Pier 36

…and lots of dairy fat. 

We have a New Year’s Day tradition in our household. We invite a bunch of people over to eat black-eyed peas, collard greens, cornbread, mac & cheese, and other Southern stuff. That’s four pounds of shredded sharp cheddar up there. Thank god for my Cuisinart. 

Every few years we also throw in a dessert contest. This year we offered bonus points for bacon desserts. We have friends who are talented bakers and we just wanted to put that challenge out there for them. 

First is Brooke’s chocolate-bacon cheesecake with chocolate ganache. Brooke used to bake professionally and it shows. Beautiful. There was applewood-smoked bacon both *in* the cheesecake and on top. She used a pound of bacon! This entry won the Non-Pie division.

This lemon meringue pie was Julie’s entry. BEAUTIFUL. I know she slaved to get that meringue just perfect.

Sitting between the meringue pie and the choco-bacon cake you can see a sort of sad-looking key lime pie made by our friend Dan, who only recently took up an interest in cooking. And you know what? HE WON THE PIE DIVISION. It wasn’t very pretty, but it tasted absolutely fanastic.

Also pictured is a maple-bacon cupcake with a vanilla frosting pig on it. Christina (who has been to every one of our NYD parties) got second in the non-pie division for these.

These four entries all won potholders. There was also a fifth entry, a pecan-whiskey cake, which wins points for being Southern and containing booze. However, the cake showed up too late for the judging. We had a consolation prize reserved for just such an entry: we had found an unused but slightly damp sudoku book in a box of books at a remote trailhead in Humboldt County over the weekend and rescued it from certain death by rain. Put a ribbon on it and voila! It’s a prize.

Happy (slightly belated) new year. If you want to come to next year’s party, drop me a line!

After completely overdoing it with the holiday biscotti, cookies, brownies, pie, cupcakes, and other assorted sweets, I declared that I wouldn’t bake any more desserts from January 2 until February 1. It took me ten days to break that rule.

I had some friends over for dinner, and I just had to make a birthday dessert for one of them. Good enough excuse, no?

I made this Bourbon-Pecan Tart entirely with ingredients I already had in my kitchen (yes, I even had some Trader Joe’s prefab pie crust in the freezer — it was left over from the holidays). It took about 15 minutes to prep plus baking, cooling, chocolate-drizzling and more cooling time. Easy peasy. And it impressed the heck out of my lady friends.

Every December a friend of mine sends a bunch of homemade cookies out to her people all over the country. Over the years she has discovered the perfect treat for shipping far and wide: biscotti. These crunchy cookies are perfect for mailing. They’re sturdy, they stay fresh for a couple of weeks, and they are, in her words, more “virtuous” than typical holiday treats. Most of the fat comes from egg yolks, which are good for you. Better than butter, anyway. 

This was a revelation to me. I’ve never paid much attention to biscotti. The coffee-shop variety don’t appeal much to me, as they are generally rock-hard and pretty bland and, you know, too virtuous. But the homemade variety? Delicious. Packed with tasty bits of good stuff. And they don’t have to be dunked in a waxen glob of white chocolate.

They’re easy to make, too. You mix up the dough and form it into a log on a cookie sheet. This log gets baked and cooled, then cut into the familiar biscotti slices. The biscotti go back into the oven for a few more minutes to get their characteristic crunch.

We made a double batches of chocolate, hazelnut and ginger and pistachio, raspberry and white chocolate (we used cranberries instead of raspberries). I did eventually drizzle a moderate amount of white chocolate on a few of the ones shown above to make them look prettier.

To help us recover from holiday gluttony, I have instituted a baking moratorium for the rest of January. (I have already violated it twice… but that’s another story.) Once February comes around I might have to make another batch or two of biscotti. They were definitely good enough for year-round consumption. And they’re virtuous!

Here’s what I’ve made for dinner lately, according to my kitchen whiteboard:

- green chicken curry
- BBQ chicken pizza
- tuna casserole
- corn and potato chowdah
- chicken tacos
- lentil soup, bread, salad
- parsnip soup
- chicken mole enchiladas
- chickpea, spinach and feta pasta
- chicken tagine

About a week ago I came to terms with the fact that I’ve been paying for a Weight Watchers Online membership for the past year… and not using it. But instead of canceling my membership, I have started using the tools and tracking points.

Tonight I’m on my own for dinner. One of my guilty pleasures is Lean Cuisine mac & cheese (six points!). I heated one up halfway, then threw in a big handful of chopped cherry tomatoes, a dash of red pepper flakes, and a lot of salt (it needs it) before putting it back in the microwave for the final minute. It was delicious. The tomatoes nearly doubled the volume but added negligible calories. The salt and pepper really give it a kick.

Lots of cooking, not so much blogging. I have to write down some past dinners before I clean off my kitchen whiteboard.

• Beet soup
• Sloppy Joes (with ground turkey)
• Mulligatawny (curried chicken soup with coconut milk; from Joy of Cooking)
• Eggplant stew with tomatoes, peppers and chickpeas (this was excellent; recipe from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
• Black beans and cornbread

I’ll give you the recipe for this one.

Ten-Minute Black Beans with Tomatoes and Coriander
from The Brilliant Bean

1-1/2 tablespoons oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
6 fresh plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
    OR 1 can (14 ounces) Italian plum tomatoes, drained and chopped
1 can (16 ounces) black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon Tabasco
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)

Heat the oil in a skillet or saucepan over moderately high heat and add the onions and garlic. Saute, stirring, until onion is almost translucent but still firm, about 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes more.

Add the black beans, Tabasco, and salt and stir to combine. Cover skillet and cook until beans are heated through, about 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in 1 tablespoon of the cilantro. Serve sprinkled with remaining cilantro.

My notes: I add dashes of ground cloves and cumin along with the beans and Tabasco. If using canned tomatoes, a little of the liquid from the can adds good flavor and moisture. And I use way more than 2 tablespoons of cilantro — who measures cilantro in tablespoons, anyway?

I serve the beans over cornbread, topped with a dollop of light sour cream. I got this idea from Walter’s, a restaurant in my home town. To make the cornbread I just follow whatever recipe is on the cornmeal box. Sometimes I add kernel corn or a can of chopped peppers or a handful of shredded cheese. Cornbread is so easy and quick to make, buying boxed mix is totally not worth it.

This is a very satisfying meal, but it’s also very easy to make with very few fresh ingredients. It’s an old standby for me.

Last night’s dinner:
Whole-wheat pita with feta and basil
Chicken piccata (Cook’s Illustrated recipe, a variation of which is here)
steamed cauliflower with lots of salt and butter
Martin & Weyrich 2005 Jack Ranch pinot noir

I gave Dave a pocket seafood selector printed from the Oceans Alive site. And, of course, printed one for myself.

Since I was a little kid, bean burritos have been at the top of my list of favorite foods. My culinary horizons have expanded considerably since I was three and would eat the refried beans separately from the tortilla, but I still do love a nice, plain bean burrito.

The ones from Taco Bell are a very guilty pleasure. But I’ve figured out how to duplicate them pretty well at home.

Tortilla (I like whole-wheat)
refried beans (instant from a natural-foods store, or canned, thinned with a little water)
chopped raw onions
shredded cheese
red sauce (Trader Joe’s makes a couple of bottled varieties; one is called “Mexican red sauce” and another is labeled enchilada sauce, but incidentally it’s not vegetarian as it contains some chicken ingredients. Canned enchilada sauce would probably work, too, but opening a whole can isn’t as practical.)

Layer beans, onions, cheese and a dollop of sauce on the tortilla. Microwave for 30-40 seconds. Make a run for the border! Errr, drop the chalupa. Think outside the bun?

This rather gruesome-looking bird was a very ambitious undertaking for me. I had never stuffed anything under the skin of a chicken before, so as this was my first try, please forgive me for doing such an uneven (and diseased-looking) job.

This is another dish inspired by the Joy of Cooking. I butterflied the chicken and stuffed the skin with duxelles, which is minced mushrooms sauteed with butter, scallions and sherry. I love anything with mushrooms, and I’m making up for lost time for the 16 years or so I refused to touch them.

Yeah, I haven’t posted here in nearly a month, but that’s not beceause I haven’t been cooking. Nor is it because it has been so cold here. But man, it has been cold! I am a total wuss.

What would you do if you found deep in your cupboard a bag of lentils that expired in 2002? I would make lentil soup! Which is exactly what’s on the stove right now. Making a big pot of soup is a great way to warm up the kitchen. And it’s way better for you than baking cookies, my other favorite way to heat the apartment.

Lentil Soup
Joy of Cooking

Heat in a large soup pot, over medium-low heat:
3 tablespoons olive oil

Add and cook, stirring, until tender but not browned, 5 to 10 minutes:
3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
3 medium celery stalks, diced
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 ounces prosciutto or pancetta, or 4 slices bacon, diced (optional — I left it out)

Stir in:
8 cups water
2 cups lentils, picked over and rinsed
one 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
1 teaspoon dried thyme

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until the lentils are tender, 30 to 45 minutes. Stir in:
1.5 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons salt (1 teaspoon if using the meat)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

I also add a bunch of washed and chopped spinach to the finished soup and cook it for a minute or two until it wilts. Extra veggies!

I just spent a week in Mexico. You might think I’d be sick of Mexican food. And you’d be wrong.

I came home just itching to make some tortilla soup. And I did that last night, with toasted pasilla chile, fire-roasted tomatoes, and chicken. We topped it with fried tortilla strips, cotija cheese, and avocado. It didn’t come close to the thick, tangy sopa de tortilla I had at Sayulita Cafe, but it was tasty.

Today I made tomatillo-braised chicken in the crockpot using a Rick Bayless recipe, and I made fresh corn tortillas to accompany it. I have a tortilla maker that we received as a wedding gift nine years ago, and I have finally figured out how to get it to make perfect tortillas: don’t plug it in. It is basically a very expensive tortilla press. When it’s hot, it is nearly impossible to press the ball of dough into a perfectly thin tortilla without it getting lumpy or breaking up. But when it’s cold, the dough presses into perfect circles between two sheets of plastic wrap. Peeling the plastic wrap away carefully, I transferred the thin circles to a hot skillet to cook for a minute on each side. Way better than even the freshest store-bought tortillas.

Diana Kennedy’s The Cuisines of Mexico is my new (old) best friend, along with my Rick Bayless and Too Hot Tamales books. So much to cook, so little time.