Another quiet week in food news, but this is going on and I felt that I should help raise awareness since it will directly affect wordpress and other blogging sites. Please read.
Recipe: Mashed Potatoes
Because if you haven’t tried them fresh, you are missing out.
ingredients
- Potatoes
- Butter
- Milk/cream
- Salt
- Pepper
Equipment
- Pealer
- Knife
- Spoon
- A large pot
- Cookie sheet
- Bowl
- Fork/potato masher/mixer
Directions
- Peal potatoes.
- Cut potatoes into quarters.
- Pre-heat oven to 350°F.
- Bring about half a pot of water to a boil then carefully add potatoes to the boiling water. (The potatoes should be submerged, if you have more potatoes than room in your pot then you will need to boil them in batches.)
- Return water to boiling.
- When the potatoes are soft enough that you can break them apart with a fork, carefully remove them from the pot and place on the cookie sheet.
- Place the cookie sheet in the oven for about 10 min. or until the potatoes appear dry.
- Put potatoes in a bowl and mash with your fork/potato masher/mixer or whatever implement you most enjoy smashing up potatoes with.
- Add milk a little at a time until you reach the thickness you want, stirring after adding each little bit.
- Add salt and pepper, then butter to match your tastes. When trying to decide whether to add more salt or not, I always think back to what one of my chef/professors told me in school: The point of salt and pepper is to bring out the natural flavors of the ingredients. Not enough and you can’t taste everything. Too much and the seasoning overwhelms the flavor.
- Enjoy!
This time I didn’t put in any measurements because so many small things can make the mashed potatoes that while good, are not great. For some reason this recipe always turns out better if you aren’t looking at an exact set of measurements. That said, for the sake of having everything on hand you will need about one large potato per person (serving) and about 1/2 a cup of milk for each potato. If you know about what mashed potatoes should look like and taste like, then you should be able to make this.
Book Review: How to be a Domestic Goddess
How to be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking by Nigella Lawson is a thoroughly enjoyable cookbook with lots of fun thoughts, recipes, and fantastic pictures throughout. This cookbook is focused on primarily pastry, and that focus makes it that much better because it gives Lawson the chance to discuss several variations on some recipes. The recipes are very detailed and the accuracy of the measurements is alway right where it should be. My only complaint is that some of the ingredients for some of the recipes are practically impossible to find in the U.S., but the other recipes readily make up for that in pure wow factor and deliciousness.
***** (5 stars)
Recipe: Carrots Glacees
Glazed carrots (otherwise known as carrots glacees) are basically chopped carrots cooked in sugar-water. They are a great way to get kids to eat more vegetables (my mom used to use this recipe all the time to get my picky eater brother to eat) and a good treat for adults.
Ingredients
- 2 large carrots
- 1/2 cup of sugar (white or brown sugar may be used)
- Water
Equipment
- Sauce pot
- Stove top
- Spoon
Directions
- Peal carrots then slice them, so that each piece can be eaten in a bite or two.
- Add carrots to sauce pot making sure they don’t overlap each other much. (You don’t want the carrots to overlap each other much because it will keep them from cooking evenly)
- Add just enough water to cover the carrots, and put on stove top set to medium heat.
- Stir in the sugar.
- Continue to cook carrots, stirring occasionally. If the water starts to boil, then the pan is getting too hot, so turn down the stove top. (A few bubbles are good, but it is really easy to burn the carrots if the water starts to boil.)
- When the water is almost gone, check the carrots with the spoon to see if they are soft. You should be able to break the carrot apart with the side of the spoon. If they are soft, they are done.
- If the carrots still seem hard then continue to cook them until the water completely evaporates. Do NOT walk away from the stove at this point because the carrots will burn if not supervised.
- Allow carrots to cool slightly before serving.
- Enjoy!
Honey may be used instead of sugar for this recipe. If you are using honey then you will need about 2 tablespoons instead of the 1/2 cup.
Also, different ways of cutting carrots will have a huge effect on cook times and how well the carrots cook through. My mom would usually use a basic paysanne cut because that is how she was taught to chop carrots, but I like to use oblique cuts because it takes about the same amount of time to cut and tends to cook more evenly. (Sorry for all of the culinary terms, but they seemed like the best way to explain.) I have seen this recipe done with whole baby carrots before as well, though it may be difficult to get them to cook all the way through, so I wouldn’t recommend using them on your first try.
Food News: A Cure for Listeria?
Scientists recently discovered an antibiotic compound that may cure Listeria. The compound is called fluoro-phenyl-stryene-sulfonamind (FPSS), and it basically prevents the Listeria bacteria from protecting itself from the body’s stomach acid. This breakthrough could save the lives of many people, especially considering 2011′s Listeria outbreak due to infected cantaloupes that killed 30 and sickened 146 people (reported).
Read more at:
Recipe: Butter Cut-Out Cookies
I found this recipe in a British cookbook and have yet to find a better recipe to use with cookie cutters. The one downside is that the frosting is absolutely necessary to make to cookies sweet. If you skip it, then they taste too salty.
Ingrediants
- 3/4 cup soft unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 3/4 cups cake flour (plus some for rolling)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar (or powdered sugar)
- food coloring (optional)
- 2-4 tablespoons of hot water
- Cooking spray or crisco
Equipment
- Mixer
- Cling wrap
- Cookie cutters
- 2 cookie sheets
- Rolling-pin
- A clean surface to roll out dough on
- 2 mixing bowls
Directions
- Combine butter and sugar together in a mixer until they are pale and moving towards mousiness (like the top of a lemon meringue pie).
- Then beat in the eggs and vanilla.
- In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter/egg mixture and mix gently until combined. (Make sure that the dough does not feel sticky after everything is mixed. If it is sticky, then add just a little bit more flour. Be careful though because too much flour will make the dough tough and difficult to roll out.)
- Halve the dough, form into fat disks, and wrap in cling wrap.
- Let dough rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour. (A little longer is okay, but any shorter and it won’t be as easy to work with.)
- Pre-heat oven to 350°F.
- Sprinkle the clean surface with flour.
- Place half of the dough on the surface (the other half should remain in the refrigerator for now) and sprinkle more flour on top of the dough.
- Use a rolling-pin to roll out the dough so that it is about 1/4 inch thick.
- Use the cookie cutters to cut fun shapes out of the dough, and place the cookies on lightly greased cookie sheets.
- Bake for 8-12 min. The cookies should be slightly golden around the edges when done.
- Roll out, cut and bake the other half of the cookies.
- When all of the cookies are completely cool, place the confectioners’/powdered sugar in the mixing bowl and mix in just enough of the hot water to wet it all, making it into a thick paste.
- Add food coloring if desired.
- Cover your cookies with icing.
- Enjoy.
When I make these, I’ll usually put a little bit of powdered sugar into several different tea cups and then mix in the flour and some food coloring so that I can have lots of different colors of cookies. I usually only need a drop or two of food coloring to make pastels, while dark colors require a lot more food coloring.
Food coloring usually comes in a fairly limited number of colors, unless you go to a specialty store, so if you want a color like purple or orange then you may need to mix more than one food coloring color into the sugar. While mixing, just remember the color wheel from art class: red and blue make purple, red and yellow make orange, etc.
Book Review: Gastronaut
Gastronaut: Adventures in food for the romantic, the foolhardy, and the brave by Stefan Gates is at first glance a cook book, at least that is what it seems like until you start reading it. It has recipes after all. What pulled me in were Gates’ anecdotes and commentary that took me swiftly from just skimming a few pages to reading the whole thing in a few hours. He openly encourages readers to be adventurous with their food. The book includes recipes like mock turtle soup and a plethora of project ideas to keep the reader entertained from start to finish. While you probably won’t want to try all of his ideas, they are all interesting to read about. The chapter on “How to Stage a Bacchanalian Orgy” is not to be missed. Overall, a good quick read.
*** (3 stars)
Food News: Silent Night?
The food news arena seems to have fallen silent as everyone mixes up batch after batch of cookies for for holiday get togethers. In fact, if you scan the headlines of most any food section right now the most contriversal thing you will probably find is an article wrapping up some of the celebrity chef drama for the year (or about a Hooters renovation), but even that is just a blip on the radar compared with all the happy, shiny people/food news making the food headlines now.
I guess as a chef I should be glad that there won’t be any drama this holiday season, but at the same time, I am presently at high risk of totally tuning out food news for the next two weeks. There are only so many variations on roll cookies that a girl can take.
Recipe 5: Roasted Tilapia
Tilapia is well-known as one of the less “fishy” tasting fish, and it is very simple to cook. A tilapia dinner can easily take under 30 min. to make, including the vegetables, and is a delicious way to get more iron into your diet.
Ingredients
- 2, 4 oz. tilapia filets
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1/2 a lemon
- Salt
Equipment
- Oven
- Pot or microwave safe bowl (for melting butter)
- Cookie sheet
- Pastry brush/marinade brush
Directions
- Pre-heat the oven to 425°F.
- Melt butter in a pot on the stove top (make sure to stir to keep it from burning) or by microwaving it.
- Lightly grease cookie sheet.
- Brush the tilapia with butter, then sprinkle lightly with salt and a little bit of lemon juice.
- Cook for about 20 min. or until the tilapia comes apart easily when cut with a fork.
- Serve the tilapia.
Tilapia tastes great served with asparagus or green beans. Olive oil may be substituted for butter for a healthier version if desired, but I love the taste and texture that butter lends to the fish.
Also, if you do not have a pastry/marinade brush, I have heard of a paper towel being used to substitute for the brush with good effects. Just beware of fibers from the paper towel on the fish. The important thing is to spread the butter evenly onto the fish so that it will absorb and cook evenly.
Recipe 4: Chocolate Bacon
This is one of my favorite appetizers to make because it takes so little time and effort, and my friends/family/co-workers/classmates love it.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons cocoa powder
- 2 lbs. bacon
Equipment
- Bowl
- Oven
- Cookie sheets
- Aluminum foil (optional)
Directions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.
- Mix together the brown sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl.
- Line the cookie sheets with aluminum foil. (This step is optional, but if you do it, your clean-up will be a lot easier.)
- Press one side of each strip of bacon into the cocoa, sugar mix then place the strips sugar side up on the cookie sheets.
- Cook in the oven for about 5-10 min. or until the bacon starts to become crispy.
- Enjoy the bacon-y goodness.
If, gasp, you can’t/don’t feel the urge to eat all of the bacon in one sitting, then it should be stored in an air tight container in the refrigerator. I usually line the container with a few paper towels to prevent the bacon from becoming soggy and limp.
