The Joy of Avocados

I cannot get enough of avocados. I consider them the chocolate of the vegetable (oh! I mean fruit) world, not only because of the enjoyment I derive from both foods, but because their textures and flavors suggest each other. Apparently, I'm not the only one who sees a connection between chocolate and avocados, as I just found a recipe for a chocolate-avocado shake and avocado-chocolate truffles.

As I child, I disliked them immensely, but somewhere along the way, my taste buds changed, and I came to appreciate the subtlety of the flavor, and I adore the texture.

As previously documented, I enjoy them halved and pitted, filling the divot with lemon juice and olive oil and topping it off with a sprinkling of salt.

We now know that "green gold" is rife with health benefits.

I'm starting to witness some beauty benefits too.

I read an amusing anecdote a few months ago that dogs that live on avocado farms have bright and shiny coats. I am now finding that my hair, which is thin and used to break all the time even though I never ever styled it, now survives the most robust styling - blowdrying on hot followed by the flat iron - with nary a split end in sight. I'm starting to think it might be the four avocados I eat per week.

And they say that the fat in avocados contributes to elasticity of the skin.

Eating avocadoes as the fountain of youth? I'm all for it.

Scrumptious Banana Bread

The sight of overripe bananas is a joyous one for me. I don't like to eat them plain when they're overripe, so they have essentially transitioned from food item of virtue to food item of sin. For when they are brown, soft, and mottled, they are perfect for mashing up and putting into some sort of batter.

This recipe comes from a Neiman Marcus cookbook. As I write this, I wonder why I have never checked said cookbook for that notorious Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe.

When I asked my mum to send me the banana bread recipe contained therein, this is what she sent me:

3 overripe bananas

1 cup sugar

1 egg at room temp.

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup melted butter

1tsp. baking soda

1tsp. salt

Without directions.

It's rather liberating to face a list of ingredients without any of the fussing over what gets sifted when and how liquids must be combined before dry ingredients are added a little bit at a time.

So I added all of the ingredients together in the order they are listed.

And mixed.

I always like to add a large grain sugar to the top of cakey loaves and muffins for added crunch. My favorite is turbinado, as I've found that demerera and muscovado have a tendency to soften up during baking, becoming less crunchy.


Bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for 60-80 minutes until golden-brown and caramelized.



Check out those glorious sugar crystals. Enjoy.

Still Life with Brewing Tea

My favorite time of day.

No-Name Restaurant

Years ago in New York, my roommates and I discovered an Italian restaurant with no name. It was on 8th Street between Avenues A and B, and the only way we could identify it was by the huge wooden tomato hanging outside as their sign. But it wasn't called "Il Grande Pomodoro" or "Ristorante Italiano." It had no name at all. They opened before choosing a name and subsequently closed not too long thereafter.

They did, however, provide a lasting food legacy for me. Their menu was small and simple and while they eventually went through a host of names before closing ignominiously, the menu never changed. On the left-hand side of the menu were their crostini, hunks of crusty peasant loaf spread with artichoke hearts or olive tapenade that arrived on wooden boards. On the right side were their pastas, and these were always al dente, seasoned gloriously, and with sauces that went beyond the cliche carbonaras and bologneses, yet when I tasted these combinations, I wondered why they weren't part of the standards.

The sauce I returned to time and again was a spicy eggplant-tomato sauce with sausages and mozzarella, which is now a part of my winter-time fare.

Here is how I make pasta con salsa di pomodori piccante con melanzana, mozzarella e le salsiccie:

Slice the eggplant into rounds and salt about an hour before dinner.

Pre-heat a saucepan with olive oil, and slice the eggplant rounds into 1 inch pieces.

Saute the eggplant until the pieces begin to go translucent, about 5-10 minutes (eggplant is a tough one, because if you undercook it, you will end up with that squeaky raw vegetable feel in your sauce, and if you overcook them, they fall apart completely).

Add a 35-ounce can of tomatoes in puree and half of a sliced hot pepper. In this case, I used a green jalapeno and as I like heat, I do not deseed them. The pepper imparts a delicious kick to the heavy tomato base. If the sauce seems like it is too hot at this stage, though, the mozzarella at the end will calm it down a bit.

Simmer the sauce until the eggplant becomes really tender, another 10-15 minutes.

Season with salt, pepper, and red paper flakes (optional - told you I like heat!) to your taste. Mix in slices of fresh mozzarella.

In the meantime, cook the sausages of your choice in a separate skillet (I have talked about my love of Johnsonville Brats before). Alternately, you can add salami or pepperoni to the sauce until just heated through.

I served it with one of my favorite new pasta shapes - cellentani. In lieu of fresh mozzarella, I added already-grated Kraft cheddar. As you can see from the flecks in my sauce above, this sadly did not melt into a gooey cheesy mess as planned. In an ideal world, I would make mozzarella from my own buffalo and have the little cheeses in reserve, but for the moment, we do not have room for a buffalo.

I digress.

Buon appetito.

Housekeeping

Just a quick note to say I'm messing around with colors and design today. Let me know if you have any feedback. I've noticed the colors come up completely differently on every computer I've seen, and I am sincerely hoping to avoid any colors that appear sickly, you know, being a food blog and all.

I have also added a list of my fave cookbooks on the bottom left hand corner. They are gems. What's your favorite cookbook, and why? Any must-have book in your collection?

Ringing in the New Year My Favorite Way

With a tea party! The Sunday after New Year's, my husband and I threw a Tea (and Beer) Party. The (and Beer) portion of the invite was to ensure that members of the male gender would attend, and it worked (although most of them opted for tea).

Over 20 people were coming round, so we spent a couple of days thinking about what it was we would want to eat after a whole holiday season of cakes and cookies.

So I made cakes and cookies. How could I not?

Yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting, and Alice Waters' ginger cookies. And grapes.

We made two quiches - spinach and bacon - and two salads. Our standard house green salad, and this salad from 101 Cookbooks (I'm including it because we made it, but I wouldn't recommend it - it was very fibrous and crunchy and the dressing was odd).

And of course, a tea party imperative - the finger sandwich.

Cucumber and cream cheese on whole wheat, ham and butter, and brie with fig jam on walnut loaf.

The latter sandwich ended up being the star attraction, not least of which because it featured a walnut loaf baked by my husband using homemade leavening out of crushed grapes (thanks to our new baking cookbook). It was kind of a miracle because parts of the recipe were entirely improvised by J, and yet through sheer force of will, he ended up with this glorious, crusty, hearty walnut loaf.

Look at that crust. After my days of baking cookies, cupcakes, and quiches, my husband upstages with me a loaf of bread.




On the bright side, though;), he might bake a fresh loaf every weekend. I can live with that.

Out of options? Mix it all together.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Try this on for size. It's Friday night. You're leaving on a flight the next morning. It's snowing hard and fast, 2 inches an hour, so delivery is probably not even  an option.

The only fresh(ish) food you have in the house is a couple of dimpled zucchinis, pocked new potatoes, a smidge of fresh pesto, and a breast of chicken. What do you do?

Ding ding ding. That's right!  Boil it all up together and sprinkle cheese on top. Hey presto pesto chicken soup.

It's pretty yummy.

Mission Impossible: Chicken Kiev

About 20 years ago, I had a transcendent dining experience involving none other than the boneless skinless chicken breast. I was with my family in a small hotel restaurant on vacation, and I ordered Chicken Kiev. A gloriously golden breaded piece of chicken arrived, and when I sliced into it, melted garlic butter poured out onto the plate. It was truly sublime and I have never ever imagined I could recreate this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Until now.

One night in December, I must have dreamt about it, because my first thought of the day was not, "What day is it?" but rather it was,"Oh my goodness, I don't need a deep fat fryer to cook Chicken Kiev!" I don't normally wake up with fully-formed cooking aspirations, but I knew that by the end of the day, I would have to have given this butter-stuffed chicken a try.

A quick internet search yielded responses that supported my new frying theory. Neither Rachael Ray's nor Alton Brown's versions called for deep fat. That confirmed my suspicion, and I was on my way.

I didn't follow either of their recipes to the step. I took the basics - flattening the chicken, wrapping it around a pat of butter, breading, and frying, and this is what transpired.

I wrapped the boneless skinless chicken breast in wax paper and whacked it with a pot. Wax paper is an odd suggestion, though, as it split, so I would rather use cling film next time. The post-flattened picture is too unappetizing for words.

I wrapped the flattened chicken around a pat of butter sprinkled with salt and a teaspoon of minced garlic, then secured it with toothpicks.



After that, I rolled the chicken in flour, beaten egg, and breadcrumbs.

Does this look like a whole roasted chicken to anyone else?

Then I fried them in 1 inch of canola oil, a few minutes (too long) on one side, a few on the other.

The result was yummy. Fried breaded chicken is not going to disappoint. But if you're wondering how the pat of butter stayed inside a piece of chicken that was secured simply with toothpicks, the answer is, it didn't.

Which brings me to the Mission Impossible portion of the post. The joy of the butter oozing out onto the plate eluded me this time. Stay tuned for future attempts.