Sweet potato-pecan pancakes

I've been challenged in cooking and baking lately, as it seems I'll be dwelling in the land of the dairy-free for the foreseeable future. Surveying the landscape I am fairly optimistic about my prospects for eating well and not going crazy with longing for whipped cream. As long as I don't think too much about cream. Or cheese. But really, life isn't so bad: any Asian food is a guaranteed option, milk substitutes aren't bad for baking, and I love all things coconut, so coconut oil-based brownies are fine by me. Also: Trader Joe's Belgian chocolate bars = no milk solids = completely allowed. Oh. Yeah. I'll be okay.

This pancake recipe is adapted from one I cut out from the paper some time ago. I was unimpressed the first time---way too much nutmeg and way not enough sugar. But there was potential, so I kept tweaking it, this last time needing to replace the original butter and milk. It turns out canola oil and your choice of milk substitute (I favor almondmilk) work fine, and especially correcting the spice imbalances makes this a very tasty pancake indeed.

This makes a thick batter. Just add more milk if you prefer them thinner--in my experience this makes them less prone to burning or being underdone. You kind of have to spread the batter out in the pan with the lesser amount of milk, but I like the results better.

Sweet potato pancakes
Yield: about 8 3" pancakes, serving 4

3/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour, or white whole wheat flour
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
1 c. mashed cooked sweet potatoes
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 eggs
1 to 1 1/2 c. almond or soy milk (see note)
2 Tbsp. vegetable/canola oil

Chopped toasted pecans, to taste
Maple syrup


1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, salt, baking powder, and spices. Set aside.
2. In a blender or a large food processor, puree the potatoes til smooth. Add the eggs and brown sugar and blend/process til combined. Gradually mix in the milk (being careful, if you have a food processor, not to exceed the liquid fill line), then the oil.
3. Fold the blended mixture into the flour mixture, then spoon out 1/3-cupfuls onto a hot griddle or nonstick skillet. Cook and serve hot with pecans and syrup.

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.

a quick and easy breakfast for two

Or breakfast-dinner, as we often have. I threw this together this last night and it hit the spot.

2 small-ish russet potatoes, peeled, grated on the large holes of a box grater, and squeezed dry in a dishtowel (grate the potatoes directly onto the towel, then roll it up and squeeze over the sink)
Salt and pepper
Pinch of garlic powder (optional)
2 large eggs
2 thin slices pancetta
3 Tbsp. butter, divided
Dill to taste
Hot sauce

1. In a 10" nonstick skillet, melt 1 Tbsp. of the butter over medium-high heat. With a fork, lightly toss the grated potato, about 1/4 tsp. salt, pepper, and garlic powder (if using) in a medium bowl. Dump into the hot skillet, using a large spatula to press the potatoes evenly over the surface. Cook about 5-6 minutes or until underside is golden brown, reducing heat if potatoes begin to scorch.
2. Slide the potatoes onto a large plate and add another Tbsp. butter to the empty skillet. Swirl to coat, and once melted, quickly invert the plate over the skillet so that the brown side lands up, preferably still in one piece. Cook another 4-5 minutes, occasionally shaking the skillet, then place the pancetta slices slightly off center and overlapping. Use the spatula to fold the other half of the potatoes over the side with the pancetta, and cook like this for another 1-2 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, fry the two eggs in another skillet with the remaining Tbsp butter until whites are just set. Sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Cut the hash brown "half moon" into 2 pieces, then top each with a fried egg. Sprinkle with dill and serve with your choice of hot sauce (we love Frank's original with eggs).

come quickly, September...

Well, it looks like I've managed to survive (most of) another Southern summer without melting and/or complaining incessantly. I think I was better than ever about resisting the urge to use the oven, dishwasher, and any other heat sources in the kitchen as freely as I do when temperatures are more moderate. That and a list of summer meal ideas (which I didn't actually consult much; merely making it was some sort of psychological boost) helped a lot. But having had a taste of cool mornings lately, I am more restless than ever to start using my oven for middle-of-the-day baking projects and slow-cooked meats; I have always intensely looked forward to fall for many reasons, and as I cook more the anticipation grows each year. Spring and summer certainly have their culinary delights, but for me, primarily a baker, the prospect of cooler weather leading up to the best of all holidays (Thanksgiving, closely followed of course by Christmas) is more tantalizing than anything.

I started making a top ten list in my head of the dishes I will be making as soon as it cools down. They are:

1. Pork vindaloo (from Best International Recipe; review here). My Indian repertoire currently consists of this stew and a delicious recipe for coconut milk-braised green beans, so I can't speak to authenticity or anything, but just as a stew it is fantastic.

2. Spiced carrot soup (adapted from Cafe Bouloud, as printed in CI's Restaurant Favorites at Home). I've rarely made a soup with such complex flavors--the finish with fresh carrot juice is brilliant--and the smell of the carrots braising in coconut milk and curry powder is out of this world. The original recipe calls for shrimp, and it does work well, but I often just make it plain and serve with a hearty, interesting salad and bread.

3. Spanish-style pork loin with sherry-raisin vinaigrette. This was a seriously good pork roast and I wrote about it here.

4. Chicken in a pot (much more elegantly known by its French name, poulet en cocotte). I tried this once last year out of BIR, and it was quite good, though it took much longer to finish than indicated and that always gets me flustered. It was still, as promised, a very low-fuss way of evenly cooking a whole chicken while keeping it moist, and it tasted very French and refined. And wintry.

5. Any big old cheesy pasta casserole that takes two hours to bake--any at all. Pastitsio in particular. (Another nice thing about cooler weather is that my motivation to exercise is ten times what it is in the summer, which is good because pastitsio will make even me feel compelled to schedule an extra few minutes into my next workout. And I am not a calorie-counter.)

6. Thai chicken soup (tom kha gai), also from BIR. The lemongrass, the coconut milk, the sweat-inducing spice from the chiles and curry paste...I could eat this stuff every day.

7. Sweet potatoes: baked, in soups, in pies, anything. There's a mashed sweet potatoes with vanilla recipe in Restaurant Favorites that I also need to try. Cream, vanilla, butter, and the best vegetable ever. How could that go wrong?

8. Chowder. Specifically corn (with generous amounts of bacon) and clam. I was fairly addicted to this clam chowder last year.

9. Simple, one-dish meat and potato meals you stick in the oven and forget about, like this one. That was a good recipe. Also, braised beef with polenta and crusty bread. Lucky you, the beef recipe is on Google Books here.

10. A hundred variations on grilled cheese and only one (the best) cream of tomato soup. CI's 30-minute tomato soup, to be exact. I've tried their standard (more time-consuming) soup, too, and I think it has nothing on the quick one. I must have made this soup 100 times last year and never got the slightest bit sick of it. Below is my adaptation of the recipe.


Cream of Tomato Soup
adapted from Cook's Illustrated, Best 30-Minute Recipe
3 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes
3 c. Swanson low-sodium or homemade chicken broth, plus maybe a little more
2 bay leaves
2 Tbsp. butter
1 onion, minced
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 Tbsp. flour
1/3 c. heavy cream
2 tsp. dry sherry

1. Put the tomatoes one can at a time into a strainer set over a large bowl. Squeeze out as much juice as you can: ideally you'll get 2 cups after all the cans are strained. Add broth to equal 5 cups of liquid. Bring the broth /juice mixture with the bay leaves to a boil in a medium saucepan, then cover and keep warm.
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large pot or Dutch oven over high heat. Add the drained tomatoes, onion, brown sugar, tomato paste, and 1/2 tsp. salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes look dry and are beginning to brown, 10-12 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.
3. Slowly whisk or stir in the hot broth mixture. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes to blend flavors.
4. Remove the bay leaves, then puree the soup in batches in a blender. (With hot liquids it's best to remove the little plastic cap inside the lid, and cover the hole with a thickly folded dish towel under your hand.) Return pureed soup to the pot and stir in the cream and sherry. Bring it just to a simmer, then remove from heat, season with salt and cayenne pepper to taste, and serve. (Yield: 6 servings. If you want to make this a day or two ahead, don't add the cream and sherry until you reheat it before serving.)

"Focaccia? She's not here right now."

Today I came across this old (1987) NYT article in which the author recounts responses she got, like the one in this post's title, when phoning restaurants across the city in search of focaccia, which had just started to "make a dent" at the time. Funny to see her accurate prophecy about an increase in popularity. It reminded me I haven't yet made a single focaccia all summer, which should change this weekend.

This was bagel day, though, and thanks to a new baking sheet (actually old, just new to this purpose) that all but burned the bottoms of one batch meant to be given away, tomorrow will probably also be bagel day. Oh well. One of my experiments for this round was determining how many pans of bagel dough I can fit into my refrigerator on a normal day. Not really, but I did find that with some finagling I can do three batches at a time instead of just two.

The pan at the top is filled with egg bagels, which M had requested a while ago and I finally researched and made. Brown Eyed Baker, which is quickly moving to the top of my least obnoxious food blogs list*, has several posts on bagels, and the author actually had private correspondence with Peter Reinhart (I am starstruck) to find out what changes to make to his basic recipe in order to get egg bagels. Unlike BEB I used the Artisan Breads Everyday recipe I always do, but followed the same instructions for adding egg yolks and decreasing water. I had half of one while I was slicing and packaging the whole lot, mostly because I discovered too late that these were much softer and more fragile than regular bagels and so tore the first one apart while slicing. It didn't rock my world, but we'll see what the egg bagel connoisseur here thinks. That was really the only experiment; the other two batches are the same kind I've been making.


In other news, I think I found my heirloom tomato supplier for the rest of the summer at the Suwanee Farmers Market yesterday. I've never seen so many varieties of beautiful tomatoes. I only brought home a couple different kinds: the yellow brandywine I had in a salad was very nice, and I think Cherokee chocolate is the kind I found last summer and loved, so I also have a pound of those for tonight's dinner. Fresh tomatoes may just be worth suffering through a GA summer for. And that may be the most awkward sentence I have ever crafted.

* About food blogs and why I find them obnoxious: it's mostly because I can't simply handle them in their ubiquity and variety. Being as ADD as I am, if I read food blogs whenever I wanted I would a) never use the cookbooks I own, b) never use the cookbooks I check out from the library, c) never use the food I already bought for my "meal plan" (loosely so-called) that I meticulously map out with all sorts of frugal intentions at the beginning of the week, etc., etc. In short they are distracting and counterproductive for me because of my weakness. And I find that obnoxious. :)

Skillet pasta primavera

Dishes like these are why I love Cook's Illustrated. Creative (at least I wouldn't think of cooking pasta in a skillet), carefully thought out, balanced, delicious. I made this for lunch out of Cooking for Two 2010; M's only complaint was, "where's the meat?," which was a) expected and b) irrelevant. Protein is overrated. :) I think this dish was conceived as a vegetarian one, judging by the rare appearance of vegetable broth instead of CI's much-beloved low-sodium chicken broth (which I used instead). Some prosciutto or diced deli ham thrown in at the end would certainly work, but needless to say I loved this dish just as it was. I recently read that if I put a recipe's instructions in my own words, there aren't copyright problems, so I think it's safe to post it here. I did make some practical modifications as well (e.g. the original recipe has asparagus; I just upped the quantities of mushrooms and zucchini).

Skillet Pasta Primavera
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen's Cooking for Two 2010
Serves 2 generously

2 Tbsp. butter
1 zucchini (8-9 oz.), quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2" dice
2 1/4 cups water
4 oz. white mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 lb. bowtie or campanelle pasta (shape doesn't matter so much, just make sure it has a cooking time not much less than 14-15 minutes)
2 Tbsp. heavy cream
1/2 cup frozen peas (do not thaw)
1/4 cup fresh grated Parmiggiano
2 Tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

1. Melt 1 Tbsp of the butter over medium heat in a 12" nonstick skillet. Add the zucchini and 1/4 cup of the water with a pinch of salt, cover, and cook til zucchini is crisp-tender, 3-4 minutes. Uncover and cook just til tender and liquid is almost evaporated, 1-2 minutes more. Transfer zucchini to a medium bowl and cover with foil to keep warm.
2. Melt remaining Tbsp. butter in the empty skillet and add mushrooms with a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, til they've released their moisture and are golden brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer the mushrooms to the bowl with the zucchini and cover again.
3. Add the garlic to the empty pan and stir til just fragrant, about 30 seconds. Pour in the 2 cups water, broth, and 1/4 tsp. salt, then add the pasta. Increase heat to high and cook, stirring frequently, til pasta is tender and sauce has thickened, about 15-18 minutes. (You may need to decrease the heat toward the end if the liquid is evaporating too fast for the pasta to cook, but it needs to be at a rolling boil.)
4. Stir in the mushrooms and zucchini, cream, and frozen peas, and cook til veggies are heated through, about 1 minute. Off heat, add the Parmesan, basil, and lemon juice, and check seasonings. Serve immediately.

Kale (belated, for Rachel)

My master gardener friend Rachel pulled some (red Russian?) kale out of her backyard for me when I was there last month, and I enjoyed experimenting with it. Actually I did a pretty typical greens routine with it----boiled about 10 minutes til tender, drained well, and then lightly sauteed in oil with garlic and pepper flakes---but it was very tasty.

Before:

After:

I wish I could garden. Maybe I would eat vegetables more.

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.

Miscellanies

* For anyone who's wondering, I'm afraid the new unsweetened chocolate in an 8 oz bag for $1.99 at Trader Joe's...tastes like $0.25/oz chocolate. Surprise! I think the combination of irresistible price + fancy shape (they are little disks, 6 to an ounce) drew me in against my better judgment. I'm no chocolate connoisseur, but Trader Joe's' Pound Plus bars ($5/17.6 oz) seem to me to be much better chocolate than this; they're actually rumored to be supplied by Callebaut, a fine Belgian chocolate company. So these new unsweetened disks are cheaper per ounce even than the Pound Plus chocolate with less cocoa butter (which is where the money's at in chocolate, if I understand correctly). I should have done the math more carefully. Alas, buyer beware.

* Tonight for dinner I was going to try what looked like a fantastic eggplant-mozzarella roll recipe from CI's Restaurant Favorites at Home. I couldn't find smoked mozzarella, though I know I bought some a few months ago at Kroger and even made a trip to Trader Joe's confident that they'd have some. But that was a minor obstacle compared to the disgusting dilemma presented by the eggplant itself. I'd have preferred to buy it at one of the farmer's markets, but I wasn't going anywhere near them, so I tried to pick out a nice looking one at Kroger. On the outside it was spotless, but when I sliced down the middle getting ready for dinner tonight, there was a large black and furry mass, for lack of a better word, inside the seed cavity on one side that had "bled" over into the other side a bit. I did a Google images search for sliced eggplant, hoping against hope, but no, neither black nor furry seems to be a normal occurrence inside an eggplant. Plan B was a simple tomato sauce I had made for the same recipe earlier, over fresh (storebought) pasta with ciabatta and a Caesar salad. Boring, but it could have been worse. Like whipping the egg whites for your cheese souffle to perfect peaks, only to unwrap the cheese and find it rotten. Or something like that.


* I've been spending as much of the day as possible immersed in Spanish, with a little housework interspersed to keep my restless self from going crazy, and I can't afford to lose myself in cookbooks planning elaborate baking projects for the day, so stuff like the chocolate blackout cake happens instead. Five-minute pudding (the recipe in a previous post); an easy cake with coffee, chocolate, and buttermilk, which are as good as pantry staples around here; and an extra half hour's oven time after my bread was done baking. Since I throw everything possible into the dishwasher and have no qualms about running it twice a day when necessary, clean-up doesn't take long. The cake itself is fine, though it probably needed a couple more minutes of baking time; it's a little too moist and sticky, and so fell apart a little when I was halving it into layers. But it's something sweet that will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, which was all I was after.

Pork vindaloo: funny name, serious stew*

*(with apologies to Schlotzsky's.)

This week I cooked Indian food for the first time ever. I've shied away from it up til now, because truth be told I haven't really ever eaten Indian food. I don't think the Amy's frozen meals my erstwhile vegetarian sister (coincidentally also named Amy) introduced us to should count. I was going to go Chinese with the Boston butt I bought, but I didn't plan so well and ended up having to go with this pantry-friendly recipe I had copied out of CI's Best Meat Recipe a few months ago.

Completely new to me, pork vindaloo is a moderately spicy Indian pork stew with some sort of Portugese ancestry as well. I was missing two spices called for by this recipe, cardamom and mustard seeds, but between the cumin, cayenne, and tremendous amount of aromatics (3 onions and 8 garlic cloves) I figured I'd be okay with those omissions. (To any Indian cooks reading, don't make fun of me, but I stirred in a little Dijon in a half-hearted attempt to make up for the mustard seeds. I can't help it, I'm increasingly of the persuasion that Dijon makes everything better. Strange indeed from someone who thought it tasted like pungent old shoes that made your nose hurt up til a couple years ago.)

I made the stew in the morning, as it takes about half an hour of stovetop cooking, then 2 hours (with no stirring or shifting or checking!) in a 300 degree oven. The no stirring etc. part is rare for CI recipes, so I was elated to see that for once I could forget about the kitchen and get on with other things during those two hours. I reheated it for dinner and served it over a rice pilaf with shallot and a touch of cinnamon, and this green bean dish (which is easily decreased by a third to make just enough for two side servings). Everything was delicious. The stew I definitely want to try again with the mustard seeds, as I think they'd add some necessary heat. Flavor-wise even with my omissions (and amateur addition) it was very good. I also don't know why I don't make rice pilaf more often: it's about 2% more difficult than throwing rice directly into boiling water, and so much tastier. The green beans---wow. I really wasn't sure how such a Southern staple vegetable would taste in the coconut milk and spices, but it worked, majorly. I'd call this first foray into Indian cooking (whether or not it may be judged authentic) a success.

week(s) in review

Beef stroganoff

Saturday I made sort of a Russian-French fusion dinner that came out very well. The stroganoff, which I mixed two CI recipes to get, did not look great color-wise but tasted just fine with the egg noodles (and, by the way, now I realize there is a huge difference between real egg noodles and the No Yolks brand...). Probably the star of that meal was the braised leeks, recipe in my ATK 2009 cookbook: I had no idea what to expect besides a vaguely onion-ish flavor, but it was so much more. And so very easy and quick. We loved them. The cheese blintzes for dessert (CI Best International Recipe) were nice, even if I decided after a few bites that I just cannot do sweet cheese made with farmer's cheese (and I'm definitely glad I didn't substitute ricotta as the recipe suggested—it's like the texture of farmer's cheese times 10). The cherry sauce worked pretty well, and I'm just glad I have a good crepe recipe I can fit to any occasion or filling. Also make-ahead by definition.

Leeks to be braised---didn't get a during or after photo because they were so quick, and covered half the time.

 Sweet cheese blinchiki with cherry sauce

One night I pulled some split chicken breasts out of the freezer and pan-roasted them with a sauce. I love the concept of roasting a small amount of chicken and then making a pan sauce while it rests, even if my chicken seems always to take much longer than the original recipe indicated. I made a white wine and parsley sauce that night, then served with arugula salad and mashed potatoes. And bread. I do believe I am close to perfecting my ciabatta. Except for like every sixth time when the dough does that weird seize-up and becomes more like bagel dough, which it did this last batch. I just can't figure it out. I weigh both flour and water now (and realized that both my main liquid measuring cups are off by like an ounce or two if you go by the volume measurement!). But at least I don't do anything so stupid as throw the dough out in frustration...now I know that it still makes beyond decent bread, just not that light and airy delight that comes out when the dough is properly wet.

I made a lemon chess pie complete with a rolled out crust using 3 Tbsp shortening and 4 Tbsp butter, from an ATK cookbook I had out from the library. The filling was pretty good, if guilt-inducing even for me with another full stick of butter, tons of sugar and 5 eggs and blah blah blah. But the crust was not even remotely worth the calories. Don't know what the deal was there. Rachel gave me some lard that I will have to try in lieu of shortening the next time I'm up for pie...which may not be far off.

I made some delectable butter with the expensive but totally-worth-it pasteurized cream from Dekalb Farmers Market last week; put about 2/3 of it in the freezer as salted parsley butter for dishes, and we're about to finish the little roll I salted and put in the fridge for bread. Delicious.

One one class night, I made fried eggs and put them on toasted and buttered English muffins, serving with the warm spinach salad with bacon I've made so many times. It was good, though M does insist on having his yolks runny, which is not the safest...tsk tsk.

Last weekend I made Latin chicken and rice with roasted red peppers. It was okay. The rice was a tad crunchy, as it usually is with that dish when I make it—you'd think I could figure out how to fix that already! Probably should add a little more water and remove the chicken and let the rice cook longer. Duh. I also don't like using dark meat per the recipe because then you have to remove it from the bone, and with the dark red sauce you can't see exactly what you're doing, so inevitably some bits of nasty fat or bone get in and you have to spit them out and ahh, gross. But I used my birthday gift of piment d'espelette instead of paprika and it tasted pretty good in there. I sound like such an unrefined hick, yep. Avocados as garnish were indispensable; probably saved the dish, really.

I had to reheat the leftovers Sunday night but with them made a terrific corn chipotle soup, the only downside of which was having to throw out all the solids after I pureed it with my immersion blender, which maybe didn't get it finely pureed enough? I'll try the regular blender next time. But the strained liquid (i.e. the soup, hah) was extremely good, and went well with the chicken and rice. Recipe here.

Friday afternoon I cooked up beef shepherd's pie from CI's Best Make-Ahead Recipe for a family with a new baby. I thought it came out pretty well. I omitted the small amount of red wine that went in with the broth, because I wasn't sure about the rules on alcohol while nursing. I also used mostly Pacific beef broth, which I had just opened a couple days earlier, rather than chicken broth, since how could beef broth not work with a beef stew sort of dish? While making this I finally learned my lesson about making great mashed potatoes, and it goes like this: 1. Add cream. I never really knew what I was doing when I made mashed potatoes, messing around with sour cream which seeems to make them dry-ish, or adding sissy amounts of milk or maybe half-and-half. Forget it, you only live once. I'm making mine like this from now on. Also they had me mash them over low heat in the saucepan in which I had boiled them (3/4” slices of russets)---maybe that helped the texture be much smoother than mine normally are?  The best part was that I had a little bit leftover of everything the next day so I made it again for us for lunch. M was impressed, said it wasn't what he remembered shepherd's pie to be growing up, however he had it then. I'll definitely try it again following the recipe exactly with wine and chicken broth, though.

Monday after lunch at Emily's I went to the legendary Patak. It was pretty cool. We already polished off the smoked turkey breast for sandwiches, which I think was laced with some sort of green herb and just meltingly tender and tasty. We had half the smoked salmon tonight, which sadly has gone up in price to $10 from $4/lb (which was what their website says), but it was so delicious. With that I made creamed spinach, and it was fine though the last couple times I've made it the sauce has seized up on me before I add the spinach, so it never really blends right...I don't know what that's about.

weekend cooking

Friday M went back to work and I had him home for dinner, but I don't remember what we did—something snacky as usual. I think I had cake for dinner. The Bundt cake actually got better with age, up until a certain point (like maybe 4 days). It had moments of tasting like a chocolate cake donut. That was a keeper for the make-ahead dessert file for sure.

Friday/Saturday I made bagels for breakfast, trying the cinnamon raisin variety for the first time. That batch of dough took much longer to pass the float test for some reason, and I had some difficulty mixing it the night before. I was kind of surprised the cinnamon went right into the dough when mixing it the day before, since I remember reading in the King Arthur baking book that cinnamon and yeast don't do well together (something about cinnamon having slightly antimicrobial properties that work against the microbes that make up the yeast). But both they and the plain ones came out very well indeed.

I made a quiche lorraine and roasted some frozen Brussels sprouts for dinner. Brussels sprouts make the house smell so bad, and I would definitely prefer making fresh over frozen, but they were pretty good roasted with a little bacon fat and olive oil mixed.