Leek and Potato Braise

I never ate a leek until I was 25. That's probably a little bit odd. But my mom never cooked with them when I was a kid and then I once read that book, the one about how French women are so much better than everyone else because they understand portion control. One of her techniques was to make yourself an enormous pot of leek soup -- just leeks, water, salt -- and eat that for entire weekends. The idea of eating nothing but a glorified onion and water for 48 hours straight horrified me. Whenever I went to the grocery store, I could never look at leeks without thinking of them as a dieting aid a la Slim Fast.

So I stayed blissfully ignorant of their true potential until CCO bought them one day and added them to something -- fried rice, I think it was. That was when I discovered they weren't half bad. Not like Slim Fast at all.

A couple months back, one of the bloggers I follow decided she would try a bunch of recipes with leeks. I was intrigued. Perhaps leeks could be not just "not bad" but actually good. So I made this Leek and Potato Braise for one Meatless Monday and I am now a leek convert. This recipe cooks the leeks and the potatoes slowly for nearly 2 hours. At the end you have a creamy deliciousness, with just hints of spiciness for the leeks. I think I've made this about four times in the past three months. The only downside is it takes a while to cook and if you're very hungry, it tempts you horribly by filling up your entire house with a delicious smell of leeks cooking. We've eaten this several times as a main dish. It's also great as a side.

From All About Braising by Molly Stevens Via The Arugula Files

Eat Rating: Awesome.
Difficulty: Easy. It just takes awhile. You'll need some kind of casserole dish with a tight-fitting lid.

3 large leeks, washed and trimmed
2 1/2 pounds yukon gold potatoes (that's about 5 medium sized ones)
1 1/2 tsp fresh thyme, chopped (LN: or sub in 1/2 tsp dried)
1 1/4 cup stock, chicken or veggie
1/4 cup cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cut the leeks in half lengthwise almost all the way through, then chop into half inch pieces. Set aside.

Peel the potatoes, then chop into 1/2 inch pieces. Add to the leeks and place in the bottom of your casserole dish. Add the thyme and salt and pepper if desired and toss to cover.

Place the stock in a saucepan and heat just until boiling. Pour over the potatoes and leeks. Cover the dish with the lid and place in the oven. Cook for 45 minutes, then remove lid and stir. Replace lid and cook for another 25 minutes.

Increase temperature to 425 degrees, then add the 1/4 cup of cream and give it a good stir. Cook another 30 minutes until the liquid is absorbed and the tops have begun to brown. Remove from oven and serve immediately.

Southern Chocolate Layer Cake

It's true. My layer cake looked nothing like the gem that appeared in the New York Times. But, in my defense, that lady has been making them for something ridiculous like 70 years. And even if it wasn't a looker, it sure was delicious.

Since I'm nothing if not ambitious, I knew as soon as I read the NY Times piece on southern layer cakes that I had to try my hand at it. So when my mom asked what we should have for dessert with Christmas dinner, I naturally insisted it should be a 15-layer cake. Naturally.

Sadly, because of operator error (see above) and inexact measurements, I only ended up with a nine-layer cake. But after all, it was just my first attempt.


Eat Rating: Delicious. The thing I liked about this cake is there is plenty of icing the soaks into the layers, but its not overwhelmed by the icing like some cakes are.
Difficulty: Medium to hard. It certainly is a production. Requires three cake pans, sifter, hand mixer (or Kitchenaid) and parchment rounds.

Adapted from The New York Times, Dec. 15, 2009

Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) of butter
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup of shortening (LN: I, stupidly, assumed my mom would have shortening on hand and didn't pick it up at the store. We subbed another 1/3 cup of butter)
5 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
5 cups cake flour (LN: I used all-purpose)
2 tsp baking soda
5 tsp baking powder
2 cups milk

Frosting
5 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into pieces
1 15 oz. can evaporated milk
1/2 cup milk (LN: The recipe calls for whole. I subbed 2 percent)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Liberally grease three 9-inch round cake pans, layer with a round of parchment and grease again. (LN: Don't skip the parchment! It really helps because you're going to need to re-use the cake pans and it's much easier than washing them between layers)

Place the butter, shortening and sugar in a bowl and cream with electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition. Mix in the vanilla. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Gradually add the flour mixture in batches to the cake base, adding 1/2 cup of milk in between each round of flour until fully incorporated.

Beat the cake batter for approximately 5 minutes until it is smooth. Add 3/4 cup of batter to each cake pan and bake for 6-8 minutes until cooked through (LN: in my oven, it was more like 10-12 when I baked all three layers at once).

While the cake is still warm, flip it out onto a paper towel or rack. Re-butter and line your cake pan and stick another set of layers in the oven. You should ultimately do four rounds of layers, end up with 12 total. (LN: Unless you have mess ups like I did, in which case you may only have nine layers).

While the layers are baking, start the icing. Place butter, sugar, cocoa, milk and evaporate milk into a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Boil for 4 minutes. Reduce heat to simmer, add vanilla and then cook for an additional 10 minutes. You want the icing to be the consistency of hot fudge sauce. Don't overcook. The icing will firm up some as it cools.

Once the icing is finished, place one layer of the cake on a serving plate. Top with 4-5 tablespoons of icing. Add another layer. Repeat until all the layers have been added. Pour the remaining icing over the top of the cake, allowing to drip down the sides. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Vegetarian Squash Casserole

In anticipation of our honeymoon extravaganza to the Big Easy, CCO and I decided to go vegetarian for a month. Although we've been eating vegetarian once a week for Meatless Monday, doing it all day everyday was a challenge at first. (There are only so many days in a row you can eat eggs before it gets boring...)

So CCO suggested we pick up a copy of The Moosewood Cookbook. When he had been a vegetarian during his college days at Harvard, it was his stand-by. Once I finally found a copy, I could see why. There are tons of suggestions for how to move to vegetarian without eating a salad every night (though there is a great chapter on salad). One section that caught my eye was the one on baked dishes, in particular this squash casserole. It's super easy and most things you'd probably have in your house anyway.

If you want to make this, I'd suggest it as a side dish along with something else. If you want it to be the main feature, serve it with crusty bread or pita, something else that has some texture and substance. My one criticism was that everything was so smooth, it was a little like eating baby food (very delicious baby food, but baby food nonetheless).

Eat Rating: Delicious. The squash complements nicely with the tanginess of the yogurt and feta.
Difficulty: Easy.

Adapted from The New Moosewood Cookbook by Molly Katzen

4 cups cooked squash or pumpkin, mashed or pureed (LN: I used acorn. You could also do this with butternut)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 small bell peppers, any kind, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup yogurt (LN: She recommends using firm Greek yogurt. It worked find with plain Yoplait)
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in skillet and saute onions and bell peppers until vegetables begin to soften. Add garlic and cook until vegetables completely softened.

Place the mashed squash in a large bowl. Add the onions and peppers, yogurt and feta and mix until well-combined. Spread the casserole into a 9-inch square baking dish (or comparable) and sprinkle the walnuts over the top.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the casserole is thoroughly heated and bubbling. Serve immediately with some crusty bread or warmed pita.

Wedding Cake Project: Results!

Wild Blueberry Pie

The Grooms Cake: Guinness Chocolate Cake


Peach Pie

Photos by Laura Luis at Three Lights Photography.

It's a Recession: Homemade Tortilla Chips

I don't know about you, but I seem perenially incapable of finishing an entire bag of corn tortillas. I like to get them to make enchiladas (they taste much better with the corn tortillas than with flour, in my opinion), but a batch for two people only makes a small dent in the bag. The solution? Make tortilla chips.

Eat Rating: Awesome. A nice bit of crunch
Difficulty: Super easy. An 8-year-old could do this (provided she doesn't burn herself putting it in the oven. That was always my problem as a kid...)

5 corn tortillas
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper .

Using a sharp knife or a pizza cutter, cut each tortillas into six triangles. Place the triangles in a small bowl and drizzle the vegetable oil over them, tossing so each piece is well coated. Lay out the chips on the cookie sheet and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 25 minutes or until the chips have begun to brown. Remove from the oven and let cool about 5 minutes before serving.

Variation: Cinnamon Chips
Omit salt. Mix 3 tbsp sugar with 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the chips and follow remaining steps.

Wedding Cake Project: Wild Blueberry Pie

I know what you're thinking. "Did I read that correctly? It says wedding cake and pie." Yes, you did read it right. In addition to the delicious Guinness Chocolate Cake, we will be serving wedding pie of the homemade variety. I'm not completely crazy. Wedding pie is a thing. And though my love of pie knows no bounds, I did not ask CCO on our first date if we could serve pie at our wedding like this guy. (Though it was one of the conditions I set on having the wedding at all)

CCO's family lives in Maine, so we figured wild blueberry pie was a nice way to celebrate his New England heritage. After a thorough search, I discovered you can buy frozen wild blueberries at Whole Foods. So I bought a bag, whipped out Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything and whipped up a pie.

Nicole, with disaster pie.

It looked good but it was something of a disaster. It tasted delicious, but it was more like soup than pie, with tons of blueberries swimming in juice left in the dish. Now I understand some people love their blueberry pie to be soupy. But when people are dressed in their Sunday best and I'm wearing white, I'm not sure soupy blueberries are the way to go.

The culprit, I discovered, was the cornstarch. If cooked for too long, cornstarch loses its thickening power. Couple that with the extreme juiciness of wild blueberries and you get soup. For round two, I settled on instant clearjel. Like cornstarch, clearjel is made from corn. But it's essentially a higher grade of cornstarch than what you buy at the grocery store and it thickens much better.

Since this is supposed to be a fancy-ish pie, I used Meyer lemon zest. I'm sure regular lemon zest would do just fine if that's what you have on hand.

P.S. Happy blogiversary! Thanks to all my loyal readers. We've come a long way since Raspberry White Chocolate Bars. What has been your favorite recipe of the last year?

Eat Rating: Awesome. Very blueberry with a hint of lemon.
Difficulty: Easy.

One batch of double pie crust (LN: I recommend this one via Smitten Kitchen. You could also try doubling this.)
1 15 oz. bag frozen wild blueberries (LN: You can sub 2 1/2 cups fresh)
Zest of one Meyer lemon
1/4 cup sugar + 1 tbsp for the top
3 tbsp ClearJel
1 egg

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Lay out one pie crust in the bottom of your pie dish.

In a small bowl, mix the 1/4 cup sugar with the zest of the Meyer lemon. In separate large bowl, mix the blueberries with the sugar and ClearJel. Let stand at least five minutes. (You can start work on your top crust while this is steeping.)

After five minutes, place the blueberries into the pie dish. Top with second crust, either in a lattice (as shown) or place over the top and cut vents.

Beat the egg in a small bowl and brush on top of the top crust (Note: If you're doing a lattice, brush with the egg BEFORE you place on top of the pie. It's much easier that way). Sprinkle the last 1 tbsp of sugar on top of the pie and place the whole pie dish on a cookie sheet.


Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 40-50 minutes. You want the top crust to be browned and the blueberry mixture to be bubbling. Remove from oven and cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

It's a Recession!: Cashew Butter

Ok, so cashew butter is probably not a household staple. But peanut butter is. And while I love the stuff -- grilled peanut butter shall always be Elvis and my favorite sandwich -- after awhile it gets old. So I decided to switch it up a little and try cashew butter. Cashew butter has a much more subtle taste than PB. It's more mellow and doesn't hit you over the head with its nuttiness. The recipe calls for unsalted cashews. They sell big bags at Trader Joes. But if you can't find unsalted, go ahead and get the salted kind and just rinse them off in a colander.

Adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini.

Eat Rating: Awesome.
Difficulty: Easy to Medium. Requires a food processor or blender

2 cups unsalted cashews
Salt, to taste

Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Place the cashews in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake, stirring occassionally, for about 8-10 minutes or until the nuts become fragrant. You want them lightly roasted.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for five minutes. Place the nuts in the food processor and pulse to break up. You'll have, at first, a sort of course meal.

Keep pulsing, stopping ocassionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber scraper. The nuts will continue to break down and eventually begin to form a paste. Taste and add salt if desired.



The paste is somewhat thick and a little more crumbly than traditional peanut butter. Once it reaches desired consistency, place into a jar or plastic container and refrigerate. The butter will keep in the fridge for a few weeks.