Roasted Cauliflower

There are some things in our lives that we become experts at ignoring. It hurts too much or it's too shameful or any other number of things keeps us from examining it too closely. Sometimes they're thrown in our face and we have to deal with them. Luckily, sometimes these things aren't horrible secrets so much as bad habits that we relish fixing. In my case, the healthiest thing I've eaten in over a week is the pineapple chunks on my pizza. Earth-shattering, I know, but come on! It's no wonder I bruise with just a look. It also helps that I'm drooling over all the luscious vegetable recipe's the Shazam blog is concentrating on. So in an effort to save my health and use my fancy balsamic vinegar, I bought cauliflower.

Cauliflower isn't my favorite vegetable. Don't get me wrong, I'm not offended by it or refuse to eat it or anything. I just hardly think of it. Of course, something that is so often physically compared to things like, oh, genital warts doesn't usually stand out as one of those things that makes you go mmm. Let's scrub our minds from the last bit and move forward, shall we?



None of my fancy cookbooks had a recipe for the pale stuff that both looked good and I had all the ingredients for. I returned to the original inspiration then. The recipe for balsamic and parmesan roasted cauliflower had me at balsamic. Plus, I had enough to make due. I used one whole head of cauliflower, had to substitute oregano for majoram, and used Kraft parmesan. How was it? Very tasty, no complaints. I had some trouble getting it roasted all the way, but meh. Make sure to go here if you'd like to try it out for yourself.

Tiramisu

Good news everyone! My oven is now in working order. All they had to do was replace the bottom coil. So don't worry, mom. The only way I'm not going to bake that bread is if I killed it, which is probable because I forgot to feed it for the entire cycle. I was stirring though! Anyways.

This is a recipe I made over the Christmas visit to my mom's. I wanted to try out some of the diabetic recipes in the cooking magazines she sent me. The only person I know who is diabetic and in cooking range is my step-dad. Also, mom does dishes and is very helpful when not annoying me. Like I said before, I'm wary of anything that's remotely related to a diet recipe. I never even contemplated making this for me alone, but wow. I think is my new go-to recipe. Me and mom made homemade tiramisu before, but this kicks it in the ass and calls it names.

I found the recipe in an Outsmart Diabetes Cookbook put out by Prevention. The great thing about this cookbook is that it doesn't use sugar substitute. They realize that sugar is not the enemy- too much sugar is. Many of the recipes rely on natural sweetness from fresh ingredients and others simply reduce the amount of sugar. We didn't tell my step-dad that this was diabetic because he blatantly refuses to learn portion control. If this is you, you may want to avoid it. Otherwise, I think this is what real tiramisu should always taste like.

The original recipe was too fiddly in the prep for my taste, so these are the revised directions. You can take the time to individually brush the ladyfingers with the coffee mix if you like, but damn. You've got too much time on your hands.



Tiramisu
Outsmart Diabetes Cookbook
1/13/04

1/2 c hot water
2 T instant espresso powder (or 3 T instant coffee, this is what we used)
32 ladyfingers, split (We used way less, so it's your call)
2 lg egg whites, room temp
1 c sugar
3 T cold water
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
4 oz mascarpone cheese (We used the whole 8 oz because we love it)
4 oz cream cheese (the recipe calls for reduced-fat) room temp
1 T semisweet chocolate shavings


Mix the hot water and espresso powder in a casserole dish with a flat bottom or a cookie sheet deep enough to hold the mix. We used store-bought ladyfingers that were connected. They need to be split down the middle, but you can still keep the two sides in sheets to do several at once. Quickly dip one side of the ladyfingers and immediately transfer to the dish you'll cool and serve the tiramisu in. Cover the bottom and sides of your serving dish, but leave the rest dry.



Bring a few inches of water to a boil in a large saucepan. In another bowl, mix the egg whites, sugar, cold water, and cream of tartar. Holding the bowl over the saucepan, mix with an electric mixer set on low for about 4 minutes, then beat on high for another 4 minutes or until very thick. Remove bowl from heat and beat another 4 minutes of until the mix is light and fluffy. (Mom is my hand-model and official fiddly egg beater)



Place mascarpone and cream cheese in a large bowl. Beat until creamy. Add 1 cup of the egg mix and beat until smooth. Gradually fold in the rest.

Pour 1/3 to 1/2 of the mix in your serving tray. Cover more ladyfingers with the coffee and arrange on top until you've used all the mix and have as many layers of the fingers as you want. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours.

12 Servings

New Developments

Well well. I had a busy day yesterday.

Let's start by saying that roasted potatoes with my left-over horseradish butter from the steak was not a good idea. Butter + potatoes= no flavor. Also, let's say that roasting rosemary chicken with onion and garlic powder over similarly flavored potatoes was a great idea. That is, of course, until my oven committed suicide. There I was, minding my own business, when I hear something like welding coming from the kitchen. I open the oven door to see bright light. Oh, nothing to worry about. I just set my oven on fire again. These things happen fairly often, so I turned it off and kept the door closed. The sound of grating, rattling metal went away.

However, when I opened the door minutes later to take the food out, parts of the coil were still orange. And disconnected. And laying on the floor. A comedian once pointed out that if something is wrong with one side of the body, we immediately check the other to compare. (Of course, you could just have two tumors in the same spot, so be careful.) The other side didn't do the dippy thing. Crap. The coil had somehow snapped, fallen, and dry-roasted the bottom of my oven. I am not happy. This means maintenance men stomping around my kitchen and scaring my cats. I think I'll be cooking off the stove for a while. Or hey! A whole session on microwave cooking. I know you'll all want to read about that. Sigh.



Anyways, I ordered pizza today so I think I'll be fine for a while. They even got my order right. Pizza, iced tea, and possibly my best friend will more than make up for all this.

Also notice that I messed with the page elements a bit. I was finding it hard to navigate around my own blog, so I organized for clarity and ease of use. I added a search function that will allow you to search the site without sifting through archives as well as searching for any item or term you like on google. Let me know if something doesn't work or I just screwed things up further.

What I Have and Have Not Been Eating

Well, let's start with a nice cuppa. I think I'm in love with this coffee press. It turns finely ground coffee that sat in the freezer for months, then by my drip-pot for longer into full-flavored sludgy goodness. Even with more steps and more clean-up it still seems easier and faster than a drip. And that sleek little glass and metal pot on my counter makes me feel so European. Which I guess is good.



It's also giving me a perfect opportunity to take even more picture of this particular corner of my kitchen window. I'm enamored with the dirt there left from some plant-related mishap. No idea why.



It might also be making me picture happy.



This is good though since the only other thing worth taking a picture of is potatoes. I did the buy one get one free bag of reds at Winn-Dixie again. I do love potatoes. Especially since I don't want to spend anymore money at the store. So be expecting many new ideas there. Like today's. The recipe isn't pulling up anymore, so here's how I made them. Half a pack of dried onion soup mix, lots of parmesan cheese, black pepper, garlic powder. 350F covered in foil for 35 mins. 20 more mins without foil.

They were very nice, especially with a little extra parm right before eating. I'm so used to roasted reds at this point that I found the moistness from this recipe almost disturbing. I won't use foil next time.



I had a can of sauerkraut in the pantry, some diced tomatoes lounging in the frige, and an idea for a quick kapusniak. Check to see how sauer your kraut is before you get too happy with it. Mine is good, but wow. I chucked some beef bouillon into water with the rest of the instant onion mix from the potatoes, added sauerkraut, diced tomatoes, garlic powder, and a potato, heated and served.



I have also decided that English peas are on my shit list. They taste funny. Too sweet to make a good vegetable and not sweet enough to use in a dessert way. I discovered this after making a very lackluster creamed tuna recipe. It's in a Tupperware tomb right now where it'll probably stay. It was ugly and bad, so look over here!

Roasted Lemon-Pepper Chicken and Potatoes

You know those days where you can't be bothered to do anything new? The days where you cook something you don't really want to eat just because it's there and easy? Last night was one of those nights. But boy did it turn out different.

I've roasted chicken and potatoes before. I mean, come on. What is a lazier dinner? It's just that a few snippets had lodged themselves in my brain and I was doing them despite my auto-pilot. On a food blog I frequent (I can't remember which), a reader commented on how they loved to roast potatoes under roasting chicken. Kay. Also, I had a package of chicken legs with the skins. I'm so used to boneless, skinless chicken that I can't even fathom what to do with skin. Or hey, good olive oil. But all these little things just added up to way beyond the sum of their parts.

Roasting with the skin on retains moisture and adds flavor. We know that. Seasoning both under and over the skin adds flavor too. Also, duh. But I never thought of drizzling some olive oil over the top. I think the only reason I did it was because that's what I did to the potatoes. Also, I don't have a roasting pan. I have an unnatural aversion to slimy chicken baked directly on a pan, so I routinely cook them on cooling racks. Shoving some potatoes under them was a no-brainer that I'm ashamed took me this long to figure out. A healthy dose of lemon-pepper seasoning on all and it was done.

It was probably the best roast chicken I've ever had. It was falling off the bone under a crispy shell of deliciousness. A true "Did that actually come out of my kitchen" moment. And the potatoes! Guh. Nice and flavorful from the seasonings but drowned in chicken fat and good oil. It. Doesn't. Get. Better. I promise you. Of course, it was so good that I ate all three pieces in one night. Still, I've got two legs left... So, in essence, this is the most long-winded way I could tell you that I made awesome dead animal. Who wants carcass?

Lemon-Ginger Bread

If you read my last few posts about Amish friendship bread and the okay but ho-hum loaf I got from it, prepare to be amazed. Originally, I was going to make lemon cranberry bread, but I found out while mixing that yeah, I had less than a handful of dried cranberries. No worries, that candied ginger looks wonderful. And hey, why not add some ground ginger to that. Wow, this tastes good. I'm gonna add more of that ginger and so on until I ate enough of the batter to actually affect the cooking time on my second loaf. Oh yeah, it was the shit.



Bread, especially just sweet bread and not the pretty rustic loaves, just doesn't photograph well. Mix that with my own crappy camera and inexperience and it's not nearly as appetizing as it should be. Just trust me on this. If you like lemon or ginger, you will love this. Personally, I WILL be making this again and I'll probably be adding more of both.

Lemon-Ginger Bread

1 1/4 cup Amish friendship starter
1 c oil
1/2 c milk
3 eggs
1 tsp lemon extract

2 c flour
1 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 box instant lemon pudding (I used about 3 ounces)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
Chopped candied ginger- to taste. I used about 5 of the peels

Preheat oven to 325F. Mix wet ingredients. Slowly add dry and mix as you go. Pour into two loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour.

Cardamom Coffee

If you're like many Americans, cardamom sounds like one of the flowers your grandmother grew as opposed to something you would willingly eat. And while I'm constantly amazed at just how world-blind my fellow college students are, I admit that I too have had limited experience with this particular spice. Oh sure, I picked up a bag of whole pods at World Market. I used them once in a cake. Yet somehow, I've let them sit in a lonely plastic bag, buried in the freezer for... let's be gentle and say two years. I try not to think about it too much because the idea that I have most of the spices I've ever dreamed of sitting idle in my kitchen, with no inclination to use them, makes me just a little sick. Now there are some that I'm saving. Those vanilla pods? So going in a panna cotta. One day. One day this year, actually, since it's on my list. Go me. And those saffron threads? Authentic saffron rice. And and and.



However, there are some days when all those ideas in your head seem to coalesce brilliantly into one cohesive idea that suddenly seems like an effort NOT to do. And today, that was cardamom coffee. I have a coffee press gleaned from my mother that I've never used. I have the best intentions really, but I make coffee so rarely now that I relegated my trusty drip pot to an under-counter cabinet with the full bar I hardly touch. The french press itself has sat patiently in a high cabinet behind the "good" creamers and soy sauce bowls. Do you see a pattern here? The last thing holding me back was coffee. All I had was the flavored kind, while good, wasn't something that would offer a clean background to added flavors. Oh! But what's that? Whole bean Starbucks coffee that my dad and step-mom gave me two Christmases ago? It was shoved under everything in the back of my freezer. I realize that I am somebody's walking nightmare. Usually my own.



Despite my best efforts to never make coffee again, a long-ago read blog kept tickling the back of my mind. I remember that cardamom coffee was a sign of welcome in some Arab countries, and doesn't that just sound delicious? It beats the hell out of the chocolate milk I've been dribbling all over my sweat pants. It's cold and raining and it's the weekend. There is no better time for a hot little cup of heaven. And this really is heaven. I haven't enjoyed a simple cup of coffee this much in a long time. Plus, I got to whip out all my neglected pieces and make them feel useful.

The recipe I used was from a blog called SpiceLines. The original blog that got me thinking about all this over a year ago was Cooking Debauchery and her, how'd you guess?, cardamom panna cotta. Oh, you definitely see a pattern now.

Since I used... mature ingredients, I changed the amounts a bit. For the original recipe, follow the link.

Cardamom Coffee
Makes 2 cups

6 cardamom pods, crushed or whirled in the coffee grinder
5-6 T coarsely ground coffee
2 cups water

Place dry ingredients in the bottom of a coffee press. Boil the water until nearly boiling, add to press. Place top on press, but don't plunge. Let sit for 1 minute, stir. Replace top, don't plunge for another 3-4 minutes. Plunge slowly with spout facing away from you. Serve immediately.



She says that the Arabs don't take sugar or cream with this, but it was much too strong for me that way. I tried with both sugar and honey. The honey and milk was my favorite combo. Something about the distinctive sharpness of the cardamom and the smooth sweetness of honey, and the bite of strong coffee balanced by whole milk. Just gets you going.

I'm sure you could try to substitute the whole pods with cardamom powder, but I would recommend you try it with a traditional drip-pot. I've added many spices through that method with success. The last cup from a drip would be much less silty than from a press.

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

In my last apartment, I went through a phase where I was making a dish of baked mac every night. I shit you not. My obsession with finding a perfect recipe consumed me. With homemade macaroni and cheese there is a clear line between cheesy and creamy. It's either one or the other. What Kraft foods knows so well is that processed cheese melts creamy with the flavor we crave. Deli cheese, on the other hand, melts stringy, sets up hard, and looses most of its flavor in the heat. So you see it doesn't meld well with the creamy bits. Of course, cheesy is always better than creamy and not flavorful. Always.

After following several links, I landed up at Smitten Kitchen where she prepared a New York Times recipe for baked mac that she deemed wonderful. My verdict? Very good. Still, it's not completely spot on. Flavor-wise, this is fabulous. Yet, it did was regular cheese does and got rubbery- even right out of the oven. It definitely fell on the cheesy side of the fence despite the cottage cheese's best efforts. Did that stop me from eating almost all of it in one sitting? Absolutely not. A few dashes of smoked paprika on the top completed my entire meal. I will say though that the cheese I used (Winn-Dixie brand extra sharp) gave it a slightly funky taste. It had an undercurrent of blue refrigerator mold. Not enough to kill it, but... spice it. Nevertheless, if you're in the mood, this is definitely a good recipe.



Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

New York Times
Julia Molskin 1/4/06

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup cottage cheese (not low-fat)
2 cups milk (not skim)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
Pinch cayenne
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 pound elbow pasta, uncooked

1. Heat oven to 375 F and position an oven rack in upper third of oven. Use 1 tablespoon butter to butter a 9-inch round or square baking pan.

2. In a blender, puree cottage cheese, milk, mustard, cayenne, nutmeg, salt and pepper together.* Reserve 1/4 cup grated cheese for topping. In a large bowl, combine remaining grated cheese, milk mixture and uncooked pasta. Pour into pan, cover with foil. Bake 30 minutes.

3. Uncover pan, stir, sprinkle with reserved cheese and dot with remaining tablespoon butter. Bake uncovered 30 minutes more, until browned.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

* I followed her tip on blending the cottage cheese first (until it was the consistency of yogurt) and gradually adding the milk. No lumps.