Getting (re)inspired through chocolate and peanut butter

Sometimes when I make a few bad recipes, I start to question my interest in cooking and the hours invested in a simple meal. November was a culinary wasteland in this apartment with the exception of our trip to Senegal of course! I normally like cooking this time of year and serving up steaming plates of food with spiced fall comfort drinks. But after a few dud recipes last month, I started to loose my motivation. Recently for example, I made dry and bland carnitas and a yucky pumpkin,goat cheese and lentil salad despite the rave reviews of others who had tried these recipes. Sigh.

To get back in the groove this weekend, I opted for an easy crowd pleaser to bring along to the holiday parties. Chocolate and peanut butter brownies. It's hard to go wrong...well, unless you are negotiating nap time with your one year old and forget to take them out of the oven. A few got a bit dry but the ones in the middle hit the spot. I like this recipe and the ganache is worth the extra effort especially if you toss in a bit of sea salt.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/10/peanut-butter-brownies/

I ate many. I'm now feeling (re)inspired and ready to cook my way through December.

The Case of the Leaking Mole

This is not the first time I have said it and it’s certainly not going to be the last. Mexican food in NYC sucks. There are a few places to get a decent taco but beyond that, it’s the pits. So on my last day in Mexico City, I stopped by a tortilleria and stocked up on a few kilos of tortillas. I was planning to leave it at that but en route to one of our clinics, I stumbled upon an elderly lady dishing up the most amazing tamales I have ever had. As I was devouring my tamal, she made me try a bite of her mole as she listed off the ingredients…sesame paste, cinnamon, countless varieties of chilies and of course chocolate. I was immediately smitten with her potent paste and despite images of mole exploding in my suitcase (which it did), I bought a bundle of it.
Mole is just one of those things that I don’t think I’ll ever attempt to make unless I happen to move to Mexico City and have access to all those fresh ingredients. (Yes, this is foreshadowing.)Reading through what looks like an authentic recipe is overwhelming!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/bayless-black-mole-recipe_n_583397.html

As far as jarred brands go, Doña Maria mole is actually quite good if you doctor it up. This time around I had the real thing however and it was fantastic. All I did was boil up some boneless, skinless chicken thighs, pull them apart and mix them with a few spoons of the mole paste and the broth they were boiled in. With a few slices of avocado and some rice, dinner was served. And when I run out of the mole in my kitchen, I can start scraping out the insides of my suitcase.

The Last Meal of Summer

I suspect we have a few more warm days this year, but it’s hard to deny that fall is in the air. I’ll continue to be in denial until late November when I’ll be shivering my way to the subway in open-toed shoes and insisting that I don’t need to get my coat out of the coat closet. (That last part was inserted for the sole purpose of bragging that I now have a coat closet. Go UWS!)

Anyways, earlier this week I made what I consider to be the last meal of the summer before I move on to roast vegetables, beef stews and lasagna. I choose a “pasta salad” that Rupal had made me a few weeks prior. I think it’s fitting since pasta salad pretty much epitomizes summer despite the fact that it’s often bland, oily and garnished with those dreaded flecks of green pepper.

Heidi Swanson’s take on it is original, healthy and a treat to look at. Instead of an oil and vinegar based sauce that rarely manages to stick to the noodles, she uses a blend of tahini, yogurt, garlic and spices. Cheese ravioli bulk it up as do the broccoli, cauliflower and green beans. I would recommend roasting the tomatoes since it gives the salad a depth that would otherwise be missing.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/sesame-yogurt-pasta-salad-recipe.html

It was a successful transition meal. Now I just need to work on my closet.

It’s Apple Season… Avoid the orchards!

When I was a kid I used to love to go apple picking in the fall for the same reason most people do – apple cider doughnuts. So a few years ago when Kim suggested an excursion to an orchard outside of Manhattan, I jumped at the opportunity. Let’s just say I won’t be returning soon!

Many orchards advertise themselves as being 40 minutes from midtown Manhattan which in the dead of winter might be the case. However, as soon as the scent of seasonal apples starts to hit the city’s supermarkets, expect a mass exodus of screaming kids heading to pick their own apples. Imagine cars backed up for miles waiting to pass through quaint gates guarding the ripe apples. Imagine flocks of kids descending on the trees like crazed bees. Oh, and imagine crazed bees too.

Anyways, until Xavier begs and pleads to participate in this ritual, I’m getting my apples on the corner of 97th and Broadway. Last night I stopped in on my way home and decided to make what Heidi Swanson calls an “unfussy apple cake”. It’s no apple cider donut but it’s a delicious, hearty and somewhat healthy way to showcase fall’s prized fruit. I used a bit more than two cups of apples and added a pinch of nutmeg and ground ginger. I loved it. Xavier hated it. He’s probably holding out for an apple cider donut.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/unfussy-apple-cake-recipe.html

Camping Leftovers? Make a Frittata

Anybody that has done anything with Mark knows that he likes excess. That’s his charm. Moderation is overrated. When you go to dinner, you don’t split an appetizer. When you travel to Cartagena, you don’t stay in a youth hostel. And when you go camping, you buy 36 eggs.

Only I would bring leftovers home from a camping trip! I wasn’t going to let those eggs go to waste though so yesterday morning I woke up with over 20 eggs in my fridge. It seemed like the right time to make a frittata. I loosely followed the recipe for an Onion Frittata on Bon Appetit that Rebecca recommended.

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/05/onion-frittata

I tweaked it to incorporate the vegetables I had on hand and added potatoes to bulk it up a bit. I started by sautéing onions and thinly sliced red potatoes until soft and then I added a huge bunch of spinach. One the spinach was wilted I added the egg and gruyere (instead of Parmesan) mixture. Before I put it in the oven, I tossed some grape tomatoes that I had roasted ahead of time with a pinch of brown sugar and olive oil. (I roasted them ahead of time not because I wanted to be gourmet but because they were looking a little lackluster. This is a fantastic way to revive them.)
http://rachelsdigestif.com/post/5337357914/roasted-cherry-tomatoes

The result was a very flavorful, hearty and attractive frittata that was packed with vegetables and protein. Not bad for camping leftovers. Thanks Mark!

Tomato Cobbler on Rainy Night

Regardless of whether or not I’m having eight people or one person over for dinner, I feel like I need to make something out of the ordinary. I think that feeling has grown stronger since I moved uptown and know most people have a longer commute to join me at my table.

Last Thursday I had plenty of food in my fridge, it was pouring rain, I was slammed at work and I was running late to relieve the sitter. I tried to convince myself to throw together a nice meal with the ingredients already in my fridge, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful heirloom mini-tomatoes I had seen at the market the day before. (Why didn’t I buy them the day before? My ability to be organized has gone down the tube.) So I pushed my way off the subway past a maze of umbrellas and made a beeline for the tomatoes.

Once dry and warm in my apartment, I got to work making a tomato cobbler that caught my eye on Lottie and Doof. It’s a fairly time consuming but easy recipe that lent itself well to slow preparation, a glass of wine and a chat with my friend Laura. I followed the recipe below fairly closely – carmelizing the onion and garlic mixture, making dough with cold butter, cream and Gruyere and baking it all for an hour. I added basil (I had to use something

from my fridge) and cut back a bit on the cheese and oil.

Obviously the recipe’s success lies in the quality of the seasonal tomatoes so my rainy dash paid off. It’s very rich…deliciously rich but rich nonetheless. Next time I will try to substitute milk for the cream and cut back even more on the oil. And I’ll buy the damn tomatoes the day before. http://www.lottieanddoof.com/2011/08/tomato-cobbler/

Lemon Ice Cream Sandwiches with Blueberry Swirl

Homemade ice cream sandwiches sounds so “Suzie Homemaker” that I hesitate to even admit that I tried these. When a recipe says 4 ½ hours from start to finish, I usually chuckle and wonder who on earth has that kind of time. But it was my mom’s birthday and I was home with the family. I had some time since my evenings weren’t booked up with Broadway plays, literary lectures and interpretative dance shows like they are when I’m in NYC. Right. Anyways…

This recipe is a little absurd but I think it’s a good base to play around with. I like the idea of making brownie type bars and then stuffing them with ice cream and other deliciousness. I don’t think there necessarily has to be this many steps but maybe Gourmet felt they needed to overcompensate since they were cooking such a childish dessert? Long story short, it’s very much worth the effort for a special occasion and seems like it’s one of those recipes that would be a lot easier the second time around. Although when I’ll have 5 hours to myself again is beyond me….

http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2009/08/lemon-ice-cream-sandwiches-with-blueberry-swirl