Lemon Tofu & Sesame Swiss Chard

I made this tofu recipe once a few years ago and I have no idea why I waited so long to make it again. The way it's made (deep-fried tofu dipped in a cornstarch-thickened sauce) can be applied to many different flavors as well, and you could also make it a meal by thinning out the sauce with some soy sauce and/or water and then adding steamed vegetables along with the tofu. This recipe makes enough sauce for two blocks of tofu, so go ahead and make more or save it for later.

I improvised the swiss chard to go with it after a very nice fellow bought it for my at a farmer's market, but when I ended up tasting it I realized it I had eaten it a long time ago. When I was in the third grade my best friend, Julie, was second-gen Chinese, and whenever I went over to her house her mom struggled to find vegetarian things to make for me. One thing I always ended up eating was sesame- and garlic-flavored sauteed greens. I remember pouring the cooking liquid over my sticky rice when I finished, which is how I ate it today. Yum.



Lemon Tofu
1 block tofu
cornstarch

1 lemon
1 cup vegetable broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
thumb-sized hunk of ginger, minced
1 tbs cornstarch

vegetable oil for frying

Cut your tofu into shapes of your choosing, then wrap it in paper towels or a cloth and press it while you prepare the sauce.

Combine the juice from the lemon, vegetable broth, soy sauce, ginger, and cornstarch in a saucepan. Whisk over medium heat and cook until thickened (don't overcook, or your sauce will take on that gross snot-like consistency of bad reheated chinese food) - if it gets too thick you can add a bit of water or broth.

Heat up about an inch of oil on high. Mix some cornstarch on a plate with salt and pepper, then roll your dried tofu pieces in it. Deep fry in a single layer(I did two batches for one block of tofu) until golden brown. Remove the tofu to a paper towel/newspaper to drain, then drop it all in the warm sauce, mix it around to coat, and use a slotted spoon to scoop it out of the sauce and into a bowl. Best eaten immediately while the tofu is still crispy, but it's also good the next day.



Quick Chinese Sauteed Swiss Chard

veg oil & sesame oil
1 big bunch swiss chard, washed and chopped (keep in the stems!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 tbs soy sauce
toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Heat up a tiny bit of veg oil plus a tiny bit of sesame oil in a nonstick pan (if you do all sesame oil you risk burning it... but I never had so it's probably ok). Toss in your swiss chard and garlic at the same time, plus some salt. Stir-fry until it's all wilted and soft, then top with the soy sauce and some toasted sesame seeds if you've got them.

Candied citrus slices

An easy recipe with tasty results! Unfortunately I couldn't really eat these because the chewiness-sugariness combo triggered my sensitive teeth, but they're very tasted and have a great texture if you get them right. Plus, pretty!



Candied Citrus Slices
some citrus, cleaned and sliced very thin
sugar
water

heat up equal amounts water and sugar in a wide pot, stirring frequently. When it's dissolved, toss in your citrus. Cook until you think it's ready (the sugar should be boiled down to a thick syrup and the fruit will be visibly candied - translucent and glossy. pull out the slices with tongs and set them on a cooling rack over a pan to catch all the drippy sugar. if you want, you can continue to cook the sugar to make a citrus-flavored caramel (add some butter and cream at the end to keep it from hardening).

Pizza, revisted

One of the first posts we ever made on this blog was pizza
, but since then we've been using a different recipe for the crust that I like a lot more. it's from the breadbaker's apprentice, and it makes an awesome crumb. recipe below, plus a recipe for the basic tomato sauce that i use for pizzas & pastas.





BBA Pizza Dough
Makes 6 medium pizzas

4 1/2 cups flour (bread flour is best)
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 3/4 cups cold water

Mix the dry ingredients, then add the water and start mixing with your hands. Once it's homogenous, dump the dough onto a floured cutting board, wash your hands, and start kneading it. Keep your hands wet throughout the process to keep them from getting doughy. Knead for A LONG TIME. When it's done, the dough should be smooth, springy, and tacky but not so wet that it sticks to the cutting board or your hands - you can add more flour/water as you go to achieve the right texture. If you want you can cut the dough into 2 balls and knead them separately to make it easier.

Cut the dough into 6 equal sections. Roll into balls, dust with flour, put on a floured cutting board with at least a few inches between each one, cover with a plastic bag, and let rest in the refrigerator at least overnight and for up to 2 days.

On the day you're making the pizza, take the dough out 2 hours before baking time. Squish the balls into flat discs, and then let them rise, covered (to prevent the surface from hardening). 20 minutes before bake time, put a baking stone in the oven and preheat to as high as your oven will go. then grab a pizza lump, stretch it to a circle (don't use a rolling pin - you'll crush the bubbles!), out in on a floured baking sheet or cutting board, top with ingredients (no need to roll the crust - it puffs up on its own), and slide onto the top pizza stone. bake for about 10 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned.



Basic marinara

1 small onion, diced
~1 tbs dried oregano and/or basil (optional)
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
~2 tbs brown sugar
1 big can crushed tomatoes

heat up a bit of olive oil in a pot. Saute the onions with some brown sugar and salt (and optional oregano/basil) on medium, stirring frequently, until light brown. toss in the garlic and cook another minute, then add the crushed tomatoes. cook everything on low heat for a long time (40 minutes?), stirring often - you can add more water if it gets too thick. taste and adjust - it will need lots of black pepper, probably more salt, and maybe more sugar to balance the acidity. if it is really too acidic, you can add a TINY BIT of baking soda or powder to neutralize it, but beware - if you add more than a pinch your sauce will be creepily flavorless. If you're putting this on pasta, I would puree it afterward to make it smooth.

Vegetable Quiche

the psych program at Adelphi served us quiches at orientation last week, and since then the idea of more quiche has been nagging at the back of my mind. Quiche is great in many ways, other than just being delicious. It's a kitchen-sink food, requiring nothing other than staples (flour, eggs, milk, butter) and whatever leftover bits of food you have around, but you can also make it super fancy with the right ingredients. And this version is somehow both very healthy, since about 1/2 of the volume comes from a bunch of chopped up vegies, and very unhealthy, since the other half is pretty much butter and cheese. You can modify this many ways and still get a good quiche - you can sub yogurt for the creamcheese, cream or half-and-half for the milk, add more eggs and less vegies if you like a more omelette-like texture, and use whatever types of cheese you want.



Basic Pie Dough
makes 1 bottom shell - if making a full covered pie, double it
1 1/4 cups AP flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and chopped into small pieces
2-4 tbs ice water

The easiest way to do this dough by far is in the food processor, but I think you do get slightly better results doing it by hand. Either way, all it involves is cutting the butter into the mixed flour and salt until you get a crumbly texture of tiny balls of cold butter covered in flour (rather than melted and mixed completely). If a food processor, just dump it all in together and pulse a few times, stir to get up the bottom stuff, and pulse a few more times until it's crumbly. By hand, use a pastry cutter (MUCH EASIER) or a fork to chop the butter into smaller and smaller bits while mixing to coat it in flour. Once it's all gravely, add a bit of cold water and mix. You want it to be wet enough to hold together when you press it, but NO WETTER, and you don't want to overmix and give it enough time to melt and become homogenous. Once it holds together, press it into a ball, flatten that ball into a disc, wrap it up in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour.

When you're ready to quiche, preheat to 400, take it out of the fridge, roll it out to a diamter that is a few inches more than the diameter of your pie dish, and press it into the dish. I forgot this vital next step which caused a minor quiche disaster - WRAP THE WHOLE THING IN TIN FOIL, pressing it against the edges (so it matches the countors of the pan), then poke holes all over with a fork. this keeps the side from collapsing in on themselves and the bottom from puffing up. pop it in the oven and bake it for about 10 minutes, until it has firmed up a bit but has not browned at all.

Vegetable Quiche
1 pie crust (recipe above or you can use store-bought)
3 oz cream cheese, room temp
1/3 cup milk
3 eggs
2 cups finely chopped vegetables (i used broccoli, onion, spinach, and carrots)
3/4 cup assorted cheeses (i used feta and goat cheese)

Preheat oven to 425°.

Depending on the vegetables you're using, saute whatever is raw and cruncy until al dente. Frozen spinach can just be thawed and well-drained (if using exclusively spinach you'll need about 10 oz to fill the quiche).

Beat the cream cheese and milk together with a fork until homogenous, then beat in the eggs (don't overmix - they should be streaky). Mix in vegies and cheeses. Pour mixture into prepared crust and bake until crust is golden brown and filling is set, about 25 minutes. Cool a bit before serving. Best if eaten in the next day or two so it doesn't get soggy, and best reheated in the oven or a toaster oven. Enjoy!

"paella"

This dish started off as mexican tomato rice and ended up somewhere in between that and a paella. it's got the vegetables and the arborio rice, but chili powder instead of saffron, and it wasn't made in a paella pan; instead, i turned the non-stick pan i was using up on high at the last minute to brown the bottom a bit. if you want to get it extra-crunchy, you could put the whole thing in the oven in a cast-iron pan and bake it to finish. If you want it more like mexican rice, just replace the arboria with normal rice and cook it as you would normal rice (add all of the liquid at once and cover). it would also be good with some green beans or kale added to the mix - just cook them separately and add them at the last minute.



Mexican Rice-Paella Hybrid

1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup arborio rice
1 small can crushed or diced tomatoes
chili powder or paprika to taste
few dashes chipotle powder
some saffron or turmeric (optional - will make it yellow)
1/2 can chickpeas
1 can quartered artichoke hearts
~1 cup frozen peas
1 lime

Heat up some olive oil in a pan and cook your onions with some salt until translucent. Toss in the garlic and arborio rice and cook until everything has started to brown. Add the tomotoes and spices and cook for another few minutes. Add about a cup of water or vegetable broth and cook until it has fully absorbed into the rice, and repeat (like making a risotto). When the rice is getting close to done, stir in the chickpeas, artichoke hearts, and peas (you want them in there long enough to absorb some flavor, but not so long that they fall apart). Keep up the process until the rice is done, adjust salt and spice, and serve with some lime juice squeezed over top. Enjoy!

Brian & Ana's Wedding Cake

Not yet ready to take on a cake large enough to feed 100 hungry warriors, i made the secondary "special" cake for my brother's wedding that was eaten by family and the wedding party while the rabble got sheet cake. i was pretty terrified of this cake collapsing, but it turned out totally disaster-free. i kept the design simple because i have no piping skills, and i magically managed to guess my sister-in-law's favorite cake flavors! it could have been prettier, but everyone said it tasted amazing. the recipes below will make enough for one two-layer cake - i multiplied them as necessary for the 6-layer (3-tier) wedding cake. Be forwarned that the stabilized whipped cream filling is gelatin-based so it needs to be started a few hours ahead of time to set. you could also sub in regular whipped cream as long as your cake latyers are very thin (so it won't squish out to the side when you assemble the cake).




Raspberry-Almond Cake with Whipped Cream Filling

The Cake
Adapted from Dorrie's Perfect Party Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp almond extract

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter and line two 9-x-2-inch round cake pans.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Whisk together the milk and egg whites.

Beat together the sugar, lemon zest, almond extract, and butter until very light.
Add one-third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed, followed by 1/2 of the milk-egg mixture. Continue alternating until both are gone and beat another few minutes to aerate.

Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cakes are springy. Transfer to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up.

Stabilized Whipped Cream Filling
Adapted from here

2 cups milk
1 cups heavy cream
1.5 tbsp sugar
1.5 tbsp vanilla
1.5 packets(each 10 g) gelatin

sprinkle the gelatin over 1/4 cup water and allow to gel. Heat the milk, sugar, and vanilla just to boiling, then take off of the heat, stir in the gelatin, and let cool, first at room temp and then in the fridge. when its ready (maybe 3 hours later), the consistency should be similar to a panna cotta. beat the gelled milk until it is smooth. Whip the cream to stiff peaks, then gently fold the two mixtures together until homogenous. pour over the bottom cake layer and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.

Raspberry Filling: cook down 1 bag frozen raspberries with sugar to taste until jam consistency - you can substitute jarred raspberry jam, but it will be sweeter and less tangy. smooth a thick layer of raspberry filling over the whipped cream filling, then place the second cake layer on top.

Almond frosting: I have always avoided buttercream on cakes because I can never get it stiff enough not to squish and slip and melt everywhere, but I finally solved the problem by discovering decorator's frosting. it's usually only available in stores that have a specialty cake-making section, and it's very stiff as it's intended to be used for decorations rather than all-over frosting. to get the right consistency, i mixed about 1/2 decorator's frosting with 1/2 regular buttercream, and then added a bunch of almond extract. if your cake is only 2 layers frosting consistency will matter less, so go ahead and use the store-bought or any home-made that works for you. You can also just top the cake with more of the whipped cream filling (though it won't be as pretty).

Slivered almonds (optional): press into the frosting-covered sides of the cake.



Tiered Wedding Cake Assembly

I thought this part was going to be extremely difficult, but it turned out to be not so bad at all. The way I did it was to made the three cake tiers the night before (each one a 2 layer cake as described above) and then assemble them the morning of the wedding. Essentially, my cake strategy was to make 3 carboard discs to match my cake layers, wrap them in tin foil, and poke a hole going through the center of each. To assemble, I put the bottom layer of the cake on its disc and poked 4 straws through the cake in a square around the center and cut them to be just a tiny bit taller than the cake layer itself. these served as supports for the next-largest disc, which i then placed on top of the straws, put on the cake layer, and inserted a wooden skewer going through the center of both layers to stabilize them horizontally. I repeated with the final layer and then used frosting and raspberries to cover up the gaps better the layers. To eat, you just pull the straws out as you go. there are many helpful diagrams and videos online to help with this stuff, just google "how to assemble a wedding cake."