New cookbooks

I have three new cookbooks.

1. Top Chef the cookbook with an introduction by Tom Colicchio. Bravo has been pushing this cookbook during their Top Chef marathons. So far I've made the Fideos with Clams, which did not turn out quite right although I followed the recipe to a T, and the Moroccan Cubanos which turned out perfect. The fideos were made with angel hair pasta and a cream sauce infused with saffron and mixed with tons of garlic. The problem was there was not enough liquid to cook the pasta, leaving it crunchy. Good flavors though. The Moroccan Cubanos were made with slow roasted pork marinated with Ras al-hanout (a spice blend I've mentioned before which I actually have) and pickled vegetables wrapped in corn tortillas like a taco. Delicious. One drawback: many of the recipes in the Top Chef cookbook require ingredients like elk, foie gras, ostrich fillets, and octopus.

2. Giada's Kitchen. Giada's newest cookbook. Haven't tried anything yet but here's what looks good so far: Crispy Smoked Mozarella with Honey and Figs, Panini with Chocolate and Brie, Linguine with Shrimp and Lemon Oil, Lamb Ragu with Mint, Lemon Ricotta Cookies. Love how her recipes are twists on familiar favorites.

3. Bon Appetit - fast easy fresh. Bon Appetit magazine has a section called "fast easy fresh" which has perfect weeknight meals. Now I have the 770 page book of these recipes. Feel like beef? Just look up the ingredient and you'll find Roast Beef Tenderloin with Wasabi-Garlic Cream or Flank Steak Salad with Roasted Shallots and Goat Cheese. Need to make scones for brunch? Choose from Meyer Lemon and Dried Blueberry Scones or Walnut, Golden Raisin and Fennel Seed Scones. Don't take the same old ham and cheese for lunch, here are ideas for Open-face Lobster Salad Sandwiches, Watercress Sandwiches with Jalapeno-Lemon Butter, or Pancetta, Mizuna, and Tomato Sandwiches with Green Garlic Aioli.

I'll never have time to make all the recipes I want to make.

The Hunt for Dried Porcini Mushrooms

When Elaine revealed on Seinfeld the recipe for the Soup Nazi's Mushroom Barley soup, the first ingredient was dried porcini mushrooms. Since then, I can never think of dried porcini mushrooms without remembering the victorious tone of her voice as she declared his secret recipes were no longer secret (and those in business to sell their culinary creations have an absolute right to keep their recipes secret, for the rest of us it's debatable).
I began searching for dried porcini mushrooms after an episode of Everyday Italian. Chef Giada de Laurentis made a porcini mushroom risotto. I had arborio rice, onions, white wine, garlic, chicken broth and parmesan. Giada's recipe also included gorgonzola cheese, which I could easily find at my local grocery store. But the main ingredient, the dried porcini mushrooms, were not available there. So I made a visit to the Super H Mart Asian grocery store. I was able to find my beloved Asian Home Gourmet spice blends there, as well as a wide array of unidentifiable dried mushrooms, but no dried porcinis. I decided I needed to go to Whole Foods.
I didn't make it to Whole Foods that weekend, and didn't decide to go until I was in the car on the way home several days later. Since I was new to the neighborhood, I didn't know exactly where the Whole Foods was and ended up calling a friend, calling 411, and finally calling my dad. By then, I was nearly home and not really expecting to go to Whole Foods that night, but my dad was very enthusiastic about the idea of porcini mushroom risotto. Especially if I made it for him on Christmas Eve.
I finally made it to Whole Foods a few days later and found the dried porcini mushrooms amidst a display of dried oyster, shiitake, portabella and other mushroom varieties. In case you're looking for them, they should be in the produce section. Dried mushrooms are always rehydrated in warm water or broth, and any good recipe will have you incorporate the rehydration liquid into the recipe. My mushroom risotto was made with chicken broth that was used to rehydrate the mushrooms.
Would fresh mushrooms be as good? I'm not sure you can find fresh porcini mushrooms. You can certainly make a risotto with a combination of shiitake, oyster, and button mushrooms. The idea behind the dried mushrooms is to use the rehydration liquid to infuse more flavor into the final product. And porcini mushrooms are often described as earthy or meaty. Like portabellas, the porcini can be part of a great vegetarian meal where you don't even realize the meat is missing.
Was the hunt for dried porcini mushrooms worth it? My dad declared the risotto had a strong mushroom flavor. I guess that means goal accomplished! Look for the recipe on the food network website.

Homemade Marshmallows

One of the things I would never have thought of making at home is a marshmallow. It comes from a bag, it looks kind of artificial, how could it be made anywhere other than in a factory? Or worse, a laboratory?
But I recently read about homemade marshmallows (in her Bon Appetit article, Molly Wizenberg has the same factory comment), helped make some homemade marshmallow fluff, and yesterday a coworker brought in homemade marshmallows. They taste fresh, not artificial, don't look factory made and yet don't look homemade at all.
Here's the article in Bon Appetit: www.bonappetit.com/magazine/2008/07/cooking_life_fluff_piece as well as the recipe: http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/2008/07/homemade_marshmallows

The Asian Home Gourmet

I like this brand: http://www.asianhomegourmet.com/ and not just because of the dancing ginger family on the home page. I like their spice pastes, and I usually don't recommend spice blends and pastes - preferring of course to mix them up myself from the basic ingredients. But the flavor is authentic and I can add whatever proteins and vegetables I want. There are spice blends representing several Asian countries: China, Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Japan, and Thailand.
I've only ever found this brand in Asian grocery stores. In Minneapolis, United Noodles. In Chicago, Super H Mart. My favorites have been the Thai Tom Yum Soup (high sodium, very spicy but tasty with shrimp and spinach), Thai Green Curry, Indonesian Vegetable Curry, and Korean Bulgogi Marinade. And the Indonesian Satay. And the Sambal Stir Fry Noodles. And - well there are so many options and I'd be lucky to find them all. I may have to order some online.

The Truth About Homemade Pizza

I was really into making my own pizza last summer. I made the dough and waited hours for it to rise, fighting with the sticky mess to roll it out. I made the sauce and slowly simmered it to enhance the flavors, I shredded fresh mozzarella cheese, and I added toppings like caramelized onions which had their own lengthy cooking process. The other day I had a craving for my homemade pizza but I was tired. I decided to make an easier version. I found a new crust recipe that only needed 30 minutes to rise and bought canned pizza sauce and shredded mozzarella. I pre-baked the crust for 8 minutes, added sauce and cheese and toppings like arugula and turkey pepperoni (half the calories of regular).
Here's the truth: my lengthy process for making homemade pizza was worth it! I was surprised because I thought just making the dough would be enough to make a tasty pizza. But the easier recipe didn't result in the same light crust with a savory flavor. Homemade sauce is key even if you start with canned tomatoes or canned tomato sauce and add herbs and spices. Fresh mozzarella is far better than any shredded pre-packaged variety which just ends up tasting rubbery. My easy pizza recipe left me craving my more difficult pizza recipe! Now I've learned my lesson.

Nothing But the Best

My friend Monika came over for dinner last night and I made broccoli mascarpone soup and potato pancakes with apple compote and Greek yogurt. She claimed everything was excellent and I assured her that it was "nothing but the best" for her. Let's face it, I added, "nothing but the best for me!"
It's true, I refuse to eat bad food. There is too much good food out there to waste time, calories, and stomach space on bad food. I made some rice pudding the other day which turned out bitter and disgusting. I won't eat it, even if it wastes a cup of rice. Too bad. It will end up in the garbage whether it passes through my body or not, so why suffer?
Refuse to eat bad food. Put down your fork and wait until you find something worthy of your taste buds. When you eat bad food, you overcompensate by eating something else you really like later. Now you've just eaten twice as much as if you ate the good food to begin with. Refusing to eat bad food doesn't mean playing it safe. It just means trying a lot of foods, and not having to finish something you hate.
When I spend a long time cooking something, only to have it turn out bad, it's disappointing to throw it away. I'm tempted to try and "fix" it or choke down a little bit at a time. But it doesn't work, and it's just not worth it. I'll only remake the recipes that are great, while making my friends believe they get nothing but the best from my kitchen.

The Immersion Blender

My mom and I went out for a little Black Friday shopping and left my dad in charge of lunch. He was making sambar, a sort of lentil soup. When we came home from a full morning of shopping, we enjoyed the sambar with dosas, an Indian style crepe. It was only in the post lunch cleanup that my mom discovered just what he had done. He had ruined her immersion blender.
My immersion blender is one of my favorite kitchen tools. It's highly useful for making soups because you don't have to pour the soup into a blender to puree it. Just place the blades of the immersion blender into the pot and turn it on, stirring the handle so the entire pot is pureed. Then the blade attachment is easily removed to go into the dishwasher. My immersion blender has other attachments in addition to the blender blade - a whisk and a mini food processor/chopper. Without an attachment, the motor is pretty useless. Except where my dad is concerned. When he picked up the motor to puree his sambar, he did not realize that the blade attachment was needed and he dunked the entire motor into the sambar. Somehow it managed to puree without electrocuting him. It would be an embarrassing story if it had.
My mom was livid. There were bits of lentil in her blender motor and she could not exactly rinse them out with water. The sambar had already dried by the time she found the blender so she made my dad scrape out the dried bits, wipe it out with a damp cloth, and use a hair dryer to remove any trace of moisture from the motor.
If nothing else, my mom can hold this over my dad's head for years to come, or at least until the next time she burns the rice.

Today's Challenge

Top Chef fans will appreciate the challenge that faced me at lunch today: try to make a fast, hearty, healthy meal with the ingredients in my parents' kitchen. Sounds easy enough until you see what they have in their kitchen. The pantry has some rice, pasta, onions, and garlic. The fridge has decaying tomatoes, pathetic looking cucumber, lemons, eggs, a pack of muenster cheese, a bag of gourmet cheeses that somehow had chunks of ice in it, radishes, and mini peppers. The freezer held quite a few unidentifiable items in zip lock bags.
Normal people slap some cheese between two slices of bread and call it a draw. This is what I made:

Roasted Pepper Risotto
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp dried thyme
1 cup Arborio rice
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 large roasted pepper, peeled, or 7-8 small
salt and pepper

I chopped up half an onion and the garlic cloves and added them to the pan of hot olive oil. After they cooked for a few minutes, I added the thyme and then the Arborio rice. At this point, a typical risotto recipe has the addition of white cooking wine. I could only find red wine in the house - four open bottles in fact - but I didn't want red risotto so I left out the wine. On a side burner, a pot of chicken broth slowly simmered. I scooped 1/4 cup of broth out at a time and poured it over the rice, constantly stirring, allowing the rice to absorb the broth before adding another scoop.
In the meantime I roasted the mini peppers. Note that roasting mini peppers results in mostly burnt peppers. Stick with roasting the big ones and sauteing the smaller ones. After peeling off the roasted/burnt skin, I added pieces of pepper to the mostly cooked risotto. I squeezed some lemon juice over the whole concoction and stirred. Finally I added the Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. I tasted a few grains of rice to make sure they had cooked all the way through. Nothing worse than crunchy risotto.
The risotto ended up being quite tasty, but what I really enjoyed was making something out of the nothing that was my parents' kitchen.

Thanksgiving Recap

The vegetarian Thanksgiving was a success (as was the non-vegetarian Thanksgiving). My mom loved the salad of squash ribbons. The beauty of the salad is the texture of the vegetable. Everyone watched curiously as I used a vegetable peeler to create ribbons of squash and left the core of seeds behind for another use. My dad declared the creamy pasta sauce to be not at all heavy, the result of using reduced fat cream cheese. Everyone enjoyed the roasted broccoli (I love the char myself), and recipes for all dishes were requested.
As for the non-veg Thanksgiving, we had turkey, lamb, mashed potatoes, spinach, cornbread stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, cookies, cranberry pie, and pumpkin roulade. The pumpkin roulade was from a food network recipe, recreated by my friend Aditee. In addition to great flavor and moist cake, it has a beautiful presentation but if you don't have the right pan or want to take the time to roll up the cake, I think the recipe could be used for cupcakes or a regular cake.

Pumpkin Roulade

For the cake:

* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
* 3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 3/4 cup canned pumpkin (not pie filling)
* 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar, plus extra for dusting

For the filling:

* 12 ounces Italian mascarpone cheese
* 1 1/4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
* 2 tablespoons heavy cream
* 1/4 cup minced dried crystallized ginger (not in syrup)
* Pinch kosher salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 13 by 18 by 1-inch sheet pan. Line the pan with parchment paper and grease and flour the paper.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt and stir to combine. Place the eggs and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, until light yellow and thickened. With the mixer on low, add the pumpkin, then slowly add the flour mixture, mixing just until incorporated. Finish mixing the batter by hand with a rubber spatula. Pour into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake the cake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the top springs back when gently touched.

While the cake is baking, lay out a clean, thin cotton dish towel on a flat surface and sift the entire 1/4 cup of confectioners' sugar evenly over it. (This will prevent the cake from sticking to the towel.) As soon as you remove the cake from the oven, loosen it around the edges and invert it squarely onto the prepared towel. Peel away the parchment paper. With a light touch, roll the warm cake and the towel together (don't press!) starting at the short end of the cake. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, make the filling. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the mascarpone, confectioners' sugar, and cream together for about a minute, until light and fluffy. Stir in the crystallized ginger, and salt.

To assemble, carefully unroll the cake onto a board with the towel underneath. Spread the cake evenly with the filling. Reroll the cake in a spiral using the towel as a guide. Remove the towel and trim the ends to make a neat edge. Dust with confectioners' sugar and serve sliced.

Weird White Meals

I'm having a white dinner. Brie on water crackers, angel hair pasta with parmesan cheese, and steamed cauliflower. Sometimes when you cook it yourself (or when you're trying to clean out the food in your house) you eat weird, white meals.

Vegetarian Menu Planning

My parents requested I cook them a vegetarian meal this Thanksgiving. This is not so unusual. My mother has always fasted on Thursdays, only eating a vegetarian meal in the evening. So for years, we've celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday with traditional turkey and sides, Indian goat curry, wild pheasant, and other unique dishes. But on Thursday night, we have a delicious vegetarian meal, and for the last few years I've cooked it.
Complicating matters is the fact that my parents try not to eat too many carbs (like pasta and rice), sugar (including most fruits), and sodium. After some discussion with my dad, we decided that whole wheat pasta would be okay and I sketched out the menu. I would make a penne pasta with spinach in a cream cheese sauce made with nutmeg, lemon rind, white wine, and vegetable broth. The recipe was originally meant to include shrimp but the protein is easily omitted. One side dish would be roasted broccoli, a recipe from Cook's Illustrated that never fails to please. The other side dish would be a squash ribbons salad, for which zucchini squash ribbons are stripped off with a peeler and tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and Parmesan cheese.
The key with vegetarian meals is to incorporate unique and distinctive flavors, so you never miss the meat because your mouth is well stimulated. In this meal, the nutmeg in the pasta dish, the caramelization of the broccoli, and the lemony herbs in the salad are all satisfying flavors on their own. I think it'll be delicious. Happy Thanksgiving!

Evil Food

I was accused today of making evil cookies. The chocolate espresso chocolate chip cookie recipe from Gourmet (March 1997) has been one of my all time favorite cookie recipes to make and eat. I'm not a fan of coffee flavors but the two teaspoons of espresso spread over two dozen cookies is subtle and enhances the chocolate flavor without overpowering it. The recipe calls for a full cup of chocolate chips, in addition to the melted chocolate that makes up the base of the cookie. I replaced the eggs with egg beaters and the sugar with Splenda, but kept the full stick of butter in the recipe. When cookies are that decadent, should they be considered evil? I suppose they are if they cause you to come back for more, leave you craving sugar, or add inches to your waistline. But I kind of like cooking evil foods for other people because it keeps me from eating more evil food myself.

Going Dutch

Every once in a while I run across a recipe that calls for a Dutch oven. A Dutch oven is a cast iron pot used to make casseroles, stews, and dishes that start on the stove and finish in the oven. The recipes always sounded delicious (I'm a sucker for a good stew), but I either avoided them or revised them to be done entirely on the stove.
But why shouldn't I have a Dutch oven? I have a fully stocked kitchen and an affinity for stew. I own an immersion blender, an ice cream maker, and a crockpot. The Dutch oven should have been acquired years ago but I finally got one a couple of weeks ago.
It's the kind of pot you "season" by never washing it with soap and letting it take on a dark black, smooth and shiny appearance, as if it were non-stick. Per Wikipedia, "When properly cared for, a Dutch oven is good for decades or even centuries of use."
Centuries of use? My great-great-grandchildren could be using my Le Creuset Dutch oven (which tags itself a French oven for branding purposes) with the seasonings from the meal I made tonight infusing the interior.
This first Dutch oven meal was a new twist on one of my favorite dishes: beef short ribs. The short ribs are marinated in spices, then browned on the stove. After adding garlic, onions, chicken broth, tomatoes, lime juice, and chipotle peppers to the pot, the short ribs are transferred from stove to oven to bake for 1.5 hours, then returned to the stove to reduce the sauce for another half hour. In the end you get tender meat and a silky, spicy sauce with depth.
I could have made this recipe entirely on the stove but I like to think that the Dutch oven added to the flavor. And I love a pot that can handle different cooking environments. No matter where you put it, it makes a damn fine stew.

Jerk

Just made some jerk chicken with AUTHENTIC jerk seasoning from Jamaica. It was a sauce rather than a dry spice blend. It came in a little bottle like the kind Tabasco sauce comes in, and was only 3 ounces and therefore appropriate to bring back in my carry-on bag. I've tried jerk chicken recipes made from my own blend of fresh onions, peppers and spices, but none of them quite hit the right note. The sauce from Jamaica, on the other hand, was a perfect blend of sweet and spicy and peppery. It was easy to use - just marinate the chicken breast all day and grill on my George Foreman. I squeezed lime juice over it and ate it with naan. I have to admit, the Jamaicans know how to infuse flavor into their food. At the all-inclusive resort I stayed at, I didn't expect amazing food but I was surprised at how tasty it was. I enjoyed the jerk chicken there, as well as curried oxtail, but my favorite meal was at the airport: Jamaican meat pies! I have yet to find a good recipe to duplicate those at home.

Picking a Winner

I've already noted that I don't have secret recipes. So when it came to participating in a chili cookoff, I had nothing "off the shelf". Time to hit my trusty cooking website: cookinglight.com. I searched for chili and a number of recipes popped up. How to choose? Some have chili powder, some have actual chilis, there could be tomatoes and wine or black beans and beer, cocoa powder or melted chocolate, chicken, pork, beef or chickpeas. There are a large variety of chili ingredients but it's the right combination that is key.
On cookinglight.com I found Southwestern Chili, Black Bean Chorizo Chili, Twenty Minute Chili and more.
Southwestern Chili had cajun sausage, chipotle pepper, yellow hominy and beer. I rejected it because it had garbanzo beans and red kidney beans. Too many beans.
Black Bean Chorizo Chili had the title ingredients plus lime juice, corn, and semi-sweet chocolate. Sounds too sweet and sour.
Twenty Minute Chili had ground turkey, canned tomatoes, and boil in bag rice. No chili should be done in twenty minutes.

On epicurious.com I found a great short ribs recipe with a green chili sauce, to be made at a later date.

Finally on recipezaar.com, I found a chili recipe that sounded delicious. It had tons of spices, different types of chilies, it was easy to make in the crockpot, and was made with beef stew meat instead of ground beef. Something about the combination of cumin, oregano, and fennel seed made my mouth water. I made the chili and it was spicy! Luckily I only had to compete against three other chilis and my entry managed to pull ahead in the end to win it. Hooray!

I guess I have a secret recipe now.

The Taco Rule for Leftovers

Cooking for one means I always end up with leftovers. I can eat the same meal twice, maybe three times, but after that I'm done. But this doesn't stop me from making a roast or a brisket or a whole pork tenderloin. The good thing about leftover meat is you can freeze it and when you remember that it's in there, implement the taco rule for leftovers: When unsure about what to do with your leftover meat, make tacos.
I made a brisket last week - 2 lbs of beef braised in red zinfandel wine with onions and carrots. After four meals of brisket with egg noodles, I wrapped the remaining chunk in foil and pitched it into the freezer. I didn't know what I would do with it since the gravy and vegetables were gone. Then I remembered the taco rule. I shredded the meat and fried it lightly. After I heated up my shelf stable corn tortillas (they last forever), I topped my tacos with homemade guacamole, chopped onions and tomatoes, and finished them off with a dollop of non-fat yogurt. Delicious. I could hardly taste the wine flavor.
Whenever I get duck at the supermarket (Maple Leaf Farms has a nice half rotisserie duck in the frozen food section), I use the leftovers to make duck tacos. Need a use for the rest of the rotisserie chicken you bought because it smelled so good in the store? Make chicken tacos. Just because I didn't cook it myself doesn't mean I can't turn it into something homemade. And for some reason, the taco rule for leftovers always turns out better than when I set out to make tacos in the first place.

Culinary Tailgating

This weekend I learned that my friend Larry has been throwing incredible (or so I hear) tailgates for every Northwestern home football game, feeding up to 20 people. His themed tailgates provide breakfast at 7:30am, lunch at 9am, and dessert shortly before the 11am kickoffs. Next Saturday, Northwestern plays Ohio State. Since Ohio State is located in Columbus, Ohio, Larry has planned a Christopher Columbus themed tailgate. Columbus was an Italian who was funded by Spain, so the tailgate will be incorporating both Italian and Spanish elements. Tortillas (potato omelettes) and breakfast bruschetta for breakfast. Chorizo hamburgers and chicken parm for lunch. Flan or tiramisu for dessert. Even this home cook was impressed by the culinary feat of pre-making or cooking all the food on a grill on-site. Why buy a ballpark frank when you can make a gourmet meal in a parking lot?

Deceptively Delicious

If you marry a famous person, does it make it easier to get your own cookbook? Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry Seinfeld, has a cookbook out called Deceptively Delicious. The object of her book is to create recipes that sneak vegetables into foods her kids love. She does this using vegetable purees. Broccoli puree in beef stew, cauliflower puree in mac 'n cheese, butternut squash in spaghetti and meatballs - just a few examples of the creative ways that she can fool her children.
I got a hold of this cookbook from my neighbor Michelle. One day she texted me to come up to her apartment because she had made muffins and I had to try one. Naturally I showed up moments later, breathing hard, looking for free muffins. As I started eating she quizzed me on what I thought the ingredients were. Peanut butter? Yes. Pumpkin? No. Finally I gave up, and she revealed that there was cauliflower in the muffin. I couldn't taste it at all.
In fact, I borrowed the cookbook, made banana bread with cauliflower puree, and it tasted great. My brother got the majority of the loaf and if he tasted it before he inhaled it, he might have agreed that there was no sign of cauliflower.
Michelle admits that some of the recipes, like the aforementioned mac 'n cheese, and some of the veggie dips, are not good. But I'm curious to try other ones. Seinfeld claims that her tofu nuggets dipped in spinach puree and rolled in breadcrumbs taste like fried cheese to her kids. But we're talking about a 6 year old's palate.
My one concern about hiding vegetables in kids' food is that they never learn to eat them, but Seinfeld encourages moms to serve normal vegetables as well. And although I don't have kids, I can see the benefits of boosting my own vegetable intake - while enjoying a baked good.

The Lure of a Great Recipe

It's really sad when you want to steal a magazine from your mechanic, and even sadder when it's a cooking magazine and you already have subscriptions to two other cooking magazines. Maybe it was because I had to skip lunch to get a flat tire fixed, and I was flipping through Food & Wine's Thanksgiving issue while munching on a granola bar, but suddenly everything in the magazine looked delicious. Cassoulet with Duck Confit. Goat Cheese-Edamame Dip. Mixed Green Salad with Fig-Yogurt Dressing. Smoky Red Pepper Spread. I salivated. I poured through the recipes. I tried to memorize the spices in Spiced Catfish with Avocado. And then I considered stealing the magazine.
No one else was in the shop at the time. The mechanics were working in the garage, there were no other customers in the waiting area. It was just me and a table full of magazines about home decor, sports, and cars. No one would miss a silly little issue of Food & Wine.
Then I flipped it over and saw who it was addressed to. Firestone. It was not the name of some random customer who had kindly left it in the waiting area like a discarded newspaper with the crossword filled in. It was not a store bought copy which I could claim I had purchased myself. Firestone had a subscription to a somewhat sophisticated food magazine, and even if I was the only customer interested in it, I could not steal it.
It should be noted that I didn't want to steal the magazine because I didn't want to pay for it. I just wanted those recipes and would do anything to acquire them. No one can resist the lure of a great recipe.
Luckily Food & Wine, like Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, and Gourmet, make all their recipes accessible through their website, and I was able to find the entire set of November 2008 recipes online as soon as I got home.
To save you the trouble, here's the one for Goat Cheese-Edamame dip:

Ingredients
DIP

1. 1 1/2 pounds shelled edamame
2. 1 cup sour cream
3. 5 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled
4. 3 chipotles in adobo, chopped, plus 2 tablespoons of adobo sauce from the can
5. 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
6. 1 small garlic clove, chopped
7. 2 teaspoons kosher salt
8. 1 tablespoon chopped oregano
9.

PEPITAS

1. 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
2. 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
3. 1/2 teaspoon salt
4. 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
5. 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
6. 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
7. 1 teaspoon chopped oregano


Directions

1. Make the dip: In a medium pot of boiling salted water, simmer the edamame until tender, about 8 minutes. Drain well and transfer to a food processor. Add the sour cream, goat cheese, chipotles, adobo sauce, lemon juice, garlic and salt and puree until smooth, scraping down the side of the bowl. Stir in the oregano and transfer the dip to a serving bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.
2. Make the pepitas: Preheat the oven to 375°. On a rimmed baking sheet, toss the pumpkin seeds with the olive oil, salt, coriander and crushed red pepper. Bake for 7 minutes, until the seeds begin to brown. Transfer the pepitas to a bowl and toss with the lemon zest and oregano.
3. Serve the dip at room temperature, topped with the spiced pepitas.


Make Ahead

The goat cheese–edamame dip can be refrigerated overnight; bring to room temperature before serving. The spiced pepitas can be kept in an airtight container for up to 3 days.


Serve With

Pita crisps.

Secret Recipes

Heard this topic on the radio the other day - do you have a recipe that you love to make for people but hate to reveal? I don't but I was thinking that maybe I should. When someone asks for a recipe I am so flattered that I eagerly give it out. But I need to hold back a little. Be more mysterious. After all, half the art of being a good cook is being a good recipe finder.
Either I should keep my recipes secret, or I should give out recipes with slight tweaks in the proportions. Just so no one else can make them as good as I can. Because cooking is a competition after all.

I found a website yesterday called www.hungry-girl.com. I'm a hungry girl so I was curious. The site gives tips and recipes for foods that hungry people love - cheesecake, muffins, sloppy joes, daiquiris, pizza, etc. The recipes are all modified to be lower calorie and fat content vs. the "original". I haven't tried any recipes yet, though a few look intriguing. Most of them scare me because I'm afraid the flavor will be a little off.
I'm all for healthy cooking, I love the magazine Cooking Light, and I make substitutions all the time - egg beaters for real eggs, Splenda for sugar. My problem with these recipes and the concept of making unhealthy foods less bad for you is that it's not focusing on eating healthy. It's focusing on eating less unhealthy, and that is not the same thing. I feel like these recipes don't focus on adding fiber, vitamins and nutrients to meals. And I don't condone making low fat desserts all the time just to eat dessert every day. I don't need dessert every day (even though certain roommates got me addicted to that for a while)!
That said, I will try a few of the recipes on the site that I feel make reasonable substitutions - like a guacamole recipe that mixes in yogurt to add low-calorie volume. Maybe it will work, maybe I'd rather stick to real guac - and skip dessert.

A Meal That Looks Like A Meal

"I like a meal that looks like a meal," my brother told me after describing how he baked a chicken between two frying pans, and then plated it with some steamed vegetables and rice. It sounds like a Top Chef style challenge to live in student housing, but he does have a point. Presentation counts, and when you plate your meal, even your Tuesday night dinner in front of the tv, it is that much more satisfying.
Try this: make boxed mac 'n' cheese and eat it out of the pot while gnawing on a leftover piece of fried chicken. How do you feel?
Then scoop some mac 'n' cheese onto a plate. Next to it, slice up the leftover fried chicken over some salad greens (don't you have salad greens that end up going bad every week because you buy them with the best intentions and never eat them?). Add a handful of baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, raisins, Craisins (TM) and/or nuts. Drizzle with salad dressing or just some oil and vinegar. Take a picture of your pretty meal and eat. Now how do feel?
I like taking pictures of food. How good does this salad look that my friend Tara made for my birthday party? Awesome.

Ras el Hanout

The other great part of my trip to Grand Rapids after Rose's Restaurant and the beautiful fall colors, was a visit to a little spice shop called Spice Merchants East. As soon as I walked in, I was hooked. I had to buy something. I didn't know what, but some interesting spice or spice blend was in order. I ignored the common spices - the cayenne, cumin, turmeric, and ginger. I gazed in fascination at the meat rubs and curry blends, wondering at the difference between the Butcher's Blend and the Steak Rub. I almost bought some Bamboo Rice before I decided it wasn't going to be that good just because it was green. But I wanted to buy something different and unique, with flavors I didn't normally consider. Then I found it: Ras el Hanout. It's a Moroccan spice blend with the following ingredients: Nutmeg, rosebuds, cinnamon stick, mace blade, galangal, chili pepper, green cardamom, black peppercorn, allspice berries, anise seed, brown cardamom, cloves, coriander seed, cumin seed, sesame seed, lavender, and turmeric. Who would think to put those things together? Oh let me just dry some rosebuds and throw them into the pot...
How does one cook with Ras el Hanout? There were directions on the mix but I found a simple recipe on Cookinglight.com for a beef tagine dish. See below. You can also replace the Ras el Hanout with some other Moroccan spice blend. The recipe is quite simple other than that - I made it on the stove and used dried cranberries instead of plums. Reduce the honey if you don't like things too sweet.


Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 3/4 cup beef mixture and about 2 1/2 teaspoons almonds)
Ingredients
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 2 teaspoons Ras el Hanout
* 1 1/2 pounds boneless sirloin steak, cut into 1-inch cubes
* 2 cups chopped onions (about 2 medium)
* 1 cup water
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1 (14-ounce) can less-sodium beef broth
* 1 1/2 cups pitted dried plums
* 3 tablespoons honey
* 1/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425°.

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add Ras el Hanout; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Add beef; cook 3 minutes. Add onions, water, salt, and broth. Cover and bake at 425° for 1 hour. Stir in dried plums and honey; cook 15 minutes. Sprinkle with almonds.

High quality ingredients

I had a really delicious olive oil today. If you've ever tasted a superior olive oil, you know it's like tasting excellent wine or chocolate. You wonder how you ever got by on the average stuff.
I had this olive oil at a little restaurant called Rose's Restaurant in East Grand Rapids, MI. Not only was the food we ordered fresh and lovely, but the extras like the olive oil served with warm bread before the meal and a mini cup of caramel corn served after the meal hit the spot. I questioned the waitress on the seasonings in the olive oil, which she said was seasoned on site. A simple mix of red pepper, black pepper, oregano, and basil was infused in the oil. The real secret was the use of first press extra-virgin olive oil. This means the olive oil is made from the first pressing of the olives and there is very little oxidation of the oil. (I looked this up in my Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating in case you were wondering - I am no chemistry whiz.) Obviously this is not the type of oil I buy for cooking, which I can pour liberally into a pan with some button mushrooms or baby spinach. This is olive oil for salads and dipping bread and simple pasta dishes, or for drizzling over a plate of steamed asparagus immediately before serving. I'm inspired to go out and find a high quality oil and make my own dipping spice blend. Bring over some warm bread and we'll have a wonderful meal.

Not My Best Work

As I ran on the treadmill last night after work, I distracted myself by dreaming about my dinner. I had marinated some ground lamb in Indian spices (garam masala, cumin, coriander, red pepper) and planned to make koftas (aka meatballs). I debated on the side dish. I had some spinach I could saute but that wouldn't fill me up. I'd rather not eat too much rice or other carbs. Then I remembered that I had a can of tomato puree in the fridge that needed to be finished. What if I made a tomato soup from it? I planned the recipe in my head. Saute some garlic and cumin seeds in olive oil, add the puree and simmer. It would be so simple, and I had cooked tomatoes like this in the past with good results.
You may be wondering now what is tomato puree. It is found in the organic food section and has far less sodium than other canned tomato products. Other than that, it is pretty much like tomato sauce. Which means the consistency is like tomato sauce. Which means it does not make a good soup.
I started cooking with gusto. I sauted the garlic, toasted the cumin seeds, sniffed the wonderful aroma. Then I poured in the tomato puree, noting as I poured that it seemed rather...thick. So I decided to add milk. Then I decided to add wine. After adding all that liquid, the puree was still begging to be spread on a crust and topped with mozarella. And my wonderful flavors of garlic and cumin were lost. I doused the "soup" with some ground cumin to no avail. It tasted like tomato sauce. Definitely not my best work.
Despite all that, I ate some of the soup for dinner. Then I ate some more for lunch. I think I'm done eating tomato puree. More to come on a successful recipe for tomato garlic soup with cumin.

Chocolate Covered Bacon

I must address a certain prejudice I've encountered every time I mention to anyone that I tried chocolate covered bacon at the Minnesota State Fair. The initial reaction is, naturally, that it must be gross. But think about it. I'm a foodie but I'm not a fast food/greasy food loving person. Would I eat anything that was that disgusting? I didn't even touch the deep-fried candy bars! I would only put something in my mouth if I had a belief that it was tasty. So give me some credit please!
The naysayers are clearly people who believe bacon is greasy and chewy. But chocolate cannot adhere to grease. The bacon in this recipe was dry and crispy, like the kind you would crumble over a salad. It had the texture of a pretzel, and we all know those are good dipped in chocolate. And the chocolate was dark and rich, so the bacon was merely a vehicle for delivering chocolate to my mouth. Not necessarily the best vehicle, but not a gross one. If you like chocolate and you don't hate bacon, refuse to eat pork, or have a strict diet, I encourage you to try chocolate covered bacon because the opportunity may not come more than once in a lifetime. And it's fun to tell people about it and watch them make faces.

Goat Cheese

There is some goat cheese in my fridge that is behaving badly. It keeps whining to be included in my meals. It has no shame in flashing its seductive, creamy body. It will mingle with mushrooms, salad, or omelets in an undiscriminating fashion. I've had enough of its attitude. The faster I get rid of it, the happier we will all be.

Try this: Spread some goat cheese on a cracker. Add a drop of honey. Devour and repeat.

Kitchen Conundrums

Lately I've been exploring a career as a kitchen detective. People tell me about (or let me taste) recipes that just didn't work out. If I question them long enough, I can find that elusive detail that explains why.
My brother was obsessed with making shrimp the way my mom makes it: spicy, savory, Indian style. The ingredients were simple: garlic, ginger, turmeric, salt, red pepper. He spiced up his shrimp and cooked it up and was sorely disappointed (this ironically probably makes my mom happy). We discussed the process - maybe he could try more marinating time - and the proportions - too much turmeric perhaps? Finally I discovered that he had been using ground ginger instead of fresh, or at least bottled ginger. No no no! Here's an easy rule to follow: for baking, use ground ginger. For everything else, especially on your proteins, use fresh ginger. (Bottled ginger can be substituted for fresh since it's hard to keep fresh ginger...well, fresh.)
Usually recipes gone bad can be fixed by the quality of ingredients. Peanut butter bars taste bad? How old is the peanut butter in your cupboard? Peanut butter, and other nuts can go bad and although they won't make you ill, they won't taste good at all. Keeping them in the fridge will help.
Be careful about what you cook with. A friend made some Thai curry and stored the extra fish sauce in the cupboard. The next time she made the same curry, it had a strong fishy smell and she was wise not to eat it. Fish sauce is not optional - it must be stored in the fridge! Smell things before you use them and when in doubt, throw it out.

Why I Cook

Because I love food, because I respect food, because I am in awe of the chemistry, because an egg can be so much more than an egg, because putting ingredients together means 1+1=something far greater than 2, because I want to know what I'm putting in my body, because it's like an experiment, because I like to do things with my hands, because I can do it better, because I like to feed people, because it's an art, because everyone can't do it, because I'm curious, because I'm hungry NOW.