Apple Salad

I'm back from the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing! It was awesome. Check out this lab's research on prosthetic retinae.

The food at the conference was definitely not the emphasis though; dinner on Wednesday consisted of a dry and vegetable-less turkey sandwich with a cookie. My dinner tonight is much tastier. I got a giant acorn squash from Trader Joe's yesterday, and I was totally going to cook it tonight. Then Laziness struck. So instead I made a quesadilla and salad.

But the salad. It is a special salad. I started with an apple. I don't usually put apples in salads, but my friend had me try apples with dressing a couple weeks ago, and I had to agree that it works well. I chopped up an apple into my usual mustard-olive oil-vinegar dressing. Then I added some romaine and some kale. To add color, I chopped up some of my ever-present baby carrots. When I tried my creation, it was good, but was missing some creaminess and tang: crumbled goat cheese brought the salad to a new level.

Tomato-Jicama-Avocado Salad

It is what it sounds like! I'm back at school and I'm making my own dinners this semester, so I'm learning to cook from what I have. This evening, I looked in my fridge and saw cabbage, plums, and baby carrots. Eh. Then I saw the tomatoes I had gotten at the farmer's market last weekend, and the jicama from 2 weeks ago. Maybe I could make a salad. After all, I had been wanting to try the avocado I got last weekend.

I made a quick vinaigrette with mustard, cider vinegar, and olive oil. I chopped up three small tomatoes, and about a sixth of a jicama. I cubed half the avocado, and added some cubed cheese for good measure. With some salt and pepper, a slice of toasted bread, this was a very passable dinner. The cheese (part skim mozzarella) and the avocado did not pair very well though. A crumblier cheese like
queso fresco or feta would probably have worked better.

Spring Break 2: Bread-y stuff

So on Thursday I pulled out my beloved The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart and made some bread. I made a caprese-inspired loaf by putting fresh mozzarella, sundried tomatoes, and basil in Challah dough (I'm sure this is terribly sacrilegious) and pizza.

For the Caprese Bread I made the challah dough per the instructions of Peter Reinhart. To incorporate the filling into the dough, I stretched out the dough like pizza, placed the filling on top, and rolled it up like a log. 

And then I split it into 3 and braided it!

I also made pizza dough (also from Reinhart's book) that I rested in the refrigerator overnight. As toppings for the pizza, I roasted some brussels sprouts and broccolini in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, then I turned the oven down to 330 for another 10-20 minutes. For sauce, I blended some canned diced tomatoes and cooked them with onions, garlic, and oregano.

I made 3 pizzas, one with brussels sprouts, broccolini and caramelized onions (not pictured), one with broccolini, copa, and caramelized onions (first), and, at my dad's suggestion, one with chorizo, brussels sprouts, roasted garlic, and an egg in the center (second). The chorizo one was the family favorite!

 

 And on Pi day (3/14) I visited my friend and we made pie!!! (We did not have enough crust dough to make a complete top crust, so we put a circle on top instead! It is off center on purpose.)

Le Marché de Suresnes

Last Saturday, my parents and I decided to go out to a boulangerie for breakfast and visit Suresnes's farmer's market.

The delicious croissants from the local boulangerie.

From the bakery we walked to the nearby market. We did not have any plans to buy anything, but we wanted to look around. The market had two sections, a giant indoor food market, and some clothes vendors outside. Being me, I only really paid attention to the indoor section.

Of course, there were several cheese vendors and many different types of cheese made locally or imported from other parts of France, Spain, Portugal, etc... The bottom cheese picture was of a vendor specialized in goat cheeses.

Calamari

Eel

A great thing about France is that you can easily buy whole fish. The market had several fishmongers and seafood stands, and all of them had splendid collections of fresh looking whole and not whole fish, including sardines! (Freshly grilled sardines are way above canned sardines on the tastiness scale)

In addition to the usual beef, pork, and chicken, french markets have meats that are not very common in the US. The top picture is of a skinned rabbit, and the bottom one is a sign for a horse meat butcher.

Ravioli

Freshly made pasta.

Spices

And, yes, the market does also have fruits and vegetables (a plurality of the stands had fruit and/or vegetables)

There were also a couple bakeries with tasty looking cakes and breads.

We had not planned on buying anything, but everything looked so good that we ended up getting some chorizo, wine, and a lebanese crêpe-like appetizer to bring to my grandfather's house.

Cheese Soufflé

more pictures on Flikr!

I made my first soufflé ever on Sunday! Last weekend in the airport my mom and I randomly bought some cooking magazines, and I came across an easy looking recipe for Cheese Soufflé in Bon Appètit. I had always herd that soufflés are really hard, that they always collapse, bla bla bla... but a daunting task is always the most attractive, and so I rose up to the challenge. I mean, how hard could a recipe be?
Since the article was from Bon Appètit, the recipe also appeared on Epicurious, at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/242119. I cranked up my oven to 400 degrees as instucted and started cooking! First, it asks to make a roux, or sauce made of flour cooked in butter, then adding milk. I had never made a roux before, and had understood I needed to add the flour/butter to the milk instead of the other way around. Luckily my mom was helping me out. I used 2% milk instead of whole (generally the milk fat percentage in cooking is not very important). The roux turned out really weird, it was all sticky shiny, but I guess that's what it's supposed the be. Then I added the egg yolks, paprika, salt, and nutmeg. Note: for the entire roux part, I found it easier to use a wooden spoon than a whisk. Next I folded in the beaten egg whites and freshly grated gruyère.
I buttered and 'parmesaned' four medium ramekins and divided the batter equally between them, and the batter reached a bit over the halfway point before cooking. I placed the ramekins into the oven and lowered the temperature to 375. After 20 minutes of cooking, the soufflés had risen over the ide of the dish, but they were quite dark on top. My dad and I rushed the soufflés to the table and everyone dug in. We were all hungry because the recpe had taken longer than expected. I started cooking at 6:30 and the soufflés finished cooking at 7:25. That's 35 minutes prep and 20 minutes cooking time.
The crust on top of the soufflé was a bit hard, but the inside was light and fluffy. It tasted cheesy and eggy, and it was a delight to eat. We savored this hot cheese fluff with salad and... cheese! (manchego, petit basque, gruyère, and blues, but I don't like blues.)
I agree that soufflés are harder and more time consuming than your average weeknight menu, but they are worth it for a special occasion or weekend. Also, prior cooking experience is highly recommended: I had never made a roux and would have failed it if my mom had not helped me.

Philosophy Club Fondue

I know this is kind of late, but oh well. Last Saturday, the Philosophy Club (of which my brother is part of) had its annual fondue (at our house like usual). Xiao-Xiao, the club president, has this great recipe for cheese fondue with no wine in it! It's made of cream, cheese, and cream cheese. More specifically:

2 tsp olive oil
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 c. + 2tbsp heavy cream
8 oz. cream cheese
1 c. grated parmesan
1/2 c. grated gruyère
1/4 tsp nutmeg
First cook the onions with the olive oil. then lower the heat and throw in all the lactose-full white stuff and wait for it to melt. Wisk it and add the nutmeg.
With this delicious fondue we had baguette and blanched: broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and yellow bell peppers. We also put out raw carrots, but the boiled ones were easier to eat with the cheese because they were softer.

The topic of discussion was education, so we compared the style of education in different countries. We often got off topic and started to gossip, but it was all in good fun!
When we finished the cheese fondue, I remembered a tradition that said to break an egg into the fondue pot, making an omelet that scoops up all the remaining cheese, yum!
For the chocolate fondue, in previous years we just melted chocolate with cream. This year though, Xiao-Xiao wanted to try a recipe she had found. It involved making a sugar+cornsyrup...syrup and adding chocolate powder and chocolate. I guess we didn't let enough water evaporate from the syrup, but the liquid would not thicken! In the end, Xiao-Xiao and I decided to add some cornstarch and hope for the best. The end result was good, but it was a bit too sweet and watery. I recommend sticking with the good old chocolate and cream.
With this fondue, we had strawberries, bananas, oranges, apples, and madeleines! The madeleines were a great touch because they absorbed the chocolate mixture.

In conclusion, the unorthodox (I've been using that word a lot ever since I started reading 1984 in class) cheese fondue was a success, but complications of the non-traditional chocolate fondue were not worth the effort. Just stick to the basic method with two ingredients.