The Spiced Life

The porting is about to begin...

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:36:00 +0000

This is Laura's husband, who is about to start porting her blog over to WordPress (as mentioned in the previous entry). I have to be honest here: I'm not 100% sure what is about to happen. If everything goes perfectly, the old blog will be replaced with the new, and nobody who comes to it will know the difference (save for the new look of the blog).

If things go sort of OK, there will be up to 48 hours down time, and then all will be well.

If things go really badly -- well, I prefer not to speculate.

So here we go...

John

Stay tuned for big excitement at The Spiced Life...

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:12:00 +0000

Well it is exciting for me anyway! The Spiced Life is moving to WordPress! This move is courtesy of my husband, who basically spent his spring break teaching himself both WordPress and Thesis so I could make the switch. We are 95% ready, so I hope to go live by the end of this week and I sincerely hope that no links or subscriptions are lost in the process (PLEASE let me know if it seems this is not the case!).

In the meantime I will leave you with the thought of Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies and Bittersweet Chocolate Meringue Cookies. My first foray into the world of meringue was a huge success, one that I am very excited to share. (Those are the peanut butter versions pictured above.)

Beggar's Angel Hair

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I realize this means very little to you guys, since when you read my posts is when you read my posts, but holy moly I made this dish tonight and here I am writing about it already! We are all healthy and I am, for the first time since before the holidays, completely caught up with my blog. Of course this means I might have nothing to share over spring break in a few weeks, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

This dish was interesting. I predicted my kids would like it and that my husband would not and my husband raved about it while my kids picked at it, especially Alex. So much for what I know. I really liked it also--I don't know if I would call it a repeater exactly, if for no other reason than we are not big on giant plates of pasta for dinner, but it was tasty and is worth trying just for the unusual factor alone.

When Around My French Table first came out this past fall, I passed it by. Not because I don't love Dorie Greenspan--I do and have several cookbooks to prove it-but because I was convinced I had no interest in a French cookbook. Well it turns out I was wrong. I have this completely erroneous notion I think of what a French cookbook should be. It should be full of cream and butter, every recipe should have 50 nit-picky steps that only a classically trained chef would bother following, it should not have evolved past what Julia Child already did, it should be xenophobically French as though the French have not been influenced by any other cultures or cuisines the past 50 years. Why I thought this I have no idea. (Although on a side note, my husband just heard me talking to myself and said: "what we had tonight was French!?!?!?!?" so apparently I am not alone.)

So anyway, to make a long story slightly shorter, I browsed the cookbook at a friend's house and realized how utterly wrong I was. I actually ordered the book that night, at my friend's house, from my phone. We were playing a game and they had to wait until I did (clearly my friends are tolerant of crazed foodie types).

This is the first recipe to jump out at me, not least of which because it is just so unusual. The origins of the dish are equally interesting, involving the word mendiant, which translates to beggar but frequently means a chocolate bonbon with nuts and dried fruit, in which each of the nuts and fruits chosen represents one of the 4 mendicant monastic orders. At a restaurant that Greenspan frequents, the chef turned the sweet savory, resulting in this dish that she then adapted for her book. I did not have any linguini, so I used angel hair. Same with Asiago for Parmesan. I added some dried sour cherries because they sounded good--but honestly it was the figs that made it. Next time I would be tempted to use all figs for the dried fruit. The original nuts to represent the monastic orders were almonds and hazelnuts, and actually next time I think I might try the hazelnuts instead of the pistachios, which I am not a huge fan of (I followed the recipe and used them for my kids who love them--ha! fat lot of good that did!). Salt and pepper are crucial--I used a good (French!) grey sea salt.

Beggar's Angel Hair
Adapted from Around my French Table, Dorie Greenspan

14-16 oz dried long, skinny pasta of choice
12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/3 cup shelled pistachios or hazelnuts, chopped roughly
1/3 cup sliced almonds (or chop your own)
8 plump dried Black Mission figs, chopped (at least!)
1/4 cup raisins (I would have liked to use golden but all I had were currants)
salt and pepper to taste--freshly ground pepper and a good grey sea salt are preferable
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I used aged Asiago because this is what I have)
grated orange zest to taste-you will not need more than one orange
minced parsley or chives to taste for garnish

Cook the pasta according to the directions in salted water. Drain it well.

About 5 minutes before the pasta is done, heat a large, deep skillet over medium high heat. Melt the butter--when the butter is all melted, add the dried fruit and nuts. Stir. Let the butter boil and bubble; you want it to brown but not burn. You are watching (and smelling) for both the color and aroma of hazelnuts.

When the butter has browned enough, add the well drained pasta with salt and pepper and toss it to get the nuts and dried fruit throughout the pasta. Remove from the heat and add the grated cheese. Toss again and taste for additional salt and pepper. Serve, garnished with orange zest and parsley or chives (as well additional cheese if the person wants it).

Steak Fajitas

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:44:00 +0000

I am well aware this is post is going to garner me a derisive phone call from my mom and a possibly even more derisive message from my sister. And maybe even some derisive comments from you all as well (please be gentle). But still I persevere on, for your own edification as well as a note to myself not to forget all about this discovery.

Seasoned cast iron really is nonstick.

See the thing is, I always kept my cast iron pan seasoned. But I also only used it to cook bacon, so no wonder it never stuck. And before you make too much fun of me, consider that one should not cook tomatoes in cast iron (the acid causes a reaction--apparently some people disagree, but this is the rule I've always stuck to), and then think about just how many dishes I cook with tomatoes. So I never reached for it anyway.

But holy moly, I had the pan running on high gas the entire time I was cooking the onions and peppers--it would have taken gallons of oil on the stainless steel and I would have killed about 50 birds with the nonstick. Truly, it was a thing of beauty to a somewhat health conscious cook like myself. And it gave the peppers and onions the perfect sear--as did the cast iron indoor grill for the skirt steak. If you are looking to emulate chain bar and grill fajitas indoors--and normally I would not aim for emulating chain bar and grill anything, except potato skins and fajitas, 2 of my guilty pleasures--cast iron is the way to go. That and a great marinade.

One note: try to get a good flour tortilla that will not rip easily. Sadly ours did--which is why you can see my hand in the picture above, holding the tortilla roll together. The flavor was perfect, spot on, but I ended up needing to cut my fajitas up and eat them in bite sizes. I won't be buying that brand of tortilla again!

Steak Fajitas
Recipe by The Spiced Life

2 lbs skirt or flank steak
marinade for steak (see below)
2 sweet bell peppers, preferably different colors, thickly sliced
1 medium-large white onion, thickly sliced
flour tortillas
shredded cheese (I like cheddar and monterey jack)
shredded Romaine or iceberg lettuce (something with crunch)
salsa
sour cream
Mexican or southwestern style hot sauce
guacamole (we left out)

Marinade:
juice of 2-3 limes (depending on juiciness--this marinade is not precise)
1 t cumin
1 Mexican oregano
4 cloves garlic, minced

At least 1 hour before dinner, place the beef and the marinade into a plastic, seal-able bag (like Ziploc). Massage the meat with marinade and place it in the fridge. Massage and turn over ever 20 minutes--or if you start with more time, every 30-60 minutes. The lime in the acid has a cooking property, so begin marinading that day, not before.

Preheat your grill; shake the steak off to remove the marinade and sprinkle salt and pepper on each side. When the grill is quite hot, add the steak. Cook to desired doneness--I like medium rare for fajitas (flank steak will take longer than skirt steak). Remove to a cutting board and tent with foil.

While the steak is cooking, preheat your cast iron skillet on high. Get it nice and smoking hot. Add a little oil and add the onion with a pinch of salt. Toss every now and then--you want the onion to char in places (I suppose in the summer this could be done outside also on the grill in a grill basket or in the skillet on the grill). When it is partially done, add the peppers. Continue tossing and charring. I like the pepper to retain some bite but I like the onion completely cooked through. Do it to your taste.

While the onions and peppers are cooking, and after the meat has rested for 10 minutes or so, slice the meat thinly against the grain. At the table or counter, place a bowl with the shredded cheese, one each with the lettuce, sour cream, guacamole and salsa. Don't forget the hot sauce! Place the sliced steak out and as soon as the peppers and onions are done, place them out also. Warm the flour tortillas in the microwave--wrap them in a towel with a sprinkle of water and heat for 2-3 minutes on 50% power. Place this all out and let your guests or family make their own fajitas. Vow to never pay for steak fajitas in a chain bar and grill again.

Lazy Cream Bundt Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Wow we finished this cake tonight and here I am blogging about it already! What caused me to catch up? Well Sammy and I both got sick--Sammy quite sick (she's fine, it was an ear infection but in came with a very high fever), and as a result let's just say my cooking suffered. And if you do not believe me just ask my rather spoiled eldest who complained on the phone to my parents that she was "So, so, so, so, so SO, SO, SO TIRED of [insert what I was serving--I think an Indian hash that lasted 3 nights]!!!! Mommy is not cooking very much!!!!" This was all done at the top of her lungs. Truthfully we were all getting tired of hashes--the tired and overworked parent's best friend, I think we had a Mexican one first--but methinks my daughter needs a lesson in how the rest of the world eats. Especially considering that I still found time to make this cake in the midst of it all.

This is the perfect no energy, no time, but I am craving a cake cake. It is literally the simplest cake I have ever made. No butter to soften or cream, I did it in a mixer but I bet it could be done by hand, and you don't say that about very many cakes. I have made some other butter-less cakes that used cream in its place, but in those cakes the cream was whipped separately. Not this one. Next time I might slip in a little lemon or orange zest just to make it more exciting, but actually my family devoured it so I guess plain vanilla was ok too.

Sammy chose the bundt pan we used--which surprised me given how many more exciting ones I have (from a 4 YO perspective) but perhaps the fever was frying her brain at that moment. The cake rose high above the edges of the pan, but did not drip over and deflated perfectly within 10 minutes of coming out of the oven. Keep in mind if you use a smaller bundt pan you will need to bake some of the batter separately.

Lazy Cream Bundt Cake
Closely adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes, Lauren Chattman

3 cups (378 g) AP flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
6 large eggs, room temperature
2 3/4 cups sugar
4 t vanilla OR 1 T vanilla plus 1 t lemon or orange zest (or you can add almond extract)
2 cups heavy cream, room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour (or use something like Baker's Joy, which I do) a 12-cup bundt pan. Set aside.

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

Mix the eggs and sugar together--Chattman instructs to use a mixer on medium high speed for 5 minutes, until pale yellow and thick, which is what I did. But if you can whip cream by hand, I see no reason why you could not do this by hand as well.

While mixing (on medium low if with a mixer), pour 1/3 of the cream into the egg mixture in a steady stream. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix just to combine. Scrape the sides down and repeat twice, until all of the flour and cream has been used. At the end beat on medium speed (or use your hand) for 1 minute to combine.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for about 1 hour, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. The sides will also pull away from the pan. Do check the cake at 45 minutes and tent it with foil if it is getting too dark (I did not need to).

Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then invert it onto a cooling rack (I like to do this on top of parchment paper so that the cake does not sink into the wires). Let cool completely before slicing.

Small Town Tiramisu

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:40:00 +0000

I learned 2 things while making this tiramisu, my first ever traditional tiramisu. First, truly authentic tiramisu calls for some ingredients that are a pain in the butt to find in small towns. Second, I suspect restaurants have been making inauthentic tiramisu for forever, because my tiramisu tasted spot on for what I have been eating in various restaurants my whole life. So someday I hope to feature another tiramisu on this blog, one made with marsala wine and proper lady fingers, etc. But for now let's call this my Small Town Tiramisu.

I made this for that same supper club party as the Italian bread (which is why I did not have time to go to Jungle Jim's and get marsala wine, Italian ladyfingers, etc). I got a lot of compliments for the fact that the tiramisu was not soggy--the ladyfingers I found were pathetically soft (a true Italian ladyfinger should be quite crisp), so I only brushed the espresso syrup onto them, instead of dipping the entire ladyfinger. In *my* ideal world, I would increase (maybe 1.5X) the mascarpone part of the recipe, because I like a cream heavy tiramisu. But this is personal preference-the recipe as it is written below does not include extra of the mascarpone-cream layer.

One note about the photos: the tiramisu seems to have 3 layers because it was unclear whether the dumb ladyfingers I bought needed to have 2 cookies to form 1 ladyfinger (just trust me). I decided after it should have been 1, not 2.

Small Town Tiramisu
Adapted from Giada de Laurentiis and Gourmet

1/2 cup kahlua
1/2 cup hot water
3 T espresso powder
2 T sugar

6 egg yolks
4 T sugar
2 T sherry
1 lb mascarpone, room temperature
1 cup heavy cream, softly whipped

ladyfingers-how many depends on size of the ladyfinger, they will need to cover 2 layers of a 9 X 13 pan (I used around 36)
unsweetened natural cocoa powder

Bring the Kahlua, water and espresso powder to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and simmer until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside.

Prepare the whipped cream--do not overwhip, you want it softly whipped. Set aside.

Beat the egg yolks, sherry and sugar in a double boiler or heat safe bowl over barely simmering water. Beat until pale and tripled in volume, about 6 minutes. Remove from the heat, and slowly beat in the mascarpone, a dollop at a time. Once the mascarpone is incorporated, fold the whipped cream in until they are combined completely.

If you are using crisp ladyfingers, dip each one completely in the Kahlua mixture, shake it off gently, and place it in the bottom of a 9 X 13 baking dish. If your ladyfingers are soft, as mine were, lay the ladyfingers out in the pan until the entire layer is covered. Brush the Kahlua mixture over the ladyfingers. Spread half of the mascarpone mixture over the ladyfingers. Repeat, ending with the rest of the mascarpone mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 4 hours and up to 8 hours. Sprinkle the top with cocoa powder before serving.

Italian Bread

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 02:00:00 +0000

Alex loves The Sound of Music. Since the moment she saw me watching it, she became obsessed. She calls it "Maria" and refuses to acknowledge any other name for it. When we first started watching it Nazis were kinda hard to explain--I just left it at bad guys who wanted to force the Captain to work for them and she accepted it.

We just watched it last week as part of a sick day movie marathon (yes my kids have all the germs too this time), and suddenly it was like she had jumped a level in understanding and inquisitiveness. I feel like I am tracking her developing maturity through The Sound of Music! Are ALL the Nazis bad guys? What did the Nazis want? What did they do? And then there was: Why is Maria upset/conflicted about a man liking her? Just what is a nun? Isn't she their mommy? Oh ok, now they married--NOW she's their mommy? Yikes. All of that was punctuated by "I like the Captain; he's handsome!" (!) and, approximately 10 different times throughout the movie, proving she is still 5: "But WHY did they put a frog in her pocket, Mommy???"

I love kid brains. But I have a tendency toward brutal honesty that causes me to sometimes worry I will give them nightmares or overload their little minds.

Anyway about this bread. Some friends and I recently created a very casual supper club which meets around once a month, sometimes with kids, sometimes not, always with spouses (if applicable). We had our first meeting this past weekend, the theme of which was Italian. I immediately signed up for bread and dessert.

For whatever reason I expected this bread to be crustier, more like a French baguette. Maybe any of you who have lived in Italy can tell me whether the super basic artisan white bred (i.e., not ciabatta or foccacia or grissini, or...) is very crusty. My most perfect (to my mind) loaves had a crispiness to the crust, but they were still not super crusty. But maybe we expect all European bread to be like a French baguette and maybe Italian bread is not supposed to be so crusty?

At any rate, I made 5 loaves--the loaf that had the oven to itself was perfect (well I have no idea if it was perfectly authentic), as it had a soft interior and a crispy but not super crusty, browned exterior. All of the loaves had a wonderful, flavorful sweetness brought on by the use of a biga starter. But the 4 loaves that were in the convection oven did not develop as nice of crusts--I can only assume they were crowded. When I reheated one on convection the next day however, first wrapped in foil (stored in fridge) and then unwrapped on the rack for the last 5 minutes, it too had a perfectly crispy crust. So I guess the idea is first: try not to overcrowd your oven and second: if it turns out too soft try re-heating, wrapped in foil, at 350 F (325 F convection) for 10 minutes, unwrapped for another 5.

I am so excited about this bread because both the biga and the dough itself were super easy to work with. The dough is less sticky than the French bread dough, and as a result its supple elasticity is actually fun to knead. I am also excited because I am thinking I will try making a triple batch or so of the biga and store it in the freezer, so I can pull it out whenever I want an artisan-style loaf of bread. I realize that there are tons of methods by which to make a lot of bread dough and then bake some each day--but it does require using up a lot of bread dough in a short span of time. And it takes up so much space in your fridge! I like the idea of this better.

Try dipping this bread in a good dipping oil--I like one with cheese and herbs. It was absolutely fantastic.

I am submitting this bread to Wild Yeast's Yeastspotting. Check it out every week for the best yeast breads on the web.

Italian Bread
Closely adapted from Peter Reinhart, The Bread Baker's Apprentice

*Note: this is a 2+ day method, requiring the use of a biga. Read through the recipe before you begin to make sure you have an idea of the timing. Also note that the biga makes 18 oz, exactly what you need for the rest of the recipe, which makes 2 loaves. You can adjust the amounts up or down (halve or multiple) to make more or less loaves. See my notes above about making extra biga and keeping it in the freezer.

Day 1: Biga:
2 1/2 cups (11.25 oz) unbleached bread flour (you can sub AP if need be)
1/2 t instant yeast
3/4 - 1 cup (7-8 oz) water, room temperature

Stir together the flour and yeast--you can do this in a mixer, my preference, or by hand. Add the water--starting with 7 oz or 3/4 cup. Stir until it comes together and makes a coarse ball. Adjust the water or flour as needed, to make a dough that is neither excessively sticky or stiff. Reinhart notes that at this stage it is better to err on the sticky side.

Either by hand or using a dough hook, knead the dough for 4-6 minutes (4 minutes on medium low speed with a dough hook). The dough should be soft and pliable but not sticky. Lightly oil a deep bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside to rise until nearly doubled, 2-4 hours.

After the dough has doubled, knead it lightly to degas, and then place it back in the bowl. Cover again with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or place it in freezer bags and store it in the freezer (if you only want to bake one loaf at a time, divide the dough in half and store the 2 halves separately). Let it rest at the minimum overnight.

Day 2 (or 3 or 4): Making the bread:
3 1/2 cups (18 oz) biga (see above)
2 1/2 cups (11.25 oz) unbleached bread flour (or AP flour)
1 2/3 t salt
1 T sugar
1 t instant yeast
1 t diastatic barley malt powder, optional (I did not use as I do not have)
1 T decent extra virgin olive oil (not your pricey stuff though)
3/4 - 1 cup water (7-8 oz)

Remove the biga from the fridge 1 hour before baking (if using from the freezer, defrost overnight in the fridge and then, once thaw, remove it one hour before beginning bread recipe). Cut it into approximately 10 pieces now, while it is cold and easy to slice. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and leave to warm up.

Stir together, in a large bowl or mixer bowl, the flour, salt, sugar, yeast and optional malt powder. Add the olive oil, biga and 3/4 cup (7 oz) water and stir until a ball forms. Add more water or flour as needed to get a shaggy but fairly cohesive ball. Transfer to kneading--either by hand or with the dough hook. The dough should be slightly sticky and soft--but not super sticky. When it is where you want it, knead for 10 minutes, adding flour as needed (10 minutes by dough hook or hand). Lightly oil a deep bowl and place the dough inside it. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise at room temperature for about 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

Gently divide the dough into 2 pieces of about 18 ounces each (for batards--you can also make torpedo rolls of about 4 ounces each). Gently--try not to degas the dough too much but also don't get too hung up on this--stretch the dough into a rough rectangle about 12 inches long. Fold the dough as though you were folding an 8X11 sheet of paper to mail--fold the bottom third up and then fold the top third down. Use your hands to gently seal the dough and increase the surface tension. Accept that your batards will not be perfect unless you are super experienced (I am not). They'll taste great either way.

If I am baking a lot of loaves, I bake them on parchment paper right on the cookie sheets that they rise on. For just one loaf, however, I place my pizza stone in the oven and I place the batard on parchment paper on a rim-less cookie sheet (or a baker's peel if you have one). Lightly spray the tops of the loaves with oil and then gently lay plastic wrap over them. Let rise at room temperature for 60-90 minutes. They will rise to 1 1/2 times their original size.

30 minutes before baking, prep your oven. Place a rimmed jelly roll pan or a cast iron skillet on the bottom of the oven. Turn the oven on to 500 F and bring a kettle or pot of water to boil.

When it is time to bake your bread, use your sharpest knife and make 3 diagonal slashes on your loaves. This is something I still struggle with; just do your best. (They have special baker's razors you can buy but I've never gotten one.)

When it is time for the loaves to bake, make sure you have several things ready before opening the oven. Have a spray bottle with water ready, and have the hot water that you boiled ready. Also have a dry towel that will cover your oven door ready. Open the oven and place your loaves inside (either on their sheets or slide the parchment off of the sheet onto a baking stone). Working quickly, cover the oven glass with the dry towel (this is important-the slightest drop of water will cause your glass to crack in that hot of an oven. Trust me, I know). Pour the hot water into the cookie sheet or skillet in the bottom of the oven. Immediately spray the sides of the oven and shut the oven door. Wait 30 seconds and open, repeat the towel and spray parts. Repeat again 30 seconds later (so you will have sprayed 3 times).

After the final spray, reduce the oven temperature to 450 F for a softer bread or 400 F for a crustier bread. Unless you have a convection oven, plan to rotate the bread for even baking halfway through. At 450 F the loaves will take about 20 minutes to finish; at 400 F it will take a little longer. Watch for the crust to become golden brown and then check the internal temperature with a meat thermometer--it should register 200 F.

Transfer the loaves to a cooling rack and let cool for 1 hour before slicing.

An Indian Feast: Yogurt Curried Fish and Orange Scented Cauliflowers & Potatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:00:00 +0000

My mom observed to me the other day that my posts had been shorter this winter. And it is true, because I seem to be perennially behind. I make a particular dish or dessert, and I fall asleep composing various observations about it in my head--but then I don't sit down to write the actual post until 1-2 weeks later, by which time all I can remember is that it was yummy. Which is hardly poetic. And it does not help that I have always, whether we are talking about high school, college, law school or this blog, done my best writing late at night. But Alex started school this year, meaning I have to haul my butt out of bed every morning way earlier than my natural bio-rhythms would like.

Are other people this thrown by their kids starting kindergarten? Although to be fair--and I have always tried to avoid this blog becoming a long litany of what new germ I am fighting off this week--it has been a rough fall/winter with the appendectomy in Sepetember followed by, as of tonight, 5 rounds of antibiotics. It has just been germy as hell around here! But anyway, when you combine the germs with the new schedule, I just seem to be behind on everything, especially things I prefer doing at night. The trip to Disney World got me a week closer to actually writing about dishes right after I make them. That puts me still a week behind.

Alas.

And the worst thing about the germy fatigue I've been fighting off is that Alex came home yesterday and announced that she no longer wanted to be a paleontologist or artist (2 long standing goals) but instead wanted to stay home, bake and take naps.

YIKES. I mean yay for baking, but stay home and take naps? I told her taking care of kids was more work than that (although it is true I take the occasional nap) and she informed me she did not need the kids, she just needed a husband. DOUBLE YIKES. Now my mom was a SAHM who took the occasional (but much less frequent) nap and loved to bake--but I don't remember ever feeling like my goal should be to have a husband who just took care of me. For now we are ignoring this insane pronouncement, but it sure gave me a jolt!

Anyway, I guess one way to catch up on the blogging at least is to give you a twofer. We had some dinner guests a week or so ago, and I made them Indian food. Indian food is very hard to do entirely in one pot for some reason. It always ends up feeling like you need a veggie that is separate from the protein even though they are both curries with a lot going on. So I made a fish curry and accompanied it with a cauliflower dish-and while both were great, the cauliflower was spectacularly unique in my experience. They both came from a new cookbook. India Cookbook, by Pushpent Pant, that I am loving so much I am going to reserve talking about it for another day, when I can give it a proper review.

Khamala Phoolkopi (Cauliflower & Potatoes with Oranges)
Adapted from Indian Cookbook, Pushpent Pant

1 small head (approx 500 g) of cauliflower, cut into bite sized florets
4 potatoes, parboiled and peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks (I used baking potatoes but I am sure you can use any, just make sure you parboil them so they are partially cooked but still firm)
1 t ground turmeric
4 T vegetable oil
4 cloves
2 green cardamom pods
1 2-3 inch cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1 T minced or grated fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 medium-large onions, finely chopped
1 t cayenne or paprika
2 t ground cumin
1 t sugar (I accidentally left out)
3 oranges--remove the zest with a peeler (be sure not to peel the white) and then peel the oranges and cut them into bite sized segments
fresh green chile peppers, to taste, minced
salt to taste

Place the cauliflower and parboiled and prepped potatoes in a large bowl. Toss with the turmeric until evenly coated. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy pan over high heat. Add the cauliflower and potatoes and stir fry for 2-3 minutes, until they are lightly browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Add the bay leaves, cloves, green cardamom pods and cinnamon stick to the oil in the pan (add a little more oil if you need to). Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the onions with a pinch of salt and cook for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and fry for another 3 minutes. Add the orange peel, sugar, ground ginger, cayenne or paprika, and cumin. Toss to coat--be sure that the spices to not burn--add a few teaspoons of water if need be. Cook for 1 minute, until fragrant.

Add the cauliflower and potatoes back into the pan. Toss to mix with a pinch of salt to taste. Add 2/3 of the bite sized orange segments. Add 1/2 cup of water and mix well. Cover the lid and reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Simmer for 15 minutes.

About 5 minutes before the dish is cooked, add the green chile pepper ((I left out because my kids cannot take heat). Taste for additional salt. Before serving garnish with the remaining orange segments.

Dahi ki Machhali (Fish Cooked in Yogurt Sauce)
Adapted from India Cookbook, Pushpent Pant

2 1/4 lbs firm white fish fillets, cut into pieces (I used mahi mahi)
1 t ground turmeric
3-4 medium-large onions, sliced
1 T minced or grated ginger
6 garlic cloves, minced
3 2-3 inch cinnamon sticks
7 cloves
8 green cardamom pods
2 black cardamom pods
1 t black peppercorns
2 1/4 cups whole Greek yogurt
3/4 cups vegetable oil (yes it is a lot of oil-this is not diet food--although you could start with less and add more as you need it)
2 t ground coriander
1 t cayenne or paprika
salt to taste
cilantro for garnish

30 minutes before beginning, place the fish in a shallow dish or container and rub all over with the ground turmeric. Set in the fridge to chill until you need it.

Place the onion, ginger and garlic into a food processor and puree into a paste (add water if necessary but I did not need to). Set aside.

Place the cinnamon, 3 cloves 3 green cardamom pods and all of the black cardamom pods into a spice grinder. Grind to make your own masala for this dish. (I accidentally used ALL of the spices and it was fine). Whisk the masala into the yogurt and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large pot (such as a Dutch oven) over medium heat with the remaining whole spices (so I skipped this). Stir fry for 1 minute, until they are fragrant. Add the onion puree and cook for 6 minutes, until it is starting to caramelize. Add the ground coriander and cayenne or paprika with some salt to taste. Add the fish and cook them for about 5 minutes.

Reduce the heat and slowly stir, by the spoonful, the yogurt mixture into the curry. Once all of the yogurt is in, cover the pot and cook for 3 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through and oil floats to the surface. Taste for salt and garnish with cilantro before serving.

Potato Chip Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:00:00 +0000

Each semester during parent-teacher conference week, our school's PTG looks for volunteers to bake and cook for the teachers, who work through the evening hours. Given that cooking and baking is my kind of volunteering, I always try to make something, at least one dessert and one meal. After a few rounds of cookies for various functions at the school in addition to this, I feel I've established myself as a decent baker in particular--so I have decided that from here on out I am going to use them as my guinea pigs.

Sammy and I went cookie cookbook browsing, searching for those cookies that although they sounded good, would not necessarily be made under normal circumstances. Cookies we were curious about. These fit the bill perfectly, because although I think salty and sweet are a marriage made in heaven, my husband does not. And indeed he took one bite of these cookies and would not eat any more (!).

I on the other hand found them dangerously addictive, like shortbread plus potato chips and yet much better than that sounds. And if I was feeling insecure at all after John's rejection (although truly he was nice about it), I felt a lot better after a friend of mine told me that her older son's teacher had gushed to her about these amazing potato chip cookies, and how she had sneaked out at every possible break, hoping there would still be more left.

So I guess some people love them!

The recipe did not contain any guidelines about what kind of potato chips to use, so I went with our standby, Cape Cod Reduced Fat Kettle Cooked chips. The reduction in fat comes from the baking/frying method, not any weird additives. I do find them less salty than other chips though so I added a bit of coarse salt to the dough. I think I was a tad overzealous in my rolling of the cookie dough in potato chips, as I used a ton more than Krystina Castella called for. Of course one person's overzealous is another person's perfect, so just roll to taste.

Potato Chip Cookies
Closely adapted from Crazy About Cookies, Kristina Castella

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 t vanilla
1/4 t coarse salt, optional, see notes above
2 cups (252 g) AP flour
2 cups (200 g) coarsely crushed chips, divided (or more, to taste, see notes above)
coarse salt and sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment or silicone. Set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy (add the salt here if using). Mix in the vanilla, and then the flour and 1 cup of the potato chips. Mix well to thoroughly incorporate the chips but do not overmix.

Using a cookie scoop or spoons, shape the dough into 1 inch balls and then roll them in the remaining crushed potato chips. Place on the cookie sheet about 2 1/2 inches apart ( ibaked 12 cookies to a sheet). Press on the cookie balls slightly to flatten just a bit. Sprinkle them with coarse salt and/or sugar, to your taste (I liked both).

Bake for 12-15 minutes; the cookies will not get particularly dark, just lightly browned. Let cool on the cookie sheets for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Riojan Potatoes with Chorizo and Chile

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 01:25:00 +0000

I confess we had this as a meal--but it might be better as tapas. Not because it is not good enough to eat a big bowlful of it--oh it is--but because to me this is not a particularly healthy meal. The carbs completely outweigh the fiber and protein--and the protein is unhealthy flavoring protein (chorizo) as opposed to solid stick to your ribs protein (chicken, beans, etc).

It does not help that I have very little self control around good potatoes. (And on that note I would like to add that this year I discovered that organic potatoes blow the pants off regular ones--I highly recommend choosing organic for potatoes.)

But there it is, I wanted to make it, I did not want to fiddle with a tapas meal on a weeknight meal, so instead we had a meal that fell a little short of my usual standards. And I do not regret it for a moment.

Riojan Potatoes with Chorizo and Chile
Closely adapted from The New Spanish Table, Anya von Bremzen

1 large dried pimiento choricero or ancho chile pepper (I used the ancho), stemmed, seeded, torn into large pieces
3 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes (I highly recommend using organic potatoes--they taste SO much better)
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 medium-large onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 green or yellow (I prefer the sweeter yellow) bell pepper, thinly sliced
6-8 oz sweet Spanish style chorizo, sliced into rounds (if you use a particularly dry sausage, I recommend dicing instead)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 t sweet smoked paprika
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 bay leaf
approx. 2 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
chopped flat leaf parsley for garnish

Soak the dried pepper in 1/2 cup very hot water until softened, about 30 minutes. Then place it in a blender and puree it. Set aside.

Chop the potatoes into bite sized chunks and place in a bowl of water.

Heat a 4-6 quart Dutch oven over medium low heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and cook for 3 minutes, then add the sliced peppers also. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the chorizo and cook another 5 minutes. Add more olive oil if necessary.

Drain the potatoes and quickly pat them dry (don't worry too much about it). Add them to the pot with the garlic and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring. Add the wine, paprika and bay leaf and stir. Add the pureed rehydrated pepper along with enough chicken stock to barely cover the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Increase the heat and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to simmer.

Cook until the potatoes are tender and some are starting to fall apart, about 30 minutes. Remove several potatoes and mash them. Add them back into the pot to thicken it. Let the stew sit for 10 minutes before serving, sprinkled with parsley.

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 01:22:00 +0000

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Cheesecake? Check. Chocolate? Check. Chocolate chip cookies? Check. Delectable graham cracker crust? Check. These babies have it all.

This is one of those over the top creations that I was honestly not sure if I would like. John, who enjoys those kinds of desserts, I knew would like it and I was pretty sure the kids would too. I was right on all counts--except for me. I was pleasantly surprised by these bars and found them to be absolutely delicious. Not at all too much. If you like cheesecake and you like chocolate chip cookies, I strongly recommend them.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars
Closely adapted from The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook, Elinor Klivans

Crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 T unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup (4 oz) mini chocolate chips

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough:
5 T unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3 T granulated sugar
1/4 t salt
1 t vanilla
3/4 cup (95 g) AP flour
1 cup (6 oz) chocolate chips (regular size)

Cheesecake Filling:
10 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 t vanilla

Topping:
1/3 cup chocolate chips (regular size)

First make the crust by preheating the oven to 325 F. Line and grease a 9 inch square pan with parchment paper (grease the actual parchment). Set aside.

Mix the melted butter and graham cracker crumbs until they are evenly mixed. Stir in the mini chocolate chips. Press the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan and about 1 inch up the sides of the pan. Bake for 6 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack. Leave the oven on.

Next make the dough by beating the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt and vanilla until smoothly blended, about 1 minute. Mix in the flour on low speed, just until incorporated. Mix in the chocolate chips. Set aside.

Next make the cheesecake filling by beating the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Mix in the egg and vanilla on low speed just until incorporated. Pour the cheesecake batter into the prepared crust. Using your hand to form clumps, drop the cookie dough onto the top of the cheesecake batter in teaspoon-sized clumps. Use all of the dough--you will cover a substantial amount of the cheesecake batter.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the top feels dry and firm (the cookie dough) and the entire pan looks set if given a gentle shake. Immediately scatter the chocolate chips over the pan and then leave to cool to room temperature, during which time the chocolate chips should melt slightly and adhere to the top of the bars.

Lift the bars out by the overhang of the parchment paper; slice into desired size and store in the refrigerator. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Kefta Tagine Bil Beid (Moroccan Meatball Tagine With Tomato & Eggs)

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I was so excited to eat this meal that I forgot to take pictures before serving it. So picture an entire round skillet with more meatballs and eggs! This recipe is from a cookbook I got for Christmas from my parents, The Food Of Morocco: A Journey For Food Lovers, a gift which turned out to be auspicious, because I have very exciting news: John and I are planning a trip to Morocco this summer! So you can expect to see a lot of Moroccan and Mediterranean food on my blog in the upcoming months, as I explore all of the food before we go (so I can know what to look for there of course--I am duty bound to do as much research as possible via every Moroccan/North African cookbook on the market, right?).

So about this dish. It has my family written all over it because my girls love meatballs, especially Sammy, and they love eggs, especially Alex. It is savory and delicious, with a sauce that should be mopped up with bread. It is also a very easy dish, coming together quickly but tasting like it took much longer. My recipe calls for lamb-which I will no doubt try in Morocco--but here where I live it is so much easier to get beef that I usually just sub it. Use whichever strikes your fancy.

Kefta Tagine Bil Beid (Meatball Tagine With Tomato & Eggs)
Adapted from The Food of Morocco

I used my enameled cast iron skillet for this dish; a tagine is traditionally a clay pot but the instructions would be different as I believe you do not put a clay pot on the stove top (I think you would begin the dish in a frying pan but then transfer it to a clay pot and break the eggs into it, to cook in a moderate oven). Do not use plain cast iron as the tomatoes will react with it. The heavier the skillet the better.

For Meatballs:
1 1/2 lbs ground lamb or beef
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 T finely chopped flat leaf parsley (I did not have, was fine without if not authentic)
2 T finely chopped cilantro
1/2 t cayenne pepper (to taste)
1/2 t ground ginger
1 t ground cumin
1 t paprika
salt and pepper to taste

For the rest of the dish:
4 T extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 onion (I used large as we love onions), finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 t ground cumin
1/2 t cinnamon
1 t paprika
14 oz chopped tomatoes (canned is fine, I used frozen from last summer)
2 t harissa*, to taste
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
4 eggs
salt and pepper to taste

*I did not have harissa and did not want to make a batch of it, so I looked at their recipe for harissa, and added pinches, to taste, of: dried red chile pepper flakes, dried mint, ground coriander, ground cumin, and garlic.

Combine all of the meatball ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix gently with your hands--do not overwork the mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Form into meatballs of about a tablespoon each of the mixture.

Heat a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil and heat it. When it shimmers, add the meatballs in one layer. Cook for 8-10 minutes, until browned all over. Remove the meatballs and set them on a plate. Wipe out the pan.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil and heat until shimmering over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 7 minutes with a pinch of salt. Add the garlic, cumin, cinnamon and paprika and cook for an additional minute, until the mixture is fragrant. Stir in the tomatoes and additional spices or harissa*, whichever you are using. Bring the mixture to a boil, and then reduce the heat to simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the meatballs back into the dish and cover to simmer for 10 minutes, to cook the meatballs through. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the cilantro and then break the eggs over the dish. Let the eggs cook gently in the simmering mixture, until they are done to your liking. Serve with bread to mop up the juices.

Coconut Lentil Soup with Potatoes and Peas

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 03:38:00 +0000

The Spiced Life family just got back from a whirlwind trip to Disney World! John got invited to talk at a conference there and we said yes, please! 3 days nonstop parks with rides, princesses, food, princesses, fairies, princesses... So please forgive any typos or just plain incomprehensible sentences. My brain feels like Swiss cheese; we are Exhausted. Happy but exhausted.

We had great Disney World weather--which meant that it was warm, intermittently sunny and intermittently gloomy with just enough rain to deter locals but nowhere near enough to deter us. So waits for really popular characters like Rapunzel and the fairies were not too bad for us.

About the soup. This is another choice from 101 Cookbooks--only this time it turned into more of an inspiration as I strayed pretty far from the recipe. I'm not sure what happened--the soup just suddenly screamed for potatoes and peas--seriously, I could hear it in my head--or more likely taste it on my tongue. So in they went, out came other parts, and I had no regrets.

Coconut Lentil Soup with Potatoes and Peas
Inspired by 101 Cookbooks

1 cup (7 oz/200g) yellow split peas, rinsed
1 cup (7 oz/200g) red split lentils (masoor dal), rinsed
1/2 t turmeric
1/2 t paprika
1-2 T ghee or oil
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups water
1 large russet potato, peeled and diced
1 medium carrot, finely diced
2 T fresh peeled and minced ginger
2 T curry powder
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/3 cup tomato paste
1 19-oz can coconut milk
Salt and pepper to taste
one small handful cilantro, chopped
Several handfuls (to taste) fresh or frozen peas

Heat a large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add 1-2 tablespoons of ghee or oil (or a combo). When it is hot, add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are caramelized, about 15 minutes. During the last 5 minutes, add the carrots and 1/4 of the ginger. Add the garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add the paprika and turmeric, cook for 1 minute while stirring, and then add the lentils, split peas and water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cover to maintain a simmer.

Simmer the legumes for 15 minutes and then add the prepped potatoes with the 2 cups of stock. Return to a boil. Cover and simmer until the split peas are tender and the potatoes are fork tender (the red lentils will disintegrate).

In the meantime, in a small nonstick skillet low heat, toast the curry powder until it is quite fragrant. Be careful not to let it burn. Add the tomato paste and ginger and stir to mix. Raise the heat to medium and roast the mix, stirring all the while, for about 2-3 minutes. Add this mixture to the lentils. Also add the coconut milk and salt and pepper to taste. If the mixture is not thick enough, let it simmer uncovered for a bit. Add the peas and cilantro before serving (heat the peas through).

Irish Coffee Heart Crunchies

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I rarely make coffee flavored desserts even though they are one of my favorites because John is not a fan. I've never liked drinking straight coffee--but mochas and all other things sweet that can be made with coffee are right up my alley. So I was naturally intrigued by these cookies from the year 1980 in The Gourmet Cookie Book (the book celebrates the best cookie from each year that Gourmet Magazine was in publication). I was extra intrigued because I also like pretty much all baked goods made with oats.

These cookies did not disappoint--me. Or Alex. However, they are not for everyone. The coffee flavor is strong, so John was not a fan, and they are not super sweet, which I think ruled Sammy out. As a matter of fact, I thought they were perfect in the mid morning with tea or coffee (well tea for me, coffee for anyone else). They are not really a great after dinner dessert, when you are craving something sumptuous and sweet.

I should also tell you that I radically changed the filling that Gourmet called for. They called for a filling made with powdered sugar and Irish whiskey. I skipped it not just because of the alcohol and my kids (alcohol that would not get cooked off, unlike the alcohol in the cookies), but also because I wanted something a little less sweet and a little more complex than powdered sugar. So I made some with a bittersweet chocolate ganache, drizzled with an espresso ganache and some with just the espresso ganache. If I were to do it all over again I would only use the espresso ganache because it was really, really good. It occurs to me now that you could also choose to skip the sandwiching of the cookies, thus making them sweeter.

Note: This is a very dry dough that must be vigorously kneaded to come together. Because of this is it is easy to roll out but also a little frustrating as it tears easily. Just patch the pieces up and proceed, it will be fine.

Irish Coffee Heart Crunchies
Adapted from The Gourmet Cookie Book

the cookie:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
2 t Irish whiskey
2 t espresso (I used instant espresso to make it)
1 t heavy cream
1 vanilla
2 cups quick cooking oats or old fashioned oats that have been pulsed in a food processor until broken up
1 cup AP flour
1/4 t salt
1 t baking powder

the filling:
3/8 cup (1/4 cup plus 2 T) heavy cream
2 t instant espresso
4 oz white chocolate, chopped (use a good white chocolate with cocoa butter)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the Irish whiskey, espresso, heavy cream and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add the oats along with the flour mixture and mix until combined. Knead to finish the mixing.

Roll out the dough 1/8-inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Using a cookie cutter of about 2 1/4-inch diameter, cut out the shape of your choosing and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone.

Bake for 15 minutes, until lightly colored. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 3 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before frosting. Drizzle extra ganache on top of the cookies if desired.

Algerian Tagine Of Chicken and Apples

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:00:00 +0000

I had trouble with the color of this dish--the flavor was a lot richer and more vibrant than the pictures imply. Perhaps it would have been prettier with quince, the first choice of the recipe author (Joyce Goldstein), but I figured why hunt down a flown-in quince when I still have local apples? (And truthfully here is where I confess I have no idea what a quince even looks like.) Goldstein also recommended using pomegranate molasses to intensify the color, but I did not have any.

This tagine recipe (cooked in a Dutch oven) was taken from Saffron Shores: Jewish Cooking of the Southern Mediterranean, by Joyce Goldstein, a book my sister bought for me. Those of us who grew up with mainly Ashkenazi Jewish friends (Jews from Eastern Europe) in the post-Israel world especially forget how much Jewish culture influenced the food in North Africa. (I mention Israel because as far as I can tell after the creation of Israel the vast majority of those Jews left North Africa and moved to Israel, although active Jewish communities remain, especially in Moroccco.) If you mostly think of potato pancakes, mandelbrot and matzo ball soup when you think of Jewish food, then this book will be a pleasant surprise (not because that other food is not wonderful but just because it is amazing how much more is out there). This tagine made with quinces in Algeria is regarded as ideal Rosh Hashanah food, but I call it ideal winter food anytime and have made it with the last of this year's Fuji apples.

Algerian Tagine Of Chicken and Apples
Adapted from Saffron Shores: Jewish Cooking of the Southern Mediterranean, by Joyce Goldstein

2 lbs crisp apples, peeled, sliced, and sprinkled with apple cider vinegar to prevent browning (if you are using primarily sweet apples, then add a tad more vinegar)
1/4 cup olive oil
4-5 lbs chicken pieces (or 1 chicken cut up), bone-in and skin-on, patted dry and sprinkled with salt and pepper
3 large onions, sliced
1/2 t freshly ground nutmeg
1 T cinnamon (I used ceylon--use 2 t if you use cassia)
1/4 cup water
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Heat the oil over high heat in a medium-large Dutch oven. Brown the chicken pieces on all sides, and then remove to a bowl and set aside. Either add more olive oil as needed or drain off the excess fat--whichever you think is best (traditionally would be made with more fat but I tend to drain some off). Turn the heat down to medium and add the onions with a pinch of salt and sauté until caramelized, 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally--if they start to scorch you can deglaze with a little apple cider vinegar or water and turn the heat down a bit.

Stir in the spices and cook, stirring, an additional 5 minutes. Do not let the spices burn. Add the chicken back into the pot with a 1/4 cup of water. Bring to a boil, cover with a heavy lid and place in the oven for 30 mins.

In the meantime prepare the apples. At the end of the 30 minutes, take the pot out and add the apples to the dish. Replace the lid and return to the oven for another 15-30 minutes, until the apples have softened without becoming mushy and the chicken is cooked through and quite tender. It will not fall off the bone as though cooked in a slow cooker, however. Salt and pepper to taste, and add more cinnamon if desired. Serve over couscous, rice or potatoes.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Butterfly Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:00:00 +0000

The next few posts are full of delicious food with lousy photos. For whatever reasons, lately it feels like it's all I can do to grab a few very much not staged shots before we dig in. And not staged means you can see computers, pepper grinders, random cookbooks, phones, keyboards, hands, you name it peeking in the corners of the pictures. Alas alas.

But you trust me by now, right? So believe me when I say that this cake is really worth making, whether my pictures sucked you in or not. It is actually quite unique, in a subtle kind of way. I expected it to taste like a chocolate chip pound cake--plus the beauty of knowing it was a tad healthier. But actually the oats make a strong comment here. They are rustic, chewy and definitively present. My family went crazy for this; much like that Chocolate Glazed Chocolate Chip Cake, every last crumb of this was consumed long before it could get even a little dried out. And the kids of course got a gigantic hoot out of the butterfly pan I used. Actually, I confess, so did I. (For the record, the cake is a "snacking" cake and originally intended for a 8 inch square pan (2 inches deep)).

Note: Read the recipe through and make sure you give yourself time for the oats to cool.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Butterfly Cake
Adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes, Lauren Chattman

1 cup old fashioned rolled oats (not quick cooking)
3/4 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups (189 g) AP flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla
1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

Pour the boiling water over the oats in a heat-proof bowl. Set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour (or use Baker's Joy type product) your butterfly pan (or an 8X8X2 pan). Set aside.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Remove 1 tablespoon of thix mixture and toss it with the chocolate chips. Set both aside.

Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes on medium-high with an electric mixer. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Mix in the oats.

Add the flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time, mixing on low speed if using electric mixer. Stir in the chocolate chips. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan; smooth the top level. Bake for 50-55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with only a few crumbs attached. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

New Year Noodle Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:11:00 +0000

When I was editing the photos for this dish I had the exact same visceral reaction that I did upon seeing the photos at 101cookbooks: I want that soup and I want it now. If you're a soup lover and a legume lover like me, this dish is pretty much nirvana. It's simultaneously creamy and brothy, rich and healthy, homey and exotic. It's the kind of dish where the dinner table will be silent except for slurping--and every slurp is a compliment to the chef.

The New Year's reference is for a Persian new year, so as far as I am concerned this soup should be enjoyed year round, with particular emphasis on cold weather months, vegetarian one pot meal nights, healthy meal nights, days you're feeling under the weather... you get the idea. Heidi of 101cookbooks does not explain the significance of the meal beyond noting that it is from Greg and Lucy Malouf's Saraban: A Chef's Journey Through Persia. So clearly I have another cookbook to acquire.

How you approach this dish will depend on whether you are using canned or dried legumes. For the split peas, I only recommend dried. For the white or pink bean and the chickpea, you can take either route--although I always believe your results will be superior if you cook dried. If you use dried beans, you will also then have bean broth to add to the dish. In my case I used canned chickpeas but I cooked a dried Yellow Eye Rancho Gordo bean--it was 2-tone, as you can see in the photos. The original recipe calls for borlotti according to Heidi. I did add the resulting bean broth to my dish--otherwise you would use more stock.

New Year Noodle Soup
Adapted from 101cookbooks (originally Greg and Lucy Malouf)

2 T olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced

4-6 cloves garlic, minced
1 long red chili OR green serrano, finely chopped, 0ptional (I left out)
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
approx. 8 cups (see my notes above re: bean broth) chicken or vegetable stock, low sodium if using commercial
100g /3.5 oz yellow split peas

handful or 2 o rd lentils, to thicken broth
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas, rinsed if using canned
2 cups/350g cooked yellow eye beans or borlotti beans (rinse if using canned)
salt to taste
120 g thin egg noodles, fresh or dried (I used Chinese egg noodles)
3 1/2 oz/100g fresh spinach leaves, finely shredded
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
2 T chopped fresh dill
juice of one lime or lemon (I used lemon as it was what I had)

Toppings:
1 T olive oil
1 T unsalted butter
1 large onion, thinly sliced (if you love caramelized onions like we do you might want to double the onion and add fat to need)
sour cream (or Greek yogurt)
additional lime or lemon juice/wedges

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion and optional chile and cook until the onion is golden, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook an additional 2 minutes. Add the spices and cook for another thirty seconds, then add the stock. Bring to a boil and add the split peas and lentils to the pot. Cook until the split peas are just tender, about 25 minutes (the red lentils will basically disintegrate). Stir in the cooked chickpeas and yellow eye/borlotti beans. Once the beans have heated throughout, season with salt to taste. Add more cumin if you think it needs it (I like a lot of cumin).

In the meantime, begin preparing the toppings. Heat the olive oil and butter in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt, stirring occasionally, until dark and caramelized, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle a bit more salt to taste. Set aside.

I prefer to cook the noodles separately so I can add them to the leftovers separately. If you prefer drop them into the pot about 10 minutes before serving dinner. Otherwise cook them separately in salted water until al dente. Drain and ladle into bowls before serving.

Right before serving, stir the spinach, cilantro and dill into the pot. Add a big squeeze of lime or lemon to the pot or serve wedges along with each bowl of soup. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking.

Serve right away over noodles, each bowl topped with a big spoonful of caramelized onions and some sour cream (we also used Greek yogurt one night and it was wonderful too).

When Greasing A Pan Goes Wrong: Gingerbread Teacakes

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:00:00 +0000

This is a "twofer" post--2 posts for the price of one. It is a post about the delights of baking with your children and it is a post about what to do when your cakes or muffins do not release (through no fault of your children, I might add)--resulting in 2 different desserts.

So first the actual baking... We chose these miniature gingerbread teacakes for the "formal" tea that my girls had. They were perfect except for the greasing issue--but more on that later. They have definite ginger bite and are very moist--important when discussing miniature treats. Since they are basically a quick bread they are a great recipe to do with your kids.

Yep she is stealing brown sugar.

Now I am traditionally a control freak in the kitchen. I'd love to tell you that I let my kids help with every little thing, but the truth is I struggle just to let them do what they do. I do it because I know it is good for them, so even though I wince when they dump the flour "into" the bowl and half of it goes over the side onto the counter, I (try to anway) bite my tongue. Sammy dumps dry ingredients--and the beauty of using a scale is that she can dump willy nilly into the bowl until we hit the right number. With Sammy if it is going into the main mixing bowl I usually do the scooping.

Alex helps with all of these duties as well, and sometimes with scooping, but recently Alex "graduated" to her 2 favorite tasks: turning the mixer on and off and scraping down the inside of the bowl. The first is more nerve wracking than it sounds, because it can be hard for little hands to turn the mixer onto a low speed, but if you turn it to a high speed right after adding dry ingredients you can expect a cloud in your face.

Now about the greasing. I made this recipe in 2 miniature silicone loaf pans, 1 nonstick miniature muffin pan, and one Nordic Ware teacake pan shaped like pumpkins and acorns. The recipe itself did not call for any greasing of silicone pans (!) so I lightly greased the first 2 items. The last, the Nordic Ware pan, I thoroughly greased because of the nooks and crannies in the shapes. The Nordic Ware pan is the only one that released. So frustrating after my munchkins' hard work! But this is what you do when you have a pile of tasty crumbs: you make a trifle. In this case I whipped up ground ginger, heavy whipping cream and softened cream cheese together with sugar to taste and then layered it between the mountains of gingerbread crumbs. It worked well and was happily eaten by my family.

Gingerbread Teacakes
Adapted from Bite-Size Desserts, Carole Bloom

1 1/4 cups (5.5 oz) AP flour
1 t baking soda
1 1/2 t ground ginger
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/8 t freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 t salt
1/4 cup (1.5 oz) finely chopped candied ginger
4 T (2 oz, 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup (2 oz) packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup unsulphered molasses ( I had to sub some dark corn syrup which was ok but all molasses would be better)
1 extra large egg, room temperature
1/2 cup boiling water

Preheat over to 350 F. Thoroughly grease (or spray) 24 mini (2-inch diameter) muffin wells (I doubled the recipe which was why I had more than one pan).

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. Add the chopped candied ginger and toss to coat. Set aside.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the brown sugar until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Lightly beat the molasses and egg together and then add to the butter. Mix together on a low medium speed--the mixture may look curdled but this is ok. Mix in the boiling water. On low speed, mix the flour in in 4 additions. Finish by hand with a spatula, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl as you mix. Divide between the muffin wells--they should be 3/4-full. I keep extra mini loaf pans for extra batter in case my muffin pans are not identically sized. Bake for about 25 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean or with a few crumbs attached. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 3 minutes and then turn out onto a cooling rack. Garnish with whipped cream before serving.

Meyer Lemon Thins & A Cookbook Review

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:31:00 +0000

I am not sure I have given Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt In Your Mouth Cookies a proper review. I've now made 5 cookies from it: these, Extra Chocolatey Biscotti (they did not make it on to the blog because of traveling, but I hope to feature them soon), "Hawaiian" Wedding Cookies, Chocolate Mint Sandwiches, and Coconut & Dried Cherry Oatmeal Cookies, all of which have been flat out fantastic. The collection itself is encyclopedic--I don't even know how to tell you exactly how many recipes the book contains because most of the recipes come with multiple "upgrades" or alternative ways of preparing them. They are broken down by texture, which I think is a wonderful way to sort cookies. I know what kind of cookie I want is frequently determined by whether I am craving something light and crisp, dry and crunchy, rich and chewy, etc. I like to call successful recipes run don't walk recipes--well this is a run don't walk cookbook. If you like cookie cookbooks, you want this cookbook.

So about these particular cookies. Alice Medrich refers to them as Maya's Lemon Thins as her friend Maya Klein invented them, but I changed the name a bit because I specifically used all Meyer lemons when making the cookies. Because Meyer lemons are less acidic and less sour, I adjusted the recipe a bit to make the cookies even more lemony.

I served the cookies at a "formal" tea that I threw for my daughters and 2 of their friends, another set of sisters. They all got dressed up and I served mint tea with gingerbread cakes and lemon cookies. It was a total hoot--and the cookies were perfect. They are also good keepers and would make fabulous sandwich cookies with either a vanilla or citrus based filling.

Meyer Lemon Thins
Adapted from Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt In Your Mouth Cookies

1/2 cup fresh Meyer lemon juice
12 T (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into several pieces
2 1/2 cups (11.25 oz) AP flour
1/4 t baking soda
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup (7 oz) sugar
zest of 2 lemons
1/4 t salt
1/4 t salt

Heat the lemon juice in a small, nonreactive pan over high heat. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium, and let the lemon juice boil until it reduces to approximately 1 tablespoon of lemon syrup. Watch it closely near the end so it does not burn. Add the butter and stir until melted. Set aside.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt and whisk together. Set aside.

Place the egg, egg yolk, and sugar into a large bowl and mix with a rubber spatula. Mix in the lemon zest and add the lemon-butter mixture. Add the flour mixture and stir just until incorporated. Cover and chill for at least 20 minutes--this will make the dough firmer and easier to work with.

Medrich calls for rolling out this dough and using cookie cutters, but I chose to roll the dough into 2 logs with a circle of about 2.5-inch diameter. Then chill the logs for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 days,

Prepare 2 baking sheets by lining them with silicone or parchment (or grease them). Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Slice the dough into rounds--the thinner you can slice them the better. Aim for 1/16-inch. Place the rounds on the prepared baking sheets, 1 inch apart (I got 20 per sheet). Bake for 6-7 minutes, or until lightly browned at the edges. Let the cookies cool for 5 or so minutes on the baking sheets and then transfer them to a cooling rack. Cool completely before storing--tore promptly in airtight contains to maintain crispness.

Lentil & Potato Casserole with Pumpkin & Tomatoes, Topped With Phyllo Crust

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 01:35:00 +0000

I cannot say enough good things about this meal. It is delicious, nutritious, interesting--but not so interesting that it would scare people away. It might be too unusual to your typical Midwestern palate to describe as proper gateway Indian food (and indeed it is not properly Indian anyway), but I would describe it as good entryway food--for folks who know they are interested in Indian flavors. People who have already stepped through the door, in other words.

I found this casserole in Crescent Dragonwagon's Passionate Vegetarian, an excellent book (see my initial review here) that has been unused by me as of late (because, ahem, I acquire cookbooks at a faster rate than I can use them). Despite that wonderful braised pork I made, the truth is that in January I start craving meatless meals (and no matter what it looks like on my blog, that pork was the first meal I made post-holidays--I am just woefully behind). So I started browsing this book, and opened exactly to "Curried Lentil-Potato Cobbler with Pumpkin and Tomatoes and Filo Top Crust."

Now tell me you would not immediately start mentally ticking off which ingredients you had? Warm and filling for January, meatless and uber-healthy for New Year's resolutions (which I, uh, resolutely do not believe in, but anyway). This is a run don't walk kind of meal. And I promise it is way easier than its long list of ingredients would have you believe. Read through the instructions before beginning, and you'll see that it all comes together pretty quickly and neatly.

A note about the lentils: Dragonwagon does not specify what kind of lentils to use, so I used all lentils du puy, which hold their shape. I was fine with this choice, but John I think would have preferred lentils that got a little mushier. If you prefer this as well, I recommend using half red lentils and half yellow split peas.

Lentil & Potato Casserole with Pumpkin & Tomatoes, Topped With Phyllo Crust
Adapted from Passionately Vegetarian, Crescent Dragonwagon

2 cups lentils (see note above), rinsed
6 cups water
1 bay leaf
1/4 t turmeric
1/4 t sweet paprika (use hot chile pepper if you prefer, such as cayenne)

1-2 T ghee or vegetable oil (or a combination)
1 heaping T dark mustard seeds
1 1/2 t cumin seeds
2 medium-large onions, chopped
2 T minced ginger
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t ground cumin
1 1/2 t ground coriander
1 1/2 t turmeric
1/4 t paprika or cayenne pepper, to heat preference
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
salt and pepper to taste
4 fist sized potatoes, scrubbed and chopped into 1/2-inch chunks

1 14-0z can of chopped tomatoes (preferably with green chilies but I could not find any)
1 15-oz can of pumpkin puree (or make your own, about 1 1/2 cups)
1 T maple syrup, to taste (can also use honey)
1 1/2 cups stock--I used chicken because it is what I keep but you can also use vegetarian, low sodium if storebought

5 sheets of phyllo dough, thawed
2-3 T melted butter or ghee (or use use 50% vegetable oil is you prefer)

Lightly grease a deep 9X13 pan (or less deep 10X15). Set aside.

Place the lentils, bay leaf, 1/4 teaspoons of turmeric and paprika, and the water into a large pot. Bring to a boil and skim the foam from the top. Reduce to heat to maintain a simmer while covered.

While the lentils cook, begin the rest of the filling. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat and add the ghee or oil. They will pop; when their popping slows, add the cumin seeds. Roast briefly, 10-15 seconds. Add the onions with a sprinkle of salt and saute, stirring occasionally, until the onions are browning, abut 10-15 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Then add the rest of the spices and toss to coat the onions evenly. Do not let the spices burn (at any point during this process you can always add some water if the onion mix starts to scorch or stick too much).

Add this onion mix to the lentils and add the potatoes as well. Simmer for 20-30 more minutes, which you work on the sauce. Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Combine the pumpkin, tomatoes and maple syrup in a food processor or blender and puree. Add the stock to help more the mixture--it will all go in the lentils together. When the potatoes are just barely tender, pour the pumpkin-tomato blend gently into the lentils mix. Heat the whole thing through--when it is quite hot dump it gently into the prepared casserole dish.

Layer the phyllo sheets over the casserole, brushing each sheet with melted butter or ghee before layering the next sheet. Dragonwagon recommend lightly scoring the phyllo sheets with a knife before baking so I did but I am not sure it did anything. Use your best judgment.

Bake until the phyllo top is crisp and golden brown, 35-45 minutes. Serve hot with Greek yogurt on the side.

Blueberry Lemon Tiramisu

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 00:08:00 +0000

This is the perfect post-holiday dessert to serve to company. On the one hand, everyone is totally done with (for a while) chocolate, nuts, mint... but on the other hand you cannot serve wheat germ cookies to company. Just because the holidays have ended is no reason to inflict your own resolutions on the rest of the world.

Which is where this rich yet tart and summery dessert comes in. With every bite you'll find yourself dreaming of July sun, August heat, butterflies, grass under your bare feet... And it's such a good dream. It's the dream that sustains us through February. But anyway it is also a sign that this dessert would be outstanding in the summer--and probably will not your grace your Thanksgiving table any time soon.

The kids and I *had* to test the dessert before serving it. Clearly no one found it lacking.

I used regional blueberries picked and then immediately frozen in the height of blueberry season (blueberries do not grow where I am but my local farmer's market gets them from Michigan and saves some for me to come get the second they arrive). I used lemon curd that I made last spring when my gall bladder got infected (I had tons of leftover egg yolks from making so many fat free desserts, i.e., angel food cakes). It came together so quickly and so scrumptiously that I could not help but wonder why I had avoided making traditional tiramisu all these years, thinking it too much work. Clearly I'm crazy. Or lazy. Or something.

The lesson being, if this sounds good to you, don't stare at the recipe for 2 years like I did. Make it ASAP!

Blueberry Lemon Tiramisu
Closely adapted from Luscious Lemon Desserts, Lori Longbotham

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
zest from lemon, removed in thin strips
7 oz package of imported Italian ladyfingers (savoiardi)
4 cups blueberry sauce (see below)
1 1/2 cups lemon curd
8 oz mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
whipped cream for garnish (the tart lemon and intense blueberries are very nicely complimented by whipped cream)

Bring the sugar, water and lemon zest to a boil. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Pour through a strainer into a small bowl and let cool to room temperature.

Cover the bottom of a 9X13 pan (use glass or ceramic) with the ladyfingers. Brush them with the cooled sugar syrup--use all of it. Pour the cooled blueberry sauce over the ladyfingers.

Using an electric mixer, whip the 1/2 cup heavy cream until it is thickened and frothy. Add the lemon curd and room temperature mascarpone into the cream. Using the whip attachment of the mixer, whisk on medium speed until the mixture is smoothly incorporated. When it is smooth, pour it over the blueberry sauce, smoothing the top. Cover and chill for at least 6 hours or, even better, overnight. Scoop into individual trifle glasses or martini glasses and serve topped with whipped cream.

Blueberry Sauce
Closely adapted from Luscious Lemon Desserts, Lori Longbotham

3 pints fresh or seasonally frozen blueberries
1 cup confectioners' sugar
6 T water
2 T fresh lemon juice

Cook the first 3 ingredients together over medium heat in a large saucepan, stirring occasionally. Cook until the blueberries are softened and the liquid is saucy, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Set aside to cool until needed for recipe--you can also make ahead and store, covered, for up to one week in the fridge.

Braised Pork Shoulder in Caramelized Soy Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:20:00 +0000

Everywhere I look food blogs are featuring savory, healthy dishes. The glut of the holidays has overwhelmed most people, and their thoughts have turned away from desserts and rich dishes and to healthy meals. Now in some ways I am no different. Although I am backed up for what I am posting (i.e., I made this dish almost 2 weeks ago now), the entire last week was completely vegetarian for us. I too feel that glut. But on the other hand there are 2 things you should know about me: I am NEVER tired of dessert and if I see a dish that calls out to me strongly enough in a cookbook, I'll make it even if I am supposedly trying to be healthier.

Ergo this meal. The minute I got home after receiving the cookbook, I was digging through my freezer looking for pork shoulder. It is from that cookbook I've been raving about, The Spice Merchant's Daughter, that my sister gave me for Christmas, and I started obsessing on this dish the first time I browsed through the book, while I was sitting there with other unopened presents on my lap. There is something about the word caramelized in a savory dish that instantly gets my attention. I served it with those Penang Pickled Veggies in an effort to be somewhat healthy, but don't kid yourself. This is succulent and rich, every bit as satisfying as your mom's best pot roast.

This dish is also a great example of the fusion-y nature of the cookbook. The soy--both sweet soy sauce and regular--in the dish is redolent of S.E. Asia, but the curry leaves are, to my mind anyway, quite Indian. The whole spices are a good example of how Indian cuisine has traditionally influenced S.E. Asian cuisine and would be found in any S.E. Asian's household, not just an Indian one.

Braised Pork Shoulder in Caramelized Soy Sauce
Adapted from The Spice Merchant's Daughter, Christina Arokiasamy

3 lbs pork shoulder, with or without bone, cut into 2-3 pieces if it is too big to brown as a whole piece
3 T vegetable oil
4 inch knob ginger, peeled and minced
8-10 cloves garlic, minced
20 fresh (or frozen) curry leaves
3 2-inch cinnamon sticks
3 whole star anise (4 if you really like star anise--I reduced the amount as I do not like it to dominate)
3 medium-large onions, thinly sliced
4 medium sized tomatoes, cut into quarters
4 T double black soy sauce (can sub superior dark if need be)
6 T kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)
1/2 t freshly ground white peppercorn
salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 275 F.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large Dutch oven over medium high heat. Brown the pork shoulder on all sides and remove to another bowl. Drain the excess oil off (leave about 1 tablespoon) and add the whole spices to the pan. Let them roast, over medium low heat, until fragrant. Turn the heat up to medium and add curry leaves to the pan--stand back as they might splatter. Add a handful of the onions to the pan--and add some water if the pan is starting to scorch. Turn the heat up to medium high and cook until the onions are starting to turn brown, then add the ginger and garlic. Adjust the heat if the it starts to scorch. Continue cooking until the onions are completely caramelized and then add the tomatoes. Cook for about one minute. Then add the soy sauces and stir to incorporate. Let cook for one minute to meld the flavors.

Add the ground white peppercorn and mix. Return the pork with any juices to the pan. Turn the pork over so that it is coated with the sauce. Cover with a heavy lid and place the pan in the oven. Let cook for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, turn the heat up to 300 F. Take the pork out, turn it over in the pan and then cover the pork with the rest of the onions. Replace the heavy lid on to the pan and return to the oven. Cook for another hour. Take the pot out--if the pork and/or onions are not cooked enough (the pork should be falling apart and the onions should be sweet, not astringent), return to the oven and increase the heat to 325 F. Check after 30 minutes. Taste for salt and serve with jasmine rice.

Chocolate Glazed Chocolate Chip Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:00:00 +0000

When I was at my parents' house right after Christmas, for our annual sibling holiday gift exchange, I was craving a chocolate chip cake. Absolutely craving. So simple and homey yet delicious after a season of making more exotic or more Christmasy baked goods. But I felt fairly certain it would be disappointing to a decent number of my family, so instead I tried a fancy mascarpone dessert from The Silver Spoon for our Italian-themed meal.

Bad idea.

The dessert--whose recipe came with absolutely no pan size suggestion--exploded in the oven despite being at least an inch under the rim. And I mean exploded--2 inches would not have rescued this baby. My mother's brand new oven was a blackened mess and the only reason fire alarms weren't screaming the entire time is because my parents have an old home and you can shut the door to the room with the fire alarm. The smoke was astounding--at least 2 windows if not more were opened despite the near freezing temperatures. And at one point we could only barely see each other across the kitchen. After all that, no it did not taste good either.

Alas. That's what happens sometimes when you go for untried and fancy over simple, homey, tried and true.

Now this cake did not turn out perfectly in appearance--which I will explain in a moment--but its flavor was spot on. It was super moist because it used oil instead of butter, and my family devoured every last crumb of it. Which is a little unusual--often when I make a cake just for the 4 of us toward the end interest flags, it gets dried out and stale, etc. But not this cake. Alex especially asked for it every night and I am anticipating disappointment tomorrow night when she realizes it's truly gone.

As for the appearance, the recipe called for the glazed cake to be studded with mini chocolate chips. Now I love chocolate, but that is the kind of busywork "landscape cookery" that Nigella Lawson rails against--and I agree. I don't have enough time on my hands to stud an entire bundt or tube cake with standard chocolate chips--let alone mini ones! But I should have realized that the "glaze" would be much thicker to support the weight of all those chips. Don't get me wrong, the glaze is delicious, but in appearance it is a little gloppy and thick. I think if I were to make the cake again I might try eliminating the butter from the glaze--so that is how I wrote the recipe. If you try it let me know how it works.

Chocolate Glazed Chocolate Chip Cake
Adapted from The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook, Elinor Klivans

The cake:
3 cups cake flour (I used an AP/cornstarch sub)
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup regular olive oil (or any other vegetable oil)
1 T vanilla
1 cup sour cream (I used a mish mash of what I had around of low fat sour cream and no fat Greek yogurt plus some heavy cream)
1 1/2 cups (9 oz) mini chocolate chips

The glaze:
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, optional (see notes above)
2 T light corn syrup
6 oz semi sweet (60% cacao) chocolate, finely chopped
2 cups regular or mini chocolate chips for studding onto outside of cake, optional (see notes above)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Thoroughly butter or spray a 9 1/2-10 inch bundt or tube pan (I used a 9 inch pan and made one extra mini loaf). If using a tube pan, line the bottom with buttered parchment, but I was ok with my holiday tree bundt pan and nonstick spray, I just used a lot (I was lazy with my silicone loaf pan and only sprayed lightly and it did indeed stick so do be generous).

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together and then whisk thoroughly. Set aside. Remove 2 tablespoons of the mixture and toss the mini chocolate chips with it.

Use an electric mixer to beat the eggs and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. With the mixer running on low, add the oil and vanilla until it is just blended. Add the flour mixture and sour cream, alternating, beginning and ending with the flour mix, in 3 and 2 additions respectively. Mix to incorporate. When there very little flour streaks left, add the floured chocolate chips and fold until everything is incorporated with no flour streaks.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth the top and place it in the oven. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with just a few crumbs attached (ignore any melted chocolate from hitting a chip), about 1 hour. If you use a smaller pan, as I did, set the timer for less and watch the cake as it may be done early.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a cooling rack lined with parchment paper (to prevent indentations and sinking). Let the cake cool completely before glazing.

For the glaze, combine the cream and corn syrup in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat. If you are going to stud the outside of the cake with chocolate chips, also add the butter. Mix over the heat until the mixture is hot, the butter melted, and is forming tiny bubbles at the edges. Do not let it come to a true boil (if it does, pour it over the chocolate through a sieve). Pour it over the chopped chocolate and let it sit for 1 minute. Then stir the chocolate--it will become a melted, smooth ganache.

Klivans instructions call for setting the ganache aside for 20 minutes to let it thicken. I suspect (see my notes above) you should only do this if you are pressing chocolate chips into the cake. Otherwise let it cool for about 5 minutes. Remove the parchment under the cake. Place wax paper under the cooling rack. Pour the glaze over the cake, being sure to get the inside and outside. Using a second piece of wax paper to catch additional drips, remove the original wax paper and use it to pour the chocolate that dripped down back over the cake. If desired, press chocolate chips onto the exterior of the cake.

Let set completely before slicing.

Red Gold Winner & Penang Pickled Veggies

noreply@blogger.com (Laura) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 22:00:00 +0000

Congrats to Carol from Wires n Pliers for winning the Red Gold tomato media kit giveaway. She was randomly chosen (using numbers) by Sammy.

I have a dilemma when I cook SE Asian celebration food. By celebration food I mean rich, meat-heavy dishes, and I call them celebration food because while they might your or my idea of SE Asian food, in SE Asia itself they are probably reserved for celebration because of all of the indulgent meat involved. Anyway, back to the dilemma--what veggies to serve? I mean sure they have veggies in them, but you need a true veggies dish. And other than Som Tom, I have never found a salad or veggie dish that made me happy. Also, let's face it, although Som Tom might be my favorite food in the world next to chocolate, it is neither convenient (finding green papaya) nor easy (shredding all that green papaya). But much like the goodness of Som Tom, I want fresh and refreshing, crisp, juicy, sour... I want something that counterbalances the unctuous yet delicious richness of SE Asian curries (with or without coconut milk).

This pickle is perfect. I found it in what is quite possibly my favorite new cookbook from the holidays--and one I had never heard of, to boot! My sister got it for me, The Spice Merchant's Daughter, by Christina Arokiasamy, an American who grew up in an Indian household in Malaysia. What a fabulous fusion of recipes--Indian and Mayasian! I LOVE this book!

So it was the first I used after the holiday festivities ended--even though the main dish was rich, I did not care I had to try it now. I made a braised pork dish (delectable--recipe to come) and served it with these Penang Pickled Vegetables. The vegetables are a perfect accompaniment to a rich braise with SE Asian or Indian flavors. They are crisp, sour, a little sweet, crunchy with peanuts and sesame seeds. If you want they can also be blazingly spicy--although I of course skipped that part in deference to Alex's palate. They are also super flexible--I believe they could be made with any crispy vegetable (i.e., don't use tomatoes or winter squash, for example). Of the ones we tried, my favorites were the red onions, cucumbers and carrots.

Penang Pickled Vegetables
Adapted from The Spice Merchant's Daughter, Christina Arokiasamy

1 hothouse cucumber
1/2 t salt
8 oz carrots, cut into 2 inch long pieces and sliced vertically if super thick
1 cup sliced Napa cabbage
1 sweet bell pepper, sliced
1 red onion, thickly sliced
fresh red chile peppers, to taste (she suggests 3-4, I used 1 jalapeno seeded), seeded and chopped
8 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
4 T sugar, or more to taste
additional 1/2 t salt
1 cup roasted, salted peanuts
4 T sesame seeds
3 1/2 T oil
1 1/2 cups white distilled vinegar

Slice the cucumber into quarters lengthwise and then slice into 2-inch pieces. Do not remove the skin. Place in a colander and sprinkle with the 1/2-teaspoon salt. Set aside.

Bring the vinegar to a boil with an additional 1 cup of water. Press as much water as possible from the cucumber pieces, then add them to the pot. Blanche them for 2 minutes and then remove from the water with a slotted spoon. Place in a large colander to drain further.

Bring the vinegar mixture back a boil and repeat the blanching process with the remainder of your veggies. Blanch the cabbage and pepper for 2 minutes each; blanch the carrots for 3 minutes. Place all veggies on top of each other to drain in the large colander.

Combine the garlic, chile pepper(s), sugar and 1/2-teaspoon salt in a small food processor and blend to a paste. Scrape out into a bowl. Add the peanuts to the food processor--do not bother cleaning it--and process the peanuts to a fine mince. Do not let them turn into butter. Set aside in a separate bowl.

Heat the oil in a small pan over medium heat (nonstick will make your life easier). Add the spice paste and cook for 10 minutes, until oil appears on the surface. Stir occasionally. Add the peanuts with 1/3-cup water. Cook until the mixture thickens and seems glazed. Taste for more sugar (she recommends if it is too spicy, which will depend on the chile peppers you've used). Remove from the heat.

Transfer the blanched veggies to a large bowl. Add the hot peanut mixture and the sesame seeds. Toss to coat the veggies evenly. Let the mixture cool completely. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Serve at room temperature or a little cool from the fridge. The longer the pickles sit, the stronger and therefore tastier they will get.