Boeuf bourguignon: a meaty love story

I can't believe I haven't talked yet (at length) about my Christmas gift from Jeremy, love of my life and chopper of my vegetables. This year it wasn't fancy gems or an entire season of Ugly Betty on DVD, fantastic gifts in their own right that I've gotten in the past, but instead it was a new baby for the kitchen: a 5-quart oval dutch oven pot from Le Creuset, in beautiful, wonderful Sonoma Green. Behold the glory!

Squee! I love love LOVE my new pot! It is beautiful! It is spacious! It is cast iron coated in porcelain enamel! It weighs 9 pounds, more than the average newborn infant! Pinch me, I'm in love. Sigh.

Since I first became seriously interested in home cooking, I have wanted a Le Creuset dutch oven. Yes, I know that Le Creuset is sort of a status piece of cookware, but for a reason. This baby will outlive me. I will have this pot until I die. And this makes me happy. I could get a lower-priced dutch oven, but none would have made me as happy as this one. Doesn't a lady deserve a little happiness every now and then? (Correct answer: yes.)

Jeremy and I went to pick it out at Williams-Sonoma right after the holidays. Yes, I know that Williams-Sonoma is a purveyor of all things evilly overpriced ($24! For a spatula!), but they also happen to carry a wide range of Le Creuset products AND they also happen to be the only ones who carry the beautiful Sonoma Green color pictured above, which I just had to have. Doesn't that color just make you happy? Doesn't it just conjure up all that is bountiful and healthy and life-sustaining?

I'm getting carried away. Love will do that to a girl, you know.

Anyway, we picked out our new baby at the store and were congratulated—congratulated!—not once but TWICE by employees in the store on our purchase. I felt like we were entering some sort of secret, exclusive club of real, serious cooks. It felt very glamorous, in a weird, cookery kind of way.

"What are you going to make in it first?" the saleslady asked as she rang up our purchase.

I leaned across the counter conspiratorially. "Boeuf bourguignon," I said.

She smiled. "Julia Child's recipe?"

"Yes?"

"You've got the book and everything?"

"I do," I replied.

"Enjoy," she said, with another big smile, and handed me the bag, which proceeded to drag me nearly halfway to the floor when I took it off the counter, so I made Jeremy carry it. (Seriously, if I make a stew a night in this thing, I could get seriously BUFF upper arms just lifting it in and out of the oven.)

I knew just how long it takes to properly make a Julia Child boeuf bourguignon, having read the recipe before, but dammit, I waited a long time for this new pot, and by God I was going to use it immediately. So around 5:30 on a Saturday, I assembled my ingredients and began.

This is not a tactic I recommend to anyone. A momentary lapse in sanity is what I chalk it up to. Over-excitement. A new love going to my head. Because we didn't end up actually getting to EAT boeuf bourguignon until about 11:00 that night.

How long can it REALLY take to make a beef stew? A beef stew when you follow Julia Child's recipe down to the letter? Do you know how long it takes to pat dry three pounds of top-notch chuck beef, when the beef is already beautifully cut into small cubes? Do you know how many paper towels it takes? Do you know how much patience you need to cut up a half-pound of bacon into lardons? Do you even know what a lardon is? (For your information, it is a matchstick-size piece of meat.)

Did you know that before you begin, you must blanch the bacon so that nothing is too overwhelmingly bacony? Does this feel slightly wrong to you, but you do it anyway, because you trust Julia implicitly? Do you know how glorious it is to render the fat out of something in a pot that has nice, high walls that prevent said fat from splattering all over you? Do you know the pleasant surprise of realizing that the patting dry really does let the meat brown more quickly in the fat? Do you know how many batches you must brown the meat in, because 3 pounds is a lot of meat, and you shouldn't crowd the pan?

Have you ever had to toss three pounds of meat with flour? Do you know what a pain in the ass that is? Do you know what a difference it makes? Have your eyes ever grown wide with delight while pouring an entire bottle (!) of burgundy wine into a pot with stock to make a sauce? Have you known the terror that comes with nearly dropping a 9-pound pot brimming with 3 pounds of meat, half a pound of bacon, half a pound of carrots and onions, and an entire bottle of wine? Because with all that in it, it no longer weighs just 9 pounds. How relieved are you when you remember that your beau can do this for you, because that's what muscled men are for?

While unbelievable smells waft around your kitchen and drive you half-wild with impatient desire, something (insanity, perhaps?) has compelled you to continue making more accompaniments to go with your stew, so you soldier on. Have you ever peeled 24 tiny white onions, one at a time, to roll around in a pan of butter and then braise in broth? Have you ever made an herb bouquet? At 9:00 at night? Have you ever sauteed a pound of mushrooms in yet more butter, even though you know your partner dislikes mushrooms and you know you will be eating them all alone? Has this thought made you secretly happy because it means you get the buttery, soft, glorious mushrooms all to yourself? Have you checked on the meat several times and each time judged that it's just not fork-tender enough, even though you want to gnaw off an arm in hunger and your beau has taken to napping in his ravenous frustration? Have you run out of paper towels yet?

Have you periodically been dragging your back-aching, sore-footed body over to the sink to wash dishes so you're not stuck washing dishes all night? Does this still prevent you from scrubbing dishes after midnight? No. And how is everything in sight covered in a greasy, buttery, fatty film? Where did those paper towels go?

When you finally, finally remove the pot from the oven, deeming the meat soft enough to eat, do you realize, after spooning out the meat and vegetables from the pot, that you will need to defat the sauce? And after you do realize this, why don't you remember that you bought a fat separator for this specific purpose until after you start defatting the sauce using a spoon? Aren't you too tired to give a shit if you serve yourself and your beau fatty sauce? Sort of, but not totally. Not defatting the sauce would be giving up. Not defatting the sauce would be failing Julia, and failing my beautiful new pot, and failing myself. So into the separator it goes.

How amazing is a fat separator? How the holy hell did people get by without these things? How much fat can one really pour out into an old glass sauce jar kept expressly for the purpose of disposing of leftover fat? (Answer: a frighteningly large amount.)

How delicious is this dinner, albeit served at 11:00 p.m. when both of you are almost past the point of caring? How worthwhile was it to braise those two dozen tiny onions? How pleased are you to eat your beau's discarded mushrooms? How horrified are you to find that there is a thick layer of brown, greasy gunk coating the inside of your new pot and its lid? How amazed and pleased and food-coma-stupefied-thrilled are you that said grease wipes right off your new pot? Once the dishes are cleaned and the leftovers are put away, how pleased are you with yourself? How long has your beau been passed out in a beef-induced semi-comatose state?

Where does your pot live? Not in a cabinet under the sink, or crammed into the pantry, but on top of the stove, where you see it every time you walk into the kitchen. Where you loving run a hand along the lid every time you pass it on your way to the pantry or recycling bin. Where it stands as a constant reminder of your love, for the kitchen and for your partner for understanding your love of the kitchen and for never getting between the two of you, and for always eating what you offer him, no matter what time it is or how insane he might think you are for doing things the way you do. Where it can remind you that you are confident, and capable, and good at and passionate about something on the days when you are most feeling frustrated with your life and yourself and your achievements, or seeming lack thereof.

Congratulations. You have now cooked your way through your first—and last? No, certainly not last—Julia Child boeuf bourguignon.

San Gibbin: Overeating with a purpose

Ah, Thanksgiving. (Or, as we Latinos call it, San Gibbin.) I was in such a food coma, both from the big day and from enormous meals in subsequent days (including INDIAN BUFFET), that I lost my internets faculties. But now I've re-emerged into the world of getting back to business and staring at a screen all day, so I'm here to recap the goodness and share a recipe for the side dish that is becoming my claim to fame at the Trout family Thanksgiving dinner. I also have to share an exciting personal revelation, but that deserves its own post.

Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic. Jeremy's mom is an amazing cook. In addition to the typical spread, this year we had the usual escarole soup for starters (it's literally just escarole and broth, and it's delicious) along with marinated mushrooms, olives, and these little onions soaked in balsamic vinegar (DELICIOUS OMG). Jeremy's mom also made a tasty fig sauce, almost like a marmalade, to go with the turkey that was awesome. Need that recipe! The salad was oranges, red onions, and black olives with olive oil, which was simple and refreshing and which I'm going to steal for Christmas this year. She also put some leftover stuffing into muffin tins and baked it to make STUFFIN' MUFFINS! I love the idea. We also had wine, belatedly celebrated our joint birthday with pumpkin spice cake from the Amish market, and talked about Trotsky. Pretty typical Trout family Thanksgiving.

For the second year in a row, I made acorn squash filled with chorizo stuffing. I got this recipe from a Latina magazine and it's great! It's not as hard as the recipe might make it seem--just takes a few steps. But the good part is that while the rice cooks and the squash roast, you can prepare everything else and then be ready to go when the squash and rice are ready. There are only 4 of us at Jeremy's Thanksgiving dinner, so I halved the recipe. The trick to splitting an acorn squash is to use a large, very sharp knife and work very slowly, cutting carefully around the squash. Having your mother in the kitchen nervously supervising is optional.

* 2 cups wild rice
* 4 1/2 cups chicken broth
* 1/4 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
* 4 small acorn squash
* Olive oil (for sauteeing onions and brushing the squash)
* 1 large onion, diced
* 12 oz Spanish chorizo, chopped (you can also use sweet or mild Italian sausage, the kind that doesn't have a casing)
* 2 tsp dried sage
* 1/4 cup chopped parsley
* 3/4 cup chopped dried cranberries
* 1/4 cup maple syrup

Preheat oven to 375. Rinse rice. In medium saucepan, bring rice, broth, and 1/4 tsp salt to a boil. Cover and simmer until rice is tender, with some grains split open, about 45 to 60 minutes. (I used the Archer Farms from Target wild rice and it was done in 45 minutes, but check the directions on your container for specifics!) Transfer rice to a large bowl.

Cut off squash ends if necessary to stand them upright, cut them in half lengthwise, and seed. (Use an ice cream scoop to easily remove the seeds and stringy pulp. I love the multi-functionality of ice cream scoops and think no kitchen should be without one, but I digress.) Line a baking sheet with foil. Brush the outsides and insides of each squash with oil and place cut side down on baking sheet. Bake until tender, 35 to 45 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 325.

In saute pan, heat oil over medium heat. Cook onion until soft. Add chorizo and sage and cook about 5 minutes. Add to bowl with rice.

Scoop out squash so edges are 1/4 inch thick and add pulp to bowl. Stir in parsley and cranberries and add salt to taste. Mound stuffing into squash halves and drizzle with maple syrup. Put them into a foil-lined baking dish. Bake until heated through, about 25 minutes. Makes 8 servings.


Apparently, Jeremy's father specially requested that my leftover stuffing be served as part of their day-after-Thanksgiving leftovers dinner, and I felt so loved. Hurrah! Do share your traditional and not-so-traditional meal ideas!

Here is a (slightly dark) picture of my stuffed acorn squash. Noms!

The lowly sprout, elevated to the greatest heights

Brussels sprouts! They're like tiny cabbages! They're like little gems of goodness! They are underappreciated and sometimes hated, often wrongfully so, because people cook the living bejeesus out of them and they end up tasting sulfurically of dirty socks!

I personally LOVE Brussels sprouts, and am fortunate to have a partner who also loves them, but I was woefully underfed them growing up, mostly because my nutty father likes to have everything cooked to within a mushy inch of its LIFE. (Either that, or he likes it raw. Raw or mushified--for him there's no in-between.) Anyway, I fully embrace sprouts and love to cook them. I've learned that the proper way to cook them is to take care not to OVER-cook them. As long as you keep an eye on them and remove them from whatever heat source you've got them over or in just after they become fork-tender with a nice bit of give, you won't have mushy, smelly, travesty-of-a-sprout sprouts.

A few years ago, my friend Frank made some sprouts with bacon (NUM) and apple cider vinegar. OMG HEAVEN. It was the perfect combo. So recently, when we had some sprouts, leftover bacon from a soup we'd made, and some spiced apple cider, I decided to try for my own version of Frank's magnificent dish.

Take about a pound of sprouts, clean them, remove the stems, and halve them if you wish. I like cutting them in half lengthwise because I feel like they cook faster and you can thus remove them from the heat more quickly. This also makes them easier to eat.

Put two or three thin-sliced strips of bacon in a pan and fry them up over medium heat until they're nice and crisp. Remove them from the pan and drain on a paper-toweled plate. Leave the lovely bacon fat in the pan and leave the heat on. Immediately dump in the sprouts and stir frequently, allowing them to quickly fry and heat up. Then add some apple cider to the pan and a few splashes of red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar and stir. The amount of cider you add is up to you, but I probably put in about 3/4 of a cup and just a splash of vinegar. Lower the heat and cover. Allow the sprouts to braise for a few minutes. I think I left mine in there for 7 or 8 minutes. Check the state of the sprouts with a fork and remove them when they're at your desired balance of tender and firm.

Remove the sprouts from the pan with a spoon--I stashed them in a small covered Corningware dish. Then add a bit more apple cider and another dash of vinegar to what's left in the pan and continue to cook on low, deglazing the pan. Scrape up all the lovely bits of fat that are stuck to the bottom of the pan. I cooked the liquid down until it was about half the amount it originally was, so it was slightly thickened, then I spooned it over the sprouts. I crumbled the bacon on top.

PERFECTION. DELICIOUSNESS. OMG-NESS. It was so good! The sweetness of the cider, the gentle tang of the vinegar cutting through the appleyness, the crisp bacon, the perfectly cooked sprouts. It was a good time. Of course, you can veg this one up by using butter or olive oil instead of bacon fat, but if you eat meat, trust me: Brussels sprouts and bacon are one of those deliciously satisfying combinations you don't want to miss.

Grown-up Hamburger Helper and zucchini fritters: perfect Sunday supper

Our Sunday night dinner was hearty and autumnal: zucchini fritters and a beef and pasta stove top casserole. Tasty and comforting.

We modified a recipe for the pasta casserole that I picked up at Shaw's; they have these displays of free recipe cards by the front door of the store. (The recipes are made in conjunction with America's Test Kitchen, so you know they have to be good.) It's sort of like a grown-up, homemade Hamburger Helper. We also had two decent-sized zucchini that I bought last week at the farmers' market, so we used one for the fritters, a recipe from my food bible. You just can't go wrong with Bitty.

Here's our slightly modified beef and spaghetti stove top casserole---the recipe said to use 12 oz ground beef and 4 oz sausage but we just used a pound of beef. We also omitted the step of covering the thing in cheese and broiling it but you can of course add this step in. We found it just fine without this step.

Beef and Spaghetti Casserole

• 1 lb 90% lean ground beef
• 4 minced garlic cloves
• A sprinkle of red pepper flakes (use your discretion)
• A sprinkle of dried oregano (again, as much as suits your fancy)
• 1 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes (we used ones with basil already mixed in and thus used less fresh basil)
• 8 oz of uncooked spaghetti or linguine (we used linguine), broken into 2-3 inch pieces
• 2 cups water
• salt to taste
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 6 tbsp finely chopped basil (we used several generous squirts of the fesh ground herbs that come in a tube; you'll find them in the produce section)
• 1 cup of cheddar cheese

1. If you want to broil the cheese into a crust on top, get your broiler fired up. Give a large oven-safe nonstick skillet a few sprays with olive oil cooking spray and when hot, cook the beef over medium heat, breaking up the meat into little bits until no longer pink (about 5 minutes). Drain meat on paper towel-lined plate and pour off fat from pan. Return meat to skillet and add garlic, pepper flakes, and oregano, and cook until fragrant (about 1 minute).

2. Stir in tomatoes, spaghetti, water, and salt. Cover and cook, stirring often, until pasta begins to soften, about 7 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue to simmer, covered, until pasta is al dente, about 7 minutes.

3. Stir in cream, basil, and (if you're broiling) 1/3 cup of cheese. If you're not broiling, just stir in all the cheese. If you're broiling, sprinkle on the remaining cheese and broil about 3 minutes. We just sprinkled with more cheese before serving.

SO GOOD! :)

Here's Bitty's recipe for zucchini fritters (he calls them pancakes, but they were really more like fritters). We also used the thin julienne attachment on our mandolin to get tiny zucchini shreds.

• about 2 pounds of zucchini, or one medium to large zucchini, finely grated (place the grated zucchini in a colander, salt it, and let it sit 20 minutes to help it dry out)
  
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup minced onion (we just used a half an onion)
• 1/4 flour or bread crumbs (we used bread crumbs), plus more if needed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup freshly minced basil or parsley (optional, we didn't use it)
  

1.  Combine zucchini, egg, onion, bread crumbs, cheese, salt and pepper, and herbs (if using). Add more crumbs/flour if using to make the mixture hold its shape.

2. Form into balls, then flatten into patties, about the size of a small hamburger in diameter, but thinner. Place on a plate and refrigerate for about an hour, if you can, so they'll firm up. We formed 5 patties and by using extra bread crumbs they held their shape.

3. Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Dredge patties in more crumbs or flour and place in the hot oil. Fry on each side until golden brown and crisp on each side. Heed Julia's advice and don't crowd the pan! :) Drain on paper towel-lined plate and serve. OMG DELICIOUS. Seriously. Try these. They take a bit of time in terms of prep work (although a food processor or mandoline will make quick work of the grating), but they are definitely worth it.

**UPDATE** I just found a mandolin online that is inexpensive and has all the same features as mine, if any of y'all are seriously looking at getting one (I'm just going by the comments I've gotten thus far!). Check it out on Amazon. 

Mama Pidal's picadillo

Picadillo! Not peccadillo mind you--pee-kah-DEE-yoh! It's a dish made with ground meat and vegetables and it was a Cubano kitchen staple for me growing up. In addition to Mama Pidal's lentil soup, this was one of the first things I ever cooked for myself. In fact, I can remember cooking these two recipes together on the first weekend I ever ventured into cooking non-pasta/stir-fry food for myself.

There are variations on picadillo, of course, but this is my mother's spin on it, and I have to say that it's delicious just as it is, and VERY easy to make, so I highly recommend it! The word "picadillo" comes from the Spanish word "picar," which means to finely chop. I remember that sometimes my mother would have leftover picadillo, not quite enough to make a filling dinner for the three of us, that she would mix with cooked white rice in a casserole dish and top with slices of cheese. Then she'd bake it so the cheese would melt. YUM. Best of leftovers! This is also good as a burrito or taco filling.

Last night while waiting for Jeremy to come home, I decided to throw together a pan of picadillor for dinner. Jeremy had bought the ingredients a few days earlier, because he is a love, and had somehow managed to find quite possibly the largest green bell pepper I've ever seen. I seriously need to get a digital camera to document things like this because the thing was the size of my head. After cutting it in half and removing the seeds, I started to dice up half of it. I swear I just kept chopping and chopping, and there was still more pepper to chop. I finally ended up putting half of the thing away in the fridge and out of my sight.

I also diced one sweet onion and then minced 3 small cloves of garlic. (You can use less, but I love garlic, so I use a little extra.) I poured some olive oil into a large fry pan (use one with a lid), enough to just coat the bottom of the pan, and turned the heat up to medium high, then added my veggies when it was nice and hot. You let those cook for a few minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions start to get transparent and you're about to drool because your house smells so delicious. Then you add a pound of ground lean turkey or ground lean beef. I tend to always use turkey because it's less fatty, and Jeremy bought me the natural, non-antibiotic/growth hormone Wild Harvest brand from Shaw's, which actually just LOOKED like better quality poultry than other brands of ground turkey I've used in the past. (Kudos to you, Jeremy.) Use the leanest meat you can find to prevent your dish from getting greasy---our turkey was only 7% fat. Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper and use a wooden spoon to break it up into little chunks (this is the "picar" element of the dish), stirring to allow the meat to cook on all sides. This will take a few minutes.

After you've cooked the meat nearly all the way, add some other seasonings, like garlic and onion salt or some adobo powder. Then add about a quarter cup of ketchup. Turns out we were nearly out of ketchup last night and the amount in the bottle just didn't look like enough. Lucky for the Tridal household, I frugally save the little single-serve ketchup packets that come with our take-out let's-eat-unhealthy-crap meals so the four we had sitting in the fridge were enough to tide us over---I knew they'd come in handy one day. (As a side note: some people use diced tomatoes, but I find that this can make the dish watery, and sometimes the taste of cooked tomatoes just doesn't do it for me, so I just stick with ketchup. If it's good enough for Mama Pidal, it's good enough for me.) Stir the ketchup in thoroughly, then add a generous dash of Worcestershire sauce (one of my favorite things about Worcestershire sauce is hearing my Cuban mother try to pronounce "Worcestershire" and just ending up saying "Worchesshersher") and two tablespoons of capers. Or, if you're not into capers, add a couple of tablespoons of chopped olives. Or, if you're REALLY adventurous, add both.

After you've stirred everything into a glorious melange and tasted to adjust your seasonings, lower the heat to very low, put the cover on the pan and let everything cook and simmer together for at least 10 minutes, no more than 20. Make sure to stir every couple of minutes so that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan or burns, and discard any water that accumulates on the inside of the pan lid to prevent your dish from getting soggy. It's so good! The dish I made last night was particularly good because the turkey was just so good. I really think it makes a significant difference when you use the highest-quality meat. Jeremy has been eating this dish since we moved in together and even he agreed that this was the best pan of it I'd cooked up. Huzzah!

I just love this dish. It's easy, it's relatively hassle-free, it's delicious and filling, and if you use turkey, it's pretty healthy. It's also so versatile: you can eat it as it is, you can use it as a filling for stuffed peppers, you can mix it with rice into a casserole, you can use it to fill tacos or burritos or empanadas or meat pies. Eating it takes me back home; it was one of my favorite dinners, I never got tired of it, and I didn't mind eating the leftovers. And it makes your house smell so good! I can't recommend it enough. If you do decide to try this one, let me know what you think and if you love it as much as I do!

Olive oil pancakes and brown sugar bacon

I love pancakes, and nothing says "It's the weekend, sleep till 11 and stay in your jammies all day" more than a stack of pancakes with a cup of coffee. The fabulous Jose Andres has a recipe for olive oil pancakes in his book Made in Spain that are positively delicious.

I will admit that this Sunday was the second time I'd made them but the first time I'd made them properly. The first time I got halfway through the recipe before realizing that he calls for buttermilk, not milk, so I fudged and used soy milk. They were all right but nothing fabulous. But the buttermilk really makes a difference! Don't skimp: do it right!

These pancakes are soft, fluffy, and almost creamy-textured. The olive oil taste is light but lovely. Definitely give them a try. (Seriously, it's not that hard to put together a good basic pancake batter, so kick that box of pancake mix to the curb and DIY. SO tasty!) Jose recommends serving these pancakes with honey, which I did, and which was a great accompaniment.

Olive Oil Pancakes by Jose Andres

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 4 tablespoons best-quality olive oil, preferably Spanish, plus more for frying
• 1/3 cup chopped dark chocolate, preferably Spanish

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk in the egg, buttermilk and 2 tablespoons olive oil until the batter is smooth, then stir in the chocolate pieces.

2. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium sauté pan over medium-low heat. Ladle one-fourth cup of the pancake batter into the pan and cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Flip the pancake with a spatula and cook until golden brown on the second side, 1 to 2 more minutes. Place the pancakes in a warm oven until all are cooked and ready to serve. Repeat with the remaining batter, adding more olive oil to the pan as needed.

Here is a video of Jose making the pancakes!

TIP: I know pancakes can be tricky--my first attempt at them resulted in a lot of burnt pancakes, some completely blackened, and a lot of smoke, and maybe 2 edible pancakes in the whole lot. The trick is to keep the heat very low, and to remember that the first pancakes you make will take longer to cook than the pancakes after them. This is because the pan or griddle will get progressively hotter, so always count on the first pancakes to take longer than subsequent pancakes, and don't use the cooking time of the first ones to gauge the cooking time of the rest of them. You may need to regrease your cooking surface at some point during your cooking process.

Flipping pancakes can also be a messy and agonizing process. An easy way to tell if they're ready to flip is to observe the edges of the pancake. If there are a few tiny bubbles forming along the edges and the edges seem to have taken on almost a filmy-looking quality (like it looks a little more solid than the liquidy center of the pancake), you are ready. I'm not describing this very well but you'll know it when you see it. Slide the spatula under the pancake (I wiggle it gently to get as much of the pancake on the spatula as possible) and flip quickly. The trick to not making a battery mess is to keep the pancake as close to the pan's surface as possible. Keeping your finished pancakes inside of a casserole dish with a cover will keep them warm until you serve them. Some people recommend keeping them stacked on a cooking sheet inside a low-heat oven, but I find my casserole dish improvisation works just as well. Pancakes cook quickly, so the time between cooking and serving them isn't huge.


PAIR YOUR PANCAKES WITH BACON!

I haven't tried this recipe personally yet, but a friend of mine just served this bacon recently at a bridal shower brunch and it was so good all of us had seconds. The baking method for the bacon is better than just frying it in a pan, or so I've heard. I'd line the baking sheet with foil before adding the wire rack, to make clean up that much easier. (Just lift out the greasy foil, voila!)


Gina's Brown Sugar Bacon 

• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 pound thick-cut bacon, 8 slices

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Mix brown sugar, cayenne, and black pepper together in a medium bowl. Add bacon and toss.

Line a baking sheet with a wire rack and lay bacon on the rack. Pat any remanding spice mixture on the bacon. Put the baking sheet on the top rack of the oven and bake until crisp, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven to a serving dish and let cool slightly before serving.

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS! :)

A salad that was a long time coming, plus my first homemade burgers

I love Trader Joe's and any occasion to go is a joyous occasion indeed. Many times when I'm there I pick up a container of balela salad (a Mediterranean chickpea dish), and pretty much every time I sit down to eat it I think, gosh, I should just find a recipe for this and make it myself! It seems easy! It's so tasty! It'll be cheaper if I just make it myself. I should do it! This went on for about a year. I kept forgetting to look up the balela recipe.

Well, no more! I finally remembered and my expert Googling skills turned up many results. Here's the recipe I finally used (it looked most similar to the balela I was used to getting from TJ's), from Relish magazine. It's easy and very delicious. It also keeps well, so you can make a big tub of it and let it sit for a couple of days in the fridge--everything marinates even more in the olive oil and lemon juice, so it gets even tastier.

Ingredients
1 (15-ounce) can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2/3 cup chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
Coarsely ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients; mix well. Let stand 15 to 30 minutes before serving.

As this recipe calls for half a cup of freshly chopped parsley, I thought it was time to put my herb mill to use--a handy little device into which you put whole fresh herbs and turn a crank that minces them up.



It's a little messy because the moisture released by the leaves tends to make them stick to the apparatus, but you just shake them out or scrape them out with a fork, and it makes easy work of that much parsley. (Half a cup is a lot of parsley and I'm lazy!)

Also, last night we made hamburgers out of some tasty ground beef and they were amazing. We combined the package of ground beef (which was one of those all-natural no-hormone, grain-fed kinds) with some salt and pepper, some garlic and onion salts, and a dash of Worchestershire sauce, and then we took a bundle of shredded horseradish cheddar cheese and rolled it into the center of each burger. We seared them in a pan for about 4-5 minutes on each side and they were a nice medium-well: still juicy and soft, with the tangy cheese inside. Yum! And even better, we had them on lightly toasted onion rolls--divine! We froze the extra two patties but we sort of already want to eat them.

The moral of the story: don't forget to find recipes you want in a timely fashion, and also eat horseradish cheddar cheese, especially wrapped in a slice of Genoa salami (which we also had this weekend) or in the center of a tasty burger. It's super amazing!



Why hello, delicious horseradish cheddar, please be my new best cheese friend.