Cool and refreshing

It's been Hot, Hot, Hot in these parts, so here's a wonderful summer dessert. This 4-fork recipe from Epicurious, is called Frozen Mango, Blackberry Cassis, and Vanilla Mosaic, or in my case, Frozen Mango, Blackberry Cassis, and Raspberry Sorbet Mosaic. (whew, that's a mouthful!) Using all sorbet kept it light and healthy, and just as pretty.

I served it to guests a few weeks, ago, and have some left in the freezer. (The mosaic got a little beat up in my very full freezer, but the photo gives an idea of how it looked in its former glory.) I made the mosaic in my wonderful slim loaf pans, and I love how it has nice straight sides (well, it did have).

The layering was simple to do: just drop in random spoonfuls of the softened sorbet and drizzle the sauce into the gaps. It actually wasn't that different from marbling, come to think of it.

The Verdict:
This was elegant looking and really delicious tasting. At the same time, it's dead easy to make. I definitely would make it again, but I'd change the name to Sorbet Terrine!

Here's the recipe:

Frozen Mango, Blackberry Cassis, and Vanilla Mosaic

2 pints mango sorbet (4 cups)
1 pint vanilla ice cream (2 cups) I used raspberry sorbet
6 ounces fresh blackberries (1 ½ cups)
¼ cup sugar
2 tablespoons crème de cassis (black-currant liqueur)

Equipment: a 9- by 5- by 3-inch loaf pan or other 7- to 8-cup capacity mold

1. Put sorbet and ice cream in refrigerator until evenly softened, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

2. Meanwhile, purée blackberries, sugar, and cassis in a blender until smooth, then strain through a fine-mesh sieve set over a bowl, pressing on and then discarding solids. Freeze to thicken slightly until ice cream is ready, 20 to 40 minutes, then stir until smooth.

3. Lightly oil loaf pan, then cut a piece of parchment to fit bottom and long sides of pan, leaving at least 3 inches of overhang on each side.

4. Fill pan decoratively with spoonfuls of sorbet and ice cream, pressing down and filling empty spaces with blackberry purée as you go. Smooth top, pressing down with back of spoon to eliminate air spaces, then fold parchment flaps over top and freeze until solid, at least 3 hours.

5. To unmold, run a thin knife along short sides of pan to loosen mosaic, then open parchment and invert onto a flat serving dish, discarding parchment.

6. Cut mosaic into 1/2-inch-thick slices.

Cooks' note: Mosaic can be made 5 days ahead and frozen, covered with plastic wrap.

My kitchen garden

Such as it is!

basil, sage, rosemary and thyme (and oregano)

{TWD} The Black and White Banana Loaf + Bonus variation loaf

[update 8/7/08:I finally cut the rest of the bread, and love how the marbling turned out!]

I volunteered to bring the food for our book discussion group this Thursday. I figured this week's challenge, the Black and White Banana Loaf, would be perfect for our coffee-and-dessert gathering (well we have some cheese and fruit and such for those who come straight from work without dinner, but the desserts generally rule).

I've devised a fabulous and very healthy Whole-Wheat Blueberry Banana bread that I make regularly for breakfast. When my bananas get (over)ripe I mash and measure them, drop the mash into freezer bags and I'm ready for baking time. My freezer had several cups of bananas but I had no real idea how much to use for the 1.5 bananas Dorie calls for.

A bit of research (thank you Google) turned up differing estimates on how many bananas per cup - anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 cup for 1.5 bananas, I guess because banana size can vary so much. So I planned to use 2/3 cup for a single loaf, but after reading the P&Q and finding that people were having trouble with runny batter, I actually used a smidge less.


Never one to leave well enough alone, I had the great idea to make an additional loaf for my husband, who is allergic to chocolate. Coffee/Banana came into my mind and would not leave. Even when I realized that my husband is out of town, so I could cook and enjoy a chocolate dessert without guilt. Call me a glutton for punishment, but I went ahead with the plan. Except I concluded that half a loaf for him would be ideal (limited freezer space). And a full Chocolate/Banana loaf for the group.

So, that's 1.5 x Dorie's recipe (except for the ingredients for the chocolate, which are not increased). Then mix the batter, divide into slightly unequal halves, then split the smaller half into two parts (2/3 chocolate and 1/3 coffee). A spreadsheet might have helped (a la Engineer Baker). IF I had any idea how to do a spreadsheet.

In the end I calculated the ingredients in my head and wrote them on a sticky note which I put on the cookbook page, covering the original ingredients so I wouldn't accidentally revert to their authority. I weighed the batter on my kitchen scale to get the halves, two-thirds, and one-thirds roughly correct. My scale is not that accurate and this little exercise drove me to order a new digital scale - click here for all your scale/weighing needs (thanks again, Google).

Aside from the math test aspect, the recipe came together beautifully. Gotta love the stand mixer. And the details Dorie provides: "The batter will look curdled and it will continue to look curdled as you add ingredients." Check. I followed the instructions religiously; nutmeg, rum, lemon juice, lemon zest, it all went in.


I've never marbled, so I studied all the alternative methods in Dorie's book before deciding on the spoonful technique. The chocolate batter was a lot thicker than the banana. The coffee batter was thin (I added a heaping teaspoon of instant coffee to half a tablespoon boiling water for the half loaf). I scooped with the spoon and then zigged and zagged with the knife. No way of knowing how it worked until it was cooked and cut.


My mom always made amazing cranberry bread and used long slim aluminum loaf pans. One year my dad surprised me on my birthday with two of these loaf pans that he'd picked up somewhere. I have a lot of loaf pans but these are my absolute favorites. The bread cooks evenly and the slices look pretty with straight up-and-down sides. I have some similar smaller pans that are great for 1/2 recipes.

I baked the loaves at a slightly lower temperature (especially since I suspect my oven runs a bit hot) so they would cook through and not brown too fast. Based on the early comments in the P&Q, I tented the pans after the first 30 minutes, but I actually wish I hadn't. I would have liked to have the loaves a bit browner on top, especially since I froze them (I think the moist tops will be sticky when they thaw).

Curiosity almost killed me! I couldn't wait to see the marbling. Finally the loaves cooled and I could cut them. The chocolate turned out great.

The coffee loaf didn't have as much contrast and the marbling was more 'mixed', I think because of the thinner batter.


The Verdict:
These were really lovely loaves. Veritable marvels of marbling! As far as flavor, nothing 'stood out' – despite the various flavorings, nutmeg, lemon, rum, banana – the cake didn’t taste overly-anything to me. It was just right. Great texture and nicely moist. And really pretty marbling.

The banana coffee loaf was also quite good - the flavors got along nicely.

Thanks to Ashlee of A Year In The Kitchen for choosing this week's recipe, which she'll post at her site, or you can find it on page 232 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours. (The book is amazing. Buy it now!) Check out the other versions of this recipe by visiting the 230+ other TWD bakers.

What's important?

According to Wordle, lentils are very prominent on this blog. hmmm, I only wrote one post about lentils, but it was recent, which I guess is how the site operates. Cool and fun, if not really representative.

The CCC Quest, Round 2

Since starting our search for the greatest Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (see Round 1 here), we've been accumulating more and more (and more) recipes to try. Looks like there are a lot of CCCs in our future!

Although the NYT article started the Quest, we haven't yet made the NYT recipe (we haven't had bread flour on hand). So for the second round we whipped up a batch from Dorie Greenspan's recipe (you can find it in Dorie's book Baking From My Home to Yours, page 68, or online here). We were fresh out of chocolate chips, so we chopped some Callebaut semisweet chocolate into chunks. My daughter j.d. and I made these, and she wasn't going to wait 1 hour for the dough to chill, much less 36 hours (a la the NYT article), so we baked them right away.

The cookies started on the baking sheet as ball-shaped scoops, but once in the oven they radically spread out. We used the wonderful photos in the King Arthur food blog to test for done-ness (we like our CCCs soft in the middle).

The Verdict:
I like a flat chocolate chip cookie, but Dorie's cookies were too flat. The taste was good, actually quite good, but it didn't match the subtle perfection of flavor of our standby recipe (I posted the recipe previously).

We're still on our holiday in Maine, and doing minimal cooking, but we made a lovely and healthy salad from a cookbook we found in the cottage. It's versatile enough to serve as a side dish to grilled chicken or fish, or as a main course, complemented with some greens and maybe a nice bread. I didn't think to photograph the lentils; the picture above is our view over dinner!

Lentil Salad with Walnuts and Scallions

from The New Best Recipe

1 cup lentils du Puy (green lentils) or regular brown lentils, rinsed and picked over

½ medium onion, halved

2 bay leaves

1 large sprig fresh thyme

salt

2 T sherry vinegar

2 T Dijon mustard

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

6 T extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted

2 scallions, white and green parts, sliced thin

½ cup drained jarred roasted red peppers, diced (I roasted a pepper on the grill)

1. Bring the lentils, onion, bay leaves, thyme, ½ tsp salt, and 4 c. water to a boil in a med saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer until the lentils are tender but still hold their shape, 25-30 minutes (for regular brown lentils, cook 18-21 minutes).

2. Whisk the vinegar, mustard, ¼ tsp sale, the pepper, and oil together in a small bowl; set aside.

3. Drain the lentils through a fine-mesh strainer and discard the onion, bay leaves, and thyme. Transfer the lentils to a medium bowl. Toss the warm lentils with the vinaigrette and cool to room temperature, about 15 minutes. Stir in the walnuts, scallions, and roasted red peppers and serve immediately.

The Verdict:
This is a tasty summer dish, packed full of nutrition - fiber and protein. I've enjoyed it this week as a main course and a side dish. The toasted walnuts add a nice texture and a great flavor. If you think you'll be eating this more than one day, add the scallions and the walnuts as your serve the salad so they don't get soggy.

{TWD} Peach Raspberry Galette-ettes

For this week's recipe Michelle of Michelle in Colorado Springs chose Summer Fruit Galette, page 366 of Baking from my Home to Yours. You can find the recipe on Michelle's blog entry. Essentially a galette is a rustic pie, with the pastry rolled into one large circle and folded up over the filling.

My mother was an accomplished baker of pies. Every day when the four of us children took our afternoon naps, mom baked an apple pie. When we came downstairs from naptime we were greeted by warm pinwheels - the little cinnamon-butter rollups she made with the scraps of pie dough. We ate the pie for dessert after dinner. Yum! Mom's tender shortening-based crust paired perfectly with the just-sweet-enough apple filling.

Despite this wonderful heritage, I've not had great success with my pie crusts. I'm very much a novice baker. I'm glad to have the practice - and the great directions - that Dorie's book provides!

I had a bit of a dilemma about the galette. It's my first official week as a TWD member, so I did want to post. But we were headed out of town and we'd just finished the cobbler (and a bunch of other baking). Dorie says that galettes are great for freezing, so I decided to make mini galettes, sample one and freeze the others unbaked.

In hindsight I wish I'd divided the dough and rolled each part separately because I think I handled the dough a bit more than optimal. I rolled one big rectangle and cut three 6" circles (well, two 6" circles and one that I gently pieced from two big scraps - you can see that in the picture below, on the right). I chose to roll the dough between two sheets of parchment and it go a bit rough by the time the galette hit the oven. I did chill at every step, except for just before baking, when I forgot.


I lined the pastry with Stonewall Kitchen's peach amaretto jam and graham cracker crumbs ( 3 3/4 inch circles) before arranging sliced ripe Georgia peaches and red raspberries, then folded the pastry up around the fruit. I used demarara sugar for the pre-baking dusting.


I didn't think the custard step through very well, and probably baked the galettes a bit too long before adding the custard. I tried to give the custard enough oven time to "set", by which time the crust was a bit over-browned on the bottom. Also, I was only able to add a teaspoon of custard to the galette. And, I forgot to dust with powdered sugar at the very end.

The Verdict:
The little galettes were pretty time consuming. There were a lot of steps, and chilling/freezing at every turn. But also many of the techniques were new to me (for example, I've only had my food processor for a few weeks, and have never used it for pastry.) Despite the challenges, the little galette tasted fabulous. My husband savored every last crumb and pronounced: "This is one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth." I think my mother would be proud - I should have saved a bite for her! And I made cinnamon pinwheels with the dough scraps...

{Update: November 7, 2008:
We have been enjoying the galettes that I froze uncooked. I just popped them out of the freezer and right into the oven - it takes a few extra minutes to cook, but tastes wonderful. Having a ready-to-be-cooked galette in the freezer is like having money in the bank!}

more of Delia's pasta

In the summer we love eating light dishes made from fresh ingredients (especially with all of the baking we've been doing). Delia's recipe-of-the-day yesterday was Lemon Pasta with Herbs and Cracked Pepper . I was intrigued by the combination of lemon with mint and basil - and arugula (I'm obsessed with arugula) - so when I was out running errands I picked up the things I needed to make it for dinner last evening. I topped the hot pasta with toasted pine nuts, and served it with crusty bread and a salad. Dessert was a fruit galette (more about that at a later date!)

The Verdict:
We loved this pasta. It was very refreshing. It looks like pesto but is lighter and has a bit of a bite from the herbs and the lemon. The flavors were balanced, but we could see that any one of the flavors could dominate if too much were added. The recipe is super-easy and can be eaten hot or cold, according to Delia.

I say "tomato"

After making gazpacho, we still had tons of very ripe tomatoes on our countertop. Time for Delia Smith's Classic Fresh Tomato Sauce! We have plenty of basil, so with just some onion and garlic we were all set.

This sauce is very easy, you just let the ingredients simmer on the stovetop for a couple of hours until "jamlike." I got mine almost as thick as Delia's, but then it thinned out a bit when the remaining uncooked tomatoes are added in at the end.


The Verdict:
This sauce is wonderful and will be my "go to" recipe when I have an excess of tomatoes. The flavor is very concentrated but still fresh. Much brighter than anything I've had from a jar, and I've had some delicious specialty jarred sauce.


Food in the freezer is like money in the bank!

Here's the recipe, with some of my notes:

Delia's Classic Fresh Tomato Sauce

ingredients:
2 lb 8 oz (1.15 kg) fresh, red, ripe tomatoes (around 12 plum tomatoes)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion weighing about 4 oz (110 g), peeled and finely chopped
1 fat clove garlic, peeled and crushed
approximately 12 large leaves fresh basil
a little Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano), to serve
salt and freshly milled black pepper

directions:

1. First skin the tomatoes. To do this, pour boiling water over them and leave them for exactly 1 minute or, if the tomatoes are small, 15-30 seconds, before draining and slipping off their skins (protect your hands with a cloth if they are too hot).

2. Now reserve 3 of the tomatoes (around 10 oz) for later and roughly chop the rest.

3. Next heat the oil in a medium saucepan, then add the onion and garlic and let them gently cook for 5-6 minutes, until they are softened and pale gold in colour. Now add the chopped tomatoes with about a third of the basil, torn into pieces. Add some salt and freshly milled black pepper, then all you do is let the tomatoes simmer on a very low heat, without a lid, for approximately 1½ hours or until almost all the liquid has evaporated and the tomatoes are reduced to a thick, jam-like consistency, stirring now and then.

4. Roughly chop the reserved fresh tomatoes and stir them in, along with the rest of the torn basil leaves, and serve on pasta with a hint of Parmesan – not too much, though, because it will detract from the wonderful tomato flavour.

5. When serving this sauce, it is a good idea to give the pasta 1 minute less cooking time than you usually would, then return it to the saucepan after draining and give 1 more minute while you mix in the sauce.

{TWD} Cherry [Peach] Cobbler

I've joined an online group called Tuesdays with Dorie; these 200+ bakers/bloggers are cooking through Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking From My Home to Yours. My name won't appear on the blogroll until next week, but I began baking along with the group this week.

It was Amanda from Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake 's turn to choose the recipe, and she selected Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler, page 415. You can find the recipe here.

Planning:
I was glad this recipe was chosen. We had about 1.5 pounds of cherries in the fridge that we’d bought for another recipe that we hadn’t ended up making – enough for a recipe and a half of Dorie's cobbler.

Our local Whole Foods did not have any rhubarb so I decided to substitute some very ripe peaches on my countertop. This seemed like a good pairing, especially since the recipe called for ginger in the filling and in the topping. Ginger and peach go well together! I had a few concerns about this biscuit-style cobbler - I didn't want it to be dry and crumbly. I'm so used to a batter-based topping.

Cooking:
The fruit was easy, thanks to my little plastic cherry pitter - it made the job a whole lot more manageable. To the pound and a half of cherries I added nearly a pound of very ripe Georgia peaches.


For the dough, I used one part white flour, one part whole wheat flour, and one part King Arthur white whole wheat. I didn’t have any whole milk, so I mixed some heavy cream with skim milk.

I have never made dough in the food processor, so I was eager to try. It all went very quickly, and I processed maybe a second too long – the dough was just starting to ball up on the processor blade.

I gently turned it out onto the floured countertop and lightly formed a rectangle so I could cut 30 squares. This was definitely going oh so smoothly!

At that point I realized that I had forgotten to add the salt and the ginger to the biscuits. Darn! I ended up measuring and sprinkling salt and ginger on top of the rectangle and cautiously kneading it into the dough – trying to walk that line between incorporating the ingredients and over-handling the dough.

Then I cut the dough into squares, rounded each one into a little ball, and dotted them on top of the filling in the baking dish.

The balls of dough looked pretty good on top of the fruit, and cooked up golden and puffy – and the filling got bubbly – in just under 35 minutes.

The Verdict:
Everyone really liked this cobbler. To my relief it was not dry. The biscuits had great flavor and complemented the juicy fruit filling very well. We loved the ginger and the whole wheat. The filling was cooked perfectly and just the right amount of sweetness. My husband ate this for dessert three dinners in a row – in fact he said he prefers this to my regular cobbler (recipe in the previous post)! I will be making this recipe again.

[update: I just realized that my post is dated Monday, July 21. I'm not trying to break the rules! I wrote the entry on Monday, but put it on a delay to post on Tuesday, July 22. I'm not sure what happened, but this could be a problem since I'm making my galette today and was going to do a delay posting for next Tuesday, when I'll be out of town. hmmm, not sure how to proceed...]

Cobblers I have known (and loved)

Northerners seem to have a different view of cobbler from those of us residing in the south. And I say that as a Yankee transplant. The only cobbler I knew growing up in New England was my mom’s cherry cobbler which was canned cherries (or maybe that canned cherry pie filling) and bisquick-type biscuits on the top. Which tasted good, and will forever remind me of my childhood. Other cobblers from up north seem to all have that biscuit thing (sometimes very dry) on top.

When I moved south, however, I discovered the glorious wonders of fresh fruit cobbler. Southern cobbler as I know it integrates fruit with a batter (rather than a dough) – in fact it is usually made by melting the butter in the bottom of a casserole dish, then pouring in a liquid batter (flour, sugar, baking powder and milk), then sprinkling the fruit on top. As it cooks, the fruit sinks through the batter, which thickens and develops a wonderful crispy golden skin on the top and a tender, sweet inside.

Peach/blueberry and peach/blackberry cobbler are a summer staple at our house. There is nothing better than local Georgia peaches (or South Carolina peaches in a pinch!) in a piping hot cobbler. The recipe I use is derived from one in Jane Brody's Good Food Book (now out of print):

Blueberry Cobbler

ingredients:
2 T butter
2/3 cup flour (you can use 1/3 cup of whole wheat flour)
½ cup sugar (or less)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2/3 cup skim milk
2 cups blueberries (or other mixed fruit - my favorite is blackberry/peach - you can increase the fruit to 2 1/2 cups)

baking dish (can use a 9" square dish, but I've also used a deep casserole and increased the cooking time)

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Put butter in bottom of baking dish, and place in hot oven until melted.

3. Meanwhile, combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

4. Add milk to dry ingredients and whisk until smooth.

5. Pour in batter into hot buttered dish and sprinkle blueberries on top.

6. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 40 minutes or until lightly browned.

Hot and Spicy!

This is the second time I've made Grilled Chicken Breasts with North African Spice Paste, and it's our new favorite chicken! The recipe calls for several different kinds of seeds as well as peppercorns and dried chiles that have to be ground up in a spice mill/coffee grinder or a mortar/pestle. I don't have a spice mill, so the first time I ground everything with a mortar and pestle, over the course of about three days. This was for 4 chicken breasts! I vowed that I would not do the grinding by hand again, and promptly placed an order for a new electric coffee bean grinder which can be used for spices. Unfortunately a week later the vendor realized the grinder was out of stock and cancelled my order. In the meantime I'd decided to serve this at a family gathering, this time doubling the recipe. I took my backup pepper grinder and fed all the spices, the chiles and the peppercorns through it, grinding it by turning the little crank manually. This took several hours' worth of time, and although the results are delicious, I will not be making this recipe again without electrical grinding assistance. I've also been working out substitutions of already ground spices, although I'm sure it will not taste as fresh. Here is a picture of the spice rub. As far as I'm concerned, this is a bowl of liquid gold: The Verdict: This is absolutely delicious - do not count on any leftovers. It can be made spicier by increasing the red chile peppers or not as hot by reducing the amount. Here's the recipe with my notes and directions for broiling rather than grilling: Yield: makes 4 servings. ingredients: 8 (2-inch-long) dried hot red chiles - I used 6 of my own which are extremely hot 2 tablespoons coriander seeds 1 tablespoon cumin seeds 1 tablespoon caraway seeds 2 tablespoons minced garlic 1 tablespoon black peppercorns 2 teaspoons kosher salt 5 tablespoons olive oil 4 large chicken breast halves with skin and bone (about 3/4 pound each) - I used Bell and Evans chickens from Whole Foods special equipment: an electric coffee/spice grinder or a mortar and pestle; directions: 1. Coarsely grind chiles, spice seeds, garlic, and peppercorns in grinder or with mortar and pestle, then stir together with salt and oil in a bowl to form a spice paste. This can be kept, covered and chilled for up to 4 days. 2. Rub paste all over chicken. Can do this up to 4 hours in advance, refrigerating the chicken. 3. Oil broiler pan, then place chicken, skin sides up, on the pan and broil the chicken on “convect broil”, high heat, approx. 3” from the flame, turning once, for 7 minutes or so, until skin begins to brown, turning chicken over once with tongs. 4. Moved the pan down to the center of the oven, still set on convect broil – high heat - skin side up, until it is browned nicely. Then set the oven to “convect roast” on 375 degrees until done. Instead of broiling, you can also roast chicken in the oven at 375 degrees. 5. Transfer to a platter and let stand 5 minutes before serving.