Creamy Chicken Soup

All the goodness of chicken soup, with a satisfying creamy broth enriched with milk, mushrooms and parmesan cheese.

Ingedients:
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, chopped
3 tbsp whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp canola oil
1 large onion, chopped
5 carrots, sliced
1 celery stalk, sliced
1/2 cup mushrooms, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup cooking sherry or dry red wine
1 tsp chicken bouillon + 2 cups water, or 2 cups chicken broth
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley, or 2 parsley herb ice cubes
1 small can evaporated milk
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, or to taste

Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the chicken, and toss to coat.

Heat the oil in a pot over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and fry to golden-brown. Remove to a bowl. Bits will stick to the pan; this is okay.

Add all the vegetables and the wine, and use the liquid to deglaze the pan (that means, scrape up the tasty browned bits stuck to the bottom). Saute until the mushrooms give up their liquid, and add the broth. Bring to a boil, and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the chicken and all the other ingredients. Cook and stir until thoroughly heated and the cheese has melted into the broth.

FUDGE!!!!

Yes, I just used four exclamation points. They were necessary.

Okay, so, back to the point. I made a little candy syrup recently to put on my Thanksgiving yams (recipe is here on the site). It was successful, and I immediately got a big head about my candy-making abilities. I've made caramel and taffy before, after all. Never mind that I was a kid at the time, and my mother was the one actually cooking.

I have to admit, now, that I am not actually as good and kind as I may seem at face value. I decided to try fudge because I remembered having been given fudge by a family member for Christmas many years ago, and, specifically, that the fudge was a little grainy. I wanted to do it better.

Yes, that's right. I wanted to one-up my little cousin. I'm a huge teabag.

That's not the whole thing, though. I also really like chocolate and fudge is really interesting, from a chemistry perspective. And I used to watch the fudge-makers in New Hampshire candy shops make their fudge on the big marble slabs, with the big copper kettles and the big wooden paddles, and it all just looked so totally cool.

So I did a whole lot of research and made my first batch of fudge. It turned into a solid, crumbly mass almost instantly. Upon reflection, I realized I'd used molasses instead of corn syrup - a seemingly minor difference, but corn syrup has a vital role in making fudge, and without it, you get... a solid, crumbly mass.

Second batch of fudge? Amazing.

Third batch of fudge? Amazing.

Fourth batch of fudge? So amazing I came over here to write this blog post.

This particular batch was created to please my lactose-intolerant family members, one of whom also doesn't like chocolate. (Don't get me started.) So I altered the recipe to use cream and a little water instead of milk, and, as always, I used natural sugar instead of white sugar. I also used my favorite brand of fancy European butter, though Land-o-Lakes would do fine, and the seeds from a vanilla bean.

It's buttery and sweet and complex. It tastes like homemade frosting. It tastes like hard-sauce. It tastes like being a little kid again, when candy was a mind-altering experience.

Here's the recipe, but I really, strongly recommend you go over to Science of Candy for a proper breakdown of the procedure - what's going on and why. It's really cool. Their recipe for chocolate fudge is also quite good.

Ingredients:

2 cups natural sugar or evaporated cane juice
1/2 cup light cream
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp premium butter (do not skimp, this is important)
1 tsp vanilla, or 1 tsp vanilla paste, or seeds from 1 vanilla bean

Combine the sugar, cream, and water in a small pot. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring, until it begins to boil. Attach a candy thermometer to the side and boil, undisturbed, until it reaches 238 degrees (soft-ball stage).

Put out a sheet of waxed paper and a spatula for later use.

Remove from heat and let sit, undisturbed, until it cools to 110 degrees. Put out a sheet of waxed paper and a spatula for later use.

When it's cooled, add the butter and vanilla, and stir, gently but thoroughly, until the candy lightens and stiffens. This happens gradually at first, then speeds up rapidly. When you find that the candy is suddenly stiffer now than it was a second before, IMMEDIATELY STOP STIRRING and scoop it out onto the waxed paper. Press another sheet of waxed paper on top of it, pressing it into a flat sheet about as thick as your thumb, or whatever shape you want.

Leave it alone until it's cool - it will magically turn into beautiful, amazing FUDGE.

Sources:
Wikipedia article on fudge, informative but dry
Science of Candy: Fudge, very helpful and explains WHY on every step, which I like

Asian Fusion Apricot Chicken

The product of desperation became the subject of praise last night when
I threw together a stir-fry out of whatever I could find in our cupboards, and Ariel wouldn't shut up about how great it was. He was thrilling this morning to discover there were leftovers available for lunch.

Considering my usual fail when trying to make any kind of Asian food, I rolled my eyes at the capricity of recipes and decided to write this one down.

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 tbsp tamari or soy sauce, divided
3 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp peanut oil
5 ribs celery, leaves trimmed off
1 onion
1/3 cup cashews
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup boiling water
7 dried apricots, chopped
1 tsp red curry powder
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Put the coconut in a strainer, and run some water over it to wash off some of the sugar. Then put it into a medium-sized bowl. Pour the boiling water in with the coconut and leave to soak.

Slice the chicken into strips. Combine 2 tbsp tamari and the cornstarch in a bowl, then add the chicken strips and toss to coat.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and spread it out so as much is in contact with the pan as possible, then leave it there to cook until it is no longer sticking to the pan when you try to separate it with a spatula (about 4 minutes). Visually, this means 2/3 opaque (cooked-looking) and golden on the bottom. Raise the heat to high. Turn the chicken over (it will stick together like a big patty at this point, and that's fine) and cook on the other side until cooked through. Remove to a bowl.

If the skillet's caked with chicken breading, pour a cup of water into it and let it boil a minute or two. Then pour out the water into the sink and scrape off the stuck-on bits. You can use this trick anytime there's stuff stuck to your pan, by the way.

Return the pan to the heat. While it's heating back up, stick your immersion blender in with the coconut and blend it until mostly smooth. What? You don't have an immersion blender! Get one, they're awesome! In the meantime, use a regular blender or food processor. When you've pureed the coconut, add the cashews and apricots to the mix.

Now the pan is good and hot, add the vegetables. Cook and stir quickly, since you're using high heat, until the onion is tender. Add the spices, and cook for 30 seconds.

Then pour in the coconut mixture, nuts and all, and add the remaining 2 tbsp tamari. Stir, then add the chicken. Cover the pan, turn the heat down to medium-low and let simmer for 2 minutes, then stir again and serve.

Substitutions:
1. Try coconut milk instead of the pureed coconut mixture. You might want to add 1 tbsp sweetener in this case.
2. Try pineapple instead of the apricot.

We all scream for ICE CREAM

Or at least I do. My ice-cream maker is the second-most-used small appliance in the kitchen, after the pancake griddle (which is a whole other story). I make ice cream using 1% milk and sweeten it with Splenda, though stevia or sugar would, of course, work just fine. Thus, my ice cream is nutritionally the same as drinking frozen milk.

Homemade ice cream requires 5 - 15 minutes of prep, 18 minutes of hands-off "cook" time, and 5 minutes of cleanup, each time. For some people that is prohibitive, which is understandable, but I can usually find 10 minutes to spare for ice cream when I'm in the mood. (That's basically every day.)

Sugar-free, low-fat ice cream will freeze as hard as a rock if you don't eat it right away. Commercially made low-fat and sugar-free ice creams have a ton of stuff added to keep them soft, including air, which I find unsatisfying, not to mention kinda gross.

Making your own ice cream requires something thicker than plain milk, or it will become a fluffy slush instead of a nice creamy soft-serve. I have four ways of doing this:

Easiest: Jell-o Pudding

Next Easiest: Ricotta Cheese

Then: Pureed Fruit

And finally: Stirred Custard

For jell-o ice cream, just mix some instant jell-o and then pour it into the ice cream maker before it sets. This will produce a firm but not-very-frozen ice cream in a very short time, say 13 minutes. Ariel really likes the texture of this, but I don't like the flavors much. I do like a flavor I call "fudgicle" where I make chocolate jell-o but add extra cocoa powder to make it more chocolatey.

Ricotta cheese ice cream is the highest in fat and calories, so I only serve this when I'm expecting us to be hungry. You just mix equal parts premium quality ricotta and milk, and then add vanilla and sweetener to taste. The ricotta has to be really good, like Biazza brand. Don't settle, or your ice cream will be grainy and unpleasant. It's almost as easy as jell-o and produces a more icy ice cream.

Pureed fruit ice cream is tricky, because the fruit flavor is surprisingly difficult to predict once frozen. Freezing changes how our taste buds taste. The easiest recipe is to put sliced fresh strawberries in a blender, add milk to about 2/3 of the way to the top of the strawberries, and blend until smooth. Then strain out the seeds. You can also do this with peaches, cherries, cooked rhubarb, and blackberries. Pumpkin ice cream's good, too.

Stirred custard is the most traditional ice cream. "Real" ice cream was made this way, and in some places it still is. Stirred custard, also called creme anglais or pouring custard, is made by cooking eggs and milk together until it thickens, but not until you get scrambled eggs. The rest of this post is about custard, FYI.

Eggs set when heated. We all know that. The egg proteins tighten up and become rigid, but not all at once. There is a time when the proteins are beginning to tighten, but haven't yet gotten so tight that they become solid strings. That's when you have custard, like pumpkin pie. Stirred custard is a tiny bit earlier than that, where the proteins are still flexible and liquid.

You can imagine that the timing of this is pretty sensitive. You can find recipes for creme anglais everywhere, but mine is one of these two:

2 cups milk
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 beaten eggs

OR:

2 cups milk
3 beaten eggs

I normally only do the three-egg thing when making eggnog- or vanilla-flavored ice cream, since other flavors don't benefit fro the extra egginess.

To make the cornstarch one, mix the cornstarch with any other powders you will use (the sweetener, plus the cocoa if you're making chocolate flavor). Then mix the milk in, starting with just enough to moisten it. That's how you avoid lumps, and the method works with other sauces, too. Then cook, stirring constantly, over medium-high heat until it boils.

Then, slowly pour the hot milk mixture into the eggs, whisking quickly. Pouring it in slowly is called "tempering" and it prevents the eggs from cooking unevenly and becoming stringy. Once you've poured it all in, return it to the stove, over medium-low heat. Cook, whisking constantly.

The right time to stop cooking is difficult to see until you've gotten a feel for it. Basically, the custard will thicken a little and acquire a slightly wiggly texture, sort of like gelatine in a very subtle way. Remove it from the heat immediately. Placing it into a pan of ice water is a good idea, and it helps speed the cooling so you can eat your ice cream sooner.

Then, a few seconds later, it overcooks and begins to curdle. Oops! If it curdles, just put it into a blender and blend. It will be fine.

This obviously has to cool before it's ready. If you put hot liquid into your ice cream maker, it won't freeze (duh) so chill thoroughly first. You can chill it in your freezer if you stir it every 20 minutes to keep it from freezing around the edges into chunks.

There you have it! Here, have some recipes:

Strawberry
2 cups slices strawberries
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup Splenda
1 tbsp lemon juice (optional)
1/4 tsp vanilla

Puree in a blender. Ta-da!

Ricotta
1 cup milk
1 cup ricotta
1/2 cup Splenda
1 tsp vanilla

Whisk together. Yay!

Fudgicle
2 cups milk
1 packet chocolate jell-o
1/4 cup cocoa powder (plain, not the sweetened kind)
1/3 cup Splenda

Whisk the cocoa, Splenda, and jell-o powder together. Then whisk in the milk. Pour it into the ice cream maker before it sets!

Eggnog
1 3/4 cups milk
1 small can evaporated milk
3 eggs
2/3 cup Splenda
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 shot spiced rum (optional)
1 tbsp butter

Whisk dry ingredients together, then add milk. Cook until it begins to boil, then slowly whisk into the eggs. Return to heat and cook until slightly thickened, then remove from heat to a bowl of ice. Whisk in the butter and the rum. This one is better if it has a longer time to chill. You can make a double (or triple...) batch for drinking normally.

Secret Chili (Meatless!)

I love a good chili. This one was the product of a particularly creative cooking session. There are many secret ingredients but the secret-est of them all is the Dr Pepper! You could also use any kind of cola; lime soda might be cool, too. Basically I used soda instead of the usual sugar. The flavor is undetectable as anything but a subtle enhancements, same as the chocolate and the cinnamon.

If you use diet soda, you must stir it in at the very end, after you've removed the pot from the heat, lest the aspartame be destroyed by the heat.

Ingredients:

1 large onion, chopped
2 poblano chiles, which are like large, dark, slightly wrinkled jalapeños - 1 green bell pepper plus 1 jalapeño is an acceptable substitute, diced
2 jalapenos, minced
1/2 can of crushed tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp granulated garlic, or 5 minced garlic cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/3 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp oregano flakes
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp tamari or soy sauce
1/4 tsp smoked paprika (or you don't have this, use 1 tsp regular paprika)
1 tsp beef or vegetable bouillon (broth is NOT a substitute, must use bouillon)
1/2 ounces baking chocolate or 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 cans of beans, I like to use two different colors for a pretty effect
1/3 cup dr pepper

Saute the onion and peppers over medium heat in a tablespoon or corn oil until tender. Add the tomatoes and next 6 ingredients (through chocolate). Stir well, and simmer 10 minutes. Add the beans and stir until heated. Remove from heat and add the soda.

If you want to make the chili hotter for some and milder for others, reserve half the jalapenos and serve as a garnish for the heat-lovers. This chili is best served with cheese on top (because, frankly, EVERYTHING is best served with cheese on top). I like pre-shredded Mexican blend but cheddar is fine. Sour cream and green onions would also be good toppers.

Festive Candied Yams

This is a guilty pleasure, a relic of childhood, and I'm pretty much the only one who eats it at this point (well, Ariel does, but he eats almost anything).

This year I tried a variation with the intention of making the yams a little more grown-up and their sweetness a little more approachable. Here's the result. It worked pretty well - people ate about half of it, though that was with a lot of help from my friend Elana's twin toddlers. Hooray for a new generation of kids + yams!

Ingredients:

1 large can cut yams in syrup
1/2 bag of regular-sized marshmallows (Nothing wrong with the minis if you prefer them. I just like the big ones' tenderness.)
1/2 cup sugar, either the evaporated cane juice kind or packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup cranberries
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
Dash cloves
2 tbsp butter

Pour about 2/3 cup of the yam liquid from the can into a small pot, and discard the rest. Spread the yams into a baking dish in one layer. Warm the yams in the microwave.

Add the sugar to the yam liquid and bring to a boil. Cook down into a syrup that stretches from the (heat safe!) spoon like corn syrup, stirring often. Then turn the heat down and add the cranberries, stirring until they pop and become soft. Stir in the spices ad the butter. Pour the sauce over the yams.

Spread a single layer of marshmallows over the yams and place under the broiler. Broil until the tops are darkened to the degree you prefer.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ariel requested a cheesecake for Thanksgiving, and of course that meant I had to put pumpkin in it. This is a reduced-sugar version of this recipe by Cooking Light, and can be made wholly sugar-free by simply omitting the crust. It'd be good without the crust, I only add it for the benefit of guests who expect crusts.



Ingredients:

50 vanilla wafer cookies
2 tbsp butter or margarine
4 blocks 1/3 reduced fat cream cheese
1 can pumpkin
1 1/4 cup Splenda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1 tbsp molasses

Crush the wafers - a food processor is good for this, but you can also crush them with a rolling pin inside a plastic bag. Melt the butter and mix it into the crumbs, then spread the crumbs in the bottom of either a springform pan or a silicone cake pan at least 3 inches deep. Pat the crumbs down and bake at 400 for 8 minutes.

Combine the Splenda and the spices in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Put the cream cheeses into a large microwave-safe bowl and warm up in the microwave, 10 seconds at a time, until they are easy to stir. Stir in the pumpkin, the vanilla, and the eggs, followed by the Splenda mixture.

Important note about stirring: If you beat air into a cheesecake, it will puff up and curdle when you bake it and you won't be happy with the results. Stirring must be done with care to avoid this. I don't use a machine - a food processor is wildly inappropriate for this, and a mixer gives (heh heh) mixed results. Use a spoon and be careful, or use my special cheesecake secret: An immersion blender! You can stick the immersion blender into the batter, carefully to avoid trapping bubbles, and then stir the batter with the blending stick (while blending) and as long as you don't lift the stick up too high, it won't whip any air in and you'll have a perfectly smooth batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Then turn the oven down and bake at 300 for 50 minutes. The cheesecake is done when the outer inch or two is beginning to turn golden and puff slightly, but the inside is flat. Cracks are okay, they happen to everyone and no one will care because it tastes AMAZING.

Mushroom Stew with Spaetzle

Another drastically modified recipe from Cooking Light, my favorite source of inspiration! The original was a vegetarian recipe out of the November 2010 issue, and called for a metric truckload of expensive cremini mushrooms as well as specifying a very difficult, messy, and culturally inaccurate method for making the spaetzle. I've been to Alsace and base my own spaetzle off of what I ate while I was there (it was amazing, FYI).

Incidentally, spaetzle are simple handmade noodles, enriched with butter and eggs, and are very easy to make. I don't have kids but I'm pretty sure spaetzle-making would be fun for children.

Ingredients:

1 pound lean beef stew meat, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 package cremini mushrooms, sliced thickly
1 large package white button mushrooms, sliced thickly
1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
2 yellow onions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups beef or vegetable broth
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
Ground pepper to taste
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

For the spaetzle:
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp butter, very soft
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp milk
~1 cup flour
1 tbsp margarine or butter

Brown the beef over high heat in a dutch oven. Remove with a slotted spoon, letting the juices remain. Cook those juices until the bottom of the pan is dark brown. Meanwhile, put the porcinis into a small bowl with half a cup of water and microwave for one minute. When the mushrooms have hydrated and become soft, remove them (save the mushroom liquid!) and chop them finely.

Add the vegetables, sauteeing quickly to get most of the brown bits off the bottom of the pan, for 5 minutes. Add the red wine and scrape the rest of the browned bits off while the alcohol cooks down.

Put the meat back in the pot and add the broth, mushroom liquid, and salt. When it begins to bubble, turn down the heat and simmer, covered, for about an hour or until to desired tenderness, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile, make the spaetzle. Put a medium-sized pot full of water on to boil. Mix the soft butter, the eggs, the milk and the salt together in a bowl. Add about half the flour and mix with a sturdy spoon until smooth. Add in as much of the remaining flour as you can, a bit at a time, until you have a soft dough. (For non-bread-bakers, this is similar in stiffness to cookie dough.)

Turn out onto a well-floured surface, ideally waxed paper or a Silpat, and roll out with an equally-well-floured rolling pin to about the thickness of pie crust, which is to say about 1/8 - 1/4 inch, into a long oblong. Slice the oblong dough shape along the short side into strips 1/4 inch wide, then cut them the other direction so they're about three inches long, or whatever length you want (shape doesn't much matter). If you're doing it, use a big chef's knife to make the job easy and fast, but if it's your kids, have them use a butter knife or a dull pizza cutter.

When the water is a rolling boil, drop the spaetzle into the water all at once. Boil for 3 minutes. They'll float when they're done, so if you've rolled them very thick or cut them into large shapes and they aren't all floating after 3 minutes, let them cook another 30 seconds or so. Then drain and put into a bowl. Toss with the margarine until it melts.

When the stew is done, stir half of the parsley into it and add the vinegar. Mix the 2 tbsp flour with about 1/4 cup cold water, then pour it into the stew, stirring constantly until it thickens. Serve with the spaetzle, and sprinkle the parsley on top.

Candy Corn Studded Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Yes. They're as good as they sound.

I recently made the unfortunate discovery that dark chocolate goes really well with candy corn. This is unfortunate because I had both a bag of Ghirardelli chocolate chips and a bag of candy corn in my house at the same time.

I don't anymore.

Anyway, I had a desire for cupcakes recently and decided to bring this combination to life in cupcake form. I used this recipe from Cooking Light and simply added chopped candy corns to the mix. It was so rich and good, they needed no frosting. I just stuck a candy corn kernel in the top of each one for color.



Recipe according to Cooking Light:

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour (about 4 1/2 ounces)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup egg substitute
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup 1% low-fat buttermilk
1 1/4 ounces dark (70 percent cocoa) chocolate, finely chopped
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, and level with a knife. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir with a whisk.

Place granulated sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well combined (about 3 minutes). Add egg substitute and vanilla, beating well. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to granulated sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Fold in chocolate. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups lined with muffin cup liners. Bake at 350° for 18 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly in center or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan; cool completely on a wire rack.

My changes:

Stir 2/3 cup chopped candy corn in along with the dark chocolate pieces.

My mixing method is different, too, since I don't have a mixer. Instead, I stir the butter and sugar together with a spoon, then switch to a whisk for incorporating the eggs. I whisk the bejeezes out of them to compensate for the lack of a mixer.

Palak Paneer (Indian creamed spinach with cheese), approximately

I love Palak Paneer but don't stock the proper spices to make it taste like Indian restaurant food, and curry powder is never even close to good enough. I've tried many recipes and they're either horrible or incredibly labor-intensive and expensive. Last night I made the closest thing I've managed yet, and thought I'd write it down, mostly for my own benefit though you're welcome to try it.

Ingredients:

2 packages frozen spinach, thawed
1 large onion, chopped
4 fat garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp Penzey's Balti seasoning (a type of curry powder, you might try red curry powder instead I suppose)
1/2 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp kosher salt
2/3 cup milk
1 package Baltic-style farmer's cheese (very firm farmer's cheese) or actual Paneer if you can find it, cubed

Saute the onions until soft over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Add the spices and garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the spinach and saute for another 3 or 4 minutes or until it's tender.

Scoop out into a blender and add the milk and the salt. Blend until roughly pureed - you don't want baby-food smooth, you just want it to be very finely minced, maybe the size of couscous.

Return the spinach mixture to the skillet and cook over medium-low heat for 5 or 10 minutes or until it begins to smell good and thickens slightly. Add the cheese and heat through.

If you have paneer, you should fry it in oil until it's golden before you add it, but the farmer's cheese will stick to the pan horribly if you try to fry it so I don't recommend it. You can also use ricotta salata, which is fryable, but very very salty.

Chicken, Mushroom and Parsnip Soup

Cook Light's holiday edition has arrived in my mail and with it a new collection of recipes for my favorite food season. I tried this recipe tonight and it was so easy, tasty, and unique that I will be prepping it many times in the future, I suspect. As always, I didn't quite follow the recipe, so here is my version.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter or Smart Balance or olive oil (I used butter, recipe called for olive oil)
3/4 cup sliced shallots, about 2
3/4 cup sliced parsnips, about three or four
1 turnip about the size of a lemon, diced into 1/2 inch pieces
2 packages presliced white mushrooms, or 1 package mushrooms, sliced
1 minced garlic clove, or a scant teaspoon of minced garlic
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp minced dried porcini mushroom (optional but delicious)
The breast meat from a rotisserie chicken, chopped
Ground pepper to taste
Dash of ground chipotle pepper - if you don't have chipotle, use cayenne, or omit
1/4 tsp thyme leaves
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Melt the butter in a large pot, and sauté the mushrooms, parsnips, turnip and shallots until the mushroom liquid is mostly evaporated.

Add the remaining ingredients, and simmer about 10 minutes or until the turnips and parsnips are tender, stirring frequently.

You may have noticed that I didn't call for much broth. This is because I don't really make soups, as such, but rather make braised dishes. This necessitates more stirring to keep the cooking even, but it produces a more concentrated and delicious broth, and it is much easier to eat. I don't like to drink broth and so if there's too much of it, it just goes to waste. Unless you really love drinking the leftover broth in your soup, I suggest you try making your favorite soup recipes with as little as half the called-for amount of liquid. You may be surprised at how good it is!

Lasagna Noodles: Also Just Suggestions

As I've mentioned before, lasagna is delicious. It's also pretty healthy, if you use the reduced fat cheeses, and can be made more healthy by adding veggies like spinach to the fillings, and by substituting other things for the woeful noodles.

Yes, the noodles are a problem. Nothing ruins your wholesome cheesy protein-and-calcium-packed dinner like a big ol' wad of refined flour! Here's some great alternatives to those loathsome noodles:

1. Whole wheat noodles: Duh. This is a great time to use whole wheat, though, because the flavorful fillings blend well with any unpleasant aftertaste of the whole wheat, and the chewier texture works well for the noodles' role as a structural element. This is the amateur solution, though.
2. Tofu noodles: CRAZINESS! But it works. It's highly labor-intensive, but produces a fairly tasty and noodly lasagna, with all the health benefits of soy.
3. Eggplant slices: My exciting new discovery! Like eggplant Parmesan, except without the deep-friend crust. Delicious, fresh-tasting and affordable, as well as lower in calories than any other option, enabling you to have MORE of it!
4. Whatever else you can think of: Seriously, go buck wild. Lasagna is peasant food, which means there's no sense standing on ceremony: If it slices, it goes. Try slices of tomatoes or zucchini, or if you want to get really crazy, prosciutto or pepperoni!

If you're curious about the tofu noodles, here's a recipe:

1 block extra-firm tofu

Slice the tofu very thinly, about 1/8 inch each. Using a hollow-edge santoku knife helps make it easier to work with the slices, without tearing them. Lay them on an oiled baking sheet, and bake at 300 for about 15 minutes or until they are "al dente" the way a lasagna noodle should be. Then use them exactly like a noodle. This makes enough for three layers; if you like a many-layered lasagna, use two blocks of tofu.

Incidentally, pre-baking tofu is a good idea in a lot of situations, producing a more toothsome, chewy texture.

And here's how to use eggplant slices:

1 large eggplant
Salt

Peel the eggplant, and slice lengthwise (NOT crosswise, the slices go to long way) into 1/4 inch slices. Lay the slices out and sprinkle liberally with salt. Turn over and sprinkle the other side. Then stack them up in a colander and let sit for a while. An hour is plenty of time.

This process pulls the bitter juices out of the eggplant. After they have sat, remove the slices and rinse off the bitter juices in the sink. (You probably could also do this by soaking them in salted water, I just haven't tried it yet.)

Brush the slices with olive oil, and roast in the oven at 400 for 10 minutes, or until tender and golden at the edges. If you leave off the olive oil, they might be tough, so be warned.

Now you can use them like a normal noodle. Yay!

As far as the rest of the recipe goes? It's not exactly rocket surgery. Lasagna has four elements: Soft cheese filling, tomato sauce, shreded cheese, and "noodles" (whatever layerable thing you are using, noodle or no).

My soft cheese filling is usually three cups of ricotta, 2 eggs, some parmesan cheese, and a teaspoon of oregano. You could also use parsley and/or basil, and you can add garlic if you like. An easy addition is to thaw a package of frozen chopping spinach, squeeze out the water, and toss the leaves into the filling.

Then I use plain mozzarella for the shredded cheese layers, but also sometimes I use Sargento's reduced fat Italian cheese blend, which is quite good. Their Pizza Cheese and Italian Herd And Cheese Bistro Blends are good, too.

For tomato sauce, well... You'll laugh, but I find that the cheaper tomato sauce that comes in a can is better than the glass jarred sauces, with the exception of the very expensive ones Emeril makes. I suspect that the ordinary jarred sauce is damaged by the exposure to light, and Emeril's probably is, too, but the original recipe is so much superior that it's still good despite this. I wish they sold tomato sauce in dark glass!

Well, there you have it: Lasagna.

If you want to try something more special, here's my favorite "alternate lasagna" recipe: Creamy Spinach Lasagna with whole wheat noodles, by Cooking Light.

To make that recipe, you will want to add parmesan or romano cheese to the creamy filling, as well as some finely chopped onion and minced garlic, and some of your favorite herbs, such as basil. Otherwise, the filling is bland. With those additions, though, this is a luxuriously silky lasagna that is great for company, because it uses "normal" whole wheat noodles, and in such a way that the whole wheat flavor is actually a part of the recipe, not an unfortunate side effect.

Pumpkin Flan

There's a delicious recipe for butternut flan in Cookling Light, but it has serious flaws. Butternut squash, though delicious, is annoying to process, and the recipe produces a watery, bland result when followed exactly (reviewers agree).

I have a different version made with canned pumpkin. You might use fresh pumpkin, but I don't, not for pies: Fresh pumpkin is an unpredictable product, sometimes stringy and watery, sometimes picked unripe and allowed to turn orange off the vine, resulting in a flavorless result. But the biggest issue is the irregular moisture content.

Canned pumpkin has a good and predictable flavor, a low moisture content, and is very easy to use. The disadvantage is the slight "canned" flavor, which is not noticable in a highly spiced recipe, but unpleasant (to me) in a recipe where the flavor of the pumpkin is the dominant flavor, like pumpkin soup.

Thus, I use canned for pies and breads/muffins/cookies/etc., and fresh for soups and anytime I intend to use it as cubes instead of puree.

But all this is beside the point. The pumpkin flan is essentially a pumpkin pie, but instead of a crust, it has caramel flan sauce on the bottom! The filling can be made with Splenda (custards are one of the best times to use artificial sweeteners), and with no crust, there's no white flour or butter, so the end result consists mostly of wholesome milk, eggs, and pumpkin.

Filling:

1 can unsweetened plain pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 5-ounce can evaporated milk
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup Splenda or equivalent
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves or allspice
3 eggs
1 egg yolk

Sauce:

1/3 cup sugar (raw sugar is okay)
1 tsp corn syrup (you can leave it out if you don't have any)
3 tbsp water

Coat 6 custard cups (ramekins) with butter or cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 325. Place 6 cups of water on the back burner and let it heat up while you're working.

Make the caramel sauce by putting the ingredients into a small pan, ideally stainless steel or heavy anodized aluminum, and stirring over medium heat until it melts together. Then leave it to boil, NOT stirring, until it turns golden. Then, immediately pour the hot sugar into the ramekins, working quickly because it will harden and become unusable if it cools. Fill the pot with water once you're done, and leave it to soak so it will be easy to clean later.

Combine the filling ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Don't mix air into it - that means be careful if you use a whisk, and don't use an electric mixer or blender. If you have an immersion blender, however, this is a great time to use it, provided you insert the blender carefully and keep it under the surface to avoid whipping air in. The reason to avoid stirring in air is because if you do, the filling will puff up and have an odd texture.

Place the ramekins onto a jelly-roll pan (baking sheet with a lip around the edges, as opposed to the kind that is totally flat) and pour the filling into them. Then place the pan into the oven. THEN, carefully pour the hot water you've been boiling into the pan, so that the ramekins are sitting in the hot water. Depending on the size of your pan, you might have to add more water; you want it to be almost full, such that the ramekins are sitting in water about halfway up their sides.

Bake for 25 minutes, then open the oven. Remove the ramekins carefully, putting them on a cooling rack, and leave the hot water in the oven until it's cooled off and is safe to remove. Don't try to take the whole pan out at once! It will spill and you might burn yourself!



Weird things I did and why:

1. Why some whole eggs and some yolks? An authentic flan is made with all yolks, but that's pretty rich and unhealthy, and then I never know what to do with the whites. But you can make it with 6 yolks instead if you like.

2. Can I make this non-dairy? Yes. Replace the evaporated milk with plain non-dairy liquid creamer, and replace the regular milk with your favorite milk substitute.


3. Why the immersion blender? I love my immersion blender. It is easy to use and easy to clean. It's good for custards because it will blend up the albumen (egg white stringy bits) so the custard has an even texture, without whipping air into it. Just slip the blender in carefully to avoid trapping air, and turn it on, keeping the head underwater. I also use this for mixing cheesecake batter for the same reason. Air bubbles are the enemy of cheesecake.

You can serve the flan by upending it over a plate, but I find that difficult, so I just eat it out of the ramekin. Yum!

Ricotta Cheese

I'm only one-quarter Italian, but it's a very loud, assertive 25% (it also gesticulates wildly when it talks, wears leather pants, grows a tomato plant on its tiny balcony, and stares openly at beautiful women). This vociferous genetic heritage bangs its spoon on the table and demands lasagna.

Fortunately, the rest of me agrees that lasagna is pretty darn tasty. I have a bunch of recipes (or suggestions ;) ) for lasagna, which I will eventually share, but they all have one important thing in common: RICOTTA.

Educational Aside: Ricotta means "re-cooked" in Italian. It is made by taking the whey that is a byproduct of making other cheese such as mozzarella, and then adding a little more acid and re-heating the whey. This causes a second batch of curds to form, much smaller than the first batch, which are strained out, salted, and enjoyed. It's in the category of cream cheese and cottage cheese, being uncultured and fresh (like some people I know). It contains lots of lactose, unlike cultured cheeses who might have less if the culture has broken the lactose down.

Not all ricottas are the same. There's the fat content:

1. Whole Milk: The richest, creamiest, most authentic cheese, but also a bit of an indulgence, as with all full-fat cheeses. I use this on special occasions.
2. Part-Skim: Slightly higher water content, slightly grainier texture, slighter healthier nutritional profile. I consider it a good compromise.
3. Fat-Free: Has an oddly gelatinous texture, usually because there are various gums added to keep it a cheese - there would otherwise not be enough to it to be anything but liquid whey. I will sometimes mix this into regular ricotta when I am making a recipe that I feel has too much fat already, but I never use it by itself. If, however, you are being really careful about your caloric intake, you can use this anywhere you'd use regular ricotta. Putting it through the food processor, or just stirring it really well, helps with the texture.

Then there's the brands (in reverse order of deliciousness):

1. Store brand: Good enough if you're mixing it with something, like if you're using a recipe that calls for part ricotta and part cottage cheese. Has the grainiest texture, and is the most inclined to separate.
2. Sorrento, Sargento, and Dragone: These are, to my tastes, roughly equivalent. I like Dragone part-skim slightly better, and Sorrento whole milk slightly better, but honestly, if it's in a recipe I can't tell the difference.
3. Biazza: THIS IS THE SHIZNIT. Seriously. I am not even joking. THE SHIZNIT. Go buy it and eat it, straight out of the carton with a spoon, it's that good. It's incredibly creamy, the curds are so tiny that you can't even detect them so there's no graininess, it doesn't separate, and it's totally natural with no gums or lactic acids. It's a bit regional, made in New Jersey, so might not be available everywhere. If that's so, then I feel your pain.

If you've sprung for a good ricotta, here's your ultimate low-carb, high-calcium, high-protein dessert:

Per serving:

1/2 cup ricotta
2 packets or 1 1/2 tbsp sweetener or equivalent
1/2 tsp vanilla, OR 1/4 tsp almond extract

Mix that sucker up in a bowl and eat it. BAM - instant deliciousness. Even my husband can make this. It's a good breakfast food, too. If you want to make it fancy, you can drizzle on a little chocolate or caramel sundae syrup.

Fun with Wheat Berries

I picked up a bag of wheat berries at the store the other day, for no reason other than that they looked cool. I like Grape Nuts Flakes, which are to wheat berries as instant oatmeal is to oat groats, so I thought they'd be tasty.

They were.

The particular brand I got was parboiled, so it only took 15 minutes to cook. I cooked it with a pinch of salt and then added maple syrup and melted Smart Balance, to excellent effect.

Delicious Basic Wheat Berries

1 Serving

1/4 cup wheat berries
2/3 cup water
Pinch salt
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 pat Smart Balance 50/50 Butter Blend (or regular smart balance, or butter)

Boil the berries and the water with the salt for 15 minutes, or until it's al dente - a firm exterior and tender interior. Drain and add the seasonings. Yay wheat berries!

They are also excellent leftovers, warmed in the microwave.

UPDATE October 6, 2010: New wheat berry idea :)

Harvest Wheat Berry Salad

1/2 cup wheat berries
2 cups water
Big pinch of salt
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tsp butter or Smart Balance
1 apple, peeled and chopped

Cook the wheat berries for 15 minutes, then drain. Add the butter and syrup and toss until the butter is melted. Then add the cranberries, walnuts and apple.

You can make this with pre-made wheat berries from the recipe above. You can also store this to eat later, but the apples will turn brown if you do, so either toss them with lemon juice first or add them right before serving. Makes a good afternoon snack.

Artificial Sweeteners

"ZOMG Artificial Sweeteners r gonna kill u!!!"

I get this a lot. My usual response is threefold:

1. Anything will kill you in excess.
2. Studies have tried and failed to link moderate use of Splenda to health problems, whereas
3. We know for a fact that sugar WILL kill you. Even in moderation it does harm, which requires immediate action to prevent (specifically, cleaning your teeth ASAP).

"But what about honey? What about raw sugar? What about fructose?" I hear you ask! Well, they are all the same. Sugar is sugar is sugar. High fructose corn syrup is currently being demonized, but seriously, folks, it's just sugar. If it's slightly less healthy than regular sugar, that's like saying hitting yourself with a mallet hurts less than hitting yourself with a hammer. They both hurt.

That said, I do prefer to use raw sugar and honey, but that's because white sugar sometimes triggers migraines in my family (we don't know why). Also, I just like the flavor!

I still use sucralose (Splenda) as my go-to sweetener for most things, but only for budgetary considerations. The exception is when I am cooking something chocolate flavored, I will often use Truvia, because its taste goes really well with chocolate for some reason. As more varieties of natural sweeteners enter the market, I play with them and develop preferences, and have incorporated some into my regular use. Here's a breakdown of the ones I've tried.

1. Stevia - a natural plant extract. Now available in many forms. Interestingly, it was banned for some time, and still is banned in some parts of the world. I wasn't able to find out a good reason for this, though, and it's now sanctioned by our government. Rebiana (Reb A) is the specific word for the extract used by PureVia and Truvia. It's used in some parts of the world as a treatment for diabetes, and some studies do show an increase in insulin sensitivity and production; someday, we might be using stevia as a medicine. Until then, it's a sweetener.
   
   • Truvia: The best Stevia I've tried, sold in both packet and loose form as stevia extract in a base of erythritol (discussed below). Made by the Coca-Cola Company. I use this in recipes calling for chocolate, because something about it makes chocolate taste more chocolatey, which is always a good thing.
   • PureVia: The same thing, but has a more bitter taste. Made by the Pepsi Company.
   • Stevia in the Raw: Trading on their Sugar in the Raw brand, this is stevia in a base of maltodextrin, a common food starch. The maltodextrin annoys me. If I'm going to eat maltodextrin, I will just get Splenda. Furthermore, this has a strong bitter taste that has ruined more than one dessert for me.
2. Sucralose - Splenda's sweetener, now available in generic form. Safe except linked to thyroid problems (among others) in rodents at massive doses. Thyroid problems are treatable and the symptoms are obvious, and in order to trigger this problem, you'd have to, for example, drink two DOZEN cans of Splenda-sweetened sodas PER DAY for weeks, in order to even come close to the doses given to those rats. I consider Splenda to be safe and affordable. It's sold in a base of food starches to make it fluffy, which contributes some calories and makes it dissolve into liquids a bit unpredictably, but this is a minor issue.
3. Aspartame - Originally marketed as Equal. Whether by virtue of its older age, or by actual dangers, aspartame has had more potential problems linked with it. I have a major weakness for diet soda, and that's made with aspartame, so I never use aspartame in other forms in order to keep my consumption moderate. UPDATE: I poked around looking at some more research, and the FDA says I can drink 21 cans of soda a day for the rest of my life and the aspartame won't hurt me (which is not to say it's a good idea!). There's still a surprising amount of controversy over it, though, and its presence in the "safe foods" list is by a non-unanimous vote.
4. Saccharine - I think this tastes nasty and never use it. Maybe it's unhealthy, I don't know. Either way, it's gross.
5. Sugar alcohols - carbohydrates that taste like sugar but are metabolized so slowly as to have a negligible effect on blood sugar, making them safe for diabetics. There are many kinds of sugar alcohols which have different properties. Almost all of them are naturally produced in plants or even in the human body.
   
   • Maltitol: Used in candy-making for its gooiness, but difficult to digest. It causes all kinds of intestinal distress in high doses, and for many, a "high dose" is, say, two bites of candy. The cause is the same as beans, meaning some people don't digest it well (which is kind of the point, since the idea is to digest these slowly and avoid the sugar rush). Sorbitol is very similar.
   • Erythritol: Metabolized and excreted through the renal system, meaning you pee it out. Thus, no intestinal problems. It's a good solution for people like my husband who can't tolerate maltitol. However, the idea of peeing sweetly weirds me out, and I prefer not to use too much of this in case it turns out someday that it's not good for your kidneys. There's no evidence causing me to think that, it's just my hangup.
   • Xylitol: My favorite of all. Xylitol has been linked to major health benefits (yes! Healthy sweetness!) for our mouths, preventing dental decay and the passing of dental bacteria from mothers to babies. Chewing gum with xylitol is great for your teeth. Nobody knows why (or they didn't last I checked) but the theory is that the bacteria think it's sugar and try to eat it, then can't flourish because (HA!) it's not really sugar after all. Xylitol has also been used to combat fungal infections and as a systemic antibiotic for various infections. But there is one massive drawback. Xylitol is extremely toxic to dogs. Some dogs tolerate it well, but some will die after eating two sticks of xylitol gum. The reaction is not a conventional toxicity like chocolate, but rather an autoimmune response like a peanut allergy, hence the unpredictability of it. The emergency room visit and the followup vet bills after Trinity got into some xylitol have convinced me to only keep this around in small quantities and be VERY VERY careful to keep it WELL out of her reach.
6. Ideal Brand: The name is silly, but actually it kind of IS ideal. It's xylitol intensified with sucralose, to make it more affordable. This is available in many grocery stores, albeit in small amounts and not for the best price. Still, I keep it around and use it to sweeten drinks like tea and chocolate milk, figuring this maximizes the health benefits of the xylitol. The fact that it comes in paper packets means it's safer from Trinity, too, since I use it one packet at a time instead of putting into whole recipes.

Well, there you have it. I hope that helps. At the moment, nobody is reading this blog but me and possibly my mom, so I have not bothered to cite sources and write a bibliography. Someday when I am rich and famous and it's worth my time to do so, I'll come back here and write something more detailed for y'all.

Enjoy the sweet life, people!

Delicious Almond Milk Drink

I tried making homemade almond milk recently, grinding the almonds in my blender. It tasted great, but the texture was gritty and straining it through the cheesecloth was a pain.

So I tried commercial almond milk, specifically Almond Breeze (Blue Diamond's almondmilk). The flavor wasn't as good as my own, having an oddly metallic taste that I suspect comes from the vitamins and minerals added to make it a better substitute for cow's milk. But I've been enjoying playing with it nonetheless, and have settled on a favorite Indian-inspired recipe for it.

Makes 1 serving

1/2 cup Almond Breeze
1/3 cup whole milk
2 packets Ideal, Truvia, or whatever sweetener you like, or 1 1/2 tbsp Splenda or sugar
Honey to taste, optional
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Dash cinnamon
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Just mix it all up in a cup and you're good to go. Indian food lore says the combination of almonds, milk and cardamom is an excellent restorative and cooling drink. I say it's really tasty.

White Chili with Chicken and Roasted Chile Peppers

Inspired by this recipe for white chili from Cooking Light, here is a subtle and unorthodox white chili whose richness comes from mashed cannellini beans and roasted chile peppers.

6 Anaheim chile peppers - Anaheim chiles are like long jalapenos, being about as long as your hand and solid green. Not to be confused with Italian peppers, which are lime green, or jalapenos, which are small (thumb-sized). If you can't find them, use 5 Poblano peppers plus 1 jalapeno.
2 chicken breast halves
1 1/2 cups chopped onion, about 2 medium or 1 large
1 tbsp minced garlic, about 3 cloves
1 large can cannellini beans or 2 small cans, drained and rinsed
1/3 tsp ground coriander
2 cups chicken broth (I use water + bouillon)
2 tbsp cornmeal
Greek yogurt, plain - use sour cream if you can't find it

Preheat the broiler. Wearing gloves to protect your hands, cut the tops off the peppers, then slice them in half and scoop out the seeds. Arrange the pepper halves on a baking sheet, skin side up, and press down on them with your hand to flatten. Broil for 5 minutes, then check on them. If the skins are blistered and blackened, take them out. Otherwise, give them another 2 minutes.

Place the peppers in a heat-safe bowl and cover with saran wrap or a plate.

Meanwhile, heat a large pot over medium-high heat and sauté the chicken breasts until well golden on both sides. Depending on your stove and the size of your pot, you might have to raise the heat to high in order to get them to turn golden. (Warning: DO NOT use a non-stick pan over high heat. It may release toxic fumes, and will damage the pan.) Remove chicken to a cutting board.

Add the onions and garlic and 2 tbsp water, and sauté until the pan is deglazed (all the brown bits are scraped up and the onions look brown as a result). Then add the broth and bring to a simmer.

Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces and add them as well.

Now take out the peppers, which should be cool enough to handle by this point. Wearing gloves, peel the skins away. They should come off easily. If they don't, then the pepper was undercooked - it doesn't matter, but next time you'll know to cook them a little longer. Throw the peel away and chop the peppers. Add them to the pot.

Put 1/3 of the beans on the cutting board and smash them with the flat of your knife, or a large spoon. Then add the beans to the pot along with the coriander and stir well.

Simmer until the onions are cooked and tender, about 5 minutes. Then stir in the cornmeal, stirring until it thickens.

Serve with the yogurt on top.

Very Best Pie Crust, Very Favorite Apple Pie

Well, it's that time of year again. Specifically, it's suddenly okay to use an entire stick of butter for anything, when during the other three seasons such a thing would be unthinkable. My favorite use for butter is pie crust, and I have a favorite pie crust recipe.

In my family, only the grandmother makes pie. She is Pie Empress, Pie Matriarch, Bringer Of All Things Pie, and final word on pie-related matters. My father learned to make pie by watching her, but could not practice while at home because GOD FORBID a MAN make pie in Her Kitchen. As a result, Pie Making was a holy and elite art.

When I was old enough to help in the kitchen, I was taught to make pie crust. This was a mystic ritual involving a great deal of care and attention, careful rolling, patching of holes to create a perfectly round disc of dough and plenty of sharp commands to "Be careful! You'll ruin it!" Still, nobody but my granmother would dare bring a pie to Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter. (No other holidays or gatherings had pie.) Even so, there was one Thanksgiving when there were more pies than people. It was a good year. Thanks was assuredly given.

Then I went away to college. I had my own kitchen. Autumn happened. I made a pie, with a recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

It was awful. It took hours, it was exhausting, I was terrified I would ruin it and it did, in fact, come out tough. So I stuck to pumpkin pie, where the crust doesn't much matter, for years.

Until one day I vowed I would break FREE of Pie Tyranny!

I went to the trusty old Internet. I asked Google to find me a recipe for pie crust that would taste good and be easy. And I discovered Kitchen Parade's Flaky Tender Pie Crust. A large part of the secret, she said, was to use a metric butt-ton of butter and/or shortening. The other half of the secret was to not give a damn about how it looked - just roll that sucker out every which way and slap it on your pie, nobody will care as long as it's delicious and IT WILL BE as long as you don't fuss about it. And add enough butter.

Sounds good to me. I tried it.

It was amazing.

I tried it a couple more times, just to see. It was amazing then, too. Now I have a new pie crust recipe, my dirty little secret because it uses almost twice as much butter and four times as much sugar as the family recipe.

Recently, a family tragedy tore us apart. My faction, to which I belonged by default since I wasn't personally involved in the disagreement (other than to occasionally comment on how crass it was to squabble over a dead man's meager will), was facing the smallest Christmas in my memory. That's myself, my husband, my dad, his wife, her two kids, my uncle John, his wife, and their two kids. And no Grandma.

No pies.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Pearl, my dad's wife, rose to the occasion marvelously. She was the hostess, and created pies for us and a special gluten-free pie for my dad - he had been reduced to eating the fillings out of Grandma's pies after he developed a gluten intolerance (that's no way to live). Considering Pearl had only been in America for, I think, six years at that point, having grown up in the sadly pieless Philippines, she did a great job and we were all delighted with her pumpkin and cherry pies.

I brought an apple pie.

I was terrified that Grandma or Tia would forgive us and come to Christmas anyway, which was really not in the Christmas spirit and did not do either of them justice because they've always been kind to me. But I was afraid I'd hurt their feelings by daring to bring my non-standard pie. Not only was the crust different, but I have a favorite apple and spice blend that was also a bit of a deviation. AND, I made the filling with Splenda, not sugar.

There weren't any leftovers.

I won't try to reproduce the crust recipe here. You really should go to Kitchen Parade and read it there. The instructions are wonderfully precise and easy to follow, and you can't go wrong with them. But I will tell you my opinion on the filling.

6 apples. The variety of apples makes a huge, huge difference. Always use more than one kind of apple; they are more than the sum of their parts. And always use half Cortland apples. If you can't get Cortlands, try Braeburn. The other half can be any kind, but I prefer old-fashioned, full-flavored varieties that are often overlooked because they aren't as juicy or sweet or crisp as new ones. But this is a pie! They don't have to be sweet or crisp, they only have to be flavorful.

3/4 cup Splenda, a little more if you use very sour apples

3 tbsp cornstarch

Spices:
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg

1 tbsp lemon juice

Peel and slice the apples.

Mix the Splenda, cornstarch, and spices in a bowl, then sprinkle over the apples. Toss to coat.

Add the lemon juice and toss to coat.

Ta-da!

Another thing I like to do: I make mini-pies, using custard cups, with only a top crust. They bake for 40 minutes at 375 and are perfect for a single serving. They can be frozen raw and baked whenever you want a fresh pie, without the temptation of a whole pie sitting in the fridge.

Korean Meatballs

Based on this recipe from Cooking Light, these meatballs are easy, fast, and delicious. I'm a big fan of the Korean sweet-and-garlicky meat style, but find it difficult to incorporate into everyday meals, so this was pretty awesome. I've made a few changes to make the recipe even easier and faster.

Ingredients:
1 package ground meat, any kind will do. About a pound or a pound and a half.
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp molasses
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsp tamari

Mix with a spoon, and then form into meatballs with your gloved hands while a nonstick pan heats over medium-high heat. Also be heating the oven to 375.

Form the meatballs, about the size of ping-pong balls. Add a teaspoon of peanut oil or canola oil to the pan, and add the meatballs. Press down on them gently to flatten a little bit. That's so they cook more evenly and don't stick.

Cook for 3 minutes on each side, long enough to brown. Then, move to the oven and cook for 5 minutes or until done. Serve with Sriracha (chile paste with garlic).

Changes I made, and why:
1. MEAT: Recipe calls for grinding chicken breast in the food processor, and I was like WHAAA? No way! So I used ground turkey, but I think ground beef or pork would also be very good, and more authentic, too.

2. Sugar and molasses: You could also use 3 tbsp brown sugar, but I prefer to use raw sugar and then added the molasses for moisture and flavor. It's just a personal preference.

3. Garlic powder: Recipe called for tons of chopped garlic. I dislike chopping garlic, and anyway the garlic wouldn't have integrated very well into the meat, so I chose to use garlic powder for its smooth, fine texture and ease of use.

4. Tamari: Recipe called for salt + low-sodium soy sauce. That's just silly. Tamari has a better flavor than soy sauce, so if we're going to be adding salt anyway, we might as well use the better-tasting Tamari. It's a good idea to keep low-sodium soy sauce on hand anyway, though, because when making sauces that recipe volume, it's better to use the low-sodium sauce instead or it will become too salty.

5. Flattening the meatballs: Rolling meatballs around to brown them always causes them to fall apart, at least for me. Flattening them means they can be cooked like mini hamburger patties. they hold their shape, are easy to flip, and don't stick. The only sacrifice is an oblong meatball instead of a spherical one, which doesn't bother me.

Enjoy!

Bouillon is Better than Broth

Because frankly, I have better things to do with my time than boil soup stock, and better things to do with my money than buy canned broth. Not to mention the fact that homemade broth ruins all those vegetables, and you have to throw them away. That, plus the short shelf life, is a recipe (heh heh) for waste.

I hate waste. Can you tell? Wasted time, wasted money, wasted ingredients. Hate, hate, hate.

A good quality bouillon tastes as good as canned broth (to me), at a fraction of the price AND a fraction of the pantry space. When your kitchen is as small as mine (remember your college dorm room? About 1/4 that size), pantry space is at a premium.

Also, and people don't often realize this, bouillon can be mixed mixed to any strength. Ordinary recipes call for broth to be boiled down to make it stronger (a waste of time!), but with bouillon, you can skip that step and just mix the broth the strength you want it! Example: Recipe calls for 2 cups of broth to be boiled down to 1 cup. Instead, add 1 cup water and 2 cups' worth of bouillon.

Furthermore, bouillon can be mixed with anything, not just water. When a recipe calls for, say, a cup of half-and-half (for creaminess) and a cup of broth (for flavor), you can instead mix the bouillon into TWO cups of 2% milk, and the result is not only better-tasting, but healthier, too. (I don't like wasting calories, either. If I'm going to have cream, it's going to be ICE cream, not chowder.)

I use this brand, which is ironically named Better Than Bouillon.

Here is a recipe to get you started thinking creatively about bouillon.

Swedish-Style Gravy - Great on IKEA's Swedish meatballs and way less fatty than their own gravy!

2 cups milk
1/4 cup flour
2 tsp Better than Bouillon beef flavor
1 tbsp butter

Whisk the flour into cold milk. Then heat over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. When it's warm, add the bouillon. When it bubbles, cook and stir for another 20 seconds, then remove from heat and drop in the butter. Whisk vigorously until the butter melts.

Incidentally: Adding cold butter to finished sauces is called "mounting" the sauce, which I think is hilarious. I do this instead of making a roux because it imparts the buttery flavor with less butter. A roux would have required at least twice as much butter, maybe more. Authentic French cooking uses this method to add MORE butter, essentially over-saturating the sauce with butter to make it hold more than it could have otherwise by emulsifying it. Oh, those crazy French!

Enjoy!

Red Wine Turkey Stew and Dumplings

This recipe is slightly adapted from "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes For Two," by Beth Hensperger. The cookbook was given to me by my very kind grandmother; unfortunately, I never cook for two - I cook for four, and use the leftovers as lunch the next day. I also don't like to have half a thing of whatever ingredient sitting around going bad, and I always like to put more veggies into my stews so I don't have to prepare a separate vegetable dish.

So, I am always having to upsize the recipes in this book, and also my slow cooker is annoying and I often prefer to use the stove. Here is the stovetop made-for-awesome-leftovers version of this delicious and economical stew.

Ingredients:

1 package turkey tenderloin (2 tenderloins), cut into bite size chunks
Oil for the pan
2 regular yellow onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 carrots, chopped
6 parsnips, chopped
1 russet potato, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 cups red wine (since the wine makes up most of the broth, use a bottled wine from the liquor store, not salted cooking wine)
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme and 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (easy if you make herb ice cubes!)
1 package white mushrooms, quartered
Water
Beef bouillon

Heat a dutch oven or stew pot over medium-high heat and sear the turkey in it. Remove the turkey to a plate and saute the onions and garlic until the garlic begins to soften, about 4 minutes. Add the wine, scraping to loosen browned bits. Add the remaining vegetables (except the mushrooms) and bring to a boil.

Add enough water to bring the water level up to about 1 inch from the tops of the food - this means that there is still lots of veggies sticking up like icebergs out of the stew. That's okay. Now stir in enough bouillon to make the broth - for me, that's usually 1 tsp. Reduce heat and simmer about 1 1/2 hours.

Technically, you could actually skip the simmering stage, since turkey tenderloin is, well, tender. But simmering makes a better broth.

After the simmering is over, prepare the dumplings. You can make a half-batch of your favorite dumpling recipe, or you can use mine:

1/3 cup cake flour (if you don't have cake flour, use 1/4 cup white flour and 2 tablespoons cornstarch)
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour (if you don't have it, use regular white flour)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda (important!)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar (less important)
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter
1/3 cup milk or buttermilk

Mix the dry ingredients together with a whisk, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or butter knife until the pieces are like grains of rice. Then add the milk, stirring until just blended - don't stir too much.

Turn the stew to HIGH and, as soon as it's bubbling, drop the dumpling batter onto the surface, trying to make them land on solids instead of sitting in the broth. This should make 6 dumplings.

Cover and steam for 10 minutes. Then serve the stew right away, while the dumplings are fresh!

Using Herbs

Fresh herbs are awesome. They are also short-lived, expensive (since you throw half away most of the time), and annoying.

I keep all my herbs in little pre-measured herb ice cubes in the freezer. This enables me to have fresh-tasting herbs with no freezer burn anytime I want them! That's my solution to the "flavor versus convenience" conflict.

Herb-buying goes like this:

1. Bring home a packet of herbs. For example, rosemary.

2. Wash the herbs, and strip off all the leaves.

3. Chop the leaves nice and fine.

4. Measure the leaves about a teaspoon at a time into an ice cube tray, 1 teaspoon per cube.

5. Very gently pour water over them using the spray nozzle from your sink. If you don't have a spray nozzle, that's okay, just drizzle the water on gently. Only use enough to cover the leaves, not so much that there will be a big hunk of ice attached to them.

6. Place in the freezer. When they're frozen, remove them and put them in zip-lock baggies.

7. When it's time to use them, give them a quick rinse under the tap to remove any freezer burn crystals. The coating of ice protects the flavor of the herbs inside. If making a soup or sauce, just use as-is; otherwise, thaw in the microwave and drain first. They will taste as fresh as they day you bought them :)

Chicken Pot Pie, better than store-bought

I have been on a quest for chicken pot pie for as long as I've been cooking, and it's always elusive. Until now. A big part of the secret is the little white onions, so be sure not to substitute them!

Filling:

1 cup frozen peas
4 carrots or about enough to make 3/4 cup when chopped
1 cup little white boiling onions, about 6 - golf-ball-sized ones are okay - cut in half, no need to peel
1/2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1/4 tsp chopped fresh sage
1 cup milk
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp chicken bouillon (enough to make 1 cup of broth)
Ground pepper to taste
Breast meat from 1 rotisserie chicken, chopped

Topping:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cups cornstarch (that combo means the health of the whole wheat plus the lightness of the cornstarch)
1 stick butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream or tartar
1/2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup milk

Prep:

Oven to 450. Place 2 cups of water in a small pot to boil. Drop in the onions.

Make the topping first. Combine the dry ingredients and then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two butter knives, whichever you have, until it's crumbles with a few bits the size of peas (it's all about peas tonight, folks). Then add the milk, stir just until a dough forms. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead 10 times.

Roll out into the right shape to fit your casserole or pie plate that you plan to use. Turn the dish upside-down on top of it and trim it to fit - you want it pretty exact. Then put the crust on a cookie sheet, and put the cookie sheet in the oven to bake. Set the timer for 14 minutes.

By now the water is boiling, so put the peas in while you chop the carrots - try to get the pieces not much bigger than the peas. After four minutes, scoop the peas and onions out with a slotted spoon and drop in the carrots. Put the peas into the casserole dish.

While the carrots cook (set a timer for 8 minutes), peel and chop the onions. They don't need to be chopped very small. The reason you cook them first is because otherwise the peels are annoying to remove. Also chop the chicken and put it in the casserole dish.

Put the chopped onions into a skillet with the milk, bouillon, and flour. Whisk the flour until smooth and turn on the heat. Whisk constantly while it warms up.

By now the crust is probably ready to check and the carrots are probably ready, too. If the crust is golden, remove it and set it aside; otherwise, give it another 2 minutes. Put the carrots into the casserole dish, and add 2/3 cup of the cooking water (which is now a tasty broth) to the milk mixture in the skillet.

When the milk mixture thickens and bubbles, remove it from the heat and pour it into the casserole dish. Add the herbs. By now, all the filling ingredients should be in the casserole dish. Just mix them together.

Gently remove the crust from the baking sheet and place on top of the pie.

You're done!

Here's the "why" for some of the weird things I did in this recipe:

Why the annoying little onions? No idea, but their flavor is necessary. Yellow or large white onions just don't cut it. Sorry! Boiling them first makes it easier, and they don't sting your eyes either.

Why bake the crust separately? Maybe this is just me, but I can't ever keep the filling from bubbling over the crust and making it soggy if I bake the crust on top of the pie. Also, this way shaves a good 15 minutes off the prep time.

Why THIS crust and not a pie crust? It's healthier this way. Less butter, but still homey. It's a biscuit recipe. You could use Bisquick or even refrigerated biscuit dough if you like.

Why bouillon and not broth? Because this way you can use milk as some of the liquid, lending creaminess and richness to the gravy without all the added fat that would come from the butter and/or cream one would normally have to use to get that same effect.

Why all the micro-managing? I don't need you to tell me how to chop my own dam carrots! Because if you do it just like I say, you can have homemade chicken pot pie on the table in half an hour. That's a pretty impressive achievement. But by all means, feel free to prepare it in whatever order you prefer.

Why rotisserie chicken? Because it is delicious.

Like I said, this is the result of a lot of trial and error. To my taste it is a damned near perfect (pardon my French) combination of authentic and delicious homestyle flavor together with modern healthful cooking. The only problem is the butter. You could use vegetable shortening, but you'd have to add more salt. You can also cut the biscuit recipe in half and have a thinner crust.

Hello and Welcome to Fall - Autumnal Turkey Cutlets

Autumnal Turkey Cutlets

4 turkey cutlets
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola or blue cheese
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp chopped fresh sage
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup cooking sherry

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Coat with cooking spray, and spread the turkey in the skillet to cook for 3 minutes.

Turn the turkey over, and sprinkle all the other ingredients on top EXCEPT the sherry. Cover and cook for another four minutes or until done. Remove the turkey to a plate.

Add the sherry to deglaze the pan, and cook off the alcohol. Drizzle the resultant pan juices over the turkey.

I served this with honey-roasted root vegetables as listed in Cooking Light, one of my favorite side dishes. Though its extensive labor in chopping the veggies kind of negates the speed and convenience of the turkey cutlets!