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Adventures in Austrian Pastry – Kardinal Schnitten

Just because I haven’t been writing doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking.  I have.  I made my first ever baguettes, which came out pretty well despite the fact that I didn’t use bread flour.  I made this delicious quinoa for breakfast and thoroughly enjoyed it even though it was the cause of a full half cup of milk to burn onto my stove (cooking in the morning takes a special kind of person).  I made blueberry muffins with my new muffin tins (thank you family).  I tried a new curry recipe, I made extra saucy and spicy black beans, and I made the this very easy and yummy banana bread.  I even went health-nut (for me at least) and had stir-fried quinoa with kale and jicama.  The kitchen has not been lonely.  Nor has my stomach.  But this blog may have been, and now that midterms are over and my immune system is back on it’s feet I have returned.

I’m home for spring break, meaning a lot of good things: I can sit in the sun for hours without thinking about math, I can have picture-perfect picnics with Trevor, and I have full (when my mother’s not home) use of our beautiful kitchen… and her mixer!  Since I don’t have a mixer and whipping cream by hand drives me nuts, I decided to undertake a whipped-cream-intensive project I’ve been mulling over for a long time – Kardinal Schnitten.  Kardinal Schnitten, which is called Vatican Cake in English, is a light, coffee-flavored cream and meringue dessert that I discovered in Austria.  The first and only time I had it was over fall break on a day trip from Vienna to a small Austrian town called Melk.  Melk is the home to Melk Abbey, a beautiful Baroque compound that dominates a hillside over-looking the Danube.  Despite being followed through town by some confused middle-aged Texan women (“Do y’all speak a lil English?”), our trip was really lovely.  The three highlights?  The abbey library straight out of Beauty and the Beast, the most beautiful chapel I saw during my four months in Europe, and the Kardinal Schnitten.

Here is the story of the schnitten – After finishing our tour of the Abbey, we had about an hour to kill before our train back to Vienna was due.  So we sized up the local establishments and decided on a tiny but bustling little coffeeshop.  We sat at a table in the warmly lit back-room, sipping Viennese coffee and snacking on pastries while we unabashedly observed the long table full of old Austrian ladies gossiping and noshing.  It was the perfect European coffeeshop experience, one we had been looking for but had been unable to find in any of the big cities.  And the schnitten?  Delicious.

The delicate flavor of that cake was not one that left my mind quickly, but finding a recipe for it proved to be difficult.  None of the German cookbooks in my local library featured it, and Google only returned one English-language result.  So I took that and the adventure started.  First, I went about converting the measurements, which were in grams, to cups.  Then, I attempted to decipher the cryptic, translated instructions.  Standing by the counter with my dozen eggs and pint of whipped cream, I was excited, but skeptical.

The process was a bit bumpy, but as I baked, I learned all sorts of things about egg whites and meringues and cream.  For example, even the tiniest bit of yolk really will keep all your whites from stiffening.  Faced with a batch of droopy meringue batter I had to decide whether or not to start over – I ended up deciding to keep going because I couldn’t bear to waste so any eggs, and the meringues were still OK.  The end result was not exactly photogenic, but it was good, and fairly close to what I remembered loving in Melk.  With a little tweaking for better presentation, it would make an elegant and unexpected dessert at any party.

Kardinal Schnitten

Adapted from the Wiener Zucker Website

  • 7 eggs
  • 1 1/4 c. granulated sugar
  • 1/2 c. powdered sugar
  • 1/2 c. flour
  • 2 c. whipping cream
  • 2 TBS instant coffee powder
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

What I Did This Time:

  1. Preheat oven to 340°F.
  2. Separate 5 of the 7 eggs.  Whip 5 egg whites until they begin to stiffen.  Gradually add granulated sugar to whites.  Continue to whip until stiff.  Spoon into 8 strips on baking sheet and bake 23 minutes. (These are the meringues.)
  3. To the 5 egg yolks, add 2 whole eggs, a full half cup of powdered sugar, and a scant half cup of flour.  Whisk until foamy.  Pour into greased 9×13 pan and bake 25 minutes.  Let cool slightly and cut into strips. (This is the cake.)
  4. Whip cream with instant coffee and vanilla until very stable, with the consistency of clotted cream.
  5. Realize your meringues are sort of disastrous when the top layer completely crumbles off.  Decide that individual pastry squares are not in your future.  Rethink.
  6. Place cake strips on a platter.  Top with most of whipped cream.  Crumble meringue bits on top of whipped cream.  Place intact meringue insides on top of whipped cream.  Repeat whipped cream and meringue layers.

Thoughts about next time:

  • Whip cream with Kahlua or Bailey’s instead of instant coffee for a stronger flavor.
  • Double the cake part in order to have two complete cake-cream-meringue layers.
  • Tinker with the meringue size and baking time so they remain intact.

Recipe

Red and Roasted

It’s a wine at 4:30 sort of day.  Nothing really bad happened, but I just can’t seem to get today right.  I forgot my umbrella and had to walk home in the rain without it.  I tried to heat up some leftover gnocchi for lunch but accidentally put uncooked gnocchi in the sauce which resulted in cheesy dough.  Duh.  I dropped a pile of sage on the floor along with pretty much every kitchen utensil I used.  The vacuum cleaner actually expelled dirt instead of sucking it up.  You know, that kind of thing.  I need to snuggle.  But since snuggling is not an option until next Friday when I get to go home again (for eleven whole days!) I will go with the next best thing – soup and my king-sized fleece blanket and maybe a movie.  And another glass of wine?  Wow, I’m really living it up for a Monday.

I think I eat too much soup.  Yesterday I had 3 bowls of kale soup in between the hours of 5 and 9.  It was just one continual dinner.  And I still have half a batch of vegetarian chili in the freezer yet I’m making another tomato based soup tonight.  It’s just that soup is so great.  It’s quick.  It has a tremendous range of flavor.  It’s the best way to get vegetables.  It’s warm.  It’s comforting.  And you can slurp it.

Tonight’s soup is roasted red pepper and (roasted) tomato.  The only other ingredients are garlic (also roasted), onion (yep, roasted), and vegetable broth.  Plus a little kosher salt and oil but I’m not sure those really count as ingredients.  The last time I made this was over Christmas vacation, when I spent 5 blissfully peaceful days in Maine with my family and Trevor.  Trevor and I got the green light to plan a meal, which is always super fun but also undoubtedly a production, and this was our first course.  I’m not really a tomato person, so I was surprised that I liked this so much – enough to eat the leftovers within 24 hours.  It was inspired by 101 Cookbooks, one of my absolute favorite food blogs, but I seriously adjusted the ratios to get more sweet red pepper flavor.

Making this soup is easy – just roast and blend.  If the veggies by themselves are too mild for you, a little kosher salt goes a long way towards punching up the flavor of the soup, but that’s really all it needs.  Mmm, veggie goodness.  Okay I lied, I also put a little gorgonzola on top but it doesn’t really need it, I’m just kind of a cheese addict.  And the final perk of this soup – spending a few hours roasting vegetables can really improve a Monday.

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

  • 3 red peppers, whole
  • 3 tomatoes, quartered
  • 5-10 cloves garlic
  • 2 medium onions, quartered
  • 1-2 c. stock (vegetable or chicken)
  • olive oil
  • kosher salt
  • paprika and gorgonzola for garnish
  1. Roast peppers – Place clean peppers whole on baking tray under broiler (on high).  Keep a close eye on them, turning them frequently with tongs.  They are done when the skins are blackened all around the pepper.  Remove from oven and place immediately in an airtight container – a covered bowl or plastic bag – for 15 minutes to allow steam to loosen skins.  When cool, peel skins from peppers.  Then, cut off stems and remove seeds.  Cut peppers in half and drizzle with oil.
  2. Preheat oven to 375°F.  Place quartered onions and tomatoes in pan.  Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with kosher salt.  Roast for 45-55 minutes.  Tomatoes should be on the verge of falling apart.  Onions should be starting to caramelize – turn them halfway through to prevent burning.
  3. Once tomatoes are in oven, place garlic cloves, unpeeled, in tinfoil.  Drizzle with a small amount of oil and close foil over top.  Place on oven rack next to roasting pan and roast for approximately 30 minutes.  Cloves should be soft inside peels.
  4. When all the veggies are ready, blend them together in batches with a small amount of stock.  Place blended ingredients in saucepan over medium heat and add stock, salt, and paprika until the consistency and flavor are as desired.  Garnish each bowl with gorgonzola and paprika.

Pasta

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

I had a friend in Prague named Violeta.  Violeta is Argentinean.  Violeta’s mother is a caterer.  Violeta’s brother is a chef.  Violeta is the best cook I have ever met.  She is just one of those people with an intuition for food – no recipes and everything always turns out better than I thought food could taste.  Living down the hall from her?  Major perk.  That room always smelled great, and if you went by around dinnertime looking for an extra egg or a homework assignment you could usually steal a bite of whatever she had made.

My first experience with homemade gnocchi was through Violeta.  She decided to host a dinner party in our dorm, Osadni.  The menu was homemade gnocchi with either meat sauce or vegetable sauce.  The size of the guest list was eighty.  EIGHTY.  Homemade gnocchi for eighty people??  Major undertaking.  But she pulled it off and of course everything was delicious and after eating our resident band The Relatives played a very intimate concert in one of the piano rooms and Prauge is just a magical place.

Sweet potatoes also have a special Prague story.  It’s very short: you can’t get them.  There are a lot of foods that are still very hard to find in Prague, even if you can find them in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Poland.  The Czech Republic is still a bit more closed than it’s neighbors.  At first this was a major source of frustration for me, but it ended up forcing me to explore the city in search of things like cranberries and cilantro.  And sweet potatoes.  Which I never found.  But my neighbor Steph did.  As Thanksgiving approached everyone got a little bit anxious about how Thanksgiving would be so far away from home (it was great – Violeta cooked) and people began to scramble to put together their favorite dishes, which is why Steph went to the TESCO hypermarket and bought their entire supply of sweet potatoes.  Which I think was about six.  They were delicious, and oh so American.

These sweet potato gnocchi are not specifically something I ate in Prague, but they definitely remind me of it a bit, which makes any food better.  At least for me.  But for everyone who is not me, these were also easy and fun and very tasty.  Gnocchi have a reputation for being difficult to get right, but these came together very well on the first try.  Of course, that could be because they’re not traditional potato gnocchi.  Or it could just be because I’m awesome.  But it’s most likely because it’s a very good basic recipe.

Here’s the gist of the recipe, originally from Bon Appetit: cook 2 or 3 sweet potatoes in the microwave and let them cool.  I was impatient and tried to scrape them out hot, which resulted in pain (I would say minor burns but I would be exagerrating too much).  If you’re really in a hurry, wrap the bottom of the potato in a towel to protect yourself.  Scrape all of the insides of the potatoes out and mash with a fork.  Don’t worry too much about chunks of potato that won’t mash – as long as they’re not too big they won’t affect the final consistency of the gnocchi.  Mix ricotta and grated parmesean into the sweet potato mash, followed by brown sugar and salt.  Stir, stir, stir.

Once you have an even mixture, begin incorporating flour by the half cup.  I used 2 1/2 cups of flour for 3 medium sized sweet potatoes, and probably ended up incorporating another cup during the rolling process so that I had a workable dough.  I was worried that my dough would be too flour-y, but it turned out fine.  Divide the dough into six equal pieces and roll them into worms about an inch thick.  I had so much fun doing this – it was like being in elementary school art class.  I almost made a coil pot out of one worm but I refrained.  Don’t play with your food, unless it’s in the recipe instructions.  Cut your worms into 20 or so equal sized pieces.  They look like little pillows, and they have a great fluffy texture too.  If you’re feeling fancy, gently press a fork onto the top of each pillow for that true gnocchi look.  And once you’ve done that – boil them!  The recipe says to cook them in batches and then leave them out on the counter until you’re ready to re-heat them in whatever sauce you are going to serve them in, so that’s what I did.  I was wondering though if you could refrigerate the dough for 24 hours or so and cook them the next day, or if it would be better to cook them and then refrigerate them.  Thoughts?  The only problem I had with leaving them out on the counter already cooked was that every time I walked by I popped one into my mouth, so I had about 20% less at dinner time then I did at 4PM.  Oh well.

I served these in a sage-gorgonzola sauce adapted from Gretchen’s Cookbook.  It was delicious!  Margie (my roommate from Prague, just so many connections) came over and Megan was home and the three of us ate 2/3 of this recipe.  The other 1/3 was in the freezer so we couldn’t eat that.  I would say that this recipe makes 5 dinner sized servings, but people who eat less than me (i.e. regular amounts) might get 6 or 7 servings out of it, especially if you skipped the 20% reduction on the counter. =D

Sweet Potato Gnocchi in Sage-Gorgonzola Cream Sauce

makes 5-6 large servings

For the gnocchi:

  • 2 lbs. sweet potatoes
  • 12 oz. ricotta cheese, drained for 2 hours
  • 1 c. parmesan cheese, grated
  • 2 tsp. salt
  • 2 T brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 2 1/2 c. flour, plus more for rolling

For the sauce:

  • 3 T butter
  • 10-20 leaves sage
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled
  • 1 c. heavy cream
  • 1/2 c. crumbled gorgonzola
  • black pepper

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

  1. Wash the sweet potatoes and poke all over with a fork.  Microwave on high until tender, about 7 minutes per side.  Cut in half and allow to cool.
  2. Scrape the potato out of the skin into a large bowl.  Mash with fork.  Add ricotta cheese and stir until well-blended.  Add parmesan cheese, brown sugar, salt, and nutmeg, and stir until mixture is even.
  3. Add the flour a half cup at a time, incorporating slowly, until a soft dough is formed.  Turn the dough out onto a well-floured counter.
  4. Divide the dough into 6 equal portions.  Roll each portion between your palms and the floured surface until it is a log with thickness of about 1 inch.  Cut each log into 20 pieces.  Gently press the tines of a fork into the tops of pieces.  Place pieces on a floured pan to prevent sticking.
  5. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Once boiling, add about 2 T of salt, and return to boil.  Boil the gnocchi in batches until tender – they are done cooking when they float to the surface of the pot.  Re-salt between batches.  Return cooked gnocchi to a clean, lightly oiled pan, and allow to stand at room temperature for up to 4 hours.

Sage-Gorgonzola Cream Sauce

  1. Melt butter in a large skillet over low heat.  Add sage leaves and garlic clove and allow to stand 2 to 3 minutes.
  2. Add cream, gorgonzola, and black pepper to taste, and stir until cheese is melted.
  3. Add gnocchi to skillet and coat with sauce, cooking until heated through.

Recipe

This stuff is good for you.

Kale.  It’s a superfood.  Superfoods are all the rage – they can make you thin in like, minutes, I think.  At least that’s what SELF.com promised me.  But even if it doesn’t, it’s OK, because I actually like kale, at least when served in a bowl with tomatoey broth and potato chunks and sausage, a concoction generally known as kale soup.

My family first had kale soup at a restaurant in Provincetown, MA, after our kind-of-annual whale watch.  I don’t actually remember this meal beyond a sort of hazy image of the restaurant-front and the dock and that it was definitely a gray day, and I definitely didn’t eat the original kale soup because at the age of 7 my diet consisted of exactly three foods – pasta, potatoes, and chicken fingers.  I’m so glad that’s changed.  But my mother was impressed, snagged the recipe, which is Portuguese in origin, and the soup was officially introduced into the family repertoire.  Now that I’m old enough to appreciate food groups besides white starch, I request this soup fairly often.  It’s got a great, hearty flavor, which is even better the next day, and is definitely qualified to be a member of the healthy meals category.  I love it when the healthy meals category includes sausage.

Kale Soup

  • 1 lb. linguica (or kielbasa), sliced
  • 1 c. ground carrots
  • 1 c. ground onion
  • 2 potatoes, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 48 oz. can chicken broth
  • 1 T ground cumin
  • 1 bunch fresh kale, chopped, or 12 oz. box frozen kale*
  • 1 can kidney beans

This one’s easy:

Combine the first 9 ingredients in a large pot.  Bring to a boil.  Simmer for 45 minutes.  Add beans and cook until heated through.  Done.

*If you use fresh kale, you may want to up the liquid content, as the frozen kale releases more water and takes up less volume than the fresh stuff.

Recipe

Chicken Curry for the Slowly Dying

At exactly 9:28 last night I contracted the flu.  And I’m only exaggerating a little bit – this thing is sudden and lethal.  OK well not lethal.  But I did spend the hours between 10 and 6 sleeping today.  It is now 7 and I’m ready for bed.  Fortunately, that seems to be the only thing this flu requires – that all of your waking hours be spent asleep.  There’s no horribly upset stomach or maddeningly sore throat or anything.  Unfortunately, I am not psychic and so ate all of the leftovers in the house yesterday before 9:28.  Except for the raspberry coffeecake which seems to be disappearing imperceptibly on my counter but I don’t think that has the appropriate nutritional value for the seriously ill.

I also did not have the foresight to buy things like canned soup, jello, and gatorade, which mothers seem to produce magically upon the first signs of flu.  And the grocery store is dauntingly far away from my bed.  I did, however, happen to have chicken and chickpeas in my freezer, coconut milk, canned tomatoes, and lots of root vegetables in my fridge.  This prompted me to decide that chicken curry is the perfect dish for someone sick and without a mother in the same state for the following reasons: it takes 20 minutes to put together, which is exactly the amount of energy I have, it involves one pan, which is only one more pan than I want to wash (maybe my roommate will do it…), the heat is good for clearing your head, and you can load it up with potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, and other vitamin C rich veggies that might be lying around your vegetable bin.  Also, on the off chance that I make it to class tomorrow, this totally solves the problem of lunch.

I originally found this recipe on AllRecipes but have ended up adding twice as many ingredients as are in the original recipe, and taking out half the things that were in the original recipe.  So I don’t really think it’s the same recipe anymore.  It’s also not authentic in the slightest, nor does it have particularly complex flavors, but it is easy, cheap, and delicious.

Coconut Chicken Curry

(makes 4 dinner sized servings)

  • 2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
  • 2 T olive oil
  • 1/2 medium onion, diced
  • 2-3 T curry powder
  • 2 cloves garlic, diced
  • 1 can (14 oz.) diced tomatoes
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 2 carrots, thinly sliced
  • 1 yukon gold potato, diced
  • 1 c chickpeas, canned or pre-cooked
  • 3 T sugar (optional)
  • salt, pepper to taste
  1. Heat the oil in a large skillet or dutch oven over medium heat.  Add curry powder and sautee 1 to 2 minutes.  Then add onions, and sautee 3-5 minutes, until beginning to soften.
  2. Add chicken strips and garlic to curry-onion mixture and cook for 5-8 minutes, until chicken is just cooked through (it will continue cooking in the tomato and coconut juices; overcooking at this stage will make it very tough).
  3. Add coconut milk (don’t forget to shake before opening!), tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, and chickpeas.  Simmer, covered, until potatoes and carrots are cooked through, about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent bottom from burning.  Season with salt, pepper, and sugar if desired.  Serve over rice.

*Some notes:

  1. I hate chopping garlic because it makes your hand smell for days.  Literally.  So I almost always use crushed or minced garlic and plop 1 teaspoon of it into whatever I’m cooking for each clove of garlic called for.  Feel free to do this.
  2. This is just a story about Corelle dishware.  So the second half of my onion was sitting quietly in one of my new Corelle bowls, when it inexplicably jumped off the counter.  Eyes squeezed shut in anticipation of shattered dish everywhere (exactly what you do not want when 19 of your 20 minutes of energy have already been used), I waited for the sound of cracking.  But there was none.  Opening my eyes, I saw onion pieces all over the floor, but the dish was not so much as chipped.  Kudos, Corelle.

Recipe

I love India.

Here are some things that characterize my day today:

  • I have eaten an entire box of mini strawberry cream cheese strudels.  They were in the manager’s markdown bin right by the checkout at Kroger.  I did not get them, they got me.
  • The highlight of my day so far was cleaning the fridge.
  • I wore sweatpants to school.  And a sweatshirt.  This does not count as fashion.
  • I spent 6 hours in a row doing math, pencil to paper.  I know that in the real world this is called a “work day” but I’m not there yet.
  • I turned in my stats quiz with no answers.
  • The rain has been falling at exactly the same rate for the entire day.  I know because I stood in it a lot and my umbrella, while trendy, is quite petite.

This is why I needed daal.  Hot, spicy, lentily daal, served on crispy toast (because one more pot to wash, i.e., for the rice, might have put me over the edge) with a cucumber-dill raita.  The Refectory, one of the on-campus eateries at Duke, makes a daal that I live for.  I asked for the recipe a year ago and they said that they were compiling a cookbook and I should wait until it came out, but I don’t think it ever came out.  Liars.  And they’re part of the Divinity School.  Jeez.  So anyway I shall resort to trying all the daal recipes I can find until I can recreate that one.  This is attempt #1.

An aside: I love all things that come out of India – best flavors in the world.  And also colors.  And also dance moves.  I went to my first ever Bhangra class on Wednesday night, and very much enjoyed it.  I have little to no coordination when it comes to dancing, but I love to move!  And I’m slowly mastering that little hand flick thing.  I left class with a new appreciation for how much calf strength it takes to jump up and down for an entire hour.  Oh yeah, and a blood blister the size of my big toe.  But that’s healing, so we won’t talk about it.

Back to the food – this daal was created as a sort-of mash-up of several daal recipes I found on the web.  Everyday yellow daal on smitten kitchen was a source of inspiration, as was Route79.  Really though I know so little about Indian cooking and there are so many types of daal out there that I was sort of winging it.  To be honest, my daal didn’t even come out yellow.  And it tastes exactly nothing like the daal at The Refectory – it’s much meatier, for lack of a better descriptor.  But it’s still delicious and warming and comforting and the highlight of my day is no longer cleaning the refrigerator because I am on my second plate of dinner, drinking my first glass of wine in a month, and watching a sappy old person love movie.* So here’s the deets:

Basic Yellow Split Pea Daal

  • 1 c. yellow split peas
  • 1 T canola oil
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 2 T cumin
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 2 tsp turmeric
  • 2 tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 3/4 c. diced tomatoes (approx. 1/4 28 oz. can)
  • 2 carrots, grated or finely chopped
  • 2 T butter
  • 1/2 c chopped cilantro
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  1. Soak the split peas in cold water for half an hour.  Drain, and rinse 2 or 3 times until water is fairly clear.
  2. Cover the split peas with water and bring to a boil.
  3. Meanwhile, sautee onion with cumin in olive oil in medium heat for 5-7 minutes.
  4. Add onion, tomatoes, carrots and spices to split peas.  Simmer on medium heat, half-covered, for a full hour and a half, stirring occasionally.  Add water as needed to keep covered.
  5. When split peas are soft and begin to break down, add butter, cilantro, and salt.  Simmer for another 10 minutes.
  6. Serve on basmati rice or hot toast with a cucumber-dill raita glopped on top.**

*Old people love movies are movies where people that I consider old have a surprising amount of sex.  The prime example of this genre is Something’s Gotta Give.

** Cucumber raita: Take a spoon, a tub of yogurt, half a cucumber (diced), lemon juice, black pepper, kosher salt, cilantro and dill.  Mix ingredients, tasting after each addition, until you like it.  Personally, I use vanilla yogurt because I like the extra flavor and greek yogurt kind of freaks me out, but most people recommend plain greek yogurt.  Also, I used dill in a tube – yeah, I was skeptical too, but there wasn’t any dill in the grocery store and this stuff tastes great!  And you don’t have to chop anything!  So I approve of that too.

Dessert

Glorified GORP Cookies

It is absolutely dismal outside today.  I know I wrote about North Carolina sunshine yesterday but it was mostly wishful thinking.  And today it is raining.  35° and raining.  Actually the forecast says ice pellets and that sounds more dramatic so we’ll go with that.  More importantly, on Saturday we got 6 inches of snow.  I’m from Massachusetts, and 6 inches of snow in January isn’t generally a big deal.  But here it’s a big deal for everyone, even the tough Yankees.  A state that gets snow maybe once every two years doesn’t have the equipment necessary to deal with a storm like the one we had, and while the papers have been accolading how well prepared we were and how successful “recovery” efforts have been, I am not impressed.  I have never seen roads in such a terrible state.  They’re better now, but the biggest challenge for me is the sidewalks.  I generally enjoy my 15 minute walk to school, but with a two inch thick sheet of ice covering everything that isn’t the road, my morning walk is an ordeal.  And the rain, which sort of instantly freezes on top of the already gross slush sheet makes it even worse.  Anyway, by the time I got home from class, I needed a cookie.  Forget homework.

These cookies are basically glorified and compacted GORP.  Why eat something in handfuls when you can just eat all the same ingredients in one delicious bite?  Exactly.  Also I know that GORP stands for good old raisins and peanuts but I think that it’s generally accepted for GORP to be any fruit-nut-chocolate combination that sustains you while hiking… or taking notes in stats class.

The base of these cookies had to be soft and chewy oatmeal to maintain the facade of health in these cookies.  (GORP is good for you right?  Fruit, protein?  I don’t think I have ever burned more calories than I consumed during a hike due to my belief that one bag of M&Ms plus one can of raisins plus one jar of peanuts equals one serving of GORP).  But whether they’re good for you or not they’re yummy and comforting and eating them is greatly preferable to being outside in the sleet/rain/ice not eating them.  My roommate can vouch for this – she’s eaten three since she walked in the door five minutes ago.  And every time she takes one she tells me how much she hates me.

Cranberry-Almond-Chocolate Cookies

  • 1/2 c butter, very soft
  • 3/4 c brown sugar
  • 1/4 c white sugar
  • 1 whole egg, plus 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 c flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 c oats
  • 2/3 c slivered almonds, chopped
  • 3/4 c dried cranberries
  • 3/4 c chocolate chips
  1. Preheat oven to 375°F
  2. Cream butter and sugar together.  I like to melt my butter and then let it come back to room temperature because it creams so much better.  Add egg and egg yolk and whisk until batter is smooth.
  3. Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together.  Add oats.  Stir to incorporate.
  4. Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix just until batter is even.
  5. Toast almonds in a dry pan over medium heat until golden brown and fragrant.
  6. Add almonds, cranberries, and chocolate to batter.  Refrigerate batter for 30 minutes.
  7. Drop the cold batter by spoonfuls onto a baking tray.  Bake about 8-10 minutes.  Cookies will be golden brown on top but still soft in the center.

Recipe

Sweet Petite Pea Soup

I haven’t been writing because I’ve been reading.  I’ve been reading all of the fabulous, drool-inducing, comically upbeat and visually stunning food blogs that already exist on the big old web.  And it should be inspiring, but really I find it kind of daunting.  I find it daunting that there are already so many women living my dream – they make beautiful, creative food, they take beautiful, perfectly exposed photographs, they have beautiful, warm-hearted husbands who share their culinary passions, and they have beautiful, cherubic children adorably wreaking havoc.  Plus, they write and people read what they say.  People enjoy what they have to say.  I enjoy what they have to say.  I want all of that so much and it seems so far away.  Plus, sometimes I’m skeptical that so many people can fill the same role – what if the happily-married-with-kids food-writer/photographer quota has been filled and I’ve missed the boat?

Alas, pessimism never gets me anywhere, although I’m pretty sure there are some people who can get pretty far on it.  So I’m focusing on what I’m good at.  I can almost run a mile in 7:30 again.  I can draw moment diagrams like it’s my job.  I’m a reasonably good girlfriend and a responsible daughter.  I am a pretty good photographer – feel free to affirm me at my flickr page – and my writing might still have a future.  And although I’m a new cook and I can’t really afford fancy ingredients and non-essential utensils like muffin tins, I make pretty good soup.  If soup has to be my calling, so be it.  I could do worse.

This soup is special to me.  First of all, it’s one of the only recipes I can call my own.  (But I think that’s OK at age 20).  More importantly, it reminds me of Prague.  Beautiful, perfect Prague.   I spent last semester studying abroad there and it was an incredible experience – I would give up the North Carolina sunshine to be back in freezing Prague in a second.  I could go on and on about all the things I love about that city, but they are unrelated to this particular recipe so I’ll refrain.

Basically, Prague has this famous old cafe called Cafe Louvre where Franz Kafka used to write and dissidents used to gather and all that.  Cafe Louvre is definitely an item on any tourist’s checklist but it also retains some of it’s working history – people still take their papers and books there and stake out a table for hours while a seemingly constant stream of waiters in tuxedo vests bring viennese coffees in tall glasses.  The restaurant is delightfully cheap considering the quality and atmosphere, so I frequently joined the tourists, professors, writers, and students for the lunch rush.  The menu has several standout items, but at 69Kč the pea soup was my go-to meal.  And it was soooo good.  It has the perfect balance of sweet, creamy pea, mint, and lemon.  Plus, the way they serve it is great – a waiter brings you a bowl with a potato and bacon dumpling surrounded by several croutons, and then pours the pea cream over the dumpling from a little metal pitcher, bows slightly, and walks away.  I couldn’t get enough.  And so, upon arriving back in the US, I tried to recreate it.  This is the closest I’ve come so far.

Sweet Petite Pea Soup

Inspired by Cafe Louvre

  • 1 T olive oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 4 to 8 medium sprigs of fresh tarragon, chopped
  • 1 T crushed garlic
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 bags frozen petite peas
  • 1/2 c. light cream
  • 2 c. chicken broth
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • black pepper to taste
  • 20 leaves fresh mint
  1. Sauté onions, garlic mixed with salt, and tarragon in olive oil until onions are soft.
  2. Add peas and 1/4 cup of cream,  stirring until peas are heated through.
  3. Purée pea and cream mixture in batches in the blender with the chicken broth.  Leave some of the peas whole.  Return mixture to pot.
  4. Add lemon juice and more cream to desired taste and consistency.  Season with black pepper.
  5. Ladle the soup into bowls and place 3 to 6 mint leaves in each bowl.  It’s important to put the mint in while the soup is still warm but removed from the heat for the best flavor infusion.

If you don’t have any bacon-filled dumplings lying around, try eating it with a dollop of vanilla yogurt in the middle and fresh bread.  Like I’m doing right now. Yum.

Recipe

Warm Chevre and Jam with Some Salad Too

Warm goat cheese has a special place in my heart. Actually, all goat cheese is pretty wonderful in my opinion. One day I’m going to open a restaurant where every dish includes goat cheese and it’s going to be wildly popular. Just a heads up. But warm goat cheese is special. It’s special because it’s soft and melty and a little bit sweet and creamy and blissful.

Last May I spent two weeks in France with Trevor. We only went out to dinner twice due to the budget constraints of regular 20 year old people, but the night we went out in Paris was perfect. Duh, it’s Paris. The most memorable thing about the restaurant was the appetizer we split – chevre chaud with fig jam. Chevre chaud is basically warmed goat cheese on slices of toasted french bread, but it’s not just warm cheese. It’s perfect cheese – brown and a little crusty on the outside, smooth and melty on the inside. With the crunch of the bread and the sweet complexity of the fig jam it’s miraculous.

We have tried several times to recreate the toasts exactly, with not that much success. However, David Leibowitz includes a recipe for a Chevre Toast Salad in his book “The Sweet Life in Paris” which almost made the cut (only “almost” because I don’t know if anything I eat in real life will ever match the memory of that meal). He has you broil thick rounds of cheese on slices of bread until the bread is starting to blacken and the cheese is just starting to brown on the top and sides. So I did this. I used two slices of roasted garlic bakery bread and four 1″ thick rounds of Montchevre, broiling them on high for about 10 minutes. I served them on some hearty lettuce tossed with a homemade raspberry vinaigrette, and c’etait tres bien.

Chevre Chaud Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette
by David Leibowitz and France and Me

2 slices good bread
3 oz. goat cheese rounds
1/2 small head of lettuce

3 T good raspberry jam*
1 tsp. dijon mustard
3 T canola oil
3 T red wine vinegar
1 T lime juice
1 T honey
1/2 tsp black pepper

  • Top two thick slices of bread with two goat cheese rounds each. Broil on high for 8-10 minutes, keeping a close eye on them so they don’t burn.
  • Wash, dry, and tear lettuce.
  • Whisk dressing ingredients together. Toss half of dressing with lettuce. Save the rest for tomorrow. Put goat cheese toasts on top. Yum.

* good raspberry jam always has seeds – don’t question it.

Recipe

My Can-Opener’s-Not-Working Soup

Last night I almost had my first completely unreasonable break down of the semester. I was at work until 2am the night before, so decided to spend Friday night in and make a pot of my favorite minestrone. So I cut up some onions, threw them in the pot, added some broth and spices and things, took my can opener and began to open the nice, big can of tomatoes ready on the counter. Except this can opener was not the sturdy, intimidating opener I have at home. It was the college variety. Meaning although it’s made of metal and has a wheel and resembles a can-opener, it does not actually have the capability of opening cans. It took me about 5 minutes to realize that no matter what I tried (flimsy can opener, equally flimsy knife, grunting) I wasn’t opening that can.

This sort of setback should be pretty minor. It’s soup – it can pretty much be made with any ingredients. But I had a hard time dealing with this. Several calls revealed that no one who I knew in my apartment complex had an adequate can opener. On the verge of tears (please don’t judge me too much) I called my boyfriend, and asked him to convince me of my irrationality. Which he did. And then I came to the realization that tomato sauce is really the same set of flavors as canned tomatoes and requires no can opener. And life was better. So I proceeded to invent a soup using all of the available ingredients in my fairly ingredient-less kitchen. And it tasted good enough to eat as leftovers. So, for those trying times, here’s my can-opener-less soup:

1 T olive oil
1 tsp garlic paste
2 tsp dried basil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 c. chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1/2 c. tomato sauce
3 carrots, sliced
1 russet potato, diced
2 tsp dried oregano
handful of fresh spinach
black pepper to taste
3 T fresh parsley

  • Sautee the onion in olive oil, garlic paste (which I sometimes mix with salt, depending on the brand), and the basil on medium heat for 5 minutes until fairly tender. Add the chicken broth and bay leaf, and let simmer for 15 minutes (while trying to solve can opener dilemna).
  • Add tomato sauce, carrots, and potato, and simmer on medium-low heat, covered, for 40 minutes (while talking to calming boyfriend on Skype).
  • Season with oregano and black pepper. I went heavy on the pepper and I loved the kick. Add spinach and let cook for 2 or 3 minutes longer, until leaves begin to darken. Remove from heat and top with fresh parsley.