and the food continues....

I'm moving on to Parmesan and Prosciutto Stuffed Mushrooms today, folks. Don't they look nice?

I've always been a big fan of stuffed mushrooms, and you could tell, because I always had the same kind out as appetizers at my house. Finally, I think people got a little bored with them (and by people, I mean Meredith), so armed with my trusty Gourmet Cookbook (which I will never have to check out of the library again, I've got a brand spanking new copy of my own, courtesy of Meredith again), I tried this new recipe.

Parmesan and Prosciutto Stuffed Mushrooms, adapted from the Gourmet Cookbook

24 large mushrooms (or so - I bought two packs of baby bellas and called it a day)
4 Tbs Olive Oil
1 large garlic clove, minced)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped prosciutto
1/4 cup fine dry bread crumbs
3 Tbs minced flat leaf parsley
3/4 cup finely grated Parmesan
1 large egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

A note before I start - I took these measurements fairly loosely - which you are welcome to do - or not.

1. Stem your mushrooms - I just rip them out with my hands. I find it very relaxing. Here they are, all separated.


2. Chop up your mushroom stems - here are mine with my onion and garlic.


3. Heat 2 Tbs of oil over medium heat - cook until stems are tender, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, add the remaining ingredients and mix it up good. Here's mine:


4. Fill your mushrooms and put them on a greased (or tin foil lined) baking sheet (or two as the case may be).


5. Drizzle with remaining oil and sprinkle more cheese on top. Bake for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Plate nicely on your new platter from Ikea and enjoy!

And we're back!

Hey guys. Sorry I didn't post this weekend. I was busy cooking up all this:


Looks good, right? That's not even all of it. There's cake and ice cream and appetizers, but one thing at a time, yes? (Plus, I saw Damn Yankees at City Center - we'll get there) I'm starting with the Zucchini Polenta Tart - otherwise known as the thing in the lower right corner of the picture above. I got the recipe here. Love that Clotilde! Oh the French. They are such great cooks.

I also got this handy little gadget from Whole Foods this weekend:


I couldn't find my mandolin and I had my heart set on being able to slice things really thin. And evenly. And I don't have great knife skills, so there was just no way of being able to do this all by myself. Plus, I read this thing about ceramic knifes and I've been obsessed with getting one (I know that this isn't a ceramic knife - but it's close). Plus, it was about $40 cheaper than the mandolin at Whole Foods. Now that I've got that out of the way, here we go:

Zucchini Polenta Tart - adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini

1 cup cornmeal
3 cups chicken broth
as much zucchini as your CSA gave you this week (although honestly, not really because I still had some leftover. Crazy!)
herbs de provence
salt
pepper
olive oil
parmesan cheese

1. Make the polenta! You've seen me do that. Boil your broth, slowly add the polenta, whisk it a lot and let it simmer but not stick. Keep whisking. When it tastes good to you, eat it. Or continue with this recipe. Add some salt and pepper so that it's not too bland.

2. Pour your polenta into a greased 10 inch springform pan. Or just line a regular pan with parchment paper so that the polenta pops out easier. Stick it in an oven heated to 430 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the top turns golden and crusty.


3. Take off the springform sides of the pan and let it bake until the sides get crispy - maybe 5-10 minutes. Then flip it over onto a cookie sheet, take the bottom part of the pan off and bake it until it's crispy and pretty all over. Here's mine, pre-flip.


4. Slice your zucchini super thin with your cool new ceramic gadget.


5. Put the zucchini over low heat with some olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs de provence. Cover and let it cook until the zucchini is cooked through, but not falling apart mush.

5. Put the zucchini on top of the polenta crust and bake it again! Give it ten minutes or so. Then grate some cheese on top and enjoy.

I've been ignoring you...

Sorry, my friends. It's been a big weekend - tons of cooking, I saw Damn Yankees and - the return of my camera cord (plus the loan of Meredith's better camera and cord). So get ready for reviews, recipes and lots of pictures starting tomorrow! I promise.

I love birthday meals

Oh my friends, Blue Hill is amazing. I've never liked vegetables so much.

For those who don't know, Blue Hill is a restaurant that gets all their food from a farm slightly upstate from here - all their veggies, meat, etc - it's grown especially for the restaurant and seasonal and local (and delicious). It goes very well with my local food eating, CSA subscribing, hippie green self of late.

Zack and I headed over to Washington Place in Greenwich Village. We decided to get the tasting menu with wine pairings (the less decisions, the better. Just bring on the food, man). They started with some roasted kale and fresh sugar snap peas. The kale had a tremendous depth of flavor, considering it was one roasted leaf. It was savory and reminded me of dried seaweed. The sugar snap peas were garnished simply with olive oil, salt and mint, and they were so good - I could eat them like candy. Then they brought out some crazy tiny "peaburgers," burgers made of peas instead of meat. They came with fresh butter and arugula salt. They were amazing! Here's a picture that I did not take.


Then the food really started coming. We got "Today's Farm Fresh Egg" poached over some fava beans. I don't know if there is anything better than a really fresh egg, with the yolk all golden and running everywhere and yummy bread to dip in it. It was really good.

Next we got poached hake with fennel and seafood. The seafood ended up being lump crabmeat - best non-Maryland crabmeat ever. The fish was nice and tender, and had the remarkable trick of smelling nice and fishy, but not tasting overly fishy.

Then came three cuts of Berkshire Pork over cracked wheat with peas. Fresh peas? Amazing. Pork? Amazing. Everyone was happy.

We moved on to "cherry soup" with mint ice. The ice was very refreshing and the cherries were not too sweet - it was all texture.

Our final dessert was Blueberries and Lemon Gratin with yogurt sorbet. Take a second to think about the concept of yogurt sorbet. It was very humorous to me. But it tasted great! The lemon gratin was excellent as well - crumbly pastry and creamy lemon.

I'd go back to Blue Hill in a heartbeat. I highly recommend it.

You say it's your birthday (duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh)

That was my attempt at a guitar riff in a blog title. I'm not sure how successful it was.

Yes, folks today is my birthday, and what better way to celebrate it than by seeing a Broadway musical and then eating at a critically acclaimed restaurant? That's right, I saw In The Heights (for the 4th time, if you're keeping count) again today. Before you think "Lena, come on, there are other shows in the world," I was the chaperone for about 50 campers - that's right, today I was PAID to go see In The Heights. Love it. It was just as good as the first three times (although my seats were considerably worse). It is also nice to know that the lyrics were clear enough to understand from the balcony, unlike some shows (ie, Passing Strange).

Off I go to Blue Hill for dinner! Expect a full report, but few photographs.

I leave you with this birthday themed video:

Battle Time!!!!

Here we go, readers: Iron Chef Hudson: Battle Zucchini!!!!!!

Between our two CSAs, Meredith and I received several pounds of zucchini - big ones, little ones, long ones, round ones. What's a girl to do? Make two different kinds of zucchini bread (apparently). Meredith opted for regular (read about it here), while I decided to go back to a recipe that I've tried and loved before - Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate Zucchini Cake.

A side note - Meredith took and photoshopped all these pictures. Gotta love her. Please don't tell me that her pictures are way better than mine. I already know that. Really. Also, I can't quite get all of them to work right now.....I'm getting there, I promise - technical help is needed.

But back to the cake. You can check out the recipe yourself here. I don't follow it exactly - when this recipe was published in the cookbook "Chocolate & Zucchini," a few details had been changed and I followed them - you'll be able to see what they are as I go along.

First I grated up my zucchini! This is an action shot. Meredith took it. She's fancy like that.


Then I chopped up some bittersweet chocolate. Usually, I'd buy bittersweet chocolate chips, but I couldn't find any in Hudson. I did find a huge bar of bittersweet chocolate though...as you can see (or would if I could get my pictures to work).

I put them in a bowl, along with a half cup of flour and mixed it up. This is so that the zucchini and chocolate chips don't sink straight to the bottom of the cake.

Then you take a new bowl and mix your dry ingredients together - flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk it up good so that it's all even.

Then you set it aside and mix brown sugar and olive oil together. I know, you're thinking "olive oil? That's crazy." But you're wrong. It is perfectly delicious and way better for you than butter. Then you mix in some vanilla and 3 eggs, one at a time.

Slowly incorporate the flour mixture to the wet mixture. The batter will be really thick. Then mix in your zucchini/chocolate concoction.

Here's my batter and Meredith's batter, side by side.


And here's the finished cake! I baked it at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes.


It was very good. You can't even really taste the zucchini (which could be a plus or a minus). It was nice and chocolatey. Who doesn't like that? Meredith's was excellent as well - super moist and delicious. Here we are, competitors no more and friends again, pretending to toast each other at our fake wedding.

I'm not ready yet for battle

In fact, I'm pretty tired. Some nights are like that. I was tired last night as well, so I made these quick glazed veggies - specifically carrots and baby turnips and small potatoes. The carrots and the baby turnips were left over from this week's CSA - I rescued them from rotting in Michael's fridge over the next few weeks. The potatoes I picked up at the supermarket (shhh, don't tell anyone) along with some flank steak (I love me some flank steak - plus, Meredith said she wanted to see me make some side dishes and I am nothing if not accommodating to my readers).

Quick Glazed Root Vegetables with Dill

1 bunch carrots
1 bunch baby turnips
a few baby potatoes, red or white (or both)
about 1 cup chicken stock
1 tsp butter
some fresh dill
olive oil

1. Peel your carrots and trim and wash them, along with the turnips (are you supposed to peel turnips? I didn't).

2. Chop them up! You want them all to be about the same size.


3. Put a sauce pan over medium high heat and heat up your oil. Toss in the veggies and give them a quick sauté.

4. Add the chicken stock (you want to almost cover the veggies - but not quite). Cover the pan, turn down the heat and let it all chill out for about 20 minutes or until the veggies are fork tender and the liquid is almost all evaporated, but not quite.

5. Add the butter and the dill and mix it all up. Make sure to spoon some of the leftover liquid/butter mixture over your plate. Eat it! It's good. I like it next to this nice cut up flank steak. Meat and veggies...yum.