Baked Eggs

as i've perused food blogs and tastespotting over the past few years, i'd see "baked eggs" pop up every now and then. it's something i've never had before or even really ever heard of before that i can recall, but the pics always looked nice. this week, jen yu at use real butter posted about baked eggs and i decided it was time to give this a try (if you've never visited jen's site, her photography is amazing, as is her food!). i totally get it now. easier than an omelet and just as versatile, but more elegant. as an added bonus, you get runny yolks! i've decided that it's the best way to eat eggs! and if you have a bunch of these little ramekins for creme brulee, they're even prettier and perfect for company (especially for a nice brunch). just ease your eggs into a buttered ramekin, gently top with whatever you want, then bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes, depending on how you like your yolks. i had some fresh parsley, fresh thyme, leftover roasted broccoli, leftover ham, a little tomato, and some cheddar (which, because of the color, keeps you from seeing the yolk in the photo). good stuff!

Spicy Lemon Garlic Shrimp

the pioneer woman blogged about this today and i've already made it. guess i was inspired, huh? :)

and that's kind of unusual because, although i like shrimp, i rarely make it or any other seafood at home; when i eat it, it's usually at a restaurant. also, i usually don't care for shrimp or crab that i have to peal and pick and dig the meat out of as i'm eating it. but, as i said, this looked good to me today, and easy (unthawed frozen shrimp!), and--best of all--it looked like terrific bread-sopping liquid! all that butter and garlic and crushed red pepper and lemon and parsley and shrimp juices....oh my. yes, it was terrific! the bread-sopping, that is, and the shrimp were damn good, too. candy, you should do this!

Gingerbread Popcorn

another internet recipe, this time courtesy of culinary in the desert. when i saw this gingerbread popcorn, i knew i wanted to try it and i'm glad i did! think caramel corn with gingerbread flavors, although mine came out more crystal-sugary than sticky-caramely. at any rate, perfect for christmas and may become a holiday tradition...at least as much as my not-at-all-annual winter solstice party at chez burkie :)

next time i make this, though, i will use a little less popcorn. there were a few kernels (not pictured) that didn't get appropriate coverage.

Bacon Mushroom Tacos

another recipe from the world's cheapest cookbook, the internet! and, again, it's mushrooms! this time, the mushrooms are paired with smoky bacon, sweet onion, and flavor-absorbing potatoes, roasted in a hot oven until done, then spooned into a tortilla and topped with delicious guacamole. so easy, and so good! and sure to please a bacon 'ho or a potato 'ho (should you happen to know any...). thank you, spiteful chef, for this one!

Garlic Butter Roasted Mushrooms

this recipe comes from the cheapest cookbook of all: the internet. this is a dish that deb recently posted at smitten kitchen. they looked great, and she says the dish makes a great bread-sopping liquor, which is one of my favorite things. so, i made some roast beast and sourdough bread just to accompany the mushrooms :)

quite good at 20 minutes of cook time, definitely a quicker dish than the pioneer woman's mushrooms here requiring 9 hours of cooking! they look good, too, so one day...

Turkey & Dumplings

i'm not really a turkey guy. i'll eat it but, for me, turkey is a side dish at thanksgiving and dressing is the real star of the table. and the pecan pie. the turkeys were really cheap this year, though, so i bought a big one (21 lbs). it came out good, but then i had this huge carcass with plenty of meat still hanging to it that i was too lazy to bother with. so, i hacked it all up and put the carcass pieces into two stock pots and made a rick turkey broth with it. i also was able to pull plenty of meat off the bones (after they cooled) to add to the broth so i could make turkey & dumplings from Emeril's TV Dinners. this was a cheap cookbook because maddog gave it to me (i think she wound up with 2 in her possession, for some reason). i made two adjustments to emeril's recipe. first, obviously, i used turkey instead of chicken. the big alteration is that his recipe is called spicy chicken & dumplings because he adds jalepeno to the dumplings. i don't think this dish needs to be kicked up notches untold, so i left them out. what i like about this recipe is that you take some of the boiled aromatics (onions, celery, carrot) out of the pot after they become soft, mash them up, and add that to the dumpling dough (along with emeril's jalepenos, if you wish). oh, this is so good. a bit of work, yes, but so good. far better than the turkey on thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Bread

i've been sooooooo ready for fall (it's been a brutally hot summer), and fall means pumpkin! i turned to mark bittman's How To Cook Everything and decided to try his version of pumpkin bread. it's an interesting recipe for two reasons. first, it's a generic recipe for a quick bread with slight modifications whether you're making an apple bread or banana bread or zucchini bread or pumpkin bread. secondly and more interestingly, it calls for a mixture of white all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, and corn meal (though he says you could use all white flour). i opted for the mixed flours/corn meal version and i'm glad i did. the bread has the warm spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, flavor & moistness from the pumpkin, and the mixed flours give it lightness and make it more of a real bread than a large, loaf-shaped muffin, which pumpkin "bread" most often resembles. i could even see toasting this. it's good! it's not as good as this, of course (as it is the best pumpkin "bread" you'll ever eat), but good!

Koolickles!

yep, koolickles. what are they? dill pickles soaked in cherry kool-aid. i found the item & recipe in alton brown's Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run, which i picked up for about $3. i had never heard of these things, but apparently they're popular in the delta region. alton was skeptical, but admitted that it worked: still tart & crisp & vinegar-y, but sweet, too, and hits the spot on a hot afternoon. he's right. these really aren't bad! they're a hit with the boys, too. i'm thinking of doing pickles for 2011...stay tuned!

Lemon Shortbread

so i had planned to make deb's peach shortbread from smitten kitchen (there is no cheaper cookbook than the internet, after all!), thinking that i had a couple of peaches. turns out that i didn't. i wasn't in the mood to go back to the store, so i found this easy shortbread recipe in How To Cook Everything and added some lemon zest to it to freshin them up. tasty, and a nice way to finish off the meal posted below. my only complaint is that they're just a little too tender & crumbly.

Carbonnade

carbonnade is a belgian dish of beef braised in beer & onions. not exactly seasonal, but the grocery store had a really good deal on blade steaks, which are suited perfectly for a braise, so i brought them home and found this carbonnade recipe from cheap cookbook How To Cook Everything by mark bittman. this is a very easy dish, cooks on the stove, and i think the fact that you cook it in beer rather than stock or wine keeps it light enough for late summer meal, and all those onions add just the right sweetness. some fresh corn, oven roasted potatoes, no-knead bread, and salad round it out. see the next post for dessert :)

Peach-Crystallized Ginger Blender Clafouti

so, today's seasonal dessert comes from cheap cookbook Cooking From The Hip by cat cora. no, i didn't forget the photo. it just doesn't photograph well. you'll have to imagine it. i had bought some peaches and was looking for something to do with them, and found this easy dessert. i loved crystallized ginger, and i like peaches + ginger, so this sounded great. so easy. slice some fresh peaches, chop some crystallized ginger and throw them into a baking dish together with some sugar. throw some eggs, milk, four, and a little more sugar into a blender and blend well. pour the batter over the peaches and bake. i had to bake it about 10 minutes longer than it said, and it's not the best looking dessert i've ever made, but it's pretty good. i've never had clafouti before. if you've never had it, it's very egg-y. think of fruit baked in a lot of crepe batter. not bad, even if it doesn't photograph well. if i make it again, though, i'm going to increase the amount of crystallized ginger.

Lemon Tart with Candied Zest

this tart comes from charlie palmer's practical guide to the new american kitchen. this is the second tart i've made from this book (here was the first). this was my other 2-day recipe this weekend, and it--like the focaccia--required 47 steps as well. i had to make the candied zest yesterday as it required an overnight rest. 1 cup of assorted lemon, lime, and orange zest. 1 CUP! let me tell you how much citrus fruit that is: 4 lemons, 3 limes, and 2 oranges. and i made it a loose cup, not a tight cup. fortunately, i have the pampered chef's zester, which is really a great tool, so it wasn't that onerous a chore. today i had to bake the crust. i wasn't happy with the other tart's crust, but this one was great! it's a cornmeal crust (with more zest!) and really worked well and tasted great. the lemon curd (with more zest!) required several bowls (and the juice of about 7 lemons) and a double boiler, then baking, then cooling, then chilling, and then sugaring the top & taking a torch to it like a huge crème brulee....but, like the focaccia, it was all worth it. this was fabulous! a little crème fraîche on the side and a garnish of the candied zest...i want seconds!

Pain à l'Ancienne Focaccia

i'm just gonna call it focaccia from now on, okay? this is from peter reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day. it's a major pain. the first day requires a stretch & fold technique with a very slack and wet dough with oily hands every 10 minutes until you've done it four times. the next day requires sticking it in & out of a slightly warm oven for 5 minutes at a time with a 10-minute rest between each warming, and oily finger-dimpling before each trip into the oven. but, i gotta say, it was all worth it. i poured on an herb oil that reinhart recommends before baking it. it's so good. i want to make this every day and never share. it had better be that good for being such a pain in the ass to make!

Roast Pork w/ Sage & Potatoes--with update!

sorry, it's been a while! today's Roast Pork with Sage & Potatoes comes from cheap cookbook How To Cook Everything. very simple: pork, sage, potatoes, garlic, olive, salt, and pepper. you can use a loin or shoulder roast, bone-in or boneless (i used bone-in shoulder), but you should use a waxy potato (i used red bliss). you roast it all together in one pan. this was good, but not really spectacular. but that's okay! simple peasant food, and easy. that's the world's best braised green cabbage alongside, which is from one of my favorite all-time cookbooks All About Braising by molly stevens. it's not a cheap cookbook; i paid the full $35 cover price, but it has been a great value because every recipe i've tried has ranged between very good and fabulous (and i've made quite a few, and more than once), and this cabbage is one of my favorites. oh, and that's some of my sourdough bread on the plate, too. now that's a good meal!

UPDATE: so, the next night, i made these great braised potatoes with garlic (also found in molly stevens' book). tonight, i made hash out of the leftover pork & potatoes. now, hash is usually made out of leftover roast beef (or corned beef). since i was making mine with pork, i added some traditional sausage seasonings (onion, garlic, paprika, cayenne, sage, and crushed fennel seed). then, after it was done, i topped it with a fried egg. okay, two fried eggs. even those of you who wish you had some of it can't imagine how good it really was.

Chocolate-Cinnamon Babka, kranz-style

today's seasonal offering is chocolate-cinnamon babka, but in the braided loaf style of the israeli kranz. babka is a yeast cake of eastern european heritage, popular during easter. this recipe, from reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, seems to strike a compromise in the famous chocolate vs. cinnamon babka Seinfeld episode by featuring both flavors. i've been wanting to make this ever since i got the book, not so much because i wanted to eat it, but because it looked so cool. i'm not a big fan of chocolate-y breads, and there's little difference between a yeast cake & a rich bread, that i can tell. the cinnamon saves it (for me). it's good, but it's not great, though i think most would like it a lot more than i do. it's kind of like chocolate bread pudding in solid form so, if you like that sort of thing, or chocolate croissants, then you'd probably like this. not my thing, but it's kinda cool.

ps. it turns really brown because of the sugar & chocolate, but it's not burned, nor is it hard & crusty.

A Silk Road Celebration of Flavors

sunny & mild & saturday--i HAD to grill something. one thing i was really in the mood for was baba ghanoush (based on the spelling from the book i got the recipe), which is one of my favorite all-time foods. so, i turned to Fladbreads & Flavors, a book i bought with a gift card. oddly, it doesn't have a recipe for baba ghanoush, but it had some other recipes i wanted to make, such as pita bread from the eastern mediterranean; spicy cumin kebabs (lamb) and oasis peppers from xinjiang, china; and chicken street kebabs along with mint & yogurt sauce from afghanistan. i turned to How To Make Everything for the baba ghanoush & some hummus to complete my feast. everything was great. the pita bread didn't create a pocket, but the authors said that sometimes happens and not to worry 'cause you get good-tasting bread anyway. they were right. both kebabs were terrific--the chicken tender & mild, the lamb juicy & spicy. the dips were all really good, too. i pureed the baba ghanoush a little too much for my liking as i was adjusting the flavorings, but it's still very, very tasty. i love this kind of meal. along with a glass of wine, dining really doesn't get much better than this.

Praline Pumpkin Pie (Pie Day 2010)

it's pie day (π or 3.14 day)! last year was a yummy butterscotch pie. this year, i turned to my stack of cheap cookbooks and...my eyes fell on...paula deen's The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook. it was a gift, okay? the giver meant well and i accepted it with grace. so...i figured that pie was probably something she does pretty well, and being a gift it counts as a cheap cookbook, so i looked through it and found this praline pumpkin pie. it looked pretty good, so i did it--with modifications. the first modification was the crust. the recipe calls for a crust but it doesn't necessarily say it has to be her recipe. i made a crust from mark bittman's How To Cook Everything. he has 10-inch single-crust recipe that i like because i don't have to roll it out in a perfect circle. love that. it also tastes good. the real modification i made is really more of a subtraction--her recipe calls for meringue on top and i don't care much for meringue. i topped mine with a little whipped cream, instead. the verdict? i'll hand it to her--she makes a pretty good pie. you press a mixture of brown sugar, chopped pecans, and softened butter against the bottom of the crust and then pour the pumpkin custard (with a nice splash of dark rum in it. yay, paula!) on top & bake. all in all, a successful pie day!

Chocolate & Peanut Butter Ganache Tart

with peanut brittle garnish, no less! this cheap cookbook recipe comes from Charlie Palmer's Practical Guide to the New American Kitchen. this book was cheaper for me than most because it was FREE, thanks to my accidently winning a contest from fabulous food blogger michelle at Thursday Night Smackdown. this is one of those recipes that's actually three recipes, but i had time to kill today and i wanted to try it. since you can't see it, i'll tell you that the peanut butter is mixed in with the chocolate ganache, which is rich and smooth and contains both dark & milk chocolate along with the peanut butter, cream, sugar, and butter. the peanut brittle is really good, and the recipe makes a lot more than you need for topping this tart, so a big thumbs up for that :) the only disappointment in this recipe really is the crust for the tart. it's kind of tough and...just doesn't add anything. i'm sure it's the recipe and not the execution. i'm certain of it! overall, it's an impressive dessert that is actually pretty darn easy to make, despite being three separate recipes thrown together. if you have a tried & true tart pastry, though, i would go with that rather than the one in this book.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

two of my favorite food bloggers featured cauliflower this week, so i decided to jump on the bandwagon. while jen made roasted cauliflower and deb made cauliflower & caramelized onion tart, i decided to make this creamy cauliflower soup from barbara kafka's Vegetable Love, a $35 dollar book that i scored for $9.99. this is a good recipe to make if you like cauliflower but others in your house don't, because there is just as much potato as there is cauliflower in this recipe and, with the help of some onion, it pretty much cancels out the cauliflower flavor. everything is pureed after it's cooked in stock, and then stirred back into the stock along with some cream. fortunately for me, i like cauliflower and i decided to hold a little bit back and roast it so i could use it as a garnish. i'm very glad i did, because it really made a difference.

Curried Lentils with Butternut Squash

this is an ugly dish (i mean the brown stuff in the center). i'm a lousy photographer, but i doubt even jen yu could've made this look good (she made lentils recently and those did look good, but they weren't stirred into a curried mashed butternut squash mixture!). but just 'cause it's ugly don't mean it's blech. it is quite good, in fact. this recipe comes from cat cora's Cooking from the Hip. i bought this hardcover cookbook by an Iron Chef for a mere $3.99! definitely cheap, as is the recipe itself. and easy. and pretty quick. you cook the lentils and chunks of butternut squash together, drain, then remove the hunks o' squash and mash 'em up, then add the lentils, some curry powder, fresh ginger, chili powder, olive oil, salt, and pepper, slap it into a baking dish and bake. cat says you can garnish with grated coconut; i improved on the Iron Chef's suggestion. yes, i did! i garnished with toasted coconut. makes a world of difference! she says this is a good vegetarian (even vegan) meal with some brown rice and a mug of beer. i scented my brown rice with a little lemon zest and threw on some sliced scallion, added a slice of my sourdough bread, and poured a flying dog I.P.A. a nice meal indeed.