Flip for Cookies and for Kids

So back in December (uh huh), OXO, one of my favorite brands of kitchen stuff, sent me two really cute Cookies for Kids cookie spatulas – one for me, and one to give away for holiday baking.  Now, the cool thing here is OXO’s Cookies for Kids Cancer program.  They ran a national bake sale campaign to raise money to help support research for new therapies for kids cancer – and I thought it was great, because cookies, bake sales and kids – they all go together!   And now it is January, and while I’ve already confessed to them that I missed their Dec. 31 deadline for holding bake sales, they said I could still give away the spatula and you can still buy it at Bed, Bath & Beyond, too (although I think you have to go a store; I didn’t see it online).  Hurray!

And then I saw my friend Ellise’s recipe for Flat & Bumpy Chocolate Chip Cookies on her blog, Cowgirl Chef, and I finally found time to make cookies, et voila,  the Oxo ”Be a Good Cookie” spatula give-away is finally happening!  Hurray again!

So instead of sharing my own recipe, I’m sharing my friend Ellise’s from Cowgirl Chef  from Jan. 15.  Look how yummy they look!

These cookies are easy to make.  Ellise (who has a cookbook coming out in May chronicling her adventures of moving from Dallas to Paris and cooking her head off, adding a Texas twist to French recipes – more on that as May approaches) uses  chopped chocolate; I used chocolate chips (I did hack a knife through them just a bit to chop them, but not too much – I went a bit lazy on that).  And I used walnut chips (who knew you could buy so damn many sizes and types of walnuts?), and I liked them.   The cookies come out flat, bumpy, crispy, chewy and delicious.  I might have one for breakfast, since I got up at 5:45 this morning to write this (when inspiration strikes…).

And here’s a tip: if you don’t need or want to make the entire batch, you can freeze the dough.  I just put cookie-size blobs of raw dough into zip-top freezer bags, and then whenever you want or need fresh, warm chocolate chip cookies – voila! – you can pop them into the oven, straight from the freezer.  Just add a couple of minutes to the bake time.  It’s like money in the bank, especially next time you have friends over.

To win this super cute (and functional) cookie spatula, comment on this post by Feb. 1 and I’ll pick a random winner and send them their spatula.  And Ellise’s Flat & Bumpy Chocolate Chip Cookies are a great recipe to give your spatula a test drive!

Let me know how your Flat & Bumpies come out.  And thanks to OXO for sharing Good Cookies spatulas and helping fund kids cancer research!

Pork Tinga — Zinga, Zinga!

So I was devouring the February issue of Food & Wine magazine and I came across a recipe from Rick Bayless, one of my favorite Chicago chefs.  Having spent more than a dozen years living in Texas, I regularly have huge cravings for Mexican food – the spicier, the better!  So I said to myself, “Self, let’s make that!”  Off I marched to pick up a pork shoulder and assorted other ingredients and I got to work.  I have to share this with you because it’s just so damn good!  And it makes a lot, so if you have a small household, like me, you can share it with your neighbors and you can also eat it for a week, because it’s so versatile, and you can also freeze some of it for later enjoyment.  It’s basically a spicy, Mexican-style pork stew that you can eat in or on tortillas.   Look how yummy!

Ready?  Ondole!

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 pound of pork shoulder, cut into stew-sized cubes (about an inch or two in size)

1/4 tsp dried marjoram

1/4 tsp dried thyme

3 bay leaves

3/4 pound red potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces (I used russets; it’s what I had, and they worked fine)

2 Tbl vegetable oil

1 fresh chorizo sausage (the Mexican kind; not the Spanish kind. Mexican chorizo is like a bratwurst or Italian-style sausage; Spanish is the hard, cured kind you can eat sliced up)

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

1 or 2 garlic cloves, minced up

One 28-ounce can of peeled Italian tomatoes, smushed up and drained

2 chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, minced, and 2-4 tsp of the adobo sauce, depending how spicy you want it

Salt and sugar, to season (yes, a pinch of sugar!)

WHAT YOU DO

1) First you ask yourself why you didn’t buy pork shoulder already cut up (sheesh!) and you get your sharpest knife out, along with a big box of caution, and butcher that pork shoulder!

Yes, I plowed through this 3 1/2 pound bad boy and wound up with a little more than 1 1/4 pound of chunks.  Hurray!

2) In a large saucepan, simmer (uh huh) the pork, marjoram, thyme and bay leaves in 4 cups of salted water (I put in 2 Tbl of salt), partially covered, about 45 minutes (the meat should be tender).  I tossed the bone in, too, because Ifigured it would add flavor (I chucked it after I fished the meat out).  Now, the meat is going to look all gray and not that pretty (hence no photo),and that is ok.  After 45 minutes, use a slotted spoon to put the meat onto a dinner plate. RESERVE 2 CUPS OF THE PORK BROTH!!  Do not chuck it!  Let the meat cool for about 10 minutes, and then cut it or tear with your hands if you’re feeling primal, into smaller bits (the size that would work in a taco or burrito type of situation). 

3) Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling, salted water, for about 8 or minutes (drop the spuds in once the water comes to a boil).  Drain the potatoes and just let ‘em sit for a bit in the colander.  (Chuck the potato water.)

4) Now: get a large, high-sided skillet out.  Heat the veg oil over medium heat.  Take the casing off the chorizo (yes, it’s a yucky job, but you just gotta do it), and crumble it into the pan.  Cook the chorizo until it’s really well-browned — about 10 minutes over medium heat.  Put that on a plate (you can put it on same plate the pork is living on).

5) Keep the yummy chorizo fat that is in the skillet and add the pork and onions to it.  Cook about 10 minutes and stir it about, browning it as much as you can (given the size of the skillet and amount of meat and onions).  Now add the minced garlic and cook for another minute.  Add the tomatoes (I just smush ‘em up with my hands, from the can, and leave the sauce; you can freeze that tomato sauce, tho, and use it for something else down the road.)  Add the chorizo.  Cook for 5 minutes.  Add the spuds, the chopped-up chipotle and the adobo sauce.  I used 2-3 tsps and that was plenty hot for me.  TASTE AS YOU GO, so you get the right amount of heat.  Add 1 1/2 cups or a little more pork broth.

6) Let the whole lot simmer uncovered (or sans sombrero, as I like to say!) for at least 10 minutes.  Taste it.  Add some salt.  And a pinch of sugar!  Maybe a 1/4 tsp , max.  This is Rick Bayless brilliance, as it lets everything really sing, flavor-wise. 

EAT!  You can pile this into a flour tortilla (I found low-carb ones, just to experiment, because my ass does not need any more carbs, and you know what?  They’re good.)  But you can also use corn tortillas.  Or you could eat this with rice.  Or beans.   It’s so versatile!  Rick suggests some very thinly sliced red onion, sliced avocado and crumbled queso fresco (a Mexican-style farmer’s cheese – a cow’s milk cheese that’s kind of the texture of feta; salty and delicious). 

And for your beverage enjoyment, may I suggest a nice, fruity rich shiraz — or a nice, cold beer would do as well!  Enjoy!  And many thanks to Chef Rick Bayless for the delicious inspiration!

The Big Cheese: My First Souffle

You know how when you watch “Next Food Network Star” or “Master Chef,” they throw some crazy task at the contestants, like, “Make a souffle: your time starts NOW!”?   Well, to kick off the new year, I’ve decided to learn how to make all the elusive dishes that I know I’ll be faced with when I make it onto one of those shows.  That’s right: I’m going to apply.  On my list of “never made this:” fried chicken, lobster (kill & cook), duck, meringue, ribs, a fancy potato dish, a roast.  And souffle.

So yesterday, I dropped $20 on a pound of fancy cave-aged Gruyere.  Yep, a pound.  And I came home and promptly turned to page 151 of Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table – hands-down my favorite cookbook for all things French.  Yes, I read the recipe TWICE before I dove in.  But somehow I had programmed “a pound of cheese” into my brain – when it is really a half pound.  Sigh.  So – my first attempt was just that – a first attempt.  It wasn’t a disaster, per se.  But it wasn’t a howling success either.  So now I know – and you can bet I won’t make that mistake again (I’ll make some other mistake, probably!) 

I’m going to share some pictures with you – notably of the finished thing – so we can all compare it with my next attempt, alright?  Here she is:

It’s maybe is a little too brown, and it didn’t really rise enough – because of the weight of all that damn cheese.  And here was my other mistake: I set the timer for 40 minutes … and then FORGOT TO PRESS START!  Argh!  So I had to guess when 25 – 30 minutes had elapsed because Dorie says, “do not even think of opening that oven door for at least 25 minutes!”  Jeez. Really? Yes, really.  So when I took it out – at what I thought was 40 minutes — it wasn’t cooked through.  All that stupid cheese had really mucked up the works.  So I popped her back into the oven for another 10 minutes, with a sheet of foil on her head to keep her from getting even more brown, and she cooked through.  She was just too cheesy, though.  I ate some of it.  And it was … good.  But not great.

Alright, if you want to try this yourself, let me know how yours comes out.  And by all means, go to Amazon and get Dorie’s book if you love to cook French food.  Her recipes and directions (when you pay attention to them!) are the best.  Here’s what you need:

INGREDIENTS

fine dry bread crumbs

2 1/2 cups whole milk

3 Tbl unsalted butter

6 Tbl all-purpose flour

salt and freshly ground white pepper (couldn’t find mine; used black pepper; same flavor, but more visible)

freshly grated nutmeg (I’m not a nutmeg fan; I used a pinch of Turkish Alleppo pepper)

6 large eggs, separated

8 ounces of grated cheese (I used Gruyere, but Dorie says you can use Swiss or Emmenthal, too)

DIRECTIONS

1) Position a rack in the lower 1/3 of your oven and preheat to 400 degrees F.  Get a 6-7 cup souffle dish and coat it thickly with butter, and then dump in some bread crumbs and shake / roll the pan to get the crumbs to stick to the butter all over, like this:

2) Time to make the bechamel sauce! Get two medium  sauce pans out.  In one, boil the milk, and set that aside.  In the other, melt the 3 Tbls of butter and add the flour and cook, stirring, for at least two minutes, over medium heat, to make a roux (a thickening thing).  Slowly pour the hot milk into your roux and whisk, whisk, whisk over medium heat, for about 8 or 10 minutes, until it’s really thick (as Dorie says, “the whisk should leave tracks”).  It might be a little lumpy (mine was) – and that’s okay.  Because then Dorie has you pour the thick bechamel through a fine-mesh sieve, into a big bowl, to get rid of the lumps – brilliant!  Before you sieve it, season it with salt, pepper and nutmeg (or Alleppo pepper).  Taste it to make sure it tastes like something besides just plain cream sauce.

3) Egg time!  Okay – let that bechamel cool off a bit (10 minutes) while you separate your eggs.  Put yolks in one bowl; whites in another (clean, dry glass bowls are best here).

You can also grate your cheese now - the 8 ounces.  I used the Cuisinart, for this (so easy).  When the bechamel’s cooled off a bit, whisk the egg yolks into it, one at a time.  Then stir in the grated cheese.  Let that sit while you attend to your egg whites.

4) Put the egg whites into a clean mixing bowl (I used my Kitchenaid stand mixer, with the whisk attachment).  Beat those suckers at pretty high speed for maybe 3-4 minutes til they hold beautiful, shiny peaks, like this:

5) The Home Stretch!  Take 1/4th of the egg whites and gently fold, using a rubber spatula, into your cheesy bechamel.  Then gently fold in the rest — do not manhandle your batter here — be gentle.  Dorie says it’s better to have a few streaks of unincorporated egg white than to over-stir here.  You want this whole situation to be light and airy. 

6) Now – gently pour the batter into your prepared souffle dish.  Put the dish on a parchment- or silicone mat-covered  baking sheet and slide ‘er into the oven.  SET A TIMER AND PRESS START!  40 to 50 minutes.  You can peak in the oven window, but don’t you dare open that oven door for at least 25 minutes.  If it’s browning too quickly, you can open the door at 25 minutes or later, and slide a sheet of foil onto the top.

7) Remove when it’s golden brown, and still a little jiggly in the center.  Ooh and ahh over it a bit.  Soak up the praise from your guests.  Take photos.  And then serve immediately!   If mine had turned out better, I would’ve eaten it for dinner, with a side salad of arugula, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice – and a nice glass of crisp Sauvignon Blanc.  Next time!

Bon chance, and merci to Dorie for the constant inspiration!

No-Knead, Yes-Need Bread!

OMG – so exciting.  Ok, so almost two years ago, I retrieved Mark Bittman’s story in The New York Times about Jim Leahy’s no-knead bread recipe.  Jim Leahy is owner of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City and he makes a mean loaf of bread.  And yesterday, I finally made it (or rather, I started it on Friday; this bread needs no kneading, but it does need plenty of time; more to come on that) and it was AMAZING!  Hands-down, it was the best bread I’ve ever made: a super-crisp, hearty crust and the inside … so tender, so flavorful of pure yeast and flour, so chewy, so DELICIOUS!   My first slice was slathered in some good, unsalted European-style butter and savored over the kitchen counter … sighs of happiness. 

 Oooh, look at it – a few airy pockets inside, perfect for catching melting butter or warm jam. 

So, as I mentioned, the key to this bread is time.  From start to finished loaf, you need about 20-22 hours.  Uh huh.  But it’s worth it.  So if you work five days a week like I do, you can start this, at, say, 1 p.m. on Saturday and bake it on Sunday morning.

Want to make it?  Yes, you do.  Let’s roll!

WHAT YOU NEED

One cast-iron pot with a lid (such as Le Creuset or similar)

2 clean cotton dish towels, but not terry cloth

3 C. all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1/4 tsp instant yeast (which is one packet)

1 1/4 salt

1 cup, 5 ounces of water (lukewarm)

WHAT YOU DO

1. In a big bowl, mix the flour, salt and yeast. Whisk it about to combine. Add the water and stir until everything is blended.  It’s going to look wet, sticky and kind of shaggy. Perfect.

Now cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and stow it for at least 12 hours; ideally 18 hours.  I started this at 2 p.m. on a Friday, and let ‘er rise til 8 a.m. Saturday morning.  And I stowed it in the oven (not on).

2) Ok, 12 to 18 hours later, remove the plastic wrap.  The dough is ready when you see it dotted with tiny bubbles like this:

Put some flour on your work surface, and your hands (the dough is sticky), and plop the dough onto your floured work surface, folding it over on itself two or three times.  Cover the dough with plastic again and let it take a little nap for 15 minutes to relax. 

3) Okay, now flour your hands again and gently get that dough into a ball or circle shape and gently plop it onto a very generously floured cotton kitchen towel (not terry cloth!).  Dust with some more flour and put another towel on top of it.  Walk away, have some coffee, read the paper, whatever, for two more hours.   Dough will have magically doubled in size and won’t readily spring back if you poke it with your finger. 

4) At least 30 minutes before the dough is ready, fire up your oven to “screaming hot” — 450 degrees — and put your cast-iron pot into the oven with the lid on to pre-heat.   Ok, ready?  Get that freaking hot pot out of the oven, set it on a wooden board so you don’t set your counter on fire and take off the lid.  Now it’s time to wake up your dough from its cozy floured-towel bed.  Remove the top towel and slide your hand under the bottom towel and turn that dough, gently into the pot.  It might look a mess – mine did – and that’s okay; it’ll straighten itself out in the oven.  Put the hat on your pot and shove it into the oven for 30 minutes.  Then take its hat off and bake uncovered for 15 more minutes.  Get your  butter and jam ready!

5) Remove pot from oven, gasp in delight and excitement at your golden brown loaf and remove it from the pot, to a cooling rack (with oven mitts).  Resist the urge to cut into it immediately – let it cool for 15 minutes, minimum.  Inhale the scent of fresh-baked bread.  Take a picture of it for Facebook.  Then slice into one end, slather it with butter, maybe a few grains of Maldon sea salt and enjoy!

Note on Storing: Alas, the crust will not stay forever crispy.  But it will collapse on you entirely if you put the bread in a sealed zip-bag, so don’t do that.  I left mine, cut-side-down, on a board overnight and ate some this morning (I just warmed it up, resting it on top of the toaster slots for a few minutes) and it was delish.  I’ll probably cut my beauty in half and freeze half of it, and try to eat the other half within a few days.  Remember, home-baked bread has no preservatives (hurray!), which means mold can grow kind of quickly (boo), so break bread with your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and then plan your next bread-venture!  And give thanks to Mr. Jim Leahy for this amazing recipe. Good luck and let me know how yours comes out.

Chicago Food Film Fest: Crazy Good Food, Films & Fun

Hi, food friends! As we Americans head into our own family food festivals this Thanksgiving - maybe with a holiday film or two – I am sharing a few amazing food and film experiences from the 2nd annual Chicago Food Film Festival that took place this past weekend, at Kendall College, Chicago’s preeminent culinary arts school.  The Festival has been going on in New York since 2008, and this was its second year in Chicago.  Here’s what goes down:  they show films about food and you eat the actual food featured in the films while you’re watching them!  Yes!  It is so cool!  Right off the bat, I have to share this picture of a turtle burger – featured in the film, “How to Make a Turtle Burger,” by Jason Lam.Come on! How hilarious is this?  It’s a hamburger, with hotdog pieces stuck into it and snipped to look like turtle feet, a tail and head, and then it’s wrapped in bacon and baked.  It’s crazy!  (And crazy delicious.)

The Festival kicked off on Friday night with a ”Farm to Film to Table” theme, featuring films about, well, just that — farmers and chefs and cooks who make food straight from the farm.

 

We tasted fresh churned buttermilk from Cruze Family Dairy Farm in Knoxville, Tennessee during “Buttermilk: It Can Help” and Colleen Cruze, the proverbial farmer’s daughter, drove that buttermilk straight up to Chicago from the farm, and it was – well, for me, an acquired taste, I think – but her buttermilk ice cream was deeeelish!  There was also sorghum molasses from a small Texas farm, and a ton of delicious, savory British-inspired baked delights from Chef Art Jackson’s Pleasant House Bakery in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, like pasties (pronounced paaa-stees) filled with curried chicken and Scotch eggs (hard-cooked eggs wrapped in ground sausage and then deep-fried – shut up).  He grows much of his own ingredients in his own garden.  And the night ended with an after party at which Chicago meat master Rob Leavitt from The Butcher & Larder roasted a 240-pound pig.

On Saturday, the Festival shifted to Intelligentsia Roasting Works for coffee and Doughnut Vault doughnuts.  People stand in line, in the rain, the wind, the heat, the freezing cold, whatever, for these things, and it killed me that I had to miss this event, but I had to pick up my fiddle and jam with my Bob Dylan peeps at Old Town School, so my thighs might thank me, but one day I will try a Doughnut Vault doughnut, so help me God.

And that brings us to Saturday night, which was mad fun.  The food films were fantastic.  One of my faves was “Zergut,” which took two years to make and featured extremely cool film-making techniques to tell a dramatic story of conflict between fresh and not-so-fresh foods in your fridge.  The finale was Festival founder and executive director George Motz’s film trailer, “The Mud & the Blood,” about oystering in Bull’s Bay, South Carolina.  As I was performing my role as official greeter and ”traffic cop” downstairs before the festivities, I made friends with the guys who were tending four roaring fires for the Great Chicago Shuck ’n Suck – which I didn’t really understand until I saw George’s film trailer.  These guys had driven 26 bushels of fresh Bull’s Bay oysters up to Chicago from South Carolina and were fixin’ to roast ‘em and shovel ‘em onto big plywood tables with a hole cut in the center to chuck your shucked shells after you’d sucked ‘em clean.   It was more fun than a barrel of, well, oysters!

 I mean: I don’t like oysters!  No, they’re squishy and wet and slithery and slimy – ick!  But put me at one of these tables, with a chef from Kendall who shows you how to shuck ‘em and suck ‘em – and put a couple beers in me – and add some killer country pickin’ on the guitar and the fiddle – and I’m IN!  It was so much fun!  Everyone’s standing around these tables, with these kinda muddy oysters, and big shuck knives, slurping oysters and sipping beer and these guys are coming in with more shovels full of oysters off the fire – strangers made friends and friends got strange and it was a complete riot of fun.  Well-done, George, South Carolina boys and eveyone at the Food Film Festival!

So everyone stayed up pretty late, drinking some pretty good beer from Chicago’s Two Brothers Brewing and Chicago’s newest microbrewery, Argyle, so Sunday called for, yes, turtle burgers.  And some chocolate milk from Cruze Dairy Farm.  The perfect hangover cure if you ask me. 

The Festival benefitted and was hosted by The Good Food Project, my friend Susan Taylor’s brainchild, which brings fresh food tastings to kids in public schools (brilliant).  Kids from Chicago’s Sullivan High School passed apple “slinkies” to guests!

Festival Director George Motz with Susan Taylor and a teacher and kids from Chicago's Sullivan School

Big shout-outs and hugs to Festival producer Seth Unger, event organizer Amy Kantrowitz and intern Olivia Accardo (my roommate for four days!) and chef Fletcher Chenn and so many others!   Stay tuned for next year!  And here’s to your own Thanksgiving food festival – I hope it is as delicious and fun as the Food Film Festival!

Restaurant Inspiration, from A to Zed

Hi, Food Friends.  I was recently invited to be a guest at ZED451, a Chicago restaurant I’d never been to, and while I don’t normally do restaurant reviews (unless something utterly blows my mind), I accepted the invitation because I was really interested in the concept of it – and sometimes restaurants can be great cooking inspiration.  ZED (we’re on a first-name basis now) is smack in the lively River North neighborhood of Chicago (the corner of Clark & Superior, to be exact).  The design is contemporary, yet somehow very warm and cozy at the same time – despite its hugeness (full capacity is 800 people – so if you’re having a big — really big — party, it’s perfect!  Plus they have lovely private dining rooms for up to 40 people). 

Here’s the concept: for $48 per person, you get to sample the twenty-something dishes from a serve-yourself area chock full of salads, cheeses and charcuterie. It’s amazing.  Seriously.

And after you’ve tried everything you want to, you set a little stone on the table, which is the signal to “bring on the meat!”  I’ve (unbelievably) never been to a Brazilian-style steak house, but I think ZED took a cue.  Chefs come out with big skewers of grilled beef, pork belly (to die for; very lean and flavorful), venison and plates of fish and Portuguese Linguica sausage (with an amzing Dijon-horseradish dipping sauce).  You just let them know how much you want of each offering, and if you’re me, you return to the Harvest Table for a few more house-made bread-and-butter pickles (shut up – I could’ve eaten the entire platter of these) and some grilled veg to accompany your meat adventure. 

My two favorites from the meat-stravanganza: the Wagyu rump roast (never tasted anything that good – pure beef deliciousness and perfectly cooked) and the pork belly (which can often be greasy and fatty; this was, again, perfectly cooked and very lean).

 You know what else is cool?  ZED hires culinary students and other aspiring chefs, and they cook the meat like they own it.  They’re all really excited about serving you what they cooked, and I like that.  A lot.

Now, aside from the Harvest Table (where the bajillion salad, cheese and charcuterie options are) and the meat service, you can also order side items and small plates in the Liquid Lounge.  My friend Emily and I particularly enjoyed the Rosemary Cooler cocktail, which was El Tesoro tequila and I’m sorry I can’t remember what else, garnished with the most fragrant rosemary sprig.  Completely delightul.

And, yes we also had dessert (we were in it to win it, people!).  So here comes the S’mores plate.  Behold the before and after shots:

Yes, it was huge.  And it came with peanut-butter and jelly ice cream!  And yes, they gifted us with a sample of their salted caramel ice cream (amazing), on top of it all.  It was all delish. 

So we were full.  But very excited about what we’d eaten!   Below are my top five inspirations:

1) Cumin sour cream.  This was served on top of a shotglass of red pepper-jalapeno soup, and I wonder why I’ve never spiced up sour cream before?  With chili?  With Mexican food?  With spuds?  I’m doin’ it.

2) Candied fruit with cheese.  ZED has idelicious candied apricots with mustard seeds – divine — especially with some of their locally sourced cheeses.  I always do honey with cheese, even marmalade, but why not whole apricots or figs, stewed a little bit, with some sugar and water? I’m doin’ it.

3) Roasted cauliflower with grapes. One of my favorite salads. First, roasted cauliflower is delicious.  But ZED adds some roasted (and I think salted) grapes to the whole shebang, and the flavor and texture are a delight.  I’m doin’ it.

4) Bread and butter pickles. Yes, they’re an old-fashioned relish-tray staple, but pickles are having their moment in restaurants these days.  The executive sous chef Paul Morrison makes these in-house, and if he can make ‘em, so can I.  Plus which, he freely shares recipes with anyone who wants ‘em.  God, they’re good. I’m doin’ it.

5) Peanut butter and jelly ice cream.  How fun is this?  The pastry chef, Liz Finley, makes amazing ice creams, and this was a peanut butter ice cream, with jelly swirled in.  How good would this be served on some grilled white-bread for dessert?  Like a new-wave PB&J sandwich!  I’m doin’ it.

So – thank you very much, ZED 451, for a fun and delicious and inspirational evening.  If you find yourself in Chicago, you are sure to have a great meal at ZED.

La Scuola di Cucina!

I’m back!  I was on vacation for more than two weeks, floating about the Mediterranean on the Regent Seven Seas Mariner and let me tell you: if you are ever planning a European cruise, this is the line to go on.  It was fabulous (and everything is included: your air fare, meals, wine, cocktails, almost all excursions).  And now for the sad story: I’d been taking pictures of so many amazing foods and wines, from Santorini to Sardinia and every point in between, for an epic blog post - and then my camera was stolen in Portofino (I hate that place).  Yep, plucked right out of my jacket pocket, I didn’t feel a thing.  I was heart-broken.  In a gesture of  solidarity, my mom not only bought me lunch that day (a $13 plate of spaghetti with pesto), but gave me her camera, so I could try to capture enough photos during the last two days.  And then!  A miracle!  Our new friends, Gene and Terry, decided they didn’t want to go to the cooking class they’d signed up for in the tiny Tuscan village of Guasticce outside Livorno last Sunday – and they gave us their tickets!   Hurray!  We were beyond excited (we even ditched a trip to Florence in favor of cooking school!)   Look at all the fun we had!

We were met at our ship by the fantastic Sarah Thompson of Livorno Now, who would serve as our excellent translator, because Chef Bruno – he no speaka the English, but man, can he cook.   It was a small group of seven of us, and we were warmly welcomed by Bruno and his wife at Osteria del Contadino in the village of Guasticce.  After a cappuccino, we donned our aprons and commenced the cooking!

First we made bruschetta (pronounced broo-sketta in case you ever wondered / didn’t know) with the freshest tomatoes and garlic.  Then we made pasta (well, Bruno made the pasta, but I helped knead it!) and turned it into the most amazing ravioli filled with cooked chard and sheep’s milk ricotta.  Then we made veal involtini, which is a slice of veal breast (I think), onto which you place some excellent local cheese (somewhat like Pecorino) and two slices of pancetta (Italian bacon) and roll it up, stab it with a toothpick and pan-cook it on your stove top.  Then we made an apple strudel (well, we sliced apples; Bruno made the dough and assembled it, studding the apple mixture with raisins and walnuts). 

The restaurant is tiny (it used to be their family home, but they renovated it into a restaurant several years ago), and closed on Sunday, but when an older couple showed up for Sunday lunch (forgetting it was Sunday, we think), Bruno and his wife welcomed them and served them lunch – so gracious.

One of the coolest things? Seeing, holding and smelling a huge white truffle.

An honest-to-God Italian white truffle. 3000 Euros per kilo.

 Oh, mercy. I swear, I can smell a truffle dish in a restaurant from 100 yards, and beholding (and inhaling) this ugly, yet delicious, specimen was really cool.

After we finished cooking, we sat and Bruno poured Prosecco and offered fat, Italian brined olives, while he finished the tomato sauce and the contorno (side dish) of fennel braised in olive oil.  Then we proceeded to our table, where Bruno  cracked open two excellent Italian wines, and we feasted on the fruits of our labors.  It was SO MUCH FUN!   I highly recommend Osteria del Contadino if you are ever in or near Livorno (except not for Sunday lunch!)

My mom, Chef Bruno and me. (Can you see my belly sticking out from our huge and delicious lunch?)

I plan to re-create the dishes, and I promise to share recipes soon (but today is apple-sauce day, and then maybe some black beans and rice with chorizo; stay tuned for those).  I’ll also share some more food stories from the trip.  Buon Appetito!

Hamburger Egg Salad – What?

So, say you come home on a Friday night and you’re like, “I just want a glass of red and something good to eat while I watch ‘Project Runway’ and maybe talk to my sister on the phone for a catch-up?” And you look in your fridge and freezer for a little food survey and you come up with a frozen hamburger, a head of baby leaf lettuce from Harvest Moon (my CSA) and eggs (also from Harvest Moon).  Well, you defrost the burger (which you infused with shallotts and Worcestershire sauce when you made ‘em), make a little green salad, dressed with your French vinaigrette (which I always have some of in a jar) and throw that hamburger on top and top that with a fried egg!  And it’s delicious!

But than,  what if you dug deep in your cupboard and found that little jar of truffle salt to sprinkle on top? Uh huh. That takes it up a notch to “Friday night special” level.

Because the Crazy Cook is here to tell you: never underestimate the crazy amount of deliciousness you have in your own fridge and pantry with things like a humble hamburger, some lively lettuce and an excellent egg (sorry, I have a penchant for alliteration).

I love being inspired with what I have on hand to make a crazy good meal – for one, or a ton.  Bon appetite and happy weekend to you all!

Chicago Gourmet 2011: The Big Delish!

Hi Everyone!  Today I went to Chicago Gourmet to sample the sips, savories and sweets of more than 100 chefs and countless wineries.  It would be an understatement to say I am full!  But a stomach ache (and maybe a little hangover!)  is the price I happily pay for being an obsessive foodie in one of the greatest food cities on the planet!  The event is a two-day affair, running from noon to 5 p.m., and if you didn’t get to go this year, put it on your radar for next September.  It’s a festival of food, wine and spirits in the shadow of the gorgeous Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.   A ticket (this year is was $150), gets you a tasting plate with a handy notch for your wine glass (brilliant addition this year!)  and access to food and wine tastings, cooking demos and chef book signings.   Look at me with Chef Jonathon Waxman of New York City’s Barbuto and a “Top Chef Masters” star after his gnocchi demo on the Pritzker Pavilion stage!

 

As for the food.  I was out to find one savory and one sweet that absolutely blew me away and I found them both at Tasting Pavilion #4. 

This would be chef Thomas Heinrich’s work, from Stetson’s Chop House & Bar at the Chicago Hyatt Regency.  Yep, a hotel restaurant!  It was DIVINE!  Foie gras mousse (he had me at “foie gras”) on the bottom, a layer of port wine jelly, and then spicy Marcona almonds, dried strawberries and microgreens on top.  Silky, rich, salty, creamy, sweet, tangy, crunchy, crisp.  OMG. I ate the entire thing and savored it with a glass of Zinfandel, but you’ll have to forgive me, as a I tried, um, maybe 32 wines? (Shut up, no judging!)  So I cannot remember which one I tasted with this dish! 

And my favorite sweet?  This little beauty from Bittersweet Bakery - which is right at the end of my street (dangerous)!

Oh, yes. A gorgeous cream puff filled with salted caramel cream/mousse and then the whole thing covered in chocolate and sporting some glistening sparkles of tangy sea salt. Phenomenal!

So, want to see what else I ate and drank? 

Yes, I at 20 things today (making dinner completely unnecessary). From green leaf shrimp dumplings at the Peninsula Hotel to coconut curry truffles at Vosges Haut Chocolate to a divine crab and truffle canape from Prosecco to John DeRosier’s cold spiced heirloom tomato soup with goat cheese ice cream, everything was really, really delicious! 

And then there were the wines!  It was cool, cloudy (and rainy at times), so reds ruled my day.  I took a photo of every single bottle that I tasted.   (Again – no judging!)

And two beers (the Stella Artois / Leffe Blonde booth is always popular because they serve their beers in their special glasses and you get to take them home – fun!)  My favorite wine?  The Armand de Brignac Champagne.  They’ve been making Champagne (in France, of course) since 1763, but these new wines came onto the market in 2007 and they are all hand-made in very small quantities (so very expensive: like $299 for the Brut I tasted, and $499 for the Blanc de Blanc and the Rose). What a treat. Absolutely delightful.

And that is the story about my eating day at Chicago Gourmet.  Thank you, Bon Appetit magazine and other sponsors and organizers!  It was a delicious day.  Oh, I’m so full…..

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever!

Hi, Everybody!   So last week, a friend at work helped me out and I promised him some homemade chocolate chip cookies to repay the favor.  I must say – these are no toll-free, tollhouse, whatever cookies (actually those are perfectly fine, but…).  No, these are adapted from a recipe from Mr. Chocolate himself, Monsieur Jacques Torres.  The recipe was in The New York Times in July 2008, and it’s been my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe ever since.  There is a catch however — as there sometimes is in the Crazy Cook’s life: you have to let the dough take a long  nap in the fridge before baking it – at least 24, and up to 36 hours.  So ya gotta plan ahead.  But it’s worth it, I promise!  These cookies are so flavorful, crisp on the outside, a little chewy in the middle (but not mushy; I’m not a fan of “soft” cookies). 

Letting the dough rest allows it to fully absorb all the liquid (eggs, in this case, and some vanilla), which results in a crisper, somehow better cookie!  And with some apologies to Monsieur Torres, I did take a few creative liberties, based on personal preference.  Mainly, I don’t use the giant chocolate disks that are called for; I like smaller chocolate chips, for a better balance of cookie to chocolate.  I also use a mix of chips – white chocolate, milk chocolate and bittersweet chocolate.  You could also use butterscotch or whatever you like – it’s fun to mix it up a little.  Ready to bake?  Come on!

Ingredients (makes 60 cookies, about 2 inches each in diameter)

2 C minus 2 Tbl  (8.5 ounces) of cake flour (I actually do weigh my ingredients because measuring cups differ so much in size)

1 2/3 C (8.5 ounces) bread flour (whoopsies, I used all-purpose flour; no biggie if you ask me)

1 1/4 tsp. baking soda

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp coarse salt

2.5 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/4 C (10 ounces) light brown sugar

1 C plus 2 Tbl (8 ounces) regular white sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 to 1 1/8 pounds chocolate chips of your choosing!

What You Do

1) Mix both flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl with a whisk; set aside

2) In the bowl of a stand mixer (such as my cobalt blue KitchenAid mixer, Chuck – he’s the strongest helper in my kitchen), put the soft, room-temperature butter and both sugars.  Using the paddle mixer attachment, let ‘er rip on one step above low for a good 5 minutes, so the butter and sugars get really creamy and light (in color and in texture).

3) Add one egg, turn on mixer, just until it’s mixed in.  Turn it off, add the other egg and mix til that one gets all mixed in. Turn it off, add the vanilla and mix that in. 

4) Now add all your dry ingredients, and carefully turn the mixer on, to low (I cup my hands around the edges to prevent a flour hurricane).  IMPORTANT: Mix only until the dry stuff is mixed in.   As I like to say: do not manhandle the dough!  It takes only about 10 seconds.

5) Add your chips, and stir manually, with a study spoon, folding them in gently until they’re incorporated through-out.  Now, transfer the dough to the bowl you used for the flour, and cover the entire surface with plastic wrap.  (I don’t like to refrigerate it in the KitchenAid bowl, only because after refrigeration, that bowl stays cold for a long time – plus it’s so big.)  Into the fridge!  For at least 24 hours, up to 36 hours.

BAKING

Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.  Wake up your dough (that is, set it on your counter for 15 or 30 minutes so it’s not rock-hard) and form into little cookie dough balls about an inch in diameter.   To make them extra-fancy, you can sprinkle a few grains of sea salt on top.  I love that sweet-salty zing.   I bake on a silicone mat, set on top of a regular sheet pan and love it – no greasing, no cleaning the pan.  Love these things.  Bake each batch for 20 minutes.  Cool, and enjoy!

My other great tip: I keep a zip-top bag of dough balls in the freezer, so I can bake a few at a time for me or friends.  Having homemade cookie dough in your freezer is like some sort of sweet insurance!