APRICOT-GLAZED SRIRACHA GINGER CHICKEN

Oh, yum. And also, YUM. This is my favorite kind of recipe—the kind that packs a huge flavor punch and will wow the hell out of anyone who eats it, but has a dirty little secret: it’s dead easy, laughably simple, and super-cheap to make. Without having to buy many special ingredients or expend much effort to speak of (just blend, then bake), you can bask in the glow of feeling all fancy and awesome and enjoy as much sticky-sweet-salty-spicy-saucy chicken as your stomach can hold. It’s a win-win!

When I saw this recipe (loosely adapted from Gourmet) at Sassy Radish, I knew it would be a slam-dunk with A, a Sriracha devotee, but was less sure how I’d like it myself, considering my feelings about all the separate ingredients don’t rise much above neutral. When I was mixing up the marinade, I started to worry that the chicken would just taste like soy sauce, because that’s about all I could smell. But I kept telling myself that the flavors would change in the oven, and I was right: the chicken emerged transformed. The sauce was amazingly addictive, with just the right amount of spice (enough to make my lips burn just a little, but not so much that a cold beer didn’t quench the fire). I licked my fingers, licked the plate, and wanted more. This is definitely going into constant rotation, especially in the summer.

The only change I made was to use chicken drumsticks instead of whole chicken legs, because I can buy a package of 6 drumsticks for a pittance at Trader Joe’s, whereas for whole legs I have to make a special trip to Whole Foods and spend about four pittances. Plus it seemed like a saucy glaze like this was tailor-made for casual, family-friendly finger food like drumsticks (or even chicken wings, but I’ve never been a fan of them—so much work for so very little meat). The drumsticks worked great, but I ended up with way more sauce than chicken—not a huge problem when the sauce is so tasty, but a little wasteful, and the sauce didn’t cook down enough to get really glazy. I could probably have used twice the drumsticks and cooked everything in a 9-by-13 dish instead of drowning my drumsticks in several inches of sauce in a 9-by-9 dish. I’ll try it next time and report back. It wouldn’t hurt to have leftovers—A ate ours the next day, and he reported that they were even tastier then.

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 (3-inch) piece peeled ginger, finely chopped
⅔ cup apricot preserves or jam
⅓ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons Sriracha
4 bone-in chicken legs (drumstick and thigh) or an equivalent quantity of drumsticks, washed and patted dry

1. Place garlic, ginger, preserves, soy sauce, water, and Sriracha and in a food processor or blender and pulse until sauce is combined.

2. Place sauce and chicken in a plastic bag or a glass bowl with a lid (if your baking dish has a lid, that would be extra-convenient) and let marinate for an hour.

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

4. Place the chicken and sauce in a baking pan and bake for 30 minutes, at which point you should check for doneness. If red or pink juices are running when you cut into the chicken), cook some more at 350 degrees (check after 15 minutes and then at 5-minute intervals—mine took about 45 minutes total).

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour, plus 1 hour for marinating
Leftover potential: I haven’t tested this myself yet, but A testifies to their goodness.

SUMMER CSA: WEEK 4

3 yellow zucchini
1 bunch of teeny-tiny radishes
2 leeks
2 onions
6 Yukon Gold potatoes
½ bunch sage
½ bunch basil
1 head lettuce
11 carrots
Italian flat beans (forgot to count them)

Hooray, more Italian flat beans! That’s the most remarkable part of this week’s haul; there’s not even any exotic Californian fruit to liven things up. While I was unpacking the bag of produce last night, A and I agreed that the summer CSA selection has been pretty tame compared to the winter one. That makes it less work to fit the produce into our menu, but it takes a little of the thrill of adventure away, too.

I’ll probably serve the flat beans with shallots and lemon again; they were just perfect that way before. The carrots and radishes will be snacks (I had some this morning, in fact; the carrots are sweet, while the radishes are remarkably spicy, belying their wee, cute appearance). I’m not sure about everything else. The lettuce is just begging me to make BLTs again, and the potatoes and basil make me think of pesto-potato pizza...although penne with potatoes and arugula would be good, too; are there enough potatoes for both? I'm stumped on the leeks--I wonder if I could sub them for the red onion in the potato-arugula pasta recipe? Otherwise, I'm tempted to just make this seductive leek confit and then figure out what to do with it later, like throw it into eggs or on sandwiches or something. Yellow squash salad would be a natural use for a couple of the yellow zucchini. The one item that looks likely to defeat me is the sage; I think of it as more of a fall/winter herb and don’t think I have any recipes that call for it that don’t also involve butternut squash. Maybe I can freeze it.

Here’s what happened to the last box:

• Leek: Used in pasta with bacon, leeks, and mushrooms
• Carrots: Eaten as snacks
• Rosemary: Thrown away, sadly, after I failed to use or freeze it
• Potatoes: Used in a pretty tasty pesto-potato salad with green beans, which I failed to post here because I felt like maybe my execution was a little flawed; I overcooked the potatoes, which made me feel like I was eating cold mashed potatoes, and I don't think I had enough pesto, and although I really liked having the pine nuts whole in the salad rather than blended into the pesto, it was odd to have shredded Parmesan in there--it might have been better off blended in. I'd like to try it with my pesto recipe (minus the pine nuts), because parsley really brightens things up. If I do attempt it again and improve upon my first attempt, I'll post it.
  
• Oranges: Eaten
• Arugula: Used in corn, arugula, and bacon salad
• Spinach: Thrown into the pasta with bacon, leeks, and mushrooms when I realized I didn’t have anything else to do with it. It was a tasty addition that added some nice color; I would actually consider doing it again in the future.
• Celery: Eaten as snacks
• Cucumber Used in fattoush
• Honey: Not used yet, but honey ice cream is in my plan for this weekend.

STRAWBERRY FROZEN YOGURT

When A and I took our first taste of this frozen yogurt after churning it in the ice cream maker, we both looked at each other and said, “Strawberry Julius.” My version may be a little fresher, but it took me right back to the treat I’d always order at mall staple Orange Julius when I was a kid, my reward for behaving myself after what then seemed like an interminable session of shopping with my mother. I gather from its Web site that Orange Julius has now become just another Jamba Juice/Robek’s clone, offering a wide variety of fruit smoothies with names like “Strawberry Xtreme” and “Tropical Tango,” but back then there were just two flavors, orange and strawberry, and you could get a raw egg blended in if you wanted to. (Ah, the ’80s, when we didn’t care about food safety, didn’t wear bike helmets, and rode in the back of hatchback cars without seat belts!)

Nostalgia aside, this is another great recipe from David Lebovitz (I got it from A Perfect Scoop, but you can also find a version on his blog)—pretty similar to the blueberry fro-yo I made a couple of weeks ago, only you macerate the strawberries with the sugar and alcohol to get the juices going, and you don’t have to press the mixture through a sieve (it’s an option, but I like the little crunch of strawberry seeds). It didn’t taste quite so magically revelatory to me as the blueberry one did, but it was still insanely delicious enough to shatter all my expectations about what frozen yogurt should be, and you can’t beat that brilliant shade of pink. Also, now that we finally have hot weather like the rest of the country, I can testify that this (fairly) light frozen treat is just about the best refreshment I can think of after a stroll on a warm summer night. Considering how plentiful and beautiful Southern California strawberries are, it’s a recipe I’ll make again and again.

1 pound (450g) strawberries, rinsed and hulled
⅔ cup (130g) sugar
2 teaspoons vodka or kirsch (optional, but recommended; I used kirsch)
1 cup (240g) plain whole-milk yogurt (I recommend Greek yogurt)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1. Slice the strawberries into small pieces. Toss in a bowl with the sugar and vodka or kirsch (if using) until the sugar begins to dissolve. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours, stirring every so often.

2. Transfer the strawberries and their juice to a blender or food processor. Add the yogurt and lemon juice. Pulse the machine until the mixture is almost smooth. If you wish, press the mixture through a mesh strainer to remove any seeds.

3. Chill for 1 hour, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Time: 3 hours 15 minutes, mostly hands-off, plus processing time
Yield: 1 quart (6-8 servings)
Leftover potential: Good

SUMMER CSA: WEEK 3

This week, the lovely Grover Cleveland will undertake the Vanna White role in showing off our CSA bounty:


My share of the box contained:
1 leek
4 carrots
½ bunch rosemary
3 Yukon Gold potatoes
4 Valencia oranges
½ bunch arugula
½ bunch spinach
½ head celery
1 cucumber (I took this in exchange for P getting the cauliflower)
1 jar honey! (I was super-excited about this, so P was generous enough to let me have the whole jar)

Grover is a particular fan of the spinach (he actually took a tiny bite right after I snapped this photo):


Beyond the honey, everything here is pretty tame and should be easy to use up. As usual, the carrots, celery, and oranges will be snacks. I plan to use the arugula in a salad with corn and bacon, the potatoes in a new pesto-potato salad, the leek in some pasta with bacon and mushrooms, and the cucumber in fattoush. The spinach will just have to be a salad or something, and I guess the rosemary gets left out again—I’ll probably throw it in the freezer. As for the honey, I can always use it in granola (I go through a lot of honey that way), but I’d like to use at least a little in something special, where you can really taste it. I’m thinking honey ice cream!


That’s right, Grover; I said “honey ice cream.”

Here’s how we dispatched the last CSA box:

• Onion: Used in pizza sauce
• Celery: Snacked upon (a little too skinny and bitter, though; would have been better in soup)
• Spinach: Used on pizza bianca instead of arugula (which was really good!)
• Lettuce: Used on BLTs and as salad
• Leek: Used on pizza bianca instead of onion
• Strawberries: Eaten straight up
• Round zucchini: Eaten in vegetable tortilla stacks (They might have been better stuffed, after all—they were a little disappointing texture-wise, with the dry mealiness typical of zucchini that grow too large, though they tasted fine mixed up with other ingredients.)
• Italian flat beans: Eaten with shallots and lemon (These beans were a wonderful discovery—so tender, velvety and delicious! I’ll definitely look for them at the farmers’ market in the future and hope they show up in future CSA boxes.)

DILL, RED ONION, AND CHEDDAR DROP BISCUITS

This just goes to show that sometimes you should disregard advice, even when it’s your own. Over the years, I have periodically been suckered into making drop biscuits and other savory quickbreads, lured by the promise of freshly baked bread for dinner on an ordinary weeknight. But I’ve never met one that didn’t disappoint me; in the end, no matter what seasonings were involved, they just tasted dry and baking-powdery, not like real bread. Finally, about a year and a half ago, after another unsatisfying attempt, I wrote, “Remind me to stop trying non-sweet quickbreads. I just don’t like them that much.”

Luckily, I didn’t listen to myself, and when I saw this recipe at Everybody Likes Sandwiches, it looked so good I bookmarked it and made it despite my previous pronouncement. And it was so good! I don’t know whether the strong flavors of the onion, dill, and cheese just blocked out the usual baking-powdery taste or whether the recipe was just better constructed than others I’ve tried—or did my use of real buttermilk (rather than the more convenient milk + lemon juice substitute) have something to do with it? (I am so proud of myself—between making blueberry buttermilk cake [twice!], ranch dressing, and these biscuits, I have nearly used up an entire carton of buttermilk before its expiration date, for once.) All I know is that I made the recipe as written (though I substituted fresh dill for the dried originally called for), it was very easy, and the biscuits turned out just lovely, savory and moist. I snuck a tiny bite of one off the cooling rack, just to taste-test, and ended up eating the whole thing right there, standing over the counter, without butter or anything. Then I ate two more at dinner, dipped into carrot-potato soup, which they went perfectly with. I froze the remaining biscuits to eat with the leftover soup, but I imagine these would also make great snacks or breakfasts. I assume I’ll find out, because I can tell these little gems will be something I’ll turn to again and again. Not only will they be a great boon to my menu planning, because A is much more happy to eat soup if there's something to dip into it, but they are also infinitely adaptable with different herbs, cheeses, and other add-ins—though at present I see no need to deviate from the perfect marriage of cheddar, onion, and dill.

At last, quickbread victory is mine!

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup red onions, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (or 1 tablespoon dried)
A hearty grind of black pepper
A large handful of grated cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk (my mixture looked a little dry, so I may have added just a splash more)

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, red onions, dill, black pepper, and cheese. Stir in the buttermilk and oil and mix lightly until combined.

3. Using a tablespoon, drop heaping blobs of dough on a parchment-covered or silicon-lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Yield: The original recipe says 6–9 biscuits; I got 10.
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: OK. They’re best when fresh from the oven, but I stored one on the counter in a plastic bag and ate it the next day and it was still good (if anything, the flavors had deepened). Then I threw the rest in a freezer bag, froze them for about a week, and heated them up in the microwave; those were fine with soup, but not the same as the fresh ones.

BLUEBERRY FROZEN YOGURT

(I wish the lighting in my kitchen were better, because this frozen yogurt was the most beautiful shade of blue-purple.)

I never knew I could feel this way about blueberry frozen yogurt. Frozen yogurt always seems a little sad to me, like the consolation prize of desserts—something you eat if you’re dieting or if there’s no ice cream around. Yes, I know that “real” (i.e., actually yogurt-tasting) frozen yogurt is all trendy nowadays, what with that Pinkberry all the kids are talking about, but I haven’t jumped on board. All I think of when I think of frozen yogurt is (a) the 21 Choices frozen yogurt store in Pasadena that always has a line of tourists halfway around the block while the insanely good gelato store hidden 100 yards away is usually abandoned; and (b) the bland TCBY-style soft-serve-frozen-yogurt-with-many-toppings craze of the early 1990s. And blueberry? An actual fresh blueberry may be tasty, but as a flavoring, it’s hardly on my top-five list (for fruits, I generally gravitate toward strawberry, raspberry, lemon, lime, and cherry, in case you were wondering). In other words, if presented with a menu of frozen desserts, blueberry frozen yogurt would not be the first thing I’d order.

But of course, blueberry frozen yogurt homemade by me, with blueberries I picked with my very own hands and a recipe from the genius David Lebovitz, is another story entirely. Of the four desserts I’ve made in my ice cream maker so far, this may actually be my favorite. I can’t even tell you exactly why I love it so much. It’s tangy, but not too tangy, It’s deeply blueberry-flavored, but not too intense. Maybe it’s the little bit of kirsch, which adds a hint of almost almondy flavor (to me, cherry and almond flavors taste similar somehow, and I loooove me some almond flavor, so when I say something tastes like almonds, that’s a good thing—which is why even though I’m not much for fruity beers, I cannot resist Sam Adams Cherry Wheat beer; it’s like what drinking almond extract should be like). Whatever it is, I’m smitten. We don’t have enough blueberries left to make more of this (yes, that means we ate about 6 pounds of blueberries in a single week!), but I’m definitely making strawberry frozen yogurt ASAP, because dear god, I might like it even more than this, if such a thing is possible.

Oh, and what’s more, this was really easy to make, except for the momentary messy annoyance of pushing the blueberry mixture through a fine-mesh strainer.

1½ cups plain whole-milk yogurt (I recommend Greek yogurt for extra creaminess)
¾ cup sugar
3 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
1 teaspoon kirsch
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. In a blender or food processor, blend together the yogurt, sugar, and blueberries.

2. Press the mixture through a strainer into a large bowl to remove the seeds and skin.

3. Stir in the kirsch and the lemon juice and chill in the fridge for one hour.

4. Freeze in your ice cream maker per the manufacturer’s instructions

Yield: 1 quart (6-8 servings)
Time: 15 minutes, plus 1 hour chilling time
Leftover potential: Good

BLUEBERRY BUTTERMILK CAKE

On Saturday morning, A and I picked over seven pounds of blueberries. Last year when I did this with my friend J, the weather was unbearably hot and sunny and the blueberries were small and relatively picked over. This year, it was cool and cloudy and the blueberries were big, ripe, and plentiful, so I was able to pick nearly a pound more in what felt like half the time—and then come home with double that amount, thanks to A lending an extra pair of intensely blueberry-loving hands. Here is what 7.25 pounds of blueberries looks like, in case you were wondering:


So we have been decadently devouring fresh blueberries by the bowlful, but of course, I wanted to make something special with our bounty. This berry-studded buttermilk cake recipe was published in Gourmet this month and has been making the food blog rounds: I first saw it, looking delectable in its original raspberries, at The Smitten Kitchen, then at Sassy Radish, and then again, with blueberries this time, at The Food Librarian. I’m not much of a cake eater or baker, but these simple single-layer no-frosting “everyday cakes” always look so cozy and charming to me, I couldn’t resist this one—and I’m so glad I didn’t. It was easy and so good—light, moist, not too sweet, with the tang of buttermilk, the irresistible (especially when paired with blueberries) zip of lemon zest, and an addictive crispy-sugared top. It’s the kind of thing you could whip up at the height of summer without breaking a sweat and bring to a picnic or barbeque.

The Food Librarian noted that all her blueberries sank to the bottom, so I dusted mine with flour before setting them gently atop the batter and they didn’t sink quite as uniformly as hers—but they still sank; I guess they were just too plump not to. This wasn’t a problem until I went to flip the cake out of the pan and of course, it wouldn’t release at first, then splatted out onto the cooling rack in a heap. I might have been too impatient, it’s true—maybe I should have let it cool in the pan just a little longer—or maybe that soft, juicy, berry-laden bottom was just destined not to hold up (though I noticed the Food Librarian’s came out just fine, darn it). So my cake was extra “rustic”-looking and I had to work hard to salvage a non-mangled slice for photographic purposes, but it tasted so good, who cares? We ate it for dessert, we ate it for breakfast, I’m going to go home and eat the rest of it right now, and I’m making it again later in the week (still at least 3 pounds of blueberries left!). I’d also love to try it with strawberries.

I’m including the weights for all the ingredients because, thanks to my cute little kitchen scale, I actually used them this time! Precision!

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
½ teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
⅔ cup (146 grams) plus 1½ tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 large (57 grams) egg
½ cup well-shaken buttermilk (you can substitute 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice stirred into it, but really, if the word “buttermilk” is in the title of the recipe, don’t you think you should spring for the real stuff?)
1 cup fresh blueberries (about 5 oz) (dust them with a pinch of flour if you’re worried about them sinking)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees with the rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and ⅔ cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about two minutes, then beat in vanilla and lemon zest. Add egg and beat well.

3. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour. Mix until just combined. Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter blueberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1½ tablespoons (22 grams) sugar.

4. Bake until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.

Yield: 1 9-inch cake
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: High, assuming you don’t eat it all in one sitting. I kept it in a covered container in the fridge and found that I really liked eating it slightly chilled. It stayed moist for days.

SUMMER CSA: WEEK 2

This week’s haul:
1 onion
1 bunch celery (mine in exchange for P taking the head of cauliflower, a vegetable I haven’t yet learned to appreciate)
½ bunch spinach
1 head lettuce
1 leek
1 pint strawberries
3 round (“eight-ball”) zucchini
10 Italian flat (Romano) beans

The “entirely new to me” award goes to the Italian flat beans. I was suspicious of them at first sight, so huge and tough-looking, but the Internet assures me they are just like green beans but even more delicious and actually more tender. I think I’ll try them with shallots and lemon this weekend.

Aren’t those little zucchini adorable? I’m stumped on what to do with them, though. The normal treatment for round zucchini seems to be to stuff them, but I haven’t been a huge fan of stuffed zucchini recipes I’ve tried in the past, and besides, these are so wee, they would end up like canapés. I do have some stray leftover ricotta nearing its expiration date in the fridge, though, so maybe a snack-sized version of this recipe would be just the thing. Otherwise, of course, I can just use them like normal zucchini. We’ll see how next week’s menu plays out.

I’m not sure how I’ll use the leek, spinach, or onion yet, but they shouldn’t be too hard to dispatch. The lettuce will go for salads and the celery for snacks, and I’m actually eating the strawberries right now.

Here’s a quick rundown of what ended up happening with the last CSA box:

• Lettuce: Used in BLTs, tacos, and salad
• Carrots: Eaten as snacks
• Rosemary: After some Internet research, I actually ended up freezing it for later!
• Onions: One used in Shrimp Boil, the other in Pasta Ascuitta
• Oranges: Two eaten as snacks, three still in my fridge
• Strawberries: Eaten as a snack
• Avocados: Two used in Guacamole My Way, one used in Pasta With Tomato, Avocado, and Oregano (and the fourth one, as I mentioned, bartered to Carpool J, which I now regret slightly, considering how good they were)

Everything was delicious, but on a par with what I usually get from the farmers' market. The avocados stood out as the most remarkable, or maybe it was just my triumphant improvised guacamole that impressed me so much. Runners-up were the oranges, which were consistently sweet and juicy, if not as sexy as the blood oranges we'd gotten the week before.

ROASTED BANANA ICE CREAM

I’m not a big fan of raw bananas (in fact, overly ripe ones kind of gross me out), but they can be really good in cooked desserts—particularly when any sort of caramelization is involved. So when I opened up The Perfect Scoop for the first time and saw this recipe, I immediately knew it had to be one the first I tried. Bananas cooked with brown sugar and butter? Yes please! The smell of them baking was amazing, and if they hadn’t been as hot as molten lava when I pulled them out of the oven, I would have been powerless to resist cramming them into my mouth right then and there instead of throwing them into the blender with the rest of the ingredients. I’m not sure the resulting ice cream is quite as delectable to me as those caramelized bananas seemed, but it’s unique and plenty delicious, with a concentrated banana flavor that seems almost more banana-y than real bananas. A little of it goes a long way for me; I nearly couldn’t finish the two-scoop bowl pictured above and have found that the ice cream actually tastes best when you sneak just a spoonful or two straight from the container. It lasts all week that way, too!

Despite its intense flavor, this ice cream is actually relatively light, made with whole milk instead of eggs and cream (or even half-and-half, like the first two ice creams I tried). But the bananas lend it a deceptive creaminess and heft, as the peanut butter did for my first ice cream (whereas my second ice cream, the lemon one, turned out fluffier and grainier). It doesn’t matter much to me one way or the other—taste is more important to me than texture in this context, and I’m still just so amazed that I can create anything resembling ice cream in my own kitchen that I’m not concerned with attaining that “real” ultra-creamy ice-cream texture; if I were, I’d switch to custard-based recipes—but it’s interesting to see how different ingredients affect the outcome. Kitchen chemistry!

Like the others I’ve tried, this non-custard-based recipe is ridiculously easy to make, especially considering all the deliciousness it yields—just bake, blend, churn, freeze, and eat. Better still, it cost next to nothing to make: I rescued the ripe bananas from being consigned to the trash in my office kitchen on Friday (the company provides us with fresh fruit and there are always leftovers at the end of the week), the whole milk was 99 cents at Trader Joe’s, and I already had the sugars and a lemon. With its rich flavor and use of an always-available fruit, this will make an especially nice wintertime ice cream (perhaps with a tablespoon of rum added to the mix?). I’d also be interested to try it with chocolate chips or chocolate sauce to cut/complement the banananess.

I now have my very own copy of A Perfect Scoop in my hot little hands (it's on sale on Amazon, ahem), so expect my ice cream experiments to continue until the weather gets too hot for our freezer to keep ice cream frozen!

3 medium-sized ripe bananas, peeled
⅓ cup packed light brown sugar (I used dark, because that’s what I had)
1 tablespooon butter, salted or unsalted, cut into small pieces
1½ cups whole milk
2 tablespoons granualted sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ teaspoon coarse salt

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Slice the bananas into ½-inch-thick pieces and toss them with the brown sugar and butter in a 2-quart baking dish. Bake for 40 minutes, stirring just once halfway through, until bananas are browned and cooked through.

3. Scrape all the contents of the baking dish (the bananas and the thick syrup) into a blender or food processor. Add the milk, granulated sugar, vanilla, lemon juice, and salt and puree until smooth (be sure you close the lid tightly first!).

4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. (If the mixture has thickened during chilling, just give it a little stir to thin it back out before pouring it into the ice cream maker.)

Yield: About 1 quart (6–8 servings)
Time: 50 minutes, plus chilling and processing time
Leftover potential: Good

GUACAMOLE MY WAY

Our favorite guacamole comes from a vendor at our farmers’ market, but lately it’s been getting too expensive to justify buying. Over $6 for a small container is pretty exorbitant, especially in a city where avocados literally grow on trees (my friend Editor A has one in her backyard). So, last time we had steak tacos for dinner, I decided to make my own guac, using a recipe from my files I hadn’t tried in years. A few of the details gave me pause (lemon juice instead of lime juice? tomatoes? cumin?), but I forged ahead and discovered that apparently my tastes have changed, because the resulting guacamole was...not very good. I mean, we ate it and it didn’t taste bad or anything, but it didn’t hold a candle to the pricy farmers’-market guacamole I’d had fantasies of effortlessly surpassing with my homemade version. FAIL.

So when I was presented with a mess of beautiful avocados from the CSA last week, I was a little worried about doing right by them. I promptly scrapped the old recipe and searched for a better one, but after scrolling through the comments of numerous blog posts and Epicurious entries, I realized that everyone’s guacamole ideal is different—garlic or no garlic (or garlic powder), onions or no onions, cilantro or no cilantro, tomatoes or no tomatoes, lemon or lime or orange juice, peppers or Tabasco sauce or cayenne or no spice at all, not to mention all the other crazy things people confess to adding, including sour cream, cream cheese, and Miracle Whip! In the end, I decided simplest was best. I chose the ingredients I considered to be indispensible—avocado, lots of lime juice, a little garlic (some people find raw garlic too overpowering, but I like it while I’m eating it; admittedly, however, when my mouth tastes like garlic hours later even after I’ve brushed my teeth, I have some regrets), cilantro, and plenty of salt—and concocted my own version. And cripes, it was one of the most delicious guacamoles I have ever eaten, rivaled only by the ur-guacamole I ate on my first trip to Mexico that got me liking guacamole in the first place. We ate the entire bowl for dinner, with just some corn chips for dipping and some corn fritters on the side. And I’m crossing my fingers for more avocados in the CSA box this week, because I can’t wait to make this again.

2 medium, ripe avocados
1 medium clove garlic
Coarse kosher salt to taste
Juice of 1 lime
1 handful minced fresh cilantro (maybe 2 heaping tablespoons?)

1. Peel, seed, and dice the avocados and place them in a medium glass bowl (preferably one that has a lid), but don’t mash them yet.

2. Mince the clove of garlic and sprinkle the garlic with a pinch of coarse salt. Let it sit for a minute or two, then mash it well with a fork until it makes a paste. Scatter the paste over the avocados in the bowl.

3. Add lime juice, cilantro, and coarse salt to taste to the bowl. (At Andy’s behest, I added a few drops of Tabasco sauce—most people use green Tabasco for guacamole, but I only had the red—but I’m not sure it really added anything, and I didn’t miss the spiciness.) Toss everything well, then mash with a fork to desired consistency. Taste for seasonings, adjust as necessary, and mix well.

4. Cover surface of guacamole with plastic wrap to prevent browning (some people, including me, perhaps superstitiously, also put one of the avocado pits in there), cover the bowl with a lid, and refrigerate for at least a few hours so the flavors can blend. I like to take it back out of the fridge about 15–20 minutes before eating, though, so it’s not ice-cold.

Serves: 2 or more
Time: 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Unknown

SUPER LEMON ICE CREAM

Another fantastic recipe from The Perfect Scoop, which I shall be buying immediately (or as soon as I’ve maxed out my library renewals, anyway). It’s ridiculously easy to make (throw stuff in blender, blend, chill, churn in ice cream maker) and, as promised, super-lemony—so refreshing on a summer day. And, conveniently, it used up the other half of the carton of half-and-half I bought for last weekend’s chocolate-peanut butter ice cream!

This ice cream turned out much lighter, so fluffy that I got nearly double the yield of my last attempt, and the texture is less creamy, almost crumbly when scooped and more akin to sorbet in the mouth. I thought maybe I messed something up (Did I overchurn it? I was also busy making BLTs and corn at the time), but since neither my KitchenAid instruction booklet nor Lebovitz’s book mention this as a potential ice-cream-making problem, I’m chalking it up to simply the lower fat content in this particular recipe—not only is it made with half-and-half rather than eggs or cream, but it doesn’t have the extra heft peanut butter provided last time around. Regardless, it’s delicious, so I’m not worried. I’ll definitely be making this again. I’ve seen variations online using limes instead of lemons, which would be excellent to try as well. I’d also like to figure out a way to incorporate strawberries into the ice cream for a strawberry-lemonade flavor (in the meantime, though, I’ll just serve it with strawberries on top).

2–3 lemons (the original recipe calls for 3, but mine were so juicy that two sufficed), preferably organic/unsprayed
½ cup sugar
2 cups half-and-half
1 pinch salt

1. Zest 2 lemons directly into a food processor or blender. Add the sugar and process until the zest is finely ground.

2. Juice the lemons you just zested, plus another lemon if necessary, to yield ½ cup juice. Add to the blender and blend until the sugar dissolves.

3. Add half-and-half and salt and blend.

4. Chill mixture for 1 hour, then freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.

Yield: 1 quart (for us, about 8 servings)
Time: 15 minutes, plus chilling and freezing time
Leftover potential: Good.

THE RETURN OF THE CSA EXPERIMENT!

I loved our CSA experiment last time around (fall/winter 2007), especially because it was responsible for introducing me to the wonders of roasted kale, but the friend I was sharing the box with went back to school and got too busy to cook, so we didn't renew our membership. Since I have access to a great year-round farmers' market, it wasn't much of a problem for me to leave the CSA, but when my friend approached me about rejoining this spring, I jumped at the chance--not only to support a great cause and encourage myself to cook more spontaneously and adventurously, but also to sample what the farm has to offer at a different time of year.

We opted for biweekly delivered again and got our first box two weeks ago, but I was 36 hours away from leaving on a trip to Minnesota, so I couldn't take on any produce unless it was immediately edible (strawberries) or not very perishable (blood oranges, onions, and radishes), leaving my friend P with armloads of greens to eat (and she gamely rose to the challenge). What I did eat was delicious, but it wasn't a full representation, so I'm counting this week's haul as my first official one.

My half of the box contained:
2 heads lettuce (P, understandably, didn't want any this time around)
1 bunch carrots (in exchange for letting me have all of these, I very nobly allowed P the green peppers and red cabbage, two of my non-favorite vegetables)
1/2 bunch rosemary
2 onions
5 oranges (I think they're Valencias, not blood oranges, but I haven't sampled one yet)
1 pint strawberries (P got 2 pints, since I already have some at home from the farmers' market)
4 avocados! (Yes, we had an astounding 8 total; they grow on trees here, you know.) (Only 3 avocados are pictured, however, because I bartered one to Carpool J in exchange for a favor. Produce is the new currency!)

It shouldn't be too challenging to use this stuff up. The strawberries will get eaten immediately (in my lunch today, actually), and the onions, carrots, and oranges will keep as long as necessary. I can slip the rosemary into something next week. There's an awful lot of lettuce, but if I eat a few salads on the weekend, some BLTs, and maybe tacos early next week, it should take care of most of it (assuming it lasts that long). The avocados are pretty hard still and will probably keep long enough for me to put them on my BLTs, make guacamole, and perhaps whip up some avocado pasta.

CHOCOLATE-PEANUT BUTTER ICE CREAM

Did I mention that A gave me the ice cream maker attachment for the KitchenAid mixer for my birthday last month? It took me a while to clear out enough space in the freezer for it, but in the meantime I checked David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop (much buzzed-about by food bloggers) out of the library...then after taking one look at this awesome must-have tome, I promptly added it to my Amazon wish list, flagged about half of the pages, forced the ice cream maker bowl into a corner of my freezer, and began daydreaming about which luscious-sounding recipe I'd make first. I wanted to start off easy, without having to futz around making an egg-based custard on the stove (custard and caramel are among my top cooking fears)--and luckily, Lebovitz's book offers copious non-custard options for ice cream, as well as frozen yogurt and sorbets. Inspired by the amazing peanut-butter chocolate-chip gelato I had a couple of months ago at our local gelato place, I quickly settled on this simple chocolate-peanut butter ice cream.

Really, it could not be easier. Basically, you make cocoa the old-fashioned way, on the stove, with half and half, Dutch process cocoa powder (I used Droste, like a good little Dutch girl), sugar, and a tiny bit of salt. When it boils, you remove it from the heat and whisk in the peanut butter, chill it, and then churn it in the ice cream maker. The hardest part for me was pouring the ice cream batter into the already-stirring mixer. The second-hardest part was just worrying that I was using the ice cream maker wrong and that my ice cream wouldn't freeze. And while I may have made a chocolatey mess of the kitchen, my ice cream turned out to be...ice cream, imagine that! After 30 minutes of churning, it was definitely on the mousse/melted soft-serve end of the continuum, which concerned me a bit, although it tasted delicious regardless. But when I stuck it in the freezer and served up a scoopful the next day, it was really proper ice cream, if denser than the commercial kind. While we were eating it, I kept turning to A and saying, "I made ice cream!" Oh, and the flavor? Delicious enough that it's going to be hard to convince myself to make a different kind next time, even if I do have dozens of tempting options Post-it Noted in the book. Seriously, if you have an ice cream maker and a love for the PB&C, you must make this immediately.

2 cups half-and-half
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter

1. Whisk together the half-and-half, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt in a large saucepan. Heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until it comes to a full, rolling boil (it will start to foam up). Remove from the heat and whisk in the peanut butter, stirring until thoroughly blended.

2. Chill mixture thoroughly, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Yield: about 1 quart (for us, about 6 servings)
Time: 20 minutes, plus churning and freezing time
Leftover potential: medium (tastes great no matter when you eat it, but it's hard to control yourself to even have leftovers in the first place; we made it last three days, but it was a struggle)

ASPARAGUS AND MUSHROOM PIZZA

Oops. When I promised an end to the asparagus recipes yesterday, I had forgotten that I had this one waiting on deck. But I assure you, it’s worth breaking my promise for. I adapted it from a Bon Appetit tart recipe I saw at Serious Eats. The topping sounded deliciously springy with the lemon, thyme, and crème fraiche, but I didn’t really want another recipe that involves puff pastry. It’s delicious and all, but it’s also expensive, pretty high in fat, and markedly less tasty when reheated—not to mention that Trader Joe’s seems to have retired its all-butter puff pastry sheets, the only non-trans-fat puff pastry product I could find. Give me a pizza crust any day, I thought as I read the recipe. Then I realized that this would probably work pretty well as a pizza, so I decided to go ahead and give it a try. And I’m glad I did, because I really liked the result. The ingredients complemented each other beautifully, and the crème fraiche added a silky texture that, while a bit unusual for a pizza sauce, was pleasantly addictive. I almost think this would almost be too rich as a tart, with that cream and cheese atop a buttery pastry crust (not to mention that the original recipe used twice as much butter as I did for sautéing the mushrooms), smothering the poor fresh vegetables. Pizza crust provided a lighter, more neutral platform the allowed the flavors to shine.


Dough for 1 pizza (about 1 pound)
1 tablespoon butter
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, halved and then thinly sliced
½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt, divided
½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, divided
½ pound thin fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut on the diagonal into 1-inch pieces
¾ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
¾ teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
¼ cup crème fraîche
¼ cup (packed) coarsely grated Gruyere cheese (about 1 ounce)

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms; sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon coarse salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Sauté until tender and lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool 5 minutes. Add asparagus, chopped thyme, lemon peel, ¼ teaspoon coarse salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, and crème fraîche to mushrooms and mix well.

3. Roll out dough and place on a baking sheet or pizza pan. Spread mushroom-asparagus mixture evenly over dough and sprinkle Gruyere over the top.

4. Bake about 15 minutes, until crust is browned.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good

SPAGHETTI WITH ASPARAGUS AND PINK TOMATO SAUCE

Another step in my continuing quest to collect a pasta recipe for every possible vegetable combination. Sure, I have many asparagus pasta recipes already, but this is the only one with tomatoes. This is how you end up with a pasta archive so massive you could eat a different pasta dish every week for a year.

Actually, this recipe is another oldie from Jack Bishop's Pasta e Verdura that I've been making for many years, but not often enough lately to get it onto the blog. There are certainly no surprises here, just spaghetti, steamed asparagus, tomatoes, pine nuts, basil, and Parmesan in a lightly creamy sauce. But it is extremely delicious. The prep work seems a little fussy, but once you've toasted your pine nuts, steamed your asparagus, and chopped your tomatoes, everything flies together quite quickly with a minimum of cooking.

Did you notice that this is my third new asparagus recipe in the past month? I've been on a kick, cooking asparagus once a week, sometimes twice! If you're not a fan, don't worry; the season is nearly over here in SoCal, so my mania will be subsiding soon.

1½ pounds asparagus
1½ pounds plum tomatoes
¼ cup pine nuts
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ cup minced fresh basil leaves
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 pound spaghetti
⅔ cup freshly grated Parmesan

1. Set a large skillet over medium heat, add the pine nuts, and toast—shaking the pan occasionally—until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove pine nuts from pan and set aside.

2. Snap the tough ends off the asparagus, cut spears in half lengthwise, then slice into 1-inch pieces. Steam until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Set aside.

3. Core and seed the tomatoes and then chop them into ½-inch chunks and set aside.

4. Bring 4 quarts salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta until al dente.

5. Meanwhile, in the same skillet you used for the pine nuts, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until lightly colored, about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Cook until tomatoes are just heated through, 2–3 minutes.

6. Stir the basil and cream into the pan and cook until cream has thickened and reduced a bit, about 1 minute. Stir in the asparagus and mix well. Cook until heated through, 1–2 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper.

7. Drain the pasta and toss with the sauce, the toasted pine nuts, and the Parmesan. Mix well and serve with more cheese if desired.

Serves: 6
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: High

PESTO TOMATO PIZZA

Now that you can make your own pesto (you’ve all been doing your homework from last time, right?), here’s something easy to do with it. I guess I made this one up, in that I didn’t follow a published recipe, but pizza crust + pesto + tomatoes + cheese is hardly rocket science. Throw anything else on there you like. Go ahead, see if I care.

I mainly make this in the summer when I don’t feel like sweating over the stove, or when I have leftover canned tomatoes to use up (Trader Joe’s only sells diced ones in 28-ounce cans, so this is fairly often).

Dough for one pizza (about 1 pound)
1 batch pesto (about ¾ cup)
2 sliced fresh tomatoes, or about 14 ounces diced canned tomatoes (drained)
Shredded mozzarella cheese to taste

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Roll out dough to fit on a baking sheet (or pizza stone, or whatever). Spread pesto evenly over dough, lay tomatoes on top, and sprinkle with cheese.

3. Bake until crust is browned.

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

PESTO

I’ve already given you my directions for making pesto, but they’re embedded within another recipe. The other night, as I was putting together an easy pizza with pesto, tomatoes, and mozzarella (to use up the leftover canned tomatoes I had in the fridge), I realized that given the frequency with which I use pesto, it deserves its own post. Also, I find this photo of the bright green pesto in its little bowl very cheerful.

This recipe ain’t no fancy thing—it’s just from The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, my default resource for making standard foods like pancakes and eggs and chicken noodle soup. It’s simple as all get-out to whip up—just throw some stuff in a food processor or blender and puree away. But, like homemade chicken stock, it makes worlds of difference in a recipe. I’ve never tasted a pre-packaged pesto, even at Trader Joe’s, that’s even half as good. Whenever I have spare basil, I make a batch of pesto (or a half-batch, even) and throw it into the freezer for later, which makes it darn near convenience food. Serve on pasta, pizza, meat, veggies, bread, or whatever else strikes your fancy.

1 cup firmly packed fresh basil leaves
½ cup firmly packed fresh parsley sprigs, stems removed
½ cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
¼ cup pine nuts
1 large clove garlic, peeled and quartered
¼ teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
¼ cup olive oil

1. Place basil, parsley, cheese, pine nuts, garlic, salt, and pepper in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Process until the mixture forms a paste.

2. Add the olive oil and continue to process until the pesto is smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Yield: about ¾ cup
Time: 15 minutes
Leftover potential: High

PENNE WITH ASPARAGUS, RICOTTA, AND BASIL

As the five-year anniversary of this blog approacheth (that’s how we used to talk in the olden days before the Internet, you know), I wonder how this is still possible: Here we have a very nice pasta recipe (from my old standby, Jack Bishop’s Pasta e Verdura) that I feel I’ve made many times, but somehow I’ve never posted it. Has it really been years since I last cooked it? Or did it just slip through the cracks?

I was reminded of this pasta while eating my recent asparagus, ricotta, and salami pizza, so I had to make it this week and finally share it with you. It’s creamy, delicately flavored, springy, and remarkably easy—no sautéing required, even: just boil, steam, and mix. There are no bold tastes here, so be sure to use a generous hand with the salt and pepper; in fact, I found myself thinking that a little lemon zest mixed into the ricotta might be the very thing to take this up to the next level. But in the meantime, I have been eating the leftovers all week and can vouch that the current level is very nice indeed.

2 pounds asparagus
1⅓ cups ricotta cheese
⅔ cup freshly grated Parmesan
½ cup minced fresh basil
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound penne pasta

1. Bring 4 quarts of salted water to a boil to cook the pasta.

2. Meanwhile, snap off the tough ends of the asparagus and cut the spears in half lengthwise, then slice them into 1-inch-long pieces. Steam until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes.

3. Combine the two cheeses with the basil, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Set aside.

4. Cook the pasta until al dente. Just before it is done, carefully remove ⅓ cup of the cooking water and stir it into the cheese mixture. The cheese sauce should be smooth and creamy.

5. Drain the pasta, making sure some water still clings to the noodles. Toss the hot pasta with the ricotta mixture and asparagus. Mix well to coat the pasta with the sauce.

Serves: 6
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: High.

BANANA CAKE WITH CHOCOLATE GANACHE (A'S BIRTHDAY CAKE)

From-scratch cakes aren’t hard to make, but I only seem to do it about once per year: for A’s birthday. I’m just not much of a cake fan, particularly when there are cookies and candy around. Every now and then, however, cake really hits the spot—and this one was so good, it made me want to bake cakes all the time.

I made the banana cake, lifted from this recipe at The Smitten Kitchen, for A’s last birthday and mentioned it in passing here, but wasn’t quite satisfied enough to write a full post. That’s because I mucked up the frosting—the original recipe was a caramel-walnut-banana cake, but the Smitten Kitchen verdict was that the banana cake was the best part, and besides, A wanted chocolate banana cake. So I picked a new-to-me recipe for fudge frosting off the Web and it totally failed, leaving me no choice but to whip up an emergency batch of standard chocolate frosting from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. Nothing wrong with that, but when I tasted the cake it became clear that it was crying out for a more bitter counterpoint, like a dark chocolate ganache. I spent the ensuing year secretly (and, occasionally, not-so-secretly) hoping that A would pick banana cake for his birthday again so I’d have an excuse to take another shot at this cake. And he did.

I hadn’t made ganache before, but I’d heard it was easy, and it certainly lived up to that reputation. In the comments on the cake post, Deb recommended this ganache recipe as a nice pairing for the banana cake, so I used that as a starting point. I omitted the coffee, because we are not coffee people and I didn’t have any around or want to buy any, and I increased the cream just slightly. Then, although Deb said it hadn’t worked for her with this particular ganache, I used the lazy heat-cream-and-pour-over-chocolate method (well described in this Orangette post about a very similar cake) because the words “double boiler” in a recipe are always a huge turnoff for me. I slacked even more by heating my cream up in the microwave rather than on the stove. When it looked like my chocolate wasn’t melting into the cream enough, I even popped the whole bowl of cream and chocolate into the microwave for 10 seconds. Despite all these shortcuts, the ganache came together just fine—easy to spread over the cake, just the right amount to cover, firmed up admirably to a texture somewhere between fudge and frosting (so prettily glossy I had trouble photographing it!), and tasted amazing (use the best-quality chocolate you can, of course; I used the last of my fancy Callebaut chocolate chips from last year’s birthday gift card to Surfas).

In short: I will strenuously urge myself not to wait an entire year before making this cake again. Sure, it’s a great way to celebrate a special occasion, but it’s also simple enough for everyday eating. The cake itself is a cinch to make and well worth buying cake flour and a small bottle of rum for. It would probably be just dandy on its own, dusted with powdered sugar, garnished with strawberries, dolloped with whipped cream, or maybe with chocolate chips mixed into the batter—but why not make ganache when ganache is so ridiculously easy to make?


1¾ cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
½ cup (packed) golden brown sugar (I used dark; no big deal)
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (2 to 3 large)
3 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon dark rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces semisweet chocolate chips or finely chopped chocolate
⅓ cup heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and both sugars in a large bowl until blended. Beat in eggs one at a time, then mashed bananas, sour cream, rum, and vanilla. Beat in dry ingredients in two additions just until combined. Spoon batter into a buttered 9-inch cake pan.

4. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Place pan on a cooling rack and let sit for 15 minutes. Invert cake out of pan onto rack and cool completely.

5. Place chocolate in a medium mixing bowl. Either on the stovetop or in the microwave, heat cream until it is steaming and about to boil. Pour cream over chocolate and whisk until most of the chocolate is melted; then cover and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir or whisk gently until the mixture is completely smooth. Drizzle or spread over cake and let cool.

Yield: One 9-inch cake
Time: About 2 hours (including cooling time)
Leftover potential: High. I keep leftover cake in the fridge and eat it cold, washed down with a glass of milk. A even had some for breakfast.

PASTA WITH BACON, LEEKS, AND MUSHROOMS

I have a lot of good pasta recipes. Enough, in fact, to make a different pasta recipe every week for a year. So I don’t acquire new ones lightly—they have to be pretty different from any in my archives if they’re going to make the cut. This one lured me because it has leeks. You may have noticed that I’m on a leek kick lately, and that keyword in a recipe title is enough to make me take a second look. Then, of course, there was the bacon, which would make it an instant winner with A. And I do like mushrooms, and wouldn’t necessarily have thought to put them with bacon and leeks. Most importantly, I had a few tablespoons of crème fraiche in the fridge just begging for a purpose.

Even though I like all the ingredients, I had an irrational fear that this pasta would be bland. (As if anything containing bacon has ever been bland. Ever ever. If it has, I don’t want to know about it.) I think, subconsciously, I was influenced by the pasta shell shape, not one of my favorites. I know all pasta shapes technically taste the same, but at some point in my cooking history I must have made a disappointingly bland dish involving pasta shells, and now I am prejudiced against them. Or at least, I was, until I tasted this pasta. It is simply delicious. It might be my new favorite pasta. I would like to make it again, right now. Something about the interplay between the smokiness of the bacon, the sweetness of the leeks, the earthiness of the mushrooms, and the saltiness of the cheese is just right. The crème fraiche provides a subtle, but not overwhelming, creaminess. And I actually, actively liked the texture of the pasta shells, and the perfect way they scooped up the little bits of bacon and leek. I really, really recommend this one.

I first saw this recipe at A Good Appetite, where it was scaled to serve two. It had been adapted from the original recipe by Gordon Ramsay (for whom I have an unjustifiable affection based on his TV shows, even though I don’t usually like shouty people and have never until now tasted any of his food), which was scaled to serve four and measured in grams in the European manner. So I had to do a bit of math and improvisation to create a version that would use a whole pound of pasta; as I’ve mentioned before, I have no use for recipes that use less, since I adore pasta leftovers—that is, the cooked, tasty kind waiting in the fridge to be eaten, not the uncooked half-empty box of noodles cluttering up my cabinet. I fudged the proportions a bit here and there, but was really happy with the result. This is an easy and pretty forgiving recipe. The only major change I made was not using olive oil—the original recipe calls for the bacon/pancetta to be cooked in 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil, which seems ridiculous to me, considering that most bacon (real bacon, anyway) is capable of rendering plenty of fat on its own. I just browned my bacon in an empty pan as usual, and it produced more than enough tasty, bacony grease to sauté my leeks and mushrooms in. Then, just to make sure the sauce wasn’t too dry, I added in some reserved pasta water at the end. The completed dish was the perfect consistency; I didn’t miss the extra oil whatsoever. Certainly 4 tablespoons would have made things too oily, so if you want to try the oil, I’d still recommend just 1 tablespoon or so. If you’re using fake bacon or turkey bacon or some other inferior product, maybe use 2 tablespoons oil.

1 pound medium pasta shells
Olive oil (optional)
4 ounces (about 4 thick slices) bacon, roughly chopped
3 large leeks, white and light green sections, sliced thin
8 ounces mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons creme fraiche
1 large handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Freshly grated Parmesan to taste

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil for cooking the pasta.

2. Meanwhile, add the bacon to a large skillet and cook over medium-high heat until beginning to crisp. (If you like, you can heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in the skillet before adding the bacon, but I don’t think it’s necessary unless you’re using a low-fat version of bacon.)

3. Add the leeks and mushrooms to the skillet and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 6–8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. When the pasta water boils, add the shells and cook until al dente. Before draining the pasta, reserve 1 cup of the pasta water. Drain the pasta and add to the skillet. Stir in the creme fraiche and some of the reserved pasta water (a few tablespoons at a time until your sauce reaches its desired consistency). Stir in parsley and serve sprinkled with Parmesan.

Serves: 6
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: High. I ate it for lunch three days in a row last week. In fact, I wish I had some right now.