The Perfect Meal

Every now and then, I see a recipe and it looks so perfect that I must make it immediately.   October’s Martha Stewart contained one of those.   The recipe takes a bit of time, but it’s completely worth it.  It’s delicious, it’s cheap, it uses a lot of ingredients that I keep in the pantry, it’s a complete meal (meat, carbs, and vegetable), and despite it being about 350 calories a serving, it is unbelievably filling and satisfying.

Are you sold?

Moroccan-Style Stuffed Acorn Squashes
Martha Stewart October 2009

Ingredients
2 medium acorn squashes (about 2 pounds), halved and seeded
2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 lb. ground chuck (95 percent lean)
ground cinnamon
ground nutmeg
2 tsp. course salt
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup bulgur wheat
2 cups water
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 tbsp. toasted pine nuts

I halved the recipe and it worked out fine, though I probably used the full 1/4 cup of parsley as well as 1/4 cup of chopped dates (instead of the raisins).  I also subbed ground pork for ground beef.   I realize this makes it not very Moroccan, but that’s what I had in my freezer.  I think any ground meat would work, as well as any combo of dried fruit.  I think you could easily make this vegetarian by using some chickpeas or even just increasing the amount of bulgar, dried fruit, and nuts a bit.

Directions
Preheat oven to 400. Place squashes, cut sides down in a 9×13 inch casserole dish.   Bake until tender, 35 to 40 minutes.   

Meanwhile, heat oil in a 4-quart pot with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat.   Add ground meat, a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon salt.  Cook, stirring frequently, until browned and cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes.  Transfer ground meat to a bowl or plate using a slotted spoon, keeping as much of the cooking liquid in the pot as possible. 

Add onion, and cook until slightly translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.   I didn’t have enough water in there, so I added a couple tablespoons of water to help the onions simmer without burning. 

Add remaining teaspoon salt and the bulgur, and stir to combine.  Add water, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 15 minutes.   Take pot off the stove and let sit covered for 5 minutes.

Fluff the bulgar with a fork, and add reserved beef, the raisins, parsley and pine nuts and stir together to combine.

The chopping of the ingredients and the whole bulgar mixture cooking time should take you roughly the amount of time it takes for the squash to cook.

When the squash is done, take it out of the oven.  Let it cool a little and scrape it out to form 1/4 inch thick bowls.

Fold the squash flesh into bulgur mixture.   Divide among squash halves, and return to the oven.   Bake until warmed through and tops are browned, about 12 to 14 minutes.

One squash half should be the perfect dinner for one person, though a salad couldn’t hurt.  And a glass of red wine, of course.

Easy Stuff

I occassionally take on some pretty nutty baking projects that leave me exhausted, so I think that my idea of what is considered “easy” might give some people a coronary.  I insisted to a friend that these scones were easy, and I think she was cursing me while trying to figure out how to disperse the butter through the dough.

But, I think this recipe here is objectively easy.  One bowl, 6 ingredients, and it takes about 2 minutes to mix it all up.  And, if you are the type of person who keeps beer in their fridge at all times, you probably won’t even need to go to the store for ingredients to do this.

I got the recipe from the blog Ezra Pound Cake, who kindly gave me permission to publish it here.  There are lots of other beer bread recipes out there, but the simplicity of this one really made it sound appealling.  I think any kind of beer would work.  I used a Pumpkin Ale, which made the bread smell like pumpkin, though I wouldn’t say it tasted particularly pumpkiny.  Maybe next time, I’ll add a pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon just to bring that flavor out a little more.

It’s fabulous warm out of the oven, with a bit of butter or nothing at all.

Beer Bread
From Rebecca Crump at ezrapoundcake.com
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 bottle (12 ounces) beer
1/4 to 1/2 cup  unsalted butter, melted (I used 1/4 cup and didn’t find it lacking in buttery goodness)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease a 9-x-5-x-3-inch loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. 

Using a wooden spoon, stir the beer into the dry ingredients until just mixed.

It should take just a minute to come together.  The batter will be very sticky.

Pour half the melted butter into the loaf pan.   Then spoon the batter into the pan, and pour the rest of the butter on top of the batter.   It’ll be too sticky to get it to lay flat and smooth.  Just try to make sure it’s mostly evenly distributed in the pan so it bakes evenly. 

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until golden brown. Serve immediately.

On vanity

Here’s the thing with food blogging.  You cook food for your friends, then you go online and tell everyone how awesome your food is.  It’s a little weird.  You just have to hope that you are an objective critic of your own cooking and that your friends aren’t just being polite when they tell you how much they enjoyed what you served them.   Or that your friends aren’t offended by your total and complete lack of modesty.

And that brings us to these blue cheese and walnut cookies. 

They were delicious.  I hate blue cheese and I thought they were delicious.  A couple party guests told me that they hated blue cheese and they thought they were delicious.  And of course, people who loved blue cheese also found these cookies delicious.  I have emails from some attendees stating this fact, so it must be true.

This recipe comes from the blog Pastry Studio, who graciously agreed to let me reprint this.  She impressively made her own fig jam.  I bought a jar of Bonne Maman fig preserves and rather than making sandwiches, put it as a spread or dip on the side.  The cookies worked plain or with the jam, so feel free to choice your poison.

Blue Cheese and Walnut Cookies
Adapted from Pastry Studio

The original recipe notes that it makes 24 2 inch round cookies.  I made 1 1/2 inch square ones and probably got about 40 out of the dough.

Ingredients
6 oz blue cheese, softened
4 oz butter, softened
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 C + 2 T granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 C flour

Directions
Pulse the walnuts in a food processor until there’s no real big chunks but before it turns totally to meal.  Basically, you will be rolling these cookies out very thin, and you don’t want any shards sticking up.

Remove the walnuts.  Add the blue cheese, butter, sugar and salt to the food processor and blend until creamy.  Add the flour and walnuts and pulse until mixture just starts to come together and forms a clump.  Gather dough and place on a piece of plastic.   Refridgerate until thoroughly chilled, at least an hour or two, and preferably overnight.

Preheat the oven to 325 and line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silpat.

Roll out the dough.  Use a cookie cutter if you’d like, but if you want square cookies like mine, get a ruler and trace a grid into the dough.  I made mine in 1 1/2 inch squares.

  

You want to work as quickly as possible so that the dough doesn’t warm up.  Since it took me a long time to draw the squares, I put the trays of cookies back into the fridge for a half hour before I baked them just to be safe.  So clear some room in the fridge before you do it.  You want these to hit the oven cold so that they retain their shape while baking.

Bake for about 12 minutes or up to 18 minutes if they are larger, until the edges just start to turn golden.  I baked mine one batch at a time in the middle rack, but if you put two trays in, be sure to rotate pans halfway through. 

Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for several days.  I made mine on Saturday and today, Wednesday, they are still good.

To serve, spread with fig jam and make sandwiches, put the jam on the side, or just eat them plain with a glass of wine.  These little things are definitely cookies.   Similar to shortbread, but a bit chewier.  The cheese flavor is strong enough that they could be served before dinner as an appetizer, but they are sweet enough that you could serve them as dessert with some fruit or port. 

  

The return of butternut squash season

Last night, I got all Top Chef on this soup recipe.

I made it a bunch of times last year, and it is so delicious.  However, in a stunning act of stupidity, I somehow managed to break my hand blender and I haven’t replaced it.  So, no soup for me!

Instead, I deconstructed it and baked it.  All the ingredients, just wrapped up in a pie crust (the crouton!).  Delicious.

Butternut Squash and Apple Galette

Ingredients
Approximately 5 cups cubed butternut squash
2 apples, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
2 shallots (I’m sure some onion would work too)
4 ounces shredded smoked cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Olive oil, salt & pepper
1 pie crust (I use Martha Stewart’s pate brisee - you just need half this recipe)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400.  Place the butternut squash in a baking dish and toss with olive oil and salt and pepper.  Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes, until it just starts to soften and brown.  When it’s done, take it out and turn the heat down to 350.

Meanwhile, saute the shallots or onion in a tablespoon or so of olive oil on medium heat for 3-4 minutes until soft.  Add the apples and saute for another 5 minutes or so.  Add a pat of butter and some salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

Roll out the pie shell to about a 12 inch circle or so, and sprinkle the center with half of the grated cheese, leaving a 2-3 inch or so border all the way around it.  The nice thing about galettes is that no precision is required…think rustic-chic. 

Spread the apple-shallot mixture on top of the cheese.

Toss the butternut squash with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.  Then spread the squash down on the gallete.  Finish with the rest of the cheese.

Wrap up the sides and seal everything in.  Gently beat an egg and brush it over the pastry dough.  Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350.

 

My experiment paid off.  It really did taste like the soup.  It might be a little neater to eat if the squash was mashed up and spread out, but it was good with the chunks.  I think a bit of sage tossed in during the roasting stage would have also been nice, as would replacing some of the squash with parsnip.  In any event, a delicious dinner and would make a lovely vegetarian main course.

Vegetarian Cooking That Isn’t Pasta

I’ve been on a mission to cook more vegetarian dinners.  Or at least, vegetarian dinners that aren’t just pasta, pizza, and risotto.

I bookmarked this recipe for Sweet Potato Falafels on the fabulous site, 101 Cookbooks, ages ago and finally got around to making it.  That blogger obtained special permission from the publisher, so I’m going to refrain from posting it here.   If you are curious, you can get the recipe here.   I did follow her suggestion of brushing the falafels with a bit of an egg wash before baking them, and it did help give them a nice, shiny falafelly look to them.  

The recipe was really, really good.  When I make them again, I’ll bake the potatoes the night before and let them cool so they’ll be a very quick weeknight dinner. 

I never would have thought it possible to make dinner for four out of just two large sweet potatoes and some flour, but it is.  They are surprisingly filling and super healthy. 

To serve them, I made a quick yogurt sauce with 1 cup of low fat Greek yogurt, 2 tablespoons of tahini, the juice of half a lemon, some lemon zest, and a generous pinch of salt.  Whisk all that together, add a splash more lemon juice or water if it’s too thick, and you are good to go.

The salad is simply arugula, thinly sliced radish, and pomegranate seeds, dressed with a lemon-olive oil vinagrette. 

Enjoy!

An Arugulove First

I made something chocolate.

Not just anything chocolate.  But the best brownies you will ever eat in your life.  I’m not kidding.  I don’t make a lot of chocolate desserts because I don’t really like them that much.  There are so many other things that are more interesting and more delicious, and I’m just never inspired by all the same old brownie and molten chocolate lava cake recipes out there.   But this recipe is actually special. 

What makes it good?  First, it has Mexican chocolate.

 

You need this to do the recipe.  It’s a sugary chocolate with a hint of cinnamon.  It comes in discs and is usually used to make hot chocolate.  Check the international aisle of your grocery store or find a little Latino market.  There is no substitute and it’s worth seeking it out.

But, it’s also good because the cinnamon in the recipe mellows out the chocolate a bit.  So it doesn’t taste like a big, sugary, chocolately mess.  You actually taste the chocolate in this and not just the sugar.

The recipe comes from LittleMsFoodie, who in turn found it from Teresa on the Foodie Blog Roll forums site.

Mexican Chocolate Brownies

 

Ingredients

For the brownies

½ cup all purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

½ round disc Mexican chocolate, pulverized (I used 3/4 of a disc)

6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped  (I used Ghiradelli 60% cacao chocolate chips)

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, diced, room temperature

4 large eggs

1 cup sugar

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

For the glaze
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (same as above)
½ round disc Mexican Chocolate, pulverized (again, I used 3/4 of a disc)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons whipping cream 

Directions

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°.  Butter a 8 x 8 x 2 inch metal baking pan and dust with flour.  

Stir chocolates and butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water until melted and smooth. Turn off heat. Let chocolate stand over water to cool. 

  

Mix the flour, cinnamon, and salt in small bowl.

 

Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar in large bowl until mixture thickens and falls in soft ribbon when beaters are lifted, about 5 minutes, then beat in the vanilla.  Slowly beat in the flour mixture in 2 additions, blending well after each.

Gently beat in the melted chocolate to the egg and flour mixture,  mixing until just combined.  Stir in walnuts.  Pour batter into the greased and floured pan.  Bake brownies until top is set and tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 35 minutes.  Cool completely in pan on rack.

 To make the glaze, whisk the remaining ingredients in small saucepan over medium-low heat until melted and smooth.  Pour evenly over hot brownies in pan.  Chill brownies until topping is set, about 2 hours or overnight.

The biggest you’ll want to cut these is into 16 squares.  I usually go much smaller, like into 30 squares.  They are rich and decadent and you really only need a couple bites.  They also freeze really well.

Enjoy!

Liqueur for the impatient

Limoncello is one of my favorite drinks.  It is tart and lemony and a little bit herbal tasting.  Love it.  Apparently it’s possible to make your own, except all the recipes I’ve seen involve 40 days of infusing.  I’m not that patient.

Thankfully, there are other drinks to be made that do not take quite as long to infuse.  A vendor at the farmers market had bunches of lemon verbena for sale recently, so I grabbed some and set to work making Lemon Verbena Elixir from Joanne Weir’s Weir Cooking cookbook.  If you’ve never tried lemon verbena, run out and find some now.  It is one of the most amazing smelling plants.  It smells almost like a lemon tea, but brighter. 

This recipe makes a lot.  I thought about halving it, but now that I’m enjoying the finished product, I have to say, I’m glad I made the full amount.  It’s delicious and I am probably going to tear right through it.

 Lemon Verbena Elixir

 3 cups packed lemon verbena leaves
2 750 milliliter bottles of vodka
3 cups of sugar

Directions
Place the lemon verbena leaves in a large container with one bottle of vodka and place it in a dark spot for 5 days.

After 5 days have passed, bring 4 cups of water to boil and add the sugar.  Dissolve the sugar and let cool.  I was worried that this would be too sweet, so I initially halved the amount of simple syrup, but later found I really did need all of it.  I don’t really like sugary drinks, but this definitely needs all of it.

Add the other bottle of vodka and the cooled simple syrup to the infusing vodka.  Return to the dark spot and let it sit for another five days.  Transfer it to bottles.  You can store the extra bottles wherever you keep your liquor, but you definitely want to be drinking this straight from the freezer.   Don’t be fooled by the ugly brown color, it’s really delicious and especially refreshing when it’s icy cold.

More tomato awesomeness

If this was where you bought tomatoes, wouldn’t you be addicted?

I rounded up another bag full of dry farmed Early Girls and made tomato confit again.  This time, I piled them on a pizza spread with marjoram-olive pesto.  So delicious.

Marjoram Olive Pesto
Adapted from Deborah Madison

Ingredients
2 tablespoons aged red wine vinegar
1 garlic love
3 tablespoons pitted olives
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup marjoram leaves
1 tablespoon drained capers
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 cup coarsely chopped parsley
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions
Add garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, a few grinds of pepper, marjoram, capers, pine nuts, parsley, cheese, and olives to a food processor.  Pulse to combine.  Add the vinegar and olive oil and pulse until the pesto is well mixed.  Add more salt if needed.  Toss over pasta or pizza.  The original recipe, found here, recommends serving it over beets.

Pizza Directions
To make the pizza, I rolled out some pizza dough, spread it with a couple tablespoons of the pesto, topped with 1.5 pounds of roasted tomatoes, 3 ounces of chevre, and some salt and pepper.  Into the oven at 425 for 15 minutes and you have a really spectacular pizza.  The pesto is briny from the olives and capers and floral from the marjoram.  With the sweet tomatoes and tangy goat cheese, you will not be able to stop eating it.

My addiction

I can’t stop buying tomatoes.  The tomatoes in the Bay area right now are just incredible.  All these fantastic colors and they just taste amazing.  Fresh and sweet and not grey and mealy tasting like those sad supermarket tomatoes.  As a result, I just keep buying them.  At the farmers market near my house, at the farmers market near my office, at the Berkeley Bowl, everywhere I see them, every chance I get.  I pile them up on my counter in those green plastic pint baskets and throw them in pasta, make pickled tomatoes for friends, or just to eat with a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt.

So that my tomato eating keeps pace with my tomato buying, I’ve been looking for recipes that lets me use pounds of them at once.  And along came tomato confit.  It appeared in my blog reader in a few different forms, and I loved the idea from Herbivoracious to make a risotto with it.  I loosely adapted his approach, which he loosely adapted from Tom Colicchio. 

The finished product was amazing.  I think the standard tomato suggestion is romas, but I used 2 pounds of dry farmed Early Girls.  If you can get your hands on these, I highly recommend them.  Not just because using such a specific tomato makes this recipe sound like an important, ingredients-obsessed chef at a farm to table type restaurant, but because they are really, really delicious, don’t have a lot of water (this is important), and roast up just beautifully.

The confit is basically slow roasted tomatoes, rich with olive oil and lusciously sweet.  I stirred that into a basic risotto and had myself a lovely dinner.

Finally, I’ve always been a bit confused on what the official serving size for risotto is.  I think this would probably serve 3 people as a main course, though it’s really delicious and 2 very hungry people would probably not have too much trouble destroying it.  If you are cooking for 4 or more, I’d double it.

Risotto with Tomato Confit
Inspired by Herbivoracious

For the tomato confit
Ingredients
15 medium-sized ripe tomatoes (about 2 pounds), such as Early Girls, halved and cored
1/4  cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
A few cloves of garlic and a few sprigs of herbs (I used thyme, though any woody herb would work)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with tin foil.  Don’t use a silpat, though one of those deep 9X11 type pans would work.

Toss the halved tomatoes in a bowl with the olive oil and salt and pepper and place them cut-side down on the baking sheet.  Squeeze in the peeled garlic cloves and thyme around the tomatoes, drizzling with the oil left in the bowl.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the skins have begun to loosen.  Pour off and reserve any juice.  Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes until you can easily peel off the skins without burning yourself.  Honestly, if you can’t get the skins off, don’t worry about it.  I had a few on and it didn’t really affect the finished product. 

 Lower the heat to 275 F. and return the pan to the oven.

Every half-an-hour or so, pour off and reserve the juice.   You’ll probably only need to do this 1 or 2 more times, depending on how dry the tomatoes were to start with.  The original recipe suggests roasting them for a total of 4 hours, until they have given up a lot of moisture and a very tender but still moist.   I found I reached this point at just under 3 hours.  I might have been able to go a bit longer, but I was concerned that any more time and they’d dry out, so I stopped.   In any event, use your judgment.  The tomatoes should have a concentrated tomato flavor, and still be soft and rich from the oil.

When they are finished, remove from the oven.   If you aren’t going to make the risotto (or anything else with them) right away, store in the refridgerator in some oil (not the reserved juice.  Store that, just seperately.) 

For the risotto
Ingredients
The reserved tomato water (measure it, and then add enough water or broth to have a total of 4 cups of liquid)
4 tablespoons of the oil
1 shallot
1 cup arborio rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
all of the roasted tomato halves (give them a coarse chop if they are still fairly large)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
1 bay leaf

Directions
Bring the tomato water, broth or water, and bay leaf to a simmer.

Heat the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy pot.  Saute the shallot for a couple of minutes until softened but not browned.  Add the rice and saute for a minute or two until it turns slightly translucent.

Add the wine and the thyme and stir until the liquid is absorbed.   Slowly add the tomato/broth mixture (don’t add the bay leaf), one ladle at a time, stirring often.  When each ladle of liquid is absorbed, add another ladle. 

Continue adding the liquid slowly until it’s all absorbed and the rice is soft but still has a bit of give to it.  You might need an extra 1/2 cup or so of water if it’s still too firm after the first 4 cups has been absorbed.

When the last of the water is absorbing, add the tomatoes and give it a gentle stir, then remove from the heat and stir in the parmesan cheese. 

The finished dish is wonderful.  The tomatoes are rich and sweet and the dish just tastes like late summer. 

When life hands you melons…

Make melon salsa.

I made this a while back, when we were still getting boxes from our CSA.  I like melons, but I don’t love them.  I probably would order the healthy side of fruit option with a sandwich instead of fries a lot more often if it wasn’t usually just a big pile of cantelope and honeydew chunks, with a half a strawberry thrown in so that they can actually argue that it is indeed a fruit salad.

This however was a wonderful way to use up the very gorgeous melon we got from Eatwell.   I’m not sure exactly what kind of melon it was, as the outside skin was a gorgeous shade of yellow, but the inside tasted like cantelope. 

 

I think this recipe would work with any basic cantelope or honeydew type of melon, though I think watermelon would be too watery.

I found this recipe on the always amazing blog, Smitten Kitchen, who in turn based hers on a variation in Gourmet.  I changed things up a bit using what I had in the fridge, and brought it to a barbeque with some tortilla chips.  It was a huge hit.

Cantaloupe Salsa
Adapted from Gourmet and Smitten Kitchen

Makes about 3 cups of salsa

2 cups finely diced cantaloupe or other melon (about a half a melon, maybe a little less)
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
1-2 sweet gypsy peppers (depending on the size), diced.  If you can’t find gypsy peppers, I would use one small red bell pepper, chopped very finely.
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 (2-inch-long) fresh hot red or green chile, minced (use the seeds if you want extra heat)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix everything together and eat as soon as possible.  After about 2-3 hours it will start turning watery and not attractive, so you can’t really make this too far ahead.

Unfortunately, that day threw me another lemon…or melon..and my digital camera is no more.  So, if any food bloggers out there have recommendations for a good one, please let me know!