Eating the Red, White, and Blue

Happy Unofficial start of Summer! Memorial Day is here and it brought so much delicious food with it!

YUM YUM YUM!! 

I'm currently crashing with a friend as I work through summer classes, but we had the day off for the holiday. My roommate and I were having some barbecue/beach life/long weekend vacation FOMO, but thankfully a mutual friend was feeling the same. So we pulled together to get a cookout going! He had access to a charcoal grill, poolside, and a full kitchen! I decided it was the perfect opportunity to knock out some Moosewood recipes.

As a vegetarian, grilling can be tough to navigate, so I thought vegetable kebabs would be a great meal for me and side item for others. I chose cherry tomatoes, summer yellow squash, zucchini, onion, orange and yellow bell peppers, carrots, and mushrooms. These were totally delicious! I ate about five along with tons of watermelon and potato chips.

The mushrooms mostly all fell off the skewers as soon as you tried to put them on the stick. The carrots also sometimes were finicky. But I was generally able to get it to work and most of the chunks stayed on even after grilling. Moosewood has a marinade recipe, which I followed loosely. Basically, it consisted of oil, red wine vinegar, and a few spices. I used some black peppercorns, salt, oregano, and basil. Moosewood also suggested thyme, but my roommate didn't have any and I didn't want to buy a whole new container. I really don't think they needed anything else, but I also think you could totally freehand the marinade and it would be great!

Also, we had a ton of vegetables not yet skewered, but perfectly marinated. So for dinner tomorrow, we're gonna stir fry those up with some rice and possibly fried egg. Can't wait!

Moosewood suggested a lattice for the top crust,
but I didn't really have enough crust to work with

My other contribution to the barbecue was a blueberry pie--very American. I decided to try to go for a red, white, and blue motif by adding a layer of strawberries. As has been seen before, I have some issues with pies and pie crust, so I decided to use store bought this time. Unfortunately it really did not do any better. Instead of being dry and brittle, it was doughy and mush. Also the blueberries did not really congeal. So I ended up with a kind of blueberry-strawberry cobbler soup. Which was very yummy, but very weird. There's about a quarter left over, so I might try to make it into some kind of blueberry crisp dessert. Not sure yet.

All-in-all, it was a great dinner and a great way to spend the day! Hanging out by the pool, eating delicious food with friends, laughing, singing, and straight up enjoying life! Things are going great!

Fruitylicious

Last week, I made Moosewood's Blueberry Cornbread (and forgot to blog about it). I was a bit wary, because blueberry and corn does not sound like an appetizing flavor combo. BUT IT WAS SO DELICIOUS. Seriously, it was one of my favorite things that I've made. You follow the basic corn bread recipe  and add just slightly more sugar, as well as fresh (or frozen) blueberries. And man oh man, it was soooooooooo good.

I apologize for the plethora of REALLY
unattractive photos that have been gracing the blog lately....

Tonight, I made another yummy fruit treat by mixing blackberries, plain yogurt, and honey to make Moosewood's oh so creatively named, "Fruited Yogurt Desserts". This was also very good and very simple. I don't really agree that it should exclusively be a dessert though. I also ate this for breakfast this morning, just with less honey. It was pretty delicious. If you stirred in a little granola, it'd be perfect.

Just a quick update tonight. Exams are underway and I am slowly packing up my apartment as I'll have to move out in a few weeks. I also need to go through my pantry and use up the remaining random crap that's been in there for awhile....thrilling days coming up in the life of Miranda.

Sacre Bleu Cheese!

I know that previously on this blog I have expressed how much I love cheese. But to be perfectly honest, I am not the biggest fan of blue cheese. Part of it has to do with my mold phobia, but it's mostly just the taste. I just don't like it. But I will eat it, especially if it's part of another dish or a salad garnish or something. So, I was a little apprehensive about this recipe for a blue cheese and pear sandwich from Moosewood. Thankfully, it's one of those recipes where the cook can decide the ratios  of each ingredient, so I added a minimal amount of blue cheese.

The whole thing makes a simple lunch that is very filling. You take the blue cheese and mix it up with some cream cheese and chopped walnuts. Then, you spread that mixture onto some bread and top with sliced pears. I did get a few bites that were more blue cheese than anything else, which wasn't great for me. But, overall I really liked this meal! I chose a very hearty whole wheat bread that paired really well with the cream cheese and the Bartlett pears I chose were excellently juicy.

The Sorbet and Meringue Merengue

            It’s dessert time on the blog again, and the theme of today’s dessert is waiting. Firstly for the meringues to dry out and secondly for the sorbet to freeze. But believe me, it’s entirely worth it.

            Meringues are sort of truffle, bite-size, delicacies that Moosewood presents as either chocolate or lemon flavored. They’re incredibly light (no butter, oil, or flour) made mostly from egg whites. You bake them at a low temperature for about three hours. The consolation prize is the unreal and completely decadent smell that permeates your entire apartment. I wanted to make both the lemon and chocolate at the same time, but there wasn’t enough room on my one pan. I probably couldn’t fit two pans in my oven anyway. But this meant I got a round one and round two of meringues!

            The berry sorbet was another light and simple dessert that took awhile to make. Basically you make Moosewood’s berry sauce and then stick it in the freezer. Hilariously, Moosewood’s first recommendation was to make berry sauce and put it in an ice cream maker and follow the instructions there. Though I’m kind of offended that the author would immediately assume I own an ice cream maker, she does indicate that she herself doesn’t even have one. Though apparently this recipe is technically called “berry ice” rather than sorbet. And ironically, you have to defrost the berries before freezing them again.

            The meringues have the confusing quality of being both fluffy and crispy at the same time. To be honest, they’re very similar to Styrofoam. But tastier. They’re kind of porous on the inside, but packed with flavor and decadence. I wish I had a pastry bag so that mine weren’t just amorphous blobs of dessert, but for now, the deliciousness will suffice.

Downton Day

With the season 4 premiere of Downton Abbey on PBS tonight, I decided I would channel my inner Mrs. Patmore and bake up some Apricot-Almond bread. Moosewood describes it as “ideal for brunches and teas”, so it seemed especially appropriate for the occasion. It’s a light and sweet dessert that toes the line between bread and cake. It also takes an incredibly long amount of time, not just to bake (60 minutes!), but also to prepare. But it’s worth the wait.

            To start with you have to boil the dried apricots to soften them up. Then you mix in the dry ingredients along with honey, flavorings, and egg. The dough is incredibly sticky, due to the honey, but also chunky with the almonds and dried apricots. The final product is kind of lumpy and misshapen, even with the pan as a guide. Mine came out a bit dry, especially on the edges, but still quite yummy. It’s just the right amount of sweet and the apricot bits are wonderful little treats.

Merry Christmas!

I know I said yesterday that I wasn't cooking anything for Christmas. That was a lie. I did not make a Moosewood recipe, but I did help out with our dinner. Mom and I made an egg and cheese soufflé from Moosewood's follow-up book, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Additionally, I got my first exposure to filo dough which will be featured on the blog again soon.

We also made a delicious trifle for dessert. Mom got this beautiful dish as a gift in the morning and we scrounged up some fillings. A quick trip to CVS allowed us to buy instant vanilla pudding, but sadly not whipped cream. Still very yummy though.

So, just a quick little holiday post for tonight. I hope you had a happy holiday and that 2013 ends wonderfully for you!

All photo credit goes to Mom

Holy Ricotta Cheesecake, Batman!

            Yes, you read that correctly: ricotta cheesecake AKA Italian cheesecake AKA authentic (old timey) cheesecake. This fluffy, thick cake doesn’t even have a crust to infringe upon the filling. It’s pretty intense. In addition, I topped it with Moosewood’s super simple berry sauce for maximum deliciousness. The whole dessert was for a Christmas potluck; so again the pressure was on to bring it and bring it good.

Looks appetizing, doesn't it? 

            In addition to a humongous pile of ricotta cheese (see left), the cake includes grated lemon rind, lemon juice, almond extract (which smells horrendous but apparently tastes wonderful), vanilla extract, and all your normal cake stuff like sugar, eggs, and flour. The lemon juice and zest makes the whole concoction smell amazeballs and the heavenly scent spreads through your whole apartment. It’s perfection.

The recipe calls for 2 lbs. of ricotta cheese or two 15oz containers. I found the 15oz containers in Kroger but then saw a double size one, which I bought. But then when I got back to the apartment, I noticed it said 1 lb. But it also said 30oz. So I have no idea if it was the correct amount or not, but it seemed fine when I was mixing it all together. I think two of those containers would be an all too ridiculous pile of cheese.

            When mixing everything together, you can toss it all in a blender or use a hand mixer (which I did). Since there are really only 2 steps—mix and bake—this is a hard recipe to screw up. And it yields fantastic results.

            The hardest part of making the berry sauce was waiting for the berries to defrost. I bought a bag of mixed berries (blue-, rasp-, and black-) from Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago because I thought I was going to use them for something else. I was a little worried about freezer burn since it’s been awhile, but the bag was never opened I figured it’d be okay. But you do have to let them defrost for a bit first. Then it’s just a quick blenderization of the berries, some sugar, and lemon juice. You also have to strain the sauce to get rid of the seeds, which is a cluster and a half. I don’t have a sieve that’s narrow enough so I decided to use a piece of cheesecloth over a colander. This failed epically, so I decided to blenderize the sauce as much as possible and forgo straining. It was a little seedy but still good and perfectly paired with the cheesecake.

            Now, I should say that calling these cheesecake is a bit of a lie. It does not taste like cheesecake. It’s less creamy than typical cheesecake and is fluffier and almost echoes angel food cake in taste. I still think it’s good, but a few people were kind of put off by it. So make sure you warn your tasters that this is not your average cheesecake. Also, don’t pull a me and forget to warn people with nut allergies about the almond extract!