First Attempt at a Smitten Kitchen Recipe: Squash/Potato Torte

I have long been a fan of Deb at Smitten Kitchen. Her photos always look like something I would want to eat, she gives a lot of helpful tips, and I feel like I can trust her on recipes. If something wasn't all that great, she'll be honest about it. If she says something is spectacular, I think she's probably right. For some reason, however, I hadn't gotten around to making anything from her blog. Recently, I changed that with two recipes. One pretty decent, and the other out of the park. This is the first - herbed summer squash and potato torte, recipe from June 2001 Bon Appetit. Was it good? Yes. But as you can see, not nearly as pretty as Deb's. I didn't have green onions, and my parmesan didn't melt nearly as prettily. Probably should've used a block instead of pre-grated. I also didn't use thyme - mint and basil instead. It was well-seasoned, though, and I love fresh summer squash.

Try some bulgur; it's not vulgar

Apologies for the title of this post. I was in a somewhat corny mood. So, bulgur salad. A success, I would say. I've had some bulgur lying around since a visit to Stringtown Grocery when I just grabbed any grains that looked cheap and tasty, but I hadn't done anything with it until now. The other morning it was cloudy and cool, and I rushed to boil my bulgur while it stayed that way, and then made this cold salad that I could eat when it got hot again. I used this recipe but I deviated a lot.

I wasn't able to find all the vegetables at the Farmer's Market, or cheaply elsewhere, and I was determined not to spend a lot of money on this project. So I went with the dressing formula as-is, with the exception of possibly having slightly less than six tablespoons and four tablespoons of the fresh herbs (and it was plenty), but I changed the veggies. I used some sweet onion, some sweet pepper (a kind of pale yellow colour), and some roma tomato for colour. As you can see here, to cut down on dish use I mixed the yoghurt in the bowl I'd be using for the salad, then threw the chopped veggies in, and then finally mixed in the bulgur. I also didn't bother toasting the pine nuts and thought they were unnecessary, considering how much pine nuts cost. I loved the salad, though. It made enough for about six small to medium sized servings, and it was tasty with a nice contrast between the crunch of the bulgur and the moisture from the yoghurt. Very flavourful.

Soup! Very green soup!

I have to admit, as much as I love them, I don't normally buy avocados in Iowa. They're just far too expensive. $1.69 for a single avocado? Give me a break. I'll take the packaged guac, thanks. However, I have been looking for tasty cold soups beyond the standard gazpacho, and this recipe from Spicy Salty Sweet, adopted from Gourmet (which I haven't actually had a chance to read, even though it's the June issue), caught my eye. Her picture makes it look much thicker and creamier, which is probably the buttermilk, but mine was still mighty tasty. Unfortunately, the man at the farmer's market lied when he said he had seedless cucumbers. I definitely spent some time hollowing out the seeds. That said, the cucumber was delicious, the extremely expensive avocado was mighty nice, and my adjustments (no salt, sweet onion instead of scallions) didn't really hurt anything. Soup that isn't perfectly smooth takes some getting used to, but I like the taste, especially the mint. Yum!

Cucumber and Avocado Soup
adapted from Gourmet via Spicy Salty Sweet
makes 3-4 servings

one large (preferably seedless) cucumber (about a pound)
one large avocado
1/8 to 1/4 cup chopped sweet onion
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
a couple squirts of lime juice or the juice of half a lime
1/2 cup skim milk

Chop the avocado and the cucumber into fairly large chunks, removing seeds from cuke if necessary. Leave aside a small handful of cucumber and avocado, and throw the rest into the food processor with the onion, mint, and lime juice. Process to a puree, then add the milk and blend until smooth. Throw the chunks of veggies in and eat.

Passover (and all year round) Recipes

I know it's a little counter-intuitive to be posting my Passover recipes now, but this has been a very busy week for me, as exams are approaching and work is a bit of a pain and my volunteer supervisor is asking for results all at once. I hope you'll forgive me. Also, probably Monday I will be posting a couple more recipes in honour of spring, which has finally sprung in Iowa City. I wanted to do a vegetarian feast theme in time for spring, but since many places won't really be done with spring until mid-June, I'm going to post the theme in the next couple of days and make the deadline end of may. Cool? Cool.

This photo is my attempt at labneh, or strained yoghurt, popular in the Mediterranean region. Claudia Roden taught me how, in her amazing Middle Eastern cookery book. I'll be posting a Foodie Bookshelf entry about it soon, as she really has made me want to plunge whole heartedly into the cuisine. Anyway, the method is basically just to dump a tub of plain yoghurt into a cheesecloth over a bowl, squeeze as much liquid out as you can, then tie it off and put it in a strainer or colander over the bowl in the fridge overnight to drain.

I had a little trouble with my cheesecloth tearing, and I had to double it up, as well as my colander having not enough holes. It didn't fully strain, but it did make it thicker. I chopped up a handful of fresh mint and stirred it in, and then dipped roasted eggplant slices in it for lunches. I love the combination of the sweet eggplant flavour with the sharp tang of the yoghurt and the cool mint flavour.

My first dinner attempt was a Roasted Eggplant Medley, whose source I unfortunately do not know. It was easy, and extremely delicious. My main complaint is that it went way too quickly, eating-wise. For me, this was two servings, and that's a lot of veggies to buy for two servings. Then again, maybe I'm just a glutton. The taste was fantastic. To start, chop up an eggplant, four Roma tomatoes, and a couple of zucchini. See the photo above for my awesome chopping technique - cut thick slices, then turn them over into stacks and cut into quarters. Throw in an (olive) oiled baking dish and drizzle with two more tablespoons of olive oil, tossing to coat. Sprinkle with a couple teaspoons cumin and salt and pepper to taste. Roast at 450 for 45 minutes, stirring every ten or fifteen. Add a tablespoon lemon juice and a tablespoon chopped fresh mint when it comes out of the oven. The recipe also suggests a chopped green onion, which I forgot, additional salt and pepper if needed, and a tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro, which was not at the grocery store.

My next dinner attempt was another that didn't last long - one serving, to be exact. It was a pretty simple mushroom improv. Saute a package of sliced white mushrooms in olive oil. Add dried (or fresh) thyme, fresh mint, salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste. Toss with a few tablespoons sour cream. Let sit ten or fifteen minutes so that the sour cream melts into a "sauce" and absorbs the mushroom flavour. So tasty.

Not-So Christmas Cookies

This time of year, everyone's buying the refrigerator rolls of sugar cookies, sprinkling them with red and green and sometimes using frosting to augment the (obviously lacking) sugar content. Though I must admit I do sometimes indulge in a traditional treat or two - I love yoghurt pretzels and peppermint bark, plus the Moravian Sugar Cookies I get every year from a family friend and the petit fours my aunt sends me - my fondest holiday memories are not of the usual fare but of my mothers overloaded and delicious Christmas concoctions. The cookies she made were a classic Tollhouse recipe with chocolate and butterscotch chips, but I decided to improvise with the ingredients I had on hand to create some tasty variations and clean out my fridge a little more.

Cranberry Oat and Everything Oat Cookies

One of the most pleasant surprises about moving to Iowa City in May was the public transit system. We have very reliable busses here, allowing me to work on the east side and live on the west, and excellent bus drivers. One of my bus drivers, Doug, has become a friend and we frequently have conversations about politics, environmental concerns, literature... and food. I keep promising to bring him something I've made, but I never have something that's easy to carry on the bus. Hence, I thought cookies would be a great idea. Jim, my morning bus driver, also is deserving of many treats after he and his wife picked me up one evening after I missed the last bus and was walking home, admittedly in tears, my arms full of groceries and an hour and a half away on foot.

I thought I'd try to make something a little like mom's recipe, and I knew I wanted to use oatmeal, but NOT raisins. I started by following this recipe more or less diligently. It was nice and smooth, and I also added a dash of nutmeg and a dash of cardamom to the dry ingredients to enhance the flavour. After stirring in the oats, I divided into two batches. One batch got chopped fresh cranberries and the other got whatever I could find in my "miscellaneous" tupperware - peanut butter chips, toffee chips, and coconut were the final contenders. Instead of spooning onto the cookie sheets, I rolled the cookies between my hands and then flattened them a bit. I think I may not have used quite enough baking soda, because they didn't spread out hardly at all, but they were still pretty tasty if you're a fan of chewy cookies, and Jim and Doug seemed grateful.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

After dithering between various online recipes to find a chocolatey cookie with mint chocolate chips to bring to the Quire potluck Sunday night, I finally settled on the recipe on the back of the mint chocolate chip bag. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to copy it down, but you can find a recipe on the back of the bag (Hershey's brand) if you're interested.

The recipe did require a lot of beating with an electric mixer, and the dough seemed very creamy and brownie-like after that, so I tried adding a bit of flour. Again, the cookies didn't spread out a ton, but it worked fairly well. They were chewy and a bit like brownies, so I think next time I will use chopped chilled butter instead of margarine. That said, the taste is pretty fantastic, especially straight out of the oven!

Menemen... My Way!

A lot has been going on lately. The past two weeks have been exams for us over-stressed Iowa Law students, and I'm going home to North Carolina for two weeks on Saturday, which means I have to concurrently study like a lunatic and figure out a way to clean out my fridge of all perishables and potentially-perishables before I leave. This has resulted in some interesting experiments - melted peanut butter, maple syrup, honey, and honey mustard vinaigrette does not a good dipping sauce make, for example - but also some successes, one of which I'd like to share tonight.

Also in this week's news, you may have noticed the advertisements now on my page, as well as the nifty little icon to the right of your screen. These are showing up because I am now a Foodbuzz featured publisher. I'm very excited about this new partnership, as Foodbuzz is helping to build a more connected foodie community, which I fully approve of, hopefully I'll be getting some new readers through the site. So if you're here via Foodbuzz, say hello! And welcome to the blog!

Variations on a Menemen theme

Now, onto one of the more successful clean-out-the-fridge attempts. It's been a running joke with my family and friends for a while that I can bake pretty impressive looking desserts, make confections and pastries, etc etc, but I can't for the life of me scramble eggs! It's not that no one taught me - many have tried, but none have managed to get the message across. I'm not very fond of the taste of eggs, but I don't think that's it. It's really a texture thing. I like fluffy eggs, and if they are sufficiently fluffy, I will smother them in cheese or douse liberally with salt and pepper and enjoy. If they are flat, grainy, or omlette-like, I will have trouble getting them down the hatch.

Still, I persevere.

I'm very excited about the course I'll be taking next semester in Intensive Turkish, as I've been fascinated with Turkish history and culture ever since I read Elisabeth Kostova's amazing novel The Historian, and I desperately want to go to Istanbul. Running with this theme, I've really been wanting to learn some Turkish recipes. I recently stumbled across menemen - Turkish scrambled eggs - and decided I had nothing to lose. In my fridge were an entire dozen eggs I needed to obliterate (I'd bought them on a whim after being eggless for one too many baking projects), much too much cheese, and a number of vegetables that needed to go soon.

The recipes I looked at called for tomatoes, peppers, cheese, and onions, which are optional. They extolled the moisture of the eggs, which are made by simply sauteeing the veggies until the tomatoes' water is somewhat reduced and then adding the beaten egg, scrambling at a low heat and topping with cheese at the end. I liked the idea of more moisture, but I couldn't get past my habit of beating with a splash of milk. I also didn't have peppers, and wanted to use up some mushrooms, so version one was born. Cremini mushrooms (baby bellas), chopped yellow onion, and chopped tomato with parmesan cheese. I didn't use salt or pepper, and didn't need it - these eggs were fantastic!

On a roll, I decided to continue. The mushrooms were looking a little unhappy though, and I hate risking it with fresh produce, so I tossed them and grabbed half a zucchini I'd used recently on a vegetable gratins instead. Noticing the fresh mint about to go at the back of the fridge, I tore off all the green bits as well and then decided to add some of this great "four peppers" fresh goat cheese I'd splurged on.

After all the chopping, I threw my veggies in the pan and sauteed them, but this time remembered to cut the heat from medium down to low before adding the eggs. Last time it turned out all right, but the eggs did cook very quickly, leaving little time to grab the cheese and throw it in to allow for melting. I considered doing a three egg extravaganza, but who am I kidding? I can't eat three eggs!


Again, the eggs got fork-scrambled with a healthy splash of milk. After I turned down the heat and added them to the pan, I realised I had forgotten to crumble the cheese, but big hunks were actually okay, as they melted beautifully. I added the chopped mint to the pan and gave it a nice little scramble. The result?

Perfection!

My eggs were moist, and the ingredients were a heavenly symphony of tastes. I hate to wax poetic on food (I should save that for my poetry!) but the combination of mint, zucchini, and goat cheese was to die for. I also love all the colours (as my mom's best friend would say, this is "beautiful food") and the spring look to it cheered me up after weeks of snow and ice. I felt like I was eating brunch on the lower east side, instead of in my slightly messy kitchen.