Good food, No Pictures.

Who says you have to take a picture of everything you cook? For some reason, I always forget. I never forget to cook, though. I've come to realize that cooking is my way of releasing stress(doing laundry at the laundry mat is another. Don't ask why). When other people are filled with dread because they have to go home and make ANOTHER dinner, I look forward to it. Two hours in a kitchen will fly by. Anyways, there was a lot of cooking going on this week but nary a picture. Sorry!

What I've made this week:

Pomegranate chicken(Gluten-Free Girl's recipe), roasted garlic mashed potatoes, honey mustard glazed brussel sprouts.

Beef stew, balsamic glazed brussel sprouts

Steak tacos with homemade salsa (I'm a salsa snob. I refuse to eat the jarred junk)

Gingersnaps (these were fantastic! Spicy and chewy. Perfect for fall)

I might post the recipes for all of these things at some point but right now, I'm going just going to do the gingersnaps because they are pretty great.

I took the recipe that David Lebovitz's post on Chez Panisse Gingersnaps and made some changes. Yeah, I messed with Alice Water's cookies. Shame on me. In my defense, they are some rockin cookies! I had bought the pomegranate molasses at the store for the above mentioned pomegranate chicken and I was so excited about it, I had to use it right away. I threw in quite a bit more spice, too.

Here's my recipe.

2 cups flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
11 tablespoons butter, salted or unsalted, at room temperature
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
2 Tablespoons molasses
1 large egg, at room temperature

Granulated sugar to dip prior to baking.

1. Stir together the dry ingredients.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter just until soft and fluffy. Add the sugars and continue to beat until smooth, stopping the mixer to scrape down any butter clinging to the sides of the bowl.

3. Stir in the vanilla, both types of molasses and egg.

4. Mix in the dry ingredients gradually until the dough is smooth.

5. Divide the dough in two equal portions and roll each on a lightly-floured surface until each is a not so odd shaped log. Make sure they aren't too thin otherwise you'll have tiny cookies.

6. Wrap each in plastic wrap then roll them lightly on the counter to smooth them out. Refrigerate, or freeze the dough until firm.

7. To bake, preheat the oven to 350F. I pull out my trusty Pampered Chef pizza stone. I haven't burned a cookie since I started using this thing. I am looking to get another at some point to expedite my cooking baking process. (Christmas, hint hint).

8. Slice cookie dough into rounds a little larger than 1/4-inch rounds with a knife. Dip one side and press firmly in a bowl of sugar if you want, and place on the baking sheet, evenly-spaced apart. Leave a couple of inches en cookies since they'll spread while baking.

9. Bake for 10-14 minutes, until deep-golden brown. The cookies will puff up a bit while baking, then settle down when they're done. Bake on the lower end of the range for softer cookies, and more for snappier ones, depending on your oven. I like mine chewy!

10. Let the cookies cool two minutes, then remove them with a spatula and transfer them to a cooling rack.

Sharing Meals and Sunday Mornings...

I love to feed people. All too often, I end up cooking for myself and having a ton of leftovers. Unfortunately, I haven't quite mastered the art of cooking for one. I eat leftovers but sometimes I just cannot keep up with everything that I've made.

This weekend was a special treat because I got to share three meals with my honey; one of which was also shared with my good friends, Ben and Tessa. There were no leftovers!

On Sunday morning, I awoke to the sun shining and a sweet and snuggly boy in my bed. It's was nice to lay around for a while and NOT have to jump up and get ready for work. I relish in those lazy mornings where I can wake up slowly, throw on some wrinkled clothes, and walk to the nearest breakfast establishment for some poached eggs, home fries, and chicken sausage. Well, this weekend, I made breakfast.

I made a roasted turkey hash, and poached eggs with toast. It was a really quick breakfast, came together in less that 25 minutes and tasted really great. As usual, I didn't follow a recipe and just threw stuff that I thought would taste great together.

Here's my recipe for two:

3 small yellow potatoes (You can leave the peels on if you would like to. I peeled two and then got lazy)

Dice the potatoes and par boil them in salted water(or chicken broth for extra flavor) for about 5 min. You don't want them to be too soft. They will finish cooking in the skillet. (The longer you leave them in the there, the less they need to cook in the pan; you don't want them too mushy, though)

Meanwhile, get the rest of the ingredients prepped/cooking:

1/2 medium onion, diced
1/3 small red pepper
1T olive oil or butter
a few sprigs of thyme
3 ounces of roasted turkey
a few dashes of worcestershire sauce
pepper to taste
salt to taste
sprinkle of parmesan or sharp cheddar cheese.

Saute the onions, peppers and thyme in the olive oil/butter over medium heat until soft and translucent. Add the parboiled potatoes and let them finish cooking and brown up. Once they are getting near desired doneness, throw in a few shakes of worcestershire sauce, the pepper, and the turkey. Heat the turkey through. Taste for seasoning and serve it up with a sprinkle of freshly grated cheese. Plop some poached eggs on it and it's good stuff.

Baby Tart

Tomorrow at work, we are having a "baby party". Weird, I know. This is at a research labs that has exactly 4 women employed. Three of the researchers in our office have had kids in the past month, plus we added another team member, hence the party. Honestly, I think we just look for every excuse to eat and not work between 9-5.

Anyways, the reason I got into that is because everybody was asked to bring some food to contribute. We have a VERY diverse group of people and I'm looking forward to the tzatziki, tiramisu, and indian sweets that I know are on the list.

I had bought some leeks at the Berkeley Farmer's Market last week and was itching to make something with them. A search on google came up with "Leek and Camembert Tart" on Epicurious.com, of course. ..

Never to be one to follow a recipe exactly, I made some changes. The recipe, with my changes, is below. I substituted brie cheese because a. I LOVE IT and b. it was cheaper than the camembert(hey, I'm TRYING to stick to a budget). Also, I added onions to it since I only had 3 small leeks, some garlic, and I made a pie crust instead of using the puff pastry.

Admittedly, I haven't tasted the completed version yet; however, the custard was delicious. I'll update tomorrow and let you know how it was.

Update: The tart was a pretty great. I served it room temperature because we didn't have an oven to reheat it and it was definitely tasty. When I make it again, I'll serve it warm with a salad.

Baby Tart:

1 9-inch pie crust, pre-baked

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
3 small leeks (white and pale green parts only), sliced
2 large onions, sliced thin
1 sprig of thyme
2/3 cup whipping cream
4 ounces Brie cheese, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large egg
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Salt to taste

2 Tablespoons of Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Caramelize the onions, onions, leeks, and thyme in butter. This took me about 20 minutes.

Bring cream to simmer in medium saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat to low; add brie and stir until melted. Remove from heat and cool 5 minutes. Whisk in egg, cayenne, and nutmeg. Mix custard with the caramelized onion and leek mixture.

Pour the filling into the pie crust and sprinkle Parmesan over crust. Bake until bottom is golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer to rack; cool 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.