New Direction

So many thoughts on the past 8 or so years of documenting my life. I'd like this space to be a forum for myself and others on a similar path. My interests are many; healthy eating and fitness sure, but also whole body wellness, reducing stress in my life, appreciating the simple things, finding the "sweet spot" between work and home, family and friends, responsibility and freedom, joy and pleasure. So this space will probably feature mostly my experiences in the kitchen, in the grocery store and pounding the pavement in my tennis shoes. I also will share my travels and talk about financial freedom. Maybe I'll even get inspired and start pursuing more creative outlets besides cooking and writing! Since it's been a while, I'll practice my chops here before I do a whole new design and launch. But all in good time...

I'm getting really excited for my upcoming trip to Italy! I will be gone for two weeks, spending some time in Rome, Positano, Naples and topping it off with cooking school in Sicily. I get to travel with my beautiful mother, with whom I've never had the to opportunity to travel solo before. Our plan is pretty loose; in Rome, I think we'll do a lot of walking, cafe sitting, gelato eating and pizza consuming. I've been to Rome before and I wasn't really into the tourist sites. Renaissance art is not my thing and I've seen enough churches to last a lifetime. I've done a lot of traveling in my time and I've found that I like to do some research ahead of time, but mostly I just like to wander and people watch while eating and drinking like a champ. In Positano, I would like to do lots of staring at the sea, I mean, look at this place!




I can't wait! Have a great weekend.

Fesenjan

I came across this dish in a recent NYT article about holiday dishes from around the world. I had never heard of this Iranian stew of chicken, walnuts and pomegranate molasses but was intrigued. Although it is somewhat presumptuous to make changes to a recipe I have no parameters for, I did. And it was outstanding!

First, I did not have boneless, skinless chicken. I had some chicken drumsticks and needed to make chicken stock anyway. So I de-skinned the legs (saved the skins to make schmalz!) and browned them in some olive oil for my base. Then I removed them and caramelized my onions for about 20 minutes. Added the chicken back to the pot and added water to cover. Let that simmer for an hour. While that's simmering, toast nuts in a pan or the oven about 15 minutes. Let them cool, then puree in the food processor. After you've simmered for an hour, add the nuts to the pot, along with the molasses and spices. Cook on low for another 30-45 minutes. Be really careful here. Recipes I looked at told me to stir every 20 minutes because the nuts could burn. Of course mine burned, I'd stir a lot more frequently. But even so, it was still so good. Taste it to make sure you've got enough salt and pepper. Garnish with pomegranate seeds and cilantro.

2 T. or so of olive oil
6-7 de-skinned, bone-in chicken drumsticks, seasoned with S&P
1 onion
about 2 or 2.5 cups of water
2 cups pecans or walnuts
1/4 cup pomegranate molasses
1 T. spice blend (mine included turmeric, cardamom and cayenne)
salt and pepper
pomegranate seeds
cilantro

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Well, even if I don't post here very often, I am thankful for this space. I often think I'll remember how I made something and of course, I never do. So to be able to search the archives here really helps me clear the cobwebs in my cranial attic.

I didn't cook or travel for Thanksgiving this year, which never happens. At first, I was kind of sad about that but then I realized how great it is to enjoy the various spreads at other peoples' homes and not have to clean my house or do dishes afterwards. It also opened up my whole morning since we didn't have our first dinner until 3. Ben just bought a canoe so we took it out for a spin on the bayou, with some champagne, naturally.

Before I tell you about the recipes I test drove, a couple of musings:

-I didn't mean to put cayenne pepper in my pancake batter this morning but it actually wasn't too bad.

-I have had my food processor since receiving it as a birthday present in 2008, so almost 7 years. I JUST used the blade to shred potatoes and parsnips. It's like magic! How did I just figure this feature out? Also, shredded potatoes turn black overnight. Now I know.

To bring to our friendsgiving celebrations, I made potato-parsnip latkes with horseradish-dill sour cream. It was a Smitten Kitchen recipe so it goes without saying that it all worked well (even with black potatoes) just as written. They are also delicious room temperature, in case you wondered. I did, and read every single one of the 100 or so comments on her page to find out what others had to say about that.

I also made two desserts, a salted caramel-chocolate ganache tart and an Atlantic Beach pie, kind of a love child between key lime and lemon meringue. Both were very good but require notes.

Salted caramel-chocolate ganache tart


Damn, now I can't find the recipe. Well, it's easy. Basically, crush 36 Oreos with a stick of melted butter to make your crust. Press it into a tart pan and freeze for ten minutes. Then melt one stick of butter with 2/3 cup brown sugar in a sauce pan until it bubbles. Stir constantly for one minute. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup heavy cream. Allow this cool for a few minutes, then pour it over your crust. Put it back in the freezer for 30 minutes. Finally, melt 12 ounces of dark chocolate with 1 cup of heavy cream and stir until completely mixed. Pour it over the caramel and out in the the fridge until time to serve.

My thoughts:
-The recipe called for sea salt sprinkled on top. I put it in the caramel but didn't taste it too much.
-The recipe also pushed cookie crumbs along the bottom and up the sides. I just did the bottom but realized that was a mistake as it was hard to remove from the tart shell. And then the softened caramel oozed out of the sides.
-The final product was insanely delicious but it gave me a terrible headache because it was so very rich. Proceed with caution.

Atlantic beach pie


This recipe was really easy and really good. I think I liked it better than the chocolate bomb, but maybe only because it didn't put me in pain. One important note, and I'm shocked I didn't see anything about it in the comments. The recipe calls for 1.5 sleeves of Saltines or 6 ounces. I put in two sleeves and that was only 4 ounces! Plus, it made way too much by about two times and there wasn't enough butter to bind. My advice would be to just use one sleeve of crackers (ignore the weight) and the same amount of butter and sugar. I also ignored the note to not sweeten the whipped cream because it's Thanksgiving ya'll! I didn't use a lot of sugar but still....

Finally, I am making a cake as we speak for my friend Paige's birthday. She really loves Ooey Gooey cake and I searched about 4,000 recipes before I found one that didn't start with one box of yellow cake mix. I tried it once last year (of course I didn't make note of the recipe I used) and it didn't really turn out. So hopefully this one will be good and if not, at least I've documented that here.

King Cake Diaries

Well, 'tis the season for king cakes and on the 8th day of Carnival season, I have already sampled almost as many king cakes. OK, well actually only 5 but I've certainly had at least 8 slices.

January 6th: First day of the season. I went to a party on the 4th where a king cake was present but I DID NOT EAT IT because it's blasphemy to eat king cake before Three Kings Day. Anyway, the 6th found me in Metry so I picked up a cream cheese-filled cake from Manny Randazzo's. (They had already run out of the pecan one I wanted). Their medium was pretty large but $17 for plain and $23 for cream cheese had me scratching my head a little. $6 add on for cream cheese? It was pretty skimpy on the filling too. Anyway, I liked the soft, tender cake, good icing, meager filling. It was good but I'd never pay that much for a king cake again that, to me, was just middle of the line.

January 11th: Saints vs the Seahawks. We went to a friend's house to watch the game, eat oysters and drink champagne. Minus the football part, that's pretty much my perfect day. King cakes from Sucre and Haydel's were featured. Now my dear friend works at Sucre and last year she told us they changed their recipe (I was glad, I previously thought it too dry). It was pretty much perfection in my book. On Saturday she reported that the recipe underwent another tinkering, I think last year's was better. Why mess with a good thing??? But she brought two and one didn't even get cut into so I did not protest when she told me to take it home. It really benefited from a 10 second warming in the microwave. The one from Haydel's was not filled, usually kind of boring to me, but it was so tender and perfectly (not too) sweet.

January 12th: Dropped in at a friend's house during a beautiful Sunday afternoon bike ride (to counteract all the king cake!). I spied a king cake from newcomer Gracious bakery. They only make one kind with a chocolate-cinnamon filling. The chocolate was dense and delicious but I tasted nary a bit of cinnamon. The cake was dry and dull as day old bread. No matter how good the filling is, I detest this bread-esque cake.

January 13th: Coworkers eating king cake at 7:30 this morning. We have 50 days left of king cake season I worry for all of our waistlines. Anyway, for the sake of journalistic integrity, I ate a piece. This one was a La Louisiane, apparently they don't have a retail bakery anymore but you can pick them up at a few places around town, including Sam's of all places. This is another traditional, unfilled king cake and it was pretty good, considering I prefer a ribbon of cream cheese or a smattering of candied pecans to liven things up.

Verdict: So far, Haydel's was my favorite, with Sucre running second. Hmm, or maybe Randazzo's. Gracious was definitely dead last. La Louisiane was good but when you've got the $8 Rouse's king cake to compare to, everything else just seems grossly overpriced.

Liberty's Kitchen and Cowboy Caviar

If you don't know about Liberty's Kitchen, you should. It's an unassuming little cafe near Tulane and Broad with a great mission and delicious food. They're only open for breakfast and lunch, which means I don't get there very often but I consider it a real treat when I do.
I've never had anything there that wasn't good; black bean burger, hot sausage po-boy, the salad with green onion-tarragon vinaigrette, the SCONES and their specialty, shrimp and grits, is to die for. They are also very reasonably priced and their sandwiches come with cowboy caviar, chips or coleslaw. You will want the cowboy caviar! But I'll get to that in a minute. I want to reiterate that their prices are lower than a lot of just ok sandwich shops AND include a side (I'm looking at you, ManhattanJack!) I've also dealt with them on numerous occasions for catering and find that they are not only delicious and a good value, they are among the few outfits in this city that can properly estimate how much food will be needed for different sized groups. I'm shocked at how many catering places don't seem to understand that.

Anyway, all that aside, their cowboy caviar is an incredible black-eyed pea salad that I've tried to re-create. I'm sure it's not as good as theirs but it's pretty tasty. The husband went back for seconds and THIRDS! I eat it as a salad/side dish, husband eats it more like a dip, with corn chips. This is just an outline, you can certainly vary the amounts.

Cowboy Caviar

1 lb. black-eyed peas
2 ears of corn, husks removed, charred on the stovetop and cut from the cob.
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 red onion, diced
2-3 ribs of celery, diced

1 bunch cilantro
1 bunch green onions, greens and whites
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
a little squirt of Dijon mustard
a little squirt of Steen's cane syrup
a few dashes (or several) of hot sauce

Combine all the legumes in a bowl. For the dressing, whiz this up in a blender, then pour over the legumes. I didn't have any tomato or avocado but I think both would make nice additions here. You want to let this sit for at least a few hours so the flavors can meld together and it's just keeps getting better!

Ratatouille Baked Ziti

Again inspired by our time in Provence. I wanted to make ratatouille but also wanted baked ziti. So I combined the two and topped it with béchamel and mozzarella.

Since I made this meatless and I knew my husband would want meat, I made meatballs on the side. I've posted one version of my meatballs before but it's basically for every pound of meat, use 1 egg, a large handful of breadcrumbs, a few cloves of garlic, 1 small onion, about 1/4 c. grated romano and seasonings. Sometimes I do all beef, sometimes 1:1 beef and pork. I add red pepper flakes, basil or whatever else I've got. A glug of red or white wine, it's always different but the structure remains the same. This time, I ground up about a teaspoon of fennel seeds and I loved this addition.

I would have liked more sauce but I'm writing the recipe as I made it. So perhaps next time I would reduce the amount of pasta used (1 lb.) or increase the ratatouille recipe. Or maybe just add another can of whole tomatoes. I think this recipe is fairly forgiving.


Ratatouille:
1 medium eggplant
1 bulb fennel
1 large onion
2 medium zucchini
1 red bell pepper
1 head garlic
1 28 oz can whole tomatoes
salt and pepper
basil
chives
marjoram

Cut all vegetables (not including tomatoes) in large chunks, coat with olive oil and roast. Also, the garlic doesn't need to be cut, just roast the whole head. Temperature can vary but I did it for about 25 minutes at 375 degrees. Once roasted, add to a pot with the canned tomatoes, bring to a soft boil, then reduce heat and simmer. Add herbs and seasoning. Cook until it tastes good to you. I think this step took me about 20 minutes.

Bechamel (from Mario Batali, Food Network):
5 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups milk
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

In a medium saucepan, heat the butter over medium-low heat until melted. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Over medium heat, cook until the mixture turns a light, golden sandy color, about 6 to 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a separate pan until just about to boil. Add the hot milk to the butter mixture 1 cup at a time, whisking continuously until very smooth. Bring to a boil. Cook 10 minutes, stirring constantly, then remove from heat. Season with salt and nutmeg, and set aside until ready to use.

Assembly:
Toss the ratatouille with 1 pound of boiled ziti or penne or any other shape you like. Pour the béchamel over the top. Sprinkle about 1 cup of grated cheese over the whole thing and bake for 30 minutes at 375. If the top isn't browned, put it in the broiler for a few minutes.

Flops

So sad when you make something that just doesn't turn out the way you want it to:( So we just got back from a delightful trip to France and of course I tried to recreate a bit of the magic here at home by having people over for dinner and crepes last night. Not having made crepes since I was but a teen, I consulted Alton Brown and smitten kitchen.com. I was surprised at the differences between them, not major really but I expected to see a the same standard proportions. See? They both call for two eggs but with significantly different amounts of flour. I went with Alton because I figured SK's more egg to flour ratio might be more omelette-y than crepe-y. Plus, I added 2 T. of sugar and a splash of vanilla. I have to say that they really didn't taste of sugar or vanilla, nor did I like the texture. It was thick, or maybe dense? And kind of chewy? Anyway, I guess I'll just have to keep practicing, which I'm fine with.


Alton Brown:

2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter

SK

2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup milk
2 large eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Two pinches of salt
Few gratings fresh nutmeg
2 tablespoons honey

I was also yearning for some hearty bread, seeded and rich with different textures. I found a recipe from the Harvard School of Public Health and I can't really fault them because I deviated from the recipe. But they say "There is no right and wrong when making this bread!" And I believed them. Anyway, here's what I did. First, I cut it because I just didn't need three loaves. Plus, I subbed some flours for others that I did not have. Finally, I made a sponge with the flour before adding the seeds and whatnot, unlike the recipe, which says to add flours last and no sponge. The sponge was going a-ok, growing rapidly and smelling deliciously yeasty. Then I added the seeds and it all went to shit. When I started kneading, I can't even explain it. I've never felt dough like that before. There was absolutely no stretch or pull to it, if that makes any sense. I did what I could on the kneading front and then let it rise into a pathetic little ball. I let it go for an hour, during which time it rose almost imperceptibly. Let it go a while longer and then put it in the refrigerator overnight. I didn't even have the heart to turn on the oven for that sad mess. There's only so much kitchen disappointment I can take in one day. I finally baked it, the cruel, hard-hearted knot that it was, but haven't yet tasted it. I'm hoping that, once toasted and gilded with butter, it will be somewhat edible but we'll see. What did I do wrong???


1 1/4 cups of warm water (110–115°F)
1 packets of dry active yeast (1/4 ounce each)
3/4 cup whole grain rye flour
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
2 grams of salt
Canola oil or canola oil spray, as needed
Seeds and Grains

1/3 cup of ground flax seeds (grind them in a coffee grinder, or buy milled flax seeds)
1/3 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1/4 cup whole rolled oats
1/4 cup wheat bran