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! :)

Souper Saturday: Mama Pidal's lentil soup

I seem to be coming down with some sort of weird cold-type thing, so it was a good thing I was prepared with a big pot of Mama Pida's lentil soup. It's hearty, tasty, and really easy to make. This recipe is my mother's and it is one of the first things I ever attempted to cook when I decided to branch out from the pasta/stir fry rut. I love making it in the fall and winter. The best part of this soup is that you can season it and add things to it to your heart's content. That and the fact that lentils don't require any soaking, so you don't have to prepare in advance with this soup the way you have to with other bean soups. I use a minimum of broth and simmer until almost all the liquid has evaporated and been absorbed, so that it's more like a stew. I'll call it a potage (a thick stew-like soup). Sounds fancier.

Rinse 1 cup of uncooked lentils in a strainer and drain. (Pick out any pebbles or nasty-looking lentils.) Toss them in a pot with two cups of water and two cups of vegetable or meat broth or stock. (You can add another cup or two of either if you want.) Add 1 diced onion, 1 cup each of chopped carrots and celery, and 2 cups of firmly packed baby spinach leaves. Throw in 2 cloves of minced garlic and some salt and pepper and turn on the heat until it starts boiling. Cover, and stir occasionally, until the spinach has wilted. At this point you can throw in a diced ham steak or a couple of chopped cooked sausages (but these are entirely optional). Stir a few more times and allow to boil another few minutes. I also like to add some other seasonings, like a bay leaf or two (which you must remove later), some garlic and/or onion salt, or some adobo powder, which is a typical Latin meat and vegetable seasoning.

Adobo: seasoning of campeones!






Lower the heat until the soup is just simmering and then just let it simmer away, stirring every now and again. This is a very low-maintenance soup. I allow it to simmer until all the vegetables have taken on a nice brown color and nearly all the liquid has disappeared, so it's like a stew. Delicious! If you're more into soupy lentils, you can add a cup or two of water or broth to the pot while it's simmering and remove it from the heat before all the liquid disappears.

This soup keeps well in the fridge, and it will thicken the longer it sits in there. To reheat, you can add some water or broth before microwaving. I just like to eat it like a stew, with some nice buttered toast. It's simple, filling, hearty, and comforting. I love soup, and this is one of my favorites. I remember eating it all while I was growing up and every time I eat it now, I feel home. Thanks, Mama!

Top Chef, season 6, episode 5

Ceviche is the new scallop.

Seriously. What is WITH all the chefs this season obsessing over ceviche? How many ceviches have we seen already this season? We're only on episode 5, and I feel like I've already seen about 89 ceviches. Some of them mispronounced. I almost yearn to see an over-abundance of scallops a la season 5 instead.

Making a trio of ceviches at an outdoor ranch for a bunch of cowboys just doesn't seem like a good idea, no matter what country you're from, so I have no idea why Matin thought it would be a good idea to make ceviche outdoors on a hundred-degree day in a dusty place with outdoor firepits for people who are used to eating slabs of meat. Really? Raw fish in citrus is a good idea in this scenario? No. Just no. Take advantage of those grills and make some steak, hoss!

I loved Eli's reaction to the knowledge that they had to camp overnight at the ranch. I feel EXACTLY the way he does--we've got electricity for a reason! No one should want to sleep in a tent on th ground when they can sleep in a comfy bed. I know people will disagree with me and say oh, camping, the joys of nature, appreciation of the great outdoors, hiking, blah blah, to which I say: I can appreciate all that stuff and then go home at the end of the day and go to sleep in a BED!

And cactus. I have to say I have never eaten cactus, although it's an element of Mexican (and maybe some other Latino) cooking. Many times while perusing the Goya/Latino aisle of the supermarket, I see jars of nopalitos cactus but I never buy them. I have no idea what I'd eat them with or what they taste like. Maybe I should find a recipe and try it out? Or maybe I should just wait to go to a restaurant and have them there. I don't particularly like things with a slimy texture, in terms of eating or preparing, so I'm not so sure how I'd feel about cooking or consuming these things. We'll see. Maybe if I feel adventurous one of these days. (On a ridiculous side note: I had a bunny rabbit named Sassy when I was 13 and my father once gave her a chunk of cactus that had fallen off one of his plants. He trimmed off the spines and put the thing in her cage--it was as big as she was. She didn't seem particularly interested. I remember her grabbing it in her teeth and trying to fling the thing across her cage. Poor bunny. My father treated her like an eating experiment: what will the bunny eat next? Maybe her not being into the cactus was a sign that I should avoid it too. I digress!)

So yes. Matin went home for his raw ceviche, and I definitely thought he deserved to (though Robin's nasty prawns were a pretty strong contender for horrific meal of the deal). He already did rather poorly last week with his overly bacony sauce, which was an embarassment because it was a French cooking challenge and he's French. And he hadn't been doing so well throughout the whole thing--he was never a standout chef, he just sort of coasted through--so while I'll miss his charming accent and natty red neckerchief, I think he'll fade from memory pretty quickly. Not like Hector... I miss that guy!

CHEFTESTANT FAIL #6!

50 best things to eat: a list

I love lists. Maybe it's my obsessive nature or just the satisfaction I get from seeing a numbered/organized collection of facts, but I love lists of all kinds.

The Guardian recently published a list of the 50 best things to eat in the world, and where to get them. I'm proud to see that Spain makes the list several times. Woot!

Have you ever eaten at one of these places? I have to say that I want to try this bacon cheeseburger at Little Owl in NYC. I also am ashamed that I've never eaten a massive pastrami sandwich at Katz's Deli. (I could mail-order a salami to myself from there though.) I'll have to put these places on my must-visit list next time I venture south. And I must get myself to Gramercy Tavern to eat pork belly. Viva the pig!

But I have to say that I don't think this list is in any way comprehensive. It leaves off a lot of cuisines and seems to take sort of a scattershot approach to food. And of course, since it's a British publication, it seems to have somewhat of a British slant. What foods do you think are must-haves/must-eats that were left off this list? (CHEESESTEAKS!)

Another kitchen bible?

Because I love both books and food (and also because I work in publishing), I subscribe to a Publishers Weekly email newsletter called "Cooking the Books," which is all about food and cookbook publishing. There was an interesting article in my latest email about The Flavor Bible, a book I've heard about as it has been out for a year but which I've never really gotten around to perusing.

I have to say that this sounds like a fabulous book to have in the kitchen, because it teaches you which foods go well together. I have to date had a relatively good instinct for pairing/combining foods that I am familiar with (see my recent success with the sprouts/sausage/white wine and vinegar combo), but I think this book would be invaluable in suggesting more nuanced but equally delightful flavor combinations. I just like that it helps people create their own food combinations and recipes. I might have to invest in this one. I definitely like to experiment in the kitchen and I'd like to start developing my own recipes. This book seems like a valuable tool towards doing more of that.

What do you think? Are you more of a recipe-follower or a recipe-builder, and why do you work the way you do? Have you read this book, and if so, what do you think?

Yield: dozens of cookies ahead

So when you decide to make cookies, before you do anything else, read the yield.

As in the part of the recipe that tells you how many cookies the batter you make will produce. Because last night I decided to make some cookies (oatmeal with pomegranate jelly) and was halfway through the batter before I noticed this all-important number.

You'd think that after preparing and beginning to make a batter that calls for two sticks of butter and three cups of flour that I'd realize there would be a serious amount of cookies resulting, but no. I thought it was a little odd, but not extraordinary. But then I looked at the yield, after creaming said two sticks of butter into two kinds of sugar: 4 1/2 to 5 dozen cookies.

SIXTY COOKIES? WTF!

In for a penny, in for a pound (of butter, it felt like). So I soldiered on. And the cookies actually turned out really well. Yes, I was in the kitchen for like two hours, but once things turned into an assembly line sort of system, it really wasn't so bad.

Here's something I discovered. I only own two cookie sheets, and for this particular recipe, I could fit 12 cookies on a sheet. So I baked one sheet at a time, and after removing the cookies, I put the hot, empty sheet in the fridge for a few minutes while the second sheet baked. This cooled the sheet to room temperature so that I could add more dough to the sheet. (You should never put raw dough on a hot cookie sheet, because it'll melt the fats in your dough and mess it up.) After refrigerating, I was also able to scrub off any jelly spills with a wet paper towel. This made the baking process go much faster because I didn't have to wait for each sheet to cool for who knows how long before proceeding.

Here's the recipe. It originally called for raspberry preserves, but I had a jar of pomegranate jelly in my kitchen that just wasn't getting used up (it's not terribly compatible with peanut butter), so I used that instead. And please note that it really does make like 60 cookies or so. They are small cookies, and yummy, so that shouldn't be a bad thing.

Oatmeal and Jelly Cookies
4 1/2 to 5 dozen

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup butter (two sticks), softened
1/2 cup water
1 tsp almond extract
2 eggs
3 cups all-purpose/unbleached flour
2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
fruit preserves, jam, or jelly (I really think any flavor will work!)

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, sugar, and butter until light and fluffy.

Add water, almond extract, and eggs and blend well. The mixture will look curdled and watery.

Stir in the flour, oats, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon and mix well. The mixture will thicken and look lumpy

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. With a spoon, make an imprint in the center of each cookie and fill the imprint with 1/2 teaspoon of preserves. Drop a bit of dough over the preserves on each cookie.

Bake for 6 to 9 minutes until the cookies are a light golden brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheets and allow to cool on a rack.

Make this now

Seriously... don't delay. Make this today: Mark Bittman's macaroni and cheese.

I make the first version of this, though I am intrigued by the variations and might try some of them soon. Jeremy and I just made some of this over the weekend and it's fab. It's very grown-up, savory mac and cheese--no gloopy, overly sweet cheesy goop. The bay leaves in the milk give it its special taste.

This time I added peas and ham. Cook one cup of frozen peas according to package directions; drain and set aside. Slice one ham steak into small cubes and set aside. Stir the peas and ham into the pasta after adding the sauce before baking. Yum!

We paired this dish with Brussels sprouts and sausage with just a touch of white wine and vinegar. Steam the sprouts, cut them in half vertically, and set aside. Throw some butter in a large pan and add the sausage, preferably split in half longways. Cook the sausage till it's about half done, add some more butter to the pan and throw in the sprouts. Once the sausage is nicely browned and the sprouts and done (still firm but easy to put a fork through), remove the sausage and sprouts, but leave the heat on the pan. Add a little dry white wine to the pan and stir it up, scraping up any bits left in the pan. Heat for a few minutes, cut up the sausage into small bits, then turn off the heat on the pan, stir in a splash of white vinegar, and drizzle over the sprouts and sausage. Tangy and delicious!

I made this one up on the fly because I had sprouts and sausage in the freezer and a bottle of dry white wine that I really didn't like as a drink in the fridge, but I wanted to try and find a use for it rather than just pouring it down the drain. I remember having some sprouts that a friend of mine made years ago with bacon and apple cider vinegar, so I put my own little twist on them. They turned out really tasty!

I went to an Italian street festival in my neighborhood, and in addition to a meatball sandwich that I purchased for a dollar (priced to sell!), I also had some really good lemonade and my very first deep-fried Oreo. The Oreo was delicious--kind of like an old-fashioned donut with an Oreo in the middle. Yum. I definitely giggled when I bit into it--a sure sign that I am really surprised by and am enjoying a food. I love street fair food.