Risotto and Butternut Squash

As per Sarah's suggestion, I tried the Risotto and Acorn Squash recipe with butternut. Very good, and I think I prefer the taste of butternut squash to acorn, anyway, because acorn squash can get a little bitter, in my opinion. When cutting the squash, I would say smaller is better so it cooks all the way through.

Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

Whenever I'm sick, Bethie tells me to make the Greek Lemony soup that she posted, which I did make once and it was excellent. But it calls for things that I don't normally have on hand, and when I'm sick the last thing I want to do is go hunting for chicken and rice soup in the confusion that is the redesigned Kroger. So I've only made the soup once. But, I'm feeling a little under the weather today, it's cold and there's some sort of crazy winter weather warning, I thought some chicken soup sounded alright. I found a recipe for it from scratch, and because I needed lemon zest (but not the juice) to make the panna cotta, I had all the necessary ingredients.

I got this from Allrecipes.com but whoever wrote that recipe is an idiot. I'm not putting their exact recipe down here, I'll just go ahead and write out what I actually did. If you want to see the original recipe, it's here. These are the directions for 8 people (I wanted leftovers). One of the really nice things about Allrecipes is that you can change the number of servings and it recalculates.

INGREDIENTS
Some chicken, enough to make 1/2 cup cooked and diced
4 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (I dunno, half of a lemon is about right)
1/4 cup chopped or shredded carrots (about 1 carrot)
1/4 cup chopped onion (about 1/2 onion)
1/4 cup chopped celery (about 1 rib)
1 turnip (optional. I love turnips!)
1 tablespoon chicken buillon
1/8 teaspoon ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil (optional)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (optional)
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
8 slices lemon (optional)
1-4 egg yolks, depending on your preference (I used 1)

In a large pot, cook the chicken in some olive oil or nonstick spray. Set aside to cool before cubing or shredding. In the same pot, add a little olive oil and cook the celery and onions over low until tender. If you like a thick soup, shove the vegetables off to one side of the pot and add two tablespoons each of olive oil and flour to make a rue (or you can do 1 Tbls and 1 Tbls, or whatever, as long as it's a 1-to-1 ratio). Mix oil and flour until it's smooth, then slowly add a little broth at a time, mixing each addition thoroughly with the rue to work out any lumps. Make sure to deglaze and pick up any the brown bits on the bottom of the pan as you go.

Add lemon juice carrots, soup base, and pepper (and the chopped turnip). Bring to a boil on high, then simmer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks until light in color. Gradually add some of the hot soup to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Return the egg mixture to the soup pot and heat through. Add the rice and chicken. Ladle hot soup into bowls and garnish with lemon slices and/or parsley.

RESULTS: delicious. It tasted an awful lot like how I remembered Bethie's recipe tasting, so I think either is a viable option.

VARIATIONS:

• Turnips (add or don't add)
• Replace the rice with barley (can cook right in the broth with the veggies, takes about 20 minutes)
• Leave out the chicken, it's still good!
• Scramble in the egg white at the end by not tempering the egg and just pouring it right into the hot soup and stirring fairly quickly (don't splosh!)
• At the very end, add some chopped greens like kale or spinach and heat through.

Buttermilk Panna Cotta

2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Assorted frozen berries (such as blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries), thawed

Pour 2 tablespoons water into small bowl; sprinkle gelatin over. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 10 minutes. Lightly spray six 3/4-cup ramekins or custard cups with nonstick spray.
Heat cream, lemon peel, and sugar in medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and bring just to low boil, stirring occasionally. Add gelatin mixture; remove from heat. Stir until gelatin dissolves. Cool mixture to lukewarm, stirring often. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla; divide mixture among prepared ramekins. Refrigerate panna cotta until set, about 4 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and keep chilled.

Using small sharp knife, cut around panna cotta in each ramekin. Place plate atop each ramekin and invert, allowing panna cotta to settle onto plate. Top with berries and serve chilled.

RESULTS: This was amazing, and it could not have been easier. I also made this for Brad, Suz and Chris. People on Epicurious.com said it was a little runny and they recommended just using a whole packet of gelatin, which I did and it was not runny. They also thought that the cooking spray added a flavor and that the hardest part was actually turning the panna cotta out of a plate, so I decided to forego that and just eat them out of the ramekins. As Suz said, who doesn't like to eat things out of little pots? Seriously. Make this. If you're lactose intolerant like certain sisters of mine, make it with your fake milk, I bet it'll still work. The buttermilk added, I thought, a delightful zing, but if you don't have buttermilk, I bet you can use regular. Try it! It's soooooo good! I had some leftovers for breakfast. Mmmmm.

Spinach Lasagna

There's a sandwich place in Bloomington that makes sandwiches that make you forget everything going on outside that tiny shop. It only seats about 20 people and they've been full to the brim every time I've been there. They make this sausage pepper hogie sandwich that is one of the single greatest food items I've ever eaten. Chris loves their muffaletta. It's an $7 sandwich but I would totally pay twice that much because everything I've eaten there is way better than any other sandwich I've ever had, excluding, of course, Chris' grilled cheese sandwiches. I can't convey the joy that these sandwiches impart as they slowly disappear down your gullet. There's another sandwich place in town with a muffaletta on their menu. It's cheaper, and the shop is a chain, but it's open at dinner time (the amazing sandwich place is strictly lunch, sadly). We only went one time. Chris got the muffaletta (what I got was unimportant and clearly forgettable because I can't remember what it was) but the whole time he was eating it, he had this look of "meh" on his face because what he was hoping for was amazing deliciousness and what he got was merely passable. It was a good sandwich, but it wasn't joyful.

That's sort of how I felt about the spinach lasagna I made from the Alice Waters book. It was a good lasagna, but I didn't feel like breaking out into song. I had made it for Brad, Suz, and Chris, and they thought it was good, but I think it needed *something*. So, rather than posting the entire long, tortuous recipe, I thought I'd merely ask for lasagna tips. What do you put in your lasagna that makes it amazing? One thing I think I did wrong was not believe Alice Waters when she kept telling me to add more and more salt; however, more salt would not have been the silver bullet in this case. The recipe called for no meat, so I was thinking would some sort of pancetta or prosciutto spice it up? Can you bake those meats or do they get leathery? I'm not a huge sausage-in-my-lasagna person... I was also contemplating sun-dried tomatoes. Chris thought some of the smoked paprika that Kathy and Dave had brought back from Spain might do the trick, but he loves that stuff so much that's his solution to many a cooking mishap. Any ideas?

Buttered turnips

Ok, just hear me out. This was from Alice Waters' Simple Food cookbook, and I actually really liked them. I've never had turnips before, but now I can't get enough.

Alls you do is cut some turnips up into pieces, however big you want (if they're small turnips you can leave the skin on, but otherwise you should peel them), then put them in a pot over medium to low heat with some butter or olive oil and salt. Put the lid on the pot and let them steam themselves (they have a high moisture content) until tender. I like to let some of the cut sides caramelize a little but turning up the heat just a tad. And that's it! They come out tasting like sweet potatoes (not "sweet potatoes" but like potatoes that are sweet, if that makes sense) and are a litle more moist. Try them before you scoff! I first made them a few weeks ago and haven't posted them yet just to make sure I wasn't delusional the first time, but no! I do, I do like them, Sam I am, I like green eggs and ham..or, er, turnips. (I went to a party last week with lots of kids, and they kept asking me read Dr. Seuss books. Green eggs and ham has been in my brain a lot this week.)

Now, does anyone know what to do with parsnips? They're next on the winter vegetable list.

Kalamata Olive Bread with Oregano

Yield 12 servings (serving size: 1 slice)

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
9 ounces all-purpose flour (about 2 cups)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup low-fat buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 large egg whites
1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
Cooking spray

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion to pan; sauté 3 minutes or until onion is tender. Set aside.
3. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Combine buttermilk, butter, and egg whites, stirring with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Fold in onion, olives, and oregano.
4. Spread batter into an 8 x 4–inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

RESULTS: Neither of us were wowed by this bread, so I wasn't going to post it. Plus, now I have all this buttermilk and no idea of what to do with it. Last night, however, I cut a couple pieces up into small cubes and put it on macaroni au gratin before putting it in the oven as a couton topping. Wow. That was good. It added some flavor to what it, lets face it, a fairly homogenous dish. I hit the bread with a few sprits of olice oil from an oil atomizer and baked it for the normal time. And tonight, we're going to have buttermilk pancakes for dinner. Problem solved.

To Do List: Homemade Vinegar

I saw this article on homemade vinegar on the Washington Post website. It sounds intriguing. I did a Google search, and there are a lot of differing opinions on homemade vinegar, including whether to use fruity wines like Cabs or not. A disagreement over the main ingredient would seem to me to be a major point of contention, which tells me that it's really easy to do and get good results, you just have to pay attention to your own likes and dislikes.

Braised Celery

This is another from Alice Water’s cookbook:

1 head celery
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 small onion, sliced thin
2 or 3 thyme sprigs
Salt
1 cup chicken or beef broth

Remove the tough outer stalks of l head celery. Trim the root end close to the bottom of the stalks and cut off the leafy tops. Pull off the outer stalks to expose the pale green heart. Cut the gruup of stalks at the heart in half lengthwise and then in half again as wedges. Line up all the stalks and cut in half crosswise.

Pour oil into a heavy pan and heat to medium. Add onion and thyme. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the celery. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes or until the onions and celery have browned a little season with salt. Add chicken or beef broth. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer. Cove the pan and cook until the celery is tender. The sauce should be thick and coat the celery; if not, uncover the pan, raise the heat and reduce the liquid as much as needed. Taste for salt and serve.

Variation: For a milder dish, blanch the celery for 7 minutes in salted boiling water before browning it with the onions.

RESULTS: I know, sounds weird, right? Well, I thought I'd give it a try, especially since celery is one of those vegetables that you can get in the winter. However, I do not think I did this right. I had issues with browning the celery, it just wasn't working, and one of the wonderful things about braising is the carmelization. It could have been because I used a dutch oven instead of a wide saute pan, and the dutch oven (being taller) held more steam in, so they more steamed instead of browned. Unknown.

Also, there is a rather thick line, not thin at all, between tender celery and mushy celery, and I was well on the mush side of that line. I think the problem with this was that I forgot to put aside the tough outer stalks for some future soup and I included those, so by the time the tender stalks were done, the tough ones hadn't even started.

I'm not going to give up on this one. The flavor was really quite interesting, the onions were a great touch, so I will try it again sometime.

Roasted Cauliflower

Cauliflower is one of those things that Suz always gets at the Farmer's Market, and I always wonder why. I've never jived with cauliflower. You know, it's ok. Whatever. Anyway, I've been wondering about it, wanting to know how to make it interesting. I've also been wanting to come up with more easy veggie sides. So, I was pretty excited when Nancy gave me Alice Waters' Art of Simple Cooking, which has a TON of easy, simple vegetable recipes and, perhaps more important for me, information about the actual vegetable like season, how to clean and prepare, etc.

One cauliflower recipe was for roasting them. Very simple, cutting across the whole head into 1/4-inch slices (I cut up half of one and I could only get two or three nice big slices; everything else was little slices of individual florets). Then, you just put them on a cookie sheet, brush with olive oil or melted butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss in a 400 degree oven until tender and starting to brown (about 20 minutes for the big pieces). It's hard to describe the flavor, sort of buttery (even though I used olive oil) and also a little carmel... It's good! It doesn't look pretty, but it's a surprisingly tasty side.