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    <title>The Kitchenista</title>
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    <item>
        <title>Garganelli with Prosciutto and Peas</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/01/31/garganelli-with-prosciutto-and-peas/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/01/31/garganelli-with-prosciutto-and-peas/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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Wasn’t there a Smurf with a name like garganelli? Anyway. Hello, internet friends! I apologize for the long delay in posting. You’d think with the holidays and all I would have a multitude of food-related posts to make, and I did make a lot of food, but I just couldn’t get the words out. This is why no matter how much I’d like to be a successful author it’s just not meant to be – no discipline. What can you do, you know? 
My first two issues of Saveur hit my mailbox this month and I am positively giddy about it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the artistry behind the recipes that come from Gourmet and Bon Appétit, but the authenticity of what Saveur has to offer strikes the deepest chord in me. Fancy food is terrific, and it’s created with the whole palette taste has to offer in mind, but recipes from home kitchens, from outdoor kitchens, from remote locations designed simply to eat well with what your homeland has to offer appeals so much. The culture of food at its most basic, at its most honest, fascinates me. From dusty camps in India to farmhouses in Pennsylvania, whatever you’re having is what I want to have, too. 
I started simple this time around, picking a recipe from December 2009’s issue of Saveur, which happens to be loaded chock full of my favorite animal, the pig. Of couse, it’s also the least interesting of the many interesting recipes I could have chosen, with little of that anthropological spirit I mentioned in the paragraph above. However, getting my toddler to eat Terrine de Jambon seemed perhaps a little too ambitious. 
Garganelli with Prosciutto and Peas   from Saveur
You will need:   1lb garganelli or penne    2 cups heavy cream (and arteries of steel)    1 1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas    1/2 cup grated Parmesan    4 oz thinly sliced prosciutto, Serrano or country ham, torn into strips    1 cup fresh mint leaves, torn    Kosher salt and black pepper to taste    
Garganelli is a pasta that’s shaped like a calla lily, and I have to tell you, I am not a huge fan of it. I find where the sides overlap never really gets done enough for my tastes, though it is really pretty. I first tried it in an Amatriciana sauce with the now-infamous guanciale (that, I have to tell you, I am tempted to try again!) and had the same reaction then as I did now. I think if I make it again I’ll go the penne route since penne is delicious and cooks evenly. Mine, by the way, is spinach garganelli because that’s what was available at the time. It has no bearing at all on the taste. 
OK, on to the bones of it. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Remember, if it tastes like an ocean you’re on the right track! Unsalted pasta water makes everyone sad. Unless you have arterial issues and then unsalted pasta water makes everyone happy! I believe in fairness, after all.  Add the pasta and cook to your desired level of doneness – if you’re using the garganelli, you’ll want to take a piece out and bite through the center to check the overlap. Drain and reserve 1/4 cup of the pasta water, with all its starchy deliciousness.  
While all that’s happening, bring  the cream to a boil over high heat in a large skillet, 12” is the recommended. Let it reduce by half, which’ll take about 8 minutes or so. Add the pasta and the peas and cook, stirring every now and then, until the cream starts to coat the pasta. Add the parmesan and season to taste. If it looks too thick, add the pasta water in small amounts until you reach your desired consistency. Gently stir in your prosciutto and chopped mint, and enjoy.
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    <item>
        <title>Roasted Garlic and Parsley Pork Roulade</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/02/04/roasted-garlic-and-parsley-pork-roulade/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/02/04/roasted-garlic-and-parsley-pork-roulade/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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A rare Kitchenista original!

You may say to yourself, wait, hasn’t she made something like this before? And yes, I have – matambre is a roulade as well. Roulade (from the French word “rouler”) just means “to roll” and can apply to anything from a jelly roll to sushi. In this case, it’s a butterflied slab of pork loin slathered in a paste made of Italian parsley, a bulb of roasted garlic and lemon juice, seared and chucked in the oven. Couldn’t be easier. Let me show you.     
 
 
You will need: 
1-2lb pork loin   2 Tbsp olive oil    1/4 c white wine, chicken broth or water    A bulb of garlic, roasted    A small lemon, cut in half    A bunch of Italian (or flatleaf) parsley, chopped    Salt and pepper to taste    Kitchen twine
 
If you’ve never butterflied meat before, I strongly encourage you to look up a Youtube video. I will try to explain it here but I think it’s one of those things best viewed and I should know since my matambre butterflying was just a disaster. It was actually kind of catastrophic, but we all have to learn somewhere, right?    
Go ahead and roast up your garlic, if you so desire. I served this with roasted potatoes so I just oiled up the bulb with the potatoes and roasted it for about 40 minutes at 425F. If you don’t want to roasted, I recommend slicing it very thin or mincing well. With either method, once you’ve prepared your garlic the way you choose you’re going to smash it together with a pinch of kosher salt, the juice of half a small lemon, and as much chopped parsley as you would like. I started with a fork but finished with a pestle, and that was with roasted so those of you using unroasted garlic may want to do the same – just add a teaspoon or so of olive oil to help bind it all together. 
Grab your hunk of pork loin and lay it on a sturdy cutting surface, long side facing you. You’ll want a very sharp knife for this, so use the best one you’ve got. Make a vertical slice halfway through the thickness of the meat. Lift the edge of one side of the cut up enough to angle your knife and slice through horizontally to make an even plane of the meat, then repeat on the other side. Think of it like opening a cardboard box, first one flap, then the other. You should have a relatively even surface of meat now. If you see any obvious thicker sections, feel free to pound it out with your meat mallet.    
Haha, beat your meat. Please excuse me, I’m obviously 10 years old. MOVING ON. Here’s a little photographic help to show you what it should look like:    
    
Make small slits with a sharp paring knife here and there on the surface of the meat, then spread your garlic mixture on top. Try to cover the whole surface as evenly as you can, but don’t sweat it if you’ve got bare spots. Finish with a little black pepper, then turn the meat so that the short side is facing you.     
If you can do the fancy butcher knots with a single strand of twine, bully for you. I am very bad at it and so I cut 4 equal lengths of twine and set them aside. You can start at either the top or the bottom, but roll the meat up, gently but firmly. Lift up and place your twine underneath at about 2” intervals, and tie tightly. 
I would insert another picture here but – and I know, I KNOW, this is completely and remarkably immature of me but I can’t post it. It would get me censored. It’s so phallic it might as well be pornography. So, if your pork loin tied up looks like it could MAYBE be something else, something attached to the human body, you know you did it right.    
I have no dignity. I apologize.  Let’s get back to the food, shall we?     
Preheat the oven to 350F. Heat a large skillet or dutch oven over medium-high heat, add the olive oil and allow to get hot enough to shimmer but not smoke. Add the pork loin and sear on all sides, about 3-5 minutes per side or until browned. If your skillet is not oven-safe, put your pork in a roasting pan, add a quarter cup of chicken broth/wine/water, and cover tightly with aluminum foil. If you’re using a dutch oven, add a quarter cup of chicken broth/wine/water, cover the loin itself inside the vessel loosely with aluminum foil, then cover with the lid and into the oven it goes for about 25-30 minutes. Check it after 20 minutes – pork dries out quickly and this cut doesn’t have a lot of fat to keep it moist, so once that center hits about 145F on an instant-read thermometer you’ll want to take it out and let it rest for 10 minutes or so, the temperature will continue to rise and should peak at no more than 155F*.     
From here, cut the twine, slice into your desired thickness and serve. If you used wine or broth, you’d have the makings of a nice pan sauce, too!  Roulades are great, there’s no end, really, to what you can add as the filling. Traditional German rouladen has pickles, Italy’s braciole is breaded and has cheese. Set your creativity free! 
 
(* – the USDA says the appropriate internal temperature for well-done pork is 170. Pork frequently disagrees with this by turning into something like a mouthful of pig-flavored sand. You don’t want to eat it raw, but I think – and so does Mark Bittman – that a little pink is OK. 150 is the perfect happy medium for me.)
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    <item>
        <title>Mediterranean Stew</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/02/10/mediterranean-stew/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/02/10/mediterranean-stew/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[
aka What To Do With The Pound of Leftover Pork Loin In The Fridge

Since I post so many pork recipes I felt perhaps it was time to show what you can do with the leftovers. This may not be tricky for you, but it frequently is for me. No doubt you can do Asian stir-fry, or pot pie, but if your pork has a distinct flavor it can be difficult to find the right dish for it.
This was the situation at our house two days after I made the pork roulade. The day before that I had made a huge pot of chicken and shrimp etouffee, and a soup for lunch, so the fridge was full and I was loathe to throw something else in there. It almost worked, too, except that I had leftovers of this. It is inconvenient to cook for 4 when only two actually eat any reasonable portion.
Anyway, I needed something quick, easy and used pork, and a Google search led me to the always reliable Chowhound, and this post in particular. I grabbed an eggplant from the store and went with it, and now I share it with you.

Mediterranean Stewadapted from aussiewonder
You will need:1lb or so of leftover pork, cubed or shredded
1 eggplant, peeled and diced
1 red pepper, sliced into strips
6 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
28oz can crushed tomatoes
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup red wine
Rice for serving
In a large skillet or Dutch oven, head 3 Tbsp oil over medium heat. Add the eggplant, red pepper and a pinch of kosher salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the eggplant has lightly browned and the red pepper has softened, about 5-10 minutes. Add the garlic and continue to cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and the pork and stir to coat, cooking another minute or two, then add the wine and crushed tomatoes. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to simmer until the pork is heated through or until you want to eat it. Serve over rice and top with kalamata olives.
I, personally, am not much of an eggplant person, and I don’t eat olives at all, but the eggplant is not a huge flavor component here and so anyone with objections will probably find this tolerable. The flavor is simple and lovely, and perfect for a low-effort meal.
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    <item>
        <title>Panna Cotta with Flourless Chocolate Cake</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/02/25/panna-cotta-with-flourless-chocolate-cake/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/02/25/panna-cotta-with-flourless-chocolate-cake/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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Let me start by trying to describe my unholy, unhealthy obsession with custards. I love custards. I love them with a passion equal only to pork, and we have already discussed my love of the pig. Whenever I pick up a dessert menu, the first thing I look for is a custard. I have no idea what it is about them – there are certainly desserts that taste as good and in some ways better – but the combination of the taste and the texture just really work for me. Zabaglione, crème brulee, flan, you just can’t go wrong.
I could get into the history of it – custard has been around since the Middle Ages (which, by the way, happens to be the coolest period of time in history) and possibly longer – but the truth of it is, panna cotta isn’t really a custard. At least, not technically. It has more in common with Jell-O in terms of chemical structure, and there’s not a drop of egg involved. But, when made right, it has a texture and flavor to rival any crème anglaise.

I chose to balance mine – a vanilla panna cotta – with a dense, rich bittersweet flourless chocolate cake, baked in a sheet pan and cut into triangles with a child’s shapesorter block, because I’m MacGuyver in the kitchen, guys. To cut down the richness and add a hint of tart, I had Paris Hilton serve it.
….
Just kidding. I whipped together a sauce with the juice of two blood oranges. Recipes below!
Vanilla Panna Cotta
from Mark Bittman
You will need:3 cups cream, or 1 1/2 cups cream and 1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1 package (1/4 ounce) unflavored gelatin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
Pour 1 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan and sprinkle gelatin over, let sit for five minutes. After, cook over low heat, stirring, until gelatin dissolves completely. (I had to turn my heat up a little thanks to an electric range and altitude, and it took me a while to get it to dissolve completely.)
Add the rest of the cream and the sugar to your gelatin mixture and heat gently, just until the sugar dissolves. Add the vanilla and stir to combine. Pour mixture into 4 large or 6 small custard cups and chill until set, about 4 hours. If you want you can serve right in the cup, or you can unmold as I did. Use a knife and dip the container in hot water for a few seconds to help release.

Flourless Chocolate Cake
adapted from A Mingling of Tastes
You will need:
2/3 c plus 2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
9 oz quality semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips, and the flavor was just exactly where I wanted it to be. Bittersweet can have an edge to it that I, as a chocolate lover, really enjoy but my husband, who is a milk chocolate fan, doesn’t so much. This meets nicely in the middle.
Preheat the oven to 350 F and line an edged baking sheet with buttered parchment paper.  In a large bowl, combine the sugar, cocoa and salt. In a separate bowl or container, whisk the vanilla with the eggs and then add to the sugar mixture, stirring to combine.
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the chocolate and, stirring constantly, melt completely. Remove from heat and add to sugar mixture, whisking until combined – it should be thick and pretty smooth.
Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth into corners. You want it to be as even a thickness as you can. Bake for about 25 minutes – the top will be crusty, like a brownie, and the inside will be dense and thick. I let mine cool overnight before cutting and recommend the same to you. (the original, delicious sounding recipe at the source is a thicker, traditional cake baked in a 9” springform, if you aren’t interested in cutting out shapes.)
Blood Orange Sauce
Fruit sauces are  really easy to make. I happened to have blood oranges on hand – exactly two, in fact, so I made a blood orange sauce. It consists of bringing 2 Tbsp of sugar and the juice of two oranges to a boil and simmer until it reaches your desired thickness.
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    <item>
        <title>Lemony Orzo-Veggie Salad</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/07/12/lemony-orzo-veggie-salad/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2010/07/12/lemony-orzo-veggie-salad/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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        <content:encoded><![CDATA[
 

 
I know I can’t be alone when I say that being in the kitchen in the summer is a drag. It’s hot outside, I don’t need it to be hot inside, too. And since it’s Utah, where central air is not especially common inside homes – they favor swamp coolers here – it is frequently already hot inside anyway so the last thing I want to do is make it hotter. I prefer to flavor my food with kosher salt, not beads of sweat. 
Gross. 
Anyway, like most people we move to a great deal of low-maintenance cooking in this wretched heat, like grilling or things that cook quickly, and especially things that can be served cold, like this fantastic pasta salad from the June/July 2010 issue of Cooking Light. It is everything you could want in a summer dish – bright, sunny notes from the fresh dill, the tang of lemon, the smooth, silky bite of cold orzo and the crunch of crisp red bell pepper and cucumber. And the best part? I listed nearly all of the ingredients right there. The full recipe is, as usual, behind the cut.
I know, too, that it’s been a long time since I’ve updated. I won’t apologize for it, since I was using that time well, or promise that I will update more frequently, because you can see that’s worked out so well in the past, so instead I will encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed so that you’ll get the updates whenever I do get around to posting them. 
And you don’t want to miss the chocolate peanut-butter cookies coming soon!
 
Lemony Orzo-Veggie Salad     adapted from Cooking Light    (yields four 1 1/4 cup servings)       
You will need:
3/4 cup uncooked orzo (get the bronze-die cut, it’s worth it!)   1/4 tsp lemon zest    3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice    1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil    1/2 tsp kosher salt    1 large clove minced garlic    1/4 tsp honey    1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper    1/2 cup diced English cucumber (these are frequently marketed as seedless, longer than standard cucumbers, and might be wrapped depending on your store)    1/2 cup diced red bell pepper    1/3 cup thinly sliced green onions    1 Tbsp chopped fresh dill (Utahns: Sunflower Market is great for fresh herbs)     1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled goat cheese (optional)
 
Cook your orzo as the package recommends, but don’t salt or oil the water. Drain and rinse with cold water, drain again and place in a large bowl. 
While the orzo is cooking, combine lemon zest, juice, olive oil, salt, garlic, honey and black pepper in another bowl, whisking well to get them all together and full of deliciousness.  Pour over your cold orzo, stir well to coat. Add cucumber, bell pepper, onions and dill, and toss gently again to coat veggies. Sprinkle with the goat cheese, if you like that sort of thing. Crumble cheese are not my thing. Stick your head in the bowl and enjoy. 
Just kidding. It’s for eating – so eat!
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    <item>
        <title>It’s probably best to start at the beginning.</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/01/21/its-probably-best-to-start-at-the-beginning/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/01/21/its-probably-best-to-start-at-the-beginning/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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So, let me do a little introduction here and then we’ll get to the rest of it. 
 
So, my name is Alicia and this is my kingdom. It’s possible you came here from my other website, justthere.com, and I just want to explain to those of you who didn’t that this is to separate my kitchen adventures from the rest of my life. If you are not familiar with me, here’s a short story about who I am. 

As it says in my “About” page, I live in Utah with my husband, Warren, our son, Greyson, and our completely neurotic golden retriever, Faye. I am originally from southern Indiana, and I moved here in 2002 to live with Warren after an internet friendship to courtship thing. It works for us. Our son was born in September 2006 and a few months shy of his first birthday was diagnosed with developmental delay. If you want to get really technical, it’s officially undiagnosed cerebral palsy, but we opted not to saddle him with that label unless it proves necessary to get him any treatment he may need. Anyway, as a result of cerebral palsy he receives therapy twice monthly to try to strengthen his speech and gross motor abilities. Utah has a great system in place through the school district and he has made incredible progress through it. He’s a healthy, happy and active toddler now and I am constantly amazed at the way he works. 
Warren and I made everything official with a wedding ceremony in June of 2008, an intimate affair with our close friends and families. A couple of months later, we decided to try for a brother or sister for Grey, since his motor skills are at a point where he can handle me having divided attention. Considering I’m now 23 weeks pregnant, you could say we met with success, and Grey will have a little brother sometime in May. 
The birth of my son and his subsequent problems made going back to work next to impossible, and we are lucky enough to be in a position where I am able to stay at home with him and provide the daily physical therapy he needs. Unfortunately for all of us, being a housewife is not something I seem to have any natural aptitude for whatsoever and I have been a cranky mess ever since. Every now and then I’ll slip into a groove with the cooking and the cleaning and the laundry and the blessed never-ending tedium of every day being so similar to the last and think, you know, this gig isn’t so bad. And then I wake up from that dream and it’s back to being bad at time management, dinner being way too late, Grey not getting a bath, and no one having clean pajamas. 
Something happened, though, with this new pregnancy. I suddenly want to cook and bake, ALL THE TIME. It’s a compulsion, I absolutely need to do it, and I’m not just talking about nuking a hot dog and throwing fries in the oven. I pour over cookbooks and food blogs, collecting recipes for my Bi-Monthly Grocery List of Doom, I’ve stopped buying bread and started making my own, and possibly the strangest thing, I opted to buy a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas instead of photography equipment (the only –and most expensive- hobby that has never waned as so many frequently do). Would you like to see it? Here it is:

Man, I love that thing. Without it, it’s possible I never would have made a loaf of bread. Kneading is intimidating. Actually, a lot of things I cook and bake now I would not have tried had it not been for my KitchenAid – not that I used it to make short ribs or Carbonnade a la Flamande, but I guess my success with that first loaf of bread gave me a confidence in the kitchen that I did not previously have. See, internet, I am a timid creature at heart, and new things are very intimidating. New things make me not want to try them because I am genetically programmed towards failure, and that is not a pleasant thing to be reminded of. For instance, you’ll note that I’ve talked about enjoying baking now, but as a result laundry and cleaning have definitely fallen to the wayside. I even fail at hausfrauery. 
So, long story short, this blog belongs to a woman who has a newfound love of her kitchen (oh man, the chauvinist jokes that could be inserted here….) and will contain posts about food, posts about life in general and other tales of housewifely woes. It will be a pleasure to share my misadventures with you.
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    <item>
        <title>The bread that started it all.</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/01/21/the-bread-that-started-it-all/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/01/21/the-bread-that-started-it-all/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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Julia Child’s White Bread
You Will Need:
2.5 cups water (between 105 – 115 F)
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
7 cups bread flour or all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp salt
1/4 – 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
You Will Do:
Pour 1/2 cup of the water into a bowl and mix with yeast and sugar til foamy. Let sit for 5 minutes until creamy. (note to baking noobs: instead, just combine the water, yeast and sugar and then let it sit for 5 minutes, it’ll be foamy and creamy without stirring – see below). 
Put the yeast mixture, rest of the water and 3.5 cups of flour into the mixer with the dough hook attached. Mix slowly until blended then add the rest of the flour. Increase the speed and scrape down the sides til the dough comes together (if it doesn’t come together, add a Tbsp of flour at a time until it does).  Add salt and mix at medium speed for 10 minutes til dough is smooth and elastic.
Add butter 1 Tbsp at a time (don’t be alarmed if your dough comes apart! Mixing will put it back together)
Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface and shape it into a ball then place in a large buttered or oiled bowl. Turn dough so it is completely coated in the fat, then cover in plastic or with a dishtowel for 45 minutes to an hour, til it has doubled in size at room temperature. Meanwhile, butter 2 loaf pans. 
After dough has risen, deflate, cut in half and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out a 9 x 12” rectangle, and with the short end facing you fold the dough into thirs, like a letter prepped for an envelope, creating a roll. Pinch the seam closed, and pinch the ends enough that it will fit in the loaf pan. (I tucked mine under, personally) Place into the pan seam-side down, recover and allow to rise a second time in a warm place for 45 minutes or until doubled in size. 
Preheat the oven to 375 F, making sure oven rack is in the center of the oven. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until they’re honey brown. Immediately turn out of pans to cool on a rack.

 
First, let me just say that while I thought this was a good recipe to start with, in hindsight I’m not sure it was. I’m not sure if it was the reinterpretation of the instructions (it’s a dupe on Recipezaar) or what, but I could not get that yeast to foam with all the stirring in the world. So in frustration I went to research yeast and when I came back to it, it had foamed. So apparently the secret is not in stirring but in being patient. 
Second, I cut my recipe in half because I felt like 7 cups of flour was insane and I didn’t think I needed two loaves. I’m not sure I did it right, because while the bread tasted just fine it was very dense and heavy for a loaf of white bread – I’m used to a softer, airier variety and have since found a recipe that more closely echoes my expectations.

Third, I really believe the preparation here is overly complicated. You don’t need to roll it out, it just needs to be pressed down lightly and shaped into a loaf. You have to go really light with the flour while you’re forming your loaf else your seams won’t pinch. You don’t need a heavy coat of fat in the bowl, just enough to lightly cover the dough and prevent it from sticking post-rise. In fact, I would say a wash of butter or milk on top right before you chuck it in the oven would give the same effect – fat browns, and that’s what gives your bread that golden brown crust. 
That said, I totally lost my bread-making virginity on this recipe and all the frustration was ultimately worthwhile. I have made two other recipes since this one and refuse to be intimidated by bread flour again.
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    <item>
        <title>Martha’s Fudgy Chocolate Brownies</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/06/marthas-fudgy-chocolate-brownies/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/06/marthas-fudgy-chocolate-brownies/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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From Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook

 
This was an interesting experience for me – brownies made with chocolate pieces instead of cocoa powder. I used bittersweet discs from Guittard and it took me one or two brownies to really get used to the flavor. If you’ve only had box or store-bought, these are an entirely different experience. 
I made another batch a few days ago with the intent of giving them to a friend, but something went horribly, horribly awry in the baking so the center just would not cook. I also used semi-sweet chocolate this time, as my husband commented that they could be sweeter, and the flavor was quite nice.
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    <item>
        <title>More Martha: Outrageous Chocolate Cookies</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/06/more-martha-outrageous-chocolate-cookies/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/06/more-martha-outrageous-chocolate-cookies/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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Courtesy of marthastewart.com

Man, just looking at the picture makes me need to make them again, immediately.
These were posted over at the Livejournal community bakebakebake and since I didn’t want to make just any old cookie, I wanted to try them myself. They are, indeed, outrageous. I slightly modified the recipe and so I’ll share with you what I did.


Ingredients
Makes 2 dozen
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chunks *
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat chopped chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl in 20-second increments, stirring between each, until almost melted; do not overheat. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; beat in melted chocolate.Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.
Drop heaping tablespoons of dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto baking sheets.* Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are shiny and crackly yet soft in centers, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on sheets 10 minutes; with a thin metal spatula, transfer to racks to cool completely.

* – I used 1/2 package semisweet chunks and 1/2 package white chocolate chunks to alleviate some of that chocolatey-ness. I mean, 20oz of semisweet is a LOT of the same chocolate flavor. These would also probably be incredible with peanut butter chips.
**- here again is where I adjusted slightly. I always seem to have trouble with my cookies going flat and rather than waste some pretty pricey ingredients on flat, unappealing looking cookies, I took a note from Alton Brown’s “The Chewy” cookie and chilled the dough, and then rather than dropping teaspoons, I made balls instead, cooking only 6 at a time. They cooked up as you see in the photo above so I’m saying my strategy is a successful one. Take that, cookies! I win again!
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    <item>
        <title>Mississippi Mud Brownies</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/14/mississippi-mud-brownies/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/14/mississippi-mud-brownies/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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from Cook’s Country

First, let me just say that if I had to list my top 10 favorite desserts, brownies would not be on it. It’s not that I dislike them, it’s that I’m so ambivalent. It’s a bit like chocolate cake for me, it’s just not something that excites me in any way. But my husband is a big brownie fan, and if I don’t make things he likes I will end up eating all of it and that is just a bad situation for everyone. So I have learned to tolerate the brownie in all of its forms, and I keep trying new recipes thinking hey, this may be the brownie to change my mind. It may be the enlightening brownie, the epiphany brownie, if you will.
Internet, this may be the epiphany brownie. If you harbor no hatred for marshmallow, pecans, sugar, chocolate or butter, you really, really need to try this brownie. The government might lie to you, but I certainly won’t.

First, get your ingredients together:

For the brownies:
6oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/3 c. cocoa powder (dutch processed, like most of you will probably already have in your cupboards)
1/2 tsp salt
3 c. sugar
5 large eggs
3/4 c pecans (honestly, I used a half cup because that was what was in the package, and they were just fine – also, this is totally optional, it will not affect the chemistry of the brownie if you hate nuts, just makes it less of a mississippi mud brownie and more of a…brownie.)
For the topping:
3/4 c. marshmallow creme/fluff/whatever they call it where you are
1/4 c. semisweet chocolate chips
2 tsp. vegetable oil
(for what it’s worth, I think you could use milk chocolate chips here and be just fine, and I’m also convinced a single teaspoon of oil would thin out the chocolate enough for drizzling, too. not only that, but if you hate marshmallows I think this would be a great place for a good rich buttercream (made with butter, not shortening!) spread very thin.)
First things first, let’s get that chocolate chopped. If you have the bars like I bought, terrific, grab a knife and make it look like this:

You might think, maybe I could chop mine in a more uniform fashion? Yes, you probably could. I’m not good at uniform chopping and I freely admit that I chopped mine with a dull knife on a wobbly board and a toddler underfoot, which are not the best conditions for concentration. But it’s all getting melted anyway, the idea behind chopping is that it allows the chocolate to melt at a steady pace, and as you can see, it’s chopped! Let’s move on.
Go ahead and preheat your oven to 325 degrees, with the rack set on the middle position. Grab a 13 x 9” baking dish and line it with aluminum foil with a little hanging over (so you can lift it out later) and spray with cooking spray.
Here is where the recipe calls for a double boiler setup to melt your chocolate and butter, like this:

And it works, but there are a few things I don’t like about this particular method. One, while my $5.99 Ikea double boiler insert here works like a charm in the right size pan, this pan is a bit large for it and so I had condensation not only along the the sides of the outside of the boiler, but it was building up on the inside as well. Condensation + melting chocolate – DANGER WILL ROBINSON, the two are just not meant to go together.
(breaking here for a second to say if you are unfamiliar with what exactly a double boiler is, it’s a small amount of water, half an inch in this case, in a pan set to a slight,steady simmer with another heatproof vessel ((a stainless steel bowl will work just as well if you have one)) set over it – but not touching the water – to allow for a dry, steady heat for melting delicate things like chocolate or heating dairy without scorching)
An episode of Good Eats that involved tempering chocolate had Alton melting chocolate with a heating pad sandwiched between two bowls. This is an ingenious idea and I may very well try it when I have two heatproof nesting bowls, but another alternative is the tried and true, ultra gourmet microwave method. Microwaving is the easiest of all of them, but it’s also a great way to burn your chocolate so make sure you take it slow and steady. I might even suggest melting the butter first and then stirring the chocolate in, maintaining the stirring until your chocolate is completely melted.
At any rate, your goal here is for your chocolate to look like this:

Smooth and glossy, but do yourself a favor and resist the urge to taste it. Unless you have a mirror nearby and you are watching your face while you do, because it’d be worth the expression. Unsweetened chocolate is just not delicious at all. If you choose the double boiler method, it should take you about 5-7 minutes total.
Take it off the heat and let it cool a bit while you combine the flour, cocoa and salt in a separate bowl. Feel free to whisk it if you’d like, I knew I’d be whisking the eggs and sugar shortly so I opted to just stir it around until it looked like this:

Once that’s done, in another bowl, whisk together your sugar and eggs. If I may make a suggestion? Add the 5 eggs in first and whisk to combine, add the sugar and then give it a thorough whisking. I put the sugar in first and made it unnecessarily hard on myself, so if you’re a masochist feel free to do it that way. I don’t think it matters so long as they are combined. Once it looks pretty uniform, whisk in your melted chocolate until again, thoroughly combined.

Now we get to add the flour. If you happen to have a bionic arm lying around, here’s a good time to put it to use. You’ll want to add the flour mixture in increments – I found three to be good and easy to keep track of. It is really, really important to make sure all of it is incorporated, so I recommend folding it in first, then stirring to combine, checking the bottom and sides to make sure no
streaks of flour are around. Repeat until you’ve got a thick, delicious batter and your arm leaves your body in protest. Fold in your pecans if you’ve chosen to use them and spread the whole mess into your prepared baking pan as evenly as you can.

Chuck it into the oven and bake until a toothpick comes out with a few wet crumbs. The recipe says about 35 minutes, in my oven it took 45, so you’ll want to start checking at 30 minutes and keep on in 5 or 10 minute intervals. The texture is intended to be dense, fudgy and moist, so overbaking is not your friend here. Set your pan on a wire rack to cool and get to work on the fun part:

Mmm. I can’t lie, I have a close-up of this on my hard drive in high res just because it was so fun to do and so pretty to look at. Here’s how you accomplish a similar result. Spoon the marshmallow cream over the brownies while they are still hot and let it sit for a few minutes to soften up and become spreadable. While that’s happening, you can go ahead and microwave the chocolate chips and the oil for about 30-40 seconds, stirring after to melt. If you have an offset spatula (best. thing. ever.) use it to spread the marshmallow cream evenly across the brownies. If you don’t, use a knife or spatula to do the same thing. Once you’ve got it looking the way you want it to, spoon up some of your melted chocolate and sling it back and forth over the top in whatever pattern pleases you most. Decorating is not my forte and so I have no advice for you other than that I started by drizzling off the end of the spoon and switched to a rapid slinging motion shortly after just because I liked the looks of it better. So it really is entirely up to you.
Let your incredible-looking masterpiece epiphany brownies cool, at the very least for 2 hours, then lift them out of the pan using the foil. Cut into squares and serve. (the recipe recommends 2” squares and I think that’s a reasonable guideline.) Makes about 18-24 brownies depending on how large you cut your squares.

Bon appetit!
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    <item>
        <title>Peanut Butter Cups</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/16/peanut-butter-cups-2/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/16/peanut-butter-cups-2/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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Warren, my husband, really likes Reese’s Cups. He will stick a bag of the miniatures in the freezer and only have one or two at a time, so it lasts him about a hundred years. I have no idea how he can do this, as I would eat one or two every 12 minutes or so, give or take a few seconds. So anyway, with the economy being as it is and some adjustments to our budget and another baby on the way, we opted not to do any Valentine’s Day presents this year, and instead of paying the babysitter and going to dinner and a movie, we ordered a pizza and watched a movie we already had instead.
Unfortunately, I am unable to not give presents of some sort on holidays. It’s necessary that I find some way to show my appreciation or else SOMETHING TERRIBLE WILL HAPPEN, I am sure of it. So, I thought, I have a cup candy mold from making Cupcake Bites (a post yet to be written), I have a toddler so there’s bound to be peanut butter, what on earth should I do? I know, I’ll make peanut butter cups! Genius, I tell you, sheer genius.
Guys, this turned out to be the easiest thing in the world. I looked at a few online recipes, decided none of them really worked for me and I might as well improvise, so I did and I call it a success. My success, let me share it with you.



Ingredients:


1/2 bag milk chocolate chips


1/4 cup creamy peanut butter, plus 2 tablespoons


2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar


1 sheet graham crackers, crushed fine



Tools:


A cup candy mold OR


Paper baking cups OR


Cupcake liners


Microwave-safe bowl


Spoon


Ziploc sandwich bag


Four ingredients! That’s it! Awesome, I know. Anyway, moving on, I mentioned three potential methods just in case you don’t have a candy mold and don’t want to buy one, and though I made one batch for Warren the day before Valentine’s, I only made twelve so I had quite a bit of the peanut butter mixture left over. Thus, for the purposes of this sharing time, I made another batch today using all three methods. I have to say, the candy mold set me back a whopping $1.50 at a local craft store (Roberts, for you Utahns) and it was significantly easier to use and the end results look much cleaner from it, so if you even think you might enjoy these and make them again it would be worth it to try to locate one of your own. Let’s get started, shall we?
The measurements listed here will net you the following amounts:
12 miniature cups (candy mold)
10-12 cups (mini muffin cups)
6-8 cups (cupcake liners)


First, pour about 1/4 of the bag into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Add one tablespoon of peanut butter and stir to melt and combine. Microwave for another 15 seconds to achieve a slightly runny texture if needed.

Once your chocolate is melted and combined, spoon into molds (cups, etc), roughly 3/4 teaspoon per cup. If it doesn’t look like enough, add more. This will be the sides and the foundation of your cup so too much chocolate is better than not enough.

Once all your cups have chocolate in them, use the back of your spoon to squish it up the sides of the cup, all the way to the top if you’re using a candy mold, about halfway to the top if you’re using mini cups, and about 1/3 of the way up on a regular cupcake liner. Swirl the remaining chocolate around the bottom if any parts look too thin.
If you’re using a mold, chuck it in the freezer for 10 minutes or so or until chocolate is solid. If you’re using paper cups, put them on a plate, tray or baking sheet first or you’ll make an unholy mess in your freezer. While that’s going on, let’s mix your peanut butter filling. Since I already had some made, I didn’t take any pictures, but grab a bowl and put your 1/2 cup of peanut butter in there. To be perfectly honest, I have issues with putting things like peanut butter in measuring cups, so I used the back of a large spoon and just threw what looked to be around 1/2 cup* in there. I really don’t think you need to be too exacting with this.  Once your peanut butter is in the bowl, add your 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar (or powdered sugar if that’s what you know it as) and your graham crackers. I should note I estimated the amount of sugar, too, since I just sprinkled in what looked to be around 1/4 cup*. I also added a pinch of kosher salt, just because I was trying to get something close to Reese’s and they have that faintly salty tang to balance out the sweetness. The graham crackers serve little to not purpose beyond textural -?” again, trying to copy those Reese’s cups. Stir to combine thoroughly, and then check the flavor/texture to see if it’s to your liking. If it is, throw it all in a ziploc sandwich bag and cut off a tip of one corner. Mine was around the size of a dime and worked like a charm. This is an easy, mess-free way of piping your filling into the cups. If you want to be fancy you could use a piping bag and tips but why bother? This way you just throw it away when you’re done.
(*I made a double batch)

By now your cups should be sufficiently chilled for filling. Remove them from the freezer, grab your ziploc and go to town.
You’re probably looking at about 1/2 tablespoon of filling per cup, but if you think that looks like too much, err on the side of caution. Don’t worry if it forms a peak, you’ll squish it down after you’ve got them all filled. This looks vaguely unappealing, doesn’t it? But it’s delicious, I swear, despite looking just a little bit like baby poop.

When your filling is all piped in, grab a spoon and smooth the peaks down, forming as flat a surface as possible. It’s totally fine if there’s a dip in the center, the idea is just to make sure there’s room for more chocolate on the top. If you happen to be like me and have a toddler in your household, no doubt you’ve got one or two plastic baby spoons hanging around. Those are so great for getting the chocolate on the sides of the cup and again for squishing down the peanut butter, they’re just the right size. But a regular spoon will do the job, too. Precision is not mandatory here.

Here’s where we repeat step one. I used the same bowl as before because, well, I’m lazy. Chuck another 1/4 of the bag of chocolate chips in the microwave for 60 seconds, add a tablespoon of peanut butter, stir to combine, give it another 15 if it isn’t runny enough. (an interesting sidenote, because of the oils in the peanut butter, it assists in smoothing and thinning the chocolate for coating. it also tastes amazing.) Now you’re going to spoon at least a teaspoon into each cup, adding more if you think it won’t cover. Err on the side of caution here – you can always add more chocolate if it needs it after you’ve done the smoothing, it’s significantly more difficult to try to remove it if you add too much.  Go ahead and smooth out your chocolate once you’ve added it all, and don’t worry if it’s not perfect. You can’t be expected to compete with a machine whose sole function is to stamp out chocolates. I suppose you could use a ruler or a pastry scraper on the candy molds to make them flat but I don’t actually own either of those things, so mine look homemade. I cry about it at night, I really do.

Now they go back in the freezer for another 15 minutes at the very least. I actually store mine in the freezer because, well, they’re just better when they’re cold, and the chocolate doesn’t melt as fast. Speaking of melting chocolate, we’re doing something of a shortcut here. Chocolate chips are tempered when you buy them, and they can go out of temper if you get them too hot, which won’t allow them to set and you’ll just have a mess of peanut butter and chocolate. When you’re microwaving, you want your chips to hold their shape but melt when stirred. This will keep your chocolate in temper and everyone is happy.  So anyway, once your cups have chilled sufficiently, bite into one and enjoy. You may notice that mine appears to not be filled with peanut butter, and you would get points for being observant. I ran out of peanut butter on the last big cup and threw some marshmallow creme in there instead. I suspect that with a little butter, a little honey and some toasted coconut, that would be something very tasty reminiscent of a Mallo Cup. Mmm. Mallo Cups.
And now this heavily pregnant woman is going to bed. Happy belated Valentine’s Day!
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    <item>
        <title>Lemon Cream and Blackberry Tartlets</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/28/lemon-cream-and-blackberry-tartlets/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/28/lemon-cream-and-blackberry-tartlets/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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Delicious, but not quite what I was after, these tart shells are extremely versatile for either a sweet or savory filling, and while the lemon cream was fluffy, creamy and lemony, I think it could be put to better use elsewhere, like in a full-sized pie. Similarly, though the blackberry sauce is tasty, in the sauce-making process it lost the tartness I think the lemon needed to balance it out. That said, these are still very good and not very complicated, so I thought I’d share it all the same.

Though I am calling this recipe mine, it is comprised (like most recipes) of pieces of others. These shells actually belong to a recipe for Pecan Delights that my dad sent me 3 years ago, which are ridiculously tasty, but I’m the only one in this household who likes pecan pie. (it’s wrong, I tell you. Just wrong.)
 

 




Tart shells:     1 standard muffin tin      1 stick of butter       1 cup of flour       4 oz cream cheese       1 Tbsp. sugar       Pinch of salt (fyi, a pinch is generally 1/8 tsp) 



Cream the cheese and butter until fluffy, then add the sugar, salt and flour.

Mix well and divide into 12 equal parts. Place each part inside muffin tin and conform to shape.
Bake at 350F for 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 250 and cook for 10-15 more minutes. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack. I let mine cool for very nearly half the day, as I wanted them at room temperature before filling, but a quick visit to the fridge would accomplish that much faster.
(for what it’s worth, my idea of 12 equal parts was to spoon up some and roll it into balls that looked roughly uniform. remember, though, that baking is a science and theoretically we should all be weighing each ball to make sure they are equal. i should also be drinking 8 glasses of water a day, exercising and spending less time on the internet though, so balls to that. Roughly uniform size it is!)


Deviating from the recipe, after I shaped the shells I used some egg white to wash the edges, because I like that glossy look on pastry dough. It’s personal preference though – if you want to do it, just put an egg white into a bowl, beat it a little, and brush it on with whatever you have handy that can perform the function of a pastry brush. In my case, it was a cheap paintbrush from an unopened package of watercolors. Hey, it worked for me.

Another thing worth noting is that since I’m adapting this recipe – the original bakes with a filling, and I just want the shells – mistakes were apt to be made and they were. You need to poke holes in the bottom of the shell with a fork and/or fill with pie weights/dried beans, otherwise the centers will puff like any puff pastry will when the steam can’t escape or isn’t weighted.






Blackberry sauce: (adapted from Mark Bittman’s fruit sauce recipe in How To Cook Everything, which I totally need to buy)     1 c blackberries      2 Tbsp butter       1/4 c sugar       1/8 tsp arrowroot powder 



Melt butter and sugar over medium heat until syrupy but not browned.

Add in your berries and continue simmering for 2-3 minutes (I let mine simmer for closer to 5-8 with no harm done) or until berries are soft and juice has given way.

Smash berries with the back of a spoon or ladle into a fine mesh sieve to gey all the juicy goodness out and discard the remains. I deviated from the recipe here because I was unhappy with the thickness of the sauce. I knew refrigeration would give it a little more bulk but I was still afraid it would be too thin, and I think I was on target there.
I took about 1/4 cup of the juice out after it had cooled a bit and made a slurry with the 1/8 tsp of arrowroot powder (it’s a pure starch like cornstarch, but with a finer texture, more neutral flavor, and generally plays a bit nicer with food than cornstarch does – feel free to wiki it!) and added it back in, chucked it back over medium heat while whisking for a few minutes, and then took it back off to cool again. This gave me a more pleasing texture and thickness, but I still put it in the fridge for about 3 hours.

After everything was cooled to my satisfaction, I took the blackberry sauce out of the fridge and once again using those handy toddler spoons placed about 1/2 tsp of the sauce in each of the tart shells, spreading it around so that the surface was covered. Placed the shells on a plate, covered with foil, back into the fridge while I whipped up – quite literally, actually – the lemon cream.



Lemon cream: (adapted from The Love Bite)     Zest of 2 Meyer lemons      2 tsp lemon juice       8oz cream cheese       1 c confectioner’s sugar       1/4 c heavy whipping cream 


(You’ll notice there are no process-of pics for the cream. Yeah, I was making dinner at the same time and, uh, forgot. You try multitasking at 7 months pregnant. My brain, it doesn’t work so good. ) 
In a stand or with a handheld mixer, whip the heavy cream, cream cheese and lemon zest until combined and fluffy. Add the confectioner’s sugar and whip to combine. Add the lemon juice and continue whipping for 2-3 minutes. Texture should be light and rich. Chill in the fridge for 2-3 hours for best results, or freeze for 20 minutes. Basically, you want it to be cold and a bit firm. Once your cream is appropriately chilled, grab your tarts, your cream and a ziploc bag/piping bag and tip and prepare for fun. If you’re using the piping bag you already know what to do, else you wouldn’t own a piping bag.
For the rest of us, there’s a Ziploc sandwich bag with the corner cut off – I cut mine at about 1/4". Add some cream in there (just a note, I had a ton left over, if you’re only making 12 consider halving the recipe), seal it up, cut off your corner, squeeze the air out from the top down, and pipe the cream onto the blackberry sauce however you see fit.
When you’re done, take a bite and see if you like it. If you do, have another. If you don’t, there are always friends, neighbors and relatives to foist them on. You could garnish with a little more zest, or with candied lemon peel, or a mint leaf, or any other type of thing, if you were so inclined.
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    <item>
        <title>Tortellini with Brown Butter and Sage</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/28/tortellini-with-brown-butter-and-sage/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/02/28/tortellini-with-brown-butter-and-sage/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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Recipe courtesy of Serious Eats

As an extreme novice home chef, I’ve been generally operating under the concept that the more complicated and time-consuming the recipe is, the more I’ll learn from it. Mark Bittman, aka The Minimalist, from the New York Times tells me I’m a moron and I can accept and partially agree with that. I still feel like if  a recipe is too simple, or too easy to prepare, it’s a copout of some kind, but in the interest of making sure my kid eats what we do (to try to encourage an adventurous palate) and feeding the one I’m pregnant with more than just Otter Pops and Doritos, I’ve been trying to add simple, fast recipes to my Bi-Monthly Menu of Doom. The past two weeks have featured more of the fast pastas, soups and this is one of them.
 
 


You will need: (for 3 servings)
3 servings fresh or frozen tortellini (the bag I used had 3.5 servings) 
4-5 Tbsp. butter 
13-16 fresh sage leaves 
Lemon juice to taste 
Black pepper to taste 
Pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter) 
Parmesan cheese (optional) 

Slice up your sage leaves into strips or leave them alone, as far as I know it’s purely aesthetic. To share my experience with you, let me tell you that I first tried to slice these with a serrated knife, and it doesn’t really work like that, it just tears the leaves up. A paring knife proved to be perfect for the task.
 

Boil your pasta according to the directions. If you happen to be using the awesome SuperTarget store brand like I am, it’s 3-5 minutes. I went ahead and put the butter on at this point to start browning, but in reality you could do it about when the water hits a simmer and the two would time out damn near perfectly.
 

Maybe it’s just the South in me, but bubbling butter looks so pretty to me. You should be melting your butter over medium heat in a small skillet of some variety – stainless steel or some other non-dark material may be easiest so you can see when the butter starts to brown. You don’t want to to get dark or else you’ll hit beurre noir territory and that’s not really what we’re going for here.
 

You can see it’s gotten darker here, and the bits of milk solids on the pan have browned. It’s a thin line now, I left mine on just a tiny bit longer before removing it from the heat, but I think you could safely do so if yours looks like this photo.
 

The finished product. See the brown bits in the bottom? Delicious browned milk solids. After you remove your skillet from the heat, add your sage leaves and allow them to fry a bit in the butter, until they’re crispy. Add your lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste here as well.
 

Pour your sauce over your tortellini and add parmesan if you choose to. Stir it up and serve. This whole process should take you less than 10 minutes start to finish – we chose to have ours with a salad on the side and it was delicious, nutty & flavorful. I wouldn’t call it a subtle flavor but if you are used to the boldness of a tomato sauce or the richness of an alfredo-style sauce, it may take your taste buds a minute or two to get used to it. Definitely a keeper recipe for us.
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    <item>
        <title>Bakerella’s Cupcake Bites</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/10/bakerellas-cupcake-bites/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/10/bakerellas-cupcake-bites/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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Adapted from Bakerella

(slightly unrelated note: the next batch of posts are not being posted in the order in which they were created; I have a bunch of backlogged photos and mini-posts from Facebook of all places that I’m transporting here. ) 
Just look at those things. When I ran across Bakerella’s blog for the first time I sat and stared in awe at the completely adorable treats she manages to produce time and time again. In fact, you should go there right now and look at these Snow Globe Coca-Cola Cupcakes. As someone who consistently fails at cupcakes (I don’t know why, I really don’t) I just love looking at the edible art other people seem to be capable of creating. 
Anyway, I believe it’s reasonable to say that her Cake Pops and subsequent Cake Bites have earned her a special place in the dessert world and the recipe is so easy it’s almost ridiculous, so I tried them out to give to friends who were gathering shortly before Valentine’s Day. What I greatly underestimated was the volume and the time involved in their creation. 
 
There are three basic ingredients: 
1 box of cake mix
1 tin of frosting
Candy melts and/or chocolate/almond bark
 
And one very useful tool:
Mini peanut butter cup candy mold
 
In my case, I had a box of white cake mix leftover from my when my Dad made my wedding cake, and I thought some cherry frosting would be festive considering the upcoming holiday. The trick to the cake balls is using the right ratio of cake to frosting, and I did it wrong. First you bake the cake and let it cool. Then you crumble it all up in a bowl, and add the frosting. It makes like a dough, but it’s cooked. Well, you should really add the frosting in segments and keep checking the texture, because I just dumped the whole tin in and I had a sticky, gloppy mess. I managed to make it work anyway by chucking it in the fridge for a few hours, because you have to roll the mixture into little balls and I am not kidding about the sticky, gloppy mess part.  Anyway. 

Once mine were all rolled, I stuck them in the freezer while I melted the chocolate bark in the microwave. When it had melted, I used a spoon to transfer some into each cup mold – enough to hold the cake ball in place and take the shape of the cup. Once the cake balls were in, they went back into the freezer for a few minutes to set. 5 minutes or so later, I took them out of the freezer, gently wiggled them out of the molds, and repeated the process what felt like a million times. 
Next up, I melted the white almond bark – I thought it would be cheaper than candy melts but it actually wasn’t, they are priced roughly the same. Holding the cake ball by the candy bottom, I dipped the tops into the bark and used a small spoon to fill in any missing spots

I only topped 6 at a time so that I could get the decorations on before the bark set. If you manage more than that, you are more awesome than I am.  Also, it should be noted that this recipe makes A METRIC BUTTLOAD so I hope you have an event or a lot of friends to give these to. Think I’m kidding? Let me show you another picture. 

Yeah, I wasn’t. I think I had something like 55 of them. You may also notice that the Hershey’s Kissables I used as decoration on some of them, particularly the pale pink ones, make these look alarmingly breast-like. Now, there’s nothing wrong with boobs but I’ve never particularly wanted to eat one. Luckily Warren came home from work and pointed this out to me so that I could place the remainder at an angle instead. 
Overall, I’m really happy with how they turned out and the idea is absolute genius, because they are so cute I could just hug them. I will say, whether it’s the cake balls themselves or the combination with the candy or the frosting I used, they were painfully sweet to me. The flavor under the sugar was nice, but I absolutely could not get beyond the sweetness. Can someone who has made them using the red velvet cake with the cream cheese frosting verify whether this is the expected result or if mine were just the wrong combo?
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    <item>
        <title>Caldo Gallego</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/10/caldo-gallego/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/10/caldo-gallego/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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from Spain.On The Road Again

So simple, so delicious. This was a great find that I found through The Crepes of Wrath, who got it from Seasonal Eats, who got it from Serious Eats who picked it up from Spain.On The Road Again, which Mario Batali is on, and I love Mario Batali in a totally platonic, foodie crush way. It’s too easy and too flavorful not to make, so you should just go ahead and jot down the ingredients now so you can pick them up at the store to make tomorrow for dinner. It’s OK, you can thank me later.

(Serves about 2-4)
- 1/4 pound thickly sliced pancetta or slab bacon, cut into 1/4-inch dice
- 1 15oz can of white beans, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 large onion, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1 baking (russet) potato, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1 turnip, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1/4 pound Spanish chorizo, casings removed and sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 1/2 pound kale, stemmed and coarsely chopped

This was my first experience with chorizo, kale and turnips, so it was pretty adventurous. I’ve never even looked at greens outside of romaine and iceberg at le grocery store, in fact, so it was an experience to discover so many kinds. But come on, it couldn’t be an easier soup and I really love both soup and easy.
In a large pot, fry up your bacon over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the fat is rendered. Add the onion, potato and turnip and enough water to cover all of it, and simmer for 20 or so minutes until tender but not crumbling.

Chuck your beans, chorizo and greens into the pot of awesome and keep on simmering until the greens are tender, then season with salt and pepper. Ours, you may note in the first photo, was served with the $0.99 cent asiago demi loaf from Le Target that had been ovenized for a bit to harden the crust.
A few interesting facts that you may not have known:
- Turnips are a member of the cabbage family.
- Kale is also a member of the cabbage family.
-Siberian kale has flat leaves. Lacinato, as pictured above, has more textured leaves.
I’m here to inform!
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    <item>
        <title>Matambre</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/13/matambre/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/13/matambre/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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Recipe adapted from Mark Bittman
What the hell is matambre?

As it happens, I asked myself the same question when I first ran across a recipe for it. Saveur’s version calls it “Vegetable-Stuffed Rolled Flank Steak” which conveniently enough is exactly what matambre is: a giant slab of beef loaded with veggies and rolled up. According to the internet this is an Argentinian dish that has been around for a long time. I was all set to make Saveur’s recipe when I was menu planning two weeks ago, but I had picked up Mark Bittman’s “How To Cook Everything” and he had a recipe too, and one a bit less complicated than Saveur’s.

1 flank steak, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lbs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh marjoram or oregano leaves or 1/2 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 bunch fresh parsley or 1/2 bunch parsley and 1/2 bunch cilantro
3 medium carrots, cut lengthwise into quarters
6 strips roasted red peppers
3 slices provolone cheese, cut into strips
1 large red or white onion, cut into chunks,
1 bunch spinach, watercress, or arugula, well washed and chipped
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1. Heat the oven to 375F. Butterfly the flank steak: Using a long, sharp knife, cut the steak almost in half with the grain, then flip it open, like a book. Sprinkle with salt and pepper on both sides, then turn it cut side up, wide side facing you. Sprinkle with the marjoram, cumin and garlic and cover it with a layer of the parsley. Then arrange the carrots, peppers, provolone, and onion in vertical rows, making 2 rows of each — you won’t have enough to make rows across the entire steak because you need a couple inches free to make it into a neat roll. Scatter a relatively even layer of spinach over all.
2. Roll the whole thing up like a jelly roll: Start with the narrow side; the grain of the steak should run the length of the roll. Tie in 3 or 4 places with butcher’s twine. Put the olive oil in a Dutch oven or roasting pan large enough to accommodate the rolled steak over medium-high heat. When hot, deeply brown the steak on all sides, about 15 minutes, and then transfer the pan to the oven and roast for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, until the meat is tender to the touch.
3. Transfer to a cutting board or a clean baking dish and let it rest for 30 minutes  — it will be too hot out of the oven. Slice into 1/2 to 1″ pieces and serve.

It’s amazing how those menus are working out, 15 days later and I still have one dish to make, and there were only 8 on the menu. Anyway.
So, knowing that it would take effort I chucked the flank steak in the freezer until I ran out of easier things to make and that turned out to be today. So, after defrosting in the fridge overnight, I got to work on the first step: butterflying the meat.

I’m not sure what part of my brain thought, oh hey, this will be cake, but whatever it was, it was wrong. I am pretty sure I chose a bad knife for it, and I also had no idea what I was doing. Warren had to stop me from overanalyzing what “with the grain” meant, which is sad on many levels. At any rate, I should have had one long, rectagular piece of meat with a fairly even thickness, and instead I had a thick side and a mangled side. You work with what you’ve got though, so I moved on.*
(*after watching a few videos, I now see that I did it completely wrong. next time I will research BEFORE attempting a new technique instead of after.)

Carrots, onions, garlic, Italian parsley, baby spinach and a cleaver. Not pictured: provolone, roasted red peppers, cumin, salt, oregano and black pepper.
Both recipes, in fact I suspect all of them if they’re claiming to be traditional, call for carrots, spinach and hard-boiled eggs. I’m with Mark Bittman on this, the idea of eggs in my meat just doesn’t work at all for me, so I substituted roasted red peppers and some provolone instead (I read…somewhere, can’t remember, that someone had used provolone and thought that sounded like a good idea.). If you ask me, the garlic is absolutely crucial, it soaks through the meat and just, man, so good.

Your meat, after seasoning, should look like this. No comments on my incredible garlic mincing skills, please, or I will just assume you’re jealous.

Your meat, layered as follows: parsley, alternating rows of carrots and onions, topped with provolone and roasted red peppers. You don’t want to stuff it too full or it won’t roll, but you want it to have enough that it gives that lovely pinwheel effect when you slice it.

Mine, for instance, could have used more spinach and parsley. The spinach is supposed to help hold all of the rest of it inside.

Roll it up, starting from the short side top, and tie it with cooking twine. This was easily the hardest part for me and one for which I can tell I have no natural aptitude. In theory, this would have been a nice tight roll with the veggies and greens evenly distributed and neatly covered all the way around by the meat. But, again, I was thwarted by the not-good job I did with the butterflying and I think I had my carrots and onions packed too close together. Whatever, anyway.

Chuck it in the dutch oven or other large cooking vessel to brown on all sides. Though Bittman says 15 minutes, it certainly did not take me that long, which probably means my heat was too high.

The outside of mine was a little overdone, and by a little I mean it was nearly jerky level, the insides however were just dandy. An hour and a half in the oven at 375 will net you a similar result. Next time I will take it out at the hour mark and see if it keeps the outsides a little more moist. You have to let it rest for 30 minutes and let me tell you, my dog wanted so badly for me to leave the room just long enough for her to snatch it off the cutting board. And she would have, too, and would have considered any burns worth her time.
All in all, it really wasn’t overly complicated or fussy to make, and definitely a learning experience. I am really impressed with how well this cut takes to both roasting and garlic, and I think there’s a lot you could do with the rolling technique – chard, broccoli rabe, any greens, with some shallots and smoked gouda. Oh my. Anyway, it’ll be a nice change from traditional roasts every now and then.
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    <item>
        <title>Fire hazards</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/19/fire-hazards/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/19/fire-hazards/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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Sometimes, it’s just best to acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. I frequently look outside at that big, hulking machinery known as a gas grill and think, “You know, I should learn to use that.”
And then I remember how I set the fireplace mantle on fire (pro tip: taper candles next to fresh garland is a Very Bad Idea, especially when copious amounts of festively-themed liquor have been consumed) – and at our housewarming party no less, which has a definite tinge of hilarity – and how I set a potholder on fire (pro tip: make a note of which burner you turn on before you turn your back) and then there was that time back in high school when I fell asleep with candles burning and the candleholders caught on fire…
…and I think maybe, maybe I should just leave the grill to the less accident-prone.

And so instead of writing about my backlogged recipes, like the Sole a la Grenobloise from Monday, I’m not writing anything at all, because I let someone else do all the work for me tonight. Being married is awesome.
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    <item>
        <title>A Series of Failures, Part One.</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/21/a-series-of-failures-part-one/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/21/a-series-of-failures-part-one/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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The more gentle-minded may be inclined to say that it’s not failure, it’s learning, but let’s be honest: when the end result is not good, it’s a failure no matter how much you picked up in the process. A string of bad luck has made me very glad that tonight was taco night and even though it was a new recipe, you just can’t screw up tacos. They’re like a fancier peanut butter and jelly sandwich, especially when you grill the meat  (or in my case, have someone else grill the meat for you so your house, dog, child or person does not catch on fire in the process).
But before I get to that, let’s go ahead and address the failures since they are sitting in my Flickr, waiting to be discussed on the internet by people just like me who are still new to this whole cooking/baking thing and still have to google the appropriate way to slice an onion (honestly, the knife skills class I’m taking at the end of the month cannot get here soon enough).  
 
First up, pasta all’Amatriciana last night. I should clarify that this wasn’t an actual failure as I don’t think I did anything wrong in the cooking, it was more of a failure of understanding the limitations of both my nostrils and my tastebuds. I learned a valuable lesson about reading comprehension to boot. 
I actually have pasta alla Gricia written on my Bi-Monthly Menu of Doom, because this recipe caught my eye during my daily read and I thought, hey, authentic Roman pasta dish? Neat! It used a meat I had never heard of nor seen though I knew that Liberty Heights Fresh sold Salumi meats since my pancetta comes from there. Plus I would get to run around saying guanciale for a few days, and that’s always fun. The fact that it was PORK JOWL didn’t seem to trigger any red flags for me, probably because it was grouped with pancetta and proscuitto, which I love. Apparently the description as “piggy” didn’t register either because I continued to look forward to making this dish even after I went to 6 different stores looking for bucatini. 
The day I chose to make the recipe, I got a little concerned, finally, about relying so heavily on a meat I was unfamiliar with to flavor an entire meal, and I knew I had a can of good quality tomatoes in the cupboard, so I went with the all’Amatriciana and dug up a recipe in the NY Times. I still didn’t find any bucatini though I did grab some perciatelli which, as far as I can tell, is for all practical purposes the same thing. I was so frustrated that I ended up picking up a pasta that just looked pretty – spinach garganelli in this case – and made it instead. 
From the second I put that guanciale in the pan to saute, I knew I was in trouble. Internet, I grew up next to a farm that had pigs, I am overly familiar with the smell of pig and this? This smelled overwhelmingly of pig. Not pork, oh no, pork is a delicious smell. This literally smells like you shoved your nose against a filthy hog and inhaled deeply. And worse, being 8 months pregnant, your nose is so sensitive to smell anyway that I had a hard time just keeping lunch down while I was making it. But you know, there are plenty of delicious foods that smell terrible – salmon and cabbage, to name a few – so I trucked on. 
We ate salad for dinner. It tasted like it smelled – worse, the taste came forward after you swallowed, so you were teased with tasty tomato sauce, and left with greasy pig. I was so disappointed, but you know, now I know that my palate is just not sophisticated enough to appreciate guanciale and apparently neither is my husband’s. My 2 year old didn’t seem to have a problem with it though. 
 
The failure revolving around this whole lemon tart from Smitten Kitchen will be chronicled tomorrow. For now, I’ll leave you with a photo and the link to tonight’s delicious taco and salsa dinner, which was not a failure:
 

Grilled Skirt Steak Tacos with Caramelized Onions and Roasted Tomatillo Salsa, which we served up with some refried beans and added some roasted red peppers and shredded sharp cheddar and Monterey jack cheese to the tacos themselves.
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    <item>
        <title>A Series of Failures, Part Two.</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/24/a-series-of-failures-part-two/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/24/a-series-of-failures-part-two/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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Sole a la Grenobloise – Saveur
We could categorize the fact that I haven’t posted in 3 days as a failure as well, but I’m trying to be nicer to myself – if you had this kind of wicked awful heartburn, you wouldn’t want to sit here and type about food, either.  But in addition to the lemon tart, I think the Sole a la Grenobloise needs to be discussed as well, because like the tart it was really only a partial failure.
 

 
 
The recipe itself is really quite simple despite the fancy name – and if we’re being honest, I love the fancy name, I’m 89% convinced the fancy name improves the taste somehow, just like Tar-ghey makes Target more than just a slightly upscale Walmart – but the problem is that while the recipe is simple, and fast, especially for something coming from Saveur, it does require clarified butter and if you have never made any I am here to tell you DO NOT TRY SHORTCUTS. 
2 whole skinless sole filets (about 4 oz. each),           halved lengthwise down center line        Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper            to taste        1?4 cup milk        1 lemon, peeled        1?2 cup flour        2 tbsp. clarified butter        2 tbsp. unsalted butter        2 tsp. capers, drained        2 tsp. coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley        
1. Season sole filets with salt and pepper; put them into a shallow dish. Cover with milk; set aside.
2. Using a knife, cut white pith away from lemon; remove segments by slicing between membranes. Cut half the segments into 1?2" pieces. (Reserve the other half for another use.) Put flour on a plate; season with salt and pepper; set aside.
3. Heat clarified butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove filets from milk; fold the thin, tapered ends under to create an even thickness. Dredge both sides in flour, shake off excess, and add to skillet. Cook, turning once, until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to plates; cover with foil to keep warm.
4. Add whole butter to skillet; cook, stirring, until it turns a deep brown and smells nutty, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in lemon pieces, capers, and parsley; swirl skillet to combine. Spoon sauce over sole. Serve immediately.
My first obstacle was that my grocery store did not have two 4oz sole filets – they had 4 2oz filets, so that’s what I got. Second, they were quite narrow to begin with so I did not halve them lengthwise. This put me into a mild panic already as I do not cope well with deviating from a new recipe. Third or fourth time I make something, sure, I can fiddle with it. First time? It transforms me into someone, well, let’s just say even the dog leaves the room when things go awry for me with a first-time recipe. I just know my limitations in the kitchen, that’s all. 

Actually, let me go back. The smaller filets is actually the second obstacle, the first is that I do not eat fish. I probably haven’t touched anything outside of tuna salad in a good decade, possibly longer. You might rightfully wonder why on earth I’d make a fish dish and the answer is that I am testing my limits and acknowledging that a lot of the food I “don’t eat” has less to do with what I know I don’t like and more to do with what I think I don’t like. For instance, I “don’t eat” guacamole and yet I could not tell you for certain if I’ve ever had any. So in this case, I did some research, read that white fishes are mild in that fishy flavor, and found this recipe which is essentially piccata without the white wine. 

 
So now that we’re back to obstacles, let me tell you about my experience with clarified butter: I once saw Alton Brown make it. That’s it. But I remembered that it looked easy enough so it didn’t worry me until I looked up how to do it* and realized that it didn’t fit into my time schedule at all. I also don’t seem to have a fine mesh sieve which I can guarantee you will be rectified in no time at all nor do I have any talent or know-how when it comes to skimming, well, anything. So I tried just melting 2 tbsp of butter in a Pyrex cup and “straining” it through a coffee filter. This did not work out as well as I had hoped. And by hoped I mean at all. 
(* – there are several methods to clarify butter, nearly all of which are mentioned in the comments, but the cooking for engineers site tickles me so much I had to go with it) 

I try to be June Cleaver and have dinner on the table by 7 and almost always greatly underestimate how much time I’m going to need for prep. I managed to get it on the table in the neighborhood of 7 but there were casualties – namely, two of the filets. I didn’t have enough butter in the skillet and in addition to that, the milk fats I didn’t get out of the butter burned onto the pan, so the second set were not so much golden brown and delicious as they were scorched and falling apart. My son, being two, was kind enough to eat the shredded mess of one of them and my husband liked the sauce enough to eat the second. 
The recipe itself is delicious, and the fish is light, flaky and fall-apart tender. I served mine with roasted red potatoes and steamed broccoli, both only lightly seasoned with salt and pepper since the fish was taking center stage.
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    <item>
        <title>Lasagne Verdi al Forno – March Daring Bakers Challenge</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/28/lasagne-verdi-al-forno-march-daring-bakers-challenge/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/03/28/lasagne-verdi-al-forno-march-daring-bakers-challenge/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Honest to God, it’s hard to know where to start. I joined the Daring Bakers to expand my horizons and this? This was my first challenge – spinach pasta with ragu and béchamel. 
BWA?! 
OK, first, I’ve never made pasta, ever. It has many components that have always intimidated me, like kneading, rolling and cutting. Second, my little experiences with béchamel have been…woeful. Woeful is a good word. Third, the closest I’ve come to a ragu is a few tries at bolognese and while they are moderately similar, they are not at all the same.  Also, I was expecting something more along the lines of, say, dessert. 
But a challenge is a challenge is a challenge, thus began my journey into two days of hard, hard work. 
 

(entire recipe will be included at the bottom of this post.)
 
The first part to be tackled was the pasta itself.
I started my pasta the night before, just to give me a little breathing room. I am exceedingly grateful for my own sense of caution because this took forever.  Part of the challenge was making the pasta, and I decided to really tackle the challenging by mixing, kneading and rolling it all by hand in the spirit of it all. I will not be so naive in the future, you can trust me there. 
You start by making a well on a large surface with your flour – basically a big hill, and then dig an indention in the middle. Fill it with spinach and top with eggs, like a little edible volcano:

Next you want to beat your eggs, then beat the spinach into the eggs, then gradually add the flour from the sides, reshaping your well as you go. I did this with a wooden spoon and used my hand to hold the flour up.


Here’s where my first obstacle occured, and it’s such a shame because I was feeling so cocky about how it all looked. My flour/egg/spinach dough forming in the middle became way too dry. In my previous picture you’ll note I used three eggs when the recipe called for two – it’s because I couldn’t get a small package of jumbo eggs and I already had a dozen large eggs. At this step, I added another egg because, well, it just wasn’t coming together like it seemed it should. While it helped, I think I could have maybe used one or two more, because in order to get all that flour in, I spent the next 30 minutes squeezing, shaping, squeezing, shaping, and finally kneading, trying desperately to get everything worked in so that my ball of dough felt “alive” beneath my hands. Mostly it still felt like dough, but I finally got to the point where it was good enough. I wrapped it in saran wrap, chucked it on top of the coffee pot so my dog wouldn’t eat it, and let it rest until morning. 

 
I should also note that I did this over Saturday night/all day Sunday so that my husband could watch over Grey, and I’m glad I did because it required virtually all of my concentration. 
So Sunday morning I have my coffee, my breakfast, my sales ads, then I tackle the dreaded rolling. I can really see where a French rolling pin would be practical here because I had great difficulty with my standard rolling pin keeping the thickness to an even level.

The recipe stresses that your lasagne should be as thin as possible, like sheets of paper thin, and I found this extraordinarily difficult to do by hand. I had a lot of holy scraps that got chucked from the process of trying to get it that thin, and I didn’t have nearly the amount of layers as some of the other DBers squeezed out of their dough. 

 
I did, at least, manage to get it thin enough to be transparent when backlit, so hey, that’s something. Rolling it all out and cutting it into sections (which were too small for my pan, should’ve made an 8×8 instead of 9 x 13) and draping it over chairbacks to dry probably took somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 hours. Let me just mention again that I’m 8 months pregnant and how much fun it is to be on my feet for long periods of time. On hardwood. Barefoot.  Anyway, dried and stacked looks like this:

I’m not sure that’s precisely how they’re supposed to look, but that’s what mine looked like. I’m actually pretty pleased with how thin I managed to get them considering my potentially over-dry dough and my rolling inexperience.
Moving on, the next step for me (almost immediately following the pasta rolling) was the ragu. I stuck with the recipe that was included with the challenge, which was a ‘country’ ragu – a meat sauce made out of mirepoix, pancetta, proscuitto, veal, pork loin and skirt steak, with a bit of tomato and some cream. 

Your proscuitto, veal, pork loin  and skirt steak, as pictured in order above, get tossed into the food processor for a coarse grind. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned before how much I absolutely loathe handling meat so this was especially enjoyable, particularly the veal since I am not much of a fan of the flavor and in addition, it has one of the most disgusting textures I’ve ever had the misfortune of experiencing. Gross. 
The pancetta, in turn, gets chopped along with celery, onions and carrots to go into mirepoix, which by the way has the most fabulous smell of just about anything you can chuck into hot oil. 

I don’t know what it is about celery but the smell of it cooking just fills me with joy. I’m not sure it has anything at all to do with taste, but just the smell…man, I love things that smell good. You know, as opposed to things that smell terrible. Like giancuale. No, I still haven’t recovered from that and I will not let it go. 
I deviated a tiny, tiny bit here and kept everything in a single pan – I deglazed and reduced the wine in my dutch oven while the browned meats were hanging out in the strainer instead of transferring it to a skillet. I don’t think it had any negative inpact. What DID have a negative impact was me getting impatient and not letting my dairy heat slowly, so it curdled when I added it into the sauce.  It still tasted fine, but it looked revolting. Lucky for you I don’t have a picture. 
The béchamel was relatively simple and I was actually really pleased with how it turned out, but I had a great deal of difficulty in terms of knowing how thick a béchamel should be. I still don’t know the answer, is it a thin sauce or a thick one? How do you determine when its done? I cooked mine long beyond the recipe’s given timeline, and it looked OK on the lasagne, tasted fine and I had enough, so I have no idea. Sauces are hard. 
My husband went ahead and fed my son at this point, since it was close to 8 and we usually put him down for the night at 8, and the lasagne still had to be assembled and baked. The dried noodles are supposed to be cooked for a few minutes, then shocked in cold water to keep them from getting overcooked and too soft, and I failed to remember the shocking part until several noodles in. I also only barely had enough noodles for three full layers – I had to use some creative arranging techniques to accomplish that.

 
As you can see here though, it certainly looks OK. Though I think traditional American-style lasagne is more visually appealing (tomato sauce, browned cheese, om nom nom) this is definitely pretty. And when you slice into it, it gets even more lovely:

 
With the bechamel and the melted romano, and the green pasta and the tomato peeking out in the ragu, I think aesthetically it can compete with Americanized lasagne. Flavorwise, though, I think I have to go with ours. There is a delicacy of flavors here that I think is worth trying, but I found the veal overwhelming in the ragu. The bechamel is a great touch though, especially since I’m not a big ricotta/cottage cheese fan, and it may be worth giving that a shot in a good ol’ tomatoey-ground beef/sausage heart attack lasagne someday.  Texturally it blends in a lovely way, the pasta itself was quite good, almost silky. 
But for 16 hours of labor? Give me a Stouffer’s. 
 

All recipes below from The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (published by William Morrow and Company Inc., 1992). 
Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna (Lasagne Verdi al Forno)
(Serves 8 to 10 as a first course, 6 to 8 as a main dish)
Preparation Time: 15 minutes to assemble and 40 minutes cooking time
10 quarts (9 litres) salted water1 recipe Spinach Pasta cut for lasagna (recipe follows)#1
1 recipe Bechamel Sauce (recipe follows)#2
1 recipe Country Style Ragu (recipe follows)#3
1 cup (4 ounces/125g) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Method
Working Ahead:
The ragu and the béchamel sauce can be made up to three days ahead. The ragu can also be frozen for up to one month. The pasta can be rolled out, cut and dried up to 24 hours before cooking. The assembled lasagne can wait at room temperature (20 degrees Celsius/68 degrees Fahrenheit) about 1 hour before baking. Do not refrigerate it before baking, as the topping of béchamel and cheese will overcook by the time the center is hot.
Assembling the Ingredients:
Have all the sauces, rewarmed gently over a medium heat, and the pasta at hand. Have a large perforated skimmer and a large bowl of cold water next to the stove. Spread a double thickness of paper towels over a large counter space. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius). Oil or butter a 3 quart (approx 3 litre) shallow baking dish.
Cooking the Pasta:
Bring the salted water to a boil. Drop about four pieces of pasta in the water at a time. Cook about 2 minutes. If you are using dried pasta, cook about 4 minutes, taste, and cook longer if necessary. The pasta will continue cooking during baking, so make sure it is only barely tender. Lift the lasagne from the water with a skimmer, drain, and then slip into the bowl of cold water to stop cooking. When cool, lift out and dry on the paper towels. Repeat until all the pasta is cooked.
Assembling the Lasagne: 
Spread a thin layer of béchamel over the bottom of the baking dish. Arrange a layer of about four overlapping sheets of pasta over the béchamel. Spread a thin layer of béchamel (about 3 or 4 spoonfuls) over the pasta, and then an equally thin layer of the ragu. Sprinkle with about 1&1/2 tablespoons of the béchamel and about 1/3 cup of the cheese. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with béchamel sauce and topping with a generous dusting of cheese.
Baking and Serving the Lasagne:
Cover the baking dish lightly with foil, taking care not to let it touch the top of the lasagne. Bake 40 minutes, or until almost heated through. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes, or until hot in the center (test by inserting a knife – if it comes out very warm, the dish is ready). Take care not to brown the cheese topping. It should be melted, creamy looking and barely tinged with a little gold. Turn off the oven, leave the door ajar and let the lasagne rest for about 10 minutes. Then serve. This is not a solid lasagne, but a moist one that slips a bit when it is cut and served.
#1 Spinach Egg Pasta (Pasta Verde)
Preparation: 45 minutes
Makes enough for 6 to 8 first course servings or 4 to 6 main course servings, equivalent to 1 pound (450g) dried boxed pasta.
2 jumbo eggs (2 ounces/60g or more)10 ounces (300g) fresh spinach, rinsed dry, and finely chopped; or 6 ounces (170g) frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
3&1/2 cups (14 ounces/400g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour (organic stone ground preferred)
Working by Hand:
Equipment
A roomy work surface, 24 to 30 inches deep by 30 to 36 inches (60cm to 77cm deep by 60cm to 92cm). Any smooth surface will do, but marble cools dough slightly, making it less flexible than desired.
A pastry scraper and a small wooden spoon for blending the dough.
A wooden dowel-style rolling pin. In Italy, pasta makers use one about 35 inches long and 2 inches thick (89cm long and 5cm thick). The shorter American-style pin with handles at either end can be used, but the longer it is, the easier it is to roll the pasta.Note: although it is not traditional, Enza has successfully made pasta with a marble rolling pin, and this can be substituted for the wooden pin, if you have one.
Plastic wrap to wrap the resting dough and to cover rolled-out pasta waiting to be filled. It protects the pasta from drying out too quickly.
A sharp chef’s knife for cutting pasta sheets.
Cloth-covered chair backs, broom handles, or specially designed pasta racks found in cookware shops for draping the pasta. 
Mixing the dough:
Mound the flour in the center of your work surface and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and spinach. Use a wooden spoon to beat together the eggs and spinach. Then gradually start incorporating shallow scrapings of flour from the sides of the well into the liquid. As you work more and more flour into the liquid, the well’s sides may collapse. Use a pastry scraper to keep the liquids from running off and to incorporate the last bits of flour into the dough. Don’t worry if it looks like a hopelessly rough and messy lump.
Kneading:
With the aid of the scraper to scoop up unruly pieces, start kneading the dough. Once it becomes a cohesive mass, use the scraper to remove any bits of hard flour on the work surface – these will make the dough lumpy. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes. Its consistency should be elastic and a little sticky. If it is too sticky to move easily, knead in a few more tablespoons of flour. Continue kneading about 10 minutes, or until the dough has become satiny, smooth, and very elastic. It will feel alive under your hands. Do not shortcut this step. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it relax at room temperature 30 minutes to 3 hours.
Stretching and Thinning:
If using an extra-long rolling pin work with half the dough at a time. With a regular-length rolling pin, roll out a quarter of the dough at a time and keep the rest of the dough wrapped. Lightly sprinkle a large work surface with flour. The idea is to stretch the dough rather than press down and push it. Shape it into a ball and begin rolling out to form a circle, frequently turning the disc of dough a quarter turn. As it thins outs, start rolling the disc back on the pin a quarter of the way toward the center and stretching it gently sideways by running the palms of your hands over the rolled-up dough from the center of the pin outward. Unroll, turn the disc a quarter turn, and repeat. Do twice more.
Stretch and even out the center of the disc by rolling the dough a quarter of the way back on the pin. Then gently push the rolling pin away from you with one hand while holding the sheet in place on the work surface with the other hand. Repeat three more times, turning the dough a quarter turn each time.
Repeat the two processes as the disc becomes larger and thinner. The goal is a sheet of even thickness. For lasagne, the sheet should be so thin that you can clearly see your hand through it and see colours. Cut into rectangles about 4 by 8 inches (10 x 20 cm). Note: Enza says that transparency is a crucial element of lasagne pasta and the dough should be rolled as thinly as possible. She says this is why her housekeeper has such strong arms!
Dry the pasta at room temperature and store in a sealed container or bag. 
#2 Bechamel
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) unsalted butter4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour, organic stone ground preferred
2&2/3 cups (approx 570ml) milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste
Using a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Sift over the flour, whisk until smooth, and then stir (without stopping) for about 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk a little at a time and keep the mixture smooth. Bring to a slow simmer, and stir 3 to 4 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt, pepper, and a hint of nutmeg.
#3 Country Style Ragu’ (Ragu alla Contadina)
Preparation Time: Ingredient Preparation Time 30 minutes and Cooking time 2 hours
Makes enough sauce for 1 recipe fresh pasta or 1 pound/450g dried pasta)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (45 mL)2 ounces/60g pancetta, finely chopped
1 medium onion, minced
1 medium stalk celery with leaves, minced
1 small carrot, minced
4 ounces/125g boneless veal shoulder or round
4 ounces/125g pork loin, trimmed of fat, or 4 ounces/125g mild Italian sausage (made without fennel)
8 ounces/250g beef skirt steak, hanging tender, or boneless chuck blade or chuck center cut (in order of preference)
1 ounce/30g thinly sliced Prosciutto di Parma
2/3 cup (5 ounces/160ml) dry red wine
1 &1/2 cups (12 ounces/375ml) chicken or beef stock (homemade if possible)
2 cups (16 ounces/500ml) milk
3 canned plum tomatoes, drained
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Working Ahead:The ragu can be made 3 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate. It also freezes well for up to 1 month. Skim the fat from the ragu’ before using it.
Browning the Ragu Base:Heat the olive oil in a 12 inch (30cm) skillet (frying pan) over medium-high heat. Have a large saucepan handy to use once browning is complete. Add the pancetta and minced vegetables and sauté, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, 10 minutes, or until the onions barely begin to color. Coarsely grind all the meats together, including the prosciutto, in a food processor or meat grinder. Stir into the pan and slowly brown over medium heat. First the meats will give off a liquid and turn dull grey but, as the liquid evaporates, browning will begin. Stir often, scooping under the meats with the wooden spatula. Protect the brown glaze forming on the bottom of the pan by turning the heat down. Cook 15 minutes, or until the meats are a deep brown. Turn the contents of the skillet into a strainer and shake out the fat. Turn them into the saucepan and set over medium heat.
Reducing and Simmering: Add the wine to the skillet, lowering the heat so the sauce bubbles quietly. Stir occasionally until the wine has reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Scrape up the brown glaze as the wine bubbles. Then pour the reduced wine into the saucepan and set the skillet aside.
Stir ½ cup stock into the saucepan and let it bubble slowly, 10 minutes, or until totally evaporated. Repeat with another ½ cup stock. Stir in the last 1/2 cup stock along with the milk. Adjust heat so the liquid bubbles very slowly. Partially cover the pot, and cook 1 hour. Stir frequently to check for sticking.
Add the tomatoes, crushing them as they go into the pot. Cook uncovered, at a very slow bubble for another 45 minutes, or until the sauce resembles a thick, meaty stew. Season with salt and pepper.
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        <title>Linguine with Summer Vegetables</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/04/01/linguine-with-summer-vegetables/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/04/01/linguine-with-summer-vegetables/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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I love pasta. It’s easy to cook and you have to work really hard (or use guanciale) to make it taste bad. This particular one is new to me, contains at least two ingredients I used to refuse to touch and I want to shove it in my mouth all the time. 
I’ve mentioned the knife skills class pretty frequently, and I feel like I learned a lot from it though since my retention is so awful I should really take it again, and I celebrated the purchase of a new chef’s knife with recreating the pasta that Chef Bob served to us with the fruits of our labor…with one small problem. He wouldn’t give me a recipe. 
Now, he had no problem telling me everything that went in it, but as I know some of you are aware I function best with a specific set of instructions, ESPECIALLY with a new recipe. Not having portions or measurements of any kind broke my brain a little bit but I am totally pleased with the outcome, it tasted exactly like I wanted it to, and now I’m going to share it with you.
 
 
You will need: (note, these portions are for two people and a toddler, adjust as needed)    Linguine     3 Tbsp olive oil      3 Tbsp butter (or margarine)       1 medium zucchini, quartered      1 red bell pepper, cut in 1/2" strips and sliced across into thirds      2 sticks celery, halved lengthwise and chopped      3 or more crimini mushrooms, halved and sliced      1/3 to 1/2c white wine      Basil and rosemary, fresh and chopped fine if you’ve got it (worth it if you ask me)      Salt and pepper to taste
First, if you ask me the mushrooms are more for texture than taste, so don’t feel like you can’t make this if you don’t like mushrooms. Second, I wish this sauce had a name. It’s sort of like a modified beurre blanc, I guess, but nowhere near as complicated. Third, even if you don’t like zucchini, try it. Seriously. It’s like summer in your mouth and if your weather sucks as bad as mine, you pretty much want summer any way you can get it. 
Onward! 
Put some generously salted water on to boil for your pasta. You don’t have to use linguine, Chef Bob used spaghetti. I just try to mix up my pastas every now and then and especially now since the next two weeks are chock-full of Italian food, sez my Bi-Monthly Menu of Doom. I prepped my veggies while waiting for the boil. I like it when nothing has to be peeled. Take a minute during chopping to heat 2 Tbsp oil and 2 tbsp butter over medium-high heat in a saute pan.
 

(your vegetables should look something like this. If they don’t, who cares, this isn’t a Tuesday night a Le Bernardin)
    When your veggies are all chopped and your oil is hot, go ahead and chuck your peppers and zucchini in the pan with some salt – have I mentioned that I like kosher salt for cooking and sea salt for finishing? Kosher is coarse, comes in a big box, is dirt cheap and tastes better than table salt. The only thing I don’t use it in is baking. Anyway, give your zuke and your pepper3-4 minutes before adding in the celery. After 2-3 minutes, add your mushrooms. If your water is boiling, throw the pasta in, it takes in the neighborhood of 8-10 minutes for al dente, if I remember right.
Here’s where it comes down to personal taste. I didn’t measure my wine, I just poured from the bottle until the amount looked "right" to me. This may be trickier for you because you’ve never had the pasta, so I’m estimating 1/3 cup. This kind of sauce lightly coats the pasta, it doesn’t pool or saturate like a tomato or cover heavily like an alfredo, and since you’re cooking it there will be a bit of reduction in the volume. So as you cook, add a glug or two more of wine and/or oil as you see fit. For the curious, I used a bottle – magnum – of Sutter Home sauvignon blanc that has been sitting in the cabinet since around Christmas half-consumed. Sometimes it’s hard to be this gourmet. 
Hopefully since I failed to tell you to do so you’ve been stirring your vegetables frequently. No browning should be occurring, just softening. It should also smell divine. In a perfect world your pasta will be done at the same time as your vegetables – if you’re unsure, try a piece of the zucchini, it should be somewhat firm but tender. Add the herbs, salt and pepper, and remaining tablespoon of butter, melt, stir, and combine with the drained linguine in a big bowl. Mix everything together and chow down.


I keep mentioning being behind on posts and I am, in fact, still behind in posts. I know I’ve sent photos to Flickr for at least three other meals and those are just the ones that have made it through processing. I’ll get around to those empanadas eventually!
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    <item>
        <title>Success is hard to come by.</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/04/09/success-is-hard-to-come-by/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/04/09/success-is-hard-to-come-by/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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As the due date for my second child approaches, my desire to be on my feet for any extended period of time (read: ten minutes) has made cooking less of an adventure and more of a chore. Coupled with the horrendous heartburn, well, it’s just not conducive to…anything. 
Also, what food I am cooking has taken horrible pictures. Last week I whipped up some of my hero Mario Batali’s minestrone siciliana and it was incredible, but it looks awful in the photo. Tonight was more soup, a dupe recipe of Panera’s broccoli cheese, and again, delicious but in this case I completely forgot to take photographs. Win some, lose a lot more seems to be my motto lately. 
I hope to get back into the spirit of things soon – after all, baby or no baby, I still have some challenges to whip up!
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    <item>
        <title>p.s.</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/04/15/ps/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/04/15/ps/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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I wasn’t kidding about the not cooking/updating part, as is obvious from the absolute silence permeating this space. That said, I have at least two projects for a gathering this weekend that should result in some worthwhile activity. Maybe. One of them involves a pie and this whole high altitude baking thing has totally not worked out for me thus far, but we’re going to try it!
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    <item>
        <title>Doctor’s Excuse</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/05/03/doctors-excuse/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/05/03/doctors-excuse/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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Pardon my extended absence, I was busy giving birth. Meet my newest future kitchen slave:

This is Ethan, and I am pretty much in love with him. Conveniently my other future kitchen slave, Greyson, is pretty much in love with him too. 
This does not, however, lend itself to extended kitchen time so I missed my Daring Bakers post, and I had some pregnancy-related health issues that kept me from cooking much lately anyway.  
I do have a strawberry meringue pie to share with you soon, and I think I’m going to start a once-a-week feature on making the most of quality prepackaged foods, like what we did with Zatarain’s red beans and rice tonight. 
 
Til next time.
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        <title>Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese frosting</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/05/12/carrot-cake-with-maple-cream-cheese-frosting/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/05/12/carrot-cake-with-maple-cream-cheese-frosting/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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recipe snagged from the amazing smitten kitchen
Carrot cake is one of those great mysteries, like zucchini bread or pumpkin rolls, that does not taste like the ingredient for which it is named, and it’s probably because of this that it’s so tasty. After all, no matter how good some maple-glazed roasted carrots can be, they are not something I want for dessert.

Carrot cake is also one of those fine desserts that not only allow but encourage you to be delusional about what you’re shoving in your mouth in totally unacceptable portions because, hello! there are vegetables in it! Everyone knows that a vegetable-based dessert automatically negates any unhealthy qualities that, say, 2 cups of sugar or a cup of oil may contain, let alone a frosting based on entirely too many fats and sugar. 
So, join me in my delusions (that giant slice you see? that was for me) and make a moist, delicious, totally 100% healthy (in my head) carrot cake that does not taste like carrots. 

 
 
Honestly, since Deb from Smitten Kitchen already made and posted this recipe there is no need for me to do so, because I am pretty convinced she can do no culinary wrong, but maybe you’ll get something from my experience anyway. 
Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese frosting 
Note: while her recipe is intended for cupcakes she helpfully included instructions for a layer cake, for which I am grateful since I fail so hard at cupcakes.
You will need: 

    2 cups all purpose flour
    2 teaspoons baking soda
    1 teaspoon salt
    2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
    1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
    1 teaspoon ground ginger
    2 cups sugar
    1 1/4 cups canola oil
    4 large eggs
    3 cups grated peeled carrots
    1 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
    1/2 cup raisins (optional) 
(frosting recipe follows cake recipe) 
 
Preheat oven to 350°F.* Grab a bag of carrots from the refrigerator and stare at them, knowing that Deb recommends finely shredding them and yet also knowing that you have a perfectly good shredder plate for your food processor that would make quick work of the job. Have a moment of temporary insanity that demands you go with Deb’s recommendation. Spend next twenty years peeling and shredding with a hand-held fine grater enough carrots (about 6 large) to equal 3 cups.

(hyperbole note: it actually only took about 15 minutes and was not bad at all)

  Once your carrots are a shredded orange mess, combine your flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in a bowl and give it a whisk to mix it all together. Toss your sugar and obscene amount of canola oil in a separate bowl and whisk until the sugar is saturated. Add an egg at a time, whisking after each to get it all good and eggy. Is an egg an emulsifier? I can’t seem to keep these things straight. 
Once your sugar mixture has been thoroughly eggified, add your flour mixture and stir it until all the flour has been incorporated. I have helpfully included a photo that will show you what this process looks like, just in case:

At this point, feel free to stir in your carrots, though I should warn you that if you choose not to add carrots you are no longer actually making carrot cake. "But Alicia," you might wonder, "what kind of cake would it be if I didn’t add carrots?" I think it would just be cake, and if you don’t like carrots why the hell are you making this recipe? Let’s move on. 
With the carrots in the mix, and the raisins and nuts if you chose to use them (I did, but I used pecans because they are delicious – are you a pee-can or peh-cahn person? inquiring minds…) you will have a bowl of glorious mess that vaguely resembles a substance you might find somewhere unsavory, like a fraternity bathroom after a party. I am unfortunately not exaggerating.

I know. I wish I was wrong, too. I made the layer cake so play along with me. Grease up two 9" round cake pans with butter (I used margarine, mostly because I was too lazy to unwrap another stick of butter) , line the bottoms with a round of wax paper, butter the paper and shake some flour around to coat it all. Tap out the excess. Fill the rounds with an equal amount of batter.

If you are ridiculous like me, you actually weighed out equal portions (2 lbs, 4 oz if you must know). If you are a less ridiculous person, you could eyeball it to a reasonable guess. Pop it in the oven for 40 minutes or so, stick a tester in the center to see if it’s done and if it is, take it out of the oven.

Let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove from pans to cool completely. You really don’t want to frost a warm cake, no matter how tempting it may be. Plus, you’ll want to even out at least one side for frosting and layering and that’s a lot easier with a cooled cake. I took too many pictures to make up for my lack of earlier prep work, so have an additional cake photo after it has been removed from the pans.

I’m sorry. I just didn’t want it to go to waste, you know? Anyway, it’s time to make the frosting. 
You will need: 
Two (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
             1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
             2 cups confectioners’ sugar
             1/4 cup pure maple syrup
Do you remember how on tests they’d always start out by saying read all the directions or questions before answering, and there would be some trick at the end so if you didn’t read it all first you’d get to the last question and it would be some instruction designed to trip you up, like instead of filling in the circles you were supposed to underline them? This is kind of like that, because if you didn’t read this part you now have to wait until your cream cheese and butter have softened to make the frosting. Unintentional fail on my part and I apologize for it. But for the rest of you, here are two ways to move forward. 
Deb’s recipe says to combine all four ingredients on medium speed in a stand mixer. I did this, starting on the lowest speed because have you ever tried throwing some confectioners’ sugar in a stand mixer on medium speed? Your kitchen ends up looking like the aftermath of a wild night at Lindsay Lohan’s house. I think there’s still sugar in the joints of my cabinetry. After a few minutes, it all comes together and it’s fine that way.

I do think, however, that beating the cream cheese and butter together first and then gradually adding the powdered sugar and syrup would give you better control of the texture. This is a very creamy frosting, and if you’re used to buttercream it might throw you off (it threw me off, as I will explain in a bit) even after you let it "set up" in the fridge. I also wonder how this would be if you only used 1 8 oz block of cream cheese, or even 12 oz total and used 4 or so ounces of heavy cream instead and whipped the crap out of all of it if it wouldn’t have an even better taste and consistency. Or maybe even some pudding. Just some random thoughts there. 
Anyway, so make your frosting and throw it in the fridge for 20 minutes or so to set up. Kill some time by not letting that leftover beater frosting go to waste and put it to good use on a nearby sugar cookie.
 
After you finish your cookie, it’s time to level off one of your cakes for layering. Precise people will likely have a tool for this such as this. Alton Brown fans may remember that his version was made with a hacksaw blade, if I recall correctly. While I no doubt will own such a thing at some point in my future, I went with the imprecise method of the eyeballed bread knife leveling. No one in this house cares if my cake is lopsided except me, so it works for us as I can cope with it. For now.

It looks OK, right? It doesn’t even matter anyway because I’m flipping it over and frosting the bottom. I am under the distinct impression that this is not the correct way to frost a cake, but I don’t give a damn.

I did however give enough of a damn to line the bottom of my platter with waxed paper though. This will let me make a mess while I frost the cake without letting me get frosting all over the plate. Note that this is not a single sheet, but four strips of paper that can be easily slid out from underneath the cake for that clean, fresh look.

So, being a genius, I decide to not be as impatient as I normally am by trying a crumb coat. Now, with a buttercream frosting the crumb coat will give you a smoother finish for the rest of your frosting – it’s a thin layer slathered on and allowed to set so as to keep crumbs in check and provide a smooth surface for the final layer and any decorating. As it turns out, this cream cheese frosting does not set like a buttercream so I basically wasted an hour waiting for it to harden a little when it had no intention of doing so.

So I just slapped the rest of it on and patiently waited for dinner to come and go so that I could try it out. As it happens, folks, this is a damn fine cake that would be perfectly edible without the frosting, and in fact would make a really good breakfast loaf if you ask me. I may in fact try it that way next time, with a maple glaze instead of frosting and some oats and/or whole wheat flour for additional bulk. This frosting is not buttercream and being my father’s daughter (he makes delicious frosting) I am definitely partial to that texture, but this creamy stuff does go very well and the maple syrup adds just the right flavor to something that would otherwise be overly cream-cheesy. It’s also a fast, simple recipe – just imagine if you bought pre-shredded carrots, it would literally take an hour from start to finish. Try it out, let me know how it goes!

 
* high altitude note (4000 ft) – I added an additional tablespoon of flour and preheated the oven to 375, turning it back to 350 when the cakes were in the oven. Whether this was necessary, I have no idea, but I hate risking it with cake.
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    <item>
        <title>Tilapia with Endive and Lemon-Pepper Oil</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/05/19/tilapia-with-endive-and-lemon-pepper-oil/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/05/19/tilapia-with-endive-and-lemon-pepper-oil/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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from our fine friends at Food Network Magazine.

Also known as lemony fish with greens and taters, which is why I do not work in marketing. The actual recipe calls for escarole, but after going to 5 grocery stores in search of it, I made do with curly endive – escarole is endive though a different and supposedly less bitter variety. I read that radicchio is virtually indistinguishable from escarole in taste but I had this awful fear that the red color of it would bleed onto the fish and that just did not sound appealing to me at all. Anyway. 
 
 
For those of you who don’t actually like seafood – like me – tilapia is a very, very mild fish. If it’s the fishy flavor you hate, you would be fine eating this. If it’s the texture of fish, you’re hosed, don’t make it. If you can, though, it’s got nice protein content, not to mention low mercury content.     
Tilapia with Endive/Escarole and Lemon-Pepper Oil    
You will need:    
–1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil    –12 oz baby fingerling potatoes, halved    –4 cloves of garlic, smashed (I used five because I’m a rebel)    –1 bunch curly endive OR 1 head escarole, torn into pieces    – Kosher salt and ground black pepper    –1 1/4 lb tilapia fillets, patted dry    –2 sprigs fresh oregano, leaves torn, or a couple shakes of dry oregano if you (like me) were unwilling to spend 3 bucks on fresh oregano that will just go bad in your fridge    –Juice of one lemon    
Heat up 1/4 c of that oil in a large skillet – and I do mean large. 12" or bigger. (so many things that could be said here….)     
When the oil is warmer, put your potatoes in cut side down, to get them all brown and tasty on le bottom. The garlic should go in too. This process should take you roughly 5 minutes. My oil was not optimal temperature when I put my potatoes in so it took longer for them to crisp up a bit. Plus they stuck to my pan. How that happened with a freakin’ lake of oil coating the bottom of the pan, I’ll never know. 

 
They really do look like fingers. I’m going to put a big bowl of them smothered in ketchup outside for Halloween. Looks aside, they are creamy and delicious on the inside and worth getting. Once they’re done, add your endive/escarole.    
 

 This may take some work, I had to stuff mine in there pretty good since I only have a 12" skillet. It does however wilt down relatively quick once you add 1/3 cup of water and cover with a lid, which you should do once it’s all in there. Give it another 5 minutes or so to steam and soften up.   
While that’s happening, get your fish dried and seasoned with salt and pepper. After the 5 minutes is up, place the tilapia on top of your now-wilted greens, cover and steam for 5 more minutes or until the fish is cooked through. (5 minutes should do it just fine)
 

 While the fish is cooking, whisk together the remaining 1/4 cup of oil, the lemon juice, a bit of salt and a healthy dose of black pepper. If you are feeling adventurous (and aren’t breastfeeding/pregnant) I think a glug or two of a dry white wine would go great in this. I don’t ever feel adventurous with a new recipe – and I’m nursing – so I don’t know if that actually tastes good, I only know that the flavors, especially combined with the bitterness of the greens and the relative sweetness of the fish, should balance nicely with the addition of a little wine.   
Getting the now-cooked fish off those greens can be tricky. I tried tongs first and that was really dumb of me, I should have learned that lesson from the Dover sole a few weeks back. Fish and tongs – shredded mess. Make use of your slotted spatula here and lift the fish onto the plates. Serve with the greens, dig some of the potatoes off the bottom of your pan, drizzle with the lemon oil and bon appetit.  
It should be noted that while this is a tasty dish, I did not like the endive. In the interest of fairness though, I am not overly fond of wilted greens, particularly dark greens as they tend to be bitter and unpleasantly textured for me. That’s just personal though and Warren, who likes basically any kind of green raw or cooked, thought it was good.
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    <item>
        <title>Chocolates, The Test Round.</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/05/26/chocolates-the-test-round/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/05/26/chocolates-the-test-round/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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So, one day when I was shopping at my mothership, the restaurant supply store, I saw this candy mold and knew that filled chocolates would be in my future. I only just now bought it and last night I made a test batch – because I have to learn to temper the chocolate, too, and I was made to understand there is a learning curve there – and this is the result. Guittard bittersweet couverture on the outside, San Francisco Chocolate Co milk chocolate ganache on the inside with a few drops of orange oil. The coating has the gloss and snap I was looking for which means my tempering was a success (at least on the top, I think I let it get too cool when I was doing the feet) but my ganache didn’t set up quite the way I would have liked, it was a bit too soft so when you bite into them, the shell snaps as it should but the ganache won’t support it so it just sort of squishes out.  Gonna have to use less cream next time.  Anyway, I am not proficient enough for a full report so I’ll just say I love the way these look and taste and I am looking forward to trying all sorts of variations.
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    <item>
        <title>Potato Ravioli in Beef Velouté</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/06/09/153/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/06/09/153/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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I decided to walk on the wild side and reinvent the classic mashed potatoes and gravy side dish as an entree, and surprisingly, it works. Not only that, but I managed to put my newly learned pasta making skills to the test. 

 
This is almost an original recipe, but I jacked the ravioli filling from a Mario Batali tortelli dish. I am, however, still claiming everything else as mine. 
And speaking of (dis)claiming, I should mention that I don’t believe this is a legitimate velouté, as not only did I not make it with a white stock, I don’t think I even cooked it according to standard. It’s sort of, kind of a cross between a velouté and an Espagnole sauce, I think. But really, all fanciness aside in the interest of honesty, it’s a thin beef gravy. That said, doesn’t velouté sound so much better?
OK, first off your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to whip up some fresh pasta. I took a pasta class with Chef Bob at Harmon’s on Friday that taught me how to do this, and hopefully I can impart my learning in an understandable way. 
Pasta Dough
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
      1/2 cup durum wheat semolina
      1/2 tsp salt
      1 Tbsp olive oil
      3 eggs*
Place flour and salt in a mound on the table and make a good sized well with your fingers or a spoon or something. Add your olive oil and eggs in the well and scramble the eggs with a fork, and then gradually start working the flour in by scraping along the edges of the well. You are looking for a stiff but moist dough, and it may take you a while to get there, but you will get there. Gradually adding the flour is important – depending on the dryness of the flour and your atmospheric conditions (humid climate, dry climate) you may need less flour to accomplish the right dough, and it’s a lot easier to add more flour to a too-wet dough than to add more moisture to a too-dry dough. Knead until smooth and let your dough rest, at least 15 minutes and up to 24 hours. 
*fun egg fact: eggs are classified by weight, so a jumbo egg may be the same visual size as a large egg, but will be heavier. this is especially important in baking but until you need 3 or more eggs in a recipe they are mostly interchangeable. 
Things I learned about dough from Chef Bob: 
-Patience, young padawan. It does take time for the dough to come together.
-If it’s sticky, it needs more flour so add it in small increments until it’s moist but not sticky. Such a thing does exist, I swear. 
-Odds are that if you think it isn’t right, it’s probably right. I thought my dough was wrong, that it was too dry and not pliable enough, but after it had rested it softened up and was great to work with. 
While your dough is resting, let’s start on the filling. 
Potato Filling
from Mario Batali.
4 russet potatoes, peeled
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/2 cup chopped chives plus 4 tablespoons
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 

I was using leftover dough and so halved this recipe, with the exception of the chives. I did not have fresh chives on hand and felt that even 1/4 cup of dried chives was an awful lot. 1/2 cup of dried chives would basically be an entire bottle and that is just insane. I also did not use nutmeg here because I forgot. Remembering things is hard.





  

    Boil up those potatoes – do yourself a favor and either leave them whole or cut them in half or large quarters. I failed to remember that they needed to be peeled until after I had already cut them in a large dice. I suppose you could always be practical and peel them before cooking, but where’s the adventure in that? Anyway, it’ll take something like 30-40 minutes for the potatoes to be done, then drain (and peel if you need to) , mash up as smooth as you can get it and then add the grated cheese, chives, eggs and nutmeg and mash/stir to combine. 
Here’s where it gets fun, as we now need to roll out the pasta dough to make the ravioli. If you are fortunate enough to have a pasta roller, this will be a piece of cake, just take half your dough and shape it into a rough cylinder, then press through on the first setting. Fold in half along the vertical and press through on the second setting. Fold in half and press through on the third setting, so on an so forth through the seventh setting, though at some point you may want to fold in thirds along the vertical if it’s getting too wide. Repeat with the second half of the dough.
For the rest of us schlubs, break out that rolling pin and a lightly floured surface, we’ve got a workout ahead of us. Much like the above, go ahead and shape the dough into a cylinder. Roll to the north, roll to the south, always starting in the center. Repeat and then rotate your dough. Keep this pattern up until your dough is in a circle a bit larger than your rolling pin and quite thin, and then fold the sides in to make a strip. Now we’re going to elongate and thin the dough even more, so we’re only rolling vertical with no rotations. I found this easiest to do in sections, you may want to gently fold 2/3 of the dough at the top of your work surface and weigh it down just a little (i used my bench scraper, aka this thing -ps, it’s cheaper at Target) otherwise your dough will just slide down and not work the way you want. You need this dough to be thin – it should be at least a little bit transparent. It’ll plump up considerably when it hits the water. Continue until you have a long strip, probably a rough 3 or so inches wide, and then repeat the whole tedious process with the second half of the dough. You’ll want one strip longer than the other, that will be your top strip. 





Once your dough is rolled out, start adding your filling – roughly a tablespoon, but you should be fine just eyeballing it – on the shorter strip of pasta. Give yourself some room between each, about an inch or so, so there’s room to seal it off. When you’re done, grab an egg and beat it in a bowl, grab a pastry brush, basting brush, cotton ball, something, and prepare for formation.





You need to work quickly here – taking your egg application tool of choice in hand, brush said egg along the top and bottom edges of the dough and between each mound of filling. Get your longer strip of pasta and drop it on top. Press down along the top edge of the pasta, then between each mound. Gently form dough around the filling, removing as much air as possible, then seal the bottom edge. Should look like this:





Technically your pasta should not have wrinkles in it, but it certainly did not detract from the flavor so haters can go ahead and move right on to the left. Now we just need to separate each ravioli, so grab a knife or if you have one of those fancy pastry wheels (which will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine) and cut around like so:


 


Feel free to go ahead and make sure there are no openings along the edges, our goal is for the potatoes to be filling, not sauce. And speaking of sauce, put your water on to boil for the pasta and add a good amount of salt. Fun fact: not only does salting the water flavor it, it raises the boiling point – but not enough to make any difference. 





We’re now on to our pseudo-velouté. Here’s a list of what you’ll need, but these are estimates because I was just winging it. (I know! I never do that, but I was living dangerously!)
Beef Velouté (or should it be Boeuf Velouté?)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 cups beef broth/stock
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp rosemary
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Pepper to taste
Water as needed
4 Tbsp or 1/4 c butter
4 Tbsp or 1/4 c flour
Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. When oil is hot (it will have thinned out and be shimmery) add the butter. When butter is melted, add garlic and shallot and cook, stirring frequently, until softened but not browned.

Did you know sauté is French for "to jump"? Now you do.


 




    Add stock and spices and bring back up to a simmer. At this point, go ahead and put your ravioli in the water. In a separate pan, melt the 1/4 c butter. Once melted, add your flour to make a roux, whisking to combine and smooth. Cook for another 30 seconds (this removes the flour taste) and remove from heat. Whisk roux into the simmering broth until lumps are gone and sauce is thickened.



 


We’re aiming for a saucy consistency, so add water as needed. We want it to lightly coat the back of a spoon – it should fall off in a light stream, if it falls off in large drips, it’s too thick. 
Check your ravioli – pull a piece out and cut off a corner. If you can see a thin white line, give it another minute. If you can’t, it’s done. Using a slotted spoon, retrieve and plate your ravioli and add sauce. If you’re feeling fancy, chiffonade some fresh basil and sprinkle on top to make it look all pretty or whatever, and if you do make it, tell me what you think.
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    <item>
        <title>Hello? Is Anyone In There?</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/06/24/hello-is-anyone-in-there/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/06/24/hello-is-anyone-in-there/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
        <description><![CDATA[

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I apologize for my extended absence – I’m working on another project that is sucking away every moment of the little free time I’ve got. That’s not to say I haven’t been cooking, though. I’ve got 4 or 5 meals documented in pictures, it’s just that the pictures need to be processed and posts need to be written and I clearly need at least 10 more hours in each day. So, hopefully within the next week or two my project will be over and I can return to semi-regular posting of my kitchen adventures.
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    <item>
        <title>It’s Harder Than It Looks</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/07/25/its-harder-than-it-looks/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/07/25/its-harder-than-it-looks/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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(that’s what she said)
So at this point, you may be thinking, “Alicia, what gives? It’s been more than a few weeks. It’s been a whole damn month since you last posted anything, and that post wasn’t even about food! Isn’t this supposed to be a food blog?” 
The answer is yes, yes it is. I even have at least 5 recipes, complete with photos, to post. The problem has been finding the time to do the writeups. I don’t know how PW does it, with 4 kids, when I can’t do it with 2. Maybe it’s that my two are 2 and 3 months old, respectively. But during this month, I’ve had approximately three hours of free time each night and that’s if I go to bed at midnight, and I do have a husband I try to spend time with, so there’s a balance to find here and I haven’t found it yet. 
Things are looking up, though! My youngest has discovered that the world will not come crashing down if he sleeps more than 3 hours at a time, so that bodes well. I managed to make a chocolate tart yesterday – possibly the world peace tart – and this weekend will feature two recipes to be posted on particular days of great secrecy, so that’s something too. 
Meanwhile, have you browsed smittenkitchen lately? How about Crepes of Wrath? No? Don’t forget about The Noshery, where Meseidy is always cooking up something good. And check back here soon for more good eats at the hands of a complete amateur.
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        <title>Garlic Flatbread Pizza</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/07/31/garlic-flatbread-pizza/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/07/31/garlic-flatbread-pizza/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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A good garlicky chicken pizza is a thing of beauty. Something about the marriage of flavors just…works, you know? All that fresh garlic, sautéed in butter and thrown into a béchamel, it’s just lovely. There’s still a novelty to me, too, in using fresh garlic since I never touched one until I moved in with Warren years ago. Why use fresh when there’s garlic salt and garlic powder? That’s the Midwest for you. (not knocking it, I have both in my cupboard)

In spite of all of my good intentions with buying my groceries every two weeks, it has turned out to be only partly practical and I think I’m going to go once a week instead. What happens is that I end up with all this meat in the freezer that I forget to take out the night before, and it doesn’t have the same quality if you defrost it in the microwave as it does if you let it defrost gently in the fridge. Then too, I forget which meals I planned use the most fresh produce and I end up wasting perfectly good Italian parsley and cilantro. Not so practical in this economy! In addition to that, my will to (live) cook is often determined by the moods of my children, so these days if they’ve been beasts we eat spaghetti or Hamburger Helper or Five Guys.
Wednesday was one of those nights, where I had forgotten for about 5 days in a row to take the pork out to marinate for some souvlaki, my ground beef was also in the freezer and we had spaghetti on Monday. And so I figured it was probably a good time to try out a chicken pizza, and I already knew of a good flatbread crust since, if you ask me, white sauced pizza needs thin crust. 
 
Flatbread Crust: 
adapted from Mario Batali
3  2.25 tsp packages active dry or instant yeast3 cups flour
1 cup warm water
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt

Though by flour I mean all-purpose unbleached white flour, I see no reason you couldn’t substitute up to 1.5 cups with whole wheat flour. It would make an already chewy bread chewier, but it would certainly be healthier. 

In a large bowl, combine yeast, water and sugar, stirring to dissolve. 

Add salt and one cup of flour, and stir with a wooden spoon (honestly, plastic will do just fine if that’s what you’ve got, just make sure it’s sturdy) to make a loose batter. Add remaining 2 cups of flour and stir for a few minutes to get as much of the flour incorporated as possible. 

Turn out onto a flat, lightly floured surface and knead for 6-8 minutes, or until your dough comes together in a smooth ball. 

(^^^what it looks like when you first bring it together, NOT what it looks like after you’ve completed kneading.)
If there are seams, lines, crevasses in your dough, don’t worry – from what I can tell, smooth refers more to the silky texture of the dough than it does having a perfectly uniform surface. 

 Drop it into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a towel or saran wrap and allow to rise in a warm spot for 45 minutes. 
 

 
Remove from the bowl and split into 2 even amounts of dough. Flatten lightly into rounds, cover and let rise for 15 minutes. 
 

While the recipe says to press into 10” rounds, I’m here to tell you I am just not that patient and I busted out my rolling pin for 13-14” circles. If you don’t have a rolling pin, consider a wine or other cylindrical bottle.  Now you have pizza dough and you can put whatever you want on it. Easy, right?  
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees, with your pizza stone/terracotta flowerpot base/bottom of a cast iron skillet already in the oven. You want it to be hot and all three of the above are excellent for the purposes. (p.s, pizza stones are $10 at Wal-Mart right now.) 
 

If you’re using chicken, this is a good time to cook it. I diced up two chicken breasts and cooked them in a little oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and oregano. If you had leftover rotisserie, this would be a great application for it.
 
White Sauce: (aka garlic béchamel!)
3 Tbsp flour3 Tbsp butter
1.5 – 2 cups milk
4-8 garlic cloves*, minced fine
1/2 yellow onion, minced fine (optional)
Seasonings to taste
(* depending on how garlicky you want)

Don’t let the fancy French name fool you – if you’ve ever made sausage gravy for biscuits, you’ve made béchamel. If you’ve made mac n’ cheese from scratch, you’ve probably made béchamel. It’s just a thickened milk sauce and the base of so many delicious things, which is probably why it’s one of the 4 mother sauces. 
 

In a saucepan, melt your butter over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and sauté until soft, 3-5 minutes or so. Add flour and whisk until the flour and butter have melded, and continue to cook for 1 minute. 
 

Slowly whisk in the milk until you get the desired consistency. I let mine thicken substantially, to like a runny gravy, if that makes any sense. While it’s simmering, add your seasonings – for me, I cheated and went with Italian seasoning mix, with some kosher salt and black pepper. 
Pizza assemblage:
Pizza doughGarlic sauce
Chicken
Tomato, diced
Mozzarella, shredded
Parmigiano-Reggiano, shredded
Freshly ground black pepper

 
Grab your pizza baking surface from the oven (use mitts, it seems like a no brainer but just..trust me here) and slide your dough onto it. Grab a ladleful of sauce and spread over the surface. Sprinkle on chicken and tomatoes, cover with cheese. Toss some pepper on and throw it into the oven for 12-14 minutes. Enjoy!
 
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    <item>
        <title>Open During Renovation</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/08/10/open-during-renovation/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/08/10/open-during-renovation/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
        <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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Pardon the dust, it was time to find a look that was both pretty and functional, the functional part being sorely lacking from the previous design. It will no doubt continue to evolve before your very eyes as I spot things I missed and things I willfully ignored for the time being just for the sake of getting it out there.
Yes, that’s right, I launched a redesign before it was completely ready. Eat me, dev nerds! 
So anyway, in the meantime I hope this makes for easier reading, with the added bonus of my random tweets, and if anyone knows how to replace the widget titles for K2 with images, feel free to let me know because I sure as hell am not finding it.
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    <item>
        <title>Lemon Cream Cake</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/08/24/lemon-cream-cake/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/08/24/lemon-cream-cake/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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The thing with copycat recipes is you are never sure how close they’re going to get to the real thing. For instance, Food Network magazine had a copycat recipe for the OG’s salad dressing, which we all know is basically the best part of going there. I was all set to enjoy a delicious salad, my tastebuds were dancing with anticipation, then I took a bite and drowned in a deluge of disappointment. (raise your hand if you were embarrassed for me upon reading that!) It was good, don’t get me wrong, but when you are expecting a particular flavor and embark upon finding that flavor, when it doesn’t arrive it just feels a little cruel, that’s all.    
I think with some tweaking this could be very close, but as it is, it’s delicious. I don’t think anyone would be too disappointed with the results and it’s moderately low-effort to achieve.     
 
 
Lemon Cream Cake     
For the cake itself, you have two options. One, buy yourself a box of white cake mix. I am not a snob about these things. If I want something to be foolproof and tasty, I go with the box because I cannot be trusted to bake well from scratch. Besides, Duncan Hines yellow butter cake with no frosting makes a delicious breakfast. Don’t judge me.     
The second is to bake from scratch. I have struggled with this repeatedly, and the recipe I’m going to share with you is the closest I’ve come to how a cake should be. I overbaked it so it was dry, but that’s because I’m an amazing baker, not because the recipe is crap.     
Vanilla Cake     adapted from Betty Crocker.     (this will make 3 9" rounds or 2 9" rounds and 12 cupcakes)     2 2/3 c. all-purpose flour     3 tsp. baking powder (2 for 3500+ ft)     1/2 tsp. salt     1/4 tsp. baking soda     1 1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened     1 1/4 c. sugar     2/3 c. milk     1 1/2 tsp. vanilla     4 large eggs     
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease (with shortening or butter, this is not an ideal application for pork fat) and flour your cake pans and/or line muffin pan with cupcake liners. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Whisks are great for this.     
In another bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream your butter and sugar together until fluffy. Turn speed down to medium and add in flour, milk, eggs and vanilla. Adding flour works best in sections because when it collides with the force of the beaters, it explodes into an hour of cleanup. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Keep beating for 2 more minutes and then section evenly into your pans.     
Recipe says to bake 25-30 minutes. It may be high altitude but at 25 minutes, mine were overdone. I would start checking after 20 minutes. If a toothpick comes out clean, it’s done.Let sit for 10 minutes, then turn out of pan and let cool on a rack.     

Lemon Cream     (adapted from Meemo’s Kitchen)     8 oz. cream cheese, softened     2 c. confectioner’s sugar     4 tsp. lemon juice     Zest of 1 lemon     1 c. heavy whipping cream     
As stated, this requires two bowls. I am a chronic recipe follower so I did as mentioned and whipped the cream in a stand mixer and the cream cheese with a hand mixer, but I think in the future I’d whip the cream first and store it in another bowl, then use the stand mixer again to beat the cream cheese. Anyway.     
Combine the cream cheese and the confectioner’s sugar with a mixer until smooth, then mix in the lemon juice and zest.     
In another bowl, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fold whipped cream gently into cream cheese mixture.     
It’s – dare I say – a piece of cake from here on out. For the cake, be very generous with the frosting on your middle layer(s), throw on the top layer and frost until covered. For the cupcakes, apply however you’d like. I have a giant star-shaped piping tip I use with a ziploc to do mine.     
Cool in the fridge for 3 hours before serving, and keep in the fridge after that as well. This is a cake best served cold. Enjoy!
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        <title>Herb-roasted Pork Loin with Green Beans and Spring Onions</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/08/26/herb-roasted-pork-loin-with-green-beans-and-spring-onions/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/08/26/herb-roasted-pork-loin-with-green-beans-and-spring-onions/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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Once upon a time, my brain rewired itself overnight to make me want to learn how to cook, and cook well. One of the first dishes I made after that epiphany was a braised short rib dish – this one, in fact – and to this day, despite the mistakes I made while cooking it, it remains possibly the most delicious meal to grace my kitchen. So when I was scouting cookbooks at a local library branch last week, imagine my excitement to see the very book that recipe was culled from on the shelf: Sunday Suppers at Lucques.     
The photographs are beautiful, far outclassing anything I’ve accomplished to date.The variety is impressive and it’s categorized by season, so you know if you’ll be able to find the produce the recipe will call for. That said, there are a number of ingredients used that, if not difficult to locate, are expensive to purchase – saffron and fleur de sel, as an example – that can be intimidating. For someone like me who is not much of a seafood eater, it seems to be a heavyweight item on the menus, but it all sounds so good that frankly I’m reconsidering my stance.     
This particular recipe appealed on several levels – first, it contains pig and I am very, very fond of cooked pig. Second, it sounded relatively easy and had a new vegetable (that I was ultimately too cheap to purchase) to try as a side dish. Finally, the use of fresh herbs appealed to me. The end result did not disappoint and will, in fact, be made again soon. 
 
 

Herb-roasted Pork Loin     adapted from "Sunday Suppers at Lucques" by Suzanne Goin     
You will need:     1/2 c. Dijon mustard     1 Tbsp. thyme leaves, plus 6 sprigs     2 Tbsp. chopped flat leaf (Italian) parsley     1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil     10 cloves of garlic, smashed     3 lbs. center-cut pork loin*     3 sprigs rosemary, broken into 3" pieces     3 sprigs sage     6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, sliced     Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper     
In a shallow baking dish, whisk together the mustard, thyme leaves (not the sprigs!), parsley and 2 Tbsp olive oil. Stir in the garlic and cover the pork loin with the mixture. Cover and refrigerate overnight.     


       
Take the pork out 1 hour before cooking to allow it to come to room temperature. After 30 minutes, season generously with salt and pepper. Keep the marinade nearby as you’ll be using it again.       
Preheat the oven to 325F. While the oven heats, chuck a large saute pan over high heat for 3 minutes. Add in the remaining 2 Tbps. olive oil and give it a couple of minutes to heat. You want it almost to the smoking point. Place the pork loin in the pan and sear on all sides until it’s well browned and has that lovely caramelization going for it. Be patient with it, if you turn the pork too quickly you’ll leave the marinade in the pan and not on the pork. You can expect to give it somewhere between 3 and 5 minutes per side.       
Transfer the loin to a roasting rack and cover in the reserved marinade. Take the saute pan off the heat but don’t clean it – we’ll be using those crusty brown bits later. Arrange the rosemary, sage and thyme sprigs on the roast and top with 3 Tbsp. butter.       
Into the oven it goes until it reaches about 120F on a thermometer, roughly an hour. Let the pork rest 10 minutes before slicing it.       





When the pork is nearly out of the oven, return the searing pan to medium-high heat. Allow it a few minutes to get hot then deglaze with chicken stock, water or white wine, or any combination of the three. Bring it to a boil, scraping the browned bits off the bottom. Swirl in 3 Tbsp. butter and set aside.     
Green Beans & Spring Onions     
You will need:     1 1/2 lbs young, thin green beans, stems removed but the tails left on     3 bunches spring onions**     4 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil     2 tsp. thyme leaves     2 Tbsp. unsalted butter     10 small sage leaves***     Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper     
Add the green beans to a pot of salted boiling water for 3 minutes, or until tender – crisp, but tender. (if you ever wondered what blanching was, you just did it)     
Cut the spring onions 1 inch above the bulb, leaving some green still attached. Trim the roots up as high as you can, but leave them attached, otherwise the onion will seperate and that is a do not want in this scenario. Slice them lengthwise into 1/4" thick wedges. (Mine were on the thin side, so 1/4" was just cut in half.)     
Heat a large pan over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Add 2 Tbsp. olive oil into the pan and gently place onions in, cut side down. (for what it’s worth, I just put them in, I’m not willing to be that precise) Season with salt, pepper and thyme, and cook 2 to 3 minutes until they start to brown up a little. Turn them (stir, in my case. again with the precision) using tongs and add in the green beans. Season with salt and pepper again and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes, stirring to combine. Add the butter and sage leaves and cook a few more minutes, tossing to glaze the veggies in the butter and let them get their sage on.     
Notes:     
- While I see no reason why you couldn’t use dried herbs here, I didn’t include the measurements for them because a) I’d have to look them up and b) such a large portion of the flavor comes from the fresh herbs that it is worthwhile to go to the trouble/expense to have them.     
* – Pork loin and pork tenderloin are not the same thing. If you knew this, good on you. If you didn’t, don’t worry, neither did I. Learn something new all the time!     
** – Spring onions are also known as green onions or scallions. Why one thing needs three names, I’ll never know, but there you go. I googled so you don’t have to.     
*** – My sage leaves were huge, so I sliced up 4 of them into 3 pieces each and called it close enough.


 
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    <item>
        <title>The Aptly Named Chocolate Wonders</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/08/29/the-aptly-named-chocolate-wonders/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/08/29/the-aptly-named-chocolate-wonders/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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Apt because there are so many things about which to wonder once you eat one. Things like, "I wonder if I can resist eating another one!" or "I wonder if all of my teeth are going to fall out of my mouth!" and maybe even "I wonder if that tingly sensation is that bite going immediately to my hips!" My reaction was, "Oh holy Mary mother of Jesus, I wonder where I put my antacids…" because these cookies? They mean business. In both the best and worst ways.    
They’re from The Improvisational Cook by Sally Schneider, which is an interesting book not only because the title describes my polar opposite but because of the approach it has towards both the recipes and the layout of the book itself. For instance, the other day I made one of the recipes demonstrating what she calls "close-roasting", a pork shoulder braised in its own juices by covering closely with aluminum foil in a dutch oven and marinated overnight in a "mole-inspired ancho chile, cinnamon and cocoa powder" rub. This was but one of 4 variations listed under the category of close-roasting – the next variation? Duck. So the goal is to show you the technique and how you might apply it to anything you have on hand, so that you might – get ready for it – improvise! Amazing how that works. We’ll see how that works out for someone like me, what with my panic attacks at having a different kind of paprika than a recipe calls for.     
Anyway, my lemon cake was almost gone and I needed something to keep me from reaching out to Little Debbie, (she’s so good to me!) so I plucked this recipe out of the back since Warren prefers brownie or other chocolate + flour treats. A word of caution – these tell you heaping tablespoon or 1/4 portions of dough. If you make these with the variation I have written, they are nearly too big to be comfortably enjoyed due to the richness. If/when I make them again, I’m going to scale it back to a heaping teaspoon instead (if you do it now, remember that smaller portion = less time in the oven.) Then again, I had half of one for breakfast and two after dinner, so…    
 





Chocolate Wonders    Adapted from "The Improvisational Cook" by Sally Schneider    
You will need:    8 oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, or 6 oz semisweet chocolate and 2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped. (because who doesn’t have unsweetened chocolate on hand…)    6 Tbsp. unsalted butter    1/3 c. all-purpose flour    1/2 tsp. baking powder    1/4 tsp. kosher salt    2 large eggs, at room temperature    2 tsp. instant espresso powder* (optional)    2 tsp. vanilla extract    3/4 c. sugar    –variations**–    1 c. milk chocolate chips    1 c. semisweet chocolate chips    1/2 c. white chocolate chips    1/2 c. bittersweet chocolate chips    
Now, down to business. There’s some instructions as to placement for two racks in the oven, but I know my limitations as a baker so I keep to a single rack in the center of the oven unless a recipe tells me specifically that I cannot do that. Preheat your oven to 325F and prepare your cookie sheets by lining them either with parchment paper (my favorite) or aluminum foil with the shiny side up. If you are fancy and have a Silpat or the equivalent, I see no reason why this wouldn’t be a perfectly good application for it.     


      
Melt your butter and chocolate by placing both in a double boiler, or in my case, a steel bowl over a small saucepan with a bit of simmering water in it. I feel like it’s repetitive but I have to say again, there are several methods for melting chocolate and frankly if you’re not tempering it, melt the stuff however you want. In a pan or in the microwave, I really can’t see it being a problem as long as you don’t let it scorch. This recipe mentions even a Flame Tamer. Does anyone actually know what a Flame Tamer is? Anyway, once you’re melted set it aside and let it cool down. You want it to still be warm, but just barely.       

    
While it cools, sift/whisk your flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.    


      
In yet another bowl, combine the eggs, espresso powder and vanilla, and beat with a whisk or hand mixer until combined. Add the sugar and beat until thick, which will take a minute or two. God help you if you chose a whisk, as about 30 seconds in my wrist was staging a revolt.      

    
Use a rubber or silicone spatula to add the chocolate mixture into the eggs and mix until just combined.     


      
Finally, add the flour and stir with the spatula until just blended.       

    
Add your variations – "chunky embellishments" she calls them – by folding into the batter with the spatula until evenly incorporated.     


      
Drop the batter by heaping tablespoons on the pans, leaving 1 1/2 inches between cookies. Bake about 15-17 minutes, until the tops look set and have that cracked, brownie-like finish. Let cool to warm on the pan before removing to a rack and/or shoving in your mouth. They have a soft interior fresh out of the oven that you want to protect so that it can firm up a bit without falling all over the place, thus the wait.       
Notes:      
* This is one of those things I realize not everyone will have on hand. If I hadn’t used it in a chocolate tart, I wouldn’t have it either. If you are not inclined to buy it or can’t find it (Harmons has it, SLCers) you can substitute instant coffee instead. Its only purpose is to bring out and deepen the chocolate, it doesn’t taste at all of coffee.      
** My variation is ridiculous. The original recipe calls for 1 cup each of chocolate chips, chopped pecans and chopped walnuts, but I’m the only one in the house who likes nutty things and the last thing I need is to eat 20 cookies on my own. I’m not saying these aren’t insanely good, because they really, really are, but they are also really, really rich and contain a truly absurd amount of chocolate. They’re not, as such things can be, overly sweet but they are definitely bordering on too rich. Just keeping you informed! If you don’t want this much chocolate, as far as I can tell you can throw anything you want in this batter. Craving some pork fat? Caramel and bacon go well together, so why not some bacon bits, caramel pieces and cashews? You could even flavor the batter accordingly, say, a pinch of cayenne for heat and make your chunky bits Red Hots or cinnamon gummy bears or something. Could do the same with mint and make it a candy cane/York/choc. chip with creme de menthe replacing the vanilla. So many possibilities to be had here. It should also be said that the batter is good without the chunks and would make very acceptable plain cookies – the book calls these "Chocolate Planets" – but with a smaller size.       
And as a final note unmarked by asterisks, when it comes to cookies – or anything, really – with this amount of chocolate, quality is important. It’s worth it to splurge a little. I mean, I’m not busting out the Valrhona or Scharffen Berger, but using Guittard chips over Nestle or Hershey, and the Ghirardelli baking bars over Baker’s chocolate squares can really make a difference. 


 
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        <title>Feast or famine.</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/09/17/feast-or-famine/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/09/17/feast-or-famine/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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It always seems like I have a good month with multiple posts and then I have months like this one, where I’m just too busy to accomplish anything outside of what I’ve got going on in life. My in-laws have been visiting this past week and so do not doubt that I’ve been cooking (aiming to impress, you know) delicious food like braised short ribs and a lovely ham and a surprisingly good bourbon peach and raspberry pie, but I took no pictures and wrote no posts for it because I just haven’t had the time. Tomorrow marks another busy week and after that, I’ve got still more photo editing so I’m not sure where another recipe post will find its way to this website in September.
In other news, my oldest son, Grey, turned 3 on the 15th. They grow so fast, no matter how many times people tell you that while you’re pregnant you never really believe it until it starts happening right in front of your face. It seems like just yesterday he was a tiny little baby, and yet I look at him now and he’s practically a teenager.  He started preschool on Monday, too, so it’s been a lot of fun around here with all the preparations.
I read a recipe this morning for a grape and pear pie, so once this place has been cleared of cake and cupcakes, I think I’ll make that and let you know how it goes.
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        <title>Glazed Salmon, Basmati and Broccolini</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/11/05/glazed-salmon-basmati-and-broccolini/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/11/05/glazed-salmon-basmati-and-broccolini/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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In yet another stunning narrative of my life thus far, not a week after I finally got around to getting a subscription to that bastion of American food magazines, Gourmet, did I get an email notifying me of its imminent demise. By demise I mean that they’re no longer printing it, in case you did not know. I cried every day until my two and only issues arrived, and then I went shopping. You might think this would be a segue into a recipe from Gourmet, but as it has substituted the remaining issues in my subscription over to Bon Appétit (which I subscribed to anyway the same time as Gourmet), I felt it was appropriate to start with Bon Appétit as well.
 
Fish is not a frequent visitor to this household, as I am not a seafood fan. I’m sorry, but I prefer my food to not have an exoskeleton, which removes me from many things I’m told are delicious. My husband loves escargot and no matter how much garlic and butter are involved I just cannot get beyond the fact that it’s a snail. This is why I can never, no matter how much I may want to, be on Survivor. 
I do, however, make exceptions to that rule, and salmon is one of them. There may be a world of difference between a gently steamed or seared salmon fillet and salmon patties from the canned article, but they both taste good to me. So as I was flipping through my four new recipe-laden magazines, I spotted this one in October’s issue of Bon Appétit and decided to go for it. 
 
Lime-and Honey-Glazed Salmon with Basmati and Broccolini   from Bon Appétit, October 2009    serves 4, 35 minutes prep, 55 total
You will need:
1/4 cup fresh lime juice   2 Tbsp. finely grated lime peel    2 Tbsp. honey    2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnish    4 tsp. soy sauce    1 Tbsp. olive oil    3/4 cup sliced shallots (about 3 large)    1 1/2 cups basmati rice*    3 1/4 cups low sodium chicken broth**    4 5 to 6 oz skinless salmon fillets***    1 bunch broccolini****, bottom inch trimmed and stalks separated if necessary    

Crank your oven up to 450F, and whisk together your first 5 ingredients in a small bowl. 1/4 cup of lime juice was about two and a half smallish limes, and the zest, conveniently, was 3 limes exactly. For the fine grate, I just used my Microplane and called it good enough. Once you’ve got everything combined, set aside for now. 
In a large, oven-safe skillet or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Throw in your shallots and sauté until just beginning to soften and brown. My pan was too hot and it took about 2 minutes for me total, but the recipe says about 5 minutes. Shallots are a bit more delicate than onions so you’ll want to stir frequently to prevent burning. Add the rice and the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Cover skillet tightly with the lid, and into the oven it goes for about 10 minutes. The rice should be done by then, but if it’s not and it’s too dry, add more chicken broth in 1/4 cup increments. 
(as a note, I use a Tramontina green behemoth from Wal-mart, and the lid does not fit as tightly as I would like, so I covered the pot with a sheet of aluminum foil before putting the lid on for a tighter seal. )
Remove from the oven and add salt to the rice, to taste. Sprinkle salmon fillets with salt and pepper and arrange on rice, pressing lightly. Add the broccolini, tucking around the fish and anchoring the stems in the rice. Add 1 Tbsp. of glaze to each fillet, cover tightly again and return to oven for another 8-10 minutes, or until the salmon is just opaque in the center and the broccolini is crisp-tender. Drizzle remaining glaze over the fish and rice, top with additional cilantro and serve. 
 

 
Notes:
As I was expecting something altogether more highfalutin, it came as a surprise to me to learn that this was a one-skillet meal. I love one-skillet meals because I generally destroy my kitchen if I make anything more complicated than spaghetti. Also, this is extremely easy, so don’t be intimidated by the source.  If cost is a concern (and these days, who isn’t concerned?) you could easily go with smaller portions. Since my toddler’s idea of fine dining is Easy Mac, I opted to get 2 6oz fillets instead, and since I had everything but the broccolini and the fish on hand, this recipe cost us about $12 for two people. 
* – Tilda produces some really lovely basmati. It is not the cheapest option but it’s not unreasonable. Look for the shiny metallic blue bag. 
** – If you have a WinCo grocery store in your area, quarts of Pacific free-range organic chicken broth are a whopping $1.89! That is insanely cheap compared to other stores in the area.
*** – The skinless salmon fillets I purchased were $4.99 each, regardless of weight. If you are more adept than I in the kitchen, I see zero reason why you couldn’t get skin-on and just remove the skin, if that price is less prohibitive. 
**** – For SLCers, Harmon’s carries broccolini. If your local stores don’t carry it, the flavors are of a mild, asparagus-broccoli bent, so I am certain that broccoli or asparagus would work just fine here. 
 
 
(one more brief note, I am providing links with the intent of being helpful, there’s no profit in it for me. but seriously, get a microplane, they’re amazing.)
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        <title>Slow-roasted Citrus and Garlic Pork with Glazed Carrots and Pan-fried Corn</title>
        <link>http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/11/12/slow-roasted-citrus-and-garlic-pork-with-glazed-carrots-and-pan-fried-corn/</link>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.kitchenista.org/2009/11/12/slow-roasted-citrus-and-garlic-pork-with-glazed-carrots-and-pan-fried-corn/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:28 -0500</pubDate>
        <dc:creator>Alicia</dc:creator>
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Something about that picture puts me in mind of a fish. No idea why. Anyway, so in yet another magazine post (hey, at least it’s a different one), Food Network magazine puts out 6 issues per year, instead of the usual one per month. This recent addition is action-packed with recipes, including one for hot buttered rum. I’ll give you one guess as to who created that one!
Buried amidst the plethora of turkey and stuffing and other traditional Thanksgiving feasts was a section entitled “A Cuban Feast” and it had me at this title: Slow-Roasted Pork with Citrus and Garlic. You might have picked up on it by now, but I love pork. I think I  subconsciously look for the pork recipes before I even consider other meats. This particular recipe calls for a 6-8lb Boston butt, which is a shoulder cut (also used to make the incredibly and surprisingly delicious cabbage soup from Veselka) and not only does the grocery store I use to buy my meats not carry any that size, it’s just too much for my small family. The side dishes listed weren’t great for us, not big squash eaters here and bananas flambé, well, let’s just say I think it’s better if I don’t intentionally light things on fire in my kitchen since I do it so well accidentally already. I served this up with some honey-balsamic glazed carrots and some pan-fried corn with red pepper and parsley.

I can’t lie to you, this was an insane amount of prep for a roast that was not particularly spectacular, which actually did not surprise me too much as Saveur’s Caribbean pork roast was also heavy on prep but disappointing on flavor. I don’t want to discourage you from making it though, because taste is such a subjective thing, but be prepared. I’ve cut the recipe in half here and it should serve 4 comfortably.
Slow-Roasted Pork with Citrus and Garlic
(adapted from Food Network Magazine)
5 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon fresh oregano
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 bay leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 3-to-4-pound Boston butt pork shoulder
Juice of 3 oranges, peels reserved
Juice of 2 lemons, peels reserved
Juice of 2 limes
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
6 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 white onion, thinly sliced
OK, here’s where the work starts. The magazine said prep would be 40 minutes. My experience was closer to 90 minutes, and it might be because I don’t have a juicer so I squeezed my citrus by hand, and since I had cuts on both hands I opted to leave the peel on and just cut it off after. If this is something you plan on doing as well, I did score four lines down each fruit before cutting in half, to make peeling easier.
In your food processor (or blender, or mortar and pestle) blend the first five ingredients into a paste. It may not look like one, but it should feel like one. Don’t expect the spices to get too finely ground, this is more like a slightly damp rub than anything. Trim any excessive fat from your pork and cut deep slits about every 2 inches all over. I tend to just stab mine with a paring knife, I’m not sure precision is especially important here. Rub your spice mixture all over the pork, into the slits, and set aside for now.
In a large glass or plastic (no metal! acids + metal = reaction!) bowl, whisk together the juice of the oranges, lemons and limes, the Worcestershire sauce and the olive oil. Submerge the pork as best you can in the marinade, then top with the onions and finally, the orange and lemon peels. Cover with plastic wrap (not foil! acid + metal = reaction!)  and marinate in the fridge for at least 8 hours and up to 2 days. (I let mine marinate for 12 hours.)
Preheat the oven to 450F. Remove the peels and chuck ‘em into the fridge for later. Place your pork onto a rack and into a roasting pan and roast, uncovered, for an hour. Keep the marinade and onions, you’ll need them later. After an hour, take your pork out and turn the oven down to 350. Pour the marinade over the roast and top with the onions, cover with foil and roast for another hour. Take the pork out, add the peels on and around the pork,  and roast for another 1-2 hours, basting with the juices occasionally. The recipe says to cook until it reaches 190, but at it’s peak mine only got to about 184. It doesn’t matter, pork is safe at 160 (Mark Bittman says 150) and is lovely, juicy and flavorful at that temperature anyway. Let it rest for 10 minutes, slice and serve.

Can I just tell you, the idea of leftovers, chopped, on toast with gravy? It’s really working for me right now. I’ll have to try it.
Anyway, I’m going to be up front and tell you that the proportions for these side dishes are going to be estimates. I didn’t work from a recipe (!) and it’s so fun to just throw some of this, toss some of that, that I failed to write down what I used. So play with it a little, both recipes here are extremely forgiving.
 
Honey-and Balsamic-Glazed Carrots
4-6 medium carrots, peeled and julienned
1 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup honey
3 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
To julienne your carrots: slice in half lengthwise, then into thirds across. Take each piece and slice into 3 or 4 pieces lengthwise. If pieces look large, turn them on their sides and slice again lengthwise. Though really, there’s no reason you couldn’t do baby carrots or coins instead of strips, you would just need to adjust the steaming time.
Speaking of steaming time, add the water and the pat of butter to the skillet, give it a few minutes to warm up, then add the carrots. Cover and allow to steam for 10-20 minutes, crisp-tender is the goal but your preference is key. If you like softer carrots, let cook to the long end of the time frame. Once the water is almost evaporated, add the honey, stirring to coat, and then the balsamic, and allow to reduce to a glaze. Towards the end, add your salt and pepper to taste.

Pan-fried Corn with Red Pepper and Parsley
3 ears of corn
1 Tbsp butter/margarine
Pinch of red pepper flakes or cayenne
1/2 tsp dried parsley, or 1 Tbsp fresh Italian parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Really, any kind of corn will do here. You could use drained canned or thawed frozen, but as a former contestant of the Little Miss Sweet Corn pageant of Gibson County, Indiana, I favor fresh yellow sweet corn.
To prepare fresh corn for the pan fry, shuck the ears (if you peel from the bottom, the silk is easier to deal with), trim the bottoms and steam for 10-20 minutes, or until crisp-tender. Corn should not be mushy, it needs a bit of bite to it, imo, but again, it’s all about preference. Once it has reached desired doneness, run under cold water to cool and slice kernels off the cob. Don’t worry if it stays in chunks, it’s nicer that way anyway. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, add butter and allow to melt.  Add corn, red pepper, dried parsley and your salt and pepper, and cook just until corn starts to brown. If using fresh parsley, chop and add to corn once corn is finished cooking.
I would love to know what you thought of that pork roast, so tell me if you try it out!
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