[photo of the day] my nephew eating ice cream
he's terribly cute, no?Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
banana bread, but not that kind of banana bread
So here's the situation: I had an unexpected two days off of work due to Tropical Storm Fay and a few overripe bananas sitting atop my refrigerator. Normally, overripe bananas get turned into banana "bread." I chose quotations there because it's really more like a cake even though it is technically a quick-bread. Sweet, sometimes spiced, sometimes with nuts -- old-fashioned banana bread is equally at home on the breakfast table as it is for dessert.
But I didn't want something sweet. Couple this with the fact that I had some time on my hands and I thought to incorporate bananas into a yeast-raised recipe. I consulted my cookbooks and wouldn't you know it, Rose Levy Berenbaum already had a recipe for just such a thing.
Friday, August 01, 2008
[tip for bloggers] easy-to-print posts in blogger
I was stumbling through cyberspace and found a page with a recipe I wanted to try. It was obviously hosted by Blogger, like mine, but had some sort of tweak that allowed you to print the pages without the side columns. This made me so excited that I forgot about the recipe and the website! I had to figure out how to do this...
I searched online and found some sites that gave me some ideas, but individually they were coming up short. Some would print just the first page, all of them were leaving on the navigation bar at the top of the page, and others included the comments section in the printed version. I ended up -- through lots of trials and many errors -- with this bit of CSS code that works for me (and should work for anyone else using Blogger/Blogspot):
<style media='print' type='text/css'>
#header-wrapper, #header, .header, #sidebar-wrapper, .sidebar,
#leftsidebar-wrapper, #rightsidebar-wrapper, .date-header,
.post-meta-data, .comment-link, .comment-footer, #blog-pager,
#backlinks-container, #navbar-section, .subscribe_notice,
#navbar, #Navbar1, #comments, #comments-block, .post-footer,
.noprint {display: none !important;}
#main-wrapper, #footer-wrapper {width: 99% !important; text-align: justify;
text-justify: auto; word-wrap: break-word !important;
overflow: visible !important; font-size:70% !important;
line-height: 1.4em !important;},
</style>You simply insert it after the <head>tag in your Blogger template HTML and BAM! -- whenever someone wants to print a post, it will automatically include just the text of your post and any footer text (copyright info, etc.) that you have on your page. If they do it from your home page, it will print all entries on that page, but from individual post pages it will print just that singular page.
If you want to toy with it, here's some extra info...everything that comes before the .noprint line gets excluded from printing, so you can customize what gets printed. For example, to add comments into the printed page, simply remove the correct section labels (#comments, #comment-block). You can also adjust the output text size, line height, and any other attributes you're comfortable editing by changing the settings after #main-wrapper, #footer-wrapper. Want bigger text? Change the 70% to 85% or even 100%. The more you know, the more you can do, but this will get you started.
Oh, one more thing...
PLEASE BE SURE TO SAVE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR TEMPLATE BEFORE EDITING!
PS - A lot of people asked for the code to put a "Print This Post" button in their posts. Here it is:
First, you have to "Expand Widget Templates" in the Blogger HTML editor and
add the following code:
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'> <form> <span class='noprint'> <p align='right'> <input onClick='window.print()' type='button' value='Print This Post'/> </p> </span> </form> </b:if>
after this line:
<p> <data:post.body/> </p>
It should still keep the "noprint" settings from the edits I suggested
in the blog post.
Thanks to David Zetland for pointing out that the printed page might cut words off of the right margin. This was added to make that happen -- text-align: justify; text-justify: auto; word-wrap: break-word !important; and is reflected in the code above.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
easy mango sorbet
I was one of the lucky people who won a copy of Lynne Rossetto Kasper's The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper over at Serious Eats. It's a great book -- tons of quality weekday recipes and great mini-anecdotes from lots of people in the food world; I couldn't stop flipping through it.
In it, she offers up a recipe for a pineapple sorbet that seemed quick and easy -- perfect for a summertime dessert. It calls for frozen pineapple to be quickly pureed in a food processor with lemon juice, sugar, and a bit of fresh ginger.
For some reason, though, my supermarket was out of frozen pineapple, so I decided to whip up a batch with frozen mango instead. I tweaked a bit further and came up with this -- a Mexican-inspired mango sorbet that you can make in a snap!
easy mango sorbet
21 oz. frozen mango
juice and zest of one lime
1/4 tsp almond extract
5 TB granulated sugar
pinch of salt
1 bottle of your favorite tequila
Get your food processor running and drop the mango through the feed chute a few chunks at a time until it's all in. Stop the processor. At this point, you'll wonder how this is going to become sorbet, as it looks like a bunch of finely chopped mangoes. Fear not.
Add the juice, zest, sugar, salt, extract, and 3 TB of tequila to the mangoes and puree until it is smooth and creamy. While this would make an excellent slushy, it's not yet a sorbet.
Pack this bright-orange slush into a tupperware-esque container, place plastic wrap directly onto the surface, and cap it with the appropriately sized tupperware-esque lid. Plunk that into your freezer and polish off the rest of the tequila with friends (lime and salt optional). By the time you're done getting hammered (4 hours?), the sorbet will have sufficiently solidified in the freezer. Alternatively, you can do this a day ahead and save yourself a hangover, but what fun is that?
Even after a day in the freezer, the sorbet is still scoopable -- the sugar and alcohol help ensure that. Serve it with grated lime and another shot. Cheers!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
36 hours for cookies?
About two weeks ago, the New York Times Food Section published a story about one author's quest for chocolate chip cookie nirvana. In it, David Leite interviews several cookie pros in and around the Big Apple to identify some tips that could help home bakers find The Way with cookies:
- Rest your dough. Leite recommends at least 24 hours but mentions that 36 are even better.
- Under-bake your cookies. The key to a chewy cookie is to make sure it isn't cooked all the way through.
- Don't be afraid of salt. Coarse salt in and on the cookies makes flavors "pop."
- Make 'em big. Larger cookies can provide for cascading textures from crispy on the edge to chewy/gooey in the center, provided you pay attention to Tip #2.
Finally, I popped the dough balls into the oven, six at a time (they're big, don't forget). When they emerged from the oven, they were as advertised -- golden all over, rich, buttery, and with that variegated texture that Leite promised. My only substitution was for Ghirardelli semi-sweet (60% cacao) chocolate chips rather than Valrhona chocolate "feves" (which are flatter), mainly because that's what I had on hand. I don't think the cookies suffered, but I'm willing to give the feves a try one of these days.
Was the 36-hour wait worth it? Yes and no. The cookies were wonderful, but certainly not spontaneous. I think they were more uniformly golden than my usual batch of chocolate chip cookies, but the texture bit really stems from under-baking (I should really call this "properly baking" your cookies, as they aren't raw, just less done than the typical home baker makes them). The biggest selling point of this recipe, to me at least, is that you can make the dough and bake off a cookie or two at a whim, up to 3 days later according to the article (but probably as long as a week later if you wanted).
Saturday, July 12, 2008
making pizza in naples, italy
My wife and I just got back from a 2-week vacation in Europe. We went to Messina, Venice, Dubrovnik, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Cannes, Nice, Barcelona, and Naples -- it was a whirlwind! Perhaps my favorite memory from the whole trip, though, is getting a pizza-making lesson in Naples. Here are some pics:
The Pizzaiolo at Les GaGá, GiGi.
He didn't speak a ton of English. Mostly GiGi's instruction was, "not-ta too much-a." He uses only San Marzano tomatoes in his sauce, plus buffalo mozzarella, extra virgin olive oil, and basil to top his pizza Margherita. This is good, since it is actually against the law to do otherwise.
He was very precise about the dough, too. "1 liter of water makes 15 pizza, each one weighing 250 grams. Only other ingredients are yeast, salt, and time, about 8 hours."
GiGi and I wave for the camera while the pizza cooks in the background. Seriously, this takes only about a minute. That oven is really, really hot!
The masterpiece! It tasted great. I should have taken pictures of the next three that GiGi made himself, but we were too invested in eating at that point. They were a little bigger (he was better at stretching the dough than I was) and soooo good. I know there is really no chance of reproducing this type of pizza at home without a wood-burning oven, but it was fun to get tips from a master!Tuesday, June 10, 2008
[video] conan o'brien learns about wine
Caught this video and couldn't help but crack up:
Check out Gary's Homepage and learn a lot of interesting things about drinking wine at tv.winelibrary.com.
Friday, May 09, 2008
[recipe redone] triple-coconut granola
In the past year, several of my go-to food blogs have shared their favorite recipes for granola. The ingredient lists and techniques have all been similar, but a small tweak here and there seems to make a big difference in the texture and flavor of the end product. I've tried a bunch of them and they're all delicious, but I kind of have a thing for coconut. With that in mind, I decided to tweak some of their recipes and come up with a coconut-intense version of granola to call my own. Yes, several years ago people were scared to death of coconut (mainly because coconut oil is full of saturated fat). But new studies have shown that coconut oil is actually a heart-healthy oil. Regardless, it's delicious in this recipe.
1/2 cup, packed (100g) brown sugar
4 Tablespoons coconut oil* (virgin has the most flavor)
1/4 cup (60ml) water
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 lb. (125 g) quick oats
1/2 lb. (125 g) coconut flour* (Bob's Red Mill is a brand carried by Whole Foods)
1 cup (100g) shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups dried fruit, chopped (apricots or golden raisins are excellent)
Preheat oven to 300 F.
In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, coconut oil, water, and salt. Microwave on high for about 3 minutes; the mixture should be bubbling vigorously. Stir in the extracts and set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, mix the remaining ingredients (except for the dried fruit) together until well-combined. Pour the brown sugar syrup over the dry ingredients and fold until fully incorporated.
Spread the mixture over a half sheet pan (17 x 13) and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and toss the granola, breaking up any huge chunks. Return the pan to the oven and bake another 15 minutes. Repeat this again (if necessary) until the granola is uniformly browned and very crispy-crunchy. At that point, remove the granola from the oven and allow to cool. Toss in the dried fruit and serve with milk or yogurt - or just munch it by the handful!
* If you don't have coconut oil, you can substitute an equal amount of butter. You could also substitute oat flour, ground flax meal, or almond meal for the coconut flour. At that point, you might as well take a look at this recipe from the Traveler's Lunchbox, which is what I based mine off of.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
[quick hit] newpaper food sections
I just added links to some of my favorite newspaper food sections to the sidebar. They are usually updated weekly -- the day of the week depends on the paper. I find these to be helpful when I'm traveling to these cities or even when I just need a different regional perspective on food and cooking.
Monday, February 04, 2008
browned butter "spoon" cookies
Anyway, I had forgotten these cookies until I had an opportunity to flip through some of my back issues of Gourmet. Not wanting to forget them again, I am sharing the recipe here with you. While the recipe calls for shaping the cookies with a teaspoon, I have found that a teaspoon "disher" (miniature ice cream scoop) does the trick for me.
spoon cookies
2 sticks (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt, slightly rounded
1/3 cup fruit preserves (your choice)
Make dough:
Fill kitchen sink with about 2 inches of cold water. Melt butter in a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until butter turns golden with a nutlike fragrance and flecks on bottom of pan turn a rich caramel brown, 10 to 12 minutes. (Butter will initially foam, then dissipate. A thicker foam will appear and cover the surface just before butter begins to brown; stir more frequently toward end of cooking.) Place pan in sink to stop cooking, then cool, stirring frequently, until butter starts to look opaque, about 4 minutes. Remove pan from sink and stir in sugar and vanilla.
Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and stir into butter mixture until a dough forms. Shape into a ball, wrap with plastic wrap, and let stand at cool room temperature 1 to 2 hours (to allow flavors to develop).
Form and bake cookies:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 325°F.
Press a piece of dough into bowl of teaspoon, flattening top, then slide out and place, flat side down, on an ungreased baking sheet. (Dough will feel crumbly, but will become cohesive when pressed.) Continue forming cookies and arranging on sheet. Bake cookies until just pale golden, 8 to 15 minutes. Cool cookies on sheet on a rack 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to rack and cool completely, about 30 minutes.
Assemble cookies:
While cookies cool, heat preserves in a small saucepan over low heat until just runny, then pour through a sieve into a small bowl, pressing hard on solids, and cool completely.
Spread the flat side of a cookie with a thin layer of preserves. Sandwich with flat side of another cookie. Continue with remaining cookies and preserves, then let stand until set, about 45 minutes. Transfer cookies to an airtight container and wait 2 days before eating.
Cooks' notes:
• Dough can be made 12 hours before baking and chilled, covered. Bring to room temperature to soften slightly before forming cookies, about 30 minutes.
• Cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature 2 weeks.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
[recipe review] eli's chicago-style cheesecake
I usually buy my books online since they are typically much cheaper than in the stores, but my wife got a gift certificate to Borders for Christmas so we were walking though one the other day. They usually have some clearance cookbooks up front but they aren't typically my style. On this day, though, there was a copy of Cook's Illustrated's "Restaurant Favorites" for $4.95. I scooped it up and immediately began flipping through when I got home.
The first thing I noticed was the recipe for Eli's Chicago-Style Cheesecake. My wife is a native Chicagoan and always extolled the virtues of Eli's over any other cheesecake, so I had to give the recipe a try. I served it to a bunch of cheesecake aficionados and they were thoroughly impressed, especially with the shortbread crust. Dare I say that we preferred its lighter texture to the very dense and rich versions from New York? The recipe was terribly easy to put together, so I suggest you give it a try for yourself!
eli's chicago-style cheesecake
crust
6 TB unsalted butter, softened and cut into chunks
1/4 cup (1 ounce) confectioners' sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup (3 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
filling
1 1/2 pounds cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) granulated sugar
zest of 1 lemon (my addition -- optional, but delicious)
1 TB all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
2 large eggs
melted butter for greasing the pan
1. For the crust: In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and confectioners' sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Ass the vanilla and mix until combined, about 30 seconds. Add the flour and the salt and beat on low speed until just combined, about 30 seconds.
2. Empty the mixture into an 8-inch springform pan (I used an 8 1/2" pan with no problems) and press it evenly into the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Wash the mixer bowl and paddle.
3. Meanwhile, adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Prick the chilled crust several times with a fork and bake until golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Adjust the oven rack to the middle position, maintaining the oven temperature at 350.
4. For the filling: In a standing mixture fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese on medium-low speed to break it up and soften it, about 1 minute. Scrape down the bowl and paddle. Add half the sugar and the lemon zest (if using) and beat on medium-low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape the bowl. Beat in the remaining sugar, flour, and salt until combined, another minute. Scrape the bowl. Add the sour cream and vanilla and beat for a minute. Add the yolk and beat for another minute. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and beat for a minute after each addition, scraping down the bowl and paddle as necessary.
5. Brush the sides of the cooled springform pan with melted butter. Set the pan on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any spills. Pour the filling onto the cooled crust and bake until the cheesecake is firm around the edges and barely jiggles in the center, around 50-60 minutes (check at 40 if you are using a larger pan). An instant-read thermometer should register 150F. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for 3 hours then wrap tightly with plastic and refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to 4 days.
6. Unmold the cheesecake about 30 minutes before you want to serve it. Enjoy with a dollop of whipped cream and/or some fresh strawberries.
