My Week Away

I had a wonderful five days, taking my daughter to visit one of my very best friends and my cousin.  It was fantastic.  We laughed, relaxed, played, saw and touched some unique animals at a nature center (including a chinchilla (soft!), a toad (bumpy!), a snake (smooth!)  and a hedgehog (spiky!)) and ate well.  SO well.

First, we visited with The Hippo, one of my best friends. She served us leftover strata which was so good as leftovers, I can’t even begin to imagine how good it was as breakfast. Then she made us meatball subs with provolone, so cheesy, gooey and delicious. Finally, we had a bread salad and garlicky romano beans.  I can’t even begin to tell you how good it was but I will say that it’s on the menu for tomorrow night here.  It was that good.

Bread Salad with white beans and the garlicky romano beans. So good.

Then, we bid a sad farewell to the Hippo and made our way to my cousin’s house. She, her husband and two boys entertained my darling daughter to no end.  Baby G. adores both her cousins, A. and M., and she had a great time trying to keep up with A. and playing with M.  We ate well there, too, including a lovely dinner out at an Asian place and fabulous homemade chicken soup and curry chicken salad sandwiches.  Remember?  I’ve been craving soup?  There’s nothing like homemade chicken soup.  For dessert?  An amazing cake from a place in their town, Susan Lawrence.   Very yummy.

So yummy. So decadant. So chocolate.

As a result, I’m making homemade chicken soup tonight and will make curry chicken salad and bread salad over the next two days.  Nothing like a repeat of meals that were good.  Of course, without the company, it’s not the same.  But it’s close.

Soup in progress

Stay tuned for the recipes over the next few days.

Oh?  And some great news came my way this week as well.  I promise to post about it soon because, of course, there will be a food celebration!

Also?  I left with many gifts (all of them “belated” birthday ones), including cool grow-them-yourself-marbles, a tablecloth and a new fry pan.

Oooh, so pretty! I'm lucky.

Summer Winter Pasta

While teaching my class today we wandered a bit off track and wound up taking about food and the psychology behind it.  It’s something that interests me on so many levels.  Food is something that, for many people, connects them to their families, their cultures and their heritage.  Food can be a comfort, it can bring back memories of a loved one and it can help to soothe and organize us (don’t believe me?  If you’re feeling anxious about something, eat some raw carrots or chew gum.  The chewing helps to release chemicals that calm and organize your brain.).  Some foods can elevate our moods (chocolate is one) and some can help us change our moods (drinking warm milk to help induce feeling sleepy and calm.).  The psychology and physiology behind all of it is just fascinating.  I’m sure there are several dissertation and book topics in there.  You know, in my spare time.

For me, one memory that is intrinsically linked to food (and I have many) is Christmas Eve and Basil Pesto.  For a zillion years, I have spent Christmas Eve with my best friend from second grade and her large, loving, loud Italian family.  They serve the same dishes every year:  baked shrimp, shrimp cocktail, homemade fresh pasta, basil pesto and tomato sauce.  Sometimes there’s salad or a few other contenders and there are always several varieties of Italian cookies (including the ones with pine nuts, mmmm), cakes and other sweets.  The guest list shifts, expanding and contracting but the tables always reach out of the dining room and into the hallway.  The dinner goes on for hours and is accompanied by laughter and loud voices.  Lots of teasing- the people who attend are generally related to one another or have known each other so long that it feels like they’re related- and joking and by the end of the night, my mouth aches from my smile and my stomach is stretched to its limit.

It’s funny because most people I know associate pesto with summer.  Basil is in abundant supply in the summer and it goes well with so many “summer” meals- sandwiches, over fish, as a spread or dip and, of course, with pasta.  Until I started Christmas with my friend’s family, I wasn’t really aware that you could make pesto.  But make it you can, and pretty easily too.  Since my wonderful friend K. gave me my own personal herb garden for my birthday and included a great deal of basil in it, a few days ago I decided to make my very own Summer Winter Pasta.  It was delicious and after I ate, I called my friend to have a quick catch up.  It didn’t feel right to be eating pesto without her.

Summer Winter Pasta

1/2  box dried pasta (I’m too lazy to make my own) or fresh (which will cook much more quickly, so adjust for that)

2 cups slightly packed basil leaves (i.e. lots of basil)

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

2/3 cup olive oil

salt, pepper to taste

1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Put a big pot of water on to boil.  Add salt.  Remember this is your only chance to season the pasta so put lots of salt in there.

Toast your pine nuts.  Be careful, as they will cross the line from toasted to burned very quickly.  You can toast them in a dry pan over medium heat or you can put them on a cookie sheet in the oven at about 350.  Again, watch them closely.  And lest you think I never make kitchen mistakes, here’s my first batch (which I did not watch closely):

One side too burned, the other side too raw.  So I chucked them and started over.

Once your pine nuts are nicely toasted, throw them into the food processor, along with the garlic and basil.  Whir it around until it’s all nicely minced.

Add some olive oil while the processor is going.  You  may not want the whole 2/3 of a cup.  I leave that to you.  It will make a bit of a paste.  Scrape down the sides and then add the cheese and whir again to combine.

I will admit two things about the cheese.  I grind it in the food processor rather than grating by hand.  I’m lazy like that.  I also tend to use more than the 1/2 cup.  What can I say?  I love cheese.  Scrape down the sides and whir one more time to ensure that it’s all combined. Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.

My pesto tends to be on the thick side which I prefer.  I thin it out with some of the pasta water.  You do know about the magic of pasta water, don’t you?  Speaking of which, if your water is now boiling add your pasta.

Scrape the pesto into a bowl and set aside while your pasta cooks.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain (but reserve some of the water!) and return it to the pot.  Add as much pesto as you like and stir to coat the pasta.

The heat from the pasta and the pot will melt the cheese and warm up the pesto in the best way.  If it’s too thick, add some of the reserved pasta water to thin it out- I used about two tablespoons.

I serve mine with an extra sprinkle of cheese (again, I love cheese.  love it.)

As you eat, think of both warm, sunny, summer days and cold, frosty, family-filled winter nights.  Enjoy the contrast.  Consider yourself blessed to be able to have both.

Hot. Hot. And Did I Mention Hot?

It is hot, as you may have guessed by the post title.  100+ degrees and humidity.  It’s too hot to sit by the pool- it’s almost too hot to sit IN the pool. Sadly, despite the heat, all I want is soup.  Go figure.

So what do you make when it’s this hot?  When what you want is soup?

Cold soup.  Head over to The Hungry Hippo for some no-stove soup ideas and other no-heat or minimal heat suggestions.

I chose to make both the gazpacho and the cucumber avocado soup.  I didn’t document the gazpacho but here’s my finished product (the Hippo’s was much prettier).

I did document (sort of) the cucumber soup.  Start by peeling and seeing the cucumbers.  I do this by peeling and then cutting the cucumber in half and then down the middle of each half.

Then I use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.  Kind of like you scrape out the seeds of a melon when you’re breaking it down.

Chop up everything and put it in the blender.

Add the liquids (oil, yogurt, etc) and blend. 

Pour into a container so that you can chill it.

I will admit that cold soup is not really what I had in mind AND that whenever I use a blender I always think milkshake or smoothie so it’s odd to have something savory as a result.  However, both these soups are delicious!  I’m hoping the husband thinks so as well since we’ll be eating them for the next few days.

OK, back to melting.

The Cakes of Kohevet

I’ve written about my family in Israel- Myrim, Amatzia, Sivan- but haven’t mentioned the person who was the reason I moved there, Kohevet.  It’s high time I told you her stories.

Kohevet was the only girl in her family of three children.  She idolizes her brothers, Amatzia and Gavri.  If you ask her, she’ll tell you that Gavri was sweet, much sweeter than she could ever be and that Amatzia is so smart, much smarter than she will ever be (neither are true- she’s plenty smart and sweet) and she adored her father, Myrim.  Kohevet, like most of my Israeli family, is humble and would shy away from singing her own praises so I’ll have to do it here for her.  She is smart, beautiful, kind, loving, and an amazing cook.  She has a knack for knowing exactly what you need when you need it- food, a hug, a kind word, whatever.  She is gentle and patient and the closest person to my grandmother I’ve been able to find anywhere.

Kohevet is the mother to three beautiful, smart, strong women and grandmother to a number of boys and girls (I think she’s up to 7 grandchildren now).  She is a cosmetologist by trade and I can’t think of a better profession for her.  Her words and deeds make people feel beautiful on the inside and her clever hands make them feel beautiful on the outside.  She is someone who can bring you peace just by her mere presence.  I moved to Israel after college to be near her- I moved to her kibbutz (and it is hers, she was sent there at 18 for her army service, met her husband and never left)- and considered living there permanently just to stay with her.  And eat her cakes.

You see, the cakes of Kohevet are something special.  She makes at least ten different kinds and each one is more delicious than the next.  Her cakes are famous- anyone who has been lucky enough to eat one remembers it, even years later.  I would have dinner with her on Friday nights and sometimes I’d be nice enough to bring along one or two of the other volunteers.  Once they ate her food and ate her cakes, they would speak of it with reverence afterwards, sometimes weeks afterwards.

I left Israel with many, many recipes but none for her cakes.  Instead, my cousin E., who stayed a bit longer than I did, sat with her and wrote down all the recipes she could give her.  E. brought them back and handed them over and I am eternally grateful.

E. wrote them all out in her neat handwriting and I’ve kept them with me over the last decade (it was that long ago.  how time flies!) but have never attempted any.  I’ve been a bit intimidated.  A few days ago, I decided the time had come.  I flipped through and decided to try one cake that seemed simple and didn’t have any specialty ingredients (often her cakes call for a type of cheese we don’t have here- I can sometimes find it in one of the kosher groceries around me that import foods from Israel)- the Number 8 Cake.
It was like magic.  I followed her directions (making some conversions from metric and making some guesses as her directions tend towards, “two spoons of sugar”) and it came out as light, airy and tasty as I remembered.  That seals the deal- I’m trying them all. I’ll post them here as I do, as I wouldn’t want you to miss out.

If I ever open a bakery, I’ll name it The Cakes of Kohevet and have a photo of her in the window.  I think it would be an instant success!Number 8 Cake

Ingredients:

4 eggs

4 Tablespoons white sugar

3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

1 Tablespoon white all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 Tablespoons Cognac

2 Tablespoons water

1 package instant vanilla pudding

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup milk

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Or 356 degrees farenheit.  Or 350 if your oven isn’t that precise.  Grease a 8 or 9 inch round cake pan.  I used Pam spray.  Set aside.

Separate your eggs, whites in one bowl, yolks in another.  I do this by letting the egg white slip through the fingers of one hand while holding on to the yolk.  Messy but effective. 

Place the whites in the bowl of an electric mixer with the whip attachment.  Or in a bowl and pull out your hand mixer.  I actually used the hand mixer for this but it would have taken less time with the big mixer.  Add the sugar.

Whip them together until stiff peaks form.  It will start foamy, this is ok.  Keep going.

Once you can make peaks with the mixer or a spoon- pick up some of the mixture and pull- if it forms a peak, you’re all set.

See? Peaky.

Measure the cocoa, flour and baking soda into a small bowl and whisk.

Add the egg yolks to the eggs whites/sugar and fold in gently with a spatula. Basically, you’re sort of making a line in the middle with your spatula and then pulling one half over the other.  You want to be gentle because you just spent all that time beating air into the egg whites and you don’t want to lose it all.

Keep gently folding until it’s all incorporated.

Add the cocoa mixture and, again, fold gently. 

Do this until it’s all mixed together and you can’t see any of the white.  You’ll inevitably lose some of the air but that’s ok.  Just be gentle and it will all work, I promise.

Pour into the cake pan.  Try to smooth it out as best you can.

Bake for 15 minutes or until it starts to pull away from the sides and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out dry.

Let it cool and then remove it to a plate with a slight indent or lip.  You’re going to pour something on the cake and you don’t want it to spill over the sides of the plate.  Using a toothpick, poke a few holes in the top of the cake here and there.

In a small glass or measuring cup, mix cognac and water. I didn’t have cognac so I used Godiva chocolate liquor.  I have to say, in the end, I would probably skip this step.  Or maybe try something like kaluha or maybe just plain old chocolate syrup.  I’m not a huge fan of alcohol in cakes, I always find it a bit bitter for my tastes.

Pour as evenly as possible over the cake.  As the cake is basically a sponge cake, it will suck up the liquid.  Let it cool further while you make the topping.  What?  You thought you were done? Not if it’s a cake of Kohevet!

In the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment or in a bowl with a hand mixer, combine the pudding mix, cream and milk.  Beat the heck out of it. Once again, it will start out sort of foamy. 

And if you keep going, you’ll be rewarded with a thick, creamy substance.

See? Soft Peaks. They sort of fall over whereas the ones with the egg whites stood up- that's the difference between soft peak stage and stiff peak stage.

Spoon all of this on top of the cooled cake.

Use a knife or icing spatula to spread it evenly around the top of the cake.  Put into the fridge to let it all cool and firm up. 

I dare you not to eat the entire thing in one sitting.  Go ahead.  Try to resist.

The best thing?  If you can resist eating it all at once, it’s even better a few days later- the cream has time to really set and the flavor in the cake develops.

*UPDATE*  Oh, you guys, you’ll never believe it!  I was flipping through the little blue book, trying to decide which cake to try when the heat breaks and realized: I MISSED A PAGE.  This cake is supposed to have a chocolate glaze on top!  Another layer!  Can you even imagine???!  I’ll make it again someday and report back.  I can only guess:  decadence!!

“You should bake something”

For me, summer always means baking.  Which is counterintuitive since it’s hot in the summer and who wants to turn on the oven?  But as I’ve talked about here many times, summers for us meant being at Camp Grandma with a big kitchen and lots of time.  We Cousins Three found countless ways to entertain ourselves- swimming, stand-up comedy, starting a detective agency, creating and performing shows for our family complete with programs (god bless them, they sat through every. single.one.) and opening a restaurant.  Out of Grandma’s kitchen.  Boy, did we learn about timing with that one!

The best entertainment, however, outside of swimming and giggling, was always baking.  We ended up with tasty results and as long as we cleaned up well and didn’t burn ourselves, Grandma was happy to lend us her kitchen (and, I suspect, get us out of her hair for a few hours).  We tended to bake- sweets were what we wanted.  We made cookies, cakes, and all sorts of stuff.  We used Grandma’s cookbooks, some of which I still have:

After a while, we’d get creative and ice our cakes with special designs- I still remember a ying/yang cake.  Once again, god bless our family members who ate what we made, even when it wasn’t made that correctly.  Of course, now I wonder how we didn’t get fat every summer but I realize that we spent so much time playing in the pool or the park that it must have made a difference.

So when I was on the phone the other day with The Hippo and she suggested I bake something because she wanted something baked but didn’t want to do it (nevermind that we live several hundred miles apart- we’d really like to perfect the kitchen portal one of these days), I realized that she was right.  I should bake something!  But what to make?  Nothing fancy- it’s impossible to do fancy when I’m home with a toddler.  But nothing too ho-hum either.  No point in baking something boring when I don’t really bake that often anymore.

I remembered Lady Gouda’s post about Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I had read it when I was pregnant and had just been told I had gestational diabetes and was therefore off sugar for the last weeks of pregnancy.  It was torture reading the recipe and knowing that I couldn’t make them.  I decided that these were just what I needed to bake.  I’ll link to both Gouda’s post and where she found it at Eat, Make Read.  I’ll also put the recipe below but just wanted to make sure I gave credit where credit is due.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are delicious.  They have a more complex flavor than regular chocolate chip cookies but be warned, the dough must be refrigerated at least 6 hours so this is not a quick fix treat.  Totally worth the wait though.  You can bump up the complexity by adding a tiny sprinkle of sea salt on top as soon as they come out of the oven but I don’t bother with this last piece.  Yummy either way.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, browned
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
12 oz (1 pkg) semisweet chocolate chips
fleur de sel (optional)

Directions:

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, place both sugars. I like to break my eggs into a small bowl just in case something goes awry.  

Ok– and here’s where I fail as a food blogger– you need to brown your butter.  A good food blogger would have photos of this as it’s the most unique part of the cookies.  Me?  I forgot to photograph this part.  *hanging my head in shame*  Basically, heat your butter over medium heat and stay with it.  As it melts, the solids will sort of separate and you’ll see some yellow and white.  Be patient and watch it.  As it begins to brown, you’ll start to see it change color from yellow to a more golden color.  Smell it as well, it will begin to smell sort of nutty and dark.  Don’t let it burn- the line between brown butter and burned butter is very fine.  If you click here, you’ll see an example. Once it’s browned, let it cool.

Add the butter to the sugar and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Add the eggs, one by one, and mix in between additions.  Add the vanilla and mix.  When it’s all smooth, it’ll be a sort of tan, smooth, thick mixture.  Add the flour and mix (The original recipe has you add the flour in two parts but you know me, lazy).

Once it’s all incorporated, it will be smooth and yummy smelling.  Resist the urge to sample now.

Add the chocolate chips- I never use a whole bag and I go back and forth between using semi-sweet and milk.  I prefer milk but sometimes they’re too sweet.  With this recipe, I think the bittersweet are better– this is more of an “adult” cookie so it makes for more complex flavor.

Once again, I differ from the original recipe- I mix the chips with the mixer.  Once again, lazy.

Now, this doesn’t look like regular cookie dough.  It’s smoother, darker, richer.  And it tastes terrific.  Even if you’re concerned about salmonella, it’s worth the risk of a spoonful.  Amazing.  Anyway, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate.  I put mine in tupperware and let it sit overnight.  When you’re ready to bake it up, preheat your oven to 375 and cover your cookie sheets with parchment or silpat (I *still* don’t own silpat.  What is up with that?!).  Use a scoop or spoon to measure out your cookies so they’ll be the same size and bake evenly.

Bake for about 8 minutes.

Let them cool for a minute on the cookie sheet before you transfer them to wire racks to finish cooling.

Try not to eat them all at once.  They are that good.  Maybe pack some up and give them to friends.  Or the person who is going to photograph your daughter for free.  Or strangers.  Just don’t keep them at home- you’ll eat them all.  Trust me when I tell you this.

Evolution of a Dinner

4:45pm:  I don’t feel like cooking.  Sigh.  I have nothing planned because it’s Friday and inevitably, in my meal planning I’m out of ideas by Friday so I plan nothing, thinking I’ll add something in later on in the week but never do which often leaves me in this predicament.  Ok, going simple- husband won’t be home for dinner- pasta with butter and cheese.  Excellent.

5:00pm: Pot of water on to boil.  Open fridge and survey.  Cheese?  Check.  Uh-o.  Mushrooms about to go bad.  Cherry tomatoes.  Onion, garlic. Maybe I should use all of this.  Then it won’t be simple pasta.  Sigh again.  Hate wasting food.

5:15pm:  Chop onion, garlic and mushrooms.  

5:17pm:  Olive oil in pan, onions in.  Realize that the pan is likely too small for this endeavor.  Feel cranky and decide to go with it so there are fewer dishes later.

5:20pm:  Garlic and mushrooms in pan. Salt boiling water.  Wonder if maybe I should add the spinach so that we have something green.  Decide against it due to the size of the pan and feeling like a kid who doesn’t want to be healthy.

5:30pm:  Open pantry door and realize there is not enough mini-ziti to make a meal.  Get grumpy.  Realize it’s my own fault since I’m the only one who cooks.  Realize that this does not make me feel better.  Peel crying toddler off my legs.  Take out spaghetti and make do.  Put spaghetti into boiling water.  Fight with induction burner as it turns off- why?- and stir the mushroom mixture.

5:35pm:  Add some butter to mushroom mixture.  Debate adding sherry.  Decide against it.  Quarter cherry tomatoes.  Throw ones that are rotted or mushy into disposal.  Give cranky toddler a cracker in response to her repeated statement, “ak-er.  ak-er.”  Laugh when she eats it and then starts repeating, “akk, akk.” Realize she is quacking because the duck book is in the kitchen.

5:40pm:  Decide that while sherry wasn’t the right flavor, the mushrooms need…..something.  Drop a splash of sweet Marsala wine to the mushroom mixture.  Stir spaghetti.  Add cherry tomatoes to mushroom pan.

5:42pm:  Place parmesan cheese into mini-food processor and grind.

5:47pm:  Drain spaghetti.  Check mushroom mixture.

5:48pm:  Put spaghetti back into pot and add mushroom mixture.  Mix.  Get more cranky because it would have been better with ziti.  Add slightly more butter and the cheese.  Mix.  Taste and decide it doesn’t need salt or pepper.

5:50pm:  Sit down to dinner that started as pasta with butter and cheese and admit that this was probably better.

Summer

It’s summer! This means pool, sun, warm and fireworks!

Here’s the babe last year:

and here she is this year:

For the record, I'm not wearing the same shirt. It's just the same color.

Best of all, summer means the farmer’s market!  I love our farmer’s market.

The bounty from our first farmer's market of the year.

What to do with all those lovely tomatoes?  Well, we simply ate the cherry ones- the yellow ones were as sweet as candy.  The rest I planned to use in a tomato basil tart.  But then I saw Martha Stewart on the Today show and her tarts were so much easier that I decided to try hers.  Back to the farmer’s market today so I’ll buy more tomatoes and make that tomato basil tart later this week.

Martha’s Easy Tomato Tart

Ingredients

Puff Pastry

tomatoes

Cheese (Parmesan, mozzarella, fontina- whatever you like)

salt, pepper

Basil for garnish

Olive oil for brushing over tomatoes before baking

Directions:

Let the puff pastry defrost on the counter or in the refrigerator.Once it’s defrosted (in that you can unfold it without it cracking), sprinkle it with a little bit of flour and roll it until it’s slightly thinner- I went for about 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch.  At this point, you can either use a big round to neatly make tarts or you can use a knife to make square ones.  You want them to be big enough to hold full tomato slices so base it on the size of your tomatoes.  Set them aside on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or silpat.  Slice your tomatoes.

Grate your cheese and spread a layer on the puff pastry squares/rounds.  Place a few tomato slices atop the cheese.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and then brush with olive oil. 

Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until the cheese is melty and the puff pastry is golden brown.    Garnish with fresh basil and serve warm.  Although, full disclosure, I also ate these at room temperature and they were still quite fine.  Sorry about the lack of photos on this post- I ended up making them while on the phone with L, a good friend I hadn’t spoken with in some time.  So I forgot to photo.  Sorrysorrysorry.

Food Preferences

I sometimes think that I have a food file cabinet in my mind.  In it, there are folders for each of my friends and family for whom I cook.  In the folders are favorite foods (Husband: steak, chocolate pudding and ice cream), allergies and dislikes.  It’s the dislikes that get me because they aren’t all the organized.  It’s more like I have a list of foods that people in my life dislike and I have to match the food to the person.

The list reads like this:

Peas, cilantro, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms.

The list to match it with is this:

My friend S, my cousins E & M, former roommate K, my bestie C. and myself. Happily, I know which one goes with me (cilantro).

Of course, this is only a problem when I’m making big dinners or when I’ve invited someone to dinner and can’t remember their dislike.  All of which is to say that what I made tonight for dinner definitely fell in the dislike category for someone as it was almost entirely pea- based.  Luckily, I know it’s my friend, S., who hates peas.  So while I encourage all of you to head over to Smitten Kitchen to check out this pea pesto recipe, I will say that S., if you are reading this,  avoid it at all costs.

It was really delicious.  Thanks to my friend R. for posting it on facebook.  I didn’t bother taking photos because Smitten Kitchen’s photos put mine to shame.  Trust me when I say, go and make this tonight.  It was so, so good. Light but satisfying and it tastes like summer in a bowl.  Unless you hate peas in which case, it will not taste like summer.  It will taste terrible.