A Keeper

My aunt found this recipe for carrot soufflé. It is now a family favorite. I didn't start dinner until 7 something Sunday night and I had a gang of stuff to do. My goal in life was to make this as quickly as possible using as few dishes as possible. Here's how I did it.

Chop a pound of carrots. This was my lazy cooking night, so I started by breaking them down.

Then, I let Miracle do the work. I put the carrots in a 2-qt pot and added enough water to barely cover them. I know. I know. I've preached about my preference for roasting instead of boiling veggies. Again, I made it to the kitchen around 7 on a Sunday night; boiling was faster. Don't forget to add salt to the water.

Hot fresh carrots! Now, we need to cool things down. Here's where I veer from the recipe. Blend the butter and carrots. My aunt uses a blender; you can mash by hand if you want. I planned on using the FP for as many steps as I could. 

Now add the sugar and blend. Don't forget to scrape the bowl.

By now, the mixture should be cool enough to keep from scrambling your eggs and stealing your vanilla flavor. Add both of those now and blend.

Add flour, salt, and baking powder. Blend some more.

Everything should be all smooth. Pour into a greased baking dish. Is CorningWare French White the official bake ware of America?

Bake for 45 minutes. Isn't it pretty?

Look at that texture. And the taste? Oh man ... You won't believe how good this is! Whenever I run across a killer recipe, I file it in my "Husband-Only" cookbook. I'm single now, but when he finds me, he'll eat well! This one made it in with a gold star.

Tools of the trade:

• Totally Bamboo Butcher Block 3 Prep Board Honey
• Shun DM0718 Classic 7-Inch Santoku Hollow Ground Knife
• KitchenAid KFP750OB 700-Watt 12-Cup Food Processor, Onyx Black
• All-Clad Stainless 2-Quart Saucepan
• CorningWare French White 2-1/2-Quart Oval Dish

H2-Ohhhh!

I was so hot last Saturday, all I wanted was ice cold water and watermelon. I had to be hot because I almost always drink room temperature water.  I'd been out and about in the heat and in a hot kitchen for four hours.

Anyhoo, I know flavored waters are all the rage.  I have to say that my favorite is what I call spa water.  I remember people were baffled by the flavor combination in 2001.  I had some at a hotel last week and I was reminded of how refreshing it was.

Start here:

Slice the lemon and lime in half.  Slice the cucumber.  I used about half of that.  You're probably supposed to remove the seeds, but I grew up eating the skin and the seeds.  I'm way too lazy to remove either as an adult.  Pick the mint and basil (yep, basil) leaves and slightly bruise them with your fingers.  Layer everything into a pitcher with ice.

Oops. That photo is a little dark.  Add your water and give it a stir.

Of course at the hotel, everything was suspended so beautifully in the lemonade jar ... . This will do for just me.  Let this sit in the refrigerator for about an hour.  Afterward, take out all of the solids or the water will turn bitter.  Save them and use them for garnish.  Wonderfully refreshing!

• Shun DM0706 Classic 8-Inch Chef's Knife
• Totally Bamboo Butcher Block 3 Prep Board Honey
• Impressions Pitcher

"Unofficial" Pasta Cabonara

One would think that since I haven't made anything blog-worthy in a while, the "come back" dish would be a sophisticated, technically-difficult something.  Well sorry, Charlie.  I'm at the point where I hang out in my sewing space until I'm so hungry that when I go to the kitchen, I eat the first thing I see. I've gotten away from meal planning.

Two handfuls of Craisins later, I decided on pasta cabonara – my way.  If I'd bothered to look up a recipe, I would have realized that I wasn't too far from the real thing. However you make it, it is simple and delicious.

Let's do it. You'll need some al dente spaghetti. I mix regular with whole wheat. Boil the whole wheat for two minutes by itself and then add the regular spaghetti.

While the pasta boils, fry up some bacon. I'm rolling with turkey bacon.  Doesn't that look great?

Try not to eat too much as you chop it up.  I was proud of myself – I only had a small pinch. Excuse the blur.

Beat an egg.

The following is not an exciting picture, but it's what I have to show for the next steps.  Take a ladle of your hot pasta water and warm a mixing bowl.  Pour the water out and get ready to move quickly. This may not be necessary, but this is the way I do it. (I don't want to lose any heat.)

Add the egg to the warm bowl and get the hot pasta in there.

Toss the pasta & egg and watch the magic.  First it gets frothy.

Bacon!!

If I were following a recipe, I'd add chopped garlic sautéed in bacon drippings. Since I didn't do that, my next step is to add plenty of black pepper, Italian seasoning and Parmesan. (This was an on-the-fly meal; I didn’t have any fresh parsley.)

Let us pause to thank Italy for its contribution to food.

I mean earnestly thank the Italians.

I leave you now to ponder the goodness of bacon, eggs and pasta.

Tools of the Trade

• All-Clad Asparagus Pot
• Totally Bamboo Butcher Block
• Shun Santoku
• Glass mixing bowls

Eat Your Veggies

Okay. I'm back. The posts have been few and far between because I was sick Christmas and I think New Year's Day.  Most importantly, I was without a garbage disposal. Hey, I'm an old-school cook who has to have modern conveniences.  That got fixed last week, so I'm back in business.

Given the degree of laziness to which I sometimes own up to, there are nights when I do veggies only. This meal was one.  It was cold and I wanted some good fall/winter flavors.  Enter sweet potatoes and apples.

Wash, peel and cut your sweet potatoes into coins. Season with kosher salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and black pepper.  Drizzle with olive oil and toss everything together.

Heat a skillet and add the potatoes.  Cook until brown.  Place these in a casserole dish.  

Thinly slice an apple. Season with the same stuff you used for the potatoes.  

Place the apple on top of the sweet potato. I had some apple cider concentrate, so I drizzled a little of that on top.  

Bake, covered, until everything is tender.  Add fresh sage and rosemary and give it a quick toss.

Pair this with some sauteed corn and a left over "stuffin' muffin" from Christmas and you got a veggie meal! (Stuffin' muffins are easy to make. Just portion part of your next batch of dressing into a muffin tin, par bake and freeze. Bam! You have individual servings of dressing ready for baking. Rachel Ray was on it with this idea!)

Tools of the trade

• Glass Mixing Bowl
• Shun Santoku
• Totally Bamboo Butcher Block
• All-Clad 10" Fry Pan
• All-Clad 7" Oval Baker

 

Thanksgiving #10: After The Fact

I know I'm very late with this post, but I'm backdating it to go with the Thanksgiving series. I just couldn't manage cooking and real-time blogging. Maybe for Christmas.

Anyhoo. Let's finish up the greens. In the last post, we'd gotten up to the boiling. After a 40 minute simmer, drain the greens and try to get as much water out of them as possible. Give 'em a good chop.

Make your cream mixture. This was a recipe departure. I added minced garlic, nutmeg and crushed red pepper flakes in addition to the required salt and pepper. Whoever heard of creamed anything without nutmeg?

I then poured this over the greens. Two things bothered me:

A) Was I messing up some good damn greens? As I poured the cream over the greens, I kept thinking, "This is so wrong."

B) I can't really explain it, but something about the pattern created by the greens in the cream (like the upper right of the pic below) freaks me out. I also don't like the site of dry, cracked earth. I'm sure that I'll one day pay somebody a lot of money to figure that out.

It's important to note that there isn't really a lot of cream in this dish.

I chose to use individual ramekins for this dish. It makes the leftovers so much easier. And yes, I skipped the breadcrumbs the recipe called for.

I baked them at 350 degrees. I'll share the finished pic later.

What else can I show you? The Pioneer Woman's squash. Isn't it pretty? The next time I make this, I won't go for the syrup. The brown sugar adds enough sweetness.

Let's knock out the rolls. I just didn't have the heart or time for my usual yeast rolls. I decided to go with Williams-Sonoma's Sally Lunn Herbed Rolls. No kneading? I'm all for it. The dough was very sticky. It was also more like a batter.

Check out all the herbs that went into these. What else can you expect from an herbed roll recipe?

Here's the dough after the first rise and a push down with a wooden spoon:

Now you have to get all of this goodness into a muffin tin. I used a large scoop to portion. Cover with plastic wrap and let them rise. The tops aren't perfectly smooth because I didn't do the greatest job of greasing the plastic wrap before I covered the rolls.

Brush the top with an egg wash and bake. You're supposed to put a whole herb leaf on the top of every roll. Maybe next time.

The winners this year were really the creamed collard greens, cranberry sauce and coconut cake. The disappointment was the turkey, but I'm blaming that on truffle butter that wasn't what it was supposed to be. I'll do separate posts for finishing the turkey and the coconut cake.