The Cooking Critic

So sometimes life gets in the way a bit. And birthdays. And new jobs. And half-marathons. But I’ll get into all of that eventually (as in, not now and what is sure to be beyond belated, if it’s even possible to be “beyond belated.”)

Here’s the super-short entry I wrote months ago. And there’s really no good reason why I couldn’t find the time to post it. I am a bad blogger! Bad, bad blogger! Okay, here it is, for reals:

I’m an adult, and you can be too! Just heat up this super-thin-crusted, fancy-cheesed pizza with chichi toppings (ham! carmelized onions! Gruyere!), cut into small squares, serve to a crowd, and you are golden! Everyone will ooh and aah and comment on how nicely you’ve grown up! And you’ll like the taste too! Because it’s sophisticated without including crazy foreign ingredients to make you scrunch up your nose!

Here is the crappy, out-focus-picture:

And I’m out.

(Please refrain from: we-waited-over-a-month-for-this comments. Think of this as me warming back up before I get into the groove. Thank you.)

In this month’s episode, Artichoke Jalapeño Dip and 4 Cheese & Vegetable Dip watched TV, argued over the remote control and then in a fit of fiery rage that suits her name, Artichoke Jalapeño Dip threw the remote across the room and stormed out of the house. 4 Cheese was just glad he could watch “The Girls Next Door” in peace. After the commercial break, Artichoke Jalapeño returned full of self-righteous rage and made a point to say “hi” to everyone in the house and pointedly ignored 4 Cheese (his rapping stage name, fyi). 4 Cheese said in his testimonial he was deeply hurt by this, and he had feelings too.

Later in the evening after excessive amounts of alcohol, 4 Cheese and Artichoke Dip flirted their way back to reconciliation, then, naturally, jumped in the hot tub. While they got cozy in the hot tub, Melissa, Maggie and Christine determined they were sick of 4 Cheese and Artichoke’s antics, and in order for peace to reign in the house, one of them had to go. They determined Artichoke would go since if you didn’t get a bite of jalapeño when you dipped in your cracker, she was basically bland.

The three girls approached their housemates and told the dips they couldn’t live with the two of them in the same house any longer, but everyone would be allowed to vote to determine who would stay. But in a shocking reversal of allegiance, Melissa and Christine voted to keep Artichoke Jalapeño since they decided when Maggie left the room that they liked Artichoke and her occasional kick with crusty bread (crackers don’t do her justice) as well as slathered on omelets. They preferred to kick 4-Cheese out of the house since, as Melissa put it, she found his appearance “disturbing and not at all attractive.” And while Christine felt he might taste good heated on a sesame bagel, she felt he tasted a little too strongly of cream cheese. Also, both Melissa and Christine were really tired of 4 Cheese’s lame raps.

So far, Blue Cheese Roasted Pecan Dip and Spicy Feta Dip have entered the victors’ circle. Now Artichoke Jalapeño Dip has taken her place among the winners. Who will be the next Great American Dip-Off Finalist? Find out in one week? Two? Three? (There’s really no telling.)

My mother likes to send me forwards. Some of them are adorable (like the old tortoise that adopted the baby hippo left motherless after the tsunami), some addictive (pictures of celebrities as children), some occasionally pointless (sorry, Mom, I still love you!) and some completely invaluable and amazing. Ziploc Omelets fall into the final category.

She timed the omelet forward well since I was looking for something to fulfill my monthly breakfast recipe promise to the world. I’m sure the world would have noticed and been very angry with me if the promise went unfilled….

Ziploc Omelets may sound a little baffling, so a quick explanation: they consist of an egg mixture zipped up in a Ziploc bag then cooked in boiling water for thirteen minutes. And this may lead you to wonder, as I did, why would anyone make omelets that take thirteen minutes when you can make omelets in less amount of time the normal way? My short answer: the novelty of it! Also, maybe you can make omelets the normal human way, but I cannot. I can’t flip them without them falling apart. Inevitably, I give up and make a scramble.

I decided to make a Spinach, Tomato, and Feta Omelet, as described in The Foster’s Market Cookbook, substituting Trader Joe’s Artichoke Jalapeno Dip for the artichoke aioli mentioned in the recipe. Then I fretted about how much spinach to include because I am astounded every. Single. Time. When I see spinach cook and shrink to ridiculously tiny quantities. I threw a large handful (or thereabouts) of chopped spinach into the Ziploc bag along with the ingredients and wrote my name on the bag as instructed. This is recommended if you have a Ziploc Omelet party, as people are apt do sometimes (people are so crazy), so everyone can keep track of their personalized omelets. No one else was at my Ziploc Omelet party, but I wrote my name on my bag anyways:

(Bear with me as my omelet goes through its awkward, ugly stage.) Next, I put it in boiling water and worried about whether or not it would cook through since it was floating. I think I didn’t push all the air out of the bag as instructed.

But it did indeed cook. And as promised, the omelet rolled out of the bag just like the instructions said it would. As a bonus, I was please to see I accidentally used the perfect amount of spinach.

You may notice it resembles a small log. No matter. I slathered on some artichoke dip, topped it with sautéed tomatoes, and had myself a substantial little omelet log.

And here’s the inside:

Color me impressed.

Assessment: Despite my doubts, thirteen minutes in boiling water makes for a perfectly cooked omelet, and Ziploc Omelets get my seal of amazement—they’d be a great activity/conversation piece for a brunch. And I also liked the suggested omelet combination from Foster’s Market as well as Trader Joe’s artichoke dip on this, even if it was a bit of an intense flavor fight between the dip and the feta in the places where the feta had grouped together in the Ziploc bag.

Overall, I highly recommend this. Please let me know what you think of the Ziploc technique if you try it (or even if you don’t.)

In my freezer, items go to die a long, slow death of freezer burn. While I’m constantly chiding myself for not freezing food more often (especially homemade food that makes too much and I’ll eventually get sick of if I eat it three days in a row), the truth is, I don’t use my freezer much except for ice. Since college, I have kept one frozen dinner in my freezer for absolute emergencies—an emergency to me is when I am very very hungry but don’t feel like cooking something. You would agree this is an emergency if you have been around when I’m hungry, and there’s nothing to eat; it’s not a pleasant experience. But when these dire situations hit, and I opened my freezer to eye the frozen meal in question, typically, the meal went back in the freezer, and I ended up making noodles tossed in butter and Parmesan.

But I have bouts where I try to reconnect with my freezer. I will wrap items up and place them in it, fully intending to eat them at a later date. Unfortunately, I rarely mark the item, and this causes some confusion later when I can’t figure out what it is. Despite this, I’ve determined recently I’m going to eat through the items in my freezer. I’ve already had a lovely filet steak thanks to this initiative, and then it was time to try Trader Joe’s frozen manítaropita, which is filo wrapped around a mushroom mixture and is related, by name at least, to spanakopita. Manítaropita had spent way more time in its cold, boxy prison than is fair.

Assessment: One reason this has been in my freezer so long is because they didn’t make much of any impression on me when I opened the box and first tried them. When I ate them this time, they were better than I remembered, and I liked them as a light dinner accompanied by a salad. The mushrooms are nicely seasoned and the dough is flaky, but I think I prefer another Trader Joe’s mushroom product. It’s similar concept—dough wrapped around mushrooms—but the dough is more substantial and buttery (my preference, you may prefer flaky), though I can’t remember the name of the product at all right now; I guess I’ll just have to purchase them, eat some and report back.

People like to tell you the weather is perfect in Los Angeles. This is an out-and-out lie, created, I think, to increase the glamour of a city hell-bent on being glamorous. One of my biggest beefs about Los Angeles (besides traffic and no discernable autumn) is that nights are cool and pretty much always require a jacket, which is sure to ruin adorable summer ensembles. But I had to send my complaints a-packing the other night when we were blessed with a truly perfect warm evening. I, an always-cold person, was comfortable in short sleeves, pants and sandals, and my friends and I got to watch the sun sink below a row of particularly tall palm trees. It was a wonderful night to be an Angeleno, and luckily, we chose the perfect activity for such a night: another picnic/movie outside at Hollywood Forever.

This night also seemed a great chance to hold another round of the Great American Dip-Off since Trader Joe’s dips are a favorite toteable at these events. This week’s contenders: Artichoke Antipasto and Spicy Feta Dip. And the judges: Adam, Maggie, Rob, Shayna and myself.

This match-up was a little bit like watching a game only to see who’s going to compete against your favorite team in the second round. The judges had quite a bit of wine and had difficulty focusing, but then the dips weren’t really interesting enough to warrant our attention, no slam dunks, no fancy footwork. They just plodded along and seemed more or less happy to be in the game at all. Spicy Feta Dip ended up winning 4-2 since Adam voted twice, even though the group generally felt Artichoke Antipasto had more potential. Still, we determined it’s better off as a sandwich spread than as a true dip—it has a strong artichoke taste (as it should) but needs the balance of other flavors to truly appreciate its artichokiness. I recommend spreading some of the antipasto on bread, top with sautéed mushrooms, cover with provolone, then broil.

Our winner, Spicy Feta Dip, true to its name, was mildly spicy and very feta-y, and some people said, yeah, sure, I’d serve it at a party. But Maggie and I decided later that these people were wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. While it’s a perfectly acceptable dip, and we probably wouldn’t shun it altogether at a party, it just doesn’t make sense to invite Spicy Feta Dip when there are so many other better dips out there. In short, expect Spicy Feta Dip to get stomped in the next round . . . unless there’s another equally weak bracket.

P.S. You must put Over the Edge, Matt Dillon’s first movie, on your Netflix queue, the movie we viewed at Hollywood Forever. It’s part actually-funny, part dated-funny, even though it’s primarily a drama. And I pictured it here, since I forgot to take a photograph of the dips before we tossed them.

There’s nothing more American than dips, and in celebration of this unquestionable fact, I’m going to hold an unofficial taste test of Trader Joe’s dips at least once a month. Two dips will face off head to head, and the winner will go to the next round to battle the other winners until there is only one remaining dip champion. For the premiere event, we have Blue Cheese Roasted Pecan Dip competing against Sun Dried Tomato & Pesto Torta. Maggie and myself are the judges; think of us as Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson respectively.

First came the blue cheese dip, a risky and unusual rendition of the creamy dip, and I said, “Yo, dawg, I’ve worked with blue cheese before, and your version worked all right for me tonight.” Maggie’s response was to weep maniacally at how good the dip tasted.

Then the torta took the stage—it was a layered performance of sun dried tomatoes topped with pesto topped with cream cheese, and I said, “The vocals had too many runs for me and you started out pitchy, but you worked your thing.” Maggie told the torta it looked beautiful in that dress.

Then our curmudgeon showed up late to the show—we will call him Simon—and said, “I don’t know what Paula and Randy are talking about, blue cheese dip is thrashing about on stage like a drunk dad at a wedding, and I don’t even taste the roasted pecans in this.” But since Simon came late, he didn’t get a say, and Blue Cheese Roasted Pecan Dip was the unanimous winner.

Assessment: We all agreed both dips are good. They’ve earned their place in the competition and are worthy of party appetizer status, but Maggie and I thought the blue cheese dip was more unusual—it’s also very strong, so you can’t be a blue cheese waffler with this one.

Applications: You can serve this dip with crackers, apples and pears, but here’s a way to turn it into an easy, elegant appetizer: smear baguette slices with a thin layer of blue cheese dip, fold a layer of prosciutto on top, top with pear wedges, sprinkle with brown sugar and toast in the oven.

Nigel Slater likes to call this dish Pappardelle with Olive Paste and Gruyère. I didn’t include the pappardelle, olive paste or Gruyère but still used this recipe as a base for dinner one night. The word on the street is if you make three major changes to a recipe, you can call it your own. I’m not sure if my changes count as major, but I’ll name the dish just in case: Christine’s Veggie-Crunch Pasta. Not sure I like that. Feel free to submit better names.

Adjustments: I like pappardelle just as much as the next guy, which is basically the widest noodle you’ve ever seen, but it’s not the easiest noodle to find, so I used fettuccine instead. I’ve made the dish using the 1/3 cup black olive paste, and it’s good that way, but this time I used Trader Joe’s Roasted Vegetable Tapenade, and since you don’t have to worry about the overwhelming flavor of olives–olives can be bullies and gang up on you sometimes–go crazy and use 3/4’s cup if you want. Instead of pine nuts (expensive!), I use pumpkin seeds, and about 3 tablespoons instead of the 1 suggested since I hunt down the pumpkins seeds when I eat this dish because I like the slight crunch. And instead of Gruyère I used Asiago. Sweet, sweet Asiago. So basically I changed everything in this 5-ingredient meal except the olive oil. There isn’t a thing wrong with olive oil. (Anyone catch the shout-out to Junebug? Amy Adams was robbed! But Rachel Weisz is an excellent actress as well—I don’t want to piss Rachel off. I’m sure she reads my blog all the time. And I want her to know that I have a bias toward Southern actors and actresses or non-Southerners who play Southerners in all their complexity with a credible accent. Rachel is a Brit playing a Brit. Nothing Southern about that.)

Assessment: I wouldn’t plan a dinner party around this dish or anything, but it’s a great, satisfying meal to eat on my own. Prep work amounts to very little, so I’m going to put this dish in the “(Relatively) Easy” category, but since you have to boil (6 minutes) and bake (15-20 minutes), you will end up waiting a little while for your supper. Don’t worry, it’s worth it. And I don’t have a picture of this dish, but I do have a picture of my gleaming kitchen. I mopped! And those dishes in the sink are clean, drying dishes, I’ll have you know.

I’m going to give you a hot tip. When making Chocolate Fondue, use cream, when making Chocolate-Covered Strawberries, use shortening to create that smooth-but-set exterior. There you have it. I know many of you have spent sleepless nights wondering about this, so now you can rest easy knowing you can create the perfect creamy or hardened chocolate companion for your strawberries. Let’s hear that collective sigh of relief.

Von’s had strawberries on sale (buy one pack, get one free), and since I absolutely cannot resist strawberries, I purchased them. It’s a lot of strawberries for one girl, but I started off at a decent pace—having a bit of a sweet tooth that evening, I made a fondue out of Nestlé’s chocolate chips, and enjoyed my snack immensely while watching The Constant Gardner.

Fast-forward to a couple of days later—there’s still quite a few strawberries in my fridge and Shayna Maskell’s Oscar Party on the horizon. Why not make something where others can enjoy these strawberries before they become inedible in a few days? At first, I considered making Berry-Capped Cupcakes, something I made once before with some buy-one-get-one-free strawberries. My memory recalled that these cupcakes were good, but not spectacular. Still, an excellent food to put strawberries into if you don’t want them to go bad. But why are there so few good strawberry recipes in the world that I constantly have to turn to Berry-Capped Cupcakes anyways? I’d love to meet other nice strawberry recipes, but they just aren’t showing their face. But more than my feeling of frustration for being trapped in this relationship with Berry-Capped Cupcakes was the feeling that I really really didn’t want to go to the grocery store to get the cupcake tins and buttermilk. Yet, I needed to show up with something at the Oscar party, and I didn’t want to bring alcohol since I had no plans to partake of the alcohol (taking a break from liquor and beer—as it turns out, they don’t seem to help my half-marathon training. Wine, on the other hand, helps immensely.) The only answer to the must-bring-something -but-don’t-want-it-to-take-a-lot-of-time-and-am-worried-the-strawberries-may-go-bad-soon dilemma was to make chocolate-covered strawberries. So they were made.

Making chocolate-covered strawberries is kind of fun because it’s easy and makes you feel fancy. I used my makeshift double boiler (see pic), which creates softer heat and a smoother mixture than a pot directly on the fire—I think that’s what it does anyways. Threw some leftover Trader Joe’s Pound Plus Bittersweet Chocolate in the pot (not bad, but if you don’t mind spending a little more money on your chocolate, buy some Valrhona—it’s worth every penny) along with some shortening and some Kahlúa, and I was in business. Then I created my little army of Chocolate-Covered Strawberries.

Assessment: Both strawberry recipes were totally toothsome. (Sorry—word of the day—had to use it.)

Macaroni and cheese isn’t something I’d typically serve as a meal to a friend, but Shahan Sannossian caught me on a strange day. I had planned on making him a homemade tomato soup, but my stomach was bothering me and didn’t like the thought of a meal composed nearly entirely of acidic tomatoes. My stomach much preferred the thought of the always-comforting mac and cheese. Of course, you can’t just dump a box of macaroni in a boiling water and call it dinner (at least when company is involved), so I figured out a way to make it presentable.

I used Trader Joe’s Aged White Cheddar Macaroni and Cheese for my Fancified Macaroni and Cheese and included prosciutto, cooked spinach, white asparagus (though green asparagus is prettier and broccoli also works well), tomatoes, bread crumbs and cheese—I used white cheddar on one effort and Asiago on a second. And I’m going to include this in the vegetarian category since it’s easy enought to leave out the prosciutto. The recipe looks long, but that’s only because I have instructions for deseeding and deskinning tomatoes in there, which is not nearly as laborious at it sounds but does take a small paragraph to explain. Be sure to add or subtract any ingredient that suits your fancy.

Assessment: I can’t really assess the Trader Joe’s product on its own since I always add a ton of stuff to it, but it makes a great base for my Fancified Macaroni and Cheese. Shahan liked it and said he would even make it himself. And he’s a boy. Everyone knows that boys don’t cook, so that’s a solid endorsement. I’d like to thank the Academy and Williams-Sonoma Simple Recipes for the inspiration.

I knew Trader Joe’s didn’t stop at a measly three cheeses, despite my inability to find this product during one TJ’s run and which sadly resulted in some pizza consumption with a mere three cheeses. The Pizza 4 Formaggi has Pecorino, Grana, Asiago (my new favorite!) and Edamer Cheeses. I suspect there’s some joke to be had with all those crazy names, but I can’t think of it. They taste really good melted over tomato sauce and bread though.

Assessment: Forget three cheese pizzas–four is the way to go.