Turkey Meatballs with Spicy Tomato Sauce

& whole wheat spaghetti . . . errrr, meatball sandwiches, anyone?

I didn't make the spaghetti. You see, pasta with marinara sauce is my go-to lazy dinner. With final papers looming on the horizon and an AC that done busted on me I haven't been a very ambitious singleton in the kitchen. Rather, I've been spending a lot of time with the good ole pasta and red sauce. Don't get me wrong, I like it a lot. There are three go-to meals that I eat when I don't feel like cooking or don't have time to cook: 1. the aforementioned pasta 2. scrambled eggs and toast 3. cereal. I've enjoyed all of those things quite a bit lately so my taste for pasta isn't what it usually is. I was going to go ahead and make the spaghetti and meatballs anyway and then I saw Sara's (Imafoodblog) Ultimate Meatball Sandwich this morning and all of the sudden spaghetti seemed so much less than delicious. I wanted an ultimate meatball sandwich, too! Up to Whole Foods I go . . . no acceptable bread . . . get French bread and pretend.

These meatballs are so insanely good and I liked the red sauce a whole lot, too. I didn't change anything about the recipe except for the whole spaghetti thing and it was fabulous. I will for sure be making these turkey meatballs again -- they've replaced the Martha Stewart turkey meatballs that I used to make. These meatballs won hands down -- it almost wasn't even fair. Thanks to Oddball Oven Mitt for choosing such a great recipe!

Chicken & Feta Tabbouleh

When it gets hot in Houston, in my family we like to say that "it feels like summertime." If you live on the East Coast then you know about the heat wave -- it definitely felt like summertime. I have been hoping and praying for warm weather and I got it -- plus 90 degree weather for 4 days in a row! Of course, as luck would have it, I also had no air conditioning during that heat wave. And before all of you start thinking and telling me what some friends told me, to open my windows and get some cross ventilation, I DID. OK? But here's the deal: a) not all of my windows open, many have been painted shut b) I live on a busy street and I'm paranoid so there's no way I'm opening the front windows (and it doesn't matter because only one opens) c) I grew up in a world of central air and ceiling fans in bedrooms, ok? The heat and humidity in Houston are fine because you can escape to the inside coolness. I don't like to blast the AC because I'm normally always cold (don't get me started on why I wear a sweater in the summertime in Houston) but I also don't like to be inside and have it be over 84 degrees either in my house (and it was).
With the warmth of the house, there was no way I was going to turn on the oven or the stove and actually cook. I was pondering what I could make to eat that didn't require any heat and this tabbouleh came to mind. Yes, it requires hot water but other than that it's a heat free dish and, added bonus, you eat it cold and it's refreshing, to say the least. I love tabbouleh but I'd never made it at home before. By the way, if you happen to live in Houston or Dallas, I think that Fadi's has the best tabbouleh ever, just my opinion.


Chicken and Feta Tabbouleh
Cooking Light, April 2009
4 servings

3/4 cup uncooked bulgur
1 c boiling water
2 cups chopped skinless boneless rotisserie chicken breast (I used some leftover chicken breasts that I'd grilled)
1 cup chopped plum tomato
1 cup chopped English cucumber
3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup (2 oz) crumbled feta cheese
1/3 cup finely chopped green onions
1/4 chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1. Place bulgur in a medium bowl; cover with 1 cup of boiling water. Let stand 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.
2. Combine chicken and remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add bulgur to chicken mixture; toss gently to combine.

I really, really liked this and I will definitely make it again. The first day that I ate it the bulgur was definitely al dente and it was a little bit different than the tabbouleh that I've had in the past but the flavor was so much better. The second day I added a little bit more lemon juice and olive oil because the bulgur had soaked most of it up. It's very simple to put together; most of the work is in chopping the various ingredients. This tabbouleh definitely helped me through the heat-wave-without-cooling funk that I was in!

Note: Of course, Murphy's Law being what it is, now that the temperature has dropped significantly, my air conditioning will be fixed today. C'est la vie, at least the next time that it's hot I won't have to freak out the entire time.

TWD: Chocolate Coconut Cream Tart

I think . . . I'm not sure but I think that this week's TWD pick, Chocolate Cream Tart, might be the last stop on the Chocolate Madness 2009 tour. Not to worry, I'm sure that future dates will be added but I have a feeling that next Tuesday I might be posting a dessert that isn't chocolate. Or maybe I will. That's the fun of it all, right? Well, if you follow TWD then you know that we've definitely been on the chocolate party train this month. And this week's pick, Chocolate Cream Tart, is no exception. I've loved all of the chocolate desserts this month and I was very excited to try this one because it's a recipe that I've paused on several times. There's just something magical about the chocolate tart thing.

So, why change it up? Why add coconut to all of that chocolate goodness? Well, after many, many years of outright dislike, I've made friends with coconut. In fact, we're more than friends, we're BFF. I hated coconut for so long: I didn't like the smell of coconut, the taste, and BLECH to the texture. It's like chewing on dental floss or paper or something. I mean, it was always really, really tragic to me as a child that bunny cake had coconut all over it. I strenuously lobbied for a coconut free bunny cake and every year I was shot down. But first I started to like the way that Hawaiian Tropic smells (it's no Coppertone though), and then the taste of coconut wasn't so bad, and then the next thing you know, it's a full-on love affair. I don't know about you, but I go through phases of food obsessions and right now I'm in the coconut phase.

I'd made the chocolate tart crust over the winter holidays for a berry tart and it didn't knock my socks off. I think that's because I paired it with vanilla pastry cream and berries and there were just too many competing sweet flavors against the chocolate crust. I think that the chocolate crust needs the chocolate pastry cream. Now, for playing around, Dorie suggests that you use the "Good For Anything Pie Dough" rather than the chocolate tart dough. Blind bake the tart shells and, if any of you happen to be in the market for tart pans, this is my advice: do not buy nonstick tart pans. The first tart pans I ever purchased were nonstick and, for the life of me, I could not figure out why my tart shells would shrink down to practically nothing. The people at the Sur la Table where I bought them were so nice and chatty and one day I mentioned my tart shell issues. One of the ladies who worked there was a pastry chef and she asked if they were nonstick. Why, yes, they are nonstick. That's the problem, the buttery tart dough just doesn't want to stick at all to that nice, nonstick surface. And she's right. Because I've since bought regular tart pans and my shrinkage issues are not nearly what they are with the nonstick tart pans.

The only other thing that the addition of the coconut requires is to boil sweetened, shredded coconut with heavy cream until it's reduced and thicker. I boiled mine, and boiled mine and it did get thicker but it was really thin until I chilled it. So, should you decide to play around at some point, don't stress out about the thickening aspect. I was sure that I was going to have the insides of my tart running out all over the place but they do firm up nicely when chilled.

The verdict? These tarts are really, really rich but I loved them. The chocolate cream overwhelmed the flavor of the coconut cream but that may be because I made tartlettes rather than a regular sized tart. In fact, I'm nearly positive that was the case. The toasted coconut and the whipped cream just put these over the top for me. I loved them. Thanks to Kim of Scrumptious Photography for such a great pick and check out her blog for the recipe.

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Granola Breakfast Cookies

This week I got to pick our Sweet Melissa Sundays selection: Granola Breakfast Cookies. I was so excited to get my turn to pick a recipe but I don't do well with lots of options, I always have a hard time making up my mind! I saw Lorelei's post about starting SMS and I jumped on it so I got an early pick -- this meant lots of choices. However, when I got the book I had made a list of the recipes that I wanted to try right away and these cookies were on that list. So, it ended up coming down to a close battle between these cookies and the Strawberry Muffins with Fresh Lemon and Rosemary. Yup, both breakfast picks because I am always, always, always looking for things to have for breakfast. I chose the cookies because then I could make the Cherry Almond Granola and that was also on the list.


Speaking of lists, I'm a big list-maker -- I always have been. My mom makes so much fun of me and my lists. She's one of those incredible people who can automatically file everything in her head. Not me. I have running lists for everything in my life. So, of course, when I get a cookbook, I put a sticky note on the inside cover with the list of the recipes that I want to make soon on it. I love sticky notes too and don't even get me started on the glories of the sticky flags for books. Any time that I'm reading for school I have a package of flags next to me. And in a couple of weeks, at the end of the semester when I've returned my library books, I'll have a big stack of flags to use next semester. I'm slightly obsessed with them.

Back to the cookies. So, it's a little stressful to pick a recipe because I selfishly wanted people to like the recipe that I picked. Last week the apple turnovers were a huge hit and as I was eating them I found myself thinking that there's probably no way that my granola cookies were going to come close to the greatness of the turnovers. And, they didn't. But that's ok because turnovers and granola are two different beasts. It's hard to compare the trail food aspect of granola with the delicate loveliness of puff pastry with sweetened cheese and apples inside.

The cookies are interesting because they're made with whole wheat flour, I used King Arthur White Whole Wheat (because that's what I had more of and I hoard my KA special flours), honey, and molasses. There's absolutely no refined sugar in these cookies, which is kind of cool. I was a little worried about the molasses. I mean, I love ginersnaps and gingerbread and those both use molasses -- but there are a lot of other spices to balance out the molasses fIavor in those baked goods. My brother walked past me one time when I had some molasses out for cooking and he commented on how awful it smells. From then on we always joked that you can't say molasses without saying a** because it smells so bad. I know, I know it's the sulfer. So, in an effort to curb the molasses flavor I upped the cinnamon to a teaspoon and I used 1/2 a teaspoon of Penzey's Baking Spice too. Before I give my verdict on the cookies, I'll just say that I loved the granola and I ate it on yogurt for breakfast every morning until I baked these cookies. And the verdict on the cookies? Well, I like them but when I had the first one for breakfast I thought to myself, I think that I must just prefer to eat my granola with yogurt. So, I've been making sort of breakfast sundaes with the cookies as a base and I like that. I do think that they're a great option for a quick breakfast and they're healthier than most muffins so I'm a fan. I think that in the future I will add more granola because I'd like them to be crunchier and I'll probably try using Steen's Cane Syrup in place of the molasses.

When I posted my TWD Rewind Granola Grabbers, Nancy, of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs, asked about a taste-off between the Granola Grabbers and the Granola Breakfast Cookies. Now, if you don't read her blog then you should know that Nancy does amazing taste-offs on her blog. She's very organized and uses great empirical methods when she does these taste-offs. Me, not so much. I'm much too haphazard and I'd need to have a sticky note with my observations while I was making and tasting the cookies. However, I'll offer up these comments as the posts are right next to eachother. The granola grabbers are much more like the traditional cookie because of the butter, sugar, AP flour aspect. They're very nutty, crunchy, and delicious and of course, the chocolate and cherries seals the deal for me. That said, I personally wouldn't eat them for breakfast. The Granola Breakfast Cookies are very chewy and dense and have a very distinct honey flavor. When I was making dessert the other night, Dudley pointed out that I still had a lot of cookies and I had to explain that those were not dessert cookies. So, while I prefer the granola grabbers, that's my sweet tooth talking and I like these cookies for breakfast.

Thanks to everyone who baked along with me this week! I know that it's a really hectic time for a lot of people and thank you for taking the time to bake these cookies. Next week, Strawbery Shortcakes. I made them last night and they're sooooo very good!

Granola Breakfast Cookies
page 36, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book
makes 2 dozen cookies

6 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup of clover honey
1/4 cup of molasses
1 large egg
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 cups of Cherry Almond Granola (recipe on page 34 of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book)

BEFORE YOU START:
Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or aluminum foil.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, honey, & molasses until smooth. Add the egg and whisk until incorporated.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, cinnamon, & baking soda.
3. Add the flour mixture to the honey mixture all at once and stir until combined. Stir in the granola. (At this point the dough can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 1 month.)
4. Drop the batter 2 inches apart by rounded teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets (12 on each sheet). Bake for 12-13 minutes, or until golden around the edges. Do not overbake. The cookies should be nice and chewy when cool. Remove to a rack to cool on the sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to the rack.

The cookies will keep layered between wax paper in an airtight container at room temperature for 4 days, or frozen for up to 3 weeks.

TWD Rewind: Granola Grabbers

I have always, always like the spring semester more than the fall semester. Why? Summer vacation, duh. *I heart summertime* (with or without the vacation). However, it's so much easier to lock yourself in the library when it's freezing cold and dark outside. It's much harder now that the nice weather has arrived. I'm dying to play outside but I have pages and pages calling my name. My usual writing papers routine involves lots and lots of peanut M&M's but I really wanted to try to be a little . . . a leetle bit . . . better about my study snacks. I thought that this would be a perfect time to try the Granola Grabbers. Something about my brain just requires a steady stream of snacks while I'm writing. Good for the brain . . . bad for the behind.


Now, I have some lingering childhood issues with wheat germ because my dad used to sneak it into our pancakes and waffles when I was little. Never content with success, he increased the amount of wheat germ each time until my brother and I would taste the waffles and push away our plates and "eewwww, there's wheat germ in these! Blech!" I think that we even got to the point where there was sight recognition of the wheat germ. However, I needed wheat germ to make some bread and some granola so there's no harm in putting it in these cookies, right? Absolutely not. It turns out that in moderation, a little bit of wheat germ is a good thing.

These cookies are a cinch to put together. They sort of remind me of the compost cookies that are making their way around the blogosphere right now just because there are so many different components. I made 1/2 without fruit and only nuts because Dudley doesn't like fruit in his dessert and then I made the other 1/2 with dried cherries because I don't like raisins! When I got out the dried cherries I noticed the chocolate chips and decided to throw some of those in, too. The cookies have salted, roasted peanuts and the rest of my marcona almonds in them. And, they're delicious! The chocolate cherry version beats the plain version hands down. I loved them . . . and now they're all gone. What's a girl to do?

If you'd like the recipe, check out Bad Girl Baking or you can find it in Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

CEiMB: Balsamic Chicken with Spinach and Couscous

Marthe, of the fantastic blog Culinary Delights, chose this week's Craving Ellie pick. Marthe's blog is a sentimental favorite for me because my dad's mother was Dutch and I grew up hearing "if you're not Dutch, you're not much." However, in addition to the whole "Dutch thing" her blog is fantastic and I love visiting it.

Ellie says that this recipe is perfect for a quick weeknight meal and I will second that. I was amazed at how quickly this came together. Of course, I had to pound out the chicken with my pan again but that's really the only thing about the recipe that I didn't like. I used field spinach that I got at the farmers' market last weekend and I sauteed it with the garlic and olive oil but I also added a pinch of red pepper flakes too. I had whole wheat couscous from Trader Joes in my pantry already so that was good to go; however, I think that plain couscous is, well, a little too plain for my taste so I added some chopped roasted red and yellow bell peppers and a few feta cheese crumbles. I eyeballed the ingredients for the sauce because I'm lazy and I hate to do dishes. And, then I returned the chicken breasts to the sauce while it thickened because I was worried that it had cooled off too much at that point and I wanted it to be hot when I ate it.

The verdict: I thought that this was really good. I liked how the three components of the dish worked together and I was happy with my dinner that night. I was glad that I used a lot of pepper when I seasoned the chicken because otherwise it might have been a little bland for my taste.

P.S. For those of you who commented on my barking dog post, thank you. Now I know I'm not mean or crazy. Also, he's still barking.
P.P.S. My brain is addled from the barking and I hit publish before I scheduled the post! So, mine is up on Wednesday, 1.5 hours too early. As Cher Horowitz would say: "oops . . . my bad." And then I tried to fix it but no dice. So, for all of you who got three mystery posts in your reader, my bad!

Blue Cheese Pecan Bread

I hate confrontation -- of any sort. I am a really patient person to begin with and I hate to rock the boat so if something's bothering me, chances are you'll never know it. I don't like to get in fights; I don't like to upset people; and I don't like it when people upset me. And this includes really little things. For example, I live in the "house" part of a residence in Washington DC. Like most every single house around here, there's a basement apartment below me. For some reason, people come and go in the basement apartment, it's sort of bizarre, really. I signed the lease last July, and since that time there have been 4 people who've lived in the basement apartment. The newest person moved in this past weekend and for the past 48 hours his dog has been barking almost non-stop. I feel sorry for the guy (the dog) because I have to think that he's just exhausted from all of that barking. I'm a dog person, I love dogs of all sorts, so it didn't phase me for the first 36 hours. Lucy (my dog) was a freak while I was moving in and she whined every time she was left inside while we were moving all of my crap in from the truck. So, I told myself that the poor puppy is just wigging out because he's in new surroundings and he'll calm down soon. But that was 48 hours ago. This morning I started envisioning a spaceship (or an rpg even) with the doggie attached. I'm a little tired of the barking.

What does all of this have to do with Blue Cheese Pecan Bread? Not a whole lot except that Martha Hall Foose states that it's a perfect accompaniment to a bottle of wine, and it is. And right now, I would love some peace and quiet and a glass of wine. I made this bread last Saturday when the weather was absolutely warm and perfect and I knew that an outdoor cocktail hour was in my future. The best thing about this bread is that it's a quick bread so you can make it in no time at all. It takes less than an hour from beginning to eating and that's great. And, it really is great with wine and cheese. The recipe is from Screen Doors and Sweet Tea. I remember hearing about this cookbook last summer when it came out and thinking that it was probably overrated but it's not -- this cookbook rocks! There are fantastic anecdotes at the beginning of each recipe and the recipes themselves are awesome. I've made quite a few of them so far and they've all been hits.

You can also make Parmesan pecan bread as I did the first time that I made this (because I didn't have any blue cheese at that point). It doesn't look nearly as cool because the Parmesan is the same color as the bread but it tastes delicious. The bread itself has a hint of sweetness so the most important thing is to pick a nice, flavorful cheese that will stand out. I think that an aged cheddar would probably work really well, too.

I came across this recipe on one of my favorite blogs: A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen. She suggests that the recipe is best made into two loaves rather than one large loaf and that's how I've made it. I've also halved the recipe with great success.

Blue Cheese Pecan Bread
Makes 1 8" round loaf
Screen Doors and Sweet Tea

4 cups unbleached, all purpose flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, chilled
2 ounces blue cheese, crumbled (1/2 cup)
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk
1 large egg, beaten
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture looks like oatmeal. Add the cheese and nuts, and toss to distribute in the flour. Make a well in the center and add 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk and the egg. Stir together with a sturdy spoon until you have a shaggy dough.
Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and kneed gently to bring together. Form into a slightly flattened 6-inch round. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with the remaining one tablespoon buttermilk and sprinkle with pepper. With a serrated knife, cut a shallow X in the top of the loaf.
Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the oven to 375 degrees and bake for 35 minutes, or until the loaf is deep golden brown and sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack.

If you're like me then you can never wait for anything to cool completely. But that's ok here, just let it cool a little bit (as long as you can stand it) and then you can start slicing away. The margin notes in the cookbook suggest serving this bread toasted with white wine, sliced granny smith apples, and red grapes.

TWD: Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

This week Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle, now A Baking Blog, chose Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding and I think that it's definitely worth all four stars! I love bread pudding (minus the raisins, of course) and I love chocolate so this was bound to be a hit with me. I'll admit, I'd looked at the recipe in the book and the picture of the gooey bread pudding and it looked fantastic to me. I know that if I were still in Houston right now I might be less than enthused about bread pudding because, in my mind at least, it's a very comforting winter dessert, but I've had some cool (I call them cold) and wet days recently and they were perfect for this sort of dessert.

I adore my brother and sister. My sister graduated with a degree in political science (she'll tell you it's comparative Russian politics but I'll just call it poli sci) but in her last semester of her senior year she decided that she wanted to be a doctor. So, she moved back to Houston when she was done with school and took all of the pre-reqs for medical school and we lived together quite happily for three years before I moved to D.C. She took ecology one semester and from then on out we had to trap spiders under glasses and release them because they're "good" bugs. I'm NOT an insect lover at all so this didn't sit well with me; she was officially in charge of catch and release for all spiders in the house. I mentioned one day that I'd be so sad if a species of animal went extinct in my lifetime -- I mean, I can't imagine having kids who think that rhinos and tigers are only pretend animals, something akin to dinosaurs -- and she informed me that it would probably happen. Eeek! I haven't done any research on this, nor have I taken the class, nor do I have even remotely the proper background to make this blog my forum to discuss the extinction of a species. I just think that it's cool that there's Endangered Species Chocolate and that's what I used in the bread pudding. I used dark chocolate with hazlenut toffee and it's supremely yummy, though I wish that the toffee and hazlenut flavor had been a little bit more pronounced in the pudding.

I used croissants for the bread in the bread pudding because I think that it's hard to get richer than a croissant. I toasted them first and then they were sort of like shards, which was to be expected. I was a little worried that the croissants didn't have enough structure to hold up the bread pudding and that it would end up mush but it ended up being absolutely fantastic. I made 1/3 of the recipe and that made 4 ramekins of pudding. I didn't really have any of the issues with the custard remaining separate from my bread that some people mentioned in the P&Q this week. My puddings were a lovely amalgamation of bread, custard, and chocolate and they were soooo good. I left out the cherries thinking that they'd be chocolate hazelnut toffee bread puddings but I think next time I'll slip some in. Chocolate and cherries are just a great combination, no?
In case you haven't guessed, I loved these bread puddings! The only thing that I'd change in the future is to maybe add a little bit more chocolate. It was nice and chocolatey out of the oven the first night but after that the chocolate flavor seemed to diminish. Not to worry, I reheated them with extra chocolate chips when I ate the rest of them. They're rich and delicious and when I work out this week I will envision the chocolate bread pudding. Because, seriously people, TWD is some major workout motivation these days!

SMS: Caramel Apple Turnovers . . .

with Sweet Ricotta Filling. Now there's a mouthful!

These luscious apple turnovers were picked by Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures. She's another fantastic, super sweet blogger and no matter how mundane my post happens to be, she always leaves a comment, so nice. Also, the food on her blog is scrumptiously yummy so definitely give it a look-see. I was pretty excited about these turnovers -- who doesn't love a turnover? Butter, sugar, and cheese with a little bit of fruit thrown in? Sign me up!

I picked up the ingredients for these at Whole Foods because I was there picking up some other things and, also, the dreaded (and much maligned by one singleton) Social Safeway is closing its doors and stock is running low on things like puff pastry -- I checked. So, I got my puff pastry at Whole Foods and, boy howdy, when I put it in my cart I thought that it'd better be darn good. It was not cheap. However, it ended up being ok because I only used 1/2 of the package to make 8 mini turnovers and (added bonus) it's really, really good! My previous homemade puff pastry experience was a disaster. When I came back to Texas after spending a bit of time in France I decided that I was going to be God's gift to croissants (and the oh-so-lovely pain au chocolate) in Texas. I had visions of people tasting the ethereal pastry and telling their friends and neighbors. Soon all of Houston would be lining up at my door to taste the wonderful croissants that I made. I researched and researched and selected a recipe and all of my dreams came to a screeching halt. They were awful! And, no, I still haven't gotten back up on my horse to try again. And while I might attempt it someday; if, as CCR likes to sing, someday never comes, I think that this Dufour pastry might be the reason why. It's some seriously delicious puff.

Then again, maybe it's not the puff pastry that makes these so great. Maybe it's the heavenly apple filling. The filling is comprised of one part caramel apple filling to one part ricotta-orange filling. They're both easily made ahead of time, which I did, and then it's sort of a one, two, three job and off to the oven they go. I loved (!!) the apple filling for these turnovers. The cheese part was fine but I think that next fall when apple picking time rolls around I'm going to make these again with only apple filling. For me, the cheese was sort of nice, but not necessary. I made 8 mini turnovers rather than 4 large turnovers because I knew that I wouldn't want to eat a giant turnover all at once.


These turnovers are delcious. I can't wait to make them again with peaches this summer. You can freeze them before you make them and then pop them into the oven for brunch -- how convenient. I loved these turnovers! Thanks, Tracey, for a great pick!

Note: Oops! I didn't mean to freak people out. The Social Safeway is closing ... for a year. They're making it a bigger and better Social Safeway so that people can be even more "social."

CEiMB: Lamb Stew with Orange

I had sort of mixed feelings about this week's pick. I'm so-so with lamb. I like to order it from time to time when I go out to eat. What I'm not red hot on is stew. I just have childhood memories of "no-peek" stew that my mom used to make. Don't get my sister started on the horrors of this stew -- apparently we're both scarred for life.

But, I wanted to make this week's pick because a) I think that it's important to try new things and to revisit things that I didn't like as a child because I'm generally pleasantly surprised and b) I missed last week's CEiMB. So, yesterday after class I walked up to Whole Foods because I am particular about where I buy my meat, especially meat like lamb. I think that there are some great butchers in the area but I didn't have time to search for one and I thought a butcher is probably closed at 7 pm anyway so, Whole Foods it is. I went and procured the lamb and I was standing in line, waiting to check out, pondering my brother's assertion that Whole Foods "is a bunch of hippies saving the world one organic carrot at a time" (mind you, he shops there all of the time so there's no animosity in that statement), and generally minding my own business. I was literally knocked out of my reverie by the very loud slam of my cart into my abdomen. You see, this punk-a** little kid in front of me decided to mess with me. He took his empty cart, turned it around, and gave it a mighty shove into my cart. I like kids a lot, and they generally like me a lot too, but it took all of my "grown up" sensibilities not to rudely shove my cart back into his! And the look I got from him was just daring me to do it, too. We could have had a Billy Madison dodgeball moment: "Now you're all in big, BIG trouble." But his poor mother was embarassed enough as she was whispering to him not to do such things and I thought it was probably best to go back to musing about the organic carrots.

I made this in the morning before I went to class and I brought it back up to temperature when I got home that evening. The changes that I made were pretty simple. First of all, I forgot to get parsnips and mint at the store so I left that out (and darn it too on the mint because I love mint). Second of all, I didn't have any tomato sauce so I substituted a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes. I actually liked having the tomato pieces in it as opposed to the sauce and I think I'd make it that way again in the future. I served it with rice because it seemed like a better option than potatoes or grits. I pondered couscous too but we're making chicken with couscous next week so rice seemed like a good option. Yes, brown rice would be healthier but I didn't have any so I made white rice.

The verdict? I liked this a little bit, Dudley liked this a lot bit. But, I think that we both liked this in proportion to how we like lamb and stew. He loves lamb and stew; I like lamb and I don't like stew. But, I'm still really glad that I made this because it was so different and the combination of flavors in the stew is great. I was also a big fan of adding the chick peas to replace some of the meat. So, thanks to Farah of Confessions of a Novice Baker for this week's pick and be sure to check out her blog, it's wonderful.

Ramped Up: Ramp & Buttermilk Biscuits

I've been reading about ramps for a few years now but in Houston you're about as likely to find ramps as you are to find a pot of gold: I'm not saying it couldn't happen -- just that it's not very likely. The Gulf Coast just isn't a friendly climate for these little green leek-y things. I've gone back to my locavore habits lately and I've been haunting the farmer's market looking for signs of spring; you know, asparagus, strawberries, something, anything to give me a hint that warmer days are in my very near future. It's been sort of a bust on that front as the main offerings at the Dupont Circle market these days are still greens, leftover apples, carrots, and sweet potatoes. I did hit pay dirt, though, the weekend before Easter when I saw ramps. I think I may have accidentally squealed as I saw them and made a beeline to the table. I definitely got some strange looks but at that point I just wanted to check out the goods.

The April issue of Bon Appetit had a feature on ramps and there were some recipes that looked fantastic. When I was in Houston for spring break, my sister commented on how fantastic the biscuits looked. In fact, she couldn't stop talking about the ramp biscuits. She's in medical school, she eats, sleeps, breathes, talks, and lives medicine these days (she'll be a fantastic doctor) so when she comes up for air and notices something as mundane as a Bon Appetit recipe it gets my attention. I knew that I wanted to make those biscuits, I just needed the ramps. So, when I got my paws on them that's just what I did.

I was explaining the biscuits to my brother and he (also being very excited about the ramps) asked me to describe what ramps taste like. I'll disagree with the article that described them in terms of leeks or green onions -- their flavor is much, much more garlic-y than that. It's not quite as strong or pungent as garlic, it's more of an earthy garlic flavor, does that make sense? At any rate, they're delicious and I'll have to see what the bro has to say about them because I brought him some last weekend. Back to the biscuits, they're delightfully buttery and ramp-y, you can definitely smell the ramp/garlic flavor. The recipe calls to make them first in the food processor and then by hand. I just put them together in a bowl with a pastry cutter and they were fine and very easy to make. I didn't have any cracked coriander but I did crack some pepper over the top, does that count?


Ramp & Buttermilk Biscuits
Bon Appetit, April 2009

• 3/4 cup chilled buttermilk
  
• 3/4 cup thinly sliced trimmed ramps (bulbs, stems, and green tops)
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 large egg, beaten to blend (for glaze)
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds, cracked

Preheat oven to 425°F. Mix buttermilk and ramps in small bowl. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper in processor. Add chilled butter to processor; using on/off turns, cut in butter until fine meal forms. Transfer flour mixture to medium bowl. Add buttermilk mixture; stir until dough forms. Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface and press out to 7-inch round, about 1/2 inch thick. Using 2-inch-diameter biscuit cutter dipped in flour, cut out rounds. Gather dough scraps; press out to 1/2-inch thickness and cut out additional rounds. Transfer dough rounds to baking sheet. Brush biscuit tops with some of egg glaze. Sprinkle with cracked coriander seeds. Bake biscuits until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Cool on rack. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

TWD: 15 Minute Chocolate Amaretti Torte

It's rather simple, really: are you a frosting person or a cake person? When you were little, were you the kid at the birthday party who always wanted the corner piece of the birthday cake? You know, the one with all of the extra frosting? And if you missed out on that you could always shoot for part of the design with the extra frosting slathered on top. I know you -- you were probably my friend. Me? I'm a cake girl, I always have been. I was the kid who left the frosting on the side of the plate after I scraped it off, the weirdo. But that's ok because there was usually someone around who got to clean up on my extra frosting. The only frosting I thought was worthwhile was my mom's chocolate satin frosting (on yellow cake, thank you very much) and even too much of that wasn't a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't hate frosting, I just don't like it as much as I like cake. So, when recipes start calling for chocolate ganache on top of chocolate cake it's sometimes a little too much for me. Especially when I'm doing my own dishes. Especially when those extra calories are going directly to me: do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to the hips. So, for the second time in the past 3 days, I've left the chocolate ganache off of the chocolate cake.

I'll be honest, when I finished the Brooklyn (not-so) Brownout Cake last weekend I had no intention of making this torte. I just figured that with Easter and everything I wouldn't have time to get this together and besides, I don't like Amaretti. Well, you see, when I was younger, we had very close family friends who were Italian and we just loved them (they've since moved back to Italy). They used to give us amaretti from time to time and I remember not liking them at all in the way that a 7 year old doesn't like much besides good ole chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. Poor amaretti cookies have been getting a bad rap from me for years and it turns out they're not so bad. I love almonds and everything almond flavored; in fact, it was the almond whipped cream that sold me on this recipe.

I got my amaretti at Starbucks. One box was enough for the half recipe that I made. The half recipe made three mini tortes. And really, how could I not make the torte's this week? Dorie promises that if you have 15 minutes you can make this, and she's not too far off (the dishes add a little bit of extra time). Even my teensy tiny little food processor that attaches to my stick blender could handle this -- boo yah!

My little tortes rose almost like souffles in the oven and I wasn't expecting that at all. I filled the ramekins about 2/3 full so there was a lot of rising that happened in the 25 minutes in the oven. There isn't any chemical levening agent in the torte batter so it must be the rigorous processing of the eggs that allows for such terrific heights? I can't think of anything else. They did sink back down while I waited for them to cool.

I am so glad that I didn't skip out this week! This recipe is fantastic and I will most definitely make it again. The tortes were fudgy and delicious and the almond whipped cream on top was oh-so-good with some extra toasted almonds as well. I can see how these would be a fabulous base for an ice cream sundae and I can hardly wait to see what everyone else did. Oh, side note, it was delightful to make a chocolate dessert and be able to lick the spoon. I suppose I must have gotten a little over zealous in my excitment over the chocolate because I ended up with quite a bit of it on my face while I was making this, sheesh! It was a great post-Easter dessert and thanks to Holly of Phe/MOM/enon for this week's pick!

Easter Jazz Brunch at Commander's Palace

We had such a nice Easter weekend in New Orleans. My parents lived there while my dad was doing his residency at Charity Hospital and I was born there but we moved to Texas shortly after that. As luck would have it, though, my brother went to Tulane for law school and he's stayed around. It'll be a sad day for me when he decides to move. We always, always spend Easter in Houston but this year we decided to change it up and go to New Orleans for Easter so that we could all be together. I ate far, far more than I should have this weekend but the food was so delicious, it was hard for me to say no. The five of us aren't together that often any more these days so it took me until brunch on Sunday morning to get my act together and start taking some pictures of the delicious food so that I could share!

The Jazz Brunch at Commander's Palace is so festive. We'd discussed many other restaurant options but we ended up at Commander's and it didn't disappoint (it never does -- I have yet to have a bad experience there). We went to brunch after church and, in keeping with the "over-indulgent" theme of the weekend, we started off with cocktails. There's nothing like a Milk Punch to start brunch off with a bang. I don't want to turn this into a ridiculous catalog of what we ate but I will tell you that after this weekend I officially like poached eggs and swiss chard, two things that were not on my list of "likes" before. The red wine poached "Easter Eggs" were served on a bed of swiss chard and corn bread with house-smoked ham and a chervil hollandaise and it was absolutely fantastic (even if Anthony Bourdain says never to get the hollandaise). Of course, as the meal wore on I got caught up in talking with everyone and eating so my pictures started to suffer. Dessert is always wonderful though and even though I forgot to take a picture I did manage to get a picture of the carnage. And, let me recommend the hibiscus sorbet. I've got to figure out how to make that at some point soon. Maybe David Lebovitz has a recipe that will point me in the right direction . . .

SMS: Brooklyn Brownout Cake

As you can tell, this looks nothing like a "brownout" cake. I ran out of time. I ran out of time and I just couldn't get myself together to make the ganache. *SIGH* This past week was ridiculously busy for me and I was so, so excited about this cake. Elyse, the mind behind Elyse's Confectionery Creations, chose this week's cake and she is one of my favorite bloggy people so I really wanted to do this recipe justice. She's in law school right now and she has this super fabulous food blog where you can find some seriously amazing and delicious creations.

I halved the recipe to make two 4" layers for a smaller layer cake. The recipe also calls for brownies from the book for the "brownout" crumbs which I made. That's a recipe for another post but between the cake and the brownies I can say that so far, Melissa seems to know her chocolate! I'm a chocolate lover and both the brownies and the cake looked rich and fudgy. The recipe for the cake isn't complicated at all. I used some instant espresso powder for the coffee because I didn't feel like brewing a batch but other than that I didn't think that there was anything out of the ordinary. So, yeah, no ganache. I just ran out of time. The cake needed to be finished and I just didn't have time to melt the chocolate and mess around spreading the ganache. So, I whipped some cream. I put brownie chunks in the cream in between the layers and then I left the cream on top plain and sprinkled brownie bits on it. I thought that it was pretty but it's not a brownout cake.

Verdict: I didn't get a chance to eat this because it was still Lent but it received rave reviews for being moist and very intensely chocolatey. The coffee flavor in mine was very present but I'm not sure if that's because I used espresso powder rather than using fresh brewed coffee.

Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate it. I'm in New Orleans with my family this weekend. I'm sorry for my absense in and around the blogs this past week but hopefully I'll be back on track this week. In the meantime, thanks to Elyse for picking such a wonderful cake this week. I will definitely make it again, "brownout" style!

TWD: Banana Cream Pie

I do not like bananas. I can't think of one other fruit that I don't really like (I've never tried durian though and I have a feeling that I wouldn't like it) but bananas, ugh. I don't like them in bread, in smoothies, in a Jolly Rancher or a Now-n-Later. I don't know if I ever liked them and my sister has as strong dislike of them too so maybe it's genetic? I don't know but I know that I don't like them. They're the world's most popular fruit; people eat twice as many bananas a year as apples and oranges combined. I do not contribute to that statistic. I have to think that part of the really high consumption of bananas is for runners. The first marathon I ever ran it was really hot and around mile 19 I just lost it. I was so hot and I hit the wall. And the nicest lady ever was also having a hard time and she was walking with me and she kept trying to make me eat a banana! And because she was so nice, I didn't want to tell her to please just throw the banana away. Anyway, that's my long-winded description of my dislike of the poor banana. Needless to say, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of banana cream pie. But wait, Dudley loves bananas, he loves pie, I'll just make him a little pie. So that's what I did.

I have to say, even though I wasn't excited about banana cream pie when I saw it as a pick for this month, this pie isn't that bad. This is not to say that I tried it, because I definitely didn't. But, as I was making the pastry cream I realized that I could maybe make another little mini pie for me with pineapple instead of banana, so that's what I did. One banana cream pie, one pineapple cream pie. We return to the beachy desserts for a second week in a row here at TWD. I'm picturing Coppertone, beach towels, and sand pails. It's a good thing.

The pastry cream was super easy to make. I don't know about anyone else but I didn't love pushing my brown sugar through a sieve. I had fresh, soft brown sugar but it still didn't want to go through very well so I ended up just putting it in (after I made sure that there were no pesky little sugar rocks in it). I read on the P&Q that the pastry cream gets lumpy and indeed it does. I've never had that happen to me but I just whisked it vigorously and it was fine, and seriously delicious too. So, pie crust + pastry cream + bananas (or pineapple) + whipped cream topping = banana cream pie. Not too bad. I had a really hard time cutting this pie for pictures because I made it in little pielets. So, there aren't any pictures of a nice slice of pie. I did take a picture of the insides though, in all of their messy, goopy glory.

Pineapple Cream Pie: I just sliced the pineapple pieces super thin and layered them in.

Banana Cream Pie: I think that the bananas are much, much more suited to slices of this pie. They're so much easier to cut!

Verdict: Dudley liked the banana cream pie . . . but I can't trust him because he says that he likes everything that I make. And he hasn't developed a really great vocabulary of descriptive food words. He uses adjectives such as awesome or incredible quite a bit but I'm still working on getting him to make more nuanced descriptions for me. However, he's a fantastic taste-tester and I won't quibble too much on the adjectives. I liked the pineapple version a lot actually. If I made it again I would leave the spices out of the pastry cream and maybe make a coconut pastry cream because I love the whole pineapple-coconut combination these days. It was much harder to cut into but other than that it was yummy! Thanks to Amy of Sing for Your Supper for choosing a recipe that I really would never have picked for myself and that I actually liked in the end.