02.06.06
Posted in Soups, Veggies at 3:48 pm by julie
Once Jeremy left for school, I set about trying to come up with a repertoire of meals that made excellent leftovers, so I could cook for myself once and eat for a week. I’m fussy about leftovers, though (no surprise there!), and meats in particular are difficult for me, because they often seem to get rubbery when reheated, and I don’t like them cold. So believe it or not, I ended up looking a lot more frequently to vegetable dishes, which reheat beautifully most of the time.
I also make a lot of soups for just myself, because they last a long time, can be often frozen if necessary, and don’t dirty a lot of dishes. One day last year I was contemplating what to make for dinner that night, and tomato soup popped into my head. I am still not sure why, because I don’t really like tomatoes, and tomato soup always tastes way too acidic to me. But I couldn’t get the thought out of my head, so I started looking into options. What I came up with is a soup that packs a lot of flavor, with a light creamy texture and a mild tomato flavor. It’s now one of my very favorites.
I’ve made this soup lots of times now and it is very versatile. I’ve added some tomato paste to the onions for additional depth of flavor, if I have some to hand, and I love to serve it with cheese biscuits, though of course your classic grilled cheese would not be amiss.
Julie’s Tomato Cream Soup
1/2 C onion, chopped
3 T butter
1 32-oz box low-sodium organic chicken broth (or homemade stock if you have it)
about 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning, or to taste
about 1/2 tsp dried basil, or to taste
2 14.5-oz cans petite diced tomatoes in juice (plain or flavored)
1-2 C tomato juice
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 C half-and-half or heavy cream, as desired
Melt the butter over medium heat in a large soup pot, and saute onions until translucent. I sometimes add minced shallot here if I have some on hand. Add chicken broth and herbs, and turn up heat to high; boil until broth is reduced by half. Add tomatoes and juice, and simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes. Remove pot from the heat and use an immersion blender to puree to desired smoothness. Place back on the heat, and add baking soda; stir until the fizzing stops. (This cuts some of the acidity of the tomatoes, and is kinda fun to watch besides.) Stir in cream or half-and-half, and heat gently until warmed through. Adjust seasonings to taste, and eat with braised cabbage and buttered toast. Mmmmm.
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02.05.06
Posted in Cookies & Candies, Dessert at 4:06 pm by julie
I know it has been way too long since I posted on the blog, but I won’t make any excuses—well, other than Jeremy coming home for Christmas and my broken computer. 
To make up for my neglect, here is a backlog of Christmas baking photos, and a bit of self-indulgent rambling about how the various recipes came out. (Click on the links to find the recipes.)
Almond Roca and Coffee Walnut Toffee
First of all, the candies. I made almond roca first. It came out slightly burned despite a much shorter cook time than specified, but that actually complimented the roastiness of the nuts and the bitterness of the dark chocolate. I got more compliments on it than anything else. I think this recipe was originally written out by someone who had made it so many times that they didn’t need to be specific. Now that I have made it once, I think I could do it properly with no problems: the heat should have been turned down to medium, I’ll know the light caramel color to watch for, and I’ll do a hard-crack water test when I think it’s done.
The coffee walnut toffee was less eventful, and a more detailed recipe (no coincidence). I had everything prepped in advance, and used the candy thermometer and hard-crack test to know when it was done, as it started out brown right off the bat (thanks to lots of dark ingredients). It came out pretty and quite tasty, with a satisfying crumbly crunch.
Clockwise, from bottom left corner: Korova Cookies, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pinwheels, Coconut Macaroons a la Dahlia Bakery, Molasses-Spice Crinkles (Cooking Light), Eggnog Thumbprints (some with marmalade), Caramel Nut Acorns
Korova Cookies: These were really easy to do, and made elegant little cookies. Mix up the dough, chop some chocolate, and then roll them into logs and stick in the fridge overnight. The dough was easy to work with, and firmed up nicely. These were lovely with ice cream, but they weren’t Jeremy’s favorite because they are sables rather than chewy cookies. I’ll keep making those gooey brownie cookies for him, I guess.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pinwheels: Gorgeous cookies when they came out as intended, but so much trouble and frustration that I don’t know if it was worthwhile. The dough was horrendous to work with, incredibly sticky even when chilled between waxed paper sheets: I ended up scraping it off the paper in chunks to reroll. It went from cold and stiff to sticky at (still darn cold) room temp within minutes. I finally wrangled it into submission with a liberal use of flour. As for the chocolate peanut butter filling, it melted easily in the microwave, but once it started cooling, it hardened rather quickly. I was able to get one log spread and rolled, but in the time between spreading the filling on the second sheet of dough and starting to roll it, the chocolate had hardened and refused to roll, instead shattering and breaking the dough. Plus, the dough softened more and stuck to the work surface, so it was a huge mess. I ended up just chucking the remainder all into a pile on a piece of waxed paper and squeezing until it was log-shaped. The pinwheeled dough broke apart somewhat as I cut it, so most of my pinwheels were striking in the middle and rather dilapidated around the edges. If I try this cookie again, I will probably add more flour to the dough, roll them out with flour, and I definitely won’t answer the phone while wrangling this dough (Jeremy called while I was rolling it out the first time and letting my filling cool, and my parents called while I was scraping the dough off the waxed paper and rerolling it; I should have reheated the filling some, but then it probably would have made the dough too sticky. Bah!)
Coconut Macaroons: This was the Dahlia Bakery recipe, and it came out perfectly. The only thing that threw me was the need to refrigerate the “dough” 8 hours or overnight. I made the dough at 4:30pm on Sunday night, so I just waited until something like 11:30pm and baked them anyway. These came out wonderfully light and moist, melting in your mouth.
Molasses-Spice Crinkles: This was my second time making these cookies. The first time the dough firmed up beautifully in the fridge, and the cookies baked up thick and chewy, with an extrordinarily sparkly sugar coating. The second time, I used light molasses instead of blackstrap, but did everything else the same. The dough remained sticky even after refrigeration, and baked up more flat and crisp, with less sparkle. They were good both ways, but I preferred the first batch, so I’ll have to get some more black strap and try it again. (I made these at the last minute because they use an egg white, and I needed one more after the macaroons to have three yolks for the thumbprints.)
Eggnog Thumbprints: This was an easy butter cookie dough; I added some nutmeg for interest, but it was still bland. The eggnog custard was tasty, but got buried in the cookie blandness, and dried up quickly, which was unappetizing. I sprinkled these with powdered sugar to make them a little prettier. For the last half-dozen or so, so I pulled out a jar of marmalade from the fridge and used that; it was a good pairing with the nutmeg, easily more successful than the custard. Not worth making again, but I do want to try another thumbprint variant.
Caramel Nut Acorns: This dough was very easy to work with, but I can’t say the same for the caramel. I got the hard caramels it called for and they refused to melt in my improvised bain-marie. I tried lots of methods of delivery from the mixing bowl to the bottom of the cookies, but the caramel was so thick that I ended up just using a butter knife to scoop up a blob of caramel and smear it over the bottom of the cookie, then firmly dip it into the chopped nuts. So they didn’t look quite how I would have liked, and the caramel on the finished cookies stayed hard in my cold house. A good idea, but I probably won’t make them again.
Whew, that was more than enough rambling for one post.
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Posted in Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Dessert at 3:52 pm by julie
These were the sleeper hit of the Christmas cookie bonanza in December. I made them at the last minute to use up some sour cream and will definitely make them again. They are big and cakey, with vanilla buttercream frosting, and feel much more homey than fancy like some of the others are. Don’t skip the frosting, which really brings out the flavor in the cookies. I’ve also noticed they really benefit from an overnight sit before eating. Fresh out of the oven, even after being frosted, they seem dry and not flavorful. The next day, though, they become moist and tender, with an almost creamy crumb.
I used close to 4oz of Scharffenberger dark chocolate because that was the amount I had left from a brick. I also used old-fashioned oats from Bob’s Red Mill, but I think these cookies would perhaps be a bit better with quick-cooking oats, or old fashioned ones pulsed briefly in the Cuisinart, because I found the texture of the oats a bit hard and unpleasant with all that tenderness.
Chocolate Oatmeal Sour Cream Cookies
1/2 C butter, softened
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
3 squares (3oz) unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
2 C sifted all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 C sour cream
1/2 C milk
1 C rolled oats, uncooked (quick or old fashioned)
Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Blend in egg and melted chocolate. Sift together flour, salt and soda. Add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream and milk. Stir in oats. Drop by tablespoonsful onto lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake at 375F for 10 minutes. Cool.
Frosting:
2 T butter, softened
3 C sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 T milk
Combine all ingredients, beat until smooth and of spreading consistency. Frost cooled cookies and really try to wait until the next day to eat them. Their consistency improves greatly after a rest, and they become much more moist and creamy.
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Posted in Dinner, Veggies at 3:42 pm by julie
I felt so guilty about neglecting the blog for so long that I went right back upstairs and took pics of what I made for dinner tonight, fresh from the oven…
World’ Best Braised Cabbage, from All About Braising
: This came out great, even though the grocery delivery guy picked out possibly the world’s smallest cabbage for me. Because it was so small, I left it in the oven for a shorter amount of time than called for, about 1.5 hours. And since I was out of eggs for poaching, I ate my cabbage with a cup of soup and a few pieces of buttered toast.
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