Food Tornado

I've been cooking up a storm this week. We may not eat out very often anymore, but I'm trying to expand our repertoire of deliciousness around the house so that maybe we don't miss it so much.

Two of the highlights included this totally insane apple cake (from Smitten Kitchen), which made the very best use of the big bag of Jonagold apples in my crisper. The recipe is so wonderfully adaptable - I didn't have OJ, so I used a little whole milk, and I wanted to decrease the amount of sugar so I subbed in a little Alaskan fireweed honey. I used a tube pan for the first time to great success; this whole charade where I pretend that I'm never going to be good at baking is starting to crumble. I'm getting good...

Does anybody need an Apple Cake? I'm ready to make it again.

The other home run was the Pumpkin Polenta with Chorizo and Black Beans (from Rachel Ray). Making polenta was as easy as making a pot of couscous, and far more satisfying in this cold weather. It makes me sad for all these long polenta-less years here at my house, when I was still convinced I wouldn't like polenta because it was mushy. I want to top it with everything - mushrooms, red sauce, sauteed fennel, grated cheese, even old shoes. I'd try it.

Corn Flake Chicken

After making something that ends up being a dud, I always search my brain to think of the last thing I made that I really liked. Tonight the dud was homemade butterscotch pudding (which ended up not quite as creamy as I was hoping it would be), and I thought "Well, it wasn't corn flake chicken, but I'm willing to try to make my own pudding again." And then I realized I never told you guys about the corn flake chicken, and so here I am.

Maybe everyone else has tried it, but corn flake chicken was news to me. We did, however, score an enormous box of corn flakes on sale a couple of weeks ago and my husband casually brought it up, planting the seed. So I did some searching and settled on a ridiculously easy recipe that sounded like something we'd love and, lo and behold, it was awesomeness on a plate. The chicken was juicy and perfectly cooked (we checked it's doneness with our meat thermometer to be sure), and the topping was crisp and tangy with the addition of the romano cheese. My mind knew I was eating cereal-coated bird, but my mouth didn't care one bit. This recipe is a keeper.


Corn Flake Chicken

2 c. Corn Flake crumbs
1/2 c. grated Romano cheese
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 large eggs
2 T. milk
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix cereal crumbs in a shallow bowl with grated cheese and salt and pepper.
In another shallow dish, lightly beat eggs with milk.
Rinse & pat-dry chicken breasts. Dip breasts, one at a time, in egg mixture and then place in bowl with corn flake mixture. Generously pat cereal mixture into chicken on all sides until thoroughly coated.
Place chicken in a baking dish, cover in foil, and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover chicken and continue baking for approximately 15 more minutes (or until chicken reaches an internal temp of 165 to 170 degrees).

Oven Fried Catfish Sandwich

It must be June, as I am in the mood for sandwiches and outdoor dining. Last night we made our way to Harry's Country Club (one of my all-time favorite spots for outdoor meals) and my pan-fried catfish entree (with hominy! yum!) reminded me of these lovely sandwiches, which will pass muster if you'd rather do your al fresco dining in your own outdoor area. They make a great meal with broccoli slaw or roasted sweet potato wedges and a glass of limeade.

Oven-Fried Catfish Sandwiches
from Cooking Light

for the sauce:
1/4 c light mayo
1 T sweet pickle relish
2 tsp capers, chopped
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp hot pepper sauce (such as Tabasco)

for the catfish:
2 T all-purpose flour
1 tsp paprika
3/4 tsp garlic powder, divided
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
2/3 c yellow cornmeal
4 (4-ounce) catfish fillets
cooking spray
4 hoagie rolls, toasted
1 c shredded romaine lettuce
4 slices red onion
8 slices tomato

Preheat oven to 450°. Place baking sheet in oven.

Combine mayonnaise, relish, capers, 1/8 tsp salt, and pepper sauce in a small bowl, stirring well. Set aside.

Combine flour, paprika, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/8 tsp salt, and pepper in a shallow dish. Place egg whites in a shallow bowl. Combine cornmeal, remaining 1/8 tsp salt, and remaining 1/4 tsp garlic powder in a shallow dish. Working with 1 fillet at a time, dredge in flour. Dip in egg whites; dredge in cornmeal mixture. Place fillet on a plate; repeat procedure with remaining fillets, flour, egg whites, and cornmeal mixture.

Transfer fillets to preheated baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Lightly coat fillets with cooking spray. Bake at 450° for 6 min. Turn fillets and coat with cooking spray; bake an additional 6 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork

Place 1 bottom half of roll on each of 4 plates. Top each serving with lettuce, 1 fillet, tomato slices, and onion. Spread mayonnaise mixture on cut side of each roll top. Serve immediately.

Note: We were generous with the Tabasco, as the sauce wasn't quite zippy enough for us as is. And while I was a bit weirded out at the prospect of coating the filets in cooking spray, it did make them very crispy and didn't seem to mar the flavor.

Mostly Rhubarb Pie

I bought two huge bunches of rhubarb stalks Sunday morning at the City Market. They were beautiful - bright red and inspiring; so I decided to make a pie. I didn't pick the best time to make said pie, what with the husband being gone and the boy deciding to give up his afternoon nap, but I am nothing if not an overachiever, so I did it anyway. I should lie to you and tell you that the boy made this pie, because then you wouldn't judge my less-than-beautiful crust, but instead I'll take all the credit because...holy buckets, it tastes so good. Even with my mistakes! Cobbling together two recipes, I made it work (sort of) without corn starch, and even with the boneheaded addition of a couple of frozen strawberries. The filling was soupier than I like, but the crust recipe I have to share. It's so flaky and buttery and gooooood.

I used the Cooks Illustrated crust (from Baking Illustrated) but brushed it with milk & a sprinkling of superfine sugar before baking, rather than an egg wash. My filling was a modified Bittman: I added frozen strawberries to keep it from being too tart (I got a little scared about the 5 cups of rhubarb) and I used flour as my thickener because I apparently threw out my corn starch. The truth is, I'm all about making mistakes with pie because it only means I get to make more pies! Hooray!

Basic Pie Dough

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface
1 tsp salt
2 T sugar
1/2 c vegetable shortening, chilled
12 T cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
6-8 T ice water

Process the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor until combined. Add the shortening and process until the mixture has the texture of coarse sand, about 10 seconds. Scatter the butter pieces over the flour mixture; cut the butter into the flour until the mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse crumbs, with butter bits no larger than small peas, about ten 1-second pulses. Turn the mixture into a medium bowl.

Sprinkle 6 T of the ice water over the mixture. With a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix. Press down on the dough with the broad side of the spatula until the dough sticks together, adding up to 2 T more ice water if the dough will not come together. Divide the dough into 2 balls and flatten each into a 4 inch disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days, before rolling.

Makes enough dough for 1 double-crust 9 inch pie.

Wheatberry Salad

The bulk foods section of Whole Foods makes me very happy. I'm always the annoying one that walks up and down in front of all the plastic bins, getting in everyone else's way because I can't decide if I want regular couscous or the Israeli couscous or which type of granola sounds best to me this week - I mean I love the ginger snap so maybe I should stick with that or should I try something else? I do a lot of apologizing and excusing myself and eventually end up throwing a couple of plastic bags of something or other in my cart and calling it a day. But with every visit, I come around the corner, and the reaction is...OOH! Bulk foods! And then the whole thing starts up again.

This particular trip landed me a big bag of Hard Winter Wheatberries, because I knew I had seen Ina Garten make a salad out of them and I wanted to try my hand at something new. You can never have too many salads in your repertoire. They turned out to be delicious, even though some of them ended up a little undercooked. (I was so paranoid about ending up with mushy wheatberries that I think I pulled them off the flame too soon.) The good thing was, I like things with a bite. You will too. This salad was delicious for days.

Wheatberry Salad

from Barefoot Contessa Family Style

1 c hard winter wheatberries

kosher salt

1 c finely diced red onion (1 onion)

6 T olive oil, divided

2 T balsamic vinegar

3 scallions, minced (white and green parts)

1/2 red bell pepper, small diced

1 carrot, small diced

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Place the wheatberries and 3 c of boiling salted water in a saucepan and cook, uncovered, over low heat for approximately 45 minutes, or until they are soft. Drain.

Saute the red onion in 2 T of olive oil over medium-low heat until translucent, approximately 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the remaining 4 T (1/4 c) of olive oil and the balsamic vinegar.

In a large bowl, combine the warm wheatberries, sauteed onions, scallions, red bell pepper, carrot, 1/2 tsp salt, and the pepper. Allow the salad to sit for at least 30 minutes for the wheatberries to absorb the sauce. Season, to taste, and serve at room temperature.

Stuffed Turkey Breast

In truth, we overcooked it a smidge, since we didn't have our thermometer on hand, but doesn't our first stuffed turkey breast look delicious??

This is what we ate for Easter, and for our first ever experience butterflying & de-boning a turkey breast, I was pretty impressed. (We ordered it without bones, but the bones were an Easter surprise! And an excellent learning experience.) Next time I'm going to experiment with a pesto & sundried tomato stuffing, as this one had a little too much roasted red pepper for me. All in all, though...good stuff, and I love the presentation with the unexpected color rolled up in that beautiful turkey meat.

For the recipe we used, from cooks.com, click here.

Macaroni & Cheese

I find it funny that Ina Garten's recipe for macaroni and cheese in her Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook is in the back with the kids stuff. I know, I know - it's kids food, or maybe it WAS kids food when the cookbook was published back in 2002, but mac and cheese has been promoted to the grown up table as of late. In my house it's always been grown up food...or maybe it's that we've always just been big kids.

This recipe for macaroni and cheese is my all-time favorite, hands down. I use whatever kind of pasta I feel like using and I don't remove the crusts from the bread before I make the breadcrumbs. And most times I swap the proportions for the gruyere and the sharp cheddar, because buying 12 ounces of really good gruyere can get a little spendy. The tomatoes are absolutely essential and the whole thing is so delicious reheated (or not) for leftovers the next day and the day after that. This year we made it for Valentine's Day because nothing says "I love you" like a big hot gooey mess of cheese and pasta topped with tomatoes and crispy buttery breadcrumbs.

Macaroni & Cheese

kosher salt, to taste
vegetable oil, if desired
1 lb elbow macaroni or cavatappi pasta
1 quart milk
8 T unsalted butter (divided)
1/2 c all-purpose flour
12 oz gruyere cheese, grated (4 c)
8 oz extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 lb fresh tomatoes (4 sm)
1 1/2 c fresh white breadcrumbs (5 slices, crusts removed)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Drizzle oil into a large pot of boiling salted water. Add the macaroni and cook according to the directions on the package. Drain well.
Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan, but don't boil it. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter in a large (4 qt.) pot and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. While whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minutes or two more, until thickened and smooth. Off the heat, add the gruyere, cheddar, 1 tablespoons salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Add the cooked macaroni and stir well. Pour into a 3 qt baking dish.
Slice the tomatoes and arrange on top. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, combine butter with fresh bread crumbs, and sprinkle on top. Bake 30-35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and macaroni is browned on the top.

Tiny Twice-Baked Potatoes

I love all potatoes. Even the ones with the creepy eyes growing out of them - they can be made as delicious as those tiny buttery fingerling potatoes or those beautiful red new potatoes. All potatoes are equal in my eyes. Equally delectable.

So I searched around for a "potato skin" type recipe and I came up with a Rachael Ray recipe with an annoying name but a perfect premise. She calls them "Sinfully Stuffed Potato Skins," but, in truth, they are nothing more than a tiny twice-baked potato. Take your own preferences and make these to your taste, but Rachael has given you a great head start with the extra-sharp cheddar, sour cream, and paprika. These were even good cold the next day. I used Tillamook extra sharp white cheddar and smoked paprika, to great results.

Potato Skins

20 small new potatoes
1 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 c shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese
1 c sour cream
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Paprika, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 400°. Pierce the potatoes with a fork, arrange on a baking sheet in a single layer and brush with olive oil. Roast, uncovered, until tender, 40 to 45 minutes. Let stand until cool enough to handle.
Halve the potatoes; using a melon baller or a teaspoon, scoop out most of the flesh into a bowl. Return the potato skins to the baking sheet. Coarsely mash the potato flesh in the bowl and stir in the cheese, sour cream, 1 teaspoon salt and the pepper. Sprinkle the insides of the skins with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt; stuff each with the potato-cheese mixture and sprinkle paprika on top.
Bake the stuffed potato skins until golden-brown on top, 15 to 20 minutes.

Tomato Soup

The most delicious tomato soup I've had recently was from Souperman. It was creamy, slightly smoky, had a good solid tomato flavor, and didn't even need a grilled cheese accompaniment. It stood on its own.

But the most beautiful tomato soup I've had recently was from my own kitchen, though I will have to admit that it is not difficult to make a beautiful tomato soup. I used canned whole peeled tomatoes and fresh basil and pureed half of it to create what ended up looking like a warm gazpacho, but tasted like heaven. With little parmesan toasts on top, the whole meal only took about 30 minutes. This is another one of those recipes that can be made a million different ways - add different herbs, more veggies, fresh tomatoes, elbow macaroni, or a cup of half-and-half (for a creamier version) to make it into an entirely different soup.

Tomato Soup

1 med onion, diced
2 carrots, peeled & diced
2 cloves garlic, pushed through a garlic press
1 28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
6 c. vegetable stock
1 T. olive oil
handful of fresh basil
salt & pepper to taste

Saute onion & carrot in olive oil 8-10 minutes over medium heat, or until onions are translucent. Add garlic and salt and pepper - cook for 1 minute more. Using a pair of kitchen shears, cut tomatoes (while in the can) into smaller pieces. Add can of tomatoes, juice and all, along with stock. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Add chiffonade of fresh basil and check soup for seasonings. All or part of soup can be pureed in batches in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Serve hot with additional fresh basil and fresh grated parmesan cheese.

Pizza Dough

Everything with me lately has been dough, dough, dough. I'm trying to perfect my pizza dough for no apparent reason other than that I need a project...and pizza dough led me back to foccacia, which I was obsessed with baking quite a few years ago. As I type this I have some dough proofing in the warm draft-free confines of my oven. Book club ladies beware, sun-dried tomato foccacia is on the menu for tonight.

We ended up with a beautiful pizza the other night thanks to Giada DeLaurentiis and her terrifically easy pizza dough. It was crisp and slightly chewy and fit my needs perfectly, as I did not have instant rapid-rise yeast on hand. You can top it with just about anything, but I kept ours simple: a light coating of homemade tomato sauce, parmesan, fresh basil, and turkey pepperoni.

Pizza Dough
3/4 c. warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1 envelope active dry yeast
2 c. (or more) all purpose flour
1 tsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
3 T. olive oil

Pour 3/4 cup warm water into small bowl; stir in yeast. Let stand until yeast dissolves, about 5 minutes.

Brush large bowl lightly with olive oil. Mix 2 cups flour, sugar, and salt in processor. Add yeast mixture and 3 tablespoons oil; process until dough forms a sticky ball. Transfer to lightly floured surface. Knead dough until smooth, adding more flour by tablespoonfuls if dough is very sticky, about 1 minute. Transfer to prepared bowl; turn dough in bowl to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Punch down dough. Roll out dough according to recipe instructions. (Start in center of dough, working outward toward edges but not rolling over them.)

Sundays Are For Cooking

Sunday we had a little help - Nana came down to entertain the Gus while we cleaned bags and bags worth of stuff out of my husband's studio. It was a great feeling, getting all that stuff out of the house, very cleansing and weight-off-the-shoulders and all that good stuff. And then afterwards, to celebrate, we made soup. Sundays are sometimes the very best days.

On Sundays you can make time for cooking. You don't have to be in a hurry - you can take your time chopping and dicing and browning and simmering and all the while the house fills with the most amazing smells. When you're done you can put a big container of leftover soup in the fridge and you have that to look forward to for days. I was so enthralled with the end result of our efforts - a clean room in our basement, and a big pot of the most beautifully colored soup - that I didn't remember to take a photo. Here is a picture of a butternut squash, though, for your enjoyment.

Butternut Squash Soup

2 med butternut squash - peeled, seeds removed, and cubed
2 sm yellow onion, diced
4 med potatoes, peeled & cubed
3 garlic cloves, crushed and diced
1 T curry powder, or to taste
4 T butter
salt & pepper
64 oz chicken stock

Melt butter over medium-high heat in a large stock pot - add garlic & cook for one minute, then add the rest of the vegetables. Cook for 5-10 minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste and 1 T of curry powder. When vegetables have softened slightly, add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 35-40 minutes, or until vegetables pierce easily with a fork.
In batches, blend half the soup in a food processor or blender (or all the soup if you prefer a creamier texture). Pour the soup back into the pot, adjust the seasonings to taste, and serve hot.

(This recipe is easily adapted to your tastes, or halved to make a smaller batch. Omit the curry powder if you like and add fresh herbs, or serve with a dollop of sour cream.)

Bread Pudding

My least favorite texture, if anyone ever asks you, is mushy. Mushy foods give me the heebies, so I typically shy away from things like bread pudding. Bread soaked in milk?? It may be tasty as all get out, but it is immediately excluded from consideration because of its mushiness.

I saw this recipe in The Week magazine last fall, however, and the little wheels in my brain started turning. Savory bread pudding?? With corn and fresh herbs? And when Mom volunteered to make it for our Christmas dinner, I bravely added it to the menu along with our roasted Mennonite chicken, fresh green beans, and Josh's famous cranberries. It was, without a doubt, the best thing I've eaten since the last time I posted. So I had to share.

The bread was chewy and crisp on top and the pungent Gruyere and herbs all mixed together for a perfect side dish. I ate the leftovers for days afterward with a big smile on my face.

Corn and Brown Butter Bread Pudding

3 cups whole milk
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp chopped fresh sage
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, plus add'l for buttering the pan
2 ears fresh sweet corn, kernels removed (about 1-1/2 cups)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
5 eggs
8 cups stale country white bread, crust on, cut or torn into half-inch pieces
2 cups grated Gruyère cheese

Heat oven to 375 degrees; butter 9-by-13-inch baking dish. In medium saucepan, combine milk, rosemary, thyme, sage, black pepper. Cook over high heat until just before milk reaches simmer. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

Heat butter in large skillet over medium heat, whisking occasionally until melted and solids turn golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Add corn and salt, stir over low heat for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. In large bowl, whisk eggs. Whisk in cooled milk, stir in bread, cheese, corn mixture until well combined. Pour mixture into baking dish, pressing down on bread to make sure it is submerged. Let mixture sit for about 15 minutes while bread absorbs liquid. Bake for 35 minutes, until golden brown, rotating once for even cooking. Serve immediately. Serves 6 to 8.

Thanksgiving

I still can't believe Thanksgiving is this week. I spent a good portion of my morning making up my grocery list, cutting coupons (how very domestic of me), and then I realized that that list wasn't nearly long enough because we have to get all this other stuff for Thanksgiving! Which is in two days! And we better buy a small turkey just for the two of us because we don't have a line on any leftovers and I don't want to be depressed on Friday when I don't have any turkey for a turkey sandwich on white bread with Durkee's and white cheddar and lots of fresh cracked pepper and Josh's homemade cranberry sauce.

Anyhow. My Thanksgiving contribution every year is wild rice casserole, which is both easy and delicious and comes straight from my Mom's kitchen. Nothing tastes more like fall to me than wild rice. Every year Josh and I dance around each other in the kitchen in our pj's on Thanksgiving morning - me making my casserole, while he stirs up a big pot of cranberries that are cracking and popping their skins and melding together with shallots and ginger. We kick the dog out of the kitchen once every three or four minutes ("No beg, Fish!") and turn on the Thanksgiving Day parade and drink coffee.

This year, I'm thankful for the little one who will be sitting up in a high chair watching all of it with wide eyes and his wry little grin.

Wild Rice Casserole

1 c. wild rice, cooked according to package directions
2 c. long grain white rice, cooked according to package directions
1 small bunch of celery, diced
2 yellow onions, diced
1 jar banana peppers, drained and chopped
1/2 stick of butter
2 c. vegetable broth
salt & pepper to taste

Saute onions and celery in butter until onions are translucent. Add vegetable broth & rice. Cook on stovetop and stir frequently until rice absorbs broth. Add water to keep moist if necessary. Add chopped banana peppers and salt & pepper, to taste.
Can be kept warm in a covered casserole in a low oven.

Roasted Potato Fennel Soup

I know I should be better about eating leftovers, and yet I'm not. Lots of things just aren't as good heated up the next day, and I'm not one of those people who can eat things cold when they should be hot. I just had it hot yesterday and it was awesome and you want me to eat it cold today? No, thank you.

Soup, though, is different. Soup is good the next day and it's easy to heat up and it's perfect for me now because I just don't have the wherewithal to make a fresh hot meal every single night that is both somewhat nutritious but also incredibly awesome-tasting. (Whew! I was glad to get that off of my chest.) This Roasted Potato Fennel Soup is from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. It is delicious, will last you an entire week, and makes use of fennel, which I like to just smell and smell and smell. Come over to my house and I'll shove a big fennel bulb in your face and make you smell it. It's intoxicating, isn't it?? Like licorice celery.

Roasted-Potato Fennel Soup

4 lbs red potatoes, scrubbed & quartered
1/4 c plus 2 T good olive oil
1 T minced garlic (3 cloves)
1 T kosher salt
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
4 c chopped yellow onions (4 onions)
4 c chopped fennel bulb (appx 2 lbs)
3 quarts chicken stock
1 c heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a large bowl, toss potatoes with 1/4 c. olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper. Spread on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 30-45 minutes, or until cooked through.
Saute onions & fennel in large stockpot with 2 T. olive oil for 10-15 minutes. Add roasted potatoes (including any scrapings from the pan) and the chicken stock. Cover & bring to a boil. Simmer uncovered for one hour. Add the heavy cream and cool the soup slightly. Chop coarsely in batches in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Taste for salt & pepper - reheat & serve hot.

Pasta Fagiole Soup

I have a little spiral-bound black book where I copy down recipes I don't want to lose. About half of these recipes I've never even made, but I was so excited about them I copied them down. The ones I've made and love get stars or other distinguishing marks on their pages - or you can just tell that they were good because their pages look worn and used, with maybe a little flour around the edges or smudges that could be butter or splashes of olive oil or who knows what. I make notations, cross out ingredients or add them - occasionally I even write insightful things like "MMMMM" at the bottom.

This recipe for Pasta Fagiole Soup is on one of those well-worn pages with stars at the top.

Pasta Fagiole
2 cans navy beans, drained
6 c veg broth
1 T. olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and 1/4" diced
1 small spanish onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 celery stalks, 1/4" diced
1/2 lb green beans, trimmed & cut
3-4 roma tomatoes, diced
2 T tomato paste
1 c elbow macaroni
pesto
1/2 c parmesan cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Heat oil; add onion & garlic and cook until softened. Stir in the rest of the vegetables, cook 2-3 minutes. Add tomato paste, cook until bright red (about 30 seconds or so) & add broth.
Bring mixture to a full simmer, add macaroni & cook for 10 minutes. Add drained beans, season with salt & pepper.
Serve with a dollop of pesto and a sprinkling of cheese.

(Sometimes, when I'm feeling it, I throw a little bit of parmigiano regianno rind in while the broth is simmering for extra flavor. Just remember to fish it out before serving.)

Apple Raspberry Crisp

When you want a pie, but don't want to mess with a crust, try this Apple Raspberry Crisp with Pecan Crunch Topping. (I leave out the applejack and add a smidge more lemon juice to great results)


The pecans make it perfect, and a big scoop of French Vanilla on top makes you some sort of genius/hero hybrid.

Blurgs

When you write a blurb in your blog, that is called a blurg. Here are two.

** Last night, while picking out two pints of Ben and Jerry's at my local grocery store, I was very excited to find the Americone Dream, Stephen Colbert's new flavor. I know it's been out for a while but I had kind of forgotten about it since the hype had died down and since I can't keep my eyes open late enough to watch the Colbert Report anymore. I have this to report: meh. I like caramel swirls, waffle cones, and chocolate coating. But maybe I just don't like all those things together.

Anyhow - now that that bubble has been burst, I can spend my time looking for the new Breyer's Triple Chocolate flavor. (I've got to find the ice cream to take me through the upcoming Murray-less winter. They close for the season on December 2nd and it is NEVER too early to start planning ahead.)

** Last week's food section in the Kansas City Star had a tremendous recipe for Chocolate Molasses Cookies. The point of the "Eating For Life" feature was portion control, and if I had the ability to eat just one cookie the whole concept would be excellent. But I don't. And if they had a better website, I could just link to the recipe. But they don't. So here you go, then.
(Typing out this entire recipe makes this much less of a blurg, but these cookies are worth the work.)

2/3 c. semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. unsalted butter
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 c. brown sugar
1 egg
2 T dark molasses
1 tsp vanilla
confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Melt chocolate and butter in microwave-safe glass mixing bowl on high power in 30 second increments, until almost melted. Stir to blend well, then let cool.
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
Stir brown sugar, egg, molasses and vanilla into cooled chocolate mixture. Add flour mixture, stirring until combined.
Place scant tablespoons of dough on ungreased cookie sheet, 2 in. apart. Bake 10-11 minutes until tops begin to crack and cookies are still soft to the touch. Let cool 5 minutes; transfer to wire rack and dust lightly with confectioners' sugar.

Tortilla

I've been to Spain twice; it's my favorite of the European countries. The first time I traveled there, by train, when we crossed the border from France I felt different somehow - it was something I've never really been able to explain. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were traveling right along the coast and there was something about the light and the colors and the way that my heart felt and right then and there I fell in love with the entire country. I've never really lost that feeling - even when I was chasing down a guy who was making off with my pack in the Barcelona train station.
Anyhow.
My love of the country, naturally, extends to the food. And the food I ate the most, for nearly every meal, was the Tortilla de Patatas - the Spanish potato omelette. We ate it plain, on crusty bread, or on crusty bread with a thick coating of mayonnaise and a hot cup of coffee. It was cheap and delicious and when I'm really craving it now, I make my way down to La Bodega for their most excellent happy hour (theirs is served with a really tasty red pepper aioli). Or I make it at home and watch my husband's face light up. He's never been to Spain, but I'm sharing one of my favorite parts with him when I throw one of these together.
It is the perfect dinner with a tomato salad and a thick slice of crusty french bread, but it's even better cold the next day for breakfast.

Tortilla de Patatas

1 lb. red-skinned potatoes, thinly sliced
1 large white onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
6 eggs
olive oil
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 375.
In an oven-proof skillet, saute the potato slices in a generous amount of olive oil, salt and pepper over medium heat until softened (appx 10-15 minutes). Remove potatoes from the pan with a slotted spoon and add more olive oil. Saute onion slices for 10 minutes. Add garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add potatoes back into the pan and incorporate, allowing to cook for 5 more minutes.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs. Pour beaten eggs into the pan and turn the heat to medium low. Gently shake pan to evenly distribute eggs and cook for 5-6 minutes on stovetop.
Place pan in oven to finish cooking. Cook for 10-12 minutes or until eggs are set.
Cool in pan. Cut into wedges and serve.

Las Gorditas & Fig Toasts

This was a day in which we explored our city from one side to the other. We started on one side of the metro, with lunch at Las Gorditas at 844 Central in Kansas City, KS. It's a spot recommended by a friend of a friend and my husband's new favorite stop for lunch. They have other items on the menu (not many), but we were there for the gorditas. (If the place is named after a particular item, it seems rather foolish to order a burrito.) You can watch the ladies making these thick corn tortillas behind the counter, and they're as delicious as they look. We ordered three - one filled with pork and potatoes, one with nopales and chile, and one with a delicious fried chile relleno. The cheese in the relleno was gooey and thick and the pork was perfectly seasoned, moist and tender. My only complaint is that I didn't start with the nopales gordita, which had too much time to sit and become dangerous to handle. It fell apart in my hands, on my table, on my shirt. The cactus, however, was delicious (and thankfully, there were napkins on my table - lots of napkins). We washed it all down with bottles of soda - Mexican Coke for him, orange soda for me. Lunch was around $12 and service, while distracted, was attentive enough. We were the only non-Spanish speakers there at lunch, which is always a good sign.

With many a stop in between, we ended our food adventure at Dean and Deluca at Town Center. Two or so times a year, we go there for nothing in particular. I quickly lose him to the samples and the cheese counter and I can just wander aimlessly, exploring the jars and bottles and boxes and candies and breads. Forget clothes and shoes and compact discs, this is my kind of shopping.

This afternoon I had figs on the brain. Blame it on my current nine-months-pregnant state if you will, but a little something we saw last night on the television made me obsessed with figs. I scoured the shelves until I found a jar of Terrabianca Caramelized Figs, grabbed a wedge of Fourme D'Ambert (a perfectly creamy and mild blue cheese) and a good baguette and got the heck out of there before I spent any more money. At home, we whipped up these delicious little things (I'm calling them fig toasts), parked our rears on the back deck with cool drinks and called it a day. Also, I did lots of bowing and patting myself on the back. These were damn good toasts. Treat yourself sometime.


Fig Toasts

a good french baguette
caramelized figs
caramelized onion
good creamy blue cheese

Crisp slices of bread in 350 degree oven for 5-6 minutes. Remove from oven and top each slice with half a caramelized fig. Spread fig out as best you can - any naked bread can be drizzled with the thick fig juices in the jar. Top with caramelized onions and crumbles of blue cheese.

Banana Bread

I like my bananas green, with a little bite to them, while my husband prefers them when the skins start to spot and turn brown. So while it seems as though we'd be the perfect banana couple, we're shamefully wasteful when it comes to bananas. If they don't get eaten right away, they develop into the invisible fruit on the counter and by the time we notice them again they're past the point where anyone in our house will eat them, except the dog, who loves them unreservedly and is always thankful to have fruit of any kind shared with him. Even grossly overripe fruit.

I finally figured out, however, how quick banana bread is to make, and how wonderful slices of banana bread taste in the morning when you're sick to death of cereal. This new oven in my new kitchen is making baking possible, for the first time in four years, and I'm tackling baking with a new fervor. (A couple of weeks ago I made the Magnolia Bakery's vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and two days later I baked chocolate chip cookies, which I then made into cookie sandwiches using the rest of the frosting. I was like super-duper baking lady.) This recipe, from Simply Recipes, is quick and makes for really moist bread which is only made better with the addition of toasted walnuts or chocolate chips.

Banana Bread

3 - 4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 c. melted butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix melted butter into mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and sugar. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and fold in to batter. Mix in the flour last. Pour mixture into a buttered 4 x 8 in. loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a baking rack.