There's a Pancake Day?

Never in my life have I heard of Pancake Day. It was today, apparently, and I unwittingly participated. For lunch, I made Jennifer Reese's recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes (pg 52 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter), because I needed to use up some buttermilk before it went bad.

Conclusion: Pancakes make me happy. All pancakes. These were good. Liked them.

When I think of Indian food, I never think of seafood. Maybe I'm too distracted trying to choose between saag or biryani when I read the menu that I don't notice it, or maybe the restaurants I've been to haven't served seafood. Regardless, I'm intrigued by the seafood section in Indian Cooking.

Dinner was Shrimp with Zucchinis (pg 118). The sauce was tomato based, which was a departure from other dishes I've made. Honestly, this one was unmemorable. I enjoyed it well enough while I was eating it, but an hour later, I can't remember much about it.

Conclusion: I'm going to call this one just okay. It did have a lot of veggies in it, so that was good, but it's not the most delicious thing ever.

We finished up our cucumbery yogurt, so I made a new yogurt accompaniment: Yogurt with Eggplant (pg 212). The eggplant offers no flavor, but a nice, softly chunky texture. This is seasoned with salt, pepper, scallions, mint, and a bit of cayenne. The flavor is mild. The effect is of a creamy side dish, vs. the sense of refreshment I got from the cucumber one.

Conclusion: Liked it.

A Few Lovelies

I'm a few days late finishing up How to Eat. Woops. I lost track of the month. Oh well. I got two Charlie-Approved meat dishes out of it, so the extra few days were worth it.

The Chicken Patties (pg 439) from the "Feeding Babies and Small Children" section did not come out remotely how I expected them to, which is probably a good thing. I thought it would be a version of a cafeteria chicken patty, which, I'm ashamed to admit, I always loved. I'd probably think it was vile if I tasted one now, but in third grade, those things were awesome.

Gorgeous.

Nigella's starts with blitzing boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the food processor. She says you can substitute ground turkey, so I did, because it's easier, and I had a pound in the freezer from my handy local good-to-the-animals meat farm. Mix it up with pork sausage, nutmeg, bread crumbs, and parsley, make patties, and fry in a bit of oil. I used the whole package of ground breakfast sausage, because I wasn't sure how much the required two links would equate to. So, these tasted like breakfast sausage, which is to say that they were delicious. I made slider-sized patties, and Charlie gobbled his right up. Which reminds me, I have to throw the leftovers in the freezer so that I don't burn him out on them.

Conclusion: Liked it, and Charlie Approved.

One thing I've learned from this month with Nigella is that, under specific circumstances, Charlie will eat a drumstick. If I put the drumstick on his plate with the rest of his dinner, he won't touch it. However, if he climbs on Matt's lap--not mine, only Matt's--and Matt tries to take a bite of his own drumstick, Charlie will take and eat that one. Perhaps not the best etiquette, but we're just happy to see protein going into him. With this in mind, I made The Tenderest Chicken (pg 315). Chicken pieces marinate for 8+ hours in buttermilk, soy sauce, garlic, and mustard. When you're ready to cook, you wipe them down, then brush them with melted butter mixed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It just tastes like roast chicken, and it was, indeed, quite tender. I poured the leftover butter solution on fresh brussel sprouts and roasted them in the stove with the drumsticks. Best brussel sprouts ever.

Conclusion: Liked it, and Charlie Approved. I'm not the hugest drumstick fan, but I'll be making them regularly, since boy-o will eat them.

Twice this week, I re-tested the Yogurt (pg 46) from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, paying much closer attention to the temperature of the milk. I'm now certain that, the first time I tried this, I let my milk cool too much before stirring in the bit of live-culture yogurt. These two times, after an overnight rest in the oven, I opened the oven door in the morning, and voila! Yogurt. Warm yogurt, but yogurt nonetheless. I was reprimanded throughout childhood every time I left the milk carton on the counter, so I do psychologically grimace at the thought of letting it sit all night, but it's worth it. The flavor is nicer, without that sharp edge that can be in store-bought plain yogurt, plus, I'm no longer beholden to Fage. Even using organic milk, it's cheaper to make my own than buy Fage. I haven't actually strained the yogurt to make Greek-style yet, but I will.

Conclusion: Love it. It's simple, it's cheaper than store-bought, it tastes good, and I find myself eating more of it because I made it.

I ran out of peanut butter, so I made Reese's recipe. All you do is blitz peanuts and a bit of peanut oil in the food processor until you have the texture you want. Jennifer says to make it thinner than you think it needs to be, because it will firm up in the fridge. This was true. My one qualm is that she says homemade peanut butter is 80 percent the price of Jif. Maybe peanuts are just expensive in Texas, but my jar of peanuts cost nearly the same as the natural peanut butter I usually buy. A huge Costco-sized box of peanuts would be cheaper, I'd think, but the only container I could find was not.

Conclusion: Liked it, but I doubt I'll make it regularly. It costs the same here, so it's not worth the added step of pulsing it myself.

Lastly, Matt and I had date night last night, in which our friend took Charlie away for hours, and we cooked awesome filet mignon and mashed potatoes, drank wine, etc. Fun times. I planned to make creme brulee for dessert, but forgot to add the ingredients to Matt's grocery list, so I couldn't. Searching for a similar replacement that wouldn't require another trip to the store, I landed on Vanilla Cup Custard from Dorie Greenspan's Baking. All it needs is milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and some almond extract. Easy. Unfortunately, this tasted very eggy. Neither one of us was impressed, and Charlie only picked at his. We kept thinking up fruit sauces that would mask the egginess, which doesn't speak well of the custard's flavor.

Conclusion: Just okay.

Damn Hippies

As I threw together Jennifer Reese's Granola (pg 44-45 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter), I self-righteously grumbled about how many extraneous calories are racked up by all the butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, and shredded coconut, compared to Ellie Krieger's version. Yes, there are certainly many calories here. Oh my lord, though. In terms of flavor, it blows Ellie out of the water. (Sorry, Ellie). This granola is addictive. It has a delightful salty/sweet element to it. It cooked for over an hour at a pretty low temp, so it turned gold without coming anywhere close to burning.

Conclusion: Loved it. Deeeeelicious.

With granola, one needs yogurt (pg 46). Reese's recipe seemed straightforward enough. Heat milk to almost-boiling, then let it cool until it's warm. Mix in some live-culture yogurt and let it sit overnight in a warm place. Supposedly, the next day, you have yogurt. I had milk.

Ew.

I want to try this one more time before I judge. I suspect I may have allowed it to cool too much to activate the cultures. I definitely won't be wasting money on organic milk again until I know it works, though.

With an abundance of granola on hand, I couldn't resist baking Granola Grabbers (pg 82) from Dorie Greenspan's Baking. These cookies throw calories on Reese's granola's calories. You add more coconut, more nuts, more butter, more brown sugar. Yummmmm. The cookies merge soft cookie with crisp granola, so it's chewy and crunchy. GENIUS!

Conclusion: I like them, but Charlie LOVES them. Score!

Now, back to Nigella. Cambodian Hot-and-Sour Beef Salad (pg 385 of How to Eat) was not-so-great. Strips of steak are stirred about in a mixture of fish sauce, lime juice, shugar, chilies, shallot, and mint, then dumped on lettuce. It was fine, but not very interesting.

Conclusion: Just okay. Salad needs to be really flavorful to make me eat it. I didn't finish my serving.

Fortunately, tonight's dinner ore than made up for it. One-Pan Chicken (pg 360) is just what it says. I used drumsticks instead of a whole chicken (cut up). Salt the chicken, chunks of red onion and red pepper, baby potatoes, unpeeled garlic then drizzle with olive oil and roast for a little under an hour.

Conclusion: Loved it, and Charlie actually ate an entire drumstick. Yay for protein!

Yums

Every recipe I've ever tried for Moules Mariniere (pg 126 of How to Eat) has been pretty much the same: mussels in a broth of wine, butter, garlic, shallots, parsley. Nigella's is just the same. Why mess with perfection? Every time I make this, I kick myself for not doing it more often.

Conclusion: Loved it.

Obviously, I needed bread to sop up all that lovely broth. Jennifer Reese's recipe for Everyday Bread (pg 8 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter) met my last-minute needs. No kneading necessary, this dough just gets stirred together and then left to proof in 2 loaf pans for two hours. After two hours, my dough had not risen much, so I turned on the oven for a minute, then put the pans in, and after a half hour, it had leveled with the pan. Huzzah!

This is a heartier loaf than I expected. Guess that's the wheat flour. Very dense, with a nice crust.

Conclusion: Liked it, and it's Charlie Approved.

I tried one more stewish Nigella recipe: Lamb and Bean Braise (pg 139 of How to Eat). I conclude that I do prefer lamb stews to beef. Matt thinks stew is a waste of lamb, and he thought there were too many beans. And he wanted to know what Nigella has against potatoes. (Nothing. The answer is nothing.) Oh well. I thought it was really tasty, and the beans absorbed much delicious broth (red wine and balsamic vinegar, with herbs and orange peel).

Conclusion: Liked it.

I count three chocolate puddings in How to Eat, so I simply had to make one. I went with the Gooey Chocolate Puddings (pg 169) recipe from the Fast Food section, as I am lazy, and I love the word "gooey."

This easy recipe produces a layer of cake on top of liquid chocolate goodness. Holy mother. Joy of joys, the recipe makes four ramekins, so we have two for dessert tomorrow. WORD!

Conclusion: Loved it.

Phew!

Charlie's birthday shenanigans have come and gone. A few good friends came. Cupcakes were eaten. Fun was had. I have mixed feelings on celebratory days. I resent the Navy for keeping us away from family, but I'm also so grateful for the friends that we make at each of our stations. The universal isolation forges surrogate families, and it makes me happy to see Charlie surrounded by people who love him, even if we're not related.

Earlier in the week, I made Kale with Chorizo and Poached Egg (pg 149 of How to Eat). This is a recipe that I wish I had on-hand back when Matt was out to sea for 7 months. When I'm by myself, I don't cook much. I hadn't discovered that I enjoyed cooking yet at that point, so I practically survived on cereal, eggs and toast, and english muffin pizzas. Lame. I like to think that if I had a recipe like this in my catalogue, I'd have eaten better. This took no effort, and was delicious.

Boil kale. Cook chorizo. Add kale to the cooked chorizo and mix it all up. Top with a poached egg.

Conclusion: Loved it. This is my new "Matt's out of town and I'm feeling lazy" dinner.

I baked Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake (pg 257 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking) for Charlie's birthday. Dorie says that this is a good choice, "whether you're celebrating your baby's first birthday or your great-grandfather's ninety-fifth." I disagree. This is an incredibly rich cake, which is not what I think of for a kid's birthday party. It was good, but every adult that tasted it took one bite, said, "Wow, that's good," and immediately followed it up with, "I need a drink." Charlie licked the icing off his fingers, and wanted nothing to do with the actual cake. Whattaya gonna do?

)

 Conclusion: Liked it, but it's not really a kid's cake.

I waste most buttermilk I buy. The cake needed a cup, so instead of buying yet another bottle, I used Jennifer Reese's recipe for homemade Buttermilk (pg 53 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter). Couldn't be easier. Vinegar + milk = buttermilk. Jennifer stipulates that this method works fine for baked goods, but that you should use fresh buttermilk for "buttermilk soup or a Southern buttermilk pie--or anything that relies heavily on buttermilk's unique satiny-rich-sour personality." For my general purposes, souring a cup of milk at a time will work just fine.

Conclusion: Loved it because it will reduce my enormous buttermilk waste.

Baked ziti was the main dish at Charlie's birthday party. I planned to buy ricotta cheese because of it's convenience, but I just couldn't do it when I saw the little 2 cup containers were SIX DOLLARS each.  Reese's recipe for Ricotta Cheese (pg 198 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter) involves a gallon of milk and some vinegar (two bucks and change), warmed on the stove, then left to sit for twenty minutes until curds form on top. Drain the curds for twenty minutes, and voila! Cheese.

 I was a little worried that it would be grainy, because the curds looked big to me, but it wasn't. I had a hard time refraining from eating the whole sweet batch with a spoon. It stayed creamy after being baked with the ziti, too.

I'm never buying ricotta again. We're all being defrauded by the dairy industry.

Conclusion: Loved it.

 Plus, the liquid left behind by the cheese is whey. Reese says to replace water with whey in bread and bagel recipes. I don't know what impact it has, but I'm going to find out. It keeps for ten days in the fridge, so I better get baking.

Eating my curds and whey.

Fish and Tomaters

Apparently, Nigella has a problem with combining fish and tomatoes. Not sure why. I've never minded the flavor combo. Two nights in a row, I'm flouting her preference.

Last night's Exceptional Salmon (pg 127 of How to Eat) was, in fact, exceptional. Matt declared it his favorite salmon of all time. This is coming from a man who loves salmon. That's one hell of an impressive introduction to Nigella.

Behold: the world's greatest salmon!

The recipe is simple, which is why I didn't expect to be blown away. All you do is cook bacon in a touch of oil, then sear both sides of the salmon in the bacon grease, turn down the heat, and cook it through. Move the fish to a plate and squeeze a lemon into the bacon grease. Use this as the dressing for the lettuce, bacon, and scallion (and I added tomato) salad that is to be served with the fish. That's it. The salmon browned beautifully without danger of burning, and the onioney, lemony, baconey flavors all worked perfectly together.

Conclusion: Loved it. Pleased to meet you, Nigella.

Tonight, I made Crab and Saffron Tart (pg 227). We froze the leftover crab meat from a week or two ago, so this seemed like a good idea. Turns out, it was a great idea.

Canned tomato that has been cooked down with garlic and herbs until it's thick is layered in the bottom of the tart shell. Crab meat is folded into a custard of saffron-infused heavy cream and egg yolks, poured into the shell, and baked. Matt brought nice saffron back from Bahrain, so I'm always on the lookout for good ways to use it that will do it justice. Apart from the multi-step process that always accompanies a partially baked crust, this came together without much fuss. According to Nigella, she is willing to overlook her distaste for tomato and fish in this dish because "everything melds so harmoniously, seductively together." I'll agree with that.

Conclusion: Loved it. It was not nearly as heavy as I expected it to be. Matt thinks it needs a sprinkling of gruyere on top, because clearly, gruyere makes everything better. Now I just have to remember that if I want to make it again, I have to look up the meal idea titled "Lunch, Tentatively Outside, for 8." If I cross that out and write in, "Dinner, Definitely Inside, for 2," at least I'll have written all over the page and will be able to spot it without too much trouble. 

I didn't bake a bread this weekend, so I decided to mix up my norm and bake Apricot-Ginger Bread (pg 14 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter). This is a no-knead recipe, but somehow it didn't work out right for me. The dough didn't rise, even after it sat overnight in the oven, which is where I usually let dough rest. I don't know what went wrong. The yeast was still active two weeks ago when I made brioche. Beats me. One thing I thought was weird was that she says to use cold water in the dough. I used warm, because I always thought that was necessary to get the yeast going. Maybe not following that one instruction bungled things up?

Regardless, I baked the bread anyway, even though it hadn't risen. I had to add some dates to mine, because I only had half as many apricots as I was supposed to.

When I checked on the bread at the low-end of the time frame provided, all of the apricots and dates that were poking out the top had burned.

 Those problems easily could be the result of flawed execution, rather than a flawed recipe. Still, I didn't really like the flavor. It was in a weird middle ground between being too gingery and not gingery enough, and the apricots and dates seemed mealy, where they weren't originally.

Conclusion: Dislike. Hopefully, everything looks up from here.

Wrapping Up and Up Next

This month flew by quite pleasantly, cooking-wise. There were some duds, but I'm happy with most of the recipes I've tried from Ellie Krieger's The Food You Crave. I wouldn't call it health food, but healthier food. She uses whole grains and lots of vegetables and puts the more caloric ingredients--cheese, nuts, etc--up front so that it's what your eye sees first. I've said before that this is one of my most-used cookbooks, and that statement stands. My old favorites (Macaroni with Four Cheeses, Roasted Pork Loin, Balsamic Chicken with Baby Spinach and Couscous) still hold up, and I've found some tasty new recipes to add into my rotation. I feel sufficiently detoxed from the holidays, and I think that the general greaselessness of Ellie's recipes helped.

I'm a little concerned that by not revisiting many of my perennial favorites, I may have provided a skewed impression of this cookbook's offerings. Over the years, I've tested many of the recipes that most enticed me, and haven't mentioned them here: Fish Tacos with Chipotle Cream? Amazing. Baked Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta? So good, and easy. Lemon Chicken Soup with Orzo? Cozy perfection.

I strongly recommend this book. I feel good cooking from it because the food is healthy, but don't feel deprived, like I'm cooking diet food. Some of the meals err on the side of bland, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with a tweaking of the spices.

For me, it's a keeper.

I've also decided to call it quits on David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert, primarily because I need to stop thinking about dessert so much. With this book on my mind, it's very difficult not to bake constantly, because everything looks delicious. The recipes are pretty flawless. I loved 11, I liked 14, and only 3 were just okay. I hated 1. Those are amazing results. I want to try plenty of more recipes in this book, but I'm too preoccupied with their deliciousness and need to shelve it. There's an entire ice cream section that I couldn't test out, because I don't own an ice cream machine. They look gooood, though.

If you like to bake, you need this book. If you know someone who likes to bake, you need to buy them this book. Without doubt, a keeper.

So, moving on.

This month, I'll focus on Nigella Lawson's How to Eat.

I love Nigella's easy attitude and her philosophy that cooking and good eating shouldn't be stressful. This particular book--her first--is a very annoying format. There's no organization, and huge chunks of text. I like a bit of personality in my cookbooks, but I don't want to scour chunks of text to find the recipe I want. Real recipes are titled in pink, but there are other recipes within pages of chatty essays that are identified by gray headings out in the margin. This book is hard on my eyes. It doesn't make me want to cook.

This book features a lot of stews and roasts. Cold weather food, in other words. I kept putting this book off because it's so hot here, but I've decided to explore it now, because I'm pretty sure this is as cold as it's going to get this winter. It's going to be 78 degrees tomorrow. Oy.

Also, I'm replacing Ready for Dessert in my long term projects with Jennifer Reese's Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook From Scratch.

Jennifer writes the wonderful blog The Tipsy Baker. I love her, and I mentally refer to her as "Tipsy." I'll try to refrain from calling her that here. In her book, she set out to determine what foods are worth making instead of buying, in terms of cost and difficulty. I've made it a long term project, because most of the recipes are for components, rather than whole meals. So, it's food like breads and cheeses and cured meats (I'm not sure I'm that brave. We'll see.), etc. There are some full recipes, but not many. Her book is funny, with essays about her adventures trying to raise chickens and goats and ducks. As opposed to Nigella's book, I don't mind the essays here, because everything is clearly sectioned out and labeled.

I'm excited to start. Yahoo!