A Most Rightious Rotini n' Cheese

This is the best Mac (well, Rotini) n’ Cheese recipe I’ve ever had in my life, and I have made numerous variations of Mac n’ Cheese in the past, and tasted recipes everywhere I can find them – this tops them ALL.

Seriously, I should be inducted into the Mac n’ Cheese Hall of Fame for this one. And if there isn’t a Hall of Fame for Mac, they should start one just for me.  -- AnglophileLV
Recipe:

1 1/2 C dry rotini – boil according to package directions
1 batch Bechemel sauce
Directions: 2 Tb butter melted, stir with 2 Tb flour until golden, add a pinch of salt, pepper and nutmeg. Stir continuously until mix has thickened.

1 C. extra sharp cheddar, shredded
1 C. Mozerella
A pinch cayenne pepper
2 dashes Worcestershire
Pepper to taste.
½ onion, chopped fairly fine
2 slices bacon

1/2 Tsp Vadouvan (recipe to follow)*
Directions:

1. Cook the bacon and chopped onions in a pan together (there’s nothing better in the world than bacon and onions in my opinion). Chop up the bacon when it’s crispy, and set the bacon and onions aside.

2. Add to the béchamel sauce the 1 Cup of cheddar and 1 Cup mozzarella, stir until melted and thick. Then add a pinch of cayenne pepper and 2 dashes Worcestershire (or to taste, I like a little more for intense flavor). Add pepper to taste also, but not salt yet because the Vadouvan is quite salty.

3. Add the bacon and onion, stir in. Then add the rotini.

4. Add the Vadouvan carefully – it’s quite strong, so you really have to do it to taste. For me, ½ tsp was about right, otherwise your Mac n’ Cheese may start tasting like Mac n’ Curry (also good, just not what we’re going for).

5. For a topping, I took a handful of unseasoned bread crumbs and ground it together with a little more vadouvan with my mortar and pestle. Then I put it under the broiler (watching it very carefully!) until it was browned.

*Make the Vadouvan well in advance, since it takes over an hour. It lasts a couple months in the fridge, a couple years if frozen, and you can add it to soups and all kinds of things. You’ll also have the satisfaction of knowing you’re probably the only kid on the street that has this unique spice mix (a blend of French and Indian culinary influences). I got the recipe from the now defunct Gourmet and altered it slightly:

Vadouvan

• ½ sweet onion, cut into 1-inch pieces

• 9 garlic cloves, peeled

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

• 1 tablespoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom

• 1 teaspoon brown mustard seeds

• 3/4 teaspoon turmeric

• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

• 1/2 teaspoon hot red-pepper flakes

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

• EQUIPMENT:

an electric coffee/spice grinder or a mortar and pestle, food processor (or you can just chop it)

• Preheat oven to 350ºF with rack in middle.

• Pulse onions and garlic in a food processor until very coarsely chopped (there may be a few large pieces remaining), transferring to a bowl.

• Heat oil in a deep 12-inch heavy nonstick skillet over high heat until it shimmers, then sauté onions and garlic (stir often) until golden and browned in spots, 25 to 30 minutes.

• Grind fenugreek seeds in grinder or with mortar and pestle. Add to onion mixture along with remaining ingredients, 1 Tsp salt, and 1 tsp pepper and stir until combined.

• Transfer to a parchment-paper-lined large 4-sided sheet pan and spread as thinly and evenly as possible. Bake, stirring occasionally with a skewer to separate onions, until well browned and barely moist, check every 20-30 minutes.

Lime Pie

Happy Pie Day! It's 3/14, at 3:14pm, and here is your pie. That's 360 degrees of dessert with a diameter of 9 inches, for those of you mathematically-minded. Me, I just like an excuse to eat PIE.
-AnglophileinLA

Lime Pie for Pie Day!

Ingredients
• 1 Keblar Graham cracker pie crust
• 2 (14-ounce) cans condensed milk
• 1 cup regular lime juice
• 2 whole eggs
• Zest of 1 lime

Directions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Combine the condensed milk, lime juice, zest and eggs. Whisk until well blended and place the filling in the pie shell. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes and allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

How to bring Lime Pie to the KICKASS PIE level



There was a New Orleans style restaurant in Santa Barbara years ago, since gone out of business, that had the best keylime pie. And they served it with a sauce on the side that was so cool and creamy next to the tart lime pie that it just brought the pie-eating experience to a whole new level. After much experimentation, I found out that it was cream cheese blended with milk and sugar. So simple, so delicious.



1 small container light cream cheese

1/4th cup milk (to start)

Sugar



I do this by taste every time – but basically, you’ll blend the cream cheese with the milk until it is of a pourable consistency. Then add sugar until you like the taste. I’m also thinking of adding a bit of lime juice to it the next time I make it, just to give it a little kick. Now, pour it over a piece of lime pie or serve it on the side with a spoon.

The Best Potato Leek Soup

With St. Patty’s day coming up, I’ve been in an Irish kind of mood. To completely stereotype, that means potatoes. So I got a bag of red, white and purple potatoes at Trader Joe’s, figuring I’d find a use for them, and the leeks at Ralphs completed the vision. But which recipe? Emeril and I have had our differences in the past – I think his recipes, if followed to the letter, tend to be too heavy on butter and cream, and a bit bland (sorry Emeril!). But then I saw his recipe for Potato Leek Soup, and I found a lot of things I like: white wine, bacon, fresh thyme. And found things I didn’t like: a lot of butter and cream. Which I removed. And here is the result.

Think of a great baked potato – what do you put on there? Sour cream, bacon bits, chives? A bit of salt and pepper? Now take that baked potato stacked with everything good on it, and blend the hell out of it. That’s kind of what this soup is, and it is just ridiculously good. Like, 4-Star restaurant quality good. My boyfriend went back for seconds (this never happens), and he doesn’t even like creamy soups. Granted, I didn’t tell him that his hated sour cream was in there…

Ingredients

• 1 large leek

• 2 bay leaves

• Twists of black and white pepper to taste (the combo really adds to the flavor, so I used a lot)

• 8 sprigs fresh thyme, de-leafed or chopped fine

• 2 strips bacon, chopped

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced

• 1/2 cup dry white wine or vermouth

• 3 cups chicken stock

• 1 pound potatoes, chopped into quarters (if small potatoes like red or white, don’t bother peeling)

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 2 Tb light sour cream (or one very heaping spoonful)

Directions

Chop the potatoes into quarters and microwave for 6 minutes until you can easily punch them through with a fork. Set aside.

Chop the 2 pieces of bacon into small pieces and start cooking them in an ungreased non-stick pot. The bacon has its own grease, it doesn’t need any more.

Chop the leek, or leeks if small, finely in quarters, going all the way from the white tip to where they just start to turn green. Discard the long green leafy parts. NOW, rinse the chopped leeks in a colander. Dirt gets trapped in between the leafs and will not wash out if you rinse the leek before you chop.

Add the leaks to the pot when the bacon has already browned. Add the bay leaves, thyme, white and black pepper, and garlic. Cook around 5 minutes.

Now add the wine, stir a bit, and add the potatoes and 3 cups chicken stock. Let simmer for anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes – if you need more time to set the table or get sides ready, go ahead and let it simmer away.

Use a potato masher to mush the potatoes. Add the 2 Tb, or giant heaping spoonful (to taste, can you tell?) of the light sour cream. Mix.

Now, TASTE. Too salty? Not salty enough? Does it need more white pepper? (yes, imo) When I was tasting, it needed more salt – after I added salt, it was too salty, so I added water. The point is, keep tasting until you get it right. The rest of cooking is just a shopping list.

If you have an immersion blender, it’s time to whip it out and whip it good. You can just blend everything in the pot (be sure all the action is below the surface of the liquid). If you have a regular blender – I wish you luck. The last time I tried to blend soup in a blender, I ended up wearing scalding hot crème of watercress. User error yes, but I still have never forgiven that soup.

To be fancy, you can put a little dollop of sour cream on top of the finished bowl of soup. But, it smelled so good that I didn’t want to spend the time trying to be fancy myself. Hence the hastily taken picture.

Orange Chicken

I am still on a mission to use all of the oranges I brought home in a big Hefty trash bag last week. So last night, it was Orange Chicken, a dish I have only ever tried at Chinese restaurants. I don’t own a deep-fryer, so I just rolled the chicken in flour and put it in the oven. Yes, crispy chicken would be better, but this recipe is still unbelievably delicious and lower fat (I lost a ½ pound on it!).
-AnglophileinLA
Orange Chicken

For Sauce, combine the following:
Juice of 2 oranges, then fill the measuring cup to 1 ½ C with water
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp Soy sauce
Zest of 1 orange
¾ C brown sugar (add to taste, could be up to 1 C brown sugar)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 inch chopped ginger root (extra root freezes well)
½ a small onion chopped fine, or green onions
½ tsp red pepper flakes
2 Tb Flour mixture from chicken (to follow)
For the chicken, you will need:
A casserole dish large enough for the chicken
6 drumsticks (or bite sized pieces of chicken breast, whatever you have)
½ C Flour
1 tsp salt
A few twists of pepper
1 tsp poultry seasoning
½ tsp garlic powder
Sesame oil

Directions for Chicken:
1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. Mix the flour, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning and garlic powder in a small bowl.
3. Oil the bottom of the casserole dish with sesame oil (olive oil will also work, but sesame oil adds a nutty undertone to the dish).
4. Take a piece of chicken and dip both sides in the sesame oil in the casserole dish, then roll it in the flour mixture until completely coated. Return to the casserole dish and repeat with the rest of the chicken. You should have some flour left over which will be used to thicken the sauce.
5. Put chicken in the oven and cook for 30 minutes, then flip the chicken pieces and cook for another 30 minutes or until browned.

Directions for Sauce:
1. Cook the garlic, onion and ginger first, keep in pan.
2. Combine all the other ingredients and whisk in 2 Tb of the chicken flour mixture into the liquid before adding it into the pan.
3. Cook down until the chicken is done.
Meanwhile – make your rice (10 min rice is good), and stirfry some chopped carrots and Asian-style peas in soy sauce if you want. They’re great for presentation, and vegetables are always good.

Spread the rice out in a large serving dish, cover with the stir-fried veggies, and place the chicken pieces on top. Pour most of the orange sauce over everything, saving some to be served on the side (believe me, you will want every drop).

Orange Curd Tartlets

One more recipe that uses Oranges - and I still have more oranges on my counter to go through. Oh boy. And, I'm out of eggs. Anyways, this is an elegant dessert worthy of fancy dinner parties and afternoon tea. Make it one day ahead, or at least a few hours ahead of time, since it needs time to cool and set.
-AnglophileinLA

Ingredients for the curd:
½ cup fresh squeezed and strained orange juice
Zest from 1 orange
½ cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cube (¼ pound) unsalted butter, cut into 6 chunks

The process:
Start water boiling in a small pot - you'll be cooking the curd in a metal bowl resting on top of it.
Combine juice, zest and sugar in the lightweight metal bowl. Whisk in the eggs and stir constantly over medium heat. Keep the whisk moving slowly so the eggs have no chance to scramble.

Add one chunk of butter and keep whisking. When the chunk starts to look a little raggedy, add another chunk. Keep adding another chunk as each previous one starts to move through the raggedy stage to the melting stage. Keep the whisk moving slowly all the while. When all chunks of butter have melted, whisk for about 5 minutes more, until the curd thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Do not overcook.

Remove from the heat and immediately strain the curd into the tartlet shells. STRAINING IS IMPORTANT. Then, immediately cover with plastic wrap so a skin doesn't develop on the surface of the curd. Let chill overnight if possible.

Chocolate Coated Tartlet Shells

I used the roll-out Pillsbury pie crusts that come 2-in a box. 1 pie crust made 3 tartlets by just laying them over the creme-brulee ramekins and cutting around the edges. Then I just pressed the crusts into the ramekins, poked fork holes in, and pre-baked according to the directions on the box.

Meanwhile, using the same doulbe-boiler technique as the curd, heat a half cup of chocolate morsels with a spoonful of butter in a metal bowl resting on top of a pot of boiling water. Stir constantly, and when it's gooey, take a culinary brush (mine is silicone, works really well), and paint the insides of the baked tart shells with chocolate. Let harden and cool before you pour in the curd.

Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies

Another use for a mountain of oranges is dessert. And Cranberry Orange Shortbread cookies are one of my favorites, especially for tea time.
-AnglophileLV

Ingredients
•1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped fine
•1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
•10 tablespoons softened butter
•1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
•finely grated zest of 1 orange
Optional: finely chopped almond slivers (for a Morroccan touch), or Chai Masala (for an indian touch)
 
Preheat oven to 325.
Mix everything together and roll the thick dough out until it is 1/4th of an inch thick. These cookies do not rise, so you have to flatten it out to cookie-thickness. Then cut out your cookies with a cookie cutter, or the lid of a jar of yeast (that's what I did), and lay them on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
 
Bake for 20 minutes, until lightly browned on the bottoms.
 
Makes a little under 2-dozen.
 
Now - for extra flair - I spread melted Ghiradelli chocolate on half of each cookie. You can't go wrong with dark chocolate and orange. Yum.

No Knead Wine Flour Bread

The new Blogger format is a nightmare - can you tell? I couldn't move these pictures into any kind of logical formation. So there they are, in a jumble.

My friend at A Girl, A Market, A Meal put a No Knead bread recipe up on Facebook the other day, and I just had to try it. Although I enjoy kneading bread - it's great exercise - I haven't been able to produce the kind of loaf you would make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with. Her recipe seemed like it would produce a loaf more like store-bought bread. I've also been dying to try out my new Cabernet Wine Flour from Blackmarket Bakery. It's flour made from red grape skins leftover from the wine making process and is very rich in resveratrol. It's also purple, which is awsome. So, I put the recipe together with the wine flour and came up with this vaguely purple and absolutely delicious bread.

Important note on the wine flour - I was advised that when using the wine flour, only use it to replace 10-15% of the flour in the recipe, so a little goes a long way. I can't do math worth a damn, so all I can report is that my guess of 1/2 cup for this recipe worked.

No Knead Bread, slightly altered from the fantastic recipe on A Girl, A Market, A Meal.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 55-60 minutes, plus rising time
Yield: 3 loaves
Ingredients:
7 cups King Arthur Bread Flour
1/2 cups wine flour
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast, or 2 packets
1 tablespoon sea salt
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten (available at health food stores and online)
2 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup honey
5 large eggs
2/3 cup melted butter

Preparation:

1. In a large bowl of a stand mixer or food processor (14-cup capacity), or your 1 gallon storage container, mix together the flours, yeast, salt and wheat gluten. In another smaller bowl, whisk together the water, honey, eggs and preferred fat. Using the dough attachment, or your hands, mix the wet ingredients with the dry until thoroughly combined. It will be very sticky. Do not knead.

2. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 2 hours. After this, the dough is ready to be formed and placed in a loaf pan, but it is easier to do this if you refrigerate it first for a couple of hours. The flavor improves after 24 hours, so make it the evening before, if you have time.

3. On baking day, lightly grease a standard loaf pan (8 1/2 x 4 1/2). Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour and grab a large hunk in your hand, cutting it off at the bottom. It should be about the size of a cantaloupe. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. Cover the rest of the dough loosely and return to the refrigerator.

4. Form the ball into a thick log shape and place it in the prepared loaf pan. It should be just over half full. Cover it loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for 90 minutes in a warm place (40 minutes if the dough you are using is already room temperature).

5. Thirty minutes before you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the loaf in the center of the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes or until the loaf is golden brown. Remove the bread from the pan and allow it to cool completely on a rack before slicing.

Sourdough Pretzels

I baked bread for the first time last week, and it miraculously turned out very well. So, I decided to take my daring a step further and attempt sourdough pretzels. BOY did these turn out well. I especially like my onion-topped pretzels, with just a dash of garlic salt. They're exactly how pretzels should be, though a bit smaller than I'm used to seeing. The original recipe makes 20 pretzels, so I cut all amounts in half since that seemed a bit much for two people. My boyfriend has requested I make these the next time he throws a football party, and that is testament to how good they are. --AnglophileLV

Sourdough pretzels

makes 10 pretzels, about 4 to 5 inches across, hard crust, soft center.

Ingredients:

3/4 cups proofed starter

1/2 cup hot water

1 tablespoons butter

1.5 tablespoons sugar (1/2 Tb = 1 and ½ tsp)

1 teaspoons salt

1/2 packet yeast

2 3/4ths cups all purpose flour

Toppings could include:

Kosher or sea salt

garlic salt

chopped onions

Directions:

1. Let all ingredients and utensils come to room temperature

2. Add the 1 tablespoon butter, the 1.5 tablespoons sugar, and the 1 tsp salt to the cup of hot water. Cool to lukewarm.

3. Put the proofed starter and 1/2 packet yeast into a bowl. Add the warm water mixture. Make sure the water is not hot because that will kill the yeast.

4. Add 2 cups of flour, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring after each addition.

5. Turn out onto a floured board and knead in approximately 3/4 cups more of the flour.

The dough will be very stiff.

6. Place the dough in a greased bowl, turn over, and cover with a damp paper towel and a dish towel - you don't want the dough to dry out. Let rise for 2 hours. It helps if you put the dough in a warm place. I preheat the oven and place the bowl on top of the stove which seems to work well.

7. Break off pieces of the dough about the size of a large egg. Roll each piece out with the palm of your hands until it is about 18 inches long and about 1/2 inch in diameter. Twist into the shape of a pretzel.

8. Bring a pot of water to a rapid boil. Drop as many pretzels as will fit without touching into the water and cook about 30 seconds after they have risen to the top. (Or longer, if you like a chewier pretzel.)

9. Remove to a baking sheet and sprinkle with coarse salt.

10. Bake in a preheated 425*F oven for 15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove and cool on wire racks.

Butternut Squash and Sage pasta for two

This dish smelled so good that I kinda did a rush job with the photography. I threw this together last night out of odds and ends in the fridge and a ClosetCooking recipe search. This is one of his recipes, much modified by me, and it turned out incredibly good. He went through a sage, onion, squash phase recently, and I'm going through the same phase now. The Hotlinks are actually a very complimentary flavor, so don’t be afraid of them. --AnglophileLV

Butternut squash and sage pasta for two

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon oil
1/3rd onion (chopped)
2 cloves garlic chopped)
2 tablespoons fresh sage (chopped)
1/2 tsp allspice (nutmeg will also work)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Hotlink sausage (chopped) links
1 generous splash white wine
1 cup chicken stock
2 cups butternut squash cubed
enough pasta for two – rottini or penne work well
¼ cup heavy cream
½ Tb flour
parmigiano reggiano to taste

For crispy fried sage leaves:
1 handful whole sage leaves
1 Tb butter

Instructions:
1. Heat the oil in a pan.
2. Add the onion and garlic. Saute until onions are partially carmelized and garlic is crispy.
3. Add sage and allspice, sauté until fragrant.
4. Add the chopped sausage.
5. Pour in the wine to deglaze the pan.
6. Add the chicken stock and squash. Simmer until the squash is tender, about 15 minutes.
7. Cook your pasta.
8. When the squash is cooked, remove the vegetables from the pan leaving the juice. Put the vegetables aside for now.
9. Brown 1 Tb butter in a pan, then add the whole sage leaves and fry until crispy.
10. Blend the cream and flour together and mix with the juice, then add the parmesan to taste. Pour in the browned butter from the sage pan, reserving the crispy sage for a garnish. Stir in well.
11. Plate the cooked pasta, pour the sauce over, then top with the squash/onion/sage mix. Garnish generously with the crispy fried sage leaves.

Polka Dot Cookies

My boyfriend went on a Cookie spree today. I woke to the the smell of baking cookies and the sound of him singing Christmas carols along with Dean Martin and Bing Crosby. Between us, we filled three tins and two plastic baggies with peanut butter cookies, sourdough chocolate chip cookies, and these delicious Polka Dot Cookies. Santa is going to gain ten pounds at our apartment alone with all these goodies. --AnglophileLV


Polka Dot Cookies
Ingredients (Original Recipe Yields around 50 cookies)

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups white chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Fold in the white chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are set.

Leftover Turkey Risotto

Every time I make risotto, it gets easier. The first time, I was all intimidated, envisioning centuries of Italian grandmothers ready to whack me with wooden spoons if I didn’t keep stirring in a clockwise (or was it counter-clockwise?) direction. Well, after making risotto for a while, the niceties get thrown out the window.

Here is the easy risotto recipe I made with the leftovers of the leftovers from Thanksgiving. All I had on hand was turkey, thyme, an onion and mushrooms. And a bit of Parmesan. That is vital. -- AnglophileLV

Leftover Turkey Risotto: serves 4

Ingredients:
1 can chicken stock
½ C white wine (or a generous dash, enough to reach all the risotto grains in the pan)
1 cup Arborio rice
Butter or olive oil
½ onion, chopped into small pieces
5-10 mushrooms
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 handful turkey bite-sized turkey chunks
½ cup parmesan
Turmeric (optional)

You’ll need 2 skillets for this operation, or one pot for the mushrooms and one skillet for the risotto.

1. Melt 1 Tb butter in the skillet. Add the onions and let them cook down. Add the Arborio rice and stir until it is more golden than white on LOW heat. This can take a while, but you don’t want the rice to burn. If you’re new to risotto, stir constantly. Otherwise, you can let it rest a bit while you’re doing other stuff and let instinct guide you.

2. Heat the chicken stock in the microwave for 2 minutes. Most recipes say to keep it boiling on the stove, but that uses another pot.

3. Add a generous dash of wine (about ½ cup) to the risotto. The wine releases the starches in the rice that will make it creamy later on. When the wine has soaked in, start adding the chicken stock little by little. Add some, wait until it soaks in, then add some more. Stir constantly, make sure the heat is low.

4. Melt butter in a small pot and add thickly chopped mushrooms. Let them sauté down a little, then add 1 tsp of the fresh thyme. Let sauté a little longer, and then add a dash of white wine. Toss in the turkey with the rest of the thyme and stir around.

5. Add the juice that’s accumulating in the mushroom pot to the risotto. 1 can of chicken broth isn’t quite enough, but this little bit of extra liquid seems to do the trick and marry the flavors rather well.

6. When the rice is creamy and not crunchy, add the parmesan, stir, and toss in the mushroom turkey mixture. Salt and pepper to taste (though I found that the chicken stock and parmesan were plenty salty enough).


This is a Wanderfood Wednesday post.

Butternut squash with caramelized onions and crispy fried sage

It's the time of year to give thanks, and I'd like to give an extra big helping of Thanks to Closet Cooking. I got the two recipes I made for Thanksgiving this year from Closet Cooking, and they both turned out amazingly well. I hate to go around nailing the leftovers of another food blog (pun intended), but this is what I've been cooking lately, so that's what I'm blogging about.

Incidentally, I will be creating my own leftover turkey risotto recipe tonight, so I haven't thrown originality out the window quite yet.

--AnglophileLV

But for now, bask in the glory that is butternut squash with caramelized onions, crispy fried sage and gorgonzola.

Ingredients:
2 cups butternut squash (cut into 1/2 inch cubes)
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion (sliced)
1 clove garlic (chopped)
1 tablespoon butter
1 handful sage leaves
1/4 cup gorgonzola dolce (crumbled)

Directions:
1. Toss the butternut squash with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
2. Roast the squash in a preheated 350F oven until tender, about 30-40 minutes and set aside.
3. Meanwhile, heat the oil and melt the butter in a pan.
4. Add the onion and cook on low until caramelized, about 40-60 minutes.
5. Add the garlic and saute for a few minutes and set aside.
6. Melt the butter in a pan and let it brown.
7. Add the sage leaves and saute until crispy, about 2-3 minutes.
8. Add everything to the pan and toss in the browned butter to coat and remove from heat when the gorgonzola starts to melt.

Steak Voranski

Who likes to set fire to things? Who likes alcohol in their food?

If you answered “ME! ME!” then this recipe is indeed for YOU! Warning: this recipe is highly flammable so make sure your head is well away from the action when you flambé. But, it looks really cool, so perform it in front of an audience.

This recipe comes from my very own Van Mullem Family Cookbook, courtesy of my aunt Vicky who took a few French cooking classes. --AnglophileinLA

Ingredients & Directions

Brown Sauce:
2/3 cup water
1 Tb cornstarch (or flour)
1 Knorr beef bouillon cube

In a small saucepan, add cornstarch to cold water and mix. Add bouillon and bring to bubbling. Stir until thickened.

Add:
1 ½ Tb Dijon Mustard
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
5 drops of Tabasco

Steak for four – filet mignon if you have the money
Butter or olive oil (I used garlic olive oil from World Market)
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
¼ cup cognac
2/3 cup cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped parsley to garnish

Melt butter (or heat oil) in frying pan. When melted and hot, add the rosemary and let “sweat” for one minute. When bubbly and hot, put in steaks.

For “rare” (about 1 ½ inch thick filets) sauté 4 minutes on each side. Now add the cognac, let it heat up a little, and light it with a very LONG lighter. When I did this, flames shot up about a foot and a half. But, I promise, the flames do die out eventually – no need to grab the extinguisher and ruin your hard work. When the flames die out, remove meat to platter and season with salt and pepper.

Pour brown sauce mixture into the pan, stirring until all the cooking juices are well blended. Pour in cream and let this boil until sauce is thickened and smooth. Pour sauce over meat and mashed potatoes, garnish with parsley and serve.

Bon Appetite!

A Wanderfood Wednesday post.

Pumpkin-Ginger Scones

I didn't do much to alter this recipe - just added a bit of allspice, some pecans, and went liberal with the cinnamon. This is a KILLER AWESOME recipe. These scones could be dessert. The pumpkin flavor is so intense, and then a little hint of candied ginger - I've never had a scone like it. --AnglophileinLA

Pumpkin Ginger Scones

Recipe from The Great Country Inns of America Cookbook

From the Sea Witch Manor Inn in Delaware

½ cup sugar, divided

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp allspice

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

5 tablespoons butter

1 egg

½ cup packed pumpkin

¼ cup sour cream

¼ cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

Chopped pecans to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425

2. Set aside 1 Tb of sugar.

3. Combine remaining sugar, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

4. Cut in 4 tablespoons of the butter with a pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

5. Beat egg in small bowl; add pumpkin, sour cream and ginger. Beat until well blended.

6. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture and stir until soft dough forms.

7. Turn out dough onto well-floured surface and knead 10 times (my dough was really sticky, just warning you).

8. Roll out dough into 9X6 inch rectangle with a lightly floured rolling pin (or just approximate and mush with your hands like I did).

9. Cut dough into 6 3inch squares with a knife. Cut each square diagonally in half, making 12 triangles. Place triangles 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet.

10. Melt the remaining 1 Tb butter. Brush triangles with butter, sprinkle with reserved sugar (mix a little cinnamon in with the sugar too), and bake 10-12 minutes – until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

A Wanderfood Wednesday post.

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies

Imagine Toll House, but lighter and fluffier - that's what these turned out to be. I don't know whether it was the shortening or the sourdough starter, but one or both of them made these into a melt-in-your-mouth consistancy. I highly recommend this recipe. My mom swears she can taste a slight sour kick to the cookie, but I sure can't. --AnglophileLV
***On consideration, these cookies could have used more chocolate chips. So throw in 1 and 1/2 bags if you are making a half-batch like I did.

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies (Recipe makes 70 cookies, cut in half for smaller batches)

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour -- unsifted
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter -- softened
1 cup shortening -- softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar -- packed
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup sourdough starter
4 eggs
1 3/4 cups walnuts -- chopped
2 12 oz pkgs chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, combine butter, shortening, sugars and mix well. Add eggs and beat until all are blended. Add vanilla and sourdough starter. Beat in flour, soda, salt and mix well. Stir in walnuts and chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes.

Sourdough Pancakes

I found another use for my sourdough starter: supermodel! And it makes a darn good pancake too. It's very important to serve these rugged Alaskan pancakes with really good jam, fresh fruit, and real maple syrup. And a little whipped cream. --AnglophileLV

Sourdough Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 large egg, well beaten
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar

1. The night before: Mix 1 cup starter with the flour and milk in a large bowl (not metal). Place the bowl in a warm place, cover and let it stand until morning.

2. The next day: add beaten egg, oil, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar to sour dough mixture; mix well.

3. Heat a lightly greased skillet over medium heat. The pan is ready when a few drops of water bubble and skitter rapidly around.

4. Cook pancakes until surface is covered with bubbles. Turn and cook other side until golden brown.
Makes about 7 to 14 pancakes.

Sourdough Pizza Crust

I have a pot of sourdough starter sitting in my kitchen. His name is Beauregard, and that reminds me, I need to feed him. He had his first outing last night when I made sourdough pizza dough. The thing to remember about sourdough is that it’s not actually that sour. Commercial sourdough has god-knows-what added to make it overly sour, but if you’re making bread from a starter, you can sweeten it easily (using salt!), but making it more sour is actually a little tricky. So banish from your minds the sourdough from the stores; this is completely different. --AnglophileLV

For the sauce, I used around ½ cup of my homemade tomato sauce, 1 can tomato paste, a few dashes of dried oregano, a little garlic powder, and 3 teaspoons sugar (tomato tends to be acidic and tart so always taste your sauce to see if it needs sugar).

Note: If you pre-bake the shells, they will tend to stay fluffier. If you just top them and bake them, they will tend to be flatter.

Ingredients: (recipe source: Sourdough Home)

1 1/2 c mature Sourdough starter

1 T olive oil

1 t Salt

1 1/2 c Flour

Place your pizza stone in the oven if you have one and preheat oven to 450F. (Try 550F if your oven will take you there.)

Mix ingredients, working in the flour until you have a soft dough. If the dough gets too dry, add some more starter. If you've used all the starter, add a bit of water.

Once you've kneaded the dough, cover it with a damp paper towel and let rest for 1/2 hour. This lets the dough relax, so forming the pizza is easier. This recipe does not require the rising capabilities of sourdough, it just uses the taste of the starter.

Once the dough has rested, roll out into a flat round pie-like shape. I rolled my dough out on some kind of silicone parchment paper type thing, but non-stick aluminum foil would be my next best bet. Don’t use parchment if you plan to broil – I did that once, it burned to a crisp. Flames leapt. It was not good.

Once you have a nice round pie shell, you may pre-bake it or top it and bake it. To pre-bake it, bake about 5 minutes. It doesn't take long, so watch carefully.

After I prebaked the shell, I noticed that it wasn’t browning very nicely, so I brushed egg around the outer edge to make a pretty golden crust. Unfortunately, this made the crust a little crunchier, but it was still good. Then I dusted the egg covered portion with garlic salt.

When you're ready to top the pizza, rub a bit of olive oil on the surface, as this helps keep the crust from getting soggy. Then top with your ingredients. I went with mozzarella, parmesan (to help the cheese brown better), pepperoni, onions and green bell pepper. Then bake for 5 minutes and check – continue checking until the cheese is browned and bubbly on the edges. To get the veggies fully cooked, I had to put the broiler on for 40 seconds in addition to the baking time.

Masala Chai

My Gourmet magazine came in the mail yesterday, and may I say, if there is a magazine that deserves to go under in this blighted economy – it’s that one. To read a complete recipe, you have to flip through more pages than a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Then, when you’ve flipped back and forth ten times, you find an ingredient or two (or all) that you have never seen or heard of in your life and that is impossible to get, thus causing you to ditch the entire recipe. Dried rose hips? Really? Annatto seeds? And then they have articles like “if you had $1000 to spend on a meal in your city, where would you splurge $700 on dinner?” Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t bank executives been skewered by the media for less? Is that really appropriate for this economy – or any economy? And every recipe requires every pot and pan in the cupboard, along with one or two specialty items that NO ONE HAS…

Ok, enough of my diatribe against Gourmet. I could go on (I really could), but I’d rather tell you about the one appealing recipe I found before I chucked the rest of that pretentious rot in the bin: Masala Chai. And I still had to tweak the recipe to be more user-friendly, and spicier (they forgot to add the cayenne chili powder, which makes Chai so much better).

Masala Chai for Two

½ tsp ground cardamom (or 5 pods, seeded and ground)
1/4th tsp ground cinnamon
2 white peppercorns
1/8th tsp fennel seeds
1 cups milk
1 tsp dark brown sugar (or to taste)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8th ground red pepper (cayenne)
1 cups water
2 teabags strong black tea

Need a mortar and pestle

Grind together cardamom, cinnamon stick, peppercorns and fennel seeds.
Bring milk to a simmer (careful not to boil over!) in a heavy saucepan. Stir in brown sugar, spice mix, ginger and 1/8th tsp salt. Reduce heat to low and simmer gently, stirring occasionally for 3 minutes.
Brew tea using the 1 cup water and 2 teabags. (really easy to do in a microwave)
Add the tea to the milk mixture and cook over low heat for a minute.
Pour chai through a tea strainer into your cup or teapot.

This post is part of the Wanderfood Wednesday food blog party.

Sourdough Scones

Meet Beauregard. Originally from San Francisco, Beauregard ventured to Alaska in 1905 with the J.P. Morgan Company when the company cook (also named Beauregard – confusing in a British novel sort of way, I know) brought it with him to help feed the men building the railroad into the Kennicott copper mine.

Beauregard is a 104 year old sour dough starter.

It has been passed down through miners and restaurant owners to the owners of Sourdough Sunrise Bed & Breakfast in Seward, Alaska. And now, thanks to my boyfriend’s mother who stayed at the B&B and brought some of old Beau back with her, Beauregard has reached the sunny shores of Southern California.

I'll go into the Care and Feeding of sourdough starters later, but for now, check out this scone recipe for the best scones any of us have ever tasted - as stated this morning by everyone at the breakfast table. --AnglophileLV

Sourdough Scones (from Simply Sourdough - The Alaska Way - by Kathy Doogan)

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
2 Tb sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4th tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cold, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup currants or dried cranberries
1 egg
3/4 cup sourdough starter
1 Tb milk
2 Tb raw sugar (for topping)

In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Cut in the butter with 2 knives (or a pastry blender- so much easier) until the mix looks like coarse meal. Stir in currants (or cranberries).

Break egg into a 1-cup measure, beat lightly with a fork, then fill the cup with sourdough starter until all of it measures 1 cup. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix lightly until just combined (do NOT overmix). Turn out onto lightly floured board and gently knead 8-10 times. Dough should be very soft. You can use more flour - but use as little as possible since it's better for the dough to be too wet than too dry (too much flour creates a brick).

Gently pat dough into an 8" diameter circle and cut into 8 wedges. Brush the tops wtih milk and sprinkle with the raw sugar. Transfer wedges to a lightly greased baking sheet - seperating them from eachother by at least 2 inches.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-18 minutes until golden.

Fry Bake

This is essentially fried pizza dough - and if that isn't a good idea, I don't know what is. The fry bake is so puffy that you can split it open like a pita and fill it with things like my Carribean Pigeon Pea Curry, which is what I did. --AnglophileLV

Caribbean Fry Bake – makes 4

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4ths cups water* (Knead dough for a few minutes)
Vegetable oil for frying (enough to just cover the fry bake dough)
flour for dusting

Directions:
1. Divide dough into tennis ball size dough balls. Dust your counter, hands and rolling pin with flour and roll them out into 6 inch diameter circles.
2. Heat the oil in a deep pan and place the dough circle so it flops away from you (otherwise you could get spattered with hot oil).
3. When the upturned side gets puffy and the bottom side is slightly gold, use a fork try to flip it to the other side in a quick motion. Continue flipping until both sides are a nice golden brown color.
4. Take it from the oil at this point and place on paper towels to get rid of some of the excess oil.
5. Sprinkle with garlic salt.

Repeat these steps for the remaining dough you have.