Yogurt Sale Day!

I'm not really sure how I feel about devoting a blog post to yet another aspect of my Speshul Snoflayke eating habits. On one hand, I tend to be self-conscious about them; on the other, I like to talk about myself and my obvious speshulness. Quite the conundrum.

The picture to the left should indicate which decision I made.

This week, my favorite brand of yogurt was on sale, and, as is my habit, I bought an absurd amount of it, pulling them from the back of the rack to ensure that I got the latest expiration dates possible (yes, I know, grocery store workers everywhere probably hate my guts. I promise, I always put the ones I don't take back neatly). This is because I am a Speshul Snoflayke who dislikes the taste of artificial sweetener and fake fruit flavors, which render most brands of yogurt varying degrees of inedible. Tragically, the brands that I will eat tend to cost more, as is generally the case with organic dairy products, so I can only buy them when they're on sale.

Twenty-five cups of yogurt later, I should have enough to last me until the next time they go on sale.

The reason that I eat so much yogurt, by the way, is because it's the ideal pre-workout food. I don't often have time to eat something solid, wait forty-five minutes to an hour for it to digest, go to the gym, do an hour's worth of cardio, and then make it back home in enough time to get cleaned up and ready for work. With yogurt, I can eat a cup right before I walk out the door and be able to work out without getting hungry or feeling like I'm going to throw up. Both are more or less equally unpleasant, and I try to avoid that whenever possible.

I also don't want to develop osteoporosis when I'm older.

Recipe of the Week 2011 #16: Alton Brown's Baked Meatballs

I decided to try my hand at a new kind of meatballs tonight. While this recipe relied on my old standards, lamb and beef, it also included pork, spinach, parmesan cheese, and a much lower ratio of eggs and breadcrumbs to meat. Overall, they were pretty tasty, but next time I make these, I'm probably going to use less spinach (roughly half the amount the recipe calls for), not add any salt (the parmesan cheese made them plenty salty),* and more eggs/breadcrumbs in the mix (so they stay glued together better).

* Yet another dietary idiosyncrasy: I taste salt pretty strongly, and don't put much in my food as a result. One of the reasons I dislike corporate restaurant food: all the salt they add to keep it indefinitely freezer and shelf-stable makes it taste like a lightly-flavored salt lick.

Recipe of the Week 2011 #14: Traditional Madeleines

I decided to try a more traditional madeleines recipe last night. I generally prefer mine to have honey in them, but figured making the regular kind would be a worthwhile endeavor. I got the recipe from here.

They taste pretty good (I like the honey kind better), but the humps were enormous. I guess that's from refrigerating the dough which also, incidentally, made the batter difficult to scoop into the molds. I kind of want to make these again, but put the batter into the pan at room temperature and see how they turn out.

Recipe of the Week 2011 #13: Crisp Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies

Yeah, yeah. Another post about baking cookies (next week's will be, too. I'm trying out a new madeleines recipe that doesn't involve me trying to scoop honey into and out of a 1/3 measuring cup). Cookies are a big thing around here; Matt and his friends are always asking for them. I usually make my old standby, chocolate chip with toffee bits, but I sometimes like to mix it up a little. Since I love salty sweets (my current chocolate obsession is the Sea Salt Lindt bars), this recipe from Smitten Kitchen was quite appealing. The cookies turned out great, but I am pretty sure next time I will increase their crispiness by making them smaller. I did use more salt than called for, though.

Also, I still have hair. It's in a ponytail in this picture because I went to the gym today. Self-Defeat in Motion, they name is Lauren.

Recipe of the Week 2011 #12: Pimiento-Style Mac&Cheese

Yet another Bon Appetit baked pasta recipe from the March 2011 issue. The cover promised that it's the BEST MAC AND CHEESE EVAR, and while I liked it quite a bit, there are a few things I'd do differently next time:

1. Not blend the Peppadew peppers. I like my flavored macaroni with a little more texture.
2. Use a full-sized box of pasta, and increase the sauce slightly by adding 30% more cheese and maybe some milk. 
3. Skip the breadcrumbs. I know some people think they're critical on mac and cheese, but I'm not a fan. Mine always seem to get overly hard and crusty.

In better news, you can see the new spice rack Matt made me in the background.I am very enthused about finally having some counter space, even though it didn't earn Matt any points from my dad. Apparently, any sixth-grader can put in a wall spice rack (except for me when I was that age. I would have nailed my fingers together). Fortunately for Matt's Boyfriend Score, he successfully wired and programmed a digital thermostat last night. 

I am hereby finally caught up with my recipe of the week endeavor! Sadly, I'm about eight book reviews behind. Remember how I was going to read nothing but Vanity Fair until I got caught up? I had a seizure in the New Books section of the library and checked out five more. 

Recipe of the Week 2011 #11: Snickerdoodles!

I have always liked snickerdoodles, but had never bothered to attempt them until today. I think they turned out really well!

Recipe of the Week 2011 #9: Lasagna with Turkey Sausage Bolognese

Lasagna is one of my favorite foods. It's hard to go wrong with cheese-layered pasta with a nice red sauce. I've made several over the years using various ingredient and cheese combinations, but I've never achieved lasagna nirvana-- until yesterday. The March 2011 Bon Appetit has an entire section on baked pastas, which I'm a total sucker for, and I've been working my way through them. I made a parsnip tortellini thingamawhatter last week that turned out okay (but not as good as I'd hoped). This recipe, however, made up for all the tortellini dish lacked. I liked it so much, I'm re-posting it (with the few alterations I made).

 Lasagna with Turkey Sausage Bolognese


Ingredients


Olive oil
1/2 cup dry, white wine
1 package no-boil lasagna noodles
2 28-oz cans crushed tomatoes in heavy puree
2 cups diced onions
minced garlic to taste
1 cup chopped fresh basil, OR four tablespoons dry basil, divided
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano, OR 1 tablespoon dry oregano
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 pound turkey sausages, spicy Italian style
2 large eggs
1 15-oz container ricotta cheese
4 cups mozzarella cheese, divided
1 1/2 cups parmesan cheese, divided

Directions

1. Place noodles in a large bowl. Cover with hot water. Soak for 20-30 minutes, or until floppy. Drain.
2. Heat oil over medium heat. Saute onions and fennel until soft.
3. Remove casings from sausage. Add sausage and garlic. Saute until sausage is cooked through, breaking it up into small pieces.
4. Add wine. Boil 1-3 minutes, or until alcohol has evaporated off.
5. Add tomatoes, half of the basil, and oregano. Bring sauce to boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Allow the sauce to simmer until it thickens to desired consistency.
6. In a large bowl, mix ricotta, three cups of mozzarella, one cup of parmesan, two eggs, and the rest of the basil. Divide into three portions.
7. Assemble lasagna: in a 9x13" casserole dish, spread 1.5 cups of sauce on the bottom. Place four noodles on top of sauce. Carefully spoon one portion of ricotta mix onto noodles. Spread 1.5 cups sauce on top of the cheese mixture. Place four noodles on top of sauce. Repeat italicized instructions twice. Pour any remaining sauce on top of the last layer of noodles, then cover with leftover mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.
8. Bake at 375F for 40-50 minutes, or until the cheese on top is bubbly. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Recipe of the Week 2011 #8: Tortellini Gratinata with Mushrooms and Parsnip "Bechamel"

I got this recipe from the March 2011 Bon Appetit. I didn't recall having ever eaten parsnips, so I was pretty excited to try this recipe. I didn't modify anything, but I'm pretty sure that if I make it again, I'll mix the faux-bechamel sauce into the pasta before baking it. The recipe said to spoon in on top, but it didn't migrate its way downward the way I would have preferred. It still tasted pretty good, though!

(I need to figure out more creative ways to photograph my casserole dish.)

(Oh, and I also got busted for melting the spoon mentioned here. I didn't toss it fast enough.)

Recipe of the Week 2011 #7: Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats

I'm a few weeks behind on the recipe-attempting front, thanks to a combination of vacations, volunteer training, and a certain amount of failure of the imagination. Now that my vacations and training are over and I have a docket full of recipes I'd like to attempt, I'm ready to resume my challenge.

A few nights ago, I prepared this adaptation of the classic Rice Krispie treats recipe. The treats came out really well, but next time, I intend on:

1. Making a single batch, or inviting friends over. I made a double batch because I didn't want the cereal to go stale but, in retrospect, it was a little excessive, filling a 9" x 13" casserole dish up to the top. It also made the stirring and mixing a lot more difficult.
2. Using a wooden spoon. I melted one of Matt's plastic spoons (he won't notice, but still...).
3. Letting the butter get a little bit browner. I was so paranoid about burning it that I added the marshmallows a little too soon.
4. Adding more sea salt. I like my salty-sweet treats to be a little crunchier for that.

All in all, though, I'm definitely making this one again!

Recipe of the Week 2011 #5 and #6: Katy's Spaghetti Sauce and Stuffed Shells

I'm combining the most recent two weeks of my self-imposed 2011 recipe challenge for this entry. I'm not slacking off on the cooking (I swear! I cook all the time!) so much as I'm slacking off on the blogging.

Back in December, one of my co-workers gave me a recipe for a simple but tasty tomato sauce. I was quite eager to try it; racks and racks of over-sweetened, specialty flavored sauces at the grocery store have left me with a certain amount of sauce fatigue resulting from tastebud overload. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy complex flavors, but I don't think that eighteen varieties of red sauce are necessary, especially since most of them taste really unbalanced.

Katy's recipe is quite simple:

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter
• 1 small onion (or larger, if you like your sauce onion-y)
• 3-6 cloves garlic (to taste, I like my sauces extra garlicky)
• 2 14 oz cans PLAIN tomato sauce (use the unsweetened kind if possible)
• 1 28-32 oz can crushed or diced tomatoes
• 1 bunch Italian parsley, OR oregano, OR basil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Froth butter in saucepan over medium heat until almost brown.
2. Add onions and sweat until they're about 2 minutes away from being done.
3. Add garlic, reduce heat to low (burned garlic is the worst taste ever!) and cook 2-3 minutes
4. Add tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes, then raise heat to medium until sauce is hot.
5. Add salt, pepper, and herb(s) of choice to taste.
6. Reduce heat back to low/medium-low, and allow the sauce to simmer for several hours

It's basically idiot-proof. The next time I make it, I plan on leaving it in the crock pot while it simmers so I can leave the house without having to worry about it burning down. 

I wound up making two batches of the sauce. The first, I served with my favorite meatballs:

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground lamb (Harris Teeter has it)
• 1 lb extra lean ground beef
• 2 cups bread crumbs, plus 1/4 cup extra
• 2-3 eggs
• cooking spray

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300F. 
2. Grease a large casserole dish with cooking spray.
3. Put the extra 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs into a small bowl.
4. In large bowl, combine meat and eggs with your hands (or use a food processor if you're squeamish). You'll want one egg per pound of meat. I like to use more than that because I prefer the texture to be more eggy.
5. Add 2 cups of breadcrumbs to the meat and egg mixture. Make sure that they're evenly distributed.
6. Pinch off small amounts of meatball mix and roll them into a golf ball-sized ball. 
7. Dust the meatballs with breadcrumbs by rolling them in the small bowl.
8. Bake the meatballs for about 30-40 minutes. 

Tips:

• How thick you make the meatballs will determine how long they need to cook. Smaller ones will cook faster than big ones (duh). There shouldn't be any pink in the middle when they're done.
• Using pre-seasoned breadcrumbs will give a nice flavor with no effort on your part.
• They freeze very nicely, but don't freeze them in sauce. They taste funny if you do that.

In addition to meatballs, I also made stuffed shells. I followed this recipe, but I used half the amount of spinach the recipe called for and left out the meat (a vegetarian friend was having dinner with us that day) and onions (there were already onions in the sauce). They turned out really well! If I make this recipe using meat, though, I'll need to use more ricotta cheese. I'll also probably use seasoned pork or lamb instead of veal, which is sort of a pain to acquire around here.

The next installment of this series will feature me breaking one of my primary rules of relationships: I'll be preparing a recipe that Matt's mom gave me. More on that then.

Recipe of the Week 2011 #4: Oven Home Fries, Tofu, and Fancy Ramen

As regular readers have probably noticed, I have a multitude of food addictions. One of the worst is my persistent cravings for spicy ramen noodles, which I have a devil of a time finding here in Asheville. We don't have a lot by way of international grocery stores, unfortunately. I did manage to find a tiny Asian grocery that carries my favorite brand of noodles: shin ramyun. 

They're quite hot by themselves, so I always cook other stuff to add in. I usually go for eggs, tofu, and potatoes, but I do sometimes add veggies if they're in season and I have them on hand. Since most veggies aren't in season right now, I'm making the scaled-down version. 

I used this recipe for the home fries (minus the onion and pepper) and this one for the tofu. Both are super-easy and take practically no time at all. I scramble the eggs, usually one per package of ramen. I sometimes add in an extra one, though. I LOVE eggs.

Braver souls can add in Sambal or Sriracha, but I wouldn't recommend it without trying the included seasonings first. I have a pretty high tolerance for spicy food, and if I don't add enough water, shin ramyun's too spicy for me. 

Lastly, in keeping with the "Why do I bother making complicated things when this is your favorite thing to eat?" theme in the kitchen here, this is one of Matt's favorite foods. 

Recipe of the Week 2011 #3: Baked Macaroni

This week's installment of Shiny New Recipes is coming in a day late because someone in this house drank all the milk on Friday and I lacked 1) sufficient quantities to make a decent bechamel sauce and 2) the will to go buy more after a particularly exhausting day at work.

I modified this recipe. I used regular sharp cheddar instead of white, and left out the nutmeg. I added extra cayenne pepper, black pepper, and paprika. I also used packaged breadcrumbs instead of making my own (yep. I'm lazy.) and added a few cups each of broccoli and cauliflower so that I could delude myself into thinking I have remotely healthy eating habits.  It turned out very nicely.

Tomorrow, it's Matt's turn to make dinner. He has promised me Diet Cheerwine and frozen pizza. It's a good thing I eat an orange every day; otherwise I'd be concerned about my imminent risk of dying of scurvy.

Recipe of the Week 2011 #2: Double Lemon Bars

It's been a rough week (lingering sickness, errand-filled days off, epic piles of laundry, work, and Hello Kitty blankets, oh my!), so I'm cheating with my recipe challenge by making something I've already made before: lemon bars. This time, however, I'm using the Smitten Kitchen recipe instead of the one from my Bon Appetit Cookbook. The two are fairly similar except the SK version calls for granulated sugar in the crust (instead of powdered) and uses more eggs, juice, and flour in the filling.

The end result is tasty (of course, I love all sour things), but I think I'll stick to my old faithful recipe on this one. The extra flour made the filling more creamy, as opposed to the gel-y consistency I get from my usual recipe. I also prefer the other crust; it's a little bit crunchier and less sweet. I'll still call this one a success, even though I doubt I'll use it again.

I saved extra zest so I can make madeleines tomorrow.

Recipe of the Week 2011 #1: Enchilada Lasagna

Now that my head cold is mostly taken care of, I can cook again without worrying about making Matt and his entourage ill. I decided to hold the inaugural New Recipe Challenge tonight.

I used this recipe and substituted MorningStar Grillers for the chicken*, used bagged Mexican blend cheese instead of queso fresco (because real queso is impossible to find here), and dumped an entire can of chiles in adobo sauce into the sauce mixture instead of just the chiles so it would be spicier. I strained the chiles out before I added the sauce to the casserole dish.

Overall, it turned out really well! The sauce was spicy without being overwhelming, and the whole dish came together very nicely. I'll definitely make this again.

*I hate chicken. I can't eat it without becoming incredibly ill afterwards, and it also tastes really bad to me. Blecccch.

And the smallest of these was Madeline.

Matt's parents gave me a madeleine pan for Christmas.

As a result, I may or may not like them more than I like him.

I'm still tweaking the recipe, adjusting for different spices and different types of honey, but taste-testing them has been a blast.

So far, the favorite honey is the sourwood that one of Matt's distant cousins sent to us via his grandmother.

I am once again inspired to acquire a bee colony (the first time was after reading Plath's Ariel collection). Matt is oddly acquiescent on the subject, as he usually shoots my weird agricultural ideas down.

Maybe he likes the cookies.

Snowy Sunday

On the rare occasion that I have a weekend day off, I like to make breakfast. Sometimes I make the traditional eggs, bacon, and (fake) meat, sometimes I make French toast, others I make cheese grits with fried eggs (scrambled for Matt, as he has a pathological aversion to runny yolks. Whatevs), but mostly, I make pancakes. Pancakes are the preferred breakfast food around these parts, especially when they're served with MorningStar Farms Hot & Spicy Veggie Sausage Patties, which, I swear, taste better than their meaty counterparts.

(Side note: Neither Matt nor I is vegetarian. We like some vegetarian products and prefer tofu to chicken in our Thai food, but it's a combination of laziness and deep love of bacon, sushi, and the occasional cheeseburger that prevents either of us from making the full switch. Well, for him, anyway. I'm anemic, so an 100% vegetarian diet leads to me being sick 24/7.)

Anyway, Pancakes. I use this recipe, and it always comes out well despite the stove I have to work with, whose temperature regulation is capricious to the extreme. You'll often find me cursing at it when I'm cooking, especially when things that require even heating, like pancakes and sauces, are involved. I long for the day when I will have a grown-up kitchen that features novelties like gas burners, more than one oven, a built-in griddle, and a dishwasher that actually cleans the dishes placed therein. Yes, internet: I dream big.

Seriously, though. I'd sleep in a hammock in a yurt for the rest of my life if I could have an awesome kitchen. 

The Inaugural Recipe Semi-Fail

I'm calling these cookies a semi-fail because while they look terrible and generated an enormous mess that will be an epic pain in the ass to clean up, they still taste good.

Admittedly, the mess is my fault. The recipe did say to properly lubricate the cookie sheet, but as my cookie sheets are all non-stick and I've never had a problem with removing other sticky cookies (oatmeal, in particular) from them, I didn't think it was necessary. How wrong I was. Any toffee that is on the pan side of the cookie is going to melt, then caramelize. This has two results:

1. The cookie spreads waaaaaaaay out.
2. The cookie becomes effectively glued to the pan.

These factors lead to cookies that are not only so spread out that they're running into each other, but are very hard to dislodge from the pan. The combination of the two is a spatula-wielder's worst nightmare. Of a three-dozen batch, I can count the number that are intact on one hand.

The looking like crap thing isn't so much my fault, though. Obviously, the spreading thing was beyond my control. Secondly, the first batch was semi-burned (you can see them on the bottom of the picture I posted) because twelve minutes at 350F is much too long. I only left the second batch in for ten minutes and they came out nicely (colorwise, they were still sort of a mess w/r/t the whole spreading and caramelizing thing).

In short, WAAAAHHHHH. WHIIIIIIIINE. Etc.

I think the next time I make these (remember, they still tasted really good), I will add a smidgen more flour, spray the pans thoroughly, and put the cookies further apart than the recommended two inches. I'll probably make them smaller as well-- 3/4 tsp instead of a whole one, maybe. I'm also considering adding the toffee chips last, and carefully placing them on top of the cookies before they go into the oven rather than mixing them in with the dough. That should help, too.

So Southern it Hurts

My favorite breakfast: (parmesan) cheese and pepper grits with fried eggs over medium. I mix them up and it's amazing. 

I'm also known for eating brie on triscuits with cranberry juice, but that's neither here nor there. 

Lemon Bars

In the interest of publicizing the awesomeness of the lemon bars I made the other day (and will be making tomorrow), I'm going to post my adaptation of the recipe, courtesy of The Bon Appetit Cookbook:

Double Lemon Bars


For the Crust:

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• .5 cups confectioner's (powdered) sugar
• 1.5 sticks unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature

For the Filling:

• 4 large eggs
• 1.5 cups granulated white sugar
• .5 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice, strained
• 1 tablespoon freshly-grated lemon peel
• 4 teaspoons all purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 13 x 9 x 2 casserole dish with aluminum foil. 
2. Make crust: whisk flour and confectioner's sugar in medium bowl. Add butter. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until the dough resembles coarse meal. 
3. Press dough into the foil-lined pan evenly. TBAC suggests using plastic wrap to smooth it out.
4. Bake 20-30 minutes, until golden brown.
5. Make filling: Whisk all five filling ingredients in another bowl until consistency is even. It helps to beat the eggs first.
6. Pour the filling over the hot crust and put back into the oven for another 20 minutes, or until the lemon layer is set. 
7. Dust lemon bars with additional confectioner's sugar.
8. Make sure that lemon bars are 100% cool before you cut them. The lemon layer is gooey and easily boogered up when warm.

If you want them to be extra sour (how Matt likes them), don't strain the pulp out of the lemon juice and add a few extra tablespoons of lemon curd to the filling mixture.

I'm also planning on trying a variation that involves spooning a thin layer of raspberry syrup in between the crust and the lemon filling. As soon as I get around to doing it, I'll post the results.

Multitasking Dangerously

Things I am doing right now:

1. Making risotto (red pepper, onions, goat cheese, and turmeric)
2. Drinking wine (the sauvignon blanc mentioned in the previous entry)
3. IM-ing old friends from Vanderbilt
4. Contemplating my fickle nature
5. Blogging about the above.

It figures that as soon as I acquire the time to read for fun, I run out of things that I'm really hankering to read. So, in honor of the seventh Harry Potter movie finally coming out, I am re-reading the books. Granted, I went ahead and saw the movie last night because I was anxious to see how true it was to the books after the hot mess that was the sixth installment. I was very pleased; it followed the book more or less exactly and went at a (thankfully) much quicker pace. The only things that gave me pause were the previews: I'm not sure how I feel about Ryan Reynolds playing the Green Lantern. He was awesome as Deadpool in the Wolverine movie (in fact, he was the only thing about that movie that didn't suck ass), but I'm not sure if I can get behind the whole goofy duuuuuuuuuudebroooooo type as Green Lantern. Not every actor/superhero match can be as awesome as Robert Downey Jr./Tony Stark, I guess.

I am also looking forward to Tron, though I can't help but wonder what they'll remake next. The Neverending Story, perhaps? It's one of those movies that I loved as a kid, but hasn't really aged well.

I'll end with a pro-tip: the trick to seeing lots of children's movies without losing your mind is to go to the latest possible showing on a school night. Matt and I went to the 9 PM showing of Deathly Hallows yesterday (Sunday) and there was nothing but other twentysomething couples there. Nice, huh?