DinnerCakes

Mini Lemon Pound Cakes

August 24th, 2009

by Heather (Ghost Baker)

The first thing I tried baking in my new place was, one of my favorites, pound cake.

I’ve tried a number of different pound cake recipes in search of a favorite – CakeLove: How to Bake Cakes from Scratch, Martha Stewart, William Sonoma and Food Network. But I think the best recipe I’ve tried so far is from Sur La Table’s The Art and Soul of Baking (the last time I made it was for my Red, White and Blueberry Trifle on July fourth).

So when testing the oven I wanted to make something that I’ve made before and that I know is great, but I wanted to experiment with the flavor a little. I’m not a lemon person (I can’t stand strong lemon tasting desserts), but I’ve had some excellent lemon pound cakes before – just a little hint of it can be extraordinary. After some tinkering, this method gave me just the right amount of lemon.

I poured my batter into a mini bundt pan (it was actually a mini pumpkin pan from Williams-Sonoma, but it’s basically the same as a mini bundt pan), and I baked it for about 18 minutes at 350 F. Be careful and watch the timing – the cakes will dry out more quickly when cooked in minis instead of in a loaf pan. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean and the top should be firm to the touch, but the cakes will still be very blonde instead of golden.

If you don’t have the Art and Soul of Baking (please buy it!), you can find the complete recipe on TheCityCook.com. Instead of 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract, use 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla and 1/2 tablespoon of pure lemon extract (still use the vanilla bean pod, though). Leave the other ingredients unchanged. When the pound cakes are baked, poke multiple holes in the cakes and, using a cooking brush, brush cakes lightly with additional drops of lemon extract. Check it out!

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Happy Birthday, Chef Edwin!

August 22nd, 2009

by Heather (Ghost Baker)

Woop woop! Today is Edwin’s Birthday!

Please join me in wishing our favorite flexitarian a great day?

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday Chef Edwiiiiiiiin,
Happy Birthday to you!

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Kitchen Tips – Using Sugar to Prevent Baked Goods Sticking

August 21st, 2009

by Chef Edwin

You know what I hate? Going through the entire baking process, whether it be a cake, muffin, etc only to pull it out of the oven, let it cool and then attempt to separate it from its baking pan, only to have it stick and tear instead. RAGE!

I hate it so much that I use to practically immerse my pans in non-stick spray (dripping from the pan), then powder with flour. The problem with flour, however, is that it clumps very easily and can be quite difficult to properly distribute across the entire pan; even if your sifting. That’s why I switched to sugar. Sugar does not clump and is much easier to properly distribute. Now the health nuts out there may be concerned with adding more sugar to their dish, but you shouldn’t need much.

Give it a shot and see if you like it.

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Chicken with Pineapple Relish

August 20th, 2009

by Heather (Ghost Baker)

The nursing program I’m starting next week assigned My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult as a summer reading book for all the incoming students (on that note – I was pleasantly surprised in the beginning; it wasn’t the book I thought it would be. But a twist ending left me aggravated). While about to purchase it at the bookstore I noticed the usual bargain book display in the checkout line, and a few interesting looking cookbooks caught my eye.

For only about $8 I picked up Anheuser-Busch’s Great Food Great Beer cookbook. The book emphasizes beer pairings with food, but really it provides an assortment of simple and tasty looking meals that my husband or I could put together quickly on a weeknight – and as you know, that’s what DinnerCakes is all about!

This recipe is adapted from a recipe for chicken thighs, because we never really buy or eat thighs. It doesn’t require much prep or cook time, but it does require a little time to marinate the chicken. I didn’t marinate mine quite long enough, so my chicken could have been a little more soy/satay glazed and less pineapple. I probably like the Pineapple Mango Chicken Curry I made last month more, but this was definitely good too. This recipe would also work well with shrimp instead of chicken (or, hey, in addition to it).

Chicken with Pineapple Relish
adapted from Great Food Great Beer

Marinade
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 tablespoon sweetened lime juice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Relish
1 can pineapple chunks (20 oz.)
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash of red pepper flakes

In a shallow dish combine marinade ingredients and stir. Cut chicken breast into one inch pieces and add to dish to coat with marinade. Cover and leave in fridge for at least 15 minutes, but up to four hours.

While chicken marinates, set a medium size pot to medium high heat and combine all relish ingredients (add pineapple juice as well, do not drain). Stir occasionally.

Stir fry chicken pieces or cook on grill pan until white throughout (be careful not to overcook your chicken). Serve with relish over couscous or rice.

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Food Photograhy – Some Exotic Fruit!

August 19th, 2009

by Chef Edwin

It’s my birthday this weekend (oooooold) and as a gift, my sister sent me some fruit I had never heard of before: lychee. It’s an asian fruit with a thin rough shell that holds a white, jelly like pulp. To me, it tastes creamy; almost like coconut.

Asking around, the most popular way to eat it is just raw after peeling away the shell. I’ve done this with a few, and it’s good, but I really want to try an actual dish with them. After doing a bit of digging through my cookbooks, I’ve decided to try either a custard or a pudding with them (maybe both). Of course, I had never done a custard before so I thought it best to try that first.

With any luck, I’ll have some delicious results this weekend!

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Light, White Meat Fish Fillets

August 18th, 2009

by Heather (Ghost Baker)

The other week I went fishing with my dad. He’d been hounding me to go with him for, well, a few years, and I’d been dragging my feet. It’s an all day commitment and I seem to never have a lot of spare days, but also the last few times I went we never caught anything. Fishing can be a lot of fun, or it can be extremely uneventful.

Thankfully this trip was a lot of fun! We did have some good activity, but most of it we had to throw back – 3 rays, 1 small flounder, 1 blue fish that I let get away as I brought it up to the boat, 2 cobia who eyed the bait but just wouldn’t bite, and, luckily, one small/medium size blue fish that I did successfully get into to boat and we kept!

My dad was determined to catch me enough fish for my husband and I to have dinner, so the next day he went back out by himself and caught a few speckled trout and croaker.

The result was an excellent dinner. Earlier in the week before the fishing trip I bought a flounder fillet at the grocery store for dinner. The difference between fresh fish and store bought fish is amazing.

Good fish doesn’t take long to prep or cook. This recipe will work well for any small to medium size white meat fish.

Light, White Meat Fish Fillets

1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
1 teaspoon Chesapeake Bay Seafood Seasoning
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
5 turns of salt
12 turns of black pepper
1 egg
5-6 small fillets

Heat a grill pan on medium high heat. Combine all ingredients except fish and egg and make a thin layer of the spice/bread crumb mixture on a plate. Crack open an egg and whisk it in a small bowl.

Coat fish fillets one at a time in the egg and then dredge in spice/bread crumb mixture. Add coated fillets to grill pan and cook small fillets for approximately 3 minutes on each side, watching carefully to be sure you don’t overcook. Fish should be opaque when done; use a small fork to test that fish just starts to flake when touched.

Serve with whole wheat couscous and asparagus.

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Cookin' Veggies Right – Spinach with White and Green Beans

August 17th, 2009

by Chef Edwin

As a kid I never had much of an issue with most vegetables. Asparagus: sure; broccoli: yum; spinach: uh, Popeye? I suppose when you have a German mother who enjoys delicacies such as red cabbage and sauerkraut, other things don’t seem so bad (if you’ve never experienced the process of cooking red cabbage, trust me on this one).

I wanted to make a green salad with white beans this weekend, but couldn’t come up with the right inspiration. Every where I looked for inspiration just took me down a different path for a latter potential recipe. I still haven’t come up with one but in the meantime I found this to tide me over. The ingredient list is short, the recipe is simple and mixes green with bean, technically.

Spinach with White and Green Beans
Feel free to try a different kind of white bean.

8 ounces cannellini beans; cooked and drained
4 ounces green beans; picked and cut in half
3 tablespoons oil
1 onion; shopped
2 celery stalks; chopped
1 garlic clove; minced
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 pound spinach
salt and pepper to taste

Boil the green beans in boiling salted water for 3 minutes then immediately drain and dump in ice-cold water. Drain and pat dry. Sweat the onions and celery in a large pan with the oil for a few minutes. Add the garlic and paprika, continuing to sweat until the onions are soft. Add the spinach, cover and cook until spinach wilts. Note: if you picked a pan that’s not quite large enough, be sure to stir the spinach occasionally.

Add the beans along with 1/2 cup of water and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve and enjoy.

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Kitchen Tips – Deconstructing [Americanized] Mexican Food

August 14th, 2009

by Heather (Ghost Baker)

The week that my husband and I moved, I carved out a little time for a “ladies night” with some friends. We planned a low key evening of dinner and drinks at Uncle Julio’s followed by a romantic comedy, “Ghost Town,” which was rated by Paste Magazine as one of the 17 Best Romantic Comedies of the Decade (it wasn’t).

During the dinner portion of the evening, I found myself asking a lot of questions about what things were. My friends were pretty surprised by this, and they demanded that I dedicate a post to understanding Mexican food. Gladly!

I hope this list helps all of you as much as it helped me! Please note that these definitions are generalizations that apply to Americanized Mexican food, and of course there are variations.

Quesadilla – A tortilla that is filled with cheese (queso), folded (not wrapped) and cooked until the cheese melts.

Chorizo – A fatty pork sausage.

Tamales – Can have a variety of fillings including meat, cheeses, vegetables or chilis, but it is generally steam-cooked corn dough wrapped in a softened corn husk before cooking. It is tied together and steamed until the dough is cooked, and the corn husk is peeled back before eating.

Fajita – Marinated grilled meat cut into strips on a corn or flour tortilla, often with peppers. The tortilla is usually then wrapped.

Burrito – A flour tortilla folded and rolled to completely enclose the filling (generally beans, rice, cheese and/or meat).

Taco – Usually a hard, folded corn tortilla stuffed with various fillings like meat, cheese, lettuce, etc.

Enchilada – A softened corn tortilla folded around a filling (the ends are left open, unlike a burrito). Often topped with a tomato-based sauce and cheese.

Chile relleno – A roasted poblano pepper stuffed with cheese and sometimes meat. The pepper is dipped in a batter and fried.

Taquito (or flauta) – A small, thin, rolled up tortilla (usually with a meat filling) and fried until crispy.

Chimichanga – A fried or deep-fried burrito (ends tucked in). Also filled with similar ingredients to a burrito.

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Remembering Those Nothing Times – Tempeh Pita Sandwich with Cucumber Sauce

August 13th, 2009

by Chef Edwin

If you were a student at Virginia Tech, chances are you spent some time at the Squires Student Center in the north eastern area of campus. It’s home to the University Unions & Student Activities (the organization in charge of all student organizations as well as many campus wide events), the music department and a good place to meet and hang out. Squires was also at the edge of campus, a short walk to downtown Blacksburg. One of the downtown places to catch a quick and tasty bite is Souvlaki. They have excellent pita wraps with cucumber sauce called Tzatziki. Mmmmm….

For some reason I was thinking back to my times at Tech recently and the regular, uneventful moments. The ones where it’s you and a few of your friends hanging, not really doing anything. Maybe watching TV, maybe having a drink, maybe grabbing a bite. Souvlaki’s was one of those placed I did that.

So in the interest of bringing back old memories I decided to have a go at making my own vegetarian version of their souvlaki pita. Now they have a vegetarian item on the menu, but back then I was more of a meat eater so I threw tempeh into the mix. The result? Pretty tasty but not Souvlaki. There’s no denying that meat is a great flavoring agent for the ingredients it’s added with. Give it a whirl, though. I enjoyed it.

Tempeh Pita Sandwich with Cucumber (Tzatziki) Sauce
Uses the larger hole sizes on your grater so the cucumber shavings don’t slip through the colander’s slots.

2 small pita pockets; cut in half
5 oz english cucumber; peeled and roughly grated
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup greek yogurt (or make your own)
Juice of half a lemon
1 garlic clove; minced
1 tablespoon fresh dill; chopped
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 onion; chopped
5 oz tempeh; crumbled

Toss the cucumber in a colander and hand mix in the salt. Press some of the liquid out and throw in a food processor. Add the yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, dill and process till smooth.

Saute the onions for a couple minutes then add the tempeh and continue to saute for a few more minutes, adding more oil if necessary. Remove to a bowl and add the cucumber sauce until you reach your desired consistency. Fill your pita with lettuce, tomatoes and anything else you like in your pita sandwich before adding the tempeh. Enjoy.

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Food Photography – The Inn at Little Washington

August 12th, 2009

by Heather (Ghost Baker)

Last night I had the pleasure of having dinner at The Inn at Little Washington, a foodie haven about 70 miles from Washington, DC. If you’re not familiar with The Inn, check Wikipedia for a listing of the many, many awards it has received.

It’s a pretty spectacular place; I guarantee it’s the most decadent meal you’ll ever have. It was actually my second time there – the first time was to celebrate the anniversary of my in-laws, and last night was a celebration for me and my sister-in-law. Of course I brought my camera and tried to snap away at everything we ordered. We had dinner at one of the two tables in “the kitchen,”

“The Inn’s new kitchen, often referred to as “the most beautiful kitchen in the world” was added in 1998. Inspired by the dairy room at Windsor Castle, the kitchen features an enormous Vulcan range. Built to order in France, it is topped with a copper and brass hood that looks like King Arthur’s tent. Two kitchen tables — we call them the inner sanctum — allow guests to watch the action ringside.”

For starters they brought us a sampling of canapés.

I believe this one was cheese.

I grabbed this one, filled with risotto.

Shrimp canape

Herbed popcorn topped with shaved truffles. Morgan informed me that this is how he would like his popcorn from now on.

They brought this between the canape and our first course. They referred to it as “sorrel,” and it did, in fact, taste a lot like grass!

A Quartet of Island Creek Oyster Slurpees.
This was by far my favorite thing all night. I’d never had anything like it, and it was amazing. The oysters were each filled with a dollop of either cold grapefruit, passionfruit, cucumber puree or wasabi slurpee. Amazing.

Beet Fantasia: Three Varieties of Roasted Beets, Beet Mousse and Citrus Salsa.

A Marriage of Hot and Cold Foie Gras with Ice Wine Jelly and House Made Quince Preserves.

Spinach and Cheese Filled Molten-Gold Ravioli with Shaved Summer Truffle.
I wanted to love this, but there was a lot of runny egg inside that overpowered it a little more me.

Fricassee of Maine Lobster with Potato Gnocchi, Green Grapes and Curried Walnuts.

Pan Seared New England Diver’s Scallop with Black Olive Tapenade and Gazpacho Salsa.

Medallions of Rabbit Loin Wrapped in House Cured Pancetta Surrounding a Lilliputian Rabbit Rib Roast Resting on a Pillow of Pea Puree.
I peered through the giant water chalices to take this photo. The rabbit was amazing.

Pan Roasted Maine Lobster with Braised Baby Bok Choy, Grapefruit and Citrus Butter Sauce.
This was my main course selection – very excellent but at this point I was very stuffed!

Pepper Crusted Tuna Pretending to be a Filet Mignon, Capped with Seared Duck Foie Gras on Charred Onions with a Burgundy Butter Sauce.

Elysian Fields Baby Lamb Loin with Parsley Risotto, Chanterelle Mushrooms, Garlic Custard and Minted Bearnaise Sauce.

Crispy Sweetbreads with Grilled Local Peaches, Chanterelle Mushrooms and Virginia Country Ham.

After dinner and before dessert – some kind of delicious blackberry drink with tapioca.

A Painter’s Palette of Seasonal Sorbets.
I didn’t get to try as much of this as I would have liked. My husband ordered it, and he said he would almost eat the glass it was sitting in to get every last drop.

Seven Deadly Sins, A Sampling of Seven of Our Most Decadent Desserts.
What I picked – of course!

A Trio of Summer Cobblers: Local Blueberry, Peach and Cherry with Buttermilk Ice Cream.

For a Selection of Today’s Cheeses, Just Ask for Faira the Cow.
We did.. and they brought it!

A favor box of assorted cookies and chocolates to end the night, in the shape of The Inn.

As you can see, I will not be eating for the rest of the week!

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