Bookcook

QUINOA FRITTERS WITH POACHED EGGS

2012-01-26T16:26:00.000-08:00

The more quinoa I eat, the more I love it. Unfortunately, after an initial favorable response, A seems to like quinoa less and less every time I serve it, no matter how alluringly it’s prepared. He tolerates it, but unenthusiastically, and I’m stuck with all the leftovers. The man does love fritters, though, as do I, so when I saw this recipe for quinoa cakes at Annie’s Eats, I bookmarked it right away. In truth, I mainly fell in love with the photograph, which presented just the kind of colorful, healthy, light, simple-but-not-spartan food I feel like eating after ODing on holiday cookies. It didn’t hurt that the quinoa cake was crowned with a lovely poached egg, and after some early skepticism about them (I was a runny-yolk-phobe for years), I am becoming quite infatuated with poached eggs, to the point that I’ve started craving them. Never mind that I’d never made one before; it’s a new year and time to face new challenges! As a bonus, maybe I could interest A in quinoa if it was packaged in a different format, or at least placate him about the fact that I was trying yet another new quinoa recipe. (I presented them as “fritters” instead of “cakes” because I thought it would attract him more, but as you’ll see below, “fritter” also turned out to be the more accurate term for my rendition.)

I’m so glad I took the plunge, because first of all, quinoa tastes great when it’s formed into a patty with cheese, herbs, and seasonings and pan-fried until crispy and browned. A devoured his happily, declaring it to be his favorite quinoa preparation by far (this may be damning with faint praise, but I’ll take it), and even ate the leftovers the next day without prompting. I had a little trouble executing the original recipe as written; it said I should be able to form the quinoa mixture into patties before placing it in the skillet, but mine was so wet and loose there was no way that was going to happen. I noticed that a few of the recipe commenters had also encountered this, and some had increased the quantity of breadcrumbs to thicken the mixture, but I didn’t feel like making more (since the recipe didn’t specify whether they should be dry or fresh*, I had made fresh ones out of some stale bread). So I did what I always do with my troublesome falafel recipe and treated it like a fritter, dolloping the batter into the hot oil with a measuring cup. I’ll admit that little pieces of quinoa crumbled everywhere when I tried to press the dollops into rough patty shapes, and I thought for sure we’d end up eating some sort of pan-fried quinoa hash-like mess, but luckily the eggs worked their magic, and by the time the patties had gotten nice and brown on their undersides (probably overbrowned, as you can see in the photo, because I was so scared about what was going to happen when I tried to turn them over that I kept delaying the inevitable and letting them get good and firm, but luckily overbrowned quinoa still tastes good, maybe even better for all I know), the cakes were holding together well enough to be flipped over without coming apart. And the little scattered crumbs of quinoa in the pan made a great snack for the chef; quinoa develops the most addictive nutty flavor and crunchy-chewy texture when fried, which is what really makes this recipe wonderful.

*Just today, I looked back at the recipe comments and saw that someone had asked which kind of breadcrumbs to use, and Annie had replied that she used dried ones—specifically, panko. Perhaps if I’d done that, my patties would have been more like cakes and less like fritters, but I’m not sure how much I care, because once I’d overcome my initial anxiety that I’d bungled the recipe and made a giant mess, I liked them just the way they were, all blobby and unphotogenic—er, I mean, “rustic” and “free-form”—and most importantly, tasty. Next time I’ll try panko, though, just for comparison.

Also, poaching eggs turned out to be not as difficult as I’d feared, at least as long as you’re not a perfectionist. I’m not going to give you instructions on it yet, because I’m still honing my method—the first time I used this helpful tutorial from the Smitten Kitchen, but I’m not really coordinated enough to make that nice little whirlpool in the water and my eggs whites scattered a lot, so the second time I turned to Simply Recipes and employed canning jar rings (why not? I have so many!) to help the eggs stay in one place. This worked pretty niftily, but I didn’t really get that fluffy height so many of the best poached eggs have, plus the egg-encrusted rings are devilish to clean. Clearly more practice is needed, because I haven’t made a perfect poached egg yet; sometimes I overcook them a bit and sometimes I undercook them a bit, and most of the time they’re unsightly, but luckily, even an imperfect poached egg tastes great, so I’m not to worried. Once I’ve got it down to a science, I’ll let you know, but in the meantime, the experimentation is fun and tasty. I’m already daydreaming about other meals that could be topped off with eggs.

The original recipe directed you to make six patties, but I was pretty hungry, too impatient to go through frying two separate batches, and unsure how the quinoa cakes would reheat as leftovers (well, as it turns out), so I just made four. For us, one of these larger fritters turned out be the perfect quantity for one meal, so I’m sticking with four in the future. For a breakfast, brunch, or light lunch, you could serve the fritters atop some spinach or arugula; it adds some color and nutrients, and the egg yolk coats the greens delightfully. Since we were having these as a dinner entrée, I served a generous salad on the side instead.

½ cup uncooked quinoa
1 cup water
2 large eggs, plus 4 large eggs for poaching
½ teaspoon coarse salt, plus extra to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
⅓ cup minced fresh chives
2 large shallots, finely chopped
⅓ cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup breadcrumbs (I used fresh, but just discovered that the original recipe used dried, so…whatever)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Fresh arugula or spinach (optional)

1. Place quinoa in a fine-mesh strainer, rinse thoroughly with cold water, and drain. Place quinoa in a small saucepan with 1 cup water and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over low heat for 10–15 minutes, until all liquid is absorbed. Spread quinoa on a platter or baking sheet and let cool to room temperature. (You can do this up to a few days before making the fritters, if you want; just refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to use.)

2. In a medium bowl, lightly beat two eggs. Add the quinoa, ½ teaspoon salt, chives, shallots, Parmesan, and garlic, plus pepper to taste, and stir to blend. Mix in the breadcrumbs and stir gently until evenly incorporated.

3. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and swirl to coat. When the oil is hot, press about one-quarter of the quinoa mixture tightly into a ½ cup dry measuring cup (it will be a heaping ½ cup) and then drop it out of the measuring cup into the skillet, pressing down slightly with the back of a spatula to form a patty. Repeat with the remaining quinoa mixture, for a total of four fritters. Let cook until the bottom side is well browned. Carefully flip the patties with a spatula and let the second side cook until golden brown.

4. While the fritters are cooking, poach four eggs.

5. Serve each fritters atop a bed of greens, if desired, and top each patty with a poached egg. Season with salt and pepper to taste; serve immediately.

Serves: 4
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: The fritters keep quite well in the refrigerator and, when reheated with a short zap in the microwave followed by a short stint in a dry skillet over medium heat to regain their outer crispness, are nearly as good as new. Poached eggs don’t keep at all, however, so if you plan to have leftovers, don’t poach the eggs for the leftover portions until it’s time to reheat the fritters.

QUINOA WITH ROASTED BROCCOLI, ARUGULA, AND FETA

2012-01-18T16:14:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I know that at 19 days old, 2012 is already losing that new-year smell, but please suspend your disbelief…and try to graciously overlook the fact that I’m still catching up on posting recipes from the end of 2011. Luckily, this one fits in perfectly with the detox/diet/healthy eating narratives that dominate the food blogs—and, let’s face it, pretty much all media—every time January rolls around. (I love my fruits and vegetables, but if I see one more green smoothie recipe pop up in my Google Reader, I’m going to—well, strenuously roll my eyes, at least.) Sure, it’s lean and low-carb, packed full of greens and protein, but what drew me to this warm salad-ish dish at The Kitchen Sink Recipes was how thoroughly it combines nearly all my food obsessions into a single tidy package: Roasted vegetables, lemon, red pepper flakes, arugula, quinoa, feta, and mustard (my new bestie!) are all keywords that make me sit up and take notice when reading an ingredient list, so imagine my joy to see the whole passel of them hanging out together at one big party.

Not surprisingly, then, I loved this. A hasn’t taken to quinoa the way I have, and as much as I’d hoped he would like this one, I was secretly comforted by the thought that I’d have all the leftovers to myself. Light but filling, virtuous but boldly flavored, it makes a perfect workday lunch, and tastes equally good eaten warm or cold. I think there was maybe supposed to be red onion in the mix (the original post mentions it and I think I can spot it in the photos, but it’s left out of the recipe), but I didn’t miss it. The recipe is easy and straightforward; the only change I’d be tempted to make would be to add the zest of the lemon as well as the juice, for a little extra hit of citrus. Otherwise: perfection. If you haven’t tried quinoa yet, what are you waiting for? Make it your new year’s resolution, and start with this recipe.

POSTSCRIPT: I made this again last night, with the following additions: 1 small minced shallot and the grated zest of the lemon, both added to the Dijon-lemon juice mixture in Step 4. I'll definitely be including those in the recipe from now on.

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
Kosher salt to taste
1 large head broccoli
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon coarse-grained Dijon mustard
1 lemon, freshly squeezed
2 cups baby arugula
¼ cup crumbled feta

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

2. Place quinoa in a fine-mesh strainer, rinse thoroughly with cold water, and drain. Combine quinoa, water, and a big pinch of salt in a pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, until the quinoa has absorbed the water. Remove from heat and set aside (keep covered).

3. Meanwhile, prepare the broccoli. Cut the florets into bite-sized pieces Trim the woody end from the stalks, and, using a vegetable peeler, trim the tough outside layer from the stalks; slice the stalks into coins. Toss the florets and stalk slices in 1 tablespoon oil, a pinch of salt, and red pepper flakes. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes, until the broccoli is browned in spots.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together the mustard and lemon juice. Whisk in the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add the arugula. Add the quinoa and broccoli, when they are cooked, and toss to wilt the arugula and coat everything with dressing. Top with feta.

Serves: 3–4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good.

ROASTED SQUASH PIZZA WITH CARAMELIZED ONIONS AND BACON

2011-12-16T16:12:00.000-08:00

Just when I think I’m running out of pizza-topping combinations to try, another one presents itself. As soon as I saw this recipe at Dinner With Julie, I knew it would be perfect, and perfect it was—an addictive, comforting blend of smoky, salty, sweet, and creamy.

My one misstep was in using a package of pre-cubed butternut squash from Trader Joe’s; normally I frown upon such things, but we’d missed that week’s farmers’ market due to our Thanksgiving trip to Minnesota. I could’ve picked up a whole squash at the grocery store, but I wanted to make things easier on myself post-vacation, and I figured TJ’s usually has pretty good produce, so… Live and learn, right? The squash was so slimy and soggy that it took forever to roast properly; it just kept steaming away in the oven without browning, and I had to bake it nearly twice as long just to get any color and crispness on it. Then, when I popped a piece into my mouth, I discovered it was nearly flavorless, so I desperately sprinkled a little brown sugar over the rest and threw it back into the oven until the sugar caramelized. That seemed to help the sweetness along and the pizza tasted great, but: never again.

On the plus side, I had been planning to just use mozzarella on this, but then I remembered I had some cheese odds and ends left over from making kale pizza a few weeks before, so I added those into the mix. I think the Asiago in particular really made this spectacular, balancing out the sweetness of the squash and onions with its pungent sharpness. And, of course, the bacon didn’t hurt either. I’ve had a run of just-OK pizza experiments lately, but this one was an unequivocal success, probably the best I’ve tried since July’s corn-feta-cilantro-lime awesomeness.

About 1 pound butternut or other winter squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
4 slices bacon, diced
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 pound pizza dough
Shredded cheese to taste (I used a mixture of mozzarella, Asiago, and Fontina, which I highly recommend)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Place the cubed squash on a rimmed baking sheet, toss with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste, and roast for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring once, until soft and browned. Remove from oven and set aside, then increase the oven temperature to 450 degrees.

3. Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Add the onion to the drippings in the skillet and sauté until tender and caramelized.

4. Roll out the pizza dough, place it on a baking sheet coated with cornmeal or olive oil, and scatter half the cheese over it. Add the squash, onions, and bacon, then top with the remaining cheese. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until bubbly and golden.

Serves: 4
Time: 75 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

JALAPENO-CHEDDAR SKILLET CORNBREAD

2011-12-12T14:21:00.001-08:00

It’s odd, but I don’t think I’d ever made cornbread before this. I’ve eaten some that I’ve liked over the years (mostly at barbecue/soul food restaurants), but generally I can take or leave it, and I mostly leave it. At its worst, it can be dry, crumbly, and bland. Everyone talks about how much better it is when cooked in a cast-iron skillet, though, so ever since I got a skillet of my own I’ve been thinking I might give it a try. A couple of months ago, I stumbled across the perfect-looking recipe at A Cozy Kitchen. Pouring the hot oil from the skillet into the batter seemed a little weird (and perilous—wear sturdy oven mitts!), but since the recipe was adapted from no less an authority than the Homesick Texan herself, I couldn’t argue. Aside from that little adventure, the bread was easy to make and turned out perfectly: crisp-crusted without and tender within, with the buttermilk and cheese warding off dryness and the jalapeno providing a nice kick. Maybe it was the skillet or maybe it was the recipe, but the bread had a bit more structural integrity than some I’ve seen; it held its shape well when sliced and wasn’t overly crumbly. I served it with chili, but it would have been just as satisfying on its own, with a little butter.

So consider me a cornbread convert! This will definitely be replacing tortilla chips as my chili accompaniment of choice, and I’m contemplating pairing it it with black bean soup soon. I didn’t have any bacon grease on hand, but I’d love to try that next time instead of canola oil; a little bit of porky smokiness would really put this over the top.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil or bacon drippings
2 cups cornmeal (yellow or white)
½ cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1½ teaspoons salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 cups buttermilk, shaken
2 jalapeños, diced
1¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Put the oil or drippings in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet and place it in the oven for a few minutes until it’s sizzling.

2. Meanwhile, mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside. Whisk egg and buttermilk in a medium bowl. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then fold in jalapeños and 1 cup of shredded cheddar.

3. Take the cast-iron skillet out of the oven, pour hot oil/drippings into batter, and mix. Pour batter into skillet and top with remaining ¼ cup cheddar. Bake for 20 minutes, until brown on top and pulling away from the sides of the skillet.

4. Turn bread out of the skillet, slice into wedges or squares, and serve.

Serves: About 8
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; can be frozen.

CRISPY CHICKEN AND APPLE SALAD

2011-12-07T17:24:00.000-08:00

In my ongoing quest for satisfying cold-weather salads, I have bookmarked approximately one million that involve apples and/or dried cranberries, all very subtly different. This one, originally from Everyday Food, which I spotted at Serious Eats, combines those two uber-autumnal/wintry ingredients with lettuce, slices of breaded pan-fried chicken breast, and a creamy dressing. The original dressing looked unappetizing to me—it was basically just a mixture of mayonnaise and buttermilk, with a little vinegar and parsley thrown in—and it is a sign of my newfound passion for mustard that I immediately thought, “But this salad would be perfect with a little Grey Poupon!” So instead I used a lighter, spunkier yogurt-Dijon vinaigrette lifted from one of my very favorite salads, a dressing that has become my go-to default whenever I need to improvise. As I suspected, it was a delectable counterpoint to the chicken and the crisp, sweet-tart fruit. When I ate the leftovers for lunch the next day, I threw in a handful of walnuts, and that made everything even better, so I’m suggesting it as an option below. This isn’t a revolutionary combination of flavors—it’s so intuitive, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen similar salads on fast-food menus, although of course the homemade version is infinitely better—but it makes an easy, wholesome, pleasing meal. We both really liked it, so I’m guessing it’s going to become a regular menu staple around here.

¼ cup all-purpose flour
1¼ teaspoons salt, divided
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 large egg
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, gently pounded to an even thickness
5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons plain yogurt
1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
8 cups red-leaf lettuce leaves
2 large apples, cut into thin wedges
½ cup dried cranberries
½ cup toasted walnuts (optional)

1. On three small plates, set up the dredging stations: the flour on one, the egg whisked with 1 tablespoon of water on another, and the breacrumbs on the third. Season the flour with ¼ teaspoon salt and some freshly ground black pepper, and the panko with ½ teaspoon salt. Dry the chicken breasts thoroughly with paper towels until tacky.

2. In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium until shimmering.

3. Dredge the chicken in the flour and shake off the excess, then in the egg mixture, allowing the excess to drip off, and finally in the breadcrumbs, pressing gently to adhere. Add the chicken to the skillet and cook until golden, then flip and finish cooking, 8 to 10 minutes total. Drain on paper towels, allow to cool for a few moments, and then slice into strips.

4. While the chicken cooks, whisk together vinegar, yogurt, mustard, and ½ teaspoon salt in a small bowl; season with pepper to taste. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking until emulsified.

5. Lay the lettuce in a serving bowl or on a platter and scatter with the apples and cranberries (and walnuts, if desired). Lay the chicken over the top, drizzle with dressing, and serve.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: OK, although chicken will be less crispy the next day; store all components (chicken, dressing, walnuts, unsliced apples, and cranberries) separately and assemble right before eating.

CHICKEN A LA DIABLE

2011-12-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

Devil chicken! Except, of course, this zesty, spicy, crispy baked chicken is actually quite divine. I spotted it at Serious Eats and pegged it as an easy weeknight dinner, which it certainly was. I love that I’ve now gone from mustard hating to grudging acceptance to actually perking up whenever I see it in an ingredient list. It’s such a great shortcut to add a lot of zip and savor to food, especially meat; I can’t believe I ever turned up my nose at it. Using it as a coating for chicken is as brilliant as you would expect. Throw on some red pepper flakes, thyme, breadcrumbs, an egg wash to hold it all together, and naturally some butter, and you’ve got tasty Frenchy comfort food. I served it with spinach-apple salad, which was a perfect accompaniment.

2 tablespoons smooth Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon coarse-grain Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
2 eggs
4 whole chicken legs (bone-in, skin-on)
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
½ cup panko breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a small bowl, combine mustards and red pepper and mix well to blend. Season chicken legs with salt, then use a pastry brush to paint the mustard mixture evenly on all the legs.

3. On a plate or in a shallow bowl, combine eggs and whisk lightly with a fork to blend. In another, combine the breadcrumbs with the thyme. Dredge the chicken in the eggs, then in the breadcrumbs, coating them as evenly as possible, and then transfer to a baking dish.

4. Dot the chicken pieces evenly with butter, then bake until the juices run clear, 30 to 40 minutes.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK (although the leftovers won’t be as crispy)

PUMPKIN PUDDING

2011-12-02T16:42:00.000-08:00

After the cookies and the pancakes, I still had some pumpkin puree left, so of course I had to make pumpkin pudding, as part of my ongoing quest to make every kind of pudding in the world, ever. I found the recipe at Sugarcrafter, probably via Food Blog Search. It was as easy as any other pudding (in other words, surprisingly easy) and tasted about as you’d expect, like a lighter, creamier pumpkin pie filling. It didn’t rock my world, but I will certainly make it again, especially when I have extra pumpkin puree to use up.

It amuses me how many ways there are to make pudding; some recipes have you add the egg right away and stir continually (and then strain the pudding to make sure there are no cooked egg bits floating around), others have you add it midway through (which means tempering the egg mixture with some hot milk), and a few have you add it at the end (which means there’s always a small risk of raw-ish egg, since you’re just relying on the heat of the milk to cook it). Whichever way you do it doesn’t seem to have a great impact on the end result, so perhaps it’s just a matter of personal preference. I’m not too afraid of raw egg, and in this case I didn’t balk at straining the pudding since I knew I’d want to get rid of any stray stringy pumpkin pieces, but in general I’m of the add-it-midway-and-temper school, so I might do that next time I make this. Otherwise, I saw no need to tinker with the recipe, except that of course I once again shoved nutmeg to the background in favor of cardamom, because I don’t understand why the rest of the world refuses to use it.

And here ends my experimentation with pumpkin for this year…unless I buy another can, in which case this whole merry-go-round will start up again.

1¾ cups milk
1 egg
½ cup canned pumpkin
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk and egg.

2. In another bowl, combine the pumpkin and spices.

3. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the cornstarch and sugar. Gradually whisk in the milk mixture, scraping the bottom and sides with a rubber spatula to break up lumps. Bring to a boil and cook until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat.

4. Add the pumpkin mixture to the pudding, stirring to combine. Place the pan back over low heat and warm until heated through. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl to remove any lumps. Transfer the mixture to a clean bowl or bowls (if you don’t like pudding skin, place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding so that a skin will not form). Refrigerate at least an hour before serving.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; lasts a few days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

CURRIED COCONUT CARROT SOUP

2011-11-30T16:41:00.000-08:00

As soon as fall arrived, I started craving all things orange: sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and even, finally, pumpkin. As soon as I saw this soup at The Kitchn, I wanted it in my belleh. I could eat pureed soups for days on end, but I try to keep my desire for them at reasonable levels because A prefers the chunky stuff; still, I already had three carrot soups in my collection, so adding another seemed like madness. But this one was different! Although curried orange-hued soups are hardly new territory, I hadn’t made one before (although last winter’s lentil version alerted me to how delicious curried soups can be), and besides, the addition of coconut milk was calling out to me.

As with most vegetable soups, this was a cinch to throw together. My can of coconut milk was only something like 13.5 ounces and the mixture looked a bit thick after pureeing, so I added a little 1% milk to thin it out. Then I excitedly took a taste and…meh. I added more salt, usually the remedy for an iffy soup, but was still a bit disappointed. I wasn’t getting a strong curry taste and knew my curry powder was pretty ancient, so I would have added more…except my jar was empty; I’d only just been able to scrape out the tablespoon the recipe required. A little acid seemed as though it might perk things up, so my thoughts turned to citrus. I didn’t have a lemon, but I did have a nice, fat lime. I know lime plays well with coconut, ginger, and curry, and it seemed as though it would complement the carrot nicely. I squeezed in the whole lime and—zowie! Just this one little extra ingredient took the soup from blah to bombastic. I felt like a culinary genius.

I’d like to try the recipe again with some fresh curry powder, just to see if that would have remedied my problem, but as a citrus fiend I’ll still be making the lime (or, in a pinch, I think lemon would be just as good) a permanent component. With it, this soup was fantastic—sweet from the carrots, bright from the citrus, creamy from the coconut, earthy from the curry, and with a surprising kick from the red pepper flakes. (I loved the way the heat blossomed after each bite, but if you’re spicy-foods-averse, maybe start with ¼ teaspoon and see how it goes; you can always garnish with more later.) This will be a wonderful warming, cheerful soup in the depths of winter (not that the depths get very deep in Southern California), particularly when I have a cold. Serve it with some multigrain rolls and you’re all set to feel simultaneously hippie-healthy and cozily indulgent.

2 tablespoons olive or coconut oil
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
6 cups unpeeled, roughly chopped carrots (about 8 medium-sized carrots)
3½ cups vegetable stock (I used homemade chicken stock)
One 15-ounce can full-fat coconut milk
1½ tablespoons freshly chopped ginger root
1 tablespoon curry powder
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lime (or 1 lemon)

1. Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until tender, about 7 minutes. Add the carrots and cook for another 5 minutes. Pour in the stock and coconut milk. Add the ginger, curry powder, and chili flakes. Put a lid on the pot and cook until the carrots are softened, about 10 or 15 minutes.

2. When carrots are soft, carefully blend the soup in batches in a blender, or use an immersion blender to puree until smooth. Season with salt and pepper and add lime juice to taste.

Serves: 6 to 8
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Great. Keeps for a week in the fridge or indefinitely in the freezer.

SPINACH-APPLE SALAD WITH MAPLE-CIDER VINAIGRETTE

2011-11-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

Hot damn, this is a great fall-winter salad. I saw something similar on Annie’s Eats last month and thought it looked good, although I wasn’t quite sold on the dressing. (You can tell I’ve truly become a mustard convert, because I looked at the recipe and thought, “But where’s the Dijon?”) Then I skimmed the comments and noticed that someone mentioned making “almost the exact same thing but it had a maple-cider vinaigrette…and curry spiced pecans.” One quick Google later and I located that very recipe, from Southern Living, on MyRecipes, where it had an “Outstanding” rating—and Dijon in the dressing. Sold!

I made no changes to the recipe, except to halve the quantities because two people don’t need eight servings of salad (hence all the rather odd measurements; I went with “pinch” for the spices rather than “1/16 teaspoon,” but if you have a measuring spoon that small, by all means, go for precision) and to substitute feta for the goat cheese because I don’t like goat cheese. It sounds like kind of a hassle to have to candy the pecans, but (a) it’s actually super-easy, reminding me that I should make spiced, candied nuts all the time, because they are also awesome, and (b) you can make them ahead of time if you want, although I don’t recommend it because they’re so tasty they’re likely to get gobbled up as snacks before you even get around to making the salad. I do sort of question calling them “curried” pecans when they actually have more ginger than curry, and just as much salt and cayenne as curry; mine didn’t have a really noticeable curry flavor, but they were so good just as they were that I don’t really feel the need to tinker with the spice mixture—I just renamed them in my version of the recipe instead.

We loved everything about this salad—the crunch of the apple, nuts, and onion against the tenderness of the spinach and the creaminess of the feta; the salty-savory-sweet balance (the dressing is seriously delicious—I’m normally pretty sparing with salad dressings because I hate a soggy salad, but I used every last drop of this one); the colors; the wonderful fallishness; everything. I made it twice in the space of two weeks, first with this chicken recipe and then again with this one; it went perfectly with both and I’m still not tired of it, so you can bet it will be a cold-weather standard on my menu from now on. It makes a generous amount, so that even though I’d still technically call it a “side dish” (because it’s not quite hearty enough for me to make a meal of on its own), it took center stage at the table, with our small plates of chicken looking like side dishes in comparison. Which, really, is the way I prefer it—lots of veggies, fruit, and cheese with a modest garnish of meat!

Spiced candied pecans:
3 ounces pecan halves
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1½ tablespoons sugar
⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
1 pinch teaspoon curry powder
1 pinch kosher salt
1 pinch teaspoon ground red (cayenne) pepper

Maple-cider vinaigrette:
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup (I recommend Grade B)
1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
⅓ cup olive oil

Salad:
5 to 6 ounces fresh baby spinach, thoroughly washed
1 small apple, thinly sliced (original recipe calls for Gala; I’m not sure what kind I used, since I tend to buy a big assortment of apples at the farmers’ market and then forget which one is which by the time I get them home, but I’d recommend leaning toward the tarter, firmer end of the spectrum)
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
2 ounces crumbled feta

1. To prepare the pecans, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss pecans in melted butter. Stir together sugar and next four ingredients in a bowl; add pecans, tossing to coat. Spread in a single layer in a nonstick aluminum foil- or parchment-lined pan. Bake 10 minutes or until lightly browned and toasted. Cool in pan on a wire rack 20 minutes; separate pecans with a fork. (Pecans may be made up to 1 week ahead; store in an airtight container.)

2. Meanwhile, to prepare the vinaigrette, whisk together cider vinegar and next four ingredients. Gradually whisk in oil until well blended. (Vinaigrette may be made up to 3 days ahead; cover and chill until ready to serve.)

3. To prepare the salad, combine spinach and next three ingredients in a bowl. Drizzle with desired amount of vinaigrette; toss to coat. Sprinkle with pecans.

Serves: 4 as a large side dish or a light lunch
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: Poor for the completed dish, but the pecans and the vinaigrette will each keep tightly sealed and refrigerated for several days, and the rest of the salad is easy to put together, so you can make some salad right away and the rest later.

VANILLA ORANGE JELLY

2011-11-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

As promised, here’s the recipe for the orange jelly I made months ago, which turns out to be the perfect topping for pumpkin spice pancakes.

Making jam requires, first and foremost, large quantities of fresh, preferably cheap fruit, which makes Southern California a pretty good place to live if you’re into home canning. Although I lament that I’ll never be able to make raspberry or blackberry jam unless I move away or become independently wealthy—and I have to pick my own blueberries and hoard the resulting paltry jars of jam like precious jewels—the fact that I can have heaps of fantastic strawberries (my very favorite) nearly all year around makes up for it. The one SoCal specialty I’d never managed to take advantage of, however, was citrus fruit. I can buy a 5-pound bag of perfect oranges at the farmers’ market for just a few dollars, but I loathe marmalade, so canning with oranges seemed off the table until I spotted this recipe, tantalizingly called “Creamsicle Jelly,” at Food in Jars. I’d never made jelly before; it had never even occurred to me. I mainly associate it with the grape stuff you (not I, never) might put on a peanut-butter sandwich. But of course, if you want to can with oranges and hate those chewy, butter pieces of rind cluttering up your marmalade, jelly it must be. I don’t especially love orange-flavored things, but Creamsicles are an exception, so the genius idea of adding vanilla was too good to resist. (You’ll notice I retitled the recipe here, simply because, on reflection, “Creamsicle” sort of implies that there’s cream in the jelly, which is inaccurate and kind of gross. If you want the full Creamsicle experience, mix some of this into your morning yogurt—it’s great.)

I wanted this so bad that I finally broke down and bought a candy thermometer, something I’d resisted for years because I’m inexplicably terrified of anything involving melting sugar. (Which is too bad, considering that I adore caramel and toffee.) You’ll notice that the original recipe has a lot of troubleshooting addendums, because many commenters seemed to have problems getting it to set (or having it set too much). I made this so long ago that I don’t remember the details of how I went about it, except that I followed the instructions and they worked for me. I thought the jelly wasn’t going to set; when I took the jars after the canner and even 24 hours later, the contents still looked so runny that I figured I’d just tell everyone it was supposed to be orange-vanilla syrup, but I stuck the jars under my bed and the next time I pulled the box out, the jelly appeared to have set. The jar that’s in my fridge is just about the same consistency as most of my jams, not too thick and not too loose, perfectly spoonable/spreadable, and the flavor is delicious—quite sweet, but with deep, real orange flavor and the distinct aroma of vanilla. Considering that I can get my hands on as many good oranges as I want, pretty much whenever I want them, I’ll definitely be making this again.

4 cups freshly squeezed orange juice
4 cups sugar
2 vanilla beans, split and scraped
1 packet liquid pectin (half a box) (Ball brand is recommended)

1. Prepare jars and closures as in steps 1–2 here.

2. Combine orange juice, sugar, vanilla bean scrapings, and beans in a large pot (this one is a foamer). Bring to a boil over high heat and cook until volume is reduced by approximately one-third to one-half. Use a thermometer to track the temperature, so that you know when you’re getting to 220 degrees (the set point of jams and jellies). When it has reached 220 degrees and is able to maintain that temperature even after a good stir, add the pectin. (Note that the jelly may reach 220 degrees several times during cooking before it is actually time to add the pectin. It needs at least 30 minutes of boiling, if not more, in order to set up well.) Cook for an additional 2 to 3 minutes and remove from heat.

3. Remove the vanilla beans from the pot. Pour jam into prepared jars, wipe rims, apply lids, screw on bands, and process in a boiling-water canner for 10 minutes, as in steps 7–9 here. (Note that jelly may not appear set immediately after canning; mine became firmer over the course of several days.)

Yields: About 8 4-ounce jars
Time: Can’t remember; at least 3 hours
Leftover potential: Awesome! Sealed jars will keep for 1 year.

PUMPKIN SPICE PANCAKES

2011-11-15T12:13:00.000-08:00

The joke is most definitely on me. I only made this recipe to use up leftover canned pumpkin from the pumpkin snickerdoodles, but I fell so hard in love with these pancakes that I’ve already purchased a reserve can of pumpkin in order make them again whenever the craving hits. The recipe is from Joy the Baker and it is perfect—the pancakes cook up moist and fluffy, with just the right amount of pumpkin and spice flavor, a barely perceptible enrichment of wheat flour (I used white whole wheat), and not too much sweetness. I loved the taste of them so much I could have eaten them with no accompaniment besides a little smear of butter, but I did find that they were even better when adorned with a thin layer of the orange vanilla jelly I made earlier this year (but apparently, now that I look, never posted about, an oversight that will shortly be remedied). If you’re more of a traditional pancake eater, I imagine maple syrup would be just fine on these, or whipped cream if you want to get really fancy. The only change I made was my habitual addition of cardamom; I used it instead of the ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, although I still threw in a pinch of nutmeg anyway, plus a pinch of allspice, to approximate my usual pumpkin pie spice mix.

I thought the banana oat bran pancake recipe was the only pancake recipe for me, but I was wrong—I’ll be alternating it with this one, at least in the fall and winter, from now one. I also thought I wasn’t a pumpkin person, but apparently, I was wrong about that too. At this rate, maybe someday I’ll figure out why everyone gets so excited about cranberries!

¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
1 pinch ground ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 pinch allspice
1 cup milk
½ cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or melted butter
A little butter for greasing the skillet

1. Whisk together flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together milk, egg, pumpkin, and vegetable oil or melted butter.

3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk until just combined. Let the batter sit for 10 minutes while you heat the skillet.

4. Over medium heat, melt a little butter on the skillet. Once the skillet is hot, spoon a heaping 2 tablespoons of batter per pancake into the skillet. When pancakes start to bubble slightly, carefully flip them over. Cook until browned and cooked through, remove to a plate, and repeat as needed with the remaining batter.

Serves: About 4 (I got 16 small pancakes)
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; if you have leftover pancakes, layer them between pieces of waxed paper in an airtight container and store them in the freezer. To reheat, take out the number of the pancakes you want, place them on a plate and heat them briefly in the microwave (I start with 30 seconds) to thaw the centers, then finish heating them in a dry skillet over medium heat just until they are thoroughly warmed and the exteriors are slightly crisp.

WARM SPINACH SALAD WITH SAUSAGE AND ROASTED VEGETABLES

2011-11-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

I did a pretty good job of overcoming my slight resentment of main-dish salads this past summer; thanks to recipes like this, this, and this, we quite happily ate salad as an entrée almost once a week. As winter approaches, raw, cold meals become far less appealing, yet I don’t want to break this healthy Salad Night habit completely. I have a couple of warm salad recipes, but now I’m on the prowl for more. I have no idea what series of link-clickings led me to this one at For the Love of Cooking, but why even bother talking about that when we should be talking about how much this salad kicks ass? Yes, I just swore, albeit mildly, about a salad, on a blog that my mother reads. That’s how good it is. If I were talking to you about it in person, I might swear downright emphatically. WE $@*!ing LOVED THIS #&!% SALAD.

Really, this is quite similar to a recipe I already have, but served over spinach, with a balsamic Dijon vinaigrette and some cheese on top, additions I would have never thought to make. It manages to be simultaneously wholesome and hearty, with all the fresh and colorful appeal of a salad in a warm, filling, satisfying meal. The combination of vegetables is perfect; along with the expected onion, potatoes, and garlic, you get asparagus (which, sure, may not exactly be in season right now, but we all know how awesome it is when roasted), mushrooms (which I never think to roast but are great that way), and tomatoes (which I have a whole treatise on; see below). Although I usually roll my eyes when some online recipe commenter talks about how they added chicken to a perfectly good vegetarian dish to “make it a meal,” as though meals are somehow not complete without meat products, I gotta say that the savory, meaty sausage does really make this feel like a meal. The spinach wilts gently under all this caramelized, roasty goodness. The dressing adds moisture and a welcome zesty acidity, and the feta does its usual salty, creamy, fabulous thing. All that and it’s easy to throw together on a weeknight.

I made only minimal changes. I probably ended up using more vegetables than called for—I got greedy when picking out my mix of cute little potatoes, and I threw in the whole 8-ounce package of mushrooms and the entire bunch of asparagus because I didn’t want to get stuck with the orphaned vegetables. The original recipe called for 12 ounces of spinach, which, although it’s technically 4 servings according to the nutritional information on the package, is a tremendous quantity in its raw state; maybe my vegetables and sausage weren’t piping-hot enough to wilt the greens sufficiently when I put the salad together, but that amount of spinach wouldn’t have fit in any of my entrée bowls. I just eyeballed it, using one to two generous handfuls of spinach per serving, which probably came to more like 8 or even 6 ounces total.

I also used cherry tomatoes instead of the little on-the-vine ones used in the original recipe or the plum ones used in its Real Simple source. I’ve recently fallen in love with roasted cherry tomatoes (the maple syrup in the recipe I use sounds weird, but go with it! It adds a sweet smokiness without tasting anything like pancakes; I typically scarf them all straight off the baking sheet before I can manage to take a photo of them, which is why I haven’t posted the recipe yet), but of course the key to the ones I’m used to is letting them roast face-up, undisturbed, until they dry and wrinkle. Here, roasting the tomatoes with the other vegetables and tossing them periodically, they break down quite a bit, so their juices leak out and spread over the baking sheet, meaning that all the vegetables turned out much less crisp than I’d envisioned. I think this could be resolved by either (a) roasting the tomatoes ahead of time using my usual recipe (I’ve been meaning to try adding those to salads anyhow, if I can ever stop snacking on them) or (b) roasting the tomatoes at the same time as the other vegetables, but undisturbed on a second baking sheet, not to mention there’s always the option of (c) just using larger tomatoes as the original recipe does. I may give one of those methods a try in the near future just for kicks, but I don’t know if any changes are really necessary, because the recipe turned out so damn delicious just as I made it, and it’s certain to be a Salad Night staple for us throughout the winter.

1 cup cherry, grape, or plum tomatoes, halved
1 medium red onion, sliced into wedges
1 cup baby potatoes, halved, or quartered if larger (I used a mix of yellow, red, and purple)
1 cup mushrooms, quartered (I used cremini)
1 bunch (about 12 spears) asparagus, tough ends removed, remaining spears cut into 2-inch pieces
4 large cloves garlic, with skins left on
1 tablespoon olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
4 Italian sausages (I used Trader Joe’s Garlic and Herb Chicken Sausage, which I highly recommend)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons coarse-grain Dijon mustard
1 small clove garlic, minced
6 to 12 ounces fresh spinach
2 to 4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tin foil and coat with cooking spray. Place the tomatoes, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, and 4 whole unpeeled garlic cloves on the baking sheet. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Place in the oven and roast for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the asparagus and continue to roast for 10 minutes, or until the asparagus and potatoes are fork-tender.

2. While the vegetables are roasting, make the salad dressing by whisking the vinegar, 3 tablespoons olive oil, mustard, water, and 1 small minced garlic clove together in a small bowl until emulsified, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Also while the vegetables are roasting, cook the sausages in a skillet over medium heat for 10 minutes or until done.

4. Once the veggies are out of the oven, carefully remove the skin from the garlic cloves and then slice the roasted garlic. Toss the warm vegetables (including the garlic) and sliced sausages with the spinach and dressing until evenly coated. Top with feta.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good, if not yet mixed together. Store all the elements (roasted vegetables and sausage, spinach, dressing, and cheese) separately, and when you want to eat them, reheat the vegetables and sausage and then add to the spinach, dressing, and cheese.

PUMPKIN SNICKERDOODLES

2011-11-10T16:23:00.000-08:00

After 34 years of total indifference (bordering on mild hostility) to the wave of pumpkin-flavored foodstuffs that sweeps the nation each autumn, I’m suddenly starting to catch on. It started with the pumpkin ice cream last year. I made it again this year, then caught myself jonesing for something else along the same lines. When I spotted this recipe at Annie’s Eats, in which a bit of pumpkin and extra spice is added to the traditional snickerdoodle formula, it seemed a good way to herald fall—and the arrival of My!New!Oven!—without going overboard into full-blown pumpkin mania. And as I’d hoped, the cookies were a perfect pumpkiny twist on an existing fave; the pumpkin adds a tinge of orange color and a tender, cakey texture (don’t expect the usual snickerdoodle crispness here), but its flavor remains subtle.

I replaced nutmeg with cardamom in the dough, because I flippin’ adore cardamom and it never seems to get fair play in baked goods outside of Scandinavia. In general, every time I see cinnamon in a recipe, I throw in a little cardamom too. I may not be a Pumpkin Person yet, but I’m officially Cardamom Crazy! I then rejiggered the coating mixture to approximate full-blown pumpkin pie spice, dialing down the cinnamon a bit to give cardamom a supporting role (natch), scaling back the ginger, and adding nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. I loved the results and will certainly make these again next October. In the meantime, I have half a can of pumpkin puree still to use up, so watch this space for more grudgingly trendy pumpkin recipes in the near future.

Cookies:
3¾ cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Coating:
½ cup granulated sugar
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
⅛ teaspoon allspice

1. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon cardamom. Whisk to blend and set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and 1 cup granulated sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Blend in the pumpkin puree. Beat in the egg and vanilla until incorporated. With the mixer on low speed add in the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Cover and chill the dough for at least 1 hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

4. Combine the sugar and spices for the coating in a bowl and mix to blend. Scoop up 1 heaping tablespoon of the dough and roll into a ball. Coat the dough ball in the sugar-spice mixture and place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough to fill the sheets, spacing the dough balls 2 to 3 inches apart. Dip the bottom of a flat, heavy-bottomed drinking glass in water, then in the sugar-spice mixture, and use the bottom to flatten the dough balls slightly. Recoat the bottom of the glass in the sugar-spice mixture as needed.

5. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until just set and baked through. Let cool on the baking sheets for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Yields: 3 to 4 dozen cookies
Time: 2 hours
Leftover potential: Good; cookies will dry out after three or four days at room temperature, but they freeze fairly well.

SWEET POTATO, RICOTTA, AND ARUGULA PIZZA

2011-10-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

Sweet potato. Ricotta. Arugula. Pizza. That’s all you need to know, OK?

What? No? More? Fine. I spotted this recipe (presented as an appetizer “flatbread,” but you say flatbread, I say pizza) at The Kitchn during The Great Ovenless Exile. I knew my stovetop pizza-making method (which I still need to detail for you sometime, considering that it has become my default pizza-making method, even though I still write all my recipes as though I’m baking them in the traditional manner) wouldn’t be enough to cook the sweet potatoes properly, so carefully squirreled it away, glancing at it longingly now and then, until My!New!Oven! finally arrived. It seemed like such a slam dunk: I love ricotta on pizzas, the contrasting colors were so bright and autumnal, and the peppery crunch of the arugula seemed like a perfect foil for the sweet starchiness of the potato.

And it was, indeed, very good. Not transcendent—it tasted exactly like the sum of its parts, although the thyme was a surprisingly nice, elevating touch—but I enjoyed it. One of the original recipe commenters had noted that she had difficulty getting the sweet potato slices to cook through by the time the crust was done, and I don’t have a mandoline or the requisite knife skills to slice a sweet potato that thinly, and besides, I still wanted to use my stovetop method, so I decided to precook the sweet potatoes in the oven, taking a page from this pesto-butternut squash pizza recipe. It worked fairly well, but I think I could have roasted them a bit less long, because they dried out more than I expected. Other than that, everything went smoothly and as written. As always with recipes where raw arugula is added at the end, it was a bit awkward to eat, with leaves falling every which way as soon as you take a bite, but if you add the arugula to the pizza immediately when it comes out of the oven, it does wilt a little bit, which helps. (I always just load up my pizzas with as much arugula as they can hold, which makes overflow a given.)

A was unenthused about this pizza, claiming that he doesn’t like sweet potatoes, which was news to me because he happily devours sweet potato fries and sweet potato spinach salad, but I suppose ketchup and bacon (respectively, not together) go a long way toward making anything palatable. His disapproval means this isn’t destined to become a favorite standby, but I’ll definitely make it again on occasion. It’s a fallish but light meal, which is perfect for this I’m-craving-squash-but-it’s-90-degrees-outside funk I inevitably fall into every October since I moved to Southern California.

1 sweet potato (about 12 ounces)
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup ricotta
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1 pound pizza dough
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, loosely packed
2 ounces arugula (two big handfuls)
Salt to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Peel the sweet potato and slice it into ¼-inch-thick rounds. Combine the slices with the olive oil in a large bowl and toss well to coat. Spread slices in a single layer on a baking sheet (coat with foil or parchment for extra ease) and bake for about 20 minutes or until tender.

3. Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven and increase the heat to 450 degrees.

4. In a small bowl, mix the thyme into the ricotta.

5. Roll out the pizza dough and place it on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal or a little olive oil. Spread the ricotta mixture evenly across the top of the dough. Arrange the sweet potato coins in slightly overlapping layers on top. Sprinkle the entire surface with a little salt.

6. Bake pizza for 7 minutes, rotate it, and then bake for another 7 minutes, or until the edges of the crust are turning golden. Sprinkle the Parmesan on top and bake for one more minute or until melted.

7. Scatter the arugula on top of the pizza as soon as it comes out of the oven. Let it stand for a few minutes to allow the arugula to wilt. Slice and serve either warm or at room temperature.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good. I only added the arugula to the slices I was eating immediately, preferring to add fresh arugula to the leftovers after reheating them, but I think it would be OK reheated with the arugula already on top, too.

MAYONNAISE

2011-10-27T15:02:00.001-07:00

Behold! I have worked wonders! Actually, it turns out that making your own mayonnaise is a cinch, at least if you have an immersion blender. I’m not sure why I suddenly got crazy and decided to try this after watching a video at Serious Eats, but I did it and it worked beautifully—like a delicious magic trick! I’d love to whip this out at a party. Even though I technically understand how emulsification works, it still seems bizarre to me that an egg and a bunch of oil can combine in a matter of seconds to form a thick, creamy spread. (You’ll notice mine is a bit freckled, since I only had coarse-grain mustard on hand, but it tasted good all the same.)

The only problem with making my own mayonnaise is that…I don’t really like mayonnaise. I tolerate it a bit more than I used to, and the homemade stuff is certainly far superior to storebought, although I think some claims I’ve seen in recipe comments that homemade mayo will “change your life” or “convert mayonnaise haters” are overblown. I made this on a night I was serving fish cakes, so I used it in the cakes themselves and also in the tartar sauce I dolloped on top, which was noticeably improved by it. But most of the rest of the batch of mayo languished unused in the refrigerator, because I simply don’t have that many recipes that call for great quantities of it and I don’t eat a lot of sandwiches, dips, or creamy dressings. I don’t regret trying it because it was so easy and such a fun discovery, but in the future I’ll be saving it for special occasions. It would be fun to try adding garlic and/or herbs. I can definitely see myself making it periodically throughout the summer, when we tend to have BLTs on a near-weekly basis. I thought I’d perfected my BLT skillz, but this will take it to a whole new level!

1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 tablespoon room-temperature water
1 tablespoon lemon juice (from half a lemon)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 cup vegetable or canola oil (not olive oil; the flavor is too strong)
Kosher salt to taste

1. Place egg yolk, water, lemon juice, and mustard in the bottom of a narrow immersion blender cup. Pour oil on top and allow to settle for 15 seconds.

2. Place head of immersion blender at bottom of cup (directly over egg yolk) and switch it on. As mayonnaise forms, slowly tilt and lift the head of the immersion blender until all oil is emulsified.

Time: 5 minutes
Yields: About 1 cup
Leftover potential: Good; will keep in a sealed container in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 weeks.

OATMEAL BUTTERSCOTCH COOKIES

2011-10-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

During my long ovenless purgatory, I kept wistfully bookmarking cookie recipes, and now that My!New!Oven! and I have gotten to know each other and are getting along like gangbusters, it’s time to start putting them to use. Cookies containing oatmeal are always my favorites (except for The Dreaded Oatmeal Raisin), and I’ve been hopelessly attracted to butterscotch chips in all their artificially flavored glory ever since I first encountered them them (in monster cookies) a few years ago, so the ubiquitous oatmeal butterscotch cookies (aka “oatmeal scotchies”) seemed like a no-brainer. I’d figured I’d just try the recipe on the Nestle Tollhouse butterscotch-chip bag (since I find their chocolate-chip cookie formula so hard to beat), until I stumbled across this one at Annie’s Eats. Annie attests that she has tried many oatmeal butterscotch cookie recipes and this one is the best, and how could I resist that?

This recipe varies from the traditional version by adding coconut and toffee bits, two other things I love. Combined with the always-on-the-verge-of-cloying butterscotch chips and the usual cookie ingredients, they conspire to make a very sweet cookie, although the oatmeal and cinnamon help to temper that somewhat. If you can get over the sugar high, however, the flavors are wonderful and the texture is perfect; the coconut adds tenderness and the toffee a bit of chew. I’d still like to try the standard recipe sometime just for the sake of comparison, but I’d definitely make these again.

This was my first time using toffee baking bits (I bought the Heath brand—the “Bits o’Brickle,” not the ones with chocolate), and I have to admit, they were pretty tasty. I’ve got some left over and am looking forward to trying them in another recipe.

1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1½ cups shredded coconut
1 cup butterscotch chips
½ cup toffee bits

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

2. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir to blend, and set aside.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugars and beat on medium-high speed until light and smooth, about 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs until incorporated. Blend in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. With a spatula, fold in the oats, coconut, butterscotch chips, and toffee bits until evenly combined.

4. Drop scoops of dough (about 2 tablespoons each) onto the prepared baking sheets, a few inches apart. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until just set and light golden, rotating the pans halfway through baking. Let cool on the pans about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yields: About 4 dozen cookies
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good; freezes well.

MUSTARD-ROASTED POTATOES

2011-10-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

My!New!Oven! was installed unexpectedly midweek, so I hadn’t had the chance to plan and shop for any recipes that would put it to use immediately. I did break it in by making chocolate chip cookies and baked oatmeal, two things I could throw together using ingredients already in my pantry, but it wasn’t until the following Sunday that I really got to bake my official inaugural meal. I didn’t have to think very long about what I wanted: roasted chicken with actual bones in it (not daring to attempt anything as ambitious as a whole chicken until the oven and I became better acquainted, I went with lemon-garlic drumsticks), and these potatoes, which I’d bookmarked at Smitten Kitchen last spring, after the “I love Dijon mustard” realization of early 2011, but before The Great Ovenlessness.

And it was AWESOME. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who hadn’t eaten a roasted vegetable in five months, but these were easily the best potatoes I’ve ever made, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and so incredibly tasty. Old Me would have been scared off by the quantity of mustard I slathered on those things, but truthfully, after roasting, the overall taste wasn’t very identifiably mustardy (I don’t think if I’d tasted one blindfolded, I would have exclaimed, “Ah, mustard!”), just super-complex and dynamic and wonderful. It was a little more complicated to put together than many other roasted potato recipes I’ve tried, but every single one of those ingredients—oil, butter, lemon juice and zest, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper—played a crucial role in the zippy flavor. In particular, the whole mustard seeds became addictively nutty and crunchy when roasted; I found myself picking up the crusty scraps that fell off the potatoes and devouring them straight off the baking sheet with glee. I’d better start buying larger jars of mustard, because this is going to be my go-to potato recipe from now on.

¼ cup whole-grain Dijon mustard (I used Grey Poupon Harvest Coarse Ground, which still has enough liquidity that it sticks to the potatoes easily; if your mustard is on the drier side, you may want to consider using 3 tablespoons of it and 1 tablespoon of regular, smooth Dijon to help things along)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1½ teaspoons dried oregano
½ teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1½ pounds small unpeeled red and/or yellow potatoes, cut into ¾-inch-wide wedges
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a large rimmed baking sheet with nonstick spray or coat with parchment paper.

2. Whisk mustard, olive oil, butter, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, lemon peel, and salt in large bowl to blend. Add potatoes; sprinkle generously with freshly ground black pepper and toss to coat. Place potatoes on prepared baking sheet, spreading them out in a single layer.

3. Roast potatoes 20 minutes. Stir, and then roast about 25 minutes longer, until crusty and browned.

(Potatoes can be made up to 2 hours ahead; let stand on baking sheet at room temperature, then rewarm in a 425-degree oven for about 10 minutes.)

Serves: 4–5
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK; leftover potatoes will be softer if reheated in the microwave, but they’ll still have great flavor. I haven’t tried reheating them in the oven, but I imagine that would restore them to something closer to their former glory.

APPLE, FETA, AND PECAN PIZZA

2011-10-18T15:44:00.001-07:00

As soon as I saw this recipe in the October issue of Cooking Light, I dogeared the page. I had almost skipped over it because the title contained the dreaded (to me) phrase “goat cheese,” but I quickly noticed that feta was suggested as a substitute, and I think we’re all aware how much I currently adore feta. I do think pizzas topped with salad are difficult to eat gracefully (I refuse to resort to a knife and fork), but I can never resist fresh arugula with lemon-Dijon vinaigrette, and when you add apples, pecans, and cheese, you’ve got a perfect early-autumn meal.

Everything came together exactly as you’d expect. My!New!Oven! hadn’t been installed yet, so I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, using my now-habitual cast-iron-skillet-on-the-stovetop method and finishing it under the broiler (the only part of Sad Old Oven that still functioned). I realized while typing this just now that the recipe calls for a “six-grain pizza crust,” implying some sort of prepared, pre-cooked product, whereas I started with actual dough. I’m specifying dough in the recipe below, but I don’t think it should make too much of a difference which one you use; you just may need to cook it a bit longer when starting with raw dough. Just use your common sense—pizza recipes are always just loose suggestions anyway.

I did make a few changes that aren’t shown below. I doubled the dressing and arugula quantities, heaping some of the salad atop the pizza and whatever didn’t fit off to the side of the plate. This makes for a heartier meal and also gives you something to do with all the bits of nuts, cheese, apple, and arugula that will inevitably tumble off the pizza as soon as you take your first bite; just let them fall onto the plate, and then when you’re done with your pizza, stir all the detritus into the remaining greens and you’ve got a nice side salad to enjoy! I also amped up the lemon juice a bit in the dressing, because the honey was more noticeable than I’d expected and I prefer a more acidic taste with my salad; next time I might try leaving out the honey completely because I don’t think the added sugar is really needed when you’ve already got baked fruit. But all in all, the flavors went together wonderfully—the sweet apple, salty cheese, earthy nuts, and lemony dressing combine for a simple yet sophisticated lunch or light supper.

1 pound pizza dough
3 cups thinly sliced Fuji apple (about 8 ounces)
1 cup (4 ounces) crumbled feta or goat cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1½ teaspoons honey
2 cups baby arugula
3 tablespoons chopped pecans, toasted

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Roll out pizza dough and place on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Arrange apple slices evenly over crust; top with cheese. Sprinkle thyme evenly over cheese. Bake for 8 minutes or until crust is crisp and browned and cheese is melted.

3. Combine oil, mustard, lemon juice, and honey in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add arugula and toss gently to coat. Sprinkle pecans evenly over pizza; top with arugula mixture.

Serves: 4
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; just store the cooked pizza, dressing, arugula, and pecans separately and assemble them after reheating the pizza.

LEMON PUDDING

2011-10-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

And so we come to the end of my effort to make homemade versions of all my favorite Jell-O instant pudding varieties. (Well, I might try coconut someday…and maybe pumpkin…but I will not be attempting “cheesecake,” “Oreo,” “chocolate fudge,” “Devil’s food” [don’t ask me how Kraft’s three kinds of chocolate pudding differ from one another], “white chocolate,” “egg custard,” or “flan.” [Kraft’s online description: “But don’t be fooled by its elitist attitude this flavor is beloved by everyone.” Aside from the heinous lack of punctuation, how is flan even a flavor? Is it shorthand for caramel? And while we’re at it, the concept of custard-flavored pudding kind of blows my mind, too. Isn’t that like saying “yam-flavored sweet potato”?])

I used Food Blog Search to find my way to this recipe, from a book called Luscious Lemon Desserts by Lori Longbotham. There’s not much to say about it except that it’s lemon, it’s pudding, and it’s delicious. The recipe is structured a bit differently from other ones I’ve tried, in that you cook the egg at the same time as all the other ingredients instead of adding it later, but the result was pretty much the same. I like a really thick pudding, so for my taste, I should have cooked the pudding a tiny bit longer; I forgot that I’d be stirring in an entire ½ cup of liquid at the very end, which thinned it out somewhat. I also freaked out and threw in some vanilla at the last minute, on the principle that vanilla is delicious with everything and would give it a richer, smoother taste. I liked the resulting flavor, but I’m not sure I can out-and-out recommend it because the bright taste of the unadulterated lemon is great, too—I’d go with straight lemon for a spring/summer version, whereas mine was maybe more appropriate for fall/winter.

As I was making this, I pondered why other fruit-flavored puddings aren’t common. Why not strawberry, for instance? Couldn’t you make a lime or orange pudding using the same method as this lemon one, or would that just be gross? As you know, I had a hard time even finding a banana pudding recipe that had real banana in it. Most of my searches for fruit puddings turn up bread puddings, British-style puddings, or pudding cakes, not plain old pudding pudding. Although I’m not necessarily sure this is something I want to pursue—my ideas for future pudding experiments tend more toward peanut butter or maple. Which off-the-beaten-track pudding flavors sound good to you?

¾ cup sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
2½ cups milk
3 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
A pinch of salt
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

1. Whisk together the sugar and the cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Add the milk and whisk until smooth. Add the egg yolks, zest, and salt and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently at first and constantly towards the end, until thickened.

2. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lemon juice and butter. Press through a fine-mesh strainer into a large serving bowl or four individual serving dishes. Let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate, loosely covered, for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days, until set and thoroughly chilled.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good, for a few days (I've found that homemade pudding eventually gets runny or sort of separates if you keep it too long, although it comes together with a vigorous stirring and still retains its essential yumminess).

ODDS AND ENDS

2011-10-11T17:48:00.001-07:00

Lest you think I’m some sort of perfect kitchen goddess (aw, I know you were thinking it), I must confess to a recent string of cooking disappointments, or at least non-triumphs. Usually if a recipe turns out poorly I don’t bother to post it (don’t worry, though—if I had any really spectacularly inedible disasters I’d definitely write about them for your amusement), but in these cases it’s not the recipe that’s at fault, just my recipe-selection skills, and the results haven’t been unpleasant, just sort of…meh.

I blame the transition to autumn, which has me all confused about what’s in season, what I feel like eating, and what’s appropriate for weather that swings wildly between cool, rainy, and fallish and hot, sunny, and summery. My five-month ovenless state was also a factor, keeping at least half of my recipe collection off-limits and severely limiting which new things I could tackle. At first I approached the challenge with can-do pioneer spirit, trying to focus on what I could cook, but eventually the initial thrill of experimentation—Skillet pizza! Muesli! Puddingfest!—died down, leaving me feeling restless and deprived. I should have just hunkered down and relied on old favorites, but I still felt compelled to seek out and try new recipes to generate blog material, with decidedly mixed results. My to-be-posted queue got clogged with entries I felt ambivalent about, yet couldn’t completely discard. Maybe someone else would want to know about these recipes, or perhaps I’d try them again sometime and love them more, or hey, that photo turned out rather prettily…And so here we are. Now that I have a Brand-New Oven (I should just assign a macro for this phrase, because I’m totally going to try to work it into every blog post from now on), I’m ready to move forward, and I’ve decided a roundup is the best way to tackle all these lingering fragments.

Spinach, Mushroom, and Feta Pizza

I improvised this one after being inspired by, of all things, a pizza I glimpsed on an episode of Man vs. Food Nation. I love spinach, mushrooms, and feta on pizza, but it hadn’t occurred to me to put the three together. I made it so long ago that I can’t really remember the details to share them with you, but my approach was pretty much as you might expect. It turned out tastily, except that somehow, even knowing perfectly well how much spinach shrinks up when you cook it, I didn’t use quite enough and it faded into the background. I’m mainly mentioning this pizza here to remind myself of the concept, because I intend to make it again someday (with double the spinach) and do a full post when I’ve perfected it.

Chicken With Tomato-Herb Pan Sauce/Fresh Corn and Basil Polenta

We eat chicken about once a week, but at least half of my recipes use the oven, so I was getting desperate for new sautéed and grilled versions by the time I spotted this one, originally from Bon Appetit, at Annie’s Eats. It seemed to be getting rave reviews and looked like a super-flavorful treatment for boneless, skinless chicken breasts (oh, how I was missing chicken with actual bones in it at this point!), so I decided to give it a shot, but I wasn’t sure what to serve with it. It seemed like you’d want something to soak up all that savory-looking sauce, but I couldn’t make bread, I don’t like rice, and potatoes with tomatoes just seems weird to me. Annie’s Eats had linked to several other posts about the recipe at other blogs, and one of them, Pink Parsley, showed it being served with this beautiful fresh corn and basil polenta. As soon as I saw it, I wanted it, despite never having made polenta before. Tomatoes, corn, and basil are a perfect combo, after all, and I’ve been obsessed with corn all summer long.

Technically, the recipes turned out just fine…except it turns out that A hates polenta. I should have guessed this, knowing he dislikes other similarly-textured foods like oatmeal, not to mention the fact that he can take or leave corn. It also turns out that that recipe, which neglects to mention this so I assumed it would match the quantities of the chicken recipe, makes a TON of polenta—like eight servings. I figured I’d save the leftovers, let them firm up in a baking dish, and then cut them into squares and fry them up all nice and crispy, but alas, I never got around to it, and to my shame, I ended up throwing it all away. Personally, I liked the recipe, and normally I don’t let it bother me too much when A doesn’t care for something that I’ve made, because he always gives it a fair try and is polite and appreciative and hey, more tasty leftovers for me! This was just one of those cases where I wore myself out making two new recipes at the same time, and then by the time I sat down to eat I was so exhausted and Over It that the whole effort just felt like a horrible miscalculation and a complete waste of time. That’s the problem with having too many cooking victories in a row sometimes—the first thing that’s not a total win feels like a failure. I would definitely recommend the polenta recipe to polenta lovers (make a half-batch, though), and as for the chicken, I wouldn’t mind trying it again someday. Mine turned out a little dry, but the sauce was nice.

Asparagus and Bacon Hash

I actually just wanted to make the sweet corn hash again, but I was trying to restrain myself because it had only been a week since the first time I’d made it, plus corn season is so close to its end that I never know if it will still be there when I show up to the farmer’s market. I know asparagus isn’t in season either, but there’s always one stand selling decent hothouse stuff, and the Smitten Kitchen has never steered me wrong. Indeed, this was a great recipe, and if I’d tried it a month ago you’d definitely have been seeing a whole post about it here, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the corn hash, and I don’t know if I really love hash enough to accommodate two recipes in my repertoire. Maybe when spring rolls around I’ll feel inspired to give this another shot, and if it looks good to you I totally recommend it, but I didn’t care quite enough about it to give it the full blog treatment.

BLT Pizza With Corn

This was another improvisation on my part (I know! Who am I all of a sudden?), an homage on my favorite summer meal of BLTs and corn on the cob. It should have been a slam dunk, considering it involved diced bacon, wilted arugula, heirloom tomato slices, fresh corn kernels, and shredded mozzarella, but somehow it didn’t quite gel. It was quite moist—the tomatoes gave off a lot of liquid, the arugula cooked more than I expected, and maybe I used too much cheese?—and the bacon flavor didn’t come through as much as I expected (I’m thinking I cut the pieces too small). Perhaps I should have scattered fresh arugula on top rather than baking it on there? It tasted just fine and we certainly had no trouble polishing it off, but I was vaguely disappointed. I’m not sure whether I’ll give it another shot or whether I should just let BLTs be BLTs and pizza be pizza.

Maple Frozen Yogurt

Once I’d burned through all the homemade pudding flavors I could think of, it was luckily cool enough to start making ice cream again. I wanted something fallish, but wasn’t quite ready for pumpkin yet, and maple seemed to fit the bill. I wouldn’t describe myself as a maple fan because I hardly ever put syrup on my pancakes or waffles, but when I think harder about it, I have periodically enjoyed maple-flavored things—like Nut Goodies, Minnesota’s distinctive local candy, with which I have a fond history. (At my last job, I wrote a children’s book about candy making that was based on the Pearson’s factory, which involved many tours and all the free Nut Goodies and Salted Nut Rolls I could ever want.) That is apparently the point at which my brain stopped working. This recipe at Sassy Radish was described in such glowing terms that I never really stopped to ponder the fact that it was frozen yogurt and thus tart. Or that it involved sour cream, which is even tarter. All the frozen yogurts and sour cream ice creams I’ve made thus far have been fruity, which to some extent has masked/complemented the tartness, so all I was thinking of was how wonderfully thick sour cream ice cream can be. The maple frozen yogurt was easy to put together, and it sure felt like I was putting in a ridiculous amount of maple syrup (it feels quite bizarre to pour syrup into a bowl of dairy products, by the way), but I was surprised by how not-sweet the result was. I added a bit more syrup (and, in a moment of panic, some vanilla), but the dominant flavor was still, surprise, surprise, yogurt.

What had I been thinking? I do like yogurt, but since I’m on the fence about maple anyway, I’d geared myself up for something candy-sweet, like the interior of a maple cream See’s chocolate, and I had a hard time not being crushed that it didn’t meet my expectations. Still, it wasn’t bad enough to throw away, so it had to be eaten. I knew A wouldn’t like it—he hates that tangy yogurt flavor—but he wasn’t home anyway, so I resignedly scooped myself a bowl. I don’t know whether it was Stockholm Syndrome or what, but after a few bites I really liked it! The syrup flavor was just a subtle sweet smokiness, well balanced by the creamy tartness of the dairy. I wouldn’t make it again, just because I know A won’t eat it (he did try some later and declared his dislike) and I shouldn’t be polishing off entire batches of frozen treats on my own, but I enjoyed it and would recommend it to others. (Just remember: Is tangy!) It also inspired me to look for more maple dessert recipes. I’d like to try a maple pecan ice cream, sure, but I also had a brainwave: Why not maple pudding? It turns out there are several recipes I can try, so yay.

Crustless Broccoli-Feta Quiche

Now that I have my Brand-New Oven, I can try all the baked recipes that have been sitting in my queue for months. This simple, easy egg dish from Poppytalk seemed like a perfect Saturday-night supper, and indeed it was (it would also make a good breakfast or lunch). Not quite exciting enough to devote a whole post to, but the kind of thing I’m glad I know about because it’s so easy to throw together. Obviously, you could use put anything you want into it, but I like broccoli and feta together, and feta and dill together for that matter (baked feta is my love right now—it gets so tantalizingly crisp and browned), so this worked well for me.

So now that I’ve cleared away all my ambivalence, stay tuned for some recipes that got me genuinely excited! I’m kicking it into high gear and putting my Brand-New Oven through its paces this week—I hope it's up to the task.

PISTACHIO PUDDING

2011-10-06T15:56:00.000-07:00

Yes! More pudding! If you’re some kind of weird pudding hater, be forewarned that there is actually still one more pudding recipe in the to-be-posted queue. After that, however, you’re in luck, because glory hallelujah, after suffering with just a stovetop and a broiler lo these many months, I finally have a brand-new oven, which means I will be reveling in cookies and cakes for the foreseeable future. Not that I will ever lose my newfound love of homemade pudding. In fact, Weird Pudding Hater, you can send all your unwanted pudding my way and I’ll gladly finish it off for you.

As far as I can remember, I never tasted a real pistachio until I was well into high school (I just don’t recall seeing them around when I was a kid—maybe they were harder to obtain in Minnesota back then or something?), but Jell-O instant pistachio pudding was always my very favorite flavor, even if I had no idea what it was supposed to taste like or why it was green. I loved it with an intensity matched only by my adoration of the croissants from Napoleon’s Bakery that were stuffed with a fat layer of almond paste. Later, I discovered that the green layer of spumoni ice cream was usually pistachio-flavored, and I would carefully excavate only that portion from my college cafeteria’s self-serve ice cream freezer, leaving the boring chocolate and weird chunky cherry parts behind. What can I say? I’ve always loved those somewhat old-fashioned dessert flavors (see also: butterscotch, butter pecan, butter brickle, maple nut). So as soon as I realized, thanks to this recipe at Joy the Baker, that I could make homemade pistachio pudding using real pistachios, which remain perhaps my favorite kind of nut (although it’s a close tie with cashews), I was all over it.

I made this recipe once before, early in my pudding-making adventures, but didn’t manage to photograph it before we devoured it all. That time, craving a perfectly silky-smooth pudding, I carefully strained it after cooking to remove all the pistachio bits. It was good, but on the thin side, because I wasn’t perfectly experienced with cooking puddings yet. This time around, tired and pressed for time, I just said “Screw it” and skipped the straining, and I gotta say, I don’t know if it was that or my improved pudding-making skills, but it was even better than before. Leaving the pistachio pieces in obviously heightens the flavor, and the texture is nubblier but not off-putting—and actually more reminiscent of the good old Jell-O version, which did have little nut chunks sprinkled throughout. You will, however, notice that unlike the Jell-O version, my pudding is more golden-brown than green. That’s because I lazily used the shelled pistachios from Trader Joe’s, which I’m guessing are roasted after being shelled, thus losing most of their color. If you have the patience to shell the pistachios yourself, you should be rewarded with a gentle green hue.

Ever since I first made this, I’ve been dying to know if I could achieve a decent almond pudding (as tasty as those almond-paste-filled croissants, perhaps?) by substituting almonds for the pistachios and almond extract for some of the vanilla. It seems like it should work, right? I’ll give it a try sometime and let you know—once I’m done playing with my new oven, that is.

½ cup salted pistachio nuts, plus extra for garnishing if desired
⅔ cup granulated sugar, divided
2 tablespoons water
2 cups milk (original recipe calls for whole, but 1% worked for me)
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 pinch of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1. Place ½ cup pistachios in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the nuts are in small bits. Add ⅓ cup sugar and the water, and blend until relatively smooth.

2. Spoon pistachio paste into a medium saucepan. Add the milk and whisk over medium heat until steamy and hot.

3. While milk is heating, whisk together ⅓ cup sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, and pinch of salt. (Mixture will be thick; keep whisking until it’s smooth.) Pour ½ cup of the steaming pistachio milk into the sugar and egg mixture; whisk together. Add another ½ cup of hot milk and whisk to incorporate. Return the milky egg mixture to the saucepan over medium heat.

4. Heat pudding mixture over medium heat until thick and bubbly, whisking constantly. (You might also want to use a heat-proof spatula to stir the mixture, ensuring that the sides and corners of the pan aren’t burning.) Boil for about 1 minute, or until fully thickened. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla extract, until butter is melted. If you want a smoother pudding, press cooked pudding through a fine-mesh strainer set over a medium bowl to remove the pistachio pieces.

5. Spoon into small ramekins, cover the surface of the individual puddings with plastic wrap if you don’t like pudding skin (I happen to love it), and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours. If desired, garnish with chopped pistachios before serving.

Serves: 6
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; pudding will last, covered, in the refrigerator for about 4 days.

CHOCOLATE PUDDING

2011-09-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

Once I began my pudding mania, chocolate pudding was bound to happen, and I am happy to report that it was just as delicious as expected. I’d bookmarked this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, but at the last minute I balked at the thought of having to futz with a double boiler, even though I’m sure pudding made with pure melted chocolate is divine. I figured there must be puddings made with cocoa powder instead, and as usual, Simply Recipes delivered a strong, straightforward one.

As usual, I used 1% milk instead of whole and detected no ill effects. I also tossed in a little vanilla extract, because it always seems to make chocolatey things taste even better. My one error was managing to cook my pudding until it was actually a tiny bit too thick; I didn’t really think that was possible, but I’d forgotten that this pudding would be enriched with chocolate chips at the end, which of course makes it set to a firmer consistency. Mine was almost like a soft ganache instead of a pudding—not unpleasant by any means, but I think I’ll go easier on it next time. This is definitely a must-have basic recipe, so easy to throw together whenever a chocolate craving strikes. If you’ve never made pudding that didn’t come out of a box (which I certainly hadn’t before this summer), I urge you to give this one a try.

¼ cup sugar
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 pinch of salt
2 cups milk (original recipe calls for whole, but 1% worked fine for me)
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

1. Whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, and salt in a heavy 2-quart saucepan. Gradually whisk in the milk. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly, and boil, continuing to whisk, until pudding is thick, about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. Immediately beat the egg lightly in a medium heat-proof bowl. Very gradually, add the hot chocolate mixture to the egg, whisking constantly. Whisk in the vanilla, then add the chocolate chips and stir until they are melted and the mixture is smooth.

3. Pour the pudding into the ramekins or cups. If you want, cover the surface of each of pudding with plastic wrap or wax paper to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate, covered, until cold, at least 2 hours.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: OK; pudding will keep for a few days in the fridge.

SWEET CORN HASH

2011-09-12T15:48:00.001-07:00

Shortly after making chilled avocado soup with a corn-bacon-jalapeno-onion-cilantro topping so delicious I could have just as happily eaten it sans soup, I stumbled across a recipe that’s pretty much exactly that. This iteration—from The Way the Cookie Crumbles, based on a version by Joy the Baker, who is the source of the avocado soup recipe, so we have truly come full circle here—is rounded out into a hearty breakfast (or, in my case, a cozy Saturday night supper) with the addition of potatoes and eggs. I punched up the color and vitamins by serving the whole thing over a bed of greens (spinach because I had an orphaned half-bag in the fridge, although I would have used arugula otherwise), which added a nice freshness and texture—the greens achieve a pleasant state of semi-wiltiness, with the egg yolk coating them like a dressing. The original recipe didn’t call for jalapeno, but Bridget mentioned adding roasted green chile, and since jalapeno had been so tasty in the soup topping, I figured it would be good here, too (spoiler: it was). And, in a further effort to replicate the magic of the soup topping, I subbed cilantro for parsley again and was well pleased.

My one misstep was to distrust the idea of cooking potatoes in the microwave (I know it’s perfectly possible, but I’ve never done it and our microwave is rather temperamental, so I wimped out). The original Joy the Baker recipe calls for them to be roasted, but my oven’s still defunct (GRRR), so I boiled them instead. This of course (a) took more time than microwaving and (b) made them quite soft and damp, which in turn made them take forever to get browned and crispy in the skillet, and they broke down quite a bit in the process. I don’t know why I didn’t just start frying the potatoes from a raw state, which is what hash recipes usually direct you to do, except that sometimes it’s hard to get the potatoes tender that way before they’re too well browned on the outside, and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s a crunchy potato. (This is, in my view, the downfall of 70 percent of restaurant breakfast potato preparations.) In retrospect, I should have just tried the microwave method. Next time! For there will certainly be a next time; this is my favorite version of hash I’ve ever made. I loved the way the sweetness of the corn balanced out the smoky fried flavors, with a hint of spice from the pepper and brightness from the cilantro. Also, I’m late to the party with this—it took me a long time to learn to tolerate runny yolks—but I’m becoming obsessed with topping things with eggs. Note to self: Eat more eggs; you like them. Also: learn to poach.

4 slices bacon, chopped
4 medium red potatoes, cubed
1 onion, chopped
1 medium jalapeno, seeded and chopped
4 ears corn, kernels removed
¼ cup cilantro, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 eggs
4 large handfuls spinach or arugula (optional)

1. In a large nonstick skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium heat, cook the bacon until almost crisp.

2. While the bacon cooks, put the potatoes in a medium microwave-safe bowl; spoon a couple teaspoons of rendered bacon fat from the skillet into the bowl; stir. Cover the potatoes loosely and microwave on high for 3 minutes, stirring twice.

3. Add the onions and potatoes to the skillet with the bacon; cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 8 minutes. Stir in the corn and most of the cilantro.

4. Lower the heat to medium-low. Using the back of a spoon, create 4 wells in the hash. Break one egg into each well; season with salt and pepper. Cover the pan and cook, without stirring, until the white is set, about 8 minutes. Garnish with the remaining cilantro; serve immediately, over spinach or arugula if desired.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK, except the eggs will not keep or reheat well. If you’re planning to save some as leftovers, fry the eggs separately for the servings you’re going to eat right away (as shown in the photo above), then fry additional eggs as needed when it’s time to eat the leftovers. Alternately, you can break the eggs into the cooking pan but break the yolks of the ones you want to save for leftovers, so that they cook thoroughly and harden (they will be slightly tough in the leftovers, but edible—more of a scrambled consistency).

CHILLED AVOCADO SOUP WITH CORN AND BACON

2011-09-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

In general, ice cream and popsicles aside, I don’t like cold food. Even in the hottest weather, I prefer my salads at room temperature. And the less said about cold pizza, the better. (Ugh, I can’t get over the congealed melted cheese.) Obviously, then, I have never really warmed (ha) to chilled soups. Most of the gazpachos I’ve encountered have just made me feel like I’m eating a big bowl of salsa. Given that logic, when I spotted this cold avocado soup at Joy the Baker I should have assumed it would taste like eating a big bowl of pureed guacamole, but instead I thought, “Ooh, pretty!” and “Ah, corn and bacon!” Maybe it’s just that I really like guacamole, or maybe the warm topping made it seem less like sauce disguised as a meal to me, but I bookmarked it instantly and made it soon afterward, in the throes of a 100-plus-degree heat wave.

This soup is good, with a wonderful velvety texture. The dominant flavors are, of course, avocado and lime (which I was even more generous with), but the savory broth (the recipe called for vegetable, but I used homemade chicken stock because I like its flavor so much) and the dollop of dairy (the recipe suggested sour cream, crème fraiche, or milk, but I knew plain yogurt—specifically, Trader Joe’s nonfat European-style yogurt, which is thin but not watery and my go-to for stirring into soups and sauces—would be the perfect choice for me) save it from guacamole-dom. I took a taste after blending it up and liked it pretty well but wasn’t sure I could eat a whole bowl of it. But the topping—oh, the topping!

The original recipe called for “cooked bacon,” as though you would just happen to have some sitting around, and then had you sauté the vegetables in olive oil. LOGIC FAIL! The best part of bacon is the grease, specifically the heavenly, transformative things it does to whatever you happen to cook in it. So I fried up some bacon, removed it from the skillet, and then cooked the onion, corn, and jalapeno in it, which was absolutely the correct choice. My second gripe with the original recipe was that it called for parsley when, to me, cilantro is made for moments like this—big handfuls of it, too. I mean, with avocado, jalapeno, and corn, we’re clearly already rocking this soup southwestern-style, am I right? When the topping mixture was all softened and browned and generously seasoned, I took a taste and had to stop myself from eating the entire skilletful with a spoon while standing over the stove. Stirred into the soup, it elevated it from “Hmm” to “Hell yes!”, its smoky heat providing much-needed textural, temperature, and flavor contrasts to the cold green creaminess. Instead of feeling like I was eating a beverage or condiment in a bowl, I thoroughly enjoyed this as a refreshing, satisfying summer meal.

Sauteeing the topping in bacon fat and swapping in cilantro really made this dish extra awesome, but then I made a major misstep in packaging up the leftovers: Not realizing how much I was going to enjoy the interplay between the warm topping and the cold soup, I premixed all my topping and soup portions before putting them in the fridge (perhaps I was a bit distracted by the complicated serving instructions in the original recipe, which asked me to put the topping in the bowls and then add the soup around it; for me, that just ended up burying the topping). When I went to eat the leftovers, I realized this meant I either had to heat the whole thing up (Cooked avocado soup? No thanks) or eat it all cold. It turned out I didn’t enjoy the topping nearly as well cold—especially the soggy-chewy-greasy texture of the bacon—and it was clear I should have stored the two components separately, so I could microwave the topping and then add it to the chilled soup. If I’d done that, this recipe would have been downright perfect. Oh, well; live and learn. I’m almost hoping for another heat wave this month (not unlikely, given Southern California’s traditionally hot Septembers) so I have an excuse to eat this one more time before autumn sets in.

2 ripe avocados
1 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1–2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons plain yogurt (or sour cream, creme fraiche, or milk)
¾ teaspoon salt, plus extra to taste
1¼ to 1½ cups water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
2 ears fresh corn, sliced from the cob
1 small jalapeno pepper, de-seeded and diced
4 slices diced bacon
1 handful cilantro, chopped
Freshly cracked pepper to taste

1. To make the soup, place avocado flesh in a blender along with broth, lime juice, yogurt (or sour cream, crème fraiche, or milk), and ¾ teaspoon salt. Blend until the avocados are creamy. Remove the center from your blender lid, and while blending, slowly add 1¼ cups water. Soup will be done when smooth, with your desired consistency—feel free to add another ½ cup water if you prefer a thinner soup. Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary. Place in a covered container in the fridge (I just left it in the blender pitcher) while you make the topping.

2. To make the topping, cook bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and set on a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Add onion to the bacon fat in the skillet and cook until translucent and browned, about 5 minutes. Add corn and jalapeno and cook for 3 minutes more. Add bacon and cilantro. Cook until everything is warmed and just browned. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Divide the cold soup into four bowls and top each with one-quarter of the warm topping mixture (unless you’re planning on keeping some of the soup as leftovers—see my note below). Garnish with additional cilantro, if desired.

Serves: 4
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: Soup will last for about three days in an airtight container in the fridge. I recommend storing the topping mixture in a separate container, so you can reheat it before adding it to the cold soup.

BANANA PUDDING

2011-09-12T15:35:00.001-07:00

After getting hooked on homemade pudding, I started looking for new pudding recipes. I’d already bookmarked the usual suspects, vanilla and chocolate—which make up the vast majority of available recipes—as well as my childhood faves, butterscotch and pistachio, but it was surprisingly hard to find other options. In trying to narrow my search, I was brainstorming my way through the Jell-O instant pudding varieties and remembered banana pudding. Literal banana-flavored pudding, not the Southern dessert made with vanilla pudding, sliced bananas, whipped cream, and Nilla Wafers. I do remember my (most definitely not Southern) mom making this occasionally when I was a kid, and although I liked the flavors together, I was never really a fan of all that lumpy stuff interrupting the nice, smooth texture of my pudding. I preferred the fake-banana flavor of the instant variety, so I thought it would be fun to try to replicate that with real banana. Unfortunately, 99 percent of the “banana pudding” recipes on the Internet are for the Southern-style version, and of the remaining 1% that are actually banana flavored, most seem to call for banana extract rather than an actual banana. After a dogged search, however, I finally found what I was looking for—at least, sort of—at Homesick Texan. It was still a version of the Southern dessert, but lo and behold, there was a pureed banana in the pudding itself!

I ended up improvising to an uncharacteristic degree with this one. I tinkered with the procedure to make it more similar to the other pudding recipes I’ve made (adding the egg midway through the cooking time rather than at the end), but my main changes were to the banana cooking method; since my oven was broken, I couldn’t roast the banana as the recipe asked me to. My original plan had been to use a ripe frozen banana instead (I always have some in reserve for banana pancakes), because when defrosted again they become almost totally liquefied. But then I happened to acquire some non-frozen ripe bananas from work that week, and I couldn’t resist gilding the lily. I’d had great success with adding rum to my vanilla pudding, so what about taking a cue from bananas Foster and putting rum in my banana pudding too? And if I was doing that, I should really go whole hog and sauté my banana in butter and brown sugar, right? I don’t even like bananas all that much, but I can’t resist a caramelized banana. I also, afraid there wouldn’t be enough banana flavor, used two small bananas instead of one large one.

For the most part, I think my plan worked pretty well, but I’d like to experiment a bit more in the future. I went easy on the brown sugar (just 1 tablespoon, I think) in sautéing the banana, fearing the finished pudding would be too sweet, but I didn’t end up getting much caramel flavor and almost wished for more sweetness at the end. The caramelizing also created some textural challenges; as the pureed banana mixture cooled while I heated the milk, the sugar resolidified and I had to whisk it like the dickens to break up the chunks after adding it to the pot, so either this isn’t the best method, I need to sauté the banana simultaneously while heating up the milk so it doesn’t get a chance to cool, or I need to learn to live with some lumps in my banana pudding. The latter may well be the case; I always think of bananas as being smooth and soft, but they have some fibrousness to them and never break down entirely in baked goods, so it’s probably unrealistic to expect them to do so here. I suspect the reason that I didn’t find many pudding recipes using real banana is that it’s nearly impossible to get a totally smooth end product resembling the creamy, pillowy artificially flavored Jell-O version. I even strained mine to be sure and still ended up with small grainy flecks. But if I can live with pistachio pieces in my pistachio pudding, why not banana pieces in my banana pudding? Or did I simply use a bit too much banana?

Texture issues aside, the flavor was quite good. I thought it tasted a smidge flat (it needed more brown sugar, a pinch of salt, or both), but A, who was absent for the initial tasting session and ate his portion after I went to bed, loved it so much that he wrote a note to me on the bathroom mirror singing its praises, so it’s possible my expectations were just too high. Even though it wasn’t my favorite of the puddings I’ve made so far, it was certainly worth making again. I’d like to try some variations to see if I can improve it, though—once with the frozen-and-defrosted banana to see if that makes it smoother, once (if my oven is ever repaired) with roasted banana as written, and once again with the caramelized banana but more brown sugar. The best thing about pudding is that it always seems to taste good even if it’s too thick or too thin or too lumpy, so I’m happy to devour any number of “failed” batches in the name of science. I’ll keep you posted!

1 large ripe banana or 2 small ripe bananas
1–2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar (optional)
2 cups milk (1% worked just fine for me)
⅓ cup white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon rum (optional)

1. Place the unpeeled banana(s) on a parchment-paper lined sheet and roast in the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until skin blackens; then peel banana and lightly mash with a fork. Alternatively, peel and slice the banana(s) and sauté in 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat with the 2 tablespoons brown sugar, then puree with a food processor, blender, or immersion blender until smooth.

2. Place the milk, white sugar, and cornstarch in a saucepan, mix well with a whisk, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until just before it boils. Add the mashed banana and whisk until as smooth as possible.

3. Beat the egg in a separate dish. Very gradually add 1 cup of hot pudding, stirring constantly, and then add egg mixture back to the pot of pudding on the stove.

4. Bring pudding to a boil, stirring constantly, and boil 1 minute or until thickened.

5. Remove pudding from heat and mix in the vanilla, 1 tablespoon butter (I skipped this here since I’d already sautéed the banana in butter, but you could do both for a richer pudding), and rum (if using).

6. Press pudding through a fine-mesh strainer to remove any stringy banana pieces.

7. Divide pudding among four ramekins or airtight containers, cover surface of pudding with plastic wrap if you don’t like pudding skin, and chill.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Will keep in the fridge for a few days.

HERB GARDEN POTATO SALAD WITH SPINACH AND LEMON

2011-09-08T16:20:00.001-07:00

I seem to be accumulating a lot of potato salad recipes for someone who hates potato salad—or at least claimed to until last year, when I realized it doesn’t necessarily have to be ice-cold and dripping with mayonnaise). Just when I think I’m all set with my two faves, along comes another good-looking recipe, like this one from The Kitchn, so alluring with its lemony greenness. I love potatoes with dill and parsley and shallots, I love lemon-olive oil dressings, and I love spinach, so it seemed like it couldn’t go wrong—and it didn’t, even though I tried my best to flub it by temporarily forgetting how many ounces are in two pounds and only putting in three-quarters of the amount of potatoes. Luckily, one of the main things I like about this recipe is how many greens are packed in here, yet they’re wilted by the heat of the potatoes so you still feel like you’re eating a potato dish, not a leafy salad with potatoes in it. Even A, not always a veggie fan, claimed to like my overly high ratio of spinach to potatoes and said he’d happily have it that way again.

Aside from that inadvertent change, I did make one important improvement to the recipe: adding Dijon mustard to the dressing. I think mustard and potatoes are BFFs, but even if you don’t care for the flavor of mustard that much, a dab of it in a salad dressing will work savory wonders without necessarily being identifiable as mustard. I always add it to my everyday lemon vinaigrette, and since the dressing here was basically the same thing, I thought it seemed a shame to leave it out. Mine was probably a pretty heaping spoonful, but I’ve added it to the recipe below as a more modest 1 teaspoon; use your judgment depending on your degree of mustard love. My one regret: Adding the 1 teaspoon of sugar that the original recipe called for. I was trying to play by the rules the first time around and trust that it added some important element, but I should have trusted my instincts—I enjoy my lemony tartness straight up, so I could taste the sweetness in the dressing and didn’t like it. I wouldn’t add the sugar in the future, and I’ve removed it from the recipe below.

Lemons and dill and new potatoes always remind me of spring, so that’s when I’d be most likely to crave this salad, but it was good in the summer too. Plus, since it can be served warm and the ingredients are things most people can get fresh year-round, it would be a lively way to brighten up your winter diet.

2 pounds extra-small Yukon Gold potatoes
1 large lemon, juiced and zested
⅓ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
5 ounces fresh baby spinach, well-washed
⅔ cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, loosely packed
⅔ cup fresh dill fronds, loosely packed
3 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat a large pot of water to boiling and salt the water generously. Add the potatoes and cook for 15 to 18 minutes, or until they are quite tender and creamy. Drain, slice each potato in half, and place them in a large bowl.

2. In a measuring cup, whisk together the lemon juice, zest, mustard, and olive oil. Whisk until well-combined; it will be thick and opaque yellow. Pour over the hot potatoes and stir gently until the potatoes are coated with dressing.

3. Slice the spinach leaves into thin ribbons. Mince the parsley leaves and the dill fronds as well. Add the spinach, parsley, dill, and shallots to the potatoes, and toss gently. The spinach and herbs will wilt as they are combined with the hot potatoes. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. Serve warm, at room temperature, or chilled.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

WATERMELON SALAD WITH FETA, MINT, AND LIME

2011-09-06T16:57:00.000-07:00

Even though I firmly believe summer isn’t summer without watermelon, my appetite for it is limited. I love its cool, crisp, and well, watery properties, but its sweetness can be cloying. I’d had savory treatments of watermelon before—a restaurant near my office serves a complimentary appetizer of watermelon with balsamic vinegar, feta, and basil—but they’d never really spoken to me. This one, however, looked so pretty, and I am fully aware what wonderful things mint and lime can do for fruit, and my obsession with feta only grows, so I gave it a try and HOLY COW, PEOPLE.

Make this right away. Seriously. It does crazy things to your taste buds, transforming the relatively uncomplicated flavor of the watermelon into a salty-sweet-savory kaleidoscope. You can even leave off the cheese if that seems just too weird to you—it does add a wonderful saltiness, and the contrast of its creaminess with the liquidity of the watermelon is interesting, but I’m convinced that it’s really the lime, mint, and pinch of salt that I love the most here. The lime adds that tang I’m always missing from watermelon, the mint makes the watermelon even more refreshing than you ever dreamed possible, and the salt cuts the sweetness so much that it really brings out the melon flavor in the watermelon, something you can’t always detect when it’s accompanied by all that sugar. This is all theoretical, though, because I haven’t tried it without the feta yet; I’m addicted to it just the way it is. It’s become my default way of preparing watermelon, and I’m going to have trouble going back to the plain stuff after this.

I first made this when A and I were going to the Hollywood Bowl, and it was very tasty as a picnic food—I just assembled it a few hours ahead of time, leaving the feta, mint, lime, and salt on the very top of the container of watermelon until it was time to eat. I’ve also taken it to work for lunch that way, putting it together the night before. But over time, the salt draws so much juice out of the watermelon and the feta starts to break down in the acid, leaving you with a milky-watery mess, so it’s really best to eat this fresh, with all the ingredients still chilled from the fridge. Luckily, it’s so easy to make that I can throw together a single serving at the drop of a hat. Measurements aren’t really necessary here (just don’t drown the watermelon in the toppings; it should still be the main feature), but if I had to guess I’d say I use the juice from a quarter of a lime, a tablespoon of chopped mint, a tablespoon of feta, and a single pinch of fleur de sal per every cereal-bowl-sized serving of watermelon.

Watermelon, cubed
Feta cheese, crumbled
Fresh mint leaves, cut in ribbons
Freshly squeezed lime juice
Coarse finishing salt, such as fleur de sal

1. Place your watermelon on a plate or in a bowl.

2. Sprinkle watermelon with feta cheese, mint ribbons, lime juice, and a pinch of salt.

Serves: As many or few as you like
Time: 5 minutes
Leftover potential: Will be OK for a few hours in the refrigerator (leave the toppings on top of the watermelon and don’t stir to combine until you’re ready to eat), but it’s best freshly made.

VANILLA PUDDING

2011-09-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

I wish I had fallen in love with a dessert that’s a little more photogenic…

It’s puddingmania over here right now. I’ve made four kinds of pudding in the past month (one of which will be posted shortly; the other I forgot to photograph and will be forced to make again—poor me!), one of them twice. I can’t get enough! All the recipes are similar in terms of ingredients and basic procedure (heat milk, add egg, heat again until thick), but it’s interesting to see how much the methods vary—more so than, say, your basic cookie or cake recipes. Some have you heat the milk with the cornstarch and sugar, others have you add them to the egg mixture. I sense that pudding is a lot more forgiving than I expected. Even if you mess up and it turns out lumpy, you can always just strain it. And if it’s too thin: it’s creme anglaise!

Of all the recipes I’ve tried so far, this one has been, rather surprisingly, my favorite. I say “surprisingly” because even though I love vanilla more with each passing year, I still tend to think of it as a plain favor on its own, something I would rarely choose over, say, pistachio or butterscotch. I don’t know if this recipe was just the best of the bunch (which wouldn’t be a shock, considering it’s from the Smitten Kitchen) or if I just really nailed the execution, but it came out wonderfully. Part of what I loved about it was that it is really custardy, by far the thickest pudding I’ve made so far (even though I used 1% instead of whole), so thick it pulls away slightly from the sides of the ramekin when you stick your spoon into it, and it turns out I love thick pudding. It also seems that I love pudding skin, which I’d never encountered before because I’d never had homemade pudding, except my mom’s (skinless) rice and tapioca puddings when I was a kid. It’s often maligned and I’d always thought it sounded gross—I mean, “skin”?—but in fact, the way I’m encountering it in my own puddings, it’s just a slightly thicker top to the pudding, not something slimy and chewy that you can peel off in a big sheet, as I had always envisioned it.

I am also learning that the full flavor of pudding doesn’t tend to come through when it’s still warm. The vanilla bean I was using was rather elderly, and once I’d finished making the pudding, I kept tasting it and it seemed sort of bland, so I added some vanilla extract (about a teaspoon, I think) just in case. Then I saw that Deb had mentioned that you could add a teaspoon of rum if you wanted, and I had a tiny bottle in the cupboard left over from some baking project, so I went for it. I wasn’t sure I could taste any difference in the hot pudding, but into the fridge it went. A few hours later I spooned a bite of chilled pudding into my mouth and—zowie! It probably would have been fine if I’d left it as written, but the extra vanilla and rum pushed it over the top into amazing. (You couldn’t identify the rum and rum per se—it just seemed to enhance the vanilla even more.) Not too sweet, slightly eggy, intensely creamy without being especially rich, and super-vanilla-flavored, this recipe is definitely a keeper.

2⅔ cups milk (the original recipe calls for whole milk, but I used 1% with no ill effects), divided
½ cup sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
½ vanilla bean (or 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract) (or ½ vanilla bean plus 1 teaspoon extract, if you’re me)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon rum (optional)

1. Bring 2 cups of the milk just barely to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.

2. While the milk is heating, if you are using a vanilla bean, scrape out the seeds into the bottom of a medium, heatproof bowl (I recommend adding the scraped-out pod to the pot of simmering milk for an extra vanilla boost). Add sugar, cornstarch, and salt, and whisk to combine. Gradually whisk in the remaining ⅔ cup milk, a little at a time so lumps do not form, then whisk in the egg.

3. Once the rest of the milk is boiling, remove the vanilla pod if you used it, then very gradually add the milk to the cornstarch mixture in the bowl, whisking the whole time.

4. Return the mixture to the saucepan, stirring constantly with a silicon spatula or wooden spoon. Once it comes to a full simmer, cook it for one minute longer. Stir in vanilla extract if you’re using it and the rum if desired. Divide pudding among 4 to 6 dishes (cover the surface of each pudding with plastic wrap if you don’t like pudding skin). Chill in refrigerator until fully set, about 2 hours.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; will last a few days in the fridge.

MUESLI

2011-08-26T16:45:00.001-07:00

For several summers when I was in my early teens, I attended a two-week German-language immersion camp. The counselors spoke German to us all the time from the instant we arrived, and in addition to the language, we learned German songs, dances, games, and so forth. The food was German, too, and I remember it actually being pretty good, which is a glowing testimonial considering what a picky eater I was at the time. I liked the noodles and schnitzel and potatoes, and different varieties of bread were baked fresh on site daily, so if there was nothing else I liked I could always have plenty of tasty brot und butter. (It also helped that there was great chocolate—we could buy Ritter Sport and Toblerone, which at the time were hard to find in the U.S., at the little commissary every day.) I remember enjoying the breakfasts especially; there were these wonderful big, fluffy white rolls with butter and jam, and sometimes there was muesli.

I probably would have forgotten about muesli completely if it hadn’t been for the fact that my oven has been out of order for months, depriving me of my two favorite breakfast foods, granola and baked oatmeal. I tried making oatmeal in the microwave or on the stovetop for a while, but I just couldn’t muster up much enthusiasm for it, especially as the summer temperatures soared and the prospect of eating a piping hot breakfast held less and less appeal. In my desperation, I wondered, what if I just threw most of my usual granola ingredients—oats, coconut, nuts, fruit—in a bowl and poured milk over them? Well, duh: That’s muesli! I gave it a shot, and as soon as I tasted it, I was transported right back to those happy days at camp. More importantly, it was delicious: I love the taste of raw oats (I pop a handful in my mouth whenever I’m cooking or baking with them), and I’ve always been a little disappointed by the way that taste gets muted in cooked oatmeal. In muesli, the oats absorb enough milk to become tender, but they still retain their flavor and a pleasing chewiness (although unless you want to soak them in milk overnight, I recommend sticking to the smaller quick oats). I add oat bran and flaxseed for more fiber, nuts for protein, a hint of sweetness and spice, and fruit for moisture, vitamins, and color. Plus coconut, because I love coconut.

I’ve really been enjoying this as a summer breakfast—it’s hearty but not heavy, easier to eat than granola (sometimes all that crunching can be tiring first thing in the morning!), infinitely customizable, and very cool and refreshing, plus a great way to use up some of that juicy summer fruit (I always seem to buy a bit too much, and then it ripens all at once). You can put whatever you want in it, in whatever quantities you prefer, but the following is my rough template. I usually just mix it up in the morning before I eat it (on weekends or days I’m working at home), without worrying about precise measurements, and sometimes I throw together two or three servings at once while I’m at it, but I haven’t tried making a big batch yet. It would be really easy, though, if you don’t mind doing the math.

½ cup quick oats
1 tablespoon oat bran
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal
1 tablespoon unsweetened flaked coconut
2–3 tablespoons nuts (I usually use sliced almonds or chopped pecans)
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 teaspoon brown sugar
A few pinches of cinnamon and/or cardamom
½ cup fresh fruit (I usually use fresh blueberries, sliced strawberries, or chopped peaches or nectarines, but banana or apple might be good too, and I imagine you could use dried fruit such as raisins or apricots)
Milk to taste (or yogurt, if you prefer)

1. In a cereal bowl, combine all ingredients except fruit and milk. Stir well, then top with fruit.

2. Add enough milk to moisten the oats to your liking (they absorb some of the liquid, so be generous), stir, and eat.

Serves: 1
Time: 5 minutes
Leftover potential: If you double, triple, or otherwise multiply this recipe and want to save some for later, stop before adding the fruit and milk; place muesli in an airtight container and store at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Add the fruit and milk when ready to serve.

BUTTERSCOTCH PUDDING

2011-08-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

Pudding is one of those things I rarely remember to think about, but on the rare occasion that I do, I also remember that I love it. So smooth, cool, and creamy! One of the only things I liked about my college cafeteria, besides the perpetual availability of cereal and ice cream, was that I could almost always get a little bowl of pudding with a dollop of whipped topping with (or, occasionally, as) my meal. So naturally, what do I do to satisfy my sweet tooth when it’s too hot to make or even buy ice cream (we have no air conditioning, and our freezer gets a bit indifferent about keeping things fully frozen when the outdoor temperature tops 90) and I can’t bake cookies, cake, pie, cobblers, or crisps because my oven is STILL BROKEN (not that I’m not bitter or anything)? Why, learn to make homemade pudding, of course!

Which, it turns out, is ~~as easy as~~ easier than pie. Sugar, milk, cornstarch, eggs, simmer, stir, a little butter and vanilla, chill, done. Sure, you have to temper things, but that’s just a fancy way of saying “pour, stir, pour.” I was worried my pudding wouldn’t set, but it turned out just fine—and besides, once I had a little taste, I realized it was so delicious I’d drink it through a straw if I had to. Given my intense love of all things caramel-like, this Cooking Light recipe for butterscotch (or, probably more accurately, brown sugar) pudding was a no-brainer for my first outing, and it’s going to be a hard one to top—but I’ve already hunted down further recipes for pistachio (my childhood fave), chocolate, vanilla, lemon, banana, and peanut butter, so expect many more pudding posts in the near future. Sweet but light, comforting but cold, it makes a surprisingly refreshing and grown-up (if slightly unphotogenic) summer dessert. The only change to the recipe I made was to nix the fat-free whipped topping, because ew. I like this pudding straight up, but if I wanted whipped cream I’d use the real stuff.

Postscript, September 2011: After trying a few more pudding recipes and becoming more confident in my pudding-making skills, I made this again and got a much thicker, more satisfying result, so I’ve made a few small changes and clarifications to the recipe below. I think I was too meek about cooking the pudding until it was thick enough the first time around, thinking that it was OK that it was fairly thin when I finished cooking because it would do most of its thickening when chilled, like instant pudding. Not so! It should really be close to normal pudding texture before you take it off the stove, so when Step 3 says “bring to a boil,” it means it; it may take more time than you expect, but there should be bubbles that can’t be stirred away before you start the 1-minute clock, and—assuming that, like me, you prefer a thicker pudding texture—you should definitely rely on your eyes rather than the timer to make the judgment about when it’s done. As long as you’re stirring constantly (good arm workout!) and nothing’s burning (keep the heat at medium; I’ve found that a silicon spatula is the best tool here, for making sure the pudding doesn’t stick to the bottom and corners of the pot), I don’t think you need to worry about overcooking, so let that sucker thicken. Oh, and I edited out the part about chilling the pudding in a bowl of ice; it’s a hassle, no other pudding recipe I’ve seen calls for it, and I skipped it the second time around with no ill effects. I suspect that perhaps it’s intended to reduce the formation of pudding skin, but it turns out I love pudding skin!

1 cup packed dark brown sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
½ teaspoon salt
3 cups 1% low-fat milk, divided
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Combine brown sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a saucepan. Gradually add 2 cups milk and stir with a whisk until blended. Cook mixture over medium heat to 180 degrees or until tiny bubbles form around the edge (do not boil), whisking occasionally.

2. Place egg and egg yolk in a large heatproof bowl and beat lightly with a whisk. Add 1 cup remaining 1 cup milk and stir with a whisk.

3. Very gradually add 1 cup of hot milk mixture to egg mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Add egg mixture to saucepan. Bring to a full boil over medium heat; cook 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly (a silicon spatula works very well for this). Remove from heat; stir in butter and vanilla.

4. Spoon pudding into individual serving bowls; if you don’t like pudding skin, cover surface of pudding with plastic wrap. Chill.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Keeps in the fridge for at least a few days.

SUMMER LASAGNA

2011-08-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

I don’t think I’ll make this recipe again, but I couldn’t resist sharing it because it’s so pretty, even with my sloppy construction and poorly lit photography. And maybe someone else will enjoy it more; after all, we didn’t hate it, just found it a bit bland. (It’s also hard to eat, even more slippery than normal lasagna—it deconstructs itself as soon as you put a fork into it.) But layering noodles with cheese and vegetables right on the plate for a refreshing no-bake lasagna (yes, my oven is still broken) is such a clever idea that I’m sure someone with more improvisational skills could adapt it into something amazing. I did make a few additions in an effort to punch up the flavor, and I’m glad I did, because otherwise it would have been totally boring.

The original recipe is from Martha Stewart, but I spotted a link to an adaptatio n of it in a roundup of summery lasagna recipe s at The Kitchn. The adapted version made a few changes to Martha’s recipe, most notably increasing the quantity of the cheeses and basil, which I of course was on board with. Also included in the roundup was this recipe from Rachael Ray, which wasn’t as useful to me because it doesn’t involve noodles (I was looking to get rid of a half-boxful that had been haunting my cupboard for ages), but it did captivate me with its addition of lemon to the ricotta, making it similar to this tasty sandwich recipe in my archives. Further inspired by that sandwich, I decided to add my basil to the ricotta filling as well, rather than just sprinkling it around the finished lasagna. (I also did away with the 2 teaspoons of olive oil in the ricotta—it seemed unnecessary.) And while cooking, I decided to throw some red pepper flakes into the tomatoes to add a little spice.

I was a bit perplexed by how to build the actual lasagna. Martha calls for the noodles to be cut in half, which I did, but that makes them more like long rectangles than the squares shown in the photos, and I ended up trimming the ends off them so they would fit on my plates and not make gigantic servings (they still ended up being generous portions). I noticed that the adapted version has the noodles cut into thirds, which makes more sense, but it still calls for the same total number as Martha does, without explaining what to do with the extras. (If you cut your noodles into thirds, you’d really only need to cook six of them instead of eight, yielding 18 noodle pieces of which you’d use 16, four per serving.) And then since cherry tomatoes are involved, my layers didn’t lay flat, but got all lumpy. The photos at the other sites are a lot prettier than my finished product, but they look like they only contain a fraction of the total filling—a few zucchini slices and tomatoes scattered on each layer. I didn’t want to throw food away, so I ended up with askew, teeteringly high piles. I don’t like recipes that have you cook a bunch of food and not use all of it.

This is an elegant presentation for a summer pasta, but unfortunately it’s more interesting to look at than to eat. Once you bite in and the layers slide every which way (you may want to serve this in shallow bowls rather than on plates), it quickly becomes just tepid noodles, tomatoes, and zucchini in a creamy (but at least lemony, thanks to Rachael Ray) sauce—not unpleasant, but nothing too special. Next time I have noodles to use up, I’ll try stovetop lasagna or lasagna rollups instead.

The chaos!

1 cup ricotta
¼ cup grated Parmesan
Zest of one lemon
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
8 lasagna noodles, broken in half crosswise
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 minced garlic clove
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 pints cherry tomatoes, halved
2 medium zucchini (about 1 pound total), halved and thinly sliced into half-moons
½ cup torn basil leaves

1. In a medium bowl, combine ricotta, Parmesan, lemon zest and juice, basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

2. Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions and drain.

3. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, red pepper flakes, and tomatoes. Cook until slightly broken down, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

3. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the same skillet and when it is heated, add zucchini. Season with salt and pepper and cook about 5 minutes or until tender.

4. Scatter a few tomatoes over four plates. Top with one noodle, a spoonful of ricotta mixture, zucchini, and more tomatoes. Repeat layering twice, then finish with one more noodle and the remaining tomatoes. Serve, garnishing with more basil if desired.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

SHAVED SUMMER SQUASH SALAD WITH FETA AND PROSCIUTTO

2011-07-28T16:03:00.001-07:00

Shaved salads seem to be in vogue this year, or at least I’ve seen a lot of them (especially asparagus ones) on the food blogs lately. I can understand why: they are undeniably pretty, as well as being texturally exciting; it’s nifty how a vegetable that is rarely consumed raw can be rendered tender and palatable through thin slicing and a flavorful acidic marinade. This was the only recipe I dogeared in June’s issue of Cooking Light (I’ve been subscribing long enough that most of the recipes have started to look the same to me), but it’s a doozy, colorful and abstract-looking, pepping up the somewhat bland squash with mint, lemon, and salty pork and cheese for a sophisticated and refreshing summer dish.

Maybe it will be clearer to you, but it took me a while to figure out the proper squash-shaving technique in Step 2, especially the “discard seeds” part. I was shaving the squash (that sounds like a euphemism for something) the way I’d peel the skin off a cucumber—run the peeler down the length of it, rotate a few degrees, and peel parallel to the last spot—so I was getting some pieces that were all skin and then, after a few series of rotations, pieces that were all seeds. Was I supposed to discard any piece that had seeds in it? Wouldn’t that be most of them? Well, duh, no. I was supposed to peel a strip, then peel another strip in the same spot, repeating until I reached the seedy part, then turn the squash about 90 degrees and start peeling new strips in a spot adjacent to the one I’d just done, and so forth, until basically what was left was a square of the interior core of the squash, which is then discarded. This method has less waste and gives you the photogenic slices that are mostly lighter-toned squash flesh with borders of the darker skin.

1 medium zucchini
2 medium yellow squash
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh mint
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 thin slices prosciutto (1 ounce), chopped
¼ cup (1 ounce) crumbled feta cheese

1. Shave the zucchini and squash into thin strips using a vegetable peeler. Discard seeds. Place zucchini and squash in a medium bowl, and toss with salt.

2. Combine mint and next 4 ingredients (through pepper) in a small bowl; stir with a whisk. Pour over zucchini and squash; toss.

3. Heat a small nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add prosciutto; sauté for 2 minutes or until crisp.

4. Place ¾ cup salad on each of 4 plates. Top each serving with 1 tablespoon cheese; sprinkle evenly with prosciutto.

Serves: 4
Time: 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Surprisingly good; keeps for several days in the refrigerator.

SUMMER CORN CAKES WITH TOMATO AND AVOCADO SALSA

2011-07-25T17:00:00.001-07:00

Few things say “summer” to me more clearly than the combination of corn and tomatoes, unless perhaps it’s the incredible medley of avocado, cilantro, and lime, so even though I already have a very good corn cake recipe in my archives, I bookmarked this one (originally by Sara Foster) at Ezra Pound Cake the instant I saw the photo. Sure, I could just throw some salsa on top of my usual corn cakes and call it a day, but these corn cakes looked totally different than mine—thick like crab cakes, with lots more leavening and the added flavors of cornmeal, buttermilk, basil, and red onion. Could there be room in my life for two different corn cake recipes? But of course!

Despite our large appetite for all things fritter-like (we routinely eat them as entrees, especially in the summer), these corn cakes looked so hearty in the picture that I halved the recipe, which claimed to serve six to eight people. This resulted in the rather awkward requirement of 1½ ears of corn, but I used two smallish ears and it was just fine (I imagine one large ear would also be OK). I decided to stick with the full recipe for the salsa, mostly because I didn’t want half an avocado floating around in my fridge, but also because I figured extra salsa never goes amiss. This was a wise decision; the corn cakes are sturdy and stand up well to toppings, so feel free to pile on the salsa to your heart’s content. In fact, because the corn cakes have the drier texture of cornbread rather than the pancake-like texture of my usual recipe, the salsa provides an important contrast. The salsa has a fair amount of liquid in it, most of which I’d left behind in a bowl, spooning on the chunkier parts with a slotted spoon because I was afraid of making the corn cakes soggy, but their crispy surfaces turned out to be largely impermeable (at least in the short time it took to go from plate to mouth), so I needn’t have been so shy—the juiciness would have been quite welcome.

Following the recipe’s instructions to use heaping tablespoons of batter, I got slightly smaller cakes than I’d expected; they puffed up tall but didn’t spread much, turning out like cute sliders where Ezra Pound Cake’s photo had made them look like burgers. At this appetizer-like size, the recipe yielded eight cakes, which made for a perfect four per serving: generous enough to be satisfying, but still a light summery meal (we had something else on the side that I can’t quite recall—grilled chicken thighs, maybe?). I would definitely make these again.

For the salsa:
1 large tomato, cored and chopped
1 scallion, trimmed and minced
1 small jalapeno pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 garlic clove, minced
Juice of ½ lime
1½ teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1½ teaspoons white wine vinegar
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced

For the corn cakes:
1 large ear or 2 small ears corn, shucked
½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons diced red onion
2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon well-shaken buttermilk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Place all of the salsa ingredients except the avocado in a bowl, and stir to mix. Refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to serve, for up to 2 days. Just before serving, add the avocado and mix gently.

2. Cut the corn from the cobs into a large bowl, and scrape the stripped cobs with the back of the knife (or a spoon) to release the juices into the bowl.

3. Place 1 cup of the corn kernels into a food processor and pulse several times, until the corn is slightly pureed but still chunky. Scrape into the bowl with the remaining corn kernels.

4. Add flour, cornmeal, onion, basil, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pepper to the corn. Stir to mix.

5. Add the egg, buttermilk, and butter, and stir just to combine. (Do not overmix.)

6. Place a large skillet over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, and heat until sizzling hot.

7. One heaping tablespoon at a time, scoop the batter into the skillet. Cooking in batches of 4 to avoid overcrowding, fry the cakes for about 2 minutes per side, until golden brown. (I got 8 small corn cakes.)

8. Remove corn cakes from pan, set them briefly on a paper towel to blot away any extra oil, and set on a cooling rack (or on a parchment-lined baking sheet in a warm oven if you want to keep them hot) until ready to eat. Serve warm, topped with a heap of salsa.

Serves: 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: For the corn cakes, unknown. Extra salsa will keep in the fridge for a few days and can be eaten with tortilla chips, used on tacos, or mixed with black beans for an easy salad.

HUMMUS AND VEGETABLE PIZZA

2011-07-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

Another brilliant “Why didn’t I think of this?” recipe. Pizza crust slathered in hummus and topped with fresh vegetables and feta cheese is pretty much just my go-to meal of hummus and pita crisps plus a nice side salad, but in a handy streamlined form, with all of pizza’s warm, crunchy, melty deliciousness as a bonus. I’ve made this twice already and I’m hooked; its lightness makes it particularly nice in the summer (I could totally envision it as a party appetizer).

The recipe is from Everybody Likes Sandwiches’ column at Poppytalk, but I made a few changes. I used my homemade hummus recipe, which I highly recommend; it’s simple and bright with lemon. Instead of using ricotta, half blended into the hummus and half dolloped on top, I went with feta, which seemed more flavorful and better suited for the Mediterranean theme (also, I am obsessed with it lately), just sprinkled on top—hummus seems plenty creamy on its own without any additions. I was accidentally forced to use Trader Joe’s garlic-and-herb flavored pizza dough because they were out of normal dough, but I actually ended up really liking the zippier flavor it added—it reminded me of the dried oregano I sprinkle atop my pita chips, and so I used it again the second time. If you’re using plain dough, I’d suggest perhaps sprinkling a little dried oregano on the pizza when you add the salt and pepper. Further inspired by my pita crisps recipe, I added a little finely grated Parmesan the second time as well, again for added flavor as well as more thorough cheese coverage, and was very pleased with the results. One less successful modification was using a yellow pepper the first time around, on the theory that I usually prefer their sweeter flavor—it was fine, but on my second try I found that I preferred the red pepper the original recipe called for. Of course, you could add any vegetables you like to this pizza—I could see kalamata olives being nice, if I didn’t hate olives with a violent passion—but the pepper and broccoli work very well, being exactly the sort of crudite veggies you might dip into hummus on an appetizer tray.

1½ cups hummus (conveniently, my homemade hummus recipe makes exactly this amount)
1 small head broccoli, broken into small florets and lightly steamed
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
4 ounces crumbled feta cheese
¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 pound pizza dough

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Roll out your pizza dough on an oiled or cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet.

3. Spread hummus evenly over pizza dough and scatter the steamed broccoli florets, red pepper slices, and onion over the top. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper, then feta and Parmesan. Place in oven and bake for about 15 minutes or until crust is golden.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; heat up in the oven or in a skillet on the stovetop to restore crispiness.

CUCUMBER-RADISH SALAD WITH FETA VINAIGRETTE

2011-07-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

The problem with my newfound interest in radishes is that when you buy radishes, you get a lot. Oh, sure, they look so innocent, sitting there all cute and pink in small, tight, manageable bunches, but unless you like popping them whole into your mouth (and I’m not there yet), most recipes involve thinly slicing them, and you can get a surprising number of thin slices out of just one radish. (I’d like to try cooking radishes, which often calls for them to be whole or halved instead of sliced—I’ve heard they’re incredible roasted, but my oven is still defunct, so that will have to wait.) And it’s possible that they multiply in the crisper drawer like rabbits when no one’s looking. Neither of the radish recipes I’ve posted so far has used an entire bunch of radishes, so I’ve been burdened with many extras. While hunting down ways to use them that seem palatable to our household of radish newbies, I found this one at Kalyn’s Kitchen, bookmarked it because it was pretty and it involved feta (one of my latest obsessions), and decided to try it one day when I realized I had spare radishes, cucumbers, feta, and buttermilk all waiting around serendipitously in the fridge.

Cucumbers and radishes seem to be paired together fairly often (maybe because they’re both so refreshingly crunchy, maybe because the mild coolness of the cucumbers balances out the peppery bite of the radishes, or maybe just because hot pink and green are a great color combination)—in fact, I’ve got a totally different cucumber-radish salad bookmarked that is apparently based on a traditional Russian recipe—but I’d never tried them in tandem. I could tell A was skeptical, and maybe I was too, because I only made a half-recipe, not wanting to be stuck with leftovers if we didn’t like it. But I like all the ingredients here, and there are few surprises when you put them all together. Cucumbers and radishes and feta: what’s not to like? The creamy feta vinaigrette, enhanced by a small quantity of tangy buttermilk (although I think you could use plain yogurt instead if you don’t have buttermilk on hand), is not only a great foil to the crunchy salad but extremely tasty—it’s based on a recipe by David Lebovitz intended for a green salad, and I’d definitely eat it that way as an alternative to my usual lemon-olive oil dressing. I used dried oregano instead of fresh thyme (which I’d neglected to buy), on the theory that feta and oregano belong to the same Greek-food family—and oregano is about the only dried herb that I think tastes good in its own right. Afterwards, I looked at Lebovitz’s recipe and realized that the original version (from Joy of Cooking) actually did call for oregano, so I guess I knew what I was doing.

Anyway, long story short, we both enjoyed this salad. Maybe it was the oregano, but we thought it would make a great side dish for a Mediterranean meal like chicken gyros. (We just had it with zucchini fritters.) Radishes, you keep on surprising me!

4 small Persian cucumbers (or other small cucumbers without large seeds)
10–12 large radishes
¾ cup crumbled feta cheese, divided
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano or ½ teaspoon dried oregano (or thyme if you prefer)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons buttermilk (or plain yogurt)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Cut the ends off the cucumbers; slice the cucumbers in half lengthwise and then into half-moon slices about ¼ inch thick. Wash radishes and trim off ends, then slice the radishes in half lengthwise and into half-moon slices just slightly thinner than the cucumbers (I used French breakfast radishes, which are very long and narrow, so I just sliced them). Put cucumbers and radishes into a large salad bowl.

2. To make the dressing, put ½ cup crumbled feta into a small bowl. Add oregano and red wine vinegar and mash with a fork to your desired degree of smoothness. Stir in olive oil and buttermilk, plus salt and pepper to taste (it probably won’t need much salt, thanks to the salty feta).

3. Stir the dressing into the bowl with the cucumbers and radishes. Season to taste with salt (it may not need any more) and pepper. Sprinkle with the extra ¼ cup crumbled feta.

Serves: 4
Time: 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Untested by me; the original recipe says that “this will keep in the fridge for a day or two, but it's better freshly made.”

PEACH FROZEN YOGURT

2011-07-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

Just another step in my continuing (and blissful) effort to make every single recipe in David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. I think it will surprise exactly no one that this was incredibly delicious. Mine was perhaps a tad on the icy side, but I’m willing to chalk that up to either the vagaries of my freezer (which tends to freeze things either rock-hard or inadequately) or too-watery/small early-season peaches. Luckily, I had accidentally disregarded Lebovitz’s directions and used Greek yogurt—he says this is the only fro-yo recipe he uses regular, non-strained yogurt in, “since the peach puree is so velvety thick.” I don’t recall my peach puree being exactly velvety thick, so the Greek yogurt helped compensate. Anyway, slightly textural issues aside, this was a cool and refreshing way to welcome the summer stone-fruit season (especially since I still don’t have a working oven, so no fruit cobblers, crisps, crumbles, pies, or cakes for me…sigh).

1½ pounds ripe peaches (about 5 large)
½ cup water
¾ cup sugar
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
A few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Peel the peaches, slice them in half, and remove the pits. Cut the peaches into chunks and cook them with the water in a medium, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until soft and cooked through, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in the sugar, and then chill in the refrigerator.

2. When the peaches are cool, puree them in a food processor or blender with the yogurt until almost smooth but slightly chunky. Mix in a few drops of lemon juice.

3. Process in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Yields: About 3 cups
Time: 20 minutes, plus chilling and processing time
Leftover potential: Good; should last for about a week in the freezer

CORN, ZUCCHINI, AND FETA PIZZA WITH CILANTRO-LIME PESTO

2011-07-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

I remember back when I was studying abroad in England, I thought it was hilarious that corn is a common pizza-topping option there (like, you can get it at Pizza Hut). Those Old Worlders and their lack of understanding of New-World foods! I was vegetarian at the time, so I was grateful for any extra vegetable choices that weren’t green peppers (ew) or olives (hate), but I gotta say, corn doesn’t do much in that context, its delicate flavor and crunch overwhelmed by tomato sauce and cheese (and of course it’s canned corn anyway). Now I’ll put just about anything on a pizza that isn't nailed down, and it feels only fitting that I’ve come full circle and made a pizza where corn is the main feature. Of course, there’s a world of difference between that poor, sad British corn and this fresh, snappy treatment, where it’s paired with its good buddies cilantro and lime (anyone who's ever eaten elote knows what a great idea that is) and its summer compatriot zucchini, and topped with tangy, creamy, salty feta.

Do I even need to tell you that this was fantastic?

OK, fine. THIS WAS FANTASTIC.

I’m extra pleased with it because I made it up myself…well, I combined two similar recipes into one, but that’s about as creative as I get with kitchen improvisation. I don’t remember what Internet rabbit hole I’d fallen down when I stumbled across this recipe at food52, but seeing the words “corn,” “feta,” “cilantro,” “lime,” and “pizza” all together pretty much blew my mind and I bookmarked it immediately. I was so obsessed that I couldn’t stop thinking about it and exactly how awesome it was going to taste. The author mentioned having based the recipe on a pizza she’d tasted at the Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley, so I did some Googling just to see if anyone else had given this a try (because when I can’t eat something right away, the next best thing is reading other people’s descriptions of it). Lo and behold, I found lots of mentions of a corn, cilantro, and lime pizza from the Cheeseboard Collective, the recipe for which had even been published in the Cheeseboard Collective cookbook—but that pizza looked different, with zucchini, onion, and mozzarella added (even better as far as I’m concerned), and no cilantro-lime pesto, just a paltry sprinkle of cilantro and squeeze of lime over the finished pizza (boo).

Obviously, I was going to have to McGyver my own ideal version. I took the cilantro-lime pesto from the first recipe and added it to the second recipe, omitting the garlic oil from that one and simplifying the directions somewhat. The quantities are approximate—with pizza, you just add toppings until it looks right—and I made a few additional changes because I was cooking the pizzas in cast-iron skillets on the stovetop using the newly discovered method I’ve perfected over the past two months of oven-brokenness…which, remind me to write that down sometime, because it’s pretty nifty, so nifty that I might keep using it occasionally even after my oven is fixed. Anyway, since the toppings don’t get cooked as much on stovetop pizza as they do on oven-baked, I gave the onion and zucchini a quick sauté in some olive oil before putting them on the pizza, and I gotta say, I liked the results so much (I’m not crazy about crunchy onions unless in salads or on certain sandwiches) that I might do it every time, even though it means dirtying an extra pan. My corn was also pre-cooked, because it’s way easier to cut the kernels off the cob that way—they don’t fly all over the kitchen as much as they do when it’s raw, and anyway I was boiling some other ears of corn earlier in the week, so why not throw that one in the pot too? You could go either way, depending on what’s more convenient for you.

2 medium cloves garlic
1 bunch cilantro (about 1 tightly packed cup), plus a bit extra to taste if desired
Juice of ½ lime, plus a lime wedge to squeeze over the finished pizza if desired
¼ teaspoon kosher salt, plus extra to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a little extra if you want to sauté your toppings
1 ear of corn (raw or briefly boiled), kernels removed
1 pinch of black pepper
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
6–8 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
½ yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 medium-large zucchini, thinly sliced
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1 pound pizza dough

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Make the pesto by adding the garlic, 1 cup cilantro, juice of ½ lime, ¼ teaspoon salt, and olive oil to a food processor or blender and processing until smooth.

3. In a small bowl, toss the corn kernels with the black pepper, red pepper flakes, and a pinch of salt.

4. Optional: In a skillet, sauté the onion and zucchini in a little olive oil over medium heat until just tender.

5. Roll out the pizza dough on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. Spread the pesto over the pizza. Add half of the mozzarella, all of the onion and zucchini, the remaining mozzarella, and then the corn and feta.

6. Bake pizza for 12–15 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted. Remove from oven, and garnish with extra cilantro and a squeeze of lime if desired.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; reheat in the oven or in a skillet on the stovetop for optimal crispiness.

SPRING POTATO SALAD

2011-06-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

I toyed with a few (non-mayonnaise) potato salad recipes over the last couple of summers, but aside from this one (which, at least the way I make it, is more of a leafy green salad with potatoes in it), never settled on one I could wholeheartedly embrace. Part of the problem, I think, was that I had not yet evolved into the mustard fiend I now seem to have become. To keep a potato salad from being bland, you need a big, bold dressing, and mustard can be very kind to potatoes. Another issue is the other vegetables involved; I don’t adore potatoes enough to consider them "salad" in their own right, and some veggies complement them better than others. Several of the non-winning recipes used tomatoes and peppers, which didn’t do it for me. My favorite pairings with potatoes are green: asparagus and green beans. And of course, I have a recent interest in radishes, so when I saw Smitten Kitchen's gorgeous spring potato salad featuring all those elements, plus another one of my growing obsessions, pickled vegetables, the deal was sealed.

This salad rocks. It’s wholesome, delectable, and beautiful. The mustard-laden vinaigrette packs a wonderful punch, and the sweet-sour pickled onions are the coup de gras. As I learned from an earlier Smitten Kitchen recipe, a quick soak in sugared and salted vinegar takes just the right amount of bite out of raw onions to keep them from overwhelming the rest of a salad (and you from reeking for the rest of the evening), as well as adding a delicious zip, and this particular version, made with delicate spring onions, is so mild you can snack on them straight. And you will probably have leftovers (although after eating the salad, I decided I could have put in more of the onions), so you can do just that—or try adding them to sandwiches, grilled meat, or other salads later in the week.

We devoured big bowls of this as a main dish for dinner, with small grilled chicken thighs on the side, and then again for lunch the next day, and I’ll probably make it again next week. I’m sure you could mess around with the vegetable ingredients however you wanted (I substituted green beans for the peas Deb used, because A hates peas and the potato-green bean combo is so good, and tweaked the ingredient proportions slightly based on availability—a bit less potato, a few more green beans), but this version is perfect for me. Good thing summer weather has been slow to arrive in Southern California, because I could happily eat this springy salad all year long.

1¾ pounds small new or fingerling potatoes in assorted colors
1 pound asparagus
½ pound green beans
4 medium radishes, thinly sliced

Pickled spring onions:
3 spring onions (about 6 ounces)
¼ cup white wine vinegar
¼ cup water
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
1½ teaspoons sugar

Sharp mustard vinaigrette:
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
2 teaspoons smooth Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Place potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover with one inch of water. Bring to a boil and cook for about 15 minutes, or you can easily pierces a potato with the tip of a knife. Drain the potatoes and let them cool until they’re almost room temperature. You can hasten this by covering them with cold water, and replacing the water a few times as it warms up.

2. Meanwhile, pickle your spring onions. Whisk vinegar, water, salt, and sugar together in the bottom of a small container with a lid until the salt and sugar dissolve. Slice the onion bulbs and paler green parts into very thin coins and submerge them in the vinegar mixture. Cover and put in fridge until you’re ready to use them; if you can put them aside for an hour or even overnight, even better. Reserve the onion greens.

3. Refill the saucepan you used for the potatoes with salted water and bring it to a boil. Trim the tough ends off the asparagus and slice the ends off the green beans; cut both vegetables into ½-inch pieces. Once the water is boiling, add the asparagus and the green beans. Two minutes later or when vegetables are crisp-tender, drain them, rinse them under cold water until cool, drain again, and spread them out on towel to absorb excess water.

4. Place the asparagus, green beans, and sliced radishes in a large bowl. Chop potatoes into moderate-sized chunks and add them to the bowl. Cut some of the reserved onion greens into thin slivers (no need to use all of them) and add them to the bowl.

5. When you’re ready to serve the salad, or an hour or two in advance, whisk the dressing ingredients and toss it with the vegetables, to taste. Stir in as many pickled onion coins as you please. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.

Serves: 4−6
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK. The salad was still very tasty the next day, but the acid in the vinaigrette had discolored the asparagus and green beans somewhat. If you want to make this ahead, it would probably be better to chill all the vegetables separately in the fridge overnight and wait until the last minute to combine them and add the dressing.

SPRING QUINOA SALAD WITH RADISHES AND MICROGREENS

2011-06-08T18:01:00.000-07:00

I never really liked radishes, mostly because they were only ever presented to me whole, raw, and on their own, in which form I found the flavor too sharp and bitter. But the more I got obsessed with food, and vegetables in particular, the more I wanted to like radishes. They are always described as peppery, and I like things that are peppery, like arugula, and, well, pepper. And they’re so crisp and cool and clean and so very pretty! A lot of food blogs touted thinly sliced radishes on bread with butter and salt, which I tried and found palatable but not craveworthy. And then I realized that maybe it would be better to try radishes as an ingredient instead of a main feature, where there flavor could blend into and complement a larger dish. And then I saw this alluring salad at The Kitchn, and y’all know how I love quinoa salads and lemon, so it seemed like just the thing to help me warm up to radishes.

I had never bought microgreens before, and I found them easily at Trader Joe’s, albeit in a 2-cup package when the recipe, which I’d decided to double (because all my other quinoa recipes call for 1 cup of quinoa and I know that makes the perfect amount of leftovers), called for 3 cups. I bought two packages, but found I couldn’t cram much more than 2 cups into the salad without overflowing the bowl anyway, so in the future I’ll just stick with 2 cups, which was still plenty of tender, tasty microgreeniness. Then I realized that doubling the recipe meant that it called for 6 tablespoons of butter, which seemed wildly excessive. I get that the recipe creator was trying to mimic that bread-and-butter-and-radish-and-salt combo I mentioned earlier, but since the butter was just melted into the quinoa cooking water, rather than being featured as a cold and creamy spread, I doubted so much was necessary. Besides, I’d decided to add feta to the salad, because I love feta more with each passing day, particularly in quinoa salad. So I cut the butter way down to 2 tablespoons, and I suspect you might just as well leave it out completely. The feta brings the cold creaminess way better and, it turns out, tastes awesome with radishes. I also increased the lemon quantities, figuring I’d might as well use all the juice from the one I’d just zested. The flavors of this salad are so delicate that I welcomed the added zip.

After all this beneficial tinkering, I totally effed up the recipe by absentmindedly quadrupling the water quantity and massively overcooking the quinoa, which came out sodden and sticky (you can see the sad clumpiness in my photo). But despite this textural tragedy, the flavors were still so delicious, novel, and springy, I knew I’d found a way to love radishes and a salad I’d enjoy many times to come—in fact, I’ve already made it again, and with the quinoa properly cooked, I can attest that it’s truly a knockout. And the cheerful pastel green, pink, and yellow make this one of the more beautiful dishes to grace my table in recent memory.

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2–3 cups microgreens
1 cup thinly sliced radishes
¼ cup thinly sliced basil
Zest from 1 medium lemon
Juice from one medium lemon
½ teaspoon fleur de sel or other flaky sea salt
4 ounces feta cheese, cubed or crumbled

1. Measure out quinoa, place it in a fine-mesh strainer, rinse thoroughly with cool water, and drain.

2. Place quinoa in a small saucepan with water and butter. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes, or until all liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork and let cool completely.

3. Toss the cooled quinoa with all other ingredients. Taste and add more salt if desired.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Great.

FARMER’S LUNCH SANDWICHES

2011-06-07T17:10:00.000-07:00

When called upon to rustle up a snack or easy weekend lunch for myself on the spur of the moment, I rarely resort to sandwiches, preferring instead a plate of small bites—cheese, bread or crackers, apples or some other fruit, and raw veggies or pickles if I have them (you can imagine how excited I was when I went to England for the first time and discovered this, called a ploughman’s lunch, on nearly every pub menu). But how could I resist this sandwichified version of my go-to meal, especially when it not only featured my favorite cheese-fruit combo, sharp cheddar and apples, but was also adorned with my new bestie, Dijon mustard, and the kicker, that mind-blowing shallot-jam sauce I wrote about last week?

Thanks to the Kitchn, this sandwich will be accompanying me on every summer picnic—and I plan to find a lot of excuses to have picnics, the better to eat more sandwiches. It’s simple enough to throw together in a few moments (just make the shallot-jam sauce ahead of time and keep it in the fridge—heck, make a double recipe and eat the other half over chicken) and to tote around without making a soggy mess, but the flavors are incredibly complex—the sharpness of the vinegar, cheese, mustard, and apples balanced by the sweetness of the jam and the savoriness of the shallots—and the contrast between textures is exciting.

1 tablespoon olive oil
5 medium shallots, peeled and sliced thin
½ cup chicken broth
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
2 heaping tablespoons apricot jam or other preserves (such as peach or raspberry)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 loaf crusty baguette or ciabatta
Whole grain Dijon mustard
Good-quality, very sharp cheddar cheese, thickly sliced
Butter lettuce
2 hard, tart apples such as Granny Smith or Braeburn, very thinly sliced
2–3 tablespoons lemon juice (from one lemon)

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots, season with salt and pepper, and cook for about 5 minutes, until they begin to get soft and the bottom of the pan begins to brown. Add ½ cup chicken broth to the shallots, scraping the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Let the broth reduce, then add the balsamic vinegar, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook for about 5 more minutes. Add the jam and stir to combine. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

2. Slice the baguette into four sections and slice the sections in half lengthwise. Spread a little whole grain mustard on the top half of each section. Smear one-fourth of the shallot-jam sauce on the bottom half of each section.

3. Toss the apple slices in a little lemon juice, and then add them to the bottom half of each sandwich. Add a few leaves of lettuce and then top with a layer of cheese. Press the sandwiches closed.

Serves: 4 (1 sandwich per serving)
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: I didn’t test this—just made the sandwiches and ate them immediately—but the original recipe says that they’ll be OK wrapped in waxed paper and kept at room temperature for several hours, if you want to take them on a picnic.

CHICKEN WITH SHALLOT-JAM SAUCE

2011-05-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long radio silence. My ancient-but-beloved oven is broken AGAIN, and I’ve been without the use of it for more than a month now, which is kind of casting a pall on my cooking enthusiasm. Sure, at least this time it’s still physically with us, and the broiler actually works, and there are a lot of things you can cook with a stove and a broiler. Did you know that you can even make pizza on the stovetop in a cast-iron skillet? It took me a few tries to fully get the hang of it, but it turns out pretty damn good, with a professional-quality charred-crispy crust. BUT STILL. Everyone keeps telling me, “Oh, at least it’s summer, when it’s too hot to turn on the oven anyway!” But you know what? It’s not that hot, and I do use my oven in the summer, because I am crazy. For me, living without a stove is like living without a car probably is for most people—sure, it can be done, but it’s inconvenient and frustrating. Suddenly all I want to do is bake. Oh, cookies, breads, roasted chicken, baked potatoes, and roasted vegetables, how I miss you!

At least there are occasional bright spots, like this fantastic shallot sauce from The Kitchen. I’d bookmarked it because it uses jam, and I tend to have about five half-full jars of homemade jam in my fridge at any one time, because as we’ve discussed before, I like to make it more than I like to eat it. The recipe calls for apricot jam, but raspberry is mentioned as a possible substitute, and I used vanilla bourbon peach, which: holy cow. As if quick-caramelized shallots with savory chicken broth, a tangy hit of balsamic vinegar, and fruity sugar weren’t enough, I think the vanilla and booze puts it over the top into sheer awesomeness. This sauce is an easy but impressive way to dress up simple sautéed chicken breasts, and as the original recipe mentions, it would be good on pork as well. Personally, I could just eat it with a spoon. But next time I post, I’m going to tell you how I used it to make a sandwich that truly knocked my socks off. Is that a cliffhanger, or what? In the meantime, make this sauce and slather it on whatever you happen to have lying around the kitchen.

For the chicken:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup chicken broth

For the sauce:
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 medium shallots, peeled and sliced thin
½ cup chicken broth
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
2 heaping tablespoons apricot jam or other preserves (such as peach or raspberry)
Salt and pepper

1. Season each chicken breast with salt and pepper on both sides. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large sauté pan over high heat. Cook the chicken breasts for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until they develop a golden-brown crust. Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low, and cook for about 5 more minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.

2. When the chicken is finished cooking, remove from the pan, set on a plate, and cover with foil to keep warm. Return the heat to high and add the ¼ cup of chicken broth, deglazing the pan and scraping the brown bits from the bottom. Reduce slightly, then drizzle these pan juices over the chicken and re-cover the plate.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the same skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots, season with salt and pepper, and cook for about 5 minutes, until they begin to get soft and the bottom of the pan begins to brown.

4. Add ½ cup chicken broth to the shallots, scraping the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Let the broth reduce, then add the balsamic vinegar, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook for about 5 more minutes. Add the jam and stir to combine. Remove from heat.

5. To serve, slice the chicken and top with the shallot sauce.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

FISH CAKES

2011-04-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

After recently admitting to myself that I just don’t like (cooked) salmon very much (although this recipe for it is definitely the best I’ve found), I’ve been getting more and more interested in white fish. Of the (relatively few) varieties I’ve tried, halibut is by far my fave, but lately it’s seemed hard to find and hellishly expensive, so I’ve been substituting cod in my fish and chips or fish tacos, with decent results. Looking for other recipes to expand my horizons in the realm of affordable fish, I stumbled across this enticing-looking one at Serious Eats. Lord knows I love anything in fritter form, and the flavors sounded fresh and springy: chunks of gently poached fish mixed with fluffy potato, green herbs, creamy mayonnaise, and zingy Dijon mustard (my growing obsession). A was a bit put off by the name “fish cake,” but when I explained it as a cousin to the crab cake, rather than some horrific seafood pastry, he was game to give it a shot. And, even though we’re both recovering pescophobes, we really enjoyed them! (Small pieces of fish mixed with a bunch of other ingredients are so much less daunting than a big slab of plain fish.) They were easy to put together (except for baking the potato, it doesn’t take too long), tasty, fun but rather elegant-feeling, and all in all a welcome addition to our limited fish repertoire.

The original recipe called for pollock, but I went with old reliable cod instead, and I threw a little dill in there for added interest. As noted, you could pretty much try these with any fish and herb combo you want (salmon and basil? tilapia and cilantro?). I was also intrigued by the suggestion of trying them in a sandwich, but they were certainly plenty good—and a bit lighter—on their own. The recipe says it feeds four at two petite fish cakes apiece, but that’s as a brunch dish, and for dinner the two of us had no difficulty polishing off four apiece, along with the recommended green salad dressed with lemon vinaigrette, without feeling overfull in the least (that’s just half a potato and 5 ounces of fish per serving, after all). I also whipped up some homemade tartar sauce (mayonnaise + sweet pickle relish + lemon juice), and a dab of it on each fish cake added some welcome moisture and tang.

1 medium russet potato
10 ounces cod
2 cloves garlic, crushed
¼ cup chopped parsley, plus a handful of reserved parsley stems
1 tablespoon chopped dill
2 scallions, finely sliced
1 egg
2 teaspoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
¼ cup olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Wash potato and pierce all over with a fork. Bake until fully cooked, about 30 minutes. Set aside until cool enough to handle, then remove skin and grate potato through the large holes of a box grater. Place grated potato in a large bowl.

2. Place cod, garlic, and parsley stems in a large frying pan, cover with water, and bring to a simmer until cod is just cooked through, about 6 minutes. Gently flake fish into large chunks and add to bowl with grated potato.

3. To the bowl, add chopped parsley, dill, and scallions. Beat egg with mayonnaise and grainy mustard in a small bowl, then add to fish/potato/herb mixture. Mix until all ingredients are fully combined, being careful to keep fish from falling apart too much. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Divide fish mixture into eight even pieces (about ¼ cup each) and gently press each portion into a ball, then flatten it slightly with your hands. Place panko crumbs in a shallow bowl and press each cake into panko until coated on all sides. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan until shimmering and fry four of the fish cakes until golden brown on both sides, then repeat with remaining oil and fish cakes, keeping finished fish cakes warm in a 250-degree oven if desired. Serve with green salad with a lemon vinaigrette (1 part lemon juice + 1–2 parts olive oil + salt + pepper), and tartar sauce if desired.

Serves: 2 as a main course, or 4 as a side dish or light brunch/lunch
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Low.

BEEF, SPINACH, AND MUSHROOM LASAGNA

2011-04-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

We don’t eat much lasagna at Chez Bookcook; A likes the traditional meaty-cheesy variety, whereas I prefer something lighter, more vegetably, and more interesting, so we’re forced to make do with the other 3.7 billion (er, 51 at last count, to be precise) pasta recipes in my repertoire. I’ve only dabbled in making it a few times (my only recorded effort is here) and have never hit upon a recipe I found particularly noteworthy…until now (cue trumpet fanfare).

This iteration from Baking Bites isn’t wildly exotic, but it strikes a perfect balance between the traditional tomato-beef lasagna and my vegetal cravings by adding mushrooms to the sauce and spinach to the ricotta, and it contains just enough cheese to be comforting without being greasy or heavy. It’s kind of like a cross between my spaghetti sauce and stuffed shells recipes, and it pleased both factions in our home equally well. A even got excited over eating the leftovers, which is high praise indeed from him. Plus, it’s fairly easy to make and used up some of the ancient no-boil noodles I had in the cupboard (I know some people don’t care for them, and granted it’s not difficult to boil noodles, but in addition to their convenience I actually like their more al-dente texture). I’m tossing out my old recipes and sticking to this one from now on.

Aside from adding basil to the sauce, the only changes I made to the recipe were by necessity: since my tomato sauce came in 15-ounce cans and my ricotta in a 15-ounce tub, I was a few ounces short on liquids, and my lasagna came out a tad on the dryer side. I may have exacerbated this by squeezing the liquid out of my thawed spinach—the recipe didn’t specify this, but every other recipe I’ve seen that uses frozen spinach calls for it, so I did it as a matter of course. It made for a rather crumbly ricotta mixture; instead of “spreading it into an even layer” on the lasagna, I found myself dabbing it in dollops. So I think I’ll experiment with not squeezing the spinach next time, or at least squeezing it less enthusiastically. For now, I’ve just put “drained” in the recipe, because I don’t think it should be swimming in liquid.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cups cremini mushrooms, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 pound lean ground beef
Salt and pepper to taste
32 ounces tomato sauce
10 ounces chopped frozen spinach, defrosted and drained
16 ounces ricotta cheese
⅓ cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
9 no-boil lasagna noodles

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and sauté for 2–3 minutes, until just beginning to soften. Add mushrooms, garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, and basil and cook for an additional 3–4 minutes, until mushrooms are softened. Add ground beef and cook just until meat is no longer pink, breaking it up with a spatula as it cooks. Add tomato sauce, turn heat to medium-low, and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

2. While the sauce simmers, combine spinach, ricotta, and Parmesan in a large bowl and mix well.

3. Cover the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with about 1½ cups of the tomato-meat sauce. Evenly space three no-boil lasagna noodles on top of the sauce layer. Top noodles with about half of the spinach mixture, spreading it into an even layer. Top with about half of the remaining sauce. Top this sauce layer with three more noodles, followed by the ricotta spinach mixture, followed by the remaining noodles. Pour all of the remaining sauce over the noodles and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil.

4. Bake for 30 minutes, then uncover the lasagna and bake for an additional 10 minutes, or until sauce is slightly bubbly. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before slicing.

Serves: 8
Time: 1½ hours
Leftover potential: Good.

SOFT YOGURT SANDWICH ROLLS

2011-04-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

Apparently I need to remember to bake bread more often, because when I told A I would be making rolls for our BBQ pulled chicken sandwiches instead of buying them, he looked surprised and a little alarmed. (Probably, not unfairly, he was envisioning the fit I would throw if they didn’t turn out and we had to run to the store to buy emergency bread at the last minute.) But when I fell in love with those sandwiches last summer, part of the charm was the delicious rolls we’d found at the farmers’ market to accompany them. The sandwiches became a regular feature of our menu rotation, but it turned out that the rolls were not such a regular feature of that bakery’s offerings. After a few disappointing iterations of subpar grocery-store replacements, I became convinced that the only solution was to learn to make my own sandwich rolls. Luckily, I had bookmarked this recipe from Baking Bites several years ago.

As usual when I bake bread, the process was fraught with uncertainty, even though this recipe is very simple and not too labor-intensive. My dough seemed really sticky, even after I added all the flour to it—in retrospect, I probably could have added even a little more flour, but I was afraid of making the rolls too stiff and dry. Consequently, it was really hard to knead and then hard to shape. My rolls weren’t very neat-looking, and then I worried they were too close together on the baking sheet. But what do you know, they turned out beautifully anyway. Baking smoothed out all their little imperfections, and even though they grew together, they were easy enough to pull apart again. They tasted delicious (just your standard white bread, with a mild tang from the yogurt and sweetness from the honey) and the texture was absolutely perfect: delightfully moist, pillowy, tender enough to bite into easily but with a tantalizing bit of chew and enough integrity to hold their juicy contents without getting soggy and falling apart. These will be my go-to BBQ chicken vehicles from now on; I think they would also be great hamburger buns, if I ever get into making my own burgers, and I’m sure they would be lovely with cheese and some simple cold cuts on a summer picnic. I can vouch that they are very satisfying with butter and jam, as well.

3½ to 4½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
3 tablespoons honey
1 cup warm water (100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit)
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt (I used Greek-style)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1½ teaspoons salt

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine ½ cup flour, the yeast, the honey, and the warm water. Stir well and let sit for 10 minutes, until slightly foamy.

2. Stir in yogurt, vegetable oil, salt, and 2 cups of the remaining flour. Gradually stir in more flour until you have a soft dough that sticks together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. (This can all be done in a stand mixer with the dough hook attached, as well.)

3. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead, adding additional flour if necessary to prevent sticking, until dough is smooth and elastic, or about 5 minutes. Place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

4. Turn risen dough out of bowl and onto a lightly floured surface. Gently deflate, pressing into a rectangle. Divide dough into 10 even pieces with a board scraper or a pizza cutter. Shape each piece into a round roll. (To do this, take all the corners of one of the squarish pieces you just cut and pull them together, pinching them to create a seal. This will pull the rest of the dough tight across the top of your roll, giving you a smooth top.) Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat with remaining dough. Once all rolls have been formed, press down firmly on each one to flatten. Cover with a clean dish towel and let rise for 25 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees.

6. Bake rolls for about 20 minutes, until deep golden on the top and the bottom. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

Yields: 10 rolls
Time: About 2½ hours
Leftover potential: Good; will stay soft and moist for several days in an airtight container at room temperature, or can be frozen.

ROASTED CHICKEN THIGHS WITH FENNEL AND LEMON

2011-04-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

I love lemon more every day, and I downright crave it in the springtime, so I will take a second glance at any recipe that has it in the title. Add fennel, one of my latest vegetable fascinations, and I’m downright powerless to resist. This recipe from The Kitchn has the added virtues of being ridiculously quick and easy to prepare. The chicken turned out well (chicken thighs stay so moist and flavorful, even when boneless and skinless)—and the fennel was absolutely phenomenal. I don’t know if it was the roasting, the chicken juices, the lemon, the wine, or a combination of all four, but it achieved a level of caramelization and flavor previously unknown to me. Even A, the fennel skeptic, thought it was terrific. (In fact, he loved the dish as a whole, specifically praising the chicken, which I’d found pleasant but unremarkable and basically an excuse to get to the fennel.)

Our sole complaint? Not enough of it. The chicken thighs were petite, and I would have gladly eaten three or four times the amount of fennel I ended up with. I’d already used a bit more than the recipe called for, and I’m glad I did, because it shrank down to a few mouthfuls per serving. Next time I’ll use more chicken and even more fennel, then increase the oil, wine, and lemon accordingly (the version below reflects that).

1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 large or 3 medium fennel bulbs (about 2 pounds)
4 large garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons white wine
1 large or 2 medium lemons
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the chicken thighs in a large bowl.

2. Trim the stalks and fronds off the fennel bulbs. Cut each bulb in quarters (I like to remove the hard center core at the base and discard it), then slice each quarter into ½-inch-thick slices. Add to the bowl with the chicken. Mince about 1 tablespoon of fennel fronds and also add to the bowl.

3. Add the minced garlic, olive oil, and white wine to the bowl. Zest and juice the lemon, and add both to the bowl. Toss all the ingredients together, and add the salt and a generous amount of black pepper.

4. Spread the chicken and fennel on a large baking sheet (coated with foil or parchment, if you want to minimize mess and sticking), arranging the fennel around the outside and placing the chicken pieces closely together in the center. Pour any remaining juices in the bowl over the chicken.

5. Roast for 30 minutes, or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of about 160°F, and the fennel is tender and beginning to brown around the edges. Take the pan out of the oven, and cover with foil. Let it rest for about 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good.

CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER POPCORN

2011-03-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

I was going to a sleepover and wanted to bring a sweet snack, but the hostess had a wheat allergy, which ruled out the usual cookies or cake. So I delved into my Delicious bookmarks and found this recipe from Tasty Kitchen: the familiar Chex Muddy Buddies/Puppy Chow, but using popcorn instead of rice cereal. Genius! Granted, I could have just made Muddy Buddies, since Rice Chex is gluten-free, but (a) I happen to know that the hostess is a big popcorn fan; and (b) I have something of a chocolate-popcorn obsession, stemming from Proustian recollections of my childhood, when my mother would often give me a bowl of popcorn and a mug of cocoa as a wintertime snack, and I would dip pieces of popcorn into the cocoa. (This may have been inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy, one of the best food books for children ever, where one of the many treats Almanzo and his siblings enjoy is popcorn in milk.) People I’ve told this to over the years have often been grossed out by this, but really, I think I was ahead of the curve on the whole sweet-salty trend, because I remember loving the way the chocolate tasted with the buttery salted popcorn. Also, the kernels shriveled up in a fascinating way—try it sometime! About five years ago, after hearing this reminiscence, my boss thoughtfully gave me a bag of chocolate-covered popcorn from Sarris Candies for Christmas. It was so mind-blowingly good that I’ve wanted to try making my own ever since, and finally I had the perfect opportunity.

Not surprisingly, the result was spectacularly awesome. It wasn’t pretty to look at, but it couldn’t have been easier to make or more addictive to eat. All of it got devoured that night at the party, so I can’t tell you how long this will keep. The chocolate coating never firms up completely thanks to the other ingredients, so I would imagine that the popcorn will get soggy after a few days, but it will still be popcorn covered with peanut butter and chocolate and thus far from repulsive. I did decrease the powdered sugar slightly, from 1½ cups to just 1 cup, because I don’t care for super-sweet desserts and really wanted more of that bitter chocolate flavor to come through. You can use however much suits your taste. I think next time I’d go even farther and consider adding some salt along with the sugar.

9 cups air-popped popcorn (be sure to remove any unpopped kernels)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
½ cup natural peanut butter (I recommend smooth and salted)
¼ cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to 1½ cups powdered sugar

1. Place chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter in a large microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 30-second intervals, stirring in between, until melted and smooth. (If you don’t have a microwave, you can melt the ingredients over a double boiler instead.) Stir in the vanilla.

2. Place the popped popcorn in a large bowl and pour the chocolate mixture over it. Stir until evenly coated. Add the powdered sugar and stir until each piece is covered (I recommend starting with 1 cup, tasting it, and then adding up to ½ cup more sugar if desired). Spread out on cookie sheets lined with waxed paper to set the chocolate. Store in an airtight container.

Serves: 8–12
Time: 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Unknown

SLOW-ROASTED SALMON IN LEMON-MUSTARD-HERB SAUCE

2011-03-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I was a seafood hater for the first 20 years or so of my life and I’ve been trying to make up for it since, but the fact remains that I’m still something of an innocent when it comes to fish. Although I’ve got halibut fish and chips and fish tacos nailed, I can’t quite convince myself to love salmon (except in sushi, where it’s my fave). I’ve tried a number of worth y salmo n recipes over the years, but mostly out of a sense of healthful duty, and nowadays I rarely seem to make them because eating salmon feels like such a chore. No matter how delicious the seasonings, after the first few bites I just don’t enjoy the texture; it seems so dry and chewy in comparison to the unctuous, buttery feeling of the raw stuff. So I wish someone had told me earlier that there’s an easy solution to Dry Salmon Sadness: letting it come to room temperature and then cooking it very gently at a low heat. In other words, try a little tenderness.

Now that I look, this cooking method seems to be widely represented on the Internet, but I stumbled across it at my new food blog addiction Anger Burger, where Sunday (who calls it “Improbable Salmon”) writes, “I’m acutely aware that many people reading this are terrified of cooking fish, to which I can only say: start with this recipe first. It is very difficult to screw up. The idea is that you cook the salmon in a very low oven for a twice as long as you’d normally cook it, and the result is fish that is buttery soft and moist. And you have a window of like 10 minutes where you can go ‘Wait, is it done? Did I screw up?’ and it will A) yes, be done, and B), no, you did not screw up.” Armed with this assurance, I forged ahead with the recipe, which provides a generic template for a Dijon vinaigrette to marinate and sauce the fish; I adapted it to my tastes, as written below (lemon, parsley, dill), but there are a lot of other combinations of acids (like orange juice) and herbs (like basil) you might try. (Or—oh!—lime and cilantro?!) I loved my version of the sauce, though—lemon and dill are so classic with fish, so perfect for spring, and so excellent with mustard, which, yes, is fast becoming my new BFF. And the fish was incredibly easy to make and just as freaky-pink and excitingly juicy as promised. It still wasn’t as good as eating salmon sashimi, but it was a damn sight closer than any recipe I’ve ever tried.

Now that I’ve done this, I’m sort of shocked that so many of the other salmon recipes I’ve encountered have been the exact opposite, baking the fish into submission at temps as high as 500 degrees. Obviously, the high heat is necessary to get a crispy pesto or caramelized sugar, but in retrospect I mostly liked those recipes because they covered up the salmonyness of the salmon, whereas this recipe lets it shine. I still won’t be eating salmon every week (unless I win the lottery and then someone builds a sushi restaurant next door to my apartment), but when I do want to make it, this recipe’s the one for me.

By the way, I served this with arugula, potato, and green bean salad and it was a perfect pairing.

2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1 small clove garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
8–12 ounces salmon fillet

1. In a small bowl, combine all ingredients except the salmon and whisk until emulsified (or you can use a small jar and shake it well). Taste for seasonings; make sure it’s a little saltier than you think is right, because it will be diluted when on the fish.

2. Remove salmon from the fridge, rinse under cold water, and pat dry with paper towels. Cut the salmon into two pieces of equal size. Coat each piece well with the sauce and place 1 inch apart on a baking sheet or dish coated with aluminum foil. Pour remaining sauce over fish.

3. Allow salmon to marinate at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes while you heat the oven to 250 and make any side dishes you plan to serve.

4. To bake, put the fish in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, test for doneness by breaking open the largest piece of salmon and checking that it flakes. (The fish will still be dark pink and very soft—not the firm and opaque salmon you’re used to—but it is actually cooked and safe to eat; however, you can cook it for 5 more minutes if you’re unsure.)

Serves: 2
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Unknown

QUINOA AND BLACK BEAN SALAD

2011-03-18T17:13:00.000-07:00

Grains like quinoa are such a great way to down a big bowl of vegetably goodness without feeling like you’re making a meal entirely out of leaves. (Yes, I still have a slight aversion to main-dish green salads. I REQUIRE CARBS, PEOPLE.) This recipe, which I spied at Tasty Kitchen, is essentially a quinoa-based version of the Southwestern salad I first enjoyed (despite its leafiness) late last summer: cilantro-lime dressing, black beans, corn, peppers, green onions…yum. To make it even more like that salad, I had to add avocado, because I am a spoiled Californian who can get them at the farmers’ market. I also added some feta, because I had some sitting in the fridge that needed to be used, and also because feta has been a delicious addition to every other quinoa salad I’ve made so far (I imagine cotija would also work well, perhaps better). I also think cherry tomatoes might not be a bad extra, either. Oh, and although the recipe called for fresh corn, I used frozen, because even spoiled Californians can’t get good corn in March, which is as it should be. The frozen tasted just fine.

The original recipe calls for red quinoa, which makes the dish extra-pretty, but Trader Joe’s was inexplicably out of it this week, so the beige quinoa had to do (as far as I can discern, they taste exactly the same anyway). I ditched the recipe’s annoyingly convoluted directions for preparing the quinoa, which involved cheesecloth and boiling plus steaming, and just used the back-of-box directions as I usually do. I’m sure the more complicated method results in some barely perceptible improvement in texture, but I tried that once for this corn-mint quinoa recipe and didn’t find it worth the hassle. In addition, I reduced the quinoa amount from 1½ cups to 1 cup, just because every other recipe I’ve made uses 1 cup and it always seems to result in plenty of quinoa. In retrospect, this was the right call; there seemed to be just the correct balance between the quinoa and the other ingredients as it was, and any more quinoa would risk being too much. We still got five servings of salad out of it; the first night, we had small-medium portions with chicken quesadillas on the side (mostly because I feared that A wouldn’t like the salad, being a bean hater; rather surprisingly, however, he praised it), but the three more generous leftover servings made satisfying vegetarian main dishes in their own right. Zippy, colorful, and packed with vitamins and protein, this is definitely a keeper.

Dressing:
5 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon ground cumin
⅓ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Salad:
1 cup red quinoa (normal quinoa works just fine, too)
½ teaspoon salt, plus extra to taste
1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup corn kernels, fresh (cut from about 2 large cooked ears) or frozen (defrosted)
1 cup finely chopped bell pepper
1 whole jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
¼ cup finely chopped green onion
1 ripe avocado, diced (optional)
4 ounces feta or cotija cheese, diced or crumbled (optional)

1. Rinse the quinoa well under cold water, then add to a medium saucepan with 2 cups of water and ½ teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook until the water is absorbed and quinoa is fluffy and chewy, about 15–20 minutes.

2. Empty cooked quinoa into a large bowl and allow it to cool almost to room temperature, stirring occasionally. (This will help the vinaigrette coat everything without the quinoa absorbing too much of it.)

3. While quinoa is cooling, make the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together lime juice, 1 teaspoon salt, minced garlic, ¼ cup chopped cilantro, and cumin and add oil in a stream, whisking. Add black pepper, stir, and set aside.

4. When the quinoa has cooled, add the beans, corn, peppers, cilantro, green onions, and avocado and/or cheese if desired, and toss gently with the dressing.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good. (If using avocado, prevent it from browning by tossing it in a little lime juice before adding it to the salad.)

BANANA OAT BRAN PANCAKES

2011-03-10T16:20:00.000-08:00

I have found The One—or perhaps I should say the Four or Five, because that is how many of these spectacular pancakes I can put away in one sitting, and let me tell you, there have been several sittings. But what I mean is the One True Pancake Recipe, which, not being a very big pancake fan, I had not even really suspected existed for me. Although I’d dutifully dabbled in a couple of earlier candidates, it was more because I like the cozy, homespun idea of making pancakes on a lazy Sunday morning than because I like the pancakes themselves. And not being a very big banana fan either, I’m surprised to find myself raving about a second banana-based recipe in the space of a month, but here we are.

I stumbled across this recipe at In Praise of Leftover s while searching for ways to use up the enormous bag of oat bran left over from making multigrain rolls. Normally I balk slightly at buying buttermilk, but I’m slowly being won over by the fact that everything I make with it turns out extra-delicious, and besides, I already had some in the fridge left over from the aforementioned banana cake. All the other ingredients were pantry staples, and the process was simplicity itself (no egg separating, mixer, or blender required). The resulting pancakes are ultra-moist and fluffy, only delicately banana-flavored, and not too sweet. The oat bran imparts a savory, nutty quality and a barely-detectable crunch. I like that the texture is much more like a “normal” (tender, pillowy) pancake than some of the whole-grain varieties I’ve tried, but you’re still getting some fiber from the brain plus some fruity goodness from the banana. You can go ahead and put syrup on them if that’s your thing, but I must protest that these are even more fan-effing-tastic with strawberry or blueberry jam instead (jamcakes!). I also happened to have some blueberries on hand, so I dropped them into a few of the pancakes I was making for A and that addition was quite well received. I imagine that chocolate chips (inside) or Nutella (outside) would not be amiss either, if you’re the type who can stomach dessert-like treats for breakfast. But me, I could just eat them plain. I’ve made them twice in two weeks already and, with ripe bananas in the freezer and buttermilk and plenty of jam in the fridge, I know it won’t be long before I do it again. Consider all other pancake recipes officially retired.

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup oat bran
1 pinch salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1½ cups buttermilk
1 very ripe banana, mashed

1. Heat up a griddle over medium heat.

2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. Whisk eggs and buttermilk together in a medium bowl. Add buttermilk mixture and mashed banana to dry ingredients, stirring just until blended.

4. Drop ¼ cupfuls of batter onto hot griddle (I like to add a little bit of butter to the cooking surface and let it melt first). Flip the pancakes after bubbles have formed, and cook until browned.

Serves: 3–4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Pancakes can be frozen between sheets of waxed paper in an airtight container and reheated on a warm griddle (I microwave them just enough to defrost the interior, then cook on a griddle until the outside is warm and crisps up slightly).

CHICKEN TORTILLA SOUP

2011-03-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

It appears I’m on a soup kick this year; this is my fourth new soup recipe in two months. Not only did this recipe at The Pioneer Woman Cook s look colorful and delicious and generally souptastic, but it also gave me an excuse to buy fresh, handmade corn tortillas. Yes, folks, nearly seven years after moving to Los Angeles, I’ve finally found a source for good tortillas. Really, I’m embarrassed that it took me so long to discover the awesome Mexican grocery just a few miles up the road, where you can buy a stack of several dozen perfectly tender, addictively flavorful, ridiculously simple (“ingredients: corn, water”) tortillas for just 99 cents. I’m even more embarrassed that it took me nearly as long to like corn tortillas, because I’d mostly only had the dry, mealy storebought ones. Falling in love with the good ones has been a total revelation.

This is a fairly basic tomatoey chicken and bean soup made remarkable by three things:

Stirring in cornmeal, which I’d never done before, gives a faint nutty, savory flavor and subtly creamy texture.
Those tortillas are the superstars here, added the soup without baking or frying—a rarity among tortilla soup recipes I found online, and dubiously received by some of the commenters, but to me, it makes a lot of sense. It seems more authentic somehow—I can see this recipe originally being created, like chilaquiles, as a thrifty way to use up slightly stale tortillas. It’s such a win-win for common sense: The cheap tortillas bulk up the soup and make the expensive meat stretch further, and the soup rehydrates potentially dried-out old tortillas and makes them toothsome again. But even if you’re using fresh tortillas as I was, it’s still a great idea: The tortillas lend their corny flavor to the soup, the soup’s flavor soaks into the tortillas, and, particularly after a day or more has elapsed, they have the irresistible soft-chewy texture of noodles. Even if you’re skittish about the idea of soggy tortillas, promise me you’ll give it a try. You can always garnish with corn chips if you want the crunchy topping too.
The garnishes really amp things up. As with chili, the sky’s the limit and the combinations are nearly endless. I think avocado, cilantro, and lime are a must, and onions (I used green instead of PW’s red) and cheese are strongly recommended, but you could add salsa/pico de gallo and sour cream as well. I only added avocado to about half the leftover servings, because I had a lot of them and I wasn’t sure how avocado would hold up over the long term (especially if I ended up freezing it). Then later in the week, after making fish tacos (I had a lot of tortillas to use up, after all), made the miraculous discovery that the leftover avocado cream sauce (that’s pureed avocado, lime, cilantro, and yogurt) was excellent when drizzled atop the avocado-less soup portions. When stirred in thoroughly, it froze just fine. In fact, it was so good that next time I’d consider making avocado cream specifically for the purpose of adding it to my tortilla soup.

In short, we really liked this soup. However, I’d do a few things differently next time. Overall, the soup base was blander than I’d expected. Granted, I wasn’t able to cook it quite as long as the recipe directed, and the flavor did improve the next day. But I think there are a few other factors. Using half broth and half water definitely made it taste watered-down; next time, I’ll make a half-recipe (this made a ton) and use all broth. And even gussied up with the spice rub, I don’t think the boneless, skinless chicken breasts did the soup any favors. I don’t really like white meat that much, but even chicken breast off the bone has exponentially more flavor. Usually, I use leftover roasted chicken or chicken I’ve boiled for stock to stir into soups, and I should have followed that impulse here, but I wanted to obey the recipe the first time through. Next time, I’ll do off-the-bone chicken instead (if you don’t usually have a stash of it in your freezer as I do, a storebought rotisserie chicken would do the trick) and just stir all the spice rub into the soup in Step 3. I also think one could squeeze in more veggies: a bit more bell pepper, maybe some fresh or frozen corn kernels, and possibly a diced jalapeno to add a bit more spice? I’ll try all these changes out next time and report back to you. But even if you make the recipe as written in the meantime, I think you’ll be pleased.

2 whole boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1½ teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon salt, plus additional salt to taste
1 cup diced onion
½ cup (or more) diced bell pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes with green chilies (such as Rotel, or Trader Joe’s fire-roasted tomatoes with green chilies; just use a can of diced tomatoes plus a can of green chilies if you can’t find this)
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons tomato paste
4 cups water
2 15-ounce cans black beans, drained
3 tablespoons cornmeal
5 corn tortillas, cut into uniform strips
1–2 ripe avocados, diced
Juice of 1 lime
Sliced green onions to taste
Chopped fresh cilantro to taste
Grated pepper Jack, Monterey Jack, or cheddar cheese to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix cumin, chili pepper, garlic powder, and salt in a small bowl. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil on chicken breasts, then sprinkle a small amount of spice mix on both sides. Set aside the rest of the spice mix.

2. Place chicken breasts on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until chicken is just done. Use two forks to shred chicken. Set aside.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a pot over medium high heat. Add diced onion, bell pepper, and minced garlic. Stir and begin cooking, then add the rest of the spice mix. Stir to combine, then add shredded chicken and stir.

4. Pour in diced tomatoes and chilies, chicken stock, tomato paste, water, and black beans. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for 45 minutes, uncovered.

5. Mix cornmeal with a small amount of water (I used a couple of tablespoons). Pour into the soup, then simmer for an additional 30 minutes. Check seasonings, adding more if needed—add more chili powder if it needs more spice (I added some chipotle chili powder at this point, which was an excellent decision), and be sure not to undersalt. Turn off heat and allow to sit for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. Five minutes before serving, gently stir in tortilla strips.

6. Ladle soup into bowls, then top with desired garnishes such as diced avocado, lime juice (to keep the avocado fresher, I recommend tossing it with the lime juice and then adding the mixture to the soup), green onions, cilantro, and grated cheese.

Serves: 8
Time: 2½ hours
Leftover potential: Great; leftovers will keep for at least a week in the fridge, improving with time, and can be frozen indefinitely.

APPLE CINNAMON BUTTERMILK CAKE

2011-02-22T15:54:00.000-08:00

After the banana cake of awesomeness, I was on an everyday-cake kick—plus I had an open container of buttermilk to use up—so it seemed like a good time to try this recipe from Pinch My Salt. It should have been a slam dunk, given that it’s just a slight adaptation of my old fave Berry Buttermilk Cake. And yet… Well, no doubt it suffered in such close comparison to the banana cake, with which I had become slightly obsessed. For one thing, while not difficult to make, the apple cake wasn’t quite as easy to put together, requiring the use of an electric mixer (since it’s butter-based instead of oil-based) and the peeling and chopping of an apple. For another, I didn’t care for the way the apple chunks retained their al dente bite, interrupting the tender cake I craved. But most notably, somehow everything I love most about the berry version—moist, sunny yellow crumbs; crunchy sugar top; delectable lemon-vanilla flavor—wasn’t present in the apple version. Sure, I like berries more than apples to begin with, but who knew I loved lemon so much more than cinnamon? Did I somehow flub the apple cake, or was all the magic of the berry cake really in that half-teaspoon of lemon zest?

Granted, this was only a letdown when measured directly against the banana and berry cakes. The cake was rustic but gorgeous and was devoured quite happily in a matter of days. I may simply not be as much of an apple-cake-type person as I thought I was, and that’s OK (at least as long as there are bananas and berries around). If you’re craving the warmth of cinnamon and baked apple in a simple, tangy cake, you should definitely give this a try.

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (½ stick), at room temperature
⅔ cup plus 1 heaping tablespoon sugar, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
½ cup buttermilk
1 cup peeled and chopped baking apple (I used Fuji)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and butter and flour an 8-inch round cake pan.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and salt; set aside.

3. In a separate bowl, beat butter and ⅔ cup sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, about two minutes. Add vanilla and egg and beat well. With the mixer set to low speed, beat in about a third of the flour mixture. Add half the buttermilk and continue beating on low speed until incorporated. Scraping down sides of bowl as necessary, beat in another third of flour mixture, then the remaining buttermilk. Finally, beat in the remaining flour mixture until just combined.

4. Scrape batter into the cake pan, smoothing the top with a spatula. Scatter apple pieces evenly over the top of the cake batter, then sprinkle evenly with 1 heaping tablespoon sugar. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon.

5. Bake until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in the pan for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool until warm. Invert onto a plate.

Serves: 8
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good.

TORTELLINI SOUP

2011-02-18T15:59:00.000-08:00

The only food I remember liking at my college’s cafeteria (besides the always-available salad bar, breakfast cereal, and ice cream, which made up most of my diet) was tortellini soup, which only made its appearance during select weekend brunch services. I recall numerous Sunday mornings on which my roommate, K, and I hauled ourselves out of bed at 11:00 and trudged across campus just in the hope that we might find tortellini soup waiting for us. (I believe I usually ate it with a side of Lucky Charms. Oh, college.) I doubt the soup was very good, but it was better than a lot of the other cafeteria offerings and even at my pickiest, I’ve always loved tortellini.

I hadn’t thought about that soup in years, until I saw this recipe from The Well-Fed Newlyweds featured on the Tasty Kitchen blog, and then I had to make it for old time’s sake. It’s basically a fresher, more flavorful update of the herby tomato broth studded with cheese tortellini that I dimly recall. There’s nothing particularly earthshattering about it, but we enjoyed it well enough to have it again. I like that it has some substance from the pasta, but it’s lighter than eating a big bowl of noodles with sauce, and there’s a generous hit of green goodness from the spinach (I love how easy it is to keep cramming greens into a soup, because they shrink down so easily to unassuming wisps). Best of all, it comes together in no time, making for a simple yet comforting weeknight meal.

I added basil to the ingredients because it’s pretty much a no-brainer when you’ve already got tomatoes, cheese, and oregano involved. I was thinking fresh basil would be great (I’d stir it in at the end with the spinach), but I didn’t have any on hand, so I just used some dried basil along with the dried oregano. I used Trader Joe’s cheese tortellini, but I’d be tempted to try the pesto variety to amp up the flavor even more next time.

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced (about ½ cup)
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried basil
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1 15-ounce can whole or diced tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 9-ounce package fresh or frozen tortellini, any variety (I used cheese)
3 cups fresh spinach, chopped and loosely packed
Grated Parmesan cheese to taste

1. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion. Cook until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the oregano, basil, broth, tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste. (If using whole tomatoes, you can break them up with your fingers as you add them to the pot, or break them up with a spoon once you’ve added them to the soup.)

3. Bring the soup to a boil and add the tortellini. Cook according to the package directions.

4. One minute before the tortellini are done, add the spinach. Stir to combine. When the tortellini are cooked, remove the pot from the heat immediately so they do not overcook. Season with additional salt and pepper, if necessary.

5. Serve topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Great—tastes even better the next day.

BANANA CARDAMOM CAKE

2011-02-16T16:56:00.000-08:00

Banana makes baked goods so tasty and moist, but I never quite know what I’m supposed to do with its usual manifestation, banana bread. It seems too sweet for a snack or a meal component, but not, well, desserty enough for dessert. Banana cake, though, is something I can get on board with, especially when it takes just 10 minutes to stir together. This beautifully simple recipe from Hogwash results in something magical: not overly sweet (not much sweeter than some banana breads, really) but with the springy, tender crumb structure of cake, which makes it undeniably dessert. I have a fancy banana cake I bake for A’s birthday, with rum and brown sugar and chocolate ganache, but this is an everyday cake, lightened by buttermilk and mellowed by cardamom (I’ll admit that as a cardamom obsessive I expected more of an overtly cardamom taste, but it plays more of a supporting role here and that’s OK—either that or my cardamom is getting old and weak), needing no frosting or other accompaniment (although you could gussy it up with whipped cream if you wanted to). And did I mention it’s incredibly, incredibly easy to make? You could whip this up on the spur of the moment if you had unexpected company, or, like me, you could just throw it together on a Tuesday night when the craving for cake hits you. I have a feeling that craving will now be striking fairly often, so I’d better stock up on ripe bananas.

Vegetable oil spray
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon salt
2 very ripe bananas, well mashed
1 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup vegetable oil

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9-inch cake pan with the vegetable oil spray and set aside.

2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, cardamom, and salt together into a mixing bowl and set aside.

3. Mash the bananas in the bottom of another mixing bowl. Add the sugar, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla, and whisk until well blended. Add the dry ingredients and the oil, and gently fold the batter together with a spatula, just until no dry spots remain.

4. Pour the batter into the pan and bake the cake on the middle rack for 35 to 40 minutes, or until lightly browned at the edges and just barely beginning to crack in the center.

5. When the cake is done, let it cool for about 10 minutes. Run a small knife around the edge. Using oven mitts, place a cooling rack on top of the cake pan and flip the cake and the rack together. Remove the cake pan, so the cake is upside-down on the rack. Place a serving plate upside-down on the bottom of the cake, and flip the plate and the rack together, so the cake is now right side-up on the serving plate.

Serves: 8
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good. We stored ours in the fridge for about three days and it was good even when eaten cold.

ROASTED CHICKEN WITH DIJON SAUCE

2011-02-14T16:40:00.000-08:00

It started so innocently, with vinaigrettes. Then there was a soup, some BBQ chicke n, a quesadilla, and a bread pudding. And now here I am, having transformed from a Dijon-phobe to someone who sees this recipe at Smitten Kitchen, a recipe with “Dijon” right there in the title, and thinks, “That looks really tasty!” And promptly makes it. And slathers the sauce all over her potatoes and asparagus. And licks the plate.

What can I say? This is a simple yet sophisticated one-skillet recipe consisting of plain old roasted chicken (cut into pieces and browned on the stovetop for quicker cooking) and a bright, savory, well-balanced (and, I hasten to reassure my former self, not too overwhelmingly mustardy) white wine-Dijon-cream pan sauce. I served it with smoked paprika roasted potatoes and roasted asparagus (although steamed green beans would be lovely too; I’d actually planned on those, but then asparagus surprised me by already being in season at the farmers’ market—I love you, southern California!). I substituted crème fraiche for the heavy cream, just because I already had some in the fridge waiting to be used up (and also because it is delicious). I should have let the sauce reduce a bit more, but it was Saturday night and I was tired and impatient and sauce-greedy, so I decided to err on the side of plentiful and thin rather than scanty and thick. Unfortunately, while a sauce shortage is certainly a bad thing, sauce that’s so runny it won’t stay on the chicken but instead keeps escaping to your plate, depriving your mouth of many precious droplets, is no fun either. We both loved this regardless, but I’ll definitely strive for a saucier sauce next time.

3 pounds chicken parts (thighs, drumsticks, and/or breasts), with skin and bones
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 small shallots, thinly sliced
¾ cup dry white wine
¾ cup reduced-sodium or sodium-free chicken broth
¼ cup heavy cream (or crème fraiche)
2 tablespoons smooth Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives or the green parts of scallions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Pat chicken dry and season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Heat oil in an ovenproof 12-inch heavy skillet (if you’ve got a cast-iron skillet, it is great here) over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Working in two batches, brown chicken, skin side down first and turning once, about 5 minutes per batch.

3. Return all chicken, skin side up, to skillet and roast in oven until just cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer chicken to a platter, then add shallots, wine, and broth to pan juices in skillet and boil, scraping up any brown bits, until reduced by half, 2 to 3 minutes. Add cream and boil until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. To thicken the sauce further, turn the heat to high and boil it until it reduces to a consistency you prefer. Whisk in mustard, chives, and salt and pepper to taste, then spoon over chicken.

Serves: 4–5
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK.

TOASTED COCONUT CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES

2011-02-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

Toasting coconut before you put it in a cookie would not have occurred to me, but it’s a genius idea; not only do you get that toasty flavor but a unique crunchy-chewy-melt-in-your-mouth texture that’s totally different from the moist stringiness of regular coconut. And combining it with dark chocolate is even better.

That said, I didn’t adore these cookies quite as much as I expected to, considering that they incorporate one of my favorite flavor combinations and come so highly reviewed. First off, they seemed too sweet to me, what with the normal complement of brown sugar plus the sweetened coconut. I would not have expected excessive sugariness from Cooking Light, usually a model of restraint in such things, but none of the other reviewers mentioned that—in fact, several specifically said “not too sweet”—so I must be ~~crazy~~ in the minority (A didn’t agree with my assessment either, but then he’s probably never met anything he’d call too sweet). Still, I kept wondering what these would be like if I tried using unsweetened coconut instead.

Second, I could have used a little more chocolate (a few poor cookies hardly had any), but that’s no surprise for a CL recipe that’s aiming for moderation. And there’s an easy fix for that: If I make these again, I’ll try 6 ounces instead of 4.

There’s no easy fix for the fact that the texture of the dough itself is a little unusual, probably because it has about half the typical amount of butter, resulting in a cookie that’s on the crisp and crumbly side. This befits CL but may have contributed to my vague overall dissatisfaction with the recipe. Although I enjoyed the flavors of coconut and chocolate, the cookie base itself tasted one-dimensional to me, as though it was missing something; maybe that something was the savor of butter, and its lack was what left me with the impression of oversweetness.

All this is not to say that we didn’t thoroughly enjoy these cookies; A loved them and I happily scarfed down my share. I just thought they’d rock my world and they didn’t, quite, so I’m a little perplexed by them.

I’ve doubled the recipe, on the recommendation of many commenters; I feel like if I’m going to bother making cookies I’d might as well make a lot of them since they keep so nicely in the freezer (I actually prefer eating them frozen), and apparently CL made them really tiny, which I didn’t want to do. So this will give you about three dozen normal-sized cookies.

2 cups flaked, sweetened coconut
9 ounces all-purpose flour (about 2 cups, lightly spooned in and leveled with a knife)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups packed brown sugar
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
4 ounces dark chocolate (70% cacao), chopped
Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Arrange coconut in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 7 minutes or until lightly toasted, stirring once. Set aside to cool.

3. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; stir with a whisk until blended.

4. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Beat in vanilla and egg. Add flour mixture, beating at low speed just until combined. Stir in toasted coconut and chocolate.

5. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake for 10 minutes or until bottoms of cookies just begin to brown. Remove from pan, and cool completely on wire racks.

Yields: About 3 dozen
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Great; I liked them even better frozen.

SPINOCCOLI PIZZA

2011-02-10T15:56:00.000-08:00

When I saw this recipe at Annie’s Eats, my first thought was Hey, I don’t have a broccoli pizza in my repertoire yet! My second thought was how nifty it is that Annie and A share a hometown, Bloomington, Indiana, and that this pizza is based on a beloved specialty of a restaurant I’ve heard A speak of, Mother Bear’s. (I think I’ve eaten there once myself.) Obviously, we were fated to give this a try. A admits he’s never tried Mother Bear’s spinoccoli pizza, not having been the type in his youth to order an all-vegetable pizza, no matter how alluringly cheesy. So I can’t compare Annie’s creation to the original, but I can definitely vouch that this is one tasty pizza. I usually avoid recipes that rely on white sauces—haunted by too many experiences with heavy, pasty, bland spinach lasagnas, mac and cheeses, and vegetarian casseroles—but this one was subtle and blended with the cheese to give the pizza a just-right chewy texture, not too moist or too dry or too creamy. The cheese (the cheddar is a nice touch) and the green vegetables, perfectly balanced, are the stars here; there aren’t really any other flavors except for the gentle garlic infusion in the sauce (which as a garlic-lover makes me want to experiment with mincing the garlic and just leaving it in there for a stronger hit). But really, when you’ve got cheese sauce and broccoli, who could ask for anything more?

Since I was using Trader Joe’s crust and a rectangular baking pan, I think my pizza was a little larger than the recipe was written for, so I amped up the vegetable quantities slightly. (I am a fan of amping up the vegetables when they will go unnoticed beneath a blanket of cheese, particularly when it’s spinach, which cooks up so much smaller than you expect that you can always fit in a little more.) Afraid of the heavy/pasty/bland curse of bad white sauce, I didn’t quite use all of it when topping the pizza, which I regretted later when it turned out to be so pleasant and unobtrusive. The thin layer I used was fine, but a tiny bit more moisture wouldn’t have been unwelcome. Next time (which will be soon; I’m craving spinoccoli again just from writing this) I’ll use it all.

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
¾ cup heavy cream or half-and-half (I used half-and-half)
1 clove garlic, smashed but left whole
Salt and pepper, to taste
6 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 pound pizza dough
¾ cup packed baby spinach leaves, torn
1¼ cups very small broccoli florets
2 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
2 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

2. To make the sauce, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking constantly, until bubbling and light golden, about 1 minute. Whisk in the heavy cream and garlic, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens and bubbles. Remove from the heat and whisk in the grated Parmesan until completely melted and smooth. Discard the garlic clove.

3. Roll out the pizza dough and place it on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. Spread the sauce over the crust. Sprinkle the torn spinach leaves over the sauce, then evenly distribute the broccoli florets. Top with the shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheeses.

4. Place the pizza in the oven and and bake until the cheese is melted and bubbling and the crust is lightly browned, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before slicing and serving.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

CHEESY CHILI MAC WITH VEGGIES

2011-02-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

I’ve never had Hamburger Helper or any other chili mac in my life, but as soon as I stumbled upon this gussied-up homemade version (after following a random assortment of blog links regarding something else entirely) at The Well-Fed Newlyweds, I suddenly had to have it. How could I resist a cheesy, beefy, spicy skillet pasta? What actually attracted me—after the cheese—was that the recipe cleverly adds corn, green chiles, and cilantro for a fresher twist on the classic, and inspired by some remarks in the comments, I snuck in a few more healthy additions: red bell pepper and zucchini. I also swapped in a jalapeno for the canned chiles and dialed back the cheese a little bit. All of these were good changes, but then I had to go ahead and make one more inadvertent adaptation: I misread the recipe and used two 15-ounce cans of tomato sauce (to be fair, that’s the only size they come in at Trader Joe’s, so the existence of a smaller size wasn’t even on my radar), nearly double the amount called for. As you might expect, my finished product was plenty delicious, but decidedly saucy. Considering I’d bulked up the solid side of things by adding more vegetables, using a bit more liquid probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea, but I’m guessing 14 extra ounces was overkill. Granted, If I hadn’t known there was supposed to be less sauce, I don’t think my first remark upon tasting it would have been, “Why, this chili mac has too much sauce!” But knowing I’d made an error, I couldn’t shake the suspicion that I’d thrown the flavor balance and texture out of whack. In other words: We enjoyed this easy, friendly, and unpretentious meal, and I’ll be making it again—but with the correct amount of sauce. Only then shall I render my final verdict.

1 tablespoon canola oil
1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium onion, minced
1 small red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 small zucchini, finely chopped
2–3 teaspoons chili powder (depending on your desired level of spiciness; I think I used 2 teaspoon regular chili powder plus ½ teaspoon chipotle chili powder)
¾ teaspoon ground coriander
¾ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon light brown sugar, lightly packed
2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce
2 cups water
8 ounces (2 cups) elbow macaroni
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels (if frozen, no need to defrost)
1 4.5-ounce can chopped green chiles (or 1 large jalapeno, minced)
1½ cups shredded cheese (I used cheddar and pepper Jack), divided
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

1. Heat the oil in a large (12-inch) skillet over medium heat. Add the ground beef, onion, red pepper, zucchini, chili powder, coriander, and cumin. (If you’re using a jalapeno instead of canned green chiles, add it now too.) Cook the beef until it is no longer pink, then drain off any accumulated grease, if necessary. (If the beef is really lean, you probably won’t need to drain it.)

2. Add the garlic and brown sugar. Stir constantly for 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato sauce, water, and macaroni. Cover the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until the macaroni is cooked through.

3. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in 1 cup of the cheese and the corn and green chiles (unless you’re using a jalapeno, in which case you already added it in Step 1). Top with the remaining cup of cheese, and cover the skillet. Let the skillet sit for a minute or two until the cheese melts, then sprinkle the cilantro over the top.

Serves: 6
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

PORK MEATBALLS WITH NOODLES AND LEMON-THYME SAUCE

2011-01-28T16:15:00.000-08:00

I first made this recipe from The Kitchn about a year ago, but for some inexplicable reason I never posted it (even though I remember taking photos and everything). I’m so glad I suddenly decided to try it again, because it’s incredibly delicious. I’ve never been a particular fan of meatballs, but these are enough to make me reconsider—moist, tender, and flavorful, bathed in a tangy, plate-lickingly addictive lemon-thyme pan sauce. Be forewarned: The sauce will be on the thin side, but don’t worry about it. The more sauce, the better! I think the first time I made this, I kept cooking it down in an effort to thicken it and ended up with too little; I recall the meatballs and noodles being somewhat dry. This time I was in a hurry and didn’t bother letting it reduce much, so my portions were a bit soupy but oh so tasty, with the sauce permeating the meatballs and coating every cranny of the noodles. (If you don’t like noodles, potatoes, rice, or bread would also be good sauce-soaker-uppers.)

I like that this is a substantial dinner (I recommend a nice green salad on the side) but feels so much lighter than the traditional leaden meatballs in tomato or cream sauce. Its citrusy zip will brighten up a dark winter’s day, but you could also enjoy it in the spring…Excuse me now while I enjoy a reverie about how good asparagus would taste dipped in lemon-thyme sauce.

POSTSCRIPT, JUNE 2011: I was on to something up there, because you know what's good in this? Asparagus! Just cut it into one-inch pieces, steam it, and throw it into the pan with the sauce, meatballs, and noodles. The green makes it pretty, the tastes go beautifully together, and you've got a one-dish meal right there. I'm doing it all the time from now on.

½ cup milk
¼ cup breadcrumbs
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
1 egg
1 pound ground pork
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra to taste
4 tablespoons chopped fresh sage leaves
1 teaspoon plus 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme, divided
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Freshly ground black pepper
1½ cups chicken broth
¾ cup dry white wine
¼ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
Zest of one lemon
8 ounces uncooked egg noodles

1. Put the milk and breadcrumbs in a small bowl and mix with a fork. When the crumbs have softened, squeeze out the milk and discard it.

2. Gently sauté the onion in a little olive oil until it is soft but not colored. Season with a pinch of salt and set it aside to cool.

3. In a large bowl, beat the egg with a fork or whisk. Add the pork, breadcrumbs, onion, ¼ cup Parmesan, sage, 1 teaspoon thyme, cayenne, black pepper, and 1 teaspoon salt. Mix with hands thoroughly.

4. Shape the mixture into walnut-sized balls. (I made mine on the small side and got about 40 of them.)

5. Over medium heat, place a skillet large enough to hold all the meatballs in one uncrowded layer. (For extra flavor and convenience, I used the same skillet I’d just used for sautéing the onions.) Add a little olive oil. When the skillet is heated, add the meatballs, shaking the skillet to keep them from sticking. Using tongs to turn so they brown evenly, cook the meatballs until they are no longer pink in the center and lightly browned on all sides. Remove from the skillet to a plate.

6. Add the chicken broth and wine to the skillet and simmer until reduced by about a third. Add the lemon juice and thyme, then return the meatballs to the skillet. Simmer at least 10 minutes, but up to half an hour.

7. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the noodles until al dente. Drain and add to the skillet with the sauce and meatballs. Toss well and serve garnished with lemon zest and grated Parmesan.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 to 1½ hours
Leftover potential: Good. If you want, you can do steps 1–4 several hours or even a day ahead (or you could probably freeze the uncooked meatballs as long as you like). Leftovers from the finished dish will keep well in the fridge for a week or so.

ROASTED CARROT-FENNEL SOUP

2011-01-25T11:07:00.000-08:00

I just realized that my last three posts have featured brown foods. It’s that time of year. But thank goodness for carrots, without which winter eating would be drab indeed. There are few things more cheerful on a cold day than steaming bright-orange soup, and I already have a couple of favorite recipes. I still had to try this one, though, because it has fennel.

I’m nurturing a nascent love affair with fennel, which is too bad for A because he’s decided he doesn’t entirely like the stuff. So, as in a restrained BBC costume drama, I’m fighting to keep my feelings in check while casting longing glances across the farmers’ market at the creamy white bulbs and feathery fronds. I refuse to be kept from fennel entirely, but fennel and I have agreed to see other people. In other words, I’m trying not to put it on the menu every week.

This recipe from Serious Eats seemed like it might be an acceptable compromise, a way to satisfy my fennel craving while pureeing it into oblivion for A’s sake (he says that while he doesn’t really dig the flavor of fennel, it’s the texture he really doesn’t like). I’d tried a different carrot-fennel soup recipe before and been disappointed, but this one wooed me with its talk of roasting the vegetables, because fennel is best when caramelized and carrots and onions aren’t too shabby either. The soup was easy to make and I followed the instructions pretty much to the letter, except for altering the process slightly to use my immersion blender. In retrospect, I think the traditional blender might have been easier in this case; roasted vegetables have a bit more resistance to pureeing than boiled ones, and I had to work for a long time (and add all the stock, not just part of it) to get it suitably smooth. But it wasn’t really a problem. I also used chicken stock instead of vegetable and crème fraiche instead of heavy cream because I had both of them on hand, and both worked very well.

The finished soup was delicious. A doesn’t really care for pureed soups (I just can’t win!), but he found it palatable enough. I’m almost tempted to leave out the wine next time because once I’d added it I found it impossible to ignore, even after the alcohol cooked off; I think it really changed the flavor and I had a nagging suspicion I might have liked the original flavor even better—but it did add a nice complexity, so I recommend at least trying it once. I happily ate the leftovers all week; the multigrain rolls I just baked were a nice accompaniment.

If you’re unsure about fennel, this might be a good way to try it. You get to taste both the bulb and the fronds, but the flavor in the finished soup isn’t overwhelming.

1 large fennel bulb (about 1 pound), thinly sliced, 1–2 tablespoons of chopped fronds reserved
1 pound carrots, quartered lengthwise
1 medium onion, quartered
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
¼ cup white wine
1 quart (4 cups) vegetable stock (I used homemade chicken stock)
½ cup heavy whipping cream (I used about ¼ cup crème fraiche)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine fennel bulb, carrots, onion, olive oil, sugar, and salt. Spread vegetables on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast in the oven, flipping occasionally, until browned and very tender, about 30 minutes.

3. Remove the vegetables from the oven. Add half of them to the bowl of a food processor or blender with 1 cup stock; puree the vegetables until smooth, about 1 minute, and transfer to a large soup pot or Dutch oven, then repeat with the remaining half of vegetables and another cup of stock. (Or, if you have an immersion blender, just add all the vegetables and all 4 cups of stock to the pot and blend until smooth.)

4. Add butter and wine to the pot with the puree and cook it over medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Add the remaining stock to adjust consistency and simmer for an additional 15 to 20 minutes. Add the cream and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve garnished with fennel fronds.

Serves: 4–5 (recipe says 4, but I got 5)
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good; will keep in the fridge for 1 week and in the freezer for months.

MULTIGRAIN ROLLS

2011-01-24T16:08:00.000-08:00

Every time winter rolls around (Ha! See what I did there?), I resolve to bake more bread. It seems like such a cozy, domestically capable thing to do. Yet I only seem to manage it a few times per year. I’m not exactly afraid of it; although I’m not super-comfortable working with dough, it always seems to turn out fairly well. But the fact is that in daily life, we don’t actually eat very much bread, even though I adore it. Aside from grilled cheese, and BLTs in the summer, we rarely have sandwiches, and I’m so committed to eating cereal/granola/oatmeal each morning that I almost never get around to making toast (plus A doesn’t eat breakfast). The only time I consistently work bread into the menu is when we’re having soup. So what usually happens is that I make a huge batch of bumpy rolls and stick them in the freezer, and we eat a few every time we have soup until suddenly the weather turns hot and I don’t feel like baking anymore. Maybe I make biscuits a few times too, but that’s pretty much it.

What would really serve me better, baking-wise, would be to start making my own pizza dough, then find a good recipe for pita bread to wrap around my gyros and sandwich rolls on which to eat my BBQ chicken, then maybe develop a perfect sandwich bread. I do intend to do all those things, but first I indulged my dream of being a Bread Person and made these rolls from Annie’s Eats. I was craving something hearty and wholesome. I don’t like really dense hippie whole-grain breads, but I am a huge sucker for oats, honey, and seeds, so this seemed right up my alley. The oat bran-flax seed mixture at the beginning was a little weird (mine hardened into a cement-like sludge that I feared would weigh down my bread entirely, plus I almost forgot to put it into the dough until I was nearly done adding all the white flour), and I realized at the last minute that I didn’t have the right kind of yeast (luckily, I consulted Google and figured out I could substitute 1.25 times the amount of active dry for the instant, which worked just fine), and I’m still getting acquainted with the KitchenAid dough hook, and I wasn’t sure what size pans to use (my two 8-inch metal cake pans turned out to be perfect), but despite every apparent brush with disaster, the recipe was easy to follow (I liked that specific weights were given for the flour measurements, as well as the exact size the rolls should be—if you don’t have a digital kitchen scale, go get one! They’re invaluable, especially for spatially challenged people like me who have a hard time eyeballing what half a pound looks like or whether my eight equal portions are really equal). My dough rose like a champ and baked very obediently into fluffy, flavorful rolls that were delicious when dipped into carrot-fennel soup (recipe forthcoming), or eaten on their own with a little butter. Although they’re actually chock-full of fiber, they’re not heavy or dry or aggressively grainy, and I love the seed-and-salt topping. (In retrospect, this is a much more successful version of another oat-and-seed-roll recipe I tried almost exactly three years ago.) It was also nice that the recipe makes a modest quantity of rolls; we’ll finish them off with this week’s batch of soup, and I’ll have the space in my freezer to experiment with baking something else.

We’ll see if there’s a place in my life for two whole-wheat roll recipes (bumpy rolls are still nearest and dearest to my heart), but right now I’m pretty sure I’d make these again. Probably not soon enough, however, to use up the enormous bag of oat bran I had to buy especially for this purpose. This was my first experience with oat bran, and while it seems tasty, I’m not sure what else to do with it. Most of the recipes I’m seeing online are for muffins, which I don’t eat very often. I’m sure I could throw it into granola, but what else? If you have tips, send ’em my way!

½ cup oat bran
¼ cup flax seeds
½ cup boiling water
1 cup warm milk (105–110˚ F)
2¼ teaspoons instant (rapid rise) yeast or 2¾ teaspoons active dry yeast
¼ cup honey
2 large eggs
⅔ cup old-fashioned (not instant) oats
7 ounces (1¼ cups) whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon salt
15 ounces (about 3 cups) all-purpose flour
Oil, for greasing the bowl
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons mixed seeds (e.g., poppy, sesame, fennel, caraway—I used all four)
Coarse salt, for sprinkling

1. Combine the oat bran and flax seeds in a small bowl. Pour the boiling water into the bowl and mix to moisten. Let sit until the water is absorbed, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2. Meanwhile, in the bowl of an electric stand mixer, combine the milk, yeast, and honey; mix briefly to blend. Using the dough hook, with the mixer on low speed, mix in the 2 eggs, oats, wheat flour, pepper, 1 tablespoon salt, and oat bran mixture until combined.

3. Slowly add enough all-purpose flour, ½ cup at a time, to make a soft, slightly sticky dough. Continue to knead on medium-low speed, about 3 minutes.

4. Form the dough into a ball. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to coat. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1½ to 2 hours.

5. Brush baking dish(es) lightly with oil (I used two 8-inch round metal cake pans). On a lightly floured surface, turn the dough out and divide into 16 equal pieces, about 2½ ounces each. Form each portion into a ball and place the dough balls in the baking dish(es), spaced slightly apart so they have room to grow together. Cover and let rise until puffy and nearly doubled in bulk, about 30 minutes.

6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolk and 1 tablespoon water. Brush lightly over the rolls. Sprinkle rolls with the seed mixture and coarse salt. Bake until the tops are golden, about 26 minutes. Let cool 10 to 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Yields: 16 rolls
Time: 3 hours 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; rolls keep well in the freezer

SAUSAGE, RED ONION, AND CREMINI MUSHROOM PIZZA

2011-01-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

Even though mushrooms and sausage are my favorite traditional pizza toppings, and mushroom-sausage-onion is my go-to order at Pizza Hut (I know, I know: it’s terrible pizza, and believe me, if there were better delivery offerings in our area I would avoid it, but every now and then—very, very rarely nowadays—I crave it; I just can’t help myself), the simple idea of using this combination without the tomato sauce had never occurred to me until I saw this recipe at Eggs on Sunday (it’s based on one from Bon Appetit). Even though it looked delicious, I promptly came down with a case of I-could-have-thought-of-that-itis, the stubborn resistance I sometimes irrationally feel toward making something that seems like such a no-brainer it barely needs to be written down—even though, of course, I didn’t think of myself. It’s a tragic condition with no known treatment except time and common sense.

Eventually, hunger won out and I made this. It was easy to throw together, especially since using my beloved homemade pizza sausage allowed me to skip the sausage-browning step, but I was having an off night in the kitchen: I oversalted the onions and mushrooms, overdid the cheese (I had an 8-ounce ball of mozzarella and my desire not to have a leftover scrap of orphaned cheese in the fridge won out over sensible restraint), and then overbaked the pizza, plus I’d had to use whole wheat dough for the crust because Trader Joe’s was out of white (I like their whole wheat for tomato-sauce pizza, but white is better for these gourmet-type ones), and then it did this weird uneven-baking-sticking-to-the-pan thing that was very frustrating (I really need a new pizza baking sheet, or even better a pizza stone, although I’d like to stick with the rectangular shape and all the ones available on Amazon are too big for my little old oven, sigh). I took some awful photos and sat down to eat, certain I’d created a salty, greasy, burnt, mutilated mess, but even with all these impediments, it still tasted fantastic—a nice blend of spicy/zesty, earthy/woodsy, and creamy/cheesy. A and I both loved it. I can’t wait to find out how great it tastes when I don’t eff it up!

1 pound pizza dough
6–8 ounces pound Italian sausage (casings removed) or ’Atsa Spicy Pizza Sausage
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
8 ounces cremini (or other brown or wild) mushrooms, sliced
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary
1 handful (about ½ cup) grated Parmesan cheese
6–8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, grated or torn into pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Stretch out your ball of pizza dough and lay it out on a pizza peel or baking sheet that’s been generously dusted with cornmeal.

2. If using Italian sausage, sauté it in a little olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat until browned and no longer pink, breaking it up with the back of a spoon. Remove from the skillet and set aside. If using ’Atsa Spicy Pizza Sausage, skip this step.

3. In the same skillet, pour in a little more olive oil (if needed) and sauté the red onion slices with the red pepper flakes, just until crisp-tender. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

4. In the same skillet, pour in a little more olive oil (if needed) and add the sliced mushrooms and fresh rosemary. Sauté until browned, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

5. Scatter the Parmesan cheese over the pizza crust. Add the sausage, onions, and mushrooms, then top with the mozzarella cheese.

6. Bake for about 8–10 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the crust is browned.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; I recommend reheating in the oven.

CURRIED LENTIL SOUP

2011-01-20T16:03:00.000-08:00

I’m not usually gaga for lentils, but every now and then I want them.

Aaaand I just realized that I started my two previous lentil entries with variations on this same sentence.

Anyway, I had a cold two weeks ago, and when I read a rave review at The Kitchn of this Molly Wizenberg (aka Orangette) recipe from Bon Appetit, it immediately sounded like just the thing I needed: warm, hearty, spicy, citrusy, cheerfully yellowish, wholesome, healing. What won me over was the secret ingredient: a lemony, garlicky chickpea puree (basically my recipe for hummus) stirred into the soup to give it a creamy, velvety texture without the richness. And indeed, this is a genius move. It also adds a nice, bright counterpoint to the earthiness of the lentils. I amped up the flavor even more by basically skipping the lemon-wedge garnish and squeezing the whole thing right into the pot, and I was not sorry.

This soup didn’t overcome A’s antipathy for lentils (if bacon and sausage couldn’t do it, we can hardly expect a miracle now), but by the time we ate it he was in the throes of a severe version of my cold and also swore he couldn’t taste the curry. Granted, my curry powder is shamefully old and not very fancy, so I’m interested in trying again and seeing how much new, good-quality curry powder makes a difference, but mostly I think his taste buds were defunct, because it tasted plenty curry-y to me. I do think I should have cooked the lentils a tiny bit longer; I slavishly followed the time listed in the recipe instead of testing them myself, and even though French green lentils* are supposed to hold their shape a bit more than regular lentils, mine seemed a bit too al dente. Regardless, I really liked this and may crave it again before winter’s over.

*This was my first time trying them, and it turns out they are not the same thing as ordinary green lentils: Bon Appetit helpfully notes that they are “small, dark green, and speckled with black; they can be found at some supermarkets and at specialty foods stores.” I got mine in the bulk section at Whole Foods.

Oh, and I strongly suspect the butter could be left out of this entirely, to make it healthier/vegan. The chickpea puree seems to do plenty to impart flavor and dairy-like creaminess. I’ll try omitting it next time and let you know how it turns out.

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, chopped, divided
2 tablespoons (or more) curry powder
1 cup French green lentils
4 ¼ cups (or more) water, divided
1 15- to 16-ounce can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 lemon, cut into 6 wedges

1. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion and carrot; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook until onion is translucent, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Add half of chopped garlic; stir until vegetables are soft but not brown, about 4 minutes longer. Add 2 tablespoons curry powder; stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add lentils and 4 cups water. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Increase heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, puree chickpeas, lemon juice, ¼ cup water, remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, and remaining garlic in a food processor or blender.

3. Add chickpea puree and butter to soup. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and additional curry powder, if desired. Add water by ¼ cupfuls to thin to desired consistency.

4. Divide soup among bowls. Sprinkle with thinly sliced green onions and serve with lemon wedges.

Serves: Original recipe says 6, but I got 5 smallish servings, although that may be because I accidentally skipped the “Add water by ¼ cupfuls to thin to desired consistency” direction.
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good; can be refrigerated for up to a week or frozen for months.

AMARETTO CHERRY JAM

2011-01-14T16:42:00.000-08:00

Many people are intimidated by making and canning jam, but it appeals to my methodical side. To me, the only difficult part is obtaining fruit in large quantities without breaking the bank. (Sure, you can do small batches, but canning involves such rigorous prep that it’s just as easy to make a lot as to make a little, and I don’t find it worth hauling out the canner for just a jar or two.) Of course, I’m lucky enough to live in California, an agricultural wonderland with year-round farmers’ markets featuring abundant fruits, but even so, it’s not always easy to venture beyond apples, pears, and strawberries as jam fodder. Other berries are scarce and expensive unless you pick them yourself, plus I didn’t invest in a canner of my own all summer, so the wealth of stone fruits passed me by (I managed to squeeze in some peach jam at the very end of the season, at least). I’ve loved cherry jam ever since I tried it at a bed-and-breakfast in Lawrence, Kansas, a few summers ago, but given that California is hardly cherry country (not to mention that I refuse to invest in a cherry pitter), I thought homemade cherry jam was out of reach for me—until I stumbled across this recipe at, of all places, the Kraft website (Kraft makes Sure-Jell pectin, so it has a decent stash of safe and reliable canning recipes). Yup, it turns out you can use frozen cherries to make jam. I’d never really even considered the existence of frozen cherries before, but sure enough, there they were at my supermarket, on sale and everything. They weren’t super-cheap, mind you—$3 per 1-pound bag, I think, and I had to buy three bags)—but cheaper than three pounds of fresh cherries would have been at the farmers’ market, and available in December for my holiday-gift canning purposes.

I was a little worried about how the frozen fruit would compare to fresh (it does have a subtle but distinctively different flavor, I think), but the added incentive of almond flavor (and boozy almond flavor, at that) won me over. Almond is one of my favorite flavors and such a natural complement to cherry. The resulting jam is delicious, pleasantly but not overpoweringly almondy, a bit on the sweet side but otherwise irresistible and a unique addition to my jam repertoire. I’m not sure I would have noticed it was made with frozen fruit if I didn’t already know. I’ll definitely be making this again.

2¼ pounds (36 ounces) frozen sweet cherries, thawed and drained
¼ cup amaretto or other almond-flavored liqueur (you may substitute ¼ teaspoon almond extract, but add it at the end of Step 4 instead of in Step 3)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 box fruit pectin
½ teaspoon butter or margarine (optional)
4½ cups sugar

1. Prepare jars and closures as in steps 1–2 here.

2. Measure sugar into a bowl and set aside.

3. Finely chop or grind cherries (I pulsed them with my immersion blender) and place in a 6- or 8-quart pot. Add amaretto and lemon juice and mix well.

4. Stir pectin into prepared fruit mixture in pot. If desired, add butter or margarine to reduce foaming. Bring mixture to full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar. Return to a full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam with a metal spoon.

5. Fill jars to within ⅛ inch of tops and process for 10 minutes, as in steps 7–9 here.

Yield: About 14 4-ounce jars
Time: 2½ hours
Leftover potential: Jars will keep on the shelf for up to 1 year; open jars will last indefinitely in the refrigerator.

CARAMEL CASHEW THUMBPRINTS

2011-01-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken in their natural habitat, the Christmas Eve cookie tray, so the caramel has been slightly rumpled by interstate travel.

The problem (or “problem”) with having so many kickass favorite holiday treat recipes is that you have scant opportunity to try new ones, unless you want to add to your list every year until your Christmas baking becomes an unmanageable burden and your output far exceeds what your friends and family could possibly eat in an already sugar-laden season. This year I already knew I had to—had to!—make spritz, coconut-apricot cookies, peppermint bark, chocolate peanut-butter balls on pretzels, and rosemary roasted cashews, so I decided I only had room in my life for one experiment. I stumbled upon the ideal candidate early—my Delicious account, where I organize all potential new recipes, indicates that I bookmarked it on January 15, 2010—and the fact that it remained the frontrunner for nearly an entire year is in itself a testimonial to its worthiness. I found it while browsing a random food blog I don’t normally read, and it was from a cookbook (Cuisine at Home Holiday Baking) produced by a magazine I hadn’t even heard of. The blog didn’t reprint the recipe, so I had to Google it and track it down at another blog. That’s dedication! It just sounded like such a perfect showstopper Christmas cookie: not only did it combine two of my favorite things, cashews and caramel, but it was also complicated enough to merit special-occasion status. (I can’t help but get cranky when everyday cookies show up on holiday cookie trays. I love chocolate chip as much as the next girl, but in the tradition I was raised in, Christmas is the time to eat cherished cookies—by the plateful—that you only get once a year and yearn for during the next twelve months. [Sugar cookies are an exception, because although they can show up all year round, their holiday incarnations are festively shaped and decorated enough to still be special.])

No source I could locate specified the recipe’s yield, so I doubled it to be on the safe side and got about 4 dozen, which was perfect; it’s labor-intensive enough that while you’re at it, you’d might as well do a lot of it. The cookie ingredients are a little odd, in an awesome way; there’s only brown sugar and no baking soda or baking powder, providing a toothsome but subtle platform for the main attraction of salty cashews and sweet caramel. (In my opinion, the white chocolate’s function is mainly decorative, and if you wanted to skip it, I would look the other way, though it definitely kicks everything up a notch.) The process is definitely on the elaborate side, since most of the stuff goes on top of the cookies rather than in them, but none of the tasks were too exacting in themselves, so you don’t need to have a lot of special skillz other than good direction-following (though no doubt there are those who could make their chocolate drizzles look far more artful than mine). I did have a little trouble making the caramel-holding divots deep enough (they nearly disappeared during baking, and even straight from the oven the cookies resisted my remaking them), but I noticed that you can still get a fair amount of caramel into even a shallow depression; once you've laid down an initial layer and it's had time to cool for a minute or two and get tacky, you can pile another layer of caramel atop it, even higher than the level of the surrounding cookie. (I still had a little caramel mixture left over, though.)

And how did they taste? Well, my mother, although she might be biased, declared them “the cookie of the year” to anyone who would listen, and I received rave reviews from other eaters as well. I love them, too. There’s a reason the salty-sweet combo is uber-trendy right now: Because it is awesome. This is definitely going into my permanent holiday baking repertoire, which means that next Christmas, unless I forgo trying anything new or I temporarily retire one other favorite (a la the Disney “vault”), I’m just going to have to start my holiday baking before Thanksgiving. For cookies like these, it’s worth it.

1cup butter, softened
1⅓ cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
2⅔ cups flour
2 egg whites
2 teaspoons water
3 cups chopped roasted salted cashews
32 caramels, unwrapped
6 tablespoons heavy cream
6 ounces white chocolate
2 teaspoons shortening

1. In a mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, and salt; beat on low until blended. Add flour and beat until combined. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for one hour.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment. Beat the egg white and water with a fork in a small bowl; set aside. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the dough balls in the egg-white mixture and then in the chopped cashews. (For maximum cashew coverage and adhesion, I found that it helps to give the cashew-covered dough balls a gentle squeeze in your hand to press the nuts slightly into the dough.) Place the cookies on the baking sheets and make an indention in each cookie with your thumb. Bake cookies until the edges are set, about 12–13 minutes. (You may need to remake the indentations while the cookies are still warm.)

3. In a small saucepan, heat the caramels and heavy cream over low heat. Stir until the caramel melts and then remove from the heat. Spoon the warm caramel filling into the indentations. Allow to cool completely.

4. Heat the white chocolate and shortening in a bowl in the microwave until the chocolate melts. Drizzle over cookies and refrigerate until set.

Yields: About 4 dozen
Time: 3.5 hours (but that includes 1 hour chilling time and at least 30 minutes cooling time)
Leftover potential: Good; they freeze well.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH, KALE, AND CHEDDAR BREAD PUDDING

2010-12-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

Neglectful blogger returns! Sorry for the nearly two months of silence. The holiday travel-and-gift-making/buying season hit me like a hurricane and I fell back on easy favorite recipes in an effort to spare my own sanity. Now that normal life has finally resumed, I've got two new holiday recipes to share with you (both of which were big hits), plus a tasty new soup, not to mention the fact that I've still got to pick my favorite recipes from last year (a tough job with so many good candidates). But first, here's a tasty recipe (from Bon Appetit via Ezra Pound Cake) I tried way back in November. It's presented as a vegetarian Thanksgiving dish, but I think it's pretty great for January too: substantial, comforting, and savory (the sharp cheddar made me feel like I was eating mac and cheese, and the subtle dab of Dijon adds a nice zip), but also bright, veggie-laden, and not too heavy or indulgent-feeling. I divided the recipe in half to make it into a manageable everyday (or, considering it's a bit time-consuming, at least Sunday) main dish. Give it a shot, especially if your New Year's resolutions involve eating more vegetables or discovering the magic of kale. And rest assured that my New Year's resolutions involve posting on my food blog more regularly.

1 pound peeled, seeded butternut squash, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 3 cups)
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3–4 large eggs (because I needed an egg white anyway later in the week, I used 3 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk, which seemed to work perfectly)
1 cup + 2 tablespoons half-and-half
3 tablespoons dry white wine (or hard cider)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (or 1½ teaspoons dried)
1½ teaspoons chopped fresh sage (or ¾ teaspoons dried)
1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
½ loaf day-old baguette (do not remove crust), cut into 1-inch cubes (about 4 cups)
½ cup chopped shallots (about 2 large)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 bunch kale (about ½ pound), ribs removed, kale coarsely chopped
4 ounces extra-sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place squash and 1 tablespoon oil in a large bowl; sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Spread out squash cubes on a large rimmed baking sheet. Roast until squash is tender, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes. Set aside.

2. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

3. Whisk eggs in large bowl. Continue whisking as you add half and half, wine, thyme, sage, mustard, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. Add baguette cubes to the egg mixture, and gently fold them into the mixture to coat each side. Let the baguette pieces soak 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon oil in large pot over medium heat. Add shallots, garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes, and sauté until soft and fragrant, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Add kale; cover and cook 2 minutes. Uncover the pot, and stir until kale is wilted but still bright green, about 5 minutes (the kale will still be a little crunchy).

5. Generously butter an 8-by-8 or 9-by-9-inch baking dish. Using slotted spoon, transfer half of bread from egg mixture to the dish, spreading evenly. Spoon half of kale over the bread layer. Spoon half of squash over the kale layer, and sprinkle it with half of the cheese. Repeat with remaining bread, kale, squash, and cheese. Pour the remaining egg mixture over the bread pudding.

6. Cover bread pudding with foil, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered until custard is set, about 20 minutes longer.

7. Preheat broiler; broil pudding until cheese browns slightly, about 2 minutes. Cool 5 minutes and serve.

Serves: 4
Time: 90 minutes to 2 hours

CHICKEN ENCHILADAS WITH ROASTED TOMATILLO CHILE SALSA

2010-11-18T16:01:00.000-08:00

I’m not going to beat around the bush here: The salsa in this recipe (from Tyler Florence at the Food Network site, via My Husband Hates Veggies) is effing amazing. Also? Effing amazingly easy to make. I’d never even bought tomatillos before (and once I’d gotten them home, had to launch into lengthy Internet research to figure out how to store them, which let me tell you, there’s no consensus between “in a wire basket on the counter” and “in a paper bag in the fridge”; I ended up doing the former for a few days and then switching to the latter after two went bad, although that might have been a fluke), but all you do is peel them and throw them on a baking sheet with onions and garlic and jalapenos, then puree them into yumminess with cumin and salt and cilantro and lime. I was highly suspicious of this whole method—No oil to roast the veggies? Only 12 minutes in the oven? Wouldn’t they stick to the baking sheet or be too crunchy to puree in my crappy blender? How could this possibly work? But when I took them out (granted, I let them cook a few more minutes due to said suspicions) they were hot and smooshy and turned instantly to liquid when blended. As soon as I tasted it, I was instantly delighted that I’d taken the commenters’ advice and made more than the recipe called for—actually, I tried to make a double recipe, but after a few of my tomatillos rotted I only had enough for 1.5 times the recipe, though I did accidentally use the full double amounts of the cilantro and lime, a very wise decision on my part because cilantro and lime make everything better. (I will definitely follow this exact method next time; the quantities I used are noted below.) The salsa was refreshingly green, zippy, with exactly the right amount of spice; I could easily see myself making a big vat of it and just devouring it with chips, if I didn’t want to bother with the whole enchilada thing. However, chicken and cheese enchiladas both filled with and blanketed in magical green sauce are a worthy endeavor, and not difficult to assemble. A called this the best recipe I’ve made in months, and while it certainly has some tough competition (Fish tacos! Hob Nobs! Magic juice! Pumpkin ice cream!), I don’t necessarily disagree.

I've never made a Tyler Florence recipe before, so I don’t know if I should blame him or the Food Network site, but this one was really poorly written, and it annoyed me. I’ve cooked enough that I could extrapolate what to do when the recipe got vague, but I still like to have detailed instructions the first time I make something and appreciate precision (even if, as in Cooking Light recipes, I roll my eyes at it and end up rebelling against it), plus not everyone is so experienced. I think of Food Network shows and recipes as being for general audiences, so even if Florence wrote the recipe this way (and although I didn’t watch the episode, some commenters noted that the written directions deviated from it), why not have a recipe writer test and clarify it? As everyone noted, it needed more salsa, and the salsa is then added to the recipe in four different stages, but the recipe never tells you how much to use each time, just “some.” (Based on the amount of salsa I ended up making, I figured out quantities that seemed reasonable to me and noted them in the recipe below.) I would also have preferred a precise measurement for the chicken meat rather than just “one 3-pound deli roasted chicken”; I already had deboned chicken meat in my freezer that I wanted to use (left over from roasted chicken or making chicken stock) and had to totally guesstimate how much to use. (I went with 1 pound and that seemed to be plenty; we even had enchilada filling left over, which is hardly a curse because it makes a great nacho or quesadilla topping later—or, hell, just a dip for chips.) Not to mention the shoddy editing throughout (“Garnish, cilantro and tomato”). Boo! Still, the end result is so incredibly delicious it’s hard to complain. But I do think my instructions below represent a vast improvement.

One final note: The original recipe included sub-recipes for black beans and yellow rice, but I skipped them; the enchiladas were a full meal in themselves (we were utterly stuffed after two). I also left out the suggested toppings of sour cream and guacamole, which seemed like gilding the lily, but you might disagree.

Salsa:
1½ pounds tomatillos, husked
1½ medium onions, peeled and quartered
6 garlic cloves, peeled
3 jalapenos
3 teaspoons ground cumin
1½ teaspoons salt
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves
Juice of 1 lime

Enchiladas:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
½ medium onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1½ teaspoons ground cumin
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken stock
1 deli roasted chicken (about 3 pounds), boned, meat shredded (I used about 1 pound shredded chicken)
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
10 large flour tortillas
½ pound Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (I used pepper Jack)
Chopped tomatoes and cilantro leaves, for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. To make the salsa, roast tomatillos, onion, garlic, and jalapenos on a baking sheet for 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer the roasted vegetables and any juices on the bottom of the tray to a food processor or blender. Add the cumin, salt, cilantro, and lime juice and pulse mixture until well combined but still chunky. (This should yield about 5 cups of salsa.)

3. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and caramelized, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cumin, then cook for 1 minute more. Sprinkle on the flour and stir to ensure that the flour doesn't burn, then gradually add the chicken stock. Continue stirring over a low simmer until the flour cooks and the liquid thickens. Turn off the heat, add about 1½ cups of the roasted tomatillo chile salsa, and fold in the shredded chicken meat. Season, to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Change the temperature of the oven to 350 degrees. Take a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish and smear the bottom with about 1½ cups of the salsa. Briefly warm the flour tortillas one by one in the oven so they are pliable. Place about 1 cup of the salsa in a shallow bowl and coat both sides of each tortilla lightly with it. Put a scoop of the shredded chicken mixture on top of each tortilla, followed by a sprinkle of the shredded cheese. Fold the tortilla over the filling and roll up enclose it. Place the tortilla in the baking dish and repeat with remaining tortillas. Finally, pour about 1 cup of salsa over the enchiladas and top with the remaining shredded cheese. Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes until bubbly and browned on top. Garnish with cilantro and tomato.

Serves: 5
Time: 2 hours
Leftover potential: Good.

ROASTED SQUASH SEEDS

2010-11-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe that at the ripe old age of 33, I’m still learning mind-blowing new facts such as this: It’s possible to roast the seeds of any winter squash as you do with pumpkin seeds. Really! I weep to think of all the squash seeds I’ve thoughtlessly discarded over the years when I could have been crunching on a delicious salty snack instead.

When I was a kid, my mom would always roast the seeds from our Halloween pumpkins, and now I get a visceral sense of nostalgia every time I eat them. But I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve had them as an adult. I’ve never been a pumpkin eater, and we don’t really carve jack-o-lanterns—I’m not that artsy or good with knives, and they always seem to rot spectacularly on the patio before Halloween even arrives. The few times I’ve tried to roast pumpkin seeds, they haven’t tasted as good as mom’s. But as soon as I learned this amazing fact about squash seeds (from an offhand mention at Smitten Kitchen), I consulted Simply Recipes for instructions, roasted some butternut squash seeds, and bingo! Just as good as I remembered. The secret is brining the seeds in salt water; the salt permeates the whole seed instead of sticking to the outside or (as often as not) falling off on the pan or in your hand.

Unless you’ve got a number of squash, the yield is going to be fairly small. I’ve roasted butternut squash seeds twice now and have gotten between ¼ and ½ cup each time. But this recipe is easily scalable to any quantity, so even if you’ve just got one little squash you’re going to turn into soup or serve on pasta or pizza, save the seeds! A negligible amount of labor will soon turn them into a couple of handfuls of tasty munchies.

Winter squash, such as butternut, pumpkin, or acorn
Salt
Olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Cut open the squash and use a strong metal spoon to scoop out the insides. Separate the seeds from the stringy core. Rinse the seeds in a colander.

3. In a small saucepan, add the seeds to water, about 2 cups of water to every half cup of seeds. Add 1½ teaspoons of salt for every cup of water (more if you like your seeds saltier). Bring to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.

4, Spread about a tablespoon of olive oil over the bottom of a baking sheet. Spread the seeds out over the baking sheet, all in one layer. Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 10–20 minutes. (For smaller seeds, such as butternut or acorn, go with 10 minutes and keep a close eye on them; they’re usually done when they begin popping.) When seeds are toasted to your satisfaction, remove from the oven and let the pan cool on a rack.

Serves: Variable
Time: 30–40 minutes
Leftover potential: OK. The seeds will lose their crispness if you store them in a sealed container, but you can keep them in an open bowl on the counter for a day or two.

BRIE, APPLE, AND ARUGULA QUESADILLAS

2010-11-09T13:59:00.000-08:00

This is fall wrapped in a tortilla, baby. Sharp mustard, creamy Brie, sweet crisp apple, and peppery arugula are a match made in heaven. (By the way, look at me enjoying mustard in a non-hot dog, non-salad dressing context! I’m all growed up!) For added autumnal bliss, we had butternut squash soup on the side, a combo I highly recommend.

This being Cooking Light, the quantities are rigidly precise, but since we’re basically just putting toppings on tortillas here, feel free to go with your instincts. I winged it because the “fajita-size” tortillas I had in the fridge were smaller than the ones called for; using one of those for each of us, with the topping measurements roughly halved, worked out well. We liked them so much that I ended up making them again later in the week, to accompany some of the leftover soup. One tip: Consider doubling the mustard-cider sauce. The second time, I accidentally made the full quantity instead of half, and A enjoyed using the remainder as a dip for his quesadilla (I dipped into my soup instead, because I am wild and crazy, as well as still secretly mustard-fearing).

Maybe I’m just uncoordinated, but I felt like the quesadillas needed a lot of wrangling while cooking—Brie gets very runny when it melts, the arugula leaves are puffy and like to scatter everywhere, and it’s hard to fold and flip the tortilla without apple slices trying to escape. This really worried me the first time around, but I quickly learned that any cheese that oozes out and browns on the skillet makes an excellent snack for the cook (oh, toasted cheese is such a miraculous substance). And with a bit of practice, I refined my method to make things a bit easier: Put the pepper atop the flat platform of the apples, not the wobbly pile of arugula as the original recipe asks; let the arugula wilt for a few seconds before folding the tortilla over; once you fold the tortilla, flip it over right away so that the cheese is on the top layer of fillings, not the bottom, which helps keep the spillage at bay—you can always flip it over again near the end of cooking if the first side isn’t browned enough for you. My end results were a bit homely, as the photos amply illustrate, but when something tastes this great, I don’t care. Quick to throw together, wholesome yet indulgent-seeming, satisfying enough to be a light meal, this recipe is destined to become a go-to.

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons apple cider
3 (10-inch) flour tortillas
6 ounces Brie cheese, rind removed, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices, divided
1 Fuji apple, cored and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices (about ½ pound), divided
3 cups arugula, divided
¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided

1. Combine mustard and cider in a small bowl; stir well.

2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Spread each tortilla with about 1½ teaspoons mustard mixture. Place 1 tortilla, mustard side up, in pan. Arrange one-third of cheese slices over half of tortilla; cook 1 minute or until cheese begins to melt. Arrange one-third of apple slices over cheese; sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon pepper and top with 1 cup arugula. Fold tortilla in half; press gently with a spatula. Cook 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Remove from pan. Repeat procedure twice with remaining 2 tortillas, cheese, apple slices, arugula, and pepper. Cut each quesadilla into 4 wedges.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 20 minutes
Leftover potential: Unknown, but I wouldn’t bother. The recipe is so easy, you can just make a new batch when you’re ready for more.

PUMPKIN ICE CREAM

2010-11-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

Aw yeah.

Now, I’m not one of those people who goes gaga for pumpkin-flavored things every October. In fact, this was the first time in my life I’d ever bought canned pumpkin. I’ve never had a pumpkin spice latte and I don’t care for pumpkin pie. No doubt this is a relic of my squash-hating childhood, which I’m gradually growing out of. Sure, I appreciate the moisture that pumpkin lends to baked goods, but it still mostly seems like an excuse to foist a lot of spice-flavored desserts on me, and I have a limited tolerance for coffee cake and ginger snaps when chocolate or fruity or caramel/nut/butterscotch/vanilla (what would you call that category?) sweets are available. But a few years ago someone did turn me on to the Double Rainbow pumpkin ice cream Trader Joe’s carries every fall (or used to—I didn’t spot it this year), and A and I made short work of a pint. So now that I have my own ice cream maker and the sky’s the limit for flavors, it seemed natural to try to re-create that seasonal treat. For once, David Lebovitz’s A Perfect Scoop left me high and dry, and most of the pumpkin ice cream recipes I found online contained eggs, which we all know I’m too lazy to fuss with, but at long last I stumbled upon this recipe at Tasty Kitchen. It was one of the easiest ice creams I’ve ever made, rivals strawberry-sour cream for the downright creamiest (thanks to the pumpkin, it was thick and pillowy before I even poured it into the ice cream maker and became even fluffier after processing), and tasted incredibly delicious. It’s definitely going to become an October tradition at our house, and I may even have to make it one more time before Thanksgiving. If I’m not careful, I’m going to become one of those Pumpkin People.

It didn’t seem worth buying pumpkin pie spice for a one-off recipe like this, but luckily, DIY recipes are plentiful online. I went with this one from the Kitchn, but subbed cardamom, which I adore, for mace, which I didn’t have. I divided the recipe in half to achieve the called-for 1 tablespoon (actually, it’s 1 tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon, but close enough), but unfortunately I ran out of cinnamon, had to make a mad dash to the store, and returned so flustered I botched the math and put in twice as much as I was supposed to (1 tablespoon, eek!). The resulting ice cream definitely wasn’t inedible, but it did leave a slight burning sensation on the tongue. I think that’s the first time in my life I’ve experienced what too much cinnamon tastes like, and I don’t recommend it. Luckily, this is such an awesome ice cream that even that couldn’t put a damper on my glee every time I scooped myself a bowl.

1 can pumpkin (15 ounces)
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice*
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoons salt

*Homemade pumpkin pie spice:
Mix the following together in a small bowl:
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth and combined.

2. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 1 hour.

3. Process in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Serves: 8
Time: 10 minutes, plus chilling and processing time
Leftover potential: Good.

BEER-MARINATED CHICKEN TACOS

2010-11-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

Hmm. Instead of “Recipes I Was Too Lame or Indecisive to Post the First Time Around,” how about we place this in the more-adventuresome-sounding imaginary category “Lost Recipes From the Distant Past Unearthed!” I first made this recipe (from the book Weber’s Real Grilling, via Serious Eats) more than a year ago, but I was on the fence about it. It wasn’t earth-shatteringly exciting (seasoned grilled chicken on a corn tortilla with guacamole: couldn’t I have thought of that?), and the flavor had a weird, unpleasant undertone I couldn’t place. In retrospect, I think my sesame oil had gone rancid. It’s not an ingredient I use often (gotta make more wontons and dumpling soup, I guess). So I didn’t take any photos and I didn’t add the recipe to my repertoire, but I still kept it in my “try again” file, and when I recently bought a six-pack of Negra Modelo so I could pour a bottle into a pot of chili, I figured I might as well put another bottle toward trying these again—with a new batch of sesame oil. And the result was quite tasty! Even on the decidedly-not-a-real-grill George Foreman, the exterior of the chicken got crisp and caramelized while the interior stayed moist and flavorful. I still don’t find this recipe especially revelatory, but it’s a quick and easy summer (or summery) meal, and living in a household that loves tacos and guacamole and beer, I’d be foolish not to make it again.

1 cup dark Mexican beer, such as Negra Modelo
2 tablespoons dark sesame oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 cups of your favorite guacamole
8–12 small (taco/fajita size) corn tortillas

1. Mix the first seven ingredients (through cayenne pepper) together in a large Ziplock bag or large glass or plastic bowl with a lid. Add the chicken thighs, stirring to coat. Seal the container, removing as much air as possible, and place in the refrigerator to marinate for 2–24 hours (I recommend doing it at least overnight).

2. Grill chicken until fully cooked and browned on both sides. Remove from the grill and allow to rest for 5 minutes, then cut into thin strips.

3. While the chicken is resting, warm tortillas on the grill (or in a dry skillet on the stove) until pliable, about 30 seconds to 1 minute per side. To assemble, spread a heaping spoonful of guacamole along the middle of each tortilla, then pile with chicken slices.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes, plus 2–24 hours marinating time
Leftover potential: OK (store chicken, guacamole, and tortillas separately until ready to eat).

LOADED POTATO SOUP

2010-10-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

I can take or leave a baked potato. Certainly I’ve never been attracted by the classic version with all the fixin’s; as a child I had a distinct aversion to toppings, and I still dislike big dollops of sour cream. But apparently I’m attracted to soups topped with bacon, cheddar, and green onions, because when I saw this recipe in the October issue of Cooking Light, I immediately flagged it. (Later I realized that my pictures of it look almost exactly like the photos of CL’s identically garnished summer squash and corn chowder from last month. I am nothing if not consistent!) I thought the soup looked like a basic, quick, comforting, A-friendly weeknight meal, nothing more, but I was surprised by how good it actually was—so flavorful for such a simple ingredient list, and if I may say so, way better than a dry and flaky baked potato.

I used to be a diehard faithful recipe-follower, but so often lately I find myself rebelling against the dictates of CL. I know the magazine has strict parameters for healthiness and, in many sections, speed, and I support both of those concepts in theory, but not when they run counter to good sense. I guess it means that I’ve grown as a cook, that I’ve seen enough recipes to look at one and instantly see how I’d adapt it to my style. So: no prechopped onions for me, and no microwaving the bacon—why let all that delicious bacony goodness go to waste? Instead I crisped up the bacon (I used one slice extra, because A is a relentless bacon lobbyist and I am weak) in the pan, removed it, and then cooked the onion in the bacon fat—for much longer than CL’s oddly precise “3 minutes,” too, because there is nothing like tender, caramelized onion with potatoes, and besides, I was still getting the other ingredients ready before I could proceed. This ended up adding so much flavor to the soup that I think it’s well worth the small amount of extra time. My adaptation for the potatoes was less successful. Our microwave is old and temperamental, and cooking anything in it for longer than five minutes usually makes it overheat and temporarily burn out. Luckily, I rarely have cause to microwave anything that long—the only times I’ve made it burn out are times when I’m desperately zapping frozen chicken broth that I forgot to defrost in the refrigerator ahead of time), but CL wanted me to do the potatoes for 13 minutes. Instead, I peeled them and then boiled them—a rookie mistake. They were so moist that when I added them to the pot and (instead of “mashing them into the soup,” which sounded like a lumpy pain) pulsed them briefly with my immersion blender (second rookie mistake), they merged with the white sauce and the sour cream (which I may claim to dislike, but I gotta say, it added a wonderful zing to the soup) to create a super-thick mixture that hovered on the verge between “incredibly rich and creamy” and “rather paste-like.” It still tasted great, and A (who normally fears creamy things) said he liked it the way it was, and I could have thinned it with more chicken broth if I’d had any, but it would have been better if I’d just baked the potatoes in the oven. With that caveat, I’d definitely make this again. Even with my stubbornly less convenient changes, it was a fast, easy, and satisfying weeknight meal. (We had roasted broccoli on the side, highly recommended to complete the loaded-baked-potato theme.)

Oh, and I increased the other topping quantities a bit, too. I can never resist cheese, and maybe I’m not chopping my green onions finely enough, but the 1 teaspoon CL wanted me to put on each serving equaled about silly little four pieces, so I upped it to 1 tablespoon per bowl. Childhood plain-potato me would be shocked!

4 6-ounce red potatoes
½ cup chopped onion
1¼ cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups 1% milk, divided
¼ cup reduced-fat sour cream
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 slices bacon, diced
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
¼ cup thinly sliced green onions

1. Pierce potatoes with a fork. Microwave on high 13 minutes or until tender (or bake in the oven at 350 degrees until tender--30 minutes, maybe?). Cut in half; cool slightly.

2. While potatoes cook, cook bacon in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Remove with a slotted spoon to a paper-towel lined plate and set aside. To the bacon fat in the saucepan, add onion and sauté until softened. Add broth. Combine flour and ½ cup milk; add to pan with remaining 1½ cups milk. Bring to a boil; stir often. Cook 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in sour cream, salt, and pepper.

4. Peel potatoes and discard skins. Coarsely mash potatoes into soup. Ladle soup into bowls and top each serving with cheese, green onions, and bacon.

Serves: 4
Time: 40 to 80 minutes, depending on how you cook the potatoes
Leftover potential: High; even tastier the next day.