Sunday grilling (17/7): turkey burgers edition.

1. Southwestern Turkey Burgers

2. with Cajun Grilled Onions and Cilantro-Avocado Spread
I used Emeril’s Original Essence to coat the onions before grilling, except I put in half the salt the recipe called for, to avoid having them be inedible. The spread is just mashed avocado with minced cilantro and a bit of salt.

3. Plum Upside-Down Cake
My sister brought home plums from one of her friends’ trees, and they were in need of saving, so I used a Real Simple recipe I’ve had work for me before. This time around, however, I skipped cooking the plums. Last time, this step made the plums completely mushy, so I find it totally unnecessary. The cake turned out sweet in the batter and tart in the plums, just the way it should be!

4. Margaritas
Holy guacamole were these strong! I used the International Bartenders Association standard ratios, which tasted good, but definitely needed to be sipped slowly. Also, if you’re committed to using fresh lime juice, you will need a ton of limes. A ton of limes. You will also spend forever squeezing said limes and your arms will hate you. You’ve been warned.

Standard Margarita

2½ cups tequila
1½ cups triple sec
1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (about 10-12 limes)
agave syrup to taste (my preference: ¼ cup) (optional)

Stir all ingredients in a pitcher and chill. Serve over ice.

Makes about 5¼ cups (pitcher).

Sunday grilling (26/6): July 2011 issue of Bon Appétit edition. Best Sunday dinner eveeer.

1. Tri-tip with Chipotle Rub
I kind of fudged the rub as I didn’t know where to find dried chipotle chilies or pink peppercorns (err?), so I substituted chili powder and regular black pepper. Didn’t seem to hurt the taste any; the meat turned out soft, smoky, and sensational.

2. Little Gem, Feta, and Cumin Salad
Mmm fetaaaa. Instead of Little Gem lettuce, I used lettuce from our backyard, which at that point was starting to turn into a jungle. Since feta is already a salty cheese—and there’s a lot of it here—I wouldn’t include any more salt in this.

3. Cilantro-Scallion Bread
Great little nibbles! Could’ve probably used a little tighter rolling on my part, they don’t look anywhere as neat as the picture in the magazine. >_>

4. Grilled Vegetables
Sections of red bell pepper and cremini mushrooms, brushed with olive oil and slightly salted, then grilled until charred and crisp-tender. I put the mushrooms on some bamboo skewers to make them easier to grill.

5. Strawberry Daiquiri Italian Ices (Martha Stewart Living, June 2011)
These ended up a bit strange, mostly because at the last minute I realized that I didn’t have any lime and substituted lemon juice. They’re also misleading on the alcohol front; since you don’t really taste it much, it’s easy to overdo.

6. Peach-Strawberry Ice Tea
We had a box each of peaches and strawberries, and I was in an experimental mood, so once I made the tea, I decided to put one diced peach and about half a dozen sliced strawberries into it. I left it in the fridge overnight and most of the following day. It turned out absolutely amazing. Next time I decide to do this, I’m going to try first pouring the two cups of hot tea over the fruits and steeping them until cool, before watering it down. Should hopefully bring out the flavor even more!

I had a big bag of lemons, a box of strawberries, and extra powdered gelatin lying around, so I decided to experiment and make:

Strawberry Lemonade Gelatin Dessert

2 envelopes (½ oz) gelatin
1½ cups freshly squeezed lemon juice
~1 pound strawberries
½ cup sugar
2 cups water

Wash and hull strawberries, then purée in a food processor or blender. Using a spatula, press purée through a fine mesh sieve—you should have about ½ cup—and combine with lemon juice in a medium bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over the mixture and let stand for a couple minutes, until expanded. Meanwhile, bring water to a boil and add sugar. Stir to dissolve. Add hot water to bowl and stir constantly for about 5 minutes, until gelatin has completely dissolved. Ladle into four or five 8 oz. ramekins. Refrigerate until set, at least two hours, preferably overnight.

Yields four or five servings.

Sunday grilling (29/5): “we will grill this weekend even if I have to stand in the pouring rain” edition.

By the end of May, I was exasperated with the uncharacteristic cold and rain we’d been having, and determined to grill for Memorial Day no matter what. Thankfully, the weather decided to cooperate and bring forth sun and warm temperatures, so I busted out my collection of grilling themed magazines and settled on the Club Med menu from the June 2011 issue of Bon Appétit. Since the original cake in the menu and its ingredients looked too complicated to be worth bothering with, I replaced the dessert with a cranberry cake.

1. Grilled Yogurt-Marinated Leg of Lamb
There are no words to describe how amazing this was, but I’ll try anyway. This had a smoky flavor from the grill and the tabil spice blend in the marinade, and it was so soft, it practically melted in my mouth. Makes me drool just thinking about it now. Bit pricy, but so worth it. Great for sandwiches the next day too!

2. Cucumber, Tomato, and Feta Salad
A fresh salad with that yummy feta cheese bite.

3. Tunisian Vegetable Salsa
The sweetness of the roasted peppers and onions really came through in this. If I could stand to eat spicy food, I would’ve kept the chile seeds, and it probably would’ve been a nice counterpoint to the sweet vegetable taste, but… I don’t like having my mouth feel like it’s on fire.

4. Grilled Flatbreads with Tabil Spice Blend
Mmmmmm breaaaad. I love bread as it is—which probably isn’t very healthy—but homemade bread is the best. It just took a while because the grill could only fit two flatbreads at a time.

5. Cranberry Upside-Down Cake
I didn’t have the patience to go search for the weird ingredients that the orange cake originally part of this menu needed, but I did have bags and bags of frozen cranberries. Since you can only find them around Thanksgiving, I went a bit overboard last year and stoked up. Majorly. To the tune of about a dozen bags. But this cake is quick to make and tastes great, so using up all that cranberry shouldn’t pose too big of a problem. I do double the ingredients for the batter, though it still doesn’t turn out as high as the recipe photo.

6. Mint Tea
Simple and refreshing. I dumped two tablespoons of loose-leaf tea, a handful of mint, and ¼ cup honey into two cups of boiling water and brewed until very dark, then diluted it with three more cups of water, and added about ⅓ cup of lemon juice.

Sunday lunch: recipe source hodgepodge edition. I’ve gotten some new cookbooks and magazine issues, so I’m mixing and matching!

1. Rare Roast Beef with Fresh Herbs and Basil Oil (Food and Wine, March 2011)
Rare beef actually grosses me out because I feel like it’s about one step away from being raw. So I baked this until it was about 125 degrees instead of the 110 called for in the recipe, and the roast eventually climbed to 140 while it rested. It still ended up pink, soft, juicy, and delicious.

2. Pommes de Terre Sautées [Pan-seared Potatoes] (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Alfred A. Knopf 2010)
The famed Julia Child cookbooks arrived a couple weeks ago, though I haven’t cooked much out of them yet, because just looking at a recipe makes me have a heart attack. So much cream! So much butter! Yikes. This side dish seemed innocuous enough that I decided to try it. The process involves evenly searing Dutch potatoes in—what else—butter in order to prevent them from sticking to the skillet while you cover and cook them the rest of the way. This results in an amazingly tasty and tender potato. Peeling all of them to be as round as possible, however, is a gigantic pain in the butt.

3. Arugula Salad with Almonds and Parmesan (Everyday Food, June 2010)
After listening to a friend’s multiple rants about her inability to find arugula where she lives, a cosmically comical turn of events led to me staring at a salad aisle completely devoid of arugula. Curse you, cosmos! So I replaced it with spring mix and added some cucumber.

4. New York-Style Crumb Cake (Martha Stewart Living, March 2011)
Very good, but very rich—so. much. butter.—and the blueberry jam variation I chose to do made it quite sweet. Next time, I’ll use fresh berries to cut down on the sugar. The richness and sweetness made this cake last four days, something utterly unheard of for dessert in this house.

5. Lemon-Mint Tea
Having some leftover fresh mint and lemons that needed using up, I whipped up a quick lemon-mint tea:

4½ cups water
⅓ cup sugar
1 tbsp loose-leaf black tea
juice of a couple lemons (~¼ cup)
a few sprigs of fresh mint

Combine 2 cups water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Add tea and mint sprigs, let brew for a few minutes. Strain tea into a pitcher; add remaining water and lemon juice. Refrigerate and add ice for iced tea.

Sunday lunch: Pizza overload edition!

I made enough dough for four pizzas and turned the fourth pizza into cheesy bites—sticks of mozzarella string cheese wrapped in dough (not pictured).

Pizza #1: Pretty much the best pizza ever. Spread ½ cup tomato sauce (recipe follows) on stretched out dough. Soften 2-3 oz of mild goat cheese in the microwave and drop bits of it all over the surface. Sprinkle with 2-3 oz of feta cheese. Top with strips of caramelized onion, sliced black olives, and a light sprinkling of grated Parmesan (about 2 tbsp).

Pizza #2: Spread ½ cup tomato sauce on dough. Cover with 4 oz of shredded mozzarella cheese. Top with caramelized onion, thin strips of prosciutto, one pre-cooked and sliced chicken & apple sausage, and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

Pizza #3: Spread ½ cup tomato sauce on dough. Cover with shredded mozzarella cheese. Top with thin strips of prosciutto, torn baby spinach leaves, and Parmesan.

Warning: prosciutto is salty. It is so, so salty. I got one quarter of a pound thinking it would be good for two pizzas, but it ended up being way too much. Something like two ounces would have been plenty. If you don’t have access to prosciutto, you can fry up and crumble four slices of bacon. Once the pizzas are done baking, just sprinkle the bacon on top. Alternatively, you can replace it with other sliced deli meat like ham, or turkey.

Tomato Sauce

1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, combine sauce and spices. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Yields about 1½ cups of sauce, enough for three pizzas approximately 10 by 12 inches.

Caramelized Onions

3 small or 2 medium yellow onions, halved crosswise and sliced
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil

In a skillet over medium-high heat, add the butter and oil. When sufficiently hot, add the onion and cook until softened. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are browned, about 25-30 minutes.

Yields enough to top two pizzas.

Also part of this meal were cardamom crumb cake from the September 2010 issue of Everyday Food and lemon-mint iced tea (recipe follows). I tried baking the cake in a 9-inch round pan, since I didn’t have a 9 inch square. This was a really bad idea. I had to bake it for 30 minutes longer than the recipe stated and I discovered that it had not cooked completely through when I cut into it, despite a clean toothpick test. The extra baking time also made the outside of the cake brown and stick to the pan, making it fall apart when I tried to claw it out. Despite all this, it was really delicious, so I will be making it in my 10-inch springform next time.

Lemon-Mint Iced Tea

5 cups water
2 tbsp loose-leaf black tea
⅓ cup turbinado sugar (sugar in the raw)
2 sprigs of mint
1 lemon, sliced

In a medium saucepan, combine water, tea, sugar, and mint. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved, the mint has wilted, and the tea has brewed to desired strength. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a pitcher and add slices of lemon. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Yields 5 cups of tea.

Sunday lunch: ‘I needed to feed my starter’ edition.

1. Turkey sandwiches with homemade sourdough bread. Super easy to make, minus the fuss with the bread and my Pyrex dish exploding.

1½ to 2 pounds of deli sliced, hickory smoked turkey breast
8 ounces goat cheese
4 plum tomatoes
arugula
sourdough or focaccia bread

Microwave the goat cheese for a few seconds to get it to spreadable consistency. Spread on one side of two slices of bread. Layer one bread slice with arugula, a quarter of a plum tomato, sliced, and two to three slices of turkey. Top with bread and skewer with a toothpick. Makes about 16 sandwiches.

2. Macaroni salad

I simplified this by including only macaroni, celery, egg, and mayo, along with adding sliced, pimento stuffed olives and Dijon mustard. Seasoned simply with salt and pepper.

3. Sparkling lemonade, which is about three tablespoons to a quarter cup of lightly sweetened lemon simple syrup + a cup of club soda.

Lightly Sweetened Lemon Simple Syrup

grated zest of one lemon (about 1 tablespoon)
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 3-4 lemons)
½ cup water
½ cup sugar

Combine ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Let cool. Strain through a fine mesh sieve to remove zest.

To make this more sweet and intensely lemony, use a full cup of lemon juice and a full cup of sugar. Omit the water. Makes about 1 cup of syrup.

To please fans of both fall and Halloween, the October Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge “ingredient” is the color orange, with the requirement that either the color or an orange-colored ingredient appears in the cupcake. However, I was never big on Halloween, having spent nearly all of my childhood in places where it didn’t really exist, and fall just means that my favorite season, summer, is done with.

In the spirit of being in total denial that summer is officially over—what seemed to be our last 95ºF heat wave wrapped up last week—I created the Indian Summer Cupcake. Just like its namesake, this cupcake looks like fall, but feels (tastes) like summer, which to me means: margaritas! There are lots of margarita cupcake recipes floating out there, but it seems like most are just lime cupcakes with the occasional tequila thrown in. Not so with these! They aim to replicate the yummy taste of the real deal.

The secret to a great margarita is five-fold: tequila, lime juice, triple sec, agave syrup, and salt. This cupcake replicates it with a lime-tequila chiffon cake, agave custard filling, orange-triple sec glaze, and a swirl of salted caramel buttercream on top. Here are the recipes:

Lime-Tequila Chiffon Cake
adapted from Joy of Cooking (Scribner 2006)

2¼ cups sifted flour
1¼ + ¼ cups sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
5 large egg yolks, room temperature
⅓ cup tequila, room temperature + enough freshly squeezed lime juice to make ¾ cups of liquid (from about 3-4 limes)
1 tbsp grated lime zest
½ cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 large egg whites, room temperature
½ tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 325ºF. Into a large bowl, sift flour, 1¼ cups sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add egg yolks, tequila and lime juice, vegetable oil, zest, and extract. Beat on high until smooth. In another large bowl, with clean beaters, whip egg whites and cream of tartar until the soft peak stage. Gradually add the remaining ¼ cup of sugar. Beat until the whites start losing their gloss. With a spatula, carefully fold in one quarter of the whites into the batter, then fold in the rest. Spoon batter into a paper lined cupcake pan—if you are not using liners, do not grease the pan or the cupcakes won’t rise—each cup should be about three quarters of the way full. Bake for 16–18 minutes.

Makes approximately 28 cupcakes.

Agave Custard

3 large eggs
⅓ cup dark agave syrup
3 tbsp water
6 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces

In a medium stainless steel saucepan, whisk eggs and syrup until the mixture is a light brown color. Add water, butter, and place over medium heat, stirring until the butter has melted. Keep heating, whisking constantly until the mixture begins to thicken and bubble at the edges. Strain through a sieve into a bowl, press plastic wrap to the surface of the custard to keep a skin from forming, let cool and refrigerate until thick.

Fills approximately 28 cupcakes.

Orange-Triple Sec Glaze

1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2 tbsp triple sec
1 tbsp melted butter
1½ tsp grated orange zest

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl until the glaze is smooth. For a more orange appearance, add 5 drops of yellow and 1 drop of red food coloring.

Glazes about two dozen cupcakes.

Salted Caramel Buttercream

4 egg whites, room temperature
½ tsp cream of tartar
½ cup sugar
¼ cup water
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces + 1 tsp salt OR 2 sticks salted butter, cut into pieces

Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil, wash down crystals from the sides of a pan with a moistened brush, and let cook until a deep golden brown color (355–360ºF). Meanwhile, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Keep mixing, and in a thin and steady stream, making sure to avoid the beaters, pour in the sugar syrup. Add salt, if using. Keep beating to cool down. Gradually incorporate butter until frosting is smooth.

Makes enough for small swirls of frosting for 28 cupcakes with about a cup left over. 2½, 3 cups total?

Assembly

Using the cone method, fill cupcakes with custard. Turn each cupcake upside-down and dip in the glaze, making sure to shake off the excess before turning right side up—the glaze will drip down otherwise. Chill cupcakes in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes to set the glaze. Top with a swirl of buttercream and a sprinkle of kosher salt, if desired.

The winner of October’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive the following prizes:

• a selection of handmade crafts from Angela’s Images
• a $5 electronic gift card from Bake It Pretty
• 2-fold Madagascar vanilla extract & 3 Tongan vanilla beans from Beanilla
• a pack of Sweet Stands cupcake stands from Hello Hanna
• an 8.5”x11” original art print of her or his choice from Lisa Orgler
• a handmade cupcake charm of her or his choice from Miss Kitty Creations
• a prize pack worth $25 from Sweet Cuppin Cakes
• and a selection 3 very sweet children’s books from Tundra Books

As always, a big thank you to all our prize sponsors!

Voting is now open through October 26! Please vote for the Indian Summer Cupcakes, by Olga in the poll on the right hand side. :)

A huge thank you to everyone who voted! I ended up in the top 6 cupcakes and won this month’s competition! ^_^

Sunday grilling: kebabs & apple pie edition.

1. BLT Pasta Salad
Used whole wheat pasta, one head of regular lettuce, and didn’t include chives because they somehow didn’t make it onto my Grocery iQ list. Wish I hadn’t forgotten them; I think the salad would’ve been way better with chives.

2. Wine Marinaded Beef Kebabs
Because I couldn’t find a package of meat small enough and wanted leftovers, I increased the meat to about 2½ pounds. This meant I had to increase the red bell peppers and onions to two—though we did end up with a Frankenkebab that was two pieces of meat and eight pieces of pepper, whoops! Swapped red onions for the yellow. Nixed the cherry tomatoes to prevent veggie overload.

The recipe for the Essence isn’t actually included in the kebab recipe page, but you can find it here. I wouldn’t make it again without some major modifications like cutting the cayenne way down and nixing all the salt, since the marinade calls for soy sauce. I had already cut the salt to one tablespoon and used low sodium soy sauce, but the meat turned out ridiculously salty. I also took out the rosemary, since I already had oregano, thyme, and a ton of spices.

3. Apple Pie
We are currently being overrun by apples, since the tree in our backyard finally caught up to the season. This means I’ll be baking nothing but apples for the next month at least. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe for apple pie and decided to brave making my own crust for the first time in years. I usually hate making pie crust since I can’t do it quickly enough and it ends up sticking everywhere when I roll it. However, since I discovered I could use my KitchenAid and learned a few tricks from years of watching Martha Stewart + the Food Network, I figured it wouldn’t be as difficult as it used to.

I was mostly right, though I discovered too late that the recipe called for vegetable shortening, which I didn’t have, so I had to make do with just butter. I also managed to misread the amount of salt and put in one tablespoon instead of one teaspoon. Next time should be easier—and there will definitely be a next time since I have at least half a tree’s worth of apples to use up—and I will make sure to include the secret ingredient that makes good pie crust so great: lard! ;)

4. Modified “Creepy Crawlers” Cocktail
The October 2010 issue of Everyday Food predictably includes some Halloween themed recipes, one of which is the Creepy Crawlers Cocktail: a concoction of pomegranate juice, both light and dark rum, simple syrup, and lime juice. Since the recipe makes only one serving, I modified it to fill a pitcher, which conveniently used up the last of our light rum. I didn’t want to get a bottle of dark rum, so I replaced it with black tea, and cut the sugar in the simple syrup down since I figured the pomegranate juice would be sweet enough, especially without the dark rum. The drink still turned out way too sweet though, so I’ve cut the sugar out completely for this recipe. You can feel free to dissolve some in the water if the drink isn’t sweet enough for your tastes.

South of the Border Pomegranate Tea

1 cup light rum
1 cup strongly brewed black tea, cooled
2 cups pomegranate juice
½ cup fresh lime juice, strained (from about 2-3 limes)
1½ cups water
(½ cup sugar, optional)

Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and stir. Serve over ice. Makes 6 cups.

With all the excitement about the cupcake challenge, I totally forgot to post about Sunday dinner. Just as well, really, as the main dish failed because I got the wrong type of squash; I turned it into a layered dip instead. There was also some delicious homemade guacamole using the Joy of Cooking (Scribner 2006) recipe and I once again made some Sweet Tea Mojitos, making the same modifications I talked about last time while reducing the sugar even further to 2/3 of a cup, and throwing in one more lime.

The pièce de resistance, however, was this apple tart/pie/thing. Not quite sure what to call it, since it has a filling similar to apple pie, but uses yeast based dough for the shell. We are facing a large harvest of apples from the tree in the backyard and created this dessert in an attempt to find a use for them.

Russian Apple Pie

For the dough
1⅓ cups warm water between 105ºF and 115ºF
1 package (2¼ tsp) active dry yeast
1 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and divided
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp salt
3½ cups of flour

For the filling
4 large apples, cored
¼ cup sugar (or more, if you prefer a sweeter filling)
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Make the dough: in a large bowl, combine water, sugar, and yeast and let stand for 10 minutes until bubbly. Stir in 4 tablespoons of melted butter, eggs, and salt. Adding half a cup at a time, stir in the flour. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl and brush with remaining melted butter. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place free of drafts until doubled (about 2 hours).

Once risen, punch down the dough and separate into two parts: a larger portion consisting of two thirds of the dough and a smaller portion that’s one third. Stretch the larger portion onto a rectangular, parchment lined, 11½ by 17 inch baking sheet, making sure to leave the borders thick as you will then stretch and overlap them over the filling. Let rest for 10 minutes while you make the filling. Preheat the oven to 475ºF.

Make the filling: By hand or in a food processor, finely dice the apples. Thoroughly mix with the sugar and cinnamon. Spread the filling evenly over the dough, then stretch and pull the edges over it by about two inches.

Divide the remaining one third of the dough into four pieces. Stretch them to make strips and crisscross them over the center of the pie. Pinch and press the ends into the border. Brush the outside with some melted butter for a crispy, golden appearance.

Bake at 475ºF for 12 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350ºF and bake for 10-13 minutes more until the dough is hollow when knocked. Let cool slightly, cut into pieces, and enjoy!