Ever Hot Soup

Erik coined the phrase "Ever hot soup" for this. It has to do with the potatoes really- they hold their heat so well, he's nearly burned his tongue after thinking he let it cool enough.
I've been making this soup for a few years now. The recipe came from Kathleen Daelmans from a Food Network show called Cooking Thin. It is a low fat, healthy soup that makes a very satisfying meal on a cold day. It also only uses one pot, which is great for weeknight meal cleanup. I _never_ would have thought about steaming/poaching fish on top of a soup before I saw her show about it. Before this dish, in my mind, white fish = fried with fries. This soup turned that around for me.
I am sure I've altered the recipe a bit through making it over and over again- sort of like playing telephone with myself- but here's how I do it. To begin, you saute some chopped onion until it's soft and then add some chopped garlic (in a pot you can make the rest of the soup in). Then you add a can of stewed tomatoes (which you can chop up into smaller chunks if they are big half-tomatoes), about 2lbs of either red bliss or other boiling potatoes, chopped into bite-sized chunks and enough chicken stock or broth to cover the potatoes. Add some salt, dried herbs of your choice (I usually go with some oregano and maybe basil), and if you want a little kick, some red pepper flakes. Let this come to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are _almost_ done. At that point, lay a whole cod fillet (you could probably use haddock too, the original recipe just called for cod so that's why I've always used) on top of the soup and cover until the fish has turned opaque and starts to flake apart.
I finished the meal off with some garlic bread this time and it was a wonderfully comforting Winter meal, without the guilt of some of my usual "comfort foods."

For you, I'll make an exception

I invented a new salad this week that has challenged my usual preferences in salad. Previously, I have been prejudice against salads with fruit involved. I liked my salads savory, and don't go near me with Raspberry Vinaigrette. Recently, though, we had a friend visit who brought a salad that had pomegranate seeds in it and where I normally would have shunned such an offering (on a restaurant menu, say), I tried it because I wanted to be appreciative of my guest. I was shocked at how much I actually enjoyed it! I am a fan of pomegranate, so that wasn't a breakthrough, but to have it on mesclun greens was all new to me. This inspired me to branch out of my comfort zone and make a green salad that utilized fruit for myself. I remembered a salad that was popular in restaurants in recent years that had Granny Smith apples, gorganzola and walnuts. I took that as a jumping off point. I don't like walnuts much, so I went with cashews instead. The Granny Smiths sounded good, and I love gorganzola, plus I wanted to go with the pomegranate seeds again. To dress the salad I made my own "apple vinaigrette." I used apple cider vinegar, a splash of apple juice, a pinch of sugar, salt, pepper, some oregano and then drizzled in the olive oil while whisking to create an emulsion. The dressing turned out really well, and thickened nicely after a lot of whisking. This is something I will definitely experiment with more in the future (although I still wouldn't say I'm a big fan of the raspberry version). I may never buy another bottle of vinaigrette again!

It Brings a Tier to my Eye

Papa gave me a set of 3-inch tall, round cake pans in sizes 8, 10, 12 and 14 inch for Christmas. I have been watching a lot of Cake Boss lately, and fancy myself a baker. I had to try out my new found affinity to see what I could accomplish. First, I needed some more hardware, so I purchased a large off set spatula, a set of spatulas/groomers that can do fun lines in the side of cakes if you want, or are just good for smoothing, and a turn table to put the cake on and spin it to make frosting easier. I figured, if this is going to be a new hobby, I might as well go all-out.
I knew I wanted to do a pound cake for stability and a butter cream frosting. I researched some recipes, and found the frosting recipe in another Christmas gift (Thank you, Becky)- The New Best Recipe book by Cooks Illustrated. I went to the grocery store and bought _A LOT_ of baking pantry items. I didn't actually need them all for this particular cake, but the pile of them looked impressive on the counter.
Thankfully, my pans came with a handy chart of how much batter and frosting you need for each size pan. I figured out I needed two batches of the pound cake recipe and frosting recipe to do the job. I think I ended up spending almost $10 on butter alone!

The cake recipe was pretty straight forward. I love the use of sour cream in pound cake, and did I mention the butter? I could tell from stealing a lick on the spatula it was going to be good- provided I didn't over cook it. I had never cooked in 3-inch pans before so I was a bit nervous. Once again, my handy chart proved very useful to give me a ballpark to work with. What surprised me though, was that the 10-inch only took a few minutes longer than the 8-inch. I had expected more of a difference there, but it's possible my 8-inch was just _slightly_ overdone.
The real fun (and new territory for me) began with the butter cream frosting. What a fun chemistry experiment in the kitchen! The first step involves whisking eggs and sugar together in a double boiler until it reaches 160 degrees to cook the eggs. You have to keep whisking constantly (although not terribly fast) to avoid having scrambled eggs. When you do it right, it turns into this gorgeous creamy substance that only gets better after a spin in the kitchen aid (which also cools it down to room temperature- important before adding the butter). I was enthralled by my beautiful creation.
Then you add the butter in, a table spoon at a time while the machine in running. Halfway through (one whole stick added), my lovely, smooth mixture became a disgusting looking, curdled mess.

But that's okay! In fact, thankfully, or I might have started crying at this point, the book warned me of this happening. Just keep adding the butter and magically, that smooth consistency returns, only thicker and stands up on the whisk instead of ribboning off. This is why I love cooking so much.
When the cakes were cooled, it was time for frosting. First, I cut the cakes in half so I could add a layer of chocolate frosting (just from a can, it was a last minute decision and I happened to have a can in my pantry) in the middle. Then, I leveled off the tops of the cakes (as best I could eye ball anyway). Next, it was time for the "crumb layer" of frosting. This is the first layer of frosting to keep all the cake crumbs in so that your next layer can be all pretty. This is important after shaving off the tops of the cakes to level them because that natural crusty outer protection is gone on top and it's crumbs gone wild underneath! I found the butter cream to be a bit soft and was worried I wouldn't get anywhere near a smooth finish in the next layer, but after the cake was in the fridge to "set up" a bit after the crumb layer, the second layer went on easier.
To build the cake, I cut out a piece of cardboard the size of the top layer and covered it with aluminum foil and sat the smaller layer on that. I cut straws the height of the bottom layer and put 5 in the middle. I was going to do wooden dowels, but 1) I forgot to buy them and 2) it was only a two-tier and the pound cake was dense enough to hold some weight on its own. Once both cakes were frosted, I plopped the top one on the bottom. Admittedly, I missed slightly, as it wasn't perfectly centered. Then I decided to practice with my star tip on my pastry bag. I figure the only way to be able to produce the perfect little star every time is do practice... a lot. So here is my "Stars Gone Wild" two-tiered cake.

Here's to you, 2009!

We spent a quiet evening at home for New Year's Eve (two small kids will do that to you). As I looked back on this year, I contemplated one cocktail that I would like to say goodbye to it with. I decided on a Cosmopolitan. Sadly, I didn't have Cointreau, so used Triple Sec instead. I also make it slightly heavy on the cranberry juice, as I'm a light weight drinker. It was very festive, though, and a great way to hold up a glass to 2009! Happy New Year!

Bread pudding and poached pears

For a family holiday dinner I decided to branch out of my comfort zone for desserts. This is not generally a good idea for say, Thanksgiving dinner or _the_ Christmas dinner for your family, but since we had about 5 "Christmas Dinners" throughout the season I figured risking an utter disaster wouldn't "ruin Christmas." For this particular dinner the main course was take-out pizza, so I could spend my full culinary creative juices on these desserts.

The bread pudding sounded appropriate because I was also making homemade egg nog and the two share cream, eggs, nutmeg and bourbon for ingredients. So, basically, bread pudding is eggnog soaked bread. I found the recipe from a new cookbook I got for Christmas by the makers of Cooks Illustrated Magazine (which is fantastic, btw). The book does a great job of explaining why they chose to do things the way they do instead of just telling you what to do. I didn't want to go completely plain with the pudding, and they suggested you could add raisins, but I went with craisins, thinking the red color was slightly more festive looking and I just like them better.
To make bread pudding you make a custard mixture of eggs, cream and flavorings and then soak chunks of bread in this mixture and bake it.
The two tricky parts to the equation are the ratio of bread to custard and when to put it from the oven. I think the recipe did well on both accounts, although I went with their suggestion of weight for the bread, not volume. They said only 6 cups of bread cubed and when I measured that out it was clearly not enough, but the 12 oz of bread seemed right- it just came out to almost 12 cups in volume. That could be accounted for in a difference in size for the cubes and type of bread, which is why I think weight was a better way to know how much bread to use. It will look like you have way more liquid than you need, but the bread will soak it up and you want that, otherwise it won't be a custard in the end, it will be bread chunks that are moistened- more like french toast (although if you do french toast _really_ well, it should be more like bread pudding in the center of the toast).
Next came deciding when to pull it out of the oven. Too soon, and you have uncooked eggs. Too long, and you have a dried out dessert that isn't really a custard anymore. The book explained that you want it to "jiggle like a jello mold" when you pull it out. You want that wiggle room (ha!) when you take it out to account for carry-over cooking that continues to happen after it's on your counter. (Same thing if you take scrambled eggs out of the pan when they are done to your liking, they will be overdone by the time you take your first bite). This explanation of the finished product worked very well for me and the pudding was super moist and a serving of custardy goodness. I will definitely be making this again!

The poached pears came from a greeting card recipe that my mom sent me. I thought it would be a nice balance with the heaviness of the bread pudding (there's a lot of cream and eggs in that recipe). I have never poached fruit before, but have seen how elegant whole poached pears look in magazines for holiday tables. This recipe called for either red wine or cranberry juice to poach in and since the bread pudding had bourbon in it, I decided to go for the alcohol-free option for this dessert. I think it made for a sweeter result and the cranberry juice was a beautiful colored syrup on the finished product. I used a melon baller to take out the cores of the pears from underneath, peeled them, and put them in a pot just big enough to hold them all standing up. Pull the pears out of the cooking liquid when a knife goes easily through, but before they are mushy, then reduce the liquid to make a syrup for serving and voila! I had planned on keeping them whole because they look so nice standing up in a circle on the platter, but didn't think most guests would want a whole one (and there weren't quite enough to go around anyway), so I sliced them in half and served laying down. It still looked beautiful with the peels scattered about and the red syrup. This is a very simple, not too heavy (as long as you didn't put too much of my homemade whipped cream on it, that is) and very classy addition to dessert.

Christmas Dinner

Every family that celebrates this holiday has traditions and expectations for Christmas Dinner. My young family is just starting to make our own. This year was the first that we stayed home for the entire day and I had free reign for dinner. The diners would be my family plus Mema and Papa. When pondering the plethora of options for this task, I decided to bring some traditions from my childhood holidays and then craft the menu with practical sense in mind. Having a toddler and infant can mean for an unpredictable day, especially when excitement and presents are involved. Therefore, I did not want anything labor intensive (unless it could be done ahead of time) or temperature sensitive (so that timing could be fudged around). Here is what I came up with:

Appetizers
Crudite platter
Cheese and crackers

Main meal
Baked Ham
Orzo salad
Dinner rolls
Cottage cheese salad

Dessert
Chocolate mousse with fresh whipped cream

The apps don't need much introduction. Some store-bought (but fancy and fresh, not some ranch in a tub) dip and veggies are a no-brainer and add something healthy to boot. Cheese and crackers are easy, yummy, and always a big hit with my toddler.

For the main meal, I thought of ham for two reasons. 1) Erik went crazy for it when Papa made it for a family holiday party a couple weeks ago so I wanted to give him an encore 2) Ham is fully cooked when bought and takes no fuss to be table-ready PLUS it doesn't need to be piping hot to enjoy- in fact it may be better room temp.
I bought a butt-end portion that was NOT spiral sliced- all those cuts lead to drying if you heat the ham slowly in the oven. And really, how hard is it to slice some ham? Then I pondered options for boosting the flavor of my ham. I read some recipes for glazes, rubs, and even one involving Dr. Pepper by Alton Brown (which Erik REALLY wants me to try some day, but I can't stand that soda). In the end, I went on my own and made a glaze with some maple syrup and molasses. I scored the ham in a criss cross pattern and after rubbing that all over the ham, I added some brown sugar and put whole cloves in each intersection of my scoring. I put it in a 275 degree oven for an hour, then boosted it to 325 for another hour or so. Again, the meat is fully cooked, so really you just want to heat it through and get your additional elements doing what you want from them. (And if you use cloves- make sure to take them out before serving!)

The orzo salad idea came from my summer time discovery of a tomato/spinach/feta orzo salad that was a big hit. Sadly, Mema does not like feta, so I needed to change that out for something else. Then I thought of a tomato/basil/mozzarella salad and how great that would be with orzo- even includes Christmas colors as the other one did. I bought small balls of fresh mozzarella and sliced them. I used some tomatoes on the vine from my nice produce store that smelled nearly as good as Summer tomatoes and seeded and chopped them. Add some basil, olive oil, salt, pepper and a little fresh squeezed lemon juice and it was a delicious salad that was good at room temperature.

Cottage Cheese Salad
How is it I've written so many entries and haven't yet done cottage cheese salad? What the heck is cottage cheese salad? You're asking. Well. Let me tell you. This is a creation from Papa's mother (I believe- correct me if I'm wrong, Papa) and it is very simple. It's a tub of cottage cheese (I use lowfat because whole fat just scares me since you end up adding more fat to it, but please, not nonfat- the texture just isn't the same) with a couple tablespoons of mayonnaise, a handful of finely chopped celery, salt, pepper and a maybe a teaspoon of dried minced onion (the kind in the spice jar). It may sound strange, but it is GOOD! One of my favorite sides of all time, and ever present at all our family holidays.

Chocolate Mousse
Papa is the King of chocolate mousse. Seriously, ask anyone who has had his. I thought it was about time that I learn this craft. My friend Liza gave me these espresso dark chocolate chunks for baking when she visited and immediately I thought they would make a terrific mousse. I looked in my cookbooks and online for recipes until I found one by Tyler Florence that sounded good. If you search foodnetwork.com for his name and mousse it will come up. It was then that I realized chocolate mousse involves eating raw eggs. I'm pretty ok with raw egg whites because I make meringes and foams with them all the time, but raw egg yolk? This was a stretch for me. But really, there is no way to heat the yolk to the 160 degrees it needs to be considered cooked. Chocolate melts a little over 100, and much beyond that, will cease. The ickiness factor that had me worried was long forgotten when I tasted my creation :) It was nearly perfect. It was nearly, as good as Papa's. Although slightly hard to compare directly, simply because mine was espresso flavored with some Kahlua whereas he usually does some Grand Marnier if I'm not mistaken (again correct me!) so the flavor profiles are different- but I think I got the texture nearly dead on. A good mousse is perfectly smooth and light, but rich. It's heavenly. Especially topped with some fresh whipped cream (of course!).

Merry Christmas to all! I hope your tables were filled with joy.

Experimenting with Pie

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Is there any better holiday for foodies, cooks, food lovers, etc? This year I did some pie experiments for two family dinners.

The first was pumpkin pie. Growing up we always had an apple pie and a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, and I always ate the apple. I don't know where I got it in my head that I didn't like pumpkin pie, but I have learned the error of my ways, and although I would still choose apple more often (at least MY apple pie ;)), I now greatly appreciate the pumpkin pie for it's sweet, custardy goodness.
First step to the pie was making the dough for the crust. I use a recipe from Martha Stewart (go to her site and search pate brisee or pie dough) that is butter, flour, sugar, salt and ice water. I love her method of mixing the dough in a food processor. It is super fast and once you've done it a couple times, you know exactly when to stop drizzling in the ice water. I split the dough, putting half in the freezer (since it's only a one-crust pie) and half in the fridge to chill for a half hour to an hour before rolling. After the rest time in the fridge, I got out the dough and checked my pumpkin pie recipe. I would like to take a moment to remind all cooks out there to READ THROUGH a recipe from start to finish before deciding you are ready to embark on the process. I had only read the ingredients for the pie and knew I had them all, but then when I wanted to put it together (about an hour before bedtime the night before the dinner) I read "press dough into pie dish and chill dough in the freezer for 1 hour before baking." Sigh. I went to bed.
The next morning I rolled out the crust. Having rested overnight instead of just an hour, it was a bit tougher to begin with, but soon warmed up just enough. I pressed it into the pie plate and put it in the freezer for an hour. Then I read "place aluminum foil on the dough and pie weights on to to cover the bottom." Argh! Pie weights?!?! (Once again, friends, READ THROUGH recipes.) I didn't have pie weights and remembered you could use dried beans instead... which I also didn't have. I called Papa for help and asked what do I do? For those unfamiliar- pie weights are used in the process of "blind baking" the crust, that is, baking the crust before adding the filling. If you don't weight the crust it can bubble up.
Papa had a great idea to use some gravel from our landscaping, so off I went in search of bean-size gravel in my yard. I washed the gravel and placed it inside the pie in an aluminum foil pouch. The recipe said to bake with the pie weights for 10 minutes, then pull the weights out and bake another 10 minutes. After the first 10 minutes I went to take the weights out and the crust immediately started to shrink up, and it was still very soft, not starting to harden at all yet. I shoved the weight pouch back in and baked it for another few minutes until it looked firmer and when I pulled the weights, it didn't shrink in. Then I put it back in the oven alone, and to my horror, a huge bubble formed after a couple minutes. I pulled the crust and poked the bubble with a fork- but was careful just to break the top layer of the bubble because if the holes when all the way through the crust, the filling would ooze out the bottom. I wasn't sure if I had achieved the right level of crispness, but I was done with these blind baking shenanigans and poured in the filling.
I poured the filling into the pie, but due to the shrinkage of my pie crust, there was more filling that I could use. I did not want to waste this glorious custard-to-be, so I grabbed a couple ramekins, filled them up and baked them off. If only I had a torch, I could have had pumpkin brulee.

The filling is a Paula Dean recipe (look on Food Network's website) that is quite different from the traditional pumpkin pie recipe that is on the back of the pumpkin can. I hadn't even realized this until I compared it after Papa noticed that my pie was lighter in color (no molasses) and has cream cheese in it. Really, it's more like a pumpkin cheese cake pie, but whatever you want to call it, it was really yummy. I did add some nutmeg to it, which Paula didn't call for, but I just can't have a Fall pie without nutmeg.


Pie #2 was another apple pie. This time, I harkened back to a recipe from 1953 that my grandmother used for her apple pie crust. It's called a "stir and roll" crust because there is no chilling of the dough, you literally stir the ingredients and roll it out. This recipe came from an Wesson oil advertisement and uses, you guessed it, oil as the fat. Apparently, my grandmother developed a tweak to this recipe to make it roll better and I did not channel her thoughts well enough because I had a terrible time getting this crust to roll. First off, I just don't think there is enough of it for my pie plate. The pie plate I use is a big of a "deep dish" version, and I'm guessing what Wesson oil had in mind was a shorter sided dish. That aside, this dough had nearly no elasticity to it. It didn't feel to dry, but it cracked terribly, it was very fragile. I was getting frustrated, but knew I had a store-bought pie crust in the freezer in case of emergency, so I was able to maintain my cool, but Erik, seeing my near-quitting attitude said "pretend like failure is not an option." And damnit, I rolled out that dough! Except, it didn't quite roll big enough and so it barely met itself all the way around, and forget having enough to crimp together. I figured I could have a mess in my oven with this situation, so I put the pie plate on a sheet pan lined with aluminum foil. I usually put a pan on the bottom rack in the oven because bubble overs are always possible, but never directly on the sheet pan. When I took a bite of this pie I was shocked at hour crispy the bottom crust was. I couldn't put my finger on why until I remembered my change in procedure. You know how sometimes with a two-crust pie the top is all browned and fully cooked, and the filling is done, but the bottom crust is a bit mushy? Well, if that happens to you, try putting the pie plate on a sheet pan in the oven. I love these types of discoveries! I will probably try this crust again and see if I can discover my grandmother's secret, but I have to say, I missed the butter flavor of my Martha crust.