Vanilla Ice Cream with a Food Processor

 A few weeks ago we harvested a bunch of lemons from our tree, and I had good success making lemon sorbet using the food processor with this recipe.  (Highly recommended!) But of course this got me thinking ... could I use the same sort of technique to make ice cream?  (There was no question of what kind of ice cream to make.  Vanilla!  The best ice cream!) Some googling around got me to this post from The Kitchn.  They did all the hard work to compare 7 (!) different methods of no-ice-cream-maker-ice-cream that are mentioned around the web.  Unsurprisingly the old ice cream in a bag method came on the bottom (this never worked when I was a kid.) There were several complicated options in the middle.  And on top ... a simple food processor method that was very similar to the sorbet method (which I have adapted below).  The next question was what recipe to use.  I wanted something as simple as possible.  The advantage of making homemade is that I don't need all the fillers and stabilizers. 

 This simple recipe from Taste of Home seemed to fit the bill, and is fine, such as it is.  But there's this other recipe for chocolate chip ice cream that was even better.  But this vanilla base was too custardy (I want ice cream, not frozen custard!), a bit too sweet, and not enough vanilla punch.  So I've reduced the eggs and sugar, upped the vanilla, and this comes out so delicious and smooth even without an ice cream machine.  Excellent!

Strawberry Upside-Down Valentine's Day Cake

Today is Valentine's Day!  And I wanted to try making something new.  Something suitable for Valentine's Day.  But I didn't know what it would be...

At the Farmers' Market, I bought a basket of strawberries.  (The great thing about living in coastal California, is that we have Farmers Markets – with fresh strawberries – all year round).  But I still didn't know what to do with them.   At Trader Joe's I picked up a pint of heavy cream.  That could surely be combined with strawberries in some way, but I was still aimless.

When we got home, I turned to Chef Google.  Searching for "valentine's day cake recipes" turned up this list which brought me to this recipe for Strawberry Upside-Down Cake.  But this was one of these semi-homemade kind of deals with marshmallows, jell-o mix, and boxed cake.  That just wouldn't do!  But it gave me the idea of where to start.

I could combine a simple strawberry pie filling recipe (strawberries + tapioca: done) with the All-Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake from the indispensable Cake Bible, and a whipped cream frosting (with red food coloring to make it pink for Valentine's Day!).  Becky says this "might be the best cake [I've] ever made." And here it is!

Buttermilk Pancakes

I've been making pancakes for years.  I regularly made them in Tanzania (with whatever ingredients I could get my hands on), and have tried various recipes over the years.  For many years now I've been using the Joy of Cooking for a standard buttermilk pancake recipe.  But they weren't always as fluffy as I wanted them, and I always had trouble getting consistent proportions.  Recently, I pulled out the Cook's Illustrated recipe, but that uses sour cream instead of buttermilk -- and I'm morally opposed to sour cream.  However, there were some good tips on ratios of baking powder to baking soda, good weight and volume details, and other tips.  I then combined these two recipes and... Eureka!  Perfect, reliable buttermilk pancakes.  We usually cook these on a griddle on the grill outside on a beautiful Sunday morning.  (And in California, this can be all year long.  Depending on your location, YMMV.) I strongly recommend weighing the flour -- the consistency of the pancakes depends on getting this right, and it's hard to get a consistent amount by measuring 2 cups of flour by volume.

Buttermilk Pancakes
Makes 12 pancakes

Ingredients:

2 cups (9.5 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 Tbs sugar
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
3 Tbs unsalted butter (melted)

Preheat griddle to 350 F or until water droplets "dance".  Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.  In a separate medium bowl, whisk eggs together.  Then whisk buttermilk, and finally whisk in butter.  Pour liquid mixture onto flour mixture, and whisk until just incorporated.  As Alton Brown says "count to ten and then just step away from the bowl."

To check if the grill is ready, drop a few droplets of water on.  If they "dance" but don't boil away immediately, the griddle is the right temperature.  (Alternatively, you can use one of those awesome laser infrared thermometer doohickies.)  Brush a small amount of butter on griddle using a paper towel to wipe up excess.  Using a 1/3 cup measuring cup, pour on 6 pancakes.  Wait until bubbles start to form on top, or bottoms are nice and golden brown.  Flip pancakes until browned on the other side.  Repeat with the second set of 6 pancakes.

Serve with butter and real maple syrup.

Peanutty Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanuts

Who doesn't love peanut butter cookies? Other than those who are allergic, of course...

In the past year, I expanded my cookie repertoire to peanut butter cookies. Sam loves them, Becky loves them, and my sister Amanda loves them. In honor of Auntie Amanda's upcoming visit, I'm finally blogging the recipe that I use. Of course, it's basically a Cook's Illustrated recipe for "Big Super-Nutty Peanut Butter Cookies", which I grabbed from an adaptation here. They contain extra-crunchy peanut-butter as well as ground peanuts, so I call them "Peanutty Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanuts" which is even more accurate.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup with Cilantro Yogurt

A couple of years ago we were looking for a good butternut squash soup recipe to take advantage of the beautiful squash we find at the farmers' markets around fall and winter. Becky found an old Cook's Illustrated recipe that somebody else had reposted online. It purported to extract the most flavor out the squash by steaming it and sauteing the seeds. Unfortunately, we found it to be watery and bland. Though the cilantro yogurt garnish was delicious!

I got to work on it, roasting the squash instead of steaming it (similar to my pumpkin pie recipe; adding more squash and less water; and a bit more salt. I've been meaning to post this online for a long time, and here it is!

Roast Turkey

Okay. So I haven't posted to this blog since January. And Thanksgiving was last Thursday. But that doesn't mean I can't post my roast turkey recipe now! And if I do it now, it'll be written down before I forget it again next year.

There are many schools of thought on cooking a turkey. But something that everybody who knows something about cooking turkey knows is: you'll get much better results if you don't stuff it.

The "traditional" method (that is written on the side of the frozen turkey bag) has low heat (325F) for 15 minutes a pound. But this doesn't actually yield very good turkey, and 325F isn't hot enough to brown the skin to give you that nice roasted-turkey look.

But then there are people who say you should put it in high heat first, then low heat. Or low first then high. Or you should deep fry it. (This is slightly dangerous, but yields a good turkey).

Anyway, what do I do for Thanksgiving every year? That I can answer. I learned this method in my professional cooking class. It works well, and can be applied to any bird, though I've only roasted chickens and turkeys. You need to keep an eye on the bird -- the cooking time depends on the size of the turkey! But it's considerably less than the canonical 15 minutes per pound. This Thanksgiving, the 20 pound turkey took about 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Pumpkin Bread

Some time ago, I posted a recipe for courgette (zucchini) bread, inspired by a particularly successful loaf of pumpkin bread that Mike V. and I baked in Tanzania. And I'm sure everybody has been wondering...but what about that pumpkin bread?

Well, at long last, here is a fantastic pumpkin bread recipe, adapted from an article by Christopher Kimball, the editor of Cook's Illustrated. I recommend using fresh pumpkin, the preparation of which I described on my pumpkin pie recipe.

Want To Make Bread? There's No Knead!

In November of 2006, Mark Bittman introduced the world to Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread. This recipe totally rocked my world, and demoted the bread machine to a sad, unused corner of the kitchen. And it wasn't just me...everybody I knew who baked was talking about it. Four years later, it came up at lunch, which inspired this post.

And what is this Wondrous Bread Without Kneading of which I speak? A homemade bakery-style boule, with a wonderful crust, open crumb, and the feel of a real loaf of bread. There's no complicated technique, no sophisticated equipment. Though you do need a 6-8 quart covered dutch oven (cast iron, glass, etc.) that can withstand a 450 degree oven, and time to mix the dough a day in advance.

The secret behind the no-knead method is water. To get a good bakery crust, you need a steam-injection oven, which most people don't have in their home. Jim Lahey realized that if you have a relatively wet loaf of bread in a covered pot...you get the steam for free! His next insight was that when you mix up the wet dough you don't need to physically knead it. Over a long stretch of time (12-24 hours) the rising dough will naturally stretch out the gluten, and when the dough is wet the gluten molecules are free to assemble themselves into alignment and create the network necessary for a great loaf of bread.

In December, 2006 Mark Bittman posted a follow-up article with some tweaks to the recipe, and later Cook's Illustrated picked up the baton for their "Almost No-Knead Bread" (subscription required) in the January 2008 issue. Both of these contained key insights to improving the technique, and I've added a few tweaks of my own. One suggestion from Cook's Illustrated that I tried once and didn't find very useful was to replace 6 Tbs water with mild-flavored American lager. Unfortunately, as mild-flavored American lager is like making love in a canoe, I didn't find this to be very useful.

Black Bean Veggie Burgers

Back in Ann Arbor, Becky and I would grill all through the summer grilling season. And one of our favorite things to grill on short notice were the Morningstar Farms Spicy Black Bean Veggie Burgers. These are exceptional veggie burgers because they don't try to taste like fake burgers. (Becky doesn't eat meat, and I like real burgers.) With black beans and corn and spiciness, they are delicious and full of protein. And they are not available on the west coast. And the grilling season lasts all-year round here! It's tragic.

So this has forced us to roll our own.

Courgette (Zucchini) Bread

Back when I was in the Peace Corps (I know, I know) I took spring break 1998 to visit Mike V. on Mafia Island, a small island off the coast of mainland Tanganyika. Mafia is exactly what you would expect from a desert island in the Indian Ocean, complete with a fantastic coral reef. Luckily, V was friends with the folks who ran the scuba dives from the main resort on the island. Which means...free scuba diving!

Yet it does seem kind of rude to just tag along on a dive trip, especially since the resort prepares lunch for the guests, so we had to bring our own lunch. Since it was pumpkin season on Mafia (who knew?) we also decided to bring some homemade pumpkin bread to barter for some better food. Although we lacked a real oven, it's possible to make quick breads by building a very basic "convection" oven. You put one sufuria (a pot without a handle) on a three piles of coins inside another larger sufuria which is placed on a kerosene stove. When you cover the large sufuria, convection will bring heat all the way around the bread. It works pretty well, although temperature control is a fine art that depends on the temperament of your kerosene stove.

Joining us on the dive trip that day (pictured above) were the resort folks, Sam (who was British), and a woman whose name eludes me for the moment (who was a white Kenyan). The paying guests were a nice family from Denmark who were very blond. At lunch we brought out the pumpkin bread, and everybody was baffled. Bread made with pumpkin? Nobody had ever heard of such a preposterous thing! Sam said incredulously, "what other crazy things do you Americans make...courgette bread?"

Indeed we do!

In spite of their apprehension, everybody enjoyed the bread and I got two more free days of diving that week.

Mexican Rice

You can't have cheese enchiladas without rice and beans! So here is our favorite Mexican rice recipe, which can be made in parallel with the enchiladas. (I must admit here that we usually use canned refried beans with the enchiladas, although I promise to post our refried bean recipe in the not-too-distant future). The recipe has been adapted from here, with many modifications.

Mexican Rice

Ingredients:
1 cup white rice (we use basmati)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 tomato, grated
1 1/2 cups water, hot
1 Tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt

Heat 2-3 Tbsp peanut oil in a heavy skillet or saucier (a saucier works great because it's harder for the rice to get stuck in the corners). Heat oil over medium-high heat until hot. Add the rice, and stir continuously. If it begins to stick a lot, add a little more oil. After about 2 minutes, add the onion and garlic. Saute until the rice is golden brown. Add the tomato, hot water, chili powder, and salt. Bring to a boil, then cover. Cook on very low heat for 20-25 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit covered for 5 minutes. Stir and serve!

Cheese Enchiladas

Some time back in 2004 or 2005 Becky and I first tried to make cheese enchiladas. I've loved cheese enchiladas since I was a kid, and this is a fantastic and fun vegetarian meal. We first tried the recipe from the Sundays at Moosewood cookbook, and it was awful. Bland, unsatisfying, strange, and dry.

So we turned to the Internets!

I found a much better recipe online here. I've continually adapted it over the years, and now I'm finally ready to share it with the world. The construction of the enchiladas usually takes two of us. Stay tuned for our recipe for mexican rice for the side!

Cheese Enchiladas

Makes 12 cheese enchiladas

Ingredients:
12 corn tortillas
1 1/2 onion, chopped
2 cups shredded cheese (cheddar, Mexican mix, etc.)
3 Tbs butter
3 Tbs flour
2 cups water or vegetable stock, hot
1 tomato, grated
1-2 Tbs chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne
salt
pepper
canola oil

Start by cooking the onions over low heat in a couple tablespoons of oil until soft. It helps to start this before making the chili gravy.

For the chili gravy, start by making a roux by melting the butter in a small saucepan. The saucepan should be large enough to accommodate one of the corn tortillas. Stir in the flour and whisk over medium-low heat for a couple of minutes. Slowly whisk in the hot water or vegetable stock until fully incorporated. Add 1 Tbs chili powder, tomato, and cayenne. Taste for salt and chili powder, while cooking down the gravy for about 10-15 minutes, whisking frequently to keep it nice and smooth. When it has thickened satisfactorily (it needs to adhere to the corn tortillas), remove from heat.

Now prep the enchilada station. Grease a 9x13 inch oven-proof dish, and preheat oven to 400F. Have cheese, onions, and chili gravy ready to go. Heat oil over medium heat in a frying pan, deep enough to easily cover a tortilla. The oil is ready when a piece of tortilla dropped in sinks to the bottom and immediately resurfaces.

For each enchilada: Pick up a tortilla with tongs and place into hot oil for 15 seconds to soften tortilla. Dip tortilla into chili gravy, covering both sides. Place tortilla in 9x13 pan, putting cheese and onion on, and rolling it up. (Use the right hand for the onion, left hand for the cheese, right hand to roll it up and slide into place, and left hand to drink beer. Any other combination will leave you with "club hand".) Make sure each tortilla is seam-side down. Repeat for all 12. Pour remaining chili gravy on top of enchiladas, making sure that the corners are moist so they won't burn. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until cheese is bubbly. Remove from oven and let them sit for a few minutes (like pizza, digging in too soon can be hazardous to the roof of your mouth.) Enjoy!

Pumpkin Pie

The first pie that I learned to make is one of my favorite: good old pumpkin pie. I don't make it as much as I would enjoy, since a certain unnamed person for whom I do most of my cooking doesn't like pumpkin. But come Thanksgiving, Pumpkin Pie is a Rykoff family tradition, and sorry unnamed person, but if I only make one pie it will be pumpkin.

I've refined the recipe over the years, improving my crust technique (I used to -- gasp -- use store-bought crust), and tweaking the filling. The basis of my filling recipe is my grandmother's famous pumpkin pie. One of the last years that my grandmother made pumpkin pie somebody was helping her, but they were flummoxed because she couldn't find the famous pumpkin pie recipe. It turned out it was on the back of the Libby's can of pumpkin.

The most recent iteration, which I record here for posterity, is a pair of hybrid recipes. The crust has the basis in a Cook's Illustrated recipe (but with all butter -- I'm morally opposed to shortening, and also we don't eat pork, so no lard), but with the clever rolling method from Alton Brown. The filling merges Libby's recipe (with a fresh pumpkin!) with an old New York Times recipe. Although you can substitute a can of pumpkin (not "pumpkin pie filling") if you wish.

Crust

Please follow the directions for the super-awesome pie crust here (but only make half the recipe, unless you're doing two pies.  I won't judge you!)

You'll need to blind-bake the crust before filling. 

Put oven rack on lower-middle position and preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The next part really helps.  Refrigerate dough-lined plate 30-40 minutes, and then freeze for about 20 minutes.  The first refrigeration helps relax the gluten and minimizes shrinkage during baking; the second freezing improves the flakiness due to the different melting points of the flour and butter.

Put two layers of aluminum foil in crust and weight down with dry beans or pennies.  Put in oven and bake until light in color, 25-30 minutes.  Carefully remove the foil and bake for a further 5 minutes.

Pumpkin Pie with Fresh Pumpkin

Makes 1 9-inch pie

1 pie-appropriate pumpkin
3/8 cup (3.5 ounce) white sugar
3/8 cup (3.5 ounce) packed light brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh grated ginger or 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
5/8 cup whole milk
5/8 cup half-and-half

Preheat over to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Take 1 medium sugar pie pumpkin or winter luxury pumpkin or french roasting pumpkin or (as I do) whatever they recommend at your favorite pumpkin-monger at the farmers' market. Cut in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds and stringy bits. This is a bit of a pain, and may require a paring knife as well as a spoon. However, getting out the stringy bits makes a much better pie! Line baking sheet with foil and place two halves of pumpkin pumpkin-side down. Bake for 1-1.5 hours until domes noticeably soften, but before things start getting very brown. Scoop out pumpkiny goodness from the shell into a bowl, and mash with a spoon. It may be fairly wet, so put the mashed pumpkin in a sieve to drain excess liquid. (I usually do this before I start the crust). (It is, of course, possible to skip this whole thing and use 1 can of pumpkin). Update: To effectively get the excess liquid out of the pumpkin, Christopher Kimball recommends lining a baking sheet with 3 sheets of paper towels, spreading the pumpkin, and then covering again with 3 more sheets. With some light pressing the paper towels will get saturated, and you end up with a nice sheet of perfectly textured pumpkinny goodness.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg in a small bowl and whisk to mix. Beat eggs in medium bowl. Add sugar mix and whisk together. Wait a few minutes and whisk again (to ensure that sugar dissolves completely). Whisk in mashed pumpkin. Update: If the mix is too lumpy at this point (when using fresh pumpkin) this mixture can be pulsed a few times in a food processor before continuing.  Slowly add milk/half-and-half mixture and whisk to mix completely. Add filling and put in oven. After 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 F. Bake for an additional 30-40 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Ultimate Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

A couple of weeks ago, Becky said "I'd like some oatmeal raisin cookies". And seeing as I can't feed Sam directly, I do my best to oblige her requests. Of course, I looked for a Cook's Illustrated recipe first. And I found this online, which purported to be the Cook's Illustrated recipe from 1997. (I'm not actually going to pay to get through their paywall, am I?) The cookies were good, but there were a few problems. Not enough salt. Baking two trays at once led to severely uneven cooking. And the flavor just didn't have enough punch.

Then I thought...what if I use the methods from their fantastic chocolate chip cookie recipe (adapted here). The goal there was to make big, chewy, flavorful cookies. Isn't that what we want in an oatmeal raisin cookie? I think it is! So I put the two recipes together, made a few fixes, and here we are. (The coarse kosher salt gives a nice complexity to the cookies.)  Becky agrees I can call these the Ultimate Oatmeal Raisin Cookies*.

Ultimate Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Makes 18 Cookies

Ingredients:
16 Tbs (1 cup) butter
3/4 cup (5.5 oz) granulated sugar
1 cup (7.0 oz) light brown sugar [updated]
1 1/2 cup (7.5 oz) all-purpose flour
2 eggs
3/4 tsp coarse kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 cup (8 oz) rolled oats
1 1/2 cup raisins*

Preheat oven to 350. Whisk flour, baking powder, kosher salt, and nutmeg together. Heat 12 Tbs butter in a wide saute pan until melted (a couple of minutes), and continue to cook until brown (a few more minutes). Remove from heat, and add to remaining 4 Tbs butter in a big mixing bowl to melt. Whisk sugars and butter in mixing bowl. Add eggs and whisk until sugar lumps are gone, about 30 seconds. Let stand 3 minutes, and whisk again for 30 seconds. Repeat stand/whisk process 2 more times. (This ensures that the sugar is fully dissolved and the cookies will develop a richer caramelized flavor.) Using spatula, stir in flour mixture until incorporated (but try not to over-mix). Stir in oats until incorporated, and finally stir in raisins.

Split dough into 18 big cookies. Put 9 on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and bake 22-25 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through. For most consistent results, bake only 1 batch at a time. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool, and leave for at least 30 minutes to set.

*I like raisiny cookies, but apparently Becky thinks that 1 1/2 cups of raisins is too many. Becky is CRAZY. (However, Becky strongly recommends using golden raisins in the recipe, which sweetens things up just a tad.)

Apple Muffins

While she was pregnant, Becky needed lots of continuous food input. And it doesn't seem to be slowing down now that she's breastfeeding Sam. So I made lots of quick snack foods, including dozens and dozens of muffins. I adapted this apple muffin recipe from Alton Brown's basic muffin technique. They're apple-y and tasty and aren't too sweet. These are muffins, not cupcakes! Note that the cinnamon levels given are not very high...Becky is sensitive to cinnamon, so if you want them more cinnamon-y then you probably should add more cinnamon!

Apple Muffins

Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients:
4 small apples (1 3/4-ish pounds)
1 stick cinnamon
1/2 tsp lemon zest
303 g (11 oz) (2 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch salt
105 g (3 3/4 oz) (1/2 cup) sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Two of the apples are going to be used to make applesauce. Peel and chop coarsely. Put in small saucepan with 1/4 cup water, the cinnamon stick, and the lemon zest. Bring to boil, cover, and let simmer on low for 15-20 minutes until apples are soft and can be mushed into applesauce. This should yield ~ 1/2 cup.

The other two apples should be peeled and brunoised (small dice) yielding about 1 1/2 cups.

Put the dry ingredients -- flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt -- in a mixing bowl and whisk together to aerate. Alternatively, you can use a sifter, but whisking does the job just as well and is a lot easier to clean than a sifter!

Put the wet ingredients -- sugar, vegetable oil, yogurt, eggs, lemon juice, and 1/2 cup applesauce -- in a second bowl. If you are short on applesauce, add a bit more yogurt so that yogurt + applesauce = 1 cup. Whisk together until fully incorporated.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix with a spatula until the flour is mostly dissolved. Try to be gentle and not overmix! Add in the 1 1/2 cups of apple bits and fold together. All the flour should be incorporated at this point.

Prepare a muffin tin by spraying with your favorite canola-oil based cooking spray. Spoon 12 roughly equal portions of batter into the muffin tin. They should all be approximately full. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean, turning the pan halfway. Immediately transfer muffins to drying rack when done.

Variation: Lemon-Poppyseed Muffins

Substitute 1 cup yoghurt for 1/2 cup yoghurt and 1/2 cup applesauce.
Add 2 Tbs lemon juice and 1 tsp lemon zest (from 1-2 lemons depending on their size) to the wet ingredients.
Add 2 Tbs poppyseeds instead of the apple bits.
And you probably don't want the cinnamon.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've always been one for the good ol' Toll House Cookie recipe. It certainly has withstood the test of time since its invention in the 1930's. But there is always room for improvement. I like my cookies mounded and chewy in the middle, but I've never figured out how to do this consistently. One option is to use Crisco instead of butter, but (a) this makes them taste like Crisco instead of butter and (b) the partially hydrogenated oil is not good for you. (I care a lot more about (a) than (b)). Alton Brown suggests refrigerating the dough before baking it, but this doesn't seem to help either. So what to do?

Cook's Illustrated to the rescue! By experimenting with every possible variation on the recipe, they've hit on the secrets for a superb cookie that's chewy, mounded, and has rich buttery, toffee flavors. The key modifications to the basic Toll House recipe are: more brown sugar; melted, browned butter; 1 egg + 1 yolk (remove an egg white); clever pauses; and larger cookies. (To be honest, I usually make my cookies larger than the recommended size, so this isn't much of a change for me).

Try this chocolate chip cookie recipe, adapted from Cook's Illustrated. You won't be disappointed. The only hardware required is a whisk, a spatula, a saute pan, and a few bowls. You don't need any electric equipment! (Unless you have an electric stove, I suppose.)

Makes 16 cookies.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
14 tbs unsalted butter
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp coarse kosher salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg + 1 yolk
1 1/4 cup semisweet chips.*
3/4 cup nuts (optional, and why would you want to ruin these cookies by putting nuts in them?)

Preheat oven to 375. Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together. Heat 10 tbs butter in a wide saute pan until melted (a couple of minutes), and continue to cook until brown (a few more minutes). Remove from heat, add remaining 4 tbs butter to melt. Whisk sugars, vanilla, and butter in a medium bowl. Add egg and yolk and whisk until sugar lumps are gone, about 30 seconds. Let stand 3 minutes, and whisk again for 30 seconds. Repeat stand/whisk process 2 more times. (This ensures that the sugar is fully dissolved and the cookies will develop a richer caramelized flavor.) Using spatula, stir in flour and baking soda for about a minute. Finally, stir in chocolate chips. Split dough into 16 cookies, each about 3 tbs. Put 8 on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake 10 to 14 minutes. For most consistent results, bake only 1 batch at a time. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool.

* Cook's Illustrated recommends Ghirardelli 60% chips, and these are fantastic. Notably, they're the only chips that use the same formula as the associated chocolate bar, only they are half the price for the same weight of chocolate. Who knew?

Mac & Cheese

At long last, here is my Mac & Cheese recipe. It's not fancy, but it certainly gets the job done. Unless, of course, you are lactose intolerant. Sorry Becky! This can be made with any firm cheese. I usually use sharp cheddar, but I've found a mix of garden-variety cheddar and smoky English farmhouse cheddar is very good.

Ingredients:
1 lb macaroni
5 Tbs butter (salted)
5 Tbs flour
3 cups milk
0.5-0.6 pound cheddar cheese, grated (Trader Joe's English Coastal is delicious)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
worcestershire sauce
freshly ground black pepper
salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Put the baking dish in the oven to preheat it.

Put water for pasta on the stove. When it is boiling, add the pasta, cook until al-dente, and drain.

Meanwhile, bring milk to a simmer on medium-low heat (try not to scald the milk). As the milk is heating, melt butter in a saucepan or saucier pot on medium-low heat. When it is melted, whisk in flour to make a roux. Whisk and cook for a few minutes. Slowly pour in hot milk, whisking constantly to keep lumps from forming. Keep whisking while the sauce is cooking; if it starts to boil then turn down the heat. Add cayenne (adds a nice kick!), nutmeg (apparently a hint of nutmeg brings out the j'ne sais quois-ness of the sauce), and several drops of worcestershire sauce to taste. Grind in black pepper and salt to taste. After 5-10 minutes the sauce should thicken. When it has thickened, turn heat to low, and add the grated cheese and mix it in.

Take pre-heated dish out of the oven, and pour in sauce (it will probably boil a bit).  Put in macaroni and stir thoroughly.  Grate cheddar and parmesan cheese on top.

Turn oven to 375F (conventional) or leave at 350F (convection).

Put it in oven for 30 minutes.  Enjoy a tasty, non-low-fat treat!

Saag Paneer

We've made saag paneer (or palaak paneer, as they call it in Southern India) many times, using a combination of two recipes. Both recipes are from Madhur Jaffrey: one in World Vegetarian and the other in World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. We don't like either one by itself, so now that we've finally adjusted it to our liking, here goes:

The paneer:
2 quarts whole milk
3-4 Tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne

Line a colander with several layers of cheesecloth, making sure you have plenty of cloth.

Bring the milk to a boil over medium high heat. When it begins to boil, turn the heat to low, and add 3Tbsp of vinegar. Stir. If the mixture does not begin curdling (the thin, yellowish whey separating from the white curds), add the last tablespoon of vinegar. Stir again, then pour into the colander. The whey will drain out and you'll have the curds left in the colander.

Gather up the ends of the cheesecloth and squeeze out as much water as possible. Tie the bundle shut, and lay the cloth on a plate. Place another plate above it, with a heavy book, for about five minutes. Just five minutes is all you need!

At this point it will keep for a day or two in the fridge. But once you're ready, slice it into cubes and fry it in a bit of oil. After slightly browning all sides, set aside. Sprinkle with the salt, cayenne, and garam masala. (The frying is optional, mostly because it sticks to the pan like crazy, no matter how much oil you use.)

The saag:
2 10-oz. bags of spinach
1 Tbsp of dried fenugreek or 1-2 handfuls of fresh fenugreek (if you can get fresh fenugreek, it is SO worth it)

2-3 Tbsp peanut oil
4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
A 1-inch cube of ginger, chopped finely
1/2 - 2 small green chilis, chopped finely. (we use 2 Thai chilis, but whatever you have that you like)
1 tomato, grated

3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne

Bring 1/3 cup of water to boil in a large pan. Put in the spinach and fenugreek, and cook gently, covered, for 25 minutes.

START MAKING RICE NOW. (We have forgotten to make rice on at least three occasions.)

About 10 minutes after you've put the spinach on, start heating 2-3 Tbsp peanut oil in another frying pan. Add the ginger, garlic, and chilis, frying them until they start to brown. Then add the tomato, and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, until the texture thickens.

After the spinach has cooked for 25 minutes, mash it a bit with a potato masher or wooden spoon. Stir the tomato mixture into the spinach mixture, then add the salt, cumin, and cayenne. Stir to mix, cooking gently for 5 minutes. You may need to add a tablespoon of cornstarch here, but we usually just try to remove any excess water.

Add the paneer, stir, and cook gently covered for another 5 minutes. Taste for salt.

Serve hot, with rice.

Yum!

Spicy Corn

As the summer grilling season begins (but in Santa Barbara it never ends!) corn on the cob starts to appear at the market. And there's nothing we love more than Indian-style spicy grilled corn. I learned this recipe and technique from my neighbors on Tappan St. in Ann Arbor, some time in the last millennium. And after Madhan and Pravina showed me how to make this recipe, it's been my favorite way to eat corn on the cob.

Ingredients:
Corn on the cob, husked (see below)
Coriander chutney (from a jar, available at Indian grocers)
Fresh lime
Salt
cayenne pepper, to taste

Fire up the grill. Husk the corn, and save a few inner husk leaves (whatever they're called), which we will make into a basting brush. Cut the very thick, white end off the leaves, and then make 1-inch slices into the ends of the leaves to make a brush-like head. Peel off another 1/2 inch wide strand of husk, and use this to tie the base of the brush together. Or, if you're feeling lazy, you can just use a regular brush, but the husk-brush is disposable and biodegradable!

Squeeze the juice of 1 lime (enough for 3-4 ears of corn; this recipe scales well) into a small bowl. Put a tablespoon or more of coriander chutney, a healthy pinch of salt, and ~1/8 teaspoon cayenne (to taste) in with the lime juice. Stir. If it's too thick it can be loosened with more lime juice, water, or whatever beer-like beverage you happen to be drinking.

Put the corn on the hot grill, and baste the top of the corn with the mixture. After a few minutes the bottom of the corn will begin to blacken, rotate the corn, and baste the top again. Repeat until the corn has been roasted and basted all the way around.

Enjoy!

Tandoori or don't we?

Tonight Becky and I made Mark Bittman's Twice Cooked Mock Tandoori Chicken. We've previously tried Madhur Jaffrey's Tandoori Chicken from An Invitation to Indian Cooking (a classic from 1973 with the world's longest subtitle).

What's new and interesting about Bittman's version is the cooking method: baking the chicken in the sauce first, and then grilling it to finish. We think this worked well, but (a) the baking time was waaaay too long (b) there was about 3x too large yogurt to spice ratio and (c) it didn't actually taste like tandoori chicken (it must be noted that we never got the Jaffrey recipe to taste like tandoori chicken either!). One of the problems was that the chicken was still too wet when we put it on the grill. When Bittman says to scrape away the excess sauce before grilling, he means it!

We had it with fresh-baked naan which came out very tasty, which we finished on the grill.