Filed under: cheese, pasta, snack | Tags: fondue, macaroni and cheese, pasta, stilton, swiss
Last week Guinevere gave me some eggs, a stilton style cheese, and a baby swiss. I put them to very good use:
Stilton Mac and Cheese
1/4 lb dry pasta (elbow macaroni!)
about a tsp of butter
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp each salt and dry mustard
about 2/3 cup crumbled stilton cheese, 1/3 cup grated low-fat mozzarella or whateva, extra for sprinkling
1/2 cup milk (I used skim)
Preheat the oven to 350. Cook the macaroni according to the package directions. Drain and stir in the egg and butter. Stir in the cheese and pour into a gresed casserole dish. Mix the mustard and salt with 1/2 tbl hot water and add to the milk. Pour the milk over the top of the casserole and sprinkle on some cheese. Cook for about 45 minutes of until the custard sets.
The macaroni recipe was adapted from President Reagan’s Favorite Macaroni and Cheese on Recipezaar. The egg is critical. This was incrdibly rich and crusty and easy to make and I am just infatuated with it!
Stilton and Swiss Fondue
some stilton and swiss cheese, about twice as much swiss as stilton (6 oz altogether? play with the quantities in this recipe)
1/4 cup dry white wine
splash of brandy
black pepper and nutmeg, to taste
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp cornstarch
bread or fruit or whateva for dipping
I kept adding wine and cheese so I am not sure what the exact quantities are. Just throw them in a saucepan, melt and mix them, and keep tasting until it is to your liking. It’s not like you can mess this up. It’s cheese and wine and garlic and brandy!!! I tried to eat it at the table but the cheese got hard before I could finish so I ended up eating it off the stove. The drawback of not having a fondue pot.
Filed under: Indian, snack, vegan | Tags: Indian, potatoes, vegan, vegetarian
Here is a cooking tip: equip yourself with the proper spices and you will have a quick, healthy, very tasty Indian meal with whatever you may have lying around. And it’s cheap.
Here are some things you may not know: unlike French cooking, you never taste a dish until it is done in Indian cooking. Also, pure Hindu vegetarians do not eat garlic and onions as they are believed to create lust and vegetarianism is a commitment to a simple lifestyle.
Tonight I:
washed, chopped and boiled some potatoes for about 15 minutes
heat 1 tbl of oil in a skillet over medium and added 1 tsp each of cumin, asafoetida, tumeric, cayenne, and salt and 1 tbl coriander and cooked for a minute before adding the potatoes. Cook, covered, for about 15 minutes.
Sprinkle with garam masala and amchoor powder and eat with yogurt and chutney.
If you add some cauliflower it’s aloo gobi!
Filed under: breakfast, snack | Tags: blueberry, cornmeal, lemon, muffins
These were the best muffins I have ever made. Another recipe from Abby’s Celebrating the Midwestern Table. I would reccomend waiting until blueberry season (June and July I think?), but they are a really lovely treat this time of year if you are not cooking strictly seasonally.
You’ll need:
grated zest of 2 large lemons, about 2 tbl
1 cup + 1 1/2 tbl sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups flour (sneak in some whole wheat if you want)
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
scant 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup blueberries
3 tbl fresh lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a standard-size muffin pan with paper liners or grease them. Set aside. Use a wooden spoon to mix zest, 1 cup sugar, oil, and egg in a bowl. Sit in the buttermilk, then flour, cornmeal, baking soda, and salt. Fold in the blueberries. Let the batter rest for 15 minutes before baking for puffier muffins. Fill the muffin cups so that they are 7/8 full with batter. Bake about 22 minutes, until lightly brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. While they cool, stir the lemon juice and the rest of the sugar together in a small bowl. When you can easily remove them from the pan, quickly dip the muffin tops in the glaze. Let them dry 15 minutes before serving. Makes 12 muffins.
Filed under: Italian, dessert, snack | Tags: blue cheese, bread, bruschetta, gorgonzola, honey, Italian, vegetarian
Is that not the most beautiful dish you’ve ever seen? Giada De Laurentiis is responsible for this gem but I’ve made it a dozen times since I first saw it on Everyday Italian. Her recipe is Bruschetta with Gorgonzola Cheese and Honey, but you can use any blue cheese. The gorgonzola is to Italian it up. It is also creamery than other blue cheeses so it definitely makes a difference, but it is not the only way. I used blue cheese that my friend Karl gave to me in the library of all places and ‘creamy’ raw honey that I bought at the farmer’s market in North Carolina. The bread is a loaf of fresh baked 7 grain from New Pioneer Coop in Iowa City. They used Paul’s Grains 7 grain cereal and 7 grain flour in making it!
So here’s what to do:
Preheat oven to 375F.
Slice up a crusty loaf of bread (Giada says baguette)
Sprinkle with olive oil and toast.
When crispy and hot, remove the bread from the oven. At this point you can spread on thick raw honey like I did and then sprinkle it with cheese or you can add honey after it is done baking.
Put the bread back in the oven until the cheese melts. Put honey on or, if you already have, serve warm. This could be an appetizer or snack but I ate it as a meal with sauteed kale and Annie’s Natural Goddess Dressing. Per usual, I licked the bowl clean of the Natural Goddess Dressing.
Filed under: Indian, Legumes, ferment, rice, snack, vegan | Tags: dosa, ferment, Indian, lentils, rice, vegan, vegetarian
I’ve been flipping through Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz and making lists of different ferments I want to try. I like the idea of ingesting live bacteria cultures and of practicing traditional forms of food preservation. There’s a lot of literature on the subject so you don’t need me to give a laundry list of health (and, for some, spiritual) benefits.
Some ferments can take over a year; dosas took 24 hours. Dosas are like the Indian equivalent to a crepe or blini but probably a lot healthier. I ate mine folded in half with yogurt and slices of mango but they are good plain or with a hearty curry.
Here’s what you’ll need:
2 cups rice (I used brown, Katz says white Basmati rice is more authentic if that’s what you’re going for)
1 cup lentils (again, I’ve read that both white and black lentils are more authentic. I used red, Katz has also tried lima beans)
1 cup yogurt or kefir (optional)
1 tsp salt
1 small bunch parsley and/or cilantro, chopped
1 inch gingerroot, grated
vegetable oil
Soak the rice and lentils in water for at least 8 hours or overnight. If you leave them to soak a bit longer and they beging to sour, that’s fine. Strain the rice and lentils. Grind them into a batter with yogurt, kefir, or water in a food processor or other grinding implement. Put the batter in a bowl or jar with plenty of room for it to expland. The batter should be fine, not chunky, and thick, just barely pourable. If necessary, add a little water. Ferment (this means leave it out, not in the fridge) 24 to 48 hours or longer. Once it has risen substantially you can make dosas! If you leave it for a number of days, the sour flavor intensifies. Yum.
Add 1 cup of lukewarm water to the thin the batter. The batter should be liquid to produce thin pancakes. Stir in the parsley and/or cilantro, ginger, and salt. Heat a well-seasoned frying pan with oil. Use a laddle to pout the batter into the center of the pan and then use the bottom of the ladle to spiral the batter from the center out toward the edges of the pan. Cook as a pancake, flipping after bubbles appear. I cooked it on medium-low heat. Don’t expect to get the hang of this right away. My first few dosas were thick and deformed but the last couple that I made were thin and crispy! The dosa should be thin. If necessary, thin the batter by adding more water, yogurt, or kefir. Lightly oil the pan between dosas.
Katz, Sandor Ellix. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company. 2003. 70-71.
