Salssssa

I took the remainder of the veggies from Apples Annies...



grilled the heck out of them...

took the grilled veggies and put them all in the food processor...

et voila....

Homemade Salsa
3 tomatoes
1 large onion
4 bell peppers
3 green or red chiles
3 jalapenos
15-20 cloves of garlic (to taste)
1 1/2 tsp salt (to taste)

Grill all of the above, peel off the blackened skins, pull the peppers and tomatoes into largish pieces (after grilling the veggies are so soft you don't even really need a knife, just a nearby garbage can to catch all the skins and seeds). Scrape the seeds out of the peppers, and squeeze the extra seeds and liquid out of the tomatoes. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their papers, put all of the tomatoes, peppers, onion, and garlic into a food processor and pulse until you reach your desired consistency. Add salt, pulse in, and add more salt and garlic if desired.

I saved one of the grilled red chile peppers, peeled off the skin, and then sliced it into thin strips. I combined those strips with freshly grated cheddar cheese to make some awesome quesadillas for dinner--topped with some delicious garlicky salsa of course.

Ooh la la, apple pie

That's right, there are four apple pies in that picture. Let's just say that I was a little busy last Sunday afternoon! Thankfully Noel peeled all the apples for me, so I just had to slice them, and make the crusts, and make the caramel/glaze. It also makes me happy that I was able to use up most of the apples (and in the nick of time too). Sadly I let the pears wait too long...they started making some sort of fermented pear liquid on the floor of the pantry, so I had to throw them away. (And then two days later at Fry's I overheard two women talking about how fantastically sweet and juicy the Asian pears they got at Apple Annie's were! Argh!) But enough about that failure, back to the deliciousness of the apple pies!

I used a recipe I found on allrecipes.com last year called "Grandma Ople's Apple Pie" (variation of Opal? but I think Opie is funnier) which I adapted to suit my purposes. You make the pie crust, slice the apples, mound the the apples in the crust, and then pour a rich, buttery, sugary caramel over the apples, top with another crust, and brush that crust with a little of the caramel as a glaze. The original recipe called for doing a lattice-crust over the apples, and then just pouring the glaze over the whole thing, but the crust is usually my favorite part of the pie, so I did a whole top crust.

The end result is crazily sweet and deliciously appley. The crust is soft and flaky just under the surface, and then crispy and sugary right on the top where the glaze has baked on. The Apple Annie's apples were perfect, they held up to the heat, and became tender but not mushy.

My one caveat is that I actually wouldn't recommend trying to make four pies at once using this method. The caramel thickens really fast, which means that you need an extra person to keep stirring it while you're putting on the top crusts, and in the rush to get everything done at the same time I ended up burning Noel with the caramel. (Sad face) So I'd only use this to make one or two pies at a time in the future.

But we took the hot apple pies and delivered one to our neighbors, one to our pastor, and one to the elementary director from church, and still had one warm apple pie left for us at home. With a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream this is a la mode gloriousness!

Jessica's version of Grandma 'Opie's' Pie

2 nine-inch prepared pie crusts

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 tbsp flour

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup white granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla

5-6 granny smith, or other tart apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into 1/4 inch segments

Roll out the pie crusts, press one crust in a nine inch pie tin, chill for about fifteen minutes. Then chill the other one while preparing the apples and caramel. Once the apples are all peeled, cored, and sliced, pile the apples fairly evenly in the prepared pie crust.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a medium saucepan melt the butter over low heat. Whisk in the flour to form a paste, stir in the water to thin it back out, and then stir in the sugars, spices, and vanilla. Keep stirring constantly, this thickens up quickly. Pour almost all of the caramel over the apples in the pie pan, reserving a few tablespoons to brush over the top. At this point it's helpful to have someone else stir the caramel, unless you're super-coordinated, which I am most definitely not.

Place the second crust over the apples and caramel, crimp the edges of the two crusts together, and cut slits in the top, in a decorative pattern if you're so inclined. Then brush the remaining caramel over the main part of the pie, don't worry about the crimped edges, it makes a nice contrast actually if they're not coated with the glaze.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake an additional 30-40 minutes or until the non-glazed crust is golden brown, and the apples seem soft. (I poked a toothpick in through the slits in the crust to check this, and mine were perfect at just about 32 minutes).

Eggplant Parmesan, le deuxieme

So the tomato sauce was a success, but now came the actual eggplant parmesan. I was pretty worried about it since I've never cooked with eggplant before, and we were having people over for dinner, but I since the eggplants were also creepily watching me, I decided to take the plunge.

First I peeled and cut the eggplant into 1/4 inch slices. I salted the eggplant and laid it out on paper towels to dry. After fifteen minutes or so I flipped them, salted the other side, and let them dry out for another fifteen minutes. Then I rinsed the salt off and patted them dry. After they were dry I dredged them in egg substitute and then Italian bread crumbs. I baked them at 350 degrees for fifteen minutes, flipped them and baked another fifteen minutes til they were crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.

Then I layered the eggplant with the tomato sauce from my last post, ricotta cheese, extra breadcrumbs, and shredded mozzarella cheese. I baked it all together for about 25 minutes until the cheese got all melty. The end result was creamy, crunchy, garlicky, cheesy and kinda messy, but served over home-made egg noodles (yes I did go all Martha Stewart this weekend!) it was fantastic.

Eggplant Parmesan

(from Chef to the Rescue by Cat Cora)

2 large eggplants

1 cup egg substitute (or 3 beaten eggs)

2 cups italian bread crumbs

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

3-4 cups tomato sauce

2 cups shredded cheese, mozzarella or provolone

1 cup ricotta cheese

Slice, salt, and dry the eggplants according to the directions above. Place the egg substitute in one shallow dish, and the bread crumbs in another. Dredge the eggplant slices in the egg and then in the bread crumbs, coating both sides. (Save any remaining breadcrumbs). Bake the eggplant slices for fifteen minutes on each side at 350 degrees.

In a medium-sized casserole dish ladle 1/3 of the tomato sauce. Top with half of the eggplant slices, overlapping slices slightly if necessary, then top with half the ricotta cheese, half the remaining bread crumbs, and half the shredded cheese. Repeat layers, ending with the shredded cheese again.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until the cheese is all melty and golden and perfect. Serve with pasta.

Eggplant Parmesan, la premiere

I've been slightly stressed out by the abundance of produce in my fridge and pantry. Every time I eat something else, I feel a little bit guilty. I swear that every time I open the fridge the tomatoes are watching me, saying in tiny tomato-ey voices, "Eat us. We will go bad soon. You will have wasted us. Eat ussss....." It's pretty creepy really, so I decided today to get a jump on using stuff.

I'm saving some of the tomatoes to combine with all the jalapenos and garlic and bell peppers that have also been staring at me, and make a batch of superb salsa. Plus two of the tomatoes are still totally green, which I don't quite understand since we picked them a week ago, but they're really tiny, so maybe I just picked them too soon and they won't ever ripen.

Anyway, I started with two big tomatoes, dunked them in boiling water for a minute or so till their skins started splitting, and then I plopped them in an ice bath and peeled off their skins. Which, if you think talking tomatoes are creepy, wait till you touch skinned tomatoes! Eww!

Once they were skinned I quartered them, squeezed out the seeds, and then set them in the food processor to hang out. In the meantime I heated two tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter in my largest saucepan. Then I sauted one small onion, roughly chopped, and six cloves of garlic until they were golden brown.

I tipped the whole onion/garlic/oil mixture into the food processor, and pureed it with the tomatoes until it was mostly smooth. Then I returned this mixture to the large saucepan, and added one 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, since two tomatoes wasn't going to make enough sauce for the eggplant parmesan later. Normally this would probably smell really good, but since I was simultaneously baking the chocolate cake below, the aura was bizzare to say the least. So I recommend that you do not bake a cake while making this sauce. Unless of course you think garlic, chocolate, and tomato is a good combination.

I brought the tomato sauce to a boil and then let it simmer at a pretty high heat for about 30 minutes (with the lid on--it spits like crazy). Then I took the lid off, added 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and another tablespoon or so of olive oil, and reduced the heat to low. I let it calm down a little, and then once it stopped spitting so much I put the lid back on and let it simmer for another two hours or so. I didn't even add extra spices or anything because I didn't want it to conflict with the eggplant, but the sauce came out quite lovely: thick, tomato-ey, and a vibrant red.

Tomato Sauce

2 large tomatoes, skinned, with the seeds squeezed out

1 small onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes

Saute the onions and garlic in the butter and olive oil. Puree the tomatoes, onion, and garlic until smooth, then simmer on medium-high heat in a large saucepan along with the can of crushed tomatoes. After about half an hour remove the lid, stir in the salt and sugar, turn heat down to low, and simmer for an additional two hours.

Peppers, Apples, and Eggplants, oh my!

This is the apple tree...

from whence came these apples...

and these are the peppers, which made delicious veggie tacos last night.

More good things are coming (including les aubergines)--I promise. And I'll try to remember to take pictures next time. But just so you know, if you dice and saute one large potato and one small onion for a few minutes in a little canola oil, and then you add in two diced red bell peppers, one finely chopped green chile, three pressed cloves of garlic, and a can of black beans and saute a little longer, and then fold this sweet and spicy mixture in a warm flour tortilla and sprinkle with a little shredded cheese, you just might think about going vegetarian. Mmm....

Sugar-pie honey-bunch, you know that I love... cookies...

I really like cookies. Mmm.... Chocolate chip cookies, perfection. Molasses cookies, to die for. Snickerdoodles, butter cookies, butterscotch cookies, swedish heirlooms, all up there. But sugar cookies, not my favorite. I often feel like sugar cookies have a soda-y, almost bitter aftertaste that I do not enjoy. Maybe it's because they're so sweet to start with, that the aftertaste can't possibly stand up to it, it's bound to be less sweet, I don't really know. But I've decided that there have to be some good sugar cookies out there, so I started looking around on allrecipes.com.

I found a recipe called "Soft Sugar Cookies IV" which I decided to give a shot. The cookies ended up being quite tasty, and the aftertaste was much less pronounced than in many other varieties I've tried. I don't think that sugar cookies will ever be my favorite, but these cookies are quite tasty in a sugary, sweet way. You might possibly hear your arteries give a small whimper as you eat them, but feel free to disregard this. Especially while warm, these cookies are almost perfect--sugary, fluffy, warm, melt-in-your mouth good. And even now, a week later, the leftover still aren't half bad. They're a little drier and a little bit more crumbly, but still an acceptable date for a cold glass of milk.

Soft Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar for decoration

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl cream together the shortening and butter for several minutes. Beat in the sugar and cream until sugar and fats are well combined. Beat in the eggs and vanilla, set aside. In a medium bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in small increments, beating thoroughly after each addition.

Fill a small bowl with granulated sugar--I used a mix of white and colored sugars. Roll the dough into one inch balls, roll each ball in the granulated sugar to coat, and space out the balls of dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookies are mostly firm on top and lightly golden brown on the bottom. Remove carefully from pan with a thin spatula so they won't break. Let cool on a wire rack, then store in an airtight container.

According to the original recipe on allrecipes.com this made 24 cookies, but I got closer to 60 out of it, so I guess it all depends on how big you want to make your cookies. If you're making them bigger definitely let them bake an extra minute or two.

Fred Vargas

J'aime Fred Vargas--elle est completement superbe! Her books are well written, engrossing, at points hilarious, and just generally "unputdownable," to borrow a phrase from a publisher's blurb. Her latest book, This Night's Foul Work, is no exception to the general rule. It is the fourth book in the Commissaire Adamsberg series, and the most recent to be translated into English. Vargas is at her quirky best in this book and Commissaire Adamsberg is at his fantastic, vague, whirling-minded tricks again. I think he really might be my favorite literary detective ever. Although the book is indisputably a police procedural, Adamsberg is in no way a typical detective. His mind wanders in ways wondrous to behold, and yet somehow his rambling thoughts always manage to slip through criminals' protections and unravel the case from within.

In This Night's Foul Work Adamsberg's usual team is back--the stressed out, increasingly alchoholic Danglard, the imperturbable Violette Retancourt, the constantly eating Froissy, and the other 24 officers who report to Adamsberg--plus a new character, Veyrenc, who, like Adamsberg, comes from the Pyrenees. Veyrenc speaks in twelve syllabic verse, which lends even more poetry than usual to Vargas's writing. Veyrenc also complicates Adamsberg's personal life, which is already just about as convoluted as Adamsberg's mind.

The book begins with the bodies of two young men. Adamsberg is convinced that he should keep the bodies, but the drugs division wants them, because they think that it was drug related. A new pathologist, Ariane, confirms Adamsberg's murder suspicion and informs him that the murders were committed by a woman. Adamsberg knows that the "angel of death" (a nurse who has killed thirty-odd patients) has escaped from jail, so he sets out to stop the angel of death before she can kill more people. As the bodies begin to pile up Adamsberg becomes increasingly anxious to find the "third virgin" before the angel of death finds her first.

The case is complicated by Adamsberg's attempts to bond with his nine month old son Thom, and to re-ignite the flame between Thom's mother Camille and himself. Adamsberg is also struggling to maintain his grasp on the case in spite of his fellow Parisian officers and the Normandy officers who want him to let it drop, the taciturnity of the people of Normandy, Adamsberg's attempts to placate some Norman men by investigating the 'murders' of two stags, the appearance of a centuries old recipe for eternal life, and the irritation of some of Adamsberg's own team members, who think that he is on a wild goose chase. This is an excellent mystery with fantastic characters, an improbable yet oddly believable plot, and the lyrical language that is so quintessentially Vargas. Je vous dis que vous devrez acheter ce livre sans hésitation, c'est magnifique!

Breakfast for Dinner!

Growing up we ate pancakes for dinner fairly often. My favorite was the "pancake taco" (a pancake held taco shell style, filled with applesauce). Something about a warm, crispy crusted, soft pancake, filled with cold, sweet applesauce was irresistible for me. I still can't resist breakfast for dinner sometimes. Breakfast burrito night is a pretty common standard around here, and sometimes nothing but a good bacon or broccoli omelet will fulfill my dinnertime cravings. I have a standard brunch/breakfast casserole that I use pretty often when we have people over for brunch, but I just made it for dinner today, and it might be one of my new favorite breakfasts for dinner. Since you make it ahead of time you can assemble it in the morning before work, or even the night before, and then just pull it out of the refrigerator and bake it after work. All it really needs on the side is a bowl of fruit to make it a nice well-rounded meal. I use 1% milk and 2% cheese, so it's relatively non-bad for you (I feel that saying "good" for you might be going a bit far, so I'm going to stick with "non-bad"').

The original recipe I found on allrecipes.com called this a breakfast strata, and called for the ingredients to be layered. I've made it this way, which produces a creamy custard on the bottom, and a meaty-cheesy layer on the top. It's pretty good this way, but I prefer to un-strata it, and jumble the bread and sausage and cheese all together, so that you get creamy custardy bites intermingled with the cheese and sausage; and some of the bites of bread end up on top, so they get crunchy and golden brown. I think it has better texture all jumbled together, but hey, give it a shot both ways, you really can't mess this up. The recipe is also really flexible for adding different ingredients. You can substitute bacon or ham for the sausage, or even a mix of mushrooms and onions if you're making it for some veggie friends. You can also use different kinds of bread and different kinds of cheese to play with the flavors a little. And, on a sidenote, this is a rare dish that actual reheats quite well in the microwave, so you can easily have a tasty breakfast (for breakfast) the next morning.

Sausage and Egg Casserole

1 lb ground pork sausage
6 eggs
2 cups milk
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/2 to 1 tsp italian seasoning (or dry mustard, or even paprika, whatever really, I'd go heavier on italian seasoning, closer to 1/2 tsp on the other two)

Crumble and cook sausage in a large skillet over medium heat until well-browned, drain any extra grease. Cut the slices of bread into cubes. Lightly grease a large casserole pan (I used an oval 2.8 liter pan which works perfectly, but I think a 9x13 would work too, you'd just have to watch it a little because it might cook faster). Toss the bread cubes, 2/3 of the cheese, and the sausage together in the pan. Then sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the top of the mixture.

In a medium bowl slightly beat the eggs, then beat in the milk and seasonings. Pour this mixture over the pan of sausage, bread, and cheese, trying to saturate all portions pretty evenly.

Cover the pan with foil and refrigerate at least 8 hours, or overnight.

Half an hour prior to baking remove the pan from the fridge to rest on the counter. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake (uncovered) for 50-60 minutes, or until the casserole puffs up slightly and the cheese on the top is golden brown. Let rest for 5-10 minutes after removing from the oven, then enjoy!

Muffin Challenge Update

I made some muffins for the book club meeting last week that came out pretty well, a tad dry, but I think I'm getting closer to my goal. I had a nice bunch of bananas ripening on the counter, and I was planning to make another batch yesterday, but Noel's been sick all week, and I think I caught it, so I'm spacier than normal. And sadly the bananas totally rotted, I'm actually kind of scared to pick them up and throw them away; they're seriously disgusting.

But we bought a Wii, and we have The Wire to watch, and the semi-finals and finals of the US Open are this weekend. So I think that I'll manage to have an excellent weekend in spite of my lack of muffins. Go Federer!