Vignettes

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines a vignette as

An ornamental or decorative design on a blank space in a book or among printed matter, esp. at the beginning or end of a chapter or other division, usually one of small size or occupying a small proportion of the space; spec. any embellishment, illustration, or picture uninclosed in a border, or having the edges shading off into the surrounding paper; a head-piece or tail-piece.

Very well, then.  If you’ll permit me, I present you a few vignettes, accompanied only by a smattering of explanatory text, of the food we’ve been playing with over the past few months, while my dissertation lengthened and my sad little blog slowly became emaciated.  Since this is a season of excess, I’d like to fatten it up a bit.  Here’s a start:

Serving suggestion for French Onion soup: hollow out a sourdough bread bowl, toast the inside, coat with a crust of Parmesan cheese, and flood with soup.  Top with Swiss cheese and broil until the bread crusts and the cheese blisters.  Try not to burn your tongue.

To celebrate, or perhaps provide an epitaph for, our pathetic tomato season this year, I made a roasted green salsa for Halloween.  Tomatillos, which flourished happily, green tomatoes, which did not, jalapeno, onion, garlic, and plenty of cumin.  Roasted, cooled, pulsed together with salt, lime juice, and cilantro.  Tickling and spicy and smoky, and perfect for a rainy Halloween.

Seeking fruit without the healthful feeling, I made crustless “apple pie” one evening with great triumph.  Apples sliced thinly, tossed with a tablespoon or two of flour, butter, and a hefty sprinkling each of sugar and cinnamon, bake in the oven for half an hour.  I left the skin on for color, chew, and nutrients, and we were both delighted with the syrupy excellence they eschewed.  It was not unlike the filling in an apple pie crepe from The Vintage which, if you haven’t visited, you should.  With haste.

Spurred toward the heady, heavy, comforting feel of winter food by this apple pieless dessert, we delved into the season of rich sauces, hearty vegetables, and warm fatty indulgences.  Perhaps yearning for protein in the darkness of November’s cold snap, we opted for a rich beer and beef stew replete with parsnips, carrots, and cup after cup of rich brown mushrooms spilling earthy thickness into the stew.  Whole grain mustard offered intrigue, a whole bottle of Jubelale provided dark yeasty flavor, and a glug of beef broth tied the flavors together.  Good stew meat from Long’s Meat Market (warning: the website has sound) was the clear star, and even the “low quality” stew meat I bought, intended to be cooked long and low to tenderize, was so juicy, so flavorful, and so ridiculously good, that I couldn’t stop myself from gulping down three or four pieces after only searing them crusty brown on all edges.  Lucky for us, I made a full recipe and froze half, so when the celebratory delectability of December ends and the long, cold middle of winter sweeps into Oregon, we will have reserves to bolster us until the sun appears again. 

Fortunately this same reserve will not have to serve this site.  Holidays approach, and with them a break from school, which means a break from dissertating, a break from grading, and a break from relentless reading.  Rather, I intend to poise myself in my kitchen and dart behind and before the camera, mincing, stirring, pouring, focusing, clicking.  And, inevitably, writing.  To you.  Happy December!

Bittman’s 101 make-ahead Thanksgiving sides

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Mark Bittman is a miracle.   Cookbook author, food columnist, and just generally food enthusiast, he has a practical and delightful approach to food.  Simple, good ingredients, care in how flavors go together, and nothing is overly fussy.  I’ve been following his blog for six or eight months now, and slowly adding recipes to my “Must Make” file.

And now this.  A list of 101 autumnal recipes intended to ease the pressure on Thanksgiving day.  These are dishes that can be made ahead to free up space on the stovetop or in the oven.  But they are more than that.  They are 101 brilliant and varied ways of combining harvest and winter flavors.  This page is, in my humble opinion, an extremely valuable resource for spicing up your side dish repertoire.  And, in true Bittman style, he gives suggestions like “Bacon would also be welcome here,” or “chopped fresh parsley would not be amiss.”  Clearly this is about learning how flavors fit together, not about constructing firm recipe requirements.  As someone learning her way into developing original “recipe” combinations, this too is invaluable.

I’m thinking of working my way through these 101 ideas Julie&Julia style (at least the ones N. and I think look good – we’re not quite as militant as Julie Powell was.  Aspic?  Blech!).  Of course I will report on the results with photographic evidence.  What do you think?  A good way to spend the encroaching winter?

2010 Thanksgiving Menu

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I get excited about holidays that involve cooking waaaayyyyy earlier than I should (then again, since our Target already has a Christmas section erected, complete with at least six artificial trees, maybe I’m not totally unhealthy).  I even told my mom over the phone this past Sunday that I’d probably go grocery shopping for the holiday late this week or this weekend.  Right, with two weeks to go.  I was already a week ahead of myself and willing to completely skip seven days of reality so I could buy a turkey.

But I love the way food impacts a holiday, and not just because I love eating.  For my family, food has a binding quality.  I love to cook, my mom taught me how and she loves to cook, my sister is developing an enjoyment and adventuresome spirit in the kitchen, and my dad… likes eating the food we make.  But still, it gives us something to talk about, something to share with each other, and something to do together, when we are in the same kitchen.  I feel close to them through the food we create.

At Thanksgiving, my mom and I make most of the dinner, my sister pipes in with seasoning suggestions, my dad carves the turkey, N. tastes things and generally tries to stay out of the way, and Lucy’s nose never stops twitching.  Every hour or so, little click-clacking dog claws tiptoe into the kitchen to take a sniff and clean the floor.

So I’ve already thought through the entire menu.  I know exactly what we’re having.  I’m even contemplating spending my evening tonight making a detailed grocery list for the big shopping trip.  Excessive?  Premature?  Perhaps.  But so delicious.

Here’s the menu for our Thanksgiving this year:

Appetizers: whole heads of roasted garlic with soft goat cheese and toasted baguette, roasted nuts with brown sugar and rosemary, assorted dried fruit.

Dinner: herb roasted turkey with giblet gravy, stuffing, chipotle mashed sweet potatoes,  creamed spinach and artichoke bake, and whole berry cranberry sauce.

Desserts: Mom’s pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and pumpkin cheesecake squares.  My sister doesn’t love pumpkin pie, so this year there will be two desserts.  If the recipe I invent for her works out well, I’ll post it here.

What are you having for Thanksgiving dinner this year?

Thanksgiving veg 2010

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My family always argues over a Thanksgiving vegetable dish.  My dad doesn’t like the classic green bean casserole made with Cream of Mushroom Soup and crispy fried onion ring crumbles.  He can’t get past the condensed soup flavor.  When I asked him last year what vegetable I should make instead, he suggested lima beans.  We made green bean casserole anyway.

One year my Mom and I tried making this dish from scratch.  We figured, fresh green beans lightly steamed, thick chunks of mushrooms, a silky white sauce, and what could be better?  That was the year I determined that part of what I like so much about the classic green bean casserole is… the taste of processed condensed soup.  I can’t help it.  I love the savory, umami saltiness of it, and the homemade substitute was just not an acceptable replacement for me.

One year at Thanksgiving with some family friends, they brought a big salad to supplement our carbohydrate-rich, overloaded plates.  The bowl was passed around the table.  No one took any salad except L, who had made it in the first place.  When she protested, her husband uttered the truest words anyone has ever spoken: “Thanksgiving is not about lettuce.”  So salad, too, failed the test.

Now that October is over, the challenge again rears its head: which vegetables can I dress up to complement the comforting classics we always serve?  While N. was gone at a conference recently, I fiddled around with some trial dishes and voila, Thanksgiving Veg 2010 was born: creamed spinach and artichoke bake.  It’s the comfort and familiarity of creamed spinach, with the flavors and reminiscence of spinach artichoke dip.  Perfection, no?

Here’s what you need:

4 TB butter

4 cloves garlic, crushed and minced

1 – 2 leeks, white and pale green parts only, chopped fine

4 TB flour

Generous grating of fresh nutmeg

2 cups milk or cream

4 oz. cream cheese

At least 10 oz. spinach (that’s the amount in one frozen box, but I used fresh because I prefer it)

16 oz. can of artichoke hearts in water, drained and quartered

Salt and pepper to taste

Topping:

2 TB butter

½ cup or more of Panko bread crumbs

2-3 TB parmesan cheese, grated

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  When it is nearly all melted, add the garlic and sauté for just a minute or two, until the aroma is enticing.  Add the leeks and sauté until they are softened.  Leeks are a new love of mine.  They are the least aggressively flavored members of the onion family, and I think they taste like a cross between a sweet onion and garlic.  They don’t have that astringency onions sometimes do, and I think they are like a stalk of springtime.  I’ve started putting them in frittatas, and when I had one left over on the night I made this little concoction, it seemed like the perfect thing to add in.

When the leeks are tender but not browned, add the flour and nutmeg.  Add some pepper too, if you like.  Stir in until well incorporated with no huge floury lumps, and cook for a minute or two until the flour is pale golden in color.  Then add the milk, slowly, whisking the entire time.  I added it in installments of probably half a cup each, stirring until the milk was fully integrated into the flour mixture.  I found this helped avoid lumps, making a smoother base overall.  Add the cream cheese and mix in.  Whisking fairly constantly, let the milk come to a boil.  It will thicken as it heats.

When the milk is quite thick, add the spinach and artichoke hearts.  The spinach will wilt quickly, and as soon as it is looking soft, kill the heat.  Since this is going to bake for a while, you don’t want to overcook the spinach because it will lose its beautiful color and begin to look muddy.

Salt and pepper to taste.  You could stop here and eat this whole delectable mess right out of the skillet, but I wasn’t ready to quit yet.  After all, it takes my dad about half an hour to carve a turkey, so the oven is (mostly) free.  Why not take advantage of that?

With your oven at a preheated 350F, carefully dump the spinach and artichoke mixture into a baking dish (I used a glass nine-inch pie pan).  Set it aside for a moment while you make the topping.

Mix together the Panko bread crumbs and parmesan cheese with the softened butter.  Drop the buttery crumbs in little clumps all over the top of the spinach and artichoke mixture.  If you don’t get the vegetables completely covered, that’s okay.  In fact, it’s good, because it means any exposed edges of leeks or artichokes will get a little toasty and golden.  More texture = more exciting to eat!

Bake the whole thing for about half an hour at 350F, or until the crumbs on top are browned and the sauce is bubbling at the edges.  Remove and consume.

What I liked about this dish was… well, innumerable.  But the basics: I love creamed spinach, and this was a more extravagant, luxurious take on it.  I also love spinach dip, and this reminded me of it, but without the excessive mayonnaise, the MSG-laced spice mixture, or the pounds of parmesan that go into a hot artichoke version.  The bread crumbs on top were a welcome textural element, especially for a Thanksgiving table, where stuffing, mashed potato, and even the tender juicy turkey, all lack an essential crunchiness.  Not that you would want your mashed potatoes to be crunchy, but it is a sensation for your mouth often missing from this meal.

I told my mom about this dish when I spoke to her on the phone this weekend, and before I could finish explaining what it was, she had already confirmed that this, indeed, would be our Thanksgiving vegetal offering.  Challenge met, and challenge exceeded!  Now I just have to wait for the end of November…

Frankenbrownies

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I love Halloween.  We always have a party, and I always go overboard with the variety and quantity of treats I make.  I get nervous about whether we will have enough food, and then I get anxious about whether I’ll be able to pull everything together in time.  It can be a little scary…

I also loved the pumpkin enchiladas I posted about here.  I never would have expected the flavors of rich, fruity pumpkin, mild creamy goat cheese, and the deep roasty chocolate of mole sauce to go together well.  But they did, and it got me thinking of other ways of combining this trio.  Spurred by a statement of dessert desire by a sick friend, the project became brownies.  Pumpkin cream cheese brownies: could such a thing be?

There are a million recipes for brownies, but I went with Dave Lebovitz’s Cheesecake Brownies, which turned out to be a really good idea. Though I was at first thrown off by and nervous about the complete lack of leavening products, I fought back my temptation to add some baking powder and mixed the ingredients exactly as written.  It was the right choice.

Rather than simply swirling the cream cheese dollops with the thick, shiny chocolate batter, I also added about a cup of pumpkin puree mixed with a teaspoon or two of pumpkin pie spice.  I swirled.  I swirled and swirled and swirled, and still no chocolate came to the surface.  I scooped and plopped and swirled some more, and finally a few rich brown slivers came to the surface.  It was kind of a monster.  But keeping in mind that at its Latin roots, a “monster” bears in its etymology the idea of showing us something, I decided that was good enough, and I’d have to wait and see what it had to show me.  I deposited my weighty, ugly baby into the oven for almost an hour.

Fifteen minutes or so into the cooking process, I started to smell that incredible, mouthwatering aroma of chocolate cooking.  Half an hour in, a delicate curl of cheesecake inserted itself into the scented air.  I couldn’t smell the pumpkin much, but suddenly there was chocolate-cheesecake-spiciness, and I wanted to pull the whole thing out and just eat the whole thing with a spoon.

I resisted, and when the collection of smells had solidified into a… well… a thing from which an inserted toothpick came out clean, I set it aside on the counter to cool.  It was truly a frankensteinian creation.  The brownie layer was dark and rich and barely disturbed, while the top was a delicate whipped pale orange that cut like a harvest-flavored mousse.

The taste was so good.  The brownie was dark and rich; it was definitely of the fudgy brownie ilk rather than the cakey, flakey brownie.  The pumpkin and the cream cheese read like a pumpkin cheesecake, with all the creamy smoothness of a cheesecake and all the spongy custard-y quality of pumpkin pie.  They were delicious together, just as the same flavors – with considerably less sweetness – melded in my pumpkin enchiladas.

While the flavor was great, it did read more like a layered dessert than a brownie.  I think this is because I used the full amount of cream cheese mix Dave Lebovitz calls for PLUS a cup of pumpkin puree.  There was just too much goodness to swirl evenly.  My proposed solution to this is to layer half the chocolate, then dollop on the cream cheese and pumpkin, then top it with the other half of the chocolate batter before mixing.  It seems it will be easier to swirl together the much denser, thicker chocolate with the delicate creaminess of the additional flavors if the chocolate is divided up.

This was truly a Frankenstein creation, but it was certainly not a monster, except perhaps in the sense that it demonstrated deliciousness.  It will make its debut at our Halloween party this year, swirled and sliced and dressed to impress, in orange and “black.”  Its trio of components all vying to be the star means I won’t have to make as many kinds of treats, because here’s the trick: this is a three-in-one.

See, trick-or-treat’s not so scary…

Heralding Fall

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A few weeks ago, N. and I took some friends to Agate Alley bistro, and one of them ordered the Pumpkin Enchiladas.  I was intrigued.  I took a mental note: these would soon appear in my humble little kitchen.

Then summer came to a close.  School started.  And that means I went crazy.  This is my first year dissertating, which means I need to stop playing on the internet and start playing with ideas.  And so the pumpkin enchiladas, and my ability to post here, went on hold.

But Tuesday night, magic happened.  In celebration, perhaps, of the second day of the second week of my second-to-last year as a graduate student (fingers majorly crossed, folks!), I decided to take a few hours with my nose out of books.  And they were pretty incredible (the hours off AND the results).  With my own twists and considerations about ingredients, I put together:

Pumpkin, Roasted Garlic, and Goat Cheese Enchiladas in quick mole sauce.

Enough people have asked me for my recipe (hah!) that I’m going to post in a more traditional ingredient-and-process list format, to make it easier to follow.  This is approximate, however, so tweak and twiddle as you so desire.  I ended up making 5 enchiladas.

Ingredients:

1 whole head garlic, split horizontally

1 – 2 shallots, sliced thin

corn tortillas

1/2- 1 cup pure pumpkin puree

crumbled goat cheese

crumbled queso fresco cheese

handful of pumpkin seeds

Quick Mole Sauce, or your favorite mole, ready to go at the time of assembly.

(I know, this is not a “homemade” mole sauce, and it doesn’t taste exactly the same.  But it’s a good shortcut, I think, and let’s face it: if you want to make these enchiladas to enjoy on a weeknight, most of you aren’t going to take the time to make a mole from scratch.  I’m not ashamed.  I added extra unsweetened chocolate to this recipe, but otherwise kept it mostly the same).

  • Preheat your oven to 400F.  Place the garlic halves in a small dish, drizzle with oil, salt and pepper, and cover tightly with aluminum foil (or just wrap loosely in foil).  Roast in the oven for about an hour, or until cloves are very soft and very golden.  Burnished but not burnt.  Cool, then squeeze the cloves out of the papers and mash them into a paste.  During this time, you can take advantage of the oven being on to roast your pumpkin seeds.  They will only take 5-10 minutes, though, so don’t lose track of them or they will burn.
  • Caramelize shallot slices in a skillet.  They should be dark, dark, like French Onion Soup onions.  Set aside to cool.
  • Turn oven down to 350F. Spread the bottom of a baking dish (I used glass) with mole sauce.
  • Prepare and assemble enchiladas: working with one tortilla at a time, spread the tortilla with the garlic paste, then top with 2-3 TB each pumpkin puree, goat cheese, and shallots (or to taste). Carefully roll up the tortilla and fit it, loose edge down, into the baking dish, pressing each enchilada tightly against its compatriots.
  • Top enchiladas with a thick, even layer of mole sauce.  Sprinkle with goat cheese and queso fresco crumbles to your liking.  I say the more, the better when it comes to cheese, but that’s just me…
  • Bake for 30 minutes, or until the cheese is soft and the sauce is bubbly.  Queso fresco and goat cheese, depending on which types you use, don’t melt and burble the way other cheeses do, but they will soften and collapse on themselves a bit.
  • To serve, sprinkle with toasted pumpkin seeds and enjoy with spicy refried black beans, Spanish rice, guacamole, or whatever you so desire!

I was a bit concerned, at first, that the mole would overpower any other flavor, but it didn’t.  This dish executed an intriguing and intricate dance between dinner and dessert.  Ingredients that often appear in sweet circumstances remained decidedly savory.  The pumpkin and the goat cheese were so creamy and rich, like a harvest cheesecake enfolded in a tortilla.  I could have used more roasted garlic paste, but there’s always next time.  The chocolate in the mole, too, holds the expectation of sweetness but none of the sugary suggestion of a dessert.  Instead it provided a perfect bite of creamy-spicy-chewy-oozing-warmth, with an almost unexpected nutty crunch from the pumpkin seeds.

Also good were last scrapings and bites of loose cheese crumbles, sticky caramelized mole sauce in the bottom of the baking dish, and a last, perfect, creamy green square of avocado.

Dark beer, perhaps even a chocolate stout, would be a lovely accompaniment.