creme caramel

A few weeks ago, my friend Chloe and I made creme caramel aka flan to be the finale of our taco dinner. (I'll try and post about the tacos later.)

My mom taught me to make this - my favorite desert - when I was in high school. You can make it in individual cups, but it is easier, and I think more fun, to make one big creme caramel. The recipe we use is basically the recipe from cooks' illustrated.

The easy part is making the custard. From the Cooks' Illustrated recipe:
1.5 c. whole milk
1.5 c. light cream
3 lg. eggs
2 lg. egg yolks
2/3 c. sugar
1.5 tsp. vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Heat milk and cream, stirring occasionally, in medium saucepan over medium heat until steam appears and/or an instant-read thermometer held in the liquid registers 160 degrees, 6 to 8 minutes; remove from heat. Meanwhile, gently whisk eggs, yolks, and sugar in large bowl until just combined. Off heat, gently whisk warm milk mixture, salt, and vanilla into eggs until just combined but not at all foamy. Strain mixture through fine mesh sieve into large measuring cup or container with pouring spout.

Sometimes the flan has a lot of bubbles in it. This is not ideal, but I am not sure how to prevent it - my theories are that you need an evenly temperatured oven or that you have to be very careful not to make the custard mix foamy. Really though, I have no idea.

The caramel, for me, is the tricky part. I generally make my flan in a bread-loaf pan. it's nice because you end up with a "loaf" of flan - easy to cut, easy to plate, and pretty elegant looking. However, my mom's vaunted strategy of making the caramel in the loaf pan did not work for me at all this time. I think my burners were just not wide enough - some of the sugar was burning while other parts hadn't even melted.

We deviate from the cook's illustrated version somewhat on this because we don't use water. For the moment, I advise making the caramel in a saucepan and then pouring it into the pan you'll make the flan in. you can do this the day before if you want.

For the caramel, put 2 tablespoons of corn syrup in the bottom of the pan and try to spread it around evenly by tipping the pan around (don't put anything in there - corn syrup is really sticky!). Then add 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice. Finally spread 1 cup of sugar evenly over the top. Now put the saucepan over low heat and watch it like a hawk. Do not stir. the mixture should start to liquefy and darken. You should swirl the pan around a bit so that all parts get cooked pretty evenly. as soon as everything is liquid, as long as it is at least a little bit brown - it is done. Turn off the burner, and immediately pour the caramel into the pan you're going to cook the flan in. If you burn the sugar, you are screwed - you should start over. I should point out that while making flan this time, we burned three sets of caramel before we got it right. Chloe was very saintly about cleaning out the loaf pans. also, at one point, I caught a paper towel on fire. It was kind of awkward.

let the caramel harden in the bottom of the loaf pan, then pour the custard mixture on top of it.

Now you have to prepare the flan for cooking.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
pull out one of the shelves in the oven and place a large roasting pan (or in my case this time, a rectangular casserole, onto the shelf - first lining it with a dishcloth folded to lay flat on the bottom.

Set a full tea kettle to boil.

set the flan in its loaf pan in the center of the casserole dish. When the water in the kettle boils, pour it into the roasting pan until it goes about 2/3 of the way up the flan. then push in the rack and bake for 75 minutes.

when the flan is ready, remove it from the water bath, set it on the counter/stove, and let it set for a few minutes. Then put it in the refrigerator so that it can cool further. when the pan is cool to the touch, it is probably ready. it is fine to give it more time though. *Just* before serving you should unmold the flan. run a very sharp knife around the edge of the flan. With some assistance, if possible, lay the platter that you plan to serve the flan on on top of the loaf pan. Flip the platter and loaf pan over so that the open side of the loaf pan, which is touching the top of the platter, is facing down. Let it sit for a few moments and then gently shake flan until it comes free and is laying on the platter, caramel side up. pour any remaining caramel over the flan (it should sort of swim in it.)

Now you can slice the flan and serve it. make sure to spoon lots of caramel on top! I will have to make this again soon so that there can be pictures. It was really yummy though!

chloe's "french" bread

Recently, I made a trip over to our friend Chloe's house in Jamaica Plain because she said we could bake bread. She bakes things at an inn, and as such is Very Good At It. Not only did she help me bake bread, she also made amazing lasagna and tiramisu. Sooooo yummy.

I only participated in the bread adventure, however, and Chloe was so kind as to mail me the recipe afterwards! The further cooking adventures of Sarah Elisabeth and Chloe will be the subject of a future post, but for now, here is the recipe:
What?! you can't read it? Don't be silly. My office PDF maker is the perfect way to show you the recipe!


OK. Fine. Here is my faithful rewriting:

To: Sarah E Morton

Smart Women squeeze lettuce {"French" Bread} from: Chloe

(1) 2T (=2 packets) dry yeast
1/2 c warm water
1 T sugar

soften yeast and set aside
~~~~~~~~~~~~
(2) 1 T sugar
1 T salt
2 T oil
3 c flour
2 c very warm water

Combine ingredient
"stir good"
2-3 min
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(3) 3 (more) c of flour - add yeast mixture to
flour mixture - add in these last 3 c. flour

(4) Stir until all ingredients are mixed
(5) Let rest for 10 min then punch or poke down
(6) REPEAT 5 TIMES
(7) Divide Dough in half
(8) Roll each part out + roll up like a jelly roll
*Preheat oven to 400 degrees
(9) let loaves rise for 30 min
(10) cut slashes on top (+ brush w/ melted butter --optional)
(11) BAKE 25 min
(12) Rub butter over tops of loaves
{ Enjoy for all
{ Hygge occasions!

Scandinavian languages are great. So is Chloe's "french" bread. She even let me take home a loaf.

get a farm share with stone soup farm!

OK y'all. our friend Jarrett Man has started a fabulous new farm called Stone Soup farm out in Belchertown, Mass. The farm will have a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) component where a weekly delivery of the harvest will be made in return for your financial support of the farm.

This is Jarrett:

I know Jarrett and his farming skills well, and I have nothing but the utmost faith in him and his farm. I'll definitely be signing up for a full share to share with my roommates (a full share easily feeds three and can really feed four with no problem). If you're at all interested, check out the sign-up sheet at: http://stonesoupfarm.googlepages.com/CSASignupform2008take5alllocations.pdf (it's a .pdf) or you can learn more about the farm in general at http://stonesoupfarm.googlepages.com

The food will be fresh, local, and grown without chemicals. If you've had a tomato from a local farm, you'll never be able to eat one from the supermarket again. it's the same with carrots. The vegetables just taste completely different.

Snazzy farm logo:

To top it all off, you'll try things you've never had before, and you'll eat things that you wouldn't think to buy.

Financially, it's a great deal, at least if you eat a lot of vegetables. I pretty much eliminated my food bills from June until November last year. and if you split your farm share three ways, even paying on the higher end ($500) of the sliding scale, it's still less then $200 for an entire season of vegetables - and it's enough vegetables that except for some rice and pasta, and maybe some protein, you don't have to really have anything else!

The pick-ups in Boston will be in Harvard Square and near South Station. There's also one out in Leominster or Lunenburg or somewhere like that, and plenty more opportunities out in W. Mass. If you have questions - email Jarrett at stonesoupfarm@gmail.com (tell him Sarah sent you) or you can get in touch with me - but I might not have an answer :)

I really can't recommend this enough. really!

butternut squash & sweet potato soup (vegan)

I have had a bowl full of butternut squashes on the counter for awhile now - ever since mi- december when the last farm share drop-off happened. They were starting to get moldy and rotten in some places, and I decided it was time to take action.

I took them all out of the bowl, tossed the rotten ones, and cut off the bad piece of the only partly gone ones. Then I seeded them and peeled what was left with our new peeler (hallelujah!!) and cubed it up. I ended up with probably about 3-4 cups of cubed butternut squash. I also have a lot of sweet potatoes left - although those are doing much better. I got out 4 of those, peeled them, and cubed them up too. Then I diced an onion (actually half an onion and two big farm share shallots) and about 4 cloves of farm-share garlic. I tossed all of that (squash, potatoes, onions, garlic) into a big soup pot.

Then I got out a box of Imagine No-Chicken broth and dumped that in there.

It didn't quite cover, so I filled the Imagine box with water, shook it up and poured in water until it covered everything in the pot. I turned on the burner, gave it a quick stir, and covered it.
Thinking better of it, I uncovered the pot about 5 minutes in and let it simmer on medium heat for about 40 minutes - stirring every once in awhile, but mostly watching TV.

When the veggies were nice and soft (poking with a fork yielded no resistance) I took out my hand blender and blended the soup nice and smooth. I added a little salt and some pepper during this process as well.

Overall, the soup came out pretty well. It tasted a little too "chicken-y" for my taste. I think next time I might add more water and less broth, maybe put some celery in with the veggies, and stir in some soy yogurt at the end to give it some creamy depth. I also wonder if I'd sauteed the onions and garlic in some oil first, if that would have made a difference.

On the plus side, this soup had a much more liquid feel to it than a lot of the blended soups I've made. I think it's because it has no beans - but it's a nice change! I'll post pictures of the finished product next time I heat some up!

superbowl dip

We had a superbowl party, and in its honor I made a big casserole dish full of many-layer dip. This is pretty infinitely modifiable.

Preheat the oven to about 350 degrees F.

in a casserole dish of some kind:

spread one can of vegetarian refried beans across the bottom

spread a jar of salsa over the beans

tear two corn tortillas into pieces and spread evenly over the salsa

spread a large container of premade guacamole over the salsa

sprinkle a bag of shredded cheese (sharp cheddar is good) over the guac

spread a can of black beans over the cheese

tear two more corn torillas and spread them over the beans

spread a container of sour cream over the tortillas

chop one large tomato and spread over the sour cream

spread another layer of refried beans over the tomatoes

sprinkle another bag of shredded cheese over the top

put it in the oven for about 45 minutes.

take it out and let it stand for about 5-10 minutes so that it solidifies either dip chips right into the dip or use a spatula/cake server to but hunks of dip on plates for mobile chip dipping


This recipe is infinitely modifiable. I think this version could use more cheese maybe more salsa, maybe less sour cream. more black beans and a layer of mango salsa would change it up completely.

Another option is to add the guacamole and sour cream after it has cooked or put them in separate containers. I like them in it though.

creamy purple potato soup

So.... I had a lot of potatoes. and I decided I would make potato soup. I have no idea how to make potato soup, but, as I said to Susan - if I don't like it and it tastes like watery mashed potatoes - I'll just eat something from a can.

It came out ok though!

I covered the bottom of a soup pot generously with olive oil. I put the heat on low and diced an onion and put that in there with it.

Then I washed about six potatoes (I still don't have a peeler) and realized that they were purple potatoes! I cut each potato into cubes and threw them in with the onions and the oil. I stieed that and let it sort of fry for a minute or two.

Then I added one chicken bullion cube and 6 cups of water, and I covered it and let it go on a medium bowl for about 1/2 hour or 45 minutes. Then I added a stick of butter and blended it with the immersion blender. It was all purple-y and little pieces of potato skin and kinda pretty. It tasted a little salty though, so I added half of one of those small cartons of heavy cream that Susan brought back for me from trader joe's.

Then I stirred... and voila! creamy creamy good! (probably 1/2 a stick of butter would have been plenty - but who's counting?)

norwegian raisin buns - vegan style

My mom made raisin buns all the time when I was a kid, and I would always complain because she didn't put enough raisins in them. When I found this recipe for a vegan version, I decided to become master of my own destiny. Raisins galore!

I borrowed the recipe from here: http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=291


I took 1/2 cup of earth balance and put it in a saucepan on low. Then I added 1.25 cups unsweetened soy milk to the saucepan. Careful not to let it boil!

In a bowl I combined 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of cardamom, and a packet of dry yeast and stirred.

Then I poured the earth balance/soy milk mixture over the dry ingredients, and added a little more than a cup of raisins. Then I kneaded it with my hands for about five minutes. I set it, in the bowl I had kneaded it in with a handtowel over it, on top of the stove (the oven was preheated to 430F so the stove was nice and warm) for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes I dumped the sough out on a cutting board coated in flour and kneaded it for another 3 or 4 minutes. I kneaded it into something of a flattish square, and then I used a sharp knife to cut it into about 20 pieces - 4 slices one way and three the other. I took each little dough square and mushed into a ball and set it on a cookie sheet.

Finally, I had prepared a mixture of a few tables spoons of sugar in some warm water on the stove. I brushed this over the top of each bun. ("brush" may not be the word - lacking any kind of pastry brush, I used a spatula.)

Then I put them in the over for about 12 minutes.

When I took them out they required some spatula-ing off of the cookie sheet (maybe I should have greased it) but sliced in half and spread with some earth balance - they tasted exactly like they should.

Fair warning - these aren't a dessert so much as a snack or something to have with coffee. They're not super sweet. yummy though ;)

sunday rose muffins

sometimes breakfast is the hardest meal of the day. you wake up, you're hungry for something tasty, but you haven't been awake long enough to make actually decisions about what that something is. you could go out and buy something, but that would involve putting on shoes. cereal isn't serious enough and pancakes are so...expected. before the first cup of coffee is even half done, the whining has started and the morning is off to a rocky start.

this is when it's time to bust out the muffin recipes - especially if you've never made muffins before. as I type this, the muffins are in the oven and I have no idea how they'll turn out. however, it's been determined that if they taste anything like the batter, they'll taste pretty damn good. I clicked over to the post punk kitchen's website to get an idea for flour-sugar measurements, but the rest is pure invention. the cardamom is a tribute to sarah elisabeth's norwegian roots since norwegian baking puts cardamom in everything, thus making it the most delicious bread products to grace the planet.

*1 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour
*1 1/4 cups of sugar
*1 tablespoon baking powder
*1/4 teaspoon salt
*1 teaspoon cinnamon
*3 teaspoons cardamom
*1/2 cup soy milk
*1/2 cup vegetable oil
*1 tablespoon vanilla yogurt
optional:
*frozen raspberries
*walnuts
-preheat the oven to 400 degrees
-mix together the dry ingredients
-in a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients
-combine the two, suckers!

at this point, I poured half of the batter into a separate bowl (reusing the wet bowl). I added the defrosted raspberries to one batch and let the other batch stand as is. I opted to pour in some of the raspberry liquid too, which may have been a mistake. it made the batter much more liquidy than it had been. but, since the muffins are still in the oven, I have no idea what the consequences of this action will be.

-fill a greased muffin pan with the batter, filling the tin 2/3 of the way
in this version of muffin adventures, the six on the left are raspberry, the three on the far right are walnut, and the second row in from the right is just plain muffin flavored:
okay! now this is the part where I take the muffins out of the oven and see how they turned out. excitement!

twenty minutes later...

the muffins, folks, they're damn good. I'm not going to lie. they're pretty fantastic. you should make these. see how delicious they look? so delicious. they're very sweet (I blame the sugar), but they taste like divinity. so moist and full of cardamom. they fell a little bit because I wanted to make sure they weren't burning and kept the oven open a tad too long. oh dear me. sometimes I am so excellent at solving the breakfast dilemma.

the (macro)biotic woman

come january 1, I'm back on the macro wagon. I fell off during the summer when I decided that it was more philosophically sound to fully partake of my farm share and eat the local deadly nightshades (otherwise known as potatoes and tomatoes and peppers) than to avoid them and eat foods grown outside of my neighborhood farm. but now the farm share is over, the rules have been bent, and I'm so far outside of macrobiotic guidelines that it's a bit of a sham to even claim the title for my own.

I got into macrobiotics about a year ago through a book that had been recommended to sarah elisabeth. two things struck me as I studied the basics of this diet:

1. macrobiotics is a lifestyle choice, not a diet. it's a philosophy that manifests through food but is actually about the way a person chooses to live her life;
2. macrobiotics is pretty much exactly what my nutritionist had me doing when I was prepping for my back surgery - and that period of my life was the healthiest I think I've ever had.

the description of macrobiotics was so sane and so familiar - creating a diet that is balanced with a person's life and the world around her - that any sort of extremes were diminished in face of the larger picture. (I will admit, however, that it didn't hurt that I had just discovered I was lactose intolerant. cutting out all dairy is much easier when eating it gives a kid crippling gas.) plus the people who were teaching me about macrobiotics, like my friend robin and jessica porter, were so normal when explaining the details to me. yes, there was talk about the yin and yang of foods, but all of it was delivered with a shrug and a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. it was the most rational food talk I'd heard in a long time.

macrobiotic eating is hard to describe to people who have never heard of it, especially because there are some parts of macro living that are guaranteed to raise the crazy flag. like the fact that many people insist that macrobiotics can cure cancer. I don't believe that (not many folks do, it turns out). but I do believe that what I eat should be a balance of foods that are good for me and good for the world around me. I do believe that how I eat is more than just the food on my plate.

this is probably the most straightforward explanation of macro eating and life that I've found. in addition to the macro food pyramid, it also suggests that fresh air, a good night's sleep, and singing are key parts of macrobiotic life. any dietary guideline that tells me that singing a song is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, well, you've got my heart right there.

getting saucy

my cooking can arguably be described as variations on a theme: I cook some vegetables up and serve them on brown rice or whole wheat pasta. sometimes I throw some polenta in there but mostly I don't. however, even I sometimes want a bit of variety. and that's where the sauce comes in.

I don't like heavy sauces because the whole point of my cooking is that I want to know what my food tastes like. but I do want a sauce that will make my veg taste like super exciting versions of themselves. and, if possible, I want to make it myself.

there is an art to the sauce. I am aware of that, although I have no idea how to access that art. for me, sauces are still in the lab stage - I mix some things together and hope that nothing blows up. (I've finally learned to do my mixing outside of the dish in which I'm cooking.) but I like this experimentation. I don't get a white lab coat - a long-standing dream of mine, but I do get to feel like I'm creating a dish versus enabling one.

last night's sauce recipe: 1 healthy teaspoon of red chili paste, 1 healthy pinch of brown sugar, and 1 slow pour of soy sauce. mix in a glass. mix with the carrots, broccoli, and red cabbage over medium high heat. get a little reckless and splash some red wine out of your glass into the pan. enjoy over brown rice.