Cheese Straws

Going to a potluck barbecue. I had some puff pastry in the freezer that I've been needing to use up + It's strawberry season again (the market smelled so gooood) = I thought to make something for the potluck with puff pastry and strawberries. And then I tasted the strawberries. I'm not sharing. They're all for me. So I made these instead. My friends need never know....

From the Gourmet cookbook, that giant yellow behemoth:

Ingredients:

• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry (from a 17 1/4-ounce package), thawed
• 1 large egg, beaten with 2 tablespoons water
• 1 cup finely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (about 4 ounces)
• Course sea salt (I don't think table salt would work at all. Use course salt or nothing.)

1. Put a rack in the middle of the oven; preheat to 425.
2. Generously butter two baking sheets (I used my silicon sheets and skipped the butter)
3. roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into a 14-by-12-inch rectangle. Cut crosswise in half to form two 12-by-7-inch rectangles. Brush both with the egg wash. Sprinkle cheese evenly over one rectangle and top the other rectangle, egg wash side down. Press firmly on the pastry to force out any air pockets, then roll out gently to make the layers adhere (it should end up about 12.5 by 7.5 inches). Brush the pastry with the egg wash and sprinkle with course salt.
4. With a pastry wheel, pizza cutter, or sharp knife, cut pastry crosswise into twenty-four 1/2-inch pieces. Twist each strip two or three times and place on the baking sheet, pushing down the edges to keep the strip twisted. Put 12 strips on the sheet.
5. Bake until golden, about 10 to 12 minutes, then let cool for a couple minutes on the sheet.
6. Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the strips for the other baking sheet and bake when the first batch is done.
7. Loose baked strips with a metal spatula (I could just pick them up from the silicon) and cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

RESULTS: These might be all for me, too.

Asparagus and Lemon Risotto

I finally got to the market early enough today to find asparagus. Thusly, this from Alice. Good ol' Alice...

4 servings

Snap off the ends of 1 lb asparagus. Cut spears on the diagonal into 1/4-inch pieces. Remove the zest from 1 lemon and juice. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a heavy-bottomed pan. Ass 1 small onion, diced fine. Cook until the onion is soft and translucent, about 10 minutes. Add 1.5 cups risotto rice. Cook the rice, stirring occasionally, until translucent,* about 4 minutes. Do not let brown.

Meanwhile, bring 5 cups chicken broth to a boil.

Stir the lemon zest into the rice, then pour in 1/2 cup dry white wine. Cook, stirring, until all the wine is absorbed. Add 1 cup of broth and cook at a vigorous simmer, stirring occasionally. When rice starts to get thick, pour in another 1/2 cup of broth and add a little salt, depending on the saltiness of the broth. Keep adding broth, 1/2 at a time, every time the rice thickens. Do not let the rice dry out. After 12 minutes, stir in the asparagus. Cook until the rice is tender but still has a firm core, about 20-30 minutes in all.

When rice is about done, stir in half the lemon juice and add 1 tablespoon butter and 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Stir vigorously to develop the creamy starch. Taste for salt and lemon juice and adjust as needed. Turn off the heat, let the risotto sit uncovered for 2 minutes, then serve. Add a splash of broth if the rice becomes too thick.

RESULTS: ok, first of all, whenever I see a recipe that calls for a heavy-bottomed pan, I get "Fat-bottomed girls" by Queen stuck in my head. And now you will, too, ha, HA!

I like making risotto because I think my culinary Achilles heel is that I lack patience. Risotto sort of seems to demand patience to get the best texture. Today I was making this at the same time I was making some Cheese Straws, so my attention was split, which may explain why the risotto turned out so great today. It was neither mushy, nor was it crunchy in the middle. It was perfect. Woo-hoo! Oh, I also liked the flavor a lot. Things I changed: left out the cheese, didn't have a lemon so I used lemon juice at the end, no wine, and I only added the butter at the end, I used olive oil at the beginning. Also, the farmer's market had onions, but they were the young onions with green stalks still attached. I wanted to use the greens, so I added those, chopped up, when I added the asparagus at the end. I might have also gotten by with adding it later, but not earlier.

*I think this must be a typo, rice turns opaque, not translucent. It starts translucent. Or am I misunderstanding the terms?

Well, as you've probably been able to guess from the lack of posting, life has been busy lately. First, work was so hectic that the last thing I wanted to do was look at the computer after hours. Now life outside work has sped up a bit as we've had some very welcome visitors and been amping up moving preparations. Stay tuned for a couple recipes from Jean's trip here last weekend.

Origin of the Swine Flu

Chris sent this to me a while ago, been meaning to post it.

Mixed Nuts with Rosemary

Ingredients:

• 2 cups mixed nuts (pecans and walnuts work really well b/c of their ridges)
• 4 Tbs (1/2 stick) butter
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary (NOT dried!)
• pinch of cayenne pepper (optional, but highly recommended)
• Coarse salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degress. On a rimmed baking sheet, roast nuts until golden and fragrant, about 12-15 minutes. Line another baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
2. In a large skillet, melt butter and rosemary over medium heat. Add sugar and stir (you may need to use a whisk) until combined .Add nuts; stir until butter mixture is golden brown, 3-5 minutes. Stir in pinch of cayenne.
3. Spread nuts on prepared baking sheet. Season with salt. Cool to room temperature, tossing occasionally, about 15 minutes.

RESULTS: I first tried these nuts at a friends party and I couldn't stop eating them. I called to ask for the recipe and she said she would not only give me the recipe, but she's also give me about a quart of the nuts that she had leftover (her mom made a quadrupple batch). I still couldn't stop eating them, so I tried to make them myself and I burnt the heck out of the sugar. It was fairly awful. So, I changed the recipe around (that's what I wrote here) so that the sugar isn't added until after the butter melts, and the temp is at medium, not medium high. It's not as good as Gina's mom's nuts, but it's way better than a house that smells like burnt sugar.

Go easy on the cayenne, it's stronger than you think.

Italian Wedding Soup

My sister told me about this recipe - she saw it made on a Food Network show and copied from what they did. I made it this week, and it was easy to do and turns out really well. I had some chicken stock on hand, so I added that to the water I boiled the chicken in, because I just boiled one bone-in, skin-on breast, rather than a whole bird, since it's just me and I try not to eat a lot of meat. I also added some fresh tarragon that I had left over from something else, since fresh herbs are expensive and I don't like them to go to waste. It's great soup, and perfect since winter won't seem to move on!

Ingredients:

Whole chicken or game hen

Large head of escarole (or spinach - what I used because I couldn't find escarole)

Two yellow onions

Celery

Carrots

Garlic

Oregano

Bay leaves

Orzo (or very small pasta, like pastina)

Salt

Ground beef or turkey

2 eggs

Bread

Milk

Boil a whole chicken (for one person, I would get either some chicken on the bone or a small game hen or chicken piece(s)). Add to the water chopped carrot, celery and onion and some oregano, a bay leaf and some salt. Let the chicken boil down for about an hour. After an hour, remove the chicken to a plate to cool.

While the chicken is boiling, make your tiny meatballs (you can use ground turkey. I saute some onion, garlic and celery to add to mine along with a piece of bread soaked in milk and one or two eggs, two if you’re using turkey, salt and pepper. You can substitute breadcrumbs for the bread.) The meatballs should be small. Bake them for about ½ an hour to 40 minutes.

Tear the meat off the chicken, shredding it, and add back to the soup base.

Chop the head of escarole and add to soup

Add meatballs

Add orzo

Cook until the orzo is tender and voila! Italian wedding soup.

Chocolate Chip Cookie #10

Some of you may know that I've been having a couple crises over the last few years. One is my pie crust crisis. Ever since I've graduated from college, I just can't pull together a good pie crust, and the more I try (fancy recipes, ice water, using shortening AND butter) the worst they get. But that's a battle to fight another day, because yesterday I got a different monkey off my back: the chocolate chip cookie. My cookies have been turning into flat, anemic-looking rubber disks that burnt on the edges, stayed raw in the middle, and glommed together in the cookie jar so badly they turned into a chocolate chip mass. No longer, my friends! These cookies remained discreet, each one delicious and distinguishable from the next. This picture is of my actual cookies. And, they were pretty darn tasty, too. Huzzah!

In celebration of this achievement, I'm going to actually TYPE UP a long recipe from a cookbook. Normally, I'll do a search on the Google for a recipe from a cookbook, and if I can't find it, I don't post it. (sorry!) But this is a remarkable day. Enjoy. It's from Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food, which I like, among many other reasons, because it includes the weight and volume of the ingredients.

Dry Ingredients:
10 3/4 oz or 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients:
5 1/3 oz or 3/4 cup sugar
5 oz or 3/4 cup brown sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter* melted and slightly cooled
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Other: 2 cups chocolate chips

Combine the dry ingredients well (Alton recommends using a food processor. I used a whisk). In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and the sugar well, until you can't see the individual sugar particles but you can still feel them, and the butter has lightened in color and doubled in volume. Add the egg yolks one at a time, then the vanilla. Then gradually add the dry goods, mix just until combined, then fold in the chips.

Using a 1-ounce disher**, scoop 24 portions onto two ungreased baking sheets. At this stage, the cookies can be frozen on the pans then moved to zip-top bags, they'll keep for 3 months.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until golden brown (I rotated the pans halfway through, both between the two racks and I rotated each pan so the back was put to the front). Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

RESULTS: Well, you already know how I feel about these cookies. They weren't the best fresh, though, they had some crumbly grandularness to them, which evened out after resting overnight in the cookie jar. They had some good butteriness and also just enough saltiness. I will never make another chocolate chip cookie recipe. This is it, love at first sight.

*I was running out of butter, and I had a stick of margarine left over from before I swore off margarine, so I used one stick of margarine and one stick butter. I'm not sure how that affected the results, we'll have to see the next time I make them. Also, the butter, though almost soft, wasn't QUITE soft. Again, I don't know how that affected the results.

**I didn't have a 1-oz scooper, but I didn't really need it. The batter was more of a paste, and it was pretty easy to just split it in half, put half on each cookie sheet, then continue halving and, uh, thirding(?) until I had 12 equal portions on each sheet.