boguskitchen

The end of the summer has been taken up by grad school, job hunting, house hunting (well, condo) and a whole lot of bbqs, craziness and fun.  Also way way way too much takeout.  It’s such an easy trap to fall into in New York, especially when you’re working a combined 120 hours a week or so and your friend has a raging barbeque every Sunday when you’d normally be cooking for the week.  But fall finds us starting to nest, so it’s time to get off our asses and back into the kitchen.

I took the day off for Rosh Hashana and ended up doing about 50 pounds of laundry and planning a week of homemade meals.  Worst. Jew. Ever.

I picked up some fresh pasta from that nice old lady over on Conselyea, and some fresh ground beef and veal from the guys over at Lorimer Market and an hour after Perry and I were home, the apartment was filled with the smell of meatballs.  I love meatballs. Meatball is Perry’s nickname for me (I think it has more to do with my boneheadedness than my fondness for the food, though). But it fits!

Anyway, they couldn’t be easier:

1/2 lb of both ground beef and ground veal

1/2 c parsley

1/2 c breadcrumbs

1 egg

1 T tomato paste

salt, pepper, oregano

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 few tablespoons of parmesan cheese

Dredge in flour - we learned the hard way with the first batch by skipping this, but it really helps them stay together and not stick to the pan like the one in the middle.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil and get to cooking - once they’re well browned on the outside, you should finish them in sauce or in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

YUM. These balls were in my mouth.

I did end up starting another loaf of bread yesterday and sure enough, it rose significantly more after 12 or so hours than the first attempt (which I trashed). It came out dense, and tasted more like sourdough than I expected - almost certainly a result of the Cooks Illustrated addition of white vinegar to the recipe. So, more research is needed and I’m sure I’ll be making many more attempts as the weeks and months wear on - can’t wait to have a good gas oven instead of our crappy (expensive!) electric one! If anyone is looking for good bread baking resources, Rose Levy Beranbaum is quite the expert, and I enjoy her blog very much.

We did, however, eat nearly the whole loaf in one day, dipping it into this easy roasted vegetable spread that I whipped up:

Lou’s Veggie Spread (still trying to make it like he does):
Eggplants, Red and Green Peppers, Onions, Zucchini, Yellow Squash (keep adding whatever veggies you like….) diced, tossed in olive oil and roasted in the oven until soft.
Blend in the food processor, adding olive oil until smooth. Season as you prefer - we opted for salt, pepper, honey, sugar, cumin and thyme on this go around. Eat for every meal/snack until it’s gone, if you’re in our house.

Pics of those coming tonight, when I’ll also be whipping up a traditional carrot cake with vanilla cream cheese frosting, and Thai Beef with Basil.

This is the first weekend with nothing to do in months, now that Sunday classes are over and we’ve visited Mom and Dad Loose Knives down in Pennsylvania.

I just whipped up (heh) some fresh whipped cream for the 2 quarts of excellent strawberries that I’ll be bringing to a clothing swap in an hour or two, along with a few bottles of Prosecco.

Last night I made my first batch of dough for Cook’s Illustrated’s “Almost No-Knead Bread” recipe, and I’ll tell you - it just doesn’t seem quite right. It didn’t rise nearly as much as I expected and my hypothesis is that the recipe failed because I used pasteurized ale that was too cold, which inhibited the yeast. Sounds reasonable, right? I’m about to whip up another batch, this time making sure to use warm beer. Before I even attempt to bake the first loaf, I’m going to wait a few hours to see if this new one rises significantly more. No sense in torturing myself with a hot oven on an August afternoon if the product is going to come out inedible….more to come….

No, not really, but I don’t want anyone to think that because we’re not posting, we’re not eating.

I just finished a summer course at NYU that’s been taking up my Sundays and started waiting tables at a local restaurant one or two days a week on top of my full time job. As a result, we’ve been eating a lot of salads and takeout.

Our focus for the next few weeks is going to be on thirty minute meals. Frankly, between work and cramming in one more month of summer fun, complex evening meals that have us sitting down to eat at 10 o’clock just aren’t appealing. If anyone has any recommendations for good cookbooks or websites focused on a quick and easy kitchen, please post them in the comments section!

In the meantime, we’re off to my parents’ house in Pennsylvania this weekend, perhaps we’ll make them at least one home cooked meal while we’re there. I’d love to try and knock out a birthday cake for my dad, so I’m on the hunt for any and all chocolate and coconut related recipes.

I’ve also got a plan in mind for a little kitchen redesign inspired by my new prep table, so hopefully in the next two or three weeks we can put up some before and after pics!

Oh man, that’s a cheesy title but it’s better than HOLY SHIT LOOK WHAT OUR FRIEND MADE OMG WTF LOL AMAZING!!

We invited our pals Joe and Kristin over for dinner on Monday. Between coming off a tiring weekend and it still being really hot and humid, we opted to stay inside in the AC instead of hanging in the backyard. We grilled some simple burgers and I fixed up a side plate of mild goat and brie cheeses, watermelon, cantaloupe, anjou pears, fresh bread and prosciutto. So, you know - basic meal, nothing fancy, nothing requiring recipes or pictures.

Until dessert.

I can’t even begin to tell you how fabulous I think these are. I want to set up a side business with Joe charging obscene amounts of money to make these for bougie baby showers.

He very carefully cracked open the eggs and cleaned the yolk/albumen from them.

Each one is filled with a vanilla mousse for the egg “white”

And then the “yolk,” a mango puree, is revealed!

We ate them with tiny spoons, made jokes about eating EVERYTHING out of eggs for the foreseeable future and could not stop oohing and aahing. And no, he did not make an enormous omelet from the discarded eggs, we asked.

One of our assistants had a birthday last week and we wanted to break with the usual Buttercup Bakery cupcakes tradition our office has (which is cool, cause I think they’re gross). Matt told us about her love of cheesecake, but we were stunned to find out that the 3″ cheesecakes from Billy’s Bakery are $4.50 each! For more than a dollar an inch, I’m sure it’s f***ing delicious, but that’s just excessive.

I’d made mini cheesecakes for my craft group last winter, and knew that I could crank out two dozen for under twenty bucks. Of course, that meant I’d be baking cheesecakes at 12:30 am, but that never bothers me until I’m so tired my eyes are crossing and I realize I have to wait another half hour to take them out of the oven. Meh.

The other challenge was not reallllllllly a challenge because I half assed it, but I used Pamela’s wheat-free and gluten-free cookies as the crust so that one of our colleagues could partake. Having celiacs means she’s always getting shafted on the office treats, which makes me feel sad. I substituted Pamela’s Shortbread Cookies and Ginger Cookies for the graham cracker or oreo cookie base that I’d normally use for the crust, and they came out pretty well. They’re very soft right out of the package - if I do this again I’ll try letting them sit out for a day to get a little dry/stale and hopefully make them more crumbly. Making wheat/gluten free cake flour is a whole ‘nother monster that will require stocking up on all kinds of ingredients I don’t normally have (xanthan gum, rice flour) but I will give it a go on another occasion!

The fatigue meant that I kind of spaced on taking pictures, but here’s a shot of the cheesecakes going into a tiffin to be brought to the office - they were definitely a hit! I forgot to leave a few at home for my cheesecake-loving mister, so I think I’m going to have to do another batch this weekend. Tragic, I know….

Italian-style Mini Cheesecakes:
(using cupcake tins, makes about 2 dozen)

Mix:
1 cup crushed oreos, graham crackers, etc…
2 T melted butter
into a crumble and press into the bottom of a greased cupcake tin (I have ones that make 12 at a time, which is ideal for this recipe)

Combine:
4 eggs
8 oz cream cheese
1 cup ricotta
1 cup sugar
Here I also like to add some combination of: orange or lemon zest, vanilla extract, ground ginger - get creative!

Pour the mixture into the muffin tins and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, til the edges get golden brown. If you’re going to add a fruit or chocolate chip topping, toss them on 5-10 minutes before the cheesecakes come out of the oven. I don’t rock that gross pie filling action. Fresh fruit, baby. Or, if there’s time, the compote recipe that’s posted below would be good.

Let them cool completely on a wire rack. Let. them. cool. completely. Then refrigerate for 10 minutes. THEN pop them out of the tin. Do not be like me and deliriously decide that you absolutely positively MUST GO TO BED that very moment and try to extract them before they’re cool and break the crust into a bajillion pieces. You will convince yourself that you’ve ruined Aryanna’s 29th birthday and sleep like crap and be very cranky when you have to wake up early for a doctor’s appointment. Or maybe that’s just me.

Question for you….how do you cook your cheesecake? These end up very dense, and don’t taste like traditional New York cheesecake since they’re more Italian style and rely on the ricotta more than the cream cheese for flavor. If I were making regular cheesecake, I’d do it in a springform pan and/or a warm water bath. Haven’t thought about trying it with these. Do you find that one way works better than the other?

I know this is a rhetorical question since we don’t yet get many comments but I thought I’d try…..

Normally I think people would make these with zucchini, but we got about 1.5 pounds of summer squash from the CSA. We served these alongside merguez lamb sausage sliders, and while the presentation wasn’t so hot, it was all delicious.

Clockwise from top: summer squash, 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1.5 c parsley, 2 eggs, 1 c breadcrumbs, 1 bunch scallions, and 2 tsp chopped basil.

One thing that’s key after you’ve shredded your squash is to liberally salt it, and let it sit in a bowl for thirty minutes or so. Loads of moisture will leach from the squash, and you can then rinse and squeeze it out. I still found that I needed to add a liberal sprinkling of flour to get the batter as cohesive as I thought it should be - next time I’ll drain the squash better/longer.

We need to ask our most southern pal Wil how they do fritters in Arkansas - what kind of oil, if they’re just lobbed in there or if they’re formed by hand, how big they should be….we had a lot of trial and error to get the outside crispy but not burnt, and the inside cooked through. The olive oil had too low a smoke point, which I should’ve considered before I started cooking the fritters. But, I do like learning new things!

I absolutely love carrot cake, but calling it “bread” just sounds so much healthier, doesn’t it? We’ve been enjoying this super moist carrot and pecan loaf for breakfast for the past few days. I like that it’s not terribly sweet or overspiced, as a cake would be, but next time I think I’ll add some golden raisins to add little bursts of sweetness here and there. I adapted this recipe from the Joy Of Cooking’s version:

Combine:
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

Then fold in:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Finally:
2 cups grated carrots
2 cups ground pecans

Bake in a greased loaf pan about 1 hour at 350 degrees. Cool in the pan for a while, then turn out onto a rack for further cooling.

Last night I made some more pesto and Perry made gazpacho (for dinner tonight, since it’s better after the flavors can meld for a day) and I was on day three of a headache and didn’t want to make anything else. Sometimes we are more bogus than usual, cause this was my dinner:

Tonight I’ll post a recipe for the carrot pecan bread I made the other day and he’ll put up the gazpacho. Can’t wait to eat it!

One of my photos from the Mercat de la Boqueria in Spain is part of this week’s “Best of Eater Flickr Pool.” Too bad it’s tucked away after the jump (and after all those less awesome pictures).