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.

Babka saga finale

Don't ask why I dragged this out into three installments, when it was an easy one-afternoon project. As I've observed with other eastern European delicacies, the dough itself is only slightly sweet (it's hard to taste any sweetness in it at all with a sugar-loaded American palate like mine). But contrasted with the chocolate it's wonderful. Peter doesn't give very specific instructions for baking for each way that you can shape the bread (loaf, coffee-cake style in a tube pan, or braided like this), so FWIW, my kranz-style loaf took 40 minutes (rotated once halfway through) to reach the desired 185 degree internal temp. Some of the edges burned just slightly, but nothing too bad. I am so glad I finally made this bread. Half of it did indeed go to the neighbors, so we'll see what the verdict is on authenticity/overall deliciousness from an objective third party. :) Next up (after moving!): Polish poppyseed roll. I still have to decide on a recipe for that one...

Babka saga part II

While the first rise was finishing I made the filling:

Herr Reinhart says to grind the chocolate in a food processor, or if you don't have one, chop it as small as possible. This was my best effort. (The lighter stuff is the cinnamon). We'll see how it works.

This is the chocolate I used. The price is right, and the flavor is oh so wrong. In the right way.

This is the filling once the butter has been added to the chopped chocolate and cinnamon. Do you know how much restraint it took me not to eat this as is?

And this is the soft pillowy dough rolled out to the size of a small car, ready to be rolled up jellyroll style and rocked gently to about 18" in length. Since my loaf pans are packed away I opted to make my bread kranz-cake (Israeli) style, which means braided. I think it's prettier this way too, even though my braid is a little too loose, so I'm hoping the chocolate doesn't start falling out of the bread and melting everywhere when it bakes.

I am now waiting on the second rise to finish, at which point I will bake the bread...

Just kidding!

Today, some nine days before moving, against the common sense which would dictate focusing my energies on things like packing, or even just sitting down and thinking through logistics, I was overcome with the need to make, at long last, Peter Reinhart's chocolate cinnamon babka. Why I have waited so long, having owned this magnificent book for two years, I cannot tell. If it comes out well it might make a proper goodbye gift to our Polish neighbors who have been the best neighbors anyone could ask for; if it comes out poorly, well, it will be preparation for when I move into a house with a gas oven. *mournful sigh* I seriously am not sure what effect that will have on my baking mojo (what mojo I have), because all I hear is that electric ovens are so much more reliable, so much better for bread baking (because the heat is less dry, which makes for better crusts), etc., etc. I have never had gas appliances of any kind and frankly gas scares me. I think of it as "the silent killer." No offense to heart disease which I think is what rightfully claims that title. I will probably have five carbon monoxide detectors in our 2000 sq ft house. I exaggerate, but the uncertainty of how things will go with this new oven makes me want to especially cherish this my last (for real---I am packing away the mixer this weekend!) baking project in the apartment.

And as a special last-baking-project-ever-for-now feature, I am going to take pictures at each step of the way like any self-respecting food blogger normally does.

Cream the butter and the sugar just til mixed.

Mixing in action. (I never promised the photos would be any good.)

Once the four egg yolks are added the dough becomes a lovely golden yellow.

And that is where we find ourselves: I kneaded the dough (what a dream to knead--soft as a pillow) for a couple of minutes after adding the flour, milk, and yeast to the butter-egg yolk mixture, and now I await the end of the first 2 1/2 hour rise. As an aside, the recipe calls for 2 Tablespoons of yeast, which is a huge amount for one (albeit large) loaf. I was a little worried about it being a typo and having the dough explode while it sits out for two hours at room temp, so we'll see. 

move in progress

Dinner is going to look a little more like this for a while, so after a baking marathon today, I don't know how much cooking I'll be doing for a couple of weeks...

Chicken pocket pies

I was hooked on cream cheese pastry the first time I encountered it in a Cook's Country quiche Lorraine recipe. I have a very poor track record when it comes to successfully making "regular" pie crusts, whether all-butter, a mixture of butter and shortening, or (my most successful combination) butter and lard. I hate rolling out dough and I either add too much water or not enough--you would think this would be easy enough to recognize and rectify, but apparently I am missing some brain cells that help normal people deal with such things. So often I've ended up smushing the dough into the pie plate, which at best makes it shrink and at worst makes it tough. Sometimes it turns out passably, but it always tries my patience to the limit.

It is a much happier story when I use a combination of butter and cream cheese (and in this case, a little heavy cream), because the dough comes out uniformly moist, soft, and extremely forgiving of novice handling. How forgiving? Well, when I last made these pocket pies, I left out 1/2 cup of flour and didn't realize it until I had the two disks neatly wrapped and ready to chill in the fridge. I had to unwrap them, mix in the remaining flour, and rewrap them. Guess what? They were still perfect. Not a hint of toughness.

This recipe is adapted from Lucinda Scala Quinn's Mad Hungry. The last time I made them I tried using fennel leftover from the stuffed squash. It made the kitchen smell positively glorious and tasted terrific. I've also subbed blue cheese for the Parmesan, keeping the original carrot/onion/celery trio (just do about 1/3 cup of each, chopped). This is about as make-ahead as a recipe can get, designed to be kept on hand in the freezer, and it's a pretty quick process all told. They make the perfect fall lunch with a nice seasonal salad.

Chicken pocket pies with fennel and Parmesan
Yield: 10 mini-pies
adapted from Mad Hungry, by Lucinda Scala Quinn

For the filling:
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 5 oz)
2 tsp. vegetable oil
1/3 c. water
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 c. onion, minced
1/2 c. fennel, diced small
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. fresh thyme, minced, or a pinch dried
2 Tbsp. flour
1 1/4 c. low-sodium chicken broth (if not low-sodium, reduce sea salt to 1/4 tsp)
1/4 c. fresh grated Parmesan
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

1. In a small skillet, heat the oil over med-high until shimmering. Pat the chicken breast dry, season with salt and pepper, and place in the hot skillet. Cook til lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Flip chicken, add the water, cover, and reduce heat to low. Cook until chicken registers 160 on a thermometer, about 7-10 mins. Remove to a plate to cool, then shred into bite-size pieces with two forks and/or your hands. You should have 1 heaping cup of chicken.

2. Meanwhile, in a 10" skillet melt the butter. Add the onion and fennel and saute til softened and lightly browned, 4-5 mins. Stir in the salt, thyme, and flour and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Slowly stir or whisk in the broth. Bring to a simmer and cook til thickened, about 2 mins. Off heat, stir in the chicken, Parmesan, and lemon juice. Transfer to a bowl and chill in the refrigerator at least til at room temperature.

For the pastry:
8 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 c. heavy cream
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups + 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
(for egg wash)
1 egg
1 Tbsp. water

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl til combined. Add the cream and (this is why you want a large bowl, because it splatters) beat til combined. Add the flour and salt and beat on low until a ball of dough forms.

2. Divide the dough into two pieces and wrap in plastic, forming into disks as you do so. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight (if you have it in the fridge more than a few hours, let it sit on the counter for 15 minutes before trying to roll it out).

To assemble:
1. Lightly flour a work surface and a rolling pin. Working with one disk of dough at a time, roll out the disks to about 12" in diameter. Using an overturned bowl that measures about 5-6" across, cut out 3 circles per disk. Gather the scraps and re-roll once more, cutting out more circles.

2. Place a scant 1/4 cup of chicken filling off-center on a dough circle. Wet edges of dough and fold to form a half-moon shape, pinching the edges to seal and then crimping sealed edge with a fork. Repeat with remaining dough circles and filling.

3. If freezing for later use, place pocket pies in a single layer on a large plate or baking sheet, then transfer to freezer for several hours, until frozen solid. At this point you can dump them all into one freezer bag and keep them in the freezer up to a month or so. If serving immediately, place pocket pies on a large plate and chill in the fridge for 15 minutes. Preheat your oven to 375. Brush the tops of the pocket pies with the egg wash and prick twice with the tines of a fork. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Let rest 5 minutes before serving. If baking from the freezer, do not thaw; brush with egg wash and bake 25-30 minutes or til golden brown. (It's probably a good idea to prick them with a fork halfway through baking.)

Spicy sweet potato coconut soup

Last winter I was flipping through Parade for the only reason I ever flip through Parade: the inspiring celebrity interviews. Not. I look through it in case of coupons (once I got one for a free McDonald's coffee drink that wasn't half bad) and throw it out, disdainfully passing over any other content---especially the awful recipes "developed" by the latest celebrity with a cookbook. Not even celebrity chefs, just celebrities who used their image to "write" useless cookbooks that might make them some much-needed extra cash... Anyway, once last year there was a column with recipes from Bobby Flay, who is legit enough for me, and since this soup was based on my favorite fall vegetable, I made it. I recall my husband enthusiastically approving it, while I was more mild in my praise, only noting beside the recipe that it "had potential." So last week I found myself with sweet potatoes and cool-ish weather, and thought I'd try and develop that potential.

Probably the biggest mistake I made the first time around was substituting light coconut milk. This time I thought I'd just try adding less full-fat coconut milk, which I could always increase if needed, and I found that 2/3 the original amount did the trick.

Spicy Sweet Potato-Coconut Soup
Yield: about 6 first-course servings
adapted from Bobby Flay

2 1/2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, divided
1 small onion, diced small
1 (2") piece fresh ginger, grated
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
3 cups chicken stock or low-sodium canned chicken broth
1/2 c. water
1 to 1 1/2 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large dice, plus 1/2 of a small sweet potato, peeled and diced small, divided
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp. finely chopped cilantro
1 c. coconut milk (do not substitute light; Chaokoh and Thai Kitchen are my favorite brands)
1 Tbsp. honey
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp. butter

1. Heat 1 1/2 Tbsp. of the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute the onion and ginger paste until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the 1/4 tsp. pepper flakes and cook just til fragrant, then stir in stock and water. Bring to a boil, then add the diced sweet potatoes. Simmer until potatoes are soft, about 20-30 mins depending on how large you cut them. (I hate cutting sweet potatoes so my cubes tend to be big and take at least 25 mins.)

2. Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 Tbsp. of oil with the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Saute the 1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes til fragrant, then add the small diced sweet potato. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally until softened, about 15 minutes. Uncover and increase heat to medium-high. Stirring often, brown potatoes on all sides, about 5-7 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl, season with salt and pepper, and stir in the cilantro.

3. After letting the hot potato/stock mixture cool for 5 minutes, transfer to a blender in batches and puree. Return to the empty saucepan and add the coconut milk, honey, and cinnamon; simmer on low til slightly thickened and warmed through. Season to taste, adding more pepper flakes or salt if needed. Serve with the diced potato relish.