very little, very late: locavore eating-- springfield ravioli & macaroni co.

this was so long ago that i can't actually remember when it was. sure, i could have checked the timestamp on the picture just now but... i didn't. get over it.

bill & i stopped at a deli in swarthmore in the hopes that we could grab some nice beer (the italian deli by our place offers a nice selection) and basically hit paydirt. bill took a while browsing the beer, so i wandered into the other room-- the actual deli room-- and lo! there was fresh everything-you-can-imagine. including "springfield brand garlic & basil napolitano's pasta" which is manufactured at 186 saxer avenue, springfield, pa 19064. this is so local that i actually know where it is. and that's big, cause i'm... not directionally inclined. (except when it comes to parking in center city. that i rock at.)

SO. i wanted to experience the pasta as fully as i could which meant keeping the recipe simple:

• pasta (water & salt for cooking)
• butter
• grated cheese

i followed the package instructions for cooking (6 minutes in boiling water), tossed with butter and sprinkled with cheese.

it was... fucking amazing. really. and LOCAL! points for greenness.


... so. why the radio silence? oh, lots of reasons. i'm gearing up to go to grad school at OMFGDREXEL. bill's just submitted his application for grad school at OMFGDREXEL, only to him it's more like, oh, just drexel, because he's been there before. additionally, we're watching out eating AND our budget here at chez bitchy, so the meals sort of run together. plus, christmas totally burned me out and my camera is dead. we're on the hunt for the 3-year service plan and really hoping a lot that "i forgot to close my water bottle before i stuck it in my purse and why no i don't use a protective cover for my camera, as you can see by the scratches and smudges!" doesn't void it.

but i'm working my back, slowly. i promise, mommy.

cookies 'n cream cake

it remains unclear exactly WHO gave my BABY brother permission to turn eighteen, but there is one thing we do know: there was no road test.

whilst enjoying kevin's chocolate cake with coffee frosting in june, i asked leonardo what his preference would be. "well," he said after some consideration, "i can't ask for this again, so... something cookies 'n cream."


the body of the cake is comprised of two textures-- unfortunately this part needs some tweaking, but i'll get to that-- soft white cake and brownie. the frosting was a white "cream filling" butter cream, colored with wilton "white-white" and flavored with clear vanilla artificial flavoring. a bit of granulated sugar gave it that slightly gritty texture. wilton cookies n' cream sprinkles added, ummm, more cookiness. originally, the second texture was going to be a chocolate cookie, but the logistics were fuzzy and an obligation to school and my waistline prevented me from experimenting beforehand. so i did something possibly incredibly stupid: i left one egg out of the brownie layers hoping for a crumbly, cookie-like layer. this may be what propted anna to ask, "is this... toffee?" um, crumbly? not so much. imbued with a facinating tar-like quality might be closer to the mark.

everybody liked it though, especially greg, who ate twice as much as everyone else in a fraction of the time. boy, if you ever need to feel good about something you baked, call greg.

so, moving on...

brownie layer ingredients:

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 3/4 cups butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 (or 3) eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup flour

cake layer ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter (softened to a mayonaise-like consistancy)
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup egg whites
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tbs milk
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla flavoring

frosting ingredients:

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 4 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tbs artificial (clear) vanilla
• liberal splash of "white-white" to preferred color
• about a tablespoon of milk

prep:

• warm everything up to room temp, or as specified
• grease 8" pans (or foil linings of said pans)
• preheat to 350*

actual cooking:

• nuke chocolate & brownie butter for 2 minutes
• stir until chocolate melts
• add sugar, eggs & vanilla
• add flour
• divide between pans
• bake for 25 minutes
• remove and cool
• preheat to 375*
• grease & flour pans
• combine dry cake ingredients
• add egg whites, vanilla, milk & butter
• beat until combined
• pour into two pans
• bake for 20 minutes
• remove and cool
• whip frosting butter until creamy
• SLOWLY add confectioner sugar
• add granulate sugar
• add vanilla flavoring & "white-white"
• add milk until desired consistancy is reached
• frost & decorate cake

happy



birthday

simba!

easter pie OR pizza rustica OR calzone

we call this dish calzone-- but we say ghav-uh-zoon-- and we pretty much live for easter so we can have it. we love it so much we'd make is other times of year, but you can only get basket cheese at easter, so we can't. because of the magnitude of this project, we have to do it at my mother's house where there are three ovens, and the occasional excitable teenaged brother willing to forgo book learnin' to get elbow deep in family tradition for an afternoon.

dough ingredients:

• 20 cups of flour (plus more for dusting)
• 2 tbs baking powder
• 2 tbs salt
• 6 cups vegetable shortening ("crisco: it's digestible!")
• 19 eggs
• 3/4 cup ice water
• egg wash (milk & 2 beaten eggs)

filling ingredients:

• 3 pounds sweet italian sausage, out of the case, browned
• 3 pounds ham, diced
• 1 pounds soprasotta, thick-sliced, diced
• 1 pound proscuitto, thick-sliced, diced
• 1 pound ricotta cheese
• 1 basket cheese, diced
• 20 hard boiled eggs, diced
• chopped fresh parsley
• 6 eggs

prep:

• hard boil 24 eggs, chop 20 of them and set aside
• brown sausage
• dice meats & basket cheese
• combine meats
  

• combine dry ingredients for dough

• blend in shortening
  

• add eggs & water
• blend thoroughly
• turn out and knead (or massagia)
  
  
  
• add basket cheese & parsley to meat
  
  
  
• preheat oven(s) to 375*
• break for a lovely lunch of egg salad sandwiches (those last 4 eggs!), carrots and limeade. it's traditional.
  

• add hard boiled eggs to meat
  

• add raw eggs & ricotta to meat
  

actual cooking:

• roll out dough into large circles

• paint egg wash around edges
• pile half with filling
• fold other half over
• crimp edges
• move to a greased baking sheet
• brush with egg wash
• vent

• bake at 375* until browned and bubbling
• cool for 5-10 minutes (depending on the size) on the sheet
• move to a rack to cool completely
• serve lukewarm or cold
  

this recipe made 2 extra larges (about 16"x8"), 7 larges (about 10"x5") and 6 smalls (about 8"x4"). that's a lot. but somehow, we always need as many as we make. they freeze so well that we usually have one in january to hold us over.

mu shu vegetables

mu shu vegetables is about my favorite meal currently, up there with veggie fried rice and veggie lo mein, so i had to take a stab at making it. in fact, i stabbed so close to the mark i just may have to stab and stab and stab until i get it right.

ingredients:

• 1 small shredded carrot
• 1 head of cabbage shredded
• (or a bag or two of cole slaw mix)
• 1 small onion in thin wedges
• (optional: handful of mung)
• (optional: sliced mushrooms)
• (optional: handful of chopped green onion)
• (optional: 2 beaten eggs)
• flour tortillas and/or rice
• hoisin sauce
• water

prep:

• slice & dice until everything is more or less the same size

actual cooking:

• (scramble eggs, set aside)
• (set rice to cooking. 1:2 rice to water, pinch of salt, bring to a boil, lower to a loooooow simmer and cover)
• saute carrots in a little water for 2-3 minutes
• add cabbage, continue sauteeing 2-3 minutes
• add mung, onions, green onions, mushrooms, whatever else (not egg), saute for 2-3 minutes
• allow liquid to evaporate
• add 2 tbs hoisin sauce, cook for 1-2 minutes
• add egg back in, stir
• warm tortillas in the microwave for 10 seconds each

we ate this with trader joe's chicken egg rolls (which you want to pierce all the way through before baking, and spray with oil), which are a staple in my asian cooking and will probably stay that way since last week's spring roll experiment was a massive FAIL.

it was a little sweet, and i'm thinking... soy sauce? garlic? i don't know. maybe i just need to use bok choy instead of the pre-shredded cabbage. it was still good enough that the leftovers are my lunch today.

recession challenge: dinner for two all week from one pound of sausage

this week's dinners are: flatbread pizza with sausage, onion & brussels sprouts, sausage sandwiches with provolone & wilted spinach, macaronis with sausage & cheese served with sauteed zucchini & creamy tomato florentine soup with sausage.

ingredients:

• 1 pound sausage (cheating. my dad makes it, so i have no clue how much a pound of sausage costs. sorry.)
• 2 1/2 cups flour (pantry staple)
• 2 tbs psyllium husk* (negligible, but a canister of psyllium ran me ~$5)
• water
• provolone cheese (i'm not sure how much by weight cost us ~$4, but only about 5 slices will be used for dinners, so maybe $2 worth?)
• tomato gravy/pizza sauce (~$1)
• brussels sprouts (i paid $2.30)
• onion (i don't know, $0.50?)
• 4 slices good bread (we buy this anyway for bill's lunches, but maybe a third of a loaf will be used for dinners, so ~$1?)
• baby spinach ($2)
• 1/2 pound short, curly pasta like shells (~$0.50)
• scratch cheese (pantry staple)
• zucchini (i paid $2.30)
• veggie broth ($2)
• mirepoix ($3, but i'm using the some left from last week's soup)
• canned whole tomatoes ($2, but also leftover from last week's soup)
• butter (pantry staple)
• 1/2 pound ditalini ($0.50, also leftover from last week's soup)

i'm using more and more pantry staples, so the things i actually had to buy this week ran about $15. of course, i didn't buy sausage, so that could add, what, $5? $8? i really don't know.

*about psyllium. ummm, it's a milled seed thing... that turns into this gelatinous mass with water... it's the main ingredient in most fiber supplements... and also an egg replaces/stabilizer thing. i THINK that you could sub 2 eggs in the flatbread recipe, and obviously use less (or maybe no?) water. but no promises. yet.

prep:

• put 1/2 pound sausage in the freezer for 30 minutes
• remove it and slice it into thin rounds, remove the casing if you're weird like us
• chop mirepoix if you need to

actual cooking (meal 1):

• preheat oven to 400*
• combine 2 cups flour, psyllium, salt & fresh or dried herbs to taste & 1.5 cups water
• allow to sit for about 5 minutes
• with damp or greased fingers, press out the dough on a lightly greased baking sheet to desired thickness
• bake for about 20 minutes (see? easiest pizza crust ever.)
• while shell bakes, quickly cook sliced sausage on an ungreased frying pan (use only half for the pizza! refrigerate the other half), chop some onion, slice brussels sprouts & shred 3 or four slices of provolone
• top pizza shell with pizza sauce (or leave it white if tomato gravy isn't a staple in your pantry), cheese, sausage, onions & brussels sprouts (eta: i used wilted spinach. brussels sprouts are going in the pasta.)
• bake until cheese melts and bubbles lightly

actual cooking (meal 2):

• preheat oven to 300*
• quickly saute some (up to half) of the baby spinach in olive oil until just wilted (it will shrink when you cook it!)
• on 2 slices of bread, layer cold sausage slices, wilted spinach & a slice of provolone (eta: i added a bit of thinly sliced onion on mine. fab)
• toast all 4 slices
• make sandwiches.
• (eta: i also made some fries: cut 1 potato per person into 1/2 inch sticks, arrange on an oil-spritzed baking sheet, spritz with oil, season with salt, pepper & garlic powder, bake 20-25 minutes at 400*. and yes, i'm going to wait until AFTER i cook the meals to post them from now on.)

actual cooking (meal 3):

• boil water for pasta
• roast brussels sprouts, sliced or chopped as you prefer, with olive oil
• in a medium frying pan, out of it's casing, saute the rest of the sausage
• set half aside to drain
• add cooked pasta & brussels sprouts to the other half and remove from heat
• liberally add scratch cheese

actual cooking (meal 4):

• do the regular mirepoix thing, i don't have to spell it all out anymore, do i?
• add broth
• add drained sausage, spinach, ditalini & tomatoes with their juices (chopped up)
• while ditalini is cooking, make a roux (melt 4 tbs butter in a saucepan, quickly whisk in 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup milk)
• add roux to soup once the ditalini is cooked
• top with scratch cheese

the soup might need to be altered... check back in about 5 days once i've made it.

duck a la' half-ass

"i think," i said, possibly before i even really had the thought, "i'll make a duck for christmas!" and then... it was. that was sometime in mid-november. i ignored the plan for about a month and then decided it was time to purchase the duck. (duck? is expensive. wow. the little 6-pound bugger i bought ran me $18! and you gotta figure, with a duck, about two and a half pounds of that was fat the just dripped off. but i digress.) so, i went to the "real" supermarket-- which is less intimidating than a butcher or a farmer's market where i might see feathers or something-- and snagged a frozen duckling.

all eating ducks are apparently ducklings. i discovered that in my internet research after the joy of cooking offered options for trussing and de-boning "the bird." also? they're mostly farm-raised, to the extent that you could call a thing that lived on average eight weeks having been raised. because they're mostly farm-raised, they're mostly not super fatty like wild duck, if you buy them frozen in the supermarket, at least. because they're not super-fatty, you do not have to prick the skin, no matter what your grandmother insists.

so, this is how i cooked the duck.

ingredients:

• a duck
• oil spray
• salt

prep:

• defrost the duck
• dump the blood, guts, neck and orange sauce packet out of the duck
• (call somebody to brag that you just handled duck guts on freaking christmas!)
• place duck breast-up on a roasting pan
• spritz with oil, sprinkle with salt
• preheat the oven to temperature prescribed on duckling packaging

actual cooking:

• put the duck in the oven
• follow directions on duckling packaging
• cook until duckling reached 180 degrees in the thigh joint
• warm up orange sauce
• move duck to a new plate and cut into edible pieces (note: the wings aren't worth a damn and the legs aren't worth much more. also: the whole damn bird is dark meat.)
• serve with orange sauce (the one that came out of the duck's, ahem, cavity.)

a duck, as a main course, will serve about a person and a half, maybe two. i served duck alongside ham, garlic smashed red potatoes, cornbread stuffing with onions, lima beans, roasted broccoli & cauliflower, brussel sprouts with bacon and rosemary bread.

christmas cookies 2008

on the first day of modern christmas, also known as black friday, i hit the stores like every other nutcase. only i had them almost all to myself. i was at the grocery stores.

i went to the local supermarket first, hoping to buy everything in one shot. i was mostly prepared. i had edited last year's list (removing cookies that didn't work out, adding some new ones, changing amounts) and mapped out the recipes on my christmas cookie spreadsheet. what, you don't do that? huh.

i estimated, generously, how much i'd need of everything and prepared a comprehensive list of things i needed to buy. it is as follows:

• rolled oats
• 10 pounds flour (i already had 5)
• 1 bag confectioners sugar
• 10 pounds granulated sugar
• 4 pounds brown sugar
• 24 teaspoons vanilla extract (who said my system is perfect? i bought two bottles of the store brand and i hope it's enough. if not, i think trader joe's brand is cheaper, actually.)
• almond extract
• 18 ounces of milk chocolate chips
• 48 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips
• 28 ounces of white chocolate chips
• 1.5 cups slivered almonds (i take the shortcuts as they come)
• 2 cups walnuts
• 1.5 cups unsalted macadamia nuts
• 2 cups dried cranberries
• 3 chocolate-orange cake mixes
• a lemon
• candy canes
• peanut butter
• seedless raspberry jam
• 13 pounds of butter
• 4 dozen eggs

so, i bought nearly all of it at the supermarket and then moved on to trader joe's. there i bought the butter (because it was, like $1.30 cheaper per pound, and that adds up when you're buying thirteen!), the almonds, the macadamia nuts, the eggs ($1.50 cheaper, at least, i forget the exact amount), the white chocolate chips and the milk chocolate chips (i try to avoid buying either hershey or nestle for political reasons. i bought store-brand semisweet.) and tried to buy the chocolate-orange cake mixes. but they didn't have them. so i might have to actually make my biscotti dough, which might mean more flour and definitely means a trip to the supermarket for orange essence.

there was other stuff, too, of course. stuff i already had (mostly not shown):

• instant coffee
• 3 ounces semisweet bakers chocolate
• molasses
• light corn syrup
• decorating sugar
• vegetable oil
• cream of tartar
• anise seeds
• cinnamon, cloves, ginger
• gluten-free flour

and stuff i wasn't sure would keep until i had that confection scheduled, namely, heavy cream. which i can buy next door or at any supermarket/grocery/dairy store. so i'm not worried.

i also picked up some decorating frosting in little tubes and what appear to be markers for use on... food. creepy. but possibly very useful for the making of gingerbread people with a four year old. and a boneless turkey breast-thing, a box of stuffing and a ritter sport bar (totally for bill)

cookie-related shopping came in about $14 under budget (without the cake mixes and heavy cream, though) and $11 over estimate (so far). but really, good enough for me!

next up, look for springerle cookies (which i've actually already baked) and 4 batches of peanut butter cookies (which i'm baking tonight as soon as i get the pretty-bottomed glass from my mom-- i'll explain later).

gluten-free/egg-free chocolate birthday cake (licensed character merchandise optional)

this recipe is incomplete, but i'm hoping not to have to make it again until next year, so i'll try some variations then, okay?

there's a pair of littles in my life who have some special dietary needs: no gluten for either of them, and no eggs for one. loving them as i do-- and loving kitchen experimentation as i do-- i spend lots of time thinking about how to accommodate their allergies without making them feel left out. their fourth and second birthday party was saturday and i made them this delicious, mostly-hypoallergenic cake. i've also included adjustments for dairy allergies and no allergies, just for the hell of it.

i bought some of my ingredients from amazon.com, so...

special ingredients:

• gluten-free flour blend-- i totally forget what brand i got, but next time, i'm going to try for one that doesn't smell like ass. i'm a super-smeller, though, and no one else had a problem with it. i think the ingredients are potato starch, corn starch, garbanzo beans and fava beans. the cake was originally going to be half chocolate and half vanilla, but the vanilla smelled so unappetizing that i had to make the whole thing chocolate. really, really chocolate. if dealing with a chocolate allergy, too, i'd make this cake with another STRONG flavor. like gingerbread.
• egg replacer-- i forget what the vendor for this was, too, but i suspect you can pretty easily find it in supermarkets or fancy food stores.
• gluten-free/egg-free frosting mix-- total. ripoff. you know what was in it? confectioner's sugar and vanilla flavoring. i had to add butter and milk (or margarine/butter flavored crisco & soy/rice/almond milk). just make a butter cream. it's cheaper.

ingredients:

• 3 1/4 cups flour OR flour blend
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs OR 6 tbs egg replacer & 8 tbs warm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter OR margarine, softened to the consistency of mayo (butter flavored crisco might work, too, and it doesn't have any major allergens in it)
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• (1 tbs instant coffee powder, optional, but makes it taste chocolatyer)
• 3 ounces chocolate, chopped very fine (semisweet, unsweetened, whatever you have, just watch ingredients if you're going hypo-allergenic)
• 1 1/2 cups milk OR soy/rice/almond milk
• 1 tbs vanilla

prep:

• preheat to 375
• chop/grind chocolate
• soften butter or margarine

actual cooking:

• combine dry ingredients
• add wet ingredients
• mix it all up
• pour into greased baking pans (2 8" squares, i guess, it doesn't rise as much as you think it will)
• bake at 375 degrees until a cake tester (or toothpick, or sharp, unserrated knife) comes out clean
• cool completely before frosting

so, the issue i'm left with is HOLY CRAP was that cake dry. HOLY CRAP. next time i'm going to try adding either a can of tomato paste (no, really, this is a good idea!) or some vegetable oil/more butter. it could probably also use a bit more sugar.

i frosted mine to look like the magic carpet from disney's aladdin and decorated it with figures of the characters. it's not my favorite way to decorate, but it works.

the kids loved it and even a couple adults said it tasted like food. so i'll call it a success. next up in my allergy test-kitchen: gluten-free/egg-free gingerbread people.