It's no secret that I am a cookbook junkie. In fact, I am just a recipe junkie in general. I have more recipes in more books and on more sheets of paper (whether photocopied, printed from the 'net, or handwritten) than I will ever get around to cooking. I even have two three-ring binders that I put plastic sleeves into that are completely full of recipes from friends, the 'net, magazines, etc...
One such recipe is one that I must have seen done on Food TV a few years ago. It's been so long now that I don't remember just where it came from. Upon closer examinaton this afternoon, I saw that it was "adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison." I think I have that book on my Amazon wishlist... but I digress. The recipe is called "Spicy Stir-Fried Tofu with Coconut Rice." Here's the recipe in its original state:
Spicy Stir-Fried Tofu with Coconut Rice
Fragrant coconut rice is a wonderful counterpoint to the hot and spicy tofu mixture. It's best to stir-fry it in a wok, but in a pinch you can use a large 12-inch skillet.
15 oz. can low-fat coconut milk
1/2 tsp grated lime peel
1/2 tsp salt
20 oz. extra-firm tofu, well drained and cut into 1/2" cubes
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 tsp granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
2 tbsp peanut oil
4 scallions, white and light green parts coarsely chopped
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Preparation:
Rice: In 3 quart saucepan, heat sesame oil over medium-low heat. Add onion, ginger, garlic, and turmeric and cook, stirring often, for 8 minutes. Add rice to saucepan, stirring to coat. Ass coconut milk, 2 cups water, lime peel, and salt. Increase heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook until rice is tender, stirring twice during cooking, 15 to 18 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, while you prepare tofu. DOn't worry if mixture looks wet - liquid will be absorbed by the time you're ready to serve.
Tofu: In a large bowl, combine tofu, coriander, cumin, sugar, salt, paprika and cayenne. Using rubber spatula, toss gently to coat. In wok or skillet, heat peanut oil over medium-high heat. Add tofu and stir-fry until crispy and golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Ass scallions and stir-fry until just wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in lime juice.
Divide coconut rice among plates and spoon tofu mixture on top. Garmish with cilantro and serve hot. Makes 6 servings.
The first time I ever made this recipe, I followed the recipe exactly, and it was great. Somehow, though, over the years, this recipe has evolved into something very much my own -- the tofu part is fairly similar, but the dish as a whole is pretty unique. I think it happened because I was too lazy to go through that whole coconut rice process, and because coconut milk isn't exactly the healthiest thing in the world. However it happened, I now love to make what Kevin and I affectionately call "Spicy Fu..." I made for him Friday night for his birthday dinner.
First, I drain one package of extra-firm tofu. Yes, just one. I cut it into 1/2" thick slices, put them between several sheets of paper towels, press them down with a cookie sheet and a few cans of veggies, and leave them for a few minutes, until they don't feel too wet to the touch.
While the tofu is being pressed, I start a batch of Basmati rice, cooked sort of Indian-style. I use about 1-1/2 cups of rice, 1-1/2 cups of water, a cinnamon stick broken into two or three pieces, 5 or 6 green cardamon pods, three or four whole cloves, and a pinch of saffron. That's another recipe I sort of turned into my own -- maybe I'll share the original with you soon. =) I bring the rice to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and just let it sit until the rice is tender. Then it waits until the tofu is ready...
After about 15 minutes of pressing, I cube the tofu and toss it with the spice mixture -- slightly modified. I use a little more coriander and a little less cumin and salt than the recipe calls for. That's just how I like it. I put it into my biggest frying pan with just a bit of vegetable oil and cook it on medium-high until the texture pleases me. I like my tofu pretty dry and chewy. Then I squeeze on the juice of half a lime, and add the scallions. I use the whole bunch instead of just four. Why waste them? I slice the white parts into pretty small pieces, and the green parts into 1" strips. This all cooks for just a few more minutes, until the onions have wilted. Then I squeeze on the juice from the other half of the lime and serve the mixture over a bowl of rice. There is no cilantro in my version of this recipe. What an evil herb! Instead, I garnish with a little grated lime peel. Here's how my "Spicy Fu" looks when it's done:
I love the way the rice came out this time. I used just a bit more saffron than usual, and tried not to stir it up too much as it cooked. The result was this multi-colored mix of white, yellow, and orange rice. Gorgeous! The tofu, as always, came out great. I can't imagine using the amount of spice mixture the original recipe makes on two packages of tofu -- I think the flavor wouldn't be nearly pronounced enough. With just one package, it makes a crunchy, flavorful crust. The scallions somehow absorb some lime juice and turn out tangy, sweet, and oniony. It's just such a great dish. I love to tell the story of how one night a couple of years ago, I asked Kev if he wanted pasta or Spicy Fu for supper. He chose the Fu! Whenever anyone tells me they don't like tofu, I tell them that story, and that they just haven't had it done the right way -- the Spicy Fu way!
Yesterday was Kevin’s birthday. In addition to getting him a totally cool present (I buy the best gifts!), I made one of his favorite dishes for supper (which I will post about tomorrow!), and the best cake I’ve ever made and/or had. Maybe I’m just a bit too proud of myself, but everything was working for me… it all turned out great! Must have been a Friday the 13th thing.
But back to the cake… in this post from a few weeks ago, I wrote about my new Bundt cake pan, and put out a plea for the perfect recipe for its inaugural baking. I only got one response, from Estelle of Le hamburger et le croissant. She sent me a link to the Williams-Sonoma site, which included a recipe for a cranberry-orange cake and some handy, helpful hints for baking with a Bundt pan. Thanks, Estelle! The hints were great -- I never would have thought to use a pastry brush to grease the pan, but I have no idea how I would have done it otherwise! =) I didn't end up using that recipe, but I will certainly try it in the near future. I love cranberries.
As I wrote in my post about my cake pan, "This seems like a pan worthy of a decadent, ooey gooey, totally unhealthy cake." I found all that and more in a recipe at allrecipes.com, one of my favorite recipe sources on the 'net. As soon as I laid eyes on it, I knew it was the perfect first cake for my new pan, and the perfect cake for Kev's birthday. It's called Irish Cream Bundt Cake, and here's the recipe as it's posted on the site:
Irish Cream Bundt Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup chopped pecans
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan. Sprinkle chopped nuts evenly over bottom of pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix and pudding mix. Mix in eggs, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup oil and 3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur. Beat for 5 minutes at high speed. Pour batter over nuts in pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto the serving dish. Prick top and sides of cake. Spoon glaze over top and brush onto sides of cake. Allow to absorb glaze repeat until all glaze is used up.
4. To make the glaze: In a saucepan, combine butter, 1/4 cup water and 1 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup Irish cream.
Makes 12 servings.
I followed the recipe to the letter, which is unusual for me. It made the ooiest, gooiest, thickest cake batter I've ever seen, which I took to be a good sign of things to come. You would not believe how good it smelled as it baked. It also rose way above the top of the pan!
It settled a bit as it cooled, but I still had to cut off a good amount before inverting it onto a plate. Mmm... cake scraps! =) At that point, it looked like this:
How gorgeous it that?!? I was getting a bit too excited to contain myself, and I didn't even have the glaze on it yet! The glaze turns out to be this gooey, Irish Cream flavored, caramel-like liquid (with all that butter, how could it be any other way?). Like the kitchen didn't smell good enough already! It was pretty thick, and didn't really soak into the cake quite the way I imagined it would. I spooned and brushed on what I thought was more than enough, and still had leftovers. Next time I make this, I will probably cut the glaze recipe in half. And trust me, it's so rich that half of the recipe is plenty! Here's how it looked when it was done, sitting in the pool of glaze that ran off:
And here's the slice I served to the Birthday Boy:
No fancy presentation, no garnish. It stood up well enough on its own. I can't even begin to describe to you how good this cake is. It's a bit denser than a traditional layer cake would be, but still somehow seems to have a light texture. That almost makes sense, huh? It's moist. It's flavorful. I taste-tested a bit of the scrap before I glazed the cake, and was pretty sure I'd be drunk before I even ate a piece of the finished product -- the Irish Cream flavor in the cake alone is that pronounced! Then top it with the buttery, caramelly, Irish Creamy glaze... Holly Holy! It totally exceeded my expectations. I knew it would be good, but this was amazing. Kevin was pretty much rendered speechless. And, of course, the shape of the cake is too cool for words, isn't it? It makes me want to go back to Paris and visit Notre Dame...
Thank you, Sue Haser, whoever/wherever you are, for submitting this recipe to allrecipes.com!
And happy birthday, Kev. I love you.
On a more serious note, and I know I'm a little late in acknowledging this, Julia Child died yesterday. I have never exactly been a huge follower, but I cetainly respect her for all that she contributed to the culinary world. She died just two days before what would have been her 92nd birthday.
Linda of "At Our Table" has a great Julia anecdote here. And the New York Times did a great writeup about Julia, her life, and her accomplishments here.
As I signed myself up for the event, I read others' comments on Redbeard's site, and saw that there is some question as to exactly what qualifies as a dumpling. Here is my two cents' worth, as I posted in my comment: "As far as the debate on what qualifies as dumplings, I have to go with my man Alton Brown. He did a great show on the subject. I don't remember all the details, but he talked about how every culture has its own form of dumplings, and there are so many things that are counted as such. I clearly remember him talking about gnocchi and ravioli, as well as filled wontons, biscuits dropped onto and cooked with stews, pierogies, spaetzle..."
There I go again, talking about something I'm not even entirely clear on. I'll have to check out Food TV's site and see if any of the recipes from that episode of "Good Eats" are still available.
Most of my life, "dumplings" were something that didn't interest me. As far as I knew they were just biscuit dough dropped onto some kind of soup or stew, so they cooked by way of steaming. All I could imagine was soggy, gummy bread in my soup. Now that I've declared myself to be a "foodie," and have watched countless hours of cooking shows, I know that the term "dumpling" covers a multitude of dishes. Most commonly, a dumpling is pasta or dough stuffed with any imaginable filling. Ravioli, knishes, pierogies, crab rangoon, and gyoza all fit this bill. Dumplings can also be balls or lumps of dough dropped into a liquid and cooked, much like my childhood images of chicken and dumplings, Italy's gnocchi (mmm... gnocchi!), or German spaetzle.
How do I feel about dumplings now? I'm toying with a couple of ideas... maybe I'll even try more than one. You'll just have to check back on August 22nd to see what I make and how it comes out!
This is far from an original idea, but it is one of my favorite things in the world: herb roasted potatoes. I made some the other day with my "potatoes in three colors" from Saturday's trip to the farmer's market.
My usual M.O.for making herb roasted potatoes involves potatoes, onions, salt, pepper, olive oil, and either dried rosemary or dried sage and thyme. This batch, however, had a couple of happy little twists...
I diced up my pretty potatoes and sliced up my gorgeous onions, and threw them into my Pyrex baking dish. The first twist on this recipe -- I didn't have to use dried herbs! I was fortunate to have in my posession some fresh rosemary from my aunt's garden. I stripped it from its stems, but left it unchopped. I think it's prettier that way.
The second twist was an epiphany Kevin had: "how about some of your garlic scapes? don't you think they'd be good with the potatoes?" The man is a genius. Why didn't I think of that? I cut a few of said scapes into about 1" strips, and into the pan they went. I salted, peppered, oiled, and mixed the concoction until it looked like this:
The purple- and red-skinned potatoes were both white-fleshed, waxy-style potatoes. The white-skinned ones actually turned out to be yellow-fleshed. How exciting (and colorful!)! I wasn't sure how the colors would hold up upon roasting, so I took the above "before" picture. You can see a few flecks of rosemary here and there, but the scapes don't really show up. They kept sinking to the bottom. Oh, well.
I roasted the potatoes at about 425 for about 45 minutes...? I realy should pay closer attention to times and temps if I'm suggesting that you should actually try some of these recipes! Anyway... I stirred them several times over the course of cooking them, and took them out when the potatoes were tender and the onions were all yummy and caramelly. My "after" picture doesn't really look too different from my "before," but here it is...
You can see that the onions shrank down a lot, and there's a little bit of browning here and there. I probably should have left them in a bit longer, but they smelled good and I was hungry.
I usually work with starchier potatoes -- the Maine russet, of course! It's my favorite for almost any use. These being waxier potatoes, the texture was a little different from what I'm used to -- but not in a bad way at all! In fact, these potatoes were actually better the next day, cold. It was kind of like an herbed potato salad with the lightest dressing ever know to potato salad. Oh, and the fresh rosemary was killer -- I don't know how I'll ever go back to dried! =)
Wild blueberries are one of the best things about August here in Maine (besides Kev’s birthday, which just so happens to be on Friday the 13th this year!). If you haven’t had the opportunity to try them, I feel so sorry for you. Those gargantuan ones you can buy year ‘round in the grocery stores just aren’t the same. Maine wild blueberries are small, sweet, tart, juicy, and oh-so-healthy. I’m sure you’ve heard about all the vitamins and antioxidants they pack in, so I won’t bore you with those details.
As is the case with so much fruit, I don’t like my blueberries to be messed with too much. I know a lot of Mainers who would faint if I told them I don’t care much for blueberry pancakes. Blueberry pie is OK, but I prefer raspberry or cherry. Blueberry muffins are fine as long as they don’t have those hard, dry, oversweetened blueberry-wannabe pellets in them. And a friend of mine at work brought in a blueberry cake this morning that I have to say was pretty amazing (the girl brought in her own birthday cake that she made herself -- happy birthday, Kacie!). But I just like my fresh blueberries to be served as close to their natural state as possible. Here’s one of my favorite ways to eat them:
This is a classic case of the photo not doing the dish justice. Layered in this bowl are: one banana, sliced, half a container of vanilla yogurt, a bit of Kashi “Seven in the Morning” cereal (which looks and tastes just like Grape-Nuts, but is made with seven grains instead of just one!), a pinch of cinnamon, and lots of blueberries bought just one day before this picture was taken. It’s not the most photogenic dish in the world, but it is one of the tastiest.
This fruit-yogurt-cereal combo can be done so many different ways. Grapes, apples, and nectarines are some of my favorite fruits to use. Lemon yogurt is fabulous, especially with blueberries. We use low fat granola quite often, or the meusli we stockpile and bring back from Paris whenever we can get there. To be a bit cliché, the possibilities are endless!
If you look in the freezer section of your grocery store and see Wyman’s frozen blueberries, they almost certainly came from Maine. They’re not a bad substitute for cooking when fresh berries are out of season.Wyman’s also makes blueberry juice, which sounds just a bit too intense for me… maybe it would be OK mixed with seltzer or cranberry juice or something. I’ve also seen pomegranate-blueberry juice, but haven’t tried it. Talk about an antioxidant punch (ha ha ha)!
Of course, the absolute best way to eat fresh Maine wild blueberries (beside straight off the bushes as you pick them!) is in a bowl with a splash of cream, and maybe a tiny bit of sugar.
