The arrival of autumn...

I might as well admit it; fall is here.  It is the last day of September, after all.  But the temperature is really starting to drop and it's getting harder to get by with just a sweater and scarf.  Pretty soon I'm going to have to start putting the lights on my bike when I ride home from work.  Where did the summer go?!  Oh wait, we didn't really have one, or a legitimate one, anyway.

As much as I'll miss my summer produce, I really do love the comforting foods of fall.  After a summer of being reluctant to turn on the oven and add to the heat in my non-ventilated kitchen, I'm always ready to start roasting.

Tonight as my hands froze as I rode home, I couldn't wait to return to the black eyed peas with sausage that I knew awaited me in the fridge.  It's one of those meals that really needs to be made on a weekend, it takes forever (dried beans be damned), but is so worth it that next day (and the next... and next) when it just needs to be reheated on the stove.

Who wouldn't want to come home to that?

I'd like to find a way to make it vegetarian, but I think I'd lose some depth of flavor from the sausage (Lionette's has the best all-natural, free range, etc. handmade Italian sausages; not to shortchange the phenomenal lamb and apricot sausages...).  Any ideas on how I might gain some of that back from a non-meat source?  I was thinking maybe adding a beer instead of some of the water, an Octoberfest-style lager perhaps. 

I'm also on a mission to consume everything in my pantry before we move.  Tonight, that means chocolate pudding.  Not sure why I bought chocolate pudding, it's not exactly a normal pantry staple for me, but I had some whipping cream left over from the gateau last week, so....

Hysterical

“What’s the two things they tell you are healthiest to eat? Chicken and fish . . . You know what you should do? Combine them. Eat a penguin.” –Dave Attell (b. 1965), American comedian

I'm on Twitter

Follow me:  @emmmilykj


Still working on figuring this all out, but I'll probably tweet when I have a new blog post?  Or other things come my way that I want to share... in very short text.

An American in...

As I was lying in bed this morning a thought occurred to me -- there's really no reason why I can't do what David Lebovitz has done, namely, move to a new country, pay attention to what's going on around you, and write about it.  Of course, it helps if you happen to be a pastry chef with several cookbooks under your belt and are living in the country that defined the pastry, but it's not an entirely complicated concept.

I could do this.  I'd like start living a little more intentionally, not just floating through days but really appreciating what's going on around me.  This morning, I happened to be particularly grateful that it was drizzling, because despite my overall lack of sleep, there wasn't a throng of people with dogs and children standing outside on the corner at the Buttery, their barks, cries, and conversations keeping me even more awake on a Sunday morning.  It's time to start counting the little things.

To that end, maybe I don't have to go to a foreign country.  Of course, I'd love to (An American in Liguria wouldn't be a bad blog concept...), but really, can't I be an American in... America?  Who knows what I'll be doing a year from now, but at least I'll have paid attention to the changing landscape.

Gateau Therese

Late last week I got a nice surprise in my inbox -- my long wait to borrow David Lebovitz's "The Sweet Life in Paris" from the library had ended and I could come claim my book. This could not have come at a better time; I've been between books, trying to decide what to read next, and really needed something light and entertaining for the sake of my sanity.

That departure from reality came in the form of witty quips about the daily trials of being an American living in Paris, an observer from the outside. It also comes complete with numerous recipes I couldn't wait to try.

Hence, Wednesday is now cake and wine night. Gateau Therese, a chocolate cake, sounded delicious and simple, so much so that I needed to create an occasion to make it (not that I'm above making cake for myself).

I made the cake in a slightly larger loaf pan than suggested, but I don't think I lost anything aside from a few millimeters of the center (the best part). It was delicious: intensely chocolatey, not too sweet, and incredibly light despite its dense appearance, thanks to lots of egg whites. Perfect with a little whipped cream, or a big glass of milk.


I think I'll need to copy a few more recipes from this book before I return it. If you see it at a bookstore, I highly recommend paging through it; a very entertaining read and at least one great recipe (though I'm sure there are more).

If I'm going to perfect the art of something, it might have to be chocolate cake...

Epic fail to epic win

My friend had a party for her birthday last night, so I thought I'd make a cake. Still having yet to use my new bundt pan, this was a perfect opportunity. So I made the batter, baked, cooled, and flipped... tragically. Apparently I hadn't greased the pan enough because about a quarter of the cake remained in the pan. It was completely un-salvageable.



Or so I thought.

One is reminded of the wonder that is the internet when you can Google "bundt cake disaster" and actually come up with some usable results. "Leftover chocolate cake" was an even better search term and gave me a few viable options for my cake mess. I decided to go with a trifle.

Picking up a chunk of perfectly good cake and crumbling it in your hands is one of the more bizarre feelings I've experienced. It's kind of fun but yet feels so wrong. Anyway, cake crumbs layered with chocolate pudding, Heath bits, and amaretto-spiked whipped cream turns into a pretty great dessert. Really, it may have been better than the cake alone (but really, what's not better with whipped cream and toffee) and was a hit at the party, even if it was a little more utensil-intensive than I had planned. Score one for ingenuity!

The lake

There is something about the lake that I closely associate with food. By the lake, I mean my family's lake home in northern Wisconsin, where I spent Labor Day weekend. By food, I mean just that, but particularly the consumption of it: sandwiches, cheeses, wine, dessert, all in quantities generally larger than I'd normally ingest, yet somehow I never feel upset with myself. The association isn't such a mystery. I come from a family of cooks and eaters, "foodies" before the word was cool. Just a group of women (and men) who enjoy food and the preparation of it beyond the daily task of putting a meal on the table.


As you can imagine, this tends to make holiday meals pretty spectacular, but it's the simple (and sometimes not quite so), no-pressure meals at the lake that are the best. Cheese is plated and wine served generously at five, a meal cooked prior to arrival reaheated or a grill fired up at seven, served with a fresh salad and more wine shortly thereafter. And dessert. Always dessert. Stomachs full and bodies tired, few of us last much beyond the ten o'clock news.

Lunch has a tendency to come from the Eagle River Bakery, unless leftovers abound. The bakery specializes in sandwiches; nothing fancy, just a variety of combinations of deli meats and cheeses, all named after northwoods animals. Choose your animal, your bread (freshly baked), dressings, and a cookie. We generally call in our order ahead of time, picking up bags of the styrofoam containers, each complete with a sandwich, pickle, rippled chips, and the ever-ubiquitous cookie -- cranberry nut is the house favorite. There may or may not actually be anything that spectacular about the sandwiches themselves, but the fact that they're good (an unfortunate rarity in the northwoods), readily available, and are generally eaten on the boat, elevates them to a level beyond where they might otherwise reside.


Food is really only as good as those you share it with, and can always be improved by your surroundings. Here's to the lake.

Comfort Food

I'm not feeling well. Just a cold, nothing serious, but enough to make me feel a little out of commission. We're also coming into our first fall weather here in Boston, and it's just, well, cold. That said, I needed to make myself dinner, and was craving mac and cheese. I went into the pantry and pulled out that classic blue box, Kraft Mac and Cheese. Yes, the neon orange powder kind, not even the Annie's Organics variety that at least tries to appear natural. For whatever reason, after a fabulous meal at Ten Tables last night which included octopus, skate wing, and basil ice cream of all things, I wanted what is probably one of the most processed, marketed, and generally non-nutritionally redeeming meals on the planet (if you can even call it that).

Approximately ten minutes later, my box of dry pasta and powdered "cheese" had transformed itself into soft noodles covered in a still unnaturally orange sauce. I took a bite, anticipating the comforting associations of childhood sick days... and was disappointed. It just wasn't good. How this has failed to occur to me all through college and in the years since is beyond me. Granted, it's not a food I make with any regularity, but I've definitely been lazy/sick/bored enough to reach for the blue box a few times over the years. It was just incredibly disappointing. The noodles were too mushy (potentially my fault but we're not exactly dealing with a high quality pasta here) and the cheese sauce was flavorless. In fact, its only real redeeming quality was that it was warm.

Of course, this didn't prevent me from eating the whole bowl I had served myself. But, disappointed and dissatisfied, I opened the freezer to help myself to Sweet Scoops ginger frozen yogurt (possibly the best ever), straight from the pint. I'll rationalize it; I'm sick.

Granola

I wrote this a while ago but I've been so busy recently I haven't had time to write anything new! In the meantime, enjoy!


I love granola, so much so that I'm willing to turn on the oven in the late August heat so I don't have to go a morning without it. Making your own granola is so easy and is certainly less expensive, and probably healthier, than what you'd buy at the grocery store (and more environmentally friendly!). This recipe is a combination of my favorite parts of many other granola recipes I've found; it's crunchy, not too sweet, and involves lots of nuts and good-for-you things like flax seed, wheat germ, and bran. It's also very forgiving and open to interpretation -- throw in whatever nuts you like, add or subtract seasonings, use a different oil -- just keep the proportions roughly the same. I like it with plain yogurt and fresh or dried fruit for breakfast, or sprinkled on top of ice cream for dessert.



Granola

3 c. old fashioned oats
1/2 c. each flaxseed meal, toasted wheat germ, and wheat bran
2/3 c. each slivered almonds, pistachios, and sunflower seeds
a pinch of salt
2/3 c. light brown sugar
2 tsp. molasses
2 tbsp. walnut oil
1 large egg white
1 tsp. each vanilla and almond extracts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix oats, flaxseed, germ, bran, nuts and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together brown sugar, molasses, oil, egg white, and extracts. Add sugar mixture to dry ingredients and mix well (the sugar mixture will be thick, so this may take a little longer than expected). Pour onto a large, greased baking sheet and bake for approximately 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until granola is golden brown. Allow to cool and store in the refrigerator (granola will last at least a month, if it's not eaten by then!).

Inspiration

I've said that I wouldn't blog at work but it's lunchtime on the Friday before a long weekend and I had to share this:

I've stumbled upon an amazing website, Ideas in Food (www.ideasinfood.com). You must check out the photos of their creations. Incredible.

...and I learned something new today

As it turns out, my pizza dough wasn't stretchy enough because I didn't knead it enough, not that I kneaded too much. Now that I think about it, I've never made a yeast-based bread on my own before, never had to think about how long to knead (until it can be stretched to translucency without tearing, it turns out; thank you Michael Ruhlman). Lesson learned!

"The good news is: there is pizza, ice cream, and beer"

No truer words have been spoken (by our waitress at Picco Saturday night, to the man at the table next to us who asked, "What's the good news?"). To keep with the good word, last night's menu at casa de Emily was pizza, brownies, and wine.

Our first foray into 100% homemade pizza (no store-bought dough or sauce for us!) actually went pretty well. Sunday afternoon's dough making was only slightly disastrous; apparently the sides of my flour "well" were not high enough to hold the water/yeast/oil mixture, as it broke the barrier and went careening across the counter, under the coffee maker, onto the floor... basically everywhere in a gooey, yeasty mess. I was able to scoop enough of it up to create a somewhat workable ball, though I think the flooding issue caused me to over-knead the dough, resulting in a less-stretchy-than-desired consistency when we actually rolled it out last night. It wasn't bad by any means, but a created a denser crust than I would have liked; I can do better.

Sauce prep was a piece of cake! Both the dough and sauce recipes came from Jamie at Home, the sauce consisting of whole canned tomatoes (San Marzano, because I love the can design! I need to find a reason to buy diced tomatoes so I can get the purple one...), olive oil, garlic, and basil simmered over the stove. Couldn't have been easier, and it was delicious!

Combined with some farmer's market produce and delicious, sustainable sweet Italian sausage from Lionette's, we arrived at four pizza combos:

1. Sausage, mushrooms, red onions, fresh and shredded mozzarella (the crowd favorite)
2. "Mexican" pizza with corn, black beans, jalopeños, red onion, and cotija (a close second)
3. Japanese eggplant, zucchini, corn, fresh and shredded mozzarella
   
4. "Pesto/Margherita" with a pesto base (no tomato sauce), sliced heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella

Overall, the pizzas were a hit. I'd definitely like to continue experimenting with different crusts, toppings, etc. to perfect my craft. Luckily I think I have lots of willing test subjects...

Rachel Ray as Gateway Drug

"The road to eating at Robuchon for the majority of people goes through Rachael Ray. Ray and Fieri are the culinary versions of marijuana, the food-TV gateway drug to eating and cooking either bigger, better, and badder food, or, for lazier folks, a lifetime of the cooking equivalent of smoking really bad weed."

From: "The Grub Report: Critics and Commentators Survey the State of Our Food Union," comment by Michael Nagrant, Hungry Mag


I think this comment is interesting for a number of reasons. Aside from is humorous tone, I think it gets at a very valid point. A lot has been said about the rise in popularity of food TV (without a corresponding rise in actual cooking), but it may be the first step towards getting our culture focused on the preparation of meals as a normal part of the American lifestyle once again. It's unlikely that anyone would confuse Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals for gourmet, and there's certainly nothing everyday about the establishments that Guy Fieri visits in Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, but is the fact that people are actually watching and enjoying these shows a sign of a change to come?

Although Fieri's show encourages eating outside the home, the focus of the show is the preparation of the food and on the owners of the eateries themselves, promoting the lifestyle of small restaurant ownership and encouraging diners to eat at locally-owned establishments rather than the Olive Gardens of the world. Let's face it, people are busy and are unlikely to become less so any time soon; even if they'd like to cook it truly may not be an option every night of the week. In this case, wouldn't we, as a society or a city, rather that they support our local economy? This promotes the charm and uniqueness of cities and towns across America that are characterized by their local establishments, not the number of chain restaurants and big box stores lining the highways. Granted, generally the items on the featured menus aren't exactly helping to fight the obesity epidemic, but let's pick our battles.

30 Minute Meals really is a gateway for many people, from kids and college students to working adults. Sure, Rachel Ray may be irritating at times (yum-o? really?), but her recipes are a realistic introduction to the kitchen. They're simple, easy to follow, and utilize reasonably priced ingredients. Approachable may be the best descriptor. So you start at Rachel Ray, then maybe move to Mark Bittman, or maybe you've learned enough of the basics to start throwing ingredients together on your own.

Fostering an interest in cooking, or at least the knowledge how one's food is prepared, is the focus here. If that leads just 10% of viewers to actually enter the kitchen, I'd call it a success.