Chef Patti Anastasia
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Serving Southern New Hampshire since 2003
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Table Talk » Test Kitchen ArchivesDecember 7, 2009Yes, Virginia you can make delicious gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan trufflesI've been making chocolate truffles for years. This year I decided to attempt to try my hand at gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan truffles. My go to recipe is simple, three ingredients: heavy cream, bittersweet chocolate, and butter. Taking the dairy out of it was a lot easier than I thought it would. Coconut milk (regular, not light) has a viscosity similar to cream. I often replace butter with Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks. Vegan chocolate is easy to find, gluten-free chocolate is easy to find, but organic and vegan chocolate, not so easy. Lots of choices for semi-sweet chocolate, not so many choices for bittersweet chocolate. Endangered Species Organic Smooth Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa content) is certified gluten-free, vegan, and kosher. Hurrah! Continue reading "Yes, Virginia you can make delicious gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan truffles" » December 6, 2009A tough steak made tender by braisingSunday has been my day to cook beef from the organic, grass-fed, hormone- and antibiotic-free beef I bought this Fall from Windy Hill Farm. I'm trying lots of cuts that I never buy. Tonight's cut was eye round steaks. My mom made eye round roasts when I was a kid. We were lucky that my dad is a master slicer and sliced the roasts paper thin. Eye round is one of my least favorite cuts of beef. I followed the beef farmer's advice and got it cut into steaks rather than getting an eye round roast. My search for eye round steak recipes lead me to a recipe for braised steaks that claims to be a favorite of President Ford: President Ford's Braised Eye Round Steaks from All Recipes. My changes were more onions, more wine, adding about 8 ounces of tomato sauce that I wanted to use up, braising the steaks for 1.5 hours, then removing the beef and reducing the sauce until it was thick and rich. Tom called it "Pot Roast in Steak Form". An easy and tasty way to cook eye round steaks. Braising the steaks resulted in a tender steak from a lean cut that if not cooked properly can be quite tough. November 1, 2009Asian Grandmothers' SecretsToday I used the last of my Thai basil to make this Thai Basil Pork. The recipe was featured in the Boston Globe on 10/28/2009 in a review of The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook. Last spring, a delicious spicy basil pork dish that I had at The Chatta Box inspired me to grow Thai basil in my Aerogarden. I became obsessed with Thai basil. Early in the summer, a friend told me that she bought some Thai Basil plants at her local Walmart. I'm not a fan of Walmart, but I was willing to break my no Walmart rule when Thai Basil plants were involved. My local store had five plants, I bought all five. They didn't like the cold weather we had at the beginning of the summer, but after a few weeks, they started producing a bumper crop of Thai basil. We enjoyed lots of delicious meals featuring Thai basil because the more I harvested it, the more it grew. When frost started threatening in mid September, I put the huge pot of Thai basil in my little red wagon so I could easily put it in the garage at night and bring it out on warmer days. I've been nursing it along for the past month. Tonight's dinner was the Thai basil's final hurrah. I cheated on the Asian grandmothers, but just a little bit. First, the recipe uses ground pork and the ground pork that I can get is very high in fat. So I bought pork tenderloin, trimmed it, cut it into chunks, and ground it in the food processor. This works great when you want lean ground pork. The recipe also called for Thai chilies, which I didn't have. I used a heaping tablespoon of Thai chili paste. And I tossed in about five julienned kaffir lime leaves, just because I'm crazy about the flavor of kaffir lime limes. I served the Thai Basil Pork with jasmine rice and roasted carrots tossed with a dressing of fish sauce, sesame oil, powdered galangal, and brown sugar. The grandmothers' Thai Basil Pork was easy and delicious. Perfect for a busy night.
January 10, 2009Leftover Makeover: Baked Potato CroquettesRemember me? I'm back after a very long absence. My last update was before Thanksgiving. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is always busy, add in the NH ice store that took away our power for 8.5 days, we got power back 4.5 days before Christmas. And then there was Christmas, and New Years. You know how it goes. Today I made potato croquettes for the first time. My mother used to make fried potato cakes from leftover mashed potatoes when I was a kid. In fact, they were the only way that I ate mashed potatoes. I wasn't a fan of mashed potatoes the first time around, but I loved my mom's potato cakes made from leftover mashed potatoes. I had some leftover mashed potatoes with corn and chives in the fridge, so I decided to make baked potato croquettes from them. I looked up a few recipes on the web and found a few that baked, rather than fried the croquettes. All of them added egg to the potato. I started out with potatoes that I had mashed with sour cream, then stirred in fresh minced chives and defrosted frozen corn kernels. (I served them with a southwestern meatloaf earlier in the week.). I had about 4 cups of potatoes left. I mixed in 3 eggs and some chili powder. I wasn't sure how many eggs to add, the mixture was a little too loose, so I added in a small handful ot panko. Two eggs would have been perfect. To form the croquettes, I used a 1/2-cup measuring cup to scoop up the potatoes, then formed them into a large, flat patty. Some of the recipes I saw called for forming the patties, then refrigerating them before rolling them in bread or cracker crumbs. My patties were holding together well and I'm impatient, so I seasoned some panko with sweet hungarian paprika and coated the patties with the panko mixture. To bake the croquettes, I lined a sheet pan with nonstick foil (I love this stuff for oven frying), sprayed the foil with olive oil spray and placed the croquettes on the foil. After spraying the tops with more olive oil spray, I baked them in a preheated 400 oven for 25 minutes. The panko coating is golden and crispy and the potato centers are nice and creamy. This is a great way to use leftover mashed potatoes. They are forgiving and the seasoning can easily be adapted to complement whatever you are serving them with. I bet they would be great with some cheese. Or how about curried potato croquettes or cumin-scented croquettes? Continue reading "Leftover Makeover: Baked Potato Croquettes" » November 20, 2008Crockpot Barbecued Pulled PorkLots of people love their crockpots. That hasn't been the case for me, but I'm trying to make friends with my crockpot again because it sure is nice to come home to a warm, cooked meal. I started working on this new friendship by buying a new crockpot. A few weeks ago I bought a SmartPot. It turns itself to warm after the cooking time that you set. I think that a major reason why I wasn't happy with my crockpot meals is that they cooked too long. Yesterday's crockpot test was pulled pork. It's based on a recipe from Emeril Lagasse. First you rub the pork with a spice mixture, then cook it in the crockpot with a splash of cider vinegar. After the pork is cooked, you shred it and add a barbecue sauce. Simple. The original recipe called for boneless pork butt; I used a boneless 7-rib pork roast. I didn't want to mess with it in the morning, so I mixed together the spice rub, coated the pork roast, wrapped it in plastic wrap and refrigerated it overnight.
In the morning, I poured a splash of cider vinegar into the crockpot, added the pork, and set the crockpot to cook on low for 8 hours. When I got home about 9 hours later, the crockpot was on warm and the house smelled wonderful. I lifted the lid and I was a bit surprised by what I saw. The roast was sitting there all in one piece looking browned and sort of dry. It looked kind of like a little brick. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I saw. My first thought was "oh crap, I need to find something else for dinner". Rather than grabbing the camera to take a picture of the cooked pork, I grabbed a fork to see if it would shred. Well, the second that the fork touched the pork, it fell apart. That was a huge relief. I tasted it and it tasted flavorful and moist. Yay, I don't have to rethink my dinner plans!
The next step is to stir in barbecue sauce. I mixed the sauce the night before when I prepped the pork, so all I had to do was pour it into the crockpot and stir it up.
Not the prettiest meal, but it was tasty. I wasn't in the mood for a sandwich, so I had mine with a Cheddar-Green Onion Muffin and lima beans. When Tom got home, he had a sandwich. I wish I had thought to make some coleslaw to go with it.
Continue reading "Crockpot Barbecued Pulled Pork " » November 4, 2008Living Without's BouleBeautiful loaves of gluten-free and dairy-free bread grace the cover of the current issue of Living Without magazine. Bread like this cries out to be made.
Most of my gluten-free clients miss bread and are looking for breads that they can eat and that are tasty. Yesterday was the day to test out one of breads from this issue of Living Without. I picked out the French baguette recipe because it is dairy-free and egg-free. Most of my gluten-free clients are also allergic to dairy and eggs. I don't have a baguette pan so I opted to make the boule version of the French baguette. This bread uses Living Without's high-protein flour blend. This blend was developed for baked goods that require elasticity. It starts with a bean flour, either chickpea flour or soy flour. Since most of my gluten-free clients are allergic to soy, I used chickpea (garbanzo) flour. The next decision to make about the flour blend is potato starch, arrowroot starch, or cornstarch. Some of my gluten-free clients are allergic to corn and I didn't have arrowroot starch on hand, so I went with potato starch. The final decision is brown rice flour or white rice flour. Brown rice flour wins because I have some and it is slightly more nutritious than white rice flour. Toss in some tapioca starch and I'm good to go with the flour blend. For the bread, first I sift the flour blend, xanthan gum, salt, and sugar into the bowl of the mixer. Then add the yeast and herbs. The recipe calls for dried herbs (rosemary or dill), but I decide to use fresh rosemary so I head out to the herb garden and snip a few sprigs. Here's the sifted flour, yeast, and rosemary in the mixer bowl. Don't skip the step of sifting the flour. These flours tend to clump, especially the chickpea flour. I always sift it to remove the clumps. I don't have a sifter; I use a fine mesh strainer to sift flours.
Next, blend the olive oil and warm water into the dry ingredients and mix on high speed for 4 minutes. Rather than plain olive oil, I decided to use some rosemary-infused olive oil. Here's the dough after mixing.
The dough is transferred to the prepared pan. I used an 8-inch spring form pan. The instructions in the original recipe don't say so, but it is much easier to move the dough from the mixing bowl to the pan if you wet the spatula. I used sweet rice flour to dust the top of the dough. I picked sweet rice flour because it is very fine.
The dough rises for 30 minutes, or until doubled. Then the oven is preheated to 400F. Here's the dough ready to go in the oven. I'm very impatient. I let it rise for just 30 minutes. I considered using the proofing setting on my oven, but decided not to. In retrospect, I think I should have let the bread rise a little longer. I don't think it was quite doubled.
The bread bakes until it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom and it registers 200-220F on an instant-read thermometer. I've never used a thermometer to test bread for doneness. After 30 minutes, the bread didn't sound hollow, so I tested it with a thermometer. It was 185F. I put it back in the oven for an additional 10 minutes. Ten minutes later, it was 200F. I decided to cook it for 5 minutes longer (a total of 45 minutes) and it was 208F when it came out of the oven. After cooling for 10 minutes, I removed the collar from the springform pan.
As you can see, it's a pretty nice looking loaf of bread. So now the torturous part starts. Cutting bread when it is very hot is not a good idea. So I let it sit for about 30 minutes to cool. I was dying to cut the loaf and see what it was like. Finally, the bread is cool enough to cut. And to taste!
The bread smells great. The texture is springy. It's not as light and airy as the boule pictured on the magazine cover, but it tastes very good. I'm wondering if I should have mixed it longer or if I should have baked it longer. I'm 99% sure that I should have let it rise longer. I've experimented with a lot of gluten-free bread recipes, some good, some really bad. This one is probably one of the best that I've made. I snacked on a still-warm slice. Then I toasted a small slice to see what it was like toasted. Quite good. I cut off a chunk and put it in the freezer so I can see what it is like after freezing. Then I wrapped the remaining half loaf of bread up to take to today's client so they can try it. I didn't see my client today, but before I left I called her at work and told her about the bread experiment that I left for her. She was looking forward to trying it. I can't wait to hear her feedback. I'm looking forward to experimenting more with this recipe. I think I need to buy a baguette pan.
Continue reading "Living Without's Boule " » October 5, 2008Socca (farinata) gluten-free goodnessI've been promising my friend Marcy that I'd post this recipe. We made it together a few weeks ago when we had a cooking play date. Socca is a chickpea flour flatbread. The recipe that I used is from Mark Bittman. He originally published the Socca recipe in October 2005, which was before I was following him. But his blog revisited the recipe in May 2008, which is when it caught my attention. I'm always on the lookout for gluten-free breads to make for my gluten-free clients and friends, so I put this on my to try list. Also, my dad loves chickpeas, so I want to make this for him soon. It's a very simple peasant bread. Great for an appetizer. And very easy to make. All you need is some chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour, water, olive oil, salt, black pepper, an onion, and some fresh rosemary. Oh and a cast iron skillet. I use Bob's Red Mill Garbanzo Bean Flour. You can also find chickpea flour at Indian markets or natural food stores. You can even make your own garbanzo bean flour by lightly roast dried garbanzo beans, then grinding them in a blender until mixture has the consistency of flour. Chickpea flour tends to clump, so you need to make sure that you sift or whisk the flour to break up any clumps. Bittman says that the onions and rosemary are optional. Marcy and I made the socca with and without the onions. We preferred it with the onions. Bitman also recommends a healthy dose of black pepper, you want the sharpness of the black pepper when you bite into the bread. For the onion, we used a red onion because I just love red onions. This recipe can be adapted in many ways. Bittman's May 2008 blog entry discusses making it with other types of flour, including buckwheat flour. I also found this recipe on Epicurious for a version with sage, olives, and onions. That sounds like a great combination. Socca Continue reading "Socca (farinata) gluten-free goodness" » July 8, 2008These are really good beets (even if they are plums)Pork, plums, and blue cheese, oh my. Boy, the Peppered Pork Tenderloin and Blue Cheese Plums recipe in the July issue of Cooking Light jumped off the page and seared itself into my mind. Tonight was the night to try this recipe. It calls for grilling, but I wanted to adapt it to the oven and stove so I can make it for some of my clients. (I don't use my clients' grills.) This dish lived up to my expectations. It was easy to prepare, bursting with flavor, and colorful.
When I presented this dish to Tom, he asked "Are these beets?". "No, they are plums". "Looks great." "Mmmm, the pork is delicious." "These are really good beets, even if they are plums." The pork tenderloin is rubbed with fresh rosemary, black pepper, fennel seed, coriander, and salt. Rather than grilling it, I seared the pork in a grill pan, then roasted it. I grilled the plums in the grill pan. Then filled them with the blue cheese. I served the pork and plums with Garlic-Thyme Crispy Potato Cakes (add roasted garlic and fresh thyme to this recipe.) June 12, 2008As eaten by Oprah: Mar-a-Lago BurgerI have no idea what Oprah eats, but one of my clients saw this Mar-a-Lago Turkey Burger recipe featured on an Oprah show and asked me if I could put it on the menu for her next cook date. Well that cook date was today. I've always been a fan of traditional burgers, but have developed a recent fascination with other types of burgers. The Mar-a-Lago burger is made with ground turkey and is seasoned with diced Granny Smith apple, mango chutney, diced celery, scallions, chipotle tabasco sauce, lemon zest and juice, and chopped parsley. The recipe on the Oprah site calls for ground turkey breast, but I used ground turkey. I was making this for the first time for a client and I needed to ensure that the burger would be nice and juicy. Maybe I'll try it at home with ground turkey breast. The burgers were very juicy made with ground turkey. I'm not so sure about making it with ground turkey breast. The diced apple has a lot of moisture and the recipe instructs you to refrigerate the burgers for two hours before cooking. It also uses 4 pounds of ground turkey to make eight 8-ounce burgers. At my store, ground turkey comes in 1 1/4 pound packages, so I used three packages for a total of 3 3/4 pounds of ground turkey. Using 3 3/4 pounds of ground turkey, I made 10 enormous burgers. I mixed and formed the burgers shortly after I arrived at my client's home and set them in the refrigerator to chill. They probably chilled for three hours. I cooked them on the stovetop rather than grilling them on a charcoal or gas grill.
The Oprah site has a recipe for Mar-a-Lago Pear Chutney to serve with them, but I opted to skip that and just use some of the Major Grey's chutney that is mixed in with the burger. Hmm, mango chutney has been making a lot of appearances in my cooking.
This is a tasty burger. The green apple adds moisture and little bit of tartness, the mango chutney adds a little heat and a little sweetness. As Tom would say "it's a keeper." After I made these, I started wondering about using cilantro instead of parsley. Next time! Continue reading "As eaten by Oprah: Mar-a-Lago Burger" » June 10, 2008Broiled Salmon Fillets with Curried Chutney SauceI selected this recipe for Salmon with Curried Chutney Sauce so I could use up the mango chutney that was leftover from last week's Black Rice Curried Meatloaf. Wow, this dish was so quick and easy to make and it was delicious. Tom raved about it and it will be a big hit with some of my clients. I didn't get a picture of the salmon because it was almost 9pm by the time we had dinner (but my kitchen sink no longer drips, thanks Tom!) and we were both starving. I didn't remember about taking a picture until after we started eating. So here's the picture from Cooking Light.
I made some very minor changes to the original recipe. Instead of sprinkling the salmon with just salt and pepper, I used salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of curry powder. I used Penzey's Sweet Curry Powder. I sprinkled the curry powder on the fish, then lightly rubbed it into the flesh. It gave the cooked salmon a little more flavor and a lovely yellow color from the turmeric in the curry powder. I also baked the salmon rather than broiling it. I wanted to serve this with garlicky roasted green beans and I wanted the oven on for as briefly as possible, so I roasted the green beans and salmon at the same time. Continue reading "Broiled Salmon Fillets with Curried Chutney Sauce" » June 5, 2008Test Kitchen: Black Rice Curried MeatloafI've been on a meatloaf kick. We love a traditional meatloaf, but lately I've been attracted to nontraditional meatloaves. My latest meatloaf is a Black Rice Curried Meatloaf from the March/April 2008 issue of EatingWell magazine. One reason this recipe caught my eye is that I had some black rice in the pantry that I wanted to use. Also, one of my clients enjoys curry dishes and I thought this would be a good recipe for them. Meatloaf isn't very photogenic, but here it is. You can see the specs of black rice in the meatloaf.
The original recipe calls for cooking the rice using the absorption method where you bring the rice and water to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until the water is absorbed and rice is tender. I rarely use the absorption method to cook rice. I mostly cook brown or whole grain rices and use either the pasta method or oven method. In this case, I cooked the black rice using the pasta method. The original recipe calls for chopping the cooled rice into small bits, but I didn't do this because cooked rice is pretty small to start with, and I envisioned bits of rice dancing all over my kitchen as I tried to chop them. The meatloaf is packed with veggies, which flavor the meatloaf and help keep it moist. It has a shredded zucchini, onion, and celery. First you saute some ginger and garlic, then add the zucchini, onion, and celery to the pan and saute them until they are soft. That takes about 5 minutes. You add curry powder and Worcestershire sauce, then let that mixture cool. I used Penzey's Sweet Curry Powder. Next time, I'll try it with Hot Curry Powder. Or maybe a combination of Sweet and Hot Curry Powders. Next the rice and veggies are combined, then mixed with ground beef and an egg until just combined. Form a free-form meatloaf, I do this on a broiler pan that is sprayed with olive oil spray. Spread mango chutney on the meatloaf. And bake the meatloaf at 350°F until the internal temperature is 165°F. I use a probe thermometer to monitor the internal temperature. So how did it taste? I immediately declared it a winner, but Tom was more skeptical. He enjoyed it, but commented that he didn't want it to replace his favorite traditional meatloaf. I assured him that it was not my plan for this to be "THE" meatloaf, just a variation of meatloaf. Tom took leftover meatloaf for lunch the next day and that evening he told me that it really was a keeper. As promised by the recipe, the black rice curried meatloaf was moist and flavorful. The mango chutney glaze adds a bit sweetness that goes perfectly with the curry-flavored meatloaf. I'll definitely make it again. Oh and that client that I wanted to make it for, I put it on their menu, but they opted for a traditional meatloaf. I made Fine Cooking's Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf for them. It was good, but a bit too rich for me. Continue reading "Test Kitchen: Black Rice Curried Meatloaf" » May 24, 2008On the grill this weekend: Spanish pork burgersI knew that Tom would want burgers at least once this weekend and this Spanish Pork Burger from Eating Well caught my eye. The ground pork that my grocery store carries has 22 grams of fat per 4 ounces. Yikes! No way am I going to use that. Pork tenderloin has 3 grams of fat per 4 ounces. That sure sounds better, huh? So rather than buying a pound of store-ground pork, I bought a 1-pound pork tenderloin and ground it in my food processor. This got me thinking that it's time to think about buying the meat grinder attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer. The food processor does a decent job of making ground meat, but it is very easy to go from ground to mush. The meat grinder attachment would solve this problem. The Spanish Pork Burger is flavored with chopped caramelized onions, smoked Spanish paprika, chopped green olives, and garlic. The onions do a great job of keeping the burger moist. It's served with more of the caramelized onions, a lemon-saffron mayo, and roasted red peppers. The original recipe calls for Piquillo peppers, but I couldn't find them, so I used roasted red peppers. This burger takes a little while longer to make than a traditional burger, but it is well worth the time. While the onions caramelized. I made a quick Spanish-flavored carrot salad by shredding about a pound of carrots, a small onion, and a large clove of garlic in the food processor. I tossed in about 2 tablespoons of chopped Spanish olives, about 2 teaspoons of dried thyme, 3 tablespoons of sherry vinegar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and salt and pepper. Rather than chopping the caramelized onions by hand, I tossed the onions, garlic, and Spanish olives into the food processor and then scraped them into a mixing bowl. I cut the pork tenderloin into small chunks before grinding it in the food processor. I get the best results with making ground meat in the food processor when I take the time to chop the meat first. I added some smoked Spanish paprika, salt, and pepper, mixed everything together, and formed it into 4 patties. The mixture is soft, but it held together perfectly. As soon as the burgers went on the grill, I mixed the lemon-saffron mayo. I love saffron and I wish I had warmed the lemon juice and soaked the saffron in the warm lemon juice rather than just mixing the saffron into the mayo, and then adding the lemon zest and juice. Next time. I cooked the burgers for 5 minutes, then flipped them and cooked them for another 5 minutes. I missed the instruction about adding the Manchego cheese and cooking for another minute to melt the cheese, so we had unmelted cheese on our burgers. I assembled the burgers by first putting some of the caramelized onions on the bun, then the burger, then the cheese, then more onions, the mayo, and topped with roasted red peppers, and the bun top. We loved these. The flavors went together perfectly and a pork burger was a delicious change. The pork tenderloin cooked up beautifully. It was lean, but moist and delicious.
Continue reading "On the grill this weekend: Spanish pork burgers" » May 16, 2008A delicious way to eat your antioxidantsThe members of the Cooking Light Great Food community brought these Fig and Ginger Truffles to my attention. The recipe is from Ellie Krieger, a chef and registered dietitian with a show called Healthy Appetite on the Food Network. Combine dried figs, crystallized ginger, honey, and cinnamon, then dip in chocolate. Delicious and full of antioxidants. A perfect gift for a friend's birthday. My usual truffles have a chocolate ganache center. The fig and ginger truffles are completely different. The figs, ginger, honey, and cinnamon are whirled together in the food processor, then formed into balls. I put the balls in the refrigerator for an hour to make them easier to dip. Before taking the balls out of the refrigerator to dip them, I decided to temper the dipping chocolate. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 ounces of dark chocolate. I knew that I would be able to dip the balls with that amount of chocolate. It's easier to work with a larger amount of chocolate, and if I have extra chocolate, I mold it into a bar for nibbling. I've been using with different methods of tempering chocolate. This time I used the stovetop method described in Making Artisan Chocolates. Although this recipe doesn't call for tempering the chocolate, I like to temper it so that the truffles can be stored at room temperature and the chocolate will not bloom. I tempered about a pound of chocolate and used a little more than half of it to dip the truffle centers.
Continue reading "A delicious way to eat your antioxidants" » March 25, 2008Baking for Jayne: Gluten-Free and Vegan Chocolate Chip CookiesJayne has Celiac disease, is allergic to soy and eggs and is sensitive to dairy. All of the food that I prepare for her and her family is gluten-free, soy-free, egg-free, and uses limited dairy. Lately, I've been making a dessert or other treat for Jayne. Today, thanks to Karina of Karina's Kitchen, I made gluten-free and vegan chocolate chip cookies for Jayne. I've tried a few gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipes and Karina's recipe beats all of them. The first test was the cookie dough. Of course, I had to try the unbaked dough. One good thing about vegan cookie dough is that you don't have to concern yourself with the food safety issue of raw eggs in the dough. Yum, this dough is delicious. It wasn't grainy/gritty like many gluten-free recipes.
The dough is chilled for one hour before you make the cookies. You roll the dough into balls, then flatten them slightly before baking. I used a heaping tablespoon of dough to form the cookies.
After 12-15 minutes, you have beautiful and delicious cookies. The cookies came out of the oven right after my client came home for lunch. We all tried them and everyone loved them. At one point, Jayne's mother asked me to move the cookies away from her so she wouldn't eat them all.
Don't you just love how the third cookie from the left in the second row from the bottom has a face? Karina's recipe is delicious. If you know someone who is gluten-free and doesn't eat eggs, be sure to make these cookies for them.
January 23, 2008Note to Self: Always Engage Brain Before BakingLast weekend, a member of the Cooking Light Great Food bulletin board posted a Blueberry Yogurt Coffee Cake from the Washington Post. Right away I knew that I wanted to make it for Tom. The recipe appeals to me because it doesn't have a lot of sugar and it uses a mixture of all-purpose and whole wheat flour. Tom loves blueberries and I wanted to make him something different for breakfast. I got home from work and pulled out all the baking stuff. What I didn't pull out was my brain. After I got all the ingredients mixed together, I realized that something was very wrong, the batter was much too dry. So I reread the recipe. Oh, it has 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour. Not 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, which is what I had used. Now what do I do? Baking is not my strong suit. I don't know the science of baking and that means that baking is not something that I feel comfortable improvising with. But I wanted to rescue this cake. It needed moisture, so I stirred in yogurt until I got a batter consistency. Since the cake had an extra cup of whole wheat flour and a cup or more of yogurt, I was concerned that it didn't have enough leavening to rise. I didn't want to bake a brick. The recipe calls for equal amounts of baking powder and baking soda, so I added in about a 1/2 teaspoon of each. I poured the batter into the pan, popped it into the oven, and crossed my fingers. I knew it would take longer to bake, but it took a lot longer than I thought it would. After the time specified in the recipe, the outside of the cake was set, but the center was still very liquid. It went back in the oven for 10 minutes. I tested it with a skewer every 5 minutes after that Finally after an additional 35 minutes, the tester came out clean. I let it cool for a little while, then tipped it out of the pan onto a rack. After it was completely cooled, I tried a sliver of it. My verdict is that the cake survived my mistake. It is quite dense, but also moist. Slightly sweet, with a crunchy granola topping. My mistake cake is not the best cake I've ever made, but it is not the worst. Tom will have it for breakfast tomorrow. We'll see what he has to say.
January 6, 2008Grains of Paradise and Autumn Blend LentilsI'm on a mission to try some of the interesting new ingredients that I've bought, but haven't made time to use. This lentil soup uses two items that have been sitting on my new ingredient shelf for a while: Grains of Paradise and an Autumn lentil blend. I bought the Grains of Paradise at A Market Natural Foods, a local natural foods store. The Autumn lentil blend came from Sid Wainer & Sons, a purveyor of specialty produce and speciality foods located in New Bedford, MA. Grains of Paradise have a peppery taste, with a fruity flavor like coriander and an aroma that reminds me of cardamom. I'm going to add some to my pepper mill the next time I fill it. The Autumn lentil blend was a rainbow of autumn colors. It would have been wiser to use them in dish that wasn't blended, but they've been on my shelf for a while, so in the pot they went. My lentil soup recipe is a slight modification of a recipe from Alton Brown. Of course I had to make a few modifications. I didn't have any celery, so I added some extra onion and carrots, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground celery seed. Soup needs garlic, in goes three cloves of minced garlic. Tomatoes are dreadful at this time of year, so I knew that I'd be using canned diced tomatoes. When I opened the cabinet to get the tomatoes, a can of fire-roasted tomatoes said "pick me". Oh, and I didn't bother finely chopping the vegetables because the soup gets blended with an immersion blender before serving.
Continue reading "Grains of Paradise and Autumn Blend Lentils" » January 1, 2008French Twist French ToastOnce French Twist French Toast was mentioned, it was a given that we had to try it. Tom is a huge fan of French Toast and made it two mornings in a row. As we expected, it was delicious. This is the start of a secondary French Twist tradition.
December 14, 2007My Orzo is OrangeA few weeks ago I was searching for whole wheat orzo. My grocery store has RiceSelect Whole Wheat Orzo Pappardelle's orzos are are beautifully packaged, but the packaging isn't ideal for shipping. When my shipment arrived, two of the packages of orzo had broken open. I emailed the company, they quickly shipped replacement packages and those packages arrived in perfect condition. They told me that they were working on their packaging. I'm 100% satisfied with their customer service.
Last night, I tried the sweet potato orzo. While it doesn't have a pronounced sweet potato flavor, it does taste delicious and it adds a beautiful orange color to the plate. When Tom saw the sweet potato orzo in my order, he wasn't thrilled with the idea of it, but I think he'll like it. I was hoping for both pronounced sweet potato flavor and color, but I'll settle for good flavor and beautiful color. I tossed the sweet potato orzo with a bit of Parmesan cheese and some black pepper. Seared scallops over sauteed spinach rounded out the plate. Sweet Potato Orzo with Seared Scallops and Sauteed Spinach
November 27, 2007My Post-Thanksgiving TurkeyI grew up in Plymouth, MA and my family still lives there. If you grew up in the land of the first Thanksgiving, that is where you go for Thanksgiving. My mom cooks the turkey and most of the dinner. That means we don't get a lot of luscious turkey leftovers. So this year, rather than raiding mom's turkey leftovers, I roasted a turkey breast a few days after Thanksgiving. My friend Kris shared this Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast with Pan Gravy that she had made for her Thanksgiving dinner and gave it rave reviews. Ah, I found the starting point for my turkey breast. The recipe from Rachael Ray calls for boned turkey breast halves. I decided to skip splitting and boning my whole turkey breast. I added a bit of garlic to the herb rub. And I used a few more bay leaves, and since I didn't have any apple cider, I decided to use white wine and turkey broth in the gravy. I wanted lots of gravy, so I also added 1 cup of white wine to the roasting pan. I also made some Stuffing Muffins, but I don't have a recipe for them because stuffing is something that I make by adding this and that. The base for the stuffing muffins is whole wheat bread that I dried in the oven. They have celery, onion, sage, sweet Italian sausage, turkey broth, butter, and white wine, but I have no idea how much of each. Speaking of turkey broth, I use Savory Choice Turkey Broth Concentrate. Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast and Stuffing Muffins
Continue reading "My Post-Thanksgiving Turkey" » November 25, 2007Pumpkin Chiffon Cup PiesI love pumpkin, but I am not a fan of traditional pumpkin pie. It's the texture of the custardy filling more than the flavor that I dislike. Last month I found a recipe for pumpkin chiffon tarts in the October issue of Martha Stewart Living. What first appealed to me is that the recipe is for individual tarts. I'm a sucker for individual desserts. I'll happily make mini pies, but I have no interest in making a normal pie. The Martha recipe had a gingersnap crust and a fluffy pumpkin filling, of course I would like it. As soon as I saw this recipe, I knew that I wanted to make it for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the perfect time for both pumpkin and mini desserts. Although the recipe called for using six 5-inch pie tins, I decided to use a cupcake pan so they would truly be mini pies. I decided not to use sugar in the crust and to use maple sugar in the filling. I also used nonfat milk instead of the whole milk that the recipe called for. Cooling the filling in an ice bath helped reduce the cooling time. Whisking the filling after chilling it improved its texture. Unfortunately, Martha's recipe is not online, so I can't link to it so you can compare it to my version. I made them on Thanksgiving Eve, and after watching Pushing Daisies later that night, I named them Pumpkin Chiffon Cup Pies. (If you aren't watching Pushing Daisies, you should be. In the 11/21 episode, Chuck decided to create cup pies, mini pies baked in cupcake pans.) Pumpkin Chiffon Cup Pie
The recipe looks more complicated than it is. It took about 20 minutes to make the crusts and 30 minutes to make the filling. This is the perfect recipe to make the night before you want to serve them. Continue reading "Pumpkin Chiffon Cup Pies" » November 11, 2007Cinnamon Apple CoffeecakeI don't enjoy baking, but I really don't like cleaning and since my husband Tom happily does most of the cleaning and laundry, I try to thank him by making him muffins, coffeecakes and other breakfast treats. A cinnamon apple coffeecake in Cooking Light's November issue caught my eye. It sounded both tasty and easy to make, which is definitely important to me. I decided to try the recipe using King Arthur 100% White Whole Wheat Flour. And some of the reviewers on the Cooking Light site said that they wished it had more apple, so I added more. I used 1 1/2 apples because my apples were very large. Plus, I wanted a snack, so I snacked on 1/2 of an apple while I made this. I also reduced the sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 cup. This is a great recipe for me since it went together in no time and uses ingredients that I always have. Tom had it for breakfast this morning and loved it. Cinnamon Apple Coffeecake Continue reading "Cinnamon Apple Coffeecake" » October 13, 2007Country Captain ChickenI miss my Sunday mornings with Sheryl Julian and Julie Riven, but I'm enjoying the recipes of Adam Ried, their replacement. Adam Ried's recent recipe for Country Captain Chicken caught my eye. I've seen lots of recipes for this dish, but have never been enticed to try any of them. Ried's addition of fresh mango intrigued me. While cooking the chicken on the bone results in deeper flavor, I wanted to decrease the cooking time, so I opted to use boneless, skinless chicken thighs. They cook quickly and most of the people I cook for prefer boneless meats and poultry. We loved the flavor of this dish. The raisins and mango in the stew and the apple garnish are the perfect complement to the heat of the curry and cayenne.
Continue reading "Country Captain Chicken" » October 7, 2007Lemon Cupcakes and More No-Knead BreadRecently, I was discussing whoopie pies with some of my personal chef buddies. The discussion of whoopie pies reminded me of the filled chocolate cupcakes that my mom made because mom used her whoopie pie filling to fill the chocolate cupcakes. When I mentioned this, my friend Rachel said that her mom made lemon-filled lemon cupcakes. I love all things lemon and asked Rachel for her mom's recipe. I got my love of lemon from both my mom and dad, and decided to make these cupcakes for his 84th birthday celebration on Saturday. Rachel's mom filled her cupcakes with lemon pudding, but I decided to fill them with homemade lemon curd. I'm much better at cooking than I am at baking, but the cupcakes came out beautifully. I even forgot to set the timer when I put them in the oven, but managed to cook them just the right amount of time. This summer, my friend Marcy did a cupcake demonstration for us and her presentation gave me the confidence to cook the cupcakes perfectly even though I had no idea how long they had been in the oven before I realized that I forgot the timer. My mom always cut a cone out of the cupcakes, filled the hole with filling, then put the cone in the filling. My sister Marcia showed me how to cut the cones in half and set them in the filling so they look like butterflies. Her husband's family always makes their filled cupcakes this way and calls them butterfly cupcakes. I've also been wanting to try the No-Knead Bread with a mixture of whole wheat and white flour, and decided to make bread for our family dinner. I made two loaves of bread, one 50/50 whole wheat and white flour and one all white flour. I used a small amount (1/3 cup) of semolina flour as part of the while flour in both loaves. Continue reading "Lemon Cupcakes and More No-Knead Bread" » September 29, 2007Crispy Potato CakesNOTE: See revised recipe I'm bored with making the same old potato side dishes and my search for new potato recipes led me to a Cooking Light recipe for Crispy Potato Hash Browns. The technique used in this recipe interested me. You combine grated potatoes with cornstarch, form them into "cakes" using a 3-inch biscuit cutter, then bake them in a 475º oven. The online reviews for the recipe were good, and they sounded like a good side dish for the meatloaf I was making for one of my clients this week, so I put them on the menu. Some side benefits of this recipe is that it is gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, and it has just a trace of fat. I don't have a 3-inch biscuit cutter, but I am a whiz with aluminum foil, so I made a 3-inch ring form with foil. Take a 2 foot long strip of foil, fold it in half the long way, then continue to fold it in half the long way until you have a strip that is about an inch wide. Then twist the strip into a rope. Fold the twisted strip in half and form it into a 3-inch diameter loop. You'll get something that looks like this.
The potatoes are grated, then soaked in cold water for 5 minutes. The comments for the recipe indicated that the box grater gives much better results than grating in the food processor, so stick with the box grater. It doesn't take long to grate the potatoes. I didn't have a salad spinner to spin dry the potatoes. I set them in a colander and used a clean towel to press down on them until I couldn't squeeze out any more water. It worked perfectly for me. Even with the hand grating, the recipe was quick and easy to prep and the results were very tasty. I renamed these to Crispy Potato Cakes because that is what they are. I see myself adding different herbs and spices to them to pair them with different dishes. How about some chili powder or cayenne pepper for a spicy potato cake? Or fresh thyme. Or curry powder. The possibilities are endless. Continue reading "Crispy Potato Cakes " » September 23, 2007No Knead Bread - I finally made itLast November, Mark Bittman wrote about no-knead bread. The recipe caught my attention, but at the time, my oven counldn't maintain the 450 degree temperature required to cook the bread and I didn't have a covered pot that was safe to 450 degrees. So I just read everyone's blogs and forum posts about their breadmaking and whimpered quietly because I wasn't able to make this wonderful bread. Last March, we replaced my clunker of a stove with a wonderful GE Profile and this June when a local cooking school was having a moving sale, I bought a gorgeous Mario Batali 6qt enameled cast iron dutch oven. But by then, the buzz about the bread had completely died down and I forgot about it. Until I read about it on Jaden's Steamy Kitchen. Heck, if her four year old can make this bread, I can too! We were having a cool spell, so I hauled out my new pan and got to work. I had read that some people had trouble with the dough sticking to the floured towel and I found someone who used parchment instead of a towel, so I decided to try that method. I used the adaptation of the recipe posted on Jaden's blog. It calls for slightly less water and a little more salt than the original recipe posted on the NY Times site. Step 1 is to mix the dough. All you do is mix together flour, water, yeast, and salt. It went together in minutes and I left it to gurgle overnight. I let it ferment for about 16 hours. Step 2 is to shape the dough and let it rise. Jaden's blog said that the dough would be really sticky and that you'd need to wet your hands to work with it, but mine wasn't that sticky. I worked on lightly floured parchment. It took about 1 minute to shape the dough. I covered it with parchment. The dough rises for 2 hours and after 1 1/2 hours, you put the dutch oven in the oven and preheat to 450. Step 3 is to remove the pot from the oven. This was the hardest step of the day. That pot is HEAVY! You simply dump the dough into the pot and shake it a little to even out the dough. Put the cover on and it goes into the oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the cover from the pot and bake the bread for another 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the internal temperature is 210 degrees (Farenheit). My loaf looked great after baking for 15 minutes uncovered, but I decided to measure the temperature, something I've never done with bread. It was just 200, so I put the bread back in for 8 minutes. The bread came right out of the pan with no sticking. It smelled like heaven!
We ate it with a pressure cooker adaptation of Pan-Roasted Pork Loin with Leeks, which I thought I took a picture of, but I can't find it right now. The bread was light with a beautiful crust. It was perfect for sopping up the leek sauce. I have a feeling that this bread is going to make many appearances in my kitchen. July 13, 2007Spicy Basque-Style ChickenAnother weeknight winner from Cooking Light. The Spicy Basque-Style Chicken from the June 2007 issue was my test kitchen recipe this week. It's quick, easy, and full of flavor. In the time it takes to cook the rice to accompany it, you'll have dinner on the table.
Spicy Basque-Style Chicken, Saffron Rice, Roasted Asparagus I forgot to buy green olives, so I used capers. I really liked the dish with capers and will keep that change. The bottled minced garlic was replaced with fresh minced garlic. When I made this, I added the prosciutto, but I thought the prosciutto got lost in the dish so I omitted it from the final recipe. I get my smoked Spanish paprika from Penzeys. I've been buying herbs and spices from Penzeys for over 20 years. When I first started ordering from them, their catalog was a newsprint catalog; it was long before they had a web site and retail stores. Smoked Spanish paprika adds a smoky spicy flavor. Try it, you'll love it. Good paprika is nothing like grocery store paprika. When you buy Penzeys' Smoked Spanish Paprika, add some Hungarian sweet paprika and Hungarian half-sharp paprika to your order. You'll never buy grocery store paprika again. Continue reading "Spicy Basque-Style Chicken" » July 8, 2007Salmon for SupperThis super speedy recipe is perfect for a weeknight meal. It's based on Cooking Light's Broiled Tilapia with Thai Coconut Curry Sauce. I don't care for the texture of tilapia, so I made it with salmon. Red curry paste can be quite hot, so I add 1/2 teaspoon at a time until the heat level of the dish is right for us. In this dish, 1 teaspoon of red curry paste gave us the perfect heat level. We love ginger and garlic, so I used more than the original recipe called for. Adding more brown sugar can temper the heat of this dish if you unwittingly add too much curry paste. I also made just two portions of salmon, but the full amount of sauce. I served this with Brown Basmati Rice with Edamame. I use the pasta method to cook brown rice, then toss in the edamame for a minute once the rice is cooked to the desired tenderness, about 25 minutes. The extra sauce was much hotter the next day when I had it for lunch served over the leftover brown rice with edamame.
Continue reading "Salmon for Supper" » June 30, 2007Cherry HeavenYesterday I picked 12 pounds of cherries at my favorite farm: 8 pounds of sweet cherries and 4 pounds of sour cherries. For me, the day that I pick cherries is the official start of summer. I usually pick only sweet cherries, but after hearing Jeremy Jackson talk about his Little Meatballs with Cherry Sauce, I've been waiting for sour cherries to be ready to pick. When I got the announcement that the theme for the June meeting of the Massachusetts chapter of Personal Chefs Network was picnics, I selected this recipe to make for our meeting. Last night I pitted a pound of cherries for the recipe (not a whole lot of fun) so I could make the recipe in the morning. I made the meatballs this morning with some minor modifications to the recipe. The lamb meatballs filled the house with a wonderful aroma. My husband Tom came looking for lunch when I took the meatballs out of the oven. He had his before I added them to the cherry sauce. This isn't a great picture because I was in a hurry when I plated them and took the picture. There were 10 hungry personal chefs waiting to dig into them.
The bright and sharp flavor of the sour cherries is a perfect match for the lamb meatballs. Tomorrow I'll pit the rest of the sour cherries and freeze them. Then I'll be looking for more savory recipes that use sour cherries. My reward for pitting them will be a big bowl of sweet cherries. Continue reading "Cherry Heaven" » June 21, 2007The Best Oven-Fried ChickenToday is the first day of summer, the perfect time for fried chicken. I've had a recipe called The Best Oven-Fried Chicken on my menu for a while, but I've never made it for anyone. I want to make it next week for one of my clients, so I decided to test it today. The recipe is from Pam Anderson, a contributing editor for Fine Cooking magazine and former executive editor of Cook's illustrated.
I made a few changes to the recipe. I used 4 ounces plain melba toasts and 4 ounces onion melba toasts. I also doubled the herbs and spices. I put the spices in the egg wash as specified in the recipe, but I also added the same amount of herbs and spices to the melba toast crumbs. The recipe calls for chicken legs and thighs, but we don't like chicken legs, so I used all thighs. The chicken was very easy to prepare; I don't think it took the 35 minutes specified in the recipe. And best of all, it was delicious. I'm glad that I added the extra seasonings. It was flavorful and crunchy. Both Tom and I declared it a winner. Continue reading "The Best Oven-Fried Chicken" » April 20, 2007Smurf MuffinsSometimes recipes don't turn out how you want them to. This week I tested a blueberry muffin recipe from Grain-Free Gourmet. It's a simple recipe that uses blueberries, water, almond flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, vanilla extract, honey, and eggs. The recipe has you simmer the blueberries and water until the blueberries release their water and the mixture thickens. I used frozen blueberries. They just seemed to keep releasing lots of water and never really thickened. And also turned very blue! I knew I should have started over with the blueberries, but I was pressed for time, so I said to myself "how bad could it be?" Hmm, the minute I mixed the blueberries with the rest of the ingredients, I knew that I was going to end up with the ugliest muffins that I've ever baked. See for yourself.
These muffins turned out to be the color of a sickly smurf. But they are quite tasty. I brought some to my friend Lisa Allen, the author of Eating Clean, and she enjoyed them. I sent her home with a container of smurf muffins. My husband Tom declared that they looked totally unappetizing. I have to agree with him on that. But they do taste quite good and I will make them again. I want to try them with both fresh and frozen blueberries. My plan is to skip the simmering step and just add the water (or maybe fresh squeezed orange juice) and the blueberries to the rest of the ingredients. Or maybe the simmering step will work better with fresh berries. But first I need to get more almond flour. I used Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour for the smurf muffins. Although Lisa loved the texture that the Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal produced, I’d like to try these muffins with a finer textured almond meal. One of my clients recommended the almond meal from Lucy's Kitchen Shop because it has a fine texture. Maybe a 50/50 mix of fine and coarse almond flour. At any rate, it’s a recipe that I will be revisiting. April 15, 2007Seared Salmon with Coconut SpinachThis recipe for Seared Salmon with Coconut Spinach has been on my testing pile for weeks. I made it for dinner tonight and it is a winner. It takes minutes to make and is bursting with flavor. I had some leftover basmati rice, so I served it over that rather than soba noodles. The recipe calls for just searing the salmon, but we like our salmon cooked through. After searing for a few minutes on each side, I covered the pan and cooked the salmon until it was cooked through. If you sear it in an oven-safe pan, you can finish it in a 350 degree oven. The spinach was spicy, but not overly hot.
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