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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Desperately Seeking Greens

a cast-iron heart may be required to (regularly) enjoy my rice muffins

































I'M beginning to realize that I am in need of a new recipe and preferably one involving greens! As you must have noticed: whenever I attempt a new recipe, if it's successful enough (and I enjoy it) I end up making it again and again... until I tire of it. (but cut me some slack, I just started learning how to cook

this variation of rice muffins included
scallions, cheese and a pad of butter

But the good news is: I think I'm beginning to understand how to cook... 

Tonight was my third time making my latest favorite dish: rice muffins. As stated in my previous post, I thought the rice muffins could be a bit improved with some greens (chopped chives) and butter. Last weekend, I enjoyed the privilege of a visit from David and--of course--had to make him rice muffins. (both he and I are glad that I finally know how to cook us a proper supper) I'd told him my idea of adding chives and butter to the rice muffins, but he one-upped that idea and instead suggested: scallions, sharp cheddar and an egg broken over the top a few minutes before cooking ended.

how did he know this was going to taste so good?

The second batch of rice muffins was markedly better than the first. I'd mixed the dry and the wet ingredients separately before combining them (over-working the batter often results in a tough texture); and the pad of butter added atop each muffin prior to baking went a long way in mastering a moister muffin. Personally, I would have been fine without the added cheese (aged Welsh cheddar), but David was a big fan of the addition. However, with the lone ramekin that was reserved for the "sunny side up" egg, the cheese was a terrific addition!

rice muffins... perfected

TONIGHT I made rice muffins for the third time this week, in a new muffin pan. (it was time for a new one after cheesy rice muffins) I seemed to have more batter than the previous two times... but I figured, That's okay, I'll just have bigger muffins. (perhaps this pan was smaller than the first) 

Bigger muffins would have baked without a hitch, but bigger and butter-topped muffins... eventually caused a smoke alarm across the alleyway to go off. Apparently the butter had slid off the tops of the muffins as they rose to double their usual sizes and dripped to the bottom of the 425° oven where it, of course, smoked like crazy. 

To again quote the ever-wise JuliaCooking is one failure after another, and that's how you finally learn. Perhaps next time, I'll bury the butter just beneath the surface of the muffins... until then, I plan on enjoying these really good leftovers!

miraculously, the muffins survived the smoke scot-free!

Friday, September 14, 2012

Vintage Biscuits

a vintage recipe clipping found in my 1943 edition of
The Joy of Cooking

I don't know why I'm so into vintage recipes these days... perhaps I'm just an "old soul." (that's what I was recently told by a companion at a dinner party) The above recipe was found tucked in between the pages of a newly-acquired 1943 edition of The Joy of Cooking. While showing the stack of clippings to David (who was in town from Ithaca last weekend), I'd re-read this recipe which I had recently only skimmed over...

fresh bacon from the butcher

































Never having bought bacon before (literally), I decided to go to my local butcher instead of picking up a pack at the supermarket. For just $4.50 for a dozen slices, I received what I'd believed to be a much superior quality to any bacon I'd find pre-packed at the supermarket. (quoting Julia: Freshness is essential, that makes all the difference!) I also picked up a half-pint of cooked rice, from the local Chinese restaurant, because leftover rice is always a pain... (David and I are--proudly--sans le microwave)

a dozen eleven muffins, ready to go

































Prepping the muffin mixture was easy enough; but the amount was just shy of a dozen--the twelfth recess held a "snack for the cook." (lucky for me, that was me) Thirty minutes later, from a pre-heated 425° oven, I pulled out this:

not a low calorie food

At about twenty-five minutes in, I opened the oven door just enough to check on the muffins--and they looked amazing. Just shy of ten minutes later, I was proudly plating the finished product.

(eleven) rice muffins

The more I cook, the more I'm surprised at how quickly some things can be done. I've also become better at pinpointing which ingredients can improve a recipe--the next time I cook "rice muffins" (which seemed more like biscuits to me than they did like muffins) I think I'll add some chopped chives to the batter and a pad of butter atop of each muffin prior to baking. I prefer something a little more buttery...

good enough for seconds

































However, they were good enough to If I told you how many of these I ate I'd be embarrassed. But even though I did find one or two minor flaws with the muffins, I think I will make rice muffins again (with some minor adjustments). After all, there's still a quarter-pint of cooked rice leftover in the fridge!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Leftover Parsley? Make Chimichurri.

what's a girl to do with leftover parsley?

THIS afternoon, a good friend of mine who's moving to Chicago at the end of the month joined me for lunch. After she'd gone, I'd noticed that I suddenly had an overabundance of parsley in the kitchen. What to make with it? I thought of making a (parsley) pesto... but David pointed out that I'd need pine nuts. (I was trying to rid my kitchen of ingredients, not induce more.) I searched for pesto recipes online, sans pine nuts. What I eventually landed upon was a handful of recipes for chimichurri. From the multiple windows open on my desktop, I copied this recipe from Epicurious.com.

chimichurri sauce

IT wasn't until I'd combined all the necessary ingredients... that I'd realized I'd written down the wrong recipe. The chimichurri I'd really wanted to make was this one--using three tablespoons of capers (about the amount I have leftover in my fridge from when I'd made sauce gribiche). But as Julia Child wisely put it: Cooking is one failure after another, and that's how you finally learn. I'll be sure to write down the correct recipe next time.

who's claiming the leftovers? I don't know
how long chimichurri keeps for... 

HOWEVER, no real harm was done--just that the recipe I used wasn't the recipe that I was truly excited about trying... But I will say that this recipe is extremely quick and easy to follow!

Chimichurri Sauce
Makes about 1 cup 
This garlicky sauce from Argentina is great spooned over beef or chicken
1 cup (packed) fresh Italian parsley
½ cup olive oil
⅓ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup (packed) fresh cilantro
2 garlic cloves, peeled
¾ teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon salt 
Purée all ingredients in food processor. Transfer to bowl. (Can be made two hours ahead; cover and let stand at room temperature.)

Instead of the Italian parsley combined with cilantro, I just used 1¼ cups of the curly parsley I'd bought earlier this afternoon. I also used sea salt since one recipe I came across (for pesto) recommended using "mineral rich sea salt." It's usually what I prefer.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

A Soupy Week (and a Big Announcement)

MIDWEEK of the previous week, I'd attempted--from my French Cooking in Ten Minutes cookbook--the recipe for aïgo-boulido (garlic soup).

the first two ingredients called for in aïgo-boulido

ONE of the ways I pick recipes in a cookbook is by scrolling down the list of ingredients. If I have most of the ingredients in my kitchen already, I'll give the recipe a try. The only "exotic" ingredient called for in aïgo-boulido was one bay leaf. Acquiring a jar of bay leaves sounded simple enough. At the local supermarket, I scanned the shelves for imported bay leaves--according to Julia, domestic bay leaves often impart a bitter flavor. What I came up with was a (small) jar of Turkish bay leaves--$8.39

HOME, I deftly crushed two garlic cloves (skin on, à la Julia) under the flat side of a knife with two hard hits of my fist and threw them into a soup pot along with the bay leaf. Next I added a tablespoon of olive oil followed by two cups of boiling water. I was to boil the soup for eight to ten minutes. Peering into the pot, the level of the soup (undergoing a rapid boil) seemed quite shallow. I was afraid that nearly all of it would dissipate by the time eight minutes was reached. I (unassuredly) covered the pot. Following the remaining steps of the recipe... the soup was a failure, tasting mainly like water. However, (recalling the $8 jar of bay leaves) I was determined.

egg yolks waiting to be tempered by aïgo-boulido

THE following afternoon I again attempted garlic soup... this time allowing the soup to boil, uncovered, for a full ten minutes.

voila!

This time, my faith in the recipe's instructions paid off handsomely. The soup was absolutely wonderful--a very elegant soup with delicate flavors... And after successful execution of the (very simple) recipe, I had the soup several more times that week. I even made it for David who was in town from Cornell for the weekend and he also enjoyed it thoroughly, calling it "very refined."

Aïgo-boulido (Garlic Soup) 
from French Cooking in Ten Minutes by Edouard de Pomiane 
2 cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 cups boiling water
Salt and pepper
2 egg yolks
Stale bread, or toast 
Crush the garlic by placing it under the flat side of a knife blade and hitting the blade hard with your fist. Put the crushed garlic into a pot with the bay leaf and the olive oil. Pour the boiling water into the pot, add salt and pepper, and boil the soup for 8 to 10 minutes. Take the pot off the stove. Place the egg yolks in your serving bowl, and stir in half a ladle of hot soup. When the mixture is smooth, add the rest of the soup. Drop 4 small pieces of stale bread, or toast, into the soup and serve.

MY confidence boosted by David's approval, I went on to make onion soup (also from French Cooking in Ten Minutes) for our Sunday night dinner.

my new favorite butter

This recipe does call for some minor adjustments... one of them being lots of butter!

one thick pad... to start!

Doubling the recipe to serve both David and me, I did make one slight error (forgetting to double the amount of boiling water from 2 to 4 cups)... but David helped me to fix it easily enough.

one of the best things about cooking a dish a second time
is knowing which steps can be completed first

David enjoyed the onion soup just as much as the aïgo-boulido... if not more. We enjoyed our dinner with two different kinds of white (one still and one sparkling) and some of the most delicious heirloom tomatoes I'd had in years, sliced and served simply on crispbread with mayonnaise and a sprinkling of fleur de sel. After the main course, while we were enjoying our second flutefuls of Chandon, I sliced several pieces of the remaining parmigiano-reggiano used in the onion soup.

a bit heavy-handed on the portions...
but after all, it was a celebration

While we enjoyed the cheese course (well-paired with the Chandon), David compiled a draft of what will be the guest list for our wedding next July

Nearly ten years later, we're finally getting hitched!

After announcing wedding plans to our parents and immediate families, David and I simultaneously made the official announcement on our Facebook pages...

Let the planning begin!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

New Cookbooks!

A rare, 1943 edition

EARLIER today, I was thrilled upon opening my mailbox to find both of the cookbooks I'd recently purchased online had arrived! One was a 1943 edition of The Joy of Cooking (I'm finding that I'm quite into "vintage" recipes) and the other was The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food. (the latter is actually not a cookbook, but rather a food memoir "embellished with fifty recipes")

A brief inscription on the flyleaf reads,
"Hullo Mabel!"... from Stella
Upon opening my copy of The Joy of Cooking, I was rather surprised to find several snipped and folded recipes placed here and there throughout the entire book!

As I pulled out the first handful, I was expecting to find modern recipes... but to my surprise, the recipes all seemed to be from circa 1943!



- Click any of the images to enlarge -
I excitedly and carefully unfolded the aged and delicate pieces of paper and examined each, front and back. Some of the clippings had more to tell than just a recipe...

It seems our friend Mabel had a thing for pickling, because I found more than one recipe for pickling something or another... and of course she had plenty of staple recipes like meatloaf, under which she penciled the words "very good."

But some of the most interesting clippings I came across were the ones that had little stories attached or interesting advertisements or articles on the opposite side.

This recipe with "white wonder icing"
sounds worth giving a try...

I don't know which I like more:
Horseradish Pickles or "He'd Avoid It"!

On the back of a recipe for apricot sherbet, an
advertisement for "Knox" (to remedy lessened stamina)

And just to reaffirm Mabel's existence, some personal mementos and a few recipes written on the end sheet in her own hand.

Mabel was keen on collecting four-leaf clovers;
I've come across two thus far

Carrie's Fruit Cake;
"(very good)"

Yet the item I found most awe-inspiring of all was an article from the New York Herald Tribune (dated July 9, 1944) titled "Summer War on Weeds Calls for Many Attacks"... on which the opposite side was the following advertisement:

- Click to enlarge -

The Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer