Watermelon Salad

For when you've moved recently and you don't have any of your cooking equipment because the stupid movers haven't arrived yet so you just have to make do with what you have.

Ingredients

• about 1/4 of a small seedless watermelon, cubed (about 4c, at a wild guess)
• 1 avocado, cubed
• 1/2 a cucumber, cubed
• 2-3 Roma tomatoes, cubed
• 3-4tbsp fresh mint, chopped
• 2-3tbsp fresh basil, chopped
• 2oz goat cheese, crumbled
• Optional balsamic vinaigrette, though we didn't have our balsamic.
• sea salt, for sprinkling on individual servings

So, you know, toss those ingredients together and serve.

Thoughts: Our first impression was that this was going to be basically a deconstructed watermelon gazpacho. And I think that this description isn't far off. Somehow watermelons go very well with tomatoes and avocado. I don't know how much the cucumber adds, but it gives some color so why not? Claire says peel the cucumbers in the future.

This was delicious, though it would probably be even better with a vinaigrette. Claire said maybe a little more goat cheese and a little more avocado? It was just really nice and summery. I'm confident we will make this again. It's a great way to serve watermelon.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Not Quite Pasta Carbonara

Perhaps more accurately called "Pasta Not Quite Carbonara." This was actually an attempt to use up stuff in the fridge / pantry before we go out of town (and eventually move), but it was the perfect thing after a hard day of painting. OH GOD THE PAINT FUMES.

Ingredients

• 4oz bacon, cubed
• garlic. Like, a lot. Maybe 2tbsp.
• Olive oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2c of that sandy parmesan stuff
• black pepper
• 14oz canned diced tomatoes
• 1lb pasta

Make the pasta. While that's cooking, cook the bacon and garlic in a pan of olive oil. When the bacon is cooked, add the tomatoes and simmer for a while until it thickens a bit. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix the egg, parmesan, and pepper and whisk thoroughly.

When the pasta is done, mix it with the tomato / bacon mixture until thoroughly coated. Do this over a low flame so that it's REALLY hot. Take the pasta off the heat completely, stir a couple more times, then pour in the egg and cheese mixture and stir constantly. The heat from the pasta cooks the eggs without curdling them (ideally - worked for us, but we've curdled them in the past). Then serve.

Thoughts: This was really good. The tomato really added, actually, although I know we're heathens for doing it this way. It could be the paint fumes talking, but I would definitely do it this way in the future.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pan Popovers

Pan popovers


I got this recipe from a friend of mine and it's great. For a 1.5 quart saucepan, use the following:

• 1/8 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 3/8 cup flour
• 3/8 cup skim milk
• 1 tsp salt
• optional: basil, chives, tarragon, dill, pepper, etc.

Put the butter in the pan and put it in the oven. Preheat it to 425.
Put all the ingredients in a bowl and combine them with an egg beater until smooth.
When the butter in the pan is browned, carefully remove the pan from the oven and add the flour/egg/milk mixture.

Bake until puffy/browned, about 20-25 minutes.

When you remove it from the oven, there will be a lot of butter hanging out on top. Tilt the pan in all directions so that the butter runs between the popover and the side of the pan. This will make it easier to get the popover out.  Otherwise it will stick pretty significantly.

Thoughts: This is ridiculously easy and awesome. The next time we make it we might separating the egg whites from the yolks and whipping the whites separately so make it a little more souffle-like. It's pretty dense right now, which is all well and good, but lighter might be interesting.

Browning the butter before you add everything else makes this magical. Do it. Also put all sorts of herbs in it. We haven't added things like bacon, mushrooms, or shallots, because those ideas are just occurring to me now, but it would probably be another awesome idea. We'll report back. Claire out.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Slow-Cooker Cassoulet

This started out as some kind of slow-cooker chicken and then evolved from there. I didn't use a recipe, so this is completely made up.

Ingredients

• 4 skinless chicken thighs (we used boneless, but whatever) with excess fat trimmed off
• 1 small yukon gold potato, cubed (we used 1/2 of a huge potato)
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1-2tbsp lemon juice
• 4 sprigs of fresh thyme (or equivalent dried?)
• 1tsp dried rosemary (fresh would have been better)
• 2 bay leaves
• a few red pepper flakes
• 1 can cannolini or great northern beans (slow cookers don't get hot enough for dried beans to not be poisonous, apparently)
• 1/2lb smoked beef sausage

To a slow cooker, add the chicken, stock, lemon juice, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, and red pepper flakes. Set to low and cook for about 4-5 hours. Then add everything else. Cook for another 2-3 hours. Season to taste.

Thoughts: Ridiculously easy, but amazingly delicious. The only problem we had was that once we added everything else, the slow-cooker wouldn't heat up enough. We couldn't get it back to a simmer, so we ultimately had to throw everything in a big stock pot and simmer it for 5 minutes or so to make sure it was done. Even so, worth it. Claire said a touch more salt the second day since the potatoes absorb some salt.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Mousse Redux

Passover but sick of flourless chocolate cake? How about a layered chocolate and strawberry mousse instead? That was the plan. Instead of use our typical chocolate mousse recipe, we thought we'd go with a classic: Julia Child (by way of David Lebovitz). Then strawberry mousse.

Chocolate Mousse

• 6oz good chocolate chips
• 4 eggs, separated
• 2/3c sugar
• 6oz butter
• 1tsp instant espresso powder and 1/4c water (or 1/4c strong coffee)
• 2tbsp water
• pinch of salt
• 1/2tsp vanilla

This is a little complicated. Plan out your choice of bowls ahead of time. So, in one bowl, combine the chocolate chips, butter, and espresso. Melt over a double-boiler until, well, melted. Remove from heat. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, and 2tbsp water. Prepare a cold water bath. Whip the egg mixture together over a double boiler for 3 minutes, then remove and whip in the cold water bath until thick (it gets very thick). In a THIRD bowl, whip the egg whites and a pinch of salt until firm, then add the sugar and continue to beat until shiny and stiff. Add the vanilla and incorporate.

Now assemble: mix the chocolate and egg yolks together until completely mixed. Fold in 1/3 of the egg white, then the remaining egg white. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate. After 2 hours, top this with a layer of sliced strawberries.

Strawberry Mousse

• 1lb strawberries
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2c sugar
• 1/4c water
• 4 egg whites
• pinch of salt
• 1tbsp sugar
• 1/2c heavy whipping cream

In a saucepan, cook down the strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, and water until the strawberries are pretty decomposed. I even mashed them with a potato masher, actually. Then blend them (we used a stick blender) and let cool. When it's pretty cool (doesn't have to be COMPLETELY cool, but cool enough to touch), whip the egg whites with the salt and sugar, following the same process as outlined above. Then whip the whipping cream into stiff peaks in a separate bowl. Combine the strawberries and whipped cream, then the egg whites (1/3 first then the remainder). Pour over the now stiffened chocolate mousse. After 2 hours, top with another layer of sliced strawberries.

You could go on all day doing this, but we didn't. Serve (with a spoon? I guess?) and top with whipped cream.

Thoughts: This recipe is a little complicated, for either part. If you clean as you go and you plan out your bowls and utensils, you can get away without making a huge mess. If you don't plan ahead, you're going to have a bad time. But then, we had a bad time anyway. By the time we served this, it had completely deflated. It was like soup. Claire suggested maybe it was because we let it get warm and then cold again, which messed up the structural integrity, but I think we've had better success before. Anyway, total disaster. It was embarrassing because we had to serve it to everyone. Ugh. But then when we got home, we salvaged it by churning it into some extremely respectable ice cream.

Disaster Index: 6/10, but only because the flavor was good and it became good ice cream.

Tonic

We had our first attempt at making tonic water, based heavily on the recipe found here, by Jeffrey Morgenthaler.

Ingredients

• 4c water
• 2tbsp powdered lemongrass
• 1oz cinchona bark powder
• zest and juice of 1 lemon, 1 lime, and 1 orange
• 1/4c citric acid
• 1tsp mixed baking spices: cinnamon, clove, allspice, cardamom
• pinch of salt
• 1/2c sugar*

Okay, this is easy. 1) Throw everything in a pot. 2) Boil and simmer for 20 minutes. 3) Strain the mixture - we used a french press followed by several layers of cheesecloth. 4) Add 1/2 sugar per cup of remaining liquid.

Mix in a ratio of 1:3 with soda water and enjoy!

Thoughts: I like my tonic a bit more bitter than this, so next time I think we may use less sugar or more cinchona bark powder? I'm not sure. Claire thinks the flavor is, and I quote, "fantastic," so it may be just me. We also discovered that when we let this sit for a week in the fridge, we could decant and get rid of a bunch of the particulate matter we had missed earlier. In the future, we will probably experiment with different spices. Thoughts have included: Szechuan peppercorns, grains of paradise, black pepper, nutmeg. Finally, we tried to mix the tonic with water and carbonate it in our sodastream. Let me just make a suggestion if you try this: do not try this.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Soft Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

We never got around to making hamentaschen this year, and I felt wrong not having cookies. So I made some peanut butter cookies. I wanted a "chewy" recipe, so I wound up making my own version based on this and this. I did something in the middle. I baked six and froze the rest in individual portions.

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter
• 1 c smooth peanut butter
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1/4 c granulated sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 egg
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 c flour
• about 8oz chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Using a stand mixer, cream together the butter, peanut butter, the sugars, and the salt until you get sick of it. Beat in the vanilla, milk, and the egg. Then beat in the soda, powder, and flour, slowly at first so you don't cover the kitchen in those ingredients. Then just add the chocolate chips. Portion out 2tbsp of dough per cookie onto a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. Don't overbake - they don't look done when they come out, but carryover cooking will do the rest while they cool. I guess if you want to eat them hot out of the oven you should bake at least 12 minutes, because if you bake these for just 10 minutes, you won't even be able to pick them up because they'll fall apart completely.

Thoughts: This wasn't EXACTLY what I was looking for, but maybe it's even better. In the future, I would experiment with not using butter and not using as much flour, I guess. These were pretty greasy. But I'd still give it 1/10 because they were excellent. Claire liked them, too, I think.

Disaster Index: 1/10