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Jubilance abounds! Today marks the fantabulous second anniversary of the marvelous Pants couple. Can such a rockin’ union be surpassed? I wouldn’t try it, but if you want we can take it out back.
Thanks for marrying me sucker!
Who’s the winner now?
To years and years and years…
-L. Pants
Have you ever gotten a dish stuck in your head? One that just pesters you; that stays in the back of your mind and demands to be made.
What if doesn’t even make sense? What if everyone, including you, just thinks it sounds weird? Should you cook it?
Hell yeah you should. You should press blindly ahead, confident in the knowledge that eventually it’s going to be tasty. And if it’s not, well, at least it’ll leave you alone.
That is the beginning to the story of the Baked Potato Risotto. For weeks I couldn’t stop thinking about a crazy fusion between these two canons of supreme starchiness. I don’t know why. To be honest, I really don’t even like baked potatoes that much. And while I love risottos (as you can see by looking here and here) it really isn’t high on my list to cram potatoes into one.
Reservations be damned. I figured if this thing wanted to be made, I’d facilitate the craziness.
To start with, I rendered down a few slices of pancetta. When they were crisp and I had a nice little puddle of fat going, I tossed in five fingerling potatoes that I’d sliced to a medium thickness.
As these softened away, I started to sweat some shallots for the beginning of the risotto. From here it was pretty much business as usual. When the shallots were ready I toasted a few cups of carnaroli, deglazed with white wine and then began the slow process of adding stock a little at a time.
When the risotto was about halfway done, I added in the potato slices and the crumbled pancetta. I wanted to give these flavors plenty of time to come together and work out the kinks.
At the last minute, when all of the elements had reached their ideal textures, I stirred in some chives. Then, off the heat, I finished it with some fresh goat cheese and Lurpak – God’s gift to butter.
And there you have it. Potato(not quite baked) loaded with onions, butter, bacon, chives, and cheese – all in risotto form. As an added bonus, it was actually quite delicious.
Who knew?
-L. Pants
I'm always shocked by the cost of living in Florida, at least the part I'm familiar with around Fort Lauderdale. Deals, deals everywhere, and me saving money for Italy! Breakfast: waffles and coffee for $3.50. Early Bird specials: three course meals for $6.99. And, not to be left out, flea markets the size of a suburban mall.
While I was in Florida last weekend, my grandparents escorted me to the Festival Flea Market, a yooge indoor market stuffed with booths overflowing with merchandise from watches to shoes to canned goods to really expensive dresses to used VHS tapes.
We took a brief detour through the flea market's 99 cent store, where Papa insisted on laying out $1.07 to get me a pair of sunglasses. These aren't just any sunglasses, either; the sticker on the left lens proudly states "400% UV Protection". Unfortunately, the sticker neglects to inform me how it's possible for the sunglasses to protect my eyes from 4 times the UV radiation going through their tinted plastic. They're cute, though, and I did need some sunglasses.
After a little browsing in the flea market, we repaired to the food court for some lunch. Now, with few exceptions, all of the mall food courts here around Austin contain a McDonalds or two, a Chick-Fil-A (Closed on Sundays!), a non-chain burger place, a Mexican place or two, a Chinese steam table, a "Japanese" teriyaki stand, and perhaps a place with "Cajun" food.
This food court, being in the heart of Jewish/Cuban South Florida, was a little different...
There was a Cuban place, not shocking... and a McDonalds...
And -
No less than four separate places to buy a knish.
I decided to try out Pita Nosh, the Knish Place. (Don't ask me why it wasn't called Knish Nosh; maybe the name was already taken?)
My mind was completely boggled by the array of knish choices before me. Also, just what, pray tell, is a Grape Leaves Knish? Or a Corn Cutlet Knish, for that matter?
The bakery case was most inviting.
The Knish Nosh (I've renamed them in my mind) even had a salad bar; I don't believe I've ever seen one of these in a food court!
I decided to stick to the traditional, and purchased a potato knish, a beef knish, and a cup of split pea soup, figuring I could always pawn bits of my food off on my unsuspecting grandparents. My plot worked, by the way, helped along by the fact that Papa chose poorly when he bought a bacon and cheese topped baked potato. I've never seen cheese congeal like that.
My knishes, on the other hand, were stick-to-your-ribs tasty.
And then they were gone. What? I had help!
I would say that my first knish experience was a positive one. Plus, I got to see the flea market!
That night - Cuban. And sangria. Yum yum.
girlie
A few weeks ago Iron Chef America put me seriously in the mood for some goat cheese. Bobby Flay took on Laurent Tourondel in a pretty amazing throw down of fromage manipulation. The Frenchman ultimately prevailed over local boy Bobby, but both guys churned out some exciting food.
I’m a total sucker for goat cheese. The tangy, piquant, savoriness of it really gets my salivary glands going. From the super fresh, bright-white young stuff to the oozy, grey-blue, aged specimens, they all have a certain barnyard quality that really does it for me.
The one dish that really stood out on Flay’s side was an haute panzanella. I think it appealed to me so much because it had a perfect little trifecta of nifty ingredients: ripe tomatoes, cute little microgreens, and toasted cross sections of a lightly aged goat cheese crottin. What!?
I know. Why would anyone want to eat that? Self loathing I suppose.
Being a masochist, I decided that it had to be made. Señor Flay’s version was all fancy pants and he went a little wild with three types of cheese and multiple kinds of roasted peppers. While I certainly respect his vision, I decided to tone mine down a bit and clean up the frills. Simple is good, right? And certainly cheaper.
I started by toasting a few olive oil drizzled slices of bread; I’d say one good sized piece for each salad. Then I cut up three small heirloom tomatoes into tiny little wedges. After the bread cooled a bit, I cubed it into ¼ inch sections. I tossed the bread and tomatoes with a few snipped chives I had laying around and dressed the lot of it with a touch more olive oil and sea salt.
I dismembered the crottin into six slices (two for each person for the mathletes among you) and went at them with my handy-dandy kitchen torch. A broiler would work too, but it lacks that certain psychotic flair.
Next, I spooned some of the bread and tomato mixture on top of the melty, bubbly cheese. The microgreens got shown the business end of some good aged balsamic vinegar and then they too joined the pile. A final trickle of oil and balsamic around the edges finished off this sublime little salad.
Now normally, salads are considered a side dish, but in this case it was pretty hard to top. We came close though with a dish called Crespelle di Scampi or as the hilarious English translation goes – shrimp in a pancake. Basically, it’s a real simple crepe and shrimp casserole.
First you make some crepes and some béchamel sauce. Then sauté off some shrimp in olive oil and garlic for a minute and add some tomato puree and prosecco. Let that simmer away for a couple more minutes. Finish it off with a pat of butter off the heat,to give it that lip smackin' sheen.
Layer it all up. You can grate some ricotta salata inside and on top if you want an extra fun dose of the tasty. Bake it for about 20 minutes at 375˚F.
Let it sit for about five or ten minutes and then stuff it in your face. See, easy. Or if you’d like, Mario has a more involved and slightly bossier recipe here.
Since this all worked out so well, keep your eyes open for some more goat cheese treats in the near future. I have a feeling I haven’t worked the hankering out of my system.
-L. Pants
So, I've ditched my hubs and the kitties and taken off for a long weekend to hang with my grandparents in Florida. Not happenin' Miami, but quieter Fort Lauderdale - much more chill now that all the Spring Breakers have been booted. I'm a little bit behind, as I've only eaten 3 bagels and 2 knishes since my arrival late late Thursday night, but I do plan to rectify that oversight.
Earlier this month was my grandfather's (hereafter and always known as Papa) 85th birthday.
I'd say he's still holding on to that sense of humor!
Anyhoo, we're all Chicagoans around here. My grandfather did grow up in Philly - but got to Chicago as soon as he could. For this reason, my aunt and I got together to send Papa an Italian Beef kit from Portillo's. If you don't know from Italian Beef - well... it's like a Chicago Philly cheesesteak, sorta, in that they both have thinly sliced beef, and they're on rolls - but from there, take away the cheese and add sweet or hot peppers and douse it in au jus - "wet".
So - this Italian beef kit apparently contained enough fixins to make 8 sandwiches, of which 4 had been eaten by the time I got into town. This meant 4 were left and I GOT ONE AND YOU DIDN'T NA NA NA HA WOO!
This kit is a pretty straightforward heat and toast and eat.
First, Papa made salads, for a bit o' greenery.
Then you tear open your bag of Turano bread (though some would have palpitations that it isn't Gonella) and toast, or steam...
While these are toasting, heat the gravy/jus in a pan and add the beef...
Then, ladle the beef into your tasty bread, get you a bowl of jus, and eat.
This was really quite nice - a good taste of home.
We even had bright pink Cherry Passion for dessert! Not that I think this is a particularly Chicago thang - but it did go well, and it did mean we had Papa's favorite dessert after his favorite meal.
To complete this circuit of Papa's favorite things, we then retired to the drawing room and watched a screening of Cat Ballou... which the New Yorker apparently described as "A lark from beginning to end."
Erm.
A good time was had by all! (Of course, all the pictures I took of the copious laughter came out extra-blurry, so you'll have to take my word for it.)
(My Aunt Thelma - one of my grandparents' oldest and best friends... checking out some literature.)
(Granny, visiting while keeping an eye on Lee Marvin.)
Today, we went to a giant flea market - their food court had no less than 4 separate places where you could buy a knish. Yum.
And - it's almost time for us to go head out for Cuban food. I think I'm still full of knish, but since when has that stopped me?
girlie
Alright all you foodie adventurers, it’s time to get off your asses and have a little fun. And what’s more fun than cheese? Specifically, making some of your own.
Now personally, I’m a little short on cave storage space and inoculation bacteria, so I’m not talking anything fancy. Why don’t we start out with something nice and simple like ricotta?
Sweet, sweet ricotta. Literally, it means “cooked again” and for all intents and purposes it’s just simple cheese curd. That doesn’t mean that it’s not delicious though.
I’ve had several people tell me that they don’t really care for it, but I think I know what the problem is. The stuff you buy in the store in the big plastic container is ricotta in much the same way that Fox News is news. Sure a lot of people buy it, but it always seems to taste a little funny.
It’s so ridiculously easy to make your own, though (cheese, not news), that once you do there’s just no going back. So then, let’s assemble our arsenal. Here’s what you’ll need:
Milk Buttermilk Salt
I know. Who could ever find all that?
Well let’s say you do. The important thing to know is that no matter what amounts you use, they always need to be in a four to one ratio. That is 4 parts regular milk to every 1 part buttermilk. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking cups, buckets, or great-aunt Edna’s gravyboat – just keep the proportions.
The salt’s for later so relax you recipe marms.
Take the milk (it can be whole or 2% but don’t go lower because you need the fat) and dump it in a pot with the buttermilk (regular or fat free). Add a little salt, just enough so that it leaves a nice taste on your tongue.
Slowly bring the whole mixture up to just below a boil. Oh, I’d say about a 200˚F – steamy but not bubbly. After a few minutes you’ll notice a nifty little chemical reaction taking place.
The mixture will separate into Little Miss Muffett style curds and whey. The lumpy stuff floating on top is what we’re after. So line a colander with cheese cloth and pour the whole mess through it.
The liquid that’s going down the drain is the whey. Hippies (god bless ‘em, love ‘em to death) use it for any number of things- from baking bread, to feeding animals, to fertilizing plants. I use it to flush my pipes because I’m a horrible person. What can you do?
Now tie up the cheesecloth ends and hang the little ball up to drain. The longer you leave it up the drier and more crumbly your cheese will be. Since I like mine fairly moist, I think 15 or 20 minutes usually does the trick.
Open up the cloth and check the seasoning. I usually add some salt and keep things simple, but in theory you can mix in any spice or chopped herb that strikes your fancy.
And that’s it. You can officially wear the cheesemaker extraordinaire shirt with matching tiara now.
But after the initial flush of power wears off, you have to do something with your victory curd. You could just eat it by itself, but extra points are awarded for creativity.
I stole a Jamie Oliver recipe (more accurately I stole a recipe from a lady who stole a Jamie Oliver recipe) and whipped up some ricotta fritta with a baby leek pesto and some summer squash agrodolce.
The squash may look familiar.
(As a side note, we were eating diner over at a friend’s house and the fetching Miss Q dashed out this lovely heirloom tomato salad for us as an antipasto. What? So we eat a lot of cheese. What are you the lacto-police?)
Regardless, I’m sure that whatever you make will be tasty as it’s hard to screw up something as yummy as homemade cheese.
Keep the dairy dream alive.
-L. Pants
Well - we've passed the 3 month countdown line!
girlie
I'm not sure when I was formally introduced to farmer's markets. I remember we didn't really have many of them in Chicago when I was growing up - at least in the inner city, where I was living. Actually, I think my first experience of farmer's markets might have been the backpacking trip we took around Europe after graduating from college - lots of little booths of folks hawking their wares, from apples to zucchini (like what I did there?).
Austin has a great compliment of farmer's markets - and something a little more interesting, Boggy Creek Farm. (Of course they have a website - this is Austin, after all!)
They're an actual farm, on the east side of town - maybe five minutes from downtown.
Since we hadn't been to visit this year, we brought our selves and our enormous camera to do some scavenging last Saturday.
This is the kind of place that just makes you want to cook. Everything. Most of the vegetables they have laid out have recipe cards next to them with recipe suggestions.
They had the most beautiful squash there last weekend.
There was also a lovely assortment of greens - sorrell, amaranth, spinach... and these bizarre wax-colored cucumbers I'd never seen before!
Have you ever seen such a thing?
There were beautiful baby leeks and carrots and new potatoes, just dug yesterday, and garlic and fennel and and and....
We were just surrounded by amazing fresh ORGANIC produce.
Boggy Creek also sells local products, like cheeses from Pure Luck Dairy and bottled water from Rainwater, in Dripping Springs. There's local eggs and goat milk ice cream, and even these amazing smoke-dried tomatoes. It's a celebration of what the Texas Hill Country has to offer.
We ended up with a basket full of new potatoes, sorrel, squash, and cheese, with some of the adorable baby leeks thrown in for kicks.
Then, we went to Waffle House, which finally moved into the Austin market a couple of years ago. Who says we don't have... eclectic tastes?
girlie
Overheard as I browsed the aisles at the pet store yesterday:
"If you want to get a pet with legs, why don't you just get a snake?"
I was at the pet store buying weaponry as part of an ongoing effort to get our cats, Fatty and Stinky, to leave us the hell alone in the mornings. They had been waking us up earlier and earlier, culminating in Monday's 0520 debacle during which Stinky clawed my back while Fatty jumped up and down on a plastic bag from Ol' Navy.
This caused me to go into convulsions of crazyness, including slamming of doors - more than one, but less than three - and a very angry cool-off shower which afforded me the opportunity to reflect on just where we'd gone wrong in our raising of and training of the Wonder Dumplings.
Realizing that this was going to have to stop - and soon, as I want to drop well-trained kitties off with the Husbear's folks in August, not insane voracious catbeasts - I took a little time out of my busy calendar-preparation schedule to research cat behavior modification techniques and the application thereof.
So - no more cats in our bedroom overnight with us. No more scoops of food directly into their bowl - now it's Twist 'n Treat all the way, baby, at least until we find a food ball actually made for cats. And - this is the real punch in the gut, as far as the kitties are concerned - NO MORE feeding them first thing in the morning.
It's been a bit of an adjustment, though not as horrible as I thought it might be. We've wedged a towel under our door nightly, to guard against carpet destruction, and we've been feeding the cats right before we go to bed, because (just like babies, I hear) a cat that goes to bed with a full tummy will sleep longer. They actually appear to be getting some enjoyment out of batting the food balls around.
However - this morning, 5 AM, scratchscratchscratch. The response, this time, instead of feedfeedfeed? Ignoreignoreignore. Seems to be working pretty well, as long as my next post isn't all about how I got home to a scene out of Category 6: Day of Destruction.
girlie
There is something that is just cool about eating flowers. I don’t know if it puts me in touch with my ruminate roots, or if it’s just a holdover from being a kid and having visions of munching happily on a bouquet of roses. Whatever it is, spring is definitely the time of year to cut loose and show those uppity blooms their place in the grand scheme of gastronomy.
Around these parts it’s just now getting to be squash blossom season. Until recently, you pretty much had to grow your own zucchini or know of a good farmers’ market to get your hands on these delicate little guys. They’re so perishable that most grocery stores won’t even consider carrying them.
Luckily for me, Central Market came to the rescue yet again and got in some amazingly fresh and fragrant specimens. Just the right amount for me to plan a meal around.
In Rome, you often see them stuffed with cheese and deep fried. In restaurants around here you occasionally find them in quesadillas. While I’m a fan of both of these preparations, I do think they tend to overpower the delicate floral flavor of the blossoms.
This being the case, I thought a mild and creamy risotto might be just the right canvas to showcase these seasonal tasties. I used a straight forward preparation, adding a little shallot and chive for some depth and deglazing with a very light white wine for hint of acidity. The lovely sheen is courtesy of Plugrá for the curious amoung you.
(For you rice devotees out there, check out a previous risotto rendering with radicchio here.)
And what kind of side goes with a risotto flavored with baby squash blooms? Roasted baby squash of course. We roasted off a combination of yellow and green sunbursts then finished them with a generous squeeze of lime juice and some fleur de sel.
If you’re wondering, it wasn’t amazingly delicious. Oh wait. I’m wrong. It was totally amazingly delicious. Right.
-L. Pants
