Gotta Eat 'Em All!

This weekend I spent a FANTASTIC few days in D.C. with several other Lord Jeff Chefs during which time we celebrated the birthday of Jeff Chef Zachary with a blast-from-the-not-so-distant-past Pokemon Party.  Of course, I made the dessert.  And of course, this dessert had to be theme-appropriate.  So I offer for your approval my Pokeball Cupcakes.  I made red velvets as well as root beer float cupcakes and used a buttercream fondant for the buttons.

Thanksgiving Sweet Potatoes

Long overdue, I am sorry!  You know how Amherst finals are.  Here is the delicious sweet potato recipe Zach and I prepared for our Thanksgiving this year.  We modified a recipe from smittenkitchen.com pretty significantly and ... well, I'm biased, but I'm thinking ours was better.  The recipe after the jump serves about three; we tripled the recipe for a Thanksgiving of seven and there were leftovers (tasty, tasty leftovers!)  
Happy Holidays to all!  Looking forward to seeing some more holiday recipes.

Breakfast smoothies

Blueberry-Pomegranate Smoothie

Sorry for the lack of updates -- things have gotten hectic as I have started a new internship in Washington D.C., settled into a new apartment as a tentative couch-surfer/resident, taken my LSATs, shopped for Christmas presents, and applied to graduate schools and "real" jobs all the while! December's a busy month for a lot of people, it seems, and I'll be glad once I'm finally through it.

Anyway, since this is a food blog:

I've obviously had limited time on my hands -- sometimes, so limited that I am struck with that unfortunate temptation to hit the snooze button, get 10 minutes more sleep, and skip breakfast. How dreadful of me! For as we know, Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal Of The Day.

It's times like these that a breakfast smoothie comes in handy. As far as I can tell, there's really no downside to making these lovely little concoctions. They're healthy, giving you one each of your recommended fruit and dairy servings and, if properly constructed, Vitamin D, protein, antioxidents and all other sorts of goodies. They're not too sugary (and the sugars that are there are natural) but still taste great. They're cheap, provided you spring for the in-season and/or on-sale produce. And if you need to get out the door ten minutes ago, you can simply fill your nearest beverage container and take your breakfast with you!

Two of my favorite combinations after the jump:

Thanksgiving at the Rosenfeld household

Thanksgiving was wonderful -- good food and good company. I've been absolutely swamped with graduate school applications, LSAT studying, D.C. preparations, and other work since then, so I haven't had a lot of time to cook. And I certainly haven't had a lot of energy to write, having spent most of it pumping out essay after essay.

I do, however, have pictures from last week. So let's have a Thanksgiving slideshow!

Roasted white fish wrapped in smoked bacon with lemon mayonnaise and asparagus

Those of you who know me have probably gathered that I often seek to fulfill personal "culinary quests" when looking for new recipes. Two such quests are as follows:

• I'm trying to learn more "weeknight dinner" (i.e. prepared in 40 minutes or less, delicious and nutritious) recipes, because lord knows I do enough fancy 3-hour Sunday afternoon affairs and that won't be viable once I get a real job. Upon finding such a recipe that I really like you might hear me say, "This is going in my weekly rotation."

• I'm trying to find a fish recipe that my lovely but pescephobic girlfriend might choke down without incident. It is my notion that she must eventually be compelled to tolerate fish dinners, dammit, because they're such a good lean source of protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and the like.

I think I might have found a good one here. After all, how could anything wrapped in bacon and slathered with lemon zest and fresh rosemary be too intolerable? And I can prepare it in under half an hour, nice! (Definitely "weekly rotation" material.)

Braised lamb in peach gastrique with sweet potato scallops, baby eggplant, and poached pears

That's right, there's French in the title. We're getting fancy this week.

Actually, this dish isn't nearly as difficult as it sounds. It's certainly time intensive -- requiring a little more than three hours altogether, from start to finish -- but for the most part you're just chopping things up and then throwing them in a pot of simmering liquid. Also, it's relatively cheap and uses lots of fresh, seasonal produce, with the only semi-expensive item being the lamb shank. I don't know about you, but I can certainly appreciate an entree that constitutes a full meal in and of itself -- no soups, sides, or salads needed to round this one out.

I recommend you cook this on a lazy Sunday afternoon, reading a good book or playing vidja games during the recipe's downtime (of which there is quite a bit). Use it to impress your boyfriend/girlfriend/platonic life-mate while saving the money you might have blown going on a date to a fancy restaurant.

Wild Mushroom Bisque

I used to hate mushrooms as a kid. I think it was mostly a textural thing, though the taste was never very appealing either.

I don't know when or where it happened, but somewhere along the transition to adulthood I started to really appreciate the culinary value of fungi. Maybe I grew out of my mother's genetics (hates mushrooms) and into my father's (loves mushrooms). Maybe I was influenced by the insights of Emily's Uncle Tom, whose experience as a chef made him keenly aware of the mushroom's capacity as a "flavor sponge" (while simultaneously infusing any dish with a earthy quality, kind of like parsley). Maybe I just got less picky and forced myself to like it. Who knows.

Now that I eat mushrooms and actually enjoy them, I figured it was about time that I cooked something centered around them. Fortunately for me, the Creative Loafing Food Blog had a mushroom bisque recipe up a few weeks ago, which the poster assured was "life-changing" -- particularly for ex-fungophobes. Perfect, right?

Of course, it's hard NOT to be "life-changingly" delicious when you use half a stick of butter and half a cup of cream. Diet eating this ain't. Delicious it is, though.

N.B.: this particular concoction comes courtesy of my sister, who I put to work in the kitchen while she was visiting Tampa on vacation. But hey, I did all her prep work for her AND was busy preparing the night's entree, Grilled Eggplant and Smoked Gouda Bruschetta. Hooray for sous chefs!

Someday soon I'll prepare this all by myself though.... as it is quite tasty.

Grilled Eggplant and Smoked Gouda Bruschetta

I know, the title alone makes it sound delicious, right?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been trying to cook at least one vegetarian meal a week. I've also been trying to use more seasonal ingredients. This recipe, which centers around eggplant, tomatoes, and the grill, fit the bill perfectly.

It doesn't hurt that these open-faced sandwiches are pretty damned delicious. My dad always hems and haws a bit when I announce that it is vegetarian day, but even he wolfed this down and gave me compliments. The components for this recipe are relatively straightforward and easy to assemble, but once you've sampled the gooey melted cheese together with the tender grilled eggplants and the tomato-parsley salsa, you'll wonder why you never thought to combine them before.

You might not think this is enough for a meal -- "bruschetta" usually calls to mind fancy little hors d'œuve toasts -- but believe me, the combination of the ingredients makes this dish surprisingly filling. If my dad is any indication, it's a pretty great main course option for herbivores and omnivores alike.

Butternut Squash Ravioli in Maple-Cream Sauce

I went to the wedding of Emily's cousin a few weeks ago, and for my main course at the reception I opted for the vegetarian dish: butternut squash ravioli. While I quite enjoy butternut squash -- it's among the many things I look forward to in fall -- the idea of stuffing it into a ravioli pouch never really occurred to me. As it turned out, my dinner was quite delicious and so, naturally, as soon as I returned home I decided to try my hand at this pasta-making business.

This particular recipe is adapted from a recipe I found on the Poor Girl Gourmet. I didn't change much, but I figure that I can be a bit more concise in my instructions than the author is. Also my pasta-making technique is better, in my opinion. After all, I have experience with this sort of thing.

 

Baked Sea Bass in Paper

If the picture looks familiar, that's because you've seen it before, in my Asparagus Salad with Sweet Balsamic Vinaigrette post. As promised, here's how you make the entree I paired it with.

This one is another gem I picked out of a Turkish cookbook while living in Ankara. It's quick and easy, requiring only about 20 minutes of prep and 20 minutes preparation -- earning it a place on my weeknight cooking rotation -- and tastes wonderful. My mother claimed it as a new favorite and immediately asked me for the recipe, for what that's worth.

As every cook recognizes, preparing any meat dish requires a touch for retaining moisture. Too much time or heat can result in a dessicated fillet with not much flavor or texture to its name, while too little risks undercooking the meat and leaving you susceptible to all kinds of nasty food-borne illnesses. This recipe sidesteps the dilemma in a unique and effective way: by baking the fish inside a parchment paper packet. Done right, this method keeps all the flavors and moisture trapped inside the steak while cooking it clean through -- resulting in a delicious entree that will earn you many compliments!

This dish is also pretty quintessentially Turkish. Turkish recipes all tend to draw from the same basic group of ingredients and seasonings: lemon, parsley, thyme, red pepper flakes, cumin, tomatoes, onion, and olive oil (making us 6 for 8). Simple, but effective -- just because it's foreign doesn't mean it has to be exotic.

Recipe after the jump:

Simplified Pollo en Pipián Verde (Chicken in Pumpkin Seed Sauce)

Every once in a while I just pick up recipes from random sources on the Internet, copy them to my "Recipes" folder, then forget about them until one day I decide I want to try cooking something new. This is one of those times.

I know next to nothing about Mexican dishes -- they are more Esteban's thing than mine -- but a quick Google search reveals that Pollo en Pipián Verde translates to "Chicken in Green Sauce," which is certainly to the point. If you're a gourmet with some time on your hands, you could take the time to scrounge together the 15 or so ingredients you need to prepare the dish from scratch; if you're a busy/lazy adult who needs something quick and easy to prepare for a weeknight dinner, however, this recipe is for you. All you need is some chicken thighs, pre-made salsa verde, pumpkin seeds, and a pair of zucchinis, give or take a few spices.

Beware, however: salsa verde comes hot. I grabbed a bottle that was rated "medium" and my sauce came out a bit too spicy for my and my parents' liking (even if they were quick to qualify that it still tasted delicious). Granted, I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to hot peppers, but I tend to find that when my mouth feels like it's on fire the sensation completely overrides the other flavors of a given dish -- and this is undesirable. I'd recommend you find a "mild" variant of the salsa, if at all possible... but perhaps you can handle the heat better than me and my family! 

Recipe after the jump:

Asparagus Salad with Sweet Balsamic Vinaigrette

pictured with"Bass in Paper," a recipe I'll reveal at a later date

So here's the dilemma: I want to start cooking more seasonal fruits and veggies in my dishes, because that's what all the cool kids do nowadays and because it's a practice that goes hand in hand with buying local. I also want to cook asparagus, which I find quite tasty. The problem is that a) we're fast approaching the end of the summer season and b) asparagus cannot, in good faith, be considered anything but a spring seasonal. Oh well -- better late than never.

This recipe comes out of my mother's recipe box and has quickly become a spring/summer favorite in the household. While Dijon mustard, olive oil, garlic, and balsamic vinegar aren't by any means a revolutionary combination -- it makes for an excellent marinade on chicken -- I'm happy to report that it works very well as a base for an asparagus salad vinaigrette. There's also comparatively little prep time involved, which is always a plus for a side dish.

Finally, I should mention that this recipe is Emily tested and approved (she even went back for seconds!), which means that it can be a good choice for friends and family members with a minor aversion to veggies. Give it a try the next time you want to try something new alongside your entree... though you may need to act quickly, lest the asparagus disappear from the markets until next March.

Recipe after the jump:

Mantı: how the Turks do meat dumplings

I'm seeing an alarming lack of good ol' fashioned MEAT dishes on this blog. Also, I promised in my first post that you would see some authentic Turkish dishes from me, so here you go.

Mantı ("dumpling"), pronounced MAHN (as in
"Ma" and "Pa") tooh (as in "woof"), can be found all over central Asia and even into the former Soviet bloc and Northwest China. As might be expected, it is a touchstone of classical Turkish cooking. However, it's not the sort of dish you will find readily in the restaurants of Ankara or Istanbul. That's because mantı, despite being a relatively straightforward food to make, tends to be rather time-consuming and labor-intensive if you want to do it right. The only occasion that I ever had the pleasure to sample this dish in all its home-cooked glory was when one of my Turkish co-workers invited me and some other American teachers into her Ankara apartment for a traditional Turkish dinner.

When you think of mantı, you should picture an assembly line consisting of a Turkish mother and her daughters (and in some cases, her sons) in the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, laughing and gossiping and talking about the events of the week as they patiently knead the lumps out of the homemade dough, pound out and roll the pasta into thin sheets, and assemble the dumpling pouches with precision and dexterity. For many Turks, the dish is just as much a socio-familial institution as it is a culinary one; that's half the fun of preparing it. It's very much akin to baking a cake/pie or grilling steaks in American culture -- the sort of thing you do with family and friends on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Perhaps the best thing about this dish is how much mileage you can get out of the leftovers. While assembling the mantı is time-consuming, cooking them is not: like any pasta, all you need is to boil some water and prepare a quick sauce. Many Turkish families will spend their Sundays preparing a week's batch of dumplings, storing them in the fridge or freezer to be served on those nights of the week when no one has the energy to cook anything else. I suggest that you do the same -- if your family doesn't gobble them all up like mine did!

So without further ado, here is my personal recipe for mantı, collated from the tips and tricks of my Turkish co-workers and prepared -- in the spirit of the dish -- with the company of my mother.

Fillet of Sole stuffed with Shrimp and Mushrooms

Fillet of Sole stuffed with Shrimp and Mushrooms

Hello Amherst foodies!

If you don't know or remember me, my name is Zach and I graduated from Amherst in 2009. My cooking style is pretty much self-taught, drawing occasional insights and techniques from the internet, my mother, my girlfriend, and other sources. I tend to gravitate towards lean meats, fish, and pastas, because these seem to be the types of dishes that I cook best. Since my year teaching abroad in Turkey I've also added some Near Eastern, Middle Eastern, and Greek-ish recipes to my repertoire, so you can also look forward to seeing a few of those in my corner of the blog.

I've already posted this particular dish on planworld and my personal blog, but I'm sharing it again here for good reason: it's really, really delicious. You can substitute nearly any type of white fish for the sole, and the sauce works perfectly well in other dishes without the shrimp/mushroom stuffing. The cheese topping might run counter to some deeply ingrained culinary sensibilities (Italians, I'm looking at you), but I recommend that you give it a try even if you're skeptical.

This one's one of my favorites and I hope you like it too! Recipe after the jump: