recipes – Page 27 – The Kitchen Illiterate

Perfect Strawberry Sorbet plus something sweet and salty

Stawberry Sorbet

The ice cream maker has not been silently resting, just because my writing skills have taken a break. Oh no, I’ve been playing and testing and taking full advantage of my fun new toy to help cool off during the unpleasant days of this New England summer. Our freezer is packed with frozen treats and I just want to keep making more. It’s so much fun. I get a ridiculous, child-like kick out of watching the liquid custards and purees slowly freeze and turn into dessert in front of my very eyes. And I get an even bigger kick out of realizing that I can bring all of my ice cream fantasy flavors to life. It’s like having my very own Ben & Jerry’s factory in the kitchen.

Not like I’ve been that creative yet. I’m definitely one of those types who likes to learn the basics before jumping into the crazy shit. And after my disastrous watermelon sorbet attempts, I felt even more strongly that I had some technique perfecting to do. Thankfully, my next sorbet turned out perfectly.

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Mushroom Ragu Pizza

Ragu Pizza

Ever since I made a chicken cacciatore pizza, I’ve been pondering other different and unexpected things to put on pizza, and the thing that kept running through my head was an incredibly rich and tangy mushroom ragu I made last winter. It seemed a perfect thing for pizza–the sauce and toppings all in one, and with two familiar pizza components, sausage and mushrooms, with a little twist. Different, unexpected, potentially awesome. I had to try it.

I’ve been having some serious dough problems lately, though. More than anything else I’ve experimented with, pizza dough seems to be the most difficult to perfect. It turns out sticky, or too stiff, or rises too much or not enough. I can’t seem to figure out that brilliant tossing technique to get perfect, round, even surfaces. I end up with holes all over and dough that sticks to the surface and is impossible to slide onto the pizza stone. I just can’t seem to figure this one out, and whenever I do end up with a good batch, it seems like a fluke. Well, I’ve given up on Giada’s dough, after three out of four experiments have turned out badly, and this time I decided to go back to Peter Reinhart‘s recipe for Neapolitan pizza dough, from American Pie.

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Taco Thursday

Taco Thursdsay

I have been experiencing a bit of the old writer’s block lately. Hence, it’s taken me three days to write about Taco Thursday, and I still don’t really know what what to say other than “We made tacos! Hurray!”

I’d been planning tacos for weeks–I wanted to make them just the way my dad did when I was growing up. Taco dinners were a special treat, and because they’re also a pain in the arse, dad didn’t make tacos too often. There’s a lot of oil involved, and standing over the stove, not to mention chopping of vegetables and doing all the dishes when you’re done. But it is so, so worth it. This being the first time I made tacos myself I was a little unsure about the tortilla frying, but after the first two chewy mishaps, I finally perfected the technique and managed to pull off some crispy, delicious shells to hold all kinds of yummy food stuffs. Just like dad used to make.

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Cheater Ravioli, or Awesome Sauce Lobster Ravioli from Trader Joe’s

Update! – This post has long been a popular post here, and I decided it needed a little update. I’ve added new, prettier photographs, and revamped the recipe a bit to make it easier to follow. This is a super simple cream sauce that is perfect with any kind of ravioli, really, and in fact, with any kind of pasta. This sauce is one of the first things I learned to cook, and I love it because it’s very fast and requires only a small handful of ingredients. If you’re looking for a sauce for Trader Joe’s lobster ravioli this is a great choice, because it really lets the lobster shine. Now, back to the original post.

Yesterday I got to borrow the housemate’s car and drive myself out to Trader Joe’s, one of my favorite places in the world and one I don’t get to visit very often, seeing as it’s not very accessible by public transport. Not only did I get to buy cheap vinegar, delicious marinated meat stuffs, and the above pictured lobster ravioli, I got to drive around town all day, revelling in the freedom and glory that is being behind the wheel of a vehicle. God, how I’ve missed it these past four years. God, how I wish I could afford to buy myself a little zippy car to zip around town in. Times like these I am forced to admit that I am a southern California girl at heart, wedded to her stick shifts and safety belts.

This afternoon of vehicular freedom was allowed provided I could transport Crystal to and from work–a guaranteed two hours’ driving time for me, but also a guaranteed late dinner. By the time we got home it was nearly 9:00 and I wanted something simple, fast, and light (it was very hot and sticky in our apartment).
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Tahini Vegetable Ravioletti Salad

Tahini Vegetable Pasta Salad

Thus far this is definitely proving to be the summer of the salad. I’m not sure I’ve ever had so much pasta salad in my life, but I’m not complaining. I am a pasta addict, and if I can eat it cold, on a hot summer afternoon when all I want to do is lay down in a bucket of ice, so much the better. And adding a ton of vegetables makes me feel slightly virtuous.

The part that’s proving to be a bit of a challenge is coming up with unique ways to dress all these pasta salads. The mayonnaise option is over played, and I can’t be satisfied just drizzling some cold vegetables with oil and vinegar or Italian salad dressing. Where’s the creativity in that? And like most other things I attempt in the kitchen, I just can’t bring myself to make the same thing twice, so I’m constantly experimenting with dressings and vegetable combinations. So far there has been a lot of household happiness as a result of my various experiments, so I guess I haven’t gone wrong yet.

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The most glorious summer of all…

Ice Cream Maker

This summer promises to be extra spectacular. Why? Because my kind and generous parents sent me the greatest summertime diversion ever as a birthday gift: an ice cream maker. A red, shiny, beautiful ice cream maker. And because they are so brilliant, they also sent a copy of David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, the book that is showing its lovely cover all over the internets these days. My excitement for ice cream is boundless. I want to make new and different varieties every single day, but if Crystal and I went through that much ice cream, well, let’s just say neither of us can afford a whole new wardrobe. As it is, I’ve only had the thing for a week and I’ve already made two batches.

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Too much beautiful meat?

Tasty pasta

If you’re anything like me, you probably end up with tons of leftovers after any social gathering that involves food. And in the summertime, a lot of those leftovers are probably grilled. Our Fourth of July gathering was attended solely by people who believe it’s better to have too much than not enough, and the refrigerator at the end of the night, stuffed full of grilled sausages and hamburgers and hot dogs and steak, was a staggering sight. I mean, the guys manning the grill outside cooked up twelve hamburgers and two pounds of sausages and a whole, huge Tri-tip steak for about eight people. No one can eat that much meat.

As the resident chef in our humble abode, it fell to me to figure out what to do with all that leftover meat. I mean, no one wants to eat microwaved hamburgers all week. Of course there is the obvious: barbecue-sauce slathered grilled chicken breasts can be shredded for chicken salad sandwiches. Steak can be sliced up and added to salads or slapped between two pieces of bread. But who wants to be obvious?

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What to eat with meat? Potato Salad and Cornbread!

Picnic Salads

It took me weeks to decide what to serve alongside all that meat at our cookout party on Saturday. I pored over all my cooking magazines and did numerous epicurious searches. There are so many picnic options I was having a hard time committing–I knew I wanted to make some kind of pasta salad, but I wanted it to be different. And potato salad is one of my favorites, but it’s usually so predictable and boring. What to do, what to do? My option paralysis was setting in and I almost threw in the towel and told everyone else to bring something, but at the last minute, inspiration struck.

Inspiriation was inside an old issue of Bon Appetit, where I glimpsed a recipe for Potato Caesar Salad. I had been thinking about making caesar salad anyway, but this sounded almost like divine intervention. I love potato salad, I love caesar salad, and I felt pretty sure this was not a picnic table standard. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, because I wanted to try a very traditional caesar dressing (and yes, I know raw eggs are generally bad news bears at a picnic, but we were very conscientious about keeping it refrigerated.) And it was a knockout–even people who said they usually hate potato salad luurved it. And I love it when that happens.

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Meat, Meat, Beautiful Meat

Meat Valentine

Whew–this has been a week of serious grilling. Between the Fourth of July and my birthday a few days later, I have ingested more red meat than a person should be allowed, and the food coma has prevented me from sitting down and writing about any of it. Pulled pork, steak, hamburgers, sausages…it’s exhausting just thinking about it. But it was all sooo delicious. Mmm. Meeeat.

This past Saturday we had a little gathering to celebrate the fact that I managed to age another year. Of course I had to make all the food myself. All of my food-loving friends wanted to bring something, but I refused to allow it. Control freak? Perhaps. For some reason, I got really excited about planning a menu, and I enjoy cooking so it’s not as though it was a pain in the ass to cater my own birthday party.

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Pizza Chronicles, Part Six (or Eight): Stonewall Kitchen and a Pizza Stone

Look at that crust!

I luuurve our pizza stone. I’ve never had such crazy, impassioned feelings for a kitchen implement before, but this is true and lasting love. This is neverending devotion and infatuation. This pizza stone is the answer, the solution to all of my dough baking woes, to my not quite perfect crusts and my constant feelings of pizza dissatisfaction. Now that there is a pizza stone in my life, I can scale the peaks of pizza perfection, I can create crispy cheesy bites of wonder and glory rivaling anything the local pizza delivery man can send my way. My dreams of creative pizza experimentation can be realized.

Ok, I might be waxing just a bit too poetical, but when I pulled this pizza out of the oven last night, I couldn’t help feeling a little thrill in my heart. It was, yes, the best pizza so far. I realize I say that every single time, but I also take that to be a sign that my methods are improving. And method, shmethod, the single best pizza improver so far is the pizza stone.

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