Spicy Vegetable Pickles: La Spiritosa

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided into 5 equal portions
2 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch thick medallions
3 red bell peppers, cut into 1/4-inch thick strips
1/2 lb. green beans, ends removed
2 medium Japanese eggplants, cut into 1/2-inch thick medallions
1 head broccoli, cut into florets with 4-inch stalks
2 1/2 cups white wine vinegar
20 mint leaves
5 tbsp. sugar
5 pinches hot chili flakes

In a 12 to 14-inch sauté pan, heat 1/5 of the oil until just smoking. Sauté each vegetable until tender and golden brown and remove each to a platter when finished cooking. To the pan, add vinegar, mint leaves, sugar and a pinch of hot chili flakes and stir with a wooden spoon over heat to dislodge the browned vegetable sugars in the pan. Pour the vinegar mixture over each of the 5 vegetables. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 8 servings
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ease of preparation: easy


RESULTS: I got this recipe from watching my new favorite show, Molto Mario. I didn't have any of these veggies, and I didn't need to serve 8 people, but I did have carrots and just enough mint from my plant for a single serving. I really liked it, I think this can be another one that can be made with lots of different veggies, depending on the season. There's no added salt, so that's good if you're watching your sodium.* A tip, though: I cut the carrots into strips, and I should have done medallions; the best parts were the golden brown spots where the sugars had started to caramelize. I used fairly high heat, but you should probably adjust that based on the veggie. And don't crowd the pan! I learned from I'm just here for the food that a crowded pan STEAMS the food instead of sauteing it, which is what you would want in this dish. As the food heats, the water in the food turns into vapor, and if you don't leave space between the food for that vapor to escape, it stays trapped at food level (or in the food itself).

On a different note, I was supposed to start my Italian cooking class on Tuesday, but I got there and was told it had been canceled! I emailed the people who run it and they haven't gotten back to me yet. I'm too busy at work to call them this week, but if they don't get back to me by Monday, look out. Chris and I did a beer and cheese tasting on Tuesday instead, lots of fun. I didn't like sheep cheese as much as I thought I would. My favorite was the aged Vermont cheddar. Yum!

*EDIT: Come to think of it, I remember in the show he sprinkled some salt on the veggies right when he put them in the pans because it would bring out the juices and the water and break down the cell walls somewhat. I don't know, maybe the salt is optional, or maybe he made a mistake (actually, he didn't really explain why you'd want to break the cell walls down, you'd think you'd want the veggies to become tender, but not soft and mushy). I might try it next time with salt. I would think that, if you just wanted the salt flavor and not the cells breaking down, you could wait and add a little later. I don't know. I didn't think my carrots needed the salt, but I also did notice it's absence. It might help to cut the sourness and acidity? Thoughts?

I'm flying home Memorial day weekend for a friend's wedding. Last week when I checked the flights on Orbitz or something, the best flight I could find that didn't make me have to leave the house at 4 am was about $239 and had a hugely long layover in Atlanta or, if I'm lucky, O'Hare, two airports that I have sworn never to fly though unless I'm actually going to those cities. And THEN, as I was about to buy the ticket, I saw an article on Brielle's website talking about sidestep.com, which compares all the camparison sites (so, while Orbitz compares USAir and Delta, SideStep compares Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline, etc). The coolest part about the site is the page o'charts that shows how the cost of that flight has flucuated over the last several weeks (so, yesterday compared to last week, compared to the week before, etc), and also, if your dates are flexible, the cheaper days on which to fly. (I've also heard that the time of day affects the price, but SideStep doesn't have this feature yet.)

So, I knew that over the past few weeks, Monday was a cheaper day on which to buy the ticket, and I knew what were the best days on which to fly, since my dates were flexible. Today, I found a NONSTOP flight for LESS than the flights with layovers, and it was only $171. When I was a kid and still enjoying the few flights we went on, I was so surprised that they would charge less for flights with layovers, since you got to go on more flights, and you got more pretzles and more Coke. Shouldn't they charge more for flights with many legs? :) Anyway, I just saw on TV that a US Air pilot accidentally fired his gun in the cockpit, which could also have something to do with my great deal on a USAir flight, but we're not going to worry about that.

AND, because I seem to be turning more and more into my father's daughter, I knew I could do even better, and I skipped buying the ticket through Orbitz (you can't actually buy tickets through SideStep.com) and bought it directly from the USAir website and saved myself an extra $5 in fees. Pretty good. I went from a $239 ticket putting me through one or both of the worst airports in the country to a nice, breezy $169 nonstop. I think I'm more proud of the last $5 I saved than the first $65. I'm also proud of the fact that, when Chris teased me for spending an additional 15 minutes to save that $5, I said without even thinking, that I'm enjoying myself, so I'm getting some utility out of it. ("utility" is fancy-pants econ-speak sort of equivilent to "happiness.") Don't tell me I don't know anything about econ. Boo-ya.

Glazed lemon (or lime) cakes

GLAZED LEMON CAKES

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature (plus more for muffin tin)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for muffin tin
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk (or plain low-fat yogurt)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon (plus 2 tbsp. juice for the glaze)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
FOR THE GLAZE:
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a muffin tin.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk or yogurt, vanilla, lemon zest and juice. Set aside.

With an electric mixer, cream butter and granulated sugar until light. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk or yogurt mixture. Divide evenly among muffin cups.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in tin, then cool completely on a rack.

Set rack over wax or parchment paper.

TO MAKE THE GLAZE:
In a small bowl, stir confectioners' sugar with remaining lemon juice until smooth. Pour over cakes, spreading to edges with a small knife. Let set 30 minutes.

PREP TIP:
A pastry brush is great for coating muffin tins and other small baking pans with butter because it can reach corners.

PACK THE BASKET:
To transport, place glazed muffins back in the tin, cover with wax paper.

RESULTS: Well, it's snowing on Easter, so what's to be done but bake? I used limes for this instead of lemons. I don't know, I just like limes better! The only problem is that limes are smaller than lemons, so you sort of have to guess on what the right amount to use would be. Still, I liked these, they tastes a lot like the glazed lime cookies, but were cakes. Pretty good, a little gummy as they got cool. Mine took longer than expected to cook, but I think that may be because I might have had too much juice in there, which could also explain the gumminess. Oh well.

EDIT: Cupcakes the next day have a distinct flavor of motor oil. Since this recipe is one of the love it or toss it pile I tore out of all our Martha Stewart magazine, I'm tossing.

Alfredo Sauce variation

Alfredo Sauce (with fettuccine) from Cookinglight.com: "We used half-and-half instead of whipping cream and decreased the amount of butter and cheese ever so slightly to lower the fat by about 10 grams per serving."

1 pound uncooked fettuccine
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/4 cups half-and-half
3/4 cup (3 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.

Add half-and-half, cheese, salt, and pepper; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Reduce heat; add pasta, tossing gently to coat. Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat.


RESULTS: I'm including this mostly for comparison's sake to the other alfredo recipe below, which was delish, but way rich. This recipe was just awful, and looked nothing like the photo online. Either the half-and-half separated or the parm cheese never melted, but it was as lumpy as if I had added scrambled eggs. Even if it hadn't been lumpy, it didn't taste anything remote close to an improvement over pasta with butter and cheese, which is sort of my standard. If it's a pasta dish, the nutrition or taste improvement over pasta with butter has to be significant enough to counteract the work that went into preparing it, and this definitely did not. Plus, we know from experience that creamy sauces don't reheat well at all, so I couldn't even save the leftovers! Not that we wanted it again.

Herb update: The mint is completely out of control already. I'm glad I knew this about mint beforehard, because otherwise I might have been afraid it would start calling me Seymour, asking for me to feed it. It has literally and at least DOUBLED in height in two weeks.

On the tamer side, the parsley has just exploded upwards. It's definitely taller than the basil, which seems to have decided to take a break from growing up to work on leaf growth, which is great because I can't transplant it to it's permanent home until the first set of true leaves come in. Exciting stuff!

Lest you think all I cook is chocolate and cheesy pasta dishes, here's a vegetable recipe from Cooking Light:

Dijon Vegetable Roast

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Ingredients

• 1 (1-ounce) slice white bread
• 5 1/2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
• 5 teaspoons country-style Dijon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• 1 1/2 pounds small red potatoes, quartered
• 1 medium onion, cut into 1/4-inch-thick wedges (about 8 ounces)
• Cooking spray
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
• 12 pitted ripe olives, drained and halved (about 1/3 cup)
  

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Place bread in a food processor; pulse 10 times or until coarse crumbs measure 1/2 cup. Spread crumbs on a baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 5 minutes or until golden.

3. Increase oven temperature to 450°.

4. Combine 4 teaspoons oil, mustard, salt, pepper, and rind in a large bowl; stir well with a whisk.

5. Combine potatoes, onion, and remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons oil in a large bowl; toss well to coat. Place potato mixture on a foil-lined jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 450° for 20 minutes. Add tomatoes and olives to pan. Bake an additional 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Add potato mixture to mustard mixture; toss gently to coat. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs.

RESULTS: This might be a "no duh" for those of you who can already cook, but not for me! I liked it. It wasn't SPECTACULAR, but it was good. I'll make it again. AND, I think it would be quite versatile, I bet you can use just about any veggies you want (maybe not leafy greens). I was thinking it would be especially good with asparagus, and in fact, when I was looking it up online so I could just cut and paste, the very next recipe below this was the exact same thing, but with asparagus. :) I think it would also be good with roasted broccoli and cauliflower and potatoes, and maybe wedge of cabbage (that might be tricky, but it might work). Carrots would be good.... I can even see cutting up a crisp apple and roasting that for a bit as an accent flavor. Could be daring! I'm not the type to recommend eggplant with anything, so I'm not sure how it would be with that... actually, it might not work with any members of the squash family, summer or winter. Might be worth a shot....

I didn't quite stick to the recipe: I salted a little bit the potatoes and onions before I roasted them. I added halved artichokes from a can and added them with the olives (although, I think I should have added them with the potatoes to get them nice and brown). I didn't have cherry toms, so I put in canned petite diced tomatoes (next time, I think I'll just leave out the tomatoes if I don't have fresh or dried). I also used lime zest instead of lemon, but I added a splash of lemon juice to the mustard, and I would definitely do that again. I also made way too much sauce... I'll try not to overdo it next time. :)

I didn't quite get the point of the breadcrumbs. Next time, I'll leave them out.

A note on tomatoes: in the last year or so, I've become really intolerant to out of season "fresh" tomatoes. I don't know if it's because anything comes to Indiana has to go by land and not by boat, so tomatoes coming up from Mexico have to be driven, or if there aren't very good greenhouse tomato growers, or whatever (I really don't know how we come to have tomatoes here in the winter, but whatever they're doing, it ain't working), but the tomatoes here in the winter are just awful. They taste like unripe-tomato-flavored snow cones and have the consistency of watermelon rinds, and they cost $4/lb. So, I stopped buying them. If they're not in season, I just use canned tomatoes, or nothing. The book I'm reading now, Animal Vegetable Miracle, is Barbara Kingsolver's new book, and she talks a lot about the importance of buying local produce, which also means you have to buy it in season. I don't agree with a lot of what she says. Sometimes, it seems she skews the facts to make her case stronger without addressing the objections. She also seems to take an add view of things. For example, she seems to regret the decline of smoking in this country because it makes the tobacco farmers have to farm something else, which is sad but lung cancer is sadder. The whole book is about why big agriculture (big corn, big soy) is bad for the farmers and consumers, but why doesn't big tobacco fall into that? Maybe if people could only buy organic, small farm tobacco it would a) be more expensive, so people would smoke less, and b) have fewer carcinogens in it. I just think she should look at both issues the same way.

But this buying local produce in season idea makes a lot of sense to me because I have started tasting the difference. One thing I'd like to eventually try is drying tomatoes, so I can still have un-canned tomatoes even in the winter and spring in dishes like this one that need something that holds up like a tomato and not tomato glop, as in what you would get with canned diced tomatoes. To do this economically, I think I first need some tomato plants, and to do that economically, I think I first need a backyard that I can dig up. So, this will have to wait until we buy a house, but that's ok because I don't know the first thing about drying tomatoes. Except that you need a tomato.

Go Belmont!

By the way, I gave up on reading Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. It was REALLY annoying. Lots of "had I known that my life would never be the same from that moment on..." or "we didn't know that we were making such a huge mistake..." and then you don't find out why what happened was so awful. Annoying.

Truffles (not the fungus)

Well, it's been a busy week and work and will be for another 9 days, so I'm not expecting to have much energy for posting until April. So, here's one of my very favorite things to make: chocolate truffles. They are so not hard to make, but they're so tasty, and there is a lot of room for variations and playing around with it. I'll share some of my experiments, but please let me know what you come up with, too! If you've never made them before, I would start with the basic recipe.

By the way, the parsley sprouted a couple days ago and it has well caught up to the basil, which sprouted over a week before. I'm so excited to see what happens!

Makes about 30.

8 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream (aka heavy whipping cream)
2 tablespoons liqueur such as Cognac or Grand Marnier or plain vanilla extract (very optional)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa, sifted

1. Place chocolate in a bowl. Bring cream to a boil in a small, heavy saucepan. Pour cream over chocolate. Let stand for 3 to 5 minutes; gently stir until smooth. Add liqueur and stir to combine. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 3 hours.

2. Sift cocoa into a bowl. Using a measuring spoon, scoop up 1 teaspoon of chocolate, and quickly roll into a ball about 3/4 inch across. Drop into cocoa; roll each truffle in cocoa to coat. Chill until firm. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

TIPS: I've made this a few times and the first few were terrific duds. I got this recipe off of Epicurious.com and one thing I like about this site is you can print off selected reviews from other people who've tried it (sort of like a whole lot of me's giving advice on the same recipe). It does cause issues. This one person said she was a pastry chef, and it drives her crazy to see a recipe with chocolate that doesn't call for a pinch of salt. That seemed reasonable, but every time I've tried it with the salt, the truffles don't ever set, and I end up using the ganache as a middle layer in brownies. And I've never seen a truffle recipe, or ganache recipe for that matter, that calls for salt. So don't do it. Also, it really means heavy cream (aka heavy whipping cream). I also learned the hard way that this is not the same thing as whipping cream. It must say "heavy," or, again, you're just making chocolate goo.

Also, it will be tempting, but no matter how small of a batch you are making, do not microwave the milk to get it to boiling. It won't keep the heat long enough to melt the chocolate.

As for the chocolate, I really like using good quality chocolate chips, not chopping up a bar. It's cheaper and easier.

I really can't vouch for whether these will last for 2 weeks in the fridge. They rarely make it to 2 days.

Other tips: you can add whatever dash of flavoring that you want, or none. I like vanilla, but I'd also like to try mint extract. Whatever you use, it will really be a subtle addition. And you can roll it in whatever you want. I like confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder.

Jean got me an awesome melon baller as a wedding present and that's a really great tool to use for scooping out the chocolate. It's all in the wrist.

Last batch, I wanted to try shaping the ganache some other way than balls. I have a lot of candy molds, and what I did was temper some bittersweet chocolate (I'll post on that later), mix in a pinch of chili powder for kicks, coat the molds with the tempered chocolate, let that harden, and then glop in the ganache. Then I sprinkled the top of the mold (which will be the bottom after I pop them out) with my sugar/cocoa powder mix, and chill until its hard. I was afraid it would stick to the mold, but it turned out really well. I think it's because the chocolate was tempered.... I'm not sure I'd try this by putting the ganache right into the mold. Maybe it would work, who knows!