Summer Break

"Hey! Can you grab the balsamic vinegar next time you go to the car?" Yes, this has been my life for the past month or so.  Long story short, August has been somewhere between chaos, couch surfing, and our kitchen in the car.  Though it felt hot enough to bake bread in the glove box, we didn't manage to test that one out (eggs can scramble on the outside of the car, but I wouldn't try that if I were you).  Needless to say, I apologize for not updating the blog more often.  Once I get settled in for this semester, I will be right back in the kitchen.  So good luck to all that are moving around right now -- I will be back in a few days with some tasty concoctions and recipes to go along :)  

Cucumber Avocado Soup

Summer rocks until you have been assaulted by a heat index of 114˚ and your kitchen isn’t air-conditioned.  All the food that could melt does; probably because you are constantly opening the freezer door just to cool down.  Needless to say, you want to minimize your time slaving over a hot stove (or stopping to take step-by-step pictures – my apologies, dear foodies).   Thus, a cold cucumber avocado soup won out after a friend dropped off a five pound bag of summer squashes, cucumbers, and peppers.   

After peeling, seeding, slicing, and simmering the cucumbers they turned from crisp and cool to soft and savory.  Cucumbers being mostly water, I never thought to cook a ‘cuke.   Although I admit I was skeptical at first, I have been won over.  There is something familiar and yet adventurous about cooking cucumbers.  Adding avocado was the secret to a smooth, silky texture and nutty, buttery flavor.  To brighten the soup, I used cilantro, dill weed, and mint for their tingly citrus notes and grassy-green taste.  

Once I had finished blending the soup, I took a taste of the warm cucumber soup and actually found that I preferred it over the cold soup.  (Ah the merits of taste testing along the way…) Eating the soup cold had its perks – it basically tasted like a thinner guacamole, yum! –  but the heat of the jalapenos did not blossom without heating the soup, and the cold soup’s texture became a bit strange after bowl two.   Overall, the soup was a successful attempt at minimizing time in the kitchen and maximizing my eating enjoyment (even when I can’t get the thermostat any lower than 85 without my AC busting).

Cucumber Avocado Soup “Cold Guacamole Soup”

Ingredients:

2 T EVOO

2 cloves garlic, finely diced

1 small onion, diced (about ¾ cup)

1 T fresh lemon juice

4 cups peeled, seeded, and thinly sliced cucumbers

1 ½ cups vegetable broth

Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Dash of cayenne pepper

2 tsp jalapeno, finely diced

1 avocado

½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped

1 tsp dill weed, dried

1 T fresh mint, chopped

½ cup plain yogurt

Instructions:

1.       In large saucepan or high-walled skillet, heat oil on medium-high heat.

2.       Add onions, cook for about 2 min.  Then add garlic, cook for an additional 2 min. 

3.       Add lemon juice and cook for 1 min.

4.       Add cucumber slices, broth, and season with salt, black pepper, and cayenne.

5.       Reduce heat and cook at a gentle simmer until the cucumbers soften, about 6-8 min.

6.       Take skillet/pan off heat; let cool for about 5 min.  Transfer soup to a blender. 

7.       Add avocado, cilantro, dill weed, and mint; blend on low speed until smooth.

8.       Pour into bowl and stir in yogurt.  Garnish with fresh diced cucumber and cilantro.

Soup can be enjoyed hot, or can eaten cold after being chilled for about 2-4 hours.

36-Hour Chocolate Chip Cookies

A Jacques Torres adaptation 

 Warning: if you are looking for purely instant-gratification cookies, stick to Nabisco.  But if you start now, you are only a day and a half away from your awakening.  Yes, in a little over 36 hours your eyes will open and your sweet tooth will swoon over the best chocolate chip cookies you ever sunk your teeth into.  A golden, sugary outer shell encrusts a still warm and gooey dough center.  The climax is the realization that you have just tasted a cookie with the perfect proportion of crisp baked cookie and raw cookie dough.  Every cookie you have tasted before becomes inferior.  Sure, Grandma’s cookies may continue to maintain that nostalgic tastiness, but you are hooked to these even before you swallow the first bite.  The richness of the cookie is the only limiting factor.  Eating an entire cookie might seem doable, until you are halfway through and you can already feel a significant rise in your blood pressure.  But rest assured that these cookies are worth the wait, the tooth-ache, and the possible cavity to come.    

 I’m sure you are wondering why the 36 hours.  This method may seem arcane, but in fact, the rest period is what creates cohesive dough.  It allows the wet ingredients to be fully absorbed into the dry ingredients.  Eggs are gelatinous and take time to absorb, especially when butter acts like a coat of armor for the flour. Thus, drier, firmer dough means that the eggs and other liquids have been sufficiently soaked up into the flours.  This should mean that you will enjoy a better baking consistency.  Better baking consistencies lead to crisp edges and chewy centers – the way all cookies should be.

As for the other secrets, I found that using cake and bread flour make for better consistency as well.  Your next secret is 2 ½ sticks of butter.  TWO and a HALF STICKS of butter.  (I never claimed they were healthy.)  But you can’t skimp on the butter or sugar, as they are the reason these cookies melt into toffee-flavored syrup in your mouth.  My favorite “last touch” is the coarse salt sprinkled on top of the cookies.  It completes them.  

 Served fresh from the oven they are enough to corrupt even the most devout diet.  Perhaps you could fast for the 36 hours leading up to the baking? Haha, just kidding. So if you are aiming to outdo the competition, I recommend these cookies served fresh, with a tall glass of milk. 

36-Hour Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour + 4 T cornstarch (Or 2 cups cake flour)

1 2/3 cups bread flour

1 ¼ tsp baking soda

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp coarse salt

2 ½ sticks ( 1 ¼ cups) unsalted butter

1 ¼ cups brown sugar

1 cup + 2 T granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp natural vanilla extract

1 ¼ lbs semi-sweet chocolate chips

A few pinches of sea or kosher salt

Instructions:

1.       In one bowl, using a whisk, combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  (You can use a sifter too, if you have it.) Set aside.

 2.       In a larger bowl, cream together butter and sugars until very light.  (By hand this will take you a while – making sure the butter is at least at room temperature will help.)

 3.       Add eggs to butter and sugar, one at a time.  Mix well after adding each.

4.       Stir in vanilla.

5.       Add in dry ingredients, lightly mix until just combined.  

 6.       Add in chocolate chips.

7.       Press plastic wrap to dough and refrigerate for 36 hours (trust me it’s worth it).  Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours. 

 8.       When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350˚ F.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper or sill pat. 

9.       Scoop 6 (3.5 oz – the size of engorged golf balls) balls of dough onto baking sheets.  Sprinkle with sea salt/kosher salt and bake until golden brown, but still soft, 18-20 minutes.

 10.   Cool cookies, but they are best enjoyed when warm. 

11.   Remaining dough can be refrigerated and baked later (up to 24 hours after).

Makes about 1 ½ dozen 5-in cookies.    

Curry Chickpea Stuffed Pitas with Tsatziki

For a soon-to-be graduate in the fall, summer is that awkward in-between phase where you are not graduated but you are also not attending class.  You might have a summer job or internship, but you still feel the pressure to put all this “free time” to use and find “the job” for after graduation.  Since I can’t yet apply to jobs, I’ve been thinking a lot about resumes, interviews, and jobs.    I never expected food to come into play.


I have been stuck on one of the seemingly favorite interview/application questions: “What is one of your weaknesses?”   Now, I love questions that focus on my insecurities as much as the next candidate, but I still find it difficult to list and describe weaknesses.   I have finally found my area of development: spicy foods. 

As a kid my favorite foods were mostly comfort foods like meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and spaghetti and meatballs.   Thus, you won’t find me napalming my food with Sriracha, or setting it ablaze with red pepper flakes today.   Eating at home required only a tolerance for black peppercorns.   However, age and exposure have enlightened my tastebuds to how limited I am by spicy foods.  I feel that I am missing out because I have refused foods that are “spicy”.   I cannot expect to taste the full flavor of life without a little sweat and tears.  To improve meant braving the heat and tackling the fire.  My goal this summer is to acquire a liking for spicy foods. 

So, just as I was congratulating myself on not only tolerating but actually enjoying the heat of curry powder, I discovered that it is only a pale, Western approximation of traditional Indian spice blends.  Boo.  Well, it’s a start, I guess.    

Curry powder suits my tolerance for heat because of the familiar spiciness from cumin, coriander, ginger, and cayenne.  I enjoy the concentrated combination of these individual spices in the curry powder.  Chickpeas serve as the perfect protein, beautifully blended along with garlic and onions.  Stuffed inside of a warm, whole wheat pita and topped with cool and creamy tsatziki, this dish sets you up for a wonderful juxtaposition of temperatures, textures, and tastes. 

Slowly, but surely I will build my spicy heat tolerance. 

Curry Chickpeas

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil

½ onion, finely diced

1 clove garlic, finely diced

2 tsp fresh ginger root, finely diced

1/8 tsp ground cloves

½ tsp cinnamon

2-3 tsp curry powder

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 (15 oz) can chickpeas / garbanzo beans

Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

1.       In medium sized saucepan, heat oil over medium heat and sauté onions until tender (about 5-7 min)

2.       Stir in garlic, ginger, and remaining spices.  Cook for about 1 minute over medium heat, stirring constantly. 

3.       Mix in chickpeas and liquid.  Cook until well blended and heated through (about 3-5 min).

The BELT Sandwich: Bacon, Egg, Lettuce, Tomato

We all had the BLT growing up.  It reminds me of simpler times; of Mom-made lunches and Wonderbread.   It was not a gourmet sandwich, but it was critically acclaimed by kids and adults and would occasionally pop up on a restaurant menu.  Yet, as my stomach grew and appetite widened, I felt that the BLT might be missing something.   I was right.  

Not that we ever take breakfast lightly – it’s an opportunity to eat, why should we?  But recently we kicked the usual breakfast up a few notches with the advent of the BELT sandwich: crispy, oven-baked bacon, fried egg, fresh lettuce, and juicy tomato (plus a little cheddar cheese too).  We did not just tack on another letter to the BLT, we refurbished the whole thing.  Oven-baked bacon as opposed to fried – get your crispy on without suffering from too much grease.  We put shredded cheddar cheese on top because it’s awesome.  Added a fried egg to give you the protein you need to stave off hunger until lunch (added bonus: use the yolk for dipping).  We kept the veterans: lettuce and tomato, as they seem to have achieved sandwich tenure.  The mayo also stayed, but was enhanced with the garlicky heat of Sriracha, and the Wonderbread was ditched for a homemade, toasted Brioche-style roll.   Shall I say anything more? 

Nah, I think the sandwich speaks for itself. 

Watermelon Lemonade

Lemonade stands were my first hands-on introduction to food sales and marketing.  Parked at the end of my driveway or on the corner of a neighborhood street, I set up shop selling instant lemonade by the Dixie cup.  Crayon-colored signs were enough to entice cars and walkers to stop and buy my lemonade.  What a confidence booster – people wanted something that I could produce at 7!  But let’s be serious, it wasn’t because the lemonade was outstanding or that my marketing angle was unique.  I was subconsciously exploiting my youth and charm to sell a product.  Got to love that “aw, cute!” factor.  Unfortunately, I have outgrown such sales tactics (it’s a shame because I’m running out of ideas to pay off my school debt haha).  So now I make the lemonade just for me.  Except this time I use real lemons.     

Believe it or not, I don’t drink lemonade just for the sugar rush.  Vending machine lemonade lacks that bright yellow luster.  I want that burst of sour-citrus sunshine that convinces you that the lemon was freshly squeezed.   Most of the time, I want to taste the full lemon spectrum.  Today I had a different mission.  

Committed to getting my full money’s worth out of the 10 lb watermelon I had just bought, an idea came to mind: watermelon lemonade.  Sweet, juicy watermelon added to tart lemonade, perfect!  When buying a 10 lb watermelon, there are doubts as to whether you can ever eat it all.  But I was determined.  I ate it plain, mixed it with salad, froze it, and still there was a fair amount of it left in the fridge.  Watermelon lemonade was the key to using up the rest.  

If a drink was ever described as succulent, they were talking about this lemonade.  It was like nectar derived from the soul of both lemon and watermelon.  Spiked with liquor, this could become an exceptional barbeque bar drink.  Either way, this is lemonade that sells without the stand or the cute kid sitting behind it. 

Watermelon Lemonade

Ingredients:

4 cups watermelon, seedless and cubed

1 cup lemon juice, fresh

½ cup simple syrup (i.e. sugar water)

2-4 cups water (depending on how strong you want it)

Instructions:

1.       Make simple syrup by adding ½ cup sugar to ½ cup water and bringing to a boil.  Let cool.

2.       Place about 4 cups of cubed watermelon into a blender or food processor.  Blend until smooth.

3.       Strain watermelon through small wire-mesh strainer – you only want the juice, not the fleshy part of the fruit.

4.       Juice watermelons (No need for a juicer, I just used a fork).  Strain the juice to catch seeds or any lemon parts.

5.       Mix all ingredients in pitcher.  Serve cold. 

Makes about 4 glasses of lemonade.

Polynesian Chicken Salad

There are few things that say “quintessential American tea-time hor d’oeurve” like chicken salad.  Mayonnaise, grapes, walnuts, celery…you know the drill.  These dainty sandwiches and porcelain tea cups were what made 10-year-old life seem antique and classy.  But a decade later, I want something more original and exotic than that ol’ go-to recipe. 

 I settled on a Polynesian theme for my experimental chicken salad.  Polynesian flavors incorporate the sweetness of natural fruits like pineapple, mango, bananas, and coconut, into other ingredients like rice, beans, chicken, and sweet potatoes.  Sweet and sour sauces, made from soy sauce, sugar, and white vinegar, can also used.  This gives me a good amount of inspiration. 

The final product was tasty, and although it combined unexpected flavors, the chicken salad was overall quite good.  A few dollops of mayonnaise made up the base (as in most traditional chicken salads), but I sweetened it with pineapple juice and counter-balanced it with some lemon juice and soy sauce.  Orange peppers and pineapple tidbits varied the texture, while Sriracha spiced up the original mildness.

 My main gripes with the recipe I created were that the sauce was too thin and still tasted too much like mayonnaise.  Once the salad was added to cold rice, the problems were not as blatant.  However, I am still wondering how I could keep a similar flavor profile and make the entire sauce thicker.  I tried a little corn starch, but that made the sauce awkwardly starchy and more pasty than creamy.  Overall, perhaps there is a reason that you stick to the “good ol’ recipes”, but where can we grow from there?

Anyways, this recipe isn’t quite ready to impress guests, but it is sure to satisfy you when you cannot tolerate the traditional chicken salad anymore. 

Polynesian Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups cooked chicken (I used chicken thighs)

About 3 T mayonnaise

2 T apricot preserves

1 T lemon juice

1 T pineapple juice

2-3 t Sriracha (Asian hot sauce)

2 t soy sauce

1 tsp ginger, freshly grated

½ cup cilantro

Salt and pepper

½ cup pineapple tidbits

1/3 cup orange or yellow pepper, diced

Instructions:

1.       In a small bowl, combine mayo, apricot preserves, lemon juice, pineapple juice, Sriracha, soy sauce, ginger, and cilantro.  Whisk until smooth – taste test for appropriate flavoring.

2.       In a Tupperware container with a lid, add chicken, pineapple, orange pepper, and mayo sauce.

3.       Chill for 4-6 hours.  Serve over rice, garnish with cilantro.