Sour Cream Pancakes

I whipped thesr up really fast Sunday morning from my newest favorite cookbook. They are light, fluffy and very,. very yummy tasting with lots of butter and real maple syrup. I also served fresh strawberries on the side, although The Chick went straight for the pancakes only, sans fruit.

You'll need:
1 cup sour cream
7 tablespoons flour (I used 4 TBSP all-purpose and 3 TBSP whole-wheat)
1 TBSP sugar (I used my homemade vanilla sugar, but simple granulated will do)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix sour cream and flour; small lumps are okay. Add sugar, baking soda, and salt as well.
2. Crack eggs in a small bowl, beat them gently, add vanilla.
3. Pour into batter and mix it until almost totally combined--little streaks of yellow are OK.
4. Drop onto heated griddle/pan that was greased by 2 TBSP of butter, by about 1/4 cupful. Flip after about 1-1 1/2 minute, cook about 45 seconds more.
5. Pile it up on a plate; add butter, maple syrup and any fruit. Be prepared to be asked to make a double batch next time.

Stupidly Easy Key Lime Pie

I can't belive I didn't make this earlier. For some reason I grabbed a bottle of key lime juice at the store the other day, and this recipe was on the bottle. I was like 'hey, this is easy', and after figuring out the crust recipe from another cookbook, I made this twice last week (the Husband requested it the second time, subtly by grabbing the graham cracker crumb box from the pantry and slamming in in front of me). Heh.

Here is what you need:

Crust: 1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (from box is OK)
1/4 cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons of butter


Pie: 1/2 cup key lime juice
3 egg yolks
1 container sweetened condensed milk

Whipped cream for the top as desired

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Put graham crumbs in a bowl; add brown sugar and mix well. Melt butter in microwave and add to crumbs. Mix until it's evenly moistened (will take a while, make sure you scrape up real good).
Press crust into 9-inch pie form (glass and metal works about the same).
Make filling: pour condensed milk into bowl (can use same as you used for crust, just wash it out). Add key lime juice and egg yolks. Mix it well with a wire whisk. It will be yellow. Not green. Key lime pie is NOT green, 'k? :)
Pour into crust.
Put into oven and bake for 15 minutes.
Pull it out, set on top of oven, wait for 10 minutes.
Put in fridge and cool it. Filling will set during this process, so don't skimp on it.
Whip cream with a little bit of sugar, and serve big dollops on top. Feel free to go overboard, and add slices of key lime if you feel so inclined.

Let me know how it turned out!

Pumpkin Rice Pudding

This is very seasonal, very tasty, and quick to make once you have the ingredients on hand (also good for using leftover cooked rice). It comes out a bit denser than a regular rice pudding, but is perfect for this time of the year, and is especially yummy warm with a cup of spiced tea, coffee or chocolate.

1 can pure pumpkin
1 cup brown cane sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
2 cups cooked rice
1 can of evaporated milk
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a large bowl, mix pumpkin puree, sugar and spices. Add evaporated milk and rice and stir well. Add beaten eggs, raisins and pecans.
Pour mixture into a 13x7 glass baking dish (I used a 13x9 as I don't have a 13x7). Now take a shallow roasting pan that is bigger than your baking dish, place the dish into it, and pour enough water under the dish so it comes up about 1 inch around it. Please in over.
Bake for 15 minutes and stir thoroughly.
Bake for 35-40 minutes more or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.
Very good served warm, but also delicious chilled, with some whipped cream on top.

Simple But Amazing Apple Pie

Okay, this was GONE within an hour of pulling it out of the oven.
And yes, I cheat with the crust. Sue me...;)

You'll need:
1 package ready-made frozen pie crust (this is a double crust pie)
4-5 large apples (I used Honeycrisps), peeled, cored, sliced thin
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon (sold as Mexican cinnamon or 'canela' in a lot of grocery stores)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, grated
3 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup raisins, plumped in hot water, drained of water

Place one crust in 9-inch pie form. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Place apples, sugar, spices and flour in a medium bowl, toss so apples are coated. Add drained raisins, toss to distribute.
Arrange apple slices on crust; they, inevitably, will form a little mound, higher on top. Ignore this.
Pour almost all the butter over apple slices, reserving a bit of it for the top crust.
Place top crust on top. Crimp edges together. Cut 4 slits on top crust for ventillation. Brush top with remaining butter
Bake in 400 degrees F oven for 45 minutes.
This particular pie is best when still hot or warm. I am a purist, so no ice cream--but it's so mooist that it's really not necessary.

Soup Weather

Cold weather has arrived to the Metroplex on Sunday, so Monday night I prepared the soup below that I actually finished yesterday. I felt some creeping crud coming. Everyone seems to have it around me, so I hope it's nothing serious but the sniffles. This soup is very easy to prepare, and, despite the fact that it mostly uses canned stuff, is very, very tasty.

Southwest Soup

1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp. oil
1 smoked all-beef, all-pork or venison sausage, sliced
1 can black beans, drained
1 can yellow hominy, drained
1/2 jar mild salsa (can use medium or hot if you prrefer it more spicy)
1 can chicken broth (I used all-natural low-sodium)
salt, black pepper to taste
1 tsp chili powder of your choice (I used Pendery's House Blend)
few sprigs of fresh cilantro
sour cream to taste

1. Saute onion and sausage slices in olive oil over medium heat for about 3-4 minutes (onions shoild be softening, sausage slices should be browning).
2. Add beans, hominy, salsa and chicken broth, all at once. Stir, cover and bring to a boil. Taste and season with salt, black pepper and the chili powder and simmer on low for about 15 minutes more.
Serve in deep bowls with a dollop of sour cream on top and sprinkled with cilantro, with slices of crusty bread on the side.

Cinnamon Marzipan Brownies

I made these last week, and in one word: sinful.

1 cup butter, unsalted
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped (I actually found a block of Valhrona I totally forgot about since I picked it up at Central market--woo-hoo)
1.5 cups sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour

Filling:
1 pkg almond paste (8 oz)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 egg

Heat oven to 350 F. Spray 13x9 inch pan with cooking spray and set aside.
Melt butter in medium saucepan over low heat; add chocolate pieces, remove from heat and stir together until melted. Stir in sugar, cinnamon, vanilla. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beat well after each.
Add flour; mix until smooth. Spread evenly into pan.
For filling: crumble almond paste into bowl; add egg and 1/4 tsp cinnamon; using handheld mixer or food processor, process until smooth.
Drop almond mixture by spoonfuls over brownie mix; swirl with knife.
Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out almost clean.
Cut into very small squares; this is dense.

Hungarian Beef Stew (Porkolt)

I don't have the correct characters for the little umlauts over the 'o's in the name of this dish, but call me for correct pronunciation if you wish...:)

So I craved homefood yesterday, and The Husband craved meat chunks, so like a good couple, we met halfway. This is my version or a very traditional HUngarian weekday meal, as well as you can make it in the States.

You will need:
1/4 pack of natural cured bacon, finely diced (Kroger carries a version, or find a good butcher or farmers market; I got mine from the Coppell Farmers market)
3.5 pounds of beef chuck roast, boneless, cut into 1-inch cubes. Don't remove the fatty bits, just the tendons. In fact, if you got the bones from the roast, you can put them in, just remove before serving
1 large red onion, very finely chopped
1 hot banana pepper or Hungarian wax pepper, very finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped
1/2 bottle of decent red wine (if you're a wine drinker, save the other half to serve with the meal. Cab or merlot will do, but make sure it has body.)
water
salt
freshly ground black pepper
Hungarian sweet and half-sharp paprika (forget the Spanish and Californian version for this one)
pinch of caraway seeds
pinch of marjoram

Render bacon in heavy pot over medium heat until brown. Sautee onion, garlic and green pepper until soft and starts to brown; be sure to stir to prevent from burning.
Add meat cubes,; increase heat to medium-high and sear, stirring constantly. All meat cubes don't have to necessarily be evenly browned, but aim for at least 80% gray-brown here.
Pull off heat; add 2 teaspoonsful of sweet Hungarian paprika; stir well. Add 1 tsp. of the half-sharp, or 1 more of the sweet if you only have that. Check the color-- meat cubes should be nicely red but not glowing. Add more if needed.
Put pot back on heat. As soon at it starts to sizzle, pour in wine. Season with salt, pepper, caraway seed and marjoram.
Cook under a lid for about 1.5 hours on low heat. Check for liquid levels, add water if needed. Depending on meat age etc. this might take longer or shorter. The goal is to produce a short sauce under almost-falling-apart meat cubes. The sauce should be relatively thick due to the slowly disintegrating onions and peppers, and the glutinous matter in the meat fat. Resist the temptation to add too much liquid.
Check for seasoning and correct salt if necessary.

Serve it with either plain white crusty bread (Sourdough works for this beautifully) and those tiny Kosher Dill pickles from the grocery store (trust me, don't get anything else. Kosher dill baby gherkins, 'kay?), or make Hungarian dumplings to go with it (galuska) as follows:

Beat two eggs in medium bowl with a fork until frothy. Add all-purpose flour and water and stir together until a batter forms that is thick, sticky but pulls away from the sides of the bowl as you stir it with a spoon. Season with about 1 teaspoon of salt. (About 1.5-2 cups of flour plus as much water as you need to reach the described consistency).
Boil water in a large pot. When water is boiling, take a large spoon and a knife and get to work. Spoon out some batter from the bowl, and, holding spoon over boiling water, break off little pieces with the knife into the boiling water. Stir water so dumplings don't stick together. Do about 3-4 spoonfuls of batter this way. Wait until galuskas come up to top of water, then fish them out with slotted spoon. Repeat with remaining batter. Keep galuskas warm until you serve the porkolt over them.

Roast Goose

Because S. asked...and because it was really, really good.

Disclaimer: You might have to ask your grocery store to special order the goose for you, which should not be a problem. We got two after The Husband talked to the local Kroger's meat manager. The goose they got in is from roastgoose.com--you definitely need to take a look at their site as last resort for ordering everything goose related.

1 (10-12 lb) goose
1 large onion, whole
1 bunch of sage
1 bunch of thyme
1 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
2 tsp coarse salt, divided
2 large onions, cut into wedges
1 1/2 lb. Yukon Gold potatoes unpeeled and cubed (small cubes)
grated rind of 2 lemons
2 cups mixed pitted olives (I used Greek Kalamata and green Spanish Manzanilla)

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Remove giblets from goose's body cavity and set aside for goose broth in a bowl.
3. Cut away excess neck skin flaps, excess fat and skin from goose cavity; place in a saucepan with 1/2 cup of water and put it on low heat while everything else is cooking to render the fat and produce goose cracklings. This is important and very, very, very rewarding--goose cracklings are some of the BEST things you ever ate. Seriously. This will take a while so just keep rendering on low heat under lid, look at it from time to time--lovely goose fat will slowly fill the pan while the skin bits get smaller and crunchier.
4. Cut away the lower 2 portions of the goose's wing at the joint and add to the goose broth bowl. Put in fridge until you get to it.
5. Place onion, 1/2 bunch od sage and 1/2 bunch of thyme in cavity of goose; sprinkle with 1/2 tsp. of salt and pepper.
6. With small sharp knife, carefully pierce skin all over goose to allow fat to drain during roasting. Be careful not to pierce meat. Rub outside of goose with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper. Place in roasting pan; don't worry if you don't have a rack. Add enough water to just cover bottom of pan--this will prevent splattering.
7. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Remove fat from pan with a turkey baster. Bake additional 15-20 minutes--remove fat again.
8. Meanwhile, toss potatoes, onions, olives, remaining sage and thyme, lemon peel, remaining salt and pepper in large bowl. Add to roasting pan; shake to evenly distribute.
9. Cover pan in aluminum foil; reduce oven temperature to 350 F and bake goose 1 hour, removing excess fat with baster after 30 minutes.
10. Remove foil; bake additional 20-30 minutes of until internal temperature reaches 175-180 F.
Cover loosely and let it stand 20 minutes.

While goose is in oven, you can make goose broth: place all giblets minus liver, and wing joints in soup kettle; add some carrots, parsnips and celery, couple of whole black peppercorns, salt and some fresh parsley. Cook on low heat, basely simmering for about 1 hour.

You can also make an additional side dish. Take I jumbo bag of frozen Brussels sprouts; ladle some of that freshly rendered goose fat in a large frying pan, heat it up until sizzling, add the sprouts, shake pan vigorously until they are slightly brown, pout in 1/2 cup good white wine, grind some black pepper on top, cover and let the wine evaporate until sprout s are tender. Add more wine if needed.

Now for the livers: these are relatively small in these geese sold for their meat, but they are there. So: heat a good bit of that rendered goose fat again, add the livers, shake and brown all sides, pour 1 cup of water under, cover with lid and cook until tender. Toast some bread, chop liver, pile on toast with the cracklings (if you still have them and people did not drift into your kitchen snatching them out of the bowl you placed them to cool like it happened with mine), and serve as appetizer before the soup and the roast goose.

You could make a gravy, but honestly, the meat of this is so gloriously succulent that why bother? Just slice the breast of the goose thinly, make sure everyone gets a piece of the skin, and a piece of the legs, together with the lovely gold-brown potatoes and olives, add some of the deep green Brussels sprouts and maybe a simple tossed salad--and voila, you have a really rich Christmas dinner using one single bird. With leftovers.

Lamb Stew

As I mentioned, the weather broke yesterday, with rains and temps around 50 by the time I got home in the afternoon. Which made it a perfect first day of starting to cook something from my favorite food group: stew.
Like The Husband remarked as he watched me humming to myself as I was chopping up ingredients in the kitchen: 'you sure seem happiest when you cook from good ingredients...' Well, yes. And given that he took seconds, I think the results were rather decent as well.

Lamb Stew in a Vaguely Mediterranean Style

1-1.5 lbs. lamb stew meat (I am lucky enough to be able to get some grass-fed lamb from the local farmers' market), cubed
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 cup white wine
1 can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans, drained
1/2 bag of baby carrots, halved
1 banana pepper or green Hatch chile, seeded, chopped (depending on how hot you like it)
1 can of fire roasted tomatoes, chopped
(NOTE: I used organic varieties of all vegetables above; feel free to vary the veggies according to preference)
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley
1-2 cups of stock or water
1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or red chili flakes
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon flour

1. Heat oil in heavy pot. Add lamb cubes and brown all around. Remove from pot and set aside.
2. Add butter to pot; saute onions and garlic until soft. Add lamb back; pour in wine; stir, cover, reduce for about 10 minutes on medium heat.
3. Add chickpeas, tomatoes and carrots. Stir. Add 1-1 tablespoon of the green herbs. Season with salt, pepper and Aleppo pepper or chili flakes.
4. Add 1 cup of stock or water, cover and simmer on medium-low for about 1 hour. Check for doneness and replenish liquid if necessary at 45 minutes. Depending on the meat, it might need more than 1 hour.
5. Mix flour in a cup with some of the liquid from the stew to form a paste and thicken the stew with it for the last 5-10 minutes of cooking.
6. Add the other half of green herbs just before finishing.

Serve over rice or couscous.

The World's Simplest Roast Chicken

%^&*^) Blogger ate the first posting of this, so I'll be briefer and much more grumpy than I was in the original version. When I have chipmunk cheeks from allergied sinuses the world should at least cooperate, right?

So this roast chicken recipe is really that simple. Nigella Lawson is, again, right, darnit. I was sceptical at first, but after I made this about half a dozen times, I have to concur.

You will need:

1 3-4 lbs. preferable free-range or organic chicken. You'll need the flavor, but not the antibiotics or hormones from the feed. The number of birds can be multiplied depending on the size of the household. If you have an eat-engine in your house like The Husband after martial arts practice, this recipe is for two people. Caveat emptor.
1 lemon, rinsed, scrubbed
1 pinch sea salt. Sea salt, not table salt. You would not believe the difference; you need less of it, too.
2 tbsp. butter (good quality, unsalted) or 2 tbsp. olive oil (no need to use extra virgin, use extra light and make sure it is 100% olive)

And let's get started:
1. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Or not. I tried both ways and it did not make any noticeable difference if the chicken is fresh. Just make sure the blood is drained from the body cavity.
2. Ram the lemon up the bird's butt.
3. Smear butter or olive oil all over chicken. Sprinkle with sea salt.
4. Place on shallow baking sheet.
5. Roast in preheated 400 F oven for 15 minutes per pound plus 10 minutes. I gave exactly 1 hour for my 3.3 pounder this weekend, and it turned out perfect.

Serve with garnish of your choice, but keep them simple, as the chicken here is the main attraction. I suggest a tossed green salad with some walnut oil and lemon juice, and, if you feed a crowd, roast some quartered potatoes, small onions and cloves of garlic with some olive oil and salt in the same oven for about 40 minutes.
The chicken prepared this way has a gloriously crispy golden-brown skin on the outside and the meat remains absolutely moist, juicy and bursting of chickeny goodness flavor.

Don't forget to save the carcass/bones! Toss it in a pot, add whatever vegetables you have at hand, pour cold water on it and simmer for 2 hours on low for the best chicken broth ever, then freeze the broth for a good soup when the weather turns windy and rainy soon.

Eggplant Casserole

As summer draws to an end, we have the last abundance of beautiful eggplants and tomatoes at the farmer's market I visit every Saturday...so I dug into the fridge Sunday night and made this casserole based on an old recipe I brought with me from Hungary. With some rice, couscous or crusty bread this is the perfect summertime dinner for tow.

2 large eggplants, sliced (or about 1.5 pounds baby eggplants)
2 large tomatoes, sliced
1 large onion, sliced into rings
3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 banana, Anaheim or Hatch peppers, sliced into rings
black or green olives to taste
olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9x9 baking pan with aluminium foil; grease lightly with olive oil. Place eggplants, tomato slices, pepper and onion slices into plan alternating so that they slightly overlap and look pretty. It will be at least two layers in the pan. Sprinkle between the layers with the chopped garlic, olives, salt and pepper. ON top of everything, drizzle with olive oil and pour a little water or white wine underneath. Cover with aluminium foil and place in oven. Bake for about 45 minutes; foil can be taken of for last 15 minutes so top browns a bit. May need to bake longer or shorter depending on eggplant thickness--check for doneness after 30 minutes.
Serve over rice, couscous or just with a good quality crusty bread on the side for dunking.

A Brief Note on Food

There was LOT of bread-type food eaten this weekend, for which I need to pay the price on the treadmill soon...but yes, kolaches at the Czech Stop on I-35 at West, TX are still amazing, and still available 24/7. And the beignets at Grand Lux Cafe are absolutely sinful too, yep.

My Arteries!!!

The poor things...They are clogging up just by reading the article about this year's State Fair foods...
And yet, I have this strange desire to try at least the deep-fried peach cobbler...Or the deep-fried cookie dough with coconut, pecans and raisins...

Anyone else has this feeling?
Well gear up...the Texas State Fair is opening in a month, on September 28th.

Tuna Pomodoro

This is my take on a Sicilian recipe from Clifford Wright's impressive tome Mediterranean Feast, which, although I take serious issues with a lot of his research methods and basic history biases, is still a veritable treasure-trove of recipes both exotic and simple, complicated and mundane. I already owned one of his other books, Little Foods of the Mediterranean, so when I stumbled upon this on at the flagship Half-Price Books in dallas two weeks ago for less than half of the original cover price (hardcover book with almost 1,000 pages, no way I could have budgeted this in otherwise) I was more than happy to try something.
I happened to have in my freezer some really good yellowfin tuna from our fishmonger at the incredibly good albeit small Coppell Farmers Market, plus tomotoes of the large and beefy kind from the same place, so this recipe was a natural for a weeknight dinner of the comforting but summery kind. I suspect it would be equally good from some other firm, think white-fleshed fish as well such as swordfish, although tuna really is a natural.

Tuna Pomo'd'oro alla Anna (serves 2)

1 pound good quality tuna steak, cut into 2-inch cubes
1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2-3 large ripe tomotoes, chopped fine
1 bunch green onions or 1 small red onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup white wine
5-10 basil leaves

In medium bowl, mix tuna cubes with crushed garlic and olive oil, season with salt and pepper and set aside. Chop tomtoes and onions while tuna is marinading.
Get out a large, heavy skillet and heat it on medium-high. Pour in the tuna with everything from the bowl, and sear until it is no longer pink on any side.
Pour in wine, reduce heat to medium and evaporate a little bit. Add onions and tomotoes, cover and simmer for about 4-5 minutes or until tuna is firm and white. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper if needed, and toss in basil leaves that are coarsely chopped. Stir carefully so nothing breaks up.

Meanwhile, prepare some couscous according to usual directions: boil water with some butter and salt in it, add couscous, take off heat, cover, let stand for 4 minutes, stir with fork, add more butter. (1 cup water, 1 cup couscous ratio).

Serve tuna on top of couscous.

The colors of this dish are incredible, and so is the taste...I have come pictures that I will upload later. Until then, happy salivating!

UPDATE: Well, here it is.

Strawberry Napoleonettes

SInce I had multiple guest visits this weekend (yay!), I decided on making something that I could assemble when they arrive, but can keep the ingredients in the fridge ready for the two days I needed them. And as I had frozen puff pastry in my freezer, this is what I decided to make, based on a restaurant memory and the package of the pastry.

Strawberry Napoleonettes

1 package frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
t tablespoons of powdered cugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
strawberries, hulled, sliced thin, as needed

Separate the 2 sheets of puff pastry, open them up on a floured work surface. Cut each sheet to 3 and then each of those to 4 so you get 12 rectangles from each sheet. You may decide to make them bigger if you want to.
Preheat oven to 400 F. Bake rectangles on baking sheets lined with parchment paper for 15 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Set them aside to cool--this will be quick.
While cooling, whip the cream in a medium bowl with the sugar and the vanilla. SLice the strawberries.
Assemble napoleonettes right before serving: slice each pastry sheet in half, smear whipped cream on the bottom, top it with sliced strawberries, put the top on it. Depending on just how decadent you want to be, you can add a third and fourth layer to achieve extra tall Napoleonettes. :-)
Serve with coffee and dark, dark chocolate pieces on the side.

Blueberry Cake

So before all this excitement with a tire blowout yesterday, on the request of a certain Husband with a head cold reclining on the couch, I set out to make a quick blueberry cake (the official title of the original recipe was a cobbler, but trust me, this is a cake, and one of the best ones. I tinkered with the recipe a bit, made it faster and fluffier, also added lemon zest to accent the blueberry flavor more.


Anna's Fluffy Bluebery Cake For Those Days You Just Want To Hide Under A Rock

1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup of brown turbinado sugar
1 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 whole egg
grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup organic whole milk
2 cups of fresh or frozen organic blueberries

1. Heat oven to 350F. Spray or grease 8 inch round cake pan.
2. Melt butter in medium microwaveable bowl. Stir in sugar, flour, baking powder, egg, milk and lemon zest. Mix with spatula until blended and smooth.
3. Pour batter into pan; sprinkle blueberries evenly over batter.
4. Bake for about 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Serve warm; vanilla ice cream optional.

Dinner at Cipriani's

That was lovely...Yesterday, as it was our 7th wedding anniversary, we decided to do more than our usual 'let's go and have sushi in our jeans' run, and we put on nicer clothes (that means slacks and collared shirt for the Husband and a nice ankle-length summery flowery dress for me with pearls, nothing ultra-fancy) and get to Las Colinas for a 600pm dinner at Cafe Cipriani. It is a venerable North Italian restaurant, being here for as long as Las Colinas existed, which in DFW restaurant terms is quite significant (we have more restaurants per capita than New York, actually, and a lot of them tends to change hands and character rather often).
First Impessions: Cafe C has valet parking due to its location, and once entered, you need to take a shiny copper elevator down to the dining area, which is dimly lit, mostly by candles, has crisp white tablecloths, heavy dinnerware and some real flowers on the tables. Very understated.
Service: During our previous visit and this, our waiters were top notch. It is increasingly difficult to get real waiters these days, those who know and love their work, know and love the place, food, the wines, everything, and are able to convince you that you do, too. Waiters who are extremely courteous but not pushy, appear exactly when needed, don't push the special just because that's more expensive but because it's really special, and are proud of what they do. Needless to say, you tip these guys 20% or more, like we did, because you'd like to keep them in business.
Food: So...on to the food (after all, I promised to my lovely sister-in-law that I'll give a detailed account of what we ate..):-)
We got appetizers: mine was a fresh Mozzarella Caprese, with ripe red tomatoes, flavorful olive oil and finely chopped basil. It was good. The Husband's appetizer, however, totally overshadowed it. If you go the Cafe C, get the Frutti Di Mare. Please do. Lovely plump mussels, shrimp, calamari and other seamonsters in an out-of-this world light garlicky vermouth sauce with bits of fresh tomatoes, steaming hot. The sauce is enough that you can mop it up with the crisp Italian sourdough bread they put in front of you as soon as you get settled in.
The Husband won the main course round as well--at our waiter's advice, he chose one of the specials of the day, the Chicken Val'd'Aosta--this was chicken breast stuffed with really good prosciutto slices and mozzarella, sauteed until juicy and tender, and served with fettucine with roasted garlic bits and red pepper, in a light cream sauce. The harmony of those flavors was only slightly marred by the fact that the pasta got a bit tough due to sitting on an extremely hot serving plate.
My veal with forest mushrooms entree had suffered from the same too hot plate problem around the edges a bit, but the sauce with red wine and different kinds of wild mushrooms was tangy and flavorful, the side of haricots verts, red pepper strips and oven-roasted new potatoes was well-flavored and not overcooked.
After all this, we still had room for dessert: I pre-ordered at the beginning of the meal the chocolate souffle that they are quasi-famous for, as it takes time to prepare and has to be absolutely on time. The Husband chose from the dessert tray a rum-pecan cream cake with vanilla sauce. His cake was not too sweet, light but a perfect finish after the chicken dish he chose. My souffle...ah, well, it was a chocolate tower, light and airy, that the waiter cut into tableside, and poured a light and strong chocolate sauce flavored with chocolate liqueur. It really was rather out of this world; I am not sure which one of us won this round as I am heavily biased toward anything chocolate-y and thus, frankly, unable to make an objective call here. We finished with two good cappucinos-unfortunately, since I roast my own beans fresh at home, I just cannot really enjoy restaurant coffee any more, but for what they were, they were decent, freshly brewed drinks, with good solid foam on top.

All in all: this is really a memorable experience and one that, while not exactly cheap, will not necessary break the bank. If you need a very quiet evening where you can sit by candlelight and talk while enjoying a leasurely meal without really worrying about the right side of the menu, do give Cafe Cipriani a try.

Lunch With Harry

So I looked up from this book around Page 179 slightly dazed, realizing that I have not eaten since that bowl of cereal with The Lemur and his Cupcake several hours before...and moved the theater of operations (i.e. the book and myself) to the kitchen to concoct a quick lunch that goes well with both the humidity and the undoubtedly DARK tone of this volume. This is what I came up with:

Spring Pea Soup
Saute 1 tiny onion in about 1 tablespoon of butter. Add the stalks of 2 large portabello mushrooms you find in your fridge (or 2 chopped up small button mushrooms). Stir and saute for 1 minute. Add 1 cup of frozen spring peas. Salt, pepper. Pour in 1 can of low-sodium natural chicken broth. Add 1 more cup of water. Heat until boiling point, then cook in the little dumplings.
Dumplings: 1 whole egg beaten, mixed with 4-5 tablespoons of flour and as much water as needed to make a stiff dumpling dough. Add more flour or water as needed. When soup is boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and with a spoon make little dumplings into the boiling soup. Cover and cook until dumplings are all on top of soup, about 102 minutes.
Serve with sour cream on top.

Mushroom Sandwich As I like It
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Rinse cap of 1 portobello mushroom. Sprinkle with 4 finely chopped garlic cloves and 1 fistful of chopped fresh parsley. Top with 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. Stick into oven for 25 minutes.
Cut 1/2 of a small ciabatta, or demi-batard into two halves. When mushroom is done, place it on a plate and wipe the juices up with the two bread halves. Smear some fine mustard on the bottom half, add some salad leaves, and place the portabello on it. Top with top half of bread. Eat.

Excuse me now--I am back to reading.

I want Mushrooms!

Darn, I am craving Nigella Lawson's portabella mushroom sandwich from "How To Eat" something fierce! And it is 3:40 and I am at work.

Sigh. I see now that I'll have to get to the store today. Or tomorrow the latest...

Hungarian Crepes (Palacsinta)

This is for my dear brother-in-law, who has asked me nicely last night not to ever make the amount I made last night of these so that he can maintain his waistline. I love you too, brother...:-)

For about 25-30 pcs:
20 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
4 eggs
1.5 cups milk
1 cup soda water
pinch of salt

Mix all of this in a large bowl until lumps disappear; you might need a handheld mixer to complete, but it's okay. Set it aside to rest for at least 20 minutes, 45 minutes-1 hr. is best. The batter should have the consistency of full whipping cream or a tad thinner; if not, add soda water or flour to achieve that consistency.
Meanwhile, prepare the fillings:

Cottage Cheese Filling:
About 1/2 pound of cottage cheese (I used cream-style from Wagon Creek Creamery from the Coppell Farmers Market)
2-3 tbsp. of sugar
1/2 cup of raisins, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes, drained
1 egg, separated
grated zest of 1 lemon

In a medium bowl, mix cottage cheese, sugar, drained raisins and lemon zest. In separate bowl, beat egg white until stiff peaks form. Add egg yolk to filling, then fold in egg white. Set aside until needed.


Jam filling:
Open 1 small jar of any preserve: apricot, plum, raspberry or strawberry are traditional. Stir it well so it gets soft; if it is too stiff, you can dilute with some hot water or, if there are no children present and it is weekend, some rum or cognac, or any liquor harmonizing with the preserves.

Now onto the pancakes. Find a pan that has a nonstick coating or is well-seasoned. Traditionally, the pan should look like your grandma handed it down through two generations, but if you have one that you can pretty much dedicate to this and nothing else, that will do. :-) I have an old nonstick that I retired from everything else but crepe-making, which is large enough at the bottom (8-9 inches).
Again, traditionally, you'd use lard as the greasing medium, but we need to make allowances to some people's waistlines, right? So use Pam or other sprayed grease, as long as it is oil and not some kind of weird margarine substance, because it will NOT taste right. My spray-on grease is canola oil, which is neutral-tasting--that's what you are after. Butter would burn, so in this instance it is not an adequate substance to use. Grease the pan with your grease of choice and heat it up until almost smoking. Proper heat is very important--by definition you'll screw up the first crepe, but you'll get a gauge of temperature with it, so don't worry--just have a small child, dog or significant other ready to feed the victimized crepe to...:-)
Get out two large dinner plates too. One to the back of the stove, one next to the fillings. You'll also need a soup ladle to measure the batter into the pan. I have a really hefty one, so I use about 1/3 of it for 1 crepe, and since this is an egg-heavy batter, you will get wonderfully fluffy ones too. Ladle enough batter onto the hot greased pan surface, then swirl around so that it coats the bottom and it comes up a bit to the sides. It should NOT be thick at all. Think the thickness of your tablecloth or just a tad thicker. Put the pan back to the stove and let it bubble up and crinkle around the sides.
Now take a spatula and carefully but firmly slide it under the crepe and flip it over. With this batter it should not be a problem if your pan is hot enough. It needs about 1/5 minutes on one side, 30 seconds to 1 minute on the other. Both sides should look yellow, with brown speckles on them--the first side is allowed to be golden brown all the way through.
Slide crepe to prepared plate on stove. Move on to make next one.

Grease pan after each second crepe. While next one is in pan with the first side, slide previous one to second plate next to fillings; fill with about 1 tablespoon of filling and layer crepes into a glass or ceramic baking pan. Separate the different fillings, as the cottage cheese one will need to go to the oven for 10 minutes on 300F once all of it is done.

Once all crepes are done, dot the cottage cheese ones with some sour cream and place in over on 300 degrees for 10 minutes (this is for the egg in the filling to set).

Sift confectioner's sugar on top of all before serving. Serve warm; kep any leftovers (ha!) in the fridge--makes pretty decent breakfast, too, the next day (except if you used alcohol in the filling, of course).