First Bounty

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Chelsea

Though we have been harvesting sugar snap peas by the bowlful for the past few weeks, and though we probably still have enough preparing for maturity on the vine for me to freeze a bagful, it didn’t feel like we really had a harvest on our hands until a few days ago, when I picked these:

I know it seems crazy, and I know I’ll be sick of it before August is over, but despite the heat and despite the impending pounds of zucchini and despite my encouragement to myself to eat better at breakfast time, I couldn’t resist. Despite all that, I made zucchini bread.

As you can see, whether it was the monster zucchini I grated up that exceeded the recipe’s requirement a little bit, or whether it was because my thrift store loaf pan was on the small side, I had extra batter. Fortunately, my sweet little too-seldom-used ramekins called to me from the cupboard, and I heeded their siren song. In addition to the loaf, we also had four big muffin-sized servings. The advantage of this was that they were ready for consumption much sooner, and consume we did. Here’s my serving suggestion:

The recipe I use for zucchini bread right now is from Bon Appetit’s latest cookbook. This isn’t the magazine, it’s the full book, and this particular version is called Zucchini Spice Bread. It has a hefty teaspoon of cinnamon added to the standard mix, and with 2 cups of zucchini as well as a cup of toasted nuts (I used pecans because I was out of walnuts, and may have liked it better with the substitution), it seems like one of the healthier quickbreads out there, as well as using up a decent amount of zucchini. And the flavor. The flavor is stupendous. Since the nuts are toasted, they donate more of a crunch and a warm richness to the bread. Because there is so much zucchini, they don’t dry out the bread too much, which is sometimes a complaint I have about nuts. The zucchini itself is mild but still present, and the bread is not too sweet. It has a nice moist crumb to it but the top gets crusty, so the whole thing is just a medley of textures that I really enjoy. Here’s to the joy of baked goods, the joy of home grown vegetables, and the very special joy of being able to eat them both at the same time!

Wedding Cake Redux

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Chelsea

Yesterday, N. and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. I know, I know, we’re practically newlyweds still, and maybe that’s why I wanted to make something special for us to eat. N. wanted to go out to dinner, since I cook a lot, and so I hatched a plan for dessert. I’ve been getting a subscription to Cuisine at Home, and a few months ago I received an issue with a recipe for Pink Champagne Cake. At our wedding, the cake flavor was champagne, and the filling was fresh strawberries. It looked like this:

Chelsea_Nick-264

Though this recipe didn’t call for strawberries, the idea behind it seemed perfect, so early yesterday morning while N. was in a class, I set to work on what was easily the most complicated cake I have ever baked. The first part was easy:

Like any cake, the layers needed to cool completely before frosting them, which was convenient because it gave me ample time to clean up the incredible mess I had created in the kitchen. Not only do I enjoy creating food, apparently I like to throw my whole self into the process. When the cakes were cooled and the kitchen was clean(er), I embarked on step two: frosting. This cake was more complex than my normal baking projects not only because the batter involved champagne, two mixing bowls, and egg whites, but because the frosting was a multi-step process as well. The first frosting step was for the filling between the two layers. Here I decided to go a few extra kilometers in recreating our wedding cake, and arranged slices of fresh strawberries atop the frosting layer:

Next, after carefully stacking the cake and performing some fancy heating, cooling, whipping, and folding with gelatin, heavy cream, and the remaining already mixed frosting, I carefully stacked on the second layer, frosted the bejeezus out of the whole thing, and then covered the cake and refrigerated it so that the frosting could set up a little before eating. When it came out, it looked like this:

Then we ate it. The addition of strawberries was really wonderful, both for reminiscence sake and because the frosting was powdered sugar based, which is often too sweet for me. The tart juiciness of the strawberries cut the almost overwhelming sweetness of the icing, and the layer of red in the middle was pretty, since I didn’t use the food coloring required to make the “Pink” part of the recipe’s title. This didn’t seem necessary, both because our wedding cake was not pink, and because I didn’t want to spend the money on food coloring. This is a change I would advise keeping. My only other critique of the cake, which was ultimately my fault, would be to use white shortening in the frosting. Mine was butter flavored and yellow, which is usually fine, but it did make the frosting on the cake a creamy color, when bright white would have been a little more aesthetically pleasing.

But the important thing here is the flavor. It was delicious. The cake was moist and a bit dense, and though it was not particularly strong, there was definitely a hint of champagne flavor in there. It was definitely more complex than a simple white or yellow cake, and maybe with a simpler frosting – just whipping cream, sugar, and a splash of champagne – this would be a perfect showy dessert. In fact, with so much left in the fridge, I might just have to taste it again and make sure it’s as good as it was last night…

Dinner tonight

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Chelsea

A la that good old Merv Griffin classic Wheel of Fortune, I give you: Before and After. Vanna, if you would please?

Shots of Summer

Posted on June 30, 2009 by Chelsea

Just a few quick shots to remind us that summer has finally arrived. I’m proud to say that some of this produce is from my own tiny backyard garden plot!

Soft, sweet, whole bulbs of roasted garlic:

Cherries from the Saturday Market, tart and taut:

Lunch one weekday – spicy stir-friend rainbow chard with half a wheat bagel:

Snap pea, squash blossom, and nasturtium risotto:

Goodies from Sweet Life Patisserie – I love the hand-painted look of the tiny flowers on the square of chocolate:

Ravioli

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Chelsea

What does one make with half a package of wonton wrappers slowly succumbing to freezer-burn, a yard full of fragrant spearmint, and a package of cherry tomatoes?

Homemade ravioli.

A few months ago, during that first spell of beautiful heat, N. and our friend S. and I went to the annual Friends of the Eugene Library booksale. Amidst nerdy volumes, I found two glorious, inexpensive cookbooks, and it was from a volume called “Everyday Epicurean” that I found the recipe for this simple and really quite delish ravioli concoction.

The filling combines crumbled feta cheese, cream cheese, herbs, and the magic ingredient: a small pickled jalapeño pepper. After a whirl in the food processor, half a tablespoon of filling gets mounded in the center of a square wonton wrapper, which you fold into a triangle after moistening the edges with water. Stow your raviolis safely on a WELL-FLOURED cookie sheet while you finish producing the batch.

I stuck mine in the refrigerator for a few hours before dropping the delicate little stuffed triangles into a boiling pot, though the recipe didn’t call for this. While the little darlings boiled, I mixed up the sauce, which consisted mainly of cherry tomatoes and mint, just barely heated up in a sauté pan with some hot olive oil. Since my tummy doesn’t do well with heavy processed tomato sauces, this was near perfect for me.

The result was heavenly. The raviolis stuck together a little bit while I was pulling them out of the pot, and one or two of them may have leaked a little bit (the water was pretty cloudy by the time they were done), but it didn’t seem to matter. Unlike the usual frozen variety we depend on in a pinch, the wonton skins were ultra-thin and delicate, and tasted more like restaurant fare than the quick fix from the freezer section. The filling was creamy and rich, but not overpoweringly so, as the sharp bite from the pickled jalapeño inside and the sweet acidic tang from the tomatoes outside cut through the potentially cloying velvet of the cheese. Served up with a toaster-oven broiled slice of romano-garlic toast, this was completely worth the effort of creating all those little packages. Maybe the cliché about good things is true after all.

Cheese, please!

Posted on June 7, 2009 by Chelsea

Once upon a time ago, N.’s parents bought him a quesadilla maker. I’m not sure what this was in response to, but my first reaction might have been a giggle. I can make a quesadilla, you just fold a tortilla in a frying pan! I resisted the quesadilla maker. I begrudged it the space it took up in our moving boxes when we moved in together. I glowered at its awkward shape in our cabinets.

Since those early days, the quesadilla maker and I have become good friends. I still use a skillet for plain cheese quesadillas, but when I want to go all out and add other vegetables, the dual surface cooking mechanism is helpful in preventing flip-related spills and leaks. In fact, we’re down to a fairly standard recipe that one of us employs once every month or two.

Tonight, inspired by the need to use up some vegetables, I dug out the trusty quesadilla maker and layered in the standards plus a few additions. I usually fry some sliced mushrooms and defrosted corn in olive oil until the mushrooms are soft and the corn has just started to caramelize against the bottom of the pan. Then I layer Monterey jack cheese, baby spinach, the mushroom and corn mixture, and a little bit more cheese onto the bottom tortilla before slapping on the top. Today, since I’ve been reading everywhere to eat a rainbow of colors in your fruit and veggie diet, I added some chopped radicchio that I had hanging around in my crisper drawer.

While I was waiting for the mushrooms and corn to do their thing, I addressed several aging avocadoes in our fruit baskets. I’ve recently made a few alterations to my old standard guacamole thanks to a shortage, and am pleased enough with my new strategy to share it. I’m not calling this a recipe, because I still adjust things every time I make a batch. Tonight’s avocado-and-a-half was joined by four or five strips of julienne cut sundried tomatoes, chopped cilantro and garlic scapes from the back garden, lime juice, sea salt, one finely chopped miniature pickled jalapeño, sea salt and black pepper. Sometimes I use garlic powder and some green onions instead of the garlic shoots, but the key ingredient, the fundamental change, is the move from fresh tomatoes to sundried. There’s a pleasant textural difference, and I like the intensity of the flavor profile that the dried tomatoes lend. Tonight’s spice from the pickled jalapeño was a bright change as well, that cut nicely through the thick cheesiness of the quesadilla itself. I cleansed my cheesy palate with a Hornsby’s hard cider, but I suspect any pilsner or lager would have done the trick just as nicely. A crisp pinot grigio or some other fruity white wine would have paired well too.