Dijon-Braised Brussels Sprouts

i forgot to take a picture.  but go here and look how fabulous they look at smitten kitchen.  mine looked just liked deb's, and her photos are much better than mine, so it's better that i didn't take a pic.  these are BY FAR the best brussels sprouts i've ever eaten.  i feel sorry for people who think they don't like brussels sprouts, or won't try them.  a scene stealer, for sure!

Squash Casserole

i had some terrific squash casserole at the Ajax Diner in oxford, mississippi the other day, and i decided to try to recreate it.  what i liked about it is that it's simple and savory.  i've had squash casseroles before that were kind of sweet, or full of cheddar cheese that overwhelmed the delicate squash, or baked with eggs and rather quiche-like in texture.  i sliced up some onion & yellow crookneck squash and braised them in butter, salt, and pepper over low heat for about 15 minutes.  i stirred in some panko breadcrumbs, some thyme, and a little ground coriander and then poured it into a casserole to bake.  after about 15 minutes, i poured some more panko bread crumbs into a bowl with melted butter, added some salt, a dash of onion & garlic powders, and a little bit of finely grated parmesan and sprinkled it over the top of the squash and placed it back under the broiler for a few minutes until golden brown.  the result?  fabulous. exactly what i was after.  (apologize for the photo.  it came out looking more like peach cobbler!)

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Swirl

i love pumpkin, any time of year.  i wanted something pumpkin-y today and looked around the web and found this.  it's really good.  lighter than a pumpkin bread, with a thin layer of cream cheese topping, it's kinda like a sheet cake version of a pumpkin roll.  recommended!

Blueberry & Peach Schnapps Pound Cake

this recipe actually calls for raspberries and kirsch, but i didn't like how the raspberries looked at the store so i got blueberries, instead.  and, i don't have any kirsch, so i used peach schnapps as peach & blueberries are a nice match.  it's really good; better than the raspberry version (i've made that before).  it's moist; not very sweet; and lighter than 2½ sticks of butter & 5 eggs might suggest.  worth doing again, even though i'm a pie person  ;)

Cold Sesame Noodles

it's miserably hot.  so, i decided i wanted cold sesame noodles.  there are a hundred different recipes for this; search for any and adapt to your liking.  i adapted this from the recipe in tyler florence's Tyler's Ultimate cookbook (i sauteed some ginger and garlic in chili oil, then pureed it in a blender with some peanut butter,sesame oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar, thai red chili paste, soy sauce, rice venegar, and hot water, then refrigerated the mixture while i boiled the noodles and sliced some red & orange pepper and green onions, chopped some cilantro, and toasted some black & white sesame seeds.  i rinsed the cooked noodles in cold water, drained well, tossed with sesame oil, then tossed all my ingredients together in a large bowl with the refrigerated dressing).  he serves this with a seared duck breast and grilled peaches, and that's probably outrageously good.  this noodles are good served with most any protein, hot or cold: shrimp, pork, chicken, tofu, and duck would all be good, though my preference would probably be some thinly sliced medium-rare grilled flank steak.  however, this stuff is good enough on it's own without a protein.  a good helping of this and a wedge of watermelon and a glass of limeade would be about as good a summer meal as there is, i think.

Caprese Salad-stuffed Profiteroles

this recipe is from the book Savory Baking.  most people know profiteroles as cream puffs, filled with a sweet creamy custard and topped with a chocolate sauce or glaze.  this is an unusual but tasty variation that has potential for other uses.  the pastry (made with a boiled batter, which is then cooled and enriched with eggs) takes on a savory characteristic with the addition of dried basil and shredded mozzarella.  after they've baked and cooled, you cut them open and filled them with your version of caprese salad (fresh tomato, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, extra virgin olive oil, s&p), and bob's your uncle!  this can be a fancy appetizer, or a size dish, or a nice lunch.  these puffs could also be used to make other appetizer sandwiches ranging from simple ham to egg salad or caponata or caramelized onions & anchovies or whatever you can think of.

Macerated Strawberries

(from a couple of nights ago)   there are some fruits that i enjoy more when they are used as an ingredient (i prefer apple pies to apples, and wine to grapes).  strawberries, though, i prefer on their own, or minimally treated.  that's what these strawberries are.  sliced and tossed with a little sugar, honey, and balsamic vinegar.  let it sit for a bit for the juices to loosen up, then tossed them again in the silky syrup that has now formed in the bottom of the bowl.  i could eat several bowlfuls of it.

Roasted Cauliflower & Poblano Soup

(from a few nights ago) this is from bobby flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook.  i like roasted cauliflower; i like creamy soups; i like roasted poblanos.  this sound like a great soup!  and it was good, but i'll say it wasn't great.  flay suggested garnishing this soup with a goat-cheese topped blue corn tortilla chip that had been placed under the broiler to make a nacho.  i decided to improve the iron chef's recipe (yes, i said it!) by roasting some extra cauliflower separately and sprinkling it onto the pureed soup as well, for some more interesting texture.  my addition?  added a lot.  the iron chef's nacho?  didn't work, in my opinion.  i agree with adding some crunch factor to this soup, but i thought the goat cheese detracted from rather than added to the soup's flavor (and i love goat cheese).  i love the roasted poblano in this, though.  this is worth making again with a different kind of crunch (croutons or fried tortilla chips or something).  and bacon, of course.  it could definitely be improved with bacon.

小笼包 (Shanghai Soup Dumplings)

this is an intimidating dish.  i mean, dumplings with the soup inside the dumplings...huh?  but thanks to andrea nguyen's Asian Dumplings, i learned that these aren't as intimidating as i thought!  the secret is you gelatinize the broth, chop it up, then mix it into the meat mixture before filling the skins and steaming.  my dumplings look awful; i'm the first to admit.  this was my first attempt at filling satchel-type dumplings.  obviously, i need to make more to perfect the technique!  they were much tastier than they looked, i assure you.  fabulous, even!  so much so, they inspired me to write this poem:

道可道
非常道
小笼包
非常好!

Mesa Grill Corn Muffins

these muffins come from bobby flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook.  they are supposed to be a mixture of blue cornmeal batter with yellow cornmeal batter.  however, i haven't been able to find any blue cornmeal around here, so i made it entirely with yellow cornmeal.  they're pretty good.  they would've been better if i hadn't used the lamest jalepenos ever.  i've had bell peppers that had more heat.  these muffins also have fresh corn kernels, sweet red pepper, onion, garlic, cilantro, and honey.  however, they weren't really a scene stealer.  i took these over to maddog's and she & chris served some phenomenal smoked pork loin with fabulous ginger slaw and a rich chocolate cake.  so, yeah, the corn muffins definitely were not the star.  in fact, the soft dinner rolls that i also brought with me were a bigger hit than the corn muffins.  they're really good dinner rolls; my favorite, and i make them often.  so much so that i thought i had blogged about them before but, in looking for the link to show you, i see that i never have.  i'll have to remedy that one of these days.

Blueberry Cobbler

mira says my photos will look better if i place the food on white plates. this is about all i had, so...i hope you're happy, mira :)

blueberries were on sale at 3 pints for $5. i couldn't pass that up! so i bought 'em, then looked for a recipe and found this one in The New Best Recipe. i love this kind of dessert. quick & fruity and--bonus!--there's a little bit of cornmeal in the topping, which i love. this is really, really good cobbler!

by the way, the pioneer woman also recommends white plates for food photography, but she broke her own rule today with her cobbler posting (rhubarb, and it looks great!).

Butter Rum Popcorn

i wanted to make something to snack on while i watched the final round of the U.S. Open. i remembered this fabulous gingerbread popcorn and decided i'd mess around with it. instead of warming gingerbread flavors, i decided to give this batch a nice butter rum flavor. i basically left out the spices and used all light corn syrup instead of half corn syrup & half molasses, and added a little more salt. once the caramel mixture was done, i added about a tablespoon of rum and then the baking soda before stirring it into the popped popcorn, followed by an hour in a 250 degree (stirring every 15 minutes), and then letting it cool on the counter for a good half-hour before breaking apart and serving/eating. yums. (the gingerbread popcorn was better and less sticky than this one, but this is still good.)

Pecan Sticky Buns

there are few things better than this! i used the recipe posted by maddog here (you have to scroll down to find it). a 9x13 pan full of rolls made with 3 1/2 sticks of butter, 5 eggs, brown sugar, pecans--need i say more? quit licking the screen! you're just embarrassing yourself...

Cherry Upside Down Cake

yes, another non-pineapple upside down cake. i like upside down cakes. they're fruity and fast and easily made on a weeknight. this one, courtesy of peabody, is made with cherries--actually, canned cherry pie filling, which makes it even more weeknight-friendly (this one has no added sugar). i like this one a lot better than the apple upside down biscuit cobbler cake thingie a couple of weeks ago, and it's even easier, and i suspect i like it better than the recipe that peabody posted. hers contains almond flour because cherries & almonds are such a great match. i don't have almond flour, so i used substituted corn meal for the almond flour (it's only 1/4 cup; there's all-purpose flour, too). i like the little extra grittiness in the cake. i also substituted almond extract for the vanilla extract in the recipe (although not quite as much as almond extract is pretty potent) to get the almond flavor in there, and added a dollop of vanilla ice cream next to the piece i ate to get the vanilla flavor involved :) this is really good, and the best part is the corn meal; the worst part is the lousy photo.

Three Mexican Sauces

red, white, and green, which are also the colors of the mexican flag. the red is roasted tomato-chipotle sauce; the white is roasted poblano crema; the green is roasted tomatillo-serrano sauce. they are all from rick bayless's mexican kitchen. the red & green sauces are especially versatile and worthy of making often and using them for all kinds of things: omelettes, tacos, chilaquiles, enchiladas, whatever. i decided to use them for these new mexico-styled stacked pork enchiladas. often these are just in red or green sauce, or in both for christmas-style. adding the crema (just roasted poblano with milk, cream, and buttermilk thickened with a roux) makes it even more interesting and the fried egg just takes it out of bounds. fabulous. just fabulous.

Apple Upside Down Biscuit Cobbler Cake Thingy

super easy weeknight dessert. i had a couple of wrinkly apples laying around and i remembered this recipe that the pioneer woman recently posted. quick & easy and pretty good. i added a scoop of breyers vanilla caramel ice cream. next time i would add more sugar and some cinnamon and/or freshly grated nutmeg to the biscuit dough. the original recipe is too much like a breakfast biscuit than a dessert biscuit.

Earl Grey Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

i don't really care for cupcakes, especially during those 4 months of the year when i have a beard because, as everyone knows, cupcakes are the natural enemy of mustaches. but, i have no beard at the moment and i liked the idea of these earl grey (which is bergamot oil) and lemon buttercream cupcakes. that's a great match, and i know my spousal unit will enjoy them. these are really good! and easy. and different. and good. and you should try these. i think i'm going to try making early grey creme brulee one of these days.

note: what is baking without a mistake? when i made the batter, i read 1/2 lb. of butter when it really said 1/2 c. regardless, it still tastes great. luckily, i caught my mistake before making the buttercream frosting, where the mistake would've been more problematic. also, the baker in the link said she used one tea bag but next time would use two. i used one, but i also brought the milk to a boil and then steeped another tea bag in the milk while it cooled to give it that extra earl grey flavor before adding it to the batter. i like it.

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

now this cookie is a definite scene stealer! when maddog bakes it, that is. the recipe is from alice medrich's book Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies. when maddie made the, i thought there were the best oatmeal raisin cookies i'd ever had. mine? don't taste as good. maybe i need to wait until tomorrow and taste them then. i decided to kick mine up a little notch by soaking the raisins in rum, but...the texture doesn't seem as good. it's a little...soft. i suspect it might be that i decided to double the recipe and perhaps shouldn't have doubled the baking soda. maybe? anyway, i'm hoping it improves tomorrow.

Gun Mandu

today i made these korean meat & vegetable dumplings (gun mandu) from andrea nguyen's great cookbook Asian Dumplings. these were super! (pic is of the second batch. the first batch was rather more...cajun-style.) one difference between korean and chinese dumplings is that the dough includes sweet glutinous rice flour, which makes the skins more chewy. another difference between these and chinese potstickers (guotie) is that 2 sides are pan fried as opposed to just the bottom. the innards include ground beef, firm tofu, bean sprout, onion, garlic, and assorted dry & liquid seasonings. i like the addition of toasted sesame seeds to the dipping sauce as well. definite scene stealers! (careful, though. these like to squirt when you bite into 'em!)

Kahlua Flan

i wanted something good but simple for dessert tonight and i remembered this recipe by emeril for kahlua flan. it's got to be the easiest flan i've ever made (although it stuck to the bottom of the pan a little bit). emeril says to dust it with cocoa and chocolate shavings. i recently bought this cocoa chile blend by mccormick's and decided to try that, along with some grated semi-sweet chocolate. i like how all the flavors in this come together (though try not to inhale the cocoa chile blend as you take a bite as the dry powder hitting the back of your throat will cause you to cough a little).