07.30.07
Posted in Cake, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 8:44 am by julie
When we last left our heroine, she was recovering from a harrowing trek home from the farmer’s market with a flat of strawberries and herbs and an excitable German shepherd pup.
As it turned out, I had several days to recuperate. The springform arrived on Monday, and I was all set to bake—just in time for the hottest day of the year. By this point, Jeremy had finished sanding and cleaning the floors, and had moved on to varnishing. All our windows and doors were open to facilitate curing and prevent asphyxiation from fumes. The 104-degree heat was just wafting in and out of the house like a convection oven. Needless to say, I chickened out and couldn’t bring myself to turn the oven on. Some Daring Baker I am!
The next day I tried to talk Jeremy into taking me to the store for more whipping cream, but he wanted to wait until it cooled off outside, and by that time his All-Star Game had started. Coincidence? I think not. We didn’t leave for the store until after 10pm, and there was clearly no time left for baking at that point, not to mention that it was still 84 degrees inside and out. The following day, Wednesday, brought Freyja’s first obedience training class, smack in the middle of the evening. I was starting to get really anxious, as my strawberries were starting to look sad and over-ripe, so I made Jeremy get us take-out for dinner on Thursday and settled in to bake that mirror cake or die trying. My dear husband did the smart thing and barricaded himself in the air-conditioned bedroom with the dog and his Playstation 2 while I worked.
The sponge cake was easy to make. I couldn’t find a ruler or measuring tape because of the post-refurbishment chaos, and I spent some time fretting over whether I had the right size jelly roll and the best way to make a correctly-sized template for cutting. Everything worked out fine, though: the cake browned and sprang back after 7 minutes, released perfectly from the pan onto my counter, and was cut into two circles without tearing. I tossed the scraps in a container for later snacking and lovingly centered one layer in my brand-new springform pan.
The Bavarian cream was the thing I was most concerned about making. Clearly it was the single-most important element of the cake, and I kept having visions of the cake whooshing into a pink puddle the moment I unmolded it. Strained strawberry puree sprinkled with gelatin…check. Scalded whole milk…check. Beaten yolks and sugar, tempered with milk and kept beneath the boil…check. Separating custard…check…oh wait, that’s not good! It was just starting to curdle, so I quickly pulled it off the heat and beat it with the whisk attachment of my stick blender. (And let me tell you, that attachment was a lifesaver for this project. I used it more than my stand mixer, and it’s easier to hang onto one-handed than my old hand mixer.) The custard didn’t seem to be a lost cause, so in it went with the strawberry puree-gelatin and another blast of the whisk because darned if that gelatin didn’t set up and get all chunky. It almost looked more curdled after I mixed it all together, but I had faith and plunked the thing down in an ice bath.
While it cooled and set up, I did some cleaning, made soaking syrup, whipped my cream, and sliced up my remaining strawberries for the mirror. I barely had enough, and although many of them had over-ripe soft spots that meant they were no good for eating out of hand, I told myself they would do just fine in their juiced and pureed states…Meanwhile, the Bavarian stuff had set. It seemed to be about the texture described, but there was no way it was going to fold politely into the whipped cream, so out came the stick blender whisk again. Much better! Still, it was thick enough that I started getting paranoid that the Bavarian would solidify before I could spread it over the cake, so I got a move on with the assembly. Very straightforward, though I couldn’t tell how thick my middle layer ended up, or how well the Bavarian filled the space around the sides of the cake, or even how level my layers were. No matter—in the fridge it went.
While I waited for the strawberry juice to collect, I proudly smeared a scrap of cake with some leftover Bavarian and brought it in for Jeremy to taste-test. Maybe that was a bad idea. He took a bite, looked at me sheepishly, and handed the rest back, clearly loath to tell me that he didn’t like it. I eventually coerced him into admitting that he didn’t care for the strawberry flavor of the Bavarian and slumped dejectedly back to the kitchen to check on my strawberry juice. When the cake had been in the fridge for an hour or two, and the Bavarian had set up, I got the mirror ready to go. I stood there peering at the little bowl in its ice bath, stirring it more than was strictly necessary and willing it to get syrupy. At this point it was 12:15am, and I’d been working since about 8pm.
It never did get syrupy, but once it cooled down to the point that it was below room temperature, I decided it wasn’t in danger of dissolving the Bavarian, crossed my fingers, and poured. Then I had to carry the darn thing across the kitchen and get it in the fridge without sloshing, which was an anxiety-fraught walk, let me tell you. Somehow I managed it, and dragged myself off to bed. The entire night was spent dreaming of soupy, lumpy Bavarian, and discovering a strawberry juice lake on top of my cake in the morning.
I decided to take the cake to work with me because there was no way I was going to eat that entire thing myself: there’s nearly a pint of cream and a dozen eggs in there! I want to live to make the August Daring Bakers challenge. I unmolded the cake at home before transportation, gently wrapping the springform with warm towels (dampened and zapped in the microwave for a minute) and running a butter knife around the edges of the mirror twice. Then the moment of truth was upon me—I held my breath—and ever so slowly, the cake released from the mold and didn’t look half bad. Getting it onto the cake stand base was another breathless moment, then the careful application of the carrier top, and I could breathe again. I was too emotionally exhausted to bother with any additional decoration on this one, though I had considered some options before Jeremy denounced it.
That afternoon at work, I asked folks to come in and try it out, and made a little event of it. It held up well, looked gorgeous and relatively well-balanced, and was really easy to slice, which surprised me a little. It seemed to be received well by the folks who came by for the tasting, but then my co-workers are all really polite. Even Jeremy said he liked it better than he had the previous night, but he only ate a few bites; I really appreciate that he came over to my office and tried it again in public, for the sake of solidarity. I came home with a third of the cake left, and did my best to finish it off, but I don’t think Bavarian cream is really my thing.
To conclude this massive tome, I am so glad I had a chance to try making this mirror cake. I never would have considered making something like it if I hadn’t joined the Daring Bakers. This was my first experience making virtually all the components of the cake, and I think—though having never tasted one before, I can’t be certain—that my execution was pretty good for a first shot. I followed the recipe as closely as I possibly could, though I admit I omitted the foil-covered cardboard (that’s why I like glass-bottomed springform pans), and the food coloring and alcohol also.
I can’t wait to see everyone else’s cakes. Bring on the August Challenge!
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Posted in Cake, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 8:43 am by julie
This post marks my matriculation in the Theta Class of the Daring Bakers, an audacious group of amateurs and professionals who have agreed to challenge their abilities every month. I’ve been watching their progress—crepe cakes, gateaux St. Honore, bagels—for several months as they popped up on many of the food blogs I read, and at the end of June, I took a deep breath and asked to participate myself.
The Daring Bakers challenge for July was a Strawberry Mirror Cake (for the recipe, visit Peabody’s blog—she graciously hosted this month’s challenge). I’ve never tasted—or seen—or heard of—a mirror cake before, but it looked like a sort of sponge cake or genoise layered with and surrounded by a billowy layer of Bavarian cream and topped with a sheet of flavored gelatin that formed the decorative mirror on top. I’ve never made a sponge cake before, or Bavarian cream, and certainly not a gelatin mirror, but it seemed straight forward enough. Just follow the recipe exactly, and I’ll be fine. Right?
The first issue I encountered was simply the timing. Strawberry season in Oregon is late May and most of June, but it’s pretty well over by the beginning of July. I’ve gone on enough here about the virtues of Oregon strawberries that I immediately started worrying if there would be any left to use by the time my holiday-delayed 10″ glass-bottomed springform pan arrived in the mail. The heat was another issue, since the strawberry harvest drops off significantly after a heat wave like the one that started (of course) on the 4th. Finally, we (almost spontaneously) started ripping up carpet and refinishing our hardwood floors right at the beginning of the month, thanks to a little too much encouragement from our 5-month old German shepherd puppy, Freyja (a.k.a. The Piddler). The house was in chaos: Most of our furniture stuffed in a back room, and flooring supplies were slowing taking over my kitchen, blocking off cupboards and generally making it difficult to get around. At least we didn’t replace the floors in there too! (Not that they don’t need it—the linoleum in there is nasty and ancient, but won’t be replaced until we get around to remodeling the entire kitchen.)
I knew I had to hit the farmer’s market on the first Saturday of the month, July 7th, or face the dire prospect of using frozen or non-local berries for my cake. The problem was that Jeremy was about to rent an orbital sander and wreak dusty havoc on the floors, so Freyja and I both had to get out and let him do his thing. I don’t drive and the puppy loves walking to the market, so I grabbed a bottle of water and two leashes, tightened my belt, and off we went. It’s a hike that we’ve made many times since the market opened in May, about a mile each way. Freyja had a great time walking around the market with me, getting all sorts of attention from people and introducing herself to other dogs. The whole time I was scanning booths for berries, more and more worriedly. Finally, in the back corner stall, alongside a few blueberries and cherries and huge piles of zucchini and cukes and new potatoes, was a row of pint baskets brimming with strawberries. Freyja found a shady spot underfoot and plopped down to rest while I tried to flag down a busy vendor and squeeze some information out of her about the variety. (Her response? They were “good” and $15 for a half-flat.)
Here’s where it gets interesting. I paid my money and got my half-flat of strawberries, packed up in a full-flat box, and moved away from the busy stall, awkwardly holding the off-balance box with one arm and Freyja’s flexi-leash in the other. Clearly, this was not going to work. I sat down to regroup, distracted the pup from nibbling on my precious berries, and gave her some water, waiting for a revelation. A few moments later I heard the lady at the herb stall saying this was likely to be their last day at the market for the year. Well, I can’t resist buying herbs for my little garden, and I reckoned that they would balance out the weight of the berries. So I ended up with two basils (which I keep buying although I’ve never successfully kept it alive), two gorgeous little cardoon plants (woohoo!), and a bergamot mint. I tied Freyja’s training leash to my belt, took part of it in one hand for some illusion of control, and grabbed the box firmly by the handles. We were off.
I should pause here to note that we have a really smart, beautiful puppy with a great, friendly temperament. She also has lots of energy, weighs 50-odd pounds now, and hadn’t started her formal training yet, so she didn’t know how to heel, in the strictest sense of the word. At least she knows a few other helpful commands. I walked as fast I could manage with a heavy flat of delicate items, and Freyja yanked me to and fro every time something caught her eye. Oh, and the heat was making my glasses slide down to the tip of my nose every few seconds, which was absolutely driving me nuts. We made it about halfway back, to the little park by the Oregon State Capital, but after encounters with about 10 squirrels in a row (darn squirrelly Salem!), I had to take a good long break to rest my arms. Somehow we got back home, and with the last of my strength, I tossed the box down on the front porch, but had to get Jeremy’s help untying the leash. My hand and arm muscles were so fatigued that they didn’t stop shaking for the better part of an hour. But I got my local strawberries, gosh darn it, and I felt a bit like a Daring Baker already.
Whew, this is getting to be quite a novel, and I haven’t even got to the part where I made the cake yet. I swear, I’m not always this long-winded (or at least I’d like to think so). More to come in Part 2: The Challenge.
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07.27.07
Posted in Cuisines, Foodblog Events, Pastas, Seafood, Shrimp, Vietnamese at 9:39 am by julie
I’m back for more! This is my entry for this week’s Presto Pasta Night, created by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast. I had originally planned on entering my roasted mushroom lasagne, but it was so scraped together and so creamy and pale that it just didn’t feel right to enter, coming after Myriam’s stunning Chanterelle Lasagne last week. Not that the appearance prevented us from gobbling down every bit of our lasagne for lunches this week…
We’ve been having a strange summer, weather-wise. With temperature spikes after both Memorial Day and Independence Day, and then a week of cooler weather and rain on what is traditionally the hottest and driest part of the year in Oregon, it’s been hard to know what to expect. This week has been unusually humid, so after sneaking in that lasagne before the drip factor kicked in, I really wanted to make something cool and refreshing for dinner. For some reason, Vietnamese spring rolls sprang into my head, so I gave them a shot.
I used a recipe from Epicurious, and stuck pretty close to it. The pasta element consisted of pouring hot water over maifun rice sticks and letting them soften up. Then I set to cooking the shrimp and julienning vegetables. I’ve never worked with rice paper before, so I was a little nervous about rolling everything up, but the spring roll skins I used (actually consisting of tapioca flour rather than rice) seemed pretty sturdy and didn’t stick too much. I just swished each sheet through some hot water for a few seconds, one at a time, and pulled them out while still a bit stiff. They softened up as I layered noodles, veggies, mint and shrimp, and didn’t tear much when I went to roll them. I do need to work on my technique, though, as they were looser than I would have liked. Since I barely made a dent in the package of skins, it would appear I’ll have lots more opportunities to practice.
Shrimp Rice-Paper Rolls with Vietnamese Dipping Sauce
I actually cut the amounts below in half for just the two of us. A few changes I made: I left out the shiitake mushrooms because I can only eat so many in one week. The dipping sauce, a variety of nuoc cham, originally called for jalepeno, which is too spicy for me. I also left out some of the herbs because I don’t like cilantro and my basil plants are hanging on by a thread outside in this wonky weather. Finally, the original recipe called for slicing the rolls into thirds, but it wasn’t necessary and mine would have totally fallen apart I’d tried it.
Dipping Sauce
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons fermented fish sauce (nam pla)*
1 tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar
2 garlic cloves, minced
Pinch of red chili flakes
Rice-Paper Rolls
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
4 ounces dried thin Chinese rice sticks (maifun)*
12 8- to- 9-inch round rice-paper sheets*
1 cup fresh bergamot mint leaves
1 cup finely shredded Savoy cabbage
1 cup mung bean sprouts
1 cup matchstick-size strips seeded English hothouse cucumber
1 cup matchstick-size strips peeled carrot
8 ounces peeled deveined medium shrimp
For dipping sauce: Whisk all ingredients in medium bowl until sugar dissolves. Let stand at least 30 minutes. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill.)
For rice-paper rolls: Heat oil in medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add shrimp and sauté until pink and cooked through, about 2 minutes. Cool and split in half lengthwise.
Place rice sticks in large bowl; add enough hot water to cover. Let stand until softened, about 30 minutes. Drain. Cut into 6-inch lengths; set aside. Fill same bowl with warm water. Add 1 rice-paper sheet and turn until beginning to soften, about 10 seconds (sheet will still be a bit stiff). Remove from water and place on prep surface.
Arrange a small handful of rice noodles in a line across softened rice paper. Top with cabbage, sprouts, cucumber, carrot, shrimp, and mint. Fold bottom of each rice sheet over filling, then fold in ends and roll into tight cylinder. Place rolls, seam side down, on platter and serve with sauce. (Can be made 6 hours ahead. Cover with damp paper towel and plastic wrap; chill.)
Source: Adapted from Epicurious.
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07.25.07
Posted in Dessert, Dinner, Fruits, Ice Cream at 10:03 am by julie
Another day, another scoop of ice cream. Or in this case, frozen yogurt. I found some incredibly sweet juicy white nectarines at LifeSource in June, and had one or more every day, sliced up over honey-drizzled Greek yogurt. I tried to get more of those perfect nectarines the next time we went back, but they only had more ordinary yellow ones, which were tasty but nothing special. After eating one or two with yogurt, I decided to take care of the whole bag at once and make some nectarine frozen yogurt.
I think I used about 5 rather small ripe yellow nectarines, simmered with a bit of water and some sugar until they were tender and had released their juices. That was chilled, then pureed with a cup or so of Greek yogurt, and poured into the ice cream maker. I was basing my recipe on David Lebovitz’s peach frozen yogurt. He mentions for nectarine ice cream that the skins are soft after cooking, so I didn’t bother peeling my slices, but I wish I had strained the puree, because the tiny bits of skin keep catching in my mouth and spoiling the otherwise smooth and creamy texture.
I loved the flavor of this frozen yogurt, but what’s not to like, since I had essentially been eating those ingredients together in another form already. Sometimes, as in the photo, I’ve drizzled it with a bit of candied cherry syrup, just for fun. Jeremy, however, was not a fan. He ate a spoonful or two from the container and decided against having a scoop. More for me! But I did let him call the next flavor we try, which will be—drumroll please—olive oil. I have just the cake to accompany it, too, so that’s the plan for tonight.
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07.24.07
Posted in Cuisines, Dinner, Italian, Pastas, Veggies at 10:45 am by julie
Last night for dinner, I wanted to make some sort of mushroom pasta to use up a bunch of farmer’s market shiitake, maitake, and oyster mushrooms (three bagfuls purchased for just $10—hard to resist!) before they shriveled up. In the face of some seriously depleted supplies, I ran to the little market down the street for a quart of whole milk and rummaged around the fridge, almost magically producing just enough ingredients to pull off a lasagne. It wasn’t ready to eat until nearly 9:00 pm, but since I didn’t get started until after 6:30 pm due to furniture being moved through my kitchen, I really made pretty good time. Time-turners—who needs ‘em? (Gee, do I have Harry Potter on the brain? Jeremy and I are just over halfway through the last book now; we have read all of the books aloud to each other, and that takes a while.)
The lasagne filling was the fresh mushrooms tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted whole at 400F for about 15 minutes (stirred halfway through), then coarsely chopped. While those cooked, I trashed some elderly farmer’s market bacon, regular bacon, and prosciutto, and found a stash of 5 pieces of bacon in the freezer, stored in accordion-folded plastic wrap. Perfect. I sliced it up and browned it in a skillet while scrounging for alliums. No whole onions, scallions or leeks; no chopped onion or leek left in the freezer (I used the last of that stash in the zucchini cakes the day before). Eventually the search turned up a few shriveled shallots that I minced and quickly sautéed in the bacon fat and tossed with the mushrooms and bacon bits. I think I ended up with a scant two cups of filling. I considered adding some rehydrated porcini, but I’m nearly out of those too, and decided to hoard them for a future meal.
Next up was the sauce, a white roux-based cheese sauce of whole milk and chicken stock infused with fresh thyme branches and bay. While it thickened, I pulled out every viable bit of cheese in the drawer: A few slices of smoked fontina, half a chunk of raw-milk Gruyere, some aged Grana padano, one fist-sized ball of mozzarella, and my Parmesan. The first three were slivered up and tossed in the sauce to melt; I decided to save the mozzarella and Parm for layering.
Of course I had no lasagne noodles in the pantry, so I made them myself using a batch and a half of Marcella’s basic pasta recipe (1 ½ C flour and 3 eggs). The dough was a bit sticky, but I just kept everything well floured. The real problem was that I was trying to make my lasagne in a rather messy kitchen because I’d gotten a late start cooking, so there was not much available counterspace for strewing pasta sheets. I managed—just barely—and tossed the huge, translucent ribbons into boiling water for a few seconds, just long enough to set the dough. As they came out of the water, I dumped them in a bowl of cold water and olive oil, to prevent sticking.
Finally I was ready to layer: Sauce in the bottom, then a layer of pasta, squeegeed between my fingers to remove the excess moisture and oil. A scant scattering of mushroom-shallot-bacon filling and some slivers of mozzarella, then more sauce and pasta. I squeezed 4 layers out of the filling and cheese, with just barely enough sauce leftover to coat the top layer of noodles, followed by a shower of grated Parmesan. The dish, foil-covered, went in a 350F oven for about half an hour, then I took off the foil, bumped the broiler up to 500F, and browned up the top a bit. Jeremy had been plaintively asking about dinner for an hour, and had already consumed his appetizer (boysenberry cobbler, what else?), so the finished lasagna was very gratefully received.
You would hardly guess how bottom-of-the-barrel this dinner really was from the taste of it. The mushroom filling packed a big flavor punch, and the sauce was decadently creamy. The mozzarella, little as there was of it, nevertheless produced an impressively stringy show as Jeremy served up our portions. And of course the homemade pasta was tender and perfect, much more delicate than store-bought sheets would have been. If I make this again, and believe me, I’ll consider it, my only adjustments would be to increase the amounts of filling and mozzarella, and consequently the number of layers, since, tasty as it was, it wasn’t exactly a deep-dish lasagna. (It was also rather difficult to photograph, being crazy-pale and creamy and ooey-gooey.)
Source: Freely adapted from a Roasted Portobello and Prosciutto Lasagna at Epicurious.
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07.23.07
Posted in Lunch, Sides, Veggies at 9:24 am by julie
Every once in a while, I look down at the plate of food I am about to eat, and realize just how far I have come. Even so recently as last summer I would never have considered making the meal we ate for dinner last night. But there it was in front of me: zucchini cakes with a garlicky yogurt sauce for dipping, prepared by my own hands with no prompting from anyone. And what’s more, I really enjoyed it, wished vaguely that I had made more, and have no doubt that we’ll be eating these again before the summer is out.
Zucchini, being a squash, has always been one of those vegetables (or, technically, fruits) that I have avoided eating at all costs. I disliked its squishy, slimy cooked interior texture and its blandness, and still do, frankly. But this may be the recipe that reconciles me to zucchini, being neither bland nor mushy. Actually, it didn’t taste of zucchini at all, particularly; I half imagined I was eating potato cakes for dinner, and that’s not a bad thought.
The recipe wasn’t really even a recipe, more of a guide that I found at Nosheteria, and it was the dill and feta that talked me into trying it. The bright zing of garlic, feta, and dill in the yogurt dip—some of my favorite flavors, but still shocking that I now sometimes eat unsweetened, or even savory, yogurt—were echoed perfectly in the crisp and golden brown cakes. This may even be a reason to try growing some zucchini plants in the back yard next year.
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07.22.07
Posted in Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 4:17 pm by julie
I’m not sure what it was that possessed me to grab a pint of boysenberries at the farmer’s market yesterday. It certainly wasn’t for lack of other produce, since my little bag was already bursting with apricots, green beans and fresh dill, not to mention some smoked buffalo bones for a certain puppy (who, by the way, was on her best behavior in public this weekend). But I remembered read somewhere recently that boysenberries are a hybrid of blackberries, loganberries, and raspberries, and/or possibly dewberries, with a flavor like raspberries but sweeter. I don’t like blackberries and raspberries because they are so gritty and tart (and possibly my ongoing war with the blackberry brambles in the back yard affects my opinion a bit), so “sweeter” must have been the key word that drew me to the boysenberry stand yesterday.
The pint of berries, swathed in a plastic bag, went in my messenger bag with the rest of the produce, and Freyja and I headed home, squeezing our way through the huge crowd gathered on Summer Street for that Hoopla basketball event held every year by the Capitol. By the time we got home, the pressed cardboard pint box was soggy with purple juice, but at least the plastic kept it from staining my bag. Still, I knew that, in their rather mangled state, I would need to use the berries right away. I gave Jeremy his choice of boysenberry cobbler or ice cream, and he voted for cobbler almost before I had mentioned the second option.
Since I only had one pint of berries, I pared down the recipe I was working from, and baked it in 6 individual ramekins instead of a single dish. I appear to be on the verge of a coconut kick: I added a bit of desiccated coconut to the batter, and, just for fun, sprinkled the cobblers with coconut sugar too. They went in the oven for about 20 minutes, until they were puffed and golden with violet juices bubbling up around the edges like lava. We read a chapter or two of Harry Potter while they cooled down, and ate them warm with a dollop of vanilla-flecked whipped cream (Jeremy lamented our sad lack of vanilla ice cream. It didn’t stop him from eating cobbler though, both that night and with breakfast and lunch the next day, too.).
Although the berries themselves were only sweetened with a few tablespoons of sugar, they were definitely sweet enough for my taste and lived up to their reputation. This is a berry I can get behind. If only it were seedless… the cobbler tasted great, but seemed really gravelly in my mouth. Next time I see them at the market, I’ll use them to make a batch of strained boysenberry ice cream instead.
Individual Boysenberry Cobblers
2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 C sugar
1 pint (2 cups) boysenberries
1 T water
1 T butter
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 C flour
1/2 C sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 T butter, melted
1 egg white
2 T unsweetened desiccated coconut
3 T milk or heavy cream
Coconut sugar
Preheat oven to 350°F. In a saucepan mix cornstarch, sugar, and water. Add berries and cook on medium heat until mixture is thickened, about 15 minutes. Add butter and lemon juice. Divide between 6 ramekins.
Prepare the batter by mixing all of the batter ingredients and beating with a spoon until the batter is smooth and scoopable. Using a cookie scoop, evenly divide dollops of batter between the ramekins; it will sink a bit into the berry mixture. Sprinkle tops with coconut sugar. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350°F. Let cool; serve slightly warm with whipped cream or ice cream. These reheat well, covered with plastic wrap and popped in the microwave for a few seconds.
Coconut Sugar:
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/4 C sweetened flaked coconut
Combine sugar and coconut in a food processor and pulse until sugar looks moist and fluffy. Makes 3/4 cup. Use to top baked goods or homemade donuts and fritters.
Source: Adapted from Simply Recipes.
This post is my entry for the Summer Flavor Challenge hosted by Jerry at Food and Photo.
Update 7/26/07: I won, I won! Hard to believe, but Jerry just emailed me with the big news. Check it out here. Ooh, can’t want to find out what the prize is!
Update 8/2/07: My prize has arrived in the mail and it’s a delicious batch of homemade cookies and a packet of Austin-made gingerbread biscotti. Thanks so much, Jerry! My husband ate almost all of your cookies before I even had a chance to try one. 
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07.21.07
Posted in British, Cuisines, Uncategorized at 8:27 am by julie
Since the last Harry Potter book arrives at our house today, maybe I should make something British for breakfast… While I’m at it, check out these Harry Potter recipes.
The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!
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Said Ravenclaw, "We’ll teach those whose intelligence is surest."
Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron’s affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine’s editor).
Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created. |
Get Sorted Now!
Update: I decided to make some scones from Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess
for breakfast. They came out pretty well, although as I was making them, it hit me that they were really just the equivalent of baking powder biscuits made with homemade baking powder. And sure enough, that’s pretty much what they tasted like. I couldn’t figure out why Nigella said they look like they have cellulite, though.
I topped half of my scones with cacao nib sugar and half with cinnamon sugar. Since we didn’t have any clotted cream, we ate ours with butter, jam, honey, and Nutella.
Lily’s Scones
3 1/3 C AP flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
4 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 C cold unsalted butter, diced
2 T shortening, in teaspooned lumps
1 1/3 C milk
1 large egg, beaten, for egg-wash
Preheat oven to 425F.
Sift the flour, salt, soda, and cream of tartar into a large bowl. Rub in the fats till the mixture goes like damp sand. Add the milk all at once, mix briefly—briefly being the operative word—and then turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly to form a dough.
Roll out to about 1 to 1 1/4 inch thickness. Dip a 2 1/3-inch crinkle-edged round cutter into some flour, then stamp out at least 10 scones. You get 12 in all from this, but may need to reroll for the last 2. Place on a greased baking sheet very close together—the idea is that they bulge and stick together on cooking—then brush the tops with the egg wash. Put in the oven and cook for 10 minutes or until risen and golden.
Always eat freshly baked, preferably still warm from the oven, with clotted cream and jam, or my favorite, Thunder and Lightning, which is clotted cream and molasses.
Source: How to Be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson.
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07.20.07
Posted in Cuisines, Dinner, Foodblog Events, Italian, Nuts, Grains & Legumes, Pastas at 9:08 am by julie
I’ve decided to take the plunge and submit this dish to Ruth for Presto Pasta Night. Goodness knows we eat enough pasta around here, so this may become a regular thing. Who knows?
So I had all that leftover fava-potato-scallion puree from making the raviolis earlier in the week. It had far too much flavor to let go to waste, and merely using it as a spread for crostini seemed like a bit of a cop-out, not to mention that there was enough to cover about 2 loaves of bread. My first thought was soup, but Jeremy isn’t a soup fan, and the weather really isn’t right for it. I considered risotto, but that seemed like an awful lot of starch in one place. Jeremy came to my rescue, though, and made the suggestion of fava gnocchi.
Grubby-looking, aren’t they?
I’ve made ricotta gnocchi once, and once I ordered potato gnocchi with cheese sauce in a restaurant. Both times the gnocchi seemed light yet simultaneously almost too heavy and rich to eat more than a few bites. Plus, they seem to have a very mushy texture that coats the roof of your mouth like spackle, so I’ve been a little reluctant to try my hand at them again. But I couldn’t let my fava puree go to waste, and I had to admit that gnocchi seemed like the ideal use for it.
I based my gnocchi on a variety of recipes using potato or sweet pea puree. The dough was very soft, so I used a light hand with it, but it shaped beautifully on the back of a fork as long as I kept the pieces lightly coated with flour. They came out oddly pale for all that green glory in puree form, but it probably didn’t help that I served them with a very light Parmesan cream sauce. We were both a bit surprised by how much we liked these gnocchi, despite that characteristic mushiness. Somehow they didn’t seem as rich as the ones we’ve had before—I very nearly finished my plateful, and Jeremy went back for seconds. His comments? “These are the best gnocchi I’ve ever had.” “This was a good idea of mine.” “These are kind of like something they’d make on Iron Chef.” As for myself, I was just tickled that they came out looking and acting like honest-to-goodness gnocchi.
Fresh Fava Gnocchi with Parmesan Cream
This recipe was a matter of trial and error. I had about 2 cups of fava-potato-scallion puree, very thick and rather pasty, already seasoned and enriched with a few tablespoons of butter and a bit of goat cheese. I added the egg because I thought it might foment a lighter texture, and I incorporated flour just a bit at a time until I had something that seemed like the descriptions Marcella gave in Essentials. My recommendation is to (very gently) knead as little flour into the dough as you can, but use lots of bench flour when shaping to prevent sticking. My gnocchi absorbed most of their surface flour while I waited for the water to reach a boil, so some of them wanted to stick to each other and the plate a bit, and I ended up having to transfer them one or two at a time instead of just tipping the plate as I’d hoped.
2 C fava-potato puree, left over from fava ravioli filling
1 egg
About 1 C flour, plus more for shaping, as necessary
Heat salted water to boiling in a large, wide pot.
Mix together fava puree and egg. Stir 2/3 C flour gently into puree, put the remaining 1/3 C on a clean countertop and dump puree onto it. Knead very gently, just until dough comes together, remaining soft and slightly sticky. Divide dough into 8 pieces, and roll into ropes one at a time, keeping your board well floured. Cut into gnocchi-sized pieces.
With a floured plate or baking sheet at hand, use a long-tined fork to shape gnocchi as follows: Turn the fork over, pick up a piece of dough, and roll it down the tines of the fork with your thumb, letting the gnocchi fall off the end of the fork onto the plate. Don’t press too hard, and make sure the gnocchi pieces are lightly floured so that they don’t stick to the fork. You will end up with a piece of gnocchi with ridges from the tines on one side, and an indentation from your thumb on the other side, perfect for catching sauce. Shape all the gnocchi.
To cook gnocchi, drop 2 or 3 in the boiling water and wait until they float to the surface. Count to 10, remove them from the water, and taste for doneness. When you are satisfied with their doneness, drop gnocchi into the water in batches of about 2 dozen, removing with a spider or slotted spoon when done; drop briefly in a bowl of ice water, then remove to a colander to drain. Cook all the gnocchi like this. Toss with prepared sauce and garnish with parmesan curls and a drizzle of good olive oil; or chill in refrigerator until ready to reheat by quickly sauteeing in olive oil.
Parmesan Cream Sauce
1 T butter
1 T flour
1 C 1% milk
3/4 C chicken broth
1 sprig fresh rosemary, finely minced
1/2 C Parmesan cheese, grated and more for garnish
Extra virgin olive oil
Melt butter in a saucepan and mix in flour to form a roux. Meanwhile, heat milk and broth together in the microwave and stir into roux. Add rosemary and simmer over medium heat until sauce thickens to desired consistency (ie: enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon). When gnocchi are ready to dress, add Parmesan to the sauce and stir to melt; combine sauce with gnocchi and plate.
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07.18.07
Posted in Cuisines, Italian, Nuts, Grains & Legumes, Pastas, Seafood, Shrimp at 9:55 am by julie
When we went to the Lake Oswego farmer’s market a week or two ago, I was pleased as punch to find a big pile of fava beans at one of the stalls. I’ve never seen them at the greenmarket here in Salem, just at LifeSource, and these were huge, beautiful pods that I couldn’t pass up. I got enough to really make them the centerpiece of a meal, so I spent quite a while trying to decide how to put them to use. I knew I wanted to combine them with shrimp in some fashion, and I ended up making fava bean raviolis with a shrimp and herb cream sauce that was really delicious, if rather a lot of work.
I started out shelling, blanching and peeling—despite the insistence of the stately Italian lady at the farmer’s market who told another woman (who hadn’t yet ever tried favas) that they don’t need to be peeled or even shelled. I do want to try grilling them whole sometime, but so far I haven’t been brave enough to eat them that way because I’m concerned about the texture. These were huge favas, much larger than the ones from LifeSource, and I definitely needed to blanch and peel them. I started working at 4:30pm, and I think it ended up taking me about an hour to end up with a cup or two of slippery emerald beans. From there, I’ll outline what I did, though I wasn’t really watching amounts.
*Make fava bean puree by covering with water 2 sliced Yukon gold potatoes, the favas, a sprig of fresh rosemary and half a bunch of sliced green onions and simmering until they are tender and the water has boiled off; add 3 T butter to melt, then puree with a stick blender until uniform. (Take time out to marvel at the fact that your puppy is enchanted by the smell and taste of the fava puree, and tried her darndest to stick her face in the bowl on top of the counter.) Add 2 oz fresh goat cheese and stir through while warm. It will be as thick as mashed potatoes, not watery. Cover and set aside.
*While working on favas and puree, thaw, peel and drain 8-10 shrimp, cut in half, and marinate in olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, and a sprig of fresh rosemary.
*Make pasta dough: 1 C flour and 2 large eggs, from Marcella’s recipe, kneaded until smooth and wrapped in plastic wrap.
*Start herb sauce: 1 C 1% milk and ¾ C chicken or shrimp stock, warmed in microwave. Make a roux with 1 T each butter and flour, add warm liquid and a branch of fresh thyme, and simmer, stirring occasionally until it begins to thicken. Turn heat down to low and cover while making pasta.
*Additional elements for sauce: In a small skillet, sauté ½ C chopped sweet onion and fava beans for garnish in olive oil until onions are translucent and beans begin to soften; add shrimp with marinade (remove rosemary sprig) and cook just until pink; remove from heat and reserve.
*Run pasta dough through crank to desired thinness, cut into squares for ravioli, and fill with a teaspoon or so of fava puree, sealing edges well. Flour and cover as you go so they don’t stick together or dry out. Meanwhile, heat a large pot of salted water.
*Drop raviolis in the water to cook for a few minutes. Meanwhile, turn up the heat on the sauce, add a splash of heavy cream, and bring to desired temp and texture; add in the shrimp/fava mixture to warm.
*Toss drained raviolis with sauce and put on warmed plates, topped with crumbled goat cheese and some fresh chopped parsley or chives.
I think we finally sat down to eat about 4 hours after I started shelling beans, so it was quite the marathon prep, but worth the effort. I barely made a dent in the bowl of fava puree, though, and it was so delicious (I can’t blame Freyja for wanting to sample it) that I’ll definitely have to come up with alternate uses for it. I’m thinking crostini or sandwich smear, thinned with stock for soup, mixed into risotto, or perhaps even made into fava gnocchi.
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