Food Pornography

Some would call it a "beauty shot" - I call it food pornography. ;) Either way, here is my first pic taken with my new camera phone. I was baking chocolate chip cookies last night for my cubemate who is leaving and thought I'd try it on for size.

Like buttah.



Just to make this an informative entry, I'll tell you about my cookies. I get no end of compliments on my choco chip cookies. They are nothing special - come right off the Toll House morsels bag. But I do make sure I do a few things that to me make the difference between a good cookie and a so-so cookie.

1. Your butter should definitely be at room temperature.
2. Cream your butter by itself for a few minutes until it gets fluffy and light (in color).
3. Cream your butter and sugar together until the mixture is fluffy and light in color.
4. Try not to overmix when you add the eggs, or especially the flour mixture. I use a stand mixer so I just barely twirl it around before I'm taking it out and doing the rest by hand. Be sure and add the flour a little at a time too. You have to be pretty patient, sometimes adding it a few tablespoons at a time.
5. Extra nuts. I only use pecans, being in TX. To me you can never have too many nuts. And I keep mine in pretty large pieces.
6. Use an ice cream scoop for similarly-sized cookies. Even sizing = even cooking.
7. Use a Silpat or parchment paper on your cookie sheet to keep from browning too much.



The entire 5 dozen disappeared by about 2pm today at work.

Butterflies

After watching one of Martha's "cooking school" segments last week on butterflying, I decided to take that huge hunk of pork tenderloin we had in the fridge and butterfly it. I didn't know really WHAT to use inside, but I love onions and we had them, so I settled on that. Probably not the best thing to do, use raw onions. Caramelized would have been better. And some fresh herbs. More seasoning. But you can see the results below. Not bad for my first try at butterflied pork.

I used a really sharp butcher's knif to split it open twice, like a book. Then I seasoned the inside and spread the onions. I rolled it all up jelly-roll style and secured it with some cooking twine. I even got all fancy!



I used the Taylor probe thermometer and cooked it at 350 degrees until the internal registered 160 degrees. Ta-da! You can see the 3 "layers" of the pork. It kinda looks like Pac-Man with onions stuffed in his mouth...



It was pretty darn tasty, and big as that piece of meat was, we'll be eating leftovers for a while. Go Costco and big hunks of meat!

I am the captain of my suburban food domain.

Pudding Cake

I made pudding cake last night, as the light ending to our typical mid-week dinner. By Wednesday or Thursday my imagination has been exhausted, we're strapped for time, and no sign of weekend leftovers. I usually turn to one of our favorite low-fat turkey or chicken sausages that we get in mega-packs from Costco. So last night was no different, with sausage, salad, and roasted brussel sprouts. What WAS odd was that my cat decided he suddenly LOVED brussel sprouts, and perched himself next to me on the couch and stole one from my plate, fast as lightning. Didn't want any of my sausage but gimme that brussel sprout!

So anyway, I found a recipe for these orange pudding cakes, and they take so little effort and the only fat in them is from the one egg per two servings. They were alright - I'm pretty sure I had the oven up too high as I didn't let it rest from the roasted sprouts and so they came out overcooked on top. A lower heat would have allowed them to cook slower and the middle be more pudding-y. Regardless, they were unbelievably easy and fast to whip-up while the rest of dinner was cooking. And I had a bunch of clementines I'm still working through, so they provided the zest and fresh juice.

I stole the recipe from here, but I'll reproduce it as well. This cake, being fruit-based, is more fragile and like a souffle than the typical chocolate pudding cakes. The sorry bit of whipped cream I stuck on top wasn't enough - next time might call for a creme anglaise!

I halved it for the 2 of us. I cooked it in 2 souffle cups, but you could do it in a pan like the recipe says as well. I stuck a pan of water in there with the cups to keep it moist.

Orange Pudding Cake
(adapted from All American Desserts)

2 eggs, separated
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 tsp orange zest
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F.

Place a 9-inch cake pan, filled with about 3/4 inch of water, into the oven. Grease a 1 quart (4 cup) souffle dish and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, flour and salt. Add in egg yolks, orange juice, orange zest, milk and vanilla, and whisk thoroughly.

In a medium bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Stir or fold egg whites gently into orange mixture, until well combined. Pour mixture into prepared souffle dish and gently place in water bath.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, until the cake has risen and begun to pull away from the sides of the dish. Serve warm. Serves 4.

Paris Finds

I thought I would share some of the things that made it back with me from my recent trip to Paris. I had a whole bag just for foodstuffs. Some are gifts, some are for me to hoard until the next time I take the transatlantic trip...

Pasta from the Cipriani restaurant.
They have it here in Williams-Sonoma, but it was half the price at the awesome cafe/restaurant downstairs at Galleries Lafayette. Gift for a friend...



Moutarde, for making interesting vinaigrettes. These are herb- and cassis-flavored.


My sisters and I HAD to have some Chocolat Noir Special K after we read about it here.


The requisite stash of CHOCOLATE. I plan on making this last until I see another trip on the horizon.


Les Schtroumpfs!!!
In case you always wondered what The Smurfs were like in French.

Chocolate Class

You may have noticed a name over there - a link - named David Lebovitz. He has an awesome Paris-based blog about all things food. He's also a chef and cookbook author, namely, of a book entitled The Great Book of Chocolate. I am so fortunate to have found out he's teaching chocolate classes at Central Market. The description sounds absolutely scrumptious. I'll be there, notebook in hand, apron on, and appetite whetted...

Cold Weather Goodies

Today suddenly turned very cold. Very strange considering that in the last month we've had several days of above 80-degree temperatures. But not today - today, the first full day of spring, it turned cold and blustery. It very much reminds me of Paris when we were there 2 weeks ago. Well, except for the fact that the sun is shining, which is not like Paris was at all.

One of the things that I love to do when the weather is cold is fix myself a cup of tea or coffee and have a biscotti or two. I've been doing that lately, both in the morning, and as my dessert at night. I brought some really strong English tea back from Paris with me that I just love. A biscotti dunked in that after dinner - nothing better. What I don't like is paying a bunch of money for my biscotti, so every time I shelled it out at Starbucks or Central Market I thought about whether I could make my own.

I decided to try the recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook that I got for Christmas from the in-laws after I saw her make the recipe on tv. Her recipe calls for dried cranberries and pistachios - the combination with the light color of the biscotti is supposed to remind you of the Italian flag. Popular Christmas cookie... Anyway, the first time I made them I went all over creation trying to find roasted, unsalted, unshelled pistachios. I think I finally got them in the bulk aisle at Central Market. I made them I think twice with the pistachios but because I always have an abundance of pecans in the house I've switched and probably won't go back unless it's a Christmas gift cookie this year. Each time I've made them I've played with the width and height of the cookie, to see if I like a short fat or long skinny biscotti better. I think I'm going to stick with the one that equals less calories per cookie ;)

Here's the recipe, adapted from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook:

Cranberry Pecan Biscotti
Yields 4 dozen
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup boiling water
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs and 1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup pecans, chopped coarsely

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
Place cranberries in a small bowl; add boiling water. Let stand until plump, about 15 minutes.
Drain, and set aside. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar
on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating to
incorporate after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla.
Add flour mixture, and mix on low speed until combined. Mix in cranberries and pecans.
Don't mix too much as you'll break the pecans into smaller pieces.

3. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Shape each piece into a
log and transfer to prepared baking sheet, about 3 inches apart. With the palm
of your hand, flatten logs slightly. Brush beaten egg over surface of the dough logs, and
sprinkle generously with sugar. If you flatten more, you'll get a longer, thinner biscotti, with more crunchy surface area. Keep it domed and you'll get a thicker biscotti, with perhaps a little softer center. Give yourself plenty of sugar on top, for that nice cruncy exterior.

4. Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until logs are slightly firm to touch, about 25
minutes. Transfer logs on parchment paper to a wire rack to cool slightly, about 20 minutes.
Reduce oven temperature to 300°. At this point, you could forego the second baking and they would be "unscotti" - "once baked" - they are tasty as well, just different, and not as fit for dunking.

5. Place logs on a cutting board. Using a serrated knife, cut logs crosswise on the diagonal
into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Place a wire rack on a large rimmed baking sheet. Arrange slices,
cut sides down, on rack. Bake until firm to touch, about 30 minutes, turning once in the baking if you like, to give both sides an even crunch.. Remove pan from oven; let biscotti cool completely on rack. Biscotti can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. Personally, I would keep them much longer - what are they gonna do, get more crunchy? Heaven forbid!

I am the captain of my suburban food domain.

Thin Minties

Here's a pic of the homemade thin mints. I made them a little larger than the ones the Scouts make. They turned out pretty well I think. I would say they were better out of the freezer - but in this case I think the cold dulls the subtle mint flavor. No, I liked them today - the day after making them. And so did my coworkers. :)

I decided to make my own cookies because they are pretty tasty cookies and my husband loves them. Plus I just can't in good conscience advocate buying a $4 box of cookies, which are in essence pretty unhealthy. Plus something like only 17% of the profits go to the Girl Scouts (compared to the 30% that Boy Scouts garner from their popcorn but we won't go there right now)

Grand Food Ideas

If you spend an entire rainy weekend watching Food TV, as I did, you begin to get ideas. GRAND ideas. Ideas that you will make elaborate meals for your family, host terrific parties for friends at your fabulous abode, even run off, go to culinary school, and enter a contest where you're embarassed grandly on national tv for your poor creativity in making something edible for pfoofy full of themselves grade-C personalities.

As I told my husband "I'd so go to culinary school but you know - that whole, taking every minute of my time and earning no money and not allowing a social life thing really gets in the way."

So instead I made some homemade thin mints, popcorn in the cast iron skillet (mmm-mmm), steak au poivre, chicken saltimbocca, and other assorted suburban food goodies.

I am the captain of my suburban food domain.

Is this thing on?

Yeah so....testing...first blog entry....