Day 237 - Creamy Tomato Soup and Herbed Croutons

Help! I'm running out of vegetarian soups to make for Marcy! I'm going to have to start serving her meat dishes! :-)

Creamy Tomato Soup (p. 69)

I don't think I've ever eaten plain tomato soup before. Yes, I've had it as the base for Manhattan Clam Chowder or Minestrone, but plain? No. I think I've had a lifelong aversion to thin tomato liquids, i.e. juice and soup. However, something amazing happened earlier this year, after having made a recipe from the book that called for tomato juice. (I think it was the grilling sauce recipe.) I had a mostly full bottle of tomato juice in my refrigerator, and one day, I poured myself a glass. And I liked it! So I was ready to try this soup with an open mind.

This is pretty much the easiest soup of them all. It's the kind of thing you could probably make at any time with no notice. Most people have a can of tomatoes lying around, and the only other things you need are an onion and some garlic.

Martha indicates that you can use either canned or fresh tomatoes here, but it seems as if even Martha thinks canned tomatoes are the way to go, in that she mentions them first. This is unlike Martha's typical M.O., where she urges you to go the extra mile with fresh ingredients.

Because of all the liquid in the canned tomatoes, not to mention the stock or water you've also added, this is a thinner soup than most. I reserved more than a cup of liquid before pureeing, and the consistency was still quite thin without adding any liquid back.

I didn't finish with the optional cream, because I know Marcy prefers things without. I would say that the soup tasted pretty decent, if a bit undersalted. It had that tomatoey-acid thing, which is not my favorite, but the onion/garlic flavors softened that a bit. I think I might prefer it with the cream, but my guess is that that would really change the whole character of the soup. And I was glad to taste it unadulterated.

This is a nice option for a quick, last-minute, colorful, flavorful soup.

Jeff: A
Martha: A


Herbed Croutons (p. 75)

Martha suggests these as a perfect garnish for the tomato soup, and she's right. By the way, it's really easy to make croutons, and they're SO much better than those horrible packaged ones, which are either too greasy or overly seasoned with chemical-tasting flavorings.

I decrusted and cubed up some nice Italian bread (Martha says to use white sandwich bread, but this Italian bread worked just fine), tossed the cubes in melted butted (I also added a little of my homemade basil oil), and baked them until golden. Then, I tossed them in some chopped basil, a perfect flavor match for the tomato soup.

The great thing about the croutons in this soup was the range of textures they provided. Crunchy for the first few bites, the croutons that hung out in the soup for a while puffed up and became fluffy, doughy chunks that reminded me of a Tuscan bread soup. Mmmm.

FYI, I made those basil oil and mozzarella crostini one last time. It just seemed like too good a match for this meal.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 235 - Pico de Gallo

It's quick visit from the Paladinis! Tracy, Mark, and the kids came up north for a Bar Mitzvah this weekend, and I hosted a mini-gathering of Tracy's "people." What could I make for a casual afternoon shmoozefest? Pico de Gallo!

Pico de Gallo (p. 179)

This is what, in the past, I would probably have referred to as salsa, but now I can see the difference between this and most other salsas. Pico de gallo is all raw, uncooked, whereas many salsas have that cooked-through consistency.

You can pretty much guess what's in here, because you can literally see the ingredients: tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, onion, cilantro, and garlic, all chopped or minced. The only things you can't see are the salt and lime juice.

There's some work involved here with the chopping, even more so today because I made a double batch. But it's not terrible. The thing I should mention is that the window for eating this is quite small. Martha says it should sit in its own juices for an hour at room temperature before serving, and it should be consumed on the same day it was made.

As someone who doesn't like spicy foods, my first thought was to put in way less jalapeño than in the recipe, even though I was removing all the seeds and ribs for less heat. I started out with a third of the amount in the recipe, and I tasted it right after it was made. It was plenty spicy.

But something happened when the flavors melded, because when I tasted it an hour later, there was very little spice to it. So in the end, I added the other two thirds of the peppers, ultimately following the recipe's proportions exactly.

And it was a perfectly delicious, typically flavored pico de gallo. My only complaint had to do with all the liquid. Between the tomatoes and the lime juice, this is a very juicy salsa. I started serving it with all the liquid, but I finally wised up and drained it. I'm sure it's nice for it to sit in the liquid to develop its flavor, but once that's done, I think it's OK, nay better, to serve it drained. Makes it easier to enjoy.

Jeff: A
Martha: A


Here's the gang at one point in the afternoon. Clockwise, from top left: Benny P, Tracy P, Dana E, Mark P, Adinah A, Jenny T, and Samantha P.

I also cut up one of my leftover poached pears from pavlova night. Isn't this so pretty??


Until we eat again....

Day 233 - Roasted Mushrooms, Bolognese Sauce, and Pavlova

It all started with Tracy C. Having been her travel buddy for years now, I know her eating idiosyncrasies inside and out, and I knew there was only a handful of things in this book that she would eat or actually relish. And meat sauce was at the top of that list. So from the beginning, I've planned to center that meal around her.

Then Emily called, asking when she was going to get to come over for dinner again. And since Emily and Tracy and I are all Northwestern University, School of Speech/Communication, Class of '86 grads, it was a short leap to a college mini-reunion dinner party.

Added to the mix were fellow classmates (and former roommates) James (who had already dined at Jeff and Martha's with Emily), Dan, and Victoria. Given that all my guests are distinguished entertainment-world movers and shakers, it was a miracle that we could actually schedule this and pull it off! And I'm so glad we did.

Working backwards from the pasta sauce, I came up with a menu. I knew I wanted to make a salad, so I decided to build one around Martha's roasted mushrooms. I took Martha's suggestion to serve the Bolognese with pappardelle, which I augmented with those yummy mozzarella crostini that I served Marcy last week. And although I originally intended to bake a cake for dessert, my workout buddy, Ken, talked me into choosing something lighter, given that the entree was heavier (i.e. pasta). Good call, Ken. Enter Pavlova.

Roasted Mushrooms (p. 313)

Who doesn't love roasted mushrooms? I chose shiitake and oyster mushrooms, and I slathered them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh thyme, and then popped them in the oven. Of course, while they were in, people were arriving, and I lost track of them, and they got a little... crispy.

Now, I actually love things crispy like this, so I was fine with it. And it added a crunch to the salad, which was welcome. But I'm sure Martha would have tsked.

I do want to describe the salad they topped, because this was my own creation, inspired by some other things I've made from this book. And I was proud of what I think was a successful combo. With lemon vinaigrette, I lightly dressed baby arugula and roasted yellow beets, and put the crunchy mushrooms on top, along with some shaved parmesan. That's Victoria and James pictured with the salad course.

The only thing I might have done differently was the dressing. Maybe a shallot/cider vinaigrette would have been a better match, something a little less zingy...

In any case, I was very happy with this course. And can I just say, the inside of a roasted yellow beet is a beautiful thing to look at.

Jeff: B- ("A" for the salad, but "B-" for over-roasted shrooms)
Martha: A


Bolognese Sauce (p. 383)

Thankfully, this was something I could make in advance of the dinner party, since I didn't have a lot of time for cooking that day. I've made meat sauces before, sort of winging it, but I've never done one as detailed as this.

I think this recipe is quite traditional, as I checked out some other Bolognese recipes online, and they mostly stick to the same formula. Brown pancetta, sauté diced carrots, celery, and onions, brown meat, add tomato paste, wine, milk, stock, tomatoes, and various herbs, in this case thyme and bay leaf, and of course, salt and pepper.

Things that stood out to me:

• I'm curious about the use of the word "brown" when referring to how the meat is cooked. Do we say "brown" because the meat goes from pink to brown, or is it that this meat should actually be getting a dark brownness from being cooked at a high heat, like a slight char? If it's the former, I did it just right. If it's the latter, I messed it up. There were no brown bits sticking to the pot. It was slightly liquidy (with grease) the whole time....

• Again, I had a strange cooking-time situation here. Martha says to cook this "low and slow," i.e. for a long time at a low temperature. So once everything's in the pot, you bring it all to a boil, then "reduce heat to a very low simmer and cook, partially covered, 3 to 3 1/2 hours... (until it has) the consistency of a loose chili." At three hours, it was nowhere near loose chili. It was more like a big pot of soup with meat sunk to the bottom. Since I had to leave my apartment for a while, I turned the heat down to the lowest setting and came back two hours later to find it had barely reduced. That's five hours. Then I turned it back up to "very low simmer" and waited another couple of hours. Still soupy. Finally, I brought it up to what I'd call a steady medium simmer, and in another hour, I had loose chili. So... eight hours total. Oy. Well, it was definitely low and it was DEFINITELY slow.

• I like the way she handles thyme here. What you do is, you tie a bunch of thyme springs into a bundle with cooking twine, and the bundle sits in the sauce as it cooks. And what happens is, all the little thyme leaves fall away, leaving a bundle of bare thyme twigs for you to remove at the end. Neato. Be sure to tie the bundle tightly - mine wasn't tight enough, and I had to fish for some errant twigs.

As I mentioned, I cooked the sauce in advance, so I had to wait for it to cool, then refrigerate it, and then reheat it on the night of. I can't say it was my favorite sauce ever, but it was absolutely respectable. I actually don't have a lot of knowledge about this specific cuisine... my experience of Italian food was formed more by red-checked tablecloth joints (i.e. Sicilian American) than by the traditional foods of Emilia-Romagna. As Martha describes it, the sauce is "hearty, but profoundly elegant." I think that's accurate. It doesn't have that Southern Italian tomato-y-ness that hits you over the head. Here, you get a nice balance of tomato, meat, milk, and herb.

The homemade pappardelle came out just OK. Similar to the pasta I made for the Ravioli with Butternut Squash Filling, this pasta had an unwelcome heaviness, unlike the lightness of my first few pasta efforts. What's happening? I thought my pasta would get better each time I made it, not worse!

However, unlike all my other pasta, which floated upon hitting the boiling water, these noodles stayed low until they were done, and then they rose. Hooray!

One of my frustrations about serving homemade pasta is that it cools so quickly once plated. One of my readers suggested heating the bowls. (Too complicated for tonight.) I also considered putting the pasta in a covered serving bowl and letting people serve themselves. But then, I'd worry about it sticking together, which it did, in fact, start to do once I'd drained it. So I doled out the pasta into six bowls, brought them to the table, and then put the sauce on each portion at the table. And this completely solved the issue. The sauce was super hot, and it kept the noodles hot. This doesn't work when you're serving ravioli with melted butter, but when you can slather on a bunch of meat sauce, you're golden.

It was a nice course. People seemed happy with it, especially Tracy (see right). I don't mean to sound like a perfectionist, but I wish the pasta were lighter and the sauce were... tastier? Saltier? I don't know. It was good. I'm going to shut up now.

Jeff: A
Martha: A


Pavlova (p. 452)

Per Ken's suggestion, I redirected to this lighter choice for dessert. Pavlova is a meringue shell, hardened on the outside, chewy inside, which gets topped with whipped cream and fruit. In Martha's recipe, she uses Poached Apricots and fresh blackberries, which I'm sure taste amazing with it, but apricots are out of season, so I went digging for a seasonal match option, which I found in a Pear Pavlova recipe from Martha's website!

The meringue shell was another thing I could make in advance, so I put it together the night before. It's quite easy, actually, assuming you have an electric mixer. (My new electric mixer is CRA-MAZING, by the way. It whips/mixes things in a fraction of the time you'd expect!) So, you whip egg whites into a frenzy, add small amounts of vinegar, cornstarch, and salt, then a large amount of superfine sugar, and finally a touch of vanilla. Then you transfer it to parchment on a baking sheet, form it into a round with a well in the middle, and bake it at a very low temperature (200°) for 1:40, and let it cool in the oven overnight.

Easy. Done. Until... I tried to get it off the parchment in the morning, and it completely fell apart (see below). There was an ooziness around the edges, which was not a good sign. Did I over mix the egg whites? Undermix them? It was pretty much doing what it was supposed to do, texture-wise, but it was supposed to "lift easily off the parchment" and this shell did nothing of the kind.

Luckily, I had the ingredients I needed to make a second one, so I did. And this one was even oozier than the first! But I'm no fool. I didn't even try to take it off the parchment. I thought, I'm serving this mother on the paper, so there!

The poached pears were a revelation. They were poached in a syrup concoction involving a bottle of red wine, then refrigerated overnight in the poaching liquid, so by dinnertime they were deeply red and gorgeous! Then, the poaching liquid is reduced to a thick syrup, which gets drizzled over everything. And it tasted amazing! While I think the poached apricots and berries would have served as a nice tart contrast to the super sweet meringue, these pears worked just fine.

The meringue on the other hand... oozy. Some of the egg white mixture had separated during the baking process, and there was like a syrup that settled at the bottom of the shell, which glued the meringue to the paper. So serving this was a nightmare. They were the ugliest dessert portions ever, broken pieces of hard meringue, and globs of gluey marshmellowy stuff and whipped cream and pieces of pear. (That's Emily and Dan pictured with the pavlova, and theirs are the two cutest portions!) But it tasted good. For me, it was overly sweet, but that's my personal sensitivity. Other people didn't mind that.

It was definitely an interesting experience, and if it had come out well, I might even consider making it again, since it's sort of an event, and it's not that hard to execute. But two consecutive pavlova failures does not bode well for a repeat performance.

If anyone has insight into why mine came out so gluey, please be in touch, either via email or comment below.

Jeff: C (this would have been an F, except that it was edible, and the pears were an A+)
Martha: A

And before I forget - again! - here's a very belated thank you to Walter H., who was so sweet to send me something from my Amazon wish list: a pie crust protector! I can't wait to use it on my apple pie!

Until we eat again...

Doesn't the Class of '86 look great?

Day 230 - Potato and Cauliflower Soup, Crostini, and Basil Oil and Mozzarella Crostini

Eek! Such a big gap -10 days since my last cooking venture. To be fair, I was working, first teaching in Virginia, then doing some writing here in NYC, so I wasn't avoiding... just busy.

But I'm back, and so is Marcy, for a vegetarian special. Can you say "comfort food?"

Potato and Cauliflower Soup (p. 69)

Again, here's another very simple, pureed vegetable soup which is deceivingly, dare I say, outrageously creamy. With no cream!

The only ingredients: butter, onion, garlic, chicken stock, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, potato, and cauliflower. But you'd swear there was a bucket of cream in there.

I know what you're saying... what about the butter? Well, it's just two tablespoons to get the onion softened.

This soup is strangely pure, almost too mild. It tastes like savory, no-flavor soup, but not in a bad way. It's just that the potato and cauliflower flavors are very subtle, the small amounts of cumin and coriander don't really pop, and aside from the background flavors of onion and garlic, there's no dominant taste guiding this soup. It'd be perfect for a kid who won't eat anything with a strong flavor. Or a pregnant woman who gets sick if she smells or tastes something intense.

I peppered it quite heavily, which was nice.

The consistency is amazingly dense. This is the first time that I reserved a cup of broth before pureeing, and ended up adding it all back in. And even so, the soup was super-thick.

Don't get me wrong - it's delicious. And it's fascinating to see the difference some potato in the mix will make re: texture. But if you're looking for a wow factor, I'd recommend the carrot ginger soup over this.

Jeff: A
Martha: A


Crostini (p. 75)

I have so many soup garnishes to get through, so I thought I'd take these on today. I was just going to make the mozzarella toasts below, but when I realized I had everything I needed to do these crostini too, I thought, "What the heck?"

This is basically fancy toast. You cut up a loaf of Italian bread, brush the slices with olive oil, sprinkle a little salt on, and then broil. It's a nice way to elevate bread. No one's going to lose any weight here, but that was never the point of cooking my way through this book, so enjoy!

Jeff: A
Martha: A


Basil Oil and Mozzarella Crostini (p. 75)

This recipe takes crostini to the next level... i.e. cheese!!

I'm still not 100% sure I interpreted this recipe properly. Let me explain. The recipe reads: "Make crostini, leaving slices whole. Remove from broiler and immediately brush with a bit of basil oil..."

The part about leaving the slices whole is there because in the crostini recipe, she has you cut the slices in half, so that's not the confusing part.

For me, the confusing part is, does she want me to make the crostini with oil, i.e. brush bread with olive oil and broil it, and then put basil oil on it? Or does she want me to make crostini leaving out the oil, then put basil oil on this dry bread?

I chose the former interpretation and put on oil both times. Err on the side of more oil, I always say. And I'm thinking I was probably "right."

This toast, with the first brushing of olive oil and salt, then a second brushing of basil oil, and finally a topping of mozzarella cheese, was delicious! It's like a cheesy garlic bread, only without the garlic.

And that basil oil is a cute little trick. It's not a recipe in the book, per se, but Martha describes techniques on page 23 for infusing oil with herb flavors. In this case, you put fresh basil and oil in a blender until finely chopped, let it steep overnight in the fridge, then strain out the pieces and voilà, basil oil!

The only warning I'd offer is: keep a close eye on the oven. This toast goes from perfectly browned to burnt in a hot minute, so you don't have a lot of time to play with here. Also, I'd err on the side of undercooking the bread in the first go-round, because in the second go-round, if the edges of the crusts are already browned, you don't have much time to melt the mozzarella before the browned edges start going black.

Still, even with charred edges, this is irresistible. A nice twist on grilled cheese.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 220 - Rice Pilaf and Grapefruit Granita

This episode of Jeff and Martha still finds me in Virginia Beach, for my second and last cooking efforts Chez Paladini.

Rice Pilaf (p. 414)

Tracy was making her famous salmon (baked with thyme and garlic), so I thought I'd try this rice dish.

Rice Pilaf is a nice and easy way to "dress up" what can be typically boring rice on the side. It just requires a little extra work: mincing some onion, melting some butter, sauteeing the rice a bit, and then sticking it in the oven.

Here's the thing, though. If you're using your oven for another dish and it's set at a different temperature than the 350° you need to cook this pilaf, you're screwed. Luckily, Tracy's salmon happens to be cooked at 350°, which only left the issue of shelf height. Tracy's oven is quite compact, and one dish had to be placed top rack and the other dish had to bottom rack. Tracy says that everything burns on the bottom rack, but the rice (on the bottom) was cooked perfectly, as was the salmon above. Tracy, what were you so concerned about?

I'm going to say it was a hit, for two reasons. A) Tracy has been talking about making it again, herself. And B) Samantha, who is famously anti-rice, actually ate some without gagging. (Benny, photographed at right with forkful of Rice Pilaf, clearly has no rice issues.)

I thought it tasted just fine. It didn't change my life, but it was fine. I should mention that I made it with water (the recipe calls for chicken stock or water), and I'm guessing this would be even tastier cooked with the homemade chicken stock option.

Tracy was girding herself for unwanted chunks of onion but was fascinated that the onions were ultimately invisible. (After minutes of being sauteed, then simmered, then baked in the oven, I wasn't surprised. Let's not forget, they were minced to begin with!)

This is a nice, easy way to do rice, nothing flashy about it. It's probably not appropriate for every meal, but with baked salmon, it was a perfect fit.

Jeff: A
Martha: A


Grapefruit Granita (p. 486)

After my gigantic hit with Grapefruit Sorbet, I was excited to try this granita thing. I wasn't really sure how the ice shaving part was going to go, but I just trusted that Martha would guide me through it, which is exactly what she did.

Making the "potion" is easy. Squeeze and strain a bunch of grapefruit juice, add some syrup, and freeze.

There's are two ways to freeze this: one where you stir it every hour, and the other where you just stick it in the freezer and forget about it. Guess which one I picked?

If you take the latter option, which I did, you just have to take the frozen pan out of the freezer to allow it to sit for 1o minutes before you start the shaving.

This is what the frozen potion looked like. Pretty, right? It had a kind of snowflake, chemistry-like pattern happening in multi-layers.

Once I started shaving, it was so easy - it naturally crumbled to a perfect texture for serving.

The Paladinis, junior and senior, gave this a big thumbs up. I thought it was just OK, but I think that's because I'd experienced the sorbet, which had a much richer grapefruit flavor. I think the grapefruits I used for the granita were sweeter, less tart, and that made for a less interesting, less complicated, ultimate flavor. It was almost too sweet. Luckily, that's not an issue for the Paladinis.

I reiterate my theory about sorbets (and granitas): the more acid in the fruit base, the better the result. (I wonder how Cider Vinegar Sorbet would taste....)

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 218 - Chicken Piccata

Here I am in beautiful Virginia Beach, with my bestie, Tracy P, her wonderful husband, Mark, and their two wunderkinder, Samantha (12) and Ben (9.8). For a change, I'm getting cooked for, which is a real treat! But for one night, I took over a portion of the kitchen to cook something from the book, something I've been looking forward to for months...

Chicken Piccata (p. 248)

This is one of those ubiquitous dishes, on every Italian and/or "Continental" menu. Simple, classic, timeless.

No new techniques involved. I've already experienced pounding cutlets, dredging things in flour, and making a pan sauce. What was new tonight was cooking on an electric stove! Unlevel surface, uneven heat, argh! I didn't realize how good I had it with my gas stove!

In the end, it all worked out fine. The cooking of the chicken, while uneven, was uneventful.

The sauce, however.... You know how I'm always saying that my sauces don't reduce quickly enough? Well, this was completely the opposite. To start the sauce, you put 3T of white wine in the pan, post cooking the chicken, and deglaze until it's reduced by half. My wine sizzled away in five seconds. So unlike every other sauce I've made where I've waited 15 minutes to see any reduction, here I had to actually add more liquid just to get myself to 1.5T.

The sauce was also the surprise of this dish. Typically, Chicken Piccata comes swimming in cups of heavy lemon butter sauce, but this was very light and quite thin, really just a whisper of sauce and flavor. I'm not complaining - it was a lovely amount of sauce and flavor. But I guess I was expecting the gloopy glop I'm used to with this kind of dish, and this was so completely different.

To be fair, I made about 25% more chicken than the portion in the recipe, and I didn't increase the sauce ingredients accordingly. That said, if I were making this again, I might make some extra sauce anyway. Better to have too much....

Incidentally, this was my first time using salt-packed versus brined capers. And Martha is right - they're less salty! Even though it seems counter-intuitive, if you soak and rinse salt-packed capers, they will give you full flavor with less salt than your average wet caper.

All in all, Mark and Tracy seemed to like it, and the kids even ate it (minus the capers).

Jeff: A- (should have made 25% more sauce)
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 215 - Braised Red Cabbage with Caramelized Apples

Marcy came over tonight for dinner, and as much as I wanted to take the night off, I pushed myself to cook, as I'm going to be in Virginia all next week and who knows how much I'll be cooking there. So I threw together this veggie dish that has intrigued me from the beginning....

Braised Red Cabbage with Caramelized Apples (p. 344)

I've been waiting for the fall to come to make this. It just screams "fall" to me. I've made something vaguely similar: a braised red cabbage dish with raisins, caraway seeds, and vinegar, German-influenced, I think.

This, on the other hand, is more American and comfort-y.

It starts out with a whole lot of butter and sugar, then apples and onion get caramelized, then red cabbage gets added and the whole thing is braised in vinegar and water. Really, what could be bad?

I will say, as usual (I'm like a broken record here), the sauce did not reduce nearly as quickly as Martha suggests it will, i.e. after five minutes of being partially covered. I had to crank up the temperature and take the lid completely off to get that sauce to reduce by a little, and even then it took more like ten minutes.

No matter - it was delicious, and the cabbage still had a little crunch to it. The proportions of this dish are balanced really well, flavor-wise. The sweet/sour/savory thing is really working, and it's pretty to look at, too.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....