The demise of an icon

November 11, 2009 at 12:14 am (Commentary)

Gourmet2

I’ve stayed silent for weeks on this subject but writing about what makes you really sad is a good way to work through your emotions. Seven decades was not enough. This publication, so dear to me, was a chameleon, changing with the eras it spanned but always remaining relevant. It could have gone on indefinitely. Gourmet, I will miss you so much!

I began subscribing to Gourmet in the early 1990’s. The magazine was so vibrant. Unlike anything I had ever seen. So beautiful and it opened up worlds to me that I never knew existed. I knew how to cook, but the caliber of the recipes taught me how to cook well. The pictures were ethereal and unworldly. The articles traveled to faraway places I could only dream of seeing. The voices of writers like Laurie Colwin, Gerald Asher and Fred Ferretti were so real it was like having friends tell you stories about their adventures. Through them, I would eventually find my own voice too.

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I do have to admit to falling briefly out of love with the publication when Ruth Reichl took over the helm as editor. Gone were my favorite writers in favor of essays by strangers. She extricated the lush travel articles heavy on ethnic food recipes in favor of writing that was more introverted and experiential about food itself. She started adding more and more writing and less and less recipes even taking away a well loved feature called the last word (which caused such an uproar that she had to add it back). There were growing pains during this time. Who doesn’t resist change and we readers were used to what we knew. However, as we put our trust in Ms. Reichl, the magazine changed and became stronger. Which is why the decision Condé Nast made so suddenly last month to abruptly halt publication on the magazine was such a shock.

Gourmet will be gone after the November issue and we could have a consolation prize in it’s stead. Subscribers were offered Bon Appétit.  Bon Appétit:  a magazine I cancelled for $1 an issue, a magazine I cancelled after receiving it free for a year. I apologize in advance for saying rotten things about a magazine that is probably someone’s favorite magazine, but whereas Gourmet had pictures of food that made you hungry, Bon Appétit has pictures of overcooked food that looks like someone dropped the casserole dish before it was photographed. Very hipster. To me, the writing isn’t much better. The recipes? Fat and sugar do not always create a recipe with depth of character. I prefer much more subtle flavors. I declined taking this magazine as a substitution. It could hardly replace a publication I couldn’t wait to read cover to cover each month.

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Why did I wait so long to vent my frustration in a public forum? Being a romantic, I thought there would be an uproar. I really did. I thought that legions of Gourmet subscribers would rise up in anger and save the magazine from extinction. As I peruse the odes to Gourmet on other blogs, I detect an apathy instead. Some people hate to see it go, some people don’t really care. Some people thought the magazine was a dinosaur, espousing a lifestyle too rich for the normal person to live and recipes too complicated to cook at home. But in argument: That was the point! We could travel without leaving the house. We could eat like kings without dropping a paycheck at a restaurant! But there you have it. Nobody is going to rise up and revolt. Nobody is angry. Nobody is sad. We have too many other problems in the world. Things are so generally bad that caring about the end of something iconic is trivial.

In my own revolutionary little way, I told the girl on the phone at Gourmet how much I loved the magazine and informed her that if it had survived I would have subscribed for life. I would have kept sending a gift subscription to my best friend for life.  I was so fervent with my words that the girl on the phone thought I was a nutcase and politely said she duly noted my comment. That was how I championed my favorite magazine as it faded away.

Gourmet

 

3 Comments

The waffle experiments – Part 2

November 9, 2009 at 7:48 pm (Breakfast Goodies)

Pumpkin Waffles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning I excitedly went to my cupboards. It was time to ignore the “use by” date and grab that old can of pumpkin that had been sitting there longer than I care to admit and try another round of pancake batter as waffles. I used this pancake recipe that I absolutely love for pumpkin pancakes.

The pumpkin pancake batter was really good as waffles, but I have to admit, my initial enthusiasm from a few days ago is beginning to falter. The batter for these pancakes is thicker than I remembered. As a matter of fact, it is nearly as thick as the waffle recipes I was complaining about. It all started to come back to me. The texture of these pancakes is similar to a ricotta cheese pancake although there is no cheese in them. The texture is caused by the fact that the batter contains very little oil but a lot of moisture from the vegetable puree. This moisture, seems to be trapped in the puree and doesn’t cook off when you use a waffle iron. The batter was difficult to work with as it had a tendency to adhere itself to the waffle iron, making these very difficult to remove from the appliance. I also had to cook these at a lower temperature than the last couple of batches of waffles. The first waffle was a disaster! Overcooked and torn apart from the roughing up I had to give it to extricate it from the waffle iron.

If you decide to try these waffles, and don’t get me wrong, you should (the flavor makes up for the difficulties). Cook them on medium heat and use plenty of melted butter on your waffle iron. But be prepared. Despite my use of copious amounts of butter on the waffle iron, these waffles aren’t crispy edged. They are soft and cake like. The flavor is a bit like pumpkin spice bread, only not very sweet. But that’s what maple syrup is for, right?

So what is my take on this experience? Some pancakes are waffles. I suspect that my cornmeal and oatmeal pancakes will be inappropriate as waffles although I may try to find out anyway. :wink: That is the fun of getting into the kitchen to experiment! At this point, I think the best pancakes for waffles are the ones that make the flattest thinnest pancakes. If it is a pancake that could double as a crepe, toss that batter in the waffle iron instead because I bet you’ll end up with little bit of heaven on your plate.

5 Comments

Soylent Green is… people!!!!!!!!

November 7, 2009 at 6:51 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Recipes, Sourdough)

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

No, no, no! I mean… pancakes are waffles. That’s it…pancakes are waffles. Phew! I’m so relieved! I bet you are too.

See:

Wheat and Rice Waffle

That is a waffle made with my wonderful wheat and rice cakes recipe. It is featured here with fresh pineapple, yogurt and real maple syrup!

Now I know that you are all way more savvy than I am, and you probably have figured out the whole pancakes are waffles thing a long time ago, but here is why I was so confused. Every recipe I have tried for waffles makes a really thick batter. So thick that my waffles always came sort of soft and soggy. Not like the crispy waffles you get at the local diner. Even the sourdough waffle recipe I tried suffered from thick batteritis. Since the batter was always really thick, I thought that waffle batter had to be thicker than pancake batter. It also seemed to me that the waffle batter had way more fat and sugar in it. To add to my confusion, I remember seeing a Good Eats episode on Food Network where Alton Brown explained the importance of plenty of fat and sugar in waffle batter.

I have to thank my best friend R. for showing me the way to good waffles. We were talking and she mentioned that she made some “kick ass” sourdough waffles. I asked for the recipe and she sent me an email entitled “fabulous waffles” which contained a recipe that would change my concept of waffles. You make a sponge the night before with your sourdough. The next day you are supposed to remove ½ cup of the sponge and save it as your next sourdough project. R. does not. She just adds the rest of the ingredients and gets an extra waffle out of the deal. The batter was super wet. Even a little wetter than some of my pancake batters. The waffle iron has to be really hot so that it can steam out all of that liquid but then, you are left with waffles that have a crisp exterior and a soft center. Just perfect. These waffles were an epiphany for me.

After making sourdough pizza last night, I meant to start a sponge for sourdough waffles for this morning and I forgot. We still wanted (no, needed) waffles this morning and I had a lot of buttermilk leftover from something I made last week, so I decided to make my wheat and rice pancake recipe and try it out as waffles. I made the waffle iron nice and hot and they came out perfect. The flavor and texture were wonderful. Now I want to try all of my pancake recipes as waffles.

Here is a list of possible candidates if you want to experiment with me:

Blueberry corn cakes (although this is a thick batter so it may be problematic)

Carrot cake pancakes

Oatmeal pancakes (again, these could be way too thick)

Orange sourdough pancakes

Pumpkin pancakes

And…I have an amazing recipe for gingerbread pancakes that I haven’t made in a long time and I have yet to blog about, but those gingerbread pancakes would make really interesting waffles. Let me know if you have any other great pancake recipes to try out as waffles.

Here is the recipe for those amazing Sourdough Waffles. My friend got them from a web site somewhere that credited them to Theresa B. by way of South shore B and B in Alaska. Here is my interpretation of R’s version of the waffles:

½ cup active sourdough starter

2 tbsp sugar

2 cups warm water

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp canola oil

1 tsp baking soda

The night before, mix starter, sugar, water and pastry flour in a large bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave out overnight.

The next morning, mix in eggs, salt oil and baking soda. Allow the mixture at least 5 minutes to rise.

Preheat your waffle iron to one of the hottest settings. Cook waffles according to your waffle iron’s instructions.

Waffles can be kept in a warm oven as they are cooked so that all waffles will be warm when you serve them.

7 Comments

Braided bread 2.0

November 5, 2009 at 6:19 pm (Baking, Bread, Eat Healthy!, Recipes, Sourdough, Vintage Cookbooks)

BraidedBread3

When I stumbled upon Google books for the first time, I thought it was a dumb idea because I could get free recipes without having to buy books. How are the authors of these books supposed to make any money I thought. However, after spending hours thumbing through cookbook samples just on a search for sourdough, I found my Amazon wish list growing by a bit more than I wanted it to. Therefore, I have decided Google books is an evil and effective marketing tool! Do not. I repeat. Do not go to Google books. You’ll be sorry!

One book that made its way from my Google search to my Amazon wish list to my home (in less than a week) was an amazing book published in the 80’s called Great Whole Grain Breads by Beatrice Ojakangas. This unassuming cookbook has no photographs besides the one on the cover. It is filled, instead, cover to cover with recipes and practical bread baking advice. An inventive baker, Mrs. Ojakangas was baking no knead breads back in the 80s long before the craze hit the Internet (and long before the Internet).

The book is not heavy on purely whole grain bread. Most recipes include a mixture of white flour as well as whole grains in order to give the breads a lighter texture. Being of Finnish extraction, the author knows her rye breads and includes many variations on rye. As well as traditional loaves there are many interesting and quirky recipes such as stir and pour breads which are even simpler than the no knead bread recipes she also provides. There are vegetable breads, cheese breads, fruited breads and coffee breads. Since the book relies on small charming illustrations instead of photos, it is packed cover to cover with recipes.

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After reading the book as if it were a novel and placing book marks on dozens of recipes, I became obsessed with a recipe that appears in the photo on the cover. It is for Wheat Germ and Sesame Six-Strand Bread. I don’t own commercial yeast but I do own a sometimes temperamental sourdough starter which I stubbornly insist on baking all of my bread with. If you have been following my blog, you already know that I screwed up this recipe last week. Although it was under proofed the flavor was really good and we ate the bread anyway. I decided it was worth it to try again. This week I got it right. I added an extra half cup of starter and let the bread rise all day. The bread was perfect. It was not light and airy like the challah it resembles. The inner texture of the bread was soft more like a multigrain sandwich bread. The crust was crisp and then…there is the outer layer of wheat germ and sesame, nutty and crunchy. Just delicious! The bread was good on its own, but we enjoyed it with olive oil for dipping, salad with a homemade creamy balsamic dressing and chicken that was roasted with olive oil and lemons. This bread was the perfect bread to dip in oil, in salad dressing and in the pan juices from the chicken. It melded perfectly with anything fatty. It is a gorgeous bread for enjoying with food.

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After succeeding with this bread, I am now very excited to keep exploring this book. I have way too many cookbooks but I don’t feel bad about adding this one to my collection. It is the kind of book that will be used constantly and I predict it will become dog eared in a few months. If you love to bake bread, I seriously recommend this book to you.

I’m sending this bread off to YeastSpotting. Please click on the link to see other wonderful bread baking adventures.

Wheat Germ and Sesame Six-Strand Braid

Adapted for sourdough from Great Whole Grain Breads by Beatrice Ojakangas

1 ½ cups active sourdough starter

½ cup room temperature water

1 tbsp evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar

1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp salt

1 egg

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups + 2 tsp (if needed) unbleached white flour

Glaze:

1 egg yolk beaten with 2 tbsp water

¼ cup (or more) wheat germ

2 tbsp (or more) sesame seeds

In a large mixing bowl, combine starter, water and sugar. Let stand a few minutes. Mix in beaten egg, butter and salt. Mix in whole wheat and 2 cups of white flour gradually. Mix with a rubber spatula until a dough forms. Cover and let the dough rest 15 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a board and begin to knead. The dough should be stiff and not very sticky. I needed to add a little more flour to get to this consistency. Add more unbleached white flour one teaspoon at a time until you get a stiffer dough. Continue to knead the dough for up to ten minutes until it is soft and springy. You should be able to stretch it without breaking it (window pane test). Let the dough rest while you wash, dry and oil the mixing bowl. Return the dough to the bowl, cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and allow it to rise until doubled (about three hours on a cool day).

Turn the dough out onto a board and divide it into six equal parts (I weighed the dough to make sure each part was roughly the same). Roll each piece into a strand about 12 inches long by rolling between the palms of your hand and the board. Mix wheat germ and sesame seeds in a bowl Brush a dough strand with the egg yolk mixture and then sprinkle 1/6 of the wheat germ mixture onto the board and roll the dough in the wheat germ mixture to coat. Repeat for the remaining 5 strands.

To shape: Line up the six strands side by side. Start with the right outer strand. Pick up the strand and weave it under and over each successive strand until it ends up on the very far left side of the braid. Repeat, always starting with the far right strand, weaving under and then over each strand until it ends up on the left side. When you are done, pinch the braids down on the end of each loaf and compress the loaf lengthwise with both hands gently to make a long narrow loaf. Place a sheet of parchment onto a peel and dust it with corn meal. Gently transfer the loaf to the prepared peel. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and allow it to rise until doubled (3 to 4 hours in a cool kitchen).

Place a baking stone in the oven 15 minutes before you want to bake. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Transfer the loaf from the peel to the stone. It is ok if it sticks to the parchment. Bake the loaf for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden. Remove the parchment from the loaf and cool completely

12 Comments

Everyone needs cake

November 3, 2009 at 12:26 am (Baking, Recipes)

CarrotCake1

Your birthday is your own personal holiday. In honor of your holiday, you must have cake. I think it is a rule.

I feel very strongly about cake. I love cake with layers and frosting. Moist cake with light and airy frosting! The fancier the better. My boyfriend loves desserts that are fruit based. Give him a pie or a cobbler, a grunt or a tart and he is in seventh heaven. The buttery crust, a lightly sweet fruity filling. He is in love. The only dessert we agree on is carrot cake. I like it. He loves it.

I don’t know why I never made him a carrot cake before. There was the year I made him a chocolate carrot cake, but it looked like a Ding Dong and tasted unlike any carrot cake we’ve ever had. As a matter of fact, we could hardly detect the presence of the eponymous veggie at all. A real honest to goodness carrot cake never crossed my mind although I have watched this man decimate many a slice of carrot cake, leaving barely a crumb (but leaving a wasteland of frosting – his least favorite part of the cake).

I haven’t baked a birthday cake for my boyfriend in a long time. Each year, I always made sure he had cake, but not always from my own oven. This year, I wanted to bake for him. This delicious sounding recipe on Epicurious looked promising, but I had some concerns going in. Carrot cake seems healthy but in reality, it is loaded with fat and sugar. As a matter of fact, carrot cake can be one of the richest cakes available, although it seems like it shouldn’t be. Currently, I am watching my fat and he is watching his sugar. I was concerned about having a whole cake of this caliber available for two people to consume. Not wanting to ruin the cake with too many changes to the recipe, my fears were alleviated after reading the comments on the site. Most people were able to reduce the sugar in the cake and substitute apple sauce for over half of the oil without ruining the flavor or the texture of the cake. The only place changes didn’t seem appropriate to me was in regards to the frosting. The people who commented about the recipe thought the frosting wasn’t cloyingly sweet but disturbingly, they generally felt that the recipe was incorrect and did not make enough frosting. Unfortunately, the idea that there wasn’t enough frosting was their only error. But it was an error which resulted in making me be stingy with the frosting in the middle of the cake (thinking I would run out and not have enough to actually cover the outside of the cake). As it turns out, I had plenty of frosting left over. For us, this is no problem since it helped me excise more fat and sugar from the cake. When you make this cake (because I know you will) go hog wild with the frosting, it is delicious! I noticed that my boyfriend had no problem eating most of his frosting this time! Oh…one wonderful change I made to the recipe was to swap the walnuts my boyfriend can’t eat for pecans which he loves to eat. I folded them into the cake batter and then toasted more which I used to encrust the outside of the cake.

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How did the cake turn out? Just lovely. The flavor is perfumed with a subtle hint of ginger. The frosting has the heady aroma of maple and when you take your last few bites, there is an earthy nutty crunch from the toasted pecans melting into that sweet maple cream. The cake was still very sweet but not intensely sweet like some carrot cakes can be. Altogether this recipe is a winner and I am sure we’ll have it again and again.

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Carrot Cake with Maple-Cream Cheese Frosting

Adapted from Bon Apetit, September 1999

Cake:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar

½ cup brown sugar

¾ cup unsweetened applesauce

½ cup canola oil

4 large eggs

3 cups grated peeled carrots

1 ¼ cups coarsely chopped raw pecans

2 tbsp grated peeled ginger (or minced peeled ginger)

Frosting:

10 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

5 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature

2 ½ cups powdered sugar

¼ cup pure grade B maple syrup

1 to 1 ½ cups coarsely chopped pecans, toasted and cooled completely (for garnish)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, F. Butter two 9” diameter cake pans. Cut parchment paper in circles to fit the pans. Line the bottom of the pans with parchment. Butter and flour the parchment and the sides of the pan. Tap out the excess flour.

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl to blend. In a large bowl, whisk evaporated cane juice (or granulated sugar), brown sugar, applesauce and oil until well blended. Whisk eggs into the oil mixture one at a time. Add the flour mixture to the oil mixture and stir until just blended. Stir in carrots, pecans and ginger. Divide batter evenly between the two pans.

Bake cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes clean, about 40 minutes (ovens vary but you may want to check at 35 minutes, my cakes were a little too brown at 40 minutes). Cool cakes in pans 15 minutes. Turn them out onto wire racks, peel off parchment and let the cakes cool completely.

While the cakes are baking, start on the frosting: Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until it is light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar and beat at low speed until completely blended. Beat in maple syrup. Chill the frosting until it is firm enough to spread, at least 30 minutes.

Place one cake layer on a platter. Spread ¾ cup of frosting on the top of the cake. Top with the second layer. Spread remaining frosting over the entire cake. Work quickly because this frosting is soft and gets softer as it warms. Once the cake is completely frosted, press the toasted pecans into the sides of the cake, covering all exposed surface along the outside edge of the cake.

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4 Comments

Who gave me the evil eye? Or was it just the stink eye?

October 30, 2009 at 1:08 am (Good food gone wrong, Venting)

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For those of you who have blogs, you’ll understand that nagging feeling that I have when I want to post to my blog but I can’t.

You see, I’ve been going through a run of seriously bad cooking luck. It’s like I have a curse on me. It all started with a really tasty lamb stew. I can’t write about it because the Weight Watchers cookbook that I was cooking from, had a serious problem with the instructions for the stew. The author instructs you to bake it in the oven. After forty minutes you still have hard lamb which is when she instructs you to add potatoes and green beans to cook for the last twenty minutes. After twenty minutes you end up with warm but raw potatoes and green beans. I had to take the whole mess out of the oven and simmer it on the stove top for I don’t know how long until every thing got tender. So… I had no idea how I made the delicious stew and I’ll have to try it again to give you instructions. No picture to share with you. I got lucky on this one and the curse of doom did not prevent us from enjoying this meal for days.

My next attempt at something blogable was this yummy looking orzo dish:

Orzo with Artichokes

It looks pretty good in the picture. Sort of. By the way, the recipe said it was a side dish. I tried to pass it off as a main course. It was just ok served warm, but it needed something badly. I tried to squeeze some fresh lemon juice on it to give it some kick. What it really needed was something in addition to the artichoke hearts. I didn’t have much of anything in the house at the time except the exact ingredients for the recipe so it pretty much got made the way it was supposed to. My boyfriend enjoyed this dish so I’ll make it again, but next time I’ll add more veggies (roasted red peppers and/or steamed broccoli) and we’ll definitely have it as a cold pasta salad instead of a warm pasta dish. Leftovers were o.k. cold from the fridge. If you want to try it yourself, here is the link to the recipe on epicurious.com.

Look at this bread!

BreadFailure

It looks pretty huh?

This was my failed attempt at baking for this week’s YeastSpotting event. It’s been three weeks since I contributed and I am feeling horrible about it! What’s wrong you ask? The bread looks great you say! Well, look closer. I didn’t let the bread rise long enough, or my sourdough was wimpy or I didn’t let the bread rise long enough. The bread was hard and tough! It breaks into little braid bits when I slice it. Just a few minutes ago, my boyfriend was just running around chomping on braid bits chanting, “write in your blog that I love the bread, it’s delicious, I love it, write that!!” Ugh. I’ll be trying the bread recipe again and hopefully it will work out next time, it had a good flavor and it looks pretty. I think it is salvageable.

Well. There you have it. Hopefully my bad food curse will be lifted soon and I can share something delicious with you soon. And… whoever is shooting me the evil eye… stop it!!!

　

7 Comments

If life doesn’t give you lemons, use oranges instead

October 7, 2009 at 4:17 am (Baking, General Freak Out, Italian food, Recipes, Venting)

Oranges

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to my pity party. My name is Mimi and I will be your hostess as well as the special guest of honor. Today was a bad day. It was what you might call a really bad day.

I’ve been laid off since the end of May and I’ve mostly been enjoying the boredom free time. This blog has never gotten so much attention ever from me. I have plenty of time to cook. I should be happy right? Well, wrong! Everyday, I look for a job online. Most days I find nothing in my field of expertise within a 250 mile radius. I try to find something to apply for but most of the job leads are in communities I have never even wanted to visit much less live in. So I’m never very excited about my prospects. It’s driving me crazy. Sure there were a couple of near hits. There was the university that has two job openings that I’d be perfect for but never called me back. Then there was the publishing company who put me through five interviews only to forget to let me know whether or not they have made a hiring decision. Those things made my days so much more exciting. I read the news. I know there are other people in worse situations than me, but this long drawn out waiting game is grating on my every last nerve and today I sunk into a deep and unending funk. It was really bad.

This morning, after I played my fifteenth game of spider three decks solitaire, I decided to move my depressed ass to the couch to watch the Food Network. (This was before the manic crying incident later in the afternoon). Giada was on. There she was in all of her buxom roman porn star beauty… making leftovers. Well, what she was doing was really what I call chicken evolution. She was taking leftovers and making them into something else. She made soup out of an old rotisserie chicken, crostini out of day old bread and cake out of old simple syrup (leave it to a food network star to keep simple syrup in the fridge and consider it leftovers). As I sat transfixed by Giada’s bouncing cleavage and her literally glowing teeth, I realized she was making a really amazing cake. Although I’m not always excited about the regular food she makes, I trust Giada when it comes to sweets. She has a sweet tooth and you can tell she loves to bake. If Giada didn’t come from a Hollywood family who prizes their looks we would probably mistake Giada for Ina Garten ’cause you can tell Giada likes to bake and she likes to eat!

Back to that cake. It was called Lemon Mint Cake with Lemon Syrup. It had all of the prerequisite cake ingredients but the eggs were separated and the whites were made into a stiff meringue which was folded back into the cake to make it light and fluffy. The promise of this cake was that it would have a crispy exterior, a light and fluffy interior and then a dousing of intense flavor from the syrup. As Giada cut herself a slice, I could see that her cake would live up to that promise. It looked so delicious. She took a bite and made that awful orgasmic cat call she makes when she bites into something that is supposed to be good…. But the sound was…somehow different. Perhaps genuine? Did I hear correctly, a genuine sounding orgasmic moan coming out of Giada and a pleased happy look of real contentment on her face? Rewind! Yes… I believe it’s true. I have to have this cake!!

But…Although I have a little mint in the backyard still, I have no lemons. Just a bunch of old neglected oranges. I am way to depressed to haul my butt to the store. But, orange and mint sounds great. I looked at my Boyfriend who has been giving me the look all day that a love one gives you when they wonder if they should call the suicide hotline on your behalf. I tell him, “I want to make cake will you have some?” He looks at me with a little smile on his face because he knows that baking will make me happy. (He tries to make sure I don’t see him wondering when I will go back on Weight Watchers and lose the five pounds I have managed to gain back). He says “yes, I would love some cake”.

I made that cake and it made me very happy. The crisp exterior does yield to a soft interior. It is like biting into a cloud. The syrup was heady with the scent of oranges. The whole cake was redolent of orange with just a hint of mint. Scrumptious. If I were a more outgoing person, a small orgasmic sound would have escaped my lips.

Sometimes it is the little things that keep you going.

OrangeMintCake

Orange Mint Cake with Orange Syrup

Adapted from Lemon Mint Cake with Lemon Syrup by Giada De Laurentiis

Cake:

3 eggs at room temperature, separated

1 cup sugar, divided

¼ cup olive oil

1/8 tsp salt

2 ½ tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves

3 tbsp orange juice

1 tbsp orange zest

1 cup all purpose flour

Syrup:

1 cup sugar

¼ cup water

¾ cup orange juice

1 tbsp orange zest

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9” cake pan.

In a bowl, beat olive oil and ½ cup of the sugar. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating as they are added. Add mint, orange juice and orange zest. Add flour and beat until just combined. Set aside.

Place egg whites in a separate large bowl. Beat them until they form soft peaks. Add the other half cup of sugar and beat until the whites form stiff peaks.

Transfer ½ of the egg white mixture to the bowl with the cake batter. Carefully fold the whites into the cake batter. Add the other half of the whites and gently fold them into the batter until well combined, taking care not to deflate the egg whites. Spread the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake the cake 40 – 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Move the cake from the oven to a wire rack and let it cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the simple syrup: Combine the sugar, water, orange juice and orange zest in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer for five minutes. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool for at least twenty minutes.

To serve, spoon syrup generously over each slice of cake.

12 Comments

Decadent little turkey sandwiches

October 2, 2009 at 3:14 pm (Eat Healthy!, Recipes, What's for dinner)

Turkey Sandwich

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made rustic olive rolls and I made my delicious roasted turkey. You shouldn’t be surprised that I had sandwiches on my mind.

We love turkey sandwiches. There are so many good variations on the theme to be had all over, but I never seem to deviate from turkey and avocado on whole wheat when I make it at home. Last night I let my imagination go wild and the results were amazing! I just have to share!

One defining feature of a lot of restaurant sandwiches these days is Goop™ aka Secret Sauce™ aka Special Sauce™ . Yes kiddies, I have created GourmetGoop™ . You heard it right here. A special blend of the finest canola oil mayo and spices. GoumetGoop™ will probably make me famous one day, yes siree!

All nonsense aside, these sandwiches were smoky with a nice hint of blue cheese. Fresh tasting from the crispy lettuce, juicy tomato and creamy avocado. Chewy and flavorful from the homemade bread and turkey. Decadent and delicious. An absolute reward for some fun labor in the kitchen.

The following recipe is an approximation of ingredients used for one serving. Feel free to use more or less according to your taste:

Smoky blue cheese turkey sandwiches

Make GourmetGoop™ :

3 tbsp canola oil mayonnaise

3 – 4 cloves roasted garlic or raw garlic (see below)

¾ – 1 tsp smoked paprika

1 – 2 pinches cayenne powder

Generous amount of freshly ground black pepper

Use roasted garlic or if you don’t have any quick roast the garlic: Place garlic in a dry cast iron pan that has been heated over medium high heat. Turn the garlic occasionally to char on all sides for several minutes. When the garlic has softened, remove from pan, and cool. Peel the garlic and run it through a garlic press into a small bowl. Combine all of the remaining ingredients.

Assemble Sandwich:

1 rustic olive roll or substitute any chewy sandwich roll (French or ciabatta would be good)

GourmetGoop™ to taste

3-4 slices avocado

1 – 2 tsp crumbled blue cheese

2 – 3 generous slices of homemade roasted turkey or a generous serving of deli turkey

A thick slice of tomato

1 – 2 thinly sliced pieces of yellow or red onion

1 – 2 leaves red lettuce

Slice sandwich roll down the middle and spread both halves with GourmetGoop™ . On The top half of the bread, layer blue cheese then avocado then lettuce. On the bottom half of the bread, layer turkey, tomato and onions. Join the top and bottom of sandwich.

2 Comments

I’ll share a little secret with you…

October 1, 2009 at 7:09 pm (Eat Healthy!, Entree, Meat, Recipes, What's for dinner)

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It’s easy to make turkey at home and it is a thousand times better than anything you can buy at the supermarket, the deli or a restaurant. Making a half turkey breast at home is a little time consuming but it is simple. When you are done, you will have the most sublime meat ready to use for sandwiches, pastas, salads… whatever your imagination desires.

Unless it is the day after Thanksgiving, most people only consume processed turkey. Even the meat served at many restaurants identified on the menu as fresh roasted turkey is probably a little processed. It doesn’t taste the same as a fresh unprocessed bird, so I am assuming they cook a boneless turkey breast. A boneless turkey breast would also be easier for their kitchens to deal with. Here are the ingredients on a popular brand of boneless turkey breast. Not too bad, but do you really need all of the salt, sugar and additives? I don’t think you do.

The following recipe can be doubled to make a full breast but since we are a small household, I usually buy a half breast which weighs on average between two and three pounds. You will purchase a bone in, skin on breast. Like chicken breasts, having the bone in and the skin on contributes fat and flavor, giving you moist flavorful meat after the slow roasting. This recipe makes enough meat so that you will have your fill of sandwiches but you can also make a turkey tetrazzini (this one is delicious), and even a salad or two. In my opinion this is a good value for such an easy task!

Now that you know my secret, I don’t want to see you buying processed turkey meat anymore! Do you hear me? Get into that kitchen and make something delicious and healthy for yourself!

Following is the recipe for my turkey breast with soy sauce au jus. I use the au jus to make a Scotch or Jack Daniels spiked pan gravy. As a bonus, the recipe for the gravy will follow (see how much I love you? Two secrets for the price of one!). A wonderful comfort food dinner I like to make is toasted whole wheat bread, topped with roasted turkey and then smothered with the alcohol spiked gravy. Serve with steamed veggies on the side to help sop up any extra gravy. Soooooo delicious!

Turkey breast with soy sauce au jus

½ all natural or organic bone in, skin on turkey breast (approx. 2 – 3 pounds)

Juice of one small lemon or ½ large lemon

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

Freshly ground black pepper

2 ½ cups water

5 – 6 tbsp soy sauce or tamari sauce or Bragg liquid aminos

3 -5 whole cloves garlic, peeled

½ onion, quartered

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Meanwhile, place the turkey in an 8” x 8” pan. I use a square Pyrex dish, but any pan than fits the turkey breast fairly snugly will do. Squeeze the lemon over the top of the breast. Sprinkle with onion powder, garlic powder and a generous amount of fresh ground black pepper. Do not salt the turkey, we’ll be using a generous amount of soy sauce in the pan juices which we’ll use to baste the turkey. This will be plenty of salt! Arrange the garlic and onions around the turkey breast. Pour the water into the pan. Add the soy sauce into the water.

Decrease the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. Place the turkey breast in the oven and roast the breast for 45 minutes per pound. Let the meat cook for about a half an hour and then baste the meat with the pan juices every 15 to 20 minutes until the meat is cooked. A meat thermometer should read 170 degrees when poked into the thickest part of the meat. Check the meat near the end of the cooking time in case your oven runs hot.

After removing the roast from the oven, let the meat cool for at least five to ten minutes before cutting into it. This will ensure that the meat will slice evenly instead of crumbling.

The sliced meat can be dipped in the au jus as you slice it for very moist flavorful meat. The au jus can also be served on the side for dipping or use it all up to make the following gravy.

　

I started making this gravy using a fine single malt scotch. The scotch gives the gravy a nice smoky flavor. One day when I ran out of scotch, I used Jack Daniels whiskey instead. The whiskey gives the gravy more of a sweet flavor than the scotch but both are delicious in their own way.

Scotch spiked turkey gravy

All of the au jus from the above turkey recipe

1 – 3 tbsp unbleached white flour

2 – 3 splashes (too taste) single malt scotch or Jack Daniels whiskey

Transfer the au jus to a small sauce pan. If it is cold, warm the au jus up to a simmer, if it is fresh out of the oven, keep it heated on low. Whisk one tablespoon of flour into the au jus at a time until it just begins to thicken (depending on how much au jus you have you may not need all three tablespoons of flour). Continue to cook over low heat until thickened. Add a splash of scotch or whiskey at a time, tasting the gravy as you go until it reaches the consistency and flavor you like. Remove the gravy from the heat and use on the roasted turkey or for other goodies such as baked potatoes or biscuits.

7 Comments

The pitter patter of tiny buns

October 1, 2009 at 2:30 am (Baking, Bread, Recipes, Sourdough)

OliveRolls4

I am suffering from tiny bun syndrome. I know it sounds like a personal problem. Maybe it is…but wait a second…no it’s not! (But, I kind of wish it was a personal problem so that I could stop dieting). It’s just that I keep stumbling on recipes that promise me big buns. The kind that will make embarrassingly big sloppy sandwiches and I keep pulling these lovely little petite things out of the oven. It’s embarrassing. Especially because my boyfriend has a big appetite and keeps giving me a look of disappointment when he sees how small his sandwich will really be. (It never occurs to him that he will eat two sandwiches anyway and that those two sandwiches will equal the one big sandwich of his hopes and dreams). These rolls turned out to be 3” x 3” inches. Monsters I suppose, compared to the microscopic 2” x 3” ciabatta rolls I made last time.

Unlike those ciabatta rolls, these rolls made up for their diminutive size with a huge amount of flavor. I made these rolls with sourdough instead of active dry yeast and the sponge was allowed to sit for 15 hours. The fermentation was evident in the final bread. The flavor was stupendous! The recipe called for green olives. Trader Joes has a Greek olive medley composed of 4 or 5 different olives of different colors and textures. I used as many green olives as I could and supplemented them with a few black olives to get the ¾ cup needed for the recipe. I have had kalamata bread that was too salty before. These olives are much more mellow and less salty and they contributed a nice tang to the bread. The final product was sour and tangy with a soft interior and a nice crispness to the crust. I was very pleased with these rolls and look forward to making sandwiches with them.

Next time… well… I may double the recipe and then make 9 instead of 12 rolls. What do you think? Will I get the right size rolls or should I double the dough and go for even less rolls?

By the way, here is a vanity shot of the interior of the rolls (oh yeah! Light and fluffy!)

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These little rolls are going out to all of you YeastSpotters. But if you haven’t seen YeastSpotting before, you are in for a treat! Click here to see what other kinds of yummies were baked up this week!

Rustic Olive Rolls

Adapted from the King Arthur flour site

Sponge:

½ cup water

3 tbsp sourdough starter

1 cup unbleached bread flour

Dough:

All of the sponge

2 tbsp olive oil

½ cup (+ 1 tbsp if needed) water

1 tsp salt

2 cups unbleached white flour

¾ cup chopped, pitted olives (Greek olives worked well – use any mild, firm less salty olives)

To make the sponge: In a large bowl, mix water, starter and flour until well combined. It will look like a little ball of dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave out on the counter 14-15 hours. (Start early in the evening if you want to bake first thing in the morning). In the morning, you should see that your little ball dough has tripled in size!

To make the dough: Add olive oil, water, salt, and flour to the sponge. Mix until well combined. My dough was very dry and wouldn’t come together. I added another tbsp of water and it seemed to hold together. You may need to as well. Just add water by the tablespoon until you get a dough forming. Turn the dough out onto a kneading surface. Knead 10-12 minutes or until the dough is soft and you can stretch it without breaking (window pane test).

Place dough in a greased bowl. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let the dough rise 1 to 1 ½ hours.

Put olives in a clean dish towel and wring out any excess liquid from them. Turn the dough out onto the kneading surface. Flatten the dough and add the olives. Knead the olives into the dough until they are well incorporated into the dough.

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Pat the dough into a 9” x 9” rectangle. Be careful to make the corners as sharp as possible and the edges as straight as possible so that the rolls will have a pretty shape.

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Cut the dough into six 3” x 3” rectangles. Rub flour into the surface of a clean cotton dish cloth (not terry cloth or you will be sorry) . Place the dish cloth on a hard surface like a cookie sheet. Space three pieces of dough on the dishcloth and pushing the cloth up against the edges of each dough piece to form a support. Set the other three dough pieces on the cloth and repeat so that they look like this:

OliveRolls3

 

Cover the dough with another clean dish towel and let it rise 1 to 2 hours until it is very puffy.

Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Carefully transfer the rolls to a peel that has been lightly dusted with cornmeal. Transfer the rolls to the stone and bake until browned, 20 – 25 minutes. Transfer the rolls to a cooling rack. Cool completely before enjoying.

　

　

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