Weekly Dish

Oh, how I love the start of school. I’m such an undeniable nerd that I revel in the smallest of ritualistic pre-school activities. I meticulously fill my pencil case with new mechanical pencils and my favorite black pens. I open and close my new, perfectly organized 3-ring binder, imagining all the possiblities of filling the blank pages with brilliant insights. I print out my course roster and pore over the names of my students, creating these 22 people I get to teach for the semester in my head, delighting in who they might be. I type up extraordinarily detailed daily schedules for myself which I never, ever follow, but keep on my desktop. I make lots and lots of lists. I fret and worry and have nightmares (the kind where I always show up to my class inappropriately dressed and completely unprepared). Once the madness begins, for weeks, I thrive on the excited frenzy I’ve created for myself in the weeks leading up to the first day.

And I love every moment, even though complaining about school starting is usually part of the routine.

In all of this activity, I have little time for cooking (or blogging, for that matter, but I do have it on one of those detailed schedules!) But we have to eat, I’m entirely too picky for fast food, and we don’t have the budget to eat out, so I cook anyway. Our summer meals tended to be leisurely and sometimes labor-intensive, simply because they could be. What will follow in the coming months will be how we fit food into an already-packed schedule. Cooking becomes part of my planning obsession during school days, and part of my ritual. It won’t always be beautiful or gourmet, but I’ll do my best to make it healthy and delicious. The menu above represents the last week before the official start of school, but really the first week of my crazy frame of mind as I prepared. I don’t have links for you because I haven’t made any of those things before, but I promise to post about them soon.

Or at least, I have it written on my schedule.

Happy school days everyone!

This pizza sprung from my current love affair with figs and a hankering for grilled pizza. The restaurant where I worked in college — aptly named the Brick-Oven Cafe — served the most delicious wood-fired pizzas, baked, as you might expect, in a huge brick wood-burning oven. The texture of the crust was nice: a balanced blend of crisp and chewy, but the rich, smoky flavor was of the sort you can only get when flames are involved. Currently without a wood-burning oven of my own, I’d been thinking that grilling a pizza might impart a similar texture and flavor.

The trick, I learned from this experiment, is to roll the dough as thinly as possible. What happens in the cooking process is that the fiery heat licks the bottom of the crust, imparting its smoky flavor within a matter of minutes. But if the dough is too thick, it won’t cook all the way through, leaving you with a gummy texture in the center. We ended up pulling the pizza off of the direct grill, reducing the flame, and cooking it the rest of the way through on a foil-lined cookie sheet. It worked, but I would have liked it more if the crust had been thinner and more evenly crisp.

The toppings, inspired by recent fig pizzas at A Mingling of Tastes and at Milk and Honey, were figs, grilled in a drizzle of basalmic vinegar and cane syrup; grilled pieces of prosciutto; and large dollops of goat cheese, which melted nicely into the figs. David, not as big a fan of figs as I am, was a bit skeptical about this sweet/salty combo, but he admitted after several slices that he was pleasantly suprised. Given my penchant for contrasting flavors, fresh figs, and pizza, it should come as no surprise that I loved every bite.

The labor of this meal is in the prep work; once you get everything ready, it takes almost no time to cook on the grill. The grilling times I’ve included are guesses: my best advice is to stand at the grill the whole time and watch carefully. The amounts are also estimates, as it will depend on how much you want to load down your pizza, how big your crusts are, and how many figs you can get your hands on. As you can tell, this is no exact science.
Grilled Fig Pizza

Half recipe of Basic Focaccia/Pizza Dough or other dough of your choice
Figs (I used about a pint)
Basalmic vinegar
Cane syrup (honey would work too)
Kosher salt
Prosciutto, thinly sliced
Goat cheese (I used about 4 ounces)
Olive oil
Cooking spray

Heat the grill to a medium-high flame (we have charcoal, so I imagine a gas grill would be easier to keep consistently hot).

While the fire is heating up, get everything ready: Slice the figs in half, and spread them in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet (preferably with a lip) that will fit on your grill rack. Drizzle with a tiny bit of vinegar and syrup, and sprinkle with salt. Place the prosciutto slices on a doubled piece of foil that’s been sprayed with cooking spray. Divide the the dough into two balls, and roll each one out as thinly as you can manage with a rolling pin and place on wax paper sprayed with cooking spray. Rub a little olive oil onto both sides of each pizza crust.

Take everything outside: prepared figs, prosciutto, dough, and the goat cheese. (If you live in the hottest, stickiest climate you can imagine like I do, spray yourself copiously with bug spray first and be prepared to sweat.) You’ll also need a big metal spatula (or two regular-sized ones) to flip the pizza. Grill the prosciutto first on the foil, just until it crisps up; this won’t take but a minute. Next, place your baking sheet of figs on the grill, and cook until the juices are bubbly and the figs are very soft; maybe 5 minutes? Now you’re ready for the pizza. Place the oiled dough directly on the grill rack, and let it cook (we covered the grill because the wind was fanning the flame too much) until it’s brown and crispy on the bottom; it took ours about 3 minutes. Flip, and immediately cover with figs, prosciutto, and goat cheese, being careful not to let any of the fig juices drip into the fire (like I did). Cook for another few minutes until the bottom is crispy and brown. Remove from the grill and drizzle with olive oil; repeat the process with the next pizza. Eat immediately!

One lone sweet farmer — Buddy Miller — sells figs regularly at my local Saturday market. I see him every Saturday from late July/early August until his trees stop producing (probably any Saturday now) and I buy as many different kinds of figs as he has.

In their book on cooking with aphrodesiacs, here’s what Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge have to say about figs in the chapter on the fruit: “If you’ve never had a fig before, it will not — cannot– taste, smell, look, or feel as you imagined it would — because a ripe fig tastes sweeter than any dried nugget of trail-mix fig, and a plump one smells gentler than any hyper-syruped canned version. . . .When its juice runs over your tongue, you are drinking pure, unadulterated sensuality.”

It was only a few years ago that I first tasted for myself what they’re talking about. My taste buds still have not recovered; they often crave the sublime sweetness of these gorgeous little gems at the most random times. Last summer I tucked a few away in a freezer bag, and come January, when a craving hit, I was oh so glad. My freezer stash this summer has already begun.

A fig is a perfect fruit, in my opinion. The simplest of pleasures, figs win out for their blissful unfussiness. This fruit doesn’t need to be peeled, has no inedible seeds, and contains no pits or other obstructions to fool with. Some varieties are exactly bite-sized; most can be eaten in no more than two delicate bites. A tiny stem makes a good handle with which to hold your fig, and it tastes best eaten ripe and alone, or, on special occasions with the slightest dribble of cream. But it’s versatile also: the fig pairs well with cheese and wine, or cooks up to a mighty fine dessert or dinner.

I mostly eat mine straight from the fridge soon after they’ve been purchased. Occasionally, though, I’ll feel creative and want to dress them up. This appetizer is so simple, but it’s a great little before-dinner treat to serve to guests (especially if they’ve never had fresh figs before). Black Mission figs work really well for this preparation; they’re larger and firmer than some of the smaller, sweeter varieties. The filling tastes even better if you have time to mix it up the night before, but at least allow it to refrigerate for a couple of hours to let the flavors mingle. I like to serve these with a crisp Riesling, and if you’re going heavy on the hors d’oeuvres, shards of prosciutto and blue cheese on crostini.

In fact, these appetizers would make a great contribution to an al fresco dinner party, perhaps the La Festa Fresco that Ivonne and Lis are throwing? Stop in and see what other fresh, local outdoorsy foods other people made on September 5, when the round-up will be posted.

Creamy Stuffed Figs

4 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 strips bacon
1 T. chives, chopped, with a few reserved for garnish,
1/2 cup almonds or pecans
Cracked black pepper and Kosher salt, to taste
8 fresh figs

To prepare the filling, set the cream cheese in a small bowl to soften. Cook the bacon and set aside to cool. Then, toast the nuts (please, please do NOT skip this step — the toasted nuts add a lot of depth to the flavor of the filling) in a dry skillet or in a 350-degree oven for 6-8 minutes. When the bacon and nuts are cool enough to handle, coarsely chop, and add them to the cream cheese. Mix in the chives and seasonings. Refrigerate for at least a few hours.

To prepare the figs, first wash and pat dry. Remove the stems. With a small, sharp knife, carefully cut cross-wise into the top of each fig, as if you were quartering it, but making sure not to cut all the way through. Stuff each fig with about a tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture (or as much as the fig can hold and still stand up straight). You can refrigerate them again until ready to serve if you need to.

–Adapted from Intercourses by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge

Weekly Dish was born! I can honestly say that when I sat down at my computer this time last year and hit “publish” for the first time, I had no idea what I was in for. Over 200 posts later, as I click back through my archives, I realize that I’m looking at a year in my culinary life, a record of what I made and what I consumed. Which was partly the point of this whole endeavor, of course: documentation.

But it was also about honing my craft, both as a cook and a writer. The site has pushed me to be more conscious about what and how I cook, and having an audience has stretched my willingness to try new things, my technical abilities in the kitchen, and my knowledge of how this whole business of combining ingredients to create something new works in the first place. Weekly Dish has made me a better cook, plain and simple.

And a better writer: composing spontaneously (and quickly) several times a week has provided a welcome space for growth of my writing self. Thankfully for all of us, practice has also sharpened my photography skills. Slowly, over the course of the last year, horrendous, poorly lit exposures of uninteresting plates have given way to more thoughtfully composed presentations, which if still not where I’d like them to be, at least don’t make viewers shudder and turn away in horror (as some of my earliest pictures do for me now when I look at them!)

What I didn’t know to expect from Weekly Dish were all of the pleasant surprises that have come in the form of emails, comments, and other people’s blogs. Quite simply, you readers out there, have been the nicest surprise of all. Oh, sure, I expected that my grandmother would be delighted to read my posts and say that they were wonderful. But to have people who previously did not know me, come into my kitchen via this little corner of the web, pull up a virtual kitchen stool, and watch, listen, comment on, and participate in my culinary experiments alongside me has brought more joy than I fathomed possible. What began as a way to share recipes and ideas with a friend has turned into a (literal) web of friendships, cris-crossing the globe.

As I have shared with you before, making food is for me primarily an expression of love. So, to know that others out there are partaking in our meals — even just with their eyes — makes a world of difference. As I cook for my little family, and sometimes friends and neighbors, I also cook for you readers, hoping that along the way, you receive these meals and turn them into expressions of your own, sharing them with those you love.

So today, I want to say a great big THANK YOU to all of you who have joined me over the past 12 months to partake in what has turned out to be a terrifically fulfilling adventure. I hope you will continue to stop in and occasionally let me hear from you — your comments, stories, recipes, ideas are always welcome here.

To celebrate: cupcakes!

Birthday Cupcakes (Chocolate with Mocha Buttercream Frosting)

3 1/2 ounces (200 grams) 60% or 70% cocoa high-quality chocolate, chopped
2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 T. strong coffee

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Fill the cups of a muffin tin with paper or tin baking cups; spray with cooking spray.

In the top of a double-boiler over boiling water (or your mixing bowl placed over a pot of boiling water if you don’t have a double-boiler), melt the chocolate, stirring until smooth. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugars in an electric mixer, until thoroughly combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well as you go.

In a separate bowl, stir the flour, soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder together (sift them if you’re so inclined).

Also stir together the buttermilk and coffee (I do this in a glass measuring cup with a pouring spout).

With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk mixture alternately to the butter and sugar, until all ingredients are well-incorporated. Last, stir in the chocolate.

Pour the batter into the paper or tin cups in the muffin tin, filling the cups about 3/4 full. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. When cool, top with frosting. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Mocha Buttercream Frosting

5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 egg white
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 T. strong coffee
2 T. instant coffee granules (espresso powder also works)
2 sticks butter, softened
4 cups confectioner’s sugar

Melt the chocolate in the top of a double-boiler and set aside to cool. In a glass bowl or measuring cup, stir together the cream, coffee, and instant coffee until the coffee granules dissolve. In an electric mixer, whip the butter until creamy. Add the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, until completely combined with the butter. With the mixer on medium, add the chocolate. Next, beat in the coffee mixture, whipping on high speed until the icing forms soft peaks. This frosting works best if you use it immediately, but if you have to refrigerate it, you’ll need to leave it out for a while to soften so it will be spreadable. This recipe makes plenty to frost 24 cupcakes and still have some leftover.

–Adapted from Sara Foster’s Fresh Everyday and the Foster’s Market Cookbook 

Links:

• Paneed Tilapia 
• Lemony Spinach
• Guacamole, by the Barefoot Contessa (minus the Tabasco)

This chicken salad recipe is for my sister, who last time I offered her my version with pesto and pine nuts, turned up her nose and said, “I like my chicken salad girly. You know, with grapes and stuff.”

Well, of course she does. This is a girl with shoes and purses in every shade of the rainbow (I have two pairs of flip flops and a black catchall tote), a fabulously expansive make-up collection (mascara and lip gloss for me, thank you), and enough trendy outfits to clothe the cast of Clueless (I’m most comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt).

But whatever our outward differences, Elizabeth and I love many of the same things; good food and each other’s company rank pretty high on the list.

So, sister, next time you come to visit, I’ll make this chicken salad for you, grapes and all. And you better not turn your nose up!

For a pretty, girly way to serve this salad, I halved an avocado, laid it on a bed of spinach, and dressed the whole plate with a spritz of lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, and a healthy sprinkle of salt. Then, I scooped the chicken salad into the avocado cavities. All in all, I loved the velvety texture and nutty flavor the avocado added; plus, serving it this way eliminates the need for bread, which makes this recipe healthy for low-carb folks.

For me, good chicken salad is in the details: I always use homemade mayonnaise, as I am terrified of the jarred stuff, but I also think the taste makes a big difference. Toasted pecans add crunch and a depth of flavor, and I love to play pungent red onion against something sweet, like grapes (only I used cherries this time because I had them on hand). Chicken salad comes in many variations and is infinitely flexible, so add what you like and leave out what you don’t. Here’s how I make this one:

Girly Chicken Salad 

2 cups cooked chicken, cut into small pieces (I use leftover roast chicken, both white and dark meat)
Two handfuls of grapes or cherries, pitted and halved
1/4 cup red onion, minced finely
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1/3-3/4 cup homemade mayonnaise, depending on how dressed you like your salad
1/2 t. Kosher salt
Baby spinach
2 avocados, pitted, peeled, and halved
Olive oil
1 lemon

To toast the pecans, either dry-roast them in a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat, shaking the pan to prevent them from burning. Or, spread them on a baking sheet, and toast them in a 350-degree oven for 5-7 minutes. Mix the chicken pieces, red onion, pecans, and grapes or cherries, tossing gently. Add the mayonnaise, starting with a little, and then adding until the salad is dressed enough for your taste (this is such a matter of individual preference).

To serve, cover 2 plates with the spinach leaves. Top with the avocado halves. Sprinkle the whole plate with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. Scoop in the chicken salad. Serves 2 (you’ll have 2-4 servings of chicken salad leftover.)

Sometimes I get an uncontrollable urge to fry something. I say uncontrollable because if a girl were to be logical, she might envision herself standing in front of a boiling pot of oil in hundred-degree heat and be able to talk herself into something less, well, hot. Perhaps it’s my southern blood forcing its will right through any sensible notion of health, or comfort. Or perhaps I’ve just eaten one too many salads. Either way, when the urge strikes, nothing will do but to whip up a batch of fried something or the other, and zucchini is what I had in my fridge.

And, because Barbara is collecting recipes that feature local ingredients for this month’s Spice Is Right, I used locally ground spices — cayenne and paprika — in the batter. Both the cayenne and paprika are made from red peppers — one spicy, the other sweet — grown and ground by Papa Tom Bonnecaze Farms, who I see every Saturday morning at the market (they also make the best pepper jelly in town). The zucchini is straight from another Louisiana farmer just down the road, the buttermilk came from a local dairy, so besides the flour, seasoned salt, and oil, this dish is completely south Louisiana. And, of course, as far as techniques go, you can’t get more locally southern than frying.

These crunchy little spears are a cross between fried dill pickles–popular at state fairs around these parts–and some eggplant fries I had once at a restaurant. The zucchini held up nicely–it turns very soft, but doesn’t fall apart–and I love the mild flavor of the vegetable dressed up by the spices in the batter. Comeback sauce would, I’m sure, make a delightful dipping sauce for fried zucchini, but it’s not necessary in my opinion.

After a half-hour of frying up this zucchini, a heck of a mess in my kitchen, what with dribbles of buttermilk, splatters of grease, and bits of uncooked batter strewn from counter top to stove, one bite into the well-seasoned crunchy batter satisfied my craving and assuaged any sense of craziness I’d felt as droplets of sweat dribbled down my forehead during the frying process.

I’m already thinking of other things to fry in these precious weeks before school officially starts, so don’t be surprised if I show up here again with a batter-laden concoction to present to you.

Until, then, here’s the menu for the week and the fried zucchini recipe:

Links:

• David’s Roast Chicken
• Chipotle-Glazed Ribs
• Lemony Spinach

Locally Spiced Fried Zucchini

2 medium zucchini, cut into long, thin, spears
Buttermilk (about 2 cups, maybe less)
2 cups flour
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
2 t. ground paprika
2 t. seasoned salt
Vegetable or canola oil, about an inch deep

Heat about an inch of oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat.

While the oil is heating up, prepare the zucchini. Place the spears in a large zip-top plastic bag, and add enough buttermilk to immerse the spears. In another zip-top bag, mix together the spices and the flour. When the oil is hot — a drop of water should sizzle and pop when dropped into the pot — transfer some of the zucchini to the flour bag and shake to coat well. Add one spear at a time to the hot oil, being careful not to overcrowd the pan, and fry until golden brown, turning once to ensure even frying. Mine took about 4 minutes per batch. Remove with a slotted spoon, and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle each batch with additional seasoned salt.

Repeat the process until all of the zucchini has been coated and fried. Serve immediately. This recipe makes enough for 4 people as a side, or two hungry people as a combination appetizer/side dish/late-night snack over Scrabble. What can I say? Fried things don’t keep well, and it would be a shame to let such goodness go to waste.

Every cook has her own version of this Italian bread and tomato salad, I’m sure, but I’ve made this one so many times this summer, I had to share. I’m not a big fan of soggy bread, so I like to get my bread cubes nice and toasty, almost like croutons, and with the help of olive oil and some fresh garlic, the bread also packs quite a punch of flavor. Add some vegetables and a quick dressing, and you’ve got yourself a light summer supper.

One trick I’ve used in carting this salad to picnics or other events is to mix the dressing in the bottom of the bowl before you add everything else. That way, you can toss the salad whenever you get ready, and not worry about everything turning to mush.

Panzanella

1 small loaf French bread, or half of a long one, cubed
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 t. + 1/2 t. Kosher or sea salt
1 yellow bell pepper, julienned
1 cucumber, seeded and sliced into half moons
1 large tomato, seeded and cubed
1 avocado, diced
Juice of half a lemon
Coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 cup champagne vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T. dijon mustard

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Coat the bread cubes with olive oil, and spread in a single layer on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with 3 cloves of the minced garlic and the Kosher salt. Toast for about 15 minutes, stirring once during toasting, about half-way through.

In the bottom of a large salad bowl, whisk together the vinegar, mustard, and the remaining clove of garlic. Slowly whisk in the olive oil, stirring constantly to emulsify. Add the tomato, bell pepper, and cucumber pieces to the bowl. Sprinkle the avocado slices with lemon juice, and add them too. Salt the vegetables with the remaining half teaspoon of salt, and with coarse black pepper, if you like. If serving immediately, you can go ahead and toss the veggies with the dressing. If you plan to wait, then don’t toss it just yet.

Add the toasted bread crumbs last, tossing to coat with the dressing just before serving.

This recipe makes enough to serve 4 for a light supper, or 6-8 as a side. Either way, just eat it all; the salad will definitely be mushy by the next day.

I hope that the gracious host of Paper Chef and this month’s illustrious judge will forgive this tardy entry!

I knew I’d be out of town the weekend the ingredients were announced, so I’d resigned myself to sitting out of this month’s competition. But when I checked Tomatilla! this morning just to see what the ingredients were, I knew I had to participate. For one thing, two of the ingredients–cherries and peaches–are among my most beloved fruits. For another, the third ingredient–an herb that you’ve recently discovered–has been sitting outside on my deck, waiting patiently for me to make up my mind about what to do with it: my new lemon verbena plant! And, lastly, I had an immediate idea for a dessert that combined the sweetness of summer fruits, the fresh herbal citrus of the verbena, and the last and final ingredient–something spicy.

So, because I’m hurrying to get this post in in time, I will not delay in presenting my Stone Fruit Tart with Lemon Verbena Cream and Chipotle-Balsamic Glaze. The crust is a buttery shortbread, accented with lemon zest to complement the lemon verbena in the cream layer, which consists of the delicate herb and sweetened mascarpone cheese. I topped the tart with fresh peaches and cherries–at this time of year, it almost breaks my heart to alter their fresh, summery flavor at all, so I wanted to keep them raw–and a spicy reduction of balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, with the added kick of smoky chipotle peppers.

I love the way the glaze plays with the fruit: a spicy hint here, a tangy, vinegary note there, all coated by the ethereal, citrus-tinged mascarpone and crisp, buttery crust. And, all in all, it came together in less than an hour! The only thing I might do differently next time is to increase the amount of lemon verbena. I used all that my new little plant could stand, but I think the tart could benefit from even more of its sweet, clean flavor.

Stone Fruit Tart with Lemon Verbena Cream and Chipotle-Basalmic Glaze

For the crust:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 t. salt
1 stick cold butter, cubed
1 egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, process the flour, sugar, zest, and salt for several seconds. With the motor running, add the butter, a cube at a time, until coarse crumbs form. Add the egg yolk, and process until the dough comes together in a ball. Pat the dough into a prepared tart pan, and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, and brush with an egg wash (1 egg + a little water) to seal. Return to the oven and bake for another minute. While the crust is baking, prepare the lemon verbena cream and the chipotle basalmic glaze.

For the cream:
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
2 T. lemon verbena leaves (or more)
Whip the mascarpone and the powdered sugar in an electric mixer or by hand until well combined. Wash the lemon verbena leaves and dry thoroughly. Mince as finely as you can, and stir them into the cream. Set aside.

For the glaze:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup basalmic vinegar
1 t. chipotle and adobo, mashed

In a small saucepan, melt the sugar, vinegar, and pepper paste together over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly. Set aside to thicken.

To assemble:
2 peaches, peeled and sliced
6-8 cherries, stoned and halved

Spread the crust with the lemon verbena mascarpone. Arrange the fruit on top and drizzle with the glaze. Serve with extra fruit. Yum!

Links:

• Figs and Sausages
• Curried Noodles with Beef
• Avocado and Sun-dried Tomato Fettucine

We’ve just returned from out of town; this menu is from a few weeks ago. I’ll be back up to regular posting tomorrow; until then, I have unpacking and cleaning out the fridge to look forward to!