Country Rhubarb Cobbler

This was the first time we've ever made a cobbler, or, I think, even had one fresh out of the oven. Great use for the first rhubarb of the season.

From The Appleton Post Crescent:

Country Rhubarb Cobbler

1 pound fresh rhubarb, trimmed, cut into 1/2 inch pieces to yield 3 cups

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2 cups cake flour or 2 cups all purpose (non-bleached, please) flour minus 1/4 c sifted flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup plus 2 T sugar (divided)

1 stick (1/2 c) cold butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1/3 cup whole milk (we used soy milk)

2 large eggs (1 separated)

ice cream

In a large bowl, combine rhubarb with brown sugar. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and 1/2 c sugar. Cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture forms coarse crumbs. In a small bowl or glass measure, whisk together milk, whole egg and separated egg yolk. Form a well in the dry ingrediants and pour in milk mixture. Stir together until it forms a soft, sticky dough.

Butter a 10 inch glass or ceramic pie plate or 2 1/2 quart baking dish. Transfer half of dough onto bottom and spread with rubber spatula halfway up sides of prepared pan. Spoon rhubarb mixture over dough, drop remaining half of dough with tablespoon or small scoop evenly over rhubarb.

Lightly beat egg white. Brush top of dough with egg white and sprinkle with remaining 2 T sugar. Bake in 400 degree oven for 35 minutes, or until top is golden and rhubarb is tender. Cool for 30 minutes (while you run to the gas station to buy some vanilla ice cream...wait, is that just us?)

Scoop into giant bowls, top with ice cream, making moaning and ectastic noises as you eat rhubarb cobbler in front of the television and praise the universe for such wondeful creations as rhubarb, butter, ice cream and sugar. The recipe says it makes 6-8 servings, or 4-6 in this house.

Asparagus Pesto Lasagna and Hogue Cab Merlot

God, I love salad. And more than salad, I love this fabulous garlic artisan bread from the Wedge Co-op. Isn't that so lovely? Can you see that ENTIRE CLOVE OF ROASTED GARLIC? God, I'm just peeing my pants right now. And it was so tasty, lightly toasted with butter.
Augh! Yes!!







And then came the wines.




First, I must begin with a disclaimer.
Columbia Crest is a really decent wine for the money. I have never had a bad bottle, even that $3.99 sale Riesling in Atlanta once. (You'd think, it's only four dollars, it's got to be crap, but no, it's good.) This particular bottle, from 2002, had lived in my friends, Kim and Paul's, basement for the year we lived in Ghana, and then lived in our wine rack in Atlanta for the next year or so, and lived up here in Minneapolis for another few years. Is it any wonder that the cork was funky and the whole bottle tasted like my parent's old basement?
No. I do not blame you, dear Columbia Crest. We are still good friends. You can come over for dinner anytime. I hold no grudge.



We dumped the whole thing down the sink, (Goodbye, old friend!) and tried again with this dependable sweetheart, Hogue Cabernet Merlot. I used to drink a lot of merlot (you know, before the whole Sideways shaming), but then it started to give me headaches from the tannins. But this guy, he was friendly. Full, fruity body with lots of spice. Dry on the tongue but not like a desert.






Perfect with this extravaganza, Asparagus Pesto Lasagna.

Is it a holiday? What? No? It's a Monday? And we're cooking this like we're having some secret dinner party and it's just us? Life is so fucking good sometimes. Fresh spring asparagus rocks my world, and this lasagna tastes richer than it normally is. It feels like we were dripping in butter or fat, but it's not actually that bad. Perfect as gravy for the previously mentioned garlic bread. (I know it's good when Jeremy's eyes roll back into his head after a bite, and when we are so full that we want to weep, but keep eating more because it's so tasty.)

My only problem is that whenever I eat lasagna (or pizza) without tomato sauce, it feels like something big is missing. I like pesto as much as the next gal, but I like my tomato sauce too. I would tweak the recipe...by adding at least 4 or 5 cups of wilted fresh spinach, 1-2 cups mushrooms and possibly some freshly diced tomatoes, and maybe a pinch of oregano.

Pumpkin Pecan Muffins

I needed to use up the leftover pumpkin after making Vicki's scones last week, so we made these pumpkin pecan muffins. (I can't find the recipe right now....)

They were moist and delicious, and didn't get all hard and stale like most muffins do.

Muffins rock!

The Best Vegetarian Shepard's Pie EVER!!!

I was born and raised, like a good Wisconsin girl, on meat and potatoes every single night. (With a glass of milk and a piece of white bread, too.) As an adult, it astonishes me that we never had shepard's pie growning up. Mashed potatoes. Meaty stew great for sopping with bread. Why did mom never make this?

It's very hard to find a good vegetarian recipe. The few that exist require either a tomato paste or a bechamel sauce (flour and butter with milk or cream). Neither seems quite right to me. Jeremy looked at five or six different recipes before we gave up and winged it ourselves.

(Also great to use up veggies on the verge of wilting or rotting.)

Boil a big pot of water (salted, if you like). Add however many potatoes you have...we used 2 pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled. Cook until tender and drain. Let the steam float off them for a few minutes, dreaming of a quiet island paradise somewhere with umbrella drinks. Add 2 T butter. (You don't want them as loose and fluffy as normal mashed potatoes, Jeremy is telling me right now.) You can throw in two cloves minced garlic. We added a couple of sliced scallions as well
Meanwhile, in a pan over medium heat, add 1-2 T olive oil and heat a few minutes. Add one chopped or diced onion and cook until nearly clear. Add 2 to 10 cloves of diced garlic, depending on your garlic needs. Add sliced mushrooms, and brown for a couple minutes, then add about 1/2 cup combined wine, veggie stock, balsamic vinegar and/or soy sauce (we used about 1/2 c wine and a tiny bit of soy sauce). Simmer for a minute, then remove from the pan. Repeat (minus the liquid) with any veggies you like. We used carrots, cauliflower, green beans, swiss chard, leek, fresh corn off the cob, spinach (you want 2-4 cups vegetables total, depending on how big your pan is) and one can of gluten (though this proved to be the weakest element in the dish). Remember to cook the veggies slightly less than you would otherwise, since they will be baking for a while. In the same pan, mix 2 T flour with 2 T butter to make a rue. Mix this with the veggies. (This will help to thicken the wine sauce.)

Dump the whole works in a 9 x 13 pan. Scoop the potatoes over the veggies, pressing down slightly to cover. Shred parmesian and dot with tiny bits of butter. Tent with tin foil and heat in a preheated 375 degree oven for 50 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking until brown--about 10-15 minutes.

Let cook slightly. The potatoes will be a little crispy and shell-like.




Isn't that gorgeous??!!


Jesus, that's so beautiful. Jeremy said it was the best shepard's pie he ever had.


Serve with salad and wine.
YUM!!!!

Lemon bundt cake

This is a great recipe from Cook's Illustrated magazine. For those who don't know, this is like the popular mechanics of cooking mags, in the best possible way. I would subscribe to it if I could afford to. Each of their recipes is also a story about what worked and what didn't work as they struggled to improve a recipe. It makes you dream of your own test kitchen and panel of tasters.
The texture of the cake is great -- dense but not crumbly, but the lemon flavor is subtle. the real flavor come from the glaze. Serve it at your next tea party.

Stuffed shells with salad and Black Mountain Malbec

This is one of those meals that gets to be both luxurious and everyday. It's also a way to help clean out the fridge and to enjoy a tasty meal. We had ricotta, eggplant and mushrooms that we needed to use up. Shells always seem a little more manageble than lasagna when it's just the two of us. I sauted diced onions, garlic, mushrooms, eggplant and the first fresh spinach of this year's farmers market season and combined that with the ricotta to be spooned into the shells. The thing was that this wasn't quite enough material for a full pan (16 shells; enough for both tonight and leftovers for the both of us), so I went and grabbed the cream cheese that Julie had placed in the freezer some time back, figuring that its now granulated texture would fit with the ricotta. This turned out to be a mistake, though not a horrible one: the cream cheese cut into the sweetness of the ricotta and made the filling too saucy, but it was still tasty. I prepped them this far and then picked up Julie from work and she came and helped me fill them. Then bake in a 400 degree oven (put about a third of a jar of pasta sauce in the bottom of the pan and another third over the top, before topping them with shredded parmesean and mozzarella). We went away and sweated for about an hour around Lake Calhoun before returning to remove them from the oven and work on the salad (oh, we also tented some tinfoil over the shells to keep the cheese from browning too much, then removed it for the last ten minutes).

The salad was one of those great everyday salads with our simple mustard vinagrette and a little bit of whatever thrown on (in this case, fennel fronds and toasted pumpkin seeds).

The Malbec was our replacament wine from Trader Joe's. It was incredibly fruity and almost sweet. We probably should have gone for something a little drier for this meal, but it was tasty none the less.

Groundnut stew

This is one of those simple but delicious dishes that is perfect any time of the year and reminds us of our time in West Africa. Most of southern Ghanaian cuisine consists of stews, soups or sauces served with one of a number of different starches. Groundnut stew is commonly based on peanut butter combined with either a fish or meat stock and served most often with fufu (thoroughly pounded yam, cocoyam, plantain, or casava, but ideally two of these together) or omo tuo (pounded rice balls). We usually serve it with plain rice or with a quinoa millet pilaf. (Half quinoa, half millet, rinsed, drained and heated over a pan until it starts to smell nutty. Add twice as much water as grains and cook on low until the water has evaporated.) Here we have fried plantain, which is not at all traditional, but is really tasty. What follows is our vegetarian version of the dish.
Pour a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil into a soup pot and begin to saute one large quartered (or eighthed, depending on size) onion. Add garlic (if, like us, you can't help yourself) and chilies to taste. All Ghanaian soups have some amount of pepe to them, but know that the fat in the peanut butter will absorb a great deal of the heat. I find that one habenero gives both the right amount of heat and proper tropical flavor (Ghanaian chilies are most commonly scotch bonnet or other habenero relatives, such as the tiny green pawpaw shiito). Otherwise, three to four Thai chiles will also create a nice spice level.
Add about 1/3rd to 1/2 cup peanut butter, the more roasty toasty flavor the better (look in the bulk section of your natural foods store). As this cooks, you can adjust the amount of peanut butter or water to suit your tastes. If you want real Ghanaian flavor, also add one Maggi Cube (for vegetarians we'd recommend the onion cube if you can find it). The big secret is to let this gently boil for about 45 minutes, at which point the many bits of peanut butter floating around in water/stock will transform into a rich, smooth emulsion. For an even smoother soup, you could blend it at this point, but we like the chunky. Add some salt and check the spicing. At this point we often add either potato or sweet potato. In the last ten minutes of cooking, add one or two sectioned tomatoes. So good. (Julie notes: You can also add fresh spinach, more tomatoes and avocado at the last minute for extra tastiness.)

Pacific Rim Dry Riesling

When we lived in Atlanta, Julie and I both spent some time working at a pan-Asian style restaraunt called Noodle (not to be confused with national chains of a similar name). Asian food is notoriously difficult to pair with wine, and Noodle had a small but decent wine selection. This brand was among the most popular, partly because of the graphics (which include sushi decals floating along the back), but also, I now realize, because it provided something of a neutral wine for any variety of dishes ordered by a customer. We drank Pacific Rim last week with a stir-fry using a new Matsaman curry paste. On it's own the wine was pretty disappointing, like a riesling cut by a less flavorful Pinot Grigio. But it was definitely drinkable, if not exactly memorable alongside the spicy meal. (By the way, the matsaman curry paste was nice, sweet, smoky and nutty.)

Spicy Sesame Tofu Salad

This is the third time we've made Spicy Sesame Tofu Salad. We, as always, tweak the recipe a bit. We make our own fire-hot vegetarian kim chi and add twice as much of it as the original recipe calls for. We add more peanuts, fewer scallions and less cabbage. This time, we added gluten (mock duck) as well as tofu. YUM!!!

It works better as a side dish than an entree, because really, it's a lot of chewing and rawness. Great for summer picnics too (or so we imagine)!

Scone-a-rama

For my friend, Vicki's, birthday present, we gave her six weeks of homemade scones. She loves scones. Every Sunday morning, we make a new version, then deliver them, hopefully when they're still warm. The first week's selection: strawberry with dark chocolate. The next: Lemon ginger (with problems. I forgot to add the baking powder and soda until after I'd already put them on the pan to bake. After additional mixing, they became tough, unpleasant little beasts.)
This week: Pumpkin scones with pumpkin butter.
Usually we use this recipe for the scones. But the pumpkin one was nice, although quite spicy. I highly recommend the pumpkin butter.
Next up: Either blueberry pecan, cranberry walnut or coconut rum.

Sympathy food

My best friend's father died this weekend, so while we were emergency bunny/guinea pig sitting, we decided to make them a surprise Sunday night supper. (There's nothing worse than coming home from an exhausting weekend, only to have to do dishes and make food.)

Soup is always good, especially when the day started out cold and rainy. We made White Bean Soup, with some changes. My mom had given me this giant bag of navy beans, and even after an art project, we had plenty left. We substituted those, used regular vegetable broth instead of the fancy schmancy broth they suggest, added chopped carrots and mushrooms, extra potatoes and no lemon. Because Angie can't eat gluten, garlic or much onion, we omitted the garlic and used leeks instead of the onion. Light but hearty. We'd blend 1/3rd of the batch next time to make it thicker, add more kale and take out the mushrooms.

Also good for soothing life's woes is Flourless Chocolate Cake.
Jeremy had made a different version of this cake before, having problems with the texture due to not tempering the eggs enough. This recipe worked better, although the batter could be stirred a bit more. The whole thing poofs up like a souffle, then collapses. We flipped it out, flipped it right-side up, then smooshed the whole thing down so that the edges weren't sticking so far up from the middle. We then made a simple chocolate sauce (semisweet chocolate, a little butter, sugar and honey) to pour on top to cover up the crazy smashed-up top. SO GOOD. Not perfect, and the texture was more like rich brownies than heavenly flourless chocolate cake, but we're getting closer.

With the leftover navy beans, we made White Bean Hummus.

The recipe is down deep into the blog, so here you go:

2 large garlic cloves, or more to taste

1 20-ounce can or jar white beans, drained and rinsed well

2/3 cup well-stirred tahini

¼ cup lemon juice, or more to taste

1 tsp salt

Cumin, to taste

Water

Extra virgin olive oil, for serving

Pita

In a food processor, pulse the garlic cloves to mince them thoroughly. Add the white beans, tahini, lemon juice, salt, and a pinch or two of cumin. Puree well, scraping down the sides of the food processor bowl with a spatula as needed. Add water a couple of tablespoons at a time, until the hummus is as thick or thin as you like (I use about ¼ cup). It should have a very smooth, light, almost whipped consistency. Taste to check for seasoning, and adjust as necessary. Serve the hummus at room temperature, drizzled with olive oil, and eat with pita.

Jeremy added two leaves fresh sage. Light, tasty....who knew navy beans could be good?

Saturday night's dinner

2004 Fat Bastard Shiraz
Julie says:
Confusingly light wine. We've had this one a while, so I don't know if it would have been better last year, or if it tastes like this all the time. Tart, but not fruity. Dry on the tongue but not very tannic. Aftertaste that I couldn't quite place and just so damn light. I really like their Cabernet. Have to try again when Surdyk's has another sale.
Jeremy says:
I'm not remembering trying the Fat Bastard Cabernet. I'm remembering Sauvignon Blanc which was all kinds of tasty. This is not at all awful, but pretty thoroughly underwhelming (and I'm by no means someone who needs sublime transcendance from my wine). This is however yet another wine with animals on the label that has let us down. Now, like all good Americans, we love the combination of product and graphics, wine and animal labels, so I wouldn't take this pledge. It does make me a bit gun-shy, however, and I don't think I'd try this one again.


Meal: Perogis with parmesian, onions, garlic and mushrooms, with garlicky swiss chard. We boil our perogis first until they float, then pan fry them in a mixture of butter and olive oil until they are golden brown on both sides. At first, we thought the Trader Joe's brand perogis were going to be a mistake. They looked like those tear-shaped Chinese dumplings and seemed on the verge of falling apart. But they held together nicely and damn, they were tasty. Very garlicky and satisfying.
(By the way, we did return the previously reviewed Trader Joe's wine for full credit, even without a receipt. Whooo hoooo! More wine!)

This week's produce

Dinner on Friday

We made eggplant tomato casserole with orzo, mixed greens with grapefruit and sliced almonds, olives and wine. YUM! If you have one, using a Le Cruset pot is a dream--cooks the casserole perfectly and clean up is superfast. Usually, I pick off all of the feta cheese, but Jeremy chose a mild enough version that I didn't mind it. Even better as leftovers two days later!

For dessert, we tried Rice Divine ice cream (on sale at the Wedge co-op, with a coupon!) As always, the texture is off. It's non-dairy, so that's no surprise. The peanut butter flavor was nicely strong and non-chemical, although the chocolate was entirely lacking.

Lemon Poppy Sunburst Bread

This Lemon Poppy Sunburst Bread looks better than it tastes. Because it has tahini, whole wheat flour, flaxseed meal and a shitload of poppyseeds, it tastes like some dry, co-op "treat."

The search for good bread continues...

Zarafa Pinotage and Toad Hollow Chardonnay

2005 Zarafa

Julie says:

Wine and bandaids. Undrinkable.

Jeremy says:

I know what you mean with the bandaids, but my more immediate association is liquid smoke, so that this is somehow both the first and the last thing you taste, with an indifferent wine somewhere in the middle. I kept trying to drink it, but no, it really is undrinkable. May return it to Trader Joe's.

2005 Toad Hollow

Julie says:

Light, dry, tart. The reds are much better. Disappointing for such nice graphics.

Jeremy says:

There has to be some connection between these different wines with line-drawn frogs on the label (OK, so apparently they're the same distributers), but where Le Faux Frog's Chardonnay is rich and tasty this is thin and, you know, wrong. It tastes heavily of oak in the way that makes you feel like you're sucking on wood at the finish. What have we done to earn such horrible cheap wine karma this week??

Hello from Happy Mouths

Hello fine people,
We are two lovers of food, drink, and the pleasures of sharing them. And so we've cobbled together this place, the better to share them with You! We love to cook and to be cooked for. We love discovering tasty new things and figuring out how to make the things we already love taste, perhaps, even better. Here we will document our adventures and sometimes our misadventures.
Let's eat!