Peach and Raspberry Crumble

Gabe blew some of our money on some delicious peaches a while back, and we still have endless raspberries from the garden, so I decided to make a half recipe of Ina Garten's peach crumble tonight. I think they turned out delicious, but they're too tart for Gabe, because for some reason the raspberries in our garden have this really intense spicy tart bite to them. If you use raspberries from the store the should turn out perfect, though you should always start with less lemon juice and adjust upwards for taste. Ina Garten's original recipe calls for blueberries instead of raspberries, which would also be delicious (and require a little more lemon juice).




Peach and Raspberry Crumble
Serves 12

2 lbs firm, ripe peaches (6-8 peaches)
2 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup fresh blueberries, raspberries, or blackberries

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 lb (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced

Bring a very big pot of water to boil and drop in your peaches. Cook them 1 minute, then drop into a big bowl of cold water. Peel the peaches and slice them. Mix them with the lemon zest and juice, sugar, flour, and berries. Let it sit for a few minutes while you assemble the crumble.

Mix the flour, sugars, salt, and cinnamon. Cut the cold butter in with a fork, knife, or your hands (easiest for me), or food-process it in until you've got a crumble texture. Pour it over the fruit. Bake everything for about an hour, but check a lot near the end. Let it cool and thicken up before eating. Enjoy!

Falafel and Tahini Sauce

Yummm. Throughout the summer we have been freezing our leftover tahini sauce, so today we broke it out to use up before we leave for the beach. We've also been experimenting with new, more authentic falafel recipes - those of you who have visited the Oasis or otherwise been fed by me will notice that these ones look a little different. The (highly inauthentic) way I learned to make them is to make a soft dough from canned chickpeas and roll them in egg and breadcrumbs before frying, resulting in a thin, crispy exterior surrounding a mushy, hummus-like interior. Delicious indeed, but I always wondered how middle eastern restaurants got their falafel so darn crunchy. Sometime this year I learned how: instead of breading a smooth dough (a European frying technique), the correct way to do it is to make a more gravelly dough out of home-cooked chickpeas and then fry that directly, sans breading. Since learning this we have experimented with levels of cooked-ness, spices, and binding agents, and this batch was definitely the best so far. This will probably be the new falafel available at the Oasis... unless the public revolts. I will post both recipes here, in case any one is commited to the familiar old style.

Today we had our falafs and tahini with some lemony green beans and some home-made pita, which, while decent, wasn't as good as the store-bought kind. If any one has any idea how to make pita that is both as pockety and as soft and pliable as what you get in the store, please let me know.

A tip for making falafel and other fried goods: SAVE YOUR OIL. Cook's Illustrated tested this and found that a mixture of mostly new oil and some old oil results in a better crisp than just new oil. Just make sure you filter out any leftover food bits because they will burn.

Falafel (Old, Inauthentic Style)
Serves 3 - 5

2 cans chickpeas, drained
1 egg 1/4 cup tahini
Cumin, turmeric, and cayenne to taste
Salt and pepper to taste Parsley, minced, to taste
2 eggs, beaten
Breadcrumbs, matzo meal, or panko

Find a way to mush up your chickpeas - if you have a food processor do that, otherwise put some in a plastic bag, squeeze out all of the air, seal it, and either stomp on it or hit it with something heavy, being CAREFUL not to break the bag. Double bagging can help. Once mashed, mix in the egg and tahini.

Now comes seasoning - I really have no idea how much of everything I use, and everyone likes it differently, so I reccomend just adding a little at a time. Start with the salt and parsley. Once those are right, add a hefty amount of cumin and turmeric and a FEW DASHES of cayenne. Crank it up from there. If your dough is very dry, add some water, and if it is very wet add some breadcrumbs. Roll the dough into 1" balls, roll the balls in your beaten egg, and then roll them in breadcrumbs.

Heat about an inch of oil on medium-high. Drop the balls into hot oil - they should start fizzling immediately and take about 1 - 2 minutes to turn a nice warm brown. Take your falafel out with a slotted METAL spoon and drain on paper towels. Adjust the heat of your oil as you go to make sure they cook at the right speed. You can cook about 3 at a time depending on the size of your pot - keep them warm in the oven as you go.


Falafel (New, Authentic Style)
Serves 4 - 6

1 1/2 cups dried chickpeas
1 egg 1/4 cup tahini
Cumin, turmeric, and
cayenne to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
Parsley, minced, to taste

Soak your chickpeas in a large bowl of room-temperature water overnight, or for as many hours as you can in advance. Bring them to a boil in their soaking water, and test them frequently as they cook. They are done when they are tender but still chewy, not so soft that they are easily crushed in your fingers. Harder than you're used to from canned chickpeas. You're really going to need some blades to get these properly crushed - either food process them to a rough grainy texture (not totally disintegrated), or if you're desperate, chop them for a long time with a very sharp knife. Put them in a bowl and mix in the egg and tahini.

Now comes seasoning - I really have no idea how much of everything I use, and everyone likes it differently, so I reccomend just adding a little at a time. Start with the salt and parsley. Once those are right, add a hefty amount of cumin and turmeric and a FEW DASHES of cayenne. Crank it up from there. The recipe we're using for these said to add no water, but that is very bad advice - it results in deathly dry falafs. Add a lot of water, but not so much that it won't still hold together into a patty.

Heat up about an inch of oil on medium-high. Form the dough into discs (results in crunchier falafs with more even cooking than spheres) and drop it into oil. The oil should sizzle immediately, and the falafs should take about 3 - 4 minutes to get brown. Take your falafel out with a slotted METAL spoon and drain on paper towels. Adjust the heat of your oil as you go to make sure they cook at the right speed. You can cook about 6 at a time depending on the size of your pot - keep them warm in the oven as you go.

Tahini Sauce
Makes 5 cups

2 cups yogurt
2 cups tahini
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice, more to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced, more to taste

Mix everything in a big ol' bowl. Adjust the levels of lemon juice and garlic to taste, and be aware that tahini sauce thickens as it sits so you'll need to keep adding water as you reuse it. Now eat it all with a spoon and make another batch. Tahini freezes well in a ziplock bag or air-tight tupperware for at least a month. Add some more lemon juice to it when you thaw it out to freshen it up. Enjoy!

Potato-Riccotta Gnocchi

Gnocchi (the kind that come frozen in a bag) were a staple of my childhood, a total comfort food that I have been seriously missing for many years. Seeing as they were in line with our broke-ass, potatoes-and-flour diet, I thought now was the time to make them. This took some bravery, because gnocchi are one of those deeply sensitive food items that will clamor up and become, as food critics so often like to describe them, "balls of lead." If even ritzy restaurants are capable of producing heavy, gummy gnocchi, how could I possibly get it right at home?

I decided the only way to go about this was to treat the gnocchi like a minefield. Any wrong touch could set them off, so I handled them as lightly as humanly possible, never adding additional ingredients or touching them for more than a few moments at a time, constantly thinking light and fluffy thoughts.

What I learned, however, is that siding with the light force is no better than siding with the dark - everything is balance. While foodbloggers and critics are all too ready to complain about the looming threat of the leaden gnocchi, what they rarely mention is the opposite threat of a gnoccho so light that he falls apart when you drop him in your water. It was truly tragic - I sheltered my little gnocchi so much that as soon as they were cast into the tumultuous world of the sauce pot, they shattered under the pressure. My fatal mistake was failing to drain my ricotta, leaving the dough overly moist, a problem which I was too afraid to correct by kneading in additional flour. Luckily I only cooked them ten at a time, so in the latter batches I was able to reduce the heat to a gentle simmer, roll the gnocchi in extra flour, and take them out as soon as they rose to the top. This resulted in gnocchi that were totally silky and pillowy without even a suggestion of chew... not the familiar robust gnocchi of my childhood, but delicious and comforting in their own right.

So friend, as you enter upon this journey, I advise that you empty all fear from your heart. Treat your gnocchi gently but firmly, both guided by your intution yet responsive to their subtly changing states. And remember, they can sense your disaproval, so emanate nothing but love in the direction of your beautiful little dumplings, whatever they grow to be.


Potato-Ricotta Gnocchi
Serves four

2 lb potatoes
1 1/4 cups flour
1 Tbsp salt
1 egg
1/2 c riccotta, WELL DRAINED
Pepper to taste

Peel your potatoes, cut them into large chunks (a medium red potato should be halved), and rinse them under cool water to remove excess gluten. Boil them until completely tender, then run them under cold water to cool slightly so that they can be handled. It is time to turn your potatoes to mush, but, against your first impulse, you MUST NOT MASH THEM. This will lead to the dreaded lead gnocchi. Unless you have a fancy potato ricer machine, you should process your potatos by running the tines of a fork down each one to shred it. Like so:


If you have lumps, instead of mashing them, stab at them with your fork tines. Make a loose pile as you go. Do not push the pile together. Do not even think about mashed poatoes. Think light fluffy thoughts. Think about chopped raw cauliflower, because that's what your pile should look like.


Mix all of the other ingredients in a big bowl. Gently. Don't knead it. Add the potatoes gradually, mixing them in BY HAND as you go. Try to do more stirring, pulling, and fluffing than squeezing ingredients together. As soon as everything is even, stop. Do not knead until smooth like normal pasta dough. It will be a little lumpy and sticky... however, if it is very wet and sticky, don't make my mistake and let it be. Mix a tiny bit more flour in at a time until it is better.

Break off a handful of dough, put it on a floured surface, and roll it into a snake the thickness of gnocchi. Cut it up into gnocchi-sized pieces and mark them by rolling them along the tines of a fork. Make sure they are well-floured on all sides to prevent sticking. Set aside on a floured surface as you go.


Bring a very big pot of water to a GENTLE boil. Drop your gnocchi in (probably in two batches is a good idea). WATCH the pot and control the boil so that it stay rolling, but not so intense that the gnocchi will break. Wait until all of the gnocchi have risen to the surface, and then cook for about another minute - but watch and take them out before they start to look water-logged and disintegrate-y.

We had one bowl with a quick tomato-basil sauce and one bowl with butter and parmesan, and our very delicate gnocchi were better-suited to the butter. If your are firmer, they will hold up to tomato sauce well.

Chocolate-Raspberry Cheesecake

I've been looking for ways to use up both the enormous container of ricotta that Gabe bought and the bounty of raspberries from the backyard, so last night I made a few mini ricotta cheesecakes. Even for people like we who pay very little attention to the caloric content of our food, cheesecake is astonishingly unhealthy. For this reason I made a quarter recipe of the usual, made no crust, tried to lighten it up in the ingredients, and made into small portions so we wouldn't be tempted to overeat. The result was a delicious, not-too-sweet cheesecake that was so light and creamy Gabe confused it with (unusually tangy) mousse. The only problem was definitely a "winning personality" cheesecake (i.e. butt ugly). It has a light reddish brown color from the raspberries and chocolate, and turned upside down from a cupcake pan, the cakes look indistinguishable from tinned cat food. I solved this problem by smothering it in chocolate sauce, but it could also be resolved by giving it a crust or adding more chocolate to the cheesecake itself to darken the color.

A quadrupled recipe is posted below - it will make one big cheesecake (16 tiny, calorie-packed slivers) or 16 cupcake-sized cheesecakes. Google "cheesecake recipe" for any simple graham cracker crust if you'd like to add it.


Light and Creamy Chocolate-Raspberry Cheesecake
1/2 cup chopped chocolate or chocolate chips
1/4 cup light cream

1 (12-ounce) container part-skim ricotta
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar, or more to taste
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup pureed raspberries

Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare your pan by buttering it, or if making cupcakes, line your cupcake pan holes with tin foil or cupcake wrappers and butter these lightly.

Start by melted the chocolate. If you're nervous about burning it, melt it over a double burner - otherwise just melt it with the cream, stirring constantly, over low heat. Let it cool while you assemble the other ingredients.

Beat the ricotta until smooth. Add the cream cheese and sugar and beat more. Add the eggs, vanilla, raspberries, and chocolate and beat until incorporated. Pour into the prepaped pan.

Cook your cheesecake(s) in a water bath if possible - fill a larger pan with water and put the cheesecake pan in it - add water until it comes up as high as possible without spilling. Bake in the oven for about an hour if you're making a full recipe, or about a half hour if you're making less. Check frequently either way. When the cheesecake is done it will look mostly solid but still jiggle when shaken. Take out of the water bath to cool and then chill in the fridge for at least four hours, preferably over night. (We always can't wait and take nibbles early, but it really does taste better if you let it firm up.) Enjoy!

Edit: Gabe would like me to add that he likes this cheesecake.

NEXT: Potato-Ricotta Gnocchi with Tomato-Basil Sauce

Pierogi and Braised Brussels Sprouts

We are waiting for our next paycheck at this point, so for the next few days we're going to be surviving off what we've got. Right now, that means kitchen staples: potatoes, flour, cheese, and onions. Tonight we used them, along with a little bit of leftover sour cream, to make pierogi, deliciously fatty polish dumplings. These were much more flavorful than the frozen kind you get at the store, but they were a whole lot of work and mess, as making fresh stuffed pasta always is. If you're going to make them, I reccomend making a really big batch at once and then freezing the leftovers, like we did. If you want to only make 3 - 4 servings, make a half recipe.

Potato-Cheddar Pierogi

3 medium red potatoes
1/2 small block of cheddar, grated
1/2 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste

2 1/2 cups flour
1 egg
1 tsp salt
2 tbs sour cream
1/2 cup+ lukewarm water

1 medium onion, diced
Lots and lots of butter

For the filling:

Peel, dice, and boil your potatoes. Mash them with the sour cream and stir in the cheese, salt and pepper.

For the dough:

Make a mound of the flour on a flat, clean surface and press a dent into the center (like a big ant hill). Add the egg, salt, sour cream, and water into the dent and mix in gradually with your hands. Add more water until the dough is sticky, on the wet side but not so much that it sticks to the counter and won't hold together. Knead just a little until incorporated but not totally smooth. Cover it with an upside-down bowl and let it rest for a half hour.

Divide the dough into four parts. Roll one out with plenty of flour until very thin but not so much that it is translucent and at high risk for ripping. Cut into circles with a SMALL circular thing, preferably with a sharp edge (we made the mistake of using a pretty wide glass and then rolling the circles out even more - the pierogi looked a good side uncooked, but we forgot that they expand when cooked, so they ended up enormous and prone to folding and ripping because of it).

Follow the guide below for filling and sealing your pierogi.


Layer your pierogi with lots of flour on plate as you go. If you end up with more than you want to cook at the moment, put them in a plastic bag with lots and lots of flour and freeze them.

To cook your pierogi, drop them into boiling water and cook for about ten minutes. Drain them and spread them out on paper towel to dry. Meanwhile, sautee your onions in some butter with salt and pepper until they are nice and browned. Remove the onions from the frying pan and add the pierogi in a single layer with more butter, salt, and pepper. Flip halfway through cooking so that they're browned on both sides.


Maple Braised Brussel Sprouts

20 brussels sprouts, peeled and halved
1/2 c water
3 tbs balsamic vinegar (we only had red wine - worked fine)
3 tbs maple syrup
Salt and pepper to taste

Braising is a new technique for us which involves quickly browning vegies with little or no oil and then slowly cooking them through with liquid. To make the brussels sprouts, toss them in a hot pan with no oil if it's non stick of a tablespoon of oil if it's not and cook them, stiring frequently, until they're lightly browned all over. Add the water, vinegar, maple syrup, and salt and pepper, cover, and steam them until almost tender. Cook another few minutes, stirring frequently, to glaze them. If you have no concern for your health, like us, top with some butter.

The Best Carrot Soup

This carrot soup from the Moosewood Cookbook is an old stand-by for us. It is quick and totally delicious. Over the years we have adjusted the recipe to suite our tastes, mostly by adding a lot more non-carrot flavors. The only problem with it is that the cashews are what make it super tasty, but they are pretty expensive. I reccomend getting your parents to send you some in a care package. Or stealing.


The Best Carrot Soup
Adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook

2 pounds carrots, chopped
4 cups stock
4 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cup chopped onion
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup chopped cashews
2 tbs ginger, minced
2 tbs lemon juice
1/4 c cooking wine
Salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup yogurt, buttermilk, or sour cream

Bring the carrots and stock to boil and simmer, covered, over medium heat until the carrots are tender.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan and add the onions, garlic, and cashews. Cook the onions slowly (we did about 20 minutes over medium heat) - the slower you cook them the more sweet and carmelized they will get. Once they are brown, add them to cooked carrots and puree everything with an immersion blender or in a food processor.
All of the remaining ingredient should be added slowly to taste - I just wrote approximately what we used, but everyone likes it differently. Finish the soup with a drizzle of your dairy of choice and a pile of chopped cashews. Enjoy!

Pizzas Margherita and Broccoli-Riccotta

Yeeeessssss pizza night. We could not stop at just one. Both were delicious. Here are some recipes - plan ahead if you want to make pizza, cause the dough needs to rest overnight.

Pizza Dough
from Food & Wine magazine

1 envelope active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (90° to 105°)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
Extra-virgin olive oil

To make the dough, combine the sugar, 1/2 c of the water, and the yeast and let it stand until it gets foamy, about 5 minutes. Then add the salt and the flour and stir until everything is incorporated and it looks like, well, dough. Knead it until it's silky, adding more flour if you need to, and then put yr doughball in a lightly oiled bowl, brush it with oil, and let it refrigerate overnight.

Making the Pizzas:

To learn how to make dough into pizza rounds, let us refer you here, to what is perhaps the most specific blog I've ever seen ever.

Preheat yr oven to 500 degrees, and let yr pizza stone heat for 45 minutes or so.



For the Pizza Margherita (seen above):

extra virgin olive oil
diced tomatoes
fresh mozzarella
garlic
fresh basil

The EVOO went on first, brushed over the whole round, then the tomatoes, then the cheese, then the garlic. I don't know how important the order is, but it seemed logical. The basil goes on right when you take the pizza out of the oven. One note: before you put the tomatoes on your pizza (and the same goes for the ricotta in the next recipe) you should probably try to squeeze out as much of their moisture as possible, because this made the bottom of our pizza a little bit soggy.


For the Pizza Bianca (white pizza with broccoli and ricotta):

broccoli (cut really small)
fresh mozzarella
part-skim ricotta cheese
EVOO
garlic
romano cheese

Again, EVOO first, then mozz., then some ricotta, then broccoli, then more ricotta, then garlic. The romano went on about 5 minutes into the baking process.

Each pizza bakes for about 8-10 minutes, or until the dough gets nice and browned.

There was a slight issue getting the pizzas from our makeshift pizza peel (a baking sheet) onto the stone in the oven, but we found that putting a lot of flour/cornmeal on it and having two people there to move it was how we had to do it. If youve got a peel, it will be easier. Gabe out.

NEXT: Carrot soup!

Healthy(ish) Zucchini Bread

Last night we made some 1 AM zucchini bread while watching Buffy. Our zucchini was too small to make a whole recipe, so we divided all the ingredient quantities by three. We had a little bit of a debate after it was done about whether to cover it or let it sit out overnight, but we ended up covering it and today it's super moist and delicious, so that seems to have been the right thing to do. However, if you like your zucchini bread with a little bit of a crust, its probably better not to - ours has absolutely none. Also, the point of this recipe in retrospect seems to have been the avoidance of both white flour and white sugar, as it calls for whole wheat flour and uses maple syrup instead of sugar, but we messed up and used white flour. It still tastes yummy, but is perhaps a little less healthful. Try it either way.



Healthy(ish) Zucchini Bread
adapted from Lemonbasil.blogspot.com

3 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/4 cup real maple syrup
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 cups zucchini, shredded
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder


Preheat oven to 325. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, butter, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, and maple syrup together.
In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet and fold in the zucchini. Pour the batter into two greased 9 inch loaf pans. Bake 40 - 60 minutes, until a fork comes out clean, or if you like more of a crust, until the surface is dark brown.

Half-and-Half Salsa; Very Green Pasta

Unfortunately the salsa got all et up before I could get a picture of it. Pictured to the right is our jar of awesome, 1-dollar-per-pound green chilies from the Indian market. So far we have been unable to find an actually spicy pepper in the supermarket, so these were a great find. They will keep forever if you store them with oil and a whole lot of salt.

The salsa was super tasty - in comparison, the store-bought kind lacks any tomato flavor and pretty much just tastes like vinegar and salt.

When I've made homemade in the past it's often tasted a little bit too raw and watery, so I fixed that this time by roasting half of it, pureeing half of it, and then straining and reducing the liquids to make it thicker. This also helps to meld the flavors more quickly so it doesn't have to sit in the fridge for days before it starts to taste good. Adding a green pepper would add a nice green note, but we were too cheap to get one and it still tasted great.

EDIT: Salsa re-created 8/6/09, and this time we remembered to take pictures. Here they is:

Tomatoes, onions, spicy green peppers, and whole garlic all drenched in EVOO and ready to roast

Finished salsa, ready to be devoured by an eager Urban the Dinosaur

Half-and-Half Salsa
(Half-cooked, Half-pureed)

6 ripe, sweet tomatoes
4 small green chilies (more or less to taste)
2 medium onions
4 medium cloves garlic (more or less to taste)
1 green pepper (optional)
2 tbs oil
Juice from 1/2 lime
Salt and pepper to taste

Slice half of the tomatoes, half of the onions, and the pepper into large chunks. Toss in a deep pan with half of the garlic (peeled), half of the chilies, and the oil. Roast at 450, turning occasionally, until the tomatoes and onions start to brown. Meanwhile, chop the remaining tomatoes and onions into a small dice and mince the remaining garlic and chilies. Combine all of the vegetables and add the lime juice, salt, and pepper. Either move half of the salsa to a food processer and puree until mushy but not totally liquid, or use an immersion blender on the whole batch until you achieve the texture you want. Then put the salsa in a colander over a pot and press to drain out most of the liquid. Reduce the liquid by half on medium-high heat, mix back into the salsa, adjust the seasoning, and refrigerate for an hour before eating.


We found some spinach pasta in the closet and decided it was quite suited to our planned pesto and broccoli dinner. Here's approximately what we use in our pesto, but definitely adjust everything to taste.

Pesto

5 tbs pine nuts, toasted
1 big bunch basil
2 large cloves garlic
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Break up the pinenuts a little in a foodprocessor, then add everything but the olive oil, turn it on, and slowly pour in the olive oil. Or, if you're doing it ghetto-style, Toss everything in a mortar and pestle and go to work. Adjust the seasoning and toss with hot pasta.

Intense Tomato Soup, Cannellini Dip

Tonight, sadly, only two of our three recipes were successful. I was all excited to post a detailed set of pictures of wonderful five-minutes-a-day bread as it metamorphs from mere flour and water to delicious boule... but then I added a half cup too much water accidentally and ended up possibly ruining the whole batch :( We threw a pile of the wet dough on a baking stone and it turned into a lump that, while tasty enough, was too sad-looking to post. Anyway, we added some flour so hopefully it will rise enough overnight to be delicious tomorrow.

The good news is that this powerful soup totally made up for the lack of bread. The original recipe promises that it is more intense than any other tomato soup you will try, and I have to agree. It gets its kick from blackened red pepper, cayenne, a mix of three forms of tomato (canned, fresh, and concentrate), using the whole fresh tomato including skins and juices, and sloooow cooking. It was intensely tomato flavored without being too sour, sweet, peppery, and nice and warming from the cayenne. It was so smooth that adding the light cream really isn't a necessary step (not that I reccomend leaving it out). My only qualification is that this is exclusively a summer soup, as it depends on high-quality fresh tomatoes.


Intense Tomato Soup
Adapted from Scrumptious Blog; Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large red pepper, roughly chopped
2 - 3 lb very ripe, sweet tomatoes, roughly chopped, juices retained
14-oz can diced or crushed tomatoes
1 tbsp concentrated tomato paste
2 fat cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp baking soda
A dash taasco or a pinch cayenne
1 tsp sugar
1 cup vegetable stock
salt and (lots of) pepper to taste
1/4 cup light cream

Get your soup pot very hot, add some olive oil, and when it's hot toss in the chopped red pepper. It will make scary hissing noises, but don't take it off the heat. Let the pepper just start to blacken, then add all of the forms of tomato, the garlic, and the soda (which is there to cut down on the acidity). turn down the heat to a simmer and cook everything for as long as you can, at least a half hour. During the process you can add cayenne, salt, and pepper, and adjust the flavor by adding different types of tomato. Mash up the tomato chunks a little as you go too. Once you can't wait any longer, add the sugar and vegetable stock and cook another 10 minutes. Stir in the cream slowly so it doesn't curdle. Enjoy!



Cannellini Dip

This was mostly an excuse to use up the cannellini beans I accidentally bought instead of chickpeas, but it turned out pretty nice. I did it all to taste - just puree a 14 oz can of cannellini, garlic, a lot of olive oil, lemon juice, some salt and pepper, and some oregano.

Since we didn't have bread, I sent Gabe out to get crackers. This is what he came back with. Gabe remarks, "heh heh."

TOMORROW: Fresh salsa, Pesto

Avocado Salad with Wasabi Dressing

Lunch was a basic salad with spinach, cucumbers, and avocado. I made a dressing out of our leftover ginger-sesame sauce and a hefty amount of wasabi, but if you don't have any sauce pre-made, use equal amounts of soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar, plus a bit of chopped garlic and ginger and a big smudge of wasabi. The salad is a little intense (like sushi without the rice as a neutral backround) but delicious.

Tomorrow: Five-minutes-a-day Boule with Cannellini Spread and Intense Tomato Soup

Papri Chat and Gobi Muttar Paneer

We changed our dinner plans for tonight because we were craving Indian food, and we are so very glad we did. Tonight we made a new recipe, Papri Chat, following Manjula's recipe (available at http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/2008/09/22/papdi-papri-chat). I highly recommend using her video because she explains everything very well and is extremely awesome, especially when she pronounced tablespoon "table-ee-spoon." Papri Chat is a delicious Indian street food that tastes like deconstructed samosas, only better. Here's how we made it:

Papri

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup + 2 tbsp lukewarm water

Gabe here. As the official pastry roller, the job of making the actual papri crackers/chips fell to me. First, I mixed the flour, salt and oil until all the oil was incorporated (I eyeballed the salt) - this stage will be lumpy, there's nothing for it, but it's no problem. Next, I added the water slowly while mixing constantly with a fork until all the water was taken up into the dough and it formed a ball that rolled around my mixing bowl as I stirred. I covered the dough with a cloth and let it sit for 15 minutes, just like Manjula told me.

After the dough had rested, I divided it into three equal sections and then rolled them out thinly, to about the thickness of a quarter (Manjula says flour won't be necessary but I found it was). Then, to prevent the crackers from puffing too much in the fryer, I stuck the rolled-out dough with a fork at about half inch intervals. The crackers should be about 1 1/2 inch squares, and they cut pretty easy.

To cook them, just fry in about an inch of oil over medium heat for about four or five minutes. Don't let them get too dark, though. Drain them on a paper (or not paper) towel and then arrange them in a single layer on a plate to await toppings. Let them cool to room temperature.

J here. The papri get topped with sliced boiled potatoes, coriander chutney mashed with cooked chickpeas, yogurt, and tamarind chutney. Make sure all of the ingredients are room temperature by the time you serve them. We used canned chickpeas and store-bought tamarind chutney, but we made our own coriander chutney. Here's approximately the recipe, though I improvised to taste:

Coriander Chutney

1 hot green chili, roughly chopped
1 tbs ginger, roughly chopped
1 tsp salt
3 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oil
1 tsp sugar
Pinch hing (optional)
1 big bunch coriander (a.k.a. cilantro) - I froze mine ahead of time, which made it easier to puree
2 tbs water (hot if you're using frozen coriander)

Puree everything except the coriander and water. Add the coriander and water in a few chunks. A great way to store the chutney is to freeze it in an icecube tray immediately after making it, which will preserve the color and make it last forever.


The main dish was Gobi Muttar Paneer, a variation on one of Gabe's favorites that I've been trying to improve so that I can enjoy it more. The one thing I dislike about it is the very strong, acidic tomato taste - this time I tried to balance it out a little by using more spices, and I think using fresh instead of canned tomatoes and more paneer would also help to balance it out next time. We can't seem to sucessfully make enough paneer for Muttar Paneer, so we added caulifowers this time for bulk. I'm going to reccomend that if you make it, yu buy the paneer pre-made (or tell us how you make it).

(Gobi) Muttar Paneer

1 cup onion, chopped
1 tbsp ginger, minced
2 tbsp garlic, minced
2 tbsp chopped cashews
1 tbsp ghee or butter
1 tbsp oil 2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 cups fresh or 1 1/2 c canned tomato, pureed
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tbsp curry masala
2 tbsp cream
1 tbsp sugar
2 cup cubed paneer, fried to golden brown
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup cauliflower, chopped (optional)

Drop the onions in boiling water and cook for a minute. Puree this with the ginger, garlic and cashews without adding water.

Heat the oil and butter in a deep pan. Add the onion puree and a pinch of salt. Fry it on medium heat until the paste turns light brown and starts drying out a bit, about 7 minutes.

Add the cayenne, turmeric and tomato puree. Cook for five minutes on medium heat.

Add the cumin and curry powders. Add salt to taste and cook to thicken.

Add the cream, sugar. Adjust seasoning, then add the paneer cubes, peas, and cauliflower and heat through. Remove from the heat and let sit, covered, for 15 minutes.



Tomorrow: Ginger-Wasabi Avocado Salad for lunch, Indian leftovers for dinner, 5-Minutes-a-Day Bread for Friday dinner

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Trial #1

One of the main purposes of keeping this blog is to find the best recipes for the things we like to cook, and one recipe that we are constantly seeking is the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie. Here's our first formal shot at it. We made these last night, but every chocolate chip cookie tastes like The Best when it's fresh out of the oven, so I waited until this morning to formally taste-test them.

































Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from mennonitegirlscancook.blogspot.com

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg plus 1 yoke
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts

Preheat 375. Sift together all of the dry ingredients. Cream the butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in the egg and the yolk one at a time. Stir in the dry ingredients, then the chocolate chips, oats, and walnuts. The batter will seem overly dry at first, but don't add water - it will all come together. Drop tablespoonfuls onto two greased sheets and bake for about 8 minutes. As always with cookies, you should take them out before they seem done, just when they start to turn golden brown - they will harden as they cool.

Evaluation: The cookies were indeed nice and crispy on the outside when they were right out of the oven, but they lost most of that overnight. However, they made up for this by become perfectly chewy, with lots of texture from the oats and the walnuts, and not too dry or too moist, just a little bit crumbly like pastry dough. The taste was average - this might be in part because we had to use old, questionably healthy flour, which made them taste a little bit less than clean. Next time I would also add more chocolate chips and more vanilla.

Texture: 8
Taste: 5

Patates Fournou and Zucchini Fritters

Tonight we made a new recipe, Zucchini Fritters with Tzatziki, along with just about the best potatoes in the world - Greek-style, roasted, with tons of garlic, oregano, and lemon juice (Grinnellians will recognize this preparation from the Phoenix).

You can tell how good this food is by the highly disdainful look Gabe is giving me because I am making him wait to eat it while I take pictures.

The fritters were a perfect balance of sweet and salty - I was glad we didn't lose the zucchini flavor under all the feta and garlic in them. They were just slightly spicy, which made them great with the cooling cucumber in the tzatziki. The potatoes were super delicious, as expected. Oven roasting is a great way to prepare potatoes because they get soft on the inside and nice and crispy on the outside without using very much oil at all.





Zucchini Fritters

2 medium zucchini
1 large egg
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 small onion, diced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 tbsp bread crumbs
1 tbsp chopped mint
1/4 cup feta cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch cayenne


Grate your zucchini (or have someone who enjoys grating do it, such as Gabe) and press out some of the moisture with some paper towels. Mix it with all the other ingredients.
Heat a few tablespoons of oil on medium-high and drop on a few lumps of dough. Press them flat with a spatula and cook for a few minutes on each side. We made the first few a little bit undercooked and they were mushy on the inside, so make sure you cook them until they're very dark and crispy to ensure that they're cooked through. Pressing them really flat also helps.

Tzatziki - Tzatziki is basically the Greek version of Raita, but because Greek food is generally less spicy than Indian, the accompanying sauce can be a little more assertive. The base is thick and delicious Greek yogurt, but we were too cheap to get some, so we thickened about a cup of plain yogurt by letting it sit on a colander lined with paper towels for a half hour. To this we added a dash of red wine vinegar and a dash of olive oil, about 1/2 cup fine-diced cucumbers, a clove of minced garlic, about a tbsp chopped cilantro, and salt. It was even better than raita for eating by the spoonful post-meal.


Patates Fournou

3 Russet or 5 Red Bliss potatoes, cut into uniform wedges
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 big cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c vegetable stock
1/3 c lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste.

Toss all of your ingredients in a baking dish and arrange in a single layer with a cut side down. Bake for 45 - 50 minutes at 400. Once all of the liquid has evaporated (around 30 minutes), start checking the potatoes every 5 minutes. When one cut side is browned, flip so that the other cut side is facing down. Adjust the seasoning when they're done (I usually like to add more lemon juice). These are delicious smothered with ketchup, but if you used enough vegie stock they should be moist enough to eat on their own.


Thanks for reading! No food tomorrow because Gabe is away so I will be subsisting on leftovers.

- The Gentle Giant

Sushi Dinner

Gabe here. So we're kind of broke, and as such have been forced to feed ourselves on a somewhat frugal budget lately. Our approach? Eat a lot of rice. And rice-based dishes like the veggie sushi we made tonight. It's easy to do, and the roll looks kinda phallic before you slice it. Post-slicing, it looked nice on little rectangular trays, and tasted pretty good with wasabi and some home-pickled ginger Jenny made.


J here. First course was broccoli and cauliflower tempura with ginger-sesame dipping sauce.

The sauce was improvised - I mixed soy sauce with a little sesame oil, a good deal of minced ginger and garlic, and a bit of sugar. If you make a sauce with sesame oil ahead of time, make sure you stir it up when you serve it or you'll get a mouthful of sesame.

I tried a new recipe for the tempura batter this time because it promised to make "crispy, restaurant style" tempura, but it pretty much turned out to be a bust. Their recipe added cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder to the basic flour, ice water and egg formula. The tempura ended up tasty, but nowhere near as crispy as you'd get in a restaurant. I've gotten better results doing it the basic way - about a cup of flour, plus one beaten egg and enough very cold water to form a wet dough. Mix it until just incorporated - lumps are fine.


Another thing we've learned on our recent quest to make the best ever falafel is that lower deep-frying temperatures produce a more fully cooked, crispy item. Steam the vegies just a little bit before hand, then get the oil to a temperature (probs around 350) where they take about a minute to cook.


Gabe again. So when making the sushi rolls themselves, we've found that a bottle of rice wine vinegar like that one (with which I have become close) is pretty much indispensible for several reasons. First, a pretty serious amount of it (about 1/4 cup for 2 cups of uncooked rice) gets mixed with a litte bit of sugar and salt (about a tablespoon each) to make the dressing that gives sushi rice its trademark stckiness. Later, when spreading the rice thinly out on the sheets of nori (seaweed) it turned out that coating my hands (and I'm talkng total dippage here) with the vinegar proved to be the best way to stop the rice from sticking to me instead of to it - a pretty vexing problem. And last, you need to use a little of it to seal the rolls of sushi when youve finished rolling them - kind of like sealing an envelope - and putting a little bit on the knife you use to cut the rolls doesnt hurt either. The upshot of this is: befriend yr vinegar, photobooth sessions optional (but recommended).

Anyway, if your vinegar is working properly there are only a few more things to know in order to be somewhat competent at making (very very basic) sushi rolls. Make sure to spread the rice thinly and leave a small flange/strip/whatever of nori uncovered to seal back to the roll at the end. Place your ingredients in a thin strip on the rice bed pretty close to the end of the nori from which you intend to begin rolling, roll tightly and squeeze the roll a little as you go to keep it together. Pretty basic stuff. When cutting with a less-than-razor-sharp knife like we have, rapid sawing motions help you cut smoothly through the roll.




And then we all ate. Thanks for reading!


NEXT: Greek Roasted Potatoes, Zucchini Fritters, and Buffy.
(p.s. we're going to start writing our dinner plans for the next day there ^ at the end of each post, so if you want in, give us a call and come eat!)

Hello!

Hello friends! As you probably know, Gabe and I are big fans of making tasty, pretty food to feed our friends... but when there is no one around to feed, we decided it would be fun to have another purpose to motivate us to cook fancy things. So we're going to start documenting what we eat, and hopefully in the process learn to improve recipes and broaden our culinary horizons. Read along if you're into foodporn, want to steal recipes, or want to know what we're cooking tomorrow so you can come steal some.

Re: recipes - all of these are going to be things I've copied from various other food blogs, magazines, and cookbooks into my own ever-growing recipe book, so I'm not going to try to cite where I got them. Soon I'll add links to the food blogs and books that I use the most.

Thanks for reading!

- The Gentle Giant