Katie at the Kitchen Door

Globally-inspired, seasonal recipes

Blog Page

0 Recipe

Wasabi Trio

In the fourth and final round of Marx Food’s Ridiculously Delicious challenge, the Marx dudes sent each of the ten remaining competitors something pricey, perishable, and totally foreign to me – fresh wasabi root.   I was immediately excited about working with a completely new ingredient (I don’t even eat sushi so I’m really a wasabi newb) because it’s much easier to be creative when you don’t already have strong associations with an ingredient.  So, wasabi safely wrapped in a damp paper towel and stored in the fridge,  I began learning, using the collective experience of the food-loving internet as my guide.

In the end, I had a lengthy list of flavor combinations and recipe ideas, ranging from dark chocolate, candied ginger, and wasabi cupcakes to a garlic and wasabi crusted Ahi tuna.  For the past two weeks I have been entirely bogged down with work and major deadlines, so I haven’t had any time to think creatively or cook or read or do much of anything that wasn’t directly related to engineering.  With this wave of deadlines finishing up this weekend, I decided to get all of my pent up creative cooking energy out there at once, and create a wasabi trio.

I wanted my wasabi trio to consist of three distinct elements, all with wasabi as a primary flavor, that complemented and enhanced one another.  They would be served together, so that a bite of one could be followed by a bite of another to a positive effect.  Running down my list of ingredients, I chose several that seemed to all work together: wasabi (duh), avocado, grapefruit, ginger, and apple.  Beyond the flavors needing to combine well, I wanted the three dishes to vary in temperature and texture, as well as in visual presentation.  My original menu?  Chilled avocado-wasabi soup with caramelized grapefruit, wasabi-potato latkes with fuji-ginger sour cream, and wasabi cupcakes with a grapefruit buttercream. Since the challenge only called for one recipe, however, I decided to make all three and only submit the one that turned out the best.

Clearly, my visions for these ugly little roots were grand.  My successes?  More moderate.  All three dishes were good, but only the soup really allowed the wasabi to shine through, which, after all, was the point of the challenge.  The latkes were delicious but didn’t have any wasabi taste at all, and the cupcakes were great but with only a mild hint of spice (which, to be fair, is probably how you would want a wasabi cupcake to taste).  The soup however, had a pleasing hit of wasabi at the first bite, followed by the scent of lime and the smooth, mild avocado taste.  So the avocado-wasabi soup it is!  Which is kind of exciting because it’s also the recipe that was the most original, i.e. I didn’t just add wasabi to someone else’s recipe.  Minus the caramelized grapefruit, which could easily be replaced by a few chunks of fresh grapefruit, this soup is super quick to throw together and full of delicate flavors.  Salt very gently, as even a little bit too much salt will overwhelm the flavor of the avocado and lime.  It could be served with the grapefruit still warm to contrast the smooth, cool avocado, or with a few sesame seeds or tortilla chip pieces on top for a contrasting texture.

For those of you eyeing the cupcakes or craving latkes, I’ll be posting the wasabi-free versions of those recipes soon!  Although, you could always throw a little fresh wasabi in there for good measure…

Chilled Avocado-Wasabi Soup with Caramelized Grapefruit

Serves 1-2.

  • 1 avocado, peeled and pitted
  • ½ c. buttermilk
  • ½ c. water
  • 1 tsp. fresh Daruma wasabi, finely grated
  • 2 tsp. lime juice
  • Pinch of sea salt
  • ¼ grapefruit, cut into ½ in. chunks
  • ¼ c. sugar
  1. In a food processor or blender, blend the avocado, buttermilk, water, wasabi, and lime juice until smooth.  Add more water if consistency is too thick.  Pour into a bowl, and season very gently with sea salt.  Store in fridge until ready to eat.
  2. Add sugar to a frying pan on medium-high heat.  Stir sugar gently as it melts.  When all sugar is liquid, add grapefruit segments, and allow to cook in sugar for 2 minutes, then gently flip and caramelize the other side.  Grapefruit will take on a light, golden tinge.  Caramelize in batches if necessary – overcrowding the pan will not allow the grapefruit to caramelize properly.
  3. Top chilled soup with warm caramelized grapefruit.  Other possible toppings include avocado chunks, sesame seeds, and crushed tortilla chips.

5 Breakfast

ASB: Knowing Your Farmers

For the first four days of spring break, I took part in an alternative spring break program called “Being a Locavore: Food and Farming in the Triangle.”  Um, right up my alley, no?  As soon as I saw the itinerary, which included tours and work at local farms, meet and eats with local restaurant owners, brewery and bakery tours, and communal cooking, I was super excited, and I ended up having an incredible time.  As with most experiences, the people you are with can really make or break a trip, but despite my slight initial concern that I would end up spending four days with a bunch of off-the-charts crunchy, mildly anti-social people, this group was awesome.  With a 50/50 Duke-UNC split, a strong contingent of graduate students, and majors ranging from Christian ministry to electrical engineering to Southern studies, the diverse perspectives represented in each conversation was one of my favorite things about the trip.  Conversation was diverse and constant, and topics covered included vermiculture, how and when to pick okra, whose grandmother pickled what how, how movie rental stores are dying out, the major and not-so-major cultural differences between Duke and UNC, deep sea diving, bad first dates, and the intersection of religion and food, just to name a few.  I arrived home each night exhausted as much from the intellectual stimulation as from the travel, work, and extensive energy required to eat … um I mean work… the amount that we did.

On each day we participated in so many activities, met with so many different fascinating people, learned so many new things, and ate so much delicious food that I couldn’t possibly cover everything I want to share in one post.  So I’ll spend the next week or so covering a few things we did each day and trying to recreate some of the recipes I most enjoyed over the course of the trip.  To get going, as Julie Andrews likes to say (sing), “let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”

After meeting bright and early Saturday morning, we walked together to Durham’s Farmer’s Market, which, even in the very beginning of March, is a hopping place.  We spoke briefly with the market manager, Erin, about what differentiates the Durham market, and North Carolina markets in general, from others.  The biggest difference I could pick out was that prices for vendors to participate in NC markets are much, much lower than the national average.  Go North Carolina!  We then split into small teams, and each team was assigned two ingredients to seek out.  The goal was to talk to the farmers selling our assigned ingredient and learn about their background, their practices, their favorite ways to cook with the ingredient, etc. – anything to develop a relationship with the person growing and selling you your food, which, I’ve come to realize, is a huge part of the whole local food movement thing.  In my mind the importance doesn’t come so much from knowing exactly how everything is grown and processed and transported, but from it’s motivational purpose.  Since many agree that eating local is good for the environment, for the economy, for your own health, and for the flavor of food, but can seem prohibitively expensive to some, knowing and liking your farmers is where I can see finding incentive to buy local more often.  If you are deciding between spending $6 on a log of chevre from a woman who you know and joke with and who has fed you lunch and $4 on a similar log from the cheese counter in your grocery store, it can be easier to justify the extra $2 when there’s a personal relationship behind the exchange.  At least for stingy old me.

One of the ingredients that my team was assigned to purchase was jam.  Two vendors were selling jam at market – Amy was selling an array of fruit butters, pickles, and pepper jellies, and the man from Benjamin Vineyard and Winery was selling a grape jelly made from his own muscadine grapes.  I was obsessed with the banana butter Amy was selling, but Shannon wanted to stick with the theme of staying as local as possible, so we ended up getting some jam from each vendor.  We’re so choosy.  Really though, this banana butter is so incredible, which is why it is the recipe of honor for today’s post.  Amy told me that the trick in getting the banana butter right comes from using the bananas at their perfect ripeness.

After the Farmer’s Market we spent time both at the Duke Campus Farm and cooking an elaborate, slightly stressful dinner, but since we spent the majority of the day on Tuesday at the farm and I have a whole series of thoughts on the phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen,” we’ll save those for later.  In the meantime, enjoy my delicious approximation of Amy of Durham’s even more delicious banana butter.  My favorite ways to eat it include on french toast, mixed into vanilla yogurt, on a peanut butter sandwich, and by the spoonful.  I just made one jar’s worth so I didn’t bother to can it, but it could easily be preserved.  If you do decide to preserve it, make sure you check that the amount of sugar in this recipe is enough for the pectin you’re using – I reduced the amount of sugar by half from the recipe I referred to, but that can be dangerous if you’re truly preserving your food (as we learned from Emily’s canning workshop on Sunday!)  An un-preserved jar will keep for a week or two on the fridge.

Banana Butter

Makes 2 1/2 cups.  Adapted from Kraft Recipes.

  • 4 ripe bananas
  • 3/4 c. sugar
  • 2 TBS lemon juice
  • small pat butter
  • 1 tsp. cornstarch mixed with 1 tsp. hot water
  1. Thoroughly mash bananas (I used my hands to get all the little pieces out) and add to a medium saucepan with the lemon juice and the butter.  Bring to a boil, stirring all the while.  When it is fully boiling, add all sugar at once.  Reduce heat slightly to help reduce spitting.  Cook, stirring constantly, for 1-2 minutes.  Add cornstarch and water mixture, and continue to cook/stir until the jam has thickened to your desired consistency, adding more cornstarch if necessary.
  2. Pour hot jam into your prepared jars or bowls – glass jars should be pre-warmed so that they don’t shatter on contact with the hot jam.  Allow to cool, then refrigerate.

0 Dessert

RD #3 – Spicy Cherry-Chocolate Souffles

First and foremost,  a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for my entry in round 2!  And a special shout out to my dad and all his soccer buddies, who showed tremendous and immediate support when called upon.  With 94 wonderful people voting for me, I came in 3rd place, solidly placing me in the top 15, meaning that I get to continue with the Ridiculously Delicious competition by re-making one of the other competitor’s dishes using 3 of my previously unused ingredients: grains of paradise, dried tepin peppers, juniper berries, coconut sugar, dried cherries, and saffron threads.

Many of the round 2 recipes looked delicious, with desserts making up about half of the entries.  Since I went savory in round 2, I decided to go sweet with my round 3 entry.  From the sweet recipes, Big Apple Nosh’s spicy cherry truffles really jumped out at me.  The most important part to me in the reinterpretation of the dish was to keep the same flavor profile and idea – rich, dense chocolate; tart, bright cherry, and spicy peppercorns.  The integrity and combination of the flavors should stay the same.  The form, however, was up for consideration.  I decided to invert the truffle so that the chocolate was on the inside and the cherry was on the outside – to be more specific, a rich chocolate souffle with a spicy cherry sauce on top.

I was surprised by how well this came together.  Usually, the recipes I create myself are good, edible, but lacking finesse, and I’ve only created a handful of dishes that caused me to reach for the leftovers with enthusiasm.  This sauce, however, was complex, flavorful, and much better balanced than most sauces I throw together.  I had decided to replace the Szechuan peppercorns in the original truffle recipe with grains of paradise to give the spicy component an earthy, herbal note, and they complemented the tart cherries and the slightly coconuty rum quite well.  My only complaint was that the sauce wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked it to be, but I think this is mostly the result of having dull blender blades.  This souffle recipe – my go-to for a quick, intensely chocolatey dessert – is fast to throw together and difficult to mess up.  I replaced the granulated sugar with coconut sugar to increase the flavor depth and cut the sweetness, as well as to complement the coconut rum in the cherry sauce.  All in all, a success.  Hopefully the folks over at Marx Foods think so too!

A last note: in order for the contest to work, we were all asked to pick a second choice makeover recipe.  Mine is Cookistry’s shallow braised lamb steaks with red wine reduction – I’ve already imagined a wonderful warm red-wine braised lamb salad with saffron and cherry couscous!

Spicy Cherry-Chocolate Souffles

Makes 4 souffles.  Souffle recipe adapted from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet via Fresh Tart.

  • 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
  • 2 tsp. salted butter
  • 3 TBS whole milk
  • 2 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
  • 1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
  • 2 TBS coconut sugar
  • extra butter and sugar for ramekins
  • 3/4 c. dried tart cherries
  • 1 1/2 c. water
  • 3/4 tsp. freshly ground grains of paradise
  • 2 TBS coconut sugar
  • 1 1/2 TBS coconut rum or regular rum
  1. In a small saucepan, bring the dried cherries and the water to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and simmer for 8-10 minutes, until cherries are falling apart.  Blend until smooth in a blender and return to low heat.  Stir in coconut sugar, grains of paradise, and rum, and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.
  2. Preheat oven to 375°F.  Lightly butter four 6-oz. ramekins.  Tap a small amount of granulated sugar into each ramekin, and gently shake so that the sugar coats all edges.  Tap out extra sugar.
  3. In a double boiler, melt chocolate, butter, and milk over gently simmering water, stirring constantly.  When smooth, remove from heat and quickly whisk in 2 egg yolks.  Set aside.
  4. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites and the cream of tartar until soft peaks form.  Slowly add the coconut sugar, beating all the while.  Beat until stiff but not dry.
  5. Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture in two batches.  Gently spoon batter into each of the ramekins, filling about 3/4 of the way full.  Place ramekins on a baking sheet and bake for 16 minutes.  When they are done they will have risen to the edge of the ramekin or above it, the tops will be beginning to crack, and the centers will still be very moist.  Serve warm with cooled cherry sauce and fresh whipped cream.

0 Breakfast

Snacks and naps.

Snacks are a wonderful, very necessary, slightly indulgent part of everyday life.  They are the food-world version of naps – and everyone knows how much naps rock.  Couch naps.  Sunday morning naps.  Post-thanksgiving dinner naps.  Naps by the fire.  Naked naps.  Naps in the sunny reading nook on summer afternoons.  And then there’s the snacks: Cookies.  Pretzels.  Graham crackers with brown sugar and butter (a Morris household specialty).  Bananas with peanut butter.  Hummus.  Chips and salsa.  Peach-mango smoothies.  You get the picture.

Both naps and snacks come in an incredible variety of types, each with its own benefits, shortcomings, and times at which it is appropriate to partake in them.  For example, you wouldn’t take a couch nap on a Sunday morning, and you wouldn’t reach for the hummus when that daily afternoon very intense chocolate craving kicks in (does that happen to other people??).  Similarly, you wouldn’t eat cookies before a big exam, you would eat something fibrous and brain-empowering, like granola bars.  Which brings us to today’s recipe for granola bars that possess a much stronger nutritional profile than your average, over-priced, but very convenient store bought granola bar.

Homemade granola bars have been on my “to make” list for a very long time, but I haven’t gotten around to it because I had kind of assumed they would be sort of time consuming.  False.  These literally took seven minutes to mix together.  Seven.  There are very few days when I don’t have seven minutes to bake.  Plus, they were much much better than I was expecting them to be.  For an egg-less, butter-less, oil-less, sugar-less baked good packed with flax and oats (and OK, a fair number of butterscotch chips too), they were so good.  Even though I sent the majority of them to this lucky guy I know who is very poor and happened to tell me that some days he doesn’t eat until 3 because he doesn’t get a break for lunch and never has anything to pack because the only things in their fridge are sausage, mushrooms, and Sweet Baby Ray’s … I probably consumed about 1/4 of the batch just by picking at the odds and ends during the photo shoot.  And then pondered why I wasn’t hungry after not eating breakfast.  Granola bars are breakfast, Katie.  Despite popular belief, eating three halves of something does not mean you didn’t eat any of it; it means you had one and a half of them.  This is probably shocking news to Steph, the queen of “I’ll just have half.”  Anyway.  They’re really good, really easy, and really pretty healthy too.  Plus you can pretty much put whatever you want in them in terms of mix-ins.  A great find.  One warning: if you’re expecting the crunchy snap of a Nature granola bar, these might disappoint – they are decidedly chewy.  It seems as though most of the recipes I’ve found use the same base recipe, but if I find a recipe for a truly crunchy bar, I will definitely share.  In the meantime, enjoy these as an appropriate pre-exam snack.  Or maybe even a pre-nap snack.  Live large.

P.S.  Thank you to everyone for your support in the Ridiculously Delicious Challenge!  I will be moving on to round 3 – more soon.

Butterscotch, Peanut Butter, and Pretzel Granola Bars

Adapted from Cherries and Chocolate.  Makes 12 granola bars.

  • 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
  • 2 TBS agave nectar
  • 1/3 c. creamy peanut butter
  • 1 1/3 c. old fashioned oats
  • 2/3 c. high fiber, small, crunchy cereal (bran buds, flax bites, puffed rice, etc.)
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 2/3 c. butterscotch chips
  • 1/4 c. broken pretzel pieces
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line an 8×8 inch pan with parchment paper.
  2. Combine applesauce, peanut butter, and agave nectar, mixing until evenly textured.  Fold in oats, cereal, salt, chips, and pretzel pieces.  Spoon batter into pan and smooth into an even layer with back of spoon.
  3. Bake until golden brown, 25-30 minutes.  Allow to cool in pan for 5 mintues.  Then remove from pan by lifting edges of parchment paper.  Allow to cool completely (mine were best after letting them set overnight) before cutting, or they will fall apart.

4 Pasta

Beet Ravioli

Please vote for my entry in the Marx Foods Ridiculously Delicious challenge here!

Remember when I competed (and won 2nd place!) in Duke’s Iron Chef competition and got a fancy pasta machine and went on and on about how I was gonna use it all the time?  Well, if your definition of all the time is approximately once every two months, then I guess you could say I was telling the truth.  And even if I don’t frequently have the opportunity to spend a few luxurious hours rolling out pasta dough, I do really enjoy it when I get the chance.  Kneading, stretching, cranking, folding, and re-cranking the dough is just an activity that really focuses me.  When Trevor and I went to the pasta class with Terrence, we used a food processor to mix and a KitchenAid to roll out the dough, but, while efficient, it really wasn’t the same.  Maybe it’s just that I’m so entranced by the idea of moving to Italy and living in a Tuscan farmhouse and growing my own perfect tomatoes and walking barefoot across the stone floors while singing (in Italian of course) and kneading pasta dough that I feel like practicing the kneading part now will leave me in good stead when I inherit an Italian estate.  Or maybe I was an Italian grandmother in a past life.  Or maybe I’m just trying to snag an Italian lover.  Who knows?

In any case, last weekend Trevor visited and it was a completely rejuvenating 3 days.  It was sunny and 70 degrees every day, I pushed aside all thoughts of work, I slept more than 8 hours each night, we went mushroom picking in the Duke Forest with Justin and Clark, Trevor made his debut at shooters… all in all, pretty good stuff.  And of course, we had to play around in the kitchen just a little bit.  What better to occupy a few hours in the kitchen than fresh pasta?

Ever since I had been totally awed by the beautiful color of these beet ravioli they had been in the back of my mind, so I decided to go for it.  They were incredible!  While the beets made the dough a bit more challenging to work with than an egg-based dough, they also lent a wonderful tenderness to the finished pasta.  Stuffed with a goat cheese, ricotta, and parmesan filling that melted out of the ravioli with every bite, they were a total win.  Last weekend we simply served them with some caramelized onions, a bit of melted butter, and grated parmesan cheese, and this weekend, for round 2, I mixed up a blood-orange and fennel butter sauce, based on a combination in The Flavor Bible.  Neither sauce was perfect, although I think I enjoyed the simple crunchy-sweetness of the onions more.  However, the blood orange sauce definitely won out in terms of sophistication and presentation.  If you try either preparation or think of something new, definitely let me know.  Either way, if you feel like spending a little time working with your hands and/or pretending your a five year old with the largest, tastiest quantity of purple play-dough you’ve ever encountered, definitely try this recipe.

Don’t forget to vote for my entry in Marx Food‘s Ridiculously Delicious Challenge, March 1st – March 4th!


Beet and Chevre Ravioli in a Blood-Orange and Fennel Sauce

Beet ravioli recipe adapted from Martha Stewart via Madeline’s Adaptations. Three beets makes about 2 pounds of pasta, probably enough for 80-100 ravioli.  Extra dough can be frozen, wrapped in plastic wrap, for several months.

For the ravioli:

  • 3 beets
  • 1 TBS olive oil
  • 3 eggs
  • 5-8 cups flour
  • 1 tsp. salt

For the filling (makes enough for 3-4 servings of ravioli):

  • 1/3 c. ricotta cheese
  • 1/3 c. goat cheese
  • 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
  • 2 tsp. olive oil
  • kosher salt and pepper to taste

For the Blood-Orange and Fennel Sauce (makes enough for 3-4 servings of ravioli):

  • 3 TBS butter
  • 1 tsp. fennel seeds, lightly toasted and coarsely ground (can leave whole if desired)
  • juice of 1-2 medium blood oranges
  • zest of 1 blood orange

For the pasta dough:

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.  Chop off beet greens, wash beets, and wrap in foil.  Roast in foil for 45 minutes to 1 hour (beets should be tender).  Allow to cool enough to handle, then peel off skin, and puree beets in blender.
  2. Mix beet puree, eggs, olive oil, and salt in a large bowl.  Add 3 cups of flour, and incorporate fully with a wooden spoon.  Add remaining flour 1 cup at a time, kneading by hand between additions, until the dough is elastic, does not stick to hands, and has been kneaded for at least ten minutes.  I ended up using about 8 cups of flour to balance the amount of liquid that 3 beets added to the dough.
  3. Allow dough to rest for 30 minutes.  Roll out using a pasta machine, or with a rolling pin as thinly as possible.

For the filling and ravioli:

  1. Mix all ingredients together until smooth.  Season to taste.  Place a teaspoon of filling inside a 3 inch square of pasta dough.  Fold one edge over and seal edges, pressing together firmly with fingers.  Trim with a ravioli cutter for presentation.  Boil ravioli for 2-3 minutes in a gently boiling, salted pot of water.

For the sauce:

  1. Melt butter in a small saucepan until beginning to foam.  Add fennel and sautee until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add blood orange juice and reduce to desired consistency.  Season with salt as necessary.  Serve over ravioli; top with blood orange zest.
http://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298935093&sr=8-1

0 Recipe

Dillicious.

Vote for me here!

The second stage of the “Ridiculously Delicious Challenge” hosted by Marx Foods consists of developing your own recipe using two ingredients out of a box sent by Marx Foods.  There aren’t many things I like better than receiving a box full of food in the mail, which actually seems to happen to me at a wonderful frequency, so I was a little bit thrilled about this.  Upon opening the box last Tuesday, I was greeted with small samples of many exciting spices – including saffron, dried Tepin chilies, and grains of paradise – but the thing that really got me was the dill pollen.  Mostly because as soon as I opened the top of the box the scent of dill pervaded my entire apartment.  (Thanks to a Christmas gift of lovely glass spice jars from my baby bro, the scent of my apartment has since returned to equilibrium.  Thanks Ryan!)  While sitting and writing out ideas of different recipes that could incorporate two of the spices in a harmonious way, I could not escape the scent of the dill, and so I was having a tough time imagining saffron scented rice or Tepin chile enchiladas or really anything that didn’t scream of the Great White North.

I wanted to come up with a simple but elegant combination that would really show off both the dill and my second chosen ingredient – Szechuan peppercorns.  My solution – cucumber cups stuffed with a feta-dill filling and served with a lemon-Szechuan dressing.  Really, they came together quite nicely, and even though I did my photo shoot 30 minutes after breakfast (such is the life of a very busy college student with limited daylight hours at home – I also did my hot fudge photo shoot at 9:30 in the morning and ended up eating half of it before forcing myself to stash it in the freezer) I ended up eating the whole tray.  These would be lovely as a fresh and bright party appetizer, although the dressing might need to be served on the side for neatness.  You will probably need to tinker with the cucumber-filling-dressing ratio until you find your perfect combo, but what I have listed here is a good base.  Ridiculously dillicious, you might say.  God I love puns.

Voting will take place on the MarxFoods website from March 1st to March 4th.  Vote here!


Cucumber Cups with a Feta-Dill Stuffing and Lemon-Szechuan Dressing

Makes 1 cucumber’s worth (4-5 pieces).  Scale as needed.

  • 1 cucumber
  • 2 oz. crumbled feta cheese
  • 2 TBS sour cream
  • 3/4 tsp. dill pollen
  • 2 TBS lemon juice
  • 1/4 c. olive oil
  • Szechuan peppercorns, ground/grated, to taste
  • Dill pollen, for finishing
  1. Peel the cucumber and cut into 1 inch rounds.  Scoop out the middle from 1 side of each round, so that the cucumber forms a stand-alone cup.
  2. In a small bowl, mix the feta cheese, sour cream, and dill pollen until well combined but not completely smooth.  In another small bowl, vigorously whisk the lemon juice and olive oil together until uniform.  Add the grated peppercorns a pinch at a time, tasting the dressing between additions, until the spiciness is to your liking.
  3. Stuff each cucumber cup with a tablespoon of feta filling.  Sprinkle more dill pollen on the top of each cup, and drizzle with dressing.

1 Dessert

Crave.

When I get a craving for something, it will not go away until I eat that thing, and exactly that thing.  Actively depriving myself of that thing for a full week does not work.  Eating everything in the fridge but that thing does not work.  Waiting it out does not work.  And so I’ve learned that the only thing to do when a craving hits is bite the bullet and do whatever it takes to get some of it.

Now, when I say craving, I don’t mean the feeling of “yeah, I could totally go for a burrito right now.”  I mean the kind of craving where you’re sitting at your desk completely occupied by something else when suddenly your mind lights up and the only thing in the world you want is a glass of grapefruit juice.  Or a hunk of parmesan cheese.  Or dark chocolate truffles with a cherry center.  The cravings I get are very intense and very specific.  And no, I am not pregnant, but thank you for your concern.  The worst kind of craving is the very specific kind where you can’t figure out exactly what it is you’re wanting, and so the only thing left to do is work your way through the fridge by process of elimination.  Life is hard.

In December my major craving was for hot fudge.  Bad one, right?  At first, as usual, I tried to ignore it.  Then I gave in and did an emergency Kroger run late on a Friday night, leaving with only a bottle of fudge and some whipped cream.  The cashier gave me a pity smile and told me I would feel better soon and that she would join me but that she had a wedding dress to fit in to soon.  Thanks.  Thanks a lot.  Anyway, this hot fudge I bought only half cut it, so while it de-intensified (I’m pretty sure there’s an actual word for that…) my craving, it didn’t kill it.  And that’s when I realized that it wasn’t just any hot fudge I was craving, it was homemade Ben&Jerry’s hot fudge.  See?  I told you they were specific.

This hot fudge is the epitome of hot fudge.  There is nothing fudgier except maybe actual fudge, but even then I think this might win.  I eat it out of the fridge on a spoon when we have it at home.  Which, thankfully, is infrequently.  I also have some particularly positive associations with it.  (But let’s be real, how could you have anything but positive associations with hot fudge?  You had a traumatic experience with it as a child?  You were eating it out of the fridge when your boyfriend came home and dumped you for being a glutton?  Nope, you would still like it.  But back to the story.)  When we were young and innocent and unusually chatty (read: in high school), there was a winter semi-formal every year.  And every year the 8 of us girls would get all dressed up and spend 2 hours awkwardly dancing with boys and then we’d all go back to my house where my parents would have set up the living room with a pile of futons and blankets in front of a blazing fire.  And on the table there would be a silver pitcher of Castillian hot chocolate, ice cream, bowls, and this hot fudge.  Then we would stay up all night talking and giggling and eating chocolate until we fell asleep in a pile at 4 in the morning in what we referred to as our “nest.”  And in the morning, my mom would make us all waffles with strawberry sauce and whipped cream.  No, I am not part princess.  Yes, I had a really incredible childhood.

Anyway, now that I’ve finished the crappy store bought fudge (I know, I know, I’m so dedicated) and it’s February, it’s time to break out the big guns.  I mean, let’s be honest, February is like everyone’s least favorite month: it’s still too cold to look forward to spring, everyone’s sick all the time, and the only holiday is Valentine’s day.  What I’m trying to say is, everybody deserves a little Ben & Jerry’s lovin’ in February.  Your January diet won’t hate you that much.  Dig in.

Ben&Jerry’s Hot Fudge

Accessed via FamilyFun.  Makes about 2 cups.

  • 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
  • 1/4 c. butter
  • 6 TBS unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 c. sugar
  • 1/4 c. heavy cream
  • 1/4 c. milk
  1. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and butter, stirring, until smooth.  Gradually whisk in the cocoa powder, whisking until it dissolves.  Gradually stir in the sugar (consistency will be that of wet sand).  Cook over simmering water for 20 minutes, stirring every 2 to 3 minutes.  Gradually stir in the milk and cream.  Cook over double boiler for about an hour, stirring occasionally.  Fudge is done when the sugar has dissolved completely.  Keeps in refrigerator for at least as long as it will take you to eat it.

0 Uncategorized

Out of Commission/Ridiculously Delicious Challenge #1

*Please forgive the gratuitous duck picture.  I couldn’t bare looking at a completely colorless post.  Also I think I’m really funny.

Due to an unfortunate accident involving a faulty tupperware container, this soup, and my computer, I will be unable to share beautiful photos and recipes with you for the next 5 to 10 business days.  Well, I could share recipes, but they wouldn’t have any pictures and would therefore be super boring.  Severely disappointing, I know, especially given that I was all set to show off one of my favorite healthy breakfasts and my favorite completely unhealthy hot fudge recipe.  Luckily, I was recently informed that February is the the kick-off month of Marx Foods’ “Ridiculously Delicious Challenge,” a 4 stage competition which I am allowed to participate in because I’m awesome.  Or maybe because I’m talented.  Or maybe because I’m just the best.  Oh wait… I’m actually only included because I was lucky enough to win something else from Marx Foods courtesy of a random number generator that just so happened to fall on my random number.  So we’ll just stick with “I’m lucky.”

The first part of the challenge is to choose 3 items from a list of Marx Food products and create an imaginary recipe from them.  Thankfully, creating imaginary recipes is very conducive to owning soup-soaked electronics.  The list of 21 foods includes 10 kinds of meat, 7 pastry staples, and 4 fruits/vegetables.  While it would be totally excellent to win 9 pounds of boar ribs, 10 pounds of venison/bison/llama/yak burgers, AND 9 pounds of specialty sausages with names like “Wild Boar Sausage with Cranberries and Shiraz,” a. I would be the biggest walking heart attack on the planet, and b. it would be very hard to create an interesting dish made solely of 27 pounds of meat.  So I was faced with some serious decisions.

The meat was the easiest – first of all, I could rule out salmon, oysters, and “live geoducks,” which, to my great disappointment, are not actually live ducks that are somehow related to geology or geodes or something else awesome, but repulsive looking shellfish-y things.  No offense geoducks, you just aren’t my style, seeing as how you come from the sea and all.  Deciding between the quail and the burgers and the sausages and the ribs and the duck was a little harder… but I really love duck.  I order it every chance I get, but I’ve never tried cooking it.  I’ve always been too afraid that I’ll mess it up.  But with 24 breasts?  I could even totally butcher 2 or 3 and really have duck down by the 24th try.  Very appealing.

So duck.  And because duck and fruit are a must, and they are already frozen and so have  little risk of not being eaten before going bad by little old me, huckleberries.  Lastly, vanilla beans, because I’m finding the idea of a huckleberry, wine, and ginger sauce ever so slightly scented of vanilla very intriguing.

And there you have it, that’s my entry: pekin duck breasts, frozen huckleberries, and madagascar vanilla beans.  The recipe: a pan-seared duck with a vanilla-scented huckleberry wine sauce, served over a creamy polenta, or perhaps a savory polenta cake.  I’m kind of getting hungry just imagining it.

0 Pasta

Pasta with Terrence

I totally made out at Christmas this year.  Really, it was a banner year.  I mean, there was a camera in my stocking – a very good omen.  Not that Christmas is about the presents… but thank you, Santa, I appreciated them.  As might be expected, food was a strong theme among the gifts I received.  My kitchen is now the proud owner of a stunningly designed box grater, a garlic press that doubles as a weapon due to it’s heftiness, and 16 spice bottles to (finally) contain the wonderful scents of India that have been emanating from my cupboard all year.  A true surprise, however, was Trevor’s gift – a 3.5 hour pasta cooking class for the two of us in Boston.

Walking up to the door of the classically Bostonian brick townhouse on a cold Tuesday night, I was a little bit nervous.  Would there be a lot of other people?  Would we get to cook ourselves?  Would he like us?  We rang the doorbell and Terrence, our teacher, gruffly welcomed us in and led us downstairs to his kitchen, where we sat behind two desks facing the island.  He poured us each a glass of wine, and then started talking.  Still a little nervous, even though I was thrilled that it would just be the two of us and that it would clearly be hands on, I strove to be the most attentive student possible.  Terrence lectured us a little on olive oils, how to properly cut an onion, and what we would be making.  I listened and took notes while also actively envying his kitchen – not huge or shiny or modern, but filled with beautiful old copper pots hanging from the walls, dozens of tiny mise en place bowls, and two ranges.  I can’t wait to have my own kitchen.

As everyone warmed up to each other, I began to relax, and then, we started cooking.  We were making four dishes – a mushroom ragu, a shrimp ragu, a soppresatta and ricotta penne, and a baked olive and ricotta rotini.  I immediately delegated the shrimp to Trevor, not being a seafood eater – although I did try the final dish! – and called the mushroom ragu and the soppresatta dish.  We followed the recipes Terrence had given us while he corrected our chopping, measuring, and seasoning techniques.  I think I benefited most from the knife skills tips – I’ve never been taught them before and it took me a while to get the hang of the motion, but once I did, I really saw the advantage.  The first three hours flew by, and when all four of our dishes were done, we brought them into the dining room, opened another bottle of wine, and sat down to eat and talk with Terrence.  The whole experience was such a lovely treat, especially because of its intimacy, and I would love to do something like it again.

My favorite dish of the evening was this baked kalamata and ricotta rotini.  Trevor and I brought all of the leftovers back home to his apartment where they were actually the only food and we subsisted on them and Ben and Jerry’s for 3 days.  So the fact that I didn’t get tired of eating this for 3 days in a row?  Means it was really good.  Try not to be tempted to tinker with the recipe because of its simpleness.  I always find myself writing off recipes without enough “interesting” ingredients or with too few seasonings and adding my own twist.  Sometimes my twist is good, but sometimes it overpowers the dish and I find myself missing out on whatever was originally there.  This dish is one where the simplicity is why it works – it’s well-balanced and flavorful with only a few ingredients that really enhance each other.  Just what I’ve decided to strive for this year.  In fact, the starting combination of ricotta, olive oil, and sea salt is so wonderful that I would probably eat a bowl of just those three ingredients if it didn’t sound like the least healthy idea in the history of unhealthy ideas.

If you’re in the Boston (or Blue Hill in the summer!) area and interested in taking a class with Terrence, his class information can be found here.

Baked Ricotta and Kalamata Olive Rotini

Learned at Terrence Janericco’s cooking school.  Serves 4.

  • 3/4 lb. rotini
  • 1/4-1/2 c. reserved cooking water
  • 1 c. ricotta (part skim works fine)
  • 1/4 c. olive oil
  • sea salt to taste
  • 6 oz. fresh mozarella, cubed
  • 3/4 c. pitted, chopped kalamata olives
  • 1/4 c. grated fresh parmesan cheese
  1. Preheat oven to 400°F.  Bring large pot of salted water to a boil.  Cook rotini according to package directions.
  2. While rotini cooks, whisk together ricotta, olive oil, and sea salt until smooth.
  3. Drain rotini, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water.  Add the cooking water to the ricotta mixture a little at a time until ricotta is no longer grainy and the mixture is a thick liquid.  Add mozarella, kalamata olives, and cooked rotini and stir to combine.
  4. Place pasta and ricotta mixture in baking dish.  Sprinkle 1/4 c. grated parmesan over the top.  Bake for 15 minutes, until parmesan is golden brown.

0 Recipe

Sugar is Dangerous

And no, I don’t mean to your waistline.

The other day I cut myself on a piece of brown sugar.  As in, the sugar itself caused me to bleed.  I mean, I expect to occasionally slice through my finger with my terrible $3 knives, or burn my hands when I try to eat bacon straight from the pan.  But sugar?  Total surprise.  I guess I’m going to have to reconsider all of my assumptions about life.

Anyway, this soup uses molasses, the safer, liquid alternative to brown sugar.  So I feel comfortable making it.  You probably will too, unless you were in Boston for the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, in which case you might want to avoid all sugar products.  But I hope you weren’t, because this soup is delicious.  Although, I might only feel like that because it is a vehicle for blue cheese and bacon.  I’m not sure how I would feel about it if it didn’t have those two components.  So let me rephrase that: this soup is a delicious vehicle for blue cheese and bacon.  And if you’ve had a leftover can of pumpkin in your cupboard since the great iron chef duke pumpkin challenge, and you also have 15 minutes to spare, why not make it?

Pumpkin Soup with Bacon and Blue Cheese

Adapted from allrecipes via Framed Cooks.  Serves 2.

  • 1 can 100% pumpkin puree
  • 2 c. chicken stock
  • 1/2 c. half and half
  • 3 TBS molasses
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp. allspice
  • 1/4 tsp. ginger
  • 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
  • salt to taste
  • 2 slices bacon, diced
  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 1/3 c. blue cheese crumbles
  1. In a medium pot, heat pumpkin, chicken stock, half and half, molasses, and spices until simmering gently.  Allow to cook for around 10 minutes.  Season with salt to taste.
  2. In a large frying pan, fry bacon pieces until beginning to brown.  Add minced shallot and cook until both bacon and shallot are browned.
  3. Serve soup hot, topped with the bacon shallot mixture and blue cheese crumbles.