Deviled Eggs, Potato Salad, and Triffle

Megapost! Mother's Day Brunch was a heck of a lot of fun and the eating was good. Most everything we served was ready to go hours before anyone showed up, which made having both my mother and mother-in-law over (love you guys, but no one makes a girl nervous quite like her mother and mother-in-law) easy-peasy.

Deviled Eggs

Ingredients
1 dozen hard-boiled eggs
3 tablespoons mayonaise
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
fresh ground black pepper

How To
Peel the eggs, cut them in half, and separate the yolks and whites:

Look how pretty the whites are on this bed of greens:

Mash the yolks, mayo, mustard and pepper with the back of a fork until nice and smooth:

Pipe the filling into the eggs using either a pastry bag or a freezer bag with the tip cut off:

Potato Salad

I love roasted potatoes in a potato salad. They're easier to make than boiled potatoes and have better flavor. In retrospect, I should have added capers. Good thing I can make it right with the leftovers!

Ingredients
2 pounds little yellow potatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt, pepper, and garlic powder
2 celery ribs, chopped
5 radishes, chopped
1/4 cup mayonaise
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1 tablespoon dill
1 teaspoon capers

How To
Wash the potatoes and place on a baking sheet. Drizzle with oil and season generously with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Roast at 450 for 25-35 minutes or until the potatoes have good color and a fork easily breaks a test potato in half.

Let cool completely (I baked the potatoes the night before and assembled the salad in the morning) then cut the potatoes into 8ths. Combine with the celery and radishes:

Mix the remaining ingredients together to make a dressing and toss with the potatoes. Serve chilled:

Triffle

I'd planned to make these complicated little lemon tarts for dessert but everything seemed fated against that plan. So I said why fight city hall? and made a very easy triffle instead.

Ingredients
1 pound cake, cut into cubes
1 pound strawberries, cut up and dusted with a teaspoon of sugar
whipped cream
1 jar lemon curd

How To
Layer cake, berries, whipped cream and lemon curd, ideally in a container that shows the layers. How cute is this dessert in this jar? Adorable! Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Aztec Brownies

I love sweet and spicy together and I love the combo of chocolate and cinnamon. These brownies fulfill all of those cravings.

If you don't like spicy foods, feel free to omit the cayenne. If you love, love, love spicy sweets, add an extra teaspoon. One teaspoon is enough to create a little bit of heat that builds as you eat but it's not so spicy that it becomes the focal point (or keeps you from eating more than is good for you, darn it.)

Ingredients

8 ounces of good-quality chocolate, chopped (try it with milk chocolate, try it with dark. Both are different and both are good.)
2 sticks of butter
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup of sugar (I use evaporated cane juice)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour (I use whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

How To

Grease a brownie pan and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Begin by beating together the eggs, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, cayenne and salt for about 5 minutes.

Melt the butter slowly over low heat. Once the butter is completely liquidated, pour over the chopped chocolate to melt.

Stir the chocolate and butter together. This is an easy way to both melt the chocolate and cool the butter.

Add the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture slowly, mixing very well. Lastly, add the flour and baking powder, mixing until just combined. Spread in your brownie pan:

Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Look at the nice crackly top crust on this bad-boy:

You can either leave well enough alone, or you can sprinkle the top with additional chocolate while the brownies are hot.

Let the heat of the brownies melt the chocolate, then spread across the top with the back of a spoon. Num.

One last brownie beauty shot:

Patrick needs to take these to work tomorrow. I'm not to be trusted alone with them in the house!

Roasted Cauliflower

I'm cheating again. I posted this recipe for the first time last year but it's worthy of a repost with pictures-- it's too yummy! And it makes a believer out of former cauliflower haters (like my husband.) Spicy and crunchy and savory and oh, so good!

Ingredients
1 medium or large head of cauliflower
1/3-1/2 cup olive oil (depends on the size of the cauliflower)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
salt and pepper

How To
Mix the olive oil, red pepper, fresh ground black pepper (about a teaspoon) and garlic together. Wash the cauliflower and remove the florettes, cutting as much of the stems off as possible. Break the florettes up into bite-sized pieces and place in a bowl.

Drizzle with the olive oil mixture and sprinkle with salt, about a tablespoon.

Mix well. Let "marinate" for 20-30 minutes while preheating the oven to 400 degrees.

Spread the cauliflower over the bottom of a shallow baking pan and place in the oven.

Roast for 20-25 minutes, occasionally stirring in order to achieve even browning. Serve hot.

Here is is, served up with pork chops, mashed pots and homemade gravy:

Jalapeño Cheese Bread

We're getting close to "oven off" season in this household. In our apartment, the mere thought of turning the oven on increases the temperature within it by ten degrees. In the winter, this is great-- make a pot roast and heat the house! Yes! But the rest of the year, forget about it. The summer months are spent in the yard, using the grill and the smoker.

It's only April but it's supposed to be in the triple digits tomorrow. What better way to deny the coming of summer than to fire up the oven and bake some bread?

Ingredients
1 package dry, active yeast
3/4 cup warm water
pinch of sugar
3 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
4 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
3 jalapeño peppers-- one cut into slices and the other two seeded and chopped
3 big garlic cloves, minced

How To
People get all freaked out about making bread with yeast, which I've never really understood. What's so scary about it? Yeast is fun-- it's like filling a paper-mache cone with vinegar and baking soda to imitate a volcano.

First, you proof your yeast by combining your yeast, pinch of sugar and warm water. The water should be just warmer than room temperature. Here's the yeast just after being mixed:

And here it is five minutes later. Bubbly fun!

If it doesn't bubble, then it's time for a trip to the grocery store because your yeast is no good.

Pour the flour into a mixing bowl and make a little well. Fill the well with the eggs, butter and yeast mixture. If you have a mixer, use the dough hook to mix and kneed the dough for several minutes.

Now, I made lots and lots of bread by hand before I owned a mixer. It's time-consuming (but is that a bad thing?) and takes elbow-grease (again, why is that a bad thing?) but doable. I feel a little spoiled by my mixer (I've only had it for a year but use it weekly.) Here's a good tutorial on how to mix and knead dough by hand if you're working without a mixer.

But I've got my mixer so I used my mixer (the KitchenAid Professional 6-Quart Mixer, if you're interested) to work everything together. Here's the dough just starting:

And here it is after about 5 minutes. Magic! If your dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl, add flour little by little until the dough begins to take shape but is still sticky:

Move the dough to an oiled bowl and cover to let rise. Here it is before mixing:

And here it is after letting it rise for about 30 minutes:

Neat, huh? Punch it down and let it go another round of rising.

One the dough has gone through two risings, it's time to heat your oven to 350 degrees. You want your oven nice and toasty once it's time to put in the bread.

Spread the dough out in a big rectangle. I use a combination of a rolling pin and my hands to massage it into shape. The nice thing about yeast doughs made with eggs and butter is they tend to be more glossy and elastic and a little less sticky than others doughs. I don't even use flour on my board while I roll it out:

Sprinkle the dough with the chopped jalapeños, minced garlic and handfuls of cheese. I'll confess that I don't measure the cheese when I do this, I just eyeball it. Don't go too crazy with the cheese though-- too much cheese and it will bubble out of the loaf and just make a big mess.

Now comes the tricky part. Roll the dough up like you would if you were making cinnamon rolls. One:

Two... (I am totally the one-armed dragon lady here, no?)

Three!

Pinch the final layer of dough to the top of the loaf and roll it around a bit to smooth out the seam. You want the dough to be fairly well sealed in on itself. The less sealed the dough, the more likely you'll have cheese on the pan and not in the bread like you want.

Center the loaf on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let it rise again for about 30 minutes. Press slices of jalapeño into the top and sprinkle with more cheese.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Tap the loaf in the center. If it makes a hollow sound, it's done. Be sure to let it cool completely before slicing.

And then here it is... notice how rolling everything up makes yummy pockets of cheese:

Garlicy Buttery Spinach

I love spinach. I made this last night to go with some chicken curry and naan. The not-very-secret ingredient? Homemade chicken stock.

Ingredients
1 bag frozen spinach
3 big cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock
3 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper

How To
Saute the onions and garlic in the butter until translucent. Have you ever heard the trick of cooking onions and garlic before guests arrive for dinner, even if they're not part of the meal? I think my mom taught me that one.

Add the spinach and chicken stock. Cook until the spinach is bubbling and bright green. Season with salt and pepper to taste. If you're feeling naughty, lob another tablespoon or two of butter into the pan just before serving.


This does a great job of cutting through the spiciness of curry, though this could also easily be a creamy accompaniment to steak or grilled chicken with the addition of some Parmesan cheese and a pinch of nutmeg.

Chicken Stock

I just finished reading Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen, which is 1/3 essay and 2/3 reference guide. It may sound like a funny thing to sit down and read cover-to-cover but one of my favorite non-fiction books is Words on Words, a reference book exploring the origins of various words and phrases in a mildly insulting way. Yes, I sit around reading reference books. Wanna fight about it?

Ruhlman puts a lot of emphasis on making your own stock, which, yes yes yes, you gotta make homemade stock. Store-bought stock... it's like having a cup of weak tea when you're dying for a mug of strong black coffee. Technically, they are both hot morning beverages but to say they are the same thing is silliness.

But Ruhlman emphasizes veal stock, which is a problem in this household for a couple of reasons:

1) We have a 14-square foot refrigerator. I know bones don't have to hang around for long, but it's far more practical for me to make room for a roast chicken that we can have for two meals before it ends up in the stock pot.

2) It's veal. Now, I am not so stupid as to think that when I go out to eat, the chef isn't spiking sauces and whatnot back there with veal stock (and gobs of butter) but I just can't bring myself to go out and buy veal. The ethical issues surrounding of veal are well-documented, I won't go into it here, and I already feel an ethical weight regarding my choices in the grocery store... I don't need to add veal to the list.

3) I make a kick-ass chicken stock that is magical on its own. Now, I won't claim it's equivalent to veal stock, but that's okay. I'm not really interested in trying to imitate the work that happens in a professional kitchen because, well, I'm not a professional. I'm a home cook and I like that. Now, if I was over at French Laundry at Home, I would be making veal stock because with a project like that, you've got to go big or not at all.

4) Chicken stock speaks to my frugal nature. I know, I probably don't seem like a very frugal person at all with all I cook, but I'm a wee bit fanatical about trying to waste nothing and spend as reasonably as possible. I love that I can roast a chicken, serve roast chicken for dinner, then pick the carcass clean the next day and make curried chicken salad or whatever, and then make stock with the carcass. My eyes, they gleam with penny-pinching delight. Here's how I make mine:

Ingredients
1 chicken carcass (don't worry about picking it too clean-- bits of meat and skin will add flavor while the bones will give gelatin.)
2 onions, roughly chopped
3-4 carrots, roughly chopped (I was really lazy with my chopping this time. Sorry, carrots!)
1-2 celery ribs, roughly chopped
a few peppercorns
1 big bay leaf

Now, you're going to learn how you like your stock as you go. Some people add garlic and I try that every once in a while. Anytime you try something new, write a reminder to yourself on the container. Monkey around with herbs and other aromatics. You'll find a combination that speaks to you before long.

My father-in-law and I have long talks about making stock (he makes a chicken/beef blend that he gives out to people he likes and thank goodness we are people he likes! Did I marry into the right family or what?) and we both agree that you can almost never have too many onions or carrots but celery is another thing entirely. Too much celery will make a stock bitter and weird-tasting.

How To

Dump all of your ingredients (save the peppercorns and bay leaf) into a pan and pop it in the oven at 350 degrees. Let everything roast for about thirty minutes or until everything is nice and brown and fragrant. Watch your bones-- burn them and you're sunk.

While everything roasts, bring a kettle of water to boil and get your crock pot or stock pot ready. I'm a big fan of my crock-pot:

But you can also use a stock pot over very low heat. I prefer my crock pot because I have a gas stove, which I just don't feel comfortable leaving on while I'm out (I imagine the cat climbing up there and setting her tail on fire or something) and a crock pot is great for cooking stock because it abides by the #1 rule of making stock:

Don't boil it. Don't even simmer it, if you can help it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Once your bones and veggies are roasted, dump everything in your stock pot or crock pot. Now, take that boiling water and use it to clean all the lovely brown bits from your pan and dump that water over the chicken. Mmm. (Why boil the water first? Cold water + hot pan = warped pan. The pan may even "pop" and splatter everywhere. You don't want that.)

Pour additional water into the pot to cover and then add the bay leaf, peppercorns and any other herbs. Put it on very, very low heat or the low setting on the crock pot. Let it go for three or four hours. Scum will start to come to the top and you should scrape that off from time to time but there is no reason to stir it.

Your house will smell wonderful. Now it's time to stain your stock. I do this in two times-- once with a regular strainer to take out the big stuff, then a second time through a strainer I've lined with cheesecloth. Cheesecloth, how I love thee. So cheap, so useful! But someone tell me what is going on with this package image-- are they straining tomato soup on top of a car? Hmm.

Chill the broth overnight. The fat will come to the top and you'll skim that off and be left with lovely, gelatinous, golden chicken stock. If space is an issue for you, like it is for me, you can reduce the sauce further by simmering it for a while.

I realize this probably sounds sort of complicated but it really, really isn't. You'll do it in your sleep after a few times and it just feels so good to walk into a house where stock has been cooking.

Stuffed Potatoes

I'm cheating. I wrote this up a while ago but had no pictures. What fun is a recipe without pictures? These can be prepared well in advance of when you plan to serve them and can even be frozen and baked as needed.

Ingredients (per serving, multiply as needed)
1 medium-large russet potato
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 heaping tablespoon sharp cheddar cheese, shredded or cubed (Patrick is a big fan of the cubed!)
1/2 teaspoon chopped green onion
fresh ground pepper
shredded cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon (optional) to top

How To
Prepare potatoes according to the Steakhouse Potato recipe. Let potatoes cool until you can handle them comfortably.

Cut each potato length-wise. Using a soup spoon, scoop out the center of each potato, making sure to not scoop all the way out to the skin-- you want to leave some potato in the skin to give your skin some stability.

Arrange the skins in a shallow baking dish.

Put the scooped out skin in a heavy-duty freezer bag (1 pint-1 quart depending on how many you're making.) A freezer bag? Yes, a freezer bag. You'll thank me, I swear. Add the butter, sour cream, cheese, onions and pepper. Close the bag and squish the ingredients together until very well combined (my husband likes to do this step for me.)

Cut the corner off of your bag and squirt the filling into your potatoes.

Wasn't that easy? Now you don't have to clean a bowl or mashing instrument or nothing. Top the potatoes with the additional cheese and bacon (man, I love bacon. No bacon this time though.)

At this point, you can either bake the potatoes at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or you can refrigerate/freeze them for later use. We had these last night with tri-tip, chicken and grilled asparagus. Our friend Nora brought this gorgeous cake that I caught her boyfriend taking a picture of:

Blueberry Something

I love blueberries. Love, love, love. I go through 2-3 bags of frozen blueberries a week. I know! It's excessive. You don't even want to know what I do when blueberries are fresh and cheap.

Lately, I've been craving blueberries baked with oats in layers-- a cookie-like bottom, lots of fruit in the middle, and a crumbly top. I got the top two layers right here but will keep working with the bottom layer-- this was less like a cookie and more like the richest, most flavorful oatmeal you've ever had. My final result was more "scoop" than "slice" but I will most definitely be making this for special brunches in the future and as a healthy (seeming) dessert.

Ingredients
4 cups of frozen blueberries, thawed and drained with the juice reserved
about 2 tablespoons agave nectar (you could use honey or maple syrup instead)
2 cups of oats
3/4 cup of flour
1/2 cup sugar (I used evaporate cane juice here)
1/2 cup butter, cold, cut into cubes
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

How To

Combine the oats, flour, sugar, vanilla extract and butter. Work with either your hands or a pastry cutter to incorporate the butter. I prefer using my hands.

Pour half of the mixture into the bottom of a pie pan and flatten with the bottom of a glass:

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

While the bottom layer bakes, take the juice from the blueberries, almond extract and agave nectar. If your berries a especially tart, you may need to add additional agave nectar. Taste and see. Pour into a shallow sauce pan and reduce the juices to make a thick sauce that coats the back of a spoon. Pour this sauce over the blueberries.

Once the bottom layer has baked, pour the blueberries in and spread them out:

Add the brown sugar to the second half of the oat/flour mixture and pour over the berries:


Return to the oven and bake for an additional 25 minutes or until the berries are bubbling and the top crust is golden brown.

I think the next time I try this, I'll up the flour in the bottom layer, add a little leavening and extend the first baking time. I'll keep you updated! Gotta go now, the leftovers are calling...

Weekday Pasta

Working from home is a tricky business. There are obvious perks but the downsides are there-- it can be lonely, you have to be organized and motivated, there's no IT guy when your computer freaks out* and you're surrounded by all those little things that need to be done around the house-- dirty dishes, bills to pay, and so on. Still, I love being able to make myself a simple lunch like this.

Ingredients
2 ounces of dry spaghetti (I use Barilla Plus. I don't like whole wheat pasta.)
3 slices of cooked, crumbed bacon
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped
1 teaspoon butter
black pepper
1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese, grated
capers or caperberries

How To
Bring salted water to boil for the pasta. While the pasta cooks, in a separate pan saute the garlic, rosemary and pepper until the garlic is soft. Add the bacon. Once the pasta is drained, add it to the other pan and toss with the bacon and butter. Pour onto a plate and top with cheese and capers.

This is the perfect portion for a single person, but this can obviously be doubled and tripled to accommodate more people.

*My husband plays a darn good IT guy though. He rescued me from the blue screen of death on Monday. Thanks, baby! You're my hero!

Mom's Easter Potatoes

I love Easter. It's such a happy holiday and it's all about family and food. No one is out looking for the perfect gift or hoping to fall in love so that they have someone to celebrate the season with. Here's my mother's table, set for Easter brunch:

And here's the dish that was my absolute favorite (and my brothers' favorite and my sister's favorite...) growing up:

One bite of this and I feel like a kid again, in a scratchy fancy dress and white Mary Janes, listening to the grown ups chatter and dreaming of what treasures I'll find during the egg hunt. It's funny, this recipe isn't like anything we cook these days-- the only canned foods we use are beans, tomatoes and tuna-- but come Easter and I need a spoonful of this cheesy casserole. Sometimes, you just have to admit that cream of mushroom soup can be magical.

UPDATE: My mom was cruising my blog and called to make some modifications. A little less soup, a lot more butter and sour cream!

Ingredients
12 big russet potatoes, baked, pealed and sliced
4 cups shredded sharp cheddar
2 cups shredded jack cheese
1 brown onion, diced
1 regular can cream of mushroom soup*
1 regular can cream of chicken soup*
2 cups of sour cream
1 stick of butter
/21 box of corn flakes

How To
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine the onion, potatoe and cheese in a big bowl. Heat the soup, sour cream and 1/2 of the butter in a sauce pan until the butter melts. Pour over the potatoes, mix well with your hands and pour into a large rectangular baking dish and place in the oven.

While the potatoes warm, melt the butter in a deep stock pot. Once the butter in melted, add the corn flakes and stir until the cornflakes are well coated in the butter. Take the potatoes out of the oven and top with the cornflakes. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the cornflakes are toasted.

*I know! Seriously, I know.

Mango-A-Go-Go

And now, another entry from that delightful series, Watch My Headless Torso Cut Up Fruits & Vegetables. Today, we turn our attention to the mango.

Years ago, I got a panicked call from a newly vegan friend, wanting to know how to cut up a mango. In his newly vegan zeal, he'd bought a case of them from Costco but had no idea how to "get the fruit out" as he said. Too bad he asked me in those days when digital cameras were still rare. It's much easier to explain it this way.

Choose a fruit that is brightly colored, fragrant and just a little soft. I usually buy my mangos a little on the green side, then leave them on the counter to ripen because I'm sort of cranky about having my fruit over-handled.

Turn the mango on its side with the stem pointing away from you. Cut one side of the mango off in a straight motion. You can't cut a mango in half because there is a fibrous pit in the middle. Instead, you cut down the sides.

Repeat with the other side and you'll be left with three pieces of mango. Note my itty-bitty counter space. I think I have 4 square feet of counter space in the entire kitchen.

Take one of the sides and gently draw your knife through the mango flesh, trying not to cut through the skin (but don't worry if you do.)

If you've kept the skin in tact, you can then "pop" the meat out of the skin by gently pushing on the back of the fruit. It's a very satisfying moment.

Now, you can either pull the meat away from the skin...

...or you can get all fancy and tidy and methodically cut the meat away by cutting between the skin and the meat. Go slowly-- this isn't Shogun and you need your fingers. Mango is slippery and soft, so you can cut yourself and bruise the fruit if you move too fast and press too hard.

Now there's the pesky center part to deal with. Use you knife to remove the skin:

Then make a series of cuts around the exterior:

Then cut the fruit away, trying to cut as close to the pit as possible:

Once you've cut as much of the fruit away as you can, you can have the private pleasure of pulling the remaining flesh off the pit with your teeth. It's one of my favorite parts of the mango, made better by a trashy magazine and a chaise lounge in the sun. Look, I do too have a head:

V for victory! I had a Saint Patrick's Day party to attend and had to run but I happily had mango for breakfast this morning.

Beet and Fennel Salad

Our dinner last night was one of the best we've had at home. My husband slow-smoked our boneless rib-eyes after seasoning them with his homemade beef rub. I made mashed potatoes with sauted garlic and shallots and a beet and fennel salad that stole the show.

Ingredients
2 raw beets, any color. (The golden beets were wonderful here. Just so you know-- red beets will turn your salad pink.)
1 medium fennel bulb
1/2 cup feta cheese
1 tablespoon poppy seed dressing

How To
Roast the beets, let them cool, peel them and chop them into bite-sized pieces. Clean and chop the fennel bulb as thinly as possible. Toss the fennel, beets and dressing together. Refrigerate until ready to serve. You can leave it in the fridge for as long as 6 hours. Just before serving, toss with the feta cheese.

The Best Pork Chops

An easy week-day meal that fills the house with unbelievable good scents. Watch out for thin pork chops-- you want some nice, thick chops for this recipe. The apple is optional. You can skip it and just make the sauce.

Ingredients
2 thick pork chops
1 apple, peeled and sliced (optional)
1 teaspoon chopped, fresh rosemary
1/2 cup apple cider
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 heaping tablespoon whole-grain mustard
olive oil
salt and pepper

How To
Heat oil in a pan while seasoning both sides of each chop generously with salt and pepper. Brown the chops for about 5 minute on each side. Once the chops are browned, pour the apple cider and apple cider vinegar in the pan. Let the pork chops simmer in the juice for 10-15 minute or until no longer pink inside.

Once the chops are done, remove the chops and let them rest, covered in foil. Add the mustard, rosemary and apples to the pan, letting it simmer for about 5 minute or until the sauce has thickened and the apples are cooked. Cover each chop in apples and sauce and serve.

Steamed Artichokes

I could eat a huge artichoke every day. I don't even need the butter to dip it into if it's cooked just right. In spite of my love for them, I waited a long time to try cooking one on my own. Those giant, pointy orbs in the grocery store just didn't look like the open flowers served to me at Houston's. After learning how to prepare and steam one, I had what can only be described as the "I-coulda-had-a-V8" moment of forehead smacking. It's the perfect food-- fancy without too much fuss. And a little dish of melted butter served along side ain't bad either.

Ingredients
1 fat artichoke per person
1 garlic clove per person
a lemon
salt

So here's how I prepare my artichokes for steaming. I hope you enjoy my decapitated demonstration. First, I wash them and then hack off the stem to make a flat bottom. Here, I cut a little too much and sacrificed some of the precious choke (oops!):
Next, cut the top off the the artichoke. This little bundle of leaves at the top is all thorns; you're better off without them:
Viola!
Then use kitchen shears to trim the remaining thorns from the big leaves (note my tricky photography-- the bottom of the artichoke is still there. Shock horror! So, the order isn't that important.)
Now that your artichoke is ready to go, how do you cook it without turning it into a soggy and bland mess?

Pour about an inch of water and generous salt into a stock pot and place a steamer in the bottom of the pan. Cover the pan and bring to a boil. I used to think steamers like these were too old fashioned. Surely, there was something better out there. Sorry, nope! Every home kitchen should have a steam basket.
Put your prepped artichokes in the steamer and squirt with lemon juice. I like to "open up" my artichokes by putting my thumbs in the middle and pulling gently. I then crush a garlic clove in the center of each, sprinkle generously with salt, then cover and walk away, letting them simmer gently until a leaf from the center comes out easily. This can take an hour. Don't let all that water boil away!

And then all your hard work is rewarded. Yum:

Dutch Baby

My husband says this is like having Yorkshire Pudding for breakfast. This dish looks quite impressive but is actually easier than pancakes.

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar

How To
Turn your oven up to 425 degrees. Place the butter in the bottom of a medium-sized dutch oven and place it in the oven. While the butter melts and the dutch oven heats, combine your other ingredients very well in a bowl. Once the butter in melted and a little foamy, pour in the batter. Let bake for 20-25 minutes or until the mixture is puffy and golden brown. Remove and let cool for a moment or two (the center will fall, so you might want to whisk it out to the table at this point if you're trying to impress someone.) Serve in slices like a pie and top with maple syrup or powdered sugar.

Apple Crumble

I'm not a huge pie person. I guess I've had too many wooden pie crusts that left me wary. Besides, the star of any pie is the filling, right? I'd rather have a big portion of lovely fruit with a crunchy salty-sweet topping any day. Besides, then you don't have to feel guilty about pairing this with some vanilla ice cream. Yum.

Ingredients
For the filling:
6 medium apples, peeled, cored and chopped into large chunks (I like to use granny smiths)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter, melted

For the topping:
3/4 cup old-fashioned oat meal
2 tablespoons flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons of cold butter

How To
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Combine all the ingredients for the filling and mix well, then pour into a pie dish. Place in the oven and let bake for 15-20 minutes or until the apples begin to soften and become fragrant.

While the apples bake, combine all of the ingredients for the topping, save for the butter. Combine very well. Chop the cold butter into small chunks and add to the topping mixture. Use your hands to incorporate the butter until the mixture is very crumbly. Once the apples are ready, sprinkle the oat mixture on top and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until the oats have a nice, golden color. Serve warm or hot.

Roasted Baby Tomatoes

I'll admit it-- I made a batch of these a few days ago for my husband and I to have with dinner and I gobbled them all up before he came home.

These tomatoes are delicious served warm from the oven but are also wonderful pizza toppings or combined with buffalo mozzarella and basil as a twist on the classic caprese salad.

Ingredients
1 pound cherry tomatoes (or any small tomatoes you can find)
6 garlic cloves, pealed and coarsely chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

How To
Combine all the ingredients while preheating the oven to 400 degrees. Spread the tomatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake, stirring occasionally, for 20-25 minutes or until the tomatoes wilt and collapse in on themselves and everything caramelizes a bit. Serve warm or let cool for future use.

Beef Stew!

So good, it needs an exclamation mark.

Ingredients
1 pound stew beef, cubed
2 medium onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, pealed and cut in two
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1 dark beer
1 cup carrots, chopped
2 cups potato, cut into large pieces
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup peas (I use frozen)
salt and pepper

How To
Brown the stew meat quickly in a dutch oven over a medium flame. Remove the meat and set aside. Turn down the flame and add half of the butter, onions and garlic to the dutch oven and saute until the onions are soft and dark brown. This can take a while-- 30 to 45 minutes. Add the remaining butter and flour to the pan. Mix well and cook for at least 20 minutes. The flour/onion combination should become dark brown.

Add the beer and stir, then add in all the remaining ingredients, save the mushroom, peas and salt. Cover the dutch oven and place in a 350 degree oven for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Add the peas and mushrooms and let cook for 30 more minutes. Add salt to taste and serve hot with crusty bread.

Carbonara

Part of my New Year's Eve celebration was arguing over the proper way to make pasta with a carbonara sauce. Cream, peas, onions, bacon? All wrong.

Made properly, carbonara is rustic, rich and mysterious. Yes, it lends itself to additions like sauted mushrooms or grilled shrimp, but don't insult the power of this very simple sauce by adding cream.

Ingredients

1 pound of pasta (I like a thick spaghetti or penne)
6 ounces of pancetta, chopped into small cubes
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon of olive oil
4 raw egg yolks
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
lots (three or four tablespoons) of fresh ground black pepper

How To

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While waiting for it to come to a boil, heat the olive oil in a large saute pan and saute the garlic and pancetta. Add the pasta to the boiling water.

In a large bowl, combine the pepper, egg yolks and Parmesan cheese. Once the pasta is cooked, take the saute pan off the heat, then drain and add pasta to the bowl of egg yolk mixture. Toss the pasta until it is all well coated. Then, pour the pasta into the saute pan and mix well. Serve hot.

Candy Cane Pretzels

I love the gifts of food and drink. The nature of them is temporary and celebratory, just like the season. I'll be posting several recipes for cookies, candies, and other gifts in the coming days. The one below is very easy and always a big hit. White chocolate is very easy to work with and a great choice for first-time candy makers!

Ingredients
1 pound bag of mini pretzels
2 pound2 white chocolate (I get mine from Trader Joe's-- they get theirs from Ghiradelli)
1 dozen peppermint candy canes ( I like Bob's)

How To
Chop the white chocolate up into big chunks. You can melt it in the microwave by heating it in 30 second intervals, stirring well in between. I actually melt mine by putting it in the crock pot on low for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently. When it reaches the right consistency, I turn the crock pot to warm and begin using it right away. White chocolate is very forgiving but don't abuse it by overheating it.

While the chocolate is melting, unwrap the candy canes and put them in a plastic freezer bag. It's important to try and avoid touching the candy canes as much as possible because the sweat from your hands will make them sticky. Crush them with a rolling pin.

Dip the pretzels in the white chocolate until they are totally covered. I use a fork and tap the pretzel against the side of bowl a little so the shape of the pretzel is clear. Place on a piece of waxed paper. Sprinkle with candy cane. Let cool. Yum!