Dinner Tonight: Morrocan/Middle Eastern-Inspired Meal

This past weekend, I went home for a few days, and probably the best part of being home for the weekend (aside from showering in a private bathroom without flip flops) was going to the Grower's Market on Saturday. I picked up some sharp cheddar cheese and fresh apple cider for my dad, and shopped around for me: Some of Highland Farms' excellent French feta sheep cheese; North Star Orchards' sweet, crunchy Empire apples; and a honkin' big head of cauliflower. I admit, I was also tempted by exotic, three-foot stalks covered in brussels sprouts. Because they are a special horror to my mother, I have made it to 21 years old without ever having been confronted with a brussels sprout, and thanks to a recent post on Simply Recipes I am eager to try them.

Sunday I drove back to school (and learned on the way that in New York there is a maximum IQ for drivers licenses) with the cheese, the last apple, and half the head of cauliflower in tow. The money on my meal plan has been dwindling, along with my patience for the terrible food at school. So, what do you do when confronted with half a head of cauliflower and an eggplant brought by a visiting friend that's moving to punkyville? You make dinner, of course.

My starting point was the cauliflower. My favorite way to eat cauliflower is roasted; toss it in olive oil, season however you want, and roast in the oven around 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until tender and delicious. Cauliflower and eggplant together remind me of Morrocan cuisine (a strange association since I've never actually had Morrocan cuisine, just read about it) so I lightly seasoned the cauliflower with cumin, chili powder, and a tiny touch of garlic.

I admit my continued cluelessness about Morrocan food, but that doesn't mean I'm not enthusiastic. The eggplant dish, which I jumped into with both feet, came out serentipitously well. If you know what Morrocan food is like, tell me if this bears any resemblance at all to it, please:

Roasted Eggplant Somethingy

1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1-2 T olive oil

Cumin, chili powder, garlic or other seasonings to taste

1 c large bread crumbs. (We had some stale ciabbata bread that was absolutely perfect.)

1 small can tomato paste

1 large can diced tomatoes (or 2-3 medium tomatoes, diced)

Toss the eggplant in olive oil; add spices. Add bread crumbs, tomato paste, and diced tomatoes and toss until uniform. Since I cook college style, I laid out a large sheet of tin foil, laid the eggplant mixture on it, and wrapped it up. (Not because I'm lazy but because I only have one pan.) You can put yours in a casserole and cover it. Bake at 400 for 30-40 minutes or until the eggplant is tender.

I also served this with roasted red peppers, hummus from the dining hall salad bar, and rice. (Couscous or pita bread might have been more appropriate, but I had rice, and it's not like they sell couscous or pita bread on campus.) I got to share this with my roommates and a friend who is starting to starve because of the absurdly high prices of food on campus. There were almost no leftovers, just a little bit of eggplant left in the foil because we all filled up on cauliflower, rice, and red peppers with hummus. Yum. ^_^

Try This Recipe: One-Pot Lentil Stew & Recipe Exchange

My mother is a very sensible woman and does not usually pass on or even read chain emails, but she actually sent me one recently. It's a virtual recipe exchange; send your favorite go-to easy recipe to the person who sent the email to her, and then pass the recipe exchange invitation along to your contacts, asking them to send her a recipe and do the same, so that you recieve recipes from their contacts. It's kind of interesting because you wind up with recipes that you might not have gotten otherwise.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I actually participated, in part because I am sick as a dog and have been nursing a pot of lentil stew. It's excellent, as dorm fare goes, and pretty darn good as a sick-day cookup, too. This is the recipe I sent out (to my Aunt Patti, actually.)

One-Pot Lentil Stew

1 c. chopped ham, bacon, or canadian bacon

1 medium onion, chopped

2 medium carrots, chopped

2 stalks of celerey, chopped

2-3 cups of any other veggies you feel like adding, chopped. Tried and true: cabbage, potato, spinach, turnip, and parsnip - not necessarily in the pot together, but they each work well in this stew.

1 can of diced tomatoes, with juice

1 can of V8

Water (fill the empty tomato can and pour it in)

Salt, pepper and rosemary (optional) to taste

1 c. lentils (or other dried bean)

In a large pot over mediumt to high heat, cook the ham and onion together until they begin to caramelize, stirring frequently. Add the carrots, celerey, and other veggies, stirring until they begin to wilt. Add diced tomatoes, V8, and water. Simmer 5-10 minutes, or until the veggies are tender. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired. If you want, add a whole sprig of rosemary. (Rosemary tastes great in this, and by adding a whole sprig you can cook in the flavor but pull out the needles, so it doesn't ruin the texture.) Add lentils and simmer, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes or until lentils are tender. Serves 8.

If the recipe exchange sounds interesting to you, let me know by emailing me at uronlysunshine@gmail.com. I'll add you to the email before I send it out - I'm curious to see what I'll get back. Enjoy!

Try This Recipe: Mom's Dark Chocolate & Orange Cake

My mother loves to bake, even more than I do. As I've mentioned before, she is a chemist, and baking is chemistry with really tasty results. She also decorates cakes for friends and family. When my oldest cousin got married, Mom made her wedding cake, covered in fondant and Cornelini lace. Learning from her has been one of the best things in my culinary education. If you have a little extra orange buttercream icing, try your hand at making buttercream roses.

This is the cake she made for my 21st birthday. She created this recipe for the Hershey's Cocoa Classic, and got all the way to the Pennsylvania State Fair with it last year, before being railroaded by an anti-citrus judge. Be aware, this cake is very strong in flavor, and quite rich. You could easily get 16 slices from this, and even more if you've got a sharp knife.

For the cake:

6 T butter

6 T margarine

1 3/4 c sugar

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

2 c flour

3/4 c Hershey's Special Dark cocoa

1 1/4 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 1/3 c water

Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans, line bottoms with wax paper, grease paper. Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter, margarine and sugar in large mixer bowl. Add eggs and vanilla; beat 1 minute at medium speed. Combine dry ingredients; add alternately with water to creamed mixture. Pour batter into greased pans. Bake for 45 minutes at 350, or until layers test done. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack, removing wax paper immediately, and allow cakes to cool completely.

Orange buttercream icing:

3/4 c butter

1 t orange extract

Zest of 2 medium oranges

3 c powdered sugar

1 1/2 T heavy cream

(optional) food coloring - 2 drops red, 4 yellow

Cream butter, add extract and zest. Gradually add cream and sugar. Add food coloring if desired. Beat on high until smooth and light.

Chocolate fudge frosting:

6 T melted butter

1/2 c Hershey's Special Dark cocoa

2 c powdered sugar

1/4 c heavy cream

1 t vanilla extract

Pour melted butter into mixing bowl; add cocoa, stirring until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar, cream, and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

To assemble the cake, level your halves, and torte the layers - cut them in half horizontally, so that now you have four thin layers of cake. Fill between the layers with the orange icing, and use it to make a thin crumb coat on the sides of the cake. This does a couple of things: torting the cake distributes rich orange flavor, and the crumb coat keeps the cut edges of the cake from gunking up the outer layer of your icing with - you guessed it - crumbs. Ice the sides and top of the cake with chocolate icing, and decorate with the remaining orange buttercream. No matter how it looks, this is a showstopper once the first person takes a bite.

Try This Vlog: Working Class Foodies

If you've read more than two or three posts by now you know that I am a huge fan of Simply Recipes and 101 Cookbooks. Now, I am also a fan of Working Class Foodies. The premise of this sort-of vlog is that siblings in New York are looking to prepare healthy food from sustainable sources on a tight budget. Sounds pretty familiar, huh? I'd get my brother in on this, but he has a thing for Cheetohs and Top Ramen. WCF is just fun, light, informative, and it makes my mouth water every time I watch it.

In other news, we finally have a fridge! My roommates and I are all looking forward to being to store the food we've prepared, and I am looking forward to... boxed lunches. Yessiree, you heard me right, I am looking forward to boxed lunches. My schedule this semester runs me hard from 9 to 5, and there simply are no Hofstra meals that are fast, cheap, and appetizing. Solution? Bento! I might not spend the time and effort Anna the Red does but that doesn't mean I can't learn a little something from the Japanese art of the boxed lunch. This weekend will include a grocery store run for an appropriate box, rice, and some nice fresh veggies.

Try This Recipe: Basilisk Repellent

I feel like there's no point in obfuscating my location any more, now that it's been plastered across national headlines. I go to Hofstra University, and in case you haven't heard, this past week my campus has been rocked by first allegations of gang rape, and then the unsettling truth that it was consentual. This has been accompanied by other, actual, incidents of violence - a brawl during a Greek life party, an armed robbery, and two incidents of young women being detained and harassed by young men. All in all, no one is feeling very safe on campus right now, especially young women.

I was lucky enough to have five years of training in Tang Soo Do before leaving for school, but neither of my roommates have had much self-defense training. The university offers a weekly Aikido class, which we'll be taking together for a while. Lindsey, one of my roomies, has taken to calling it "Basilisk Defense."

As an aid to all basilisk defenses, I think all young women should carry some form of basilisk repellent. In New York, the strict laws about Mace and pepper spray make me want to err on the side of caution, so here is a homemade version of anti-creep spray that is perfectly legal. Keep in mind that the purpose of self-defense sprays is to give you a chance to run away, not inflict harm. I have overheard plenty of young women talking about how they'd try to beat up a creep like that, and the point is: don't. If you are ever in that situation, your job is to stay safe. Focus on remembering what your attacker looks like and how you can get away. If you are able to spray, do so, and make a break for it. My Aunt Gloria's advice is to look an attacker in the eyes, because it reminds him that you are human, too, and it also slows his reflexes.

Get a small spray bottle, like the kind scents come in, which you can often find at craft stores. Fill it most of the way with rubbing alcohol, and add a few drops of your favorite essential oil. Top with water or witch hazel, cap, and shake well. It's really that simple - a good spray of that about the eyes and face will sting an attacker and distract him long enough for you to run away.

Almost anything in a spray bottle can work: perfumes, sanitizers, anything with some alcohol in it stings. I actually carry a bottle of fabric freshener in my purse, because it has the benefit of stinging alcohol, as well as not looking like a weapon, and the confusion factor of "It stings, it stings - why do I smell like spring rain?"

So, ladies and gentlemen, please keep yourselves safe. Be aware of your surroundings, trust your gut, and look out for yourselves and your friends.

PS - Friday was my birthday. Soon to be posted: my mother's killer chocolate cake recipe.

Try This Recipe: "With" Buns

Although we have yet to acquire a refrigerator for our room, I have managed to keep my sourdough starter, Mikey, alive and well for two weeks so far. I've even baked with her three times, with varying success - sourdough needs salt, and a fair amount of it, too. (For clarity, I mean the dough and not the starter. Salt kills yeasties, but it also makes your bread taste good. Big thanks to the lovely ladies of Ravelry for that.) My latest attempt was just yesterday, and it was quite a success.

I'm sure somewhere out there someone has a name for this kind of bread, but my roommates and I are calling it yummy. It's sourdough buns "with" - the "with" being cheese, carrots, and peppers. And it tastes amazing. I'm curious to see what you think of it.

Buns Wit'

(for all you cheesesteak eaters out there)

1 cup sourdough starter

1/2 cup warm (not hot) water

3-5 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 liberal shake of garlic powder (optional)

Mix your sourdough and water in a large bowl, and slowly add one cup of flour at a time. I recommend adding two cups of all-purpose and then the wheat flour, to make sure all the wheat flour is absorbed into the dough. When the wheat flour is mixed in, add more all-purpose flour until the dough forms an elastic ball in the middle of the bowl. With floured hands, knead in the salt (and garlic powder, if you like) a 1/2 teaspoon at a time. Continue kneading for three minutes; this is the stage where your kneading turns the flour-and-water glue into gluten, long proteins that bind the bread and trap the carbon dioxide from the yeast, making your bread light and lofty. I find it easiest to knead in the bowl, as it makes cleanup simple and protects the dough from poorly-cleaned counter tops.

1/4 cup carrots, finely chopped

1/4 cup red pepper, finely chopped

1/4 cup green pepper, finely chopped

1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese

(I do appreciate the salad bar at school - it is more or less an ingredients bar, and half the prep work is already done.)

Knead the "with" ingredients in in small quantities. Flatten your dough, sprinkle a little on top, and pull one edge over and press down. Rotate the dough a quarter turn and pull that edge over and press down. Repeat with all edges, and then start again with the next ingredient. Once you've got all the veggies and cheese you want incorporated, keep kneading for another three to five minutes, to evenly distribute the goodness.

Cover the bowl and let rise until doubled in a warm place. Depending on how active your sourdough is and how warm the place, this can take quite a while. One of the challenges of dorm baking is that sometimes, our dorm gets inexplicably chilly. The low-tech, I-don't-want-to-stay-in-the-kitchen solution is to cover your dough with a towel, secure the towel with a rubber band or tape, and then get cozy. Tuck the bowl under the covers with you and let your body heat do the work. I have actually done this, while doing a homework assignment. Yeast likes temperatures from the mid-seventies to the upper nineties, and our dorm was stubbornly sticking to the low sixties. It's a little bit Oregon Trail, but it works.

The more reputable solution is to warm an oven to its lowest setting (usually 200 degrees) and put your dough in with the door propped open so it doesn't get too hot. If your oven has a light, which the ones at school don't, just turning on the light and closing the door is usually enough to make your yeasties happy.

When your dough has doubled, punch it down and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Using a very sharp knife, cut the dough into quarters, for big buns, or sixteenths, for single-serving buns. Shape each piece of dough into a mini boule, done by tucking one edge under, rotating the dough a quarter turn, and repeating until you have a little round ball. Arrange the mini boules on a baking sheet or in a loaf or cake pan. I like mine close enough to bake together, but you can space them out if you prefer. Give them their second rise, until doubled. (This rise must be done in the oven. It can only be done in the bowl if you are making a single large loaf.)

When they have almost doubled, remove from the oven and preheat the oven to 425 F. Using a very sharp serrated knife, slash an "x" in the top of each mini boule. This slash allows steam to escape as they bake, which helps with the texture of both crumb and crust. It also looks cute. Just before putting the bread in the oven, spray or sprinkle the it with water. I usually do this by wetting my hand over the faucet and flicking water over the bread five or six times. If you have an oven-safe container, fill it with water and put it in the oven as well. The steam will help your crust brown nicely without being too tough.

Bake for 15 minutes, turn and add more water to the other container if necessary, and bake for another 15 minutes. Check for doneness - the loaves should be golden brown to dark brown, and should sound hollow when you tap on them. If not, let bake for another 5 minutes. If the bread is browning too quickly, cover with tin foil. When the bread is done, remove from oven and allow to cool. (A wire rack is nice for this step, but not required.) Once it's cool enough to handle, eat and enjoy!

Dinner Tonight: The Gourmet Dorm Makes Beurre Blanc

Hello from beautiful Long Island! I'm back at school again, and my roommates and I have found a way to comfortably solve the jigsaw puzzle that is a triple. It's actually quite spacious, and the room has two key perks: a long-shot view of Manhattan, and a very short trip up the stairs to the kitchen. Normally, I know, dorm kitchens inspire fear in even the hardiest of hearts, but our lovely learning institution made some improvements and so far everything has stayed clean enough that I can tolerate cooking there.

Yesterday one of my roommates encountered two young men

trying, with no success, to cook some haddock that one of them caught in Vermont on Saturday. After destroying one small fillet, they left her with four large ones. So today after classes we went to the grocery store for supplies and in our tiny dorm we and our friends made a feast.

Tonight's menu:

Pan-searedhaddock fillet with

sauteed mushrooms in beurre blanc

Garlic mashed potatoes

Fresh green beans

I have been slowly working my way through Julia Child's My Life in France and when Jane said haddock, I knew I had to try a beurre blanc. It is practically a character in her memoir. She describes in tantalizing detail the tangy, buttery, distinctive taste of the rich French sauce - literally "white butter" - so tantalizing, in fact, that I found myself salivating as I read. And you know what? It deserves its reputation.

Beurre blanc is time-consuming but not overly complicated. It is simply minced shallots in the acid(s) of your choice (battery acid strongly discouraged) reduced over low heat, into which one whisks cold butter. It sets off the taste and texture of mild fish beautifully.

My beurre blanc was more of a beurre marron, because rather than

buying white wine vinegar, we stole almost a cup of balsamic vinegar from the dining hall. (Stole is a bit harsh. The ladies at the checkout don't know what to do when you walk past holding cups of salad dressing, so they just don't bother to ask.) This went in a little pot with three finely minced shallots and about 3/4 to 1 cup of lemon juice. I brought it to a boil, and then turned the heat to low while the sauce reduced by roughly half, stirring occasionally.

In a large pan, a friend sauteed 8 oz of sliced button mushrooms until brown and tender, and reserved them in a bowl while Jane started the haddock. She understands fish much better than I do - my impulse to check and fiddle and meddle does not do with the patient nature of fish. She lightly coated the pan with olive oil, and added the haddock skin-side down over medium-high heat. And then she waited. Unless you are adding enough oil to fry, fish sticks to the pan until it is done and ready to release, and if you poke it around any sooner - like I tend to do - you will break it up and ruin it. We watched the tinges of pink in the fish flesh slowly disappear as it cooked, the edges turning white first. When the skin side was good and done, Jane flipped it and did the other side. Simple, but you have. to. take. your. time.

Meanwhile I was back at the other range, cutting butter into

manageable chunks and whisking it into the balsamic-lemon-shallot reduction, which I had turned down to below a simmer. I added - I kid you not - a full three sticks of butter to the beurre blanc. Once the butter was fully incorporated I took it off the heat and added the mushrooms. We added the sauce to the fish on the plate and I got one of my favorite cook compliments ever - five minutes of relative silence punctuated by "mmm, yummy" noises.

Good food, good friends - good times.

Yeah, one of their improvements was to give the kitchen a mural of - what, the Riviera? We're not really sure. But it does add to the ambiance.

Top right: up close and personal with the haddock fillets. We were quite impressed, as the young man who caught the haddock cleaned and filleted it himself.

Middle left: Chopping shallots

Bottom right: A friend helping me to whiskwhiskwhisk the butter into the beurre blanc.