Paella!
The sun’s been shining (intermittently at least) and dammit I want paella! I’ve never made one (well, except for this one time 8 years ago, but all has been forgotten), so some research was needed. I went to my source of all things paella related, my architecture boss (and self declared paella aficionado) Joe. He hooked me up with the basic steps and traditional spices. I scribbled it all down like a mad woman, went shopping for a paella pan (because sometimes you just need a new toy), and promptly lost the notes. So I was mostly working from memory, but I think I got the gist of it right.
I wanted to keep it simple, since I was entering uncharted waters. Plus my dinner guests were pescatarian, so no crazy chicken/chorizo/every other meat you can think of combination for this little paella {insert sad face emoticon}. I decided to go with shrimp, along with a bunch of spring veggies.
First I fried up my sofrito, which is just the mirepoix (which is the soffritto (which is the sofrito of Italy) of France) of Spain: onions, garlic and red peppers. Basically the holy trinity of Western European/Mediterranean/Caribbean cooking. I cooked those down with some olive oil, paprika, cumin and cayenne.
Then I threw in my rice and let it toast for a while before adding some white wine. I let that cook for a few minutes and then added some saffron, veggie stock and clam juice.
Once it looked like the rice had about 15-20 minutes left, I piled it high with shrimp, English peas, artichoke hearts and asparagus.
I put a lid on it and let it keep going until everything looked all yummy and my shrimp were all pink. It was tasty! Most importantly, I got a delicious layer of crust on the bottom, pretty much what makes paella fabulous. Not bad at all for a first (though technically second) paella!
Strawberry Shortcakes
Aaaaaaahhhh…strawberry season. Time for some strawberry shortcakes to make an appearance.
First the shortcakes: I started my shortcake dough the same way I would a pie dough, just barely mixing the butter chunks into the flour, sugar, baking powder & salt. Once all mixed, I started drizzling in cream, mixing until it just began to come together.
I rolled the dough flat, until it was about 1/2″ thick.
Then I cut little circles out!
I let the circles hang out in the fridge while I started slicing my strawberries. I let the strawberries macerate in some sugar for a bit, and then baked my shortcakes and whipped some cream. And then I put them all together!
RECIPE (adapted from Alice Waters):
3 pints strawberries
3 tbsp sugar
2 cups flour
4 tablespoons sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz butter (very cold)
1 cup heavy cream (for shortcakes)
1 1/2 cups whipping cream (for whipped cream)
– Wash, dry and slice the (you can crush some of them if you like) berries. Toss with sugar to taste, about 1 tablespoon per pint. The strawberry mixture should be very juicy.
– Mix the flour, baking powder, 4 tbsp sugar & salt in a kitchen aid bowl. Use the paddle to blend in half the butter for1 minute. Then add rest of butter and continue mixing until butter is in ½ – 1 inch chunks (should take less than 30 seconds). With the mixer running, quickly add in ¾ cup cream, just until most of the dry mixture has been moistened. Turn off mixer and add a bit more cream, mix with your hands just until it holds together. Turn out on a board and knead just a few times, until the dough just comes together into a ball. It might still be a little crumbly at the edges. Roll into1/2 inch thick slab and cut out circles. You can re-roll scraps once.
– Put the shortcakes on a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the tops with the remaining cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in a preheated 425°F oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until the tops are lightly browned and the dough is set. Cool on a rack and serve while warm. Make the whipped cream while the biscuits cool.
– To serve: Split the shortcakes and spoon berries liberally over the bottom halves. Spoon whipped cream over strawberries and set the tops back on. There should be lots of berries and lots of cream.
Pasta! Pasta!
Another Tuesday and here I am making pasta again. It’s spring (and I woke up to rain, sad) and I was just feeling it, you know? I’m more confident of my pasta making after my excellent raviolis, so I’m ready to add flavored pastas to my repertoire. Since right now everything in my backyard is bright green, I was thinking spinach pasta was in order. It’s basically the same as making regular pasta, just with a few more steps at the beginning to get all that spinach flavor (and color) into the dough.
First I tore all the stems off of my spinach leaves. Then I boiled them for about 45 seconds. I threw the boiled spinach into an ice bath to cool down.
Once cooled, started trying to get all of that water out. There are probably many methods for that, but mine consisted of layering the leaves in paper towels and then rolling the stack into a log. And then doing it again with new paper towels. After they seemed dry enough (whatever that is) I pureed them in the food processor.
The food processor didn’t seem to understand the severity of my need to get minuscule little bits of green (too large chunks will get caught up in the machine, I learned this the hard way, with some failed beet pasta – I’ll tackle that one again someday), so I threw the spinach in with my eggs and pulled out the (little) big guns, the immersion blender. Have I mentioned yet that immersion blenders rock my kitchen world? I can’t believe there was ever a time when I didn’t have one. I think tony gave me this one years and years ago, thanks tony!
After finally getting a smoother puree, I starting mixing my dough. Typical pasta method: I put the flour in a shallow bowl and made a well in the middle. Then I poured in the egg/spinach mixture and started stirring, slowly incorporating the flour from the sides. I did that until it came together into a mass to dense to stir, and then I started kneading. I kept kneading in more flour until it stopped feeling wet (I never use all the flour). Then I plopped my dough onto a floured surface and kept kneading for about 8 minutes.
The dough needed to hang out for an hour, to relax all that gluten. The sun was out again (!) so it was just enough time for me to do a quick bike ride up twin peaks (the hill, not the TV show), take in the view, ride back down and start a-rolling!
I decided to make a fettucine out of my pasta sheets. Since my machine already has a setting for slicing into perfect little strips, it was easy peasy!
And we’ve got fresh spinach fettucine for our 90210 dinner tonight!
I probably won’t take any pics of it sauced, but we’re freestyling a lemon chicken artichoke cheesy creamy sauce. With capers, I believe there are some capers in there somewhere. Yes!
But I did take a picture!
F*ck it, Let’s fry some sh*t.
And by sh*t I mean cheese. And by cheese I mean ricotta, as in all the leftover ricotta from 2 weeks ago. It’s been sitting in the fridge taunting me, and I had no plans for it. As usual, I made way too much. But sometimes when you need to pull a quick dessert out of thin air, leftovers like that save the day. There was a potluck that needed a dessert, and I didn’t have much time for cooking & baking. I was gazing into my fridge looking at what I already had and remembered seeing a recipe for zeppoli, or Italian ricotta fritters. I found it and realized that these guys were a cinch to make. And well, I do have an unhealthy obsession with deep frying. What can I say, it makes me happy.
I made my batter (which really just involved mixing the wet stuff, mixing the dry stuff, and then mixing them together) in like 10 minutes.
Then I dropped spoonfuls of the batter into my hot oil and fried them for 2-3 minutes.
And then I dusted them with powdered sugar!
But I was feeling the need to dip them in something sweet. So I made a quick and dirty raspberry jam sauce. Perfect!
ZEPPOLI:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup whole milk ricotta
1/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
1 vanilla bean
vegetable oil for frying
powdered sugar for dusting
– Heat 2 inches oil in a heavy saucepan until it registers 360°F.
– Whisk together flour, baking powder, lemon zest, nutmeg and salt in a bowl.
– In another bowl, whisk together ricotta, eggs, sugar, milk and vanilla bean seeds, then whisk in flour mixture.
– Working in batches, drop tablespoons of batter and fry, flipping occasionally, until deep golden, about 2-3 minutes per batch.
– Transfer to paper towels to drain.
– Dust generously with confectioners sugar.
– Dip and enjoy!
RASPBERRY SAUCE
1/2 cup raspberry jam (without pectin if possible)
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1-2 teaspoons sugar (depends on sweetness of jam)
– Just stir it all together!
Bagels! and Cream Cheese!
When I see a sticky white bundle of cloth dangling in my kitchen, I know good things are coming.
As I have mentioned a few times, I do love a good cheese making session. Not that there’s much work on my end, I just like seeing that slow curding and draining process going on. Yesterday I made a yummy spreadable cream cheese, because, well, I’ve got some spreading to do. Me and Pantea are throwing a brunch party today, and while she will dominated with her delicious shirred eggs and veggies dish, my contribution will be loads of carbs and fat. Also known as bagels and cream cheese.
I’ve been wanting to make bagels forever, but it just seemed like one of those all day long projects, and then we would have stacks of bagels lying around. Since I’m way to obsessed with working my way through my vegetable box every week, AND I’ve been trying to ease John out of his carb addiction, it just seemed wrong. So I’ve been waiting, patiently, biding my time before pouncing on a good brunch invitation with my (hopefully) beautiful bagels.
So…we begin. bagels. I’m using the recipe from Peter Reinhardt’s “Bread Baker’s Apprentice”, Mostly because I think it’s a rad book, but also because it’s the only breadbaking book I own. I started with a sticky sponge (in breadspeak, a sponge is like a mini batch of your dough that you let rise for a bit before adding the rest or your ingredients, to add flavor) that I let hang out until it was all bubbly and magical cauldron looking.
Then I added the rest of the ingredients: flour, yeast, salt and malt syrup. Bagels are meant to be quite chewy, which requires a lot of kneading to build up all that gluten. And because they’re going to be boiled, bagels begin as a super stiff dough, which is easier to knead by hand, and can be a bit of work on your kitchen aid mixer. I started the kneading in my machine, but chickened out after 5 minutes or so when it started grunting. I finished the kneading by hand, basically kneading until I could stretch a piece of it out with my hands without it tearing.
Then I portioned it into future bagel sized chunks.
And poked little holes in them! Let us not discuss my shaping skills, they are…er…in progress.
Then I let my little guys rest for a bit, and rise until they could float in water. Once they were nice and floaty, they were ready to spend the night in the fridge.
I got up this morning pumped for my little bagel adventure! I cranked up the oven and brought a pot of water to boil. I boiled my bagels in batches for 1 minute on each side and then put them back on the sheet pan. I sprinkled them with sesame seeds, poppy seeds and sea salt while boiling the rest.
Then I baked them!
So Cute and most definitely brunch-worthy!
Homemade Crackers!
Last night was a light dinner, a mediterranean mezze if you will. I keep doing these lately, I’m gonna be burned out by the time summer rolls around and traditional mezze ingredients are actually in season. But they’re so goooooood… Anyways, I’ve been trying out different cracker recipes and this time I finally think I got it right. I REALLY want to conquer the cracker. Fresh crackers are just so lovely, way better than anything you could get packaged. And I like being able to spice them up to compliment whatever I’m serving them with.
I was being indecisive about which direction to take the flour in, so I ended up doing a mix. I just bought a bag of freshly milled (right in front of me!) local whole wheat flour from Eatwell Farm and knew that HAD to go in. And I saw a few recipes calling for semolina flour, so wanted some of that too. But I didn’t want it to get too crazy, so I wanted a bit of all purpose flour, as a base. I totally made that up, but it seemed to have worked, so I’m going with it.
Crackers are super easy. You literally mix your flour(s), water, oil and salt. Then you knead them until they’re nice and stretchy, like 5-10 minutes (depends on how gluten-ey your flour of choice is). I cut them up into some manageable chunks and let them rest for a while, to relax all that gluten I created.
Then I just ran each chunk through the pasta machine, until I got strips that were around 1/16″ thick. It was the simplest thing I’ve ever done with my pasta machine! Then I started loading my strips up with all the Mediterranean(ish) spices that I had: cumin seeds, ground coriander, ground paprika, sesame seeds, sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. I smashed them all in, to keep them from falling right off once baked.
Then I baked the dough for around 10 minutes at 400 degrees, just until they looked all browned and crispy.
And they were perfect (you know, in the way an ugly kid is perfect only to their parents). Not that they were ugly… I’m just saying that I’m glad someone invented the word “rustic”. I broke my strips into chunks and dipped them in Pantea’s fresh made hummus & some feta with fresh herbs. One word: Yum.
RECIPE:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup semolina flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup water
2 tsp salt
– Mix it all up and knead it by hand or in a machine for 5-10 minutes, until it’s nice and stretchy.
– Cut it into 8 pieces and let sit (covered) at room temperature for an hour or two, to relax.
– Run each piece through a pasta machine, starting at the thickest setting and work your way to the 4th or 5th setting, depending on how thin you want your crackers.
– Lay the dough sheets on a parchment covered baking pan and spray with water to moisten. Then sprinkle whatever you like. Get crazy. It’s a cracker – it can do anything. At this point, if you are going for a more “refined” cracker, you an use a pizza wheel to cut out geometric (or not so geometric, who am I to judge) shapes.
– Bake at 400 for roughly 10 minutes, but keep checking after 8 minutes, because it goes from perfectly toasty to burnt really fast.
– Let cool completey before breaking up into hand dipping size.
Strawberry Vanilla Sorbet
It was a beautiful day. It was a hard day. I woke up and immediately ran out the door for a bike ride with my boss. My boss who is SO much more in shape than me that the ride left me crippled (well, crippled in that good kind of way – I’ll appreciate it in a few days, when I can feel my thighs again). But it was also a night of 90210 and dinner with the girls, and there was dessert to be made. After a weekend of heavy meaty man-food (not to mention Scott’s meatloaf that I DESTROYED for lunch after the ride), we were going light and springy. Since I was basically attached to the couch, I also needed it to be quick and easy. So sorbet it was. And what a better way to kick off strawberry season than a strawberry vanilla sorbet.
First I made a vanilla sugar by spraping the seeds of a vanilla bean into the sugar and rubbing it in until it looked like this:
I mixed my vanilla sugar and bean with some water and brought it all to a boil. Once it boiled, I turned off the heat and let the flavors steep, occasionally stirring to dissolve the sugar.
While that was steeping, I washed, chopped and hulled my berries. I pureed them and pushed them through a fine sieve to get rid of the seeds.
I mixed the berries with the sugar syrup (minus the bean) and let it hang in the fridge for a bit before spinning it in the ice cream machine (How am I ever gonna survive without this guy once my landlord’s want it back?).
It was so cold and light and strawberry-ey. A perfect springy dessert. Made even more perfect by a crispy vanilla shortbread cookie, because, well, I need a LITTLE fat for it to feel like dessert.
RECIPE:
2 pints strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 vanilla bean
basically, do what I did above..there’s really nothing more to it!
A Labor Camp Weekend (of frying)
This weekend was a lovely one spent up in Napa Valley. My friend Bronson has a house in the woods that he’s been trying to fix up. So this weekend he threw a labor camp party, inviting a bunch of his friends to come up with him and build stuff (fun stuff like concrete foundations!). Not a difficult proposal with a bunch of architects as friends. Since I’m a pipsqueak with some culinary skills, I was hired as camp chef. There was a breakfast of dried cherry scones and homemade granola, a lunch of tuna sandwiches and homemade potato chips, and turkey pot pies for dinner. And lemon poundcake with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. While that was certainly a big pile of cooking, the part that got me all giddy was the potato chips.
Bronson wanted to keep lunch simple, with some sandwiches and chips. When I heard that, all I could think was “Yes! I can make homemade potato chips!” At first he wasn’t too keen on the idea of making them ourselves (What is UP with all the fryer haters? We’re people too! I’ll fry anywhere, anytime. I don’t even need a deep fryer, just a pot. I even travel with my own splatter screen…), thinking it would be too messy. But he was swayed. Potato chips are very simple – you just need 2 ingredients: potatoes and oil. We went with a mix of sweet potatoes and yams. Oh yeah, I guess you need a mandolin too.
Mandolins make light work of slicing, and allowed me to get super-thin discs of potato.
The trickiest part is getting the temperature of the oil right. We didn’t have a thermometer with us, so it took some trial and error to get to the sweet spot, but I think 350 is about right. Once the oil temperature is set, they only take about 3 minutes to fry!
While they were still warm I tossed them with some salt, pepper, cumin and parsley.
They were way better than any chip I’ve ever gotten out of a bag. I think they’ll make it into the regular picnic rotation.
Spring Is Officially Here Ravioli
You know that calm before the storm? This is what it looks like to me:
It’s that moment when I know I’m about to enter a world of “Oh my god, I’ve been doing this for 5 hours, why am I not done?” At this point in our relationship, I think John has learned to leave the house quickly and quietly when he sees me dragging the pasta machine out of the pantry. Because, inevitably, I will be moaning and groaning until he is guilted into helping. But sometimes a girl just wants some homemade pasta. It’s spring and I’ve got fresh asparagus and english peas that want some lovin…Italian lovin. I’ve been watching the pasta dude at work, I think I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve. I can DO this.
Peas are awesome. Simply awesome. I understand how if you were to grow up eating English peas out of a can, you might think they are all kinds of icky. But I didn’t. I grew up with fresh southern peas from the pea patch in the woods behind our backyard. While we didn’t grow English peas (we’ve got all kinds of crazy peas in the south), my love of peas does not discriminate. So I’m gonna celebrate these little guys, because they only come out to play for a few months every year.
This time, John made the mistake of coming home too early. So I snagged him for some help. Turns out he just keeps getting better and better with the pasta machine. He cranks out much nicer pasta sheets than me! So maybe it was meant to be.
I prepared a filling of peas & asparagus that I boiled in vegetable stock, homemade ricotta, parmesan, lemon zest, bread crumbs and chili flakes. I pureed them into a nice fluffy cream that I piped onto John’s beautiful pasta.
Then I layered on the top sheet.
And stamped out little circles for my raviolis!
Since they were so fresh, the raviolis only took a minute or 2 to cook.
I served the raviolis in a vegetable broth that I had simmered with the asparagus & peas that went into the filling, and some parmesan rinds I had been saving (I KNEW they would come in handy some day!). I threw in some fresh peas, the asparagus tops and shaved some parmesan to finish.
It was pretty decadent. I kept thinking, “Wow, I can’t believe I actually made that”. Most definitely worth the effort.
Yummy Italian Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake. And Homemade Ricotta.
You know how some people bake a cake when they’re stressed? Or make a loaf of bread? I make cheese. When I feel overwhelmed, or bummed, or nervous, cheese makes me feel better. There’s something about all that milk, the cheesecloth, the thermometers, and the TIME (it ain’t no 30 minute meal)…it just relaxes me. So last night I was feeling the need to make some cheese, and didn’t have the energy to try something too wacky or new. So ricotta it was, the recipe that introduced me to cheesemaking.
Ricotta is super easy. I know I say that a lot, but this time I really mean it. Anyone could make ricotta. Well, anyone with a stainless steel pot, a thermometer & some cheesecloth.
I started with a ratio of 1:4 of buttermilk and whole milk. I heated them up to 180 on the stove, gently stirring occasionally. Then I let them sit for half an hour or so, until I could see nice strong curds separated from the whey. Then I scooped the curds onto a strainer lined with cheesecloth. I let that sit for a while and drain until it reached what I thought was the right amount of dryness (that is personal preference that totally depends on what your plans are for the ricotta). Then I salted it to my liking and was all done!
This time I went for a pretty dry ricotta. But not too dry.
But now I have about 3 lbs of ricotta…I guess I’ll just have to bake a cake out of it. An Italian Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake to be precise. It’s my first time making an Italian cheesecake. The first time I had one was while living in New York. My friend (and maker of magic in the kitchen) Kate baked one that was so fluffy and gorgeous that I still think of it when I see them. Hopefully mine will come close!
First things first, I needed a crust.
After I baked my crust I started on the filling. I put my ricotta in the food processor to fluff it up a bit, and break down any huge curds. Then I mixed some egg yolks, sugar & and a vanilla bean until they too were nice and fluffy. I mixed into this my fluffy ricotta and some lemon zest.
Then I whipped a meringue to just medium peaks.
I folded that into my ricotta base and poured it onto my baked crust.
It spent an hour baking in the oven and came out a beautiful souffle.
And then it slowly falls. I love fallen desserts. There’s something really honest about a dessert that souffles up as high as it can go and then sinks back down as it cools.
I served it with some strawberries that had been soaking in sugar and lemon juice.
It was so light and fluffy that people kept asking if it was really cheesecake. I think Kate would have been proud.
RECIPE (Adapted from Gourmet Magazine):
Crust
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Filling
2 lb whole-milk ricotta, drained in a cheesecloth-lined strainer set over a bowl until dry, chilled
6 large eggs, separated
1 vanilla bean
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Finely grated zest of 3 lemons
1/8 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar
Make crust:
– Preheat oven to 350°F.
– Pulse flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal.
– Add yolk, vanilla, and lemon juice and pulse just until mixture begins to form a dough.
– Spread dough with a flat bottomed cup over buttered bottom of a 24-centimeter springform pan and prick all over with a fork.
– Chill 30 minutes.
– Bake crust in the middle of the oven until golden brown, about 25 minutes, and cool on a rack.
Make filling and bake cake:
– Increase oven temperature to 375°F.
– Pulse ricotta in food processor until fluffy and smooth. Beat yolks, vanilla bean seeds and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale.
– Beat in ricotta, flour, and zests. Beat whites with salt in another bowl until they hold soft peaks, and fold into ricotta mixture.
– Butter side of springform pan and pour filling over crust. Bake in baking pan in middle of oven until cake is puffed and golden, about 1 hour.
– Run a knife around top edge of cake to loosen and cool completely in springform pan on rack.
– Chill, loosely covered, at least 4 hours. Remove side of pan and transfer cake to a plate. Bring to room temperature and sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.
I made that! 
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