A New Favorite

Wilted Spinach Salad with Feta, Olives, and Lemon Vinaigrette from Perfect Vegetables is so good that I've made it twice in the past week. Matt requested it the second time, and my friend who was over for dinner exclaimed "This salad is amazing!" Pretty high praise, all around. Quick question, though: should it be called a vinaigrette if it has no vinegar? Hmmmm.

From the title, I expected this to be like any other Greek salad. The key is that you sautee a shallot, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, and sugar in oil until the shallot is softened, and then swirl in some lemon juice. Pour the oil on the spinach, add olives and feta, and presto! I expected the spinach to wilt more, but I'm glad it didn't. It wilts just enough to not feel like you're eating raw spinach, but not so much that it's soft or mushy in any way.

Deceptively simple.

Conclusion: Loved it. Twice.

With the spinach (the first time), I made Broiled Eggplant with Herbed Goat Cheese (pg 100). Matt, who doesn't like eggplant, thought this was great. I liked it, but I wish I'd just gotten normal goat cheese instead of a lemon one. Lemon seemed like it would work with the rest of the flavors (mint, basil, and garlic are mixed into the cheese), but something about it was too tangy for me. It's possible that I still wouldn't have loved it with normal goat cheese, anyway, but I choose to blame the lemon.

My mom visited this weekend, so I wanted to make something easy but special for dessert. Chocolate Pots de Creme (page 120 of Ready for Dessert) worked out perfectly. Mom said it "tasted like Easter," and after I took a bite, I knew exactly what she meant. Pure, dense, unadulterated chocolate. Personally, I prefer the texture and process of making a mousse more than these, so that's what I'll probably stick to in the future, but I'm glad I tried this. Matt and I split the leftover serving last night. It had thickened up considerably, so that I felt like I was eating a tub of icing.

Conclusion: Liked it. Very rich and filling, though.

FFwD: Chard-Stuffed Pork Roast

I wonder if something went wrong with my Chard-Stuffed Pork Roast (pg 276 of Around My French Table). I keep reading through the recipe, wondering if I accidentally omitted something, but nothing jumps out at me.

This roast showed all promise of glory. The pork is butterflied, filled with a pre-cooked mixture of onion, garlic, raisins, swiss chard, and red pepper flakes, then tied shut. The outside of the pork loin is rubbed with crushed black peppercorns and coriander seeds.

For whatever reason, this tasted flat. Bland, bland, bland. This surprised me, because even though my loin was half the size the recipe called for, I didn't halve the measurements for the seasonings. Beats me.

I still like the idea of raisins and onions and chard in my pork, and maybe I'll try this again some day. Not soon, though.

Conclusion: Just okay.

There's No Sauce in My Sauce

When I think of a sauce, I think of something that has a little body. Something in which the liquid, itself, has flavor. I do not think of some chopped up stuff mixed with oil and pasta water, which is exactly what Fusilli (penne, for me) with Roasted Red and Yellow Pepper Sauce (pg 188) turned out to be.

Perfect Vegetables' recipe for roasting peppers was more work than is necessary. Why core the pepper and slice it into flat pieces before placing under the broiler, when it works perfectly well to shove the whole pepper under the broiler and flip it a few times? I did it my way.

The one thing going for this recipe is how easy it is to prepare. Mix oil, chopped roasted red and yellow pepper, garlic, mint, capers (mine looked funky and had turned pink, so I used olives), and lemon juice in a bowl and let it sit for a half hour. Then stir it into the drained pasta, adding pasta water as necessary.

I stirred a mountain of parmesan cheese into this, just to make it taste like something, and it still wasn't enough. Matt added an additional mountain of cheese to his, beyond what was already in there.

Lame.

Charlie, however, ate a plate of the pasta, carefully picking off each and every bit of non-pasta matter. I'm hoping some pepper juices hitched a ride on the penne, into his system.

Conclusion: Just okay. If not for the fact that Charlie ate it, I'd never make it again.

'Tis the Season for Angel Choirs...

...so, cue them. I may have found my french fry substitute. Word! I apologize for all the potato posts, but I bought a ten pound bag the other day. It was the same price as the five pound bag. What's up with that? Clearly, it would have been foolish to spend the same money for half as many potatoes. Now I'm trying to eat through ten pounds of potatoes, though. I'm up to the challenge.

The Master Recipe for Greek-Style Potatoes is the best thing I've eaten in a while. Even after they were partially burned (guess who distracted me), and then left to sit and get cold for an hour while I waited for Matt to get home from work.

You'd think with all that time for them to sit around, I'd have thought to take a picture, but I didn't. Here's a picture of my dog, summoning her inner Jedi, instead.

I don't know about you, but it made my day to come home from the supermarket and find her like this.

Wedge the taters, then lay a single layer in a skillet with a bit of hot vegetable oil and butter. Let them brown, then flip them and do the same (this is where mine burned.) Reduce heat, cover, and cook for a few more minutes until tender. Meanwhile, mix garlic, oil, lemon juice and zest, and oregano. Once the potatoes are tender, dump the mixture on top and let it cook for a minute. I snagged one or two (or twelve) while they were hot, and they came out of the pan crispy, despite being tossed in liquid. An hour later, they'd sogged up, but Matt and I still both inhaled them. Charlie ate one, and wouldn't eat another. Not sure if that counts as Charlie-Approved or not. I'm kind of tempted to go make more of these now, while Charlie's napping. These ten pounds of potatoes have met their match.

Conclusion: Loved it. SO good, and closer to a french fry than any of their oven recipes.

Roasted Baby Carrots with Sage and Walnuts (pg 64) did not benefit from their hour-long rest. I ate a few while they were hot, and I didn't notice them being particularly salty. An hour later, they were shrunken and too salty. I guess they kept dehydrating as they sat, or something. The sage didn't contribute much flavor. It was sprinkled on while the carrots roasted, and I don't think much of it stuck. I toasted the walnuts, but forgot to top the carrots with them, because I was a ravenous spaz.

Conclusion: Just okay, though I'm aware these didn't get a fair shake. I may try one of their roasted carrot variations to give them a second chance.

The Vegetables are Outrunning Me

I have quite a few recipes from Perfect Vegetables that I haven't posted about, so I'll jump right in.

I love fennel. Anything licorice-ey, really. Fennel and Tangerine Slaw (pg 125) caught my eye after I'd bought some tangerines at the farmer's market. This slaw had too much mustard in it for my taste. It overpowered every other flavor. If someone told me I was eating cabbage, I'd have believed them.

Conclusion: Disliked.

Slaw and sweet  potatoes.

Despite how horrible the baked oven fries were, I tried Master Recipe for Oven-Fried Sweet Potatoes (pg 290), because I would love to find a decent, un-fried french fry substitute. The method for cooking these was different. For the sweet potatoes, you just toss the sliced sweet potatoes with peanut oil, salt, and pepper, then bake. My ideal fry is crisp on the outside and moist/mushy on the inside. These just came out like roasted sweet potatoes, which, I guess is what they are. I need to stop looking for fries in my oven. I think it's a lost cause.

Conclusion: Liked them, if I think of them as roasted sweet potatoes. They're not a fry replacement, though.

Perfect Vegetables' recipe for Sauteed Zucchini (pg 315) says that if you salt the zucchini and let it sit for a half hour, it will brown when you sautee it. I don't think enough liquid came out of mine. They said 1/3rd of a cup would drain. After cooking the zucchini for ten minutes, as instructed, every last slice was mushy. It was brownish, but I expected a nice, flavorful, caramelized brown. I'd rather just lightly sautee it with garlic, like I usually do.

Conclusion: Hated it. I didn't eat mine.

The good and the bad.

On a much happier note, Mashed Rutabagas with Apples, Sage, and Bacon (pg 279) was great. It had me at "add the shallot and apple to the bacon drippings in the pan." Don't mind if I do. I made the recipe as written this time--cream, butter, bacon and all. I think that replacing the cream with milk and cutting back (or maybe omitting) the butter would still be good. Maybe not as good, but good enough. Matt said that this was the first time in his life he liked rutabaga.

Conclusion: Loved it. Yum yum.

All my life, I thought artichokes were some fancy-shmance food that people only ate on special occasions. Imagine my disappointment the first time I ate one. I built them up too much in my imagination. They don't taste like a whole lot. I've had them stuffed, I've had them dipped in butter. I've never been impressed. Figured I'd try Master Recipe for Steamed Artichokes (pg 4). I have to say, I don't understand why they call so many things that have no variations a "master recipe." They provide no other way to make a steamed artichoke, or season a steamed artichoke. Shouldn't it just be called "Steamed artichokes"? I digress.

Why bother?

These were easy enough to make. Clip the tips of the leaves, cut the top and the stem off, and then place the artichoke on an onion ring settled in water. Then you just boil it for a half hour. I melted some butter to dip the leaves in. Easy as they were, they still didn't impress me. Oh well. No harm done.

Conclusion: Just okay.

Okay, that's it for now.

FFwD: Matafan

I was not terribly excited about this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe. Matafan (pg 356) are "fluffy mashed potato pancakes." Sounds good. I like latkes. My grandmother makes a mean mashed potato pancake as a good way to use up leftovers.

My hesitation about this recipe came into play when I read the instructions. Dorie describes a step, in which you squish dried out baked potatoes through a mesh strainer, as "tedious." I appreciate her honesty, but I'm not interested in tedious when it comes to a fried bit of mashed potato. Grandma's recipe is easy. Unless these blow hers out of the water (and really, how could they? We're talking about Grandma here), who needs tedious?

Being a sport, I stood over my bowl, forcing gummy potato through mesh. Oh, for a food mill! At least I had warning. As promised, it was a pain in the ass, especially when you take into account the additional aggravation of cleaning the strainer afterward. Oy.

Insert the curse word of your choice here.

Was the result different enough from regular mashing to warrant the effort? It was looser and airier. I'll give it that. I'd be curious to try the batter with regularly mashed potatoes and see if it mattered once eggs and whipped whites and milk and flour all got mixed in. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it would lose its "fluffy" distinction.

Turns out, I needn't have pitted Dorie against Grandma in a potato pancake death match. Their pancakes bear no relation to each other. Grandma's pancakes are, without question, fried mashed potatoes. Dorie's are more like breakfast pancakes. If I didn't know there was potato in there, I never would have guessed. Her comment that her husband puts syrup on his made a lot more sense to me after I tried one.

I planned to serve these as a side to meatloaf, but a particular toddler kept dragging me by the finger from the kitchen to the couch to watch Beauty and the Beast with him, so I was lucky I even got the pancakes made.

On a whim, I bought two duck eggs at the farmer's market last week, just to see what they were like. Dinner became breakfast once I realized the meatloaf wasn't happening. Potato pancakes, fried duck eggs, herbed goat cheese, and slow-roasted tomatoes (I was planning to mix them into the meatloaf). OH BABY, it was sooooo good.

This turned into a great pile, post-picture.

The pancakes were good, but I didn't find them all that special, for the time and energy, compared to regular flour pancakes. However, they worked some miraculous psychological trick on Matt, who normally scoffs at the idea of breakfast for dinner. When he was underway for seven months, I ate a lot of eggs for dinner. Easty, tasty, fast. It's the perfect last-minute meal, in my book. Not so, in Matt's. Regardless, he said last night that having a savory version of pancakes and eggs made a great dinner. If I were on my own, I probably wouldn't bother making matafan again. However, since it's a way to make everyone happy with dinner pancakes, I'll bring out the potatoes next time I have a craving.

Conclusion: Like it, and Charlie Approved! He ate two pancakes. Wahoo!

Cookie Caper

Matt's office had a "Cookie Caper" today, which isn't as exciting as it sounds. It's just lunch, and everyone brings cookies. Between that and book club tonight (I've become the unofficial dessert girl), I decided to bake two kinds of cookies yesterday, and send half of both batches to each event.

I admit, I stuck with safe choices from Ready for Dessert, since these were leaving the house, so there were no surprise flavor combinations or anything. My selections were based on the fact that I really wanted to try the cookies, and really didn't want to eat the entire batch, because the calorie count on each must be astronomical.

First, I made Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Cookies (pg 187). Oh my lord. Lebovitz doesn't mess around when it comes to chocolate. Start with a pound of bittersweet chocolate, melt it with butter, mix it with eggs and a scant 1/2 cup of flour so that you're able to call this a cookie instead of a chocolate bar. Then, for good measure, add 2 cups of chocolate chips. The recipe also calls for pecans, but I omitted them to avoid potential nut allergy problems.

These are heavy cookies. They look like normal cookies, but are hefty in your hand. They're rich enough that I couldn't eat more than two of them. Even the next day, they seem melty.

What's cookin', good lookin'?

My only complaint was with the baking time. Lebovitz says to cook them for nine minutes, until slightly firm around the edges. I did, and the first round was very difficult to get off the cookie sheets. Too mushy in the middle. Charlie distracted me for the second round, so they got an extra two minutes of baking, and they were much easier to move. Minor complaint, and one I chalk up to my oven temp.

Melty goodness.

Conclusion: Liked it. Too rich and heavy to make and keep around the house, but a nice cookie to serve at a party or to bring to a pot luck.

Second, I made Peanut Butter Cookies (pg 194). I forgot how much I like a good peanut butter cookie. The dough was crumbly and hard to work with, but the cookies came out soft, with just the right amount of sweetness. I did skip the step of rolling them in sugar, because I know from experience that I prefer them not to be. These came out just right.

Have to admit, I'll be happy when the last of these are out of my house.

Conclusion: Liked it. I've eaten way too many of these since last night.