Taco Tuesday and The Return of Meals in Heels

Did ya miss me?

Mmm...pork

Porky Tacos

1 lb pork short ribs (or a similar cut, I like the bone-in)

2 tbsp cornstarch

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp chipotle chile powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 orange

1 lime

3 scallions

A few dashes of your favorite hot sauce

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a bowl, combine cornstarch, salt, chipotle, cinnamon, turmeric, cumin, garlic powder, and brown sugar and toss your porky pieces in the mixture. There should be a bit of seasoning left over after you've dusted the pork--squeeze the juice of 1/2 of the orange and 1/2 of the lime in to the bowl to make a slurry-ish sauce.

Heat a tablespoon or so of oil in a cast iron skillet (or equally heavy-bottomed, oven-safe pan) and begin searing the pork pieces. While they're searing, cut other half of orange in to quarters and give the scallions a rough chop. Once you've got a nice sear on all sides, pour your orange/lime/spice sauce over them and toss the orange quarters and scallions in the pan. Throw that pan in your oven and cook for about 35 min at 375, turning the meat a few times. After 35 minutes, crank the heat up to 425 degrees, and allow the pork to get crispy-crunchy (yes, that's the technical term). When they're cooked through, remove the bones and give the meat a bit of a chop. 

Serve on warmed soft corn tortillas, maybe topped with a bit of diced red onion, cilantro (if you're in to that), a lime wedge, and who knows--maybe a bit of cotija cheese. 

Tea for Two

Well, OK. Tea for one..

Cue angelic choirs of exaltation

To quote my friend (slash inspiration/inter-state co-conspirator for this post): "I F*@!ng love tea time". It's an oxymoron of types, obviously - as you can't really imagine a proper British lady spewing such a profanely awesome sentence. One can only imagine that she would react, well, exactly like this. Maybe she'd throw in a good "Well. I never!" while she was at it. Well, this is Tea Time - Julie Style. Profanities welcome. And encouraged. And cheese. Cheese is very much encouraged.


Por ejemplo:

Cheddar Apple Chive Scones
(makes 8 gigantic scones)

I totally stole this recipe (with some straying) from the aforementioned friend/partner in tea-related crime/potty mouth - the creator of this, my new favorite food blog, In My Itty Bitty Kitchen. So very worth stalking.

Anyways...back to the scones

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour (her recipe called for less but my dough was super wet, so I added more)

1/2 cup medium grind white (or yellow) cornmeal

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3.5 ounces Cheddar cheese, cut into little cubes (about 1/2-3/4 cup) - fairly positive I used a cup and a half..."oops"

Handful of chives, diced

1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 to 10 pieces

1/2 cup cold buttermilk

1/4 cup cold milk

1 cold egg

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

Pretty little ingredient maids. All in a row.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cheese (in honor of St. Patty's I used Dubliner cheddar) and chives together. Add the butter, and either whisk or use a hand blender to incorporate it until those chilly-buttery chunks are about the size of peas. Now, here is the main area in which I strayed. When my friend made her Apple Cheddar scones, she diced her apples and roasted them pre-mixing. I? I was impatient. So, what I did was grate the apple. Skin and all. Right into the flourcheesebutter. I used only one, actually, because I got a little lazy, but when I make these again, and make these again I shall, I will put the nominal extra effort in a grate that second apple.

In a different, teeny bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, whole egg, and milk until well blended. With your whisk (or with a beater on low) add the buttermilk mixture to the flourcheesebutter or until the dough just comes together. Mix it any more than needed and it'll get all tough and non-tender. Again, my dough was wet, so I added just a bit more flour until it was manageable.

Put the dough onto a baking sheet and pat it into a circle until it's about an inch thick. Brush the top of the circle evenly with the egg yolk (or some heavy cream, if you have it).

Hello, scones.

Score that sconey-circle into 8 gigantor pieces - and bake for 30-40 minutes.


While you wait...

Make yourself some tea!

Put on an old, wonderful movie (like, say, My Man Godfrey)

Steep that Irish Afternoon tea.

Stare into the warm glow of your local, raw honey

Gah! They'rereadythey'rereadythey'reready ohmygodohmygod giddy giddy little girl. Look. at. the sheer amount of cheese. Oh man. I guess technically you're supposed to let them cool for a while or something. I just shoved cotton into my ears and went "alalalalala" because...again, I'm impatient.

Hello, friend.

I drizzled a little honey on top of this sucker, but I had an epiphany the other night - Honey Butter. Man. That'd be good.



But this - a scone, hot, sweet tea, the lilting, trans-atlantic accents of 1930's movie actors, and the setting sun flooding through a very good bottle of honey. This is good, too.


*In light of the tragedy that's unfolding in Japan and the Pacific, please, if you can, donate to The Red Cross*

"Gringa Tostada" and The Most Disturbing Image You Could Ever Imagine

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am by no means an authentic Mexican cook. I am, as my dance moves and more-than-frequent sunburns indicate, painfully white. Which is why I hesitate to call this a "Mexican" anything. However, much like a suave Latin Lover, this dish has wooed me. I lust after this and I'm not ashamed to say it. I have fantasies of this delightful little tortilla sprouting legs and arms, donning a bandana and tight acid wash jeans and doing a little dance. Yeah. Good luck dealing with that image for the rest of your life.

aaaanyways...


This meal combines some really great ingredients to make a really really great dish. Again. I'm obsessed. You probably will be, too.

**As I've mentioned - my familiarity with Mexican food is...minimal. But it's been brought to my attention that this most resembles a tostada. A delicious, delicious tostada.


"Gringa Tostada" with Roasted Green Pepper Salsa

For the Salsa
1 large Anaheim chili pepper
1 large garlic clove
1 small white onion
1/4 tsp sriracha or 1 small jalepeno
The juice of 1 lime

For the Tortillas (Recipe is for each individual tortilla)
1 breast of boneless, skinless chicken
1 small onion
1/4 cup shredded cheese* (I used some random "Mexican" Blend that we had around the house, but any melty cheese will do well, or even some Queso Fresco or goat cheese would taste good as well)
1/2 cup arugula
2 green onions
1 tortilla


Salsa:

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Cut the onion into thick slices and toss in enough oil to coat on a pan with the whole pepper(s) and one smashed clove of garlic. Let those roast in the preheated oven until the skin on the pepper blisters and the onions and garlic are both golden brown and soft. Once that's happened, you're going to want to take the pepper and let it sit for a while, maybe put it in a bowl with a towel over it. This will allow the pepper to a.) steam a little, making the part where you have to peel off the skin a lot easier and b.) cool, so that you dong burn your dang fingerprints off.

So, once that's cooled down, grab that stem and yank. The pepper should be soft enough where it won't resist and the stem should take with it most of the seeds and white, pithy parts. You're going to want to peel the skin off (bitter, papery, generally yucky). Just give the pepper one more once-over to make sure there aren't any more ribs (the white stuff) on the inside of the pepper. If you used a jalepeno (which you would have roasted with the others, naturally) do the same. Once that's done, give it a quick chop and throw it into you food processor along with the onions, garlic and the lime juice. It's going to be a little thick so don't be scared to add some water, a tablespoon at a time, until you reach the desired consistency. If you did not use the jalepeno (as I didn't because I forgot to buy it...) just add a couple of drips of sriracha.


Tortilla:

Start by caramelizing your onions. I prefer my caramelized onions to be skinny, thin strips of delicious - so I usually cut my onion in half (so that it makes like an onion rainbow, you know?) and then I just run them cut side down over my mandoline (I also do this because it takes like 3 seconds and I'm a lazy bum). So, the key to caramelizing onions is loooow and sloooow. Luckily, because my onions are super thin, the looow and slooow is not agonizingly loooow and/or slooow. So, yeah, in a pan with a little bit of olive oil just cook them there onions up, salting and peppering to taste, of course.

Blurry little onions

While those puppies are cooking up, cut your chicken into thin strips. Once the onions are about half way to caramelization, throw in the chicken strips.

Even blurrier chicken and onions

These should cook up pretty quickly so once those guys are done, and for the sake of the dishes, dump the onions and the chicken on a plate and set them aside.

Now, you're going to want to put the pan back on the heat, turn it up to about medium, and add just a schosh (scooch? schoch?) of oil to the pan. Now, throw in your tortilla. Let it get all friendly-like with that oil. You're looking for a golden brown.

Before the flip

Now, you're going to want to cook the tortilla on both sides, and I promise you, giggles will ensue when you flip it (it bubbles up!) turn the heat lower, throw on a layer of cheese (let that get a little melty), then a handful of arugula (let that get wilty) and then the chicken & onion friends. One more sprinkling of cheese for good measure, another dab of arugula for crunch, some thin-sliced green onion and then spoon on your sauce et voila...or...y ole! Deliciousness awaits. Turn it out onto a plate - like so:



Gaze at it, admiringly - like so:




And then go at it with a fork and a knife (or use a pizza cutter to make little triangley slices, like I did) and seriously, watch how fast it goes. Enjoy!

BLT Risotto

Mmmm...risotto. That creamy, delightful marriage of melty onions and garlic, firm but not too firm arborio rice and cheese. Melty, melty cheese.

As I've said in my first post, I was not always the most adventurous eater. There was a very long period of time when I had a very deep and profound distrust of rice. For whatever reason. Then Italy came along and blew my fricken mind and I've been obsessed ever since. Generally speaking, risotto is my favorite vehicle for leeks, peas, spinach and roasted chicken. But tonight is a night for bacon. I've been assured by my [insanely talented] friend that "you only live once", erego I'm not going to apologize for the amount of bacon I've consumed today. Don't wanna. Not gonna.

So yes, bacon, roasted tomatoes and arugula together make my BLT Risotto one of my new favorites. And I promise, if you try it - it will be yours as well!

BLT Risotto

5 strips of thick cut bacon
1 medium onion
2 large cloves of garlic
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups chicken stock
About 20 cherry tomatoes
1 cup arugula
2-3 tbsp goat cheese


Start with the bacon. Because it's the best part. Also because it's necessary. So crisp those magical strips up in you pan.


Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Quarter up your tomatoes, and toss those on a pan with some olive oil and salt and pepper. You want to let those roast until they look like this:

While those are cooking up, dice one medium onion and mince your garlic. By this time, your bacon should be done cooking. Remove them from the pan, and drain on some paper towels.

In a separate saucepan, heat your chicken stock.

Now that you've removed your bacon, you're going to want to drain most of the fat from the pan, while leaving enough to cook the onions and garlic. Cook them over medium heat, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste until the onions are translucent and soft. To the pan, add the rice in with the onions and garlic, and let them get all friendly like.



Here's where the magic happens. This is where "rice" becomes "risotto". Make sure that your heat is medium-low. Any hotter and it'll dry up, and any lower and your rice will NEVER cook through. Ever. Add a ladle of stock at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon until the liquid becomes absorbed into the rice. (Also, maybe check on your tomatoes. They're probably perfect by now. Set those babies aside - you'll add them later). So, keep adding ladles of stock at a time, only adding more when the previous ladle has been absorbed.



Stop, obviously, once you run out of stock. If it looks too dry or too wet, or if your rice needs to get cooked a little more - feel free to add more. The world will not end.

When it's all cooked up, you have the basis of your soon-to-be-eaten yumminess. Now is the time to add the bacon you cooked up earlier - crumbled - like so:



Chopped arugula. A-like so:



And then those tomatoes that you roasted earlier. Finish it off by crumbling your goat cheese in (or, if you don't like goat cheese like some people I know - it's equally good to grate some high quality parmesan cheese, you'll just get a gooier, nuttier kind of creaminess)



Sorry about the picture quality! But, I promise you it tastes much better than it looks!

Fear not the risotto, my friends! If you're brave enough to attempt it, you will definitely reap the delicious benefits.

Soupy Sales

Today a friend of mine approached me with an interesting problem. "Speaking of bland," she said, "Help me. I made chicken vegetable soup last night and its so gross and bland. Help!" Seeing as how I'm in Boston and she's in New York City and there's not that much that I can do to physically help her, I thought I'd do my best to lend what little I actually know about cooking to my friend (who is a wonderful little cook in her own right) as I could. So I asked her to tell me everything she had done, to walk me through the process.

As soon as her description started with the phrase "I dumped chicken stock into a pot", I knew that this should be the subject of my next post. "How to Get the Most From Your Ingredients" or something like that. Flavorama. Yumsville: Population 10,000. Yes, that's how many taste buds you have. Yes, I'm a nerd. Whatever, the name doesn't matter.


.....Chicken Soup for the Blogger's Soul? Ok. I'm done.



As a practice, whenever I make soup - be it Tomato, Butternut Squash or Lentil in nature - I never (keep in mind I rarely use such definitive language. But I mean it) never, start with the broth. I'm not quite sure why, but I'm sure it has something to do with my aversion to most things cooked in liquid. Poached anything gives me the heebies AND the jeebies. Maybe it's from working one too many Sunday Brunches, and seeing those ghostly little eggs hover in their creepy, gelatinous ice bath. Blech. Anywho. But for once, my weird food phobias (which include mayonnaise and pre-shaped egg-like substances (egg mcmuffins, I'm looking at you.)) actually have panned out for the tastier! In the case of raw onion, celery and garlic v. chicken stock, no one wins. All that delicious flavor gets washed away when what you really want to do is concentrate the flavors of the individual ingredients - make each one as delicious as it can be - before letting them mellow and blend together in you stock (or water, whathaveyou).

It's like a chorus. A bunch of people just singing random notes will not sound good - but, if you teach them how to harmonize, you'll have a wonderful, ear-pleasing blend. And that's what you should aim to do when making anything, never mind soups. Ok. I'm off the soupbox.


Vegetable Lentil Soup

3 Medium Carrots
1 Large Onion
2 Stalks of Celery
1 Large Potato
3 Cloves of Garlic (minced)
1 tbsp of curry powder
1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
1 lb of French Lentils*
32 oz of Low Sodium chicken broth

Ah, the majestic bounty of a pantry. As taken by my Blackberry's camera...


Silly dogs in sweaters wait patiently for carrots

In a large pot, sautee the diced vegetables in a few tablespoons of oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook them on medium heat until the onions have melted and the potatoes and carrots are soft. Push the vegetables to one side of the pan and sprinkle the curry powder and the tomato paste on the bottom of the pan. Let the spices get all toasty and aromatic. I took a photo of that phase...but it didn't look as deliriously delicious as it smelled.

Look at all those veggies. Getting all friendly and snuggly and whatnot.

Add in your lentils, and let those get all familiar with each other. Finally, add in your broth. Be sure to get a wooden spoon and really scrape up the bottom of the pan. It's that whole deglazing thing I talked about here. Taste for seasoning - add more if you think it needs it. Let that come up to temp et voila! Soup's up!

Garnish with some scallions and maybe a dash of some seriously extra-virgin olive oil and enjoy!

* I used Trader Joe's Steamed French Lentils - it's important not to use the regular lentils you find in most grocery stores, as they're bigger and waxier and are just sooo wrong

Holy Holidays! Peppermint Bark Cupcakes

It's official. I am in the holiday spirit. Hide the eggnog. Lock up your sleds. The Holiday Hurricane has arrived. Oh yeah. It's gonna get festive up in here.

And my first act as holiday lunatic was to create some Peppermint Bark Cupcakes. Yeah, I said it. Peppermint Bark in cupcake form. I know what you're thinking - 'Aaaaah! No, Julie. Stop we can't take it it's too much aaaah!' Well tough tinsel.

This. Just. Happened.


Peppermint Bark Cupcakes
makes 24

Cupcakes
6 Tbs cocoa powder
1/2 c hot water
2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Zest of 1/2 an orange
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 c buttermilk
1/2 cup butter - melted and cooled
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp peppermint extract
1/2 c of dark chocolate chips

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
6 oz white chocolate
1/4 c heavy cream
1 stick of room temperature butter
4 oz of cream cheese (softened of course)
1 small bag of confectioners sugar

Crushed candy canes for garnish

Cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl - mix the cocoa powder with the hot water and set aside.

Like So.

In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the orange zest.

In yet another bowl (large), (yes my washing machine got a work out tonight), whisk together the eggs and sugar until well combined. Next whisk in the buttermilk, vanilla, peppermint and cocoa mixture. After that whisk in the cooled butter (if it's not at room temperature the hot butter will cook the eggs and you'll have chocolate scrambled eggs...ew.).

Finally you may gradually whisk in the dry mixture. Then fold in the chocolate chips.See? It eventually all goes into one bowl.

Pour the batter about halfway up in lined muffin tins and place in a preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes.

Don't fill them all the way up. They'll overflow and become big, messy cupcake masses.

Let them [get] cool. Like...way cool.

Speaking of cool...look who stopped by! My friend April helped me take care of all that pesky excess batter. Thaaanks, Ape!

Frosting:
In a double boiler* melt the white chocolate with the cream. Remove from heat and let cool a bit.

Mmm...melty chocolate

Once it's at about room temperature, you can whisk in the cream cheese and butter. Once that gets all incorporated and whatnot, mix in the confectioners sugar until you reach the desired consistency.


Pipe in little snowy peaks onto your cupcakes and sprinkle some crushed up candy canes et voila! Christmas in a cupcake!!








...or you could just buy this...


*If you don't have a double boiler, you can always just MacGyver one like I always do. Just place a heat proof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Just make sure that the water in the pot never touches the bottom of the bowl or else your melting thing will scorch and you will be sad.

A Taste of Summer During This Weird Semi-Heatwave in November

Ok. I promise I'll stop posting only pasta recipes. Someday. Maybe...

I know artichokes aren't exactly "in season", but hey. It was 65 the other day. Also, I happened to have frozen artichokes. So there.

Artichokes, for most of us, come in the form of the "Spinach &" dip so popular in restaurants requiring servers to have "flair", and while it's delicious most of those recipes are weighed down with sour cream and cheese (delicious delicious cheese). Actually, though, artichokes are extremely good for you - especially for your liver. Artichokes are an excellent source of dietary fiber, magnesium, vitamin C, folic acid, vitamin A, biotin, niacin, and a bunch of other "-ins". Yay artichokes.

I made this the other day when I was home alone (dinner for one...womp womp) and I was very glad I did, but as a result, the ratios might be a bit wonky. So, as with anything in the kitchen, I must ask for some patience.

Artichoke and Lemon Linguini
Serves about 3

2 leeks, trimmed, rinsed and patted dry
2 cloves of garlic
1 bag of frozen artichokes (thawed)
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1 1/2 cups of white wine
1 cup of arugula

Linguini

Grilled chicken (optional)

Start with the leeks - I bought them already trimmed and washed at Trader Joe's (ah, laziness), but if you can't find them already cleaned for you just cut off the tough dark green part and cut them down the middle length-wise (hot-dog style for those who still think in terms of elementary-school crafts). Run them under the sink and make sure you really get in there and get all the sand and dirt out of there. Sand is great at the beach, but has no place in your linguini. None at all. Pat them dry and chop em up.


(Oh, p.s. start boiling up some salted water for your linguini. Cook that according to the boxes directions....You get the idea. It's pasta!) Heat up your sautee pan over medium heat. Sautee your leeks with about 3 cloves of finely minced garlic. Salt and pepper those babies up and let them cook until soft.


At this point you're going to want to throw in your thawed artichokes, lemon zest, lemon juice and wine. Cover and let simmer for a while and let all those yummy ingredients get all friendly-like. After a few minutes or so throw in the arugula and let that get wilted and delicious. Once your linguini is cooked to your liking just toss it in the pan that you've been cooking your sauce in.


Ta-Da! You now have Summer in Almost-Winter-But-Really-It's-Fall in a bowl. Enjoy!