Olive Oil Cake

I am definitely a novice baker. For this weekend's practice I chose to make the Olive Oil Cake recipe that appeared in the September 2009 issue of bon appetit. I'll let this person be the copyright breaker. It is a simple recipe and I had everything on hand except for an orange to zest.

Here is what it looked like after cooling on a rack

and then sliced

I'm not sure if it supposed to get such a hard crust. To me this is more a loaf like pumpkin bread rather than cake. I won't quibble over names because the result was tasty. Time to stop writing and enjoy the Saturday afternoon treats!

Tomato and Bread Soup

I love soup very much.  Tomatoes are still filling the store shelves so I decided to try making tomato soup for the first time. I needed a recipe.  I don't have a blender (shame!) so anything that needed to be pureed was out.  I settled on something pretty simple.  The tomato and bread soup from Jack Bishop's The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook fit the parameters nicely.  It has eight ingredients and that is if you count salt and pepper.  I even had a container of vegetable stock in my freezer that I made a couple of months ago.

I have never tried to peel and seed a tomato before today.  It wasn't really an adventure.  I cut an "x" in the bottoms of the tomatoes and dropped into boiling water for a bit.  The skins came right off.  The tomatoes I got didn't have a lot of seeds either.

The last time I tried to cook tomatoes I nearly gagged on the result so I was a bit worried about how this would turn out.  The garlic and basil flavored the tomatoes nicely.   The hardest part of all this was getting the soup salted correctly.  Dried bread cubes are added to give this soup some substance.  I am not a food photographer so this is the best I could do.

I was happy with the result.

Since I didn't know how the soup would turn out I needed a backup plan.  While the soup was coming together I put some sausage and potatoes in the oven.  Mmm pork.

Turkey

No big kitchen projects this weekend. Round 1 of exams is coming so I have some extra work tasks to get done instead of playing in my kitchen.

Several years ago I picked up a copy of Giuliano Hazan's cookbook Every Night Italian and have enjoyed some of the recipes included. One of the first I made and have not made since was his Turkey with Lemon and Olives. For whatever reason this has been on my mind lately. I scored (okay paid for) some turkey yesterday when I went shopping. I can't share the recipe here but I have a photo of the finished product.

I just never would have thought that a sauce of lemon juice, anchovies, and olives would taste good on turkey. It works very well.

Mom's Fried Chicken

I would have to say that my mother's method for making fried chicken is not very traditional. I don't know who taught her this version of fried chicken. Guess I should ask!

For my first try at this I used about a pound of boneless chicken. One pound of chicken does not compute with my mother as she usually feeds an army on Sundays. Anyway, after the chicken is cleaned I cut it into smaller and/or thinner pieces to help with cooking time. Again my mother's method is sprinkle salt and garlic powder on each piece of chicken and place in a bowl. Be generous. I thought about measuring the amounts I used to help with making adjustments the next time I made this. Oh well. Hey, I thought about it! I added nearly two beaten eggs to the bowl with the chicken and a somewhat heaping quarter-cup of flour and mixed it all together to coat the chicken. I am pretty sure I got the batter about right. Maybe it should have been a little thicker.

To cook the chicken, melt Crisco in a large pan. Yup, that is Crisco shortening melting in the pan. No it is not on fire, that is just the light above my stove. My mother swears that this is the "secret ingredient" here.

Cook in the hot shortening until brown and crispy.

Cooked well your chicken will not be greasy. So there it is. I think I made it look pretty darn good. The chicken tasted okay. I definitely needed a little more salt and garlic powder. Not bad for a first attempt though. Of all my mother "recipes" that I have tried to duplicate this one came the closest to tasting like hers. Most of the time I can't even get into the same ballpark. Might be time to take another crack at meatballs. I know I have a cake frosting recipe somewhere too.

Here is my plate of chicken, buttered corn, and brown rice. Enjoy!

Green Chile Stew

Last week I saw green chiles had arrived and knew I would soon be making green chile stew. Living in New Mexico in the early 90s I had eaten green chile stew a few times. Pork? Chiles? What's not to love? Some years ago I found a recipe for green chile stew and tried it out. The stew was tasty but I didn't remove the skins from the chiles before cooking so removing them after cooking (from my mouth) ruined the experience a little. Several years passed. Last year I tried the recipe again, this time roasting the chiles and removing their skins before adding to the stew. Again, the stew was tasty, but I thought the so-called extra hot chiles I bought could have used some more heat.



This year's green chile crop has found its way to a local grocery store and snatched up a couple of pounds to produce stew. Last night I roasted the chiles and wow what a wonderful smell. I remember being in Albuquerque around this time of year and I swear someone was roasting chiles on every corner. Good smells.


The recipe for green chile stew I have is

1 lb cubed pork
1 large onion diced
3 diced garlic cloves
2 tbsp oil
1.5 cups of green chiles, roasted and skins removed
3 medium potatoes
1 cup of chopped canned tomatoes
flour for dredging
1 Tbsp salt
4 cups of water

Dredge the pork in the flour and brown in the oil, adding the onions and garlic. Cook the onions until transparent. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for about 1 hour. Easy!



I picked up the extra hot chiles again. This year's verdict is HOT! Yeah, these were extra hot. The stew was tasty and very spicy. If I am able, I will be grabbing another load of chiles from the store and freezing them after roasting so I can enjoy this year's crop a few more times.



Enjoy! I did.

Potluck Time

Last week I was invited to a potluck celebrating the start of the new academic year. Although there may have been a little sadness marking the end of summer vacation. Years ago I would told you that potlucks are lame for all the usual reasons (bad food), but I have fallen in with a crowd that cooks well and is fun to hang around.

I wasn't sure what I should bring to this one. I opted for this cake.



When cut it looks a lot like the picture in the recipe link. When I get more skilled at baking I may try one of the variants posted at the above link.

Cake. Tasty.

Pickles!

A few weekends ago I made these pickles. This was the second time I had used this particular recipe. Here are some pictures of the process. The cucumbers and onions are salted.



Then they go into the syrup



I put them in a Pyrex casserole dish for storage in the refrigerator.



I made pickles! If I make them again I will probably toss in some dried hot peppers to add some zing. There looks to be a variant on the recipe here. At some point I would like to try and make dill pickles. They seem like much more work though.

The Eggplant Preserve

Long time no post.

It isn't really summer vacation for me anymore, but I was inspired to take a shot at recreating something I remember from my younger days. Maybe my memory is clouded but I can easily picture jars covered with waxed paper containing preserved eggplant on the counter and on the basement shelves at my parent's house. Not sure if calling the jars ubiquitous would be accurate but they always did seem to be close at hand.

When looking for the recipe in my notebook I tried to remember the last time I ate preserved eggplant but I couldn't place the date. Maybe 10 years or maybe longer. Like many things I remember growing up preserved eggplant is just another thing that disappeared as I got older.

The recipe I got from my mother is not really recipe but a process. It takes three days to make this stuff, but not much work time is actually involved. (That will depend on how much eggplant you have.) The process is illustrated below.

Day 1: The Salting

I bought two eggplant totaling about 1.5 pounds for my first try at this. After peeling and slicing them relatively thin, I salted the slices and placed them in layers separated by waxed paper.



The salting was done on Friday night. By Saturday morning the eggplant had bled a fair amount of liquid.





You know you want some! Mm.

Day 2: The Soaking

On Saturday morning I wiped off the eggplant slices and put them into a mixture of three parts vinegar to one part water to cover. Eggplant floats so I put waxed paper over the top of the container and placed weight on top to keep the slices submerged.



Day 3: The Packing

On Sunday afternoon I drained the eggplant. You do have to squeeze the slices to get much, but not all the liquid out. I packed the eggplant slices in jars, layering with celery, garlic, and oregano. The jars then need to be filled with oil to cover its contents. This is important, no air bubbles can remain. Use a knife and or your hand to make sure the oil gets all around the slices. I covered the mouths of the jars with waxed paper, then put on the lids. I was able to loosely pack two pint jars.



I resisted until the following Saturday before cracking open a jar. For lunch I made a sandwich using a loaf of bread that I got from the Whole Foods across the street. The verdict: my sandwich was almost as good as I remember. When I make this again I will be sure to add a few more cloves of garlic to each jar and have a heavier hand with the oregano. I might even add some kind of hot pepper slices.



While I enjoy the remainder of my eggplant I'll have plenty of time to think about what kitchen project will be next.