Cranberry Curd Bars with Shortbread Crust

OH BOY IT'S BEEN FOREVER SINCE WE'VE DONE ANYTHING. HERE'S SOME CURD FOR YOU.

Ingredients

For the crust: Use the crust from the blueberry-cranberry bars recipe, but with 1.5 sticks of butter, not 2.
For the curd:

• 12 oz fresh or frozen cranberries (one standard bag)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (or 2 tsp of the stuff in the little lemon-shaped squeeze bottle -- that shit's powerful)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup softened butter, cut into tablespoons

Line a glass baking pan with parchment paper. Make the shortbread crust, bake it in a 375 oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven.
In the meantime, make the curd.
Place cranberries and 1/2 cup water in a small/medium saucepan and boil for five minutes, until the cranberries lyse and get mushy. Stir occasionally.
Pour them through a fine mesh sieve and press the puree through the sieve with a spatula. This might take a while. Don't be daunted, and be sure to get all the puree you can.
Allow puree to cool. Throw away the skins. You will not need them.
To the cool-ish puree, add the sugar, eggs, yolks, salt, and lemon juice. Stir completely. You might want to use a whisk.
Make a double-boiler and whisk the curd furiously until it thickens (it'll already be pretty thick, but it needs to thicken more) and gets lighter in color. It should read 150 on your candy thermometer. 10-12 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in all the butter all at once. Because you've used a double-boiler and hence haven't scrambled the eggs, you won't need to strain the curd again.
Pour it into the shortbread crust that's waiting.
Bake at 350 for something like 15 minutes, or until the curd is mostly set but jiggles SLIGHTLY in the center.
Refrigerate before serving. Nom nom.

Thoughts: The original recipe calls for a different sort of crust -- one that has walnuts in it. Since neither Dan nor I like walnuts, we decided to use a similar (we thought) sort of crust that we've used in cobbler-type bars, etc. The flavor of the crust was really good, but I personally thought it was a little too tough -- it didn't taste at all like it does when it's beneath cranberry-blueberry bars. Maybe the curd did something to it, or we baked it for too long before putting the curd on top. Maybe reduce baking time to 20 rather than 30 minutes? But the flavor was really good. The curd was also good -- you have to be sure to keep it refrigerated, or else it will sort of melt. Not too tart, but tart enough? We would probably have used a little more lemon.

Disaster Index: 1.5/10 (Dan says 1, I say 2)

Bread Pudding

I know that I had a french toast recipe, but this is slightly different.

Ingredients

• Dense-ish bread, chopped into 1" cubes (ish).
• Egg Mixture
• 1 egg
• 1/2c milk (I use skim)
• 1tbsp brown sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Vanilla extract
• Cinnamon & nutmeg to taste

Preheat the oven to 300.  Make as many servings of the egg mixture as you need.  So if you are making one serving, it's one egg, 1/2c milk, etc.  If you need two, double that.  Just whisk all the ingredients together.  Then add the bread to the mixture, add cinnamon & nutmeg, and toss to coat everything evenly.  What you want to see is that MOST but not ALL of the egg mixture has soaked into the bread.  

Pour the bread into an appropriately sized (well greased) pan - you want a depth of about 2" of bread.  If you're making single servings, you can use ramekins, too.  I usually add a layer of parchment paper at the bottom so that it doesn't stick.  Anyway, pour everything into the cake pan / ramekins / whatever, and cover with foil.  Bake at 300 for about 20-30 minutes (ramekins get 20 min, larger gets 30), then remove the foil, increase heat to 375, and go for another 10-15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Thoughts: I've been making this for a while, but I always forget what temperatures I set the oven at and for how long, so I thought I'd write it down so I can remember.  This works pretty darn well.  Another thing you can do (if you're eating the bread pudding immediately) is chop bananas or some other fruit in with the bread before you cook it.  I'm not 100% sure how this will impact the liquidyness of the bread pudding if you use berries, but I'd imagine it would work pretty well with bananas or apples.  Not sure how well this would work with a really crusty bread like French.  I'd stay away from that - you want something a little denser for this.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Caramelized Pear Cake

Based on a recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients

• 3 largeish bosc pears, peeled.  One grated, the other two sliced thinly.
• 6tbsp butter
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1 1/3c flour
• 2/3 c granulated sugar
• 1 1/2tsp cinnamon
• 1tsp baking soda
• 1/2tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1/2c neutral oil
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• zest of one orange

Preheat oven to 350.  In an oven-safe skillet, melt the butter.  When the butter is melted, take it off the heat and add the brown sugar, stirring around.  Then lay the two sliced pears on the skillet in a radial pattern (or however you like).

Meanwhile, combine everything else (including the grated pear) in a separate bowl and stir to combine.  It makes a fairly thick batter.  Pour the batter over the pears in the skillet and throw the whole thing in the oven for 40 minutes.  Take it out when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Thoughts: Fantastic.  Really good.  And fairly easy, although there were a lot of ingredients.  I would say our one complaint was that it's got so much sugar, although I wouldn't say it's too sweet.  It just makes me feel wrong for eating it.  It's really good, though.  I would definitely make this again exactly the same way.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Muscadine Jam

Wow, we're WAY behind.  We've both been so busy lately.  Hopefully we'll start to catch up soon.

Ingredients

• A quart of muscadine grapes
• about 1-2c sugar
• water

First, separate all of the grape skins from the grapes.  This is actually pretty easy - put a slit down the side and pry the skin off.  It comes away pretty easily.  Chop all the skins and set to simmer in a small sauce pan.  In another small sauce pan, start the insides of the grapes simmering.  If you managed to remove all the seeds already, great, otherwise you'll have to strain them later and it's a PAIN.  Anyway, simmer the insides until they're pretty completely broken down and soft, adding water as needed so they don't stick (same goes for the skins).  Now remove the seeds if you haven't already and cook the skin and the insides together with the sugar for another 5 minutes, or at least until the water is mostly cooked off, then put in a food processor and blend until smooth.  Put in a sterile jar and place directly into the fridge.

Thoughts: Although this grape jam was fantastic, Claire and I agree that the distinct muscadine flavor isn't quite there when you boil them for a while.  That said, it's still delicious jam - very clean flavor, probably because there isn't all that HFCS and so forth.  But it was a little disappointing insofar as it didn't have the muscadine flavor.  Probably wouldn't make it again since it was a lot of trouble.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Double Celery Potato Soup

Not for those who are allergic to celery, as this has DOUBLE celery.

Ingredients

• 3tbsp olive oil
• about 2 entire leeks, chopped (we used the green parts of about 4 leeks)
• 1 large onion or 2 small, chopped
• 2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and chopped to rough 1" chunks
• 2 medium celery roots, peeled and chopped to rough 1" chunks
• heaping 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 8c chicken/vegetable stock
• 5 celery stalks, chopped
• (optional) bacon, crisped to top (you can also cook vegetables in the bacon fat / skip the olive oil completely)
• (optional) cream or whole milk - between 1/4 and 1 c, depending on how you feel (we used 1/4 whole)
• black pepper

In a pot, add the leeks and onion and the oil (or bacon fat, if using).  Cook until tender over medium to medium-low heat, about 10 minutes.  Then add the potatoes, celery root, thyme, bay leaf, and stock.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes.  Add the celery stalks and simmer for another 15 minutes.  Now take the soup off the heat and, using an immersion blender (or equivalent?), blend the hell out of the soup until it's mostly smooth.  Add a ton of finely ground black pepper, milk (if using).  Serve and top with optional bacon, if desired.

Thoughts: The flavor of this is really INTERESTING - different from any soup I've had.  In retrospect, this recipe is another variation on the traditional leek and potato soup (see Vichyssoise 2 or our ever popular Vichyssoise with Chilies), but the celery flavor is slightly sweet.  It doesn't taste strongly like celery, but it has a unique... unexpected flavor.  Not totally unlike pea soup.  Kind of "warm" is the best way to put it.  It pairs very well with pepper.  I think this soup would be better had in winter.  But it was a good way to use up a lot of ingredients we had... and it was an excuse to try celeriac for the first time ever.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Madeleines

We more or less followed the recipe given on the 101 cookbooks blog. It took us a while to find a recipe that called for the (traditional) browned butter.
Ingredients

• 1.5 sticks butter
• 3/4c flour plus a little
• 4 eggs
• pinch of salt
• 2/3c sugar
• zest of one lemon
• 1tsp vanilla
• madeleine pan

Preheat the oven to 350. In a sauce pan, melt the butter over low heat. Keep it over low heat and the butter will start to foam. The foam will subside and then you will start to get some browning of the milk solids. Take it off the heat at this point and continue stirring for a little while, then pour through a mesh strainer lined with a paper towel. Set aside to cool. Meanwhile, in a bowl, beat together the eggs and salt with an electric egg beater. Slowly add the sugar, and continue to beat until doubled or tripled in volume and the mixture is ribbony - 2 minutes or so. Now gently whisk in everything else.

Prepare the madeleine pans with PAM and a light dusting of flour (we put white flour in a mesh sieve and tapped it over the molds). Fill the molds about 3/4 full, and bake for 12-14 minutes, until the edges of the madeleines are just barely browned. Remove from the oven and turn out to cool. Dust with powdered sugar to serve.

Thoughts: Claire felt that they were a LITTLE on the dry side, though the flavor was good. She mainly questioned the texture. Maybe cook them a couple minutes less next time? I thought they were just great. Maybe I'd use orange zest instead of lemon? I'm not entirely sure. Possibly I'd consider adding a pinch of baking powder (or is that cheating?)...

Disaster Index: 1.5/10

Vichyssoise 2

Easier and better than our original recipe.  Thanks Julia Child.
Ingredients

• 6 leeks, white parts chopped and rinsed of grit, green parts discarded (or saved for something else)
• 5 russet potatoes, peeled and chopped (the idea is to have about 6 cups of leeks and 6 cups of potatoes)
• 12c chicken or vegetable stock
• 1-2c cream

Note: This recipe makes a LOT of soup.  I made this for a group of 12 and had leftovers.

This recipe is embarrassingly easy.  Throw the vegetables in a big pot with the stock.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 40 to 50 minutes.  Blend in batches, then stir in the cream.  Chill.

Thoughts: I thought that this was really delicious - better than any vichyssoise we'd made in the past.  Must be the cream.  Claire really liked it, too, except that she likes it better with chili peppers in it, and she prefers it served warm.  Anyway, good show.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Arugula Spinach Ravioli

Probably pretty good for you.
Ingredients

• Pasta Dough
• 2c white flour
• ~1-2tbsp olive oil
• pinch of salt
• 3 eggs
• Filling
• ~6oz arugula
• 10oz frozen spinach
• 1/2c ricotta cheese
• 1/2c mozzarella cheese
• 2tbsp butter
• 4 cloves garlic
• lemon juice or white wine - something acidic
• 3/4tsp salt
• 3/4tsp black pepper

In a bowl, combine the dough ingredients. and stir to combine.  Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface and, using a little extra flour as you go, knead out the dough until it's fully mixed and has a smooth texture - about 8 minutes.  Wrap the dough in plastic and set it aside for an hour to rest.

Now start a big pot of water boiling.  While that heats, (in a separate pot) combine the butter and garlic in a pot and cook until fragrant - about a minute.  Add the greens (thawed completely in the microwave) and the acidic liquid (white wine / lemon juice) and cover to wilt everything down.  After it's all hot, put everything in a fine mesh strainer and press out any excess liquid - there will be quite a lot.  Then put the greens on a cutting board and chop finely.  Mix with the rest of the filling ingredients in a big bowl.
Now, roll out the dough to an appropriate thinness.  We used a pasta roller we inherited and put the past through on successively smaller gauge pasta sizes.  Eventually, we put the pasta sheet on a (lightly oiled) ravioli press.  We then added the filling, topped with another sheet of pasta, and pressed out the ravioli.  Now, if you don't have all this fancy equipment, you can theoretically do it by hand... you can figure it out.  This pasta dough is actually fairly forgiving.

Anyway, when you've pressed out the ravioli, you drop them in the boiling water (keeping the pot covered after you get them in).  Cook for about 3-6 minutes, depending on the thickness of the ravioli in question.  Then toss with whatever sauce you made (I made a kind of white wine / sage sauce that was OK) and serve.

Thoughts: The pasta dough we used here was nigh perfect.  We've had trouble with pasta doughs being too dry in the past, or too brittle, too glutenous, etc.  but this one was very malleable, incredibly stretchy, and very VERY forgiving.  If I were interested in making pasta in the future, this is the recipe I would use.  As far as the ravioli goes, I think it would have been better with goat cheese filling (the original recipe MAY have called for goat cheese).  Next time, Claire and I have decided, we will put the filling in a food processor rather than using a cutting board (weird).  And a higher cheese to other stuff ratio would also be good.  Also it took us a while to get the pasta thickness right.  But I'm going to go ahead and give this recipe a 1 because it was our first ever time making ravioli with this press we registered for AND it went so well once we figured out what we were doing.  Very rewarding.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Gulab Jamun

Ingredients

• For the Syrup
• 6c water
• 3c sugar
• 2tbsp rosewater
• 1tbsp ground cardamom
• For the Doughnuts
• 3c powdered milk
• 1c all-purpose flour
• 1.5tsp baking powder
• 6tbsp butter, melted
• milk (any type) - just enough to make a soft dough - about 1/4c
• Oil for frying

In a saucepan, add the water and sugar.  Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  When it reaches a boil, turn the heat off and add the rosewater and cardamom.  Set aside.  Meanwhile, combine the dry ingredients for the doughnuts.  Add the butter, melted, and then enough skim milk to make a thick dough that you can roll with your hands.  If you add too much milk, you can always correct with a little more flour.  Roll the dough into balls about 3/4" in diameter.  In a saucepan, add some oil and heat to deep fry the dough.  You want it hot enough that the dough takes about 30 seconds to start to get brown.  If you have the oil too hot, the dough will brown (and burn) too quickly and the inside won't cook.  So you kind of want to cook them more slowly.  Make sure to stir them so they cook evenly.  When they're done, briefly drain on paper towels, then add directly to the syrup.  Let them sit in the syrup for at least 2 hours.  We put our syrup in a slow-cooker set to "warm" so they stay warm until we're ready to eat them.

Thoughts: These are awesome, and the slow-cooker worked perfectly.  I will say that the insides of SOME of the jamun were a little... dry?  It seemed like they didn't cook very well if they were too big, and since the dough was dry, you got these little pockets of milk powder sometimes.  It wasn't bad, but in the future I'd consider trying either (a) a slightly wetter dough or (b) smaller sized jamuns.  This recipe is enough to feed an army (we fed about 18 people desert) so scale back as needed.  On the other hand, I think they would keep well in the fridge.  So.  We served with rose flavored ice cream, but you could serve them plain, with whipped cream, or with many other flavors of ice cream.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Almost No-Knead Bread

This is a Cook's recipe with our modifications.

Perfect bread.

Ingredients

• 3c unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4tsp yeast
• 1.5tsp salt
• 3/4c + 2tbsp lukewarm water
• 1/4c + 2tbsp dogfishhead 90 minute IPA or similar?
• 1tbsp white vinegar

Whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the wet.  Stir together until you have a dough.  Then cover it and let it sit for 10 hours.  Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead 10-15 times.  It's a wet dough, so do the best you can.  Then form it into a ball by gathering all the corners together on one side to create a smooth surface on the other side of the dough ball.  Turn the dough onto the counter, pucker side down, to create a smooth dome on top, and move dough around in a circle to seal the corners together on the underside of the dough.  Now move the dough to a shallow skillet lined with parchment.  Let it sit another 2 hours.  After 1.5 hours, put the dutch oven (covered) in the oven and preheat to 500 degrees.  When the dough is done with the second rise, take the dutch oven out of the oven.  Slash the bread once across the top - about 1/2" to 3/4" deep.  Insert the bread and parchment into the dutch oven (using the parchment to transfer it to the dutch oven), cover, and return to the oven.  Set the dutch oven to 425.  After 30 minutes, remove the lid and cook for another 25 to 30 minutes, then remove from the oven and take the bread out of the dutch oven to cool.

Thoughts: This was a fantastic loaf of bread.  The crust was perfect, and the crumb was about perfect as well.  Really rich flavor. I might consider trying this with bread flour?  Or possibly make an herbed bread with rosemary?  It's a thought.  The oven spring wasn't as incredible as I had thought, though maybe if I let it sit 18 hours instead of 10 we'd have more to report from that.  Still.  One of our best loaves so far.  Side note: the crust texture suffered after a few days.  It went from super crispy and chewy to just kind of limply chewy.  Toasting it helped, but after about 2 days neither of us were sure we'd eat it untoasted.  Not that this was a big problem, but something to consider.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Vegetable Biryani

Ingredients

For the rice:

• 1.5 cups basmati rice
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 4 tbsp golden raisins
• 4 tbsp chopped hazelnuts
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp coriander
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
• 1.75 cups + 1/8 cup water
• 2 tsp kosher salt

For the vegetables:

• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 tbsp chopped hazelnuts
• 3 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• 4 tbsp fennel
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 12 oz potatoes, whatever you have, peeled and quartered
  
• 3 medium carrots, cut into 1" pieces
• 1.3 cups water
• 4 tbsp shredded coconut

Make the rice: rinse it until the water runs clear. Set aside.
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add raisins, hazelnuts, turmeric, cumin, coriander, cardamom, and cinnamon and cook, stirring, until toasted and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Add the rice and cook, stirring constantly, until toasted (another 2 minutes).
Add the water and bring everything to a boil. Set to a low low simmer. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes. Then remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes, covered. Set aside.
For the vegetables: melt the butter in a medium, straight-sided pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until lightly browned, about 2 minutes.
Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant. Add the raisins, hazelnuts, coriander, fennel, cumin, and cardamom and cook until everything is toasty, about 4 minutes.
Stir in the carrots and potatoes. Raise heat to high, pour in water, and cook, covered, for about 8 minutes.
Uncover and cook, stirring, until the vegetables are tender and most of the water has evaporated.
Add rice to vegetables and stir to combine. Season with salt to taste.

Thoughts: Pretty darn delicious. We made this for a dinner party of sorts, and it got good reviews. The original recipe calls for two more kinds of vegetables, cauliflower and green beans, but we didn't use those, and to tell you the truth, we didn't miss them. Next time I might add some peas in there. But the rice actually turned the yellow color it's supposed to, which is a first for us (not that we've made a whole lot of forays into the realm of Indian cuisine). We would also consider adding meat next time, maybe something like lamb or beef. Because everything is pretty much better with meat. This recipe calls for a lot of different ingredients, but the cooking aspect is actually pretty easy.

Disaster Index: 1/10 would definitely make again

Roasted Corn Guacamole

Ingredients

• 2 cups frozen corn, defrosted, or kernels from 3 fresh ears of corn
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp finely chopped red onion
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• the juice and zest of 1 lime
• 1 jalapeno, stemmed and seeded, finely chopped
• 1 avocado, pitted and chopped

Preheat oven to 450. Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper or tinfoil.
Spread the corn kernels in an even layer over the sheet. Drizzle olive oil over it and sprinkle with enough salt and pepper to make it tasty.
Roast for 20 minutes, until the corn turns a golden brown. You want the corn to caramelize a little. It might be a little crunchy. That's ok.
Remove corn from oven and set aside.
In a bowl, combine the roasted corn, red onion, cilantro, lime zest and juice, avocado, and jalapeno. Mash it all together. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with corn soup.

Thoughts: We probably didn't roast the corn for long enough, and it probably wasn't totally defrosted when we put it in the oven. At least, it certainly wasn't at room temperature. Next time I would make sure to cook it until it caramelizes. The flavor was pretty intense as it is, but it would have been better caramelized. This tastes a lot like Chipotle's corn salsa, actually. It's hella spicy. If you're going to serve it with the corn soup, I might recommend taking the jalapeno out of either the guacamole or the soup. You don't really need two of them. Also Dan thinks that the flavor is good, but the texture needs work.

Disaster Index: 2/3-10

Corn Soup

Ingredients

• 3 cups frozen corn kernels, defrosted (or kernels from 5 ears of fresh corn)
• olive oil
• garlic
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, stemmed and chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1.5 cups chicken broth (or veg)
  
• cilantro sprigs
• sour cream
  

Put kernels in a blender. Don't blend yet. Just let them sit there.
Combine oil and garlic in a small soup pot over medium heat and let cook until fragrant. Add onion and jalapeno and cook until vegetables are soft and translucent, about 6 minutes.
Transfer the vegetables to blender and puree with corn until smooth.
Pour the corn puree back into the soup pot and place over medium heat. Add cilantro sprigs. Stir constantly for a few minutes until soup thickens. This will be tricky because this soup is so thick that when it splatters, it really splatters. Just do your best. Your stove will be a mess, but just come to peace with it.
Once soup has thickened a little, add the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, decrease heat to a simmer, and cook for 15 minutes (covered, if you value your stovetop).
Top with roasted corn guacamole and serve. Garnish with sour cream and cilantro sprigs.

Thoughts: Hella easy to make, but hella spicy. It's those really ripe jalapenos. We got a whole bag of them and we're still working on using them up. So only make this if you like really spicy things. Also, don't drink alcohol with this soup -- it will just make the spiciness even worse. There wasn't a whole lot of depth of flavor here, probably because the spice took care of that. But it's good nonetheless. A good starter recipe. We'll see what else we can add to it, I think.

Disaster Index: 2-3/10

Three Cheesecake

Just as we were starting to lose faith in Martha.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• cooking spray
• 1 & 1/3 cups crushed cinnamon graham crackers
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  

For the filling:

• 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 4 oz mascarpone cheese, room temp
• 4 oz cream cheese, room temp
• 2 oz soft goat cheese, room temp
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup heavy cream

Make the crust the way you normally would. Coat a 9" springform pan with cooking spray and line the bottom with parchment paper. Crush the graham crackers in a food processor, adding the butter slowly. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate while you make the filling.
Beat the sour cream, 1/3 cup of the sugar, the cheeses, vanilla, and lemon with an egg-beater on medium speed until very smooth, about 4 minutes. DO NOT pass through a sieve at this step. MARTHA. Add the heavy cream and the other 1/3 cup sugar and beat on medium until medium peaks form.
Spread evenly over the crust. Smooth top and freeze until firm, about 2 hours. Move to the refrigerator for about 45 minutes about serving.
Can be topped with fruit compote of your choosing.

Thoughts: Hot damn. This is the best cheesecake I have eaten. Dan agrees. The goat cheese really does good things here. The only thing I would do differently is add more butter to the crust. There wasn't nearly enough to make the crust adhere properly, so it sort of crumbled away when you cut a slice. But that's easily remediable. We would maybe double the amount of butter in the crust to 4 tbsp. It's also a little tricky to move the cake from the freezer to the fridge, and then back to the freezer. You have to remember to let it thaw a little before you eat it, otherwise it just sort of tastes like the freezer. But I don't think you can just leave it in the fridge 24/7, because it's no-bake and it might de-constitute itself or something. All in all, this is hella easy to make and hella delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10, even with the imperfect crust

Rhode Island Johnnycakes

Terrible cakes, more like. This is based off of a Martha recipe from the July issue. Something about regional specialties. And I was like "cornmeal pancakes! What could be better?" But I was wrong. I was so wrong.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups cornmeal
• 1.25 tsp coarse salt
• 4 cups boiling water
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• neutral oil, for griddle

Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Toast the cornmeal, stirring often, until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and add salt.
Gradually add boiling water to cornmeal. When it's completely incorporated, stir in the milk. Heat griddle over medium heat and coat with a thin layer of oil. Drop batter like pancakes. Flip them when the edges look crisp and "lacy" (whatever that means). These take a little longer to cook than normal pancakes.
Serve with syrup?

Thoughts: Like I said, you'd think there would be plenty to like here. But there wasn't. There was nothing to like. It's possible that it's all about the user error, and that this is an otherwise delicious recipe. The original calls for "Johnnycake cornmeal" (as if we could just go around to our local grocer and pick that up. Please) or white cornmeal. Our "grocer," if you can call Giant a grocer, only has yellow. But my research indicates that there is no real difference between yellow and white other than the fact that yellow MIGHT be a little bit sweeter. But you'd think that would help this recipe. Toasting the cornmeal might also sound like a good idea, but really, "fragrant" means "burned smelling." Cornmeal doesn't get "fragrant." Your kitchen just starts to smell like popcorn. Maybe our pans were too thin for this endeavor. But we strained out the burned bits anyway. I'm not sure how you can avoid burning it -- it's like saying "put all this powdery stuff in your saute pan and turn it on." How do you not burn powder? Anyway.
So despite all these misadventures, we did make a batter. And Dan was like "so this is pretty much just polenta. You are making polenta pancakes." And I was like "Says YOU. These are JOHNNYCAKES. Totally different y'all." But guess what? They're not different. They tasted REALLY bland. Like, there was no flavor in here whatsoever. I tried to put a whole bunch of syrup on them, but just imagine putting syrup on polenta. Gross. It did not help in the slightest.
I'm just going to stop right here. These were a travesty. We made one batch, ate half of it (mostly because I was still in denial), then threw the rest out. We let the batter sit in the fridge for a while (again, denial), and then just threw that out too.

Disaster Index: 10/10 -- it's been a while since we've had to whip out a 10. But it had to happen.

Tapenade

Based off of Alton Brown's recipe.

The wild tapenade stalks the plate of toasted French bread.

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb pitted olives, rinsed (we used Peruvian olives, which are a lot like kalamata olives except that they're larger, they're purple, they're softer, and the taste is slightly more mild)
• 2 anchovy fillets (you can rinse them if you like -- it depends on what they're being kept in)
  
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/8 cup torn basil leaves
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Once you've done all the rinsing you would like, put everything in a food processor and process it. Eat it.

Thoughts: This stuff is awesome. It was purple, of course, instead of black or green, which was a little weird but not enough to be off-putting. The flavors were perfect. I might go through and modify ratios of things just for fun, but this is like, restaurant quality.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Palak Paneer II

After last time you'd think we'd have given up.


Ingredients

• 14oz block of paneer
  
• 2 10oz packages chopped frozen spinach
  
• 1 large onion, diced
  
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1 lobe ginger, minced
  
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
  
• 2tsp garam masala
  
• 1.5tsp cumin
  
• 2tsp coriander (we didn't actually have this)
  
• some water (maybe next time use chicken stock)
  
• yogurt to taste
  
• 3tbsp butter
  
• about 1/2oz goat cheese? Though some recipes use sour cream or just cream. Something thick and dairy, though.
  

Reheat spinach in a microwave, then put in a blender and chop to desired consistency. Set aside.

To a saute pan, add the onion with the garlic and ginger and the butter. Cook until onions are translucent and soft. Then add the tomatoes and cook over low heat until the tomatoes are pretty completely disintegrated. Then add the spinach and the spices / salt to taste. Add water (about 1/2c?) and cook for a while - until the spinach is heated through and cooked pretty well. Add milk, yogurt, sour cream, cream, buttermilk, and/or goat cheese. We had all of these on hand, but we wound up trying milk, yogurt, buttermilk, and goat cheese before we were satisfied. I think next time just a lot of yogurt? Anyway, take it off the heat and correct seasoning to taste.

In the mean time, fry the paneer on a frying pan. It's really pretty easy - just use a non-stick griddle or griddle pan. We didn't even use oil. Aim to brown it on all sides. We turned the individual bits with chop sticks. Pretty cool. Last time it just melted. But maybe that's because the oil wasn't hot enough or something. This time, no oil = better? Anyway, add the paneer to the palak (spinach). Serve (over rice?).

Thoughts:This was actually pretty great. I was surprised. The palak took a LOT of correction to get the seasoning right, though. But it was good. I think next time I'd use more yogurt (or perhaps just heavy cream) and a little more tomato. Also, chicken stock instead of water. I've seen recipes using some tomato paste? Also, we didn't have coriander. Could have been a nice flavor. But overall, I was pleased with this. It's definitely the first time we got the general idea right. We're getting closer.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Berry Frozen Yogurt

Ingredients

• 8oz blueberries (or something like that)
  
• 6.5oz blackberries (or something like that)
  
• 3/4c whole milk yogurt
  
• 1/4c sugar
  
• 2tbsp lemon juice
  
• 1/2tsp vanilla extract
  

Start by adding the berries to a pan and simmering with the lemon juice until they're really soft and cooked down. Then add the sugar and vanilla and dissolve those. Let the mixture cool in the fridge. When cool, mix with the yogurt and prepare in ice-cream maker. Transfer to another container and place in the freezer for at least 1 hour.

Thoughts: The flavor was good, but not quite as strong as we had been expecting. Possibly we should have used more berries and cooked them down longer to get a stronger berry flavor. Similarly, the yogurt had relatively low fat content compared with most ice-creams, and it freezes REALLY solid. How do you fix it? I hear alcohol is the answer: a few tbsp of liquor prevents the frozen yogurt from freezing really well. This will require some testing. Perhaps if we selected the correct liquor, it could serve to strengthen the berry flavor. Kirsch or something? I don't know yet. This is a work in progress.

Disaster Index: 4/10

Update: I unfroze it, added a little dark rum, and refroze it in the ice cream maker. Got a little bit better, though I'm now thinking something a little more fruity might have been wise. Well, next time.

Fresh Lime Custard Berry Tart

This was a little complicated.

Ingredients

• Crust
  
  
  • 1 stick butter
    
  • 2tbsp neutral oil
    
  • 1.75c flour
    
  • 0.25c sugar
    
  • generous pinch of salt
    
  • 1 egg yolk
    
  • 2-3tbsp milk
    
• Filling
  
  
  • 1/3c sugar
    
  • 2tbsp corn starch
    
  • 1c milk
    
  • 2tbsp butter
    
  • zest of one lime
    
  • juice of half a lime
  • 3 egg yolks
  • berries - I used about 2/3 a pint of blueberries, 6oz of blackberries, and about 8 strawberries
    
• Glaze
  
  
  • Juice of two limes
    
  • 2tbsp jam - I used guava
    
  • Honey to taste
    
  • 2tsp corn starch
    

First the dough. Whisk together the dry ingredients. Then chop the butter up into small pieces and cut it into the flour. Next time I'm using the cuisinart like I usually do for making a pastry dough. Whatever. Then add the milk and combine, being careful not to overwork the dough or heat it too much with your hands. When it JUST sticks together (it will have the consistency of wet sand), wrap it in plastic wrap and form into a disk. Stick it in the fridge for 4 hours to chill.



When that's done, take it out and, on a well floured surface, roll it out. Fit it into a springform pan or tart pan, if you have one (I didn't). I lined my springform with a little waxed paper. Make sure the dough goes up the side a little bit. I had to actually press it into the pan with a well-floured drinking glass. It works. Anyway, put some more waxed paper or parchment paper in the middle and weight down with dry peas (classic) or the change from your change jar (my way), being careful that it doesn't actually touch the dough. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, remove currency, and bake for another 15 minutes. This is called "blind baking". I'm just saying.



Now the filling. Set the crust aside to cool. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, lime zest, and corn starch, whisking thoroughly. In a sauce pan, bring the milk to a simmer. When it's simmering, take it off the heat and (TEMPERING FIRST), whisk into the egg/sugar mixture. Tempering means you add just a LITTLE, stir it together, add a little more, whisk thoroughly, and then add the rest. This is so it doesn't scramble the eggs.



Now return the mixture to the sauce pan and set over low heat, whisking constantly. In about a minute, the mixture will seize up (it's really sudden) probably because of the corn starch. Ok. Take it off the heat and stir a little more, then add the butter and stir until it's melted. Now pour it into the cooled crust. Dot with the berries. Actually mine had ridiculous piles of berries. Anyway, try to arrange them radially. It looks nicer. People will appreciate that.



FINALLY, the glaze. Juice those limes you used - mine were the driest limes I've ever used, so I needed two of them, but you could conceivably use one. Mix in the jam and whisk thoroughly. Then add honey until the sweetness is well balanced. Add the corn starch and whisk together, then pour it into a sauce pan and cook over low heat until it thickens. Take it off the heat and spoon it liberally over the tart. Cover the tart and fridge it until completely cooled - at least four hours, though I just made mine like two days ahead of time, so that's possibly a better option.



Thoughts: difficult to make alone. Especially in the B-more heat and humidity. I've NEVER had that much difficulty with pastry dough. It was ridiculous. I think that if I had a tart pan, that would have simplified things a LITTLE, though also the pastry dough recipe is not my usual pastry dough recipe OR method, so next time I'll try my usual and see how that works out. There were confounding factors here, is what I guess I'm saying. Berries were super cheap at Giant Foods this week, so that is the origin of that. By the time I got to the glaze, I had no sauce pans left so I actually microwaved it for 30 seconds at time (stirring in between) until it thickened. It got a little weird - corn starch does that - but it thickened well and the whole thing was pretty amazing.



Disaster Index: 1/10

Banana Lavender Spoom

it is a noun.


Ingredients

• 2 egg whites
  
• 1/3c sugar plus a little to taste
  
• pinch of salt
  
• 2 ripe bananas
  
• about 1tsp lavender buds (pick them up at Penzy's)
  
• about 1/3c water
  
• handful of blueberries (optional)
  

In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add about half the sugar and the lavender buds and blueberries if you're using them and cook for a few minutes. Put the whole concoction in a blender with the bananas and blend until smooth. Put in the fridge to cool. In another pot, bring water to a simmer. In a heat-proof bowl, add the egg whites, the rest of the sugar, and the salt. Over the water (as a double boiler), whisk the egg whites until the sugar has dissolved and the egg whites are hot to the touch - about 2 minutes - and then take off the heat completely and whisk until you have stiff peaks. Now take the fruit puree out of the fridge and fold the eggs and puree together. Pour the stuff into an ice-cream maker. When it's done in there, put it in the freezer for at least an hour.  

Thoughts: Actually quite easy to make and harder to mess up than you'd think when you're cooking egg whites over simmering water without scrambling them. The texture was great and the flavor combination is actually really good. The one bad thing was totally my fault - I added a little too much salt. So it's a little weird tasting. But I would make this again. It's like ice cream but actually quite healthy for you. And the texture is very light and fluffy.  

Disaster Index: 6 for flavor, 1 for technique.

Carrot Top Pesto

It turns out these things aren't toxic!

Ingredients

• 1 bunch carrot tops, chopped
  
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
  
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/3 cup olive oil (about; we just eye-balled it)
• 1 cup parsley, chopped
• 1/8 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded or powdered or what-have-you
  
• garlic powder, to taste
• salt and pepper, to taste (you'll need a lot of salt)
• water, if you need it
  

Put everything except the olive oil in a food processor. Slowly add the olive oil through the hole in the top. You may not need all 1/3 cup, or you may need more. Scrape down the sides of the food processor periodically. Add seasonings to taste.

Thoughts: Easy to do. Pretty tasty -- carrot tops taste a lot like parsley, as it turns out. I kept hearing they were bitter, but they aren't really. You could also try adding some toasted walnuts to this. I bet it would be good.

Disaster Index: 2/10 pretty good

Cherry Peach Clafouti

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs stone fruit (in this case, about 1 lb cherries and .5lbs peaches)
• 3 tbsp flour
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 tbsp citronage
• confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Pit all your fruit and put it in a 10-inch tart pan (with high sides, preferably).
Sift together flour, salt, and sugar. Gradually whisk in whole eggs, egg yolks, milk, vanilla, and liqueur.
Pour wet ingredients over the fruit.
Bake until puffy and brown, about 45 minutes. Let cool slightly (cake should sink), then dust with sugar. Eat.

Thoughts: Recipe was hella easy, let me tell you that. We made a few modifications. The original recipe called for 1 cup milk and 1 cup heavy cream, but we only had whole milk so we just used that. It also called for kirsch, which we didn't have, but we figured orange would complement the stone fruit just fine. We also forgot to butter the tart pan. We also had the issue where we had too much batter for our pan, which is why we recommend using one with high sides. But most importantly, this recipe was a literal disaster. LITERALLY. It was terrible. I will just say that a lot of our baking recipes that we get from Martha Stewart are not super great, which surprises me a little. The thing about this dish is that the fruit releases a whole mess of water, which in turns prevents the custard from settling completely and it just gets really runny and gross. If we were to try to make this again, I would probably cut up all the fruit, mix it with some sugar, and then let it drain for forever. I'm pissed with Martha for even making this recipe. What a mess. Dan says he'll eat it, but it's pretty much a waste of eggs, two cups of milk, and a bunch of really delicious fruit. We're going to try chilling it and then grilling individual slices to see if that makes it edible. Because it isn't really right now.

Disaster Index: 6/10 (4 for Dan, 8 for me)

Margaritas

Ingredients


Makes two drinks.

• 3 oz tequilla
• 2 oz citronage/triple sec
• juice of one lemon (2 tbsp)
  
• juice of one lime (2 tbsp)
• salt
  

Thoughts: Feel free to add other juices to this, as long as you keep the lime juice. The acidity needs to come from somewhere. We recently made grapefruit margaritas and originally left out all the lime juice, and we had to add some back in. So even grapefruits are not acid enough. Bear it in mind.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Earl Grey Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 bags of Earl Grey tea, cut open (or about 1 tbsp loose)

Scald the heavy cream on the stove, then add the loose tea. Turn heat to low and let tea steep for about 3 minutes. The cream should turn dark and smell pungently of Earl Grey.
Stir in all the sugar until it dissolves. This shouldn't take long.
Place in fridge for 30 minutes.
Put in the ice cream maker. Make ice cream as you normally would. Eat.

Thoughts: Delicious, though it has a weird, unidentifiable, slightly bitter aftertaste. Not enough to prevent me from eating it all the time, but it's noticeable. Dan doesn't agree that it's bitter. Well. The ice cream works really well as an addition to Earl Grey tea, BELIEVE IT OR NOT. And it doesn't dilute the flavor! Awesome. Also, homemade ice cream just has just a great, soft consistency. It doesn't develop a lot of ice crystals the way store-bought ice creams do. So that's a plus.

Disaster Index: 1.5/10

Green chili pozole

This is almost too spicy?

Ingredients

• 2 cans hominy, rinsed and drained
• 1.5 lbs pork ribs
• 8 springs of flat-leaf parsley, tied with kitchen twine
• 4 garlic cloves
• 3/4 tsp dried oregano (preferably Mexican, says Martha, but seriously?)
• .5 lbs tomatillos, husked and rinsed well (they get pretty sticky)
• 2 jalapeno peppers, quartered
• 1 cup cilantro
  
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, coarsely chopped (it's going into a food processor)
• 2 tbsp neutral oil
• salt

Place pork in large pot -- cover by 2" with water. Add parsley and garlic and bring to a boil. If any foam or fat rises to the top, skim it off with a ladle.
Reduce heat to medium low, and add oregano. Simmer, partially covered, until the meat is falling off of the bone, about 2 hours.
In the meantime, fill a small pot with water and bring it to a boil. Add your tomatillos and cook them in the boiling water for about 10 minutes, until the tomatillos are tender. Transfer them to a small bowl. Reserve some of the cooking liquid.
In a food processor or blender, add the onion, jalapeno peppers, cilantro, tomatillos, and as much reserved cooking liquid as you need to make the whole thing blend. Blend it until smooth. It should look like green chili.
Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. When it's hot enough to make you nervous, add the tomatillo mixture and 1/2 tsp salt, stirring constantly. It will probably spatter a little. Use a spatter shield.
Reduce heat to medium and simmer gently, stirring almost constantly (if you have pots like we do), until the mixture is thick, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.
The pork might be done by now. If it is, remove it from the broth (reserve the broth) and trim any excess fat from it (we didn't have any to trim). Remove the meat from the bones (which should be pretty easy at this point). Shred meat. Remove the parsley from the broth and throw it away.
Stir tomatillo mixture into the reserved pork broth and bring to a boil. Add the shredded pork.
Reduce heat, and simmer gently until heated through. If you just took the pork from the broth, this really shouldn't take long.
Add the hominy. Simmer until heated through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt or pepper to your heart's content.
Eat.

Thoughts: This was a pretty involved recipe, actually. There must be a way to simplify it. We'll see. This was pretty good -- I was hoping it would be JUST SLIGHTLY more flavorful. I think the pork ribs we used were not super fatty, and they probably could have been. In the future I would choose a less lean cut. Although a healthier thing to do might be to cook everything in pork broth instead of water. Then you would get a more savory flavor without the extra fat. Just a lot of extra sodium. TOTALLY WORTH IT, KIDS. The hominy adds a really interesting flavor. I have never really eaten much hominy before, but I would like to be eating more of it. The heat is of a proper intensity. Dan says "delicious" about the whole affair. Good.

Disaster Index: 1.5/10

Chocolate banana icebox cake

Ingredients

• 15 oz chocolate chips -- we did a mixture of milk and semi-sweet
• 5 large egg yolks
• salt
• 3 cups heavy whipping cream
• graham crackers -- just buy a box of them. We used the cinnamon ones.
  
• 4-5 ripe bananas, sliced in half widthwise, then sliced lengthwise a few times
• whipped cream, for garnish

Place chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl.
Place egg yolks and pinch of salt in another heatproof bowl.
Bring the cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Temper the yolks, then slowly incorporate, whisking constantly. You will probably scramble the eggs a little. Don't worry about it.
Return mixture to saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon (about 8 minutes). Do not let mixture come to a boil.
Strain mixture through a fine sieve to remove the bits of egg that you scrambled.
Stir mixture into chocolate until the chocolate fully melts, incorporates, and is smooth.
Refrigerate, stirring occasionally to break up the skin, until the chocolate is thick (about 4 hours -- our fridge is much colder than normal fridges, so we did it for maybe 2. Just do it until it's pretty stiff).
Line a 5x10 loaf pan with plastic wrap. Use about twice as much as you need, since you'll be covering the top of the loaf pan with it when you're done.
Spread 1 cup chocolate evenly into bottom of loaf pan. Top with a layer of graham crackers. You may have to break some of them to fit.
Spread 1/2 cup chocolate over the crackers, and top that layer with bananas. Get as many banana slices as you can onto each layer.
Spread another 1/2 cup chocolate over bananas, and top with more graham crackers.
Repeat this step until you get toward the top. The final layer should be a layer of graham crackers. This will be the bottom crust, since you'll be inverting it to serve.
Cover the top with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
To serve, uncover and turn out onto serving platter. The crackers will have softened to cake-like consistency from the chocolate. It will be delicious.
Serve with whipped cream, if y'all want.

Thoughts: We were not at all sure that this would work out, but it totally did and it was totally awesome. The original recipe called for all milk chocolate, which didn't sit right with us (what is the point of milk chocolate anyway) so we mixed in some semi-sweet, but in the future I think we would just use 100% semi-sweet. The chocolate flavor was not as pronounced as we would have liked. We also would have added more banana. The recipe calls for 4-5 bananas, but we could only fit 3. We probably didn't space them efficiently enough. But we will next time. This was totally delicious. And hella easy. And seriously, who wants to actually bake when it's so hot out? Not us.

Disaster Index:1/10

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped (or two small carrots)
• 4 garlic cloves (but really as much as you want)
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 jalapeno pepper, chopped and divided into two equal portions
  
• 8 oz dried black beans (or 30 oz canned, undrained)
• 1 15-oz can of diced tomatoes (with juice)
  
• 1.5 cups chicken broth (or vegetable, I guess)
  
• fresh cilantro, for garnish
• crumbled feta, for garnish

If you're using canned beans, you can skip this first step, which is:
wash the dried beans thoroughly. Rehydrate them based on the instructions likely to be found on the package. You don't have to spend hours soaking these things. Just add the water and boil for a few minutes, then remove from heat and let them sit for an hour. That should do it. Drain when done.
Heat oil in heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot, and garlic. Saute until vegetables begin to soften, about 6 minutes.
Mix in cumin and one pile of jalapeno (should be able 1 tsp or so).
Add beans, tomatoes (do not drain tomato juice), and chicken stock.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until carrots are tender, about 15 minutes.
Blend about 1/2 of the soup in a blender. Or, if you want to make things a little easier, just use a stick blender through the whole soup and stop when it looks to be about the right consistency.
When desired consistency is reached, return the soup to the heat and simmer for another 15 minutes, until thickened.
Season with salt, pepper, and the rest of the jalapeno.
Garnish with cilantro and feta.

Thoughts: Pretty delicious, and pretty easy to make. Dan says the soup had good flavor, but he wouldn't use feta in the future -- we'd probably use something like queso fresco or a variation thereon. Also he thought the beans were a little toothsome, which means next time we would either use canned (we ordinarily would have, but we had these beans sitting around in our cabinet forever and I was like "good god, I will make something with these beans") or actually soak them overnight the way everyone recommends. I would also top this with some sort of sour cream too.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Grapefruit and Tangerine Ice Cream

ICE CREAM MACHINE.

Ingredients

• 1c heavy cream
  
• 1/2c half-and-half
  
• Juice of 3 tangerines
  
• Zest of 1 tangerine
  
• Zest and juice of 1/2 grapefruit
  
• 1c sugar
  

Prepare the ice cream maker so it's ready to go - you have to fridge ours for 15 hours. At some point during that time, juice and zest the fruits and put them in a container. Chill. When you're ready, pour the cream, half-and-half, and sugar into a bowl and whip together as best you can (I'm not sure you'll have much luck dissolving the sugar). Pour in the juice & zest and whip together a little more, then pour it into the ice cream maker. It took ours about 20 minutes to set up pretty well. We let it go for 30, then emptied it into another container and put it in the freezer to chill a little longer - 4-6 more hours.

Thoughts: Almost a little too sweet - maybe not citrus-y enough, but you have to try it once before you really get the hang of it, right? Next time I'd use maybe some lemon juice or just 100% grapefruit and about 1/2 the sugar. Otherwise, ICE CREAM. AWESOME. NEXT STOP DELICIOUSNESS.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Green Pea Soup with Tarragon

This was devised as a way of salvaging another recipe we made. When we prepared this Julia Child recipe, we wound up with like 2 lbs of cooked peas left over.


Ingredients

• 2 pounds of leftover cooked peas (or else frozen, whatever)
  
• 1 red onion, chopped
  
• 4c vegetable broth
  
• 3tbsp dried tarragon... unless it's pretty freshly dried, in which case 2tbsp. Otherwise 3tbsp fresh.
  
• plain nonfat yogurt for serving
  
• 1 round of ham (4oz?), cubed and fried for serving
  

Saute the onion in a soup pot with some olive oil until tender. Then add the broth, peas, and tarragon. Cook until the peas are done or at least warmed through - about 5-8 minutes, depending on whether they're frozen. Remove from heat and put it through a blender until smooth. Return to heat and simmer, adding a little extra broth as desired until it's the right consistency. Stir in the ham. Correct seasoning. Serve with yogurt drizzled on top.

Thoughts: We've made pea soup before in a couple of different ways, but this was actually really good. The tarragon worked really nicely, and the soup was actually thick enough. This was the first time I really felt like the ham complemented the soup, too. All in all a really good recipe. I'd make it again.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Strawberry Tarte Tatin

Gotta blog a huge backlog of recipes.

Ingredients

• 1/2lb strawberries, stems removed, halved
  
• 2tbsp butter
  
• 1/4c sugar
  
• 1.5tbsp water
  
• 1/2tsp vanilla extract
  
• 1 sheet puff pastry
  
• 2 mini tart tins
  

Preheat oven to 400. In a saucepan, combine butter, sugar, water, and vanilla and cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture just starts to darken. Then take it off right away - it will keep cooking while you wait. Meanwhile, cut puff pastry to fit the tart tins and place in the tins. Layer with strawberries radially. Pour the caramel over the strawberries and puff pastry and place tarts in the oven about 25-30 minutes.

Thoughts: At least, that's how it works in theory. When we did it, the puff pastry did not puff. So we wound up taking the things out of the oven, turning them out, putting the puff pastry BACK in the oven until it cooked properly, then putting it back on top of the cooked strawberries. It was kind of a terrible mess. This is why Tarte Tatin is baked upside down, I guess. Also, the strawberries let out a lot of juice in the oven... which wasn't to their credit. I would say the flavor of the dish was fantastic. It was just a terrible mess is all. If I can think of a better way to combine similar ingredients, I'll do it.

Disaster Index: 6/10

Green Mountain Cooler

Maybe we'll start a separate drink blog? Hm.

Ingredients

• 3 oz apple brandy
• 2 oz grade A maple syrup
• 1 oz lemon juice
• peach slices

Combine everything and shake it up the way you do with any drink. Pour it out over ice cubes. Put peach slices on top. Drink it. Makes 2 drinks.

Thoughts: We originally found this in an issue of Martha, but she recommends using apple slices instead of peaches. Why? I ask you. When you can use peaches, apples are just a poor substitute. So excuse me, Martha, for disagreeing, but the peaches go perfectly with the maple syrup here. This is an awesome, delicious, drink and I highly recommend it. Dan says "awesome."

Disaster Index: 1/10

Gazpacho Andaluz

Ingredients

• 2 thick slices of day-old bread, preferably French of some sort, crusts removed and cubed
  
• 1.5-2 lbs tomatoes (you can do all fresh or all canned -- it doesn't really matter)
• 2 tbsp sherry vinegar (we used red wine vinegar because that's all we had)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp ancho chili powder
• sea salt
• 1 medium-sized cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
• 1 small red bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 small green bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1/2 small red onion, peeled and chopped

Put the bread in a bowl and drizzle some olive oil over it. If you're using fresh tomatoes, squeeze some tomato juice over the bread. If you're using the canned stuff, just pour some of the juice over it. Add 1 tsp of whatever vinegar you're using and set aside for 10 minutes.
Transfer the bread to a food processor and add garlic, cumin, cayenne, ancho powder, and salt. Process until smooth.
Put all the raw vegetables, the olive oil, and the salt in a large bowl. Process them (with the bread mixture) in batches until smooth.
Add any extra vinegar or water or salt to taste.
Chill for at least 3 hours before serving.

Thoughts: Sort of a complicated recipe, and that first step is just stupid. We would skip it in the future. Also it just didn't taste right. I mean, maybe I'm not the one who should be writing this post, since I don't like any type of gazpacho. Dan says "enh" about it. I don't know what makes this gazpacho "Andaluz" but so be it. It wasn't that bad, but we probably wouldn't bother to make it again. It was good as gazpacho goes, maybe, but we would try to incorporate more textural elements. Maybe we would blend the whole thing until really smooth, and then garnish with fresh tomato? I think this was a little one-note. Maybe also garnish with the cilantro oil we blogged.

Disaster Index: 5/10

Wheat Berry Salad with Tomato, Feta, Zucchini, and Olives

Based on a dish we had in Italy that originally uses farro instead of wheat berries. We couldn't find farro in our local Giant. Wheat berries worked just fine.

Ingredients

kalamata olives, as many as you'd like

chopped tomatoes, as many as you'd like

1/2 cup dried wheat berries

1.75 cups water

crumbled feta cheese, as much as you'd like

salt

pepper

basil (though mint would be even better)

olive oil, to drizzle on top

grilled zucchini, if you like that sort of thing.

The trickiest part of this recipe is making the wheat berries (i.e making sure you have the ratio of berries:water correct). We tried doing it on the stove, but you know what happens when you turn your back on stovetop wheat berries? They totally burn and ruin your new cookware (we actually salvaged the pot but we did start a fire and now our apartment is filled with the lingering scent of burned wheat berries. What does this smell like? PRAY YOU NEVER FIND OUT). We also tried cooking them in our new slow-cooker, which worked much better but which left a lot of water. If you do it on the stove, you will need to stir constantly. CONSTANTLY. SERIOUSLY. I would recommend using a slow-cooker, if you have one.
Once you have your wheat berries made, refrigerate them until they're cool (several hours).
Mix in your tomatoes, zucchini, feta, olives, basil/mint, salt/pepper, and olive oil. Toss. Eat.

Thoughts: Oh my goodness this is so good. It's like, taking all of the most savory things from the Mediterranean and putting them together and then eating them. It's exactly like that. The only thing we're missing is anchovies...we'll have to experiment with this. The first time we made this (on the stove) the wheat berries were not quite soft enough, but the second time we made them (in the slow-cooker) they were perfect. Seriously, I could eat this all day and it's hella easy. It's a really nice summer dish.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Creamed Corn

From Martha

Ingredients

• 6 ears corn
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter (Or however much you need. You need more? I won't judge.)
• 1 garlic clove
• .5 -- 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper, to taste

Grate four ears of corn into a bowl. Carefully slice off kernels from remaining two cobs using a sharp knife and transfer them to the bowl. Scrape cobs with back of knife blade to extract liquid into the bowl. Don't just scrape the knife in one direction -- scrape it bidirectionally. Otherwise it won't really work.
Melt 1 tbsp butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant (30 seconds or so). Stir in corn mixture, thyme, salt, and pepper.
Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for about 25-30 minutes or until corn is slightly toothsome. Stir often, otherwise the corn will stick to the bottom and your kitchen will start smelling like popcorn and you'll be like "oh my god, that's so weird -- my kitchen is smelling like popcorn" and then you'll realize your corn is burning. Avoid this.
Stir in remaining tablespoons of butter. Serve immediately.

Thoughts: This was sort of a pain to make. Grating the corn isn't the worst thing, but scraping all the cobs afterward was really tedious. There must be a better way, but I don't have enough time to attend to this sort of corn research. Someone get on that and let me know. But otherwise the process was easy enough. Despite this, I didn't really like this dish. The texture was all well and good, but the thyme made the whole thing taste like Thanksgiving, which was off-putting for a summer dish. Also I don't really like thyme, even for Thanksgiving. Should I have thought of that before endeavoring to make this? Possibly. I had one serving and then made Dan eat the rest. I think he liked it all right, though he would also put in less thyme in the future (ho ho ho). In the future I think I would see if Paula Deen has a recipe that involves cream or something. This one was a little lacking in the rich flavor I have come to associate with creamed corn.

Disaster Index:4/10

Waffle Cookies

A SERVICEABLE RECIPE.


Ingredients

• 3/4 stick of butter, softened
  
• 1/8c oil
  
• 1/2c brown sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1tsp vanilla extract
  
• 3/4c flour
  
• 1.5c rolled oats
  
• 1/2tsp baking soda
  
• 3/4tsp salt
  
• 1c dark chocolate chips
  
• 1/2tsp cinnamon
  

In a bowl, whip together the butter, oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Heat a waffle iron and cook big spoonfuls of the batter according to the normal waffle iron procedures.

Thoughts: this idea is almost as cool as it sounds. And it nearly works. But there need to be some modifications. For starters, I would add baking powder. The soda just creates a basic environment so you get browning, but I wanted a little lift. Second of all, I would soak the oats for at least an hour beforehand in milk. I thought the cookies turned out pretty dry, and that's a danger if you're basically creating MORE surface area. I think the oats should help retain moisture, but they need to have moisture to begin with. Flavor was good, though I had to adjust the salt up from 1/4tsp... .75tsp may be an understatement as compared with what I eventually used. Finally, I would probably use whole wheat flour, but that's just me. In general, though, the recipe needs more moisture somewhere. The trick is to sneak it in without ruining the consistency of the dough.

Disaster Index: 3/10, but I'd definitely try it again.

Pasta with Butternut Squash

Few recipes that are this easy taste this good.



Ingredients

• 1/2lb cooked spaghetti
  
• 1lb butternut squash (a small butternut squash), peeled and cubed, (seeds removed)
  
• 1 medium yellow onions, peeled and bisected orthogonally. Or whatever.
  
• ~4oz ripe tomatoes, washed
  
• 3 stalks celery, washed
  
• olive oil
  
• water
  
• salt
  
• 1.5tsp dry rubbed sage
  
• black pepper
  
• parmesan cheese
  
• 5 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped (or else pancetta)
  

Place the squash, onion, tomatoes (whole, if you please), and celery in a casserole dish. Toss with olive oil, and place in a 350-400 degree oven until the squash is just tender, about 45 minutes at 350 or 30 minutes at 400 (maybe - check with a fork). While they're going, start water boiling for the pasta. When the vegetables are done, puree them in a food processor and taste, adding salt as needed. This recipe takes a lot of salt. Add the sage and about 1/2c water and continue to puree until mostly smooth. Meanwhile, make sure that the pasta is cooking. Pour the squash sauce into a pan and add some water until it's just a little liquidy. Set to high heat and cover, letting cook for 5 minutes or so while you drain the pasta. Then take the sauce off the heat (provided it's thick enough - otherwise just uncover and cook until it's done) and pour the pasta in, tossing to coat. Grate a lot of black pepper into it and sprinkle with parmesan (maybe as much as 1/2c?) and bacon / pancetta. Serve. Thoughts: WHY have we never done this before? This will probably become a go-to recipe. It's fairly healthy (lots of vegetables, not too much fat - I used "center cut" low fat bacon) and it's really good. Disaster Index: 1/10

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts and Kale

I made this recipe up.

Ingredients

• 1 pint of brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved. That is how I would describe the quantity. I would guess I had 20 sprouts, but it may depend on the size.
  
• small bunch of kale - 6-8 leaves, stems removed, torn to bite-size
  
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• 1 small onion, chopped
  
• olive oil
  
• balsamic vinegar
  
• 2tsp brown sugar
  
• 1/2c chicken stock (or veg)
  
• parmesan, salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1lb pasta of your choice - I used rotini.
  

Set some water boiling for pasta. In a pot, add the onion and sprouts, and give a generous amount of olive oil. Saute on low for 5 minutes or so, until the onions are soft, and then add the chicken stock, the garlic, and the kale and cover. Simmer on medium heat, adding extra water as necessary, until the brussels sprouts are tender. Took mine about 10 minutes. When this is complete, add the brown sugar and balsamic vinegar. I added probably 2 tbsp balsamic, but possibly as much as 4 tbsp. You have to add it, stir the veg, and taste it. When the pasta is done, spoon the pasta in with the vegetables and add the parmesan. I actually also added just a LITTLE cream cheese, though a small amount of actual cream would also be good here (neither is necessary, though). Over very low heat, stir the pasta and veg together to combine and melt the cheese somewhat in the process, then adjust the balsamic / salt to taste.

Thoughts: this was really good, even though it might sound a little strange. I think this recipe would be great with pine nuts, following in the vein of Claire's suggestion. I would definitely make this again. I don't have too much more to say about it. The brussels sprouts are just the right size for bite-sized pasta like rotini, and the balsamic and chicken stock really gives it a bright and savory flavor.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Luo Bo Gao

Radish cakes!

Ingredients

• 1 large daikon radish
  
• maybe 1/4c dried mushrooms
  
• 3oz ground pork
  
• 3 scallions
  
• soy sauce, salt
  
• rice flour
  

Peel and grate the daikon radish finely (it actually wouldn't grate on the "fine" side of my box grater, so I went with the normal side - this will work fine). Boil some water, and pour it over the dried mushrooms to rehydrate. with a little sesame oil or neutral oil, start the ground pork cooking in a pot. Cook until just brown. Then fish out the dried mushrooms from the water (reserving the mushroom liquid) and chop coarsely. Add to the pork along with the scallions, chopped. Cook a little longer and then transfer to another bowl.

In the bowl in which you cooked the pork, add the daikon and the reserved water from the mushrooms. If there isn't much water, you may need to add a little more (or add a little soy sauce) until the daikon is moist but not drowning in liquid. I don't really have a good rule of thumb for this - you kind of have to experiment. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add the pork / scallions / mushrooms and combine. Now add rice flour to the mixture until you get something resembling a pretty thick batter. For 1 daikon, I used about 1-2c rice flour. The first time I made this, I actually added more water so I could add more rice flour. This was a good idea - if the pieces of things in the batter are pretty big, adding quite a bit of rice flour will help your luo bo gao with internal consistency. On the other hand, too much might make for gluey radish cakes. You have to experiment, but if you can get 1.5c rice flour into your batter, I think you're in good shape.

Pour the batter into small loaf pans or basically anything you can then put in a steamer. Steam for 40 minutes, being sure to check the water level frequently and replenishing as necessary. When they're done, take them out and cool to room temperature, then chill for at least 2 hours. When you're ready to serve them, turn the "cakes" out and slice them, then fry lightly on a griddle to crisp up the outside. Serve with soy sauce.

Thoughts: The first time we did this, we got the texture more or less correct, which was pretty cool considering I didn't have rice flour (and instead just ground up rice in my coffee grinder - very tricky). But the flavor was a little bland the first time because we used fresh mushrooms. The second time, the flavor was great, but we used WAY too many dried mushrooms and the texture was way off. It's a work in progress. I think next time we'll use fewer dried mushrooms but we'll also use a little bit more rice flour.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Sopa de Ajo

Garlic soup. Who knew?



Ingredients

• Olive oil
  
• 1/4 lb stale bread, cut into 1/2" cubes (we used 1/2 loaf of "french bread" that really didn't have a very thick crust at all)
  
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1/2tsp Spanish smoked paprika (available through Penzy's)
  
• 4-6c chicken stock (or veg)
  
• poached eggs for each serving
  

In a pot, toss in the bread and drizzle with olive oil. Cook lightly until the bread is lightly brown or you think you're going to damage the pot, whichever comes first. Yeah. Then throw in the garlic, paprika, and maybe a pinch of salt. Toss that around thoroughly, then add the stock. Add enough stock that you don't just have a pile of soggy bread, but there's actually soup. I think that it depends on the density of your bread. Anyway, we used about 6c stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, poach an egg for each serving you're planning. When you're ready to serve, ladle the soup into a bowl. Dust with some additional paprika and black pepper, and top with the poached egg.

This has a great flavor. Simple recipe, but this is really delicious. The one weird thing? Texture. Possibly this is the result of our bread selection, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it makes me wonder two things: (1) are we supposed to make like a panade, or are the pieces of bread supposed to stay mostly whole? (2) are we using too much bread and too little soup? That said, I would definitely make this again. The whole thing was just fantastic. You don't even need to serve it with the egg if you don't want.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cold Avocado Corn Soup

Ingredients

• 1 fresh or frozen ear of corn, shucked
• 4 cups + 2 tbsp water
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1.25 cups chopped white onion
• 2 fresh chilies -- we just grabbed two chilies that looked medium hot (our grocery store doesn't label the chilies) -- I think it was one Serrano and one Jalapeno
• 2 ripe avocados
• 3 tbsp fresh (or bottled, honestly) lime juice
  
• 1/4 cup sour cream

For the cilantro oil:

• 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro (we used WAY more and this was not necessary)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt

Roast the corn over your gas stove (or use a grill, if you have one), until kernels are charred in spots, about 4-5 minutes.
Transfer corn to a cutting board, and, when cobs are cool enough, cut the kernels from them. Then cut the cobs into thirds. Don't throw them away.
Chop 1 cup of white onion.
Put the kernels, the cobs, 4 cups water, garlic, salt, and 1/4 cup of the chopped onion in a pot and boil it for about 20 minutes, or until there are 3 cups of liquid remaining. Remove from the heat. Discard the cob sections.
Chop the chiles, discarding only the stems.
In a blender, puree the corn mixture, the chopped chiles, and the rest of the onion (should be 3/4 cup).
Strain this mixture through a fine mesh sieve and into a bowl. Press on the solids to get all the moisture. Discard the solids, and return the remaining broth to the cleaned blender.
Peel and pit and avocado, and add it to the blender. Put in 2 tbsp of lime juice. Blend everything together until smooth.
Transfer soup to another bowl, cover it with plastic, and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

To prepare the cilantro oil:

Puree the cilantro, oil, and salt in the cleaned blender. You'll probably have to scrape the blender down several times. When smooth, remove mixture from blender and strain through a paper towel over a bowl for 15 minutes. Don't press on the solids this time.

To assemble the soup

Peel and pit the remaining avocado. Scoop out small sections with your melon-baller (or use a 1/2 tsp measuring spoon) and toss them with some lime juice.
Whisk the sour cream together with 2 tbsp of water until the mixture is smooth.
Season the soup and ladle it into the bowls. Put some avocado balls in each bowl, and drizzle with cilantro oil and sour cream.

Thoughts: This was pretty easy, all told. The cilantro oil didn't work out as well as we were hoping. I think we used a higher ratio of cilantro:oil than we were supposed to, so it didn't yield a whole lot of oil and the straining process left more solids than it should have. Otherwise, I think everything else was pretty awesome. This recipe says that it's supposed to yield something like six servings, but it doesn't. It yields like, maybe four. So I would go ahead and multiply everything in this recipe by 2. We went through it way too quickly. I also think that it could have used a little more flavor -- I suggest red pepper flakes, and maybe also some sort of cumin? I'm not sure what Dan thinks of this. I'll ask him later.

Disaster Index: 2.5/10

Moroccan Beef Stew

From a recipe on Epicurious from Bon Apetit magazine.

• 2.5lbs boneless chuck roast, cut into bite-sized pieces
  
• 2 small onions
  
• 3 cloves garlic
  
• 1tbsp paprika
  
• 1tbsp garam masala
  
• 1tsp cumin
  
• 1/2tsp turmeric
  
• 1/2tsp cayenne
  
• 1c red wine
  
• 1/2c vermouth
  
• 2c beef stock (we used bouillon)
  
• 1 14.5oz can of diced tomatoes
  
• 1.5c raisins (original calls for golden, we used normal raisins)
  

In a pot, add some olive oil and saute the chuck roast until it's no longer pink - about 8 minutes. It's a lot of meat. I kind of felt like I was butchering a whole side of beef. Anyway, when it's done, put it in a separate bowl (aside). Then add to the pot the onions and garlic and a little more oil. Saute until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Then add all the spices and the wine + vermouth. Stir well until combined, then bring to a boil and reduce to a glaze. In the mean time, you can add the other ingredients to the bowl with the beef. When the wine is reduced to a glaze, just add the beef and all the other ingredients. Stir well and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and let it simmer until the sauce is thickened and beef tender, about an hour to 1.25 hours. Ours was reducing very quickly, so I covered it so the beef could tenderize a little longer. I think this was a wise decision.

Thoughts: We served this over rice, though the original recipe recommends serving it over couscous. It was DELICIOUS. Really amazing. It took a little extra salt at the end to make it perfect, but I would be careful to add this at the END because your stock may be saltier or less salty than ours was at the time. Also, we thought maybe another 1/2c raisins wouldn't be out of the question, though the recipe scarcely needed it. In the future, this could be a perfect recipe for a slow cooker... but we don't have such a thing right now, so. One other thing - apparently our entire floor of the building was permeated with the delicious smells of spices and so forth last night, and this morning our apartment still kind of smells really good.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Fresh Berries with Basil Creme Fraiche

Or basil-infused (LIGHTLY sweetened) whipped cream.



It's pretty good, that's all. There isn't really a recipe to this. It's kind of self-describing.



Disaster Index: 1/10 on waffles or by themselves.

Olive Oil Granola

Best granola recipe yet. This is super addictive. This is my own take on the olive oil granola recipe from the NY Times that's been circulating on the food blogs. I didn't have all the ingredients for that one, so I kind of improvised. I think my flavor combinations are probably better, though. YOU HEARD ME NEW YORK TIMES. Okay.

Ingredients

• 3c rolled oats
  
• 1c quick oats
  
• 1/4c wheat germ
  
• 1tsp salt
  
• ~1/2c packed brown sugar, plus or minus (see thoughts section)
  
• ~1/4c chocolate chips
  
• 1/2c olive oil
  
• .75tsp cinnamon, maybe more
  
• .5tsp cardamom
  
• 1 egg white, whipped until foamy
  

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix together all the dry ingredients until well mixed. Add the olive oil and stir around until coated, then whip the egg white and stir that in until well mixed. Spread the granola over a 9x13 pan with steep sides (like a brownie pan). I had a layer of waxed paper on the bottom of my pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 300, stir lightly, turning over the top layer, and then bake for another 25 minutes. Take the granola out of the oven and let it cool overnight. Don't touch it! This is how you get the clusters. The next morning, you can (carefully) break it apart and put it in the fridge.

Thoughts: This is REALLY good. Olive oil + chocolate = awesome. Trust me on this. But what's more, it's hard to eat more than like 1/3c at a go. For some reason this is really unusually filling. Here are some things I might do differently next time:

1. Salt: wheat germ is just naturally a little salty and olive oil is a little savory. This granola turned out a little on the salty side. Which was OK, but it meant I had to add a little more sugar to compensate. Next time, maybe 1/2 the added salt. Or no added salt.
   
2. Egg Whites: while I got SOME of the granola clusters I was looking for, the effect wasn't quite as pronounced as I'd have liked. In the future, I'll use more than one egg white.
   

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chilled Avocado Cucumber Soup

I hesitate to call this "cooking".

Ingredients

• 1 ripe avocado
  
• 1.5 cucumbers, peeled & seeded
  
• 1c plain yogurt
  
• 2-3tbsp lemon juice
  
• cilantro and chives - a couple tbsp each
  
• 1c chicken stock, cooled (or veg)
  
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded... plus some of the seeds, too.
  
• salt and ppper
  

Are you ready? This is complicated. You put all of the ingredients in a blender. Follow me so far? Blend them together.

Thoughts: This has an interesting flavor of cucumber and avocado (no surprise there) and chilled it makes a great summer soup. My one complaint would be with regard to the texture, which, right out of the blender, is a little airy. I mean, it's so feathery light that it's almost not really soup at all, and I found that a little unusual, though I can see someone liking it. I think that next time I might put little julienned cucumbers or some little greens on top. Watercress would go perfectly with this soup.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Breakfast Pizza

This was delicious, though there were some missteps.


Ingredients

• Dough
  
  • 2.5c flour
    
  • 4tbsp olive oil
    
  • 1/2tsp salt
    
  • 1tsp sugar
    
  • 2.25tsp yeast
    
• Sauce
  
  • 2.5tbsp butter
    
  • 1.5tbsp flour
    
  • 1c milk
    
  • 1/2c pepper jack, grated
    
  • ~1tsp chopped or powdered (?) rosemary
    
  • ~1tsp basil
    
  • pinch of salt, pepper to taste
    
• Other Ingredients
  
  • 1/2 red onion, sliced
    
  • ~4-8 pieces of bacon, chopped
    
  • arugula
    
  • eggs
    

First, make the dough: mix all the ingredients together and adjust the liquid:flour ratio until you can knead it on the counter (for about 5 minutes) to get a nice, elasticky dough. Grease a bowl, and set the dough to rise in it (covered with plastic wrap) for about 30 minutes. When it's done, turn it out onto the counter again and roll out into a big square to fit on a big baking sheet. Then cover with a towel and set aside.


Preheat the oven to 350. Now, we make the fillings while the dough rises. Start by making the cheese sauce. In a saucepan, melt the butter and cook until it stops foaming. Then add the flour and stir until well incorporated, then add the milk. Turn the heat up and cook it until the sauce thickens, then turn off the heat and add the cheese and herbs. You can probably add the herbs earlier, but I didn't. Anyway, stir the sauce together and set aside.


Now the other fillings. Sautee the onion and bacon together until the bacon is pretty well cooked through. That's actually about it for this step.


Pizza ASSEMBLE. Add the sauce in an even layer, then put the onion and bacon evenly around the pizza. I added some sliced tomatoes to mine. Then you bake it. We started at 350 but increased to 500. It took about 15-20 minutes for the crust to be nice and brown. In the mean time, fry an egg (over easy, if you please). Take the pizza out and sprinkle VERY liberally with arugula. Then put the egg(s) on top of each serving. Serve!


Note: we attempted to crack the egg on TOP of the pizza and hope it would cook properly in the oven. IT DID NOT. Frying an egg = same result, less variability. ALSO I made the mistake of adding arugula BEFORE baking. Claire warned me about this but I didn't believe it. That was wrong of me, and I will be the first person to admit it.


Thoughts: Really good, but hard to prepare in moderation. Delicious, though. I would do this again. It's not really pizza - it's kind of like a croque madame, but with arugula and onion. I liked it. On the other hand our actual EXECUTION left something to be desired. We messed up 1/2 the pizza with my stupid ideas and the other 1/2 looked awesome.


Disaster Index: 7/10 salvaged to like 1/10. Claire insists that her half was always 1/10. WHATEVER CLAIRE.

Sticky Lemon Rolls

Like cinnamon rolls, but lemon.

Ingredients

• Dough
  
  • 2.25tsp yeast
    
  • 3/4c warm water
    
  • 1 stick butter, softened
    
  • 1/4c white sugar
    
  • 2tsp vanilla extract
    
  • 1tsp orange extract or maybe some more lemon zest
    
  • 4.5c white flour
    
  • 1/2tsp salt
    
  • 1/2tsp nutmeg
    
  • zest of 1 lemon
    
  • juice of 1 lemon
    
  • 2 eggs
    
• Filling
  
  • 1c sugar + some
    
  • 1/4tsp freshly-ground nutmeg
    
  • 1/2tsp powdered ginger
    
  • juice of 1 lemon
    
• Frosting
  
  • 6oz cream cheese, softened
    
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
    
  • zest of 1 lemon
    
  • 1c powdered sugar, more or less
    

Ok. Mix all the wet dough ingredients in a bowl and whisk thoroughly. Add flour, 1c at a time, until you've got about 3c added. Then add the last cup and a half and turn onto a counter and knead for 5 minutes or so. Set aside and cover to rise until doubled, one hour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the filling ingredients. When the dough is doubled, roll it out on a floured counter top until about 18" across and 10" deep. Spread the filling over it evenly, leaving a small lip on the far end of the dough. Carefully, roll up the dough starting at the far end and rolling toward you. Take a bread knife and, using long sawing motions and minimal force, cut the log of dough into 12 pieces (try halving it twice and then cutting into thirds). Place the pieces cut side down in a greased 9x13 pan. Set aside to rise until doubled, about an hour. Preheat the oven to 350, and when the rolls are risen, bake for about 30-35 minutes.

When they're getting close to done, whip together the frosting ingredients. Take the rolls out of the oven and spread the frosting over all of the rolls. Allow to cool and serve.



Thoughts: This is a good recipe, but the filling is REALLY sweet. I'm not really sure what I would do to fix this. I mean, they're cinnamon rolls. I think if I were to do it again, the filling would have no lemon juice at all, just lemon zest (or maybe orange zest). The dough itself was very easy to work with, but I think it didn't really need the huge amount of butter - the eggs were actually probably enough for this. Otherwise, this was really pretty good, though I'm not sure if they're quite enough to convince me to make them again when I could be making normal cinnamon rolls.




Disaster Index: 2/10

Pasta al Cavolfiore

This is a favorite from Claire's childhood. She felt that this was almost as good as what her father makes. This was our take on someone else's take of a Moosewood Cookbook recipe. Anyway.

Ingredients

• 1 cauliflower, cut into florets
  
• olive oil
  
• 1tsp dry basil
  
• 3-4 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed (we got chopped from a jar)
  
• 1 bay leaf
  
• red pepper flakes
  
• optional ~3 hot italian sausages
  
• 1c cheddar plus 1c parmesan cheese
  
• 1 28oz can tomato sauce/puree
  
• vermouth or dry cooking wine
  
• 1lb pasta (we used rotini)
  

If you're using them, chop the sausage and cook in a pan over medium heat until caramelized and cooked through, then set aside. In the same pot, add the cauliflower, olive oil, basil, garlic, bay leaf (or leaves), and red pepper flakes. Add some dry cooking wine and a little water and cover to cook until tender. When it's tender, add the tomato sauce. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes (while you cook the pasta). After about 10 minutes, re-add the sausages. When it's done, drain the pasta. When the sauce is finished, take it off the heat and stir in the cheese and the pasta.

Thoughts: This is almost absurdly good. The sausage was a good addition, but unnecessary, but no, good... The cauliflower was perfectly tender. Red pepper flakes are good in just about anything, so it worked well here.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate Mousse

My mother makes it better than we do. We're working on it.

Ingredients

• 8oz (1 and 1/3c) chocolate chips
  
• 1 stick butter
  
• 8 eggs, separated (do them one at a time and add to separate bowls)
  
• 1/4tsp cream of tartar (tartaric acid powder)
  
• pinch of salt
  
• vanilla extract
  
• up to 1tbsp instant espresso
  

This recipe is influenced heavily by the order and timing of the things you do. In one bowl, beat together the egg yolks with the vanilla extract. In another bowl, add the cream of tartar to the egg whites, along with a pinch of salt. With a CLEAN whisk (if you're feeling really pumped) or an electric egg beater that you registered for but haven't gotten married yet so you still need to use a whisk... um... whip the egg whites into stiff peaks. Now, melt the chocolate chips with the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan until JUST melted, stirring constantly, and take off the heat as soon as it's done. Add the instant espresso. Then add to the egg yolks slowly, whisking constantly. The danger is NOT that you'll cook the egg yolks - the danger is that the chocolate seizes. When whisked together, add 1/3 of the egg whites and fold together. Now add the remaining egg whites and fold everything together. Pour into a trifle pan or individual serving glasses (like you might for pots de creme?). Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 4 hours. *If the chocolate seizes, you need to break it apart. You put it in a cuisinart and blend the hell out of it until it's completely smooth. With luck, you can hide the problem pretty well.

Thoughts: This turned out GREAT for passover desert. Claire thought the texture was unusual, but she was incorrect. My feeling about it was that the flavor was fantastic, but next time I will try to get the yolks to cook a little bit more to thicken the mousse a little more so the ultimate product is a LITTLE firmer. Another possibility would be to use 1/2 the butter. Anyway, this was great. For a first time, especially, this was fantastic.

Disaster Index: 1/10