Downtown Dish

From Tree to Table: Mulberry Merlot Sorbet

2011-07-13T21:22:00.002-04:00

This year, since we've gotten really into gardening, I've become even more aware of where the food I eat comes from.

The idea of foraging food has been on my radar for a while now - last year, I read a book called "The Art of Eating In" by Cathy Erway, which tells the story of how she went two years without eating out while living in New York City. It's a very interesting read, and if you're into cooking, or being self-sustaining, or just trying new things, you'll really like it. Anyway, during those two years, Erway explores every alternative she can to avoid restaurants, corner delis, etc. She delved into supper clubs, cookoffs, and and foraging, among other things (dumpster diving included - definitely not her favorite restaurant alternative). It allowed her to become more connected to the food she eats and become more self-sustaining, all the while discovering new things she had never experienced before, and in a way, it even help her to find herself.

Along these lines, I've become hyper aware of where the food I eat comes from, and have been delighted to be able to eat food I've grown myself - and food I've GATHERED myself, definitely a first for me.

In case you're wondering, foraging is when you find and harvest wild plants to eat. Coincidentally, there were a couple of article's on Time.com on the subject recently. Although I wouldn't necessarily call gathering mullberries from within the wall's of our community garden foraging - it just so happens that the berries I gathered to make Mulberry Merlot Sorbet are one of the easiest foods to find for a beginner forager. Neat huh?

After flipping through a magazine that mentioned how easy it was to make sorbet with fresh fruit, the wheels in my head began to turn, and I started thinking of all the little gem-like berries that were ripe for the picking on the mulberry tree in the garden. I wanted to combine interesting flavors for my first attempt at sorbet, and I thought red wine would complement the berries well. I began Googling for recipe ideas and found a whole plethora of berry-merlot sorbet combinations. I settled on a recipe and enlisted my sister and niece to help me gather the mulberries.

We headed down the the garden armed with a black sheet (so that any stains caused by the berries vibrant reddish purple color wouldn't show) and went for it! We spread the sheet out on the ground under the tree, and shook the branches, showering berries down. We did this a couple of times in different spots under the tree until we had enough.

(Nadya loved the deep violet-black of the berries and insisted that it was turning her tongue purple... Even though it barely did! I humored her and took a picture anyway.)

Then, it was back home to wash and sort through the berries. It was a painstaking task, since we had caught any non-berry debris (including creepy crawlies!) in the sheet along with the fruit. I went through my bowl, handful by handful, to get rid of any under or over ripe berries, twigs, and bugs. It was definitely a labor of love!

Then, it was FINALLY time to start making the sorbet:

MULBERRY MERLOT SORBET

4 cups of mulberries (although you could easily swap out for another kind)
1 lemon, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 cups Merlot wine
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons Triple Sec
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 pinch of salt (less than 1/8 tsp.)

-Bring the berries, lemon, sugar, vanilla, Merlot, cinnamon, and water to a boil in a large saucepan over medium heat, then reduce the heat to low, and simmer the sauce for 10 minutes.

-Remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let it steep for 30 minutes to allow the flavors to infuse.

-Pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve and press out the juices into a medium-sized bowl. (I only have 1 colander in my house, and it certainly does NOT have a fine mesh-- I improvised and used a coffee filter in it - worked like a charm!)

-Cover the mixture and refrigerate until chilled, about and hour.

-Stir in the Triple Sec, corn syrup, and the pinch of salt. Mix well, then freeze according to your ice cream makers directions.

-Once it is done, the sorbet will still be pretty soft - pour into a air-tight container and put in the freezer to firm up for at least 4 hours.

-When it is done, it will look like this:

I was surprised at how much you could taste both the berries AND the wine in this sorbet. It is truly refreshing on a hot summer day, and REALLY delicious. I have even decided to hold my mom's ice cream maker, which I borrowed for this recipe, hostage until further notice!

It even inspired to me try other sorbet recipes- the most recent being coconut lime sorbet (which I made last night and is SOOOO easy: combine 2 cans of coconut milk, the juice and zest of 1 lime, 1/4 to 1/2 cups sugar, and 3 tablespoons Bacardi or other rum. Stir well and chill mixture in the fridge. Prepare according to your ice cream makers directions, then pack into air-tight containers and freeze until firm.)

What flavor combinations should I try next???

Garden of Eatin'

2011-06-12T22:13:00.002-04:00

Any of you that know me or read this regularly know that I am IN LOVE with vegetables, and that I also like to grow my own, when the New England climate allows, and I may have mentioned before that I, along with my sister, have a plot in one of the local community gardens. Here in New London, there is FRESH, which has a pretty rockin community garden as well as several educational initiatives that do wonders with city students. They are very inspiring, and I know if they had been around when I was growing up, I would have joined in and gotten my hands dirty - but they have only been around since 2004.

Last year, a group of residents that live near and around Calkins Park in New London got together and started their own community garden. After much hard work and planning, they had 32 3x6 foot raised beds. Coincidentally, after moving to my new apartment this past fall, I found myself with no outdoor area that receives enough sunlight to grow vegetables, so I did a quick google search and found out who to contact about becoming part of this garden.

This year, they expanded with 30 more brand new beds. The founders of the garden have worked incredibly hard to get it where it is today - they got grants to cover the installation of water lines out to the garden, as well as a beautiful new fence to protect it from incoming soccer balls from the neighboring fields - and I feel so fortunate to be able to be a part of it.

This is what some of the other gardeners are growing - peas, lettuces, and squash, just to name a few!

These are raspberry bushes that are for everyone in the garden - can't wait for them to mature!

Our sunflower fort :)

I made my first visit to the garden the day I signed up for my plot back in March - things were still brown and winter was just leaving us, but in my eyes, there was so much possibility:

I mentioned it to my sister a few days later and she signed up for a plot too! So our plots are right next to each other and we decided to plant all of our veggies together. It's nice because we can teach Nadya, my seven-year-old niece about growing things and what being self-sustaining really means.

We decided to follow the square foot method of raised bed planting... I googled the heck out of it, and am trying my best. With this method, you generally are able to grow more in a smaller space. Google it and you will find TONS of information. This is the first time I have planted things in the ground as opposed to in containers, so it is a whole new ball game for me.

We planted summer squash and zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, green beans, peas, lettuce, onions, carrots, and radishes. We planted seeds at first, but the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants didn't grow very well and we ended up getting seedlings from a local nursery. Here is our garden at the end of May:

Now, it's mid June and the plants are getting BIG. The squash and zucchini plants are a bit out of control.... we actually had to pull some of them though, because they were taking over. We planted them from seed and weren't sure if they were really going to take... but did they ever! Now, I am attempting to train them to grow vertically instead of horizontally.

Here is what our garden looks like today:

Peas:

Green Beans:

Eggplant (check out that flower ready to bloom!):

Tomatoes (3 kinds, including cherry, san marzano, and beefsteak!)

Peppers (bell, cubanelle, and hot peppers):

Our jungle of squash and zucchini:

Cucumbers:

Carrots (radishes were planted with them, but have already been picked as they only take about 5-6 weeks to grow):

And Lettuces:

Cookie Crisis Averted: Saving burnt cookies

2011-05-02T21:54:00.001-04:00

If you read this blog regularly, you probably know that I am not a fan of baking. It's very precise, and I am really much more of an avant-garde kinda girl. Also, my mom is a phenomenal pastry chef. Although she left her job at the restaurant over 10 years ago, her reputation remains and she is 100% the reason I have such a taste for dessert. So most of the time, I don't bother baking, because she would just out-do me. Times 1,000.

Tonight though, for some strange reason, I decided I wanted to bake chocolate chip cookies. No idea why, especially considering the oven in my new apartment is way beyond unreliable. Well, no, it is reliable... in that it BURNS everything I put into it. And I know what you're thinking, maybe it's me... But nope, it's the oven. When I bake at my moms, and even in my last apartment, it was certainly apparent that my mom's skill in the kitchen has rubbed off on me. I DO NOT burn things. At least, I didn't until I moved in here. No matter what I do- lower the temperature from what the recipe calls for, move the oven rack, try different pans- it always burns things.

And despite that, I still decided to make cookies tonight. I called my mom up for her recipe, because her chocolate chip cookies are to die for. Perfectly golden on the outside, and tender and chewy inside. She says that she "under bakes" them. They are never hard and crunchy, they are perfect. Every time.

And, of course, my cookies burned on the bottom. Really, REALLY badly.

Actually, with exception of the bottom of the cookies, they were kind of perfect. So what's a girl to do?

Ever heard of a Microplane? It is this amazing little grater that is great for zesting citrus fruits, ginger, and garlic, among other things. It's one of those kitchen tools that I don't think I could live without. I got mine from Pampered Chef, but you can get them anywhere that sells kitchen tools, really.

Well, anyway, I read a tip in a cooking magazine once that you could use a Microplane to salvage burned dinner rolls. So tonight, I thought, hey, it will probably work with cookies too. It was definitely one of those "light bulb" moments.

So I Microplaned the bottom of my cookies! Good as new (or at least no longer charred!)

Keep this in mind the next time you pull a "Brenda" while baking!

A Few Bites of Heaven at Stonington Vineyards

2011-04-24T20:58:00.006-04:00

This is a bit of a departure from what I normally do, but today, instead of telling you about the latest recipe I've tried, I am writing about something I had the pleasure of eating while out yesterday.

Living in New London, I am very lucky to be a 30-minute drive from Stonington, where there are three (yes THREE) wineries. I asked my friend Jen, who I used to work with at the Middletown Press, and don't see nearly enough of anymore, to come down and winery hop with me this weekend. The plan was to hit up all three, but we ended up only making it to two- the Jonathan Edwards Winery and Stonington Vineyards- we'll have to visit the Saltwater Farm Winery another time- a whole 'nother day devoted to wine! I certainly can't complain about that.

We visited the Jonathan Edwards Winery first- we did a tasting and then sat and had a glass of wine each. Although I am generally a fan of a dryer wine, I LOVED their Table Red and chose that for my glass of wine- totally not my M.O. as it was a more sweet, fruity wine, but it was really, really good. After we finished our glasses we went on the tour of the winery (at 3 p.m. each day they are open)- it was very cool to get the inside perspective on how the wine is made and the winery is run.

Jen and me at the Jonathan Edwards Winery in Stonington, CT

After that, we went to Stonington Vineyards. Well to be fair, we got lost after leaving the Jonathan Edwards winery and ended up taking about 1/2 hour longer than we should have to make it to Stonington Vineyards. So Google maps, thanks for getting us lost!

The tasting room there closes at 5 p.m. each day, and by the time we got back on track from our little detour, it was already 4:30 p.m. With just 30 minutes 'til they closed, we knew our visit would have to be much less relaxed than last stop. However, when we walked in, we were met with, "Sorry ladies, we're closed." Then three seconds later, "Just kidding." Whew. I would have been BUMMED.

Jen and I loved that the staff was so much fun and joked with us, just like that. It may have also helped that, being so close to the end of the day, we were the only ones there- we got a totally personalized, relaxed tasting, and had a really great time chatting with the awesome staff there. The three of them were fun, and funny, and made our visit a blast. They even pulled our arms and convinced us to try one of Joshua's homemade wine soaked sponge cakes… Well, who am I kidding? Basically they got out half of the word "cake" and I practically screamed, "Yes please!"

Joshua explained to us that he made a wine reduction, using the Vineyards Seaport White, key lime, and honey, and soaked petite sponge cakes in it. Topped with whipped cream, I think that Jen and I devoured ours in all of like 30 seconds flat. It was THAT good. The cake itself was perfectly tender, and the reduction was a wonderful mélange of flavors- the Seaport White's refreshing balance really shone through, and the key lime in it provided just enough of a crisp tanginess while the honey rounded out the mix. With just a dollop of whipped cream on top, it was the perfect accompaniment to the flight of wine's in the Vineyards tasting lineup, which featured just one red wine- the 2007 Cabernet Franc. I explained to the staff that I am not generally much for white wines- but honestly, their white's may have converted me- I even took home a bottle of their 2009 Riesling (which I hear is in short supply. If you want to try it- and believe me, you NEED to try it- you should go pick some up sooner rather than later.)

Check out Joshua's masterpiece:

Joshua's Wine Soaked Spongecakes at Stonington Vineyards

I'm not kidding when I say you have to visit this place, and when you do, ask for Joshua's sponge cakes soaked in wine reduction. You'll be thanking me for sending you there once you've tried it!

Food Snobbery and Tofu

2011-04-08T16:57:00.002-04:00

I always apologize to my mom for being a "food snob." I don't know when it happened, but as my love for cooking has grown, I've definitely acquired a taste for very particular ingredients and staples. I have also begun to eat less and less poultry and fish. I haven't gotten rid of it from my diet, but I have made a conscious effort to incorporate more vegetarian elements into my meals.

Actually, my entire family has jumped on the semi-vegetarian bandwagon as of late. My older sister, Melissa, has been doing it for a few years now, but my parents and younger sister, Angie, have decided to eat less meat just in the past few months. For my parents, it took watching a documentary touting the health benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle to make the change, (which, by the way, does seem a little silly to me- I've been telling them the same things for the past 14 years!) For my sister Angie, she finally acted on something she'd been wanting to do for some time. Either way, I am happy that my family has made a decision to eat healthfully.

The only downside, is that my mom, who loves to cook, (where do you think I get it from?), told me that it makes her sad because she feels like she is very limited in what she can cook now that she is not eating beef, pork, poultry, or fish regularly anymore. I've tried to tell her that it is because she is approaching cooking from a meat-centric stance. I know I've said this before, but for me, vegetables are often my favorite part of a meal. I decide what vegetables I'm in the mood for and build my meal from there. But then, I've been doing this for almost 15 years now. I can certainly understand it being hard for someone who hasn't even hit the 15 WEEK mark.

You all know how much I love to grill, and now that the weather is consistently in the 50's, I've decided it's grillin' weather! On my way home from work yesterday afternoon, I thought that grilled carrots and broccoli sounded delicious, so I stopped at the grocery store. I decided to grill some tofu to accompany it, and settled on cooking a harvest grain blend I'd picked up at Trader Joe's the last time I was in the Hartford area.

I've never been too fond of tofu, but my grandfather on the Filipino side of my family made it for me once before he passed away (5 years this May- I miss you Grandpa <3), and it was delicious. I had stopped over to visit him once, and we were talking about his years spent in the Navy (after he told me I should be attending West Point instead of Boston University, as usual), telling me about how he had made it for the captain of a ship he was on while overseas, and he said he would make some for me sometime. So I know it CAN taste good, you just have to prepare it the right way.

A few months ago, I tried a new Indian-inspired marinade recipe after I got a jar of the Madras Curry from Williams-Sonoma. I used it for chicken, and it was amazing, and I thought it would lend itself to tofu as well. You can find the original recipe here, and this is how I did it:

CURRY MARINATED TOFU WITH CUCUMBER-MINT RAITA

Tofu:
    •    1 lemon
    •    1 16 oz package of extra-firm tofu, I buy organic
    •    3/4 tsp. kosher salt, plus more, to taste
    •    2 garlic cloves
    •    1 small yellow onion, chopped
    •    1 cup plain yogurt
    •    1 Tbs. madras curry
    •    1 tsp. sweet paprika
    •    1/4 tsp. cinnamon
Raita:
    •    1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and coarsely grated
    •    1 Tbs. chopped fresh mint, plus leaves for garnish
    •    Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:
First, drain the water out of the package of tofu.

Using either a clean kitchen towel or paper towels, wrap the block of tofu and gently press to get some of the moisture out.

Cut the tofu into 4 sections lengthwise, and then carefully repeat the drying process with each block.

Place the tofu blocks into a glass baking dish and sprinkle with the juice from one of the lemons, and freshly ground black pepper.

Now, make the marinade. Place the coarsely chopped yellow onion, garlic cloves, 1 cup of the yogurt, curry, paprika, and cinnamon into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. (I use an immersion blender because it takes up MUCH less space in my tiny kitchen)

Pour the marinade over the tofu, cover and chill for several hours (I marinated for about 3 hours- I also marinated in ziplock bags to keep the marinade from making my whole fridge smell of curry and onions.)

While the tofu is marinating, make the cucumber mint sauce (Raita). Combine the remaining cup of yogurt with the grated cucumber and chopped mint and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and chill until ready to serve. (Note: I couldn't find my grater, it must have gotten lost when I moved, so I just blended the ingredients together with my immersion blender- it turned out fine)

When it's time to grill, oil your grate, then preheat grill on medium-high, and turn down to medium to medium-low and carefully place the tofu on the grill.

Grill for 7-10 minutes on each side, gently loosening the tofu if it sticks when turning.

Serve with cucumber-mint raita.

I prepped my vegetables and cooked my Trader Joe's Harvest Grains Blend (which includes Israeli couscous, red and green orzo, baby chickpeas, and red quinoa) just before it was time to grill the tofu. I cooked a 1/2 cup of the grain blend in a cup of boiling chicken stock, with just a tiny drizzle of olive oil (about a 1/2 tsp.) I left it simmer on medium heat until the stock was absorbed, then covered the pot and left it on low for about 20 minutes while the tofu and vegetables were grilling.

I drizzled the vegetables with olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of garlic powder, and grilled for the same time and heat settings as the tofu. I like my veggies with a substantial amount of crunch, but if you like them a little more tender you will need to leave on the grill a bit longer.

The yogurt in the marinade gives the tofu a nice tangy flavor, and the fragrant spices along with the onion give it a rich, heady flavor. This marinade is also AMAZING on chicken, as featured in the original recipe. I omitted the cayenne pepper included in the original recipe, but I suspect it is great with that as well. The raita lends a creamy coolness to the dish, and complements the bold flavors of the marinade.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

Summer Preview: Grilled Pizza

2011-03-26T12:59:00.001-04:00

It's been forever, I know.

A lot of things have changed with me. I have worked at a local orthodontic practice for almost a year now, as a technology manager, and I've been making big strides with my photography business. So... I've been busy, to say the least. Also, I've moved. I'm no longer living downtown, but the name is going to remain "Downtown Dish" out of nostalgia :)

I moved to a one bedroom apartment just a couple of blocks from the beach and I LOVE it. The only thing is, my kitchen is tiny. TINY.

That's the entire kitchen. I can't even fit a microwave in there (I do have one- right outside the doorway to the kitchen though). It works for me though. It's harder to keep clean, because one thing out of place makes the whole room look chaotic, but I've gotten used to it. I'm still cooking very regularly and I have lots of new recipes to share.

Since it was gorgeous out last week, I've already gotten the itch to grill. I know, we are definitely not anywhere close to grilling weather- did you see the SNOW this week? But, we can definitely start thinking about it. It's coming in the near future.

Today, I'm not writing a recipe per se, but a technique. For..... Grilled Pizza! One of my favorite things to make during the summer. I actually photographed this last year, but never wrote about it. Until now! Here is how I do it:

GRILLED PIZZA

Homemade or store bought pizza dough, I use whole-wheat
shredded cheese, I use both mozzarella and cheddar
assorted toppings
pizza sauce
cooking spray

-Prep the dough: Put your pizza dough on a greased cookie sheet, give it spray with the cooking spray, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until it doubles.
-Pre-heat your grill on medium-high heat, then take your pizza dough and stretch into a large round shape.

-Spray the dough on one side with the cooking spray and carefully place sprayed side down on the grill.

-Close the grill cover and let pizza dough begin to cook.
-Once the dough has cooked on one side (about 5-7 minutes over medium heat) use a wide spatula to lift it off the grill.

-Hold the dough away from the grill's flames and spray the other side with cooking spray, then place sprayed side down on the grill.
-Spread your sauce on the pizza, then a layer of cheese, then toppings. I also like to finish with another light sprinkle of shredded cheese.

-Close the grill and continue to cook for another 7-10 minutes over medium-low heat, until dough is completely cooked on the bottom and cheese is melted.

-Carefully use your wide-spatula to transfer the pizza onto a large platter or baking sheet.

One of my favorite things about grilling pizza is the nice, smoky flavor that it has, but also that in the hot summer, you don't have to turn the oven on and make the house unbearably hot.

I know that the weather here in Connecticut it seems like Summer is still far off, but it will be here before we know it and then we can get grilling!

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-23T12:30:00.007-05:00

What do you call a person who volunteers to make an elaborate wedding dinner for 60-70 people? Ambitious. Crazy. Out of their mind. Or.... Brenda.

At the start of September, my sister Angie got engaged... then decided she wanted to get married sooner rather than later. She and Ben are expecting a new baby in February, and with all the hustle and bustle that a new baby brings, coupled with the fact that Angie is planning to begin pursuing her nursing degree in the fall, she decided it was now or never. So originally, she wanted to do something really small. And I mean SMALL. She was perfectly happy at the thought of having just parents, siblings and her daughter and his son there. I thought it sounded great. Small, simple, and nothing like the zoo that surrounds most weddings. Don't get me wrong, I am a photographer and shoot weddings fairly regularly, but my personal style is much simpler than most weddings I am at.

My mom, however, had other plans. See, my older sister, Mely, got married at the town hall in Fayetteville, NC, days before her soon-to-be husband, Aaron, was deployed to Iraq, and I don't plan on being married anytime soon, to say the least. So she saw this as her big chance to have a beautiful wedding for one of her daughters. She wanted to invite family, friends, you name them. So, we made a list, and it turned out to be about 60-65 people. Ok. But then there was the October 18 wedding date that Angie and Ben had decided on. And the fact that planing a wedding in six weeks was a really daunting task, especially when it wasn't something any of us had planned for, in terms of budget. We began working out the details. Angie wanted to be married outdoors, and the arboretum at Conn College was perfect. Ben could rent the clubhouse at the local marina where his grandfather owns a slip at, for the reception. Then there was the matter of the food. My mom had a lot of ideas, and so did I. I thought that a fall themed menu would be fitting, and planned everything out. Here is the menu I created:

I started testing out my recipes, adjusting them to our tastes, I priced all the ingredients, and created a calendar of the week of the wedding, planning out each step of each recipe. My mom still worried that I couldn't do it. For some reason, she was under the misguided impression that I thought I was going to do it all by myself. I assured her and reassured her that I would delegate responsibilities as I saw fit in order to have everything prepared on time.

About three weeks before the wedding, my main concern was getting the ravioli made, because I'd insisted that because of price, we would have to make them ourselves. I would have just dropped it from the menu, but my sister and Ben tried the ones I'd made while testing my recipes, and loved them. So they stayed on the menu, and in the span of about one week, I made about 450 raviolis, with some help from my mom and roommate Melissa. It was a HUGE task for a novice to pasta-making, but we did it and they were delicious.

And then, the unthinkable happened.

About a week and a half before the wedding, we did a final count of guests. Our guest list of 60 had ballooned to 80 people, with relatives who live long distances away, who we had thought would never be able to make it, RSVPing that they would attend. In my book, the more the merrier, but when we went down to the marina to figure out where we would squeeze the extra guests, we realized it just wasn't gonna happen. We went into panic mode. What the hell were we gonna do?

We started calling around to area hotels, knowing we were going to totally blow our budget, but not having any alternative. Through a stroke of luck (and because the wedding was on a Sunday) the Mystic Hilton turned out to be easiest on our wallets (also, it helped that since it was just a week away at this point, the wonderful event staff there waived the room reservation fee). We ended up having a fairly standard wedding buffet catered by the hotel, all crises were averted, and it was a beautiful wedding.

But now I have 450 Pumpkin-filled Spinach raviolis in my mom's freezer. I decided I would package them in family sized quantities in ziplock bags and give them to family, friends, etc. And now, I think that pumpkin ravioli is SO appropriate for Thanksgiving.

If you've never made pasta before (which I'm going to assume you haven't, I mean, really, who does that, besides a little old Italian granny?), it is intense. You have to make the pasta dough, let it sit for a couple hours, make the filling, roll the dough out, portion the filling on the dough, CAREFULLY seal them closed, and cut them apart.

Here is the recipe:

PUMPKIN RAVIOLI
Spinach Pasta Dough:

1 1/2 cups semolina flour, finest grind
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup frozen spinach, thawed and water squeezed out
2 tablespoons extra-virgin oil

Pumpkin Filling:

1- 16 oz. can of Pumpkin
1 cup heavy cream
2-4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons minced fresh sage
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves
2 eggs, beaten
Salt and Pepper

Other Ingredients:

1 egg, beaten, to brush pasta dough with
Flour, to dust pasta and pasta roller with
Semolina flour, to dust cookie sheets with

To make the dough:
Put the flours, and salt in a food processor and pulse to blend. Add the eggs, spinach, and olive oil into the covered processor and blend until a ball forms. Cover dough tightly with plastic wrap and let rest for 2 hours at room temperature before rolling out or refrigerating. To make the filling:
In a saucepan, melt the butter, then add the pumpkin and cream. Stir until combined. Add the herbs, and simmer over low heat for an hour, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, until the liquid has evaporated. Let cool before filling the ravioli.
To assemble the Ravioli:
Start by cutting your ball of pasta dough in half. Then, begin rolling it into long strips by first shaping it into a long, flat piece. Then roll it through your pasta machine, starting on the thickest setting and gradually working down to the second thinnest setting. Once your strips are made, put about one teaspoon of filling for each ravioli about 1 inch apart on half of your rolled dough. Then, brush the other half with the beaten egg, and carefully lay the brushed side down over your filled pasta, being sure to seal the edges with as little air as possible left inside. Using a ridged pasta cutter or a sharp knife, trim the edges and cut your ravioli into squares. Lay finished ravioli on a cookie sheet dusted liberally with semolina. Freeze and package in ziplock bags.

I had never even considered making my own pasta before. The thought just never entered my mind. But I found this Wolfgang Puck recipe I thought sounded REALLY good, and wanted to try it, so I did. It was a lot of work. It took forever, even after I bought a pasta roller for $34.99 at Bed, Bath and Beyond (I originally tried to roll it out by hand, which was a BAD idea. It was really hard to do and I couldn't get it anywhere close to as thin as I needed it). I ended up using my mom's entire dining room table to do it, (since I was making such a large quantity- I made 8 batches!), and lined the whole table with sheets of parchment paper. I figured out that I was best off cutting the long strips into foot-long sections, so they would be easier to handle. I eventually got the feel for sealing them properly, without air inside (they can potentially burst when cooking if they have air in them), and found that if I let them freeze for about an hour I could transfer them to ziplock bags for more long-term freezer storage.

The original recipe includes a sage cream sauce to serve them with, but I think they are delicious with just a little melted butter, parmesan, salt and pepper, and a few sage leaves for a garnish.

Anyone interested in a bag of frozen, handmade, pumpkin ravioli?

Julie and Julia

2009-11-15T18:39:00.005-05:00

Ok. Let's get this out of the way first. I haven't written since July 2nd. I no longer work for The Middletown Press..... loooooong story. Anyway, I have been focusing more on gaining more clients for my photography business, and in the mean time, I have been substitute teaching at New London High School. Although I absolutely loved my time at The Press, the excitement of doing something different every day, I don't miss the neurotic personalities or the demanding schedule that makes having any semblance of a personal life next to impossible. Basically, I made up my mind, and haven't looked back, or even wanted to look back.

Now, just because I havent written in four months doesn't mean that I haven't been cooking. Actually, I've been cooking any and everything I can think of. Pomegranate Chicken, Apple-Cornbread Stuffed Pork Loin (I didn't eat it though! Haven't eaten pork since I was 12 and don't intend to start now), Pumpkin Ravioli, Baked Potato Soup, Rosemary-Chicken Soup with Dumplings, Tiramisu Cheesecake, Pumpkin Bread with Maple Pecan Glaze, you name it. Not that I didn't want to write about all these things... I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It was part of my life at The Press, and that's not who I am anymore.

But this past Thursday, I decided to visit the library, to stock up on reading material. I went to the Waterford Public Library, which I'm not all that familiar with. I wandered through the large print book section, and my eyes fell upon the title, "Julie and Julia," which you probably remember from movie previews over the summer. I really wanted to go see it, but was dissappointed when I read reviews of it that said the Julia (who by the way, didn't learn to cook until she was nearly 40) parts were amazing, but the Julie parts, kind of lackluster. So I decided I wouldn't spoil it by seeing the movie before reading the book, and then promptly forgot about it, either way. I excitedly pulled the large print copy off the shelf, and flipped through it. LARGE PRINT. Ooops. So I searched on the online catalog, and located a regular print copy, in the biography section. Much better.

I began reading it Thursday night. I got through about 100 pages that day, and managed to read the remaining 200 on Friday. Honestly, I couldn't put it down. Julie Powell was a 29 year old temp, a little lost in regards to her purpose in life, and didn't find it until she embarked on a mission to "Master the Art of French Cooking," by cooking (and blogging about) every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's defining manual on French cuisine in one year. Oh, and she was a Buffy fan. (Have I ever mentioned my obsession with the show? I taped it every week in high school, have seen every episode WAY too many times, and now have the entire series on DVD.)

By the end of the "Julie/Julia Project," Powell realizes the lesson in it wasn't learning to cook French food, but having the courage to do something that makes you happy (and maybe a little crazy, sometimes) and to live life the way you want, no matter how off the deep-end it may seem. For her, the process of learning it, "mastering" it, translates to living, having a purpose beyond just being a secretary everyday.

For me, it's kind of the same. And reading the book really reminded me of that. And so, my return to blogging:

I picked up a Tyler Florence book with at the library this week. It was full of delicious sounding, un-fussy recipes that would be great pretty much any time. However, I kept reading over the same recipe, over and over. Pork Dumpling Soup with Chinese Greens. Maybe, because I have been on a bit of an Asian kick lately (I've really honed my stir-frying skills), and maybe because it the book seemed hardwired to open to page 124, over and over. Maybe the last borrower kept it open to that page the whole time it was loaned to them? Whatever the reason, I was dying to make this soup. So when I stopped by my moms and overheard my father call out of work sick with a sore throat today, I thought, great, an excuse to make it. And of course, I changed the pork to chicken.

CHICKEN DUMPLING SOUP WITH CHINESE GREENS
Dumplings

3/4 lb ground chicken
4 oz shitake mushrooms, stems removed
1/2 medium turnip, peeled and grated
1 green onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 T grated fresh ginger
1/4 bunch fresh cilantro
1 egg white
2 t cornstarch
1 T low sodium soy sauce
1 T sesame oil
2 t dry sherry
1/4 t salt
1/4 t ground white pepper

Broth

3 quarts chicken stock
1/4 c low sodium soy sauce
2 inch peice of ginger, quartered
4 garlic cloves, smashed
2 green onions, halved
1 dried red chile

Other Ingredients

12 oz package square wonton wrappers
1 egg white, lightly beaten
4 heads baby bok choy, halved lengthwise
4 oz shitake mushrooms, sliced

Put all of the filling ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Set aside.

In a large pot, bring the broth ingredients to a simmer. After simmering for 10 minutes to infuse the flavor, turn it off and cover.

Begin making the dumplings. First, brush the surface of a wonton square with the egg white, then put a teaspoon of filling on the center. Fold two opposite corners together and seal edges to form a triangle. Then, take the 2 side points and dab with egg, then bring together, to form a "pope's hat" shape.

When dumplings are completed, strain the solids from the broth and bring it back to a simmer over medium heat. Add the dumplings and boil for 12 minutes. Then, add the bok choy and shitake mushrooms and continue boiling for 3 more minutes. Remove from heat and serve garnished with sliced green onions and crunchy chow mein noodles.
I served the soup with store-bought frozen egg rolls and sweet and sour sauce. My dad, who is notorious for being a big, BIG baby when he's sick, stopped coughing for long enough to eat the soup, saying that the broth was really good. And it was. You could taste subtle notes of ginger, onion, and just a hint of spicy pepper at the end. The dumplings, which looked pretty small when they were made, absorbed the flavorful broth and grew to at least twice the size they started at. The filling was delicious, I'm not normally a huge fan of sesame oil, but it was really good in these dumplings. I've never cooked with bok choy, and I liked it. The texture of it, along with the shitake mushrooms really added to the depth of the soup.

And just like that, in a weekend, following the lead of a 29 year old secretary, who followed the lead of a woman who learned to cook at 37 years old, I am back to Downtown Dish.

A fine line between love and hate?

2009-07-02T11:21:00.004-04:00

I hate cilantro. I think it tastes like soap. To me, it ranks right up there with Jello, sushi, and chick-peas on the grossness scale. But, I am a big believer in second chances. As in, I’ll try it again, and maybe it won’t be so awful this time.

I guess, there are some things I like that are generally made with cilantro. It is a key ingredient in most salsa’s, and is the base in the sofrito or recaito that starts off many Puerto Rican dishes that I grew up eating -although those are often made with cilantro’s cousin plant, culantro.

(Below left- cilantro, below right- culantro, seen in a market in the Dominican Republic)

But in those, the cilantro takes a backseat to the other flavorful, fragrant ingredients. When it’s in the forefront and all I can taste is soap, that’s when I have a problem.

My mom, and several aunts like to rave about how delicious cilantro is, and the more the better. But to me (and my sisters for that matter)- it’s kinda like topping an ice cream sundae with seaweed. It ruins it. And I’m not the only one that thinks so- check out www.ihatecilantro.com - these people are serious!

So imagine my surprise when, flipping through a copy of Real Simple magazine, I came across a whole section devoted to burgers (it is summertime, after all), and decided the one that looked absolutely delicious, that I HAD to try, was a salmon burger, topped with avocado, lemon juice, and cilantro. Yes, that’s right, CILANTRO. I’m not sure exactly what about it that made me think it wouldn’t make me gag. Maybe the fact that salmon and lime are two strong flavors, and even in my imagination, I envisioned them being the dominant tastes? Whatever the appeal was, it was strong enough to make me decide to try these burgers out, cilantro and all.

SALMON BURGERS WITH AVOCADO, LIME JUICE, AND CILANTRO

1 1/4 lbs fresh salmon, skin removed
4 green onions, sliced
salt and pepper
5 bakery rolls (I used egg rolls)
1 haas avocado, sliced
1 lime, cut into wedges
cilantro

Cut the salmon into 1-inch cubes. Put in a food processor and pulse 3-4 times (it will still be a little chunky). Add the green onions, about a 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper, and pulse one or two more times, until combined. Form the mixture into 5 patties, and cook on stovetop or grill on medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes on each side, until opaque throughout. Flip only once and do not press or flatten. Serve on toasted bakery rolls, and top with 2-3 slices of avocado and cilantro, and squeeze the juice from one or two lime wedges over it.

This is one of the easiest, and quickest recipes I’ve ever made. The burger itself is incredibly simple to make, and took only about 5 minutes total. The fresh flavor of the fish, green onions and lime shines through, with the avocado and cilantro adding depth and a little sophistication. And, as strange as it feels for me to say this, it wouldn’t be the same without the cilantro.

Thank goodness for second chances.

Feeding a Small Army

2009-06-24T15:06:00.004-04:00

My dad has 10 brothers and sisters, and my mom has three. As you can imagine, I have a TON of cousins- I think over 30 when you count cousin’s children. When my family gets together, it’s a little bit of a mob scene. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Of course, food is always a major element of those gatherings. Being both Puerto Rican and Filipino, and having family members that span just about every ethnicity from white to black to Native American, we always have a huge selection of cuisine’s to choose from. And, as you probably realize from the varying recipes I’ve written about in previous entries, I’m game to cook anything and everything.

One of my favorite things to make to feed a bunch of people is lasagna. In fact, last December, when I invited my Auntie LaLa and Uncle Ringo (…your probably thinking “their names are what?!?!” Well, really, their names are Dolores and David, but that’s no fun now is it? I’ve never called either of them by their real names and never will!) over for dinner before they went to Virginia to spend Christmas with another aunt of mine, that’s what I made. I would have loved to invite more of my family over… but realistically, it was a tight squeeze having my aunt and uncle, parents, sister and niece in my kitchen at once.

I make my lasagna with whole wheat noodles ( I know that doesn’t surprise you), a mixture of sautéed ground chicken, spinach, mushrooms, onions, and garlic, fresh basil and parsely, sliced roma tomatoes, and sliced fresh mozzarella cheese, on top of a few ingredients that I think lasagna wouldn’t be lasagna without. I make it so that you can taste the fresh, classic, Italian flavors, but it still tastes like comfort food. Here’s my recipe:

LASAGNA

12 whole-wheat lasagna noodles
1/2 pound ground chicken
1 can mushroom pieces and stems
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
16 oz ricotta cheese
1 egg
10 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
small handful fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 24-oz jar of pasta sauce, I like Classico Cabernet Marinara
5 roma tomatoes, sliced
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, I use 2%
1/2 of a large ball of fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

Boil a pot of water and cook lasagna noodles according to package directions. While the noodles are cooking, brown the chicken over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, then add the chopped onion, garlic, spinach, and mushrooms. Sauté for another 5-10 minutes, until onions are translucent, then remove from heat. In a small bowl, combine the ricotta, egg, and chopped basil and parsley. In a 13x9 inch pan, begin layering your lasagna. Start with a layer of sauce, then noodles (three for each layer, lengthwise), ricotta mixture, chicken mixture, sauce, then shredded cheese and roma tomatoes, loosely spaced. Next a layer of noodles, then all layers except for tomatoes. The third and final layer should have everything, including tomatoes. Finish it off with a layer of noodles, ricotta mixture, shredded cheese, then top with sliced mozzarella and tomatoes. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 40 minutes at 400 degrees, until bubbly. After 40 minutes, remove the foil and turn the oven up to broil for an additional 5-10 minutes, watching closely so that it doesn’t burn. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving. Makes one 13x9 inch pan.

Like I said, I normally make at least two pans of this to feed my army-sized family, but this time, I made it just for me and my sister, and sent some over to my parents too. I use a mandolin slicer to slice both the roma tomatoes and mozzarella (I got mine at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $11.99). Also, if you ever use a mandolin slicer, don't follow my lead in the picture below and hold whatever you're cutting by hand- I'm lucky I didn't slice off one of my purple tipped fingers!Angie kept me company in the kitchen while I made it, so I had her mix together the ricotta mixture. She quizzically asked me why in the world she was mixing an egg into it, and I explained to her that it helped hold it together. I had tons of leftovers, which was fine with me- I brought it to work for dinner for a few nights.

Solitude and Glowing Sea Creatures

2009-06-08T15:17:00.006-04:00

This week, I have my apartment all to myself.

My roommates, Jon (who has been my best friend since we were teenagers) and Melissa (who I’ve gotten to know since the two of them began dating six years ago) are away on vacation, and while, in theory, having a whole week to myself is great (and I am enjoying it), it gets sort of lonely. Not that I spend every waking moment with them or anything like that. They both work day shifts, and I usually don’t leave the newsroom until 9 p.m. then make the 45-minute drive back to New London from Middletown. So, a lot of times, when I get home at night, they are already holed up in their room, and leave for work before I’m out of bed in the morning. So I see them mostly on weekends, when I am not spending time with my sister, niece, mom, etc. Despite all of that, Jon and Melissa are family to me, so just knowing that they are not in the next room when I get home leaves me feeling, well, alone.

Added to that was that my sister was working night shifts all weekend at the hospital, and I wouldn’t even get to enjoy my weekly dinner with her. I was kinda bummed, but I spent Saturday afternoon with her at the beach, where I flipped through the most recent Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine (I know, I know, I have to start getting recipes from other places, too.) I came across a recipe for Sausage and Mussel Spaghetti, which I thought looked really good. Angie agreed, though she’s never eaten a mussel in her life- and I’ve only had them once or twice, nevermind cooked with them (those food stylists really know what they’re doing, I guess!) So then and there, sitting on the beach, I decided I’d be cooking a romantic dinner of spaghetti with mussels for myself for dinner that night.

Angie brightly suggested I jump in the water and look for mussels to take home (growing up, we used to come home from a day at the beach with TONS of mussel shells that we found lying around in the sand).Laughing (and kinda grossed out by the idea), I said,”…..Um…. I think I’ll get them at Stop and Shop. Thanks for the suggestion though.” I could just imagine a fridge full of freshly harvested mussels, straight out of the Thames River, glowing neon with all the wonderful stuff leached into the water from nearby Electric Boat and Millstone Nuclear Power Plant. Ok, well, maybe that doesn’t and wouldn’t happen, but still… I prefer to get my seafood from the grocery store. Let’s just leave it at that.

So the recipe called for scrubbed and debearded mussels. DE-WHAT-ED??? Like I said I’ve only eaten mussels once or twice before, and certainly never cooked them, so this was a huge puzzle to me. Having to know right then and there, I Googled it on my phone, and found step by step instructions, with pictures, here. Basically, you have to soak them in fresh water to get rid of sand from inside them, pull the threadlike strands that come out of the mussel’s shell off before you cook them, and scrub the outside to get rid of any “oceanic” attachments?! It seemed like quite a process but I figured why not? It would be one more thing I knew how to cook. Later that day, I bought the mussels and went at it. It wasn’t too bad, since I was only cooking a half recipe, and only needed 12 mussels. But still, it took me about 15 minutes to get rid of those gross little strands and scrub them down…

The original recipe called for sausage… which you all know I don’t eat, so I used chicken sausage instead. I swapped out whole-wheat pasta for regular spaghetti. Also, it requires one bay leaf, which I thought I had at home but couldn’t find in the spice cabinet, so I subbed in about 10 fresh basil leaves, which is a whole different flavor… but I figured, basil makes just about anything better! Here is my altered, half-size recipe:

CHICKEN SAUSAGE AND MUSSEL SPAGHETTI

Salt and Pepper
1/2 pound whole-wheat thin spaghetti
1 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 pound chicken sausage
1 rib of celery, including the leafy top, finely chopped
1/2 of a small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
10 fresh basil leaves
1/4 chopped flat leaf parsley
1 pint of grape tomatoes
1/6 cup white wine
12 mussels, scrubbed and debearded

Boil and salt a large pot of water to cook the pasta in- about 7 minutes, then drain. While the spaghetti is cooking, coat a large pan with the olive oil over medium-high heat. Crumble in the sausage and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Add the celery, onion, garlic, and fennel seeds, and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, turning the heat up to high and cook covered for about 5 minutes, until the tomatoes burst. Lower the heat to medium-high and add the wine, scraping the bottom of the pan. Add the parsley and basil, season with pepper and stir together. Add the mussels and cover the pan, cooking for 3-5 minutes, until the mussels open (throw away any that remain closed). Add the cooked pasta and toss together. Let the pasta sit for a couple minutes, then serve.

I ate my dinner alone, with a glass of the Riesling I used to cook it with, enjoying the relative silence, and… it was pretty good. Only thing is, I accidentally threw the basil and parsley in with the celery, onion, garlic, and fennel… so I didn’t have that fresh herb taste that you would get from adding them at the end of cooking. Also, you might have to help some of the tomatoes “burst” by squishing them a little, but be careful! I had exploded tomato juice all over the stovetop to clean up when I was done! It was pretty easy to prepare, aside from cleaning the mussels, and cooked very quickly. It is definitely something I will make again.

I saved half of the pasta for Angie, and brought it to my mom’s house for her to pickup before she went to work for the night the following day. But… she ate it a little sooner than that. Sunday morning, I arrived at my mom’s house before heading to work, to find Angie noshing on her dinner! I watched her as she tried her first mussel- ever- and laughed at the face of apprehension she had before eating it. She liked it though, and ate every last one.

Cooking for One

2009-06-03T15:15:00.003-04:00

In general, when I think of cooking, I associate it with a gathering of family, or friends, or both. But, in reality, often times I am cooking just for me. Over the years (since college, really), I’ve learned to cook small amounts, at most 2 servings (leftovers for the next day). So, while I am very comfortable cooking for my whole family, I’m just as comfy whipping something up just for me.

During the work week, I cook in the late-morning, and package my food up in Tupperware containers for dinner at work. Today, I decided to make chicken stir-fry with Thai inspired “satay” sauce. I originally got the recipe from the Food Network Web site- you can find the original recipe here.

QUICK CHICKEN SATAY STIR FRY

1 cup cooked stir fry noodles

3/4 cup frozen stir fry vegetables

2 chicken breast tenders, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 of a small onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 heaping tablespoon chunky peanut butter
1/3 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

sliced green onions, for garnish
chopped peanuts, for garnish

Boil the water for the noodles, and cook until tender. While they are boiling, chop the onion, garlic, and chicken. Cook in a preheated pan drizzled with olive oil. Once the chicken is cooked through, add the frozen vegetables. While they cook, mix together the peanut butter, orange juice, lime juice, tamari, honey, ginger and garlic powder, and microwave for one minute, stopping halfway to stir. Add noodles and sauce to the pan of chicken and vegetables, and stir together. Serve garnished with chopped green onions and peanuts.

The original recipe uses fresh vegetables and is paired with orange scented rice. It very good, but takes a little more time to make since you are chopping several different veggies and making a pot of rice. What I did was use the basic recipe for the satay sauce, but paired it with noodles that only take about 5 minutes to cook, and used frozen mixed stir fry vegetables instead of the fresh ones. It took about 20 minutes to cook and package up, and it’s waiting in the fridge in our offices cafeteria for later.

Reliving my Childhood

2009-05-27T19:43:00.005-04:00

Growing up, some of my most vivid memories are of visiting my grandparents in Puerto Rico. Waking up in my grandmother’s house, it wasn’t unusual to be up at 6:30 a.m. (which may explain my present early bird tendencies) with the smell of strong, Spanish coffee brewing, and the warm tropical breeze coming in through the windows. My sisters and I would join my mom and grandparents out on the front porch, as they sipped their coffee, and I almost inevitably, would train my eyes to the ground, looking for a lizard, coqui (the tiny tree frogs that are indigenous to the island), or even just a really cool bug- I was always fascinated by the tiny creatures that sent chills down my mom and grandmothers spines. But that’s what I remember, the pungent tropical air, while relaxing on the porch.

Today, I relive those memories by sitting out on my fire escape, sipping an iced latte (made with that same, stong Bustelo coffee), the air scented with the fragrance wafting from my container herb garden. Last year, I only grew basil and parsley. This year, I decided to take it a bit further and add chives, rosemary, dill, purple basil, and scallions. My plants are still small, but they are growing vigorously, and I’ve been taking clippings from them regularly to use when I cook.

The other night, Angie was over for dinner, and I was trying to come up with something that I could make pretty quickly. I toyed with a few ideas, and finally settled on grilling (yes, I got a grill!) some cumin rubbed tilapia along with veggie packets, and made herbed couscous on the side. And yes, I used fresh herbs from my little garden to make it!

As a side note, I don’t quite get what couscous is, exactly. A quick Google search tells me it’s coarsely ground semolina pasta… but it’s not something I ever ate growing up… In fact, I think the first time I ever had it was a few months ago, making dinner with my mom at her house. I just found a recipe online and went with it. But, I like it. I make it with chicken stock, onions, carrots, celery, rosemary, and dill.

HERBED COUSCOUS

1/3 cup each chopped carrots, celery and onions
extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup instant couscous
1 cup chicken stock
1 T chopped fresh rosemary
1 T chopped fresh dill
salt and pepper, to taste

Coat the bottom of a medium sized pot with olive oil over medium heat and added the chopped vegetables. Once they are tender, add the chicken stock, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil. Add the fresh herbs and couscous, and remove from heat. Let it sit covered for five minutes, then fluff with a fork.

CUMIN GRILLED TILAPIA

2 tilapia filets (I usually get the ones that are individually frozen in a bag of about 6)
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
1 T cumin
1 T chopped fresh parsley

Drizzle each filet with olive oil, then season each side with salt and pepper, cumin, and parsley. Grill on foil or a grill topper over medium heat for about 4-5 minutes on each side, until fish is opaque and will flake with a fork.

GRILLED VEGGIE PACKETS

1 cup raw vegetables, your choice (I used a frozen mix of green beans, wax beans, and carrots)
extra virgin olive oil
2 slices of turkey bacon, cooked to a crisp and crumbled
salt and pepper
1/2 T chopped fresh rosemary

Cut two 12 inch long sections of foil, and divide veggies between them. Drizzle each packet with olive oil and sprinkle the crumbled turkey bacon on them. Season with salt, pepper, and rosemary. To fold packets, bring up the two sides of the foil and double fold leaving room for heat to circulate inside the packet as it cooks. Then, double fold each end to form the packet. Grill for about 10-12 minutes over medium heat, until veggies are tender.

Once I got the couscous all set to steam and had thrown a couple of Pillsbury dinner rolls in the oven I went outside to grill. All in all the meal took about 30 minutes from start to finish, with clean simple flavors throughout.

I’m really getting into throwing a few simple flavors together and seeing how it goes, and this meal was definitely a success. And… I’m sort of tempted to expand my herb garden a little more to see what other combinations I can come up with, although, I suspect, there is a lot more I can do with what I have. I guess well have to wait and find out. : )

I think I missed my calling...

2009-05-18T19:20:00.005-04:00

You know how I always say I’m not into baking? Well I think maybe I should change my mind about that and start selling cakes to people. Seriously. You know that shoe cake I made back in December? I totally put it to shame with the cake I ended up designing and decorating for my sister’s graduation party last week.

Really, my mom was supposed to decorate it (she did all the baking last Monday) but I happened to be home sick with a really bad headache on Tuesday, and since I was home in the evening because of that, I offered to help her with coloring the fondant. I guess it was the least I could do, since I had dreamed up this monstrosity of a cake, in a style completely different from most of the cakes that she does. And then, it went from me helping, to me decorating and putting together the whole thing.

My idea was to make a topsy-turvy, whimsical cake that would really stand out. I started by googling some images of similarly shaped cakes. These are what I found:
I decided that three tiers would work out well… and as for the design and color scheme on it, I wanted it to look similar to the invitation I designed for the occasion:
So I sent over the images and design to my mom… and like I said, I happened to be home and offered to help. Well it quickly went from me helping, to me doing the entire thing! I started out by layering and shaping the cakes. Basically, I used three cakes for each tier- layered them with frosting (it was cream cheese frosting- to go with the carrot cake my sister requested) and then began shaping them. I started by angling the top of the tier, and once that was done, angling the sides, so in the end it was shaped like this:
The only thing you have to be careful of is that each tier above the bottom tier has to be angled on the bottom as well- and angled in the opposite direction of the top angle.Then I colored the fondant- I wore gloves this time! Basically, you just put a couple drops of icing color in it, and then knead it in until it is uniform. Then, I rolled it out and began laying it over the cakes and smoothing it.Once all three tiers were covered, my mom began explaining how to support the layers. Each cake is on a cakeboard, cut precisely to match the bottom edge of each cake, and that gets placed on four wooden dowel rods that are inserted into each of the bottom two layers- you have to trim the dowel rods to be the exact height of the cake they are in. Once all of your layers are in place, you use a dowel rod that has been sharpened with a pencil sharpener on one end, and carefully insert it straight down through all the cakes. You can see the end of it sticking out of the top of my tiered cake in this photo.Once that was done, I began cutting flowers and other decorations out of sheets of rolled fondant using an x-acto knife. Little by little, I built up my design.This is what it looked like in the end:For the party, we topped it with some fresh flowers in matching shades of white and bright orange. And as an added bonus, everyone asked my mom “Dilphia, you made that?” when they saw it, to which she surprised them by saying “Nope, Brenda did!”

Now, I want to make more cakes!

Summer's Coming!

2009-05-05T19:15:00.004-04:00

With the weather getting warmer (although not drier) lately, I have been getting the itch to grill. The only problem with that is, I don’t actually own a grill. I’m thinking of getting one of those small tabletop style grills they sell at places like Target and Walmart, but I haven’t actually bought it yet.

But, I do have a grill pan, something I use almost everyday in my kitchen. I’d even classify it as an “essential,” along with my Furi knives and a selection of other things I’m obsessed with. I use it to cook chicken and fish, turkey bacon, grilled cheese and other hot sandwiches, burgers, etc. The trick is to get it hot enough so that you cook each side of whatever you’re making for a few minutes, long enough to cook through and get some nice grill lines, while not so long that it burns or overcooks. And since the one I have is non-stick, cleaning it is always a breeze. The one I have was a Christmas gift from my mom, and is made by Kitchen Essentials from Calphalon (only at Target) and can be seen here. It’s even on sale this week, for $33.99.

Aside from the food described above, there are a couple of recipes I’ve made in the past couple of weeks that center around the fact that they are grilled. One is Tequila-Lime Chicken and Shrimp Fajitas, and the other is Coconut Curry Chicken Kabobs.

TEQUILA-LIME CHICKEN AND SHRIMP FAJITAS

Marinade

1 cup good quality tequila, I like Jose Cuervo
1 cup orange juice
juice of 3 limes
2 T extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup sliced green onions
salt and pepper, to taste

2 large chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized strips
1 pound of peeled and de-veined raw shrimp
2 large peppers, one red and one green
1 large Vidalia onion

about 20 fajita sized flour tortillas

Fajita Toppings

sour cream
guacamole
salsa
shredded cheese
sliced green onions

Mix the tequila, orange juice, lime juice, olive oil, garlic, green onions, salt and pepper together for the marinade. Pour about 2/3 of it over the chicken in a bowl and cover. Pout the rest over the shrimp in another bowl and cover. Place both bowls in the fridge for at least one hour… but, the longer, the better! Slice the onions and peppers while the chicken and shrimp are marinating. Heat grill pan coated with non-stick cooking spray over medium heat, and begin grilling onions, peppers, chicken and shrimp in batches (or you could do what I did and use TWO grill pans -one belonged to my mom- AND a two-burner sized griddle pan, I had the ENTIRE stovetop covered!) The onions and peppers are done when they have some grill lines, but are not cooked so much that they are soggy. The chicken should be cooked through, with no pink, and the shrimp take just a couple of minutes on each side. As you finish a batch, cover it with foil to keep warm. Warm the stack of tortillas in the microwave for about one minute.

I served these family-style for my, my mom and dad, sister, her boyfriend, and my neice, with the chicken, shrimp, onions and peppers on big platters on the table, right along side all the toppings (FYI- best store brand guacamole ever is Wholly Guacamole, it comes in sealed plastic bags that you can freeze and defrost whenever you need them)The marinade, which I pretty much just threw together with a few things I thought would be good together, worked out great- you could taste both the tequila and lime flavors, without being overpowered by them. My sister’s boyfriend, Ben, even messaged me the next day saying “I want more fajitas.” And, it’s a really fun meal to share with good friends and family.

The next recipe, Coconut Curry Chicken Kabobs, has similar ingredients (chicken, peppers, and onions), but a totally different flavor, and is SOOO easy.

COCONUT CURRY CHICKEN KABOBS

1 pound of chicken breast, cut into chunks
1 large green pepper, roughly chopped
1 large Vidalia onion, roughly chopped
1 cup coconut milk
3 T curry powder
1 T garlic powder
1 T sugar
salt and pepper, to taste
bamboo skewers

Put chicken, onions and green peppers onto the skewers. Make the marinade by combining coconut milk, curry, garlic powder, sugar, salt and pepper. Pour over the kabobs in a deep, rectangular storage or marinating container. Put in fridge, flipping halfway through marinating time to ensure that each skewer can soak in the marinade, for at least one hour. Heat grill pan over medium high heat, and place kabobs on, cooking in batches. Cook for about 4 minutes on each side.
I made these for my sister one Sunday night and we ate every last one. They are good! Coconutty and spicy, with just a hint of sweetness. TRY THEM!!!

Of course, either of these recipes can be made on a traditional, open flame grill, but if that’s not an option, a grill pan on your stovetop works just as well.

Good Morning Love

2009-04-29T15:19:00.003-04:00

I am a morning person. One of those cheerful, happy for a new day, loves the sun shining in my face through the blinds people. It’s sort of weird, considering I am a journalist, and most journalists are night owls. And, I work nights, most days of the week. But, despite that, I’m up by 8 a.m. most days –and that’s a LATE start for me. Weird right?

Well, this morning, I woke up at 7:30 a.m. I stayed in bed for a while, watched a little bit of Good Morning America, then headed downstairs to the kitchen to make an iced latte, my morning ritual. As I reached over the fruit/vegetable bowl to get to the espresso machine, my eyes fell on the potatoes in the bowl. I sort of forgot they were even in there, to be honest. Then I thought…. Hash browns…. Hash brown crusted quiche…

And so, at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, I started cooking. I’m not generally a big fan of breakfast foods, but this is one recipe that I’ll make an exception for. A simple quiche, with green onions (from my newly planted container garden!) crumbled turkey bacon, and cheese… and the best part, a crust made of crispy, golden, hash browns.

HASH BROWN CRUSTED QUICHE

3 potatoes, peeled and shredded (you can use frozen shredded potatoes to save time -about 3 cups- just defrost and get rid of any excess water with a clean, dry kitchen towel)
3 T melted margarine or butter
6 eggs
1/2 cup sliced green onions
4-5 strips of turkey bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
1 c shredded cheese, I like to use Swiss
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Peel and shred the potatoes, making sure to absorb any moisture in them with a towel so that they brown and crisp in the oven. Mix potatoes with melted butter in a pie plate, and use your hands to form a crust with them. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until potatoes are crispy and golden. While crust is baking, mix eggs, green onions, bacon, cheese, salt and pepper together. Pour egg mixture into crust once it’s done, and put into the oven, with the temperature reduced to 350 degrees for 30 minutes, until it is light golden-brown and puffy.

Normally I make two pie plates of this, since it goes pretty fast, but this morning, since it was just for me, I made two mini quiches, using just one egg for each, and saved one for tomorrow. Yum!

Warm Weather, Finally

2009-04-28T15:40:00.003-04:00

This weekend, with the warm, intoxicating breeze of ALMOST summer coming in through my windows, all I could think was how I needed to be sitting outside on the fire escape (my own little “patio” of sorts) eating dinner that night. And, so, my next thought was, a nice hot bowl of chili would be perfect to stave off any slight chill that might waft through the night air.

This is one of my favorite recipes to make a big pot of and share with everyone I know. The first time I ever made it was my senior year at BU, with my roommate Tina. For whatever reason, we didn’t have a bottle of beer in our fridge (surprising for an apartment where four 21-year-old college kids lived, huh?) so Tina called upon her friend Matt, who lived in the building next door to us, and bribed him into giving us one in exchange for a bowl of chili when we were done cooking. Since then, this is something I’ve become famous for making for family barbecues, during New London’s annual Sailfest in July, and time’s in between. And, ALWAYS with some freshly baked cornbread. The basic recipe for this is a Rachael Ray recipe, you can find it here. I’ve tweaked mine a little, substituting a can of black beans for a pound of ground turkey, and minor adjustments to the amounts of certain ingredients.

MY FAVORITE CHILI

3 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 lb ground turkey
4 T chili powder
2 T grill seasoning
1 T cumin
2 T hot sauce, more or less to taste
2 T worcestershire sauce
1 large onion, chopped
2 large peppers, any color, chopped
1/2 bottle beer
2 8oz cans tomato sauce
3/4 cup smokey barbecue sauce
1 can black beans, with liquid
1 bag frozen corn kernels

1 box Jiffy corn bread mix

Begin by heating the olive oil over medium high heat in a large pot. Add the turkey and season with the chili powder, grill seasoning, cumin, hot sauce, and Worcestershire sauce, breaking up the meat as it browns. Add the chopped onions and peppers, and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the beer and cook another 10 minutes, until the alcohol cooks off. Add the tomato sauce, barbeque sauce, black beans, and corn. Heat to a simmer. Serve with warm cornbread.

So I made my pot of chili, brought some over to my mom’s, gave some to my downstairs neighbor Frank, at his store, Muse (an art gallery/shoe store- quirky huh?), and had the rest for my weekly Sister Sunday dinner with Angie.

You can add any toppings to the chili that you’d like, but personally, I prefer to keep it simple, with just a scant sprinkle of shredded cheese and sliced green onions. But I mean, go nuts, add whatever you want.

Also, I had leftover cornbread, and used some of it to make cornbread croutons for salads. I just chopped the leftover bread into small squares, toasted them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes (watching them carefully), and voila!

The Wellness Kitchen

2009-04-15T09:13:00.007-04:00

Last week, I was at the Durham Public Library waiting for a local author, who I was assigned to photograph, to arrive. Waiting is a game often played by newspaper photographers… in college studying photojournalism, I was taught that it’s always better to arrive early and have to wait a few minutes, than to arrive on time and miss some integral part of your assignment. Nevermind being late. So, as a rule, I’m almost always a few minutes early to assignments. And so, I wait.

As a perused the shelves of books in the downtime, naturally, I gravitated towards the cookbooks, and my eyes became fixed on this one:

The Wellness Kitchen, which focuses on the nutritional aspects of food. It’s full of healthy recipes, complete with a nutrition guide for each, and tons of little facts about the nutrients found in different foods, and the best way to get those nutrients from them.

I’ve mentioned before the fact that I don’t eat red meat. I am certainly not someone who thinks it’s “wrong” to kill an animal for food. Personally, I think it’s all part of a cycle, and we’re all part of a food chain. Really, I stopped eating meat one day when I was in seventh grade, after listening to my geography teacher lament about how chock-full of artery-clogging fat red meat was. I got home from school that day, and just decided “starting tomorrow morning, no more beef or pork.” Also, let me state, for the record, I was an overweight child- that is one of the defining factors in my childhood. But, starting that day, I made a conscious decision to eat healthier. Now, I know that a lean cut of red meat is perfectly fine once in a while, but, it’s been nearly thirteen years, and I don’t have even an inkling of desire for it. So, to this day, I only eat poultry and fish.

During my freshman year in college, I tried going completely vegetarian, but found that I wasn’t having a well balanced diet, so I went back to only not eating red meat. Now, I consciously make an effort to eat healthfully, but I don’t deny myself anything. I don’t believe in “diets.” I don’t think it’s smart or sustainable to cut entire groups of food, like “white” or “carbs” from your daily diet. I think that you should eat things that taste good and are good for you. But indulge yourself a little- I have a sweet tooth, obviously.

So when I came across this book I grabbed it and checked it out. I skimmed through the book, looking for something to try out, and settled on a black bean soup recipe, using dry beans, and some simple, clean flavors. I decided to jazz it up a bit, so added two sweet Italian turkey sausages, corn, a little chipotle flavored Mrs.Dash, and about a quarter cup of barbeque sauce to the recipe. I thought it seemed like a great dinner for the rainy, dreary day that Saturday was, and would be pretty low maintenance, since I was planning to remove wallpaper, and repaint the kitchen that day- always a multitasker. The recipe is as follows:

BLACK BEAN SOUP

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 sweet Italian turkey sausage links
2 cups dried black beans
9 cups water
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 ½ teaspoons oregano
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon Mrs. Dash chipotle seasoning
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ cup smoky barbeque sauce
1 cup frozen corn kernels
sliced green onions, and (low fat) shredded cheddar cheese, to top with
tortilla chips

In a large pot, sauté the onions and garlic in the olive oil. As they are cooking crumble the meat from the sausage links into the pot.
Cook until the sausage is browned. Add the black beans, then the water. Stir in the tomato paste, oregano, cumin, Mrs. Dash, salt, and barbeque sauce. Bring to a boil, then simmer for one and half hours, until beans are tender. Remove about 1/4 of the beans and liquid from the pot, and puree in a blender (or use a hand blender if you have one). Return the puree to the pot and stir in. Add the corn kernels and heat until cooked through. Top with the green onions and cheese. Serve with tortilla chips. Makes 4 servings.

So I got the soup started, set it on a simmer, and began removing wallpaper, sanding, and painting. By the time I had finished one wall, the soup was ready. The barbeque sauce added a little zingy sweetness to it, and the chipotle finished it off, giving it just a hint of heat. I served it up with some blue corn chips, and had my dinner. The only thing I would mention is that if you want it to be a thinner soup, you may need to add a substantial amount of additional water to the recipe- not that it was bad. It was actually great to dip the tortilla chips in, and the following night, my sister, her boyfriend, and my mom were over for dinner, and I served it to them as a dip.

All in all a pretty good recipe (with a few additions on my part, of course). And even though we did add in a few extra ingredients, turkey sausage has only about 1/4 of the fat in traditional pork sausage, and using just a sprinkling of shredded, low-fat cheese adds tons of flavor without doing too much damage. According to the book, the basic recipe (without the turkey sausage, corn, Mrs. Dash, barbeque sauce, and shredded cheese) has the following nutrition information:
Per serving: 374 calories, 4.5g total fat (0.7g saturated), 0mg cholesterol, 24g dietary fiber, 65g carbohydrate, 21g protein, 689mg sodium. Good source of: fiber, folate, magnesium, potassium, and thiamin.

Small Hands, Big Lessons

2009-03-05T15:58:00.008-05:00

Yesterday, I went to Saint Sebastian’s School in Middletown, where preschool teacher Nicole Milardo runs a 5-week after-school cooking club for students of all ages. I met kids from 5-12 years old, and took pictures of them for picture page that will run in Monday’s edition of The Middletown Press. The kids were elbow deep in chocolate chip cookie dough when I arrived, and gave me plenty of opportunities to laugh and smile as I observed them.

Above: Students of Saint Sebastian's School in Middletown make chocolate chip

cookie dough Wednesday, March 4, 2009 during a cooking club meeting.

Bella, a five-year-old in kindergarten, remarked to me about how her grandmother does a lot of cooking, when I asked them about who they help in the kitchen at home. When I queried a group of about 8 girls if they planned to share their cookies with their parents and siblings when they got home, I was met with a mixed chorus of “yeses,” and (more emphatic) “NO’s!”

Nicole Milardo, who runs the school’s cooking club, told me that she loves to cook, and wanted to share that with the students. She did admit that she prefers cooking to baking (like me) and said that Lisa Nettis, who is a paraprofessional in Milardo’s classroom, is the go-to person when it comes to baking.

Last week, at the club’s first meeting, the group made an oatmeal-based, no-bake, type of cookie, which, to Milardo’s dismay, the kids weren’t thrilled with. But this week, they watched, wide-eyed, full of ready-to-burst excitement as Milardo carefully removed the trays of hot cookies from the oven.Above: Students of Saint Sebastian's School in Middletown watch as Cooking Club
instructorNicole Milardo, who teaches preschool at Saint Sebastian's, takes a
sheet of chocolate chip cookies out the oven Wednesday, March 4, 2009
during a cooking club meeting.

The students, like my neice, Nadya, who regularly gets “culinary lessons” from my mother, seemed as excited at the prospect of warm, melty, chocolatey cookies as they were to dig their hands in the bowl of dough and get dirty. They are learning the lesson of what it means to create something with their own two hands, and the happiness that that creativity can bring themselves, and others.

Above:Top- Four-year-old Nadya Murphy decorates a cake for her grandfather,

under the guidance of her grandmother. Bottom- Murphy makes a homemade pizza
decorated with basil for eyes and bacon for a smiling mouth.

To view more photos of Saint Sebastian school students making chocolate chip cookies with teacher Nicole Milardo, go here, to the Press' online photo gallery.

Sister Sunday

2009-03-03T14:43:00.003-05:00

I’m the middle child among three girls. My older sister, Mely, is 26, and lives in Colorado, with her husband Aaron, who is a Warrant Officer in the Army, and their new four-month-old son, Jackson (who I’m going to visit next week!). Angie, my younger sister, is 23, works as a pharmacy technician, is a full-time student at Uconn (graduating this spring) and has a four-year-old daughter, Nadya. Needless to say, Angie has a very busy schedule, but I’ve always been very close with my sisters, and in order to make sure Angie and I get a little time to see each other every week, we started having “Sister Sunday,” a weekly dinner date at my apartment, since we are both off from work and Nadya spends Sunday nights with her father. This Sunday, our mom joined us since my father is away for the week.

This week, we actually thought out our dinner in advance, and settled on linguine with scallops in a lemony wine sauce, and Caesar Salad on the side. It was a first for me, so I looked at a few different recipes and combined different elements from each that I thought would work, adding in a few of my own touches. Angie doesn’t cook. Usually, she sits at the kitchen table, or on one of the bar stools at the counter, munching happily on whatever appetizer I’ve set out for her (shrimp cocktail this week), while I cook. I don’t mind. She’s happy, I’m happy, and we have a great meal ahead of us.

So here is what I started with:

1 pound of Spinach Linguine
1 pound sea scallops, seasoned with salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 small yellow squash
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
About 1 cup dry white wine
One lemon, zested and juiced
2 stems of fresh basil, about 15 leaves, shredded
1 tomato, chopped

SPINACH LINGUINE WITH SCALLOPS IN A LEMON-WINE SAUCE
Boil the water for the pasta, and begin cooking the scallops once you put the pasta in the boiling water. Boil the pasta according to the directions on the package. Heat about 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat in a large skillet until they combine. Add the scallops and cook for about 3 minutes on each side, being careful not to overcook. Scoop the scallops out with a slotted spoon into a bowl, and cover with foil to keep warm. Pour the liquid cooked off of the scallops in a separate container to reserve. Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the same pan and sauté the garlic and shallots for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the wine and cook off the alcohol for 5 minutes before adding the squash. Cook another 5 minutes, until squash is tender. Add the liquid reserved from cooking scallops and the lemon juice, and stir together. Add the cooked linguine, chopped tomatoes, thyme, and shredded basil. Stir together until pasta is coated in the sauce, and serve.

The only pitfall I experienced making this was the horror I felt when I realized that I forgot to pick up a bottle of my favorite white wine, a Luna di Luna chardonnay and pinot grigio blend, and since it was Sunday and we live in the great, conservative-on-liquor-sales state of Connecticut, ended up stuck using a bottle of COOKING WINE from the grocery store. Imagine.

I used basil and thyme from my Aerogarden, a Christmas gift from my parents that keeps on giving. I have fresh herbs year-round, and am never short on flavor. That, and, you pretty much can’t kill it. It lets you know when it needs watering, nutrients, etc. The grow lights even run on a timer to simulate daylight. Also, you can use it to grow cherry tomatoes, green beans, etc. So far, I’ve only used their herb pod kit, but it really is fail-proof and can’t wait to try growing something new.

We had our linguine with a Caesar salad tossed together quickly from a head of romaine lettuce, prepared croutons and creamy Caesar dressing, and grated parmesan cheese, with warm multigrain bread on the side.

The result was pretty good. The lemon-wine sauce was light but flavorful, with notes of basil and lemon combining to balance out the strong, sweet taste of the sea scallops. The tomato added a nice contrast to not only the color palate of the dish, but to the overall impression it leaves you with. I was very happy with the result and Angie told me that it was her favorite meal we’d had, out of all of our Sunday night dinners.

For dessert, I served some prepared tiramisu rounds and New York style cheesecake from the bakery at Stop and Shop. I chopped up a few strawberries, and tossed them with a teaspoon of sugar to get their juices flowing, and topped the cheesecake with them, and a sprig of mint (also from my Aerogarden). I finished my dessert platter off with a few whole strawberries. Our meal was complete and our bellies were full, and another “Sister Sunday” had passed.

Love is for Losers

2009-02-16T16:09:00.011-05:00

Valentine’s Day is not my favorite holiday of the year. In fact, it may just be my least favorite. But this year, since my college friend Annette was coming to visit, I decided to make fun, whimsical cupcakes for the girls in my life. I made one for my mom, sister, niece, roommate, and of course, for Annette. I had a little batter left over so I made one for myself. I made the gift cupcakes very ornate, but underplayed mine a lot, and decorated it simply to suit me:

When I brought my mom’s to her, she promptly showed me up, completely and utterly, with her gift for me:

I had some great ideas for what Annette and I would do over the weekend. I thought of taking a ride out to the Jonathan Edwards Winery in Stonington, taking advantage of the mild weather, and exploring the shops and pier in downtown New London, where I live, or maybe even a day at the slots at MGM Grand. The possibilities were endless. The only problem was that Annette arrived to me sniffling and headachy Friday night, and by Saturday morning, was convinced that she would be better off if someone “put her out of her misery.” I know how she felt. I just days ago got over a cold from hell, that lasted nearly three weeks, complete with fevers, never-ending sneezes and coughs, and, the icing on the cake, uncontrolled asthma that I thought may land me in the hospital, despite several prescription medications that were supposed to quell those symptoms.

So all of our plans were nixed, and Annette slept while I went out and got cold medicine and delivered valentines to my family. I decided that since I had nothing to do, and Annette would be sleeping for hours, I would make some chicken soup, and hopefully help her to feel better.

I guess I should preface this by saying that the kind of homemade chicken soup I am used to is made Puerto Rican style, the way my mom and grandmother have always made it. It is flavorful, reminiscent of arroz con pollo (yellow rice with chicken), and is made with a lot of the same tastes. This soup reminds me of relaxed afternoons, sitting in my Guela’s kitchen (when we were little, we couldn’t pronounce abuela, and so my grandparents have been “Guela and Guelo” ever since), sopping up the rich, piping hot broth with just made dumplings, in the company of my sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, whoever was around. It’s the food equivalent of a big hug.

For those of you who don’t know what sazon, sofrito, or adobo are, here’s a quick lesson: Sazon is a seasoned salt mixture, usually with the flavors of cilantro, achiote (annatto seeds), and garlic. Sofrito is a blend of green peppers, cilantro, onions, garlic, and spices in olive oil. Adobo is a blend of garlic, oregano, and other spices. I get all of these things from the Latino section in my local grocery store (I get the sofrito in a plastic tub the frozen section).

MY GUELA'S CHICKEN SOUP AND DUMPLINGS

DUMPLINGS

1 cup flour
1 packet yeast
salt, to taste
1/2 stick butter, room temperature

SOUP

1 1/2 – 2 lbs chicken thighs
Extra virgin olive oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pot
1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/3 cup sofrito
1 packet sazon
2 T tomato sauce
Adobo, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
3-4 carrots, sliced
3 celery stalks, sliced
2 large potatoes, cubed
small pasta, such as elbows or bow ties

Dumplings: combine flour and yeast, and then add water to it until it is a soft, doughy consistency. Add the butter, and combine until well mixed. Let the dough rise in a bowl on the stove or counter where it is warm, covered.

When the dough has doubled (around the time your soup is almost done), form into 2-3 inch round patties and fry until golden brown.

Soup: To start, boil the chicken thighs in a large pot filled with water about 1 1/2 inches from the top of the pot. Once the chicken is cooked through, remove is from the water. Reserve the water in another container. Now, begin combining the seasonings in the pot you used to boil the chicken. Start with the olive oil, and add the onions and garlic, over medium heat. Add the sofrito, sazon, and salsita. Add the potatoes, carrots, and celery, stirring until they are evenly coated with the seasoning mix. Pour in the water reserved from boiling the chicken and stir together until evenly mixed. Season with adobo, salt, and pepper, to taste. Let the vegetables simmer in the liquid for about 20-25 minutes, until they are cooked through. Add the cooked chicken (you can shred it off the bone, or leave it on, whichever you prefer), and about 1 cup of pasta, and let it come to a simmer until the noodles are tender. Serve with dumplings.

So we had soup for dinner, and by the evening Annette was feeling up to going out for a bit. We went to see the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona at the Garde Arts Center, which is a few blocks from my house, and was followed by a dessert reception at the theater, for Valentine’s Day. Our weekend wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, but still, it turned out great.

The Next “Ace of Cakes” Star…

2009-01-28T17:36:00.015-05:00

My best friend (and roommate) Jon is an avid collector of Jordan sneakers, and has been for as long as I have known him (since we were about 14-years-old). Jon’s birthday is three days after Christmas, and coming up with one gift for him is always a struggle, making figuring out the second gift nearly impossible. So this past December, I was brainstorming gift ideas for him, and it came to me: Make him a birthday cake that looks like a Jordan!

My baking skills are pretty much limited to Betty Crocker mixes, mostly due to the fact that I don’t have the patience to measure everything to the exact degree that baking requires. I’ve never used fondant before either… but I figured it couldn’t be too hard, seems like it would be like playing with Play-doh.

So I got to work planning my creation. I went online to Nike.com and navigated to a site completely devoted to Jordan’s. After looking through the 23 different styles, I decided on Jordan 3’s, and found a color combination I thought I could re-create:

The bulk of the shoe is white, meaning I would only have to color the detail parts of the shoe. The red struck me as a little problematic, as red is a really hard color to get right. Also, the grey parts of the shoe have an “elephant skin” effect, which is a major design component for this style of Jordan.

I did a little Googling on how to work with fondant, for some background info. Then I spoke to baking guru (and my mother), Dilphia De Los Santos. We promptly got into an argument about it, because I’d read that you should use shortening as a lubricant for the surface that you are working with the fondant on, and my mom laughed in my face, managing to sputter something about powdered sugar. Typical De Los Santos stubbornness at it’s best.

After arguing about it for about 20 minutes, I finally conceded to my mom, and listened to what she had to say. Under her instruction, I mixed up two Betty Crocker “Golden Vanilla” cake mixes, poured the batter in a cookie sheet, and tossed (ok, gently slid) it into the oven. After it baked and cooled, I cut it into thirds and put a layer of frosting between each of the three layers of cake, using 1/4 inch wooden dowel rods to hold the layers in place. Then, I wrapped it in plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer overnight.

The next day, I took the cake out of the freezer, and, with several images of the sneakers I wanted to re-create in front of me for reference, used a paring knife to carve the frozen cake. I’ve always been pretty artistic, and I’m good at visualizing things, so it was, well, a piece of cake.

Next up, I covered my sneaker shaped cake in a layer of frosting (also of the Betty Crocker, pre-made variety), and set it on a foil covered cake board and put it aside. I rolled out a box of Wilton fondant on my powdered sugar sprinkled work surface (a large flexible cutting board), and rolled it up onto my rolling pin once it was about a 1/4 inch think throughout. Then, I rolled it from the rolling pin over the cake:

After smoothing it out and trimming off the excess, I took my leftover fondant and divided it in half. Half remained white, for laces and other plain details, and then colored 1/4 of it blue, and 1/4 grey. It takes a while to knead the food coloring in, and it most definitely can stain your hands (note to self: wear gloves next time).

I used a little tool Wilton makes to cut and shape my fondant details, which basically is a miniature, plastic, pizza cutter. To attach them to the cake, I rubbed the wrong side of each detail with a little water, starting with the bottom-most pieces first. After about an hour and half of creating and attaching the details, piece-by-piece, it began to look like a real shoe. For the elephant skin effect seen on the grey details of the shoe, I “sponged” on dark grey colored frosting over the grey fondant details using a crumpled up paper towel.

The last pieces I made were the laces, but realized that I needed to pipe the Jordan symbol on before doing that. I used the tiniest decorating tip my mom had, and practiced it a few times before attempting it on the actual cake. I used a tube of prepared red frosting for the symbol on the tongue of the shoe, since red is one of the hardest colors to get bright and vibrant. I used the dark grey colored frosting to create the elephant skin effect on the grey pieces to make the symbol on the back of the shoe.

After attaching the laces I decorated a small, 4-inch layer cake for the “birthday cake” aspect of my design, with blue frosting. I put it on the cake board, piped some little rosettes around it, and then wrote “Happy Birthday Jon!” in red icing on the board.

I managed to get the cake to our apartment safely, and put the red “24” candles on the mini birthday cake. I knocked on Jon’s bedroom door, told him there was something he “had to see” in the kitchen, and dragged him downstairs with me. He loved it, and I think I’m going to be making a different style of Jordan cake every December 28th for the years to come!

Did I mention I LOVE Rachael Ray?

2009-01-24T21:16:00.007-05:00

As someone who works a full-time job, and has an hour and a half round trip commute each day for it, time is a precious commodity. So, while I really love to cook, I don't normally have the time to cook everyday, and on my weekends, when I do cook, I don't want it to take up my entire day. Excuse me for sounding like a self-indulgent young twenty-something, but, well, I AM! It's not as though I have a family that I have to feed everyday; most of the time it's just me. I want something great to eat, that doesn't take a million years to make.

The whole "30-Minute Meals" thing explains why I think Rachael Ray is a goddess. I know some people think her effervescent cheerfulness is too much. Not me. I don't think there is anything wrong with being fun, and goofy sometimes. Meet me in person, and you'll see what I mean.

But anyway.

I work Sunday - Thursday, and tonight was my free night to cook. I made one of my classics... chicken and spinach burgers (which is a variation on one of Rach's recipes from her "365: No Repeats" book) and sweet potato fries.

Here is what I started with:

FRIES

1 sweet potato
vegetable oil, to fry in
sea salt

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Cut potatoes into 1/4 inch strips, and fry for about 12-15 minutes, until crispy. Season with sea salt.

First up, I cut the sweet potato... well, tried. I have a mandolin slicer, which is awesome for cutting things uniformly, but the sweet potato was too dense for it. Since I am a klutz, I decided I shouldn't tempt fate with the possibility of me cutting a finger off, and I went back to basics: a cutting board and my trusty Furi East-West knife. I threw them into about a 1/2 inch of oil I had heating on the stove, and let the fries cook while I prepared the burgers.

CHICKEN AND SPINACH BURGERS

1 lb ground chicken
8 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed
3 green onions, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 tablespoon onion and herb flavor Mrs. Dash
handful parsley, chopped

Combine above ingredients and form into patties. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side, until cooked through.

BURGER FIXINGS

tomato, sliced
avocado, sliced
swiss cheese
honey mustard
rolls

I made the burgers about a half-inch thick and the size of my palm, and on the stove they went. Since I was just cooking for myself, I only made two burgers, and threw some bread crumbs and an egg into the meat mixture and formed some chicken meatballs, which I baked for about 15 minutes at 425 degrees.

In the mean time, I sliced the tomatoes and avocado. I went in the fridge for the honey mustard... but I was out. I'm a little addicted to the stuff, so it makes sense that I didn't have any. I figured I could throw some together... about 1 tablespoon each of deli style mustard (obvious), honey (also obvious), and mayo (for some creaminess). I toasted the roll, and slathered it with the honey mustard. After a slice of swiss was good and melty on top of the hot burger, I piled it with avocado and tomato. This is the end product:

All in all it took about 30 minutes of cooking, with the bonus meatballs cooking while I ate. I froze them and will have them for another night when I am pressed for time. Also, I Betty Crockered some double chocolate cookies for dessert (you can see the package of mix on the counter in the first photo). I definitely have a sweet tooth, but baking is a little too exact for me, so something I can add oil and eggs to is perfect. And quick. And yummy. : )

This is me...

2009-01-21T14:53:00.001-05:00

So, let's get a few things done and over with. I am a 24-year-old photojournalist (I work for the Middletown Press), I am very much a "city girl"- I grew up in New London, went to school in Boston. Now, I live back in NL, in a funky little apartment downtown, although it seems like I spend more time in Middletown, since I work there.

One other thing- I love to cook. Growing up, my mom was the pastry chef at The Flood Tide Restaurant at The Inn at Mystic. She was always in the kitchen and I was right there with her. Since then, I've grown much less interested in baking sweets (I leave that to my mom- no one is better than she is), and gotten very into cooking- all kinds of things. What I guess I should say is that I am trying to teach myself to cook. I seem to have a natural knack for it, but I lack any kind of education in it. I'm taking the "read up on it, see it done, and experiment" approach.

I like to say that I'm not picky... but it's a total lie. I don't eat red meat, for the simple reason that one day, when I was 12, I decided I wasn't going to eat it anymore. I don't like sushi, jello, cilantro, chick peas... among other things. That may make me sound a lot pickier than I actually am... but you'll probably figure out that I will try just about anything, and try it again to see if I like it "this time" (including the four "gross" foods listed above).

What I plan to do with this blog is pretty simple: Try a new recipe, food, gadget, etc, then tell you about it. I'll take plenty of pictures so you can get your own taste of it, and maybe sometime down the line I'll work in some videos. Who knows? It's gonna be fun though.