Chocolate Bundt Cake

I made this a while back but forgot to post about it. Fortunately, there is no chocolate season (or off-season) in my book, so this is as appropriate now that we are entering summer as it was a couple of months ago. As usual, credit for another great recipe goes to Food52 - this recipe won the Best Chocolate Cake contest more than a year ago and has been featured in many Food52 round-ups (again, probably because chocolate has no season and the recipe is great). I suggest learning from my mistakes and waiting much less than a year to make this chocolatey goodness.

Chocolate Bundt Cake
Adapted from Food52

2 cups sugar
1¾ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cups Dutch process cocoa powder, plus more for dusting
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup sour milk
1 cup freshly brewed strong black coffee
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F with rack in the middle. Butter a bundt pan and dust the inside with cocoa powder. Set aside.

2. Sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl. Set aside.

3. In a mixer on low, add the milk, coffee, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla one at a time. Mix until everything is incorporated. Then, with the mixer still on low speed, slowly add in the dry ingredients. Once all of the flour mixture is added, mix the batter for a full four minutes on medium speed.

4. Pour the batter into the bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool to room temperature. If desired, dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Fig and Blue Cheese Savories

We went to a going-away cocktail party recently (the kind where the hosts are trying to put to good use all of the alcohol they can't/don't feel like moving to their new place), and while we were asked not to bring additional wine/beer, we were invited to bring snacks. I wanted to do something bite-size, non-sweet, and easy, since we were also hosting out-of-town friends that weekend.

The easy part was slightly questionable only because our current kitchen has tiled counters, so rolling any type of dough is always a bit of a challenge. (I ended up doing it on a big bamboo cutting board. Special thanks to Mihai who made the indentations and placed the fig jam filling while I struggled to roll out the dough and cursed whoever came up with the idea of tiled counters.) If you aren't plagued with tiled counters however, this is a great recipe since the dough otherwise comes together very quickly in a food processor.

Word of warning: if you are serving this at a party, it may make sense to create some sort of sign for what this is - Mihai and I thought these were really tasty, as did some of the other party guests, but apparently those who were expecting a sweet cookie were in for a bit of a surprise.

Fig and Blue Cheese Savories
Adapted from Food52

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup butter, room temperature
4 oz blue cheese, crumbled
Ground black pepper
Fig preserves, about 3 tablespoons

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Place the flour, butter, blue cheese and a few grinds of black pepper in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the dough just comes together and starts to form a ball.

3. Lay out a couple of sheets of plastic (saran) wrap, so that they overlap and form a large surface. Lightly flour the plastic, dump the dough on top of it, and knead a few times to pull the dough together. Sprinkle some more flour on top of the dough and cover with another sheet (or two) of saran wrap. Now roll the dough under the second surface of plastic wrap with a rolling pin until it's roughly ⅛ inch thick. If you have tiled counters, the plastic wrap method is the only thing that'll keep you from tearing out your hair when you have to roll out dough (thanks, Amanda!). Even if you have nice, smooth counters, I am sure this method is extremely helpful.

4. Cut rounds out of the dough with a floured 1-inch cutter (we used a shot glass) and transfer the rounds to the parchment-lined baking sheet.

5. Using the non-spoon end of a wooden spoon, make an indentation in the top of each dough round. Spoon about ¼ teaspoon of fig preserves into each indentation, using your finger to push the preserves as best as possible into the indentations.

6. Bake the savories for 10 – 14 minutes, until the preserves are bubbling and the pastry is light golden on the bottom.

7. Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes, then remove to a plate (or wire rack if you have one) to cool some more.

Absurdly Addictive Asparagus

We just ate this again tonight after making the dish for the first time this season last week, so I figured it was time to post it. The recipe is another one from the treasure trove that is Food52. The dish doesn't just look appealingly spring-y, but is also delicious, filling, and easy to make. It can easily withstand substitutions - tonight we didn't have pine nuts or parsley, but it tasted just as good with slivered almonds and dill (and the original recipe called for pancetta, but we've been happy with the plainer bacon).

Absurdly Addictive Asparagus
Adapted from Food52

4 pieces bacon, cut into ¼ inch dice
1 tablespoon butter
1 pound asparagus, woody ends trimmed and sliced into 1 inch pieces on the bias
½ cup leek, thinly sliced crosswise (white and pale green parts only)
2 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of one lemon
1 teaspoon orange zest
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
1-2 tablespoons Italian parsley, chopped
Salt

1. In a large non-stick pan, sauté the bacon, stirring frequently, over medium heat, until crisp and lightly golden.

2. Add 1 tablespoon of butter to pan. Add asparagus pieces and leeks and sauté until asparagus is tender crisp, about 3-4 minutes.

3. Add garlic, lemon and orange zest, toasted pine nuts and parsley and sauté for about 1 minute, until fragrant. Season to taste with salt and serve immediately.

Walnut Jam Cake

I had a few friends over for dinner recently and wanted to serve a dessert that was homemade and yet would not stress me out. This Walnut Jam Cake seemed perfect - Deb classifies it as an "everyday" cake and the dough is made in a food processor. (Though, as someone who has only had a full-size food processor for less than a year, I completely understand that while this direction makes the dough-making very straightforward for those who have a food processor, the recipe immediately becomes more frustrating for those that don't. There is a reason I had only made this Cranberry Coffee Cake at my mom's house in the past.)

Still, I cannot recommend this "everyday" cake highly enough - easy to make, not too sweet (I used less jam than the recipe called for), nutty and delicious. Plus, the topping uses both heavy cream *and* sour cream! It was a hit with the guests and with us as leftovers.

Walnut Jam Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

For the dough:

1¼ cups walnuts, toasted (in a shallow baking pan at 350°F for 10 minutes) and cooled
⅔ cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

For the topping:

¼ cup jam (I used plum)
⅔ cup chilled heavy cream
¼ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour an 9-inch round cake pan.

2. Pulse cooled (or, in my case, somewhat cooled) walnuts and sugar in a food processor until finely chopped. Add butter and process until combined, then add eggs and vanilla, and process until combined. Add flour, baking powder, and salt, and pulse just until incorporated. Spread batter in cake pan.

3. Bake until cake is just firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool 15 minutes in pan, then turn out onto a rack (or, in my case, a plate) and cool completely.

4. Spoon jam over cake.

5. Beat heavy cream with sour cream, sugar, and vanilla until it forms soft peaks, then spoon over jam.

Calamari Stew

Apparently it's a Southern Italy tradition to eat seafood on Christmas Eve as part of the Feast of the Seven Fishes. However, I only realized this after I had already decided to make this calamari stew for Christmas Eve this year, so I wasn't really following tradition on purpose. In our case, the reasoning wasn't that we were going to have so many heavy roasts the next day (we actually had fish on Christmas Day as well), but just that this seemed like a tasty dish similar to what we had made once before and enjoyed. There was also the added bonus that calamari is cooked for a long time in this dish, so we wouldn't run into the issue of varying preferred cooking times of meat (I generally prefer my meat cooked medium rare, some other visiting family members prefer theirs very well done).

The original recipe calls for Sambuca, an anise flavored liqueur. Since our family isn't big on anise flavor, I decided to leave it out - though I kept the fennel bulb. I also left out the final touches of parsley and fennel fronds, but that was less intentional. We served this stew over polenta and it was appreciated by all (or at least all the grown-ups).

Calamari Stew
Adapted from Simply Recipes

2 lbs cleaned calamari (squid), tubes sliced into rings and tentacles roughly chopped
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 sliced onion
1 fennel bulb, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup red wine
1 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes
Salt and pepper

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onions and fennel. Stir to coat with oil and sauté, stirring occasionally, until it begins to color, about 5-6 minutes. Sprinkle some salt over it. Add the garlic cloves and tomato paste and stir well to combine. Cook this for another 2-3 minutes, stirring once or twice.

2. Add the red wine, stir well, and increase the heat to high. Boil until the liquid is reduced by half.

3. Add the crushed tomatoes. Stir in the calamari and bring the pot to a gentle simmer. Simmer for at least 1 hour. After an hour, taste a piece of calamari; it should be tender. If it’s not, keep simmering. Check for tenderness every 15 minutes afterward.

4. Once the calamari is tender, taste the stew for salt and pepper, adding if needed. Stir well to combine and serve.

Zucchini Ricotta Cheesecake with Chanterelles

In an attempt to slightly atone for my pretty sparse blogging this year, I am trying to squeeze in one more post before the new year arrives (good thing I am in one of the last few time zones to welcome 2011). We hosted some family for an evening tea a few days ago, so in addition to sweet things (fruit salad and lemon pie), my mom (who was visiting - yay!) and I thought we should have a savory dish as well. This (non-sweet) cheesecake fit the bill quite well - it's easy to make, doesn't need last minute fussing when the guests arrive, and was a hit with everyone. We adapted the original recipe by adding chanterelles and were rather pleased with the look and taste of the result.

Zucchini Ricotta Cheesecake with Chanterelles
Adapted from 101 Cookbooks

1 lb mushrooms (chanterelles, shiitake, or some other "pretty" mushroom), cleaned and chopped into small pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups zucchini, unpeeled & grated
1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
2½ cups ricotta cheese
½ cup freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
4 shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
¼ cup fresh dill, chopped
zest of one lemon
2 large eggs, well beaten
⅓ cup goat cheese, crumbled

1. Preheat oven to 325°F degrees, racks the middle. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.

2. Wrap the ricotta in some cheesecloth and allow some of the moisture to drain away. (This step is not strictly necessary but can be helpful, even when your ricotta looks rather non-watery, like ours did - chances are there is still plenty of water to be drained away from it.)

3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet and add half of the chopped shallots. Once they've softened a bit, add the chopped mushrooms and sauté until they are cooked through. Set the cooked mushrooms aside.

4. In a strainer, toss the shredded zucchini with the salt and let sit for (at least) ten minutes. (Ours sat draining for much, much longer, and it was still OK.) Now squeeze and press out as much moisture as you can. Set aside.

5. Combine the ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, remaining shallots, garlic, dill and lemon zest in a medium bowl. Stir in the eggs and continue mixing until well combined. Now stir in the shredded zucchini.

6. Fill the springform pan with the ricotta mixture and place the pan on a baking sheet. Place in the oven and bake for 50-60 minutes.

7. Take out the cheesecake and cover the top with the cooked mushroom/shallot mixture. Sprinkle the goat cheese on top of the mushrooms. Return to the oven for another 20-30 minutes or until the goat cheese is melted.

Wordless Wednesday Dinner: Carrot, Beet and Avocado Salad

The previously made carrot and avocado salad combined with (parts of) French "peasant" beets from Food52.