Sunday, August 30, 2009

Rosemary Sherry Savory Cake

I love this cake. Not only does it taste good, and not only is it light, but it's the only cake I know of that you can serve as dessert, and as part of your entree, depending on what you pair with it. Custard or vanilla ice cream? Dessert deliciousness. Pork roast and gravy? It's part of your entree. And the weird thing is, that it works beautifully both ways without any sort of alternation in the recipe.

The other reason I love this cake is because it looks a little funny. It's a souffle cake, which means that it's meant to sort of collapse in on itself in a spongy, moist, semi-dense kind of way. This means that it's appearance is a little unpredictable. Sometimes it comes out looking really adorable, like something a hobbit would make. Other times it's just kind of homely, but no matter what it looks like, it always tastes good.

This recipe is from The Greyston Bakery Cookbook by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, editor of Kitchn.com. It's a great recipe and a really good book - I'm looking forward to trying out more of their recipes, especially the Burnt Almond Torte and the Lotus in Mud Cake, a chocolate confection inspired by the Buddhist idea of beauty and compassion being rooted in darkness and pain.

But, in the meantime, here's the recipe for Olive Oil and Sherry Souffle Cake (their official title for it). It's so damn good!

Ingredients:
- 5 eggs, separated
- 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 tbs. freshly grated lemon zest (I omitted this because I was out of lemons)
- 1 tbs. chopped fresh rosemary (Do Not omit this - it's crucial to the flavor)
- 1/2 cup dry sherry (I used cream sherry and it tasted lovely)
- 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3 tbs. powdered sugar

Process:
1. Position the rack to the center of the oven and preheat to 325. Grease and flour a 12 cup Bundt cake pan (I used this) or a 10 x 4.5 in. tube cake pan. Set aside.

2. With an electric mixer on med-high, mix the egg yolks with the sugar until the yolks are thick and pale yellow. Use the whisk attachment.

3. Slow the mixer to med-low and add the zest and rosemary. Mix until incorporated, about 30 sec.

4. Drizzle in the sherry. Once incorporated, drizzle in the olive oil.

5. Gradually add the flour. Mix until well combined.

6. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and set aside. Carefully wash and dry your mixer bowl and whisk attachment. Then beat the egg whites and salt until the whites hold stiff peaks.

7. Gently stir in 1/3 of the whites into the batter with a whisk. This will lighten the batter. Then fold in the rest of the whites in two batches, blending completely.

8. Pout the batter into the prepared pan and put in the oven. Bake for 40 min., until the cake is a deep golden brown and a skewer inserted near the middle comes out clean.

9. Set the pan on a wire rack and cool completely. The cake will do what souffles do and collapse into itself, pulling away slightly from the edges of the mold. When the cake it cool, turn it out onto a plate.

10. If you're serving it as dessert, dust it with powdered sugar and serve it in all it's rumpled glory. If your serving it with your main course, garnish it with sprigs of rosemary, and serve slices with your meal as you would yorkshire pudding. Just thinking about it with goose and gravy makes my mouth water....

Rockin' Red Lentil Dal

This dal rocks. It rocks so much that even people who aren't quite so keen on tofu might like it.

Dal is, basically, Indian lentil stew / soup. There are several different kinds of lentils you can use - brown lentils (the kind sold with the dried beans and rice in grocery stores), French green lentils, and delicate red lentils. Any of type of lentil will work, but red lentils are my favorite for this recipe - they cook up quickly and they fall apart after about 20 min. of cooking, giving the dal an integrated, creamy sort of texture.

This recipe is adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook. The original recipe looked good, but it was a lot fussier than I felt it had to be, and I wasn't nuts about the spice blend they used, so I tinkered and futzed and came up with this - a very yummy, very quick, very filling way to satisfy your craving for Indian food on a week-day night.

Serves 2

Ingredients:
- 1/2 - 3/4 cup red lentils, rinsed and sorted. The amount you use depends on how soupy or how stewy you like your dal.
- 3 1/2 cups water or chicken broth
- 1 small onion, sliced
- 1 small garlic clove, crushed
- 1 tsp. fresh grated ginger
- 8 oz. extra firm tofu, patted fry and cut into 1/2 in. cubes
- 1/2 tsp. curry powder
-1/2 tsp. salt
- 2 tbs. olive oil or vegetable oil
- *dash of dried cumin
- *dash of powdered cloves
- *dash of cinnamon
- *dash of powdered ginger
- *dash of garam masala
- *dash of black pepper
* Use these spices in quantity to taste, but err on the side of using a lighter, rather than heavier hand. James and I don't like super-spicy food, so this blend is pretty mild. For hotter dal, add red pepper flakes or cayenne to taste.
- 1 cup (uncooked) basmati rice.

Process:

1. Cook it, set it aside and keep warm. You will serve the dal over it.

2. While the rice cooks, heat the 2 tbs. of oil in a dutch oven. When it's just rippling, add the sliced onion and cook, stirring often, until the onions are soft and just beginning to brown.

3. Add the spice mixture to the onions. Cook until blended and fragrant, about 30 sec. (this is called "blooming" the spices with the hot oil).

4. Add the garlic to the onions and spices. Cook just until fragrant, about 30 sec.

5. Add the ginger to the onions, garlic and spices. Cook for about a minute.

6. Add the washed and sorted lentils and the 3 1/2 cup of water or chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until the lentils had fallen apart.

7. While the lentils are simmering, pat the tofu dry. Heat 1 tbs. of vegetable oil in a skillet, and bring to the smoking point. Add the cubed tofu and cook until just turning golden on one side (about 1 min.). Then stir the tofu and cook for an additional 1 -2 minutes. *Alternately, you could leave the tofu uncooked until the last step. This will give the tofu a much softer, silky texture in the final dish. If you like your tofu firmer however, you should pre-cook it at least a bit. Once golden, drain on a paper towel.

8. When the lentils are done, take them off-heat and add the tofu. Stir it in, then let the dal sit, covered, for 5 minutes so that the flavors have a chance to blend.

9. Serve the dal over basmati rice, or the rice of your choice. Alternately, you can eat the dal as a hearty soup with some crusty bread or naan.




Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Salad of Warm Vegetables

Allow me a moment to ruminate on Spain, the fine and noble country where torture became art, the first novel was born, and where the ultimate culinary dichotomy - cold soup served with warm salad - was perfected. For these and for many other things, allow me to thank you, Spain... except for maybe the torture. We could have done without that.

Anyway, since I covered cold soup last week by making my first gazpacho, I figured I would tackle the other half of the equation by making a traditional warm vegetable salad. Let me emphasize that while this might not sound like a lot of food or look like a lot of food, oh-my-god, this salad is a lot of food. Just saying. Okay, so onto the the recipe.

Ingredients:
- 3/4 lb. ripe tomatoes, quartered and sliced into eighths.
- 3/4 lb. green bell peppers, sliced
- 3/4 lb. red bell peppers, sliced
- 1 small onion, roughly chopped into 1 in. chunks
- 1 -2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 4 - 5 slices of prosciutto or Serrano ham, proscuitto
- 3 -4 hard boiled eggs, sliced
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/8 cup red wine or sherry vinegar
- dash of cumin
- kosher or sea salt
- pepper
- 3 cups of arugula (optional)
Process:
1. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and coat with cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

2. Placed the tomatoes, red and green bell peppers and onion onto the baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring occassioanlly, until the peppers are the tiniest bit charred, the onions are gently browned and the tomatoes have softened but the skins are still intact. Remove from the oven and set aside.

3. While the veggies are cooling slightly, put the oil, vinegar, crushed garlic and cumin in a bowl and gently mix.

4. Put the veggies in a serving dish, along with the eggs, prosciutto and dressing. Gently toss. Serve the salad warm, alone or over arugula.

* This salad goes very well with a good chewy or grainy bread. I could even see serving it over pasta or rice, although then it would cease to be a salad, and it's ever so nice as a salad. Any way you decide to eat it, it's quick and filling and healthy. Just the thing to make you feel good.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Cold Comfort Lemon Chicken and Rice

James and I have a wee beastie of a bug - nothing bad enough to take us out, just bad enough to make us wish it would. So, when the breathing's bad and the lungs are achy and there's nothing to do but deal, a bowl of what James calls "Chicken Glop on Rice" really hits the spot. "Chicken Glop on Rice" can take may forms - Chicken Mushroom, Chicken Veggie, Chicken Something Else - but this one in particular is my mild-mannered favorite: Lemon Chicken and Rice.

While I would never call this dish bland, I would say that the recipe I'm posting is gentle. You can amp up the flavors by adding more onion and garlic, and an extra tablespoon of lemon juice at the end. You can even lower the ratio of rice to sauce and eat it as a thick chicken and rice soup. The variations are pretty extensive, so you can play around and make it your own whenever the craving for "Chicken Glop on Rice" strikes.

Adapted from a recipe posted on seriouseats.com by Blake Royer.

Ingredients:
- 4 chicken breasts, 1 1/2 - 2lbs., patted dry and cut into 1 in. chunks
- 2 tbs. butter
- 4 tbs. flour
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup milk or half-and-half
- 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
- juice of 1 lemon, 2 tbs. reserved
- zest from 1/2 a med. lemon, cut into strips
- 1 lg. clove of garlic, crushed
- 1 shallot, sliced thin
- 1 - 1 1/2 cup rice

Process:
1. Rinse the rice and cook it until tender. Set aside and keep warm.

2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium - low heat until the foam subsides. Add the garlic and cook only until fragrant - 30 sec. Add the flour and whisk it into the butter, breaking up any clumps, then quickly add the stock while whisking. Add the lemon zest, then bring to a boil, and simmer for 10 minutes, whisking occasionally.

3. Remove the zest with a wooden spoon, then add the milk, nutmeg, 2 tbs of lemon juice, and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, then simmer for an additional 5-10 minutes, until the sauce is creamy and thick. Off heat, add an additional tbs. of lemon juice (or more / less to taste). Set aside and keep warm on the lowest possible heat.

4. Season the chunks of chicken with fresh pepper, kosher salt and dill. Saute half of the chicken until it's cooked through, and looks nice and brown. Transfer it to a plate and tent with foil, then saute the rest of the chicken, and tent it with the rest.

5. While the chicken is resting, saute the shallots in a dab of butter until translucent but not browned. Add the shallots to the sauce. Then add the chicken and juices to the sauce. Stir and let the sauce simmer at very low heat for 1 or 2 minutes.

6. Put the rice into a serving bowl, and then the sauce into another. Spoon portions of rice into individual bowls and top with the chicken and sauce. This recipe makes enough for 4 hungry adults. Leftovers will keep in the fridge for a couple of days. Eat, enjoy and feel better :-)




Sunday, August 23, 2009

Miss Potter

And now, for a rare, non-food-related post. I saw the 2007 biopic, Miss Potter, last night and thought it so lovely that I just had to say something about it.

Miss Potter stars Renee Zelweggar as Beatrix Potter, the creator of Peter Rabbit, among others well-beloved characters such as Jemima Puddleduck and the Flopsy Bunnies.

I have always loved the Peter Rabbit books. Despite the beautiful, soothing watercolor illustrations, Beatrix Potter did not coddle her young readers. She used a challenging, but rhythmically perfect vocabulary, and didn't pull any punches about the dangers inherent in living. I don't think you could get a children's book published today in which the protagonist's father had an "accident" and was made into a pie by a farmer's wife - at least, not without a fight. Beatrix Potter respected her young readers and wrote directly to real children, not to an idealized adult vision of what children should be. For all of these reasons, I've always liked Beatrix Potter in a sort of abstract way. Plus, Nabakov is quoted as saying that "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" is a structurally perfect narrative, and damned if I don't think he's right.

The film, Miss Potter, only broadened my respect for Beatrix Potter. She was independent, quirky, whimsical and odd, but she also stuck to her principals with an amazing degree of insight and integrity. The film itself blends blends a realistic portrayal of its heroine with dashes of whimsey and subtle animation that serve to underscore Potter's unique vision.

Renee Zelweggar is completely charming as the eponymous Miss Potter, Ewan McGregor is lovely as Norman Warne, Miss Potter's first publisher, and Emily Watson is delightful as his sister, Millie. Everything about the movie is gentle and warm, but with an air of not glossing over difficulties, much like Miss Potter's own work.

Miss Potter was a quiet, joyful, poignant little film, one I think I would like to own, which is saying something for me. It was lovely to watch and to learn more about the woman who gave us Peter Rabbit, the children's book character that almost instantly became an icon.

Sopa de Almenda, or Spanish Almond Custard

I *love* this stuff. I found the recipe on Penelope Casa's book, La Cocina de Mama, in the dessert section under the title "Pepita's Almond Soup." It isn't soup though - not really. It's a rich almond custard, similar in consistency to rice pudding, except velvety and smooth. It's absolutely delicious and a cinch to make. It can be eaten on it's own with a garnish of toasted almonds, or served over a slice of plain dense cake (I just served it with pieces of Nigella's Breton Gato - very rich and good.) It can even be eaten with slices of fresh fruit (figs and plums would be especially nice.)

One thing - if you aren't mad about cinnamon, use one stick, not two. I like the balance and warmth two sticks give the custard, but James doesn't like cinnamon so much, so I'll probably lower the dosage next time I make it, because I love him so :-)

Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb. blanched, toasted almonds
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 4 cups milk (I used 2 cups whole, and 2 cups 2% and it worked out well)
- Zest of 1/2 a med.-lg. lemon, cut into strips
- 2 cinnamon sticks

Process:
1. In a food processor, pulse the almonds and the sugar together until the mixture is very fine. .

2. In a saucepan, bring the milk, cinnamon and zest to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 min.

3. Add the almond / sugar mixture and return to a boil.

4. Reduce the heat and simmer until the mixture is the consistency of thick custard, about 5ish minutes give or take. When it coats the back of a metal spoon pretty thickly, it's done.

5. Take the mixture off heat and let it cool.

6. When the mixture is at room temp., remove the cinnamon sticks and zest. Then pass the mixture through a fine mesh strainer, pressing it with the back of a metal spoon or ladle to extract as much liquid as possible.

7. Serve the custard chilled or at room temp. It's lovely in little white ramekins with a sprinkle of toasted almonds on top. You can also spoon it over the pastry of your choice or put it in goblets with fruit like a Spanish zabaglione. Delicious.

Gazpacho Andaluz

I never liked gazpacho as a kid. Gazpacho is a traditional cold tomato soup with regional variations all over Spain. The most well-known in the States is a puree of fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, bread and cucumbers. How could this go wrong, one might ask. Well, it can. If you make it with canned bread crumbs and tinned tomatoes, as most American recipes suggest, it isn't very good - sort of gritty and metallic. It also tends to separate, which makes the texture even less appealing.

Given that I'd never had a gazpacho that I liked, it was with a certain lack of enthusiasm that I decided to make it. Honestly, I never would have if I hadn't had two pounds of tomatoes that really needed using. So, I went rummaging through a cookbook my mom has given me about three years ago, La Cocina de Mama by Penelope Casas. I'd never cooked from Ms. Casas excellent book, not because the recipes didn't look wonderful, but because I don't cook Spanish food. My grandmother cooks the Spanish food in the family, and so does my mother, to a slightly lesser degree. There is no need for me to cook Spanish food, so I haven't. But with two pounds of ripe tomatoes yelling at me from the fridge, I cracked the book open and found the only recipe that called for that many desperately ripe tomatoes - gazpacho.

I was not thrilled.

Still, I fired up the food processor and made it anyway, and Oh, My God, it was good. Seriously. This gazpacho was delicious - velvety and smooth, without a trace of grit, tangy and creamy at the same time, super refreshing and oddly filling. It was magnificent. And so, I simply must share it with my two or three occasional readers :-)

A quick note: Like I said, gazpacho has a ton of regional variations - there's even one from Malaga that uses white grapes and almonds (which I will be trying out shortly). This one is from Andalusia and it's very close to what people typically think of as gazpacho. The only difference here is the omission of the cucumbers. If you really love or miss them, I'd suggest chopping some up in a fine dice and using them as a garnish on top. Resist the urge to add them to the soup as the balance of flavors is really already perfect.

Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 lbs. very ripe tomatoes, quartered
- 1 med - lg. garlic clove
- 1 med. red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
- One, 2 in. bread cube cut from a firm French or sourdough loaf, crusts removed
- 2 tbs. sherry vinegar (if you don't have sherry vinegar, red wine vinegar will do. Don't use balsamic, it's too overwhelming)
- 2 tsp. kosher or sea salt
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- a dash of pimenton (Spanish paprika), optional
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1/2 cup mild extra-virgin olive oil

Process:
1. Place half the tomatoes in the bowl of a food processor with the garlic, pepper, bread, vinegar, salt, cumin, paprika (if using), and sugar. Blend until no large pieces remain.

2. With the processor running, add the remaining tomatoes one or two chunks at a time.

3. When everything is well blended, slowly drizzle in the oil. Beat until it's as smooth as possible.

4. Pour the soup into a large bowl. Using a food mill or hand-held blender, blend the soup until there are absolutely no solids and it has a velvety texture. This is a purely "to taste" step - if you like chunkier gazpacho, skip this step and move onto step 5.

5. Chill the soup for at least 3 hours. It can be refrigerated overnight, and I think it tastes better if it does - the rest gives all of the flavors a chance to mellow out and blend together. Before serving, taste and adjust salt and vinegar to taste. If the soup is too thick, slowly add a bit of ice water to thin to the consistency you prefer. Serve it in bowls with a garnish of bell peppers (or cucumber) or nothing at all. Buen Provecho!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Homemade Pesto Pizza

I had some arugula pesto left over from earlier this week - not really enough for pasta or rice, but too much to waste, so I decided to use it on pizza. This is another one of those things that's so easy, I'm not going to bother with the recipe. Here's what you do:

1. Get a bag of fresh pizza dough. I use Trader Joe's - it comes in wheat, regular and garlic herb and all three a very nice.

2. Preheat the oven to 500 with an empty metal cookie sheet set on the middle rack. Meanwhile, flour a piece of parchment paper that is roughly the size of the cookie sheet. Spread the pizza dough over it until it roughly covers the whole thing. Poke shallow holes in it with a fork and set aside.

3. When the oven is at temp., pull out the cookie sheet and slide the parchment paper and pizza dough onto it. Pop it into the oven for 4-ish minutes, or until the dough has started to rise and bubble.

4. Pull the pizza dough out. Poke any bubbles with a fork and slather it with the pesto. Follow that up with parmesan or a bit of shredded smoked mozzarella, some roasted or sauteed cherry tomatoes, and a bit of fresh mint. Sprinkle black pepper and sea salt over the top and pop it back into the oven until the top is starting to get golden brown. About 6-ish minutes.

5. Pull the pizza out of the oven and let it sit for a minute or two - that sucker's going to be *hot*. Then cut it up into about 8 pieces with a pizza cutter and enjoy. The whole thing takes about 20 minutes from start to finish, depending on what toppings you want to use.

Other options include:
parmesan, ground beef and corn
parmesan, sauteed or fresh mushrooms and shallots
prosciutto and roasted red peppers with the cheese of your choice

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Summer Pesto pf Arugula, Mint and Lemon

This is another one of those alternative, non-basil pestos that I'm really digging right now. It's best with ingredients that are at their freshest, but I suspect it'll makable and delicious even in winter... at least in mild-wintered California.

This recipe is just for sauce. I got it from 101 Cookbooks, Heidi Swanson's fantastic vegetarian food blog. I adjusted the recipe to taste, but it is essentially unchanged.

Heidi pairs this slightly spicy pesto with wheat berries, which I definitely need to track down and try, but it pairs really well with pasta (of course), cous cous, Israeli cous cous, lentils and even brown rice. You can use it in warm or cold dishes, although it's surprisingly refreshing cold with it's creamy, greeny-lemon flavor. I put it together in a pasta salad with tomatoes and cucumbers and it was delicious, but I'm looking forward to trying it in other dishes. It is very thick, so if you do use it with pasta, reserve some of the cooking water to help thin it a bit to coat your noodles.

And now, without further ado, Summer Pesto of Arugula, Mint and Lemon!

Ingredients:
- 1 med. garlic clove
- 2/3 cups pine nuts or roasted slivered almonds ( I used almonds because I loves them)
- 2 1/2 - 3 cups arugula, loosely packed
- 1/3 cup loosely packed mint
- 1/2 fresh Parmesan cheese, grated
- 2 big pinches of salt
- 1 generous tbs. fresh lemon juice
- 1/3 cup olive oil

Process:

1. Place all of the ingredients, except for the olive oil, into the bowl of a food processor and whirl to a paste - about 1 minute or so.

2. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and whirl again, slowly drizzling in the olive oil. Continue to while until very well incorporated - about another minute.

3. Taste and adjust salt and lemon to taste. Enjoy!

* If you're going to make it ahead of time, just pop it in the fridge in an air tight container. Let it come to room temp before adding it to your starch or legume. This is mostly for your convenience - the stuff is thick, not quite as thick as guacamole, but very thick. It will coat your food more easily at room temp.

*If you want to thin it, slowly add hot water or reserved pasta cooking water until it's at your preferred consistency.



Sunday, August 16, 2009

Hufflepuffs

Hufflepuffs are the name that James has given to the little almond puff -pastry pastries that I made on Friday night. They are lovely and addictive and very versatile - you can make them with roasted almond slivers, chocolate, dried cherries, even jam - and they are so easy that I'm not going to even post the recipe. All you do, is this:

1. Decide whether or not you feel like making puff-pastry dough from scratch or if you want to you frozen. If you want to make it from scratch, I really recommend Julia Child's recipe or the one tested by America's Test Kitchen. If you want to use frozen, go with Pepperidge Farm's - it's really good, especially in a pinch. Whichever you decide, roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/8 of an inch and cut it into 1 in. x 2 in. rectangles.

2. Wash the top of your rectangles in egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Then put your almond slivers or dried fruit or chocolate chips / chunks on top.

3. Pop them onto a baking sheet and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for eight minutes. After eight minutes, turn off the oven and open the door slightly. Let them hang out in there for another five minutes to dry them out a bit (it'll prevent sogginess), then pull them out and let them cool on a rack.

Stored in an airtight container, the Hufflepuffs will stay fresh for a day or two. If they start to get a little stale or spongy, pop them back into the oven at 400 for 3-5 minutes. Then let them hang out with the oven off and the door ajar for another 3-5 minutes.

There's lots of room to play around with variations. The pound of puff pastry dough used makes *a lot* of them, so they make an awesome last minute dessert too. They all do great in a pinch when you just absolutely must have a lovely, homemade treat Right Now. :-)

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Julie & Julia

James took me to see Julie & Julia this week-end, and I have only one thing to say.

It's lovely.

Julie & Julia is lovely and charming and so feel-goodable, which is not my normal thing, but it was so delightful that it was almost impossible to be cynical about it. Amy Adams was good as the insufferable yet adorable protagonist, the guy that plays her supportive, long suffering husband was lovely, Stanley Tucci was wonderful as Paul Child, and Meryl Streep was genuinely fantabulous as Julia Child.

One thing that I especially liked about the film, and I admit that this is a bit random, was that all of the men, from Julie's husband to Paul Child to Julia Child's instructor at the Cordon Bleu, were all portrayed as generally amiable, supportive men. Any nastiness portrayed in the movie was done by women, to women, and while this is nothing to celebrate per se, it was good to see men portrayed nicely in a movie written for a predominantly female audience.

I'm very glad we spent the money to see Julie & Julia in the theater, and I'm very glad I went with James, my own wonderful, supportive husband. It was a lovely date movie, and I even got something out of it culinarily: I now have a serious ambition to learn how to de-bone a duck.

Tomato Almond Pesto

So, lots of folks don't realize that pesto comes in more than just one color. While creamy green basil, pine nut, parmesan stuff has become the figurehead of pestos , there are a bunch of really delicious regional variations that should be checked out. For example: Sicilian fresh tomato almond pesto!

This pesto is super easy and quick to make, provided you have a food processor or a good blender. If you tried to make it the traditional way - in a mortar and pestle - it would still be super easy, but maybe not so quick. The sauce still has basil in it, but the basil is balanced in this case by fresh sweet tomatoes and toasted almonds, which gives it a really creamy depth of flavor. The recipe I used it from the almost-never-fails magazine, Cook's Illustrated, which is famous for printing recipes only after they've been tested a bajillian times. I followed this one pretty much to the letter, and let me tell you, the sauce that resulted was so good I was ready to eat it up like soup. And so now, for your cooking and eating enjoyment, an alternative to the pesto we all think of.... Sicilian Tomato Almond Pesto! Yum!

Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup slivered almonds
- 12 oz. cherry or grape tomatoes
- 1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves
- 1 med. garlic clove (size can be adjusted depending on how much you like garlic)
- 1 small pepperoncini or 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes & 1/2 tsp. red wine vinegar
- salt
- 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 lb. pasta (they recommend linguini or spaghetti, but I used whole wheat rotini and it was great)
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated or shredded

Process:

1. Toast the almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until fragrant. About 2-4 min. Cool to room temp.

2. Put well salted pasta water on to boil.

3. Put the almonds, tomatoes, basil, pepperoncini 0r red pepper flakes / red wine vinegar, garlic and 1 tsp of salt into the food processor and blend until smooth. About 1 min.

4. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Then, with the machine running, drizzle in the olive oil until it's blended. About 30 sec.

5. Once pasta is boiled, drain it, reserving 1/2 cup of liquid, then put it back into the pot. Add the pesto and 1/2 cup Parmesan to the pasta, adding a bit of pasta cooking water if necessary, just until the sauced coats the pasta well. Serve immediately.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

New Review

There's a new book up on The Foggy Foot Review. Gasp! I know - two in two weeks and the month's only just begun. This one's for The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill. Check it out if you have the chance - the review, not the book. The book was, sadly, not quite worth reading.... See? Now I'm giving things away... :-)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

NIgella's Breton Gato

The recipe for this cake is in Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. You'll find it not under "Breton Gato" but "Gateau Breton", but "Gateau" (which is French for cake) sounds so much like "Gato" (which is Spanish for cat), that I couldn't resist tweaking the name. That's about all I tweaked though, save for adding a little vanilla extract, a little almond extract, and baking it in a different sized springform pan (she calls for a 10 in. pan, and I have a 9 in.)

This cake is delicious. Sort of across between a big shortbread cookie and a vanilla poundcake. We ate it over at my folks house with vanilla ice cream, but it would be just as good alone, or with heavy cream, or even raspberry coulis. The only other thing I'll say is this: Use Really Good Butter. You taste the butter in this cake the way you taste it in shortbread, so it's worth it to splurge and use good, fresh stuff. I put a brick of KerryGold, which is Irish-style cream butter, into this and it worked really well, but any good butter will do.

Ingredients:

- For the Cake-
- 1 1/2 cups cake flour
- 3/4 cup plus 1 tbs. sugar
- 1 cup plus 2 tbs. unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- 6 large egg yolks
-t tsp. vanilla extract
-1/4 tsp. almond extract

* 9 inch springform pan, well buttered.

-For the Glaze-
- 1 tsp. egg yolk, for the six above
-1 tbs. water

Process:
1. Preheat the oven to 375. You'll use the middle rack.
2. Mix the glaze and put it aside.
3. Put the dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Without running the mixer, add in the butter, egg yolks, vanilla and almond extracts.
4. With the dough-hook attachment, slowly mix until the dough is smooth and golden. Don't over-mix, but it should all be pretty uniformly incorporated.
5. With well-floured hands, spread the dough into the springform pan. The dough is going to be really sticky. Once the top is smooth and even, baste the top with the egg/water glaze (not too much) and score the top in a wide lattice pattern.
6. Pop it into the oven for 15 min.
7. After 15 min., lower the temp to 350 and continue to bake for 25 minutes or so, until it's golden and firm to the touch.
8. Let the cake cool completely in the pan. Once cool, unmold it and serve! You can keep leftovers pretty well for 3-5 days if it's well-sealed, although I doubt that it'll last that long!