Farro and winter squash salad with pepitas

This morning, for the first time in forever, I cooked something for myself for lunch--something healthy. I figured it'll magically offset all the candy I ate last night, feeling an obligation to make a dent in the overstock we were left with. It's our first year in a house (no one ever went trick-or-treating in the apartments), I was excited, and I didn't know how much to buy. On top of that, apparently ours is the kind of neighborhood where everyone has kids, puts up adorable Halloween decorations, and then takes the kids to another neighborhood to trick-or-treat. Cute. Thankfully we had a few small groups, including one with a boy who was actually excited to see "Stawbuhst!"  Knock yourself out, kid, there's a reason I put that one out for the first round...

Some time ago I had to swear off subscribing to food blogs as prolific and consistently tantalizing as Smitten Kitchen, finding myself even less capable than usual of making semi-frugal meal plans and then not changing my mind a thousand times... It was an unhealthy and inefficient pattern. So I wouldn't even call myself a regular reader of Smitten Kitchen, though I love her writing and her food and the cookbook is most definitely on my wishlist. Something about that blog transforms me from all-out recipe slave (thanks, Cook's Illustrated) to semi-imaginative, measurement-despising pseudo-chef. Probably it's a mix of the encouraging, amicable tone and the artsy small print (not to mention the photos!), but whatever it is, something akin to creativity is its invariable effect on me. So in that spirit I altered this recipe to use the delicata squash I picked up on a whim last week. I had never tried it but I've never met a winter squash I didn't love roasted, and this one proved no different. It's like candy, people. Healthy candy. What more can you ask for from a vegetable? The pairing with farro and pumpkin seeds is nothing short of inspired, so I didn't feel the need to mess with success. I did try adding rinsed canned black beans to mine for some protein and it worked quite well.

And as for the cheese---I might as well throw a real quick pity party and say that I've been reluctantly dairy-free for about two weeks, trying to solve some reflux issues with la bebita, and I think it's definitely helping her (mixed feelings---just kidding! Totally kidding.). I say this as a strong believer in the placebo effect, so I went into it quite suspiciously. I haven't been doing a total elimination diet; I just cut my inordinate dairy consumption by about 98%, I would say. So I guess the way to test this scientifically is to go another week as I have been, and then reintroduce one food at a time to look for a reaction... Seems kind of cruel when your test subject is a baby, but we're not suspecting a serious allergy here, just sensitivity. All that to say, I vacillated on whether to put a teeny tiny bit of feta in this salad (one of several opened cheeses languishing in my fridge...tragic). But guess what? It didn't need the cheese. I know, such a hypocrite---I just swore I would never trust a person who called the presence of any cheese in any dish "unnecessary." But all the other components of the salad are just that good--- and perhaps I am starting to reconcile myself to this dairy-free thing. Pity party over, though. Make this salad. With all the modifications your heart desires, because you were born to cook and know exactly what you're doing, you brilliant chef you. /unsuccessfully channeling Deb

(Oh hey, I remembered to take a photo. Bet you wish I hadn't. I should learn how to use a camera someday. Here it is sans the last-minute addition of black beans.) 

Farro and winter squash salad with pepitas
adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Serves 2-3 as a main dish
Keeps a week

2 medium delicata squash, peeled (optional), halved lengthwise, seeded, and sliced into 1/2" half-moon pieces
4 Tbsp olive oil, divided
3/4 cup farro
1/2 red onion, minced
1 Tbsp. sherry vinegar
1 Tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. toasted pepitas, preferably salted
Feta cheese to taste (optional)
1 (15 oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roast the squash pieces in a single layer on a baking sheet with 2 Tbsp of the oil and salt to taste until tender, 20-25 mins, turning pieces over halfway through. Set aside.

2. Meanwhile, cook the farro according to package directions or, if you bought it in bulk like me and have no idea if it's pearled, semi-pearled, or what, try just dumping it in lots of boiling salted water for 25-30 minutes or so. You want it to be soft but still a bit chewy. Once done, drain and let cool slightly.

3. Also meanwhile, combine the onion, vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a small bowl. Let marinate about 30 minutes while the other stuff cooks.

4. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and toss with the remaining 2-3 Tbsp. of olive oil. Add more salt and pepper if desired, then serve at room temperature or chilled.

Eggplant marinara; upside-down apple cake

Hello blog. Life has changed a lot around here thanks to a little thing called a baby, and as expected I haven't been doing much cooking, let alone baking, in the past couple of months. But I'm very happy to be back playing in the kitchen, even if circumstances keep me from attemping anything remotely time-consuming, for fear I would start it and not be able to finish it until, oh, 3 a.m. I must say that mise en place has gone from being a helpful principle to proving absolutely necessary: if I prep a bit here and there throughout the day, by dinnertime all I have waiting is an assembly job with maybe a little cooking. Which means if all hell breaks loose around dinnertime, as it tends to do, my husband can handle the final steps with just a bit of instruction called out over the baby's wails. :)

Well, fall has fallen, as they say (...or not), and when I bought seven pounds of apples at the farmers market the other day I was hoping to whip up a fantastic autumnal apple dessert with some of my loot. After a (shorter than usual) cookbook scavenger hunt, I settled on the upside-down apple cake out of Cooking for Two 2011, that endless fount of inspiration and joy for the leftover-averse (not that we are). It was even better than I hoped. The cake was tender and outrageously buttery, and the apples hit the perfect balance between raw and mushy, thanks to the somewhat odd instructions to briefly saute two different-sized groups of apple slices before baking the whole thing. My only caveat is to put something underneath your pan, because the batter overflowed a bit toward the end of baking and made a mess on my freshly cleaned oven. (as in, cleaned the day of baking. But nothing a little Barkeeper's Friend couldn't fix.)

Upside-down apple cake
adapted from America's Test Kitchen: Cooking for Two 2011
Serves 2 with a huge appetite, or 3 more likely.
Tip: get the 6" cake pan at Michael's or Joann's with one of those ubiquitous 40% (or 50%) off coupons. Then it's like $2 and you don't feel at all guilty for purchasing something with limited use. Though this recipe alone is worth getting the pan.

2 Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples, peeled
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/3 c. packed brown sugar, plus 2 Tbsp separated
1/2 cup (2 1/2 oz) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 and have a rack on the next-to-lowest level. In case of spillage, put a foil-lined pan on the lowest rack. Spray a 6" cake pan with Baker's Joy, or grease and flour.

2. For the apples: slice in half pole to pole and remove cores. Cut one apple into 1/2" slices, set aside. Cut the other into 1/4" slices. Melt the butter in a 10" skillet over med-high heat. Pour off about 2 Tbsp into a small bowl or ramekin for use in the cake and set aside. Add the 1/2" apple slices to the skillet and cook just til they begin to caramelize, about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the 1/4" apple slices and the 1/3 cup brown sugar and cook, stirring constantly, til the sugar dissolves and all the apples are coated, about 1 minute. Scrape into the cake pan and set aside.

3. For the cake: Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. In a medium bowl whisk together the granulated sugar, the remaining 2 Tbsp. brown sugar, and the egg until homogenous, about 30 seconds. Slowly whisk in the reserved melted butter until combined. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla, then gently whisk/fold in the flour mixture, ensuring that no streaks remain.

4. Scrape the batter on top of the apples in the cake pan and smooth the top. Bake until cake is golden brown and toothpick comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then run a paring knife around the edges and invert onto a wire rack. Cool completely or til just warm, about an hour, and then serve with spiced creme Chantilly: whip about 2 Tbsp of heavy cream to soft peaks, then sprinkle in about 2 tsp. confectioners sugar, a dash of cinnamon, and a drop of vanilla extract. Perfection.

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Now that dessert's out of the way, onto the eggplant marinara(s). The (s) is because these are sort of individual ones meant to be appetizers, but I served two each as a main course and loved them. M is not crazy about eggplant (I'm not either except when it's fried and topped with tons of cheese and tomato sauce), but he said he'd eat it again. The recipe is at Epicurious. I used panko instead of fresh bread crumbs, which worked fine, and Newman's Own cabernet marinara is quite good. Hilariously, one reviewer noted that he thought the ricotta was "unnecessary." Personally I would never trust a person who called any cheese in any context "unnecessary," but judge for yourselves after you make it whether this would be the same with one less cheese. It's really good.

P.S. One more thing. My mom introduced me a while back to roasted okra. Oh. My. I should do a post on this, except it isn't more than olive oil, salt, pepper, and trimmed okra, roasted for 15 mins at 400 or 425 if more browning is desired. Then taste and see that, unbelievably, okra does not have to be fried in order to be divine. Lucky for me it's $2/lb at an awesome stand at the farmers market. I bought the purple variety and it turned dark green when cooked, like magic.

Coconut gelato

A rare original recipe by yours truly, this might be the quickest and easiest ice cream ever. In an experimental yet lazy mood, I combined elements from a Sherry Yard coconut gelato and a David Lebovitz coconut ice cream (custard) recipe, and made my own---I suppose it can be called gelato, though I'm still fuzzy on the details of the difference between that and ice cream. At least it isn't custard, and so requires none of the fussy yolk-tempering and ice-bathing and all that. It also uses no cream (in a sense), only half-and-half. I like to have a way to use up those cheap (relative to cream) half-and-half quarts which none but the largest, most caffeinated household could possibly use up before spoilage if it's only being used for coffee--and as far as I know, half-and-half has no real culinary identity apart from its relationship to coffee. Poor half-and-half. Anyway, this stuff looks like and has the texture of fluffy white snow, only it tastes about a thousand times better.

Coconut gelato
3/4 c. unsweetened coconut flakes (if all you can find are sweetened, that's fine)
2 cups half-and-half
3/4 c. sugar
pinch of salt
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
2 Tbsp. dark rum

Toast the coconut flakes in a small skillet over med-low heat til just brown around the edges, then combine in a saucepan with the half-and-half, sugar, and salt. Warm the mixture and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep about 45 minutes.

Pour the mixture through a strainer into a quart-sized measuring cup. Press on the coconut flakes to extract all possible liquid, then reserve and refrigerate or freeze for some other use (like garnishing this gelato) if desired. Stir the coconut milk and rum into the measuring cup. Chill several hours until very cold, then freeze in your ice cream maker.

Even with my Cuisinart canister thoroughly chilled, this was very soft right out of the machine, so I would count on the finished product needing a couple of hours in the freezer to solidify a bit before serving. (After three days it has remained scoopable directly from the freezer, unlike many other ice creams I make, which have to sit out for a few minutes.)

Bagels.

It's been a while since I talked about bagels. Since they are one of the staples of my baking routine even throughout the summer---which is a sure sign that they are something we must have on hand at any cost---I'm surprised at how little, or at least how unsystematically, I have discussed them here on my little corner of cyberspace. (Hah, flashback to 1999...)

Yesterday, per M's request, I gave the egg bagel concept another shot, and I baked them this morning. He had to leave before they were done, but I had the luxury of breakfasting on a fresh one. I used 3 whole eggs this time, cutting back the water to 6 oz (from 9) because irrationally I couldn't believe eggs really counted as that much liquid, but it was indeed too much. I had to add 3-4 Tbsp of extra flour to get the dough to the usual stiffness, and as I was shaping them I thought they weren't overly tacky, but the dough felt too soft. Last time, when I used all yolks, this yielded fragile bagels that were majorly lacking in chewiness. Nevertheless this time, though you can see below that the color is definitely not the bright yellow that some shops' egg bagels have, they maintained a proper chewiness and did not threaten to fall apart as I sliced them. They taste great. My next modification will be to add a couple of yolks to the 3 eggs and start out adding less water.

Note the impressive uniformity. Ha, ha.

Usually I double the basic bagel recipe (fully copied out here) in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Everyday. This differs from his previous version in that it does not require a sponge, but only a pre-mixed (and pre-formed) dough that spends the night in the fridge and comes out in the morning for a baking soda bath. Sounds like a fun little slumber party or something. Except then they get baked in a very hot oven and eaten in short order. Actually I have to prep and package them all for storage in the freezer---by far the only aspect of bagel-making that approaches tedium. Okay, sometimes it is downright tedious. But homemade bagels are not under any circumstances to be left out for more than six hours (in a tightly closed paper bag). I defiantly tested that rule once, and I'm just glad I still have all my teeth intact. For future use, it's best to slice each bagel as soon as it's cooled, wrap each half in plastic wrap or foil, and place the halves together in a large plastic freezer bag. I can't tell any difference between a bagel that's been out of the oven for half an hour or one that has been in the freezer (packed carefully) for two weeks, and toasted to order. So this is a pretty satisfactory system.

A note about doubling this recipe: it's a non-negotiable for me because the boiling and baking operation is something I'd rather do less often if I have the chance, and my fridge pretty easily fits the two large baking sheets needed for the double batch. However, I have a powerhouse of a Kitchenaid mixer (thanks Mom and Dad!) and even it struggled when I tried combining the two batches of stiff dough. I found the best and least inconvenient way to double the recipe is to mix each batch separately. Prep the water, yeast, etc. while the first batch is being mixed. Then while that dough is resting to hydrate the flour, mix the second batch. And it works out pretty well so that when the first batch is ready for its second mixing, the second batch is resting.  Then when they're both mixed and ready for the rise, I briefly knead them together to form one ball. That's not strictly necessary; you could just let them rise in two separate bowls. But that would be one more bowl to clean, which does not tempt me.

More random notes:

• I use the barley malt syrup. Yes it is $6.50 a jar at Whole Foods (that's expensive for me, to be clear), but it lasts a while and is worth the subtle complexity it provides. I am not a supertaster or anything like it, so if I can notice the difference, you will too. For the poaching liquid I do usually omit the malt syrup because I don't notice a huge increase in flavor by adding it there. 
• I use table salt and Pillsbury or Gold Medal bread flour---nothing special. 
• After trying both, my preferred shaping method is to poke a hole in the dough ball and then stretch it. (He notes that the other method, creating a rope which you join together at the ends, is the one preferred by professional bagel makers. Like this crazy guy.) 
• As far as toppings, the egg white wash as they come out of the bath is not optional: you will still lose a few seeds here and there as they get sliced later, but nowhere near the amount that come off if you skip the egg white. I do half poppy seeds (M's preference), half sesame seeds (my preference). I've tried the cinnamon raisin bagels and they were fine but the raisins tend to fall out in significant numbers when you are shaping, and I found that annoying. 
• I get obsessive about measuring out each dough ball to equal somewhere between 3 3/4 and 4 1/4 oz, but I let it go if one or two weigh in at 4 3/8 oz. For those mornings when we wake up ravenous. Right. These make a very reasonably sized bagel. None of this monster-sized nonsense where you're eating a cup of flour for breakfast.

So that's my little bagel review. They're really worth a try. As someone who is absolutely "below average," let's say, when it comes to shaping any kind of dough, yes it takes a little practice to get the bagels to look halfway decent. And I'm still not consistent with that yet (see photos above). But less than perfect shaping is not going to destroy your bagels. Follow the directions, and they will come out well.
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More rye news: I just found this deli rye bread recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum, helpfully streamlined at Smitten Kitchen, that uses whole grain rye flour (she doesn't specify in the recipe, but I skimmed through the comments and found that she used whole grain Arrowhead Mills like I have). So my plan is now to try this recipe before attempting to tweak the previously used CI one.

I must here repeat my plea that some tech geek out there invent a comment system for use on cooking blogs  that automatically categorizes and highlights comments from people who have actually made the recipe in question, so that one can more easily skim past all the "oh that looks deliiiish gurl" remarks. It could be color-coded for questions, useless flattering remarks (sorry, but especially on "celebrity" food blogs, why do people think the famous blogger, who has to weed through all these comments, needs their anonymous affirmation?), and helpful feedback/review-type comments that some of us really want to find sometimes. Sorry, I'm cranky and I think it's time for morning snack #1. (Just about 3 1/2 months to go, and then I will have to return to a normal person diet---it's nothing short of mysterious that I have not ballooned grotesquely. I guess the baby really is helping absorb the effects of all this snacking.)

all about rye

I still haven't gotten around to trying that rye bread again--which I just realized I never properly "reviewed" here. The verdict was that this was a fine first attempt with great flavor, but as expected (given my substitution of whole grain rye for the medium rye the recipe called for), it was noticeably more dense than usual deli rye breads. I was thinking next time I would try adding vital wheat gluten in hopes of giving it a little lift. But somehow "next time" has not rolled around yet. Laziness.

I did, however, make a great muffin recipe from the previously maligned Whole Grain Baking. As I said in the rye bread post, I marked about five more recipes that will determine whether I give up on this book or, at the very least, copy down the few recipes I found worthwhile and then pass it along to someone who might better appreciate it. It is a huge book and I hate to have it taking up precious shelf space if there are only a couple things I like or want to make from it. But I successfully adapted this recipe, originally ham and Swiss rye muffins, to help use up some of the massive amounts of kielbasa left over from Easter. (My in-laws brought down about 800 lbs of the good stuff with them from a butcher up north.) I so rarely think to make savory muffins, it's terrible; but with this one in my repertoire I think I'll remember the option more readily. Plus whole grains are healthy and all that, which is more than I could say for my (literally) sugar-coated, cakey blueberry muffin recipe, that's for sure...

Sausage and Cheese Rye Muffins
Adapted from King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking, p. 47
Yield: 1 dozen

Note about the yield: I thought my muffin pan was standard, but with this as with some other recipes I've tried, it seemed like all the batter couldn't possibly fit into those dozen cups without spilling over. So I ended up getting another dozen mini muffins out of this. My "regular" sized muffins only took about 20 minutes to bake through, though the original recipe specifies 25-27 minutes. All that to say, your mileage may vary.

2 cups (7 1/2 oz.) whole grain rye flour
3/4 cup (3 1/8 oz.) bread flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. grated sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1 large egg
1 1/2 c. buttermilk
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
4 oz. finely diced smoked sausage, such as kielbasa

1. Preheat oven to 375. Grease a muffin tin with Baker's Joy, or use paper liners and spray them a bit just to make sure there's no sticking. In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the 1 cup cheese and toss to mix.

2. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg, butter, and buttermilk, then add to the flour mixture, stirring just til evenly moistened. Fold in the diced sausage.

3. Scoop the batter into the prepared pan(s) (see note about yield above) and sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese over the tops. Bake muffins until a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan 5-10 minutes, then remove onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Serve warm, or once cooled, refrigerate or (better yet) freeze the muffins. (I think these qualify as perishable because of the sausage.) They will keep wonderfully in the freezer for a couple of months.

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... as a P.S., since this is a very rye-themed post: last month I also made the rye seed crackers from Artisan Breads Every Day (pp. 133-36). I found them startlingly easy and surprisingly delicious. I'm not that much of a cracker person and I loathe rolling out dough of any sort, so I'm not even sure what made me try these, but I am certainly glad I did. They were so quick to make, and the dough was a dream to work with, which I did not expect at all. Highly recommend with cheese and fruit for a picnic-esque meal--- which is in fact how I used them, on our anniversary picnic. Given the "venue," this year's menu was considerably less fussy than last year's, and besides said crackers and cheese included shrimp cocktail (solely because I was craving it and Whole Foods had some fine specimens on sale), an ambrosia-style fruit salad, and a spinach salad with this (very anchovy-ish) green goddess dressing.

Yeasted waffles

These delicious waffles can and indeed must be made the night before the breakfast/brunch at which you wish to serve them. The original recipe served four but I don't like leftover waffles, and honestly it's enough of a hassle getting up and down for each new batch when it's just two people eating them; I've heard you can hold waffles in a 200 degree oven for a half hour or so without disastrous results, and I guess that would be your only option if you wanted to double these for a (relative) crowd. Yeasted waffles have a rich, delicate flavor that begs for little more than a sprinkle of cinnamon and a generous amount of maple syrup.

Yeasted waffles 
Serves 2
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp whole or lowfat milk
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup (2 1/2 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (2 1/2 oz) white whole wheat or traditional whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. granulated sugar 
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast 
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Heat milk and butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until butter is melted. Cool mixture until warm to touch. Meanwhile, whisk flours, sugar, salt, and yeast in large bowl to combine. Lightly whisk the egg and vanilla together in another small bowl. Once the milk/butter mixture has cooled, whisk into the flour mixture until batter is smooth. Add the egg and vanilla and whisk til incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate immediately, at least 12 and up to 24 hours. When ready to serve, whisk the batter to recombine (batter will deflate) before baking in your waffle iron. Serve hot.

Mexican chocolate ice cream

Mexican drinking chocolate is a very sweet, spicy-cinnamony disk of chocolate meant for grating into hot milk to make, well, hot chocolate. That is all I had used it for before I found this recipe and was intrigued by the use of half-and-half only and just three whole eggs rather than a mess of egg yolks. To accommodate the amount of half-and-half I had left, I reduced the recipe by about a third (it was still close to filling up my ice cream maker, so not sure how the full recipe would have done). This was a perfectly balanced, creamy, delicious ice cream and a great use of Mexican chocolate if you find that the hot drink season has yet again passed before you could get through your tea and chocolate stash. I bought Ibarra chocolate at the Buford Highway Farmers Market in Atlanta, but this is a pretty good deal if you need to buy it online.

Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream
Yield: about 1 quart

1/2 a vanilla bean
7 1/2 oz. Mexican chocolate, coarsely chopped (do not substitute regular chocolate)
2 1/2 cups half-and-half
2 large eggs
1/8 tsp. salt

1. Halve the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into a medium saucepan. Add the chopped chocolate and half-and-half and bring to a boil over moderate heat, whisking frequently. Remove from heat.

2. Lightly beat the eggs with the salt in large bowl or glass 4-cup measuring cup. Slowly add half the hot chocolate mixture to the eggs, whisking vigorously, then scrape that mixture back into the saucepan. Return to moderately low heat and cook, whisking constantly, until it thickens (or reaches 170 degrees), about 1-3 minutes. Immediately pour through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl set in an ice bath. Cool to about 40 degrees before transferring to the refrigerator. Chill for several hours and then freeze in your ice cream maker.

I am such a good wife.*

*Or, Rye bread, at long last.

Since marriage I have tried to make the vast majority of our breads and baked goods at home. It's one part the love of baking, one part the superior quality one (usually) gets when making breads fresh, and one part utter sticker shock when I calculate the mark-up on any bread that is bought at the store (let alone at the artisan bakery of your choice).  In my baking "career" I have more or less successfully made white and whole wheat sandwich bread, bagels, ciabatta, rustic Italian bread, baguettes, challah, babka, yeast rolls, biscuits, flatbreads, quick breads, etc, etc. And it only took me four years to get around to making my husband's very favorite kind of bread. Yes. I am such a good wife.

M has suffered through bad outcomes of whole wheat bread experiments for as long as we've known each other. The current (mostly) whole wheat sandwich bread I make, tweaked from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Everyday, is plenty acceptable to both of us for toast and sandwich purposes, and finally we enjoy a  bread that isn't bitter and/or dense as a brick; but it's still not something we'd jump at if we didn't know it was healthier, and therefore a better everyday choice, than white bread.

On a couple of occasions when M was uncomplainingly eating this or less successful bread experiments of mine, he mentioned casually but directly that rye was his favorite kind of bread. Hint, hint. I would nod, and make a mental note to look into that, but forget. Rye flour is expensive (comparatively) and hard to find (comparatively), and frankly since it's not my favorite kind of bread, and I'm the baker here, it has been shoved to the back burner time after time. (So now you know for sure I was being facetious about the good wife bit.)

Over Christmas vacation, making our usual rounds to all the NJ diners he grew up with, M would order rye toast with nearly every breakfast. I started to follow suit and realized, hey, this stuff wasn't bad. When we got back home I determined it was time to find and perfect a rye bread recipe so that my husband wouldn't have to keep hinting and waiting for another however many years. Now, a mere three months later, I have found a rye bread recipe (Baking Illustrated's Jewish deli rye bread), I have made it once with minimal modification (halved to make one "small" loaf for the first trial, and used whole grain rather than light or medium rye), and the verdict? I think it's pretty darn good. But I'm still waiting for the real judge to get home and try a slice.

Jewish deli rye bread. (By the way, does this look like a "small loaf" to you? It's not. That's what the recipe authors call it, but it is not. Fine by me.)

This same day (albeit before the bread had come out of the oven for tasting!) I ordered Baking Illustrated with an Amazon gift card from Christmas (appreciate my restraint--holding onto even part of an Amazon gift card for three months is possibly a record for me). I checked it out from the library a couple weeks ago and have made the snickerdoodles (good), peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (goooood), and now the rye bread (with modification noted above), and given those results plus a strong desire to make probably 95% of the rest of the recipes immediately, I figure I can get my money's worth out of this cookbook in no time. Besides, my only other true baking cookbook, King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, was such a flop, I am sorry to say. (Maybe I will report more on that some time. I recently went through and marked about 5 more recipes to try, as sort of an ultimatum--- if they aren't worthwhile, out goes the book. I need the shelf space.) There are always cooking (and baking) blogs for finding new recipes, but they are never as thoroughly tested (or "guaranteed," if you will) as Cook's Illustrated's are, and the hour is quickly coming when I will have much less time and energy to devote to this or any other hobby. This is because we have a baby on the way, and I hear they are sort of demanding, particularly in the beginning... Check back in a year and this blog (if it's been updated at all) will be all about troubleshooting homemade baby food, and/or maternal diet fare for those postpartum months. Don't say I didn't warn you.

So... off to make some fried pickles for dinner. (Seriously. These. Will report back.)

well.

Time to show I haven't fully given up on littering the internet with my mesmerizing culinary writing. I've been cooking and baking quite a bit lately, and not unsuccessfully, but I just haven't had the motivation to blog about any of it.

Given our 70+ degree temperatures, I was going to make banana ice cream today, but after reading a Southern Living article yesterday about Pie Shop in Buckhead, I felt ambitious enough to answer my resultant craving for a good old-fashioned pie. Pie crust and I have a checkered past together, but unlike some other techniques that I have officially given up on (e.g. whipping egg whites, if you can believe it), I am actually improving with each attempt at rolling out pie dough, and so I continue to do it. I think what helps me most is using plenty of flour on the pin and the work surface---not letting it get to that frustrating point where it is sticking, and I add more flour, and it sticks anyway---and using lard as 1/4 of the fat (butter for the rest, of course). This makes a malleable, easy to work with and incredibly flaky crust every time, even though I probably overwork the dough a bit because I always misjudge if I've added enough water and push it around a lot to try and tell.

I made something inspired by a recipe I found in a Cooking Light back issue, black bottom banana cream pie. Unfortunately, my first time making this pie, I was trying to halve a crust recipe (I think Smitten Kitchen's all butter crust, which is quite good when made correctly) and forgot to halve the water. Don't ever add too much water to your pie crust. It is a fast and easy way to make it completely inedible. Anyway, we ate around the crust that time and M in particular loved the rest of it, so I wanted to make it again, crust and all.

I used a basic Gourmet pastry crust recipe, subbing my lard for the vegetable shortening and adding just a small amount of sugar (theirs had none). Instead of CL's weird cornstarch-cocoa powder mixture, I use ganache to provide the thin layer of dark chocolate at the bottom of the pie. I follow their vanilla custard/pudding recipe almost exactly, except I refuse to touch fat free cream cheese and used regular. Even though it's made with 1% milk, it is plenty rich and creamy and makes a great stand-alone vanilla pudding if you're looking for one. And that's really all there is to this pie. Thinly slice a couple of bananas and place however you want on top of the chilled ganache, then top with the custard. If desired you spread whipped cream all over the top of that (though I have to refrain, because the weirdo with whom I live happens not to love whipped cream), then top with chocolate shavings. Voila. Now I am fighting the urge to have pie for dinner.

Not going to win any beauty competitions, as usual...

a rainy day AND a sick day leaves only one option for lunch:

I feel like winter is slipping through my fingers all too fast, and I still have so many soups and oven-dependent recipes I wanted to be making. I keep defaulting to the tried and true, or to sandwiches (?? see below, it's a special kind of sandwich with Patak meat), and I've got to stop.

Though I don't feel like it, in the interests of hopefully, eventually blogging through Artisan Breads Everyday, I will post a picture and say a few words about the hoagie/cheesesteak roll recipe I tried with high expectations lat week. A couple of things went wrong on my end, namely running out of bread flour about halfway through the measuring, and making the mistake of using bleached rather than unbleached all-purpose flour in its place. So I'm not sure how much that had to do with it, but I wasn't a huge fan of the flavor of my custom (ahem) dough. I added the optional barley malt syrup since I keep it on hand for bagels anyway, but it still kind of fell flat. As usual, shaping is going to take some practice. Even so, they're decent rolls and I'd like to give them a try again with the right kind of flour. I'm not sure how much value this little review even has with that rather large variable being off...meh.

This is Patak's Black Forest ham, with plenty of spicy brown mustard and mayo and of course a pickle and cheddar cheese. I think I know why I fall back on sandwiches too much. 

Oh, and speaking of breads, a P.S. on the whole wheat ciabatta mentioned previously. It is too sweet for me. I understand you have to have a little sugar to offset the whole wheat flour's bitterness, but I will make a note to cut it by half next time. Otherwise, it's a nice bread. It looks pretty. But I will still always prefer the ever so unhealthy original white kind. I don't think it'll kill us to alternate between the two. 

Toasted almond and cherry ice cream with stracciatella

Well, the verdict is clear. Look at the picture.

The details:
I was not extremely precise with this ice cream, making a couple substitutions out of necessity or preference: since I used up all my slivered (whole were actually called for) almonds for steeping in the milk, I had to use sliced ones for mixing in! Somehow it all turned out okay. More significantly, I used a melange (1 cup each) of  1% milk, half-and-half, and whipping cream rather than the 1 c. whole milk to 2 c. cream formula given. That's a difference of 5% in the fat percentage of the dairy if my math is right, and let me attest that 5% does not matter here. I also used the stracciatella recipe/method for the first time: simply 4 oz. of dark chocolate melted and drizzled in during the last minute of churning. This not only added the most remarkable foodstuff ever to an already outrageous ice cream, but also gave it a more interesting texture along with the almonds. I will have serious difficulty restraining myself from doing this with any and all future ice creams, now that I know what sort of magic happens when you drizzle chocolate into a freezing mixture.

P.S. Sometimes I like to cost out things I make from scratch to see how they would compare with their storebought/premade counterparts. Ice cream is not one of the things that is much (if any) cheaper to make at home, depending on the quality ($) of your ingredients, so it's not the most satisfying calculation if you are trying to be frugal. For this one the breakdown is:
milk: $0.20
half-and-half: $0.44
cream: $1.25
sugar: let's say negligible
almonds: $2
(frozen) cherries: $2
5 eggs (just yolks but we'll count the whole eggs): $0.83
chocolate: $1
and salt and almond extract are negligible. This means the total comes to about $7.75 for a quart of ice cream, which is definitely on the extravagant side---I choke at paying full price (what, $5?) for a huge container of Breyers.  But I would say this is certainly a worthy occasional indulgence.

The Perfect Scoop: a review

It's been about a year now since I spent some birthday money on a Cuisinart ice cream maker and pastry chef  David Lebovitz's ice cream (and fixings) cookbook The Perfect Scoop. I have not made such a rewarding frivolous purchase since. Though I am still far from having tried even half the recipes in the book, I thought I'd give a run-down of all the things I've made so far. In fact I'm shocked at how little I've actually made. Looking through the book today for something new to make tomorrow, I decided on the toasted almond and cherry ice cream, to which I'll probably add some form of chocolate. I can't imagine how that could possibly let us down, but I'll report back with the details. :) (I also paused for a second at the avocado ice cream recipe, having just finished a delicious salad with a generous amount of perfectly ripe avocado---best vegetable ever---but I just don't think I could be that adventurous.)


Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream
This stuff is well worth the use of your most extravagant vanilla beans (actually it just uses one!). I often invert the milk-cream ratio (not at all sure what the all-cream option would yield, but I can't bring myself to do it) to be 2 cups milk to 1 cup cream, and it is still decadent, smooth, and creamy. As he suggests, the fudge ripple (see below) layered in as soon as the ice cream is frozen is magical.


Coffee frozen yogurt
M liked this more than I did. The tanginess of the yogurt with the coffee was not my favorite combination.


Vanilla frozen yogurt
Amazing if you use a good yogurt: Dannon is too one-dimensional and flat to me. I like Stonyfield Farms a lot, and they aren't super expensive like some organic brands can be. Brown Cow is also divine but I don't see it around much unless I go to Whole Foods. After the first couple of tries, I cut the sugar to 3/4 cup (from 1) and liked that better, though it does freeze hard.


Cheesecake ice cream
I made this for a friend with the blueberry sauce on p. 182 swirled in, and it was all I could do not to keep it for myself. I really don't like cheesecake that much, strangely, but this was delicious.


Roasted banana ice cream
The first time I made this, the smell of the bananas roasting with the brown sugar and butter set my expectations really high, and I was a little disappointed with the end result---didn't taste as deep and complex as the aromatic byproduct. But M loved it, so I made it again, using mostly half-and-half for the whole milk, and it became a favorite. It's truly remarkable with the fudge sauce (see below) and whipped cream, or you can add some rum before freezing for another take. I use a shortcut for in the summer when turning on the oven is a terrible idea: just sauté the bananas in the butter and sugar over med-low heat until you get the same effect. Faster and cooler.


Lemon ice cream
This was alright: simple and plain. It froze very hard.


Strawberry frozen yogurt
Good, but I prefer vanilla yogurt with a strawberry swirl. 


Cranberry orange sorbet
A pretty tasty way to use up cranberries leftover from the Thanksgiving sales. Simple and quick. Oddly it ends up tasting less like cranberries and more like strawberries to me.


Chocolate tangerine sorbet
This was one of two recipes in this book that just didn't do it for me. I made it in early December and still have some in the freezer. It tastes okay when the mood strikes. I like chocolate and orange; otherwise I wouldn't have made it, so I'm not sure what the deal is. Just odd flavors.


Chocolate sorbet

What words could adequately describe this unassumingly named phenomenon? "Divine, "mind-blowing," etc. cannot come close. I've only made this once (somehow!?), and I believe I used my stand-by, Trader Joe's 72% dark chocolate (it comes in the big $5 Pound Plus bars and if they ever discontinue it I will die, really just die on the spot). It's so easy, and so worth getting the blender out for that perfect texture. Like many sorbets it freezes pretty hard. And it can be hard to wait those 5-10 minutes for it to thaw a bit on the counter.

Blackberry-lime sorbet

My second favorite sorbet from this book so far. It is really tart, so if you don't love sour flavors, you will want to find a way to decrease the amount of lime juice, or just make the plain blackberry sorbet on the same page. But I love it for chasing spicy Mexican food, and it looks pretty, too. 

Classic hot fudge

This is the real deal, and incomparably better than nasty storebought squeeze bottles. I usually halve the recipe even though it keeps for two glorious weeks in the fridge.

Lean chocolate sauce

I personally wouldn't make this again. I think I even made it before the fudge sauce, so it's not that it just didn't measure up to the impossibly good full-fat version; it just sort of fell flat on its own.

Peppermint patties

These were alright. Sad, because I had high expectations of making something possibly better even than York patties (scarcely conceivable), but I would want to try again with peppermint oil, which I understand is more subtle and interesting than peppermint extract (what I have). They were fun to make and pretty easy, at least. I certainly had no problem polishing them off, let's not get the wrong idea. 

Fudge ripple

Absolutely delicious, and so fast and easy. A must with the vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate ice cream sandwich cookies

These had really terrific chocolate flavor, but I have two problems with the recipe: one, these are enormous cookies on their own, but then to think that they are made for sandwiching with ice cream in between---way too much cookie, and I swear I am not afraid of calories. I would make them half the size next time, and there will be a next time soon. Two---and not really the fault of the recipe at all---it's just so hard to tell when really dark cookies are done. I baked mine until they were crispy, so watch that and err on the side of underbaking if you're after fudgy cookies.

Lemon-poppy seed cookie cups

Hate to end on a sour note, if you will, but this was the other of two recipes that simply did not work for me. It was the first thing I tried out of the book so I don't remember exactly what happened, except that they were completely impossible to handle with my thinnest spatula---they just fell apart. I made sure I didn't leave out some flour or almonds or something, but that wasn't the problem. Not sure what was.

I may just keep adding/updating this one post, so I have something of a permanent review page for what has been my favorite dessert cookbook over the past year. 

back to the blog

It's been a while! Now that we're settled in and the holidays have passed (which always makes me feel a little relieved, as much as I anticipate and enjoy them), I'm cooking and baking regularly again. Hopefully this blog will be a little less neglected as well.

I have a batch of 50% whole wheat rustic bread "fermenting" in the fridge, so we'll see tomorrow how that turns out. I recall making it before maybe a year ago, and liking it quite a bit, but then I reverted back to my regular white ciabatta routine and forgot about it.

Today I made cream of leek and potato soup for lunch, halving the original recipe and planning on having it for three lunches, but it turned out being more like two "main" servings. Oh well. It is so easy and fast and absolutely scrumptious.

Cream of leek and potato soup
Serves 2
Adapted from Julia Child
2 medium leeks, white and light green parts thoroughly rinsed and roughly chopped (To get the sand out, you need to halve the leeks lengthwise almost to the root, leaving it intact, and fan them out to expose all the layers under running water.)
1 large russet or baking potato, peeled and roughly chopped
3 cups water
3/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 c. half-and-half
fresh ground black pepper

Bring the leeks, potatoes, water, and salt to a boil in a medium pot. Simmer, partially covered, 20-30 minutes or until vegetables are tender (depends how large you cut them). Puree, either with an immersion blender if you don't mind little chunks here and there or in a blender for perfect smoothness. Stir in the half-and-half and heat through for a couple minutes if necessary. Grind in pepper to taste and serve.