gratuitous food post
Whew. This is a big post! I've made an index, for your reading convenience. ♥ Enjoy!
01. Tumala d'Andrea (Sicilian Rice Timbale)
02. Pepperoni & Pineapple Pizza*
03. Black & Whites (Half-moon cookies)
04. Latkes
05. Miso-glazed sea bass1 with asparagus*
06. Heaven & Hell Cake
07. Broiled Elk Burgers on Pita with Caramelized-Onions & Goat Cheese*
08. Sweet Potato Hash*
*Contains meat
01. Tumala d'Andrea (Sicilian Rice Timbale), from Saveur.
This is the very first dish that I made out of Saveur Cooks Authentic Italian, which to this day is my go-to cookbook if I want to make Italian food. The recipes are occasionally a little complicated but always, always worth it (though, check back with me after I make my own pasta and pesto for the entirely-homemade-right-down-to-the-noodles lasagna that I'm dying to make: I may have changed my tune). Plus, I enjoy saying the names of these dishes. Seriously. Say "Eggplant Parmesan." Now say "Melanzane alla Parmigiana." Tell me that second phrase doesn't just wrap you in a warm blanket of food!love.
Anyway. I digress. If I had to list only ten dishes that I could make and eat for the rest of my life, I think this one would be on the list. It's not number one, but it definitely makes the list. For all that it takes all day and has multiple steps, it's not really that involved or that difficult to make, it's warm and filling, and there are always leftovers that are just as delicious when reheated.
Don't let that "it takes all day" scare you away from giving this a try. The only thing that takes awhile, really, is allowing the rice, egg & cheese mixture to set. So if you're going to make this, plan ahead. Don't forget, as I have often done, that this rice mixture needs to chill out in the fridge for at least six hours. Don't think that thirty minutes or an hour is adequate. Trust me, it isn't. It won't fall apart completely if you do that and pack it well, but it's infinitely easier for you if you just let it set for the full six. Also, use arborio rice, for real. I've made it with (sacrilege!) plain old white rice before, but it has a smaller grain that doesn't hold together as well, it has a different flavor, and it doesn't bake up as well, either. The arborio rice is really the only way to go here.
If you want to cheat on this recipe, just a little, you can skip the step where you make the tomato sauce if you just use Pomi's marinara, or other similar pre-made marinara of your choice. I know, I know. But I've done it and I have no regrets.
I don't know if I've ever told you this before, but I am not possessed of the ability to refrain from adding spices to things when I'm cooking. This dish is no exception to that rule. You know what's delicious? Freshly ground black pepper tossed in with the rice mixture. I've done crushed red pepper before: equally delicious. A little sea salt and sweet basil sprinkled over the rice after it's pressed into the casserole dish, and a little more over the top? Why not, I say. I don't go overboard, but I tweak things, ever so slightly, every time I make them, with a dash of this or that here and there. It keeps my life interesting. It drives my mother crazy. The first time I made this, I served it to my family and said, "You know, next time, I think maybe more basil," and she threw up her hands and said, "You are just like your father, he can't leave well enough alone, either." But I like my Adventures in Cooking, and she's right: I can't leave well enough alone, because as good as this is, what's out there might be so much better. If I was Jed Bartlet, well, basil would have been what was next.
So experiment with this one as you will. This recipe is forgiving when it comes to the middle-of-the-casserole ingredients. Toss in some oregano. Try a little grated pecorino-romano or parm-regg over the pasta after you put it into the rice bowl. Don't like peas? No problem. Try some very finely chopped green beans instead. If you want to really change it up, try spinach & mozz. It's all good. Very, very good.
02. Pepperoni & Pineapple Pizza
I owe sabinelagrande for this one, big time. For years, I've been eating pineapple & ham/Canadian bacon, thinking it was the best you could do with meat + pineapple on pizza, and for an equal number of years, I've been terribly wrong about that. Pepperoni and pineapple is far superior. So when we wound up with both of those toppings on hand and pizza night rolled around, we made our own.
To make this one, we used our go-to pizza dough, lots of fresh mozzarella, and a pre-made sauce from the natural foods store. It was tasty. Not my favorite, but not bad. Next time, I'll pat the pineapple slices down a little more thoroughly to take out the extra juice. This is still a winning combo, though, and a welcome addition to our pizza repertoire.
03. Black & Whites (Half-moon cookies), from Smitten Kitchen.
I had been craving these for what felt like two forevers. My bestie once made them for us all as part of our Christmas Baked Goods Present, but that's been years ago, and it's not like I'm close enough to NYC to just hop in the car and go buy some. (To be fair to our local bakeries, they do sell them. I've never gone to buy them, though, because let's be honest: every time I go to my favorite local bakery, I end up staring slackjawed at the fudge, the donuts, and the petit fours. I'm amazed I even know that they sell cookies there.)
So, I made my very own batch of Black & Whites, and I think they turned out pretty well. This recipe is easy easy easy, the batter is delicious, and despite my actual attempt to sabotage a cookie or two by dropping so much batter in one spoonful onto the baking sheet that I couldn't see how it would bake evenly at all, nothing bad happened! (Sometimes I do baking experiments, just to see.) The batter is pretty forgiving, so if you want to make enormous, loud Black & Whites (ie, the way New York intended), seriously, when the recipe says "a heaping spoonful," don't hesitate. Do pay attention to your oven temp relative to the size of your cookies, though: as daybreak777 will tell you, if you've got an oven that runs a little hotter, you're looking at a shorter baking time for these. Keep an eye on the first batch and note the time when the cookies turn a nice golden brown around the edges-- that'll be your cue to take them out of the oven.
Other than that, Deb's notes on this one say pretty much everything you need to know: eat 'em quick or give 'em away to people who will, 'cause these are definitely at their best 1-2 days out, but then, I couldn't really say how long they keep fresh, because I think I polished off my last one on day three. I have no regrets.
04. Latkes, take one, from Smitten Kitchen.
This is my first attempt at latkes! They turned out okay.
They were not as frittery as I would have liked, and next time, instead of the griddle, we're going with the cast-iron skillet, but they were wonderfully tasty, we served 'em up right with applesauce (and while I was straining potatoes through cheesecloth, Mary whipped up herb-crusted scallops & crispy leeks, too).
05. Miso-glazed sea bass1 with asparagus, from Gourmet.
I don't know if I really liked it better than the last round of sea bass, or if this is just fresher in my memory, but if you like seafood, AND IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET SUSTAINABLY FISHED SEA BASS (see the note at the bottom of this entry), OR IF YOU CAN GET STRIPED BASS OR EVEN MAHI MAHI, GO IMMEDIATELY AND MAKE THIS.
Oh, and did I mention that we served this with pommes frites? Because we did. It was like a beautiful dream. Very rarely, I eat food that is so wonderful, so sublime, that I get a little weepy, because I know that it will never happen again exactly this way. (I'm very serious about food, okay.) This dish? There were tears.
06. Heaven & Hell Cake, take one (adapted from Saveur.)
When I found this recipe on Saveur.com, I knew immediately that I was looking at this year's Birthday Baking Project (though I'm torn between making this again and shelving it for next year in favor of a Pink Lady Cake, because I love strawberries more than any other fruit-- in fact, I love strawberries more than chocolate-- and strawberries + cake = ALL THE WIN EVER). Anyway, whether it's this cake or that cake for me this year, I'm big on birthdays: not just my own, but in general. Birthdays should be full of wonder and delight and everything should be done the way the Birthday Person wants, because dammit, it's their day. This is part of my Birthday Code. So. In an effort to make sure that the next time I make this cake, I know that it is The Most Perfect Cake of its kind that I could have made, I did a trial run on this one.
Because this was a trial run, I did a few things I won't do next time. Next time I make this, I'll make it with expensive chocolate, like Valrhona, because I strongly believe that when it comes to chocolate, at least, more money really does mean better taste. This round was Hershey's, because I'm on a budget, and I don't feel bad about it. It was good!
I also used this cake as a stepping stone on my journey to get over my need to follow a recipe to the letter, even when I think I have a better idea. This cake was a big step towards Total Baking Independence, because I just didn't use the Devil's Food recipe that you see there. I refuse to use shortening in cake, just on principle. I think it's a weird ingredient. When I make things like this, I like to know what my ingredients are, and when I look at shortening and think of putting it in cake, I make this face: o_0
Soooooooo, rather than use that recipe for the devil's food cake, I adapted my very own. Sort of. I mentioned that I'm trying to get over my need to be told what to do when it comes to baking, right? Well, I got halfway there! So that was progress. Next time, I'm gonna say "screw it" and do my own pan-prep, because doing it their way was a miniature disaster when it came to getting the cake out of the pans. And yes, I greased them, but you know what's better? Greasing the pan, laying down a parchment round, greasing/flouring that and then pouring the batter in, that's what's better. And next time, I vow to listen to my intuition instead of the recipe. Finally, by happy accident, I ended up with only three cups of confectioner's sugar when it came time to make the mousse. I was a little concerned, but it worked out just fine. It's perfectly sweet with three cups, and I'm glad I was forced to leave out the extra 1/2ish cup.
07. Broiled Elk Burgers on Pita with Caramelized-Onions & Goat Cheese
The best thing that happened to last night's dinner was the moment earlier this week when I asked Twitter what to do with the pound of ground elk sitting in my freezer. nazkey came through on this one, and how: these were delicious. It was still too cold to grill, so these went into the broiler, which was fine by me, because there was nothing I would change about these. Everything about them is delicious. The flavor of the meat itself is wonderful; the caramelized onions and goat cheese piled on top blended so perfectly with the flavor of the elk. And the sweet potato hash we served these with? Fantastic. Perfect dinner. Thank you, nazkey!
08. Sweet Potato Hash
There are many recipes floating around out there on the internet for sweet potato hash. Saveur redirects you to Vanilla Sugar, which will tell you that you should add butter, Worcestershire sauce and maybe some Tabasco sauce. Eating Out Loud suggests red and green bell peppers. Epicurious instructs you to add pumpkin pie spice and brown sugar, Martha Stewart advocates olive oil and parsley, Rachael Ray wants you to add sausage, Food & Wine wants you to add bacon with chives and thyme, and Anne Burrell likes toasted pumpkin seeds in hers.
This is all to say, everybody's got a way to make this dish. Since I've expressed to you earlier in this entry my predilection for adding extra spices to everything, it may come as something of a surprise when I say that I don't actually use any spices when I make Sweet Potato Hash, but it's true! I don't. I think the ingredients really stand on their own here, and they just don't need any help from parsley, cumin, pumpkin pie spice, chives, thyme, crushed red pepper, et cetera. A little salt, a little pepper, that's it, that's all I use. Here's my take on sweet potato hash.
Erin's Simpler Sweet Potato Hash
Ingredients:
2 medium-large sweet potatoes (or about 4 teeny tiny ones), peeled and diced
1 medium Vidalia or yellow onion, chopped
4-6 slices of slab bacon, sliced into 1" pieces
2 apples (I have a strong preference for Granny Smiths, but I used Jonathans last night because it was what we had, and it was still yummy), peeled, cored & diced
Salt & pepper to taste
Heat a 12" cast iron skillet over medium. When the skillet is warm, toss in the onions and caramelize. (If they start to stick and you're worried they'll burn, pour in a little water and stir it around.) Stir bacon in with the caramelized onions. Cook, stirring frequently, about 5-6 minutes, then add the sweet potatoes, cook for another 5-6 minutes, and add the apples, salt and pepper. Stir until well-mixed, then cover and cook until you're happy with the consistency of your sweet potatoes: I like mine a little on the soft side, so I let this hang out for about 12 more minutes before I turned off the heat, but if you'd prefer firmer sweet potatoes, you won't have to wait that long.
This makes enough to fill a 12" cast iron skillet. As to how many people it serves, it really depends on how you apportion it. Last night, it fed exactly two very hungry fangirls and there were no leftovers, but if you divided it differently, I could see it splitting into quarters & feeding four people with no trouble.
1 **NB: Chilean sea bass is over-fished. Seriously, severely over-fished, and you can read more about that here. We get our fish from a local market run by people who are environmentally conscious; their sea bass is from a sustainable supplier. Our fishmongers have the paperwork to prove it, as will any other reputable supplier. If you've got a Whole Foods near you, I believe that they buy the majority of the sustainably fished sea bass on the planet, so they're a very safe bet. If you want to make this (and you should, if you like fish, because this is delicious) and you can't get sustainably fished sea bass, striped bass is a good substitute, and I'd imagine mahi mahi would work, too.**
01. Tumala d'Andrea (Sicilian Rice Timbale)
02. Pepperoni & Pineapple Pizza*
03. Black & Whites (Half-moon cookies)
04. Latkes
05. Miso-glazed sea bass1 with asparagus*
06. Heaven & Hell Cake
07. Broiled Elk Burgers on Pita with Caramelized-Onions & Goat Cheese*
08. Sweet Potato Hash*
*Contains meat
01. Tumala d'Andrea (Sicilian Rice Timbale), from Saveur.
This is the very first dish that I made out of Saveur Cooks Authentic Italian, which to this day is my go-to cookbook if I want to make Italian food. The recipes are occasionally a little complicated but always, always worth it (though, check back with me after I make my own pasta and pesto for the entirely-homemade-right-down-to-the-noodles lasagna that I'm dying to make: I may have changed my tune). Plus, I enjoy saying the names of these dishes. Seriously. Say "Eggplant Parmesan." Now say "Melanzane alla Parmigiana." Tell me that second phrase doesn't just wrap you in a warm blanket of food!love.
Anyway. I digress. If I had to list only ten dishes that I could make and eat for the rest of my life, I think this one would be on the list. It's not number one, but it definitely makes the list. For all that it takes all day and has multiple steps, it's not really that involved or that difficult to make, it's warm and filling, and there are always leftovers that are just as delicious when reheated.
Don't let that "it takes all day" scare you away from giving this a try. The only thing that takes awhile, really, is allowing the rice, egg & cheese mixture to set. So if you're going to make this, plan ahead. Don't forget, as I have often done, that this rice mixture needs to chill out in the fridge for at least six hours. Don't think that thirty minutes or an hour is adequate. Trust me, it isn't. It won't fall apart completely if you do that and pack it well, but it's infinitely easier for you if you just let it set for the full six. Also, use arborio rice, for real. I've made it with (sacrilege!) plain old white rice before, but it has a smaller grain that doesn't hold together as well, it has a different flavor, and it doesn't bake up as well, either. The arborio rice is really the only way to go here.
If you want to cheat on this recipe, just a little, you can skip the step where you make the tomato sauce if you just use Pomi's marinara, or other similar pre-made marinara of your choice. I know, I know. But I've done it and I have no regrets.
I don't know if I've ever told you this before, but I am not possessed of the ability to refrain from adding spices to things when I'm cooking. This dish is no exception to that rule. You know what's delicious? Freshly ground black pepper tossed in with the rice mixture. I've done crushed red pepper before: equally delicious. A little sea salt and sweet basil sprinkled over the rice after it's pressed into the casserole dish, and a little more over the top? Why not, I say. I don't go overboard, but I tweak things, ever so slightly, every time I make them, with a dash of this or that here and there. It keeps my life interesting. It drives my mother crazy. The first time I made this, I served it to my family and said, "You know, next time, I think maybe more basil," and she threw up her hands and said, "You are just like your father, he can't leave well enough alone, either." But I like my Adventures in Cooking, and she's right: I can't leave well enough alone, because as good as this is, what's out there might be so much better. If I was Jed Bartlet, well, basil would have been what was next.
So experiment with this one as you will. This recipe is forgiving when it comes to the middle-of-the-casserole ingredients. Toss in some oregano. Try a little grated pecorino-romano or parm-regg over the pasta after you put it into the rice bowl. Don't like peas? No problem. Try some very finely chopped green beans instead. If you want to really change it up, try spinach & mozz. It's all good. Very, very good.
02. Pepperoni & Pineapple Pizza
I owe sabinelagrande for this one, big time. For years, I've been eating pineapple & ham/Canadian bacon, thinking it was the best you could do with meat + pineapple on pizza, and for an equal number of years, I've been terribly wrong about that. Pepperoni and pineapple is far superior. So when we wound up with both of those toppings on hand and pizza night rolled around, we made our own.
To make this one, we used our go-to pizza dough, lots of fresh mozzarella, and a pre-made sauce from the natural foods store. It was tasty. Not my favorite, but not bad. Next time, I'll pat the pineapple slices down a little more thoroughly to take out the extra juice. This is still a winning combo, though, and a welcome addition to our pizza repertoire.
03. Black & Whites (Half-moon cookies), from Smitten Kitchen.
I had been craving these for what felt like two forevers. My bestie once made them for us all as part of our Christmas Baked Goods Present, but that's been years ago, and it's not like I'm close enough to NYC to just hop in the car and go buy some. (To be fair to our local bakeries, they do sell them. I've never gone to buy them, though, because let's be honest: every time I go to my favorite local bakery, I end up staring slackjawed at the fudge, the donuts, and the petit fours. I'm amazed I even know that they sell cookies there.)
So, I made my very own batch of Black & Whites, and I think they turned out pretty well. This recipe is easy easy easy, the batter is delicious, and despite my actual attempt to sabotage a cookie or two by dropping so much batter in one spoonful onto the baking sheet that I couldn't see how it would bake evenly at all, nothing bad happened! (Sometimes I do baking experiments, just to see.) The batter is pretty forgiving, so if you want to make enormous, loud Black & Whites (ie, the way New York intended), seriously, when the recipe says "a heaping spoonful," don't hesitate. Do pay attention to your oven temp relative to the size of your cookies, though: as daybreak777 will tell you, if you've got an oven that runs a little hotter, you're looking at a shorter baking time for these. Keep an eye on the first batch and note the time when the cookies turn a nice golden brown around the edges-- that'll be your cue to take them out of the oven.
Other than that, Deb's notes on this one say pretty much everything you need to know: eat 'em quick or give 'em away to people who will, 'cause these are definitely at their best 1-2 days out, but then, I couldn't really say how long they keep fresh, because I think I polished off my last one on day three. I have no regrets.
04. Latkes, take one, from Smitten Kitchen.
This is my first attempt at latkes! They turned out okay.
They were not as frittery as I would have liked, and next time, instead of the griddle, we're going with the cast-iron skillet, but they were wonderfully tasty, we served 'em up right with applesauce (and while I was straining potatoes through cheesecloth, Mary whipped up herb-crusted scallops & crispy leeks, too).
05. Miso-glazed sea bass1 with asparagus, from Gourmet.
I don't know if I really liked it better than the last round of sea bass, or if this is just fresher in my memory, but if you like seafood, AND IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET SUSTAINABLY FISHED SEA BASS (see the note at the bottom of this entry), OR IF YOU CAN GET STRIPED BASS OR EVEN MAHI MAHI, GO IMMEDIATELY AND MAKE THIS.
Oh, and did I mention that we served this with pommes frites? Because we did. It was like a beautiful dream. Very rarely, I eat food that is so wonderful, so sublime, that I get a little weepy, because I know that it will never happen again exactly this way. (I'm very serious about food, okay.) This dish? There were tears.
06. Heaven & Hell Cake, take one (adapted from Saveur.)
When I found this recipe on Saveur.com, I knew immediately that I was looking at this year's Birthday Baking Project (though I'm torn between making this again and shelving it for next year in favor of a Pink Lady Cake, because I love strawberries more than any other fruit-- in fact, I love strawberries more than chocolate-- and strawberries + cake = ALL THE WIN EVER). Anyway, whether it's this cake or that cake for me this year, I'm big on birthdays: not just my own, but in general. Birthdays should be full of wonder and delight and everything should be done the way the Birthday Person wants, because dammit, it's their day. This is part of my Birthday Code. So. In an effort to make sure that the next time I make this cake, I know that it is The Most Perfect Cake of its kind that I could have made, I did a trial run on this one.
Because this was a trial run, I did a few things I won't do next time. Next time I make this, I'll make it with expensive chocolate, like Valrhona, because I strongly believe that when it comes to chocolate, at least, more money really does mean better taste. This round was Hershey's, because I'm on a budget, and I don't feel bad about it. It was good!
I also used this cake as a stepping stone on my journey to get over my need to follow a recipe to the letter, even when I think I have a better idea. This cake was a big step towards Total Baking Independence, because I just didn't use the Devil's Food recipe that you see there. I refuse to use shortening in cake, just on principle. I think it's a weird ingredient. When I make things like this, I like to know what my ingredients are, and when I look at shortening and think of putting it in cake, I make this face: o_0
Soooooooo, rather than use that recipe for the devil's food cake, I adapted my very own. Sort of. I mentioned that I'm trying to get over my need to be told what to do when it comes to baking, right? Well, I got halfway there! So that was progress. Next time, I'm gonna say "screw it" and do my own pan-prep, because doing it their way was a miniature disaster when it came to getting the cake out of the pans. And yes, I greased them, but you know what's better? Greasing the pan, laying down a parchment round, greasing/flouring that and then pouring the batter in, that's what's better. And next time, I vow to listen to my intuition instead of the recipe. Finally, by happy accident, I ended up with only three cups of confectioner's sugar when it came time to make the mousse. I was a little concerned, but it worked out just fine. It's perfectly sweet with three cups, and I'm glad I was forced to leave out the extra 1/2ish cup.
07. Broiled Elk Burgers on Pita with Caramelized-Onions & Goat Cheese
The best thing that happened to last night's dinner was the moment earlier this week when I asked Twitter what to do with the pound of ground elk sitting in my freezer. nazkey came through on this one, and how: these were delicious. It was still too cold to grill, so these went into the broiler, which was fine by me, because there was nothing I would change about these. Everything about them is delicious. The flavor of the meat itself is wonderful; the caramelized onions and goat cheese piled on top blended so perfectly with the flavor of the elk. And the sweet potato hash we served these with? Fantastic. Perfect dinner. Thank you, nazkey!
08. Sweet Potato Hash
There are many recipes floating around out there on the internet for sweet potato hash. Saveur redirects you to Vanilla Sugar, which will tell you that you should add butter, Worcestershire sauce and maybe some Tabasco sauce. Eating Out Loud suggests red and green bell peppers. Epicurious instructs you to add pumpkin pie spice and brown sugar, Martha Stewart advocates olive oil and parsley, Rachael Ray wants you to add sausage, Food & Wine wants you to add bacon with chives and thyme, and Anne Burrell likes toasted pumpkin seeds in hers.
This is all to say, everybody's got a way to make this dish. Since I've expressed to you earlier in this entry my predilection for adding extra spices to everything, it may come as something of a surprise when I say that I don't actually use any spices when I make Sweet Potato Hash, but it's true! I don't. I think the ingredients really stand on their own here, and they just don't need any help from parsley, cumin, pumpkin pie spice, chives, thyme, crushed red pepper, et cetera. A little salt, a little pepper, that's it, that's all I use. Here's my take on sweet potato hash.
Erin's Simpler Sweet Potato Hash
Ingredients:
2 medium-large sweet potatoes (or about 4 teeny tiny ones), peeled and diced
1 medium Vidalia or yellow onion, chopped
4-6 slices of slab bacon, sliced into 1" pieces
2 apples (I have a strong preference for Granny Smiths, but I used Jonathans last night because it was what we had, and it was still yummy), peeled, cored & diced
Salt & pepper to taste
Heat a 12" cast iron skillet over medium. When the skillet is warm, toss in the onions and caramelize. (If they start to stick and you're worried they'll burn, pour in a little water and stir it around.) Stir bacon in with the caramelized onions. Cook, stirring frequently, about 5-6 minutes, then add the sweet potatoes, cook for another 5-6 minutes, and add the apples, salt and pepper. Stir until well-mixed, then cover and cook until you're happy with the consistency of your sweet potatoes: I like mine a little on the soft side, so I let this hang out for about 12 more minutes before I turned off the heat, but if you'd prefer firmer sweet potatoes, you won't have to wait that long.
This makes enough to fill a 12" cast iron skillet. As to how many people it serves, it really depends on how you apportion it. Last night, it fed exactly two very hungry fangirls and there were no leftovers, but if you divided it differently, I could see it splitting into quarters & feeding four people with no trouble.
1 **NB: Chilean sea bass is over-fished. Seriously, severely over-fished, and you can read more about that here. We get our fish from a local market run by people who are environmentally conscious; their sea bass is from a sustainable supplier. Our fishmongers have the paperwork to prove it, as will any other reputable supplier. If you've got a Whole Foods near you, I believe that they buy the majority of the sustainably fished sea bass on the planet, so they're a very safe bet. If you want to make this (and you should, if you like fish, because this is delicious) and you can't get sustainably fished sea bass, striped bass is a good substitute, and I'd imagine mahi mahi would work, too.**