Parsnip and Sweet Onion Soup

At some point, I realized "bisque" meant "pureed with cream." It was as if a lightbulb went on over my head: "OHHHH!"

This is a new favorite. It's not from any particular recipe, but is inspired by a lot of old favorites, including New Vegetarian Epicure's Cream of Carrot Soup and Soif restaurant's Sweet Corn Soup.

The recipe serves 2-4 people, depending on whether you're having it as a starter or a main dish.

Enjoy!

(And oh, next to the soup in this photo are a couple of pieces of walnut bread spread with Gorgonzola cheese. Those are also tasty).

Parsnip and Sweet Onion Soup 
1 white sweet onion
2 medium shallots
1 very large parsnip or 2 smaller parsnips (about 1 pound total)
2 tablespoons uncooked white rice
1/2 cup cream (or skip for a vegan recipe; it will still be good)
1+ cups chopped mushrooms (the good kind, ideally: shiitake or trumpet or elephant ear, rather than button)
water
olive oil
salt
chives
special equipment: hand blender, food mill, or regular blender

Chop the onion and shallots and saute them in a little olive oil. Peel the parsnip, and chop it also. Anything from 1/4" to 1" cubes is fine, but the smaller you chop, the faster the soup will cook.

Add the parsnip to the onions; saute a few more minutes. Add water to cover the vegetables by about half an inch. Add the rice. Bring the soup to a boil, and then lower the heat to a simmer.

Meanwhile, clean the mushrooms and slice them vertically. Saute them in a little olive oil and cook until they soften, release their liquid, and begin to brown. Set aside.

When the parsnips in the soup are soft, use a hand blender to puree the soup in the pan. Stir in the cream. Taste, and add salt and/or water as-needed.

Ladle into bowls, and add some mushrooms to each serving. Snip chives over the top and serve.

Pear & Blue Cheese Bruschetta

This is one of the reasons I look forward to fall. It's adapted from a Williams-Sonoma small plates cookbook, and has since become one of my staples.

walnut bread
creamy blue cheese (Cambozola is good)
very ripe pear, thinly sliced (I like Comice or Bartlett)
fresh ground black pepper

Slice & toast the walnut bread. Spread each slice with blue cheese and top with pear slices. Grind a little black pepper over each slice. Serve.

A note on tortillas

About two years ago I had really good corn tortillas for the first time.

Wow.

Really good corn tortillas are soft and chewy and actually taste like corn. They're sort of like flat, squashy, really excellent cornbread. They're about an eighth of an inch thick, and they do not - not! - remotely resemble cardboard. You do not have to soak them in anything to get them to bend without cracking.

They are so tasty you may just eat three of them straight out of the bag, without putting anything on them at all.

Anyway, if you haven't already, tracking down good tortillas really is worth the trouble. My current favorite is La Tortilla Factory (don't be put off by the overly-focused-on-health-food website), but there are other good ones out there. Just look for thick, whole grain, and bendy. Then come home and start eating - here are some things to do with tortillas.

A side note: the first really good tortillas I had were at Las Cazuelas, in San Jose - the food is just OK, but the corn tortillas are fresh and handmade and you can dip them in salsa and they are AMAZING.

Fried-egg tortilla sandwiches

I'm on a tortilla kick lately...got home at 11pm last night and thought, "I'm hungry. What do we have?"

Serves two, and it's easy to double, triple, or quadruple!

Ingredients
4 tortillas (see a note on tortillas)
4 eggs
grated cheese
chipotle powder
olive oil

Equipment
cast iron pan
toaster oven

What to do
Drizzle a little olive oil into a cast-iron frying pan. Turn the heat to medium to preheat the pan. Meanwhile, sprinkle grated cheese & a little chipotle powder onto the tortillas and put them into the toaster oven. Directly on the rack is fine (assuming you don't mind a little melted cheese in the bottom of your toaster! If you do, put the tortillas on a baking pan or a piece of aluminum foil).
Test that the pan is hot by flicking a little water into it. If it sizzles, it's ready. If not, it's not - wait a few minutes and/or turn up the heat.
When the pan is hot, crack the eggs into it. Turn the toaster on to start toasting the tortillas. I find that medium-dark works best, but your toaster oven may vary. What you're aiming for is nicely melty cheese.
Check the eggs after 2-3 minutes. When the whites are almost entirely opaque, flip the eggs and continue cooking while the tortillas finish toasting.
When the eggs are fully cooked (the yolks should be hard & opaque, not runny) and the cheese is melted, place the tortillas on plates and layer eggs on top. Serve.

This is finger food - no forks needed, just fold the tortillas in half around the eggs and eat like a sandwich.

Sandwiches before a concert

Last week included going to the truly awesome Moby concert at the Warfield. Dinner on a concert night is tricky: I'm hungry, but I'm not at home and I don't really have time to go out. So what to do? Luckily, a nearby bakery inspired these very tasty sandwiches.

Serves 2.

1 baguette, sweet or sourdough
swiss cheese
sliced deli ham
butter!!!

Slice the baguette in half crosswise, then again in half lengthwise. Spread the cut sides with butter (do not skimp) and layer on the cheese and ham.

If you want it to seem French, layer the cheese and ham thinly; thicker layers seem more English. And for a more American sandwich, skip the butter (but why? it's yummy).

Open-face tomato quesadillas

This takes under ten minutes and is really, really tasty. The key is good tortillas and good tomatoes. If you have end-of-season tomatoes from your garden, or your friend's garden, this is a great way to eat them. So:

2 corn tortillas (current favorite: La Tortilla Factory whole-grain)

1 tomato

grated cheese (current favorite: Tillamook Mexican, which is a mixture of jack and cheddar)

salt

Chop the tomato into roughly half-inch cubes. Cover each tortilla with tomato pieces, and sprinkle a small fistful of grated cheese over that.

Toast in a toaster oven until the cheese bubbles (in mine, this is about four minutes, or medium-dark). Sprinkle with salt and serve.

Top picks: broth & stock

Good stock is key to good soup, and I love soup. My mother in law assures me that making stock from scratch yields the best results - but making stock requires hours in the kitchen, and doesn't keep. So I tried several different kinds of packaged bouillon cubes and canned chicken stock.

Absolute favorite: Rapunzel Vegan Vegetable Bouillon with Sea Salt and Herbs
Bouillon cubes are incredibly convenient, and because this is vegan, I can use it in soup for vegetarian friends. A fairly basic flavor that works well in many kinds of soup and risotto. Available at Whole Foods. I haven't tried the salt-free version yet, but I intend to - seems like it would be good for making things that need reducing.

Runners up: 
Chicken broth is frequently called for in recipes, but I tend not to use it unless the soup itself actually has meat in it. Cans take up too much room in my smallish pantry...and large cans just get partially used, and then go bad in the back of the fridge. That said, if I do want chicken broth, the best two I've found are:

• Swanson's low-sodium chicken broth - available at most mainstream grocery stores, but not at Whole Foods
• Pacific Natural Foods organic free range chicken broth - available at Whole Foods

Enjoy!

This makes me sad

A San Francisco Chronicle headline today reads "Calif. chinook fishing season halted for again"

... which makes me sad for two reasons. Most importantly, fewer salmon = less tasty fish to eat, less work for fishermen, and Bad Things Going On with the California environment / water supply / what-have-you.

Less importantly but far more annoyingly, my inner editor ain't too happy about "halted for again," either. Come on, people. Even if you've fired all your proofreaders, don't you at least have software to catch the more egregious screw-ups?!

Broccoli, Pan-Roasted with Pecans and Onions

Serves 4 as a side dish or 2, with rice, as a light entree

1 bunch broccoli
1/4 cippolini onion
1/4 cup pecans

3 T water
1/4 t salt
1/8 t ground black pepper
1/2 T butter
1/2 T walnut oil
splash of olive oil

Prep:
Cut broccoli florets into 1 1/2 inch pieces; trim, peel, & cut stems on bias into 1/4" wide slices. Dice the onion & coarsely chop the pecans. Combine the water, salt, & pepper in a small bowl; set aside.

Cook:
Heat butter & walnut oil together over med-high heat. When hot, add broccoli stems in even layer & cook, without stirring, until browned on bottoms (2-4 minutes). Add the florets, onions, and pecans. Toss to combine. Cook without stirring until bottoms of florets just begin to brown, 1-2 minutes longer. Add a splash of olive oil if it seems the broccoli may burn.

Add water mixture & cover the pot. Cook until broccoli is bright green but still crisp, about 2 minutes. Uncover & cook until water has evaporated, about 2 minutes more. Serve.

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated: "Pan-Roasted Broccoli with Lemon Browned Butter"

Pumpkin Muffins

I have two recipes for pumpkin muffins: one I grew up with, and a more recent version from Cook's Illustrated. The ingredients vary slightly, but they're both great.

	Cook's Illustrated (adapted)	My original recipe
Pecans or walnuts	1 cup, chopped	1/2 cup, chopped
Apples	--	2 cups, chopped
Flour	2 cups	2 1/2 cups
Baking soda	1 tsp	1/2 tsp
Baking powder	1 tsp	1 tsp
Cinnamon	1 tsp	--
Salt	1/2 tsp	--
Nutmeg	1/2 tsp	--
Ginger	1/2 tsp	--
Pumpkin pie spice	--	1 Tbsp
Pumpkin puree	1 15-oz can (~2 cups)	1 cup
Sugar	1 cup	2 cups
Butter	1 stick, melted	1 stick, softened
Eggs	2	2
Vanilla	2 tsp	--
Topping	Brown sugar, sprinkled	Streusel: Flour: 2 Tbsp Sugar: 1/4 cup Cinnamon: 1/2 tsp Butter: 4 Tbsp, softened

Preparation

Start the butter melting, or set it out to soften. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook's Illustrated only: toast the nuts in the preheating oven, 5-10 minutes or until fragrant.

Whisk dry ingredients together; in a separate bowl, whisk wet ingredients together. Fold the pumpkin mixture into the dry ingredients. Fold in nuts and/or apples. Batter will be thick.

Original recipe only: for streusel topping: mix together flour, sugar, & cinnamon; cut in the butter. Sprinkle on top of muffins.

If not using streusel, sprinkling a little sugar or brown sugar on top of the muffins will make the tops crunchier.

Bake in muffin tins for 20-30 minutes, or loaf pan for 45-55 minutes.

Pumpkin Pancakes

Serves 4

Amazingly good pancake recipe; light & strongly-flavored. Great with dark maple syrup.

Flour: 1 1/4 cups
Sugar: 3 tablespoons
Baking powder: 2 teaspoons
Pumpkin pie spice: 1 1/4 teaspoons
Salt: 3/4 teaspoon

Milk: 1 1/3 cups
Pumpkin puree: 3/4 cup
Eggs: 4 (whites separated from yolks)
Vegetable oil or melted butter: 1/4 cup

Preheat lightly-oiled griddle. Whisk first 5 ingredients in large bowl to blend. Whisk milk, pumpkin, egg yolks, & oil in medium bowl to blend. Add pumpkin mixture to dry ingredients; whisk just until smooth. Batter should not be too thick; add milk if it seems closer to muffin texture.

Beat egg whites separately until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into batter. Use a large tablespoon or two of batter per pancake; cook just until bubbles form on surface of pancakes and bottoms are brown, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining batter. Pancakes can be served onto plates & kept warm in oven till all pancakes are cooked. Serve with syrup.

Adapted from Epicurious.com

Baked Green Chile Risotto (with Pumpkin & Sausage)

Baked Green Chile Risotto
Serves 4 as a large side dish or smallish main course

Onion: 1 white, chopped
Olive oil
Cumin: 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric: 1/2 teaspoon
Chile powder, New Mexico red: 1/2 teaspoon
Bay leaves: 2
Arborio rice: 1 cup
Water: 2 1/2 cups
Green chile, New Mexico: 3/4 to 1 cup (depending on heat)
1/2 bouillon cube (enough for 1 cup broth)

Equipment: large stovetop-to-oven lidded casserole, eg Le Creuset Dutch oven

Preheat the oven to 375. Saute the onion in the olive oil until it begins to turn golden and stick to the pot. Add the cumin, turmeric, chile powder, and bay leaf. Add the rice; saute until the grains become translucent at the edges.

Deglaze the pan with the water & green chile. Add the bouillon. Put the lid on the pot and bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes (after the first 15 minutes, stir to make sure the bouillon dissolves) or until the rice is gently chewy.

... with Pumpkin & Sausage

Onion: 1 white, chopped
Pumpkin, sugar pie: 1/2 peeled & chopped
Olive oil
Cumin: 1/2 teaspoon
Chile powder, New Mexico red: 1/2 teaspoon
Bay leaves: 2
Andouille sausage: 2, chopped
Arborio rice: 1 cup
Water: 3 cups
Green chile, New Mexico: 3/4 to 1 cup (depending on heat)
1/2 bouillon cube (enough for 1 cup broth)

Equipment: large stovetop-to-oven lidded casserole, eg Le Creuset Dutch oven

Preheat the oven to 375. Saute the onion & pumpkin in the olive oil until it begins to turn golden and stick to the pot. Add the cumin, chile powder, and bay leaf. Add the sausage; saute until it begins to release its oil. Add the rice; saute until the grains become translucent at the edges.

Deglaze the pan with the water & green chile. Add the bouillon. Put the lid on the pot and bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes (after the first 15 minutes, stir to make sure the bouillon dissolves) or until the rice is gently chewy.

Leek & Potato Soup (Inspiration)

I just got back from a vacation in Wyoming, where I ate more red meat in 7 days than I normally do in 7 years and coincidentally read Julie & Julia . The food & the book were both great. As a result, I've resolved to re-start this blog yet again, this time as a shopping+cooking notebook & to-do list. To begin! Tonight I plan to have:

Leek & potato soup
leeks
potatoes
... based on a recipe from Julia Child's The Way to Cook, which my mother-in-law once optimistically & futile-ly gave my husband. Or maybe it wasn't so futile: I'm planning to use it, after all.

Toasted sourdough with cheddar
Duh.

Fruit
..whatever looks yummy at Whole Foods.

Doesn't that list of vegetarian-ness just look too awesome for words?!

Breakfast Cookies

Original breakfast cookies

1 stick of butter, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 large egg
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup white flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup golden raisins + dried sweetened cranberries

Preheat oven to 350° F; grease a cookie sheet. Beat together: butter, brown & white sugar, and vanilla. Beat in the egg. Mix separately the whole wheat & white flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda.

Beat the flour mixture into the butter/sugar/egg mixture. The batter will be fairly stiff (overmixing is OK). Add the oatmeal, nuts, and dried fruit. Mix thoroughly.

Drop large-ish rounded spoonfuls of the batter onto the cookie sheet. You should have enough batter for 11 Breakfast Cookies. Bake at 350° F for 20-23 minutes.

Maple walnut breakfast cookies

Same as Original, but substitute:

1/4 cup maple syrup rather than 1/4 cup white sugar
1 cup walnuts rather than 1/2 cup walnuts + 3/4 cup raisins & cranberries

and press 1/4 cup maple sugar pieces on top of cookies before baking.


Where this recipe's from:
On a New Year's weekend trip down the California-Oregon coast, I stopped overnight in Bandon, Oregon. I hadn't planned to stay there, but crazy winter weather took over (both Highway 101 and Interstate 5 were closed. How nuts is that?!) . I like Bandon; no matter what time of year I'm there, it always feels pleasantly relaxed and a little deserted, as if all the tourists have just this minute moved on.

The next morning, I stopped at a coffeeshop for breakfast. The display offered a big stack of "Breakfast Cookies" - so of course I had to try one. It was fabulous, full of nuts and sugar and dried cranberries, like a cross between a really good oatmeal cookie, a muffin, and a scone. The end result balanced delicately between decadence ("Ha! I'm having a cookie for breakfast!") and virtue ("It's not a cheese danish, so it must be healthy!").

When I got home, I was determined to recreate Breakfast Cookies. These are a little crunchier than Bandon's, but they still satisfy my urge to eat something both healthy & cookie-like in the morning. If you want something to eat with them, rather than just munching in the car with a travel mug of coffee, I recommend Greek yogurt. If you haven't tried Greek yogurt, this is a good chance anyway.

Best Black Bean Soup

I love black bean soup - but I want it to be great, not just good or OK. Great black bean soup means hearty, smoky, just barely spicy, and incredibly rich. I recently tweaked this recipe, so I'm re-posting - this is the closest I've gotten to soup-perfection.

Serves 2 with lots of leftovers, or 4-6 depending on side dishes.

Note: I found the chiles at Whole Foods. The soup's best if you do use all of them, but if you can't, you can't - it'll still be really, really good.

Ingredients
2 medium-sized onions
2 large carrots
1 tablespoon chopped garlic (jarred garlic is fine)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon butter
8 oz. chicken broth (or substitute vegetable broth to make this vegetarian)
water
1 bouillon cube
3 cans black beans
3 bay leaves
1 dried whole chipotle chile (not canned!)
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon chile de arbol
1/4 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
salt
fresh cilantro (optional)
Special equipment: hand-blender (or regular blender)

What to do:
Put the olive oil & butter into a large soup pan over medium to medium-high heat. Peel & chop the onion; wash & chop (or peel and chop) the carrots. (Note: coarse chopping is fine). Add the onions & carrots to the by-now-hot olive oil & butter. Saute for 8-10 minutes, until the onion is translucent & the carrot beginning to soften. Add the garlic & saute 2-3 minutes more.

Add the chicken stock, bouillon, and about 1/2 cup of water. Bring the soup to a simmer. Drain & add the black beans (no need to drain them perfectly, and do not rinse them - adding a little of their liquid to the soup is fine).

Add the bay leaves, dried whole chipotle chile, chile de arbol powder, chipotle chile powder, & vinegar. While the soup simmers, wash & finely chop about 3/4 cup of fresh cilantro. You'll use this as a garnish.

To finish the soup, just blend it. Before blending, remove the 3 bay leaves & the 1 dried chipotle chile (throw them out, you're done with them). If you have a hand-blender, you can puree the soup right in the pot. Be sure to keep the blender blades submerged in the soup so it does not splatter across your kitchen. If you don't have a hand-blender, pour the soup into a regular blender and blend it that way.

Taste the soup - does it need more liquid or salt? Add water and/or salt as-needed.

Serve in large bowls, garnished with the chopped cilantro.

Blueberry-Lemon Pancakes

These are not quite what you expect: they're softer and more delicate than traditional blueberry pancakes. They are also very, very good.

Serves 2, or 4 with side dishes such as fruit, eggs, etc.

Ingredients
1 lemon
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup white flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 cup blueberries, washed
(Note: if using frozen blueberries, toss them gently with half the flour; this will help keep the berries from breaking & turning the batter blue.)
Maple syrup, for serving

What to do
Melt the butter & begin warming the griddle (medium heat). Zest the lemon into a small bowl; add 2 teaspoons juice (you'll probably get about that much if you juice half the lemon) and stir in the milk. Set aside. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda.

Whisk the melted butter and the egg into the milk-lemon mixture. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients; pour in the milk mixture, and stir gently until just barely mixed. A few flour streaks or lumps are just fine. Gently stir in the blueberries.

Spoon the batter onto the hot griddle. Each pancake should be about 4" diameter (about as wide as your hand). Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side; the pancakes are ready to flip from one side to the other when they bubble through the middle and you can get a spatula under them without breaking them.

Serve hot, with maple syrup.

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated magazine, July & August 2003 issue.

Oatmeal Walnut Pancakes

These are the pancakes to make when you crave something hot off the griddle, but buttermilk seems dull (and/or you don't have any in the fridge anyway). They taste great with either maple or berry syrup.

Makes 12 pancakes, each about 3-4 inches across - serves 2 with no side dishes, or 4 with fruit, yogurt, bacon, or similar.

Ingredients
1 cup oatmeal
3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teasoon salt
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

What to do
Start melting the butter. While you're waiting, mix the oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together with a fork. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, milk, and by-now-melted butter. Pour the egg mixture over the dry ingredients; mix. Add the walnuts; mix. It's okay if the batter seems runny.

Start heating the griddle (ideally nonstick, or well-seasoned cast iron - otherwise, you will need to grease it) over medium heat. Let the batter rest while the griddle warms up. This gives the oatmeal time to absorb some of the milk, softening the oatmeal and thickening the batter.

When the griddle is hot, drop the batter onto it in large spoonfuls about 4 inches across.

Let the pancakes cook on the first side for 3-4 minutes. When you can turn them without breaking them, they're ready to cook on the second side. To test, slide a spatula under one edge - does it lift the pancake easily? If yes, start flipping the pancakes. If no, wait.

Cook the pancakes 2-3 minutes on the second side. Serve with maple or berry syrup.

Gazpacho in the heat

The South Bay is still insanely hot: 112 over the weekend, no cooler today. My a/c-free upstairs bedroom soaks up heat. Could I cook pancakes on a griddle propped on the windowsill?

Consolation: ice-cold gazpacho. waiting in the fridge.

Ingredients
9 medium-sized tomatoes
1 green bell pepper
1 slice sourdough bread
1 teaspoon chopped or crushed garlic
1 tablespoon garlic oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
salt
Equipment: blender (hand-blender or standard)

What to do
1. Peel the tomatoes: put a pot of water on to boil; wash the tomatoes and cut an X in the bottom of each one. When the water boils, drop in the tomatoes. Let them boil 1-2 minutes, then pull them out (with tongs!) & run cold water over them till they're cool enough to touch. Slip off their skins and drop them into a large non-reactive bowl ("non-reactive" = not plastic or any other material that will leach into the tomatoes. Ceramic should be okay).

2. Chop the green pepper into large chunks about the size of your thumb. Throw out the top, core, and seeds. Add the chopped pepper to the tomatoes.

3. Add the garlic, olive oil, garlic oil, vinegar, slice of bread (torn up) and water.

4. Cut out the tomatoes' hard stems with a small knife.

5. Run all the ingredients through a blender. If using a hand-blender, be sure to keep the blade fully submerged in the liquid in order to keep the gazpacho in the bowl.

6. Add 1 teaspoon of salt. Taste. Add more salt if needed.

Chill & serve.

Good things on the side: bread or crackers, your favorite cheese, and big, big, BIG glasses of ice-water with lemon.

Mango Smoothie

Life gets busy. Sometimes dinner is a frozen cornmeal-crust pizza and a bottle of wine. Sometimes breakfast is a mango smoothie.

It's the smoothie that takes less time. And because life in the South Bay is finally getting over its raininess, smoothies are getting more and more attractive.

Ingredients

1 ripe mango
1 small (7 oz) container Greek yogurt (plain yogurt works too)
Honey
Orange juice
Blender

What to do
Peel the mango - a vegetable peeler works way better than a knife. Slice the mango off the pit into the blender.

Dump in the Greek yogurt. Dump in some honey - I usually just pour it out of the jar. Anywhere from 1-3 tablespoons (estimate - you can always add more later). Pour in a splash of OJ.

Blend till smooth. Taste. Too thick? Add more OJ. Not sweet enough? Add more honey.

Drink happily!

Chocolate Cake

Last weekend my guy disappeared into a two-day corporate retreat (note to planners: these work events. Why can't you book them on a Tuesday, instead of on a weekend with perfect weather?)

To console myself (or maybe because my guy wasn't here to see me act like a dork), I blasted Aerosmith and danced around the kitchen with a glass of wine while making this cake. If you have a Saturday afternoon you're not sure what to do with, I totally recommend this.

A note on cake size: I baked this in a rectangular bread pan. It's about the right amount of cake for two people to have 2-3 servings apiece. This is actually a halved recipe, adapted from Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte (which is great, both as a book and a cookbook).

Ingredients:
Cake:
1 cup sugar
3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate (my favorite being Scharfenberger's)
4 tablespoons butter (1/2 a stick)
1/2 cup water, plus more for improvising a double-boiler
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Frosting:
1 (3 oz) bar milk chocolate (yup, Scharfenberger's)
1 small container (7 oz) Greek yogurt (or sour cream, but I never happen to have that in the fridge. Greek yogurt's healthier and tastes just as good.)

What to do:
Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Prep the frosting: Put the yogurt in its container on the counter so it can warm up to room temperature. Break up the milk chocolate bar into a small metal mixing bowl. Fill a medium-sized pot with water & float the bowl on it. Put the pot on the stove & turn the heat up to high. As the water boils, the chocolate will melt. (For those of you with real double-boilers, yes, you could use that instead). Once the chocolate is melted, set it aside; it needs to cool down to room temperature.

Make the cake: Remember the pot you just boiled water in? Dump the water out, and put the sugar, unsweetened chocolate, butter, and 1/2 cup of water in. Turn the heat up to medium and stir occasionally till everything's melted. Take the pot off the heat.

In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. In another bowl (or the measuring cup), mix the milk and vinegar.

Grease the baking pan (use butter or an olive-oil sprayer). Shake a little extra flour around in the pan; this will help keep the cake from sticking.

Whisk the milk mixture & egg into the chocolate mixture (not into the melted chocolate!). Gradually whisk in the flour mixture. Whisk in the vanilla. Do not over-mix; whisk just enough to make everything the same color.

Pour the batter into the greased pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-35 minutes (a sharp knife inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean).

Make the frosting while the cake bakes: Mix just a little of the melted chocolate & yogurt together. Does the chocolate clump, or mix smoothly? If it clumps, wait a few more minutes so the yogurt can warm up or the chocolate can cool off. If it mixes smoothly, then make the frosting: just mix the melted chocolate & yogurt together.

Frost the cake: Let the cake cool for 5-10 minutes after it comes out of the oven, then tip it out onto a large plate or platter (you may need to help it out with a spatula). Spread the frosting over the cake.

Baked Eggs

5-10 minutes prep, plus 25 min to bake. Serves two.

I like eggs. I eat them for breakfast, dinner, and occasionally lunch. My cookbook has an entire "Eggs" section.

I particularly enjoy baked eggs: quiche, bread pudding, etc. Recently, I learned why some recipes need a water bath, and some don't. When eggs are cooked at high heat, the protein hardens. This forces out moisture. Result: watery eggs. Ick. A water bath solves the problem by moderating the temperature, allowing the eggs to cook evenly.

Okay, but how often am I going to use a water bath? Not very. (I know, I know, it's just a pan with water in it, but . . . it feels like effort!)

So I thought about why a quiche doesn't need a water bath, and decided it must be the crust (maybe it soaks up water? maybe it insulates the eggs?). How do you imitate crust? Hmm . . . there's some slightly-stale sourdough here . . . I wonder. . . .

And here's the result: a breakfast-for-dinner recipe, a stand-in for when you hanker for quiche but don't want to bother going out or making the crust.

Ingredients
4 eggs
cheese (Gruyere, smoked cheddar, jack. . . .)
2 slices sourdough bread
1/4 cup milk or sour cream
fresh flat-leafed parsley (optional but pretty)
salt & pepper

What to do
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Find something to bake the eggs in: either two individual ramekins (shown here) or a single bread-loaf pan. Grease the inside of the ramekins/pan: spray it lightly with olive oil (see Gadgetry), or rub a little butter over it.

Break the eggs into a medium-sized bowl. Add the milk or sour cream. Mix it all up with a fork. Tear the two slices of sourdough into thumb-sized chunks & drop them into the bowl. Grate about half a cup of cheese. Add it to the bowl. Add about 1/4 teaspoon of salt and a little pepper. Mix again.

Pour the mixture into the ramekins or bread-loaf pan. Rinse the parsley and snip a little of it over the top of the eggs with scissors (easiest way I've found to deal with fresh herbs).

By now, the oven should be more or less pre-heated. Slide the eggs into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. You'll know they're done when they're puffy, golden, and if you slide a sharp knife into the middle it comes out clean.

Note: the eggs may rapidly deflate after you take them out of the oven. This is normal. Less pretty, but normal.

And now . . . I'm off on vacation for a week, so it'll be a while till the next post.

Spinach salad with Smoked Cheddar & Caramelized Onions

I know I'm supposed to eat vegetables, so every so often I buy some. Most recently it was a bag of baby spinach.

I brought the spinach home. I installed it in my fridge. Every so often when I opened the fridge door to retrieve something less healthy (mmm. . . cheese. . . ice cream. . . ), the spinach looked at me reproachfully and said "eat me!"

Eventually, I did, and I felt healthy all evening (in spite of the cheese!).

Ingredients
Serves four people.

1 bag pre-washed baby spinach
1 yellow onion
smoked cheddar cheese
walnuts (preferably chopped)
olive oil
walnut oil
red wine vinegar
Dijon mustard
salt & pepper

Variation (spicy!)
No cheese
Red pepper flakes

What to do
If the spinach isn't pre-washed, wash it. Shake out any excess water or use a salad spinner if you have one. I serve this salad directly on the plates I plan to eat off of, rather than a serving bowl; if you're doing the same, distribute the spinach evenly among the plates you plan to serve on.

Pour about two tablespoons of olive oil into a medium-sized frying pan, and turn the heat to just above medium.

Slice the ends off the onion; peel it. Slice it once down the middle and then crosswise, in very thin slices. You should wind up with thin, crescent-shaped slices. By now the olive oil should be hot; add the onion slices to the olive oil. Stir them around just enough to more or less coat them with oil.

While the onions cook, grate about a quarter cup of smoked cheddar. Sprinkle the cheese over the spinach on the plates.

Saute the onions for about ten minutes, until they're a nice, golden-caramel brown (if the oil starts to smoke, turn the heat down). Don't stir any more than you have to! When the onions are cooked, turn the heat off. Leave the pan on the burner. Add about two teaspoons of mustard; stir it around until you no longer see streaks. Add a handful of walnuts, a couple of teaspoons of walnut oil, and a couple of tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Stir.

Spoon the onion & walnut mixture over the spinach on the plates. Serve.

Spicy variation:
This salad is also great with spicy onions and no cheese. Just skip the cheese, and add about 1/4 teaspoon red chile flakes (or more, if you like to feel your mouth burn) to the onions when you start cooking them.

It's all about the beer

Warning: new direction for this blog ahead! Commentary may be included with recipes :)

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, and most days are good to great. But no matter where you work, some days you just need a beer. And so, in response to a bad day, here it is - a blogpost paean to some of my current favorite brews.

Background: last Thursday was rough. It included 1) a four-hour training session: useful, but four hours 2) "ouch!" feedback on a project near and dear to my heart: "We don't understand why you're spending time on this; isn't there something more useful to work on?" 3) an hour-long meeting in which I re-explained (I hope) a project to someone who should have already come up with a proposal on his own. Philosophical question: if you work mostly with high-achiever type-A folks, how do you handle the shock of someone who just doesn't seem to be there? I still have no idea.

So I left work early (philosophical question: is 6:25 early?) and, since none of the 6 six friends I called had their cellphones on, headed home. Once there, I rummaged in the garage in search of some of the truly great beer that my guy and I brought home from our last trip to Oregon. Oregon is kind of a paradise for beer lovers. Microbreweries abound. One of my favorites is Deschutes Brewery, makers of one of the best dark beers we've found, plus a great salmon burger & spiced fries. Oh joy: we did indeed have one last bottle of Deschutes' Obsidian Stout hidden away. I freezered it for a few minutes, moved it to the fridge before it was in danger of exploding, and waited (aka knitting while my guy watches the World Baseball Classic. Mexico won. Good for Mexico!).

Then I flopped on the library rug and vented for twenty minutes while sipping sweet dark Obsidian. Yum. And sure enough, the world righted itself. One beer may not be enough to seriously affect one's attitude, but I find that the act of drinking it, of effectively saying "Ha! I am taking time to be lazy & drink a beer! Take that, world!" does me enormous amounts of good.

And now, for those who'd like some actual usable content here, I give you a "top three" list of the best beers (beer? Large quantities of beer must be a collective plural, but what about multiple bottles of beer?) we brought back from Oregon:

• Deschutes' Obsidian Stout: sweet, very, very, dark, incredibly smooth
• Blue Heron Pale Ale: spicy, nutty, way more interesting than your average pale ale. Wish we'd bought more of it!
  
• Widmer Snowplow: another great dark beer - sweet & creamy, with a hint of spice

Enjoy! And may all of our Thursdays collectively improve.

Chili-Seared Carrots

These carrots make a great snack or side dish. Their sweet, full flavor is similar to that of sweet potato fries, but the chili & lemon add a little kick.

Ingredients
4-5 carrots
chili powder
cumin
oregano or basil
salt & pepper
1 lemon
olive oil

Cooking notes
The general idea here is to cook the carrots quickly over high heat. The times here are estimates, and may vary based on how hot your stove is & how thick your pan is. Keep a close eye on the carrots, and adjust the heat and/or cooking time as needed.

None of these ingredients really need to be measured, which makes for very fast prep. If you're nervous about just sprinkling in the spices, start with half a teaspoon of the chili, cumin, oregano, and basil, and a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper.

What to do
Wash the carrots. If you don't like carrot peel, peel the carrots. Slice the carrots into largish julienne (what this means: cut the carrots across the middle, then into little sticks about 1/8 - 1/4 wide).

Pour a little olive oil into a large frying pan set over medium to medium-high heat. (A small frying pan works too, but you'll have to cook the carrots in batches). Add some chili powder, cumin, and oregano or basil. When the oil is hot (find out by flicking a few drops of water into it - if it sizzles, it's hot), add the carrots.

Do not stir the carrots around! Just let them sit there for about 3 minutes. While they sit, zest the lemon onto them (what this means: wash the lemon, then grate its peel onto the carrots while they sizzle). Okay, now get out the spatula and turn the carrots.

After another 2-3 minutes, the carrots should smell great. They should also be a rich orange in some places and a caremelized brown in others, with maybe just a few crispy almost-burnt bits. At this point, they're done. Serve & eat!

Baked Potatoes

Baked potatoes (with toppings like cheese, onions, sour cream) are so easy, they really don't require a formal recipe - but last week I figured out that spraying a little olive oil on the potatoes before baking them improves the skin's texture in a big way, so I thought I'd post the idea here.

Ingredients
1-2 large baking potatoes for each person (Russet potatoes are a good choice)
Olive oil in an olive oil sprayer
Oven or toaster oven

Toppings
Some of my favorites are butter, salt & pepper, chopped onions, chopped garlic, cottage cheese (weird but good), grated cheese, bacon bits, curry (again, weird but good - in England, chip shops serve curry on french fries, which is where I got the idea), etc. Tillamook Smoked Cheddar Cheese with cottage cheese, salt, and pepper is a particularly good combo. Just take a look in your fridge and see what's there.

What to do:
Preheat your oven to 350° F . Wash the potatoes so thoroughly you'll be happy to eat the skins. Poke a couple of holes in the potato skins with a fork (Why? Because totally air-tight potatoes might explode). Put the potatoes in the oven, right on the rack. Now the big idea: spritz the potatoes all over with olive oil, using the olive oil sprayer. The olive oil makes the skins somehow softer, crisper, and just plain better-tasting all at once. Yes, some oil will get in the oven, but it won't hurt anything.

Bake the potatoes for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on size. Take a couple of minutes to figure out what you want to top them with; if you need to grate any cheese or chop any onions, do it now. To tell if the potatoes are done, poke one with a sharp knife. The potato should feel soft, and the knife should come out easily.

Split the potatoes down the middle, add toppings, and eat!

Gadgetry (revised)

I try not to go gadget-crazy in the kitchen, but there are a few things out there that really do make life easier.


Oven thermometer: If you bake, you need an oven thermometer. Why? Because most ovens, both gas and electric, are just plain wrong about what temperature they are. With an oven thermometer, you can adjust the dial so you're actually baking at the heat you intend. This is a big deal - I've experienced ovens that were anywhere from 10-75 degrees wrong. This wreaks total havoc with whatever you're baking. If you've got a baking recipe that's never worked, buy an oven thermometer and try again. You may be pleasantly surprised!


Hand-blender: These are sometimes called immersion blenders. The general idea is that instead of taking your ingredients to your blender, you take your blender to your ingredients. This is great for soup, because you puree it in the pan, rinse the blender quickly in the sink, and you're done. You can skip the entire section of your recipe that explains how to blend soup in batches. Besides, regular blenders are a pain to wash.


Olive-oil sprayer: This is great if you bake a lot, because it lets you grease pans so quickly. Pump the top a couple of times, give a quick squirt to your muffin pans, and you're ready to go.


Microplane graters: If you need to grate something, it will be easier, faster, and less annoying if your grater is really, really sharp. Enough said.


Where to get your gadgets: The great debate on kitchen stores: is or is not Williams Sonoma evil incarnate? Okay, I exaggerate (probably) - but if you've got married friends, chances are good that you once spent twenty bucks for an ice-cream scoop. Admittedly, it was a very nice ice-cream scoop, and it was a wedding present, but come on - it's a glorified spoon! For non-wedding shopping, I much prefer Sur La Table. Lots of gadgets, not horribly expensive, and they've got employees who know their stuff and get really enthusiastic about griddles and potholders. When my husband and I registered for wedding stuff, we found a giant spatula here that he liked so much, it has actually inspired him to cook things.


Other good options for gadgetry: Amazon (really) and Target.

Caramelized Bananas with Coconut Ice Cream

This is a great dessert to make for yourself or to serve to others: it's fast (under ten minutes!), it's yummy, and it's pretty.

Ingredients
2-6 bananas (1 per person)
1-2 tablespoons of butter, depending on number of bananas
1-2 tablespoons brown sugar
coconut ice cream or sorbet (yes, I do cheat and buy this rather than making it - my current favorite comes from Trader Joe's)

What to do
Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium to medium-high heat. While the butter melts, peel & slice the bananas so that you get 1/4 inch thick slices, either long & thin or short & round.

Flick a little water off your fingers into the melted butter. Does it sizzle? If yes, you're ready to add the bananas. If no, turn the heat up.

Add the banana slices to the butter. Do not stir them around! The bananas should sizzle slightly. After 3 minutes, lift one banana up with a spatula - does it look nicely browned on the bottom? If yes, turn the banana slices over. If no, wait another minute or two.

Sprinkle brown sugar over the bananas as they cook on the second side.

After another 2-3 minutes, scoop the bananas out of the frying pan into dessert bowls or onto plates. Make sure you get any extra bits of caramelized sugar out of the pan and onto the bananas. Top each serving with a scoop or two of coconut ice cream & serve.

Serves 2-6.

Chipotle Tortilla Soup

Tortilla soup, in all its variations, is one of my favorite things. I came up with this version after the local newspaper ran a story on tortilla soup: the story included no recipes for which I possessed all the ingredients, so I took what sounded best out of each of them.

This is a great recipe to improv with: avoid measuring too closely (or at all), and if you're missing something, skip it or use something else instead. The only really critical things are the tortilla chips and chiles. And no, this isn't the fastest recipe out there, if you compare it to cheese and crackers - but for homemade soup, it's pretty speedy.

Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
(as an ex-vegetarian, I find these easiest to work with - but feel free to substitute another form of chicken if you prefer)
2 tablespoons butter
splash of olive oil
1 yellow onion
1/2 red onion
2 carrots
8 cups of water (or some combination of water & chicken broth)
1-3 chipotle chiles in adobo (canned)
3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons oregano
2 teaspoons basil
salt & pepper
tortilla chips

Optional:
Jack cheese
fresh cilantro
lime
diced tomato

What to do:
Put the butter & olive oil into a large pot set over medium or medium-high heat, depending on how enthusiastic your stove is (anyone with an electric stove: start with medium, and if the butter doesn't start to melt after a few minutes, turn it up).

While the butter melts, peel the yellow onion, then chop it into pieces small enough that you'll be happy to eat them in soup. Same thing with the carrots (peeling is optional if you wash them well). As soon as any pieces of onion or carrot are ready, add them to the pot; this keeps your cutting board clear, and it's fine if things start cooking at different times.

Saute the carrot & onion in the butter & oil until the onion is translucent. Add the water or broth, the bay leaves, oregano, and basil, and the chicken. Mash the chiles up with a fork & add them too (note: unless you know you love spicy food, start with one chile and work your way up later on in the recipe).

Bring everything to a boil. Then lower the heat to a simmer, put a lid on the pot, and continue simmering.

While the chicken cooks, chop the red onion, tomato, and/or the cilantro; grate the cheese if you're using cheese, and cut the lime into wedges if you're using lime.

After 15-20 minutes, check to see if the chicken is cooked through (test the chicken by cutting it open at the thickest part. Does it look thoroughly cooked? If you're not sure, drop it back in the pot for another 5-10 minutes. This is soup; you won't hurt it if you overcook the chicken).

Remove the cooked chicken from the soup & put it on a plate. Either wait till it cools enough to touch, or run it under cold water. Shred the chicken (easiest way to do this: with your fingers. Wash your hands first). Return the shredded chicken to the soup and make sure it's still simmering.

Add red onions, tomato, and/or cilantro if you're using them. Simmer for 5-10 more minutes. Taste the soup. Is it spicy enough? If not, add more fork-mashed chiles. Add them gradually.

Get out your soup bowls. Fill them halfway up with tortilla chips. Ladle the soup over the chips. Sprinkle the cheese over the soup; if you've got lime, squeeze a wedge of lime over each serving.

That's it, you're done. Eat.

Serves at least four.

Muffins vs breads

Recipes for muffins and quickbreads (quickbreads = breads made with baking powder/soda, not with yeast - for example, banana bread) are usually interchangeable. Whether you end up with a muffin or a bread just depends on the pan you bake the batter in.

Muffins bake more quickly than breads because muffin pans are smaller than bread pans, so the center of any particular muffin is closer to the heat source (the oven).

To bake muffins as a bread or a bread as muffins, do not change the baking temperature! Just extend or shorten the time, and keep checking to see if they're done.

Pear Muffins

These are perfect for fall or winter brunch, when fresh pears are at their best.

Ingredients

Butter: 1/2 stick (4 tablespooons), melted
Sour cream: 1/4 cup
Eggs: 2
Vanilla: 1 teaspoon
Milk: 1/3 cup
Pear: 1 large ripe, peeled & chopped (ideally Comice, but other juicy types like Bartlett OK)
Flour: 1 1/2 cups
Brown sugar: 1/3 cup
White sugar: 1/3 cup, plus extra for sprinkling
Baking powder: 1 1/2 teaspoon
Salt: 1/4 teaspoon

Preheat the oven to 375. Grease the muffin tins or 9x9 inch square Pyrex-type pan.

Mix the dry ingredients: flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt.

Mix the wet ingredients: melted butter, sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and milk.

Put everything together: Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix gently just until you see very few streaks of flour. Add the pear; mix gently. Spoon the muffin batter into the pan, filling the muffin cups about two-thirds full. Sprinkle a little sugar over the tops of the muffins.

Bake 17-20 minutes at 375. The muffins should be slightly tan on top, and if you insert a sharp knife into the center of one of them, it should come out more or less clean.

Manifesto

Have you ever bought a really luscious-looking blueberry muffin in a coffee shop, only to be disappointed because it wasn't as great as you expected?

Exactly. That's why I cook: I love good food.

I also work for a Big Tech Company in Silicon Valley, so I have less free time than I did in college, when my roommate and I occasionally spent one hour-long television show making risotto, and the next one eating it. Not only that, but the Guy In My Life is not so into cooking himself, and tends to regard the time he spends hanging around in the kitchen as so much wasted space.

On the other hand, I am not okay with buying ready-made food and trying to make it look homemade by adding one fresh ingredient. Cooking from scratch (or using shortcuts that don't affect flavor, like pre-chopped garlic in a bottle or adding frozen corn kernels to soup) doesn't take that much longer, and the taste is worth it. And if I really don't want to cook, I'll eat frozen pizza, snack on crackers and cheese and an apple, or go out!

All of which means that I cook, but I eliminate the extras. I'd rather have one really great main course for dinner than an only-okay main course and two sides. I eat lots of vegetables one day and none at all the next and figure it all balances out. I skip sieving soup, sifting flour, and peeling potatoes & tomatoes (peels are good for you anyway!). I believe in hand blenders that you can plunge right into the soup pan and olive oil sprayers that speed up greasing baking pans for muffins. And although I never use cake mixes, I usually figure out a way to mix the whole thing in one bowl, not two.

Last but not least, if it takes more than twenty minutes (half an hour? ten minutes? forty-five? it depends on the day and how hungry I am for whatever it is), it doesn't happen. There's lots of great food out there that doesn't take forever. I make exceptions for recipes where I spend ten minutes chopping & stirring, then stash the entire thing in the oven for an hour and pay zero attention to it till it's done, but that's about it.

And so: Impatient Cook. A stash for recipes, rants, and so on, about all things food- and cooking-related. Enjoy.

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