For beef chili, you only need one good recipe to be reliable for game day, a rainy afternoon, or feeding a crowd with ease, and it's long been on my list of dishes to master. I haven't actually made a lot of chili before this one, but since Cook's Illustrated is known for meticulously testing their recipes, I knew it would be a good place to start.
It turns out that gelato drowned in espresso serves a wonderfully practical purpose in my kitchen. And we really should discuss the name for a moment. Affogato, "to drown," is a lovely idea. Espresso poured over chilled gelato pools at the bottom of your glass, only to be swirled onto your spoon with a dollop of freshly whipped cream. It's such a satisfying bite.
Now, to the espresso. I have this gift of a problem, really. Over the past two years, my husband has become a talented, live-in barista. We have the espresso machine, the burr grinder, and he's mastered the golden crema. All that's missing is latte art, his current project, which is really just bells and whistles. Our weekend mornings always begin with latte's (mine with a touch of vanilla) and a long conversation. It's a perfect coffee shop experience for two. That's the problem. For two.
Cooking has certainly changed throughout the years. My Great Depression-era great-grandmother managed to cook for 13 people everyday from her stocked cellar using only fresh ingredients, yet her eldest son's wife, my grandmother, sometimes added a can of Ragu to her pasta sauce. This, in a span of less than 50 years. So when you feature ingredients that have an even longer history, that have been providing nutrition to civilizations through peace and war and echo of another time, it's compelling to be in this mindset when cooking with them today.
Just look at all that butter. I could have opted to share a more reserved photo, like the finished tart, or all the lemons turned sideways on the counter (see below), but I wanted to cut straight to the heart of what makes this tart so incredible. It's butter, my friends, and lots of it.
One of the cookbook's that came under the tree this year was Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours, and I can't believe it took me this long to get my hands on it. I read through it quickly, marking all the treats I wanted to make with translucent red post-it notes, but the first dessert that leaped off the page at me was this French lemon tart.
Meyer lemons are in season during the winter, and although the recipe doesn't specify a type of lemon, I used Meyer's and couldn't have been happier. To experience the best contrast in textures, Dorie suggests adding the filling to a room temperature tart shell just before serving. I did this, and can see why it would be recommended, but it's also important for me to share that I had a slice the following day, after it had been in the fridge for 24 hours, and it was still mighty delicious. Further to this point, one of Andrew's friends came over four days later and finished off the last piece for us, giving rave reviews to both the filling and crust.
THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY FRENCH LEMON CREAM TART
If the name of this tart doesn't peak your interest, consider the butter. In her cookbook, Dorie explains that while the filling shares the same ingredients with lemon curd, its preparation makes thins extra velvety yet incredibly light. In a curd, all the ingredients are cooked together, but for this special filling, butter is added in the blender and emulsifies, creating the light texture you'll soon be very smitten with.
1 cup sugar
Grated zest of 3 lemons
4 large eggs
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 sticks plus 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces, at room temperature
1 9-inch tart shell (link to recipe follows)
Special equipment: an instant-read thermometer, a strainer, and a blender
Put the sugar and zest in a large heatproof bowl that can be set over a pan of simmering water. Off the heat, rub the sugar and zest together between your fingers until fragrant. Whisk in the eggs, followed by the lemon juice.
Set the bowl over the pan and start stirring with a whisk as soon as the mixture feels tepid to the touch. Cook the lemon cream until it reaches 180 degrees F. As you whisk--you must whisk consistently to keep the eggs from scrambling--you'll notice that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger, and then, as it gets closer to 180 degrees F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks.
As soon as it reaches 180 degrees F, remove the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of the blender. Discard the zest. Let the cream stand, stirring occasionally, until it cools to 140 degrees, about 10 minutes.
Turn the blender on high and, with the machine running, add the butter about 5 pieces at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed as you incorporate the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going. To achieve the perfect light and airy texture, you must continue to blend the cream for an additional 3 minutes.
Pour the cream into a container, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface to create and airtight seal and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. (The cream will keep in the fridge for 4 days.)
When you are ready to assemble the tart, whisk the cream to loosen it and spoon it into the tart shell. Serve the tart, or refrigerate until needed.
SWEET TART DOUGH
To make the Sweet Tart Dough, see Dorie's recipe on her website.
Many amazing meals come from the simplest of ingredients. Mirepoix, the French name for a combination of onions, carrots and celery, is the foundation of this soup, and along with some garlic, lentils, and potatoes to thicken everything up, the ingredient list doesn't include anything extraordinary. I love that about soup.
This was the last meal I cooked before heading back to work in the new year. It was a rainy Sunday, and Andrew and I spent the day watching movies, taking down Christmas decorations and grazing on what was left from our New Year's Eve dinner.
I don't make a habit out of dining in chain restaurants, but I do indulge in my occasional guilty pleasures, including the Passion Fruit Mojito at Cheesecake Factory and rosemary bread at Macaroni Grill. The latter is something I've had a hard time resisting in the past. On the occasions I've had dinner there, I usually ordered only an appetizer since my main obsession was the bread that came to our table.
One of my New Year's Resolutions is to eat more fish, so it's fitting we begin one of the early posts of 2011 with a golden brown piece of halibut from Thomas Keller. Fish is something I love to eat but I typically fall into one of three categories: 1) I forget to buy it fresh when I go to the store; 2) I don't know how to cook it properly; 3) I don't want it smelling up my kitchen so I order it when we go out to dinner instead.
I have a lot of quinoa in my pantry, and last year you saw me make quite a bit with it, including salads and burgers. But instead of relying on some of my old favorites, I wanted to try something different to kick off 2011. I had a recipe from Susan Feniger for quinoa fritters, which are similar to latkes, just without potato. I really liked the sound of them, but wanted to add a few more nutrients to the bowl. Or, I wanted to clean out my fridge and finally find a use for all the carrots I'd been saving up. Either way, I served the fritters topped with an herbed yogurt sauce, and the result was a crispy, tasty, filling meal. I love when kitchen experiments turn out well.
It's a new year. Are you the kind of person that makes lofty resolutions that are impossible to keep? Or, do you prefer smaller milestones, like resolving to eat dessert once a week instead of twice? I'm in the latter category, mostly because I find myself frustrated by goals that seem too difficult to reach.
Our New Year's traditions are pretty simple, and I love that. Typically we stay in, dress up, cook a fancy dinner, and reflect on the year. We also set some resolutions, about ten each, to help us focus on what our priorities are. One of my resolutions for 2011 is to incorporate more whole grain flours into my baking.
I already eat a lot of whole grains. Quinoa, barley, and farro are a few of my favorites. I've also switched exclusively to whole grain pasta. In the December issue of Whole Living, they wrote a feature on Kim Boyce, author of Good to the Grain, and reprinted several of her recipes. I was surprised (though I shouldn't have been), at how appealing they all were, especially these whole wheat chocolate chip cookies that have been very popular in the food blog world, and with good reason. You'll find the increase of brown sugar, as well as the whole wheat flour, really adds a deeper flavor, a bit like caramel. If you're not convinced already, give them a try and this might become your new favorite cookie.
WHOLE-WHEAT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Recipe by Kim Boyce, Whole Living (December 2010)
Makes about 3 dozen
Ingredients
Dry Mix
3 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Wet Mix
8 ounces (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl.
Add butter and sugars to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low speed, mix until just blended, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until just combined. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture to bowl and blend until flour is just combined, about 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add chocolate all at once to batter. Mix on low until chocolate is evenly combined. Scoop mounds of dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving two inches between each cookie. Bake cookies for 16-20 minutes, until cookies are evenly brown, rotating halfway through.
Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and repeat with remaining dough. Cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Easy dinner alert! I almost forgot to tell you about this recipe because it's just so simple. In fact, you hardly need a recipe at all. It's one of those clean-out-the-vegetable-bowl kinds of dinners, because you can really roast whatever vegetables you have in the kitchen. It might be just what you're looking for in the days after Christmas when you need something easy to put on the table.
Stuffing is without a doubt my favorite part of any holiday meal. In fact, it's one of the few dishes I'll eat even if it's made from a box. But as easy as it is to add water and fluff with a fork, I also love experimenting with new flavors. This year, I added chestnuts to a leek and mushroom stuffing I was craving shortly after Thanksgiving. When combined with lots of fresh herbs, it makes for a very hearty side dish with earthy appeal.
My first camping trip was at six weeks old, which of course I have no recollection of, but since we camped nearly every summer until I was about 13 I had plenty of time to make memories. Some of my earliest food memories are of waking up in Yosemite or Malibu and having pancakes before heading out on a hike or bike ride. My mom even put a candle in a stack of pancakes on my dad's birthday.
We had pancakes a lot growing up, but they always tasted best outdoors with the smell of last night's fire nearby. I'm a cereal for breakfast kind of girl these days, but on the weekends when I want to indulge, I always crave pancakes, though until now, I didn't have quite the right recipe.
Andrew and I have a joke that we're always in the mood for Mexican food. If we can't decide what we feel like for dinner, one of us inevitably suggests burritos or chile rellanos, and then we consider the tortilla chips and salsa alongside, maybe a margarita, and suddenly we're salivating and heading to our nearest taco stand.
Beans aren't fancy or complicated, but lately they've excited me to the point that I'm frequently planning dishes around them. Over the summer is was my patio salad with white beans and basil croutons, refreshing and light for the warm weather. During the winter, black bean soup is a favorite, and now, I've added pinto beans to the pantry.
I've finally adjusted to the time change. It's taken a few weeks, as it usually does, because my mind just doesn't like the darkness. I have to gently nudge myself into the shorter days and remind myself how relaxing it is to snuggle on the couch watching a movie, or doing a puzzle on a rainy Saturday afternoon. The time change also means the holidays are here. Speaking of holidays, I hope you all have a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. It's hard to believe December is nearly here, and before we know it we'll be clinking champagne glasses together ringing in the new year.
For my sweet creation at Battle Apple, I made apple crumb cake with cinnamon whipped cream. To earn points for plating, I cut each piece with a biscuit cutter to give the edges some design. The other reason, selfishly, was so Andrew and I could save the scraps to eat as a snack the next day.
Last weekend I participated in Battle Apple, a modified version of Iron Chef that gave a group of college friends a great excuse to cook and spend time together. Of course, we made some modifications to the rules since it was completely unrealistic for all of us to be cooking simultaneously with no prior knowledge of the ingredients.
In fact, cooking was the easy part. It was nailing down a date that worked for everyone that proved most challenging! We each brought one savory and one sweet dish (although after the sugar comas that ensued, we're reconsidering an all-savory battle for the next one). Here's how we played the game, as well as the recipe for my savory dish, Apple and Cheddar Tarts.
'Tis the season of dinner parties, office parties and holiday cheer. If you're like me, your calendar is already starting to fill up with various activities that might leave you scrambling for last minute gifts. When it comes to edible tokens of appreciation, I love nuts because they're easy to make in large batches, and typically keep their freshness for a while. If you're looking for a hostess or Christmas gift, or want to treat your colleagues to something salty and sweet, these are it. They have everything you need in one bite: salty, sweet, a touch of spice, and the warmth of the rosemary truly celebrates the late fall weather. Cheers!
After a few weeks of meat-filled gluttony, we're vegetarians again, at least temporarily. You know my philosophy about how we eat better quality meat and poultry less often, and we'd recently spoiled ourselves with steak fajitas, grilled chicken with peach barbecue sauce, and flank steak with rosemary olive oil. My oh my, it was good.
But I wanted to take a little break from the red meat, and this recipe was the perfect opportunity. It immediately called my name when I flipped to it in October's Everyday Food. It looked hearty, satisfying, and healthy. Nevermind that meat doesn't make an appearance. I had a log of goat cheese in the fridge, so I substituted that for the feta. Thyme is especially wonderful with the mushrooms, but I'd imagine rosemary would be delicious as well, if you already have it on hand.
In his own words, my dad is a simple man. He likes instant coffee with lots of cream, his reclining chair at a certain angle, and muscle cars. He's also a big fan of classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting. For a recent lunch, I invited my parents over to catch up about my trip to Europe, and it happened to land on the two year anniversary of my dad's cancer surgery (he's now healthy and cancer free). So, of course, we needed a cake to celebrate.
I love when recipes take me by surprise, like this one did. I was perusing cookbooks at Borders during my lunch break and ran across a recipe for quinoa with pumpkin. This was seconds before I needed to step out and head back to the office, so I didn't stay and finish reading the recipe. On the walk back, I thought about those two ingredients and what else I might add to the dish.