Irish soda... cake?

While I was revisiting UVA this past weekend, I had plenty of time during those somewhat tedious but necessary question-and-answer sessions to think about the prospect of going back to school. It's hard for me to be more excited, but I will definitely miss certain things about my time now. For instance, these past two years have made me realize the extent of my affinity for domesticity. I organize and clean when I'm stressed, shop for groceries when I'm bored, and cook pretty much around the clock. And today, I got back to my apartment early just so I could have more time to bake bread and read the Sunday newspaper. Going back to student-mode will certainly be a transition from these carefree days with nothing hanging over my head.

Anyway, about this bread. I'm still working on a yeast bread with a sponge starter recipe, which happens to require an entire weekend of babying. Since I haven't had a free weekend in a while I thought I would try out some faster soda breads in the mean time. I got this particular recipe from Melissa Clark, and frankly, I don't know what to make of it, because it's definitely not bread. If I were to serve it as dessert, no one would object. The recipe calls for only a third of the butter and sugar I usually put in my cakes, making it a little less tender and moist. But the upside is that the tangy buttermilk flavor and the hearty texture really come through, and it's nice to have a lighter cake once in a while. But what will I eat with my soups and salads this week? No, not cake, of course not.

Roasted mushrooms

I've been working at a stand at the Dupont farmers market on Sundays in exchange for minimum wage and vegetables (more on that later), and sometimes I get to take home some mushrooms from the vendor next door.

Having only really had packaged supermarket mushrooms (except for this one time!), I was blown away by the taste and texture of these fresh and organic ones. First of all, I've always thought that I don't like raw mushrooms because they taste like styrofoam, but these mushrooms, even when raw, taste incredibly tender and flavorful.



Aside from using them in risottos, my new favorite way to eat mushrooms is definitely roasting them in garlic and butter. It's quick, relies mostly on pantry ingredients, and tastes phenomenal. The mushrooms soak up all the flavors from the butter, garlic, lemon juice, and briny capers to acquire a wonderfully juicy and meaty texture.



The mushrooms make a great side dish with bread to sop up the sauce, and if you feel a bit guilty about all that butter, the dish also makes a great salad-topper. After all, it has all the components of a great dressing, and a little butter never hurt a salad.

Breadwinning

I've been staying up past my bedtime baking bread.

I know, I know -- it's pretty edgy. (That was what you were thinking, right??) But seriously, folks, I've been thinking about learning a new skill or two, and now with all this free time on my hands, I can finally get started! While I'm pretty adept in the kitchen and can pull together a decent meal on most days,  I want to delve deeper and get really good at something. Bread-baking seems like a sensible idea since the product is a kitchen staple and is easily gift-able (friends, get ready!). Plus, after dabbling in it in the past, I would like to have it be closer to second-nature instead of something I have a 50% success rate at.

Despite simplicity of the ingredients, baking bread seems rather like voodoo. Not even going into specific recipes, the number of ways to go about it (knead or no knead? Starter or no?) is totally mind-boggling. And even after settling on a basic recipe, understanding how all the variables interact just seems to take experience and practice.

My first loaf was a Joy of Cooking basic white bread, which didn't use a starter but needed plenty of kneading. But despite my heavy-handedness, I had a tender loaf with a fine crumb. I finished the entire loaf in two days, eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner -- it was that good!

The only downside to making bread in house is the time it takes. Many of the recipes I've seen requires checking on the dough every few hours, making baking bread a commitment. But almost always, the results are worth it -- there really is nothing like the smell of bread baking in the oven or the satisfaction of smearing butter and honey on a still-warm loaf. I'm so excited about my new journey to becoming a bread baker!

Mushroom and kale risotto

Risotto is a labor of love, which I guess makes it fitting for this time of year. It usually involves standing over a stove and stirring the pot's contents for a good half hour. As someone who makes rice by sticking everything in a rice cooker without a second thought, I've always been a bit baffled by the effort involved in making rice the Italian way. But the results are always worth it -- having a creamy, rich, and flavorful pot of rice instantly soothes my tired stirring arm.

I made a butternut squash risotto last winter, but it was so rich that it was hard to eat for multiple meals during the week. This mushroom and kale risotto is the exact opposite. It derives its flavor from the mushroom broth and is lightened by all the vegetables, which offer a nice contrast in texture to the rice. There is also less cheese involved -- just enough to contribute to the dish's creaminess. And for garnish, I used a bit of fresh thyme, which added a hint its fresh, citrous-y flavor to tie the mushrooms' earthiness and the savory Parmesean together.

Roasted carrot and red lentil soup

With this winter's unpredictable temperature, I haven't entered full-on soup mode like I did by this time last year. But after today's flurries (!), maybe this means that I can forget that there are cherry blossoms down the street and cook as if it's actually winter?

This soup is so comforting and good. I love that the red lentils fall apart after absorbing all the flavors of the stock. I love how the three peppers add multiple dimensions of spice. And I love the roasted onions and carrots' subtle sweetness, which perfectly balance the kick from the peppers. Sop up the soup with a piece of crusty country bread or sourdough, and make it again and again.

Happy 2012!

Falafel and tahini sauce

Sometimes, I'll start a recipe thinking that it'll be a piece of cake (so to speak) and then have it dirty more pots than I own and  take an hour longer than originally planned. This soup immediately comes to mind. It's a great recipe but takes more work than a pureed soup should take. (Frankly, the eight-ingredient garnish should have been a dead giveaway) So it's nice to have recipes take less effort and turn out better than expected once in a while. It's like an unexpected bonus, or like having an experiment work out on the first try...



This falafel recipe was one of these pleasant surprises. The falafels were tender and flavorful, and despite my initial fear of balls falling apart during frying, or the deep frying itself, it was definitely easier than I expected. During the frying process, I actually decided that being a fry cook might not be a bad career after all. I can kind of see myself reigning over the greasy corner of a diner, shrugging off oil burns to produce batches of golden, glistening fried goods.



I used my 3 quart cast iron fryer for this and it worked out great. The pot was small enough that it didn't require an excess amount of oil (1 liter for an inch deep). The additional benefit was that this process more than re-seasoned my pot and now it's absolutely nonstick. Lovely. The other lesson I learned from this first foray into deep frying is that it really doesn't use all that much oil. I started with a liter of oil and pretty much ended up with a liter minus a couple of tablespoons after frying 40 balls of falafel. But this begs the question: what do I do with a liter of used falafel oil?

Happiness is a warm bowl of minestrone

Technically, I broke in my newest kitchen toy, a beautiful 6 quart Staub enameled cast iron pot, with the no-knead bread. But since that loaf turned out much more like a rock than expected, I will erase that from the official records and say instead that this absolutely wonderful soup is the Staub's first food product .

Why on earth does it matter what I cook as a first meal in this thing? Well, it matters, because I had been deliberating on this rather large purchase for what seems like forever. Ever since I read about it on my very favorite food blog quite a few years ago I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Le Creuset or Lodge or any other brand aside, I knew that I could have no other.

But now that I have it in my kitchen, I honestly can't figure out why it took me so long to get it. Having a really big heavy pot ROCKS. I can keep adding random stuff from my freezer in it and IT WON'T OVERFLOW. As an added bonus, the heavy material allows the contents to heat evenly and I don't have to continuously stir the contents until my arms falls off. And now that it's officially autumn, I can make as much soup as my heart desires and not worry about having to leave the stove on for hours, which is the time required to cook almost anything in this magnificent beast.

I recently discovered the cookbook section of the DC public library and have been eagerly checking out new cookbooks ever since. The only problem with this system is that lugging big cookbooks such as the NYT one from the library to my apartment is pretty hard work. That's why I ended up taking the light and carry-able New Moosewood Cookbook with me. Almost all of the recipes in this book are simple but delicious sounding vegetarian dishes.

I was looking for a good, hearty soup, and this recipe is definitely it. I think many sub-par minestrone tend to taste too much like canned tomato sauce, but the fresh tomato in this recipe solves that problem without sacrificing tomato flavor. The original recipe also called for celery and eggplant but I didn't have them on hand at the time. Lastly, I un-vegetarianed this recipe by adding a cup of chicken stock and some chicken tenders, both of which can be easily omitted.