January post

Well, as I make more and more food. my posts seem to grow less frequent. Wonder why. Made a chocolate ricotta pie (right) with pine nuts in the crust and to top and semi sweet chocolate and milk chocolate along with ricotta and a small amount of cream cheese. Tastes quite light and the crust is excellent.

Ricotta is really easy to make--just a gallon of whole milk, some lemon, cheesecloth, strainer or slotted spoon. . . .

The dinner started with a hot artichoke spinach dip and some of my lavash crackers, then a cassoulet with eye of round, garlic sausage, white beans, bacon, and veggies. I made some Parker House Rolls from scratch last night. That was kind of fun. Until I toasted them instead of warmed them for dinner. Nothing like turning 2 + hours of work into toast. But that's the way I roll. . . ha

food for thought?

Hard to believe I haven't posted for almost 2 months! And I thought I was doing so well with this blogging thing. Not to mention all the pictures I've taken. Wow. So now after dinner parties and meals-on-wheels for friends and relatives all summer, I've taken to making meals for my classes. Lord knows I need to get a paying gig but I can't help myself. So, here's what I've been up to for both my classes:
1. Heirloom tomato salsas/pico de gallo from my garden-- with herbs, corn, cucumbers, peppers, green onions, etc. also from the garden. Still haven't grown garlic and regular onions. Seems like too much of a pain. . .
2. Tarts--PLum tart ta tin (or however it's spelled)
pear tart; tomato and onion tart; bacon, green bean,onion and tomato tart;
3. Quiche: green bean, wild mushroom and onion; peaches and cream quiche
4. Eggplant caponata
5. Orange and sour cream cookies; chocolate, white and dark chocolate chip cookies

And we're just getting started. Can't stop cooking--even in the midst of way too much work.

Kleenex with your flan?

It's been a long while since an update and in-between there have been many dinner guests who have experienced my attempts at authentic Italian, Thai, Mediterannean, Chinese, Greek, French and, the topic for this entry, Mexican, cooking. The subject of this photo, the lime vanillla coconut flan was a big hit. Yay! I kind of mixed the flavors, so there is no recipe for such a concoction (I think) but the taste is amazing. I love the lime mixed in there--so much so that I just made lime, white chocolate and coconut cookies.
Anyway, back to the meal. Decided to make red chili beef tamales, but could not find the dried corn husks. Searched everywhere. . . In the meantime I braised the beef (top cut) and then cooked in my own enchilada sauce. Decided to find some fresh husks, soak them and then weave strips together. This was mentioned on some Southern Mexican Tamale websites. Are you kidding?? After a couple of weaving disasters, I went to parchment and foil and steamed the hell out of them. Masa Harina was another hard-to-find item. Not sure why, since there is a sizeable Mexican population around here. Then again, maybe they ate it up.
The tamales worked out great, without the fresh or dried husks--although the husks would have made for better texture, I'm thinking. Made Cuban beans--done with smoked pork (neck) and TONs of onions and garlic, cumin, the usual assortment of herbs and spices. I used a recipe from food network for a cilantro lime sour cream. That was AWESome. Especially since I have a boatload of cilantro in my garden.
Add some spicy chicken empanadas with a homemade herb crust to the mix, and, of course, homemade horchata, and it was quite a meal. The horchata was the easiest to make: soak the rice and cinnamon stick in water for about a half hour, puree (take the stick out you fool!), and then add a small amount of condensed milk, lots of water, some sugar, shake and presto.

I like the staging for the flan. Unique anyway. I don't see this on other blogs. . . .

MG's birthday meal

MG's Birthday bash. Well, to the left is one of the pizzas: roasted garlic with spinach from the garden, some porcini mushrooms, parm and mozzarella. Crust was flavored with a bit of honey and some parm. Big hit with Nathaniel, who had three slices (!).

The one in the middle is buffalo chicken pizza with some homemade tomato pizza sauce, scallions, jack, cheddar and mozz cheeses and an herb and parm crust. The person pictured (as opposed to food) is the birthday gal.

Florida food

Haven't written to the blog in a long while and there has been lots of cooking and baking in-between. In fact, these pics are from back in June when I went to Florida to present a worshop at a conference and then visit my folks. Let's see, we have wild mushroom quiche with Gruyere and Parm, with an herb crust, then bacon, scallion, herbs and parm mini frittatas, and some chicken cacciatore with wild mushrooms, and an assortment of olives, capers, etc. All in a day's work. Also convinced Mom to buy a microplane zester. Yay! Love cooking at their house--calphalon, and le crueset cookware--what fun.

What a stage for a lentil loaf!

I made a lentil loaf with tons of veggies--corn carrots, celery, peppers, onions, garlic, kale from the garden (already!), lots o herbs--basil, parsley, mint, oregano, etc. Topped with sliced tomato and covered (not in photo) with salsa (scallions, garlic, shallots, lemon, tomatoes, seasonings). Used a tiny bit of parmesan, sharp chedder and egg.

Yum.

Of Cookies, Brownies and Babes

This weekend was the Great Saunter around manhattan. Took me out of the kitchen for a moment and so I thought I'd share some pix.

To the right Pete and Michelle finish the walk at @7:15. Yay!

Katie and Peter on the trail

Early Friday I made orange brownies: real orange zest, extract and juice with a glaze of more of the same. I think they went over well but next time would use less eggs and flour---or more juice. The chocolate toffee gooey cookies were an adaptation of a Paula Deen recipe--adding heath toffee to the mix for a bit more chewy gooeyness. Those did not last the evening at my house, and went over well with Katie and John. Oh, and that's Katie's wee baby Molly--contemplating the possibility of another feeding.