Dutch Baby Pancake

5:30 Thursday - "I don't want to share a GIANT pancake! I just want regular pancakes! UGH!!"

6:15 Thursday - "This is gooooood! I don't like it - I love it! There isn't any more? UGH!!"

Chocolate Yogurt Snack Cakes

David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City

Books and a Meal

It's been some time since I've shown any cooking photos. The truth is, the cooking around here has been pretty boring lately. I've been cooking a lot of my house 'standards' over and over and let's face it, they aren't' very interesting. Last night I decided to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with an Irish themed meal.

Sort of.

Here is 'Irish' stew and colcannon.



The stew could have been more Irish had I used Guiness, instead I used an English nut brown ale. This was yummy! Now that I've found out how easy it is, I'm wondering why I never made stew before. I practically just threw everything into the pot, cooked it for 3 hours and voila! Dinner. Gotta love that. I used Jamie Oliver's super easy technique from his latest US release, Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals. I think I've mentioned this book before, but I will again just because I think it is so good. I'm a pretty experienced cook and I like it, yet it's aim is people who are not used to cooking. Oh, and do you know what colcannon is? Cabbage combined with mashed potatoes. I sauteed the cabbage for a long time in butter, until it was soft and sweet. Want to guess what I'm having for lunch?

Here are a couple things I read recently:

Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth

The is the final book in Worth's trilogy about her experience as a midwife in the East End in the 1950s. I am sad there will not be any more installments. This book is very similar to the first in the series in that it focuses on specific experiences the midwives had. They are graphic birth stories, and the subject matter of many of them will surprise and shock you. There are also stories of Worth's life in the convent where she lived while working as a midwife. These stories I found not as compelling, but they do provide some comic relief from the intensity of the rest of the book. I recommend this series highly and while the first book is my favorite of the three, this is a close second.

The Spare Room: A Novelby Helen Garner

Unexpected.

That's the main word that keeps coming to mind whenever I think about this book. The Spare Room is the story of two women who have been friends during their adult lives. One of them, Nicola, is ill, she had cancer, and she asks her friend Helen if she can stay with her for a few weeks while she undergoes therapy. I think I was expecting lots of heartfelt conversations and tears. Perhaps thoughts of end-of-life regrets and tender moments. That was not the shape this story took. These characters aren't any cookie-cutter depictions of people dealing with cancer. Cancer doesn't suddenly make everyone a saint. The story of Nicola and Helen is authentic. How difficult is it to care for someone with cancer? How does it affect the caregiver and the relationship? Recommended.
This book was provided by Librarything's Early Reviewers Program.

What's Cooking?

Here are a few things I've cooked up this Fall.




Oh boy I can taste these peppers! Roasted in the oven with tiny tomatoes, basil and olive oil these were divine. This recipe came from Nigel Slater's latest book, Tender.

My big green pot has been in heavy rotation.



Here is Emily Franklin's Gross-Looking but Very Delicious-Tasting Red Lentil Soup from Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes(loved this book). The recipe name is hers.


My family wouldn't touch this once they heard the word LENTIL. Sheesh. I liked this soup and might have liked it more if I had blended it. The best part about it was how easy it was to make.

I am sadly lacking a photo of the gorgeously colored cauliflower cheese soup from Jamie Oliver's latest cookbook, Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals.




I've been a fan of Jamie's for years and I think he genuinely wants us to cook and eat better. I also think this is his best cookbook to date that will get the average person to achieve this. It's accessible, fun to read, and contains lots of 'take it to the next step or keep it simple' sort of recipes.

Next up, are my divine baked beans.



My grandmother was an amazing cook and she made the best baked beans ever. My favorite meal of hers was made up of these beans, roasted loin of pork and homemade cole slaw. I can still taste it and I haven't eaten it since I was a kid. These beans took me back. I combined two recipes to make these beans, using navy beans, lots of bacon, molasses, brown sugar, tomato paste, ketchup, mustard and maple syrup. They spent about 7 hours in the oven and they were truly amazing. Served alongside ham steak and great cole slaw, I had a happy family.

Here is the Cuban style black bean stew from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show.



That's a ham hock in there. I'm still not too sure how I feel about those. This was a tasty supper. Here is how I served it; over brown rice and topped with cheese and homemade guacamole. My family will eat about anything topped with cheese and guacamole. Except lentils.



Now I'm hungry. Luckily I have some of the bolognese sauce I made for dinner last night left over. Cheers!

Farmers' Market - September 20

I had company again this week at the market. While there, she ate a doughnut and an apple cider popsicle. On the way home she ate a tiny apple that was gifted to her. Lucky girl!

Funny, this doesn't look as heavy as it felt! Peppers, corn, wax beans, leeks, spinach, garlic, meats, and fresh apple cider (!!). Last night we feasted on flank steak, corn on the cob and spinach. I can never believe that you can start with so much spinach and wind up with less than a cup when you cook it.

In exciting news, my new cookbook arrived today. It looks divine and after the first quick browse, I might do something from it tonight. More on Tender later. I see the price has gone up. Nuts.

Purple Cauliflower

It stays purple when you cook it. Just in case you were wondering.



The End.

Farmers' Market - August 2

Ahhh. Veggies.



Here are the goods from today. I think I'm going to cook that flank steak tonight with corn and the snap peas (not sure why there are still snap peas, but these looked okay), and tomorrow I will make potato and squash gratin with green beans on the side. Have you seen yellow shallots? I'm used to the red ones but thought I'd try these. I did see some tomatoes today, peppers, and eggplant. The weather has been cool, cool, cool. I hope I can make my tomato sauce this year -this is my summer wish. Enjoy the day!

Farmers' Market - July 18

Oh Happy Day! Corn is here!

The market was packed yesterday, there was one vendor selling corn and the buyers were 5 deep. It was so busy that the St Paul police officer that monitors the market was breaking down boxes and bagging and selling corn. Nuts!

New additions for me this week were cucumbers (refrigerator pickles?) and leeks - yum!

We had friends over for dinner last night. I served:

*Barefoot Contessa's lemon chicken with satay sauce
*boiled corn
*a salad of halved roasted fingerling potatoes, blanched green and wax beans, basil, chives and a balsamic vinaigrette
*Molly Wizenberg's lemon yogurt cake with strawberries and blueberries (the recipe from the book for this cake includes a syrup that you pour over the warm cake before putting on the glaze - I think that puts this over the top)

Unfortunately I was too busy to take photos of any of it, but it was all delicious!

Farmers' Market - July 12

I was disappointed today not to find corn at the market, but now looking back, I see that I wasn't able to buy it until July 20 last year. We're having another summer on the cool side here so I'm sure that is part of the reason why.

Lots of lovely things today though. Besides the 'ususal' snow peas, green/wax beans, potatoes and scallions, I bought some broccoli, gorgeous spinach, shallots, late summer wildflower honey, strawberries, yellow squash and kabob meat. I had a heavy bag, I mean bags, today. I am going to make this squash and potato gratin today, it is an old favorite of mine and I make it a few times every summer. Not sure my family is as crazy about it as me, but oh well, I say.

Farmers' Market - July 4

I bought lots of good things yesterday. I was most excited to see green/wax beans and most disappointed not to find corn. I went to a BBQ yesterday and meant to make a salad from Sara Foster's book, Fresh Every Day (a fabulous book), which was supposed to contain arugula (stand-in for watercress), snap peas, corn, and a blue cheese dressing. Instead I made a huge salad with arugula, snap peas and wax peas that I blanched, raw summer squash, scallions and blue cheese with the lemon/red wine vinegar dressing. It was yummy and disappeared, always a good sign.

Oh! I almost forgot. I'm trying something new from the market I've been intrigued by for a while. Farm-raised, organic rainbow trout - it's right in the front. I bought some that is already seasoned and we're going to try grilling it.

Cheers!

Farmers' Market - May 31

My family is going to be happy, happy, happy that peas are coming in and asparagus is on its way out. I could eat asparagus every day, them, not so much.

From the top left: beautiful lettuces, some early garlic (not sure what this will look like when I cut it open), radishes, pea shoots, asparagus, snap peas (cannot wait for snow peas), late summer honey, table onions, and some beef. Yum!

There were definitely more people shopping and selling today.

If you happen to have fresh snap peas, here's a really nice recipe I made several times last year - Green Peas and Sugar Snap Peas in Sesame Dressing.

Can we talk about rhubarb for a minute? I was going to write a post entitled 'Rhubarb: Friend or Foe?' but I never quite got around to it. I tried a recipe for rhubarb salsa- I thought it was going to be similar to a chutney. Here's a photo of my ingredient gathering.



Anyhow, I made it. I thought the rhubarb smelled funny when I was dicing it, then after it was cooked it was mushy and stringy. I threw the whole thing out which just aggravates me - I hate wasting perfectly good ingredients. There are very few foods that I really don't like. Rhubarb might have joined ranks with lima beans, for me. Maybe I just need to eat something with rhubarb that someone else has made properly, I don't know.

Quite Possibly the Best Book of the Year

I came to be a fan of Molly Wizenberg slowly, in fits and starts. I became aware of her blog Orangette, I think sometime in 2007. I read along, sometimes, not always, but when Molly became a monthly writer for Bon Appetit I became more familiar with her work and with her 'taste' in food. I knew she had a book coming out, I figured I'd read it at some point, heck - I could even wait for the paperback. But then I held it in my hands and paged through it. I put it back. Back to the bookstore another day I looked through it more closely - and knew it had to be mine. I waited for just the right moment to start it. I didn't want to be distracted by traveling and reading obligations - I wanted to focus.

It was worth the wait.

Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life is sublime. Delicious. Heartbreaking and life-affirming. Organized in short chapters, each essay is followed by a recipe or sometimes two pertaining to the content of the essay. I was nostalgic as Molly wrote about her childhood in Oklahoma, jealous of the opportunity she had to study in Paris, I became tearful when she wrote with great poignancy of her father's illness and death, and joyful when she finds herself madly in love.

Molly was born to write. In one section, she shares an essay she wrote in high school. It is shocking how well it is written. Molly is a woman who has figured out at a young age what her passion is and has been able to turn that into a life for herself. Hopefully that means we will have many more books by her.

I doled out little bits of this book to myself, chapter by chapter. This past Monday I sat outside and inhaled the last 100 or so pages in one gulp. I didn't want it to end, but I couldn't stop either. If you love food, if you love cooking, you will love this book. Even if you don't, I bet you'll love it anyway.

Here is Molly's lemon yogurt cake that I baked with the girl yesterday.




It was delicious and if you didn't have 'help' I bet you could get it into the oven in five minutes. Seriously.

Potato Gratin - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I've said before and I'll say it again - I'd love for some sort of potato gratin to be part of my last meal on earth. Barring that, I love to eat it on holidays, with friends, just for Sunday dinner. Potato gratin used to seem a somewhat daunting dish to me, so much to peel, chop and assemble. I suppose I've just done it enough now that I'm used to the process and find it all quite simple.

I've featured a few different potato gratins here on Books and Cooks. First, there was the Yukon Gold Gruyere Galette. Not only is it divine tasting, but Karen mentioned it and suddenly - I had readers. That galette changed my life.

I thought I had posted a photo of my herbed summer squash and potato torte - a summertime favorite for sure. Here is a post by another fan of this torte.

Here is a more simple gratin in process.



Here is the link to the recipe for this one. I actually don't even remember making this to tell you the truth! Good thing I have a blog. I actually made this again just recently for company and used milk for the liquid. It separated in the oven again, but due to necessity, I removed it from the oven and then reheated it - it turned out beautifully.

This brings us to my most recent gratin, Potato-Onion Gratin from Bon Appetit and for which I can find no recipe online. This was another keeper.




Onions are sauteed in olive oil, to which garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper are added. They are divided in three parts and layered between peeled and sliced potatoes which are salted and peppered along the way. Chicken broth is poured over the entire thing which is then baked in the oven covered at first then uncovered until finally you end up with this.




So divine. I think I either added too much broth or cooked it too long since they seemed a bit too soft. But. Still very, very good, dairy free, and could be vegan if you used veggie broth.

Ah, the potato gratin. Infinite possibilities.

What I Ate This Weekend

I worked all weekend so I have nothing bookish to say. Since I was working all weekend I needed something to eat at work and I'm tired of soup. I can't believe I said that! And the food at work, well it leaves a lot to be desired. I wanted to make some sort of grain salad that would hold well and I came across a picture on Tastespotting which led me to someones post (cannot remember where) which led me to Closet Cooking and this post which was my inspiration. Mr Closet Cooking has posted loads of farro salads and I was going to do this one with cauliflower and chickpeas, but with a few minor changes. But Whole Foods didn't have cauliflower but did have asparagus so I went with that. Even though the asparagus is from Mexico, at least my kid wasn't going to eat this.

So here's what I started with.



I already had farro, which is kind of expensive, but wheat berries or brown rice would work well here and cost lots less. I had a craving for blue cheese so that was on the ingredient list. I had those walnut pieces in the fridge and toasted them. Those fabulous roasted and marinated tomatoes are from the Whole Foods olive bar and they are out of this world. But you could use sun dried tomatoes, or halved cherry tomatoes, or no tomatoes. Or even, red peppers which Mr Closet Cooking used. Red onions, chickpeas, that's it.

I boiled the farro for around 20-30 minutes and while that was cooking I roasted the asparagus and onions.



And I made the vinaigrette with everything you see here. Okay, not the pineapple. I love using those jam jars to make dressing in. So cute! The jam that comes in them is not bad either.



I then combined everything: farro, roasted veggies, toasted walnuts, drained chickpeas, diced tomatoes, and crumbled blue cheese and tossed it all with the vinaigrette. Here is the final product.

Farro salad with asparagus, chickpeas, and blue cheese



It was really tasty and I didn't mind eating it for three days straight.

Cooking Beans - Part 2

So, I borrowed this book from the library and was inspired to make some pinto beans. I'm tempted to buy this book but I'm not sure I really need it.



First I soaked the beans overnight, then covered them with fresh water and added an onion, some garlic and bay leaves and cooked them for around 1 1/2 hours. Here are my pintos after that.



I made a ton of beans, so I packed up two big containers of these beans and froze them. I'm thinking refried beans/nachos. Yum! I turned the rest of the beans into Druken Beans using a recipe from Heirloom Beans. I sauteed bacon, onions, jalapenos, garlic and mushrooms, and added them to the beans which I'd simmered with a beer, Drunken, right? Here are my Drunken Beans.




Don't they look great? I served them with cheese on top and cornbread and salad on the side. I really like Deborah Madison's basic cornbread recipe from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Her method creates a really nice crust. I add-in grated cheese, diced jalapenos, and frozen corn.




My daughter said she was 100 thumbs up on the corn bread, but likes my black beans better. She was a little confused about the mushrooms.

Edited to add: Here is the direct link to the cornbread recipe, look at the bottom of the newsletter. I added one cup of grated cheese and a couple of diced jalapenos to the batter. I remove the pepper seeds, since I am feeding a little one.

Would you care for some beans?

I'm getting ready to go on a mini-trip tomorrow, not a terribly well planned trip since I'm headed to The Windy City where it's to be well, windy, and cold. I'll be the woman wrapped in the down coat. Anyhow, I'm having a bit of book stress today since I just finished two books and am in the middle of nothing! Not a good way to start a trip if you ask me. The third Simon Serrailler book of Susan Hill's arrived and I think that'll be a shoo-in since I'm already involved with the characters. But I feel I need something else, and since I'm nervous about traveling with books that are difficult to replace - Viragos, advance copies, books from the UK, I'm in a bit of quandary.

In light of all this packing and book decisions, I thought I'd share my black bean technique with you since we'll be eating the leftovers tonight.

I soak my beans overnight. In my opinion this keeps them more firm than the quick-soak method and reduces the, um, gassy qualities of the beans. I drain them, cover them with liquid (probably too much) and then bring to a boil with a cut up onion, a few cloves of garlic, bay leaves, and cilantro. You don't want to add salt now or the beans will have trouble becoming soft. That's what I hear anyway.



So bring the beans to the boil, reduce heat and simmer until tender! I have to keep them partially covered for this or they stop simmering. I start checking for doneness after 30 minutes or so, but they can take as long as an hour. It just depends on your beans, and mine seem pretty fresh since they never take quite as long as the books say. In the meantime I prepare this:



Sauteed onions, red pepper, jalapenos, garlic, spices - paprika and cumin, and throw in some cilantro towards the end as well as salt and pepper. I let this get pretty soft.

Since I usually cook my beans in too much water I remove the excess along with the other flavorings I added at the beginning. Add the onion mixture. There's a pretty high ratio of onion mixture to beans here; I actually started this thinking I had more beans to cook.



And that's it! Adjust the seasonings and you could serve these with rice, as a taco filling - mashing them a bit helps with this, or as an enchilada filling. They're yummy and my family is actually happy about this dinner.

I wanted to say, please forgive me if it seems I've not been around much lately. I've mentioned this before, but I have some problems with my right hand and they're flaring up pretty badly right now. I'm trying to rest it. I'm still reading posts, just not commenting very much.

See you next week!

Tidbits

1. Thanks everyone so much for your thoughtful comments and for sharing your stories with me. It's hard to feel so violated in your own home.

2. The WINNER of one copy of The Green Beauty Guide is........

BOOKFOOL!

Congratulations! I'll be emailing you for your address. Thanks to everyone who entered. I appreciated your comments and have found that we all have many of same challenges when choosing green products.

3. Squash.

Squash is good food, and I'm pleased that my family is eating it (somewhat) happily.

First there was this fabulous squash and pasta recipe, then some divine squash soup with roasted garlic and herbs that I kept all for myself. Because no one else would eat it.

Here is my latest creation, a squash and rice casserole that I adapted from Deborah Madison's book, Vegetarian Suppers.



This was total comfort food. Sauteed leeks with garlic and herbs, combined with cooked brown rice, grated butternut squash and a medley of cheeses I found in the fridge. I topped each serving with toasted pine nuts, not part of the recipe but my child is a nut lover and I though it would make this more appealing. My nervous husband suggested we go out after he took one look at this, but after trying it reluctantly said "It's good. I like it. (insert big sigh here)"

Here's how it looked after we had our way with it:



Yum!

4. Book Review

I finished Sophie Hannah's novel Hurting Distance recently. It has a fascinating premise: Naomi is having an affair with a married man. He seems to have disappeared. But when Naomi goes to the police and they contact his wife, she insists he's not missing. Naomi lies to the police in order to get them to take her seriously but this dredges up her past which she is reluctant to discuss.

Sophie Hannah sure knows how to create an atmospheric page-turner. As a reader, I was so attuned to what people were saying, who they were saying it to, and if there could be a double meaning. After all, Hannah completely fooled me with her book Little Face. I was happily reading along, when a storyline emerged having to do with rape. Rape is never a happy or positive story, but the slant this author took was really offensive to me. I found the storyline to be extremely sick and disturbing. It just was not the story I was expecting, nor would ever expect to read to be quite honest. After it becomes obvious what has happened, the final confrontation I found to be very....bland.

I don't know if I'll read Hannah's books again. She certainly does come up with unique and interesting premises, but this book crossed the line for me. I'd love to hear from anyone who has read this book; I had a UK copy but it looks to have been just released in hardcover here.

Farmer's Market - Sunday October 29

This past Sunday was the official end of the 'Summer Market' for the Saint Paul Farmer's Market. After that, the 'Winter Market' begins on Saturdays. The market was vastly different than the last time I was there. Since we'd had our first frost all the summer vegetables were gone. There were probably only 15-20% of the number of usual vendors and the crowd was quite sparse, though it was only 8 am. It felt like I bought one of everything, knowing this might be the last time until Spring.



Look at all that goodness! Spinach, broccoli, onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, apples, cranberries, potatoes, raspberries, eggs, carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, sage, baby gourds, buttercup squash, and that cauliflower - I wish you could see how gorgeous it is. How lucky we are to have so much good food here in Minnesota in October! But don't get too jealous - after the market it snowed most of the afternoon!

All this good food put me in the mood to cook.

I've made a wonderful roasted butternut squash and greens pasta dish from the How to Eat Supper book I posted about a while back. The ingredient list is a bit long, but this seriously took no time at all to put together.

The pasta recipe had half and half in it so I used the leftover to make a potato gratin according to Alice Waters' recipe in The Art of Simple Food.



She suggests the use of half and half as an option but mine separated in the oven, looking curdled but tasting fine. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Finally, I made Brussels Sprout hash with caramelized shallots from the November 2007 Bon Appetit magazine. Yum!

I love lentil soup!

And it's all mine! You may think I'm being greedy, but my husband is terrified that one of these days I'm going to serve this soup to him. I'm not sure why lentils have such a bad reputation, but there it is. This is the soup I make all Fall and Winter, freezing it in individual portions and eating it for lunch at home or at work. Besides freezing well, the other great things about this soup are how easy it is to make and the fact that I ususally have all the ingredients on hand. Here they are.

Those are French Du Puy lentils which I've had since last year. All the stores around here are OUT of them right now. Why is that? Is there an embargo problem with French lentils?



This is the sauteed bacon with carrots and onion added. You could leave the bacon out and use olive oil for a vegetarian soup.

By the way, the recipe for this soup comes from The New Best Recipe by the Cook's Illustrated folks. They'll have my head if I give you the recipe, but if you search around a bit, you can find variations of it.



Here I've added garlic, bay, thyme, and tomatoes.



Now the lentils have been added. The secret to this recipe is sweating the lentils before adding the liquid; they stay firm that way.



I added liquid - wine, broth, and water and simmered. Here is the final product, part of the soup has been pureed in the blender to thicken it.



I guess it's not that pretty, but is sure smells and tastes good.

Have a nice weekend!