Mixed Tomato Salad

This month, I've asked Esi from one of my very favorite blogs, Dishing up Delights, to guest post. Of the many blogs I read, I think Esi's cooking style is probably the closest to my own, so if you like this blog, you'll love hers. I highly recommend you go check it out as soon as you finish with her guest post. I know you'll enjoy her as much as I do.

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Imagine my surprise and delight when Andrea asked me to do an Off the Shelf guest post on her lovely site...Then the summer got away from me. For some reason I haven't been cooking much lately, but I have been visiting the farmers market every week and tomato salads have been a meal for me at least once a week. Unlike those on the east coast, tomatoes in California are out in full force with the only question being, which color to choose? That is what I love about this salad. It's using one of the best summer ingredients and letting their natural flavor be the star.

I found this recipe in one of my favorite books for any time of year, Everyday Food. I love that the book is divided by season. Everything is quick and all of the recipes I have tried have been delicious. There are also plenty of tips and basic recipes on everything from burgers to soup. It has quickly become my go to book for quick recipes. For this particular salad I used a mix of cherry tomatoes and a yellow beefsteak tomato. One of the baskets of cherry tomatoes was almost purple in color and I loved the contrast between the dark red, lighter red, and yellow. The way mixed tomatoes paired with the vibrant arugula made a dish pleasing to the eye as well as to the mouth. I only made one change to the recipe which was to use balsamic vinegar instead of red wine. The sweet balsamic went perfectly well with the sweet tomatoes and the spicy bite of the arugula. This is a simple, unassuming salad for a simple summer afternoon.

Mixed Tomato Salad
(Slightly Adapted from Everyday Food)

Makes 4 servings

2 pounds mixed tomatoes, such as red or yellow beefsteak, cherry, grape, and pear
3 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 bunch arugula (6 to 8 ounces), washed well and dried

Core beefsteak tomatoes; cut each into 8 wedges. Halve grape and cherry tomatoes; leave pear tomatoes whole.

Make dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar and oil; season with salt and pepper. In a large bowl, toss arugula with half the dressing. Divide arugula and tomatoes evenly among four serving plates; drizzle tomatoes with remaining dressing. Serve immediately.

Printable Recipe

Panzanella or Bread Salad

For some reason, and I'm really not sure why, I didn't have very high hopes for this panzanella. I don't know what it is, but the ingredients (although pretty standard for the dish) seemed so, well, ordinary. But come to find out, that's precisely its charm. It doesn't get more rustic than a panzanella, an ingenious use for leftover bread, traditional throughout Tuscany. I even warned R when dishing it out that I thought it would be boring. Wrong, wrong and more wrong. It was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that the entire thing was gone in one day because it's all we ate for lunch, and again for dinner. Not many salads do that, I have to say.

The only thing is that the recipe asks you to take the crusts off the bread, but in hindsight I wish I hadn't. It also suggests that you peel your tomatoes, something I have never brought myself to do. Are tomato peels really so offensive? I mean, that is just not going to happen in this lifetime. But the recipe is so good, I'd buy bread and leave it out just for the occasion. Don't let its humble looks fool you. Don't make that mistake. You don't even have to peel the tomatoes.

Panzanella Bread Salad

From Viana La Place & Evan Kleiman's Cucina Fresca

1/2 loaf day-old peasant bread, crusts removed, cut into cubes

2 tomatoes

1-2 tablespoons capers

1/2 cup good olive oil

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

3 cucumbers, peeled and diced

1/2 small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced

1 bell pepper, seeded and cut into strips

Combine the tomatoes, capers, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in a bowl. Place the bread cubes on a shallow platter or dish, then pour the tomato mixture over the top and throw the cucumbers, red onion and bell pepper on top of that.

Allow the salad to sit at room temperature (or in the fridge, but room temperature is always better) for at least 1 hour to allow the bread to soak everything up. You can add more oil and vinegar if it seems too dry. Can be made a day ahead.

Dutch Honey Cake

I don't think I've mentioned this here before, but if there's one thing that makes me completely crazy, it's people who refuse to share recipes. First of all, you did not make up cooking out of the blue. Everyone learns from somewhere, whether that's through experience or from a book. Half the time, those "secret" family recipes were clipped from a newspaper or magazine years ago anyway. I also just can't understand why, if, say, my family loves a particular recipe, I should withhold it from you just because I can. Does it make me enjoy the food any more knowing that I've denied it to someone else? Well, if it did, I'd have larger problems than just this particular annoyance. Look, I'm a judgmental person. And if you tell me that a recipe is a guarded family secret, I'm judging you. Sorry.

But it's not like all, or even most people are like this. Lots of us love sharing recipes, obviously. But today, when I was searching for a recipe for a Dutch Honey Cake like the one I'd had in France, I found a blog in which its owner has made a project of honoring his grandmother's memory by transcribing all of the recipes from her massive collection. It looks like he got through them all, because the blog hasn't been updated in quite a while. Rather than jealously guard his family's recipes, he has posted them for everyone to use and enjoy. How about that? So for all of you recipe sharers out there, here's a Dutch Honey Cake meant to be circulated.

Dutch Honey Cake

Only slightly adopted from Grandma Gerte's Recipes

3 cups flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

3/4 cup brown sugar (the recipe didn't say to pack it, but this is assumed I think)

3/4 cups honey (I had to use mostly honey but a little agave nectar because we're moving and I'm trying to use things up)

3/4 cup undiluted evaporated milk

3/4 cups milk (the recipe said 1/2 cup, but I had to add a little more for all of the dry ingredients to get mixed in)

Sift the first five ingredients together (yes, I sifted the flour twice, once to measure and one to combine with the spices). Stir in the brown sugar and set aside. Stir the honey together with the two milks, then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Pour into a greased loaf pan, and bake at 300 F for about 1:15 hours. I had to tent the bread with foil for the last 10 minutes or so in order to keep the crust from getting too brown. It should pass the toothpick test and the sides should pull away from the pan. Cool before serving (yea right).

Note:

You can see that my loaf deflated a little in the middle. This was a result of my taking it completely out of the oven to prod it with toothpicks before it was done. This is how lack of patience is rewarded.

Espresso Cheesecake Brownies

I have hardly anything to write about anymore. My life consisting as it does, of 9 hours in a library every single day. I made these brownies for a friend's party. A party I didn't even have the energy to go to! But it's not all bad, and I'm making it seem worse than it is. In all honesty I kind of enjoy all of this studying. (Right, I say that now!) But I just don't have all that much leftover. So maybe today we'll forgo the write up, and I'll just tell you that these were good. That R liked them, that the girls I study with at school liked them, and that they were gone in 2 days. You can't freeze them, as was my first inclination, because of the sour cream topping. So if you make them, your only option really is to eat them. A pretty simple decision.

Espresso Cheesecake Brownies

From Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours

For the brownies:

1/2 cup ap flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into cubes

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1/3 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 F, with a rack in the center. Butter a 9" square baking pan placed on a baking sheet and set aside.

To make the brownies:

Whisk together the first three ingredients. Put the butter and chocolate over a double boiler with water simmering. Stir until the ingredients melt, but don't overheat so that the butter separates. Remove the top of the double boiler and set aside.

Stir the sugar into the chocolate mixture with a whisk, then add the eggs one at a time. Beat well after each egg, then beat in the vanilla. Next, gently stir in the dry ingredients until they disappear. Set aside.

For the cheesecake:

1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1/4 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon ap flour

Allow the espresso to cool to tepid. With a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the cream cheese on medium until it's completely smooth. Add the sugar and continue to beat for 3 minutes more. Beat in the vanilla and espresso before adding the eggs one at a time. Beat for 1 minute after each egg, then reduce the speed to low and add the sour cream, then the flour. The batter should be smooth.

Pour about 3/4 of the brownie mixture into the prepared pan. Smooth it out, then pour the cheesecake layer over the top, taking care to make it even. Place spoonfuls of the rest of the brownie batter on top, and use a knife to swirl the dark and light batters together. Be careful, however, not to plunge the knife into the base brownie layer. Swirl only as much as necessary.

Bake for around 30 minutes. The brownies should come away from the sides of the pan. The cheesecake will puff and turn lightly browned around the edges. Transfer the pan to a wrack to cool. Once it reaches room temperature, refrigerate for at least 2 hours, until well chilled.

For the topping:

1 1/4 cups sour cream

1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Warm the sour cream and sugar in a small saucepan over very low heat. You need to stir constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Pour over the chilled brownies, then return them to the refrigerator and chill for at least another hour. Cut the brownies into squares and serve.

The Winners and a Pasta Salad

Okay, first things first. Using Random.org I've drawn two names from those who left comments to win Spice Up Your Life. And the winners are...Nina Timm and Katie! Congratulations, ladies. I'll e-mail you right away to get your mailing addresses.

And if you're like me and almost never win anything, I have a consolation prize in the form of a great cold pasta salad which I've been taking with me to school for the past few days. It's vegetable rich, with broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes, and pesto.

But the really wonderful technique I learned from this recipe is using two long strips of lemon peel in the boiling water while cooking both the broccoli and the pasta. It adds a wonderful aroma of lemon that permeates the salad, especially when fresh. This isn't my normal pesto, and I think I prefer my usual recipe. Also, next time, I might substantially increase the amount of pesto I use.

Country-Style Rigatoni Salad

From Viana la Place & Evan Kleiman's Cucina Fresca

For the Pesto

Into a food processor toss:

1 cup fresh basil leaves

3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

2 teaspoons pine nuts

1/2 cup olive oil

And process until the mixture is a coarse texture. Add a pinch of salt to taste.

Pasta Salad

2 pounds broccoli (about 1 head)

2 long strips lemon peel

Coarse salt to taste

1 pound rigatoni

1 pound mushrooms, wiped clean, stems removed and quartered

Olive oil for the pan

Pepper and salt to taste

6 mediumm tomatoes, cored and cut into bite-sized pieces

2 bunches green onions, trimmed and cut into thin rounds

Remove the broccoli flowerets from the stalks and break the flowerets into bite-sized pieces. Peel the stalks with a vegetable peeler, and cut those into bite-sized pieces as well.

Place the lemon peel in a large pot with plenty of boiling water. Add salt and the broccoli pieces and cook until the broccoli is tender-crisp. This will take about 5 minutes. Remove the broccoli with a slotted spoon, but keep the water boiling. Transfer the broccoli to a colander and run under cold water to stop the cooking.

Add the rigatoni to the boiling water and cook according to package directions. Drain in a colander when done and run under cold water to stop the cooking. In the meantime, sauté the mushrooms over high heat in the oil for around 5 minutes, or until your desired doneness. Season with salt and pepper.

Gently toss the rigatoni with the pesto, broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes and green onions in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Lady Friends

Well, I don't have anything for you today, in the way of a recipe. Hopefully that won't be the situation tomorrow. But while you're waiting, I thought I'd share my most favorite female comic ever, ever, ever: Sarah Haskins. If you've never seen her before, head directly over to YouTube and treat yourself to a few episodes of "Target Women." I especially like when she laughs inappropriately loud for an inappropriate amount of time at Swonson Broth. Intrigued? Here you go:

Shrimp in Butter, Lime an Cilantro Sauce and a Giveaway!

Well at least you can't say I didn't warn you. I said things might slow down around here for a bit, and they really have, haven't they? But to make it up to you, and partially in celebration of my approximate one year blog-o-versary, I have something special for you. If you've been reading with any regularity, you've probably noticed that while I'm not a vegetarian, I lean that way. There's a catch phrase for my kind of eating floating around. Mark Bittman has used it. So has Peter Berley. Now you can add Bindu Grandhi to the list of proponents of the Flexitarian lifestyle. So when Ms. Grandhi offered to send me an advance copy of her brand new cookbook Spice Up Your Life The Flexitarian Way, of course I said yes!

And here's the thing. Even my picky husband can be convinced to go light on the meat if he's presented with Indian food. It makes sense, of course, since Indian cuisines in all of their variety are so vegetarian friendly in the first place. But Grandhi does not present you with lists of 20 spices, each requiring a specialty store. You'll be able to find most of what you need easily, and each of the recipes I tried came together very quickly, which is a huge plus for me right now. I really want to stress that this is not complicated, time consuming cooking. She uses simple, fresh ingredients in inventive ways for dishes with truly wonderful flavor. Serious.

Okay, so how were the recipes? I've made three things from the book so far and every one of them has been amazing. Pictured at top is her Shrimp in Butter, Lime and Cilantro Sauce and it was excellent. Served over her favorite Vegetable Couscous, it made for a healthy, and incredibly flavorful meal. Not to mention rather pretty, if I have to admit it. I would make both again in a second.

I also made her Chickpeas and Spinach, in which wilted spinach is combined with onions, ginger, garlic and a melange of spices, then puréed into a silky gravy before being poured over the chickpeas and tomatoes. I'm going to give you the recipe for the shrimp, bellow. And now for the real treat.

Ms. Grandhi was kind enough to offer two Cooking Books readers the chance to win a copy of the book! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post by Monday, August 17th and I'll draw two names. I'm only allowed to accept entries from those in the US for this one. But if you'd like to pick up a copy of the book yourself, it will be in select Barnes and Noble and Borders stores soon. It's available on-line right now, on her website and from Amazon (see the link at the end of the post). If you get the book, really do try the chickpeas!

Shrimp in Butter, Lime and Cilantro Sauce

With permission from Bindu Grandhi's Spice Up Your Life the Flexitarian Way

2 tablespoons extra light olive oil

1 onion, peeled and diced

2 green chilies, stemmed and split in half lengthwise

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

6 macadamia nuts, chopped

1 pound raw large shrimp, peeled, cleaned, deveined, and butterflied (I forgot to butterfly mine!)

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, washing and chopped

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 tablespoon butter

3/4 teaspoon salt.

Heal the oil in a medium nonstick skillet. Add onions, chilies, turmeric and macadamia nuts.

When onions are done (about 5-7 minutes), add shrimp, cilantro, lime juice and butter. Cook for 4-5 minutes, or until the shrimp is cooked through.

Add salt. Serve on a bed of plain pasta, basmati rice, or vegetable couscous.

Homemade KitKat Bars

Of all the classic candy bars, I have the most nostalgic relationship with the KitKat. Well, the KitKat and the Life Savor, because those are the two treats my grandmother would always bring to my sister and me when she watched us as children, before settling into an evening with the Golden Girls (remember them?).

I have to admit that I haven't had a KitKat in years. It's not a treat I normally buy for myself, it's so much better when it comes as a gift. I'm not going to tell you that these little treats would ever pass for the real thing. If you wanted something that tasted just like the Hersey's original, I'm sure there's a convenience store within easy access where you can just buy one. This is a slightly more inspired version, with a few more layers of flavor: peanut butter, butterscotch, chocolate, and the slight salt of the club crackers. Intrigued? Here's the recipe, right after a quick note.

As you may know if you've been reading along, I'm working on a PhD in art history. This week, I began studying for my oral exams, and will be on kind of a brutal schedule until December, when I sit for them. So things might slow down a little around here. And the focus will probably shift toward things that are quick to prepare and make for good leftovers. But to make it up to you, I've got a little something special coming up in the form of my first giveaway! So check back in a couple of days. Okay, onto the recipe.

Homemade KitKat Bars

From Paula Dean's Best Desserts

75 club crackers (I didn't actually count, just buy a box of crackers)

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

2 cups gram cracker crumbs (from about 14 graham cracker sheets)

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup whole milk (I used 1/2 and 1/2)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup cream peanut butter

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

1/2 cup butterscotch-flavored morsels

In an ungreased 13x9" baking sheet, put a layer of club crackers. You may need to cut a few in order to cover the entire base. I cut 2 crackers in half to lay them on the side.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then add the graham cracker crumbs, the brown sugar, the milk and the white sugar. I made the graham cracker crumbs simply by putting around 14 sheets of crackers in my mini food processor (in batches) and processing until they reached the consistency of fine crumbs.

Boil the mixture for 5 minutes (starting the timer the moment you start to see bubbles) and stir the entire time. Remove from the heat, and spread half of the mixture over the crackers already in the baking pan. I used an off-set spatula for this, but that's not necessary. Lay another layer of club crackers over the butter mixture. At this point, I returned the remaining half of the butter mixture to the heat for under one minute to get it flowing again. Spread the remainder of the butter mixture over the second layer of crackers. Add a final layer of crackers over the top.

In a small saucepan, melt the last three ingredients together, then spread this mixture over the third layer of crackers. Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Cut into bars and store in the refrigerator.

Paris Toast

So in my last post about Paris, I said that I hadn't done as many foodie things as I may have wanted. But I did have the single most amazing experience with French Toast I have ever had. I can't take much of the credit, however. When you're working with a loaf of brioche from the famed Eric Kayser boulangerie (which just happened to be right on my way home from the Louvre), along with fresh strawberries and basil from marché Rue Monge, it's hard to mess it up. This is a little different than my usual french bread, because I wanted to buy as few ingredients as possible. That means no cinnamon, no vanilla, and no corn starch to help thicken the sauce. But trust me, you won't miss any of those things.

So even if I didn't make the time to go into all of the amazing food shops I saw, I did take some pictures. At one point, I treated myself to a big hunk of nougat, like you see in the picture below. I tried to space it out over a couple of days, but willpower has never been one of my strengths.

Can you see our reflections in the window? More importantly, notice those bite-sized canelé at the bottom? I have a feeling a crust like doesn't just happen. Wish I had the extra money for a couple of those famed copper molds.

These next two are from this crazy flower shop that I walked by every day. Outside, there were always perched a handful of elderly, usually kind of drunk Parisians, sipping wine, or something harder. If you slowed your gait enough to get a look inside the flower shop, you'd see that the entire room was piled to the ceiling with flowers, stuffed animals, pots, feathers and other sundry. It looked as though a narrow path had been precariously carved into the drifts of stuff.

And finally, one shot of the Petit Palais from the inner garden. Most of the museum was closed for a re-hang, but there were plenty of Courbets still on view.

Okay, you've suffered enough through other people's vacation photos. Here's the recipe for Paris Toast:

Paris Toast

1 loaf day-old brioche

Juice of 1 orange

2 eggs

1 cup milk

Oil for frying

Whisk together the orange juice, the eggs and the milk. Slice the bread into however many slices of toast you'd like to eat. Dip each slice into the milk mixture and let it sit to absorb the milk for about 5 minutes. Turn once to get both sides wet. Heat oil in a pan, and fry each slice of toast for a couple of minutes on each side. Serve with Fresh Strawberry Basil Sauce (follows)

For the strawberry basil sauce

2 pints fresh strawberries

8 leaves fresh basil, chopped

1/2 cup sugar

Put all of the ingredients into a pot and boil until it reaches your desired consistency. Serve over toast.

Back from Paris

What do you say about Paris? I was lucky enough to receive funding for a research trip to Paris this summer, in preparation for my dissertation. Although I arrived in Paris with grand foodie plans, Clotilde's Edible Adventures in hand, food was much less a focus than I thought it would be. I ended up eating in Paris much the same way I eat in New York. Only better, of course.

A classmate of mine, also in Paris for research, and I rented an apartment on Rue Monge for just over two weeks, and wouldn't you know it, but that street's famous marché was just outside our doorstep. Above, is a picture of our first meal in Paris. A baguette from the neighboring boulangerie, a hunk of market foie gras and a plateful of huge, fresh figs. That was eating in Paris. We rarely went out to dinner, assembling most things in our little apartment kitchen, or taking picnics to various parks and bridges in the city.

Instead of rifling through gourmet food shops, I spent most of my time rifling through the archives at the Louvre. And the Louvre archives are spectacular. They're located through the Porte de Lions, one of the side entrances to the museum. That particular wing of the building is pictured above. I would have been sitting on the first floor according to the French, but the second floor according to the Americans. Here's a picture of the study room:

I spent 5 days in the archives, having boxes and boxes of 18th century drawings delivered to my side. The drawings were mounted, and I propped each up on a little stand as I took notes. Most days, I was alone in that huge marbled, muraled and gold-gilded room.

I also spent some time in the archives at the Musée Beaux Arts in Rennes, doing pretty much the same thing, only in a bit less impressive of a space. Otherwise, here's a list of the things I actually saw in Paris. And when I say I spent the day at a museum, that usually means between 4 - 5 hours, although not all museums require that much time. I'm hardcore like that.

Louvre and the Louvre archives (6 times)

Musée Beaux Arts, Rennes and archives (2 times)

Musée d'Orsay

Centre Georges Pompidou (2 times)

Musée Cluny

Musée Picasso

Petit Palais

Musée Delacroix

Panthéon (for the Puvis murals)

Villa Savoye

Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève

There are many things to love about all of these places. But one of the things I liked best about the Pompidou was the building itself, and the way it frames views of the city. These are two of my favorites.

Fresh Basil Pesto

Before I left, R and I were in Connecticut visiting my grandmother. We do this as often as we can, since she's always a great time to hang out with, she feeds us really well, and the quiet of Connecticut can be such a welcome respite from the damn sirens those police men and firefighters who work around the block from us in NYC insist on using all the time. And if there's one dish that always reminds me of Nana, it's pesto and tomatoes.

We were out there a little early for tomatoes, I'll admit. Usually they're the vine ripened kind actually ripened on a vine. In her garden. Heavy with juice and deeply red. The basil was always garden-fresh as well, and together they're irresistible. Last time, however, we had to make due with hothouse tomatoes (she was complaining, not me, just for the record). But really, Nana's pesto would be amazing smeared on cardboard. One of the things that makes this pesto better than any other pesto is the inclusion of parsley. Parsley and basil get along very well together. I may have let my inner glutton out a bit too easily at Nana's house, because I'm not sure anyone else really got any. Wish I could say I felt guilty.

The picture above is of the batch she sent home with me. She added less oil to that one than to the one I demolished at her house, so that I could control the level myself. The recipe below calls for the correct amount of oil.

Nana's Fresh Basil Pesto

1 cup packed, snipped basil

1/2 cup snipped parsley

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts (optional) - we didn't bother with these this time

2 cloves garlic, quartered

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup olive oil

Blend the first 6 ingredients in a food processor until they form a thick paste. Slowly add the oil, with the machine still on, until it becomes the consistency of butter. The pesto can be refrigerated for up to a week or frozen for longer.