Thursday, August 12, 2010
I want to make these onion rings
Monday, August 09, 2010
Corn chowder
I've been feeling guilty for weeks that I haven't taken true advantage of the delicious sweet corn to be found everywhere this summer by doing something more creative than eating it on the cob or shearing it to saute or boil.
Enter The New York Times Diner's Journal and my a-ha! moment. This morning's post was about corn chowder.
Perfect.
I followed the recipe, although I added chili powder (which I add to almost every savory dish these days), a little cornmeal to thicken and used sliced red peppers to garnish.
Eric, who generally responds to soup with the same enthusiasm that middle-school students have for surprise tests, approved. I was pleased that Baby also liked it, although having only two teeth made it difficult for her to deal with the chunky bits.
Labels: chili powder, corn chowder, cornmeal, diner's journal, new york times, red pepper
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Eggplant meatballs with homemade barbecue sauce
Yes, meatballs made out of eggplant.
With barbecue sauce.
Eric was skeptical, too. He expressed some initial dismay at the semantic stretch of calling these meatballs when they had no actual meat. He liked them once he had a chance to actually taste them, though -- especially since the texture is quite meaty.
These will do anything you want regular meatballs to do, including working in a Swedish meatballs or spaghetti-and-meatballs dish.
The process, roughly speaking, was as follows:
- Peel a large eggplant, cut into large chunks
- Boil eggplant for 15 or so minutes
- Put eggplant in blender/food processor and puree, then pour into a large bowl.
- Add breadcrumbs and a half cup of flour (I used whole wheat flour) to bowl. If you like, you may do as I did and add an egg as well as an extra half cup of pulverized oats.
- Add a half-teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon each of pepper, sage and marjoram.
- Mix well until the mixture is of such a consistency that you can form meatballs.
- Form a meatball, roll it in some flour and drop it into a hot pan with olive oil, turning frequently until the meatball is browned on all sides. Repeat this step until you've used all the eggplant mixture.
The barbecue sauce was some leftover sofrito I had in the fridge, about a quarter of a cup of brown sugar, a quarter of a cup of apple cider vinegar, a dash of paprika and a dash of chili powder. I let it cook on low while preparing everything else.
Oh, and the corn was just, well, corn, cooked with lots of chopped basil.
Labels: barbecue sauce, basil, breadcrumbs, corn, eggplant, flour, marjoram, meatballs, sage, sofrito
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Asparagus risotto
In the past couple of years, I've made a lemongrass aparagus risotto every now and then (I think I first saw the recipe in Veganomicon), but I decided to make a plain version tonight.
It came from a wonderful Mark Bittman recipe (if you don't own How to Cook Everything, then at least get the iPhone app, mmmkay?) which it turned out that Bittman adapted from the disturbingly Croc-shod chef Mario Batali.
I differed from the recipe only in using a full cup of wine (a Pinot Gris I had lying around), a full cup of asparagus puree (to which I added a teaspoon of marsala) and in not warming up my vegetable broth before adding it to the risotto. I confess that I've always been something of a neglectful risotto-stirrer, and never more so than now, since Baby recently learned to crawl and has decided that it is fun to come visit Mommy in the kitchen while she's cooking.
The changes I made didn't hurt the dish. Picky Eric approved, and added that I'm 2-for-2 this weekend, which is way more than we can say for (sigh) the Orlando Magic right now.
Labels: asparagus, Mark Bittman, Orlando Magic, risotto
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Easy dinner: Tortilla de papas
So there wasn't much interesting in the house tonight to cook (I won't go to the farmer's market until tomorrow after church).
But even when I can't make anything creative, we still have to feed our faces, so I whipped up something I hadn't made in a long time: tortilla de papas.
I can't point you in the direction of a specific recipe written by A Cooking Superstar, but I used olive oil, seven eggs, one good-sized Vidalia onion (diced), a good-sized green pepper (also diced), a teaspoon of garlic (you guessed it: diced), six medium Yukon Gold potatoes (cut in slices about 1/4 inch thick) and what looked like a reasonable amount of salt and pepper.
Very generally, the process went like this:
- Saute onion and green pepper (a tablespoon of oil, maybe?) until onion is translucent. Salt and pepper as desired.
- Add potatoes. Saute until done, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking.
- While vegetables are cooking, crack eggs into a bowl and whisk well.
- Add the garlic just before the vegetables are done cooking. When veggies are done (look for some browning on the potatoes) and drained of excess oil, pour into a large bowl.
- Put a frying pan -- maybe the same one you used to saute the vegetables -- on a burner and turn the heat on medium. Add more oil, maybe two tablespoons this time.
- Pour eggs into vegetable mixture. If you want, add some more S&P here.
- Pour egg/vegetable mixture into that frying pan. Cook three to five minutes or so. You'll see the sides of the mixture solidify, but the top will still be runny.
- Put a plate on top of the frying pan and flip it over. If you're really good, you won't spill any of the runny top.
- Slide the tortilla back into the frying pan so the runny side can cook. This will take another three to five minutes.
- You're done! Flip the tortilla onto another, clean plate.
- Cut into six to eight wedges and serve.
(This is after we'd both had some)
This goes well with a lightly dressed green salad. Actually, it'll go well with almost anything.
Labels: breakfast, dinner, eggs, lunch, potatoes, tortilla de papas
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
A mushroom lasagna (no tomato)
By popular demand, or at least on the request of certain family members, I'm making an effort to revive this blog as a place to put recipes and otherwise explain what I'm cooking.
This is the lasagna when cooked:
Dessert was what's left of my latest attempt at making a triple-citrus black pepper pound cake to my liking. My version used two tangerines, two lemons and two limes, but -- no surprises here -- was not a success.
Tonight, we're having a mushroom lasagna and a green salad.
The salad was just lettuce from a bag along with a vinaigrette I made (balsamic vinegar, coarse ground mustard, olive oil, black pepper).
The lasagna recipe was adapted from one I saw at The Veggie Table. It's not a lasagna in the strictest sense; it has no tomato sauce. It does, however, have mashed potatoes, goat cheese and sour cream. Obviously, it's not the most low-cal meal I've ever made, and it's also a carbohydrate carnival. In retrospect, this dish is heavy enough that it might have been a better meal choice for winter, not almost-summer.
I altered the recipe by using more mushrooms -- and a wider variety of them -- than the recipe suggested, as well as fewer lentils. Instead of making the suggested sauce, I put together a basil mixture to spread on the top layer of pasta.
It tasted OK. There's a lot of it, so we'll be eating it for a couple of days as I think about how I might want to improve it.
I know already that if I make this again, I'll use more marsala wine, because the flavor wasn't strong enough for my taste.
This is what my stove looked like (I apologize for the poor quality of my 1st-gen iPhone pictures) as I was cooking. It's pretty rare that a single recipe requires me to use all the burners:
It tasted OK. There's a lot of it, so we'll be eating it for a couple of days as I think about how I might want to improve it.
I know already that if I make this again, I'll use more marsala wine, because the flavor wasn't strong enough for my taste.
This is what my stove looked like (I apologize for the poor quality of my 1st-gen iPhone pictures) as I was cooking. It's pretty rare that a single recipe requires me to use all the burners:
This is the lasagna when cooked:
Cut and on a plate (we ate dinner outside on the deck):
Dessert was what's left of my latest attempt at making a triple-citrus black pepper pound cake to my liking. My version used two tangerines, two lemons and two limes, but -- no surprises here -- was not a success.
It is not a secret that all desserts hate me. Only I can be a failure at something as simple as a cake. This was my fourth time making it, and although it's getting closer to tasting like what I want it to taste like, it is really not a pretty cake. So no picture.
Labels: lasagna, mustard, olive oil, salad, The Veggie Table, vegetarian, vinaigrette
Saturday, June 14, 2008
We haven't disappeared. No, really, I mean it.
If you're trying to keep up with us, you can find us several different places.
There's Facebook, of course: Hers, his.
And Twitter: Hers, his.
And our personal Web sites: Hers, hers, his.
There's Facebook, of course: Hers, his.
And Twitter: Hers, his.
And our personal Web sites: Hers, hers, his.
