Foodie Friday: Potato, Asparagus, and Tuna Salad

Growing up in the South, meat and potatoes/starches were a staple. I don't think I even knew anyone who was a vegetarian until I was well into my 20s. Luckily, time and new experiences have broadened my horizons, and while I still like meat, I've also found that it isn't necessary for every meal. Earlier this month, I had a lovely dinner with two friends who are vegetarians (technically, they are pescatarians), and if anyone could convince me of the wonders of vegetarian eating, it would be them. For this time around, they served a hearty salad that is perfect for summer, and I knew that I needed to recreate it later.

Going from what I knew of the salad (it had tuna, potatoes, greens, asparagus, green beans, herbs, and a vinaigrette), I worked backwards and found some possible starting points. The first recipe that seemed promising was this one from the BBC Good Food site. While I didn't want the salad to be warm, I was intrigued by the use of pesto as the dressing.

Epicurious also had a recipe, originally published in Bon Appetite, and it was closer to what I remembered. However, I don't care for capers, and I wanted to scale down the proportions and cut down on the amount of oil (seriously, the dressing alone has a cup of oil). I also decided to simplify the ingredients list since I didn't have the time to visit Whole Foods for Champagne vinegar and radishes.

The end result was a filling, fresh, and delicious salad that could satisfy even the most dedicated meat lovers. It keeps well and is infinitely adaptable, so feel free to play with the ingredients as you like!

Potato, Asparagus, and Tuna Salad (adapted from BBC Good Food and Epicurious/Bon Appetite)

For the vinaigrette (Note: You might not need to use all of this vinaigrette on your salad depending on your preferences)

• 1/3 - 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (start with the smaller amount and add more as you deem necessary. If you like, you can use some of the drained olive oil from the tuna here)
• 2 - 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar (you can use Champagne vinegar if you have it. Lemon juice would also be refreshing)
• 1 small shallot, minced (or you can use 2 tablespoons of minced red onion)
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon pesto (you can forgo this if you like)
• Herbs to taste (I used chives and parsley)
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix 1/3 cup of olive oil  with 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and the mustard until the mixture is well-combined.
2. Add the shallot and herbs to the mixture.
3. Taste the vinaigrette and add vinegar and/or olive oil as needed.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste. However, you might want to go easy on the salt for now - the tuna will have quite a bit of salt in it.

For the salad

• 1 pound of asparagus, trimmed and steamed or roasted and cut into 1 inch pieces
• 3/4 pound of potatoes (new potatoes are nice!), boiled and cut into 1 to 2 inch chunks
• 1 pint (approximately 3/4 - 1 pound) of cherry tomatoes, halved (I roasted mine in a little olive oil, but you don't have to)
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped into small pieces
• 6 ounces of tuna packed in olive oil, drained (use more or less as desired - I use 6 ounces) 
• 4 - 5 oz. of mixed greens
• 1/4 cup of pine nuts
• Other possible possible add-ins: red onion, cooked fresh green beans, olives, fresh mozzarella, cucumbers, roasted red peppers

*The potatoes don’t have to be used, but, if you don’t use them, the salad won’t be as hearty (it would likely be more of a side dish than a main course). If you don’t use the potatoes, you won’t need all of the vinaigrette. Also, you could replace the potatoes with croutons or pieces of toasted bread and make this similar to a panzanella, but this won’t keep as well.

1.In a large bowl, combine the asparagus, tomatoes, herbs, eggs, and onion, and toss gently.
2. Drizzle on approximately 1/3 of the vinaigrette and toss to combine the ingredients and to evenly coat them with the vinaigrette.
3. Dress the potatoes (if using) with 1/3 of the vinaigrette (they will absorb quite a bit of the vinaigrette, which is why I like dressing them separately from the rest of the veggies). Add the dressed potatoes to the other dressed vegetables.
4. Flake or chunk the drained tuna. You can either mix it into the vegetables or serve it on top of the vegetables.
5. Dress the mixed greens with the remaining vinaigrette. You can either toss these greens into the vegetables or use the greens as a bed for the other vegetables and the tuna.
6. Top the salad with pine nuts (toasted if desired).

Two Gluten-Free Desserts for Friendsgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from the U.S.! I apologize for the lack of posts recently - November is always a crazy month, and December is even worse. That is to say, while I will try my darndest to get another post up before Christmas, I can't make any promises.

Part of the craziness of this month is that I always have a conference that comes just before Thanksgiving. As a result, I flew back home yesterday (aka the busiest travel day of the year) and spent most of the day recovering from the conference and the early, early flight. Luckily, my Thanksgiving this year is quiet; beyond grocery shopping this morning (because I wasn't up for it yesterday), the only other things on the agenda for today were going to the gym, cleaning my kitchen, eating dinner with friends, and preparing for tomorrow's Friendsgiving dinner.

At least one of the guests at Friendsgiving has celiac disease, so I decided to try making some gluten-free recipes for her. The sides (glazed carrots and sweet potato salad) were easy enough, but the desserts always give me pause. As someone who likes to bake but hasn't quite figured out gluten-free (or vegan-friendly) desserts, this gave me a moment of pause. Luckily, I remember that one of my favorite comfort-food desserts, tres leches rice pudding from The Smitten Kitchen cookbook, is not only gluten-free but is also perfect for the cold and snowy weather we are having in the Midwest today. For those who might argue that rice pudding doesn't scream "Thanksgiving!" the way that pie or cake might, I would respond that this is what makes it special. Not only does it stand out on the dessert table, it can be very elegant, especially if served in individual bowls, glasses, or ramekins and topped off with a dollop of whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon.

The other dessert was one I stumbled across thanks to Google. Chocolate coconut pie is not only festive and decadent, it only requires 4 ingredients and minimal oven time. Instead of having a traditional pie crust, the crust of this pie is made of butter and sweetened coconut, which is baked in the oven until browned. After it cools, it is filled with chocolate ganache, a decadent mixture of chocolate and cream, and refrigerated. That's it.

If you're having Thanksgiving tomorrow or if you need some last-minute desserts, I highly recommend these two desserts. Besides being delicious and gluten-free, they are fast and can be made ahead of time so you can focus your time and energy on other matters (watching one of myriad TV marathons, making many other dishes, pleading with the universe that the turkey will be cooked just right, etc.). Happy Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving!

Foodie Friday: Soup's On!

It's Halloween (or it would have been if Blogger had published the post on time :), and even though the temperature here in northern Indiana was in the 70s earlier this week, the forecast says that there is a chance of flurries this evening. However, even though I still find the possibility of snow in October (albeit at the end of October) a little disconcerting, there is a lot I love about winter, especially early in the season. Besides the wardrobe (sweaters! slacks! sweater dresses! warm scarves!), I love having the opportunity to do some winter cooking, and some of my favorite winter recipes are soups.

I will admit that I wasn't always a soup person. I think it was mostly because it didn't seem like a substantial meal. However, a number of recipes have helped me see the light, and now a typical weekend ritual in the winter is to make a pot of soup to sustain me through the week. I also love sharing soup with friends, because despite my new found appreciation, even I can't stomach soup for lunch and dinner for an entire week. 

Creamy Tomato Soup from MarthaStewart.com - Sometimes you need something familiar, and this soup is comfort food at its best. It is also easy, uses minimal ingredients, and is much better than anything that you can get from a can. I always use the optional garlic to give the soup another layer of flavor. Also, I strongly recommend using fire-roasted tomatoes if you can.

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup from CookingClassy.com - This soup is stick-to-your-ribs rich, which makes it perfect after a day of being out in the cold shoveling snow. However, if you want to lighten it up, you can certainly cut down the amount of butter and cream and use low-fat milk. You can also add more veggies and/or use leftover turkey instead of chicken (perfect for Thanksgiving leftovers).

Chicken Tortilla Soup from ThePioneerWoman.com - While I'm not a fan of The Pioneer Woman on television, I love this soup. It is warming but not too heavy (unless you go crazy with the toppings and add-ins). The only significant change I make to the recipe is to replace the beans with 8 oz. of frozen sweet corn, which I add near the end of the cooking time. I also don't use tortilla strips, opting instead to crush up some tortilla chips and mix them in before topping the soup with a little red onion, cilantro, cheese, and light sour cream.

Lasagna Soup from AFarmgirlsDabbles.com - I've yet to figure out how to make lasagna, but I don't feel like I need to since I have this soup for whenever I have a lasagna hankering. Rather than using Italian sausage, I use ground turkey. Also, as the recipe suggests, if you are planning on eating the soup throughout the week (or you make it ahead), you will definitely want to cook the pasta separately and add it to the soup as you eat it. This way, the pasta won't absorb all of the soup.

Are you a soup person? If so, what are your favorite recipes?

A Misadventure in Little House Land

I was shopping at the supermarket today, and I came across a package of pig tails in the meat section. My mind immediately flashed to Little House in the Big Woods and Wendy McClure's books on reading the Little House series (The Wilder Life and Don't Trade the Baby for a Horse). With this moment of inspiration, I purchased a package of tails and brought them home.

Tonight, I am here to share with you a few lessons learned from my experience with the pig tails:

1. No one tells you that pig tails look very disturbing. I didn't take any pictures of them, and even if I did, I don't think I could post them without having Blogger flag them for being rather obscene. If you are really curious, you can do a Google image search, but be warned - they are very phallic.
2. Pig tails are also very time consuming to cook. Based on Little House in the Big Woods, I imagined that they could just be tossed in the over with a little salt, but a quick online search told me otherwise. They had to be boiled (with at least one change in water) and then roasted. The good news is that the enterprise is largely hands off, but it does take a lot of time.
3. Given all of the time you will put in, there is little meat to be had.
4. Even though there is little meat, there is a lot of skin and fat. This makes them very rich.

While I never plan on doing this again, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to cross something off my Little House wishlist. I'd say that vanity cakes would be next, but they sound even more overwhelming than pig tails if only because they require several pounds of lard.

Foodie Fridays: Pan Bagnet

As someone who grew up Catholic in a land-locked state, fish was an inevitable part of Fridays during Lent. While there were some excellent meals, the unremitting cycle of shrimp, catfish, and tuna soon got the better of me, and by the time Easter came around, we were excited if only because Friday meals would be less predictable. I particularly resented the tuna sandwiches, which were heavy on the mayo and seemed to lack any taste beyond the fish's saltiness. While I will still make the occasional tuna sandwich, it is usually the result of desperation rather than any real culinary craving.

With these mayo-heavy tuna bombs in mind, I approached Melissa Clark's pan bagnat recipe with some trepidation. The mayo-less combination of tuna, tomatoes, vinaigrette, and basil sounded yummy, but I was still uncertain. However, with some beautiful heirloom tomatoes from the farmer's market (the last of the season) taunting me, I knew that it was now or never: I had to try this recipe before it was too late and the summer's tomatoes were replaced with hothouse versions that are essentially red tennis balls.

A quick trip to the grocery store allowed me to gather the needed ingredients, and after 30 minutes of chopping, whisking, and flattening, the sandwich was done. And it was amazing! Far from the tuna sandwiches of my youth, this sandwich featured a combination of flavors and textures. Better still, the sandwich kept wonderfully in the fridge and was just as tasty the next day.

Pan Bagnat (Slightly adapted from In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite by Melissa Clark)

Time: 15 minutes plus 20 minutes weighting

• 1 very small garlic clove, minced
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (I used the oil drained from the tuna)
• 1 8-inch round very crusty country loaf, or small ciabatta, halved
• 1 medium-sized, ripe tomato, sliced
• 1/2 small red onion, sliced
• 1 can olive oil-packed tuna, drained (see the note above regarding the oil)
• 6-8 large basil leaves

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the garlic, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper. Slowly drizzle in the oil, whisking constantly.
2. If using a country loaf, pull out some of the soft interior crumb to form a cavity. (If using a ciabatta, you won’t need to eliminate anything.)
3. Spread half the tomato slices out on the bottom of the bread loaf. Top with some vinaigrette, then with the onion slices, tuna, basil leaves, and more tomato. Top this with remaining vinaigrette. Cover with the second bread half and firmly press the sandwich together.
4. Wrap the sandwich tightly in foil, waxed paper or plastic wrap, then place in a plastic bag. Put the sandwich under a weight such as a cast iron frying pan topped with a filled kettle. 
5. Weight the sandwich for 7 to 10 minutes, then flip and weight it for another 7 to 10 minutes. 
6. Unwrap, slice, and serve immediately, or keep it wrapped for up to 8 hours before serving.

Foodie Fridays: Hot Fudge Sauce

While many people in Boston (and on the East Coast in general) are scrambling to prepare for the insanity that Irene is supposed to bring, I've had a pretty awesome and laid-back evening. After an excellent meal at Radius with my friends (and seriously, if you've never been, you need to go), I went home and made hot fudge sauce. I know that this isn't great hurricane prep, but at least it helped me use up some cream that had been languishing in my fridge and it made me feel much more productive than I actually was this evening.

This recipe is so easy that you will wonder why you didn't make your own hot fudge sauce before. Yes, it requires three decadent things (chocolate, heavy cream, and corn syrup), but that is all it requires, meaning that you don't get anything unknown in your sauce. Also, it lasts a while in the fridge (not that it will be around that long), and after all is said and done, it probably costs around $8.00 in ingredients and 10 minutes of your time. If you want a delicious and impressive dessert without having to spend a lot of time or money, this sauce over small scoops of good ice cream or gelato (or even good quality, store-bought pound cake or cheesecake). A sprinkle of toasted nuts, toasted coconut, cocoa nibs, or even crushed coffee beans would be a nice, but totally optional, touch. Sometimes, less is definitely more.

Hot Fudge Sauce (from Betsy Block's Mama Cooks website with a minor tweak):

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 pound of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• Dash of vanilla (optional)
• Pinch of salt (optional)

1. Heat the cream in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until small bubbles form.

2. Add the chocolate chips and corn syrup to the cream. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for five minutes.

3. At the end of cooking, add a dash of vanilla and a pinch of salt, if desired. Pour over ice cream, cheesecake, or whatever else you desire. Store leftovers in the fridge & heat in the microwave as needed.

Foodie Fridays: A Simple but Satisfying Dinner

Waiting for the chicken

The past two weeks have been pretty trying, so I've been trying to keep it simple. This past Wednesday, the weather was awful, and even though I had stopped by The Meat House to pick up some meat (so not a euphemism), I had no idea what to make for dinner. In an attempt to not spend any more money, clear out my fridge, and eat something healthy, I scrounged around my kitchen to see what I could improvise.

Cooking away

While I cooked the house-marinated chicken breast from The Meat House (sauteed in a tablespoon of olive oil), I found some strawberries and mesclun mix I got from the farmer's market last week. To go with the salad, I mixed up a simple salad dressing from olive oil and red wine vinegar (of course, you could use this balsamic vinegar recipe adapted from Mark Bittman's). The resulting meal was simple, fast (it took me less than 10 minutes to cook the chicken, even on my less-than-stellar stove), and incredibly satisfying.

It all comes together!

Foodie Fridays: Cream Cheese Pound Cake

I'm so bad at remembering these Foodie Fridays posts that even I'm embarrassed. To try and make up for my benign neglect, I'm going to give you my favorite pound cake recipe. I made it recently to celebrate my friend L's birthday, and it is an excellent (and almost fool-proof) cake and is perfect for the novice baker. I'm always a little embarrassed when she raves over it, because it is pretty easy.

The recipe is from the addictive SmittenKitchen website. The only changes I made were to get rid of the almond extract (I'm lucky when I have vanilla extract in the kitchen, so almond is out of the question) and halving the recipe. The resulting pound cake is a somewhat craggy loaf of cake that perfumes the kitchen with buttery sweetness. While Deb recommends brushing the cake with simple syrup if you are planning on making the cake ahead of time, I've never done this and the cake is always moist enough.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake (with very minor adaptations from SmittenKitchen.com)

• 3/4 cup (1 and 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 package (4 ounces) cream cheese*, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped white chocolate**

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly butter and flour a loaf pan. You can also butter the pan and line it with parchment paper.

2. Place the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl and beat with a mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add the sugar, increase the speed to high, and beat until light and airy, at least five minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the vanilla, then the flour and salt all at once. Beat just until incorporated.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and shake lightly to even out the top. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean (approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes in my temperamental oven. If your oven works better than mine, start checking the cake after 50 minutes. Remove it when a toothpick comes out clean).

4. Place the pan on a cake rack and cool for 20 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and let it cool completely. Serve at room temperature.

*Deb's recipe notes that Philadelphia brand cream cheese is the preferred brand to use in baking because of the lower water content. I've made this cake with both Philadelphia brand and generic cream cheese, and I've never had a problem with it.

**The white chocolate is a nice addition, but it has a tendency to cause the bottom of the cake to get too brown (or caramelize, as L's husband kindly says) in spots when I use it. Smaller shards tossed with a bit of flour should fix this issue.

Foodie Fridays: Lemon-Glazed Butter Cake with Lemony Whipped Cream

Although I really like winter (the clothes! the snow! the holidays!), I'm quite glad that warmer weather is coming to the New England area. Despite the fact that opening day is today (let's not talk about it - I'm just going straight home after work to skip the crowds), I love the longer days and the fact that the end of the semester is creeping closer. Also, the weather inspires me to branch out from the heavier recipes that winter almost demands and break out (or seek out) some lighter fare. Besides the lovely and quick tomato and basil pasta dish I had for dinner last night, one of my new go-to recipes for spring is this lemon-glazed butter cake. While the cake, which came to me via Gourmet and Epicurious, is wonderful on its own, I like to up the ante with a lemony whipped cream either used as a frosting or served on the side. The resulting dessert is a satisfying but not super-heavy end to a meal.

Lemon-Glazed Butter Cake (slightly adapted from Gourmet and Epicurious)

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• Rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs at room temperature 30 minutes
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour an 8-by 2-inch round cake pan.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir together milk and zest.
3. Beat together butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mixing until each addition is just incorporated.
5. Pour batter into cake pan and smooth top, then rap gently on counter to release any air bubbles. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes.
6. Whisk together confectioners sugar and lemon juice until smooth.
7. Turn out cake onto a rack set over a baking sheet, then reinvert. Brush top and side of cake with all of glaze. Cool completely.

Lemony Whipped Cream

• 1 cup heavy or whipping cream
• 1/3 cup lemon curd
• Garnishes: Lemon zest, lemon twists or wedges, confectioners sugar, mint (optional)

1. Chill cream, beaters, and bowl (this is particularly important if your kitchen is hot)
2. Whip cream to firm peaks (between soft and stiff)
3. Using a spatula, gently fold the lemon curd into the cream. Don't go too crazy - you don't want to push your cream into butter territory. Plus, a few streaks are quite pretty
4. If you decide to pile the cream on top of your cake, any one (or several) of the garnishes listed above are lovely

Note 1: Some recipes call for adding a tablespoon or two or confectioners sugar to the cream. However, I found that the lemon curd provided more than enough sweetness.

Note 2: I know this goes without saying, but this does not keep well. Make it just before serving.

Foodie Fridays: Fabulous Cooking Apps

Cooking using an iPhone as a point of reference isn't ideal for many recipes, but for simple dishes (or ones that don't require tons of back-and-forth between the recipe and the dish), the iPhone is an acceptable substitute for a traditional cookbook. This is particularly true when I have to cook away from home and my depressingly large collection of cookbooks. Here are a few of the cooking-related apps that I've found particularly helpful:

Epicurious (free) - I'm very surprised that so many people have given this app one star in iTunes, because it is one of my go-to resources when I am looking for something new to cook. While it does have a lot of advertising, which seems to be the reviewers' main issue with it, it is a free app that is a wealth of information. It also has some great features that (in my mind) more than make up for the ads. One of my favorite features is the sections that correspond to the seasons (like Spring Breakfasts or Holiday Recipes), and the search feature gives you a lot of options to find a particular type of recipe. For instance, you can search by main ingredient, meal/course, cuisine, dietary consideration, and/or season. I've found a number of excellent recipes by virtue of random searches. My two favorite finds are strawberry citrus salad and lemon-glazed butter cake.

How to Cook Everything (full version $4.99, essentials version is free) - I am a Mark Bittman fangirl, so it isn't surprising that I find this app so useful. While I typically use the actual cookbook when I am cooking, this app is perfect to reference while in the grocery store (or on the subway) when I need to go shopping or when I need some inspiration for dinner. This app also was a lifesaver when I found myself in the role of the reluctant chef for a dinner party at my mom's last year. If I ever have to make hollandaise sauce ever again, I hope I have this app and Bittman's common-sense approach to guide me.

Evernote (free) - I know that this technically is not a food app, but I tend to use Evernote to clip recipes from my favorite cooking websites. Not only is it an easy way to collect these recipes, I can also categorize them using the tags and notebook feature. What more could I ask for?

What great cooking app did I miss? Please feel free to offer suggestions in the comments section!

Foodie Fridays: Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

If you live in the snowy northeast, you are probably very tired of snow. While I like winter (and snow), the tall piles of dirty snow, the narrowing sidewalks, and the icy/slushy/snowy puddles are starting to get a little trying. If you have the winter blues and need something to help you warm up, soup is one of the most comforting (and most affordable) ways of doing so.

Not so long ago, I considered myself a soup failure. While I enjoyed soup, I seemed to lack the ability to actually make a good soup at home. However, after Thanksgiving 2010, I found myself with scanning websites to find something to do with the turkey breast carcass that was taking up precious refrigerator space. Luckily, I found an awesome stock recipe as well as a good recipe for turkey and wild rice soup. I did a little tweaking (some of it based on other reviewers' ideas) and found that the soup was flavorful, hearty, and filling. As an added bonus, the recipe is relatively low in calories (according to the calorie calculator I use, it is around 215 calories per serving)

Chicken (or Tukey) and Wild Rice Soup (based on this recipe from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

-          3 (10.5 ounce) cans condensed, low sodium chicken broth*

-          2 cups water*

-          ½ cup finely chopped green onions (optional)

-          ¾ cup chopped carrots

-          ½ cup chopped celery

-          ¾ cup chopped onions

-          2 cloves of garlic, minced (optional)

-          ½ - ¾ cup of wild rice (you can also use long grain white rice, but the cooking time will be shorter)

-          ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon butter

-          1 tablespoon olive oil

-          ¼ cup all-purpose flour

-          ½ teaspoon salt

-          ¼ teaspoon poultry seasoning (or chicken bouillon)

-          1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

-          ½ cup half-and-half

-          ½ cup 1% milk

-          1½  - 2 cups cooked, diced turkey or chicken meat

*I typically like to use homemade stock in place of the condensed broth and part of the water. I will usually use 5 cups of homemade stock and ½ cup of water.

Directions

1. In a large pot over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter with the olive oil. When the butter is melted and the oil is hot, add the chopped carrots, celery, green onions, and onions. Allow them to cook, stirring occasionally, until softened. Halfway through this, add the garlic if using.
2. Add the chicken broth, water, and rice to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until the rice is tender (35-40 minutes for wild rice, 20-30 minutes for long grain white rice).
3. When the rice is tender, melt ¼ cup butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in flour, salt, poultry seasoning (or bouillon), and pepper. Cook, stirring, until smooth and bubbly. Stir in half-and-half and milk, and cook mixture until thickened (about 2 minutes).
4. Stir the flour mixture into the rice mixture. Add the chicken or turkey. Heat through. Makes 9 servings.

Foodie Fridays: Carmelized Onion & Bacon Pizza

Although I have nothing against bacon, I admit that I don't always understand the bacon craze. Why would anyone want deep fried bacon? Or bacon cupcakes? Or turbaconducken? However, in some recipes, bacon makes perfect sense. Its crispness and smoky flavor make the perfect contrast with creamy ricotta and sweet onions. This pizza recipe, adapted from Savory Bites and Smitten Kitchen, is the perfect end-of-the-week meal for an evening of television, surfing the net, or even (in my case) updating your curriculum vitae and getting ready to apply to grown-up jobs.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup ricotta (give or take a little)

1 red onion

4-5 strips of bacon

1 tsp. brown sugar

a pinch of salt

2 Tbls. olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

Pizza dough (I used approximately 1 pound of dough, which I purchased from a local pizza place)

Mozzarella and parmesean (if you so desire)

cornmeal

1. Cook your bacon until just crisp. You can use leftover bacon or you can simply cook it in the oven while you are preparing the onions. Drain the bacon and chop into bite-size pieces. If you didn't cook your bacon in the oven, turn your oven to 350 degrees to let it preheat.

2. Chop the onions so you get half rings. Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and sprinkle them with the brown sugar and salt. Sautee the onions for 15-20 minutes until they are dark brown and sweet.

3. Put parchment paper on a baking sheet and sprinkle the paper with cornmeal (you can use a pizza stone if you have one). Roll the pizza dough out on the prepared baking sheet. You can create a crust by pressing your fingers into the dough. Brush the dough with the remaining olive oil, and sprinkle it with minced garlic.

4. Spread the ricotta cheese on the pizza dough. Top the cheese with the onions and bacon. If you like, you can also sprinkle on some mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.

5. Bake the pizza at 350 for 15 minutes, and then bake it for 5 minutes at 400 degrees. My oven is evil and burned (or "carmelized," as my friend likes to say) the bottom of my crust. However, this did not detract from the yumminess of this pizza.

Foodie Fridays: My Favorite Food Blogs and Sites

After almost three months, Foodie Fridays is back (at least for today)! My list of "go-to" food blogs and sites is a little out of control, but the web is a virtual treasure trove of recipes and cooking advice. While the web will never take the place of actual cookbooks (cooking a complicated recipe using an iPhone or running back and forth between my kitchen and computer doesn't work out so well), these sites provide some great reading and culinary inspiration.

Smitten Kitchen - This is one of my favorite sites. I've had a lot of luck with recipes I've tried (even if a few of them seem a little labor intensive), and the pictures that accompany the recipes are food porn in the best sense. Besides the beautiful food photography and the great recipes, it features The. Cutest. Baby. EVER! I'm not the kind of person who falls over at the sight of a baby, but this kid is adorable.

Kitchen Window: NPR - I'm an NPR junkie, and the Kitchen Window feature is always a fascinating read. While the recipes are good, my favorite thing about this site is the food writing that accompanies the recipes. I'm a sucker for a good essay on food, and Kitchen Window always deliver.

Roadfood.com - This site makes me miss having a car. Jane and Michael Stern, as well as others, write about food finds that are sometimes off the beaten path but are always worth the trip and effort.

The Crepes of Wrath - The motto of this site is that "great food doesn't have to be expensive or time consuming, and the recipes definitely live up to the motto. The recipes are usually fairly simple, and there's a wonderful selection of recipes to choose from (just check out the index if you don't believe me). This Mandarin chicken recipe is one of my favorites.

Foodie Fridays: Three Super-Easy Desserts for a Crowd

This week has been completely crazy. Besides having a hearing that brings me one step closer to my dissertation (and my degree), I also had a get together for some of my graduate students who are finishing up their master's program. While these two events converged on the same day, I found that baking for my party helped keep me calm (and busy) so that I wouldn't get too crazed about my hearing.

However, it didn't hurt that I have some incredibly (and embarrassingly) easy dessert recipes that are perfect for feeding a large crowd. Here are three of my favorites from this week:

Mexican Wedding Cookies (aka Russian Tea Cakes): While I used the recipe found in my trusty The Joy of Cooking cookbook, this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which is one of my favorite food websites, is very similar. While these cookies are very buttery, they aren't overly sweet and make a very pretty (and forgiving) dessert.

Chocolate Marble Gooey Butter Cake (aka Chocolate Marble Chess Bars): These are very rich. Unlike the Russian tea cakes, which are pretty subdued under their pretty powdered sugar coating, these bars are a no-holds-barred embarrassment of riches. They contain two sticks of melted butter, a package of cream cheese, and an entire box of powdered sugar. That said, the recipe does make a lot, and the bars are always a big hit.

Strawberry Cream Pie: Although this recipe is the complete opposite of everything foodie (it includes Cool Whip, which is probably like kryptonite to most foodies), I am proud of it, for no other reason than I majorly tweaked it. It is a riff on a recipe from someone my mom knew (this isn't the exact recipe, but it is very similar). Here is my take on the recipe:

Ingredients:

• One 9-inch deep dish pie crust
  
• One 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened
• One 8 oz. container of Cool Whip (if you wanted, you could substitute heavy cream, whipped to a soft peak)
  
• Two cups of powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup of strawberry preserves
• One tablespoon of lemon juice
• 16 oz (1.5 pints) of fresh strawberries (washed and sliced lengthwise)
  

Directions:

1. Bake the pie crust and allow it to cool completely
2. Warm the strawberry preserves and add the lemon juice. You can do this in the microwave or on the stove. Mix to combine and set aside to cool slightly
   
3. Beat the cream cheese until it is light fluffy (approximately 1-2 minutes with an electric mixer)
4. Mix in the Cool Whip* and beat until well combined
5. Gradually mix in the powdered sugar and stir until well combined. You can adjust the amount of sugar to taste
6. Put approximately half of the cream cheese mixture in the cooled pie crust
7. Top the cream cheese mixture with 2/3 of the strawberry preserves
8. Carefully top the preserves with the remaining cream cheese mixture (you might have some extra cream cheese; save it to use as a fruit dip)
9. Top the pie with the remaining strawberry preserves
10. On top of the preserves, carefully layer on the sliced strawberries
11. Allow to chill in the refrigerator for two hours or overnight

*If you decide to use whipped cream instead of Cool Whip, I suggest adding the powdered sugar to it and then gently folding the whipped cream into the cream cheese.

Here is my finished pie (please forgive the crappy lighting and iPhone photography):

Foodie Fridays: My Favorite Cookbooks for Beginners

I'm going to try a new thing where I post a food-related article a couple of times a month. These articles will probably be posted on Fridays, hence "Foodie Fridays." For the inaugural post of this undertaking, I've decided to blog on some of my favorite basic cookbooks. This is based on my experiences and opinion, so please feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments section!

Clueless in the Kitchen: The author, Evelyn Raab, wrote this book with teenagers in mind, and it provides an excellent starter for anyone who is just starting to learn how to cook. The recipes are basic and are very approachable, and there isn't anything in the book that would be intimidating to a cooking novice. The chapters cover everything from breakfast, lunch, and dinner to desserts and vegetarian cooking. Most of the ingredients are pantry staples, and by keeping the ingredient lists and directions very simple, Raab makes cooking seem very doable. The recipes include helpful icons, which designate cheap eats, vegetarian recipes, and comfort food (aka "Mom Food").

In addition to the recipes, Raab also has helpful lists on what staples should be in the kitchen, including ingredients and tools. She even has instructions to help you with non-cooking kitchen tasks, like unplugging a drain, cleaning a stove, and defrosting a freezer. All in all, this would be a great cookbook for a someone getting a first apartment or someone who is just starting to learn how to cook. Raab also wrote The Clueless Baker (another book I recommend) and The Clueless Vegetarian (I haven't tried this book yet).

Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen: Written by a mother and son team, this book takes a humorous approach to cooking. With anecdotes, "Mom Tips," and "Mom Warnings," this book is similar to Raab's in that it is definitely for a novice cook. While the recipes aren't quite as easy as those in Raab, the authors do provide a helpful rating system that tells you each recipe's level of difficulty (going from "Very Easy" to "Not So Easy"), so you know what you are getting into. Furthermore, the "Not So Easy" recipes aren't too difficult, so once you get a little cooking experience, tackling those should be a breeze.

If you are looking for a good basic cookbook for a college student (and you don't want to offend said college student with a book that is explicitly for teens, because he/she is too cool for that), Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen is a good compromise. It doesn't give the same level of advice and guidance as Raab's book, but it is a good place to start of the neophyte cook. The Mills also wrote several other cookbooks, including: Help! My Apartment Has a Dining Room (good, but not quite as practical as this book), Chocolate on the Brain (good for the chocoholic and/ or baker), and Faster! I'm Starving! (I haven't had a chance to test this one out yet).

How to Cook Everything: While The Joy of Cooking is the go-to basic cookbook for many people, I have found that Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything is less intimidating and more user friendly. While the book is enormous, it does cover everything that you might need once you have mastered the basics. I also like Bittman's approach to cooking as something that is enjoyable, relaxing, and simple. While his ingredient lists are more involved than Raab's, they are also focused on the staples. Furthermore, Bittman offers a lot of ways to improvise and vary a basic dish. If the huge How to Cook Everything tome, which has 2,000 recipes, seems a bit too challenging, you can opt to get How to Cook Everything: The Basics, which, as the title suggests, has 100 core recipes that are the most practical.

Book Review: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

While David Sedaris is one of my favorite authors, I have a considerably more complicated view of his sister, Amy. Although I like Amy, I tend to prefer her in small doses. In a cameo or on a talk show, she is very charming and funny, but I can't imagine watching her for more than thirty minutes at a time. I greatly admire her wit and her complete lack of self-consciousness, but like eating an entire pound of Godiva in one sitting, I always thought she was just too much to take in large doses. However, her book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, which was first released two years ago and has just come out in paperback, may just change my mind about her once and for all.

For those of you unfamiliar with Amy Sedaris, she is a jack of all trades and a master of many of them. Besides acting in film (she's had cameos in approximately every other film to come out since 2002), theatre (The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told - a gay reimagining of the Genesis story) and television (Strangers with Candy), she is also a known baker (she sells her cupcakes in NYC), proud rabbit owner (not a euphemism - she has pet rabbits and even starred in a Microsoft commercial with rabbits), and gifted comedienne. All of these attributes are featured, in some form or fashion, in I Like You, a subversively humorous and surprisingly useful guide to hospitality.

In the book's introduction, Sedaris admits that she does not like joke cookbooks. Consequently, while some of the advice that she offers should definitely be taken with a grain (or even a shaker) of salt, her recipes are easy to follow and are typically very good. The recipes range from cupcakes and cheese balls to traditional Greek dishes, and Sedaris also includes menu suggestions, such as a meal for a first date and an alcoholic's menu (applesauce and chicken wings). Interspersed with the recipes are photographs of Sedaris and numerous arts and crafts as well as hints and tips for entertaining. While many of these tips are useful, there are certainly some ones that are made with tongue planted firmly in cheek; for instance, as a party game for children, she suggests taking the children to a part of town that they have never been to before and letting them figure out how to get home on their own.

While I Like You may never take the place of the traditional guides to etiquette and entertaining, it certainly deserves a place beside these books. This book makes a great hostess gift for the nontraditional hostess or as a wickedly funny (and slightly strange) reference for yourself. There is also an abridged, but still humorous, audio version, in which you can enjoy the craziness of Amy Sedaris in stereo. Trust me, as we get stand in the midst of the Christmas/Hanukkah/ Kwanzaa season, I Like You makes a great alternative to the ubiquitous songs about reindeer and snow.

Book Reviews: Gastronaut

In my mind, there is a cookbook spectrum. On one end are the uber-practical books that most people have and that you refer to when you need to figure out how to make the basics. From The Joy of Cooking to Mark Bittman's awesome How to Cook Anything (which was just updated) to the ubiquitous Better Homes and Gardens books, these tomes hold a great deal of information on how to actually prepare a meal and are the sorts of books you get when you graduate from high school and college and must start fending for yourself. On the other end of the spectrum are the fun, fancifully written cookbooks that are often a bit impractical. These are the books that you read for entertainment while shaking your head and wondering how the hell you are supposed to make some of the recipes included. Examples of these include Andy Warhol's Wild Raspberries and Helen Gurley Brown's The Single Girl's Cookbook, which includes instructions involving asbestos mats. They are funny and a great read, but you would never grab one when preparing to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

Stefan Gates's Gastronaut: Adventures in Food for the Romantic, the Foolhardy, and the Brave falls somewhere between these two extremes. A self-described "epicurean desperado," Gates's book describes some of his more interesting food-related adventures, misadventures, and experiments. Don't let the rather plain cover fool you - this is hysterical, in a very British way (and I mean that as a sincere compliment). For instance, he has a chapter entitled "How to Stage a Bacchanalian Orgy," complete with substitute suggestions for hard-to-find ingredients like dormice. He also has sections on cannibal recipes, foods that are considered aphrodisiacs, and how to cook guinea pigs. His advice includes how to gild Cheetos and sausages with edible gold and what to eat in order to produce the most flatulence.

Balancing out the recipes for head cheese are (comparatively) more practical ones for toffee fondue and tips for creating a biscuit-tin smokery. Even in these sections, Gates is able to interject a great deal of humor and wit. Overall, Gastronaut may not help you prepare a roast turkey for the first time (even though it has a recipe for turducken, which is a turkey stuffed with a chicken that is stuffed with a duck), and it will never be able to replace How to Cook Everything in terms of real-world application. However, if you are looking for a cookbook that is a lot of fun and has a few practical recipes interspersed with some crazy ones, you should definitely check this one out.

Review: Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant

For no apparent or conscious reason, I've been reading a lot of books about food. The first is Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone, which a good friend got for me. As the title suggests, the book consists of essays about the joy (or burden) of cooking for one and eating alone. At age 14, I became the queen of eating alone, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. From an ode to asparagus to the challenge of cooking in a tiny apartment to the demise of a favorite restaurant, the essays capture the essence of what it is like to deal with the solitary meal.

The essays, by authors including Nora Ephron, M.F.K. Fisher, and Steve Almond, each approach the topic in a different way. Perhaps what is so intriguing is seeing how different people in different stages of life view the act of eating alone. People who are young and single find it disconcerting, but others with children and families find that eating alone is a rare luxury that should be savored. Several of the essays also include some intriguing recipes. While I haven't tried any of them, I am looking forward to the opportunity to making Il Tost (grilled cheese and ham sandwich, Italian style) and salsa rosa.

Like many collections of essays, this one can be uneven at times. However, there are far more hits than misses, and this book makes a wonderful companion for someone eating alone in a restaurant. It even makes a nice alternative for someone who eats the occasional solitary meal at home but wants to avoid the ubiquitous drone and flicker of the television set. Whether your idea of dining alone consists of eating ice cream directly from the carton or cooking a full meal and setting the table with place mats and candles, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant serves an assurance that either option is perfectly fine.

Biscotti Mania

When life gets stressful, I bake. It is fairly low-consequence (if I screw up, I can throw out my mess and start over) and it requires enough concentration so that I can focus on something fairly mindless (as opposed to my school work or my other problems). This has been a tough week, and for some reason, I've been on a biscotti-making jag. While I've never taken any sort of interest in biscotti until lately, I've become a big fan.

Tonight, I tried my hand at cranberry pecan biscotti dipped in white chocolate (which is a riff on this recipe). However, my go-to biscotti recipe is from the first cookbook I purchased for myself, Cooking with Friends, which was meant to capitalize on the Friends television show. I purchased it after the initial height of the Friends craze in the mid-1990s from the bargain section of my bookstore, and my friends made fun of me for weeks after. However, I still use it even more than the copy of The Joy of Cooking my aforementioned friends bought me for high school graduation. Not only does it take me back to a much simpler time (remember when Ross and Rachel were getting together for the first time?), but it also has a lot of great recipes, including this one (for extra decadence, melt some chocolate with a tablespoon of butter and spread on one side of the biscotti after they have cooled):

Jamie and Fran's Chocolate Biscotti

2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbs (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup macadamia nuts (I use pecans for two reasons: I'm originally from the south and macadamia nuts are crazy expensive)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a large baking sheet and set aside.

Mix flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt together. set aside. cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Stir in the dry ingredients until well combined. The dough will be stiff and fairly dry. Stir through the nuts.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface. Divide into 2 and roll each half into a log that measures about 12 inches long and 2 inches wide. Transfer the logs to the prepared baking sheet, leaving room for them to expand.

Bake until firm to touch (about 30 - 35 minutes).

Remove from the oven. Wear an oven mitt to hold the logs in place. Use a serrated knife to cut them on the diagonal into 3/4inch thick pieces. Lay them on their side on the baking sheet and return to the oven for abut 5 - 10 minutes or until crisp.

Cool on racks and store in airtight containers for weeks. If they last that long.

Makes about 28 biscotti

Classes, Farmer's Markets, and Books

Classes started back at the university this week, and I am already tired. While this may not be a good sign for the rest of the semester, I'm trying to keep in mind that this week has been unusually hectic due to the return of the students, the absurd amounts of paperwork that I have to do, and the notable lack of rest I had this summer due to work, exams, etc.

On the brighter side of things, after I left school this afternoon, I went to the farmer's market. While I can't recall ever going to one when I lived in Tennessee, I have become more than a little addicted to them this past summer. Between being able to buy fresh produce for relatively cheap (at least compared to the monstrously expensive behemoth known as Whole Foods) and being able to people watch, farmer's markets have become one of my favorite things about living in the Boston area. My exciting finds (I'm not being at all sarcastic about this, so it is a little sad) for today included honeycrisp apples, ginger gold apples, corn, and a homemade pie.

While lugging my purchases back to my apartment, I also decided to run by the bookstore. A good friend of mine gave me a gift certificate for watching her cats, and I couldn't wait to put it to use. In addition to the card, she also gave me a copy of Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, so look for a review of the book soon (or perhaps soonish - I have some looming deadlines in the coming weeks).