Oh Nuts.

Someone told me recently that people are more emotional on airplanes than they are in regular on-land life because of effects from the altitude and pressurized cabin.  I think I believe it. I’m much more likely to cry at a particularly compelling novel (or magazine article) at 30,000 feet. Not that I don’t do that on land. I mean, I get teary at television commercials. There’s a reason I work in the business. I like to think it’s because I’m highly empathetic…but maybe I’m just a great, huge sap. 

Anyhow, here I am on another airplane, composing yet another overdue blog post. Channeling emotions and all that. I got upgraded, and I’d be lying if I said the free wine wasn’t helping. 

The other day, by which I mean several weeks ago, I was tasked with making dessert for a dinner party in honor of some good friends from college who were in town. 

Lately, dessert presents a bit of a problem. In addition to needing to limit sugar, regular flour is not an option. (Ugh.  I decided to rebel and I ate a flour burrito tortilla a few weeks ago and I really, really regretted it. I won’t get into details – let’s just say the reaction was...systemic. Lesson learned.) As if the sugar-flour thing wasn't tricky enough, many winter-seasonal fruits are also not an option. And last time I checked, it was still winter. Basically, I've got chocolate and nuts on my side. And cream. 

I don't know if maybe you have picked up on this but sometimes I like to make things as hard for myself as possible. I will always pick a near-impossible challenge over a moderate challenge. The more impossible something seems, the more I want it and the harder I try.  

Yes, this might have something to do with why I'm currently single. 

As if figuring out what dessert to make wasn't challenging enough with those restrictions, Kristin and Chris were bringing fresh ravioli to the table and I thought it would be nice to have an Italian-ish dessert. 

After combing several cookbooks and sites, I happened upon this Chocolate Almond Torte recipe from Bon Appetit.

That's right. I found a chocolate flourless cake that didn't seem like it would cook up into a giant piece of fudge. This felt like what I imagine hitting the jackpot would feel like, except that has never happened to me, so I don't really know. 

And I got excited. 

Kate's Chocolate-Almond-Orange Torte

adapted from Bon Appetit

Serves 12ish 

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups blanched slivered almonds
1 cup sugar
8 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) chocolate, chopped
5 large eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, cooled
1/4 teaspoon salt

Man, I love zest. Almost as much as I love my Microplane grater.

Topping: 

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons Grand Marnier 

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides. Combine almonds and 1/3 cup sugar in processor. Blend until almonds are very finely ground. 

Transfer almond mixture to medium bowl; do not clean processor. Add chocolate and 1/3 cup sugar to processor.  Blend until chocolate is finely ground but not beginning to clump, about 45 seconds; stir into almond mixture. 

Using electric mixer, beat egg yolks and remaining 1/3 cup sugar in large bowl until mixture falls in heavy ribbon when beaters are lifted, about 5 minutes. 

I swear it was a "heavy ribbon," not a "sad drip" but I just couldn't capture it on the camera.

Beat in almond extract and lemon peel. Fold in chocolate-almond mixture, then butter.

Using clean, dry beaters, beat egg whites and salt in another large bowl until stiff but not dry. 

Stiff peaks!

Fold whites into chocolate batter in three additions. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Yeah. The batter looks pretty gross. Have faith.

Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 40 minutes.

Cool cake completely in pan on rack. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; store at room temperature.) Cut around pan sides to loosen; release sides. 

Combine cream, Grand Marnier, and granulated sugar and whip until soft peaks form. Dollop on individual slices of cake, or, if your sous chef is a 3 year old, let her "frost" the cake. 

Forgot to snap a pic before we served everyone. Oops.

There you go. The only thing I will do differently next time will be to grind the almonds even finer. This was a little...toothy. 

Social Loafing

I never use my loaf pan. I use the other baking pans all the time - the cookie sheets and the muffin tins, and even the tart pan and the springforms. But the loaf pan just sits there, forlorn, in the cabinet high above the stove, waiting for its day. Patiently waiting. And waiting.

Well, my little loaf pan's day arrived on July 4. (Again, catching up on these blog posts!)

On the last airplane I was on, I ran across a recipe for Zucchini Cornbread in my July issue of Bon Appetit that looked absolutely delicious. I really love any and all corn-based items, and zucchini is one of my summer-favorite veggies (probably because Mom always made such delicious sauteed zucchini for us growing up). I was intrigued by the summery combination of these two ingredient loves. 

Fresh summer zucchini.

But, it was a loaf. Not charming little muffins or little cakes. A whole loaf. The problem with the loaf is that...well, I live alone. I need not eat an entire loaf of anything. Ever. 

Luckily, I was headed to a 4th of July potluck party where there would be many mouths to feed. The perfect time for a little social loafing. (Yes, that is a social psychology pun. Sorry.)

Zucchini Cornbread

Yield: Makes a whole freakin' loaf

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter plus more for pan
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 large zucchini (about 10 ounces) - as you can see, I used two smaller zucchinis and just weighed them to be sure I had about 10 ounces
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup medium-grind cornmeal

Directions

Position a rack in the middle of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter a 9x5x3" loaf pan.

Melt 1/2 cup butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat.

  

The recipe cannot be bad if it starts like this.

Continue cooking until butter solids at bottom of pan turn golden brown, about 3 minutes.

Scrape butter into a medium bowl. Set aside and let cool. 

It's hard to describe how good this smells. A little bit like fried chicken, only cleaner and maybe a bit nuttier. It smells like delicious. The brown butter is absolutely the trick to this recipe. I must start using brown butter more often when I bake and cook.

Whisk in eggs and buttermilk. (This was boring so I didn't take a picture.)

Trim zucchini ends. Thinly slice five 1/8" rounds from 1 end of zucchini and reserve for garnish. Coarsely grate remaining zucchini. Add to bowl with butter mixture and stir until well blended.

Sift both flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda into a large bowl. Whisk in cornmeal. Add zucchini mixture; fold just to blend (mixture will be very thick).

I love that this recipe doesn't require the mixer. Recipes that just require a whisk and a wooden spoon make me happy.

Transfer batter to prepared pan and smooth top. (It's easier said than done to smooth the top, by the way.) Place reserved zucchini slices atop batter down center in a single layer.

 

Next time I'll brush the zucchini slices with a little melted butter so they brown more nicely.

Bake bread until golden and a tester inserted into center comes out clean, 55-65 minutes.

 

I think it's so funny how that one zucchini slice on the right just refused to stay in line. There's always one, right?

Let cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan; let cool completely on a wire rack. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Store airtight at room temperature. 

This was as tasty as I had hoped. We put the plate of it, sliced, out on the buffet table before the meat was done on the grill. And by the time the meat was done, the cornbread was gone. 

I'm definitely making this again. Maybe just for myself next time.

You CAN Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

You can poach an egg in the microwave.

!

WHY has this been kept secret for so long?

I am never, ever poaching eggs the traditional swirly-water, drops of vinegar, barely bubble, toil and trouble way again. It takes longer, it's messier, and half the white gets lost in the process.

Plus, with this new way there are no pots to wash - just a mug and a dish to throw in the dishwasher. This is my kind of recipe.

Here's the trick:

1. Put one half-cup of water in a coffee mug. Yes, you should measure it. This is science, people.

If you couldn't visualize this, you might want to reconsider trying this recipe.

2. Crack an egg into it, being careful not to break the yolk on the shell.

Success!

3. Let it sit undisturbed for a minute so that the egg is totally submerged. Just a minute.

4. Place the mug in the microwave and put a small plate on top of it.

5. Cook on high for a minute or so. This part you will need to play with a bit depending on the wattage of your own personal nuker. In my not-super-powerful microwave, 1 minute makes a perfect runny poached egg, 1:15 makes a perfect soft-boiled poached egg, and 1:30 makes a tender but fully-cooked yolk (ideal for pushing through a sieve to make Asparagus Mimosa because it is so much more tender than your typical hard-boiled egg).

6. Use a slotted spoon to remove the egg from the mug and voila!

Served over a recipe I'll write about soon...I swear.

Credits for this trick go to this recipe. Merci beaucoup Bon Appetit!

Hey, It Worked for Me When The Subject Was Moby Dick

Can someone please explain to me what the hell happened to the entire month of April?

I can't believe it's May. And not even the beginning of May. Pretty much mid-May. In my head it's still March. I was walking home from work today and for a moment, I actually thought it was March. Concerning.

Sorry, dear readers, about the lack of posts last month. I got a new job, quit my old one, took a vacation, and then started the new job. I've been traveling to glamorous places (Wisconsin! Las Vegas!) each week since I started the new gig.

Despite being busy and out of town a bunch, I actually did a lot of cooking, so I'm going to give you the Cliffs Notes version of April 2011, all in one handy blog post. If it was good enough in high school...

Christine and Kevin hosted a cocktail party competition to determine the signature drink for their wedding.

Many options to choose from!

I'm not much of a cocktail maker, so I volunteered to make the snacks. I read this great recipe in one of my old Martha cookbooks that used muffins as the bread of a sandwich. That lady is so smart! I made muffins in my new-ish muffin pans using a bunch of fresh (oranges from the farm box) and dried (apricots, cranberries) fruit that I had on hand. 

You can't tell from the picture on the Sur La Table site, but the finish on the pans is actually pretty dark. And in my bottom-heated gas oven, by the time the muffins were fully-baked, they were also burned.

Crap. Effing nonstick muffin pans. 

Once I tossed those which most closely resembled Kingsford charcoal briquets, I had a few fewer muffins than I'd hoped for. Luckily, not all of them were inedibly burnt. Some were just, er, medium-well done. This isn't the first time this has happened with these pans. But it is the last. Bye bye muffin pans. Next time I won't cheap out and will suck it up and get those Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch ones. They are supposedly the bees' knees, according to my trusted equipment advisors at America's Test Kitchen.

Despite the charring, the sandwiches actually came out pretty well. I love this idea and am looking forward to making other muffin-and-sandwich-filling combos. I think my cheddar and green onion savory muffins would be delish with turkey and a chipotle spread...

These were little ham sandwiches on orange-apricot-cranberry muffins, with spicy whole grain mustard. They were a huge hit with all my ham-loving friends. HAM!

Mini muffin sandwiches weren't going to cut it in terms of soaking up cocktails, so I also made a caramelized onion and blue cheese rustic tart.

For this, I splurged on some Dufour puff pastry. It is made with real butter and it is incredibly rich and indulgent. The tart ended up being pretty salty but it made a nice counterpoint to the mostly-sweet cocktails. 

For the third and final snack item, I made some roast beef and avocado mini-sandwiches on the Acme Bread herb slab. They were unexpectedly outstanding. The combination of the beef and the super-lemony avocado spread was a hit - everyone gobbled them up (including me). They were so good I was actually craving them afterward and made them again two weekends later for an Easter picnic. They are perfect picnic fare.

But that wasn't all. The cocktail competition was the night before Meredith's birthday so I made an apple cake to celebrate. Why apple cake? In truth, I had a ton of apples in my fridge from various farm boxes over the course of the spring and I needed a way to use them up!

So many apples!

 Because the recipe was kind of like a tarte tatin, it was built in the pan upside down.

First, the brown sugar-butter layer was smoothed across the bottom of the pan.

Apple slices added. 

Batter poured over the top and baked until golden brown.

The pan had to cool for fifteen minutes.

Then we came to the moment of truth.

I put that yellow serving plate upside down over the top of the cake and then flipped the whole thing to invert the cake on the plate. Then I prayed to God that it would unmold in one piece.

And it did! Voila! I am a baking genius! No, seriously, ridiculous arrogance aside, this was a real and true moment of culinary joy for me. Sometimes I find baked goods to be incredibly fickle - especially the first time I'm trying a recipe - and I could not have been happier that this ended up so beautifully. I'm fine with ugly food when it's just for me, but for a birthday-cake-like item, I just think the food should look a little more like a gift and a little less like a pile of slop.

This was adapted from this Bon Appetit recipe. I served it with gingered whipped cream and added extra ginger to the batter as one of the birthday girl's favorite ingredients is ginger. I would absolutely repeat this receipt and am already looking forward to Fall's apple bounty.

I love it when food is this beautiful.

The birthday festivities continued on Sunday with a mango tart, from this Gourmet recipe, because mango and coconut are two more of the birthday girl's favorites.

This doesn't look like much, but it was highly delicious. Another keeper recipe. It's actually really light because the mousse is thickened with unflavored gelatin, making it the perfect brunch dessert. I topped it with diced fresh mango. The crust is coconut, which has a nice crunch. I think this is a perfect special treat for Spring. 

I wasn't kidding about having a lot of apples, either. After that apple cake was done, I made applesauce with even more apples that I had in the fridge. It's so easy, and this is a great basic recipe. (I failed to photograph it but it looked just like normal chunky applesauce so just use your imagination for this one.) Seriously, applesauce is idiot-proof. And tastes 1000% better than the stuff you buy in a store.

Unfortunately, the recipe makes about four cups of applesauce. That's about three and a half cups more than I'd want to eat. A search for recipes using applesauce turned up this gem from Martha (God bless her and her perfect baked good recipes).

I brought the cake into work (my old job) on my second-to-last day as a going away/thank you gift for my lovely co-workers. They were the kind of people who made me laugh hard every day at work, and for that, I thought they at least deserved a little cake. It got fairly well eaten up before I got to snap a picture of it. This recipe is seriously great, with plenty of moisture and a chewy, not-too-dense crumb. It's a fantastic breakfast cake. And if you ask me, there's not enough breakfast cake in life.

Before taking off for Monterey, I hosted a little cocktail party at my place so my Dad and Stepmom could meet my friends. It was a good time, and because we were busy doing touristy things that day, I just pulled together a few oldie-but-goodie recipes to feed the masses.  I didn't even photograph them because you've seen or heard of them before: White Bean Dip, Spicy Spinach Dip, a couple of platters of cheeses and cured meats and fruits, my classic guacamole recipe, some olives, some nuts, and assorted chips and crackers.

Then we took off for Monterey, where this guy greeted us for the happy hour glasses of wine we had while overlooking the water. He reminds me so much of my Sammy the Seagull print from Wayne Pate, and of Scully the Seagull who like to perch outside my kitchen window in Boston.

Easter arrived just days later. Last year I made Easter Bunny Biscotti, which was just as tasty as I remembered from my childhood. This year, I planned to make the biscotti again along with the Easter Lamb Cake that Nana always made.

As you can see, the Easter Lamb got off to a bad start as it got stuck in the mold (despite my buttering and flouring every bit of it). Rats.

I thought I could cement the little lamby together with frosting and toothpicks - like a day camp art project or something - but no dice.

Still life with semi-lamb-shaped coconut cake.

Allow me to provide you with another angle of the carnage.

Massive baking fail. It's hard not to make a sacrificial lamb joke here, but I will dig deep for self control and refrain.

I firmly believe that one of the secrets to success in life is knowing when to cut your losses. And it was not hard to figure out that time had come to lay the lamb cake to rest. And that the bunny biscotti was just not in the cards.

Trying to salvage my last few hours of effort, I decided to just repeat the cake I'd made - in cupcake form. The coconut cake itself was truly delicious - I used Ina's recipe from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and paired it with the coconut cream cheese frosting that she also uses as a companion to the cake.

I scrapped the lamb (we ate it while dyeing Easter Eggs that night) and baked up some coconut mini cupcakes, which I frosted with either pink or yellow cream cheese frosting and made little green grass nests (sweetened flaked coconut mixed with a few drops of green food coloring), topped with a few "Easter eggs" (Jelly Belly jellybeans). I'm so happy with how they turned out. They tasted fantastic and looked super cute. 

I love this.

 While I worked on the cupcakes, Mer and CC and Nell dyed eggs.

The mugs have dye. We tried to match the tablets to the mugs but the Paas dye tablets are often quite stealthy and appear quite different when dry than when dissolved. So it was a little confusing... We discovered that a chilled, dry rosé was a lovely accompaniment to the process. Definitely a new tradition.

And then it was Easter. And I got sick. Disgustingly snottily sick. I went through three large boxes of Kleenex. In a single day. I sounded awful and looked worse. I was so sick that I missed my first day of work at my new job. I don't think I've had that ugly a cold in at least five years. Such a bummer. So glad it's over!

And that whirlwind, my friends, was April. 

Putting the Fun in Fungi

Farm box surprises are so much fun. Last week I got a container of these:

I had no idea what kind of mushroom they were, so I looked them up. Trumpet!

I saw them this morning in the fridge when I was rooting around for the peanut butter and decided I would make something with them tonight.

A quick Epi search revealed lots of options. I considered a mushroom ragout to put on or in an omelette, but then I ran across this recipe and decided that I just had to make mushroom risotto. Had to.

Yum, right?

A major bonus to this decision was that I had all the ingredients already on hand. Not that Whole Foods isn't a real treat at 6:30pm on a weeknight.

I ended up modifying the Epi recipe considerably because I only had four and half ounces of those fabulous trumpet mushrooms. I cut the recipe to one-third, essentially. Except the parmesan.

Here's my version, which is DELICIOUS and, actually, really easy. When I eat alone at home, I don't usually make audible "mmm" sounds. I did tonight. This is one of the best things I've made in a while, and the recipe only took only 45 minutes, including some bonus shrimp I made.

Kate's Mushroom Risotto
Makes 3 appetizer-sized or 2 dinner-sized servings

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter, divided
4 ounces fresh wild mushrooms, sliced (you could probably use any mushrooms for this, honestly)
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped leek (white and pale green parts only)
3/4 cups arborio rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (1/2 cup if you are grating using a microplane grater, which incidentally is one of my favorite kitchen tools)

Directions
1. Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. As soon as it gets foamy, add the mushrooms, sprinkle with kosher salt, and saute until they are moderately browned, about 6 minutes.   Transfer mushrooms to a bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

These smell so good, it's hard to describe.


2. While the mushrooms are sauteeing, bring 4 cups chicken broth to simmer in a small (2 quart) saucepan; keep warm.

3. Melt remaining 1/2 tablespoons butter with 2 teaspoons olive oil in heavy medium saucepan (3-4 quarts is great) over medium-low heat. Add leek, sprinkle with salt, and sauté until tender and golden, 4 to 5 minutes.




Keep an eye on these, mine almost burned!



4. Add rice and increase heat to medium. Stir constantly until edges of rice begin to look translucent, 3 to 4 minutes.

5. Add white wine and stir until liquid is absorbed, about 1 minute.

6. Add about 1/2 cup warm chicken broth; stir until almost all broth is absorbed, about 3 minutes

7. Continue adding broth by half-cupfuls, stirring until almost all broth is absorbed before adding more, until rice is halfway cooked, about 10 minutes. Note: you don't need to stir this constantly. Aim for stirring at least once every 3 minutes, and stir more frequently as the pan gets drier or you may get the rice stuck to the bottom (like I did). The good news is that if you do this, you can add more broth and scrape everything off the bottom and it just gets incorporated and doesn't affect the finished product.

8. Stir in sautéed mushrooms. Continue adding broth by half-cupfuls, stirring until almost all broth is absorbed before adding more, until rice is tender but still firm to bite and risotto is creamy, about 10 more minutes. 

9. Turn off the heat and stir in grated Parmesan cheese, if using. The end!


Fin.

I decided that I wanted to add a little protein to this dish, so mid-process I pulled four frozen shrimp out of the freezer and defrosted and marinated them while making the risotto. I always keep a bag of high quality large frozen shrimp in the fridge. It's actually better to buy them this way than to by them from the fish case, as most of the shrimp in that case were previously frozen and are now defrosted. They're cheaper and fresher. The key to good frozen shrimp is to buy wild, not farmed shrimp, and to look at the ingredients. Make sure that the only things listed are shrimp and salt.

The "marinade" I used was white wine with two cloves of crushed garlic. I tossed the peeled shrimp in this and let them marinate while I cooked the risotto. Once the risotto was done, I patted the shrimp dry with a paper towel and seasoned them with salt and pepper. I heated a little bit of olive oil (about a teaspoon) in the same pan I sauteed the mushrooms in and added the shrimp. Once they got pink on one side, I flipped them and added the remaining marinade, cooking a few minutes until the shrimp were done.

And that was dinner. It was about a thousand times better than I was expecting and made for an excellent start to the week.

I am SO looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

Here's the nutrition info, excluding the shrimp "garnish."

A Belated Labor Day Post

Remember Labor Day? Feels like years ago, doesn’t it?

This past Labor Day, we had quite the feast. That’s what happens when any one of my friends invites us all over for a “potluck.” There is always more food and drink to go around and we generally do a fairly good job polishing it all off. That’s just one reason why I love my friends so much.

I also love the idea of a feast. Harkening back to boyfriends of years past, one time I was on the hook for an Easter brunch because my boyfriend-at-the-time, B, and I both decided to spend our Easter locally rather than traveling home to either of our respective Catholic families. Not because we really wanted to celebrate Easter together but because we were too poor to afford plane tickets. Ah, the good old days.

Anyway, between the two of us, I was the cook (and the maid, and the personal assistant, and the book editor, and the laundrywoman, but I digress). I asked B what he wanted for Easter brunch since I thought it would be nice to include some of his family traditions as well as mine (smoked salmon on bagels, bunny biscotti). His response: “I want a FEAST.”

Well, B and I went our separate ways years ago, but the concept of a feast has suck with me. I love a feast. Feasts are hearty and celebratory. They make me think of meat on the bone, of things you eat with your hands, of abundance in every wonderful way.

My contributions to the semi-recent Labor Day Feast were thus: two kinds of kielbasa “bites” with spicy brown mustard (inspired by the MOST delicious appetizer at Holly and Scott's wedding in Pittsburgh) and these delicious figs. Hope you can enjoy them before figs leave us completely for the season.

Fresh Figs with Goat Cheese and Peppered Honey
This recipe is adapted from Bon Appetit.
 
Makes about 20 hors d'oeuvres
 
Ingredients
 
1/4 cup honey


3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 oz fresh goat cheese
1 tablespoon milk or cream
1 pint fresh figs, tiny stems trimmed, and cut into halves (or quarters, if really large). I prefer Calimyrna (aka Turkish or Green) figs for this recipe, but you can also use Mission or Brown Turkey figs
 
 Directions
 
1. Prepare the honey - combine the honey and black pepper in a small bowl or custard cup and let sit while you prepare the other ingredients.
2. In another small bowl, combine the goat cheese with the milk and blend/mash with a fork until smooth. (Alternatively, you can just use Chavrie goat cheese for this recipe and skip the milk.)
3. Spoon the cheese into a sandwich bag and snip off about 1/8 inch of one bottom corner of the bag. You should be able to pipe the cheese out the bag corner.
4. Lay the figs, cut side up, on a serving platter. Pipe a bit of cheese on top of each cut fig. You're going for a healthy dollop - slightly less than a tablespoon.
5. Once you have piped all the figs with cheese, use a spoon to drizzle the honey over the top of each fig. You should be able to see the honey on the cheese.
6. Serve immediately. This recipe does not keep, as the figs will begin to "weep" and make fig-puddles on the plate. That's just as well, as you will find these are hard to resist.
 

Festive flags optional.