Try this wonderful dish for dinner tonight! If you are having trouble locating Thai ingredients, check out importfood.com.

Don’t like eggplant? You can replace it with quartered mushrooms or slices of zucchini or summer squash. For a Vegetarian version, replace the chicken with diced, firm tofu and skip the fish sauce.

Enjoy!!

Texture.  That’s all I have to say about this delicious and unusual chocolate dessert from ‘Screen Doors and Sweet Tea’ by Martha Hall Foose.  It is cool, creamy, and absolutely delicious.  I was drawn to this recipe equally by the name and the picture.  Now, back to the texture. This dessert—I wouldn’t call it a cake,–is softer and not as sweet as fudge and creamier than a flourless chocolate tort or cake.  It’s perfect for hot summer nights and can be frozen for up to a month, which makes it perfect to have on hand for when guests drop in.

Enjoy!

Darkness on the Delta

Serves 6-8

‘Screen Doors and Sweet Tea’ by Martha Hall Foose

7 oz Bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2/3 cup whole milk

1/3 cup plus 1 Tbsp granulated sugar

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1 large egg yolk

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Place the chocolate in a large bowl and set aside.
2. Combine the milk, 1/3 sugar and nutmeg in a small saucepan on the stove top and heat to melt the sugar.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk with the remaining tablespoon of sugar.  Pour in half of the hot milk, whisking constantly.
4. Return the milk-egg mixture to the remaining milk in the saucepan.  Continue to cook the milk and egg mixture stirring constantly for about 5 minutes or so, until it thickens slightly.
5. Pour the hot milk over the chopped chocolate and stir vigorously to melt the chocolate.
6. Cut the softened butter into pieces and stir it into the chocolate a few pieces at a time.
7. Stir in the vanilla extract.  Set aside while you prepare the pan.
8. Spray a 6 inch round cake pan with a removable bottom with non stick cooking spray and line the bottom and sides of the pan with plastic wrap.
9. Pour the chocolate mixture into the pan and place in the freezer for 6 hours.
10. To serve, remove the sides of the cake pan, place a plate on top of the cake, flip it over and peel off the plastic wrap.  Garnish with powdered sugar and raspberries.
11. Store any remaining cake in the freezer.

Yup, it feels like summer in San Francisco and by that I mean an actual summer and not the cold and foggy kind.  Last night was actually too hot for blankets!! Can you believe it?  So today, as I was flipping through cookbooks looking for inspiration I caught a glimpse of a salad with filet mignon. It looked so enticing I had to make it almost immediately.  Sweet cherry tomatoes, cold, crisp lettuce, chilled steak that has been cooked medium rare, intense ‘Roaring 40’s’ blue cheese and a pungent mustardy vinaigrette has almost done me in.  The most wonderful thing about salads is the versatility of ingredients.   If you wanted to you could easily add hard boiled eggs, avocado, pickled red onion, cucumber, bacon or crispy prosciutto.  You could subtract the meats and add grilled or marinated tofu and more vegetable too.

The perfect wine for a dinner salad with complex flavors would be a glass of chilled rose.  (Check with your local wine merchant for recommendations, but I like Cote du Rhone Roses, and domestic producers that I have enjoyed include Bonny Doon, V. Sattui, Lewis Cellars and Etude.) White wine simply can’t handle the flavors; particularly the blue cheese and most red wines are too heavy.

When it is hot out, what do you like to eat?  I have a tendency to run out of ideas in the summer and just repeat old favorites.

I was introduced to this fabulous and fabulously easy chutney by the one and only Julie Sahni a couple of years ago.   It has since become a staple in my kitchen as a dip for parties and is also terrific topping roasted salmon.   You too can become the hit of your next potluck or dinner party if you make this.  Just watch to find out how…

I don’t know anyone whose life has not been affected by cancer in some way.   For that reason alone I am pleased to take part in Foodbuzz’s most recent posting challenge.  Everyday Foodbuzz chooses 9 posts to feature as the ‘Top 9’.   July 19^th’s top 9 will be around a banana split theme.  For every featured publisher that takes part by blogging about and picturing a Banana Split, Foodbuzz will donate $50 to ovarian cancer research, sponsored by Electrolux and Kelly Ripa.   So here is my San Francisco Banana Split.  I used Mitchell’s ice cream, of course.  The three flavors that I chose were Chocolate, Buko (young coconut) and Ube (purple yam). The toppings are home made brown sugar- ginger syrup, hot fudge and coconut cream. The cherries are from a Bing cherry compote that I made a month ago and the whipped cream is fresh.

Messy but delicious!

For more information and to donate check out http://www.kelly-confidential.com/foodbuzz.

Picture it, you’ve been gone for a week (or more) and the house is cold, quiet and dark.   Nothing makes me feel more comfortable and relaxed upon returning home from airports and vacation than opening up a cookbook and firing up the old oven. This, makes my fingers itch and my mind wander…..what shall I cook today? What is going to make my mouth water and the kitchen smell oh so good?   I want to throw open my windows and let the scent of vanilla, cinnamon and sugar announce my return to the neighborhood.  Today’s answer was a Custardy Peach Tart from Dorie’s Baking from My Home to Yours.  Tomorrow’s answer will most likely be different, but today is all about sweet, ripe peaches in a nutty shortbread crust enveloped in a almond scented custard and topped off with brown sugar streusel.

Even if you are not ‘home’ this will make you feel like you are somewhere happy, nourished and loved.

Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart from ‘Baking From My Home to Yours’ by Dorie Greenspan

1 9” tart crust, partially baked and cooled* (See recipe below.)

Place the tart pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat.

Preheat the Oven to 425F

Streusel Topping

2 Tbsp. Flour

2 Tbsp. packed light or dark brown sugar

2 Tbsp. Sliced almonds

2 Tbsp. Chilled butter cut into pieces

Filling

3 large ripe peaches or nectarines, halved and pitted

½ cup heavy cream

1 large egg

¼ cup sugar

1/8 tsp. Almond extract

Assembly:

Streusel topping:  Combine the flour and sugar.  Work the butter in using your fingertips.  Add the sliced almonds, toss to combine and chill until you are ready to use it.

Filling: Whisk the cream, egg, sugar and almond extract together.  Set aside.

The Peaches:  Cut the peaches into thin slices and arrange in a wheel pattern over the pre- baked tart crust.

Pour the filling over the peaches and place in the oven.   Bake the tart for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, lower the oven temperature to 375F and continue to bake for another 20 minutes.  At this point pull the tart partially out of the oven and sprinkle the streusel evenly over the tart.  Place the tart back into the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the filling is set and the streusel is golden brown.  (Total baking time is 50-55 minutes.)

Serve warm or cold, dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

Enjoy!

Sweet Tart Dough with Nuts

1 ¼ cups all purpose flour

¼ cup finely ground nuts, your favorite kind (if nuts aren’t your thing, replace the nuts with ¼ cup of flour.)

½ cup confectioner’s sugar

¼ tsp. salt

9 Tbsp. very cold or frozen butter cut into small pieces.

1 large egg yolk

*Butter a 9” tart pan with a removable bottom and set aside.

Place the flour, nuts, sugar and salt in food processor and pulse to combine.  Sprinkle the small pieces of butter over the flour mixture and pulse in short bursts until the butter is cut in.  Stir the egg yolk to break in up and add the yolk a little at a time, pulsing after each addition.   Once the egg yolk is in,  pulse the dough for 10 seconds at a time.  The dough will come together in clumps.   Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead a couple of times.  Press the dough evenly into the prepared tart pan.  If you have the time, freeze the crust for 30 minutes prior to baking.

To partially bake the crust:  Butter a piece of aluminum foil and place the foil buttered side down tightly against the crust.  Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes.  Carefully remove the foil.  If the crust has puffed up, press it down gently with the back of a spoon.  Keep the crust in the tart pan and set it aside until you are ready to use it.

This is one of my ‘go to’ weeknight meals.  You can make this in the time it takes to call in take out.   It’s ridiculously easy, you only really need two ingredients and a pan and a stove.   The secret lies in perfectly cooked, tender shrimp.  Paired with rice it is a complete meal. It’s based on one of Melissa Clark’s recipes from the NY Times.   Seeing is believing—you’ll need to watch this to understand just how crazy simple and good it is.   To dress this recipe up, you only have to go to your spice cabinet and pick your favorite seasonings.

Enjoy!

I have this thing about ‘healthy’ pastries for breakfast.  Vegan, low fat, whole grain Chocolate chip muffins? Oh yes.  I’ll take my croissants with whole wheat flour, thank you very much.   And don’t even think about touching my flax seed enhanced, bee pollen sprinkled brown sugar coffee cake.   I want whole grain flours, dark sugars and fruit purees.  That’s one of the reasons I am so entranced with ‘Good to the Grain’ by Kim Boyce.  I know that I have talked about it before and this book is definitely one of the ‘it’ cooking books of the summer if not the year.

I loved the look of the Figgy Buckwheat Spiral scones that she has pictured on page 81.    With no figs in the pantry I quickly turned my attention to the medjool dates I had just purchased and decided to make Buckwheat-Date scones instead.  They were really good.  Quite awesome, in fact.

I hope that you enjoy these as part of your own healthy breakfast!  (you can add 2 Tbsp. of ground flax seeds to the date puree if that makes you feel better….)

Date Puree with Vanilla and Orange Zest

1 cup Medjool dates, pitted

½ cup water or orange juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tsp. orange zest

In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the dates and water.  Bring to a simmer and cook the dates until they are soft, about 10 minutes for fresh dates and 15-20 minutes for dried dates.   Puree the softened dates and add the vanilla and orange zest at this time.  Set aside to cool.

Buckwheat Scones “Good to the Grain” by Kim Boyce with Amy Scattergood

Dry Mix

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 ¼ cups all purpose flour

½ cup sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

Combine in a food processor

Wet Mix

8 Tbsp. (1 stick) of cold butter cut into small pieces

1 ¼ cups heavy cream

1 cup Date Puree

Sprinkle the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients in the food processor.  Pulse the butter into the dry ingredients.  It should have a sandy, granular texture. Transfer the butter mixture to a bowl.  Pour the cream over the butter-flour mixture and gently mix until just combined.

Transfer the dough to a well floured surface—the dough will be sticky.  Using a rolling pin or your own well floured hands pat or roll the dough into a rectangle that is about ¾” thick, 16” long and 8” wide.   Spread the date puree over the dough. Roll the long side of the dough up and land seam side down.   Cut the log in half, you should have (2) 8” long logs.   Place the logs on a plate or cookie sheet and chill, covered for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F

Remove the logs from the fridge and cut into 1 ¼” rounds.  Place the rounds cut side down onto parchment or a silpat lined baking sheet.  You may give the scones a squeeze to shape them into rounds.   Bake for 35 minutes or so, rotating the cookie sheet half way through.  The scones are ready to come out when the underside is golden brown.

Bon Appétit!

Every now and again I have a food and beverage pairing that unexpectedly blows my mind.  It happened this very week when I made the Hiyashi Chuka (Chilled Chinese Noodle Salad) as part of the monthly Washoku Warrior Challenge that I participate in each month.  We are cooking through Elizabeth Andoh’s ‘Washoku, Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen.’ Participating in a round table cooking club allows me to experiment and get my creative juices flowing.  I really enjoy reading everyone’s notes and seeing the resultant pictures.   (Check out lafujimama.com for more info.)

Anyhoo, this month’s recipe was pretty straightforward.  It consisted of chilled noodles garnished with various toppings—ham, cucumber, soy simmered shitake mushrooms, pickled ginger and topped off with a chilled, creamy, sesame miso sauce.  I loved the pungency of the individual ingredients and the sesame miso sauce was subtle enough to be a bridge between flavors.  It was the Sesame miso sauce that made this dish for me.   It’s subtle; a little nutty, a little salty from the miso and a little sweet too.   It would be a fantastic dip for steamed vegetables—especially steamed asparagus or bok choy—or even fresh spring rolls.  This sauce would be a great addition to a non-traditional 4^th of July Barbecue buffet.

But with this kind of dish you just hope to find a beverage that can hang in there with the various flavors and textures. You wouldn’t expect to find something that really enhances the experience in “the sum is greater than the sum of its parts” kind of way. We opened a bottle of beer named La Fin Du Monde (yes, that’s ‘the end of the world’) made by the Canadian brewery Unibroue. It’s a full-bodied Tripel with notes of lemon and coriander and it played off the sesame miso sauce like they were long lost lovers.  It gave richness, weight and texture to the sauce.  I thought the dish was pretty good on its own, but after one sip of beer it immediately became exceptional.  Even the stronger flavors of soy braised mushrooms, ham and pickled ginger were enhanced.  It was two thumbs up all the way around.

Here’s the recipe for the Sesame Miso Sauce

Adapted from: Elizabeth Andoh’s ‘Washoku, Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen.’

3 Tbsp. Tahini
3 Tbsp White Miso
1 tsp soy sauce
1/3 cup of water or Dashi

* The sauce should have the consistency of heavy cream.  Use more water if you need to—add the extra water in 1 Tbsp or less at a time.

My new favorite ‘quick and easy recipe for home cooking’ sounds like a character from Star Wars.  It’s called Ja Ja Men (close to, but not quite Jar Jar Binks), and it is from Takashi’s Noodles, a fantastic cookbook that I can highly endorse.  This book is filled with quick and easy Asian noodle recipes that are delicious and perfect for weeknight cooking. I’m all about quick and easy recipes these days, more so than ever.  Pete and I challenged ourselves to stop ordering take out about a month ago to see not only the impact on our wallets, but also how we feel primarily eating homemade food—that is all natural, fresh foods without any additives or preservatives.   I think that we all want something that we can put on the table really fast and we want it to taste good.  I hate eating ill prepared and ill tasting food. (Airport food sends a chill up and down my spine.)  I would rather be hungry.    Relaxing with a glass of wine over a dinner that really tastes good and is healthy is something that I look forward to all day.

Here it is:

Spicy Eggplant Ja Ja Men Udon

Adapted from Takashi’s Noodles, by Takashi Yagihashi with Harris Salat

2 cups peeled, cubed eggplant, about 1 moderately sized eggplant or two small ones.
½ cup chopped red, yellow or orange bell pepper (This recipe originally calls for green bell pepper which is one of the few vegetables that I actively dislike, but if you like green bell pepper, by all means use it.)
1/3 cup drained, canned bamboo shoots, cut into ½ inch pieces
4 scallions, green and white parts separated and chopped

Combine the eggplant, bell pepper and bamboo shoots in a large bowl.  Cover with cold water and set aside to soak for 10 minutes, then drain.

While the eggplant is soaking, combine the following and set aside:

3 Tbsp. sake
2 Tbsp. red miso
2 Tbsp. sesame paste
6 Tbsp. Soy Sauce (I used Tamari)
2 Tbsp. Chinese chili paste, if unavailable, you may use 1 Tbsp. Siracha.  As always with chilies, add more or less according to your liking.
5 Tbsp. Mirin
½ cup Dashi or Water

Combine 1 tsp cornstarch with 1 tsp. water and set aside.

2 Tbsp or so of vegetable oil for sautéing.
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 Tbsp. minced ginger
8 oz. ground pork (If you are vegetarian, you could substitute 8 oz of tofu cut into a small dice.)
2 Tbsp. Sesame Oil
1 # dried udon noodles

Heat the vegetable oil in a large-ish sauté pan over medium high heat.  When the oil is hot, sauté the garlic and ginger until they are a light golden brown.  Add the ground pork or tofu and the chopped green scallion. Use a spoon to combine the ingredients in the pan. When the pork is no longer pink, add the eggplant, bamboo shoots and bell pepper. Cook for a few minutes so that the vegetable start to soften and the flavors begin to mingle.  Add the sesame oil and stir well to combine.  Add the sake/miso/spice mixture and bring to a boil.  Stir the cornstarch and water if it has separated and pour it into the sauce.  Stir well to combine and continue to cook for a few minutes until the sauce thickens and the eggplant is cooked to your liking. Remove the pot from the heat.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the udon noodles according to the directions on the package.  Drain and place a portion of noodles in each serving bowl.  If the sauce has cooled, reheat and top the noodles with the sauce.  Garnish with the reserved chopped white scallion.

Enjoy!

*If you can’t find udon noodles, you can use linguine