It’s been a while, I know. It’s not that I haven’t been cooking, in fact I think I’ve been cooking more than before, but between finals and coming home, writing about it all has just (sadly) fallen by the way-side. In my absence, I’ve made gazpacho and latkes, orange-almond cake and rosemary-lemon chicken, tequila-lime shrimp and cranberry-walnut rolls, and more! But I’m going to start with a clean slate for the new year, and tell you about what my parents and I made for dinner for New Years’ Eve.
We were planning on making Fishmonger’s Stew from a recipe from the Times that featured our favorite fish man! Alex has been coming to the Farmer’s Market near our house for as long as I can remember, and my dad always comes back with enough fish to feed us for the rest of the week.
Sadly, Alex stopped coming to the Market last week in order to take a well-deserved vacation in Florida, and so we had to get our fish elsewhere. My mom and I headed to Citarella, where we had the cutest (and also the slowest) little old Italian man helping us. We got clams, mussels, squid, shrimp, monkfish, and flounder to go into the stew.
Also into the stew go lots of other ingredients: onion, leek, stock, garlic, thyme, potatoes, and a pinch of saffron. The broth we cooked earlier in the day.
But the fish had to be added right before we were ready to eat so that nothing would be overcooked. The timing is based on when the clams and mussels open, but everything goes in at about 2-3 minute intervals.
Speaking of bread, my mom and I got a deliciously-crunchy looking loaf while we were fish shopping, but then I decided that I was going to attempt to make a crusty French bread myself. The recipe called for 5 teaspoons of yeast and 5 cups of flour, along with salt and warm water.
Kneading bread isn’t quite as easy without my mixer, but I do take a secret thrill in watching bread dough come together. And it’s always a good way to take out some excess energy/stress/anger.
After rising for an hour, the dough gets split in half and shaped into a classic baguette shape before being slit along the top and painted with an egg/warm milk wash. It then rises for another 45 minutes to an hour before baking for a total of 35-40 minutes (after 20 minutes you take it out and brush it again with the egg wash).
Since this meal seems to be going in reverse, our salad was a pear/walnut/gorgonzola salad. I candied the walnuts with a little bit of maple syrup in the oven for about 20 minutes. Then I chopped the walnuts, cut up the pears, crumbled the gorgonzola, and threw it all together over arugula and endive with a light lemon/olive oil dressing.
For appetizers, we made something along the lines of Oysters Rockefeller. We sauteed shallots and spinach, then added pernod (anise liqueur), a little bit of cream, and the oysters. This mixture went into mini puff pastry shells that we made in the mini muffin tin. Then it gets topped with a little bit of gruyere cheese and throw it under the broiler until the cheese is brown and bubbly.
Happy New Year!!! I hope 2012 brings only good things. L’chaim!
Sorry that it’s been so long. Things have been a little crazy with finals, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking! This one is from a little over a week ago.
It all started when my dad bought too much striped bass at the Farmers’ Market while I was home over Thanksgiving. Being the good daughter that I am, I quickly volunteered to bring the deliciously fresh fish back to Midd with me. So there was about a pound of Long Island striped bass in my freezer… this was the base for our Sunday Dinner Club dinner.
I made a fresh tomato sauce, with some capers, and cut the striped bass into cubes, and let it all simmer together until the fish was done. Served with a little lemon, it was the perfect way to end the weekend.
But one pound of fish wasn’t going to be quite enough, so I went to see what I could find at the Co-Op. I came home with a beautiful piece of Wild Alaskan Sockeye salmon, which we broiled in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice (thankfully it wasn’t over cooked this time)!
Then I decided that I was craving some kale, so we sauteed that with garlic and olive oil. It was a little overdone, but in a way that made it crispy, not burnt, so it was actually a really fun textural addition to the plate.
Add a salad and a little rice, and I would say it was the perfect Sunday dinner!
Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, my friends from high school and I decided that we would get together for dinner. As has become our preferred hang-out-when-not-at-school method, we gathered at someone’s house (usually either mine or Sofia’s…this time mine) to cook dinner, drink wine, and reminisce about “that time in 9th grade when…”
The menu we had planned out included salmon, roast root vegetables, salad, and some sort of fun something to start and end the meal.
Becky and I met at Whole Foods (sadly, no Co-Op at home) and got what we needed, along with a bottle of Chenin Blanc and a bottle of beaujolais nouveau. We then went home and set to work.
Appetizers was easy: we picked up two frozen flatbread-style (no, not American Flatbread) pizzas, which we stuck in the oven for all of 10 minutes. They were ok - not the best I’ve ever had, but they did the trick while we were chopping and slicing and dicing. Now on to the real stuff:
Our vegetables all came from Bahner Farm, a small organic farm up in Mained that is owned by the daughter of my dad’s friends. The family stayed with us the week before, and we had a basket full of veggies that were dying to be roasted! I used some of their onions; an as-yet-unidentified-root-vegetable, I think it was a turnip, but it was kind of peppery like a radish; half of a butternut squash; and some old carrots that my dad likes to keep in the fridge. Cut all of that up, tossed it with a little olive oil/salt/pepper, and threw it in the oven at 400 for about 35 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Nora was in charge of the salad, it was delicious! Greens, cranberries, orange, quinoa (homegrown by her mom!), and avocado. I plan on making it again myself one day soon. I had also forgotten how much I love my parent’s salad bowl - it’s the perfect size and shape, and also just feels homey.
For the salmon, I really didn’t do much of anything to it. I put some olive oil/salt/pepper on it, and then stuck it in the oven, skin side down (up would have been a good choice to get some crispiness going) for about 10 minutes at 400. For my taste, it was overcooked; but everyone else liked it, so I’m not complaining too much.
For dessert, we got a cinnamon babka, which we heated up and then ate with vanilla ice cream. It was the perfect end to our meal.
Overall, a lovely dinner at home, sitting around my bright red table with old friends. :D
Definition: birthday pork - shredded pork left over from my birthday party. It was seasoned with lime juice, cumin, and garlic, and then roasted in a “Caja China” (yes, Chinese box) for 4 hours. The leftovers made their way into containers and into the freezer. I brought two such containers up to school with me at the beginning of the year. One of them was made into pulled pork sandwiches a while ago (sorry, no post on that one). The second (and last) container is now simmering on my stove with lots of other delicious ingredients.
When I decided that I wanted to make chili with the rest of the birthday pork, I was first thinking that I would make a white chili. It was going to be spiced with a lot of cumin to help highlight the flavors already in the meat. But then I decided that some people don’t really like white chili, and there’s something much warmer about the red kind. So then I started looking for recipes that sounded good. Needless to say, there are TONS of chili recipes. I read through a bunch of them to get some ideas, and ended up making it on my own terms (recipe at the bottom of the page).
And really, what would chili be without cornbread? I actually think it’s illegal to serve chili without cornbread, so that was never even an option. My personal favorite kind of cornbread is cooked in a cast-iron skillet with cheddar cheese and scallions and jalapenos. Sadly, I don’t have a cast-iron skillet at school (although I might just have to steal one from my dad when I’m home this week), but I went with a basic pan and also some muffins - a decent second choice.
In answer to your question: no, I’m not too cheap to buy enough muffin cups. The three on the end without the muffin cups are gluten-free. One of my friends at school can’t eat gluten, and so I decided to challenge my math and measuring skills, and made three gluten-free corn muffins. I just added more cornmeal and left out the flour. She said they were delicious!
We also had key lime pie, and a big salad. Lots of garnishes: guacamole, sour cream, cheddar cheese, scallions, cilantro, red onion, and some tortilla chips. Here’s one artfully composed bowl.
Chili Recipe - 2 onions - 2 bell peppers - 2 large cans of beans (I used Kidney and Pinto beans, but really any beans would do) - 2 large cans of crushed tomatoes - 1 can of tomato paste - 5 (I think it was about 5) cups cooked/shredded pork - 1 quart chicken stock - 1 Tbls. cumin - 1 Tbls. chipotle chili powder - 1 Tbls. hot chili powder - 2 Tbls. regular chili powder - salt and pepper to taste The longer it cooks the better, so layer it all into the pot starting at the top and working your way to the bottom. And then just let it cook down for a while (mine cooked for about 2 hours).
I’ve attempted to make Indian before, but I think this might be the most successful I’ve ever been. It all started with a left-over, uncooked eggplant that has been sitting in our fruit bowl for the last week. Jay got it in his head that we should make baingan bharta, and who was I to disagree with him?
I had never made baingan bharta before, but after a quick search, it seemed like a pretty easy (and relatively few ingredient) dish to make.
But if this was going to be dinner (and clearly it was) baingan bharta would not be enough. So we started looking for recipes for chicken tikka masala, but ultimately decided that there were just too many ingredients and too much time involved. I decided that I would make the curry dish that we made in Cuba a few times, except use chicken instead of chick peas.
We took our shopping list and hit the Co-Op, where we knew we would be able to get all of the spices that we needed, and buy them in bulk - my favorite way to buy spices. We were also able to get everything else we needed, so shopping was easy.
When we got home, we got right to cooking.
For the baingan bharta, the first thing you have to do is cut the eggplant in half, put olive oil, salt and pepper on it, and then put it in the oven to roast for 30 minutes at 350. After 30 minutes, you take it out, flip them over, and put them back in the oven, with the broiler on, for another 10 minutes.
While all of this roasting was happening, we sweat out some onions and finely chopped hot peppers (we used Portuguese peppers, which we were told were about as hot as jalapenos). Once the eggplant was cooked, we peeled them, took out the seeds, and roughly chopped them up. Then the eggplant and some diced tomatoes went into the onions, that simmered together for about 5 minutes. Then we added in the garam masala (a common Indian spice mix), cinnamon, ginger, cumin, and salt. All of this got mixed in, and then you have to kind of mash it all together. We used a whisk for this step, although I think a potato masher would probably work a little bit better. Then it simmers together for another 5 minutes or so - and…DELICIOUS!
For the chicken curry, I sauteed an onion and a bell pepper, then added in the chicken until it was almost cooked. Then I added plain yogurt, curry powder, and salt, and let that cook together for a while. At first it got very watery from the yogurt, but then some of the liquid cooked out, and it was perfect.
We also made a cucumber raita, which is just chopped cucumber (seeds removed), plain yogurt, lime juice, and cumin.
We also had a salad with olives, sun dried tomatoes, parmesan cheese, basil, and mixed greens. It didn’t really go with the rest of the meal, but it was delicious nonetheless.
We had two different kinds of chutney, cilantro, naan (we bought frozen naan and it was really good), and rice. A delicious meal!
When we sat down, Silvano said “This is just like an Indian Thanksgiving!” And hence the title of this blog post. I’ve been cooking a lot more in my suite, and it’s been making things much more wonderful. I think JTerm will be the time that the most cooking happens. I want to make a lot of soup.
Yesterday was our friend Mikey’s birthday. It’s a little hard to properly celebrate a birthday on a Sunday, as schoolwork often gets in the way. But we decided that a surprise birthday pot-luck dinner party would be perfect!
My contributions (along with the help of Silvano) were a veggie pasta dish, salad, and homemade ricotta cheese.
The pasta dish was a kale pesto pasta, with sauteed kale, sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives, and shallots. We made the pesto with mostly kale, a little basil, pignola nuts, parmesan cheese, and olive oil. Then I sauteed together all of the veggie-stuffs, and eventually we tossed it all together with some rigatoni. (Unfortunately, the picture-taking was seriously lacking, but here are the veggies.)
Now on to the cheese. So, I’ll be honest: this was an almost-failure that turned into a delicious treat. Over the summer, I bought a cheese-making kit online from Zingerman’s Deli. I was really excited to try it, but so far I hadn’t found the time. But this was a special occasion, so I went out and got the milk, and set to work. I’m not really sure where I went wrong, but the curds never came together the way they were supposed to, and so my failed attempt at mozzarella turned into a delicious homemade ricotta cheese (that was delicious with the pasta dish).
But I’m not totally deterred, I will definitely be attempting this one again. I was a little frazzled this time, next time cheese will be the only thing I make. So stay tuned.
The rest of dinner included a baked camembert with caramelized pecans; an arugula and mesclun salad with cucumbers and red peppers; Chinese-style eggplant with bamboo shoots and water chestnuts; roasted root vegetables; homemade bruschetta; garlic shrimp; and a homemade tiramisu.
(Don’t worry, I’m just pretending - I didn’t really like the tiramisu pan clean.)
Overall, we had a delicious dinner, wonderful company, and a very surprised birthday boy - I’d say it was a successful evening.
(That’s the surprised birthday boy.)
There are some leftovers, so perhaps more photos to come. Have a good week!
I had two sources of inspiration for this recipe. The first was my failed attempt at brown-butter blondies last week. (They were delicious, but I was making too many and so the butter just didn’t brown at all.) The second was the two rotting pears that have been sitting in the fruit-bowl on our kitchen table for two weeks at least (more I think). Something had to be done with these pears, and it seemed a real shame to just throw them out, although they were really on beyond the point of being edible as a pear anymore.
I thought that the earthiness of the brown-butter would go really well with the fall-flavorishness of the pears. And that both of those flavors would benefit from the addition of some crystallized ginger.
I didn’t remember the recipe really at all, but since I was adding the pears and stuff, it wasn’t going to matter really what the original recipe was. (I put my recipe at the bottom of the post.)
The butter browned beautifully, and I mixed it with white and brown sugar, before adding in the eggs, pear, and ginger. Then I added in the dry ingredients and mixed to combine.
That went into a baking dish and then went into a 375 oven until it looked done. It got a little darker on top than I maybe would have liked, but I put being cooked on the inside above the look on top.
(Side note: when I opened the oven, it smelled so deliciously sweet and spicy from the ginger.)
The resulting blondies were a little cake-ier than I was hoping for, but the taste was so good. I had been a little worried that one of the flavors would dominate, but the tastes are all balanced. Moral of the story: next time you have pears rotting in your fruit bowl, try out this recipe! (And if you’re at Middlebury, come over to my suite and try one!!!)
Recipe:
- 1.5 sticks of butter, melted to browning - 1/2 cup white sugar - 1/2 cup brown sugar - 2 eggs - 1 cup miced pear - 1/8 cups minced crystallized ginger - 2 and 1/4 cups flour - 1 tsp baking powder - 1/2 tsp salt
1. Preheat oven to 375. 2. Mix butter and sugars together. Then add eggs. Once combined, add pear and ginger. 3. Mix dry ingredients and then add into the wet ingredients. 4. Stir until combined. 5. Pour into 8x8 inch pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. 6. Cut and ENJOY!
The plan was simple: cook dinner in PJs, drink wine in PJs, hang out in PJs…and go no where.
Step one: figure out what we want to cook. Thankfully, my friends and I are of a similar mindset, and so we started menu planning early on Friday afternoon. We emailed recipes around, coming up with ideas, and thinking about what might be delicious. Finally we landed on the following: carnitas, tortilla soup, guasacaca sauce, homemade tortilla chips, and salad.
The carnitas are basically little delicious morsels of pork that are marinated in cumin and garlic and other delicious things, before simmering in their own juices for about half an hour. At the last minute you throw in a little milk which then caramelizes and makes even more deliciousness.
The tortilla soup was a hodge-podge of different recipes and ideas, but it was basically stock, tomato sauce, sauteed carrots/onions/peppers, and a bunch of spices. The one interesting addition was lime juice - I put some in half way through and then the rest we used as a garnish at the end for a hint of freshness.
Guasacaca sauce is an avocado-based salsa with cilantro, parsley, lime juice, and some other stuff that I can’t remember. (Colleen was in charge of the sauce.) It was a deliciously fresh topping, and also worked well as a dip for the homemade tortilla chips that we made by cutting corn tortillas into triangles and tossing them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and cumin. They went in the oven at 450 for about 10 minutes.
Salad was just about the same one that I made the other night, with carrots, cranberries, parmesan cheese, romaine lettuce, and this one also had green peppers and avocado thrown in. The dressing was a dijon balsamic vinaigrette.
The table was covered with little bowls of all different kinds of toppings, it was hard to choose, so we mostly just went with a little of everything.
Colleen’s bowl was certainly the most artfully put together:
Overall, a wonderful dinner with lovely friends - the perfect way to spend a relaxing Friday evening.
I woke up this morning with a plan to cook dinner in my suite so that I could work through dinner on a paper. This is a paper for my Politics of the Middle East and North Africa class, and we were given the option of four different prompts. I chose one, then cycled through two others, before finally landing back on my original less-than-great outline for the first question. So I was worried about my level of productivity for this paper due on Friday, and I knew that cooking dinner would be a good way to de-stress and then eat while working.
BUT THEN! I had a breakthrough this afternoon, and I now have almost two pages single spaced (for a five page double spaced paper) and a solid outline for the rest of what I need to say. So then I started getting in touch with people to see if anyone else wanted to join me for dinner.
I had broccoli, zucchini, and shallots that I had taken from Hillel on Friday, and greens for salad, and some random cheeses, and a little bit of left-over quinoa stuff. I was planning on making a stir-fry (yes, Daddy, a stir fry!) and a salad and a little quinoa on the side.
My friend Colleen was the only one who took me up on my offer, but we had a lovely dinner for two of salad (into which went parmesan cheese, carrots, and cranberries; with olive oil and lemon juice for dressing):
And broccoli/zucchini stir fry, seasoned with shallots, soy sauce, and sesame oil:
After dinner it was back to work on the paper. I’ve made even more progress, and so I thought I would take a break and write about it all.
But I should really get back to work so that I can watch Modern Family at 9pm with a guilt-free conscious.
This past weekend was Homecoming weekend, meaning the following things:
Lots of advance planning of events (and even more than usual because it also happened to be Halloween weekend)
Lots of alums back on campus
Most importantly: cooking for Hillel with my favorite Hillel alums!
We started menu planning quite a while ago, and bounced around quite a few ideas before landing on our quinoa stuffed peppers with broccoli, zucchini, and mushrooms. This recipe was kind of adapted from a recipe that I found for wild rice and sausage stuffed peppers, but really, other than the very very basic concept, it had nothing in common. Here’s what we did:
Sauté up a bunch of shallots (I would have used onions, but we had shallots, and so I used shallots)
Throw in broccoli and let steam for a minute. Then add in mushrooms, and finally throw in the zucchini.
Meanwhile, I cooked the quinoa in vegetable stock.
Once everything was cooked (basically cooked to the point of being al dente, because it went in the oven after), I put it all into a big bowl and started seasoning/saucing. Salt, chili powder (the other option was red pepper flakes, which also would have been delicious), crushed tomatoes, and parmesan cheese.
I mixed all of this around while my friend was busily quartering bell peppers. (Yes, I know I advertised stuffed peppers, but really, a casserole is much more feasible when you’re cooking for 50 people.)
Then we put the quinoa mixture into a baking dish and put the peppers pieces together on the top, squeezing in as many as possible.
That went into the oven at 350 for about 25 minutes, at which point I took it out and put some mozzarella cheese on top and put it under the broiler until the cheese was melty and brown and delicious.
Garnish with a little fresh basil, and call it a night!
This could easily have been a one pot meal, what with so many veggies already inside, but that wouldn’t have been any fun. We also made a red and green cabbage salad with apples, raisins, and shallot vinaigrette. And for dessert, pumpkin gingerbread cake, which was delicious, but seriously lacking vanilla ice cream.
Here’s a close up of dinner:
And please pardon the poor image quality, I forgot my camera and had to use the one on my phone.
