Aviation

Woo! I found real maraschino cherries!

Real = not that nuclear-red dyed shit. If it comes on top of an ice cream sundae, it's not a real maraschino cherry, it's pumped full of red dye and corn syrup. Tastes like it, too.

Real maraschino cherries actually taste like cherries, and are dark, dark red--in dim bar light, sometimes they look like olives. But they taste so gooooood, and no red dye or corn syrup in sight. I had a plan to make my own this summer, but I found a jar by Luxardo in a fancy cheese shop and jumped on the opportunity.

Luxardo also makes maraschino liqueur, which tastes nothing like either real or fake maraschino cherries. It's clear, and in taste resembles a slightly fruity grappa. It's strong. And is one of the key ingredients (in making your own maraschino cherries, but also in) the classic drink called the Aviation.

2 parts gin

1 part maraschino liqueur

1 part fresh-squeezed lemon juice

Shake, serve in well-chilled glass with a (real) maraschino cherry.

Collard green pesto

Well, I guess you can make pesto out of pretty much anything, huh?

This turned out way better than I thought it would, frankly. But it doesn't shine on pasta--collard green pesto needs to be served on a big platter of cheese grits. Yeah. Cheese grits.

Anyway, it was also spicier than I thought it would be, probably because I used jalapeno-stuffed olives.

From Epicurious:

1 big bunch collard greens, tough center ribs removed
7 large brine-cured green olives (2 1/4 ounces), pitted
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Scant 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Blanch collard greens briefly by bringing a big pot of water to a rolling boil, adding the greens, and cooking until soft, maybe 15 minutes. Transfer collards with tongs to a colander to drain, gently pressing on greens to extract excess water. (If making pasta, reserve water in pot for cooking pasta.) Coarsely chop collards.

Blend olives and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped. Add collards, water, vinegar, salt, cayenne, and pepper and pulse until finely chopped. With motor running, add oil in a slow stream. Turn off motor, then add cheese and pulse to combine.

Serve over cheese grits for full power.

Carrot pizza, Thai-style

This is an interesting pizza. "Interesting" in the sense that it's good; but I found myself missing the cheese. However, it's a great vegan dish, it's low-calorie and light, and would make a great appetizer as well.

It's basically pureed cooked carrots, with Sriracha, coconut milk, and fresh herbs. I cooked, then pureed, the carrots. On the pizza crust, I spread a little olive oil, then the carrot puree, and cooked it like I would a regular pizza. While it was cooking, I opened a can of coconut milk and set it to boil, to reduce it by about half (coconut cream would also work, without the reducing).

When it came out of the oven, I added a fair amount of Sriracha, and drizzled the coconut milk over that (maybe 1/3 cup of each) and topped with chopped fresh cilantro and mint.

Maple vinegar

This was an experiment, courtesy of the New York Times.  Check out the recipe on their website: I figured anything made with maple syrup and dark rum would be good.

After three weeks of fermentation in the back of my cupboard, I had a jar full of maple-y, not too vinegar-y, maple vinegar.

After further experimentation, here's what a jar of homemade maple vinegar is good for:

1. Salad dressing, especially on any salad with blue cheese and/or nuts.

2. On stinky cheese or blue cheese.

3. The Times claims it's good in a martini, though I haven't gotten that far yet.

Red velvet cake, without the red (or the icing)

Then why make it, you ask? What's the point of red velvet cake if it's not red, and doesn't have icing?

Don't worry, it's still good.

Red velvet cake is a pet peeve of  mine. I can't tell you how many times I've had red velvet cake (usually at an office party) that is nothing more than regular white cake with a ton of red food dye added. People: This is not red velvet cake! I don't care how red it is.

REAL red velvet cake is made with cocoa and buttermilk. And tastes chocolate-y. The red color originally came from a chemical reaction between the unprocessed cocoa and the buttermilk. (Hershey's isn't the right kind of cocoa; but it's okay to use, that's what I used.) Some people added a little beet juice to enhance the reddish tinge (adding beet juice doesn't affect the flavor). Then I guess everyone decided they liked the red color so much, most red velvet cake recipes these days call for TWO BOTTLES of red dye.

Even if the cake is made the right way, with cocoa and buttermilk, if it has two bottles of dye in it, I can't taste anything but dye. (You do know food dye is made from petroleum, right?)

But I had some buttermilk I needed to use up, so I decided to make it anyway, with or without the red. I didn't make the icing because, hey, I was lazy. Plus I figure that way, it's more acceptable to have cake for breakfast. Without icing, it's just like a cake wedge-shaped muffin, right? Right?

Anyway, here's the recipe. Should you choose to add the two bottles of dye (ewwww, btw), add that to the cocoa powder to make a sort of paste before adding it to the batter. And wear an apron, that crap stains.

2 1/2 cups sifted flour (sift by itself first, then sift with the other dry ingredients, as per below)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Sift the first three ingredients together, and set aside. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then add vanilla and cocoa (or cocoa/dye paste). Add 1/3 flour mixture, then 1/2 of the buttermilk, and so on. Scrape down the bowl and make sure everything is well combined. In a separate bowl, combine the vinegar and baking soda (yes, it will fizz) and incorporate that into the batter. Divide into the cake pans, and back at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

Icing:
Cook 3 tablespoons flour and 1 cup milk until thick. Cool COMPLETELY. Cream 1 cup confectioner's sugar, 1 cup butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla until fluffy, and fold that into the flour/milk mixture.

Another pet peeve: cream cheese icing on red velvet cake. Good and all, but the flour/milk icing above is the authentic one.

Pea, zucchini and bacon risotto

  

I've been getting bags of sugar snap peas in my CSA box for the last two weeks now, meaning I had about two pounds' worth of peas to get through. I also had three zucchini, two of which I used for the zucchini-potato frittata, so I decided on a simple springtime risotto.

The basic risotto recipe is simply arborio rice, an onion (or shallot), parmesan, and broth and/or wine. Saute the chopped onion in olive oil until soft. Add a cup of arborio rice to that and toast for a minute. Add a splash of white wine to deglaze.  

Add more wine and/or broth, in small amounts, and keep stirring so that the rice absorbs most of the liquid between additions. When the rice is done, and the liquid is mostly gone, add a couple handfuls of parmesan cheese, stir and eat.

In between all that, you can add whatever you like to flavor it. I added the peas and the sliced zucchini about 2/3 of the way through, and added crumbled cooked bacon at the very end.

The dish ended up being more vegetable than rice, but I'm okay with that.

Zucchini-potato frittata

This recipe proves the awesomeness of a good cast-iron skillet.

It was the perfect frittata--light on the inside, crusty on the outside, full of cheesy veggie goodness. I threw in lots of bacon, too. When I ate the first bite, I detected a faint aura of maple. "Hmmmm," I thought, "there isn't any maple in this. And there isn't any sugar to caramelize. I wonder where that maple flavor is coming from?" The mystery maple flavor was much more pronounced along the crust.

Then I remembered a batch of maple-cured bacon I'd made in that pan.

The ghost of that bacon had come back to haunt my frittata.

In the best possible way, of course.

I used this recipe from The Kitchn, adapted below:

2 medium zucchini or yellow summer squash, sliced

Salt
4-5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, or more as needed
3 waxy potatoes, thinly sliced
1/2 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1/4 pound bacon
6 eggs
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup grated Cheddar

Get out your good cast-iron skillet, and fry up some bacon.

Remove the bacon (leaving the bacon grease) and saute the onions and potatoes in that for several minutes, until the potatoes are soft. Remove the potatoes, add a little more bacon fat, and saute the zucchini.

Meanwhile mix the eggs and cheese together in a bowl. Add the potatoes and zucchini, with salt and pepper, along with the crumbled-up bacon strips you cooked earlier, and mix. Add a little more bacon fat to the pan, and pour everything back into it. Let cook for 10 minutes over medium-low, without stirring, so the eggs can set. Slide the whole thing into the oven.

Bake at 350 another 10-15 minutes, or until not jiggly in the middle.

Look how yummy that is:

See all the nice potato layers?

One more time:

I'm definitely going to be doing more things with potatoes and eggs.