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?