Pants-off Cook-off

Like a Beautiful Phoenix, The Poff-Coff Heroically Rises From The Ashes of Non-Cookery

2010-10-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the deep shadows of our kitchens, neglected pots and pans lurk, cobwebbed and spidery, haunting us with the specter of the chefs we shall become nevermore...

It's a real ghost town around here, eh? (Ba dum dum). Let's remedy this situation with some spooky eats. Halloween is just a few days away, and in honor of this most awesome of holidays, I call on all ye little ghouls and goblins to officially get this Poff-Coff party started once again.

This week's challenge is open-ended. Baked goods decorated in the colors of the season? Pumpkin flavors? Ghastly presentations? The possibilities are endless -- just make it Halloween-y!

Risotto: Kind of like rice, but not

2009-03-01T18:26:00.000-08:00

Yay, risotto! I feel truly chef-like that I pulled this one off. So, I made Cauliflower Risotto With Brie and Almonds. And it was actually (amazingly?) really pretty good.

Step one was bringing the broth, water and thyme sprigs to a simmer. I, of course, stupidly didn't have any thyme sprigs, so I just used some dried thyme and that was fine. Perhaps it would have been better with fresh thyme, but I GUESS WE'LL NEVER KNOW, now will we? But, feel free to just use the dried stuff, cause it was, ya know, fine.

Anywho. Then I sauteed the cauliflower in butter, oil, salt and more dried thyme. Mmm, it smelled gooooood.

Next up was turning regular old rice into the magical goodness that is risotto. I was unreasonably afraid (as it turned out) of the process, but it wasn't really all that hard.

As was previously mentioned by others, the basic concept is just constantly stirring the rice whilst adding broth (by the half-cup) at regular intervals over the course of about twenty minutes. It's kind of fascinating to watch it...um...grow.

Once I had risotto, I added in the previously sauteed cauliflower and the brie. By the way, the hardest part of this entire venture was removing the rind from the brie. What the hell? I'm sure I went about it all wrong, but my god did I create an unfortunate mess of that poor cheese. Thank god I was just mixing it in with the risotto, so nobody had to witness the squished up horror show that I created. Oopsies!

I topped it with toasted almonds, and Arie ate his with some pork chops that he made in the Foreman Grill, while I ate mine with a veggie-chicken burger. I'm showing a picture of his meal because his looks much fancier than my pathetic fake-meat.

In conclusion, risotto rules. This one in particular was quite delicious -- not too brie-y, and very rich and wonderful. Oh and also? Fake chicken doesn't photograph so well.

Risotto: Lobster Broth Goodness

2009-02-21T17:22:00.001-08:00

One of the main reasons why I wanted to pick risotto for this P-off C-off is the fact that it is one of those foods I have always assumed was outside of my skill level in the kitchen, and we here at P-off C-off are all about pushing ourselves, right? The other, far more important reason is that fact that I currently have a freezer full of lobster broth and was searching for a good reason to use it. Rumor has it that risotto is all about the broth.

At first I looked for a good seafood risotto recipe, but didn’t find any that sounded exciting. Then I turned to my new cookbook The Art of Simple Food, which had a recipe for Asparagus and Lemon Risotto--a perfect complement for lobster broth. The book also included a whole section on tips for making risotto, which was very, very helpful.

The recipe called for:
1 lb asparagus, sliced into ¼” pieces
1 lemon, zested and juiced
3 T butter
1 small onion, diced fine
1 ½ cups Arborio rice
5 cups broth
½ cup dry white wine

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

First you melt 2T of the butter in a heavy bottomed pot and sauté the onions until soft and translucent. Then you add the rice, stirring occasionally until translucent. Meanwhile you bring your broth to a boil and then turn off. Add the wine and lemon zest to the rice and cook until the wine is absorbed.

Now comes the fun part—lots of broth and stirring. Starting with one cup, add the broth to the rice, stirring occasionally, until the rice thickens. Never letting the rice get dry, you then keep adding the broth ½ cup at a time. Keep stirring.

The recipe called for salting the risotto when you add the second cup of broth, to let it sink in, but since my lobster broth was pretty salty, I uncharacteristically skipped that step.

About 12 minutes in, add the asparagus to the rice. Having never made risotto, this step made me nervous, because all of the asparagus made it harder to keep an eye on the consistency of the rice. It might be easier to learn how to make risotto on a plain version.

Keep adding broth until the rice is tender but has a firm core—about 30 minutes in total. Then add ½ of the lemon juice and parmesan and stir like it is going out of style to whip up that last bit of creaminess in the rice.

Mmmm. The lobster broth made for some amazingly rich risotto. I highly recommend it. I served it by itself, but it was so rich it probably would be better as a side dish. No matter what, I learned that risotto is easier than I thought and that it really is all about the broth.

Weird science: Risotto

2009-02-08T15:32:00.000-08:00

I have wanted to learn to make risotto since I first found out that it doesn't have any cream in it. A creamy-tasting food with no cream--amazing! Actually making it made me even more impressed with the bizarreness that is risotto. How did anyone ever figure out that instead of boiling rice in liquid, you could cook it and then add liquid later, and that it would turn out totally different and awesome?

I compared a bunch of recipes and ended up using the one for Parmesan Risotto from the New Best Recipe cookbook. Generally I find that cookbook is way too complicated, but since I was in awe of this foodstuff, I wanted lots of detail so I'd make sure I did it right. Here's the recipe:

3 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 cups water
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 medium onion, diced fine
salt
2 cups Arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine
2 onces Parmesan cheese, freshly grated (1 cup)
Ground black pepper

You bring the broth and water to simmer in one pot and then turn down the heat to just keep it warm. Then separately you cook the onion in butter for ~10 minutes, until the onions are soft and see-through.

Next, in the step that seems very counterintuitive, you add the rice to the onions and cook it for about 4 minutes ("until the edges of the grains are transparent," according to the cookbook, but I could not discern that change.) At this step you could sort of start to tell that the starchiness of the rice was making it all goopy, which I guess is what leads to the mysterious creaminess.

After that you start adding liquids: first the wine, cook for 2 minutes stirring frequently, then 3 cups of the water/broth mixture. This turns the whole operation into a soupy mess. But after you cook it for about 10 minutes, stirring infrequently, the rice absorbs the liquid. You then keep adding the broth mixture 1/2 cup at a time, and stirring every 3-4 minutes so it doesn't stick to the bottom, until it tastes done.

Lastly you add in the cheese, salt, and pepper, and eat! Pardon the blurriness of my plate picture and the big pork chop in front (Mr. Jenny made that part of the meal, which was also quite good). I was very happy with my risotto--it was a whole lotta creamy deliciousness. I will definitely make it again, and maybe experiment with adding other stuff, like mushrooms and saffron. Mmm, science.

Shallots = Love, updated

2009-01-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

I didn't think I was actually going to get around to doing a shallot recipe this week, but when I clicked on Apartment Therapy's Kitchn yesterday and there was a shallot recipe at the very top, I figured it was probably a sign. This one actually comes from Martha Stewart, and let's just admit it: that woman is awesome. We're all on that bandwagon now, right? Good.

So, I made this braised chicken with shallots, & it was fan-freaking-tastic.

PoffCoff has really helped me learn how much I like to cook. I would never have made this kind of meal for just myself if it weren't for this site, but now I know that cooking at home solo, with a little glass of wine, some John Legend -- it's a great way to spend an evening.

I pretty much followed the recipe. Brown your chicken thighs, go ahead with the big chunks of halved shallots -- they'll break down some in the cooking process -- and opt in for the tarragon at the end. It really added (dare I say it?) complexity to the flavor. I want to eat this every day.

Update: The lovely folks at kitchn.com posted an update on this recipe today, having now tried it themselves. They served the dish over pasta, which I think would be tasty, but also seems unnecessary. The chicken thighs I used were boneless and skinless, and I agree that its easier to deal with. The chicken was still amazingly flavorful. Mainly, I was just excited to see a bunch of commenters talk about how delicious this was, because I agree! I ate it for four or five days.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Cider Vinegar Sauce

2009-01-26T21:50:00.001-08:00

It's a twofer! I wanted to catch up on the poff coffing, so I followed this recipe from Epicurious, which involves both stuffing foods in other foods and shallots! The first step involved making the shallot/cider vinegar sauce... I was skeptical about adding the sugar to the sauteed shallots without adding any liquid, but it worked and didn't burn or anything. I didn't have homemade beef or chicken broth to add once it was called for, so I just used instant vegetable broth--my favored brand is Rapunzel--which seemed to work just fine.

Then, the stuffing... all that was involved here was some fairly straightforward sauteeing.

Then, the assembly. My chickens came split, which was handy.

They also came skinless, so I skipped the step of browning them in a pan... Also, I forgot to buy kitchen string to tie everything together, but it all held together well enough. So yes, into the oven they went, and 15 minutes later, done! The only other change I made was to cut out some of the butter in the sauce, as it seemed like a lot of butter. But the results all around? Delicious!

The sauce tasted great in combination with the sweet and savory chicken and stuffing. Overall, I must say that it was a bit of a potschke, as my mother would say... but none of the steps were hard, and it's pretty fun to cook up some fancy food for yourself. Also, I think this recipe could be easily adapted for non-meat eaters by using slices of firm tofu instead of chicken.

Farfalle with Asparagus, Roasted Shallots and Blue Cheese

2009-01-25T15:28:00.000-08:00

For my shallots, I followed this recipe from epicurious. I took advantage of the recipe reviews to make a few adjustments. It also seemed like it would make a lot of food so I halved the recipe and it made enough for two servings plus leftovers.

First off, instead of bread crumbs, I toasted about 1/2 cup of pine nuts in my cast iron skillet.

The recipe called for peeling and halving the shallots, which seemed to me to be really big shallot chunks, so I cut them a little smaller. After they cooked down during the roasting, the size was much better.

Many of the reviewers pointed out that you have to really love blue cheese to make this recipe. I love me some blue cheese, but since I was making this for company (does Amy count as company?) I decided to tone down the strong flavor of the Saga Blue that I bought by mixing about 2/3 goat cheese and only 1/3 blue and that worked. It could be ramped up to half blue and half goat, but even I might have been overwhelmed by all blue cheese.

To make the sauce creamier, I set aside a little bit of the pasta water to mix in along with the cheese and also added a little half and half. Toss it all together with plenty of salt and pepper and it was done.

This was a super fast and super easy recipe. Between this and Amy's Mac and Cheese, I can safely say that shallots + cheese + pasta = gooooood.

The Mysterious Shallot

2009-01-25T15:18:00.000-08:00

Not a leek, not a scallion, not just a really tiny onion. According to Anthony Bourdain, "Shallots are one of the things - a basic prep item in every mise-en-place - that make restaurant food taste different from your food." Time to P-off C-off 'em.

French toast stuffed with love (and cheese)

2009-01-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, my friend told me about some marscapone cheese-stuffed french toast he ate at a breakfast joint here in Chicago. As a lover of all things cheese, I couldn't get it out of my mind. Thank god that this P-Off C-Off stuffed foods challenge came along!

Not only had I never tasted stuffed french toast, I also lacked a recipe. I ended up creating my own, with some help of recipes found online and Cook's Illustrated recent article about french toast, which provided all sorts of tips, such as how to dry out the bread (oven dried is better than left out) and make the best batter (with egg yolks, whole milk and melted butter).

Anyhoo, here are the ingredients for 6 slices of french toast:

Bread: Trader Joe's challah bread, cut in 1-inch slices.
Filling: 1 banana, 8 oz marscapone cheese, 1 tablespoon vanilla, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Soaking liquid: 1 and 1/2 cups warmed whole milk, 3 egg yolks, 3 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons melted butter, 1/4 teaspoons salt, 1 tablespoon vanilla

So, the process was pretty simple. I started with the bread. I cut a large slit in bottom of each piece, maintaining about an inch of uncut bread on the top and both sides. Then, I place each piece on a cookie sheet and baked them in a 300 degree oven to dry them out. I cooked them about 8 minutes total, 4 minutes on each side. When they're done, don't bother turning off the oven, you'll need it later.

While the bread was cooking, I made the filling: I just pulsed all of the filling ingredients in my food processor until they were combined.

When the bread had cooled about five minutes, I stuffed each slice full of as much filling as it could handle. Using a butter knife worked well to fill the entire pocket with the cheese mixture. I had about double the amount of filling that I needed, so it could probably be cut in half. (Though I've been slathering the leftover filling on toast all week, and it's been AMAZING.)

Wisk the soaking liquid together, remembering to warm the milk (not too hot) and melt the butter first. Them pour the liquid into a square 8 x 8 baking dish, so you can get nice bread coverage. Bread should just soak for about 20 seconds on each side.

Now, you're ready to cook! Heat butter in a large skillet over medium low heat; when the foaming stops, you can throw on the bread. Cook about 4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. The flipping at this point can get sort of delicate because the heated filling gets sort of oozy. Some of the recipes I found online recommended refrigerating the stuffed bread slices for 30-60 minutes, which might've helped avoid any leakage. Nevertheless, I found the leaking minimal as long as I was careful.

When you're done with each slice (I managed to fit two in the pan at a time), you can throw it onto that cookie sheet that's still in the oven. That'll keep it warm until you're ready to eat.

I served the toast with butter and syrup and bacon on the side -- definitely a plus to balance the french toast's sweetness. Honestly, the french toast was amazing. The final result was rich and sweet but not soggy, and the stuffing was creamy with a subtle hint of banana and cinammon. Rave reviews by Husband, who wolfed down three slices. Tres bon!

Stuffed Pork Chops

2009-01-08T06:45:00.000-08:00

As soon as the theme of food stuffed in food was suggested, I knew that I had to try and make my grandmother's stuffed pork chops. I loved them as a kid, and I have been craving them since I started eating meat again. I emailed my grandmother for the recipe, and although my first attempt did her version no justice, they were still pretty good.

I started by making the stuffing--sauteing 1/2 cup onions and 1/4 cup celery, along with a dash of chopped fresh sage, in butter until they were translucent. Then I tossed in 1/2 cup of bread cubes and sauteed for a few minutes more. I mixed it all with the key ingredient: a small can of creamed corn. None of these measurements were exact as I guessed the proportions, but they seemed about right. Next time I might try adding an egg to bind it a bit more, but it could go either way.

Then things got sort of graphic. Of course for my first meat Poff Coff I would pick a recipe where I really have to get in there. I bought two center cut, bone-in pork chops, each about 1 1/2 inches thick. I cut a slit in each pork chop, and used the knife and my fingers to hollow out a pocket in the chop. Like so:

Then I salted and peppered the chops, stuffed each pork chop with the stuffing and closed the opening with a toothpick. Tada!

I browned the pork chops for a few minutes on each side in my cast iron skillet.

My oven, which has never been reliable, picked yesterday to break down completely. But that's what toaster ovens are for! I put the chops in a baking pan and cooked them for 25 minutes on one side at 350 degrees, turned them, and cooked for another 25. Because I had so much stuffing left over, I threw the extra in the pan for the second 25 minutes. If I had been cooking in a real oven with more space, I probably would have put the extra stuffing right on top of the chops.

As a side, I made brussels sprouts my favorite way (and also a Phyllis Croxton recipe) - sauteed with balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese. Mmmm.

I served the chops with the extra stuffing and the extra juices from the pan poured on top.

The stuffing on the inside kept the pork chops really juicy and the sweet of the creamed corn balances well with the flavor of the meat. Really, it's all about the creamed corn.

If I were to do it again, I would add more sage to the stuffing and would salt and pepper the chop more than I did. This is definitely a recipe that I will make again and want play around with a bit. But considering how dumb I still am about cooking meat, and given the fact that I had to do it in a toaster oven, it was really easy and good. Yay, Poff Coff!

Couscous and Feta Stuffed Peppers that actually didn't suck!

2009-01-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

To usher out the holiday madness and usher in the season of feeling restless, unfulfilled, overweight and cold, I decided to host a post-holiday party for 7 lucky ladies and gentlemen. And I decided to cook for it. Since I lack anything resembling confidence in the kitchen, this was a stressful undertaking. But lo and behold, I think I actually made some magic happen.

The menu included Butternut Squash and Parmesan soup, Avocado and Tomato Wedge Salad with Basil, Green Beans in Ginger Butter, Two Cheese Mac N Cheese with Caramelized Shallots and the aforementioned Couscous and Feta Stuffed Peppers. Since this week's theme is Food Stuffed Inside Other Food, let's focus our attention on the peppers for now, shall we? Mmm hmmm.

I used this recipe. Step one was to cut the tops off the peppers and clean them out, and then boil them, which I thought was slightly odd. But okay. It turned out fine. After they were all boiled up, I then drained them for awhile, upside down.

In the meantime, I began preparing what I have affectionately nicknamed "the guts" for the stuffed peppers.

The recipe called for preparing the couscous in vegetable broth, which I made from scratch (pats self on back). My local supermarket sells some pre-packaged soup veggies, and I just peeled, chopped and let them simmer for awhile. (Disclosure: I made the broth a week before for some lentil soup I was making, and froze enough to use for the peppers. How Martha of me!).

So, yeah. The guts. Zucchini, yellow squash, onion, cherry tomatoes, chick peas, couscous, fennel seeds, oregano and feta...all chopped up, cooked, and mixed together into yummy, gooey, cheesy deliciousness.

Which was then spooned into my pre-boiled peppers (in Christmas colors, of course).

I prepared them the morning of the party, covered them with tinfoil and left them in the refrigerator for a few hours. Not a problem. (Phew). Then, when my pals arrived, I just removed the tinfoil and stuck the tray in the oven for fifteen minutes and voila...stuffed pepper perfection.
Make these! They totally ruled.

Food Stuffed Into Other Food.

2009-01-07T17:31:00.001-08:00

After a long break, the P-Off C-Off is so ON! This week's challenge involves the stuffing of one food item inside yet another food item. And then eating it.

¡Agua Fresca!

2008-06-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

It's summer in San Francisco for the next 5 minutes--perfect weather for unheated food! I bring you an easy and refreshing drink, which, were I not feeling slightly under the weather, I would have augmented with a splash of liquor. The inspiration came from a team building event my office had last week… we were supposed to learn Mexican cooking techniques and make a meal for the group, but what actually happened was that the staff there had to take over the cooking when it became clear that we'd become irreversibly distracted by the margaritas and quesadillas they’d given us. The one thing we did succeed on from start to finish was making agua fresca—not a huge accomplishment, as it’s just blended fresh fruit, water, and sugar. Maybe there was some ice, too?

Here at home, all I did was take the pint-ish of strawberries I had in the fridge, add some water and a bit of superfine sugar, blend it up, y aqui! Agua fresca! Seems like it would be delicious with mango, any kind of melon, maybe pineapple? Give it a whirl (wink wink)…

The Return: As Unheated As Can Be

2008-05-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

The Poff Coff is back, ladies.

Cooking For The Hell Of It. So There.

2008-03-07T10:46:00.001-08:00

I know that we were doing a different theme. But I never made anything for that theme, and neither did anyone else, apparently. And it's been months since anyone has posted so I said SCREW YOU, RULES. And I just cooked something and now I'm posting it, and damn it feels good to be a gangster.

I made Pasta with Butternut Squash and Sage because it sounded good, and also because I got a Cuisinart for Christmas and I hadn't used it yet (mainly because, if I'm being honest, I was vaguely afraid of it), and here was a recipe that called for a food processor.

Report: Success! I put together the scary, razor-sharp chopping machine all by myself...and it worked! And I didn't cut off ANY fingers. In fact, it processed the shit out of those butternut squash cubes! Totally awesome.

I forgot to take pictures of the magical machine in action, though. I'm sort of out of the Poff-Coff loop. But I did realize the next day when I was eating leftovers at work that I should totally report on my results. So I took this lovely picture with my cellphone of the leftovers in action.

Squash rules.

Battle of the Celebrity Chef Vodka Cream Sauce recipes

2007-12-12T15:29:00.000-08:00

For "food with liquor," I made penne with vodka cream sauce from a recipe by Giada de Laurentiis.* Wait, you might say (especially if you were Anastasia), didn't Anastasia just make that? Well, yes, but in my defense, there is not technically a rule against making exactly the same thing as someone else. Um. Also, it's exciting because we can compare celebrity chef recipes for the same thing. It's RACHEL RAY vs. GIADA DE LEURENTIIS!! Here goes:

Baseline trust level: Giada 9, Rachel 3. Rachel is a bigger star (I think), but I think it's because her inhuman perkiness makes her terrifying and thus impossible to look away from, which is not the same thing as wanting her to cook for you. Giada is Italian, which gives her cred, and while her cookbook does include an unnecessary number of pictures of her ta-tas, they do not frighten me.

Recipe reasonableness: Giada 5, Rachel 8. Sorry, G, but the whole thing of saying "use 3 cups of the marinara sauce you made earlier on page 32 (and which involves simmering for an hour)" is annoyingly reminiscent of The Joy of Cooking. However, she does get credit for pointing out that the cream has to be at room temperature or it will curdle--good tip! It could have helped Myrtle last week, perhaps.

Rachel's recipe is easier, but she gets points off for "1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, once around the pan in a slow stream"--snort--and, obviously, for the name "You Won't Be Single For Long Vodka Cream Pasta."

Taste: Giada: 9, Rachel 8. This is hard to judge, since I didn't taste Rachel/Anastasia's. The Giada recipe was really good--it looked and tasted delicious, with the promised vodka-induced "kick in the throat." I was dubious about the fact that the marinara sauce had carrots and celery in it, but that ended up being totally fine. Anastasia's sounded delicious too, but I give Rachel's recipe one point off for getting Stazio drunk--sounds like the recipe didn't give the vodka long enough to cook off.

Giada wins! Admittedly, I am not sure that that means I wouldn't use Rachel's recipe.

*I used Giada's recipe from the book "Everyday Italian," which is similar to, but for some reason not exactly the same as, this version of the recipe from her TV show of the same name. Both of them have you make a base tomato sauce first, then add vodka, cream, and Parmesan cheese, but the one in the book includes salt and pepper in the vodka sauce recipe, calls the base sauce "marinara" instead of "simple tomato sauce," and does not include basil or butter in the marinara sauce.

Brief Intermission: Hanukkah!

2007-12-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

HAPPY HANUKKAH!

Sorry, to briefly stray from Cooking With Alcohol, but I just wanted to do a quick post about my recent experiment with latkes. Yummy mummy in my tummy!

I made mine super easy -- 3 grated potatoes, 2 eggs, 1 finely chopped onion, bunch of salt. It was classic, and since it was the first time I tried to make them, I didn't want to mess it up by going too overboard with the gourmet.

Frying them in the olive oil is the scariest part. But fry them in olive oil I did, in honor of the Hanukkah miracle of 8 nights of light in the Temple of Jerusalem (when there was only enough oil for 1 night). (Go holiday cooking lessons!).

Here are the oily little potato wonders, drying out a bit on a paper towel.

And here is the finished product, with a dollup of apple sauce.

Just like (Arie's) mom used to make 'em!

Chanukah Sameach, yo.

Tequila!

2007-12-02T16:42:00.001-08:00

After getting stumped on what to make for the Cooking with Alcohol challenge, I got the idea for cooking with tequila from my Dad. I searched around and found this recipe for Pasta with Tequila Lime Cream Sauce on several different web sites. If it's all over the web, it must be good--right?

During the first stage of the cooking process, I had really high hopes. The tequila and lime reducing made my whole apartment smell like toasty Margarita. Mmm.

Things started to go a little wrong when I added the cream. It curdled instantly. Not terribly, but enough that I thought I might have to toss the whole attempt. I was worried that I would have to switch to my backup recipe No Bake Margarita Cheesecake (is it just me, or does this sound like a glorified jello shot?) Thankfully, this effect went away as the cream reduced, and once I added the butter the sauce was nice and creamy. Phew.

But that still left me with one major problem. Way too limey. A little white pepper and a lot of salt helped (no salt called for in this recipe? That wasn't going to work.), but it was still all about the lime.

I completely skipped the corn starch step because once I had reduced the sauce by 1/2 it was definitely thick enough for pasta.

The recipe suggested adding chicken or seafood, so I decided to sautée portabello mushrooms to go on top.

After the pasta overkill incident of Pasta Sauce Not From A Jar, I played it safe and only made enough pasta for the night and dished the sauce out on top.

The tomatoes and green onions helped balance the lime, and the portabella mushroom was a huge improvement. And I added a lot of Parmesan cheese on top. But, sigh, still too much lime.

I still felt like it had potential. I think this sauce could be really good 1) with about half as much lime juice, 2) with fresh lime juice--I regret wussing out and going with RealLime, 3) on fish (and even then maybe with less lime).

Clearly I am better at drinking alcohol than cooking with it.

Update: The next night I tried making it with way less lime (only about 1/8 cup because that was what I had) and it turned out MUCH better. Yay!

Cooking with alcohol

2007-12-02T16:39:00.000-08:00

Turning boozy booze into food.

24- Hour Mac and Cheese

2007-11-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

We spent Thanksgiving this year at my sister-in-law's family's house. This made me a bit grumpy, as I have gotten to be in charge of the turkey the last couple of years at my parent's house and have grown to like it that way. Alas, this year it was not to be. I had to choose just one dish this year.

I opted for a macaroni and cheese recipe I found in the Best American Recipes cookbook a few years back, because I am a sucker for kiddie food and because my mom made me make it. This recipe is really simple and revolves completely around what kind of cheese you use. It calls for gruyere, which is lovely to be sure. Another time, I made it with good old Wisconsin Swiss, which was better. I usually top it with some Reggiano. But this year, I got fancy at Whole Foods (mom was buying!) with a delectable Leerdammer Swiss and then topped it with one of my all-time-favorites, Fontina.

So, this is what you do: the day before your big meal, you par cook the macaroni -- like just before al dente. Then you grate up your cheese and mix it with the pasta along with an assload of heavy cream. Salt and fresh black pepper to taste. Then let it soak overnight. The pasta absorbs all that creaminess. When you're ready to eat it, dish it into a casserole dish and cover with your topping cheese. I think I cooked it at 350 for about 20 minutes or so.

I have no photographic evidence. But, trust me, it's good and it's really, really bad for you.

Thanksgiving: Blue Collar Stuffing and Various Fruit Crisp (plus a flashback)

2007-11-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

Mr. T&A and I hosted Thanksgiving for Mother-in-Law T&A and another friend last week, and I am very relieved to report it all went swimmingly. I wasn't worried because of the MiL's presence--she is a very lovely, non-stress-inducing person--but rather because the only other time I was involved in making Thanksgiving it went . . . not well.

~Flashback~

It was on my study-abroad program (Budapest Semesters in Mathematics '98 in da house!) The first problem was that we couldn't figure out the Hungarian word for turkey, nor could we identify one by sight, so we were entirely unsure what kind of fowl we had purchased, and thus of how to cook it. (Well, really the first sign was the presence of my college boyfriend, but this is not that kind of blog.) The second, and more alarming, problem was the power outage, which came halfway through the food preparation. I had previously idly wondered what would happen if the power went out in Budapest, because all the apartment buildings had main doors that required you to push a button on the adjacent wall in order to get out. As was confirmed when we left to buy candles, the buttons, in fact, did not work absent electricity. After quite a lot of freaking out, we figured out that there was actually a keyhole on the inside of the door.

Of course, after all that freaking out, Problem # 3--excessive drinking of vodka--was inevitable, and led predicably to Problems # 4 and 5, severe undercooking of mystery fowl and severe hangovers combined with possible food poisoning. Ahhh, college.

~End flashback~

Anyway, for this Thanksgiving we cooked cornish hens, stuffing, corn bread, mac & cheese, sweet potatoes, mixed-fruit crisp, and cinnamon ice cream. I will only write about the stuffing and the crisp because those are the things I was in charge of.

Blue Collar Stuffing

I was stressed about the stuffing because I had completely spurned Mr. T&A's proposals for stuffing recipes containing things like sausage and fennel, in favor of a word-of-mouth recipe from my mom consisting only of bread, poultry seasoning, and water. And onion. And maybe an egg. I have internalized my mom's dedication to Blue Collar Stuffing, which she learned from my Gram, and which became a Thanksgiving necessity when John Mohan (father of the illustrious Jake Mohan of Jakemohan.net) told my mom her stuffing was great because it didn't have bullshit like vegetables in it.

Anyway, the stuffing went great--would Gram and John Mohan allow anything else? The key is to buy a loaf of the blue collar-iest bread possible--white, soft bread, the kind you would feed to ducks--pull or cut it into small-but-not-crumb-size pieces, and dry it out considerably, like overnight or in the oven on low. You then mix it with a sauteed onion (we also used celery, but I would leave it out next time--bullshit vegetables), add water or broth until it sticks together some, add an egg if you want, and mix in a generous amount of poultry seasoning--more than it says on the poultry seasoning container, but less than the whole container. You want it to turn fairly green. Then bake it at 350 for, you know, awhile, maybe 45 minutes, covered with foil for part of the time.

Mmm, stuffing.

Crisp o' Various Fruits

I decided on crisp because I like fruity desserts, but don't like pie enough to bother figuring out the deal with the crust. I picked this recipe because it had good reviews and allowed flexibility in fruit selection, which is key in late November. Whole Foods didn't have peaches, so I bought blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and a mango. The recipe is very easy--you cut up the fruit, mix it together, add a bit of sugar and flour, bake that for awhile, and then separately make a topping, add that and bake for another 20 minutes.

The topping was fairly confusing, though. There are 50+ reviews on Epicurious, and many of them say to double the topping amount and to add oats. I was all over that because I like topping, and it seems like a crisp topping should have oats in it--otherwise what is the butter and sugar supposed to cling to? But the problem with following suggestions like "double the topping and add some oats" is, what's the stopping point? So, I ended up with too much topping. Next time I'd 1.5x the topping, and show restraint on the oats--limit it to one modest handful. Otherwise, it was awesome--the fruit stood out very well, and the topping was crispy, buttery, and sweet, just as the gods of dessert intended.

Thanksgiving-related food

2007-11-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

You know what it is.

Spoooooky Southwestern-Style Dips

2007-11-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

For this challenge, Myrtle and I united our mad cooking skillz and created appetizers for our annual Spookyfest. Every year we invite a bunch of friends over to watch two scary movies for Halloween. However, this year we only made it through the first movie (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and learned the scariest truth of all; that we are too old to stay up past Midnight on a Friday night. Sigh.

Anyway, I made this recipe from Emeril. My friend, Kristen, chopped the peppers for me and did a kick-ass job. She chopped them sooo fine! I would have been super lazy and would have made them much thicker. But it made me realize that laziness doesn’t pay in the kitchen; the tiny pepper pieces ruled. I also recruited Eva to grate the garlic for me. Although it wasn’t as mind-blowing as Kristen’s chopped peppers, I’m giving her a shout-out for the effort. Thanks guys!

The cheesy hot corn goodness was a hit.

Over to you, Red!

Amy’s choice of her corn and cheese-tastic dish (which, by the way, yum) inspired me to look for a good black bean dip as a complement. I decided to go with this recipe for Texas Caviar, but with black beans instead of black-eyed peas. The main reason why I went with this version was it was pretty much the only one I found that called for you to make the dressing yourself instead of just dumping a bottle of Italian dressing on the beans and veggies. Since this is Poff-Coff, I figured the more from scratch the better, right! Well….

When I mentioned to a foodie friend of mine that I made Texas Caviar, his first response was, “It always gets too watery. Maybe I just don't do it right.” Nope, that pretty much sums up my experience too. If I was going to make this again, I would definitely cut back on the oil and vinegar. Or, perhaps the beauty of Italian dressing from a bottle is it is thicker than homemade dressing and you don’t have that problem.

Also, next time I am totally taking advantage of Kristen’s pepper dicing skills.

All in all, it didn’t turn out bad, but it paled in comparison to Amy’s yummy dish, and couldn’t even stand up to the guacamole that I also made. But the three dishes together worked out well and I might try it again. Plus, Poff-Coffing as a team is fun!

This is Amy again. Erika’s Texas Caviar was freaking good. Erika left it at my house after Spookyfest, and I totally ate it like 50 times as a snack. Also, we made burritos two days later for dinner, and we put it on the burritos and that was really awesome.

My jack-o-lantern and Misha really enjoyed it, too.

Appetizers!

2007-11-13T11:39:00.000-08:00

They're small and delicious.

$62 Chili, Now with pictures!

2007-10-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

So far, it looks like the chili recipes have been an across-the-board success. Amy B's point is well taken that, well, it's just a hard thing to screw up. But I give us more credit than that -- I think we're learning, y'all.

I found this week's recipe from the Food Network's official site. It is credited to Michael Chiarello, who I heard once from a friend of a friend, so distant I can't even remember, was a big asshole. And today I say, who cares? Dude puts together a fabulous chicken and white bean chili.

You can follow the link for the full recipe -- I'll just include my notes/highlights.

1. The recipe calls for chicken thighs, skin and bones removed. I don't know if such a thing is possible, but buying your chicken already skinned and boned would cut back on a significant amount of prep time. (Of course, it would also deny you the opportunity to use those chicken parts for homemade stock...which, I didn't actually do, but meant to.)

2. The recipe also calls for 4 jalepeno peppers, with seeds and all. This scared me, so I used the seeds from only two and the chili was quite spicy. Seeds from four peppers would have rendered it inedible, imho.

3. Ok, but the truly beautiful secret to this recipe was the masa harina. Yes, I had to google it, too. It is a "corn flour of finer texture than cornmeal." And it is delicious. Basically, you mix the masa harina with a few other herbs and spices and use it as breading for the chicken, which you brown in 1/4 cup olive oil. The flour gets nice and toasty, like a great rue. And when you put it back in the chili, this flavor pretty much defines the whole thing -- the pot smelled like spicy corn tortillas. Yum!

4. Oh, and $62 dollars, you ask? Well, the recipe also called for a couple of specialty spices that I've been wanted to check out anyway, and couldn't resist buying. Namely, grey salt and smoked paprika. I'm sure just the regular versions of each would suffice. (Though I learned that grey salt is spicy. Interesting!) Also, I bought a $12 bottle of wine to put in the chili. That, plus all the fresh herbs I no longer have in my garden added up to, yes, a $62 chili. Which, you know, is probably a bit much...ya think?

5. But, Adam said this was the best thing I have ever made, and the pride I've been walking around with all week is well worth it. Right?

This Little Piggy Got Green

2007-10-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

I've read that your taste buds change every five years, which might explain a recent change to my chili sensibilities...I used to love my chili chock full of beans (When I was vegetarian, go figure), nowadays, I'm loving more meat-centric chili like Chili con Carne.

So, for this challenge, I decided to try Chili con Carne's white meat counterpart: Pork Chili Verde.

I'd never made -- or even eaten -- green chili before, but this recipe was a hit: It's light on beans, heavy on pork and damn delicious. But avert your eyes, Sita, because this takes a lot of pig...

The recipe that I found called for a ton of pork and chilis, so I ended up halving it...a good decision, even if you're serving 4-6. The reduced version took:

3 lbs. of lean pork (I used pork chops)
2 and 1/4 c. chicken stock (the recipe has a typo -- use cups, not quarts)
an onion and half a fist of garlic, chopped
1/2 T. cumin, salt and pepper
4 poblano chilis and 2 jalapenos, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 lbs of tomatillos, husks removed
half a bunch of cilantro, chopped
1 can of white beans (this was a reviewer's suggestion and a good one

Here's what you do:

Sear the pork in a 1/4 c. of oil until just golden
Scrape the resulting fond and saute the onions and garlic. When translucent, add spices and chicken stock. Simmer for 1/2 hour.
In this time, you have lots of chilis to chop.

I needed some help, so sous chef Carnahan stepped in to dice and prepare the tomatillos. The tomatillos are pureed with the cilantro.
You add the peppers and puree to the pot. This is when things get seriously beautiful (bright green!) and delicious -- light, spicy and fresh. Let it cook for another 45 minutes.
Then serve on rice, add some cheese for garnish and voila!

The verdict: The pork and green chili made a winning combination, and Tim voted this my best P-off/C-off venture yet. As a green chili neophyte, the chili's thinner not-so-soupy base took me by surprise. But it tasted great...and even better on day two.

This one's a keeper!

Sweeeeeet Potato Chili

2007-10-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

And to think, I almost passed on POffCOff this week. Thank god I caved to chili-related peer pressure!

After looking at a million chili recipes that seemed like the same old, same old, I finally stumbled across this one--interesting, easy, and quick. Peeeeerfect.

I read over the recipe reviews and they were really helpful. Instead of "Mexican-style stewed tomatoes" I used Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes and they added nice depth and balanced out the sweet of the sweet potatoes and the orange peel. Several people suggested chipotle chili powder instead of regular chili powder. I couldn't find any at my fabulous grocery store, so I went with "Hot Mexican-Style Chili Powder" (what's up with all the Mexican-style?).

As you can see, this recipe doesn't make a huge amount of chili in comparison to most recipes. So if you are making it for more than two or want lots of leftovers, I would suggest doubling it.

I wasn't so sure about the sweet potato/pinto bean combo once I got everything in the pot, but in the end it was goooooooooood. Especially with sour cream on top.

It was so good I scarffed two big bowls and could have kept going, but I wanted to have leftovers for lunch the next day. I will so make this again. In fact, I think this is my favorite recipe so far.

The Beans May Be Cheap, But The Chili Ain't Free

2007-10-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

WHY CAN'T I MAKE ANYTHING NORMAL?!?

Ok, so I found this recipe for a veggie chili on Epicurious. I was excited when I found it because the recipe called for swiss chard, and my last foray into the world of greens didn't turn out quite as planned. When I saw this recipe I thought of two words: REDEMPTION, BABY.

The recipe also called for butternut squash, and seeing as how it is autumn, and I'd never cooked a squash before, I thought to myself, perfecto, a couple of challenges in one. So, off I merrily went to the grocery store to get the ingredients. EXCEPT! the freaking grocery store had no swiss chard. Grrrrr. Feeling bold and adventurous, after failing to reach anyone on their cell phones for help, I decided to go out on a limb by myself and substitute spinach for the swiss chard. Wild, right? EXCEPT! I'm a friggin' idiot, and when I got back to my office I was summarily informed by my coworker that I had in fact not bought spinach, but rather, sigh, collard greens.

I hastily began consulting the internet for information on collard greens, and frantically emailed Southern friends for help (thanks, Jackson). And basically, everywhere I turned, people were telling me you simply cannot put collard greens in chili.

After drying my tears of initial frustration, I decided to just say fuck it. Who says you can't put collard greens in chili?!

What's that, bitches? Aww, schnap, it's collard greens!

Right. So here's how I "modified" the recipe. So, first of all, if you've never made them, collard greens need to simmer for a surprisingly long time. I cleaned them, chopped them, brought them to a boil, and then turned down the heat and let them simmer for a little more than an hour. At which time, I dumped them into the collander and left them to sit aside for awhile.

I then basically followed the recipe, cooked up some garlic and onions, added the cubes of squash (kind of a bitch to peel and cut, by the way), and then added the black beans, tomatoes and vegetable broth. Here's where I discovered yet another so-called "mistake" I had made -- I accidentally bought crushed tomatoes instead of diced tomatoes. And it turns out that crushed tomatoes are generally marketed under the more well-known name of "sauce." Hence, my chili had no tomato chunks. Whatareyagonnado.

Oh, and I didn't have as much chili powder on hand as I thought I had, so I doubled the cumin to make up for it. Personally I think that cumin has a more, um, sophisticated taste than chili powder, so, ya know. This wasn't a mistake either.

Moving On.

After about 15 minutes or so, I added the collard greens back into the mess. And I let it all simmer for about another half hour or so.

And voila: collard greens and butternut squash chili!

I know, it sounds disgusting. And looks pretty heinous. But there are a couple of valuable lessons to be learned from this pot o' craziness.

1. It's pretty freaking hard to make chili taste bad. If you put chili powder, beans and pretty much anything else into a pot, it's going to taste kinda good.

2. Butternut squash is really nice in chili. I'd totally do that again.

3. Collard greens are really weird, and probably don't belong in chili. But you know what? I'm glad I took the risk. Also, I was way too lazy to go to a different grocery store in search of a more appropriate green.

So, here's the final product with a dollop of sour cream on top. And I swear, it kinda tasted good.

Also, aren't you all jealous of my cute little pink cat soup spoons?! There are some perks to living in Chinatown. Having fully-stocked grocery stores is, unfortunately, not one of them.

Week 6: Chili!

2007-10-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

Chili: Mmmm, so freakin' good.

Gnokay Gnocchi

2007-10-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

This week I decided to take a perfectly healthy theme like greens and turn it into a perfectly carbolicious meal like pasta! I am not normally a gnocchi person because it tends to be a little heavy for my taste, but I recently had some spinach gnocchi that was awesome. The question was: could I make it myself? Um, not quite.

Overall the recipe was pretty easy considering it is pasta from scratch, but when I got to the step where you are supposed to roll the dough into a cylinder, the dough was waaaaay too sticky.

I tried adding more flour, but it never really got to the point where it was easy to work with. I think maybe there was too much moisture left in the cheese and/or the spinach. But eventually I was able to work with it enough to turn it into little gnocchis.

The first night, I just sautéed them with butter and grated cheese on top. Unfortunately, that was a bit on the bland side.

The second night I had it with marinara sauce and that made it much tastier. And prettier! (Sort of.)

Overall, it wasn't bad and the spinach did keep it lighter than your average pasta, but the pieces of spinach also gave it a slightly weird texture. I think if I were to make this again, I might try pureeing the spinach with the ricotta to get a smoother texture and then draining off more of the moisture with a cheesecloth. This is one of those recipes that seems like it could be good with a little fine tuning. Or, you know, a professional chef.

So Nice I Screwed it up Twice

2007-10-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

This is the entry wherein we discover my central flaw in the kitchen: I like to cook like I know what I am doing, but mostly I do not. I can follow a recipe quite well, but I find it basically impossible to resist the techniques of more experienced cooks -- namely, the one where they don't measure spices.

I found another recipe on Apartment Therapy's Kitchen site. Israeli Couscous with Chard. It is a pretty simple affair, really. Ingredients are:

1 3/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth

1 1/4 cup Harvest Grain Blend or Israeli couscous

Drizzle olive oil

3 large cloves garlic

1 teaspoon whole white cumin

1 dried red chili pepper (optional)

4 cups chopped chard

1/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth

1 teaspoon coarse salt

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Heat the broth to boiling in a small saucepan. Stir in the
grains and lower the heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for about 10-14 minutes.
Remove the lid and set aside. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Sliver the garlic and cook it on low heat with the cumin and chili pepper until soft and fragrant. Don't let it brown. Add the chopped chard and turn the heat to medium. Sauté for about 5 minutes, or until it is beginning to wilt. Add the cooked couscous and the 1/4 cup of broth. Cook for another five minutes, stirring, until the broth has cooked off and the chard is fully wilted. Add salt to taste, and vinegar, and serve.

...With PBR, if you are married to the guy I am married to.

Here were the two nearly-fatal flaws:

1. I am SO BAD at not browning my garlic. If you ever watch Emeril, you know that he always makes fun of people who don't use the heat levels on their stoves. He'll point at the knobs and say, "You know what these are for?" So, I really tried to keep my heat low, but once I added the chard to the pan, my garlic totally toasted. It didn't burn, so it wasn't that big of a deal, except I was trying desperately not to toast it.

2. As alluded to above, I eyeballed my spices, and went WAY overboard on the cumin. And underboard on the salt. And overboard with cracked red pepper, which I used in place of the dried chili pepper.

All of that said, this recipe is freaking delicious. Israeli couscous was a new thing to me, and let me tell you -- it ROCKS.

It was so good, that I decided to make it again the next night. I was determined to get the seasoning right. But, I also upped the ante by adding sausage. I was envisioning a light chicken sausage type thing, but I didn't feel like going to the grocery store. (I'm sensing a theme to my recipes...) So, I used andouille instead. Nothing like Israeli couscous and pork, right?

Again, it was good. But again, I winged it on the spices -- andouille has a huge flavor of its own and I didn't want to add too much seasoning lest it get overly intense again. So, I went totally underboard on the cumin, a bit overboard on the salt, and underboard on the cracked red pepper.

It was a real learning experience, though. And, I found something to add to my repertoire!

Lasagna (Without The Lasagna). Sigh.

2007-10-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

I am the first to admit that I am the most foodily challenged of anyone contributing to this blog. As with most things in life, I blame my mother for this deficiency. Growing up, we NEVER ate fresh vegetables (canned and frozen, baby). And as a result, most friends can remember having a conversation with me at one time or another in which I displayed my food-related ignorance. Recently I was forced to duck into a bathroom at a fancy work-related dinner and quietly call someone from my cell phone to inquire about whether or not prosciutto is vegetarian (it's not). Which is why when Naomi suggested these so-called "greens" as this week's challenge, I seriously had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I was under the stupid impression that we were making salads. Turns out, lots of recipes include COOKED greens. Who knew? Ok, I knew spinach was a green. And I've eaten it. Cooked. Many times. I just forgot. Anyway! Friends suggested kale. Mustard greens. Collard greens. Chard. Problem was, I had absolutely no idea what any of these things were. So...this week's challenge was a true learning experience for me. I'm a better person now. The kind of person who cooks chard. (Even if I don't particularly cook it well. Oy).

Moving on!

I found a bunch of awesome recipes and was really looking forward to my first foray into the world of cooked greens. However, I went to the laaaame Chinatown Path Mark the same night that I bought my cookie ingredients, and everything was out of stock, I couldn't find anything, I was cold and wet (it was pouring rain outside), and I just wanted to go home. In the end, I ditched my cool recipes and wound up making this one.

I bought what appeared to be nothing short of a shitload of chard. But who knew -- when you cook it, it, um, goes away...

Chard: Starts out big, ends up small

So, my casserole thingee had much less greens than a greens-newbie such as me would have anticipated. So that was slightly disenchanting. However, I bravely moved forward with the recipe. Well, it turned out that this recipe was waaaay more work than it was worth. I chopped the onion and red peppers for, like, 40 minutes. I had to sautee the chard in its own pan, then transfer it into the casserole dish. Let's just say that it was a lot of chopping and a lot of dishes for what turned out to be, in essence, spinach lasagna without the lasagna.

Sooooo, we ate it.

And, ya know, it tasted good. Chard turned out to be tasty. Veggies are good. Who doesn't like cheese?

But really, it was kinda like a salad, but hot, and covered in cheese. Not the heartiest, nor the healthiest.

As you can see, I paired it with a not-so-special spinach, tomato and parmesan salad. I thought I was being cute -- ya know, matching my little green salad to our hot green meal. Turns out, it wasn't that cute. We ate it, and we were just kinda hungry.

Boo on this stupid recipe!!

Week Five: Greens!

2007-10-17T07:31:00.001-07:00

Whatcha got, ladies?

Too Decadant Sugar Balls?

2007-10-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

Obviously, my title is entirely rhetorical. While the Mexican Wedding Cakes I made are way intense, with a nice strong cup of coffee, they are delicioso!

So yeah, Mexican Wedding Cakes are those snowball-looking numbers that you might remember from the annual Christmastime cookie deluge. See below for a reminder.

I've always been a fan, but I've never made the suckers. I picked out this recipe, because it features one of my all-time favorite taste combos: pistachios and dried cranberries.

The process is almost ridiculously easy:

Cream room-temperature butter, vanilla and powder sugar. (Nope, no eggs in this recipe.)
Mix in chopped pistachios and dried cranberries.
Stir in flour. (This part was kinda tricky by and because the dough gets mighty dense; I used my mixer on the lowest setting.)
Scoop out heaping tablespoonfuls and bake for about 20 minutes.

Then toss them in more powdered sugar, and you're done!

Words to the wise: I used half of this recipe, which claimed to make 40 cookies, but there were way less...about 25.

The cookies' butter content -- not to mention the sugar coating -- makes these suckers rich, but awesome. To deal with that, in the future, I might make ones that are a teensy bit smaller, or maybe I'll mix them up with some less rich cookies (like gingersnaps) for a good old-fashioned Christmas variety pack.

If you're feeling tough (or, say, ravenous, PMS-y or too underweight), I definitely recommend them.

Not The Cookiest of Cookies, Unfortunately

2007-10-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't felt particularly succesful in my cooking endeavors lately. For the cookie challenge, I went with the following recipe:

Oatmeal Pecan Scotchies

1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup pecan pieces

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

1. Beat margarine or butter and sugar in large bowl with mixer at medium speed until creamy. (Note: Mixture never became creamy). Blend in egg.

2. Mix flour, oats and baking powder in small bowl. Alternately stir flour mixture and milk into egg mixture. (Note: 1/4 cup of milk is totally not enough. I used more like a 1/2 cup). Stir in peacans and butterscotch chips

3. Drop batter by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 for 12- 15 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from pan; cool on wire rack. Makes 4 dozen cookies (Note: Makes 2 dozen cookies).

To be honest, I planned a much more elaborate and interesting cookie recipe involving apple slices, but when I got to the stupid Path Mark, they didn't have half the ingredients. It was raining and I was tired, so I just got the ingredients for a more simple cookie. And now I feel sad.

I brought most of the cookies to work with me this morning (see below) and my coworkers seem to be eating them and not dying. However, they have noted that they are more of a tea biscuit, better for dipping, as they are somewhat dry. Maybe a bit scone-ish. Which is fine, but I'm really a fan of a cookier cookie. Personally.

Up next: Amy's failed attempt at making something delicious involving greens!! Martha Stewart, I am not. Sigh.

Earl Grey Tea Cookies, Hard to Screw Up

2007-10-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

I chose this recipe from Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen because it looked fairly interesting, and I had all the ingredients in my kitchen already. I realize that's a bit wimpy, and perhaps not exactly in the spirit of the Poff Coff. But hey -- I painted a ceiling yesterday! And while I painting 13 feet over my head, I was thinking, gee, you know what I'm really going to feel like doing after this back-breaking work is done? Bake cookies.

Anyway. The recipe is simple if you've got a food processor. Combine the following dry ingredients and pulse until the tea leaves are "pulvarized":

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon Earl Grey tea leaves*
1/4 teaspoon salt

Then add these wet ingredients and pulse until you've got dough:
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon water
1/2 cup unsalted butter

Voila! Now form this dough into a log and wrap in wax paper to chill for about 30 minutes or so. The rounder your log, the prettier your cookies might look in the end -- that's my theory anyway.

My log-rolling abilities are questionable at best. Anyway. After the dough is nice and chilled, cut the cookies into 1/3 inch slices. (I think I went a bit thin.) Preheat the oven to 375 and cook until the edges are just brown -- about 30 minutes -- until your cookies look like this!

Or, ideally maybe a little prettier than this. Next time I will slice them thicker. But, no matter. They were good! My taste-tester, notoriously uninterested in sweets, ate 5 of them.

I will definitely make these again. The Earl Grey flavor is positively sophisticated!

And lo! My most important discovery is that baking cookies is a lovely way to end a long day. It was relaxing, and satisfying. Plus, one thing I totally forgot to factor in when I was complaining to myself about the chore ahead -- cookie dough. Ah, cookie dough.

*As the recipe notes, there's no need to fancy tea leaves. I just ripped open a couple of tea bags.

Try as you might, you will not break my spirit, Martha Stewart chocolate gingerbread cookies!

2007-10-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

Because I was behind in the Pants Off Cook Off schedule, I decided to make both Week 4 (cookies) and Week 5 (greens) in the same night. This constitues more cooking than I have ever done at one time. Look at all them ingredients! (I'll talk about the greens in another post, which is appropriate because, SPOILER ALERT, I ended up eating them on a different night.)

For the cookies I picked Chocolate Gingerbread cookies from the Martha Stewart Living cookbook:

7 oz best quality semisweet chocolate

1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar

1/4 cup unsulfered molasses

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup granulated sugar

These ingredients are more complicated than your standard Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookies, but I chugged along: chopping chocolate into 1/4 inch chunks; mixing together the flour and spices; beating the butter, grated ginger, brown sugar, and molasses; dissolving baking soda in 1 1/2 tsp very hot water; beating half of the flour mixture into the butter mixture; beating in the baking soda mixture; then beating in the rest of the flour mixture, and mixing in the chocolate. Kind of a PIA, but it seemed to be going OK ...

Until I finished the batter and tasted it, and noted that it was not very flavorful given all the spices, and EXTREMELY buttery. That's when I re-checked the ingredient list and realized that I had more than doubled the amount of butter that it called for, by using the amount called for in the next recipe over (2 sticks plus 1 tablespoon).

Christ. The reasonable thing to do might have been to throw it out and start over, but I had grated ginger and such, you know? So I decided to double the recipe instead. Re-grating ginger, re-grinding cloves, re-heating water to mix with baking soda. However, since I had already used all the butter, on Batch #2 I could not really follow the standard cookie procedure of beating the sugar and butter together and then beating in the separately-mixed dry ingredients. I also couldn't use the mixer after I mixed the second, butterless batch of batter into the first, extremely butterly one, because I'd already added chocolate chunks. Ugh.

Only after this saga was complete did I notice the last sentence tucked quietly into the end of Paragraph 3 of the instructions: "Pat the dough out to about 1 inch thick; seal with the wrap; refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or overnight."

Godammit, Martha! It was already 10:30 pm at this point. Into the fridge went the batter, looking like something 14-year-old boys might have set on fire and left on your porch to show they liked you, or maybe hated you. I kind of wanted to cry.

* * *

OK, but the story ends happily. The next day I got the (now rock-hard) plastic-wrapped poop out of the fridge, rolled it into balls, rolled them in sugar, and baked them at 325 for 10-15 minutes "or until the surfaces crack slightly." The sugar made them attractively sparkly, and the combination of gingerbread-brown and chocolate-brown was very appealing visually. And they tasted good! I even brought some to work and got several seemingly genuine compliments on them. They were quite spicy, but the chocolate saved them from being too intense. The only problems were that I hadn't ground up the cloves quite enough, so some of the cookies contained nearly whole cloves, and similarly I didn't pick out all of the little stringy things from the grated ginger, so some of those were visible in the finished product.

I would make these again, although I'd buy ground cloves and chocolate chunks, and try to use the right amount of butter the first time.

It's all about the coconuts

2007-10-07T15:13:00.001-07:00

Browsing cookie recipes on Epicurious, I found this recipe for Coconut Macaroons. I don't know how I never knew that macaroons are like the easiest cookie to make in the history of cookies ever. Seriously, this recipe was so easy and fast it almost felt like cheating.

The kind of ridiculous thing about this recipe is it only makes 4 cookies. That's like a single serving as far as I am concerned, so I doubled the recipe. I used my measuring tablespoon to scoop out the mounds and give them a little more shape. Since my oven blows, I made them in my toaster oven, no problem. As several people mentioned in the comments section, they do take longer to cook than the recipe calls for--more like 30 minutes.

Once they were done and had cooled I felt so guilty about the minimal amount of effort that I put into them, I decided to fancy them up a bit. So I melted some bittersweet baking chocolate, a little bit of vanilla extract, and some half and half, and covered half of each cookie in the chocolate. Then I put them in the fridge to set the chocolate. I was very pleased with the final result.

There is no question that I will make these again. So easy, so yummy. Next time I might experiment with different dips, or roll the chocolate in almond slivers to fancy them up even more.

Week 4: Cooookies

2007-10-07T15:12:00.000-07:00

And go!

More Pasta Than Sauce

2007-10-03T18:30:00.000-07:00

I picked this sauce because I love pasta with olives. Instead of kalamata olives, I went with a Mediterranean olive mix from my favorite Middle Eastern market.

As Weed I, II, and III can testify, I seriously lack a green thumb, and any heirloom tomatoes that I tried to grow on my fire escape would probably become suicidal and hurl themselves to the sidewalk. So I went for the next best thing and picked some up at the farmer's market.

I had some basil leftover from my appatoulille so I decided to throw that in. All was going well until I did something very stupid. I followed the recipe.

The instructions call for a whole box of pasta to be tossed in the pan with the sauce. My instinct told me that was way too much pasta for the amount of sauce I had, but for some reason I convinced myself that the recipe must be right.

Not quite.

As you can see, I basically ended up with a mound of pasta with the occasional tomato or olive thrown in.

Determined to make it work, I served up some pasta and then tried to scoop out as much of the sauce as I could to add on top.

In the end it was okay, but I like my pasta really saucy so I was fairly disappointed. Next time I'll probably go back to sauce from the jar--and lots of it.

A Double Shot of Rachael Ray

2007-10-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

When charged with the task of making homemade pasta sauce, I knew it would have to be vodka sauce (my fave) and I went straight to epicurious.com because it's my go-to recipe site.

But when I read the reviews for various vodka sauce recipes, lots of them said that Rachael's "You Won't Be Single For Long" Vodka Sauce was the best one out there. So, did I trust this face?

Yes, indeedy. I actually made two different dishes with what will hereafter be known as Drunky Sauce.

Shot 1: Making the Sauce
As the other ladies mentioned, making the sauce itself was surprisingly easy. For mine, you just mince and saute shallots and garlic and then add some crushed tomatoes, chicken stock and vodka. You actually add a full cup of the booze, which supposedly "cooks off" during the cooking process. Then, at the end you add fresh basil and cream.

The ingredients!

The verdict: Sort of like a creamy Bloody Mary. Seriously, though, I think this sauce made me tipsy. Which could be a good thing. It was also a little bland -- I missed the preservative and sugar-packed goodness in the good old jar of Newman's. Still, it was easy to make and even better on...

Shot 2: Baked Ziti ala Drunky
Because I had almost a whole pot of sauce left over, I decided to give it another go in one of my faves, Baked Ziti. This time, I improvised by mixing ricotta cheese with and egg and mozzarella cheese, and then layering that in a casserole pan on top of Drunkified penne. On top, I put healthy layer of mozzarella cheese and baked at 450 for about 45 minutes.

Cheesarific!

The verdict: Much better. This time, I think the vodka really did cook off, and it made for a creamy, mellow base for the ziti. Seriously, it tasted great, except for the noodles burned on the bottom of the pan. Whoopsie. I guess I forgot to coat the bottom of the pan with sauce. Thankfully, the insane quantity of cheese pretty much obscured any flaws.

Ultimately, I've gotta hand it to Rachael -- this was an easy, serviceable recipe that I'll probably try again (with a pinch of sugar and higher-quality vodka). Yay for Drunky Sauce!

I Love You Mr. Basil

2007-10-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

I made this yummy recipe for tomato sauce on Friday night. It was so good, Arie ate the leftovers by the spoonful, without pasta.

I was really afraid that it would be painstakingly annoying to remove the skins from the roma tomatoes, but au contraire. You boil them for 2 minutes, drop them into a bowl of cold water, and the skins come off quite easily. 'Tis a tad time-consuming, but not particularly difficult.

As you can see in the photo above, I made it kinda chunky. If you wanted yours more sauce-y and less chunky, you could chop the tomatoes in a food processor or chopper before simmering them. Also, it seems that the longer you simmer, the less chunks you get. Personally, I'm a fan of the chunky. But as you can see, after half an hour of simmering it was getting more saucified.

Since I had never made sauce-not-from-the-jar, I decided to go with a pretty simple, standard garlic & basil tomato sauce. However, in the future I could see myself throwing in some hot peppers, or something. In other words, the recipe is totally versatile.

Just like Grandma used to make it

The end!

Why so non-sinful, Fettucine with Prosciutto, Tomatoes, and Cream?

2007-09-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

For our "pasta with sauce that's not from a jar" challenge, I picked this recipe, because "Fettucine with Prosciutto, Tomatoes, and Cream" sounds like The.Most.Decadent.Pasta.Ever. I imagined a lake of creamy tomatoishness with getaway islands of proscuittio, and a couple of linguines floating lazily by.

However, the pasta was actually pretty light, so that was kind of a let-down given my expectations, but it was still good. I basically fried some prosciutto kind of how you would bacon and then put it aside; sauted some garlic, added 3 cans of petite diced tomatoes,* then threw in some parsley, 1/2 a cup of cream, grated parmesan, and pepper, and then put the proscuittio back in. The recipe kind of quit before specifying whether you should mix the pasta and sauce together before serving it or not. Since I overcooked the pasta a bit, I washed it in cold water so it wouldn't get even soggier, and then felt I had to add it to the sauce to heat it back up to a reasonable temperatur. The whole thing didn't take long at all.

All in all, it was good but not mind-blowing. I would make it again but maybe with a different kind of cured meat, since the prosciutto didn't add as much flavor as I would have thought (and also cost $7 for a half pound).

*I did not understand the "not from a jar" rule to exclude canned tomatoes, although I'm sure Myrtle is going to make her sauce entirely from scratch using heirloom tomatoes she's been growing on her fire escape, at which point I will feel like kind of an asshole.

Week 3: Pasta with sauce not from a jar

2007-09-27T15:47:00.003-07:00

And, go!

Week 3: Pasta with sauce not from a jar

2007-09-27T15:47:00.001-07:00

And, go!

Apple Fudge bars AKA Chocolate Cake AKA Apple Crisp

2007-09-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, I found a recipe for apple "fudge" bars and thought that sounded great. Well, it turned out to look, taste and feel like chocolate cake with just a hint of apple in it. I had no ingredients for frosting, so it was pointless, I brought it to work and it was devoured.

Next I decided to stick with an old standby and make apple crisp, because I like it and I'm craving desert. This recipe seemed good because of the lemon, but I didn't have lemon so I used my Minute Maid Light Lime Drink. It tasted grreat! The lime made it super tangy and good. I got it from the foodnetwork page, which I like.
6 McIntosh apples, peeled and diced into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup flour or fine graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 stick butter
1 pint vanilla ice cream
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a 9 by 12 baking dish, combine apples, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar. In a small bowl, mix flour or graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar and butter together using the tines of a fork and your fingers, working until even, small crumbles form. Sprinkle topping evenly over apples and bake 15 to 20 minutes until apples are just tender and topping is golden brown. Top dishes of apple crisp with small scoops of vanilla ice cream. YUM!

Bite me, apple tartlets

2007-09-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

At the pastry shop near my house, you can buy apple tartlets for about $4 each. After making them from scratch last Sunday, I've decided that forking over a few bucks is well worth it!

I found a Cook's Illustrated recipe for apple tartlets online, and they ended up tasting great -- especially the crust, which has a cream cheese base. But the process drove me batty, and I felt like throwing in the towel at several points during the process. Basically, I've learned that pastry dough is a delicate operation, requiring cold dough and limited handling/futzing. Which sort of conflicts with my cooking, um, style.

Anyhoo, the pictures below highlights some of the process that I totally recommend for people who are more patient than me! (Nao and Myrtie, I'm looking at you...)

Here's the lil' food processor, filled with dough. You pulse the dough ingredients until they're nice and sandy.

Mmm. Look at that tasty dough ball. After you form it, you flatten the fucker and slice it into wedges...

And then it's back into the refrigerator. After cooling, you turn these little wedges into disks.

Then it's time for the delightful rolling-between-parchment-paper process. Roll on a surface with some sort of grip/friction, because they can slide all over the place. Feeling almost done? Nope. It's time for more dough refrigeration and apple peeling, coring and slicing.

Finally, you throw the apple mixture on, do your best pinching the edges of the dough to form some semblance of crust, and bake. About halfway through baking, you coat the tartlets with egg whites and sugar. And, if you're like me, this is when you drop a bowlful of egg whites on your kitchen floor. Then clean up the egg whites, while cursing apple tartlets, Cooks Illustrated and the sink full of tartlet-related dishes. Bon Appetite!

Appatoulille

2007-09-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

Since I don't have a working oven, and a lot of apple recipes involve baking, finding a recipe this week was a bit of a challenge. Then I turned to the people who know apples best - the fine folks of Washington state.

Although the standard reaction when I said that I was making Apple Ratatouille was, "ew," this recipe intrigued me because I love ratatouille but my tummy hates eggplant. Why not try it with apples as a substitute?

The first thing that I realized about this recipe is that it involves A LOT of dicing. See!

The second thing that I realized is that it makes A LOT of food. Although the instructions pretend like it can all be made in one skillet, I had to transfer it to my big stock pot for the last few steps.

The third thing that I realized is that it calls for way too much salt. To counteract this, I added the liquid that I had drained off of the tomatoes and about double the amount of walnuts. Not only did that cut the saltiness, the extra walnuts really upped the yum factor.

I decided to make it an entree by serving it over cous cous, and I topped it off with some grated parmesan cheese.

In the end it turns out that all of the dicing was worth it. The apples added just a hint of sweetness, but were not overpowering, and the walnuts really made the dish. Yum!

Thank god, because I have a lot of leftovers.

Let's call it "Apples with Cheese and Peanut Butter"

2007-09-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

I bought apples at the farmer's market last Saturday, unsure of what I would do with them but fully committed to the Pants Off Cook Off regime. The problem is that on Wednesday night (the only night this week I was going to be home for dinner, and at a reasonable time) I 100% reverted to my natural state of eating, which is: wait until I'm really hungry to think about what to eat, then get the foodstuffs into my mouth as fast as possible. So, I cut up an apple and some slices of cheese, and opened a jar of peanut butter, and alternated apple-n-cheese, apple-n-peanut-butter. Trashy, yes, but still yumm, as my cat confirmed for me my licking the cheese.

Unholy Stir-Fry

2007-09-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

I made stir-fry this week. With apples. It was kind of bizarre.

First of all, I've never actually made stir-fry myself. I've watched other people make it. And I've eaten it and enjoyed it. So I kind of thought I knew what I was doing. Turns out stir-frying is even scarier than I had imagined. I found a recipe somewhere in which stir-fry was made with apples. But then I just decided not to consult the recipe, like, at all, and just sort of toss things into the giant pan at random. Arguably, this technique could probably use some perfecting.

The Ingredients:
Onions, Garlic, String beans, Carrots, Chili Powder, Cumin, tofu, small can of tomato sauce, soy sauce and...apples.

Looks good so far, right?

Anyway, I truly had no idea how to stir-fry. Luckily, Arie was on hand to explain to me that stir-frying has to happen on rather high heat, and that I should remove the tea kettle from the stove because "oil is going to fly everywhere." Wee!

My "technique," if you will:

First, I chopped up an onion, some carrots, string beans, and garlic. Then I cut the tofu into 1-inch squares, and fried them for about 5 minutes, flipped 'em, and fried them for another 5 minutes. Then I removed them from the stove and put them aside on a paper towel. Then I busted out the wok, and began frying up the chopped veggies on fairly high-ish heat in vegetable oil. All was going well until I realized that this stir-fry needed flavor. And just frying the veggies would be a wee bit...dull. So that's when I pretty much began dumping things into the wok at random. Soy sauce? Check. Chili powder? Check. Cumin? Check. Tomato sauce? Check. After about 10 minutes I decided it was pretty much 'done,' so I added in the pre-fried tofu at the end. After I removed it from the heat, I sliced up some apples and threw them in. And I served it over brown rice. It was really, pretty much the most random thing I have ever eaten.

The finished product:

(Served with a pina colada in a pilsner glass - classy).

Luckily, Arie was a good sport and ate two whole bowls. When I asked him what I should call this "recipe," he suggested either "Apple-Rice-Prima-Stir-Fry" or "Tomato Apple Stir-Prise."

Actually, the apples were totally wrong, but the rest of it was quite yummy.
Sorry, apples. You lose.

Week 2: Apples

2007-09-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Post away!

Yucky Acorn Squash Soop (intentionally spelled like Poop)

2007-09-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

I have never posted on a blog before. I hope this looks ok. I looked up millions of squash recipes, but I did not have all ingredients at home, especially chicken stock, and i just got a puppy, so going to the store is a big ordeal. Needless to say, I adlibbed using variations of recipes online.

1/2 acorn squash
1 green apple
2 red potatoes
1 yellow onion
pinch coriander
5tsp butter
salt
1 cup cream
1 cup water
2T olive oil

Most online recipes suggested using green apple to tang up the sweet of the squash. This proved to be problematic later on. I roasted squash, apples and potatoes with butter that I melted with a little coriander in it. The oven was at 400 for 30 min. Then I pureed them with cream. Then I cooked diced onions in olive oil. I added the pureed soop to this.I added salt as I felt necessary. Once all was hot and well mixed, I repureed all the items. Then I put it in the fridge to cool and served with french bread. John did NOT like the apple factor. That's all he could taste and thought it was gross and sweet. I liked the taste but felt like I was eating baby food and could only eat half a bowl before I got sick of it. I don't really like cold soop.

Slightly muddy gazpacho

2007-09-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

I was very thrilled that Week 1 of the Pants Off Cook Off was cold soup, because gazpacho is one of the 5 food categories I have ever made successfully. I picked this recipe because, you know, high ratings on Epicurious, and also it uses canned tomatoes, which makes it easy.

The recipe basically calls for pureeing half the stuff in a blender while reserving the other half, chopped up, for chunkiness. This is a good idea, I think, because my previous attempts at gazpacho have tended to veer too far in one direction or the other: all homogeneous like baby food, or too chunky, like salsa.

It's also a good idea because the first, pureed half of the gazpacho looked a lot like poop. The poopy color is probably an unavoidable result when you puree green and red stuff together. I probably worsened the problem by substituting green peppers for the celery in the recipe (I don't like celery, with the stringy things and all). Next time I'd try red pepper instead. Also, I had bought about half of the tomatoes fresh instead of canned, so as to class up the operation, and instead of pureeing all the tomato I just chopped some--but I think the canned ones have more juice, which would probably also help make the pureed part more red.

After I added the chopped stuff, though, the results improved dramatically. I let it sit in the fridge overnight, as per the instructions, and had it for dinner the next day. My verdict: quite good, although not the very pinnacle of gazpachoness. In addition to the aforementioned color issue, it could stand to be spicier. Altogether, though, I feel it was a pretty successful venture into the kitchen.

Only two things in this world are too serious to be jested on, potatoes and matrimony. (Irish Saying)

2007-09-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

I made the above recipe for Vichyssoise. It was really good because potatoes taste good, leeks taste good, and you know what else tastes good? Fat tastes good! And this soup is loaded with heavy cream. Yum, yum, yum.

Recommendation: Do not attempt to make this soup without a great big heavy-duty food processor. I squished up the potatoes with a hand mixer (which the recipe says that you can do). This was not a good idea. Although it worked and everything tasted grrrreat, my kitchen was covered in creamy, white potato spooge.

Another recommendation: Make the stock from scratch! It makes all the difference. I made my stock with carrots, celery, onion, garlic, turnips, parsnip, tomatoes and lots of salt and pepper.

Before simmering for about an hour, I added my total favorite thing ever into the pot -- a bouquet garni!!

Bouquet Garni

3 fresh Italian parsley sprigs, 1 bay leaf, 1 fresh thyme sprig

Combine all the ingredients in a piece of cheesecloth

Fold up and secure tightly with a piece of string

Use as directed.
Voila!

Apologies: I'm an idiot, and I somehow forgot to take a picture of my soup when it was actually done. I think that this is because I made the stock on Saturday, and the soup on Sunday, and on Sundays I am forgetful. I'm very sorry, because it looked really cool.

Update: I'm possibly even dumber than I thought I was. I actually did take a picture of my completed soup. I just forgot. Not so bright.

Cool as a Cucumber Soup

2007-09-13T15:55:00.000-07:00

Since there is nothing I love more than variations on the Cucumber + Yogurt theme (Indian food without Raita is like night without stars!) I decided to try my hand at making Cold Cucumber Soup.

I looked around on the internets for awhile to find the perfect recipe, but none of them seemed quite right. So here I go, winging it.

(Please forgive my pictures. All I had with me was my cell phone, so the images are a bit grainy.)

The stars of our show. (Not Pictured: Salt, Lemon)

The Process:

I couldn't decide if I wanted to try a mint version or a dill version of the soup, so I made the bold choice to use both. This was a good choice.

I decided to use greek yogurt instead of regular yogurt to give it more depth and better consistency. I think with a thinner yogurt the soup would have been way too watery.

I used one clove of garlic and this made the soup very garlic-y. Yum. As long as you don't plan to make out later. A few dashes of cayenne pepper also gave it a little kick, and a couple of tablespoons of lemon added some balance.

You all know how I am about salt, so, um, "salt to taste."

Basically, after peeling, seeding, and coarsely chopping the cucumber, I threw everything in the blender.

Blend it, blend it.

The Presentation:

I held back some chopped up cucumber to throw in after blending to give the soup a little more crunch. Because I was feeling fancy, I also set aside a few thin slices of cucumber and a sprig each of mint and dill.

One of the recipes that I found called for an avocado mash to serve in the center of the soup. That sounded like blasphemy, but it did give me an idea for a side dish for the soup--avocados with lime juice and salt plus some fancy tortilla chips I had lying around. Oh yeah, and of course wine.

Ta-da!

The Verdict:

There were no unbiased judges for this experiment, but I really liked it and would make it again. It is a pretty light soup so if I was cooking for, say, Arie I would probably serve it as a side, with a much heartier main course. It also tasted even better the next day, so the next time I make it, I might prepare it ahead of time and let it chill in the fridge for a few hours.

Kind of Awesome, Kind of Eh: Thai Watermelon Soup

2007-09-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I picked this recipe because it was the weirdest one I could find...chilled watermelon puree with hot peppers, ginger, lime -- a slew of other spices -- and crab.

Here's how it hashed out.

The process:

Lotsa mincing. Basically, you just mince all of the veggies, saute them and then puree them with some pre-pureed watermelon.
Lotsa pureeing. You should use a blender. I don't have one so, I used a teensy little mini food processor. It took lots of batches, covered my kitchen with watermelon juice (user error, not the recipe) and was sort of maddening.
I broke some rules. The recipe advises you to strain the watermelon and veggies after everything is pureed, but that seemed weird to me. Sort of like eating bizarre-o Kool Aid. I totally recommend the pureed-but-not-strained version, which was sort of like gazpacho.

The verdict:
The Watermelon broth was a total success. Unlike my other cooking efforts, it had a really complex flavor, sort of like something you'd find in a Thai restaurant. With, like, professional chefs. Honestly, though, the spicy and tart flavors really balanced the watermelon's sweetness. Really unique, great and not at all watermelon-y.

BUT, the crab was sort of gross. Instead of buying fresh crab (what am I, a millionaire?), I chose some fancy canned crab from Whole Foods. Nothing was wrong with it, per se, but it was just kind of eh. It totally grossed out Tim, who ate a few bites like a champ, and then chose to eat the non-crabified version (which I totally recommend for vegetarians). Maybe with fresh crab -- or even some other seafood, like shrimp -- it might be perfect?

Now, what am I going to do with all of that leftover crab?

Week One: Cold Soup

2007-09-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

I know a few of you have already gotten to work on your soups. You are all authors now on this blog and can post your pics and observations!