Category Archives: Food

Some desserts are pretty and sweet. They shout with their pastel beauty, proclaiming their sweetness for all the world to see. Other desserts are quiet about things, content to blend into the background and softly coo to those looking for a more subtle experience. It took me years to grow out of that sickly-sweet-loving dessert group, and there are most certainly days when nothing but a super-sweet piece of funfetti cake with a mile of frosting will do. For the rest of the time, when I need something with just a hint or dusting of sugar, I turn to a dish like babinka.

There are a bazillion variations on this Filipino dessert, and a gazillion different names, but it’s basically a sweet sticky rice that is sweetened with condensed milk and some form of sugar, then baked to meld the flavors and solidify into a gelatinous mass that manages to stay intact and chewy.

My Mom brought a bag of babinka ingredients and a recipe card when last she visited us (it feels so long ago) and I finally got around to making my first batch. She likes to enjoy a square of this for breakfast in the winter, which is indeed a good idea. I like mine as an after-lunch dessert, or a snack at any other time of the day really.

Here’s the recipe if you want something simple and plain, but sweet enough to qualify as a dessert.

Ingredients:

2 cups sweet sticky rice

4 cups water

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 can coconut milk (solid portion only)

Brown or light brown sugar (3/4 cup packed, or to taste)

Method:

Cook the rice in the water until done (I used a rice cooker). It seemed to be a little more watery than usual, but I just added the milk and solid coconut right into the rice and stirred and it started to come together. Pour this into an 8” x 8” baking dish and sprinkle with the brown sugar, as much or as little as you like. Bake at 325 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes. Allow to cool for at least half an hour (it will come together if allowed to sit a while). Cut and serve in squares as desired.

The New York Times recently published a special cooking section with “24 Brilliant Recipes For Everyone Who Hates Doing the Dishes” which obviously caught my attention. It’s a collection of recipes that only require one pot, pan or skillet to cook to completion. That is my kind of cooking, and it should speak to anyone who has to do the dishes (which admittedly isn’t always me). A quick google search will put you in touch to links for these recipes, because in all honesty I just don’t feel like typing all that shit out. If you want to eat, you’re going to have to put in a little effort too. And maybe get a subscription – I already have one so maybe I get access that non-subscribers don’t. 

I started with the recipe for ‘Sausages and Brussels Sprouts with Honey Mustard’ which was excellent, especially at the tail-end of winter when the wind was still whipping around and the ground remained frozen. Besides, how can one go wrong with sausage? It’s a wonderful thing. For the second dinner, and the one featured in the photos here, I opted to try the ‘Spiced Chickpea Stew with Coconut and Turmeric’. 

From the first time my five or six year old self strode into Pepe’s Italian Restaurant in a little house in Amsterdam, New York, I’ve loved garbanzo beans. In that long-since closed happy place of childhood memories, they marinated the garbanzos in a delicious mix of spices, onions, and some special marinade that tenderized and flavored them in a manner I have to find or replicate to this day. A stew of garbanzos sounded like it was tailor-made for me, and since I love coconut milk, and the healthy servings of turmeric, garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes that went into the recipe, I expected great things from this. Mostly, those great expectations were almost met, but perhaps I wanted a bit more. 

The best part of the stew was the addition of the yogurt and mint leaves – both of which were oh-so-much-more than mere garnishes: thanks to the spiciness of the dish, that substantial dollop of yogurt and its requisite sprinkling of chopped mint were integral for tempering the heat. Just something to keep in mind if you want to try this one out. 

Despite their rather unimaginative yet perfectly succinct name, these ‘Quick Asian Fishcakes’ are brought to you by the original Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver. His ‘Quick & Easy Meals’ series offers simple but insanely good recipes that usually use five or less ingredients. In my limited cooking experience, the simple recipes are typically the best, as they tend to make the most of their ingredients, allowing the natural flavors to shine and work together in magical alchemy.

As someone who is a big fan of all sorts of cakes – chocolate, almond, crab, pound and otherwise – I’ve been largely reticent to try my hand at making a fishcake. I just assumed it would fall apart like most of most kitchen endeavors of late. (Stay tuned for a massive Jello fail tale right on the heels of this mixed rainbow success.)

As for these fishcakes, Mr. Oliver lays out a simple process with even simpler ingredients. A single stalk of lemon grass is “whacked” on the counter, the outer tough layers removed, then it is chopped into fine bits. A thick inch of ginger is chopped finely as well, as is a half cup of fresh cilantro. A piece of skinless salmon is placed on top of the mixed ingredients, half of which is chopped into half-inch cubes, the other half is basically pulverized with enough cuts of the knife to turn it into a mushy mash. Add some salt and pepper then mix all the salmon together and divide into however many fishcakes you want to make. (I opted for two larger ones.) I was skeptical about the lack of a binding agent, but the mashed half of the salmon acts as such, and the end result is proof of this. I used sesame oil to keep things true to the Asian flavors, and fried each about four minutes per side. They stayed intact, to my happy surprise, but even better was the flavor. Topped with some sweet red chili sauce, this is going to be my new staple. If you can chop, you can do this.

The Philippines is a wondrous place, but for food they have some questionable offerings (among some of my favorite dishes in the world). Take this jello dessert for instance, reportedly popularized by the Goldilocks chain. It’s called ‘Cathedral Windows’ and is just a collection of various jellos bound by a creamy gelatin shell, and when it’s cut open it bears the resemblance of stained glass. As soon as I saw photos of this, I knew I had to make it for New Year’s Eve, when Suzie and her family join us for all sorts of gaudy food-stuffs. (Usually we do a fondue and something from the deep fryer.) This year it was all about the jello, and once I told Suzie what I was making she challenged me to a jello contest. I pushed back, knowing it would be way too much jello, but Suzie gets what she wants so I relented and accepted. Little did she know how heavy the gauntlet was that she had thrown down.

Jello is not something I’ve had in years. Never one for Jello shots, I’m sure I had one or two in my 20’s, but for any substantial jello sampling I’d have to go back three decades, and even then, my childhood was now one where jello was a staple. The singular and wonderful exception was the Ko Jello mold – but that had so many other ‘real’ ingredients like fruit and sour cream layers that it didn’t really feel like your standard jello – the wobbly and jiggly stuff of childhood parties and kitschy 50’s throwback scenes. It was time for a #JelloRenaissance.

From the start, I realized this would be about appearance versus actual taste and substance. The wow factor, if there would be any, would have to come from the looks of the thing, because there is just so much you can do to improve the sweet but bland taste of jello. For New Year’s Eve that was perfect.

It took about two days, because to get the layered rainbow pieces I had to make five separate batches of jello, one right after the other, then cool each layer before another could be added. It’s more time-consuming than labor intensive. In order to make the jello extra firm, so it would hold its shape when enmeshed within the creamy jello binding, I doubled the powder and gelatin for the recipe (it calls for two cups of water, so I only used one). Luckily, jello is extremely cheap and it’s not a big deal to double the packets to get the same amount of product needed. Once the five colors were cooled, and the rainbow layer project complete, it was time to make the creamy binding mix that would, ideally, hold the whole thing together. From articles I’d read online, it seemed that Knox gelatin was the brand to go with, and happy circumstance had a box of it on-hand at Fresh Market. With some evaporated milk, condensed milk and heavy cream, along with some additional sugar, this was no light dessert. Surely people have died from such a mix. Oh well, it was New Year’s Eve, and if you’re gonna go out, go out with a bang at the stroke of midnight.

I lined a bundt pan with several cut-out pieces of the layered rainbow jello, then combined cubes of all the colors with the liquid cream mix and ladled them gently into the pan. Just to be safe, and since there was an enormous amount of extra jello, I poured another smaller batch into a silicone bundt pan. From that point on it was in the hands of fate. Would it set up enough to hold its shape? Would it taste as godawfully gaudy as it looked? And would my stomach explode if I had a slice of it? Yes, yes, and no. If you like jello, you’ll probably like this, but I cannot in good conscience recommend it, so I’m not including the whole recipe. (Many variations are available online, and the only limits on your creative expression are whatever limits you impose yourself. For me it was about just getting the damn thing done in time for it to set. Suzie would be giving me a run for my jello money (about $1.19 per box) so I had to pull out all the stops.

We forgot to officially vote on whose was better, but I think I had the edge for presentation and she had the edge for taste. Perhaps we will try an aspic for the tie-breaker.

My friend Marline was just expounding upon how she loved a drop cookie and didn’t bother with those that required cooling and rolling and cutting. I’m in complete agreement, as I am on so many of Marline’s offerings of wisdom. Case in point: this simple pistachio cookie, which takes the short-cut around the nut scene and relies on the use of pistachio pudding mix for its flavor and color, and I couldn’t be happier to cut corners, especially when the results are so tasty.

One day I’ll go the Martha/Ina route of growing my own pistachios, harvesting them at their optimum time, curing and baking and drying or whatever the fuck we do to make pistachios palatable, then chopping and pulverizing in an old-school mortar and pestle – but until such time that a millionaire lifestyle of leisure and frou-frouery comes my way, it’s got to be Jello instant fucking pudding. It’s so fine and pretty! Once the liquids hit that powder it’s like St. Fucking Patrick’s Day without all the vomiting and passing out.

Here’s the recipe I found online somewhere (I believe it was EatMoveMake.com):

Pistachio Cookies

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 2 packages pistachio instant pudding mix (3.4 ozs)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 12 oz bag semi-sweet chocolate chips (or white chocolate chips)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In mixer, cream together eggs, butter and pudding mix until combined and smooth. (Watch it turn as green as Elphaba!) Stir in vanilla, then add flour and baking soda (I sifted these in). Fold in chocolate chips. (I switched out the semi-sweet chocolate for white chocolate for a lighter look and flavor.)
3. Drop teaspoons of dough an inch apart onto ungreased baking sheet. (I did a tablespoon of dough and spaced them two inches apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.) Bake 12-14 minutes. Cookies will have a golden tint to edges but still be very soft. Cool completely then store in an airtight container. Deliver to your friends because you will have a lot of cookies. Or eat them all yourself.

This recipe popped up on my Instagram feed, or maybe it was FaceBook – what’s the damn difference these days? Big brother is always listening. He hears everything. In about two seconds I’ll get an ad for ‘Big Brother’ if that’s still a television show. Wait and see. Anyway, I digress. (But just in case, Tom Ford Tom Ford Tom Ford…) This is a cookie post, since it’s cookie season, so let’s do this, Cookies. (Try reading the word ‘cookies’ a couple of times and focusing on it – sounds ridiculously weird, right? Any word will do that if you give it enough time.) So many digressions… I wonder why I don’t want to write this post and give you the recipe…

Perhaps it’s because this one was a mixed bag for me. The beginning and end result worked out well enough. These are mint chocolate cookies – bite-sized for easy popping into the mouth – and they have a unique texture of crunch (thanks to the granulated sugar and crushed peppermint candy coating – as well as the weird batter). They taste decent enough too, and I suppose that’s the main goal. It’s just that I had a major issue with the dough once it was refrigerated.

The recipe, as copied exactly from ‘The Incredible Egg’ below, indicated it’s all right to refrigerate the batter overnight. This turned out to be a godsend, as I’d forgotten I had plans one evening just as I was finishing the batter. I covered it and set it in the fridge then went on my merry way. “Chilled dough is easier to handle” they said…

The next morning when I went to assemble the cookies, I could barely cut through the dough. I’m not a weak person. I’ve been doing push-ups. Maybe even a plank or two. But this batter was solid as a rock. Spoons were being bent in service of coaxing some out. I chipped away at it until I had enough to form a ball, and it became slightly more pliable with the heat of my hand, but my God what an ordeal to struggle for each and every cookie, and I was seriously dismayed about what kind of cookie would result from such a mess.

Surprisingly, their consistency changed upon baking. What once was impenetrable suddenly became moist and slightly chewy. What once was hard now was soft, as if these cookies had shot their wad and were languidly drooping like a drained dick. 

After rolling them in sugar and a couple of crushed candy canes, they gained a gleam and crunch that added to their interest, and the final product was a cookie unlike any I’d ever made before. (And I have made at least three different varieties of cookies in the last ten years alone.) As well as they went over, I don’t think I’ll be doing them again. That dough is just too difficult. Nobody has time for a difficult dough. Life is difficult enough; we don’t need the batter to be. But just in case you want to give it a go, because there’s a good chance I did something to fuck it all up, here’s the recipe. 

ELF’S BITE-SIZED CHOCOLATE PEPPERMINT CRINKLES

DIRECTIONS (please note VERBS and ACTION words in bold and capitalized, because this recipe is demanding!)

MIX flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in large bowl.

BEAT 2 cups sugar, cooled melted chocolate, eggs, oil and peppermint extract in mixer bowl on medium speed until blended. Gradually ADD flour mixture, beating on low speed until blended.

REFRIGERATE, covered, until firm enough to shape, about 1 hour or overnight.

HEAT oven to 350°F. MIX powdered sugar and crushed candy in small bowl. Work with 1/3 of the dough at a time, keeping remaining dough refrigerated. SHAPE dough into 1-inch balls; roll in granulated sugar first and then in crushed candy mixture. PLACE 2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined or ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE in 350°F oven until lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. COOL on baking sheets 1 to 2 minutes. REMOVE to wire racks; cool completely.

Patience in cooking is something I’ve gradually learned to appreciate over the years. There was a time when baking something twice or using more than one pot was a deal-breaker as to whether or not I would try a recipe. I loved to cook – to an extent – but anything that went beyond those ridiculously stringent standards was not for me. Leave the twice-baked potatoes to Dolores. Let Diana do the biscotti. If you need the dough to be chilled before you can bake it, give it to Andy. I just didn’t want to be bothered.

Now that I’m getting older (as we all are – yes, even you) I’ve come around to appreciating these steps in cooking, particularly in baking, and I find that they are calming. It appeals to my Virgo nature to follow instructions in precise ways, to take one step at a time and appreciate and enjoy every methodical pause along the process. There is a certain peace and tranquility in faithfully executing a recipe, a sense of satisfaction at every marker on the way. The simple sifting of dry ingredients, for example, a step I’d omitted as frivolous for years mostly because I didn’t want to wash the strainer, now feels like an integral and worthwhile action, not only for providing consistency and removing hard, unwanted clumps or detritus, but also for the mental conditioning of completing a smaller task in service of the grander scheme. Such little accomplishments build upon each other, and when you break life down into these smaller chunks, almost anything can feel surmountable.

Biscotti is one of those recipes I’d never wanted to try because you had to bake it twice. It was also something I’d never gotten into until recent years, when my palette could appreciate the strong texture and subtle, not-too-sweet flavor. The recipe I used called for dried cranberries, another addition, like raisins, that I’ve gradually come around to in my old(er) age. There were sliced almonds too, accentuating the almond extract that gave it a traditional biscotti flavor (at least, the biscotti I tend to favor). The only slight snag came with the stickiness of the batter. Though I’d floured my hands as instructed, it did little to mitigate the difficulty of working and shaping the batter into two long logs. I opted for one larger loaf, which spread out slightly more than expected when baked. That made for larger slices, but also for more impediments in slicing them after the first bake.

(There was more room for cracking and breaking, and I need to figure out the best time to cut – I tried just as soon as they were cool enough to touch, as guided by the recipe, but it felt a bit too soon.) These are the little nuances that come with practice, and such imperfections are the best way to improve. It’s a good lesson for me.

Every now and then a blog post needs an exclamation point. This is one of this now and then moments. Well, I guess it’s more now than then. So take it and eat it. Here’s a Japanese hot-pot hodgepodge I put together on a slow Sunday that kept us snowbound. It’s the perfect sort of recipe for such a day. Simple and relatively quick, but with a hearty and ample yield. It’s hardy too, taking all sorts of battering and variations (for instance, I didn’t have the mirin for this, nor did I have any clue as to what might be a comparable substitute, so I tried some rice wine vinegar and it turned out just fine). 

‘Tis the season for soups and stews and Japanese hot-pots.

Within one of the interior rooms of Savannah’s E. Shaver, Bookseller store is a local section of all the city’s enchantments, including several cookbooks. One contained this super-simple recipe for pecan pralines. Previously, all the other versions I’d read included some candy-making fanciness which scared the bejesus out of me (I will never be someone who measures candy temperatures because burning sugar in any capacity is a well-documented bad idea for me.) However, this one gets all the cooking done in the microwave (so be sure if you try this you have a super-safe-for-the-microwave bowl because it gets hot, hot, hot).

The ingredients can be counted on one finger: one cup of sugar, one cup of packed brown sugar, ½ cup of water, 1 cup of roughly chopped pecans, and 2 Tbsp. margarine or butter. You put the sugars and water into a bowl and stir until sugar is dissolved, then microwave for 6 minutes, stirring once and then microwaving it for two more minutes. While it’s spinning and bubbling, chop up the butter into small pieces and freeze. Not sure why that’s important, but it is. When the sugar mixture is finished, it should be brown and dangerously hot. Carefully add the pecans and frozen butter pieces to this and stir until it thickens a bit. Drop by heaping tablespoon onto parchment or waxed paper in the shape of a praline. Let cool and you should have a close approximation of the classic southern candy, all without having to burn down the kitchen with boiling stovetop sugar.

The first few will be runny, but turn out shiny. The last few are thicker, but murkier. I will refine and see if I can find a happy medium, as this is a simple recipe worth a few shots, especially during the holiday season when typical Christmas cookies need a few sweet accents. Try one on a bowl of vanilla ice cream for an extra dose of decadence, or with your morning cup of tea when you need an extra sugar kick.

{Serious candy-makers will likely find all sorts of faults with this method, and they can probably spin perfectly-tempered sugar around me in pretty rings, but all I care about is ease and simplicity, and something that tastes and looks and feels remotely like the real deal – to that end, this recipe is genius.}

From a major kitchen failure to this grand kitchen triumph, my cooking journey this past week has been filled with ups and downs. The healthy route and almond flour trail led to somewhere abysmal, wasting a perfectly good pineapple and a pretty plate in the process. This endeavor – Enchiladas Verdes in a tomatillo sauce- is a recipe from Pati Jinich, and she has always proven a fail-proof inspiration.

I’ve never been one to order enchiladas when out, but when I saw the ease of preparing this dish on Pati’s Mexican Table, I decided to give it a whirl. It worked out wonderfully. Check it out on her website here, and I’ll give a few pointers on what worked for me.

I got up a little earlier than usual to do the chicken part of it. If that can be done before work, the rest is much easier. By the time I hopped in the shower, the chicken had been boiled and shredded and stored in the fridge. In the past I failed to get the chicken out of the boiling water on time, choosing to play it super-safe and letting it get all sorts of tough. A good ten to fifteen minutes for a couple of chicken breasts works well – and I find that a lower boil works better than a furious one. I used breasts with the bones and the skin on for extra flavor – the stock is so much better that way.

When I got home from work, I assembled the tomatillo sauce. A food processr is the recommended method of blending it all together, but I’ve been using an immersion blender because it’s so much easier to clean. (Or so I’m told – you think I can cook AND clean? Please.) The recipe calls for 2 serrano chili peppers, but one is more than enough heat for me. The full cup of cilantro might seem excessive, especially for those not fans of the herb, but it’s vital here, and I realized that so many previous dishes I’ve tried may have suffered due to a reticence to go full-in on my cilantro portions. The more the merrier.

For the corn tortillas, do not omit the flash oil-frying step. It will toughen up the tortillas making them strong enough to handle their filling and surrounding sauce. Plus it adds another layer of decadent flavor.

Don’t be afraid that there is too much sauce – there won’t be. The enchiladas should basically be swimming in it, as they will absorb some and are designed to be soaked in all that gloriousness. The topping of queso fresco and cream is, of course, my favorite part.

Another winning dinner experience courtesy of Pati Jinich, who has yet to let me down. I think I’m ready to try her Sanborns’ Swiss Chicken Enchiladas recipe next… stay tuned.

It was the first truly dreary day of the fall, a Sunday on which it rained from morning to late afternoon. A heavy, mostly windless rain fell dismally down, an undesirable situation which found Andy rushing out to prepare the pool for closing. Inside, there was only one thing to do: make soup. 

The previous day I’d tried my hand at a meatloaf, and there was some pork left over from the endeavor. I put that into a large pot, rendered some fat, added a chopped onion, a bit of garlic, some carrots, then a few cups of water after things wilted down a bit. After bringing it to a rolling boil, I found some leftover chicken stock and added that. Trying to be healthier (by pretending there wasn’t a bit of pork involved), I went easy on the salt, but added a dried and seeded guajillo pepper for some heat. 

When Andy returned from the grocery store with spinach in tow, I added that at the last few minutes of cooking, then boiled up a six-minute egg. Some chopped fresh parsley and the soup was done. Soup is good for the soul not only in the eating, but in the making.