Tapas!

Last night was tapas night! Though for little dishes they certainly took a long time to make, they were really worthwhile. What you see here is our pitcher of sangria. Please take no notice of the holiday theme; it’s the only pitcher I have! There are lots and lots of recipes for sangria out there in the world, and my friend Jason and I made one that was kind of a mishmash of a bunch. Most recipes call for brandy, which we didn’t have and weren’t about to buy (we only needed 1/4 c or less, and would never use it again, so…). So instead we poured one 750 ml bottle of zinfandel into the pitcher, added 2 c of club soda, 2 glugs of triple sec, and wedges of one orange and one lemon. We let that chill in the fridge for a few hours and it was delicious! The fruit turned an interesting purple color, too.

You’ll have to pardon the dark photo of some of the tapas–our dining room has a great lighting fixture that sheds very little light, and I hate using the flash on the camera. What we have here are potato croquettes on the left and empanadas filled with spinach, ham, and roasted red pepper on the right. The dough, while a bit of a pain to make, did in fact bake up nice and flaky, so there you go–it is possible for even a novice at puff pastry to make it. If she has, say, two or three spare hours, mostly to wait for the dough to cool. We also had tiny meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce and mushrooms with garlic and parsley, as well as some bread. Yum.

The cookbook we used had some very vague directions–when mixing the croquettes, it tells you to get it “to the right consistency,” but never says what that consistency might be. Despite that, the tapas were very tasty. My favorite tapas was the albondingas (meatballs). I’m in the office today, but later on I’ll post the recipes for them and the sauce.

But is it Flantastic?

That’s the question. I told my husband it was last night, and he gave me a look, which meant I had come up with an awesome new pun. Hot dog.

So tonight is tapas night, and as you can see, the flan is ready. I made it yesterday. It’s a coconut flan with a hit of rum. It smells good, and the nibble I had off the butter knife from loosening the flan from the pie plate suggests flantasticness, but we shall see. I also made the dough for the empanadas yesterday, and today I have made up the croquette mixture (it’s in the fridge) and the albondinga mixture (meatballs). It’s also in the fridge. We’ll start cooking everything up around 6.

The recipe I used for the flan was an amalgam of a bunch of recipes I read. I baked it in a 9″ pie plate, and it’s a little thin, so next time I might make either more custard mix or find a smaller dish to bake it in.

You’ll need:
1 can of light coconut milk
1/2 c milk
4 eggs
1/2 c + 1/3c sugar (you’ll use them separately)
bit of dark rum

Preheat your oven to 325 F.

First, make the caramel. Put 1/2 c of sugar in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar melts, stirring frequently. Let it brown to a medium color, and pour into your pie dish. You’re supposed to swirl it around, but I wasn’t fast enough and it pretty much stuck where it was. No big deal. Just be sure to NEVER EVER touch hot sugar. Unless you’re not interested in keeping your fingertips, leave it be.

In a bowl, whisk together four eggs, 1/3 c sugar, and your bit of rum. I had all of a tablespoon left in a nip bottle I bought years ago to make coconut cake, I think, so I just used that. Whisk until most of your sugar has dissolved.

Measure out 1 1/2 c of coconut milk (most of your can) and add to a saucepan with a 1/2 c of regular milk. Bring to just a boil, and add just a little to your eggs to temper them, whisking away. Add the rest in a steady stream, constantly whisking. Pour into your pie dish.

Set your pie dish in a roasting pan or deep baking sheet, and pour hot water into that pan, so it comes up halfway on your pie dish.  This is called a water bath.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Carefully remove from the oven, and then remove from hot water bath.  Allow to cool completely before you pop it in the fridge.  Let it chill in there at least a couple of hours.  To invert, just loosen the edges with a butter knife, pop your serving dish on top, and flip over.  The caramel is liquid, so it’ll all just slide right out.  Serve with whatever caramel is left in the dish–I used a spatula to just take it out.  Yum! (hopefully )

Eggplant Melts

Typically I make a grocery shopping list on Saturday, and I try to plan for five dinners so I don’t wind up running back and forth to the grocery store. This weekend, like so many, I only had three things in mind, so I toss it over to Mr. Pea. I asked him what he wanted to eat, and he started thumbing through back issues of Everyday Foods, which is his personal subscription. He’d intended to make this meal himself, but I got it started before he got home. Why? Because I insist on doing everything myself.

In this case, I started by making some Italian bread. I’d never made Italian bread before, but it was actually pretty simple. I followed this recipe on Allrecipes, doing by hand what the bread machine’s dough cycle would ordinarily do (mix, knead, let rise an hour) and adding an extra 3/4 tsp or so of yeast. The bread actually turned out soft and tasty.

I also made a quick tomato sauce, rather than use a jar, per the recipe. I don’t like jarred sauce–there was once a day where we bought it on a regular basis, and then I realized it was cheaper and tastier to do it myself, so that’s how it’s been ever since. I chopped a small onion and minced two garlic cloves, tossed them in some hot oil (minor kitchen injury sustained here. whoops), added some red pepper flakes, and cooked down for a few minutes. Then I added one 28 oz can of whole tomatoes, but squished the tomatoes between the fingers before I tossed them in, and ground some pepper in there, as well. I let this simmer for an hour (though twenty minutes will do when that’s all you have), added a tablespoon of brown sugar and some fresh herbs to finish off. Voila. Sauce.

Once I had those two things out of the way, I could actually begin the recipe. This was a very delicious and easy recipe to make, and would be excellent with a loaf of Italian bread from the store and whatever sauce you’ve got on hand. A word to the wise, though: our loaf was all of 10 or 12″ long, and a smallish eggplant covered them perfectly. We also didn’t use 2 cups of sauce, as the recipe demands. But if we had a full-size grocery store loaf, we’d have definitely used all that sauce, and would have needed a much bigger eggplant.

So you’ll need:
1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2″ rounds
olive oil, for pan
3/4 c plain bread crumbs
2 eggs
8 oz mozzerella, sliced (we prefer Sorrento or fresh for this–block mozzerella by Dragone is pretty dry, but the Sorrento was actually tasty and moist)
2 c tomato sauce
1 loaf of Italian bread

Preheat oven to 475 F.

Place crumbs in one shallow bowl, and beat the eggs in another with 1/4 tsp of pepper and 1 tsp of salt. Slick a baking sheet with olive oil. Dip eggplant rounds first in egg, allowing excess to drip off, and then dredge them in crumbs. Shake off excess, and place on baking sheet. Place in oven, and not turning, allow to bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden and tender.

Slice your loaf of Italian bread lengthwise, so you have two halves ready to go. Cover each half with tomato sauce, slices of eggplant, and then slices of cheese. Pop into the oven for 6-8 minutes, until cheese is melty and starting to brown. We used the broiler for a minute to get it to brown up. Cut each piece in half for four melts. Tasty! Easy! Serve with whatever you’ve got on hand–pasta salad would be awesome, but we had potato chips, so that’s what we ate. I’m looking forward to the leftovers for lunch.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the initial sprouts we planted some time ago, for the most part, croaked. The zucchinis lived, though, and look what we found last night! Zucchini flowers!

We planted new bean seeds a few weeks ago, and they’re growing, too! Our little urban veggie garden is starting to come together.

Tapas?

I’m planning a tapas dinner for Wednesday night.  Tapas are little dishes that are part of Spanish cuisine.  I’m going to make empanadas, croquettes, tiny meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce, and marinated mushrooms.  I’m a little intimidated by the process.  I’ve had tapas myself only twice, and in Minnesota, of all places.  Minneapolis actually has some really good restaurants–I’ve been to a place called La Bodega on 3005 Lyndale Ave. South with my friend Ashley on the two trips I’ve made there, and we’ve enjoyed tapas, flamenco music, and a bottle of wine each time.  Anyway, in honor of our little adventure she gave me a tapas cookbook for Christmas.  While I’ve ogled it a couple of times, I’ve always put it aside, intimidated.  But not this week!

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time or know me personally, you likely know that I pretty  much insist on doing everything myself.  I’m really bull-headed that way.  In this case, though, it may just get me in trouble, because in order to make the empanadas, I am going to make puff pastry.  From scratch.  Why I can’t just buy a package is beyond me, but I think it has to do with how cheap I am, and my stubborn insistence that I can do it, regardless of the time it takes.  So I think I’ll be doing that tomorrow.  I’ll also be making a coconut flan tomorrow, so it can sit and develop flavor in the fridge overnight.  The mushrooms might need to start marinating then, as well–I’ll have to look.  Then on Wednesday I’ll make the empanadas,  the croquettes, and the meatballs.  I must be out of my mind

Have you ever made or tried tapas?  How did it go?  I’ll keep you posted as I begin making them myself.

Early Riser

I’m one of those weirdos who gets up early pretty much every day just because. Largely this is because I taught an early class this past semester, and never got out of the early habit. This morning I awoke at 6:30 (it’s a Sunday!) with this fear that something was melting or burning. I could smell it. It wasn’t strong, but there it was. So I got up and went to the plug near my side of the bed…nothing odd…then to the window…and there’s the smell of grilling steak wafting in. Who grills steak at 6:30 in the morning? I couldn’t find the culprit, but I thought it was really weird. I even took a jaunt outside, avoiding the neighbor who only gives me the evil eye for some unknown reason, and sure enough, every now and then, the smell of steak floated to me with the breeze. Eww.

Anyway. I figured I might as well post if I’m up and at ‘em so early. Yesterday afternoon we stopped, on our way back from lunch and getting a new hose, at the gigantic Stop and Shop that opened the next town over last year. This place was massive and scary, and we were only there to pick up stuff to bake something. After much fuss, we bought things to make brownies according to the recipe on the outdated Everyday Foods sitting by the register. This recipe is not messing around. It contains an obscene amount of chocolate, and the brownies have a deep, rich flavor, more like dark chocolate than your usual brownie-in-a-box. I wish I’d taken them out of the oven five minutes sooner, but they were still delicious and decadent.

You’ll need:

1/4 c baking cocoa

1 c flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped

4 oz butter, broken into chunks (one stick)

1 1/4 c sugar

3 eggs

Whisk together flour, cocoa, salt and bakign powder and set aside. In a double boiler (or, as I make one–put a pot of water to simmer on the stove and cap it with a heatproof bowl–I have a metal one), melt chocolate and butter, stirring constantly. Add eggs and sugar to chocolate mixture, mixing well. Add flour mixture to chocolate mixture, stirring until just moistened (if you overdo it, you’ll get tough brownies).

Grease an 8″ square pan, and line the bottom and two sides with parchment (for me, wax paper), leaving a 2″ overhang on either side so you can pull the brownies out of the pan easily later. Grease up that paper, as well.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50-60 minutes, according to the recipe, but check at 45–when you test them with a toothpick you want a few bits of brownie to stick to it, rather than for the toothpick to come out clean).

Allow to cool in the pan for a half hour, then pull the brownies out using the parchement edges. You’re supposed to allow them to cool completely, but you know us. We just pulled the wax paper off and dug in. Yields 16 brownies.

You say tomato…

Some time ago I mentioned that Mr. Pea and I went to a yardsale where a woman was selling plastic party cups with heirloom tomato seedlings. I thought I’d update you on their progress. This one here is a Purple Cherokee, and he’s huge! He’s gotten really big–the step where he is gets lots of sun and all the rain, so he’s quite happy there. I staked him earlier this week. He’s got three flowers, and they’re different from any other tomato flower I’ve ever seen. I’m so excited to see what the actual fruit will look like. They’re supposed to be among the tastiest tomatoes a girl can grow. We shall see.

This tomato is a striped tomato. Or, it will produce striped tomatoes. It’s a little smaller, though still growing strongly, than its Purple brother. I think it’s because it was on the top step and got a bit of shade from the porch roof. I’ve moved him down to a lower step in hopes that he’ll get more sun. Again, I’m very excited to see these puppies grow.

And for giggles, I thought I’d show you my herb box. Our herb box, I should say. This has been a joint project. Two of the herbs–the rosemary on the end and the thyme in the middle–were plants from last year. We wintered them on the kitchen island, and put them back out on the porch once frosty nights were over. There’s a basil on the end and a parsley that’s growing wild in the center. I keep imagining slivers of basil with sliced purple tomatoes…if that’s not summer, I don’t know what is!

Pardon me while I digress…

There hasn’t been a good deal of cooking this week, has there? On Tuesday I actually made a tasty dinner of pork tenderloin, fried plantains, and grilled asparagus, but alas, didn’t photograph it. I even made cocktails. The other night I made a pasta dinner for us and some friends. But that’s about it this week. We’ve been very busy around here; I’ve had orders to fill, and I finally submitted the last piece of my dissertation in rough draft form. That only means, though, that the heavy-duty editing is beginning. I have one chapter that’s particularly rough; I spent all afternoon yesterday, and a while the day before, rewriting the same paragraphs over and over. Blech. Maybe some more of those cocktails are in order!

For this variation of a Mai Tai, mix gently together in a pitcher:

3/4c orange juice

3/4 c pineapple juice

1/2 c light rum

1/4 c triple sec

1/4 c dark rum

You can also add a bit of lime and some grenadine, if you’ve got it. Very tasty and refreshing, this recipe makes four cocktails.

Java

Java

Originally uploaded by sweetpeahandcrafts

This is my favorite coffee. I am a serious coffee drinker–I am not keen on mornings or afternoons without my cup of joe–and have spent a fair amount of time finding the right coffee for everyday use. A couple of years ago I settled on Cafe Pajaro from Trader Joe’s. It’s good and strong but not too strong and has really low acidity, unlike a lot of brands out there. But the best part about this particular kind of coffee is that it is the trifecta of coffees–it’s fair trade (very important–there was an episode of Frontline not long ago that examined how exploited poor farmers in coffee-growing regions of the world are. Fair trade means that the farmers get a fair price for each kilo of beans), it’s organic, and it’s shade-grown. As the demand for coffee rises (ie, as consumers flock to Starbucks so often there’s one that’s busy on every corner, for example–myself included) oftentimes forested areas in tropical regions are cut down to make more space to grow more beans, destroying the habitats of numerous birds and other wildlife. When beans are shade grown, the foliage is not destroyed, so the birds are happy. Which makes me happy. A cup of coffee that’s tasty, better for farmers, birds and the earth? Hooray!

Banana Muffins

Bananas are my favorite fruit, but I never seem to eat the bunch of them before one gets beyond perfect banana yellowness and heads into that oversoft stage. I just pop them in the freezer when that happens, and when I have two or three in there, I make some banana muffins or bread. The recipe that I use is from allrecipes, and it makes a soft, buttery muffin; the best part, though, is that you top them with streusel. You can’t ever, ever go wrong with streusel. What’s not to love?

If you are so inclined, you can also use the basic recipe to make mini loaves, as you can see here. It’s a much nicer photo than that of the muffins. I took muffin pics that had better angles, but sadly, they turned out blurry. C’est la vie. I’ve also made a large loaf using this recipe, as well–you just need to adjust cooking times. I think the mini loaves took a half hour; full-sized loaves can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to bake, depending on your oven.

Here’s the recipe! Enjoy!
Banana Muffins

Veggie Burgers

I can take no credit whatsoever for this–Mr. Pea made us both breakfast and lunch today and definitely is getting a gold medal. When his Everyday Food showed up last month, there was a section on cooking with bulgur. Mr. Pea was intrigued by the make-your-own veggie burgers that they featured. We’re big fans of Gardenburgers, but always open to new things. So after two weeks of waiting for us to have the time and energy to put these together, today we enjoyed some very, very tasty burgers! They contain bulger and mashed pinto beans, a bunch of seasonings, sliced scallions, and tahini. We’ve never used tahini–sesame paste–before. We needed two tablespoons but have a jar that will last us, oh, forever. We put them on sesame seed buns and made a tahini/lemon juice mayo to go with them. They were ridiculously tasty, and I highly suggest you give them a whirl.

This recipe is from Everyday Foods.
You’ll need:
1/2 c medium-grind bulger (we found this in a bulk bin at that food co-op near us)
coarse salt and groun dpepper
1 14.5-oz can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 c plain dried breadcrumbs
4 scallions, thinly sliced (try using kitchen shears for this)
1 large egg
1 large carrot, coarsely grated
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 T tahini
3 T vegetable oil (we always use canola)
4 buns

In a medium bowl, mix bulgur with 1/4 tsp coardse salt and 1 c boiling water. Cover bowl, and let sit until bulgur is tender but chewy, about a half hour. Drain, pressing to remove liquid.

Place beans in a medium bowl; mash with a potato masher until la coarse paste forms. Add crumbs, scallions, egg, carrot, cayenne, tahini and bulgur. Season with salt and pepper and mix to combine. Form mixture into 4 patties.

In a large skillet, heat oil over med-low. Cook patties until browned and firm, about 8 minutes each side. Serve with tahini mayo (1/2 c mayo, 1 T tahini, and 1-2 T lemon juice, mixed up) and lettuce.