Seriously, I don't know that I cook recipes that aren't from her website anymore these days. Here are a few pics of the most recent deliciousness. 
Corn and Tomato Pie
I was going to make a stock of the UTTERLY delicious salad that HEB posted below, eggplants do not seem to be in season the in CA yet....thus, corn and tomatoes instead! Most of the ingredients for my version actually came from the farmer's market this morning (to which I biked! Whoo whoo!) Even the cheese, which was a delicious garlic cheddar that added an extra punch to my version.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Still Smitten
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
test run
After having the best salad of the summer at a friend's house, I couldn't wait to recreate it. 
Here's her recipe:
eggplant: cubed, tossed with garlic, olive oil and salt and roasted at 425 degrees
cucumbers: peeled, de-seeded, sliced
tomatoes: from the farmer's market, chopped
red onion: thinly sliced
fresh field greens
feta
tossed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil
Here were my mods:
Used a fig/walnut balsamic salad dressing because I discovered that I had no balsamic vinegar.
Used a crumbled goat cheese rather than feta because I like goat cheese better and they were sampling a particularly tasty one at the grocery store.
Didn't peel or de-seed the cukes because I'm lazy.
Here's the verdict:
Dressing: I'd use balsamic in the future. The fig/walnut flavor was unnecessary and got lost.
Goat cheese: fantastic.
Cucumbers: being lazy is okay.
Proportions: I definitely didn't master the proportions, and I also ended up making about three times as much salad as I could eat. Next time, I will add more greens and fewer tomatoes/cucumbers. Also, probably less cheese.
Overall: still delicious. The eggplant really makes this special, well worth the roasting time. (However, I think that my roommate might not think that it's well worth heating up our too-hot apartment...)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
I swear I would have given CH credit
I was about to post this black bean and corn salsa recipe, and then decided to check to make sure that CH hadn't already posted it. Well, she has. So that makes this a pretty boring post. But I'll add that I made this salsa on Monday (without avocado or cilantro) and added the avocado (but not the cilantro) right before serving on Thursday, and I thought that the extra marinating time made the salsa even better.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
remodeling my kitchen
I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.
Before:
After:
I celebrated the successful remodel by making a batch of brownies from scratch. I have no problem admitting that I rarely see the point in making brownies from scratch when you have Ghiradelli's double chocolate brownie mix available. However, I did not, and I wanted to try the Fudge Brownie Recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook.
Verdict: delicious (even though I'm still thrown off by my one remodeling mistake: replacing the gas stove with an electric one)
Here's the recipe with my mods:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Green & Blacks)
1.5 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used Penzey's double strength)
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Line the pan with parchment paper, leaving a 1 inch overhang on two sides. Set aside.
Place butter and chocolate in a large heatproof bowl set over (but not touching) simmering water; stir frequently until chocolate and butter are melted, about 7 minutes. (I heated in the microwave for about a minute at 50% power.)
Remove bowl from heat; let cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes. (I probably let it cool for 5 minutes, while prepping the pan and measuring other ingredients.)
Stir sugar into cooled chocolate mixture until combined. whisk in eggs one at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition.
Whisk in vanilla.
Gently fold in flour and salt.
Pour batter into prepared pan, and smooth top with an offset spatula.
Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, 40 to 45 minutes. (Took me 35.)
Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely.
I'm not sure that they were delicious enough to replace Ghiradelli as my go-to brownie, but I'll certainly be pulling these out when I want to be extra impressive. (Ghiradelli does still have the advantage of being less expensive to make since you don't need to purchase butter and chocolate.)
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Spring semester catch up
One of my proudest achievements during my last semester of grad school was cooking enough food on Sunday to last me as lunch through most of the week. I wasn't able to achieve this every Sunday, but it happened on most.
For some reason though, I was not able to combine the cooking with much picture taking or blogging. So, here's a post to catch up with a few of the recipes I tried with a few of the pictures I managed to take. Mostly these were from smitten kitchen, so I'll just post links to her recipes.
First up: Blood Orange Tart. 
NEVER AGAIN. In addition to crust needing days to complete, what with all of the freezing it had to go through, this recipe called for the pulpy middle of the blood orange to be separated from their membranes. Pictures from smitten kitchen make clear what this should look like, but the lovely Deb failed to photograph her blood orange stained hands or mention the HOURS that it might take someone who has no idea how to separate orange innards from their membranes. The real kicker though, was after baking this sucker, the juices all ran out of the crust, so it ended up being rather dry. Oh well. Not every recipe can be a success.
Smitten Kitchen: Indian food recipes.
I've tried the Red Kidney Bean Curry, the Red Split Lentils With Cabbage, and the Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes (same link as Red Split Lentils.) ALL DELICIOUS. Also, all surprisingly less work than expected. Seriously, that middle recipe made me love cabbage (I'd never tried cooking with it before!) and the Red Kidney Bean Curry is super easy. Mmm, and potatoes and cauliflower + cumin is obviously a good choice. Mmm, mmm mmm.
And then, the recipe that now defines comfort food for me: Vegan Mac and Cheez. 
Before you start with the eyerolling, etc, let me just say: this is the most delicious casserole ever. No, it's not really like mac and cheese. But frankly, I can only eat mac and cheese in small amounts. It's just so rich (and delicious, don't get me wrong), but it doesn't work for a weekly lunch. This recipe however, gives the creamy, satisfying texture of mac and cheese but without...well, all the cheese. I also really like a lot of the ingredients. Miso, check. Tahani, yes please. Cashews, always! The nutritional yeast (a yellow flakey powder) may be the one ingredient that is not already on your shelves, but it should be in bulk food sections of fancier grocery stores. (If not, I will totally mail you some. I'm not kidding.) Well, that and the Earth Balance (vegan butter), but hell, it's better for you than margarine, so buy it!
The recipe I use is from Vegan Yum Yum, and she's modified it from other recipes herself. I really really love it though you guys, and it's really not that difficult. I have also found myself adding a little miso and tahini to other recipes when a need a little sauciness or flavor. It's never as good as this recipe, but it makes me happy nonetheless.
If I can take a picture before I eat it all, I'll try to post about the artisan bread you can make in your own oven.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
A Graham Cracker Duel
I have been making graham crackers to accompany my marshmallows for a few months now, so you can imagine that I was a bit incredulous to see Smitten Kitchen's very recent set of posts on the same combo here and here. But, because I am generally a fan of Smitten Kitchen, I decided to give her version a try.
They were delicious but, for three reasons, I will stick with my original recipe.
1. My original recipe actually uses graham flour. I do not think there is much point to graham crackers if you aren’t going to use the named ingredient. That said, I substituted graham flour in the SK version too, so I can’t really say what it would taste like without the graham flour.
2. My original recipe calls for half a stick of butter, this recipe calls for almost a whole stick. To be sure, the butter adds to the richness, but for nearly twice the fat, not worth it.
3. The SK version requires you to refrigerate the dough in advance. This is a pain, especially if you are like me and cannot plan that far in advance.
So, these caveats in mind, here is my previous recipe, taken almost verbatim from here but with a few additions.
Ingredients:
• 4 T (1/2 stick) butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 6 T sugar
• 4 T honey
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 2 t water. I found that I needed more water the first time because the final product wasn’t sticking together. This was not true the second time. I think it has to do with out “liquidy” the honey is. If you need to add a little more water to get the dough to form, that’s fine, just do it very gradually.
• 3/4 t salt
• 1 1/2 C graham flour
• 3/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t vanilla
Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Combine the butter, egg and sugar in a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
3. Stir in the honey and blend.
4. Dissolve the baking soda in the water and add to the butter mixture.
5. Add the salt, graham flour, all-purpose flour, vanilla, and cinnamon to the mixture and blend thoroughly. The dough should hold together and be manageable.
6. Divide the dough into 4 sections. Keep the sections in the refrigerator when they are not in use.
7. Dust the counter with all-purpose flour. You will need a lot of flour at this stage, especially if you are not rolling the crackers out directly on the sheet where you plan to bake them. Roll the dough to a thickness of about 1/8 inch.
8. Cut the crackers. If you want squares, you can just use a knife or (as SK does) a pastry wheel. I make them round, and I use the top of a peanut butter jar as my cookie cutter (This really is how we do things on the south side, even though I am only faux south side now).
9. Using a metal spatula, transfer the cookies to a lined/grease baking sheet. I tried a plastic spatula, they stuck to it.
10. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven and cool on racks. They will not be crunchy, but that’s fine.
12. Eat with these and a bit of chocolate.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
New Kitchen and all the Rest
Yes, 2 posts in one day. I do not want to study. At all. But, this one is short, and it allows people to see the place where I prepare the food that gets posted on this blog. Enjoy.
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