stealing content?

My last post was a recipe from Joy the Baker, and the first from her that I had ever tried.  Like many food blog readers, I skim and scroll but read hundreds more recipes than I have the opportunity to cook (and I gather from food blog comments that most are like me).  I have never held this blog out as having original content, and even in the few cases where I make recipes that are from my childhood memories, I am sure they can be found on the internet somewhere.  Of all the recipes I end up trying, I only post the ones that end up good, and I think of that as the function of this blog: suggestions, ideas, and a collection of tried and true recipes.

Joy recently tweeted: “i know people swipe my blog content and throw it up on their blogs all the time. i know. it’s easy. but yowza does it make me mad to see.”

So what do you think? Is this theft?

blood orange pound cake

I’ve been eying this recipe from Joy the Baker for months. Something about it is just drool inducing, and even for someone who doesn’t bake… well it looks very feasible.

Here’s the problem. Whenever I have lemons, they always find other uses. I use them in tea, or making sauce for chicken, or fish. Apparently, I need to find a way to get my hands on many more lemons.

What I did have on hand were blood oranges.

Not the same tangy ZING as lemons, but they lent a sweet citrus note to the cake, and a pretty pink color.

I followed her recipe to the letter.  First, I sifted together 2 2/3 c flour, 2 1/2 t baking powder, and a pinch of salt.

Then, I rubbed the zest from two blood oranges into 2 1/3 c sugar.  This was fun, and smelled lovely.

I blended in 6 eggs, 1 1/2 t vanilla extract and 2/3 c heavy cream.

I then carefully added the dry ingredients in a few additions before adding 15 T of melted, cooled butter, also in a couple of additions.

The batter is thick and creamy, best to thoroughly butter and flour the loaf pans:

Bake at 350 for 55 to 60 minutes.

Now the simple syrup: melt 1/4 c sugar into 1/3 c water. Boil, and add the juice from two blood oranges.  This syrup is brushed into the finished loaves after they are pricked all over.  The idea is that the syrup will soak into the loaves:

What I found was that the loaves became somewhat mushy on top because of the syrup.  After a day or so, this texture was not very pleasant.  The cake is very dense (delicious with tea) and absolutely beautiful when it first comes out of the oven. I would have preferred a blood orange glaze or icing drizzled on top instead of the syrup “drench.”  Next time!

beer cheese soup

It’s almost too late for me to post this recipe.  Thanks to Texas being… Texas, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately.  After one week of temperatures in the 30s (unheard of!) it was near 80 last week and sunny, gorgeous patio and iced tea weather.  But I hear we have a cold front coming in so maybe someone can make use of this recipe, or those of you in colder climates can have a hearty, warming dinner!

I wanted to reproduce a soup I only got the dregs of when I arrived late one evening at Anvil.  Michael, sous chef at Stella Sola, is from Wisconsin, where it gets really cold, and he had made an amazing stew from brats, cheddar, and beer.  When I got there, the soup had congealed to morsels of thick cheese, but the flavor was still amazing.  I sopped every last bit of it up with whatever bread I could get my hands on.

I trolled around the internet reading and combining various recipes and arrived at a result which was quite satisfactory – hearty, warming, and bowl licking delicious.

In a heavy stockpot, melt 6T butter.  Add and saute one chopped onion, 1 c chopped carrot, and 1 c chopped celery.  Add 1/2 c flour, stir to coat.  Slowly add 2 c broth (I used homemade turkey stock from thanksgiving) and 1 bottle of Chimay.  Bring to a boil, add 2 c cubed potatoes.  Simmer until potatoes are cooked through, about 15 minutes.  While this is happening, slice and sautee separately 1 lb good quality smoked sausage.  When potatoes are cooked, add 1 lb grated cheddar, 1 c milk and 1 c cream or half and half.  Stir over low heat until cheese melts and is smooth.  Season with Worcestershire,  mustard, paprika, and thyme.  Stir in the sausage and serve hot.

Snow’s BBQ

They say that Snow’s BBQ is the best BBQ in Texas.  How could I live in Texas for 9 years and pass this up?  Well the hours are a bit daunting – that whole 8 am on Saturday ’till they run out thing isn’t unusual for a BBQ joint, but Snow’s happens to be a 2.5 hour drive from my house.  Having known several satisfied folks who made the pilgrimage, I convinced two friends to make the drive with me.

It was a dreary morning when we set off at 6 AM, and once we got off the highway, we nearly missed the two turns that lead to Snow’s.  Thanks to a small, handwritten “Snow’s OPEN” sign, we careened off the road we were on, down a dirt and gravel path near some mooing cows, craned our heads to our right and saw this:

Well, it sure don’t look like a tourist destination

As it was 8:30 AM, we planned on getting some BBQ to go, for a delicious lunch after some hiking in Bastrop state park.  We walked in to find a few tables and a small counter with a steam table and ladies slicing brisket with the sort of electric knife you used to see in old comedies.  I queued up and ordered some brisket and sausage, and a whole brisket to go (yes, I’m the reason the brisket ran out early last weekend. My apologies).

We sat down to have a taste of BBQ as we hadn’t eaten all morning, and holy moly… we couldn’t stop eating!  The brisket was fall apart juicy, with perfect burnt ends.  The sausage was a bit crumbly but still juicy.  The vinegar based sauce was perfect.  I have no photos of the BBQ because we ate too quickly and too greasily.

We thanked the ladies profusely when we got up to leave and packed up our leftovers.  They asked if we’d tried any of the pork shoulder, which was their favorite item, and sliced us several pieces.  Perhaps it was because we were engorged on brisket, but the shoulder wasn’t nearly as good, though still juicy and flavorful.

Snow’s BBQ has three more converts.  We’ve decided that a 6 AM drive, followed by BBQ, hiking, and more BBQ, might be the perfect Saturday morning.

goodbye 09

sloppy joes, one of life’s great comfort foods

This was a year of growth.  I ate a lot of takeout (which, incidentally, happens to be one of life’s greatest pleasures).  I discovered new interests, cooked new recipes, made a valiant attempt to organize my photos and raged at bad lighting and focus.  I made a concerted effort to put away the phone and camera when out with friends or having dinner and mostly succeeded. But for those times I did have a camera… a summary:

soda bread

I’m not a bread baker. Well, unless you count hockey pucks, I’m a CHAMPION hockey puck baker. This makes me sad, because I’m a champion bread EATER. When you start talking about “kneading to a smooth ball” and “punch down” I’m totally lost. Enter, Irish soda bread. Baking soda, you complete me.

garlic granules

I’m a cheat! I love garlic granules when I forget or am too lazy to use real garlic.

puff pastries

Puff pastries filled with ground pork, carmelized shallots, golden raisins, cinnamon, Brillat Savarin. Though I loved Brillat when I tried it at 13Celsius, it proved too delicate and melty for this combination.

herbs

Rosemary, oregano, and thyme picked from my garden in December. Just another reason why I love Houston.

braised chicken with olives and tomatoes

An absolute gem of a recipe made all the more delicious with juicy, local pastured chicken from Georgia’s Grassfed Beef.

butternut squash latkes

Oh those silly people over at Gourmet.  Leave it up to them to take a perfectly good thing (potatoes + hot oil) that I could eat all day and make it even better.  Here, traditionally potato latkes are made with sweet butternut squash and paired with a savory yogurt sauce.  They’re addictive!

The original recipe works pretty well.  But as you may notice from the comments, people seem to run into issues, as the mushiness of the squash makes the latkes fall apart when fried.  Here’s my take, from some trial and error:

Halve a butternut squash, sprinkle the open sides with garlic granules, and cook most of the way.  30-40 minutes in a 425 oven or 4-6 minutes in the microwave should do – keep a close eye on it.  Take the squash out and pop it in the freezer to cool so it can be handled.  Meanwhile, thinly slice an onion and matchstick half a granny smith apple.  Melt 2 T butter in a pan and brown the onion and apple in the pan with some minced garlic.

Peel the squash halves – they should be soft but not completely mushy.  Using the large holes of a box grater, grate as much of the squash as you can, and, using your hands, mush the rest.  By not cooking the squash all the way you avoid releasing all the moisture that causes issues for the recipe.  Add the onion mixture to the squash, one egg, and about 1/2 a cup of flour.  Mix together gently with your hands.  It should have the consistency of a sticky dough, like cookie dough.

Set the dough/batter aside and make the pine nut and sage yogurt.  I like to use Greek yogurt, or anything that’s a little thicker than the usual Dannon brand.  Gently melt 4T butter and over low heat, sweat 4-5 chopped sage leaves and a handful of pine nuts.  I used slivered almonds on this occasion and they were also lovely.  Stir the butter into 1 cup of yogurt and set aside.

Heat about 1/2 inch of oil in a pan until it shimmers.  You can drop a tiny piece of dough/batter in to see if it’s hot enough.  When the dough starts to pop, slide tablespoons of latke batter into the oil and use an oiled fork to flatten them into discs about 3 inches wide.  If you flatten them all the way, you won’t end up with any soft butternut squash in the middle, which might be preferable to your tastes – but as fair warning, they can be hard to scrape off the pan if you push them down too hard.

My latkes end up being about 1/2 inch thick.  I don’t mind that they aren’t crunchy all the way through, but your tastes may differ.  Drain on paper towels and serve with the sage butter yogurt.

Raku Japanese Charcoal Grill

I was in Vegas in September for a convention, following a week spent backpacking in the Grand Canyon.  After days in the remote desert wearing the same t shirt with no proper showers, it was difficult to adjust to the glitz and excess of the city.  A full day spent schmoozing with my fellow convention goers turned out to be exhausting, and the idea of cocktails, followed by dinner, followed by more cocktails, was daunting, to say the least.

Relief came in the form of dinner with Misha, who picked a restaurant appropriately off the beaten path but still stunning.  In a city so self conscious of the number of Michelin stars each resort has it’s refreshing to find a place like Raku.

squid sashimi

The best tactic at Raku is the order off the specials board for the day.  Just get a whole mess of things and be completely shocked at the non-Vegas prices.  I think the most expensive thing we ordered was a “steamed egg custard with foie gras” for a whopping $9.00.  It was so worth it.

steamed egg custard with foie gras

Our dishes ranged from earnestly Japanese (sea urchin, squid, agedashi tofu) to whimsical and possibly adventurous…

pig ear

fried crabs

These tiny fried river crabs are no bigger than an inch and crispy all the way through.  Though I’ve tried to find them since, other variations on fried river crabs have been chewy, with thin fins and covered in batter.

agedashi tofu

Possibly the crowning dish of the night was Raku’s agedashi tofu.  No mushy batter dipped in a meager pool of dashi here.  Raku’s dashi is rich and studded with tiny mushrooms.  The huge piece of tofu is swaddled in a firm and flavorful batter, and instead of a few shavings of bonito, Raku tops their tofu with a glistening pile of ikura.

Don’t skip dessert.  We had both the “fluffy” cheesecake and the brown sugar “bubbly” pudding and were ready to come to blows over the scraps.  Raku is a true gem among Vegas restaurants.

all kinds of vegetarian from a can

This dish can be made all kinds of better with the addition of pork.  But should you not happen to have pork in the fridge, it is just as good as is, and best of all, the ingredients keep indefinitely thank you gods of canning.  It happened to be one of my very favorite Szechuan dishes as a kid, and my mom made it faithfully every time I came home to visit.  I don’t make it much at home as the flavors are a bit pungent, but your family may be more friendly to it than mine!  The beauty of this dish is its simplicity (not just the can factor) – the flavors are very basic and can be easily adjusted to taste.  There are three main components:

First, you take a can of Radish Chinois:

You will find this in a Chinese grocery store.  It says it is a Chinese radish, which, if you Google it, will probably only turn up daikon, but I am fairly sure it is a pickled Chinese mustard green.  This is fairly salty and spicy.  When it comes out of the can it looks like this:

Slice the radishes thinly into matchsticks.

Similarly, get yourself a can of bamboo.  Being Taiwanese, I am partial to the Wei Chuan brand:

As an added bonus, you can buy this already cut into matchsticks!  It’s not cheating, I promise.  Drain all the liquid from the bamboo and slice (if necessary) similar to the pickled Chinese radish.  This is your slightly bitter but mostly neutral component.

The last ingredient is some string beans pickled in brine.  This ingredient is the only ingredient not canned.  It is, however, vacuum packed, and as such, lasts indefinitely in your fridge.  These brined string beans are severely salty.  I would recommend soaking them and rinsing well before cooking with them.

The string beans come out looking like a tangled, Medusa like web of greens.  Simply slice them into segments roughly as long as your matchsticks and you’re good to go!

Mince some garlic and brown in some hot vegetable oil.

Add all three chopped ingredients to taste (pickled+spicy/bitter/salty).  Stir fry until hot and cooked through – just a few minutes.  If you’re doing pork, thinly slice the pork and dredge it in a little cooking wine and cornstarch before stir frying it, for texture.  Stir fry it first, then set it aside.  Add it at the last minute.

Serve hot with lots of jasmine rice!

to-mah-to to-may-to

Ok! So I know my last two posts have been on how fall-like the weather is here and how lovely it is for stews and soups and so forth.  I’m going to throw everyone for a loop here, but I do live in Texas, where it can be 60 and gorgeous one day, blazing and 90 the next.  So here’s a delicious, fresh and simple cherry tomato recipe for those of you lucky enough to be still getting beautiful cherry tomatoes.  I made chicken escoffier (according to Alice Waters) which involved chicken, bread crumbs, and… butter.  A quick fridge survey turned up some shallots and tomatoes, a trip to the garden for rosemary and wham bam thank you ma’m, dinner is served:

summery cherry tomatoes

Chop a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and heat in a skillet with butter.  Slice 3-4 shallots thin and saute until brown and crispy.  Working quickly, place halved cherry tomatoes cut side down over the hot shallots in the skillet and char on their cut sides.  Let sit for a couple minutes, then stir, remove from heat and serve.  This quick method of cooking ensures the tomatoes remain juicy, plump and fresh tasting while still getting a bit soft from the heat.

shanks a lot!

I was going to make chicken last week but at the meat counter found myself engaged in an epic inner struggle.  The sudden onset of fall drew me inexorably toward beef shanks – lovely, meaty, please-braise-me food that results in rich drinkable broth and bones for the dogs.  Please, no hate comments, I am a responsible dog owner.

After 15 minutes of debate, (did I draw stares? probably) I did buy the shanks and ended up making this lovely recipe.  Please do yourself the favor of serving it with something which soaks up sauce – bread, or mashed potatoes.  The corn cake was pretty, but came from a healthy cook book, and therefore was also somewhat flavorless.  (In the process I discovered possibly the most USELESS CORNBREAD RECIPE EVER which will also not be reprinted here).

Garlic Braised Beef Shanks

from epicurious

This recipe will fill your home with the most amazing aromas.  Enjoy!

Salt and pepper 2 beef shanks and brown all over in a hot skillet.  Place in a dutch oven and surround with 1 head of garlic, peeled if you wish, 1 bay leaf, 3 roughly chopped celery ribs, and 4 sprigs of fresh thyme.  Braise in a 350 degree oven for 2-3 hours – until the meat falls off the bone.

Remove meat from broth; strain broth.  Skim, and reduce as necessary to form a rich sauce.