I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with Cook’s Illustrated magazine. I love their science-like obsession with testing a recipe over and over again, fiddling with variables and taking careful note of the results. Also, some of the ideas they come up with are pretty clever, like the one where you fortify your blueberry pie with a bit of sliced apple to add pectin and create perfectly sliceable pieces. Brilliant - and it works like a charm.

On the other hand, I’m less crazy about their interpretations of ethnic cuisine, and sometimes wish they’d be a little more adventurous - I swear, sometimes it seems like there is a pot roast recipe every third issue. But maybe I shouldn’t complain - homestyle American fare is what they do best. I definitely appreciate the mission to develop accessible recipes for the American home kitchen, even if I’m not convinced that there is one best recipe for every dish. And it’s undeniable that the magazine is a great resource, especially for beginners - the endless tips and thorough equipment reviews alone are probably worth the cover price.

These corn muffins are an excellent example of the kind of recipe that Cook’s does so well - simple, all-American, and just right for pleasing a crowd. After making them for six years, I still haven’t found one I like better. To me, they have the perfectly buttery, corny, ever-so-slightly sweet qualities without being dry, flat, cupcakey, or sticky. They’re also versatile enough to go from breakfast to dinner with just a couple of tweaks. I particularly love eating them with a big smooch of apricot jam. So, what do I know…maybe the search for perfection really does pay off.

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Baking | 5 Comments »

Or, Super Cheater’s Chick Pea Chili, or, Mr. Fuller, Don’t Hurt Me for Messing With Your Recipe.

If you’ve lived in Pittsburgh for any length of time, you’ve probably been to (or at least heard about) the local California-Mexican restaurant chain called Mad Mex. I haven’t eaten there in a long while, partly because the location closest to me is overrun by young college students determined to give themselves alcohol poisoning (the last time I ate there, someone puked on the floor near my table). But apart from that unfortunate experience, I remember the food being pretty decent, and they served a tasty, thick soup of chick peas, tomatillo, onions, and cilantro.

Bill Fuller, the corporate chef of the big Burrito group, (which owns Mad Mex), has the original recipe on his blog, that involves roasting fresh tomatillos. However, I can at times be extremely lazy when I want dinner in a hurry (and fresh tomatillos can be tricky to find), so this is my quick and easy version of the chili. It may not be as perfect as Bill’s, but I think it tastes terrific, especially with a swirl of sour cream.

You can find tomatillo puree in Latin American markets (locally, Reyna’s in the Strip). Everything else is easy to find or probably already in your pantry. So make it already! (and when you have some time and a few fresh tomatillos on hand, the original version isn’t too shabby, either :).

Chickpea and Tomatillo Soup
serves 4-6

4 cups (about 3 14-oz cans) cooked chickpeas, rinsed if canned
1 cup canned tomatillo puree
3 cups fresh chicken or vegetable stock
5 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
Pinch of smoked chilli powder
1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt

Heat oil in a large saucepan over a medium flame. Add onions and sauté, stirring occasionally, until soft. Add chopped garlic and stir for about one minute. Add tomatillo puree, chickpeas, and stock. Bring mixture to a simmer and cover, simmering for 20 minutes. Add smoked chilli powder and salt to taste. Just before serving, stir in chopped cilantro.

Soups & Stews | 4 Comments »

Today is the last day of Summer. I suppose this warrants my recent panic to buy up as much fresh produce as possible. It happens every year - suddenly it seems as though I didn’t honor the season quite enough, that there really could have been a few more picnics or pints of blueberries or glasses of ginger-laced lemonade gulped down on hazy nights . This year was better than most, though. The amount of peaches we received in our boxes from Penn’s Corner was extraordinary, and I might almost be satisfied enough to last until next year.

I decided to roast the most recent (and final) batch of white peaches, a very good treatment for those that may be a bit too mushy to eat out of hand. Just like with the tomatoes, roasting does a lovely job on peaches, concentrating their flavor and transforming them into elegant comfort food. Peaches in red wine is a classic combination, so I took the opportunity to try out David Lebovitz’s Red Wine Syrup. I’m here to say that this may be an even better use of leftover wine than the old ice-cube-tray trick - the flavor is intense and sweet, but not boozy, and you can add all sorts of spices or fruit peel to liven it up. I couldn’t resist trying it out on ricotta, which became nothing short of luxurious after happily soaking up the syrup.

So if you happen to find yourself with a few errant peaches, plums, nectarines, or, gosh, I bet fresh figs would be outrageous with the syrup, let them take leave of summer in style. A quick kiss of heat with ruby trimming seems a fitting prelude to the equinox, don’t you think?

Roasted Peaches with Ricotta and Red Wine Syrup
Serves 3-4

4 small peaches
1/4 cup mild honey
about 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup ricotta, room temperature

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

Pit peaches and place them cut side up in a shallow baking dish. Dot the inside of each peach half with a small (half-teaspoon size) nugget of butter. Drizzle with honey. Bake for 25 minutes or until tender and fragrant.

Red Wine Syrup
Adapted from David Lebovitz

1 cup red wine
6 tablespoons sugar
4-5 whole cloves

In a small, non-reactive skillet, cook the red wine and sugar until bubbles thicken and the syrup is reduced by half. Remove from heat and strain into a bowl.

To Serve
Spoon about 1/4 cup ricotta on a small plate for each person. Top with 2-3 peach halves and drizzle with red wine syrup. Serve warm.

Other Sweets, Sweet Sauces & Fillings | 1 Comment »

I did it, too. Those blasted éclairs, I mean. You must have seen a thousand or so flood the blogosphere a few weeks ago, didn’t you? Mine just happen to be a little late. Oh, I baked them on time and everything, but there was only one little snapshot that made it. It was getting kind of silly to delay any longer in hopes of taking more, so here we are.

Overall, the recipe went well. I think I need to work on being confident enough to let the éclair shapes stay in the oven a bit longer than for chouquettes. I’m always afraid of scorching their little bottoms, so some of the ones in this batch ended up a little too soft. Still, the recipe was a great classic and will be used again. You can find it at hosts Meeta K or Tony’s blogs or in the book Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé.

As much fun as I had making this recipe, I think this will probably be my parting post as a Daring Baker. I love the concept and cheery enthusiasm of the club, and the recipes chosen are always interesting, but I have such little free time to bake that I’d rather pick my own recipes for now. Once a month isn’t much of a commitment, to be sure, but once I realized I was stressing out about whether the recipe could be made in time and if I could find enough people to eat it…you know the story. Perhaps Pee-Wee Herman said it best: “I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.”

Well, maybe not enough of a rebel to ignore a great idea when I see one! With the end of tomato season drawing nigh, it seems the posts about roasted tomatoes are threatening to overtake the Daring Baker ones. I can’t deny that I’ve been doing the same with my own overflow of tomatoes. Between the CSA box, my mom’s garden, and the irresistible cavalcade that trots out at every farmer’s market, it’s a jolly game of eat-as-many-as-you-can-before-they’re-all-gone around here.

So, conform a little, why don’t you? Roasting tomatoes can’t be easier, and the smooth, concentrated flavor is a great accompaniment to cooler-weather meals. I like to sprinkle them with fresh oregano and smear them on bread with some creamy Bulgarian feta. It’s about as perfect an end-of-summer lunch as I can think of.

Simple Roasted Tomatoes

1 1/2 pounds fresh tomatoes
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
a few leaves of fresh oregano
salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 300ºF.

Core tomatoes and slice 1/2 inch rounds, arranging them in a shallow baking pan or casserole dish. It’s fine if they overlap a little bit, but try to keep them in one layer. Slice the garlic thinly over the tomatoes, and pour the olive oil over everything. Roast tomatoes until skins are wrinkled, about 1 1/2 hours. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and torn oregano leaves.

Baking, Daring Bakers, Salads & Sides | 1 Comment »

Hello! Anyone listening? I guess I’ve been pretty neglectful of cookworm these days. Although I can’t claim to have scampered off to some exotic venue, it’s true that my cooking and baking has taken a real nosedive in recent weeks. One of the main reasons is work — honestly, the bloggers who manage an engaging full-time job on top of regular posts have my undying admiration. How the heck do you do it? The second reason is that, frankly, it’s easy to find oneself in a rut when you live alone. I don’t know about you, but I find it much more exciting to cook for other people than just myself. And if that weren’t enough, August has had a way of prying me from the computer with its taunts of rare Pittsburgh sunshine and endless fresh peaches that are simply too good out of hand to bother fussing with.

A very nice thing happened, though, while I was off daydreaming of green valleys and wiping peach juice off my face. I was given a Creative Blogger award from Lori of Lucious. She even called Pittsburgh “lovely” — which it IS, by the way — so how could I not like her? Thank you so much, Lori! Do check out her blog if you haven’t yet - she’s got some very tasty recipes in there. The gorgonzola sauce and chopped pork sandwiches in particular had me drooling like nobody’s business.

Meanwhile, I think we can all agree that the presence of a rut does not erase the need for cookies. Somewhere in the beginning of it, I made a batch while on the upswing of a hardcore ginger craving, and they’ve fortified me since. The recipe is from Cooking Light, so they are definitely on the “lighter” end of desserts, but I suspect you wouldn’t guess this unless told outright. There’s a lot of crystallized ginger in here, so it’s definitely for ginger fans, but it’s worth noting that someone who is very ginger-ambivalent absolutely loved these. I think they’re well-suited for summer, since the lemon-ginger combination goes so well with seasonal fruits, and they’re sturdy enough to travel to picnics with ease.

I rolled them in some large-crystalled decorating sugar which gives them a charming jewel-like appearance (and a satisfying crunch). You could also regular granulated sugar or a large-grain sugar like Demerara (which I bet would taste fantastic). They keep well for several days in a container and freeze beautifully for a month — I’ve been just popping one in the microwave for a few seconds each time I get the urge, which is quite often indeed.

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Baking | 12 Comments »

Have you ever eaten purslane? This wild green is a bit of a vagabond in the plant world: a weed to some, a welcome friend to others, and can be found just as often propagating comfortably in the yard as looking handsome at the farmer’s market. It might be a pest, but it’s certainly a tasty and refreshing pest, not to mention terrifically healthy with vitamin C and omega-3 fatty acids. Also, unlike some wild greens such as dandelion or sorrel, purslane is free of much of that earthy bitterness and doesn’t demand an “acquired taste”. Think of it as a cousin to baby spinach - mild and slightly juicy, ready to leap gracefully into summer salads.

The salad I had for dinner last night was a cheerful mix of purslane, parsley, green bell pepper, and a few chopped tomatoes, dressed in a bowl-licking mixture of olive oil, lemon, and lots of fresh dill. I was so smitten by the fresh flavor and happy green hue that I couldn’t help but snap a few photos despite being laid up with a skull-splitting migraine. Ouch. Now that’s devotion, eh?

I later had the idea to toss a few roasted potatoes on top, which made the salad a little heartier and more of a meal. If you can find the purslane, do give it a try. I look forward to finding more of it before the summer’s end, and if you like it, too, well, it sure beats lemon balm for usefulness of invasive plants. And if you throw in some lemon and dill, I can personally vouch for its mood-(if not migraine)-improving qualities.

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Salads & Sides | 3 Comments »