Cauliflower "Pizza"

When I started dating my husband six years ago, I remember his father would visit New York for business and we would go to such fancy, delicious restaurants. It wasn't just a desire for good food that drove us to these places, my future father-in-law was on a very strict diet, similar to that of individuals who have Celiacs disease. More upscale restaurants were accommodating and also had delicious varieties of the protein + veggie entrees that he was limited to. The two biggest limitations were gluten and processed sugar, then a number of other foods like corn and melon and potatoes. As an Asian person who likes to cook, the first time I wanted to prepare a meal for him I thought...what the $%#! can I make?! He can't eat fish sauce! No noodles! No rice! 

Being so close to someone with these eating limitations actually became a really fun challenge for me, and opened me to a different relationship with food. I couldn't rely on a starch or prepared condiments to build flavor or mental food satisfaction -- I had to rely on building flavor naturally. What a great door to be forced to walk through! Since then his diet his become way less limited -- I remember how relieved I felt when we discovered potatoes and rice products didn't make him sick anymore before our wedding. However, the lessons in cooking I learned are still there and I still get excited to try new gluten free variations of familiar foods. Like this cauliflower "pizza" crust! 

This is not as crunchy and bready as a real pizza crust, so any expectation of that needs to be eliminated before trying this. BUT, it is still delicious and worth trying even if you are not gluten intolerant. No yeast, yummy cauliflower, and it still had the notes of pizza flavor you crave. If you are gluten intolerant and have missed pizza, this is awesome.

Tips before giving this a go -- squeezing out the water out of the cauliflower is very very important and makes the difference between a crispy crust versus a floppy one. Also, let the crust stay in the oven just a tad longer than you think it should be in there -- let that cheese get brown and crisp up.

To top the pizza, I just pureed a can of San Marzano tomatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper. I like my pizza sauce tangy, less on the sweet side. Enjoy!

Cauliflower "Pizza" Crust

Florets from 1 medium sized head of cauliflower (about 3 cups once processed), washed + dried
1/4 tspn kosher salt 
1/2 tspn dried oregano

1/2 tspn dried parsley 

1/2 tspn garlic powder
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese
1 egg + 1 egg white, beaten
2 tblspns almond meal

Special equipment: pizza stone (or baking sheet)

Place a pizza stone (or baking sheet) in the oven. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Prepare a piece of parchment paper and spray it with nonstick cooking oil. 

Pulse the florets in a food processor for about 30 seconds, until it's crumbly and looks like cous cous. Microwave the cauliflower for about 4 minutes. Let the cauliflower cool for a bit (otherwise this next part will hurt your hands!). Wrap the cooked cauliflower in a dish towel and squuuuuuuueeeeze until you feel you've gotten as much water as you can out of the cooked cauliflower.

Place the cauliflower in a bowl and add the cheeses, salt, dried herbs, garlic powder, almond meal, and eggs. Combine the ingredients with your hands and form it into a ball.

Place the ball on the parchment paper and start pressing it + patting it into a round pizza-like shape. Don't press it too thin, and try not to have gaps around the edge of your pizza.

Slide the parchment paper onto the hot pizza stone. Bake for about 11 minutes, until it starts to turn golden brown. Cool the crust by delicately placing the parchment sheet on a cookie rack.

Add your pizza sauce and toppings (this one has spinach, freshly grated mozzarella and turkey pepperoni) then place the pizza with the parchment paper back in the oven for another 5-7 minutes until the cheese is melted and nice and brown.

Let the pizza cool for a few minutes on the cookie rack before serving.

The Piglette making little piglets

I was in a mode where I was super motivated to update this blog regularly and devote a good portion of my summer to making fresh, light, beautiful meals. I was going to be super hostess and have fun tapas parties and grill outs galore....until I found out I was pregnant in May. Then I became tired. And lazy. And a huge fan of things like donuts and Skyline and basically anything that I didn't have to prepare myself. I get bursts now and then -- and it manifests itself on my Instagram page -- but not so much here. Because mostly I've been eating things like this:

However, I have been trying to balance out my meals so that I'm not a complete glutton destined for gestational diabetes. Anything crunchy and watery has been right up my alley -- watermelon, grapes, pickles. I have also become obsessed with green tomatoes. The squirrels in our neighborhood get to the red tomatoes before we do, so initially using green tomatoes arose out of necessity. I didn't have any red tomatoes on hand and I wanted to throw them in a salad. The green tomatoes were just staring at me outside so I thought why not? Now I actually prefer them to red tomatoes in a lot of things because you always know that they'll be firm -- you'll never get caught off guard but a mushy, grainy green tomato. It's wonderful! I mixed in some green tomatoes for a panzanella-like salad

 

I made a green tomato salad with pickled pistachio relish (recipe here: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/green-tomatoes-with-pistachio-relish)

I threw green tomatoes into a calamari salad with thinly sliced celery, onions and a lemon parsley vinaigrette, I've been dreaming about how they'd taste juiced -- there are so many possibilities! Since summer is not officially over yet, it's a great time to make use of these green beauties rather than waiting around until they ripen to turn them into sauce (although that is also a very worthy, delicious use).

On a personal level, I read this blog post by Emily Henderson tonight about her sixth months of pregnancy: http://stylebyemilyhenderson.com/blog/6-month-pregnancy-update/. I am five months along and I related to so much of her post. I am also incredibly in love with my husband right now, and I feel so grateful that he is the father of my child and that he will be my parenting partner. I have been riding the hormone rollercoaster for sure... One morning Tyler and I were walking to a bakery for donuts and we ran into a really kind, sweet neighbor who had the audacity to want to stop and talk to us. At the time, I felt like I'd never been more furious or impatient in my life. Why was she interrupting my donut run?! And there was that day I cried because Tyler wouldn't go to Target with me... I do however love being pregnant. Even on the days when I wasn't feeling well -- it boggles my mind that there is a thing growing inside me which eventually will became a full sized human. It is insane and I can't believe this is how people are made. I love not caring about sucking in my stomach. I love how my maternal instincts are in hyperdrive right now and I just want to love and mother everyone (when my hormones aren't telling me otherwise). I love imagining Tyler as a father. It's just such a happy time and I don't care (right now) about becoming a big ol' whale. It is incredible that I get to experience this and I am so happy. We are also in the process of buying a house -- we're under contract and we're hoping to get most of the work done that needs to be done before January rolls around. I can't wait for this baby room! I am more excited about that one room than I am about that whole house.

So even though I'm not devoting as much time cooking and learning about food as I hoped I would at the beginning of the summer, I am very very excited about what's taken over that part of my brain and stomach instead. Maybe being pregnant will inspire me to combine things in a way worthy of posting so I can remember it even when I'm not driven by 3 am ramen cravings...

Adventures in Hungarian Cooking....

I am so excited to post this recipe. As I mentioned in my last post, my friend Eszter and I are swapping cooking lessons, teaching each other how to make dishes from our respective cultures. This weekend she taught me the secrets of her incredibly savory and delicious beef stew. Oh my goodness, I can't describe how happy this stew makes me. You know that delicious onion taste that coats your tongue when you eat a French onion soup? That rounded taste that you just want to savor for a moment before you take your next spoonful? That's how this soup tastes. Serve it with some spaetzle like pasta, a side of crunchy, tangy cucumber salad and check off another country on your culinary repertoire.

Hungarian Beef Stew

1-2 onions, diced
3 tbspns. canola oil
2 tbspns. Hungarian paprika
About 3 lbs. stew beef, cut into cubes
Flour
2 tbspns. seasoned salt (Eszter tells me Vegeta and Maggi are her preferred brands)
1 jug of cheap wine, like Carlo Rossi Burgundy
Noodles/pasta (recipe follows, or you can use this)

Sautee the diced onion in the canola oil in a nice big soup pot until translucent. Add the paprika, stir. Add the stew meat and cook until lightly browned. Sift enough flour into the pot to lightly coat all the beef and stir. Add the red wine to the pot, enough to cover the beef and onion mixture, and the seasoned salt. Cook on high heat in a crockpot until the meat is tender, at least 3 hours and up to 6 hours. If you don't have a crockpot, you can prepare this stew in an ovenproof pot and heat it covered in a 350 degree oven for 4 hours.

Serve with fresh pasta and enjoy!

Pasta
2 eggs
1 cup of water
Salt
All purpose flour

Heat a large pot of salted water to boil. Whisk the eggs, a pinch of salt and water together. Start adding flour to the eggs-water until you get a wet shaggy mix, stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon. Add more water if you've added too much flour, add more flour if you have too much water. Once you've reached this consistency, start stirring pretty vigorously until you get a smooth, more doughlike mixture.

Once the pot of water boils, place a colander with large holes or a Spaetzle maker (like this) over the boiling water. Start pressing batches of the dough through the holes into the water, removing the pasta from the water once the bits float to the surface. You can toss the cooked pasta with some oil to keep it from sticking.

Cucumber Salad  (optional but tasty)
(for 2 servings)

1 long English cucumber
Salt
2 tbspns. white distilled vinegar
3 tbspns. sugar
1 clove of garlic, minced (you can add more to taste)
Sour cream
Hungarian sweet paprika

Thinly slice the cucumber using a mandoline and place into a bowl. Sprinkle 2 generous pinches of salt over the cucumbers and let sit for about 5-10 minutes. Pour out the water that is released after this time (Eszter doesn't). Add the minced garlic, sugar and vinegar. Toss the cucumbers in this mixture. Top the cucumber mixture with a generous amount of sour cream (like a 1/4 cup) and sprinkle some paprika on top. Cover and refrigerate until time to eat.

Weekend (Culinary) Projects

I have been in transition for the past two months (three?). My husband and I sold our house and are currently living with his parents while we look for a new house. Packing up my kitchen was pretty bittersweet -- over the next few months I'll be missing my bowls, my glasses, my familiar utensils... All those things that don't truly matter in the big picture but are noticeably missing when you love to cook as much as I do.

But enough whining. Between the move and my friend Tara moving and my anniversary and birthdays and living in a new neighborhood with more restaurants to check out, there has been way too many opportunities/excuses to eat out. It's been a slow start but now I am getting back to tinkering in the kitchen again (and hopefully updating this blog more regularly!).

My current neighbor has been a good friend for the past few years. She is a lovely Hungarian-born woman who moved here from London. I used to babysit her children and one very wonderful benefit of doing that was being able to taste her delicious Hungarian cooking. Now that we're neighbors, we are starting a cooking swap. Last week she came over and I taught her how to make a few variations on summer rolls. Today I went over to her house nice and early to start learning how to prepare her Hungarian beef stew. She told me that in Hungary, she would still eat a variation of this stew but it would be cooking in a nice big pot over a fire pit outside, accompanied with some crusty bread. That is such a lovely image and I can't wait to taste the results tonight! If I manage to recreate this magic I will definitely share.

I am also starting to get excited about my weekend breakfasts again and I decided to prep a loaf of cranberry + orange zest + pecan bread for tomorrow morning using my favorite easy recipe (click through for the recipe).

I also made some treats to include in another dear friend's birthday present. Frannie is a wonderful, super creative, fun chef (and friend) and I am very lucky to be the recipient of her treats from time to time. For Christmas, she gave me a Sazerac in a mason jar, local honey, sparklers, and cookies which included chocolate chips, pretzels and potato chips. For my birthday, she gave me homemade smoked salt and homemade bourbon vanilla extract. She's amazing. For her birthday, I wanted to flex my creative culinary muscle and push myself to explore gourmet homemade gifts. It's been really fun!

Frannie loves chocolate. This spread, although pretty thick, is delicious on toast! You can of course add more coconut oil and more honey to taste, but these are good starting measurements. Heating up the almond butter will also help with spreadability.

Chocolate Almond Pecan Butter
(makes 1 small tasty mason jar)

1 cup almonds
1/4 cup pecans
1 1/2 tbspn. honey (I used some Gorman Heritage Farm honey for any Cincinnatians reading this)
1/4 cup coconut oil
2 tbspns. chocolate chips
1/2 tbspn. good quality cocoa powder
Sea salt

Finely grind the almonds and pecans in a food processor. Add the coconut oil, sea salt and 1 tbspn. honey and process until the mixture becomes nice and smooth (this may take a while, be patient). Add more coconut oil depending on your desired consistency, but be careful not to make the spread too liquidy.

Once you reach your desired consistency, add the cocoa powder, chocolate chips and 1/2 tbspn. of honey. Process further until all the ingredients are well blended.

For Frannie's present, I am also including a jar of infused vodka which I think will be perfect for making bloody marys. There are plenty of resources and ideas on the web -- I was inspired by the Fine Cooking website: http://www.finecooking.com/item/27069/spicy-infusions-make-better-bloody-marys

Spicy Bloody Mary Vodka

1 bottle vodka (good, but not too good)
1 tbpn. chili flakes
2 stalks of celery, quartered with leaves

Let this mixture steep for at least 24 hours, then after that to taste. Once the vodka has reached your preferred level of spiciness/celeryness, strain all the solids out and keep the vodka in the freezer until you use it.

Hope everyone else is having as tasty a weekend as I'm having!

The road to eating organic

It is difficult sometimes to make the choice to buy organic produce. The difference in price on a quart of strawberries means nothing in a singular purchase, but a whole basket full of organic produce purchased on a weekly basis adds up. A while ago I remember watching an episode of Ellie Krieger's cooking show on the Food Network where she suggested buying some organic produce rather than all organic. As a guideline, she suggested buying organic whenever you were going to eat the peel or outside of the fruit or vegetable. For example - strawberries? Organic. Cantaloupe? Non organic. I have incorporated that idea into my shopping ever since. Now when I shop, I incorporate organic and locally grown items with other items I buy for economy. 

I came across this list in the September 2012 issue of Whole Living which I think is handy for anyone else who would like to try this shopping philosophy. It is a list of produce, ranked from bad to worst in terms of residual pesticide levels when produced using conventional farming methods. You can also download an app from the Environmental Working Group website (http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/guide/) to use as a shopper's guide to pesticides in produce. 

1) Potatoes

2) Blueberries (domestic)

3) Cucumbers

4) Lettuce

5) Spinach

6) Grapes

7) Nectarines (imported)

8) Strawberries

9) Peaches

10) Red peppers

11) Celery

12) Apples

Eating my way around New York.

 [Momofuku]

[BBQ in Koreatown]

 [Coffee cake from Pip's gluten free bakery]

 [Amazing lobster goodness at The Lobster Joint in Greenpoint]

[Ice cream with local beer + honey comb crunchies at Ample Hills Creamery]

[The birthday meal my mother prepared for me - banh xeo]

 [Clam pizza at Pepe's in Yonkers]

 [Garlic knots!]

[Some Tonkatsu and soup dumplings in Flushing]

Fried Artichoke + Lemon Sandwich

This sandwich was the result of a perfect storm of things. I've never cooked/prepped fresh artichokes before and I've been meaning to conquer this fear. I spotted a big container of baby artichokes at the supermarket and just bit the bullet. Also, after my experiment with scotch eggs over the weekend, I am a frying machine! I am addicted to the euphoria you get when you see a delicious brown crust on the food you're cooking. While I was prepping the lemon water for the artichokes, I remembered how much I absolutely love fried lemons on a plate of fried calamari. Lastly, I bought a baguette the other day and needed to get rid of it before our trip to New York. The best things can come from trying to use up stuff in your fridge.



The result? Fried yumminess.


(makes 4 sandwiches)

1 baguette, cut into four sections
2 lbs. baby artichokes
8 thinly sliced pieces of lemon, plus extra for lemon water
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tspns. salt, plus additional for sprinkling after frying
Black pepper
2 tspns. garlic powder
Vegetable oil for frying
Asiago cheese block (or about a 1/4 - 1/3 cup finely shredded Asiago cheese. You can also use Parmesan)
Slices of salami or prosciutto
Mayonaise
Mixed spring greens (optional)


Fill a big bowl with cold water and squeeze about half a lemon into it.

Prep the baby artichokes and cut them in half. This is a great slideshow on how to prep baby artichokes: http://www.bonappetit.com/tipstools/slideshows/2010/06/how_to_prep_baby_artichokes#slide=1

As you slice the artichokes, place them in the lemon water bath so they don't brown.

Heat some vegetable oil to 350F (or do the chopstick thing I reference in my other recipes).

Combine the flour, salt, black pepper to taste, and garlic powder in a bowl. Pat dry the artichokes and then dredge the artichokes and thin slices of lemon in the flour. Tap the excess flour off and place carefully in the hot frying oil. Fry until crispy brown, about 2-4 minutes each batch. When the lemons and artichokes are done, sprinkle some salt on them and top with finely shredded Asiago cheese.

To layer your sandwich: Mayo. Greens (if using). Salami. Fried chokes + 2 pieces of fried lemon + cheese. Chomp.

Scotch Eggs

Scotch eggs are something I've always heard about, but have never actually eaten or seen on a menu before. Maybe I'm just going to the wrong places (although growing up in a Vietnamese house probably has to do with me not trying one for the first 18 years of my life). This weekend I decided to just go for it and I am so happy to say it was a success! The moment I cut into this thing and saw that I did not completely overcook the egg into a pale yellow sad sack, I had culinary euphoria. I was so excited. I am still excited and it's long been eaten. I used turkey sausage because I liked the idea of a lighter taste to contrast the fried coating -- it's not exactly health food I know, but I preferred not to have too much extra fat that wasn't going to contribute to my enjoyment of the dish. Perdue has some good turkey sausages, I'm sure Findlay Market has very interesting varieties of sausage to experiment with (there's a lamb and cherry one that could be great I think). I highly highly recommend cooking the eggs beforehand and letting them cool overnight -- this helps make the eggs super easy to peel the next morning and slow the cooking of the egg once you fry it.

I can try for a runny egg next time, but for now, this'll do. This will do.

(for 2 servings)

3 large eggs 

2 turkey sausage links (in casing)

1/2 cup of flour 

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

Vegetable oil for frying

Cover 2 of the eggs with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook for 3 minutes. Take off the stove, submerge in cold water, and drain. Place the eggs in the fridge overnight. 

The next morning, crack the uncooked egg and mix it with about a tablespoon of water. Whisk it a little bit to make an egg wash.  Set up your breading station and lay out the flour and panko.

Remove the sausage from its casing but keep each portion separate. Carefully peel the previously boiled eggs (although if you mess up a tiny bit, no one will know!). Wrap each egg with the meat from one sausage link so that it completely covers the egg -- no egg white peeping out -- and forms a ball. Dredge each sausage ball into the flour, tap to remove excess flour. You can play hot potato a little bit with it to remove the excess flour. Next, dip it in the egg wash mixture, then dip it in the panko crumbs.

Heat the frying oil to 350F degrees. If you don't have a fry thermometer, I heat the oil until I dip a wooden chopstick into the oil and bubbles start quickly forming around the tip. Place the balls into the frying oil. Cook each egg for 4-6 minutes, rotating a few times in the oil. 

Slice into it and enjoy, pat yourself on the back.