Chocolate lava cake

I wanted to make a chocolate lava cake the other day, but we don't have little soufflé moulds, so I just made one cake, in our smallest pyrex bowl. It was really delicious, and got a full-star Ed-rating. As pictured below.

Luckily, I saved the cake from Ed before he actually took a bite out. I highly recommend making this.

• Chocolate lava cake
• The recipe is from here, the NYT molten chocolate magic. I cut it in half.
• 
  
• 1/4C butter (half a stick)
• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2Tbs sugar
• 1tsp flour

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. As it melts, beat together the egg and egg yolk and sugar. Let the chocolate cool just enough so it won't cook the eggs, and then mix it in. Beat in the flour, until just combined.

Butter the mold, and dust it with cocoa powder. Pour in the batter. Cook at 450 for 8 minutes, until it is just set.

Invert the mold, dump the cake on a plate, and dust with powdered sugar. Feel free to garnish with raspberries and whipped cream =)

Popovers, update

So, we figured out a great popover recipe over last winter, but we've been tweaking. Basically, they weren't always rising as high as we thought they should be rising, and after adjusting every variable in the equation, I finally stumbled upon the reason. The ingredients just have to be warm enough. Also, you can't beat the batter too much, or you'll work the flour too much and it'll be all smooth and bread-like and not at all shaggy and rough like it should be.

The original recipe, which I'll retype below just for ease of use, is still a winner. These are pretty much my favorite bready thing to go along with dinner, and I think Ed's too.

Popovers

2 eggs, beaten

1 tbs butter

1C milk

1C flour

1 big pinch of kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 425F. Grease 8 muffin tins really well. Melt the butter in the microwave. Add the milk. Put that in the microwave too, until it's warm to the touch. Add the eggs, and whisk this mixture really, really, thoroughly.

Basically, you want the ingredients to be warm, so that when the popovers hit the very-hot oven, all the oven's heat will go into puffing them up, not into warming up the batter. You want the eggs very well whisked, because they're most of what provide the structure for the puffing action.

Add the flour and the salt to the liquids. Whisk to combine. Pour the batter into the greased muffin tins, 3/4-all the way full.

Cook at 425 for 15 minutes, without opening the oven door. After 15 minutes, turn the heat down to 350 and cook another 20 minutes. Consume!

Puffy, golden, shaggy, and delicious.

Look at all that custard-y hole-y goodness! Yummm.

Also, the meal shown with these delicious morsels was a turkey, white bean, kale soup. With caramelized onions and lots of garlic. That was also tasty.

Gingerbread latte

The other day, after some really fun orienteering training, Becky suggested that we stop by a Starbucks that was just around the corner from the park we were in. I think she used some excuse like "hot chocolate is a great recovery food", but I don't need much convincing when it comes to hot sweet drinks after a run. Anyway, I was all set to get a hot chocolate, when I saw the gingerbread latte on the board. I've never actually had one of those seasonal drinks from Starbucks, normally I don't go in there for anything other than a refill of my coffee mug, but I figured hey, if Becky says it's good, I may as well try it.

Holy crap! Those things are amazing! No wonder the world is addicted to $4 seasonal coffees!

Becky has no idea the damage she has wrought. Not only has she introduced me to something delicious, but she introduced me to something delicious that is too expensive for my budget, and that is only available part of the year. This is Not Good.

Luckily, I'm not the only person with this dilemma. I found this site. I made their gingerbread latte, with a couple tweaks, and it was delicious. Crisis averted! Now I can have my very own 300-calorie coffee drinks whenever I want one! Making an entire latte is probably too much work for an average morning, but I do think the syrup will be good just in normal coffee.

No Ed-rating for this, although maybe he'll try it in hot chocolate. He'll probably just turn up his nose, though, he thinks addictions are for wusses.

Gingerbread syrup
2C water
1.5C sugar
2 tsp molasses
2-1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp whole cloves

(Yes, I use imitation vanilla. It tastes fine)

Put everything in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring somewhat continuously. After 10min, I tasted it, and decided that it was as spicy as I liked it, so I strained the syrup through a strainer into a measuring cup. Then I put it back in the pot, sans peppercorns and cloves, and continued to simmer for another 10 minutes, until the liquid ran off the spoon in a continuous stream, rather than in drops. It made just about two cups of liquid, so I put most of it in canning jars and just let them seal themselves.

The result is a sweet, spicy, flavorful syrup. Most delicious! Maybe it isn't exactly what you get at Starbucks, but it was a helluva lot cheaper, and tastes good enough to do the trick when I'm craving a $4 fancy coffee.

It made a really dark syrup. I'm going to pretend that makes it even more delicious. To make the latte, I microwaved ~1/2C of 2% milk until it was foamy, poured in the coffee, and then added probably 2tbs of syrup. Whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon completed the fruity tooty drink!

And of course, then came the test- is it possible to whip just two tablespoons of heavy cream? The answer is: barely. And it makes a mess.

Chocolate snickerdoodles

I had a real chocolate craving the other day, and I don't have any chocolate hanging around. For sort of the same reasons I don't have any ice cream sitting around. That stuff disappears too quickly; I have no idea where it goes to. So I just don't buy it. But, what to do when you really want chocolate??!? Turned out I did have cocoa powder, so I looked up a recipe for chocolate crinkle cookies, and I was all set to make them, when I realized that I didn't have any powdered sugar to roll them in. But then I came up with an even better idea! Roll them in cinnamon and sugar! I don't know if this is the only definition of a snickerdoodle, but it seemed like a damn good idea to me.

They got a pretty high Ed-rating, too, so clearly, the idea wasn't completely whacko.

Chocolate Snickerdoodles
Made 26 cookies

1 stick of butter (1/2C), room temperature
3/4C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1-2/3C flour
1/2C unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt

2 tbs cinnamon
1/4C sugar

Cream the butter and the sugar. Once it's soft and homogenous, add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until the mixture is smooth between each one. Then add the vanilla. Then dump all the dry stuff (except the cinnamon and sugar) on top of the batter, mix together the dry stuff lightly, and then stir it into the batter. It may feel a little dry, that's ok, just get it all incorporated.

Preheat your oven to 325F. Grease two cookie sheets. Roll the cookie dough into small, bite-sized balls, using your hands.

In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon. Roll each cookie in the cinnamon mixture, and place on the greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-15min, until the tops of the cookies are a little cracked. Don't overbake the cookies! Chewy cookies > crunchy cookies, always.




(Rolling the cookies in cinnamon and sugar)

Gyoza

We'd picked up some gyoza wrappers at the Super88 last time we were there, but then I went and stole them from our freezer and brought them to Amherst, where Ali and I played at being Chinese factory workers frantically making gyoza. The frantic part comes in because we were really hungry, and had discovered that you couldn't just use the shells as a taco - they really wanted to be cooked.

The filling was somewhat uninspired, but it was tasty when wrapped in gyoza wrapper. I think it was diced cabbage, onions, carrots, pork meat, and lots of soy sauce. The smaller you dice stuff, the more even the filling, and then it'll hold together better.

I should have taken a photo of the wrappers - they were like four inches across, and round. I put 1-2 tbs of filling in each one, and then folded them over on themselves to make a taco shape. I used some water to seal the edge, spreading the water with my finger. Then I spread a little more water on one of the ridge sides, and sort of pressed the ridge up against itself bit by bit, until it made a pretty ridge-y thing. I can't really describe it any better than that. You just have to play around.

Once we had a plateful of these guys made, we heated some oil in the frying pan, and fried the dumplings on medium-high heat until they were golden brown on one side. At that point I dumped some amount of water (I think 1/3C?) into the pan, and covered it, and cooked for another 5-7 minutes or so, until the water was mostly gone, and the dumplings looked done. They were delicious! But I'm not sure if they're worth making just for eating - maybe for a dumpling party, but I thought it was a lot of work!

Kale with sausage and garlic

I was getting sick of crunchy kale, my usual use for the green stuff, and I had a sausage in the fridge, so I figured it was time to try something new. It was pretty tasty, and I made it all pretty by putting it on a plate over some sliced sweet potatoes, and topping it with some pan-fried oyster mushrooms. Pretty things taste better.

The kale itself was pretty simple. I chopped the sausage up into bits (a more flavorful sausage would have been good, but I had a mild one. It was fine). I cooked that in a separate pan, just to cook it through. In the main pan, I heated some olive oil, then toasted some slices of garlic. Once they were golden brown, I added the chopped kale, as much as you can fit in the pan. I threw in some lemon juice and some kosher salt, and then covered it and let it cook away. When the kale was properly wilted, and the sausage was cooked, I combined the two, and we ate it.

This got an approving Ed-rating. Another fine way to eat your greens!

Also, sweet potatoes sliced thinly, tossed with olive oil and salt, and baked at 400F for 10 minutes are pretty delicious.

Tapas

Left to his own devices, Ed came home with all sorts of random ingredients, and announced that we were making tapas for dinner. To me, this just sounds like a lot of cleanup after, because you're making like five different courses and only eating little bits of them, but it was delicious enough to be worthwhile.

We made fried sardines - fresh sardines! I've never had them before, they were very pretty and shiny. They also tasted pretty good. Meaty, and not salty like the canned ones. I mean, we also deep-fried them, so of course they were delicious. We served them with a dipping sauce, that was a mix of greek yogurt and sriracha, with some salt sprinkled on top. And some fresh-squeezed lemon over the fish. Very delicious!

Shiny!


We also made some toasted bread things - the first one was with black forest bacon bits, shallots caramelized in the bacon grease, and topped with smoked cheese. It was delicious. The second toasted bread thing was toasted bread, topped with a mixture of beet greens and feta cheese and lemon juice.

There is also plenty of toasted garlic and kosher salt in this dish.


We also made a beet-and-feta cheese salad. This was tasty. Ed had bought some golden beets when he bought the sardines (hence the beet greens), so I boiled and peeled them, then diced them and tossed in vinaigrette of lemon juice, brown sugar, and olive oil. I added chunks of feta, toasted walnuts, and some pomegranate seeds, and I thought the salad was delicious. Ed wasn't into the pomegranate seeds. Apparently he doesn't like the taste. More for me!


And we also had some random olives scattered about. Overall, a very delicious meal! And the cleanup wasn't too bad.

Endive gratin

Forgive the horrible photo - I'm usually bad at taking food photos, but this is worse than most. These gratinéed endives were delicious, but I don't know if they were that much better than just pan-fried endives. Worth making at least once, though! There are a lot of recipes out there for Endive gratin, I basically followed this one, but I'll put my steps below anyway.

Endive Gratin
Made enough for two servings

2 endives
4 pieces of black forest ham
gruyere cheese (enough for 1/2C grated)
2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
1C milk
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350F. Cut the endives in half, lengthwise.

Melt the butter in a frying pan, and then add the flour and whisk, until it makes a paste. Cook on low for a minute, and then add the milk, still whisking. Remove the sauce from the heat, and add the salt and pepper. Taste. Season. Taste. Season.

Wrap each endive-half in a piece of ham. Place them in a cassarole dish, and pour the sauce all over their tops. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is browned on top. Serve them one at a time, and enjoy!


This was part of the main course for the thank-you dinner for Kat. We also had some [leftover] boef bourguinon in puff pastry rounds, and some sauteed mushrooms. Very, very delicious.

French Onion Soup

After rescuing some cheese from the Gagarins' fridge (they lost power, and were leaving for Turkey, so I took away some perishable stuff), we have lots of cheese. It's pretty yummy stuff, one block is aged and one is smoked, both sort of semi-soft cheddar-like cheeses, not sure what they actually are. Anyway, we decided that French onion soup would be a good way to use the cheese, so embarked on that endeavor. It wasn't too hard, actually, but most recipes call for much more cooking time than we used. Hey, we were hungry. We did let the onions fully caramelize, but didn't both cooking the broth that much longer. End result was quite delicious, although anything with toasty bread and melted cheese is going to be good, in my book.

French Onion Soup
Made enough for two people

4 onions
olive oil
kosher salt
~2C chicken stock
~2tbs balsamic vinegar
1/4C apple cider (optional)
several sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf

~2C croutons
~1.5C grated cheese. Swiss or gruyere or emmental are probably best.

First step: caramelize the onions. Basically just cook them until they turn golden brown. We cut them in half, and then into slices, so they made long pieces of onion, and then cooked them in a dutch oven with some olive oil and a pinch of salt until they were delicious and brown and soft. Keep the heat relatively low; you don't want to burn them, just cook them. Stir occasionally. Add oil or butter as necessary, although we were fine this time.

Meanwhile, turn some old bread into croutons. Cut into pieces and bake for 10-15min, until it's pretty hard. If they're soft, they'll just turn to goo when added to the soup.

Once the onions are caramelized, add the chicken stock and the vinegar and the thyme and bay leaf. If we'd had any white wine, we would have added that, too. We let that cook for another 10 minutes or so, and then called it done.

Season the soup to taste for salt and pepper. Then pour it into soup bowls that are oven safe. Something with straight sides and a narrow mouth would be best, but we just used regular bowls. Top the soup with croutons, and then the cheese. Put the bowls on a baking sheet (to catch drips), and broil until the cheese has melted and is starting to brown a bit.

It's done! eat.





Headless Ed eating onion soup.

Salad of apple, fennel, toasted pecans and pomegranate seeds

I saw this recipe initially on Simple Bites, and I was intrigued, mostly because I love pomegranate seeds and toasted pecans. I was less convinced about the fennel - I've had fennel about four times in my life. The first time, I was little, and I determined that I hated it. The second time, was last year, and it was roasted, and I decided it was ok. The third time was a few months ago, and someone else was cooking it, and I ate it out of politeness, and it was actually ok. But I've never had raw fennel, and I was worried that the anise flavor would totally turn me off. Luckily, mixed with apple, and in a fruity dressing, it was good!

The best part about this is definitely whacking the pomegranate seeds out of its shell. Cut the pomegranate in half, hold it cut-side down over a large (I repeat: LARGE) bowl, and start thwacking the back of it with a wooden spoon. Use your wrist. The seeds will just pop out, and it is a very good way to relieve tension and release some frustration.

For the pecans, chop them roughly and toast them for 5-10 minutes in a 350F oven. Don't over cook them, as then they'll just be burnt. I usually set the timer for 5min, and then check every minute until they look and smell properly toasty.

Cut up the fennel bulb and an apple, toss all four ingredients together, and you have a salad!

For the dressing, I used leftover apricot juice from the canned apricots I'd used for the tart - they were packed in pear juice, but it was all orange from housing apricots - mixed with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Pretty simple, although I'm sure a fancier dressing would be just as delicious, if not more so.

Overall, a very tasty salad. Will definitely make again.

Apricot tart with frangipane

Before the World Orienteering Champs, I needed some US Team clothing, and I had missed the order deadline. Kat came to the rescue, because she can't really orienteer anymore (at least to the level she considers worthwhile to do it at, due to injuries), so she sold me a bunch of her US Team clothing. And instead of charging me in full, we made a deal where I'd cook her dinner some night. This sounds like a win-win situation to me, so yesterday I headed down to New Haven for the night, to have some quality girl-time and enjoy some really tasty food.

Given the rainy, cold weather, I was feeling inspired by Belgian cuisine. I decided on a four-course meal, although eventually gave up on trying to pair Belgian beer with each course, because the liquor store I visited was inadequate. The first course was mussels, in a white-wine butter sauce with thyme, and crusty french bread. Then the main course was an endive gratin with ham and gruyere, with boef bourguinon in puff pastry shells. Then a salad with fennel, apple, toasted pecans and pomegranate seeds, and finally, an apricot frangipane tart. The boef bourguinon was actually left over, from the night before, at Peter and Gail's house, so that made the whole thing pretty quick to make. My favorite dish was definitely the tart, so I'm going to start with that recipe, and work backwards!

Apricot and frangipane tart on puff pastry

Frangipane:
3 tbs butter
1/4C sugar
1 egg
1/2C almond meal
1/2tsp almond extract

Apricot tart:
1 can apricot halves
2/3 of a sheet puff pastry

For the frangipane, you basically make a cookie. Cream the butter with the sugar, and then stir in the egg and the almond extract. Then stir in the almond meal. You could also take blanched almonds and grind them up in a food processor, if you don't have almond meal. It makes a loose cookie dough thing.



To assemble the tart, break or cut the puff pastry into long strips (it comes folded in thirds, so if you don't bother thawing it, it'll just crack at the folds, and that makes a convenient size for tarts. Spread some of the frangipane over the frozen puff pastry leaving a little room around the edges, and then plop on some apricots.



Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes, until the edges of the puff pastry are starting to get golden brown. Pull out, let it cool a bit, and eat!

Garlic bread

This was one of those awesome recipes that was super easy, and tasted delicious. You could either make your own bread, or use an existing loaf of bread. We made our own, just because we do things like that. Once the bread was baked, we cut it in half, and spread the open halves with butter, diced garlic, diced chives, and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Then we baked at 400F for another 10 minutes or so, until it was crispy. If it isn't crisping up fast enough, you could broil it. I'd highly recommend making this, because it looked pretty, tasted delicious, and was super duper easy to make. The chives aren't necessary at all, we just had some. You could replace with anything green (parsley, basil, spinach, etc), just because it looks pretty to have green stuff on there. Another addition that would be delicious is grated cheese. Do it.

Bacon Cheddar Chive Biscuits

I made these, and they were scrumptious. I added about two tablespoons of chopped chives. Other than that, I actually followed a recipe! The biscuits were tender and flaky, flavored like bacon and cheese, crunchy on the outside, and pure deliciousness. I had one for breakfast the next day (not sure how any of them survived from dinner, but somehow, there was one leftover), and it was still tender and flaky, though less crispy on the outside. These DEFINITELY got a good Ed-rating. But then again, it's hard to go wrong with good, thick-cut, smoky bacon from Carl's sausage kitchen.



I've reprinted the recipe below, in my words and for my files. But for the true foodie effect, I recommend heading over to pioneer woman and following her recipe. Actually, now that I look at this, I did change some things. Using all butter instead of crisco, and adding 1/4tsp of salt. Oops.

Bacon Cheddar Chive Biscuits
2C flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp kosher salt
4 tbs frozen butter
1/4C olive oil
10tbs milk
1 egg
1C grated cheese
6 pieces bacon
3tbs chopped chives
1C diced onion

First, deal with the bacon: lay the strips out on a cooling rack, placed over a baking sheet, and bake for 10-20 minutes at 350F, until it is nicely browned and most of the fat has rendered out. Use some of that fat to sweat the onion, with a pinch of salt to help it along. Once the bacon has cooled, crumble it. Bump the oven to 400F.

Mix all the dry goods together. Using the big holes on a cheese grater, grate the frozen butter into the dry stuff. Mix that around with your finger tips (pinch it) for about a minute, then let it be. Stir in the cheese, crumbled bacon, chives, and onion. Mix all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry. Stir just until combined - no more. Plop biscuit-sized rounds of dough onto a greased baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Roasted eggplant with green tahini sauce

I found a pomegranate at the store, and that immediately made me think of a recipe from Ottolenghi: the cookbook, that was garnished with pomegranate seeds. Obviously, you can't make a recipe until you have the right garnish! Anyway, it's also eggplant season, so I thought maybe this would be a nice new way to cook eggplant. It ended up only getting a so-so Ed-rating, because the eggplant was too cooked through. He said it was good, but only because of the sauce and the pomegranate seeds. Ah well, I liked it. Also, it was nice and simple to make, always a bonus.


Roasted eggplant with green tahini sauce
1 eggplant
olive oil
kosher salt
1C tahini
1 lemon
1-2 handfuls spinach or parsley
1/2 pomegranate
Basil leaves for garnish

Start by preheating your oven to 425F. Cut the eggplant into wedges - I cut it in half width-wise, and then each of those halves in half, so that I had four half-cylinders. The fatter end I cut into four wedges each, the skinny end was three wedges. Then brush olive oil on all the white parts of the eggplant, and stand upright on it's skin on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with kosher salt, and bake for 20-35 minutes, until it's browning.

Ed's suggestion was to grill the eggplant, so that it didn't get as mushy, but still got brown. That would work, if we had a grill.

For the sauce, mix 1C of tahini with the juice of a lemon, a few handfuls of spinach or parsley (the original recipe called for parsley, but I didn't have any, and spinach is also green). Add ~1/2 tsp kosher salt, and a tablespoon or so of water. Put all this into a food processor, and like three seconds later you'll have the sauce.

For the pomegranate, I've discovered that the best and easiest way to get the seeds out is also great for releasing frustration. Cut the pomegranate in half, and then hold it, open-side down, over a large bowl. Take a wooden spoon, and whack the skin of the pomegranate with the back of the spoon, and the seeds all start popping out. This is immensely satisfying.

Once the eggplant is done, take it out of the oven and arrange on a big platter. Pour some sauce over the top, garnish liberally with pomegranate seeds, and top with some basil leaves, if you have them.


I should mention that while the eggplant only got so-so reviews, we were eating this with some porkchops that Ed had just picked up from Carl's Sausage Kitchen, up in Lynn. He's been in Lynn a lot, because that's where we're holding an orienteering meet this fall, and he's the meet director. Anyway, he came back with two pork chops that were cut super duper thick, and braised them in apple cider and a little smoked maple syrup. They came out utterly delicious. Most and tender! Also, because they're cut thick and with the bone on, you basically have a rib to suck on once you've eaten all the meat.

Below is a series of photos of Ed in various states of utter contentment, sucking on a rib.

Apple cider-glazed butternut squash

Woo, more cider recipes! This one was for squash, since we also have lots of that right now. I found it on epicurious, as ever, but that was for delicata squash, which I didn't have, and also used sage, which I also didn't have. So like everything else, I modified it for the ingredients I had, and it was delicious. The original recipe is here, if you like real recipes with real ratings and stuff. The version I made got a good Ed-rating, and I also thought it was good, which isn't something I've ever said about cubed butternut squash before. It's usually just ok; I don't like the texture, although I love the taste, and it makes great soups. Anyway, I recommend this one. The cider becomes deliciously tangy and sweet, almost like candy.

Apple cider-glazed butternut squash
Made a lot, like enough for six servings or so

1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed. (save the seeds and roast them! delicious)
~3-4C apple cider
~2tbs butter
1 tbs dried rosemary
1 tbs cumin seeds
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tbs fresh rosemary (optional)

Melt the butter in a frying pan, and then add the rosemary and cumin to the butter. It should sizzle for a bit and smell delicious.


Once it's been smelling delicious for 30 seconds or so, add the squash, and then pour in the apple cider. You want enough liquid to almost cover the squash; it should still be sticking out above the cider. If there isn't enough cider, add more, or add some water. More cider will lead to a more concentrated apple-y taste. Add the salt.


Cover the frying pan, and turn the heat to medium-ish, so that it's bubbling, but not violently boiling. Stir occasionally, and let it sit there for 15-20 minutes, until the squash is just soft enough to poke with a fork. At this point, there should still be a good bit of liquid, so take the top off, and start trying to reduce the liquid. The goal is to end up with a thick, syrupy, concentrated cider sauce, coating your squash. If your squash finishes cooking before the cider has reduced enough (test this by poking it with a fork), remove the squash from the pan and finish the cider syrup on its own, then pour over the squash. If the cider reduces too fast and the squash still isn't done, add some water or more cider. In other words, you have a lot of room for error, here.


Once the squash is cooked through and tender, and the cider is reduced to a delicious, thick, goopy sauce, you're done! Taste, and add more salt if you need it, and garnish with chopped fresh rosemary.