Red Velvet Soufflé

Memorial Day 2010 I spent the day in Newport, RI. The last thing my traveling companions and I did before leaving was to have an amazing dinner at The Spiced Pear at the Chandler at Cliff Walk.

The final part of our meal was cinnamon soufflé with amaretto and apple compote. It was amazing. From that moment on I've wanted to make a soufflé. There was a day that we were going to make them for one of our Sunday Family Dinner nights. Not enough time was devoted to learning how to make a soufflé by any of us.

All these months later I finally decided it was time. I wasn't going to wait any longer. I have a tendency to do that - wait until someone will do something with me. I guess it's for support or maybe camaraderie. The waiting for me was over. I was nervous that I would mess up the mixture, but I really wanted to try.

The first thing I needed was ramekins. I had seen them at Crate & Barrel for $2.95 each. That was a great price. I wanted four. I went on a Friday night to purchase them in preparation for making the soufflé the following Monday. I left Astoria at 7pm and arrived just before 7:30pm at the door of a closed Crate & Barrel. I was shocked. The revolving door wouldn't turn. The lights were on, but I couldn't get in. Finally I noticed the posted hours. How could a Crate & Barrel in Manhattan be closed on a Friday night at 7pm? I looked around to make sure I wasn't in some Twilight Zone Manhattan. No such luck.

The next day I was scheduled off work before the ridiculously early closing time so I was prepared to bust a move across town before those revolving doors were locked on me two days in a row. I made it and purchased the 4 ramekins that I wanted.

I had most of the ingredients I needed in my kitchen already. What I didn't have was eggs, red food coloring, whipping cream and sour cream.

The day of baking had finally arrived. I had spent the day basking in and running away from the art at MoMA. I had indulged in lively discussions about art, family and religion. I was nourished with 16 bean soup; my thirst quenched with Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. The pièce de résistance was to be my first soufflé.

I chose red velvet soufflé. I had already made a red velvet cake on my own twice; it seemed the right choice for me. My close friends know that I love red velvet cake. I want it to be something I'm known for making. A red velvet soufflé seems like a city cousin to the Southern cake.

It was midnight by the time I started making the soufflé's. I was determined though and nobody was leaving until they were done and we had eaten them or thrown them away because they failed to rise.

I started by greasing the bottom and sides of my ramekins with butter - real butter - and then sprinkling them with sugar, lightly coating the butter. The next logical step was separating the eggs. Of the 5 eggs needed per the recipe, 4 yokes needed to be ready to mix into the chocolate as soon as it was melted. I chose Ghirardelli bittersweet baking chocolate per a recipe that I'd seen in a copy of Southern Living magazine. The recipe I had chosen and the one in the magazine were identical excepting the Ghirardelli suggestion.

When the chocolate was melted I stirred in the egg yokes, the sugar, the milk, the red food coloring and the vanilla necessary to flavor and color the soufflé. I actually used my whisk for the first time. I set the chocolate mixture to the side while I beat the egg whites, pinch of salt and more sugar into stiff peaks. As I said, the chocolate needs 4 yokes, but the whites of all 5 eggs are necessary. I couldn't help but be reminded of The Golden Girls episode where Blanche, delirious from staying up all night attempting to be the next great Southern writer, confuses Roses bag of egg yokes for little balls of sunshine. I laughed to myself as I threw a little ball of sunshine in the trash.

With the egg whites stiffly beaten to peaks it was time to fold them into the chocolate. I think the folding was what made me the most nervous. I mean does it have to be folded into the chocolate instead of just stirred in? What if I don't fold it correctly? Is there a right and wrong way to fold? I just had to get over the fear and start folding. As I did so the chocolate became lighter in color and airier in texture. That's what I'm assuming makes the soufflé rise - all the air created by folding in the light egg white mixture.

When all the mixing, blending and folding was done, it was time to spoon. I spooned the mixture into the waiting ramekins. The ramekins were on a cookie sheet for even baking. The oven was preheated to 350°. I placed the ramekins in the oven and set the timer for 20 minutes.

Time to make the topping. First nervous moment: folding; second nervous moment; too much noise during baking making the soufflé's fall. I had to use the beaters. I had to mix whipping cream, sour cream and sugar to a pourable consistency. It didn't take long and through the window in the oven door I could see that the noise had not disturbed the soufflé's. On the contrary, the soufflé’s had risen higher than expected. Thank goodness for the cookie sheet. It caught the entire overflow and prevented soufflé from burning on the bottom of my oven.

Twenty minutes of bake time and the stick came out of the center of one soufflé with a few moist crumbs. Done.

The three of us were standing in the kitchen. The anxious excitement of the rise had turned into anticipation of eating. I didn't even remove the ramekins from the cookie sheet. I poured the whipped sour cream on top of each of them and gave my guinea pigs each a spoon and we dove in.

It was light, fluffy, moist, rich and delicious. I was so proud. The whipped sour cream was such an interesting compliment to the chocolate.

Next time I will fill the ramekins with less mixture to prevent the unsightly overflow. I will also remember to serve it with a nip of Jameson Irish Whiskey.

Cheers!

Sixteen Bean Soup

Four days ago I found myself bent over the trash can peeling carrots. I hadn't peeled carrots in about 5 years. The last time was when I made a carrot cake from scratch for my friend Matt's birthday. He didn't believe I had actually peeled and grated carrots and made the cake. It turned out fantastic if I do say so myself.

These carrots were for homemade soup. I chose the three best carrots and the three best celery stalks from their respective bags. Let the chopping and dicing begin. After peeling the dirty skin from the carrots I diced them per the recipe I had chosen. I then washed and chopped the celery stalks. Moving on the onion, I peeled the outer skin from the onion and diced it. I was staring at a bowl full of color and freshness - orange carrots, green celery, purple onion. This soup would be nothing if not colorful.

Continuing with the slicing and dicing, I peeled and sliced 3 cloves of fresh garlic. Not only was my bowl of fresh veggies colorful, it now filled the room with the pungent smell of garlic. Mmmm!

The only thing left to do really was open the two cans of diced tomatoes. I contemplated the diced tomatoes with garlic and oregano added, but ultimately chose plain-diced tomatoes. It felt like overkill considering the recipe called for garlic and oregano already. I showed a little restraint.

The crock-pot was ready and the time had come for placing all these colorful, fresh, aromatic ingredients into it and letting it magically turn them into dinner.

I had been soaking the blend of 16 beans overnight. I drained and rinsed them in the colander before placing them in the crock-pot. Let the color parade begin. Mostly it was just beans in their brown, black and white shades, but the lentils were green; light green. Loved it! I added the fresh carrots, celery, onion and garlic. I poured in a 32 oz. container of vegetable stock. I chose the Kitchen Basics brand, unsalted. The recipe I used called for chicken stock, but as one of my guests was vegetarian I needed to use the vegetable stock. Seems to me one could use vegetable, chicken or beef stock. It's a matter of personal preference. I then poured the two cans of diced tomatoes in their juice into the soup mixture. The recipe suggests adding water should you need more liquid to cover everything. That wasn't necessary. With the 32 oz. of vegetable stock and the juice from two cans of tomatoes, everything was more than covered. I threw in 3 bay leaves and sprinkled the top with Goya Sazonador complete seasoning. I gave it a quick stir, secured the lid and set the dial to low.

All that's left is to wait.

Let's review:

1 package 16 Bean Soup
3 stalks celery chopped
3 carrots diced
1 large onion chopped
3 cloves garlic sliced
2 cans stewed tomatoes
1 tsp. ground oregano
3 bay leaves
1 32 oz. container of stock

My recipe called for cooking the beans, bay leaves, oregano and stock on high for 3-4 hours then adding everything else and cooking on high for another 3-4 hours. As I was going to MoMA in the afternoon I couldn't be at home to follow the hourly breakdown set forth by the recipe. Isn’t crock-pot cooking supposed to be fill it and leave it? I called my mom and talked to her about it. My thought was: Can't I just put all of it in the crock-pot at the same time and cook it on low for 8-9 hours? Mom thought that would be fine. That's how I proceeded.

Returning from MoMA, my apartment smelled amazing. The soup had been cooking for at least 7 hours at that point. One of my dinner guests wasn't going to arrive until 8pm so I was going to continue letting it cook for another 2 hours. I was dying to taste it and check the tenderness of the beans. My heart sank briefly when I discovered that the beans were not as tender as they should be. My first thought was that we would eat the appetizers for dinner if the beans were not fully cooked by the time we were ready to eat. I turned the crock-pot on high while Anna and I retired to the living for a little bagel snack and conversation.

If you're reading these entries in order, this is the point where I made the olive tapenade.

Brandon had a meeting after our trip to MoMA; a meeting he thought would last no longer than 30 minutes. It lasted almost an hour and a half. Anna and I waited as long as we could before I opened the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I had chosen specifically for the olive tapenade. I had one bottle. One bottle seemed logical as it was for the appetizer course.

I'm going to jump past the appetizers now and tell you that no matter how put out or annoyed Anna and I were that Brandon took longer than he thought, I'm glad he took longer. The beans cooked on high for more than 2 additional hours. They needed it. It was just enough to push them into the tender end zone.

I had shredded cheddar cheese for anyone who might want it on top of his soup. It was hearty and filling and perfect for a cold winter night.

I searched for two days to find a wine pairing for this soup. Turns out people don't really pair wine with soup. I'm not exactly sure why. We had Pinot Noir. I had multiple bottles of that. There were no complaints from my guests. Who says one can't serve their favorite red or white with soup? Hindsight: beer might have been a better choice. Next time.

Cheers

Olive Tapendade

My friend Katrin made an amazing olive spread at one of her parties last year. I've been wanting to make it ever since. I can’t believe I waited so long. I asked her about the ingredients months ago. I could have been enjoying it all this time. I love olives, but I kept them waiting for months to puff up my face and dry up my blood with their salty tang.

I started with nearly one cup each of pitted Kalamata, green and black olives. To the olives I added a tablespoon of fresh capers, 3 teaspoons of lime juice and 1/4 cup of feta cheese. Not owning a food processor, I threw these ingredients into my blender and pressed chop. Once fully chopped, I added Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I didn't measure it; I added it visually. It's all about consistency. I pulsed the blender so that the chopped ingredients mixed completely with the olive oil.

It wasn't until I had emptied the tapenade into a container that I realized I had omitted the fresh garlic clove. I had looked right at it on my recipe and still left it out. Fortunately, I had some minced garlic in the refrigerator. I added a heaping 1/2-teaspoon to cover my blunder.

I served sliced beets, fresh mango and Gouda goat cheese as toppings to help cut the saltiness of the tapenade. I also served sun dried tomato hummus - store bought not homemade. The bread was a very crusty organic French baguette. It made the perfect base for all of the above. The dry Sauvignon Blanc had just the right bite to counter the salt.

Alas, the stirred in minced garlic had no flavor whatsoever. I will add that fresh clove next time and report the difference.

Cheers!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

My bestie, Neal, makes an amazingly good oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. He has since we were in college. I bet it's been 20 years since I tasted one for the first time. The first memory I have of those cookies is inside a car on the way to a Christmas party for the Western Kentucky University Dance Company hosted by our physical therapist, Dr. John. Neal had made his cookies and they were housed in a Christmas tin. I can still remember how they looked inside that tin when he removed the lid. I get a little hazy on whether we were allowed to partake of the sweet goodness in the car or not, but I do remember seeing those cookies inside that tin inside that car.

I do believe his are the first oatmeal cookies that I'd ever eaten made with chocolate chips instead of raisins.

He will not part with his recipe. It was his mother's and maybe someone else's before that. I'm not sure. What I do know is that it is now his. He has tweaked it and made it his own. It has become somewhat of a joke that he won't share the recipe. My mother has gone so far as to tell me to stand near enough to him to watch and mentally record the recipe. I don't really want the recipe anymore, but the joke is part of our history; our lives.

What I do want is a recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I can call my own.

I'm kind of like Paula Deen when it comes to baking things that tingle your sweet tooth. I want real ingredients; real butter, real sugar, real eggs, etc. I am health conscious. I'm aware of what I put into my body, but when it comes to baked goods, I shouldn't be eating them anyway, so if I'm putting them in my body why not enjoy all the bad-for-me-goodness; rich in taste and texture.

I found a recipe that I liked that seemed to be everything one would need for an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie; butter, white sugar, brown sugar, flour, vanilla, baking soda, oats. It was all there plus a little something I thought would compliment the chocolate very well - cinnamon. I don't believe Neal's cookies have cinnamon in them. My mind was telling me all of these ingredients would bake up to a fantastic cookie, but I wasn't certain. I had already made up my mind that I would throw it all away and mark it down as an experiment gone awry if they tasted horrible.

I left the butter out to soften. I measured the sugars, the flour. I mixed it all by hand. I don't believe Neal uses a mixer of any kind. I didn't want to either. I wanted to actually feel the cookie dough as it got sturdier with each new dry ingredient. My right arm got quite the workout.

With all the ingredients married together in a commune of raw sweetness I was ready to start placing spoonfuls on my Pam® sprayed baking sheet.

The cookies were supposed to bake for 8-10 minutes. I checked them at 8. I discovered that 10 was the right amount of time. They didn't get too crispy. That is my least favorite thing about a cookie: too much crisp. They stayed crispy enough on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside. Neal's do that also. These cookies did not taste like Neal's though. Not because of the addition of cinnamon either (my mind was right by the way, it was a good compliment to the chocolate). The texture was different. I'm not sure what that's about. I do know that I felt my dough could have used some water, or maybe some milk. The recipe didn't call for it, but I think I may use one or the other next time I make them. Yes, there will be a next time. I enjoyed them very much as did all the people who got to enjoy them. It made me proud to share them.

These are not Neal's cookies, that's true. They're mine, and I get to spend time perfecting my recipe now.

Cheers!

Wine Brine Pork Chops

Less than two weeks ago I went to a restaurant in Astoria that was a first for me and the two friends who went with me. The evening started out at my house with a couple of glasses of wine and was to conclude with us eating at a little Italian restaurant on the corner of 47th Street and 30th Avenue in Astoria. When we arrived at Cara Bella at 10:20pm on that Saturday night I guess you could say that shocked would be the best word to describe our reaction when a waiter told us they had sent the chef home for the evening. Who does that? It was another small downside, along with lack of taxi service, to living outside of Manhattan. Don't misunderstand, I love living in Astoria, but I am spoiled by the living, breathing, all-night-long energy that is Manhattan. Anyway, we had to come up with a new place. It was cold and the sidewalks still had snow and ice covering portions of them from an earlier snowstorm. We just started walking West on 30th Avenue. It was between the 35th and 34th Street blocks that we noticed a cute green sign on the corner building across the street that read Ovelia. We were hungry and cold and tired of walking and decided to give it a try.

Sometimes taking chances pays off. It was fantastic - from atmosphere to food to price. Right here I'm going to jump from our fabulous appetizers to what caught my eye for an entree - Olive Brine Pork; a grilled pork tenderloin marinated in olive brine. First of all, I love olives. Just ask the bartender who used to make my dirty martini's. I also enjoy pork. So, the combination of the other white meat and the salty swill of the olive intrigued me.

It didn't disappoint. It also led to a discussion on brine. What is it? How do you make it? How do you do it? One of my dinner companions seemed fluent in brine-speak so he informed me with all the knowledge he had on the subject. I decided right then that I wanted to make a brine of my own. One week later and I've got pork chops bathing in brine. (Remember the meatloaf and the addition of thinly sliced pork? Well, I bought 3 pork chops, used one had 2 to play with. I was thinking ahead.)

I used my favorite internet search engine (Google) to look up recipes and then decided to mix and match to concoct my own. I'm a tweaker can't you tell?

First of all, I love red wine so I thought why not use some of the wine I had in the open bottle sitting in my kitchen. It was a Cotes-du-Rhone (60% Grenache and 40% Syrah). I liked it to drink so how bad could it be? I decided that it would be the base for my brine. I used almost 2 cups of it completing the 2 cup portion with water. I added the necessary salt (sea salt) and brown sugar (dark brown) along with some pepper and minced garlic. I also added a bit of apple cider vinegar. In retrospect, and by retrospect I mean as soon as I'd poured it into the mixture, I realized that with nearly two cups of wine I didn't really need to add vinegar. With all the ingredients combined in a pot on the stove, I cooked it over low heat, constantly stirring, until the salt and brown sugar were dissolved.

Most of the recipe's I read called for the addition of ice water or cold water to the mixture to cool it down before adding meat. The hot fluid can begin to cook your meat and that's no way to treat your dinner. I added the cold water and then placed the entire pan in the freezer to further speed the cooling process.

Maybe and hour later my purple concoction was ready to host it two visitors. I poured it into a plastic bowl and added the two pork chops. There it was, my first brine. I sealed the container, placed the bowl in the refrigerator and left it there. There was magic to be done inside that bowl.

24 hours later...

I reached my hand into the cold, purple, garlic-floating-on-top brine and what emerged in my hand was a purple-dyed pork chop. How could I not have expected that? I mean red wine is purple and it stains things. Of course it was going to stain the meat. I was not worried, just amused.

I poured a small amount of vegetable oil in a square baking pan and placed the formerly white now purple meat into my preheated broiler. Eight minutes on one side, flip, repeat on side two.

For a first attempt at brining it wasn't bad. It just wasn't as juicy as I thought it would be. The olive brine pork at Ovelia was juicy enough to wring the olive brine out of it. Mine was not that juicy. It then occurred to me that alcohol dehydrates the body. What if the wine was counter productive to the salt and water making the pork chop juicy. Lesson learned. Next time I'm going to use a different base for my brine and maybe even brine the meat a little longer.

I'll save the wine for my glass.

Cheers!

Meatloaf & Rosemary Potatoes

As the smell of fresh garlic filled my apartment it occurred to me that I should write about my cooking experiences - the triumphs and the failures. Cooking is a new adventurous undertaking in my life. I've mostly been one for take-out or dining out in my 13 years in New York. So along with the regular stories I tell and the fiction I write, I've decided to add this spinoff blog. Pour yourself a glass - my favorite is a California Pinot Noir - and enjoy the dish on my latest dish.

I decided just before Christmas that I wanted to make meatloaf. I have this memory of making a meatloaf once in my life. I was still living with my parents. I have no idea how old I was. It's more years than I really care to think about or reveal at this moment.

I needed a recipe. The first person I thought of was Paula Deen. I enjoy her and she's southern so it seemed the perfect fit for me. She actually demonstrates her recipe via a video clip. I wrote down all the ingredients. Later, I looked at the list and decided to start tweaking it.

The first time I made this meatloaf I added a Granny Smith apple to it in lieu of bell pepper. It doesn't necessarily do that much in the form of flavor, but it adds an interesting texture. Maybe there's just a bite of sweetness. I'm not positive on that though. There's such an explosion of flavors in the meatloaf that pinpointing the flavor of one ingredient is difficult. That first time I cooked the meatloaf I used a Pyrex® loaf pan. We live and learn. Paula's demonstration had the meatloaf baked in a regular 9" x 13" pan. What my friends who ate the meatloaf with me suggested was that the larger pan would allow for the juices to run off thereby letting the meat cook more to the texture we all associate with meatloaf. Baking it in the loaf pan kept everything completely contained. It took longer for the loaf to cook in its own juices than it should have.

This second time I again tweaked the recipe. I left out the Granny Smith apple and added back the bell pepper albeit orange instead of green. I also added pork to the mix.

I started with ground turkey instead of ground beef. I do want to be more on the healthy side. To the turkey I added thin slices of pork. I substitute some of the salt (sea salt) with garlic salt. It adds a nice flavor. I add more onion (purple) than necessary. I like it; what can I say. The orange bell pepper is a bit sweeter than the green and the color is amazing. I discovered a long time ago that color is important to me and food is no exception. Paula's recipe calls for a can of diced tomatoes in their juice. I like to use diced tomatoes with garlic. Can there ever be too much garlic? I mean really, most of the time I'm cooking for me. I'm not kissing anyone after. Bring on the flavor. Instead of bread crumbs the recipe calls for oats. It's supposed to make it fluffy. I just find it more interesting than bread crumbs. Bread crumbs are boring. Oats add an air of mystery and intrigue.

When the meat, salt, black pepper, purple onion, orange bell pepper, egg, oats, and diced tomatoes were all thoroughly mixed together I halved the meat mixture. I took half of it and placed it in the pan and coated it with cheddar cheese. I then took the remaining meat mixture and covered the cheese, forming one cohesive loaf.

Instead of using ketchup with the mustard and brown sugar for the topping this time, I substituted chili sauce. Don't be scared of chili sauce. I used Heinz®. It's not hot and they even suggest it for use on burgers and fries. It just has a different flavor than ketchup. The spices are different and it's less tomatoey.

I wanted to make Rosemary potatoes. I found a recipe and decided to make them as a side dish for my meatloaf. I had already scrubbed and dried about 15 small, red new potatoes earlier in the day. Now it was time to prepare them for the oven.

It was simple enough. I cut the potatoes into quarters and placed them in a bowl. I am a lover of brussel sprouts and have been known to coat them in olive oil with garlic salt and other spices and bake them. I decided to add brussel sprouts to the potatoes. That was my tweak of plain Rosemary potatoes.

I took 6 crushed cloves of fresh garlic along with dried rosemary and infused them in extra virgin olive oil. I poured the oil infusion over the potatoes and brussel spouts and used my hands to make sure everything was coated. Yes, they were clean. I don't suggest this though. It worked; everything was coated, but so were my hands - with pieces of garlic and rosemary. I didn't want to lose any of that flavor so I had to use the spoon to remove the pieces of garlic and sprigs of rosemary from my fingers and add them back to the bowl. I should have just used the spoon for stirring and coating to begin with. Hindsight's 20/20.

Both meatloaf and potatoes needed to be baked at 350°. I put the meatloaf in the oven first at it needed to bake longer. When my timer dinged 20 minutes into the baking, I added the potatoes and brussel sprouts to the oven.

Those of us who only have one oven only have one real option - we have to bake multiple things at the same time. I learned that I should have placed the potatoes in to bake at the same time as the meatloaf, but the brussel sprouts needed less time than I actually cooked them. I should have known that from my prior experience of baking brussel sprouts.

The meatloaf turned out better this time cooked in the larger pan. The juices did run off but so did some of the cheese from the middle. The texture was better, but truly it was all about the taste. It is still an amazing meatloaf. The pork, an interesting idea to me, did nothing in the way of flavor. The chili sauce was fantastic on top. Personally, I think the topping needs a little more brown sugar. That's for next time. The potatoes were good, but needed more garlic in my opinion. I could probably aid that by dashing some garlic salt on top of them before placing them in the oven. The brussel sprouts were over cooked, but still worthy of eating.

Here's to flavor, texture & color (purple, orange, red) and here's to trying it again.

Cheers!