Cheddar Jalapeno Corncakes
1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter, not counting what you will use to grease the cooking surface – let it cool a little while you do the rest of the work.
2. Combine 2 eggs and 3/4 cup of milk in a big bowl.
3. Add the following dry ingredients:

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (heaped)
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin

4. Once the ingredients are combined, stir in the melted butter, 1/2 cup of shredded cheese, and 2-3 chopped pickled jalapenos. Stir to ensure that all the ingredients are mixed together properly, and prepare your griddle.

Cook these exactly as you would normal pancakes, waiting for the crust to form before flipping. These can benefit from a little extra cooking time, especially if you’re using bacon grease as the fat for your griddle. Then again, that could just be my preference, because I love bacon flavor and love when it soaks into my pancakes. Especially corncakes.

Try these, before next year’s National Pancake day. You can wait till next year to thank me for them, but please don’t wait until next February to make them. Trust me.

It is a Caramel Cake with Caramel Frosting. That’s right, the delicious candy substance we all love, in cake form. I found the recipe in The Moosewood Restaurant New Classics Cookbook, and tweaked it a bit.

For the Cake:
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 5 eggs
- ¾ cup milk (nonfat okay!)
- 2 tsp vanilla
1. Preheat the oven to 350. Line 2 9-inch round cake pans, or a sheet cake pan, with parchment.
2. I a bowl, sift the 1st 3 ingredients. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each. Stir together the milk and vanilla in a measuring cup. Alternate adding the milk mixture and the flour mixture to the creamed mixture create a smooth batter.
3. Divide the batter evenly in the 2 pans, bake for 30 – 35 minutes, cool completely.

For the Icing:
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 3 tbs unsalted butter
- 1 cup half and half (I use the Land O’Lakes non-fat kind, but I can’t tell you how they get it to be that way).
- 1 tsp vanilla
1. In a heavy, preferably non-stick saucepan, combine the sugar, butter and half and half. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring often. Cover and cook at medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking until the caramel begins to thicken, about 4 minutes, being careful not to let it burn. Sometimes this can take a little longer than the recipe says, however. Just keep a close eye on it.
2. Add the vanilla and beat with an electric mixer on high until it gets thick and creamy – this takes a while, 10-15 minutes.
3. While the frosting is still warm, frost and fill the cake. Add some half-and-half if it gets too thick to spread.

I wish I had a picture, but I don’t because I’m at work and I haven’t made this in a while. It’s one of those high-maintenance-but-worth-it recipes, the frosting is particularly finicky. But, this is the one cake I make that I am sure will please all – it’s become famous in my family, and is asked for by many at various family functions.

Anyone else have any “famous” recipes to share? I’d love to see them!

Also, more posts on food I’m actually making for tonight coming later this week!

Several observant Jews work in my office and so on Monday, the first workday after Purim, co-workers dumped the unwanted remnants of their Purim baskets in the kitchen for others to “enjoy”. This, dear readers, is the shocking aftermath. What the heck is it? I’m not sure. I can only deduce that some snack factory in Illinois churned this out in hopes of capitalizing on the ever popular Twinkies market — seriously, who eats Twinkies (or Twinkies knockoffs) anymore?

What kills me is that someone actually ate this since there are a couple of them missing!

What’s my point? Well, aside from looking plain ol’ gross, check out what this “Jr. Strawberry Jelly Roll” is made out of:

A bunch of preservatives, chemicals and sugars. Unhealthy, bad for you, and probably tastes like crap. But what’s this? There are two hechshers (kosher symbols) at the bottom, the little ‘M’ and the tablet with a ‘K’ inside. Yes, this package of sugary empty calories is kosher. So what? Well, despite the fact that in recent years there have been giant leaps forward when it comes to food companies producing healthier products, or at least touting the scant health benefits of their own junky foods, kosher products generally have lagged far, far behind in getting in on this trend. This is a sad but typical example of an item you’d see stuffed on a grocery shelf in the kosher section. I’ll bet if your local supermarket has one, you might find several products like these. It’s as if retailers think Jews don’t eat anything but overly preserved gefilte fish, instant soup mixes that still have loads of trans fats or cans of oversalted chicken soup! Please.

But there is a ray of hope.

Despite the fact that many kosher products barely resemble real food, there are now thousands of mainstream items by big brand names that are now certified kosher. You probably have at least a few in your pantry or fridge and don’t even know it! There is an encouraging amount of organic and healthier kosher products now, even antibiotic-free chickens at Whole Foods! Though stereotypical “Jewish food” isn’t historically healthy (giant pastrami sandwich with a side of pickles and schmaltz, anyone?), it’s nice to know that despite the predominance of the “Jr. Jelly Roll” and its ilk there are increasing amounts of Jews who care about their health and what the heck they’re eating. Even rabbis are getting in on the healthy lifestyle thing.

So while I came back to work after a lovely weekend and found really nasty snacks, I did what I felt to be the right thing:

I threw them out!

But for all the years I’ve spent hoping that February would just be over faster, that it would just end painlessly, or best yet, that it would be cancelled due to lack of interest, this year was a rarity. Packed with runs, races, birthday parties, and a cake undertaking, not to mention mailing cookies all over creation and accidently getting quite drunk a few times, February flew by! And all of a sudden, on Thursday evening, I realized with a start that February was almost over, and I hadn’t  even THOUGHT about what I was planning to make for Gourmet Unbound!
It appears that Gourmet didn’t much like writing in February, since the majority of the recipes I found on Epicurious appeared to be variations on things I’ve done recently, or involve seafood (which is risky-at-best when purchasing it at my neighborhood grocery store). The one recipe that caught my attention in a big way was a Cheddar Jalapeno Bread from the March 2007 issue. After taking a mental inventory of the contents of my cupboards and fridge, I decided I could throw this together after the USA-Canada Gold Medal hockey game, and have bread for Monday’s dinner.

Turns out, I had far fewer canned pickled jalapenos left than I thought. LUCKILY, I save leftovers of everything , so when I made cranberry-chipotle relish back in November, I saved the last 2 chipotles and their adobo in a tupperware in the fridge. So when I realized I only had 1 pickled jalapeno left, I did what a resourceful cook does, and I diced up 2 chipotles and added them to the dough along with a teaspoon or so of the adobo.
I also used pre-shredded cheese. I hang my head in shame. But it was tasty and easy.
I did my best to follow this recipe exactly, despite all the urges I as a bread baker had to add more flour when I saw how wet the dough was. It’s apparently supposed to be very wet. The bread comes out of the pan after baking with a nice, somewhat airy crumb, no huge air holes but not dense like a brick, either. It’s pleasantly spicy, not overly cheesy, and quite tasty when sliced, broiled and smeared with butter.

Not, ahem, that I’d know anything about that….
In summation, this is a good recipe, although I think that some tinkering could definitely be done with it. I’ll probably mess with it more in later posts, trying to find my own perfect iteration of Cheesy-Jalapeno bread. But for now? This was a great way to end February and say What up to March.

I like to bake. It’s sort of my thing. But, I also need to eat real food occasionally. And something great is when I can do both. I found a cookbook called “Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven” on sale recently, so it’s from the same person who wrote The Moosewood Cookbook, which is my favorite cookbook, and probably the most famous vegetarian cookbook of all time. So, I adapted her recipe for “French Picnic Tart,” or, as I like to call it, Dinner Pie.

First make a crust. Katzen uses a 10-inch springform tart pan, but I don’t have one so I used a standard 9 inch pie tin. First, mix together 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1 stick of butter, either with a pastry cutter or food processor/blender until it looks like a course meal. Then, add a little water, like 2 tablespoons, until it just sticks together. Full disclosure: I used a little too much water, so my crust was a teeny bit mushy. So really use the bare minimum. Mix it together some more, make it into a ball, and put it on a floured surface. Roll it out and press it into your pan. Put it into the fridge until you’re ready for it.

Then, make the filling. When you start, pre-heat the oven to 375. Take about a pound of small red potatoes (get real baby ones if you can) and put them in a saucepan, cover them with water, bring them to a boil, then cover them and cook them for about 12 minutes. While that’s happening, heat up a tablespoon or two of oil in a skillet under low heat. Put in a thinly sliced onion and some salt and cook it slowly – 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. When they’re done, just take them off the heat.

When the potatoes are done, rinse and drain. When you can touch them, slice them up.

Now you’re ready to start assembling the pie. On the first layer, add about a cup of a mild cheese (I used reduced fat swiss). Sprinkle it with some tasty spices, I put on sage and oregano.

Next, put the onions on top, spreading them out.  Then, add the potatoes in an even(ish) layer. Last, add a layer of bell peppers topped with just a little more cheese.

Bake for about 40 minutes. I recommend putting the tin on a cookie sheet to make it more manageable.

This is super rich. It IS French after all. Put it’s tasty. It tastes good hot, warm or cold. Seriously. I recommend serving with a greensalad..

Enjoy some Dinner Pie!

Last week I was in Boston at a job conference looking for a new job.  After ten interviews between the hours of 9 and 4:30, I was EXHAUSTED.  I don’t know if you have ever spent 9 hours in heels trying to look professional while running from table to table (think speed dating for jobs)  interviewing for various positions that you may or may not want (including an interview with a school in Bulgaria which was just ridiculous), but I don’t recommend it…at all.  I actually get to do it again this Friday in New York, but the stress of the event will be completely over shadowed by 3 things: 1) I get to see my 5month old nephew who is adorable and squishy and whom I haven’t seen since Christmas.  2) The PrettyGirls get together and all the antics that will ensue.  3) I get to see my best friend of 22 years whom I haven’t seen in way too freaking long and whom I miss terribly.

Anyway…after my crazy day in Boston, all I wanted to do was grab dinner, go back to the hotel room, and pass out face down on the bed for 12 hours.  Luckily, being in downtown Boston, there were tons of restaurants along the way back to the hotel so I stopped in at P.F. Changs and grabbed one of my favorite foods of all time: Mongolian Beef.  Between the crispy beef, the sauce and the ridiculous amount of green onion they put in, I could literally eat this every day.  However, distance and finances prevent this from happening.  Now, I don’t know if everyone knows this, but I enjoy my time in the kitchen, so I thought I would try to recreate my beloved dish and see how I fared.   I did some research to find a starting point, and actually found a pretty good recipe at recipezaar.  Its actually really easy to make and tasted close enough to the real thing to satisfy my craving.

While making this recipe I learned some things that you might want to keep in mind if you try this:

1. I sliced the beef ahead of time and marinated it for about an hour in a combination of soy sauce, ginger, garlic, sesame oil and brown sugar (basically just the sauce deconstructed).

2. You don’t need a lot of corn starch for the beef, just sprinkle each side very lightly.

3. Don’t let the sauce thicken too much because the thicker you let the sauce get, the more concentrated the flavor gets and there is such a thing as flavor that will kick your ass.

4.  Toss the beef in the sauce then pull it out with tongs, because this is not a dish where you want the extra sauce making the crispy beef soggy.

Overall an excellent project and I think I’m going to start trying to recreate more of my favorites from various restaurants.  Next up, the nacho cheese chicken chalupa from Taco Bell…I didn’t say it was going to be from class restaurants

I cook because sometimes life gets a little too much. Because sometimes the rituals and steps and processes of the kitchen take my mind off whatever might be going on in my life. I’ve mentioned before that my stove is my therapist, and that when things go awry, I spend 30 minutes or 45 minutes in the kitchen, and when I come out, my head is clear and my issues don’t seem so big anymore. Even the stack of dishes that I always manage to build up doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

Sometimes, I cook because I’m worried. Because I’m afraid and I’m worried about bad news. I cook at those times somewhat selfishly, taking comfort in the smell of melting butter, refuge in the feel of flour and salt, egg whites slipping through my fingers. I hide in my kitchen, and I cushion myself from the fear and the uncertainty in my life with things like baking cookies or roasting a chicken or making soup.

And sometimes….. sometimes you get wonderful news. Sometimes things are better than you could imagine, and whatever fear drove me to my butter and sugar, whatever concern lead me to crushing Heath bars or toasting walnuts has reversed itself, and everything is better than ok.

Welcome to the world, Natalie Claire Harper. I will always remember this batch of chocolate chip cookies, which I was in the middle of baking for your parents (among others) when I heard about your birth. I am so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you and your lovely mama are ok. I cannot wait to meet you.

Why do you cook? Who do you cook for? When do you cook and when do you not cook? What are you saying when you cook?

Real quick if you don’t know the story: Ancient Persia. Drunkard king kills former wife because she wouldn’t fulfill embarrasing request; looks for new wife. Esther, niece of Jewish scholar Mordechai, is selected. But, since this is ancient Persia, being Jewish is just barely tolerated — think pre-Civil Rights blacks in America. Thus, she hides her Jewish identity from the king. Haman, the King’s top advisor, hates the Jews! Big surprise. He convinces the King to proclaim an unbreakable decree that everyone in the entire kingdom on such and such a date, everyone can run around killing Jews, no problem! The date is chosen by a lottery. (In Hebrew, “pur”, thus the holiday of ‘lots’ or, “Purim”.) Esther knows she’s in a position to stop this but doesn’t know what to do, since by helping her people, she will reveal her Jewish identity and who knows how the drunken, murderous king will react? Her uncle Mordechai urges her to see the King. She does, and asks to throw a party, everyone has a great time. Later, she asks him to throw another one, this time with just the two of them and Haman. This is a big honor for Haman and he wants to suck up big time to the Queen of Persia. So he comes to the private party and at one point while the King is not around, she reveals that she is Jewish and how dare he kill her people? Haman, fearing for his life, throws himself at her feet and begs for mercy just as the King returns. He thinks that he’s making a move on his Queen and gets pissed. She reveals to them both her true idenity and that Haman’s decree would include killing her too. The king, enraged, has Haman and his entire family hanged. Since the decree is unbreakable, a new decree is written to counteract the old, saying that Jews are allowed to fight back themselves. And they did!

And now today, we celebrate Purim on that same date on the Hebrew calendar, by 1) hiding ourselves like Esther, by wearing masks and costumes, 2) partying and drinking until we can’t remember who in the story is bad and who is good, 3) giving out mishloach manot, gift baskets of food to friends and family, 4) giving charity to the poor (matanot le’evionim), and 5) hearing the megillah read, which recounts the story of Purim.

This is the holiday where hamentashen come from, those triangular cookies filled with jam. It means ‘Haman’s ears’ though I’m not sure why we’d want to eat his ears.

Rather than list the obvious here, which would be my hamentashen recipe, let’s face it, everyone and their great-aunt has some variation on hamentashen. So here’s something different: how did I make my Purim basket this year?

First of all, I love giving presents to people. It makes me warm inside, to brighten someone’s day and seeing their touched expressions when they receive it. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it’s wonderful to surprise a friend no matter what it is. This is one of the biggest reasons why I am a Purim fan. Since many of my friends and family live far away, I mail my baskets. “Basket” is a bit misleading. Mine are small boxes, sized to fit in a standard New York apartment building mailbox so people don’t have to go to the Post Office to pick them up. When I started doing this a couple of years ago, I ordered some from Uline and I’m still using the same set of boxes; they send a lot

Requirements for mishloach manot are to give baskets to at least one person on Purim day, containing at least two different ready-to-eat foods. That’s it. Though people can get very competitive as to how grandiose and splendid their baskets can be. It can turn into a real free-for-all, like giant baskets of chocolate and sweets, imported fruits, etc. One year when I lived at home, my family and I spent an entire day delivering baskets to various friends and family all over town. I guess I inherited some of that urge too. At least one of us had to stay at home to receive everyone else’s gifts too!

My basket is pretty simple but can get full quickly. First, I cover the box like I would a textbook, with old magazine photos, preferably art-y shots with no text. I prefer the New York Times Magazine or their T Style magazine. Yeah, I’m a snob. Then I cover the box again completely with clear packing tape, so the decoration doesn’t tear in the mail. This whole process can take over an hour per box, so I don’t make very many each year, unfortunately! This year there are only a few, even though I started a month ago (for real), and they are mostly going to family. Sorry guys!

Then, what to put in the box? Well, aside from hamentashen (this year: pumpkin, chocolate and peanut butter chips, and strawberry jam), I like to include a variety of items, so I’ll have a juice box, a squeeze pack of peanut or almond butter, tea, dried fruit strips, a small box of raisins, little candies, etc. I’ll also include a note. You know, just to say hi. You can put anything you want in these baskets, hamentashen are just a custom, like drinking eggnog on Christmas. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but…

I’m sending mine out today, a Wednesday, so they’ll hopefully arrive by Saturday or Monday. I’m hoping people will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them!

I love cake. I have really had the baking urge lately so I decided to make a cake.  Now, a lot of people could probably just grab a mix, throw it together and be good.  However, I would not be a Pretty Girl if that were sufficient for me.  So while I was supposed to be working, I thought about what I could do to that I hadn’t done before.  I had a couple ideas in my head, but this one didn’t really come together until I walked into the grocery store.  I always head to the produce section of the grocery store first (because apparently starting with the produce will help me make healthier food decisions.  Sometimes the fact that I hold a Master’s degree baffles even me with logic like this).  So I head to the produce section and the first thing I see is “Mangoes $.99.  Hell Yes.  I love mangoes, and these were all pretty and ripe and just pliable enough to be perfect.  Once I saw these, it all came to me. Chocolate cake with mango-basil salsa.

You can use any chocolate cake recipe that you prefer, but I like my cake denser so I used our very own  Improviser’s chocolate cake recipe .  Its pretty easy to make, and tastes fantastic.

For the salsa, you need:

1 fully ripe mango

3 large fresh basil leaves

granulated sugar

liquor of your choosing. I used American Honey, but rum would also work.

While the cake is baking, dice the mango as finely as possible and roughly chop the basil.  Put them both in a bowl and throw in a dash of sugar and liquor.  Mix it up and let it sit so the flavors meld together.  I served this with lightly sweetened  whipped cream as well to cut some of the intensity of all the flavors.

Once the cake is ready to be served, just put the piece on a plate, top it with some of the mango and add a dollop of whipped cream on the side.  Its actually pretty easy to make, and the whole thing only took me an hour.  I then took the rest of the cake out to the dorm for the girls and it was gone in approximately 3.5 minutes…I almost didn’t get the plate onto the table before the little vultures attacked me.  Whoever said teenage girls don’t eat is a damn dirty liar, because I’m pretty sure I could drag a dead buffalo into the common room and they would eat it to the bones  in minutes.

What I really like about this is that the basil is similar enough to mint to work, but different enough to give it that hint of something unique.  I think my next move might be to make the mango a chutney filling and then serve it with a basil whipped cream…

First, make the dough. Here’s the thing about dough. It is really difficult to make it so it’s not too dry or not too gooey. I personally prefer things to be a little gooier rather than a little drier, so I put in a little extra liquid. This also makes it just a little easier to manage.

You’ll need 2.5 cups of flour, 1 tsp salt, 2-3 tsp sugar, 2 sticks of (unsalted!) butter, cut up into little pieces, and about 2/3 cup milk (I recommend pouring it over ice).

Mix up the dry ingredients and butter, either using a food processor or pastry cutter, until it looks like a course meal. Add the milk and mix until it seems manageable. Shape into a disk and refrigerate for a while, at least an hour.

Then, make the filling. I’d recommend using firmer fruit, I used pear, but you could go for apple, too as a base, and I added in some blueberries. So, chop up about 2 cups worth of a firmer fruit (I used 3 pears), and then around 3/4 cup of something else… raspberries, strawberries, in my case, blueberries… whatever strikes your fancy/is in your kitchen/is on sale…

Toss the hard fruit in a tbs or so of lemon juice. Heat up about 2 tbs of butter (ps. I love butter), and put in the hard fruit, and gradually add 3-4 tbs of sugar, and cook about 5 minutes. At the end of cooking, add in some nutmeg. And perhaps cinnamon. Feel free to get a little more creative if that’s your thing… Allspice? Cloves? Boundless possibilities. Put this delicious, gooey fruit in a bowl and toss in the berries.

Preheat your oven to 350. Roll out the dough. If flakiness is super important to you, refrigerate the chilled dough for a while after you roll it out.

Cut the dough into desired shape. I did this the ghetto way. I got some card stock, made a heart in a roughly 4 inch shape, and traced it with a knife. I made 6 hearts. (Whatever you do, make an even number of shapes). On one half of these shapes, brush on beaten egg. Then, top that half of the shapes with your filling, try to equally distribute it. Then, carefully place the other dough shapes on top. Seal them together with a fork.

Put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and make for 35-40 minutes. If you want to be all fancy, and you can find it, sprinkle them with sanding sugar first.

These pies definitely contributed to a lovely Valentine’s Day, and I hope the first of many…