White and dark chocolate cherry cookies

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbp milk
• 1 cup dried cherries
• 1 cup white-chocolate chunks
• 1 cup dark-chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until just combined. Set aside.
Stir together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add milk to the butter mixture and then add the flour mixture. Mix until just combined. Batter should be quite stiff.
In another bowl, combine cherries and chocolate chunks, then add to batter, stirring only to blend. Mold into balls and set on greased cookie sheet.
Bake for 11-13 minutes. Eat.

Thoughts: Pretty good. The original recipe called for macadamia nuts, so I'm glad we dispensed with those. Super good. Dan wasn't expecting to like them, but he did. Once they've cooled a little, they get more crunchy on the outside.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Blueberry-Lemon Mini-Muffins

Ingredients

• 3.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp fine salt
• pinch nutmeg
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup half-and-half, mixed with 1/2 cup skim milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tbp finely grated lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups frozen blueberries, thawed and coated in flour

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Spray a mini muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Put the butter in a microwave-safe vessel and microwave until melted (30 seconds).
Whisk the milk, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla with the butter.
Make a small well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well, then stir with a wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are moistened but still lumpy. Do not over-mix the batter, otherwise the muffins will be too dense.
Gently stir in the flour-coated blueberries. Divide the batter evenly into the muffin tins and sprinkle the tops generously with granulated sugar.
Put the muffins in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 375. Bake for about 30 minutes, rotating half-way through. Muffins should be golden brown and a toothpick should come out clean with inserted.
When done, turn the muffins out of the tins.

Thoughts: Delicious. These were really good. You can definitely taste the lemon zest. If you don't like to taste lemon zest, you can reduce it. But then again, why would you be reading the recipe for blueberry-lemon muffins if you didn't like lemon? Right-o. Not much to say here. I would eat these all the time.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Steamed egg with shrimp

This recipe is sort of like an egg custard with shrimp in it. The texture is SORT OF similar to bread pudding, but savory and without the bread chunks. I don't know if that was a good analogy.

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1.5 cup soup stock (cold)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vermouth (or other white wine)
• 1 tsp soy sauce
  
• 10 shrimp, shelled

Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl. Add the soup stock, salt, wine, and soysauce. Mix well. It may turn brown from the soy sauce, but don't let that throw you off. It will be delicious.
Pour the mixture through a sieve.
Rinse the shrimp with cold water, drain, and pat dry.
Pour the beaten eggs into a ramekin (we used four). Arrange the shrimp over the eggs. Place in a boiling steamer. Now, we don't have a boiling steamer, so what we did was prepare a large saucepan with water and put a bamboo steamer in it. Then we placed two ramekins at a time in the steamer, then we covered the saucepan.
Steam the ramekins over high heat for 2 minutes, then reduce heat to low and continue to steam for 20 minutes. The eggs should not be jiggly in the middle, but they shouldn't be COMPLETELY firm. You don't want to overcook the eggs. But you don't want them to be raw. I guess it's better to go over than under.
Serve with rice.

Thoughts: This was delicious. I had this dish at Nam's Noodle in Madison and I was like, shoot, I want to be able to eat this all the time. So now we can. The original recipe calls for Chinese parsley, which we didn't have. But it probably would have been delicious. Green onions would also have been good. Next time I would increase the shrimp to egg ratio. Our shrimps were very small, and they kind of got lost in the custard. This dish is super easy to make. I highly recommend it. And it's also super low-cal, if that's important. And it's pretty low in fat too. If you serve it like we did, into four servings, then you're only eating one egg, 5 shrimp, and some soup stock. That's like, 150 calories per serving, tops. Anyways. This recipe is like, my favorite. In addition to scallions, you could also to chives, Dan suggests.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Maple-Roasted Parsnips

Ingredients

• 1 lb parsnips, peeled, ends cut off
• 2 tbp vegetable oil
• 4 tbp real maple syrup
• salt

Once parsnips are peeled and have the ends chopped off, cut them into thirds.
Take the middle section and cut it into halves lengthwise.
Take the largest section and cut it into fourths lengthwise.
Preheat oven to 375.
Toss parsnips in a large bowl with the oil. Toss to coat.
Add maple syrup. Toss to coat (you can use tongs if you want).
Place on baking sheet, sprinkle with salt.
Bake for 40-60 minutes, or until the sections are golden and not woody (you might have to taste one or two). Turn halfway through.
Remove from oven, dot with butter/margarine.
Eat.

Thoughts: I hate parsnips, but these were delicious. So I guess I don't hate them. Dan made these. Yay Dan! Hurrah hurray! The maple wasn't overwhelming either. It didn't make the parsnips super sweet or anything.
Maybe puree them too? After you bake them?
Also, oregano might be good on these. But I think oregano is good on almost anything. Give it a shot.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Radiator Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 large sweet potato
• 1.5 tbp flour, mixed with salt and pepper
• vegetable oil or Pam

Cut the sweet potato into even-sized sections (about 5). Make a series of slices that run 3/4 of the way through the potato so that each section looks like a radiator.
Place in saucepan with water to cover. Add pinch of salt. Boil until slightly undercooked. Pliable but not too soft. Just tender.
Remove potatoes and remove them. Toss with the flour mixture until lightly coated.
Place on greased baking sheet. Drizzle with oil (olive or vegetable) and put in preheated 375 degree oven.
Bake for 30-40 minutes.
Garnish with a little butter or margarine.

Thoughts: Next time, Dan says he would cut the potatoes differently. Maybe cut rounds instead of 5 even sections, and then slice those rounds 3/4 of the way through.
Also, I accidentally over-cooked the sweet potatoes in the boiling water. So next time we will shorten the cooking time, or at least watch it more carefully.
Next time we are planning on putting grated parmesan and oregano into the flour mixture.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Pasta with Squash and Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

• 1/2 red onion, chopped finely
• 2 cups cremini mushrooms, slices
  
• 1 small yellow squash, or 1/2 large yellow squash
• 1.5 cups chicken stock (or veg)
  
• 2 tbp dried parsley flakes
• 1 tbp Italian seasoning (or herbes de provence)
• 1 leek, thinly sliced
• 1 lb pasta (we used wavy egg noodles)
• 1 tbp butter
• a little olive oil (2 tbp?)
• 1/4 cup vermouth, to de-glaze pan

Start pasta water.
Chop the red onion, slice the leeks, and put them in a pan with some olive oil and the butter. Carmelize. De-glaze the pan with the vermouth, and add the chopped yellow squash and slices mushrooms.
Water should be boiling. Add pasta if it is.
Add parsley and Italian seasoning. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until the mushrooms and squash start to release their juices.
Add stock. Cook until stock is reduced, about 10 minutes.
The pasta should be done. Drain it and add to the sauce. Mix well.
Garnish with Romano or Parmesan or similar cheese.
Devour.

Thoughts: Awesome recipe. Dan recommends using pasta water to mix the stock (if you use powdered stock. This won't work if you use liquid stock) because then the stock will be thicker. I have no recommendations. This was totally awesome. Dan also thinks you could add a splash of lemon juice somewhere in there. The sauce is really low-cal and full of vegetables, so this dish is really good for you.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Lime Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup flour, heaped
• 1/8 cup cornstarch
• 1 tbs lime zest
• granulated sugar for flattening cookies (you'll see)

For lime glaze

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp lime juice
  

To make cookies:

Using a kitchen aid, on medium-high speed, beat butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and add flour, cornstarch, lime zest and vanilla extract and mix until well-blended. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheet. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
Grease bottom of a large flat glass with butter, press into granulated sugar and gently press glass on dough until dough is about 1/4-inch thick. Repeat, pressing glass into sugar each time, until all cookies are flattened.
Bake 9 to 11 minutes, or until edges are light golden brown. Remove from oven and transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make lime glaze:

In a small bowl, whisk together powdered sugar and lime juice until a light glaze forms. Using a knife, spread glaze across cookies.

Thoughts: These were ok. The glaze didn't work out so well, I don't think. It wasn't thick enough, so it just sort of made the cookies wet. And it was sort of "limey". Too much citrus.
The cookies themselves were ok. They were pretty much your standard sugar cookies. Overall, the cookies were unobjectionable, I guess. I don't know that I would make them again. They were moist, which was a plus. Maybe more sugar in the glaze? If we made them again, Dan says he would use a cream cheese-lime frosting rather than a glaze, and he would go for a moister cookie.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Sweet Potato Latkes

This was only somewhat disastrous.

Ingredients

• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly grated (cuisinart works great for this)
  
• 2 smallish onions, chopped
  
• 2 leeks, washed and chopped
  
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
  
• 3/4c flour
  
• 3 eggs
  
• salt, pepper, oregano, and parsley to taste
  

Combine everything in a big bowl, basically. That's pretty much it. Then form the pancakes and fry them in a thin layer of oil or PAM. Make sure the oil is good and hot. Then, put them on a plate with paper towels to drain the oil. Serve with sour cream or plain yogurt and apple sauce.

Thoughts: I had a very bad time trying to get these to NOT fall apart. This is because I didn't want the oil to smoke by heating it too much. Claire, on the other hand, was fearless and ultimately saved the day by figuring out how to cook them right. If I did these again, I'd want to have an electric skillet (a flat-bottomed pan didn't work so well) and I would use an oil with a higher smoke-point if I could find such a thing.

Disaster Index: 4/10 - Delicious, really, but so frustrating to cook correctly.

Spinach Feta Roulade

I totally made this recipe up on the spot. And it worked! How cool is that?

Ingredients

• One recipe pizza dough (especially with added herbs)
  
• 1/2 red onion, sauteed in olive oil
  
• 10oz chopped frozen spinach, thawed (or fresh if you've got it)
  
• 4oz feta cheese
  
• 1/2c grated parmesan
  
• 8 cloves garlic, roasted
  
• dill, salt, pepper to taste
  
• some olive oil
  

Prepare the pizza dough. Let it rise about an hour, until doubled. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll the pizza dough out on a well floured surface to about a 18" by 24" rectangle. Spread garlic evenly across dough, and then do the same for the spinach, onion, and cheese. Sprinkle with dill, salt, and pepper and a little bit of olive oil. Now, carefully roll the dough up into a log the long way - that is, so that the 18" sides will be at each end of the log. Using a serrated knife (or an electric knife!) start cutting the log into rounds, about 1" wide. Lay the rounds out on a greased baking sheet - this is kind of like making very thin, savory cinnamon rolls. The recipe will make about 24 rolls - you'll need two baking sheets in total. Going in two batches (don't try to bake them all simultaneously) bake the roulades until they're a little brown, about 20 minutes (though sometimes a little longer). Serve.

Thoughts: This recipe has enormous potential, and they were pretty successful this first time we tried to make them. Next time, we will use more feta (6-8oz) and more spinach (last time we used about 6-8oz, next time we'll use the full 10oz). Alternatively you could use arugula or mustard greens.

This recipe is very adaptable, too. I considered using a thin layer of tomato paste (so it'd be like pizza) or pesto. Strips of zucchini would be good, too, so long as they're thinly cut. We considered adding prosciutto, but we didn't have any. More red onion would have done well, too.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - more toppings next time, though.

Herbed Spaetzle

Based on a Martha recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup skim milk
• 1 tbs thyme leaves (we used dried)
• 1/4 cup packed parsley
• 3 eggs
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.5 tsp salt
  
• pepper
• olive oil

Put thyme leaves in a sachet or tea bag and tie shut. Put it in a saucepan with the milk and heat to a boil. Remove from heat and discard thyme.
Transfer milk to a blender; add parsley and eggs. Blend until combined.
Whisk flour and 1.5 tsp salt in a medium bowl.
Gradually whisk in milk mixture until smooth.
Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil.
Put the "dough" in a plastic bag and snip off one of the corners. Make sure this is a pretty small hole.
Pipe the mixture slowly into the boiling water. Cook until the spaetzle float to the top, about 1-2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to an ice-water bath. Drain.
Take half the spaetzle and put it in a pan with some olive oil. Cook until golden brown. Repeat with the other half of the spaetzle.
Garnish with more parsley and romano/parmesan cheese. Eat.

Thoughts: This was all right. The texture came out kind of funny and boiling the spaetzle in the water was pretty much a failure. The original recipe called for 1 cup of whole milk rather than 1 cup of skim. That could have accounted for the weird texture. Also, the original recipe called for cooking the spaetzle in butter rather than olive oil. Maybe there's something to be said for using full-fat ingredients. Also, the spaeztle totally stuck together after we took them out of the boiling water and drained them, so that was inconvenient. All in all, though, they tasted pretty good. If I were going to make this again, I would definitely use like, half skim and half whole milk, or something, and I would cook them in butter afterward rather than olive oil. Also, neither of us really know what spaetzle is supposed to taste like.

Disaster Index: 4-5/10. Edible.

Ichiro's Rice

This is my version of my mother's version of a recipe she learned from someone like 35 years ago. There's almost something profound going on there.

Well here you go, anyway: Ichiro's fried rice.

Ingredients

• 3c leftover rice (or fresh cooked rice, chilled for two hours or so)
  
• 1/2c carrots, chopped
  
• 1/2c edamame
  
• 3/4c chopped cremini mushrooms
  
• 2tbsp sesame oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• soy sauce
  
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• salt and pepper
  

The exact things in the vegetables are totally optional. Use whatever you have on hand, preferably leftovers. Suitable vegetables include (but are not limited to) peas, carrots, broccoli, scallions, mushrooms, edamame (we just had some in the freezer at the time), onions, bell peppers, zucchini (yes, we've done it), or whatever else.

Sautee edamame and carrots in oil with garlic. Throw in some salt and pepper. When they're suitably cooked, throw in the mushrooms (as they take much less time to cook). Add about 1-2tsp of soy sauce for added liquid. After about 1 minute, throw in all the rice. Break it up with whatever cooking implement you happen to be using, and throw in just a little more soy sauce. Keep in mind - it's easier to add than to take away. Once the rice is broken up, crack in two eggs directly into the mixture. Break the yolks and stir with the rice. Continue to turn the rice over so the egg cooks, about 1-2 minutes. Take it off the heat and serve.

Thoughts: This is really good with a little Sriracha, and it's barely any work. It's adaptable since you can use pretty much any ingredients. We've considered adding chicken cut into strips, though have yet to try it. Tofu works really well.This is your basic "fried rice" base recipe, and to it you can add just about anything. It's fairly spare on seasonings, though it could use additional ginger. Works better with leftover rice - if you're using chilled fresh rice, cook it a little longer to counter the added moisture.

Claire suggests that next time we use the egg as a protein rather than a binding agent - that is, we move the rice & veg aside and crack the egg into the bottom of the pot. Stir the egg around until it's cooked, and then scrape it off the bottom and cut into slices using the spatula.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Carmelized Pear Risotto

A recipe inspired by something I had at Le Chardonnay restaurant in Madison.

Ingredients

• 2 ripe pears, chopped (we used Bartlett, but Bosc would probably do REALLY well)
  
• 1 medium red onion, chopped
  
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
  
• ~1.5c arborio rice or medium grain white rice, or some combination thereof.
  
• 2c chicken broth (we used bouillon) (or veg)
  
• ~1tsp dried basil or about 1tbsp fresh basil
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• ~1tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  
• Boiling water, as needed
  

Risottos are pretty easy to put together, actually. Start by sauteeing the onions in the olive oil (with the basil and some salt + pepper) over high heat. You're looking not only to get them soft (a little transparent) but also to caramelize them a little bit. Once they're just a little brown, throw in the chopped pears, and again let them sautee until they're caramelized just a bit. Now add the rice and chicken stock (or, in our case, two cups of water and two teaspoons of bouillon). Let the mixture cook down, stirring often. Make sure you have a kettle of boiling water at the ready. When most of the water has cooked off (it shouldn't be DRY, but more a creamy consistency, and the rice will stick a little on the bottom of the pot) add another cup of boiling water. Repeat this process, cooking the water off and then adding more water until the rice is cooked through. When the rice is done, let the water cook down and don't add more. When it reaches the desired consistency, season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Thoughts: The risotto was delicious, but we've already thought of ways to improve on it. First, before you cook anything else, caramelize one additional pear (chopped) and set it aside. Cook the risotto as usual, and then at the end re-add caramelized pear as a last step. Another idea is to use canned pears in juice to get a slightly more powerful pear flavor. If you were really into it you could even add a little pear juice in addition to stock, but I think that might be a little excessive.

We served our risotto with Romano cheese, but there's almost certainly a more elegant pairing possible. I'm thinking Brie. Anyway, there are options you can experiment with.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Oat, Raisin, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Extravaganza

Makes about 24 cookies.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp butter
• 2/3 cup superfine sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 capful of vanilla extract (what is this, like, 1/2 tsp? a full tsp? Not a full. Probably a half)
  
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1&3/4 cup rolled oats (NOT INSTANT)
• 1 cup raisins, soaked in water for 15 minutes
• 1 cup chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 350F
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Gradually add the beaten egg and vanilla.
Beat in the salt, baking powder, and flour and gently mix to combine.
Add the rolled oats, raisins, and chocolate pieces.
Place spoonfuls of the mixture on a greased baking sheet. About 12 should fit at one time.
Bake for 15-20 minutes. These won't really turn golden brown, so you can't use that as an indicator. Poke them with a knife or toothpick or something and make sure that it comes out clean.

Thoughts: Well, these were much better than that other oatmeal cookie recipe, I'll tell you what. But I don't think we were entirely pleased with the oat: flour ratio. These cookies, like so many other oat and raisin cookies, were too much oat and not enough batter. So I think we'd probably change the recipe to include something like 1 cup flour and 1 cup oats or even 3/4 cup oats or something. I don't know. We'll mess around with it. We used shredded chocolate pieces because that's what we had on hand, but I think actual chocolate chips would probably have been better.

Disaster Index: 2-3/10 not too shabby

Roasted Chestnuts

This wasn't REALLY worth the hassle.

Ingredients

• Chestnuts. Whatever you got.
  
• Butter. How much? I don't know.
  
• Cinnamon. Probably 1/4 tsp.
  
• Salt. A pinch.
  

Cut an x in the flat sides of each chestnut shell. Put them in a baking pan, and place that pan in the oven at 375 for about 30 minutes. Take the nuts out and let them cool, and then proceed to peel them. If you did it right, and we apparently didn't, the inner skins should come off pretty easily. If you over or undercook them, they won't. This is the part that isn't worth the hassle. If you can master this part, then you should do this recipe.

Now, toss the chestnuts with butter, salt, and cinnamon. Put them back in the pan, and back in the oven for a good 5 or 10 minutes, until just golden. Take them out, and serve!

Thoughts: Like I said, this was kind of arduous. If I could buy pre-shelled chestnuts, I'd consider doing that instead. I bet there's a better way. I've seen some recipes put them in a skillet and then after frying them they put them in the oven - this sounds like it might work better, but we don't have such a skillet.

Disaster Index: 7/10 - They were pretty good tasting, but the peeling thing was just ridiculous.

Tostones with Cilantro Mayonnaise

Tostones:

Ingredients

• Plantains, cut into 3/4" to 1" slices
  
• Oil for frying
  

Cut the plantains and put them flat-side down in hot oil over medium heat. Cook two minutes per side, and then take them out of the oil to drain on a bed of paper towels. When they've drained, place them one at a time between two sheets of waxed paper and smash them to about 1/2 the original height with a potato masher, frying pan, or just anything with a flat side that would make a good smashing implement.

Now, re-fry them until golden, again over medium heat, making sure to turn them half-way through the cooking process. Place them back on the paper towels to drain. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, chile pepper, thyme.

You can also use this dipping sauce to dip the tostones in. Recipe follows:

Ingredients

• 2 tbs mayonnaise
• a lot of cilantro. Like, 2 cups.
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• liberal salt
• liberal pepper
• 3 tbp vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic

Grind these things up in a food processor or blender or whatever, until the consistency looks like mayonnaise, but with cilantro in it.
Tostones are also delicious with salsa.
If you have leftover cilantro mayo, you can use it as a dipping for chips! It's great!

Thoughts: Make sure that the oil temperature isn't too high when you're frying the tostones. Try to keep it at medium. There's still a little something missing from the cilantro mayonnaise. Maybe more salt? Pepper? Not sure yet, but it was pretty darn delicious for being completely made up.

Disaster Index: Tostones = 1/10, Cilantro Mayonnaise = 3/10

Acorn Squash Ravioli

Ingredients

• 1 acorn squash
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 small onion, chopped
• salt
• pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp rosemary
• 1/8 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 package wonton wrappers
  

Preheat oven to 375. Cut acorn squash in half, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. Bake in oven for 25-35 minutes, or until squash is soft.
In the meantime, sautee garlic and onion until onion is translucent. Set aside.
Once squash is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool for several minutes before attempting to carve out the squash. If you don't wait, you will burn your fingers. Trust me.
Combine scooped-out squash, ricotta cheese, and onion mixture in a food processor with the nutmeg, rosemary, and breadcrumbs. Pulse until smooth.
Boil a pot of salted water. Place 1/2 tbs of the squash mixture in the center of the wonton wrapper. Dip your fingers in water and moisten the edges of the wonton. Fold it over into a triangle and press the edges of the wonton together. If you want to be all fancy, you can use a fork to crimp the edges of the wonton to ensure that stuff won't come out of it while cooking.
Place all the completed wontons in the boiling water for 3-4 minutes. Stir every once and a while to ensure that the wontons aren't sticking together.
Using a slotted spoon, remove the wontons.
Garnish with parmesan/romano, pesto, olive oil, or whatever you want. These are delicious.

Thoughts: When removing the wontons from the water, try placing them on a plate that has been sprayed with a little bit of cooking spray. I would also recommend spraying each successive layer of raviolis with cooking spray so that the layers don't stick together. Because they will. And then they'll tear when you try to take them apart.
You could also use butternut squash for this recipe.

Disaster Index: 1/10 OMG

Greek Honey Cookies - Melomakarona

Ingredients

• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• grated rind and juice of 1 large orange
• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 6 tbsp superfine sugar
• 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1.75 tsp baking powder + 3.5 cups flour (combine these)
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup shelled walnuts, chopped

for the syrup

• 1 cup honey
• .5 cup superfine sugar

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Mix baking soda and orange juice (not the rind).
Mix the olive oil and sugar together until well-blended. Beat in the cinnamon, then add the orange juice mixture.
Mix the salt and flour into the mixture and add the orange rind. Knead for 10 minutes.
Pinch off small pieces of the dough and shape them into 2.5 inch-long ovals and place on ungreased baking sheets.
Using a fork dipped in water, flatten each oval a little bit.
Bake for 25 minutes. Cool slightly and then let harden.
To make syrup, place honey, sugar, and 2/3 cup water in a small pan.
Gently bring it to a boil, stirring continuously. Try to skim off any surface foam, lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Immerse the cold cookies, about six at a time, in the hot syrup and leave them to cook for 1-2 minutes. If the syrup doesn't completely cover the cookies, turn them every so often to coat both sides.
Lift them out with a slotted spoon and place on a platter in a single layer.
Sprinkle with cinnamon and chopped walnuts.

Thoughts: This is a pretty complex recipe and it is also very dangerous. When boiling the syrup, BE VERY CAREFUL. As it nears the boiling point, the mixture will start to rise rapidly. When this happens, REMOVE THE POT FROM THE HEAT AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN. Otherwise you risk getting honey and sugar ALL OVER your kitchen. CHRIST. I don't even think you need to boil the mixture. Just get it hot enough to dissolve the majority of the sugar. Dan would recommend mixing the cinnamon and chopped walnuts into the dough rather than topping the cookies. I personally disagree. He would also use butter instead of olive oil and would use one more egg because he wants them to be more like regular cookies. I also disagree there. He would also use the kitchen aid. I've got nothing against the kitchen aid.

Disaster index: 1/10 - delicious

Spanikopita

Ingredients

• 2 pkgs frozen spinach
• 4 small onions or two large onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic
  
• 1 pkg feta cheese, 8 oz, crumbled
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 4 scallions, chopped
• liberal amounts of dry parsley (fresh is obviously better)
• equally liberal amounts of dill
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• ground black pepper
• salt
  
• several sheets of filo pastry

Preheat oven to 375F. Take filo out of the freezer to thaw, if frozen.
Thaw the frozen spinach in a pot. Chop the onions and scallions.
Put the onions/scallions in the pot with the spinach and add some olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic.
Cook until onions are translucent. Set aside and let cool.
Crumble the feta into a bowl and combine with the 2 beaten eggs. Once spinach mixture has cooled enough to not cook the eggs, combine them.
At this point, also combine all the herbs you have. Stir well.
Layer a few sheets of filo pastry into the bottom of a glass pie dish (or a baking sheet or something). Add the filling. Fold filo sheets over the top to cover the pie. Brush top with olive oil
Pake for 40 minutes. Eat.

Thoughts: Fresh herbs definitely work better than dried, though dried will do in a pinch. If you want a moister filling, do not drain the spinach after thawing. If you want a slightly drier filling, drain the spinach after thawing and then mix it back in with the onions. This recipe also works well with pearl onions instead of regular onions. Use about 2 cups of these.

Disaster Index: 1/10

The Pancake Method

This is something my mother taught me, and then I changed the ingredients and messed it up.

Ingredients

• 1 c flour
  
• 1 tsp baking soda
  
• pinch salt
  
• 1 tsp sugar
  
• little cinnamon (optional)
  
• 1 egg
  
• Buttermilk / soured milk until it's done.
  
• Fruit of your choice (sliced) / chocolate chips / whatever
  

Put the flour in a bowl. Add the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and sugar, and stir to combine. Crack the egg into the bowl, and then add about 2/5 c buttermilk (eyeball it) and mix. Add more buttermilk and keep mixing until you get a loose batter, the consistency of... batter. Maybe like honey? How does that sound?

Now just make pancakes. Pour a big spoonful of batter (about 1/8c plus or minus) into a hot pan (we're looking for ~300-350 degrees). Distribute fruit / whatever on top (we used strawberries, and then apples when we ran out). When the cake looks dry around the edges, flip it. You'll get the hang of it.

Thoughts: I felt that these came out just the tiniest bit rubbery for my tastes. I think it's because I didn't have buttermilk, and so I soured my own milk (with milk + lemon juice) and it just didn't work very well. Next time if I'm out of buttermilk I'm switching the baking soda for baking powder. I'm still adding some lemon juice, though. The other theory for rubberiness is that the sugar is the culprit. It helped with browning, though, I think. Anyway, these turned out great. It's hard to mess them up. This recipe makes about 6-8 pancakes.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Dal and carrot soup

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup red or brown lentils
• 5 cups vegetable/chicken bouillon
  
• 2 cups carrots
• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 tsp vegetable oil (or ghee, if you have it)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
  
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• salt
• 1 and 1/4 cup milk
• unsweetened yoghurt, to serve

Place lentils in strainer and rinse well under cold running water.
Drain and place in large pan along with carrots, onions, 2.5 cups of the bouillon, tomatoes, and garlic.
Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the oil/ghee in a saucepan and add cumin, coriander, cayenne pepper, and turmeric and cook over low heat for 1 minute.
Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Season with salt.
Put batches of the soup in a blender and blend until desired consistency is achieved.
Return soup to pan, add the spice mixture and the remaining 2.5 cups bouillon, and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.
Add the milk. Serve with a swirl of yoghurt.

Thoughts: Pretty much a no-fail recipe at this point. Good with buttered toast. Would also be good with cilantro. Dan thinks that this soup doesn't really qualify as "dal", texture-wise. He recommends blending half of the soup and leaving the other half un-blended, in order to provide a rougher texture. Also the cayenne may have been a little much. It was pretty spicy. The original recipe calls for cilantro, but we didn't have any on hand. But we should have, because I think it would have made a good addition.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Sauce

The proportions for this are a little specific because we used four 3.5" ramekins. If you have that, go ahead, otherwise you're going to have to adjust things. If you want to make one big 8" chocolate cake, you multiply everything by 21/16. Yeah. Math.

Ingredients

• Cake
  
  
  
  • 2 eggs, beaten
    
  • 1 c plus 1.5 tbsp granulated sugar
    
  • 3oz chocolate chips
    
  • 6.5 tbsp dutch process cocoa (5 normal plus 1 heaping tbsp is fine)
    
  • 4/5 a stick of unsalted butter (a little more than 6 tbsp)
    
  
  
• Strawberry Sauce
  
  
  
  • 1/4 lb strawberries, washed, stems cut off, and halved
    
  • 1-2tbsp granulated sugar
    
  • 1/2tsp lemon juice
    
  
  

For the cake, preheat oven to 375. Put some water to simmer on the stove, and melt the butter along with the chocolate chips into a metal bowl in the simmering water. (The idea is to make a sort of double boiler. If you actually have a double boiler, go for it.) Take the bowl out and whisk in the sugar. Now (careful that the chocolate is not too hot) whisk in the eggs. Finally, whisk in the cocoa one tbsp at a time.

Line the bottoms of four 3.5in ramekins with a round of wax paper. Spray each liberally with PAM. Distribute the batter evenly between the four ramekins. Place ramekins evenly on a baking sheet with about 1c water in it. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until the top of the cakes has a bit of a crust. It could take shorter or longer, depending. I had a pizza stone in my oven that I forgot to take out before I baked these. They came out fine, but it probably messed with the temperature.

For the strawberry sauce, throw the strawberries into a sauce pan with the sugar and lemon juice. Better to have less sugar and then add it as needed, I think. Turn it on high and stir until the sugar dissolves, then turn it down to medium and cover for three minutes. Uncover, adjust sugar and lemon juice. Le voila.

To serve (at least the way we did) put a little puddle of strawberry sauce in the center of a plate. Flip a ramekin over on it and then, lifting the plate and the ramekin at the same time, slam each back onto the counter (not TOO hard) so that the cake dislodges. Take the piece of waxed paper off the top, and top with more strawberry sauce and fresh raspberries.

Thoughts: This was a first experiment, and I think we all felt it was an unqualified success. It was amazing. Really good. Seriously. Only difference is, next time I do it I'm going to let them cook just a little longer. I took them out JUST when the crust formed on top so they wouldn't be too dry, and it worked - they were very nice. But they could use to bake up just a little firmer. All the same, this was delicious and surprisingly easy. As an aside, it would be clever to use a pyrex liquid measuring cup (or something heatproof with a lip) instead of a metal bowl in the double boiler because pouring the batter would be easier. That was the hardest part of this dish.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Matzo Ball Soup

My own recipe

Ingredients

• 1/2c matzo meal
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2 tbsp olive oil
  
• 1/2c fresh parsley, finely chopped (or maybe 1/4c dried?)
  
• salt and pepper (but mainly pepper)
  
• ~6c chicken or vegetable stock
  
• Whatever vegetables you think go in soup (I tend to use carrots and peas)
  
• 2 chicken breasts, cut into smallish strips or chunks (optional)
  

First, prepare the matzo balls. In a bowl, combine the matzo meal, the eggs, the oil, the parsley, and add a liberal amount of salt and pepper. Now you have to add some water to this mixture so that it will loosen up. ~2tbsp minimum. The more water you add now the fluffier the matzo balls will be later. This is a personal preference thing. Some people like them more compact. You pick. Anyway, once you've mixed up the matzo ball batter, put it in the fridge.

Now, bring the stock to a boil. Add the vegetables and, if you're using it, the chicken. By now, the matzo ball batter should be nicely chilled. Get it out and spoon it into the boiling mixture. I use a small ice-cream scoop with a quick-release, though you could use two normal spoons if you're good. Once you've spooned in all of the matzo balls, turn the soup down to a simmer and cover. This prevents them from drying out on top.

After five minutes, you can check on them. I couldn't tell you when they're done, I just keep looking until they look right. They don't take very long, but also you can pretty much over-cook them as long as you want and nothing too bad will happen. At some point they'll start to fall apart.

Thoughts: I've made this a lot. One thing you can do is add cayenne pepper, paprika, or, hell, I dunno, curry to the matzo balls. Go crazy. One time we put peas in the matzo ball batter itself. I didn't really like that. Anyway, there are a lot of options if you aren't excited about just parsley. Still, this recipe is hard to screw up and if you keep a thing of matzo meal on hand you'll pretty much always have the ingredients you need.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - it's kind of a standard at this point.

potato carrot curry and rice

Ingredients

• 2 russet potatoes, chopped
  
• 2 sweet potatoes, chopped
  
• 3/4 cup carrots, cut into rounds
• 1 white onion, chopped finely
• 1/2 green apple, chopped finely
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup skim milk
• 2 tbs butter/margarine
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• salt and pepper
• 3 tsp red curry paste
• 1 tbs sweet curry (or a mixture of cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, turmeric, clove, coriander, fenugreek, ginger, numeg, fennel, white pepper, black pepper, red pepper)
  
• vegetable oil
• garlic chili sauce
• any other hot sauce you want
• 1/2 cup raisins

Sautee onions with veg. oil until brown/translucent.
Add some sweet curry. Stir.
Add all the chopped potatoes, carrots, and apple.
Add 1 tbs of red curry paste.
Add milk, butter, and water. Stir and cover. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 5-10 minutes.
Add the remainder of seasonings and sauces, plus brown sugar.
Add more seasonings if desired.
Add all raisins.
Season with salt and pepper.

To make sticky rice:
Rinse rice and soak for several hours (preferably over-night (we did not do this)).
Line steaming basket with cheesecloth, coffee filter, or thick paper towel. Drain rice and add to basket. Place basket in a pan filled with 2-3 inches of water. Turn to high heat and steam for 20-25 minutes. Serve

Thoughts: Delicious, I think. Dan doesn't think it looks like curry. If you want something more curry-ish, cook it less long. We cooked it such that the sweet potatoes got quite mushy. I personally enjoyed it, but I'm not too familiar with what curry should look like. This would probably be better with coconut milk, but it was delicious as it was. Dan is going to try mixing some curry with plain yoghurt. He'll report back.
We didn't follow traditional procedure for making sticky rice. We soaked it for about 15 minutes instead of several hours. As a consequence, it took forever to steam the rice, and even after 30 minutes, the rice was still crunchy. Dan decided to take it out of the steamer and cook it in a little bit of boiling water. After 4-5 minutes the rice became moister and sticky. So we worked that out.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Triple French Toast

This is a recipe for when you just can't fail enough.

Ingredients

• Bread
  
  
  
  • 2.5c enriched unbleached white flour
    
  • 2.25tsp yeast (1 packet)
    
  • pinch salt
    
  • ~1tsp sugar (approximate)
    
  • warm water
    
  
  
• Custard
  
  
  
  • 1 egg
    
  • 1/2c mlk
    
  • pinch of salt
    
  • 1tsp sugar
    
  • 1/2 cap vanilla extract
    
  
  

Okay, first you make the bread. Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Add water and mix until you get a dough, very slightly damp. Flour the counter and knead it for a few minutes until it's smooth. Set it aside and let it rise until doubled, about an hour. Preheat the oven for 400. Take risen dough and pat it out into a rectangle about 3/8in thick, and then roll it into a log shape. Make slits in the top (optional, really). Cover and let rise for another hour. This is the step I skipped, so if you want "Triple French Toast" to come out the way I made it, don't let it re-rise. Bake until it looks done and the top is golden.

Slice the bread. If you DIDN'T let it rise a second time, it's probably way too dense. Not really good to eat. Here's what I did:

Make about 4 "batches" of the custard (4 eggs, 2c milk, etc). Pour the custard over the bread in a big baking sheet and let it sit covered overnight to absorb the custard. In the morning, make it into French toast.

Now again, I messed this up. The bread was fresh, so it didn't absorb enough of the custard. Also, I forgot the salt, so it was pretty flavorless. Damn it. French toast was supposed to be my fix for my LAST error. So I proceeded a third time. I made YET ANOTHER three "batches" of custard, but this time with a little extra salt. I cut the french toast into cubes and put them in a bread pan. Then I sprinkled cinnamon and sugar over them along with some raisins. I poured the custard over them and let it sit for a while. Then, I put it in the oven set at 350, covered in tin foil. After about 30 minutes, I took the tin foil off and put a baking sheet in the bottom of the oven filled with water. The steam it produced gently cooked the custard around the French toast. It's hard to overcook, but check in on this mixture after about fifteen minutes, and then every five to ten minutes after that. Take it out when the custard looks pretty set on top and the bread pudding just BARELY jiggles when you shake the pan.

Thoughts: Nobody is ever going to make this. But I needed to put it up for two reasons: 1) It is really delicious. How many people have ever made bread pudding out of French toast? 2) It demonstrates an important property to remember when you're baking bread: it's easy to mess up, but it's not the end of the world.

I thought this was great. I'm going to be eating it with maple syrup tomorrow morning. This is also the first time I've ever gotten bread pudding to come out correctly - the baking dish with water was inspired and worked. On a disaster index, this can't really be a 1, because it was actually two consecutive disasters followed by a genius cover-up. Also, it would be a little better if I'd used a little salt in the first batch of French toast custard and then, after preparing the bread pudding, if I'd sprinkled just a little brown sugar over the top (to caramelize).

Disaster Index: 2-3/10.

Pasta with Mustard Greens, Tomatoes, and Feta

So the title is pretty self explanatory.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb part pasta
  
• 1/2 lb mustard greens, ribs removed and chopped coarsely
  
• 1 medium tomato, chopped coarsely
  
• 1-2oz feta cheese, crumbled
  
• some olive oil
  
• salt and pepper
  

Boil water. Throw in some salt, and put in the pasta. In a separate pan, sauté mustard greens and tomatoes in the olive oil with some pepper. When it starts to get a little dry, add about 1/2c of the pasta water and let it cook off. When pasta is cooked, add cooked pasta to greens and tomatoes, reserving water. Add feta and about 1/4c reserved pasta water, plus or minus. Stir to combine.

And, yes, the pasta water necessary.

Thoughts: I pretty much made this up as I went along. The bitterness of the mustard greens balances nicely against the sharp flavors of the feta and the sweet and sour of the tomatoes. Next time, I'm going to add more greens and tomatoes per pasta.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - Would cook again.

Chicken Coconut Curry Noodle Soup

This is adapted from a couple recipes. When we make it, it's sort of "until it tastes good," so this is really just a general guide to how to make it:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups chicken broth
  
• 2 (14-ounce) cans unsweetened coconut milk
  
• 1/2 tablespoon (sweet) curry powder plus or minus a tablespoon to taste
  
• Sriracha to taste
  
• 3-4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
  
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (say 1 squeeze of half a lime)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped green onion
  
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (to taste, we prefer more toward 1/2)
  
• 2 packages ramen noodles (just the noodles! Not the flavor packets!)
  
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  
• Fish Sauce to taste (we go about 1/2tsp, or you can substitute with mushroom sauce or just leave this out entirely)
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  

Bring the broth, coconut milk, and curry powder to a simmer in a soup pot. Add chicken and simmer until it's just barely cooked through, about four minutes. Add the ramen noodles and cook until they're tender (about another minute). You may need to add a little more water at this point. You decide. Now, take it off the heat and add everything else (lime juice, green onion, brown sugar, fish sauce, salt, pepper, and sriracha or other hot sauce, and cilantro). Taste it. Adjust seasoning as you desire. We usually use a lot of curry powder.

Thoughts: This is very good, and hard to mess up. Problem is that it's kind of annoying to cook with meat sometimes. There's a lot of room in this recipe for adjustment to your own taste, as well. Don't be afraid of over-seasoning (except maybe with the salt) - you can always add more stock or water.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - good, hard to mess up.

Mexican Hot Chocolate

Ingredients

• 4 cups skim milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 capful of vanilla extract
• 1 cinnamon stick
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• pinch of black pepper
• 3 oz. bittersweet chocolate (we used 60% cacao), chopped
  

Combine milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, cayenne and black pepper in a heavy-ish saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove pan from heat.
Cover the pan and let steep for 15 minutes.
Strain the milk (we used a paper towel and a colander, which works well if you don't have cheesecloth or an extra-fine sieve) and discard the cinnamon stick.
Return milk to pan. Over medium-high heat, add the chocolate and stir until melted and completely incorporated.
Drink.

Thoughts: This is absolutely delicious. It is a little spicy, but that's why they call it Mexican hot chocolate. It's pretty thick, so don't use whole milk (the original recipe called for whole milk. Seriously?? Christ). It takes a while for the milk to boil, even over medium-high heat, so be prepared to spend a long time whisking. I'm trying to find out if one can turn it on high heat without burning the milk. We'll see.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Walnuts

Another Martha favorite


Ingredients

• several frozen brussels sprouts
• 1/4 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup parsley
• romano cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Place walnuts in single layer in a baking pan and toast for 5-10 minutes. Let cool. Chop coarsely.
Place frozen brussels sprouts in a pot of boiling water and simmer for 5 minutes, until almost tender.
Place brussels sprouts and walnuts in a small pan with some olive oil and heat on high. Add the parsley. Add the lemon juice. Add the salt and pepper. Cook until brussels sprouts are tender (stick a knife in them to check).
Remove from heat, add romano (as much as you want).

Thoughts: This was a little lemony for me. I would recommend just sprinkling a little bit of lemon juice over the sprouts. The romano wasn't in the original recipe, but it should have been. The parsley wasn't either, but I think they were helpful additions.
Be careful that you don't get too happy with these walnuts - they are 200 calories per fourth cup. Christ. So use them sparingly. Otherwise the brussels sprouts were cooked perfectly, so that was a plus. Maybe add garlic?

Disaster Index: 3/10

Waffles

These waffles were... basic. I'll leave it at that.
Ingredients

• 1/2c white flour
  
• 1/2c wheat flour
  
• 1tsp baking soda
  
• a pinch of salt
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1c buttermilk (we used skim milk with a little lemon juice in it)
  

Mix the dry ingredients together. Crack the egg into the buttermilk and whisk lightly. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir. Put in waffle press. Try to get waffles out after a little while. Cry.

Thoughts: These waffles sucked. Some notes for next time: 1) add sugar to the batter. 2) check to make sure you have something to put on TOP of the waffles before you make them. 3) have a waffle iron that won't try to devour your waffles whole. One option to prevent stickage is to liberally oil the grids, but on my iron this takes a lot more oil than I want to think about. I've had success with recipes that have oil in the batter, which somehow prevents stickage as well as creates a nicer texture. The addition of sugar (to caramelize and improve the interior strength of the waffle) might also help prevent the iron from tearing the damn things in half when you try to remove them.

Disaster Index: 8/10 - I mean, I ate them. But it wasn't a good time. It was a bad time.

Chickpea, Mint, and Parsley Spread

Based on a Martha Stewart recipe

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cups chickpeas (about one can), rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup fresh mint, coarsely chopped
• 3/4 cup fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
• 2 tbs lemon juice (bottled works fine)
• 1.5 tsp salt
• freshly ground pepper

Cook onion in a saucepan over medium heat until softened, about 8 minutes. Use whatever oil you want for this, as long as its either olive oil or a flavorless oil.
Add chickpeas, cook for 3 minutes.
Remove from heat.

Add chickpea mixture, parsley, mint, lemon juice and salt to food processor, season with pepper, and puree. With machine running, add the 1/4 cup olive oil in a slow steady stream.
This can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Thoughts: Oh man. This is delicious. It is the most delicious dip in the world. Make it for friends, neighbors, and strangers. It might have done well with some roasted garlic, but it certainly isn't necessary. Eat it with pita bread. It would probably also be delicious on some sort of sandwich.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - Mmmmm.

Pizza Dough

This is a recipe we use for pizza dough. Once you have the dough laid out, you can put pretty much anything on it and then bake it at 500 for ~15 minutes (checking it often). The entry before this details precisely what we did put on it, though the possibilities are limitless.

Somewhat limitless anyway.

Ingredients

• 2.25tsp active dry yeast
  
• 2/3c warm water plus or minus (about as hot as tap water will go, maybe a little cooler. You should be able to put your finger in the water for about two seconds comfortably. Minor variation won't matter.)
  
• 2.5c flour plus or minus
  
• pinch of salt (aim for a little less than a teaspoon)
  
• 4T olive oil
  
• 1tsp sugar
  
• Cooking spray (PAM)
  

I've made this in two ways. The first way requires proofing the yeast: put the yeast in the water along with the sugar. Stir it around. Mix the dry ingredients together while it sits and add the olive oil. Then pour the water/yeast/sugar mixture in and mix together into a dough, adjusting water and flour as needed until it's just a little bit sticky. (For the second method, just put all the dry ingredients together INCLUDING the yeast and sugar, mix them together, and then add the oil and finally the water while mixing together to create a dough. This is mainly for if you're pretty sure your yeast is still alive. Won't make too much difference cooking, though.)

Take the dough out of the bowl and flour the counter a little. Knead the dough for about seven minutes, until you could describe it as 'silky' and smooth. PAM the bowl and put the dough in, and then PAM the top of the dough so it's covered in oil.

Now set the dough to rise. Pro tip I learned from my father: microwave half a mug of water until it boils, about three minutes. Set the mug in a corner of the microwave, and then put the bowl of dough in the microwave with it and close the door. It makes a super humid and warm chamber that is perfect for rising bread, and it prevents the dough from drying out.

When the dough has approximately doubled in size (about an hour, although the original recipe says two hours), take it out and, without punching it down, divide it in two. Roll each half out onto a floured surface to about 1/8" thick (it's much easier if you didn't punch it down!) and transfer to a LIGHTLY floured baking sheet or bread stone of an appropriate size. I can usually pretty well cover two 9x13 baking sheets. Brush lightly with olive oil and add the toppings of your choice.

Thoughts: This produces a pretty standard pizza dough, and when you cook it at ~500 degrees you get a nice crisp crust all around, even if you cook it on a baking sheet rather than a bread stone. This recipe is pretty consistent. The only thing I can think of is that there is a prime opportunity to introduce some flavors here. For future pizzas I will consider mixing in oregano, basil, and/or parsley into the dry ingredients. Actually, depending on the type of pizza, you could put pretty much any herb in. I imagine using dill with a more Greek-style pizza, or cilantro with something more South American in flavor. Be adventurous. It's hard to screw up.

Note added 04/11/2008: To get a pizza onto a 500* pizza stone is not an easy task. You cannot merely make the pizza on the counter and then pick it up and put it on a bread stone. It will be a disaster. I've tried it. Instead, after you roll out the dough, transfer it to a thin silicon cutting mat that is LIBERALLY sprinkled with corn meal. Shake the mat back and forth to make certain the dough can slide off if you give the mat a little shake. Add the toppings to the pizza as usual. When it comes to transferring the pizza to the stone all you have to do is open the oven and slide the pizza off the cooking mat. Getting the pizza OUT is much easier - just slide the mat back under the pizza and, supporting the pizza's weight with a hand and hot-pad, pull the pizza away. Le voila.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - works very well for a good solid pizza crust and shows promise for modifications.

Prosciutto, Chevre, and Spinach Pizza

Ingredients

• Several slices of prosciutto
  
• 1.75 oz. chevre
  
• half a red onion, slices separated into ribbons
  
• spinach or arugula
  
• olive oil
  
• garlic
  
• salt and pepper
  
• One recipe pizza dough (see the relevant post)
  

Preheat oven to 500.
While the dough is rising, caramelize the red onions with salt, pepper, and garlic. Set aside.
After putting the dough on the pizza pan/baking sheet, brush the dough with olive oil until coated.
Layer the spinach/arugula/whatever onto the dough.
Add the prosciutto, chevre, and caramelized red onions.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is lightly golden.

Thoughts: This pizza works really well, but be careful not to skimp on toppings. Next time I make it, I plan to adjust up the amount of cheese used to 4oz. Past experiments have also included fresh fruit such as strawberries or pears along with tangy cheeses (feta or chevre) and prosciutto.

All in all, you won't be disappointed with this.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Vanilla Cream

Ingredients

• 1 cup low fat cottage cheese
• 1 cup nonfat or low-fat yogurt
• 1/8 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Whirl all the ingredients in a blender until smooth. Serve chilled.

Thoughts: This was a pretty easy recipe. Unfortunately it was really weird. I think it was the cottage cheese. Seriously, who puts cottage cheese in a dessert sauce? This sauce went all right with the oatmeal cookies below, but I don't know if I would eat it with anything else. Or eat it in large quantities. Dan suggested that it might be good on/in French Toast? We'll get back to you on that one.

Disaster Index: 7/10

Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup apple butter
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup raisins
• 1.5 cups white flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice (or cardamom)
• 2 cups rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350.
Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, mix apple butter, oil, egg, vanilla, and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in raisins.
In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cardamom/allspice. Stir in oats.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until well blended.
Drop batter by tablespoonfuls about 3 inches apart onto the baking sheet.
Bake 15 minutes, until lightly browned.

Thoughts: For some reason, this recipe didn't work at all. The cookies didn't flatten out; they just sort of stayed in lumps. And they were really dry on the inside. I mean, they were edible, but I wouldn't make them again. These are 65 calories per cookie, on the bright side.

Disaster Index: 7/10

Ribollita

This recipe is a variation on a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis. It's pretty heavily modified, though.

Ingredients:

• olive oil
  
• 1 onion, chopped
  
• 1 carrot, chopped
  
• 2tbsp crushed garlic
  
• 1tbsp tomato paste
  
• 1 15oz can diced tomatoes
  
• 1 10oz package frozen spinach
  
• 1 15oz can cannellini beans or "great northern beans" (what's the diff?), drained
  
• 4c vegetable stock
  
• 1c water
  
• 1 piece Parmesan or Romano rind
  
• bay leaves (1-3), parsley, basil, maybe some thyme, salt, and pepper
  
• bread
  

Heat some oil in a large pan or soup pot. Throw in the onion, carrot, garlic, salt, and pepper. When the onion is translucent, add the tomato paste and stir. Then add tomatoes, spinach, beans, herbs, stock and water, and cheese rind. Simmer, stirring periodically, for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, toast some bread in the oven (with a little olive oil) at ~350. We use a Madison sour dough, though we've also used traditional Ciabatta. If it's slightly stale, all the better. When it's done toasting, put a piece of bread at the bottom of a bowl and ladle soup over it. Top with more grated cheese and enjoy.

Thoughts: Since we started making this a few months ago it's become a standard. Sometimes we double up on the onions. We've gone as high as 15oz on the frozen spinach, too. This soup is difficult to mess up since most of the main ingredients are just "one can" or "one package". Everyone who's tried this soup has liked it a lot. The original calls for pancetta, though we do it vegetarian style. Still, it might be worth trying some time.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - The only downside is that there are a lot of ingredients I don't usually have. Fortunately, they're mostly non-perishable, so I can stock up and use them bit by bit.

Guacamole

This recipe is taken from a bunch of FoodNetwork chefs. I think we have about 2 parts Tyler Florence, 2 parts Bobby Flay, and 1 part Rachel Ray.

Ingredients

• 2 avocados, scooped out of the rind and chopped
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
• 1 lime, juiced and combined with chopped avocados
• 1/2 garlic clover, minced
• 1/2 tomato

Mix ingredients. Chill.

Thoughts: This was not a shining moment. The red onion was far too strong, as was the lime juice. The tomato probably should have been a roma tomato, or no tomato at all. After a few days, the guacamole got kind of brown anyways. Maybe I would have used yellow onion rather than red onion? Furthermore, we didn't ever add cilantro, which was a huge mistake. Even after adding a third avocado, the lime juice was far too strong. Maybe cut the lime juice in half while adding another avocado.

Disaster Index: 6-7/10 - Needs work. I wouldn't eat it again.

Pôts de Crème

This is a secret family recipe, handed down to me from my mother. It's also not really a secret. It is, however, delicious and easy. Also: Pots de Creme. There, now we can search for it.

Ingredients:

• 12oz chocolate chips (preferably semi-sweet or bittersweet, depending on your tastes.)
  
• 1tsp vanilla extract
  
• 1/4tsp almond extract (optional)
  
• 3 egg yolks
  
• 1c milk
  
• 1tbsp butter (optional - if you use skim milk you MIGHT want to add this, otherwise don't.)
  

Put the chocolate chips in a blender. Just put them there. Throw in the egg yolks and the vanilla (and almond, if you're using it). Now pour the milk (and butter) into a sauce pan and proceed to heat until the butter melts (and then just a little longer). If you're not using butter, heat it until you think it will melt chocolate chips. Just make sure you keep stirring it. If it reaches a boil, just take it off the heat and let it cool for a few seconds. The idea is to melt the chips and not scramble the eggs - you just want to make the eggs thicken a little.

Anyway, turn the blender on and slowly pour the milk in while it's running. When it's pretty smooth in consistency, turn off the blender and divide it into a bunch of little glasses - demi-tasse glasses work very nicely, as do things like brandy snifters or any small wine-glass type things. Chill for about an hour. When they're fairly stiff, you're done. Serve with optional whipped cream (preferably home made.)

Thoughts: This is ridiculously easy to make, and you could probably do minor alterations. I have thought of putting a cinnamon stick in the milk while I'm heating it or adding chile powder at some point in the process. Do NOT use cheap chocolate for this. I like Girardelli, as it has a vanilla-y taste. Definitely stay away from Hershey's, Baker's, and Nestle. They just won't work well. Trust me. Roundy's isn't too bad, actually, but neither is it great.

I use skim milk for this and SOMETIMES add a little butter, my mother uses 1% and adds no butter. More fat doesn't necessarily make it better - you have to experiment and see what you like. You could probably use heavy whipping cream if you were so inclined, though I don't know if I'd recommend it.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - This is a must, and it's practically fool-proof. Except once we tried to chill them outside when we had no room in the freezer and a squirrel destroyed about eight of them. Don't let this happen to you.

Open-Faced Peach Cake

Martha.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup milk (we used skim, you can use whatever)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 3-4 peaches, halved and pitted
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tbs chilled butter or margarine, cut into small pieces
• 1 tbs sugar
  

Preheat oven to 400.
Spray a 9-inch spring-form pan with pam, or some other cooking spray.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a separate bowl, combine sugar, milk, oil, and egg. Fold into the dry ingredients.
Spread the batter into the spring-form pan. Arrange halved peaches, cut sides up, over the batter.
Combine cinnamon and other tbs sugar and sprinkle over top of cake. Dot with cold butter (or margarine or whatever).
Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Thoughts: Make sure you use peaches that are almost but not quite ripe. Ripe ones will just fall apart when baked. You can pretty much use any type of stone fruit that you want. The original recipe called for plums, but I hate plums, so we used peaches. I don't think it would have turned out any better with plums. You can actually use pears, if stone fruit is not in season. We actually ran out of peaches half-way through this recipe so we supplemented the blank space with 1/2 Bartlett pear, and it was good. Also, make sure you keep this cake in the fridge after you bake it. The fruit can go bad quite quickly. This is an excellent cake for tea. Delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - Make it for your friends and neighbors.

Sweet-Potato Chips

This is another adaptation of a Martha Stewart recipe. We like her.

Ingredients

• 1 sweet potato, scrubbed and sliced very very thinly (try for 1/8 inch)
  
• olive oil (extra virgin)
• salt

Preheat oven to 400, with racks in center and lowest positions.
Place sliced sweet potatoes in large bowl and toss with salt and olive oil.
Lay them on a baking sheet, in a single layer (we didn't do this, but we definitely should have).
Bake, flipping once, until centers are soft and edges are crisp.
Sprinkle with salt.

Thoughts: I sliced the potatoes by hand, which was difficult. You can do it, but it's probably easier to get a mandoline or hand-held slicer. The slicing attachment on a cuisinart is too thick. We baked these considerably longer than the recommended 22-25 minutes, though I can't remember exactly how many minutes we baked them for. Closer to 30. Furthermore, we burned several of them. They didn't cook especially evenly because they were in double layers, so some were more done than others. The ones that did turn out were very good. Mastering the cook time on these is going to be challenge. Maybe consider slicing the potatoes thicker (closer to 1/4 inch)? Dan also says that these chips go well with the winter squash dip.

Disaster Index: 5-6/10

Winter Squash Dip

This is adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe. Hers is probably better.

Ingredients

• 1 lb winter squash (we used 1/2 of a butternut), seeded and cut into 3-inch pieces
• 2 tbs chopped garlic
• 8 scallions, white and pale green parts only, sliced thinly
• 1 cup non-fat yogurt (though you could use full fat and you won't die or anything)
• 1/2 container low-fat cream cheese (see above)
• 1/2 cup grated Romano
  
• paprika
• olive oil (extra virgin)
• (brown sugar)
  

The original recipe calls for chipotle chiles, which would have been good, I think. But this still turned out pretty awesome.

Anyways, preheat the oven to 400. Put the squash pieces in a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Also sprinkle with copious amounts of salt and pepper. Add the garlic. Toss. Spread on baking sheet. You can pam the baking sheet first, if you're worried about stickage.
Bake the squash until it is juicy and soft. This will be about 50 minutes. Take the squash out and let it cool.
In the meantime, cook the scallion pieces in olive oil until they're soft (4 minutes).
Once the squash has cooled to a temperature that will not burn your hands, scrape the flesh from the rind and put it in a food processor. Add scallions. Pulse until smooth.
Add yogurt, cream cheese, and Romano. Pulse until combined.
Taste. It may require brown sugar. Put some in (1/8 cup?)
Refrigerate for an hour. Eat it.

Thoughts: Again, this could have benefited from the Chipotles. Otherwise it was pretty good. I recommend eating it with crackers such as Wheat Thins or Kashi TLCs. It is also delicious with red peppers. And pretty good on sandwiches.

Disaster Index: 3-4/10

Granola

This is an edited version of Alton Brown's granola recipe.

Ingredients

• 3c rolled oats
  
• 1c chopped or slivered almonds
  
• 3/4c shredded coconut
  
• 3T brown sugar
  
• 2T honey or maple syrup
  
• 1c raisins, chopped dates, and craisins
  
• pinch of salt
  
• anything else you happen to want to add (today we added about 1/4c peanuts to supplement a lack of almonds).
  

Preheat oven to 250. Take out a baking sheet with moderately steep sides. Add the oats, nuts, coconut, sugar, honey (more or less evenly), and salt. Stir that around with a spatula or wooden spoon. Then put it in the oven and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, taking it out ever 15 minutes and stirring it around to make sure it toasts evenly. Once it's done, throw in the dried fruit.

Thoughts: We've made this a couple times, and it always turns out well. It's kind of a 'blank slate' recipe - you could just add cinnamon or vanilla, maybe orange zest, or chocolate chips (though only after it's done baking). Actually, come to think of it, you could probably use chocolate chips slightly before it's done baking and get sort of 'clusters' of granola, though you'd probably have to refrigerate it once it comes out of the oven.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - A fool-proof, open-ended recipe. Maybe you could make granola bars out of it, too.

Pad Thai

This is based on a recipe Emily gave me (and showed me how to make) after she took a cooking class in Thailand or somewhere like that. I can't remember. Anyway, it's authentic, more or less. I messed around with the proportions, and the ones in this recipe are only an approximation of what I actually used.

Ingredients

• 1/2 block of tofu, cut into .5cm x 1.5cm x 1.5cm blocks (or so).
  
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• some oil
  
• ~7oz 'rice stick noodle'
  
• 2T brown sugar
  
• 3T soy sauce
  
• 3T mushroom sauce ('vegetarian stir-fry sauce')
  
• water
  
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• 1/3c scallions, chopped
  
• limes, bean sprouts, and crushed peanuts to top
  

Heat a small amount of oil in a big pan (wok, if you have it) and add the garlic. After about 30 seconds or a minute, add the tofu and cook until the tofu is getting brown and crispy. Then add the egg and scramble. Once the egg is cooked, add the brown sugar, soy sauce, mushroom sauce, scallions, and noodles. toss those around a little, and then add about a cup of water. Stir around a little more, and then cover. The steam cooks the noodles. Stir the pot around periodically so things don't stick. If the pad thai ever looks like it's starting to get dry, add more water and re-cover. When the pasta is cooked through, adjust seasoning, add water and possibly more soy sauce, hot sauce (maybe sriracha, if you have any) and serve. Feeds about 3-4, depending on how hungry you are.

Thoughts: This went pretty well. Next time I'm thinking I'll add a little rice-wine vinegar or tamarind juice (or both), a little more brown sugar, a little fish sauce, and a little more water / soy sauce / stir fry sauce. The recipe works very nicely, it's just a matter of adjusting the seasoning to taste right.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - this is workable. Give it a shot.

Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup with Kale

This is an adaptation of the soup of a similar name at Epicurious. But we changed the proportions a little and used an uncooked (I think) Chorizo sausage.

Ingredients:

• 1 7-8oz Chorizo sausage
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 1 clove garlic (or more), minced or crushed
  
• 2 large sweet potatoes, quartered lengthwise and chopped ~1/3" or 1/4" thick.
  
• 3 c chicken broth
  
• a bunch of kale (I have no idea how much. Until it looks right), chopped or however you like.
  

Heat the sausage in oil over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes. If it's anything like ours, it will just fall apart, so there's no point in chopping it up beforehand. Otherwise, 1/4" slices are recommended.

After it cooks, remove the sausage with a slotted spoon and set in a bowl with a bunch of paper towels to drain. Add the onion into the pot along with the garlic. When the onion is translucent, add the sweet potatoes and cook over medium-low heat for about twelve minutes, stirring often. Add the stock and cook for another 20 minutes. Mash some of the sweet potatoes in the pot, and then re-add the sausage along with the kale. Simmer until the kale is the right texture.

Thoughts:
The kale could have been added sooner, about ten minutes after we added the stock. Also, next time maybe we can get sausage that won't fall apart completely while it's cooking. This particular sausage added a really smoky flavor that was pretty good, but pretty intense, and since it fell apart it really overpowered the other flavors. Getting something that coheres would be much better. The soup itself was pretty good, but really quite heavy. Next time I don't know if I'd mash the potatoes at all. It was something of a stew rather than a soup.

Disaster Index: 3/10 - not really a disaster at all, but there were a few things that could be changed. Still, quite delicious in small quantities.

Espresso Miel

A quick recipe, if you can call it that.

I added a little Penzy's China Cassia cinnamon to the coffee grounds before I brewed them (in my Bialetti espresso maker). You have to be careful with this stuff. I probably added 1/6 tsp, but it was almost (almost) overpowering.

Anyway, add honey and milk and you have an "espresso miel" (it's what they call a similar concoction at Electric Earth Café).

Disaster Index: 3/10 - it had a nice flavor, but it's nothing special. If you want something different, it's good.

Fat Free Yogurt Scones

Ingredients
Dry:

• 1 c flour
  
• 2 tsp baking powder
  
• 1/6 c sugar
  
• pinch of salt
  
• raisins / craisins / currants / dried blueberries / whatever
  

Wet:

• 1/2 c fat free yogurt
  
• 1 egg
  

Preheat oven to 375. Mix the dry ingredients. Mix the wet ingredients. Combine, but don't over-mix. Spoon out into about six equal scones on a greased baking sheet. Bake 375 for about fifteen minutes, until just barely brown on top.

Thoughts:
I wanted some vaguely healthy scones. But Alton Brown's recipe called for sour cream, butter, and shortening. A lot of recipes use heavy cream or buttermilk in addition to as much butter as the batter will hold.

The fat gives the scone a flakier texture. So these scones will not be the usual scone texture. They're kind of cakey, but when you warm them up with butter and a little jam, they work perfectly for tea. If I want more fat next time, I could try whole fat yogurt instead of fat free. Emily suggests possibly adding oats to alter the texture, though I'm skeptical.

Disaster Index: 3/10 - They're not quite scones, but they're still pretty good.