October 2006 Archives

I have a funny way of backing into my cooking and baking plans. I tend to have something in the kitchen I need to use up, so I find a recipe that requires a large amount of that ingredient.

This time it was sour cream. Fresh Direct has these one-click recipes, where you choose a recipe and just click a button to make all the ingredients end up in your order. My problem is that I choose a recipe, like maple mashed sweet potatoes, then don't feel it's worth the effort to make. I just throw the sweet potatoes in the oven and then I have the other ingredients left over, with no use. For the sweet potatoes, I had a pint-size container of full-fat sour cream.

So of course it's time for coffee cake. I made it from a recipe in Baking Illustrated, which is my new favorite baking cookbook. Everything I've made from it has been pretty good, and a couple things, like this cake and the snickerdoodles, have been "ultimate" recipes that, to my mind, have no need for improvement.

It's a mammoth cake, so it's good to share around, but we managed to eat most of it between the three of us in about 4 days. I used up all my cinnamon and just about every mixing bowl I own. You start by making the streusel: 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon mixed together. Then you remove 1 1/4 cup of that mixture and add 1/4 cup more brown sugar to it (this is the inside streusel); add 2 tablespoons cold, cut-up butter to what's left in the bowl and squish it with your fingers until the butter's in small pieces (this is the topping streusel, with the addition of 1 cup pecans, chopped, which I didn't add because I didn't have it).

For the cake, mix 4 large eggs with 1 cup sour cream and 1 tablespoon vanilla (also used up all my vanilla). Then, in another bowl, mix 2 1/4 cups (11.5 ounces) flour with 1 1/4 cup white sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon baking soda and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Add 12 tablespoons cut-up and softened butter and 1/2 cup sour cream and mix on low to moisten, then on medium for 30 seconds. Gradually add egg mixture in 3 additions, then beat on medium-high for 1 more minute.

Layer 2 cups batter in a greased bundt pan, then half the inside streusel, 2 more cups batter, rest of inside streusel, rest of batter and all of the butter-pecan (topping) streusel. Bake about 50 to 60 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven, until a skewer comes out mostly clean (some stressel might stick to it if you hit a vein). Cool in pan for 30 minutes, then remove and cool completely (or at least 2 hours before cutting it). I have kind of a hard time getting it out, but I ran the skewer along the sides of the pan and it eventually popped right out.

Now I can't imagine actually following the above directions as written, so if you're really into baking and are looking for a place to get good basic recipes, I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Sometimes the recipes get a little labor-intensive for the sake of perfection, but more often than not they balance ease and good results.

I've been making a lot of food from First Meals, which focuses on recipes for infants and children. The sandwich spirals was a suggestion from the book, and the butternut squash risotto I made for some friends for dinner last Friday was from the chapter for 3 to 7 year olds. The kid was not very excited about it (neither was his father), but my friends both liked it, and so did I. I made it during August's afternoon nap and warmed it up on the stovetop with some extra stock.

1 cup arborio rice, 3 cups warm stock, etc. It's a pretty typical risotto recipe, really. Saute 1 finely chopped onion and 1 minced garlic clove in butter and oil. Stir in the rice and coat with the butter and oil, then start adding the stock a ladleful at a time, stirring the rice until it has absorbed the stock. Keep adding ladlefuls of stock until the rice is done, al dente in the center but creamy. My rice was a little old, so it took more stock than the recipe called for. For the last 10 minutes of cooking, add grated Parmesan, minced sage and steamed, cubed butternut squash (I used half a small squash, steamed in the microwave for a few minutes).

August has entered the phase where food novelty takes a visual turn. Today I made sandwiches with avocado/cheddar and hummus/red pepper, and August at least tried them (and actually liked the avocado). He no longer eats avocado or hummus, so I'm sure the form the sandwiches took were key.

I cut the crusts off two slices of whole-wheat sandwich bread (I used Vermont Bread Company's soft whole wheat) and laid them end-to-end, overlapping a bit. Then I rolled them flat with the rolling pin, which also sticks them together, then spread them with avocado mashed with salt and lime juice and sprinkled it with shredded Cheddar cheese. Rolled it up, then sliced it into spirals. August really liked these.

I also did hummus and chopped roasted red pepper; I actually used Rick's Picks Pepi Pep Peps, pickled red peppers I bought at the Unions Square farmers' market that have a ginger flavor and aren't too vinegary (I like all the pickles I've tried from this guy), and August just picked out the pickled peppers and ate them.

I'm cooking some bacon in the oven, and it's the most gorgeous smell we've had in the house for a while. Sweet, salty, almost like a woodstove but not enough so to be off-putting. It's raining and dark outside and I fully expect Todd to walk in the door and feel like he's back in Durango, where he had to chop the wood for the stove that heated his childhood home. Anyway, after 10 minutes, the bacon's pink; it kind of looks like ham.

Turns out that moment, smelling the bacon cooking, was the apex of my dining enjoyment that night. Bacon's like doughnuts to me; the smell always holds more promise than the taste can deliver. I know I feel that way about bacon, yet I keep eating it.

I know that the book Mindless Eating is about more complex ways we're manipulated when making decisions about what to eat, and I'm excited to get started on it. It seems like it's going to be the research BEFORE the diet gurus get ahold of it and twist it into some magical way to lose weight. Maybe you could use it to the opposite effect, to heighten your dining experience. (My last dining out experience, at Cookshop, makes me think that type of manipulation is sorely needed and in short supply.) Or to persuade a finicky 2-year-old to eat his squash.

Man, chicken soup can be so good. I've borrowed a cookbook for toddlers, First Foods, from a friend, and I've been cooking from it quite a bit. Yesterday I made chicken soup, and I did find the method's a bit messy and awkward (especially without a strainer). But the soup was very, very good.

I covered 3 bone-in chicken thighs with water and boiled them for 20 minutes, skimming the stuff that floated to the top. Then I added 6 peeled and halved carrots, a onion chopped in big pieces, two stalks of celery, chopped, and some of the celery tops from the middle, a handful of parsley from my sad little pot on the windowsill and two lanky vines of fresh thyme, a couple heaping teaspoons of Better Than Bouillon, some peppercorns and a bay leaf. More water. Simmered that for about 3 hours, then strained the soup through a colander into a bowl. Picked the chicken and carrots out of the colander, then cut and shredded, respectively. Tried to cut up some celery, too, but that was just a soggy mess.

Added the chicken and carrots to the broth, then put some of the soup, sans-noodles, in the fridge. Brought the rest to a boil, then added some egg noodles and cooked them 8 minutes. (My friend recommended that; the egg noodles get soggy if they sit as leftovers in the soup.) I accidentally bought the flat egg noodles and I really liked them, just like grandma's.

The recipe included refrigerating the soup overnight and skimming the fat from the top, but I didn't do that and didn't notice it being too rich.

I know there are better ways to do this, but I doubt if there are any that are easier. I cut butternut squash into 1-inch cubes, then got a big pot of salted water boiling. Boiled the squash for about 5 minutes, then added the rotini and boiled for another 8 minutes. Drained, then dressed it with my good, slightly bitter olive oil and some grated locatelli. August picked through it to eat just the pasta, and he wanted to drink the olive oil, but he was only willing to eat the squash after much coaxing and if I fed it to him.

I'm going to use the rest of the squash to make a risotto, I think.

A couple of weeks ago I found this recipe on the Food Network recipe, and while the baby and Todd were at the playground I bought all the ingredients and prepared it. (It was so nice to be alone in the kitchen, making dinner, then have them come home, pink-cheeked and hungry.) I've discovered that both of my boys will eat fennel, especially with tomatoes, and that you can do everything wrong and still have it turn out all right.

I bought two pork chops, probably about an inch thick, then salted and peppered them and browned them on both sides. Then I took them out of the pan and added one sliced fennel bulb and a diced shallot. Once they started to soften, I added a 1/4 cup chicken stock and a 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes. Nestled the pok chops back in the pan and simmered them for about 12 minutes to cook them through. Then I added chopped fresh parsley, lemon zest and capers to the sauce and served the pork with the tomatoes and fennel spooned over the top.

The funny thing is, a couple days later I caught the episode of Everyday Italian when she was cooking this, and she really emphasized how you had to use 2-inch pork chops or they'd dry out and how important white wine (not chicken stock) was to the final flavor of the dish. So I did a whole bunch of things wrong (didn't use fennel fronds, either), and still ended up with something that we all really liked. Most cooking really is so forgiving.