unbelievable rice pudding

It doesn't seem possible that this is enough rice - but it is!

http://www.dinneralovestory.com/come-and-get-it/ <-- almond="" also="" and="" br="" coconut="" full-fat="" great="" in="" light="" milk="" of="" place="" whole="" with="">

Easy Chocolate Pudding

This dessert feels so simple and wholesome, it barely qualifies as as dessert. The menu suggestion on the original recipe says that "no matter how many fancy desserts are in your repertoire, this is most likely the one the kids will remember when they are grown and gone." No kids here, but I would guess that this would be an easy dessert to make frequently enough for it to be a household staple.

Easy Chocolate Pudding
(just barely adapted from Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites)

• 3 Tbs cornstarch
• 3 Tbs sugar
• 2 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 C milk (I usually use skim)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

In a saucepan, whisk together the dry ingredients, then stir in the milk. Over medium heat, stir frequently until the mixture comes to a boil. Lower the heat and gently simmer, stirring constantly, until thickened (~4 minutes). Stir in the vanilla. I prefer to heat this pudding warm, but it's also good cold if that's your thing.

A tiny bit of cinnamon or espresso powder, added with the other dry ingredients, are a nice addition. A little almond extract can also be added when you add the vanilla.

makes 4 small servings

well, that worked out pretty well

Sunday: Braised White Beans; sauteed greens; bread. Apple Sharlotka for dessert.

I made all the recipes pretty much as-written.

For the braised beans: It took about 45 minutes on medium-high before I was satisfied with the beans' caramelization. They smelled amazing - the finished recipe was good, but wasn't quite able to live up to their initial aroma. I added about 1.5 Tbsp strong Dijon mustard, lots of salt, a bit of better-than-bouillon (chicken flavor), and a bunch of pepper. I ended up simmering the beans for just under two hours (I started with the saddest looking bag of discount beans from the grocery store, but then soaked them for two days. YMMV.)

The greens were a bunch of semi-random greenery that had been floating around the fridge - a half-bag of Trader Joe's prewashed greens that I picked up in a moment of panic on Christmas Day and a bag of greens from last week's farmer's market excursion. I cut up a single strip of bacon, fried it 'til crispy, and then cooked two garlic cloves a bit before adding the greens, some smoked paprika, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes. I added some water to steam, and kept cooking 'til we were ready to eat.

Because we decided (somewhat last minute) to have someone over for dinner, I made Smitten Kitchen's Apple Sharlotka as well. I LOVE this recipe, and I don't even know if I cooked it enough. Was it really supposed to be creamy in the center and crisp around the edges? Does it matter? It was delicious, and I'll definitely be making this again. But for the time it takes to cut up the apples, it's very low-effort, and the ingredients are minimal.

I can't speak for my dinner companions, but for me, this meal was a total success.

Purim cookies

As part of my continuing cookie-baking adventures, we made hamantashen last week. Hamantashen (or "hamentashen" - various spelling abound) are triangular filled cookies served for the Jewish holiday of Purim. I have many fond childhood memories of eating my grandmother's hamantashen, which she made in great quantities every year. Her cookies were generally denser and less floury than the ones I've eaten elsewhere, and she stuck with the traditional poppy and prune fillings, although in later years she branched out and also used apricot jam and cherry pie filling.

I opted to use her recipe for the cookie dough (actually Grandma's friend Ruth's recipe), but for the filling I went non-traditional and used some Roasted Tangelo Marmalade. (Looking back, I see that I'd intended to do that all along!) We overcooked them very slightly, but these hew pretty closely to the cookies I remember from my childhood.

Hamantashen
Ruth's recipe from the Heirloom Cookbook, adapted and expanded

• 1/3 C vegetable oil
• ¼ C orange juice
• 1 C sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 (plus) C flour, plus extra to achieve correct consistency
• 1-2 C very thick jam or other filling
  

Preheat oven to 375F.

In a large bowl, mix together the oil, juice, sugar, and eggs. In a smaller bowl, sift together the baking powder, salt, and 3 C flour. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ones. After the initial flour is mixed in, keep adding more flour until the dough is thick enough to roll out (it will probably still be sticky).

Form the dough into a flat disk and wrap with plastic. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours (or even overnight).

Roll out dough on a lightly-floured surface, until 1/2"-1/8" thick (the thickness really just depends on your personal preference - ours were on the thicker end of that range).

Use a glass or biscuit-cutter to cut dough into rounds. Place a small amount of jam on the center of the dough rounds, and pinch into a triangular shape. Place on a parchment paper or Silpat-covered baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes or until dough is a light golden brown.

Dark-n-Stormy Sorbet

I'm not much of an ice-cream person (all the milk fat gets in the way of the sugar - and I'm all about the sugar), but I love me some sorbets. I suddenly decided I *had* to make this recipe last night, then realised I was out of rum. I made it to the liquor store mere moments before they closed. Of course, making ice cream/sorbet/whatever isn't an immediate-gratification thing, so we had it with our dinner tonight. Yum!

Dark-n-Stormy Sorbet
Adapted from this recipe

• 24 ounces ginger beer, thoroughly chilled (I used Reed's extra-spicy)
  
• 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons demerara or turbinado sugar (or regular brown sugar)
  
• 1 cup coconut milk (I used "light" coconut milk)
• 1 Tablespoon key lime juice (I'm sure regular would be fine as well)
  
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 1/2 C finely shredded coconut flakes
  
• 2 1/2 tablespoons dark rum

In large bowl whisk together ginger beer and sugar till foam subsides and sugar is completely dissolved, about 3 minutes. Whisk in coconut milk, lime juice, salt, and ginger. Mix in coconut.

Transfer mixture to ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer's instructions. When sorbet is finished, slowly pour in rum and churn one minute longer. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until firm and scoopable.

makes about 1 pint

Jello Night!

A few weeks ago, my knitting group (which meets at the fantastic Fiber Gallery on Tuesday evenings) had a Jello themed potluck. We were inspired by this sort of vintage recipe: http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/knox/4.html. Instead of doing something disturbingly glistening, though, I decided to go in another direction. In the comments for this recipe, someone complained that the panna cotta tasted like "milky jello" and another commenter pointed out that panna cotta is milky jello.

Confident that this met our theme, I played around with several recipes and came up with a Lemon-Lavender Panna Cotta. (I'm on something of a lemon-lavender binge at present.) It would be delicious with blueberry sauce, but I guessed (correctly, as it turned out) that there would be lots of other sweet creations to pair it with. (If you happen to have some, it went pretty well with Blueberry Jello Surprise.)

Lemon-Lavender Panna Cotta

• 4 C whole milk, divided
  
• 1 1/2 Tbsp unflavored gelatin
• 1 Tbsp dried culinary lavender buds
• 2 Tbsp grated organic lemon zest
• 3/4 C sugar

Sprinkle gelatin over 1 C of the milk in a small saucepan. Put the lavender in a cheesecloth pouch or tea ball. Let the milk & gelatin stand for 10 minutes.

Add the lavender and lemon zest and gently heat over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, whisking until gelatin dissolves. Keep stirring and increase heat to medium. Add the sugar and whisk some more, until the sugar dissolves.

Take off the heat and remove the lavender pouch, squeezing a bit to get more liquid out. Add the remaining 3 C milk and give the mixture one last good stir.

For an elegant presentation, pour into 8 6-oz ramekins and allow to chill at least 4 hours. When the mixture is completely set and chilled, invert each panna cotta onto a dessert plate. Pour berry sauce over the panna cotta, if desired. (For a potluck, it's much easier to just pour the hot mixture into a pretty serving bowl and scoop it out of there to serve after chilling.)

serves 6-8

lemon cookies with lavender icing

I've had an image in my mind of a very specific cookie. I think it had its origin in the lovely lemon crunch cookies at Sugar and was likely also inspired by the many desserts they have there that use lavender (sometimes paired with lemon, even). But what I wanted was more specific even than that: I wanted a pale yellow lemon-flavored sugar cookie with a light lavender frosting (in my mind, it was a delicate lilac color).

Finally last weekend I decided that I just had to have that cookie, and set about making one. I started with a variation of the Fannie Farmer sugar cookie recipe, because it had an egg (not all sugar cookies do) and I was pretty sure that was part of the texture of the cookie I craved:

Lemon Sugar Cookies
adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

• 1 stick butter, softened (1/4 lb)
• 3/4 C sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp lemon extract
• grated zest from an organic lemon
• 1 Tbsp milk
• 1 1/4 C flour
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350F. Cream the butter, then add the sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg, flavorings, zest, and milk. Beat until uniformly mixed. In another bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add to the dough and blend well. Arrange by spoonfuls on cookie sheets, 1" or 1 1/2" apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned

yield: ~40 cookies

While the cookies cooled, I hunted up a recipe for lavender frosting (I used skim milk, but otherwise followed the recipe). I added a tiny bit of food coloring to get the look I was going for. Because I can't resist adding salt to things, I made a few with a sprinkling of pink Hawaiian salt on top. (The salt covered cookies were good, IMO, but not really what I was trying to make.)

Overall, it was a success - I've only made cookies a few times, so I was surprised that they turned out at all, much less that they were tasty. They weren't quite the cookies I'd been imagining (possibly because I didn't have lemon extract and subbed in fiori di sicilia instead), but they were pretty darn close.

slow-cooker compote

We made this compote as the finish to a simple Sunday supper menu. Simple, yes, but with many different dishes. Given the demands on our time (and on our stove), it seemed best to leave the dessert to the crock-pot. One of the guests brought the ice cream to go with it, and we served the compote warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Rhubarb-Strawberry-Vanilla Bean Compote
adapted from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker

• 1/4 c OJ
• 1 c sugar
• 1 lb rhubarb, sliced
• 1 vanilla bean, cut in half & seeds scraped out
  
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 pints strawberries, hulled & cut in half

Combine orange juice through vanilla bean (with its seeds) in slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW 3-4 hours. Add the lemon juice and berries and stir to distribute. Continue cooking on LOW for up to another hour (though you can just mix in the strawberries and serve, I thought they were better cooked a bit).

serves 6-8

Urban Pantry

Wow, I love this book. I just got it from the library and I've already made one thing out of it, even though it completely didn't fit with the meal we were having. Fried rice followed by vanilla-quinoa pudding? The combination was a little weird, yes, but oh-so-good.

I think I must share a similar palate and a similar sensibility with the author - I want to make every single recipe in the book AND I love her down-to-earth approach to eating. I'm not actively looking to adopt a particular eating philosophy (beyond being very much pro-home-cooking), but "thrifty, sustainable, and seasonal" (the book's sub-title) definitely matches up with where I'm at right now, food-wise.

Take the pudding, for example. Pennington writes that she loves the flavor of "rich cinnamon-scented rice pudding" but that white rice really doesn't work for her - "not nutrient-dense enough." I couldn't agree more. This recipe isn't health-food, exactly (it is dessert, after all), but I don't feel guilty eating it, either. Also: yum! I made a few additions, and I'll likely continue to tweak it. This is definitely a recipe I'll be making again, and soon.

Vanilla Quinoa Pudding
adapted from The Urban Pantry

• 1 C quinoa, washed and rinsed VERY well
• 3 C milk (I used a combination of skim and half-and-half, since I needed to use up the half-and-half, and we don't have whole milk in the house - she calls for whole milk)
• 1 vanilla bean, split, beans scraped into pot (I saved the bean and put it in a jar of sugar for vanilla sugar...)
• 1/8 tsp orange flower water
• pinch kosher salt
• 1/4 C raisins
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick

Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pan and bring to a low boil over medium-high heat. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes (stir occasionally to prevent scorching). Remove from heat and allow to rest, lid on, for another 30 minutes. Serve warm.

makes 4-6 servings

update 5/17/10: it also makes a delicious breakfast the next day!

New Cookbook!

Friday: Indian Summer Casserole; peach & blueberry crumble

I belong to a book-swapping site. One of the things I really like about it is that sometimes, fairly randomly, I will suddenly get a book I've forgotten all about. Since we moved to Seattle and I realised how many books I already own, I've been trying to avoid buying new books. I don't apply this rule to the book swap, but it does make getting new books through it especially exciting.

My most recent book-swap acquisition is Still Life With Menu by Mollie Katzen (of the Moosewood cookbooks). It's pretty, and so far the recipes are looking good, but this was my first time actually making anything from it. My main criticism of the book is that, though it does have an emphasis on eating seasonally, it's not organized by season. In fact, I'm a little unclear as to what the organizational scheme really is.

Anyway, I basically selected this recipe because, on my initial glance at the table of contents, it was pretty clearly a "summer" recipe. I didn't quite have all the ingredients, having gone on an apparent bell pepper binge earlier in the week, but I did have extra corn, so it all worked out in the end. It's tasty as a dinner, but I liked it even better as a cold breakfast the next morning.

Indian Summer Casserole
adapted from Still Life With Menu by Mollie Katzen

• 2 C corn kernels
• 3 C chopped bell peppers
• 2 green onion, diced
• 3 minced garlic cloves
• 1 C chopped green onions
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tsp cumin
• small handful fresh herbs - a combination of basil, oregano, and parsley
• cayenne pepper, to taste
• 1/2 C chopped black olives
• 1 small medium-hot pepper, minced (e.g. poblano)
• 1/2 C grated cheese
• 4 eggs (if you want to cut the fat, only use two of the yolks)
• 1/2 C yogurt (I used low-fat)
• paprika, just a bit

Preheat the oven to 375F and grease a medium-sized casserole. In a large pan over medium-high heat, heat the oil and saute corn, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, scallions, cumin, salt & pepper. After the vegetables look soft (about 8 minutes), remove from heat.

Stir in herbs, cayenne, olives, and medium-hot pepper. Mix cheese into veggies until it melts, and pour the mixture into your prepared pan. Beat the eggs with yogurt, and pour over the top of the veggie mixture. Dust with paprika.

Bake, uncovered, for 30-35 minutes, until browned and bubbly.

yield: 4 generous servings

The cookbook is divided into menus (something I love), and Katzen pairs the casserole with a salad (which we skipped) and a summer fruit crumble. Her crumble is basic, but the recipe works very well, and conveniently cooks in the same temperature oven as the casserole:

Peach and Blueberry Crumble
adapted from Still Life With Menu by Mollie Katzen

• 4 peaches, chopped
• 2 C blueberries
• 1 Tbsp Wondra (or cornstarch, but Wondra really is a wonder!)
• 2 Tbsp sugar (optional - if your fruit is very sweet, omit it)
• 4 Tbsp melted butter
• 1 C whole wheat pastry flour
• 3 Tbsp brown sugar
• pinch salt

If your oven isn't already hot, preheat to 375F.

In an 8" square baking dish, toss the fruit with the Wondra or cornstarch and sugar (if using). Melt the butter (microwave is fast and easy) and combine with flour, brown sugar, and salt. Use your hands to mix it together and pat it into place over the fruit. Bake for 30 minutes until bubbly.

Serves 4 (or 2 very greedy peach lovers)

Basil BLTs

Wednesday: BLTs with basil; cantaloupe sorbet

We have been eating tomatoes all kinds of ways; I had some firm ones that I was going to use in a casserole (it actually calls for green tomatoes, but I couldn't find any at the market on Sunday). They ripened very quickly, however, and looked like they'd be luscious. Fortunately, we had a few slices of bacon in the fridge. Combined with some lettuce and basil from our container garden, we were set.

We got an early cantaloupe on Sunday; sadly, it wasn't all that tasty (too early, I think). Mixed with some sugar, however, it became a light and pretty sorbet - like a bite of the ripest melon, only better.

Cantaloupe Sorbet
adapted from The Perfect Scoop

• 1 ripe cantaloupe, cut into chunks
  
• 1/2 C sugar
• pinch salt
• 2-3 Tbsp orange juice

Puree all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Taste, and add a little more OJ if desired. Chill and freeze in an ice cream maker.

Finally, Tomatoes

Monday: Tomato Salad; Corn on the Cob; bread; Cherry Buttermilk Cake

When we went to the farmer's market yesterday, it was obvious that summer had finally arrived: peaches, corn, AND tomatoes! Very exciting. We ate all our peaches yesterday, but didn't end up having the corn and tomatoes.

The corn I just microwaved (if I'm not going to be grilling, this is my favorite way to make corn): you don't need to shuck it - just put the corn (silk, husks, and all) into the microwave. Microwave on high for 2-3 minutes/ear. Use oven mitts when peeling the husks off - you will find that the silk just comes off with the husk.

We had two gorgeous but slightly bruised heirloom tomatoes (the exact variety escapes me right now). They were "seconds," so half-price and really ripe. I cut them up and (gently) tossed them with salt, pepper, fresh basil (chopped), and a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Today was cool enough that I finally decided it was worth using the oven to bake a cake I've been meaning to try for a while, the Raspberry Buttermilk Cake that Deb of the Smitten Kitchen recently adapted from Gourmet magazine's recipe. We have had the most luscious cherries recently, and I wanted to give them a try with this recipe. She apparently had to adjust the cooking time downward, but it took the very upper end of the time range for my cake to even begin to look done. I think this may have been because the cherries added some extra moisture. Anyway, this recipe is definitely a keeper. I think you could get away with serving it as part of a brunch in lieu of coffee cake, even. Excuse me while I dash downstairs for another piece.

Cherry Buttermilk Cake
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large (57 grams) egg
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup fresh cherries, pitted and halved (about 5 oz)
1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) turbinado sugar (aka "Sugar in the Raw")

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about two minutes, then beat in vanilla and zest, if using. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter cherries evenly over top and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 25-35 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.

Serves about 6

What is chop salad, anyway?

Thursday: early summer vegetable chop salad; fresh fruit with warm vanilla pudding

I'm not really sure what makes a chop salad a chop salad, but that's what we call this simple crunchy salad. It's nothing but a bunch of the tastiest looking vegetables you can find, chopped into smallish, consistently-sized cubes and tossed with dressing. This week, we had some baby carrots (regular and yellow); two small red peppers; some baby fennel; and a little less than half a head of savoy cabbage. I meant to add a bit of dark green by throwing in some snap peas, but forgot entirely about them. It was tasty and beautifully colorful anyway.

We're in full-on fruit season here in the PNW, so we have an embarrassment of riches, fruit-wise. I chopped up some apricots and tossed them with blueberries for a colorful finish to the meal. Although I served this pudding warm (to me, there's nothing lovelier than a warm pudding), I suspect it's more normal to allow the pudding to cool first. The recipe is just the one on my box of corn starch.

Vanilla Pudding
serves 4

1/2 C sugar
1/4 C corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 C milk (I used a mix of 2% and skim)
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, mix together sugar, corn starch, and salt. Gradually add in milk, beating until mixture is smooth. Add yolks. Heat over medium-high heat until slowly boiling, stirring constantly (this takes about 10 minutes). Boil for 1 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Let cool a lot, or just a little, depending on your preferences.

Summer Squash, take #1

Thursday: summer squash gratin; simple cornmeal cherry crumble

I often have trouble figuring out what to do with summer squash. When we had a CSA and it was a regular part of our box, we usually alternated grilling it with grating it into marinara sauce (seriously guys, you have no idea how much marinara sauce I eat).

I can't say I'll be putting it into the regular rotation (it was way too rich for an every-day dish), but this summer squash gratin is delicious and gave me a chance to have some fun with my mandoline.

We had some truly amazing cherries, too. They didn't need any further adornment, to be honest, but I was feeling like having a real dessert. I just pitted enough cherries to make a single layer in the bottom of my 8x8 pyrex, mixed them with a bit of cornstarch, and topped them with a mixture of cornmeal, butter, and brown sugar. I baked the crumble for about 20 minutes in a 400F oven.

Make-Ahead Picnic

Monday: Barbecue Baked Beans; Grandma's Coleslaw; Cherry Brown Butter Bars

I've been on a mission to use up the, let's say, older items in my freezer. We had a 10+ hour power outage last weekend, for one thing (thankfully, we had almost nothing in the refrigerator just then), but I need to clear the space for some fresher items. And so that I can have more room for ice cream!

To that end, I made baked beans on Saturday, using my favorite lentil recipe (Barbecue Baked Lentils). I had a whole bunch of white northern beans I cooked in February, froze, and then basically forgot. So I used them instead of the lentils, and put in a bunch of bacon (8 slices or so) that needed to be used after the power outage. (It had been in the freezer, so it didn't get very warm - I just didn't want to re-freeze it after it had partially defrosted.) I baked the bacon in a 400F oven for about 20 minutes, then drained it, chopped it up, and added it when I mixed the sauce for the beans.

I also had a cabbage (an impulse purchase from the previous week's visit to the farmer's market), so I shredded it up for coleslaw. I used my grandmother's cabbage preparation method: layer the shredded cabbage with a small amount of salt in a colander; let sit in the sink for about an hour; squeeze out all the water. The key is using your hands to individually squeeze small amounts of cabbage. My grandma says this method is similar to partially cooking the cabbage - it gets out some of the "raw" taste and texture.

To the drained cabbage, add:

• a shredded carrot
• 1/4 C. vinegar diluted with about a Tbsp water
• 1 Tbsp sugar
  
• 1/2 C. mayo
• pepper to taste (and salt if the salt you added to drain the cabbage isn't enough for your palate)

Finally, because we have some tart cherries, too (ah, the bounty that is the PNW!), I made smitten kitchen's Cherry Brown Butter Bars.