Dreaming of Chili Peppers

Last night I dreamed of chili peppers.

I've been having trouble getting my pepper plants to pollinate, and have been fretting over them. Watching the pale white flowers unfurl so enthusiastically only to shrivel up a few days later and fall off--stem and all--is rather heartbreaking. Besides, I want my peppers.

So far I've only got the one guy pictured above, an anaheim. So obviously I dote on him by taking far too many pictures and nearly knocking him off the stem trying to get a good angle. That's love, alright!

In my dream last night, I was checking up on this pepper when I suddenly looked down and saw fully ripe chili peppers nestled in the dirt. They were bright orange and yellow and red. They seemed to laugh at me, saying, "Silly woman! All you had to do was look for us!"

Anyone who's ever grown fruits or vegetables knows that these plants have a mysterious way of showing nothingnothingnothing. Nothin' but leaf. Then one morning you're casually watering your plants without even expecting anything and you notice one, no two, wait THREE! little fruitlings where there was nothing a minute ago, you swear.

So this is why I half-expected to come out to the garden this morning and find yellow and orange hot peppers winking at me from between the leaves.

Alas, nothing. Just this guy. So we go back to waiting and pretending to expect nothing.

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)

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.

Bread+Summer=Ick

Trying to bake bread on hot, humid summer days makes me want to give it up until the first frost. Kneading dough in this humidity is like trying to make bubble-gum behave. I've tried adding less water to begin with. I've tried throwing in the towel and just adding more flour. But alas, bubble-gum always wins. Plus kneading is hot work. Fans are blowing, flour is flying, I'm sweating and gross, my kitchen drops down to the third ring of Dante's hell--not exactly the carefree picture of Betty Crocker to which I aspire.

And is it worth it? Well, actually, yes. Coming home from buying groceries this afternoon to a house that smelled of fresh bread was as close to bliss as it gets.

My newest bread-baking magic trick to counteract the summer gross-ness is making the dough and doing the first rise the night before (when it's theoretically cooler). Then I shape the loaves, cover with Saran wrap, and stick them in the fridge overnight. Since my boyfriend gets up much earlier than I do on weekends, I have him take the loaves out of the fridge and put them on the counter. By the time I struggle out of bed a few hours later, they have proofed nicely and all I have to do is heat up the oven and bake--all before it gets ridiculously hot outside.

Experiment # 1 (last night/this morning) was a success. Still lots of bubble-gum action last night, but I think my kitchen only dropped down to the second ring of hell this morning when I had the oven on. My backup plan is stocking the freezer with extra loaves so when the weather is extra yucky, I can just let a loaf thaw on the counter and go have a mojito on the backporch. How's that for usin' the ol' noodle?!