Holiday cooking, part 2 (Mac and cheese attempt)

The topping got a bit burnt in the broiler, but it still tasted pretty good...

     I have been wanting to write this post for a while but a cold and the holidays caught up with me.  I finally (finally) cooked my first macaroni and cheese recipe since I started this blog.  And, the best news is, it definitely has potential!
     I would first like to start this blog with a big thanks to Scott's friend, Pete.  We have been staying over at Pete's house every December for the Christmas holiday.  Pete has been nice enough to take us in and make us feel welcome!  I am very blessed that all of Scott's friends and family have made me feel like I was a part of their family.  So, a big thanks to Pete and everyone else for that!  Plus, Pete was the one who gave me the challenge of cooking macaroni and cheese for his traditional night before Christmas party.  I knew just which recipe I was going to try; Cook's illustrated Classic Macaroni and Cheese.
     In case you don't know about Cook's Illustrated, this is a classic cooking magazine that thoroughly tests every single recipe sometimes hundreds of times until they come up with the ideal recipe.  I had a subscription to their magazine last year and decided to update to their online membership this year so I could have access to all of their recipes.  I quite enjoy Cook's Illustrated, but usually find their recipes a bit too complicated to cook.  I like cooking a little simpler food although am certainly quite capable of cooking a more complicated recipe.  Anyways, I thought I would put their ultimate Macaroni and Cheese recipe to the test.  Here it is:

Classic Macaroni and Cheese


Serves 6 to 8, or 10 to 12 as a side. Published May 1, 2004


Note: It's crucial to cook the pasta until tender--just past the "al dente" stage. In fact, overcooking is better than undercooking the pasta. Whole, low-fat, and skim milk all work well in this recipe. The recipe can be halved and baked in an 8-inch-square, broilersafe baking dish. If desired, offer celery salt or hot sauce (such as Tabasco) for sprinkling at the table.


Ingredients:

Bread Crumb Topping
6 slices white sandwich bread (good-quality, about 6 ounces), torn into rough pieces
3 tablespoons unsalted butter (cold), cut into 6 pieces

Pasta and Cheese
1 pound elbow macaroni
1 tablespoon table salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons powdered mustard
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
5 cups milk (see note)
8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese , shredded (2 cups)
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese , shredded (2 cups)
1 teaspoon table salt


Instructions


1. For the bread crumbs: Pulse bread and butter in food processor until crumbs are no larger than 1/8 inch, ten to fifteen 1-second pulses. Set aside.
2. For the pasta and cheese: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat broiler. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in Dutch oven over high heat. Add macaroni and 1 tablespoon salt; cook until pasta is tender. Drain pasta and set aside in colander.
3. In now-empty Dutch oven, heat butter over medium-high heat until foaming. Add flour, mustard, and cayenne (if using) and whisk well to combine. Continue whisking until mixture becomes fragrant and deepens in color, about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk; bring mixture to boil, whisking constantly (mixture must reach full boil to fully thicken). Reduce heat to medium and simmer, whisking occasionally, until thickened to consistency of heavy cream, about 5 minutes. Off heat, whisk in cheeses and 1 teaspoon salt until cheeses are fully melted. Add pasta and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is steaming and heated through, about 6 minutes.
4. Transfer mixture to broiler-safe 9-by 13-inch baking dish and sprinkle evenly with bread crumbs. Broil until crumbs are deep golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes, rotating pan if necessary for even browning. Cool about 5 minutes, then serve.

     The truly interesting thing I found about this recipe is that you don't bake it at all.  This goes against all other recipes that I have made for Macaroni and cheese.  I used a cheddar jack mixture since the grocery store didn't have shredded sharp cheddar cheese.  I also ended up using nonfat milk since that was what was in Dot's refrigerator.  I also used Pepperidge white sandwich bread for the bread crumbs and pulsed them in a blender, not a food processor since that was all that was available.
     The verdict?  Quite good, actually!  I was pleasantly surprised.  Unlike other macaroni and cheese recipes that I have made, this one actually did taste cheesy although it was a little bland.  I think using extra sharp cheddar would have made a difference there.  I also think it needed just a wee bit more salt.  I wasn't particularly happy with the bread crumb topping.  To start off with, I burned the bread crumbs in the broiler.  I tried scraping off the burnt bread crumbs (like you do with burnt toast) and found that the bread crumbs underneath weren't really toasted at all.  I think next time I am going to use Panko bread crumbs, as they are a far superior topping than anything else I have found.  The nonfat milk didn't really seem to make a taste difference.  So, I think I am going to try to make this recipe again with a few more modifications.
     The cooking process was pretty easy, although it was a chore to sit there and whisk the whole time!  It makes me wish I had an automatic whisker!  I was quite pleased that it did indeed thicken up to the consistency of cream and the cheese melted quite easily.  However, boiling milk always makes a big mess on the bottom of the pan.  My thumb still hurts from scraping off the bottom of that pan with a brillo pad.  I think I scraped away a bit of my skin!  It was definitely worth it, though!  Other people enjoyed it, too!  Pete's sister (a wonderful cook herself) said it was "excellent."  Yay!

Holiday cooking

     Who would have guessed that your intrepid chef would have found a time or place to cook in her busy holiday plans?  Well, you would, of course!  So, I bring you onto what I hope to be many (well, at least two!) blogs about my cooking over the holiday season.
     I should first mention that these next few blogs will not take place in my own lovely kitchen.  Instead, I will brave the elements (literally!) to cook in a variety of places on the east coast.  My first stop?  Gloucester, MA and the kitchen of my fiance's mother, Dot. 
     I am very fortunately in that I can say I have a wonderfully lovely mother-in-law.  Soon to be mother-in-law, I suppose.  With the typical stigma that mother-in-laws get, I was rather nervous about meeting Scott's mother for the first time four years ago.  Fortunately, Dot is a very down to earth genuinely nice person!  After eating her wonderful cooking, I wanted to give back a little by cooking for her.  Dot doesn't thrive on the spicy stuff (especially green chilies) like Scott and I do, so I decided to do the simple (but delicious) stuffed shells.  It was the first time I had made stuffed shells but knew they had to be very similar to stuffed manicotti which I had made before.  Fortunately for me, they were!  I modified the recipe a little bit (dropped the mushrooms that an online recipe had called for and added ground beef instead).  My recipe is as follows:
STUFFED SHELLS

1 (12 oz) package pasta shells
2 eggs, beaten
1 (32 oz) container ricotta
3 cups shredded mozzarella
6 oz shredded parmesan
1 tbsp parsley flakes
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground pepper
1 jar of tomato sauce
1 lb ground beef

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook pasta in boiling water for 8-10 minutes.  Drain and rinse off with cold water.
3. Cook ground beef and drain off fat.
4. In one bowl, mix the beaten eggs, ricotta, 1/2 the mozzarella, 1/2 the parmesan, parsley, salt and pepper.
5. In another bowl, mix the ground beef, tomato sauce and the rest of the cheese.
6. Stuff the shells with the ricotta/eggs/cheese mixture and place in a buttered 9 x 13 baking dish.
7. Top with the meat/cheese/tomato sauce.
8. Bake in the oven for 45-60 minutes until the edges are bubbly.

     That's it!  It's a pretty easy dish to make.  I have become really good at multi-tasking in the kitchen, so I preheated the oven, boiled the water and ground the beef all at the same time.  While those were all cooking, I mixed the cheese (it was so cold!!) and then the tomato sauce.  Stuffing the shells was a bit laborious, but not too bad at all (especially since I rinsed them with cold water so I wouldn't burn myself!).  The baking dish was definitely stuffed (get it, stuffed?  haha!) to capacity and I was a bit nervous putting it in the tiny oven.  I started smelling a burning smell about 40 minutes in, which I theorized was caused by a little bit of sauce boiling over and hitting the bottom of the oven.  Certainly none of the food burned!  And the final verdict?  Delicious, of course!  Best of all, Dot enjoyed it!

Stuffed shells hot out of the oven



Our dinner table

Enjoying my meal

Scott and Dot enjoy theirs

Farmer's market goat stew

     I have been waiting to write this blog post all day.  As a matter of fact, I suppose that I have been waiting to write this blog since Saturday morning.  Saturday morning Scott and I actually both got up early enough to not only go to the Cabrillo Farmer's market in Aptos but spend a whole hour there!  This is quite unusual, as the farmer's market is from 8-12 and usually we can't motivate ourselves to get up and out of the house that early.  What can I say?  We are both not morning people.
     However, this saturday was an exception.  We were both up around 7:30 am and so actually got to spend some time at the farmer's market.  Usually I don't pay attention to the butcher's tent (I'm not much of a meat eater and the meat there is expensive) but today I noticed that they were selling goat meat.  I love goat meat.  Love love love love love it.  It is so much more than beef.  Alas, I don't know much about meat so I asked the lady working there what she would recommend for a man who's never had it (fiances come in handy sometimes).  She recommended the goat leg steak for a stew meat.  "Perfect for weather like this." she said.  Well, that started the wheels a turning and I decided to buy other vegetables to go with a stew.  Potatoes, leek, onion, carrots they all went in the bag.  I decided that since the meat had the bone in I would cook it in the slow cooker for that "fall off the bone" tenderness.
     Fast forward to today, monday.  At about 10:30 this morning I started preparing my stew.  I was pretty excited because I was making the recipe up completely from scratch.  After looking at a few cookbooks, I had a general idea of what I wanted but the particulars and cooking times would fall to me.  First, I took the goat steak and browned it a little.  They always say to brown meat before you put it in the slow cooker for extra flavor.  Then, I chopped up potatoes, carrots, onion, leek and put it all in.  Covered with beef stock and a few herbs added in and there you go! 
     I got to use two new/old things.  First, my brand new large capacity slow cooker.  It has been sitting in a box for months and I am so excited of the opportunity to finally use it!  Second, my hand held food chopper.  I bought this one a long time ago but didn't particularly like it because it honestly didn't do that great of a job.  Well, it still is not as powerful as my food processor, but it was adequate and easier for the task at hand (chopping leeks and onions). 
     So, here's the recipe.  It's not very exact (I kind of eyeballed the herbs) but it sure is delicious.  I am sure you can mess with the proportions a little.

Farmer's market goat stew

olive oil
salt
pepper
goat leg steak (mine was 1.27 lbs)
yukon potatoes, cubed (I used 7)
carrots, sliced (5)
leek, chopped
onion, chopped
beef stock (2 pints)
rosemary (pinch)
thyme (pinch)
bay leaf

1) Heat oil in pan.  Put salt and pepper on both sides of the goat steak and brown it in the pan on all sides.  Put in slow cooker.
2) Chop all the veggies and add them on top.
3) Cover with beef stock and add in the herbs.
4) Heat on high heat for six hours.
5) After six hours, remove the goat steak and start breaking it into pieces.  It should be fall-off-the-bone tender.  Add the pieces back into the stew.
6) Enjoy!  Especially good with sourdough bread and Pinot Noir wine from Salamandre.  Yum!

     There you have it.  My first (okay, maybe not my first) all myself slow cooker recipe.  I am very proud.  I didn't know how this would come out and am very happy to report that it turned out delicious!  The only bad thing about it is that you have to smell it for all those hours while it is cooking!  I hope you enjoy!



Heather and Scott enjoy the meal




A toast (both bread and wine!)



Perspectives on Thanksgiving

This is going to be a bit of an unusual post for me, as I am not writing about a recipe.  Instead, I want to take a moment to honor a good cook.  Every person in their life meets at least one person better than them at something and worse than them at something.  Well, I have definitely met someone better than me at cooking (although perhaps this is not as difficult as I would like to make it seem).  I would like to take this blog to honor my cousin's wonderful wife, Rhonda Geogerian.
For Thanksgiving this year, we traveled to Kentucky to stay with my cousin, his wife and their two wonderful children in their huge mansion of a house.  While Scott played outdoors with the oldest daughter, Rhonda worked miracles in the kitchen day after day.  She made cooking look easy and gave inspired me to be a better cook (with a wonderful giant kitchen!).  On Thanksgiving day, she was cooking for 19 people!  The Thanksgiving feast was a splendor that I unfortunately did not get to sample due to a stomach flu.  However, I did get to spend the time with my family and feeling better and that is all that counts.  Thank you Rhonda and Pete for all your hospitality, good food and love this holiday season! 
Love your humble fellow cook,
Katie

Cooking at my father's

     I first want to say that today is my birthday.  It doesn't really have anything to do with this post, but I love this day.  Even though this day now means that I am a year older (29!), it is still the best day of the year!  It is a day all about me!  Who could ask for more?  Now, onto the food blog...
     I am, first of all, amazed at the difference in kitchens between a foodie such as myself and a bachelor such as my Dad.  He only had one bowl!  One!  It is rather difficult to make a soup when we only had one bowl to serve it in.  Fortunately, my friend Gayana (who was over at the time) suggested serving it in mugs.  He also doesn't have a cookie sheet, which meant I didn't get to make fiery pumpkin seeds over there.  I hope they are still okay.  However, despite a lack of basic (to me) equipment, I was very happy to cook for my father.  After all, this was the man who cooked for me for a good twenty years or so of my life.  I want to return the favor. 
     I decided to make Pumpkin-fried apple soup with leeks and bacon after seeing it in the food section of our local newspaper.  Gotta love the food section!  Doesn't the name itself make you salivate?  After a few failed attempts to make this soup (I swear I was cursed for a while), we finally got it all together on a wednesday night and started to make it.  Alas, there were problems from the first...
     In retrospect, I should not have tried to make a new recipe when we had a time limit.  On that wednesday night, we had tickets to see the comedian Gallagher at Club Nokia in LA (right across from the Staple's center).  The show started at 8, so we figured we would leave San Pedro around 6:30.  I decided to start cooking at 5, figuring an hour would be enough time to cook and eat with time to spare.  Alas, I was wrong.  Chopping up vegetables is a lot of work.  Especially when there is no chopping knife to be had in the house.  My friend Gayana was over at the time and she graciously decided to help me chop.  We had two serrated long knives (they looked more like bread knives) and two chopping boards and we went at it.  Chopped onion, garlic, apples and leek.  Can I say that I've never ever cooked with leeks before?  I had to look up what parts to use and how to chop it.  I'm not even sure I used all the right parts.  Out of curiosity, I tried a little raw.  Whoo!  It was like a concentrated onion...  Scott cooked the bacon and set it aside.  We mixed everything else together with canned pumpkin and water and let it simmer for 15 minutes.  Despite other chefs in the kitchen who wanted to do other things! ;-)  Here's the recipe:

PUMPKIN-FRIED APPLE SOUP WITH LEEKS AND BACON

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin puree
2 apples (cut in small cubes)
16 slices of bacon (we ended up using about 12)
1 large leek
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup chopped onion (I just was lazy and used a whole onion)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup water

Steps:
1. Fry the bacon in a frying pan and remove the slices when it is crispy and set aside.
2. Chop the apples, leek, garlic and onion and add to the bacon grease.  Fry on medium heat until soft.
3. In a medium sized pan bring the pumpkin puree and water to a boil.  Add the fried apple, leeks, garlic, and onion and simmer on low for 15 minutes.
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Crumble the bacon and add to the soup right before serving.  Serve immediately




Pumpkin-Fried apple soup with leek and bacon



The final result in a mug!



Showing off my soup



The whole family enjoys!

 
     The verdict?  Definitely yummy, but it took too long and ended up more like a really thick stew than a soup.  I think, in retrospect, it would have been nice to put an immersion blender in there and then add in the bacon.  Also, it took way too long to make!  Some of this was from not having the right equipment but still!  We ended up leaving late and then got stuck in traffic and then lost in LA.  Fortunately, we didn't miss one minute of the show.  But the getting lost story is another thing in itself!

Halloween Hootenanny part 2

     I am not quite sure why I have been posting each recipe as a separate entry.  I am still getting the feeling of this blog thing, I suppose.  Eventually I'll have it sanded out as smooth as silk.  Is that even a sensical simile?  Ah well, on to the recipe!
     After the party (see previous post), Scott and I went home and finally carved our pumpkins!  We listened to the CD "Halloween Hootenanny" (thus the title of the last two blogs) and broke carving tools (well, I did).  It was a lot of fun and meant I got to make one of my favorite Halloween recipes; fiery pumpkin seeds!  I had tried this recipe last year and it came out deliciously.  I could hardly wait to try it again this year.  I started saving the pumpkin seeds from the Pasta with Penne recipe and then topped it up with seeds from my carved pumpkin.

      Do you see the ghoulish face?



FIERY PUMPKIN SEEDS
Makes: 2 Cups
Time: About 45 min


2 cups (approximately) fresh pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp light vegetable or olive oil
About 1 tsp salt
About 1 tsp cayenne, or more if you like
1/2 tsp cumin, optional


1) Separate the seeds from the pumpkin strings by rinsing them in a bowlful of water. Dry the seeds between paper towels.
2) Mix the oil with salt, cayenne, and cumin, and toss the seeds with this mixture until they are coated. (Then wash your hands well.)
3) Bake the seeds on a baking sheet in a 350 degree F oven for 30-45 min, tossing occasionally, until they are tan and crisp, or spread the seeds between two layers of paper towels and microwave on high for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until seeds are tan and crisp.  They will crisp up further as they cool.

     What can I say?  Yum!  The cayenne pepper just adds that little bit of zing which turns it from being good into being great.  The salt adds to the crispness of a hot, just out of the oven pumpkin seed.  I completely missed the part about cumin so didn't add it to this batch.  Next batch I definitely will!  These seeds only lasted overnight because my stomach started hurting from so much cayenne pepper (and food!).  Did I care?  Nope!

     Oh, if you're curious, here's what our pumpkins looked like:


A cleanly-shaven Scott proudly holding his pumpkin




The author holding her carved pumpkin. 
The make up?  Left over from my costume!



Halloween Hootenanny

     I love a culinary challenge.  Difficult recipe?  Bring it on!  Hard to find ingredient?  Let me go searching!  Special dietary needs?  You betcha!  It is for this reason that I especially love cooking for those of my friends who do have special diets.  Whether they be vegan or lactose-intolerant, I will cook and love it!  It is doubly rewarding because I know it is a little more difficult for them to find food that match their needs.  When I can be the provider of that food, I feel like a good chef and friend!
     So what was my culinary challenge this time?  Cooking for a friend who has difficulty with gluten and dairy, amongst other things.  Fortunately, the solution was simple and came from one of my favorite cookbooks of all time; Mark Bittman's How to cook everything.  And what was that solution, you may be asking?  Why, quinoa pilaf, of course!
     Quinoa (pronounced "keen wah") is amongst the most delicious and nutritious of grains out there.  It does not have any gluten in it and has more protein than a lot of other grains.  It is so nutritious that NASA scientists are experimenting with growing it in their "Controlled ecological life support system."  Check it out at http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1996/v3-632.html . 
     I also happen to love quinoa.  I was first introduced to it by my fiance, then boyfriend, Scott.  We would use it a lot in our stir fries as an alternative to rice or cous cous.  I quite enjoyed it from the get go.  I always thought it kind of tasted like a rice/cous cous combo and yet had a unique taste all of its own.  The only difficult part of working with it is the need to wash it ahead of time.  The seed (for that is what you eat) is covered with saponins (soapy chemicals) and so would taste quite bitter without washing.  It is a bit difficult to thoroughly wash something that is not much larger than a grain of sand, but we have found a way.  I know friends who don't wash it at all and say that they do not notice a difference.
     Anyways, onto the recipe:

QUINOA "PILAF"
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. peanut or olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion or leek
1 cup quinoa, rinsed in several changes of water
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 3/4 cup chicken, beef or vegetable stock, or water, warmed


1) Place the oil in a medium-to-large, deep skillet and turn heat to medium. A minute later, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens, about 5 minutes.


2) Add the quinoa and cook, stirring, for a good 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then add the liquid all at once.


3) Cover and cook until the quinoa is quite tender, about 15 minutes. If all the liquid has been absorbed and the quinoa is not tender, add 1/4 cup water and continue to cook until tender. If any liquid remains, remove the lid and raise the heat a bit; cook, stirring, until the liquid evaporates.



Quinoa "Pilaf"

     The verdict?  Delicious, of course!  I have been wanting to try this recipe for ages.  It is very easy and cooks up wonderfully!  I made twice the amount since I was bringing it for a potluck.  I used an onion and a half, roughly chopped.  I cooked it in olive oil and used chicken stock as my liquid.  The new skillet that I bought over the summer was perfect!  It cooked up hot and delicious and was a hit at the party.  Well, people enjoyed it at least!  :-D

Nothing as American as apple pie...

     Unless your German.  Or English.  Or Danish.  Or any of the other countries that bake apple pie.  In addition to the penne with pumpkin, I also baked a homemade apple pie.  This was my second time making it.  Ironically, the first time was when Christian came over for our first scary movie-a-thon.

Apple pie 

     First of all, I have to admit, this is not completely from scratch.  The pie dough was actually bought from Trader Joe's.  What is the reason behind this?  Basically, it was to save a step.  I have made pie dough from scratch before.  With the help of a food processor, it is quite easy and actually fun.  There's nothing like rolling out your own dough.  However, I found that I wasn't making any pie at all because this step seemed so large in my mind.  Which was quite a shame as quite a few apples went to waste while I tried to overcome this mental block.  I finally decided to just get frozen pie crusts so I can make a pie whenever I want.  In the future, I will definitely freeze my own crusts and save myself a step.
     This recipe is based off of my Aunt Helen's apple pie.  When Scott and I first visited her in Connecticut, she served us some delicious apple pie.  I asked for the recipe and she was kind enough to write it down and give it to me.  I have been dying to try that recipe ever since, but somehow never got around to it.  Finally, a month or so ago, our neighbor/co-worker Marie let me pick a whole bunch of apples from her tree.  She said that they made a delicious pie.  And she was right!  That was pie attempt number 1. 
     Scott picked a lot of apples off of Marie's tree a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately, these were the apples that mostly ended up rotting.  I salvaged a few of those apples and some Pippin apples that Scott bought at the farmer's market and used them to make my pie (as it turns out, Marie's apples were also pippin).  Here is my (slightly modified) recipe:

2 frozen pie crusts, thawed to room temperature
4-6 Pippin apples, peeled and cored
1/2 cup sugar
nutmeg to taste
cinnamon to taste
yogurt or milk

     Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Lay the pie crust on the bottom of a pyrex pie pan.  Put the apples in an even layer on the bottom.  I layered them twice.  Cover with the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Lay the other crust on top of the pie and crimp the edges together.  Cover the top with a little bit of yogurt or milk and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Cut a few slices on the top of the crust to let out the steam.  Put it in the oven for 40-45 min.  Remove when it appears brown on both the top and bottom.  Remove, let cool, and enjoy!

     What a delicious and easy recipe!  It was the first time I had cooked it in my pyrex pie pan.  I found I should have put the bottom crust a little more on the edge so they could have met the top crust.  I also should have re-rolled the top crust as it split while I was putting it on.  It ended up having a puzzle-piece appearance and leaked from a few of these cracks but it came out delicious.  A bit strong on the nutmeg (Scott thought it was fine), but delicious.  We served it with some vanilla gelato.  Yum!

Spooky themed dinner party

     It's almost Halloween.  There is no commercial holiday that I enjoy more than this spook-tacular one.  Dressing up, eating candy and fall-themed foods, watching scary movies; what more could you ask for?  It was in this spirit that Scott and I decided to host a scary movie/Halloween themed food bash.  Christian, a fellow wolfie, was the first to suggest the idea.  As it turns out, he was also the only one who came to our bash.  :-(  That being said, we still all had a good time.  So what did we decide to watch?  Poltergeist....  But that subject would be more appropriate for my friend Toni's movie blog.  I'm on to the food.
     Last year was the first time that I had ever cooked with pumpkin.  I only cooked the seeds (more on that on a later blog).  I was intrigued by the small pumpkins but didn't have the pumpkin guts (get it? [okay, it wasn't that funny]) to buy one.  This year, on impulse, I bought a small little sugar pie pumpkin.  I had debated the various ways to cook it until I came across Mark Bittman's Penne with Pumpkin or Winter squash recipe.  It seemed perfect.  A good way to use the pumpkin in an original way plus it could be vegan to boot.  One of my invited guests was vegan; since he didn't come I made it vegetarian by using butter instead of oil.  The recipe is as follows:

PENNE WITH PUMPKIN OR WINTER SQUASH
Makes: About 4 servings
Time: 30 minutes

Salt
1 medium pumpkin or butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled and seeded
2 tbsp butter or extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp hot red pepper flakes, or to taste
1 lb penne or other cut pasta
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg, or to taste
Pinch sugar (optional)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

     Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it.  Cut the pumpkin into chunks and put it in a food processor fitted with a metal blade.  Pulse the machine on and off until it appears grated.  Alternatively, grate or chop the squash by hand.
     Put the butter or oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  When the butter is melted or the oil is hot, add the pumpkin, a good sprinkle of salt and pepper, the red pepper and about 1/2 cup water.  Cook at a steady bubble, stirring occasionally.  Add more water, about 1/4 cup at a time, as the mixture dries out, taking care not to make it soupy  When the pumpkin begins to disintegrate, after 10 to 15 min, add the pasta to the boiling water.  While it cooks, season the pumpkin with the nutmeg, sugar if you like, and additional salt and pepper if needed.
     When the pasta is tender but not mushy, drain it, reserving about 1/2 cup of the cooking water.  Add the pasta to the pumpkin and a bit of the reserved cooking water if the mixture seems dry; toss with a large spoon until well combined.  Taste and add more of any seasonings you like, then toss with the Parmesan and serve.

     So, there's the recipe.  I found out a number of things by attempting this.  One, pumpkin is a pain in the arse to deal with.  Removing the pumpkin seeds from the guts for a later recipe was hard.  Not too difficult, but sticky.  Peeling a pumpkin is also super difficult.  For the first half of the pumpkin, I tried to cut it so that I cut the flesh away from the peel.  Each time I did this, I was afraid of cutting myself.  For the second half, I tried a vegetable peeler and found that it works wonders.  However, removing the guts from the flesh also proved frustrating.  I never completely removed them but I did a good enough job.  I had to grate the pumpkin in two batches after a failed attempt at grating them all at once.  However, my food processor (as always) does a wonderful job of chopping things into tiny bits.  I cooked the pasta ahead of time only to have it wait for about half an hour while I prepared the sauce.  I definitely recommend doing it in the order he says.  The sauce never did quite disintegrate to the consistency I wanted it to, but it was quite delicious.  I added a bit more butter and sugar than the recipe called for but I thought it came out good anyways.  We served it with a salad and called it a meal.




Penne with pumpkin and a side salad



Experiments with figs

     I am still very much a self-taught cook.  So, perhaps not surprisingly, one of the things I do not do that often is create my own recipes.  Not follow a recipe exactly, yes.  Do a slight (or not so slight) permutation on a recipe, for sure.  But create my own?  Very rarely.  What follows is my attempt to (mostly) create my own recipe.
     As I believe I have mentioned before, I love the Food and Wine section of the newspaper.  Not so much for the wine (I am only a minor wine-lover) but for all the great food information, recipes and restaurant reviews.  About a month or so ago, the Santa Cruz sentinel ran an article on fresh figs.  Having never tried fresh figs before and after reading about how great they were, I decided to try to find them.  Long story short, I finally found them a couple of weeks later at our local grocery store, New Leaf.  I wasn't even 100% sure that they were figs that I bought.
     I wish I could spend the rest of the article talking about how fantastic they were and how I was converted into an instant fan.  Alas, I cannot.  I tried them (after first looking up how in the world to eat a fresh fig), enjoyed them but didn't see what the big deal was.  They are very seedy (think of a fig newton and you will know what I am talking about) and not quite sweet enough for my taste.  I tend to like my fruit sweet and juicy like a ripe fresh nectarine or strawberry.  Well, this left me with the very interesting dilemma of what to do with the rest of the figs.
     You should know, first of all, that figs are very perishable.  I tried bringing them to work with me thinking that perhaps I would eat them there.  However, they just sat in the refridgerator neglected like they had at home.  I finally brought them home at the end of the week and tried to endeavor how I would use the rest of them, all the while hoping that they hadn't gone bad.  I went to Trader Joe's on friday and bought a few ingredients that I thought I could use to pep up the rather bland figs.  Cooking them was the way to go.
     After browsing a few recipes today, I just decided to make my own.  I got the idea from some other recipes, but decided to just experiment.  Here is the recipe I have made:

ripe figs (I had only 7 but you could use more)
prosciutto ham
balsamic vinegar
honey
crumbled goat cheese


Take the figs, rinse them (and in my case, throw out the bad ones).  Cut off the top stem and then slice them so that they end up in four parts (but don't cut all the way through to the bottom).  Stuff them with the crumbled goat cheese.  Top with some balsamic vinegar and honey.  Wrap prosciutto ham around them.  Cook them in a 375 degree F oven for ten minutes.  Serve warm.

Goat cheese stuffed figs wrapped with prosciutto

The verdict?  Delicious!  Especially the prosciutto ham.  I love the way it crisps and toughens up when it is cooked.  The goat cheese is really great, too!  The worst part?  The figs!  Ha!  In reality, though, the figs were actually quite delicious.  Warm and sweet and the seediness is diminished.  The vinegar also adds a nice contrast of taste although the honey taste disappeared.  Perhaps it got mixed in with the sweet figs?  Enjoy!

Finally! My first food post!

  I love the food section of the newspaper.  Ever week I wait with glee for wednesday to roll around.  Wednesday is when the Santa Cruz sentinal (our local paper) puts out their food section.  It is wonderful!  It is worth having the newspaper just for that section once a week alone!  Not only does it review local restaurants but it also tells you what is in season, gives you oodles of recipes, food tips, etc.  A foodie's dream.   So, I was quite pleased when I finally read the food section on friday of this week (it took me until then to find the Wednesday paper) and saw a really cool recipe for Mediterranean Chicken and Artichoke pot pie.   What really caught my eye was the fact that the recipe said I could use a store-bought rotisserie chicken instead of having to bake my own.  I hate having to cook meat separately so that you can use it in a recipe.  It's extra work in addition to all the work of the recipe.  Plus, believe it or not, I am not the best at cooking meat.  That is Scott's job.  Scott is the expert at cooking the meat, cooking breakfast and cooking vegetables (especially stir fries!).  I cook the grains, bake and do any other complex recipe.  We balance each other out well.
  Anyways, I saw this recipe and fell in love. I love pot pie, I am Mediterranean (a quarter Armenian) and I didn't have to cook the chicken!  Sign me up!  The recipe is as follows:

Mediterranean chicken and artichoke pot pie

2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
3/4 cup uncooked converted white rice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, or to taste
1 1/2 cups water
14-ounce can artichoke hearts, drained
3 cups diced, cooked chicken
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
6 large (14-by-18-inch) sheets thawed filo dough
6 tablespoons butter, melted

   In a medium saucepan over medium, heat the oil. Add the onion and cooked, stirring often, until softened and lightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the rice, lemon juice, salt, pepper and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cover and simmer the rice until tender and it has absorbed all the liquid, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl to cool slightly.
    Heat the oven to 375 F. Gently squeeze any excess liquid from the artichoke hearts, slice thinly and add to the rice. Add the chicken, feta, oregano and lemon zest. Stir to combine thoroughly. Keeping the sheets of filo dough in a single stack, cut them in half crosswise to make 12 pieces. Cover the pieces with plastic wrap to prevent them from drying as you work. Brush the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with butter.
Brush the top of a piece of filo with butter and set it in the prepared baking dish. Repeat with 5 more pieces of filo. Spread the chicken and rice filling in an even layer over the filo. Top with 6 more pieces of buttered filo.  Bake the pie for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the filo is crisp and golden. Let stand for 5 minutes to cool, then cut into squares to serve.

Start to finish: 1 hour 10 minutes (30 minutes active)

Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 344 calories; 167 calories from fat (49 percent of total calories); 19 g fat (10 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 92 mg cholesterol; 26 g carbohydrate; 18 g protein; 0 g fiber; 714 mg sodium

   It came out delicious (can you tell from my picture?)!  This was the first time that I had worked with phyllo (or filo) dough.  At first I found it a bit difficult becaus it kept breaking on me.  Then I realized that was because it hadn't completely defrosted yet.  Once it defrosted, it became a pretty easy but still delicate thing to work with.  I didn't fit it completely to the baking dish as you can see, but it still worked out.  I also learned about converted rice.  Apparently, it is rice that is cooked with the outer part on and then that outer part is removed after cooking.  So, it is faster cooking than brown rice but more nutritious than white.  Interesting.  Lemon zest made the dish!  Yum!

No food left untried part 2

Okay, now onto the perhaps not as adventuresome foods.  Except for the first entry.  Read on...

SNAILS
  In the form of escargot, of course.  I have actually had escargot twice in my life.  Once was on the same cruiseship where I tried the frog legs.  They served the escargot on the little escargot plate in sauce.  I remember enjoying it.  It was a bit chewy and tasted like the sauce.  The second time I tried escargot was in Paris, France.  When I was 19, I went on a whirlwind European bus tour with a couple of highschool friends.  When we stayed at this little camp in Paris, they offered us escargot.  Same reaction as before, only this time I got crunchy bits in addition to the chewy bits.  The crunchy bits may have been there on the cruise ship escargot, but I do not remember them quite as clearly.  Thank goodness I never had to remove them out of their shell as they came pre-shelled.  That would have just been a disaster (think Julia Roberts in "Pretty woman").

ALLIGATOR
   Casa de fruta (a wonderful dried fruit and nut place in Hollister, CA) sells all sorts of jerky.  One of them was alligator.  It tasted like jerky.  Nothing enlightening.

OSTRICH
  I've had ostrich twice in my life.  Once as a burger on Catalina island and another time quite recently as a sausage from Corralitos sausage company.  The burger was good; dense with a slight gamey taste.  The sausage was also quite enjoyable but it had a slightly off taste that I couldn't quite get into.  The consistency was also a bit off.  Perhaps too dense?  Like if you imagine ground beef that's been overcooked and hardened.  Scott, however, loved the sausages.

RABBIT
  I ordered this at a Moroccan restaurant in my hometown of San Pedro, CA.  I remember enjoying it although it has been many years so I cannot tell you more than that.  I do remember my friends and I making jokes about eating poor Thumper.

DEER
  Well, if I ate Thumper, it is only fair that I eat Bambi as well.  I had venison at another restaurant in San Pedro called the Whale's tail.  It was the first time I had been there and they had this on the menu.  Yummy although again a bit gamey.  Very moist.  I also had it again quite recently in sausage form from guess where?  Corralitos sausage company..  Mmmmm....

GOAT
  I quite enjoy goat meat and wish it were more available.  I first had it in Tijuana, Mexico.  I went down there with a co-worker of mine who ordered a couple of meat soups for me.  After I was about halfway done with the soup, she told me it was goat meat.  Fortunately, I was not the least bit offended and quite enjoyed it.  I have had it many times since and thoroughly enjoy it whenever I can get it.  If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.

BOAR
  I had this at a German restaurant down in Orange, CA.  It tastes like pork but thicker and gamier.

GOOSE
  Same restaruant in Orange, CA.

ELK
  When Scott and I took our first road trip together, we saw a stand who was selling elk burgers right as we crossed into the Oregon line.  We pulled over and had very delicious burgers.  Very reminiscent of buffalo burgers.

SEA URCHIN EGGS
  Also known as Uni.  I tried uni at a Japanese restaurant.  I did not enjoy its flavor or consistency but at least I can say I tried it.  It tasted like old rotten seafood.  Yuck!

BUFFALO
  Since buffalo meat is so common, I almost hesitate to put it on here.  However, again, I tried it first on Catalina island.  Scott and I buy buffalo meat whenver we can.  Another meat I highly recommend, especially if you have never tried it!

OCTOPUS
  I have tried octopus on sushi.  I believe it was raw.  Very chewy but I definitely enjoyed it!  I also tried what I believe was octopus at my friend's house one night when I was in middle school.  My friend is Filipino and her mother loved to feed me (I didn't mind!).  I remember it being deep fried with a coating, so I wasn't sure if it was octopus or squid.  It was quite enjoyable but I got a sore throat afterwards.  I have always wondered if that octopus gave me the sore throat.

SQUID
  We've all had calamari, right?

SEAWEED
  Yes, I realize seaweed is common especially if you love sushi as I do.  However, I tried this seaweed straight out of the ocean as I was paddling off of Catalina island.  It tasted like relish.  I could never quite look at relish the same way again.

DUCK
  Another common thing.  I've had it twice.  First was at a Chinese restaurant where I thought it tasted like smelly feet.  The second was in Paris, France.  This was during the time of the mad cow scare so my friends and I opted for the duck a l'orange.  Delicious!

QUAIL
  This was another dish I had somewhere on the European tour.  I remember enjoying it.  I have also had quail eggs.  Exactly like chicken eggs except, of course, smaller.  One of them I had in a Syrian restaurant in London.  I don't remember which.

  Well, I am sure that there are more out there but that is what I can think of off of the top of my head.  Hopefully, I can add more on as time goes by.  I hope you have enjoyed!

No food left untried part 1

The idea for this blog came from a friend of mine as did the title.  I thought that it would be fun to write about all the strange things that I have eaten in my life.  I love to be open to new things.  My motto is "as long as I don't have a moral objection to it, I'll try it!"  So here is a list (and an explanation) of some of the stranger things that I have eaten

JELLYFISH.  One thing you should know about me is that I love jellyfish.  I mean as a species, not as a culinary item.  I am absolutely obsessed with jellyfish and love to have pictures, models, etc. around.  In fact, at work, I sometimes even go by the name "jellyfish."  So, when the time came around that I got the opportunity to try a jellyfish, I just couldn't say no. 
  The first time I tried jellyfish I actually tried vegetarian jellyfish.  Can you believe that?  A non-jellyfish jellyfish.  This was at a Chinese restaurant in Southern California (Torrance, to be exact) that offered vegetarian versions of famous chinese food.  So, I tried it.  It was pretty good, although this was so long ago that I don't remember much about it.
  The second time I had jellyfish it was the real thing.  My Aunt and I were visiting with a friend of hers who happened to live in Berkeley.  She took us to a genuine (and very nice) Chinese restaurant.  One of the menu items they had was jellyfish.  It came with some kind of beef product; I don't remember if it was tripe or muscle.  The jellyfish itself tasted like nothing except its sauce.  Its consistency was very strange.  Gelatinous, but it also had a bite to it.  Like it would be gelatinous for so long when you bit into it and then you could just bite right into it.  Chewy, but not quite.  It was very strange.  I've never tasted anything with quite that consistency.
  Oh, and just in case you were wondering, when you eat jellyfish you are actually eating the bell (or top) of the jellyfish.  This part has no stinging cells so it is perfectly safe to eat.

COMB JELLYFISH
   This experience comes from a wonderful community college biology teacher and her strange ideas.  I had a wonderful teacher named Jeanne Bellemin at El Camino community college.  At the time, I believe I was taking a marine biology course with her.  It is hard to remember for sure because I took so many classes with her.  Anyways, as part of this class, we went on a boat trip called "Catalina above and below."  We went out on this giant boat at night near Catalina island and then did a plankton collection both on the surface of the water and deep in the water.  We caught a lot of cool things and got to see what happens to a styrofoam cup when you put it under pressure (it shrinks).   One of the things we caught was a comb jelly, or ctenophore.  Now these are in a completely different phyla from regular jellyfish although they have basically the same name.  Anyways, Jeanne was seeing how many people wanted to become part of the Ctenophore club.  I, of course, volunteered.  It turns out to become a part of the Ctenophore club you have to eat a live Ctenophore.  So, I did.  It tasted like the sea water and had the consistency of a peeled grape.  Get a peeled grape, stick it in some sea water and you will know exactly what I ate!

FROG LEGS
  The classic.  I am french, after all (and other things but never mind that).  Anyways, this was served on an Alaskan cruise ship I was lucky enough to go on when I was in middle school.  My mother was working as a naturalist on board said ship.  One of the things that they served at the fancy dinner was frog legs.  I didn't order it, but one of my tablemates did and he let me try one.  It tasted like chicken.  In the shape of a frog.  Poor frog.

INSECTS
  Specifically, I ate meal worms, crickets and grasshoppers.  One time at UCSC, I saw a notice about an insectophage meeting (or something along those lines).  I decided to check it out since I've always believed in eating insects.  If you really think about it, it makes sense.  They have more protein and less fat than any other animal.  Plus, if we ate the insects instead of spraying them with pesticides we would have a lot fewer problems.  Anyways, so they had this insect cooking/trying day.  First, they cooked the meal worms alive and let us try it.  They tasted crunchy.  Next, they cooked crickets and put this in chex mix.  That was my favorite.  If you didn't think too much about it, you didn't even notice that there were insects in the mix.  The third thing they served us was grasshoppers from some Mexican restaurant.  This was my least favorite.  I just didn't like the flavor of the grasshoppers.  Ick.
  I suppose I should also mention that I have eaten ants in the Sierras.  I believe they were Carpenter ants.  I do remember that you had to bite them before they bit you.  They tasted rather like raspberry vinaigrette dressing.  Plus I didn't get bitten.  Always a plus!

To be continued...

The skipped generational cook

   I love to cook.  My mother always joked that the cooking "gene" skipped her and her mother and went straight to me.  My great-grandmother was apparently a wonderful cook who made everything from scratch for my grandmother and my mother.  I wish I could have met her.  Alas, I grew up on TV and box dinners.  I decided long ago to cook my own real food so that I wouldn't have to ever eat TV dinners again!
   This blog all started with a facebook picture gallery.  Since my fiance and I have moved in together, I have been cooking a lot more than I even did in the past.  It seemed a shame to just have all these meals go unrecorded.  So, I started putting my pictures up on facebook.  Check it out at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2271252&id=6707209&l=e775ad1d48  Soon enough, people started asking me when I would start my own food blog.  So, here it is.  I want this blog to be about cooking, food and food sources, reference books, restaurants, etc.  I'm still feeling it out so bear with me but I'm sure it'll be a marvelous and delicious ride.
   I call it "In search of the perfect macaroni and cheese" because of a little joke I have with myself.  Despite my wonderful cooking skills and my ability to master almost any recipe I make, I have never been able to make a great macaroni and cheese.  It doesn't matter what I do; somehow or another something is wrong with it.  Macaroni and cheese is one of my favorite dishes and I have very high standards on what a good macaroni and cheese tastes like.  Don't ask me how I got those standards with the TV dinner background I have, but somehow or another I do.  Macaroni and cheese must be just cheesy enough and firm enough and have the perfect topping.  I haven't found it yet, but one day I will find the perfect recipe for macaroni and cheese.