toast has done it again

a nice fall soup

Hi. It's been awhile! What can I say, sometimes life is too demanding outside of the internets. But it is Sunday night, which for some of you out there I guess means football--it always makes me think of family dinner growing up, a few hours of lull to eat something tasty and check in with your loves before the week's craziness begins.

NYMag posted a list of the best burgers in NYC and Bruce and I checked out the BB Burger last night. Yummy, but so rich, and today I was hankering for something cleaner and greener. This soup, filled with lacinato kale and barley fits the bill, and is made interesting enough for Sunday with a quick olive-oil egg on top.
Barley and Kale Soup (adapted from Olives and Oranges)

2 carrots
3 stalks celery
1 leek, white and light green sections only (wash well!)
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste
7-8 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade but canned would do)
2 bunches lacinato kale, washed and stemmed, cut into 1-2 inch ribbons
1 1/2 cups pearl barley (the original recipe called for farro, which would be delicious, but I couldn't find any on short notice and thought the barley was just great)
3 small red potatoes cut into chunks (I leave the skins on, for flavor and vitamins and cause I'm lazy)
salt

Chop the carrots, celery, leek, onion and garlic into a fine mince. Heat the olive oil, and cook the sofrito with a big pinch of salt for 4 minutes. Throw some bacon or prosciutto fat in if you want some extra flavor. Add 1 cup stock and the tomato paste, and simmer about 15 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated.
Add the rest of the stock, the barley, the potatoes, and the kale, some more salt to taste, put the lid on, and cook till the barley and potatoes are tender and the kale is incorporated, about 25 minutes.
While the soup is resting, cook some eggs over easy (one for each serving) with lots of salt and pepper. Dish the soup up and top with egg and a grating of pecorino romano. Break the yolk and watch it make your soup even better.

banoffee pie

all the hippies hung out in Goa in the 70's. not much has changed...

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to get to take a quick break from my studies in India to laze about on the beach in Goa. Goa, to me, is where Westerners go when they need a little break from the intensity of India--bikinis are totally acceptable, the booze flows freely, and an ayurvedic massage or yoga on the beach are the cost of a sandwich in America. Oh, and did I mention the food? Fruit wallahs wander up and down the coast so that the perfect (whole) pineapple can be sliced up in front of you at the second you get out of the salty ocean and flop on your belly in the sun. There is also an amazing convergence of British, Israeli, and South Indian food here; I had a perfect spicy fish curry, breakfast with baked beans and stewed tomatoes, and some uber-healthy mezze food.

Anyway, bringing this back to the present--one of the things I did not try while I was there was Banoffee Pie, which was on EVERY MENU. I kept meaning too, but in the land of fresh fruit it just never happened. So when I saw it on the menu at my local Australian restaurant/bar Wombat, I had to find out what exactly a banoffee IS. Turns out, it is a delicious confection of dulce de leche, bananas, and a cloud of barely sweet whipped cream in an oreo crust. I don't know how traditional this rendition was, but it was so good that I made it at home the next weekend. Maybe it might be a good idea to wait for an occasion to make this pie though...it was so tasty and sticky and creamy and bad for you, and it callllls to you from the fridge, that if you don't have people helping you eat it you could get in some trouble. Don't say I didn't warn you. Also? Dead simple.

(clearly I did not take a picture. I fail. this looks sort of like it. When I was googling banoffee images I found one of banoffee pie in Palolem, Goa! Wow. This is from http://itadakimasu-eats.blogspot.com/)
Take 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk and boil COVERED BY 2 INCHES OF WATER or they will EXPLODE for about, you know, an hour or two or as long as you have time for (3 hours is suggested)
Place whole oreos in a pie tin until the bottom is covered
Dump out hot water from the boiling pot and cover with cool water, then drain and use a mitt to pick up cans and carefully open them (they might squirt a bit! Careful!) pour into bowl and whisk until smooth, it should be a lovely caramel color. Add a bit of salt and whisk again.
Pour over oreos and let chill.
Slice about 3-4 bananas and layer on top of the dulce de leche.
Whip a medium carton of whipped cream with some sugar to taste until very fluffy. Put on top of pie! Enjoy!

cold salt

I want to live in this picture (and the whole toast catalogue).

It looks so like the Oregon coast in January, my favorite time of year there, and also my romantic imaginings of the Irish coast.

I'm so happy it is Fall that it hurts. Gallery openings, fashion parties, and cocktails in the city, dreams of orchards and oceans in my heart.

Happy (belated) birthday, Greg. That cake was for you, if you couldn't tell. You are such a lovely September one.

a cake for you

A lovely co-worker of mine decided to go make actual money at a financial firm. We were sad, but we were also excited for an excuse to throw a party. At work. There was champagne, and cheese and fruit, and a lovely dill dip...and there was cake, of course. I wanted to make a crowd-pleaser, and while a bit boring, raspberries and chocolate really are quite good together.

I had wanted to try this cake with a simpler frosting after I made it as posted for Bruce's birthday; the base cake is perfect and full of moisture, but I found the peanut butter frosting just a bittoomuch (but really tasty, in that I-now-only-want-salad-for-a-week kind of way) SO I skipped it and went straight for a ganache. It was a bit of a misadventure:

I let the cake cool (some, probably not enough), smothered a bunch of raspberry jam between the two layers, and then made my ganache-I boiled 1 cup heavy cream with raspberries, strained the cream into a bowl with 1 cup chopped good chocolate,covered for 5 minutes, and then stirred till smooth. I then let that cool in the fridge until I couldn't stand it and poured it all over my cake. It was a mess!!! The chocolate ran all over the counter and made the sides of the cake all weird looking, and pooled under my cake dish! I should have taken a picture, it was as if my cake had pulled an Augustus Gloop and jumped into a chocolate river. BUT I am not one to waste cake so I scooped it all up with a spatula and cleaned the plate with the help of the valiant Bruce (who enjoyed dunking stray berries into the chocolate river) and then decorated a bit. See? Not so ugly.

And most importantly--it was gobbled up with oohs and ahs and I felt very glad I rescued it before it went up those sucking chocolate tubes. You should make it too, I promise I won't tell if you make a mess.

chirp chirp!

I want a pet. Bruce and I have ruled out cats (ahhh-choo!), puppies (apartment size and hatred of tiny dogs), monkeys (I still want one), and rodents (feh. we try NOT to have those in our apartment!). But a pretty songbird in a cool cage? I can't think why not! Have you seen any good birdcages about?

(Image of a piece by Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick)

fleeting

Like everyone on the internets these days, the longing for Fall has crept up on me. For a girl who is from the Northwest, nothing sounds more satisfying than a rainy Saturday tucked in a big chair in the window, with a moody, lyric book and a big mug of Earl Gray. Wool socks and a big schlumpy sweater wouldn't hurt either. (Did you SEE the fall collections with all the layers and layers of sweaters? Mmmmmm.) But, we aren't quite there yet, and labor day weekend means one last big cookout!

I was lucky enough to get to go back to Oregon last week (did you notice the deafening silence around here?) and it was Summer through and through, which to me means grill grill grillllll. We don't have a place to grill out here in the Land of Tiny Apartments, so it was a top priority of mine to get in all the carcinogens I could within a week.

I went salmon fishing on the Oregon Coast, which was, I have to say, a bit of a misadventure. My papa and little brother got massively sea-sick and I was very torn about the whole fishing thing in general--it was hard to watch those shining fish get clubbed and gory on the boat deck, but it was also very primal and exhilerating. Oh, and the grilled salmon we had for dinner, fresh from the sea? Wow. But we didn't use any special recipe for those lovelies, just threw 'em on the grill and ate em.

What I really wanted to tell you about is this:


That is, hands down, the best chicken I have ever eaten in a home. It even rivals the famous Roberta's wood fire oven chicken. Can you see how juicy it is? Greg, the grill-master, made this delicious beast by flattening it first and cooking it on the grill with bricks on top, so it cooked through quickly without dehydrating. The herb rub used here is also a winner. We were all sitting around the table with our eyes closed, overwhelmed and giddy about how good this meal was. The fresh market corn and panzanella (true obsession, I know. See "easy peasy" for the non-recipe) made this really all you could ask of a Summer meal. It almost makes you want Fall to wait just a few more weeks.

Cooks Illustrated Brick-chicken

Serves 4. Published May 1, 2009. From Cook's Illustrated.

For the best flavor, use a high-quality chicken, such as Bell & Evans. Use an oven mitt or dish towel to safely grip and maneuver the hot bricks. If you’re using table salt, reduce the amount to 1½ teaspoons in step 2. You will need two standard-sized bricks for this recipe. Placing the bricks on the chicken while it cooks ensures that the skin will be evenly browned and well rendered—don’t skip this step. A cast-iron skillet or other heavy pan can be used in place of the bricks.

Ingredients

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
8 medium garlic cloves , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 1/2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon finely grated zest from 1 lemon , plus 2 tablespoons juice
Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
4 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
3 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
Kosher salt (see note)
Ground black pepper
1 (3 3/4- to 4 1/4-pound) whole chicken (see note)
Vegetable oil for cooking grate

Instructions

1. Combine oil, garlic, lemon zest, and pepper flakes in small saucepan. Bring to simmer, stirring frequently, over medium-low heat, about 3 minutes. Once simmering, add 3 teaspoons thyme and 2 teaspoons rosemary and cook 30 seconds longer. Strain mixture through fine-mesh strainer set over small bowl, pushing on solids to extract oil. Transfer solids to small bowl and cool; set oil and solids aside.

2. Following illustrations below, butterfly chicken, flatten breastbone, and tuck wings behind back. Using hands or handle of wooden spoon, loosen skin over breast and thighs and remove any excess fat. Combine 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper in small bowl. Mix 3 teaspoons salt mixture with cooled garlic solids. Spread salt-garlic mixture evenly under skin over chicken breast and thighs. Sprinkle remaining teaspoon salt mixture on exposed meat of bone side. Place chicken skin-side up on wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours.

3. Wrap 2 bricks tightly in aluminum foil. Light large chimney starter filled three-quarters with charcoal (4½ quarts, or about 75 briquettes) and burn until coals are covered with layer of fine gray ash, about 20 minutes. Build modified two-level fire by arranging all coals over half of grill, leaving other half empty. Position cooking grate over coals, place bricks on grate over coals, cover grill, and heat about 5 minutes. Scrape cooking grate clean with grill brush. Lightly dip wad of paper towels in vegetable oil; holding wad with tongs, wipe cooking grate. Grill is ready when side with coals is medium-hot (you can hold your hand 5 inches above grate for 3 to 4 seconds).

4. Place chicken skin-side down over cooler side of grill with legs facing fire, place hot bricks lengthwise over each breast half, cover grill, and cook until skin is lightly browned and faint grill marks appear, 22 to 25 minutes. Remove bricks from chicken. Using tongs or towel, grip legs and flip chicken (chicken should release freely from grill; use thin metal spatula to loosen if stuck) and transfer to hot side of grill, skin-side up, with breast facing center of grill. Place bricks over breast, cover grill, and cook until chicken is well browned, 12 to 15 minutes.

5. Remove bricks, flip chicken skin-side down over hot coals, and cook until chicken skin is well crisped and instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of thigh registers 165 degrees, 5 to 10 minutes, moving chicken as necessary to prevent flare-ups. Transfer chicken to cutting board and let rest 10 minutes. Whisk lemon juice and remaining thyme and rosemary into reserved oil; season with salt and pepper. Carve chicken and serve, passing sauce separately.