Hello again, again.

Hello again. It's been almost exactly two years since my last post. I'd like to pretend like I've been doing amazing things, but I've just been raising children. 

The recipe that inspired me to type this while it was simmering is actually one of my 3-year-old son's favorites: Beer Braised Cabbage and Sausages. (Yes, the alcohol evaporates, and no, he doesn't sleep amazingly well after eating this for dinner.) Don't use any other beer but Pabst Blue Ribbon. If you don't want to drink the other five (or 11, or 17, if that's how you roll), you can send them to us.

This meal comes together in about a half an hour, including the chopping/slicing and searing the sausages. The apple cider vinegar and the honey are both essential to bring out the tartness and sweetness of the cabbage. Sometimes I put a sliced apple in with the cabbage mixture (add with the onion) but it's not essential.

This is truly a weekly meal in our household. It reminds me of a snowy, winter night in Bavaria, and honestly, what's better than that?

Beer Braised Sausages and Cabbage
Serves 4

2 packages fresh sausages (Sweet or Hot Italian, Bratwurst, your choice)
1 medium red cabbage, cored and sliced into shreds
1 onion, sliced into half rings
a glug of apple cider vinegar
12 oz Pabst Blue Ribbon beer
a drizzle of honey
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Salt and pepper to taste

Crusty bread for sopping (not necessary, but why not?)

In a large skillet over medium high heat, sear the sausages in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until browned on both sides. Remove the sausages from the pan and add the 2 tablespoons of olive oil, cabbage, and onion to the skillet. Stir until the cabbage wilts, 5-7 minutes. Add the cider vinegar and honey and stir. Salt and pepper to taste. Create nests in the cabbage mixture and place the sausages evenly around the pan. Pour in the beer, cover, and let come to a boil. Turn heat down to medium and let sausages cook, 15-20 minutes, until no longer pink in the center. You will need to cut one open to check. Sausages will take on a pink hue, so be sure to check internally for doneness. Serve two sausages with a pile of cabbage and enjoy.

French Macarons: If at first you don't succeed...

My first attempt at making French macarons was so abysmal that I didn't even bother making a buttercream or ganache to fill the misshapen, overbrowned things. In fact, the shells went straight into the trash. See my failure here:

Pretty awful, right? I'm surprised I didn't give up right then and there and decide macaron (pronounced mac-a-roan, apparently) making was just not in the cards for me. I'm sure my persistence had something to do with my infatuation with them, a serious affliction since January of 2010, when I ate my first pistachio macaron in Paris and fell desperately in love with the ethereal pastry. 

So I tried it again, the very same day. This time, I corrected a few things. I used the exact same recipe, but mixed the macronnage (the French word for the step in which you incorporate the meringue into the almond flour) much more delicately, added the gel coloring to the meringue, rather than the finished product, lowered the oven temp by 25 degrees, and piped them in much smaller circles. I found out, through reading some other macaron blogs (BraveTart, especially) that the reason mine were so runny was because I was a bit too overzealous in the mixing. I also probably didn't have a stiff enough meringue to start. The oven was way too hot (I ended up decreasing it from 375 to 325--a huge difference, I know) and baking them on the bottom rack of the oven, for about 20 minutes. Anyway, my next attempt looked like this:

The second batch was an immense improvement, but the tops still browned--unacceptable. I filled them with a chocolate ganache that I made from Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chips. They were passable, but nothing close to what I aspire. 

Third time is apparently the charm. I am planning on making macarons for a bridal shower I am hosting in a few weeks, and I decided to do a test run. The recipe I kept the same, but I switched the ganache for a light, lemon buttercream.

The result:

I'm not going to lie. I squealed like a little girl when I saw that the shells had feet (the ruffly things on the bottom of each cookie). I babysat them, peering through my oven door, while they baked, refusing to allow them to brown even infinitesimally.  I added lavender and raspberry extract to them to increase the flavor. Here is my recipe:

Raspberry-Lavender Macarons with Meyer Lemon Buttercream
Makes 24 macarons
Adapted from Bon Appetit 

2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup almond flour
1 tsp. dried lavender, crumbled in a mortar and pestle
1/2 cup egg whites
pinch salt
2 1/2  tablespoons sugar
1/2 tsp. raspberry extract
lavender gel food coloring, to preference
lavender buds, optional

1 tablespoon Meyer lemon juice
1 teaspoon Meyer lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 stick of butter
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1-2 cups powdered sugar
yellow gel coloring

Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 300 degrees (275 if you have a hot oven). Sift together the powdered sugar, almond meal, and crushed lavender into a large bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until stiff and glossy (stiff peaks). Add the extract and however much gel food coloring you want (begin with dragging a toothpick in the color and add as you go), mix until fully incorporated. Pour almond mixture in the bowl, and using a rubber spatula, fold the ingredients together. It should take no more than 20 strokes. Deflate the egg whites but be gentle. Once it is all incorporated (but still light and fluffy), transfer to a gallon Ziplock bag. Squeeze all the air and twist it closed. Snip the corner with scissors. Pipe dollops of batter slightly bigger than a Hershey's kiss onto the parchment. Lightly rap each sheet on the counter to get rid of air bubbles. Let them sit (after all have been piped) for at least 20 minutes. They should be slightly dry to the touch. Bake in the oven (watching carefully) one batch at a time for 10-15 minutes. You know they're done when you can pluck one from the parchment without it sticking. Let them cool while you prepare your buttercream.

Beat the butter in the mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. When it's light and fluffy, add the zest, extract, and lemon juice. Add the sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, until it's proper consistency. Add the cream. Add more sugar if it's too runny, more cream if it's too thick. Add food coloring and be sure to scrape the bottom,

To fill them, match each cookie to another of the same size. Pipe the filling, (in a Ziplock bag with the tip snipped) starting from the outer edge in a circle and ending in the middle. Sandwich the two halves. No filling should be on the edges. Refrigerate for 24 hours. Take some out an hour before you want to eat them and let them come to room temp. Enjoy!

An Alternative Clambake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

This column, adapted for Mixing in Mobile, originally was published on May 23, 2007 in the Kootenai Valley Record 

       Few meals scream summer as much as a clambake. When the weather heats up, I have a hard time avoiding immersing myself into a daydream of a breezy, sandy beach, a raucous group of friends, and a fragrant steaming pot of lobster, mussels, clams, potatoes and corn. In Montana, fresh Maine lobster was but a distant memory, as was the Atlantic Ocean, so some improvisation was needed, but the outcome is no less delicious, (and much more affordable). Fresh mussels and clams are easily available and in season, and at very reasonable prices. Some people have an aversion to cooking fresh seafood: their concerns might vary from squeamishness, food safety, or simple uncertainty and a lack of experience might prevent them from attempting it. What the cautious cook needs is a healthy dose of self confidence and a great recipe, both of which I hope to impart in this article.

      

       To begin, one must select the shellfish. Freshness is of the utmost importance, and that mantra remains standard for any ingredient in any recipe. Mussels and clams are both used here, but if desired, one may use just one or the other and double the quantity. When choosing the clams and mussels, look for unblemished and tightly closed shells. Usually the meat counter employees will spray the shellfish and then bag them, for the water forces the lazy bivalves to close up and the unlucky ones, who have already met their demise, will be removed. If not, be sure to select tightly closed clams and mussels. When you get them home, take them out of the plastic bag and place them in a bowl covered with a damp paper towel. Some people like to soak them in salt water, which prompts the shellfish to purge themselves of sand and grit, but I have found that grit and sand stays at a minimum. Do not immerse them in fresh water, they will soon expire. Throw out any that are open and whose shells are cracked. Once you have done this, you are ready to go. 

 

      One wonderful thing about this recipe is that you can adjust it to suit your own tastes and preferences. The essential ingredients are tomatoes, garlic and white wine (or chicken broth) but the rest is fair game to improvise, depending on what is on hand in the pantry. You can add or omit the onions, shallots, parsley or basil, crushed red pepper, and finish it with a squeeze of lemon if you want. It is possible, and equally delicious, to use red wine instead of white, or omit the alcohol altogether and opt for chicken broth. The beauty of this type of recipe is that soon you will discover your own magic combination that is perfect for you and yours.

 

Steamed Clams and Mussels in Tomato-Garlic Broth 

Serves 2-4 as an entrée

 

1 pound live littleneck clams, scrubbed
1 pounds live mussels, beards removed and scrubbed

1 tbsp sea salt

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil 

3 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
3 small shallots or ½ small onion, minced  
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 bottle (750ml) Sauvignon Blanc or other white wine or 2 cups chicken broth 
2 teaspoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons basil or parsley, roughly chopped
Crusty bread, for serving

 

In a large skillet or pot set over medium-high heat, melt the butter or olive oil. Add the shallots and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes, then add the garlic and sauté for two minutes, stirring frequently. Add the tomatoes, clams, mussels, wine or broth, and cover with a tight fitting lid and steam over low heat until clams and mussels have opened, about 5 to 10 minutes. Garnish with herbs and a squeeze of lemon, if desired. Discard any clams or mussels that have not opened. Transfer to serving bowls and ladle with broth. Serve hot with crusty bread to soak up the broth. 

            Remember, the only mistake you can make in the kitchen is not cooking at all. All you need is the desire to create. As the famous chef and food writer James Beard says, "The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it… If you're convinced that cooking is drudgery, you're never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen." So, my advice to you is: love it, create it, and enjoy it.

One Blog's Beginnings

A friend and I were recently discussing food writing and novels that focus on cooking. I’ve read several novels that incorporated recipes, and I’m actually writing one now (mostly baking, as it revolves around a bakery). Some of my absolutely favorite books would be considered within this genre.

One day during my junior year (2003) at Florida State University, I was browsing the bookshelves at our campus bookstore. This was in the days when Kindles and Nooks didn’t exist, and if we wanted to read, we actually bought something that had paper and a binding that housed typed words and we flipped pages. I think they’re called books. Anyway, as I browsed, a volume called Cooking For Mr. Latte caught my eye. It had a white cover with a charming illustration, and this book changed my life.

I have always loved cooking. I have always loved writing. I never, in a million years, actually thought it was possible to combine the two. After I finished reading Cooking For Mr. Latte, probably thirty-six hours later, I marveled at how deftly and seamlessly Amanda Hesser had crafted a cookbook, dating manual, and narrative that actually never felt at all like one or the other. I loved the chapter about her Maryland grandmother who says “turrible,” because my own Virginian granny pronounced it that same way. I owe my love of baking and cooking to my granny, and this book brought back a flood of nostalgia for her kitchen that, now that she is gone, both stings and salves.

The book, a compilation of her Food Diary columns, centers around her courtship with Tad Friend, a writer for the New Yorker, and it begins with the first date (blind) and ends with their wedding. Although it is mostly amusing, it touches upon those moments in our lives (fights with a lover, the 9/11 terrorist attacks) in which food becomes much more than sustenance. Here in the South, especially, food is life, both celebrated and mourned. When I heard of my granny’s death, I opened my cupboard, searching for the four squares of Baker’s unsweetened chocolate necessary to make her signature funereal dish: Bereavement Pie.

From this book, I learned about truffles, Champagne, how to eat well on an airplane (the secret is a baguette and proscuitto), the venerable (and seriously intimidating) Jeffery Steingarten, Meyer lemons, and the delights of lamb. I discovered beets, crème fraiche, homemade mayonnaise, and Asian five-spice powder. I have about a handful of go-to recipes, dishes I have made countless times, which I can attribute to this book. Seven words looped over and over in my brain for weeks after reading this book: I want to be a food writer.

Now, this isn’t exactly some success story where I now reveal that I’m the Times’ newest food editor. That is never going to happen to this college English instructor, but I can say that Cooking For Mr. Latte created, nurtured, and solidified my passion for food. When a small newspaper in the tiny Montana town I lived in asked me to write a food column, I got my chance. Our readership was small, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I wrote about food. After I moved away from Montana, I began this blog, Mixing in Mobile. Hesser, in one chapter, recounts a meeting with Julia Child and how much Julia influenced her cooking. I adore Julia, and I have all of her episodes on DVD, but as far as influence, Amanda is my Julia.

While living in a small town in Montana in 2005 and re-reading the book for the umpteenth time, I glimpsed the email address, Lattebook@aol.com, on the back cover. I just had to email Amanda Hesser and tell her what her book meant to me, as well as discuss our mutual favorite restaurants/food shops in the Boston area. In her response, she thanked me for the message and asked how I was coping without Cambridge’s Formaggio Kitchen. She also wrote that she was currently pregnant with twins and sitting at her kitchen table having breakfast with Tad, (a.k.a. Mr. Latte). I, then a newlywed, remember feeling thrilled at the success of this relationship I had rooted for from page one, and then I marveled at how this book had entrenched itself so deeply in my heart. What follow are a few of my favorite dishes inspired by Cooking for Mr. Latte, one of my favorite food-stained and battered books on my kitchen shelves to this day.

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Serves 6

Adapted from Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte

This is one of my absolute favorite salads. I got the inspiration for this salad in her chapter for airplane food, minus the beets and plus asparagus. While I have never brought it with me on a plane, there's always my next flight. I am fully aware how passé the beet salad is, but I love beets, and I love goat cheese, and I can't deny this salad a place at my table. We'll just call it ironic. I'm also not much for "fussy" food, but when preparing this for a dinner party, I like to create little stacks of beets. It’s quite easy if you have a toothpick handy, and the murmurs of appreciation from your guests are worth the extra five minutes.

6 large beets, scrubbed, trimmed and rubbed with olive oil
a handful of arugula, washed
4 oz goat cheese
juice from ½ of a blood orange
juice from ½ of a lemon
¼ cup of olive oil
minced herbs of your choice (basil, tarragon, thyme, oregano, etc.)
1 shallot, minced
Dijon mustard to taste
salt and pepper
6 toothpicks

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and wrap the beets in tinfoil. Place the tinfoil packet on a sheet pan to catch any drips and roast the beets in the oven for an hour. While the beets are roasting, prepare the dressing. Whisk the juices together with the herbs, shallot and a dollop of Dijon mustard. Whisk in the olive oil gradually and season with salt and pepper.

When the beets are are cool, rub them with a paper towel under the faucet to skin them.














Slice each beet in four slices. If you need to, trim a little bit from the bottom of each beet so it can stand on a plate. If you use a serrated knife, you get pretty little grooves in the surface of the beet. To assemble each stack, place a beet bottom on a plate, top with a few arugula leaves, some knobs of goat cheese, and another beet slice. Repeat until the top, and put a toothpick in the middle. Drizzle each serving with the vinaigrette. Don’t forget to warn your guests about the toothpick.


Garlic Rosemary Lamb Chops
Adapted from Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte

For me, lamb wins out over beef any day of the week. This is a simple preparation, but the garlic and rosemary both highlight and soften the intense flavor of the lamb.   In Montana, where lamb was quite inexpensive, I probably prepared this recipe at least three times a month.

3 lbs loin lamb chops
1/3 cup chopped rosemary
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 /2 cup olive oil
Sea salt
Pepper

The night before, marinate the lamb chops with the remaining ingredients in a Ziplock bag. An hour before you want to cook them, take the bag out and let sit at room temperature. Preheat the grill/grill pan over medium high heat. Grill each chop for 2-3 minutes a side for medium rare.

UPDATED: Amanda has a new blog: Lemon Baby, where she still blogs about her culinary adventures. Check it out by going to lemonbaby.co!
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One Blog's Beginnings

UPDATED: Amanda has a new blog: Lemon Baby, where she blogs about her adventures in cooking and cocktails. Check it out by going to lemonbaby.co! Hope to see you there!

A friend and I were recently discussing food writing and novels that focus on cooking. I’ve read several novels that incorporated recipes, and I’m actually writing one now (mostly baking, as it revolves around a bakery). Some of my absolutely favorite books would be considered within this genre.

One day during my junior year (2003) at Florida State University, I was browsing the bookshelves at our campus bookstore. This was in the days when Kindles and Nooks didn’t exist, and if we wanted to read, we actually bought something that had paper and a binding that housed typed words and we flipped pages. I think they’re called books. Anyway, as I browsed, a volume called Cooking For Mr. Latte caught my eye. It had a white cover with a charming illustration, and this book changed my life.

I have always loved cooking. I have always loved writing. I never, in a million years, actually thought it was possible to combine the two. After I finished reading Cooking For Mr. Latte, probably thirty-six hours later, I marveled at how deftly and seamlessly Amanda Hesser had crafted a cookbook, dating manual, and narrative that actually never felt at all like one or the other. I loved the chapter about her Maryland grandmother who says “turrible,” because my own Virginian granny pronounced it that same way. I owe my love of baking and cooking to my granny, and this book brought back a flood of nostalgia for her kitchen that, now that she is gone, both stings and salves.

The book, a compilation of her Food Diary columns, centers around her courtship with Tad Friend, a writer for the New Yorker, and it begins with the first date (blind) and ends with their wedding. Although it is mostly amusing, it touches upon those moments in our lives (fights with a lover, the 9/11 terrorist attacks) in which food becomes much more than sustenance. Here in the South, especially, food is life, both celebrated and mourned. When I heard of my granny’s death, I opened my cupboard, searching for the four squares of Baker’s unsweetened chocolate necessary to make her signature funereal dish: Bereavement Pie.

From this book, I learned about truffles, Champagne, how to eat well on an airplane (the secret is a baguette and proscuitto), the venerable (and seriously intimidating) Jeffery Steingarten, Meyer lemons, and the delights of lamb. I discovered beets, crème fraiche, homemade mayonnaise, and Asian five-spice powder. I have about a handful of go-to recipes, dishes I have made countless times, which I can attribute to this book. Seven words looped over and over in my brain for weeks after reading this book: I want to be a food writer.

Now, this isn’t exactly some success story where I now reveal that I’m the Times’ newest food editor. That is never going to happen to this college English instructor, but I can say that Cooking For Mr. Latte created, nurtured, and solidified my passion for food. When a small newspaper in the tiny Montana town I lived in asked me to write a food column, I got my chance. Our readership was small, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I wrote about food. After I moved away from Montana, I began this blog, Mixing in Mobile. Hesser, in one chapter, recounts a meeting with Julia Child and how much Julia influenced her cooking. I adore Julia, and I have all of her episodes on DVD, but as far as influence, Amanda is my Julia.

While living in a small town in Montana in 2005 and re-reading the book for the umpteenth time, I glimpsed the email address, Lattebook@aol.com, on the back cover. I just had to email Amanda Hesser and tell her what her book meant to me, as well as discuss our mutual favorite restaurants/food shops in the Boston area. In her response, she thanked me for the message and asked how I was coping without Cambridge’s Formaggio Kitchen. She also wrote that she was currently pregnant with twins and sitting at her kitchen table having breakfast with Tad, (a.k.a. Mr. Latte). I, then a newlywed, remember feeling thrilled at the success of this relationship I had rooted for from page one, and then I marveled at how this book had entrenched itself so deeply in my heart. What follow are a few of my favorite dishes inspired by Cooking for Mr. Latte, one of my favorite food-stained and battered books on my kitchen shelves to this day.

Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Serves 6

Adapted from Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte

This is one of my absolute favorite salads. I got the inspiration for this salad in her chapter for airplane food, minus the beets and plus asparagus. While I have never brought it with me on a plane, there's always my next flight. I am fully aware how passé the beet salad is, but I love beets, and I love goat cheese, and I can't deny this salad a place at my table. We'll just call it ironic. I'm also not much for "fussy" food, but when preparing this for a dinner party, I like to create little stacks of beets. It’s quite easy if you have a toothpick handy, and the murmurs of appreciation from your guests are worth the extra five minutes.

6 large beets, scrubbed, trimmed and rubbed with olive oil
a handful of arugula, washed
4 oz goat cheese
juice from ½ of a blood orange
juice from ½ of a lemon
¼ cup of olive oil
minced herbs of your choice (basil, tarragon, thyme, oregano, etc.)
1 shallot, minced
Dijon mustard to taste
salt and pepper
6 toothpicks

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and wrap the beets in tinfoil. Place the tinfoil packet on a sheet pan to catch any drips and roast the beets in the oven for an hour. While the beets are roasting, prepare the dressing. Whisk the juices together with the herbs, shallot and a dollop of Dijon mustard. Whisk in the olive oil gradually and season with salt and pepper.

When the beets are are cool, rub them with a paper towel under the faucet to skin them.














Slice each beet in four slices. If you need to, trim a little bit from the bottom of each beet so it can stand on a plate. If you use a serrated knife, you get pretty little grooves in the surface of the beet. To assemble each stack, place a beet bottom on a plate, top with a few arugula leaves, some knobs of goat cheese, and another beet slice. Repeat until the top, and put a toothpick in the middle. Drizzle each serving with the vinaigrette. Don’t forget to warn your guests about the toothpick.


Garlic Rosemary Lamb Chops
Adapted from Amanda Hesser’s Cooking for Mr. Latte

For me, lamb wins out over beef any day of the week. This is a simple preparation, but the garlic and rosemary both highlight and soften the intense flavor of the lamb.   In Montana, where lamb was quite inexpensive, I probably prepared this recipe at least three times a month.

3 lbs loin lamb chops
1/3 cup chopped rosemary
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 /2 cup olive oil
Sea salt
Pepper

The night before, marinate the lamb chops with the remaining ingredients in a Ziplock bag. An hour before you want to cook them, take the bag out and let sit at room temperature. Preheat the grill/grill pan over medium high heat. Grill each chop for 2-3 minutes a side for medium rare.
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My Summer Cocktail

I have been making a Watermelon-Basil Granita for years now, and it just now occurred to me to combine the same flavors into a cocktail. The spirit? Cathead Vodka's new Honeysuckle Vodka, the only booze I can say that reminds me of my childhood summers at my grandparents' homes in southeastern Virginia. When I found a bush redolent with the dulcet blossoms, I would carefully pluck the stamen through the flower, and touch the stamen, bowed with the drop of nectar, to my tongue. The subtle floral note in Cathead's Honeysuckle Vodka brings back those moments of childish innocence, when my only frustration was not catching enough fireflies to fill a mason jar.

Basil simple syrup is something I don't think enough bars use in their cocktails. Its slight bite lends a deeper flavor to the often sickly-sweet simple syrup. Watermelon juice, a neutral, refreshing foundation,  provides a foil to the stronger herbal flavor of the basil. Altogether, the cocktail is a little sweet, a little tart, and absolutely perfect for steamy summer evenings here in the Deep South.

Honeywater Basil Cooler
Makes 1 drink

1 cup of watermelon chunks, pureed and strained
3 tablespoons basil simple syrup (See Watermelon Basil Granita recipe)
1 shot Cathead Honeysuckle Vodka
juice of 1 lime
lime wedges
sprig of basil

In a highball glass full of ice, pour vodka. Add watermelon juice, syrup, and lime juice. Garnish with lime wedges and sprig of basil. Enjoy!

"Pimenah" Cheese

Makes about 2 cups

A staple here in the South, pimento cheese is a favorite for appetizers or just a midday snack, sandwiched between two slices of Wonderbread (crusts off, of course). This is a simple recipe, takes only fifteen minutes to prepare, and blows the socks off the nasty processed glump by the same name at the grocery store.

one block of the sharpest cheddar cheese you can find, grated by hand
1 small jar diced pimientos
2 tablespoons pickle juice
2 tablespoons - 1/3 cup mayonnaise, depending on how creamy you like it
a dash of  cayenne pepper
salt and pepper

In a medium bowl, wet cheese with the liquid from the pimientos and the pickle juice. Stir in the mayonnaise. The cheese should almost melt into a paste. Season with cayenne, salt and pepper.