Butternut Squash Risotto

Our family’s presence recently graced Brio Toscana, a ritzy restaurant in the Southpark area. My sister Mary ordered a creamy risotto dish, complete with sweet potato and chicken. She loved it, and it certainly looked delicious. I didn’t get to taste it…

As a result, Christine and I decided to try our hand at recreating it on one of our cooking nights. Thursday, January 14 was give n the honor. We chose the Barefoot Contessa’s risotto recipe, which also uses saffron, butternut squash, and prosciutto. If I’ve educated you at all, you’ll know that we replaced the prosciutto with turkey bacon.

Christine tackled the butternut squash, while I started the risotto. Naturally, it turned out this way because Christine is buff and I am…not. She picked up the huge knife, and started slicing into the squash. Even for someone as <ahem> prepared as she is, the squash looked tough to cut. The risotto, on the other hand, was relatively easy. Although I am deathly afraid of being splattered by grease while cooking things stovetop.

While Christine was exclaiming rapturously about the color of the inside of a butternut squash, I was trying to teach my pieces of turkey bacon how to swim in hot, melted butter. It was interesting. She cubed, I stirred, and everything worked out like it was supposed to.

As I was stirring chicken broth into the risotto, carefully portioning out the liquids so it would cook correctly, I said to Christine, “I certainly hope this rice turns into more than it looks…”, because it really didn’t look like we’d have enough. After all, this risotto was the main dish - people are expecting a MEAL here, not just a spoonful on the side of their plates.

Of course, Christine, moving at her usual lightning place, finished the squash before the risotto was done. She started cutting up pieces of chicken (precooked by our mom) to serve on the side. I kept stirring.

The squash finished baking very shortly before the risotto was all done. We added the squash cubes to the risotto, which had turned yellow from the saffron. Now THAT looked like a dinner fit to serve to the family. I was very happy.

All in all, everything turned out just great. The risotto was creamy, al dente, and perfectly seasoned. I particularly enjoyed having it with the chicken on the side. Fortunately, we already had a salad thrown together, leftover from Morgan’s dinner night on Tuesday.

On a scale from 1 to 10: 7.

I thought it was fantastic. However, Christine and a few of the family members took issue with the incredible, though very slight, hint of smoky flavor the bacon provided. Next time, perhaps we’ll try it without that, just for grins. The butternut squash cubes could have been a bit smaller, but that’s just presentation. The taste was very good. I’d make this again, no questions, hands down.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Did you know that cauliflower is part of the mustard family? Me neither. Who would ever have guessed that the mild, broccoli-like vegetable had anything to do with mustard. In fact, I was 90% sure they had never met. Turns out I was wrong.

It’s an underappreciated vegetable, that’s for sure. My mom used to stick it in homemade macaroni and cheese when we were young. I don’t mind the taste, but it was always disappointing to save a particularly creamy-looking bite for last, thinking it consisted of noodles and cheese, only to find out that it was a piece of cauliflower. Very anticlimactic.

However, Tyler assured us that this recipe would put cauliflower on the A-list once and for all. Christine was skeptical – she hates cauliflower. But she agreed to try it anyway, which was commendable.

So there we were, in the kitchen, around 5:00. The recipe starts with simmering milk, so that’s what was happening. You know the saying, “A watched pot never boils”? Yeah – try milk. The stuff just SITS THERE. It refuses to even begin to bubble if you keep an eye on it. So I busied myself with cutting up the head of cauliflower…interesting task, there. Cauliflower is kind of brittle. It just breaks apart into little white pieces. Feels weird, too.

When the milk finally started to simmer, we added the cauliflower pieces, the thyme, and the butter. I have to say – the butter is the key to this recipe. I’m not going to say how much is in there, because my family reads this and I don’t want them to get alarmed. But what are the three secrets to French cooking? Butter, butter and <whisper> butter. You get the idea.

I’m not sure this recipe is French. But obviously, the rule still holds.

So we capped the pot – I’m sorry, I mean, we “covered the pot and simmered for 12 to 15 minutes” – and began to work on the topping. That’s right. This soup has a breadcrumb topping. If you ever make this recipe, you may be tempted (as I was) to just leave off the breadcrumbs. Don’t. The topping takes this soup from “really good” and turns it into “phenomenal”. It’s made of toasted, homemade breadcrumbs (Progresso doesn’t cut it), little pieces of cauliflower, chopped nuts, parsley, and…you guessed it…BUTTER. Really good stuff. Christine took care of mixing it together, during which she was saying over and over, “Check it click! Check it click!” You’re confused, aren’t you? I didn’t really get it at first, either. She’s quoting the E-Trade baby.

My sister is quoting the E-TRADE BABY COMMERCIAL and we don’t even own a TV. What do you call that? Talent? Obsession? Really good memory banks? Sad? Funny? I don’t know. Either way, it’s meant to express delight and satisfaction with one’s work.

So anyway, we used our really cool immersion blender to puree the soup and get rid of those pretty hefty pieces of cauliflower. It was beautiful and everything, but I knew what the ingredients were, and I couldn’t help but think it would taste a lot like…milk.

However, my taste buds were shocked and overjoyed with the end result. Christine described it as a soup version of macaroni and cheese. It was creamy, white velvet, topped with that amazing breadcrumb concoction (another throwback to macaroni and cheese, in my opinion). The family couldn’t stop talking about it. WOW.

And now Christine likes cauliflower.

So Tyler, my hat is off to you. You’re absolutely incredible. This recipe? It leaves me…speechless. And those who know me well will agree that this phenomenon does not often happen.

On a scale from 1 to 10: 10++.

Christine wanted me to rate this “little taste of paradise” as a 12, but I can’t break my scale like that. Just know that it was THAT GOOD. Oh, we put some homemade, gluten-free cranberry-walnut bread on the side. And it was pretty fantastic as well. We are so making this again. Soon.

Pan-Fried [Chicken] Sausage with Apples, Potatoes, & Cabbage

Tyler describes this as a classic French bistro dish, but it looked more German to me – sausage, cabbage, potatoes…you know. But apparently, it’s French. The picture makes it look so simple and comforting. We were really excited about making it on Wednesday, November 4.

The recipe is incredibly easy. You start with the sausage, then use the same pan for the apples. A pot of water is boiling on another burner, for the cabbage, and that’s it. However, Tyler slyly stuck “Velvet Potato Puree” at the bottom of the ingredients list. This is, in fact, a complete second recipe that also needs to be made. And guess what? To make mashed potatoes (which is what that is, in case you didn’t know), you need yet another burner on which to boil them! Yeah. Thanks, Tyler. :-S

So here’s what happened: we strode confidently into the kitchen, completely prepared mentally and ingredient-wise. We decided that the potatoes would take longest, so we put them on to boil immediately. While that was happening, Christine took care of preparing the apples for their turn in the skillet, and I tackled the cabbage. We chose to wait to start the real recipe (which begins by cooking the sausage) until our potatoes had at least begun to boil.

Anyway. The recipe calls for a full head of Savoy cabbage. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that variety, but it’s light green with highly textured leaves. I think it’s beautiful, in an agricultural sense. I was separating the leaves and putting them in a bowl, ready to dump into the boiling water when the time came. The bowl filled quickly, because the cabbage leaves are inflexible when raw, and the curve wasn’t helping with the lack of room. <sigh> There were several “man-overboard”s by the time I finished.

Christine didn’t have any “man-overboard”s with the apples.

At last our potatoes began to bubble away, so we started cooking the sausage. I am deathly afraid of cooking anything that sizzles, because I panic when I get hit by the grease splatters. I know – I’m not really an Iron Chef, if that’s the case. However, that’s why I cook with Christine. She has no fear of any kind, so she doesn’t mind turning the sausages and being hit occasionally with specks of grease. So she handled the sausage, for the most part.

We stuck a pot of water on the back burner, to begin heating for the cabbage. The burner back there is so small and not very hot, so we knew it probably wouldn’t reach a boil anytime soon. But at least it was beginning to heat up.

At this point, Christine removed the sausage and dumped in the apples. They are caramelized with brown sugar and fresh thyme. Can  you say, “Yum!”? The place began to smell like a real bistro, that’s for sure.

The potatoes finished, and I began to put them through the ricer. Ever used a potato ricer? The thing is an absolute beast, to use AND to clean. Wow. BUT, it makes the potatoes fluffy and lumpless. This I like. So I riced. Tyler’s recipe calls for heavy cream and butter heated and melted in a saucepan, but there was no way we were getting out another pot, and we certainly didn’t have room on the stove for that. I stuck it in the microwave instead…worked like a charm.

I had just finished the potatoes, and they were still in the mixing bowl, when the water for the cabbage reached a rolling boil. This necessitated a quick switch of gears to dropping cabbage leaves into water, rather than carefully pouring hot milk into potatoes. This is when I felt like an Iron Chef.

Tyler specifically states that the cabbage should stay in until wilted, but still have “tooth” (whatever THAT means). About 2-3 minutes. This we did. To the letter. But…having never cooked cabbage before, it must have been hard to tell when it was wilted but still had tooth, because our parents adamantly declared it undercooked. Maybe so. I kind of liked the crunch factor, but I guess that’s not how cabbage is supposed to be. Next time, we’ll let it droop and get mushy, and I’m sure we’ll have rave reviews.

The most amazing part about the whole dinner was the moment when I finished tossing the cabbage with parsley and butter and Christine called everyone to eat. Everything was on the table at the same time, everything was hot, and (with the exception of the cabbage, I guess) it was all cooked to perfection. Triumph!

Until…

…we looked back at the counter, sink, and stove. Oops. Because of the recipes’s demanding timing, there had been no opportunity to “wash as we went”. As a result, the stove still had three pots on it, the sink was absolutely filled with bowls, spoons, knives, etc., and the counter still had the mixer, a few towels, and miscellaneous utensils strewn about. But the food was hot – there was no time to look back with regret! We just sat down, enjoyed our dinner, and left all our dirty dishes in the capable hands of our sister Mary, who happened to be on clean-up duty. Our mom probably helped, too.

So in summary, this meal was absolutely fantastic. We will definitely be repeating it in the near future.

On a scale from 1 to 10: 9.

The apples were absolutely 100%. Couldn’t have been better. That’s probably because Christine did them. We’ve already been over the cabbage…so that subtracted some pointage. I enjoyed the sausage, but we are thinking of trying a different flavor next time. The strong pepper taste really got to some people. The potatoes were out of this world, if I do say so myself, but Christine and I decided that to make things easier (timing- and stovetop-wise), we would do the potatoes in advance in the future.

Acorn Squash with Frosted Cranberries

<sigh> Ok. I know it’s been a while. There are reasons for my near-month of silence, though. Christine and I got to skip out on our cooking quite a few times this month, due to a few parties and our parents’ 26th anniversary. Our whole family got sick, recovered, and is now well…oh, and my sister Morgan and I went off to Washington, DC for a weekend. Not that the trip had anything to do with cooking nights, but it did make for a busy month.

Anyway, this week, we had this squash dinner on Wednesday, October 28; we got to change things up a little on Thursday, because it was my dad’s 50th birthday. I know – congratulations to him! My mom made him Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourgignon, which I thought was very apropos. Christine created a beautiful salad, and I mashed the potatoes. It was a joint effort, and the meal was delicious. Positively amazing.

But that’s not what this post is about. This post is going to tell you all about Susie Fishbein’s recipe for acorn squash. Are you a squash fan? I never really was. Then my mom told me that pumpkins are squash. I nearly fell over. You mean PUMPKIN PIE is made out of squash!?!? NO! You must be mistaken. <chuckle> And of course, she wasn’t. That sort of opened my eyes to the wonders of food and the different flavors you can get by adding different ingredients. Butternut squash, we’ve learned, makes great soup. Pumpkins make good pies (and just about nothing else, so it’s good we found something to do with them). Zucchini and summer squash are versatile, and you can do a lot with them in their season. Then there’s acorn squash. <sigh of bliss> They’re big and green, with an occasional blotch of orange. Very interesting. They are also exceptionally hard. You really have to work to get the knife through them.

Susie Fishbein’s recipe for Acorn Squash with Frosted Cranberries, which can be found in her Kosher By Design cookbook, is absolutely *the best* recipe for acorn squash. It just can’t be beat. The squashes are baked for a while, face down, absorbing water and softening until tender. Then we put a little dollop of a brown sugar & honey mixture, which melts into the hollow left by the seeds you remove. Finally, you put a handful of frosted cranberries (those are cranberries that have been boiled for a little while in a simple syrup and then tossed with sugar) into the hollow and serve. Ahhhh. So good. The flavors meld into autumnal perfection. We make this recipe all the time. It’s that amazing.

On the side, we decided to serve risotto. We used one of the Barefoot Contessa’s recipes, but we removed the chunks of butternut squash she had in hers, since we were already serving squash. Risotto, if I haven’t mentioned it before, is a real labor of love. Regular rice can be stuffed in a pot with some water and boil itself away for an hour or so. Risotto, on the other hand, takes constant attention and work. The liquid is added a little at a time, so you can never walk off and leave it. But the creamy consistency and incredible flavor really do make up for this. We made saffron risotto, which promptly turned bright yellow. Christine’s comment was, “That’s not a color found in nature. But then again, it is.” Meaning that it looks like Heinz Mustard – very fake – but since the color comes from the stamens of crocuses, it’s actually real. There’s perception for you.

It was about…4:50 (and we were thinking dinner at 5:30) when Christine said something about muffins. “We should make some kind of muffin to go on the side,” she proclaimed. I looked at the clock doubtfully. “Ok…what kind?” I was dubious. Her answer was our mom’s classic Maple Morning Muffins (I think it originally came from Aunt Thelma – not sure about that). I asked if she could mix it up in 10 minutes, and then it could bake until 5:30. We were optimistic about the timing, so we started whisking cheerfully. I did the wet ingredients, she did the dry – we’re a perfect team. We had them ready to go, but our squash was still hogging the oven, which was also at the wrong temperature because of that. The muffins had to sit forlornly on the counter, waiting for their turn in the oven. Dinner had to be pushed to 6:00. But we didn’t feel like failures – dinner is whenever we say it is, anyway.

Then it happened. We pulled them out of the oven, golden brown and beautiful. We let them cool for a minute or so, and then started to put them in our basket. Uh-oh. The combination of gluten-free flour and heat caused them to turn into muffin crumbles and dust. Heartbreaking. We ended up with a napkin full of ice cream topping, if you know what I mean, and no muffins for dinner. THAT’S when we felt like failures.

But that feeling passed quickly, as we tasted the squash and risotto. Wow. They were perfect in every way. And so was the dinner, even without the infamous muffins.

On a scale from 1 to 10: 10.

It doesn’t get better than this, folks. Especially for a cool night in October. You need this recipe (http://www.amazon.com/Kosher-Design-Picture-Perfect-Holidays/dp/1578197074/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256928029&sr=8-1).

Brown Sugar Pumpkin Cheesecake

Our grandfather was in town for dinner on Thursday, October 1. We knew this at the beginning of the week, when our mom asked us to put our menu ingredients on the grocery list. That was when we discovered, with a little horror, that we had foolishly only planned the month of September, and had neglected to put a dinner on the list for this, the first day of October. :-S This caused a bit of a scuffle, and we had to quickly put a dinner together without a lot of forethought and premeditation.

However, as it turned out, our mom pretty much took over the dinner portion. She really wanted to try Julia Child’s Cream of Mushroom soup (she has just gotten the cookbook recently, and there are loads of recipes with which to experiment, you know?); but she knew our father and brother would probably not appreciate that as much as *she* (and our grandfather) would, so she added flank steak to the menu. Basically, she did it all. We didn’t have to worry about a thing. Or cook.

BUT. We did end up making a fabulous cheesecake. It’s supposed to sit in the refrigerator for 6 hours or more, so Christine and I decided to make it the night before. Please recall that this was after our fabulous Chicken & Basil Dressing. We put our aprons back on, and started with the cocoa crust. I know – chocolate flavor with pumpkin? Hmm. Anyway, we wanted to make some extra cheesecake, so we could sample it that night, and not have to wait until the following night.

[Obviously, it had been a long day in the kitchen, and the Iron Chefs were not thinking clearly. I just said that the cheesecake needed to sit in the refrigerator for 6 hours - what made us think we could sample it that night??]

So we made the crust. It was while we were separating the eggs – always a delicate procedure – that our father called us out to help with the sukkah-building project (if you don’t know what that is, google it). We left the bowls, ingredients, and mixer sitting there, looking lonely and rejected, while we rushed outside to help hold up a wall of 2x2s and lattice. Then we rushed back inside to continue our recipe, shouting over our shoulders that if we were called out again, there was a very good chance that the cheesecake might flop - baking is a fine art, and timing is important!

We decided to one-and-a-half the recipe, and put the extra crust mixture in little ramekins. We split it into five, but it probably could have gone further. This baked while we cleaned up. We had gotten out the mountains of cream cheese for which the recipe calls, and put it on the counter to get to room temperature. We have had major baking snafus in the past using cold cream cheese in cheesecakes. It tends to clump, curdle, and clot, causing chunks of cheese instead of creamy consistency. <grin> This was when we realized that we did not have enough extra cream cheese to one-and-a-half our recipe. We had to make an emergency phone call to our sisters to have them pick up some more while they were out.

All this to say that after the crusts cooked, our family decided to go up and start our brand new season of 24 (season 7 – DO NOT tell me what happens) in our brand new rec-room (Christine and Mums had completely redecorated, repainted, and revised the setup). So up we went. The crusts cooled, and when we finished the first episode, Christine looked at me and said, “So do we have enough time to make the actual cheesecake part, or should we do that tomorrow?” I looked at the clock. 9:15. Well…nothing like staying up all night making cheesecake, right? We went downstairs to see what the recipe had in store for us. One hour and fifteen minutes of baking time, plus 30 minutes just sitting in the oven with the door cracked and the temperature off, plus 30 minutes out of the oven cooling, then put in the refrigerator. That’s two hours and fifteen minutes, not counting the time it would take to mix it up. We’re talking going to bed at 11:30, here! Now, for some of you, that may not seem too late at all. In fact, if you’re a “night owl”, you’re just getting started at 11:30. But for Christine and I, having gotten up early-ish that morning, and hearing the 5:30 alarm clock looming in our very near future, that’s just a little late.

So we ditched that plan and went with making it the following morning. And since I actually remembered to get the cream cheese out of the refrigerator at 6:30 that morning (which is almost a miracle), it came together beautifully and cooked into silky-smooth perfection.

Our grandfather was suitably impressed. Which is important, because he is quite the chef himself. And our coffee maker malfunctioned and we couldn’t make him a decaf cup of coffee, per his request. So the cheesecake really helped smooth things over.

On a scale from 1 to 10: 9.

The only thing I’d change is having MORE pumpkin flavor. More spice, more of that signature taste. But for the record, the cocoa crust went with it just fine. I had my doubts, but they were appeased.

Grilled Chicken with Basil Dressing

Back on track again…on page 115 of Giada’s cookbook. While planning our September menu, Christine and I found these two grilled chicken recipes on facing pages – Grilled Chicken with Gremolata, and Grilled Chicken with Basil Dressing. We decided to put both of them in September, one at the beginning of the month, one at the end. Talk about clever.

So here we are, finally at the end of September. The last day, to be exact. Not that it matters. But hasn’t the weather been fantastic??

Anyway. We were going to make this chicken and a nice salad on the side. When in doubt, put a salad on the side. This I have learned from weeks of cooking with Christine and my mother. I’m really not a huge salad fan, so it may surprise you to read about salad after salad after salad being served on the sides of our dinners. But when in doubt…yeah. You know the rest. However, when I mentioned this to my mom, she suggested doing mashed potatoes instead, to use up the remainder of a bag in our pantry. I thought I had stepped into heaven, or something. My MOM, suggesting *mashed potatoes* (a personal favorite of mine) instead of a *salad*?! Is it a holiday??

So for some reason, time just kind of flew by after I finished teaching my piano lessons for the day, and as I was sitting on the couch talking to my mom. All the sudden, it was 4:40, and Mums asked tentatively if there was a dinner in our near future. Christine and I ambled into the kitchen, took out the recipe, and began to read.

<ahem> Please take note: 45 minutes to 1 hour before dinner is NOT, I repeat, NOT, when one should *begin* looking at one’s recipe. The recipe should be read, in it’s entirety, the previous day, as well as the morning of the meal. One should know EXACTLY what one has to do, and when one should be in the kitchen, starting to prepare dinner. This is what an Iron Chef does. Christine and I did not follow normal procedure in this instance, and I really can’t explain why.

Now that I got that out of the way…the first five words filled us with horror and a feeling of complete failure. “In a resealable plastic bag”. OH. NO. And sure enough, Giada cheerfully continues with the ingredients for a great marinade. Christine speed-read down to the end of the paragraph, where it told us how long we had to marinate the chicken. At least 30 minutes. She looks up at me. “Do we have 30 minutes?” she asks. I am busily quartering potatoes to boil. I’m thinking to myself, “Isn’t there only one answer to that question? I mean, if we really don’t have 30 minutes, what are we going to do – just put the chicken on the grill with NO MARINADE??!” I glance at the clock. 4:48. No problem. “Sure, we have 30 minutes,” I answer confidently. <grin>

While the chicken & the marinade “got happy”, as Emeril would say, the potatoes boiled and Christine decided (wonder of wonders <smirk>) to make…a salad. <eye roll> Thought we would have one dinner with no salad. But no. I slice cucumbers, she halved cherry tomatoes. We work well as a team, that’s for sure.

In the midst of all this, we also found time to make the “basil dressing”. Believe it or not, the consistency is very much a dressing. I kind of thought Giada meant more of a “sauce” when she said “dressing”, but she did actually mean “dressing.” It’s basically…basil leaves and olive oil with a whole lot of freshly squeezed lemon juice. This, in particular, caused loud cries of pain from both Christine and I as the acidic lemon juice entered the infinitesimal cuts on our hands, some of which we hadn’t realized we had.

Finally, we put the chicken on the grill, and Christine (“Grill-Master”) pretty much handled that side of the dinner while I handled the mashed potatoes. I based them on Tyler’s recipe, which is the best. But we didn’t use Yukon Gold potatoes. The chicken turned out perfectly, which is a plus. It tasted a lot like…lemons. And fennel. Interesting.

Did that saga seem a little chaotic? It was. I felt like we were rushing to get dinner on the table, but everything was ready right at 6:00, so I don’t know why I had that feeling.

On a scale from 1 to 10: 7.

The chicken was good…very lemony. The dressing was thin, correctly so, I’m guessing. But nothing special. Now the potatoes, on the other hand, were fantastic. They are what kept this rating at a 7 instead of a 6. And the salad got rave reviews, as well. Overall? Good, but not great.

Chef Salad

For some reason, Christine and I put chef salad on the menu on one of the days when two of our biggest salad fans are out of town. And our dad and brother – All-American meat-lovers – are very much at home. The question is, why?? And I’m going to leave it to you to answer…

Anyway, Carvel had this free ice cream/Oreo thing going at their Rea Village location Thursday afternoon and evening, September 24. So we planned to make our very light salad dinner early, to be able to fit in ice cream afterwards (timewise and stomachwise). Christine and I agreed to meet in the kitchen at 5:00.

Having worked at the CLT USO that morning, and also, we suspect, being anemic, I conked out on the porch swing for about 30 minutes at about 4:30. I had just sat up and returned my mother’s missed call (one should never, if *at all* possible, miss one’s MOTHER’S call), when Christine walked out onto the porch.

“J, we forgot to cook the eggs!” she laments.

One of the essential, key ingredients of any chef salad is hardboiled eggs. I mean, without those, it’s just a normal salad. Nothing special. You certainly can’t call it chef salad without hardboiled eggs. It just isn’t done. This was quite the blow. Because to eat at 5:30, so that we could leave by 6:00, so that we could have ice cream at 6:30, because the deal ended at 7:00, we definitely did not have time to hardboil eggs. Or, rather, we may have time to boil them, but not time to let them cool. And who wants piping hot hardboiled eggs in their salad? <shudder> Gross.

I sigh. We discuss the possibilities of going ahead and cooking the eggs right then. We decid it’s not going to happen. The eggs will simply have to be omitted, and we will have to try to find a suitable replacement. We are delinquents. Tonight was NOT an Iron Chef night. <heavier sigh>

Anyway, we got in there and started slicing lettuce and cubing cheese. I love the term “cubing” when referring to cheese. Ah, cubes of cheese…I could go on and on. I am a cheese fanatic. Most of our family is, come to think of it…

But I digress. We had gotten a rotisserie chicken earlier in the day (and one has to wonder – if we had enough forethought to go to the store and get a CHICKEN, why didn’t we, perforce, think of cooking the EGGS at the same time??), so in our delectable non-chef salad, we had romaine, arugula, chicken, cheddar cubes, feta, dried cranberries, [turkey] bacon, and cucumber. Tomatoes on the side. I’m not sure what my mom would say about that. Probably that it sounds like a great salad, but it was not a chef salad. <smirk>

As an aside, my sister Christine is the type who snitches a piece of rotisserie chicken and says, “Ew, that tastes like rotisserie chicken.” Then, she takes *another* piece, sprinkles it lightly with salt and heavily with pepper, optionally pairs it with feta, and says, “Now that’s the only way to eat it. Really.”

So there you have it. A great salad for dinner – I’m partial to the honey mustard dressing on it, but probably anything would be fine. Simple success.

On a scale from 1 to 10: 8.

A salad, while delightful, needs something on the side. In my humble opinion, that is. We served corn chips, but I mean…something a little more substantial. AND WE FORGOT THE EGGS! <sob> But I guess we’ll make up for it next time. <wipes tears>

Salt & Pepper Salmon, or, Days of Our Lives Without Mom

ACT 1:

–Monday morning, September 21–
Mums (that’s our term of endearment for our mother): Make sure you girls put whatever you need on my grocery list, because I’m ordering right after breakfast!
[a few minutes later]
Christine: J, we should probably go look at our recipes, because Mums is ordering right after breakfast.
Me: Oh yeah. Let’s do that now.
[we walk into the kitchen and bend earnestly over Tyler's cookbook, reading our fish recipe - Salt & Pepper Salmon with Smashed Potatoes, Peas, Lemon, Pearl Onions, and Mint, if you were wondering]
Christine: We’re not putting all that *stuff* in the mashed potatoes – you know that, right?
Me: <confused incredulity> What do you mean!? That’s what makes them special!
Christine: <with an air of stand-offish its-all-on-your-head> Fine, if you think people will eat them like that.
Me: Well, I guess we could just make regular…it’d be easier, too…
Christine: <flipping quickly> And Tyler has a great recipe for regular.
Me: Ok, so what do we need for the fish?
Christine: Hm. Well, obviously someone will need to go get the fish on Wednesday, when we need it. So, for the potatoes…we need…
Me:…new potatoes. New potatoes? Is that different from what we normally get, do you think?
Christine: Let’s ask. And…heavy cream. Ok, so for the fish, we need…fish. Wow, this is an easy recipe.
Me: Great! On to the next one…
[and we continue to fill in the shopping list for Thursday's menu]

***

ACT 2

–Wednesday, September 23, 3:30pm–
Christine: So you know one of us needs to run out and get the fish?
Me: Oh…yeah…
Christine: But I was thinking, with Mums and Morgan gone, maybe we could just do burgers instead, if we have them. That’s so easy, and everyone would be happy.
Me: Great! Yes! We’ll have to check on that. I’ll discuss it with you when I’m finished here.

–Wednesday, September 23, 4:15pm–
[I check the freezer for hamburgers - we have none]

–Wednesday, September 23, 4:45pm–
Me: Christine, we don’t have any burgers. I checked.
Christine: I found a bag of ravioli in the freezer – we could do that instead?
Me: Oh, perfect. <sigh of relief>
Christine: We could put sausage on the side, or something.
Me: Yeah, that sound great. Or meatballs – I noticed we have that too.
Christine: You know, J, no one really puts meatballs with ravioli. If we do meatballs, we might as well make spaghetti.
Me: Hm. Ok, so we could do spaghetti and meatballs, or ravioli with chicken sausage on the side. Um…let’s do the ravioli. Crowd-pleaser.
Christine: Ok.
[I take the sausage out and put it on the counter to thaw]

–Wednesday, September 23, 5:00pm–
[phone rings]
Me: (knowing it’s my dad) Yes, sir?
Daddy: Hey. What’s happening?
Me: Nothing.
Daddy: That’s boring.
Me: But we’re making it a profitable nothing. <grin>
Daddy: Great. So, what are we having for dinner?
Me: (knowing where this is going) Ravioli.
Daddy: I see. Have you started making it yet?
Me: (knowing this IS going where I thought it was going) Nope.
Daddy: Well, what do you think about me taking the family out for dinner?
Me: (knowing where he wants to go) Fantastic. Where?
Daddy: Well, I was thinking Carabba’s. Would that work for everyone?
Me: (confirmed) Um….well…….I guess all of us except Christine. The only thing she could get would be a salad, and I don’t think she likes theirs.
Daddy: She’s been painting all day, and I really want to make it work for her. Maybe you could check and see where she’d like to go?
Me: Sure.
[I run upstairs to ask Christine]
Me: Daddy wants to take the family out to dinner.
Christine: Oh, good. I don’t eat out anymore, but I’m whooped, so you guys go without me.
Me: (knowing what Daddy would say to that) I don’t think that’s what he had in mind.
Christine: Well, too bad.
[I run back downstairs and grab the phone from Peter]
Me: She says she doesn’t eat out anymore and for us to go without her.
Daddy: That’s not quite what I had in mind.
Me: That’s what I said.
[the phone conversation continues, concluding with us going out to eat without Christine]

–Wednesday, September 23, 9:50pm–
[I am laying in bed, Christine is still picking out her outfit for tomorrow]
Me: Christine, did you put the sausage back in the freezer?
Christine: Yep.
Me: <sigh of relief> Oh, good. Thanks.
Christine: That’s me.

[the lights fade as I fall asleep to the sound of Christine brushing her teeth and the smell of paint drying...]

THE END

Conclusions:
1. Christine does most of the thinking in our Iron Chef team, and has most, if not all, of the great ideas.
2. My dad, without fail, will offer to take the family out to dinner when my mom leaves town.
3. Usually to Carabba’s.
4. Christine no longer eats out.
5. Christine and I make the perfect team: I get the sausage out and completely forget about it until safely ensconced in my bed, she puts it away at the appropriate time, after learning that we won’t be eating it that night. 

Citrus Arancine with Pecorino Cheese

Even if you don’t know what arancine is (and you probably don’t – I didn’t), doesn’t just the title make your mouth water?!

Christine found this recipe in the September 2009 issue of Bon Appetit. Granted, it’s not from one of our cookbooks, but we’re stepping outside the box. As Christine reminded me, “This blog is about two Iron Chefs – not about two cookbooks.” The Iron Chefs are, of course, us…

Arancine are deep-fried rice balls popular in Sicily, often made from leftover risotto (which is heaven in a dish already). The cool thing about this recipe is the cube of cheese hidden in the center of the rice ball and the golden fried breadcrumbs all over the outside of it. <blissful sigh> It’s truly a labor of love, because it takes a long time to make. Not labor-intensive, but you do need about a day to get this meal on the table.

We, being the premeditated and always prepared Iron Chefs that we are, made our risotto on Wednesday, although we knew we were serving the arancine on Thursday. On Wednesday morning, we threw ourselves into our aprons and started cooking arborio rice with white wine and chicken broth. The result was mouth-watering, creamy risotto, cooked to perfection and flavored with lemon, lime, and anise seed. The recipe actually called for orange zest as well, but the lemon and lime were enough for us. They also used fennel, but we happened to have anise instead. Same difference.

So then, you’re supposed to spread out your beautiful risotto on a baking sheet and wait an hour for it to cool completely. Meanwhile, you make a milk/egg mixture, breadcrumbs, and cube some cheese. The recipe says pecorino…have you ever tried pecorino? I’m not a huge fan. It’s a tad strong for my delicate palate. Instead, we chose to use mozzarella. Perhaps our final result was not as flavorful, but we liked it better. The lesson here? Never be afraid to experiment and tweak recipes. The Makers of Recipes and Dreamers of Dreams are not infallible – your finished product may be just as good or better, or you may simply LIKE it better. Or your substitutions could be total failures and flops, in which case you might want to read some cookbooks before experimenting again.

After the risotto cooled, we were back in the kitchen forming the balls. Christine cut the mozzarella WAY too big at first, so we had to trim the cubes down a little. We don’t need an arancine three inches in diameter, you know?? Once we got the hang of it, we were a well-oiled machine, forming, stuffing, dipping, and rolling those balls into submission. We couldn’t get over how great they looked, even uncooked!

I’ll admit it. The thought did cross my mind, very briefly, to skip the penne with spinach sauce that night and fry up our arancine instead…

…but we didn’t.

The following afternoon, we started heating up our oil. Our mom suggested using a thermometer, to ensure that the oil stayed at about 350 degrees while we fried. I rummaged around in the drawer for a while, looking for it. I found it – tiny, orange thing – but someone had left it on, and it was out of batteries. <irritated smirk> Guess not everyone can be an Iron Chef. So I thought I’d try using the meat thermometer – very high-tech thing from Williams-Sonoma – just to see where we were at. I stuck that probe in the oil and the thermometer went CRAZY. Then it occured to me that if meat/poultry/fish ever went over TWO HUNDRED degrees (let alone three hundred), it would be overdone and/or burnt. Since the oil is supposed to hang around 350, the meat thermometer *probably* wouldn’t be able to handle it. ;-S I removed it and put it away. Shh. Don’t tell anyone.

Anyway, we decided to do it “by touch”, to borrow the safecracking colloquialism. Meaning, no thermometer – just watch the frying food and adjust to achieve. We [gently] threw in the first five balls and watched as they sizzled. Christine is an expert fryer (is that a good thing?), and she kept the balls turning and watched carefully until they looked done. We removed them and gazed in awe at our handiwork. <WOW> If you’ve ever been to The Cheesecake Factory, and ordered their Fried Macaroni and Cheese appetizer – THAT’S what these looked like. Never have I seen anything so beautiful. Ok, that didn’t sound right. But you catch my drift.

As we continued cooking the arancine, all we could say was, “Look how beautiful they are! Wow! Look at that perfectly-browned, crispy, breadcrumb crust!” Wow!”

We were surprised that the recipe did not include some kind of sauce to serve on top, or even on the side, of the balls. As we learned in our recent reading of The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman, *everything* should be served with a sauce of some sort. Even soup – which IS sauce, by itself (a concept that never occured to me). So we couldn’t very well serve the balls DRY. We put out a bowl of marinara, but we wanted something different, eclectic, and perfectly paired with the citrus, white wine, and anise flavors. We found the ideal recipe in one of Susie Fishbein’s books. It was a mayonnaise base, with apricot and lime. Fantastic.

When it was finally time to eat, we could not believe how incredible these arancine were! I mean, really. They looked so professional, with that golden-brown, crispy exterior; warm, creamy interior, culminating with the grand finale of the melting cheese cube in the very center. <even more blissful sigh> Absolutely divine. All four family members who were privileged to be there for dinner affirmed that they could have eaten all the arancine by themselves. Including me.

On a scale from 1 to 10: 10++.

It doesn’t get better than this, people. In fact, maybe the Iron Chefs should retire early. Quit while they’re ahead. Stay on top with an excellent reputation. I don’t know. We can’t top this. It was perfect and delicious. My mom, Christine, and I all preferred the cold mayonnaise sauce to the marinara, but vice versa with my dad. So we’ll keep both on the menu for next time. Speaking of which…when IS next time??

We Interrupt This Broadcast…

…to give you the highlights of Broccoli Rabe.

Broccoli Rabe (pronounced rob) is a green, leafy vegetable popular in Galician, Chinese, Italian, and Portugese cuisine. It is commonly called “rapini”, which sounds more Italian. It’s flavor has been described as pungent, bitter, nutty, and definitely “an aquired taste”. <shudder> Italian broccoli rabe is much more bitter than Chinese, which is not bitter at all, lighter, more delicate, and very tender.

[Obviously, we got some Italian broccoli rabe  - the ONLY word to describe it was "bitter".]

Does it cure cancer? No. But it is a good source of Vitamins A, C, and K, as well as potassium, calcium, and iron. [And you thought you could only get calcium from milk, didn't you? ]

Will it give me perfect skin? No…but Vitamin A helps with vision, bone metabolism, and skin health; Vitamin C is a highly effective antioxidant and known to boost the immune system, helping you stay healthy; Vitamin K, which I had never even heard of, helps your blood clot (that’s important); potassium maintains the fluid and electrolyte balance in the body; calcium, of course, builds bones – but it also plays an important role in signal transduction in the body (signal transduction is your body sending internal messages); and finally, iron is essential to red blood cells, transporting oxygen & carbon dioxide between our lungs and blood cells, respectively. Iron is an absolute requirement to human life.

So, to sum things up: no, broccoli rabe is NOT a wonder-food, but it certainly has its fair share of vitamins and nutrients. I’d like to try the Chinese variety, just to see if it really does taste any different…

That’s your science lesson for the day.