Last Saturday was this absolutely beautiful day. The kind of day when you spring out of bed and think, "I'm going to go to the farmer's market carrying my eco-tote and wearing my $700.00 dollar sandals and I'll walk home with a bunch of flowers and a baguette sticking picturesquely out of the bag and then come home to my charmingly rustic apartment and whip up some wonderful summer dish that is easy, with simple flavors, which I will then enjoy whilst sitting next to my flowers (which I just stuck in a blue enameled milk pitcher) and reading the New York Review of Books."
Needless to say, I don't have $700.00 sandals, so the whole plan was a bust. And I didn't make it down to the farmer's market but instead down to the sort of half-assed version we have next to the Kip's Bay movie theater. And when I got back to my apartment, it looked like several rhesus monkeys had been holding soccer tryouts there the night before. So I just shoved all my tomatoes in the fridge and resumed my life of lowered expectations.
But tonight I figured I'd better eat them, and so made this, which I love because it's basically a deconstructed sandwich. Or deconstructed brucchetta. It's the kind of dish that is completely uninterested in your blue enameled pitcher. It has no time to be faux rustic. It's too busy being bread salad.
Panzenella
1 loaf crusty bread
5 ripe tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon capers
1 cup of basil leaves
Good olive oil
Red wine vinegar
Preheat oven to 250F. Cut about six pieces of bread in 1" thick slices. Place on a baking sheet and bake for around 20 minutes, until lightly crispy. You could also just use stale bread, which I have a feeling was the original ingredient.
Chop your tomatoes into chunks and put into a bowl. Mince garlic clove and add to tomatoes. Rinse capers if they're salted, and then mince and add to tomatoes. (I always mince my capers. I guess you don't have to.) 
Tear your basil leaves into shreds and add to tomatoes. Sprinkle all with a hefty pinch of salt, a good grind or six of pepper, stir, and let sit for around twenty minutes, just to let the flavors blend.
Combine olive oil and red wine vinegar in a small bowl, whisk together (I don't know how much, but roughly 4-1 oil to vinegar) and pour over tomatoes. Don't drown it; there should be a lot of good juice from the tomatoes already on the bottom of the bowl. Cut your bread slices into cubes. Gently mix the cubes of bread into the salad.
This does NOT keep. In fact, this barely lasts an hour. Of course, there isn't any point in making it if you don't have really, really good tomatoes, which, even if you do not have, as I do not, $700.00 sandals, a blue enameled pitcher, a subscription to the New York Review of Books (thank god) and a charmingly rustic apartment, are readily available at a stand outside a movie theater on 2nd Avenue every Saturday until the first frost.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Panzanella
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Peaches
Peaches are so enticing that sometimes I think that I really love them with my eyes more than anything. They're just pretty, the way they blush on one side and their supple skin; they feel more alive than you expect fruit to.
However, they are also a crapshoot. Bad peaches -- overly soft, watery, tasteless -- are so disappointing and you never find out until you have a mouthful of mush. I'm a bit ridiculous about my fruit trepidation, but I can't help it. They advertise so well, promise so much, and then dissolve into horribleness with a tiny, fruity snicker.
But not today! The peaches are in season, and they're pretty good this year. I decided to make a cobbler, because cobblers encompass many of the things I like about the pie-based food group: they are easy, adaptable, take about fifteen minutes to throw together and are decidedly unfussy: it's impossible to make a super-fancy cobbler. Well, it's probably not, but it misses the point: cobblers are for the people.
This is the type of dessert that can be thrown together at the last minute (if you have peaches at the last minute.) It's best served the day it's made, warm, when the cinnamon-scented crust is at its most provocative. Also, it sort of disintegrates in the fridge overnight. It's still good, but it looks a bit gloopy.
I don't add cornstarch to my pies. A lot of people do, to thicken the juices. If you want, by all means toss the fruit with a tablespoon or two of cornstarch, but I just don't like the consistency of it.
Peach Cobbler
About 4 cups of sliced peaches.(I don't peel the peaches, but you certainly can. I don't just because it's kind of a pain.)
1/2 cup of sugar, or less, depending on the sweetness of the peaches.
1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground ginger. (It was my man Alton Brown who pointed out that you can buy whole dried ginger and just grate it with a fine grater. It makes a huge difference. The blast of ginger power that shoots up your nose the first time you do it will have you convinced you can leap tall buildings in a single bound.)
1 stick of unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces
1/2 cup flour
1/8 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
a few shakes of cinnamon
1 egg
capful of vanilla
Preheat oven to 375F.
Put the fruit, sugar and ginger in a bowl and stir to mix. 
Put the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon in your food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter, and let it go until it's very well mixed. It's sort of like dough-light. It's past the "coarse crumb" stage, at any rate.
Plop this into a bowl, add the egg and vanilla, and beat until it's a nice sticky batter.
Turn out your fruit into a pie plate or baking dish. With a spoon, plop gobbets of batter on top of the fruit, and try to keep the blobs discrete.
Oven in, and bake for about 30 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Serve while still warm, preferably with ice cream or loose, slightly sweetened whipped cream.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Pesto, the Long Way
My friend Lindsay was kind enough to drop off two big bags of herbs from her garden for me this week. There are clear advantages to living in the suburbs (but I still don't want to have to own a car.) Naturally, when confronted with a huge pile of basil, is it simple—dare I say, imperative—to make pesto.
To make matters more complicated, I read an article which stated that American pesto (sigh...) is never as good as Italian pesto because we make it with a food processor. Of course we make it with a food processor. It takes three minutes. That's faster than a microwave. Do you know how much three minutes is worth in this country? Quite a bit, I say.
The article (which you can read here) said no, don't fall for it. It should be done by hand. All you need is a sharp knife and a willingness to spend a pleasant half hour micronizing basil leaves. Since I love nothing more than taking something that is easy and making it difficult, I thought I'd give it a try.
Pasta Pesto
1 cup of pesto.(If you want the recipe, click on the link to the article. I also threw in a bit of fresh oregano—about two stemworth of leaves.)
1 ball of unsalted mozzarella
1 pkg genetically modified grape tomatoes. Or real actual tomatoes, seeded and diced, since they're in.
1 lb pasta that does not resemble brains
Put a pot of water on and start making your pesto.
Chop chop.
Chop chop chop. Why did I think this was a good idea?
ChopchopchopchopchopI'msoboredchopchopchop. Chop. It's probably not fine enough but I think I need to get my knives sharpened.
Onto the pasta. Pesto works best with things that can grab it; groovy pasta, if you want to be literal (and groovy.) I got this incredibly bizarre pasta from our corner snobshop. They have all kinds of fancy pasta in intriguing shapes that cost way too much money but are like crack for morons like me.
Note: Don't buy pasta that looks like brains.
Okay, chop up your tomatoes and cut your fresh mozzie into smallish chunks. When your pasta is nice and al dente, drain and plop into a bowl.
Now, the order of this matters.
Add your pesto and mix. And your diced tomatoes and mix. Then, add your cheese and stir up. Years ago I made this and put all the mozzarella in the bottom, dumped the pasta on top, and the cheese melted and congealed into this solid foam rubber disk on the bottom of the bowl. Not my finest hour. Anyway, add a few grinds of pepper, and check for salt. 
Is making pesto by hand worth it? I certainly think so. First of all, it really doesn't take all that long—about as long as it takes for a pot of water to come to a boil, so it's not like you don't have the time. Also, you really do taste the flavors. You can taste the pine nuts, and the bits of oregano popped out again the basilly background wonderfully. I wouldn't mind doing it again.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Interesting Ethnic Supermarket Find: Thums Up! Cola
Recently while browsing some of Chicago's fine Indian/Pakistani grocers on Devon Avenue, my brother and I found ourselves face to face with a selection old fashioned, glass and metal soda bottles from India. Thums Up! stood out, with its positive affirmation thumb-up symbol, and the little paper ticket of nutritional facts added almost as an afterthought (visible under my finger).
After taking a sickly sweet and slightly chemically sip, I noticed this was in fact a Coca Cola product. My brother had seen this soda frequently in Chicago - but considering myself somewhat of a Indian grocery fanatic - it was new to me. So, I did what any normal geek would do, and I saved the bottle, took it home, and Googled it.
And then I stared at the image on their website for about 25 minutes.
Thums Up! Cola is apparently the leading cola brand in India, and has what their website calls "its strong, fizzy taste and its confident, mature and uniquely masculine attitude. This brand clearly seeks to separate the men from the boys." The picture on the corporate website that is apparently targeting Faith era George Michael fans is worth the click alone.
Who knew?
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Stop the Press: I Saw a Chick Eating Steak!!
This article in the New York Times has pissed us off here at CrossFoodHQ. Standing under the banner of a particularly insidious brand of "feminism," — which is to say, not feminism at all— it falls into the loathsome trap of telling women what to eat if they want to get a man. "But others, especially those who are thin, say ordering a salad displays an unappealing mousiness. “It seems wimpy, insipid, childish,” said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide. “I don’t want to be considered vapid and uninteresting.” Ordering meat, on the other hand, is a declarative statement, something along the lines of “I am woman, hear me chew.”"
It purports to take the opposite view, of course—the chummy headline gives one hope that maybe women could just eat dinner in peace for a change— but then quickly dives headlong into anecdotes that are reminiscent of Scarlett O'Hara getting ready for the barbecue at Twelve Oaks.
The main point of the article is that women are ordering steaks on dates. Issues of newsworthiness aside, the gist of the article is that women are eating meat because it sends a message.
"“In terms of the burgers, it said I’m a cheap date, low maintenance.”"
Apparently, the salad strategy is out and the steak strategy is in.
However, the article congratulates these women on allowing men to dictate their menu because it displays a certain gameness that indicates you won't freak out if your boyfriend spends most Friday mornings puking up last night's buffalo wings.
"“Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson,” Ms. Crosley, 28, said."
But don't be too insulted. Here is the obligatory caveat.
Of course, there are always those rare women who order what they want and to heck with what a man might think.
Well, thanks for the grudging acknowledgment that there might actually exist women who eat a hamburger because it's what they want. And they will actually do it in front of a man, even though there might be terrible, awesome consequences. You know, just as if they were an actual person.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Chicken Liver Pate
Who doesn't love a good pate? This one is super easy to make, tasty and uses Mace -- now, there's an under-utilised spice! The resulting pate is smooth and velvety, freezes well and will be ever so popular at picnics should the rain ever end.
Thanks to Delia Smith for this recipe. For those of you State-side, Delia is to the UK what Julia was to the US.
8oz chicken livers (225g)
6oz unsalted butter, room temperature (175g)
(Note, the original recipe doesn't state to use unsalted. I've tried the recipe using salted and unsalted, and prefer the results using unsalted.)
2 extra oz unsalted butter, for melting (50g)
2 tbsp brandy (NOT optional!)
2 tsp mustard powder (I use Colman's English Mustard)
1/4 tsp powdered mace
1 tsp fresh chopped thyme, or 1/4 tsp dries thyme
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Salt and black pepper
Melt about 1oz (25g) of butter in a heavy frying pan and saute the chicken livers over medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring all the time. Using a slotted spoon remove them from the pan and transfer them to a blender.
Melt the rest of the 6oz (175g) butter and add this to the blender. Deglaze the pan with the brandy then add to blender. Then add the mustard, mace, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper and blend until you have a smooth paste. Note: At this point, the paste may look a little runny, but not to worry as it will set in the fridge over night.
Next, pour the mixture into one large or a series of small containers. Pour the 2oz (50g) of melted butter over, leave to cool, cover with foil or cling film (plastic wrap) and put it in the bottom of the fridge for a day or two to set. Serve with hot toast or crackers and some cornichons. Very tasty.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Chicken Shawarma Sandwich
A few years ago, when I was first figuring out how to make this, I couldn't find anything until I realized that it isn't spelled "schwarma." Pity. That's much more fun to type.
Mini and I had a conversation while we were endlessly pitting cherries last weekend where she asked me if I ever used allspice. And I slapped her for being so forward. Just kidding. But we were trying to think what else, aside from chunking it into spice cakes, it could go with. And after she left, I thought "Oh yeah. Chicken."
This feeds two.
1 pack of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. (Or breasts. Thighs is traditional, though.)
1 cucumber, peeled and diced
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
chopped lettuce (pick whatever. I don't know from lettuce.)
Marinade:
1 thing of plain yogurt
big splash of apple cider vinegar
1 clove garlic, peeled and smacked with knife a few times
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tablespoon allspice
Tahini sauce:
1/4 cup tahini paste
juice of 1/2 lemon (maybe a bit less)
1 clove of garlic, peeled and smacked once with a knife
1/4 tsp salt to start and go from there
2-3 tablespoons of yogurt
Other:
Pita bread or naan
Harissa or other hot sauce
Dill pickles
Mix ingredients for marinade in a bowl or glass baking dish.
Slice chicken into stripes. Put in marinade and stir to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight.
Chop up your tomato, cucumber and lettuce and set aside.
Make the tahini sauce. You will spend at least fifteen minutes, if not more, combining the solid paste on the bottom of the tin with the oil floating on top. It's like the natural peanut butter from hell. You will get it eventually, but seriously? It takes a while. Sadly, it is necessary: It should be smooth enough to move with a whisk.
Add lemon juice and keep whisking. It will start to kind of seize up, but keep going and it should begin to take on a lighter color and creamier texture. Drop in your garlic clove and crush against the side of the bowl with a spoon until its well smashed up, then stir it in. Add salt. Add a tablespoon of yogurt and stir. Taste and adjust everything. If need be, keep adding yogurt until you get to a nice drizzling consistency.
Heat a little olive oil in a —actually, if you have a grill, grill the chicken pieces. Otherwise, use a cast iron skillet. Take the chicken from the marinade, shake off the excess, and cook over medium-high heat until done.
If you can find it, there a traditional type of thin pita break that you can roll these guys up in. Or you can use regular pita bread and stuff the pockets, but you're fairly guaranteed of leakage and breakage if you use those Thomas' ones. I like them open-faced on heated naan, because I loves me my naan.
Anyway, combine the tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and chicken (and sliced dill pickles, and hot peppers, and chopped onion, etc.) in your bread vehicle of choice. Top with tahini and, if you're so inclined, a few shots of harissa.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Green Tea Ice Cream
It is WAY too hot to cook. Amen, sister to not cooking and hallelujah to substituting ice cream as a summertime meal alternative. Well, maybe the last idea isn't the best no-heat cooking option, but hey, nothing helps beat the heat or fortify bones like ice cream. 
My aunt gave me a Cuisinart ice cream maker a few years ago and when the weather approaches the unbearable, I pull it out. That time has arrived. With tomorrow's temperature predicted in the mid-90's, the Cuisinart is making its summer debut. Flavorful and creamy delights to ensue shortly. Since I started off the post advocating eating ice cream as a meal, I will try to counterbalance that suggestion with making a green tea flavored ice cream. After all, in eastern culture and more recently western culture, health experts have been extolling the virtues of green tea for ages. I even read somewhere that consuming green tea may help prevent tooth decay. Although I seriously doubt eating bowls of green tea ice cream would qualify. Let's call it a wash.
Ingredients:
2 cups of whole milk
2 1/2 cups of heavy cream
1/2 - 3/4 cup of sugar
2-3 tablespoons green tea powder*
Combine sugar, milk and heavy cream in a bowl. Blend well with mixer. Add green tea powder. Mix again. Make sure powder gets blended in sufficiently. It takes awhile. You may have to use a spoon and smash the little clumps of powder against the side of the bowl to ensure the powder gets mixed in enough.
Follow instructions for your ice cream maker. The Cuisinart simply requires that I put the mixture into the pre-frozen bowl, insert the mixing mechanism and top and hit the start button. Turn on and let mix for 30 minutes or until a thick consistency is reached. I usually let my ice cream mix for about 45 minutes. Remove ice cream from bowl and put in a freezer container. Let chill for a firmer consistency.
Variation: Add more green tea for a stronger flavor (and color). I've made this recipe a few times and on each occasion added different amounts of powder. I prefer a more pronounced flavor and found that 3-4 tbspns work nicely. I only used 2 tbspns this time since I was making it for someone who likes a hint of green tea. Substitute the green tea powder for vanilla bean or extract. This will make a wonderful vanilla base. To cut down on the fat content, I use 1 or 2 percent milk instead of whole milk and mix-match the quantities of milk and heavy cream. I've found that the more milk you put in, the longer you will need to blend the mixture.
*available in asian food markets.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
It's Too Hot to Cook
Can I get an amen on that? It's been over ninety degrees for most of this week, with intermittent rainstorms that practically sizzle when they hit the asphalt and do nothing but add to the humidity. I spent the entire weekend sitting on the couch and panting like a dog. (And reading Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series. Man, I miss Harry Potter.)
However, salvation can be found in the fibrous folds of my friend the mango.
Mango and Avocado Salad.
The salad part:
1 mango, cut into chunks
1 avocado, cut into chunks
Salad dressing:
Confession: I suck at salad dressing. I am not one of those people who makes salad every night. Or, you know, ever. I don't really know the proportions, since I just have to taste and adjust and taste and adjust because I have no idea what I'm doing.
juice of half a lime
1/2 tsp. cumin powder
1/4 tsp. salt
shake of cayenne pepper
Mix ingredients in a bowl and get your whisk ready. Pour a thin stream of oil into the bowl, whisking all the time until the mixture emulsifies. (Which means that the acid is broken into enough tiny globules so they'll stay suspended in the oil and it won't separate. In case you were wondering.)
Pour over avocados and stir gently to mix. Refrigerate to let the flavors blend.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Almond Apricot Tart
Right around the time when Mini was going on her cherry pie reverie, I woke up with a craving for almond apricot tart. Which is sort of strange because 1)I don't know if I've ever had one before and 2) I don't really care for fresh apricots. However, I firmly believe that cravings are your body's way of telling you what your cells are starving for, and apparently my cells spent all night yelling "FRANGIPANI!!"
Almond Apricot Tart
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup sliced almonds (or chop them up)
1/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg
6 apricots, sliced in half and pitted
Preheat oven to 375F.
Prebake this crust and let cool.
In the bowl of your beloved stand mixer, place butter, sugar, salt and almonds. Beat until combined -- about five minutes or more. Scrape down the bowl, and then add the egg and beat to mix.
Spoon mixture into bottom of tart shell. Top with sliced apricots. Brush tops of fruit with butter. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the filling is golden brown. Let cool before slicing. Good with ice cream.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
The Iconic Cherry Pie
It was a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon, and while our men were off doing manly things like playing pool, swigging beer, fixing motorcycles and such, my fellow blogger, Rathead and I were kicking it old school a la June Cleaver and baking homemade pie and various baked fruit filled concoctions. I will devote this entry to the cherry pie and Rathead will blog about the latter.
A few weeks ago I was telling Rathead about my admiration for pies, tarts and anything in the cobbler family, which rank second only to my love of BBQ and meat related products. The whole process of picking cherries and baking pies brings back wonderful childhood memories related to the cherry tree in our backyard. Every summer the branches would be overflowing with plump, juicy red cherries. Not wanting to let them go to waste, my grandmother used to invite all the neighborhood kids to help pick them. Various cherry picking duties would be assigned and we'd be off to work. We'd then form an assembly line and bake cherry pies for the neighborhood into the night. Each child would be rewarded with a cherry pie in return for his/her hard work.
Being that it is summer and fresh fruit is in abundance I commissioned Rathead to bake two cherry pies for me. I'm sure one pie would be more than sufficient, but in my enthusiasm, I hastily blurted out a request for two. Pie is good. Cherry pie is a very simple and delicious dessert. It is made even better by having homemade versus store bought pie crust. Either will do. My task was to go to the market and buy fruit. I had the misfortune of going during midday on a Saturday. However, with deft maneuvering and $24 later, I had 4 quarts of cherries bungie chorded to the back of my motorcycle.
Onto the pie. Please note that Rathead had pre-made the dough that morning. The delicious, buttery dough recipe is posted in the July 26, 2007 posting "Happy *&$% Birthday: Part I".
Ingredients:
9" pie crust
4 quarts of sour cherries, pitted and cut
1/2 -3/4 cup of sugar
almond extract
flour
Wash, pit and cut the cherries. Be sure to discard any nasty, wormy or mushy ones. Add sugar. Mix well. Stir in a few drops of almond extract. This can be done to taste. Be careful though because almond flavoring goes a long way.
N.B. 4 quarts of cherries is NOT enough to make 2 pies. It yields about 8 cups which for my pie was only enough to make one 9" pie and a smaller cherry tart.
Preheat oven to 400.
Follow instructions for rolling out dough. Place dough in a 9" pie crust. Take a handful of flour and sprinkle the bottom of the crust. The flour will help thicken the cherry juices as they cook. Spoon cherry mixture on top. Add about half the mixture then sprinkle some more flour on top. Add remaining cherry mixture and a little more flour. 
Now for the big decision--selecting the pie crust top. Should it be a lattice top? a traditional covered top with slits to release the steam? a novelty top made from dough shaped cutouts? (cutout of pie maker's choosing). We pondered for awhile and decided on a lattice top.
Roll out dough and cut several long thin strips about 1/2" wide. Crisscross strips over pie.
Place pie on a baking sheet covered with tinfoil (which I didn't do). This will catch any spillage. Bake pie on middle shelf for about 40-50 minutes or until you can see visible signs of a golden crust or oozing juices. Gotta love the oozing pie juice.
Remove pie from oven, place on rack and let cool.
Serve with homemade or store bought vanilla ice cream.
Mmmm Mmmm good.
Depending on how sweet you like your pie, you may want to add more sugar. I used 1/2 cup. The pie was slightly tart. Served with vanilla ice cream, it was sweeter. I would've preferred more sweet, especially since I love sweet things--to the point that instant cavities form at first bite.
Variation: you can flavor the pie with many different spices such as nutmeg, allspice or the like. If you are using sweet cherries, you can even add some lemon juice to reduce the overly sweet quality of the cherries.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Happy (*@#$^@# Birthday : Part II
This is a basic pastry cream, suitable for a whole plethora of things: filling eclairs, filling my raspberry tart, serving with fruit, bribing children, licking out of navels...whatever. You can also flavor it however you like: add chocolate, Grand Marnier, etc. But for this, since there's already chocolate and hazelnut in the crust, I kept it simple. Also, this is really easy and quick.
Pastry Cream. Or Creme Patissiere.
1 1/2 cup whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split -- or --
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg yolks from room temperature eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 pint heavy cream
Put milk in a heavy saucepan with the vanilla bean and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and set aside.
Beat egg yolks and sugar together in a medium-sized bowl until thick and light yellow. Add flour and cornstarch and beat a bit more.
Take the vanilla beans out of the milk, scrape the insides, and put the seeds back in. If there is a skin over the milk, remove it. Now, very, very slowly add the warm milk to the eggs. The milk should not be hot to the touch. Whisk like crazy while you're adding -- you don't want the eggs to cook. 
Once it's all in there, put the whole shebang back in the milk pan and put over medium heat. While stirring, let it come to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer (which you won't notice because you're stirring, right?) and let it cook until thickened, which will be quite quick, and then cook for about two minutes more. If you're adding flavorings or chocolate, do it now. If you're using vanilla extract, use it here also.
Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing down so the plastic wrap touches the cream. Let cool for a while, and then put in the refrigerator.
Before assembly: whip the cream and fold about half into the pastry cream.
Assemble: spoon into the tart shell and smooth. Top with raspberries. Or any fruit. Except bananas.
If you want to glaze it, you can use about a 1/4 of a cup of melted red currant jam (for red fruit) or apricot jam (for orange & yellow fruit). Glaze as close to serving as possible, though: it makes the crust soggy.
A word about this tart in general: it doesn't travel. If you're planning on bringing it to a party, you're going to have to assemble it there. Just put the cream into a container or a zip-top bag, bag up the fruit, put it all in a little cooler and hit the road. Because otherwise you will just have a tartshell full of sliding goo.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Happy *&$%&# Birthday: Part I
So, check this out: I get a voice mail from a friend of mine last weekend, inviting me to a surprise party on the 21st for my friend Francis. And she asked if I would make a cake. Which is fine, but the 21st is MY birthday. Just to be clear: dissed by friends on birthday plus asked to bake.
Now, a better person might get angry. I, however, chose to approach it as a perfect opportunity to casually remind people at how I really felt via my favorite medium: passive aggressive behavior. That is: I said I thought it was funny, and then made sure everyone at the party heard my latest funny story. I also made this:
Raspberry Tart
Crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 stick unsalted butter, very cold and cut into 1/2 inch pieces.
1/4 tsp salt
1-2 tsp sugar*
3 tablespoons ice water
1 very good chocolate bar, chopped
*A word: This is my mom's (Mrs. Rathead) pie crust recipe, and I use it for everything, regardless of filling. If I'm making a savory filling, I leave out the sugar. In this instance, I used 2 tablespoons sugar, because I wanted it to be a bit sweeter. You can also use a butter/shortening mix if you want -- it does make a more stable crust, but don't go over 50% shortening.
Place flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a bit to mix. Scatter butter over the top and pulse a few times until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Leaving the food processor running, add the ice water in a thin stream. Keep running until the dough forms a ball. Remove, shape into a ball, flatten, wrap in waxed paper, and let rest in the fridge for an hour or so. This will keep in the fridge for three days or the freezer for three months.
Preheat the oven to 400.
Take the dough and roll out. This will fit a 10 inch tart pan. I actually used two 7 inch tart pans and it fit both of them, but barely. Anway, roll out on a floured surface and get it into your tart pans. Trim the edges and prick all over with a fork. Put back in the fridge for about fifteen minutes. (This all works better if the dough is really cold before you bake it.)
Take a sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil and butter it. You want to make a butter circle about an inch wider than your tart pan. Place this, butter side down, onto your chilled crust. Make sure it's touching the sides. Put your tart shell on a baking sheet, if you want (it's easier to move around.) Fill with pie weights (I used dried peas).
Bake for 15-20 minutes, then take out and reduce the heat to 375. Let the crust sit for a minute or two while you drink the aroma of toasted pea pie. Take off the tin foil and put back in the oven for about five minutes, until golden brown.
Let cool completely.
Either in a microwave, in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over extremely low heat, or in a double boiler (or, if you're me, in a copper jello mold shaped like a fish over a saucepan of barely simmering water) melt your chocolate.
A word: If you are going to melt chocolate all by itself, I recommend using one with a lower content of cocoa. You know how all the fancy chocolate bars are all "85%" like they think they're better than you? Chocolate with that high cocoa content burns really easily. For this, I used a Valhrona bar with 61% and it melted like a dream. Also, it had hazelnuts in it, which I didn't see when I bought it, but it worked great.
Spoon or pour the melted chocolate into the pie crust and spread with the back of a spoon until the entire bottom is evenly coated. Let cool, or chuck into the fridge for a minute or two to set.
I'll do the rest of this in a separate post.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Naan Pizza
My friend Kevin, chef, chocolate maker and co-creator of the adorable Harrison, made these one weekend when we were visiting him and his partner Maura out in the Hamptons. I usually serve these as party food, but I also made them for dinner last night, because it would not stop raining and party food makes me feel better.
1 packet of naan -- the garlic and onion kind if you can find them.
1 thing of goat cheese
1 small shallot, minced
1 tomato, seeded and diced
1 red pepper, diced
Dried basil, or slivered fresh basil
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet with olive oil.
Put goat cheese into a small bowl. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the goat cheese and stir until goat cheese smooth and spreadable. Add minced scallions and basil and stir until incorporated.
Put your baking sheet into the hot oven.
Take your naan and spread with the goat cheese. Sprinkle with diced tomatoes and red pepper. Season with a bit of salt and pepper. Drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil over the top.
Make sure your baking sheet is hot, and then, without taking it out of the oven, place your naan on the sheet. You should hear a bit of a sizzle.
Bake for 5-7 minutes. Remove. Slice. Consume. Repeat.
Like all pizza, this is infinitely variable. I could eat a shoe baked with goat cheese, but you can use more traditional pizza flavors if you want. Or you can do pepper jack and jalapeños. Really, anything.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Fresh Squeezed Lemonade
It is around this time of year as a kid that my sister and I used to set up our lemonade stand. We lived not far from the train station and had prime real estate on the block selling our icy cold $.25 beverage to weary, thirsty commuters returning from a long, hard day of work in Manhattan. Perhaps being a little nostalgic and also wanting reprieve from the beastly heat, I whipped up some fresh squeezed lemonade.
This is a great drink since it serves double duty if you want to make lemonade popsicles.
Ingredients:
6 lemons (or enough to make about 1 ½ cup of lemon juice
1 3/4 cup white sugar
10 cups of water
1 lime
Roll lemons against countertop to get them “loosened” up. Juice them until you have about a cup and a half of liquid. Strain juice to remove seeds.
Combine sugar and 1 cup water in saucepan. Add some lemon rind pieces from the pile of cut lemons that were just juiced. Stir. Make sure sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, discard rinds and allow to sit at room temperature. Chill.
Combine water and chilled lemon/sugar mixture. Add sliced lime wedges to garnish. You may need to dilute the lemonade to taste.
Variation: Omit the lime and add a splash of grape juice instead.
Spike it with some vodka.
Make popsicles. Pour lemonade into popsicle makers, put in freezer until solid.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Spicy Fried Chicken
Because I am quite poor, quite lazy and quite addicted to fried food, sometimes it is hard for me to gather the energy and materials to really make a meal worth picking up the camera and writing about. However, drumsticks were recently on sale at the local butcher for $.79 a pound, and that means fried chicken for supper!
For about $2.50 I walked out of the butcher shop with six plump, delicious chicken legs. Enough to feed myself and one lucky soul who would adjust the lighting while I attempted to take pictures of my recipe for country style spicy fried chicken.
The ingredients could not be more basic:
chicken parts (whatever you like. I used legs because they were on sale)
1 cup flour
buttermilk
cayenne pepper
pinch or two salt
black pepper
oil for frying *
Rinse the chicken parts and pat dry. If you are more health conscious that I, you might want to remove the skin at this point. Place the chicken parts in a baking dish or bowl and cover them with buttermilk. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour, three or more is ideal.
When ready to start fryin', drain the chicken from the buttermilk and cover liberally with the black and cayenne peppers. Just sprinkle all over the chicken and don't think about it.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour and a pinch of salt. In the meanwhile, fill a large pot or deep frying pan with oil. You don't need a lot, you could feasibly use just enough to cover the chicken. Heat this on medium. I am sure there is a proper temperature that this much reach, but lacking a thermometer, I just let it heat for about 15 minutes.
Now comes the fun part. Take a piece of chicken in one hand and drop it in the flour bowl. With your other hand, toss it in the flour until thoroughly covered and place it on a plate. It helps to dedicate one hand to picking up the chicken and the other for flouring. You will see.
After all the chicken pieces have been floured, take one piece and add to the hot oil. This is your "test piece" and may be submerged in oil that's not that hot yet. Gently place it in the oil and watch it carefully. If the oil is hot enough, the chicken will sink slightly to the bottom and have a rolling boil of bubbles around it:
At this point, carefully add the remaining pieces, ONE AT A TIME, with a few seconds in between each one. This helps prevent them from sticking together. Allow these to cook until the flour turns a golden brown, about 10-20 minutes depending on what sort of chicken part you use. When the chicken is done, it will begin to float in the oil.
Carefully remove the chicken and drain the oil on a plate topped with paper towels or a baking rack. If making more than one batch, you can also place these in a warm oven to keep them crisp while the other batch cooks.
I served this with a nice, inexpensive country cole slaw (cabbage, mayo, cider vinegar and shredded carrot). Amazing!
* This is up for debate. Many southern mothers and cookbooks will stand by their Victorian method of frying the chicken in animal fat, shortening, or a combination of oil and bacon fat. No doubt this all makes for a wonderfully robust frying experience, but if you don't want the lingering scent of animal fat or bacon grease in your kitchen, go with the oil. Not as decadent, but way easier on the heart and lungs.
Monday, July 2, 2007
The Naperville Rib Festival
So on Friday I was enjoying a cold, post-work Goose Island Pale Ale with my friend Josh when I happened to see something out of the corner of my eye that stopped me mid-sentence. For a split second I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. But no! I took a closer look at the free entertainment weekly on the table between us, and it was then that I saw it. The pairing of the two most magical words I have ever seen together in my life:
RIB FESTIVAL.
I immediately sent a text to CrossFood HQ in New York City to try to explain the magnitude of the situation. RIB FESTIVAL. Seconds later I received a response.
"Why didn't you tell us this weeks ago when we could have booked a flight?"
Sometimes living in the midwest has its rewards.
So on Sunday morning, armed with a smug sense of geographical superiority and a bag full of sunblock and wet wipes, the meatiest person I know and I hopped in the car and made the hour long drive to the 2007 Naperville Rib Festival.
The first thing I am going to tell you about CrossFood's experience at the RIB FESTIVAL is: this event is not cheap. $10 to park within comfortable walking distance to the festival (hey, it was hot!) and an additional $10 per person entrance fee later, we crossed through the magical gates of the rib festival, only to be greeted by what is probably the most expensive festival menu I have ever seen. I know, I know... many of you will look to the picture on the right and tell me that $20 is NOT too much for a slab of decent ribs, especially in Manhattan where everything costs an arm and a leg, and quality meats are worth it and what not and what for, but STILL. This is the midwest, and there were several vendors. Which leaves you really with one option: the 3 bone sampler.
With 15 different vendors serving BBQ and several more selling other festival favorites, and a modest budget at best, we had to be choosy on what we sampled. We skipped Sgt. Oink's despite it's awesome name based on the tremendous amount of military propaganda at their booth. We also bypassed two local vendors that we could get anytime and went straight for Texas Outlaws BBQ, based out of Elizabethtown, KY.
I will gloss over the obvious issues with calling yourself a "Texas Outlaw" while operating out of Kentucky and just say that the ribs were the moist, fall-off-the-bone, fatty sort of goodness that dreams are made of. Tender and moist, with a smoky-sweet sauce and just enough hints of honey to make you lick your fingers, these delicious ribs whet our appetite and left us thinking the rest of the afternoon would be wonderful.
After walking through the dusty field considering each vendor's menu, Stop #2 was at Butch's Smack Your Lips BBQ. I actually chose this vendor, mainly because they are from New Jersey and I have a soft spot for my old home state. My friend agreed as soon as he saw their sign: "Cook it low, cook it slow. Serve no swine before its time."
Butch's Smack Your Lips BBQ had a long line, a whole buffet of sauces off to the side, and what could quite possibly be the coolest trophy I have ever seen:
Not a good choice.
The ribs were tough, dry and full of gristle. The three they handed us looked more like something out of the microwave than something that had been carefully smoked over hot coals all afternoon. The albeit somewhat attractive college student who handed them to us saw our obvious disapproval at the serving and pointed to the sauce buffet, advising us to "pick whichever one we like". Thanks, buddy.
We took our sad paper dish of scrawny bones to the sauce station and opted for the medium bbq sauce. My friend, being a guy, took the first bite and immediately frowned. "I could do better than this and I don't own a grill," he declared. He tossed the half eaten rib into the dish and pushed them toward me for me to try. I tried to pull a section of what appeared to be fatty goodness off the bone and gave up in about 45 seconds when I realized it was futile. After a long discussion about rib joints and the whole concept of cooking with sauce on vs. adding your own after the fact, we tossed Butch's ribs and decided to try one more. We cleansed our palettes with root beer floats and got back in line.
Stop #3 was Pigfoot BBQ Company out of Cedar Rapids. Again, heavy on sauce over technique, but delicious all the same. Pigfoot has been "ribbing" at this festival for 13 years, and longer in other regions, and it shows. No frills, basic and classic, it was deliciously tender and moist with just enough meat to where the sampler seemed enough.
As a side note, we saw numerous people walking around with Pigfoot sandwiches all afternoon - possibly noting that their pulled pork was better than their ribs. We didn't get back in line to find out since by this point the combination of sun, country music, screaming children and bees was enough to send us back to the safe confines of the city.
So about $100 in the hole, sunstroked and queasy from the root beer float/bbq combination, we left the festival. However, I still think the words "rib festival" are two of the most glorious words in the English language.