Taste&Create: Spare Ribs

You may remember that, last month, I participated in a food-blogging "event" called Taste&Create and really enjoyed searching for recipes from my partner blog, My Year on the Grill. Because I had so much fun, I decided to do Taste&Create again this month. And APPARENTLY because I said I wanted to cook something else from My Year on the Grill, they paired me up with him again! Hah! (Actually, I think they do this randomly. I was happy, though, to have an excuse to cook something else he posted.) And...do you remember how last month I said I was having a hard time deciding between two recipes, but then found an ingredient on major sale and that decided for me? Well, yeah, that sorta happened again. So, deja vu...except it's completely different this time. This time I made spare ribs. And...it's picture heavy, and there's not much of a recipe really (more like instructions), so this post will be mostly pictures that hopefully sort of tell you how to make spare ribs. And you should, because they're delicious and actually quite easy. And if you want BETTER instructions, check out Dave's post. He actually knows what he's doing.

Spare ribs were on sale for $1.99/lb. There was no way I was not going for that. This was a pretty small rack, around 10 dollars for the whole thing--there were some that were almost 30!

The first step, once you get the package open (which was actually sort of difficult), is to remove the membrane. I had no idea that ribs even had membranes, nevermind that I would have to remove one, but hey--I did. But, do you see that big slice in the middle of the rack? I didn't do that. They came with that. And it made the membrane-removal WAY more difficult than it had to be. Anyway, this step is super important (the membrane is tough and tastes gross and prevents your rubs from getting in), so do it right.

If you read Dave's post, you'll notice how he talks about "St Louis Style" and "Removing the Flap Meat." This picture here documents how I failed at that--my knife just wouldn't cut through the bones that were attached to the breast bone. And...

One random rib was really really long. I couldn't cut that off, either. I guess these weren't St Louis style at all, but I did get a good amount of flap meat cut off. (I don't know what the remedy for randomly long bones is except maybe a knife that cuts through bones.)

This was the other weird thing, except that I'm not actually sure it's weird at all. Some of the meat was just sorta hanging there and once I removed the membrane had big holes in it. Regardless of whether it's supposed to be there, it was pretty tasty, so I'd say leave this on. And, at this point, start removing all the unnecessary-looking pieces of fat. I ended up with a little bigger than a golf ball sized ball of fat. I took a picture but it grossed me out too much to post it, and I'd apologize, but it was gross.

Time for rubs! Rubs are important. You have a wet rub (the honey mustard) and a dry rub (the barbecue seasoning). You could use whatever you want, depending on what flavor you want your ribs to be--Dave explains more about different rubs and flavors in his post. For now, a spicy honey mustard and barbecue seasoning worked great, so I highly recommend them.

Apply your wet rub! I used about half the jar of honey mustard to cover these. And remember, it's a rub, not a sauce, so pretend you're putting sunscreen on or something and actually rub it in. Obviously it doesn't all rub in (and hey, I could be completely wrong about this rubbing thing) but I think that gets the flavor into the meat a little bit more. And yes, wet rub goes first.

Now apply your dry rub! This is pretty much the same principle. Sprinkle generously, rub until covered completely. Again, I used half the container here. I used the same two rubs on the flap meat that I'd cut off, too--if you're adventurous, you could try with different things, but I was more concerned with "oh no it's later than I realized get this in the oven" than "have some cool leftovers." (These were pretty cool anyway.)

Now it's time to bake them! Perhaps you're confused--"bake ribs? why would I do that?" Well, it's either bake them or smoke them, and I don't have a smoker. So I baked them. You can bake them for a fairly short time at a high temperature, but a low temperature for a long time will give you super tender, fall-off-the-bone ribs like you're dreaming of. Dave's advice was 225 degrees for about 6 hours, and don't open the oven door no matter how tempted you are. My oven is kind of a jerk and doesn't really do anything below 250 (it has the setting, but I think it turns off) so they were done after about 5 hours. A meat thermometer should read 170 degrees, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a good place to put a standard meat thermometer in these. When they finish, take them out, baste them with barbecue sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's Hickory and Brown Sugar) and bake them for another 20 or so minutes. They'll be less messy to eat and the barbecue sauce will be much nicer after some time in the oven. (OH! The other thing is to coil them up and skewer them and stand them up in a pie plate for better air flow while baking. It's a good idea!)

Mine sort of broke when uncoiled, but after hours of waiting, I felt victorious to take them out of the oven and prepare to serve them. This rack served 3 people with the flap meat as leftovers, and we were all very full.

Four ribs for me! These were the meatiest ribs I'd ever eaten--whenever I've gotten them at a restaurant, I've been fully capable of eating a whole rack (maybe only a half rack? I don't remember) but this was PLENTY of food. Dave says that if you're not used to leftovers from ribs, you're probably eating baby back ribs and not spare ribs. This is possible. Dave also says to cut between each rib before serving to be nice to the people who are eating, but when I tried to do that the meat sort of dissolved. Plus, part of the whole ribs experience is to cut them apart and wrestle with them, right?

So, there is my spare rib adventure! Remember that they take a long time to cook, and give yourself about an hour to prepare them before putting them in the oven (it probably won't take that long, but I'm slow), so if you want to eat at 7, you want to start these around noon or 1. If you eat at 5, you'll have to start around 10. Give yourself lots of time.

And, really, if you want to make them, take a look at Dave's post, because I'm pretty sure he's an expert on this and I'm just figuring out how it works. I'll be looking for an excuse to make them again (such as "oh hey they're on sale again!") and maybe play with some different rubs and perhaps get the St Louis Style right next time.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Asparagus Risotto

A while ago, a couple of the blogs that I follow posted recipes for asparagus risotto. I've never made a risotto before--well, not a REAL risotto--and I absolutely love asparagus, so of course I absolutely had to make it. I went searching for recipes all over the place. Though I didn't really know how to make a risotto, I felt very strongly that it should include more than a tablespoon of cheese and/or cream, yet that seems to be how most recipes write it. I finally found a satisfactory-looking recipe over on Epicurious, modified it a teensy bit, and got cooking.

This was my first experience that caused me to realize how much I've come to love cooking from blogs and sites like Recipezaar (now Food.com), where people who aren't professionals make the dish and write it up. The instructions are clear to those of us who didn't go to culinary school, and if we have a question, we can easily ask. Things like "turn the burner from medium to low" don't usually get left out. While I'll probably make this again sometime, I'll make it from the recipe I'm typing up here, not the one I followed the first time.

RECIPE: Asparagus Risotto

Ingredients:

-1 1/2 lbs asparagus

-4 cups chicken broth (one box)

-1 tbsp butter

-1 large red onion

-2 cups arborio rice

-1/2 cup white wine

-2 tsp chopped fresh sage

-1 cup freshly grated romano cheese

-1/4 cup fat-free half and half

-water (about 2 cups)

Instructions:

1. Wash and trim the asparagus. Cut off the tips and set them aside. Cut the rest of the asparagus into inch-long pieces.

2. Combine about 2/3 of the asparagus with one cup chicken broth and one cup water in a blender. Puree and set aside for later.

3. In a large saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the onion over medium heat until tender. Add the rice and lower the heat to medium-low. Once the pan has cooled down a little, add the wine and stir until absorbed. (This should take about 4 minutes. If it takes less time than that, lower your heat more. If it takes longer, turn the heat up a little. The original recipe doesn't say anything about changing the heat so my first half cup of wine just cooked off immediately and I ended up using a whole cup and it was perfectly delicious, so if it cooks off too fast and doesn't actually absorb, don't worry about adding a little more.)

4. Add 1/2 cup broth and the chopped sage, again stirring until absorbed. Continue to add broth but the half cup, allowing each one to be absorbed before adding the next half cup. After about 15 minutes, add the asparagus pieces that you didn't puree, and continue adding half cups of broth. Once you've run out of broth, add two half cups of water in the same manner.

5. Increase the heat (back to medium) and add the asparagus puree. Stir often until absorbed.

6. Add the cheese and cream, stir thoroughly, and serve! Garnish with fresh sage if you would like.

Step 2. I took about 12 pictures of this and this was the least blurry one. Sometimes I think my camera hates me.

The rest of Step 2. It looks like those green smoothies that I buy at the store, but I wouldn't drink this. Just set it aside for now.

The rest of the asparagus, after 2/3 of the stalks were pureed. The only reason to separate the tips is to not puree them, so if you want to toss them in the bowl together now, that's okay. You probably don't even need a separate bowl to begin with.

Step 4. I loved how the red onion had a nice pink color that contrasted with the sage (and, later, asparagus) but most of the color disappeared after cooking for so long. Oh, well--it tasted delicious.

Still step 4--this is right after I added the asparagus. I'm glad I used the hugest pan I had, this made a TON of food!

Step 5: Asparagus/water/chicken broth puree added, and I'm now very worried that my pan will overflow if I stir too vigorously. Epicurious seems to think this takes 3 minutes to absorb. Like I said earlier, I like to have some direction about the heat. Mine did well after taking a while to absorb, so I guess it's okay.

Everything is added! It's ready! WOOOOO! Notice how the onions don't look nearly as pink anymore? After some refrigeration they lost their color completely.

The 'eat' step. It was rich and thick with plenty of asparagus flavor but it didn't overpower the grilled chicken that we ate it with. It's very warm and perfect for a cooler evening.

So, there's my first risotto! I was pretty happy with it, and I had leftovers for quite a while, which was nice. One night my mom and I had the leftovers with poached eggs, thanks to Kevin over at Closet Cooking. (I forgot where I'd seen it when I decided to try it, but went and found his post afterward. He deserves credit for such a perfect combination!) My mom was skeptical; I was not--the runny yolk complemented the creamy risotto perfectly and made for a great light meal. (Not that the risotto itself doesn't make a delicious light meal, of course.)

Given the amount of risotto I had left over, unless you're serving at least 6 people, I would probably recommend cutting this recipe in half or freezing half of your leftovers--the last of mine went bad before I could eat it! I was very sad about this. Now, though, I have a bag of arborio rice and an idea of how to make risotto, so I'll be looking for more tasty recipes. I think it would be fun to make this with three colors of asparagus--green, white, and purple. It would be so pretty!

Okay, so I've voiced my opinions about where I like to cook from. How about you guys? I'm assuming that if you're reading this you're not averse to cooking from blogs, but do you have difficulty with cookbooks or "professional" recipe sites? I'm sort of nervous about using epicurious again; both recipes I've followed have been less than ideal in the way of instruction, and I'm not sure there's anything I'd want to make that couldn't be based on something in one of the blogs I read. What do you think?

Oh, and I've also started a new thing with the comments. I'm not quite sure how it works, but I've enabled commentluv, which means that if you have a blog and leave a comment it'll link back to your most recent post with a title. I think it will also let me reply to comments directly, but I'm not sure. Let me know how you like it!

Sausage Stir-Fry with a side of Nostalgia

One thing that frustrates me as a person who likes to cook is the barrage of questions that I frequently have to face when feeding new people. "Where did you learn to cook?" "Where did you get this recipe?" Sometimes it isn't questions so much as assumptions--"Wow, your mom did a great job teaching you to cook!" The questions and assumptions on their own wouldn't be all that bad, but people always seem so disappointed in my responses. I learned to cook from reading cookbooks and following the directions. When I didn't know what something meant, I looked it up. More recently, I've expanded my skills using online tools (such as other blogs or sites like Recipezaar). Chances are, I found the recipe online; I think I have a total of two "old family recipes" that I can toss together from memory in my repertoire.

My point here is that, no, my mom didn't teach me how to cook, and I don't think that's a bad thing as so many people seem to. Why is it that everyone always seems disappointed when I say I got a recipe online, or that I taught myself with the help of numerous cookbooks and weeks of my life staring at the computer screen? My mom isn't a bad cook (though she would probably tell you otherwise)--I quite like her cooking, and when she does cook I think it's excellent, but she doesn't love it like I do. We never spent time in the kitchen when I was little with her showing me exactly how she makes a pie crust, and I think it's okay that I found out from a book.

However, the passion and interest must have come from somewhere, and that credit goes to my dad. He never really taught me a recipe, because I'm not sure if he ever really followed a recipe, but I do remember him busy making something for dinner and asking me if I could pit the olives, which was my favorite job because I ate most of them. (I got yelled at for this. Sorry, Dad.) He would chop up peppers for a stir fry and give me slices so that I could learn how much sweeter red peppers are than green peppers. There were nights that my mom and brother and I searched the refrigerator and cabinets and pantry for something to make for dinner, finding an old tomato, some peanut butter, three or four gallons of milk, huge jars of spices, and nothing else. Somehow, on these nights when there was nothing in the house and we were all too lazy to go grocery shopping, my dad could come home and whip up some simple, excellent meal out of our total lack of ingredients.

I never learned to be quite that resourceful, unfortunately--I either plan a meal out and go to the store and get everything I need, or I don't plan a meal and I go to the store wandering around until I find something that inspires me. I also never learned the knife skills that my dad tried to teach me; they're getting slightly better than they used to be but it still takes me at least 6 minutes to chop up a pepper. (I'm getting good at carrots, celery and rhubarb, though.)

So...nobody really taught me how to cook, and I find my recipes wherever I feel like, but I think my dad taught me how to play with my food and enjoy my time in the kitchen. He taught me to triple the garlic in any recipe I read and to like pepper far more than is perhaps healthy. And, without him, I never would have learned to buy twice as many olives as I planned to put in a dish. This recipe is based on one of those things that he used to come home and throw together, leaving the rest of us wondering where the ingredients came from but in the end quite satisfied with our meals. It's quick, simple, and delicious.

RECIPE: Sausage and Pepper Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

-1 package of sweet Italian sausages (usually contains 5 or 6) (If you'd like, use half a package of sweet and half a package of hot for some more variety--freeze the rest!)

-1 or 2 green peppers

-1 or 2 red peppers

-2 tomatoes

-1 large onion

-a whole lot of garlic

-some cooked pasta (homemade if possible!)

-ground pepper (or whole pepper in a grinder) (I like to use peppercorn medleys instead of just plain black pepper, but I don't really know what the difference is, so use whichever you prefer)

-extra virgin olive oil

-freshly grated romano or parmesan cheese

Instructions:

1. Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan. Once it's hot (a drop of water sizzles and evaporates immediately), add the sausages whole. Fry on each side for a few minutes, until lightly browned and partially cooked through. When you're not tending to the sausages, chop the peppers and onion (and, of course, garlic).

2. Remove the sausages from the pan and slice them into medallions. (If you don't fry them whole first, they won't slice properly and you'll get sausage-balls with little strips of sausage casing, and you don't want that.) Return to the frying pan. Lay as many flat as possible.

3. Fry the sausages until cooked through, flipping occasionally. Once they're done (or mostly done, since they'll still be in the pan) add the peppers, onion and garlic. Sauté until slightly softened, but still crisp enough to crunch a little when you bite it--you don't want soggy vegetables.

4. While the peppers and onions are softening, chop the tomato. Once everything else is done, add the tomato and a a few grinds of pepper, stir, and cook until the tomatoes are hot.

5. Serve over a bed of pasta with a generous amount of cheese to top each dish. Make sure to get some of the juices from the pan onto your plate--they're excellent!

Tasty sausages!

Yum! Mike and I use a ton of vegetables when we stir-fry--that's a BIG pan full of them. We usually end up thinking that we should have used less, but we never do the next time, and we fill up on healthy food and don't have room for ice cream. (Which is really sad--there's key lime and graham cracker gelato in the freezer that we keep being too full to eat.)

That looks like a ton of food, but it's mostly a pile of vegetables. We used leftover homemade whole wheat noodles, which wasn't true to my childhood memories at all but they were perfect with this dish.

I was originally going to post this on Father's Day, but then I had to go to my cousin's graduation party, and then I forgot about it, and then I realized that I never really posted anything for Mother's Day and I didn't know if it was okay to post something for Father's Day and not Mother's Day, and THEN I figured, well, my dad was always the cook, so it makes more sense, and I also gave my mom an awesome scarf and baked her a pie. So, consider this a very belated Father's Day post. (I think he also deserves credit for my tendency to cook with peppers, tomatoes and onions.)

How about you guys? Did you teach yourselves to cook, or did you have a parent or grandparent to show you the ropes? Any family recipes?

I hope everyone (well, everyone in the US) has a great 4th of July tomorrow--we're going to my family's annual grilled-meat-fest (seriously: sausages, steak tips, burgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken, and it's all too good to pass up--I think I'll skip breakfast).

Black Bean Salad

During the summer, I really like having a salad as a side dish, or even as a light meal. Unfortunately, actual "salad"--that is, the lettuce part--makes me really sick. I miss things like Chicken Caesar Salad, and occasionally I'll decide that it's worth feeling sick afterward and eat lettuce, but I've managed to find a few excellent lettuce-free salads to enjoy in the warmer weather.

I first had this delicious black bean salad about....wow, six or seven years ago. My aunt Janny made it when we were visiting. My cousin Julia always used to whine when she made recipes from the Cooking Light magazine ("Is this from COOKING LIGHT?!"); I haven't tried many other Cooking Light recipes, but I imagine that while they're probably delicious to many adults, the palate of a 10-year-old requires more butter, sugar, hamburgers, etc. However, I'm pretty sure Julia didn't complain about this. My mom got the recipe. It's been something I look forward to in the summer every year since then, and though we use the original recipe as a reference we never quite follow it exactly so it's never exactly the same twice. I think that's okay.

I make this in bulk. It still never lasts more than three days in our fridge. My mom and I basically eat it as or with every meal until it's gone, and I'm usually immediately wondering when I should make it again. I made it probably about a week ago (a little bit more) and I think it's time to make more. It's just that delicious. So, without further ado...

RECIPE: Black Bean Salad

Adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

-3 15-oz cans black beans

-A handful of fresh cilantro

-A few sprigs of fresh parsley (2-3 tablespoons, probably?)

-3-or-so green onions

-Juice from one lime

-3 large on-the-vine tomatoes (they'll be medium sized tomatoes, but large for on the vine tomatoes.)

-2 ripe avocados

Instructions:

1. Open, rinse and drain the black beans. I leave them in the colander while I chop everything else up so that they drain better. You could put them in a large bowl immediately if you want.

2. Mince the cilantro, parsley and green onions. Put them in a large bowl.

3. Cut the lime into quarters. Squeeze as much juice from you can out of each wedge into the large bowl.

4. Cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out the seeds (sometimes this is much easier if you cut the tomatoes into quarters). Chop them into small pieces, about a centimeter square (fingernail-sized?) and add them to the large bowl.

5. Cut the avocados in half and scoop out the pits. I find it easiest to cut them by leaving them in the peel and using a butter knife to cut cut a grid into the flesh, then scoop that out with a spoon. I usually cut about four lines up and down and probably six sideways for a good-sized "diced" avocado. You could also extract the flesh from the peel and cut there. (By the way, those little avocado tools that do this for you? I think they're pretty useless. You can do it by hand just as easily, and washing a butter knife is a lot easier.) Okay, so add the diced avocados to the bowl.

6. If you didn't put the black beans in the bowl at the beginning, add them now. Stir (gently, so as not to crush the avocado) with a wooden spatula until everything is evenly mixed together.

7. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours (longer is okay) before serving. (You don't technically have to do this, but I always think it comes out better if you do. Somehow the flavors combine during this time.)

Mike hates avocado, and he loved this. (I was glad he did; I would hate to make something he didn't like. I haven't so far.) It tastes super fresh and summery (I think that's the cilantro; for some reason it seems like it's definitely a summer herb) and all the flavors in it combine perfectly. You can serve it over lettuce or as-is. I haven't yet fed this to someone who didn't like it, so try it out, and try not to get too addicted.

"You have a pasty at Mabel's for me, you hear?"

For those of you who aren't on Twitter, for the first time, I think I can sincerely say that you're missing out. There's a new phenomenon called "One Book One Twitter" (or #1b1t) where, during the summer, everyone on Twitter has the option to participate in a twitter-wide book club. It's not exclusive, there's a schedule but you can read at your own pace if you want to, and this year--the FIRST year--one of my all-time favorite books was selected: American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The coolest part of this is that Gaiman uses twitter himself, so occasionally he does an hour of "Ask Neil" and he'll answer anyone's questions, which is AWESOME. If you're not familiar with Gaiman's work and don't mind a little fantasy, surrealism and existentialism in your literature, check out his books--he is a master of the English language. His books pull you in and immerse you in a surreal adventure, pressing you to question the world around you and the validity of pretty much everything. At least, that's how I feel.

I just finished reading this morning, but according to the schedule, this week everyone's on chapters 9-11, in which the main character discovers a delicious meal at a local diner-type restaurant called Mabel's.

"Breakfast for me," said Shadow. "What's good?"
"Everything's good," said Mabel. "I make it But this is the farthest south and east of the yoopie you can get pasites, and they are particularly good. Warm and filling too. My specialty."
Shadow had no idea what a pasty was, but he said that would be fine, and in a few moments Mabel returned with a plate with what looked like a folded-over pie on it. The lower half was wrapped in a paper napkin. Shadow picked it up with the napkin and bit into it: it was warm and filled with meat, potatoes, carrots, onions. "First pasty I've ever had," he said. "It's real good."
-American Gods, p. 266-267 in my edition (chapter 10)

Now, in honor of One Book One Twitter, and because I've read American Gods a million times and always wanted to try these out, I of course searched for a recipe and made them and they are, just as Gaiman says, "a savory delight wrapped in a hot pastry." Ideally, for this recipe, you have minced beef. I didn't have minced beef, nor did I have the patience to mince my own beef, so I used ground beef instead--but if you can get your hands on some good minced beef, then do.

RECIPE: Pasties
Adapted from Recipezaar
Ingredients:
-1 lb minced (or ground) beef
-1 tbsp olive oil
-2 white onions
-3 cloves garlic
-1 15-oz can whole tomatoes
-1 tbsp tomato paste
-1/2 lb carrots
-1 tbsp soy sauce
-1/2 pint beef stock (from bullion cubes)
-1 lb white potato
-a splash of milk
-2 tbsp butter
-a dollop of Worcestershire sauce (I didn't really measure out my additions, so add stuff until it tastes good!)
-Herbs and seasonings (I used marjoram, tarragon, basil, oregano, a little bit of italian seasoning, cinnamon, cumin and cocoa--yeah, it's a lot, but it was tasty. Use your discretion here.)
-pie crust or puff pastry*
-1 egg

Instructions:
0: Cut everything up ('everything' being defined as potatoes, onions, and carrots).
1. Using the potatoes, milk, and butter, make some mashed potatoes. Don't whip them--leave plenty of chunks of potato. Alternatively, you could just boil the potatoes and cut them up into very small pieces--I think this would be the more authentic way to do it.
2. In a very large frying pan or wok, heat the oil and sauté the onion until it softens. Move the onion into a bowl.
3. Add the beef to the frying pan with a little more oil if necessary. Stir constantly as it browns to ensure that all the clumps are broken up (not sure if this is a problem with minced beef but ground beef, especially the leaner varieties, is very sticky).
4. Once the beef is fully cooked, add the canned tomatoes (break them up as you stir them), carrots, soy sauce, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce and some herbs. (You'll be adding more herbs to taste as it cooks, so don't overdo it here.)
5. Add the beef stock and allow to simmer for a few minutes, then add the onions and potatoes. Stir thoroughly and simmer until it's not really liquid anymore (about 20 minutes?) and you'll be able to scoop it out and it will stay in a lump instead of spreading into a big mess. You want it to have the consistency of slightly watery mashed potatoes. As it's simmering, taste it occasionally and add more seasoning as desired.
6. NOW IS TIME TO PREHEAT THE OVEN! Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, 220 C. Then prepare the pie crusts: I traced a small plate (7-8 inches) in each rolled-out crust with a knife so that I had 7-8 inch discs of crust to fill.
7. Lay a crust circle on a cookie sheet. Scoop about a cup of the beef mixture (or as much as it seems will fit into the crust when you fold it over, though I overshot a few times and had difficulty folding the crust over) onto one side of the pie crust, then fold the other side over and press all around it to seal it. Continue doing this with each crust circle. (You'll probably fit 2-3 on a cookie sheet.)
8. In a small bowl, beat the egg. Using a pastry brush, brush the beaten egg over each of the pasties. Put them in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden and shiny.
9. When you remove them from the oven, allow them to cool a bit before eating them--the inside will scald your mouth if you bite into it immediately. After about 10 minutes, they'll still be nice and hot but more edible and you can enjoy your creation!

Step 4.5: after the beef stock is added, before the potatoes and onions.

Once everything was added and simmered down completely. (Actually, this is what we had leftover after filling the crusts--I'd forgotten to photograph it first! But the picture is still accurate.)

Right out of the oven--they looked so pretty! I was quite happy with myself, despite the holes.

Despite the fact that Shadow eats his with his hands, I thought a fork would be more appropriate--I was worried about them falling apart and making a huge mess if I picked them up. Plus, this way I could blow on each forkful to cool it a little more.

Yet again, Mike made a "special" one for himself. He covered it in cinnamon sugar before I put them in the oven. It stuck to the pan more than the others (probably because of the burnt sugar) and therefore fell apart more, but he said it was delicious nonetheless. (Then again, Mike does weird things with food. He just ate a bowl of cereal with coffee grounds on top. So I don't necessarily trust his judgement.)

I doubled this recipe so I'd have plenty to freeze (and because my brother was home and his friends might be around) and ended up with 10 pasties and some leftover filling (also in the freezer, so I can whip up some pie crust and make more). The amount you end up with will depend on the size of your pies and how full you want them.

I expected these to be super filling and heavy--one of those "okay maybe I shouldn't have eaten that whole thing" foods. Surprisingly, they were the perfect amount of food: we were all full, but not completely stuffed. And, if you think about it, each one only has a little bit of meat, a tiny bit of mashed potato, some carrots, etc--it's a pretty well-rounded food! I can't wait to play with this concept a bit more and always have some delicious meal-in-a-pie-crust frozen for emergencies (or nights that I just don't feel like cooking).


*I used my normal pie crust recipe and it came out wonderfully, but it is a post in and of itself--I'll have my pie crust up here soon, keep an eye out for it! **EDIT: Pie crust recipe is up and linked to!**

LENTILS!

It's...it's the WEEKEND! And I don't have four papers due next week! (Just...one, I think? Maybe two.) Which means I finally have time to update this thing. Can I just express for a moment how frustrating it is when all your professors decide to make finals week easier for you by giving you your big "final" paper/take-home test/whatever two weeks before finals? I mean, it would be cool if one or two professors did this. A little bit of a lighter workload during actual finals week. But instead, I just had two-ish weeks of three to four hours of sleep a night and zero free time and I think I cooked once. Finals week will involve students standing at the front of the class saying "I wrote my paper about this topic and this is some of the research." I have to drive about an hour to talk for five minutes about a paper I wrote two weeks ago. AHHHHHHHHH. End rant.

Anyway, I promised you guys this recipe...um...a really long time ago. I had to go to my dad's house and look in the Indian food cookbooks there to remember what it was called, and that's why it took so long (between my school schedule and his work schedule, we don't really see each other all that much). It's from one of the Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks, but I can't remember which one. And, without further ado:

RECIPE: Lentils with Cumin and Asafetida OR Mili Dal OR (as I usually refer to it) LENTILS. (Just...just Lentils. I know what I mean. And if you make this, you will too.)

Ingredients

-1/2 cup split red lentils

-1/2 cup split yellow lentils

-2 1/2 cups water

-1/2 tsp turmeric

-3/4 tsp salt

-3 tbsp vegetable oil

-generous pinch of ground asafetida powder (I use more than it calls for, but I also love asafetida.)

-1/2 tsp cumin seeds (I probably use a little more here)

-2-5 dried hot red chili peppers

Instructions

1. Wash the lentils in a wire mesh strainer. Place the lentils, turmeric and water in a small pot, turn on to medium heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and DON'T let the water boil over!

2. Cover with the lid slightly ajar and turn the heat to low. Simmer until tender, around 40 minutes.

3. Add salt, stir. Continue cooking on low heat.

4. Put the vegetable oil into a shallow frying pan on high heat. Let the oil get really really hot (if you're not sure, dip your hand in some water and flick it at the oil. If it sizzles and boils away immediately, your oil is hot enough.)

5. This is where it becomes INTENSE. Rapid-fire Indian cooking. Toss the asafetida into the pan with the oil. Swirl it around for about two seconds (literally). Then add the cumin seeds. Let them sizzle for about ten seconds. Add the hot peppers (more is spicier, but it doesn't get all that hot, really) and they'll puff up pretty much immediately. Once they're puffed (if you're not sure, turn one over--it'll be really dark on the bottom) take the pan off the heat and pour everything into the pot with the lentils. This whole step takes about 30 seconds.

6. Cover the pot immediately. Let sit, without stirring, for 10-15 minutes. If you still have water to boil off (you don't want any left, the lentils absorb it all and get nice and mushy sort of like mashed potatoes) then let it cook until it's gone.

7. Serve. Enjoy.

After half an hour or so. The colors kind of blend, with the help of the turmeric. Oh, also, you can see that I sorta messed up here and let it boil over. Whoops. Still came out okay, but it makes a mess.

Right after pouring the pan's contents into the pot. See, with the five chili peppers, it wasn't that bad. Mike isn't big on spicy food and he still loved it. Also, you can't really get a picture of the stuff in the frying pan. I mean, you could, if you had someone else taking pictures for you, but it's so fast!

Why I love this dish: Well, for one, it's really easy. Sure it takes an hour or so to cook, but there's very little actual work involved--the hardest part is that 30-second span where you're tossing everything into the frying pan and, well, it's only 30 seconds of paying attention (well, I mean, you should always pay attention to the stove when you're cooking something, especially if you don't want it to boil over, but you get what I mean). Second, it's DELICIOUS. Asafetida smells...well...if the smell were a relationship on facebook it would say "It's Complicated." Some people (myself included) absolutely love the smell. I'll grab my bottle of it and just sniff it and be happy (I do this with cumin too--no wonder I love this dish so much). However, as much as I love the smell, a lot of people don't. At all. Mike thinks it smells like feet. I don't like the smell of feet, so obviously I disagree, but it's a fairly common opinion. (His roommate called it 'fetid' but I think that was just because the word 'asafetida' contains the word 'fetid.') BUT. When you cook it, it tastes AMAZING. Especially in this dish. With the cumin. Okay, honestly, I've never had another dish with it but I intend to find one and make it and think it's amazing. (Especially if it also involves cumin.) Okay, so the third reason I love this is that it's really versatile. It's Indian food, but you could make some as a side with a steak or something if you wanted. It would go well with pretty much any basic meal. It's filling--way more filling than you'd expect--and it's really healthy. (Why don't I just keep a bunch of this in my refrigerator? I DON'T KNOW.)

Can you tell my brain is kind of fried and I don't really feel like writing coherent sentences or paragraphs right now? I'm sorry. Two more weeks before freedom. (Crap, was that decaf coffee I had a lie? I'm all twitchy. Oh no.)

Palak Paneer

I'm going to be honest here--I'm addicted to Indian food. And not just any Indian food. As much as I love the Chicken Korma that I posted about before, whenever I go to an Indian restaurant, I always--ALWAYS--get the Palak Paneer. Sometimes they try to trick me out of it by naming it something different. I think it is occasionally Saag Paneer, but I'm not making any promises here. If you order Saag Paneer and it isn't this, don't blame me.

It never occurred to me that I could make Palak Paneer at home until I had it at my dad's house. After that, I assumed that there were all sorts of weird ingredients that I'd need and didn't bother trying for...probably two months. I was right about the weird ingredients--having a nearby Indian grocery store is a HUGE plus for making this, if for no other reason than "the spices are really cheap." (I recently discovered a way to make Paneer at home, thus bypassing the need for an Indian grocery store, and I'm determined to try it at some point. I just haven't had a chance yet.)

I found the recipe on Recipezaar. I bet you're surprised. I'd consider trying a few different recipes in order to find the one I liked most, but honestly, this one is just about perfect. I only make one small change--I use fat-free half and half instead of heavy cream--and it's amazing.

RECIPE: Palak Paneer

Ingredients:

2 6-oz bags baby spinach (oops, this is another change--I use 6-oz bags even though it says 5-oz because I can't find 5-oz bags anywhere.)

1 large onion

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp chopped garlic (oh this was also a lie, I always use more garlic. But not a ton more here.)

1 chopped tomato

3 tbsp plain yogurt (don't buy this at the Indian grocery store unless you use it a lot, they don't usually carry small containers)

1 tbsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp salt

8 ounces Paneer cheese, cubed

1/4 cup fat-free half and half

Directions

0. Chop the onions (about 1/2-inch to 1-inch square) and tomato. Wash and shred the spinach.

1. Saute the onions, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger in vegetable oil until the onions are soft and translucent.

2. Add garlic and chopped tomatoes, reduce heat to low.

3. After about 3 minutes, stir in one tablespoon of yogurt at a time. (The recipe says the small-amount-at-a-time thing prevents curdling, so I wouldn't mess with it. I haven't tried pouring it in all at once but I don't want to take that risk.)

4. Add the rest of the spices (coriander, garam masala, paprika and salt). Mix well.

5. Fill the pan with spinach (you won't be able to put it all in at once unless you have a much bigger frying pan than I do, in which case tell me where you got it), stir and let cook until the spinach reduces. Keep doing this until you've added all the spinach and it's all sitting there looking weird and not leafy. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes.

6. Scoop about half the spinach mixture into a blender and puree. (This is optional. I didn't do it the first time I made this, and I did the second. It actually does affect the taste, which surprised me, but they were both delicious. If you puree it, it'll be closer to what you'd get at a restaurant.) Return the pureed spinach mixture to the pan (use a rubber spatula to get the blender as clean as possible!) and stir.

7. Add the half and half, stir, and let reduce so it's not soupy. AT THE SAME TIME put the Paneer cubes into a seperate (small) frying pan with just a little bit of oil and let the sides brown. Yes, it's cheese, but it doesn't melt. (You can also buy pre-fried Paneer, but I'd feel weird doing that.)

8. When the Palak has reached your desired consistence, add the Paneer. And you have Palak Paneer. Serve over basmati rice with some nice warm naan. Yum!

The original recipe says to cook the spinach with a little bit of water before doing anything else. I like to cook it into the rest of the food. I guess this is up to you.

I was so surprised when I found out that this is how Palak Paneer starts.

This was shortly after all the spinach reduced, before much of the water simmered off. It's more what your dish will look like if you don't blend the spinach.

I've decided that next time I make this, I'm making my own Paneer. I'm determined. This might mean that you'll see a homemade Paneer post within the next few weeks, and it might mean I don't make this again for months because making cheese sounds complicated and scary (though the instructions are really quite simple). Regardless, when it happens, you'll know. (I think I'll also buy some paneer. Just in case it goes wrong.)

This is much more filling than one would expect--I mean, it's spinach, right?--but I always make a lentil side dish. I'll be posting that either Monday or Tuesday, hopefully, after I've checked the cookbook I got it from to remember what the actual Indian name for it is. I just think of it as "lentils."

Black Garlic Mac & Cheese

I first saw Black Garlic in the store months ago. I had no idea what it was or why it existed, but I read the label and discovered that it is aged and fermented and for some reason this turns it black. It sounded, frankly, a little disturbing. At some point, though, I decided that as a Food Blogger it is my duty to my readers to try weird food that I find in the grocery store and tell you about it. (Tangent: Don't buy pummelos. They're sorta tasty, but they're way more trouble than they're worth and I wish I had the hour of my life that it took me to eat the damn thing back.)

I started searching for recipes. Recipezaar let me down (for the first time ever) and didn't have anything. Neither did any of the other websites I generally go to for recipes. So I went to Google and searched for Black Garlic and came across the Black Garlic Website. I guess there's only one company that makes it. Anyway, the site told me that "Black garlic is sweet meets savory, a perfect mix of molasses-like richness and tangy garlic undertones. It has a tender, almost jelly-like texture with a melt-in-your-mouth consistency similar to a soft dried fruit. Hard to believe, but true. It’s as delicious as it is unique." Sounds strange, but tasty, and since I love garlic so much it was definitely worth a shot. However, the next thing on the site almost scared me off: "Imagine garlic without all of the annoying stuff. Bad breath? Nope. Pungent odor? Nope. Acrid bite? No sir." Aren't all these things the point of garlic? Why would I eat garlic without the smell and "acrid bite"? Isn't that stuff the appeal of garlic? I guess the Black Garlic guys don't think so. Anyway, Black Garlic is being touted as "the new superfood" and is supposed to have "hell of properties."

Anyway, I finally found a recipe that looked halfway decent for Black Garlic Mac & Cheese. I'd been craving comfort food, and it sounded like a delicious twist on the original. The recipe was kind of annoying to follow because it's written as "use this much per serving" and I prefer to make a ton and have a lot of leftovers, so I had difficulty deciding how much of each ingredient to put in. So I'm posting it here (adapted) for six people to make it easier to follow, and if you're not serving six people, you'll have leftovers.

Black Garlic Mac & Cheese: Recipe

Ingredients

-2.5 cups elbow macaroni (dry)

-About 6 cups of milk

-Enough roux or cornstarch to thicken the milk considerably

-1.5 cups freshly-grated sharp cheddar (I recommend Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar)

-About 1/2 cup freshly-grated parmesan

-4-6 cloves black garlic

-3 cloves NORMAL garlic (my addition)

-Salt and pepper to taste (optional, I usually leave this for people to add individually since I'd put way more pepper in it than anyone would actually want)

-Breadcrumbs to cover

Instructions

1. Simmer the milk with the salt and pepper (if you're using them) in a large saucepan. Add the roux or cornstarch and mix with a whisk or hand blender until the milk thickens. How thick you want it is up to you--I like mine more solid, but I know plenty of people prefer it saucy.

2. Boil the pasta and run under cold water. Put aside for later.

3. Add cheeses and garlics to the milk-sauce over low heat and stir until the cheese has melted completely into the sauce.

3.5. Preheat the broiler.

4. Add the macaroni, stir to cover the pasta. Let cook for about two minutes.

5. Put the whole mixture into a large bowl and top with breadcrumbs. If you didn't preheat the broiler when I told you to, turn it on now.

6. Put the bowl on a low rack under the broiler (if it's too high, the top will just burn and you'll have black breadcrumbs in addition to black garlic.) Leave it in for one minute. Really. Not longer. It'll burn.

7. Remove from oven. Allow to cool for a few minutes and serve.

I served mine with canned diced tomatoes. I don't know if this is really a common thing to do, but it's how I grew up eating mac & cheese so it's how I like it. If you haven't tried it, it's tasty--Not Your Average Joe's does a similar thing with their mac & cheese so it can't be all that weird. I also topped it with some pan-fried chicken (another idea stolen from Not Your Average Joe's) which is the top-secret chicken recipe I'm working on and will share when I decide it's ready. The point is that chicken is pretty tasty with this too. The original poster of the recipe is apparently a chef at some big restaurant somewhere and adds lobster meat. I hate seafood, so I wouldn't, but you might want to.

Chicken marinading...yum

Everything ready to go in the pot!

It doesn't look like anything special, but it was damn tasty. (Also, I completely forgot to take pictures of the finished product the first time around because I was too busy going "OM NOM NOM" so these are the leftovers. Sorry.)

Anyway, the verdict on Black Garlic: if you really, really love garlic, this isn't the garlic for you. It just doesn't have the garlicky flavor that I've been addicted to since I was a kid. However, it's pretty cool, and would probably impress people if you were making something fancy for a dinner party. I mean, it sounds fancy. And if you're not a huge garlic lover, this might be just the thing for you. It has a slight garlic taste, but it's subtle, and won't leave you smelling like garlic for a week. (It's also squishy and difficult to mince, so you'll end up with bigger pieces, but that's okay.) The mac & cheese was absolutely amazing, though--super creamy and rich and plain delicious. Black garlic or not, this will probably remain my go-to recipe when I'm in desperate need of comfort food. (Thanks to AGreatChef for the inspiration!)

Mashing Purple

So, I made a new discovery in the grocery store this week. I didn't actually make it, in fact I'd known it was there the whole time, but my boyfriend (I guess he deserves a name, doesn't he?) Mike found, for the first time, purple potatoes. Now I'd had purple potato chips, so while I'd seen them before I'd never really thought twice about it, especially because I had no idea what I'd do with a purple potato once I acquired it.

We bought them, and decided to make mashed potatoes. It was way more exciting than I expected. I later learned that the purple variety of potato has more nutrients in it than the regular kind, so maybe this is just how I'll do it from now on!

They were so small! This was by far the tiniest (and therefore most adorable). I quartered the rest of the before boiling them, but this one I just put a bunch of fork-holes in so it'd cook properly. When they were cut, the color was beautiful:

And they were all speckled inside! This was where it started getting really exciting. The potatoes were really purple, and I was really cooking them. They, however, lost a lot of their color in the boiling process:

Still definitely purple, but a much more subdued tone. It all got very pretty again when they were mashed, though.

They're kind of lavender now. I suppose I should be calling them "smashed potatoes" as we kept the skins on. Now, I usually cheat at this step and pull out my KitchenAid and its whisk attachment and make whipped potatoes, but Mike insists on mashing them the old fashioned way and allowing a few chunks to stick around. (Tangent: I really hate the word "chunk." It just sounds so awful, and I especially don't want it describing my food. I rarely buy cans of tuna because of this, despite the fact that tuna salad is the only non-sushi seafood I can abide. However, it makes more sense here to say 'chunks' than 'unmashed bits of solid potato' so I will have to deal.)

Mike's method turned out great; the potatoes were just as smooth as I'm used to. They also looked delicious with the rest of the food. The picture came out blurry, unfortunately, because the flash was making them look almost white and I don't have a tripod for my camera. And the point was the purpleness, so I wasn't going to allow them to look white in the pictures. Mike said he could taste the purple--that is, that they TASTED purple, which I understand because I believe very strongly that beets taste red (he thinks blood oranges taste red)--but I thought they tasted like pretty normal mashed potatoes, perhaps just a little richer. (Served with green beans pan-fried with freshly minced garlic, lots of olive oil, and balsamic vinaigrette; cajun marinaded steak. The flavors worked much better together than I expected them to.)

RECIPE: Purple Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

-2 lbs purple potatoes

-Whatever else you usually put in mashed potatoes (I used some dried parsley, garlic powder, butter and cream.)

Instructions:

1. Make mashed potatoes exactly the way you usually do, except with purple potatoes.

2. See the looks of awe on everyone's faces as you present them with purple mashed potatoes. Ask them if they can taste the purple. Regardless, they'll think it's cool.

Now I really want to make purple gnocchi.