A New Twist on a Vegetarian Mainstay

I admit. Not a veggie burger fan at all. I actually cringe when I hear "Boca Burger," or "GardenBurger." Those sad thin patties just look unappetizing. The only time I've remotely expressed interest in a veggie burger is at Houston's (or I guess Hillstone now). It is a grain-based burger with a sweet glaze of sorts. Surprisingly tasty, but I prefer a bit more protein in my burger. Now that I'm playing with focusing more on plants in my diet and less on animal meat, I'm looking for delicious and satiating vegetarian options. This may be my new favorite.

A week ago or so, The New York Times published a series of recipes for vegetarian burgers. One immediately caught my attention: white bean burgers. The creaminess of white beans with some herbs. Between two slices of hearty nutty wheat bread? And hot pepper jelly? Yum! I planned on making this for another vegetarian special at school, only to learn we had no canned white beans and I needed these beans stat...I couldn't wait for the beans to soak and cook overnight. Problem quickly solved: I would swap out white beans for black beans, up the garlic and herbs, and then add a jalapeno-lime-cilantro creme to the mix. Though the recipe makes a very, very moist burger (I used brioche crumbs - fresh - so it didn't soak up much moisture, but the slight sweetness perfectly complimented the herbs and garlic), it can be quickly remedied with panko or normal dry bread crumbs.

Here is my recipe:

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
salt to taste
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2/3 c finely grated carrot (or more)
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 c (or more) finely chopped parsley
2 tsp minced fresh sage or thyme
1/2 c breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
salt and pepper to taste
Nutty, hearty whole wheat bread
Hot pepper jelly
Lime-jalapeno-cilantro crema (below)

Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a medium skillet and add the onion. Cook until translucent. Add a pinch of salt, garlic, and grated carrot. Cook for a minute or two, until fragrant, and the carrot has softened slightly.  Remove from heat.

In a food processor, puree the beans with the lemon juice. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the onion mixture. Add the herbs, bread, and egg. Season to taste. Form into patties, 1/2" to 3/4" in thickness. Set on parchment lined sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Chill for 2 hours.

Heat oil in a large heavy skillet (nonstick is nice). Brown patties, about 4 minutes per side (they should release). Be very careful when you turn them over as they are moist patties. Finish in the oven (350 degrees) for 3-5 minutes. Serve hot on toast with condiments above, or of your choice.

For the lime-jalapeno-cilantro crema, we simply combined jalapenos finely chopped, with chopped cilantro, in a combination of mascarpone and sour cream. I liked the more mascarpone to sour cream ratio (not too sour), and when cut with lime juice and salt and pepper it tasted magical. Smeared on the warm burger, with pepper jelly. Yum.

At a loss for what to make for dinner?

Try this delicious mushroom ragout recipe! It's perfect in a pinch, and even better if you have some delicious fresh wild mushrooms. I used a mixture of cremini, shiitakes, and oyster mushrooms. Pour a glass of a big chardonnay, and curl up by the fire.

I found - and made - this dish as a vegetarian special at school. It was quite easy to make and a treat to eat! It is based on a recipe from Giada deLaurentiis. I tweaked it, making the ragout in advance and cooking it til quite dry. For service, we heated the fettuccine and then separately heated the ragout with some cream. Once both were warm, I added the pasta to the sauce and tossed it with some extra pasta water. I then plated the mixture, and topped it with a hearty amount of fresh parmesan and chopped basil and parsley. Next time I make this, I might even try gruyere and swiss!

Enjoy!

1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound mixed mushrooms, chopped
salt and pepper
1/2 marsala
2 c chicken broth
1/3 c heavy cream
5 fresh basil leaves
1/4 c flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/2 to 3/4 c grated parmesan

Heat the oil in a large skillet. When hot, add the onion and garlic. Cook over medium heat until the onions are very translucent (8 min or so). Add the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Raise the heat and saute until the mushrooms are tender. Add the marsala to pan with it off the heat. Bring the heat back to the fire and cook til wine has evaporated. Add the chicken stock and simmer for a 1/2 hour until the sauce is reduced by half. Add the heavy cream and mix well. Season to taste and add the fresh parmesan and herbs.

Serve hot with pappardelle, tagliatelle or fettuccine

A New Year and A Fresh Start!

Happy New Year!

It's been a while since I posted (oops - holiday madness. New Year's resolution to post more regularly? Hmm..), but I've been busy!

Here is a sneak (yummy) peak as to what I've been up to. Stay tuned for more information (and recipes)!

To start: Seared Bay Scallops with Butternut Squash Puree and an Apple Cider-Maple Reduction

And then: A Chestnut Soup with Creme Fraiche, Candied Walnuts, and Parsley

Followed by a Rack of Lamb with a Fresh Corn Cake and Sauteed Swiss Chard with Cranberries

And to finish: Soft Gingerbread with Apple Compote and Salted Caramel Sauce

Enjoy!

A New Twist on a Holiday Favorite

Pecan Pie is a true Thanksgiving specialty. Though I didn't grow up making pecan pie with my family (my dad was in charge of the most delicious pumpkin pie...), a nutty pie has in recent years had a spot at our thanksgiving table. I usually make the pecan pie and I'm still working on refining my own recipe. I like to use more "natural" and unrefined sweeteners, like honey and maple syrup, which not only cuts the cloying sweetness, but also deepens and enhances the nut flavor. I'm interested in trying some rosemary in the mixture, and possibly "mixing" the nuts - from pecans, to a blend of almonds, hazelnut, and walnuts.

For a recent feast of food at school, I and seven classmates masterminded a "Wild Harvest" themed luncheon, featuring "foraged" foods like root vegetables, greens, venision, boar, trout, and much more. It was only fitting that one dessert be a nutty pie/tart to complement our dessert, a cranberry apple "cake." I am a huge fan of Once Upon A Tart, down on Sullivan Street in NYC - their biscotti, sandwiches, cookies - all utterly heavenly! I was quite delighted to find they feature a chocolate walnut tart in their cookbook. Our second dessert it will be!

The recipe itself is very straightforward, and not too sweet or custardy. My one complaint (and I'm sure this is because I was using short sided french tart rings over a cast iron pan and making 6x the normal batch!) was that the filling did boil over on two of the tarts (maybe it was much hotter on lower shelves, too - I think that is most likely). Though the tarts were not ruined, these two tarts definitely made me worry for a time. Having made multiple tarts over the past couple of months, I also noticed that this dough, albeit very tender and fragile, doesn't stick at all! I liked to put lots of chocolate drizzle on top of the tarts (though next time, I would use dark chocolate!).

Once Upon A Tart's Chocolate Walnut Tart
2 large eggs
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c honey
1/2 c plus 2 tbsp light corn syrup
2 tbsp melted butter, room temp
1/4 c light cream
2 1/4 c walnut halves
1 unbaked flaky tart crust (9", 1" sides or taller)
1/2 c dark chocolate pieces
1 tsp solid veg shortening

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Whisk the eggs and sugar in a big bowl to combine. Whisk in honey and corn syrup, then the butter, cream, and nuts. Pour into tart shell.
3. Place tart in center of oven and bake for 50-55 minutes, or until lightly golden and the filling is just set.
4. Let tart cool completely
5. While tart cools, heat the shortening and chocolate til just melted.
6. Cut tart into 8 wedges. Drizzle chocolate over wedges (alternatively, you can also drizzle chocolate over the uncut tart).

Serve with vanilla ice cream or gelato -- honey thyme is best!

Tasty Hors D'Oeuvres with Ease?

Today in school, my group hosted our buffet, themed a "Wild Harvest," with "foraged berries, mushrooms, and greens, and some boar and venision we "hunted."

One of our tasks was to come up with two Hors d'Oeuvres for today's feast (in addition to the two from last week). After brainstorming multiple ideas, we came up with the following:

for last week's "practice" - bacon wrapped stiltion creme stuffed dates on cucumber rounds and tomato bruschetta on baguette rounds

for our "wild harvest," house smoked trout with a horseradish creme on pumpernickel and - my new versatile favorite - red onion thyme confit and pancetta on a polenta round.

These little sweet and tender, yet crispy and savory bites were relatively easy to make too! I already find myself dreaming up variations on a theme:

pear compote with a blue cheese crumble on a round
lamb ragu over rosemary polenta rounds
pesto and cherry tomatoes over mozzarella polenta
Roast beef and braised chard over crispy polenta
Apple compote over cinnamon polenta (maybe?)

Anything is possible - here is the basic recipe I followed:

My plain version of Ina's Rosemary Polenta:

1 stick butter

1/4 c olive oil

1 tbsp minced garlic - about 3 cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

3 c chicken stock

2 c half and half

2 c milk (or 1 c heavy cream, 3 c milk)

2 c cornmeal (I like Gray's!)

1/2 c good grated parmesan

Flour, olive oil, and butter for frying

6 large red onions
Port
Butter
thyme
Crisp pancetta rounds

Polenta: Heat butter and oil in a large saucepan. Add the garlic, salt, pepper and saute 1 min. Add stock, milk/cream, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and slowly sprinkle the cornmeal into the hot milk while stirring constantly with a whisk. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for a few minutes until thickened and bubbly. Off the heat, stir in the cheese. Pour into one/two sheet pans and spread to desired thickness (I like 1/4" or 3/8" or so). Refridgerate until cold.

Using a round or fluted (or whatever you wish!) cutter, cut out shapes from polenta. While butter and oil are heating in pan, gently dust shapes with flour. Cook over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, turning one time, until golden. Drain/let cool.

Topping: Slice onions and sweat them in butter in a pan, then add port to cover, along with the thyme, and reduce, slowly cooking under meltingly tender. While the compote cools, crisp the pancetta in the oven.

When all ingredients are ready, assemble them: round, compote, pancetta. Straightforward, flexible - and most important, tasty!

Enjoy!

Healthy Popovers?!

Popovers are a transformative food, I think. If you're having a bad day, a popover is a warm, eggy yet bread-y piece of goodness that comforts me. How can you not smile when you crack one open the golden crispy exterior to discover the buttery-yellow tender and warm inside?

I grew up eating popovers on special occasions - Christmas, maybe Easter or another family meal. We would make our own raspberry butter to go along with it. It was also a real fun and special back-to-school treat when my mom would take me and my sisters to The Zodiac at the Neiman Marcus shop at the Westchester Mall. With the complimentary chicken consomme to start the meal, the waiter would bring out the LARGEST perfect popovers with raspberry butter. I still aspire to re-create that puff!

Now, in my family, I've taken over the popover role. I seem to have pretty good luck with these tricky buggers! The trick I have found most helpful is to preheat the popover mold so it's hot when I put the batter in. Oh, and don't open the door. For that matter, don't jump, slam things, or hop. You can sneeze, though.

So popovers have a couple of basic ingredients - eggs, flour, salt, milk, butter. I use the traditional recipe from Joy of Cooking, but when my sister recently returned from Morocco, she wanted to try whole wheat popovers.

My reaction - wait, WHAT?! I worried that whole wheat flour would be too heavy to puff. So, I decided to play around and discovered a foolproof combination. Take whole wheat pastry flour (it's as light as whole wheat flour can get), throw in a teaspoon of salt and sift together. Then, in a bowl, beat four whole eggs (this is going to give the popovers their structure. I usually use less, and some butter for flavor and tenderness, when I use normal flour, but these guys will need a boost). Add a cup of milk (I used whole - I'm tempted to see what would happen if I added some cream to give it some tenderness). Mix, add the sifted flour, and stir with a whisk to combine. I ladled the batter into hot, pre-buttered (butter after the pan is hot or butter will burn!) tin and cook for about 20 minutes at 425 in an convection oven (I watched them rise and turn golden rather than look at the clock, so note).

When they came out of the oven, they shrank so darn fast! I punctured them to let steam release, but I'm thinking next time I wonder if they won't collapse as fast if I don't and just let the shell cool. Alas, this is the one downside to these popovers, as I tasted one with some homemade jam right after I popped them out and they are definitely tasty, with a slight nuttiness to the tender insides.

Healthy popovers? I'm still not quite sure if popovers count as a "healthy" food, but these get awfully close!

Enjoy!

A Cake Occasion

Tomorrow, I'm helping four other ladies host a baby shower for a dear friend of mine. We are each contributing a part of the decor and a dish - or two - for the meal.

The luncheon itself will be straightforward - salads and tea sandwiches, cider, Shirley Temples, and sparkling aperitifs. For dessert - my contribution - a yellow butter cake with chocolate frosting. Just like a store-bought cupcake, and that addictive Duncan Hines frosting, but oh so much better.

This cake - Rose Levy Beranbaum's All Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake - is OUT of this world. It is the cake that I compare everything to! Vanilla scented, with a fine moist crumb, it's a breeze to make and bake. I wanted a simple chocolate fudgy frosting. I usually make one from The NYT Cookbook, but didn't want to got through with all those steps. After some research, and a friend's recommendation, I decided to try the Mrs. Milman's Chocolate Frosting from Martha Stewart (okay, I doubled it). Very good results! What do you think?

All Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake - makes 2 9" rounds

6 large egg yolks - room temp
1 c milk
2 1/4 tsp vanilla
3 c sifted cake flour
1 1/2 c sugar
1 tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
12 tbsp butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350. In medium bowl, combine yolks, 1/4 c milk, and vanilla. In large mixing bowl, combine the sifted flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Mix on low til combined (30 sec). Then add softened butter and remaining 3/4 c milk. Mix on low to moisten, then on med-high for 1.5 minutes to develop the structure of the cake. Scrape down sides, and add egg mixture in 3 batches, mixing well (20 sec) after each addition. Pour into buttered, parchment lined, buttered again and floured 9" cake pans. Bake until tester clean, about 25-30 min. Let cool, remove from pan and remove parchment and cool completely.

Mrs. Milman's Chocolate Frosting - make 6 c (I made two batches and combined them)

24 oz semisweet chocolate morsels (I use 1/2 Ghiradelli semisweet, 1/2 bittersweet)
4 c heavy cream
1tsp light corn syrup

Melt chocolate and cream together in saucepan. Cook over med-low, stirring constantly, until thick, about 25-30 min. Remove from heat and stir in syrup. Cool completely, stirring every 15 min, or about 2 hrs (I chilled mine in fridge overnight and let it come to temp before using).