snacks

It’s a Non-judgmental Lentil

I just very nearly typed, “It’s been a long week,” and then I realized it’s only Monday. Good grief.

Next Sunday is Superbowl Sunday. There will be gatherings of people crowded around televisions to watch the sports ball while simultaneously putting food in their faceholes. Ahhh, tradition.

I always thought it was a little unfair that just after so many of us have had a decent January of eating healthy and getting our bodies out of Holiday Food Coma-geddon, they go and drop a day full of deep fried, sauced, beerified, cheesy, crunchy snacks on us. I love those snacks. So, so much. *wistful sigh*

But I have an alternative for you. Or, if not an alternative to the whole array of goodies, maybe an alternative for one of the things on your game day plate. It’s kind of a dip… hummus-y sort of thing that is packed with flavor.

It was inspired by this Roasted Garlic and Red Lentil soup posted by Patricia over at Grab a Plate. I thought it sounded awesome as a soup, but maybe equally as delightful as a dip. I experimented a bit, and came up with this little ditty. You can do some of the prep, like cooking the lentils and roasting the garlic, a day ahead and then whir everything up in the blender on the day of the game. Or the day of the sitting at home watching Empire on Hulu while avoiding any mention of football altogether and snacking your face off.

Equipment:
1 medium bowl
1 medium pot
1 baking sheet
measuring cups and spoons
aluminum foil
spoon
knife and cutting board
blender

Ingredients:
1 cup red lentils, soaked for 30 minutes just covered in water
1 cup water and 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 whole garlic bulb
salt and pepper
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tsp ground coriander seed
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400º.

In a medium pot, combine 1 cup water, 1 cup of stock, and the lentils. Bring to a boil over medium-high, then lower the heat to a simmer and cover for 30 to 40 minutes until the lentils are tender.

While the lentils are cooking, divide the garlic bulb in half horizontally, place it on a piece of aluminum foil, drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Wrap the whole thing up and pop it in the oven for about 40 minutes. When it comes out, it’ll be all roasty and sweet and mellow and smooshy and just really freaking delicious.

Once the garlic is out of the oven and the lentils are ready, pour the lentils, as much garlic as you like, the red wine vinegar, and the ground coriander into the blender. Pulse 5 or 6 times to combine, then let the blender run while you stream in 1/4 cup of olive oil. Taste for seasoning, adjust, pulse a couple more times, then, viola! You’ve got dip.

You can drizzle a little more olive oil on top, kind of like the way you serve hummus.

Also, you can play around with the seasonings to your hearts content. I imagine some curry spice would be interesting, or maybe a little smoky cumin. Give it a whirl!

Post Holiday Bleus

I love snacks.

Wait, let me rephrase.

I loooooooooooooove snacks. I love bite sized things, and things that can be served on small plates, and mini-sized things that pack a giant wallop of flavor in two or three bites. I can make a whole meal out of snacks. Eating small food just makes me feel like I’m having a little party for one. A party for me. Yay me!

We went out for tapas over the weekend and it really reminded me just how deep my adoration for snacks goes.

This recipe for Bleu Cheese and Walnut Tartlets (doesn’t that sound like it could be a 60’s pop group?) comes from a book on Irish pub food that I picked up from the sale bin at Barnes & Noble. This isn’t a giveaway book, but I do recommend buying it if you’re into that comforting sort of food you get at pubs and bars with really thoughtful food menus.

These little tarts are packed with flavor, thanks to the bleu cheese, and easy enough to pull together (of course, you know I tweaked the recipe a bit for you) that they wouldn’t be a pain in the butt to serve as a starter for a dinner party.

Equipment:

1 12-cup muffin pan or 2 6-cup muffin pans (I used the throwaway aluminum ones because I hate doing dishes)
1 medium mixing bowl
1 whisk
1 small pot
1 saute pan
1 wooden spoon
knife and cutting board
1 fork
measuring spoons

Ingredients:

2 ready made pie crusts (they come two to a box)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for buttering the pan
2 celery stalks, trimmed and finely chopped
1 small leek, cleaned, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
6 ounces crumbled bleu cheese
3 egg yolks
12 walnut halves
salt and pepper to taste

Pre-heat the oven to 400. Butter your muffin tin(s) and set aside.

Prep your leeks and celery. NOTE: Leeks can be a bit sandy in between the layers. Cut off the woody green leaves and just use the pale green and white part. Cut the leek in half, and then you can easily rinse between the layers.

Cut out six 4″ diameter circles from each pie crust.

You can get about four out of the unrolled crust as it is, and then you can layer the scraps on top of each other to create the other two.

Once you have all your little circles cut out, fit each of them into the muffin cups. Make sure you’re pressing the dough lightly into the corners so there are no little air pockets between the dough and the pan.

NOTE: If you want to trim off the edges of the dough to make them look a little less “rustic,” feel free.

For this next step, you can either press a bit of parchment paper into each hole and fill it with pie weights or dry beans, or you can do what’s called “docking,” which is basically just pricking a few holes in the bottom of each crust with a fork. This allows some steam to escape from the crust while it’s blind baking (baking without the filling) so it doesn’t bubble up. I used the docking method because, well, I was cooking at the boyfriend’s and he was fresh out of both pie weights and dry beans. Either method works, so just go with whatever you feel comfortable doing.

Put the uncooked crusts into the fridge while you work on the filling.

Melt the butter in a saute pan, then add the celery and leek. Cook them down for about 15 minutes on low heat until they soften.

Add the 2 tablespoons of cream and the bleu cheese. Mix everything well and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Separate the egg yolks into your small mixing bowl and whisk them lightly just to break the yolks. You can discard the whites or save them for another recipe. They’ll freeze, if you don’t have anything to use them for right away.

Bring the rest of the cream to a bare simmer in your small pot, then slowly pour it into your egg yolks while whisking constantly. WARNING: Do not just dump all that hot cream into the egg yolks, or you’ll end up with scrambled eggs floating in a pool of hot cream. No bueno. Also, do not stop whisking until all the cream is incorporated into the egg yolks.

Add the bleu cheese mixture to the bowl now, and stir well to combine. Set aside.

Pull the muffin pan(s) out of the fridge and pop them into the oven for about 10 minutes to blind bake. Once they’re out, remove the parchment and pie weights/beans if you used them.

Spoon the filling into each crust. Place one walnut half in the center of each tartlet.

Bake them for about 15 minutes, or until the tops are slightly browned and puffed. The centers will still be fairly creamy.

Let them cool at least 5 minutes before serving, or risk hot molten cheese lava burns on your tongue. They smell really good, so you’re gonna want to dig in, but trust me, they’ll taste better if you’re not trying to eat them around 3rd degree burns.

Enjoy!

Cevich-haaaaaaaaaaaaay (and a Mini-Giveaway!)

Have you ever gotten so excited about a new recipe you just tried that you brought a container of it to work and started force feeding it to people? No? Ummm. Me either. *avoids eye contact*

Seriously, though. This Mushroom Ceviche is revolutionary. At least, it was to me. I’ve made marinated/pickled mushrooms in the past. They are delicious. But these are mushrooms that are basically prepared ceviche style, and I am telling you right now I was so pleased with how mine turned out I… well… I got a little twitchy when other people tried to eat some, too. And when it was time to clean up the kitchen and I saw that someone had taken the rest of the bowl away, I was all…

Of course, then I returned to (relative) sanity and realized that I have the recipe and can therefore make more. MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE.

And also, I can share it with you! Everyone wins. There’s a fair amount of prep work for this, but I promise you, it’s worth it.

Equipment:
Knife and cutting board
Large pot and strainer
Large mixing bowl
Spoon for mixing
Meez en place containers of some sort
Blender or food processor (optional)

Ingredients:
3 C Cremini mushrooms, cleaned, cut in half or in quarters (depending on how big they are) and then cut into 1/4 inch slices
1/3 C Celery, 1/4 inch dice
1/3 C Red onion, 1/4 inch dice, soaked in hot water for 5 minutes and then drained (takes some of the bite out)
2 Garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp Hot sauce (To start. Keep it handy because you might want to adjust it later.)
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 C Fresh lime or lemon juice (I used a half and half mixture.)
1 T Olive oil
1/4 C Red bell pepper, julienned
1/4 C Green bell pepper, julienned
1 Jalapeno, seeded and minced
Kalamata olives, quartered, for garnish
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Blanch the mushrooms in boiling, lightly salted water for 30 seconds. Drain.

Combine the celery, onion, and mushrooms.

Puree the garlic, salt, pepper, hot sauce, oregano, lime/lemon juice, and olive oil until well mixed. Note: I actually just minced my garlic up really finely and then smashed it a little bit with the side of my knife on the cutting board and then mixed it into the rest of the marinade ingredients instead of going to the trouble of dirtying up a blender.

Toss with the mushroom mixture.

Adjust the seasoning. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Drain and toss with the julienned bell peppers and jalapeno. Note: I actually didn’t totally drain it. There’s some liquid that comes out of the mushrooms, and combined with that marinade it’s just really yummy. You can decide how “wet” you want your ceviche to be.

Garnish with the olives.

And that’s it, folks. We served it as part of a cold salad plate with this (kinda boring, to be honest) tomato and onion salad that someone else in my group made. I had this amazing plating idea involving homemade tortilla chips and it all got blown to hell when Chef said we had to plate both salads together with this dumb piece of kale. Effing kale. Go away!

Anyhoots, you can serve yours with tortilla chips if you want. Or on a taco. Or ~~just eat it out of the bowl with a spoon while inhaling Orange is the New Black with your eyeballs~~ pretty much any other way that sounds good to you. Hint: The longer this sits in the marinade, the more flavor it absorbs so if you can make it the night before and let it hang out overnight, do eet!

Also! If you’re not a fan of onion, or can’t eat it for whatever reason, you could substitute with some other vegetable. Carrots marinate well. You could cut them into 1/4 inch matchsticks. Or if you still want something with a little bit of bite, use radish slices. Just keep it fresh and you can’t go wrong!

And now that you’ve stuck it out to the end of the post… I have details on the promised giveaway!

It’s a little one. I did some shopping at the I Heart Denver store downtown Wednesday night, and I saw all these cute items that made me think of you all. So, I decided to pick up a couple of things and give them away. See how I am? I’m a nice girl.

The first item is this adorable strawberry tea towel from Counter Couture.

And the second is this little notebook from… I can’t remember. Another Denver based company that makes stationery and whatnot. I had a beer or two at dinner after my shopping trip. Don’t judge me.

So… there will be two winners! All you have to do to enter is leave a note in the comments on this post telling me about something you’ve eaten recently that got your knickers all in a twist like this ceviche did for me. Easy, right? I may also throw some other random goodies in the packages because in addition to nice, I am also unpredictable.

The winners will be picked at random and I’ll announce their names next Wednesday, August 13th.

Get after it!

I’m about to get jalapeno business!

So, I was going to just do a post later this weekend, but I had the best week in the kitchen at school (it was Tex-Mex week and despite my initial misgivings, it was SO MUCH FUN!) and I had to share this with you all because it was so easy and delicious and you just have to try it. Did you hear me? HAVE. TO.

I only have one picture, but here it is. It’s not the chili you need to be looking at, it’s that lovely jalapeno shaped thing on the side.

That’s not just your typical jalapeno popper. It’s a jalapeno full of cornbread. Yes, the cornbread goes INSIDE the jalapeno, and then you cover it with cheese and you bake it for 20 minutes and it’s just really effing delicious. I won’t blame you at all if you skip the pretense of garnishing a bowl of chili or soup or something, and just make yourself a tray of these and binge watch The West Wing on Netflix tonight. Maybe treat yourself to some really good beer, too. You deserve it.

I wish I could claim all the credit for this genius invention, but I actually got the idea from Oh Bite It! They provide you a perfectly good cornbread recipe over there, but I’ll also give you the one we used in class.

Customize it however you like. Or instead of stuffing jalapenos, go big and stuff the poblanos, instead. Use a different cheese. No matter how you do it, you are not going to be disappointed. Bring a buncha these to one of those Memorial Day cook-out things that social people with lives like to attend. If people aren’t bringing you beers and just generally being extra nice to you after trying one of these, you need to get new friends because those people are dumb-dumbs.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, ya’ll!

You guys… I’m cracking up over here!

I cannot help myself with the bad jokes.

Though crackers were not on my “make them yourself” list for this year, when I saw this recipe from thekitchn.com, I instantly added them. I don’t eat a lot of crackers, but this recipe was so easy I can see whipping up a quick batch of these for a party or to bring to a party or other things where you share food that are party-like in nature. (Or if you really like crackers just make them for yourself and pour some wine and eat all the damn crackers. I don’t judge.)

You can click the link for the recipe. The recipe lists out equipment for you and everything, just like I do. Nice, yes? I don’t have a rolling pin, so I just used a can of pears. No, really. Anything round with flat sides works!

I’ll walk you through the basic steps so you can see how things looked, and a few little hints and whatnot..

The dry ingredients are pretty straightforward: flour, sugar and salt. The wet ingredients are olive oil and water. The recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of salt, so to add a little something different I used 1 tsp regular sea salt and 1 tsp smoked sea salt. I think you could get creative about adding other flavors, too, if you wanted.

Once you add the liquid to the dry ingredients, everything comes together pretty fast. At first, it kinda looks like a shaggy mess…

But after I dumped it out on the (floured) counter and smooshed it together a little, it was easier to work with. The recipe says this is a no knead dough, which is true, but you will need to stick your hands in there and bring it all together. However, the nice thing about this dough is that it’s not sticky at all, thanks to the olive oil. You won’t be picking scraps of dough off your hands or your counter top.

The instructions say to divide the dough in half and just work with half at a time. I didn’t really want a huge batch of crackers, so I just wrapped the 2nd half up and stuck it in the freezer for another time.

As I mentioned, I used a can of pears in lieu of a rolling pin. It was a little harder that way, but not ridiculous. I was still able to get the dough pretty thin. If you’re in the same rolling pin-less predicament, just remember to rub the sides of whatever replacement tool you use with a little flour so nothing sticks to it. Regardless of what you’re using, you’ll want to roll from the center of the dough outward toward the edges. The dough in the middle is thicker, so following that method helps redistribute it evenly all the way to the edges.

Once you have your dough rolled out, a pizza cutter works nicely to cut the dough into crackers. Don’t worry about making perfect crackers. Just keep them all generally the same size. Remember, these are homemade, and it’s ok if they look like it.

The original recipe provides a suggestion for how you top these crackers, but you could use just about anything. Keep it simple with some sea salt and/or cracked pepper, or pull out your favourite seasoning blend and use that. I used Za’Atar spice, which includes sesame seeds, sumac, cumin, thyme, oregano and marjoram in it.

The instructions also tell you to prick each cracker with a fork. Don’t skip this step or your crackers will all puff up on you and will likely burn on top.

That 12 minutes in the oven goes by fast, and with the higher oven temp (450°) you probably want to stay close to the kitchen. A few of mine burned anyway, but that’s pretty par for the course for me and anything baking related. Most of them are fine, and they taste really good!

The entire process, from start to finish, took about 45 minutes, so this isn’t a labor intensive recipe at all. If I was a regular cracker eater, I can see making up a batch of these once a week without it becoming a pain in the butt.

This is a recipe you can really customize to your own tastes, so give it a shot and have fun!

I'm Gonna Cook That!

Culinary student, explorer, and maybe just a little obsessed.

snacks

It’s a Non-judgmental Lentil

Like this:

Post Holiday Bleus

Like this:

Cevich-haaaaaaaaaaaaay (and a Mini-Giveaway!)

Like this:

I’m about to get jalapeno business!

Like this:

You guys… I’m cracking up over here!

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