, but I also make them delicious soups to warm them up.

This recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup with Lime comes out of a Rachael Ray cookbook that my sister got me for Christmas. I really, really hate Rachael Ray, but I have to admit that some of her recipes, like this one, are quite yummy. This recipe also helped me fulfill my goal of making as many things as possible with one of my two favorite ingredients (coconut & key lime). This soup doesn't have any coconut in it, but it has lots of yummy key lime juice and zest, a wonderful complement to the aromatic cilantro.

Chicken Tortilla Soup with Lime
(serves 4)

2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 lbs. chicken tenders
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1/2 Tbsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. ground coriander
2 c. yellow corn tortilla chips
2 tsp. hot sauce (such as Tabasco)
1 quart chicken stock or broth
1/2 c. sour cream
Zest and juice of 2 limes (or 4 key limes)
1/2 c. fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
4 scallions, thinly sliced

Preheat a medium soup pot over medium-high heat and add the oil. Chop the chicken tenders into bite-size pieces. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to the hot soup pot. Lightly brown the chicken, 3 to 4 minutes, then add the garlic, bell pepper, onion, celery, cumin, coriander, salt, and pepper. Continue to cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently. While that is cooking, place the tortilla chips in a ziploc bag and crush with a rolling pin. Add the ground tortilla chips to the soup pot and stir to combine. Add the chicken stock and bring the soup to a simmer. Simmer for 15 minutes. Squeeze in the juice from the limes. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the sour cream. Pass the lime zest, chopped cilantro, and sliced scallions in bowls for each person to add to taste.

A Very Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T17:47:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everybody! I hope y'all are stuffed full of yummy food and have gotten everything you wished for. I'm very happy (flat-screen HD tv!!!) and also very full. Christmas dinner was delicious, and in my opinion, waayyy better than Thanksgiving dinner this year. My mom and I decided we were going to make the same main course we made last year (because it was just so darn good): Roast Duck with Lavender and Honey. Amazing!! We also did a repeat of last year's best side dish, Herbes de Provence Red Potato Wedges. We tried out a new side dish with Baby Carrots with Tarragon. Last but not least, I made an absolutely beautiful dessert, a Frozen Grand Marnier Torte with Dark Chocolate Crust and Spiced Cranberries. Ho ho ho!

This duck is the best thing I think I've ever made. I'm a huge fan of duck in the first place, so I'm probably somewhat biased, but the flavors and aromas are so delightful. Not to mention the fact that this is actually easy. I'm sure I'll be making it again next year...

Roast Duck with Lavender and Honey

4 tsp. fresh, or 2 tsp. dried, lavender blossoms
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves
1 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
1/4 tsp. black peppercorns
4 Tbsp. lavender honey or orange flower honey
5-to-6-pound duck

Preheat oven to 350°F. Finely grind 2 teaspoons fresh or 1 teaspoon dried lavender blossoms, thyme, sea salt and peppercorns in spice grinder or with mortar and pestle. Remove fat deposits and giblets from duck cavity. Trim excess skin and fat from neck area. Rinse inside and out; pat dry. Cutting through skin and fat (but not flesh) of duck breasts, score in crisscross pattern. Rub inside and outside of duck with herb mixture. Place duck, breast up, on rack in roasting pan. Roast 2 hours. Remove from oven. Increase oven temperature to 375°F. Transfer duck to plate. Pour pan juices into 4-cup glass measuring cup; spoon off fat. Return juices and 1 tablespoon fat to pan. Return duck to pan. Brush with 2 tablespoons honey. Roast duck 20 minutes, basting once with pan juices. Brush with 2 tablespoons honey; sprinkle with 1 teaspoon fresh or 1/2 teaspoon dried lavender. Roast duck until deep golden and thermometer inserted into innermost part of thigh registers 180°F., about 5 minutes longer.

Baby Carrots with Tarragon

4 bunches (8-oz each) baby carrots, peeled & trimmed
1/4 cup water
3 Tbsp. minced fresh tarragon or 3 tsp. dried
2 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. honey

Combine carrots, 1/4 cup water, 1 1/2 tablespoons tarragon, butter, vinegar and honey in heavy large skillet. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; cover and simmer until carrots are almost tender, about 12 minutes. Uncover; cook until carrots are tender and liquid is reduced to glaze, about 6 minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to platter. Sprinkle with 1 1/2 tablespoons tarragon.

Herbes de Provence Red Potato Wedges

2 pounds red potatoes, washed
3 Tbsp. EVOO or enough to coat
2 Tbsp. herbes de provence or dried parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, combined
1 Tbsp. grill seasoning (such as McCormick Montreal Seasoning) or 1 tsp. each salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450F. Line a cookie sheet with foil. Cut potatoes into wedges and drop onto cookie sheet. Coat potatoes n oil. Season with dried spices and grill seasoning. Roast, turning once, 25 minutes.

Frozen Grand Marnier Torte with Dark Chocolate Crust and Spiced Cranberries
(courtesy of Bon Appetit)

This frozen dessert worked out great for us this year since we had a Florida-style, 80-degree Christmas (complete with thunderstorms and a tornado watch). My mom said this was her favorite dessert I've ever made. Not sure I would go that far (I'm not a fan of tart things as much as she is), but it sure was yummy.

Crust:

about 9-oz. of chocolate biscotti
1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips
3 Tbsp. sugar
7 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Filling:

8 large egg yolks
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. water
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
2 c. chilled heavy whipping cream
5 Tbsp. Grand Marnier
3 Tbsp. frozen orange juice concentrate
1 Tbsp. grated orange peel

Topping:

1/2 c. ruby Port
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. honey
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground allspice
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
5 c. fresh cranberries

For crust: Finely grind biscotti, chips, and sugar in food processor. Add melted butter; blend until wet crumbs form. Set aside 1/2 cup crumb mixture. Press remaining crumb mixture onto bottom and 2 inches up sides of 9–inch–diameter springform pan with 2 3/4–inch–high sides.

For filling: Whisk first 3 ingredients in medium metal bowl. Set over saucepan of simmering water and whisk vigorously until candy thermometer registers 175°F, about 8 minutes. Remove bowl from over water. Add spices. Using mixer, beat until thick and cool, about 5 minutes. Using electric mixer, beat whipping cream, sour cream, Grand Marnier, orange juice concentrate, and grated orange peel in large bowl until peaks form. Add egg yolk mixture and fold together. Pour 2/3 of filling into crust. Sprinkle with reserved 1/2 cup crumb mixture. Gently spoon remaining filling over. Cover; freeze overnight or up to 3 days.

For topping: Whisk Port and cornstarch in large skillet to blend. Add sugar, honey, and spices. Bring mixture to boil over high heat, stirring often. Add cranberries; cook until mixture boils and cranberries begin to pop but still hold shape, about 5 minutes. Chill topping at least 6 hours or overnight.

Release pan sides from torte. Transfer torte to platter. Spoon topping over filling.

Florida, Sweet Florida

2006-12-19T23:36:00.000-05:00

I'm at home in the sunshine state for the holidays. I've been spending my days studying for finals, which unfortunately fall in January, forcing us poor, wretched Harvard Law students to spend our Hanukwanzistmas break with our noses buried in exciting books like Gilbert's guide to Property Law. Today I went so far as to take my laptop, books and notes to the Odessa public library. I live in the middle of nowhere, so the library consists of one room with some bookshelves (not entirely full) and a couple of tables that have been arranged to look vaguely like desks/study areas. But at least it was an excuse to get out of the house and drive 5 minutes each way with the car windows down singing out loud to Rascal Flatts. Oh yeah, and it's 75 degrees here.

But I digress. After rotting my brain with studying all day, I like to cook. And I'm familiar with my mom's kitchen, so at least I can do it with some ease, despite the crap she's got lying around everywhere. I made dinner for my parents last night, which they always appreciate after a long day at work. I decided that while I'm home, I'm going to try to make as many things as possible with key limes and/or coconut. Reason? Key Lime & Coconut is the title of my blog (surprise!), and these two flavors are central to what Floridian/Floribbean cuisine is all about.

My Bahian Seafood Stew with Coconut and Tomato incorporated both of these delicious ingredients. Bahia is a region in Brazil, so this stew draws lots of Latin American influences. If you can get super-fresh ingredients (particularly the tomatoes and seafood), I think you'll find that this dish will transport you to somewhere warm, sunny, and tropical... maybe like Florida.

Bahian Seafood Stew with Coconut and Tomato
(serves 4-6, depending on appetite)

2 Tbsp. canola oil
2 shallots, minced
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion, diced (1+ inch pieces)
1 red bell pepper, diced (1+ inch pieces)
1 Tbsp. fresh ginger, minced
1 stalk fresh lemongrass, outer leaves discarded and stalk smashed, or 1 Tbsp. dried lemongrass
3 tomatoes, halved, seeded, and diced
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 pound large shrimp, shelled and deveined
1/2 pound lump crab meat, picked over
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
12 cilantro leaves, plus 1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
1/2 pound grouper (or similar) filet, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 Tbsp. fresh key lime (or regular lime) juice
White rice
Lime wedges

Heat the oil in a medium enameled cast-iron casserole. Add the shallots, garlic, onion, bell pepper, ginger, and lemongrass, and cook over moderate heat until the vegetables are softened, about 7 minutes. Add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and cook for 3 minutes. Season the shrimp and crab with salt and pepper and add them to the casserole along with the coconut milk and cilantro leaves. Cover and cook for 2 minutes. Season the grouper with salt and pepper, add to the casserole, cover and cook for 3 minutes. Discard the lemongrass stalk, if using. Add the lime juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped cilantro. Serve over white rice with lime wedges.

Suggested wine pairing: a Latin American white, such as a Chardonnay from Argentina's Mendoza region. A chardonnay is a sturdy enough white to stand up to this rich dish, and additionally, food and wine from the same general region tend to complement one another.

Gifts from the Baking Elf

2006-12-13T19:06:00.000-05:00

As mentioned, I've been hard at work baking gift boxes of goodies for my friends here at law school. I believe that some of the best gifts are ones that disappear - whether they're tickets to a show, an IOU for a night on the town, or best of all, food.

In the gift boxes, I decided on two sweet things and one savory. You have to have a little balance, right? I ended up going with Dark Chocolate Candy-Cane Truffles, Caramel Nut Shortbread, and Salami, Feta, & Gorgonzola Biscuits. Everything turned out great, but the truffles are the clear winner (in my opinion).

Pictures of the finished goods, with recipes/notes...

Dark Chocolate Candy-Cane Truffles

I stole the basic truffle recipe from the December Bon Appetit. It's a little time consuming, but actually very easy, and the results are very much worthwhile. You can roll the finished truffles in anything you want (nuts, sprinkles, coconut...) but I went with crushed-up candy canes in the spirit of the holidays. Here are some notes on truffle-making technique. The recipe makes about two dozen.

1 1/4 c. heavy whipping cream
7 oz + 2 oz + 7 oz high-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped (total: four 16-oz bars, I used Ghirardelli)
4 candy canes, crushed into small pieces

Bring cream to simmer in heavy small saucepan. Remove from heat; cool to lukewarm, 10 minutes. Meanwhile, stir 7 ounces chocolate in metal bowl over saucepan of simmering water until smooth. Remove from heat. Add 2 ounces chocolate; stir until smooth. Stir in cream. Chill truffle base until firm enough to roll, about 3 hours. Line rimmed baking sheet with waxed paper. Roll 2 teaspoons truffle base between fingertips into ball. Transfer to prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining truffle base. Chill until firm, about 1 hour. Line another rimmed baking sheet with waxed paper. Stir chocolate in metal bowl over saucepan of simmering water just until melted. Remove from heat. Cool slightly. Scoop some of warm (not hot) melted chocolate into palm of hand. Place 1 chilled truffle in hand and roll in palm to coat. Roll in crushed candy canes. Transfer to prepared sheet. Drizzle leftover chocolate on top if desired. Chill until outer coating is solid.

Caramel Nut Shortbread

I stole this recipe from one of my favorite food blogs, Weekly Dish. I'm not going to reproduce the recipe because you can find it right here. I will say that I don't have a food processor, and that made my shortbread crust less than perfect, but overall these taste pretty good. I think they're a bit too sweet, but I guess that's just how caramel is. Oh, also, I forgot to add the heavy cream to the caramel sauce, so even though it wasn't really a disaster, make sure you remember to do that if you try to make these!

Salami, Feta, & Gorgonzola Biscuits

Last but not least, my delightful, flaky little biscuits. Mm, mm good. I saw Giada de Laurentiis making these biscuits on her show Everyday Italian. I don't get cable at home, but I do love to watch Food Network while I'm working out (masochistic, I know...) and while I was on the treadmill I saw lovely Giada making these biscuits (originally just salami & gorgonzola) as part of gift baskets she was making for the holidays. That's actually what made me want to do gift boxes in the first place. These turned out so great! I'm not a huge fan of gorgonzola, so I cut the amount and added in some feta, which I think was probably a good idea. Your call, though. Also, like I mentioned, I don't have a food processor (don't worry, it's on my Christmas list) but I just mixed up the dough by hand with a fork with great success. The recipe makes about 40 little biscuits.

2 c. all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. kosher salt
6 Tbsp. cold butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 c. buttermilk
1/4 c. finely diced salami
1 Tbsp. crumbled gorgonzola
2 Tbsp. crumbled feta

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a food processor combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pulse 2 to 3 times until mixed. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Transfer the biscuit mixture to a medium bowl. Add the buttermilk, salami, gorgonzola, and feta. Stir until the mixture forms a ball. Turn the mixture out onto a floured surface. Roll to 1/2-inch thick. Using a 1-inch diameter cookie cutter, cut out the biscuits and place them on 2 baking sheets. Bake until golden, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Lima Bean and Mint Risotto

2006-12-11T19:50:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, my friend Jackie asked for a recommendation of something yummy she could make for her boyfriend while he was visiting. I suggested risotto, and ever since she told me how great it turned out, I've been craving it myself. Tonight I finally made some for dinner - I borrowed a recipe from the January issue of Food & Wine. The recipe was for pea and mint risotto, but since I had lima beans on hand, I substituted them instead of the peas and was very pleased with the result.

Food & Wine recommended as a wine pairing a 2005 Luna Pinot Grigio from Napa County. My local wine shop doesn't carry that particular wine, so I picked an Italian pinot grigio that happened to be on sale. It's a 2005 St. Michael-Eppan Pinot Grigio from Appiano, Italy ($11), and it has a really crisp finish and an aroma of pears. Great acidity, too, which cut nicely against the risotto's cheesiness. Any pinot grigio, or even sauvignon blanc, would go great with this dish.

Lima Bean and Mint Risotto
(serves 2 as a main dish or 4 as a side dish)

1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 large garlic clove, halved
1 large shallot, minced
1 1/2 c. arborio rice (10 oz.)
3 c. chicken stock, warmed*
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
One 10-oz package frozen lima beans, thawed
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup finely shredded mint leaves

*Note: the recipe calls for 4 1/2 cups, but my risotto was definitely done after 3.

In a large saucepan, heat the oil. Add the garlic and shallot, cover and cook over moderately low heat until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the rice and stir over moderately low heat until slightly translucent, about 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of chicken stock and cook, stirring, until nearly absorbed. Continue adding the stock, about 1 cup at a time, stirring until the stock is absorbed before adding more. Cook, stirring, until the rice is al dente and suspended in thick, creamy liquid. Season with salt and pepper; discard the garlic. Add the lima beans and cook just until heated through. Stir in the cheese and mint and serve.

Top Secret Baking

2006-12-10T12:55:00.000-05:00

Despite my lack of postings recently, I have not been on hiatus from the kitchen. Au contraire, I've been doing some top-secret baking. I decided to make some goodies for my law school friends as a little holiday present. But, I don't want to spoil the surprise by posting pictures/recipes before giving them away. Consequently you can expect a lengthy posting toward the end of the week with the results of my somewhat experimental gift-making.

On a side note, I'm still surviving off of last week's chicken chowder and pound cake. I love leftovers.

Test Kitchen Magic

2006-12-07T10:05:00.000-05:00

I love trying out recipes from food magazines, especially when I have work to do (hello, procrastination!). Last night the lucky recipe was a graham cracker pound cake from the December issue of Food & Wine. Now, I was in the mood for something a little more special than just a pound cake, so I decided to kick it up a notch with some caramelized pears to spoon on top and soak the pound cake with their gooey caramelly goodness. Result: magic. Even Steve gave this dessert an A, and he's no grade inflater (unlike Harvard...) Oh yeah, and it's easy. Make this and thank me when you're rubbing your tummy and staring blankly into space in a sugar-and-butter-induced food coma.

Graham Cracker Pound Cake with Caramelized Red Anjou Pears

Pound Cake:

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups cake flour (I cheated and used all-purpose so don't worry too much about this)
1/2 cup ground graham cracker crumbs
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp whole milk
2 Tbsp heavy cream
3 large eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325. Spray an 8-by-4-inch glass loaf pan with vegetable oil spray. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream the butter with both kinds of sugar. In a medium bowl, whisk the cake flour with the graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, cream, eggs, and vanilla. Beating a medium speed, add the dry and liquid ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture in 3 alternating batches. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake in the lower third of the oven for about 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached (mine took 65 minutes). Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn the pound cake out onto a rack to cool completely. Slice and serve with caramelized pears (see below).

Caramelized Red Anjou Pears:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp brandy, port wine, or other liqueur (I used Sandeman ruby port)
1 tsp lemon juice
2-4 red Anjou pears, peeled, halved, cored, and sliced

In a saute pan on medium heat, melt butter, then stir in the sugar. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until it begins to turn golden brown. Add the brandy/port/liqueur and the lemon juice. Let it simmer to incorporate. Add pears and cook slowly to tenderize and caramelize. How long you let them cook depends on how patient you are; I let mine go for about 15 minutes before I devoured them. Serve on top of graham cracker pound cake.

Slow Cookin'

2006-12-06T18:58:00.000-05:00

I just got my new crockpot slow cooker from Target in the mail the other day, and I could not wait to use it, so I made myself a yummy chicken chowder for dinner yesterday. I did all the prep work in the morning while I still had a modicum of energy, and by the time I got home after a long day of class, my apartment was full of delicious smells telling me that dinner was ready. What a lifesaver!! I'm making everything in the slow cooker from now on. Seriously. Not only is it convenient, the chowder turned out delicious. I enjoyed it with a glass of a French table wine from Vaucluse called Culture du Sud, 2004, but it would go nicely with any light red, like a pinot noir. The chowder itself is really hearty (good for a cold Boston winter night), it's pretty healthy (if you use fat-free half and half), and it has the best dill flavor!

Dill has always been one of my favorite herbs. I grew up associating it with salmon because my mother never made salmon without heaping tons of fresh or dried dill on top. It's a great combination for sure, but there are lots of different uses for dill. You can whip it into herbed butter, veggie dips, and of course, infuse it into dilled pickles. Dill has such a clean and simple taste that you can incorporate it into a great many recipes. Most people recommend using fresh dill to get maximum flavor, and fortunately, dill is a hardy plant that is easy to grow yourself (although I admit I don't have a dill plant).

Fun fact about dill: The ancient Greeks thought of dill as a sign of wealth, so richer members of society flaunted their success by burning dill-scented oil. And throughout history, dill has been used medicinally for its calming and soothing properties - in the 8th century, Charlemagne placed little vials of dill on his tables to stop the hiccups of guests who ate and drank too much!

Slow-Cooked Chicken Chowder

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tsp. garlic pepper
8 new potatoes, cut into fourths
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried dill weed
15-oz can corn, drained
2 c. chicken broth
1 c. half-and-half (I used fat-free)
3 Tbsp. cornstarch

Sprinkle chicken with garlic pepper and place in a 4-5 quart crockpot. Add remaining ingredients except half-and-half and cornstarch. Cover crockpot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or until chicken is thoroughly cooked and vegetables are tender. In a small jar, combine half-and-half and cornstarch and shake until well-combined. Stir into the chowder and mix well until blended. Cover crockpot again and cook on high for 30 minutes until thickened.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, the weekly blog event where people write about recipes featuring their favorite herbs, plants, veggies, and flowers. This week, WHB is hosted by Pookah at What's Cooking in Carolina. Be sure to check out her round-up of recipes when she posts it on Sunday or Monday!

Maya Kaimal's Tamarind Coconut Curry

2006-12-04T10:38:00.000-05:00

This post is slightly different than usual in that instead of sharing a recipe, I want to review a product that I tried last night. Saturday I went shopping with a friend, and I bought a couple of "simmering sauces" at Williams Sonoma. Last night I tested the first of them. It was a tamarind coconut curry sauce from Maya Kaimal's line of Indian sauces. I loved it!

I cubed an eggplant and a block of Nasoya extra-firm organic tofu and simmered them with the entire jar of sauce on low for an hour so that the eggplant was really tender and mushy. I served it over brown rice. Steve and I both agreed that the meal was just about as good as any we've had at an Indian restaurant recently.

And much more economical! Although it's kind of outrageous - I paid $12.50 for the 16-oz jar of sauce at Williams Sonoma, but I just did a little online research, and you can order a 15-oz jar (slightly different packaging) of the same sauce for $6.99 on igourmet.com. Well, at least now I know where to order more, because I definitely want to eat this again. It made the most outrageously easy, and delightfully delicious, meal. Two thumbs up!

Choc-Chip Buttermilk Brunch Waffles

2006-12-03T00:09:00.000-05:00

Today I slept till noon. It was glorious, absolutely glorious. I have been so sleep-deprived I could hardly function this week. Anyway, there's not much better in this world than waking up at noon, lounging around in bed with your boyfriend until 1, and then getting up and making homemade waffles. Chocolate chip buttermilk waffles, at that. Clearly these waffles were delicious. You don't need me to tell you that. You just need me to give you the recipe. Lo and behold, here it is.

Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Waffles
(makes 4 giant waffles, or more little ones)

2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
4 large eggs, separated
2 c. buttermilk
4 T (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted, or canola oil
1/2 c. chocolate chips (try peanut butter chips if you're feeling especially crazy)
Syrup, whipped cream, or other topping of your liking

Preheat waffle iron. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft, glossy peaks form. In another bowl, beat or whisk together the egg yolks, buttermilk, and butter. Add the buttermilk mixture to the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Fold in the egg whites and chocolate chips.

Spoon or pour about 1 cup batter onto the hot iron. Close the lid. Bake until the waffle is golden brown, about 4 minutes, or until the iron stops steaming or beeps at you (depending on how high-tech your machinery is). Remove with a fork to a warm plate. Top with yummy toppings and devour.

In Vino Veritas, 1st Tasting

2006-11-29T22:28:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-27T17:22:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-23T20:50:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-22T13:50:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-16T18:37:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-13T22:30:00.000-05:00

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)

2006-11-12T00:06:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-09T20:51:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-08T21:39:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-06T19:04:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-06T00:12:00.000-05:00

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)

2006-11-03T22:19:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-11-02T19:58:00.000-05:00

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

2006-11-01T23:05:00.000-05:00

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."

What To Do With Your Jack-O-Lantern's Guts

2006-10-31T22:52:00.000-05:00

After you've gutted your pumpkin to make a Halloween jack-o-lantern (such as my McDreamy masterpiece), what to do with all the goop you've scooped out? Easy -- wash the seeds and roast them with some spices. This recipe doesn't require a rocket scientist's intellect (or even, say, a Harvard Law student's). To be honest, it's pretty hard to mess up. Just coat your cleaned-up pumpkin seeds with some oil, toss in salt and whatever spices you like (my suggestion follows), and roast. Enjoy as a salty complement to all those sugary candies and sweets you've indulged in today.

Spiced Pumpkin Seeds (borrowed from my new How to Cook Everything cookbook)

Fresh pumpkin seeds, washed and patted dry with paper towels
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or less if you're a wimp like me)
1/4 tsp cumin

Combine oil, salt, cayenne pepper, and cumin in a bowl. Add pumpkin seeds and toss until coated. Spread out on a baking sheet and roast at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Autumnal Treat

2006-10-30T22:53:00.000-05:00

I have a big fat bag full of apples in my fridge. I bought it at the farmer's market 2 weeks ago and I'm still trying to figure out ways to use these apples (besides eating them out of hand - they are delicious!). Last night I had a fancy for apple bread, and I sensed an opportunity to test out a recipe from my newest cookbook - Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

This cookbook is really fantastic. It teaches you how to cook just about, yes, everything. Not only that, but it has tons of instruction on basic techniques and preparations, and lots of handy diagrams. (Thanks to Kalyn for the recommendation in her blog!) The recipe I picked out is for Apple Quickbread, but I'll call it Apple-Cranberry Quickbread because I threw in some fresh cranberries. I also substituted rolled oats for the 1/2 cup of cornmeal that the book recommended. This bread is so good! I had a nice thick slice of it before bed last night, still warm out of the oven, smeared with a bit of Neufchatel cheese.

Apple-Cranberry Quickbread

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup rolled oats
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
¾ cup sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
1 egg
½ stick melted butter
1 ¼ cups milk
1 peeled and grated apple
3/4 cup fresh or frozen cranberries (not thawed)

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter a 9x5 ich loaf pan. Combine all the dry ingredients. Beat the egg with the butter and milk. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it, along with the apple and cranberries. Using a large spoon or rubber spatula, combine the ingredients swiftly, stirring and folding rather than beating, and stopping as soon as all the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter should be lumpy, not smooth. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out dry. Cool on a rack for at least 10 minutes before removing from pan.

A Tale of Two Brunches

2006-10-29T13:15:00.000-05:00

This weekend I had two very different brunches. Yesterday afternoon, the HLS gang went to the Langham Hotel in Boston for their chocolate brunch. We kind of thought that it would be a normal brunch with extra chocolate desserts, but no... it was just chocolate. Imagine a huge room filled with about 10 tables of elaborate chocolate desserts. Chocolate creme brulee, chocolate crepes, chocolate fondue, a billion kinds of chocolate brownies, cookies, cakes, pastries... it was pretty nauseating. There was an astonishing number of people walking around mumbling about how badly they wanted to vomit. We didn't eat for too long before we too were stumbling around clutching our tummies, eyes glazed over, half-comatose. I took a couple of pictures before my brain stopped functioning entirely. First, my own plate; second, Kate's amazing chocolate crepe.

Today we had a much more normal brunch. I invited everybody over for some home-cooked yumminess. I did a lot of prep last night so this morning all I really had to do was stick stuff into the oven. I made a really good casserole that I somehow came up with - I basically cooked up some frozen hashbrowns, chopped-up bell peppers and onions, and crumbled breakfast sausage in a skillet, then poured them into a baking dish. Then I beat 10 eggs, stirred them into the mixture, topped the whole thing with lots of cheddar cheese, and baked it at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes.

I also made my mom's famous pinch-me-cake (recipe follows). My mom makes this stuff every Christmas morning, and I thought it would be fun to share with my friends for brunch. It was the first time I tried to make it myself, and it turned out great!

Big Eth's Famous Pinch-Me-Cake

Bridgeford (or similar) frozen, unrisen bread dough - rolls or loaf
1 stick butter
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Let the frozen dough thaw out (about 4 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge) until the dough is still cold but has not yet begun to rise. Melt the butter and pour into a bowl. In another bowl, mix the sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Pinch off pieces of the bread dough and roll it in the butter and then sugar-cinnamon mixture. Line up the dough pieces in whatever pan you want to bake the cake in (loaf pans, 8x12, etc. - doesn't matter). You can do this the night before or make in the morning, but either way, you have to leave the pans out at room temperature for about an hour to let the dough rise. When they're risen, bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

P.S. just for fun - the pumpkin I carved a few days ago. Can you guess which TV character it is?

One of My Favorite SB Meals

2006-10-26T00:04:00.000-04:00

Good news - the South Beach week is going well so far. Three days and I've lost 3 pounds, though of course I'm sure all of it is water weight. It's still nice to look at the scale and see the numbers going down. This is all preventative so that I can go back to my preferred gluttonous lifestyle, but I have to admit, even when I'm on SB I don't really feel like I'm depriving myself at all. That's because I can eat so many things that I love while I'm on this "diet."

One of those things that I love, and can eat on this diet, is Indian food. Tonight I made one of my favorite SB recipes, the Indian Chicken from the South Beach Quick & Easy Cookbook. I have made this dish three or four times now, and I still have not gotten tired of it. I made a big batch and plan on eating the leftovers tomorrow for lunch.

This dish is also a crowd-pleaser even for those not on South Beach. I'd serve those lucky folks a side of brown or basmati rice to soak up the delicious coconutty and flavorful juices.

I didn't drink any wine with dinner tonight (very sadly) because I'm trying to stay away from it while I'm doing my week o' detox, but I would recommend an off-dry riesling (I had a very great and inexpensive bottle the other week that seems to be widely available). Red wine would also pair great with this dish because it's not spicy - maybe something like a young, fruity grenache.

Indian Chicken
(serves 4)

1 1/2 lbs chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tbsp canola oil
1 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 can light coconut milk
1/2 cup chicken broth
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Season chicken well with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add onion, garlic, curry powder, and ginger to the same skillet. Cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add cauliflower, coconut milk, and broth; cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Add chicken back to the pan and cook until sauce is thickened and reduced, about 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Snappy South Beach Dinner

2006-10-23T20:47:00.000-04:00

I'm back on South Beach for the week - I need to detox after about a month of eating and drinking with utter abandon. It's going well so far. I made myself a yummy dinner so that I wouldn't be too sad about making myself eat healthily for the next few days. It was super quick, too, which is good because I was starving after the gym!

I had some leftover fresh rosemary from the cauliflower pasta, so I took a pork chop, seasoned it with salt, pepper, and the rosemary, and pan-fried it for 3 minutes on each side and then broiled it for 2 minutes on each side. I also steamed some fresh green beans for 2 minutes so they were nice and crisp, and I had some leftover black beans so I spooned them on top of the green beans and sprinkled them with a little pepper and cumin. P.S. I fudged the whole diet thing with a half-glass of a Syrah that Steve brought over last week.

And just for fun, here's the pie that Tina made for Ryan's, Dan's, and Tina's gathering on Saturday night: