Weekly Dish

I know I shouldn’t complain about the cold. I live in southern Louisiana for crying out loud. But I tell you, when we bought our house (in July when it was 100 degrees), we didn’t really think to check the insulation or ask about the efficiency of the heating system. Boy do I wish we had. The conventional foundation means we’re up off the ground (cold), and the 1920s windows and doors are not quite as tightly sealed as they were, say, 80 years ago (drafty and cold). Plus, it’s humid, which makes the cold colder.

And I, friends, am not a cold weather kind of girl.

The cold affects my culinary senses one of two ways: either I crave standing in front of the hot stove making something hearty and satisfying or I simply want to stay in bed, food or not (it’s really the only warm place in our house besides in front of the stove).

Fortunately for David, I’m coming out of the stay-in-bed-with-my-books-and-computer slump and working towards spending as much time in front of the stove as possible.

This soup is an old standby, and it hits the hot spot on both counts: spice and temperature. The soup is rich and garlicky, thick with the tomato puree and chunky because of the chopped ones. After a big bowl of this (and the time I spend cooking it) I sometimes can even take my coat off and not be freezing.

But only sometimes.

Spicy Tomato Soup

4 slices bacon
1 yellow onion, chopped
6-8 cloves garlic, chopped
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 16-ounce can chopped tomatoes
1-2 t. Kosher salt
2 cups chicken stock or canned broth
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
Cracked black pepper
Half and half or heavy cream (optional)

Cook the bacon in a large pot until brown and crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Cook the onion in the bacon fat over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, until just tender. Add the garlic, and cook for another 5-8 minutes, until both are very soft and the garlic is beginning to turn golden. Salt and pepper well. (I don’t measure my salt, but with soup, I’ve found that if you season as you go, instead of all at once at the very end, you’ll end up with a nicely enhanced flavor, rather than a salty soup.) Stir in the crushed tomatoes, then add the chopped ones and their liquid. Add the broth, and season again. Bring the soup to a simmer,then reduce the heat and add the cayenne. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed. The soup is ready to serve at this point, but I usually leave mine on the stove on low heat for a while, to let the flavors mingle a little longer. When ready to serve, spoon into bowls and top with a few drops of half and half or cream and a crumble of bacon. Focaccia bread makes an excellent vehicle for dipping, if you’re so inclined. This soup could easily be vegetarian: substitute olive oil or butter for the bacon fat and vegetable broth for the chicken stock.
This recipe is my submission to this week’s ARF Tuesdays over at Sweetnicks.

As regular readers of this site will know, I am not a person who counts carbs. I have been known to count calories if I want to lose weight, but I simply can’t give up bread or pasta. I tried Atkins for about a week when it first became popular, but I was miserable. I thought I would never want to see another scrambled egg or piece of bacon again.

But I have had friends who were careful about their carbohydrate intake. Our friends in Jackson, Laura and Randy, were on the South Beach diet for a while, and we dined with them often. Through learning to cook low-carb for them, I also learned that it’s important to have a variety of meals in my culinary arsenal. This frittata is both low-carb and gluten free, so if ever I have friends coming for dinner who fall into either of those categories, I at least have one option.

And, if they’re coming for Sunday brunch? Even better. This frittata is quintessential brunch food: it’s fast, easy, goes well with both coffee and juice, and the possibilities are endless. Put another way, you could throw in the kitchen sink, and a frittata would take it.

Well, okay, maybe not. But it soaked up my almost-expired goat cheese and quickly ripening green tomatoes with gusto. I used rosemary to add an herbal kick, but basil would provide a better, milder flavor; the rosemary was a little overpowering for my taste. Red tomatoes might work fine too, but the green ones are not as juicy, so there’s less chance that the frittata will be runny. Although tomato season is still a few months away, a farmer at our market grows them in a greenhouse. The flavor is definitely not the same as a tart green tomato at the height of summer; to minimize the difference, I salted the tomatoes and let them sit for a bit before tossing them in to the skillet. The salt also seems to absorb some of the tomatoes moisture, again reducing the possibility for a runny frittata.

Going low-carb? Cooking gluten-free? Just want a light, bright dish for brunch or lunch? Frittatas are the way to go. Here’s how I made this one, but the method is an open palate. If you try the kitchen sink, please, by all means, let me know how it turns out.

Green Tomato, Garlic, and Goat Cheese Frittata

1 large or 2 medium green tomatoes
Olive oil and butter
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 ounces goat cheese, or more to taste
Chopped rosemary (I used too much, but if you like the flavor, use it sparingly.)
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat the broiler. Slice 4 thin slices from the tomato; salt, and set aside. Chop the remaining tomato, and salt it too. Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a broiler-proof skillet with a small pat of butter over medium heat. Add the garlic slices and saute until fragrant, about a minute or two. Add the chopped tomatoes, stirring to coat them with the garlic and oil. Cook until the tomatoes are very soft; salt and pepper. Meanwhile, beat the eggs and milk together; season them with salt and pepper too. Pour evenly over the tomatoes. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and crumble the goat cheese on top of the eggs. Cook the eggs slowly, but without stirring. When the top is just beginning to set, lay the tomato slices on top, and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Place the whole skillet under the broiler to finish. Broil for a minute or two, or until the top is golden brown. Slice into wedges to serve. Serves 4-6.

This recipe is my contribution to Sweetnicks’ weekly event, Antioxidant Rich Tuesdays.

Noodles are clearly a staple around my house. Experimenting with pasta is one of the earliest ways I learned to make dinner both fast and good, and my love of the noodle is one of the reasons I could never join the low-carb craze. I like my noodles saucy or plain, thick or thin, hot or cold–in truth, it would be difficult for me to think of a noodle dish I don’t like. So when Amy announced that noodles were to be the theme of this month’s Is My Blog Burning event, I wondered how I would choose just one pasta dish to contribute.

This fettucine is certainly not the fanciest of pastas, but it is one of my favorites to fix. If you toss it properly, each bite is packed with a bit of tart tomato, creamy avocado, and crispy bacon, accented now and again with the fresh clean taste of cilantro, the crunch of a green onion, or the sweet mildness of a pine nut. With fresh ingredients and minimal prep work, this pasta dish is, in my estimation, the perfect quick, light supper. We have eaten it often at the end of a long school day or on a Sunday evening when I didn’t quite feel like cooking. The recipe is also highly adaptable: any nut would do in the place of the pine nuts (or none at all), and more vegetables would probably also work nicely in the mix (red bell pepper comes to mind).

Avocado and Sun-dried Tomato Fettucine

based on a recipe from Intercourses by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, diced (the dehydrated ones, not packed in oil)
1 pound fettucine
5 slices bacon
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
2 avocados
1/4 cup cilantro, minced
Juice of 1 lime
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil

Soak the sun-dried tomatoes in 2 cups boiling water for about 5 minutes, or until they are soft. Drain; setting aside the tomatoes and reserving the soaking water. Pour the water into a saucepan, return to a boil, and add the fettucine (you may need to add water to make sure the noodles are covered). Cook the pasta until it’s firm to the bite, but not mushy. Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a small skillet. Remove the bacon slices when they’re cooked through and set aside to cool. Drain off the grease from the skillet, and toast the pine nuts until golden brown. Dice the avocados and sprinkle lightly with Kosher salt. Set one aside for topping. In a large bowl, combine half of the tomatoes, the pine nuts, green onions, one of the avocados, and the cilantro. When the pasta is done, toss it immediately with the avocado mixture. Drizzle the whole dish with the vinegar, olive oil, and lime juice. Toss again. Serve topped with the crumbled bacon and the reserved avocado and tomatoes. Serves 4 for dinner.

Tagged with: IMBB # 22 + Noodle

Everyone knows that the danger of a sugar high is the low-energy dip that follows. For Sugar (not so) High Friday this time around, we have been encouraged by the lovely Sam to subvert the sugar high, to knock it on its head. Or, less theoretically, to prepare a healthful dessert, relatively low in sugar and fat content.

No one can live without sweets every once in a while, even the post-holiday dieters among us. So creating something delicious to satisfy a sweet craving without crashing your calorie count is a most worthy — if difficult — challenge. This recipe is one I’ve been toying with for a few months — the original was passed along by my aunt from longtime family friend Angela Rehmann, who teaches cooking classes occasionally. Louisiana strawberries have begun to appear at my farmer’s market in glorious abundance over the past few weeks, and with the help of Angela’s recipe, I have hit on my favorite simple and sugar-free preparation of them, which makes a lovely and delicious dessert.

With so few ingredients, quality becomes key here. Really good basalmic vinegar and honey will reduce to a delectable, tangy syrup, the perfect topping for just-ripe strawberries. A small bit of mascarpone cheese whipped with fresh cream smooths out the vinegar’s kick–when everything is mixed together, the cream coats the syrupy berries in a silky cloud, making each bite melt slowly on the tongue. All in all, this dessert is just the kind to assuage that after-dinner hankering for something not too sweet or heavy, and you don’t have to feel too guilty about eating it. Just the kind of (not so) sugar high I enjoy most.

Strawberries in Basalmic Syrup with Mascarpone Cream

1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup good basalmic vinegar
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 pint strawberries, hulled and sliced
In a small saucepan, bring the honey and basalmic vingar to a slow boil, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and stir until it thickens, about a minute. Remove from heat and cool. Whip the mascarpone cheese and cream until soft peaks form. Divide the strawberries between 4 glasses or bowls. Drizzle the syrup over the berries, and top each glass with a dollop of the cream.

Tagged with: SHF # 15 + Low Sugar

Or maybe it is. What do I know? Well, I’ll tell you. I do know that three types of apples are on Sweetnicks‘ list of the top twenty most antioxidant-rich foods: Gala, Red Delicious, and Granny Smith. And I know that ever since Ina Garten’s recipe convinced me, applesauce is my very favorite thing to make with a bushel o’ apples.

Before Ina, I never even thought about making my own applesauce. I’d never had any that was homemade, and who eats applesauce besides third graders anyway? And, then my Aunt Prissy gave me The Barefoot Contessa, and my applesauce prejudices dissolved right into the casserole dish with the apples. The texture of the sauce is perfectly chunky-smooth, and the spices add just the right complexity and depth to the apple-citrus combo. Plus, with all of those apples and the juice and zest from 4 other pieces of fruit, it has to have some kind of nutritional punch, right?

Yes, okay, so it has a little butter in it. But I substitute cane syrup for most of the sugar, and I bet that honey would also work. Butter and sugar aside, applesauce still contains all of the vitamin-y goodness of the fruit it’s made of. This batch made a lovely side to go with our roast chicken last night, and it will be the perfect, antioxidant-rich snack for at least another week. Besides, doesn’t it look pretty in the little mini-goblet my mom got me for Christmas?

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The theme for this month’s Paper Chef, as decreed by the grand master of cermonies, Owen, is the spirit of renewal that a new year brings: health, peace, simplicity. The ingredients, presented Friday by that ever-hilarious duo over at Belly-Timber, are healthful indeed: cashews, quinoa, yog(h)urt, and something baby, in honor of the infant year. (We’ll get to that mysterious q-word in just a moment).

But, well, see, here’s the thing. I live in southern Louisiana. Here, the New Year (January 6 to be exact) kicks off the beginning of Mardi Gras (or the anticipation of Mardi Gras, often called Carnival). A spirit of. . . celebration, revelry, getting all the fun out of your system before Lent begins marks the atmosphere ’round these parts. Parades and masks and balls and feasts. . .and health and simplicity? Hmmmm.

Alright, so maybe we interpret renewal a bit differently down here. BUT, in light of the ways in which the state suffered in 2005, I certainly think renewal is in order. And what better way to inaugurate such renewal than with a celebration of one of New Orleans’ oldest and most famous traditions? (more…)

Alright, so the first three Paper Chef ingredients this month were not so exciting for me. Carrots are cute and sweet, but in my opinion, the best thing about them is their color (I love orange) and their nutritional benefits. Rice is flexible at least, and offers the possibility for many adaptations. Anchovies, though?? I am no anchovy fan. Tiny fishes packed in oil: with the exception of a Puttanesca sauce I made once, anchovies have not had a place in my pantry. The last ingredient, however, I found intriguing: “Something from the other side of the world that helps make this dish a celebration for you.” Hmmm…the other side of the world…celebration…maybe I can find a way to make this work.

So, here are the things I’m celebrating through my entry: 1. This holiday season. I love this time of year, and I love to throw a good party. This one will be my warm-up. 2. The sheer cultural variety of food traditions in the world, represented visibly by the lovely montage of culinary prowess I find in the international food blogging community. 3. People who contribute to this cultural variety in my personal life. 4. The opportunity to clean out my fridge and pantry. 5. The end of my first semester as a Ph.D. student, without the stress of which I’m sure I would not have enough pent-up creative energy to pull this off!!

How do I plan to celebrate these things, you ask? Why, through a Clean-Out-My-Fridge Holiday Cocktail Party, using the Paper Chef ingredients plus whatever I have on hand, including foods from around the world that remind me of people and cultural traditions I cherish, of course!

Actually, I had both rice and carrots already, so I picked up a tin of anchovies from the market and set about examining the culinary contents of my kitchen. Although it is possible to pinpoint the exact location of “around the world” from you, as my husband cleverly discovered, I chose to think of the term more broadly. The three places from around the world I wanted to make sure I represented are: India, as my lovely office-mate has recently arrived in the U.S. from Calcutta, and brings with her many of the country’s delicious culinary traditions (which she has been kind enough to share!); Italy, where my husband and I first learned to love food and wine together (a long time ago!); and Australia, home of this month’s distinguished Paper Chef judge, who always manages to produce some of the most unusual and creative food I’ve ever seen.

India would be easy: I usually keep basmati rice, Indian curry paste, and spices on hand. In fact, I recently bought some whole cardamom pods that were on sale at my grocer…maybe they could be of use.

Italy shouldn’t be too hard either. I cook Italian food quite a bit, and I found just the thing: half a container of mascarpone cheese left from a sauce I made last week!

Australia: Hmmm. This would be trickier. After searching my pantry high and low and researching traditional Australian ingredients, I was pretty certain I’d have to go back to the store and forsake my self-made rules. Rats.

But wait! On the wine rack there…isn’t that chardonnay made in…yes, Australia! Hooray–Yellow Tail to the rescue!

With the ingredients all in place and my party hat on, here is the menu I created:

Drunken Australian Rice Cakes with Carrot Coulis

Cardamom-Spiced Basmati Rice Pudding with Anchovy Butter

Wontons with Poblano-Mascarpone Filling

Orange Coconut Sticky Rice Brulèe

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One smart cookie came up with a brilliant idea: people who love food enough to write about it should send each other food. Real food. In the mail. Cathy of My Little Kitchen, host of this month’s Blogging By Mail, asked participants to send holiday-themed food and recipes.

My package, lovingly tucked into the box you see above by Heather in Kansas, contained the following fun items:

• monster cookies. These have so many decadent ingredients, how could they not be divine? Peanut butter, chocolate chips, M&M’s…you can find the recipe over at Heather’s blog. I am having to fight my husband for the last of these.

• two very cute dishtowels. Someone must have told Heather about the stained, ragged-edged cloths barely passing for dish towels hanging in my kitchen. The sunflowers (the Kansas state flower) are a particularly bright and welcome replacement!

• two weeks worth of the food section from her local newspaper in Topeka, which sadly (for its readers), is only one page. However, one page contains a recipe for Dog Breath Chili, so I’m not complaining.

• a picture of her spacious kitchen

• two very cute note cards and envelopes that look homemade–Heather, did you make them?

• a little orange candle that smells a lot like the next item…

• my favorite: pumpkin bread! Tucked in beneath the dish towels, I discovered a loaf of dense, spicy bread that is the perfect breakfast with coffee. Or mid-morning snack with tea. Or mid-afternoon snack. Or before-bed snack. I love it with a little pat of butter. Here it is:

Like me, Heather is in graduate school. She writes in her letter that she started blogging to find an outlet for her creativity, also like me. She has only been at it for a couple of months now, so head on over and check out Eating 4 One. Also head over to Cathy’s to check out the round up and see what other fun things people have been swapping in the mail.

Heather, thanks so much for sharing your holidays with me through this very fun package. As I sit here and sip my tea with pumpkin bread and my spicy candle burning, I am thinking very nice thoughts of you. Happy Holidays!

For the combination Sugar High Friday/Is My Blog Burning? Cookie Swap, I bring you a cookie recipe in keeping with the Week of the Sweet Potato. These Spicy Sweet Potato Cookies with Maple-Orange Glaze are very dense and moist on the inside, almost cake-like, and crispy on the outside. They are a combination of my favorite accoutrements for the sweet potato when it makes its appearance in a dessert dish: orange, maple syrup, and a plethora of spices. I made these for a certain package that should be arriving any day now–I hope they held up in the mail!

What I love about the dough is that it is very flexible; you can drop the cookies by spoonfuls to get a simple cookie-shape (the ones immediately above are an example), or you can roll out the dough and cut your own shapes (like the little snowflakes at the top). The glaze is a simple powdered sugar one, but the fresh orange juice makes it really delicious. Please, if you make these cookies, squeeze the juice right from an orange–it makes a big difference.

SPICY SWEET POTATO COOKIES WITH MAPLE-ORANGE GLAZE

For the cookies:

1 c. brown sugar

2 sticks butter

1 T. maple syrup

1 c. sweet potato, mashed

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. nutmeg

1/4 t. allspice

1/2 t. cinnamon

2 1/2 c. flour

1 t. grated orange rind (from one orange)

For the glaze:

1 c. powdered sugar plus more to thicken, if necessary

Juice of 1 orange

1 T. butter, softened

1 T. maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream the butter, sugar, and maple syrup until light and fluffy. Beat in the sweet potato. Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl; add to the potato mixture with the mixer running on low. Mix until just combined. Roll the dough into a ball and either drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet, pressing them flat with the back of your spoon, or refrigerate the dough to roll out later. (It will be sticky, and if you are going to cut shapes from it, you’ll want it to be a little firmer.) Bake each batch of cookies for about 8-10 minutes, or until the outsides are nice and brown and they don’t give too much when you touch them. While they’re baking, mix up the glaze. I just use a fork to combine the ingredients, but if you want a super-smooth glaze, you might like to use your mixer. Beat together the butter and maple syrup. Add the powdered sugar, a little bit at a time, beating continuously, until you have a thick paste. Add the juice from the orange, stirring until the mixture is spreadable or pourable, depending on how you like your glaze. To thicken, just add powdered sugar. If you look at the pictures, I used thicker glaze for the round cookies (more sugar) and a thin, pourable one for the snowflakes. The thick glaze will retain its white color; if it’s thin, it will be translucent. When the cookies are finished baking, remove them from the oven to cool. Let them cool slightly before glazing, or the glaze will melt and run right off. I think these would also be good as sandwich cookies, with an orange cream cheese icing in the middle. I might try that next time. Until then, happy cookie swap!

For this month’s Paper Chef competition, hosted by the dynamic duo over at Belly-Timber, contestants were given an unusual assortment of ingredients. Basil, oranges, and fish sauce were randomly selected from the list of nominees; for the final ingredient, Mrs. D and Chopper Dave chose a cuddly one: lamb.

I admit, I was daunted. My inexperience with cooking up Little Bo Peep’s charges gave me pause about participating in the competition this month. And, my sister was in town, and I have a presentation next week, so it would be a busy weekend…the excuses mounted up.

But, Saturday morning on my weekly trip to the Red Stick Market, I stumbled across Mr. and Mrs. Boggs, in from Sugartown, Louisiana, selling none other than the very creatures in question. I chatted with them about the various cuts and preparation methods for a while, and they convinced me to buy a pound of their best seller: lamb sausage! Mr. Boggs promised that I could use it just as I would any other bulk sausage,–not so daunting after all–and just like that, an entry in Paper Chef was a few ingredients away.

Basil still grows abundantly in my backyard (it’s 85 degrees outside here as I write this), and fish sauce is a pantry staple, so I only had to pick up a few oranges, and I’d be on my way.

So…what to do with lamb sausage, basil, oranges, and fish sauce, you ask? Well, stuff them in an acorn squash, of course! Okay, so maybe that idea didn’t come that easily, but at any rate, that’s what I decided to do.

I’ve been meaning to make a big batch of pesto anyway, and the basil-garlic flavor seemed a perfect accompaniment for the sausage. To thicken the filling and add some creaminess, I added bread crumbs and fontina cheese, which melted up nicely. I wanted to use orange pulp for complexity, but I didn’t want the sweetness to overpower the other flavors. So, I added some zest to the pesto and roasted the oranges, scooping out the pulp after the heat had mellowed the sweet acidic flavor just a bit. Fish sauce presented a bit of a challenge. Using it for the fishy flavor wouldn’t work with the lamb, and too much would overwhelm the filling for sure. So, I decided to use it as a substitute for salt. Instead of salting the squash before baking it, I rubbed the inside with fish sauce and some olive oil.

I served the squash with buttermilk basil biscuits and spicy orange marmalade over arugula with oranges, red onions, goat cheese, and a sweet-hot vinaigrette, made with orange marmalade, red wine vinegar, the juice from the roasted oranges, and a tiny bit of fish sauce. The vinaigrette complemented everything so nicely, I ended up drizzling it over the whole plate!

The lamb sausage filling really worked well with the squash: the eating experience involved mouthfuls of creamy, savory filling and sweet, buttery squash flesh, with hints of the sweet heat from the vinaigrette. The spicy bitterness of the arugula provided a strong backdrop for the oranges and red onions, and the spicy marmalade matched up nicely with the buttery flakiness of the biscuits.

All in all, I was happy I ran into Mr. Boggs; otherwise, this Paper Chef would have passed me by, and I would still be contemplating the ethics of eating those who I count before I go to sleep. As a matter of fact, I might have overcome that hurdle altogether: maybe in the coming weeks, you’ll see recipes for Lambsagna or Lamburguine. Who knows?

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