Purim!

So this weekend was the Jewish holiday of Purim. I've had a hamantaschen recipe (the traditional Purim cookie) earmarked for some time now, but when it came to the day, Zack forgot to get eggs from the grocery store and I didn't get to start these until the holiday was essentially over. But cookies are good anytime, so I forged ahead.

Purim, for those of you not in the know, is the holiday where the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination. The villain, Hamen, wanted to exterminate the Jews, but they were saved by Esther (she spoke to the King on behalf of the Jewish people) and today, everyone celebrates by dressing up and sending out gifts of food. Some people like to call it the Jewish Halloween. The cookies symbolize Hamen's pockets, or ears, or his hat, depending on who you ask.

(Ironically, the first place I read about Purim was in a children's book at my friend Alison Criss's house - my only Christian friend in elementary school - but that's neither here nor there)

At any rate, I wanted to make some cookies. And so I did.

Hamentaschen (adapted from Smitten Kitchen - my current obsession)

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange zest (I used Meyer Lemon zest - it was great)
1 1/3 cups plus 4 teaspoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Jam, pie fillings, what have you. I used the Kahn family blueberry jam (amazing!), strawberry jam (from Smuckers. Substandard) and homemade poppy seed filling (because I am an overacheiver). Get the recipe I used here.

Cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth (I still haven't set up my stand mixer, so I used a wooden spoon.


Power to the old fashioned cooking methods!). Add sugar and mix for one minute longer, then egg, vanilla extract, orange (or lemon) zest and salt, mixing until combined.


Finally, add the flour. I added it 1/3 cup at a time and that seemed to work very well.

Form dough into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour.


I was out of plastic wrap, so I used a ziploc bag. Then I left it over night in the fridge because at this point, it was almost 10pm.

Okay, now it's Tuesday. I had to wake up early and meet with a mortgage banker and wear nice "I'm such a responsible grown up don't you want to lend me hundreds of thousands of dollars" clothes. I'm ready for some damn cookies. Preheat oven to 350°F. Realize your oven didn't turn on, go back to the stove and kick it.

To form the hamantaschen, roll out the dough on a well-floured surface until it is about 1/4-inch thick.


Using a round cookie cutter (or a biscuit cutter! I have fancy biscuit cutters now from Miyoko. Yay for getting married and people giving me kitchen stuff!), cut the dough into circles.


Spoon a teaspoon of you filling of choice in the center.


Fold the dough in from three sides and firmly crimp the corners and give them a little twist to ensure they stay closed. Leave the filling mostly open in the center.


Bake on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.


My cookies turned out fairly misshapen. But you know what? They tasted good. The dough was really flaky and the homemade jam was a great filling. Like all Jewish cookies, they taste best warm.

Happy Purim!

For my dad

So, I made this last week when I was on a health kick but I didn't post it because my dad was on vacation and I couldn't bear the idea of him missing the healthy vegetarian meal I made and coming back to pictures of steak or chicken and dumplings or something.

My dad and I were talking on the phone the other day, and he was telling me about how he cooked up some red quinoa.


Quinoa is one of those super healthy grains that has protein and fiber and stuff that makes vegans sing songs about how eating meat is evil and killing the planet and stuff. I don't know from that, but I know it makes good alternative spaghetti! I figured I'd give it a try.

I saw this recipe online and I had all the ingredients on hand except feta cheese. I gave it a try but I don't really recommend making it without the cheese (unless you're my dad - in that case, go ahead).

Quinoa with Sundried Tomatoes and Feta

1 teaspoon olive oil
8 sundried tomatoes, chopped
2 minced shallots
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cup vegetable broth (or any broth), or water
1 cup dry quinoa
Pinch cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper
Feta cheese, as much as you'd like

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the tomatoes, shallots and garlic and sauté for 3-5 minutes until the shallots are soft.


Add the stock and bring to a boil. Add the quinoa and cayenne pepper.


Bring back to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. The liquid should be fully absorbed. Stir in the salt, pepper, cilantro and feta(if using) and serve.


It tasted super healthy. I thought that the cayenne pepper made the broth taste kinda weird, but maybe the feta would have balanced it out.

My dad would have totally loved it! If you're into hippie vegetarian food, knock yourself out with this.

Sunday....

Like many New Yorkers, I love brunch. However, unlike many New Yorkers, I have a husband who pretty much refuses to leave the house on the weekends before 2pm on pain of death (barring some work-related crisis). To get him to wake up at a reasonable hour, shower, put clothes on and leave the house (all before eating) would be nothing short of a miracle. So how to have brunch?

Make it at home!

This morning, after flipping through the smitten kitchen website (I love love love that website), I decided to make Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes (and also some bacon). I decided on this recipe for a few reasons: the total cooking time was about ten minutes, I had some sour cream in my fridge and I'm down to about 3 Tbs of butter so I can't bake anything and I've been itching (ITCHING!) to cook.

So here ya go: make your own brunch. It rocks. Plus, whoever lives in the house with you will totally love you (unless you refuse to share).


Note: I halved the recipe because I only had half a cup of sour cream and it fed Zack and me perfectly well. The full recipe is below.

7 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/ 2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream (I used reduced fat sour cream and it was totally fine)
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Butter
Maple syrup

Stir the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. Add the sour cream in on top and stir it together. Whisk the eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl (normally I would just dump it all in the same bowl, but I didn't want to screw up the consistency of the batter) and stir them into the sour cream mixture. Don't overmix.

Melt about a tablespoon of butter in your skillet or griddle and pour the batter in, a scant 1/4 cup at a time. Cook for about 2 minutes on the first side, or until bubbles appear all over the surface, flipping them carefully and cooking for about a minute on the other side. Repeat with remaining batter.

Stack up about three of them and put a lot of maple syrup on top. Serve with bacon and watch your husband plotz.

Cookies!!!!!

Cookies are pretty much my favorite things ever. I love to make them. I love to eat them. I love the way the house smells when they're in the oven. They rock. So when I see a new cookie recipe (especially one that doesn't take much prep time - I want the baking-to-eating time to be pretty short), I make it.

I saw this recipe on The Amateur Gourmet. I was especially excited by the name "Lucy Alibar." Why, you may ask? She was in my graduating class at the Experimental Theater Wing (that's NYU talk for those of you not in the know). Plus, I think she's peachy keen. She's fun and a heck of a writer. So I thought, I will make Lucy's cookies! And then I will bring them to my friend Bryn's house for her and her husband Paul to eat.

And that's what I did.

Lucy's Salty Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie

1 cup creamy peanut butter (use a commercial brand, "natural" peanut butter won't work here - I used Skippy and it was swell)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 Tbs vanilla extract
a pinch of sea or kosher salt
orange zest (not too much, maybe a tsp or so)

Combine all these things in a bowl!


That sure was easy, wasn't it?

Scoop out batter with an ice cream scoop (or just a spoon) and lay a piece of chocolate across the top. I broke up a Hershey bar and it was great. I also used one piece of fancy chocolate, but I thought the Hershey/Skippy combination was just perfect. Save the fancy chocolate for another day.

Sprinkle a little bit of sea salt across the top of each cookie. I love salt.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Now you've got cookies!


They were creamy and delicious. I loved the hit of orange flavor from the zest. Another fun note - these are gluten free! So if you have a gluten-free friend, make these for them.

Thanks, Lucy! These cookies are great.

Another year, another fancy meal

You totally wish you were my Valentine. If you were my Valentine, you would have gotten this lovely 5 course homemade meal.

I pulled out all the stops. I put down place mats. I even made a tiny candle holder out of a shot glass and orzo.


I'm so inventive. As you saw before, here was the first course - a salad made of avocado, mango, blood orange and strawberries.


It was followed by Angel Hair with homemade Pesto. I love pesto.


Next came lamb rib chops with turnip gratin. See the nice plating? That's from watching a lot of Top Chef.


The turnip gratin had cream, garlic and gruyere cheese. Look how yummy it looks.


Yeah, it's good.

Then we had a cheese course (we're so French).


The cheese was from the Essex Street Market. Very fancy sheep's milk from a local dairy. Love it.

We ended with Panna Cotta with raspberries. I marinated the raspberries in meyer lemon juice and sugar. Panna Cotta was Zack's favorite dessert when we were in Paris, so I thought that would be nice.


He's pretty happy about it.


He brought me fancy chocolates. We were too full to eat them, but it was very nice.


I hope you're having a 3 day weekend! I'm not and neither is Zack. Whoops.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I wasn't going to say anything. No one is reading the internet today, right? Everyone is off with their Valentine or enjoying their 3 day weekend or moping around because everyone is off being couple-y and you just want to punch them in the face (been there, my friends).

So here's the start to my Valentine's Day meal - a little salad with avocados, blood oranges, mango and strawberry.


And yes, I did cut a piece of avocado into a heart. I am a dork.


Happy Valentine's Day! More food to come.

Chocolate. Enough said.

It's a snow day here in New York (which means nothing except that you're out 100 bucks if you're an hourly worker for NYC public schools, like me). So I'm taking the time before my audition at 2pm (which was NOT canceled - thank god I get to trek all the way down to Chelsea in the snow) to tell you about the amazing Portland Chocolate Fest, which I went to with my sister and my mom when I was in (guess where?) Portland.

Here we are at the World Forestry Center. I just love giant trains, don't you?

The Chocolate Festival spanned three giant rooms. The lines were very very long.


Each room had table after table of vendors giving away free tastes and selling their wares. Here's some great examples of chocolate-y amazingness.


One of the things I loved about the festival was the inventive use of ingredients pared with chocolate. A really popular one was bacon (remember how I said Portland loved bacon? Still true).


The maple bacon fudge from the Oregon Zoo Fudge Company was delicious. I brought some back for Zack. They had some other great flavors as well - chocolate raspberry, mint, all your basics.


Bacon kept popping up everywhere.



Another weird ingredient pairing? Blue cheese!


I love mixing chocolate and cheese together. I have the palate of a crazy pregnant woman (does this mean if I ever become pregnant, I'll start craving "normal" things like boxed mac and cheese or tuna fish? Just musing....).


The blue cheese/chocolate combo totally worked for me. It was sharp and creamy and sweet. Love it.

There were also wine tastings and beer tastings (if you were over 21). I saw local chocolate beer on display, so the good wife in me said I had to try some (for Zack, you know. I'm a giver. Drinking beer by myself in Oregon.....that's so wifely).


My sister and my mom were both disturbed by this.


But I liked it. Beer? Good. Chocolate? Good. I was a happy camper.

Alli was a big fan of Brownies from Heaven -giant brownie truffles. Do you see the one cut in half on the left side?


That was the size of a baseball. They had different flavors (coffee, raspberry, etc). I bought one for Alli to take home. She said she'd share it with me (but she totally lied).

We all left with gift bags, full stomachs and smiles (and Alli got a balloon hat as well - I'm not sure why, but she sure liked it).



That's it for Portland, folks! Back to my Astoria kitchen.