01.29.07
Posted in Dinner, Meats, Poultry at 11:30 am by julie
Well, hopefully, like other things, butterflying a chicken gets easier with practice. I’ve never done it before and was mildly traumatized by the experience, but only because I am a delicate flower. I ended up taking care of the back—very onerously with my kitchen shears, wondering if I was cutting in the wrong places, because it was so slow-going—but not the breastbone. The latter refused to come out, and I started thinking the chicken was going to end up totally mangled and unrecognizable so I gave up. It worked out fine, though, and the chicken came out extremely well, with very juicy meat and crispy skin. I used a combination of sweet smoked Spanish paprika and hot Hungarian paprika because that’s what I had on hand. This is a relatively easy way to get a very tasty result in less than 90 minutes. The potatoes weren’t memorable, but weren’t bad either.
Roast Chicken with Spanish Paprika and Herb-Roasted Potatoes
Start this early in the day or the night before. Chilling the chicken uncovered for several hours makes the skin crispy when roasted.
1 (4-5 lb) roasting chicken
4 large sprigs fresh thyme plus 1 T chopped fresh thyme
1 T coarse kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons hot smoked Spanish paprika* divided
4 Yukon Gold potatoes (cut into quarters, approx. 1-1.5″ in diameter)
2 T plus 1 tsp olive oil
*Sometimes called hot Pimentón de La Vera; available at some supermarkets and at tienda.com.
Butterfly the chicken. Tuck wing tips behind shoulder. Transfer to large rimmed baking sheet. Using fingertips, separate skin from chicken over breasts and thighs. Insert 1 thyme sprig between skin and flesh over each breast and each thigh. Mix coarse kosher salt and 1 teaspoon paprika in small bowl. Sprinkle all over chicken. Transfer uncovered chicken, skin side up, to refrigerator; chill at least 8 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Place potatoes in 11×7x2-inch baking dish. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon paprika and chopped thyme. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss. Drizzle chicken with 2 teaspoons oil. Place chicken and potatoes in oven; roast until thermometer inserted into thickest part of thigh registers 175°F, about 1 hour. Let chickens rest 10 minutes. Cut chickens into breast, wing, thigh, and leg pieces. Transfer to platter. Drizzle some drippings over; serve. Makes 2 to 4 servings (plus leftovers).
Source: Adapted from Epicurious
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01.25.07
Posted in Bread, Breakfast at 12:35 pm by julie
Jeremy hasn’t had much free time for breadbaking since he went back to work at Willamette, and boy, do I miss it. You’d think this would encourage me to do more baking of my own, but I am still concentrating on improving my cooking skills, so that means baking of all sorts—yeast breads and quick breads, cakes and pies and cookies—have taken a backseat in my mind. Of course, I still have a sweet tooth, so every now and then I can’t resist making a confection, and Jeremy is no less a bread fiend, so I periodically toss together some biscuits to go with dinner. But I still miss having gorgeous crusty loaves of fresh homemade bread to nosh on.
Jeremy took pity on me and made a batch of pane siciliano from The Breadbaker’s Apprentice
last weekend, a favorite bread for both of us that works well in both sweet and savory applications. The other nice thing about it is that it makes three big loaves, so we were swimming in fresh golden bread for several days. We used the last of it, a bit stale, to make French toast a la Alton Brown, and it was truly some of the best French toast we’ve ever had, worth the slight fussiness of the recipe.
The original recipe is below. I made some modifications to suit what I had sitting in the fridge, and it was very forgiving, so I imagine it could be modified further with success. I used part whipping cream, part 1% milk, and since we aren’t good at advance meal planning when it comes to something simple like French toast, I made the custard right before we ate. I was a little afraid of melting our cooling rack, but it survived the oven just fine, and I think could come in handy for other warming or reheating applications as well. The toast came out just as he described it on the show, crisp on the outside and creamy inside. Jeremy’s only request for next time was some cinnamon added to the custard.
Alton Brown’s French Toast
1 cup half-and-half
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons honey, warmed in microwave for 20 seconds
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 (1/2-inch) slices day-old or stale country loaf, brioche or challah bread
4 tablespoons butter
In medium size mixing bowl, whisk together the half-and-half, eggs, honey, and salt. You may do this the night before. When ready to cook, pour custard mixture into a pie pan and set aside.
Preheat oven to 375F. Dip bread into mixture, allow to soak for 30 seconds on each side, and then remove to a cooling rack that is sitting in a sheet pan, and allow to sit for 1 to 2 minutes.
Over medium-low heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a 10-inch nonstick saute pan. Place 2 slices of bread at a time into the pan and cook until golden brown, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove from pan and place on rack in oven for 5 minutes. Repeat with all 8 slices. Serve immediately with maple syrup, whipped cream or fruit.
Source: Good Eats, with Alton Brown
Update 2/23/07: I made this for dinner tonight, using rather stale and mediocre sourdough bread from the grocery store. It still came out very nicely, though. Sprinkled cinnamon on one side at Jeremy’s request, and served with applewood-smoked bacon.
Update 3/6/07: Jeremy requested French toast for dinner again last night. I didn’t bother looking it up, so I think I used 3 eggs, about 1/2 C whole milk, 3 T warm honey, a pinch of kosher salt, and a driblet of vanilla extract for the custard. I made the toast with 6 pieces of a fresh loaf of Oatnut sandwich bread, which was really too soft to stand up to the Alton treatment, but it still tasted pretty darn good with a sprinkle of cinnamon and some maple syrup and crisp bacon.
Update 5/7/07: French toast for dinner on Friday. I had to use a fresh loaf of potato sandwich bread, which was about as soft and squishy and fresh as it could be. I popped the slices under the broiler while the oven heated up and I made the custard, but they still needed just a very quick soak in the custard (a few seconds) to keep from falling apart altogether. I made the custard with 1% milk and a dollop of full-fat sour cream whisked in, because that’s what was on hand. It worked out just fine, and gave the toast a bit of a sourdoughy flavor. I added some cinnamon, vanilla, and a plop of brown sugar to the mixture to balance the sourness though.
Update 7/11/07: Jeremy asked for French toast for dinner last night, after we got home from our first puppy training class. The bread in the fridge was a loaf of Struan from Marsee Bakery, and it held up nicely with this method of making French toast, to my slight surprise, since I typically prefer plain white breads for my French toast.
Update 8/9/07: Jeremy requested French toast for lunch yesterday, so I broke out the leftover wheat berry sourdough bread in the fridge and served it up with some bacon. Not exactly the quickest lunch, but it hit the spot, and the bread held up really nicely.
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01.19.07
Posted in Cuisines, Dinner, Italian, Meats, Pork and Ham at 11:00 am by julie
This was the second time we’ve made these pork chops and they are really luscious. They do best with bone-in chops, as those stay moist longer than the boneless ones. We’ve served this with a wild rice-lentil blend and with egg noodles.
Braised Pork Chops with Tomatoes, Cream, and Porcini Mushrooms
1/4 C olive oil
2 lb pork chops, preferably from the center loin, cut 3/4-inch thick
1/2 C dry white wine
1 14-oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 C heavy whipping cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 oz dried porcini mushrooms
Reconstitute the porcini by soaking them for 30 minutes in 1 C warm water. Drain the mushrooms, saving the soaking liquid, and roughly chop them. Strain the liquids through a sieve lined with paper towel, and retain.
Choose a saute pan that can subsequently accommodate all the chops without overlapping. Put in 2 T of the oil, turn on the heat to medium high, and when the oil is hot, slip in the chops. Brown the meat deeply on both sides, turning once.
Add the white wine, letting it simmer briskly for 15-20 seconds while using a wooden spoon to scrape up any browned bits off the bottom. Add the tomatoes, cream, pepper, and the reconstituted porcini, along with its filtered liquid. Turn the heat down to cook at a very low simmer and cover the pan, setting the lid slightly ajar.
Cook for 45 minutes or more, depending on the thickness of the chops, until the meat feels tender when prodded with a fork, turning periodically. When the chops are done, remove to a platter and cover, while you turn up the heat on the sauce and reduce it to a thick, creamy consistency. Serve with something to mop up all that gorgeous sauce.
Source: Adapted from Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (pp. 421-422)
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01.18.07
Posted in Dinner, Meats, Pork and Ham at 2:09 pm by julie
I served this quick meal last night after an impromptu trip to the grocery store. The idea of sausages and grapes together was putting Jeremy off, but he agreed to give it a try. It was extremely easy to make, though it dirtied quite a few dishes. We served it with steamed broccoli and fresh sourdough bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic, and homemade chocolate velvet ice cream for dessert. Next time I’d try to find a milder flavored sausage, perhaps a chicken sausage, as the type we got tasted strongly of fennel and made it difficult for me to taste the grape flavor. But fennel isn’t my favorite, so your mileage may vary.
Roasted Sausages with Red Grapes
This surprisingly simple dish is all about the ingredients. Use the best you can find, and make sure the sausage isn’t too strongly seasoned.
2-3 mild chicken or pork Italian sausages, about 12 ounces total
½ lb red seedless grapes, preferably organic
2 scant T olive oil
½ – 1 T balsamic vinegar, or to taste
Salt
Preheat the oven to 475F. Heat a heavy skillet, preferably cast-iron, over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Lay the sausages in the skillet, and cook them, turning once, until nicely browned, about 8 minutes total.
While the sausages are cooking, remove the grapes from their stems, rinse them under cool water, drain them, and place them in a bowl. Add the olive oil, and toss.
When the sausages are browned, place them in an 8-inch square glass or ceramic baking dish, and dump the grapes on top of and around them. Slide the dish into the oven, and bake for 25 minutes, turning the sausages once after about 15 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven, and move the sausages to a platter or individual plates. Pour the grapes and their juices into a small saucepan, season with a pinch of salt, and place the saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring, until the grapes bubble and sizzle and their juices are syrupy. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the vinegar, and pour the grapes over the sausages. Yield: 2 servings
Source: Gourmet and Matthew Amster-Burton, care of Orangette
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01.15.07
Posted in Chocolate, Dessert, Ice Cream at 2:14 pm by julie
This was the first real ice cream we made in our new Kitchen Aid Ice Cream Maker attachment. We used Dagoba bittersweet baking chocolate drops that Paul gave us for Christmas, and they proved wonderful for this. The custard really came out custardy; we could have eaten it like pudding. Actually, even after freezing in the machine as long as we could stand it, the ice cream still pretty much tasted like extra-cold pudding. After ripening overnight in the freezer, it tasted more like a frozen truffle, very rich and creamy, and not at all inclined to melt into a liquid form. Tasty, but not typical of homemade ice cream, I would venture to guess.
Chocolate Velvet Ice Cream
6 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
3 large egg yolks
Chop chocolate. In a heavy saucepan whisk together sugar and cocoa powder until combined and whisk in cream and milk. Bring mixture just to a boil, stirring occasionally. In a bowl beat yolks until smooth. Add hot cream mixture to yolks in a slow stream, whisking, and pour into pan. Cook custard over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until a thermometer registers 170° F. Remove pan from heat and add chopped chocolate, whisking until melted. Pour custard through a sieve into a clean bowl and cool. Chill custard, its surface covered with plastic wrap, at least 3 hours, or until cold, and up to 1 day.
Transfer custard to bowl of a standing electric mixer and beat just until thick and fluffy. Freeze custard in an ice-cream maker. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden. Ice cream may be made 1 week ahead. Makes 1 quart.
Source: Epicurious
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01.07.07
Posted in Cuisines, Dinner, Italian, Pastas, Veggies at 6:50 pm by julie
This was a very quick, simple, and tasty pasta dish. I chose it mostly to compliment some walnut bread Jeremy made, but we were pleasantly surprised by the flavor of the pasta. If it weren’t for all the cream, this would be a perfect simple meal that just takes a few minutes to prepare, literally as long as the pasta takes to cook. And it goes well with a salad, too: Last night we did a spinach salad with feta and toasted walnuts, dressed with a simple strawberry vinaigrette (~3T olive oil, 1T white balsamic vinegar, 2tsp strawberry jam).
Fusilli Salsa di Noci
“Rich and fragrant, and elegant as an ‘all-white’ dish that reminds me of wintry evenings, this delicious pasta is perfect as a very hearty first course or a main course served with a light salad and fruit gelato to follow….Be sure to toast the walnuts, to bring out their flavor. And go easy on the garlic: The hint should be faint but not overpowering. The little corkscrew pasta known as fusilli is perfect for this sauce, for the tiny flecks of walnut cling to the pasta, giving you even amounts of sauce and pasta with each bite.”
2 plump fresh garlic cloves, degermed and minced
Sea salt
1 C walnut halves, toasted and cooled
1 C heavy cream
1 lb dried Italian pasta, such as fusilli
1/2 C freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Freshly grated black pepper
In a food processor, combine the garlic, a pinch of salt, and the nuts, and process just to coarsely chop the nuts. Add the cream, and process to a fairly smooth sauce. Taste for seasoning and transfer to a large serving bowl.
Meanwhile, in a large pot, bring 6 quarts of water to a rolling boil. As the water heats, place the serving bowl over the water to warm the bowl. When the water is boiling, add 3 tablespoons of salt and the pasta, stirring to prevent the pasta from sticking. Cook the pasta until tender but firm to the bite.
Drain and transfer to the warmed bowl, and toss to blend thoroughly. Add the cheese and toss to blend. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to warmed shallow soup bowls and serve immediately, passing the pepper mill. Yield: 4-6 servings.
Source: Trattoria, by Patricia Wells (p.110-111).
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01.06.07
Posted in Salads at 11:38 am by julie
I finally ventured away from our house salad, and have started looking around for other potential salad dressings. I hit on this one because I was planning on making a chicken dish for dinner with cherry-marsala sauce, and wanted something to complement that. As it turned out, the salad had so much more flavor than the chicken that I wished I had eaten the latter first. I won’t be making the chicken dish again, but the salad will be going into our rotation for sure.
We made this salad with spring mix greens. I left out the onion and used some candied pecans we had made previously. The cheese was a fantastic Ciresa Mountain blue gorgonzola from Whole Foods. For the dried cherry vinaigrette, I used about 1/4 C minced shallots, and pureed the finished vinaigrette in the Cuisinart before making the salad. It made enough for at least 2 days of salad for the two of us.
Gorgonzola and Dried Cherry Salad
1 head of leafy green lettuce, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces
(or prepackaged spring mix greens)
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced
1/2 C sugared pecans
dried cherry vinaigrette* or raspberry vinaigrette
1/2 C crumbled gorgonzola cheese
Toss the lettuce, onion, apple, pecans and cherries in a large salad bowl. Pour on enough dressing to coat and toss the salad. Garnish with gorgonzola before serving.
Dried Cherry Vinaigrette
1/2 C olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
1/3 C sherry or red wine vinegar
1/4 C pitted unsweetened dried cherries, chopped
2 tsp sugar
salt and freshly ground pepper
To make the vinaigrette, heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and saute for about 2 minutes, or until softened. Add the vinegar and boil for 1 minute. Add the dried cherries, salt and pepper, and heat through for 1 minute longer. Taste for seasoning and allow to cool. Puree in the food processor.
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01.05.07
Posted in Chocolate, Dessert at 3:32 pm by julie
I made this to use up some whole milk before heading out to Denver for Christmas; I think I may have supplemented the whole with some 1%. I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips for the chocolate, and the pudding came out really decadent and lovely. We ate some warm, when it was like a very thick hot chocolate, and finished the rest off once it was cold, with plenty of time to spare before the flight.
Double Chocolate Pudding
In a saucepan, whisk to combine:
3/4 C sugar
1/3 C cocoa powder
3 T corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
Put the saucepan over medium heat and have ready:
2 1/2 C dairy (soy milk, half and half, milk, or a mixture of all of the above would work)
Gradually whisk in the dairy component, and bring the mixture to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir into the hot pudding:
3 oz grated eating chocolate or chocolate chips
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Allow to cool slightly before eating, or cool with plastic making contact with the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming.
Source: Epicurious, care of Brownie Points
Update 11/29/07: Made a double-batch to use up some short-dated milk. We ate some warm tonight and Jeremy kept saying it was really good and making “mmm” sounds as he ate it. 
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01.02.07
Posted in Dinner at 4:30 pm by julie
We made some lovely meals over the course of our trip to Colorado, including both old standbys and some new recipes on the menu. I didn’t write everything down, but here are a few mentionables:
• Our favorite pork loin with leeks from Cooking Light: We’ve made this many times and it came out great, as always.
• Braised lamb shanks with porcini: This was a meal just for me and Jeremy, as my parents had a Christmas party to attend.
• Zinfandel-braised pot roast with glazed carrots from All About Braising: The meat was very tasty but the carrots were awesome and we didn’t make nearly enough of them (this coming from someone who doesn’t care for cooked carrots under normal circumstances).
• Rice-asparagus soup with pancetta and pepper from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: This was a light, tasty soup that we served with a grating of parmesan and slices of fresh bread.
• Vietnamese braised scallops from All About Braising, served with a whole grain asparagus salad with soy-ginger vinaigrette from Once Upon a Tart: I’ve made the scallops once before, and made them here at my dad’s request. My fish-wary mom bravely ate a scallop and didn’t think it was too bad. The barley-wild rice salad with asparagus went well as a side for the scallops, though the amount of dressing called for was excessive, in my opinion. This was our Christmas Eve meal.
• Leg of lamb stuffed with feta and chard: This was our Christmas dinner. It came out so well the first time we made it that Jeremy and I both really wanted my parents to try it, and I think it was a success. We had a beautiful fresh piece of lamb, and leftovers for days. We kept the sides simple and went with mashed potatoes, fresh steamed broccoli, and the red wine jus from the lamb.
We also did quite a bit of baking, though we had planned to do more, and got cut short a bit by the abruptness of our flight on Saturday. Mostly we did Christmas cookies, but a few other items as well:
• Chocolate chip cookies: I used my favorite recipe, which tweaks David Lebovitz’s fantastic cookies with the addition of toffee bits for a subtle extra hit of flavor. These didn’t last long.
• Sugar cookies: These came from a can, but sugar cookies are really just a vehicle for frosting anyway, right?
• Pumpkin cookies: These are one of my favorite cookies of all time, and we made them partly because we had a partial can of pumpkin left from a batch of pumpkin waffles (very tasty, served with maple pecan syrup). They have chocolate chips and almonds in them, and an almost cakey texture from the moistness of the pumpkin. I’ll have to post the recipe sometime.
• Buckwheat cookies: I’ve made these a bunch of times at home, and they are one of my favorites with tea. This was the first time I’ve made them with a mixer instead of a food processor, though.
• Harvest squash bread: My mom had a butternut squash on the counter when we arrived, waiting to be made into bread. We tried it out with this recipe from the Macrina Bakery Cookbook, and it came out well, after burning a batch of walnuts and pecans based on the amount of time indicated in the book for toasting them. If I made this again, I’d used hulled pepitas instead of the whole pumpkinseeds we had on hand, as the hulls were not the greatest eating, though a good source of fiber, I’m sure.
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01.01.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:43 pm by julie
1. Mushrooms
I have always disliked mushrooms. I thought it was their flavor, and indeed that took some getting used to, but I realized this year that my real aversion to mushrooms was to their texture. I trained myself not to instantly push them aside in restaurants, instead taking a bite of mushroom mixed in with other things I liked, such as potatoes, pasta, or meat. The big change, though, came with my introduction to dried mushrooms, which have a good flavor but very different texture than fresh mushrooms. Porcinis in particular are so good that I willingly ordered a porcini mushroom pizza from Christo’s on one occasion, and even liked it. After that I was more willing to try dealing with fresh mushrooms at home, and have tried cooking with several varieties so far, including cremini, shiitake, and oyster.
2. Salads
I finally started eating other salads than Caesar this year. We started out by trying to emulate the pear salad at Da Vinci, and that turned out to be a really good thing, not just for my willingness to eat salad. It also helped me realize just how easy it is to make a tasty vinaigrette, and encouraged us to try new cheeses, like Ciresa Mountain Gorgonzola, and Montchevre Crottin goat cheese. But probably most importantly, it helped me get over my mental blockage against mixing fruit and vegetables, so I now eat salads with pears, apples, and/or pomegranate arils (still working on other fruits…. these things take time).
3. Lesser epiphanies
White truffle oil is yummy with eggs. It’s also so expensive that we kind of hoped we wouldn’t like it, but no such luck.
Jeremy learned that salt isn’t all bad, and in some cases, it’s actually really good and pretty important.
We started making our own pasta, and with the KitchenAid pasta attachment, it’s not that difficult.
Fresh shelling beans from the farmer’s market are way yummy, and worth seeking out. Swiss chard is also way yummy, much easier to find, and good for multiple meals, what with the thick ribs.
The right equipment really does make a huge difference. Jeremy will now only eat bacon at home that has been cooked in our cast-iron skillet.
Safeway still occasionally surprises me, making me less frustrated that it is the only grocery store in walking distance. In recent months particularly, I’ve found new goodies like pancetta, orecchiette, forbidden rice, sunchokes/celeriac/taro, cherimoya/quince/persimmons, etc. (Still no fresh figs, quinoa, imported tuna, or Kettle Tortilla Chips, and no guarantees that the checkers will recognize the produce you want to buy…) But at least now there is a Whole Foods near Lake Oswego that we can get to in a rental car.
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