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.

Sesame-Glazed Edamame, (Attempted) French Macarons

The number of Heath Ceramics I own just tripled, from one to three. I guess I should be precise - I joint-own the two I just got. E moved in with me, and her wonderful former roommate got us a pair of large bowls. This adds to my happy cup, purchased for hot drinks at work. An aside on that - SFMOMA has a Blue Bottle on the top floor in a beautiful, well lit space next to the sculpture garden. They serve coffee in cocoa-colored Heath mugs and these mugs make me quite happy. After some investigation, I found to be custom-made just for that location but an almost-identical mug is sold at their store. It may seem stupid to spend that much for a single mug, but it does make me quite happy. End aside.

The most remarkable feature of the bowls is their size. My standby dinner bowls, pictured in many previous posts, aren't really big enough for single-dish dinners. Maybe chili is filling enough given the volume, but definitely not my more standard rice-and-tofu dishes. To inaugurate them, I cooked a rather  unremarkable udon and silken tofu soup. About halfway through making the soup, I knew it would not astound and hatched a plan to make at least something good. A few handfuls of edamame, pre-steamed and laboriously popped from pods, were intended for the soup. Instead, they met their fate in my cast iron with mirin, cayenne, and sesame seeds. I was a little influenced by that little chickpea dish I've made before. The end result was a slightly crispy sweet and spicy bite, perfect for adding some flavor to a meal. Not so good for finger food - much too sticky.

The same weekend, I also endeavored on a standard trial of bakers: French Macarons. In short, if you don't care about them looking perfect and you own something for beating eggs, you have no reason to not make these. The ingredient list is impressively small, ignoring the filling, and the result is that combination of soft and chewy and sweet and sticky that begs to be savored. Again, assuming you don't care how perfect they look. Case in point, the macarons I baked up:

I think my flaw was using the wrong recipe. I should have just used the one a friend of mine does; instead, I Googled for "Miete French Macron Recipe" and took the first hit. It gave me weights for all the ingredients but the egg whites. It said 6 for the double recipe, so I halved it down to 3. But, alas, my batter was runny. Before you ask, yes, I'm sure my whites were stiff enough. They clumped in the beater and looked like meringue; they held a point. I may have deflated them too much in the mixing, but I'm going to bet if I used a recipe with weights on the egg whites and scaled around that, they would have come out at least the generally correct shape. Not bad for the mess it created.

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Sesame-Glazed Edamame

More an idea than a recipe

1/2 cup edamame beans, pre-steamed and removed from pods.

1 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (reduce if desired)

dash salt

dash chinese five spice

Make sure the beans are fairly dry. Toss them with spices and salt, and put them in a pre-heated cast iron over medium. Allow to cook for five minutes, stirring once. Pour in the mirin and the sesame seeds, and stir actively to make sure the edamame gets a nice coating. Once the mirin starts to gum-up, leave them alone in the pan for a few minutes so they can brown; repeat on the other side.

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.

Vermont Ruminations; Adapted Cottage Pancakes

I recently returned from a quasi-vacation in Vermont - I sampled the local coffee shop-and-laptop culture for a few days, but the rest of my week was spent relaxing, sightseeing, and spending time with E's family. Not counting a few-hour layover in Newark for an international flight some years ago, this marks the first time I've visited a state in the East (Columbus, Ohio being my previous record, narrowly beating out Detroit). My liberal, snobby, San Francisco-yupster opinion of the place? In one word: cool. In more words:

Have you ever seen Portlandia, more specifically the song "Dream of the 90s" which opened the pilot? Well, Vermont was a bit like that, except instead of the dream being that of the 90s, it is that of San Francisco farm-to-table obsessives. The atmosphere is libertarian - taken to mean personal freedoms and self sufficiency, not whatever cable news has decided it means this week. There are co-op grocery stores with an embarrassingly large local produce section, restaurants striving for local ingredients, and plenty of land with which to fish, farm, hunt, harvest, and otherwise get the good stuff. Cast iron pans were everywhere, which one should take as a sign of an advanced culture. The meal's host would casually mention the wonderful farm/friend that provided ingredients, a spiritual opposite of the name dropping one finds on Kanye albums. That isn't to say everything is good - the restaurants that aren't trying to source local fare are not trying just as hard as other greasy spoons in other states. The diners are just as diner-y as elsewhere; the population density isn't quite high enough to support artisan coffee ($4.50 for a 8oz cup of drip and the sultry attitude when you ask for sugar and they say they only have simple syrup which you'll find next to the compostable napkins though, oddly, not near the compost bin for said napkins which doesn't exist).

I came back from the trip, then, with two cravings. The first was for good, not drinkable, coffee. The second was for pancakes. A home-cooked brunch featured a yeasted waffle recipe, complete with blue corn freshly ground that morning. And 101 Cookbooks posted the Cottage Pancakes recipe I've been dying to try. I don't have the recipe yet for the yeasted waffle/pancake batter, but I did bastardize the cottage pancakes.

I very much toned them down, taking only the idea of putting cottage cheese in pancakes and scaling it to a single serving (as I prefer). My batter was 1 egg, 1/4 cup oat floar, 1 tbsp cottage cheese, 1 tsp baking powder, and about a thumbs-length of crushed/pureed banana. I would up the cottage cheese but otherwise leave that alone and call it a success. Maybe change out the oat flour for something more standard (all purpose) or less standard (spelt/rye/etc mix).

I also wanted to cook some more simple, flavorful creations, so I made what you can see below. A recipe is left as an exercise to the reader. As a hint, the central part of the dish features roasted parsnip in a mushroom/onion "gravy" (a bit of butter and a helping of water). The only spices were cayenne (on the asparagus), rice vinegar (dressing for the arugula salad), and herbes de provence (in the gravy).

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.

Something Like Bento

I've been trying to cook more, well, defined meals recently. The easiest way to do this is via a recipe, which usually don't make their way to this soapbox. The desire stems from my limited cooking vernacular; E ribs me about cooking "Mikey food" so often yet, without a recipe, that is the extent of my ability. Cook veggies so they are tasty? Sure, saute and season, maybe bake. Cook tofu? Sure, saute and season, maybe bake. So, to fix that. More recipes, more adventurous cooking. And, so, I bring you... Mikey food. Whoops.

While, yes, it is just cooked veggies, each bit was prepared individually, allowing me to play around with a whole four different preps in a single dish. The squash has rice vinegar and cayenne, the apple a mustard seed/sesame oil/rice vinegar dressing, the mushrooms soy sauce, and the rice furikake. I admit, none of that is very inventive, but it was a nice platform for experimenting.

The squash prep was probably the most involved; thinly sliced squash tossed in a bit of olive oil, cooked over medium without flipping or stirring until they became a little translucent. Sprinkle some cayenne over the pan, flip everything, add a dash of rice vinegar, and stir a bit. The mushrooms were equally simple - after the squash was out of the pan, the mushrooms went in until they started to sweat, at which point they were splashed with soy sauce, stirred a few times, and taken off heat.

The apple dressing is approximately 1 tsp coarse mustard, 1 tsp rice vinegar, and 1/2 tsp sesame oil. The proportions were easy but far from perfect; the main flavor was mustard seed. The egg was an attempt at soft boiling; the egg was too fresh, so I mostly destroyed it in removing the shell.

Simple Stir-Fry, Simple Soup, Simple Quiche

For this somewhat rainy, mostly dreary weekend, E and I crossed something off our list - cooking from Julia Child (Mastering the Art of French Cooking in particular). We couldn't decide on a meat dish. Well, we could, but it was Coq au Vin and I didn't have a heavy dish too cook it in. We decided on quiche, which it also turns out I didn't have a dish for. With that purchased, we prepared our dairies. Cream, butter, Swiss cheese, don't go this was if you don't eat those things. A few things went wrong when making this- the tart pan I purchased had short sides; on top of that, the crust itself got too thick on the bottom. This meant bites were at least a quarter dough, and with a slightly undercooked dough (that is, not crispy), it was an issue. When fresh from the oven and piping hot, the dish was delicious. Cold the next day, it tasted like a chunk of dairy fat which, honestly, it was.

To accompany it, I took Child's Brussels sprouts cooking method but not the ingredients. Roughly what I have always done, with an extra oven step at the end, viz. put an x in the base, blanch or steam quickly, fry in pan until sizzling, and, with the extra step, cook in the oven for 20 minutes. I wouldn't recommend the oven step unless the Brussels are bathing in butter; only a small amount of each was crispy.

There was also a stir fry with miso; I measured everything, but the dish wasn't a standout. The ingredients were a nice mix, aptly labeled "Mikey Food" by the illustrious E. Tofu lightly fried then sauteed with broccolini and a miso-based sauce, with oven-roasted yams added at the end. Yams in stir fry are quite good, it turns out

The soup was another dish that, while pretty good, was nothing to write home about. Onion "stock", canned diced tomatoes, wild rice, a smattering of carrots and zucchini. Seasoned with Herbes de Provence, I burned my mouth on it too quickly to tell if it was delicious or merely good. It shouldn't be too hard to create a similar dish at home; ours was light on water and hence stew-like.

Crackly Coffee Shortbread

My drip coffee ritual is now a common occurrence during the work week, thanks to a generous coworkers gifting of an electric burr grinder to the kitchen area. This also means that a dwindling bag of beans, not quite sufficient to brew a cup, has become something of an issue. I think I've got a solution to that, though. Adding to my long list of shortbread recipes is this one, a pleasantly crunchy, caffeine-spiked addition to any breakfast, snack, or tea time. The amount of beans I used was essentially a random guess that turned out to work quite well; the vanilla amount less so. The butter, sugar, vanilla, and coffee stage of the recipe smelled like heaven, but adding the flour muted the vanilla and baking it seems to have eradicated it completely. I'd recommend playing around with the vanilla amounts to try and preserve that flavor.

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Crackly Coffee Shortbread

Makes ~12 cookies

1 cup flour

1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup)

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tbsp roasted whole coffee beans, plus extra for garnish

1/2 tsp vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl. If you don't cream them and instead just mix them, you will get a denser cookie. With a mortar and pestle, grind down the coffee beans to a size bigger than granulated sugar (if you like crunch) or finer (if you don't). Incorporate the coffee and vanilla into the mixing bowl. Add flour and mix until the dough goes back to being a dough, not a bunch of clumps of butter and flour. You may need to "knead" the dough a little by hand if mixing via spoon.

Take a portion of dough about the size of my thumb, or about 1/12th of the dough, and roll into a ball. Flatten between palms of hands and place on a baking sheet. Garnish each cookie with a bean or two (optional) and maybe a fancy design (also optional). Turn oven to 350 and while that is heating, place the cookies in the fridge (not optional in the slightest). After no less than 10 minutes in the fridge, and if the oven is heated, bake for 22 minutes or until the edges have taken a very light browning.

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.

Raw "Pasta", Al Dente

I finally got around to cooking a meal now that I'm back; there was a bit of eating out and lazy nights to get the beans and rice diet out of my system. But now I'm back in the kitchen and my non-existent slave-driving domestic partner couldn't be happier. And, actually, my coworkers are happy too - bread has resumed. The bread won't get much space; it was roughly this recipe without the potato or walnuts, and 10% of the flour weight replaced with polenta. Very chewy, very runny dough, with a bit of a crunch and sweetness from the polenta.

For my first cooked dinner, I wanted to take advantage of the bounty of fresh, delicious vegetables one gets in the Bay Area. I also didn't want to cook. So I compromised - I would prep something, but it would be raw. I've had (and made) raw "pasta" consisting of shredded carrots and zucchini a few times. The prep time is minimal, unless you are an idiot like me and decided to slice the veggies with a knife instead of using a cheese grater. Don't do that, unless you have a lot of patience, a very sharp knife, and like things crunchy. Just, you know, use a cheese greater. Hell of a lot easier to eat, as well. You also want to make sure you use a very flavorful tomato - something big and heirloomy; the tomato is a lot of the flavor in this dish and a weak-ass roma really won't cut it. I also want to draw special attention to the cheese I used - wasabi chevre. With real wasabi, not a horse radish base. This stuff is divine and you should go buy some and put it on everything you could imagine putting chevre on.

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Raw "Pasta" Al Dente

Serves 1 (not all by itself, mind you)

1 good sized carrot, grated or sliced very thinly

1 good sized zucchini, grated or sliced very thinly

1 giant (or 2 normal) heirloom tomatoes, the more flavor the better

wasabi chevre (or really any very soft cheese)

grated parmesan

~1 tbsp olive oil

~2 tsp rice vinegar

freshly ground salt and pepper

In a bowl, combine the carrot and zucchini. Slice the tomato into wedges and squeeze them very lightly over the bowl, then throw them in as well. Add the olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper and toss to coat everything evenly. Add more of ingredients if needed for taste. Serve on plate, sprinkled with parmesan and topped with a dollop of chevre.

Roasted Summer Squash and Cherry Tomatoes

On my way back from buying random bottles of beer with interesting labels, I stumbled upon a produce store I didn't know existed. Everything looked delicious, it wasn't too expensive, and their plums where ready to eat. I picked up some cherry tomatoes, avocado, and summer squash with the intention of making a sandwich out of it for dinner. Then I lost track of time playing Dungeons of Dredmor and just ended up eating a sausage. No loss, but it did mean I had more time to contemplate what I would do with the veggies for lunch the next day. Polenta seemed like a good call - roast the roastables, eat it with polenta and beans.

Turns out, it was a pretty good meal. I used paprika and cumin, with a hint of cinnamon, on the squash and just salt and dash of cheese on the tomatoes. The polenta really needed some more flavor - more cheese, onion, garlic, something. I used 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup of dry polenta, and maybe 1/8 a cup of cheese. Double that amount of cheese, at least. I would also recommend slicing the tomatoes in half before baking, as 425 degrees for 15 minutes was not enough to char them. Maybe I was just impatient and hungry, but recipes I looked up said it would only take 10 minutes at that heat. Also be very careful biting into them; the embarrassing outcome of squirting tomato juice? Much more painful when they are fresh from the oven. Seriously, it hurt.

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Roasted Squash and Cherry Tomatoes

Summer squash for N people

Cherry tomatoes for N people

Olive oil

Sea salt

Cumin

Paprika

Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 and prepare a baking sheet lined with foil. Slice the squash into circles. In a small bowl, combine olive oil and sea salt. Put in a slice of squash, rub both sides, then rub it against a fresh piece of squash to evenly distribute the oil and cut down on how thickly coated the squash will be. Place on foil; repeat for all slices (rubbing half in the oil and rubbing the other half against an oiled slice). Afterwards, put an equal amount cumin and paprika in a bowl and sprinkle it (or rub it) over the tops of the slices.

Put in the oven for 15 minutes, then remove it, flip over the slices, and season the other side. Add a little cinnamon if you wish, then put it back in the oven. While the squash is baking, in the olive oil and salt bowl, toss the tomatoes. After the squash has been in the oven for 25 minutes, up the temperature to 425 and put the tomatoes in the oven. Cook for at least 10 minutes longer; the squash should brown and hopefully the tomatoes will as well. Sprinkle some grated cheese (like Parmigiano-Reggiano) over the tomatoes and it will melt in.

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.

Kale (not at all) Bibimbap

Continuing my week of destroying Asian dishes by using kale (yesterday I did it to sushi, tomorrow I'm going to cancel the trend of destroying them with kale because I'm now out of kale), I've moved a bit west to Korea. I get Korean food cravings every now and then, which is hampered by a lack of good Korean food in SF. Specifically, dolsot bibimbap. While my dining companions are getting their fill of sundubu jjigae, I'm patiently waiting for my egg and rice to crust-up on a hot stone bowl. Well, I don't have a hot stone bowl at home, so I'll have to settle for bibimbap. Except not really, because I'm busy destroying regional cuisines.

This dish can only barely be called "bibimbap". "Influenced by" might be a better term, but maybe I'm better off just not mentioning the inspiring dish. For one, my dinner lacked cucumber, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and basically all of the signature veggies you expect to find. It did have the signature egg, the spicy chile sauce, and seaweed. Still, a far cry from the real thing. Also it had avocado because, hey, who doesn't love it? The flavors were mostly right, given my massive substitutions, and I'd file this under "easy" as far as prep goes. So why not give it a shot the next time you've got some lacinato kale?

You could definitely add some sauteed sprouts and mushrooms to the recipe below, and optionally some tofu. I've also suggested you eat it with lots of banchan. I didn't have any, so I just had some amazing hummus and chips. Not traditionally a Korean side, but it will do in a pinch.

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Kale Bibimbap

Serves 2 (assuming a healthy selection of banchan)

2/3 cups rice

2 eggs

5-10 leaves of lacinato (dino) kale

1/2 red onion

1 small, ripe avocado

1 tsp rice vinegar

1 tsp olive oil

furikake (or other form of seaweed/fish flavoring)

lime juice

sriracha (or other form of spicy chili paste)

salt

honey

Cook the rice as per the cooking instructions. When the rice has about 10 minutes to go, dice the red pepper and cut the kale into strips, widthwise. Put in a frying pan with a dash of olive oil over high heat. After 5 minutes, add in a small amount of the following: lime juice, sriracha, honey, rice vinegar, and a dash of salt. Continue stirring until it looks mostly cooked, then remove from heat.

When the rice is done, add in 1 tsp rice vinegar and 1 tsp olive oil, plus a small pinch furikake and stir. Put rice into 2 bowls and split the kale and onion mixture between them; garnish with sliced avocado. In a frying pan over medium-high, crack in the two eggs. Fry them as to your liking, preferably leaving the yoke runny. When you think they are cooked enough, immediately (but carefully, so as to no break the yoke), place an egg on top of each bowl. Add a dash of furikake on top of the egg for a visual garnish. Eat immediately, breaking the egg and stirring everything together.

Scones Are Just Biscuits with Dried Things

On Saturday, Emily had a good friend in town that we spent a good part of the day doing stereotypical SF things with. Ferry Terminal for brunch, Dolores Park in the sun, Borderlands, seeing naked people (on bikes, not in the Castro). As we were walking to Dolores I had a craving for Tartine - and lo, it wasn't crowded. The line wasn't even out the door which I can (maybe) thank SXSW for. I got one of their scones; crispy on the outside, flaky on the outside. And then I decided I should make some.

Turns out, at least according to my bread book, that scones are just biscuits with fruit added. So I used the recipe I've used before for biscuits, with the addition of ~1 cup of assorted dried sweet things. Roughly 1/4 cup cranberry, 1/2 cup raisin, and 1/4 cup candied ginger. No additional sugar, which was a great idea. I did two things wrong but neither impacted the recipe much. I did one additional letter fold-and-roll (so 5 roll outs of the dough) - for scones, this didn't matter, but if you are cooking biscuits do not not not do that. It mostly god rid of the layering effect that was so prominent in the last batch.

I also maybe should have used a layer of parchment paper, or doubled my baking sheets. The bottoms were quite scorched due to how small I cut the scones and the heat of the oven. But the end result was still tasty - not quite at Tartine's level (I would need to add some large sugar crystals on top), but better than the dry scones you'll find at most places.

Also the recipe has almost as much dairy as flour. 1.75 cups of flour to 1.5 cups of dairy (1 cup heavy whipping cream, 1/2 cup butter). And I can't really say no to something that rich.

Starter-less Soft Rye Sandwich Bread

I have quite a bit of rye flour lying around, and no real intention of using. This is a problem. Or, at least, was a problem. Based on how good the first batch was, I think this recipe will fix the problem for the foreseeable future. Even though it burst its seam and didn't look anywhere near as pretty as the photos in the book led me to believe. False advertisement, I tell you.

The design on the inside is supposed to be a bulls-eye but... yeah. It isn't. Sorry about that coworkers. Now, there is something a teeny bit wrong about calling this rye bread. Yes, it uses rye flour. No, it doesn't taste a thing like the rye bread you get your pastrami on. It is much lighter (using only light rye flour), less tangy (having no starter), and way fluffier (because it has heavy whipping cream in it). When it came out of the oven, it was nearing the airiness and general unreality of Wonderbread, except with healthier ingredients. Kind of. You did see the mention of heavy whipping cream, yes?

 Above is the burst seam. And below, after the jump, you'll find the recipe, etc.

Shortbread, Now With Buckwheat

For todays (well, not todays but you know what I mean) micro-recipe, I did a 50% sub of buckwheat flour for normal flour, and a baseline of 1/2 tbsp powdered sugar. So, roughly 1/2 tbsp powdered sugar, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp flour, 1 tbsp buckwheat flour. The dough was a lot firmer and required far more stirring to get the ingredients to come together.

 Pre baked on the left, post baked (but pre cooled) on the right

The finished cookies also tasted like buckwheat, obviously. I'm not sure this was a good thing. Another thing I experimented with in this batch was cooling time - I split the single-serving into two biscuits. I at one after 30 minutes cooling time, and ate the second after about 2.5 hours of cooling time. The 2.5 hour cooling time was far superior, as after 30 minutes the biscuit still had quite a bit of heat and chewiness (not something one looks for in an ideal shortbread). The 2.5 hour one was not quite that perfect combination of flakiness and dryness I expect, but it was much closer. I think my baking time/temperature might need some adjustment.

Shortbread Micro-recipe, Take Two

A follow up to the last post is in order. I made the 1-2-4 shortbread (a single serving, in fact) last night. This one came out much better. Same process: chop butter and whip it with a fork, add sugar and whip again, add flour and stir. I shape the dough with my hands, then put it on parchment and slip it in the fridge for 30 minutes. This time I went with 325 degrees instead of 350, but the same cooking time (9-10 minutes). This is just about when the shortbread begins to glisten but not lose its shape.

Pre-baked is on left, post baked is on right. The dough was noticeably stiffer, but it still "melted" in the oven. I think this is going to be a normal part of this recipe, as I hesitate to add any more flour. After I let it cool for an hour, it had hardened into what I would consider normal shortbread consistency - flaky and very solid. It was also delicious. Up next: either adding another ingredient (vanilla? raisins?) or playing around with the flour (whole wheat, buckwheat, etc).

Remember, this was made with 1/2 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of butter, and 2 tablespoons of flour. And it made exactly one shortbread. Working with an amount of ingredients this small is phenomenal - I take one of my tiny sake cups and a tiny fork and can whip the butter with minimal effort; it softens quite easily given how little there is.

Experimenting via Micro-Recipes

While eating a piece of shortbread, I thought to myself, "Mikey like! Mikey make?" except not necessarily in terms so simplistic. So, straight to the internet where I discovered many interesting facts about shortbread - its long and storied history, its place in cultures across the world, and its humble origins. Namely, 1 part sugar 2 parts butter 3 parts flour. If you check wikipedia, you'll note the flour bit says "oatmeal flour" but since when have I read things properly?

My plan, and I will continue with it, is to take advantage of the few ingredients and simple ratios of shortbread to experiment by making a very small  batch (a cookie or two) and tweaking things one at a time. I started off today with a baseline where I took a single tablespoon to be a part. Two biscuits where formed - a baseline sweet to be topped with powdered sugar, and a baseline savory to be topped with sea salt. Other than those toppings, applied after baking, there were no differences in the biscuits.

I made a guess on preparation and baking - refrigerate the dough to set it after shaping and an oven heated to 350 degrees, cooking time of 10 minutes. Now, that wrong type of flour mentioned above truly bit me on this night of baselining. See, oatmeal flour is a thicker, heartier type of flour than the unbleached all-purpose flour I employed. The beautiful 1-2-3 ratio did not produce much beyond slightly heated dough. Post-baking, the biscuits had notably melted and failed to solidify the least bit. Once cooled, they were semi-firm and questionably delicious - they reminded me of sugar cookie dough. I dutifully ate them, however, in the name of science.

 The next step, then, is to re-baseline the recipe using a 1-2-4 ratio. While not as mnemonic as 1-2-3, it pleases me that it forms a list of powers of two. From there, assuming I get good results, I will experiment with toppings, fillings, and dough ingredients - and I will reduce down to a half tablespoon as the "part", which will make a single biscuit. Hopefully I get good results out of this experiment, though eating a spoonful of flour butter sugar isn't the worst thing a man can do.

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.

Thumbprint Rolls (Blueberry and Cinnamon/Sugar Crumble)

More free time than usual due to the holidays, so I'm doing more baking. The original plan was to cook something using Panettone dough as it is a very involved and time-consuming process. Luck (or laziness?) was on my side, and I was spared to ordeal when I read the recipe in my book - it used a starter. As my starter is still forming, I did not want to try substituting instant yeast in for a recipe that complex.

 I found a recipe that looked awesome - Fruit-Filled Thumbprint Rolls. I'll spare the dough details, as it is just cinnamon roll dough (use your favorite recipe). After getting your dough all ready, at the point when you are ready for it to rise, form it into tiny rolls and proof. Right before they are to go in the oven, wet your thumb and push into each roll in the center, creating a nice divot to fill with sugary substances. My rolls had in issue - I either didn't make big enough divots or I didn't let them rise for quite long enough. Many rolls "popped" when baked, rejecting their sugary implants and depositing them all over their surface.

Of course, you should have made your sugary substances by this point. I went with two filling options - blueberry filling and a cinnamon sugar crumble with raisins. The blueberry filling was made using a slurry of sugar, water, and corn starch that was stirred constantly over medium until it was boiling, then blueberries were thrown in as it was removed from heat. Boiling sugar water is really fun, you should try it some time. The cinnamon sugar crumble was, well, cinnamon, sugar, butter, and flour mixed together (flour added last), then topped with a few raisins once the pastry was filled.

The final part of the recipe was much looked forward to by myself - making a sugar glaze, brushing it over the rolls the second they come out of the oven (covering them in a fine, and mostly invisible, layer of sugar). The real topper was waiting for them to cool and then drizzling ever more glaze on top. To make glaze, put a dash of vanilla in a cup of sugar and whisk, then gradually add liquid (water, milk, etc) while whisking until it hits the consistency you are looking for.