Freestyle Foodie

Sometimes, Simple Is Best

2011-01-30T15:12:00.001-05:00

Freestyle Weekends #4

I tried to get all fancy last night with short rib sandwiches. The dish turned out good—you really can’t go wrong with beef and bones simmered all day in red wine, and, admittedly, a list of ingredients the length of my forearm—but the star of the dinner was the roasted butternut squash.

And all I needed was squash, olive oil, salt and pepper, and, on a tip from my friend Bethany, a drizzle of honey.

The squash was soft and sweet, and the caramelized bits, which I greedily pried from the pan, were smoky and crunchy. Delicious.

Roasted Butternut Squash

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

1-2 teaspoons honey

Preheat the oven to 425˚. Toss the squash, olive oil and salt and pepper on a large, rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with honey and toss again. Spread in a single layer. Roast until squash is soft, about 25 minutes. Turn once.

A Dessert to Die(t) For

2011-01-12T20:36:00.002-05:00

Freestyle Weekends #3

My husband and I have accepted a weight-loss challenge from our employer. The target: lose 20 pounds in 11 weeks. The reward: a $20 gift card to Kohl’s.

It’s $20. It’s Kohl’s. I’m in.

This does not mean I’m dieting. I have never dieted and I don’t intend to start now. People on diets don’t eat pear-cranberry turnovers, something I just ate yesterday. Freestyle Foodie is not going to turn into a diet blog. A diet is something you do so that you can fit into that sleek black dress you bought on a ridiculous sale. Or so that you can get into that cute bathing suit. Or so that you can slim down for an anniversary trip with your husband. It’s a crash course in weight-loss. A diet implies something temporary, something short-term, something New Year’s Resolution-ish. I don’t diet. I also don’t make New Year’s Resolutions.

What I do is try to follow some simple eating rules I made up for myself a few years ago when I noticed that my metabolism, up to that point always in overdrive, was slowing down. My body was developing padding in places it hadn’t had it before, not entirely a bad thing, you understand, given my former Olive Oyl-ish physique. A little padding turned out to be a good thing, but I didn’t want to keep adding it until I looked like Courtney Cox in a fat suit.

Hence the rules. They’re really just for maintenance. I try to be flexible; I’m not a slave to rules. But by and large when I follow them it helps.

Now that I’m past my mid-thirties, though, my metabolism is slowing even more. It’s becoming harder to maintain. This challenge presents the perfect time to set in motion some things I’ve been thinking about for a few months now: losing a few pounds, improving my overall health, and preparing for life in my 40s. With that in mind, here are my eating rules; the first two original, the others added recently:

1. Don’t take seconds.

2. Don’t eat after 7 p.m.

3. Eat more plants.

4. Eat more whole grains.

5. Eat fewer animals.

And that’s it. Not a big fan of rules, except in grammar, I try to keep things simple. And wouldn’t you know that when I opened my January issue of Bon Appetit magazine, there was an article by cookbook author Mark Bittman who started doing almost the exact same thing a few years ago. Lucky for me, he included a few delicious recipes that have helped him with his rules, recipes like the one for Pear-Cranberry Turnovers.

Pears, softer, juicer and more mellow than apples, are probably my favorite fruit. They’re best in the winter, too. So here I saw an opportunity to eat more plants. I used red pears in this recipe, my favorite.

Turnovers, heavy on fruit and light on pastry, are a win-win dessert, even for someone in a weight-loss challenge. Even though you use butter, there’s less fat in each turnover than in a piece of pie or frosted cake or a bowl of ice cream. The pear juice and sugar make a delightful syrup, and there’s really nothing better than the crisp layers of phyllo pastry. Add to that the occasional tart bite from the cranberries, and round out the flavors with citrus zest, (I used orange because I had no lemon in the house), and you have a perfect dessert.

I definitely recommend the parchment paper; the turnovers will ooze a little juice and the parchment paper will save you some scrubbing time.

I think I need to accept a challenge to eat more pear-cranberry turnovers.

Pear-Cranberry Turnovers

1 ½ pounds ripe Bosc pears (about 3), peeled, quartered, cored, diced

½ cup dried cranberries

¼ cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel

16 17x12-inch sheets fresh or frozen whole wheat phyllo pastry or regular phyllo pastry (thawed if frozen)

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375˚. Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment. Combine pears, cranberries, ¼ cup sugar, cornstarch, and lemon peel in large bowl; toss to coat.

Stack phyllo sheets on work surface; cover with plastic wrap, then damp kitchen towel. Place 1 phyllo sheet on work surface. Brush with some of melted butter. Top with second sheet; brush with butter. Fold phyllo in half lengthwise, forming 17-inch-long strip. Place scant ½ cup pear mixture on phyllo strip, about 2 inches in from 1 short side and in center. Fold 1 corner of strip over pear mixture, then fold phyllo back and forth (like a flag), enclosing filling. Brsh top with butter after each fold until entire strip is folded, forming triangle.

Transfer turnover, seam side down, to 1 baking sheet. Brush top with butter. Repeat with remaining phyllo, butter, and pear mixture. Place 4 turnovers on each sheet.

Bake turnovers until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Transfer to plates. Sift powdered sugar lightly over turnovers; serve warm or at room temperature.

Jam!

2011-01-06T17:37:00.001-05:00

Speaking of Christmas and foodie gifts, here's another one I received. This came from the kitchen of my friend Jen.

Isn't that light from my front window great? That, and the jellies are so beautiful I had to show them to you. They came with names like Jen's Backyard Red Grape Jelly, Wisconsin Rhubarb Strawberry Jam, 1st Batch Pepper Jelly--HOT, Orange Jelly, Blueberry Jam, and Hot Peach. There was a jar of apple butter and another of mint jelly, plus a few others. Though we wanted to try them all right away, sensibility prevailed and we opened only the Blueberry Jam. It's mostly gone now.

2011-01-05T16:32:00.000-05:00

I got salt for Christmas. I kid you not. But don't feel sorry for me, I asked for it.

On Christmas morning, I opened up several foodie gifts from my lovely family: an apron embellished by my daughter, a book by Michael Pollan, an electric griddle (makes good pancakes!), a gift card to Whole Foods, and a box filled with salts. The apron touched me most deeply, but the salts were my favorite.

Yes, I said salts. Plural.

Check these out.

Hiwa Kai, or Black Hawaiian sea salt. Activated charcoal gives it
its color and minerals. I finally got coal for Christmas!

Smoked sea salt. The best varieties are flavored with natural wood smoke,
not liquid smoke flavoring.A bit saltier than kosher salt with a strong smoke aroma
and slight smoke flavor. Can't wait to try this on chicken.

Sel gris. Quite salty, slight mineral taste. The minerals come from the clay lining the
salt ponds along France's coast where this is harvested.

Himalayan sea salt. Is often sold in a coarse grain, where its pink color is truly pronounced.
This fine-grained version is only slightly pink, with dots of red throughout. Has a pure
salty flavor and a fairly high mineral content. Good for use at the table.

Alaea Sea Salt (Red Hawaiian). Volcanic red clay is added to the salt to give it its color
and a boost of iron oxide. A good table salt. Clean flavor.

I like to use sea salt instead of regular ol' table salt. Most of the table salt available in the grocery store is mined from rock. After mining, it is refined so that all the minerals are removed and what's left is pure sodium chloride. Sea salt, on the other hand, is minimally processed and retains trace minerals. In addition, sometimes table salt doesn't taste very salty; therefore, it's easy to shake on a little more, thus increasing sodium intake, never a good thing. But sea salt is often quite a bit saltier than table salt; less salt is required for the same flavor. On top of all that, table salts are sprayed with an artificial iodine solution as part of the refining process, while iodine, necessary in the diet for healthy thyroid function, occurs naturally in sea salt.

Best of all, many sea salts come in a coarse variety that doesn't dissolve as easily as table salt. I like to see the grains of salt on my food and I especially like to crunch them.

This Is What You Should Do with Fresh Cranberries

2010-12-21T15:54:00.001-05:00

Freestyle Weekends #2

This Thanksgiving, I tried making my own cranberry sauce. I don’t know what drove me to do that, having been perfectly happy with canned cranberry sauce for decades now, but I would like to blame the produce manager for stacking bags of brilliant berries on the right-of-way leading to the oranges, where I couldn’t have missed them if I had wanted to. As a person given to shopping with my eyes, I found it futile to resist, even though I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do with them.

I brought home the cranberries with some vague notions of tinkering with Thanksgiving tradition. Being married to a history professor who thrives on tradition, I should have murdered that thought as soon as it rose up. I am, alas, a person given to bucking tradition.

I do wish I had remembered one thought: You really can’t lose with canned cranberry sauce. Think about it. It always has that perfect sweet and tart taste, it always emerges from the can with the same irrepressible color, not to mention the unmistakable sucking sound as its gelled sides lose contact with the sides of the can, and its consistency is always—well—consistent.

That’s the thing about cranberry sauce from a can—you know what you’re getting. And unlike cranberry sauce recipes, you get the same thing every time.

I’m sure you can see what’s coming—I did not like this new-fangled cranberry sauce cooked on the stovetop, made with sugar and shallots and orange juice and actual real cranberries that popped as they got hot. I think the problem was the shallots. I’m pretty sure cranberry sauce is not supposed to taste like onion. I suppose I could try it again, leaving out the offending ingredient, but why bother? It’s much easier—not to mention traditional—to open a can.

(Canned cranberry sauce will make my family happy, too, for though they are much too polite to say so, I got the distinct feeling that none of them liked the recipe either.)

Making the recipe left me with something of a dilemma, however, a dilemma in the form of half a bag of unused cranberries. Since I have now sworn off homemade cranberry sauce, what to do with the rest of the bag?

Fortunately, I have in my Freestyle Weekends folder a recipe I’ve been holding onto for quite some time now, at least as long as I’ve been eating canned cranberry sauce. It is called, appropriately enough, “Cranberry Muffins” and lists, as its first ingredient, 1 cup fresh cranberries, quartered.

Half a bag of cranberries, in case you’re wondering, comes out to about 1 cup.

I clipped this recipe years ago from a Taste of Home magazine. The only thing I changed was to substitute lemon peel for orange. Their website calls the recipe “quick,” a designation I disagree with only because it took me a little while to quarter the cranberries. Not a lot of time, of course, but a lot longer than scooping the equivalent amount of dried cranberries from a bag.

The extra time, and stained fingertips, were worth it, however, for the muffins emerged from the oven splotched with brilliant color, not to be outdone by sweet-tartness and moist texture.

This recipe is a keeper, and now I need not fear walking the cranberry gauntlet on my way toward the oranges. I can even smile at the produce manager as I sling a bag of cranberries into my cart. Of course, since I need only half a bag for the muffin recipe, that gives me some leftovers to play with. Maybe I could try that sauce again, this time without the shallots.

Cranberry Muffins

1 cup fresh cranberries, quartered

8 tablespoons sugar, divided

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon grated orange peel

cinnamon-sugar

Preheat oven to 400˚. Lightly grease 12 standard muffin cups.

Sprinkle the cranberries with 2 tablespoons of sugar and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and remaining sugar. In a small bowl, beat the egg, milk, and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in cranberries and orange peel. Fill muffin cups two-thirds full. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until muffins test done. Cool for 10 minutes, if you can wait that long. Consume rapidly while warm.

Winter Supper

2010-12-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

Freestyle Weekends #1

Picture this: The first snow of the season covers the ground. It’s evening, dark outside already, but inside the glow of kerosene lamps lights the table around which you and your family gather for a supper of apples, hot buttered popcorn, little pickles, hot cocoa, and cake doughnuts.

Homemade doughnuts, of course.

This tradition is “First Snow Supper,” and it comes to me via the New Hampshire home of my friend Bekki, whom you met a few weeks ago. She sent me this recipe and some Green Mountain coffee to try to save us from the evil clutches of Starbucks. We haven’t tried the coffee yet, but the doughnuts, which we made on a sleepy Saturday morning, sans snow, certainly passed muster.

The dough is very soft, so don’t skip the refrigeration step. I chilled mine overnight and it was still soft in the morning, but rollable.

A word on the potatoes. Russets make the best mashed potatoes. Bekki also uses sweet potatoes in this recipe, so feel free to try those. Whatever potatoes you use, mash them really well. If you leave them lumpy, it won’t matter too much for taste of the doughnuts, as long as the potatoes are cooked through, but aesthetically-speaking, lumps in the middle of a doughnut do not make a pleasing picture. Ask me how I know this.

After the doughnuts emerge from the fryer, drain them briefly and give them a little shimmy in sugar. And then bite into one, still warm, and discover a texture so light you can barely feel it even as you taste its spices and its sweetness.

Kind of makes even a thin-blooded Floridian wish for snow. Not that I’m waiting for it to try these again.

Wicked Good Doughnuts

(makes about 2 ½ dozen)

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 cups cold mashed potatoes (mashed with milk and butter)

¾ cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

4 ½ cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ginger

oil for deep-fat frying

additional sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs and the sugar. Add the potatoes, buttermilk, butter, and vanilla; mix well.

In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger; add to the egg mixture and mix well. Cover and refrigerate 1 – 2 hours.

Heat oil to 375 ˚On a floured surface, roll the dough to ½” thickness. Cut with a 2 ½” doughnut cutter. (Or, if you’re like me, with two glasses—one big-mouthed and one small-mouthed.) Fry the doughnuts, a few at a time, for about 2 minutes on each side, or until browned. Fry the doughnut holes, too, for about a minute on each side. Drain on paper towels layered over brown paper grocery bags. Roll in sugar, if desired.

Kissing Is for the Kitchen

2010-11-12T22:05:00.000-05:00

My friend Bekki has been an inspiration to me on a number of household fronts, including cooking. We like to trade tips and questions on Facebook. I told her about chipotle and she reminded me that toast is greater than world domination. A couple weeks ago I asked her to write something for you. You can believe everything she says here, except the part about my being a gourmet cook. I prefer the term “junior foodie-in-training.”

Please leave her lots of comments telling her how wonderfully humorous her writing is and how much you enjoyed the soup (you are planning to make it, aren’t you?); maybe the pressure will finally catapult her to start her own blog. (Please, Bekki? Please!)

“Kiss the Cook” Chicken Soup

Hi, I'm Bekki, Rachel's friend from New Hampshire. Rachel has been teasing me to start a cooking blog for almost a year (not going to happen) and then sweetly requested a guest post for her blog last week. Mmmmhmmmm. Guest post for a gourmet cook/English professor. No pressure there.

Rachel's writing and cooking appear effortlessly graceful. I'm quite sure she's never had to fish the box out of the trash because she forgot how long the cake had to bake. After 27 hours of paper grading I envision her whipping up a pot of homemade sauce and hand-rolled tortellini while Kevin entertains her with his witty banter, not scrounging through her couch cushions to find enough change for the Dollar Menu at McD's.

And her writing? Wow, just wow. How does she make you feel like you're standing in her kitchen chatting with her while she cooks? Every time I try to write I end up channeling Martha Stewart or Mr. Rogers. Understandably, I'm nervous. But I love Rachel, and if she wants a guest post, I'll give it a whirl.

I also have a very different cooking style from Rachel. I don't own a T.V., so I missed that inspiring Iron Chef episode featuring gilded badger spleens on couscous. (Can I use so as a conjunction? See what I mean? This is stress with a capital “S”. Or is it capitol “S”? Maybe that question mark is supposed to be inside the quotation marks. I need coffee...)

I don't subscribe to any cooking magazines or have a besplattered copy of The French Laundry on my cookbook shelf. Eighteen years ago when I first married, I realized that even a hamburger was outside my skill set and started collecting recipes. Then I began noticing that technique made a lot more difference than whether or not I used Herbs de Provence or celery salt. Now I know whether I want to sear, saute, or braise the meat, and how to put together a colorful, tasty salad in the middle of February without breaking the budget. My passion is Bistro cuisine: I like to riff on simple classic menus using fresh local ingredients.

During the fall and winter I make soup once a week. Even my kids love soup. Of course, that could be because I always serve a dessert on soup night, but I prefer to think they actually enjoy the soup. My first soups weren't particularly memorable. Meat has a tendency to assume the flavor and texture of three-day-old bubblegum when it's been simmering for hours. Rice, noodles, and potatoes dissolve into a gelatinous mass, and vegetables become mushy. I was quite disappointed to discover this after all the stories I had read portraying the homey pot of soup bubbling away over the fire.

As it turns out, soups are much tastier when you prepare the ingredients to maximize their individual flavors and then combine everything just long enough to meld those flavors at the end of the process. I suppose it would spoil the fairy tales to stop and dismember whoever is ending up in the soup pot so you could roast the meaty bits and use the skin and bones to create a kickin' broth, though. (Maybe that should be “whomever”? And I still don't remember where that pesky question mark belongs. Time for a chocolate break...)

Without further ado, I present the speedy version of the Page family's favorite chicken soup. The idea for using a pre-roasted chicken and enriching a commercial broth is from Pamela Anderson (no, not that one!). If you, like me, prefer to start with a whole raw chicken, go to the library, check out a copy of The Perfect Recipe (also by Pamela Anderson), and flip to page 19. Unless you taste the two recipes side-by-side, however, you probably won't be able to tell the difference.

“Kiss the Cook* Chicken Soup”

3 quarts water

3 Tbsp Chicken base. If you don't have or can't find base, replace 2 quarts of the water with a quality boxed chicken stock.

1 fully cooked rotisserie chicken. Beware of weird flavors like lemon pepper or Bubba's BBQ that will ruin the soup.

2-3 Tbsp. vegetable oil, just enough to coat the bottom of your soup pot.

1 large onion, finely diced so it will fly under the kid radar

2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4” x 1” sticks

1 large stalk celery, halved and sliced fairly thin

2-5 cloves garlic, depending on how important kisses are to you

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley, or 2 Tbsp dry

Bay leaf

1 teaspoon dried ground marjoram. Marjoram is a sweeter, more delicate version of the flavors in oregano. A favorite in Europe, it blends well with other French spices like parsley and thyme.

2 tsp lemon juice from a contented lemon grown on a south-facing slope in Spain or a bottle of ReaLemon, whichever you happen to have on hand.

¼ tsp white pepper

Dash of cayenne pepper

3-4 cups cold cooked brown rice or barley. If a starch is refrigerated after being cooked it chemically changes so that it will not absorb much more liquid. The soup will taste better if the rice/barley was originally prepared in chicken broth.

2 cups fresh baby spinach or chard leaves torn into bite-sized pieces, optional

Bring water and base to a simmer over medium-high heat in a large soup kettle. While the water comes to a boil, pick the meat off the chicken and put it aside. Pop the bones and skin into the simmering water. Reduce heat to low, partially cover, and simmer 20 to 30 minutes until flavorful.

Strain, reserving broth, and discard the skin and bones. Return the empty kettle to a burner set on medium-high.

Add oil, heating it until shimmering, then onions, carrots and celery. Saute until soft, stirring occasionally, about 6-8 minutes. Add garlic and parsley and cook just until they release their aroma. Do not allow to brown. Add chicken and broth and bring to a simmer.

Add bay leaf, marjoram, lemon juice, white pepper, red pepper, rice, and spinach/chard. Return soup to a simmer until spinach/chard is fully cooked, about 3 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and seasonings if necessary. Serve immediately with a great crusty French bread. The person you love the most always gets the poisonous bay leaf or a stray bone to choke on. (Oh dear. I just ended a sentence with a preposition. I think I'd better call it quits!)

*We have a tradition in our home that if dinner is so fantastically delicious that it all gets devoured, the cook gets a kiss. Unless, of course, you simply didn't make enough. Then you get kicked instead.

Toast to Summer

2010-09-05T22:27:00.001-04:00

I have recently had a revelation about toast. Specifically about garlic toast.

Toast is not one of those things you need a recipe for, though I'm going to give you one anyway. Whether it’s the perfect triangle of white bread toast from the local Waffle House (a particular favorite of mine), or a more sturdy piece of whole grain bread emerging golden brown and delicious from the toaster, or a browned circle of English muffin with its trademark nooks and crannies puddled with butter, toast is a pretty straightforward treat. Furthermore, it’s true, as a friend has told me, that “toast is one of the few things nicer than world domination.” It’s just as satisfying, but you don’t have to work nearly as hard to get it.

One of the most crunchy and flavorful versions of toast known to man is a delightful thing called bruschetta.

Bruschetta is slices of Italian bread toasted, rubbed with garlic, brushed with olive oil, and topped with whatever the chef desires. On first look, it seems pretty simple, as all toast does. But here’s the thing—with bruschetta, it doesn’t stop at the first look. I’ve seen bruschetta topped with tapenade, with sautéed porcini mushrooms and feta, with stewed fig and mascarpone. I recently watched an Iron Chef America episode on the Food Network during which Iron Chef Michael Symon topped bruschetta with uni. Uni, in case you’re wondering (and there’s a definite ewwwww factor coming, so be warned) is sea urchin gonads. You may not want to eat it, but you will definitely take a second look.

I’m fascinated by different ways of making bruschetta, but the bruschetta I like best to eat features a far more humble ingredient than those already mentioned. My favorite bruschetta features summer’s best ingredient—tomatoes.

When tomato is paired with basil, you can’t go wrong with this bruschetta. What I find most pleasing is the pronounced, but not overpowering, garlic flavor. This method completely tops both ways I used to make garlic toast. In the first way—mixing softened butter with a fair amount of garlic powder before spreading it on the bread—the dehydrated garlic sometimes tasted bitter. In the second way—topping buttered bread with minced garlic—the garlic sometimes burned. But in my new way of making garlic toast—and here’s the revelation—the garlic tastes like garlic and nothing else. It doesn’t taste like bitterness and it doesn’t taste like burnt. So you have garlic, olive oil, tomatoes, basil, and salt. And what could be more satisfying than that? Not even world domination.

Classic Summer Bruschetta

1 1-pound loaf Italian bread, sliced on the bias ½-inch thick

1 whole head of garlic

6 to 8 large basil leaves

about ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

6 medium Roma tomatoes, seeded and roughly chopped

kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 375˚. Cut the garlic head in half along the equator, leaving the cloves intact. Set aside. Stack the basil leaves; starting with a long end, roll them up and then cut the roll into ribbons. Set aside.

Lay the bread slices in a single layer on a baking sheet. When the oven is hot, toast the bread for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once and watching that it doesn’t burn. (You can also grill the bread; it won’t take nearly as long.) Immediately after removing the pan of bread from the oven, begin rubbing the cut side of the garlic onto each slice. I have found it easier to hold the bread in a mitted hand rather than rubbing it while flat on the pan. Ignore the little bits of garlic paper that might flake off, or, if you’re persnickety, pick them off with tweezers.

After all the bread has been rubbed, brush each piece with the olive oil. Top with tomatoes, basil ribbons and a sprinkle of salt.

A New Kind of Coffee Cake

2010-07-07T17:51:00.001-04:00

You know summer has come to Florida when it’s time to pick blueberries. In northern states, blueberries may signal that summer will soon wind down, but here we kick off summer with them. The other day, looking about for a new way to use them, I remembered a recipe I read about quite a while back, Blueberry Boy-Bait.

You have to sit up and pay attention when you read a title like that. I do, at least. Even though I have a man and a boy (husband and son) who will come slobbering no matter what I bake, it’s nice to know there’s a fail-safe treat to beguile even the most sports- or action-figure-absorbed male around. The recipe was created by a teenager in Philadelphia in 1954 and entered into the Pillsbury $100,000 Recipe and Baking Contest, where it won second place in the junior division.

The first time I came across this recipe was in Nigella Lawson’s delightful book How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Nigella gives the same history of the recipe as I have given, and then proceeds to re-invent it. Her version features a crumb-thickened custard base, a gooey fruit layer, and a meringue topping.

But the original recipe, which I found in The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook, 2001-2010 and which is the source for the recipe repeated here, was more what I was looking for at the time, a moist coffee cake studded with blueberries and sprinkled with the simplest of cinnamon-sugar toppings.

Blueberry boy-bait indeed. Maybe I’ll just have a second piece myself.

Blueberry Boy Bait
2 cups (10 ounces) plus 1 teaspoon unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup packed (5 ¼ ounces) light brown sugar
½ cup (3 ½ ounces) granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
½ cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (unthawed if frozen)
Topping:
½ cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (unthawed if frozen)
¼ cup (1 ¾ ounces) granulated sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the cake: Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 13 by 9-inch pan.

Whisk together 2 cups of the flour, the baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated. Reduce the speed to medium and beat in one-third of the flour mixture until incorporated; beat in ½ cup of the milk. Beat in half of the remaining flour mixture, then the remaining ½ cup milk, and finally the remaining flour mixture. Toss the blueberries in a small bowl with the remaining 1 teaspoon flour. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the blueberries. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

For the topping: Scatter the blueberries over the top of the batter. Stir the sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl and sprinkle over the batter. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then turn out and place on a serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (The cake can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.)

Summer Is Made for Salad

2010-06-28T22:48:00.000-04:00

My typical church picnic or potluck dish is potato salad because it’s do-ahead-able, cheap in large quantity, and almost universally liked. Plus it goes well with grilled hamburgers and hotdogs or with Sunday ham, typical picnic and potluck dishes. But the heat of Florida in June had me contemplating some other sort of side dish for the past weekend’s church picnic. Something cool, yes, but something not heavy with mayonnaise. Paging through Everyday Pasta by Giada De Laurentiis, I found a recipe for saffron orzo.

Orzo is a curious ingredient because it looks just like rice, but it isn’t. This dish fooled just about everyone going through the buffet line. I know this because I hung out while people were serving themselves, to see what they might say about this salad. “What is that?” I heard a few times. “I think it’s rice,” came the response. I had fun pretending ignorance for a while, but then I revealed the truth. Orzo is pasta.

Like rice and small pasta shapes such as ditaline, cavatelli, and orecchiette, it’s very good in soup. But this is summertime, and I already foisted one soup dish on you, so on to the salad.

Giada’s recipe is a meal unto itself, with sautéed shrimp tossed in at the last minute. It’s also an expensive dish, requiring a teaspoon of saffron threads. (In my grocery store, saffron sells for about $13 a teaspoon.) I didn’t need anything so over-the-top as that. Without the shrimp, and with a less expensive substitution for saffron, this orzo salad, light and refreshing with olive oil, parsley and lemon, is my new go-to potluck dish.

Fooled-You Pasta Salad

Saffron is the dried stigma of a kind of crocus and is prized for both the color it imparts to dishes and for its distinctive bitter flavor. Tumeric comes from a rhizome in the ginger family and has abundant anti-oxidant properties; it is also slightly bitter and gives food a similar yellow color.

4 cups chicken broth or stock
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 pound orzo
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons salt
freshly ground black pepper

Bring the chicken broth to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat so that the broth is simmering and add the tumeric. Simmer for about 5 minutes, giving the tumeric time to infuse the liquid. Return the broth to a boil and then pour in the pasta. Boil pasta until al dente, or about 8 to 10 minutes. Watch the heat carefully and stir frequently; you’re using just enough liquid and there may not be any to drain off.

When the pasta is cooked, drain any excess liquid. Turn the pasta out into a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Stir well. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Is There Any Food Word Sillier than “Kumquat”?

2010-06-21T08:49:00.002-04:00

If you didn’t know what a kumquat is, you might not be able to guess its nature from its name. Say the word a few times—“kumquat.” It’s a bit of a tongue twister; try to say it five times fast. Or say it slowly. I can draw out the first syllable pretty easily, but somehow the final syllable clips itself off in my mouth. It’s not a very attractive word, is it? Not like orange, or lemon, or even citron. All the graceful words got taken first.

It’s too bad, too, because a kumquat is actually a very beautiful thing. Picture a citrus fruit the size and shape of a robin’s egg, with the brilliant color of an orange. That’s a kumquat.

You can eat it by itself; you just pop the whole thing in your mouth, rind and all, and work out the seeds with your teeth and tongue, kind of like working out watermelon seeds. Or, you can eat it slice by thin slice, which is what I like to do. The juice is very tart, but the rind is very sweet, so a thin little kumquat coin has a shocking contrast of flavors. Be prepared to pucker and smile.

Because they’re so small, kumquats in my grocery store are sold by the pint and stacked with all the berries. But because they’re so orange, they caught my eye one day last week, and the berries didn’t have a chance. I took a pint home and immediately thought “citrus chicken.” The sweet tartness of the kumquats is balanced by a touch of brown sugar and a kick from serrano chiles. Serranos are pretty hot, so try the dish with one and add more if you like more heat. I served the chicken over polenta, but you could just as easily cook pasta, rice or couscous, making this a fast dish that’s perfect for some night in the middle of the week. And there’s nothing silly about that.

Chicken with Kumquat Pan Sauce

2 tablespoons canola oil, plus more if needed
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, pounded ½ inch thick, patted dry, and seasoned with salt and pepper
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
2 serrano chiles, diced small (more or less to taste)
1 inner stalk celery, with leaves, diced small with leaves chopped
½ cup white wine (preferably with citrus notes) or orange juice or chicken broth
juice of 1 lime
½ pint kumquats, thinly sliced, seeds removed
1 tablespoon brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1-2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Cook the chicken about 5 minutes, or until just cooked through, turning once. Remove to a plate and keep warm. Reduce the heat to medium. Add a bit more oil to the pan, if needed, to make about a tablespoon and a half. Add the shallot, chiles and celery to the hot oil and cook until softened, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Deglaze the pan with the wine, orange juice, or chicken broth and the lime juice; stir in the kumquats and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste. Return the chicken to the pan and spoon the sauce over; cook until the chicken is heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle the parsley on top.

A Welcoming Soup

2010-06-13T19:10:00.001-04:00

With temperatures over 100 degrees, it’s definitely summertime in Florida. Which makes it weird that I’m giving you a soup recipe, particularly one bearing hearty winter ingredients such as kale and smoked sausage. But soup is one of those comfort foods you might take to a friend’s house, particularly one you haven’t seen in a while. With soup in hand, you’re always welcome. And I’m hoping you welcome me back to writing.

I’ve been thinking about this soup for a week. I recently read The Gastronomy of Marriage by Michelle Maisto, in which she cooks an excessive number of dishes containing either kale or white beans or both. I have never eaten kale, but have wanted to, and we don’t eat many kidney-type beans around here. But the gusto with which Maisto cooked, ate, and wrote about these ingredients got me thinking. And so I’ve been composing this soup in my mind ever since.

It starts with smoked sausage. Well, no, even before the sausage, this soup starts with tomatoes, a good summertime ingredient. Use them from your garden, if you’re fortunate to have such a thing. Or, if you must procure yours from the supermarket, like I do, ramp up the flavor by roasting them first. The trick to a good roasted tomato is to put the half-sheet pan in the oven while it is pre-heating. When the oiled, salted tomatoes hit the hot pan, the sizzle tells you you’re one step ahead on caramelization. You can roast the tomatoes a day ahead.

So, then, after the tomatoes comes the sausage; slices of it browned on both sides form the flavor base. After that, this soup is pretty straight-forward: aromatics and veggies are cooked in the sausage fat, a little wine deglazes the pot, and the white bean puree thickens the broth. I kept the seasonings simple—using only rosemary, black pepper and garlic—to keep the flavors clean.

Kale and Sausage Soup with Roasted Tomatoes and White Bean Puree
1 pound Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise, quartered if large, pulp removed
3 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 pound smoked sausage links, cut into ½-inch thick slices
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large zucchini, quartered lengthwise and then sliced
½ teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large bunch kale, ribs removed, leaves roughly chopped
more olive oil, if needed
½ cup white wine, optional
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cans cannellini beans, pureed
more kosher salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 425˚. Put a half-sheet pan or jelly roll pan into the oven while it is heating up. Toss the tomatoes, olive oil and salt in a medium bowl. When the oven is hot, slide the pan out and pour the tomatoes onto it. Enjoy the sizzle. With tongs, turn the tomatoes skin side down. Roast for about 10 minutes, or until the skin is lightly charred in places. Remove the tomatoes and then roughly chop them when they are cool enough to handle. Set them aside.

In a Dutch oven, brown the sausage slices on both sides over medium-high heat in batches, removing to a paper towel to drain. Reduce heat to medium-low. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat. Add the chopped onions to the hot fat and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are beginning to become translucent, but not browned. Increase heat to medium and add the zucchini, rosemary, and black pepper. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring a time or two. Add the garlic and cook about 30 seconds. Add half of the kale and stir as the kale on the bottom starts to wilt. When all has more or less wilted a bit, add in the rest of the kale. If it looks a little dry, add more olive oil. When the kale is wilted, but still bright green, deglaze the pan with the wine, if using. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the wine is reduced; then pour in the chicken stock and bean puree. Bring the soup to a low boil; reduce the heat and simmer about 15 minutes. Add the roasted tomatoes and browned sausage to the pot and simmer another 15 minutes.

If you have it, you can toss a bit of the rind of Parmigiano-Reggiano into the pot as the soup simmers. Your friends will thank you and will probably welcome you back, no matter how long you’ve been gone, and no matter how hot it is outside.

Be My Valentine

2010-02-16T21:13:00.002-05:00

My husband and I have a grand Valentine’s Day tradition that sprang up a few years ago in response to overcrowded restaurants and jacked-up menu prices on the big day of love. We cook at home. Together. We plan the menu, shop for the ingredients and heat up the kitchen, just the two of us. We’ve cooked rib-eyes and Cornish hens weighed down with a foil-wrapped brick. We had our first risotto on Valentine’s Day. Once we did potato nests with shrimp. We’ve made crab cakes. We try out extravagant desserts like Molten Chocolate Cake and Mocha Ricotta Cream.

Coming up with this year’s menu went something like this:

Me: “What do you want to cook for Valentine’s Day this year?”
Him: “Pork chops.”
Me: “That sounds good. How should we fix them?”
Him: “Let’s stuff them with something. How about crab meat?”
Me: “Mmmm. What else should we have?”
Him: “Potatoes au gratin, grilled asparagus, and chocolate bread pudding.”
Me: “Done, done, and done.”

And now my secret is out. I am useless coming up with ideas. I like to think I can, however, execute to perfection.

These pork chops, for instance, are succulent and juicy. The crab meat with its sautéed aromatics adds a nice touch of the sea, and the port reduction sends them over the top. Feel free to use jumbo lump crab if you have extra money to blow; I found the claw meat, at a third the price per pound, more than satisfactory.

Crab-Stuffed Pork Chops with Port Reduction for Two
2 1½- to 2-inch-thick bone-in pork chops
brining solution made from ¼ cup kosher salt dissolved in 2 cups of water
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup finely diced celery
2 tablespoons grated onion
1 clove garlic, minced
4 ounces crab meat
2 tablespoons beaten egg
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1 teaspoon kosher salt
freshly-ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon butter
additional kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper
1 shallot, diced
¾ cup port
¾ cup low-sodium beef broth

Place the pork chops in the brining solution. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Remove and dry thoroughly. Discard brine.

Preheat oven to 325˚.

Pick over the crab meat, removing any bits of shell. Place the crab meat in a medium bowl.

Melt the butter over medium heat in a small heavy skillet. As soon as the foaming subsides, add the celery, onion and garlic and sauté until softened, but not browned.

Add the sautéed vegetables, egg, mustard, salt, pepper and cilantro to the bowl of crab meat. Stir gently but thoroughly and set aside.

Cut a pocket in each chop about 2 inches wide and deep starting from the side opposite the bone. Do not cut all the way to the bone. Lightly stuff 2 to 3 tablespoons of the crab mixture into each pocket, reserving 2 heaping tablespoons. Refrigerate remaining crab mixture.

In a large, heavy, oven-proof skillet, heat the canola oil and butter over medium heat until foaming subsides. Season chops with salt and pepper. Cook chops on one side until browned, about 2 minutes. Turn carefully so that crab stuffing does not fall out.

Insert a meat thermometer into one chop, preferably into a portion of the chop that has not been cut, and not touching the bone. Transfer the skillet to the oven and cook until the thermometer registers 155˚, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove chops from skillet and place on a warm platter. Cover with aluminum foil and let rest until temperature reaches 160˚, about 10 minutes.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the skillet. Heat skillet over medium heat until fat is hot. Cook reserved crab mixture until it is heated through. Transfer to a small bowl.

In the same skillet, cook the diced shallot until tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Pour in the port and bring to a boil, stirring and scraping the browned bits from the bottom, until port is reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Pour in beef broth and bring to a boil. Cook until liquid is reduced by half, stirring occasionally.

To serve, plate each chop and mound a heaping tablespoon of hot crab mixture on top. Spoon a bit of the sauce over and around the chop.

The chocolate bread pudding was truly a delight, and comes to you courtesy of The Gourmet Cookbook. I left the crust on the bread and was very happy with the result—a pudding that was chewy in spots and soft in others. Using Ghiradelli 86% chocolate in place of the lower quality unsweetened chocolate available in my grocery store gave me a custard that was rich and balanced. The accompanying cherry sauce is our own invention, inspired as we were standing in the grocery store aisles.

Chocolate Bread Pudding
from The Gourmet Cookbook
4 cups cubed (3/4-inch) day-old Italian bread
½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
Accompaniment: whipped cream

Toss bread with butter in a large bowl.

Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring milk and cream to a simmer in a 2-quart heavy saucepan and pour over chocolate. Let stand for 2 minutes, then whisk until smooth. Add eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt and whisk until well combined. Pour custard over bread. Cover pudding loosely with plastic wrap, then place a smaller bowl or plate on top and weight with a heavy can. Let pudding stand for 1 hour so bread absorbs custard.

Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350 F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan.

Transfer pudding to pan. Bake until just set but center still trembles slightly, 40 to 45 minutes; do not overbake (custard will continue to set as it cools). Serve warm or at room temperature, with whipped cream [and cherry sauce; recipe below].

Sweet Cherry Sauce
12 ounces frozen dark sweet cherries, thawed
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon honey
1/8 teaspoon chipotle powder

Puree all ingredients in a blender. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve.

If You’re Snowed In, This One’s for You

2010-02-09T14:59:00.000-05:00

Chili is one of those dishes. You know the kind I’m talking about. Chili is the thing you crave when it’s been snowing, and it’s cold, and the wind knifes through your coat on your way home from work or the store. It’s the dish you make on a cold, dreary Saturday with everyone trapped in the house because it’s cloudy and freezing and precipitous outside. On a day like that, you need a big pot of chili. You make it, and it’s delicious. It’s so good you eat some more the next day. It’s even better. On the third day, tired from work, you have another bowlful. By the fourth day, you’re royally sick of chili and want something like fried chicken. You put away the big chili pot and swear you’ll never crave it again.

But along comes another cold front, another snowstorm, God forbid another blizzard, and you start to long for the warmth of a big bowl of chili. That’s the kind of dish chili is.

When that urge strikes, this is the chili you want. It has big chunks of beef, not the ground stuff that disappears underneath the kidney beans. Mind you, this chili has kidney beans, and tomatoes, and all the flavors you look for in chili, plus a few surprises. One of those surprises is chicken. I love how the smokiness of the chipotle infuses the chicken. The chipotle is another surprise. Here I use it in two ways—chopped in its adobo sauce, and powdered. Coriander, cumin, chili powder, and red pepper flakes round out the heat. And don’t be shy about the cinnamon. It’s probably not the most orthodox of ingredients for a savory dish, but this is food we're talking about, not religion, so go ahead and throw it in. It’s the thing that brings all the flavors together.

Sometimes when I cook chili, I add a few handfuls of elbow macaroni at the end of cooking, just to give more body to what is essentially a stew. Feel free to do the same.

All you need to go with this meal is a big spoon. A pan of cornbread wouldn’t hurt, either. For all you folks snowed in, you have my sympathy, and now you have my chili recipe. Hang in there, spring’s coming. Make this chili before it does.

Smoky Beef and Chicken Chili
2 pounds beef for stew
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1- to 2-inch cubes
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons canola oil, plus more as needed
1 large onion, diced
1 large sweet green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 stalk of celery, with leaves, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped chipotle in adobo
3 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved
2 16-ounce cans light red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
about 2 cups beef broth
1 tablespoon chipotle powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons chili powder
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ of a stick of cinnamon
toppings: shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, thinly sliced scallions

Pat the beef and chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat the canola oil in a large heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the beef in batches, then the chicken, and remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Add more oil as necessary. Reduce the heat to medium. Cook the onion, bell pepper, and celery in hot oil until softened, but not browned. Add the garlic and chopped chipotle in adobo and cook another 30 seconds. Stir in the tomatoes and kidney beans and cook until tomatoes start to break apart a little, about 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour the reserved tomato juice into a measuring cup and add beef broth to equal 3 cups. Pour the liquid over the vegetables and beans in the pot. Add the chipotle powder, cumin, ground coriander, chili powder, red pepper flakes, and dried thyme. Stir well to combine. Drop in ½ stick of cinnamon. Return beef and chicken to the pot, along with any juices accumulated in the bowl. Bring just to a boil, cover, reduce the heat, and simmer 2 to 3 hours, or until the beef is tender, stirring occasionally. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.

Serve with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and a few sliced scallions scattered on top.

Tinkering with Tools and Toys

2010-02-02T15:14:00.001-05:00

Let’s talk about kitchen utensils. I took a shopping trip recently to spend a hardware store gift card that I’d been given for Christmas. Of course I spent the whole thing on gadgets.

You’ve probably got your favorite gadget you couldn’t do without, and you’ve probably got something in a kitchen drawer or cabinet that you haven’t used in years. I do, too. Funny thing is, the chances are pretty good that what I can’t do without you’d consider junk. But the reverse is likely true, as well.

So the beauty of a gadget is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Or in the hand of the user. Or on the user’s countertop. Here are some gadgets I consider very beautiful.

Like these cutting boards, for example. Now that I have enough to have separate surfaces for slicing apples and chopping onions, our apple crisp will not also have a faint flavor of raw onion.

This knife sharpener is pretty handy, too. I’m not sure how I’ve survived so long without it. I have a very nice set of Victorinox Fibrox knives which my husband gave me a Christmas or two ago (the best knives I’ve ever used), and though I’ve been using a steel and a cutlery stone, nothing honed these knives like the Wüsthof sharpener.

One of the things I’m most excited about is my new utensil crock. An admission here: I’ve never been a big fan of countertop utensil crocks. To me they seemed more decorative than useful and in a kitchen like mine, where every square and cubic inch is allotted, I never thought I could have much space for decoration. But after destroying one large whisk by cramming it into a drawer with other assorted utensils, I realized I needed to store my new one up and out of harm’s way.

Decorative, yes. But since it sits right near both stove and cutting board, it’s useful, too.

Finally, check out this little bit of tin.

I am so tickled by this doodad designed to keep butcher’s twine clean and unsnarled. I don’t use kitchen string all that much, but I never seem to have any left when I do need it. And for some things, there just are no substitutions. Believe me. I’ve tried paper-coated wire ties and they make a lousy stand-in for twine. Armed with a clean supply standing by, however, I might just tackle something ambitious like boned and stuffed duck. All I need now is a trussing needle.

A big thank you goes to my husband and my mother-in-law who provided the ways and means for the shopping excursion. I can’t leave out my children who lent their uncanny buying advice and were sorely disappointed that I didn’t get the apron that said “One Hot Mama.”

All You Need Is Love . . . and Sauce

2010-01-26T09:49:00.003-05:00

Quick; who said, “Hunger is the best sauce”?

If you guessed “Shakespeare,” you would be in the company of most people. He, along with King Solomon and the Apostle Paul, with honorable mention going to Ben Franklin, is the go-to guy for quotations.

But in this case, you would be wrong, at least according to WorldofQuotes.com. It was actually Cervantes who wrote, in Don Quixote, “Hunger is the best sauce in the world.” Honorable mention must go to Socrates, who, according to Cicero, said that "the best seasoning for food is hunger; for drink, thirst."

I tested this saying recently with a recipe from one of my favorite books, Everyday Pasta, by Giada De Laurentiis. You have to wonder about a lot of cookbooks or sections of cookbooks labeled “Everyday.” Are these recipes really suited for using every day? On one of my typical days, if I’m not working until closing, I get off at 6:00 and come home to feed my family, the hungriest member of which is usually me. Would Giada’s recipes stand up to that kind of day?

I decided to find out by cooking “Chicken in Lemon Cream with Penne.” Chunks of skinless, boneless chicken breast are first seasoned and then browned. A pan sauce is constructed from the fond, some chicken broth, heavy cream, lemon juice and zest, cayenne, and parsley. Then all is tossed together with penne. That’s it. Couldn’t be simpler.

When I first made the dish, I cooked some broccoli on the side and then, on a whim, tossed it in with the chicken and pasta, too.

Truth be told, it didn’t look like much, not really, despite Giada’s calling its presentation “elegant,” but it turned out to be a really delicious dish. The chicken was tender and had that yummy brown crust in patches. But the sauce, the best part, was rich with chicken flavor and a burst of lemon, with a kick of heat at the end. That night, I bolted my food, murmuring all the while, “This is good; this is really good. Mmm. So good.” And to my husband, “Don’t you think this is good?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s good. Uh-huh,” he replied.

I thought about that later. While we both liked the dish, we obviously experienced differing degrees of enjoyment. He thought it was an adequate, maybe even good, weeknight meal, while I was ready to open a restaurant with this dish in the lead-off spot. It made me wonder—why did I think it tasted so much better than he did? Was it because I was hungrier? Food tastes better when one is hungry, doesn’t it? In fact someone, it might have been Shakespeare, I thought, once said that hunger is the best sauce.

So I performed a scientific experiment. The next week, on a night when I again got off at six, but when I wasn’t quite as hungry, I made the dish again, replicating it exactly, down to tossing in cooked broccoli. I took a tentative taste. There was the flavor of chicken, the burst of lemon, the finish of heat. It tasted exactly the same, and it was still just as good as it had been the week before. I bolted another plateful.

I’m no Socrates, but here’s what I think—no matter what day it is, hunger does make a good sauce, but sometimes all you really need is sauce.

Chicken in Lemon Cream with Penne
from Everyday Pasta, by Giada De Laurentiis

1 pound penne pasta
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, diced into 1-inch cubes
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence*
Pinch of salt, plus ½ teaspoon
Pinch of freshly ground black pepper, plus ¼ teaspoon
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 cups heavy cream
Zest of 1 lemon
Pinch of cayenne pepper
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Season the cubed chicken breast with the herbes de Provence and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook the chicken until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the chicken and set aside. Pour off any excess oil from the pan. Add the chicken broth to the pan and ook over medium0high heat, using a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Add the cream, lemon zest, and cayenne. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the pasta, chicken, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, chopped parsley, and lemon juice. Toss to coat the pasta and chicken with the sauce and serve.

[*Herbes de Provence is a French herb blend usually composed of thyme, marjoram, fennel, basil, rosemary, and lavender. If you can’t find it premixed in your grocery store, feel free to substitute your favorite herbs. An Italian seasoning blend of thyme, basil, and oregano is good with this dish. The flavor is different, of course, but still good.]

Letter to Kevin

2010-01-18T11:17:00.004-05:00

Dearest,

I wish I could be with you tonight to put the finishing touches on dinner, because food eaten with those we love is most savory. Since that cannot be, however, I leave you these instructions for getting cold short rib ragú and dried egg noodles into warm and supple shape.

First, fill the large pot on the stove about 2/3 with water. Add a couple teaspoons kosher salt and bring the water to a rapid boil over high heat.

Meanwhile transfer the ragú into the large glass bowl I left on the counter for you. Heat it in the microwave for two minutes to a minute and a half at a time until it is hot, stirring after each interval.

When the pasta water is boiling, pour in all the egg noodles and stir. When the water returns to a boil, begin timing. It shouldn’t take much more than five minutes to cook the pasta, but begin tasting after four minutes. When it is al dente, carefully scoop out about half a cup of the water, more or less is fine, using the small measuring cup, and set it aside. You will use it to thin the sauce, if needed. Using the colander, drain the rest of the pasta and return it to the pot.

By this time, the ragú should be hot. If it is thick, stir in a little pasta water, a tablespoon or so at a time, until it has a more flowing, but not runny, consistency. Be sure to taste it to see if it needs a little more salt or pepper. Pour the hot ragú over the pasta and toss gently.

If you want something green to go along with the meal, you can fix up a simple salad while the pasta is boiling. Toss the salad greens in the fridge with about a tablespoon of olive oil, a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar, which you will find in the very back of the bottom shelf of the cabinet to the right of the stove, a pinch or two of kosher salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

And that’s it. You asked for detailed instructions, and I feel clever couching the directions within this little love note. Perhaps it’s not a traditional declaration of the emotions of the heart, but I know how you can read between the lines.

With all my love,
R

Cooking with Julia

2010-01-12T17:09:00.003-05:00

Yes, I’m going to jump on this train, because it’s traveling in the direction I want to go. Having enjoyed the film Julie and Julia, and having received a copy of Julia Child’s memoir My Life in France from a friend and a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking from my husband, what else could I do?

I don’t intend to cook through the book in a year and blog about it; I’m not such a copycat as that. But from time to time I’ll share with you the dishes I make, starting with the classic Boeuf Bourguignon, Beef Stew in Red Wine, with Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms.

Everything Julia says about boeuf bourguignon is true. It truly is “one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man.” The recipe does require a bit of fuss. First, you have to simmer lardons of bacon and then crisp them in oil. Next, you have to cut three pounds of beef chuck roast into cubes, pat them thoroughly dry and brown them a few pieces at a time before getting on with the rest of the stew. Finally, you have to braise pearl onions in beef stock and sauté mushrooms in butter, both separately.

But when you eat the results, you will be eager for your next day off so that you can go through the whole process all over again. I know I am. Mostly I want to make the dish again because we ate almost every bit of it. Granted, I got to take the small amount of leftovers to work for my lunch the next day (cook’s privilege!), but we three adults and two children easily put away nearly three pounds of boeuf bourguignon. In one sitting. It is that good.

And I want some more. We all do.

In the film, three people—Julia, Julie, and Judith Jones, the editor at Knopf who first saw Mastering for what it is worth—cook boeuf bourguignon, and each time the making of the dish contains three visual elements, patting the beef dry (an essential technique for browning the meat, the discovery of which Julia raves about in her memoir), pouring in the burgundy, and lifting the lid of the casserole to inhale the savory aroma. As I completed these iconic tasks, and as I contemplated the trouble I had taken to follow Child’s directions precisely, I realized the point of the dish. Cooking is partly about following directions. Precision of direction, in fact, is one of the hallmarks of Mastering, a book that contains six pages of notes and variations on the humble poached egg. Child intended the book to be so precise that any American woman could use it to duplicate the flavors of Child’s beloved France. But cooking is about more than following directions, and Child knew this. Cooking is about discovery, cooking is about sharing, cooking is about joy. The point of making boeuf bourguignon is to experience the joy of the dish.

If that's not a joyful face, what, pray tell, is?

This Week: A Reading Foodie

2010-01-08T18:47:00.001-05:00

I never intended to leave this blog for two and a half weeks, but sometimes that’s the way life rolls. I recently started working out of the home again, an arrangement that leaves me not as much time for messing in the kitchen. But I have been enjoying reading cookbooks, particularly since my family was so generous this year with another foodie Christmas. An early present was Chef John Besh’s My New Orleans. My husband took me to a book signing where we met the great chef and purchased a copy of his book which he signed. We had hoped to snap a quick picture of him, but the gracious Mrs. Besh insisted we let her take the photo of all three of us.

My New Orleans, The Cookbook: 200 of My Favorite Recipes & Stories from My Hometown is just as ambitious yet accessible as its title. It’s a book that’s one part recipes and one part stories, stories of how John Besh’s love for food, cooking and sharing has grown out of the region into which he was born and from the forces, attitudes and experiences that shaped who he is today, experiences like fishing and hunting in and around the bayous, cooking through Europe and raising his own produce and protein for his restaurants. This book takes us through a year of cooking and eating in New Orleans, from winter’s harvest of crawfish and celebration of Mardi Gras with dishes such as Jalapeno Cheese Grits and King Cake through shrimp and speckled trout seasons, to summer’s bounty of vegetables and fruits, into crab season, and the time to forage for mushrooms, to oyster season, gumbo weather, and Thanksgiving and on to a traditional Christmas-time standing rib roast and bread pudding with brown butter sticky rum sauce named for his son Brendan. The recipes in each chapter accompany a narrative in which Besh shares how he came to love this total way of cooking and living immersed in the process of hunting, fishing, planting, feeding and harvesting one’s own food before cooking it gently and sharing with others. If I could live a year in his world, it would be an enriching year indeed. Along the way, vintage photographs, images from his family collection, and food photos by photographer Ditte Isager so clear you think you can smell what’s on the plate beckon you further into this massive volume.

Prior to embarking on his journey through a year of food, New Orleans-style, Besh shares the building blocks of his cooking, Basic Recipes for roux, stocks, pan sauces, Creole spices, vinaigrettes, remoulade, and more. These recipes are the backbone of many dishes in his repertoire. It may seem a little daunting to have to prepare a recipe in order to prepare another recipe, but when Besh explains how to save the bits and bones and scraps of ingredients to make the stocks and sauces, it doesn’t seem out of my realm of possibility to do so. Besides, I imagine there is no substitute for carefully prepared Basic Shrimp Stock.

The prescriptive detail of his recipes—he instructs us to cook ingredients separately or in a certain order and combine them at the end; for example even in a dish simply titled August Chopped Salad, he says to “blanch the chanterelles, baby carrots, baby turnips, potatoes, and asparagus separately and in that order”—may seem overwhelming and slightly pedantic, but what it really demonstrates is his respect for the ingredients and his careful attention to extracting the best flavor and texture from them.

When I read the recipes in the chapter titled “Boucherie”—the hog slaughter—I was a bit nonplussed. Directions for cooking a whole pig’s head and for making boudin noir, or blood sausage, using two cups of fresh pork blood, are a bit out of my reach. I have no idea where I’d even buy the requisite ingredients. But when I turned back a few pages to the chapter’s narrative, I understood that he included these recipes because they come from his heritage. His grandfather’s tales of butchering hogs are tales of self-reliance and survival. They are stories of families and neighbors working together to ensure they all had enough meat to last all year. There are lessons of thriftiness and mastery over ingredients that these pioneers taught the next generations. And now Chef Besh has put them in this book with clear directions and amazing photos that bring the earthiness of the process back to us. It’s important to preserve these techniques and recipes for future generations. Chef Besh’s penchant for educating his cooks and chefs and all the rest of us makes this possible. This way of life will not die. In fact, it is thriving.

In spite of the ambition of several sections of this book, in spite of its armchair-cook-quality in places, my copy is studded with strips of blue sticky notes stuck to recipes I want to try: Rice Calas [rice balls] with Blackberry Filling; Beignets; Wild Strawberry Flambée over Lemon Ricotta-Filled Crêpes; Pasta Milanese; Besh Barbecue Shrimp; Chanterelles, Chicken, and [ricotta] Dumplings; Busters [soft-shelled crabs] and Grits; Oyster Gratin with Horseradish and Parmesan; Hot Blueberry Pie; and Cornmeal White Chocolate Biscotti. I have already made his Basic Cornbread, and it truly was the best I’ve ever made, with a crisp crust and a tender middle. I was also pleased to see his directions for cooking a perfect fried egg, something for which I have been on a quest for quite some time. I like the white to be tender, not rubbery, and with no brown on the bottom, and a yolk that oozes voluptuously when broken with a fork on the plate. Following his directions to the letter yielded me exactly what I was looking for.

Throughout the book, you’ll find Master Recipes for Crawfish Étouffée; Shrimp, Chicken, and Andouille Jambalaya; Crab Bisque; Drew’s Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo; and Beef Daube Glacée (Terrine of Beef Short Ribs). These recipes present Besh’s signature dishes and preparing them will provide an education right into the heart of how he cooks his French-inspired Cajun and Creole cuisine, with respect for where ingredients come from.

The people of New Orleans have prided themselves for living on the edge. The hurricane of 2005, no matter whose fault the terrible aftermath was, may have set them back, but it did not squelch their determination to enjoy the lifestyle their region allows. Chef John Besh is on a mission to restore to New Orleans its culture, people, and food sources, yea, its very self-esteem. My New Orleans is a gastronomical autobiography of literary and epic culinary proportions, and if there is the occasional touch of loftiness in how he raves about the advantages of breeding his own pigs over opening a package of pork chops, it’s hard to fault him for an enthusiasm born of a lifetime of handling, cooking, eating and sharing the bounty of a region he has always called home. His New Orleans can become mine, if only in small measure, as I test and taste the flavors and spirit of his recipes.

Basic Corn Bread
from My New Orleans, by John Besh

3 tablespoons rendered bacon fat
1 cup white cornmeal, organic if possible
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch cayenne pepper
2 eggs
1 ¼ cups milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted

1. Put the bacon fat into a medium (about 9-inch-diameter) cast-iron skillet. Put the skillet into the oven and preheat the oven to 425˚.

2. Combine the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cayenne in a large mixing bowl.

3. Put the eggs, milk, and melted butter into a small bowl and mix well.

4. Pour the egg mixture into the cornmeal mixture, stirring until just combined.

5. Carefully remove the hot skillet from the oven and pour the batter into the skillet. Return the skillet to the oven and bake the corn bread until it is deep golden brown, 15-20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Oeufs au Plat (Fried Eggs)
from My New Orleans, by John Besh

2 teaspoons softened butter
2 eggs
2 pinches salt

1. Rub a room-temperature 9-inch skillet with the butter. Place the skillet on the burner without turning it on. Crack the eggs into the skillet on opposite sides of the pan from each other.

2. Turn the heat on to medium-low and cook the eggs until the whites have coagulated and turned opaque. Season the eggs with salt.

Christmas at Home

2009-12-24T16:48:00.000-05:00

My cooking style has been heavily influenced by a few select sources. I have a good cookbook collection, but it’s by no means a library. I return again and again to a few favorites, particularly my huge Gourmet cookbook, which, despite its name, contains many delicious dishes even an only mildly aspiring cook could tackle with ease. I enjoy consulting Joy of Cooking for all that I learn about ingredients from its pages. I have a few “specialty” cookbooks: I couldn’t get along without the voluptuous Nigella Lawson and her sensuous baking advice and I appreciate the simplicity, clarity, and definition of Giada deLaurentiis’s Italian foods. But when I dug out my traditional Christmas recipes last week, what struck me was how they all came from the same source, Taste of Home magazine.

To be honest here, I had to let my subscription expire a few years ago and I gave away all my back issues to a young friend just starting out in her own apartment. My hope was that she would find in those pages the same thing I had found: inspiration for cooking the kinds of foods that remind us of what home can be: warm, familiar, and comfortable, with spice enough to be interesting, and ingredients common enough for the weekly trip to the grocery store. I cut my cooking teeth on Taste of Home, and I’m glad I did, because years of cooking from its pages gave me confidence that I could turn out something pleasing and delicious without a lot of fuss and bother, even on a weeknight after a hard day of teaching and writing conferences.

Of these recipes that I return to every Christmas I’ve tweaked some to reflect my family’s palate preferences. For instance, I use a different cut of ham and stud it with cloves before slathering on the glaze. I puree the canned potato soup before adding it to the hash brown casserole, and I’ve fiddled a little with the rest of the ingredients. For the cheesecake, I use a chocolate graham cracker crust from which I leave out the sugar, and I use about 2 cups of cranberries but don’t change any other ingredients, for I’ve found we need the extra tartness to offset the cloying sweetness of eggnog. No matter, though. These recipes taste like home to us.

Here’s the Cranberry Cheesecake recipe.

Sugar-Glazed Ham
adapted from Taste of Home magazine
(This size ham will easily feed 15 people, or you can eat it all yourselves, with plenty left over for frying for breakfast the next morning, and the next, and the one after that, which is what we like to do.)

1 bone-in half ham, shank end, 8 to 10 pounds
a handful of whole cloves
¾ cup white wine or water
2 cups packed brown sugar
4 teaspoons prepared mustard
2 to 4 tablespoons cider vinegar

Preheat your oven to 325˚. Score the ham in a diamond pattern about ½ inch deep with a sharp knife. Insert a whole clove into each scored intersection. Place the ham on a rack in a shallow baking pan. Pour the wine into the pan. Insert a meat thermometer into the center of the ham, without touching the bone. Bake for 2 to 2 ½ hours, or until the thermometer registers 150˚.

Meanwhile, combine in a small bowl the sugar, mustard and enough cider vinegar to make a thick paste.

When the ham reaches 150˚, remove it from the oven and raise the temperature to 350˚ (so that you can finish baking the ham and bake the hash browns at the same time). Use a paring knife to remove the rind and excess fat. Slather the glaze over the ham and baste it with some of the drippings. Return it to the oven. Bake another hour, or until the thermometer registers 160˚. Let it rest about ten minutes before slicing; spoon over the pan drippings and serve.

Hash Brown Casserole
adapted from Taste of Home magazine
(We apparently have big appetites for despite its recommended 12 to 15 servings, we have found that this amount will comfortably feed eight people.)

1 (10 ¾-ounce) can condensed cream of potato soup
1 ½ cups sour cream
½ teaspoon garlic salt
1 (1-pound, 14-ounce) package frozen hash brown potatoes
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat your oven to 350˚. Grease a 13- by 9-inch baking dish.

Puree the soup until smooth. Pour it into a bowl and mix it well with the sour cream and garlic salt. Add the potatoes and cheddar cheese and stir to combine. Spoon everything into your greased baking dish and sprinkle the Parmesan cheese on top. Bake, uncovered, for about an hour, or until the potatoes are tender and the top is all yummy and crisp.

A very merry Christmas to you and yours. I’ll see you on the other side.

Tis the Season for Giving Goodies

2009-12-19T14:03:00.002-05:00

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is baking pumpkin bread for the neighbors. I think they like it; no one’s ever said anything to the contrary, and they keep taking it, so I guess it goes over all right. Because Christmas wouldn’t feel the same if I didn’t bake this bread every year, I spent the perfect afternoon yesterday baking up eight loaves while Enya’s Christmas album spun on the CD changer, the kids played out in the cold, and my husband hung ornaments on the tree.

This weekend marks the start of Christmas vacation for a lot of folks—school’s out, kids are home from college, and it’s snowing all over the country. Of course here in Florida it’s been a long time since we’ve seen snow, but our own brand of Christmas weather includes temperatures in the 40s and brisk wind. Don’t you wish you were here? If you were, we could sit over a cup of coffee and this bread spread with whipped cream cheese.

This moist bread is almost like cake, and you may find it a bit sweet, so feel free to pull back a little on the sugar. With the chopped apple, there’s plenty of tartness to balance out the sweet, though. Try it once and then for the next batch adjust to your liking. The original recipe called for a streusel topping, but I found that unless the bread was eaten right away, the topping softened right up, rendering it superfluous. Because this bread is even better when eaten the next day, I leave the streusel out.

I have to confess I love this bread year-round and have been known to eat almost an entire loaf myself, pretending to be surprised with everyone else in the family when they said, “Is all the pumpkin bread gone already?” I like to think I’ve perfected my response, uttered with just the right puzzled look on my face: “Is it? Wow, we went through that pretty fast.”

Unfortunately for me, though, this latest batch of eight loaves has been safely snuggled into Christmas-themed plastic wrap. The kids and I have put on our jackets and are heading out to do a little Christmas delivery. Fortunately for me, we have only seven neighbors.

Pumpkin Apple Bread
makes 2 loaves
adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

3 cups all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 15-oz can pumpkin
¾ cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 large tart apples,

Preheat your oven to 350˚. Grease two 9- by 5-inch loaf pans with a little shortening. Sift the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice into a medium bowl. Put the pumpkin, oil and sugar into a large bowl and whisk until combined. Pour in the eggs, a little at a time, and whisk until all are incorporated. Add the flour mixture and, yes, whisk some more.

Peel and core your apples and cut them into large pieces which you need to put into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until all are finely chopped. You’re looking for chunky applesauce consistency, more chunky but still sauce. Fold this not-quite-puree into the rest of the batter. Divide the batter between the pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean, about 50 minutes to an hour.

Cool the loaves in the pans on wire racks for half an hour, then remove them from the pans and cool completely, about an hour more. When they are completely at room temperature, wrap them in plastic wrap and then foil and store overnight. Eat the loaf the next day, warmed in the toaster oven and spread with whipped cream cheese, or scarf it down plain while everyone else is watching “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

And a Merry Christmas to you.

I’m Ready for Thanksgiving, Round II

2009-12-16T10:13:00.001-05:00

It has been both too long and not long enough since Thanksgiving to be talking about turkey again. Not long enough, because as much as I like preparing the traditional feast (with help from my mother-in-law and whatever friends are coming over), I’m glad it’s a once-a-year production. But it’s also been too long since I’ve tasted the savory roasted turkey with sage and thyme, the rich and silky giblet gravy, the moist dressing made with egg bread and love, and cranberry’s tart counterpoint. Why shouldn’t we enjoy these delectable flavors more than once a year? But without quite so much prep, right?

With that in mind, it’s high time I share with you my daughter’s Gobble-It-Up-Turkey Burger recipe. My nine-year-old invented this dish for a burger contest sponsored by Red Robin restaurants. She didn’t win the contest, but she did win over our family with this classic yet original combination of flavors.

This version is a little different from the one she submitted to the contest, which had to follow certain rules. It’s delicious and full of flavor. You may never go back to beef again.

Gobble-It-Up-Turkey Burger with Cranberry Relish
serves 4

Ground turkey is much softer than ground beef, so work it gently and don’t over-handle it. Also, cook the patties at medium heat, not high the way you would for beef burgers. With beef, you want a screaming-hot pan so you can get a good sear while quickly cooking the burgers to medium in the middle. But since turkey has to be cooked all the way through, it takes a few minutes longer. If your pan is too hot to start, you’ll burn the outside before the inside is done.

for the relish:
1 12-oz package cranberries
1 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
½ teaspoon dried thyme or 2 to 3 stems fresh thyme
¼ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper or more to taste

Combine all ingredients except black pepper in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook until cranberries begin to pop, 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat, remove the thyme stems, if using, and season with black pepper. Set aside. The relish can be prepared 2 days ahead. Cool to room temperature before chilling. Return to room temperature before serving. You will not use all of this relish for this recipe.

for the burgers:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 celery rib, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1 ¼ pounds ground turkey, white and dark meat together, if available
1 teaspoon ground sage
1 teaspoon dried thyme
accompaniments: mayonnaise, butter lettuce, smoked provolone cheese slices, canned crispy fried onions, sesame seed buns

Melt butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Cook onion and celery until softened and translucent. Season with salt and pepper Add garlic to skillet and cook 2 minutes more. Transfer onion mixture to a large bowl and set aside. Wipe out the skillet with paper towels and increase heat to medium.

To the onion mixture, add the turkey, sage and thyme. Using your fingertips to avoid overworking the meat, mix all together and gently form into four patties. Cook over medium heat 4 to 6 minutes per side, or until cooked through.

To assemble: Spread mayonnaise on the bottom of a sesame seed bun. Top with butter lettuce, turkey burger, smoked provolone cheese, and crispy fried onions. Spread cranberry relish on top of bun and cover.

Homemade Pizza

2009-12-08T12:11:00.001-05:00

Purists may tell you that you can’t get good pizza anywhere outside New York or Chicago, depending on their preference for thin and crispy or soft and deep. Well, the truth is that there are many great pizzerias in home towns all over this country. And I’m not talking about chain restaurants here, though occasionally they do hit the right formula. I’m talking mom and pop places that mix their ingredients in the kitchen and have blast furnaces for ovens. It takes that high temperature for the perfect crust that’s crispy on the bottom and chewy throughout. No home oven can get that hot.

Does that mean you shouldn’t even bother? No, of course not. Though you can’t get exactly the same taste and texture out of your own kitchen, you can get some remarkable results with a handful of common ingredients and a modicum of skill.

Let’s talk ingredients. All you need to make good pizza dough is water, yeast, honey, oil, flour and, of course, salt.

First, the water. If your municipality has a good water supply, go ahead and use it right from the tap. The minerals in your water will give your pizza its own unique flavor. (Excellent water, incidentally, is the reason New Yorkers insist they have the best-tasting pizza. They may be right.) If you don’t like your water, use filtered or bottled instead. Be sure your water is in the right temperature range. If it’s too low, the yeast won’t wake up; if too high, the yeast will die.

Honey will feed the yeast and oil will give a little gloss to the dough. The salt is for flavor, but do not add it until after much of the flour has been incorporated since it is a yeast inhibitor.

As for flour, I like to use all-purpose and bread flours, for a perfect combination of softness and chewiness. If all you have on hand is all-purpose flour, by all means use it.

My standard method for rising yeast dough is this: I heat my oven to the lowest it can go—170˚. When it’s hot, I turn it off and open the door to let out any built-up heat, then close the door to let the oven cool. I get on with the mixing, kneading, oiling and covering, by which time the oven is about 80˚, the perfect temperature for rising. This method is usually unfailing. Just be sure that when you preheat your oven to 500˚ in order to bake the pizza you remove the bowl of risen dough first. I know this from experience.

Pizza Dough

This recipe will make enough dough for two medium or four individual-sized pizzas. For shaping the dough, if you know how to throw it up in the air, and catch it on your knuckles (which is the part I always miss), by all means go ahead. Otherwise, hold the dough ball in your hands, grasp an outer edge and begin turning it in your hands like a steering wheel. Gravity will stretch the dough for you and the part your hands touch will serve as a raised edge.

1 cup very warm water (between 110˚ and 115˚)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for oiling the bowl
2 packages active dry yeast
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups bread flour
2 teaspoons salt

Pour the water into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the honey and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Sprinkle the yeast on top and stir until everything is nicely dissolved. Add the flour and, using a dough hook, mix on low speed until some of the flour has been incorporated; add the salt and mix on medium speed until the dough forms a ball that pulls away from the side of the bowl and wraps around the hook. Continue mixing for another 3 to 4 minutes.

If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can do this by hand; it will just take a bit longer. Stir the ingredients with a spoon until you have a raggedy mess. Abandon the spoon at this point and reach in with your hands. Mix and press the dough together and against the sides of the bowl, getting as much of the dough goodness to adhere as possible. Then proceed to the next step.

Turn the dough out onto a very lightly floured surface. Knead by pushing the dough away from you with the heel of your hand and then folding it back over on top of itself and giving it a quarter turn each time. If you have used a stand mixer, you’ll want to knead by hand for 3 to 4 minutes; if you’re doing the whole thing by hand it will take up to 10 minutes. Either way, you want to keep at it until the dough is smooth and elastic. Start your favorite play list and have at the dough. You can count this as your exercise for the day.

Pour a scant teaspoon of olive oil into a clean bowl and rub it all around the bowl with your fingers. Plop in the dough and swipe it around until it is covered all over with a thin layer of oil. Cover the bowl with a clean towel or with plastic wrap and put it in a warm place to rise. In about 30 minutes to an hour, the dough should have doubled in size and will be ready to be shaped, topped and baked, preferably in a preheated 500˚ oven.

At this point you’re on your own. But you won’t have any trouble with that, will you? There’s no magic formula for pizza toppings; simply put on what you like best, whether that be olives and pepperoni or bacon and caramelized onion. Brushing the dough with olive oil and sprinkling on nothing but fresh thyme, rosemary, and chiffonade of basil is an astounding way to eat pizza. The flavors will wake up your mouth.

You see? Great pizza with what you have right there at home. Now you can take blast furnace off your Christmas list.

Shrimp Scampi with Polenta

2009-12-01T20:46:00.000-05:00

We feel very fortunate to live where fresh, local seafood is readily available. There is nothing, I mean nothing, like a Royal Red shrimp caught in the morning and sizzling in your cast iron skillet or over your grill that afternoon. When you bite it, the shrimp gives a little and then snaps under your teeth, and its flavor is sweet and slightly saline. You can’t get those sensations or flavors from anywhere else.

But we have come to appreciate the convenience of shrimp from the grocery store’s freezer. Scampi is one of our favorite preparations.

The idea for infusing the shrimp with garlic three ways (raw in a marinade, in garlic-infused oil, and sautéed with the shrimp) comes to me via Cook’s Illustrated. The polenta is adapted from Giada de Laurentiis’s Everyday Italian. I use more water and a little less salt than she does. My husband and I easily eat this entire recipe ourselves.

Of course you can serve shrimp scampi with crusty bread for soaking up the delicious garlic oil, but we really like it with polenta.

You may have to make this a couple of times to get the timing just right, because you want the shrimp and polenta to be finished at exactly the same moment. Fortunately, the polenta can be left alone during its last five minutes of cooking; the shrimp, however, cannot.

Shrimp Scampi with Polenta

for the shrimp:

14 cloves of garlic

1 pound 31-40 shrimp, deveined, tails removed

5 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Smash six garlic cloves with the flat of a chef’s knife to remove the paper. Mince two cloves of garlic and toss with the shrimp, one tablespoon of the olive oil and the salt in a medium bowl. Allow the shrimp to marinate for about half an hour at room temperature.

While the shrimp is marinating, heat remaining 4 tablespoons olive oil over medium-low heat in a cast-iron or other heavy 12-inch skillet. Add the four smashed cloves garlic and cook about 5 minutes. Remove the garlic and discard. Set the garlic-infused oil aside.

Peel the remaining garlic cloves and slice very thinly. Return the skillet to medium-low heat and add the shrimp with its marinade in a single layer. Sprinkle the sliced garlic into the oil around the shrimp. Cook for about 2 minutes, or until a little pink shows around the sides of the shrimp. Turn each shrimp over and cook about 2 minutes more. Increase heat to medium-high and add the lemon juice and the parsley to the skillet. Cook, tossing everything together, until the shrimp are cooked through and the oil is sizzling, about half a minute.

for the polenta:
3 cups of water
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Bring the water and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Pour in the cornmeal slowly, whisking the whole time with a long-handled whisk. Reduce the heat to look and cook, whisking often, until the cornmeal is cooked, about 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter until melted.

To serve: spoon the polenta into a shallow serving dish and pour the sizzling garlic, shrimp and oil over the top.

Braised Pork Roast with Warm Apple-Onion Chutney

2009-11-27T11:13:00.003-05:00

The sweet potatoes I wrote about last time are delicious all fall and winter long. Try them with this braised pork roast and apple-onion chutney, a dish I’ve developed through trial and error over the years.

Braised Pork Roast with Warm Apple-Onion Chutney
1 4- to 5-lb boneless pork shoulder roast
3 cloves garlic
whole cloves
kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
¾ cup sweet Marsala, chicken broth, or vegetable broth
2 large tart or sweet-tart apples
1 medium onion
1 celery rib, with leaves
4 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon dried thyme leaves or 1 to 2 stems fresh thyme, leaves removed from stems
¼ teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
¼ cup sweet Marsala or apple cider
¼ cup orange marmalade
kosher salt to taste

Heat the oven to 325˚. Peel the garlic and slice into slivers. Use the tip of a sharp knife to make slits all over the roast; insert a garlic sliver into each slit. Insert cloves all over roast. Season roast with salt and pepper. Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. When it shimmers, put in the roast and brown it on all sides, 8 to 10 minutes total. Remove the roast to a platter. Pour in the Marsala or broth and stir, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Return the roast to the pot, insert a probe thermometer, cover the pot and put it in the oven. Roast until the thermometer registers 150˚, about 2 ½ to 3 hours. Allow the meat to rest, covered, until it reaches 160˚, while you make the chutney.

Peel, core, and dice the apples and dice the onion and celery. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat; add the apples, vegetables, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, thyme and black pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes, until apples and vegetables begin to soften, but not brown. Pour in Marsala or apple cider, and stir in orange marmalade. Cook, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes, until the apples and vegetables are tender and the flavors have melded. Season with a little kosher salt.

To serve, thinly slice the pork roast and transfer to a serving platter. Spoon some of the pan juices around the meat. Spoon some of the chutney across the top. Serve the remaining chutney on the side.

A New Take on Sweet Potatoes

2009-11-24T14:33:00.003-05:00

sweet potatoes

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maggiejane/ / CC BY 2.0

Though many people would miss sweet potato casserole if it were not present on the Thanksgiving table, I have never been a fan of that dish. Sweet potatoes are already sweet and adding all that brown sugar and, worse, marshmallow, made a concoction much too sweet for my taste. I have, however, always enjoyed the way my mother-in-law prepares sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving. She roasts them with hunks of Granny Smith apple, whose tartness is the perfect counterpoint.

Even though I’m not a big sweet potato eater, while I was shopping a few weeks ago I couldn’t stay away from the piles of orange- and purple-skinned tubers. I picked up a few, mulling over what I could do with them. Would all their natural sweetness hold up against the bold, spicy flavors of, say, chipotle?

I’m happy to say the experiment was a success. Try this with your turkey on Thursday.

Smashed Sweet Potatoes with Chipotle
2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
¼ cup butter
¼ cup chicken broth, plus more if needed
1 chipotle in adobo sauce, minced, with 1 teaspoon extra sauce, more or less to taste
kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste

Cover the diced potatoes with water and bring the water to a boil. Boil until tender; drain. Return the potatoes to the pot; add the remaining ingredients and beat with a hand-held mixer or mash with a potato masher. Add a little more chicken broth if needed for smoother texture.

Herbs and Spices and How to Use Them

2009-11-16T12:43:00.006-05:00

If I didn't have my spice cabinet, cooking and eating would be pretty bland. I'm sure you feel the same way. I'm glad I live now and not two hundred years ago, when one had to be wealthy to enjoy even something as common today as black pepper. Fortunately for us, however, herbs and spices are as common as toothpaste, and just as simple to learn how to use.

You can buy many fresh herbs in small quantities in the grocery store, but at pretty high prices per ounce. Try growing your own. Even if all you have is a small patio or balcony, you can have a successful herb garden, and for the price of one plant from the garden center you’ll have fresh herbs all season. Some herbs are perennial; annual herbs can often be cut and rooted. I’ve had great success with basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, and rosemary, though I don't have any growing right at the moment.

I've read that it's even possible to cultivate the crocus sativus, the flower that is the source of the most expensive spice in the world, saffron, but I haven't tried that. Maybe you have and would like to comment about it.

My list here includes the herbs and spices I use the most and the ways I use them. Incidentally, the difference between herbs and spices is this: herbs are fresh or dried leaves and spices are dried seeds, berries, bark and roots. I’d love to hear about your favorite seasonings and how your use of them differs from mine.

Allspice

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melintur/ / CC BY 2.0

Allspice, ground or whole. Despite its name, allspice is not a combination of spices. This one spice, however, does contain the flavors of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and juniper berry. It is great sprinkled on toasted nuts or used anywhere you would use cinnamon, clove, or nutmeg.

Almond extract comes from bitter almonds and adds a subtle almond flavor to cakes and cookies.

Basil

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessandthecity/ / CC BY 2.0

Basil, sweet; fresh and dried. It goes well with tomatoes, fish, and eggs. It’s also good in many savory meat dishes. Here’s a simple and delicious way to eat basil.

Stacked Caprese Salad
For one serving, stack on a plate: ½-inch thick tomato slice (from heirloom or Roma tomatoes), barest pinch of kosher salt, 1 or 2 whole basil leaves, and a thin slice of smoked mozzarella cheese. Drizzle with a little extra-virgin olive oil. Repeat layers two or three times.

Bay leaves, whole. Use in meat or vegetable stock, all kinds of sauces, and marinades. Be sure to remove the leaf before serving.

Bouillon cubes, beef and chicken. I use them only in emergencies, when I’ve run out of store-bought stock or broth, because of their high sodium content. Buy low-sodium varieties if they’re available.

Capers. These tiny buds are usually sold in brine in small jars. They have a very sharp, piquant flavor. I use them in chicken picatta.

Cayenne pepper, ground. Its blistering heat has no real flavor, in my opinion, but when you want to increase the heat of a dish without compromising the flavors you already have from, say, chipotle or red pepper flakes, use a pinch of cayenne.

Celery

Celery. I always have it on hand; I always use the stalk and the leaves. I use a whole stalk whenever I make long-simmered gravy. I finely chop a stalk and cook it with onions and garlic for tomato sauce for spaghetti. I use it in soup, with potatoes, with just about every savory dish. Celery somehow rounds out the flavors.

Chili powder. This blend of ground chiles comes in a range of colors, from bright red to very dark, depending on the types of chiles used. Taste it before you put it in a dish. It’s good in chili and eggs, on beef or chicken.

Chipotle. Chipotles are smoked jalepenos. Where a fresh jalepeno can have a bitter aftertaste, chipotles have nothing but smoke and heat. I buy then two ways, in a can in adobo sauce and in powdered form. Use the canned kind to make chipotle butter or mayonnaise, or chop it and add it to fresh salsa. Use the powdered kind in a dry rub for steaks and pork chops. Also wonderful in Spanish rice.

Sweet and Smoky Spice Rub
1 tablespoon chipotle powder
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon black pepper, ground

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. To use as a rub for grilled meats, first pat the meat dry. Rub mixture on both sides and allow meat to rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with kosher salt and grill.

Cilantro

Cilantro. These are the leaves of the coriander plant, considered by many sources to be the world’s most widely consumed fresh herb. It's also Kevin's favorite herb. The odor and flavor are somewhat pronounced. I use cilantro in fresh tomato salsa; it’s also good with chicken or sprinkled over eggs scrambled with cheese. Finely chop the leaves, not the stems. Add to cooked dishes at the last possible moment, before the leaves begin to lose their flavor and aroma.

Cinnamon, ground and stick. You know how to use ground cinnamon—in cookies and cakes and sprinkled with sugar on toast. Stick cinnamon is classic in hot apple cider. But try using the tiniest amount of ground cinnamon in spaghetti sauce or chili, or in a dry rub for beef. Just a tiny amount. See how you like it. I also like to use stick cinnamon with an orange-worth of peel, a palmful of cloves and water to cover simmered all day on the back of the stove, with more water added as needed, for potpourri.

Cloves, whole and ground. They are the dried immature flower buds of the clove tree, native to Indonesia. Clove-studded ham is an American Christmas staple. Cloves are also good when you are poaching fruit and making pickles. A very small amount of ground clove is good in a beef dry rub. Add an onion studded with a few cloves to stock or stew; remove before serving. Though you may grind many spices (such as allspice, coriander and others) yourself, don’t grind your own cloves. They are so oily they will make your grinder difficult to clean.

Coriander seeds

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spilt-milk/ / CC BY 2.0

Coriander, ground or whole. These are the seeds of the same plant that gives us cilantro. Coriander is often used in gingerbread and with sautéed apples, but I use it in savory dishes, too, mostly chili and other Mexican-influenced dishes, like ground beef tacos. I think it has a licorice flavor, but I could be wrong.

Cumin, ground or whole. Cumin is very widely used in Mexican and Indian dishes. It has a little bit of heat to it, and, I must be honest, a somewhat offensive odor (at least to me), but I use it anyway in Mexican dishes. They wouldn’t be the same without it.

Curry powder. Curry powder is a blend of spices, not a single spice, and there are many ways of putting it together. Most commonly it contains ginger, coriander, cardamom, red pepper and tumeric. You can mix up your own to be more authentic, but it’s easier to buy it already mixed. I like to sprinkle it on chicken drumsticks and then broil them. Curry powder definitely has a pronounced flavor; a little goes a long way.

Dill. I use the leaves, sometimes sold as “dill weed” in potato salad and tossed, with a little olive oil and salt, with vegetables.

Garlic, fresh. Another one I always keep plenty of. This is such a versatile seasoning. Minced raw, its heat gives a bite to salsa. Roast whole heads drizzled with olive oil for 30 minutes at 350˚. When cool, slip the clove out of its papery skin, mash and spread onto bread or stir into mashed potatoes. Cook it with onions and celery as a base for gravy for just about any sautéed meat. Mince it and sprinkle it on potato chunks for roasting. Crush cloves with the flat side of a chef’s knife and cook in olive oil over very low heat for about 20 minutes to make garlic-flavored oil. This is useful if you like the flavor of garlic, but you don’t like to eat it. When garlic is roasted or cooked over low heat, it loses its harsh notes and becomes mellow and sweet. I also keep powdered garlic on hand, but I don’t use it often. I find its flavor sharper and more bitter than fresh. A little goes a long way.

Ginger, fresh, ground, and crystallized. Ginger is the rhizome (an underground stem) of a certain lily. To use it fresh, peel it, and then slice it thin or grate it. You can keep it in the freezer and hack off a 1-inch cube whenever you need it. Ground ginger is good in cookies and gingerbread, of course. Crystallized ginger is cubes of fresh preserved in sugar. You can use it as you would fresh ginger; just scrape off the sugar if it’s a savory dish.

Nutmeg, ground or whole. Nutmeg is a seed from the fruit of an evergreen tree native to Indonesia. (Incidentally, mace comes from the same tree. Mace is the ground membrane or outer coating of the nutmeg seed.) Chefs will recommend you buy whole nutmeg and grate it yourself. It retains more of its flavor that way. It’s wonderful, of course, in baked goods. Try a pinch of it when you cook dark greens such as spinach or kale. Just try it.

Old Bay seasoning. Classic with shrimp and fish of all kinds. Its primary aroma is celery; I guess that’s why I like it.

Oregano, fresh or dried. Oregano and marjoram actually belong to the same family. They are pungent; oregano is sometimes strong and bitter. It goes well with fish, pork and chicken, tomatoes, and eggs.

Paprika. Generally sweet, though hot paprika varieties are available. Paprika is made from mild, sweet, or hot bonnet peppers which are dried and then ground. It’s good in any dishes where you want a sweet pepper flavor. Paprika scorches easily; add it at the end of cooking.

Parsley, fresh. A versatile herb, parsley adds excellent flavor to practically any meat or salad. It’s also very good when blended with other herbs, such as basil, thyme, and oregano. When I chop it, I use only the leaves; the stems are useful in soups, stews, and stocks. I usually buy flat-leaf Italian parsley because it holds up well in cooking. But curly parsley has nearly the same rich flavor and is wonderful when you plan to add parsley at the end of cooking.

Peppercorns, whole. They are actually berries. I always buy peppercorns rather than ground pepper. As soon as they are ground, their oil begins to dry up and they lose flavor and aroma. Colors range from green (unripe) to black (fermented and then dried green berries) to red (fully ripened) to white (red berries with outer shell rubbed off.) Flavors range, too. The green ones are mild, the black ones spicy, and the red and white ones the hottest of all. Of course pepper is wonderful in all kinds of savory dishes. But one of my favorite ways to use pepper is in fruit salad. Yes, fruit salad. You have to try this.

Peaches, Blackberries, and Strawberries with Basil and Pepper
(from Cook’s Illustrated, July & August 2007)
4 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons minced fresh basil leaves
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
3 medium peaches (about 6 ounces each), pitted and cut into ½-inch pieces (about 3 cups)
2 half-pint containers blackberries (about 2 cups), picked over
1 pint strawberries, washed, hulled, and quartered lengthwise (about 2 cups)
1-2 tablespoons juice from 1 lime, to taste

Combine sugar, basil, and pepper in a large bowl. Using a rubber spatula, press the mixture into the side of the bowl until the sugar becomes damp, about 30 seconds. Gently toss the fruit with the sugar mixture until combined. Let stand at room temperature, stirring occasionally, until the fruit releases its juices, 15 to 30 minutes. Stir in the lime juice and serve.

Rosemary, fresh or dried. Strong and pungent, also very tough. Chop the leaves finely. If you use them fresh, remove the leaves and don’t use the woody stems. I use rosemary with pork; I love it sprinkled, with olive oil, salt, and pepper, on potato chunks I’m about to roast.

Sage, fresh or rubbed. The classic pairing with poultry and stuffing. Fresh sage leaves can be used whole or chopped; rubbed sage is coarser than ground and will keep its oils, hence its flavors and aromas, longer.

Salt, kosher and table. Salt brings out the flavors of other foods, even sweets and fruits. Properly salted foods will taste more like themselves, not like salt. When recipes read “salt to taste” then you should start with just a little (a pinch or 1/8 of a teaspoon) and taste the result. Add a bit more and a bit more until the food tastes right. Keep track of how much you added; over time you’ll be able to do what the chefs do—measure with your fingertips and know exactly how much salt is right for each dish. I use table salt in baking and kosher salt in cooking.

Tarragon. Though the French prize it, I have to admit I do not love it. Perhaps that is because I have never used it fresh. When it is dried, it loses its anise-like flavor and becomes tough. Dried, it does not soften when cooked. Fresh, it is reputedly excellent with eggs and fish, and is necessary to make Béarnaise sauce.

Thyme

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedelicious/ / CC BY 2.0

Thyme, fresh and dried. This one, on the other hand, I adore. I use it with beef, chicken, and pork, in potatoes and vegetables. I love it in pasta and stuffing.

Vanilla, pure extract and bean. Most often used in baking, vanilla adds a familiar flavor to cookies and cakes. When I make crème brûlèe, I use a whole bean, split lengthwise, to extract the most pure flavor. Never use imitation vanilla flavoring.

If you want to know more about herbs, spices, and everything else food, you really must read On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, by Harold McGee. (I know I've mentioned this book before; it's worth it.) It is a masterpiece of food, chemistry, history and mystery. McGee delves into the minute world of molecules, explaining what food is made of and what happens to it when we cook it. The book is a lot more fascinating than it sounds: a food science writer must be engaging who can write the following sentence: “Cooks have always been the world’s experts in the applied science of deliciousness” (3). Read the book; you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle

2009-11-06T12:08:00.004-05:00

As you know if you've been reading this blog, we have an excessive number of cans of pureed pumpkin in our house. I've been scouring different sources for tempting ways to use up this pumpkin. When I saw a recipe for pumpkin gingerbread trifle in the latest issue of Gourmet magazine, I had to try it. Truth be told, though, if I hadn't had pumpkin in the pantry, I would have gone out immediately to buy some.

This dessert is truly as tasty as it looks, and not difficult to make. The gingerbread whips up easily, using only two bowls. The batter is fluffy and slightly curdled-looking, if you can imagine that, but the gingerbread itself is wonderfully tender and spicy. When I cut it into cubes, I had a hard time not scarfing it all right then and there.

The pumpkin mousse reminds me of very light and fluffy pie filling. Very light and fluffy. It has all those classic pumpkin pie flavors, but with a whipped texture.

The spiciness of the gingerbread and the sweet mellowness of the pumpkin mousse--that's the essence of fall. Don't wait until Thanksgiving to make it.

Oh, here's the recipe.

Isn’t There a Better Way to Hull Pumpkin Seeds?

2009-10-31T20:41:00.008-04:00

I’m not exactly sure why I toast pumpkin seeds every year. I buy a big pumpkin and go through a lot of trouble cutting off the top, scooping out all the slimy innards, and separating the seeds from the pulp. Even given all that work, the task isn’t done yet. After separating the seeds, I have to wash them, dry them on paper towels, peel them off paper towels, and roast them with oil and salt. I do this every year and I have no idea why, because I don’t like roasted pumpkin seeds.

Toasting pumpkin seeds from the October jack-o-lantern seems such a very nostalgic, American thing to do. We toasted them every year when I was growing up, and I was supposed to like them, but I never did. The truth is that roasted pumpkin seeds, still in the hull, are not very tolerable. The husks are—well—husky. They fall somewhere between crunchy and stringy. The little kernel inside is good, oh my yes, but it’s such a lot of work getting out, especially after already working hard to get them to this somewhat edible point, that I never found eating them enjoyable.

Getting them out of the hull prior to roasting seemed a task better left to machines.

This year, however, fully into the jack-o-lantern spirit, we bought—count them—three pumpkins, and after scraping and scooping a huge bowlful of pulp I couldn’t bear to see it all go to waste. Given that chefs and other assorted foodies rave over pumpkin seeds, I decided I’d have to find a better way to make them palatable.

I formed a two-pronged mission: first, find a method of roasting seeds that rendered them crisp and crunchy and delicious in the hull and second, see what the fuss over hulled toasted pumpkin seeds is all about.

To the first mission, I found a possible solution in Joy of Cooking, which recommended bringing to a boil a pan full of seeds in salted water and then simmering them for a couple of hours before drying, oiling, salting, and roasting them in a medium-low oven. That sounded promising. I gave it a try.

Though, after simmering, the seeds had an unappetizing gray hue, I pressed on with the directions. After an hour in the oven, here is what emerged.

You’ll have to take my word for it that these were just as good as they are pretty. They turned out just as I had hoped. They were crisp and crunchy with no weird edges that stuck in my teeth. Not to mention they tasted nutty and salty. Mission one accomplished.

Now to the second mission. After drying the seeds overnight, I found the hulls soft enough to pick off with a fingernail. A sharp paring knife worked even better. A little experimenting yielded this strategy: Starting at the pointed end, I cut off the side of the husk, trying not to cut too deeply and scrape off the side of the seed. Using my fingernails then, it was easy to peel the two flats back and slip the kernel out. Things worked even better when I recruited two helpers.

Yes, we did peel, by hand, two cups of pumpkin seeds. I have the calluses to prove it, but I’ll spare you those photos. I couldn’t think of any other technique; I never thought of Google. (I did think of it later, however, and the only technique I uncovered involved a plastic bag and a mallet. Since I wanted intact kernels, it’s just as well I did them by hand.)

Aren’t they beautiful?

Of course they are.

And let me tell you about toasting them. I now know what all the fuss is about. Hulled pumpkin seeds, cooked in a cast-iron pan over moderately low heat in a little olive oil and then salted are delicious. They are crunchy, but not crisp; they give a little when you bite them. They taste nutty. They taste just the tiniest bit like the best popcorn smell you’ve ever smelled.

Toasted hulled pumpkin seeds are worth every bit of fuss. And now I know why I should buy a big pumpkin every year.

The best way to serve the pumpkin seeds, if you can avoid eating them right out of the skillet, which I found difficult to do, is on top of pumpkin soup. The chipotle in this soup is not overpowering at all; you'll find that there's just enough heat and sweetness from the pumpkin and the merest bit of brown sugar that you'll want another bowl. And then another one after that.

Pumpkin Soup with Chipotle, Bacon and Toasted Pumpkin Kernels

4 slices bacon, diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 ribs of celery with leaves, chopped
1 tablespoon chipotles in adobo, minced
1 tablespoon crystallized ginger, minced, or 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger, or ½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 ½ cups chicken stock
1 ½ cups milk
3 cups pumpkin puree
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated or ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground allspice
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
sour cream, additional nutmeg, toasted pumpkin kernels

In a saucepan, heat the chicken stock and milk until hot but not boiling.

In a large pot, cook bacon in olive oil over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon bits with a slotted spoon to a paper towel and set aside. In the same pot, cook the onion, celery, chipotle, and crystallized ginger (if using) until tender but not browned. Pour hot stock and milk over. Stir in pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg, grated or ground ginger (if using), and allspice. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup, or puree in batches in a blender until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste; heat through.

Ladle soup into bowls. Top with a teaspoon of sour cream, a pinch of nutmeg, reserved bacon and toasted pumpkin kernels.

Soft Pretzels, Philadelphia-Style

2009-10-23T10:09:00.006-04:00

If you could have seen me yesterday morning, you’d no doubt have noticed the flour dusted all over the front of my t-shirt. But what I hope would have been most prominent was the satisfied smile on my face. I had just eaten a warm soft pretzel with a smear of mustard on top.

Yes, I’m celebrating the Phillies and their big win over the Dodgers Wednesday night, making them the twice-running National League champions. Phillies, I hope youse take it all the way.

But I’m also providing this recipe by request. Several of you have asked for recipes, techniques, and ideas, and I hope you’ll keep the requests coming. When I’m in the middle of several food writing projects, our family lives in a happy, happy mess. I’m working on your requests, and more will be unrolling within the coming weeks.

Now about these pretzels. A homemade soft pretzel can be excellent, but it might never have exactly the same flavor as a commercially-made pretzel because many commercial bakers spray pretzels with a solution containing 1% lye to 99% hot water. This solution changes the starches on the surface of the pretzel, giving the pretzel several new colors and flavor compounds as it bakes. Not to worry about the lye, however, because in the oven, carbon dioxide acts on the lye, rendering it harmless and edible. (I’m grateful to the wonderful Harold McGee and his incomparable On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, 2004 ed., p. 547, for this information.) It is possible for home bakers to purchase food-grade lye (check internet sources, but make sure what you're getting is food-grade, not soapmaking-grade), but it’s more convenient—not to mention safer—to use baking soda in the boiling water.

As I researched, I found a few different approaches to pretzel-making. Some recipes used hot milk in place of most of the water. Others used an enormous amount of sugar, up to three-fourths of a cup. Some recipes omitted the sugar or the salt, or both. When I read Alton Brown’s recipe “Homemade Soft Pretzels” I thought it seemed to make the most sense.

I recommend a few modifications and tips:

Flour: Replace half of the all-purpose flour with higher-protein bread flour, for the extra chewiness it will provide.

Kneading: If you have a Kitchen Aid Ultra Power 300-watt stand mixer, which is what I have, keep the speed at medium low. Any higher and your mixer might walk all over the counter. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can still make these. Use a wooden spoon for the initial mix. When the dough gets too stiff to stir, turn it out onto a lightly oiled surface and knead for about 10 minutes.

Rising the dough: To rise yeast dough, preheat your oven to its lowest temperature (mine goes down to 170˚). As soon as it comes to temperature, open the oven door, shut the oven off, and then close the door. In the time it takes to mix and knead the dough, the oven should cool to the perfect rising temperature, about 80˚.

Twisting the dough: For a classic Philly shape, you want these pretzels long and relatively narrow, with a short twist in the vertical middle. Here’s how to do it: Roll your dough into a rope 27 to 30 inches long, thicker in the middle. Keeping most of the rope on the work surface, lift the two ends and draw them toward each other; twist twice close to the end. Fold the twisted part to the opposite side. Tuck the ends under and press firmly.

Oiling the pans: Make sure there is plenty of oil on the baking pans. Because the raw dough will pick up some of the oil and take it into the bath, leaving a less-oiled pan to which the baking pretzels might stick, you might want to use 4 oiled pans, 2 pans for the pretzels waiting for their bath and 2 pans for the pretzels to bake on.

Pretzel salt: Because I had it in the house, I used kosher salt on top of the egg wash. While the pretzels were very good, they really cried for pretzel salt. You can find it here and here.

It didn’t take us any time at all to polish these off, which gluttony we rationalized by saying when they cooled they probably wouldn’t be as good anyway. The only thing missing was a tall mug of root beer.

Soft Pretzels, Philadelphia-Style

(recipe 99% Alton Brown’s; original recipe here )

1 ½ cups warm water (110 to 115˚)

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 package active dry yeast

11 ounces all purpose flour (about 2 ¾ cups)

11 ounces bread flour (about 2 ¾ cups)

2 ounces (about 4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

vegetable oil, for baking sheets

10 cups water

2/3 cup baking soda

1 large egg yolk, beaten with 1 tablespoon water

pretzel salt

Combine the water, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes, or until the mixture foams. Add the flour and the butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer dough to a second, oiled bowl, and roll it in the oil. Cover with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place for about 50 minutes to an hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 450˚. Lightly brush two baking pans with vegetable oil.

Bring 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in a large saucepan.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and divide into 8 pieces. Roll out each portion into a 27- to 30-inch rope. Twist into a Philly-pretzel shape, following the directions above. Place each pretzel on a baking sheet.

Using a spatula under one end of the pretzel and your free hand supporting the middle knot, lower each pretzel, one at a time, into the boiling water. Boil for 30 seconds to a minute. Remove from the water with the spatula. Return the pretzel to the baking pan; brush the top of each with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with pretzel salt. Bake until golden brown, about11 to14 minutes. Cool about 5 minutes before eating.

In the Presence of Pumpkin

2009-10-21T13:03:00.001-04:00

We’ve been stocking up on pureed pumpkin, buying a can or two every time we make a run to the grocery store. My husband read somewhere that there’s supposed to be a shortage of it this year, and we wanted to make sure we had a can ready for Thanksgiving’s traditional pie.

Of course, now I have to get creative with canned pumpkin, since I have in my cabinets six or seven times as much as I’ll need for that fourth Thursday in November. Pumpkin muffins are obvious, but I hope you’ll try these anyway, because the apple amps up the moisture and the flavor. The scent of these baking, along with the scent of the grapefruit that we sliced for breakfast, grapefruit from our neighbor’s tree, swung us fully into fall.

And now I’m off to brainstorm—pumpkin soup with toasted pumpkin seed kernels, pumpkin butter, smashed potato and pumpkin with maple and sour cream, and maybe a pumpkin-pecan cheesecake. What are your favorite pumpkin treats?

Pumpkin-Apple Muffins

Be sure to grate the apple on the small holes of a box grater, not the large ones.

1¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon salt
1 egg, separated
¾ cup buttermilk
¼ cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup canned pumpkin
1 small Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and grated (about ½ cup)

Heat the oven to 400˚. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and salt. In a small bowl, whisk the egg white and the buttermilk. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolk and the melted butter. Pour the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture and stir. Add the sugar and vanilla. Mix well. Stir in the pumpkin and the grated apple.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients. Stir just until combined, about 10 seconds. Do not over-mix. Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until golden. Remove the muffins from the tin to a cooling rack. Serve warm.

Fall Comes in on Little Pumpkin Feet

2009-10-19T11:16:00.003-04:00

Overnight, fall blew into northwest Florida. We went to bed in the 80/80s—80 degrees and 80 percent humidity—and by the next afternoon the air was clear and cold. Fifty-seven degrees cold. For many of you, 57 is balmy, but for us of the thin blood, it’s cold.

Not that I’m complaining. After a humid summer comparable, as my husband says, to walking around in someone’s mouth, we welcome this cold front with jeans and sweatshirts and the first closed-toe shoes we’ve worn in months.

We also welcome fall with baking. These pressed cookies, both rich and crisp, are a family Christmas favorite. Butter, sugar, vanilla—those are the scents of the season. But because 12 discs came in the cookie press box, I see no reason not to enjoy them any month of the year. For October we chose, naturally, the pumpkin, tinted the dough orange, and sprinkled the pressed shapes with chocolate jimmies.

Cookie presses are notoriously finicky; for this particular batch, the pumpkin stem would not come out with the rest of the pumpkin. With a forefinger I removed each square bit of dough clinging to the disc and tapped it into the top of each pumpkin on the sheet. It was a time-consuming, frustrating chore, but important, for without a stem a pumpkin is nothing but a gourd with goiter.

Pressed Cookies

If you don’t have a cookie press, you can still make these cookies. Simply roll teaspoonfuls of the dough into balls and flatten with the bottom of a drinking glass or the tines of a fork dipped in flour.

3 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 ½ cups butter (3 sticks)

1 cup sugar

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and baking powder; set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add beaten egg yolks and vanilla extract; beat well. Gradually add the flour mixture, stirring until all is incorporated.

Fill cookie press fitted with disc of your choice. Press cookies onto baking sheets, leaving about an inch between cookies. (Because the dough does not expand much, you can fit a lot of cookies on one sheet.) Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, or until cookies are set and have just the faintest bit of golden brown along the bottom edge. Of course, you can cook them a minute or three past the golden state if you like. Some in our family like them quite brown and crisp.

Remove from pan and cool on racks.

Fresh Friendship

2009-10-13T14:50:00.001-04:00

Last week my friend Ann gave me some sage and a sweet bell pepper she had left on the vine until it reddened. Ann grows her garden—carrots, beets, leaf lettuces, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and 6 different herbs—in pots on her third-floor balcony. Space is precious up there, and every leaf, bud and fruit treasured.

There’s an analogy here with our friendship. For 13 years, Ann and I shared precious office space. We treasured every conversation, every prayer, every cup of cocoa (her) and coffee (me) and every homemade chocolate chip cookie.

Though we don’t work together anymore, and we both miss the dailyness of us, we keep in touch with Sunday evening chats over coffee and tea, phone conversations, and browsing trips to World Market and the mall. Our friendship has changed its color on the vine, but it’s still as good as ever, and I’m grateful.

Chicken with Sweet Red Pepper and Fresh Sage (serves 4)
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
½ teaspoon rubbed sage
½ teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 teaspoons butter, divided
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced into ½-inch wide strips
1 small onion, sliced
15 fresh sage leaves
1 cup white wine or chicken broth

Pound chicken breasts to ½-inch thickness. Sprinkle both sides of each breast with rubbed sage, thyme, salt and pepper. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat; add olive oil and 1 teaspoon butter. When the fat is hot, lay the chicken in the skillet presentation-side down. Cook breasts, turning once, about 7 minutes, or until just cooked through. Remove to a platter and tent with foil to keep warm.

Reduce heat to medium-low and add remaining teaspoon butter. When the foam subsides, add pepper and onion to the skillet; cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Add 10 sage leaves and cook briefly, until just wilted. Deglaze the skillet with wine or chicken broth. Simmer until reduced by half. Adjust the salt and pepper, if necessary.

Spoon bell pepper mixture over chicken. Sprinkle remaining sage leaves on top. Serve over hot rice or noodles.

Fried Shrimp and Grilled Shrimp and Crab, Oh My

2009-10-10T10:52:00.024-04:00

On Oct. 9, 2009, at the National Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores, Ala, we found the kind of culinary craftsmanship that would be at home in the kitchens of many fine restaurants. Nearly 40 vendors sold foods grilled, fried, and boiled, the cooks acquiring fresh local seafood, treating it lightly with good ingredients, giving it a quick bit of time over the fire, and offering plenty of smiles to the crowds along the way.

You’d expect shrimp to be featured at its namesake festival, and featured it was. Grilled, fried, blackened, coconut, peel and eat, Cajun: any way you like shrimp, you could get it. The grills, fryers, and pots were also hot with lobster tails and crab claws, crawfish pie and etouffee, gumbo and grouper, jambalaya, crab cakes, scallops and oysters, and shark on a stick.

Plenty of food not from the sea was available, too, including fresh salads, sausages, chicken, and rice.

As impressive as the taste of the food was the hospitality of the cooks. At South Beach Grill, Steve and his mom Chalor, who has been “the boss,” Steve said, of the enterprise for 35 years, took some time to chat while they cooked shrimp, grouper, paella, crawfish, and other food.

South Beach Grill has been working festivals all over the country, most recently in Johnston, Penn., at a bike rally. They have won Best of the Festival at Gulf Shores 3 of the last 4 years, for their coconut shrimp and crab cakes.

When we sampled the food of South Beach Grill, we understood why they’re winners. The crab cake, enough for two, combined crab and a flavorful filling tasting of celery and rich breading throughout. A skewer full of enormous shrimp spent barely three minutes on the grill, and then Steve wrapped it in foil and handed it over. It was tender and succulent and tasted of parsley and the sea.

At the side of the tent, Robert Ogren of Pensacola scooped out piles of brilliant red crawfish for hungry patrons and didn’t mind entertaining a bit while he worked.

It wasn’t all savory; cooks were serving great sweets, too, including typical fair food, funnel cake and the like. The Copelands of Copeland’s Ice Cream out of Theodore, Ala., dished up homemade chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla ice cream, churned under the power of a sturdy little John Deere engine.

Pensacola was well-represented by several vendors, including Cajun Specialty Meats, known all over the country for their legendary turducken.

Cajun Specialty Meats had a lot of good stuff going on. Boudin balls, crawfish etouffee, and fried crawfish, alligator, and shrimp were the general favorites. The etouffee is made, as their website says, with “crawfish tails smothered in the Cajun trinity (onions, bell pepper, and celery), tomatoes and our perfect blend of Cajun spices, mixed with rice.”

With boudin, a fresh pork sausage, the Broussard brothers of CSM make the best, biggest fritters I’ve ever eaten. Boudin balls sport a thin crispy crust around soft mixture of sausage, rice, and Cajun spices.

See what I mean about hospitality? As Carl shows, it was all good. “Spicy—Yes, Hot—Never!” the people of Cajun Specialty Meats say about true Cajun seasoning.

It was definitely hot on the boardwalk, the heat index reaching 105° by early afternoon, and likely hotter under those tents with the fires going, but at every tent we met people who love food, cooking, and making others happy, no matter the temperature.

The Wing Is the Thing

2009-10-09T00:07:00.006-04:00

Tonight at Pensacola’s first ever King of the Wing contest at Cordova Mall, Kevin and I were the ones systematically sampling Buffalo-style wings from each of the 12 restaurants represented, trying to keep hot sauce off camera and notepad. The event was hosted by the Home Builder's Association of West Florida and Mike Carroll of BHC Concrete, along with a lot of other wonderful people. The object? Feed people all the wings they can eat, and find out whose wing is the best in Pensacola.

We’re recent wing aficionados, we admit it. But we know what we like, and we liked what we ate tonight. We liked the whole experience, from watching Yard Bird, the official fowl of the HBA, dance with some children to peeking into the tent where local celebrity judges were tallying the points. Kevin and I make a great team. I take the photos and jot the information, and Kevin tells me each wing’s flavor notes.

There were flavor notes aplenty. Some wings gave us varying degrees of vinegar and tang. In others we detected onion, tomato, citrus, and garlic. We had to leave before the competition results (best hot wing, best flavored wing, best overall) were announced (so someone will have to comment below). Kevin’s favorite turned out to be a toss-up between Kooter Brown’s and Route 66 Legendary Wings. Of Kooter Brown’s Kevin said, “The skin is crisp without being dry. When you get down to the meat, it’s really succulent.” From Legendary Wings we sampled their classic hot wing, which had perfect flavor and texture, “exactly what you expect from a wing,” Kevin said, and their “legendary” flavor, which was the one with notes of citrus within the spicy sauce. Wing Stop was also high on both our lists, not only because it’s the first place we ever had hot wings, but also because their wings have classic, well-balanced flavor. I loved the wings from Famous Dave’s; they’d been smoked before being doused in spicy barbecue sauce. Delicious.

For all the restaurants that participated, thanks for the great food. If I can help your business begin or improve your online presence with kicking web content, please visit my site to see what I can do for you.

I'll Miss Her

2009-10-06T10:57:00.002-04:00

When I heard the news yesterday that Gourmet magazine is going out of print, though I’ve been a subscriber for only two years, I felt bereft. Gourmet has provided me a classic armchair experience into foods I might have otherwise not known and places to which I might never have gone. The magazine has inspired me to try new ingredients and to make up recipes based on descriptions of dishes. I’ll miss it.

The recipe for today was inspired by a brief mention on p. 85 of the October 2009 issue of a dish served at Rosario’s in San Antonio: “grilled shrimp [tacos] with lime-doused cabbage slaw and chipotle mayo.” I thought I could make my own riff, serving the slaw and mayo on steak tacos, which I usually top with fresh tomato salsa. Kevin suggested I make broccoli slaw instead, which we generally prefer to cabbage. Why not go for it all, I thought, and come up with another accompaniment? Then I could have tacos three ways.

Tacos Three Ways (makes about 12 tacos)
1 tablespoon chipotle powder
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 1½- to 2-lb. London broil (or top round; 1½ to 2 inches thick)
kosher salt
24 corn tortillas
Fresh Tomato Salsa
Broccoli-Lime Slaw with Chipotle Mayo
Grilled Pineapple Salsa

In a small bowl, mix together the chipotle, brown sugar, cumin, coriander, and black pepper. Pat meat dry and rub spice mix on both sides. Cover lightly and let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes while you heat the grill.

When the coals are medium-hot, sprinkle the meat with salt and grill, turning once, 8 to 10 minutes total for medium-rare. Let the meat rest about 10 minutes and then slice it as thinly as you can. While the meat is resting, heat a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Cook each tortilla briefly on both sides in the dry, hot skillet, until they are browned, even lightly charred, in spots.

To assemble, stack two tortillas together, pile on the meat, and spoon one of the toppings over.

Fresh Tomato Salsa
I first ate fresh tomato salsa about 13 years ago at a small taco restaurant called Acapulco Fresh. Everything in there was fresh. Really fresh. The kitchen had no microwave and no freezer, and was run by a man named Carlos. He was the manager, the food orderer, the schmoozer, the one who came out from behind the register to talk to us while we were eating. He cried happy tears when we brought in our newborn daughter for him to meet. His cook didn’t say much, but he smiled whenever he saw us and started grilling the steak for my burrito before I ordered. The restaurant had a salsa bar, which is where we fell in love with fresh tomato salsa. It was a sad day when the Acapulco Fresh closed; the only good thing that came out of its closing was that I figured out how to make my own salsa. When we eat it, we wish Carlos would stop by for a chat.

4 medium Roma tomatoes, (about 1 lb.), seeded and diced
½ medium onion, diced
½ cup chopped cilantro
juice of 1 large lime (3 to 4 tablespoons)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt
a few grinds black pepper, to taste
a few drops of hot sauce, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl.

Broccoli-Lime Slaw with Chipotle Mayo
Yes, this dish does have mayonnaise in the slaw and an additional mayonnaise spread. But the slaw is a bit on the dry side for topping tacos. It has just enough dressing to hold it together. If you want to serve the slaw separately, say, with fried chicken or grilled hamburgers, and I recommend you do, double the mayonnaise and sour cream, but not the lime juice. Adjust the seasonings to taste.

for the slaw:
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon lime zest
juice of 1 medium lime (about 3 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1 12-oz bag broccoli slaw
½ cup chopped parsley
4 to 6 scallions, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)

Combine the mayonnaise, sour cream, lime zest and juice, sugar, and salt and pepper in a small bowl. In another bowl, mix broccoli slaw, parsley, and scallions. Pour the mayonnaise mixture over and toss to coat.

for the chipotle mayo:
2 chipotles from a can of chipotles in adobo sauce
1 teaspoon adobo sauce from the can, plus more to taste
1 tablespoon lime juice
½ cup mayonnaise

Finely chop the chipotles and put them with the extra sauce in a small bowl. Stir in the lime juice and mayonnaise and mix well. Add more adobo sauce or lime juice, to taste.

Grilled Pineapple Salsa
1 large pineapple
1 large clove garlic
½ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 poblano pepper, seeded and chopped
juice from one lime (3 to 4 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or ¼ teaspoon dried, crushed

First, prep the pineapple. Cut of the top and bottom. Working your way around the pineapple and using a thin sharp knife, cut off the rind and eyes. Cut the pineapple from top to bottom into slabs ½ inch thick. Discard core. You should have about 12 ounces of pineapple. Set it aside.

Make a garlic paste by first mincing the garlic and then sprinkling on the kosher salt. Using the heel of your hand, press the flat of your knife over the pile of minced garlic and salt, and smear it. Scrape the mixture into a pile and repeat, adding a bit more salt if necessary, and mincing and smearing until you have a nice garlic paste. Transfer it to a medium bowl and add the poblano, lime juice, and thyme.

Grill the pineapple slabs over a medium-hot flame until slightly charred and softened. Cut it into ½-inch cubes and add it to the garlic-poblano mixture. Stir.

I’d love to hear from you. If you have enjoyed Gourmet magazine, or tacos, or a special restaurant with a gregarious manager, I hope you’ll post about it.

What I Believe about Food

2009-09-29T11:12:00.017-04:00

I’ve been thinking about what went wrong the dish I attempted last week. From a blogging standpoint, it wasn't a problem that the dish failed. In spite of what I said, I don’t need every dish to turn out perfectly in order to write about it. But what I've been contemplating is why the dish failed. Something was not true about the experience, from choosing the ingredient to cooking to writing, true in the sense of being “straight on,” the way a redwood trunk is true, or a carpenter’s ruler is true.

I’ve figured out the problem. The dish I was trying to make was not true to me. It wasn’t a reflection of a style of food I know and love. It’s not that I can’t or won’t ever cook Indian dishes. It’s not that I shouldn’t try new things. We all should, of course. That’s how we grow. But the problem with my presenting tandoori to you was that I was doing it in an effort to be exotic. I was trying to spellbind you with a foodie buzzword. And that wasn’t true.

I do hope to cook real tandoori-style food. But the next time I write about it, it will be because you and I can trust the ingredients and techniques the way I present them.

All this thinking of writing about food that is true to me has made me want to share with you my food point of view. It’s simple, really. I believe that good food tastes, feels, and looks good and brings people together, whether they are reading about it, preparing it side by side, or eating it around a table or standing together at the counter. Good food is central to many good conversations and familial experiences. Eating does not have to be a matter of simply fueling up. Connecting with people around food can be an emotionally enriching experience, a gift from God who is in the business of “filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17 KJV).

And so the first element of my food point of view is taste. Good food isn’t too salty, or not salty enough. Its own flavors come through, heightened by the presence of the right amount of salt. Good food has no “off” flavors caused by old ingredients. It is not cloying. It does not taste like the can it may have come out of. There are no harsh or caustic notes. Perhaps we have come to accept that some foods, such as coffee, grapefruit, or Italian olive oil, are supposed to be bitter. I don’t accept that assumption. The food I enjoy and serve to others should be neither bitter nor bland. No matter if sweet, savory, buttery, or strong, a dish’s flavors are in perfect harmony. A certain flavor may dominate, but its partner flavors complement and complete it. That is food that tastes good.

Beyond taste, I also consider texture. When you eat my food, you’ll encounter a variety of textures that meet your expectations of the dish. The roasted chicken will be tender and juicy and will have crisp skin. The crème brûlée will give you a full-mouth feeling from its inherent fat, but there will also be shards of caramelized sugar to crunch. In minestrone, the beans and vegetables will be firm yet yielding. The texture will be as you’d expect to find it. But you’ll also be surprised by things as simple as crispy bacon lardons in a bowl of potato leek soup.

Taste and texture addressed, I must also touch on presentation, about which many cooks and chefs have said, “You eat first with your eyes.” When you see the food, it will look good, and the sight of it will start your mouth watering, thus preparing you already for the experience of tasting. Presentation of food starts with color. If food is cooked properly, its color will be appealing. A little knowledge of the color wheel will help you put foods of contrasting and complementary colors together. How the food is arranged on the serving dish is a matter of the cook’s skill and knowledge of design, but these things can be learned through observation and practice. And some foods need no formal plating at all. It’s a wonderful thing to eat hot pasta, or hash, or scrambled eggs containing softened bits of cream cheese right out of the pan.

Above all, the food I want to cook and eat, and the food I want to share with you is food that comes out of my strengths, skills, and knowledge. That is not to say that I won’t or can’t learn new styles. But learning takes time and is not accomplished by picking up one bottle of something from the store. Learning to cook well comes from study, from practice, from making mistakes and taking risks and eventually preparing dishes that disappear in much less time than they took to put together. When I have done that, when you have done that, we know our cooking is true. And that’s a fine feeling indeed.

Now on to the recipe and the explanation for these glorious photos, which I hope did not distract you too much. I’ve been making this recipe for 10 years. It’s not my recipe, but was written by Sharon Landeen and published in Taste of Home magazine in 1999. The only thing I added was a handful of peanuts. My recipe card is splotched and crumpled, but, oh, it’s still good. Yes, it’s still very good.

Caramel Corn (adapted from Taste of Home)

6 quarts popped popcorn

½ cup dry roasted, salted peanuts

2 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup butter

½ cup corn syrup

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon baking soda

Have ready two greased 13- x 9-inch baking dishes and heat your oven to 250˚ Divide the popcorn and the peanuts between two large bowls and set aside. In a sauce pan, combine the brown sugar, butter, corn syrup, and salt. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. But watch the pan, because the bubbling mixture will expand; you don’t want it to boil over. After 5 minutes, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the salt and vanilla extract. It will bubble violently for a while, but as you stir, the bubbles will subside and the caramel sauce will take on a voluptuous and creamy texture. Working quickly, pour half the mixture over the popcorn and peanuts in each bowl. Stir thoroughly. Scoop the popcorn into the waiting baking dishes and bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Cool the caramel corn and store it in an airtight container.

When Things Go Wrong in the Kitchen, There's Always Risotto

2009-09-24T15:33:00.001-04:00

I wanted to write about a gorgeous new chicken dish today. But this blog, like my to-do list, whose random projects bear little relevance to one another, has staggered me with fits of starts and stops.

Last week when I was browsing World Market for a new ingredient to use and write about, I bypassed siracha and some lovely pink-, blue-, green-, and yellow-striped farfalle that reminded me of ribbon candy and bought a bottle of marinade. I know, right? I should have known better. But I was seduced by its name—tandoori.

I’ve wanted to try tandoori chicken for some time now, but not having a clay-lined pit, or tandoor, in my backyard, or a plane ticket to India, I copped out with something fake. In my defense, I didn’t know it was fake; on the other hand, when it comes to bottled marinade, there’s probably no defense.

I butterflied a roasting chicken, and slathered it with the red stuff from the bottle. It grilled beautifully, but the flavor wasn’t all that great. It didn’t taste bad; it didn’t taste like much of anything at all.

Of course, that’s because it had no yogurt to tenderize the meat and none of the usual tandoori spices—coriander, cumin, red pepper, Garam Masala, and tumeric.

But I couldn’t turn a blog post out of a failed dish. As I re-thought what to write about, I stood at the kitchen counter eating crispy French fried onions. And it struck me—who does that? We’ve probably all eaten those crispy onions in the ubiquitous Thanksgiving green bean casserole. But who else eats them straight out of the can? That’s pretty weird, I thought. I could probably write about weird things I eat. Weirdness is subjective, of course, but still, it’s a topic I could work with. When I brainstormed, however, other than sprinkling salt on apples, I couldn’t think of anything else weird. (I’m not counting calamari, as Kevin suggested I should, as weird. It’s simply delicious.)

It’s a good thing, though, that the risotto Kevin made while I babysat the chicken was not weird in the least. In fact, it was perfect, as was the chocolate tapioca for dessert.

Perfect Risotto (serves 4)

I distinctly remember the first article I ever read about risotto. The writer emphasized the time-consuming nature of the dish and the precise skill needed to ensure that each rice grain retained its individual structure while at the same time morphing with the other rice grains into a creamy showpiece. It scared me for years.

I assure you, however, that risotto is actually quite easy to make, and more forgiving than some would want you to believe. It doesn’t take any more time than it would to cook long-grain rice, and the only skill required is stirring.

One ingredient note: if you don’t use wine, and there are those who don’t, simply omit it. I do not recommend using cooking wine since it contains huge amounts of sodium and will ruin the taste of the dish.

3 cups chicken broth or stock

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup Arborio rice

2 shallots, diced

½-cup white wine

salt to taste

First you will want to start the chicken broth simmering on the back of the stove. Once it’s going, heat the butter and oil in another saucepan over medium heat until the butter stops foaming. Add the rice and shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are softened a bit, but neither they nor the rice is browned.

Pour the wine over the rice and cook, stirring, until almost all the liquid is absorbed. Next, ladle the chicken broth, ½-cup at a time, into the rice mixture. Cook and stir until the rice absorbs almost all of the liquid, and then pour in the next ladleful. And so on, until the rice is creamy, yet each grain is firm. You may not use all the liquid every time, so do taste the rice when there is about half a cup of broth left; if it’s tender, you can be done. Season with a little salt.

The whole cooking and stirring one bit of broth at a time is, I think, the part that was most scary to me when I first read that frightening article. But in reality, though you should not leave the kitchen, or even go more than two steps from the stove, while you’re cooking risotto, you don’t actually have to stir the entire time. If you leave the spoon for a few seconds, disaster will not ensue. Trust me.

Risotto is best served right at the moment it is done. If you find you are not ready to serve it, then you will need to hold off the last few ladlefuls of broth. Simply cover the pan and move it to a cold burner. It will quickly re-heat when you are ready to serve, at which time you can finish it and season it.

One of the beauties of risotto is its endless delicious variations. Sauté diced porcini mushrooms with the rice and shallots at the beginning. Or don’t use shallots at all; use onion. Or leek. Once we made a beautiful purple risotto by using red wine instead of white. At the end, stir in peas and bits of bacon. Parmesan cheese and a little chopped parsley would not be amiss, either.

One other word—after you make this dish, you will never again eat boxed rice that comes with the powdered flavor packets. Unless it’s one of those weird days in which accomplishing anything on your to-do list is giving you fits.

How the Tastes Do Change

2009-09-21T12:24:00.001-04:00

I despised cooked carrots when I was a child. It didn’t matter how they were dressed, I hated the taste and the way they felt in my mouth. A carrot was supposed to be crisp, cold, and crunchy, with a sweet fresh, almost grassy, taste. It wasn’t supposed to be mushy or sugary with glaze. Putting a cooked carrot in my mouth was alien and gross. I ate them anyway, because that’s the way I was trained, but I remember one of the joys of going to college and being on my own—the ability to refuse to eat cooked carrots. That measure of control over my own life caused me endless exultation.

When Kevin was a child, there were a lot of things he hated. Lima beans, pinto beans, black beans, beans of any kind except green ones. He didn’t like fish or anything spicy. Baked and mashed potatoes were in, but au gratin was out.

There were a few other quirks about his palate, but I learned to cook for him and we have lived and eaten harmoniously together for more than 13 years.

Recently, however, we have noticed some changes. For one thing, I like cooked carrots. I discovered this fact about myself about a year after our second child, a son, was born when I made glazed carrots for a traditional Thanksgiving feast. I was not planning to eat any, but I did have to taste them before I served them. Surprise, surprise. I found them to be pleasantly crisp-tender and not overly sweet with their glaze of butter, brown sugar, lemon juice, and thyme.

That I could enjoy something I had hitherto despised was a revelation to me. I could chalk up the change to the influx of hormones my body had received while I carried my son. But that explanation would not work for Kevin, for whom no such thing had occurred, but who had been experiencing similar changes in tastes.

Fish, for example. Creatures of the sea have never endeared themselves to him. But I have been able to make various shrimp dishes which he enjoys. Once, after a fishing trip we took with my dad, I cooked some red snapper fillets which were well received. He still won’t eat fried oysters with me, but he does enjoy the fish sandwich at our favorite beach restaurant.

He even likes my favorite preparation of au gratin potatoes, which I took from The Gourmet Cookbook, which credited the technique to Jacques Pépin. What I do is put thinly sliced potatoes and onions in a sauce pan and barely cover them with half and half. I bring them just to a boil and then transfer them to a greased baking dish, layering the potatoes and onions with a mixture of Gruyère, Parmesan and Romano cheeses. I pour the half and half over all and bake at 400˚ until they’re tender, maybe 25 minutes or so, depending on their thickness. Excellent with meatloaf, naturally.

As for spicy things, let me tell you that in the last 3 months, we have had Buffalo wings no less than half a dozen times, always at his request, and that's the reason for all these photos. Over the years he has tolerated the various spices I have used in meat rubs and chili, but for him to ask for hot wings is remarkable. Six times!

I grill the wings (let the fire burn down to medium to avoid excessive char), or deep-fry them, and my sauce is the traditional mixture of equal parts butter and hot sauce (we like Frank’s) with a splash of cider vinegar, so there’s no need for a recipe. The only thing you really need is blue cheese dressing and celery and carrot sticks. These should be not, of course, be cooked.

I rejoice in the way our palates have expanded, but acknowledge that it’s probably too much to hope that one day he will enjoy limas.

You'll Love the Leftovers

2009-09-17T15:53:00.005-04:00

This is not another blog entry about leftovers. I’m actually one of those people who, with few exceptions, have no great fondness for leftover food. I don’t like the taste. I eat leftovers when I’m feeling frugal or lazy, but I generally don’t enjoy the experience. I don’t think my daughter does, either.

But I digress.

Bear with me.

Yesterday was a great day. I clarified my work goals, rewrote some web content, and took out chicken to thaw. When my daughter blew into the house after school asking the inevitable, “What’s for dinner,” she was happy to see something fresh in the works. I call it “Fettuccine Alfredo with Pan-Seared Chicken and Garlic.” Or, when I’m not feeling talkative, “Garlic Chicken Alfredo.”

My husband still calls this dish Mediterranean Garlic Chicken, though it has come a long way from its original roots. I found the first version in a recipe booklet I picked up from the grocery store check-out line. It was called Browned Butter Chicken. The basic idea was to cook whole garlic cloves (about 20) and chicken cutlets in browned butter (half a cup!) and toss it all together with angel hair or spaghetti.

Yum.

The recipe evolved a few years later when we started cutting back our fat consumption. I replaced butter with olive oil, and significantly decreased the quantity. I added more seasoning, including black pepper, red pepper flakes, and thyme. For some reason it had a Mediterranean feel, hence its new name.

Then when I finally learned how to make a good alfredo sauce, thanks to Everyday Italian, inspiration struck. Wouldn’t it be delicious to add chicken and garlic to fettuccine alfredo? Of course it would be. I fussed with the technique a bit, and now it’s a favorite weeknight meal.

Fettuccine Alfredo with Pan-Seared Chicken and Garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, flattened to ½-inch thick and patted dry
salt and pepper
10-20 cloves of garlic, smashed gently, paper removed
4 tablespoons butter
¾- to 1 cup heavy cream or half-and-half
juice of ½ lemon
1 teaspoon dried thyme
a few grinds black pepper
a pinch of red pepper flakes, or more if you like a bit of bite
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
8 ounces fettuccine, cooked al dente and drained
a few tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley

Turn your oven on to about 325˚. In a cast-iron pan or good stainless steel skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers. You want a delicious sear on the chicken, so make sure the pan is good and hot. Season the chicken with a little salt and pepper and brown in the oil, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove the chicken to a heat-proof shallow serving bowl and put it in the oven to finish cooking.

Turn the heat on the pan down to medium. You may need to remove the pan from the burner for a few minutes so that it will cool faster. When the pan is not blistering hot, put it back on the flame and throw in the garlic cloves. I know it sounds like a lot of garlic. It is, because that’s the way we like it here. Adjust the number of cloves to your taste. Keep them moving around in the oil; you want them browned and soft and sweet, but not burned. When they’re finished, lift them out and add them to the bowl of chicken in the oven.

Now wipe out the pan. Yes, I know you are wiping out the base for a delicious pan sauce, but for this recipe we’re aiming for creamy white alfredo. You can do the quick pan sauce another night.

For the alfredo, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Do not brown it. Pour in most of the cream, saving some to thin the sauce later if you need to, the lemon juice, and the seasonings, and cook just until it starts to bubble. Sprinkle in the cheese, stirring the while until it melts.

You don’t want it too thick, or too thin, for that matter, so add more cream if needed, or, equally as good, a few tablespoons of the water you cooked the pasta in. (You have been cooking the pasta meanwhile, haven’t you?) Taste it and adjust the salt, if necessary. If the sauce is too thin, you can add more cheese. And, to be honest, if it isn’t quite the right consistency it will still taste good, and you’ll know for next time how to adjust.

When the sauce looks good, cut the chicken into half-inch-thick slices, and add them and the garlic, with any juices collected in the bowl, and the pasta to the sauce. Toss and pour back into the bowl. Sprinkle with a little fresh chopped parsley.

The best thing about this dish is that it makes leftovers you actually want to eat. I like to eat them standing in front of the open refrigerator, my fingers poised greedily over the open container.

Bread-Crumb-Coated Grilled Pork Chops

2009-09-14T13:56:00.003-04:00

I didn’t make that up; I really didn’t. I saw it in a magazine--I could have sworn it was Gourmet--but now I can’t find the recipe. I just spent an hour looking through my back issues, to no avail.

But I wish I had made up the technique of brushing olive oil on pork chops, seasoning them with salt and pepper, and then dredging them in fine bread crumbs and grilling them. I wish I had made it up because it makes juicy pork chops like you can’t imagine.

If we had pork chops at all when I was growing up, they were thin and boneless, cooked over low heat until they had taken on some brown color, which invariably took a very long time and left them very dry. A good friend, who is a good cook, sears pork cutlets over high heat and then braises them low and slow in gravy. The flavor of the gravy is good, salty and toothsome, but the tenderness of the meat is hit or miss. Sometimes it’s succulent; sometimes it resembles chewy animal hide.

Neither technique was making pork palatable to me. And pork should be palatable. Why can’t a pork chop, on the bone, with fat streaking through it, end up on the plate in a shimmering sea of its own delicious juices so that it needs no gravy?

To my mind, the problem was long cooking, a method that didn’t make sense to me. The best way to cook a pork chop is high and fast so that a savory crust is formed and the chop is cooked through, both sides done in about 5 minutes. This would be for a half-inch thick chop. Add a few minutes for a thicker one. The best heat source, of course, would be fire. Need I expound on the deliciousness of fire-roasted meat?

To hedge my bets against dry, flavorless meat if it turned out my timing was a little off, I tried a variety of methods to ensure flavor and moisture, including brining and dry rubs. While the brining introduced too much salt for my taste, the dry rub worked beautifully. My favorite combination turned out to be 1 tablespoon chipotle, 1 tablespoon cumin, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon coriander, and 1 teaspoon ground black pepper. I rubbed the meat, sprinkled it with salt, and let it sit out, loosely covered, while I got on with the business of firing the grill.

The result, as I had hoped, was flavorful meat that retained its juiciness. It was spicy, yes, but juicy.

We enjoyed this dish frequently for a couple of years until this spring when I ran across the bread crumb technique. It was just as simple to dredge the chops as to rub them, and the grilling time turned out to be the same. As for flavor, at my table savory won out over spicy, with the added bonus of bits of charred bread.

I may not have made it up, but I’m sharing it with you, so that has to count for something.

Grilled Pork Chops with Bread Crumbs
(adapted from Gourmet, I think)

4 bone-in center cut pork chops, ½-inch thick
3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
¾ cup unseasoned bread crumbs, panko, or crushed croutons

Lay the chops on a cooling rack set over a baking sheet. Liberally sprinkle with half the olive oil and use your fingers or a pastry brush to spread the oil around. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper. Flip the chops and repeat. Dredge both sides of each chop in the bread crumbs, shaking off any excess. Return the chops to the rack and keep, loosely covered, at room temperature for about 30 minutes while you prepare your fire to medium-high. Grill the chops, uncovered, for about 2 minutes. Flip them and cover the grill, leaving all vents wide open. But don’t go too far away. You’ll want to cook them only about 4 minutes longer, or until the juices gleaming through the top are clear. At that point, the chops will have the slightest bit of pink in the center, and they will be perfect. Let them rest 10 minutes before serving.

One of These (People) Is not Like the Other

2009-09-11T15:59:00.001-04:00

When we baked peanut butter cookies the other day, my daughter swiped tastes of ingredients, leaving a finger trail in the flour dusting the countertop. Later, she held her pinky between the mouth of the vanilla bottle and the teaspoon. When she helps in the kitchen, she likes to mix but not measure, scoop but not sift.

My son cracked the egg on its pointy top, not its side, and overlooked the bits of shell in the bowl. He wrested the mixer from me, struggled to hold it upright on full power, and endured my hand steadying his.

But when the cookies were done, both took identical courses of action. As did I.

Let’s eat.

You Want How Much Butter on That?

2009-09-10T12:41:00.003-04:00

What better way to start a food blog than with butter. Nutritionists may hate it, but many of us admit to a certain guilty glee when butter is mentioned. I was transfixed recently by a recipe, found in this book, that included two sticks of butter melted and poured into waffle batter perfect for Sunday mornings.

Though in our home Sunday morning usually means a mad scramble to get everyone fed, dressed, and out the door to church, sometimes it’s worth it to sleep in, slow down, go to the late service, and meantime mix up a batch of waffles. The lazy stirring of ingredients and the quick hot scent of baking batter savored during a stolen morning at home puts me in a serene mood.

Ten years ago, though, I would not have dropped “serene Sunday morning” and “waffles” in the same sentence. I despised waffles and the whole waffle-making process, especially the part where I had to beat the egg whites separately (who needs another bowl to clean) and the other part where I had to extract the waffles from the clutches of the sub-par appliance I owned. In addition to that, the fickle heating element either burned the waffles (and me as I extracted them), or left them doughy and limp.

I have very painful memories of trying to make waffles.

Eventually I threw out my clunker of a waffle iron and broke my usual guideline of no processed foods in the house by buying frozen waffles, which the family gobbled up. No fuss, no mess, no blistered fingers. In my household ledger, happy family plus happy food provider equals culinary success.

But as I recently contemplated committing myself to a food blog, I figured that to be fair I’d have to be open-minded about all kinds of foods. Whether the food was ugly, scant, slimy, or included separately-beaten egg whites, I had to have an open palate. Yes, that included trying dreaded waffles again.

Funny thing is I’ve had a beautiful brand-new waffle iron in my kitchen for several years. Its sleek chrome lid covers gorgeous non-stick, deeply-grooved plates. Memory is tough to erase, however, and I had never used it.

Until last Sunday.

Armed with a recipe that graciously allowed me to dump the eggs in whole, I mixed up a batter so easy I thought for a moment I was making muffins. When the steam subsided, the crisp yet light waffles lifted right out. The family tucked in, and I made a note to take frozen waffles off my shopping list template.

With a slice of salty pork roll alongside and a mound of blueberries and whipped cream on top, this pastry is a Sunday morning tribute to ease, tranquility, and culinary satisfaction.

Of course, if you want you can have yours with butter.