Mose, the Carb-Loving Kitty

S often asks my why I don’t blog about Mose and Samuel, our two cats. The answer is simple: Words to Eat By is about food, not pets, as notably adorable as our boys may be. If either one ever did something food-related, sure, I’d write about it. Well, today is the day.

I just stepped out of the shower (went for a jog—a verry verry slow jog—in my neighborhood. Ahh, exercise!). The kitchen door is cater-cornered (kitty-cornered?) to the bathroom, and a motion from just inside caught my eye. It was Mose, crouched on the floor over a loaf of whole wheat bread like a hunter with some fresh kill. He had clawed his way through the bag, and was eating the heel. My favorite part. Da noive!

Seriously, what’s up with that? The other day my niece was over so we stocked up on white bread for her. She did a little Hansel & Gretel action and wandered all over the apartment with a slice, leaving a trail in her wake. Mose gobbled it up like it was the best-tasting mouse he’d ever caught. At the time, we thought it was just some weird, isolated white-bread incident, since he’s never been the least bit interested in our usual, whole-grained variety. But now…

He has a stomach ailment of some sort, that blood tests and x-rays haven’t been able to pinpoint. I worry that this is somehow related—he’s twelve years old, and S keeps referring to him as a senior citizen. But I think he still looks like a kitten, especially when he’s sleeping:



Does anybody have any expertise with these things? I always thought cats were carnivores, and only ate grain-based things because the Evil Pet Food Industry uses it as filler in their kibble. Mose is due to go to the vet in another week or two, so we’ll bring it up then, but in the meantime I’d love to hear anybody else’s experience with carb-loving cats.

Thanks.

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The Cult of Le Creuset

I think I may be joining a cult. In much the same way that, say, Moonies seduce vulnerable souls with tales of self-discovery and newfound strength, so has my 9-quart Le Creuset convinced me that a richer, more fulfilling life is mine for the taking. Scarcely a month ago, this blue devil flung himself into my arms, and it’s been a struggle to let go ever since. Food cooks better—hell, it tastes better—when it’s prepared in Big Blue’s depths. It looks prettier on the stovetop. It makes me feel like a more accomplished chef.

How can a pot do all these things, you ask? Alas, that I cannot answer. Some sort of alchemy, I suppose, some pixie dust that has been tossed in my eyes to make me believe I will be happier if I fully commit to Big Blue. The only problem is, well, Big Blue is a little too big. He’s great for stews for eight and long-simmering dishes in large quantity. But I simply don’t cook like that every day. So, after a week of feeling neglected, of shuddering as the dust begins to accumulate on his shoulders, Big Blue whispered in my ear: Buy another pot. A smaller pot, but one just like me. Another Le Creuset.

What could I do? I was powerless, guilty for having let my new best friend languish, unused, for so many consecutive days. And then I discovered that Amazon is running a promotion: Buy the Le Creuset 5-1/2 Quart Round French Oven and get the 1-1/4 quart saucepan free. With free shipping—no more lugging heavy pots on the subway. And $25 off if you spend over $125 on kitchen supplies. They said I’d save nearly $250, and the lovely, seductive pots would be delivered to my door, free. It was as if they were in cahoots, urging me to take the plunge more fully, to give my soul over to their ministrations.

I did it.



Today the 5-1/2 quart pot arrived—the smaller one is shipping separately. I swear I heard Big Blue snicker when I cut open the box. Don’t they look lovely together? And soon, our little family will grow again, when their saucepan baby sister arrives. My indoctrination will be complete.

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Better Than Sex? (Frozen Grapes)

Mention frozen grapes in any Weight Watchers meeting and listen to the sighs of remembered pleasure. In my meeting a few weeks ago, one member claimed she found them as satisfying—and addictive—as ice cream. Now, I’ve been hearing about the wonders of the frozen grape for close to a decade. They’re no secret. But the level of enthusiasm surpasses anything else I can think of. It’s as if, simply by sticking a tray of grapes into the deep-freeze, the weight will fly off. Actually, no, that’s not what these women are saying. They’re saying that eating these sweet little orbs is nearly akin to sex. Great sex. The gratification they describe has nothing to do with weight loss.

But truth be told, there is an advantage to freezing your grapes, beyond enhancing the flavor: Frozen grapes take longer to eat, so in all likelihood you’ll eat fewer.

In all these years it’s never occurred to me to actually try frozen grapes. They sounded pleasant enough, but I was either too lazy or too skeptical to bother. Come on, could they really be as good as sex? As good as ice cream? But yesterday I bought some nice-enough red grapes and decided to give it a try. I plucked them off their stems, rinsed them and dried them thoroughly, then spread them in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels. Stuck them in the freezer. And promptly forgot about them, until this morning.

Oh. My. These are quite something, aren’t they? Their lush little insides do attain a nearly creamy consistency when frozen. And the sweetness is magnified—I tasted a non-frozen grape for comparison, and the frosty one was markedly closer to candy. Who knew? OK, apparently everyone else at Weight Watchers knew. It just took me a while to come around.

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One More Reason to Reconsider That Fast-Food Habit

This is apparently a true story. I keep giggling, then gagging:

Finger Found in Wendy's Chili--Sales Drop Sharply

(Columbus, Ohio--AP, March 26, 2005) — Sales have dropped sharply at Wendy's restaurants in the area of northern California where a woman claimed she found part of a finger in a bowl of chili.

A company spokesman says "It is an isolated incident. However, it is dramatically affecting sales in that market."

A restaurant analyst says he doesn't expect Wendy's business to suffer long-term. He says the hamburger chain serves about six million meals a day across the country and has a "national reputation for both quality and cleanliness."

Police in Santa Clara, California, say so far it's impossible to tell whether the finger was cooked along with the main batch of chili or somehow dropped into the serving cup afterward.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Roasted Pineapple

It happened again.

At the supermarket the other day, there were lovely, aromatic pineapples on display. Good price, too. I selected carefully, sniffing the bottoms as I’d been instructed by somebody or other (why do I trust these people?) until I found one that smelled distinctly pineappley. Sugary. Delighted, I brought it home and refrigerated it until this afternoon, when I had a hankering for something sweet but not diet-dangerous.

Thwack! Off comes its thorny head. Thwack! The armored bottom. A quick pair of cuts down the middle, and I’ve got four prickly quarters, ready for their final trim. Zzzh zzzh zzzh, the hide’s gone. One more fast set of knife maneuvers, and my pineapple is cored and sliced. I put a small pile on a plate, grab a fork, and wander off to read the paper.

I am happy. For about one minute. The first piece is always delicious—I don’t care how underripe a pineapple is, there’s always something satisfying about the first golden, juicy bite. The second, though, is too often a mouth-puckering doozy. In an instant, that little area at the back left of my tongue started to tingle, even burn. This pineapple, the one I’d so lovingly, so excitedly prepared, was crap. As S might say, it was NG: no good. I'd made a bad pineapple selection, again. Dejected, I trudged back into the kitchen, prepared to pitch the whole thing into the trash.

But wait. Hadn’t I only recently discovered the wonders of caramelized fruit? How could I even consider wasting all this potential lusciousness in a fit of pique? Two seconds later the oven was preheating, the cookie sheet was lined with foil, and the pineapple was on its way to a vast improvement. Twenty minutes after that I was feasting on gloriously browned, monumentally sweeter slices of warm fruit topped with a chiffonade of mint. Yes, I tossed it with a little sugar just in case, but it was less than a tablespoon for the whole pineapple. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not even enough to count.

Roasted Pineapple
Serves 4

Neutral-flavored cooking spray
1 good-sized pineapple, trimmed, cored, and sliced
1 scant T. sugar
10 mint leaves, slivered

Heat the oven to 425. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray; set aside.

Put the pineapple slices into a bowl and toss with the sugar. Spread in a single layer on the cookie sheet and roast for fifteen minutes. Remove from the oven, and turn the heat up to Broil. Turn the pineapple slices over, and put the pan into the broiler for 2-4 minutes, watching carefully, until they’re browned and glistening.

Remove from the heat and serve topped with mint slivers.

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Dreaming of Summer

Last summer, S and I took a last-minute honeymoon. I say “last-minute” because the plan had been to go in the fall, after we’d recuperated from the crush—and the expense—of wedding planning. A decadent three night mini-moon right after the wedding, at the Emerson Inn in Mt. Tremper, New York, would bridge the gap. But as it turns out, in June I was hired for a months-long freelance gig to start in late July, and since we didn’t know what work we’d have by the time it was over (such is the freelancer’s life: if work comes your way, you take it), we decided to just go. No plans, no itinerary, no real sense of where we were headed. We had three weeks, a luxurious length of time, and between Roadfood and Road Trip USA we knew we’d find more than enough to keep us busy.

We spent the first few days poking our way up towards Maine, staying off any road depicted in our atlas with a blue highway shield. The sun was shining, the motels were clean and friendly, and the food was gooood. S had his first-ever lobster roll at Bob’s Clam Hut in Kittery, and his second, earth-shattering one at The Clam Shack in Kennebunkport. The look on his face when he tasted a rich and creamy lobster pie at the Maine Diner in Wells… I don’t eat shell fish—a bow to my kosher upbringing—so I stuck to fish & chips, or baked fish if it was on the menu, and I was just as happy as my new husband. But in Portland, we got a little stuck. The weather turned on us, cold and rainy, and our budget was already hurting a little: the Maine coast in the summer, even early in the season, is not a bargain-hunter’s paradise. With one sustained rain storm, our blissful, aimless road trip threatened to stall. After exhausting our cultural and foodie options, we ducked into a Friendly’s with a local paper, hoping to find a movie. As is my habit, I turned to the real estate pages, both to gasp at the disparity between our New York lives and the rest of the world's, and to distract myself from the listless grilled-chicken sandwich before me. That’s when I spotted it: a small ad for a summer cottage in Port Clyde.

Excited, we pulled out the atlas. Where the hell was Port Clyde? Ahh, there it was, at the very tip of the St. George Peninsula, several inches northeast on the map. Before we’d even thought it through, I was dialing the number. Yes, it was available right away. Yes, it was suitable for two. Yes, it had a small, equipped kitchen. I scribbled down directions, and we headed out to the car. The best part: a quick cross-reference with Roadfood confirmed that the trip would take us right past Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro, a place I’d heard about even before consulting the book. (The food there turned out to be disappointing in general—one of the few times we disagreed with the Sterns—but the three-berry pie, still warm from the oven…mmmmmm.)

S and I spent the week in our little cottage—really just one room with a sleeping loft we never used, preferring to unfold the ground floor’s convertible futon rather than risk falling down the ladder. (Can you tell we’re not particularly rustic types?) Port Clyde itself was tiny, tranquil, and unbearably beautiful—and home to the ferry to Monhegan Island, a glorious day trip. We ate our way through the area, saving money by having breakfast on our little porch, gazing out at the harbor, and cooking dinner once or twice. The week featured daily ice cream from the dairy bar across from the multiplex in Thomaston—my motto: It’s not a vacation if there’s no ice cream—and three separate trips to Wasses Hot Dogs in nearby Rockland. Fresh molasses donuts at the little ice cream shop in Port Clyde. A perfect grilled fish salad at the casual restaurant right on the pier, brazen seagulls landing on our table as we ate. Travel Scrabble accompanied us everywhere.



At the end of our week we were ready to move on, but sad to leave. We tucked away the owner’s phone number, hoping that we’d be able to return. Yesterday, S booked a week for us this summer. It’s cold and rainy as I type this, much like it was that day in Portland, and much like that day, my spirits are lifted just thinking about our little cottage in Maine.

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In Which We Atone for Caramel-Coated Sins with Tuna, Farro, and White Bean Salad

After a sugar-induced delirium lasting nearly a week (and a resultant gain at Weight Watchers on Saturday), all I could think about was having something simple, satisfying, and virtuous for dinner last night. We had plenty of fresh vegetables, mostly going limp with horror at my caramelly profligacy, and cans of tuna and white beans. A mélange of fresh herbs holding up remarkably well in their paper-towel wrappers. A small Rubbermaid container of sherry vinaigrette, leftover from earlier in the week. Capers. Ahh, the makings of a healthy dinner! But I wanted something toothy to round out the dish, something with more bite to it than pasta, more substance than couscous…ho! What’s that behind the brown rice? The remainder of the farro I’d purchased a few months ago. Perfect.

I cooked up the farro in the late afternoon and steamed the broccoli soon after, so when the time came to actually make the salad it pulled together in just a few minutes. And as I hoped, it was quite filling—but even better, it was quite delicious. Leftovers made a nice little lunch today, too. I’m going to give you the list of ingredients I used below, but really you can use any mix of vegetables you want.

Weight Watchers readers: by my calculations, this comes in at around 8 points per serving. (I’m trying the Flex Plan this week, so I’m counting the whole thing. If I weren’t, this entire meal would be Core!)

Tuna, Farro, and White Bean Salad
Serves 4

1 ½ cups farro (or barley)
½ head broccoli, cut into small florets
1/3 seedless (English) cucumber, chopped
½ red pepper, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 scallions, chopped
1 can tuna, drained
1 can white beans, drained, rinsed, and drained again
½ cup assorted fresh herbs, minced [I used parsley, thyme, mint, and sage]
2 T. capers, chopped if they’re large
Salt & pepper
Romaine & red leaf lettuce leaves
Dressing of your choice [I used sherry vinaigrette, but this would also be lovely with a lemony dressing]

Put farro in a bowl and cover with cold water. Discard any pieces that float to the surface—these are likely hulls and won’t be pleasant to eat. Drain. In a large saucepan, combine farro with four cups of fresh water and two teaspoons of salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for ½ hour or until farro is chewy but cooked through. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water, to stop cooking and to cool. Put in your biggest salad bowl.

Steam broccoli until it’s tender but still crisp. While it’s steaming, prepare a large bowl of cold water. Transfer the cooked broccoli to the cold water as soon as it’s done, to stop the cooking and preserve the bright green color. Drain, and break into even smaller florets—you want these to be truly bite-sized. Add to the salad bowl.

Add in everything else through the capers, and toss to combine. Add salt & pepper, and dressing, and toss thoroughly. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves.

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Foodie Gifts

My friend P is just back from three months in Bali. Lucky her: while the Northeastern US was slogging through one of the snowiest, messiest winters I can remember (it was, wasn’t it? I mean, it’s not just me?), P was chillin in sunshine, adjusting her sarong and taking Indonesian lessons. OK, she was working, too, but still. It’s much more satisfying for me to picture her on a beach, kicking back and being indolent.

That Turtle Tart I wrote about the other day was dessert for dinner at P’s. She was cooking for me and T, another friend of ours—which we enjoyed so much we’ve decided to make it a monthly occurrence, next time at my place. I hadn’t seen her since her return, and as soon as I got my coat off she went running into another room, announcing that she had a gift for me. She emerged, grinning, with three small bottles in her outstretched palm. The large one was easy to decipher: Vanilla essence (extract?). The smaller ones, though, were slightly trickier. No, Ananas is not banana extract, P explained. It’s pineapple. I slapped my forehead—of course I knew that; my creaky French failed me again. And Jeruk? Orange, P told me. A quick google on that word informed me that it’s an Indonesian catch-all for “citrus”—it could be anything from pomelo to lemon to several unique-to-Indonesia fruits. I opened it when I got home that night, eager to see if I could sniff out its true nature. Smelled like orange, all right. I put a quick dab on my fingertip, as if it were a bottle of perfume, and licked. It tasted like citrus. No specific variety, just that slightly sour, bright flavor that is a hallmark of the genus. And then…the tingle began. Limited to the very tip of my tongue, exactly where the little drop of essence hit. Perhaps it’s made from pomelo after all?

Suggestions for using both the pineapple and the jeruk essences are welcome, everyone!

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Sugar High Friday: Stuck on You, the Round-Up

Now that my official hosting duties are wrapping up, I must say two things: One, thank you again to Jennifer at The Domestic Goddess, for creating this worldwide community event. It’s growing every time, which is a wonderful thing. And two, thank you to everyone who participated. It was genuinely exciting (and a little overwhelming) for me to visit so many new food blogs, and to hear the chime of my in-box over and over again, all day long. What a pleasure to see so many enthusiastic home cooks, and such variety of flavors!

I thought long and hard about how best to organize this report. Some of the previous ones were listed alphabetically, but since my own blog’s name starts with a W I know how disappointing it is to bring up the rear for an arbitrary reason like the alphabet. Then I considered breaking it down by types of recipes—flans and puddings, cookies, cakes, etc (with a special category for the extremely popular Millionaire’s Shortbread, which I’d never even heard of before now. Scroll down to see what I’ve been missing—it looks amazing!)—but that seemed likely to do little more than delay this post. Finally I thought I’d go geographically, since it really is impressive how global this event has become, but that just didn’t seem to make sense—it’s not like you’d be looking for a caramel recipe from Australia specifically, right?

In the end, I decided it was most fair to all of you who participated—at last count, there are forty of you!—to simply summarize the entries in the order in which they were received. Without further ado, I bring you Sugar High Friday: Stuck on You…

From Brownie Points, we have An Ode to Caramel in Four Movements, in which McAuliflower displays a remarkable level of virtuosity with dulce de leche, shortbread, and chocolate. My favorite: Chocolate Candy Caramel Tart.

Veronica over at Popote de Vero made something absolutely scrumptious-looking, and as much as I pretend I still remember how to speak French, well, I can’t quite be sure of what it is. I believe it’s some sort of molten chocolate cookie with a caramel center. Whatever it is, I was licking the screen!

Nicole at Baking Sheet treats us to Vanilla Caramel Popcorn, a lively twist on a favorite treat.

Another variation on Caramel Corn followed immediately, from Moira at Who Wants Seconds—this time with peanuts, although Moira doesn’t seem to have enjoyed the process (or the aftermath) quite as much as Nicole did.

Over at Little Fancies, Dreska has not only treated us to a lip-smacking recipe for Caramel Queen Slices, inspired by the shockingly popular Millionaire’s Shortbread, she’s also created an original artwork to illustrate it! Absolutely charming all around, and if I ever allow myself to bake again this is first on my list.

As always, Carolyn at 18thC Cuisine takes our contemporary themes and applies an old-world spin. Today she’s given us caramel sauce inspired by a 1653 edition of La Varenne’s The French Cook.

Layers of Love Chocolate Brownies. How good does that sound? Galinusa at The Skinny Epicurean discovered that layers of love can make a very fine brownie, indeed.

Sunrise Caramel Shortbread is the creation of Julie at A Finger in Every Pie. Another version of Millionaire’s Shortbread, it’s caramel, shortbread, chocolate, and candied blood oranges! Can you taste it? I can. Mmmmm.

In a slightly different vein is Tanvi of From the Pantry. She whipped up some Caramel Rice Pudding, based on an Indian recipe. It sounds wonderful, comforting and sweet. Love. Rice. Pudding.

Lex Culinaria wowed me with candy: She made Randy’s Pralines, a recipe she learned in New Orleans and toted all the way to Edmonton, Canada. Gorgeous!

Zarah Maria at Food & Thoughts puts yet a third twist on Millionaire’s Shortbread. This time around it’s called Squillionaire’s Shortbread, and it’s made with dulce de leche. I’m really having a hard time getting through this, since I want so badly to run into the kitchen and make some RIGHT NOW.

Chefdoc at A Perfect Pear has turned in one of the more professional-looking (not to mention delightfully complex) creations: Chocolate Caramel Walnut Tart Served with Coconut Tuile, Chocolate Caramel Sauce, Coconut Caramel Sauce, and Butter-Caramel Walnut Halves. Holy cow, that’s a lot of caramel! And all done at the last minute, no less. I am mightily impressed.

A brand-new blogger, Nupur at One Hot Stove, joins us for some Caramel Custard, a lovely, homey recipe she brought from her home in India when she moved to New York. Welcome to the world of food blogs, Nupur!

Another newbie, Steve at Zarzamora (who inspired my Food Blogging 101 post last week), tried something new with Red Plum Caramel Cake. Like a lot of my efforts, it didn’t quite work out as planned, but as Steve writes, “It is good for the soul to write about culinary disasters.”

Lots of first-timers this SHF. Another one, Katie at Sharp Cookie, created an Apple Bundt Cake with Caramel Topping for her husband’s birthday. It was a huge success. Happy Birthday, Katie’s husband!

Like me, Alice at My Adventures in the Breadbox ran into some difficulties with her caramel. She made Vanilla Banana Caramel Flans. It took her four tries to get it right—which is three tries more than I gave it! Good for you, Alice.

For her first SHF, PinkCocoa at PinkCocoa Tabetai created something truly unique (and tempting): Bailey Caramel Sauce over Steamed Sweet Potato Muffin. She loved each part separately, but together, not as much. Funny how that happens sometimes, isn’t it?

Celia at English Patis whipped up some absolutely scrumptious-looking Honey Caramel Nut Squares, studded with pecans, almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, and dried cranberries—gorgeous photographs, too!

Over in Sweden, Anne at Anne’s Food went for a lighter approach, of sorts, using fresh fruit to make Oranges in Caramel-Almond sauce. It’s a recipe she grew up on, and it thrills my Weight-Watching heart—even though it is by no means a diet recipe. Certainly not.

Chevre Cheesecake Pots with Caramel and Fleur de Sel is the contribution of Sam at Becks and Posh, and it’s enough to make me, a cheese- (and cheesecake-) hater, drool. Seriously.

Not far from my home, over in Long Island City, Heather at What’s She Eating offers yet another variation with Gingerbread Caramel Corn—and according to Heather it’s actually Weight Watchers friendly, a definite score in my book.

Another SHF debut comes from Jenni at Pertelote, with Ginger and Caramelized Chilli Biscuits. They look fabulous, but no recipe! Jenni, if you wouldn’t mind sharing, the world wants to know how to make them.

Kelli at Lovescool (one of my favorite new food blogs since it’s all about dessert) whipped up Mini Caramel Cakes with brown sugar frosting and dulce de leche. Decadent, and gorgeous.

At A Sprinkle of Sequins (great name, don’t you think?) Nicola makes her SHF debut with Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce. Brava, Nicola!

Yet another SHF newbie, Karen at The Pilgrim’s Pots and Pans made Yemas, Filipino caramel custard candies. She’s also included a fascinating mini-history lesson—do stop by, and learn while you indulge.

Gwenda at The Adventures of the Tastebuds (check out that home page!) enters the SHF fray with an improvised Crepe, Custard, and Caramelized Apples—prepared in what sounds like a dorm room. I’m impressed, Gwenda.

In the UK, Keiko at Nordljus (another of my favorite new food blogs) made a stunningly beautiful Caramel Balsamic Ice-Cream and Brésilienne, a layered coffee-caramel mousse cake. Three words: Oh. My. God.

Heading north to Canada, Ana at Pumpkin Pie Bungalow made her mom’s recipe for Pudim Flan, a Portuguese flan. I love family recipes, and this one looks wonderful, comforting and sweet and delicious.

Zipping down to Melbourne, Niki at Esurientes offers us her Chocolate Caramel Slice. This treat was one of the sweet-tooth highlights of my trip to Australia a few years ago. I’m just tickled to have a recipe! (Is this another variation on Millionaire’s Shortbread?)

Robyn at Food Chronicles made a homemade version of Toffeefay candies—chocolate on the outside, nutella in the center, and caramel on top. Oh, boy, does that sound good.

For her first SHF, the self-coronated Queen of Tarts, Gillian, has baked The Queen of Caramel Apple Tarts using puff pastry shells. It looks marvelous!

Emily at Baking Beast made Coconut Caramel Candy Bars from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Book—an awful lot like the Samoas I attempted, only Emily was way, way happier with her results than I was with mine.

In Seattle, there’s a Bon Vivant named Viv. Viv went a little caramel-crazy and made first an incredible-looking Flan De Queso, and then followed it with two store-bought bits of deliciousness: Fleur de Caramel à la Fleur de Sel, and (drum roll please) Fran’s Dark Gray Salt Caramels, my favorite sweet of all time. Lucky Viv, she gets to live in Seattle, home of Fran’s. Although I suppose I’m lucky not to live there, since I’d eat them every single day and we all know how that would turn out…

Skipping across a small ocean to Hawaii, Reid at ‘Ono Kine Grindz shows us his Caramel Pound Cake, a recipe he improved slowly, over months, like all good things. Sounds wonderful, Reid!

Just when I was beginning to think she’d forgotten to attend her own party, Jennifer at The Domestic Goddess emailed with a yowsa of a creation: Chocolate, Caramelized Banana & Caramel Tarts. Now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about!

In My Little Kitchen (OK, not my little kitchen, Cathy’s little kitchen) Cathy made two very different Caramel Puddings, with two very different results. I’ll give you a hint: it sounds like she’ll only make one of them a second time.

Clement at A La Cuisine chimed in with a marvelously sophisticated Roasted Pineapple with Passion Fruit Caramel and Caramel Dust. Psst…I can’t resist pointing out that while it is indeed sophisticated and decadent-looking, it’s also inadvertently diet-friendly. This one is going on my Must Try list, for sure.

Over at Truffle Mutt, Liz had a few missteps on the way to a Sticky Toffee Pudding that turned out wonderfully well, regardless. Just reading how she got there is worth a visit—who knew the perils of not reading a recipe thoroughly could be so funny?

There’s more than A Spoonful of Sugar in Angela’s Dulce de Leche Flan. She did the opposite of what I usually do—taking a low-fat recipe from Cooking Light and high-fattening it—and it looks like it really worked out well. Yum.

The very last email I received was from South Africa, Jeanne at Cook Sister. She celebrated winning a South African Blog Award by making a lip-smacking Apple Caramel Self-Saucing Pudding. Mazel tov on the win, Jeanne!

Just to make the round-up complete, here are links to my two posts, Samoas (Some-Moas) and Turtle Tart.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must phone my dentist. I feel a cavity coming on.

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Coda

It was gooooood. I had seconds, it was so good. The crust was the only problem—it didn’t hold together consistently, left a lot of nutty bits behind on the tart pan. I think it wasn’t ground finely enough, but I was afraid I’d end up with pecan butter if I kept going… Well, it didn’t affect the taste any!

Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday's Sugar High Friday. There were 40 entries (!!!) so it'll take me a little time to do justice to everyone in my round-up. Watch this space...

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Stuck on You, Round Two: Turtle Tart

I wasn’t exactly thrilled with my earlier attempt at making caramel, so I thought I’d try again. Tonight I’m going to my friends’ for dinner, and naturally I volunteered to bring dessert. Since the exact opposite of my childhood obsession with Samoas is my current obsession with Fran’s Dark Gray Salt Caramels, it seemed only fitting to make something out of her cookbook, Pure Chocolate. Now I must say, I adore this cookbook, but more for the reading (and the chocolate porn) than the actual recipes. Frankly, they aren’t written all that well—I consider myself a fairly experienced home cook, but they assume a level of professionalism with pastry and candy techniques that I just don’t have. Most of the things I’ve made from here have turned out ok, when I have a feeling that if the instructions were clearer they might have been spectacular. My Turtle Tart came together easily enough (and the caramel is gorgeous!), but there were instances where the instructions were vague and I had to figure things out for myself. I don’t know yet how it tastes, since I resisted the temptation to cut it JUST FOR YOU so I could present it properly to my hosts this evening, but I did run into an issue or two that has me a bit worried.

This recipe is essentially the Dark-Chocolate Caramel Nut Tart from the book, but using pecans instead of walnuts to make it more Turtle-like, and with fleur de sel sprinkled on top in homage to the Dark Gray Salt Caramels I love so much.

WW readers: I did not even bother to calculate points for this sucker, since I just don’t want to know! Sometimes you have to go with the flow, you know?

Turtle Tart
Adapted from Pure Chocolate
Serves 12

First, make the crust:
2 1/3 cups pecans
½ cup slivered blanched almonds
¾ stick (6 T.) unsalted butter, room temp
1 T. pure vanilla extract

Lightly butter a 9-inch round fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. [I used cooking spray, and I think I may have used too much—the sides slid down a bit while baking, and the outside of the pan feels greasy.]

Pulse the pecans in a food processor until finely ground. [Mine started to clump together before they seemed “finely ground” so I stopped.] Remove and set aside. Add the almonds and sugar. Pulse, scraping down the bowl several times, until ground into a powder. [There were no instructions to do this, but later on it says to add the “nut mixture,” so I combined the almonds & sugar with the pecans.]

In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and blend thoroughly. Add the nut mixture and mix on low speed until the dough begins to hold together.

Press the dough evenly into the bottom and sides of the tart pan. [It stuck to my fingers, so I moistened my hands with cold water and that seemed to do the trick.] Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour or freeze until firm, ½ hour.

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350.

Unwrap the shell and place on a baking sheet. Prick all over with the tines of a fork. Bake for 10 to 13 minutes, until the crust feels dry and looks puffy. Remove from the oven and gently press the bottom down with the back of a wooden spoon. Return to the oven for 8 to 12 minutes, or until lightly golden brown. Transfer to a rack and cool completely



Now, make the caramel:
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup water
½ cup heavy cream, warmed

In a heavy medium saucepan combine the sugar and water. [It didn’t say whether or not to stir to combine, but my last caramel said not to stir and it was a disaster, so I stirred. I’m glad I did. You should stir.] Cook over medium heat, without stirring, until the liquid is clear and the sugar dissolved, about 5 minutes. Raise the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil, washing down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush if crystals form. Continue boiling until the sugar turns golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. [After 9 minutes mine was such a deep amber I feared it would turn acrid if it cooked any more, so I stopped.]

Remove from the heat. Averting your face to avoid splatters, slowly and carefully pour in the warm cream. When the bubbling subsides, stir until well combined. Pour a spoonful onto a saucer to test the consistency. A spoon run through the caramel should briefly hold a channel.



If too thin, return to heat and cook a few minutes longer. Pour into the baked crust.



Finally, make the chocolate ganache:
7 ounces heavy cream
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped [I used Callebaut 70%]
Fleur de sel

In a small pot, heat the cream over medium-high heat until it begins to simmer. Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate until smooth. Let cool until about 80-85 degrees. [I don’t have a candy thermometer, so I just stirred until it was a little cooler than body temp.] Slowly pour over the cooled caramel layer, spreading evenly to the edges. Let set at room temperature for about five minutes, then sprinkle the surface with the fleur de sel. Serve and store at room temperature. Can be kept for up to 4 days.

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Sugar High Friday: I Want Some-Moas!

When I was a kid my mom always bought a lot of Girl Scout Cookies. I mean, a lot. Multiple boxes (six, eight?) each of at least four kinds: Thin Mints (of course; what’s better straight out of the freezer?), Peanut Butter Patties, Peanut Butter Sandwiches, and, be still my heart, Samoas. I often wonder if the name is a pun, as in “I WANT SOME-MOA!” Works that way for me, certainly. My bedroom growing up was originally the pantry—my dad converted it for me so I wouldn’t have to share a room with my three brothers—which meant that every time I entered or left my sanctuary, I had to pass through the kitchen. If I got up to pee during the night, I’d often return to bed with a snack of some sort. During Girl Scout Cookie season, that snack would be a box of Samoas. I’d pull them from their plastic tray, one by one, and try to savor each cookie slowly, picking off little bits of toasted coconut, or aiming only for the chocolate stripe, but usually the whole thing would disappear in two bites. But the best part would be what was left behind, pooled at the bottom of the plastic tray they came in: a small, gooey lump of caramel, sometimes with a shred of coconut mixed in, but most often just straight sugary, buttery goodness. Scooping up that little bonus with my finger, I’d run my teeth under my fingernail to ensure I’d gotten every last drop.

From the day I announced Sugar High Friday, I planned to make homemade Samoas. I haven’t had a “real” one in years, but whenever Girl Scout Cookie season rolls around I find myself fantasizing about them. My plan was to make an “upscale” version, with homemade shortbread, homemade caramel, and bittersweet chocolate. As I posted the other day, though, my attempt at caramel was something of a disaster. Upscale, shmupscale. These are junk food, pure and simple. I gave in to reality and bought a package of Kraft caramels, which saved the day.

The cookie portion of the recipe is fantastic—I’d never made shortbread before, but the recipe in Nick Malgieri’s Cookies Unlimited sounded pretty simple: just butter, sugar, flour. And these were some of the best cookies I have ever had. Do you hear me: I said the best cookies I have ever had. Buttery, tender, delicate, lightly sweet but not too sugary, it required some restraint not to eat them all before I could transform them into Samoas. (WW readers: if your yield is as high as mine was, 65 cookies, they’re only 2 points each! The problem then, of course, is how to keep from eating 65 cookies.) In the end, in fact, I preferred them straight. The toasted coconut/caramel/chocolate topping was decadent, but it went too far. Maybe I’ve gotten over my fondness for super-sweet, junky food? Maybe my tastes have matured after all these years? I’m sure as hell not going to buy a box of Samoas and find out.

Note: Since I wasn’t exactly thrilled with my caramel experience here, today I’m making a second dessert, a Turtle Tart of sorts, to bring to dinner at a friend’s house tonight. If I have time I’ll post again later today—if not, well, I guess we’ll have Sugar High Saturday, too!

Samoas
Yield: 65 2-inch cookies

For the cookies:
Scottish Shortbread
From Cookies Unlimited

20 T. (2 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

Set racks in upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 325. Line 2 cookie sheets or jelly roll pans with silpats, parchment, or foil, and set aside.

In the bowl of a standing electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the mixture becomes light in color and very soft and fluffy.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the flour by hand. The dough will be soft.

Place a handful of the dough at a time on a lightly floured work surface. Use the floured palm of your hand to press out the dough until it is about 3/8 inch thick—don’t make it too thin. If the dough seems to be sticking, run a long thin knife or spatula under it to loosen it [an offset spatula is handy here]: whatever you do, do not use a lot of flour or the shortbreads will be dry and tough. [I used my Roul'Pat Pastry Mat and needed hardly any extra flour.]



Cut out the shortbreads using a fluted round cutter anywhere from 2 to 4 inches in diameter, dipped in flour. With a spatula or pancake turner transfer them to the prepared pans, spacing about 1 ½ inches apart—they don’t spread, but they puff a little. [I crowded mine a little more, closer to 1 inch apart, and it was fine.]



Continue until all the dough has been cut and you have a large pile of scraps. Continue pressing out and cutting the scraps until they have all been used. The key here is to use very little flour on the work surface and on the dough. This way the last shortbread you cut out will be as tender and fragile as the first.

Bake the shortbreads for 15 to 20 minutes, making sure they are just a very pale golden color. [I baked mine for 8 minutes, then switched and rotated the pans and baked an additional 8 minutes.] Slide papers from pans onto racks, or if using Silpats slide cookies, carefully, directly onto racks.



For the topping:
4 cups sweetened shredded coconut
1 14-ounce package of caramels
2 T. milk
4 oz. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300. Spread coconut evenly on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan and toast 15-20 minutes, or until it’s an even golden brown. Remove from the oven to stir and redistribute every five minutes to prevent burning. Set aside.

Unwrap the caramels and put into a large microwave-safe bowl. Add milk and cook on high 2-3 minutes, stopping to whisk every 30 seconds until caramel melts and incorporates into milk. Add toasted coconut and stir to combine.



Using a butter knife or small offset spatula, top each cookie with about a teaspoon of the mixture, spreading evenly over the surface. When all cookies are topped, melt chocolate carefully using your method of choice (I do it in the microwave on 50%, stopping to stir every 30 seconds). Put chocolate into a small Ziploc bag and push it down into one corner. Snip off the very edge of that corner and voila! Instant pastry bag. Use the bag to pipe a zigzag of chocolate over the coconut-caramel-topped cookies.

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Sugar High Friday: Caramel Corn, for E

My friend E, of the field trip to heaven I described earlier today (she took the photo above this afternoon of her little boy, F, at Chocolate Haven), doesn't have a blog but she loves to cook, and write, as much as anyone I know. Here is her contribution to tomorrow's Sugar High Friday:

Spring approaches, and in Manhattan that can mean weeks of indeterminate damp and clammy weather or sudden bursts of wild heat and humidity that make the distinction between "springtime" and "miserable summer" hazy, at best. My hair is curling just thinking about it.

Anyway, I mention the climate because this recipe, I learned the hard way, is a touch seasonal. It does better in the autumn and winter months when it is a bit drier. I cooked up a massive amount of caramel corn for a July 3rd party I threw for my brother's pre-wedding "rehearsal cocktails" and it all turned rather lumpish and got soggy immediately. This is not at all the fault of the recipe. Blame it on the summer.

I discovered the recipe while lying around one Saturday eyeballing the Food Network. I collect tons of recipes from the newspaper and occasionally from television shows, but I rarely make any of them. When I saw Paula Dean - the resident Southern cook on the Food Network - turn out this stuff, I had to try it. Caramel corn is a favorite item in my family, though usually it comes in the form of Cracker Jack. My mother, a true connoisseur of the stuff despises all alternative products (hates Fiddle Faddle, Crunch n' Munch and "Poppycock" - her own mother did some savage damage to her teeth with Poppycock) can rarely be swayed from her choice junk food but I had to try and she responded very well to this mound of caramel tastiness.

Here's Paula's recipe - with my annotations.

Caramel Corn

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
2 cups packed brown sugar (I use the dark brown kind)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cut light corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking soda
8 quarts popped popcorn (NOTE: if pressed for time, as I am when I throw parties because I don't entertain often enough to achieve anything like a "rhythm," I'll use lots of microwaved popcorn, anything that says it is "natural" with no extra flavor or butter. One way wind up with some extra salt this way, but I spent a lot of time in Virginia growing up and I am pretty much addicted to salt and am not afraid of it. Not at all.)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees

Over medium heat combine the butter, brown sugar, salt and corn syrup and boil the mixture for 5 minutes. Use a larger pot with higher sides than you think you will need, and here's why.

Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda. This will create some kind of incredible reaction. The caramel doubles in volume and looks like The Blob and burbles up like some kid's volcano model for science class. Watch out.

Pour the caramel over the popped corn, which will do best in a roasting pan. Apply considerable amounts of elbow grease to coat the popcorn well.

Bake for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread the finished corn on waxed paper to dry out.

The result is very tasty, truly classic caramel corn. You won't break your teeth on it. It will perhaps remind you of long past Halloweens, but I think it is more delicious than the popcorn balls I recall, so think of this as an improvement on memory.

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Chocolate Haven? Chocolate Heaven? It’s All the Same to Me

This afternoon I went on a field trip to heaven. I met my friend E, her sweetly sleeping six-week old baby F, and her adorable pup Sheridan (who gave me permission to use his full name) at Jacques Torres’ Chocolate Haven at 350 Hudson Street, in the lower reaches of the West Village. I’ve been reading about it and salivating for months now—the press reports covered everything from the architecture (the space is shaped like a cocoa pod, though you’re not necessarily aware of that while you’re inside) to the fact that Torres would be manufacturing chocolate from the very first step, meaning he’d be roasting, shelling, and grinding the cocoa beans himself. Plus I had a tenuous, if real, personal connection: When I worked at Sage American Kitchen, for an even briefer tenure than my own the pastry chef was Jacques’ cousin Serge. That didn’t exactly work out, since “American” was literally the company’s middle name and Serge was as Francais as they come. But at one point I did actually meet Jacques, so there you go.

From the outside, Chocolate Haven is quite straightforward-looking: plate-glass windows display hundreds, maybe thousands, of cellophane-wrapped bunnies, eggs, and hens, and the manufacturing setup behind them. On a Thursday afternoon, the place was fairly empty—there were perhaps five other customers inside when we arrived; no chocolate-making was happening, which was a bit of a disappointment. In fact, from the looks of things Jacques hasn’t yet begun his “from the bean” chocolate-making—there were pallets of Belgian chocolate stacked up in full view, and no beans in sight. But come on, does that really matter right this minute? It’s not like anybody else is roasting his own cocoa beans in this town. I’ll be curious to see how, if at all, the flavor of his chocolate changes once he does roast his own.

Inside was the most pleasurable assault imaginable. There was chocolate everywhere, lining the windows (those same bunnies & hens I’d seen from outside), on small stands between the counter and the door, and for a good twenty feet along the counter. Just inside the door, facing the main display, was an espresso and hot-chocolate bar, where a barista served up frothy drinks. Treats for sale included small bags of chocolate-dunked macadamias, hazelnuts, almonds. Huge slabs of nut-studded milk, dark, and white chocolate bark, to be broken upon request. Simply-wrapped bars of plain chocolate for baking or eating, with varying percentages of cocoa solids. Chocolate-covered marshmallows. Champagne truffles made with Taittinger and shaped like corks. Chocolate-covered cornflake clusters, espresso beans, fortune cookies, orange peel. Freshly baked cookies, kept warm on hot plates. And at the center of the long counter: a pair of chocolate stations, each manned by a knowledgeable staff member and piled with easily twenty different kinds of chocolate. Clearly, this was the heart of the show. I couldn’t leave without a selection from here. I opted for the box of 12, for $15.00. Remarkably inexpensive, I must say—I would’ve expected them to cost $2 each. Since I’m a bit of a chocolate snob I opted for mostly dark chocolates, only choosing milk if the insides sounded too good to miss. Here’s what they look like:



Top row, left to right: Love Potion #9 (dark chocolate ganache in dark chocolate), Golden Espresso, Fresh Squeezed Lemon, and Liquid Caramel. Middle row, left to right: Cinnamon Praline, Grand Cru (red wine in dark chocolate), Heart of Passion (passion fruit), Wicked Fun (spiced with chilis). Bottom row, left to right: Fresh Coconut, Bin 27 Port (port wine in dark chocolate), Almondine, and Raspberry Fruit.

[I was a bit surprised that there wasn't more caramel—that one piece was the only thing with caramel in the whole place. It's a good thing tomorrow's Sugar High Friday, don't you think?]

S and I are going to sample two of these each night until they’re gone—that way I (hopefully) won’t blow Weight Watchers too badly. I’ll report back to you as we go—right now I’m typing with the open box on my desk and it’s torture, I tell ya, torture!

Ignoring WW completely, I also bought one of their chocolate-chip cookies for E and me (mostly me) to eat at one of the café tables dotting the space. It was crisp and gooey at the same time, and it was all about the chocolate, bittersweet and melty. E and I licked the dark, intense stuff from our fingers, since we didn’t want to waste it on a napkin. As a chocolate chip cookie, I must say it was only so-so. The cookie itself didn’t bring much to the party, so the chocolate really overwhelmed it. I’ll still choose City Bakery’s any day. As a chocolate experience, though, it was faaaaabulous. What’s more sensual than licking melted chocolate off your fingers, one by one? OK, so I was doing this with my friend who gave birth six weeks ago today, but who says sensual things have to be about sex? I enjoyed it for what it was, a small mid-day frisson.

Since I bought the box of chocolates for S and me to savor together, I decided to pick up a little something just for him:



I bought it because it’s special. It holds a dark secret in its little tummy, something that we could hear rattling but couldn’t identify until cracking it open. E’s the one who discovered it, actually, mixed in with a large basket of plain white, dark, and milk chocolate hens. She gave it a shake and smiled with delight. It must be an egg, we predicted confidently. And sure enough, we were right:



S let me taste the broken piece of chocolate before he scooped up his hen and her little egg. It was remarkably bittersweet, not the kind of Easter treat most American children are raised on. Mine will be, though, you can be sure of that.

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I’m Getting My Act Together, and Taking It on the Roadfood

One of the benefits of my many years in book publishing is that if I ask nicely enough, I can often get a book before it’s available in stores. Today the UPS guy arrived with a wonderful surprise: the new revised edition of Roadfood (in bookstores April 12), which I’d requested long before it was even printed. I don’t know about you, but Roadfood is something of a bible for me.

On our first-ever trip together, S and I rented a car and drove around Virginia and North Carolina a few summers ago, using a beat-up copy as our main guidebook. We’d point the car south each morning and drive towards whatever food piqued our interest. Later on, when we got engaged, we acknowledged that trip as something of a turning point: the fact that we were both Roadfood people—the type who didn’t need reservations or even a firm itinerary, just a desire to seek out the tastiest, most authentic experience possible—left little doubt that we were right for each other. The highlight of the trip was a two-hour drive, entirely away from where we’d been touring, to Keaton’s in Statesville, NC, for barbecued fried chicken. That’s right, I said barbecued fried chicken. I don’t care where you live—it’s worth a trip of many hours and grueling obstacles just to taste this wondrous, so-good-you’ll-lick-the-tablecloth creation. Cuz really, what could possibly be more delicious than pan-fried chicken, crispy and ever-so-slightly greasy, that’s dunked in a vat of spicy, robust barbecue sauce seconds before it hits your table? I swear to god, it’s been almost two years and I still dream about this chicken. And we never would’ve found it without the guidance of Jane and Michael Stern.

So, back to Roadfood. Now that we own a car, we keep that battered book in the backseat, its pages marked up with asterisks and exclamation points. Between our mid-south trip two years ago, our honeymoon in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and even little day trips here and there, it’s seen a lot of use and never let us down. The only disappointment has been the lack of listings for Western Massachusetts, as we discovered on our recent trip to the Berkshires. But this new edition does have one spot added, a Mrs. O’s in Lanesboro. We’ll have to head back up there, just to try it. And by the time the next edition comes out, hopefully we’ll have sampled some of the Midwestern entries, and the Great Plains, and the Southwest…

What’s that I feel, down in my big toe? Must be my driving foot, getting itchy.

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It's Sugar High Monday!

Well, ok, actually it's not. But it is the Monday before Sugar High Friday. You know what that means, don't you? It means that if you haven't already made your sticky-sweet caramel-based dessert, time's a-runnin' out!

The other day I was browsing in a used bookstore (one of my favorite ways to while away the afternoon) and I came across a hardcover copy of Elizabeth David's Is There a Nutmeg in the House? I wasn't familiar with this posthumously-published book, but I was familiar with the inimitable and veddy English Ms. David, author of the much-loved classic of food writing, An Omelette and a Glass of Wine. As I thumbed through the index, I came across a listing for CARAMEL DESSERTS. Bingo! I hadn't yet made a final decision on what my own entry for SHF would be, so I turned to page 239. Here's what Ms. David had to say:

Caramel creams, caramel ices, caramel souffles and mousses, caramelised apples are all delicious light puddings, simple enough to make. Once you know how to cook the sugar for the caramel, there are plenty of variations to be made on the original recipes. Why anyone should think it difficult to caramelise sugar is hard to understand, yet I've heard many people say that a caramel cream for example is "far too much of a nuisance"; and one must believe that they find it so, or would there be such a ready sale for packets of caramel custard and bottles of ready-made caramel syrup?

Exactly. Yeah, I bought the book. And I made a caramel over the weekend, admittedly not using Ms. David's technique (I found one even easier). Ha! This is what I ended up with:



Not to worry, though, I still made something yummy, and caramelly, and I'm going to blog about it on Friday, Sugar High Friday. How about you?

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