Green Chili

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Deanne

Some recipes just don’t work out. This is especially true when the recipe is one you are making up on the spot, cobbling together from multiple sources. Sometimes it’s a total flop, the kind that can only be dumped in the garbage before ordering takeout. Too much salt, ingredients-gone-bad, poorly calibrated baking experiments. But most “failures” are just somewhat off. Under-seasoned, dominated by one flavor; in other words: salvageable.

I get home on a workday in the spring with enough light left to take pictures. The goal is to end up with a pot of white chili. I have some semblance of ingredients – chicken, stock, white beans, green chile peppers – plus a vague idea from looking at a few recipes. Peppers and onions are chopped, spices poured, ingredients sautéed and then simmered. After blending some of the ingredients to make a thicker stew I realize the chili is no longer white; it’s turned a vibrant shade of green. No matter, I cross off white in the recipe title, replace it with green and move on.

It thickens beautifully and then thickens too much, becoming more like porridge than stew. Still not a problem to me. Instead I scrap the plans to serve it over rice and just ladle it into bowls, topping with sour cream and cilantro. But one bite in, it’s clear the problem is more than texture or color. The spiciness is so intense that it’s just barely edible. Jeff only manages a few bites; I soldier through a bowlful but have no idea how I could eat the leftovers. It’s at this point that a normal person would likely throw in the towel. We’d laugh or cry over the failed attempt and then rummage through the house for something else for dinner.

But instead, after eating I return to the stove. I turn the heat back on, gather up some liquids to thin out the chili and counteract the spice. A pot of rice is set to cook and I stand and stir. A few more seasonings, an extra glug of beer and stock, and the flavors of the chiles start to emerge from the intense heat. It starts to taste like a flavorfully layered dish rather than just HOT. Containers of rice topped with chili are packed for the next day’s lunch and another is put in the freezer to supply dinner during a more hectic week. Eating leftovers at my desk at work, a coworker stops by to see what’s for lunch.

The real confirmation came a few weeks later, sorting through weekly meal planning. We searched through the kitchen to see what could be used up during an especially busy week. Moving aside frozen peas and ice cubes I noticed the green container of chili. “Oh yea, that was really good.” It was, wasn’t it?

Last year we ate: Hashed Turnips

Green Chili

Makes about 8 servings of chili

This is my no means an authentic chili. The vast majority of the recipe is made up. But it is rich and warming and stick to your ribs good, and tastes like chiles without being mouth-searingly hot. And if chili sounds ridiculous in June where you live, come visit San Francisco. We’re just getting into soup and stew weather around here.

Also, a good tip for working with chiles: there’s no real way to know how hot they’ll be until you taste them – each one is different. So taste a small slice of each chile you cut up to see how hot it will make the final dish. If the chile is mild leaving in the stems and seeds will up the spice and if the flesh is spicy, the seeds will only make it hotter. There’s no shame in leaving out part of a too-hot chile and using milder one in it’s place.

2 tbs oil (or bacon fat, which is what I used here)
1 medium-large onion, cut into large dice
2-3 chile peppers, diced – I used a mixture of poblano, anaheim, and jalapeno. Other options include serrano, New Mexico (or hatch), or pasilla. Remove the seeds and stems for a less spicy chili
4-6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small can diced mild green chiles with their juices
1 15-oz can white beans, drained
1 12-oz beer, preferably something dark and malty
2-3 cups chicken stock or water, divided
1/4 cup cornmeal
2-3 tsp kosher salt
1 tbs ground cumin
2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded*
To serve: cilantro, sour cream, cheese, rice (all optional)

In a large heavy-bottomed pot heat up the oil over medium heat and add the onions, chiles, and garlic and cook them slowly. You want them to get soft and onions to get translucent but don’t let them brown. At this point, you can add up to a teaspoon of salt to help them release liquid and soften in the heat. Once the vegetables are cooked, add the canned green chiles, the beans, beer, and 1 cup of stock/water. Simmer this for 10-15 minutes.

Using a blender or food processor, puree about half of the vegetable/bean/liquid mixture. Add the puree back to the pot so you end up with a chunky stew – you want the chile to be more stew than soup but also to have texture so don’t blend everything. Add the cornmeal, a teaspoon of salt, and the cumin. Let it cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes, until the cornmeal is fully cooked, stirring often. At this point, check the stew for both spiciness and texture. If it’s too spicy or too thick you can add some or all of the remaining two cups of liquid. Then taste it again to see if it needs more salt. If it’s not too spicy, you can leave it thick enough to eat without rice, or you can thin it out so that it’s more soupy and the rice can soak up the extra liquid. When it’s reached the consistency you like, add the chicken, turn the heat down to low and add the shredded chicken. Let the chile sit over low heat for at least 15 minutes and as long as an hour before serving.

To serve, ladle it into bowls, with or without rice, and top with cilantro, sour cream, or cheese. Serve it hot but you can also refrigerate it for up to two weeks or freeze it for up to two months and just reheat it when you need it. It gets better after a day or two so making it ahead is a plus.

*I had some leftover chicken for this recipe. If you don’t, then poach or roast the chicken breasts, or just buy some pre-cooked, and then shred them.

Mediterranean Seven Layer Dip

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Deanne

This weekend sort of got away from me. We flew to the East Coast for Jeff’s college reunion which meant a red eye flight; perhaps the most effective way to screw up your sleep cycle. Then we spent the next few days wandering around campus in the rain, spending time with friends, dancing. We celebrated, stayed up to the wee hours of the morning laughing and chatting, felt nostalgic about college. It was lovely.

It was also stressful. From this side, I can see how disorganized and messy my life was in college. In the moment it felt like we had everything under control but after a weekend of reminiscing it’s clear that we ate poorly, stayed up late working on projects that we’d failed to plan out, made decisions that if we didn’t regret, we at least wouldn’t make again. It was everything college should be but at the same time, I’m glad I’ve gotten myself together since then. So I escaped on Sunday morning and went home.

My parents live an easy drive from Jeff’s college and I spent most of Sunday hanging out on the couch, reading, almost-napping, watching bad TV. I rested. It wasn’t quite enough to undo the damage done over the weekend, but it was enough to get the energy to make this dip for a Memorial Day barbecue. Although, to be fair, this dip doesn’t take much effort.

For holidays growing up, dip meant either french onion (from the Lipton package) or Mexican 7 layer. I loved making the seven layer dip, sprinkling and spreading everything into place. I insisted on making it for years, making a whole tray when it was just four people celebrating. This year, it got taken off the menu. Refried beans became hummus and sour cream became tzatziki. There was more lemon and more fresh herbs and less iceberg lettuce (although it still has a place in my heart, and my table, just not in this dip). The sun even came out on Monday so we enjoyed this on the sunny deck, greedily scooping it up with pita chips. If it’s any indication of how this summer will be, I’m looking forward to it.

Last year we ate: Dijon Mustard

Mediterranean Seven Layer Dip

Makes an appetizer for about 10; fills a 10 inch round pan

There are a couple of spreads that are incorporated into this dip to help hold it together – hummus, tzatziki, tabouli. This time I used storebought for the hummus and tabouli and made the tzatzki but in the future any of those could be homemade or easily found at the store. Choose your own adventure.

1 cup hummus
1/2 cup roasted red pepper, drained and roughly chopped
1/4 cup peperoncini, stems removed and roughly chopped (you could remove the seeds if you want but it wasn’t too spicy with them)
1 cup tzaziki *
1/2 cup each, tomato and cucumber, cut into a medium-sized dice
1/4 cup red onion, finely diced
2 tbs olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1 cup tabouli
1/2 cup feta cheese
1/2 cup chopped kalamata olives (optional, I left them out)

In a medium bowl combine the peppers and peperoncini and set aside. In another bowl combine the tomato, cucumber, red onion, olive oil, and one teaspoon of salt. Let those bowls sit for about 15 minutes to let the flavors combine.

This part is more of a method than a recipe. This is how I did it: in a 10-inch round or an 8 by 8 brownie pan, spread out the hummus. Strain any liquid from the red pepper mixture and spread it out next. Then add the layer of tzatziki and strain and spread the tomato-cucumber mixture on top of that. Next is the layer of tabouli and finally the feta cheese. Sprinkle the olives on top if you’re using them. You can eat the composed dip right away, with pita chips, crackers, or vegetable sticks, or cover it and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours before serving. Don’t assemble it more than a few hours in advance, the chopped layers are juicy and will weep if you leave them too long.

The feta and olive should likely be on top and it would be difficult to spread something on top of the tabouli but the other four layers can go in any order, keeping in mind that spreads and chopped layers should be separated to enhance the textural contrast.

* My homemade version was 1/2 cup shredded cucumber which I squeezed in a towel to get out the excess liquid, 3/4 cup greek yogurt, 1 clove garlic finely chopped, 1 tsp kosher salt, and 1/2 tsp dried dill. Everything was mixed together in a bowl and then allowed to sit in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavors meld.

Honey Mustard Sauce

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Deanne

The small town I grew up in had a few townie restaurants – one a breakfast and lunch joint and one a pizza place. The pizza place was where sports teams had team dinners, where there were birthday parties, pretty much any low key celebration could be done at this place. And this place was known for its honey mustard sauce. Just about every order also included a request for honey mustard that came in a small cup on the side. Big parties just got bowls of the stuff so everyone could spoon out what they wanted. Did I mention this was primarily a pizza place?

The honey mustard was to dip pizza crusts, or the pita bread that came on the side of a salad, or to drizzle over the top of your pizza if you were really devoted to the stuff. It was a necessary part of the experience, probably the highlight of a place that admittedly had pretty bad pizza. It’s not worth a trip back when I visit my family but I still miss the honey mustard sauce. Or at least I did until I realized the extra ingredient besides honey and mustard. Spoiler alert: it’s mayo.

If you’re a mayo-phobe but love honey mustard sauce, forget what I just said and eat your sauce in peace. But I was pretty excited to learn that all I needed was one extra staple ingredient to get honey mustard at home without the lackluster pizza. You know how some things you loved as a kid or teenager are not as good when you have them again as an adult (I’m looking at your Chef Boyardee)? This is not one of those things. I don’t think this is even fancied up from the honey mustard sauce I loved as a kid, except for the homemade mayo. But c’mon, homemade mayo; it’s just so good.

I know that condiments can be a touchy subject. The subject took up most of lunch the other day at the office over some deli sandwiches. Mustard, mayo, ketchup – they all have serious proponents and serious detractors. One of my coworkers, who cannot stand mayo, loves French’s mustard so much that he claims to travel with it, just in case it’s not available somewhere. And my roommate looks suspiciously at anything I make that looks creamy just in case it has mayo (no, I don’t sneak it into her food … yet). But if you love condiments, if you consider mayo on bread to be a perfectly acceptable snack (that’s my hand raised in the air), then this one’s for you.

Last year we ate: Fish en Papillote

Honey Mustard Sauce

Makes about a half cup of sauce, plenty for dipping

A quick thing to keep in mind: I like to use a mix of dijon mustard (for the flavor) and whole grain mustard (since it looks nice). I also use more honey since the sauce I remember was pretty sweet. There are no rules about this, I would just recommend that you use whatever mustard you like and experiment with different proportions of mustard:honey to get a flavor you want.

1/4 cup mayo
1 tbs dijon mustard
1 tbs whole grain mustard
2 1/2 – 3 tbs honey

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl. The sauce will keep for up to a week in the fridge, or more if you’re not using homemade mayo (but, c’mon, homemade mayo!). It’s a great dip for vegetable sticks, pretzels, and yes, pizza crusts.

Teriyaki Chicken

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Deanne

Growing up we ate a lot of teriyaki chicken. I’d say I was partly to blame for this phenomenon. I loved teriyaki chicken. Nevermind that we’d already had it earlier in the week, when it showed up for dinner again, it was an exciting occasion. On Saturday mornings while grocery shopping with my dad I’d happily grab a bottle teriyaki marinade off the shelf, regardless of whether it was on the list. More marinade just meant more teriyaki chicken, right? It was a beautiful thing right up until the minute I hated teriyaki chicken and never wanted to eat it again.

I had a bad habit of doing this too-much-of-a-good-thing as a teenager too. I took a tomato and pickle sandwich (with mayo) to school almost everyday in high school and now the thought of one is still a little repulsive. I also listened to the soundtrack from Rent over the course of a 20 hour flight. I still know all the words even though I haven’t listened to the music in over a decade – although I did go see the movie version which was both painful and kind of nostalgically wonderful. But recently I starting getting into teriyaki chicken again, only not the kind that comes with a bottle.

Let’s be clear – I have nothing against bottled marinade as a category. But when the craving for teriyaki chicken started I was woefully unprepared. I mean, I’d hated the stuff for years and hadn’t planned on going back to it. And then I discovered that teriyaki marinade is basically two ingredients, ingredients that I almost always have in the pantry. How could I go back to buying pre-made marinade when I knew all the ingredients were already in my house?

I’m not saying I’ll go back to my multiple times a week chicken teriyaki habit (and sorry Mom, for spilling the beans that you indulged me for so long), but its managed to work its way back into my heart, and into my dinner rotation. As for those tomato and pickle sandwiches, I think we’re through for good.

Last year we ate: Potato Bread

Teriyaki Chicken
Makes enough for 4

1 3-4 lb chicken, cut into 6 pieces, or 3-4 lbs of chicken breasts or thighs (or a combination)*
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin (you can substitute sherry here, which I sometimes do; they’re both sweetened cooking wine)
1 tbs honey
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 inch piece of ginger, cut into 1/4 inch or thinner slices (no need to peel it)
1/4 cup orange juice (optional)**

In a large container, or a ziploc bag, combine the soy sauce, mirin, honey, garlic, ginger, and orange juice (if using). Sprinkle the teaspoon of salt over the chicken pieces and then add them to the marinade. Cover the container or close the bag and place in the marinating chicken into the fridge for at least 8 hours and no more than two days to soak up the flavor.

When you’re ready to cook preheat a grill to medium or set the oven for 450F. If using the oven, put the chicken onto a rack set over a foiled lined sheet so air can circulate all around it while it cooks. When the grill or oven is preheated, cook the chicken until any dark meat is 165F and white meat is 140F. This may mean taking different parts out at different times. In the oven it should take about 20-25 minutes for white meat and 30-40 minutes for dark meat. On the grill it should take 15-20 minutes for white meat and 25-30 for dark meat. Be sure to turn the pieces often on the grill so avoid burning. The marinade is sweet which means it’s more likely to burn a bit on a hot grill – as you can see in the pictures. Still delicious, just not as pretty.

You can eat the chicken immediately or eat it as leftovers for up to a week, cold, hot, or just warmed up a bit. If I’m feeling extra productive I may boil the marinade down into a salty-sweet sauce to put over rice or vegetables too, but that’s just a bonus.

*Call me a snob but I prefer dark meat to light and bone-in skin-on meat, especially for roasting like in this recipe. But when you make it at home, make it the way you like.

**If I have a fresh orange, I’ll squeeze it in here but if I don’t then I leave it out. It’s delicious either way.

Huevos Rancheros

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Deanne

The same weekend that I spent making quiche for a large group, my friend Jesse was in charge of the second day of breakfast. I obsessively planned, spent an afternoon prepping, and basically hovered over the task of breakfast. Jesse arrived with several bags of ingredients and a basic plan: breakfast would be huevos rancheros. Never mind that he hadn’t actually made them before and certainly never for a crowd. He’d eaten huevos rancheros and had some idea of what went into it which was enough for him. He polled people on what should be included, enlisted some others to help, and then went for it bright and early on a Sunday morning while we all shuffled sleepily into the kitchen.

He set up a few stations and got multiple pans simmering on the stove. The tortillas warmed in the oven and there were bowls of toppings and additions for a customizable breakfast experience. Then he started handing out plates of fried eggs on lightly crisped tortillas, with or without beans, and adorned with salsa and cheese. We piled the already high plates with avocados, cilantro, more cheese, more salsa. And then it was mostly quiet in the kitchen while everyone stuffed their faces savored breakfast.

Ok, so there was a bit more cleanup given the number of plates and bowls that were used to give everyone a personal breakfast, but it reminded me that sharing meals doesn’t need to mean planning down to the last second. That’s not to say my next group breakfast will be huevos rancheros, or at least, they won’t be the kind he made, with individually fried eggs. While wanting to recreate this breakfast while still being too lazy to fry four eggs, I hit upon the idea to just poach the eggs in salsa. After all, huevos rancheros are mostly about the eggs and salsa so I simplified the time it takes to make and combine the two main ingredients.

The best part about eggs-poached-in-tomato recipes, like Middle-Eastern ‘Shakshouka’ and Italian ‘Eggs in Purgatory,’ is that they are dead simple to scale up or down. I would make this for two or twelve (with a big enough pan) and even for one, like I did when I shot the photos for this post. It all takes the same amount of time. The end result is just as delicious as it was on that Saturday morning, just without as much chaos. Or at least breakfast (or dinner) doesn’t add to the chaos.

Last year we ate: Lemon Bars

Huevos Rancheros

Ok, here’s the thing. Poaching eggs in tomato sauce is infinitely easier than doing it with sub-boiling water because the eggs take longer to cook in the sauce so you have a bigger window to get them out of the pan and you don’t have to worry about whether they’ll hold together. But since this is so much easier, I felt bad just giving a recipe for dropping eggs into a pan of salsa. So I’m giving you a homemade salsa recipe too. Would this be just as good with brand name salsa? Absolutely. Think of it as a suggestion, not a necessity.

Ranchero Salsa
Adapted from Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless

Makes about 2 1/2 cups of salsa.

2-3 dried chiles – use Anaheim, New Mexico, or Ancho, or a combination
1 28-oz can whole tomatoes (or use a 14 oz can and halve the other ingredients)
1/2 a yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional, in case your chiles aren’t hot enough)

Heat a dry skillet over medium-high heat and add the dried chiles. Toast the chiles, turning them often, until they darken a bit in color. This should take about 5-8 minutes. Remove them from the pan (turn off the heat) and let them cool on a counter or cutting board until they are cool enough to handle. At this point you can cut the chiles open and remove the seeds if you want to reduce the spiciness a bit. Then rip the chiles into about 1 inch pieces and put them in the bowl of a food processer or blender.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the chiles and then process or blend the sauce until it’s the texture you want. It can be chunkier or smoother – I prefer a pretty smooth sauce. Then pour the sauce back into the skillet you used to toast the chiles – or use another pan if the sauce won’t fit. Put it back over medium heat and cook the sauce for about 10 minutes until it has been bubbling for a minute or two. That will cook out the raw onion/garlic flavor. Taste it to see if it needs more salt. At this point you can serve it hot or store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about 3 weeks.

Huevos Rancheros

1 tbs oil for every few tortillas.
1-2 tortillas per person (depending on the size of your tortillas)
Up to 1/4 cup cheese per person – something melty like cheddar or jack cheese
1/2 cup ranchero salsa per person
1-2 eggs per person
Toppings – chopped cilantro, chopped chiles, extra cheese, chopped raw onion*, guacamole, whatever you might have in the fridge

In a nonreactive pan (I prefer nonstick), heat up the oil over medium heat. Add the tortillas a few at a time and fry them for a few minutes on each side, until they pick up some brown spots but before they brown all over – you want them to still be tender, not crunchy. If you’re making this for a crowd, fry the tortillas 2 or 3 at at time and then remove them to foil-lined baking sheet in an oven set for 200F. When you remove the tortillas from the pan, sprinkle them with the cheese right away so it can melt a bit from the heat of the tortilla – it will also melt more when the eggs and salsa are poured on.

Using the same pan, heat up the salsa in an even layer over medium high heat (you may need a little more than a 1/2 cup if you’re only making this for one, or just use a smaller pan). Once the salsa is bubbling a little, turn the heat down to medium low and crack in the eggs. Try to make sure they don’t overlap too much and keep them separate if possible. Then let them cook in the sauce for about 3 minutes. At this point the whites should be partly set but the tops of the whites will still be a little runny. Cover the pan for about 2 minutes and then remove the lid – this should be enough time to cook the whites without overcooking the yolk. If you’re nervous about not having a runny yolk, check the eggs at the one minute mark to see if they’re ready.

When the eggs are done, use a serving spoon to scoop out some salsa and egg together and place them on the tortillas. I generally like two eggs and two tortillas for a meal and just one for a snack. Then top them however you like and eat them while they’re hot. The finished dish won’t keep in the fridge but you can prep everything ahead of time and store it in the fridge for a few days (longer for the salsa). It’s also a great way to use up stale tortillas – they fry up beautifully.

*If you choose to go the chopped raw onion route I would highly recommend putting the onions in a mesh strainer and running them under hot water for a minute or two and then drying them before you serve them. That way you’ll still get the raw onion flavor but without the pervasive bite that makes you taste onion for hours.

Strawberry Cake

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Deanne

I could have also called this one “the process of recipe development.” It’s one of the most frequent questions I get; how do I come up with recipes? Well this one was a doozy and it was also a great way to explain how ideas move from my brain to my plate, which is not always a smooth process. At the end of this maybe you’ll be inspired to start making your own recipes or maybe you’ll decide that it’s too much work. Either way, I promise there will be cake.

This particular idea started with Looking At Pictures On The Internet which is where at least half of my ideas come from. I found a particularly enticing one for strawberry cake which is where the problem began. The recipe had boxed cake mix and strawberry gelatin. I’m all for a boxed mix when you’re on a time crunch – because let’s face it, they are easy and delicious – but if I’m going to learn to make a strawberry cake I want to learn how to make it, and then take shortcuts later if I choose. Unfortunately, it appeared that this was, in fact, how strawberry cake is made. The recipes I looked at all included strawberry gelatin and at that point, even a homemade cake recipe with gelatin would not do. No, I needed to figure out how to make strawberry cake with real strawberries.

That meant learning how cakes work. Yes, really. After some wonderful help from Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio I figured out some general proportions and then started playing around. I tried different forms of strawberry, milk and no milk, flour combinations, and finally settled on something similar to a regular yellow cake but with strawberry puree instead of milk and some extra fun additions to make a jammy pink cake that was somewhere between a pound cake and a traditional yellow cake in texture. Success? Well, I made two cakes on Friday and had no cakes left on Sunday. You be the judge.

One of these beauties graced a crawfish boil and only a quarter of it survived which is especially impressive given the 70 pounds of crawfish that were consumed during the day. The other got a thick layer of meringue frosting and barely survived a birthday party. The leftovers were demolished at a picnic. Was it worth all the time I spent figuring it out? I personally never got sick of watching the surprise on people’s faces when the cake actually tasted like strawberry. But if that’s not your cup of tea, well, here’s the recipe.

Last year we ate: Melted Leeks

Strawberry Cake
With help from Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio

Makes one 2-inch high and 10-inch round cake or one 9 by 13 pan of 1-inch high cake

Ok, a few words about this cake. There are three things that lift this cake: creaming the butter and sugar, beating the eggs, and adding baking powder. It’s what allows this strawberry-full batter to get a little rise although it’s not necessarily fluffy. Also, if your batter looks sort of like a melted strawberry shortcake ice cream bar when you’re done mixing, you’ve done something right. Awesome.

You might also notice that I baked this at 325 while most cake recipes call for 350. The hotter your oven, the quicker the cake will rise but if it rises before the batter begins to solidify you’ll end up with a sunken cake or you might also end up with a domed one if the middle rises faster than the edges. Many recipes suggest you can avoid that by lowering the oven temperature and baking for longer. I usually just start with a lower oven so I get a nice flat cake.

1 lb strawberries
1/4 cup milk (I used almond milk)
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup cake flour*
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup powdered strawberry (from 1 cup of freeze-dried strawberries)**
2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
6 eggs (at room temperature, this is important for adding lift)

Wash and stem the strawberries and then puree them in a food processor or blender until smooth – you could strain out the seeds but I generally leave them. Then add the milk to the strawberry puree and set it aside. You could also just buy strawberry puree but if you do, make sure it’s the kind that is only strawberry, nothing else added.

Preheat the oven to 325F and line a 10-inch cake pan or a 9 by 13 baking dish with foil of parchment paper to make it easier to get the cake out of the pan. Then grease the foil/paper well with butter. In a medium bowl combine the flours, baking powder, salt, and strawberry powder. Stir well and then set the bowl aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl if you’re using a hand mixer) cream the butter and sugar on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, until it’s really light and airy. If your butter isn’t room temperature it will take a few minutes extra to combine. You may need to scrape the bowl and beater one just to make sure all the butter is evenly incorporated.

Once the butter and sugar are fully combined, add the eggs, one at a time, and beat on medium high until fully incorporated. Once the eggs are all in, turn the speed down to low. Pour in about a third of the flour mixture and beat until just combined, then add a third of the strawberry and milk mix. Continue to alternate until both are gone, then mix on low until everything is just incorporated. Don’t overmix and if you’re worried about doing that, stir the last addition of strawberry in using a spatula rather than the machine.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake it for 35-45 minutes, or until the top has golden brown spots and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove it from the oven and let it cool in the pan for about 15 minutes. Then take it out and let it cool to room temperature on a rack.

If you plan to frost it, make sure it is completely cool before you start. But a thin layer of strawberry jam is just as good as a pile of frosting; at least, in my experience. Refrigerate any leftovers since this is a moist cake and could spoil. It’s best eaten within a few days of baking but you could also wrap a cake up and stick it in the freezer. Just keep in mind that once it defrosts it will be a bit denser.

* No cake flour? It does add some lightness to the cake but if you don’t have any just use 1/2 cup of all purpose flour instead. No problem.
** I powdered the strawberries using my spice grinder but they fall apart pretty easily. A plastic bag and a rolling pin should also get the pieces small enough. Keep in mind that the powder will clump a bit because of the sweetness in the strawberries. Just stir it into the flour to avoid clumping.

Roast Beef Salad

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Deanne

On Friday night we sat on the living room floor and played video games. We left the dishes unwashed and the laundry unfolded. We didn’t tidy up. Instead we rummaged through a box of random cords and wires to find the game controller that would let us play Super Mario Bros 3. Several hours were spent trying (and failing) to rescue the Princess, stomping goombas (or getting stomped), enjoying side-scrolling graphics. Dinner was also served on the floor, out of one big bowl, a salad version of a roast beef sandwich that we oohed and aahed over. Let me repeat that: our night of video games included salad for dinner and we were excited about it.

This wasn’t a sort of nod to acting like adults while we spent the evening playing Super Mario. The salad was the reward for winning a level and the consolation after someone (cough *me* cough) failed to make a jump for the umpteenth time. It wasn’t a wimpy mix of greens with some dressing and a few pieces of tomato. This was a dinner salad, the real thing, a meal you could eat and still be full a few hours later. Did I mention this is the salad equivalent of a roast beef sandwich?

I suppose now you might be wondering why there needs to be a salad equivalent of a sandwich. Well… brace yourself. I’m not really a fan of homemade sandwiches. Cue the disbelief and shocked expressions. It’s not that I dislike sandwiches as a genre. I just find that often sandwiches, especially ones you make yourself to take to work for lunch, are often, lacking. It’s the bread. Sandwich bread is just not that good. Unless you make it yourself, in which case it’s probably excellent. But sliced bread is generally not that great, either dull and flavorless or stale by the time you open your lunch.

This is still all the things that are good about a roast beef sandwich just without the sandwich part. It’s juicy roast beef and tangy pickles and creamy horseradish dressing. And then also some lettuce and whatever vegetables happen to be around and maybe some feta cheese that would otherwise go bad.

We polished off the salad in between rounds of jumping on koopas and spitting out fireballs. When there wasn’t enough to get on a fork we picked at it with our fingers and commented on how good it was. It was the kind of perfect that you only get at the end of an ordinary day. Just us, a video game, and this salad.

Last year we ate: Pimento Mac and Cheese

Roast Beef Salad
Makes enough for two as a meal

1 head lettuce
8 ounces roast beef, shredded with your hands*
1/2 cup chopped pickles
2 cups chopped vegetables – leftover roasted veggies, tomatoes, radishes, cucumber, scallions, whatever you think would be good
1/4 cup crumbled feta (optional)
1/4 cup mayo
2 tbs olive oil
2+ tbs grated horseradish (I like it more spicy, up to 4 tbs, you might not)
Salt and pepper to season the greens

Combine the mayo, oil, and horseradish in a small bowl. The longer you let it sit, the stronger the horseradish flavor. You should let it sit at least 20 minutes, at least while you prepare the other ingredients so that the flavors can meld.

Tear or chop the lettuce into pieces and then combine it with the rest of the ingredients besides the dressing. Season the salad with a little salt and pepper and then dress it to your liking. Serve immediately or the greens will wilt – if you want to serve it later leave the dressing off until it’s time to eat.

*To make this I generally buy deli roast beef and if you cut roast beef slices with a knife the pieces are a bit too regular and the texture is a bit weird. You could also roast some meat and use the leftovers in which case, well done you.

Broiled Radishes

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Deanne

I’m not generally one to encourage more work when less will do. If a recipe can be simplified – fewer ingredients, one less bowl, cutting out steps – I’m for it, and have usually already done it. That also means not cooking things if they are just as enjoyable freshly washed and eaten raw. But for these radishes, I’ll make an exception.

I wouldn’t have thought to try broiling – or in any way cooking – radishes if it hadn’t been for an otherwise unmemorable restaurant meal. I don’t remember where it was or what we ate other than tiny buttered and roasted radishes. They were sweet and rich and a little spicy; I kept stealing them off Jeff’s plate when I finished mine. And then I consigned them to one of those things that are great in a restaurant but not so good at home. And then I told myself that was stupid and just made them.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t much more complicated than just serving raw radishes with bread and butter (which you should also do, delicious) but it is truly surprising which when it comes to food isn’t something I come across often. I’m not saying go crazy and start braising celery or frying cucumbers; some things are best left alone. But broiled radishes are a whole new way to experience something that, let’s be honest, is a little boring and often gets forgotten. This is not boring; that’s certainly worth a little extra effort.

Last year we ate: Chicken and Mushroom Pot Pie

Broiled Radishes

Before you dive right in and make these (Although you could, of course, dive right in without knowing. It might be more exciting.) let me give you an idea of what cooked radishes taste like. They’re still a little spicy, horseradish-y, almost like a mild turnip. The butter is rich and the miso is sweet and salty which makes these incredibly easy to eat, one after the other.

2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons miso
2 bunches radishes
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Turn on the broiler (to hi, if yours has multiple settings) and line a sheet pan with parchment paper or foil. In a medium bowl (large enough to fit the radishes), mix the softened butter and miso together. Set the bowl aside.

Wash the radishes and remove the stems, then spread them on the pan and sprinkle with salt. Broiled them for about 10 minutes or until they start to brown a bit on the bottoms (this will be faster if you use foil).

Once the radishes are just starting to brown on the bottoms and have a little give, take them out and dump them into the bowl with the miso butter. Give it a good stir and then dump the radishes back onto the pan. Return it to the broiler for another 5 minutes, giving it a good shake about halfway through to allow the radishes to cook evenly. When they’re a little soft and deep brown in spots, take them out and turn off the broiler. Serve them hot, either immediately, or reheated within the next week. These are really best either warm or hot since when they’re cold the butter solidifies again.

Mango and Brie Paninis

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Deanne

This was a close one. I almost let April pass by without a grilled cheese recipe. For those of you keeping track at home, April is national grilled cheese month and in fact there’s a grilled cheese day somewhere in the 30 days of this month. And, as we’ve established, I get a kick out of celebrating fake food-related holidays. Plus, who doesn’t love grilled cheese? Sure, it’s the second to last day of the month but at least we can say we got this one in, right?

About this sandwich: you may have noticed it’s not called mango and brie grilled cheese. That’s because I didn’t come up with it myself.

My college had a small cafe that, aside from coffee and pastries, also had a rotating menu of vegetarian lunch items that it served during the week. Some were good and some were only good if you were a vegetarian, but on the day they served mango and brie paninis the line started early and lasted until they inevitably sold out a few hours later. I ate my fair share of them, especially considering that they only were around one day a month.

What made them so amazing? Maybe the fruit and cheese combination or the fact that it was my first exposure to sweet and savory grilled cheese. Maybe it’s the caramelized onions, which are phenomenal, or the slippery mango slices, that get a little caramelized on the edges. Maybe it’s just that grilled cheese is so good. Before I had the forehead-realization that I could make these at home, it had been years since I was around for mango-and-brie-panini day. Turns out that it’s just as good at home, not to mention that there’s no line and you can have two if you want to.

If you are something of a grilled cheese purist, this might be a bit of a stretch. There’s a lot going on in this sandwich and a fair amount of it isn’t cheese. But the end result is gooey and melty and golden brown on the outside. The edges are crispy and it’s really messy when you bite in. It was worth the wait.

Last year we ate: Turmeric Pickled Cauliflower

Mango and Brie Panini Grilled Cheese

Makes two sandwiches

1 mango, sliced
1/4 lb brie, cut into spreadable wedges or slices
1/4 cup caramelized onions – from 2 onions*
2 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tbs mango chutney – pick one that’s mostly smooth
Bread of your choice – white bread slices, rolls, or pieces of a bakery loaf; just pick something soft and squishy
Butter – about 2 tbs for coating the bread slices

In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese and the chutney. If the cream cheese isn’t soft enough you’ll end up with some pieces of cream cheese that won’t combine which, while a little unappealing looking, is fine for the sandwiches.

Spread one side of the bread with the cream cheese mixture and top with the caramelized onions. On the other side of the bread, lay down the brie slices and press the mangos into the cheese. Sandwich the two halves together and butter the outsides of the bread.

Heat a pan over medium heat and if you have it, heat a second cast iron pan to use as a press (or use a panini maker if you have one). Place the sandwiches in the pan and fry for 3-5 minutes, until the bread is toasty and brown. Flip the sandwiches and place the second pan on top to press them down. Cook about another 5 minutes until the second side is brown and the cheese is gooey.

This is a messy sandwich but there are two ways to cut down on the gooey-ness. You can hollow out the bready inside of a roll (only on one side) to create a little pocket for the mango and cheese. Or you can use large slices of bread and leave a half-inch border around the edges so the filling to spread into as it melts. I opt for just a messy sandwich and a big napkin.

*If you do caramelize just two onions you’ll have some leftovers from the sandwiches. Not a bad thing