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Testing photo blog post from phone

My contacts seem to be reflecting the flash. This is how I'd look if I were eeeeeeeevil.

I have opinions about chicken soup.

1. Lemon juice is essential.
2. So is milk.
3. Don't argue. The combination gives the soup a kind of Northern European tom kha gai flavor profile that is seriously addictive.
3. Pasta, rice and barley are all nice. However, the first two should be cooked separately and mixed in the bowl to avoid them getting all soft and bloated in the leftovers, but barley can be cooked in the soup. I'm partial to orzo, but have been using barley lately out of laziness.
4. I've had other chicken soups that were fine and I enjoyed, but this is the only one I truly love.

Chicken Soup
2 T butter
2 onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 or 4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
8 c. broth
2 whole cloves
4 whole peppercorns
carrots, peeled and chopped
parsnips, peeled and chopped
celery, chopped
other vegetables if you like. snow peas are a nice addition. so are grape tomatoes and mushrooms. turnips?
1/2 c. barley
1/2 c. lemon juice
1 1/2 c. milk

Brown the onion in butter over medium heat.
Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes. Add the chicken, broth, vegetables, barley and spices. Lower heat and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes, then remove chicken to a plate. When chicken is cool enough to handle, shred it and add back to soup. Make sure barley is tender, then add the lemon juice and stir well. Add the milk. Adjust for salt as needed.

[originally posted on my old food blog 11.11.2009]

In which I make two things I haven't made before and one that I have, with mixed results

New thing the first: dulce de leche
I've wanted to try making dulce de leche for ages since it's awesomely delicious and apparently just a matter of mixing milk and sugar and being patient. Plus, any commercially available dulce de leche that I've been able to find around here has all sorts of preservatives and other crap in it. Like, why would you put corn syrup in something that's made of sugar? I used the guidelines at thekitchn and Chez Pim, the latter of which had me entertaining fantasies of living in a cottage and having a Jersey cow with unimaginably long eyelashes. Her name would be Ruby and she'd wear a ribbon on her tail and a shiny brass bell around her neck. I would lead her to pasture every morning singing folk tunes and rest my forehead on her warm flank when I milked her. Then I realized that I was basically thinking of the plot of Heidi, only not with goats.

I used half a gallon of whole milk, a scant two cups of sugar and I added the baking soda recommended by thekitchn, for (spoiler alert!) all the good it did me.
So, it definitely worked, and I think that if I hadn't just given up after more than four and a half freaking hours of cooking milk on the stove — I actually started at 5:00 — it would have darkened more, but I was kind of over it at that point. It tastes fine, but doesn't have the depth of flavor that I was hoping for. I think my mistake was in using a very wide pan and extremely low heat, so it just didn't heat the way it needed. I'll try it again soon with a smaller amount of milk and slightly higher heat and see how that goes. In the meantime, I have a cereal bowl full of somewhat mediocre sort-of-dulce-de-leche in my fridge. I'm thinking about maybe swirling it into a batch of brownies for a potluck dinner I'm going to this Friday.

New thing the second: kale chips
I thought this was going to be a home run. I love kale, I love salt and vinegar chips — how could salt and vinegar kale chips fail to be awesome? I followed the guidelines here, chopping and spinning and mixing and rubbing and sprinkling and baking like a good little kale-chip maker.
And I think they turned out the way they were supposed to. I think that I just don't like dehydrated kale. In future, as in the past, when I want chips, I will eat real chips. And I will continue to eat kale with pasta or in soup or sauteed or any of the other ways I already enjoy it.

Meh.

Previously made thing the only: curried lentil soup with vegetables
I followed the same basic guidelines outlined here, with the following tweaks:
1 1/4 c. lentils (slightly less than original, what I had on hand)
half water, half chicken broth for the liquid
more vegetables: three large carrots, three smallish sweet potatoes, a whole head of cauliflower
barley instead of rice, still 1/2 c.
right at the end, I stirred in a can of low-fat coconut milk

Damn, this is some fine, fine soup.

[originally published on my old food blog 10.27.2009]

Curried lentil soup

I made a big pot of soup last night to fuel some girl talk with a friend I hadn't seen in a while and while I didn't take a picture, I wanted to get the recipe up quickly before I forgot what I did. It was really easy, really delicious, really healthful and really cheap. It's a winner. Really.

I used Heidi's recipe as a starting point, but added a lot of spices and vegetables. Next time, I think I might leave out the zucchini because it softens so much in the liquid, but add a finely chopped apple in with the vegetables.

Curried lentil soup

olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 shallots, chopped
crushed red pepper
1/2 t. ground coriander
2 t. cumin
1 t. turmeric
1 t. garam masala
2 large carrots, halved lengthwise and chopped
2/3 lb. cauliflower florets, chopped into small pieces
8 c. water
1 1/3 c. red lentils, picked over and rinsed
1/2 c. brown rice, picked over and rinsed
1 medium zucchini, quarters lengthwise and chopped
salt

In a big soup pot, over medium heat, combine the olive oil, onion, shallots, and red pepper flakes. Let them brown, and caramelize a bit, stirring occasionally. Stir in the spices and toast 30 seconds or so. Add the carrots and cauliflower and sweat for a couple of minutes.

Add the water, lentils and rice. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 30 minutes or until the rice is very tender, and not at all toothsome. By this time, the lentils will have collapsed into a thick slop of sorts. If you need to add more water/broth at any point do so a splash at a time, until the soup thins out to the point you prefer. Salt to taste.

[originally posted on my old food blog 10.21.2009]

Pasta with kale in four easy steps

This is barely a recipe, just a brief explanation of the process I follow for making an easy, healthful dinner that leaves enough left over for lunch the next day. It's a variation on another dish that I also make a lot, but which requires dirtying two pans because the greens are cooked and seasoned separately.

1. Put a pot of water on to boil.
2. While the water is heating, rinse and chop a big bunch of kale. I was dealing with about a pound of actual leaves, judging by what I paid and considering that I discarded the stems. At some point, the water will boil, at which point I salt it and add about half a box of pasta, in this case, oricchiette. The amount of kale will seem mildly ridiculous.

Bowl of kale, french press for scale:
3. When the pasta is about half done, put the kale directly in the cooking water. I usually add about two handfuls at a time, submerging it and adding more when it wilts enough to make space.

Steamy!

4. Drain the lot of it when the pasta is done and put it back in the pot (saves washing another bowl). Then I drizzle it with a goodly amount of soy sauce, a less goodly amount of balsamic vinegar or lemon juice and a tiny bit of sesame oil and red pepper flakes. There's a lot of surface to cover, so don't worry if it seems like you're adding way too much of any of it. You could always make a vinaigrette first with olive oil, which would also mellow the flavor a lot (and what I would do if I were serving this to anyone other than my own gaping maw), but I usually don't bother.

Other optional niceties, especially if you want some protein in the mix: parmesan or feta sprinkled on, a runny-yolked egg thrown on top, a can of beans drained (and rinsed! and for the love of Thor, rinsed!) and mixed into the whole batch.

[originally posted on my old food blog 10.20.2009]

Roasted cauliflower pasta

When I saw this recipe the other day, I knew it would be mine. Oh yes. It would be mine.

I also knew I'd make some changes. For a batch of food that would be an easy weeknight dinner plus some lunches to bring to work, I didn't feel like bothering with the proscuitto. I roasted the vegetables at least twice as long as they suggested. The idea of sage and arugula together didn't please my mental palate, so I left the sage out. And I doubled most of the amounts (including the pasta, which I should have left alone), but I used less than the original amount of cheese and it's still plenty delicious.

As less of a recipe and more of a formula for meals going forward, it's a good one. Roasting a combination of tomatoes and other vegetables and then using the olive oil and released juices as a sauce is kind of brilliant. And I loved the idea of throwing chopped garlic in for the last ten minutes or so instead of bothering to saute it.

When I got home from the gym, I quickly prepped some cauliflower (about half a head, but I'd do a full head in the future) and two pints of grape tomatoes with olive oil to coat and some salt. I threw that in a 425 oven while I showered and stirred it around occasionally while I was cooking the rest. It was probably in for 45 minutes or so, all told.

Hello, gorgeous.

In the meantime, I put a big pot of water on to boil for the pasta and half-assedly julienned a bag of arugula. I think it was julienned — where you grab a handful of leaves and sort of roll them up and slice the roll thinly? That's what I did, only half-assedly.

I chopped up four cloves of garlic — I did a pretty half-assed job of that too, come to think of it — and threw that in the roasting pan when the pasta went into the water. I used a full pound of pasta, but would definitely halve it next time. I like a much higher vegetable:pasta ratio than I got here. FOR HEALTH.* When the pasta was done and drained, reserving some of the water, and back in the pot, I took the vegetables out of the oven, added them and scraped all the oil and browned bits out too. I threw the arugula in by handfuls, stirring around to wilt it before adding more, and then added maybe 2/3 c. of grated parmesan and about a cup of pasta water.

Oooooh, steamy....

*On a recent flight, one of the flight attendants had a sort of annoying verbal tic of saying FOR SAFETY after everything she said: "Sir, you need to buckle your seat belt. FOR SAFETY." "I need you to put your pants back on. FOR SAFETY." And so on. I wouldn't say I've adopted it, but it bubbles up once in a while.

[originally posted on my old food blog 5.8.2009]

Milk chocolate passion fruit truffles

When I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make it. I love chocolate paired with tart fruit, I particularly love passion fruit and I was going to be visiting a friend who prefers milk chocolate to dark. At the end of the day, the recipe landed in both the win and the not-really-a-win-but-good-try columns; it was one of the most delicious things I've tasted but it ended up not actually making truffles.

Confused? I'll explain.
First, you chop up some milk chocolate.
Then you heat up some passion fruit puree with heavy cream and honey.
Poach some minced dried apricots to moisten them and drain on a paper towel. (Note how closely I was following the recipe, having been instructed to cut the butter into four pieces.)
Add the hot, fruity cream to the chocolate.
Stir until melted.
Add your preciously poached apricot dice.
Then I chilled it overnight, as instructed, and the next morning I started scooping it out into truffle blobs that would get rolled in the palms of my hands, tossed in powdered sugar and bestowed upon the deserving with all appropriate ceremony.
However, the mixture was just too soft to hold its shape. I didn't even try rolling the blobs in my hands because I knew they'd just melt down to nothing.
So I packed it all into a container and handed it out by the spoonful rather than as freestanding candy entities and all was well. There was some talk of using it to frost something, since it was really the ideal frosting consistency, but we never got around to making that happen. I'd like to know where I went wrong so that I could get it right in the future, but who knows? Next time, I'll use a little less cream and see if that does the trick. I also wouldn't bother poaching the apricots; I had some particularly fresh ones that didn't need perking up and the poaching just made them sticky. A word of warning: the passion fruit flavor was less sharp and intense after a couple of days, so eat it all up right away!

Milk Chocolate and Passion Fruit Truffles
From Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme
Written by Dorie Greenspan
Makes about 50 truffles

Ingredients
14 3/4 ounces milk chocolate, preferably Valrhona Jivara, finely chopped
8 moist, plump dried apricots, cut into tiny dice
2 tablespoons water
Scant 2/3 cup passion fruit puree
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon honey
4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 4 pieces
Confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Method
1. Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl that is large enough to hold all of the recipe's ingredients; set aside.

2. Stir the apricots and water together in a small saucepan and place the pan over gentle heat for a few minutes, until the apricots are moist. Pull the pan from the heat, drain the apricots, if necessary, and pat them dry between a double thickness of paper towels.

3. Bring the passion fruit puree, cream and honey to a full boil in a saucepan or microwave oven, then pour it into the center of the chocolate. Working with a spatula, gently stir the cream into the chocolate in ever-widening concentric circles until the ganache is homogeneous and smooth.

4. Allow the ganache to rest on the counter about 3 minutes before adding the butter. When all the butter is blended into the mixture, fold in the apricot pieces and pour the ganache into a baking pan or bowl. Put the pan in the refrigerator and, when the ganache is cool, cover it with plastic wrap. The ganache should chill for at least 4 hours, although it can stay in the refrigerator overnight, if that's more convenient for you.

5. When you are ready to shape the truffles, have a parchment-lined baking sheet close at hand. Remove the truffle mixture from the refrigerator and scoop up a scant tablespoonful of ganache for each truffle; put the dollops of ganache on the paper-lined pan then, one by one, roll the dollops between the palms of your hands to form a ball. Don't worry about making them even--they're supposed to be lumpy. As you shape each truffle, drop it into the bowl of confectioner's sugar. Toss each truffle in the sugar so that it is well coated, then very gingerly toss the truffles between your hands to shake off the excess. Alternatively, you can roll the truffles around in a sieve to encourage them to shake off their extra sugar. As each truffle is finished, return it to the parchment-lined pan.

Keeping: The truffles can be served as soon as they are coated or they can be stored in the refrigerator, shielded from foods with strong odors.

[originally posted on my old food blog 3.3.2009]