Cooking Debauchery

Calzone Chameleon

I knew the dough was gonna be trouble from the moment I read the recipe.  I had trepidations when I read that the dough was to be sticky and the ratio of ingredients.  But I made the dough for the latest DB challenge anyway.

As promised, it stuck to my hands, to the sides of the mixing bowl, to the dough hook, and clung with great fervor to the scale when I tried to weight it.  It clung to the point where even though I had dusted every available surface that the dough could have touched with flour I was still finding bits of it a week later.

Having wrangled it into the fridge, I thought it would get easier.

Irish Soda Bread

Created for the St. Patrick's Day: Green or Irish Event hosted by Kotchtopf

Even 15 years hence I still remember the welcoming warmth of Ireland.

I was still in college when I went.  It was only for a week and a half but the memories of that trip have lasted a life time.  I have never been to a place more open, a place where the people are friendlier or more welcoming.

Though I was with a tour group, I was the only solo participant.  And being far more adventurous than my typically more elderly tour companions I managed to find myself in the oddest of places.

It was while traveling around the Ring of Kerry that I first tasted Irish soda bread.

Pine Nut-Honey Butter

It sometimes takes going someplace vivid and exciting to get me out of a cooking slump.

It may be the touch of Winter’s cold hand that does it, but it feels like every recipe I look at is similar to one I did before.  The stews that were so comforting a few months ago seem limiting and dull.

I yearn for the creativity that springs bounty of fresh vegetables brings.  The verdant, saturated colors of produces, bursting open after a long winter nap.  I can already see it in the farmer’s market.

Vivid green peapods, curling vines and herbs are beginning to creep in.  They are almost here.  My cooking creativity yawns with them, peeking one eye open then sleepily closing again.  It waits for something to jolt it awake.

And last week’s trip to the Grand Canyon may have just done the trick.

Cherry Vareniki

There are things that one misses from childhood.

Remembered flavors; favorite dishes.  For most of us, those flavors are reproducible.  They are our mother’s and grandmother’s recipes lovingly passed from generation to generation.

But for me, capturing the fleeting flavors of my childhood is not as easy.  I was 7 and a half when I left the Ukraine with my family.  Leaving behind the gregarious circle of the women who shaped my impressions of food and cooking.

These were the kind of women, like most of their generation that cooked well but did so by feel and taste.  And because back then communication was limited, my mother came with only the recipes that she cooked often.

And so my absolute childhood favorite was lost.

Oladiya

I believe that most of the cuisine of Europe, with the exception of a few regional specialties is the same. 

Having lived and tasted Europe, the main different between Italian, German, Russian, British, and French is the sauce.  The exceptions to this rule seem to be at the edges; where weather and isolation tend to transmute the cuisine.  But anyone raised in the core of Europe could travel anywhere else and recognize the food.

There are of course a few things that cross the cultural boundary, not just of one culture but of cultures all over the world.  Pancakes are one of those things.

Pancakes are as ubiquitous as salt and come in more varieties.  All of them delicious.

Caramel Roasted Pineapple

It is said that our taste buds are completely replaced every 10 years. 

While there is no official evidence that our tastes change in that period, there is certainly enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that perhaps as our taste buds change so do our tastes.

And because I never know when that change will happen, every few years I re-try things that I have not liked in the past.

Sometimes, it even works.

Much to my delight that was exactly what happened with this roasted pineapple.

Fresh Cranberry Sauce

Ban the Can!  Ban the Can!

Hi I am a representative of the Fresh Cranberry Sauce Council and I approved this message!

My opponent, canned cranberry sauce, is a disappointing gelatinous mess!

It lurks on the Thanksgivings table amid all of the homey dishes prepared with care like a prehistoric gelatinous monster.  A hideous concoction suited better to horror movies than to a traditional sacred supper.

What could this lurking horror possibly offer over fresh cranberry sauce?

Not So Piggy Pudding

Submitted for Sweetnick's ARF/5 A-day blogging event.

“I want a sandwich!”

Was my brother’s first reaction in response to what I was going to be serving for Sunday brunch.

In his defense, I admit that it did sound a little weird!

Sausage and apple pudding isn’t exactly what I would call standard fare around my house.  As a matter of fact, the term pudding is rarely if ever heard here.  And if it is, I am usually the one saying it.

However, this was definitely a case of “The proof was in the pudding.”

Pumpkin Muffins

Submited for Sweetnick's AFR/5-a day Tuesday

It’s that time again!

Halloween!  My favorite holiday!

When my mind automatically turns to thoughts of rotund fiery orange gourds!  There is just something about them – all orange and stripety – that makes me happy!

How can anyone resist a smile when they look upon a jack-o-lantern?

Pumpkins seem to call to fall.  To warm soups and bracingly crisp winds!  They seem to summon steam from cooking pots and smoke from chimneys.  It is pumpkins that hale the turning of the leaves.  Sweater weather.

And it is their cooking scent that seems to cut the ribbon on the opening of “Holiday Season.”

I have been seeing them in stores.  Gingerly peeking from behind flowers and potted plants.  Easing their way towards the spot light.  Pumpkin patches are beginning to spring up like mushrooms and with them the candy isles are filling with orange and black.

The pumpkins are calling to me as well.  They beckon with soft promises of creamy baked pies and cinnamon scented breads.

I am helpless against their siren song!

Yogurt and Brown Sugar Panna Cotta

I have to admit a certain weakness for cool creamy desserts.  While I have a huge sweet tooth in general, given the choice I will always pick creamy over cakey.  This is why I prefer frosting to cake to the point of eating away a particularly tasty frosting and leaving nothing but denuded sleds of dry cake.

As a matter of fact, given the choice of what dessert I would have for the rest of my days, I would choose crème brulee, hands down every time and twice on Sunday.  Crème brulee is the kind of dessert which will never fail to tempt me on a dessert menu.

Alas, as much as I love crème brulee, it is fussy and time consuming to make.  And while I can’t deny that making crème brulee is well worth the effort, it is not something to be done spur of the moment in the middle of the night just because.  Panna Cotta is!