Chloe's Zucchini Coconut Loaf! (with cream cheese filling, mmm)

This is one of my favorite loaves along with pumpkin for the fall/harvest season. It might sound like a strange mix at first but trust me, your taste buds will thank you for such a delightful mixture and healthy(ier?) dessert option.
(Photos to come, I think Dan has my camera cord...grrr.)

What you will need:
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 and 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 package (4 oz) of cream cheese
1 cup grated unpeeled (but washed) zucchini
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/2 cups AP flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground whole nutmeg
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
 
Make your Batter:
In one bowl take 1 of your eggs and beat with 1 cup of sugar, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and grated unpeeled zucchini.
 
In another bowl combine your flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg (grated whole nutmeg adds much more flavor), coconut and optional walnuts for an extra crunch. Stir to combine thoroughly. Pour egg mixture over your dry ingredients and stir everything together til moist.
 
Make your filling:
In yet another bowl make your cream cheese filling by combining the half packet of room temperature cream cheese, egg and half cup of sugar. Stir til creamed.
 
Layer, Bake, Eat (Prayer and Love optional):
Pour 1/3 to half of your batter down in a greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Drop spoonfuls of cream cheese filling in center and cover with remaining half of batter. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F. for an hour to an hour, 15 mins. or check with a toothpick til it comes out clean. Great for sharing with your family & friends over the next football game, this years Thanksgiving meal, or just to enjoy on your own with your favorite beer like me. Tonight I decided to pair with UFO's Raspberry Hefeweizen.

Tomato Tricks

Self admittedly, I have been quite lazy these past few weeks and haven't bothered to post anything of substance. In an effort to get back on track I'll leave you this evening with a simple cooking tip. It's a simple technique that adds only 4 or 5 minutes to your cooking times, but it is easy to accomplish and worth the investment.

When you cook tomatoes, especially stewing or braising, they tend to have thick skins that do not breakdown. Anyone who has made any type of fresh tomato sauce has inevitably seen the result of not seeding and peeling the tomato prior to cooking. Seeds are quite noticeable no matter how thick of a sauce you make and the skins tend to curl up into little cigarettes and can be chewy and uninviting. Skins and seeds also, obviously, effect the flavor of the dish generally in a direction I do not enjoy. So, to remove the skin and seeds from your tomatoes you can perform the following.

To Peel:
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Nothing crazy, just enough to cover the tomatoes or at least a few at a time if you want to work in batches. Do not salt the water.

Remove the core from the tomato, if you like, and at the opposite end make an X through the bottom no more than a 1/4 inch in depth. You can do it easily with a paring knife. Gently drop the tomatoes into the boiling water, return to a boil, and cook for about 3 minutes. You should see the skin just barely starting to curl back on itself.

Immediately remove the tomatoes and place them into an ice bath. An ice bath is simply just a bowl with ice and water. It will shock the tomatoes, stopping the cooking almost instantly and cooling them down to a temperature that is low enough so that you can hold them in your hands.

Once the tomatoes are cool enoughto handle, using the paring knife peel the remainder of the skin and discard.

To Seed:
At this point you can cook with them if you like or you can run them through a food mill to break them down and remove the remaining seeds. If you aren't lucky enough to have a food mill simply cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze them with your hand over a bowl. It will remove the seeds and gel from the interior of the tomato leaving you with just the tomato flesh. You can strain this gel and reduce it or add it back to your sauce. Keep enough of it and you can turn even turn it into ketchup. The seeds, go plant them...

Now obviously there are instances where this is completely unnecessary, however, any time you are going to cook the tomatoes into a dish, say ratatouille or a tomato sauce, I highly recommend using this technique first. Your finished product will easily reflect the extra step.

Mast Brothers Chocolate, Quite the Influence

http://www.http//www.mastbrotherschocolate.com/

The two of us visited an artisan chocolatier in Brooklyn yesterday. Rick and Michael Mast are self described craft chocolatiers, importing high quality raw cocao and transforming it into a delicate, subtle, delicious chocolate bar far and above that produced by companies like Nestle or Hershey. I will write another post going into more detail later when I have some pictures to post. What I do want to write about however is a chord struck by the older brother Rick from yesterdays tour. He simply stated, so many American's, not to mention billions of people around the world, regard chocolate as one of their loved foods. A large percentage of people when asked what their favorite thing is or what they could eat every day would respond with chocolate as an answer. Interestingly enough, not many people actually know where chocolate comes from, how its made, its intricacies and nuances. 

That started me thinking. As common as chocolate is in many of our diets something all of us eat daily and rarely think twice about is bread.

Bread comes in hundreds of varieties, flavors, textures, styles etc. Recipes are as unique to the baker as grandma's tomato sauce is to the Italian. It's history goes back hundreds and hundreds of years and is as complex as a rubik's cube. Yet, not many people really know anything about it other than we find it near the eggs in the supermarket and that it contains a bunch of awkwardly named chemicals so it can sit on our counters for weeks without going bad. If you have ever tasted a well baked bread you will understand it is so much more. The flavors are delicate and deep and infinitely versatile. From crunchy and tangy to soft and sweet the ratio of ingredients are endless constantly producing new flavors and textures. If you ever try to make bread from scratch it becomes even more evident how much of an art form bread baking is and it is one that has caught my eye like the Seurat in Chicago.

So for this reason over the past few weeks I have been reading as much as I can about bread making and will begin my experimentation into homemade bread. As I perfect the recipes I'll keep you updated and try and make it as accessible to the home cook as possible.  I've started with a focaccia recipe that is very versatile and after one attempt is promisingly simple. I'm going to follow this up with one of the many hearth breads, possibly a french baguette and then a simple white bread loaf. So, stay tuned and we really encourage you if you follow our blog to try to reproduce one or two of the recipes and let us know how it goes!

Bridal Shower White-Chocolate Oatmeal Craisin Cookies!

While Dan was recovering from his previously mentioned ER trip(S) I had to run away to attend my best friend's bridal shower, of which these were the table decorations/gift favors:

This is a cute idea for a shower gift for your guests and is also delicious.  The recipe is based off the back of a bag of Craisins, but modified to fit into a standard size jam jar.

Ingredients for jars:

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar
3/4 cups quick cooking oats
3/4 cups AP flour
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup dried cranberries

Other Ingredients required (which obviously can't be pre-mixed into jars):
1 egg
1/3 cup butter softened to room temperature
1/3 teaspoon vanilla extract

mmmmm!

Directions
Mix the butter, sugar and vanilla on medium speed until creamed. Be sure to scrape the bowl every 30 seconds or so. Add the egg and mix until well blended and smooth.

In a separate bowl, mix the remaining dry ingredients reserving only the cranberries and dry oats. Incorporate dry ingredients into the creamed mixture in a single batch. Mix on low until just blended. Don't over mix or it will toughen the gluten in the cookies and ruin the texture. Fold in the oats and cranberries. Place onto parchment paper and roll into a tube. Refrigerate the mixture to cool the butter and let the gluten settle before baking.

Slice and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350F until golden brown and delicious. Cool on a wire rack.

Warning:
So, if you are using the recipe as a party favor, it's quite difficult to complete the recipe as a recipient because the ingredients will mix somewhat in the jar. No big deal of course, you can obviously bypass the recipe and just mix wet and dry ingredients and go at it. The end outcome won't be quite the same but it will be good in its own right. We were discussing and came up with a few ideas that might be simple and cheap enough to stop the ingredients from mixing in the jar. You can cut parchment paper into rounds using an empty food can and place them between the ingredient layers, or you can bag each ingredient separately into a colored cheesecloth and place in a slightly larger jar. This way you get to have your ingredients and eat them too. If anyone out there is reading and tries out the recipe, do us a favor and let us know the end result.

I Went to Culinary School and All I Got Was This Stupid Inflamed Intestine

So, long story short, after a long weekend of eating various cuisines with my friend Logan, who is currently serving our country in Japan, I managed to develop some internal pain. After two trips to the ER this unfortunate turn of events has rendered me semi lifeless and pretty much stuck at home unable to eat solid foods for a few days. The unimportant are the details, the important is the food.

My cousin was gracious enough to make me some soup. It is a revitalized version of my grandfather's escarole and bean soup and very simple to make and quite delicious. I'm going to write her version because I ate it and it was great, and then give a couple of variations that sound like they might be pretty good.

Ingredients:
4oz onions, diced.
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 heads of escarole, torn into bite size pieces
5 cans of vegetable stock
15 ounce can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
olive oil
Good quality parmigiano-reggiano

The time tested delicious version:
Heat the olive oil on medium high in a tall stockpot or marmite.
Brown the garlic cloves on oil sides till dark brown, but not black, and remove them from the pan. Now add the onions and cook until translucent. When nearly finished add the escarole. It will seem like a lot but will wilt down quickly and saute until fragrant and soft. Next comes the beans and vegetable stock. Simmer until flavors meld and season with salt and fresh cracked pepper. Do not oversalt the soup, the cheese is quite salty and will complete the rest of the seasoning of the dish.  Serve in a shallow bowl with crusty italian bread and freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano on top.

Time tested and classic this dish is great and also vegetarian. Yummmm

For a few notches in the carnivorous belt you can:
-Start by sauteing some bacon lardons. I would use a bacon that isn't too smokey as to not overwhelm the other flavors. If you can't find any you can blanch the lardons a couple of times in boiling water to remove some of the smoky flavor.

-You can use homemade chicken stock or vegetable stock as well. Chicken stock is probably a little more authentic but the vegetable was great also.

-Another great thing is to make little meatballs of lamb, pork, veal, or beef and add them to the cooking liquid. Sausage would also work and you can add it to the recipe when you saute the lardons. If you add the sausage in the beginning, remove it after cooking and then reintroduce it at the end of the recipe so they don't dry out.

-For a more fresh presentation and to remove just a touch of bitterness from the escarole you can blanch the greens in boiling water for just a minute or two and shock them in cold water. This will lock in the bright green color and remove some of the bitterness. This can be used on all types of bitter greens.

 Hopefully someone will try out at least some version of this and let me know how it goes. My cousin was spot on and I burned through 2 quarts of this in a day. Delicious.