"Summer on a Plate"

Apparently, the most cliché thing you can write about as a food blogger is caprese salad and how it reminds you of your summer. Honestly, I am not above being a cliché, and my food blog is ever so humble compared to the one who called it a faux pas. I think that as a beginner, if I ever were to become rich and famous and have a movie made about my exploits, my naïve yet nobly intended post of caprese salad adulation will become a deleted scene, if the director is kind, or simply overlooked as the wistful ramblings of a novice. Hmm... I wonder who would play me in an Abstemious Epicure movie.

Many summers have come and gone for me without friendships to help pass the long months between obligations. Some summers have been filled with obligations themselves. But every few years, I'm lucky enough to have a June-July-August that revolves around friends and food. Those summers are the ones that stick in your memory, and this summer was like that.

I can't remember what the reason for the gathering was, but it resulted in the lot of us out in my friend Jonathan's massive garden at twilight, picking whatever we could get our hands on and shoving it into our greedy mouths. As we tried to decide what sort of "real" food we could make from what grew in Jonathan's backyard, one of us suggested caprese salad. You may have eaten caprese salad before, but if you have never eaten it made from homegrown tomatoes and basil and fresh whole milk mozzarella, you will never understand how magical it is. Each bite is an explosion of perfectly-matched flavors. I didn't do much... sliced cheese, halved cherry tomatoes, tore basil and arranged them prettily. Jonathan's garden really did all the work. There's just something about homegrown tomatoes that grocery store tomatoes can never touch. They taste like an accumulation of sunlight.

Within seconds, the plate was destroyed. All that remained was tomato carnage, scattered basil flowers, and blissful, contented expressions on the faces of my friends. When I look back on my summer and remember it fondly, I will remember this salad. I hope those multitudes of other food bloggers who write about "Summer on a Plate" have memories as happy as mine. Can you really fault 'em for immortalizing them?

Food of the Gods

Is there anything in this world more beautiful than bacon?

Soup's On

I am unabashedly "a winter." In terms of fashion, winters are people with very dark or very light hair and pale skin who look good in jewel tones, which is true of me. But winter resonates with me in other ways too. Cold, quiet, solitary, brittle, desolate, radiant.

And, it's a good time to make soup. I love soup.

I've been playing around with the idea of a stock-based soup with grains, leafy greens and sausage for awhile. There are lots of similar recipes out there, and I'd been thinking of doing one for awhile, when yesterday's issue of Food Day provided basically the exact recipe that I was looking for. This one called for kielbasa instead of ground sausage, which was welcome. I used a turkey kielbasa for its low fat content. The leafy green in this soup is Kale. It has potatoes, pearl barley, Hungarian paprika, and a base of chicken stock.


You really can't eat a hearty soup like this without a good, crusty loaf of bread. This is a harvest wheat bread from Trader Joe's.

The stock of the soup was so flavorful, and this bread is a perfect vehicle for sopping up what's left after all the chunky and leafy bits are gone.

Hazel loves bread. Hazel thinks she loves kale too, but she doesn't. She'll pick it up and spit it out over and over, until you take it away from her. Bread gets inhaled, though.

The soup was extremely flavorful. It was also both filling and low in calories, which is awesome for my purposes. And yes, that is real butter on my bread. A little bit of real butter never hurt anyone.

Can you imagine a more perfect winter meal?

Breakfast of Champions

I like to think of myself as a strong woman, a liberal woman. It is, therefore, somewhat difficult for me to admit that I often dream of becoming a Southern housewife. I fantasize about wearing a gingham apron and smelling the balmy, thick perfume of magnolias and honeysuckle as I set pies on the windowsill to cool. THERE, I SAID IT.

...I also daydream of running risk assessments on criminals and having a six figure salary, so my dreams are incompatible. The closest I can come to Southern housewifery is making biscuits while listening to Patsy Cline on a Sunday morning.


This particular biscuit recipe is courtesy of Alton Brown. His recipe is simply called Southern Biscuits, and it will transport you to a magical land with porch swings and sweet tea and all of those other fabulous clichés about The South, at least in your imagination.

The key to these biscuits is to work the dough as little as possible. When I turned them out on to the board they were lumpy as hell and you could still see large, shimmering flecks of unmixed butter in the dough. This is what you want! Like Alton says, just walk away! Just... walk away.


The biscuits were a mile high, tender, and buttery as all get-out. The only issue for me was that they were rather small. Next time I will likely use a 3 or 4" biscuit cutter, instead of a 2-incher.

To cut the heaviness of a biscuit breakfast, I decided that citrus juice was in order. In the winter, sometimes the only fruit you can find is citrus and bananas, and if you don't already know, I loathe bananas. I had grapefruits and tangerines on hand though, and in my opinion, a more excellent combination could not be planned.


While country gravy would be most excellent on these biscuits, it would not be particularly abstemious, and so I settled for a wafer-thin pat of butter and a drizzle of honey.

Alton Brown's grandmother, Ma Mae, is the most quintessential of Southern grandmothers, and she made biscuits just like these every day of her life. While that may not be realistic for the strong, liberal woman of today, it's an awfully satisfying way to quench a guilty daydream.

Risotto

I'm sure that Risotto is probably one of those dishes that every food blogger starting out does a feature on. It's largely considered to be a must-know for any foodie, and with good reason: it's elegant, beautiful, and has a perfect flavor balance and excellent mouth-feel, when done properly. It is rich, creamy, and satisfying. And, it takes forever. Risotto is a fussy baby. It must be soothed and coddled, constantly watched, never let out of sight. Still, I think that everyone should learn to make Risotto. It really does take a long time, about half an hour of uninterrupted stirring, but it's worth it. Putting all other things aside, it cost me about three dollars to make four very American-sized portions. You can use leftover vegetables in it too. It is important for any miser to have a repertoire of dishes they can make cheaply. It just so happens that I am cheapskate and a gourmand. It makes my life truly miserable sometimes, but Risotto is one of those shining examples of cuisine that allows me to experience the best of both worlds.

This particular risotto started out as a simple Parmesan one, but I discovered a handful of sliced mushrooms unused by a previous dinner in the back of my refrigerator. Behold, the mise-en-place - a whole diced red onion, a handful of sliced button mushrooms, and a wee pile of minced garlic (about four cloves):


Now, I know this is supposed to be the abstemious epicure, but for risotto to turn out properly, you must sweat the aromatics in a fairly liberal amount of fat. I will explain more about this later, but the important part is that the garlic and onion went in with two tablespoons of butter.



After the onions and garlic have softened, you add two cups of rice to this buttery melange. The type of rice is important. It needs to be a starchy, medium-grain one. I used arborio, which seems to be the most popular one for American risotto-making. Two very important things need to happen here. Firstly, the rice needs to become coated with butter. Secondly, the rice needs to become somewhat toasted. Mostly, you can tell this has been achieved when the grains of rice become translucent around the edges. The fragrant aroma of toasted rice is another good indicator, although one must be very careful about this, otherwise the rice may burn.


The next step is to incorporate a small amount of white wine to the rice. I added about a half cup of a dry Gewurztraminer. The bulk of the risotto process is adding small amounts of liquid and stirring until the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. Once the wine has been absorbed, you incorporate six cups of stock, one ladle at a time. Once a ladle of stock is added to the rice mixture, you must stir the risotto constantly until the liquid is absorbed. This process is repeated until the stock has all been used. Oddly, this process fairly universally takes exactly 20 minutes from the time of wine absorption.


You will know the risotto is ready when a the rice appears to be coated in a creamy "sauce." Once the stock has been entirely incorporated and creaminess becomes apparent, a taste test of the risotto should reveal rice that is ever so slightly "al-dente." It shouldn't be hard, but it should be toothsome and offer slight resistance when you bite into it.


At this point, you dice in a bit more cold butter, and finish with some grated Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. This adds to the creaminess of the rice and honestly, how can you go wrong with extra butter and cheese?


Tada! You're done. I serve risotto as a main course, but it would be just as wonderful as an accompaniment to meat or fish. The best thing about risotto is that the only limit is your own imagination, provided that you follow the basic process.


P.S. - The meal actually cost 3.25, as the squash was $.50

Eggplant Parm and HOLY FUCK MARINARA!

On Sunday I went to Matt's after work and we embarked on an epic journey of Eggplant Parmesan Sandwich creation. Even though the Eggplant Parm was Matt's brainchild, I selfishly took over the cooking, as I am wont to do. Unfortunately, no pictures were taken of this process, as I was fairly distracted (and by distracted I mean hungry) at the time.

At the store, we picked up (and by we I mean Matt, as he paid for everything but basil and limes for gin and tonics) focaccia, heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, whole milk mozzarella, basil and breadcrumbs. My meager contribution to this endeavor was several incarnations of canned tomato products, eggs for breading, and a red onion.

- AFK shoveling pasta into my face -

The preparation for the sandwiches was simple, but time consuming. First I made some marinara sauce, by sweating a chopped half of a large onion and four minced cloves of garlic in a liberal amount of olive oil, adding a massive can of imported whole canned tomatoes (which I crushed with a spoon) and stirring in a wee can of tomato paste until the mixture was homogeneous. When the sandwiches were closer to completion, I tore a handful of basil leaves and introduced them into the roiling brew. A fairly utilitarian marinara, but it suited our purposes well.

While I was doing this, Matt sliced the focaccia and the eggplant. The eggplant was salted and went into a colander with some paper towels to lose some moisture and bitterness. This step isn't essential, but true Eggplant Parm connoisseurs will tell you that it just isn't the same without it. The gargantuan New Seasons checkout guy told me as much as he rang up our purchases. He looked like he had eaten a lot of Eggplant Parm in his life.

Once the eggplant had detoxified, I dipped the slices in beaten egg and then dredged them in breadcrumbs. They went promptly into a shallow pan of olive oil and I fried them for about three minutes on each side, until they were golden brown and crispy on the outside but squooshy in the middle. There is definitely a learning curve to this, as I burnt the first three rounds.

From there, all that is left to do is sautee some red onion and prepare a plate of basil leaves, thinly sliced tomato and sliced whole milk mozzarella. We also had provolone, but the mozzarella was far superior, in my opinion. I spread a thick layer of marinara on each side of the bread, then layered basil, three eggplant rounds, tomato slices, mozzarella and some sauteed onions. It was ridiculously good, extremely filling and according to Matt, even better reheated the next day.

As you may have learned by now, I am a fiddler. I like to fiddle with recipes, and while the marinara was good, I had a feeling it could be vastly improved upon with some minor tweaks. One recipe I read suggested using mirepoix (a mixture of finely diced carrot, onion and celery, or the "holy trinity" as it is sometimes called in French and French Creole cuisine), and I thought that might improve it, along with red pepper flakes. So I made it, and it was so good that I exclaimed "Holy fuck!" as I was taking the first bite. It shall henceforth be known as Holy Fuck Marinara, and here is the recipe:

Holy Fuck Marinara

You will need:
One 16 oz can whole tomatoes
One 4 oz can tomato paste
Four large cloves of garlic, minced
One whole small onion, diced finely
One medium carrot, diced finely
One rib of celery, diced finely
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more if you like to live dangerously)
1/2 cup torn basil leaves
1/4 cup olive oil

In a medium saucepan heat the olive oil until it shimmers and coats the pan easily. Add the garlic, onion, celery and carrot and sweat until everything is soft. To the softened mirepoix, add the tomato paste, salt, and both kinds of pepper. Stir this until the bits of mirepoix are incorporated into the tomato sauce, and it is softened and can be easily stirred - about 3 minutes. When this is done, add the can of tomatoes and begin breaking them up with your spoon as you incorporate the paste into the canned tomato juice. After a few minutes, the sauce should begin to thicken and is done, although it can be reduced by cooking it longer. Add the torn basil leaves and stir to incorporate.

I personally think this would be delicious with sliced mushrooms and some italian sausage, but it is also HOLY FUCK good just the way it is.

Udon

As part of my 101 things list, I decided to re-create all of epicurious.com's "Around the World in 80 Dishes." My last post, Ratatouille, though greatly amended, was dish #1. Dish #2, udon, caught my eye about a months ago. After many trips to various Asian grocery stores, I finally gathered all the ingredients. This time, I followed the epicurious recipe almost to the letter, except that I substituted beech mushrooms for shitake and left out the chicken and clams. The recipe is avaliable here, and also as a video, which you can find by searching for epicurious.

I took pictures through the entire process, but I think this one sums it up pretty well.


The flavor balance was superb. I got a little bit of everything in each spoonful. It was extremely filling and satisfying, for such a pretty dish. I would absofuckinglutely make this again, and again, and again.