Candied Ginger-Cardamom Bars

Lent begins this week, and over the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what sacrifices I want to make during this season. This is only the third year we’ve observed Lent: last year I went gluten-free, and the year before my husband and I both ate only vegetarian food. This year I’ve decided I’m going to give up added sugars, both in recipes and in packaged/prepared foods. I’m allowing myself honey, but that will be the only sweetener I can use. (I don’t use artificial sweeteners as a general rule anyway.)

So with that, I’m going to post some desserts from the past few months, before it gets too hard to look at them! ;) These bar cookies from the Bon Appetit cookbook were unusual, both in terms of taste and preparation. That’s not to say they didn’t taste excellent, but I was a bit skeptical at first of how they were going to turn out! The dough is made using the same techniques as press-in tart dough: cutting butter into the dry ingredients, then adding a liquid (in this case an egg), mixing until clumps form, and pressing into a pan. I thought this would lead to incredibly dense and crumbly cookies, but while they were dense, the texture was chewy rather than crumbly. The cardamom-ginger flavor was unusual but worked well with the texture, giving the cookies an exotic touch.

These cookies are too rich for everyday snacks/dessert, but I can definitely see myself making them again to take to a party or luncheon. Enjoy!

Smoked Sausage Cassoulet

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time on the weekends cooking a few large main courses, for the purpose of having leftovers for the entire week. This cassoulet from the Bon Appetit Cookbook has been one of my favorites so far; I’ll admit that I made it 2 weekends in a row last month! The first time I used four different kinds of sausages from the public market, which turned out to be pretty expensive all added together. The second time I just picked up a few links of kielbasa from the grocery store, which wasn’t quite as fancy or authentic, but was a lot easier on the food budget. :) Next time I think I’ll use primarily kielbasa and throw in one package of fancy andouille for variety.

This recipe definitely has a very different flavor profile than the lentil-based cassoulet I made over the summer. That version has no tomatoes, instead including carrots and celery as a vegetable component. This cassoulet also has a thinner consistency: because the beans are canned and not cooked from dry, they don’t soak up as much cooking liquid as the lentils in the other version. This initially might cause you to think you were making a thick soup rather than a hearty stew, but the next day it thickens up considerably.

Although the original recipe says it can be made up to 2 days ahead, honestly this kept really well in my fridge for a whole week without any issues. It reheats wonderfully in the microwave as an individual serving; just keep the topping in a separate container in the fridge. It’s fine to sprinkle on the topping un-reheated because the heat from the stew warms it immediately, and that way it stays crispy. Enjoy!

Vanilla Flan

This is probably difficult to believe given how much I bake… but this is the first time in my life I’ve ever cooked with a vanilla bean as opposed to vanilla extract. I guess I just don’t make too many desserts in which vanilla is the prominent flavor, and it always seemed like the direction “one vanilla bean, split lengthwise” would result in much accidental finger slicing and a complete mangling of the bean itself. But armed with my new awesome 6-inch chef knife (best birthday present ever), I decided to be brave and branch out.

Turns out all my fears were unfounded! I was honestly surprised at how easily and perfectly my knife cut through the outside of the bean. I can see how it could be tricky if you were trying to work with an old dried-out vanilla bean or a really dull knife, but all the more reason to keep your knives nice and sharp!

The rest of this flan recipe (from the Bon Appetit Desserts cookbook) came together with no problems. I’ve made caramel before, and I’ve made custard before, so those processes don’t phase me at this point. But if those are two things that you’ve been intimidated by, I recommend putting aside your discomfort and giving them a try! Just like with my vanilla bean slicing, you’ll probably find that they’re not as difficult or fussy as people have made them out to be. And learning new techniques opens up so many more possibilities in the kitchen! I’m looking forward to making the next recipe that calls for a whole vanilla bean… because now I know I can! :)

Carnitas

My mom visited out-of-town relatives during New Year’s again this year, so we continued our tradition of inviting my dad over for dinner on New Year’s Day. Listening to the year-end countdown of top-voted songs on our favorite radio station (of which 4 out of 5 of my votes made it into the top songs, yay!) and cooking pork in some form were also included in this continuation of tradition, which I felt really happy about. It makes me feel like we’re finally starting our own traditions as a family (even though it’s still just the two of us), rather than just participating in our parents’ traditions year after year. Not that I don’t enjoy carrying out traditions from my own childhood! But those are from a time before I met my husband, and it feels good to have started some of our own.

So here’s the pork recipe we picked out to make for this year’s New Year’s Day celebration. It’s printed in the Gourmet Today cookbook, and it intrigued me because I’ve never cooked anything with lard before. I wasn’t even sure where to buy lard, and it turns out it’s been right next to the butter at my grocery store the whole time… I guess if you’re not looking for something, it’s easy to not notice it even right in front of your face!

…So this was delicious. And not a difficult recipe to make, just needs time, for marinating and for cooking. I actually made a double recipe so we’d have some leftovers, but I think if I did that again I’d double the pork but only use 1.5x the lard and liquid. The final step of boiling off the liquid took significantly longer than the longest time given (supposed to be 30 to 50 minutes), and I think the meat dried out just a little bit with that extra cooking time. But it was still tender and had amazing flavor. The onions and the orange peel essentially dissolved; I couldn’t find any pieces even though they got dumped in the pot along with the pork! But I could definitely taste them. :) Good stuff. Enjoy!

Beef and Veal Loaf (Polpettone)

This weekend was cold and windy, a good weekend for staying inside and getting some projects done. My husband and I are taking another photo class at the Genesee Center; the class is called “Snapshot to Series” and we’re learning how to progress from taking individual photos to developing a cohesive photo project. We’re supposed to have a project started and bring in a few photos for the next class, but so far I’m not experiencing any moments of brilliance. I could continue my retro food photo project from the summer, but that feels a little bit like cheating. Since I wasn’t coming up with anything, I decided to spend some time catching up with recipes in my blog post drafts.

So… this recipe. It scarred me for life. Quite literally. Thanks to this meatloaf, I now have two ½-inch-long burn scars on my left forearm. I made this over the summer, and the scars are still visible, so I don’t think they’re going away any time soon! Turning over a 10-inch-long loaf in a skillet without a) causing it to fall apart, or b) splashing hot oil all over myself… clearly above my current skills level. However…! The meatloaf was awesomely delicious, so I might be brave enough, next time I find a good price on ground veal, to attempt this again. You wouldn’t think lemon zest would go well with meatloaf, but with the flavors from the wine sauce, it made for a really lovely combination. Next time though, I think I may shape it into 2 smaller stubby loaves rather than one long one. I really don’t want a matching set of scars on my right arm! :)

Poached Eggs in Tomato Sauce with Chickpeas and Feta

When I was growing up, my parents frequently made huevos rancheros for a quick vegetarian supper. If you’ve never heard of it, huevos rancheros is a Mexican breakfast dish: the basic idea is eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce/salsa, served over tortillas and sprinkled with cheese. Like many kids, I hated runny egg yolks and insisted that my parents cook my eggs until they were essentially hard boiled. But now my taste in eggs (and my appreciation of food textures) is a little more developed. :)

I was looking for a quick dinner idea a few weeks ago, preferably something I could make with what I had in the pantry, and I found this recipe in the December 2011 issue of Bon Appetit. It sounded very similar to huevos rancheros, but when I read further, it turned out that this version is actually a north African dish! I didn’t have any pita bread to serve with it, but we had naan bread left over in the freezer, and that worked just as well as an accompaniment.

The inclusion of chickpeas in the sauce gave the dish some body, and the tangy feta went perfectly with the spicy tomato flavor. I loved the way this dish turned out; my husband was a little bit more ambivalent about it. He’s never really cared for mixing the flavors of eggs and tomatoes though, so I wasn’t expecting it to be a favorite. I think it grew on him though because I made it again the following week and he didn’t complain! :)

Caramelized Onion-Garlic Dip

Caramelized onions may take some time to cook, but the development of the sweet/brown/complex flavors is absolutely worth the time required. I love using them on pizza, in dip, on baked brie… etc. So here’s an oldie-but-a-goodie appetizer from the ATK Family cookbook that makes good use of them. I’ve made this dip many times before, but I didn’t make it last year because I tried a caramelized onion/shallot dip from Bon Appetit instead. That one was delicious, but a bit more time consuming; this year I had frozen leftover caramelized onions, making this a 5-minute recipe. And with all the other party foods I had planned, I was all about expediency wherever I could find it!

Coconut Cream Pie

Last weekend I unexpectedly found myself in the middle of a very frustrating personal situation combined with no planned activities to keep myself distracted from obsessively ruminating on said situation. Solution? Baking. I’d already planned on making quiche that day, so without a plan in mind, I made a double recipe of pie crust and figured I’d come up with something to make with it by Sunday afternoon. I restricted my recipe options to “pies I can make without having to make another trip to the store in this awful weather,” which narrowed down my choices to one. This coconut cream pie in Bon Appetit Desserts. I think the first and last time I’d made a coconut cream pie was in high school (one of the homeschooling moms taught us all to make pies, maybe freshman year?), before I had the use of a food processor for crust. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you can probably tell by now how much I love my food processor… one of the best wedding registry choices we made, haha!

So I swapped out Bon Appetit’s crust in this recipe with Gourmet’s; I’ve made Gourmet’s crust many many times and I know I can always get consistent results. But if you have a favorite crust, feel free to swap that out too. It’s just your basic blind baked pie crust to start. The rest of the recipe was pretty easy, if a bit time consuming. If you’re familiar with making custard/tempering eggs, this is a piece of cake. If not, then this would be a good place to start! Basically you don’t want the eggs in your custard to scramble by heating them up too fast, so you whisk the hot milk into them a little bit at a time. This heats them up slowly and they don’t get all clumpy. For super smooth custards like creme brulee, often you’ll strain the custard, but this custard has flaked coconut all through it so it’s fairly forgiving.

The filling initially has to refrigerate for 2 hours to cool, then also in the crust overnight, so you can’t make this pie the day you’re planning on serving it. I was taking it to work on Monday, so making it Sunday evening worked fine; I just had to get up a little earlier on Monday morning to whip the cream for the topping. I thought this pie turned out really well, and it definitely perked some of my coworkers up too! Enjoy. :)

Hummus

Among all the cheeses, desserts, and other indulgences at our Christmas party, I try to include something healthy, and hummus has become a staple. I usually end up making it several other times throughout the year, because it’s so fast and easy (and cheap!) to throw together. I personally prefer homemade hummus to that sold at the store, and it doesn’t take any ingredients that I don’t normally keep in my pantry. The one slightly unusual ingredient, tahini, keeps for a long time in the pantry or fridge (I keep mine right next to the peanut butter), so I buy a large jar to have on hand.

Although I usually make it super-fast with canned chickpeas, this time I made what Cook’s Illustrated calls “Ultimate hummus,” made with dried chickpeas. This version requires a little more forethought because the dried chickpeas require an overnight soak plus an hour of simmering time. Was this extra time worth it? Just for fun, I also made the canned chickpea version to do a side-by-side taste test. (Actually I made it because my husband really wanted hummus RIGHT NOW and couldn’t wait until the party the next day, but we’ll pretend it was for science.) My husband actually preferred the canned chickpea variety, while I liked the one made with dried chickpeas slightly better. Final verdict? Make whatever you have time for, and don’t feel like you’re “cheating” using canned garbanzos. I’ve included both versions of the recipe below. Enjoy!

Cheddar-Beer Spread

Cheese has always featured prominently at our Christmas open house; it’s a perfect opportunity to sample three or four kinds from the shop that I would never just buy a hunk of on my own to eat. In addition to serving blocks of various cheeses, I’ve always made a baked brie wrapped in puff pastry. But this year we skipped the baked cheese and I brought back this zesty cheese spread, which I’d forgone the past few years in favor of trying new spreads and dips. Although I never personally developed a taste for drinking beer, I love how it works in recipes. And the flavors of sharp cheddar and beer pair perfectly – picture soft Bavarian pretzels with zingy cheddar dip from your favorite brew house, yum!

This spread from the ATK Family Cookbook is super easy to throw together, as long as you have a food processor. Even if you only have a mini processor, the recipe can easily be cut in half. The Worcestershire, dijon, and Tabasco give this spread a definite kick, so it’s best paired  with a hearty whole wheat or multigrain cracker. Rye crackers would also make an excellent flavor combination. Enjoy!