Black Coffee and a Donut

Moules Frites Worth the Wait

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:43:00 +0000

by EP

Some sad news to share: my bestie, Rachel, who readers might remember was my companion (and translator) in Paris last spring, is moving back to her hometown of San Francisco :( I know what you're thinking: "EP, this is the perfect excuse to visit and eat lots of SF treats!" I hear your cry. I realize that this is the case, and don't you worry, I will be heading out to CA in a few months for a visit! But until then, my best friend will be across the country instead of an hour's drive away in DC, and I am sad potatoes over it.

Due to her impending departure, we have been making an extra effort to hang out more and do things we've always said we were going to do but never actually did. For instance, a few weekends ago, we visited the DC Brau brewery. This is the only brewery in the District and we had a great time touring and trying free samples of their hoppy brews. I highly recommend it as a daytime activity with some fun hipster-watching, and a chance to support a local business.

We also have visited the hip new H Street area a few times over the last month. We recently dined at Toki Underground, a hip (and tiny) ramen restaurant, which was excellent, though it was not underground at all; instead, it was upstairs in a crowed room filled with happily slurping patrons. Apparently this place is notorious for having long waits, but Rachel and I were able to walk right in and have a seat at their long bar area with NO wait. A Christmas miracle, indeed. We ordered chicken potstickers and kimchi to start. Both were great and the kimchi was really spicy.

Potstickers, pretty yummy

Spicy kimchi

Then it was time for the main event: RAMEN. I love noodles of any sort but there's something about ramen that is so wonderful and comforting. However, since having amazing, perhaps life-changing ramen (and other noodle dishes) at Momofoku Noodle in NYC, it is the standard to which all others are compared (no pressure!). Rachel and I both ordered the Toki Hakata Classic, which is described as "Tonkotsu noodle soup with pork loin chashu, seasonal vegetables, 1/2 boiled egg, red pickled ginger, sesame, scallions, nori."

Rachel's ramen (includes grilled sausage on top!)

My ramen, with pork cheek separately

You can also get various "add-ons," some of which are standard, like extra noodle, extra egg, homemade sriracha (!), and chashu pork cheek, and some change daily, like grilled sausage or oxtails. That day, Rachel ordered hers topped with a grilled sausage; I got the pork cheek add-on. Interestingly, the cheek was served in a separate bowl with separate sauce. I liked this because I had the opportunity to taste the cheek on its own; on the other hand, it belonged on the soup so I had to add it in myself.

The verdict? The ramen was quite good: it was porky, comforting, rich, savory, the noodles were perfectly chewy, and the pork loin and pork cheek were tender and so flavorful. But I think the most telling sign of how good this soup was occurred the next day, when I went to have the leftovers. I found that when it was cold, the soup had congealed into a near-solid, which goes to show how much gelatin from the pork bones was in it. And for those who don't know: if your stock turns solid when cold, it's a good stock!

Overall, a lovely experience at Toki, and I will definitely be going back soon before the winter is over. Hot ramen on a cold day is a match made in porky heaven.

The second time we visited H St was a few weekends ago and we went to Granville Moore's, known for serving moules and frites, almost exclusively. I first heard about Granville Moore's when I saw Bobby Flay challenge the owner/chef on his show, "Throwdown." Honestly, I don't even remember who won the throwdown; I just know that after seeing that show, I have been asking Rachel if we can go there for mussels for approximately 3 years. That's how good they looked on the show! Not to mention the fact that moules frites are one of my most favorite foods of all time.

We went to GM the same day as we visited DC Brau, and we were hungry for some awesome mussels and fries. Unfortunately, our great fortune with wait times (or lack thereof) at Toki was not with us that evening. The host at the door told us the wait was: 3 HOURS. Um, yeah. I get that this place is tiny and cute with limited seats but JEEZ. It was already 8pm by then and while we weren't starving, we certainly didn't want to eat at 11pm (especially when I had an hour-plus drive home to Baltimore ahead of me). We put our names in with the host and headed over to the bar next door to have a drink, kill some time, and determine whether we should stick it out or head elsewhere.

I scoured the Yelp and Foursquare reviews of GM to see if it said anything helpful, such as "the wait is never really that long," or "it's totally worth the 3 hour wait," or "it's NOT worth the wait," -- I was looking for something, anything that would help us make our decision, but most reviews were just about how awesome the food was. We had a couple beers (DC Brau brews for me!), chatted with some nice people, and then Rachel went next door to check on the wait time. Rachel cleverly mentioned that I was from "out of town" AND I wrote a food blog, AND the host already had her number and should call her sometime, so....could we get a table? That shaved about an hour off of our time. In other words, two hours and some shameless flirting later, we were finally seated. (Man, I'm gonna miss that girl.)

There were lots of yummy-looking specials on the menu and the chalkboard, but I had my eye on the prize: moules. We ordered two kinds: first, the Bleu, with Hook's bleu cheese, pork belly, shallots, spinach, white wine, lemon, and a drizzle of truffle oil; and second, the Champignon, with mushroom cream and herbs.

Have you ever seen something as beautiful as a mussel with a piece of pork belly peaking out??

Champignon cream moules

We also ordered some of their crispy, hand-cut, twice-fried frites! We ordered them with truffle mayo, chipotle mayo, and of course, ketchup.

Mmm frites

In short, these were probably the best moules I've ever had. The Bleu especially -- they blew my mind [pun purposely avoided]. The mussels were perfectly cooked, plump and flavorful on their own. And who doesn't love pork belly and truffle oil as supporting characters?? I didn't really taste a lot of flavor from the bleu cheese, interestingly. But generally, this was truly an outstanding bowl of mussels, and I've had a lot of mussels in my time.

The champignon mussels were also perfectly cooked and the mushroom cream was delicate but delicious. We couldn't finish either bowl of bivalves and we knew we wouldn't be able to, but I just really wanted to try two kinds, you know?

The frites were also very, very good. They were crispy and sprinkled with flaky salt, and the dipping sauces were irresistable. My only complaint is that they were rather short for my preference. I know, I know, how picky can I be? Very, apparently. I just love boardwalk-style fries that are, appropriately, the length of a potato. Why cut them in half? In all, though, these mussels were definitely worth the wait!

We have had two wonderful meals on H St, and I'm glad I got to go with Rachel before she left the area. I will miss her dearly but wish her the very best in her next chapter. Of course, I fully expect her to keep a running list of places for us to eat upon my visit to San Francisco.

And to conclude, a few pictures:

First, a nice one: Me and Rachel enjoying brunch at Commander's Palace in November

This one more accurately showcases our relationship...giggles and snark :)
Also taken in NOLA at Elizabeth's Restaurant

May the frites be with you,
EP

I Heart Cabbage

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:07:00 +0000

by EP

Maybe it's my Russian roots, maybe it's a significantly delayed impact of having a Cabbage Patch Kid as a child, but I am seriously in love with cabbage these days. It's not just for summertime treats like cole slaw over a delicious pulled pork sandwich (though that is of course a wonderful iteration). Recently Xani and I enjoyed it raw over crispy fish tacos at Captain Larry's in Federal Hill. I enjoy a hearty helping of New Kraut (Ba-Tampte brand) on fabulous half-smoke Polish sausages that our parents procure for us. Seriously, these Manger's brand half-smokes are the best hot dog I've ever eaten.

In the kitchen, I have a habit of just slicing it thinly into ribbons (red or green cabbage works for this), tossing it with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, and roasting until wilted and browned in parts. But recently, I've done some more cooking/experimenting with cabbage. First, I made a hearty and wonderful cabbage soup from Smitten Kitchen. The recipe actually comes from a wonderful NYC restaurant, Veselka, where Xani, buddy Lauren, and I visited last winter for one of our trips to the Big Apple (we did not have the soup, in fact; we got stuffed cabbage (more cabbage!) and pierogis, instead).

The soup starts by making a pork stock (hey, no one said these were Jewish recipes, just Eastern European cabbage recipes), with pork butt, water, chicken stock, dried marjoram, allspice berries, and bay leaves. Then after that cookes for a few hours, you add BOTH sauerkraut and fresh raw cabbage, as well as a potato, some carrots, celery, and onion. The soup is finished with some of the sauerkraut juice. Oh yeah, that's the stuff. It was a hearty, wintery soup that I really enjoyed. Who wouldn't love that double-cabbage goodness? My only complaint was that the instructions do not say to cover the stock while it's cooking for those 2 hours, so it reduced quite a bit and didn't leave much liquid for all those veggies. Ah well, a note for next time.

I also recently used some green cabbage in a spicy stir fry dish, inspired by this post by Orangette. It just involves some cabbage, some oil, some soy sauce, something spicy (I used Sriracha since I didn't have the sambal oelek (spicy chili paste) on hand), and high heat. She serves hers with a runny-yolked fried egg; I cooked up some chicken thighs that I marinated in ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and hot sesame oil, and added them to the cabbage. Next time I'll try the egg.

Finally, last night I went to Ze Mean Bean Cafe in Fells Point for dinner and drinks with my buddy Mat, also known as the Polish Hammer. Ze Mean Bean not only has wonderful pierogies, but their pierogies are made by little old Polish ladies from a nearby church, so you KNOW they are going to be good. Even better news: ZMB has a pierogi happy hour every night (Mon-Fri) from 5-7pm featuring $.25 pierogies! So Mat and I, both with Eastern European roots, were excited to meet up for pierogi happy hour and other treats. Other treats featuring -- what else -- CABBAGE.

First, I'll note that this place was hopping at 6pm when I met Mat. Every seat at the bar was taken (that's where you can get the pierogies on the cheap), and the tables were filling up. I noted, specifically, that most of the patrons here were MEN. Ladies, take note.

Mulled wine. Mmm mmm good.

Anyway, once settled with drinks in hand (I got a wonderfully comforting and tasty glass of mulled wine, Mat enjoyed a vodka + hard apple cider concoction, pictured below), we ended up ordering practically everything on the happy hour menu. They had their regular pierogies for $.25 in 3 flavors: sweet farmer's cheese, potato, and sauerkraut. I loved them all.

One of the Polish Hammer's drinks that evening

Made by old ladies = delicious

They also had fancy pierogies (made in house, not by our surrogate Polish grandmas) in three flavors: crab and corn, butternut squash, and fennel sausage. These were also very good. All pierogies were served with fried onions and rich sour cream.

Fancy pierogies

We also ordered something called Duck Holuski, described as "pulled duck confit, cabbage, brown butter, cranberries, and potato dumplings sauteed with fresh herbs." This was a really interesting dish -- one I couldn't stop picking at, even when I should have stopped eating. One very strong flavor in this dish was thyme, which totally worked with the duck and the dried cranberries. The potato dumplings were a little dense but still good (who doesn't love a potato anything), and the fresh cabbage added crunch. The dish was a little cold for my tastes (or perhaps it was supposed to be that way?) but otherwise was a very intersting dish and relatively light compared to the other offerings.

We also ordered Bigos, a "Polish Hunter's Stew" that had smoked pork loin, kielbasa, Polish slab bacon, tomatoes, and sauerkraut. Cabbage (and pork!) strikes again :) This stew was absolutely fantastic. It was porky, with a great tomato base. I honestly didn't notice the sauerkraut flavor that much but I'm sure it added some subtle magic.

Finally (yes, still more food!), we ordered their Holupki, a cabbage roll stuffed with beef, pork, and rice in a tomato sauce. I am a sucker for stuffed cabbage and this one was quite excellent. It was pretty light, and not doused in their semi-sweet tomato sauce.

Overall, an excellent, casual meal at ZMB, and I will definitely be back for their pierogi happy hour and multitude of cabbage-based dishes. The cherry on top was that we ran into fellow Baltimore food blogger Kit of Mango and Ginger (and her husband (Mr. Mango?))! It was lovely to see them and chat about all the new restaurants we are excited about trying in the new year.

My final note about cabbage: I have all the ingredients to make stuffed cabbage at home (thanks to the Amateur Gourmet's semi-recent post, which used this Ina Garten recipe). I have been meaning to make it for weeks now but can't find the time! If I don't get around to it, at least I know what I can do with that cabbage...

Cheers,
EP

B&O Does Coffee and Donuts (and more!)

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:27:00 +0000

by EP & X

Last week, we were invited to attend a press dinner at one of our favorite Baltimore spots, the B&O American Brasserie. Long-time readers will remember that we've been many times and always enjoy the seasonal menu, interesting cocktails, playful desserts, and beautiful space. And last week was no different! We enjoyed a number of outstanding dishes while chatting away with other Baltimore food bloggers and journalists including Dara of Dining Dish and Nakiya of Taste of Baltimore.

We started with champagne (much, much needed after the stress of work these days), but we had to try some of the bartender's amazing and always interesting cocktails. Xani got The Cadizian, for which the B&O bartender won the title in a recent cocktail contest where the featured spirit was sherry. I got the "Law Dog," which featured Grey Goose, Galliano, grapefruit juice, and orange syrup. Yum yum yum (and a little tipsy).

Xani's drink; EP & Nakiya chat in the background

For our first course, we were treated to a variety of great tastes:

We tried a very interesting item from the Charcuterie menu, which was Shrimp Noodle "Scampi," served with lemon butter, parsley puree, and garlic chip. The noodles were very tender and made of shrimp themselves, and had a subtle shrimpy flavor.

Shrimp noodles

Then from the Small Plates menu, we tried a variety of items:

Baby Beet Salad with goat cheese and pistachio - we love a beet, and goat cheese, so this was a winner

Decadent Deviled Egg with truffled Maryland crab, soft boiled egg, caviar, and mustard - this egg was a highlight of the whole meal! We loved the play on a deviled egg that used a soft-boiled egg instead - it made it that much more decadent. Well, the caviar and the truffles added some luxury as well...which is why we loved it.

Some of the best deviled eggs ever

Wild Mushroom Ravioli with shallot confit, cauliflower, preserved lemon, and kale - these ravioli were lovely and well cooked, and had a nice mushroom flavor

Mushroom ravioli buried under garnishes and mushrooms

Smoked Pork Belly with golden raisin soubise, tamarind, and pickled pears - this dish was absolutely irresistable. We tried so hard to only have a taste (as we knew other dishes were coming), and I had to practically sit on my hands so as to not gobble up the whole plate. The pickled pear paired (ha) with the fatty pork was seasonal and a lovely contrast.

Irresistable

Slow Cooked Pork Ribs with smoked chili bbq, pickled pear - more meat! We loved these ribs as they were spicy and sticky and meaty. They were a little hard to eat with a knife and fork (duh) but we didn't feel comfortable picking them up and going to town on them (like we wanted)....we're ladies, after all.

We also had the opportunity to enjoy several of the chef's offerings from the Main menu:

Rockfish with pumpkin seed "risotto," smoked bacon, raab, and butternut squash - a local Maryland fish, we're always happy to see rockfish on the menu. The most interesting part of this dish, however, was the pumpkin seed "risotto," where pumpkin seeds (aka pepitas) were sauteed and broth added, in the style of risotto. Good flavor but the seeds did not get as soft as a traditional rice-based risotto. Al dente, indeed!

Hudson Valley Duck Breast with speck, chestnut, candied turnips, braised red cabbage, and a spiced cider reduction - this dish was the inspiration for our Thanksgiving turkey roulades this year (Xani visited B&O earlier this fall), as it was a perfectly cooked duck breast wrapped in speck (ham). It was salty and savory, which went well with the turnips and cabbage.

Diver Scallops with jerusalem artichoke, cauliflower, pear syrup, pickled chanterelles - the scallops were a highlight of this course and the whole meal. They were super-sweet and beautifully cooked. I also loved the cauliflower and the jerusalem artichoke puree. A great bite!

Short Rib with fingerling sweet potato, brussels sprouts, bacon - this was the other major highlight of the mains. The short rib required no knife as we were all taking portions (the meal was served family style), it was so tender and wonderful. The fingerling sweet potatoes were delicious (who doesn't love a sweet potato fry??) and we loved the brussels sprouts at the bottom of the pan. In fact, Nakiya and I both audibly gasped when we saw the little green leaves hiding at the bottom - food nerds! (sorry, no pic, we were so excited to eat it!)

Finally, it was time for dessert!

Maple Creme Brulee with molasses shortbread - although we are not usually creme brulee fans, this was a great presentation and very seasonal.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding with creme anglaise, cinnamon ice cream - also very seasonal and comforting, and we liked the warm pudding with the ice cream

Pecan Cobbler with whipped creme fraiche - this was a decadent dessert, as the cobbler probably had some sort of fruit in it (pear?) but there was so much buttery, nutty topping, it was hard to tell. Not that we're complaining!

Butternut Squash Donuts with cinnamon glaze, toasted hazelnut, and espresso milkshake - these were absolutely awesome. Best dessert of the night, hands down! Plus, we love any dessert that resembles coffee and donuts! The last time I was at B&O, the chef had red velvet donuts on the menu, which were awesome....but these were even better. And an espresso milkshake?! Note that the donuts are available on the breakfast and brunch menus (and the brunch menu has a pork belly hash...holy crap, let's go to brunch).

Thrilled

BCD represent!

It was another wonderful meal at B&O! We can't wait to get back. Thanks to Amy Burke of Profiles PR for including the BCD girls!

Butternut squash donut wishes and espresso milkshake dreams -

EP & X

* Fabulous bloggers featured in this post received the meal gratis. This is just like at the end of every episode of the Millionaire Matchmaker.

Feeling Thankful - Picture Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:10:00 +0000

by EP

As Xani described in our teaser Thanksgiving post, we had quite a meal planned for this year's Turkey Day. I think, of all the things we made, only one dish was something we've made before: our beloved Grandma Irma's mashed potatoes. (For you grammar nerds, "beloved" in this case is modifying both our grandmother and the potatoes.) For the other, new dishes, we had some great successes and some moderate successes. No failures, in our opinion. We were certainly full by the end, but the multi-course meal allowed us to have some time between courses and enjoy each dish, and each other. I think we toasted with every course (and every new cocktail/type of wine) - l'chaim!

As a refresher, here was the menu:

Sparkling Apple Cocktail

Amuse Bouche of Raw Local Oyster with Pomegranate Mignonette

First course: Sweet Potato Fuji Apple Bisque with Lobster and Maple Butter Drizzle

Salad of Mixed Greens, Apple, Bacon, Cornbread Croutons and Buttermilk-Herb Dressing

Main Course: Turkey Thigh Roulade with Chestnut Stuffing, Irma's Potato Puree, Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Capers, Walnuts, and Anchovies, Cranberry Conserve, Gravy

Dessert: Trio of Tartlettes- Parsnip-Buttermilk Pie, Frangipane Tart with Pears, and Pumpkin-Apple Butter Pie with Cranberry Glaze (those last two recipes are courtesy of the fabulous Bistro Poplar, where we were lucky enough to enjoy a wonderful baking demo a few weeks ago.)

And now, enjoy the meal and its preparation through a series of pictures:

Brussels sprouts mise en place: shallot, garlic, capers, anchovies (walnuts and sprouts not pictured)

Cornbread croutons being brushed with sage butter

Popping cranberries for the conserve

Xani happily mixes the Sparkling Apple Cocktail after a full day of cooking

This cocktail was amazing, everyone loved it. With red and green apples, it'd be good for Christmas too!

Oysters for the first course.
Over the course of the weekend, we made a good dent in the 100-count box of oysters Dad picked up

Oysters with pomegranate mignonette (made with fresh pom juice!)

Obligatory "lobsters attack" shot. These weren't scary though - only 1 lb each!

Lobster tails poaching in maple butter. Jealz.

Plating the soup course - butter-poached lobster tails on sweet potato bisque

Turkey roulades! We used deboned thighs and a chestnut stuffing

Cooked and crispy! Lovely dark meat for everyone

Completed plate!
Turkey roulade with stuffing atop mashed potatoes (with chicken fat), shredded brussels, cranberry conserve (gravy and America's Test Kitchen dinner rolls not pictured)

Perhaps the biggest "burden" of the meal was our dessert. As mentioned above, instead of making three pies for 5 people (insanity), we made 36 mini tarts (normal). Thanks to Savory Simple for inspiring us with her post on Thanksgiving Pie Petit Fours! We made a dozen of each of three kinds: (1) buttermilk parsnip pie, (2) pumpkin-apple butter pie with cranberry glaze, and (3) frangipane tart with pears. We figured we would serve one of each kind per person, and we should allow for mess-ups, so we made a dozen of each. Also, we just happened to have 36 tart shells so that played a small role...

We also used two kinds of pastry: pâte brisée (a flaky, traditional pie dough that's not too sweet), and pâte sucrée (a much sweeter dough, sort of like a sugar cookie when baked). We used the brisee for the pumpkin-apple butter pie, and sucree for the other two. We par-baked the shells for the pumpkin-apple butter pie and the parsnip pie, but we did not for the frangipane, per the recipe's instructions. In the end, we should have par-baked them all. Since the tarts were so small, they didn't bake for very long, so the crust on the frangipane tarts did not set up as nicely as we would have liked. Lesson learned! They were all fantastic though, and it was perfect to have just two bites of each with a cappuccino (thanks Dave!) after our feast.

Fitting the dough into the teeny molds

Par-baking with the help of yellow lentils

Filling the par-baked shells with pumpkin-apple butter filling (the apple butter was homemade, BTW)

Tarts with cranberry glaze, about to go into the fridge to set up.

Frangipane tarts with pear

Ready for plating!

Final dessert plate! Clockwise from left: pumpkin-apple butter pie with cranberry glaze, buttermilk parsnip pie, frangipane tart with pears (brushed with apricot jam at the last minute). The red of the cranberry glaze was such a lovely hint of color when there's so much "brown" in Thanksgiving foods.

Baristo Dave whips up a few espressos and cappuccinos to have with dessert

Cappuccino! Just like in Paris.

Happy Thanksgiving from the BCD girls!

And that's it! It was a lovely holiday with family, filled with fun culinary challenges and lots of alcohol. In the end, we had only 1 broken glass, 1 small fire (dishtowel + gas range), and a few minor burns that, in all honesty, just make you feel tough, right?

Happy holidays!!

And, because we can't help it, a few pictures of Gellie and his new buddy, Eddie:

Eddie loves his mama (though he looks a wee bit terrified here)

Coming and going

Feeling Thankful

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:28:00 +0000

by Xani

Hello out there! If you are still reading, thank you for sticking with us through yet another long blogging hiatus. No excuses this time.

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and if you think BCD isn't knee-deep in planning and prep already, you don't know us very well! The turkey stock has been made, the pie dough prepped, and ridiculous ingredient and shopping lists have been circulated. It's just a small gathering this year, but because we're not feeding too many folks, we're able to mix up the menu and do things a little differently.

When you cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for only five people, the amount of food is RIDICULOUS. We've done it the last couple years and there's just no way around it-- if you want to serve all the classic dishes (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, rolls, etc) you are going to end up with WAY too much food. The leftovers are endless. We didn't want to do that this year. First, we thought about skipping turkey-dinner all together and just eating giant lobsters, but I was hesitant-- I LIKE Thanksgiving dinner, and I didn't want to miss it! Finally, we settled on an interesting concept: we decided to create a meal that you might be served if you were enjoying Thanksgiving at a five-star restaurant or resort! No massive piles of stuffing and sweet potatoes-- everything will be refined and fancy, but still incorporate all the traditional flavors. No family-style giant platters around the table-- each course will be individually plated and garnished. Fun, right? The final menu looks like this:

Sparkling Apple Cocktail
Amuse Bouche of Raw Local Oyster with Pomegranate Mignonette
First course: Sweet Potato Fuji Apple Bisque with Lobster and Maple Butter Drizzle
Salad of Mixed Greens, Apple, Bacon, Cornbread Croutons and Buttermilk-Herb Dressing
Main Course: Turkey Thigh Roulade with Chestnut Stuffing, Irma's Potato Puree, Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Capers, Walnuts, and Anchovies, Cranberry Conserve, Gravy
Dessert: Trio of Tartlettes- Parsnip-Buttermilk Pie, Frangipane Tart with Pears, and Pumpkin-Apple Butter Pie with Cranberry Glaze (those last two recipes are courtesy of the fabulous Bistro Poplar, where we were lucky enough to enjoy a wonderful baking demo a few weeks ago.)

I could not be more excited about this menu! I love that we were able to bring in many traditional flavors while also including our family's favorites (oysters and lobsters-- hey, the pilgrims ate them at the first Thanksgiving!). Plus, I bet there will still be SOME leftovers with which to make the all-important Thanksgiving Sandwich...

So for the next couple days, we hunker down at Blackacre, strap on our Crocs and aprons, and do we what we love-- cook, eat, and spend time with family. I feel especially thankful this year for my health, my wonderful family and friends, for my job and financial stability when so many others are struggling, and for the newest additional to the family, who has already brought us so much joy:

Eddie, our 2 month old Cocker Spaniel

Wishing all of our readers and Happy and Tasty Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Double Double, Toil and Trouble...

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:49:00 +0000

by EP & X

Last weekend, we did something we've wanted to do for a LONG time. No, not rent a Tuscan villa for the summer (fingers crossed though!). No, we hosted a Haunted Halloween Dinner Party! We've been wanting to do a seated dinner for a long time, Halloween-themed or otherwise, but we always struggled with the guest list limitations associated with dinner parties. You see, we're quite popular, and have trouble only selecting 10 or so guests to join us. (Okay, we're really not that popular, but surely between the 2 of us there are more than 10 people we want to feed and pelt with cocktails- and even squeezing 10 people into Xani's dining room was a challenge.) We figured if it went well (and it did!), we could invite a different group the next time, so we wouldn't feel so guilty. Love that Jewish guilt!

As with all of our parties, we love a theme. This year, we were inspired by a Martha Stewart recipe called Cauldron Curry, that referenced the famous "double double, toil and trouble" witches of Macbeth. We decided we would throw a Witch's Dinner! Here's the witchy recap:

Food/Drink:

Before getting to the first of our 3 courses, we welcomed guests with cocktails and a few spooky hors d'oeuvres. In addition to wine and pumpkin ale, we served Dark and Stormy Death Punch, a Food & Wine recipe that called for rum, lime juice, ginger beer, and ice cubes made to look like eyeballs (lychee + maraschino cherry)! Long-time readers might recall from our Mad Men party that we love anything that calls for Ginger Beer (and rum).

We also served a spooky Black Widow Goat Cheese Log, made with goat cheese, cream cheese, and feta. It had great flavor and we couldn't stop noshing on this deadly spider lady.

In addition, we served black bean hummus (a favorite of ours, made with black beans, tahini, olive oil, lemon and lime juice, and a bit of cayenne) and spiced roasted black-eyed peas. While only moderately spooky, they provided lots of protein.

For our first course at our elaborately decorated table (see below for decor discussion), we enjoyed Moldy Morbier Flatbreads: pizza dough shaped like a tombstone, topped with a little dijon mustard, super-caramelized onions, and thinly sliced morbier. We topped the tombstones with "mold" - arugula tossed in a lemon vinaigrette. We picked up the dough from a local pizzeria and then Xani par-baked the "tombstones" the day of the party, and we topped them and baked them during the cocktail hour. They came out beautifully and were totally spook-tacular.

For our second course we served the inspiration for the party: Martha Stewart's Cauldron Curry. The curry was really spectacular, made with a homemade green curry paste, zucchini, spinach, and coconut milk. Instead of chicken, as the recipe called for, we used shrimp, which we cooked ahead of time and tossed in at the end just to heat through, so they wouldn't overcook. We included a couple head-on shrimp as a spooky garnish. We served the curry over black rice (AKA wild sweet rice), an Asian-style sticky rice that is multi-colored when uncooked, but deep purple when cooked. Very spooky and the perfect addition to our curry dish.

Our final course was called "Field Mice and Pumpkin Spice." For this course Xani made tiny, creepy, pain-in-the-ass Chocolate Mice petit fours that were, in essence, cake-pops - the hip new dessert these days. They were delicious and rich, and pretty darn unnerving to have a rodent on your plate. We served them along side a bit of pumpkin spice ice cream from a local ice cream parlor (seriously, best pumpkin ice cream EVER at Beach Bums in Federal Hill (try the oatmeal cookie too)).

Chocolate Mouse Army

The Crow enjoys a mouse covered with whipped cream

After dinner we went outside to sit around the cauldron and drink warmed, spiked cider. And gossip, as witches do.

Costumes:

It would only be appropriate for us to dress as witches for our Witches' Dinner. We didn't want to be ugly hags - what's the fun in that? - or slutty witches - we're a bit too old for that - so we just wore fab dresses, shoes, hair accessories, and crazy make-up. Our favorite part of our outfits were probably our shoes - Xani found this great DIY page about glittering your own shoes - like Dorothy's!! We got green and black glitter and Xani made them sparkle. What a hit they were!

before the glittery heels go on, we rock Crocs

Dave, the Warlock of the Manor, was Voldemort, and he was pretty damn terrifying.

Our guests also had great interpretations on the witch theme:

Darin and Samantha of Bewitched:

Salem Witch and her witch-burning partner:

The Crow (okay, he wasn't a witch but he did ride his motorcycle, with sunglasses on (at night), to the party):

Decor/AV:

Decorating for the party is always a lot of fun and we go all out. We decorated the mantle with bats, candles, spooky driftwood, feathers, birds, and skulls. The dining table looked awesome - it was covered in candles, skulls, pumpkins, leaves, and bat-shaped placecards. Our guests also had a decorated mini pumpkin at each setting, plus a witchy menu.

Yes, that pumpkin is covered in a stocking!

The outside was Dave's area of expertise. He rigged up a bubbling cauldron (filled with dry ice!) over a "fire," a graveyard, and worked his A/V magic so the Halloween tunes played outside as we sipped our cider. I don't know about you, but to us, the "Time Warp" never gets old, no matter how many times Pandora plays it in a night.

And a few more random pictures since we can't resist:

It was quite a success and we're so pleased at how well everything came out. Already looking forward to the next one!

Happy Halloween everyone!

BOO!

EP & X

ps. Here are a few pics from this year's trip to the pumpkin patch and our other costume for a sci-fi themed party: Men in Black.

Agents X and D fueling up at Ledo's Pizza before the party.

This blog post never happened.

Notes on Food (and Drink): Paris Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:56:00 +0000

by EP

**NOTE: I found this never-before-seen Paris post that I abandoned mid-way through, and figured it was still good stuff, so I finished it and am posting it now. A little "Springtime in Paris" in August, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!**

While I was eating my way through Paris, I learned a few things and made a few observations, and tried unsuccessfully to blend and not be a typical "stupid American." I won't say we successfully blended at all, but we did find that making the effort to speak French (at least a little!) went a long way with most people. Rachel speaks French (with an African accent, admittedly) and was able to communicate on our behalf throughout the trip - and I can't thank her enough! (Amusing side note: since I don't speak French, I didn't say much to people unless I knew they spoke some English -- I didn't want to just assume they could or would speak to me in English. This resulted in a few instances of people saying, to Rachel, "Your friend is quiet - is she shy?" HA. If they only knew.)

One of my favorite pictures we took

And now for a run-down of my mostly-food-oriented observations of Parisian eating:

1. Service is slow: This is something we expected, as experienced travelers. The American way of dining is rushed by international standards, and we knew not to expect such an expedited dining experience in Paris. That said, we are impatient Americans, and sometimes it seemed like we were never going to eat! But, this is something we got used to as the trip went on.

Ginormous croque monsieur

2. Having lunch as the "big meal": Rachel and I fell into a particular pattern of dining as our week in Paris progressed: coffee/tea/bread/cheese/fruit at home in the morning, followed by a morning activity (possibly more coffee at a streetside cafe), late lunch (around 1 or 2pm), afternoon activity (possibly involving alcohol at a streetside cafe), back to the house to nap/relax/research the evening's plan, late dinner (around 9pm). Our lunches were usually our largest meal, in part because most cafes had great deals on multi-course lunches (app, main, and dessert for 10-15 euro). Dinners were lighter fare. This structure was great - you had a chance to walk off your large meal throughout the whole day, and you didn't go to sleep with a super-full belly of duck confit and escargots.

Breakfast at "home": bread, jam, fruit, cheese, coffee (and travel guides)

3. We take water for granted: I am accustomed to drinking A LOT of water (I aim for 100 oz a day). I also have replaced most of my soda consumption with club soda (thanks Soda Stream!). At restaurants in the States, we can have as much water as we want, and I've noticed that some places are now able to offer complimentary sparkling water since they have some sort of in-house carbonation system (Soda Stream strikes again). In Paris, this was not the case. Tap water was not automatically refilled, and bubbly water was MORE EXPENSIVE THAN BEER. Madness, I tell you.

4. Menu redundancies: While there were a handful of times we strayed from French cuisine (e.g., the time we went for Spanish tapas in the Bastille, or the time we stopped for kebabs in Montmartre before our macaron-making class, or the time we had falafel in the Marais), we mostly dined at adorable cafes serving casual French fare. And wouldn't you know it - the menus at all these different cafes were virtually identical, offering roast chicken, duck confit, salads with poached eggs on top, croque monsieur/madame, quiche, etc. Now I'm no economist, but how can a business survive when it sells the exact same thing, at pretty much the same level of quality, as every other guy on the block and the next 10 blocks? And, more importantly, how is a diner to choose where to go when they all seem so similar? (#firstworldproblems)

Pate with onion jam

Apple tarte tatin (with creme fraiche)

Kebabs!

Cousins Alexis and Rob enjoy falafel in the Marais

5. Specialty shops: Certainly one of the most charming things about Paris is the abundance of food-related shops, bakeries, epiceries, butchers, etc. I for one love to visit these shops, snoop around, taste bits of meat or cheese, buy a box of macarons or a baguette, or apples for a picnic on the canal (which we actually did). The idea of going from specialty shop to specialty shop to do your grocery shopping, instead of going to the supermarket, makes perfect sense. Go to the source! It made me wish there were more specialty shops, and fewer gigantic supermarkets filled with sub-par produce and meat/fish, in my neighborhood.

On the way home from the bakery...

Amazing bakery in Montmartre

We got a treat!

Just a few of my random observances about eating in Paris. I could really go for a macaron right now...

EP

Birthday Weekend at Blackacre

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:28:00 +0000

by EP

This is going to be one of those old-school, family Sunday dinner posts that our long-time readers remember from back in the day, when the BCD parents lived closer to Baltimore, in sunny Columbia, MD. Technically this meal was on a Saturday -- a requirement when your parents live a 2-hour drive in beach traffic away. We gathered at Blackacre to celebrate something super-important: my birthday!! My actual birthday was at the end of July but this weekend was the first time the 5 of us could get together to celebrate at home. Readers might remember that for birthdays in the BCD family, the birthday girl/boy gets to pick his or her favorite menu (we all know Dad's favorite meal: lobsters), and the whole family works together create a fabulous birthday meal.

Since we butcher and age our own steaks, I thought steak would be a good protein to center the meal around. I also wanted to highlight some seasonal produce and have a nice, summery meal. Over the course of our discussion, the meal became distinctly Argentinian - steak, chimichurri, veggies, mojitos, etc.

Here was the final menu:

Mixed berry mojitos with sugarcane swizzle stick
Shrimp ceviche with avocado
Green salad with Xani's famous vinaigrette and bleu cheese
Aged rib steaks with chimichurri
Vinegar-coarse salt chipotle roasted potatoes
Coconut rice pudding

After Xani and I did a little Blackacre Bootcamp (wherein we run around the backyard and do push ups, crunches, squats, skips, kicks, etc. - hilarious if you're just watching, really hard if you're actually doing it), we got started on the coconut rice pudding. I had requested a dessert that was coconut-based, and we discussed coconut cake, coconut cream pie, and coconut gelato, but in the end we decided on rice pudding. We had never made it before, and it could be made ahead and served cold, so it would be refreshing and light (??) after our big dinner. We found it was pretty straightforward to make: put coconut milk, vanilla bean, arborio rice, sugar, unsweetened shredded coconut into a pot, bring to a slight simmer, stir often until it resembles loose oatmeal. We also made a coconut topping, which was essentially the makings of a macaroon (egg white, coconut, sugar, salt) but in a crumbly form. We set both of these aside and tried not to nibble them throughout the day..."tried" being the key word there.

After hanging by the pool for a bit, recovering from our workout (we were both hobbling around the pool - very sexy), and a round of pre-dinner naps, it was cocktail time! Mom and Dad had picked up a piece of sugarcane from our local Asian grocery store (H Mart), and we thought it'd be fun to incorporate it into that evening's cocktail. Dad cut the cane into long sticks, which he marinated in white rum. Then Xani muddled some raspberries, blackberries, mint, lime, and sugar together, added rum and home-made seltzer (thanks, Soda Stream!), and then we used the sugarcane as swizzle sticks! They were very refreshing, not too sweet, not too strong, and a great way to kick off our awesome meal.

Our first course was the ceviche. The recipe, by Rick Bayless, was a little unusual in that the shrimp were boiled/steamed in water and lime juice before marinating in more lime juice in the fridge, instead of the traditional method of cooking the shrimps in the acid alone. After the shrimps had marinated, we added cucumbers, white onion, hot sauce, ketchup, cilantro, and avocado (double the amount listed the recipe called for...yum) and let that sit for a few more hours. It was really flavorful from the lime, hot sauce, and creamy avocado, and a nice light starter for the gigantic cow that was the star of the next course.

BCD Dad tackled the two 2.5-lb rib steaks that were to become the main course. He seasoned them generously with salt and cracked pepper, then seared them in a screaming-hot cast iron skillet on both sides, then finished them in the oven. There was some curfuffle (sp?) regarding their doneness, as we are fully dedicated to using the instant-read thermometer to tell us the internal temperature (and therefore doneness) of our meats, and we were concerned when it told us that the smaller of the two steaks was overcooked. But alas, when the platter o' meat arrived at the table (we dined family style, instead of plating each course, for once), every piece was perfectly cooked! Not sure how he did it, but I was happy.

We served the steak with the traditional Argentinian condiment: chimichurri. It was a garlicky, herby, vinegary concoction that went wonderfully with the meaty (and fatty) steak.

Finally, we made these very interesting-sounding potatoes that BCD Mom had seen Ingrid Hoffmann make on the Food Network. Cubes of potatoes are tossed in red wine vinegar, spices, and chipotle peppers, and spread in a single layer on a baking tray. The pots are then drizzled with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper, and baked for 40 minutes. Then slices of red onion are added and the whole thing is baked for another half hour or so. The result? Spicy, salty, crunchy potatoes, punctuated by the occasional sweet treat of the red onion. Divine. I think the trick here is leaving these guys alone - they get crunchy on the outside, and stay soft and tender on the inside. My only regret is not spraying the trays with non-stick spray - a few crunchy bits had to be sacrificed on the altar of aluminum foil.

In addition to the steak and potatoes, we had a green salad with Xani's amazing vinaigrette and some bleu cheese crumbles. She used shallot, mustard, and fresh oregano as her seasonings of the day. Check out this post for her full salad tutorial.

Finally, it was time for dessert (no pics, unfortunately - we were too excited to eat it, I guess!). We had let the rice pudding cool in the fridge for the last few hours, and only nibbled it a tiny bit during the day (c'mon, it's irresistable!). The pudding was creamy and thick, and the crunchy coconut on top was a great contrast in texture. Interestingly, with the exception of the egg white in the topping, this dessert was completely vegan - WEIRD. But so delicious! This is a great dish for any coconut lover (as I am), or any vegan, or any coconut-loving vegan, for that matter. It was such a success that we are thinking of trying out all kinds of rice pudding methods and flavorings...as our visits to Rice to Riches in NYC have shown us, the possibilities are endless!

I know we seem to say this all the time, but honestly this meal wasn't even that hard to put together. I guess when you get a lot of experienced cooks who are neurotic about time management in the kitchen together, it turns out alright!

It was a great birthday - thanks to everyone who made it special, especially my loving family! Here's to another year of great eats :)

Cheers,
EP

"Master" Recipes

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:26:00 +0000

by Xani

The other day I embraced an empty house, some free time, and an abundance of summer produce. I cooked, cooked, and cooked some more, and loved every minute of it. Later, while reflecting on all I made that day, I realized that all my creations were essentially building blocks, which could be combined with each other and other staples to create hundreds, maybe thousands of dishes. For me, this was something of a revelation, and I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before. When you prepare one ingredient or element for a particular recipe, be it a sauce, filling, cooked starch, whatever, there is no rule that says that all of that element must be used for just that recipe! Why not make double the "element" and use the rest for some entirely different preparation? Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Wait, maybe it doesn't. Let me show by example:

Breakfast:

On this particular day, I had eggs for breakfast. Eggs might be the most perfect "master recipe" in themselves because they can be prepared in innumerable ways, and combined with so many different ingredients. Normally, I'm an omelet or scramble kind of girl. Maybe you'll find me eating one fried, or even poached, if I'm feeling fancy. On this day, I rooted through the fridge and found some sun-dried tomatoes, soft goat cheese, and fresh basil from the farmers market (sadly our basil, along with all the other herbs in the garden, gave up and died somewhere around the second or third 100+ degree day here in Baltimore. RIP). I started out intending to make an omelet, but ended up with a scramble because I don't have a proper omelet pan (hint, hint... I want this one if someone else is buying!), and I was using a crepe pan and lets face it, a messed-up omelet tastes just as good if you call it a scramble.

Anyway, my point is that an omelet/scramble is an ideal master recipe because you can put almost anything in there. Leftovers, or extra of whatever "element" you prepared for some other dish, make great fillings- bits of meat, vegetables, even leftover rice or pasta will be great in there (Dave once made me an omelet filled with leftover mac and cheese that was a triumph!). You can do a Mexican-inspired one (beans, cheese, salsa), French (caramelized onions and Gruyere), Indian (have we ever blogged about BCD Dad's amazing curried vegetable omelet filling? It is to die for!), etc, etc. And if you eat eggs almost every day, you begin to realize how comforting it is to have a recipe/technique that 1) is quick and very easy, 2) can be varied in infinite ways, so you never get bored, and 3) can easily utilize leftovers or anything else that happens to be in your fridge. It's a tiny miracle!

Lunch:

Around lunchtime I started throwing together two other Master recipes. One, if I'm using its proper name, is a "Mothership" recipe. Jamie Oliver's tomato salad is basic, but that's the point. You take perfectly ripe, preferably heirloom, tomatoes of all shapes and sizes, cut them up, salt and drain them, and combine with a little olive oil, vinegar, garlic, herbs and chili. And then what? WHATEVER YOU WANT. There is seriously so much you can do with this. On his "Tomato" episode of Jamie at Home, he uses it several ways: as is, with huge hunk of fresh mozzarella on the side, for an amazing summer salad; chopped up with additional herbs for a salsa to serve on chicken or fish; and tossed with just-cooked pasta for a super-quick meal. But, there's even more you could do with this basic recipe: put it on toasted, thick bread slices as bruschetta, or puree it all up for a cold tomato soup, and then maybe strain it for more of a tomato consomme (he also prepares something like this in the Tomatoes episode). Top a pizza or flatbread. Maybe slow-roast the tomatoes and see what becomes of them? I guess the trick of using a master recipe is being willing to get experimental and see what happens. There's no rules! And that can be scary...

For my next Master recipe, I tackled roasted vegetables. Now, this is not brain surgery. It's the height of summer so I used zucchini, eggplant, peppers (green, red, jalapeno-- basically everything I had in the fridge), scallions, onions, and garlic. Cut up everything into about the same size pieces, maybe a square inch or so, but you certainly don't have to measure. Let's call it "bite-sized." Toss everything with a good dose of olive oil, lots of salt and pepper, and throw on whatever herbs and spices suit your fancy-- here I used thyme. Now spread onto a big sheet tray-- make sure you only have a single layer of vegetables, use two trays if you have to-- and put everything in a pre-heated 425 degree oven. Roast, stirring occasionally, until everything is soft, and there are brown caramelized bits on some of your vegetables (it will probably take less than an hour, depending on what veggies you are using and how much). And that's it! Your roasted veggie Master recipe is complete. So now what?

For starters, you can eat it plain, warm, room temperature or cold, as a super-easy lunch or side dish to a protein (steak? grilled fish? sure!). Maybe jazz it up with some feta cheese or a poached egg. Or, put it in an omelet! Puree it with broth to make a soup (hot or cold). Stir it into risotto. Use it as a filling for quiche, a pizza topping, or panini filling. Mix it with a little ricotta and use it as a filling for calzone or in lasagna. Mix it with cheddar and fry it up in a quesadilla. Or mix with cooked and cooled quinoa, bulgur, brown rice, or your favorite grain, add a little vinaigrette, and eat as a salad. That's about a dozen options right there and I just made those up right now! Think of all the other ideas I could come up with if I didn't have a job!

Another note on the roasted veg master recipe-- this is not limited to summer veggies. Oh no. This would be equally as good, and have just as many applications, if you made it with fall/winter veg: butternut squash, carrots, turnips, rutabaga, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, etc. If you are wondering whether a vegetable can be roasted, just Google "roasted ______." Chances are someone else has already tried to roast it, and you can learn from their success or failure. The only "rules" for this dish are: keep pieces about the same size, so they will cook evenly, use a hot oven, use olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. I would also highly recommend using onion and/or garlic (because I love these things more than I can say) and herbs (because, why not? You can always use that dried crap that's taking up room in your cabinet. It won't be as good as using fresh, but it won't hurt).

So what did I ACTUALLY do with these recipes? For starters, I made pasta sauce for dinner using both the tomatoes and the veggies. I mushed up (that's a technical term) a cup or two of the tomato salad with my hands to make sure all the pieces were a manageable size, then added that mush to some onions I was gently sauteing in olive oil. Then I added more garlic, a pinch more oregano, some red pepper flakes. Cooked that for a while until some of the excess liquid had evaporated. Then, I added a cup or so of the roasted veggies. Stirred everything together, let it "marry" in the pot for about 10 minutes while the pasta cooked, then added the drained pasta to the sauce. Topped with some shaved Parmesan and chopped fresh basil, I'd call that a helluva dinner!

Later in the week I used some of the tomato salad to make one of my rapidly-becoming-famous "quinoa confetti salads," and ate the roasted veggies in, yes, a scramble, with feta.

But the day wasn't done and I wanted a sweet treat. The next master recipe is more like a master ingredient: phyllo dough. I cannot express how ridiculously versatile this is. You can buy it at any grocery store, keep it in the freezer for eternity, and defrost it in your fridge and keep it there for a couple weeks in a totally-ready-to-use state. I think people are afraid of phyllo because its translucent and fragile, and TV cooks always walk about "working quickly" and "covering with a damp towel to prevent drying out." Really, it's not that temperamental, and can be very forgiving, as I will discuss. The basic master recipe here is phyllo triangles or turnovers. I'm going to discuss sweet applications, but you can and should also fill them with any type of savory filling (including the roasted veg above, maybe mixed with a little ricotta or mascarpone?? See, I just made that up!).

The real trick to phyllo is the layering. You need about 4 layers to create these turnovers. Between each layer you need a thin coating of fat. For a sweet preparation, you are probably going to want to use butter, although I bet coconut oil would also work. Either way you want to have your fat melted and have a brush to apply it (that said, in savory preparations, I sometimes use olive oil. I have this gadget which allows you to coat the layers lightly and evenly).

So, you break out your phyllo, and start layering. Lay one sheet down on your work surface. Brush this layer with the fat. Lay another sheet down directly on top of the first. Brush with fat. Repeat. Don't worry if you have tears or holes in a sheet-- just make sure your NEXT layer covers them up. After 4 or 5 layers, you should have a good, solid sheet going. Cut the sheet longways so you have two long strips. Now, put about a half tablespoon of filling on one of the short ends of the dough. What filling you ask? Well, this is a MASTER recipe, so use what you've got! Personally, I used Nutella, which was awesome. You could also use jam or fruit butter, fruit curd, peanut or other nut butters, bits of fresh or dried fruit, or nuts, mixed with jam or mascarpone... let your imagination run wild! Yes, there is a chance that your filling could turn out too wet, and leak all over the place, which would kindof suck. But, you clean up, and move on, and next time, you try something else. Kindof like LIFE.

Ahem, anyhow, back to the recipe. Starting at the filling-topped end, begin folding each dough strip, corner to corner, like you were folding a flag. If you want, you can continue brushing melted butter (or whatever) on each layer of the fold. When you get to the end, fold under any excess dough and you should be left with a neat triangle. Brush the top with butter and sprinkle with a bit of sugar. Place on a tray, into a pre-heated 400 degree oven (or, if you are me, the toaster oven) and bake for about 15 mins until the dough is a nice golden brown. By then, your filling should be warm (and gooey, if you are using Nutella). Eat immediately, and celebrate your creativity-- you have embraced the Master Recipe!

Lately I've been trying to rely more on my cooking instincts instead of following recipes, and I think that's why the Master recipe idea is so compelling. You make one good thing, and you can turn it into dozens of other good things. It's so freeing to be able to trust your instincts and realize you don't have to keep running back to that cookbook or the computer screen to check whether it was a teaspoon or a teaspoon and a HALF of whatever-- just trust your instincts, be zen, and let it happen. (NOTE: Does not apply to baking!)

So what about you, do you have a Master Recipe you like to make? What do you do with it? Please share in the comments!

X

And Now for Something Completely Different

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:57:00 +0000

by Xani

Long-time readers of this blog might have picked up on a theme-- EP and I are all about TASTE. Sure, we "eat with our eyes" first, and food can be elevated by gorgeous presentation, but in the end, if it don't taste good, I ain't eating it. I'd rather have a piece of delicious homemade pie, even if it is lopsided and falling-apart, than a picture-perfect pie from the bakery that just tastes blah. So that's pretty much my rule with food: flavor over form. But, there are exceptions to every rule, and these cupcakes broke all the rules!

I volunteered to make the cupcakes for a very special little girl's 9th birthday party this past weekend. This little girl, G, just ADORES doggies and kitties-- so much so that her party was held at the Maryland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. G and her friends got to tour the shelter facilities, learn all about animal adoption, make dog/cat toys for the animals, and even meet some sweet dogs and cats waiting to find their forever homes.

You know I love a theme, so of course I had to make doggy/kitty themed cupcakes! I found this great tutorial, stocked up on candy, and invited EP over to help me create these cute confections!

Earlier in the day I baked up two dozen plain yellow cupcakes-- they were fine, not particularly remarkable, but the real magic was coming later. I had also made the executive decision to use store-bought icing for the cupcakes. I call this a case of "know your audience"-- pretty sure nine year old kids wouldn't even LIKE my homemade swiss meringue buttercream; they'd prefer some Duncan Hines from a can any day. And who am I to deprive them of that?? Plus, I was worried if I made my own icing it wouldn't have the same properties as store-bought (which is recommended in the technique) and the cupcakes wouldn't come together properly. Finally, buying store-bought meant I didn't have to stress over making my own. Decision=made.

Onto assembly! After carefully reviewing the instructions, we decided to make three varieties of cupcakes: Westies and Beagles, directly from the website instructions, and kitties, which we basically made up, using a variety of techniques from the dog cupcakes, and other ideas from the internet and our own noggins.

Fast forward a few hours, and voila!

Westies galore

Woof!

A whole tower of cute cupcakes!

In summary: HOW FREAKING CUTE ARE THESE?? I die from their cute-ness. Every time I put on a nose or dabbed the icing onto the eyes to create that "twinkle" I involuntary giggled and/or said "awww" aloud. Now, were these the most delicious things I've ever made? In a word, no. The cupcakes were fine-- probably better than if I had used a store-bought mix but definitely nowhere near the flavor, texture, and moistness of some great cupcakes I've had over the years. The store-bought icing and candy toppings (the features were made of Starbursts, Tootsie Rolls, marshmallows, Junior Mints, and Almond Joy pieces) made for a great look but are definitely not my favorite kind of sweet treat.

But these weren't for me, they were for G and her friends, and they LOVED them! Everyone oohed and aahed over the cute faces. Some deemed them "too cute to eat," but managed anyhow. It was great watching the kids carefully disassemble the faces, eating them piece by piece, or re-creating the faces on their cake plates. So, who cares if these were more about look than taste-- the important thing is they added and extra-special touch to an already special birthday. I'm already looking forward to next year, when I'll probably be making cupcakes with Justin Beiber's face made out of Skittles. Stay tuned!

Don't forget to spay and neuter your pets, folks!

X

Home-Cookin'

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:05:00 +0000

by Xani

From July 1-July 28 2011, I conducted a little experiment. I challenged myself not to eat any meals or snacks that I didn't cook myself. No meals out. No prepared foods. No grabbing a snack from the vending machine. No purchasing food or beverages except in "ingredient form" from the grocery store or farmers market, unless absolutely necessary (more on that below). This whole plan was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to seeing the credit card bill after I got back my my late-June trip to California, but I also thought it would be interesting to see if I could stick to the rules I created for myself (right up until we went to NYC for the last weekend in July, where we ate EVERY meal/snack out!).

During the experiment, I home-cooked every meal, snack, and beverage (including soda), EXCEPT:
-Three mandatory work lunches where bringing my own food was not an option,
-One lunch out when I was "on the road" all day running errands,
-One delicious (and comped) press dinner at Chazz,
-One birthday lunch for EP, paid for by our lovely Mother,
-One Dunkin' Donuts coffee, purchased for my by my boyfriend (believe me, it was absolutely necessary), and
-One dinner of boyfriend's leftover buffalo wings, which I had to eat in bed since the entire first floor of our house was under construction (also absolutely necessary, as cooking was not an option).

And that's it! When you consider I generally eat three meals a day plus a snack or two, that means I cooked/prepared about 100 meals/snacks, and only "cheated" the above 8 times. Not bad!

Turns out, when you can't go out for any meals, your other option is cooking. A lot. But that was fine with me. I ended up making some really yummy food this past month. The local produce is great this time of year and I found myself going to markets Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays some weeks. But the fresh ingredients really make a difference. Here are some of the highlights from this month:

Peach & Goat Cheese Gazpacho: Barely adapted from this F&W recipe. This was a MAJOR hit and I will definitely be making it again before summer (and peaches) is gone. A little sweet, a little tangy, cool and creamy. Yum.

Greek Zucchini Fritters with Feta: Another great use of summer produce. The texture reminded me of a crabcake, but the flavor was nice and fresh with the feta and dill. Served with a little homemade tzatiki on the side.

Ratatouille: a summer classic. Ate this for SEVERAL meals.

Phyllo pizza: Another big hit. We liked it so much we made it again a few nights later (with the remaining phyllo dough) with some different toppings. But summer tomatoes and fresh basil are a classic combo, of course.

Quinoa salad: Made this in a few different iterations throughout the month. Cooked, cooled quinoa (super-easy in the rice cooker), random veggies, herbs and legumes (looks like this one has edamame, radishes, red bell pepper, black beans, tomatoes, parsley) and dressing. Sometimes I like to "match" the dressing to the ingredients (chipotle and lime in the dressing, with black beans, cilantro and avocado in the salad, etc) but most of the time I just used my standard vinaigrette, flavored with lemon juice. Tastes even better if you let it sit overnight.

PIES!! So, this is a little off-point but I was super-excited to get the opportunity to make the pies for my dear friend Kim's birthday BBQ (actually, a grilled-pizza and bloody mary brunch, but when the grill is fired up and cornhole is being played, it's officially a BBQ). I got some great tips from my blogger friend Sarah and ended up making a peach-blueberry pie with pecan crumble topping, as well as a sour-cherry with almond lattice crust. They were SO. GOOD. I got all the produce from the farmers market and the flavors were just incredible. Not to mention my tender, delicious crust that never fails me.

So, using mint.com (great program for tracking spending, BTW) I can see that, even with my increased grocery/farmers market costs, I still spent over $200 less on food and alcohol than I would in a normal month-- not bad!

Overall I'm happy with my experiment, and I think I've learned a few lessons about how to make dinner happen when I don't feel like looking-- going out is not the only option!

What did you cook in July?

X

Celebrity Karma Strikes Again

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:48:00 +0000

by EP

Xani and I haven't had the best of luck in our quest to meet celebrities. Sure, we've hung out with Michael Midgley of Top Chef fame, and we saw Dennis Quaid at In N Out Burger in LA. We also spied a handful of celebs when we were in NYC for Xani's birthday in February (ahem, Sandra Oh and Michael Imperioli -- not together), but for the most part, we repel celebrities, instead of attracting them. Don't they know we're up and coming celebs ourselves?!

We thought, when we went to try Chazz: A Bronx Original, a new Italian-American restaurant in Harbor East, that our luck just might be turning around -- after all, one of the owners is Oscar-nominated Chazz Palminteri!

We arrived in the welcoming space on Aliceanna St., and unfortunately, our bad luck had struck again. No Chazz (except in photos and movies playing on screens around the restaurant). But, in place of producing a famous person, the friendly staff at Chazz provided us with a fantastic evening.

The space of Chazz is really cool, thoughtfully designed, and quite expansive. The entrance is decorated with subway tile to emulate a famous Bronx subway station. There's a formal dining room (where we ate); a "pizza altar," where patrons can sit at a bar setting and watch the experts make the Bronx-style pizza; a large U-shaped bar; an antipasti/salumi station; and a main dining room, decorated with murals of Bronx scenes from Chazz's childhood. Sounds kind of cheesy but it's actually very well done. In the corner of the main dining room is a plush round booth: this is Chazz's table. This is where he sits when he's in town. And when he's not in town? You can reserve it!

Now, onto the food: we started with two really lovely and refreshing cocktails -- a must-have after a 90+ degree day.

I ordered a peach-strawberry Bellini, and Xani ordered the Al Fresco, with strawberries and basil and some other booze we can't remember. Both were excellent.

Then we started reviewing the menu. A note about the menu: it's not quite finalized yet, so many of the items on the printed menu were not actually available; available items were printed in red font...sometimes. Our waitress tried to clarify which things were and were not on the menu for the evening, but it was a little confusing. Hopefully they will finalize the menu (and keep some of our favorites on it permanently!) soon so diners will know the whole story up front and so they can post it on the website for diners' pre-arrival menu perusal/drooling (what? you don't do that before you go to a restaurant?).

Anyway, we started with a handful of appetizers/smaller plates before getting into the pizza and pasta. We started with the burrata with roasted red peppers, which was absolutely wonderful.

The cheese was soft and drizzled with olive oil and salt and pepper, and the marinated roasted peppers were so fresh and flavorful. We could have made a meal of this dish alone (but only if they brought us more crostini - there were only 3 little crackers for all that cheese!).

We also ordered the baccalao, a whipped salt cod with crispy capers, atop a few crostini and two squares of hot polenta.

This dish was good but not our favorite - the fish was pretty fishy and again, not a lot of crostini given the portion of the fish. Surprisingly, the best part was the polenta - I would have liked a whole bowlful.

While not that exciting, one of our favorite dishes was the salad: arugula, pickled red onions, big shards of parmesan cheese, lightly tossed with a great vinaigrette. An example that simple can be perfectly delicious.

The best appetizer-portion dish, however, was the veal meatball.

It was perfectly cooked, lovely texture, and really tasted of veal and not of some non-descript meat. The lacrosse ball-sized meatball was covered with melted mozzarella cheese and swimming in a fantastic tomato sauce. Again, we could have eaten a whole dinner of these guys!

Then it was time for the mains: we ordered a pizza and a pasta. The pizza menu had about 8-10 pies listed, but only 4 were available (the clam one we were eyeing was unavailable but hopefully will make the final cut!). We went for the pepperoni. We were excited to try what's been billed as "Bronx-style pizza," and when the pizza came out fresh from their coal-fired oven, we knew we wouldn't be disappointed.

The pizza had a thin crust with a fluffy outer edge, not too crispy like a neopolitan-style cracker pizza. It was a great pepperoni pizza, one of the best in the city for sure. It was a hearty portion of a pie - a meal of a salad and a pizza would definitely be sufficient for 2 people.

Then we got our pasta dish (carbs, anyone??). We ordered Spaghettoni all'Amatriciana, spaghettoni (thicker than spaghetti) in a spicy tomato sauce with guanciale. This dish is a BCD family favorite that we often make at home (sometimes using pancetta or good old american bacon), so we have admittedly high standards for this dish. That said, we were very excited to try the Chazz version of one of our faves. The pasta arrived steaming and smelling great.

The pasta was cooked to a perfect al dente, and the sauce had great, spicy flavor. Our only complaint is that it wasn't that bacon-y (a complaint we often make in life, generally speaking). The pork flavor was so subtle, it might have been a spicy tomato sauce if you didn't know it was Amatriciana. That said, it was a great bowl of pasta and we look forward to trying the rest of the pasta offerings -- and soon.

After all those dishes, we still found room for dessert. A triumph, indeed. Our waitress recommended we try the "Coffee and Donuts," which we obviously had to get. It was a small cup of excellent espresso gelato, paired with a hearty serving of little chocolate donuts.

In addition, we ordered the Lemon Honey Ricotta Cheesecake, with a shortbread crust and blueberries. The cheesecake was really fantastic - light and fluffy texture from the ricotta, nice lemon and blueberry flavors (a great combo), and a buttery, not-too-thick shortbread crust. We also ordered espressos with dessert - a great digestif after all that amazing food!

So, in short, in case you've scrolled through this whole post just looking at pictures, here's the message I want to convey: Go to Chazz! They have great food, a lovely and lively atmosphere, and good service. This place was packed on a Wednesday night so clearly the word is out. We've already made our next reservation, and this time, we're going to try to sit at Chazz's table -- perhaps even if he is in town, he'll join us? That'd really boost our celeb-sighting stats!!

Buon appetito -
EP

When is a Recipe YOURS?

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:11:00 +0000

by Xani

As some of you may know, EP and I are lawyers. So are our parents, and so is Dave, my boyfriend. I mention this as background/explanation for why, on Sunday night, after many, many cocktails, and many, many pounds of lobster, the five of us were discussing not family memories, not the fate of the O's season, but copyright infringement and the intricacies of changing, using, re-printing, and selling a recipe.

This is normal for us. In fact, Dad recently purchased this little torture device so that, when we run out of our own hypothetical questions, we now have literally thousands of legal quandaries at our fingertips. Joy. But this past Sunday we were discussing a real-world scenario involving pie.

You see, we had just finished an amazing, belated Father's Day dinner. We drank champagne, slurped uni shooters (not for the faint of heart, as they included uni, ponzu, tobiko, sake, hot sauce, and a raw quail egg yolk), ate the season's first green tomatoes, pan-fried with remoulade sauce, then tucked into 12.5 pounds of lobster and my best-ever batch of onion rings. And then, it was time for pie.

Earlier in the day EP and I had set to work creating this dessert. We knew we wanted to make strawberry-rhubarb pie, and we were inspired by a fantastic version we had at Woodberry Kitchen a few weeks ago, which featured a crumble topping. I had already researched recipes, finding that my beloved smitten kitchen had an intriguing filling recipe that promised to solve the runniness-problem that often plagues a SR pie, but, it featured a double crust. An epicurious recipe had the crumble topping I was looking for, but required the bottom crust be blind-baked and the filling cooked on the stove top, steps I really didn't want to mess with. And, of course, I already have a pie crust recipe I love, so I knew I wouldn't be using either of these recipes' crusts, I'd be going with Ruhlman. So, we essentially decided to wing it, picking our favorite aspects from these various recipes and stitching them together as best we could. Did we make a new recipe, or what?

In the end, what we made, was a damn good pie. Possibly one of the best I have ever made, and it was an amalgamation of three recipes/techniques, and our own guesswork/instincts. Is it different enough from the "inspiration" recipes to be a whole new entity which I could copyright, publish and sell? What is the threshold for changing a recipe and making it your own? If I use 1/8 teaspoon less salt in a recipe than called for,and make no other changes, have I changed the recipe enough to call it "different"? Is it enough to say this recipe was "inspired" by other authors and give them credit in this way?

All good questions, but coming up with the answers is harder. I probably should have taken Intellectual Property law!

The good news is there are no immediate plans to copyright or sell this recipe, or any other that we've created/adapted over the years. So, it is with pride and a strong hope that no one tries to sue me, that I present to you X & EPs Rhumbleberry Pie, inspired by Deb of smitten kitchen, Michael Ruhlman, and a Bon Appetit recipe from 1989, as re-published by epicurious.com.

Final result, if you are lucky!

Rhumbleberry Pie

Crust:
10 oz flour (about 2 cups)
1 cup fine almond meal
10 oz cold butter, cut into small pieces
2 Tbsp sugar
large pinch of salt
1 large egg
splash of vanilla
5oz ice water (or as needed)

Filling:
3 1/2 cups (about 1 1/2 pounds, untrimmed) rhubarb, in 1/2-inch thick slices
3 1/2 cups (about 1 pound) strawberries, hulled and sliced if big, halved if tiny
1/2 cup granulated sugar (you can use even less if your berries are very sweet)
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup quick-cooking tapioca

Topping:

2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons rolled oats
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup firmly packed golden brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

For crust:
Combine the flour, almond meal, sugar, salt and butter and cut or work the butter into the flour till the butter is in pea-sized chunks. Add the egg and vanilla and mix gently. Add ice water bit by bit until the dough has just come together (you will probably not need very much). Do not overwork the dough! Shape it into a disc and refrigerate at least 20 mins, or up to a day.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll the dough out until it's about 3/16th of an inch thick. Transfer to a 10 inch, 2 inch deep pie-plate (I used this fluted one with removable bottom). Press off the excess dough. Chill the pie plate and dough for at least 20 mins.

For topping:

Combine 2/3 cup oats, flour, sugar, and cinnamon in processor. Add butter and cut in until crumbly. Transfer mixture to medium bowl. Stir in remaining 2 tablespoons oats.

For filling:

Stir together rhubarb, strawberries, sugars, lemon, salt and tapioca in a large bowl. Spread filling into prepared, chilled pie crust. Place pie plate on a wire rack on a baking sheet. Loosely cover with aluminum foil and bake for 25 minutes, or until fruit is just beginning to soften.

After 25 minutes, cover par-baked pie with crumble topping. (For larger chunks of crumble, squeeze mixture in your hands to form large chunks, then place on pie. This recipe creates plenty of crumble, but it will all fit on the pie if you really pile it up!). Return pie to oven, bake for another 20-25 mins until pie is bubbly and topping is deep golden-brown. Remove from oven, let cool on a rack for several hours. Juices will gel once pie is cool. Slice and serve at room temperature.

And there it is! A delicious summer dessert with flaky crust, sweet-tangy filling of the perfect consistency, and sweet, crumbly topping.

Cheers!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Fourth! What did you eat??

Adventures in Baking: Bagels and Buttercream

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Thu, 26 May 2011 14:48:00 +0000

by EP & X

Recently, we had the opportunity to attempt some challenging baking techniques, and whaddya know? They turned out alright! I think it was the combination of luck, some skill, and way too much time watching cooking shows/reading food blogs.

Experiment One: The Cake

After EP learned to make macarons in Paris, we wanted to try our hand at them at home in the US of A. Unfortunately, the day we wanted to make them, it was really humid outside (not good for the delicate, high-maintenance macarons) and we had a few things come up so we didn't have hours and hours to spend.

So we were left with lots of egg whites and lots of egg yolks, which we had separated in preparation for the macarons. Xani did some research and decided we should make a cake. A fancy cake, with layers and filling and frosting! We ended up making a yellow layer cake with a blood orange curd filling, a swiss meringue buttercream frosting, and candied lemon garnish.

Xani made the curd in advance with all the egg yolks (the blood oranges were not very bloody, and the curd was supplemented with lemon juice, so I guess its more of a citrus curd). Then we got together and attempted the yellow cake recipe in that month's Real Simple. While the cakes baked, we tried our hand at the Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMB) frosting. Xani found this article, which did an amazing job of explaining the three types of meringue buttercreams (French, Swiss, and Italian) and provided a step-by-step guide for how to make the SMB (also, we want to make EVERY cake on that website, especially this one). The SMB came out beautifully and it was delicious. Needless to say, we had our fair share of "tastes" -- you know, to make sure it wasn't poison.

Then it was time to assemble. We evened out the cakes as best as we could (harder than it looks, folks!), layered on the orange curd, topped the cake with the other half, and then started frosting (ditto!).

leveling

spreading

a bit lopsided, but still tasty

lotsa frosting! the parchment paper scraps are removed after frosting,
and with them, any frosting smears on your cake stand!

smooth

done!

We topped the cake with candied lemon peel (another recommendation from Real Simple), which made for a lovely presentation. The cake was so delicious - great rich cake, bright citrus-y filling, and thick creamy frosting. OMG good.

Lesson learned: something with that much butter in every component is better when it's served at room temperature!

Experiment Two: The Bagels

For Mother's Day, we rarely go out for brunch and usually make dinner or brunch at home (see our very first blog post!). This year, we attempted homemade bagels. The recipe on Michael Ruhlman's blog made it sound so easy, we had to give it a try!

We made the starter the night before, and then started the dough the next morning, a few hours before we were set to eat brunch. We mixed the dough and let it rest.

The starter plus molasses (instead of malt syrup)

Flour mixed in and spilling everywhere, also, possibly killing the KitchenAid, which began to smoke with the effort of kneading the stiff dough.

Then we shaped the dough into 4 oz balls and let those rest. Man, these bagels are so lazy, always having to stop and rest.

4 oz dough blobs, resting before the next phase

Then it was time to shape the bagels! We flattened out the balls of dough and then developed a "method" of getting the hole in the bagel...

Punch a hole with your thumb...

And TWIRL!!

Ready to rest and then be boiled

Then we boiled them in water (with baking soda)...

Everybody in the tub

And then we topped them with an egg wash and a topping (sesame, poppy, salt, everything), and baked them until golden brown.

Post-boiling and topping, pre-baking

Finished product! Looks like a real bagel!

The result, after all that work? They were chewy and pretty good, but not the best. We realized at the end that we should have baked them longer -- we left the last batch in the oven for almost twice the time the recipe said, and those were the best ones. By then, we were basically done our brunch of bagels + lox + homemade scallion cream cheese. Lesson learned for next time! Or maybe we'll just pick up a dozen at H&H the next time we go up to NYC...

Happy baking,
EP & X

Nuts for Coconut (Oil)

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Wed, 04 May 2011 13:06:00 +0000

by Xani

Wait, don't run away! Does the phrase "coconut oil" have you heading for the hills? It's got a bad rap. If you're a regular reader of THIS blog, you've stuck with us through pork fat, chicken fat, butter and cream galore, so don't let a little coconut oil scare you off...

I recently read this article in the NY Times which inspired me to pick up a jar of coconut oil at Whole Foods. Like many of you, I had previously associated coconut oil with high calories, trans fats, and the whole movie-theater-popcorn-popped-with-coconut-oil-is-worse-for-you-than-six-Big-Macs scandal of the 1990s. But, as the article states, many scientist are now backtracking and re-evaluating coconut oil, now focusing on virgin, expeller-pressed coconut oil, instead of the hydrogenated stuff that they used to pop that movie theater popcorn.

Turns out virgin coconut oil, while it does contain some saturated fat, contains none of the trans fats of the hydrogenated kind, and:
"The main saturated fat in coconut oil is lauric acid, a medium chain fatty acid. Lauric acid increases levels of good HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, and bad LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, in the blood, but is not thought to negatively affect the overall ratio of the two."

So, maybe it isn't so bad for us, after all. Certainly, a small amount seems safe. So, I've been experimenting with this new product. First, I put about a teaspoon in my breakfast: Bob's Red Mill 8-Grain Hot Cereal. Now, this cereal is another product I could go on and on about! I've literally eaten it almost every morning for the past couple months. I affectionately refer to is as "gruel," but its actually a delicious and filling breakfast. I normally eat it with a splash of almond milk and a tablespoon of jam or preserves (or, if you need a chocolate fix, a bit of Nutella- beats Cocoa Puffs any day!). On a recent morning I swapped out the milk for the coconut oil and OMG, it was like a completely different meal. That little teaspoon of oil made my gruel rich and almost buttery, with a faint hint of coconut flavor. Fantastic. I'll be doing that again, soon. (No pictures of the cereal; as hard as I try I cannot take a decent picture of gruel.)

The next thing I tried was popcorn. In addition to a mention at the end of the Times article, I'd read a few things online that said popcorn popped in virgin coconut oil was pretty damn good. We eat popcorn at home as a healthy snack, or sometime even for dinner if we're just too tired to cook. A while back a friend stared at me in disbelief when I suggested popcorn was healthy! I sent her a few links such as this one which explains that popcorn is a whole grain, contains fiber, and is low in calories. Also, it's delicious, fun to eat, and makes you feel full longer (if you're into that). Previously we had made popcorn at home with peanut oil or ghee. The other night Dave popped a LARGE serving of popcorn in about 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (simply popped on the stovetop in a large pot).... and it was fantastic! He added no butter or other flavor except a bit of salt. The popcorn had a wonderful taste but did NOT taste coconut-y at all, just tasted like really great popcorn. Also, left no grease on your fingers (another negative side effect of adding butter at the end). We will definitely be popping it in this method again.

One final test-- baking. Coconut oil is being used in a number of baked goods (especially at vegan bakeries and the like) as a substitute for butter or lard. The Times article included a link to a poundcake recipe, and after a weekend of not cooking (I was too busy being in Boston and eating a whole pig) I was anxious to putter around the kitchen and decided to try the recipe.

Sugared Almonds

Lime zest and coconut oil- don't you just want to rub it all over your body??

This is a fairly straightforward poundcake recipe, except you use melted, cooled coconut oil instead of butter (also add a little lime zest to the batter, and top with sugary sliced almonds, yum). It was simple to put together, and aside from a slight issue with the size of my baking pan (apparently IKEA using the metric system or some damn thing b/c all bakeware from there is just slightly off) which caused a bit of overflow, it baked up perfectly.

Ta-Da!

So there you have it, my first small steps into the world of coconut oil. And so many more things to try! Vegan buttercream frosting, Malaysian stir-fry, and pineapple upside-down cake are next on my list. Not to mention you can use it as a hair and body treatment (just think of all those women from tropical/island cultures with that radiant hair and skin!). I'm almost finished my first jar, and you better believe I'm buying a vat of this stuff next time!

Does anybody out there use coconut oil, or are you all too scared?

Parisian Eats Highlight Reel: Crêpes and Galettes

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 01:53:00 +0000

by EP

Gardens at Versailles

While we were in Paris, we ate. A lot. (And managed to walk most of it off - win!) I won't lie to you, Dear Reader, and say that every morsel of food we ate was spectacular - there were definitely highlights and lowlights. But for the most part, we had some great bites, and I will try not to drool all over my computer as I recount them for you over the next few posts.

First up: Crêpes and Galettes:

Before I went to France, I was not into crêpes. I thought they were just boring pancake wannabes. I felt they were trendy but without having any real merit. Like...Ke$ha, for example. But when I went to Paris, Rachel informed me that having crêpes was on her list, and who am I to deprive a dear friend of a requested foodstuff on vacation? While Rachel and I were in Versailles (with another WU friend, Danielle), after a wonderful tour of the palace and self-guided tour of the expansive gardens, we stopped for lunch at a non-descript crêperie on a darling little street.

We'll be moving in soon...

The restaurant had a deal: 1 galette (buckwheat pancake with savory filling) and 1 crêpe for 10 euro. We thought it was a pretty good deal considering most crêpes or galettes were 6+ euro each. And you know I love a bargain! We all the ordered the combo deal (and booze, of course).

I ordered a galette with mushrooms, gruyere, and an egg, with a pile of greens on top, and a crêpe with apricot jam filling and apricot brandy. The galette was so fantastic, I was almost in shock at how good and comforting it was. Maybe it was the 4 hours of walking we had just done, but this thing really hit the spot.

The thin buckwheat pancake was nicely caramelized with crispy edges, folded to reveal the wonderful fillings. I don't think I need to tell you that cheese + mushrooms + runny egg yolk = amazing. The lightly dressed salad on top was a nice touch, a good way to fill in the corners, as they say.

My apricot crêpe was also really good and again, tasted like comfort food. The sweet crêpe was a little fluffier than the galette, and was folded up differently, as it hid the apricot filling inside. When the waiter brought it over, he poured on the apricot brandy and set it aflame! I couldn't believe that at such a little informal place, we were having a table-side flambé experience.

Hard to tell but it's on fire!

Caramel + apples + crepe = so nom

Of course, we shared and tried each others' crêpes. Danielle ordered one with peaches and apples, and Rachel got one with caramelized apples and caramel (a common combo we saw throughout the trip). I think Rachel's crêpe was the best...as evidenced by our second meal of galettes and crêpes...

A day and a half later, we made our way to the 3rd arrondisement specifically for a meal of galettes and crêpes. I did a lot of restaurant research prior to the trip (no one should be shocked by this), and Dave Lebovitz's blog was a great help. He recommended crêpes at Breizh Cafe, a restaurant serving traditional Brittany-style crêpes, and he was right on the money.

We arrived at Breizh Cafe around lunchtime and were asked if we had a reservation, which we did not. The friendly host told us to come back in about an hour and a half, so we strolled down to a bar on the corner, ordered an espresso (or beer, if you're Rachel) and journaled/read while we watched the fashion statements go by. As Dave L says, "this sparsely-finished restaurant is in the heart of ‘bobo’ (bourgeois bohemians) land, so there’s no shortage of strollers or hipsters hanging out in this part of the Marais..."

Trying, unsuccessfully, to be "bobo" with my journal and espresso

Once it was time, we headed back up the block to Breizh Cafe, and chatted with the host once more while we watched the chef prepare crêpes and galettes in the front of the restaurant (which had a sparse, Japanese feel to the decor, very different). We were seated and ordered beverages while we perused the extensive menu and chalkboard specials (also plentiful).

We took the same approach as before: galettes first, crêpes second, all shared between the 2 of us. I loved that :) The first galette we ordered was one of the specials for Spring and had egg, white asparagus, and duck confit as fillings. The second was off the regular menu and was filled with mushroom, bacon, cream, and gruyere. Both were excellent and perfectly executed, but the one with bacon won in my book. These galettes seemed more upscale than the ones we had 2 days earlier, but I think that was more a result of the ambiance (and price) rather than a reflection of the quality of the food.

Galette with mushrooms, cream, bacon

Galette with egg, white asparagus, duck confit

As for dessert, we ordered one crêpe with pears, dark chocolate, almonds, and vanilla ice cream on top, and the other was filled with caramelized apples and topped with caramel and Chantilly cream (sound familiar?).

Crepe with pears, almonds, vanilla ice cream

The pear crêpe was fabulous -- how can you argue with ice cream in the middle of the day? -- but the apple-caramel-cream crêpe was by far my favorite. Interestingly, on any crêpe, the chef offered the caramel in one of three ways: (1) regular, (2) with ginger, and (3) with buckwheat seeds. We ordered the caramel with buckwheat seeds on a recommendation from the waiter, who said it was one of the chef's signature moves and added a nice crunch to the dish. He was so right -- the contrast in texture to the crêpe, apples, and Chantilly cream , which were all soft/mushy, totally made this dish for me!

See the seeds??

Our only other crêpe experience was a late-night, post-dancing crêpe in the Bastille area. No pics of that one, but it was filled with Nutella and bananas, and it was damn good too. I think this kind of street food-style crêpe is more representative of the genre, but I'm glad we tried all different kinds throughout the trip.

Now that I'm back, I feel conflicted: will I like American crêpes as much as Parisian? Or am I forever spoiled such that no domestic crêpe will do? In any case, if American crêpes are popular without merit (e.g., Ke$ha), Parisian ones are popular because they represent fantastic, soul-satisfying goodness (e.g., Adele).

Bon appétit!

Making Macarons in Paris

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:21:00 +0000

by EP

Loyal readers and/or anyone I've spoken to in the past few months knows I recently went on a trip to the City of Light, PARIS! BFF Rachel and I had such an amazing trip: we toured famous sites, wandered through quaint cities, nibbled on croissants and sipped espresso (or beer) at streetside cafes, and partied into the wee hours at fun Parisian bars with fun Parisian folks. Oh, and stared at the ridiculously attractive French men. Le sigh. But alas, this is a food blog, so I will be blogging over the course of the next few posts about some of the amazing food we had during our 8 day adventure.

One of the highlights of our trip was the cooking class we took! This was something we had planned and booked months before our trip. There were several English-speaking cooking schools to choose from, and based on TripAdvisor and guidebook recommendations, we ended up going with Cook'n with Class, a cooking school in Montmartre offering a wide variety of classes, from French pastries and breads, to desserts, to wine and cheese tastings, to market trips + dinner, to macarons. Rachel deferred to me in the course selection, and I thought a lot about what kind of class I'd want to take. I decided on the macaron class for several reasons: (1) macarons are so hot right now, they are perhaps the next cupcake; (2) I've always preferred making cookies or other individually sized treats, versus breads or big cakes; (3) I had no idea how to make macarons, so the class would truly be a learning experience.

So we signed up and made our way up to Montmartre (which turned out to be my favorite area of the city) the day of our class. Class size is limited to 5, so Rachel and I were joined by a mother-daughter-granddaughter trio from the Bay Area. They reminded me of when I first went to Europe with Xani, and our Mom and Grandma Claire - my other great European trip :)

We got started with Chef Briony, an Aussie who has been living in Paris for 10 years. She explained that macarons are one of the most precise cookies you can make - we were measuring things in grams, and even when something was 2 grams off, we had to fix it! 2 grams!! (BTW, this is exactly the moment I knew Xani would be interested in making these cookies.)

Chef Briony explains the piping tips we'll be using

For those who don't know, macarons are sandwich cookies - two almond-based cookies surrounding a filling of some sort. Ideally they are the diameter of a golf ball, and are meant to be eaten in one delicious bite. In our class we made three fillings: passionfruit-chocolate ganache, raspberry jam, and salted caramel, and then we died the cookie batter different colors to complement these fillings.

We made the fillings first, and let them cool/set up while we made the cookies. The cookies were the more precise piece of the puzzle. They are made from almond meal and powdered sugar, which is made into a paste with egg whites (egg whites that are four days old, mind you, so advanced planning is needed!). Then an Italian meringue (sugar syrup + egg whites) is folded into the almond paste, and then, interestingly, Chef Briony instructed us to "macaronage" - beat the batter so it forms a ribbony, shiny dough. In other words, after making such a fluffy meringue, we beat all the air out of it!

Watching the Italian meringue in action

Meringue added!

Licking the bowl is the best part :)

Macaronage in action! It was hard work, actually...

Once the dough was ready, we died it with gel food coloring (not liquid - it would mess up the composition of the batter), and piped the cookies onto parchment. Then, you wait for a skin to form, like on pudding or pastry cream - about 10 or 15 minutes. And if it doesn't form? Something went wrong. Start again. Chef Briony told us if things aren't looking right, just start over - it'll save you time in the end instead of going through the whole process and have the final product be wrong. This actually happened when we were cooking - the Italian meringue was lumpy, and didn't look right, so we started fresh. Good thing we had extra 4-day-old egg whites!

Died and ready for piping

Chef B shows us how to pipe and flick the batter to the side - this results in a smooth top to the cookie

Proud of our piping skillz

After the cookies are baked and have formed their signature "foot" where the cookie rises a bit, the cookies are cooled, paired up, and filled with filling. And then you're done? Nope. Sure, you can sneak one or two to check out the taste, but Chef Briony explained that these cookies should be served the 1-2 days after baking. This is so the cookies and filling can merge together, and more importantly, so the proteins in the egg whites can relax, which results in a super-tender cookie. It's. Heaven. Trust me.

Piping and pairing up the macarons

The rough edge of the cookie is the "foot" you want...if you don't get it, you got a problem

So, 4 hours later, we had our colorful cookies in hand, and we tried so hard not to eat them until the next day! We served them on our final night to cousin Alexis and her husband Rob, who came to Paris to visit with us and eat lots of pain au chocolate, and our lovely hostess Jeanne. They proclaimed them some of the best ever!!

The class was a great experience, and I would highly recommend Cook'n with Class if you are headed to Paris and want to spend the morning or afternoon cooking and learning something new. Magnifique!

Our class with Chef Briony - so proud of our finished product!

We made friends with Daniel, the cooking class assistant

Porkapalooza

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:40:00 +0000

by Xani

I travel often, and I of course I eat when I travel, but I don't often travel just to eat. This past weekend's visit to Boston was the exception to the rule.

A few weeks ago, an email arrived from Dave's Mom, M. Attached was a scanned copy of an article from The Boston Herald, all about how Citizen Public House and Oyster Bar does a pig roast for groups of 10 or more, and Boston foodies are raving about the experience. She had scheduled a dinner with a group of local friends for April 10-- was there any way we could join them?

Wow, what an invitation! Were we really going to travel a few hundred miles for roast pig? Well, in a word, yes.

As the date grew closer, we got more and more excited for our trip. This is not just any pig roast! The Herald article explains how the 26+ pound pig is first slow roasted for 14 hours, then presented, apple-in-mouth, to the party, before being whisked back to the kitchen for carving and additional cooking. The article also indicated that the feet, some organs, and various parts of the head would be served as well. This REALLY got us stoked, as regular readers know, I can't resist offal.

About 2 days before our trip, someone realized that the restaurant is about one block from Fenway Park, and our reservation was exactly 2 hours before a home Red Sox game against the Yankees-- whoops! Well, now we were sure there would be a lively crowd in the place! Luckily, all parties navigated the anticipated parking hassles with ease. Dave and I got especially lucky and got street parking right in from of the restaurant-- the pig gods were smiling on us. We were early for dinner so we sat at the bar and enjoyed a cocktail or two while we waited for the rest of the party to arrive. We were starving and all the food coming out of the kitchen looked amazing, but we were resolved NOT to snack- we knew a lot of food was coming very soon.

Jameson? check. Pickle Juice-check?

Instead we quenched our thirst-- a Cucumber Collins for me (Rain Organic Cucumber-Lime Vodka, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup, soda) and a Pickleback (Shot of Jameson & a Shot of Pickle Juice) for Dave. Finally the rest of the party arrived (all 15 of us!) and we sat at a long table along the backside of the crowded bar. Manager Ryan was taking care of our party and had bread and butter on the table and filled everyone's drink orders as we got settled and waited for the real food to arrive.

I was ready for another cocktail and ordered the Cherry Cobbler (except we're in Boston, so remember to drop that R!) which contained Plymouth Gin, fresh lemon juice, soda, house made grenadine, and brandied cherries. It was fantastic-- barely sweet and you could taste fresh cherry flavor as well as the herbaceous quality of the gin. I figured a little sweetness would be nice to cut through the salty, fatty pork, and I was right. Other folks tried a couple of the 70+ types of whiskey Citizen's carries. They serve the good stuff with spheres of imported ice. Apparently this is all the rage-- the sphere has the lowest possible surface area, and therefore melts more slowly into your whiskey. Man, I love science!

Cherry Cobblah

whiskey with ice ball

But before the pork, there was shellfish. The waitstaff brought out big ice trays loaded with raw oysters and clams, and large steamed shrimp. A great start! Everything was fresh and delicious. I could have eaten an entire plate of this stuff myself, but I was happy to share, knowing there were literally a dozen preparations of pork coming my way.

Finally, with great fanfare, the whole roasted pig was brought out on a massive platter-- it had to be carried by two waiters. The restaurant was still packed, and everyone in the place turned to see what all the fuss was about. It was about this:

What a beauty! Everyone was taking pictures and looking over at us with either horror or extreme jealousy. It was an exciting moment which really made the evening feel like a special event. Then, the pig was taken away, and we sat, drooling, waiting for its return.

just a little something....

to fill in the corners...

around the pork!

We knew it was on its way back and the main course was imminent when the side dishes started to arrive: gorgeous roasted carrots, a huge plate of asparagus, and a massive bowl of mashed potatoes (Side note: these mashed potatoes were amazing. When I first saw them I expected them to be gluey- anything served in a VAT that size can't be good, right? WRONG. They were beyond creamy, not gluey or pasty at all, and had a fantastic flavor that may have included pork fat and/or garlic. I want the recipe for those spuds! Ryan, I'm looking at you...). There were also roasted potatoes but I didn't get a picture, nor did I get a chance to try one! But any thought of potatoes was pushed out of my mind as soon as the first platter hit the table:

A thing of beauty...

is a joy forever (or til it gets eaten).

This platter held the center cavity, which was stuffed with various ingredients which change seasonally (I believe ours contained pineapple and pea shoots), and sliced into roulades. You can also see the belly, slow-roasted into chicarrons, on the lower right hand side. In the middle, a pile of the ribs, highly-spiced and flavored.

The next platter, set on the other end of the table, was a little more... dramatic:

The whole head was in the center of the platter. surrounded by the hams, sliced butt and shoulder, as well as the trotters (feet), which have been fried until crisp.

With all meat and sides on the table, we DUG IN. Plates were loaded, platters were passed, and much pig was consumed. Here are my thoughts, as best I can recall:
Roulade: Excellent. The stuffing was very tasty and the pork was moist and flavorful. The skin was a bit tough, I much preferred the crispy skin on the....
Chicarron (belly): This was, not surprisingly, probably one of my favorite cuts. Crispy, crunchy skin and juicy, fatty meat. Enough said.
Ribs: Unfortunately these were not my favorite-- they had very little meat and an aggressive flavoring that didn't do it for me.
Trotters: Another one that was a little disappointing. Perhaps they were overcooked, the little meat that was on them was tough.
Shoulder and Butt: Sadly, it's all a porky blur. These probably fell to the middle of the back, not the favorite, but not a disappointment.
Hams: Surprisingly, the bite I pried off one of the legs was one of the most delicious! Very moist, nice pork flavor.

But, we're not done! We grabbed Ryan as he walked by and somewhat sheepishly asked "what about the brains?" Apparently about 80% of pig roast patrons want the pig head and other innards served. We let him know we were VERY interested and the pig head, which had been on one of the platters, was brought back to the kitchen and quickly reemerged like this:

What you see there is the pig skull, brain exposed, surrounded by all kinds of interesting little bits: tongue, kidney, cheek oyster, cheek and collarbone meat, crispy ear, and the eyeballs. A few in our party politely declined, but it seemed most folks wanted a taste of the weird stuff. The brain was served with lemon wedges, sea salt, and homemade crackers-- it was very light and tasted a little like fois gras. The crispy ear: delicious; the tongue and kidney: mild, slightly organ-y taste; the cheek and collarbone: meaty, moist, with crisp skin- the essence of pig. Dave was brave enough to try the eyeball, mostly to amuse the other guests-- he reported it didn't have much flavor, and was pretty fatty.

Finally, we had had our fill of pig and the table was cleared. It was a very special birthday for one of our dining companions and M had a lovely cake made to celebrate. Thank goodness it was a light, vanilla cake with airy buttercream icing, as stomach space was at a premium!

When we had eaten everything and dinner wound down, people started to say their goodbyes. I took a moment to thank Ryan for being such a patient and helpful host, and slipped a little extra money into his hand as we talked about the upcoming blog post I was planning on writing. Of course, I hadn't planned very well and all the cash I had amounted to a whopping $15! So, my suave move turned out to be a little less Bond, a little more Bozo. But, I was glad I showed my appreciation to Ryan, who took great care of us. And of course a HUGE thanks to M for the invite and the opportunity to attend such a wonderful event! This was my first, but hopefully not my last, pig roast. I wonder if restaurants in other cities will start to serve a similar meal (hint, hint, Bmore restos!)? We can hope.

Would YOU eat a roast pig, brains and all?

Xani

Our Salty Ticket to Fame

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:57:00 +0000

by EP

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a reporter at the Daily Record, a business/legal newspaper asking if I would be interested in being interviewed about the blog for their weekly story about lawyers with interesting hobbies. I, being an honest and loving sister and co-blogger, politely replied that I write the blog with my sister, and we are a package deal, so to speak. And oh by the way, we are both lawyers. Cha-ching! Entertainment GOLD.

We ended up having the interview at one of our favorite restaurants in Baltimore: Salt Tavern. As Xani mentioned last week, we were very excited to get back to Salt, and for such a fun reason! We arrived early in the dinner shift and were seated at, as the Chef said, the best seat in the house. A great corner table in the bar area overlooking the bustling streets of Butcher's Hill, but with a great view of the funky decor (and signature green lighting) of Salt.

We sat down with Danielle, our interviewer, and chit-chatted a bit, immediately finding that we have a friend in common (hello, Jewish Geography!). As we perused the menu, our waiter brought some freshly baked bread with a tomato jam/compote, which was really flavorful and a great way to start off our meal.

After a very detailed explanation of the menu, which has recently been changing to reflect the changing seasons (thank GOODNESS, anyone else tired of winter?), we decided on three starters:

Lamb and Taleggio Cheese Ravioli, with mint gremolata and toasted pine nuts

Fluke and Meyer Lemon Ceviche, with red onion, aji amarillo, avocado, jicama, red pepper, sweet potato, boniato chips

Duck Fat French Fries, with a trio of aioli

We were sad indeed upon reaching the bottom of this paper cone

The ravioli were good, hearty, and you could tell the pasta was freshly made. They were cooked to a nice al dente. The ceviche was really fresh with bold flavors, plus the fish was served on a little sweet potato mash, which was a nice touch.

But let's be honest, the fries were the star. Who wouldn't love boardwalk-style fries, cooked in duck fat, and served with a trio of aioli (truffle, malt vinegar, and chipotle)? These were executed perfectly and totally irresistible.

For our second course, Danielle ordered the Crispy Skin Duck Breast, with pork and mango fried rice, braised baby bok choy, and cherry orange and Asian pear compote.

Xani ordered one of the house specialties, the Coriander and Pepper Crusted Tuna, with a ginger soy glaze, seaweed salad, and spicy tuna potstickers.

I ordered the Pan-Seared Halibut Fillet, with creamy quinoa, crispy sriracha rock shrimp, and grapefruit salsa.

Danielle reported loving her dish (and knowing she was going to be in trouble with her accupuncturist, who wanted her to avoid rich foods - joke's on you, accupuncturist!). Xani and I also really liked our fishes, and of course, swapped in the middle so we could try each other's.

The halibut was perfectly cooked and had a nice crust on the outside, plus I loved the grapefruit salsa, as I have recently started eating a grapefruit almost every day. But my favorite part of the meal was the spicy, blue cornmeal-crusted rock shrimp! I had to really restrain myself from popping them all into my mouth before the swap with Xani. She would not have been happy...

Xani's tuna was a generous portion, plus it was really flavorful and cooked to a nice rare center. The spicy tuna wontons were a nice play on the tuna theme as well.

Finally, it was time for dessert. We were full from so many wonderful dishes, but one of the dishes on the dessert menu was lavender-honey donuts with coffee ice cream. Coffee and donuts for dessert? A must-have for these girls.

The donuts were golf-ball sized, soft and doughy (in a good way) in the middle, crisp and hot on the outside, drizzled with one of the most flavorful honeys we've ever tasted. (And Xani doesn't even like honey.) And then there was the coffee ice cream. As an ice cream addict generally speaking, this was definitely up my alley. Strong and sweet and cold against the hot doughnuts, a perfect balance. At one point, I realized there was more ice cream hiding in the little vessel and I gasped, "You guys, there's MORE ICE CREAM!" Ahem, what a great first impression I make.

Chef Ambrose came out and greeted us, and we showered him with much-deserved praise. We had such a lovely meal and can't wait to get back, as there were lots of dishes on the menu we wanted to try (e.g., the Tongue and Cheek Sandwich, with braised beef cheeks, pickled lamb's tongue, and pot roast vegetable puree).

Thanks to Danielle and the Daily Record for taking note of our little dog-and-pony show. It's been almost four years since we started writing it and we're so glad to have a great hobby that we can do together, where we can talk about food all we want without getting weird looks from our friends....

OK folk, it's Xani here, I'm hijacking this lovely post from EP because, well, she's in PARIS enjoying her vacation. But, as promised, our article dropped today, and of course we want to share it with you all!

If you are a Daily Record subscriber, you can see the article HERE. If not, Danielle authorized us to share a portion of the article with our loyal readers. Enjoy!

Sister lawyers, foodies blog about cooking and dining in Baltimore

Posted: 6:00 pm Sun, April 3, 2011
By Danielle Ulman
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

Sister lawyers and food bloggers Xani (left) and Erin Podolny dine recently at Salt in Butchers Hill, Baltimore.

An excerpt:

On an annual family trip to Detroit for Passover that spring, Xani, now 32, announced that she drinks her coffee black so she can have a doughnut, and the name and tagline for the blog were born. “Actually, I heard that there is a coffee-and-a-donut dessert here, which we’re totally getting,” says Erin, 28, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the General Counsel.

And they do indulge in the goat cheese doughnut holes drizzled with lavender honey — an item they say is “hot right now” — served with a tiny cup of rich coffee ice cream.

They declare it “delicious.”

“That’s one of the biggest challenges with blogging, is how many different ways can you say ‘That was awesome’?” Xani says. “Or say ‘That was the best “X” I ever had.’? You can’t use that too often, because then people won’t believe you.”

Another stumbling block is making time to write thoughtful — and often silly or witty — blog posts about the food they’re making or enjoying at restaurants.

“It’s a challenge,” says Xani, an associate director at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Center for Health and Homeland Security.

“The blog doesn’t pay us any money, so it’s hard to prioritize it over work or other commitments, and there’s only so much time and energy and sometimes the blog kind of falls to the bottom of the list and then our friends are, like, nagging us, ‘You never blog anymore.’ ‘Well, you never pay me to blog, so, sorry buddy,’” she says.

Unlike lots of other bloggers, the Podolny sisters have jobs unrelated to blogging. Erin also spends five nights a week swing dancing around Baltimore. If they never had anything to do but cook, eat and blog, the sisters say, they would do it all the time.

“I’m sure that’s how it is with lots of people with hobbies — you know, sometimes you don’t have time to build a ship in a bottle,” Xani says, sending Erin into a fit of giggles.

Like that? Want more? Subscribe to the Daily Record or pick up a (GASP) paper copy of today's edition.

Thanks to Danielle for a great article and, as always, thanks to our friends, family, and readers for your support. Without our readers, we'd have no blog!

Many thanks,

X & EP

New Chef and New Season at B&O Brasserie!

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:50:00 +0000

by Xani

Sometimes, it's good to be a food blogger. In the past week, EP and I have been lucky enough to dine at two of Baltimore's best restaurants: Salt (don't worry, post coming soon!) and B&O American Brasserie. Now we've blogged about B&O before, but last night we were invited to try out the new B&O, with new Executive Chef Thomas Dunklin at the helm. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the new menu ROCKS!

Check out that ink!

We were seated in the cozy upstairs dining room, and after a brief chat with Amy, who was responsible for this tasting (Thanks Amy!), the food and drink descended on us! A loaf of house-baked brown bread arrived with two signature cocktails-- the Hobo's Cola and Bourbon (with house-made cola, an old favorite) and a new, gin and cucumber concoction that is apparently so popular at brunch, they're moving it to the regular cocktail menu. It was refreshing and not too sweet.

Then, food rained down. Our excellent waiter (who has served us before at B&O many moons ago-- love seeing familiar and friendly faces!) and the other staff members helpfully described each dish as it arrived, since Chef Dunklin decided what we would taste.

First course:

AHI TUNA CRUDO

citrus sponge / puffed rice / cucumber / cilantro

HAMACHI TARTARE

red pepper broth / jalapeno / lime gremolata

Roasted Beet Carpaccio
goat cheese / avocado / pistachio / meyer lemon oil

What a great start! The hamachi with red pepper broth was our favorite. The fish was incredibly fresh tasting, and the pepper broth, lime and jalapeño set it off perfectly.

Soon enough, the next course arrived, including a big surprise; the dish we had been oohing and aaahing over, but which Amy told us probably wouldn't be included in the tasting, landed on the table, and it was unmistakable:

Butter Poached Oysters
chickpea spaghetti / sea urchin / quail egg

Apparently the staff had overheard us saying how much we wanted to try this dish, and Chef Dunklin made it so! Now, EP and I are no strangers to oysters or uni (see our weird food tag for more), but this was a brand new preparation for us. Previously, we had only had uni sushi, although I had heard of using it as an ingredient in other dishes (such as a rich, buttery pasta sauce) this was our first time tasting it prepared this way. It was incredible. If you are an uni fan at all, you will fall in love with this dish. The oysters were plump and barely cooked, and the quail egg mixed into the dish and upped the richness factor yet another notch. The chickpea pasta didn't taste much like chickpeas, but had a great al dente bite to it and was a perfect base for sauce (which we were scraping from the bowl).

As much as we loved the uni dish, the other plates in this course were no slouches, either. We tried the Venison Mortadella (pecorino waffle / watercress / pinot noir reduction) from the Charcuterie menu, as well as the Slow Roasted Pork Belly (saffron potato / pearl onion / chorizo / serrano chili glaze) small plate. Both were excellent! The belly was the best we had had in a while-- very tender and flavorful, and the potato base has unexpected spicy flavors. Rich, but oh so delicious. The venison mortadella was another hit-- lots of pistachios! It had even more flavor than a traditional mortadella, which I sometimes find a little bland and flabby. Plus, it (and their other charcuterie items) was made in-house! And serving it with a waffle?? Genius!

Venison mortadella and waffle

Pork Belly

By the next course we were already slowing down, our bellies reaching their limits. But we persevered! There was more deliciousness to try...

Oxtail Ravioli
parsnip / ricotta / cherry jus / calamari

48 Hour Braised Pot Roast
cornbread gnocchi / swiss chard / mustard jus

Diver Sea Scallops
crab fried rice / radish / caramelized onion oil / crispy ginger

Three more tasty dishes. As I mentioned, we were filling up, so we sadly left most of these plates unfinished, but they were all excellent. The ravioli (actually from the small plate menu) were excellent, and the calamari on the side were crisp and not at all greasy. The pot roast was OMG tender-- literally falling apart. I guess that's what happens when you cook it for 48 hours! And the scallops might have been my favorite of the entrees- HUGE, but SO sweet and not at all fishy. And the crispy ginger on top-- a revelation!!

It wouldn't be a meal at B&O without a fabulous dessert course. Now, EP and I hesitated for a moment when they brought out these:

Flourless Chocolate Cake t

oasted meringue / graham cracker /

raspberry caramel

Lemon Thyme Crème Brulee

dehydrated blueberries / molasses shortbread

Not only were we now STUFFED, but flourless chocolate cake and creme brulee? Meh, not our favorites. But, of course we had to at least try....

All I can say is WOW. These were some of the best examples of flourless chocolate cake and creme brulee we have ever tasted. The chocolate cake was barely a cake, more like a dense, super-chocolate-y mousse-- so moist and delicious. The toasted meringue on top was perfect to cut through the rich chocolate. And the creme brulee! First off, the very shallow, long dish it was served in gave it ideal (read: very high) crunchy top to creamy custard ratio. The lemon thyme added an unusual note that kept it from tasting like every other brulee you've ever had, and the blueberries-- let's just say I want a never-ending supply of those for my morning cereal.

But there's more! After the desserts came out, Chef Dunklin learned the name of our blog, and couldn't let us leave without letting us try the Red Velvet Donuts that are a crowd favorite off the new menu. A little plate of them appeared and we found just enough room in our stuffed bellies for a little taste before we rolled ourselves out of there...

Red Velvet Donuts, cream cheese frosting

overexposed, hipstamatic pic of me enjoying donuts

Another amazing meal at B&O! We heard Chef Dunklin (a native of NOLA (swoon) and recently from Portland) is really into local and sustainable eating, and will be taking full advantage of our local farmers' markets (BTW the big one opens this Sunday, Bmore peeps). Love! Welcome Chef Dunklin, can't wait to see what you'll come up with next!

Happy eating,

A Grandmother's Recipe for Hamantaschen

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:51:00 +0000

by EP

Readers should note that the title of this post is not "MY grandmother's recipe for hamantaschen," but rather "A grandmother's recipe." Our grandmothers didn't make hamantaschen (ruggelach is another story), so when I decided I wanted to make hamantaschen for Purim a few weeks ago, I had to find someone else's family recipe. I found this NY Times recipe, which won me over with the author's sweet story about her grandmother and the adaptations she made to the recipe after WWII (the heaping tablespoons of lemon zest in the dough didn't hurt either).

So, while visiting the BCD parents out at Blackacre, BCD Mom and I set to making these three-pointed cookies made to resemble the hat of Haman, the bad guy in the Purim story who tried to kill all the Jews (what else is new?).

Hamantaschen can be filled with a variety of fillings, which I have divided into three categories:

Old School (our parents and our parents' parents ate these fillings): prune jam/butter, mun (poppy seeds)
Hebrew School (our generation ate these fillings): apricot jam, raspberry jam, cherry jam
New School (hip and cool for today's young Js): Nutella (Italian chocolate-hazelnut spread)

Neither Mom nor I was interested in prune or mun, so we went with one of our favorites, apricot, and the hip new kid on the block, Nutella. (Side note: I am apparently the only person on the planet who doesn't love Nutella, probably because I don't love hazelnuts. So, I thought about making what sounds like the best thing ever: Smitten Kitchen's chocolate-peanut spread (aka Peanutella), but then since we were cooking about 5 other things that weekend, we just decided to buy a jar of Nutella and call it a day. But I'll be seein' you soon, Peanutella...)

So, we were all set to make these cookies. The recipe calls for you to make a well of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt), and then add half the wet ingredients (eggs, oil, water) and half the sugar and lemon zest into the well, and stir with a fork to combine, bringing in parts of the walls as you go.

Fort o' flour

The recipe warns, "do not break the flour walls." Well let me tell you, immediately upon adding the wet ingredients, I saw a stream of liquid escaping the flour fort - BREACH!! Oh crap. Let's just say it was a messy job. And then you added the second half of the remaining ingredients...more breaching, more mess...more cursing. Damn you, Haman!

Once the dough came together, I needed to knead it, but it was so sticky - imagine kneading peanut butter. I know you are thinking, "just add more flour, EP!" but the recipe said not to add too much more flour than what was called for, so I was timid. Anyway, I tamed the beast the best I could and once it had come together a bit more, I wrapped it up and put it in the fridge overnight.

Only that trusty bench scraper from BCD Dad kept me sane during this process. A kitchen must-have!

The next day, after a yummy breakfast of bagels and lox, I got started on the cookies with Mom's supervision. (Note that amongst these delicious Jewish treats of bagels and lox and hamantaschen, we also made Buccatini all'Amatriciana (pasta with pancetta), fried oyster po boys, and a fried pork tostada...so we're not kosher, to say the least.)

The recipe called for a pretty small cutter (2-3 inch diameter), and instructed you to roll out the dough, cut out circles, paint an X of butter on the dough, and fill them with filling. How much filling? Doesn't say. Do you fill them on the counter after rolling or on the baking sheet? Doesn't say. The dough is sticking to the counter - what do I do? Doesn't say. Do you line the baking pan? Doesn't say. You get my point, Dear Reader.

As experienced cooks, we made do, but I was pretty amazed at how many gaps there were in the recipe. I think that's where the "grandmother" theme ties back in - when you're baking with Grandma, she knows all the steps, she knows what looks right, what tastes right, and you don't need to write them all down. That is, until you publish her recipe in the New York Times.

In the end, the cookies came out really well - the cookie part was not tough, and they were small enough to eat in a few bites, unlike the gargantuan versions coming out of Brooklyn bakeries these days -- they're as big as a scone! As for the fillings, the apricot was a hit with friends and family and co-workers, and some folks really enjoyed the Nutella. Interestingly, when baked, Nutella sets up into a solid (versus the smooth, spreadable form you know and love).

I'm glad we did two fillings and experimented with the Nutella, but I'm not sure I would make these again. I kind of just want some of my Grandma's ruggelach...

Happy baking -

ps. I'm headed to PARIS in a few days and while I won't be able to blog while there, I will be taking pictures of everything I eat and hope to share my great meals with you! Plus, BFF Rachel and I are taking a cooking class where we'll learn to make macarons!

A Doughy Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:54:00 +0000

by Xani

I know everyone is just on the edge of their seats waiting for more info about our interview the other night. Well, you will have to wait just a little bit longer, although I will tell you that Salt was just as good as I remember, even though the last time we ate there was in 2008! More details to come very soon...

Meanwhile, I spent a pleasant weekend experimenting in the kitchen. First, I decided to try another America's Test Kitchen recipe, this one for Chicago Style Deep-Dish Pizza. Now, I'm normally a thin-crust girl. I can practically whip up a grilled pie or flat bread in my sleep. But deep-dish is another animal. I'm hesitant to even call is "pizza," it's something else entirely. But ATK provided a thorough recipe, complete with pictures and video (another reason I love their site), and it looked too delicious not to try. I got started on the dough and actually remembered the take pictures this time!

Dough phase 1

After assembling the dough in my KitchenAid, I started getting a little nervous b/c it didn't have quite the glossy/tacky consistency the recipe called for. REMAIN CALM, I instructed myself. For once, I listened, and by the time it had risen all was well, and I was able to shape it into this:

Now the crazy part, you slather it with butter!

And roll 'er up...

This is a form of lamination (which I've discussed before) and the ATK testers found that it was an important part of getting the flaky, light crust that is crucial to true deep-dish (heavy and bready is no good!).

A few more steps and another rise (this time in the fridge)...

flattened

folded, seams pinched to form a ball

ready to rise again

and it was time to shape the dough, slide them into generously oiled cake pans, and top them with lots and lots of cheese!

a half pound of shredded mozz on each pie!! plus a little of my homemade red sauce

aaand a little more cheese...

A relatively quick 20 mins in a hot oven, and they were ready:

TA-DA!

Ready for their close-up

Sliced nicely

OMG PIZZA! I think you can tell from the pictures these pizzas were, in a word, ridic! The crust got nice and crispy on the outside from the oiled pan and hot oven, but the crumb was nice and light on the inside, with a little richness from the butter. Then, all that ooey-gooey cheese, and rich marinara sauce. Yum. One criticism was that the filling seemed a little wet, which after a few minutes affected the crispness of the crust and made things a little soggy. Next time I will try using a low moisture mozzarella and/or cook down the sauce a bit more.

This was a fun recipe to try and a nice treat, but not the kind of thing I'm likely to make/eat all the time (one can only eat so much salad to balance out such things). But this NEXT recipe is something I'm adding to my repertoire forever. Another ATK recipe (god, I'm such a fangirl), this time for their Rustic Dinner Rolls. I guess I've got a little confidence in my bread-making skills since my successful boule experiment, and dinner rolls seemed like a good fit since, unlike a large loaf, these can be frozen and individually defrosted as needed. (I hate throwing food away, and I think I would CRY if I had to throw away lovingly homemade bread because it went stale!) Unfortunately, no pictures of the process (I got a migraine halfway through making these-- my wonderful boyfriend took over and "turned" the dough according to the recipe while I took my medication and laid in a dark room for a while), but the outcome.... WOW!

OK, they may not look like the prettiest rolls you've ever seen (again, they're "rustic") but they taste AMAZING. Perfect crispy outer crust, great, light texture inside (from the higher hydration level-- love that ATK includes food science lessons in their recipes!), and amazing taste. I could see these showing up in a bread basket in a nice restaurant for sure. They re-crisp easily- just a few minutes in a hot oven and they taste out-of-the-oven fresh.

So, those were my adventures in dough this weekend. What should I make next??

X

What's BCD up to Tonight??

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:33:00 +0000

by Xani

Are we spinning a salad, kneading dough, or roasting a whole pig? NO! We're headed out to a little spot known for it's kobe beef sliders, duck fat fries and green lighting. And we won't be alone-- a reporter and photographer will be joining us. That's right, we're getting interviewed! For a real publication! We're totally excited for the meal and the opportunity.

Details and links to come as soon as we have them. I can taste those fries already...

X

Surprise!

noreply@blogger.com (Xani) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:05:00 +0000

by Xani

Hey BCD readers (if you still exists)-- surprise, I'm still alive! And still cooking and eating. Here's a quick post of some recent culinary treats, to whet your appetite for more BCD blogging!
Lobster:

Lobster Roll and Thrice Cooked Fries

Valentine's Day Special: We bought two big lobsters and ate them three ways! First, boil them up, reserve the claw and tail meat for the lobster rolls, then devour every morsel in the bodies. That was Friday night. We also did the first cooking of the Thrice Cooked Fries so they'd be ready for lunch the next day. Most of the tail and claw meat got lightly dressed and stuffed into a toasted, buttery split-top rolls (luckily we were able to find the appropriate rolls-- a real New Englander won't have it any other way!), and served alongside the fries for Saturday lunch. The fries were excellent but in my opinion not worth the hassle, since the America's Test Kitchen one-step fry technique is just as good, and so much easier. The rest of the meat got mixed into a decadent dinner salad with mango, avocado and, of course, homemade vinaigrette. You know I love my salads!

Pizza:

Oscar-worthy Flatbreads

These are a couple of flatbreads I whipped up for Oscar night. Using my trusty Ratio method for the dough, I shaped the breads and baked them on a pizza stone in a 500 degree oven (it was still too cold outside to grill them-- but luckily grilling season is right around the corner), then topped them and slid them back in to melt the cheese. The one of the left has brie and peppedew peppers, on the right is a classic combo of caramelized onions and Gruyere. We ate these before we lost our appetite from the bad jokes.

Bread:

My First Bread!

Above are the before and after of my very first home-baked loaf of bread! Again, I used the recipe/technique from Ratio for a basic "lean" bread. I cooked it in my Le Crueset dutch oven, like all the kids are doing these days. I could not have been happier with the result. Here's an interior shot:

It was absolutely fabulous slathered with butter and a little salt (but what isn't?)

Weeknight dinner:

Spinach Gratin with Poached Eggs

My new favorite thing is poaching eggs. It's so easy and they cook up perfectly. I'm eating less meat these days so eggs are a good protein source to include in dinner. This spinach gratin (which you can see hiding under the eggs) was actually supposed to be the main course, but the spinach cooked down to nothing! I had to supplement the meal and poached eggs were the perfect solution. A little toasted whole wheat pita was the perfect thing to dip in the runny yolks.

So there's a little update on what I've been eating for the past few months, just in case you'd been tossing and turning all night wondering ;) I'm hoping to post more now that spring is on its way and fresh, delicious ingredients are back on the menu. And stay tuned for very special upcoming posts from Boston and, a BCD first, INTERNATIONAL BLOGGING!

The Hunt for White Anchovies

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 01:31:00 +0000

by EP

Okay, so, this is awkward. It's been a long while since we posted. The good news is, we haven't posted because we are busy having fun with new hobbies; the bad news is, we haven't posted and now one too many people have asked me, "hey, what's up with the blog." Hrmph. But today's a new day, right? And today, I had some great pizza.

This afternoon I met up with the BCD parents, who were in town to watch the lovably awful Terps in one of their last home games of the season. We enjoyed a late lunch at Scittino's, a family-owned pizza place and Italian market in Catonsville. I have fond memories of Scittino's, since my parents met me there for some celebratory pizza shortly after I found out I passed the bar exam (still feels good to say that).

Not only does Scittino's have great pizza (more on that below), they also have an extensive catering menu, house-made desserts and cookies, a full deli with great meats and cheeses, sausages, beef cuts, not to mention an adorable Italian market with imported olive oils, coffee, house-made pastas and sauces, breads, pizza dough, canned and fresh fish, etc. etc. etc.

Today we tried a couple different types of pizza: white, pepperoni and mushroom, and sausage and onion. We ordered extra with plans to take some home for leftovers. Let's just say there were leftovers...but not that much. It was so. good. So good, in fact, that I forgot to take pictures! As a consolation, here's a picture of the leftovers:

The pizza has a thin crust, but not too crackery, like some Sicilian pizza. It was greasy (in a good way) and very cheesy. The white pizza, BCD Mom's favorite, was garlicky and topped with ricotta. The sausage and onion pizza had a good ratio of toppings, and they used red onion - a nice touch since it's sweeter and not so onion-y.

After we caught up and enjoyed our pies, we took a look around the marketplace.

Lots of De Cecco pasta. According to Ina Garten, it's the best!

Radiatori: little radiators :)

The last time we visited, we discovered that among their goodies in the market area, they have white anchovies. We have been obsessed with these since visiting Iggies Pizza, who serves them on their Caesar salad. They're vinegary and mildly fishy, and great on salads or on their own, if you're into that (I'm looking at you hobos).

Not only do they have white anchovies;
they also have marinated mussels, baby octopus, and baby squid!

We bought a few packages of the anchovies, plus some sausages, pizza shells, and other random treats. We resisted the cookies, both Italian and Baltimore-style (they had both Berger cookies AND Otterbeins).

Evil temptress...

Now that I have the anchovies, I feel the need to make some of Mom's famous Caesar salad...someone get me some garlic.

Cheers,
EP