Recipe in Progress: Braised Tempeh with Veggies

This was a recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian book. So far, this book has been the less-accomplished younger brother who coasts on the success of his older sister (How to Cook Everything). Nothing has wowed me yet.

The braised tempeh turned out pretty bland. Basically, you stir fry some crumbled tempeh with ginger, garlic, and spices (it smells really good). Then you throw in coconut milk, veggies of your choice (I used chopped cabbage, peas, and okra--I was getting rid of what was in my freezer), and rice noodles. Everything was supposed to be bathed in a fragrant yellow curry sauce, and it looked like it would be tasty. But it was disappointingly tasteless. Boo.

All I would like is to recreate the yummy, soothing yellow curry that you find at a place like Thanh Thao. I have been trying to get there forever, and I haven't gotten any closer. Does anybody have any secrets?

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Texas Sheet Cake

The new issue of Cooking Light had an article called "Our Best Chocolate Recipe Ever." Pretty promising! There were two winners, and one of them was a recipe for Texas Sheet Cake. They described it as a staff and reader favorite for the past 12 years. This had to be pretty spectacular, right???

I don't know about that. I made it, and the recipe wasn't terribly hard. So that was good. And the cake did turn out to be light and moist, with a nice texture. But the chocolate flavor wasn't very rich. More sweet than chocolatey, since the only chocolate flavor came from cocoa powder. And the cake tasted strongly of cinnamon. Elliot compared it to pumpkin bread, and I think he was right on!

As far as having a decent texture and feel, this is my best cake so far. My cakes have tended to end up dry and overdone at the edges. But I thought the flavor of this cake was lame. I don't think I would make it again, but it did turn out OK.

Question: Does anybody know how to get your cake to come out flattish? Mine was way fatter in the middle, so it was hard to ice. All the icing pooled along the edges!

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Chicken with Almonds and Honey

For Christmas, I was lucky to get The New Book of Middle Eastern Food from Scotti. So I set to work to try some of the recipes! I was particularly excited about the recipe for chicken with almonds and honey, which was supposed to melt in your mouth. Megan, the vegetarian, complained that she would have nothing to eat, so I paired it with couscous with roasted pine nuts (from the box), and Spinach with Raisins and Pine Nuts (another recipe from the box).

So, the chicken recipe was pretty involved. First you boil it in a big vat of spices on the stove, then you braise it in the oven. It turned out pretty good, but the recipe confused me. I'm not sure I did it right. You are supposed to pour all of the cooking liquid into the braising pan... but if you do that, you have way too much to even fit! Then you are supposed to coat the chicken in this almond/honey/rosewater paste that will crust up in the oven. Don't even ask how long it took me to find rosewater. The problem is, the crust comes right off in the cooking liquid! So only the tops of the tallest chicken pieces ended up with a crust (you can kind of see it in this picture), which was good and all. But then the crust disappears as the chicken pieces move around in the pan when you are serving them. This is the kind of thing that makes you wish you had a cooking teacher in the room with you! Any ideas?

The spinach with raisins and pine nuts turned out very well, in my opinion. And the couscous too! Even though it did come from a box.

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Monkey Bread

For Christmas breakfast, we decided to make monkey bread. I had never had monkey bread before, so I was pretty excited. AND mom had just sent up a special bundt pan, expressly so we could make monkey bread. The world was our oyster!

I used the recipe from the Pioneer Woman website.

I am sorry to say that many disasters befell my monkey bread. First, the bundt pan I had was a two-piecer. You could lift out the middle part, which I guess is a nice feature if you are making a bundt cake. But for the monkey bread, you pour on this buttery, sugary glaze... And it dripped right out of the bottom! Ten minutes after I had put it in the oven, I smelled something strange. And about two sticks worth of buttery sauce was all over the bottom of my oven! After I had cleaned up the mess (or actually, after Ben cleaned up the mess), I stuck the monkey bread bundt pan inside of another cake pan, so there would be no more leaks. Which was good, because pretty much all of the remaining butter glaze leaked out during the rest of the cooking time.

So after forty-five minutes, the top of the monkey bread looked nice and golden and hard. Time to take it out. But the monkey breads at the bottom were still doughy and semi-raw. WHY? Also, my monkey bread was like four times as tall as the one in the Pioneer Woman picture. And my tubes of biscuit dough looked much fatter to me. Did I get the wrong kind of biscuit tubes? They were the only kind I saw!

So anyway, many disasters. But I actually really enjoyed the monkey bread anyway. I will continue trying to get it right. But you know what? I don't think I want all that buttery glaze that leaked out! Just the biscuits dipped in cinnamon and sugar would probably be A-OK for me. So next time I make this recipe I might put in less glaze.

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Pumpkin Waffles with Maple Cream Cheese Sauce

You will never guess where I got this recipe! Or maybe you will. Yes, it was How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Again!

This sounded like a really decadent recipe. Yummy pumpkin waffles topped with a rich maple cream cheese sauce and chopped walnuts. The waffles were pretty good, although they took a long time to make. I'm not sure I liked them that much more than regular waffles, so I'm not sure if I would go through the bother of making them again! The maple cream cheese sauce didn't turn out to be spectacular, though. I like the idea, but the recipe would need some tinkering.

Basically, it tells you to whisk 1/2 cup maple syrup and 1/2 cup cream cheese together. The result did not look good! It was a bowl of opaque syrup with chunks of cream cheese floating it. Little chunks I couldn't get rid of no matter how much I whisked. Ben said the result was "tasty, but visually appalling." Well, not a very nice thing to say to the chef who is kindly enough to make breakfast for everyone, but it was pretty accurate. If I made the sauce again, I would do more cream cheese and less syrup, to make it creamier, and I think I would drizzle in the maple syrup a little at a time while mixing with an electric mixer. Hopefully this would make it nice and evenly mixed, and creamy.


These pictures show the pleasantly pumpkin-colored waffle and the "visually appalling" maple cream cheese sauce! I apologize if it grosses anybody out.

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Curried Eggplant with Coconut Milk

Perhaps I need to branch out. This was yet another recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

With a description like "a spectacular dish to serve over rice," my expectations were pretty high. And how could you go wrong with eggplant and coconut milk? But this recipe turned out very blah, and as you can see, very brown colored. It took a long time, it was bland... and in the end it was edible, but nothing special. Basically, you sauté eggplant, potato chunks, garlic, and curry paste, then add coconut milk. The potato chunks took much longer to cook than the eggplant, which I guess should not be a big surprise even though I cut them small... but by the time the potato was tender, the eggplant had turned into total mush. Which could have been OK if the flavor was great, but it wasn't!

I garnished with tomatoes, crushed cashews, and cilantro, which kind of rescued it... but I don't think I would ever bother with this recipe again! Bummer.

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Rice Noodle Salad with Grapefruit and Peanuts

So I am not very exciting. I tried another Mark Bittman recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I was pretty excited about this salad! In the blurb that describes the recipe, it says this is a "flavor-packed salad" and that was what I expected with grapefruit, peanuts, rice vermicelli, mint, cilantro, thai chilis, lime, lemongrass, tomatoes, scallions... and so on.

This recipe took pretty long to prepare. I mean, there is only so much work you want to put into a salad! I thought it turned out OK, but it was a little bland for my taste. I think it was missing a sweet-sour taste that I like in these types of salads. If I made it again I think I would add a little fish sauce or vinegar. So my verdict is OK, but nothing stellar.

-Kristin

I don't like cilantro and I don't like grapefruit - the two most flavorful pieces of the recipes! So you can imagine what I thought of this recipe!

- Megan Leigh

Recipe in Progress: Donut Puffs Take Two

So I tried the donut puffs again (recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian), and this time I cooked them until they were done. I think they turned out the way they are supposed to, but I still am not a fan. The outsides were a little too crispy, and they were just denser than what I wanted. I think I had something more like those airy Krispy Kreme glazed donuts or beignets or zeppole in mind.  These were more cake-donut type puffs. So I'm disappointed, but maybe my expectations were a little unfair! I will abandon this recipe, and maybe try one for beignets next.

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Donut Puffs

This recipe came from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian. And it turned out AWFUL! I think the fault was entirely mine. You have to deep fry these little donut puffs, then you can sprinkle them with powdered sugar or whatever you'd like. I took them out as soon as they turned a little golden (it did not take long at all). They LOOKED perfect on the outside. But they were doughy and awful on the inside! Normally I like a doughy treat, but this was not a good doughy food. It was heavy and blech. We all forced down a few donut puffs because they looked so tasty, but then we felt sick. It was not a great way to start the day.

Tomorrow, I am going to try this again! Smaller donut puffs, longer cooking time. I know this recipe has potential! I used to have a little deep fryer of my own. It was the size of a rice cooker, and I got it in high school. What happened to it? I would love to have it now. So many things I would like to fry!

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Chocolate Cake

My first two-layered cake! I got the recipe for a simple chocolate buttercake from The Cake Bible. I also tried a simple chocolate "neoclassic" buttercream frosting from the same book. Well, I thought the cake turned out really well! It was kind of crumbly, but very chocolatey and rich, and not TOO sweet. The icing was different than what I expected though. I thought it would whip up and be very light and fluffy. That's buttercream, right? But instead it was very thin. It TASTED great--again, really rich and chocolatey, but not too sweet--but it looked like a thin, shiny ganache. So I'm not sure what happened there! It tasted very nice with strawberries. It was quite a production to make this thing, though! Definitely for special occasions only.

Well, it's definitely a start. My big goal is to be able to make a stunning cake by Elliot's birthday. I wouldn't be ashamed to serve this! But I think I can do even better. This seemed more like a grown-up cake.

I don't think this picture does it justice. I am putting it up anyway, because a bare blog is boring. I need to learn how to take better pictures!

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Creamy Broccoli Soup

I got this recipe from Padma Laksmi's cookbook, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet. Creamy broccoli soup--it sounded good! I put it on my to-make list for the week. But as I got out the ingredients to make it, I realized that it didn't have cheese in it. This was kind of upsetting. I guess it was really cheesy broccoli soup that I had my heart set on. So maybe I just wasn't in the right mindset to give this soup a fair chance.

I thought the soup turned out OK. It took longer than I thought it would, about an hour, and it tasted just like what you would expect--a creamy broccoli soup. Very simple! Ben liked it, but I don't think I would make it again. So I guess it is not exactly a "recipe in progress." More a recipe I have thrown overboard. It did get me thinking that I'd like to try a cheesy broccoli soup recipe though. And I got the chance to put my immersion blender to use, which is always fun.

Megan thinks this picture of the soup looks really gross. In reality, she said it just looked like a creamy broccoli soup and not like dog vomit. I don't know, I thought this picture looked enticing!

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Mary's Saturday Soup

Mmmm, this is a great recipe from Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef Takes Off cookbook. It's a hearty and satisfying stew of beef, yams, squash, carrots, okra and coconut milk, topped with little, heavenly cornmeal dumplings. So good!

The downside is that it takes a LONG time to make. Lots of chopping, and then the cooktime is fairly long. So it really is for a Saturday, or some other day when you have time to spare.

So if this recipe is so darn good, why is it a recipe in progress? Well, it calls for two tablespoons of coriander seeds. It didn't say to crush them or anything, so I put them in whole. So it was full of hard little coriander seeds, lots of them. Ben voiced a concern about possible coriander poisoning. I think next time I would definitely crush the seeds first! And maybe try putting a little less in.

The other thing I would change is the dumplings. They are great, but the recipe only made five of them, while the recipe is supposed to serve six to eight. Who wants a soup with no dumpling? It's the best part of the whole thing! I would double the recipe, so everyone gets two dumplings per bowl!

Unfortunately, my photographer was sleeping when dinner was ready. So I had to take my own picture, and it doesn't really do the soup justice. But believe me, this soup is good! As you can see, I only had one sad dumpling. For shame, Mr. Oliver. For shame.

-Kristin

This soup was really good (I had leftovers, not fresh) and I didn't even put a dumpling in mine!  I second the coriander seed thing. I had to pick around them because I didn't like their taste. I think crushed up they would be fine though. 

- Megan Leigh

Recipe in Progress: Thyme Chicken

This recipe came from Madison, who got it from a Jamie Oliver book. It's actually pretty fun to make: you create little pockets made of tin foil, and fill each one with a chicken breast, white wine, mushrooms, chicken broth, butter, and fresh thyme, seal it up, and stick it in the oven for about half an hour. It reminded me of going to girl scout camp, where we use to cook potatoes and things in little foil packets over a fire.

This recipe wasn't a big hit in our house though! Megan and Ben said they both like more flavor/a crust on the chicken. It was also a little bland, but I think that is my fault... there was no salt or pepper in the recipe (probably because it's self-explanatory that you should add some), but I didn't. I think if I made it again and seasoned it better, it would have been a little more flavorful.

So fine recipe, but I think I would tinker with it a little bit, at least as far as adding salt or pepper! And I think it is a fun thing for people who hate to make complicated things, because it is really simple. Also, Elliot really loved it. So maybe it is a hit with kids!

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Spaghetti and Meatballs

I actually already love my recipe for spaghetti and meatballs. The problem is, I would like to figure out how to make my meatballs without veal... and still have them taste good.

For the sauce, I use a secret family recipe. For the meatballs, I use the recipe from a Rocco Dispirito cookbook. Remember him? He had this short-lived reality show about opening a restaurant. I don't know why, but I watched a couple of episodes, and they were always raving about the meatballs at the restaurant. So I tried his recipe, and it really is good! The meatballs are crusty on the outside, light and soft on the inside, delicious! Unfortunately, my family criticizes me mercilessly for cooking with veal (the recipe calls for 1/3 beef, 1/3 pork, and 1/3 veal), and Megan refuses to eat them at all. I know that everyone is right and that it is wrong to cook with veal. But it tastes so good!

Does anybody have suggestions for how to kind of simulate the taste and texture of veal? My mom suggested asking the meat counter to double-grind beef...

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Peanut Soup, Senegalese Style

We got this recipe out of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbook. It was decent! There is another peanut-y stew with greens that I love from The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home cookbook, so I think I was secretly hoping this soup would be a lot like that one, but even better. My expectations may have been a little unfair. I would have liked this soup to be a little richer and more peanut-y, like that one is. So next time, I think I will add more peanut butter and also some coconut milk. I like the addition of tomatoes and yams in this recipe though! All in all, it was quite good. The soup ended up both tasty and hearty, nice for a Fall night.

I garnished with a scoop of rice, crushed peanuts, and lime wedges. Yum.

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Popovers Take 2

I tried making popovers again today. This time, I used a recipe that worked pretty well for my mom last week. I didn't follow it exactly, but I used it as a base... this is what I tried. Since our oven seems to cook things rapidly, I tried baking the popovers at 450 for 10 minutes, then baking them at 350 for 15 minutes. Instead of greasing the pan with shortening, I used vegetable oil. And I ran the eggs under warm water before using it, to bring them to room temperature.

The results were much better than last time--but still not great! The popovers were soft and spongy and light inside, which was good. But the pop still wasn't very impressive. So I will keep trying! Elliot says that he made them at school last year, and they used baking powder. Maybe I should do that. I also thought that maybe I should keep them at 450 for longer, and if they cook too rapidly I could take them out of the 350 oven earlier... It seems like all the popping happened at the first, higher temperature. At least there has been some improvement!

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: The Popovers that Didn't Pop

With my recent windfall from an anonymous donor, I bought a popover pan. A really nice one, too! Elliot and I discovered popovers last year, when we started going to the Popover Cafe after his soccer games. Actually, that's when I discovered popovers. Evidently, he got to make them at school, so he'd had them before. I thought that surely if a bunch of kindergarten kids could whip them up, then I could make them at home. So I've just been waiting for the pan.

My shiny, new pan arrived yesterday, so this morning I tried my first batch of popovers. And they didn't pop! Instead, they looked like sad, squat, bland little muffins. They actually tasted OK--kind of like light, spongy biscuits. And with honey butter (yes, I made my own honey butter to go with them) they were not bad at all. But I wanted big old popovers, so it was a big disappointment.


I took the recipe from The New Best Recipe Cookbook, and it was pretty straightforward (eggs, milk, flour, butter), so I'm not sure what went wrong. Most of the recipes I've seen on the web look very similar. Is it possible they didn't rise because I didn't use room temperature eggs? I guess I will try that next time... But could it really make that big a difference? What went wrong? What should I do differently next time? Now that I have invested in a special pan solely devoted to popovers, I've got to get this recipe right!

-Kristin

Recipe in Progress: Chocolate Cake

Elliot said he would like to make a cake from scratch today, so that was our special Labor Day project. He actually had his heart set on making the "drum cake" in Betty Crocker's Cookbook for boys & girls. It involves making a double-layer round cake that is decorated like a drum using candy. Unfortunately, we didn't have the round cake pans OR the candy-canes we needed for that recipe. So we had to settle for a one-layer rectangle cake decorated with chocolate chips and mini-marshmallows. It was a big disappointment for Elliot, but he was a good sport.

We used the chocolate birthday cake from The Grand Central Baking Book: Breakfast Pastries, Cookies, Pies, and Satisfying Savories from the Pacific Northwest's Celebrated Bakery, one of my favorite cookbooks of late. Then we tried this recipe for chocolate icing from the Food Network website.

The icing turned out pretty well. It was sweet but not TOO sweet, and it tasted really chocolate-ly. So I'll count that as a success. Apparently, Megan and Ben hate icing, so I am the only one enjoyed it, though. The cake was not such a success--it was really dry. I think I overbaked it, which is bizarre because I took out the cake 15 minutes earlier than the recipe said I should! The recipe had us baking the cake for a full hour, which seems way too long. I wonder if there was an error in the cooking time... Anyway, the cake was edible, but it wasn't all that good. Elliot pushed his plate away after a few bites and said he had had enough. Seeing Elliot turn down dessert is a rare, rare occurrence. We decided we will try again, until we get it right! At least making it was fun. Anybody have a great cake recipe?

-Kristin

Seeing as I hate cake and I hate icing, I was really a poor judge of this baking project. However, I can say that the cookies Kristin brought back from Fairway for me were just heavenly - no doubt about that!

- Megan Leigh

Recipe in Progress: Chicken Korma

Today we tried a recipe for chicken korma from the Easy Indian Cookbook: The Step-by-Step Guide to Deliciously Easy Indian Food at Home. If it had just been a recipe for a chicken curry I think it would have been OK--but this didn't really taste like a korma to me. It wasn't rich or luscious the way I had hoped. Apparently you can make kormas in a few different ways, using coconut milk or cream or something else to add richness. This recipe used coconut milk. I think Ben and I are going to fiddle around with this recipe until it's just right. We decided next time we are going to add some cream in addition to the coconut milk. Also, I think I'll throw in some veggies next time, Maybe peas. Just chicken seems a little bland, like the dish is crying out for some bright colors!

-Kristin