Various successes

Since it's generally no fun telling about mediocre or bad outcomes in the kitchen, I guess I'll be the kind of blogger that only publishes favorable accounts of daily life. Oh wait, that's every blogger.

Last night I was given permission to try making the skillet pizza from the Cooking for Two 2010 book. You might be wondering under what bizarre marital dynamic it is normal to seek permission from one's spouse to cook something. The thing is, M is a die-hard Yankee pizza snob. I will never make pizza up to his standards at home. And I'm okay with that, since I don't love making pizza or eating it all that often. But every now and then I'll ask to try, because I'm in the mood or I have all the ingredients on hand. Both were the case yesterday. I used CI's pizza dough recipe and their method but Marcella Hazan's instructions for making a margherita topping. If your tomatoes aren't essentially perfect, she has you cook them down a bit, and to spruce up "commercial supermarket mozzarella" (as she calls it in distinction from her precious mozzarella di bufala) you shred it and toss it with a little EVOO, letting it sit ideally for an hour. Mine only got about 15 minutes of that treatment, but then I think supermarket (at least Sorrento block) mozzarella is already good enough.

The pizza is started over high heat on the stovetop in a 12" skillet just until it begins to set and finished for 7-10 minutes in a 500 degree oven. I brushed the garlic oil I keep in the fridge for focaccia on the dough first, then topped it with tomatoes and mozzarella. After it came out of the oven I put whole fresh basil leaves on top. The verdict from M's side of the table was, "Not bad at all." I too judged it my best attempt yet at homemade pizza. It was plenty crispy, and the dough flavor was okay, though we've come to prefer the sourdough flavor of the crust at Varasano's. Of course you couldn't go wrong with the toppings; the deciding factor is always the crust: whether it got soggy at all, or whether it's nearly charred on the bottom (M's preference---this one wasn't, but it was well-browned). So I'd make this recipe any time for non-pizza snobs. It was quick and easy and perfectly passable pizza for most of us.

Tonight I decided to pretend like it's not the end of April and 85 degrees outside, and made a decidedly cool-weather meal: braised beef and polenta. On the other side of dinner I don't regret it at all. Several months ago someone on the CI forums was raving about this recipe from Michele Scicolone for an Italian slow-cooker roast, the "secret" ingredient being anchovies. She reassured us that they really do dissolve into the sauce and you don't have bits of fish showing up in the finished product. Another surprise to me was the use of a cup of white wine to deglaze the pan in which you brown the beef. I would have expected red wine, but as with the anchovies and everything else about this recipe, it worked. It cooks for 6 hours on low in the slow cooker, resulting in meltingly tender beef that is perfectly seasoned. The polenta (from CFT 2011) was very tasty and the perfect thing to sop up the juices from the meat. I only took one pathetic picture while cleaning up of the meat and juices leftover, which is not worth posting.

Sadly, it will probably be several months before I make either polenta or braised beef again, as roast doesn't exactly call to me in the sweltering, humid summer months. *sigh* In an effort to overcome my aversion to being in the kitchen when said weather hits, I've made a list of no- or low-cook recipes, mostly ones I've made before and loved, but a few that are high priority to-try. So I'm a little more prepared for summer this year.

Why I know my husband loves me

Because with minimal begging---in fact, none---he bought me the 2010 and 2011 editions of Cooking for Two from Cook's Illustrated. For a couple of weeks they were offering both books for the price of one, and since I haven't been getting the CI magazine for some time, it was unlikely that I would already have seen any the recipes. I spent last night and today leafing through the 2010 book and pasting my little neon sticky notes (thanks Heidi!) on must-try recipes. I even made two things from the book for dinner tonight (which see below). I was doubly happy to see the books arrive yesterday because unfortunately, there is ample reason to be wary when you are dealing with the marketing department of Cook's Illustrated---just google "Cook's Illustrated" and "complaints." Anyway, I'm happy. We aren't anti-leftovers by any means, but with some foods they're not practical, and it's very helpful to have recipes already scaled down and tested to ensure they work for two people. And of course I am devoted to Cook's Illustrated in their meticulously detailed directions and explanations of technique, not to mention the way they head off any "substitution disasters" with notes like "do NOT substitute fat-free milk here" (not that I would be inclined to that particular swap-out).

So tonight I made the "spa chicken" and the bacon-braised green beans from Cooking for Two 2010. The chicken...boring story, but the result was that I overcooked it. Still, it wasn't bad, and I loved the flavor of the mock broth (water, smashed garlic, thyme, soy sauce of all things) used to poach them. I'll definitely be trying this again with one of the lean sauce recipes given (I had too much going on on the stove tonight to attempt that).

The green beans were just fantastic. Best ever. Before, I didn't really have a recipe for slow-cooked green beans, which is how M prefers them (Cracker Barrel is the standard for him); I had tried different ingredients (always chicken broth, usually garlic and onions and bacon) with varying success. This recipe used a small amount of broth, onions, bacon, thyme, brown sugar, and cider vinegar. I was a little wary of the vinegar, but after tasting the finished product I was a believer.

I also made these dumplings from Epicurious, which are essentially pierogis without the work. They were very good with a bit of spicy brown mustard to dip them in, and are certainly easy compared to pierogis, with no dough to roll out and cut. I actually preferred the taste of these to my one attempt at real pierogis.

In other news, today I discovered smoked herring, aka kippers. Trader Joe's sells tinned fillets packed in oil for $1.99, and I adventurously picked some up while I was there yesterday (forgetting, as usual, several TJ's freezer staples I needed). I briefly researched whether I'd need to pick out any bones (no), de-skin the fillets (no), or rinse before using (conflicting reports---I did). Then I experimented rather uncreatively on the tuna salad theme for lunch: to the shredded fish I added a dab of mayo, whole grain mustard, lemon juice, and parsley. I broiled it briefly on buttered toast and it was delicious. Smoked herring will definitely be a new pantry staple.

Weekend

Not much happening on the kitchen front that I've felt like reporting. I've been in a pretty big meal-planning rut. Let's see... I made a spinach-onion quiche that was pretty good. Yawn. Quiche is a big "I'm in a rut" food for me. I'm getting tired of it even as such.

On Friday I made a nice minestrone, perfect for the reasonably cool days we'd been having, and perhaps the real last hurrah for soup until December. :( This is a Cook's Illustrated recipe from their Soups & Stews book which I recently borrowed from a friend. It has no fewer than eight vegetables in it, so I heard no complaints from M with regard to our adherence to the food pyramid as we nibbled on this soup all weekend. (He's not nearly as neurotic about our diet as I make him sound; I just have a more laissez-faire approach to eating vegetables, like when I feel like it and/or it is convenient for me.) I made the variation that uses pancetta and am glad I did, since this soup derives its flavor entirely from the vegetables, with no chicken/beef broth (a real shocker for a CI recipe; they do love their chicken broth). I omitted the can of beans suggested because we don't much like them. Even so this was a very full pot of soup. It tasted healthy in a good way.

(And just because I have it, another picture of the same soup:)

On Saturday I made a Cook's Illustrated recipe for herbed pork loin that looked fantastic but was somewhat of a disappointment. Even just cooked to the right temperature and duly brined, it came out a bit dry; and though the herb flavor was great, much of the paste was slathered on top of the roast, along the pork's generous fat cap, which no one wants to eat. You also make a pocket down the length of the roast into which you slather some more of the herb paste, but that ends up being a tiny sliver in each piece of pork. Our general feeling: meh. It sure looked pretty, though (except maybe for the burned shallots in the topping).

Orange-almond cake

I keep recipe binders for loose recipes I cut out from magazines, print from the Internet, or (horrors) wrote out by hand long ago before we had a printer/copier. I have one recipe in the last category for orange yogurt cake, which I think I got from a now-defunct website in, like, 2007, and next to it I simply wrote "Yum." That had been annoying me (I try to make reasonably detailed notes on everything I make), and since it looked like it had potential, I thought I'd try it last night. It came out great, and since (for once) this is not a Cook's Illustrated recipe, I can actually post it here. For a cake this one has an unusually open crumb, is moist, and comes out fluffy though it looks like a scant amount of batter going into the oven. It also takes about the amount of time to mix together as the oven takes to preheat.

I was going to go the healthy route and just sprinkle some confectioners' sugar on top, but the urge to make a buttercream overcame me. I took a cue from a CI white layer cake recipe in which they spread a little bit of seedless jam over the bottom layer, then top that with frosting mixed with sliced almonds. I tried that with orange marmalade (I like imported Italian kinds without corn syrup) and Trader Joe's sliced raw almonds, which are about the only nuts I keep on hand at all times. It worked really well.

In this photo you can see that I didn't have enough icing: I hate cakes with three inches of icing on them so I often adjust recipes down. This time 3/4 of the original amount would have been better than halving it. The recipe below should be the right amount.

Orange-Almond Cake
Yield: one 9" cake, sliced in half horizonally for two layers
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. grated orange zest
pinch of salt
1/2 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbsp. orange juice
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350º. Lightly spray a 9" nonstick cake pan with Baker's Joy (or butter and flour it). Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, orange zest, and salt in small bowl. In a larger bowl whisk together the yogurt, sugar, oil, orange juice, egg, and vanilla until smooth. Add the dry ingredients and stir just til incorporated. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown, fragrant, and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in pan on trivet for 10 minutes, then carefully invert onto wire rack and let cool completely. Once cool, slice in half horizontally with a large bread knife. (It's best if you make a shallow line all the way around the cake as a guide, then dig your knife in and slowly rotate the cake stand as you go.)

Frosting and filling:
12 Tbsp. butter, soft but still cool (65º is ideal)
3 cups (3/4 lb) powdered sugar
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 tsp. milk
dash of salt
about 1/2 cup orange marmalade, at room temperature
about 1/2 cup sliced raw almonds, plus more for garnish if desired

Beat the first five ingredients on low speed until sugar is moistened. Increase speed to medium-high; beat til creamy and fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes (for a stand mixer). Remove half the frosting to a small bowl and mix in the almonds.

Set the bottom cake layer on your stand. Spread a thin layer of marmalade across the top (you may need more, I didn't measure). Spread the frosting with almonds evenly across the marmalade layer. Set the top cake layer down, then use remainder of frosting on the top and sides. Press almonds on top and sides if desired.

Frosted, this cake should be covered and kept in the refrigerator up to 3 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.*

*I have read, and now know by experience, that cakes made with a lot of butter end up tasting quite dry if they have to be refrigerated, unless you bring them thoroughly back to room temperature before serving. So it's not quite as important with this butter-less cake, but I think it tastes better all the same.

weekend

Friday M worked from home, and for brunch I made us a diner-style omelet (From America's Test Kitchen 2009) that was quite good. I've made the basic recipe before, but concocted a filling this time based on what I had in the fridge: Black Forest ham, asparagus, and Swiss. I do love this omelet method: there are only 5 eggs in it (serving two), but after you beat the eggs to triple their volume and then fold in about 1/3 cup of whipped cream, it becomes quite an imposingly fluffy and very filling breakfast.

Friday night we were to have friends for dinner as they passed through on their way to the beach, but sadly they were stranded for several hours in the middle of Kentucky after their car broke down and didn't quite make it in time for dinner. It was hardly an inconvenience to put the extra chicken into the freezer and pare down the easy recipe I made to serve two. I really liked this method (from Daisy Martinez) of starting boneless skinless chicken breasts on the stovetop, then adding a sauce and moving them to the oven covered with foil to finish. Although the orange juice/lime marinade didn't knock our socks off, it added some interesting flavor. I would just be sure to season the meat with a little more salt and pepper before cooking it next time. With this I made the black bean rice from CI's Restaurant Favorites, and an intriguing new recipe, pandebono or Colombian cheese bread.

I should start a new paragraph for this. It's funny---I picked up a box of yucca flour (= tapioca starch) in the Hispanic section of the farmer's market a couple months ago because I remembered reading someone somewhere  raving about something called pandebono, but I couldn't for the life of me find where. I began to think I had dreamed about something plausible that didn't exist (as often happens with me), so I googled around, discovered that it does exist and call for the yucca flour I'd bought, and settled on this recipe, which people who commented had actually made rather than filling the comment box with absolutely useless remarks like "wow lol looks tasty!" (Sorry, pet peeve.) I used all queso fresco rather than feta, per other recipes I saw. Mixing this bread scared me at first, because one egg for that much dry stuff plus semi-wet cheese did not seem like enough moisture. It really didn't come together until I learned how to squeeze a handful of the mixture several times, holding for a few seconds and passing to the other hand---it's hard to describe, but sooner or later it would cease being a frustrating mass of crumbs and become a very tidy ball. For an incidentally gluten-free bread I was very impressed with the results. The flavor, while maybe a bit sedate to an American palate used to the sharp flavors of cheddar and a continual onslaught of sodium, is delicious and somehow pairs well with the chewy texture.

**Edited 4/14/12 to add: Since I've gotten a food processor I made these delicious cheese balls again, and realized how much less work they are to shape when mixed that way. Just wanted to note that; if you have a food processor, it's definitely worth getting out for this. And if not, I still think they're worth a little extra work. Yum.

The photo above was Saturday night's dinner in the making: another Daisy Martinez recipe. This was a creamy pasta sauce with basil and artichokes (I use one 12-oz bag of Trader Joe's hearts rather than the 2 9-oz boxes she calls for, which seems like it would be too much to me). I used pancetta instead of the prescribed serrano ham or prosciutto, and I daresay it worked fine. I liked this sauce a lot, and while M said it was a bit girly, he got seconds.

on an ethnic kick

I didn't plan it this way, but this week I've made three recipes out of CI's massive Best International cookbook. As usual, I drew up my meal plan Monday morning, was happy with it, and then circumstances forced a change: I realized I would be about 3 miles from the Dekalb Farmer's Market on Tuesday while running an errand. Scratch original plan. Draw up new one that includes lots more produce and a Bell & Evans chicken.

First up was poulet en cocotte. I seem to be cursed when it comes to cooking whole chickens. Out of the three times I've tried roasting a whole bird, each time using what I thought was a trustworthy recipe, things haven't gone so well. This, the third time, was probably the best attempt, though by no means ideal. I was attracted to the ease of a French method of cooking the bird in a covered Dutch oven. It was indeed very easy to prep it and stick it in the oven for an hour, but as usual, it took longer than it should have (though my oven seems to be calibrated fine), and when the breasts were finally done the legs and thighs were nowhere near it, so I had to sort of poach them in the sauce. Frustrating, but we did get some pretty good tasting chicken out of it, after a while. I made braised leeks and a salad with it.

Last night I went out on a limb---and fell off. Vietnamese rice noodle salad, or "bun" as it's called in that strangest of strange languages, looked great on paper.  Actually, if I had read the sauce ingredients more closely (lime juice, water, and 2/3 cup fish sauce!?!?), I might have had different sentiments. But I got the precise mixture of fresh herbs that were supposed to "make" this salad (mint, basil, and cilantro), and the only change, which I admit was consequential, was to substitute some leftover chicken for the pork tenderloin. The watery-ness, not to mention the fishy-ness, of the sauce together with the way it just pooled at the bottom of the noodles like a stagnant pond...not a repeat dish. It looked pretty, at least, and thankfully I halved the recipe and only had a small bowl of leftovers for a lunch. And, while I'm playing Pollyanna, we have lots of basil and mint left. And I didn't spend a ton of money on the pork. Okay, I'm done.

Here's to better luck tonight with...ham and swiss sandwiches, and pears. :)

OH, I made vanilla frozen yogurt today from Lebovitz's book. That was most definitely a success, and took about 3 minutes of measuring and then the ice cream maker did its thing. I am loving that machine.

Monday

Tonight we had a quick and easy Chinese-ish dinner: spicy Szechuan noodles (dan dan mian) from CI's international cookbook and a small salad. The salad dressing was an easy five-ingredient Epicurious find: a couple teaspoons minced shallots, 2 Tbsp rice vinegar, 1 Tbsp vegetable oil, 2 tsp. minced ginger, and 1/4 tsp. toasted sesame oil. It was delicious even on very American green leaf lettuce, with orange sections, sliced almonds, and black sesame seeds. I'll definitely make this again with spinach, as the original recipe suggested.

The noodles I had made before at least once. You can use either fresh Chinese noodles or just dried pasta (linguine), which any couponer always has on hand. A little briefly marinated ground pork is browned over high heat in a skillet, then a fair amount of ginger and garlic are briefly sauteed with it. You then add a sauce made of several ingredients, mainly peanut butter and chicken broth along with soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, red pepper flakes, and oyster sauce, and let it thicken for about 3 minutes. Off heat you drizzle a little sesame oil into the mix, and that's it. To break up the beige motif, and also for their nice flavor, you garnish with scallions. I crumbled part of a small Chinese dried pepper on top, because this dish really isn't very spicy at all. But it has a nice complex flavor and is about as easy as a stir-fry can get.

Week in review

After Monday, I had a pretty easy week ahead cooking-wise. Tuesday I tried out caldo verde, a Portuguese soup from the America's Test Kitchen Best of 2009 cookbook. M wasn't a big fan of either kale or the sausage---which was not my preferred brand of chorizo---but liked the flavorful broth. It was simple and easy and I was glad to have the leftovers for lunch.

Wednesday was another new recipe, beef teriyaki, from CI's Best International Recipe. I thought this went okay, but I was distracted with my quickly cooking green beans and the unevenly cooking steak and the rice that kept spilling over and the massive amount of dishes/utensils spread all over my counters....and I tend to be prejudiced against dishes that have me flustered and dreading the clean-up when I sit down to eat. I'd be willing to try it again, though, and M liked the flavor a lot.

Thursday I made a mediocre pasta sauce, because I keep forgetting that there is basically nothing M likes with ground beef except burgers, and this is the only other way I can think to use it when I buy it. But I can never get this sauce to taste very interesting. I've come to prefer the extremely simple tomato-butter-onion sauce from Marcella Hazan, or sauces like it.

Yesterday we went to M's boss's house for a crawfish boil, which was fun, though I opted out of the crawfish---too much work and too little reward. I brought Dorie Greenspan's blondies, which were probably almost on the "too sweet" end of the sugar spectrum, but very good in small amounts. I might reduce the sugar next time. The mixture of chocolate, butterscotch, and coconut was a winner.

Today I've been in the kitchen a lot since the time we woke up. I made M's favorite blueberry muffins (an ATK recipe) for breakfast, then a chocolate chip banana bread for church tomorrow. For lunch, perhaps for the last time until fall, I made my favorite soup in the whole world, a cream of tomato soup (from CI of course) that takes about 30 minutes and tastes like perfection. I heated up some focaccia I made Thursday with that.

Again as sort of a last hurrah before the hot weather hits, tonight I made this one-dish roasted meal with great results (the chicken skin was to die for), plus a warm green bean salad and the most decadent biscuits I have ever made. I think I've said that before, but this time I really mean it. They're made with buttermilk and a blend of all-purpose and cake flours. They're a hybrid between regular rolled-out biscuits (which I hate) and drop biscuits.

And in stark contrast to that wintry meal, we have Philly-style vanilla ice cream for dessert after I freeze it later. Yum.