So KZ and I had a conversation earlier this week that went something like this:
HEB: Oh man, I made that tomato sauce from Smitten, you know, the one with the canned tomatoes and onion that you throw away and butter, and oh man. I ate one-and-a-half servings and I had to stop myself from having two servings.
KZ: I saw that on smitten and thought, "This can't be good. It has three ingredients."
HEB: Oh man. I want to eat more right now. I mean, it might be my favorite tomato sauce ever. Well, okay. Fresh in the summer is good. But I'm never buying sauce in a jar ever again.
KZ: Wow. I never would have tried it because I would have thought that it was a waste of time to make a sauce that would clearly be bad.
HEB: Oh man.
I've actually made it twice now (single recipe once and double recipe once) and am not yet over the "oh man" phase. Although I will say that I think that the San Marzano tomatoes do make it better than the Shaw's brand ones. And also, don't skimp on the butter like I tried to do in my double recipe. The sauce only has three ingredients (and you throw one of them away). Let it have as much of those ingredients as it calls for.
If you want an "oh man" conversation, the recipe is here.
This one doesn't have just three ingredients, but it inspires similar feelings for me. It's a Fig and Walnut Tapenade over goat cheese on ciabatta.
Nomi made this for our aebleskiver party this year and it was so excellent that I had to make more to bring to my office's holiday party. I generally don't get excited by olives and capers, but, oh man, they are perfect here.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
recipes that shouldn't be good but, oh man, they are
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Banana Bread 2 Ways
One of the most valuable lessons I learned from living with EW was that almost-bad bananas could be salvaged by putting them in the freezer to use at a later date. This rule has allowed me countless opportunities to make this, and she has further used them to make this.
The problem with this lesson, is that the bananas in the freezer can start to pile up when you have no excuse to make the best and hugest birthday cake ever.* I decided it was time to make some banana bread, but my usual recipe has essentially the same sugar and butter content as the cake. So I started looking around for recipes with less butter and less sugar. Of course, there are all kinds of recipes out there. Some with apple sauce, some with sour cream, some with yogurt. But then there was this recipe with none of those things. Just the standards: bananas, flour, sugar, baking soda, and vanilla. The only addition this recipe has - cinnamon. Oh, and chocolate chips.
I decided to give it a try, and because I had so many bananas, I decided to make two batches, one with chocolate chips and one without. The chipless version is not the most delicious thing in the world (what can I say, butter does make a difference), but it's a nice alternative that's a wee bit healthier. And if you toast it and put some butter or cream cheese on it, it is the best thing ever. The cinnamon really makes a difference. The chocolate chip version, I am happy to report, is not lacking in the least from the missing butter. It's gooey and delicious.
* I did recently make a birthday cake. But the recipient is a chocolate lover, so I made this.
Ginger Crisps
I know, I know. I promised to lay off with the ginger posts. And this recipe certainly does not qualify as laying off. But these cookies are really delicious. My mom made them when I was home around Christmas, and they may be one of my favorite cookies of all time. They are super crunchy, and they have little bits of chewy candied ginger inside. I must admit, I've never made them myself, but they are quite delightful. Someday, I'll try.
You can find the recipe here.
Things that don't look like much
First up is the casserole I made for a potluck a bit ago but never posted, they key to this was the 1+ pound of cheese, can't go wrong with that in a recipe. Second up is HEB's tofu/peanut sauce which i'm sure i butchered but tasted good!
Not that this is a major achievement compared to stuff on here, but if you're interested:
From About.com.
Chicken, Cheddar, Bacon Casserole
Ingredients:
* 8 ounces mini penne pasta or elbow macaroni
* 6 to 8 slices bacon
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1 pound chicken breasts or chicken tenders, cut in 1-inch pieces
* 4 green onions, sliced
* 2 tablespoons flour
* 1 1/2 cups milk
* 1/2 cup chicken broth or more milk
* 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon dried leaf thyme
* 8 ounces Cheddar cheese, shredded
* 4 ounces American cheese, shreds or chopped
* 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
* 1 cup bread crumbs
* 1 tablespoon melted butter
Preparation:
Cook the pasta in boiling salted water following package directions.
Grease a 2 1/2- to 3-quart baking dish. Heat oven to 350°.
In a large skillet or saucepan, cook bacon until crispy. Remove bacon to paper towels; crumble. Pour off grease in the skillet, leaving about 1 or 2 teaspoons. Add butter to the skillet and cook the chicken over medium-low heat until cooked through. Add green onions and cook for 1 minute longer. Add flour and stir until blended into the fat. Gradually stir in the milk, cooking and stirring until slightly thickened. Stir in salt, pepper, and thyme. Add the cheeses and thawed peas, along with crumbled bacon. Spoon into the prepared baking dish.
Combine bread crumbs with 1 tablespoon melted butter; sprinkle over the casserole. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until topping is browned and casserole is bubbly.
HEB previously posted her Tofu recipe, but here is her peanut sauce:
* peanut butter
* garlic
* soy sauce
* sesame oil
* rice wine vinegar
* water
* lime juice (if you have it)
* red pepper flakes (not too many)
Combine two large spoonfuls of PB, maybe a clove of garlic, more soy than sesame oil, about the same amount of rice wine vinegar as soy, maybe a tablespoon of lime, and enough water to make it a good consistency. Add a little brown sugar if so inclined.
toss with veg, noodles and tofu or serve over rice
Monday, January 18, 2010
Blondies
Let's talk about blondies. And why they were the only food item I wanted for more than a week, despite the fact that I've never craved blondies before. In fact, I'm not even sure I'd ever had a blondie before these, and I generally believe things like chocolate chip cookies in bar form are inferior to their cookie counterpart. So, why the blondie craving? Who knows. What I do know is that these hit the spot.
We had them for dessert at the first installment of a series of dinners where we teach my first-ever roommate how to cook. They were the encore to this lasagna. Topped with caramel frozen yogurt, they really hit the spot.
As with almost everything I make these days, the recipe came from Smitten Kitchen. As SK makes clear, these are in fact infinitely adaptable. We added chocolate chips, PB chips and, toffee bits in them. The result? Yum.
Oh, and did I mention, these really hit the spot.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Apple...Bread Pudding?
Every year my dad gets a box of these apples as a holiday gift.
Too bad the rest of my family tends to think of them as some sort of punishment. Why is that? Because what are we supposed to do with 50lbs of red golden delicious apples? They look really pretty, but they are not the best tasting thing you've ever had.
So, on the morning of the 25th, my mom was deciding what desserts she was going to make (yes, that's desserts, plural), and my dad said, "Why don't you make something with apples." We had tried to make apple pie with these bad boys one year, and the result was less than satisfying. But, I remembered that SK has an entire section of her blog dedicated to apples, so I figured I could find something useful there.
In the end, I settled on Deb's mom's apple cake. She is right. This cake is very moist and incredibly tasty. I dare say this is the best thing we've ever done with our annual inundation of apples.
Why then, did mine turn out to be more of a bread pudding (hence the casserole-like pan)? Well, there are many possibilities. Here are the two most probable. First of all, I used 6 apples like the recipe called for (heck, what else are we going to do with them) even though these apples weigh about a pound each. The result was a greatly extended cooking time.
Second, and I only realized this after I went back to the SK website to make this post, I mistakenly tried to flip the cake out of the tube pan instead of serving it upside down like the picture shows. The result? Well, the cake fell apart at the middle apple layer. And because I couldn't very well fix this problem with frosting, I decided to put the cake in a different container. At the time, I decided I would only repeat this recipe in a container like this to begin with. But now that I see that I was never supposed to flip it out of the pan to begin with, I think the tube pan method will produce a very manageable, delicious, and pretty cake.