The Cooking Critic

Until this past Memorial Day, I’ve never attempted to make corn on the cob. There’s really no excuse for it, other than I don’t own a barbecue, so I don’t host barbecues, so I don’t make corn on the cob, which has barbecue associations for me. All the same, I think about making corn on the cob a decent bit—there are a few recipes I’ve often admired from afar, one involving a lemon-chive butter and another with a chile-salt rub. Since many of my past barbecues have involved one boyfriend or another at the helm of the barbecue, I’d run my fancy corn-on-the-cob aspirations by him first. Inevitably I received a stare that seemed to say, why would you make a lemon-chive butter or a chile-salt rub when you can have excellent corn just by throwing it on the grill or tossing it in boiling water? Or maybe the look simply said, please don’t make things more difficult than they need to be. But since boiling or grilling regular old corn doesn’t exactly capture my imagination, I lost interest in the project and couldn’t be counted on to assist with the corn. I typically ended up making dessert.

So when a Memorial Day barbecue was announced with no boyfriend in sight, I went about making the dressed up corn I’ve always contemplated: not one of the recipes mentioned above, but a Cherry Tomato and Corn Salad made from corn on the cob that’s easy to make, easy to transport and easy to eat.

Assessment: Despite the many eases associated with this corn salad and though it pains me to admit it, I have to say I see the old boyfriends point with this one. Fresh corn on the cob is really good, so why make any adjustments to it by adding a dressing that might be best described as faint? The taste of the salad was pleasant enough, but I think I might prefer my corn slathered in butter. (Of course, I also adore butter more than any person should, so you might not want to listen to me on this one.) But corn salad does have some advantages you may want to consider: A) It’s a great portable dish that requires no last minute prep and will keep you out of the host/hostesses’ hair and B) You don’t have to worry about corn all over your face and teeth like you do with corn on the cob, a difficult food to eat gracefully. Also, you could easily substitute frozen corn for the fresh and speed up this already speedy recipe even more.

There are some recipes that you will glance at and consider every time you thumb through a cookbook, yet they will never make it to your kitchen table. Honestly, I thought that would be the fate of Hearts of Palm Salad. It was interesting, but didn’t seem interesting enough to purchase ingredients I normally don’t. While I like to try new foods, I’m also keenly aware that I don’t know what I’m doing when I work with them, nor do I really know what to expect.

Then came a five-day stint with my family in Mississippi where a kind neighbor with a poultry farm (yes, I know someone who owns a poultry farm) treated us to chicken ‘n dumpling, chicken Tetrazzini and chicken salad sandwiches. I loved indulging in the heavy Southern foods, but by the time I came back to California, I was ready for something light and leafy. Once more, Hearts of Palm Salad caught my eye. Since I bore easily when it comes to salads, the idea of adding of an unusual ingredient like hearts of palm was actually appealing, and really only more so because I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. Strangely, it is what it says it is, which is the heart of cabbage palm tree—its edible core that looks not unlike a bamboo shoot. They come canned since fresh is nearly impossible to find, and since they’re soft and perfectly straight, it’s hard not to feel like a pro when chopping them up.

The flavor of hearts of palm is much like an artichoke. In fact, if you can’t find or don’t want to pay for the sometimes pricey hearts of palm, a marinated artichoke makes a good substitute. Still, I prefer the palm’s heart because it’s not as pungent. It’s got the tang without the overkill, and the texture is nice and soft with no worries about chewiness that the marinated artichoke sometimes troubles me with. Not to say the artichoke is generally troublesome. Normally I find him quite sophisticated and charming. But you don’t have to work as hard with hearts of palm who’s always laid back and never fussy. You get all the class but none of the stress of feeling like you’re socializing outside of your bracket.

Adjustments: The recipe calls for “salad herbs,” and I’m not sure if this was a vague suggestion to use whatever herbs you feel go with a salad or if there were a specific set of herbs designated for salads or maybe even a product, like jarred fines herbes. A quick Internet search provided no conclusive evidence, so I used fresh dill, which tasted good.

Assessment: This is a flavorful, spunky salad that’s not substantial enough to be a main dish but is a great accompaniment to just about anything because of both its taste and the ease in assembling it.

If you take a look at my last few posts, you’ll see I’ve been subsisting on cheese, brunch foods and dessert. I suspect my recent eating habits don’t make for a well-balanced diet. As much as I wish brunch foods and desserts had their own little slot on the food pyramid, it’s probably best they don’t. I blame my food intake for my feelings of sluggishness and general ickiness and determined it was high time I ate a salad.

Evidently the universe thought I should eat a salad too because the cosmos aligned so that I rediscovered a Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad recipe and happened to have all the ingredients already in my kitchen, surprisingly since shrimp, green beans and fresh dill are not normally staples for me. Therefore, I declare Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad a small miracle.

I went about chopping green onions and squeezing lemon with high hopes for this salad. I suspected it would be exactly what I needed to combat the ill effects of my recent sugar overdose and taste fabulous. But immediately after thinking this, I determined I just jinxed my salad. There was no way it could live up to my unreasonable expectations since I do, in fact, have a habit of anticipating far more amazing things than is really fair for the object of my expectations. (Movies and boys are routine disappointments because of this.) But, I needn’t have worried–my expectations were met. The shrimp makes this salad substantial, the green beans add just the right crunch (had I not slightly overcooked them), the lemony dressing is zippy but balanced by the fresh dill. In short, happiness is a Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad.

Adjustments: I used cooked, frozen shrimp instead of cooking raw shrimp. So basically, I didn’t broil the shrimp for Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad. But this cuts the work you have to do in half (especially nice when your throwing this together for lunch, as I did.) It also means your eating a cold salad instead of a warm one, but that’s fine by me. Also, I added more lemon juice to the dressing.

Assessment: I am completely charmed by this salad and plan on having it again for lunch tomorrow. I wish I hadn’t halved the dressing recipe because I will want this salad again later in the week and will have to make the dressing again. Not that it was any trouble at all. The whole dish was easy, elegant and wonderful. If only life were like Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad.

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.

I’m supposed to like salads for a couple reasons. A) I’m a girl and girls like to be skinny. B) I live in Los Angeles and Angelenos like to be skinny. You would think this would produce strong salad longings deep within me, but I simply don’t gravitate toward them. I find most salads boring. That’s right salads of the world, BORING! If you were more interesting, I wouldn’t have to be so blunt and hurt your feelings like this. Not to say I haven’t met some really amazing salads before. Puran’s on Hillhurst makes an ahi tuna salad that I adore, and occasionally I’ll even find a salad recipe that has me saying mm-mmm out loud. But typically my response to a salad is: Why would I eat you, if I can eat something else?

Recently, I thought it would be a good idea to eat my Polenta Lasagna leftovers for lunch. As it turns out, this was not a good idea. Polenta Lasagna sat heavily in my stomach laughing loudly at the foolish notion that he was a lunch food. So when dinner came around, I wasn’t all that hungry, and Spinach Salad with Pears, Gorgonzola, and Walnuts was the only food I could imagine getting along with the polenta lasagna taking up way more than his fair share of space in my stomach.

Adjustments: For the dressing, since I didn’t have honey Dijon mustard, I used regular Dijon and real, live honey, and I had to play with the dressing quantities before I got it to my liking. Instead of walnuts, I used spiced pecans that I had on hand. And instead of Gorgonzola (a fancy blue cheese), I used regular blue cheese. And I threw caution to the wind and skipped the endive altogether. Don’t hesitate to substitute dried cranberries for the pears too.

Assessment: This version won’t have me singing the praises of salads in the streets or anything, but I found it tasty and enjoyed the combination of flavors and textures—it’s got everything: sweet, sharp, pungent, crisp, and crunchy.

So I decided to try out one of my avocados to make sure their texture will be perfect come Guac Bowl. (They will.) For those of you unfamiliar with this event, some call it the Super Bowl of guacamoles. It’s a whole lot of mashed avocados in one room.

I’ve gotten to know the avocado pretty well since I moved to California and find they’re pretty finicky creatures. They either like to be in tact surrounded by their knobby skin, or they want to be in your stomach. They’ll hang out in guacamole for a while, but even there they’ll turn beige from boredom if left to their own devices for too long. A squeeze of lemon can do only so much. So you can’t leave an avocado hanging. You have to eat the whole thing.

One Half of the Avocado for Lunch
What I like about this Quesadilla recipe is it makes me feel like I’m really making an effort because it’s in a cookbook, but all I’m doing is making a Mexican grilled cheese sandwich with some extra bits stuffed in there. God bless Williams-Sonoma for including this recipe in their fancy entertaining cookbook.

I didn’t bother taking a picture because all quesadillas look the same from the outside. It’s the inside that matters (avocado, cilantro, green onions and cheese).

Adjustments: Cheddar for the Monterey Jack, and I threw chicken into this normally vegetarian dish since I have a roast chicken hanging out in my fridge. And who has time to roast, peel and derib poblano peppers at lunctime? Not I. So no peppers for me.

Assessment: As easy as a meal can get. Tastes good too. Add Mexican rice, refried beans and/or a salad to make more substantial.

The Other Half for Dinner
I had this beef and broccoli meal all planned for tonight, but it just wasn’t feeling like a beef and broccoli kind of night. I needed to use the rest of that avocado, and I wasn’t that hungry after running anyways, and then I remembered the Avocado Salad recipe I discovered over the summer. It was exactly what I wanted and made me happy beyond reason.

Adjustments: I never bother to cut up bacon or prosciutto before cooking, which this and many other recipes suggest—it’s too much of a pain to turn over all the little bits when frying them up. I cook it in slabs, then chop it up afterwards. Also, I think the vinaigrette could use a squeeze of lemon, so it got one.

Assessment: I especially like this dish in summer (from the appropriately named book Easy Summer Cooking); it’s light and refreshing. It tasted good tonight in the midst of the frigid Los Angeles winters we have too. And it’s easy. But I’m sad the battery in my camera died—my creation looked just like the picture in the book.

Polenta inspires nothing in me. Basically, I think they’re glorified grits. But for whatever reason, the Polenta Fries in CHOW (a hip, new food magazine that you should check out) spoke to me. Actually, I think the cheese wine dipping sauce spoke to me, but I had to have something to dip into it, so I figured might as well make the fries too. And an excuse for a dinner party was born!

Maggie Flynn and Shahan Sanossian joined me for a little vegetarian antipasto feast. I let them be taste testers for the guacamole I’m entering in Guac Bowl ’06 (tremble in fear those competing against me). Then we ate our Polenta Fries with Fontina Fondue, and I provided two healthy dishes to prevent us from having massive coronaries: Roasted Eggplant & Peppers accompanied by Tomato Salad with Basil-Honey Vinaigrette (both from the Williams-Sonoma Complete Entertaining Cookbook.)

Also, I made an Apricot Brandy Pound Cake from the Junior League Open House cookbook. I don’t know why I keep trying to convince myself I like pound cake. It’s a homely little dessert. Nothing to it. If I’m going to add some fat to my body, I’d rather do it with something that’s creamy or rich or chocolately or something. Pound cake is too vanilla for me, which I feel is actually an insult to vanilla because it’s far more interesting than pound cake.

Adjustments: I bought pre-cooked polenta (instead of cooking up instant per the instructions,) and despite my last minute freak-out that it would be horrendous and inedible, and I wouldn’t have enough decent food to serve my guests, it turned out quite good. I cut the roll of polenta into discs, dipped them in flour, and fried away (actually, Shahan did the frying.) Really, what wouldn’t taste good like that? Also I served the pound cake with a couple strawberries and an easy Apricot Sauce (hit the link and scroll down to “Topping Ingredients.”) It helped gussy up the presentation and the taste.

Assessment: Polenta fries and fondue are really yummy, but not the easiest dinner party undertaking because you have to do two things last minute (fry polenta, make fondue). It helps to have laid-back dinner guests who don’t mind helping. (I recommend Shahan and Maggie.) Tomato Salad is really easy and flavorful, and you can’t screw it up. Roasted Eggplant isn’t a show-stopper but a respectable side all the same. It’s good too because you can make it in advance and it’s not hard–but peeling off the skins of the eggplant and peppers is kind of a pain. And I think I prefer it on toasted bread, which is how I’ve been eating the leftovers. The pound cake tastes like pound cake. And despite the fact that I’ve determined I’ll never make another pound cake as long as I live, I still find myself intrigued by this version of a Apricot Brandy Pound Cake, which I ran across after making my own. It incorporates dry whipped topping mix into the batter.