Photo of the Week and February Updates

It doesn't look like much, but I was more proud of this little dish than words can say. Plating dishes--actually arranging the food on the plate in an artful and (hopefully) appetizing way has been a source of anxiety for me since the beginning of the program. It just doesn't come naturally to me. I'd look over at other people's dishes and see spirals of sauce elegantly dripped around the plate or airy floats of lemon zest places just so in a way that brought the whole plate together. And then I'd look at my plate and wince.

Oh, I know my pictures turn out ok, but that, my friends, is the benefit of the macro-zoom. I heart macro-zoom. One side looks saggy? No prob, just zoom in on the other side! Can't find the right sized plate? Well, don't put it in the picture, silly! Ah, the macro.

Anyways, especially at the end of a long class, the last thing I want to do is figure out how to make my hacked-up, sauced, buttery whatever-it-is look pretty. But still. I've been working on it. Trying to get ideas from photos in magazines. Watching other people. Taking a few risks and asking my inner perfectionist to take a chill pill.

So this little tomato salad? This is the first dish I've ever prepared where I made a conscious effort to think about plating before I started the dish and then, lo and behold, carried it through. It's simple, but classy, eh? It's a start!

Oh, and it doesn't taste too bad either!

P.S. Sorry I've been so infrequent with the postings lately. For some reason I had this completely CRAZY idea that I'd be LESS BUSY once I, you know, quit my job? Nope, sorry, hun. Still running around chasing my tail over here. I've been writing, though! Yup, the second round of posts for my interview at The Kitchn are up! Yay! Go check 'em out:

Keeping Braises Moist with an Inverted Lid of Foil
Book Review: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
Recipe: No-Knead Challah (from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day)
Supermarket Saver: How much should you pay for olive oil?

And here's that tomato salad recipe:

Salade de ma Mere
(c) Roberta Dowling, Cambridge School for Culinary Arts

4 plum tomatoes, peeled and seeded (this is easiest to do if you blanch them in boiling water for a few seconds)
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1-1 1/2 T Dijon mustard
1/4 c. raspberry vinager or black currant vinegar
1 c. heavy cream
salt and pepper
2 heads Boston lettuce
Chopped chives or chervil for garnish

Clean and slice the tomatoes and put in a salad bowl. In a small bowl, mix together garlic, mustard, raspberry vinegar or black currant vinegar, salt, and pepper. Add the cream and pour over the tomatoes.

Let rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Clean the lettuce, taking off the rib of the leaves. Add the lettuce to the tomatoes and toss together just before serving. Sprinkle with chopped chives.

Notes:
For my salad, I chopped the tomatoes into small cubes and drizzled them with enough of the dressing to bring it together. (I had about two cups of dressing leftover.) For plating, I arranged a few big leaves of lettuce on a plate (instead of tossing them with the tomatoes) and molded the salad by putting a cookie cutter in the center of the plate and scooping in the tomatoes.

I think this salad could use LOTS more tomatoes--at least 10-15 nice ripe red juicy tomatoes (Dear Summer, I miss you. When will you come again? Love, Emma)

The dressing has a nice tang to it and the cream is nicely mellow without being too creamy, if you know what I mean? I'm actually not a fan of dressings like ranch or bleu cheese, and I thought this was fantastic.

This would be a fantastic first course or side dish at a summer garden party! (Dear Summer, Still no calls? Don't you love us anymore? Kisses, Emma)

Cous Cous Salad with Winter Squash and Cranberries

We're in the home stretch of winter with daylight hours increasing bit by bit, but with farmer's markets and fresh produce still many months away. This cous cous salad made with winter squash and a handful of pantry staples is a bright and tangy hint of springtime, and yet it's hearty enough to fuel us through another day of slush and wind. This salad can be served room temperature or cold.

Cous Cous Salad with Winter Squash and Cranberries

1 medium butternut squash (or other hard winter squash)--peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
3/4 cup un-cooked cous cous
1 cup water
1 onion-diced
4-5 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Zest of one orange
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cumin
1-3 teaspoons salt--to taste
1 can garbanzo beans--drained
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2 oz goat cheese (if desired)
1/2 cup walnuts-coarsely chopped (if desired)

Pre-heat oven to 400-degrees. Toss squash with a bit of olive oil and spread on a baking sheet. Roast squash, stirring occasionally, until tender--about 30 minutes. Allow to cool before combining with other ingredients.

Heat water in sauce pan to boiling. Add cous cous and stir. Remove pan from heat, cover with a lid, and let sit for about 15 minutes, until the cous cous has absorbed all the water. Fluff with a fork and set aside.

Saute onion in a skillet over medium-high heat until translucent. Set aside and allow to cool.

In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, olive oil, zest, spices, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

In a large bowl, combine squash, cous cous, onions, garbanzo beans, and cranberries. Pour on the vinegar-oil dressing and stir to combine. Taste to check seasoning and add salt if needed. If including, crumble the goat cheese into chunks and gently fold into the salad. (Note: Make sure the salad is room temperature at this point, or the goat cheese will melt.)

Top each serving with a sprinkle of walnuts and enjoy.

Makes about 5 cups.

Summer Showers (and Salads)

I'm snug in my apartment listening to the first real thunderstorm of the season. The neighbor's daughter must be having a sleepover because every time the thunder booms, I hear a chorus of screaming followed by giggling and loud protestations of having been the scaredy-cat who initiate the screaming.

The hours at the noodle factory have been long lately this being our annual Busy Bee Season, leaving me too drained and uninspired when I get home to do much more than heat up a twice-baked potato (made en masse a few weekends ago and frozen in anticipation of my post-work zombie state). But the weather has been struggling to be summer lately and I've been craving pasta salad. So today, I decided that come hell or high water, I was going to have my salad tonight. Darnit.

The irony is that it seems pretty hellish and high-watery outside right now (queue girly screaming). But I've got my pasta salad!

Summer-at-Last Pasta Salad

1 bag tortellini--any type, cooked, drained and cooled.
1 yellow onion--coarsely chopped and sauteed (Feel free to leave raw--I just don't like raw onion very much and the slightly caramelized sauteed onion here makes a nice compliment to the flavors)
3-5 cloves garlic--coarsely chopped and sauteed with the onion
1 red pepper--chopped
a few stalks of celery--chopped
a handful of fresh basil--coarsely chopped
half a tube of goat cheese (any kind)--crumbled
3 tablespoons dressing
2 teaspoons sea salt

Combine in bowl. Serve over greens (hopefully yours haven't been sitting in your fridge for two weeks waiting patiently for me to cook this meal and are a little less grumpy than mine). Consume with gusto. Nice. And. Simple.

For the tortellini, I used Trader Joe's artichoke tortellini, and for the goat cheese, I used the recently-discovered Trader Joe's low-fat goat cheese. It's really quite edible! It's distinctly goat cheese and best when used in combination with other things--like this salad or pizza. I don't know that it would stand on its own, unless you mixed in some herbs. Mmm...that's an idea. Oh, P.S. in retrospect, a stronger cheese would do better in this salad--a blue cheese or Roquefort or other stinky cheese.

And for the dressing, I used Maple Grove Farm's Lime-Basil Vinaigrette--my mom hooked me on this line of dressing. Most of the flavors are fat-free and really quite good. I tend to not like the oily, greasy dressings in typical offering, and the Maple Grove dressings are somehow both light tasting while still coating all the little bits and pieces in your salad. Score!

This Stella Italia Pinot Grigio is destined to become my Summer 2007 Refreshment of Choice. It's light and floral with a very distinct flavor of honey. But not a cloying honey, just...like the whiff of honey you get while spooning it over your strawberries. The finish is apple-crisp and altogether satisfying. It goes well with any course--salad (obviously), fish, a light dessert. And if that weren't enough, it's $6.99 at Trader Joe's. I'm sold.

Thunder moving off. Salad finished. Sleepover moved on to a movie (hopefully not a scary one). Time for little Emma to think about another helping of salad.

Swiss Chard and Better-Late-Than-Never Scarves: A Kitchen-Sink Post

Oh, Jones Soda, how I miss thee! When the Engineer and I were living in Portland, Oregon, we didn't have the luxury of a washer and dryer in our apartment building like we do now. Every week along with all the other unluckies within a five block radius, we participated in a weekly neighborhood pilgrimage to the friendly neighborhood laundromat. For those of you who haven't had this experience or for whom that experience is but a distant memory, let me tell you that there is absolutely nothing romantic about the laundromat: the cracking faux-wood paneling on the walls, the act of inspecting your unmentionables in front of a handful of pajama-clad strangers, the brittle fly carcasses gathered at the bottom of the light fixtures, the gritty yellow lighting itself, the inevitable fight to secure neighboring washers and then again to secure neighboring dryers--and not just any washers and dryers but the 'good' washers and dryers (you come to know which ones those are). And lets not even discuss the bathroom.

Needless to say, Laundry Day was not something that the Engineer and I looked forward to. There were heated "discussions" over whether or not Laundry Day was actually necessary in a given week, complex systems of barter and trade if one or the other of us wanted to opt out of Laundry Day for whatever reason, and incredibly competitive games of rock-paper-scissors over who's turn it was to scour the apartment for spare change. But Jones Soda changed everything.

Jones Soda Co. (link HERE) is a Seattle-based juice and soft drink company famous for their wacky and unexpected flavors like Berry White, D'Peach Mode, Crushed Melon, and Pineapple Upside Down Cake. They're kind of like the Jelly Belly Jelly Beans of the beverage world. Some of their flavors are incredible and some of them really fall flat (like those I discuss below). The imaginative "family" photographs on their labels, the not-your-average-chinese-fortunes under the cap, and under-the-radar marketing campaign make this the soft drink of choice for Northwest hipsters. (I also want to note that as of January 2007, Jones Soda is switching their juice and soda lines from using high fructose corn syrup to pure cane syrup, an incredibly laudable endeavor. Read about it HERE.)

And one fine spring day, the Engineer and I discovered that the dingy convenience store next to the dingy laundromat was actually a mecca for all our favorite Jones Soda flavors. It became a ritual for us to arrive at the laundromat, stake out claims on washers, get the washers going, stake out claims on one of the folding tables, snag two folding chairs, and then send an emissary next door with our leftover pocket change. We would clink bottles, settle in with books and trashy magazines and knitting, and not speak until the spin-cycle was complete. Laundry Day was still a chore, for certain, but Jones Soda, you certainly took the edge off.

Except for a few national chains like Panera and Target, Jones Soda isn't widely distributed out of the Northwest, so I've been a bit deprived. Perhaps this is what led me to impulsively purchase the Jones Soda 2006 Holiday Pack when I spotted it with the post-Christmas sale items at Target when I was home over Christmas. Yes, I purchased it despite the fact that there were a suspicious number of 2006 Holiday Packs still available, and they were all in the back of the bottom shelf in the deepest hidden corner of the store. And I purchased it despite the fact that the 2006 Holiday Pack was on the "What Not To Buy Me For Christmas" list put out by the Restaurant Guys. I even purchased it despite my own better judgment. Like I said, I had been Jones Soda deprived for several years. And I was rilly buying it for my brother, another Jones Junkie. (Really.) And it was $5. And how awful could turkey flavored soda be, anyways?

My little bro doling out the 'tastings'

Here's the rundown of the sodas in the pack:
Turkey and Gravy Soda
Sweet Potato Soda
Dinner Roll Soda
Pea Soda
Antacid Flavored Soda

There was just something so charmingly Willy Wonka about this whole endeavor. We decided to taste the sodas in the order they are arranged in the box because it seemed to make sense in terms of taste-progression. Up first, Turkey and Gravy Soda!


Verdict: horrible. Apparently turkey and gravy flavored soda can be pretty awful. It really did taste like turkey and gravy. Except carbonated. It was gross. We soldiered through the other flavors, willing to believe that there must be ONE of them that tasted good. The sweet potato had the most potential, but again. It turns out that liquid carbonated sweet potato with a hint of marshmallow is pretty disgusting.

Here's a play-by-play of my mother enjoying her final liquid refreshment "antacid" in this five-course tasting menu:

Hmmm...antacid. It's pink. It's bubbly. Could be good.

She's thinking about it...

She's going for it...

Um, yeah. Again, antacid? Not a good flavor for soda.

The final verdict on these Wacky Fun Holiday Packs? Buy them only when they're on sale...as a gag gift...knowing that you really will be gagging. Fun for the whole family!

On the other hand, if you see any other flavors of Jones Soda, don't let the Holiday Pack deter you. Snap them up and give them a try! (Barry White is my hands down favorite.)