Chocolate Chip: A Modern Classic

I never tire of chocolate chip cookies. They are the standard by which all other cookies are judged. I like a dense, soft, cakey cookie that's bursting with chips.

In junior high, my best friend Becca and I used to make quarter-batches of cookie dough for snacks on a weekly basis. This dough never saw the oven, going instead straight into our tummies. We had no fear of raw eggs.

On one occasion when we were particularly hungry, we tried to improvise at my house while my parents were dieting. This meant my fridge had nothing by way of fat except tub margarine. The low-fat dough didn't come out right, so we added milk. Still weird. We microwaved it to soften things up, which had the unfortunate side effect of melting the chips. As an absolute last resort, we baked the cookies.

They looked like cow patties; the dog wouldn't even touch them. But when my parents came home from work, they were so excited to see the cookies and so hungry from the diet that they devoured the whole plate.

I committed this recipe to memory when I was 13 to speed up the cookie-dough-making process, and I have used it ever since. I am proud to say that, as I push 30 years old, at least half of the dough now becomes actual cookies. This is a major accomplishment in my life. To save yourself from having to diet in order to consume your cookies, follow this recipe. It will give you plump, moist cookies that beg for a glass of milk.

Photo courtesy of Matthew, of course.

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
8 oz unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups flour
12 ounces high-quality chocolate chips

Preheat the oven and a baking stone to 375 degrees.

Cream together butter and sugars. Once all lumps have been pulverized, add the eggs and vanilla and stir until well combined.

If you feel proper, combine the salt, baking soda and flour in a separate bowl, then add to the butter and sugar mixture. I never do this. I just add the salt and baking soda right to the wet stuff, stir it up well, then add the flour a little at a time. Once all of the flour has been incorporated, add the chips.

Drop tablespoons of dough onto your preheated baking stone. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. The cookies will still be soft when you remove them to cool on wire racks.

After accounting for dough eaten raw, I got about 30 cookies.

Goodbye, Tomatoes

I hate to admit it, but summer is over, and there's nothing that pains me worse than saying goodbye to the fresh produce of the summer months. Hasta la vista, strawberries, and hello, root veggies. Long time no see, freezer section. And the hardest goodbye, without a doubt, is tomatoes.

I've loved tomatoes since I rode a purple Cabbage Patch kid bike with training wheels. As a child, a salad for Lauren meant a side dish of tomato wedges, and my relationship with the reddest of fruits has only improved from there: marinara sauce... salsa... caprese salad... oh tomato, how I worship thee! How I long to see your crimson visage shining in my produce bowl! I swear to never put you in the refrigerator, lest your flushed cheeks not greet me every morn! I scoff at the mealy, pink-fleshed impostors of winter months. Your bleach-blond, silicon California cousins who travel many miles to the supermarket cannot fool my tongue. Come back to me next July, my love, and I shall not stray!

There is nothing... nothing... like the ripe, firm, succulent tomatoes of summer. Tomatoes so full of juice that they weigh their stalks to the ground. Tomatoes that beg to be eaten like apples, meaty, sweet and tangy.

With the last tomatoes of the season, I celebrated with the salad below. Its simplicity lets my favorite taste of summer shine in my memory. Same time, next year, tomatoes.

Tomato and Red Onion Salad
Two large, ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks
1/2 a large red onion, halved and sliced
20 leaves fresh basil, shredded
A generous pinch of salt
Several cracks of fresh black pepper
Several glugs of red wine vinegar
A good drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil

Combine all ingredients and let sit for 30 minutes to draw out juices. The vinegar will mellow the onion and highlight the tomato. Eat in one sitting; if you try to store it, you will get tomato soup. Share if you must.

Photo courtesy of Matthew.

That's a Spicy Noodle

Ever since Matthew posted this image on his Flickr but one day ago, he's been getting messages that say "Tell Lauren I need the recipe!" So here you go.

When I arranged the meals for Board meetings at the day job, I learned the trick of creating food that tastes great at room temperature. Some things need to be hot to be flavorful, and other things need to be cold to be safe. Spicy Noodles is tasty tepid and completely dairy-free - good on both counts.

Sriracha is that Asian hot sauce that's on the table at Chinese and Thai restaurants. I can get a huge bottle of it for under $2 at the local Giant Eagle, so it's neither exotic nor expensive. It has a really peppery punch that trails behind the pasta in this dish. On first bite, you'll say "This isn't that spicy." Then you'll swallow, and the stars will come out.

This is a great dish to balance a sweltering summer or heat up a winter evening. Best of all, you'll have the sauce together before the pasta water boils. Feel free to prepare the sauce a day in advance and combine at the last minute. Just keep the nuts and seeds separate - they'll get mushy otherwise.

Spicy Noodles
12-16 oz long, flat pasta, cooked - I use udon or linguini
4 green onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons chili sauce - use sriracha if you like the spice, or sweet if you are a pansy
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 tablespoons broth or water
1 tablespoon honey
Big handful cilantro, chopped
Handful roasted peanuts
Palmful sesame seeds

If you are feeling really ambitious, toast the sesame seeds and peanuts in a dry skillet over medium heat until golden brown.

Here is the beauty of this recipe: Whisk together everything but the peanuts and sesame seeds. Add the noodles and stir thoroughly until sauce coats noodles. Top at the last minute with peanuts and sesame seeds... and Presto Pasta Night! You're done!

Many thanks to Matthew for the beautiful image.

How Not to Make Chocolate Cream Puffs

My dear friend Apryl is getting married in September. The bridal shower was this past Sunday, and of course I jumped at the chance to make some special food for my special friend. Being in charge of the dessert spread, I got the cake, made some fruit-topped sugar cookies and attempted chocolate cream puffs.

Seriously, leave it to me to try a new recipe when 50 people need to be fed. As is my wont, I went at the choux pastry and cream filling as though I had made them a thousand times before. I found three different cream puff recipes and took what I liked from each of them. I found two different pastry cream recipes and did the same.

And you know what? The little buggers puffed up just right, and the pastry cream was silky and divine. Sure, the choux shells were a little wonky and misshapen, but hey, it was my first attempt. I thought that the glossy icing I had planned - picture a chocolate-glazed Krispy Kreme - would give them a professionally-finished look.

The morning of the shower, with my hair still wet and just 45 minutes until I needed to hit the road, I went for the glaze. Bittman's recipe couldn't have been easier: a cup of milk and a cup of high-quality chocolate chips, melted and mixed, then drizzled. Unfortunately, even made with whole milk, this yielded a meager chocolate soup.

I tried again. I put the soup back in the sauce pan, added even more chocolate chips and tossed in few tablespoons of butter in an attempt to up the heftiness quotient. My machinations improved the consistency up to the level of Hershey's syrup.

I now had 30 minutes in which to dry the hair, put on the make-up, get dressed, and finish up the infernal cream puffs. I looked at their delicious-but-deformed little bodies and stirred the chocolate mess, and made my decision: we'll ice them anyway.

I drizzled the soup-sauce-syrup disaster over them, and it streamed down the sides into puddles - nay, lakes - of chocolate mud. I did my best to refrigerate, hoping the cold would harden the mess into something resembling ganache. No dice. I slapped on the plastic wrap, dashed through the downpour to my car, and put on my best bridesmaid face.

Good friend that she is, Apryl oohed and aahed over the little bastards, and I will admit that they tasted great. But they were sticky to touch and not pretty at all, and I hate that. Next time I will use a pastry bag to pipe the cream puffs, so that they might not need glaze to be cute. As a service to you, I have omitted the chocolate soup step from the recipe below - although it would make a mean ice cream topping.

Chocolate Cream Puffs
Adapted from Bittman, epicurious and beyond.

For the choux pastry:
1 cup water
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon high-quality cocoa powder
1 cup flour
4 eggs

For the chocolate pastry cream:
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons high-quality cocoa powder
Pinch salt
2 eggs and 1 egg yolk
2 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
3 ounces high-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Over medium-high heat, combine water, butter and salt until butter melts. Add the cocoa powder and flour all at once. Cook, stirring constantly, until the dough holds together in a ball, five minutes or less.

Remove the pan from the heat. Using an electric mixer, beat in the eggs one at a time. Stop beating when the egg is fully incorporated and the mixture is smooth and shiny.

Use a pastry bag to pipe 1-1/2 inch balls of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. (You can use two spoons to form your dough balls if you don't mind wonky-shaped puffs.) Bake for 40 minutes or until the puffs sound hollow when tapped. Prick each puff with a toothpick to allow steam to escape, then cool completely (which doesn't take long).

While the puffs are in the oven, make the pastry cream. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium sauce pan. In a bowl, mix the eggs, yolk and milk until well combined. Over medium heat, add the egg-milk mixture to the dry ingredients. Whisk for the first minute or two to break any lumps, then stir constantly until the mixture thickens considerably - you should be able to leave trails in it with your spoon. This takes about 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the butter and chocolate, stirring until everything has melted and combined. Cool the pastry cream in the fridge if necessary, putting plastic wrap right on its surface to prevent a skin from forming.

Once the choux puffs have cooled completely, use a knife to remove a little cap from each. Hollow out the insides if necessary, then fill with pastry cream and replace the cap. Serve as soon as possible or they will get mushy.

Meet My New Friend, Garlic Scapes

Another post from my backlog... whoopsie...

I'm a newbie-foodie: although I've enjoyed cooking since I was a child, this is the first summer of my obsession with fresh, seasonal cooking. My passion was born in the winter, of all times. I read books and cookbooks and recipes and websites in the dead of winter, became a seasonal food convert, and realized that I had things to cook like potatoes... and turnips...

So I went to the second week of the farmer's market (in May, granted) and was dreadfully disappointed that no farmers had managed to squeeze any veggies out of their fields. Demanding, I know. Turns out, eating seasonal food requires waiting for the plants to grow.

However, at Farmers at the Firehouse in mid-June, I struck gold. Mountains of tender lettuce. Broccoli the size of volleyballs. And a pile of wispy, spiral-curled shoots with a delicate garlic aroma that made my stomach growl.

My friends, meet garlic scapes. Scapes are the miniature flower stalks of certain kinds of garlic. Apparently, they only show up at the farmer's market a few weeks each year, and are a harbinger of summer's bounty. Count me in.

However, recipe searches on epicurious.com and foodnetwork.com turned up zero results - can you believe it? Fortunately, my new cookbook had a recipe for a soup*. This led me to a website that suggested making pesto with my new friends. This sent me to the newest issue of my favorite magazine, which had a non-garlic-scape fun pesto. And that sent me to the kitchen, where summer officially began.

Summer Is Here Green Risotto

2 cups chicken stock
2 1/2 cups water
2 cups baby spinach
1/2 cup basil leaves
Good handful of flat-leaf parsley
6 garlic scapes, divided
3 tablespoons butter, cut into chunks, divided
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 1/4 cups short-grain rice (arborio)
1/4 cup quinoa, rinsed
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 - 1/2 cup grated pecorino romano cheese, plus extra
Truffle oil, to drizzle

Combine stock and water in a medium sauce pan. Warm over low heat.

While the broth warms, combine spinach, basil, parsley, 2 scapes (cut into chunks) and 2 tablespoons of butter chunks in a food processor. Process until you have a pesto, about 10-15 seconds.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Slice the remaining 4 scapes into 1/4-inch diagonal cuts. Add the scapes and the shallot and heat until scapes soften and shallot is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the rice and rinsed quinoa and mix to coat the grains. Cook for 3 minutes, then add the wine.

When the wine has been absorbed, add a ladle-full of warm stock to the pot and stir well.When the rice has absorbed the stock, add another ladle's worth. Continue this process until most of the stock has been absorbed and the rice is tender but firm to the bite, about 25 minutes. You may or may not use all of the stock.

Remove the pan from heat, add the final tablespoon of butter chunks, stir and cover. Wait three to five minutes - seriously - then stir in the spinach-herb-scape pesto and the cheese until. Serve on plates with a drizzle of truffle oil and a sprinkling of extra cheese.

Tasty tips:
1. The quinoa packs a nutrient- and fiber-punch into the risotto that rice can't do on its own, but make sure you give it a good rinse in a fine-mesh sieve before adding it to the pot.

2. When you make risotto, your pan should not be so hot that each addition of stock results in a cloud of chicken-scented steam. You want the stock to go into the rice, not into the air.

3. For an extra-rich risotto, you can increase the butter quantity in the final step, or add 1/4 cup of heavy cream. You must actually let the risotto sit, covered, for the fat and starch to combine to develop that supremely creamy risotto quality. It will be good if you rush it, but it's great if you wait.

4. You will have garlic breath. Just know this, and own it.

*I made the soup, too. Yum. All this with $2 of scapes.

More Summer: Roast Chicken with Stuffed Zucchini Flowers

My backlog of posts that are written-but-not-posted has gotten the better of me. This is from 4 weeks ago - obviously, the farmer's markets have had vegetables for a while now!

The farmer's market finally has more to offer than plants, and I couldn't be more excited. A recent purchase of a freshly-butchered chicken may have changed my life forever. Really.

I've read it and read it and read it: Know thy farmer. Eat local. Know thy farmer. Eat local. But last week was my first chance to really try it, when I asked the proprietor of the corner stand at Farmers @ the Firehouse what he had been up to this week. His answer? Lots and lots of butchering.

I'm not originally from Pittsburgh; I grew up in central-northern Michigan (but really, what part of Michigan isn't northern?) at the corner of Soybean and Corn. 4H was big, but I come from an academic, townie family, not a farm family. While I certainly learned to appreciate the bounty of the farmer's market as a child, I never had to work the land myself, and meat always came in plastic trays and freezer bags from the supermarket.

Not anymore.

Matthew and another friend came for dinner on the Night of the Life-Altering Bird. I thought the star of the show was going to be the ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers. But instead, the three of us couldn't shut up about the chicken. I barely did anything to it. I guess I never tasted chicken before.

Roasted Chicken with Stuffed Zucchini Flowers

For the chicken:
One 3 - 4 lb chicken, preferably butchered within the week
8 sprigs thyme
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup fresh mixed chopped herbs: thyme, oregano, basil, sage, parsley or whatever savory herbs you have on hand
Olive oil, to drizzle

For the stuffed zucchini flowers:
12 zucchini flowers, rinsed
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small shallot, minced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup ricotta
1/4 cup fresh asiago, grated
1/8 fresh mixed chopped herbs, as above
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Day 1
1. Flatten (aka butterfly) the chicken and place it on a rimmed baking sheet.
2. Loosen the skin over the breast. Slide a full sprig of thyme between the breast meat and skin. Repeat on the other breast and over each thigh/leg.
3. Mix salt and chopped herbs together into a loose paste. Cover the skin of the chicken liberally with the salt paste. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Day 2
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Drizzle the chicken with olive oil, then roast on the baking sheet for about one hour, or until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 175 degrees. Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes.
2. Once the bird is in the oven: Heat olive oil over medium-low heat. Saute shallot and garlic until translucent, taking care not to burn the garlic.
3. Mix the sauteed garlic and shallot with the ricotta, asiago and minced herbs in medium bowl. Transfer ricotta mixture to a pastry bag, or make one yourself by cutting the corner off a zipper baggie.
4. Pipe the ricotta mixture into each of the cleaned zucchini flowers and place them on a cookie sheet. Drizzle melted butter over the flowers.
5. Put the flowers in the oven when the chicken has about 10 minutes to go. When you remove the chicken, let the flowers go another 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is oozing out and bubbling on the cookie sheet.
6. Serve the chicken in quarters with a few bubbly-cheese flowers on the side.

Tasty Tips
Refrigerating the chicken in the nude helps the skin crisp up in the oven. Don't shirk the fridge time... or the resting time, post-roast.
I found one of these guys inside my zucchini flowers... fortunately BEFORE I stuffed it! Double-check yours as well, or you'll be eating unintentional escargot.

A Food Blog Without Photos?!

In which Lauren makes really ugly food, and decides no photo is the way to go

I was reading this earlier today - what a great way to start a Sunday in the kitchen! In the first line of this post, Matt acknowledges that his blog is photo-centric, and that got me thinking: is it possible to have a great food blog without equally great photography?

I know that my favorite blogs, like MattBites, feature stunning food photography. Turns out, many of the blogs you see on the right are offered by folks with careers that are related to graphic and/or web design in some way... so it's no wonder their photographs make my mouth water. I work in marketing during the day, and I appreciate a compelling image. But the writer in me wants to fight: good words, artfully chosen, should be able to speak for themselves... just like good food.

So when it comes to my own blog, here's the problem: I don't own a camera. Matthew is a photographer, and when he's around, he's usually more than happy to take some shots of what's going on in the kitchen. He's not always around, though, and when he is, let's just say that I'm not a food stylist. (Snob, sure... stylist, not quite.)

Certainly I could just buy a camera, but owning one will not make me into a photographer. And since I work full time and want to spend as much of my time off as possible writing, cooking and stuffing my face... learning to be a photographer on top of it sounds like a grind, not a passion.

And let's face it: not every dish warrants a photo. This week for lunch, I'll be noshing on ricotta pasta with zucchini and mint. It's delish. It uses fresh ingredients like homemade ricotta from PennMac, herbs from my garden and organic zucchini. But it looks like a gloppy mess. Even the best photo might turn your stomach. But think about the mixture of basil, mint and parsley in your mouth, over a background of wholesome ricotta cheese coating a nutty pasta... I bet you'll get hungry.

So today, I decided: sometimes you absolutely have to have a photograph. Sometimes, you're better off with out. So in the land of Burghilicious, you will, at times, get pictures, and at other times, you will just get me. I hope I don't disappoint.

Ugly but Delicious: Whole-Wheat Rigatoni with Zucchini, Mint and Ricotta

1 pound whole-wheat rigatoni
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium zucchini, diced
15-20 fresh basil leaves, shredded
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, shredded
10-15 fresh mint leaves, shredded
1 tablespoon butter, chopped into pieces
16 ounces fresh ricotta
1/2 cup parmesan

Prepare the pasta al dente, or however you like it.

Heat a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the oil and saute the onions for 3-4 minutes, until they begin to soften. Add the garlic and saute 2 minutes more, then add the zucchini.

While the zucchini cooks, combine the ricotta, parmesan and butter in a large bowl.

I like my zucchini crunchy, so I let it cook about 3-4 minutes. When it is as soft as you like, add the herbs and remove from heat. Add the pasta and the vegetable-herb mixture to the bowl with the cheese. Mix well, salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Or, if you are like me and require a hot lunch every day to feel like a sane person, portion into tupperware for lunches at work. I can get a week's worth from this recipe.

French Toast, Pamela's-Style

In which Lauren turns whole wheat bread into something very, very unhealthy

Pamela's doesn't have a website. It doesn't take credit cards. The servers don't wear uniforms. The chairs don't match, and they sometimes serve your coffee in a Styrofoam cup. But when you taste the pancakes, you understand: Pamela's doesn't care about this stuff, because Pamela's doesn't have to. The pancakes will keep you coming back.

Pamela's pancakes are somewhere between crepes and regular pancakes: spongy and absorbent in the middle with crunchy edges that disintegrate in your mouth in buttery explosions. You can order them plain, or you can fruit them up like me, with the diner's signature blend of berries, brown sugar and sour cream. Steal a lacy, crumbling edge piece off my plate, and be prepared for my wrath. These are the Helen-of-Troy of pancakes.

My former college roommate Lisa is taking a workshop in the 'Burgh this weekend, and she's free on Sunday morning. A two-time Pamela's champ, Lisa is not one to miss the chance for the Pamela's hat trick. As we made plans to meet there tomorrow, she said, "You know, I did a pretty good job recreating Pamela's pancakes at home."

Amazingly, I had never attempted this feat myself. Which got me thinking last night: Lauren has eggs. Lauren has sour cream. Lauren has brown sugar. And Lauren has glistening organic blackberries burning a hole in her counter. What Lauren doesn't have is the will to create a shabby reproduction of Pamela's perfect pancakes.

And thus, Blackberry French Toast was born.

Pamela's-Inspired Blackberry French Toast
Makes 2 servings

2 eggs
A few good splashes of milk
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 slices whole wheat bread
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup sour cream
6 tablespoons brown sugar
6 oz fresh blackberries

Whisk together eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla. Dip the slices of bread in the egg mixture one by one, then let them sit in the bowl for a few minutes until all of the mixture has been absorbed. If you are worried things will get too mushy, flip the stack of bread over a few times.

To keep the toast warm, set your oven to 200 degrees and put an oven-safe plate in there. You can eat this cold, but it's so much better warm. If you are feeling really Martha Stewart, warm your serving plates as well.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Melt 1/2 tablespoon of butter and add three slices of the bread to the skillet. Grill until the bread has enough integrity to flip and is light brown on one side (3-4 minutes), then flip it. While the second side cooks, top each slice with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar. When the second side is brown and the sugar has started to melt, stack the three slices up and transfer them to the oven. Repeat with the remaining butter and bread.

Arrange three slices of bread on each serving plate. Top with two tablespoons of room-temperature sour cream and half of the blackberries. Serve immediately.

Learn from my mistakes:
1. Don't try to flip the toasts until they have enough integrity to go on the spatula. When they go onto the spatula easily, chances are they are golden brown on the bottom. Perfect.
2. Do not entertain thoughts about how you made perfectly healthy whole wheat bread into what is essentially a sugary dessert while consuming your French toast. Shut up and enjoy it.

You can find Pamela's P&G Diner at four guaranteed locations in Pittsburgh: the Strip District (21st Street), Squirrel Hill (5813 Forbes Ave.), Oakland (3703 Forbes Ave.) and Shadyside (5527 Walnut St.). I can neither confirm nor deny rumors of a fifth location in Millvale. Also, I am pretty sure that French toast is on the menu, but... the pancakes...

Spring Quiche and the Perfect Gift for Mom

In which Lauren supports food bloggers by buying their cookbooks


I started this blog in earnest within the last month. The whole idea started here, which eventually sent me here and then here and here and here. I somehow missed the whole blog explosion over the last three years, yet in the six months since Matthew showed up in my life, I not only have a feed reader, but approximately 30 food blog subscriptions and a del.icio.us profile full of other people's recipes. And now, my own site. Wow.

I was a French literature major in college--my French acquaintances always said I spoke like a 19th century novel thanks to my studies. During my semester abroad in Paris, I was fortunate to live with an amazing cook. Mme Biard was a widow who lived in a vintage apartment in the 16th arrondissement, which I was told was very bourgeois. Mme Biard went to market every day , which at the time boggled the mind of this Midwestern farm town girl. She never made a chicken breast without pounding it into a cutlet and topping it with a delicate sauce. She lit her ancient stove with a match and served meals in a dining room with gilded moldings. Mme Biard introduced me to endives with ham, and Dover sole, and ratatouille. She was also extremely worried about my wanton tendency to eat pasta for every meal she did not prepare. (I still do this.)

So to make a long story short, I passed my love affair with Paris on to my mother via our tummies and mouths. For Mother's Day this year, I wanted to get her something special. I was excited about this new venture of mine and wanted to show her the (well-earned) successes that bloggers sometimes find... so I got her a copy of Clotilde's just-released and gorgeous new book, so we could relive memories of Parisian food together. I loved the book. I was sad to see it go to Indiana. (I hope Mom likes it too.)

Mom came to visit this last weekend, and we made a glut of recipes from or inspired by Clotilde... starting with a quiche. When I told Mom we were having quiche and that I had never made a crust, she cast a vote of confidence by saying, "I've always hated making pie crusts."

To both of our amazement, however, Clotilde's crust was a breeze. If you are scared of making crusts and you own a food processor, give it a try. Phobia conquered. I foresee many tarts in my future.

And as for the filling, asparagus is in season even at the big, bad, commercial grocery store in Pittsburgh right now. I had some goat cheese around the house because I am an addict. In-season asparagus + warm, creamy goatieness + eggs and cream + Clotilde's crust = a fantastic spring brunch with your parents.

Asparagus and Goat Cheese Quiche
Inspired by Clotilde

For the crust (which is also in the book):
1 cup flour
1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp ice-cold water (or more as needed)

Combine the flour, salt and butter in the food processor until combined. Add the egg and run the processor until the dough forms a ball. At first, nothing will happen, but after a few seconds, the dough will come together all at once. If you need a little more moisture, add ice water a teaspoon at a time.

Dump the ball out of the processor, shape it gently into a slightly flattened ball, cover it tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. (I did overnight.)

For the filling (based on my fridge):
1 bunch asparagus
4 oz goat cheese, cut into cubes and crumbles
4 eggs
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup half-and-half
A few scrapes of fresh nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch pie pan.

Take the dough out of the fridge and let rest at room temperature until it is warm enough to roll out. This took about 20 minutes for me.

Meanwhile, blanch the aspargus for five minutes in lightly salted boiling water, until it is just tender. Drain and dry.

Whisk together the eggs, cream, half-and-half, nutmeg, salt and pepper in a bowl and set aside.

Roll the crust out to a 12-inch circle. Transfer to the greased pie shell. Trim and crimp the edges, then poke it all over with a fork. Bake for 7 minutes with no fillings.

Remove the shell from the oven and arrange the blanched asparagus in the bottom of the plate. My asparagus was too long and bountiful to make the spoke pattern, so I alternated the spears in two layers to create the cute rows you see above. Top with the goat cheese, then pour the egg mixture on top.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until the eggs are set. Turn off the oven and let the quiche rest in the oven for 5 more minutes. Then remove and serve! Also delicious as breakfast for the rest of the week, fyi...

And now, learn from my mistakes:
1. Yeah, poke holes all over the crust with your fork before you bake it. Don't miss the sides; if you do, your sides may... um... collapse somewhat and make big bubbles. You can ask your mom to tame the bubbles if she is around.
2. If a spoke pattern of asparagus is important to you, remember to cut it small enough. I had mentally planned for spokes but didn't plan ahead. Good thing the crosshatch pattern had such a fun result!
3. If all of the egg mixture doesn't fit in the shell, it's not absolutely required to keep pouring. No one will know if 1/4 cup of eggs goes down the drain... but they might notice if the side of the crust that happened to collapse because you didn't poke it has egg outside as well as in.

P.S. As I was buying the Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook for Mom, I had to spend another $12.50 so I could get free shipping, so I got another food blogger's cookbook for myself. More on that later!

Endive Lettuce Cups with Citrus "Caesar" Vinaigrette and Frico

In which Lauren makes a Caesar salad that is... well... actually not a Caesar at all.

Anything that features garlic and hard Italian cheese in a starring role is on my stuff-to-eat list. I love Caesars, but there are some challenges to creating a great new Caesar: 1. Isn't the point of a Caesar salad that you already know exactly what's in it? and 2. SOME PEOPLE don't like anchovies.

So I could have done a wrap or a pizza or something that puts the Caesar into bread somehow - again, yummy - but I'm really trying to make myself eat more salad, so instead I tried to find a way to make a beautiful, different sort of Caesar. The payoff came from knocking off two recipes at once: a gorgeous use of endive from a Christmas present cookbook by Dave Lieberman, and a Caesar-inspired vinaigrette from Michael Chiarello. Presented below is the mashed-up recipe I created from them.

Despite this being my entry for HHDD #12: Caesar Salad, I've realized since I made it that this isn't actually a Caesar at all. It doesn't have anchovies because of SOME PEOPLE and there's no egg. There isn't even any bread. But if you like citrus, love cheese and are a sucker for a fun presentation, this is the salad for you.

Endive Lettuce Cups with Citrus Vinaigrette and Frico

Citrus "Caesar" Vinaigrette
2 garlic cloves
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon TJ's Orange Muscat Champagne vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 dash hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon fresh coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 cup pure olive oil (or to your own vinegar-olive oil ratio taste)
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan

Chop the garlic and mash with the lemon zest and salt to create a paste. Put the paste in a bowl and whisk together the vinegar, lemon juice, Worchestershire, hot sauce and pepper. Whisking quickly, add the olive oil in a light stream until the the vinaigrette has your preferred consistency. Stir in the parmesan and set aside at room temperature.

Endive Cups
2-3 large heads of endive
1/2 head radicchio
3-4 ounces baby arugula

Wash all the lettuce well. Take the largest, nicest leaves off the outside of the endives. If they are large, plan on 1-2 per person; if they are small, like mine were, plan on 3-4 per person. Arrange the leaves like cups on your serving platter.

Shred the radicchio, arugula and remaining endive and toss. The lettuces need to be cut small in order to stay in the endive cups. Divide the lettuce between the reserved endive leaves.

Frico
Your goal is one long, thin frico cracker per endive cup. The amount of parmesan you need to accomplish this will vary, so just have a good store of shredded, not grated, parmesan by your side. Those shreds should be fairly large. I used the small side of the box grater but not the microplane.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Carefully put 1-2 tablespoons of parmesan into a long, narrow strip in the pan. You can do more than one at a time. Heat for 2-3 minutes until golden brown, then remove the pan from the heat for 1 minute. Slowly and gently, peel the frico from the bottom of the pan and flip it. Return the pan to the heat and cook for one more minute, then carefully remove the frico from the pan to a paper towel to cool. Repeat until you have enough frico for all your endive cups.

Top the endive cups with vinaigrette, then give each cup a salty and deliciously crispy frico cracker. Serve immediately.

Learn from my mistakes:
1. Get the biggest endive heads that you can find. Mine were tiny, and they barely held any lettuce at all. Getting the frico to balance in the endive cups was a challenge, too, given their diminutive size.
2. Don't try to use a nonstick pan that has a nubbly bottom, like my Calphalon, for the frico. The shreds go into the nubs and it's just a mess.
3. Frico don't keep, not even for a 10-minute trip in the car. By the time I took my prepared creation over to Matthew's for dinner, they had gone a little soft. Have the endive cups ready-to-go before you make the frico, and serve immediately.
4. If you don't have PEOPLE who don't like anchovies, you could certainly mash some in with the garlic and salt. They'd be delicious.

Indian-Spiced Picnic

In which Lauren plans a party for three and ends up with eleven (if you count cats)

The day my Bon Appetit magazine comes in the mail each month is my birthday. I tear into it like Christmas morning, and I devour it in one sitting. I know I can get all the recipes online, but I derive such pleasure from that monthly gift in the mailbox, I could never cancel it.

So I had picked the recipe for Bombay Sliders out from the moment I had torn into the March issue. My biggest challenge with the magazine--other than the fact that every recipe seems to call for pounds and pounds of meat--is that there simply aren’t enough guaranteed tummies around to fill for me to make every recipe that looks fun. I don’t want to turn into the person at the office who ruins everyone’s diet, and I don’t want to eat all of it myself. Also, I am not Midas, though I do blow a disproportionate amount of my paycheck on food.

So this dinner was definitely an all-dishes-dirty marathon, but I also was able to pull it together in an afternoon without feeling rushed. Because the menu was planned, but the party wasn’t. Matthew and I had invited one person to hang out for the night, and that grew to two people, and then four, and by the end of the night, seven friends and two cats.

And for an accidental downtown rooftop party in late spring, this is a great menu. It’s light, easy to make in advance, and packs a delectable punch that’s between Indian takeout and All-American picnic. I served the burgers with three salads: one green, one grain and one fruit.

Bombay Sliders
adapted from Bon Appetit March 2007

So you’ll see a trend: I usually think that Bon Appetit recipes call for too much meat (at minimum, too much for my pocketbook!).
So as is almost always the case, I halved the ground turkey from the original recipe but did not halve the rest of the ingredients. One pound of meat made 8 mini burgers, just a few short of what the full load of meat promised. And oh. my. god. Do not skip these burgers. Skip the salad, buy premade rolls and mayo, but do what you have to do to eat these burgers. And don’t do like me: I put the sauce onto the burgers, instead of on the toppings. Thanks to this triumph of intellect, the toppings slid all over the place, but I don’t care: smear my face with this sauce and I’ll be a happy (golden) lady.

Sauce
3/4 cup mayonnaise, divided
2 1/4 teaspoons curry powder
1 1/2 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 1/2 tablespoons ketchup
1 garlic clove, minced

Mix it up. Let warm to room temperature while burgers cook, but it’s mayo, so refridgerate if you’re making it ahead.

Burgers
1 pound ground turkey
1/4 cup mayonnaise
6 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup minced green onions
2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
2 teaspoons ground cumin
4 teaspoons curry powder
3/4 teaspoon Hungarian half-sharp paprika
1 teaspoon salt

8 small dinner rolls, cut horizontally in half, lightly toasted
Slices of cucumber, red onion and tomato, for toppings

Combine burger ingredients in a large bowl. I love this part, but if you hate it, use a fork for the love of god. Divide into 8 equal portions, and form them into 1/2 inch think mini-burger. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook about 4 minutes per side, until cooked through.
Place patties on rolls, add toppings and then top with sauce.

Mango, Avocado and Arugula Salad with Peanut-Coconut Dressing
adapted from Bon Appetit May 2007

I have to agree with Deb: arugula is just about the best green ever. Forget portioning it out neatly on plates; I just tossed the whole $2.69 organic Trader Joe’s bag (I love it!) into the salad bowl. And I chunked the mangos and avocados instead of slicing, and added chunked cucumber also--whatever was left from the cuke that topped the burgers. Light coconut milk worked great in the dressing, and the spicy arugula teams so nicely with sweet fruit and creamy avocado. (The recipe would have made the post too long, and I barely changed it, so click the link to see.)

Curried Couscous
Adapted from Barefoot Contessa

I halved the amount of grain in Ina’s recipe, at the time thinking there would only be three people for dinner. I threw this together on the fly without planning a grocery trip, so the recipe below represents what I actually had on hand and things I altered to match the rest of the flavors in the menu. With just half the amount of couscous, it still made plenty to feed everyone… if you don’t count the latecomers who have no idea it ever existed. This salad is perfect for a picnic: it’s gorgeous, vibrant yellow; tasty hot, cold or at room temperature; and safe to leave out of the fridge for a while (no eggs). Not bad for a salad that takes as long to make as couscous! I imagine a red curry powder would be yummy if you’re looking for a kick.

1 1/2 cups couscous
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup dried raisins
1/4 cup peanuts
2 scallions, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
1/4 cup small-diced red onion

Melt butter in a pan, then add water. When boiling, add couscous, cover and turn of the heat. Let sit for 5 minutes while you chop and mix, then fluff with a fork. In a separate dish, mix the yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, spices and seasonings. Add the couscous and the rest of the colorful, crunchy stuff.

Simple, Basic Fruit Salad
I prefer honey to sugar on fruit salad. That unique sweet tang just works for me on fruit. Just mix the stuff up, and of course you can use whatever you have lying around. Mint and mangoes gave this one a matchy-matchy feeling with the rest of the meal.

One banana, halved lengthwise and sliced
Two mangos, diced
One apple, diced
One pint strawberries, sliced
A glob or two of honey, to taste
A small handful of mint, chopped fine