RJ's recent chicken post inspired me to type up a ravioli sauce that I made couple of weeks ago. It was remarkably simple and turned out pretty well. The idea came from a sauce I had at Viva Fresh Pasta, which I visited with EW and then with my mom. If you're ever in Northampton, you too should go!
1/ Over medium-high heat, reduce about half a bottle of red wine to a half cup. (I used some Malbec that I'd opened before I got ill and then had never drunk. The fact that it had been open for over a month didn't seem to matter.)
2/ Pour reduced wine into a bowl; set aside.
3/ In same pan, heat about 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Once butter is melted, add about 2 tablespoons brown sugar. Stir.
4/ When sugar begins to caramelize, pour the reduced wine back into the pan. Stir thoroughly.
5/ Let the sauce caramelize until desired consistency.
6/ Add salt and pepper to taste.
7/ Serve over ravioli (I used butternut squash).
I think that it was a mistake to top these ravioli with parmesan. When I reheated the leftovers, I didn't and I thought that it was much better. If I wanted to be fancy, I might caramelize some walnuts or pecans and maybe some onions to top the ravioli.
Friday, November 27, 2009
not port wine sauce
Monday, November 23, 2009
Cast Your Vote
Ok people. My work is having a cookie contest, and I have a reputation to uphold. So, I need some suggestions. There may be a cash prize, if it turns out that's allowed. Tell me what to make. Vote on one of these, or suggest an alternative.
Current Contenders:
Rugelach
Molasses Spice Cookies (maybe in the shape of ginger bread men)
Lemon Cookies
Peanut Butter Brownies
Ameretti Cookies
Salted Chocolate Chip
Some inventive version of the PB bars and graham crackers.
Help!
It's True: Jack-o-Lanterns Are Not For Eating
Remember when I commented that, apparently you're not supposed to eat the flesh of regular, Halloween type pumpkins? Well, I should have listened to that advice. I had in my freezer the roasted flesh of a pumpkin my parents grew in their garden, so I decided the time had come to make it into soup.
I followed this recipe, but to be honest, I thought it was boring and flavorless. So, I added curry powder, tumeric, cumin, and pepper at random and in bits until I got something that was edible. The end product was okay, but given all the amazing soups there are in the world, I would not repeat this endeavor, especially when delicious pumpkin-like soup is not difficult to produce.
In other news, the Thanksgiving preparations have begun. Many blog entries to follow. And, CH and I have a tale from our new favorite restaurant. Stay tuned!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
French Onion Soup
It's taken awhile to get here, but it's finally autumn in Chicago (no doubt soon to be followed by months of blistering winter). Anyway, everyone knows autumn is soup season, so I have a couple of soup posts to share. This is probably my favorite soup, and though it calls for beef broth, I know I made it with vegetable broth when EW was my roommate. And, if you have a food processor, this soup is actually really easy to make.
This is my mom's recipe, which she says she got at Famous Barr when she and my dad were first married. Still delicious even 40 years later. And, to be fair, someone else deserves credit for this post since she has made this soup much more recently than I have, and in the process she came up with a must try technique for all of us. Keep reading ;)
Ingredients:
- 5 pounds thinly sliced onions
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper
- 2 tablespoons Hungarian paprika
- 1 bay leaf
- 3/4 cup flour
- 3 quarts beef broth
- 1 cup win (Sherry)
- Crusty French Bread
- Gruyere
Instructions:
1. Slice onion thinly in a food processor.
So, right here at step 1 is where our friend's secret technique comes in handy. Chopping onions makes you cry. It even made my cat cry when I was chopping onions recently. That is, unless you do this:
If you don't have any use for swim goggles but appropriately think this idea is genius (as you should), consider these.
2. Melt Butter in a large stock pot and add onions.
3. Sweat the onion over a low heat for a 1 ½ hours.
4. Add all the other ingredients except the beef stock to the onions.
5. Cook for about 10 minutes over low heat stirring to keep from burning. This is to keep the flour from lumping.
6. Add beef stock. Cook for 2 hours over low heat.
Serving Instructions:
1. Set oven to broil.
2. Place a generous slice of Gruyere cheese in the bottom of an oven safe bowl.
3. Add soup.
4. Place a piece of French bread on top of the soup. Cover with thinly sliced Gruyere.
5. Place in the oven until the cheese is melted.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Chicken with Cranberry sauce
Season the chicken breasts on both sides with ample salt and pepper. Put a handful of flour in a pie pan or other sided plate and position it near the stove. Combine the sauce ingredients of your choice in a 1-cup Pyrex measuring cup or small bowl. Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter and the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Dredge one of the chicken breasts in the flour, coating both sides well but shaking off any excess. Increase the heat of the pan to medium high. Before adding the chicken, test the heat of the pan by flicking in a little of the dredging flour. If the flour sizzles enthusiastically and immediately turns golden, the pan is ready. Add the first floured chicken breast. Then quickly flour the remaining breasts and add them to the pan. Cook for about four minutes without moving the breasts. Then, starting with the first one in the pan, turn them over and cook for another three or four minutes on the other side. Transfer the chicken to a plate or plates and keep it warm. Add the pan sauce ingredients to the hot pan and boil, stirring and scraping up the browned bits in the bottom of the pan, over high heat until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the remaining tablespoon of butter and whisk until smooth and glossy. (Tilt the pan to bring the small amount of liquid to one side while you whisk in the butter.) Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve immediately. 
So, partially due to some positive feedback from the chili, for potluck #3 in addition to the Trader Joes stuffing from a box, i decided to give a shot at this peppered chicken with cranberry sauce. People once again at least pretended to like it, and ate most of it. As with my crochet attempts, i don't go for fancy, just enough to look like i tried.
Recipe also came off the Internet.
Chicken:
4 trimmed boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flour for dredging
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil
For the cranberry sauce:
1 cup port wine
4 tablespoons dried cranberries (Craisins!)
2 tablespoon seedless raspberry jam
1 tablespoon butter
Directions:
Sweet Potatoes Are Not Just For Fries and Thanksgiving
Gnocchi are one of those things that, even though they require very few ingredients, they are seemingly impossible to make. And, they require special machinery (a potato ricer). But, the last issue of Gourmet that came to my house (sad) had this recipe for sweet potato gnocchi, and I decided I had to try them. The recipe calls for a potato ricer, which I do not have. Luckily, neither does Deb. She has a post about making gnocchi with a box grater. Rejoicing the work-around, I decided to give her method a try on Gourmet's recipe.
I must say, the process was trying. I feel like I needed a lot more flour than they called for, and eventually I decided to switch to potato flour. That said, I was careful to follow Deb's instruction to add it a little at a time and only add as much as necessary, so I don't think I over did it. Another problem: sweet potatoes are not exactly the same texture as russet potatoes, so it was impossible to get a completely uniform mix.
And, I know that I am a messy cook, but these were even more messy than most of my usual ventures (except perhaps the marshmallows).
But then there is the finished product. It's actually quite good. It's not amazing, it's not A Tavola, but it is something I am happy to have in my freezer. It might not even really be properly classified as gnocchi since they are sort of a finer texture version of hash browns. Also, one of the things that makes these delicious is that, when you put them in the skillet with the brown butter, they get a little crispy on the outside, which improves them even if it does make them more hash brown than gnocchi.
Moral of the story - I will try this method again with only russet potatoes. And, I will try to figure out a less greasy but still delicious sauce (The greasiness of the sauce probably just has to do with the fact that, though I tried, the sauce is not easy to prepare in single serving portions.)
(Source Gourmet: October 2009)
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 lb. russet (baking) potatoes
- 3/4 lb. sweet potato
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg (I didn't have fresh nutmeg, so I used equal amount ground)
- 1 tsp. salt. + more for sauce if you want
- 1/2 tsp. pepper
- 1/3 cup Parmesan plus more for serving
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for dusting. (I am guessing I needed nearly 2 cups, but you just have to add it slowly. Deb says only add until the dough stops sticking to your hands. I stopped adding when it was still a little sticky and relied on the dusting to compensate.)
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1 cup sage leaves
- 1/3 cup bottled roasted chestnuts, thinly sliced (I did not use these because I don't really like chestnuts. I didn't substitute anything either...)
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
Instructions:
1. Pierce the potatoes and bake in oven at 450 until just tender, (45 minutes to an hour).
2. Cool potatoes slightly, peel and grate. (Gourmet says to let potatoes cool completely, they were still warm but not very when I moved on). Spread the grated potatoes out on a sheet pan.
3. Beat (lightly) egg, nutmeg, salt, and pepper in a small bowl.
4. Gather potatoes into a mound and make a well in the center. Pour the egg mixture into the well. Knead in cheese and flour. Don't overwork the dough, but keep kneading until it isn't sticky to the touch.
5. Cut dough into 6 pieces, and, one at a time, roll out the pieces into ropes that are 1/2 inch thing. Cut the rope every 1/2 inch (to get squares). Gently roll into balls and dust with flour.
6. Add ridges. I tried this step, but failed miserably. Basically, you're supposed to run the gnocchi down the back of a fork to give it ridges, but I couldn't make it work, so I gave up.
7. You can either cook or freeze the gnocchi at this point. I cooked the first 6 I made to make sure they were edible and froze the rest. If you decide to freeze, line a tray with parchment paper and put them on the tray so that they are not touching one another. Once they're frozen solid you can put them in a bag. I had some for dinner from the freezer tonight, they didn't suffer too much.
8. Prepare the sauce. Put the oil in a frying pan and flash fry the sage leaves. Gourmet says put the oil in a skillet and add the leaves once the oil starts to "shimmer." I'm not sure what that means - I waited for it to get hot and then put them in for just about 30 seconds each. Take out the leaves and fry the chestnuts in the same oil until they are golden and crisp (about 30 seconds). Gourmet says to do the sage and chestnuts in batches. Drain the nuts on a paper towel. Add the butter (and 1/2 tsp. salt says Gourmet) to the pan with the oil and cook it until golden brown.
9. Cook the gnocchi. Add half of the gnocchi to a pot of well salted boiling water and stir. Cook until they float to the surface (about 3 minutes). Transfer with a slotted spoon to the skillet with the butter sauce, coating them in the sauce over medium heat.
10. Serve with the nuts, sage, and Parmesan on top.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Fried dough = yes
I wouldn't double the recipe next time, unless there were more than two people involved, but damn, these were delicious.
I think the cinnamon sugar topping was best (the apple cider was rather tart), and yes, you do need that whole thing of Crisco. I'm sorry too.
Turkey Chili
Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, spices/seasonings, and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, cook 1 minute more. Add the turkey, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, and cook until the meat loses its raw color, about 3 minutes. Add the beer and simmer until reduced by about half, about 8 minutes. Add the tomatoes and the beans; bring to a boil. Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thick, about 10 minutes.
It doesn't look like much compared to KZ's masterpieces on here, but I made this for potluck #2 of 3 in a span of four days. Normally (and for the other 2) i opt for something from Trader Joes out of the box, but i decided to go for this turkey chili, mainly because i was intrigued by the recipe calling for some Mexican lager-style beer. I didn't have more than a little taste, but it was well received by the folks eating. Recipe is courtesy of the food network.
Here's how i made it:
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Oh. My. Goodness.
Wow. Wow. Wow. I just had the most delicious drink. I finally found a way to get over my hate of the treadmill. And I when I came back to my apartment, I had this amazing drink to quench my thirst. You could call it homemade ginger ale. You could call it green tea ginger twist, sans tea. You could call it a way to make club soda not only tolerable but also delicious. Whatever you call it, have it...Now.
(I promise, this is my next to last ginger post, and then I'll give it a rest, for awhile.)
First you need to make some ginger syrup. Boil 1 cup of sugar in one cup of water, along with 2-3 tablespoons of fresh ginger. Let the syrup chill at least overnight. Pour a glass of club soda and add the ginger syrup to taste. Enjoy with a straw, like one of these cute ones HEB gave me a million years ago.
I've seen a couple of recipes for this with things like lemon grass and fresh chilli peppers. I plan to experiment with these additions.
UPDATE: Some people have asked how much syrup to a glass. For me, not too much. I added maybe a tablespoon to 12 ounces of club soda. Also, you can strain out the ginger if you don't like it floating around in your drink. I don't mind that, but I can see how others might.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Sometimes, Turning on the Oven Is Too Much to Ask
In addition to my work potluck, I went to another, much stranger potluck more recently. But I'd been doing a lot of cooking for DB, so I the thought of making something complicated was more than I could handle. Instead, I made this salad, which I believe HEB inspired from her favorite at Cosi. It's not hard, it's not complicated, but it took nice pictures and tasted good...
For the dressing:
- one part balsamic vinegar
- one part olive oil
(I start with 1/4 cup each of oil and vinegar and then decide if I have enough dressing for the amount of salad I have.)
- 1 teaspoon of mustard
- 1 teaspoon garlic
- pinch of salt
Someone once told me that if you slowly drizzle the oil into the vinegar as you're wisking it will separate less, so I do that. Not sure if it actually works.
For the salad
- Mixed greens
- Colored Peppers
- Carrots
- Cashews and pistachio nuts
- Grapes
- Craisins
- Blue Cheese