Food Snobbery and Tofu

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

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

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

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?

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.