White Fluffy Icing

Musings of a reasonably competent home cook.

Archive for July, 2010

Beach House! Part I: The Setting

Jul 26

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 8 Comments

 

Matt, Paul, and Marc conducting a wine tasting.

For the second summer in a row, our friends Marc and Jamie invited us to travel with them to the Alabama coast, to visit Marc’s father, Paul. (Remember back in December when I told you I wanted to be like Paul when I grew up? Same guy.) And for the second summer in a row, my mind nearly exploded from all the foodie inspiration, and my heart almost burst with gratitude for being there.

And actually, if it weren’t for the beach house, this blog might not exist. I once mentioned to Jamie that I was daydreaming about starting a blog, and in my daydream, it was called White Fluffy Icing. I can’t remember why it came up – I think perhaps we were extolling the virtues of the blog’s namesake over our annual New Year’s dinner or something. But months later, during our first stay at Paul’s beach house, I mentioned something about how Food & Wine magazine should do a piece on Gulf Coast entertaining featuring Paul (he’s a fantastic host, cooks a great meal, and has an out-of-this-world wine collection). And I think I said something how it was too bad I wasn’t freelance writer on the side, or I’d write it myself.

That’s when Jamie remembered my silly drivel from months before, and she referenced my imaginary blog by name: “Laura, when are you going to start up White Fluffy Icing? I really think you should!  Paul, Laura really is a terrific writer and she’s going to start a food blog…”

That little nudge blew me away. Even now, no one remembers the name of my blog (is it White Fluffy Frosting? Fluffy White Icing? Puff the Magic Dragon?), and here Jamie was, recalling it perfectly, before it even existed. I spent the rest of the trip mulling it over… maybe I could write a food blog, not just daydream about it, and maybe people really would read it, and maybe I can write worth a darn. When I got home, I started poking around about how to start a website, and the rest is very recent and so far unproven history.

In addition to being the swift kick in the rear I needed, that moment also got me thinking about how even the smallest things we say, for better or worse, can have a big impact on people. Aren’t friends magnificent?

During our first stay at the beach house, The Boy was a whopping five months old, and couldn’t even roll over yet. (I would put him on a blanket to let him “practice”, which really only ticked him off… and the older kids would cheer him on and give live rolling demonstrations, which would make him giggle and forget what he was trying to do.) 

I was in a post-partum haze back then, and had only been back at work for two months. Mom was very sick, and had just been through some serious episodes that we weren’t sure she’d survive. My point is that, even though the beach house was gorgeous and I desperately needed a break, I didn’t really have the right mindset to fully enjoy it.  I was thrilled to get a second shot.

This year, we arrived at the casual hour of 1:30 AM, after a ten hour drive. Upon realizing that the answer to “Are we there yet?” was finally YES!, all three kids (Marc and Jamie’s two, plus The Boy) were wired and ready to play. I think we were finally all in bed around 3:00.

The next morning, The Boy awoke at his usual early hour, which made me think that we might have been better off just pulling an all-nighter. Marc and Jamie’s kids were also up-and-at-’em (Are all kids early birds? That was not in the parenthood brochure…), and not only that, their daughter had a stomach bug and had already “lost her lunch”, so to speak.  (Hmmm.  Barfing on vacation. Also not in the brochure…) 

Jamie and I had a quick mommy huddle and agreed that, based on the general lack of sleep of all parties, not to mention the potentially contagious barf bug, the strategy for the day was to just survive it, no matter what that meant in terms of schedule changes, co-sleeping, or television viewing.  Readyyyyy… break!

You may have noticed that grocery shopping and cooking were not on that list of survival techniques. Enter Paul and his hospitality skills: he’d already stocked the pantry and fridge with the essentials. Score! And not only that, he’d made a batch of both his pimiento cheese and chicken salad, which meant that breakfast and lunch were no problemos, amigos.  Goal!  (Actually, we’d all noshed on pimiento cheese and crackers at 2:00 AM the night before… that stuff was a life saver.)

I love breakfast in all its guises, but I hear some folks don’t want anything sugary in the morning. While my raging sweet tooth doesn’t allow me to personally understand this concept, having homemade pimiento cheese on a toasted “everything” bagel that first morning convinced me that they might not be missing out too much.

It was the first of many meals to be had on Paul’s back porch, overlooking the water.  Life is great when you’re an omnivore on holiday, especially one under the care and feeding of such an incredible host.

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Like his son, Marc, Paul cooks more often from intuition and feel than from a recipe.  See the resemblance to Marc’s mussels “recipe”? 

Paul’s Pimiento Cheese

Paul: “This is basically what I remember and do that Carole did to make pimiento cheese (which by the way was probably from her mother, Leckie!).”

1 block of “black” [label] Kraft extra sharp (white in color I think)
1 block of “red” [label] Kraft extra sharp (yellow in color I think, I like the contrast)
A few tablespoons cream cheese, if I am in the “Highlands Bar and Grill” mood
1 jar roasted red peppers, based on your taste, (substitute jarred pimientos if the black “roasted specks” offend you – personally I note very little difference in the taste but like the black flecks)
Mayo to taste and consistency (or “Miracle Whip” if you prefer that flavor and a more “Southern” twist)
A splash of Carole’s sweet pickle brine and 3-4 chopped pickles, if the spirit moves you
Finely chopped pickled jalapeno peppers +/- a diced chipotle in adobo sauce if you like “heat”
A splash of vinegar, to taste (may not want if using Miracle Whip)
A teaspoon of sugar, to taste
Salt, to taste

Important points:

  • Hand grate the cold cheese using large holes of a box grater (keep grated cheese in refrig or freezer if you are delayed procuring or chopping the other ingredients).
  • Coarsely chop the red peppers and finely chop the pickle, jalapenos, and chipotle (avoid the food processor for the cheese “grating” and blending, etc unless you really prefer a “smooth” texture).
  • In a large cool bowl, gently fold the cheese with red peppers and mayo until you like the consistency – I like a “coarse” consistency.
  • Then add the other ingredients “to taste.” 
  • Mix just enough to combine ingredients.
  • Keeps in refrigerator for a couple of weeks and freezes well.

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Eat. Pray. Love Gelato.

Jul 22

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 13 Comments

I just finished a thoroughly enjoyable book, and since one of the main characters was food, and since the Julia Roberts movie version is coming out next month, I thought you might want to hear about it.

But I’ll be brief. This is the Internet, after all, and let’s face it, I’m no Jane Austen…

Eat, Pray, Love is the memoir of Elizabeth Gilbert’s year-long journey around the world to recover from an ugly divorce, an ill-advised rebound boyfriend, and an identity crisis, with a nifty four-year depression wrapper around the whole thing. Once her divorce is final, she’s free to travel, and she spends four months in Italy (eating), four months in India (praying), and four months in Indonesia (learning how to love herself, and others, again).

This book was a good read for many reasons.  Here are a few:

It’s insightful. Liz moves the story along quickly, which keeps it interesting, but she also manages to sprinkle lots of interesting factoids about history, geography, and religion while staying on topic. In fact, those factoids are very much a part of her journey – the food and the locales play as much of a role as the actual characters she introduces.

She’s funny. Liz tells the story the way she would tell it to her best friend – a conspiratorial tone injected with levity throughout. She has this way of revealing just how flawed, short-sighted, vulnerable, intelligent, and wonderful she is, all at the same time, and all while making you chuckle.

Homegirl can EAT. So much so that she earns the nickname “Groceries” during the Indonesia stint, which makes me think we might have been separated at birth. She refers to Italy as having so many pleasures that four months was not ample time to sample them all… so she declares a “pleasure major” – a double major, actually – “in speaking [Italian] and in eating (with a concentration on gelato).

I was actually a little worried at first, because the book was looking a little like a feminist rant against society’s married-with-children expectation for women. But she quickly turned introspective and philosophical, and ultimately the story becomes a journey that almost everyone can relate to on some level. After all, we all have our own version of crazy, right?

Annnnnd, being a food blogger as well as a COMPLETE FREAK, I kept track of all the food she mentions in her “No Carb Left Behind” tour of Italy. Ready?

  • spaghetti alla carbonara
  • gelato: pistachio, honey, hazelnut, grapefruit, melon, cinnamon-ginger
  • pizza (actually, margherita pizza with double mozzarella, which is so good she “has a relationship with it”)
  • roasted endive
  • chocolate pastries with double cappuccinos
  • penne ai quattro formaggi (penne pasta with four-cheese sauce)
  • lamb and truffles
  • carpaccio rolled around hazelnut mousse
  • pickled lampascione (bulb of the wild hyacinth)
  • frozen rice pudding
  • oxtail
  • homemade limoncello liqueur
  • intestines of a newborn lamb (really? really.)
  • a self-made lunch of soft-boiled fresh brown eggs, asparagus, olives, goat cheese, sliced salmon… and a fresh peach for dessert “still warm from the Roman sunlight”
  • a dinner of bruschette, spaghetti cacio e pepe (spaghetti with cheese and black pepper), and a small roast chicken
  • risotto ai funghi (risotto with mushrooms)
  • octopus salad
  • turkey breast and stuffing (at Thanksgiving)
  • “pasta stuffed with a puree of crustaceans, octopus, and squid, with cockles and julienned vegetables, swimming in an olivey, oceany broth”
  • “airy clouds of ricotta sprinkled with pistachio, bread chunks floating in aromatic oils, tiny plates of sliced meats and olives, a salad of chilled oranges tossed in a dressing of raw onion and parsley”

Whew! That’s enough to make anyone want to travel alone and eat their way through a European nation.

In all seriousness, I was actually inspired by the book, and nudged by the universe, to try making gelato for the first time. I already had a homemade ice cream habit, especially during the summer, but logistics were keeping me from experimenting on the scale that I preferred.

I didn’t have any disposable ice cream containers, you see… and you can only eat so much ice cream before you have to start giving it away… and you can only give away so much before you run out of containers. And then you become the hey-can-I-have-that-container-back lady. Not fun .

But last winter, I finally found these quart size paper cartons online… which means that I was poised and ready to give away lots of frozen desserts this summer.

My only other problem was a lack of reference material. Until recently, I’d been shopping around for a good book on ice cream, and just couldn’t find anything I could get fired up about. But at the exact moment when Liz got me all stirred up about pistachio gelato, Bon Appetit suddenly (and randomly) posted a feature on their BA Daily Blog about this gelato cookbook, along with a sample recipe from the book, and the flavor was – wonder of wonders! – pistachio.

Look for a few gelato posts in the coming months… It was clearly meant to be.

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Lagniappe: Foodways Texas

Jul 21

Posted by Laura in Foodways Texas, Lagniappe | 5 Comments

Howdy, folks!

Very cool things are happening in the Texas foodie world.  A week ago today, an organization was founded on the Texas A&M campus called Foodways Texas, which will document and celebrate Texas cuisine and culinary history.

Check out Greg Morago’s piece about it in today’s Houston Chronicle here, and Robb Walsh’s blog entry about it here.

I can’t wait to see where this leads.  I’ll keep you posted when I see updates. 

Yeehaw for Texas eats!

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Lagniappe: Armadillo Red Velvet Cake. Seriously.

Jul 20

Posted by Laura in Lagniappe | 11 Comments

Remember back in May, when I made red velvet cupcakes?

Jamie left a comment on that post about the armadillo red velvet cake in Steel Magnolias, which I had completely forgotten about.  (Here’s a clip if you want to refresh your memory. The cake makes an appearance about 45 seconds in.)

And then Katie, who happens to be Andy’s daughter, also left a comment saying that she actually HAD a red velvet armadillo cake at her wedding… which was funny enough, but now she sent the photos to prove it.

Andy looks a little perplexed.  It’s as though the photographer caught the exact moment that he realized his wife and daughters weren’t kidding about having an armadillo on the cake table.

And is that a nice big slice of armadillo hiney on Jessica’s plate?  Only in Texas…

Bon Appétit Challenge: Blackberry, Lemon, and Gingersnap Cheesecake Pudding

Jul 19

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers, Cover Recipe Results | 9 Comments

Two words: Tread carefully.

This Blackberry, Lemon, and Gingersnap Cheesecake Pudding has the potential to be stellar.  Truly, it does.  But as I said before, there’s a lot going on here, and balance is key.  But before we get into that, I’ve taken exception to a few details in this little ditty of a dessert recipe.  Allow me to elaborate…

Blackberry: As in compote.  That’s what the recipe called it, anyway, but a compote is cooked: fruit cooked in syrup, unless I’m missing something (which is entirely possible).  The berries here are simply macerated in sugar and liqueur, and not cooked at all.  I don’t get why they’re calling it something it isn’t, but I do get that it’s super easy to toss berries in a bowl with sugar, liqueur, and lemon zest.  Done.

Lemon: As in curd.  What’s a curd?  Well, in the dairy world, curd is the part of milk that thickens when it sours and separates from the whey.  In more citrusy circles, curd is a thick custard made with lemon (or lime) juice and eggs… sort of like lemon pie filling, except true pie filling is sweeter and thickened with cornstarch.  I suppose it’s called curd because it has the same consistency as milk curd… who knows?  At any rate, this lemon curd recipe was easy and delicious, and I might just keep it on hand as a cake filling. Or from eating straight from the bowl.  So far, so good.

Gingersnap: As in crunchy storebought spice cookies.  I picked up two different brands, just to contrast them.  Surprisingly, Matt picked the ones with cloves and red pepper in the formula, instead of the straight-up ginger/molasses/cinnamon combo.  (He’s not a huge fan of cloves, but says it’s well-balanced in this cookie and not overwhelming.)  Gingersnap is an interesting choice here, for two reasons: a) with their warm spices, they’re more of a fall/winter thing, so it’s an unexpected pairing with bright citrus and summer berries, and b) as you’ll see in the next paragraph, this recipe is going for a cheesecake-y type thing, and graham crackers are the more typical (albeit more boring) choice for cheesecake crusts.  Hmmmm.

Cheesecake:  As in… where’s the cheese? This isn’t a blatant “Huh?” moment like the pseudo-compote, but it’s still a stretch.  The recipe calls for 1/3 cup of mascarpone cheese to be whipped along with the cream.  That ain’t much. 

Soapbox alert!  I’m biased, because I prefer my cheesecake to taste like… well… cheese, and not like creamy-white-nothingness-in-desperate-need-of-a-topping.  I love cream cheese (mascarpone is an Italian style cream cheese that begins its lovely existence as crème fraiche), so I want some twang with my cheesecake, dangit.

Anyway, I dutifully performed my whipping duties, holding out faith that the complete lack of sugar and the smidge of cheese were going to work out in the end.

Pudding:  As in… um… okay, now I’m lost.  I see no pudding here.  Perhaps they mean “pudding” in the British sense, which is to say, a generic term for dessert.  But the online version of the recipe is actually filed under a category called “pudding recipes”, and when I click on that, I see lots of dishes that are either British desserts, or American-style pudding, or both.  I get the feeling that there’s a loop here that hasn’t been closed, and I’m hoping that the print version of this issue is going to clear it up for me.  The best I’ve got is the possibility that gingersnaps originated in the UK, but if Bon Appetit is expecting me to connect those dots… well, I’m not the National Security Advisor for a good reason.

So, what do we have so far?  We have macerated blackberries, a beautiful lemon curd, some unsweetened whipped cream with a dab of cheese, and crushed gingersnaps which may or may not, in fact, be British, and therefore pudding-esque. Humph.

You’ve probably noticed that there are a lot of steps here, and that’s true… but almost everything can be done in advance, and the most tedious step is juicing and zesting the lemons.  Not too bad, if it turns out to taste as good as it looks.  I might even be willing to overlook all the kooky non sequiturs in the recipe.

Speaking of which, how does it taste?!

Wellllll… I served it to my in-laws, and they really really liked it.  Eileen described it as a “flavor explosion” that “woke up her mouth”, and on a scale of 5, she gave it a 4.5. (A 5 requires chocolate in her book… can you blame her?)

Dennis said… well, first I had to wait for him to stop trying to harass me about my “Barn Appetite” project, and then I had to endure some story about harvesting raspberries in Montana with government survey equipment under the constant threat of bear attacks – you think I’m joking, don’t you? - and then he finally gave it a 4, because he doesn’t give out 5s “for obvious reasons”.

Matt and I felt differently, though.  Matt said that he liked all the individual flavors, but he thought there were too many flavors co-mingling here.  Which is consistent for him: he likes simple straightforward food, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

And as for me… I personally thought the gingersnaps overpowered everything.  At first I thought that dumbing it down with graham crackers might help, but Eileen said that would be a big snoozer, and I think she’s right.  After thinking about it more, I think I was too careless with proportions during the assembly and added too much gingersnap in mine.  Say it with me: operator error.

If I made this again, I would test drive the proportions in bite sizes, and proceed accordingly, probably scaling back on the gingersnaps.  If the combination was done correctly, and if we renamed the silly thing, I think it probably could be a consistent 4.5.

But get this… part of being in a Barn Appetite test group naturally means having to answer 5,487 questions about the dish, and when I asked how everyone felt about the cheesecake angle, everyone furrowed their brows and said, “Cheesecake? What cheesecake?  There was cheese in there?”  Case closed.  (Although I was wrong about the lack of sugar in the cream – it perfectly balanced the sweet-tartness of the lemon curd.)

So, in summary… more care and restraint with the gingersnap proportions (or perhaps even replacing the cookies with liqueur-soaked ladyfingers or genoise cake!), and more cheese, please.  And on a personal note, I’d do a better job of sourcing berries, because my neighborhood grocery store wannabes had very little flavor. 

Normally, I’d give this a B-, but considering all the weirdness in the recipe, I’m calling it a C+.  That feels kind of harsh… but the blogosphere’s not always a pretty place, and we can’t give everybody a soccer trophy, right?

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Bon Appétit Challenge: NOW We’re Talkin’

Jul 15

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers, Cover Announcements | 5 Comments

I think I might have figured out part of Bon Appetit’s cover formula. 

I’m going off of memory here, because I didn’t used to pay the incredible amount of attention I currently do to the covers… but it seems that BA runs a dessert once in the summer and again in December.  I specifically remember a mid-year ice cream cone cover in recent history, with a shot that captured the scoop mid-drip.  Last December, they ran a gorgeous chocolate dessert, but it was also a bit odd (and therefore memorable) in its inclusion of fresh long-stemmed raspberries in the dead of winter.  And the December 2006 cover I remember very well, because it was a chocolate peppermint tart that I took to Thomas and Meredith’s annual Christmas bash. 

So it seems that they give desserts a tip of the cap twice yearly: one being a fresh, cool summer-time treat, and the other being a decadent, lap-it-up, you-already-blew-it-at-Thanksgiving, Christmas-only-comes-once-a-year, usually-chocolate finale.

And the August cover confirms the summer part of my guess: Blackberry, Lemon, and Gingersnap Cheesecake Pudding.  It may look breezy, and you can certainly do the work ahead of time, but make no mistake: this is no casual, fly-by-night dessert.  After all, it’s blackberry… lemon… gingersnap… cheesecake… pudding.   There’s a good bit going on here.

And I love it.  Slightly overcomplicated (they let me off the hook with storebought gingersnaps), multi-component, do-ahead, casual dessert.  This could not be more “me” if it tried.  Bring it ON.

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A Dog Named “Shucks”

Jul 12

Posted by Laura in Baking, Food of Love | 2 Comments

I realize that I’ve been long on stories and short on anything resembling food writing lately.  But I couldn’t resist the Father’s Day post, and I couldn’t very well not tell you the 4th of July story, could I?  And now it’s mid-July already, so I really MUST tell you the zucchini bread story, before zucchini is completely out of season…

I’ll make up for it by discussing some hot and heavy food stuff soon, but for now, sit back and enjoy the true story of how I became the proud owner of an imaginary dog…

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My mom and I made a trip to Lake Tahoe in the summer of 1999, to scout out venues for my wedding, which was to take place the following spring. We had a blast motoring around the small towns surrounding the lake, stopping at restaurants and bakeries to sample their wares, and poking our heads into churches. It was true bonding time – no one else to distract us, no appointments to keep.  Just us girls.

We’d wake up at our hotel, leisurely dress, go down for breakfast, and start to cobble together a plan for the day. Because we were in wedding planning mode, the conversation naturally turned to memories of her nuptials, which led to one of my favorite topics: stories about her and dad as newlyweds.

Her stories were always entertaining, and all indications are that she and dad knew how to have a heck of a good time. She advised me during that trip that early marriage would probably be a struggle – getting used to sharing your life with someone isn’t easy, she said – but that we would eventually look back on those early years fondly. Of course, I completely glazed over those nuggets of wisdom, and my reply was something like, “Uh huh. So, back to those poker parties you guys used to have. Did you say you usually served gumbo?”

Well, eleven years have passed since that trip, and she was right. Early marriage was a lot like a tug-of-war match for us, but we eventually figured it out. And now I look back on those days of having zero disposable income but gobs of disposable time, and struggle though it was, I would hit rewind and do it all over again. Of course, I don’t think I’d pull quite as hard on the rope the second time around… but that’s probably just wishful thinking.

One of my favorite memories of that era is the hours I spent honing my cooking skills in our small apartment. Mom had taught me the basics, but now I had my own space to goof off in.  There wasn’t a recipe I wouldn’t try, a technique I wouldn’t dare.  The kitchen was basically a short hallway with a sink and stove. Matt made a makeshift pantry by installing shelves over our washing machine, and the microwave took up 99.9% of the counter space. The oven varied between being 50 and 100 degrees off, in both directions.

I remember the first time I made zucchini bread with more clarity than I can recall what I had for breakfast this morning. I’d never heard of zucchini bread until a friend in college received some in the mail from her mom, and after the requisite “squash? bread? really?” reaction, I tasted it, and I was hooked.

On that fateful day when I first tried my hand at making the stuff, I had a bowl filled with bread batter ready to go before I realized that I only had one loaf pan to my name, and it was considerably smaller than what the recipe called for. I was used to cooking in mom’s kitchen, where she had – oh, I don’t know – a dozen loaf pans, in various sizes and materials, so I wasn’t used to having to consider that variable.

The recipe also clearly stated to fill the pan no more than two-thirds full, but when I got to the two-thirds mark, I still had quite a bit of batter. “Waste not, want not” seemed like a wife-y thing to subscribe to, so I proceeded to fill the pan to the brim. What could it hurt? Into the oven it went.

Matt was upstairs, piddling about. I was downstairs, piddling about. Soon the apartment filled with the intoxicating aroma of baking bread. But just as quickly… wait – is that smoke I smell? I continued to piddle, not really registering where it could be coming from. Suddenly, I snapped to the fact that it was coming from the kitchen. I ran in, swung the oven door open, and an acrid haze billowed out.

And then, a guttural cry issued forth from my being: “SHUUUUUCKS!!!”

Okay, the term I cried wasn’t actually “shucks.” It was another, uh, more colorful word that also begins with “sh-”, but only has four letters, not six. (I’m keeping it G for the kiddies.) It was emoted so loudly and with such percussion that it surprised me as much as it surprised Matt.

Oh, and surprise Matt it did. Smelling smoke and hearing the cursing, he rushed down the stairs to rescue his bride from what was clearly at least a three-alarmer. He found me bent at the waist, scraping burned batter from the floor of the oven with a metal spatula, muttering under my breath, eyes watering from the smoke.

Friends, it turns out there’s a good reason for those instructions not to overfill the loaf pan. I learned the hard way that the leavening action in quick bread happens before the browning process kicks in… which means that the batter expands and rises up the sides of the pan first, while still liquid, then later browns and firms up into the golden loveliness you’re aiming for.

If there are no sides of the pan left above the batter to contain it, guess what? It spills over the edge of the pan and onto the oven floor, where it blows past golden loveliness and welds itself to your oven floor as blackened cement. Did I mention that it gives off enough smoke to signal Lassie for help from across town?

After the initial shock, Matt laughed himself silly, which, as some of you know, doesn’t happen all that often. We soon learned that my instinctive reaction to a kitchen mishap is to utter “sh–!” at various decibel levels, depending on the predicament and present company. (I used try to prevent the calamities themselves, but I soon gave up that idea. I’m destined to drop, break, burn, and inadvertently cut things for the rest of my life. I’ve switched my focus to containing the cursing instead.)

And in case you were wondering, a few trips back home quickly pinpointed the source of my habit. Let’s just say that the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Ahem.

About six months and several blunders later, I was making (a catastrophe-free) dinner when Matt wandered into the kitchen and leaned on the doorframe.  With a completely straight face, he said: “Hey! I’ve got an idea. I’m going to buy you a dog and name it Sh–.”

Distracted with dinner, I walked right into his trap: “Why would you ever name a dog that?!”

He cracked a smile as he gave the answer: “Because when you yell his name from the kitchen, he can come running and eat whatever it is you screwed up.”

I never did get a dog (I like dogs too much to actually burden one with my ownership), to this very day, when Matt hears the slightest clang/crash/mutter/curse word from the kitchen, he’ll shout across the house, “Hey! You callin’ the dog in there?!”

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I’ve been making a ton of zucchini bread lately, because Dad keeps giving me these whopper sized specimens from his garden.  I’ve tried a half dozen recipes, and the first one I ever tried (and is probably still stuck to the floor of that apartment oven) is the best one I’ve found yet.

WARM ZUCCHINI BREAD
A recipe from Emeril Lagasse, circa 2000

¼ cup butter, room temperature
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 cup light brown sugar
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch nutmeg
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons milk
1 egg
1 cup finely shredded unpeeled zucchini
½ cup toasted walnut or pecan pieces
½ teaspoon lemon zest, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Grease an 8 x 4 x 2” loaf pan with 1 teaspoon of the butter.  Cream the mixture until smooth. Sift the flour, spices, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, oil, and sugar. Add the milk and egg to the creamed mixture and mix until incorporated. Add the sifted flour mixture, about 1/2 cup at a time, until all is incorporated, and the batter is smooth.

Squeeze and drain the shredded zucchini. Fold zucchini, walnuts, and lemon zest into batter. Pour batter into the prepared pan (filling no more than 2/3 full!!) and bake for 55 to 60 minutes until golden brown or when toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before serving. Serve the bread, warm, with butter.  Makes 1 loaf.

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Bon Appétit Challenge: Caveman Porterhouses with Poblano Pan-Fry

Jul 8

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers, Cover Recipe Results | 12 Comments

Tossing these beauties directly into a pit of embers felt incredibly wrong.

This was, by far, the most daunting cover yet. I don’t mean intimidating, because the steps were actually very simple (light charcoal, spread hot embers, add meat). But simple doesn’t always mean easy.

Crazy as it may sound, I’ve never cooked with charcoal before.  I’ve seen it done, but seeing is different than doing, especially when you’re talking about cooking with fire. My first love and strongest suit is baking – so I cook like a baker. Did you know that these are drastically different ways of life, cooking and baking?

True cooks are intuitive, they taste as the go, and they let their instincts and their palate guide them as they layer flavor on top of flavor. If they’re really good, they know when just enough components and heat have been added to bring out the dish’s full potential, which is when they put it on a plate and hand it to you. Good cooks are artists. This is not me, but this is the realm of Food of Love that I’m working on most at the moment.

We bakers are a very different lot. We cannot taste as we go. Imagine reaching into the oven to break off a piece of half-baked cookie, to see how it’s coming and whether it needs a pinch more salt.  Ridiculous, right?  By the time all the elements are in place, it’s too late to add or subtract. You have two options: persevere or start over. Bakers learn how to spot a good recipe and follow it, to take good notes and follow those, and to measure, measure, measure, because you only get one shot. Good bakers are technicians: it’s more science than art. This is me.

When I say that I cook like a baker, that means I try to control as many variables as possible, especially temperature. And I’m not sure I’ve told you, but I’m the biggest klutz I know. Soooo, cooking with fire? Real temperature control is obviously out of the question, and I’ll be lucky not to singe my eyebrows off.

So what’s a flexitarian baker and wannabe cook do when faced with cooking Caveman Porterhouses directly on the coals? Call for backup, of course.

A great shot of Andy, who honestly did most of the work.

Andy is one of the best grillmasters I know, and unlike me, a true carnivore at heart. He’s the kind of cook that throws together a rub or marinade with whatever’s on hand, tosses a huge slab of meat on the grill, facilitates a lively conversation while it cooks, and knows when it’s done by prodding it with a finger.

When I attempt that kind of thing, I spend two days researching marinades, try not to catch anything on fire when I finally put it on, and then make a lame attempt to be social with my guests while it cooks. The whole time I’m talking, I can’t stop thinking about the meat, and of course the whole time I’m futzing with the meat, I’m thinking about what a terrible hostess I am.

So even though he had just helped with the shrimp skewers on the June cover, I called up Andy and asked if he would chaperone my first date with charcoal. This call was much different, though… last month’s call was “Andy, can you please come over so I don’t wind up eating five pounds of seafood single-handedly?”  This time it was “Andy can you please come over and keep me from ruining a hundred bucks worth of premium choice beef? And by the way, can I borrow your charcoal grill?”

Although the questions were different, the answer was the same: “What time?”

Man, I love this guy.

Okay, so porterhouses. If you’ll remember, one of my first comments after putting my eyes back in my head was, what’s the difference between a porterhouse and a T-bone, anyway?

The answer is, not much. They’re both cross-sections from the short loin, with New York strip on one side of the T-shaped bone and tenderloin (aka filet) on the other.  The only difference between them is where along the tenderloin the cut is taken, because as the short loin tapers off, the filet side gets smaller.  So a porterhouse is essentially a T-bone with a larger filet.

In fact, the USDA’s Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications require that the maximum width of the filet side of a porterhouse be 1.25 inches at minimum.  Anything below that would technically be a T-bone, although even T-bones must have a half-inch of filet attached, otherwise you’d be the proud owner of a New York Strip with a bone hanging off of it.  I was absolutely certain that I’d find specs for the thickness of the cut, because while I’ve seen a thin T-bone, the few porterhouses I’ve had the pleasure of meeting have all been hefty specimens, an inch or more thick.  But no such requirement exists… at least not that I could find.

Aside from the novelty of cooking one of the highest quality cuts of beef at home, the more obvious shock value of this cover is the whole business of cooking directly on the coals.  How do you keep it from tasting like ashes?  The long answer is that you brush any residual ash from the finished steaks with a pastry brush, and the short answer is, you don’t.  This is not Smith and Wollensky’s, this is caveman food.

I’ve told you before about my purist philosophy when it comes to seasoning steaks, so I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of seasoning called for in the recipe.  After tasting the results, I realized that the charcoal is very much a source of both flavor and heat.  The finished steaks tasted liked well-seared beef, a little ash, and in our case, mesquite.   Plus, the poblano pan-fry is delicious and adds a ton of flavor.  Marinades and rubs need not apply. 

(As a side note, I served Root Beer Baked Beans on the side and Roasted Apricots with Honey-Vanilla Crème Fraîche for dessert, both also from Bon Appétit.  The beans were okay, but the apricots were fabulous.  I’ll definitely be making those again.)

All in all, I’d grade the porterhouse recipe a B.  Some of our guests loved it.  Some, like Matt, actually didn’t care for it much, and although I enjoyed it, I probably wouldn’t do it again.  If you like the nuances of flavor in beef, the ash thing is quite a distraction.  But if you’re into showmanship at your dinner parties (talk about a conversation starter), and if you prefer a – shall we say? – rustic flavor, you’ll love this.  It’ll make you grunt like a Neanderthal and appreciate the fact that we ever discovered fire in the first place.

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