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