Dill + shallot yogurt butter

On the way to the lakefront to meet some friends yesterday, we drove through my old neighborhood.  The one with my Single Lady apartment.  A block from my old building, where I used to stand waiting for the crossing signal (or not), look up and see home, just a few dozen steps away.  We breezed past the intersection -- slowly, it felt, but it probably was a sensible 30 mph -- and I announced to Danny from nowhere, it felt, that this neighborhood was where I spent some of my very finest years.  I think I qualified it by saying "finest single years," and the modification was very much genuine. 

We recently celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary, and as with all big, important, right milestones, it felt to us and everyone who cared to comment that, on the one hand, it felt like just yesterday, and on the other, it felt like years ago. 

I think I have chronicled here, what really was years ago now, the initial growing pains of Cooking for a Dude (on a Regular Basis).  Not that I wrote much prior to then about the nights I'd tote home a demi baguette, a corner of Brillat-Savarin, and a pear and call it dinner -- I stopped short, and still do, of writing about how to assemble a snack.  But especially now, when I'm generally (though not always) cooking for the both of us, it's rare that I consider passing off Broke & Faking It Snack-Dinner as a legitimate evening meal.

So we'll consider tonight a special (lazy) occasion.  It was a long day at work, literally and figuratively, and though it was productive and forward-moving, it was still full of too many things to accomplish in, well, 11 hours.  We went grocery shopping yesterday, and I came home to all the makings of a glorious batch of saag halloumi, but wanted none of it.  (Lie: I wanted all of it, but I wanted to make none of it.) 

This morning I woke up with the ever-so-slight tack on my skin, sly and insidious, that announces to me it's Summer Already.  And walking home from the train tonight, the neighborhood bright and still a little humid, downright dripping in tree blossoms and gardens and radiant green, I realized what this feeling was.  This feeling like you should be happy with the blooms and the gorgeous weather and the wearing of sandals and the feeling of breeze against the small hairs on your shoulder, but the feeling that instead (or in additon?), you feel... I don't know, cheated.  You feel, actually, nostalgic for the couple of rose-gold weeks when the weather suggested you open the windows, not demanded you turn on the AC.  I hadn't felt this feeling for many years, and I snorted (yes, out loud, walking down the street) once I realized what it was.  It's the same feeling you get when you are seeing someone really great and there is nothing wrong, really, but you can't help but wonder in a tiny voice if things didn't move a little too fast.  Like, now you're invested.  You can't casually turn the ship around and wish idly that it was still Spring.  This is what you wanted, isn't it?? Summer is ON, and so is the pressure to have your Summer of Love George.

If this extended metaphor hasn't made it clear already:  this weather is a little overwhelming to me.  Exciting, but I a little bit don't know how to deal.

Mini fugue state in full effect, I walked in to the apartment, set down my bag, changed clothes, and marched straight to the kitchen.  I was defaulting to Snack-Dinner mode.  I mixed a stick of butter with a cup of yogurt (which, in this application, really screams to me to be spelled yoghurt or joghurt or yaourt or something, in honor of the places where they've been doing stuff like this for centuries).  I bashed my last remaining shallot and chopped the last of some dill and parsley that would otherwise have languished away in the fridge.  There were about two slices' worth left in a heel of brown bread I made last week (not black bread as we were out of molasses; I used honey instead and added some flaky salt and sesame seeds to the already caraway-sprinkled top).  I toasted them while I sliced some radishes and mixed this dill & shallot yogurt butter concoction.

Am I breaking my own rule?  Yes.  NO!  This recipe is legit.  (Legit easy, maybe, and legit a condiment.  But for real, legit.)

(And maybe this is all just a delayed gratification of some deep desire from weeks ago to just eat bread with nice butter and radishes.)

 I made a prototype of this last week when I made the brown bread, as you will see that that recipe also suggests slathering your bread with magical dill butter.  I did not have farmer cheese or goat cheese, but I did have nonfat Greek yogurt.  I did not have chives, and I did not care.  The result was still very delicious, but I decided that next time I would stretch the "butter" and also capitalize on the whole freedom-from-fat thing by upping the proportion of yogurt. 

Tonight's result:  something I'll be slathering, probably with abandon, on pretty much anything. 

Get this:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (whatever fat content you have on-hand; I find the nonfat to be plenty creamy, and you are mixing it with butter here, for God's sake)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1 shallot, minced
• salt & pepper to taste

Do this:  seriously, put it all in a bowl and mix it.  Store in the fridge in an airtight container.  It will last for a couple of weeks but I promise you won't make it that long.

World's best hummus

In every household, I think each member has Certain Stuff Only They Make.  Growing up, my dad made:  all weekend breakfasts (of both sweet and savory persuasions); all soups; all non-dessert bread products; anything in jars, including applesauce, tomato juice (both au naturel and pre-seasoned for Bloody Marys), grape juice, peaches, pears; all pies (no cakes); all grilled items.  He also managed and supervised all indoor and outdoor fireplaces in which roasting of marshmallows occurred.

My mom made:  everything else.

I'm starting to find that my husband's and my budding household rituals are beginning to take a similar shape.  Though I do most of the cooking, it's mainly because Danny, at some moment early in our relationship, must have detected that I was both a) really into cooking, and b) sort of bossy (okay and c) pretty good at it), and graciously abdicated his, and then our, kitchen to powers he identified as beyond his control.

However, Danny has several niche items in his repertoire, and we've been together long enough that it's understood who is making what, when we talk about what's getting made.

He makes: all breakfast tacos; numerous varieties of holiday brittle; all pre-tossed pizza dough for my topping convenience; Freezer Cleanout Roasted Vegetables (a cousin to regular roasted vegetables); all pre-cut vegetable sticks for dippin'; all popcorn; a very exotic dish known as Dannyboy's Bachelor Tacos; the best hummus in the world.

In a recent redoubling of efforts to swat away pesky winter weight (which, this year, is particularly difficult because winter is still showing up on the occasional 34-degree evening), we thought we might try swapping in some butter lettuce leaves for sandwich bread in our lunches.  Being a bit of a traditionalist, not to mention an ardent and passionate lover of sandwiches, this felt a little like a travesty and I approached the new idea with narrowed eyes and furrowed brow.  Small waves of preemptive lunchtime disappointment came over me as I imagined how these lettuce wraps would taste; the words "low-cal" and "sensible eating" cruised in matching vests in a beige minivan in the air before me.  I pouted.

But then one night, making my lunch for the next day, I slapped together a proto-wrap to see what I was getting into.  Lettuce leaf, washed and dried; shmear of Danny's chipotle hummus, two slices of smoked turkey.  Fold top, roll sides, nestle into the shape of a green leafy hamster.  Bite.  Think.  Bite again.

What was this?  This... smoothness!  This velvety layer between crunch and meaty smoke!  I yelled across the apartment:

"DAMMIT, OLSON, THAT'S SOME GOOD HUMMUS."

My husband has been into hummus, and into making his own crazy varieties of hummus, for some time now.  In fact, I think his love for making hummus predates his love for me.  Which is saying something.  He's so into it that when we're at parties, he asks other guests how they make their hummus.  Like, it's a legitimate topic of conversation.  He has made deluxe versions and health-nut versions; versions without tahini; versions without oil; versions with ample amounts of both.  He has made watery hummus, chunky hummus, chalky hummus, salty hummus, hummus that is so insanely spicy that it literally makes you sweat.  Our refrigerator has seen just about a batch of hummus a week for as long as we have lived in our current apartment; same goes for his old apartment.

He has attempted to replicate all of his favorite hummuses (hummi?), which, if you asked him, would probably come down to two versions:  Chef Earl's hot giardiniera incarnation, and my friend Scott's basic version.  We don't know Chef Earl personally, but we do know Scott.

Scott's secret for insanely smooth hummus:  peel the beans.  A tip we had heard before, but did not want to believe in.  Peel beans?  Are you nuts?  

Danny's additional secret for insanely smooth hummus:  surprisingly no olive oil, but way more tahini than you thought you needed.

And suddenly, we've taken hummus from humble, easy, fast, and inexpensive to kinda luxurious and slightly time-consuming.  GREAT JOB.

But you guys, I am telling you -- and Danny is too (really, he is right here, and his tone is very insistent) -- that it is 100% worth the effort.  He was particularly skeptical at first about the peeling of the garbanzo beans, but finally tried it, and the result was undeniable.  

So now, we are pleased to present to you our (his) recipe for:

Seriously You Guys The World's Best Hummus

A few notes:  first, Danny enjoys a spicy hummus, so he tends to add some zingy "flavoring agents" like wasabi powder, chipotle peppers, sriracha, and hot giardiniera (though never in the same batch).  I'm including suggested amounts for each, but do know that they are optional.  The amounts here are relatively conservative estimates, so if you are trying to step lightly toward spice, this should be a safe level.  Feel free to adjust to taste.  Also, you will notice that it's recommended to reserve the drained-off "bean water" from the can if your batch needs thinning out.  Don't dump it down the sink til the end!  Final note:  any funny terminology (such as "whack") is purely my husband's and I cannot vouch for its accuracy.  But we think you'll know what he means.

Get this:

• 1 can no salt added garbanzos
• 2 cloves garlic
• juice from 1/2 lemon and a bit of zest
• 1/4 cup tahini
• pinch salt
• few whacks of black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• flavoring agent 
• chipotles in adobo: 1 medium pepper and a few drops of adobo
• sriracha:  1 1/2 tablespoons
• hot giardiniera:  1 1/2 tablespoons
• wasabi powder:  1 tablespoon, plus a few dashes low-sodium soy sauce or tamari

Do this:

Find a 30 minute podcast, radio show, or TV show you like.  Cue it up.

Set a mesh strainer or colander over a small bowl.  Drain the beans over the bowl, then rinse the beans in the sink.  Set the bowl with the "bean water" aside.

Toddle over to the TV or kitchen table or wherever, and bring your beans, another small bowl, and a paper towel.  Set down your strainer on the paper towel, hit play on your show, and get to peeling the beans.  THIS IS TEDIOUS.  But this is why I had you pick out a nice program so you'd be occupied during the boring part.  It's actually kind of relaxing once you get the hang of it.

How to peel the beans:  you know you've seen those little rogue garbanzo skins when you've drained the beans before; they come off very easily.  The easiest way for me is to hold the little point end of the bean between the thumb and forefinger of my right (dominant) hand, and squeeze very gently toward my left hand.  The bean sort of slides/pops right out.  If you're right-handed, your clean bean bowl should go on your left, which will allow you to just drop the discarded peel in the colander on the right.  No crossing hands; efficient movement.

I doubt the can of beans will take you an entire 30 minutes to peel.  But I wanted you to have a treat to enjoy after your hard work.  Congratulations!: you get to hang out for a little if you want.

Break's over?  Okay, let's finish the job.  It's pretty simple, and mainly about timing.  Assemble the rest of your ingredients and break out the food processor.  We have a small one that Danny used to use for hummus, but... that was a more innocent time.  It's fine for making tapenades, pestos, bread crumbs, etc, but to get smooth hummus, we find that our full-size food processor is more powerful.  (But honestly, if all you have is the small version, this still works.  You just might need to give the motor some small rests and make sure the beans are thoroughly beat the hell up before adding other elements.)

Put the garbanzos in the food processor, and chop as much as possible.  They should resemble a coarse meal before it's okay to stop.  Then, add the rest of your ingredients, giving them plenty of time to blend in and break down.  If you find the hummus is too thick, slowly add the bean water while the processor is running, until you get the desired consistency.  Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.  Use in and on everything.

Dandelion greens

In preparation for the new site (soon!), I am going back into all my old posts and re-doing my tags.  I've got the most recent half of them done, and I've felt pretty good about the variety of categories.

However:  I am shocked that it took me this long to add a "put an egg on it" tag.

Putting An Egg On It is pretty much the new black, if you haven't noticed, and I must admit, it's for very good reason.  Eggs are an inexpensive source of protein, even if you are getting the gorgeous $6/dozen ones at the farmers' market.  They're less heavy than a portion of meat, and more versatile.  Scrambled, frittata-ed, poached, or sunny side-up, they're the humble, everyday, culinary equivalent to the rug in the Big Lebowski:  they really pull a dish together.  Because we're suckers for a bright, runny yolk, and too lazy to poach an egg, sunny eggs are pretty much to go-to around here.  Crispy edges, soft middle,  poised and ready to ooze.

We spent all winter putting a fried egg on top of bean/green/vegetable concoctions, over thick, bricky stews, and nestled in polenta and marinara (in purgatorio, definitely a post for another time soon).  For the first time in my life it dawned on me that if I was not careful with this new repertoire, I would likely eat an egg for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all in the same day.  We stopped using our steak knives for steak, and started using them to deftly halve and distribute the still-runny yolks of our fried eggs throughout whatever else was in the bowl.

So after this last weekend's Anniversary Road Show antics, waking up from a 3 hour food coma emergency nap on Sunday afternoon (diagnosis:  too much anniversary), Danny and I populated our grocery list with some staples, including a much-needed dozen eggs.  (If there are no eggs in the fridge it really does feel like a destitute situation.)  We also allotted quite a few spots for freebie, whatever-looked-good vegetables.  It seemed it was officially time again for springtime experimentation in the kitchen, and this week's wild card was:  dandelion greens.

Wild card?  Sort of.  It's not that I've never had them.  But I've never used them in my own kitchen.  The nice part was that they were A Green, so one should, ostensibly, be able to prepare them as one would Any Other Green: chopped, sauteed with some sort of allium(s), possibly braised with a bit of broth if necessary to break up coarseness or bitterness.  There's a formula to everything.  But the dandelion's x-factor came from its profound bitterness.  I hear people talk about bitterness in raw kale, and I have literally no clue what they are talking about.  Chewy?  Sure.  Very green-tasting?  Absolutely.  Bitter?  Nope.

But dandelion greens.  SHARP.  Don't be fooled by the adorable ranunculus up there, sitting in that adorable ceramic Mason jar (not my work; I have an insanely talented sister).  Those babies are spicy.

So sometimes the best thing to do to counteract one sort of sharpness is add other layers of it, just in different shades.  Give that edgy green some friends to round it out so it doesn't seem like such a loner:  a tart, bright top note in a squeeze of lemon, some red pepper flakes to blend the bitterness right on into a very enjoyable spicy sting, and the quiet tang of ricotta salata.  Then, introduce it to some softer friends, like creamy chickpeas, a strong, smoky foundation of bacon fat, and - you guessed it - an egg.  You know, for example.

Oh, so you want to make this happen?  I don't blame you.  It was a refreshing and light supper that tasted great on the first go, and reheated wonderfully (I just left it in the skillet) after Danny got home.  All you need to do is fry up a fresh egg to throw on top.

Get this:

• 1 bunch dandelion greens (maybe 1/2 lb?), rinsed and chopped
• 2 small shallots
• 1 tablespoon bacon fat (because like us, you also spent the winter putting crumbled bacon on everything and reserved the fat in a jar for just such an occasion.)  Okay, olive oil would work great too.
• 2 pinches red pepper flakes - one if you want it milder
• pinch salt
• 1 can chickpeas, drained but not rinsed
• 1/4 cup stock (chicken or vegetable, doesn't matter)
• fresh black pepper
• 1 ounce ricotta salata (I usually find the sheep's milk ricotta, but if you can find goat ricotta salata, so much the better)
• 2 eggs (or one per person)
• freshly halved lemon

Do this:

Heat a large skillet - I feel obligated to bust out the cast iron skillet anytime I'm doing anything involving bacon fat - on medium-high, until almost smoking.  Add the bacon fat or oil, then slice the shallots thinly over the pan using a mandoline.  Stir thoroughly, making sure not to burn the shallots, and also to coat them in the bacon fat.  After about 30 seconds, add your salt and red pepper flakes, stir, and reduce heat to medium.

Add the dandelion greens to the pan, stirring so that they wilt slowly and evenly.  Add the chickpeas and stir into the greens - the residual starch from the beans will help bind the beans & greens together.  Add the stock and simmer slowly.  Kill the heat when most of the liquid has evaporated.

While that's simmering, heat a small nonstick frying pan over high heat.  Add a splash of olive oil or cooking spray to the pan.  Once the pan is very hot, fry up however many eggs you're planning to use.  Salt their crowns, and pepper the white to taste.  We like our eggs with the white pretty much cooked, and the yolk runny, but you may have other preferences.

Once the eggs are done, portion out the greens mixture between two bowls.  You could probably stretch this to three, or even four, especially if you end up tossing other greens in there (spinach, escarole, chard, etc).  Shred a little ricotta salata over the top, and then squeeze the lemon on top of that.  Slide an egg on top of everything, and breakfast/lunch/dinner is served.

Shortcake

On Friday, I made shortcakes.  It seemed like the only right thing to do, considering we were also in possession of some cream laced with Chinese five spice and vanilla, then whipped up fluffy, and some of the best berries I had had since last summer.

The shortcakes occurred to me as I stood in the kitchen, the air around me sunny for the first time since what also seemed like last summer (but what may have just been the last warm moment we had in Chicago, which was several weeks ago).  I was greedily dunking strawberries into the whipped cream, nibbling around the leaves at the top, and remembering my Gramma Jean hulling strawberries a few summers ago for jam.  She was slowing down, but still held the paring knife like a pro, hulling and slicing the berries with nary a nick on her fingers, or a sideways whack through the berries, never bringing the fruit low to a cutting board or surface to rest. Just swivel, slice, slice, next berry.  Swivel, slice, slice, next.  Her easy focus felt legendary. 

It dawned on me that it could (okay, would) be selfish of me to enjoy these berries & cream by myself.  It also dawned on me that presenting Danny with a bowl of berries and whipped cream could seem to be... I dunno, missing something.

I scoured the baking shelf in our "goldmine" cabinet (first shelf: spices; second shelf; oils, vinegars, sweeteners, nut butters; third shelf: baking ingredients; top shelf: fancy salts, small kitchen power tools) and realized:  LO! I had everything I needed for shortcake.

In literally the time it took me to whistle "Short'nin' Bread" on loop and get only a little sick of it (10 minutes?), I had the biscuits in the oven.

A few notes:

• These are adapted from a stupid-easy Alton Brown recipe - you can make them slightly sweet for this sort of application, but omitting the sugar will give you an everyday biscuit recipe that lends itself to any number of add-ins.  (Rosemary? Caramelized shallots? Dill & feta? Chive & parmesan? Lemon zest, thyme, pecorino?)
• For dessert use, I like the softness that cream or half & half give you, but you can swap in buttermilk if you have it, especially for a savory biscuit.
• There is a lone tablespoon of sugar in this recipe. Not a sweet biscuit by any stretch of the imagination; just enough sugar to lend itself to berries & cream.  If you want more sweetness, feel free to add more sugar, but don't go crazy.  Your fruit should be the highlight.  (Unless you like to enjoy one of these shortcakes as a snack before bedtime, which I most certainly did not do last night.)
• I had never bought shortening prior to acquiring Gramma Jean's "white bread" recipe (a basic and deeply satisfying Pullman loaf, basically), and as you may have guessed, I use it only for that, and now these biscuits.  I'd recommend having it on hand as it seems like one of those things that is not easily substituted in many heirloom recipes, though please do buy the non-hydrogenated variety.  For a different flavor, you could likely use coconut oil instead, though I can't vouch whether it behaves in the same way in this recipe.

 Get this:

• 2 cups flour (I resorted to half all-purpose flour, and half cake flour, as it's what I had on hand)
• 4 teaspoons baking powder - not soda!
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 3/4 to 1 cup half & half or cream

Do this: 

Heat your oven to 450F.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.  Cut in the butter and shortening with a fork or pastry cutter. Once the butter and shortening are relatively well distributed - your mixture should look dry but somewhat pellet-y - mix in the cream/half & half.  I ended up needing a few extra splashes of cream this time as my mixture seemed dry and was hard to mix into something resembling even the ugliest dough.

Drop by big dollops onto a baking sheet (I used a Silpat but you could use parchment or just spray down the pan); you should get about 8 decent-sized biscuits out of this.  Sprinkle the tops with a little sugar, and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Cool and eat with berries, cream, ice cream, and/or any sort of stone fruit later on this season (OMGZ CHERRIES AND PEACHES).

Store in an airtight container if you have leftovers - they will keep for about a week, though you'll need to resign yourself to losing the crispness after a day or so.  We got over it and ate the last of them tonight for dessert, windows open, breeze blowing, wondering if we skipped Spring and went straight into Summer.

Spring vegetables + buttermilk dressing

I'm kind of having what I'm calling a Tinkerbell moment.  I figure, if I clap enough and believe hard enough, Spring will eventually arrive in all its astonishing and gentle glory.

You see, Spring this year has not been really showing up for work.  We all know it's technically the season known as Spring, and overall I think moods are lifting, becoming more energized with longer days and, you know, not-freezing temps.  I feel pretty secure in the suspicion that that other season known as Winter is over.  Right?  I mean... right?

And I don't really mind that warmth and sunshine appear only in fits and starts.  That the key to an enjoyable walk is scrambling to the sunny side of the street.  I'm okay that Chicago rarely has a storybook spring, with temperatures rising in orderly sequences and flowers blooming in slow-motion montages.  But just last Friday night at yoga, bending forward in hands-to-feet pose, I was distracted by something in my peripheral vision falling across the windows of the second-floor studio.  Bending my knees and lifting my heels to bracket my fingers underneath, I thought absently, "Weird, that looked like snow." Add to that the fact that it truly was evening, and the sun truly had set; the darkness outside and the warmth inside the studio brought me back to the very dark winter mornings spent in 6am class.  Surely I was just being dramatic and imagining things, still wary of not-distant winter memories. Arms forward again and hands in prayer, my back (almost) straight, I glanced back over to the windows as I hinged back upright.

Oh.  It was snow.

OKAY, YOU KNOW WHAT, TINKERBELL??  Fine.  This was turning out to be kind of a kickass class, and whatever that meteorological hocus-pocus was, I didn't have time for it.  I thought only of locking out my knees, lifting my chest, and occasionally inflating my lungs to a satisfying yawn-capacity.  Totally zonked out after class, I drove home, ignoring the snow (that had the nerve to accumulate overnight, btw), and watched literally five episodes of Girls before crawling into bed, sleepily clapping my hands and snapping my fingers and cursing/coaxing our Tinkerbell Spring.

The next morning dawned bright and a little chilly.  I had plans to visit the (still indoors) farmers' market with a friend, naively expecting to see a few stalks of rhubarb, maybe some peas or favas too.  We walked on the sunny side of the street, and through a park full of people in warm coats who must have shared our (misguided?) belief that It Was Spring, Dammit.

It may as well have been February at the farmers' market.  Big hauls of the day included bread, eggs, cheese, frozen batches of soup, and various pickled things in jars.  Not that those were unexciting; I bought some lovely bread and very pretty eggs of different colors.  Refusing to leave without some souvenir of the plant kingdom, however, I circled back to one of the tables for some very cute French breakfast radishes.  I would put them on that bread I bought with a little butter and some salt.  Yeah, that's it!:  I'd eat like a French schoolboy for the next 48 hours.  I didn't need stupid Spring, anyway.  Just RADISHES.  So there.

 

Cue me stomping around the farmers' market, desperately clutching a poor bunch of radishes now burdened with all my hopes and dreams.



So I hope I'm not ruining any surprises: you can't (or shouldn't) live on bread and butter and radishes. Especially not when you are trying to clean out your fridge before a short work trip and not ignore some perfectly good asparagus and carrots you bought last week. You've also probably still got some buttermilk sitting around, slowly using it for things like this and this. And am I the only person left on this planet who has not yet attempted some homemade buttermilk dressing?

So it's clear: I'm being called to Jesus salad.

Because a straight vinaigrette for a bowl of tender, raw vegetables seems a little too assertive for these peachfuzzed days of early Spring, this buttermilk dressing feels right on time. It's not overly creamy, like the sludgy ranches of my childhood (okay, and collegehood); it's got plenty of bite from mustard powder, and still the light creaminess of the dressing makes it so you're not destroying these sweet little vegetables who ain't never hurt no one and need to be treated gently.

This isn't so much a recipe as it is a formula for any raw, crunchy salad.  (It's essentially crudite, chopped and thrown in a bowl with a little good dressing.)  Anything that tastes halfway good raw, you can toss together with some fresh herbs and this dressing, and you've got yourself a winner.  For extra credit, you can chop the vegetables and keep in a separate container to portion out for lunches during the week.  Pour a little dressing on about 10 minutes before serving/eating to allow the salad to come together but retain optimum crispitude.

I adapted the dressing from a Jamie Oliver recipe, using a dreamy herb blend from Penzey's that includes dried shallots instead of fresh (just this one time!!  I had chopped shallots already on this day for breakfast and my eyes couldn't handle another allium).  I adore this recipe because you can literally dump the ingredients in a jar and shake for a few seconds, and you're ready to rock.  The recipe makes plenty for a big ol' bowl of salad, but the leftovers keep for a week.

Get this:

• Any fresh, young vegetables that taste good raw, in pretty much any quantity/proportion.  For this I used five carrots, one bunch of asparagus, and one bunch of French breakfast radishes.
• Greens, if you've got 'em and want 'em.  (I did not use them this time but they would be a lovely addition.)
• Any fresh herbs you've got lying around.  Parsley is ideal for so many flavor combinations, but if you've got dill or basil or tarragon, feel free to toss those in, too.

For the dressing:

• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 9 tablespoons buttermilk
• several generous shakes of Penzey's Sunny Paris seasoning OR 1 tablespoon chopped shallots and 1 1/2 teaspoons dried dill
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• pinch of salt

Do this:

Chop those vegetables into shapes that are easily nabbed by a fork.  You'll see above that for me, that meant some serious bias-cutting.  I wanted flat surfaces so I could pick up some forkfuls, but not plain old rounds because that just reminds me of dorm salad bars. 

Chop your fresh herbs into tiny bits.

Dump the ingredients for the dressing into a jar with a tight-fitting lid.  Shake the jar.  Hard.

If you're going to eat the salad now, or soon, pour however much dressing you'd like over the vegetables and chow down.  Or, as suggested, store the vegetables/herbs and dressing separately, and enjoy later on or transport to whatever gathering/picnic/car trip you've got on your docket.  Because someday soon, it is TOTALLY going to be Real Spring.

Saag Paneer (er... Halloumi)

It's been two weeks since our suntanned landfall from Ocean Adventure 2013, and yet I feel like it has taken me this entire time to really get my act together.  I achieved some important goals this weekend:  unpacked the last of my suitcase (now, honestly), made a triumphant and sweaty return to yoga, and hauled out my bike from the depths of our storage room after a particularly energetic campaign last spring to organize and maximize space in our apartment, resulting in the relegation of many bins to what had previously been a fairly austere bike closet.

I also got what I'd consider to be Back in the Game, as far as a consistent and joyful kitchen presence goes.  It helped immensely that we had also, I think, pretty fully gotten back into our respective and combined Life in the City Games - we biked all over the way north side, east to the lake, back west to a new (to us) bike shop, and then south on Lincoln to the new (to us) taproom at Half Acre; we walked over to one of the best parts of our little neighborhood, Spacca Napoli, and had burrata and arugula salad and all the pizza; we made zero social plans; we did "nothing" - really just cooking and laundry and sleeping and staring at the clouds and the lake - like we always say we're going to.

So this weekend, I joyfully and calmly, and without fear of judgment because hell, this dish wasn't going past our own doors, made Saag Paneer. Translated: spinach with paneer cheese. Lots of paneer. ALL THE PANEER. Every time I make this I think, "Know what, dude? This cheese is too addictive, and way too easy to pop in my mouth, and I need to not make this again. NO MORE AFTER TODAY." And then I make it again. That, and the spinach is so ridiculously good, and you end up consuming, in cooked form, close to what had been a pound of raw greens. So we must offset, no?

 

I saw this particular recipe on 101 Cookbooks, which was apparently inspired by this recipe on Food52, which was apparently inspired by mountains of creamed spinach. Which is to say that the central concern of this particular recipe is not authenticity. Though, now that I think of it, I would not know Indian culinary authenticity if it slapped me in the ass, so maybe those bowls of pureed-looking spinachy-creamy goo studded with stark-white cubes of paneer I've gotten (and very much enjoyed) on Devon Avenue are for the gringos and this one's got it right. Maybe this version, which seems to me at least more rustic, is actually what someone's Indian grandmother is making somewhere RIGHT NOW. Who knows. (Anyone care to weigh in?) All I know is, well, a few things:

 

 

 

1. You end up eating a BOATLOAD of spinach, as I mentioned above. Which is good, because packing that amount of green goodness into one bowl is tough to do in one sitting.
2. It is delicious on its own or over a little bit of rice - my favorite for this is brown basmati. The rice certainly helps to stretch it and make it more substantial. Which is Lesson #2 in Living With and Cooking For A Dude. (That is, I am usually fine sitting down to a bowl of cooked greens, but Danny enjoys a bit more substance and heft to dinner, so you find ways to add some without too much bulk.) (Incidentally, Lesson #1 seems to be: Finding Wakeup Ringtones that are Just Jarring Enough but Will Not Go So Far as to Induce Terror in Spouse.)
3. The paneer - or in this most recent incarnation, halloumi - is NOT to be trifled with. You are frying cheese in butter (or oil), and that? A slippery slope, my doves. You will snack on it while waiting for the rest of the spinach to cook down. You will consider eating only the paneer/halloumi for dinner and tell yourself that the saag will be a perfectly serviceable lunch on its own, cheeseless, at work tomorrow and for various dinners the rest of the week. You will only stop yourself from doing so because you know you are only denying yourself the joy of crispy fried cheese later in a week that could, for all you know, be fraught with peril and in need of a dairy-based hero. You exercise control. But just barely.
4. The spice blend is bomb, and you should feel completely comfortable making a double batch of it and using it on all manner of other things - toast drizzled with a little olive oil, any sort of scrambled egg concoction, even popcorn. I'm relatively new to the world of exotic homemade spice blends so this is a valuable little recipe-within-a recipe, for me at least.

Please note that this recipe borrows heavily from Heidi Swanson's version as linked above.  I tweak a few things solely for the sake of taste, likely ignoring authenticity altogether. I don't chop my spinach - I find it's a large extra step and I've come to enjoy the texture when the leaves are left whole.  I also add some extra heat to the spice mixture, AND add some extra spice mixture to the pot.  Finally, you'll see that I've also come to prefer halloumi to paneer in the recipe, which makes me think I should scroll back up and change the name of this recipe altogether, call a spade a spade, and name this bastardization something like Tasty Indian-esque Creamed Spinach Grilled Cheese Delight.
 
But I won't.  You'd never make that.
 
So get this:

• 2 lbs fresh spinach, washed. (Unless you buy the 16oz clamshells pre-washed, which I recommend, and in which case, I do not bother washing. Judge me.)  I often bulk up the greens quotient to make more leftovers and counteract (lamely, probably) the amount of butter/oil this recipe uses, which isn't much, but is a little more than what we're used to. The first few times I made this, I used the fresh, grown-up bundled spinach, and it is certainly nice.  HOWEVER: the result is not really superior in any way to the result of using the big 16oz packages of fresh spinach.  (I think the first time I made this we had just gotten a new salad spinner so shut up, I was excited, and we wanted an excuse to wash up a whole bunch of silty, sandy greens and dry 'em up real nice. So that was cool, but unnecessary.  I won't be doing it again, I think.)  Um, I have not used frozen and don't think I want to.
• A small wad of butter or ghee.  You probably don't need 2 whole tablespoons, but if you're feeling crazy, go for it. I also prefer the butter taste in this dish, but you could use oil.
• A brick of paneer or halloumi.  Paneer has been difficult to come by in these last couple trips to the store (due to some machinery issue with the paneer producer, apparently), and you know what?  I am totally good with it.  I find that halloumi - while certainly not as authentic - has a tangier kick for flavor, due primarily, I think, to the fact that it's made from sheep and goat milk, as opposed to milder cow's milk in the paneer.  When I buy this, it tends to be in a package between 7 and 12 ounces, so I use the biggest one I can find.  (Because CHEESE.)   
• 2 onions, chopped
• a bit of salt
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced.
• 2 generous tablespoons fresh grated ginger. This may seem heavy on the ginger, but remember you're also using 2 pounds of spinach.
• 1 1/2 tablespoons magical spice mixture* (see below)
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 cup buttermilk
• Cream/Greek yogurt to stir in, lemon to squeeze on, sesame seeds to sprinkle (all optional, but excellent)

First, your spice mixture.  Yes, I'm putting up here first because you need it bad and I don't want you forgetting about it while your spinach turns gray in the pot as you rush around spilling cumin all over yourself.  Note: I throw a little extra red pepper flake in there because I now have the heat tolerance of a small dragon.  Feel free to scale it back to 1 tsp if you like.
 
Do this:  use a mortar and pestle or spice grinder to grind the following spices as finely as possible - 2 tablespoons cumin seed, 1 tablespoons coriander seed, 2 teaspoons mustard seed, 1 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, 1/8 teaspoon cardamom seeds, 3 whole cloves. Store in an airtight container and use here and on anything else you'd like to make taste seriously happy.
 
Okay, NOW do this:
 
Drain the cheese well if you find there is any extra moisture in the package.  Cube it into 1/4- to 1/2-inch pieces. We all know you will snack on this cheese.  But do me a favor:  hold off, if you can, until you've browned it on a few sides before you try it.  Cold halloumi (or paneer, really) is not smiles times, and you have to trust me that it gets about 3000% better once it's warmed and a little crispy.  (A friend of mine recommends the halloumi grilled in a slab and topped with honey and chopped mint.  I will be eating that all summer.)
 
Cook the cheese in one tablespoon of the butter over medium heat in a large skillet. Make sure the cheese is in a single layer and use a spatula to flip it regularly so all sides get deeply brown. This typically takes 7 minutes or so. Remove from the pan and set aside.
 
Heat the other tablespoon of butter in your largest soup pot. Add the onions and salt, and saute until the onions soften up, five minutes or so. Add the garlic, ginger, spice mixture, and turmeric. Cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant and nicely combined - a minute or two.
 
Turn the heat up to medium-high and add as much spinach as you can to the pan.  (Unless you are cooking this in a bathtub, I do not believe you will be able to fit all of your spinach at once.  One perk to chopping it beforehand, I suppose.)  Add the spinach in batches as large as you can handle, and stir the whole time, distributing the cooked leaves through the uncooked leaves to help everything wilt.  Once everything is just wilted, you can lower the heat down to a simmer.
 
Stir in the buttermilk and cream/yogurt and heat gently while stirring. Taste and add more salt if necessary and even more red pepper flakes if you like.  Squeeze a bit of lemon over it, and top with some of the crispy cheese.
 

Chocolate cinnamon cake, take 2

So there's something I haven't told you.

After that first foray into squidgy chocolate-spice rapture back in February, I made another attempt at that chocolate cinnamon cake.  I resolved to change two things:  I would not use a Bundt pan this time, opting for the classic (and recommended) loaf shape; I would also not double the recipe, which, my theory went, likely weighed down the obscenely buttery batter in my (relatively larger) Bundt pan, creating an environment not conducive to cooking thoroughly.  I'd made my tweaks, and this time, I'd be UNSTOPPABLE.

Which was good, because I had pledged my baked goods this time around to a charity bake sale thing at work.  I could not let people down.  And I wouldn't. Obviously.

So came the bright, chilly March Sunday that I had chosen as Cake Day.  I'd bake in the morning, letting the cakes cool all day, then cut them into thick slices in the evening and pre-wrap them, preparing them for sale.  $1 per slice sounded pretty reasonable to me.  After all, this cake was going to be pretty mind-blowing.

I followed the same recipes as the last time. I lined my pans all pretty with parchment, oil, flour and cinnamon to ensure zero pesky sticking.  I made a single batch.  The batter was as delicious as the last time - that dark brown, almost black lagoon of chocolatey murk looking up at me, proud and goopy.  The instructions in all incarnations of the recipe - Nigella's, Heidi's, Food52's - emphasize that the batter will be runnier than one may be used to in cake making.  They emphasize that it will all be alright, to trust the process, that ugly cake tastes gorgeous, etc etc.  (And I knew all that because the last time I had made it, mercy, it was, if not attractive, pretty damn delicious.)

I was fastidious in my cake testing.  I rotated the pans.  I jiggled them, checking for extra movement, I used a new toothpick each time I tested.

You know where this is going.

I have described many things in my life as a hot mess.  And now I was confronted with the realization that I truly had cried wolf "hot mess" too many times. Because this?

Immediately upon emerging from the oven, the cakes' puffy tops fell in freakishly fast-motion like circus canopies, like someone (me?  I shuddered) had literally knocked the air right out of them.

Relax, the recipes say this is going to happen.  It's all fine.

They fell so much that it looked like the top of the cake had fallen to just about an inch from the bottom of the pan.  This couldn't be good.

No!  It is good!  It is normal.  Walk away.  Isn't there a yoga class you should be going to?

No yoga.  Too much batter in the tummy.  No bueno.

Nevertheless, I walked away.  Maybe I really did just need to relax.  Maybe the cake last time behaved like this too, and because it was in a different pan, I just didn't notice it as much.

Yeah... yeah, that's the ticket!

Three hours later, I returned to the kitchen to turn the cakes out and see what was what.  They came right out of the pan.  But far too easily.  They were like bricks of half-baked mud; the sides flopped out, dragging their saggy innards with them, plop, onto the board.

This would not do at all.

I texted my friend who was organizing the bake sale: "catastrophe has struck. no cakes for sale. we would have to pay people to take a slice of this mess."  Her response was the text equivalent of consolative cooing, and insistence that it surely mustn't be that bad.  Oh but it was.  She came over later that night, looked upon the unholy heap of chocolate goo, glanced at me, glanced away, and sighed.  It was so.  Catastrophe.

Meanwhile, my mother had read the original post on the cake.  She was intrigued.  She also had a birthday coming up.  Eager to redeem the experience, and to finally put my Bundt pan into the sort of service it probably imagined, sitting regally on that shelf at Bed, Bath and Beyond, I offered to Make Her Birthday Cake this year.  After years of my own lofty requests - "triple layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, dipped in chocolate and rolled in more chocolate!  WITH CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM ON THE SIDE!" - it was time someone made something nice for mama.

Which brings us to an especially weekendy Saturday:  after staying out late like two crazy teenage punks Friday night, we slept late.  Like really late.  Like noon late.  With literally half the day literally gone, I knew I did not have the luxury to moon around the internets to find ideas for tweaking what I will continue to call the Squidgy Chocolate Cake recipe.  I could not afford to bring squidge to a birthday party.  The cake game had to be tight.

Flipping through my cookbook collection before finishing up the grocery list, I happened upon a very promising recipe in a book I've had for a few years and consulted on a few occasions:  Mad Hungry by Lucinda Scala Quinn.  The book had caught my eye way back when, as the cover makes some references to cooking for menfolk, but the photos are homey yet sophisticated at the same time, which for whatever reasosn led me to believe it was a book of recipes to impress a special man-friend.  Turns out Quinn's motivation was a bit more down-to-earth (not to mention palatable):  she has sons and over the years has figured out how to balance a commitment to making good, real food with a commitment to feeding a family of dudes whose stomachs appear to have no bottom.  She also works for Martha Stewart, which means any recipe she publishes has been brought into this world with the aid of plenty of test-kitchen support.  (If there's one thing Martha Stewart seems to pride herself on, it's putting in the time to make sure everything is teeth-clenchingly perfect, dammit.)  Inside the book I located a recipe for a chocolate cake, involving cinnamon, and other ingredients in proportions intended for a Bundt pan:  HEYO!!  And a bonus:  a stupid-quick recipe for a chocolate glaze that could do triple duty as a chocolate sauce, dip or spread.

It was so on. 

As I gathered my ingredients and got to work on my various mixing bowls and rigged-up double-boilers, I realized something else about this scenario felt really great:  using an actual, paper, bound cookbook. I felt grounded.  Reassured.  Like my mom was in the kitchen with me and even though I had literally just looked at that ingredient list 3 seconds ago I am very bad with remembering numbers and my mom knows that and you know so what if I need to check for the seventh time on how much baking soda to use okay?

There was no sliding to unlock my iDevice, no password, no intermittent Facebook notifications, no loss of WiFi, no getting flour or egg or chocolate sludge on my phone or tablet.  It, oddly, felt very clean because I felt okay getting the book a little dirty if I had to.  Seemed fitting for Mom's birthday cake.

The entire process this time around was infinitely smoother.  No guessing, no betting.  This is an honest cake and it will not jerk you around with false promises.  Even the batter was reassuring; it fell in thick, hearty plops from the mixing bowl into the pan. 

 

It was done in exactly the amount of time the recipe suggested it might, and after cooling, the cake thunked healthily and without complaint from the pan to a waiting plate.  If all cakes behaved like this, I'd make more of them.

In fact, I will be trotting this out for pretty much any major or minor celebration from now on - it is so easy to make, the spices are almost infinitely adaptable (Mexican chocolate cake, maybe Garam Masala?), and of course the Bundt shape and chocolate glaze are devastatingly impressive.  For my version, I added more spices, of course, and also a teeny bit of oil to ensure a moist cake.  For the special occasion, I did also put together a honey-cinnamon-mascarpone whipped cream to go alongside the cake.  It's exactly the ingredients you think, and it takes about 10 minutes to make, if you really want to go all-out.

A note about the spices: to heighten the flavor of cinnamon in almost any application, I have recently developed what I believe is a pretty effective habit of supplementing with Chinese five spice.  It's a simple combination of cinnamon, fennel, star anise, clove, and either Sichuan pepper or ginger.  Our current bottle has ginger instead of pepper, which has proven ideal for various dessert iterations (see: Danny's Annual Holiday Brittle Factory...). I've found that it truly raises the cinnamon to a different level, as the other spices really support the different notes in the cinnamon. So maybe now it's a legitimate chocolate spice cake.  Which I am more than okay with. 

Grown-Ass Woman Birthday Cake 

(adapted from Dolly's Chocolate Cake recipe by Lucinda Scala Quinn)

Get this:

for the cake...

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar - I used half white sugar and half raw turbinado sugar (I like the earthiness that the molasses brings, especially for such a uniquely spiced cake)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder (feel free to use a blend with the Sichuan pepper if you want to go all out cray)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 cup chopped semisweet chocolate
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup canola oil

for the glaze...

• 1 cup finely chopped unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup sugar - also did halfsies with the raw sugar
• 1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Do this:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 12-cup Bundt pan.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, cinnamon, five spice, baking soda, and salt. Toss in the chopped chocolate.

Into the butter mixture, alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk in three additions, ending with the flour. Mix just until everything is blended together; don't overmix.  (For those of you who find this process tedious and are tempted to simply slop all of it in together at once:  bad idea jeans. In my now-extensive research on cakes such as this one, I find that it's a pretty common instruction to add starch then liquid then starch, though in various incarnations of tedium.  This three-addition bit seemed just right.  Reasonable but safe.)

Spoon the batter evenly into the Bundt pan and smooth the top of the batter. Bake for about 55 to 60 minutes, or until a cake tester or a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan briefly. Turn out onto a cake plate to cool completely.

For the glaze, place a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Add the glaze ingredients and whisk to melt and combine. Drizzle over the top of the cooled cake and let the glaze set, 15 to 20 minutes, before serving.

 

Note: you will likely, as I did, end up with about twice as much glaze as seems even indulgently appropriate to top this cake.  That means:  bonus chocolate!  I packed up the whole batch between two jars to transport to my parents' house, but sure enough, only used one.  The other served as an additional gift to my mom, who loved the sauce and was eager to pour it over pretty much anything that crossed her path.