it's complicated

A word about bananas and me. We have a tempestuous history. It’s not that I don’t like bananas it’s just that well with me and bananas, it’s complicated. It’s like bananas are an ex boyfriend that I remain tied to like maybe we have a kid together; or, at the very least a shared cat or a Netflix account that was never properly closed out. I do not like bananas but I love banana flavor. Banana pudding? yes. Banana cream pie? yes. Banana oatmeal cookies? yes. Banana ice cream with hot fudge sauce? good god, yes. But when it comes down to the real deal, I simply can’t. Paul assures me that this makes me a completely weird person. “What kid doesn’t like bananas?” but I simply don’t. And it’s not for lack of trying. Every few years I’ll grab a banana convinced this aversion will have mysteriously disappeared into the ether. I will focus my intention as I peel the yellow skin (and I do love peeling them) “mmmm, I like bananas. I do” And then I take two bites and gag on the second. And…adios, banana. Lying to yourself never works.

So what does a gal do when she hateth bananas but loveth banana flavored goods? She buys a bunch of bananas for the sole purpose of letting them brown on her countertop and eagerly waits until Sunday afternoon when she can make a honking loaf of banana bread with chocolate chips. Yeah, that’s right. Chocolate chips. You can thank me later.



I already loved Molly Wizenberg’s book A Homemade Life by the time I got to her recipe for banana bread with chocolate and crystallized ginger (and it's like, the third recipe). When I read her brief history of her own childhood aversion to bananas I thought “just like me!” Although, hers was more of a phobia, mine was, as with all past bouts of picky eating, a textural thing. The irony is not lost on me that the very thing that makes me not want to eat a banana plain- i.e., their mushy texture- is the exact quality that makes banana themed baked goods so damn good.

This bread for me is not without regret. I regret to inform you that even at two separate grocery stores, I could not locate crystallized ginger. So instead of driving myself crazy with another errand I decided to skip the ginger altogether. I added a few shakes of dried ginger into the dry ingredients, but truthfully, I don’t think it did a damn thing, but I do think the crystallized ginger would have made this bread transcendentally delicious. I suggest you make this bread as Molly directs. Because when it comes to baked goods, this chick knows what she’s talking about. She baked her own wedding cakes for Christ’s sake. Someday, maybe I will have the skill to be a baking powerhouse of this level, but for now, I’ll settle for the banana bread.

BANANA BREAD WITH CHOCOLATE AND CRYSTALLIZED GINGER
(from A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg)

6 tbs. unsalted butter
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
¾ cup sugar
¾ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups mashed banana (about 3)
¼ cup well stirred plain yogurt (whole fat)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a standard loaf pan with butter. Melt the butter, either in the microwave, on medium heat, in intervals, or, as I did: in a heat proof bowl placed in the preheated oven. It melted while a mashed the bananas and I didn’t have to worry about the inside of my microwave looking like some sort of butter coated murder scene.



In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Add the chocolate and ginger and stir to combine. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the eggs, add the mashed banana, yogurt, melted butter and vanilla and stir to mix well. Combine both the wet and dry ingredients in the larger of your two bowls and stir to combine. Do not overmix. The batter is thick and lumpy, but all of the flour should be incorporated.



Bake 50 minutes to 1 hour. I checked mine at 50 minutes and it needed another full 10 minutes. Do the toothpick test. When it comes out clean your loaf is cooked. Eat a slice of this while it’s still warm, fresh out of the oven. Or, alternatively, choke down another slice a few nights later as you watch a republican senator win Teddy Kennedy’s senate seat and try not to have a panic attack at the fact that our state, the one state with health insurance reform in effect at the state level may have just screwed the pooch for everybody else in the country because the democratic candidate didn’t know who Curt Schilling was. Sweet, delicious banana bread: mandatory, bitter political aftertaste: optional.

excuse me Flo, what's the soup du jour?

This soup is like a big hug for your belly. It’s filling, soothing and comforting yet totally January appropriate, because it’s very low calorie. I saw a few recipes for “detoxifying” soups online over the past few weeks. Apparently, I’m not the only one that feels like Chunk from the Goonies following all of the holiday excess. A contributor on the Kitchn made a potato and roasted garlic soup. David Lebovitz made a version with potatoes and leeks. They both sounded delicious, cheap and easy and since I like soup but I love complex carbohydrates I decided to try a variation of my own.



I wasn’t interested in a roasted garlic soup because well, I was making roasted garlic white bean dip this same night to take to a dinner party the next evening; and, roasting and consuming over four heads of garlic in a 48 hour period would be rude not only to my boyfriend, but pretty much anybody within a five mile radius of me during yoga class. So I sat there, befuddled, in an extremely crowded and annoying Trader Joes produce zone and grabbed for the scallions. Why not? Right? Leeks are awesome, but truth be told, they are a lot of work to clean and I feel like whenever I set out to cook with them, the store never has the suckers. Scallions are small and tidy and they are essentially onion-ish, like leeks, and more importantly in this case they were immediately available. Sold.



This soup was so easy to put together I have to admit I had my doubts about it. I thought surely something with this much potato would end up a little bland. I thought it would necessitate a heavy dose of salt when served. I thought these five piddly ingredients surely can’t make something bowl-scraping good. I love it when I am wrong about things like this. The scallions rounded out the flavor and making the end product really full bodied and savory. It’s exactly what I hoped it would be. Low on calories, but high on satisfaction. I really love the flavor the scallions added. Sometimes a poorly stocked produce department can be a blessing in disguise.



POTATO SCALLION SOUP

One bunch scallions, fuzzy ends discarded, chopped
Two large potatoes (I prefer russet), peeled and diced
3 small cloves garlic, minced
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups chicken stock
Salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or stock pot over medium heat. I used a couple good glugs, since the oil is the only fat in this soup and I didn’t want my scallions to burn or stick to the pot. Add scallions and sauté until fragrant, a few minutes; add garlic and sauté, stirring constantly for a minute or two. Add potatoes and stir everything together to coat potatoes with oil. Add another drizzle of oil, if necessary. Pour in your stock. I used a bit more than 3 cups, as long as your potatoes are covered, you’re all good. Add a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper. Turn heat up to high and let boil until potatoes are cooked through, about 10 minutes, depending on how small you diced them.



Check a chunk of potato for tenderness. When potatoes are nice a soft remove from heat and blend soup with an immersion blender.



Alternately, you can puree this in batches in your blender, just be very careful, because it’s super hot and hot liquids expand when pureed. Return soup to pot and off heat stir in a few tablespoons of half and half.



This is totally optional, but I liked how it turned my soup a nice pale moss green. Serve immediately garnished however you like. I used chives and a dollop of Greek yogurt, but I found the yogurt totally unnecessary. Crème fraiche might be nice though or some parmesan croutons or nothing at all. Yields about 6 servings.



I fixed this soup for myself with a big arugula salad topped with prosciutto, goat cheese, sherry vinaigrette and a poached egg. Every time I took a bite I did a small dance of victory. Best dinner I’ve had in a long time.

it's been fun calories, but I think we should see other people

So I think it’s safe to reveal at this point in time that my sister is expecting (!!!) which means she “gets to eat like a dude” a/k/a consuming things that she might otherwise feel guilty about without worry or eyelash batting. Like a dude. As girls, we know that even on our most secure thinnest days there is nary a French fried potato or frosted brownie that goes down the hatch without at least a little tinge of “yikes. I really shouldn’t.” So Heather was telling me a story last night about what she has eaten over the past couple days. Including but not limited to a half pound of pastrami Reuben, a black and blue burger and Hot Dog on a Stick followed in short order by a slice of Sbarro. Needless to say I was impressed. But not bested. I quickly rattled off the fact that my New Year’s Day began with an individual sporkie pizza at Bertuccis and rounded out the food groups that night with a vegetable bean chimichonga. “That’s not THAT bad” she chided me. “It’s a DEEP FRIED BURRITO, essentially.” I reminded her. “…and I’m not pregnant I’m just being a greatbigfatperson.” We laughed and basked in the glory of our calories. But seriously. It’s quittin’ time for me. The Madness. Needs. To stop. I have eaten with reckless abandon (and enjoyed the everloving life out of it) for the entirety of the holiday season. Handful of peanut m&ms before breakfast. Don’t mind if I do. Nothing in the fridge? Better order a pizza, we wouldn’t want to starve! Wine and beer were no longer relegated to special occasions, for during The Holidays, every night is a special occasion. The food and the drink were everywhere and needless to say, I’ve been wearing a lot of stretch pants lately. I’m not proud of this, but I feel like I can be honest here.

So begins my intentions. Intention, I will remind you does not necessarily mean I will take the right action. But I’m going to do my best to whittle my portions back down to normal people size and I’m going to eat more vegetables and less deep fried things (at least on Mondays).



So I am writing this post not as a recipe suggestion (although you can do what you want. I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life) but as a farewell. A Dear John breakup letter to the cookies that started the Great Holiday Binge of 2009. See I made these cookies the first week of December, to bring down to my girlfriend’s house for our college gals holiday get-together. Then I made them again on Christmas Eve. And I inhaled them like they were oxygen. You probably don’t want these in your house. I know that I can’t handle the responsibility of these being in my presence, so I’m not going to make them for quite some time. But if you are (and maybe you should) bring them someplace where there are other people to help you eat them. Whatever you do don’t leave them in your very own kitchen, where you have unfettered access to gobble them up every time you walk by the Tupperware. I know this shame, and I own it but now I’m finished (for now). Farewell sweet cookies. I’m setting you free. If you come back to me, I’ll know we’re meant to be; but for right now, mama needs some mixed greens in her life.



I originally was hankering to make traditional Hershey’s Kiss thumbprint cookies, but every recipe I found on the web involved shortening. Shortening scares me. My memory is flooded with images of the crusty tin of Crisco which could always be found on the lowest shelf of our pantry; also, I’m not baking saavy enough to figure out the substitutions so I sought out something else. I knew Deb would help. I found these on smitten kitchen (where else?!). They are originally from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. SO the original recipe is right here (I know I’m being kind of lazy just sending a link, but I didn’t really change much so I would feel a bit fraudulent typing up the recipe as though I had anything to do with its total awesomeness). I skipped the part about peanut butter chips. It must be something about me but I have beef with peanut butter chips. I’m just not interested in them. Just chocolate chips served me well. Oh and chunky peanut butter is a must. That way you end up with some teensy chunks of actual real nuts and I like that. Additionally, I would strongly suggest that you heed the advice to NOT overcook these. I overdid my second batch by ONE minute and they were not as good as the first go-round. I believe undercooked cookies are, with very few exceptions, much much better than fully cooked ones. I use this rule for almost every batch of cookies I make, just personal preference.



I also made these cookies and they were wonderful as well. I strongly recommend them! But these oversized chocolate peanut butter hockey pucks you see right here? They’re the stuff that dreams are made of.

unstoppable!

Look what I got! I feel an exponential increase in my baking confidence just having this bad boy in my apartment. Thanks be to dad! I thought you had to get married to get one of these!! (hehe...bt dubbs Paul, this doesn't let you off the hook) (kidding, kidding!).

Okay so anyways... not only did I get a boss Kitchenaid stand mixer (!!!). I got two coveted cookbooks:



Oh, Molly, Molly, I have nothing but hearts and flowers for you and so far curling up with your book is super sweet. I need to make everything. Right. Now.



BITTMAN! For those that don't know Bittman is THE MAN. His column/blog/everything is pretty much 8 shades of awesome and NOW, I have not only a Bittman cookbook but the international one! (say "international" like the mom of Ricky in Better Off Dead when she says "you know...the international language). My kitchen is going to be mega exotic from now on thanks to Eric and Anne!

Anywho...I'm not finished. My creative scientific genius of a mans hooked me up with a full rig to start experimenting with cooking sous vide at home! Do you not know what sous vide is? Well, that's fine because like you, I also only knew the term from a couple exhilerating episodes of Top Chef. Well if you would like to know more about it, peep this, this or this. All you need to know about me and sous vide is that I now have top to bottom a full setup to start messing around with this "slow and low" cooking method.

So then, I come into work yesterday and there's like two articles on Serious Eats about sous vide. Is my dude cutting edge or WHAT? Apparently, it's going to revolutionize home cooking in ways the microwave couldn't even do! I'm pretty stoked about this because I have already mastered microwave cooking. Sous vide here I come!

oh by gosh by golly....

December is an insane, mad person sprint of a month. It is not, in any way shape or form, a normally timed month. I know this because I don't have time for much. Like last week's post, there's no time for love, Dr. Jones. Straight to the nitty gritty.

Remember my cousin's cheeseball. Well, I made it and it's a total knockout. You should know about this cheeseball, you're going to want to be alone with it.

2 packages cream cheese (don't even think about getting reduced fat)
2 jars Kraft Olde English OR 1 tub Cheddar Wis-Pride spread*
5-6 ounces crumbled blue cheese or gorganzola
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
couple shakes of garlic salt



Combine everything in a bowl and beat together with an electric mixer. Divide cheese amalgam in half and shape into two balls. It was helpful to lightly spray my hands with olive oil spray before doing this. Roll each cheeseball in crushed nuts (I used pecans) or chopped, fresh herbs.



Wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least two hours before serving. I made mine the night before. I used one at my party and the other five days later. Both were delicious. Do it!

* Kraft Olde English was not at my grocery store. I improvised and used Wis-Pride. I figured, well, it's orange, so it must be the same thing. It was.



Hey cheeseball, meet your two new friends, red wine and vodka, you guys will be seeing a lot of each other this holiday season.

snap-petizers

As in snappy appetizers. Yes, I know, I’m the world’s biggest cheeseball. Speaking of cheeseballs, I am making one for my Christmas party on Saturday night. Apparently my cousin Jenny made this cheeseball for Thanksgiving and nobody could shut up about how good it was. They even went so far as to curse her name the next day when they mistakenly thought she had taken the cheeseball leftovers home with her. When she cleared up that rumor we forgave her. So anyways, I’m already taking up too much time. No time for witty banter this week kids, it’s crunch time. December is sort of beating the tar out of me right now. Does anyone else feel this way? It seems like about ten seconds ago, it was Thanksgiving and I was going to blog “over the weekend” or “early next week” about my stuffed mushrooms. Obviously, because I am a proven liar, “over the weekend” meant “definitely not this weekend” and “early next week” meant “probably not for two weeks” but anyways, I digress. It’s December 10th already! We’re into double digits and there’s no more time for dilly dallying: onward! To the appetizers!

These are two Sue Pithie classics that I am generously gifting upon ye. My mom has never met a savory appetizer she wasn’t able to conquer. I hope to continue this legacy for the next generation of party snackers. I’m telling you right now, if you make these, you will get compliments.

STUFFED MUSHROOMS

Two large packages white button mushrooms. (Baby Bellas would also work well)
One red bell pepper, diced
One small bunch scallions, chopped
1 ½ to 2 sleeves Ritz crackers (as with all recipes calling for Ritz, let me just tell you right now, there simply is no substitution)
½ - 1 stick butter, melted



Brush mushrooms off with a damp cloth. Snap out stems and set aside onto your cutting board. The intact caps can be set aside into a bowl. The caps that don’t make it, well they can join the stems. Heat a skillet over medium high heat and drizzle a bit of olive oil in. Coarsely chop your mushroom stems. Add the stems, along with the diced red pepper and chopped scallions to the sauté pan and cook a few minutes, until it smells fragrant and the mushrooms have purged a bit of liquid.



Dump the lot of this mixture into your Cuis’ Food Processor. Add the Ritz. Pulse mixture until it reassembles a stuffing-ish mixture. Return your skillet to the heat, lower the stove a bit, to medium and melt your butter. When the butter is melted, pour it over the stuff in your Cuis’, pulse some more. Until all the Ritz are chopped up well and there aren’t any large, identifiable half crackers floating around in there. Stuff your mushroom caps with the stuffing mixture (der). Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.



TOMATO, BASIL & FETA SALSA with PITA CHIPS



For the Chips:

One package large or small pita. This is a great thing to do with pitas that are too stale to eat. When you bake them up, they’re like a whole new beast.
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Garlic Salt (optional)

For the “Salsa”

Tomatoes*
Fresh basil
Feta Cheese
Salt, pepper
Olive oil

*Any type tomato will do here. Since it’s winter, I use any good looking cherry tomatoes I find at the store and cut them into halves, or quarters, depending on their size. The last batch I picked up were gargantuan, so they got the quarter treatment.



One of the good things about this recipe is you can make a huge batch for a party or just a small amount for yourself. It gets tastier as it sits overnight in the fridge, but is also great immediately after you make it. It’s a very forgiving and versatile, like my long grey sweater, that’s why I like it. I also whip this up a lot in the summer as a side dish, sometimes adding diced purple onion.

Preheat oven to 350. Cut your pitas into triangles. The option here is to split them, to make thin chips, or leave them together. Your call. My mom likes them thicker and therefore leaves them together, I like to split them so they’re lighter and you can make more of them. Arrange cut pitas on baking sheet. Pour a palm full of olive oil into your hand and rub both hands together. Using your hands distribute the oil over the pita slices. Repeat if necessary. I don’t like mine too oily, so I go light. My mother makes her pita chips not with olive oil, but with melted butter, because well, she’s trying to kill us all. Sprinkle with sea salt and garlic salt. Bake for 15 minutes, flipping half way through.



Meanwhile, rinse your tomatoes and slice into halves or quarters. If using full size tomatoes, cut into a chunky dice. Chiffonade a couple handfuls of basil. To do this, take a few leaves at a time and roll them up, then cut thin, vertical slices across your rolled up leaves. The result is delicate ribbon-y threads of basil that look cute. Add basil to tomatoes, and add feta. Drizzle with olive oil, add salt and pepper and stir everything together. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with pita chips. Open your ears to hear the compliments, and try not to pull a muscle patting yourself on the back!

FENNEL SAUSAGE and POTATO SOUP

Please do not be alarmed that the word “sausage” is in the title of this soup. Honestly when trying to name this mish mash of a soup that I made up last week, I really did not want to include sausage in the title. There’s something about the words “sausage soup” that make me picture a gigantic bread loaf hollowed out and filled with baked potato, cheese and cheddar soup with carmelized kielbasa or something in it. Something that adds 7 pounds to my ass if I even look at it sideways, and something that if you eat the only words to describe your condition afterwards are “completely” and “destroyed.” The concept of sausage soup also reminds me of a certain menu item that would appear periodically at the unnamed American bar & grill where I used to sling food. That menu item was BLT soup and yes, it was just as disgusting as you are imagining right now. I mean BLTs: good; soup: good. BLT soup: NOT GOOD. Any soup with flecks of floating lettuce in it is just not okay with me. And if it’s okay with you I’d like you to keep that to yourself because I really like you and I don’t want that to change. It made me wonder how the cook who’s brainchild this recipe was could take two seemingly wonderful food items and by combining them together create something almost inherently evil. One day when he was preparing this culinary abomination he asked “Jess, you’re a vegetarian right?” to which I pishawed him and said “no” and he was like, “oh, well here, I want you to try the soup of the day.” “What is it?” “BLT soup” “Oh, um, honestly, I don’t really feel well right now and I just don’t think I can eat anything with bacon in it. Thanks though. It sounds so good.” I lied. I really didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but I was not about to make smiley faces any yummy noises as I slurped down a nappy dish of the Worst Soup Ever Made by Man. So anyway, that’s the backstory on my aversion to soups with salted meats in them. Who’s hungry?

But sincerely though, even though I am not happy with the title of this soup per se, I don’t believe it would have come out quite as good if I had skipped the sausage. A nice browned meat can add a lot to the flavor of a soup, even bacon, just don’t combine it with wilted, wet lettuce and don’t let me think that maybe you may have included mayonnaise as one of your soup ingredients (ugh! I just got the chills when I typed that!!). Wow Jess, you are really doing a spectacular job of working up appetites over here. But honestly, I swear MY soup is good, and there’s no lettuce in it. And there never will be any lettuce in any soup that comes out of the Porky Test Kitchens. Lettuce has a place: in salads and on tacos, let’s keep it that way. So anyways though, focusing our attention back to the soup:

Olive oil

Two sweet Italian or fennel sausages*

One bag baby pearl onions**

Two cloves garlic, minced

Salt, pepper, crushed red pepper

2-3 tablespoons tomato paste

Splash of sherry vinegar

2 russet potatoes, diced

Chicken broth or stock, to cover

* The sausages I used in this soup were leftover from a package of Dom’s sausages from Dom’s Sausage Company in Malden. This place is amazing. Their meats are great and their prices are reasonable. My friend Michelle drives up there to stock up every few weeks and on her last visit she gifted me with some of these sweet, fennel sausages. I’m normally a hot sausage girl myself (hehehe- sorry) but these changed my mind. Ah-mazing.

**I purchased myself a satchel of the most adorable baby onion blend from where else? Trader Joes. They were a blend of baby purple, white and yellow onions and they were so great, because not only were they so cute, their flavor was wonderful. You could likewise use regular diced onions or the normal baby pearls, or even cipollini.

Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat, add your bag of onions and blanch them for a few minutes (I left mine in approx. 3). Drain onions and let cool a bit. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Remove sausage from casings and brown, breaking up with a wooden spoon or spatula until well browned. Peel onions from their skins and add to pot. The easiest way to do this I found was to nip the end off with a pairing knife and then squeeze the little suckers out of their skins. Be fair warned that some of these onions will fly across your kitchen. It’s sort of hilarious. Sauté the sausage and onions together for a bit, add the garlic, a bit of salt, pepper and some crushed red pepper. Add the tomato paste and stir everything together well. Dash in some of the sherry vinegar and let the vinegar cook off. This only takes a moment, really.

Add your potatoes and chicken stock to cover. Turn the heat up to a boil. Let boil until potatoes are tender and cooked through. Once the potatoes are tender you can serve or turn down and let simmer until you’re ready to eat. Top with crunched up crackers or pita chips and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

Oh by the way, I also served this to myself with a grilled cheddar, avocado and bacon sandwich. Good fat meets bad fat in a battle of the fats. Clearly in this battle, my tastebuds win.