Recipes 31 and 32—Special Edition

Mile-High Lasagna Pie

My father and I decided to throw an Italian-themed dinner party for some family friends, so we thought it would be a good way to knock out a few of the later recipes (rather than just serving a dinner of appetizers).

We chose a main course and a dessert, then added some other things (that weren't from the book).

The main course we chose was Mile-High Lasagna Pie. It's basically a circular lasagna made in a spring-form pan so that you can remove it from the pan and display it as a free-standing  item. It's pretty cool. My dad was also surprised that it has no meat, which makes it vegetarian.

The ingredients list is pretty extensive, but they all combine to make a pretty awesome lasagna. It is labeled as "Best Ever" after all. Whole wheat lasagna noodles, olive oil, carrots, zucchini, garlic, mushrooms, baby spinach, egg, ricotta cheese (my dad insists that all lasagna is made with cottage cheese), Parmesan, salt, pepper, tomato basil pasta sauce, fontina and mozzarella, and rosemary sprigs. 

Essentially, you spread sauce on the bottom of the pan, then add noodles, then add a mixture of mushrooms and spinach, then ricotta, then noodles, then sauce, then carrot and zucchini, then cheese, then noodles, then mushroom mixture, then ricotta cheese, then noodles, then sauce. Bake that, add cheese near the end, and it's done.

It came out of the pan pretty easily, and we used an electric meat slicer to slice it into pieces. I figured the moving serrated blades would prevent the lasagna from getting squished. It was very good, and one of my favorite foods I've made from this book. It really wasn't too hard to make either.

Tiramisu

For a dessert, we chose tiramisu. The hardest ingredient to find was the package of ladyfingers. I ended up finding them when I went to Lawrence to visit a friend. We went to Hy-Vee, and they didn't have them there, but they called the other Hy-Vee in Lawrence, and they did have them.

In addition to ladyfingers, this recipe of tiramisu calls for sugar, water, instant espresso powder (we also couldn't find this, but it says you can use a double strength of coffee powder), amaretto and hazelnut liqueurs, mascarpone cheese, vanilla, whipping cream, dried egg whites, and unsweetened coca powder.

We also altered the recipe a little and made individual cups rather than a casserole dish, but it worked about the same.

Both recipes turned out very well, and I would definitely make them again if the situation called for it.

Be on the look out for another posting tomorrow!

Recipe 30--Holiday Edition!

Caramel-Frosted Hummingbird Cake

For the last few years, my family has done something a little bit different for our Christmas dinner. It began when we had a German Christmas (since the majority of our ancestry is from Germany), and we made German food and learned about their traditions. This year, we decided on Hawaii. My grandma had a pretty extensive menu planned, choosing some of the most common traditional Hawaiian foods, but, due to the weather, part of our family couldn't make it, so we had to cut the list of foods down quite a bit. We still chose to make the Caramel-Frosted Hummingbird Cake, although it's not actually a Hawaiian food, you will be able to see why we picked it.

Most people that I had talked to had never heard of a hummingbird cake. Looking through the ingredients doesn't give much clue to the name--eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cloves, bananas, oil, vanilla, shredded sweet potatoes, and crushed pineapple. Already, the recipe seems kind of strange...but it doesn't sound bad. We picked it for the Hawaiian dinner because it had bananas and pineapple. The recipe itself makes enough batter to make a three-layer cake--which I had never made before.

After mashing bananas, shredding sweet potato, mixing everything together, and baking the cake, it came time to frost it. From my research, most hummingbird cakes are made with cream cheese frosting, but this recipe had its own recipe for a caramel butter frosting. The extremely healthy ingredients for it are: Brown sugar, butter, milk, and LOTS of powdered sugar. The frosting itself is delicious, but it needed to be used quickly because it stiffens up as it cools. So, working quickly, I attempted to frost my first three-layer cake. It didn't go too awfully, but it definitely didn't go too well either. The frosting was kind of hard to work with--it was rather oily and didn't want to stick to itself or the cake, so it probably would have been easier to start with a different cake and frosting combo to learn to frost cakes.

That being said, the cake and frosting itself were delicious. I'm not a huge sweet potato fan, but you couldn't really taste it. I think it was there more for decoration. Most of my family agreed, though, that it would probably be better with some chopped nuts in the frosting or cake. The cake is pretty dense, but very moist; the predominate flavor is definitely banana, so if I were to make it again, I would try adjusting the banana/pineapple ratio a bit.

Now--before I go--I will try to answer the question in everyone's head, "Why is it called Hummingbird Cake?! There are no hummingbirds in this cake!"

It turns out...no one knows. There are a few theories, some more plausible than others. Some people say that it's so sweet that hummingbirds will come and eat it. Others say that people hover around it like hummingbirds--or that it disappears so fast that it must move as quickly as a hummingbird. I think that the most likely explanation is that bananas and pineapple are major crops in Jamaica, and their national bird is a hummingbird.

Be on the lookout for more recipes! I have a few more I'm getting ready to post!

P.S. A special thanks to my father for the photography!

Recipes 27, 28, and 29 (Special Edition)

I'm going to preface this post by apologizing about the long wait for this. Midterms happened and I just got too busy to post things. I actually have been making them...I just haven't posted. Without further ado, here's a rather large update!

Balsamic Shallot and Goat Cheese Tart

I was really excited about this recipe...and for good reason. I had never had something like this before, so I was anxious to try making it--and to try eating it. The only thing I was nervous about finding, ingredient-wise, was the chèvre, or goat cheese. Sure enough, though, the weird-cheese section of Hy-Vee had exactly what I was looking for. The rest of the ingredients are: butter, shallots, honey, balsamic vinegar (which I still had from the tapenade debacle), salt, pepper, puff pastry (which I had still from the Brie en Croûte), egg yolk, water, and parsley.

You begin by sauteing in an oven proof pan--thank you Grandma for those cast-iron skillets--the shallots, butter, and honey until the shallots start to brown. Then, you add the balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Remove from heat and put it in the oven for a while, during which time you set up the puff pastry. Unfold it and cut a 1/2 inch strip from each side, then use a whisked egg yolk as edible "glue" to get the edges to form a sort of wall for your tart. Bake the puff pastry, then spoon the mixture in the skillet over it. Crumble the chèvre on top. Bake again for another couple minutes to soften it, and sprinkle the parsley on top.

The main problem I had was crumbling the cheese. Although it does crumble, when it gets just a little warm, it starts becoming more like cream cheese in consistency. I would almost want to put it in the freezer for a few minutes prior to attempting to crumble it.

Overall, though, it tasted delicious and I would definitely remake it. The shallot/honey/balsamic vinegar mixture is kind of sweet, while the chèvre added a tangy and creaminess to it.

Nachos

Nachos! This was one of my "take it to work" recipes. I'm glad I did. This recipe makes a LOT of nachos, but it would be perfect for a super-bowl party or something. One of my favorite things about this recipe was how they designed it. The problem with nachos, usually, is that the top nachos get all of the good stuff, and the bottom nachos get nothing and are just warm chips. This recipe has you put half of the chips in the baking pan, top them with half of the toppings, bake it, then repeat with the other half...so all of the chips are covered with nacho-stuff.

The main recipe called for ground beef, but I chose to do the Chicken Nachos variation. I cooked the chicken breast, then shredded the meat and added black beans and salsa to the chicken and stirred it up. You pour this mixture over the chips along with some cheese, and bake it. Then, as I said before, rinse and repeat. The book then says to top with whatever you want (sour cream, green onion, cilantro, etc). I bought a red onion, some sour cream, and a couple jalapenos. I started by chopping the onion...and right as I finished chopping it, I managed to put a nice gash in my thumb. Rather than risk getting jalapeno in my already painful cut, I decided to nix the jalapeno idea and just top the nachos with sour cream and onion. They were still delicious and they were actually very easy to make...aside from the injury.

I think this may be my first injury while cooking through this book. Maybe I should start a tally.

Snickerdoodle Pie

You all voted, and we made...Snickerdoodle Pie! I was actually quite curious as to how this would turn out. I didn't really understand how to turn a cookie into a pie, but this recipe succeeded with flying colors.

To my knowledge, I don't think I've ever made a pie completely from scratch. The pie section is kind of split into two parts. The first being recipes for various pie-crusts, and the second being the actual pies. The pie recipe will then say "1 recipe for [pie crust x]". This recipe called for "1 recipe pastry for a single-crust pie". It's basically just flour, salt, butter, shortening, and ice water. The actual pie is a little more complicated. It also comes in two parts...the filling and the syrup topping. The syrup topping consists of water, butter, corn syrup, cinnamon, and brown sugar which is heated on the stove till it's bubbly.

The filling is basically simplified snickerdoodle cookie dough, but with a little extra liquid so it stays moist during the baking process. Pour the filling into the unbaked pie-shell then top with the syrup. When it bakes, it gets quite poofy, but when it cools it settles down quite a bit.

It basically tastes like a giant under-cooked snickerdoodle cookie. It almost makes you want to just pick up the piece of pie and dip it in milk...which is what we served it with. It's pretty rich, and Kraig and I kept making Paula Deen jokes because of how much butter was in the recipe. The pie also made me kind of excited for the pie section!

Now that that's all out of the way, I'm starting a new poll. The theme for this poll is Soups and Stews!

All-American Cheeseburger Soup--this recipe even has ketchup and mustard in it!

Lamb Cassoulet--a cassoulet is technically a casserole, but it's not a typical casserole. It ends up being more stew-like

Kansas City Steak Soup--exactly what it says. Steak soup.

Minestrone--a thick Italian soup...like what they have at Olive Garden

Recipe 25 and 26

Chili Con Queso

The last of the cheesy dips, Chili Con Queso, was the perfect end to an era. Although I've been getting rather tired of cheese-based dips, it was still a very good recipe. I ended up taking it to work yesterday evening and sharing it with some of my co-workers who rather enjoyed it. It was a little tomato-y-er than the queso you buy at Mexican restaurants, but it was still very good.

Onion, butter, tomato, canned diced green chiles, cumin (ground), pepper jack cheese, cornstarch, and cream cheese. Cook the onion in the butter, add the chiles and tomato and let simmer for 10 minutes. Toss the pepper jack cheese in cornstarch and add it along with ground cumin (I didn't have any ground cumin, so I just took some cumin seeds and crushed them). Add the cream cheese and stir until warm and bubbly. Serve with chips!

Spinach Phyllo Triangles

Not actually paper.

I was also planning on bringing these to work last night, but as I started the recipe, I did not realize that frozen phyllo dough takes two hours to thaw, so I ended up thawing it in the fridge and making them the next morning to bring in. This, next to the brie en croute, may be one of the most labor intensive recipes I've had so far. Cook a package of frozen spinach and add onion, garlic, feta cheese, and oregano. Leave that off to the side while you do the hard part of the recipe.

FIRST, you carefully unwrap your 'phrozen' phyllo dough and cover it with a piece of plastic wrap--you need to keep it covered like this whenever you're not removing a sheet of phyllo dough. It's literally like tissue paper when it's perfectly moist. If it gets too dry, it just crumbles. Remove a sheet of the dough and lay it out on a flat dry surface and brush with a bit of melted butter. Get another sheet, lay it on top, and do the same thing. Cut the phyllo dough pieces into three equal(ish) columns and take a breather. Hopefully you haven't ruined too many sheets yet just trying to separate them from one another. Spoon a little of the filling on one end of each column. Start with one of the columns and fold the corner over the filling to make a triangle. Keep folding that triangle all the way up the column (similarly to how you fold a flag) and hope that the dough doesn't decide to be too dry and break.

As it turned out, I wasn't too great at making these in the beginning. My dough kept breaking and my triangles ended up being flaky blobs. I decided it was probably a combination of me not doing very well at first, and the dehumidifier running in my house. The water was probably being sucked out of the dough faster than I could fold it. I turned the dehumidifier off and put a pot of water on the stove to boil to help increase the humidity. I also put a damp paper towel over the phyllo dough. The last step turned out to be a bad one. It just so happens that when phyllo dough gets overly wet, it turns into wet tissue paper. I ended up having to toss a few sheets because I couldn't get them separated from each other.

After making a cookie-sheet full of triangles, I still had about half of the recipe to do, so I went ahead and baked those. By the time they came out of the oven, I had just finished off my recipe. I put the cooked triangles on a plate in my microwave to stay warm and baked the rest, then I immediately took them to work. They don't keep very long. They tend to get cold and soggy if you leave them out for extended periods of time, so I suggest, if you make these, to bake them right before they're needed. They were delicious and all of them were eaten at work...even after they got cold and not as crispy.

Recipes 23 and 24

Swiss Fondue and Molten Chocolate Cakes

As some of you may have noticed, the poll has been gone for about a week. It's because I made the Molten Chocolate Cakes last weekend. I'm also going to pre-apologize for the awful photography. My camera was running out of battery, and I didn't think to replace them. The flash didn't, well, flash on some of them leading to VERY dark pictures, and some others ended up quite blurry. I tried to edit them, but they're still pretty awful.

Starting with the better of the two dishes, we have Molten Chocolate Cakes. The recipe is quite simple, and it turned out pretty well. The full recipe makes 8, so we cut it in half; however, there really wasn't enough batter to cover the molten center, it seemed. Other than that, the cakes were very good. The ingredients consisted of semisweet chocolate, whipping cream, butter, eggs, sugar, and flour. Basically, you make the filling out of chocolate and butter then let it cool. Then you make the batter separately, pour some in, roll the filling into balls (which is VERY VERY messy), put the ball in, and then top with more batter. To make the small cakes, you use ramekins (which I had from making crème brûlée last semester). It's kind of neat to have a little personal desert for everyone.

The second recipe--Swiss Fondue--wasn't so great. It wasn't awful, but I probably wouldn't do it again. It calls for cheese (Gruyère, Emmentaler, or Swiss), garlic, flour, dry white wine, milk, Dijon mustard, nutmeg, and whatever you want to cover with cheese. We chose to steam some broccoli, cauliflower, and potatoes, toast some bread, and sear a steak, then make bite-sized pieces of all of them. The most interesting thing I found about the recipe was that, instead of adding the garlic to the fondue pot, you just rub the garlic around the inside of the pot before you use it. The cheese ended up being just...blah. It ended up tasting more like the wine, but the wine itself wasn't even that strongly prevalent in taste. If I were to do it again, I would try mixing in a cheese with a stronger/saltier taste.

Also, a new poll is up! The theme for next time is PIE!

French Silk Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Apple-Pear Praline Pie

Snickerdoodle Pie

Recipe 22

Brie en Croûte

The one on the right is apple and the left is blackberry jalapeno.

Here is the second of two brie recipes in my book (that I've noticed). I admit, I was pretty excited to make this after googling pictures of it. This recipe is probably the most involved recipe I've made so far, but it was fun. That's my favorite part of cooking. The more complicated, the better.

Basically, Brie en Croûte is a small wheel of brie topped with a jam of some sort, some chopped toasted nuts, then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. The cheese gets all melty, the pastry gets flaky, and the jam gets all gooey.

Apple. (kind of)

Sort of a jalapeño.

This time, I also made sure to take the rind off of the brie since it would be contained in a puff pastry anyway. While doing my rind research for the last recipe, I saw that someone used a vegetable peeler to take the rind off which actually worked very well. I should probably also mention that I did not make the puff pastry. The recipe calls for a frozen puff pastry sheet, so that's what I used. I didn't realize, however, that I would have to roll out the dough thinner than it already was (I probably should have completely read the recipe before I started the recipe). Since I don't own a rolling pin and happened to have just finished a roll of foil, I used the inner cardboard tube to roll out the sheet. It actually worked very well. Once you have it rolled out, you cut two 8-in. circles out of the dough and wrap the jam and nut topped brie with the circles. You can then use the leftover dough to cut out shapes to decorate the top. I tried to make an apple for the one where I used apple jam (who knew they made apple jam?!), and a jalapeño for the one where I used a blackberry jalapeño jam. They didn't turn out as well as I had hope, but they looked better than I actually thought they would.

I was a bit optimistic for how I hoped they would taste, but they weren't too bad. The brie tasted a little too cheesy for me, almost like a very mild cheddar. I know that some people eat cheese with apples and things, but I never really liked the pairing. I will have to say, though, that eating it with a slice of apple helped dull the sharpness of the cheese, making it more enjoyable to eat. The brie that I used for the previous recipe seemed milder and may have been because it was "double crème" meaning they used enriched cream; I didn't really have an option, though. There was only one kind of brie that was in a bigger wheel for the Praline-Topped Brie and one kind of brie that was in a smaller round (which wasn't double crème) for this recipe. If I try this again, I may look for a small double crème wheel and see if that helps.

If you haven't figured this out already, you can click the pictures to get a full-size view of them. I made the pictures a little smaller for this post since I had so many.

Recipe 21

Praline-Topped Brie

This recipe might be the simplest that I've made so far. Combine some fig or apricot preserves with a little brown sugar, then pour it on a round of brie. Sprinkle with chopped nuts, and bake for 15 minutes. It should have taken, at most, 20 mins to make this. How, then, did I manage to make this an hour long ordeal? It turns out I don't know that much about brie.

After unwrapping my wheel of brie, it seemed like it was still wrapped in moist paper. I tried for 5 or 10 minutes trying to get the paper off. I even made a little cut into the wheel to see what the problem was. I gave up and went to the internet to figure out what the was going on. It turns out that it wasn't wrapped in wet tissue paper, but in mold. Most brie has a rind on the outside made of fungus. My enthusiasm for this dish quickly faded once I realized you're supposed to leave the mold on, and then eat it. To be fair, some recipes say that you should cut the top of the rind off, but leave all the rest. I didn't really know why you would want to leave ANY of the fungus on the wheel, but what's the point of cooking things you've never had if you don't try it like it's supposed to be?

I left all of the "rind" on and put it in the oven to bake. When I pulled it out, the little cut I made had allowed about a fifth of the brie to ooze out--that's why they don't have you remove the rind. I took a cracker and scooped up a little of the oozed-cheese, jam, and nuts. It was delicious, but I still hadn't tried the rind. I used a knife and cut a little section of the rind off and ate it along with another cracker topped with brie and the topping. To be honest, I couldn't taste a big difference, but when I tried the rind by itself next, I discovered that it tastes like mushrooms. I don't really like mushrooms in a sweet dessert-like dish. If I had cut the top of the rind off, I think it probably would have made a bowl-like container for the brie, so you could just scoop out the cheese without getting the rind, and if I were to do this again, that's what I would do.

There are some savory/herb-y dishes you can do with a wheel of brie, and I think that would have been a little better if you wanted to consume the rind. Mushrooms go well in dishes like that...not in desserts.

The next recipe deals with brie as well, but in a form that will allow me to remove the rind without it oozing everywhere.

Recipe 20

Cheesy Artichoke and Spinach Dip

This dish happens to be one of my grandmother's favorite things, so I'm sure I'll be making this next time I see her. The recipe, though, is a little different than I've ever had, but I love it nonetheless. Again, it includes shredded cheese, so I think I should probably start a tally of how many cups of cheese I've shredded.

The main difference with this dip as opposed to the others that I've had is the addition of sweet red bell peppers. At the store, I picked up a bell pepper, went around and got everything else on my list, then realized I forgot the spinach. I went back and saw that they had bags of sweet mini peppers. I've had them before, and I have to admit that they made me a little nervous considering how closely they resemble habaneros. After trying them, I realized that they're essentially small bell peppers. I put the red bell pepper back and picked up a bag of these, figuring the variety in color would be pretty. After that, I picked up a bag of Popeye's Fresh Spinach (which I didn't know existed), and went home. 

The other ingredients in the dip are pretty common: onion, garlic, olive oil, cream cheese, shredded parmesan or romano (I went with parmesan), milk, mayo, sour cream, and artichoke hearts.

Sauté the onions, garlic, and peppers in the oil and then mix everything together and bake till bubbly.

Something neat that this cookbook mentions on this page is that you can use leftover dips in omelets the next day (it suggested tapenade, but we all know how that tastes). Since I have some eggs for one of the upcoming recipes, I may just try that tomorrow with this dip.

One last thing: If I can bring attention to the lovely red spatula/turner in the first picture. It's made by Tovolo and, although it's not exactly like the one mentioned in the following video by America's Test Kitchen, I'm sure the quality holds up brand-wide.

Recipe 19

Pimiento Cheese

I'm going to preface this post by saying that, if I had to pick a favorite thing that I've learned to make so far in this cookbook, it would be the toasted baguette slices that I learned to make in the first recipe I made. In the book it told me to serve this with crackers, but I think toasted bread tastes a lot better...and it's cheaper. I can get a small loaf of french bread for 79¢ at Hy-Vee. 

That being said, this recipe is alright. It tastes almost exactly like the pimiento cheese spread you can buy at most grocery stores. It's a mix of cheddar cheese, mayo, pimiento, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and garlic powder. I'm not a HUGE fan of pimiento cheese, but as far as pimiento cheeses go, this one is pretty good; plus, I always love to make things by hand.

I told one of my friends recently that I have grated more cheese in the past couple of weeks than I have in my entire life. I know they sell grated cheese at the store, but I really do like the texture of freshly grated cheese more. Also, if you're going to do a blog about cooking your way through a cookbook, you might as well go all the way.

It looks like the molten chocolate cakes are winning so far. I know that some of you really want the cheesecake to win, but we still have a while before the polls close.

Recipes 17 and 18 - Special Edition

Smoky Cheese Ball

&

Beef Bourguinonne

As you may have noticed, thanks to all of you who voted, the Beef Bourguinonne won for the Special Edition post; however, since I didn't manage to make the cheese ball before I left to spend a few days in Lawrence, Kraig and I ended up making it there along with the beef bourguinonne.

Firstly: the cheese ball. I've not been a huge fan of cheese balls during my life. I don't like smoked/smoky cheeses, and all of the ones that I've tried have been very smoky. I remembered that Kraig told me that he likes cheese balls, so I was going to make it, post about it, then give it to him when I went up for the special-edition recipe making. I ended up just waiting to make it there, but I still left him with the 2 cheese balls this recipe made.

In order to make it a little more enjoyable for me to eat, I didn't pick a lot of smoky cheeses. I ended up going for a mixture of cheddar and a little smoked Gouda just for fun. You mix your shredded cheese (which I shredded by hand again) with cream cheese, butter, milk, and steak sauce, then let it chill. After it chills for a while, roll it into a ball and cover with chopped toasted nuts (I chose almonds). Serve it with crackers (and wine, in our case) and enjoy!.

I actually liked this cheese ball. It wasn't smoky at all (probably thanks to my cheese choice), and I would make it again if I knew I needed to bring a snack or something to a party. I think the only change I would make is probably picked a stronger cheddar. It mostly tasted like cream cheese with a little cheddar-y flavor, so I think if I picked a stronger cheese, that would help some.

If anyone is curious about the wine (we didn't "pair" it with the cheese or anything) it's Frisk rosé--I don't remember the exact name. It was pretty good.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Now for the Special Edition part. You guys voted for, and we made, the Beef Bourguinonne.

Beef Bourguinonne basically means Beef Burgundy. It comes from the usage of Burgundy wine in the dish, which is wine made from the Burgundy region of France.

You start off by cooking cubed chuck roast along with chopped onion and garlic. Add the wine, beef broth, bay leaves, a little salt and pepper, thyme, and marjoram. Bring it to a boil, then add a LOT of mushrooms, pearl onions, and carrots, then let that simmer for a while. Add a flour and water slurry, and cook until thickened. Serve on a bed of noodles or mashed potatoes and top with crumbled bacon and parsley.

This recipe was delicious and definitely something I would make again. It really wasn't any more difficult than making a beef stew. I was a little worried about the sheer volume of mushrooms required, but they ended up cooking down well, and I think they probably added an appreciable amount of liquid to the stew.

We ended up serving it on a bed of pasta, but I'm sure it would be just as good on mashed potatoes. The addition of the bacon added a nice saltiness every once in a while, and the parsley helped balance the heaviness of the stew. Interestingly, as I look at my cookbook, the recipe after it is a regular beef stew, so I'll have to see how it compares to this dish.

Unless you see this the moment after I post it, you will notice I have new choices up for the next special edition post. I don't know quite when it will happen yet, but I'll be sure to let you know when I do. Our theme this time is desserts. Not cookies. Not cake. Not candy. Dessert. Your choices are:

• Molten Chocolate Cakes

• Cream Puffs

• "Make-it-mine" Cheesecake -- There are a few special recipes in this book called "Make-it-mine [something]." Basically, they give you a list of basic ingredients, and then a whole lot of choices to make it your own. It's a pretty neat idea, and there's another make-it-mine coming up in the appetizer section.

• Swirled Chocolate and Peanut Butter Soufflé -- I've never attempted to make a soufflé, but according to almost every cartoon and sitcom, they're pretty difficult.

Have any of you every made a soufflé?

Recipe 16

Mexican Seven-Layer Dip

Continuing with our unfortunate theme of dips, this dip is the last of the Mexican-themed dips (salsa, guacamole, and now this one). It's a pretty standard party dip, it keeps and travels well, and it's fairly easy to make. The ingredients are refried beans, bottled salsa, guacamole, sour cream, cheddar cheese, green onions, olives, a tomato, and chips. Mix the salsa and beans together, then spread that in a casserole dish, then spread the guac on that, then the sour cream on that. Sprinkle the cheese over all of that, then the olives, then the green onions. Let sit until serving time, then add the tomato on top. The only difficult thing was trying to spread the sour cream and guacamole so that they didn't mix too much with the layer(s) below...but then, as I was having a lot of trouble with this, I thought to myself, "Self, does it really matter?"

It didn't.

I decided to go the extra mile and shred my own cheddar cheese. I think it tastes a little better to be freshly shredded from a block, and it's really not that much more difficult. I also still hate chopping tomatoes, but I don't think I'll have to chop any more for a while since it seems we're going to be moving into cheese-based dips.

As all of you can see (I hope), the countdown is almost over for the Special Edition recipe. This weekend I'll be heading to Lawrence to cook whatever you guys pick for us.

Recipe 15

Fresh Tomato Salsa

I know I haven't posted in a while. I actually made this recipe a couple of days ago, but I waited to post it. There's a cheese-ball recipe coming up soon, and I'm not a big fan of cheese-balls; however, a friend of mine is, so I'm trying to space out my recipes leading up to it so it won't be old by the time I can get it to him.

Moving on...I will admit I was a little afraid of this recipe. Although I love spicy food, this recipe makes 3 cups of salsa, and it had quite few peppers in it (all of the little green bits). The ingredients are simple enough: roma tomatoes, red onion, a poblano chile pepper, jalapeño chile peppers, lime juice, a little bit of canola oil, roasted cumin, roasted coriander, salt, and black pepper. The directions literally say, "In a food processor, combine all ingredients. Cover; process with on/off turns until finely chopped." I don't know about all of you, but my food processor can not hold 3 cups of salsa. It couldn't even hold all of the hummus I made a few recipes ago. I thought I would be clever and process one ingredient at a time, then just mix them together in a mixing bowl. I started with a roughly chopped roma tomato, put it in the processor for a couple pulses...out came tomato mush. I realized I would have to do (mostly) everything by hand.

I actually like chopping vegetables and things by hand...except tomatoes. I suffered through the rest of my tomatoes plus half of a big tomato I had lying around (since my first roma got mushed up). I finely diced my onion, roasted my cumin and coriander and smashed it with a meat tenderizer hammer, and ended up with my peppers. I know you're supposed to be careful when working with peppers, and I was. I made sure to wash my knives, my cutting board, and my hands afterward with soap and water. I figured since chiles were less watery than tomatoes, I could use my food processor on them. I was right. After processing them, I combined everything in a big bowl and stirred together. As you can see by the pictures, there's quite a bit of green in the salsa. Surprisingly, though, this salsa has little-to-no heat to it. I did a pretty good job getting the membrane and seeds out of the peppers before I processed them, but I was surprised at how little heat was left when I actually tried it.

I really like this salsa, and, although I had trouble with my food processor at the beginning, it was easy to make. The only thing I didn't like about it was how much juice there was. I highly suggest serving this with a slotted spoon, or even a fork just to help control the amount of juice you actually get when you dip it out.

Have any of you experience food processor blues? Know any tips about chopping tomatoes with them?

Recipe 14

Guacamole

Guacamole. I feel like it's kind of a touchy subject. Some people are very picky about what's in their guacamole and what ingredients would make it "fake" guacamole. I tend to be on the "purist" side. I really only like avocados, lemon/lime juice, some onion, cilantro, salt and pepper...and that's it, but I am open to experimentation. 

That being said, I was a little skeptical when this recipe called for sour cream. In my opinion, it's leaning more toward "Guacamole Style Dip". I was actually tempted to just leave it out, but I said I would cook my way through this cookbook, and that is what I will do. I made it according to the recipe.

Since I was being slightly adventurous with this recipe anyway, I decided to go for the only listed alteration and make it "Toasted-Cumin Guacamole". The only change was the addition of 2 tsp of crushed cumin seeds that you toast for a couple minutes in a dry pan over medium-high heat. The rest of the ingredients are avocados, sour cream, lime juice, and salt.

The interesting thing about this recipe (which I had heard before, but never tried) was the method of mixing the ingredients, and I do have to say I really liked it. Just put everything in a resealable bag, close it, and squish it all together--just make sure most of the air is out of the bag, or you might end up with an avocado flavored mess. The neat thing about this method, other than the lack of cleanup after mixing, is that to serve it, just cut a corner off of the bottom of the bag and squeeze it out like a piping bag with icing.

If I were to be completely honest, even with the addition of sour cream, I would have to say the guacamole turned out better than I had expected. I also liked the smokiness of the cumin, though I would have gone with a little less. I also like my guac with a little more lemon/lime juice, but overall, it was decent.

A little bit of a side note about avocados: the pictures they have in my book about how to get the avocado out of the shell-like skin, they tell you to cut it in half, then take a knife and whack the seed so you cut into it a little, then the seed should just pop out when you lift the knife. That has NEVER worked for me. I tried multiple times on both avocados I had. I ended up just having to use a spoon to scoop it out. After that, you just use a spoon to scoot out the good stuff on the inside. Maybe I'm just getting bad avocados. Maybe I'm just bad with a knife. Who knows?

Also, at the moment, I'm planning on the next special-edition post being 2 weekends from now--September 1st and 2nd. I'll let you guys know if anything changes before then, but make sure you get your votes in! It looks like the Beef Bourguinonne is winning, so if you absolutely HATE it, make your friends get on and vote!

Let me know your feelings about the "purity" of guacamole  in the comments! I love reading what people have to say!

Recipes 12 and 13

Hummus and Layered Greek Dip

I was planning on making these two recipes yesterday, but I got distracted. By the time I realized how late it was, it was too late to make it and still have enough sun to take pictures.

The first of the two recipes is a simple and easy hummus recipe. For those of you that don't know what hummus is, and don't want to look at the link to the Wikipedia article about it, it's a dip made from chickpeas (garbanzo beans), lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, salt, and tahini (sesame seed paste). I know that some of my readers don't like hummus; I didn't really like it too much the first time I had it, either. To be fair, store-bought hummus (at least the store-bought hummus I've had) is pretty awful. There are a few restaurants in Manhattan, though, that serve amazing home-made hummus.

The only thing that was a little difficult to find for this recipe was the tahini. I finally found it in Hy-Vee. After that, though the recipe is VERY simple. Put everything in a food processor and blend until pasty. I also bought some pita bread while I was at the store and heated it in a dry skillet for about 30 seconds on each side until it was warm. I toasted some pine-nuts (which I had never had before) and sprinkled them on top and voila!

I realize the photo to the right is a little over-exposed, but by the time I realized it, I had already started the next recipe which calls for almost all of the hummus that you made. It still looks nice, I think...kind of.

The next recipe, as the title states, is a Layered Greek Dip. The bottom layer consists of cream cheese blended with lemon juice and dry Italian seasoning. The next is the hummus from above (or store-bought, but you know how I feel about that). Above that is chopped cucumber, then tomato, then Kalamata olives, feta cheese, and green onion. If you happen to remember from my Tapenade recipe, you'll know that I didn't like the Kalamata olives. I was tempted to just get black olives, but I decided if I'm going to cook my way through this giant cookbook, I can't wimp-out now; however, I did buy a different brand this time. Either the olives I got last time were bad, or the brand really makes a big difference. They still aren't my favorite, but they're tolerable. Overall, both recipes turned out very well. I'm a big hummus fan, and now that I know how easy it is to make, I'll for sure make it again.

Side note:

If any of you out there cringe when you think of slicing a tomato, then you're like me. I absolutely hate it. They always squish and end up looking bad. It's because of that stupid skin. Yeah, yeah, I know. Just use a serrated knife. That still doesn't seem to help me much. A while back, though, I remember hearing an easy way to remove the skin from a tomato, making chopping 124,215 times easier. Get a pot of water boiling, cut crosses into the top and bottom of the tomato, dunk the tomato in for 5 seconds (and 5 seconds only), then take it out and put it in ice water until cool. Starting at the crosses, just peel the skin off. It should come off very easily. Check out a video here. Slicing unsliced olives are pretty similar, except the small size makes it even harder. I don't think that the boiling trick would work with them, though.

Before you go, if you haven't noticed already, take a look at the right side of the screen near the top. There will be a poll. I've decided to change my self-imposed rules just a tad. Every couple of weeks I will do another "special edition" post. I went through my book and picked out a few different types of recipes, most of them are either more complicated, serve a lot of people, or both. You guys get to vote on which one will be featured in the next special edition. Under the choices, you will also notice that there's an end-date to this poll. I can't promise that's when it will end. It all depends on when my schedule matched up with Kraig's. If you'll remember back to the lobster journey, he's the one that embarked on it with me. Whenever our schedules mesh is when the poll ends. I'll try to put up an accurate date when I know for sure when the next special edition is. If you have any more questions about it, feel free to ask.

Here's a more detailed description of what the choices are:

8 Layer Casserole: A casserole with noodles, beef, tomato sauce, sour cream, cream cheese, onion, spinach, and cheese.

Chicken Enchiladas: Kind of self-explanatory. Enchiladas made with chicken.

Mile-High Lasagna Pie:  It's basically round lasagna with more layers and some different veggies and stuff.

Beef Bourguinonne: This is probably the one about which most of you are curious. To put it VERY basically, it's a fancy pot-roast. Julia Child was known for making this dish, and even said about it, "sauté de boeuf à la Bourguignonne," which means, "certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man." (Thanks Wikipedia).

EDIT: As I keep eating more of the layered dip, I've come across a slight problem. The cream cheese layer on the bottom, while tasty, is very firm. The pita chips that I have been using to eat it keep breaking. Next time I'll either add a little milk to thin it out and be more scoop-able, or I'll just use a spoon to scoop it and place it gingerly on the chip.