artichoke beet pizza

i haven't cooked beets in a long time, and i don't even know how it's possible they slipped my mind. i saw this beet risotto on jessica's blog, apples and butter, and the beet invaded my mind like aliens taking over a host body. i made the risotto immediately, but it was so quickly polished off, there was no time for pictures. i'll make it again, it was kinda brilliant. the thing is, i got a bit carried away and i roasted a whole sheet of baby beets, a lot more than i needed for one dish. that's how this one got to be - a cross between the leftover beets and my daughter whining for pizza. the combo of beet and marinated artichoke is surprisingly good. it's excellent.

initially i didn't want to cook it, i was afraid these two have too much moisture and i'll end up with a soggy pie. it's all good as long as you keep them in a strainer for 15-20 minutes. as an alternative to roasting the beets, you can steam them. get small ones if possible, they cook faster and they're easier to peel. be careful with them, that juice staines right to the bone. once they're cooked and cooled, slice them thinly and put them in a mesh with the artichokes.

stretch the dough to the size and shape of your baking vehicle. spread with tomato-based pizza sauce. sprinkle a good handful of grated parmesan over it. then alternate slices of beet, artichoke and mushroom. don't overcrowd it. then take 4 or 5 springs of thyme and run your fingers against the stem to get the tiny leaves off, and sprinkle them evenly. i also used some chopped sage, but that's not as vital as the thyme. give it a grind of pepper and bake at 425F for 15-20 minutes.

it's the best of both worlds. your kid gets pizzzzaaaaa! and you get a few veggies in her, and a grown-up lunch. the spinach is dressed simply with olive oil, champagne vinegar, dijon and honey. it makes a great companion for the pizza but doesn't steal its thunder. i think it would be lovely with a few dots of goat cheese, and/or a few asparagus tips. i plan to turn all these ingredients into a panzanella, stat. the aliens are still eating my brain.

creamy coconut rice

we had a wonderful morning today. it was sunny and warm, so we went out right after breakfast. we planted 30 gladioli, we covered the driveway in abstract chalk and we played ball. the crust of dirt on zhara's hands when we walked inside was like the fur of a bear, only petrified. the bulbs require a good drench when they're planted and she took that to heart: dirt, water. dirt, water. let's wash your hands, babe. here's the pickaxe. i was going to stop her, but she saw it coming, and she did the bit that always reduces me to a puddle of touchy-feely goop. she says i love you, i say i love you, too;  then she says, i love you tutu. sure you can water the flowers, clean is overrated, and anyway you're too cute for boundaries.
we got inside in a fantastic mood. the risotto i had planned seemed lackluster - zhara likes a reduced number of dishes, as many toddlers do, and i'm dead bored with the stuff. i've never made this before, but it's in the circuit now, because she loved it so much she asked for it at dinner, too. i've seen a lot of coconut rice done with peas, but in our house they take the stage only as villains in a play where the villains never win. the villains are promptly booed off the stage in shame.

1/2 cup pearl rice, or basmati, or brown

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 1/4 cups unsweetened coconut milk

1 1/4 cups water

1 cup frozen soybeans, or peas

1 inch piece ginger, quartered

2 lime leaves

1 ts orange zest

pinch nutmeg

salt, pepper

crushed peanuts, optional

heat a little olive oil and saute  the onion until translucent. add the rice and and cook a few minutes to toast it. pour in the milk and water, add the leaves and ginger root and bring to boil. cover and reduce to a simmer. after 10 minutes add the frozen peas. we used this mix from trader joe's that has corn, soy beans and red pepper. it's zhara's favourite. cover again and cook until the rice is cooked and the liquid mostly gone, about 8 minutes. remove and discard the leaves and the ginger. add the citrus zest and season to your liking. garnish with peanuts on amenable plates.

the coconut taste is mild, like a lazy afterthought, and the citrus punch brightens it up. i love how creamy it is, and i'm already thinking what a great dessert this will make in its sweet incarnation. but until dessert, next time i'll treat it with some shrimp for a delightful one pot meal.

serves two.

sundried tomato zucchini pasta

a dish as bright as the day outside. thankfully, most of the snow has melted, and though it's not warm, it's sunny, and the heavy clouds that were forcing lassitude on me have cleared the sky. i'm starting my tomatoes today. i found some great heirloom tomato seeds, and decided to give them a shot. i don't much like to use seeds for tomatoes, i always buy small plants that i can put directly in the ground. seeds are fussy, they need at least six weeks inside, but i'm determined to follow through. ever had cream of heirloom tomato soup? it's worth every bit of impatient gardening i can muster. at least until those hang on the vine i have sundried tomatoes, the next best thing. they can brighten up the blandest of dishes, plus i love the color they give to sauces. this is a 15 minute lunch for zhara. let's just breeze over the inordinate quantity i consumed, it's not healthy to dwell in the past.

1 lb pasta

2 large zucchini, grated

8 sundried tomatoes packed in oil, finely sliced

2 large roasted red peppers, finely sliced

4 oz bulgarian feta cheese, crumbled

a few parmesan shavings, optional

boil the pasta according to package instructions. prep the vegetables while that's happening. drain the pasta but reserve 1 cup of the water. stir in all the veggies at once, and let it cook together for a few minutes. the zucchini will give off their juices, as will the peppers and tomatoes. add the cheese and mix well. the cheese will melt to form a wonderful sauce, and everything will take on a pale golden colour from the tomatoes. you may need a bit of pasta water, it all depends on how much juice the zucchini gives off. thin it to your preffered consistency, season with salt and pepper, plate and garnish with parmesan. enjoy at once.

fried bay scallops

i honestly thought i was done with food braised, fried or sauced. we had a few warm days, very conducive to light fare, salads dressed brightly in lemony vinaigrettes, grilled fish and vegetables. zhara welcomed the absence of scarfs, mittens and winter boots, and the arrival of the first spring flowers. which were promptly burried in snow yesterday.

yet even before the weather turned, i only cooked comfort food. matzo ball soup, hungarian goulash over spaetzle and these cheese pastries with plump raisins that zhara loves.  we did have fish one night, but pan-fried with vegetables drowned in balsamic buttersauce. perhaps it's understandable, considering the week we had. and speaking of which: thanks again to everyone who called or wrote, it was all very kind of you.

 tonight i'll try to keep things light, but first these scallops: sweet and crunchy, with a slight kick. we absolutely loved them.

1 lb bay scallops

4 tb all-purpose flour

1 ts ground ginger

1/2 ts smoked hot paprika

1/2 ts garlic powder

salt, pepper to taste

1 egg

2 tb milk

1 cup panko, possibly more

heat oil in the widest pan you have. no olive oil, something neutre like canola, sunflower or vegetable oil. mix the flour with the condiments. beat the egg with a glug of milk and a pinch of salt. line up the plates of flour, egg and panko. pat the scallops dry. put them all in the flour at the same time, but only lift a handful at a time and shake them well to remove any excess. put them through the egg, roll around in panko and fry till golden. they go very fast, about 3 minutes on side one, another 2 after they're flipped. you want the oil to come up half-way around them so you only have to turn them once. do not crowd the pan - you have to be able to see it in between the scallops. you shouldn't fry more than two batches in the same oil, panko will fall behind and burn, so use your widest pan. remove to paper towel. they're absolutely delicious, great hot or room temp. goes great with baked fries or rice. plum sauce really puts it in context. when you dip, you get a layer of crunchy spicy sweet panko, then mild scallop, almost creamy against the breading, it's a great contrast and a nice pairing of tastes.

counting my blessings: there are many.

we got up today to a beautiful morning. a true, it's-really-spring morning, sunny, incredibly warm, that made me open windows immediately and skip about the house - well, at least in my head i did, we all know i'm not that much of a morning person. it gave me a mad craving for a citrus dessert, as cheerful as the weather. i poured a cup of coffee, gave zhara her milk and made some waffles. i was having trouble deciding if i should clean the house and bake bread or dump it all and just go for a walk in the forest preserve. that's when the phone rang. my husband called, using someone else's phone, to tell me there had been an accident. he's fine. but he did not sound fine. my sunny disposition evaporated, knees made out of playdough, i told him i was on my way. oh, god, please. the prayer of all wives, even a wife without a god. his phone had shattered, so i grabbed an older one we hadn't tossed. i had so many questions, but he could only talk for a minute. he had borrowed a phone from someone, and i could hear the clammoring of cops? doctors? in the background. never before have i resented every single car on the road like i did today. i wanted to roll down my window and shout. i'm a bit uncomfortable recalling how the speed limit signs were blurring past, seeing i had zhara in the back. though it's not even close to how fast i used to drive, before i had her. it was never supposed to be him, the one to get in an accident. he's the calm, patient one. he's the one who drives for a living. i couldn't believe it happened, really, all winter long i worry about ice on the road and blizzards and today? seriously?

i got there. it happened, allright. all 18 wheels up in the air. cabin smashed, windshield crushed some 15 feet away. our livelihood a big blob of scrape metal on the side of the road. him, whole. thank god, not a scratch. it could have been so much worse. he was transporting a big coil of industrial chain. luckily the whole thing went down on a ramp, and when the coil got loose it rolled off onto the empty patch in between the two highways. and not in the traffic behind. it could've been disastrous.

it's been hours, but clearly i need a shot of get-it-together-you-damn-fool in the coffee i'm drinking, cause i can't stop obssesing about might've happened. if his seatbealt weren't buckled. if other cars were closer. this week we were going to finally launch our own business. we only needed some numbers from the DOT, we had a charter almost set up, we've been working so long for this. this is not a setback, it's possibly a deal-breaker. and still. he got away intact. we're all healthy. we're not in haiti. we'll be fine.

i drove back, zhara singing 'twinkle, twinkle little star' all the way home. i asked her if she wanted to bake with mommy, for what else could i do? she was enthuziastic as always. we also made a quick risotto while the apple cake was baking. she's such a blessing.

unvelibable! onion has a fever!

if you're as indispensible to your resident as i am to mine, you can cheat on the constant stirring. let it simmer covered instead. no one will know. or care. follow the recipe for risotto milanese, but add the chicken broth right away, bring to boil and after 10 minutes of simmering, add frozen soybeans; after another 5, the asparagus and 1 tb chopped sage.

the asparagus needs 3 to 5 minutes, depending on its thickness, then stir in the cheese and you're done. meanwhile panfry a few sage leafs, 30 seconds, if that, don't carbonize it. serve at once, with a few leafs on top. maybe skip those on the doctor's plate.

the cake really is amazing, i've made this a lot since seeing it at smitten kitchen, it's very moist and the outside gets almost caramelized. wondrous, but the dessert to restore my appetite today has yet ot be invented. so i don't have a picture of a slice, or not a slice of the one i made today. it will probably go to my neighbours, but baking it has calmed me, to way it always does.

these were taken last september? october? or around there; zhara had a grand time stealing cake, she was walking around on her tippy toes trying to look innocent, with crumbs everywhere around her mouth and on her shirt.

cabbage soup on a smoked turkey drumstick

another soup that wafts memories of home and childhood. my mom made it often, with or without meat, smoked or not, but always tomato-based. this is the soup i ate on the evening of my first culinary disaster. or rather, couldn't eat because anything remotely sour was too raw on my wounded taste buds. it was a few days after the beginning of first grade. mom was at work. i got home from school, and even though i had prepared food in the fridge, i wanted fried eggs. so i cracked two in a pan, and fried them over easy, still in my uniform. then i seasoned them with salt and pepper. i got a napkin out - one of the 'good' ones, which i wasn't supposed to use - and wanting to be fancy through and through, i used another condiment on the eggs. quite a bit of it, and it was white vinegar. i swear it hurt to even smell the stuff for years afterward. i chucked the foul dish, pushing back the guilt of wasting food, put back the unused napkin, and went to diligently pursue homework in lieu of penance.

even now i only use white vinegar for cleaning and for the rare poached egg. for cooking i have red, rice and champagne vinegars that i find less aggresive. happier memories are tied with this soup, too, like the time we made it out of scraps leftover from canning cabbage-stuffed peppers all day long, and that we ate at 1 am after a couple hours of board games. bad puns were made about me being as sour as the soup. (i lost every single game, what are the odds?! and to be gracious about it? hardly in my nature...at least i admit to being a sore loser, which my mom will never do, even though she's worse than i am.)

turkey legs did not exist in my childhood, that is a new addition, and i think an improvement. this is a far better choice than any smoked ham hock i could find, and i'm sure i'll come up with other uses, we loved this meat! so first you bring the leg to boil and then add root vegetables - carrots, parsley root, celery, and onion, a couple bay leaves, a few sprigs of thyme, and simmer until the meat is easy to pull apart with a fork, about 1 1/2 hours, depending on the size of your drumstick. in the meantime finely chop a cabbage of decent size. when the meat is ready take everything out using a spider and throw the cabbage in the broth. discard the vegetables and pull the meat from the bone, cut it bite-size and put it back in the pot. slice a couple carrots and add them to the cabbage. simmer gently for another 10 minutes, then add 6 to 8 oz tomato sauce/juice and 1 tb tomato paste. simmer 5 minutes more. correct seasoning, add 3 tb chopped dill and a squeeze of lemon juice and turn off the heat. serve with sour cream and hearty bread.

zhara loved it and had it for lunch on three consecutive days. i usually don't make soup in industrial quantities, but that was one big leg, so i had to pull out the big pot, and didn't have the sense to freeze half the stock for another use. so even with a portion sent to the neighbors, and my husband's appetite at the ready, the soup lasted three days. not a bad thing if you have a crowd - the turkey leg was $3.50, the cabbage $1.20, so the whole thing costs about $7 to make.

caramel coconut flan

i made this especially for a friend who was going to visit today. after stuffing her full of flan we were going to see 'alice in wonderland', but yet another migraine made the whole plan go down in plumes of dissapointment. i simply couldn't face 2 hours of blaring sorround and flickering lights, not if johnny depp was signing autographs at the door. [not the time to call me on it!] so no movie for me, and no flan for my friend obviously translates into double flan for both me and my husband. sweet mother of consolation!

the recipe i used comes from a restaurant in philadelphia, azafran - i'm pretty sure that's the name, i've never been there and i got the recipe from a friend who swears 'it's the best'. i really did love the consistency, but as far as taste goes, to me it seemed more creme brulee than anything else. you couldn't really taste the coconut, i definetely recommend adding finely grated coconut or extract to it to perk it up. probably extract though, i wouldn't want to mess up a perfect texture.

5 eggs

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 can unsweetened coconut milk

1/8 ts salt

1/2 ts vanilla

1 ts coconut extract

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

1/3 cup water

mix the sugar and the water in a heavy-bottomed pan and place on high heat to caramelize. stir until sugar is dissolved, then continue boiling on high heat, tilting the pan occasionally, but no more stirring. use a wet pastry brush to brush down the sides of the pan. when you reach a deep amber color pour immediately into 6 ramekins, twirling each ramekin to get the caramel in an even coat on the bottom and on the sides. drizzle the rest of the caramel on wax paper to use for decoration.

 

preheat the oven to 350F. beat the eggs with the salt until well combined. add the condensed milk and the coconut milk and mix well. divide equally between the six ramekins. place them in a roasting pan and pour enough hot water to come up half-way around the ramekins. bake until just set but still jiggly in the center, 35 to 40 minutes. do not overcook.

the good news is, this stuff can be prepared three days in advance. when it's time to serve put each ramekin in a bowl of hot water for half a minute to loosen the caramel, run a knife along the side, then invert on a plate. you can also make it in a pie dish if you can't be bothered with individual flans. i have yet to meet someone who doesn't like this, even my creme brulee-hating husband is a convert! it has the smoothest texture, and it tastes like love: warm even when served cold, moist and airy, buttery light, sweetly overwhelming everything else as long as you have a spoon in hand.