Orzo with Caramelized Vegetables & Ginger

This recipe is really not too difficult, if you cut everything up before you start cooking. I didn’t really do that but I did read ahead enough to stay out of danger! The first bit of advice is to use the largest pan you have or the ingredients will not all fit! I had a bit of trouble finding orzo pasta (thanks Trader Joes) but I think any small pasta would do. While the orzo cooked I peeled the sweet potato. I haven’t really cooked sweet potatoes before so I was unsure how to select one. It looked and peeled like a potato does but it felt woody, which I am not sure is normal. It did cook up okay, so I stumbled my way into it!

Warning though, as you toss sweet potatoes into hot oil they splatter something fierce! I had to wipe down the stove, the microwave above the stove, the surrounding countertops and the floor after I finished cooking. I diced the onions while the sweet potatoes cooked and added them to the pan after moving the sweet potatoes to one side. The recipe didn’t say exactly when to add the garlic and ginger so I added them two minutes after the onions. I mixed up the soy, vinegar and oil while the onions were cooking. This probably explains how I missed the “remove stems and dice the caps” instructions adjacent to the mushrooms.

I did wash the mushrooms and added them to the pan. Since I am not a fan of mushrooms I thought about skipping them, but I wasn’t sure if eliminating them would throw off the recipe. In retrospect, I think if I left the onions and sweet potatoes in the pan for a couple of minutes on the side without the mushrooms it would be fine. It would keep me from picking them out later! While the mushrooms were cooking I got out the chard. I used red chard since it looked good in the grocery store. I used about 4 leaves and took the green portion off of the red stalks. I should’ve chopped it up a little more but it was fine.

I added the sauce and mixed everything together. I knew I was on the right track because it smelled awesome! I turned up the heat and added the orzo. I scraped the bottom of the pan as it cooked, and I was pretty careful so the contents of the pan didn’t spill over onto the stove. I added the chard and when it began to wilt I took it off of the stove. I added salt and pepper to mine and parmesan cheese to my two-year-olds plate. We both had seconds ( and she ate my mushrooms, isn’t she nice?) Leftovers went to school and work for a couple of days where they were polished off. I have already been asked for more so this will definitely be made at our house again!

Onion Tart with Bacon

I can guarantee, you would not expect the outcome below, unless you are familiar with my tendency to improvise without a clue. This may highlight how I classify myself as a challenged chef. The recipe was clipped (as usual) from the Virginian Pilot newspaper.

I started with the dough. I managed to get a couple of bubbles in my yeast mixture and added all of the ingredients for the dough. I may have gotten tired kneading the dough after a couple of minutes and called it good. I set it aside in a bowl covered with a dish towel and let it rise. While the dough was rising, I re-read the rest of the recipe. This is where things started to go south. I realized I had not been able to find caraway seeds or crème fraiche at the grocery store. I looked up substitutes on Google and cumin came up. I had ground cumin at home so I decided that I’d use that in lieu of caraway seeds. The substitute for crème fraiche is sour cream, but I don’t particularly care for sour cream so I didn’t have any of that either. Since we had time before the dough was ready, my two year old and I set of for the grocery store.

We got to the grocery store and went to the dairy section. Nothing. We asked a guy working in the dairy section and after showing him what we were looking for on our phone, he consulted in the back and sent me to the fancy cheese section. After reviewing their selection and asking the manager, it was revealed that they don’t carry crème fraiche. Since this was the third major grocery store in the area and the previous two didn’t carry this either (I checked earlier in the week) it was time to make a substitution call. Since I don’t love sour cream, I went with mascarpone as my game time decision.

We got back to the house (after a melt down tantrum over not buying the yellow cheese and a two for one deal on 12 packs of canned soda that makes my pantry look like I am hoarding soda for an apocalyptic event) and checked on the dough. It had approximately doubled in size so I got moving on the topping. I started cutting up the onions. 3 large onions results in enough onions to fill my largest skillet. I cooked them until they began to brown and added the cumin. It still seemed like a lot of onion.

I took the bacon and put it under water and simmered. This is kind of gross. The bacon exudes an odd foam onto the water’s surface. I drained the bacon and cut it up into one inch pieces. I got the dough rolled out and onto a baking sheet, which I then rolled a bit more to get the approximate diameter, although mine was more round than oval. I mixed the ricotta with the mascarpone and spread it on the dough, which worked just fine. I started piling up the onions and after getting about ¾ of them on the pile, abandoned the rest. There were just too many. I topped the onions with the bacon and added some mascarpone on top. I tried drizzling over the top like the recipe said, but it isn’t a liquid so glopped is more accurate. In the oven it went for 33 minutes.

The results: mediocre. There were still too many onions (which seems strange given it’s an onion tart) and the onions were kind of bland. I used white onions since the recipe didn’t specify but perhaps yellow would have been an improvement. The bacon wasn’t crisp so I think frying the bacon instead of giving it a bath would have been a better option. The mascarpone worked fine though and there was plenty leftover. It said on the package that it makes a great bread spread and I had never had it so I gave it a try. HELLO! My new favorite obsession! It is so delicious. Forget the onion tart, I just want mascarpone and bread. My two year old didn’t love the tart, and doesn’t like the mascarpone on the bread, but thinks it tastes good by itself. Smart girl.

Roast Pork with Pan Sauce

Roast Pork with Pan Sauce

This recipe was a winner and an epic fail all at the same time! Things started off without too much drama. I have a roasting pan and I oiled the bottom with olive oil. I don’t own a food processor so I put the oil, rosemary, fennel, garlic, salt and pepper in the blender and tried to make a paste. I am attempting to grow rosemary at home so I used some fresh from our “garden” (pots on the back porch) and some dried, since I didn’t want to take too much off our plant. Making a paste in the blender turned out to be a bit of an issue since the volume of material in the blender was not enough to really get the garlic chopped up as much as I needed. If I had chopped up the garlic before I put it in the blender this might not have been an issue but hey, I am kind of lazy at times!

The good news is the paste smelled delicious! I used a knife and scored the meat/fat (it was not an even layer, and I am not sure if that was due to the quality of the shoulder I chose or if it is just the variety of nature) and then paused to contemplate how much I felt like a serial killer, even though the pig was already dead. This made my mind wander to Dexter, then to movies with serial killers, then movies with string to tie up food, which led me to Bridget Jones’s Diary. Yes, my mind works in mysterious ways. Bridget Jones used blue string to tie up leeks and ended up dyeing her soup blue. I did not want blue meat so I managed to find white string (two extra light bulbs, a cell phone battery and the allen wrenches I had misplaced) in the back closet. I tied up the pork shoulder even though it seemed like it would hold together without it. I popped it in the oven and let the roasting begin! It should be noted that it takes forever (three hours) to cook this, so if you are hungry this recipe should be saved for another time.

I set the timer, adjusted the heat down to 300 degrees after 30 minutes and let it roast for 2 hours and 20 minutes. When I checked on it at that time it was done so I got it out of the oven and transferred the pork to a plate to rest. Rest is what the recipe says. I prefer to think of it as cooling down so I don’t burn myself trying to cut into it! After the pork was out of the pan, things started to go way south. The recipe says to pour all of the drippings into a bowl and skim the fat. I don’t think I understand these directions completely. Isn’t it all fat? There wasn’t anything floating at the top, but I think all of the “juice” was oil, which is fat. Since I didn’t know what to do with it I left it as is on the side. I put the roasting pan over the oven burner and added the wine. Since the pan is pretty large I wasn’t sure if I should use one burner or two, but two seemed dangerous so I settled on one. It was pretty difficult to maneuver the pan so that it would stay steady while I scraped the bottom. I added the flour to the reduced wine and it clumped up. I tried whisking it with one hand while holding the pan steady with the other. Thank God for the Ove-Glove! I added the drippings and broth and continued to whisk. For about 5 minutes. All that resulted is something that looked like chicken soup and had chicken soup consistency. I added some more flour, but it was of no avail. I called time of death on the pan sauce and went back to the pork.

I sliced the pork and served it, after I cut off the string which seemed to do little anyways! The rubbing had made a crust on top that was delicious. Since I was lazy there were larger chunks of garlic that roasted and were excellent bits on top. The meat was good too, although the shoulder had a lot of fat throughout. I think next time I will use the rub on a tenderloin of pork for a better cut of meat. I had leftovers for three days and some got thrown out. If you make this recipe, invite a bunch of people over and skip the pan sauce, unless you know something I don’t!

Honey Glazed Carrots with Cilantro

So, this recipe is good and the results were unexpectedly pleasant, but there are a couple of things I’d do differently. The first is, I’d skip the big carrots and just split a bunch of baby carrots in half. It would cut the prep time. But I managed to peel the big carrots with a knife (please remind me to purchase a peeler) and get them in the pan. I added the water and oil and cooked them until the water evaporated, which was closer to 20 minutes. I continued to cook them another two minutes and they weren’t golden, they were still orange. I added the honey and the water (I would prefer the wine, but we were out!) I cooked them another two minutes stirring continuously with a wooden spoon as directed. Unfortunately, my wooden spoons are white so the carrots turned it orange. (This mostly came off in the dishwasher, but not completely!) Finally, I squeezed in some cilantro from a tube since I have difficulty using an entire bunch of fresh cilantro from the grocery store and the cilantro I am “growing” on my porch is on life support. The results were surprisingly good. My two year approved too! Next time though, I may just microwave the carrots, water and oil to cut some time, and then transfer into a hot pan to caramelize. Overall though, a winner!

Pinecone Bird Feeder

Normally, I'd write about people food but my two year old loved this so I thought I'd share. The Aquarium in VIrginia Beach gave us this idea. We found the pinecone while out at the park.  After tying a string to it, we took peanut butter and spread it on the ponecone.Then we put it in a plastic bag with birdseed and shook it to coat the peanut butter with the birdseed. We hung it from a tree outside and sat to watch the birds eat. A simple but fun activity for a toddler!

Warm Potato Salad

There is something that I don’t think I have mentioned yet. I don’t like eggs unless they are an ingredient in a baked goods batter. Seriously, I can’t stand them. They smell terrible and have a variety of repulsive textures that I find nauseating. So it may seem a little surprising that I selected the warm potato salad recipe. I did so with the thought of egg substitution in mind. The thought of a potato salad that was not sullied by the presence of those vile chunks of egg I still find appealing. However, this is not my greatest culinary triumph. In fact, several things about it equaled a barely edible result!

Of course, I decided to substitute the eggs (wretched) with an avocado (delightful). I started off with the potatoes. I don’t have a steamer basket so I decided to microwave the potato chunks. This worked just fine but I think the two potatoes resulted in vastly more potato chunks than are required for this recipe, which is where things started to go wrong. I mixed up the oil, vinegar and Dijon mustard. I didn’t have any red wine vinegar so I used balsamic. I have Dijon mustard but it is Dijon honey mustard, so I increased this to two teaspoons in order to give it some kick. I don’t think these two ingredients really go together, but I pressed on.

Once the potatoes were out of the microwave I added them to the oil/vinegar/mustard mixed and stirred them up to coat. At this point, I thought there might not be enough sauce for the potatoes but wasn’t sure. I cut up half the red onion and the avocado and added them to the mix. Since the balsamic vinegar is brownish, it gave the avocado a brown tinge. I added salt and pepper and stepped back. This is not something you will see plated in a restaurant.  I crossed my fingers and served it to my Mom. My poor Mom, she really doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment.

It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t good. For one thing, there was way too much onion in this mix, which means if I used the correct ratio of potatoes it would’ve been even more overpowering. I think they made my Mom’s eyes water (sorry Mom)! As always, she tried to be supportive and said it was alright. I ate some. Ew. Somehow the fact that the potatoes were warm made it worse. To top it off, except for the onion, it was bland. My two year old ate two bites and then refused the rest. At least she shows signs of good taste and good sense! I saved the considerable leftovers and tried them cold the next day. Normally I do not like to waste food, but this went in the trash. Ah failure, I am so familiar with you! It was truly tragic to waste a perfectly good avocado.

Oven Mexican Quinoa

Quinoa has listed as a “super food” for the last few years now. I never had it growing up and have never cooked it before. Of course in my mind my first thought was “how hard can it be?”! Not too difficult as it turns out, although I have a couple of adjustments I will make next time.

Right out of the gate I needed to make a change to the instructions. I don’t own a food processor and I can’t justify the expense of one for the little use it would provide me. So, I decided I could chop up the onion, tomatoes, garli and jalapeno and use a blender to mix them. This worked out just fine (thank god you can take apart the pitcher and put it in the dishwasher!). I did reduce the jalapeno for the vegetable mixture to one from two so it wouldn’t be as spicy for my two year old!

I decided ahead of time that I’d substitute for the walnut oil since I don’t have other anticipated needs for walnut oil and didn’t want to waste the rest. The alternates at the end of the recipe suggest using nonstick cooking spray, so I used a bit of this approximately two teaspoons of olive oil so the quinoa wouldn’t burn in the pan. I cooked it for 8 minutes, although I didn’t see much happen. I am not sure what would’ve happened if I had skipped this step. I am open to comments on this! I did add the other jalapeno and cook for another minute and then added the broth, salt, cumin and tomato paste. I spent some time trying to stir up the tomato paste so it wasn’t a big clump. I am not sure this ingredient was needed either!

So, I put all of this into a casserole dish and covered it with tinfoil. At this point it looked like soup. A sinking feeling settled into my already rumbling stomach as I put it into the oven. I checked on it to stir it at 15 minutes and it still looked like soup. Oh boy. I checked on it at 30 minutes and decided it still seemed too soupy. My solution to this was to remove the tinfoil and hope it evaporated some. When the timer buzzed I removed the dish from the oven and….. still a bit soupy but not terrible. It needed a bowl not a plate though! I dished it into bowls, added cilantro and lime juice and a bit of cheese, because let’s face it, cheese is delicious. The cheese melted on top and it tasted pretty good. A direct quote from my Mom “it’s different but it tastes alright”. Maybe not a rave review, but she was willing to let me test this out on her. She did use half the onion next go-around so it wouldn’t overpower the other ingredients and I agree. My two year old liked that I would add cheese at her request (multiple requests actually).

Overall, I’ll make it again. The leftovers heated up quite well and it all got eaten. Now if only I can figure out what to do with the rest of the tomato paste………

Grilled Steak & Spring Vegetable Salad

Recently my two year old has decided that grilling is her favorite way to cook. She thinks of it as a free pass to play outside. Since we all need a little vitamin D, I clipped this recipe to try over the weekend. We stopped during the week and purchased all of the ingredients, except the asparagus. The grocery store we were in did not have any. Isn't that kind of strange?

I started with the dressing. I thought fresh lemon juice would be better than from a bottle. I used three half lemons and think it was close to five tablespoons. I used just under a ¼ cup of olive oil to try to keep things light. I used grated parmesan cheese from the fridge because it was available, and because I figured I could skip the blender and just mix it in a bowl, saving some cleaning. Real chefs would probably frown upon this, but sometimes you have to make your life manageable for yourself. I mixed up the dressing and set it aside. I added a little extra salt and a bunch of pepper and performed a taste test. So far so good! I began gathering the grilling items and then remembered we didn’t have any asparagus. To the grocery store we went!

As a side note, I am just like the majority of the population in that I enter the grocery store and exit with 15 items, sometimes without the item I need. To avoid this issue, we went into the grocery store and found the asparagus first, then got a basket for other items. Why I decided a fresh papaya, avocados and gummy bears were essential I cannot say but once we found the milk and the basket got heavy, we were ready to go. Not before I let my two year old hold the can of orange soda I was drinking while I carried the basket. She finished the soda by drinking/spilling it down her shirt. Fortunately, she was wearing her Halloween pumpkin shirt so you could barely see it. Yes, I am aware that it is April, but she loves that outfit and it still fits! Incidentally, orange soda mustache is hard to get off of a two year old’s face.

We returned home, put the excess groceries away and then got back down to business. We gathered all of our grilling supplies and headed outside. Two minutes later we returned to get sunglasses, tinfoil, paper towels, and cups of water. J Once I go the grill started, I put on the steak. Yes, I made the rather obvious mistake of putting the meat on before the grill was really hot. So the meat did not have the charred look of the grill, but cooked up okay. I cooked the asparagus and the artichoke hearts until the asparagus was done. I think the artichoke hearts could’ve used more charring, but it was getting late and we were hungry!

Back inside, I cut up the steak, asparagus and artichoke hearts and put them in the bowl with the cherry tomatoes. Then I removed them from the bowl, halved the tomatoes and again added the grilled items. I poured approximately half of the dressing over them and tossed with spoons. I rinsed off the arugula. I used baby arugula because that’s all that was available and really, who doesn’t love miniature everything? I will comment that four cups of arugula is a gargantuan portion. I think we’d have been fine with two cups and the same dressing.  I tossed the rest of the dressing with the arugula and got out some plates, as the photo shows above. I put the grated store bought parmesan cheese on the table and we sat down to eat. As it turns out, my two year old loves arugula, as long as you coat each piece with parmesan cheese! She asked for more cheese about a dozen times and ate most of the plate. I may have had seconds! The most important lesson from this recipe though is that it is fun to watch a two year old say arugula with an orange mustache.

Mjeddrah (Middle Eastern Lentil Pilaf)

I am just going to come out and say it, this dish the way I made it looks a little like a bowl of gray goop. Shockingly, I may have made a couple of errors making it! However, it tastes pretty good. Try to keep an open mind…….

I started screwing up this recipe in the grocery store. The recipe calls for brown or red lentils. I looked all over and all I could find were lentils with a garlic and herb packet. The bag just says lentils and to me they look green rather than brown or red. Since that was the only option, I decided that maybe the greenish lentils were similar to brown. I am not sure what kind of alien logic determined this for me, but there it is. In the same aisle (I swear I was dead sober throughout this entire exercise) I looked for long grain wild rice. Since wild rice seemed to be the wrong choice (in retrospect, a far better one than I selected) I bought the only brown rice in the aisle. Unfortunately, it was boil-in-a-bag rice and that might not be what they traditionally use in Middle Eastern cooking. Finally, I wandered around the spice aisle looking for cardamom pods. No dice. So I bought a jar of ground cardamom and called it a day.

When I decided to tackle the recipe, I again proved that following directions is only of marginal importance in my world. I rinsed off the lentils (I wasn’t sure what they meant by picked over, they looked alright to me) and put them in the boiling water. They sat for about three hours before it was time to make dinner according to my two year old’s clock. I laid out all of the ingredients and started to look for the carrot peeler. Then I remember I lost it in dish washer accident (it slipped down into the bottom and the handle broke off, no damage to the dish washer) a year ago which drives home how dependent I am on bags of baby carrots and frozen vegetables. Fortunately, I remembered I have a knife that I have neglected to sharpen, ever, so it seemed dull enough to use as a peeler without losing a digit. This worked out much better than my plans typically do.

I sautéed the onions, celery and carrots and all seemed well. I added them into the pot of lentils. Then I transferred the whole mixture into a larger pot since there was no way everything was going to fit. At least none of the pots in my house get lonely when I cook. I added three cups of water under the same delusion that green lentils and brown lentils are the same and then removed the rice from the boil in the bag home it knew and threw it into the pot. I added the garlic (finely chopped in my world but kind of chunky for the general population), Chile pepper and cinnamon stick. The cumin was no problem but when I got to the cardamom, I remembered I needed a whole pod equivalent. Google indicated that two pods is approximately 1/3 of a teaspoon. This isn’t terribly convenient information since I don’t have a 1/3 teaspoon in my measuring spoons set; however, the recipe called for 2-4 pods so between 1/3 and 2/3 of a teaspoon, or a heaping ½ teaspoon it is! I brought it to a boil as instructed. The final error comes with the additional water. I added a cup about halfway through and then poured it off towards the end. I also ended up turning up the heat at the end in the attempt to de-humidify the mix. As you can see from the photo, maybe not as successfully as I hoped!

At this point, my two year old is hugging my leg saying “Mom, I am SO hungry” so I added a bunch of salt and pepper, maybe 20 twists a piece from the grinder. This seems like a lot, but I had a veritable vat of Mjeddrah at this point. Then it was time to eat. Amazingly, even though it looked like a pile of goop, it tasted pretty good. My two year old liked it and ate two helpings. We had it the next day. And the next. The recipe says six servings but this is true only if you are feeding calorie loading super distance runners at your house. Next time, I might try to find the correct lentils and rice. Or I might just cook the vegetables and add the spices. It might be just as delicious, better for me and look more appetizing! Ah well, you can’t win them all!

Tzatziki

I got this recipe from my sister. She said the recipe was hand written, so this recipe could be from anywhere. Thanks to the nameless person who gave it to her!

Ingredients
2 cups of Greek yogurt
3 cloves of garlic
One cucumber
Salt
Pepper

First, I peeled the cucumber and started to slice it into rounds. Then I remembered to look at the instructions from my test message and sliced the cucumber lengthwise so I could scoop out the seeds. This was pretty easy, as running the bowl end of the spoon down the center of each side of the cucumber got them all out! I chopped up the cucumber into small pieces and added them to the yogurt in the bowl. My sister mentioned that some people put the cucumber into a food processor to get the cucumber bits finely chopped, but she doesn’t mind bigger chunks of cucumber. Since I don’t own a food processor and wanted to eat dinner as soon as possible, I opted for the bigger chunks as well. She also mentioned preferring whole fat or 2% yogurt over the nonfat kind. Since they only had plain nonfat Greek yogurt at the grocery store I visited and fruit flavored Greek yogurt sounded pretty awful in this recipe, I went the nonfat route.

After peeling the garlic cloves I minced the garlic as small as I could with a knife. I really need to practice this skill so I had some larger bits of raw garlic than most people would prefer. I mixed it into the yogurt and cucumber and then used the salt and pepper grinders, about ten twists for the salt and five for the pepper. I served it with slices of orange bell pepper and celery. My two year old went to town with it. She dipped her steak into it as well as the vegetables, which was a genius move and tasted quite good! She even told her Grandparents she liked the white sauce, so we have a winner. **Warning, if you are serving this to a two year old and lack garlic mincing skills, have some milk handy for when they strike a garlic nugget!

The Tzatziki travelled to work for lunch well so the leftover is being used. I think the next time I make this I might add some dill to see how it tastes. Anything that encourages vegetable consumption in the toddler set has my vote!

I cut this recipe out of the Virginian Pilot which is, as one would imagine by now, the only physical newspaper I receive! It sounded good as written, but I made a few modifications. I am capable of following directions, just unwilling to do so!

First, I reduced the oil to approximately ½ a teaspoon. The article that accompanied this may have indicated you can just use zero calorie cooking spray as well. Next time I might do that to limit the fat and calories. It would be important to heat the pan first. I have burned plenty of garlic in my life trying to get the pan hot after putting the garlic in!

I used a cherry red pepper that was diced more than thinly sliced. I did remove all of the seeds of the pepper. I also used a tablespoon of pre-chopped garlic. Hungry two year olds do not wait for fresh chopped garlic! I added both to the hot pan. Once I could smell them cooking I added a bag of spinach, after rinsing it off. It cooked up in a couple of minutes like the recipe said, stirring continuously. If you don’t some will wilt and some will not, so the dish will look funny. It should also be noted that a bag of spinach wilts into two adult servings so if you are cooking for a crew, you need to make more!

Once I took it off the stove, I added some salt and garnished with a lemon (see photo). Once we sat down to dinner, I discovered two things:

1.      Dicing the pepper instead of thinly slicing keeps the spice form permeating the spinach. In my case, this was ideal since my two year old doesn’t care for spicy things yet.

2.      The lemon makes the dish. Adding it offsets the spice a bit and goes great with the spinach. This should be the first ingredient in the recipe!

My two year old ate the spinach without the pepper (and most of a lemon wedge, kids are funny). I squeezed the lemon over the leftovers and ate them the next day and the flavor was intact. Another one for the keeper file!

Pear Tart (with Strawberries)

Hello everyone (everyonebeing my sister!)

I clipped the pear tart recipe out of Parade Magazine. The author is Gail Simmons, who was on Top Chef Just Desserts. I haven’t seen the show or heard anything about her, but the recipe looked delicious and I have a tendency to make dry, bland, marginally okay tasting pastries at best, so I need something in my arsenal to feed my parents when they come to visit their grandchild.

I did actually review the recipe before I started so I am improving! The first step is to butter a 9” springform pan. After Googling “springform pan” and learning it is a pan where the sides come off so you can magically slide out beautiful desserts, I decided to be cheap and just use a round cake pan I already have. In the grand scheme of things, I am not selling my baked goods and they are going to get eaten (please be eaten in lieu of thrown in the trash as inedible)!

I peeled the pears in advance of starting. This is of course where I discovered that if you buy pears five days before you use them, one will go bad in the fridge. The good news is, I had some strawberries as a back up for this recipe and I pat myself on the back as I decided to make a strawberry pear tart. As an important note, the recipe says a pound of pears cut ½” thick. I used one pear with the slices cut ¼” thick, give or take since my slicing skills aren’t that honed, and about five strawberries. In short, don’t slice up a bunch of pears or you will have pear sliced wilting in your fridge in no time. The recipe didn’t specify peeling the pears, but I did. I took half a lemon and squeezed what I think was about half of the juice over the fruit. Since the rest of the juice also ends up over the fruit later in the recipe, dividing it seems like a waste of effort.

Mixing the dry goods and setting aside was a no brainer (I did stop as I talked on the phone so I wouldn’t lose track. I’ve made that mistake before!) I started creaming the butter (which I was so proud I remembered to thaw from the freezer) without cutting it up first. This made for a slight splatter on the countertop, but I stopped, cut up the butter into little chunks and continued. The eggs blended in without drama and once the dry goods were added, sticky dough appeared. I scooped the dough into the pan with a spoon and spread it around. It ended up in the fridge uncovered so I could run to set the DVR for Mad Men. I have priorities!

Once I arranged the fruit and sprinkled on the cinnamon sugar mix (I used a heaping half teaspoon of cinnamon, who doesn’t love cinnamon?) I put the tart in the oven. I checked it at 45 minutes using a toothpick in the center and it needed more time. I gave it 5 more minutes and pulled it out of the oven and let it cool. Once it cooled for about 20 minutes I took a picture and cut into the tart. It came out of the pan cleanly after running a knife around the edge. Really, you wouldn’t even need to separate the edge from the pan if you kept the fruit from touching the pan’s edge. This is something I would watch next time. I sat down with Don Draper and wow! The tart portion is light and moist and the lemon gives the overall tang to offset the sweetness. I had two pieces (Mad Men encourages excess, you should never eat and watch simultaneously) and went to bed. This morning I brought the rest of the tart to work to avoid consuming more and it got good reviews. I guess Top Chef is Top for a reason!

Sweet and Spicy Edamame

This recipe is easy and quite tasty. I went ahead and purchased shelled edamame and boiled it as directed. I think using the steam in the bag edamame from the freezer section would work without a problem and save you the use of a pot! Anyway, I added all of the ingredients listed to the edamame except the chile sauce and then separated the mix into two bowls. I added the chile sauce to one and left it out of the other (my two-year-old is not hip to spicy foods just yet!) They both tasted good and I was able to add a little extra chile sauce to mine for god measure. This recipe is going to get several repeat engagements in my house!

Chocolate Chip Scones - The follow up

I did manage to add chocolate chips to the rich scone mix previously posted. I added a mix of milk chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate chips and they were an excellent choice! I even purchased little rock sugar crystals (pink on the advice of my two year old) and put them on top. Instead of sprinkling them on top next time I may apply the cream to the top of the scone dough and then take each round and flip it onto a plate with the sugar on it for more even coverage. I would suggest that if you attempt these scones, you use a pan with sides. Some of the butter dripped out of the scones and dripped to the bottom of the oven where they made a mess I have yet to fully remove. It’s always something!

The Great Boston Cream Pie Cake Adventure

I think it might have been my birthday, another year older but clearly no wiser, that dictated the attempt of a recipe several levels above my current skill set. The recipe (clipped out of the Virginian Pilot) was featured as part of a SuperBowl cooking face off and this was the winner. The article made it sound delicious but the recipe was intimidating. I clipped it and let it sit on my desk for a couple of weeks. Then it moved to the maybe pile on the counter. Finally, I decided that cake was necessary for a birthday celebration (my two year old agreed) so I purchased the ingredients. As you can see from above, there are a lot of them. There are a few items the recipe neglects to mention:

1. I used eight bowls of various sizes for this recipe, and cleaned a couple and reused them. You will also need a half dozen extra spoons and two or three knives, because they start to hide under item number 2.
2. I used an entire roll of paper towels. This may not be necessary for a normal cook but if you are challenged, this should be at the top of your grocery list.
3. The sugar and cornstarch for the pastry cream and the whipped cream are in ounces, not teaspoons or cups. As my sugar encrusted computer keyboard can attest, one ounce of sugar is approximately 7 teaspoons (28 grams) and one ounce of cornstarch is approximately 10.5 teaspoons.

I did remember to set out the eggs to get them to room temperature. I should note that I bought a half dozen eggs, realized I was going to be short an egg, and used an egg beater for one of the whole eggs. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to matter.

The first thing I encountered was that I forgot to purchase parchment paper. So much for reading and following the directions! I did grease the pans and then decided this might make the cake greasy on the bottom, so I coated them with flour. I also remembered to le the oven vent by removing the burner cover. At this point, I am feeling on top of the situation. This is never a good sign.

I mixed the dry goods and set them aside. I heated the butter and milk and then set it aside with the cover on. I made it look easy. That is if one interprets flour from the greased pans on one countertop and a small sugar spill on the other countertop along with a myriad of ingredients and the directions for the new electric hand mixer on the other countertop as easy. I had mini bowls out to separate the eggs and some shell may have landed on the trashcan instead of in but I was on a roll.

Now, this next part needs a bit of clarification. I did attach the beaters and test them before starting. One flew off and I caught it mid-air like a Food Network pro. I started to beat the eggs and all was well.  About three minutes in I wanted to take a look at the progress so I switched off the mixer while lifting it up. For future reference, the eject button is not the same as the off button. So one beater landed in the bowl (it didn’t crack fortunately, way to go Crate & Barrel) but the other one flew at an angle and hit the wall above the sink. No permanent damage, but it added to the mess considerably. Since I was already in the middle of it, I decided to press on. Fortunately, I had pre-grated the orange zest and had it ready to go. Back on track!

The egg white mixture went off without a hitch. Once I got the hang of the higher speed of the mixer it was pretty easy to get the white peaks to appear. It should be noted that if someone tried this by hand their arm would fall off and scream for mercy. Flying beaters aside, I do love the mixer. I stirred it into the other egg mixture and things were moving along. I didn’t have a sifter (seriously, where do people keep all of these things in their kitchen?) but I gradually sprinkled in the dry mixture. The sprinkling did the same thing, which is keeping the mix from becoming a chunky mess! Slow and steady it was.

The pastry cream mixture is where things get dicey. I thought I had worked around this by mixing the dry goods first and then boiling the milk and egg mixture. Turns out, while I was trying to beat the other egg the milk boiled over. Wow does that happen fast. There was milk up the handle, down the burners and starting to scorch. At this point, the kitchen looks like the Korean Demilitarized Zone. No time to worry about that now, I had to add the egg mixture to the milk mixture and avoid curdling. I used a soup spoon to add a little at a time and stir and this seemed to work. Since I didn’t have a strainer, I poured it into a bowl I set in a bigger bowl of ice. I thought about putting the whole thing in the refrigerator but decided against it. In retrospect, it might have made it thicker which would’ve been better. Then it was time to start on the whipped cream.

This was my favorite part. Not only did the mixer make the cream thicken up like it was supposed to, you would sample it because there was no raw egg in it! I added the Grand Marnier very slowly and it blended well. Then, I looked around my kitchen. Since all was lost for a cleanliness standpoint, I decided a little nip was in order. Future happiness moments might be made just making the whipped cream….mmmmm.

Then, back to reality. I had the cakes out of the oven and cooling in the pans on the burner covers on the counter since the stove was ravaged. They stuck at first. I placed a hand on top of one to try and guide it out and came away with a hand covered in cake and a perfect handprint outlined on the cake in the pan. I got a knife and loosened the sides and a small spatula to help loosen the bottom. Then they came out pretty easily. Before I got the second one out, I put the cream in the middle. After I puts what seemed like a lot of cream down as a layer, I added the other cake layer. My aim leaves something to be desired and the cake is pretty delicate, so a lopsided cake it was. I also had 50% of the cream left over. Incidentally, at this point my two year old woke up from her nap, walked into the kitchen and asked “what happened”. Sigh.

Finally, after filling the dishwasher and trying to find the counter tops, I started on the chocolate ganache. I needed a huge pot since the mixing bowl that will hold five cups of chocolate chips is also ginormous so I added two extra cups of water to the pot. The double boiler worked and the chocolate melted. I wasn’t sure if I should let it cool off or glaze it warm. I opted for warm. The chocolate adhered to the cake and stayed in place so it was fine, but there was a lot of extra. Some dripped over the edge and pooled on the cake plate (see photo) and the rest ended up as left over (maybe an extra cup or more). I put the whole thing in the refrigerator to cool.

The moment of truth had arrived. We got the cake out and cut it. My faithful two year old and I tried it. She loved it and asked for more. I remembered that I don’t like the cream in Boston Cream Doughnuts and perhaps that should’ve been a tip off that this would not be my favorite. The cake and chocolate were good though, and if you like Boston Cream Pie then it would be a winner. If you can stand the mess that is! Overall though, Happy Birthday to me!

Chunky Avocado & Feta Dip

Somehow I managed to write out this whole post, publish it, notice an error in the title and accidentally delete the whole thing. Arrgghh. So, take two:

While I know I didn't "cook" so much as assemble this, the results were fantastic! I managed to determine in my mind (and for the Mom next to me in produce who asked me) that a spring onion is the same thing as a scallion. I clipped off the end with the roots and discarded the top third or so of the green part, and was then unsure if that was correct. To compensate, I used two instead of one! I used half a lemon instead of measuring out two tablespoons and used a handful of dill and chopped it up pretty small so it would be evenly distributed. The newspaper recommended eating this as a dip with pita chips or vegetables, but we ate it as a salad with a fork. My two year old asked for more, so we have a winner!

The greatest part about this recipe is I made it while waiting for my acorn squashes to destroy themselves, I mean bake. The left over Moroccan spiced beef that did not commit suicide with the squash (see previous post) went with this perfectly. I put them together in a pita and a Dagwood worthy sandwich was invented. Ta-da!!

Stay tuned though, I am pretty sure I have a chocolate chip scone and a Boston Creme Cake catastrophe in the works for the coming days. Until then!

Acorn Squash Stuffed with Moroccan Spiced Beef

When I clipped this recipe out of the newspaper, I had never purchased an acorn squash before. It intimidated me. It sat in the refrigerator while I gathered the courage to try this recipe out. Since I was not sure about the acorn squash, I decided to purchase just one in lieu of the two indicated in the recipe. As it turns out, this was a wise decision.

I got all of the spices (the cumin and turmeric were new purchases as well) and heated them in the pan. I didn't see them change colors but the aroma from them increased with the heat so I figured I was set. Cutting open the acorn squash wasn't an issue, but after scooping out the seeds and "guts", they were on the small side. I mixed together the meat, onion and spices and scooped some into each side of the squash. Only about a third of the mixture fit into the two sides. I placed them in a ceramic baking dish with an inch of water in it and got it in the oven. This was a bit tricky since the squash didn't balance very well due to its uneven rind.

When I took them out of the oven an hour later, I was less than impressed (see the photo). The squash was still tough but the meat was drying out on the top. The meat under the top layer was okay, but it was kind of soggy. Essentially, this was inedible.

But all was not lost! I took the remaining meat mixture and put it in a skillet on the stove after the squash was in the oven. The spices smelled good as the meat cooked and they gave the onions a pretty yellow color. It tasted good too, and got the 2 year old clean plate award. Fortunately, this saved me for disaster, and ended up working with the other recipe I tried. So, to be continued next post!

Rich Cream Scones

RICH CREAM SCONES (This recipe was clipped from the Virginian Pilot newspaper.)

Makes 12
1cup cake flour (not self-rising)
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling and cutting
l/2 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
2 teaspoons baking powder
l/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 1/4 cups cold heavy cream, plus more for brushing
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sift together flours, sugar, baking powder, baking
soda and 3/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Cut in
butter with a pastry blender or rub in with your
fingers. (The largest pieces should be the size of
small peas.) With your fingertips, flatten butter
pieces into small disks. Cover with plastic wrap,
and refrigerate until butter is very firm, about 20
minutes.

Combine cream and vanilla in a small bowl, and
stir into flour mixture with a wooden spoon until
almost absorbed and dough just comes together.

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured work surface;
roll out into an 8-by-10-inch rectangle. With a
short side facing you, fold rectangle into thirds,
as you would a letter. Rotate dough a quarter turn
clockwise. Repeat rolling out, folding and
rotating dough two more times.

With floured hands, pat out dough to a 1 1/4inch
thickness, and cut out as many rounds as
possible with a floured 2 1/4-inch round biscuit
cutter. Gather scraps, re-roll once, and cut out
more rounds.

Place scones 2 inches apart on parchment-lined
baking sheets. Brush tops with cream, and
sprinkle with sugar.

Bake until golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes, rotating
sheets halfway through. Let cool on sheets.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

So I did try this recipe, but of course I didn't follow it exactly. What would be the fun of that? First of all, I didn't flatten butter pieces into small disks or put the dough in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. I had a little girl singing "scones, scones, scones" so that wasn't going to work. Seriously, the word scones was uttered no fewer than 84 times throughout the course of making the dough. The second problem arose when the dough wasn't actually dough but a dry crumbly mess. No worries, my solution was to keep adding cream. At two cups of cream the dough worked just fine. I used a glass dipped in flour in lieu of a biscuit cutter. Do lots of people really own a special biscuit cutting device? I really just rolled out the dough until it was +/- 1/4 inch thick and away I went. I did brush cream on the top (using my fingers since I have no barbecue brush and using a blush brush seemed too outlandish) and some table sugar. Rock sugar would've been better, but it was not residing in my pantry. All in all, they turned out okay. The good news is, with two cups of cream in the dough, they lasted a week without a hint of dryness, and durable baked goods are plus in my book!

I tried this recipe a week later but changed it up to make cinnamon, nutmeg, caramel scones. Adding two teaspoons of cinnamon and a teaspoon of nutmeg (approximately, since I really just dumped some in from the jars) worked just fine. Cutting up the Kraft caramels into quarters and dumping them in to the mix was not. They dripped out of the scones and gobbed onto the pan where they proceeded to burn into a hybrid caramel mixture that could replace steel in modern day building materials. One of my testers suggested more cinnamon and maybe toffee chips instead. To that I said "Dad, do you want to make them?" He smirked and drank his coffee.

I have a Moroccan spiced beef in acorn squash recipe that I have been afraid to attempt. Hopefully I will get to it this week. That acorn squash is blocking my access to the middle shelf of the refrigerator! A final note, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to take the stove burner covers off all of the burners before using the stove. I did remember to do this while cooking breakfast this morning. A good thing too, since I attempted to cook pancakes on one burner not realizing I flipped the back one on in lieu of the front. It only took a couple of minutes of the pancake not cooking and nearly burning myself on the hot burner to mess with the pancake to correct the error. See, challenged.

Just getting started

I'm not sure how to explain being a challenged chef. I've purchased smoked beef and only as the oven is pre-heating realized smoked beef is beef jerky. I've cooked scallops for 15 minutes to create rubber bands. I made a green velvet cake because I was out of red food coloring and etcetera, etcetera. There are a variety of reasons for my continual kitchen failures. I have a toddler that sometimes distracts me when I am adding ingredients, I substitute ingredients capriciously and tend to take " shortcuts" when using recipes. Fortunately, my toddler is very supportive and is not a picky eater. Of course, if she was she'd starve, so perhaps her agreeable palette is self preservation. At any rate, one day she is going to become aware of my culinary shortcomings, so this is a way to record, review and hopefully, progress. I have been experimenting with scones, so if I figure out how to post the initial recipe, it will be my next post. I made a pretty funny error with a variation, so stay tuned.....