Plenty More Cooking

My schedule returned to normal, my stomach the same, and the arrival of "fall" in SF all lead to one thing: more cooking. The latest edition of Lucky Peach arrived last week and has proved excellent so far. While the recipes are not exactly basic, the lot seem less chef-ified than past issues. For a cooking night with E, we made a modified eggplant, soba, and mango dish from Plenty and a very heavily modified "vegetables stuffed with fish paste" from Lucky Peach - I used chicken sausage instead of fish paste.

The eggplant dish was excellent, as everything else from the book - cilantro, lime, onion, and red pepper provide the base, and the mango livens it up a notch. However: the slight modifications to the eggplant recipe, entirely my own doing, are not ones I would recommend. It asks for fried eggplant; please do so. The chewiness of baked eggplant was not the best. Also, the dish is intended to be cold. We, as hungry diners, ate it warm instead. The leftovers, having marinated in the liquids for some time, had more body.

Later in the week, E requested yams. For some reason, I decided the yam bruschetta would be a grand idea. It, as we discovered, is. We deviated from the bruschetta template by a large margin, so I may offend some with the name. Don't let that stop you from cooking this dish; tomato, yam, and a strong cheese create a winning combo. The yam baked until it is almost creamy and stacked with carmelized onions is a dream to bite into.

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Yam Bruschetta

Serves 2-3 as dinner/4-6 as appetizer (depending on yam size)

1 medium-ish yam, sliced into thin rectangles

bread (we used a home-made pita-ish dough)

2-4 small heirloom tomatoes

1 yellow onion, cut as you would for a sandwich

watercress stems, cut slightly shorter than the bread

a strong, hard cheese (we used a goat gouda)

olive oil

salt/pepper/etc

Preheat oven to 425. Prepare the yam by slicing in, then lightly tossing in olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and potentially more seasonings. E was in charge of this part and I only remember cinnamon. Definitely something else. Put on a parchment-lined baking sheet and put in the oven.

Cut the onion into strips and put in a small pan over medium-low - the onion should completely cover the bottom and then some. Sprinkle with a little salt and carmelize slowly while you go about the rest of prep; after 10-15 minutes, stir every 5 minutes so they cook evenly and don't burn.

Slice your bread, tomatoes, cheese, and watercress. When the yams are soft so that a fork could spread them on bread, 40 minutes or so, remove from the oven (but don't shut it off). The onion should also be nice and sweet at this point.

Assemble the bruschetta - brush each piece of bread with a small amount of olive oil, then place a yam slice, a tomato slice, a few strands of onion, and a hint of cheese on top. Finish with 4-6 watercress stems and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.

Cook in the 425 degree oven for 10+ minutes until the tomato has started to give off liquid, the cheese has begun to melt, and some onion/green tips have blackened. Let them cool for at least a few minutes, lest you burn your mouth on the tomato.

Socca That Shouldn't, But Does, Work

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I actually posted. Then, I went to Beijing for a few weeks, got back to a stomach bug for a week, and have generally been busy. I ate really a rather large variety of food in Beijing; E along as my translator made things much easier. We still did guess our way through a few menu items as the characters used for describing food aren't exactly the most descriptive. For instance, my "noodles tomatoes and egg with <unrecognized characters> extra" that we were excited for? <unrecognized characters> just meant "a size bigger". Hrm. But, yes, chuan is delicious (as is all Uyghur food we had), I really like zhōu (congee/rice porrige/jook/etc), and there were some surprisingly good tofu skin/peanut dishes.

And really a lot more to talk about, but this post is not about that. It is about a dinner that, by all accounts, should have been an interesting experiment and nothing more but was, in reality, simply delicious. I have been cooking a lot from Plenty (another reason for the lack of recipes) and have enjoyed everything from it so far. It had a recipe for socca - chickpea flour pancakes - topped with onion and tomato. I took the recipe as an inspiration, ran it through parts of Japan and China, and came up with this.

Socca, with green onion inside, topped with mâche (lamb's lettuce), and a mushroom/tomato saute. The China part is, somewhat obviously, the green onions in the socca - like scallion cakes but much lighter. The Japan part isn't so obvious from a photo, but from a bite it would be obvious. The saute was seasoned with a combination of sake, (fake) wasabi, and brown sugar. Sesame oil could, probably, have helped a great deal. Delicious, though, most definitely delicious. If I see Italian/Japanese fusion places in the future, I won't be quite so stunned.

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Socca (By Way of Asia)

Serves 2

This recipe is an approximation, and not a final product. Consider it a place to get started; much could be improved in the dish. For instance, a sauce, aioli, or dip could be of great benefit. As could some spices.

1 cup chickpea flour

1 cup lukewarm water

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp minced green onion

1 "box" mushrooms (8oz, I think)

2/3 "box" cherry tomatoes (???oz)

1/4 cup-ish sake

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp (give or take) wasabi

salt+pepper

a bit of mâche

Mix the socca batter - combine all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk. Clean the mushrooms and dry them, then slice them. Sweat the mushrooms with a dash of salt in a frying pan over medium heat for about five minutes. While the mushrooms are sweating, begin cutting cherry tomatoes in half. When the mushrooms have reduced by a bit and are tasty, prepare to multi-task.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees and prepare a parchment-lined baking sheet. Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat with a bottom the size you would like your socca (think slightly larger than tacos). While doing the rest of the saute prep, you should be cooking socca: put a dash of oil in the pan and add ~1/4 cup of batter, spreading it evenly over the bottom. After 1-2 minutes, it should have bubbles and the top should have begun to set a little. Flip and cook for another minute.

In the downtime of cooking socca, add the sake, brown sugar, and wasabi to the mushrooms and reduce for several minutes. Then add the tomatoes, cook for five minutes, and add salt and pepper to taste. All the while, you should be making socca - I got 6 pancakes from the recipe, which is a good amount to aim for.

The saute should finish before the socca, which is good as you want it to cool slightly. When all the socca are done, put a bed of mâche on each one, then top with saute. Place in the oven for 5-10 minutes to warm. Serve and eat immediately, as they will cool quickly. Warmed plates may help. Eating with your hands may be a good idea, as E thought the dish was close enough to a taco to be eaten like one.

Hell, maybe add some guacamole.

Figs and Bacon

The farmer's market at the Ferry Building in SF is an oddity; both a large tourist draw as well as a favorite of locals. Unlike the Powell-Hyde/Powell-Mason cable car lines, Fisherman's Wharf, and Alcatraz, the number of tourists at the market Saturday morning is likely less than locals. In addition to finding the rare and elusive mingling of tourists and locals (see also "Dolores Park" and "Alamo Square"), one can usually find meal inspiration. Sitting on a bench with E, drinking morning inspiration, she mentioned making pasta dough was really easy and we decided to add it to the "cook sometime" list. Otherwise, our goal was some fruit with which to make sorbet and something for dinner.

We rambled through the market, looking for tasty things. My wonderful discovery last week of tiny brussels was not to be repeated, though E spied some lavender to pretty up my place with. We also impulse-purchased some figs; I thought on a whim, but E had something in mind for them. Having completed a loop, we decided the lavender would go great with blueberry so off I went to get a basket. I also asked the mushroom man for some recommendations as I've been attempting to convince my taste buds of them; he suggested a variety I can't remember the name of for a pasta primavera. A meal had formed - pasta primavera with homemade noodles.

Now, as is often the case, I was mistaken on the matter of a pasta primavera. E suggested we add carrots and peas; I replied that, no, the dish was just deconstructed mushroom sauce. It wasn't until this morning, several days after devouring the meal, I discovered my error. According to the great settler of debates, Wikipedia most decidedly decided in E's favor - carrots and peas are in. Oh well, oh well. It was still good, though not the star of the meal. That would be these figs:

Warmed figs, with bacon, garlic, rosemary, and lavender topped with the smallest amount of goat cheese. This is based on a recipe from The Herbal Kitchen that E had been eyeing for quite some time and even, apparently, planned for the figs from the get-go. An aside on this book: I have yet to make anything less than excellent from it; these are simple, restaurant-worthy dishes in home kitchen-worthy preps. The figs, though, the figs! I would gladly eat these again, then have even more of them after. Most of the prep can be done an hour or more in advance of eating them, at which point they need only five minutes in a warmed oven, making them perfect for lightening a cooking load.

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Warm Figs With Bacon and Goat Cheese

Makes enough for 2 people to devour, but scales well

3 ripe figs

2 pieces bacon

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

rosemary (fresh is better)

lavender (fresh is better)

goat cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Cook bacon in a pan, rendering the fat out and crisping it. When the bacon is crisped, remove and pat dry. Pour of some, but not all, of the bacon grease - keep roughly a tablespoon or so, enough to lightly coat the pan. Add the minced garlic and herbs to the pan, cooking for a few minutes until the garlic is slightly browned; remove from heat. Dice the garlic into small pieces, eating some, then add back to the pan with garlic and mix. Slice each fig in half and, using a spoon or thumb, create a depression in the center of each. Spoon some of the mixture into each of the figs. Five minutes before you want to eat them, add a tiny dollop of goat cheese to each and place in oven for five minutes. Eat immediately.

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Homemade Pasta

Serves 2

1 egg

twice as much semolina flour as egg, by weight

tsp olive oil

pinch salt

First, a note: don't use 100% semolina flour, as we did. 50/50 semolina/all-purpose is probably better. In a small bowl, mix the salt and flour together. Form a divot in the middle. Break the egg yolk with your finger, mix it around a little, then put it in the divot with the tsp olive oil. Mix, lightly, by hand to incorporate the ingredients. It should form a nice dough. Knead, flouring as necessary, for 10 minutes. Place in a bowl and cover to let the gluten rest for 30 minutes.

Prepare a pot of water to boil, with a little salt. Lightly dust a work surface in semolina flour and pull out the rolling pin. Roll the pasta into a thin sheet. No, thinner than that. As thin as you can manage, and then some. Really thin. Doing this by hand is hard. Once rolled, cut into desired shape. Boil for a few minutes, until done. Eat at once.

Chile Lime Yuba, Jiaozi, Others

Since the last post, I've intended to do more cooking with chemicals. It hasn't happened, really. One experiment in making some form of ice cream (hemp milk, xantham, versawhip) was met with success but  that isn't exactly impressive; ice cream is fairly trivial to make (though it is nice to not need a machine to do it). In the mean time, most of my meals have been simple ingredients with involving preps. For instance, I made a yuba stir-fry that involved making steamed buns, cleaning a rather lot of mushrooms and snap peas, carmelizing onions, and using a mortar to grind a sauce from jalapeno and basil. Yet the end result was just interesting; maybe something to work on, but nothing extraordinary. In fact, what I've described is basically the recipe if you add some lime to the sauce and some soy sauce to the stir fry.

For recipes that I can give, there were some definitely delicious dishes cooked in the past weeks. For instance, this mujaddara from food52 was phenomenal and simple. Cooking the rice in the oven was something I had never considered though it now makes perfect sense. The trick to really good sushi rice is ensuring it cooks by steaming, not boiling. Putting it in the oven is like the too-lazy-to-buy-a-rice-cooker man's solution to this problem. We topped it with oven-roasted carrots and broccoli, a dish that E has been knocking out of the park lately.

Another is a repeat iteration of "peas with horseradish", from Momofuku. That is it, really. Oh, it is from Momofuku so you have to add some butter. But, yeah, that is it. Heat some butter in a cast iron. Add some sugar peas, or snap peas, or really any pea that cooks quickly until you think it is done. When it is, sprinkle on some salt, shave some fresh horseradish on, toss it, plate it, and shave a little more horseradish. Consume, quickly. The flavor on this one diminishes quickly.

And, finally, a glorious dish: jiaozi (or, chinese dumplings). E kicked ass on this one, basing the recipe on the first hit on Google (note for later: searching for ethnic food recipes by their ethnic names yields better dishes). We subbed "Gimme Lean"-brand vegan ground beef substitute for the real thing and used store-bought wrappers. It took a while, considering how cramped my steamer became. One batch was boiled; I wouldn't recommend that - steam these puppies. They are awesome.

Iterating

Instead of the usual cooking routine, I took time recently on refining and iterating on recipes. I've done this before, most notably when experimenting with shortbread, but never with dinner. It is odd, as well; there is no dinner I can cook that is distinctly "my" dinner. Maybe black bean cakes as I've cooked them a few times, though never really learned much from them. Or tofu and rice; but I season that what appears to be a unique way each time. The trout of last weekend, however, seems a good candidate.

E and I cooked it again, somewhat randomly, with a few attempted tweaks. I think I overcooked it, however, as it was not noteworthy as the last effort, though still a fine meal. The modifications this time were a bit more oil in the pan, a bit more flour on the skin, and (potentially?) a hotter pan. Also, I may have cooked it too much in the pan, making the three minutes it spent in the oven one or two too many. We had it with E's prep of oven-roasted veggies and also her take on a simple dish of farro, onion, and goat cheese that I cooked earlier in the week.

Though I complain of having no signature dinner dish, the same can not be said of breakfast. My pancake recipe is a frequent request from my tummy and others. A prep right before camping this weekend, and a discussion over camp breakfast the next day, had me decide to make the dry mix in bulk. I added a dash of both ginger and cayenne pepper to the recipe, and settled on 100% spelt flour for the "perfect" taste. I need to take a few times to weigh out bulk quantities of the recipe and get it to a happy place; the current prep is all volumes, pinches, and dashes. But, once done with that, I'll post the current state of easy-to-measure recipe and bulk-by-weight for all to enjoy.

Crispy Trout, Rosemary Chickpeas, Ginger Libation

I can explain, I can explain - I haven't posted anything for so many weeks because I haven't made anything interesting. Part of this was having a stomach bug for a little over a week, during which time I was never really hungry and my stomach always felt unsettled, more so after eating and as the day progressed. The silver lining to that cloud was the day my hunger returned - I ate six meals and was still hungry the next day. That was on Thursday; cooking was cancelled on Friday in favor of pizza and drinks with a friend. Saturday, it was on.

E and I wrote down three recipe options from a book, plus knowledge of our main, and went to the store. The plan was crispy-skinned fish with rosemary chickpeas and either lentil strudel or Asian summer rolls as well (the last three of which are from The Herbal Kitchen). My grocery store, to add to the long list of things it lacks, carries neither phyllo dough nor rice paper, so we just opted for a salad. Which was a wonderful idea - handling phyllo dough for the lentil recipe looked Sisyphean, though the summer rolls looked plausible.

The fish also posed a conundrum; the store had wild Alaskan King salmon, a truly ostentatious fish I've cooked once before. This time, the butcher had accidentally skinned their fillets, leaving us with a single, pedestrian option: butterflied trout, farmed. Given the intended prep method, I think a leaner fish was the right (accidental) call. The fish was mostly crispy, flaky, and perfectly flavored with only salt and pepper. The rosemary chickpeas, somehow, seemed to go well with the fish. And E made a wonderful drink of ginger beer to go with the weather. A fine return to cooking, I say.

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Crispy-Skinned Trout

Serves 2

1 trout, skin on, butterflied (we got a 0.62 lb fillet, already prepped)

olive oil

ground sea salt

ground pepper

semolina flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Do any prep necessary for your fish - we removed the head and some of the fins, though my knife wasn't sharp enough for all. In a oven-safe pan that can fit your fish, heat a thin layer of olive oil to just below smoking. Pat the fish dry with a paper towel, then rub it with a mixture of salt and pepper on both sides. Add a small dusting of semolina flour on the skin side and make sure there isn't any excess.

Place the fish, skin down, in the pan and make sure it stays flat so the skin is in constant contact with the pan. Cook for 3-5 minutes, until it looks crispy, then flip the fish over and move the pan to the oven to finish. This took ~2 minutes for our fish, given how thin the fillet was; more may be required if you have a thicker cut. Serve immediately.

If eating with rosemary chickpeas (which are, essentially, heated chickpeas tossed with rosemary), I recommend the drink E made. Add a small amount of vodka (to taste) and a thumbs-length of rosemary to a highball/rocks glass. Muddle a bit. Fill glass with half a Bundaberg or so and add a slice of lemon. Let it site for a few minutes as the rosemary flavor won't immediately infuse.

Soft Boiled Eggs, Rye Soda Bread, Miso Mayo

I've been remiss in posting because I've, mostly, been remiss in cooking. A quick trip to Austin for SXSW had me subsisting on yogurt, sandwiches, energy bars, pastries, and booze. I came back exhausted and in no mood to cook; I even went so far as to shop for groceries and just buy a pre-made falafel wrap instead of making a thing at home. There has been some spotty cooking recently - a "fritata" in my cast iron with greens and toast, a veggie-quinoa soup with a heavy beer backing, and the usual assortment of bread.

These dishes, you'll note, consist of putting many ingredients in a pot and cooking them until you eat them. Planning is not involved, aside from deciding the veggies to buy at the grocer, and everything was haphazard. This past weekend I managed to cook something with a bit more planning (though not quite enough as to get groceries before). Talk of cookbooks over a dinner reminded me that I needed to sample the Momofuku book a bit more; a breakfast of soda bread was more delicious than anticipated; an article on miso reminded that miso is good. So I made this.

We have here a first experiment in the direction of a sublime dish; this meal was simply delicious but flawed. We have "rye" "soda bread" toasts; the first set of quotes as they used no rye flour nor caraway, opting for fennel on hand instead. The second set of quotes as this was most definitely not soda bread, lacking butter and butter milk - again, going for the almond milk and greek yogurt on hand. It isn't that I don't have butter handy, but more that I wanted to do without. The ratios were based more on my vegan pancakes and not so much on soda bread recipes; it was more batter than dough, falling towards an english muffin.

They are topped with miso mayo, a heavenly topping. 4 parts mayo to 1 part red miso, "whipped", with a splash of lime juice. Nestled on the plate you'll also find two soft-boiled eggs using the method from Momofuku - straight from fridge to boiling water (hoping they don't break), cook for 5:10, direct to ice bath, peel (again hoping you don't break one). In the photo, the top egg broke when peeled and the bottom broke when initially entering the water, but only slightly. Not perfect, still tasty. The only thing lacking is a veggie - like spinach to make them Florentine-by-way-of-Korea.

Notes on the prep: I tried flouring the ramekins, would not recommend this. The breads stuck. I'll try a spray oil next time. Also, I used volume instead of weight measures, so it may be off.

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Soft Boiled Eggs, Rye Soda Bread, Miso Mayo

Makes 2 tiny soda breads (one plate)

Rye soda bread

2 tbsp rolled oats

2 tbsp white flour

2 tbsp whole wheat flour

1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 tbsp plain greek yogurt

1/4 tsp fennel seeds

1/4 tsp blackstrap molasses

<1/8 tsp baking soda

<1/8 tsp salt

Miso mayo

4 parts mayo (1 tsp for this recipe)

1 part red miso paste (1/4 tsp for this recipe)

splash lime juice

Soft-boiled eggs

2 eggs, refrigerated

Preheat oven to 425. Mix all dry bread ingredients in a small bowl and combine. Add liquids and mix with spoon for 1-2 minutes. Prepare two ramekins by misting with oil, then splitting the batter evenly between them. Cook for 20-25 minutes, until browned, crispy, and a toothpick comes out cleanly. 

Alternatively, you could cook them as english muffins, in a frying pan with ring molds. I have not tried this, but it should work.

While the bread bakes, prepare a pot of boiling water and a kitchen timer. Gently put the eggs into the rapidly boiling water using a slotted spoon, starting your timer the second the first egg hits the water. Prepare an ice bath. After 5:10 on the timer, remove the eggs to the ice bath. Let them cool a bit, then remove from ice bath to gently crack them against a flat surface, returning them to the ice bath to peel them (underwater). Gently place peeled eggs on a dish.

The breads should be done now, and for better timing it should finish as the eggs go into the water. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then remove from ramekins and carefully cut them in half. Lightly butter them the open face and cook in frying pan to slightly brown them.

Prepare miso mayo by combining and mixing ingredients. Spread evenly on the breads. Get some hot water running from a faucet and very gingerly bathe the eggs in it to ensure they are warm. Eat.

Ethnically Challenged "Latkes", and a Twist on Rosemary Loaf

Continuing a theme of amazing weekend weather, we had another one. A somewhat hectic schedule led to me eating exactly 2 meals at my apartment the entire weekend, Friday included. One of which was a simple breakfast. Now, some of that was warranted. A truffle-making class Saturday morning gave me the opportunity to take E to Sightglass coffee. Her comments were mostly "I can't believe your drip cost more than my latte", "this is pretty good", and "yeah, you were right, this place is pretty awesome inside". Lets consider that a glowing endorsement. The truffle class was wonderful; I feel like I can make truffles at home. Some cooking classes I've been to and heard of are more like a dinner party; the instruction takes a back seat to drinking wine, socializing, and doing (but not being instructed in) prep work. Not this one.

The lack of cooking finally caught up to me on Sunday; not wanting to go to the grocery store I settled on quinoa and apple. Not the most exciting meal, but spruced up with a little bit of earthy pu-erh tea in the water, pan-toasted almonds, and a light mirin-cayenne finish it was a nice grounded meal after a weekend of heavier fare. It also put me in the mood to do something Japanese; I wanted tempura but didn't want to deep fry something. So I made latkes, except Japanese. Both those words should be in air quotes, by the way.

A recipe would do no good, but the thought process was such: latkes are a starch + egg/flour (binding) + flavor. Replace the shredded potato (starch) with sushi rice (also a starch) and move the flavoring away from the normal (onion, sour cream) to something Japanese (shitaki, seaweed, edamame) to get a new dish. It worked, impressively. 2/3 cup cooked sushi rice, 2 eggs, enough corn flour that I felt it was binding, and far too many hand-extracted edamames later, I had something that would form into patties and cook in a bit of oil. For a bit of final flavor, I also added a tad of furikake to the batter, a pre-cooked shitake pressed onto the top of each, and served on a piece of dried seaweed. Pre-cooked mushroom is important to get all that moisture out. I served it with a bit of raw kale and cucumber salad, with cooked kale just because I love kale so much. The only lack was wasabi, which I left at E's when we made latkes in the past.

I also found the time to toy around with bread - I think my loaves are doing well flavor-wise, but the visuals are sometimes lacking. With this last loaf, I was going for a tiled pattern, with raised, flour-coated tiles separated by rivulets of cheese tween them. You can see how that turned out:

In short, there was a bit of flooding. I think my problem was a too-short rise; given the temperature of my apartment and my impatience, this is unsurprising. What I attempted to do was make a cold-fermented loaf (that is, mix the dough at night and let it rise in the fridge) with a bit of rise time before it went to sleep for the night, and putting it to bed pre-shaped. I gave it 1.5 hours on top of the 45 minutes of mixing + stretch and fold, then another hour in the morning before going in the oven (instead of 2 hours). I'm unsure if it needed a longer night rise or a longer morning rise; the Tartine bread gets exclusively a night-time rise and has an amazingly crispy crust so that leads me in the direction of more pre-ferment proofing.

The pattern was made by coating the top in flour then scoring a grid on the loaf. Finely-grated hard cheese (like asiago, for instance) was carefully sprinkled into the cuts, making sure it didn't spread out of the lines. I did the scoring immediately after bringing the dough from the fridge; pushing this off until cook-time might be preferred, which is less of an issue if it doesn't have a morning rise at all.

Sweet Potato Bean Soup and a Cereal Update

With the changing of the clocks comes the changing of seasons in San Francisco - from just warm enough to warrant a short sleeve (on occasion, that is) to just cold enough to warrant a jacket (also, again, on occasion). For those not familiar, there are roughly two seasons in San Francisco, and those seasons come twice a year. Jacket, no jacket, jacket, no jacket (though the jacket season that the rest of the country calls Summer is a local effect and not, necessarily, felt in all parts of the city). But, yes, it is now the end/beginning of the year jacket season, and the necessitates some warm things. To start, Irish Coffee is now acceptable to order at bars where it is not their specialty. Also, you can make things like soup for dinner and not feel bad.

Which brings us to today's dish, of which I have no photos. It was an off brown color, under harsh indoor lighting, and the photographs were unappealing. The taste, though, was spot-on. While cooking it, I was worried it would be bland and flavorless; initial tastings supported this notion. It turns out that few things remain bland when a quarter pound of cheddar-like cheese is added, though. This was the dishes saving grace, without which it merely would have been bland mushrooms, zucchini, and kidney beans served in hot water. Before the recipe, a quick update on cereal experiments.

Bowl number two was much better; I did as I suggested I might last time and procured oat flour for the recipe and replaced molasses by honey. The results were superior, though slightly undercooked - 325 degrees for 35 minutes was not sufficient to turn the pieces crispy, though it also was not sufficient to burn them. Overall, a win in the taste category. A few pieces even had a proper air pocket in the middle! I think I know how to reproduce this effect, so I will try the next time. But, yes, the recipe I promised:

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Creamy Sweet Potato and Bean Soup

Serves 2

1 yellow onion

2 zucchinis

1 large sweet potato

1 cup white mushrooms

1 cup stock (veggie or animal)

1 can (15 oz) kidney beans

1/4 lb white cheddar or other flavorful, melty cheese

1 tbsp butter

olive oil

herbs de provence

salt + pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Chop the onion into strands. In a cast-iron (or other oven safe) pan, melt the butter over medium then add the onion, stirring occasionally. While this cooks, dice the sweet potato. Once the onions are soft and have begun to sweeten, put half of them in a large pot with a dash of olive oil over low. Add the sweet potato into the cast-iron with the remaining half onion, add a dash of herbs de provence, and place in the oven.

Chop the zucchini and mushrooms into whatever shape you fancy for soup and add them to the pot. Increase heat to medium and add the stock and can of beans (with liquid). Add pepper, a dash of salt, and herbs de provence. Keep stirring and let simmer for 20 minutes, after which time the sweet potato and onion should be close to carmelized. Grate or dice the cheese and add it along with the carmelized veggies to the soup, stirring constantly until the cheese has melted and incorporated. Serve immediately, though it will be hot.

Cookin By The Book

Doing something new - following a recipe. To the letter. Well, minus E's dislike of spicy things. We cooked some Baingan Bharta last night. A dish we originally ordered because, honestly, we were too immature to not order a dish that sounded like an XXX version of a sitcom that doesn't exist. A dish we were surprised to find looked like cat vomit, but tasted nothing of the sort. Not that I would know, but if cat vomit tasted as good as the dish we had you can't really blame cats for eating it. The original plan was to make ratatouille, like in the movie of the same, but the grocer only supplied giant eggplant so it wouldn't be as pleasing to the eye. Hence, cat vomit. Obviously.

The recipe involved cooking with yogurt, something we swore would never be done again. There have been some spectacular fails of meals involving that ingredient. But it seemed to work out fine; I think because we used plain yogurt, not greek, and we cooked it at a high temperature for ten minutes. The only modification we made to the recipe was removal of the jalapeno and the addition of some cayenne pepper. We used two small heirlooms, one red and one green, for the tomato portion. They barely colored the dish. It still looks like vomit. But quite tasty.

First Attempts at Pizza

It was finally decided that pizza would be cooked for dinner. Discussed many a times, even enacted once at a cooking class for E's birthday last year, but not for friends. My local expensive yuppie grocery store recently began stocking tipo 00 flour, the kind (hypothetically) used by chefs in Neapolitan cooking for their famous pizzas. That is, assuming you buy tipo 00 bread flour and not pastry flour. My packaged contained, as you can see, many photos of bread. The protein content was listed as 3g for 30g of flour (10%+ protein is a good indicator) and listed its humidity as 15,50% (another good indicator that it is meant for bread).

So, we set to work preparing procuring ingredients and prepping dough. The Saturday farmers market seems to be lacking in Mozzarella; though it appears Californian producers exist, none was found for sale. We did manage the large, juicy heirloom tomatoes and some smaller green zebra ones, as well as fresh basil. Generally, a pretty poor haul but we also wanted simple pizzas. We also snagged dates, as all the delicious ones are finally back in season. Notably Barhi dates, both unripened and ripe. Do try the unripened if you can, for an interesting experience, but note it was something like eating waxy paper or really bad jicama. It is amazing they turn into the ripe version; if you let them get warm in the sun they explode in your mouth. Soft, sweet, utterly delicious. But not a pizza topping.

For the dough, we used a modified Reinhart recipe, leaving out the oil and honey, and substituting 100% tipo 00 flour. The recipe warned us that less water would be needed; I didn't really listen. The initial dough was almost a batter, like the mini baguettes I make so frequently. Good for those, not so great for a pizza crust (unless you want it misshapen and thick). Just for the hell of it, I took about 1/4 of the dough aside to see what it would be like as crust, then poured flour into the dough and mixed until it felt right. I ended up using ~20% more flour than the recipe called for. So, yes, tipo 00 needs much less water than you would expect. And it still wasn't really glutenizing all that well, likely due to a combination of being worked for too long a period and being mixed in stages.

The resulting pizzas were quite good, though I'm not sure the crust had anything to do with it. The first pizza (the last photo here) was under-cooked. Given that the oven seemed to top out at 500 degrees, the cooking time was extended from the recommended 5 minutes in to the 10-15 minute range. The best pizzas were ones with a crust that had just started to blister and brown, however long that may take in your oven.

Market Lasagna, Sauceless

Quick question: are you thinking what I think you are thinking? Why make a sauce-less lasagna? Is sriracha the savior of any meal? Are my glasses too hipster? Maybe not the last two. Maybe that is just me. Maybe not. I'm not here to settle those questions, though, just the first one. You may want to make a lasagna with no sauce because, say, you are using a lot of liquidy ingredients and fresh noodles (which won't soak up as much liquid). Or, because no one makes a can of pasta sauce in anything approaching a reasonable size and you hate wasting food. You might have other reasons; I'm not one to judge. But, should you ever decide to make one, I've got some tips.

First: choose a bunch of delicious vegetables. We went with zucchini, carrots, and mushrooms (all fresh from the farmer's market, hence the name of the dish. Second: get some heirloom tomatoes with a lot of flavor. You aren't using a sauce, but that doesn't mean no tomatoes. Thirdly: cheat a little and using something like a sauce; in our case, pesto. Finally: use fresh (read: soft) pasta sheets.

The general gist of our lasagna was slicing and sauteeing all the mentioned vegetables (except tomatoes) and making about 1/2 cup of pesto from scratch using a mortar and pestle. We then made 3 layers of pasta sheet, veggies, bit of grated cheese, pesto. On top we put sliced tomatoes and more cheese, plus a few extra leaves of basil for kick. Cooked for about 40-45 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Was rather delicious, if not filling in the least. Also rather messy, as you can see from this (horribly taken, horribly fixed up) photo below.

If doing again, I would very much recommend putting another layer of sliced tomatoes about halfway through the lasagna as well as adding some more protein - going with a real lasagna cheese like ricotta or cottage instead of shredded Parmigiano, or by simply adding some meat/tofu/seitan/whatever. The cheese would help it maintain its shape and fill you up, and an extra layer of tomatoes would give it a consistent flavor through instead of "holy shit this is great" tomato bites next to "this is pretty good veggie sautee" non-tomato bites.

Herbal Tongue Twister

For this weekends cooking adventure, we pulled another recipe from The Herbal Kitchen. We've done two recipes from the book before, both excellent meals with no daunting prep. And, again, the book delivers an easy, delicious meal. It also contained my favorite ingredient (kale) and one of E's (pork). Sadly, my photos all came out rather blurry and I won't post the recipe because it is straight from a cookbook. Instead, you'll get the least-blurry of the photos and a brief description of the recipe - anyone who has cooked a few times should be able to figure something delicious out. Without further distractions, the meal complete with centerpiece:

The basic idea behind the meal is you take one hard to pronounce pasta (orecchiette) and one delicious pork product (pancetta). Try saying those together ten times. While the pasta cooks, you brown the pancetta then add in garlic and pepper flakes, followed by diced kale. As that begins to brown, you throw in a little liquid for the finish, add in the paste, and toss it with parmigiano-reggiano. You eat it and are happy. You have it for leftovers, cold, from the tupperware, and notice that it is more delicious that way.

Oat and Brussels Frittata

There isn't much to share about this one but these salient details:

• I have strange cravings for Brussels sprouts more often than not.
• Brussels sprouts are best when cooked in a frying pan over high heat, either halved or shredded
• Eggs are delicious

Taking these facts, I sauteed some sprouts in the usual manner. Then I had a craving for something like a pancake or quiche or frittata. So I threw in eggs, rolled oats, and a dash of cheese. Somewhat surprisingly, it was delicious.

_______________o_______________

Oat and Brussels Frittata

Feeds 1

2 eggs

1/2 cup rolled oats

Handful or Brussels sprouts, chopped into pieces

Some olive oil

Grated cheese of your choice

Salt/pepper

Ketchup

Probably addition spices

In a frying pan heat olive oil over medium/medium high. Throw in chopped sprouts, alternating between stirring and letting them sizzle every minute or so, until they have started to scorch. Turn off heat. In a small bowl, mix 2 eggs and oats thoroughly. Add in a bit of grated cheese, plus salt and pepper. Scoop in sprouts, which should have cooled, until you've got a somewhat good volume of green things. I leave this decision to the cook. Proceed to eat the sprouts that won't be cooked in. Reheat pan on low and pour in the mixture.

Cook, covered, until you think it only needs another minute or two. Sprinkle some cheese on top, flip it, and give it the minute or two it needed on the other side. Serve with ketchup because, honestly, I didn't use enough (or any) spices.

Herby Cooking (Chicken and Cauliflower, not Brownies)

Ridiculous snowfall this weekend led to calling off the drive to Tahoe, but our backup plan wasn't bad. Fancy cooking, from a cookbook no less. I've had The Herbal Kitchen for years and never once cooked from it; I've definitely browsed and salivated, and picked ideas from it, but never followed a recipe through. E and I changed that with not one, but two recipes from its pages. A pesto-stuffed chicken with cherry tomato topping and a cauliflower and apple bake with dill.

Having cooked these two recipes, I can't really fathom how I went so long without cooking from the book. Had we a food processor, it would have been an easy 40 minutes for a delicious dinner. Lacking one, but having a mortar and pestle, it was instead an enjoyable 40 minutes. I really like mashing things to a pulp. Also, this is probably one of the better dinners I've cooked and the ingredients were few and cheap. The recipes below are a little dicey on exact measurements, partly because I've left the book behind in E's kitchen and partly because you may not even need them - a description of approximate amounts should suffice. Especially for the chicken dish; it was fantastic.

I've never cooked chicken like this before - a quick 5-minute fry, followed by a lower heat cooking in the same pan, with lid, until the chicken is just finished. Allowing for thickness, this is between 5 and 10 minutes. You end up with one deliciously browned side and a very juicy cut, without worrying about overcooking; the chicken is already sliced in half so you can simply peek to see if it is done. The recipe recommended skin-on breast which may have catapulted the chicken from "well cooked with delicious accompaniment" to "delicious star of the plate."

Cold Vinegar/Sesame Noodle and Tofu Toss

Looking for a simple, not-heavy dinner, we decided on something involving a green pepper because we had one. Stumbling our way through ideas, soba sounded really good. We didn't exactly find soba, and it wasn't quite udon - the package called it "Japanese style noodles". Definitely not soba because it was not buckwhet based and it was far too small to be udon. It was also flat; my guess is the package had a ethnic confusion or wikipedia is not-all knowing.

We made a few mistakes in the prep. The noodles were very gluteny - after a short boil, we gave them a quick rinse to cool and then tried to toss them with the sliced ingredients. It was more of a ball of noodles sloshing around in a pile of tofu, peas, and green pepper with various seasonings. The proportions of seasoning was also off, but I've fixed that below in the recipe. I recommend eating this with a cold, unfiltered sake.

Vinegar + Sesame Noodle Toss (20 minutes to make, serves 2)

• 1 small package fresh, ethnically challenged noodles.
• 1 green pepper
• 1 small block pre-seasoned/cooked tofu (we chose a salt and pepper one)
• 1 handful snow peas
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp vinegar (rice or white wine, maybe balsamic if you are feeling adventurous)
• (Optional) furikake
• (Optional) Sriracha

Cook the ethnically challenged noodles as described on the packaging - this probably means bringing water to a boil, adding noodles, bringing back to a boil, and cooking for a few minutes after that. Drain noodles and rinse very thoroughly with cold water until they are less sticky and have chilled. Chop pepper, peas, and tofu into thumb-sized pieces. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and toss. If desired, top with some furikake or add Sriracha during the tossing process for a nice kick.

Mashed-and-Baked Parsnip with Sage "Gravy", Broccolini, and Spicy Beans

A few ideas planted themselves in my mind yesterday - broccolini is and will always be delicious, I haven't made potatoes ever, and sauces are delicious. A plan was hatched for cooking: one surefire thing, one probably good thing, and one experiment. All on the same plate! Well, this is the overall meal. I would say "rousing success" but I usually under-season things and it was a dinner for one, so no actual judgement was passed upon this meal.

The "surefire thing" actually turned out to be two things - the broccolini and the beans. I've charred broccolini enough times to call it a go-to dish and I have definitely cooked enough beans to feed an army of very flatulent soldiers. The rest of the meal was more experimental - while I have consumed, and watched the process of cooking, mashed potatoes many times, I have never partaken in the process. I guessed my way through it (and used parsnips instead of potatoes) by boiling them until they were quite soft, then mashing them. It seemed to work.

The gravy was an educated guess at how to make a no-meat no-packet gravy. It mostly worked, but it did take a while. My basic idea was learned watching my grandmother produce the gravy for Thanksgiving last year - she boiled chopped onion in some water until it essentially disappeared. Then she added turkey drippings, but I wasn't about to cook a turkey just for the drippings. Bean liquid, that which comes in the can with canned beans, seemed a likely substitute.

While I had the oven set to 475 degrees and pre-heating, I got a clever idea for the already-mashed parsnips. Throw them in the oven to brown! It would be perfect, a true masterpiece, a notch on my belt of amazing meals. The reality was a little different - I don't think it did anything much to them - but I can pretend. The rest of the things that came out of the oven were good enough.

Mashed-and-Baked Parsnip Cake w/ Gravy/Beans (serves 1.5, takes 1h or so)

• 2 parsnips
• 1 carrot
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 bunch radishes
• 1 bunch broccolini
• 1 bunch fresh sage
• 1 can brown beans, undrained
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tbsp flour
• cumin
• paprika
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil
• (optional) source of spiciness (here: sriracha sauce)

Peel onion and slice into rings/slivers. In saucepan with lid, place onion, water, fresh sage, and liquid from can of beans. Bring to boil, add the cumin and paprika, then cover and simmer while you prepare everything else. Chop parsnips into smallish cubes and place in boiling water until a fork destroys them.

While things boil and simmer, prepare everything else: dice half of the carrot, slice long strips out of the other half, dice most the radish leaving a few thin slices for garnish. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. On baking sheet, place broccolini, sliced carrot, sliced radish. Brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle salt on top.

Drain parsnips and mash them, adding a dash of olive oil, salt, and paprika. Heat on medium for a minute or two while stirring in the diced carrot and radish. In a bread pan or other oven-safe dish a few inches deep, form parsnip mixture into a square. Place baking sheet of broccolini et al and bread pan of parsnip et al into the oven.

While everything bakes, heat the beans in a pot, adding salt and pepper plus spiciness. If you don't want them spicy, they should probably get an additional flavor of something, but I leave that to the reader. After ten minutes, shut off the oven. Increase heat on simmering gravy to high and gradually add in flour, constantly whisking while it boils. Let boil for a minute or two, it should thicken as you stir, and reduce back to simmer.

Serve as I have in the picture, or freestlye that dish.

Black Bean and Rice Mini-Burgers

Returning to a dish I've cooked a few times before, I decided to play around with my black bean cake recipe. This is a pretty easy dish, and if you take out the rice it requires a lot less time. I also got to use a new, awesomely named, ingredient - dinosaur kale! The meal pictured below isn't the most balanced, but luckily it produces a lot of extra kale/mushrooms/etc to eat on the side.

Not pictured: ketchup used as topping when I realized just how dry they were without it.

Black Bean and Rice Mini-Burgers (makes 8 patties which serves 2-ish, takes 1 hour, or 30 minutes without the rice in the patties):

• 1 can black beans, drained (15 oz was the size I used)
• 1/3 cup uncooked rice
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• 1 tbsp flaxseed meal
• 2 tbsp corn meal + a lot more on the side
• 1 tbsp stone ground mustard
• pinch of salt
• pinch of sage
• pinch of cumin
• 1 red pepper sliced into circles
• 1 yellow squash sliced into circles
• 1 bunch dinosaur kale, cut down to burger-sized pieces
• a few trumpet royale mushrooms, sliced into strips

Cook the rice as per instructions. While the rice cools a bit, mash the beans in a mixing bowl with a fork. You want a few beans to survive the massacre but otherwise create something like a goop of beans. Add in the flaxseed and corn meal, stir. Crush the walnuts in your hand and add into the mixture, as well as the rice, and stir. Add in the mustard, salt, sage, and cumin, mixing until it is somewhat uniform.

Prepare the toppings - sautee the mushrooms with a punch of salt, bake the peppers and squash in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, and sautee the kale with some lime juice or other flavor enhancer. To make this easier, you can do this while the rice cooks and put everything in a warm oven for 5 minutes right before serving.

On a work surface, dump a generous heaping of corn meal. Something like 1/2 cup at least. Form a patty of the bean mixture in your hand and generously cover one side with corn meal. Flip it over in your hand and coat the other side, then flip it over again to shake off the excess cornmeal. I made 8 patties with the recipe, but you can size them as you want. Keep them thin if you want to cook them in a pan, but they can be thicker if you want to bake them.

For stovetop (preferred): In a large frying pan, add oil and set to medium heat. Drop patties in, flipping after 7-10 minutes when they have solidified a tad and adding a splash more oil. Let cook another 7-10 minutes until the bottoms are a nice shade of brown, flip and give it 2-5 more. You can stop cooking them earlier, but they will fall apart easily if you do.

For oven (takes longer): Preheat oven to 375. Place patties on lightly greased baking sheet and cook for 15 minutes, flip, and cook for 15 minutes more. They will not change in color much but will solidify quite a bit. If you don't think they are baked enough, another 15 minutes won't hurt.

Top with kale, mushroom, pepper, then squash. You will probably want some form of sauce/liquid topping, as otherwise the meal will be quite dry. I recommend either ketchup, mustard, pesto, or hummus. All work well.

Two Simple Meals

Having been a little under the weather recently, nothing extravagant has been prepared in my kitchen. I'm currently working from home, resting, and very full. From what, you ask? None other than the perfect "lunch for the common cold".

Sometimes, a simple meal is all you really need. Here we have some orange-like thing from the grocery store (tangerine?), Jarlsberg toasted cheese, prepared the proper way, and tomato soup from a can, with a dash of cheese and dill sprinkled on top. How to prepare grilled cheese the proper way? Well, your cheese should be sliced thin and layered only one slice thick. A very tiny pad of butter should be placed on the top and bottom of the bread. Place it in a frying pan, then turn on the heat to medium-low. After a minute or so, slide the bread around by shaking the pan by the handle (to spread out the butter). Every 30 seconds or so, peek into the cheese - once it starts melting even the slightest bit, flip the whole thing over and continue cooking until the cheese becomes a little gooey; at that point, give it a firm press with a spatula, a flip, and another minute or so of cooking.

It is also possible to cook a lazy, healthy dinner to make up for the gluttony of holiday meals and desserts, without using any energy that would be better spent slothing around the apartment.

Here we have Israeli Couscous cooked with chopped carrots and broccoli, spiced lentils with bell pepper, and steamed carrots and broccoli on the side (as well as on top, obviously). The lentils came from a can, plain, and spices were added. To cook couscous with veggies in it, simply chop the veggies into the water before boiling it. They will add a little bit of flavor (you can add broth or spices as well) to the couscous, as well as cooking fully.

Hopefully my sickness will fix itself soon, allowing me to get good and thoroughly hung over for New Years and possibly cooking something before then.

Tofu Bake Bruschetta and Artichoke

I declared this a night for trying something new - namely, baking tofu. But that sounded pretty disgusting by itself as I didn't want to marinate it. I had the grandiose idea of baking tofu into something you could put on a pizza, but I quickly pared this down to simply making bruschetta.

With baked tofu.

Yes, it turned out fine. No, I don't have much of a recipe, simply an ingredient list and how I prepped everything. No, you probably don't want to cook this (but I might be wrong).

The baked tofu bruchetta

Tofu Bruschetta:

• Small block of tofu
• Bread
• Tomato (I used grape, leftover from a past dish)
• Poblano pepper
• Grated cheese that melts (I forgot that important qualifier)
• Spices

I thinly sliced the tofu into strips that were about the same size as my bread, seasoned them with some random spices, and threw them in the oven with a little olive oil at 400 for 20 minutes. I let them cool a bit, assembled the bruschetta (the order is, bottom-to-top: some cheese, dry things, things with juices, some cheese), and cooked until they looked done. Again, you can probably guess the recipe but it wasn't exactly a normal dish and came out quite dry, so you may want to hold off on making these.

Boiled-then-baked artichoke

Artichoke using leftover ingredients:

• 1 pile of leftover poblano/tomato slices from above recipe
• 1 medium artichoke

In a big pan, bring water to boil. Slice off the very tip of the artichoke. Once at a boil, place the artichoke in and cover with a lid, letting cook in the boiling water for 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat and strip off the outer leaves. Every few layers, try eating one of them - stop when the flesh doesn't really come off the leaf. Take all the removed leaves, lay them out on a baking sheet, and cover with the leftovers pile from previous recipe. Bake for 15 minutes in the 400 degree oven from previous recipe.