Hummus

I made another batch of Melissa Clark's Stupendous Hummus (see here and here). This time, it took 2 hours 40 minutes to cook 1 cup dried chickpeas, and it made 2 cups cooked chickpeas.

I peeled the skin off of every single chickpea. It is hard to see the skin on the cooked chickpeas--the first time I cooked chickpeas I thought they didn't have any skin (even though they actually had one), because I couldn't see it. See for example the first picture, where it is extremely hard to see the skin which is on every chickpea in the blue pot. In the two Pyrex bowls are the de-skinned chickpeas and their skin (and a bay leaf).

To remove chickpea skin: Firmly pinch them (don't worry if you crush the chickpea a little, since it will be ground up soon), and the bean will slide out of the skin.

I tried out some of the new hummus ideas mentioned in this post:

• I did not use baking soda since I wanted to use the cooking liquid in the hummus.
• I let the chickpeas cool for a few hours in their cooking liquid (until I had a chance to de-skin them), so they were definitely room temperature when I blended them. However, I think I was already waiting until they were room temperature when I cooked my own chickpeas, so this wasn't a change. Next time, I want to try grinding them after they have been refrigerated.
• I also tried leaving out the olive oil. The hummus was very mild when it was first ground, the same as I've found in the previous times when I made this. However, after it had chilled, I tasted it, and I didn't like the taste without olive oil--it tasted simply like a thick paste of ground up chickpeas. I stirred in the olive oil into the cold hummus, and it improved the taste significantly and became silky, smooth, and had a creamy texture.

Mashed Red Potatoes

Recipe modified from ""Fluffiest Mashed Potatoes" from Bon Appetit".

2 pounds red potatoes, scrubbed
5 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup half and half
1 tsp salt

Place the potatoes, with their skins intact into a large pot and cover by an inch with cold water.  Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork.

Remove the potatoes from the water and allow to dry for 5 - 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, put the butter, half-and-half, and salt in a small pan and heat until the butter is melted and everything is hot.

Pass the potatoes, about 2 at a time, through a potato ricer into a large bowl.  After you press each set of potatoes through, use a fork or other utensil to scrape the potato skins out of the ricer and into the bowl (that is, if you want the skins in the mashed potatoes, which I find a nice textural contrast and it adds nutrients to the dish).

Stir the melted butter mixture into the potatoes, starting with half of the mixture and adding the rest to taste.  Try to stir the potatoes only enough to incorporate the butter mixture.

Mulled Perry (Pear Cider) with Pears and Spices

"Mulled Perry with Pears and Spices" from "Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard" by Nigel Slater.  I made 1/2 the recipe (0.5 litres, which was exactly enough for two glasses), though I only used 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar, increased the cinnamon sticks to two (so there would be one for both of us), used the juice from 3/4 of an orange, and added a tiny pinch of salt (just enough to bring out the flavors but not make it salty).  This drink is also nice with a bit of bourbon poured in.

Double Coconut Granola

Making granola is as simple as mixing together a bunch of ingredients and then baking them for 45 minutes.  I often keep all of the ingredients needed for granola in my pantry, so the most difficult part (for me) is finding all the ingredients, since I always have to hunt for the nuts or seeds that end up in the back of a cupboard.  I buy almonds, cashews, and thickly grated coconut from an Indian grocery called "India Cash & Carry" since they have amazing quality spices and nuts for really cheep prices.  You can substitute nearly any dried fruits, raw nuts, or raw seeds that you like.

My granola is based on the "Double Coconut Granola" recipe from "Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make" by Melissa Clark again.  Modifications I made to the recipe: Instead of just pecans I used 1 cup of a mix of raw pecans, raw pistachio, and raw almonds, and I coarsely chopped (or rather hammered into coarse peaces) 1/2 cup raw pecans and 1/4 cup raw almonds.  I only put 3/4 tsp salt instead of the recommended 1 tsp.  I doubled the amount of cinnamon (so I put in 1 tsp cinnamon), and used regular brown raisins instead of dried cherries.  I use thickly grated coconut (non-sugared); if you only have thinly grated coconut, then you should only add it in the last 10 minutes of baking.  I used palm sugar from Thailand instead of light brown sugar, since I just bought the palm sugar and I wanted to see what it tastes like.  It adds a nice subtle caramel and butterscotch taste.

You can halve this recipe if you want to make a smaller amount.  This time I made a full batch (3 cups of rolled oats); only half the batch is pictured though--the other half is in a different baking dish.  I used non-cast iron dishes, since last time I made granola, I found the cast iron browned the granola too quickly.

Ingredients:
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup raw nuts, a mix of your choosing (e.g. pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, cashews)
3/4 cup of coarsely chopped or hammered nuts*
1 cup thickly grated coconut (non-sugared)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup melted virgin coconut oil (you can substitute olive oil)
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar or lightly packed grated palm sugar
3/4 tsp kosher salt, preferably Diamond Crystal brand
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
3/4 cup raisins, preferably golden but regular raisins are okay (or any other dried fruit you like)
(optional) dash of vanilla extract
(optional) handful of candied ginger

Preheat oven to 300 F.

* To make the coarsely "chopped" nuts, I put all the nuts in a clean plastic bag, and use a kitchen hammer to break them up.  If you want to use a mix of chopped nuts, then each nut should be pounded separately, since they have different hardness.

If you are using palm sugar, then you should dissolve the palm sugar in the maple syrup first.

In a large bowl or in your baking dish, combine all ingredients.  Spread out the granola evenly across the baking dish; you may need to use two baking dishes.

Bake until golden all over, about 45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

Pizza Rosa Al Bianco

William made this "Pizza Rosa Al Bianco" from "American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza" by Peter Reinhart.  This white pizza is topped with thinly sliced red onion, 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, pistachio nuts (very coarsely chopped), 1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves, and 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (amounts are for 1 pizza).  The red and the green is very pretty!

One thing he noticed about this pizza is that it is important to put enough olive oil on it, otherwise it will be too dry.  The picture of the raw pizza is from his first pizza, which didn't have enough olive oil.

He's also getting much more consistent at making thin pizzas.  In this batch of dough, 4 out of 4 of the pizzas were successfully pulled into thin crust, and transferred to the pizza stone in the oven.

Oysters

Served with Champagne vinegar, a pinch of minced red onion (shallots would have been better to use), and some minced herbs.  The red onions turn the vinegar pink colored; the onions or shallots should be cut much smaller, even though they are small here, they aren't small enough because they distract from the oyster.

Here is a picture from the second time that we opened up oysters at home:

A Hotpot of Sausage and Apples

Recipe for "A Hotpot of Sausage and Apples" from "Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard" by Nigel Slater.  I choose to make this since William seems to really like eating sausages these days.  It is essential to get good quality sausages for this dish; the sausages make the dish.

I served this stew with steamed couscous, using Paula Wolfert's method, and mashed potatoes (which are more traditional, since Slater is a British cookbook author); I enjoyed both, though William preferred the couscous.  I also tried it with quinoa, but I don't recommend it since the quinoa was only so-so.

While I was cooking this dish, I was doubtful since certain parts of the recipe seemed to not be going so well (see comments about cutting the sausages when they are raw), but I really loved eating it.

I made a bunch of modifications to this recipe:

• I used Italian Butter Beans (the same type as in this post), instead of the recommended flageolet or haricot beans.  Since I only had time to soak my beans for 6 hours, they took forever (2.5 hours!) to cook.  So, instead of adding the beans as recommended in the last 25 minutes of cooking, I added the beans to the stew at the same time as the stock and Madeira, so that the beans got an additional 50 minutes of simmering.
• I only used 1 onion, since 3 onions seemed like a lot.  While the beans were cooking, I took the time to really slowly cook the onion pieces until it was almost caramelized (45 minutes of cooking).
• I used 4 garlic cloves, because an extra clove broke off from the head when I was removing the suggested 3 cloves.
• I removed the onions from the pan before browning the sausages.  I browned the sausages in two batches because my pot wasn't big enough for all the sausages.  After browning them, I drained the excess oil from the pot before adding the other ingredients.
• I used granny smith apples for my dessert apples.  I soaked the apples in some water with a little bit of lemon juice after peeling, coring, and quartering them, until I was ready to cook them.
• I used a mixture of chicken stock and the bean cooking liquid instead of just chicken stock.  The bean cooking liquid was very flavorful, and I think it helped to give additional body to the stew.
• The dish should be served as a stew with a fork and knife.  It is awkward to serve this in soup bowls (as I tried to when I first set it out), because the pieces are too big to eat with just a spoon.  The best way to serve this is on a plate drizzled around some sort of carbohydrate (I used couscous, but I assume mashed potatoes would be good here) which has been piled on the side (see picture).
• I forgot to add the black pepper.
• The liquid in my stew didn't reduce very much.  However, it still had good body from the cooked flour and the bean cooking liquid.

Next time here are some modifications that I would make:

• I would halve the recipe. My stock pot wasn't big enough for this recipe, so I recommend halving the recipe just so it will fit in my oval Le Creuset French oven, or perhaps using my larger cast iron Dutch oven next time.  The entire recipe fed two of us for nearly 4 days.
• Slate's books, "Tender" and "Ripe", are beautifully written and photographed; the flavors in his recipes are often well chosen, warm and cosy, and fill you with longing, however sometimes I get frustrated with how "rustic" they are.  For example, in this recipe the sausages should not be cut into short lengths when they are raw; I knew this was odd but I followed the recipe anyways just to see what would happen.  Of course, the cut ends bloated in an unattractive bloated way;  Slate may not care about this since he likes things to be rustic and simple, but I think you should brown them whole, and then cut them or even wait to cut them until halfway through the simmering (at 25 minutes).  This is because raw sausages tend to bloat unattractively when they are cut.  If they are cut after they are partially cooked, then they will keep a clean crisp edge.

Cream of Tomato Soup

The refrigerator clean out continues.  We had some left over crushed tomato sauce left over from William's pizza making.  His sauce is actually an uncooked can of crushed tomatoes, mixed with a little vinegar, oregano and salt. I decided to make this into a tomato soup.  I also save left over chicken broth into a plastic container in the freezer, since it keeps for a long time there.  Since I was using up leftovers, I only have approximate estimates of the quantities; I did not measure things exactly.

I used the "Cream of Tomato Soup" recipes from "How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food" by Mark Bittman and "The Silver Spoon" as references, though I made up the recipe.  Both of those sources suggest using butter (instead of olive oil) to cook the onion if you are planing on making cream of tomato soup.

1 yellow onion, finely minced
2 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup wine

left over crushed tomato sauce, about 1 1/2 cups
chicken broth, about 1 1/2 cups
1 or 2 bay leaves.

1/2 cup half and half
salt, to taste

Heat a large heavy pan on medium (enameled cast iron is a good choice, but don't use regular cast iron because it interacts with the acid in the tomatoes).  Put the butter into the pan, and when the butter bubbles, add the minced onion and a tiny pinch of salt.  Be very conservative in the amount of salt you add; the salt is to help the onions sweat, but you should only add a small amount because the tomato sauce and the chicken stock has salt in it already.  Cook the onion until it has softened but hasn't colored (the onion should become transparent but remain yellow).

Add the wine and allow most of the liquid to boil off.  Add the crushed tomato sauce, and return to a simmer.  Simmer for 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the chicken stock and the bay leaves, and return to a simmer.  Lower heat and partially cover.  Keep the soup at a low simmer for 1 hour.

Remove the bay leaves and discard.  Use a hand blender to blend all ingredients.  Add the half and half.  Check the consistency of the soup; the soup should be hearty, but thinner then a stew.  If it is too thick, then add some water (I had to add 1/2 cup of water).  Heat the soup until it is almost beginning to simmer.

Taste the soup.  If you would like a smooth texture, you can pass the soup through a fine meshed strainer (chinoise); I did this with my soup since I didn't think that the onion particles were soft enough. If the soup isn't almost beginning to simmer, then heat the soup until it is.  Taste and adjust the seasonings for salt (I added a tiny pinch).  If the soup isn't vibrant enough, then you can add a tsp or two of vinegar (I didn't need to).

Serve hot, preferably with shaved Parmesan and croutons, bread, or even better yet--a grilled cheese sandwich.  Alternatively, I think that the strained version of this soup would be cute with alphabet letter pasta.

Roasted Carrots, Celery, Shallot, and Garlic

The cleaning of the refrigerator continues.  This morning I noticed that we had 3 nice big carrots that had been in the fridge for a while, and half a head of celery that was about to go bad if we didn't use it. So I decided to roast them, and serve it with the last remaining bit of Italian Salsa Verde.

Here is an article which explains how to roast any vegetable.

3 carrots
1/2 celery head, with the celery leaves
1 or 2 whole shallot, remove the
1/2 head of garlic
salt
freshly ground pepper
olive oil

Preheat oven to 415 - 425 F.

Scrub the dirt off the carrots.  Trim the stalks to about 1" (if you haven't already), but leave the tops on the carrots because this looks pretty.

Cut the bottom off the celery.  Separate and wash the celery stalks.  Cut the celery stalks in half.  Cut most of the celery leaves off the stalks (leaving a few leaves on the stalks tastes nice).  Coarsely chop the celery leaves and set aside.

Remove the outer papery skin from the shallots.

Leave the garlic head whole, and with their paper (the paper protects them since they burn easily) and attached together, if possible.

Toss all leaves in a large cast iron skillet with a generous glug of olive oil, a pinch of salt, and pepper.  If you don't mind getting your hands oily, then I find it easiest to evenly coat the vegetables with oil if I toss the vegetables with my hands.

Roast in the oven until the vegetables are done.  Check them frequently.  The vegetables will cook at different times, so you will need to remove the vegetables from the pan and set them aside as they become fully cooked.  Also stir the vegetables every once in a while (every 15 - 20 minutes).

I have a tendency to roast vegetables for too long, since I like to try to caramelize them.  Here's how long it took to cook my vegetables:

• celery: 25 minutes
• carrots & shallot: 40 minutes
• garlic: 1 hour (I cooked my garlic for too long.  The garlic is done when the cloves are soft and mushy and possibly slightly caramelized.  They are over cooked if any part of them becomes black and burnt, however, if this happens you can scrape the non-burnt parts off and serve it as a paste to smear on the vegetables.  Their cooking time should be reduced by at least 15 minutes.)

When all of the vegetables have been cooked, place the still pipping hot pan on the stove top.  Toss the reserved celery leaves into the pan, and saute very briefly (10 - 30 seconds) to give the leaves the barest hint of heat (they should be still green and vibrant) and to flavor them with some of the olive oil and salt remaining in the pan.

Arrange all roasted vegetables in an attractive formation in a bowl or on a plate.  Serve hot or at room temperature.  You can also serve the vegetables with Italian Salsa Verde, if you like.

Kale Chips

While I was looking for recipes to use up my leftover dino kale, I found this article from Saveur on "8 Great Recipes that Rocked the Internet".  One of the recipes is kale chips.  I've seen a lot of kale chips being sold at various supermarkets and even at a farmer's market.  I thought kale chips required a dehydrator, however it turns out that they only need 30 minutes of cooking in a low oven (250 F).  I had no idea that making kale chips was so simple!

I used a generous pinch of black pepper.  My pepper has a bite to it, so this simple flavoring was nicely spicy and satisfying.

David Lebovitz has an interesting discussion about the effects of baking temperature on kale chips.  You can use low temperatures with long baking times or high temperatures and shorter baking time (250 F for 30 minutes versus 350 F for 25 minutes versus 425 F for 12 minutes) depending on the effects that you want.  Lower temperatures will preserve the kale's greenness and shape.  Higher temperatures will make a crunchier dried kale chip.  My chips came out green and were so crispy that you have to be very careful moving them, otherwise they will shatter after long 30 minute bake at 250 F; I haven't tried high temperatures.

Recipe modified from Bon Appetit

12 large dino kale leaves.
1 Tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 250 F.

While the oven is preheating, rinse the kale leaves and dry thoroughly (use a salad spinner or dry with a clean dish towel or paper towels).  Cut them lengthwise in half on one side of the center rib, and then remove the center rib from the other side.  Optionally you can consider cutting them in half lengthwise too; if you keep them long, they will be very dramatic but will break easily, so only a few of them will stay long.  Discard or compost the center rib.

Toss kale with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  You only want to use a little bit of olive oil--enough to just coat the leaves, since the kale leaves don't absorb the olive oil and will get oily if you coat them heavily.

Arrange leaves as spread out as possible on 2 baking sheets.  The leaves will be more crispy the more spread out they are, so preferably place them in a single layer, but it is okay to overlap a tiny amount if you need to.

Bake until crisp, about 30 minutes for flat leaves, and 33 minutes for wrinkled leaves.  Kale leaves burn easily, so start checking after 20 minutes.  I don't think it is necessary to stir or turn the kale, especially since the kale becomes very delicate and brittle as it gets crispy and is too easy to break to bother with turning; I didn't stir or turn my batch of kale while it was cooking and it came out evenly crispy for me.

Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Dutch Baby

Dutch babies are a type of puffed pancake. These can be served for breakfast, brunch, or dessert. I've had this dish on my list of dishes to try making for a while now, but I never got around to it, because I prefer savory breakfasts over sweet breakfasts.

This morning as we were drinking our coffee, Will was settling into reading something. I was hungry. He didn't look like he was going to want to leave to get food anytime soon, so I decided to see if I could make a snack. We don't have much supplies or food around right now (we need to go shopping for food soon), but I remembered the Dutch baby and wondered whether I could use the half-and-half I use in my coffee instead of the whole milk that I assumed most recipes would recommend. It only took a few moments before I figured out that half-and-half would probably work fine--Orangette's recipe uses half-and-half. In addition, most recipes suggest 2 to 4 eggs, but I only had 1 egg; I decided to try to make a Dutch baby anyway. If I had 2 eggs next time, I would also try it that way, but it turns out 1 egg works just fine, so don't worry if you don't have the correct number of eggs. There are many variations of recipes for dutch babies on the web. It appears that many different volumes of ingredients will work successfully, so if you may still be able to make a dutch baby even if don't have the exact amount specified in any recipe (within reason).

I used a modification of the Dutch Baby recipes from Orangette and Rockstar Diaries.

The flavorings (cinnamon, vanilla) are optional, and you can vary them to suit your toppings.

For the pancakes:
1 egg (using 2 eggs also works but will make an eggy-er pancake)
1/2 cup half and half (using whole milk will work, but half and half tastes better to me.)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
tiny pinch of salt
dash of cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp butter
10-inch cast iron pan
powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

While the oven is preheating, crack eggs into a bowl and lightly beat. Mix in the half and half, flour, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla with a whisk until just barely combined.

When the oven is heated to 425 F. Heat a 10-inch cast iron pan on medium to medium-low on the stovetop. Melt the butter in the hot cast iron pan; if the pan is hot enough, it should bubble while it is melting. Swirl the butter around so that it coats the pan evenly. Pour the batter into the pan (on top of the butter), and place the pan immediately into the oven. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes (start checking the pancake after 10 minutes), until the pancake is firm and puffy and the edges are browned.

If you like, you can sprinkle powdered sugar on top of the pancake. Serve immediately.

Optional: Sweet Toppings:
powdered sugar
lemon wedges (to squeeze juice on the pancake)
orange marmalade
maple syrup
cinnamon
fruit (such as strawberries, or poached fruit)

I put out powdered sugar, lemon wedges, orange marmalade, and maple syrup. I found that I liked a combination of all the ingredients.

If you want to take this in a more savory direction, I've also seen dutch babies topped with maple syrup and crispy bacon.

Zucchini and Summer Squash Ribbons

When I decided to make Italian Salsa Verde, I wanted some vegetables to go with the sauce. At first I was thinking of blanched asparagus, but then I realized that asparagus is a spring vegetable, and since it is now the middle of summer, I was unlikely to find it at the farmer's market.  Next I thought of zucchini.  At first I was thinking of lightly sautéing zucchini and drizzling salsa verde on it, but I did a quick web search, I found Badger Kitchen's "Summer Squash Ribbons with Almond Salsa Verde" recipe which was modified from a recipe from Fine Cooking.  That recipe looks absolutely lovely, and I'd like to make that salad someday, but I didn't make it today, since I didn't want to spend the time to blanch almonds, and I also wanted to try out the Italian Salsa Verde recipe separately (though it is very similar to the dressing used in the Badger Kitchen recipe), and then just mix it into the zucchini ribbons.

I've previously avoided zucchini ribbons because the name "zucchini pasta" isn't appealing to me, because it isn't chewy carby pasta and I don't want to pretend it is pasta or use it as mock pasta.  I decided to try making it recently after a restaurant I liked used zucchini ribbons to garnish some salmon. They didn't call it pasta, and they didn't try to market it as a pasta replacement. It was on the plate simple because it went well with the pasta, and it was tasty.   I like the dish if it is referred to as "zucchini ribbons".

For this dish, I just mixed some Italian Salsa Verde, zucchini ribbons that I made on my Japanese mandolin (you can also use a vegetable peeler), and a tiny bit of extra salt to taste.  One note is that your zucchini ribbons should be thin, but you shouldn't make your ribbons as thin as pasta. You want the ribbons to be able to hold some shape when they are curled up.  Mine are a touch too thin, and when they are too thin they have a tendency to stick together, and not hold a lot of volume.

Truffled Pasta

This is another I'm-working-from-home lunch time creation.  I like the challenge creating something to eat when I have "nothing in the fridge" or only leftovers, and the flexibility to fail that I have when I'm only cooking for myself.  This dish came about because I wanted something with carbs in it for breakfast / lunch, and I had half a package of left over linguine from linguine and clams and a large assortment of truffle flavorings (i.e. truffle butter in the freezer, truffle salt, and both white and black truffle oil).

Shaved fresh truffles would also be lovely on top of this pasta.

Ingredients:
generous pat of truffle butter, enough butter to coat the pasta
generous sprinkle of truffle salt
a few drops of white truffle oil, just a tiny bit
shaved Parmesan
linguine

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil.  Cook linguine until al dente.  Drain but do not rinse.

Melt the truffle butter into the pasta while the pasta is still piping hot.  Stir the butter into the pasta to help it help.  Add a generous sprinkle of truffle salt (to taste), and a few drops of white truffle oil.  I don't really like the flavor of truffle oil, so I suggest just using 3-4 drops of the oil per bowl--enough to give some aroma but not to be overwhelming.  Top with some shaved Parmesan.

Italian Salsa Verde

Recipe modified from Dinner, A Love Story and Bon Appetit, which has many variations of salsa verde recipes.  This sauce goes well with chicken, steak, fish, or vegetables.  This sauce is easy and quick to put together at the last minute, if you need something to liven up your dish.

I decided to make this sauce since I already had everything in my fridge and it was a great way to not let all those extra herbs go to waste!  I had half a bunch of parsley left over from linguine and clams,  some mint that I don't remember what I bought it for, a bunch of lemons from someone's lemon tree that I am slowly working through, capers from a scallop and couscous dish, and anchovies from some pasta.  If you keep capers, anchovies, and lemons around then you also might be able to make some up using fresh herbs which were bought for another dish.

So I used a mix of parsley and mint; it was about 1/5 mint, since I had some left over mint from last week that I wanted to use up.  I really like the freshness that the mint gave, so if you have some mint around, I recommend adding some! I used about half the parsley bunch; there were herbs to lightly pack the bowl of the small capacity food processor that came with my hand mixer.

I left out the scallion because I didn't have one around, and also added lemon zest, since lemon zest was an ingredient in one of the Bon Appetit recipes and I had some since I was juicing half a lemon anyway.

I put my salsa verde in a clean ketchup bottle to make it easy to drizzle.

1 cup fresh parsley (or cilantro or mint, or a mix of these herbs)
10 - 12 large capers
1 anchovy
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of pepper
juice from 1/2 a small Meyer lemon (my lemon was about the size of a small lime)
zest from lemon half
1/4 cup olive oil

Put all ingredients into a food processor, and blend until it makes a pesto.  Alternatively, you can drizzle the olive oil in slowly to emulsify the sauce if your food processor has a pour spout (mine doesn't).  Or, if you like, you could use a mortar and pestle to mash everything but the lemon juice and olive oil, and then slowly whisk in the liquids to emulsify.

Linguine and Clams

This recipe is loosely based on Melissa Clark's recipe "Clams with Peas, Pea Shoots, and Israeli Couscous" from "Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make".  I used the same technique, and similar ingredients except I used parsley, and left out the non-traditional ingredients, and used a lot more white wine.

Serves 2
Ingredients:
2 dozen littleneck clams, scrubbed
3 Tbsp salted butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup minced shallots (about 1 medium shallot)
2 fat garlic cloves
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 cup of white wine
1/4 cup minced parsley
linguine, 1/2 pound

Place scrubbed clams in a large bowl and cover with water.  Refrigerator for at least an hour or overnight; this helps to remove grit from the clams.

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil.  Cook linguine until al dente, and then drain and set aside.  Do not rinse.

At the same time as you are cooking the pasta, heat the butter and salt in a large saute pan.  When the butter melts, add the shallots and garlic.  Cook until softened, about 3 minutes.  Add a pinch of red pepper flakes and cook for 1 minute more.  Stir in the wine. Increase the heat to high and boil until the wine has reduced by half (about 4 minutes).

Drain the clams and add them to the pan.  Cover and cook on high heat until the clams have opened, about 4 to 5 minutes.  Either carefully shake the pan while holding the lid down tightly or stir the clams once or twice while they are cooking.  If some of the clams cook much faster then the other clams, then you can temporarily remove the cooked clams and place them in a bowl on the side while you cook the other clams; return all the clams to the pot once everything has cooked.

Turn off heat and stir in the pasta and parsley.  The sauce should be wet from all the wine and clam juice, but if it isn't moist enough you can add a little bit of the pasta cooking water.   Place the pasta on to plates with the clams on top, and server immediately.

Corn Salad

This is salad is simple and quick to make; it is the quick version of the fava bean and corn salad that I made a few days ago. The salad is very flexible. It is just lightly cooked corn with a vinaigrette, some herbs (parsley in this case), and optional spices. You can use any combination you like (basil, parsley, or mint would all be nice), to suit your mood or what you have on hand. I happen to have walnut oil and champagne vinegar and I'm enjoying playing with them right now, but if you don't, then just make a vinaigrette with whatever you have (e.g. you could try extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar).

The salad is very summery; the corn must be very fresh and sweet. Surprisingly, this salad tasted even better the second day, after the corn had time to soak up some of the dressing.

Recipe: My own.
Rating: Good
Status: Made once.

Ingredients:
3 ears corn, very fresh and sweet
sprinkle of parsley, minced
pinch of harissa spice (optional)
black pepper, freshly ground

Vinaigrette:
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp champagne vinegar
pinch of minced shallot
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp walnut oil
2 Tbsp olive oil

Mix shallot with the lemon juice, vinegar, and salt. Slow drizzle in the olive oil while whisking to emulsify the dressing. Let sit for 5 minutes if you have the time.

Steam the corn on the cob for 2 minutes, or until lightly cooked. Immediately rinse the corn in cold water until cool to stop the cooking. Cut the corn off the cob.

Mix the vinaigrette with the corn kernels, parsley, black pepper, and optionally a pinch of harissa (red pepper flakes or chili powder can be substituted). Taste and adjust for acidity and salt.

Kiwi Juice

I first had kiwi juice in Taiwan, where they have many fruit juice stands that will freshly blend all sorts of tropical fruits for you.  Kiwi has a nice tart refreshing taste, but the kiwi in the United States are sometimes not very sweet, so you may need to add some honey.

Ingredients:
3 kiwi
4 ice cubes
a generous drizzle of honey (to taste)

Deskin kiwi and put all ingredients into a blender.  Blend until liquefied. Blend only for a short time--if you blend for too long then the seeds will get pulverized and won't look pretty.  Put in glasses and serve immediately.

Chicken with Lemons and Olives Emshmel

Recipe for "Chicken with Lemons and Olives Emshmel" from "Couscous And Other Good Food from Morocco" by Paula Wolfert.  The couscous recipe is also from the same book.  This recipe only came out okay.  I made this because I fondly remember a chicken with homemade preserved lemons dish, Chicken Tagine with Lemon and Olives (Djej M'Chermel), that I used to make before this blog existed. I liked that recipe better.

I think the sauce is too oily; tomorrow after it has been in the fridge I will skim of the congealed fat.  The recipe didn't say whether the skin should be left on or not, so I left the skin on.  However, next time I would remove the skin since it gets mushy in slowly braised dishes like this, and leaving it out would probably help to decrease the fat that renders into the sauce. I used the preserved lemons that I made a while ago.

I think that the preserved lemons should be cut into thin strips; they are too salty to only cut into 1/4th lemons. When I served the leftovers, I cut the lemons into thin strips, and this was much better since it allowed the salt in the lemons to dilute into the sauce, and you could taste bits of them as you ate the sauce.

Another change that I would make is that I used finely minced onions even though the recipe specified that grated onions should be used.  I don't like how my grated onions are visible in the sauce; I think that the finely grated onions would disintegrate into the sauce better and make a smoother texture.

In addition, I used only flat leafed parsley, instead of a mixture of parsley and cilantro.

I found my old handwritten notes on an old print out from the New York Times article for the Chicken Tagine with Lemon and Olives (Djej M'Chermel) dish that I used to make. The notes have been hidden away on my bookshelf since sometime in 2005, despite multiple moves since then.  According to my notes, back in 2005, I used to make a few changes to the recipe:

• I used 3 or 4 chicken breasts, which were boneless and skinless, and cubed.
• I didn't use liver or giblets.
• I didn't use any butter.
• I didn't use any cilantro.
• The preserved lemons and olives were salty enough, so I didn't need to add any additional salt.
• I used low salt chicken stock (preferably homemade) instead of water.
• I precooked the onion to soften it first, before adding it.
• Since I used to used cubed chicken breasts, I skipped the step which cooks the chicken for 30-40 minutes until tender, and I just started with the step which adds the olives and lemons and cooks the dish for about 15 minutes.

Sautéed Dandelion Greens and Zucchini Blossoms

To make this, I washed some dandelion leaves and cleaned the zucchini blossoms by removing the stamens and rinse them to make sure they don't have any bugs. I heated up some olive oil. I actually added 1 anchovy fillet, but next time I would leave that out--however if you do use anchovy, then you should reduce the salt or maybe not use salt at all since the anchovy is already salty.  I sautéed the greens in olive with a pinch of salt for for about 3 minutes, and then in added the zucchini blossoms in the last 30 seconds of cooking.

The zucchini blossoms don't really have much taste when you saute them like this, however they make the dish look very pretty!

Steamed Couscous

Recipe for couscous from "Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco" by Paula Wolfert. This recipe is the most complicated I have ever seen for plain couscous--the recipe is two pages long, though it is actually simple to follow, even though it takes an hour. The recipe has several wetting, drying, and aerating steps in order to swell the couscous grains without making them lumpy or soggy. This was indeed the fluffiest couscous that I have ever made. I wasn't able to find the recipe from this book on the web, however, there is a similar recipe here in one of her other books.

I lined my colander with cheesecloth since it has large holes that the couscous could fall through.

I made 1 cup of dried couscous. The couscous expands a lot when it is steamed--we only ate about half, though its good that I made this much, since we will eat the extra tomorrow with the leftover half of the chicken with preserved lemons.

Note: Make sure that you put lots of water in your steamer--it is easy to boil it dry. I though I had a bunch of water, but in the second steaming, I actually managed to boil away all my water, so next time I recommend adding a bit more water to the pot before the second steaming.

Note: In step 3, the first time I made this I added 1 cup water and 1/2 tsp salt for a couscous made with 1 cup dried couscous. The second time I made this I added 1 cup water and 3/4 tsp salt for the same amount of dried couscous. I think the couscous is best with 3/4 tsp salt (though if you are serving it with extremely salty food, you may want to use less salt).

The couscous, part way through cooking

Cooked couscous

Tiny Corn

This is some sort of tiny corn--the guy at the farmer's market stand says that it never grows bigger then this. I didn't find out the name of the corn though.  Interestingly, he said that with this corn, you should pull off any hard out leaves and the stem on the bottom, and then eat everything.  You snap off the stem at the bottom and just start munching upwards, and eat the soft inner leaves, corn silk, husk and then discard the brown silk at the top.  It has a really delicate and fresh corn flavor!

Fava Bean, Corn, and Mint Salad

I was inspired to make this summer salad today at the farmer's market.  First I bought 2 ears of corn; I was simply planning on either eating corn on the cob, or making a quick corn salad that I have been seeing all over the Internet (e.g here and here).  But next I saw that fava beans were still being sold at one of the stands, and I wanted to make something with them again before their season is over for this year.  So I decided to combine the fava beans and corn with a vinaigrette and mint.  The salad I ended up making isn't actually quick, since shelling and deskinning the fava beans is really time consuming, however a quick version of this could be made by leaving out the fava beans.

I don't have exact amounts, since I put everything together to taste.  I wanted to keep the salad fairly simple, with not to many ingredients, and I wanted all the vegetables to be just barely cooked, so that it emphasized the freshness of summer. I choose mint for the salad, since mint goes well with fava beans.

Ingredients:
1 bag of fava beans
2 ears corn, they must be really fresh and sweet
small handful cherry tomatoes (optional, this is mostly just for color)
champagne vinegar
walnut oil
olive oil
Meyer lemon olive oil
1/4 shallot, finely minced
salt
ground white pepper
juice from 1/4 small Meyer lemon
small handful of mint

Remove the fava beans from the shells. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.  Blanch the fava beans for 3-4 minutes (as described here). Remove one of the beans after 3 minutes, and rinse it in cold water so its cool enough to hold. Remove skin and taste for doneness. Even though my fava beans were mature, mine only needed 3 minutes.  Rinse in cold water or emerse in ice water to set the color until cool.  When the beans are cool, peel off their papery skins and discard (or compost) the skins.  This is time consuming, but it is essential because the skins don't taste very good.

I decided to not boil the ears of corn, because I read that salt tends to shrivel corn.  If I had planned ahead I could have used just 1 pot and the same batch of boiling water, if I boiled the corn in unsalted first, and then salted it and used the same water to blanch the beans.  In any case, I decided to steam the 2 ears of corn whole (some people recommend steaming corn over boiling).  I wanted this salad to be very fresh, and summery and for the corn to be just barely cooked (almost raw even), so I only steamed my corn for 2 minutes.  Immediately after steaming, I rinsed my corn in cold water until it was cool to stop the cooking.  Next I cut the corn off the cob.

Next I mixed champagne vinegar, walnut oil, olive oil, Meyer lemon olive oil, finely minced 1/4 shallot (to give it a bit of bite and savoriness), a pinch of salt, and ground white pepper.  I used approximately a 1 part vinegar to 2 parts oil ratio (my vinegar didn't seem that strong, and I wanted the salad to have a noticeable tang), and had approximately equal quantities of all three oils (salad dressings made with only walnut oil can be cloying, so its better to use a combination of walnut and olive oil if you want to include walnut oil in your dressing).  I let the dressing sit in a small container for 5-10 minutes to help the shallot to marinate and become less harsh.

Finally I mixed the fava beans, corn, cherry tomatoes, with the dressing, a small squeeze of lemon juice to give it additional zing, mint that I tore into small pieces by hand, and an extra sprinkle of Maldon salt.  Mint tends to turn black on the edges if it is cut with a knife; tearing it by hand helps to keep it greener.

Pizza

Somebody made me pizza! After a few missteps (Will was playing around with increasing the water content in his dough), he finally got a tasty thin pizza again! I also played around with dressing up the cooked pizza, and I found that I like my margarita with some fresh basil torn over it, a generous drizzle (it should be at least a couple spoonfuls) of olive oil (focused especially on the edge of the pizza where the tomato sauce meets the dough, and also a little all over), and a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt.

Roasted Cauliflower with Brown Butter

Recipe for "Roasted Cauliflower with Brown Butter" from "Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook's Manifesto" by Michael Ruhlman.  The recipe is also available online on Michael Ruhlman's blog.

I loved this dish! Though I confess that I usually love roasted cauliflower.  The top of the cauliflower looks really brown, however, the inside is very creamy, and the brown bits add the perfect amount of crunch.

I cooked this at 450 F, which is as hot as my oven gets. My cauliflower needed 15 minutes less cooking then indicated in the recipe.  After I added the butter, my cauliflower was tender enough for a knife to meet no resistance in 15 minutes, and the top was so caramelized that I didn't want to cook it anymore.

Roasting the cauliflower whole helps to get the perfect diversity of texture--the outside is crispy (which I adore), and the inside is creamy and soft.

Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Garlic, Preserved Lemons, and Anchovies

This is a variation of the pasta that I made a while ago (recipe here). The differences are that:

• I blanched the broccoli rabe for 1 minute, and then rinsed it in cold water until it was cool (in order to set the color to be bright green).  The original recipe suggested cooking the broccoli rabe for five minutes, but my rabe seemed to be very young and tender. I tested cooking a few leaves for 1 minute, 2 minutes, and 5 minutes and I preferred the ones cooked for 1 minute.  After the pasta had cooked and I removed it from the water, I submerged the cold greens in the boiling water and immediately drained them in order to quickly reheat them.
• I added anchovies and preserved lemons (I made the preserved lemons a while ago); these additions were my idea. I cooked 2 filets of anchovies in my olive oil until the filets broke up and started to brown, and then added the garlic and red pepper. I left salt out in the beginning since anchovies and preserved lemons are salty, so I didn't want to accidentally over salt the food.  I cooked the garlic until it was just beginning to brown (about 3 minutes) and then turned off the heat, and mixed in finely minced preserved lemons (they had been rinsed and the pith was removed).  After I mixed the oil with the pasta, I added a bit of salt to taste.

This dish tasted nice, but I don't think I would crave it, like the way I crave linguini and clams.  If I were to make this again, then I might leave out the garlic. Although the ingredients go together, garlic, preserved lemons, and anchovies are a lot of strong ingredients, and I think that the lemon would stand out more without the garlic.

Whole Lemon Tart

Recipe for "Whole Lemon Tart" and "The Great Unshrinkable Sweet Tart Shell" from Smitten Kitchen.

Since I don't have a full sized food processor, I made the tart dough by hand, using a pastry blender.  I had to add a small amount of cold water to get the dough to come together, and I rolled out the dough between two parchment sheets.  Even though the recipe says pie weights aren't needed, I baked my crust with parchment paper and pie weights because I didn't want to butter aluminum foil.

The filling curdled a bit before I put it into the tart shell, but it cooked up beautifully, despite the curdling.

My tart shell isn't very deep. Only about half of the filling fit.  This ended up being a problem because the top of the tart had already browned halfway through the suggested cooking time.  I thought I had over cooked and ruined the tart! However, everything turned out fine; the tart was cooked perfectly, and I ended up loving the tart!  This came out much better then my previous attempts at lemon curd; the filling for this pie doesn't need to be precooked before it baked in the tart shell.  I covered the top with powdered sugar, since I think it looks prettier that way.

Chicken Stock

Recipe: "Easy Chicken Stock" from "Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook's Manifesto" by Michael Ruhlman; the recipe is also available on his blog.
Rating: Great! This is the easiest way to cook chicken stock at the proper temperature that I've found.
Status: Made twice.

My mother often made stock at home, so I tried out making stock soon after I started cooking. Although I don't make stock often (because I don't cook meat often enough to have bones for stock), I've never been satisfied with my stock because it came out cloudy, despite following many recipe writer's suggestions. I can't believe how clear the stock I made today! Michael Ruhlman's is by far the simplest and easiest stock recipe that I've found, and it has given me the best results so far.

I used a combination of Michael Ruhlman's chicken stock recipe on his blog, and the chicken stock recipe in "Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook's Manifesto" and some other tips from recipes that I've read over the years, though I actually didn't measure any quantities. The difference between the two recipes is that in the book, he suggests chicken has cooked in water for several hours and then adding the vegetables and aromatics and then cooking for 1 hour more. On the blog, he cooks everything together.

We saved leftover raw chicken pieces in a container in the freezer every time Will broken down a chicken. I decided to make a stock out of them last night because I noticed we had all the vegetables and aromatics (except for an onion) left over from the short ribs Will made recently.

Cooking the stock in the oven was a revelation to me! Stock should stay at a low simmer, it should not be allowed to come to a full boil because this will cause it to become cloudy. I find it difficult to make stock on the stove top, because the stock gets hotter and starts to boil when enough water evaporates, so I have to constantly adjust the heat. The oven required no adjustments in temperature, and I could just let it cook overnight while I slept. Mine cooked for 10 hours, which is the longest I've ever cooked a chicken stock; I used to think that you could only cook them for 2 hours maximum, since that's how much time my other recipes suggested to cook chicken stock. Part of the reason this one needs to cook a minimum of 4 hours is because the temperature is so low.

Don't add more then a few stalks of celery; celery actually has a strong flavor, so if you add too much, you will make celery stock, not chicken stock. Only add 1 or 2 carrots, since carrots are sweet and too many carrots will make your stock sweet. You can also add parsley stems (don't add the leaves because it will turn the stock green), tomato skins or a very small amount of tomato (too much tomato will color the stock).

In addition, this is the clearest stock that I've ever made! Even though I know that the stock shouldn't be boiled, what I thought was a "low simmer" on the stove top was actually too hot. This recipe showed me that the correct temperature is actually so low that you don't see any movement or bubbles in the stock when it is cooking--but the oven will smell really nice from the chicken aromas.

In the picture with many bowls on the second row in the middle, the bowls are the stock ingredients in a colander from the first straining to get the solids out of the broth, the murky residue that falls to the bottom of the stock that should be discarded when you pour the strained stock through cheesecloth to get out fine particles. After this the stock is refrigerated, so that the fat congeals and can be skimmed off, and then I pour all but the sediment once again into another bowl.


Ingredients:
leftover raw or roasted chicken pieces
1 onion, diced
1 - 2 carrots, diced
3 stalks celery (its okay, and even desirable to leave the leaves on), diced
2 bay leaves
3 garlic cloves with skin on, crushed
parsley stems (not leaves, since Julia Child says that the leaves can make the stock turn green)
a small handful of thyme sprigs (use the entire sprig)
white and black pepper, coarsely ground (keep it fairly large so you can strain it out of the stock)

Optional (I didn't have these ingredients but they would also go well):
1 tomato coarsely chopped or 1 Tbsp tomato paste

Next time I make this, I should keep the vegetables in larger pieces (Michael Ruhlman uses large chunks, look at his blog post), since I think small pieces may make the stock cloudier.

Preheat oven to 180 - 200 F. Put all ingredients in a large oven-proof pot. Cover with water. Bring to a low simmer on the stove top, but do not boil. Skim off any grey scum that rises to the top. Move the pot into the oven. Let the stock cook in the oven for 4 - 12 hours uncovered (I let mine cook overnight.)

Remove the pot from the oven and let it cool slightly, so that it will be easier to handle. Strain to remove the solids.

I actually strained this twice. First I used my fine meshed strainer (chinoise) to strain out the large solids. Thomas Keller says that pressing the solids can cloud the stock. So do not press the solids to extract more liquid--just let the strainer drip for several minutes. Second, I rinsed out the fine mesh strainer and lined it with cheesecloth. When I use dry cheesecloth with a strainer, the cheesecloth has a tendency to fall to the bottom of the strainer, no matter how large a piece of cheese cloth I seem to use, since I don't clip it to the strainer. You can fix this by simply wetting the cheese cloth in the sink, and then running some water through it to check that it won't fall down and crumple when you pour the stock through it. I poured the stock through the cheesecloth lined strainer to remove the small particles and grit that can cloud the stock or accumulate at the bottom of the stock.

Finally, I put the stock in the fridge for several hours. Once the chicken fat had solidified, I skimmed off the chicken fat.

You can keep the stock in a fridge for about a week if you are going to use it immediately. Otherwise, (and this is what I find easiest to do, since I don't always know what i will use the stock for) you can freeze the stock and keep it frozen for months. When you reheat it, you may want to boil it for a few minutes to help kill any bacteria. It is okay to boil the stock now since it doesn't have any solids. If the stock is too dilute, you can also boil it down. Also note that the stock does not have any salt in it yet, so it will taste bland. If you want to use it for chicken soup, you'll need to salt it.

Rose Petal Granola

I followed the recipe for "Rose Petal Granola" from 101 Cookbooks, however I used yellow raisins instead of currents (since that's what I had around), and 1/2 tsp vanilla instead of the rose water (since we are scared of overly aggressive rose flavors around here).

The rose petals are a beautiful addition, however I prefer the other versions of granola that I have been making (here and here), which have a touch of cinnamon.  This granola is a bit dry and isn't quite sweet enough--whereas the other granola was so moist and tasty that I would eat it by the handful.  I also prefer the olive oil or coconut oil in the other recipes over the butter in this recipe.  However, this granola is really nice on top of yogurt (see below).

I cooked half of the granola in a cast iron pan and half in a baking pan (well actually the oversized pie pan you see above). The baking pan worked better, and it is what I would choose next time. Although the granola started to brown faster in the cast iron pan, once it started to brown the granola touching the cast iron browned very quickly, and its easy to burn.  If you use cast iron you must watch it carefully in the last few minutes of cooking and stir often.  The granola should be a light even brown; it is burnt if it becomes dark brown.

Rose granola served with kiwi, Strauss European yogurt, and avocado honey: