Burghilicious

On Dip, Ranking and Authenticity

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:58:15 -0500

One of my favorite ways that Scheidt and I are different is in our ranking methodologies. The conversation happens like this:

Him: "What's your favorite kind of cake?"

Me: "Hmm... Depends... Is it summer or winter? Am I by myself or are there other people around? Is the cake homemade or from a store? What mood am I in? Is it for my birthday? Am I making it or is someone else making it? Is it a big cake or a cupcake?"

I can't even begin to pick the favorite until I know the entire context of the decision, and here the poor guy thought he was asking a simple question with a one-word answer.

While I'm probably just nuts, I like to think that I have too many favorites to choose just one. In my mind, each context has a cake that corresponds perfectly. All of them are my favorite.

Obviously, this is not cake. Wait for it.

Which brings me to today's dip, muhammara from Heidi Swanson. The dip itself has nothing to do with cake and everything to do ranking, or, in this case, determining which muhammara recipe is the most authentic. My friend Ben, who amuses himself by fabricating new email addresses for every comment he leaves on this website, makes another muhammara, one which bears almost no resemblance to this. It isn't even the same color.

And yet, I'm not even interested in which one is the most authenticly Middle Eastern, as my suspicion is that they both are, the Middle East being so varied and multi-contextual that there couldn't possibly be just one authentic recipe.* Besides, they are equally delicious, if in entirely different ways. So who cares?

Whereas Ben's recipe** showcases the walnuts and garlic, this richly-textured, intensely-flavored dip is all about roasted red peppers and tanginess and doesn't have garlic in it at all. As written below, it's not really spicy so much it is just strong, like a Mike Tyson hook to your tastebuds. Of course, you control the heat with the red pepper flakes, so you can amp it up if you so choose.

So back to Scheidt: he's about to go spend the next month in Tenerife, taking infrared video of dust storms as they blow off the Sahara. He'll probably have access to a good amount of food like this, but I'm sure going to miss him. Also, I'm open for dinner dates.

Muhammara Dip
Adapted from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking

3/4 cup walnuts
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 to 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses***
2 tablespoons tomato paste****
2 to 3 roasted red peppers*****
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Pita wedges for serving (grilled if you are fancy)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the walnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast until just fragrant, about 10 minutes. Do not let them burn.

Combine walnuts, red pepper flakes, cumin, bread crumbs, 1/4 cup olive oil, pomegranate molasses, tomato paste, and red peppers in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine into a thick paste. With the motor running, gradually stream in more olive oil and/or the warm water until the dip reaches a consistency you like.

Serve at room temperature with pita wedges for dipping.*For instance, try telling a basement full of Italian grandmothers that only one of them has the authentic Italian tomato sauce recipe. If you dare.

**By way of this post, I am requesting - nay, demanding - Ben's recipe for eating, photography and a future post.
***Easy to find at a Mediterranean grocery store, but if not, you can use pomegranate juice.
****The next time I make this, I may leave the tomato paste out all together. Sometimes I taste it a little too much. You could also try sauteeing the paste in olive oil before adding it to the dip, but that would dirty another dish.
*****I get them from a jar, but you can make them yourself. Also, 5 asterisks is a record for this site.

Daring Bakers: Bakewell Tart

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:12:34 -0500

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

If you've read some of my other Daring Bakers' posts, you know that I haven't been totally enamored with the process. For me, it all comes down to the effort-to-deliciousness ratio: if it's hard to make, it better be fricking delicious. February's flourless chocolate cake was ok (operator error, admittedly), March's lasagna was tasty but home improvements clouded my experience, and May's strudel scored basically bottomed out the aforementioned ratio-based rating system.* All of that changed with this month's challenge: "Bakewell Tart," a traditional English dessert consisting of a tart pastry filled with raspberry jam and topped with a delightful frangipane custard.

Make no mistake about it: you're lucky if an appropriate portion of the frangipane custard actually makes it into the oven, because that stuff is delicious: almond-y, rich and slick. And the fact that this recipe yielded what is potentially the most perfect tart crust I have ever produced, I may be a little partial. Freezing the tart crust before baking truly is the key to the shrinkless, shapely crust. I froze this one for at least an hour.

Ahhh, perfection. It's about time.

Baked all together, the custard becomes a golden-brown moonscape of almond goodness, almost cake-like in consistency, and darn tasty with that vanilla black pepper ice cream, if I must say.**

The occasional errant cat hair is my secret ingredient.

You can find the recipe here or here, both with detailed histories of both the dessert and the challenge. I highly recommend it. In fact, this is the first DB challenge recipe that I can legitimately see myself making again in the future. Effort-to-deliciousness ratio: about 60 in favor of the tart!

*Imho. But my humble opinion is all that I care about, really.
**And I must.

Spice Cream and Three Lessons

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:29:09 -0500

What with winter and then the annual festival hiatus and all, you may have thought I had finished proselytizing the ice cream machine. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Now that it's summer again and work is on the ramp-down phase, I am back in the kitchen. Specifically, I am packing the freezer so full of plastic quart containers that the thing barely shuts. You see, I am still working diligently to lower the cost-per-use rating on this little machine* to infinitesimally small levels. On my quest, I have learned a few lessons that may help you in similar pursuits.

Ice cream lesson #1:
If you have an ice cream maker like mine, you can only make ice cream once a day.
In a recent (and uncharacteristic) fit of ambition, I recently attempted to make three ice creams in a day. However, only the first of those ice creams actually froze that day. The second sat in the bowl and spun and spun and spun... and failed to become ice cream. I had foolishly assumed that since the bowl felt cold after the first batch, it would only take an hour or two to firm back up. Wrong-O! The bowl really does take at least overnight to get cold enough. One batch per day, so plan ahead if you are having a party.

Ice cream lesson #2:
Seriously, just make the custard kind.
The low-fat ice cream at the grocery store uses ultra-powerful mixers and nifty chemicals to mimic the texture of real ice cream, and you really can't do it at home.** I've had my best results making custard-based ice creams with eggs, rather than cream-only versions, even though they are a little more work (i.e. 7 minutes more). The ice cream bible states that the emulsifying properties of egg yolks make the ice cream silkier and denser than ice creams made without them, and I am a believer, particularly when the ice cream in question is flavored with a simple herb or spice - as below. The result is that your ice cream will indeed have fat and calories, but it will be so luscious and divine that you'll be completely satisfied after just a small serving.

Ice cream lesson #3:
Ice cream is better when it has a little kick.
I like salty in my sweets, and I also like a little spicy in there, too. So when I read about vanilla black pepper ice cream in Molly's amazing new book (which made me sob and sniffle and giggle and want to cook), I knew it would be on the top of my summer ice cream list. Thus it came to pass that this was the first ice cream out of the bowl this year, and we loved it, and I have already made it twice. In fact, I now almost can't imagine making vanilla any other way - unbelievably smooth, delightfully sweet, and with a ticklish pop of peppery bite after each mouthful.

Vanilla Black Pepper Ice Cream
Adapted from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

I've altered the original recipe to use a vanilla bean, but you can substitute that with a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract if you like. As with most ice creams, you'll want to get started the night before you hope to eat it.

2 cups heavy cream, divided
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean
Pinch of salt
6 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons black peppercorns, freshly ground at the last possible minute

Special equipment: Ice cream maker

To prepare, whisk together egg yolks in a small bowl and set them near the stove. Put one cup of cream in a medium bowl over an ice bath.*** Set a fine-mesh strainer over the bowl of cream.

In a medium saucepan, combine the remaining cup of cream, milk, sugar, and the scraped-out contents of one vanilla bean. Gently warm milk mixture over medium-low heat, stirring intermittently, until just barely too hot to touch. Whisking constantly, slowly and carefully pour a tiny trickle of the warmed milk into the egg yolks. Keep whisking and pour in as much milk as the small bowl will hold, then transfer the custard back into the saucepan.

Heat the custard gently, stirring constantly - really - with a silicon spatula or another solid, flat-edged utensil. Do not let it boil, or you will have scrambled eggs and not ice cream. The custard is ready when it is starting to steam and it thickens just enough that when you run your finger down the back of the spatula, the mixture does not flow back together. As soon as you reach this point - which can take from 5-10 minutes, depending on the heat of your stove - pour the custard through the strainer into the waiting cream. Stir the custard into the cream, then cover and chill overnight.

Once the custard is thoroughly chilled, freeze it according to the instructions of your ice cream maker. While the ice cream is churning, I like to hand-grind the peppercorns using my mortar and pestle. You could also use a spice grinder. I find that my pepper mill does not grind the pepper finely enough. Add the freshly ground pepper into the ice cream as it churns. Once the ice cream has reached the desired consistency, transfer it to a storage container and freeze for two hours before serving.

*Cost-per-use rating after last summer was about $4. So far this summer, I've already gotten in down to $3. And it's technically just the first day of summer.
**That said, a good bit of improvisation vis-a-vis ratios of half-and-half, cream and whole milk is possible, based on what you have on hand. Just keep the total cream-to-milk above 50%, and you'll probably be fine. Just don't try to use anything less than whole milk - your ice cream will be all weak and crystally.
***In the interest of full disclosure, I almost never bother with the ice bath and I have yet to have a problem with a single batch of ice cream. But every recipe says to use one, so I feel guilty not telling you so.

See that golden-brown, almond-covered tart? I'll be telling you about that soon.

Daring Bakers: Strawberry-Rhubarb Strudel

Wed, 27 May 2009 08:00:00 -0500

Wait, where am I? Oh, wow, I'm posting on my very own food blog, the one I almost forgot existed!

As evidenced in May - July 2008, LB's blogging takes a big hit during this time of year thanks to work. Though I spend seemingly every waking minute on a computer, I've spent very little in the kitchen. To wit: One night last week I had toast with cream cheese and jam for dinner. As it was not very filling, I took down about half a loaf of bread. So after a too-stressful month of May, I decided to reclaim both my weekend and my kitchen. By Sunday night, I actually felt like a person again.* And I didn't miss another Daring Bakers challenge.

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

That there is the required Daring Bakers' paragraph. What it doesn't tell you is that we could put any filling we want in the strudel, which made me happy since it's May and finally, finally, there are fruits to eat other than apples. Last year, I was flummoxed by the rhubarb in the farm box and it went bad. This year, someone else got the box on Rhubarb Week, but I felt the need to absolve myself of sins against rhubarb.

My parents garden a lot now, but when I was younger I only remember a spiky tuft of chives and three big mounds of rhubarb, whose giant poisonous leaves would taunt me. I wondered why you would ruin a perfectly delicious quart of strawberries with the stuff. As usual, my parents just laughed and said "More for us."

Well, more for me now! While I probably won't make the strudel again - the recipe basically requires you to stretch your own phyllo dough** - I will most certainly be coming back to this complexly-flavored filling. I imagine it would be delicious in a pie, topped with a crumbly streusel (or not). It would also be delicious as a topping for vanilla ice cream, or spooned over pancakes.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Strudel Filling
Strudel dough recipe is available on the blogs of the Daring Bakers Challenge hosts

1 pound rhubarb stalks, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 1/2 pounds ripe strawberries, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon instant tapioca
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
A good pinch or two of salt

Mix all this stuff up. No need to cook before use in pie or strudel - just bake it in the crust. For use as topping - and this is a guess, but a fairly educated one - cook in a saucepan over medium-low heat until strawberries give up their juice and rhubarb is soft to a fork.

*Not to worry - Memorial Day morning I checked my work email, immediately turned back into a robot and went to the office.
**I feel very accomlished having done this, but the resulting dough, while thin and lovely, was pretty bland and tasteless, and just served as a vessel for the filling. I've proven that I'm willing to spend hours in the kitchen for a single dish, but if I do, I want it to really blow my doors. off. However, the strudel dough did give me a reason try out the dough hook attachment on the Kitchenaid. A fascinating contraption, I must say.

Those of you keeping track might notice that the dining room wall is a totally different color than it used to be!

Grill, Baby, Grill

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:40:00 -0500

It's an auspicious day each spring when it is both warm enough and light enough to grill out on my front porch after work. And so it was last Friday, April 17, that I got home at 5:30. Scheidt was ready with the charcoal, and it was the first porch dinner of the year: lamb burgers with garlic-mint yogurt sauce, greek salad, Great Lakes beer, good company, relaxation.

PETA members, close your eyes: I love lamb. Oh, baby animals, you taste so good. Grilled over an open flame, your juicy goodness eliminates my ability to form complete sentences.

These burgers were a particularly good find, from a Cat Cora cookbook I bought on a fire sale at Borders. I'm a sucker for a cheap, full-color cookbook by a quasi-celebrity chef. This is one of those "learn to cook without a cookbook" cookbooks, which is too ironic.

Despite the dubious cookbook premise, however, Cat Cora is after my own heart with these lamb burgers. Did I mention I love lamb? For these, you mince some onions and chop up some kalamata olives. Crumble in some feta cheese, toss around some breadcrumbs, and form into patties. Give to grill master - which isn't me because I'm afraid the grill will explode when I drop a match in - and cook for 5 minutes per side. That's just enough time to throw together an easy salad, mix up the sauce and open a few beers. You're sitting with your sweetheart with your feet up with 40 minutes of walking in the door.

Summer must be coming.

Lamb and Olive Burgers
adapted from Cat Cora's Cooking From the Hip

1 lb ground lamb
1/3 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped
3 tablespoons panko bread crumbs
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 scallion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons feta, finely crumbled
1 tablespoon Penzey's lamb seasoning*
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon fresh mint, minced
4 hamburger buns (good ones, don't skimp)
Toppings: sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumber, sliced red onion, lettuce

Mix together lamb, chopped olives, bread crumbs, onions, scallions, feta and lamb seasoning until all the ingredients are evenly distributed. Season generously with salt and pepper. Shape into four equally-sized patties about 1/2 inch thick.

Grill over medium-hot coals (or in a pan over medium-high heat) about 5 minutes per side, until just about cooked through.

While the burgers cook, stir together yogurt, garlic and mint. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Assemble burgers as desired. Top with yogurt sauce.

*I'm not one to normally buy spice blends (at least, not ones that aren't labeled "curry"), but this happened to be in my drawer, and was delicious in this recipe. It's a powdery mix of Turkish oregano, rosemary, cumin, celery, sweet paprika, black pepper, onion, garlic, spearmint and ginger.

Grown-Up Mac & Cheese

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:23:09 -0500

Imagine the following scene:

It's 11:30 at night. Three dancers return to their dorm room after four hours of rehearsal. They are starving.

"What are you going to eat?"

"Macaroni and cheese."

"Can I share with you?"

"The hot pot won't hold two boxes."

"I don't need a whole box to myself."

"But I do."

Yeah, that's me, not sharing and proudly planning to eat a whole box of mac and cheese for my second dinner.* Thanks to nights like this through high school and college, I probably single-handedly kept Kraft in business from 1993-2000. I used to eat 3-4 boxes of orange-powder, blue-box "macis" (as I called them) each week. Ask my mom; ask my college roommates. It was obscene.

Fast forward nine years, and I happily admit - right there in the sidebar - that boxed macis are my favorite guilty pleasure... particularly if accompanied by Keebler fudge stick cookies**, which are basically miniature Kit Kat bars. Food snobbery might keep me from indulging regularly, but indulge I do. In secret. When no one knows.

Fortunately, I'd never feed blue-box macis to you. Instead, I'd go with this one. First, it's made out of ingredients, which is an automatic step up from the box. It's got my favorite leeks to add a vegetable element and pleasing onion scent. The cheese sauce is enriched with dry white wine and a hint of blue cheese, lending an unexpected complexity. And did I mention it's powder-free?

Finally snapped a picture... on the last piece!

Grown-Up Mac and Cheese
A Burghilicious Original

1 pound short pasta (penne, conchiglie, large shells, large elbows)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, divided
4 large leeks, halved, washed, and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/2 cup flour
2 1/2 cups whole milk***
Scant 1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup grated sharp cheddar
1/2 cup grated gruyere or emmenthaler
1/2 cup grated fontina
1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola
1 cup grated parmesan, divided
A few grates of nutmeg
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cook the pasta in a large pot of generously salted water.

While the pasta is cooking, prepare the mornay sauce. Melt the 1/4 cup of butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the leeks and stir to coat. Cover the saucepan and cook until leeks are tender, stirring occasionally, 10-12 minutes. Uncover the pan.

While stirring, add the flour all at once. Keep stirring as you cook what is now a leek roux for 2-3 minutes. Add the milk a little at a time, starting with just a few tablespoons and building up from there and incorporating the milk fully before adding more. Once you have stirred in all the milk, stir in the cream, followed by the wine. Bring to a calm boil. Cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens just slightly. Remove from heat. Stir the cheddar, gruyere, fontina, gorgonzola and half the parmesan into the sauce. Once they are melted, add a few grates of fresh nutmeg, then season to taste with salt and pepper.

Using the microwave, melt the final tablespoon of butter in a small bowl. Mix the panko and remaining grated parmesan into the melted butter.

Put the cooked pasta in a large caserole. Carefully pour the cheese sauce over the pasta and mix well. Top the pasta with the buttery panko-parmesan mixture.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until heated through and bubble. Switch the oven to broil. Broil until topping is pleasantly browned, just a minute or two. Serve hot with a green salad. Makes 4-6 meal-sized portions.

*If not for the fact that I was dancing 4-8 hours a day for all of those years, I would probably weigh 500 pounds.
**I also eat the whole package of fudge stick cookies. I cannot stop myself.
***Do not think you can substitute skim milk here. Reduced fat and skim milk don't behave as well in sauces. Your sauce will be thin and drip to the bottom of your casserole.

Always Eat Dessert

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:45:35 -0500

I'd like to tell you about my grandfather. My grandparents, really, because as it was said at the memorial service last weekend, you can't talk about one without talking about the other. If my grandma had lived a few more months, they would have been married for 70 years.

Bob and Ruth Bracey with Grandpa's younger brother Jay, c. 1937

If you only looked at them, you might make the mistake of thinking that my grandparents were weak. After all, by the time I came on the scene, they were both topping off around five feet tall. I swear Grandpa never weighed more than 95 pounds soaking wet.

But looks are deceiving.

Grandpa, Grandma, Dad and Aunt Jan, sometime in the '50s

What they lacked in physical stature, Grandpa and Grandma made up in spiritual and emotional strength. Grandpa was a pastor for more than 50 years, and didn't fully retire until his 80s. By all accounts, Grandma worked even harder, doing as much for Grandpa's church congregations as he did himself, and was singularly responsible for his sermons getting finished on Saturday nights.

My grandparents led by example. They were the kind of Christians who change the world by demonstrating their ability to love, serve their communities, and bring people of different walks of life and even different faiths together for common purpose. The power of their love has left an indelible mark on me and certainly many others, as evidenced at the memorial service. Many times on Saturday, I heard "Robert Bracey was a mighty man."

For the record, he also had a mighty sweet tooth.

Grandma, for her part, had no problems satisfying that sweet tooth with Maine blueberry pie and lemon chiffon pie, two family favorites. Given his diminutive size, particularly late in his life, a portion for Grandpa was usually about a third of a portion for someone else (he also ate soup with a teaspoon). But no matter what was for dinner, he always had to have dessert.

So it was only fitting, as my family gathered after the service for dinner, that we should all order dessert. We couldn't properly celebrate Grandpa's life without it.

Ruth Dunlap Bracey, 1913 - 2007
Robert Julian Bracey, 1913 - 2008

I am truly blessed.

Daring Bakers: Lasagna of Emilia-Romagna

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0500

I had my first Daring Bakers outing last month, with the flourless chocolate cake white chocolate debacle. So this month, when I opened the challenge to find out it was homemade lasagna, I almost did a little dance with joy. An excuse to break out the pasta machine! A new lasagna recipe! Something I won't eat entirely in one sitting!

Never mind that I am in a seemingly endless project of refinishing the hardwood floors in my house. As the deadline approached, I figured I could apply my multitasking skills. Why not make lasagna on the same day that Scheidt and I* were going to replace subflooring? Rolling fresh pasta and home improvements go together like salt and chocolate.

The multitasking worked well enough during the ragu-making stage, and I felt pretty smart. But the spinach pasta rolling stage exposed my poor foresight. Turns out it's not a good idea to roll out the world's wettest pasta dough at the same time that you are sawing out boards and sanding. However, it is a great way to get extra fiber into your diet, in the form of sawdust.

Fortunately, Scheidt** was very forgiving. He called it his favorite lasagna next to his mom's. He even made a "Will work for good food" sign to hold up during dinner.

*With an approximate ratio of one part LB to every four parts Scheidt.
**Keeper.

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge. The challenge hosts will share the entire recipe on their sites, as it is about 11 pages long.

Do try it. This lasagna isn't about the tomato sauce or piles of ricotta cheese; it's about the pasta... and this pasta is divine. I'm usually a "give me the center piece" kind of girl when it comes to lasagna, but in this case, the dried crispy edges in the corner were my favorites. Each noodle was coated with the lightest whisper of bechamel and topped with the thinnest layer of a hearty meat ragu. I'm guessing Emilia-Romagna is famous for its dairy, because the ragu simmered in milk for an hour, giving the meat an unexpected creaminess.

I like to mix pasta dough in the food processor. In the case of this pasta, the food processor let me get a very even green color throughout the pasta with no little spinach-y blobs. I added a pinch of salt to the pasta recipe, and used about 1/3 semolina flour in place of white flour because I love the texture. I don't know how these alterations may have changed the moisture content of the dough. If your pasta is too wet, as mine was, you can just knead in more flour, a few tablespoons at a time, until it reaches a moisture level that your pasta roller will accept. In my case, I think I kneaded in almost 1 1/2 additional cups of flour.

I rolled out to level 6 on my pasta roller. I could have kept going, but I've made ultra-thin pasta before and wanted something different. Also, since the dough was still a bit wet, it kept sticking to the rollers and wreaking havoc, so I admit I sort of gave up. Finally - after 100 minutes of working with the dough, no joke - I got 16 lasagna noodles from the recipe.

Salt, Chocolate, Perfection

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:57:12 -0500

Do you believe in recipe fate?

January 28, 2009*: on browsing my favorite food porn site, I saw entry 32064, a milk chocolate tart with a pretzel crust. I would be lying if I didn't say that it called to me. I immediately tagged the recipe for future use.

February 1, 2009: After a lovely trip to St. Louis to see the cutest babies and baby-mama in the world, I picked up a copy of Food & Wine magazine at the airport, not realizing that due to the time difference the Super Bowl had actually begun an hour earlier. Upon arriving at the gate, I was greeted with Bruce Springsteen's 59-Year-Old Crotch, or what passes for a Super Bowl half-time show these days. Then I got on the plane, leafed through my magazine, and lo and behold, there was the very same milk chocolate tart with a pretzel crust. ** If that is not a sign, I don't know what is.

Because for all my blustering lately about squash and apples, there is only one flavor combination that is truly perfection in my mind, and that ideal combination is none other than Salt and Chocolate. Capitalization is required. Women, I think, will understand this: Scheidt said the tart was "really good," while Apryl said nothing. Her eyes got wide, she nodded, and maybe she made a little moan. That's how I felt, too.

This tart is Salt and Chocolate nirvana. The salt is all the way through the crust, so you get a good smack of it in every bite. And it's no dinky chocolate-covered pretzel either; this is big, thick chocolate, not a thin waxy coating. Get the best milk chocolate you can afford, as you're going to be tasting it.

One cautionary note: since the crust is made of shards of crushed pretzel held together by a lusciously sweet dough, it may become a bit porous during baking. It's vital that you fortify the corners of the crust (where the bottom meets the sides) with a good deal of dough. Otherwise, your crust risks developing holes while it bakes, and then it will hemorrhage ganache*** when you fill it. And do plan for this one the night before, as there are several waiting periods involved, noted below.

Pretzel crust can be porous, like my wallet.

Milk Chocolate Pretzel Tart
From Food & Wine

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups coarsely crushed thin pretzels (from 3 1/2 ounces whole), divided
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 large egg
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3/4 pound milk chocolate, chopped
Maldon sea salt and crushed pretzels, for serving

Cream together butter, 3/4 cup pretzels and sugar at low spead until creamy. Beat in the flour and egg, mixing just until combined. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of pretzels, being sure to leave some pretzel pieces intact. Flatten the dough between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, at least 30 minutes. (Waiting period 1.)

Roll out the dough between the sheets of plastic wrap to a 12-inch round. Peel off the top sheet and invert the dough over a 10-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough into the corners and patch any tears. Trim the overhanging dough and refrigerate the shell for 30 minutes or until firm. (Waiting period 2.)

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line the shell with parchment paper and fill with pie weights (I use some black beans that I have reserved for this purpose). Bake for about 30 minutes, until nearly set. Remove the weights and parchment and bake for 10 to 15 minutes longer, until the tart shell is firm; cover the edge with foil if it darkens too much. Let the shell cool completely. (Waiting period 3.)

While the shell is in the oven, make the filling: In a medium saucepan, bring the cream to a simmer. Off the heat, add the milk chocolate and let stand for 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth. Transfer the filling to a bowl and let cool to room temperature, about 1 hour. (Waiting period 4.)

Melt the bittersweet chocolate in the microwave by heating for 30 seconds, then stirring. Repeat until chocolate is smooth and uniform, and not a second longer. Brush the melted chocolate over the bottom and up the sides of the tart shell, trying in particular to fill any holes that may have developed during baking. Refrigerate for 10 minutes or until set. (Waiting period 4.5 - because it's little.)

Place the tart shell on a completely flat plate (I used a sheet pan). Pour the filling into the shell and refrigerate until set, at least 4 hours. (Waiting period 5.)

To serve, cut into pieces. Garnish with Maldon sea salt and bits of crushed pretzel.**** At this point, men may want to leave the room.

*I have a backlog, ok?
**After this leg of the trip, I disembarked in Chicago Midway Airport to watch the last 5 minutes of the Super Bowl with a bunch of screaming Stillers fans. The lovely people at Southwest, realizing that a Chicago-to-Pittsburgh flight was bound to have a few football fans on it, did not make us board until the last possible moment. That last moment happened to be immediately following Santonio Holmes' final touchdown reception, when they shooed us all on the plane willy-nilly. We didn't know if the play had stood when we got on the plane, prompting a rash of FAA violations due to copious cell phone and blackberry use.
***Note that you do get to eat any ganache that oozes out.
****Don't sprinkle the sea salt on any parts of the tart that you don't wish to serve immediately. It will dissolve and leave a little pock-mark.

I am, right now, plotting to make this again. You might want to be my friend.

Squash and Apples, Version Soup

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:28:29 -0500

It's rare I have nothing to say, but there you have it: my loves of both soup and the squash-apple combo are already well documented. I could go on and on to reiterate that soup is a great way to warm yourself up, to sneak in a load of extra vegetables, and to trick yourself into thinking your meal is incredibly rich when it's actually quite light. And I could wax poetic - again - about how the sweet richness of butternut squash is perfectly balanced by tart, crisp apples.

But I've already done both of those things, so the important thing here is to just get straight to the recipe. I promise, this can be your new go-to fancypants soup. And the sneakiness factor is high: by using a slice or two of bread as thickener, I've reduced the cream to a quarter of what the original recipe called for while maintaining lusciousness. If you were nuts, you could leave the cream out all together... but 4 tablespoons over what easily makes 6-8 servings of soup is hardly overindulgent.

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup
Adapted vaguely from Bittman

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
Several leaves fresh sage, chopped, plus more for garnish
A few sprigs fresh thyme
1 average butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 pound Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped (3-4 apples)
1 quart (4 cups) chicken stock
1/2 cup white wine
2 slices bread, torn to pieces*
1/4 cup cream

Melt the butter with the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed stock pot over medium heat. Add onion, sage and thyme, and sauté 5 minutes or until onion begins to soften. Add the squash and apples and sweat 5-10 minutes more. Add the stock, wine and torn bread to the pot. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat, partially cover, and simmer until the squash is very soft, about 30 minutes.

Purée the soup in a blender, fishing out and discarding the thyme stalks as you go. Rinse out the pot you used to cook the soup, then return the puréed soup to the pot. Add the cream, then gently bring the soup back to serving temperature over medium-low heat. Serve garnished with fresh sage.**

*I've used whole wheat sandwich bread from the store, day-old leftover baguette, previously frozen ciabatta... it all works.
**I just needed to use another set of asterisks.

Daring Bakers: Flourless Chocolate Cake

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:00:00 -0500

It was time. I couldn't put it off any more. I became a Daring Baker, a culinary ~~lunatic~~ goddess obsessed with testing a challenging new recipe each month with hundreds of other bakers around the globe.

This month's Daring Bakers challenge came from Wendy at wmpesblog and Dharm at Dad - Baker and Chef, Chef Wan's Chocolate Valentino with homemade ice cream. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when I saw the February Daring Bakers challenge, my first ever. This is the group that tackled a behemoth six-recipes-in-one yule log in December and the (apparently) infernal Martha Stewart crepe cake more than a year ago. I've made ice cream once or twice or 90 times. And a three-ingredient flourless chocolate cake should be simple, right?

I was entranced by a tiny little string of words in the instructions: "If you are daring, try white chocolate." Immediately, I envisioned tiny white-and-dark-chocolate yin-yangs of flourless, eggy goodness. Nevermind that precision and attention to detail are not my strong suit. I would just prepare the batter twice, once with dark, once with white, magically pour the batter into ramekins maintaining the yin-yang shape, and be effortlessly amazing.

Burghilicious baking hubris, exposed. Drat.

So, a few notes.
1. I do not know how to work my Kitchenaid. Apparently after 6 months of ownership and heavy use, I still have not yet calibrated the level of the beater correctly, because I whipped the top 3/4 of the egg whites and not the bottom part. This probably resulted in me over-whipping the egg whites that did foam up, which was expressly warned against in the instructions.
2. The white chocolate turned into a viscous, stringy mass that wouldn't be out of place on the set of Alien. Turns out that white chocolate has a higher fat content than dark, so it would have been prudent to cut the butter in the white chocolate by about half. Noted, a day after said viscous goo incident.
3. Those perfect little yin-yang in my head? Manual dexterity challenges aside, because of the fat difference noted above, the white parts needed to bake a little longer than the dark parts. So yin-yangs didn't work so well, but the stacked white-on-dark (pictured above) was perfectly done. And cutest.
4. I really, really loved the affordable-but-awesome Guittard baking chocolate from Mon Aimee Chocolat. I shall have to write a post about this cacao wonderland.

Fortunately, there aren't a whole lot of errors that spicy milk chocolate ice cream can't solve! I used Dave Lebovitz' Aztec Chocolate Ice Cream recipe, which came out like a dream. I'll share that recipe soon. The all-white chocolate cake shown on the left below, which came into being due to a measuring error on my part, was especially delicious with this rich and complex chocolate treat.

Righty here is as close as I got to a yin-yang... which is admittedly not that close.

Below is my revision of the challenge recipe to make the layered black-and-white cake.

Flourless Black and White Chocolate Cakes
Adapted from Chef Wan's Sweet Treats

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (70% or greater cocoa)
8 ounces white chocolate
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter*, cut into chunks
5 large eggs, separated

You're going to construct a double boiler, twice. I suggest finding two metal or glass bowls that just barely fit into one of your saucepans. Put an inch or less of water in the pan - little enough that the bowls do not touch the water - and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer.

In the first bowl, combine the dark chocolate and 5 tablespoons butter. Place the bowl in the sauce pan and heat gently, stirring often, until chocolate and butter are completely melted. Set aside to cool at room temperature. Repeat with the white chocolate and the remaining 3 tablespoons butter.

While the chocolates are cooling, butter 8 three-inch ramekins.** Line each ramekin with a parchment circle, then butter the parchment. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Do not over-whip or the cake will be dry. Divide in half.

Beat the egg yolks together. Add half of the beaten yolks to the room temperature white chocolate, stirring constantly.*** Add the other half to the room temperature dark chocolate.

Gently fold 1/3 of half of the whipped egg whites into the white chocolate. Follow with the remaining 2/3, folding just until no white is visible. Repeat with the other half of the egg whites and the dark chocolate.

Divide dark chocolate batter evenly among the 8 prepared ramekins, filling to about 1/3 full. Repeat with the white chocolate batter.

Bake for 20 minutes. Test a cake with an instant read thermometer at this point; the goal heat is 140 degrees F. If you don't have a thermometer, a cake tester will appear wet when you pull it out but the tops of the cakes will have developed a nice golden crust. Cool cakes on a rack for 10 minutes, then unmold and cool completely. If you are wise, you will serve with ice cream.

*The original recipe called for 10 total tablespoons of butter, which I divided equally between the dark and light chocolate. Based on later research and the ridiculous glop that my white-chocolate-butter-egg mixture originally produced, I've suggested cutting the butter for the white chocolate portion of the batter to just 3 tablespoons, giving you an 8 tablespoon total.
**I used 4 three-inchers and 2 four-inchers. And don't skip the parchment step. I was out of parchment so I skipped it, and I regretted it when I flipped my cakes.
***I got the Alien-esque white stringy goo on this step. It went away after vigorous beating, but I don't know why it happened.

They angered me, so I ate them.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

Squash and Apples, Version Tart.0

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:26:11 -0500

I may have alluded before to my adoration of butternut squash. In the depths of Pittsburgh February, I've had some time to think about why, exactly, I love this humble gourd so much. And then, when it was 8 degrees outside for an entire week, it hit me: when everything is grey, butternut squash is warm and bright. It's that orange! And unlike summer vegetables, which are full of cooling water, butternut squash is hearty and warming.

But heaven knows I can never just have squash. Nope, like everything else, I have to make it complicated. And, in my opinion, there's no better way to fancy-fy unassuming butternut squash than to pair it with crisp, tart Granny Smith apples.

More than a month ago, I tagged this post after spying a truly gorgeous shot on Tastespotting. I'm a homing beacon for certain flavor combinations. Aside from the standard salt-and-chocolate pairing, two standards on the list are squash-apple and apple-cheddar. Add to that the fact that I'm a sucker for a savory tart, and I never stood a chance. This beauty catapulted to the top of my recipe queue.

The butternut-apple tart was a great accompaniment to a storebought chicken (yes, I bought a precooked chicken). It was also a delicious lunch and dinner for the next few days, though after Scheidt and I attacked it the first time there really wasn't much left.

Butternut Apple Tart
Spied on Straight from the Farm
Adapted third-hand from the Moosewood Restaurant Kitchen Garden

1 medium butternut squash, halved, seeds scooped out
Olive oil for basting
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
Several sprigs fresh thyme
1 Tablespoon butter
2 medium Granny Smith apples, peels left on, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 recipe savory tart crust

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Brush each cut half of the squash with olive oil. Place squash halves face down on a cookie sheet. Roast* for 30-45 minutes until very soft. Let cool until you can handle them well enough, then scoop out the flesh. Season with a few grates of fresh nutmeg, salt, and pepper, then mash well. Store refrigerated until ready to use.

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Gently cook the onions and thyme until soft and richly colored - at least 15 minutes, and as many as 45 to achieve deep caramelization.**

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Toss the apple slices in the flour.

Butter a 9 inch pie plate or tart pan. Roll out the tart crust to 12-13 inches. Transfer to pan, crimp the edges and prick all over with a fork. Parbake*** for 15 minutes, then remove from oven.

Use a mittened hand to press down any spots that may have bubbled up. Fill tart crust with 1 inch**** of butternut squash and top with the onions. Arrange the apple slices - I had a few left over - and finally, top with the cheddar cheese.

Bake, covered, for 15 minutes. Uncover and continue to bake for another 20 minutes until the crust is golden and the top is bubbly. Let cool 10 minutes before serving. Also delicious at room temperature or straight out of the fridge.

*The original recipe calls for steaming the squash in the microwave, but I'm in love with how roasting squash concentrates its flavors. You could steam to save time if you wished.
**Again, you can proceed as soon as the onions are fully cooked, but if you have a few minutes more, do take the time to fully caramelize the onions.
***Parbake means bake empty. If you are really fussy, you could use pie weights, but I was a rebel and went without.
****I had squash left over. It was yummy.

And as the post title suggests, there's another love poem to this divine combination in my backlog. But you'll have to wait.

Scheidt's Smoked4 Sauerkraut

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:41:00 -0500

I have always hated sauerkraut (as usual, just ask Mom). Droopy, pungent fermented cabbage swimming in a lake of salty, stinky... uh... krautjuice? Thanks, I'll pass.

So imagine my dismay when Scheidt told me how excited he was to make his mom's traditional sauerkraut for New Year's Day.

Me: "Ew. I don't like sauerkraut."

Scheidt: "Ours is different."

Me: "I doubt it."

Scheidt: "I'll make it. You'll see. You'll like it."

Me: (eye roll) "Whatever."

So it pains me more than I can express to admit: I actually liked this sauerkraut. Why? What turned the kraut corner for me? This kraut doesn't have that awful pungent taste, because it's buried under the flavor of FOUR DIFFERENT KINDS OF SMOKED MEATS! Yeehaw! Now that's a traditional German recipe I can get behind.

But in seriousness, this is delicious because the expected sour-pungency of the sauerkraut works in balance with the intense - and I do mean intense - smokiness of the meat. And on top of a pile of buttery mashed potatoes (which was also a new one for me - sauerkraut with spuds!), I finally understood why sauerkraut leads to a happy New Year.

Rita Scheidt's Smoky Sauerkraut
As told to Burghilicious by her son

This makes a "reasonable" quantity of sauerkraut - probably enough to happily feed 8-10 people. Scheidt, however, made an unreasonable double recipe, which was enough for all of 15216. I think we've still got some in the freezer.

3 pounds sauerkraut*
1 pound thick-sliced bacon - double-smoked if you can find it - chopped to 1/4 inch strips
4 inches pepperoni, chopped to 1/4 inch chunks
1/2 pound cottage ham, chopped to 1/4 inch chunks
1 pound hot or garlic kielbasa**, halved and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 pound mild kielbasa, halved and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons peppercorns
2 teaspoons whole allspice
4 bay leaves
1 cup water

Drain the sauerkraut in a fine mesh sieve, reserving at least 1 cups of fluid (referred to hereafter as "krautjuice"). Press on the kraut to extract as much liquid as possible. Rinse well with water, then squeeze dry. Try to get out as much water as you can Put the strained kraut into the crock of a large crock pot***. Refrigerate the krautjuice for later.

Next up: meats. In a large frying pan over medium heat, cook the bacon until brown and crispy. Strain the bacon into the crock pot. Pour the drippings into a small bowl and reserve. Cook the pepperoni in the same pan until crisp. Add the pepperoni drippings to the bacon grease and put the pepperoni in the crock pot. Finally, sauté the cottage ham with both kinds of kielbasa until well-browned. Add the meat to the pot and discard the drippings.

Rewarm some of the reserved drippings in the frying pan. Sauté onions until golden brown, then add to the pot.

Now you're ready to cook. Add the remaining reserved drippings, spices**** and water to the crock. Cook on low, stirring occaisionally, for 2-3 hours. At this point, do a taste test on the juices that have rendered in the pot. If you find it to be less-than-optimally sour, add some of the reserved krautjuice (Scheidt recommends about 1/2 cup). If you find it to be too sour, dilute with a 1/2 cup of water. It's all to taste. Continue to cook on low for another 2-3 hours, until the kraut is a deep, rich golden brown. At this point, don't cook too much more or the kraut will get soft and mushy.

Serve over a generous helping of mashed potatoes. Guten Appetit!

*Use the bagged, refrigerated sauerkraut, not the canned kind. Scheidt recommends Snow Floss brand.
**Preferably, you'll get your sausages fresh from the butcher. It's the perfect opportunity to find a German or Polish butcher to try.
***Or you can do it in a pot on the stove. Just simmer over low heat when it's time to cook.
****This is the one place where I'd depart from the original recipe. I found the whole peppercorns to be too intense when I bit into them, so I'd suggest quarantining the peppercorns, allspice and bay leaves in a cheesecloth sachet in your pot. However, Scheidt's favorite part of the dish is nailing a whole smoky peppercorn, so this is just a matter of preference.

Chicken and Apricot Phyllo Pie

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:11:31 -0500

I threw my first solo dinner party in 2005. The menu was ambitious and diverse: beef satay and mango salsa, stuffed apples with cream cheese glaze, some stuff that would have been guacamole had the avocados not refused to ripen, and two of these delightfully spiced chicken pies... plus about six more things. This was highly stressful, and I spent most of the evening in the kitchen. Fortunately, I'm smarter now.

The recipe source is humble: it's from one of those giant cookbooks that's always on a fire sale in the breezeway at Barnes & Noble. The title is MEDITERRANEAN, in a very large sans-serif font. Yet despite the price* - and the sometimes baffling Queen's English terminology like coriander, caster sugar and courgettes (that would be cilantro, superfine sugar and zucchini here in the States) - these cookbooks are full of delicious recipes. And if you, like me, appear to own the collection, then you're practically an expert in every possible kind of world cuisine.

But I digress. My point is, long before I discovered glossy food porn mags, Epicurious, or even the freakin' Food Network, this pie was a winner. It remains one of my dinner party standbys because it lends itself so well to advance preparation. For that same reason, it's also a convenient weeknight dinner: you can make the filling the night before in about 15 minutes, and you've got a beautiful dinner in less than 45 minutes after work the next day. If you arrive home from the office as ravenously hungry as I do, this is key to happiness.

And if I have a dinner party, you just get this pie and some salad. And you'll be happy, too.

Chicken and Apricot Phyllo Pie**
Adapted from Mediterranean: a Taste of the Sun in over 150 Recipes by Jacqueline Clark and Joanna Farrow

1/2 cup bulghur wheat
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/2 cup boiling water
6 tablespoons butter, divided
1 onion, finely chopped
1 pound ground chicken
1/4 cup slivered or sliced almonds
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 cup strained plain yogurt
1 tablespoon fresh chives, chopped, plus more to garnish
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
8 sheets phyllo dough, fully thawed***

The night before:
Put the bulghur wheat and apricots in a medium bowl and pour 1/2 cup boiling water over it. Let soak 5-10 minutes, until water is absorbed.

While the bulghur soaks, melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and sauté for 5 minutes or until translucent. Add the ground chicken and cook, stirring occaisionally, until cooked through. Add the bulghur, apricots and almonds, and cook for two more minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the cinnamon, allspice, yogurt, chives and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Store in an airtight container until ready to make pie. Remember to put the phyllo package in the fridge to thaw overnight!

To make pie:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Melt remaining 4 tablespoons of butter.

Unroll your 8 phyllo sheets on the counter. Place a 9-inch pie plate or tart pan on top of the dough, and use it as a guide to cut the dough into 10-inch circles. Save the dough trimmings. Place one of the phyllo circles in the bottom of your dish, brush with butter, top it with a second, and repeat until you've got 4 of the circles in the dish. Press the sides gently into the edges of your pan. Spread the chicken mixture into the shell, then top with the remaining 4 pastry circles, brushing with butter between each layer. Top the pie with crinkled-up pieces of pastry trimmings, and brush with any remaining butter.

Bake the pie for about 30 minutes, until pastry is golden and crisp. Garnish slices with fresh chives to serve. Equally delicious hot from the oven or at room temperature.

*This title is presently available for a mere 77 cents on Amazon!
**These are the make-ahead instructions. Feel free to do it all in one fail swoop, but do not tempt the Crumbly Phyllo Gods with your impatience. See next note.
***If you get ahead of yourself, like me, and try to unroll the phyllo before it's fully thawed, like me, you will have to patch together bits of crumbled phyllo to create your circles. You will also ruin your entire roll of dough. This recipe really only calls for about 1/3 of a box, so that's pretty sad. No spanokopita for you!

Curry Carrot Soup to (not have to) Trick Yourself

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 12:01:50 -0500

January is the time of resolutions, and I think everyone in Pittsburgh has resolved to lose weight. I know this because my gym is so busy that there aren't even lockers. Imho, an unfortunate number of weight loss gurus and program counsel dieters to eat highly processed, reduced calorie pseudofoods. The ingredients in many frozen entrees, energy bars, low-calorie snack foods and meals in a can aren't much different than the ingredients in Twinkies. I'm of at least half a mind that the obesity epidemic in this country has been caused by processed foods.

But enough ranting. If you are hoping to shed a few inches - and seriously, who isn't right now? - it's hard to find advice that doesn't involve compromising one's ~~food snob tendencies~~ commitment to eating real food. We must chart our own path.

To that end, may I suggest curry carrot soup.

I know that my personal dietary downfalls are an intermittent lack of vegetables, a tendency to eat more than a prudent share of cheese, and a soul-crushing addiction to pasta. Curried vegetable soup answers this in three ways. First of all, it's made almost entirely of vegetables, so you can eat until you're full without loading up on calories. Asian flavors are among the few in the world that wouldn't be better with a giant mound of shredded cheddar on top, so there's no feeling of deprivation. And finally, because of the low calorie count, you can add a few tablespoons of real sour cream* without blowing the meal into the realm of overindulgence. The texture, with or without a little tangy sour cream, is ridiculously luxurious. Puréed soups are, after all, the bomb.

But for me, the best part of this soup - which I make at least once a month during the winter - is that it's a really delicious recipe that just happens to be very healthy. You don't have to be on a diet to eat it; you just have to like yummy things. And I believe that recipes like this are the real road to weight loss and healthy living.

Curry Carrot Soup
A Burghilicious Original
(based on something I saw on an old Rachael Ray** show)

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 lb peeled, roughly chopped carrots, or a bag of baby carrots
2 cups diced squash of any kind OR 1 15 ounce can puréed pumpkin
1 tablespoon your favorite curry powder
1/2 tablespoon ground cumin
Pinch of ground cayenne pepper or a dash of Tabasco, to taste
1 quart (four cups) chicken stock***, plus maybe some more if you want to thin it out
Sour cream, to garnish

Melt butter with olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook for 5 minutes, until onion is somewhat translucent. Add carrots and diced squash, season with salt and pepper, and cook an additional 5 minutes to "sweat" the vegetables. Add curry powder, ground cumin and cayenne pepper and cook one minute more. Pour the chicken stock into the pot - along with the puréed pumpkin, if you are using that - and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until carrots are easily pierced with a fork. Remove from heat.

Using a blender, purée in batches until smooth. I prefer thick, but if you want to thin your soup, add more stock (or plain water) as you blend. Garnish with a nice dollop of real sour cream and a few cracks of fresh ground pepper.

*2 tablespoons of real sour cream is only 2 points in Weight Watchers, for instance. Use them points where they count for flavor!
**Don't hate me. I got backup. We all gotta start cooking somewhere.
***Feel free to sub in vegetable stock or even water to make a vegetarian version.