The Cooking Critic

My idea for an Easter brunch started out harmless enough. I saw the Weekend Cookbook Challenge was having a bloggers’ brunch round-up, and I thought something along the lines of “Brunch! What a lovely idea. Perhaps I will have a few friends over, and I will serve them brunch.” Between this original small-scale notion and sending out an Evite less than a week before Easter, the idea had ballooned into inviting nearly everyone I know in the Los Angeles area. And while I generally think I’m capable of fitting more tasks into a day than is humanly possible, I had no delusions about being the sole supplier of a meal for thirty people, which was a pleasantly surprising showing for a last-minute shindig. So I described the brunch as “potluck-ish” and at the risk of sounding bossy, told people exactly what we needed for a diverse spread (egg dishes, fruit dishes, salads, etc.) since I was afraid otherwise, most would just stop by a bakery beforehand, and all we’d have was a diverse array of muffins.

I think it turned out well:

The day before the brunch, I whipped together this ridiculously simple Fruit Dip (cream cheese, marshmallow fluff, orange juice and orange zest) that I’ve made countless times. It was sweeter than I remembered, and I might use lemon juice instead of orange juice to cut the sweetness next time or try out one of the other many fruit dip recipes I have lying around. (Yes, I am in possession of multiple fruit dip recipes. No, I do not think this is strange.) But the crowd said nice things. Then again, it was a nice crowd. Alie thought the dip was a great summery addition, and Audrey described it as dipping fruit into a creamsicle.

Next I mixed and rolled Sausage Balls, another easy one. It’s possible that the term “Sausage Balls” doesn’t sound particularly pleasant or edible to you, but they are “a surprising animal” according to David Friedman, the biggest Sausage Ball cheerleader I know. Here’s another way to think of it: a little round biscuit with sausage and cheese baked in. Doesn’t that sound infinitely better? And despite the fact that the crowd kept giggling at Sausage Balls’ ridiculous name, they ate them and proclaimed their love for them. And here’s a tip: my mother was talking to a woman about her Sausage Balls (this is a perfectly normal conversation in the South since everyone makes Sausage Balls there) and how they can cook up dry. The woman said she rolls her balls more loosely to keep them moist, and I found this works. And on that note, we now move on to Orange Chocolate Salad but not without a giant picture of a Sausage Ball first:

I first noticed Clementine Chocolate Salad when Running with Tweezers posted it for the last Weekend Cookbook Challenge. Though I was drawn to it and had half-heartedly considered making it, I couldn’t commit. But when Adam showed up on my doorstep with a sack full of oranges as a thank you for my feeding Pants the cat while he was away, I determined the oranges were a sign from God telling me to make Clementine Chocolate Salad but with navel oranges.

This dish looks simple, but I encountered one problem after another with it—sometimes that happens when you feel pushed for time. I doubled the dish and spent 20 minutes grating chocolate, which is very very boring, and still had only half as much chocolate as I needed. As it turns out, I hate grating chocolate. I will never grate 3.5 ounces of chocolate again. I will either buy it pre-grated (if this product exists) or hire someone to do the grating for me (anyone want that job?—it doesn’t pay, but there’s free Orange Chocolate Salad in it for you.) Then I made the vanilla bean syrup, which was only three ingredients but more trouble than I imagined. On my first try, I cooked it too long trying to get it golden as instructed and ended up with basically Vanilla Bean Jolly Ranchers. So I tossed my creation and made the syrup again, taking it off the burner soon after the sugar dissolved instead of attempting anything golden for fear of wasting more vanilla beans.

Despite the hassle, it was a wonderfully elegant dish that would be especially good at a bridal shower, and people loved the fact that the words “chocolate” and “salad” were used together. But next time, I think I’ll try the version with the fresh mint instead of the chocolate (though the crowd loved the taste of chocolate and oranges together) since I prefer whacking at mint with scissors to grating chocolate.

Next I made a Caramel Coffee Cake, something that sounds far more complicated than it is. All you do is throw yeast rolls in a greased pan, mix together some dry butterscotch pudding and spices, throw them on top of the rolls, then top with melted butter. If you ever make this, you will look at what I just described and think that I must be crazy for insisting that it will turn into a gooey Caramel Coffee Cake. You have to let it rise overnight, and in case you have any reservations about letting the butter that it’s topped with sit out unrefrigerated for hours, Real Simple, one of the premier butter authorities in the world, says it’s okay in their discussion of food myths here (click the link and scroll down.) Evidently, there’s enough salt in salted butter that you can always leave it out, and it will still be fine. As for the coffee cake, when the yeast rolls have risen the next day (appropriate for an Easter meal, no?) into a doughy mass, you will still think I’m crazy for claiming you will have coffee cake after it is cooked. But trust me and put the pan in the oven, let it cook, take it out, flip it out on a plate, ooh and aah, then thank me. I will not hold it against you that you thought I was crazy. Here it is half-eaten, slightly blurry, poorly lit and not nearly as pretty as it is in person (sadly, pictures were an after-thought). But by the end of the party it was gone except for one slice. An excellent sign. Sarah Kate described Caramel Coffee Cake and Orange Chocolate Salad as “can’t-go-wrongs.” I’m thinking about adding that as a category to my blog….

All the day-before prep work complete (sorry for all the jumping around in time), I rested on the seventh day, meaning I tried to sleep around midnight but could not, thinking of all the cleaning and additional food prep work I had to do before 11 a.m. At least I got the coffee and tea station (a transformed IKEA bookshelf) set up in the living room, which I am very proud of because it prevented overflow in the kitchen area and kept the guests happy and caffeinated:

The morning of brunch, the show got under way with minimal sleep and the much-appreciated help of Melissa and Trixie, who assisted me with everything from moving furniture to peeling oranges–somehow the latter turned out to be more difficult than the former. Proof:

As it turns out, Melissa, though a gifted writer and quite adorable, cannot peel an orange to save her life. The above is an example of an orange peeled by Melissa. I had to fire Melissa from her orange-peeling duties and give that job to Trixie who went about scoring them first and making them look more uniform than I thought possible.

However, Melissa was able to redeem herself by expertly opening a bottle of champagne, and she was an immense help with our last-minute assembly of Gorgonzola Grits (another quick dish, but it requires nearly constant attention during its ten-minute prep lifespan), a recipe I got from a Junior League cookbook. I made one with chicken broth, as the recipe told me to, and another version with No-Chicken Broth (the name of the brand) for the vegetarians. I had used the actual chicken broth to poach a chicken earlier in the week, and so, it was an extra-chickeny chicken broth. The grits made with this broth had a very powerful, salty flavor. It made for robust grits—perhaps too robust. But flavorful and unusual in the best sort of way—I’ll just go with a tamer chicken broth next time. The vegetarians loved their less-salty version, one claiming they had converted her to gritsdom and another describing them as “half city/half country—the Donny and Marie of breakfast.” (The No-Chicken Broth made much yellower grits than the real-chicken broth, in case you were wondering about the color difference.)

Soon Mike and Meghann arrived, then Tim, Danielle and Kysa with coffee pot in tow, and it became a rockin’ party from there with people enjoying their mimosas:

and bringing more delicious brunch foods than I knew existed. To give you a sense of what was present, I’ll describe my leftovers. For dinner that night, I had Marissa’s French toast casserole, Sarah Kate’s deviled eggs (with caviar!), Melissa’s spinach salad and a puff pastry stuffed with mushrooms and cheese that magically appeared near the end of brunch. (I have no idea who brought it). For breakfast I had Meghann’s egg casserole and Maggie’s cheddar dill scones. Lunch was Christiane’s quiche, my grits and Shayna’s stuffed cream cheese French toast. For a dessert break I’ll have chocolate cake (Sarah’s?) and/or Leslie’s peach cobbler. And already I’m eyeing the leftovers and imagining what I can create with them—some sort of tart with the fruit dip and strawberries? A cake with a layer of those vanilla meringues? Lucky for the people playing poker at my house later this week….

>>Buy Open House: A Culinary Tour by The Junior League of Murfreesboro.

You’ve probably heard the rumors about risotto. It’s high-maintenance and constantly needs attention. Just like a woman. You’re always stirring stirring stirring to make risotto, 20 minutes worth of non-stop stirring while you ladle in warm broth intermittingly to get that creamy but al dente texture. Risotto is, indeed, a commitment. Some people will try to make you think it’s not a difficult dish, and there’s truth to this claim since a basic risotto requires few ingredients. But if you aren’t into stirring for 20 minutes (plus additional sautéing and chopping) then you couldn’t possibly be into making risotto.

While I don’t mind all the stirring myself, I had always wondered how necessary it really was. I’ve looked far and wide for an explanation about the necessity of non-stop risotto-stirring (okay, I looked once, and that was today, but I’ve wondered a lot), and while I keep coming across promising websites that insist on the stirring and even acknowledge that you may want to dump all the broth in at once and not stir, no one explains why we stir. My guess? Nobody knows. That’s right—no one in the whole world knows.

Actually, the Home and Garden TV website claims the stirring is required so the risotto doesn’t stick to the pan. But this seems suspect to me. Occasional (and not constant) stirring would prevent sticking. Anyhow, all this is a long way of saying I have found a risotto recipe that doesn’t require stirring and tastes good to me. It’s not as creamy as your average risotto (I believe the stirring is a texture issue, though I can’t find any source to back me up on this), but once I added the Parmesan at the end, I was surprised by how creamy and flavorful this non-stirring version was. With Easy Risotto, you do some initial chopping and sautéing, then pour all the broth into the risotto just as you’ve always been told not to, put a lid on the thing and let it simmer while you do other things for twenty minutes (the freedom!), and you return to cooked risotto.

Adjustments: The most significant adjustment was the addition of more liquid because when I made this once before, the risotto cooked up kind of dry. And if I’m going to add more liquid, I might as well add an interesting liquid, so ¼ cup of white wine got thrown into the pot. Instead of water and chicken bouillon, I used canned chicken stock. Also diced regular onions replaced green onions.

Assessment: As I’ve been typing this entry, I’ve debated, would I recommend this for company? No doubt, I will make this for myself again, but others? Here’s the answer: if you are making risotto as an entrée, then get to stirring because it’s the centerpiece of your meal and you need to do it right. If you’re offering risotto as a side (and especially if you have other more important dishes that require last-minute attention before dinner is served) make Easy Risotto. I suspect no one will know the difference. Even my friends who cook are not risotto snobs (to my knowledge, well, maybe Meghann Barloewen is a risotto snob–she always seems to be making risotto anyways), so I think they would be fine with this and may very well not notice the difference.

>>Buy the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.

Corn Soup is not a chowder. And don’t call it a chowder. That’s like calling a “Christine,” “Kristin.” Two different words, two different connotations. I’ve actually asked around about chowders before (these are the sort of conversations people are forced to have with me), and I’ve never been able to come up with a clear definition for chowder. My own observations have led me to deduce chowders include a puréed potato to give them a denser consistency. Then I received Food Lover’s Companion (basically, the ultimate dictionary for foodies) as a gift, which does not confirm my made-up definition for chowder. Hmph. Here’s how Food Lover’s Companion describes chowder: “a thick, chunky seafood soup.” See, it’s already gotten itself in a hole because we’ve all heard of corn chowder, and corn chowder doesn’t have seafood in it. But later it says, “The term [chowder] is also used to describe any thick, rich soup containing chunks of food (for instance, corn chowder.)” And that seems really broad and sweeping to me.

This Corn Soup is more like a bisque because it has cream and flour for thickening. Here I shall describe this corn soup bisque: smooth, well-seasoned, complex, and rich without being too rich. I think this is a good description. Food Lover’s Companion describes bisques this way: “a thick, rich soup usually consisting of puréed seafood and cream.” Clearly, Food Lover’s Companion is in cahoots with the seafood industry. Tomato bisque doesn’t include seafood. Corn soup bisque doesn’t include seafood. At least they hedged themselves by using the word “usually” this time.

My family likes to call this “Cron Soup” because of a misspelled sign for corn we once saw in Ohio. I made my mother email me this recipe because I suddenly wanted it and don’t own the cookbook it came from. Thanks, Mom! I know what a pain typing up recipes can be. Lately, I feel like I spend half of my life typing up recipes. The other half is devoted to Karaoke.

Adjustments: Half and half for the light cream, and I just sprinkled a little bit of nutmeg in rather than use the full ¼ teaspoon. I know nutmeg in soups is all the rage right now, but I’m wary of this rage. For reheating, add a little milk or cream to thin it out if it overly thickens in the refrigerator. And pardon my picture. I accidentally caramelized the onions (it happens!), and I cut up the chives in a manner that might be best described as haphazard.

Assessment: You will be amazed at how easy yet tasty this soup is. You will be sad to learn the cookbook I got this from is out-of-print, yet you will be happy to hear you can buy a previously owned edition for $.52.

>> Buy Easy Cooking for Today by Pol Martin or Food Lover’s Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst.

The sick person’s soup series continues. Though clearly, I’m not all that sick. If I were, I’d be on the couch watching TV all day like any normal person instead of in the kitchen making a ridiculous amount of soups. Speaking of soup, here’s a good reason to make this one: you put wine in the chicken broth. Wine tastes good, so it makes your Spinach and Rice Soup taste good too. Bogle’s Sauvignon Blanc is a good not-expensive-but-stlll-nice-tasting dry white perfect for cooking (and sipping while you cook.) And here’s a solid endorsement for this soup: I have returned home from a long day and decided to make this dish last minute, and it was created in a completely reasonable amount of time with ingredients I usually have in the house (if you leave out the chick peas.)

Adjustments: No to chick peas! Actually, feel free to say yes to chick peas, but they turn this from a quick meal into an over two-hour long endeavor. So join me in my fight against chick peas! And vegetarians—you guys should use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. (Sorry for the washed-out photo!)

Assessment: I’ve made this soup countless times, so clearly I like it. Good flavor. Suitable for a sick or well person.

When a person subsists on soup and ice cream alone, do you gain weight or lose? It’s an important questions, folks, and I’d like to answer it for you. I’ve been conducting this experiment and using myself as the guinea pig. The soups have been plentiful—just scroll down and see. The ice cream has come in pints and consisted of Hagen-Daaz Strawberry (so-so, I love their vanilla, but the corner market was out) and Ben & Jerry’s Mint Cookies and Cream (the best ice cream on earth.) Besides the soup and ice cream, a scale would be useful. I, sadly, don’t have one, so eyeing myself in the mirror will have to substitute. Hmmm, so, I look the same weight to me. My pants fit the same too. My conclusion: I’m the exact same weight. So I guess the ice cream and soup cancelled each other out. I should say I did exercise a bit—I wasn’t completely incapacitated. But my exercise consisted of walking three miles at a pace that may be best described as “leisurely,” although I eventually worked my way up to “nearly brisk” as I got less sick those last couple of  days.

Oh yeah, so the Chicken Soup with Celery and Lemon. It combines two of the best sick people ingredients ever: chicken broth and lemon juice. You know what else tastes good? Celery leaves. I’m serious. And I just discovered 1 part lemon juice to 2 parts honey is a soothing, homemade cough syrup! And it tastes far better than Robitussin. I have the whooping cough, by the way, or maybe TB, which Maggie claims I gave to her. Actually, I think I just have a cold, but I find drama is best when you’re sick. What do you have, if you don’t have people’s sympathy?

Adjustments: I put this in the “(Relatively) Easy” category despite some debate. It’s easy when you already have cooked chicken on hand, like I did, and you don’t have to cook it 45 minutes in the broth. Also, rather than making a bouquet garni, I just let the herbs float around in the broth completely unsupervised since I didn’t have any kitchen string on me. And, as always, unsalted butter was replaced by salted.

Assessment: Brothy, soothing, citrusy. Perfect for when you’re feeling under the weather, but I’m curious to see what I think of it on a well day.

There are few things in life more satisfying than a good dumpling. Actually, there are few things in life more satisfying than a mediocre dumpling for that matter. I make my dumplings with Bisquick, and I’m not afraid to admit it. They puff up nice and fluffy as you please, and I toss in a little parsley to throw people off the Bisquick scent. In fact, I bet you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between my Bisquick dumplings and somebody else’s homemade dumplings. Actually, I’m sure some people could tell the difference, but I suspect those people aren’t reading my blog. Not now anyways. Someday they will. Some day THE WHOLE WORLD will be reading my blog. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! And I will hold them in thrall with my ruminations on dumplings. (You are getting very sleepy. You like dumplings. Dumplings are your friend.)

So while the Better Homes New Cookbook provided the base for this Chicken Stew with Dumplings (they even recommended I use Bisquick, more or less), Cooking Light provided some ideas for additional flavor, so I’m citing them here. Cite your sources, people! Don’t plagiarize like my students like to do sometimes. Boo, plagiarism!

Adjustments: I sautéed fresh celery and onions and garlic instead of using frozen onions, frozen vegetables and garlic powder. Dill was my fresh herb of choice for this dish since I had some around. And add 2 tablespoons of sherry at the end for additional flavor.

Assessment: Not the most amazing Chicken ’n Dumplings I’ve ever made but good, and I felt very, very comforted. I make this dish differently every time, but I think my most successful rendition (and also the most time-consuming) took heavily from Emeril’s TV Dinners, which uses heavy cream, made-from-scratch dumplings and fresh jalapeños, among other ingredients—I hear he likes to kick things up a notch.

Patti Dixon, friend of my mother’s and all-round great lady, first introduced me to Tomato-Dill Soup. Tomato-Dill and I (as I call him now for short) hit it off right away. In fact, I was so intrigued by Tomato-Dill, that I nearly risked not meeting all the other delicious characters that were a part of this particular progressive dinner. I went back for thirds of this soup—no joke—and this was during the appetizer segment of the evening, so there was still a lot of food to go. Luckily, the servings were small, and I didn’t spoil my dinner. But at that moment I didn’t care. I was willing to throw out the window everything my mother ever told me about spoiling my appetite to be with Tomato-Dill. I felt that strongly.

A couple years later, Tomato-Dill and I are still on speaking terms but have never been able to recreate that same magic that was there on our first encounter. I blame myself. I’m easily distracted by other soups; I didn’t make an honest attempt to nurture my relationship with Tomato-Dill; and when I created the soup from scratch myself, it just didn’t taste as good as Patti’s, quite frankly.

I’m not sure what Patti does to her soups, but I suspect it involves witchcraft. My mother claims it involves sweet onions instead of brown or white. This could be the case too.

Adjustments: Since I had fresh thyme around, I used a tablespoon of it instead of the teaspoon of dried it called for. (I assume it’s calling for dried. When a recipe doesn’t specify, that’s usually the case, right?) But that’s the standard conversion: 1 tablespoon of fresh herbs equals 1 teaspoon of its dried counterpart. Also, I put in way more than 1 tsp of sugar. Forgot how much, but just do it to taste.

Assessment: This makes a lot of soup, and it’s a bisque, by the way. I thought about giving some to Adam, vegetarian and neighbor, but then it started raining, and I wasn’t about to walk down the street in the rain. Then I got sick and this led to the natural conclusion that I should hoard all the soup to myself and eat it for every meal, which I did. It might not have tasted as sublime as when Patti made it, but it still tasted good and felt excellent on a sore throat. Reunited at last!

Once upon a time I didn’t like mushrooms. I went through a sad, mushroom-less existence until I happened upon my 20s, then suddenly I became a convert. I wish I could remember the exact moment the mushroom caught my eye, what I was wearing, if I sauntered across a crowded dance floor toward the buffet table initially distracted by some canapés while “Do You Believe in Magic” played in the background. I don’t know how it happened exactly, but clearly I saw the mushroom warranted my attention. Now, to make up for my earlier mistake, I consume as many mushrooms as humanly possible. I’m not picky: shitake, portobello, crimini. I love them all. If a dish on a menu includes this vegetable, it’s very likely I’ll order it for the mushrooms alone. The steak that comes with it is just a bonus.

With my love of the mushroom has come an addiction to cream of mushroom soup—there are worse addictions—and I make it regularly. I have a recipe from a William-Sonoma book that takes some time but is exceptionally good, and then I have this Mushroom Soup from Real Fast Food, which is much easier, not quite as wonderful, but still amazingly satisfying. This soup is especially good when you dunk some slices of baguette in it. (I recently became a dunker of bread into soups and sauces as well.) A glass of red wine tastes good with it too.

Adjustments: I heated the soup again after whirring it around with the cream in the food processor. And since my milk’s expiration date had passed, I used double the cream and no milk at all—the recipe called for equal parts milk and cream. Also I added a bit of Madeira wine while the soup warmed back up and sprinkled chopped parsley on the finished product. And this is a thin mushroom soup, so if you like yours thicker, reduce the liquids.

Assessment: Soup! I love it! This one’s good! But not spectacular! But easy! I recommend it!

So the Thyme-Syrah Fish left me with this packet of extra thyme. What’s a girl to do except try the recipe suggested on the box? So Chicken Breast with Fresh Thyme Cream Sauce for dinner it was. I’m not sure how I managed to forget what a pain plucking thyme is, but I did. This deceptive recipe only has a few ingredients (chicken, flour, butter, garlic, sherry, chicken broth, cream and thyme) but still managed to make me late for meeting someone for drinks. Does anybody out there have a better method to get those thyme leaves off the stem other than to run your forefinger and thumb down the herb to make the little leaves pop off? When I measured the leaves and saw I only had a tablespoon, I couldn’t help thinking “Is that all?” Luckily ITunes started playing “This Bird Can Sing” at that moment and buoyed me through the next half tablespoon.

Adjustments: Only full-salt chicken broth instead of reduced salt broth. Oh and I used thinly sliced chicken breasts, which helped speed up the cooking process.

Assessment: Despite my complaints, the dish did taste quite nice, though creamier than I would have liked. I could end up making it again if I happen to have a bunch of thyme and time on me–(I tried to figure out another way to avoid that corny statement and just couldn’t think of anything.) If I were to make it again, I might add less cream or not reduce the chicken broth/sherry mixture as much as I did. A second person helping with the thyme might cut down on the prep time and make the dish seem more worthwhile.  But even as I write this, I just can’t bring myself to take the time to type in the recipe.  That says a lot.