better, better, better

Ah, fall in LA. Finally it is comfortable to stand in front of a big pot of chili with the oven below going at 400 degrees to bake some semolina gnocchi.

The initial inspiration for dinner was a recipe I had bookmarked for turkey chili with cornbread dumplings. Unfortunately, I had only read through it hastily and when I went back to review, it involved just a few too many boxed, ready-made ingredients than I was ready to offer Matty for dinner, especially since we effectively hadn't seen each other in 3 days.

I've made the chili before, but this time I just subbed ground turkey because I found a couple packages in the freezer. It was even better than I remembered, and now that I'm thinking about it, it's probably the lowest fat comfort food I can think of. Lean ground turkey and no other fat except what's in the chicken broth. Brilliant. That'll justify all the eating I just did.

I was starting to do a search for cornbread dumplings, but then remembered I had bookmarked a recipe for Semolina Gnocchi, so decided to go with that with the chili as a ragu topping.

In my eagerness to get home and get the process started, I forgot to pick up goat cheese at the grocery store. When I got home, I found some usable ricotta and was planning on subbing that, but then forgot to stir it in at the last minute. Ah well.

I baked the cooled polenta at 400 degrees for the required 15-20 minutes, but ended up broiling it for an additional 5 minutes for browning. I think next time, I'll just broil from the get-go to get the gnocchi crisper and browner.

As it was, it was still a great complement to the chili, and a perfect continuation of the lowfat dinner idea. It was a lovely light contrast to the heavier chili, and I might even go so far to say that I liked it better than with the ubiquitous cornbread (although I can't say I like it more than just scooping chili up with Fritos, but we'll save that for a cheat day).

cool it down cuz it's getting too hot

This Pumpkin Pie Fudge was a lesson in not second-guessing myself.

By choice, I have very little experience in candy-making. Frankly, I don't have the patience for it. In fact, just the other day, my friend Julia and were agreeing that no good can come of a recipe that requires the use of a candy thermometer.

So the first couple steps of this fudge recipe seemed easy enough. Combine, stir, boil until syrup hits 234 degrees (or at soft-ball stage). I had also happened to Google how to figure out if something was at soft-ball stage without the use of a thermometer and learned that a little drop of the syrup in a cup of cold water should form a little ball. Okay.

So the syrup started getting pretty thick, but my thermometer was still at about 160 degrees. Okay, keep at it. I kept stirring and stirring. That looks about right. Just take it off the heat. Well, the thermometer isn't at 234 degrees yet. Finally, I did the water test. Wait? Is that a ball? Well, not really. More stirring. Okay. This is still at 160 degrees. Well, you know how as soon as you turn your back, things will immediately go way past the desired temperature/boil over/make you curse the day you were born? Let's try that. I took a lap around the house and came back into the kitchen. Still no go. I did a couple dishes. Still nothing. Hm. Maybe my thermometer's broken. Let's do that water test again. Oh God. It's forming a ball off the spoon on its own. Oh God. Is that burning I smell?

Thankfully, the burning smell was just a product of an overactive imagination. However, the syrup was definitely cooked past soft-ball stage. I hurriedly took it off the heat, and started adding the white chocolate. And then everything kind of seized up and hardened. By the time the marshmallow fluff made it in there, my arms were sore.

Back to the Google machine. How to fix fudge that's been cooked past soft-ball stage. The first couple results were disheartening. "You can't, you a-hole." Luckily, a couple results down, was a suggestion to put it back on the heat with a splash of milk, and stir until a better consistency. I did what I could and then just gave up and piled it all in an 8x8 pan.

And you know what? It came out just fine. Not the smooth morsel of fall goodness I had hoped for, but still a sweet, cinnamon-y delight. Had I called it Pumpkin Nougat, no one would have been none the wiser. So all's well that ends well, and now I'm off to Sur La Table with the killing I made in birthday gift cards to look for a new thermometer.

great pumpkin waltz

For the 2nd (maybe 3rd) year in a row, Matty and I have managed to purchase a pumpkin but did not end up having the opportunity to carve it before Halloween. It's been difficult to get into the fall spirit what with all the 80+ degree temperature we've been having, and our schedules have been so completely insane that it was entirely too much effort to squeeze in carving time between work/social obligations and bedtime.

The nights have been cooling down, though, and I'm ready to really enjoy fall. Other than football, my favorite thing about fall is pumpkin. So when Daylight Savings Time screwed with my internal clock this morning, I cheerfully hopped out of bed to make Oatmeal Pumpkin Muffins for breakfast.

Instead of nuts (I do not like nuts in baked goods), I subbed 1/2 cup of toffee bits, and even with them and the chocolate chips, I still felt pretty virtuous. The muffins are not very sweet at all, which kind of makes me want to ice them with something maple-y for a more special occasion. Plain, they're a great breakfast option - the pockets of melted dark chocolate provide just enough fun to make you think you didn't wake up early for nothing.

feels like home

I'm fully ashamed to say that I know nothing of Vietnamese cooking. I wasn't very interested in cooking/baking when I was surrounded by it, and once I started caring about preparing my own food, it just got too tempting to try things I've never tried before with ingredients that didn't require a grocery trip into another neighborhood.

But as I got another year older, another year farther away from my family and another year closer to the impending reality of losing older relatives, I find myself trying to grasp at memories I shared with them, and regardless of whether I cared back then or not, most of them revolve around food.

I've feigned interest before. I've even gone so far as to ask my mother for recipes. Problem number one. As if she had "recipes" that weren't in her head. Problem number two. Once she finally wrote them, I promptly lost track of them in the black hole of our house. Like she was going to write them down again.

However, thanks to lovely blogs like Ravenous Couple, I can revisit the food of my youth any time I like. I literally spent an entire afternoon going through Hong and Kim's blog, sighing wistfully at all the food I pretty much gave up when I moved away for college. My visits home became "occasions," and while I'm not complaining about the "special" dinners we had then, it definitely made me miss the easy comfort of curling up with a bowl of rice and a braised something-or-other topping it.

I thought I'd ease into Vietnamese cooking with Stuffed Tomatoes, not for Matty's sake (we're pros at eating "exotic" food), but more for the sake of my inexperience. Everything was easy enough, but there are definitely a couple things to improve upon:

- I only roughly cut the bean thread noodles, making for a bit of a mess when I mixed all the ingredients for the meat filling together. I'll need much shorter pieces of noodle next time.

- I probably needed to pack the filling tighter (or I might have to explore an egg or breadcrumbs as a binder). Not all of them stayed intact. Those noodles could have been the culprit, too.

- Next time, I'll make sure to heat the pan to a higher temperature before adding the tomatoes so that I can get that gorgeous sear on top. Most of mine were just kind of gray-looking. I'd add the tomato cores after the sear happened.

But the lesson was well worth it to have the kitchen smell so familiar.

heard it through the grapevine

I love Facebook. Unabashedly, unashamedly love it. I love being that connected to my friends. I like being able to share this blog with people who had no idea it existed for over 2 years before I linked it to my FB. And I love that one innocent post about a gorgeous bowl got my four best girls to chip in for the Nambe Butterfly Covered Casserole you see before you.

I tracked the UPS shipment religiously, and could hardly sit still at work when I saw that Matty had signed for it at home. After ripping the box open and staring lovingly at it, I put it in the place of honor atop some shelves that Matty and his dad had built for me. We named her, too. Fallulah. Fallulah Q. Nambe.

And then the difficult part - what could I possibly make that would properly christen this piece of art? Back when I was only Facebook status'ing and dreaming about it, I had pretty much decided on a mac and cheese or a French toast, and the overwhelming majority of commenters voted for mac. So mac it is.

Sharp Cheddar Mac and Cheese with Leeks sounded both heartily comforting as well as classy enough for this bowl. And after some delirious rambling last night on the 1.5-mile walk from the U2 Rose Bowl show back to our car, we decided it'd be a good idea to top the mac with some bacon bread crumbs. Here's what I did:

Mac and Cheese with Leeks and Bacon Bread Crumbs
5 slices bacon, sliced into lardons
5 cups chopped leeks (white and pale green parts only; about 5 large)
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 1/2 cups whole milk
12 oz. bag of shredded Cheddar cheese
4 oz. Gruyere, grated
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 large eggs
1 pound penne pasta
2 slices white bread

1. Cook the bacon in a large pot until just starting to brown. Remove and drain on paper towels. Keep the bacon grease in the pot.

2. Add leeks; stir to coat. Cover pot and cook until leeks are tender, stirring occasionally, about 12 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water. Drain and return to pot.

4. Uncover saucepan; add flour. Stir 2 minutes. Add milk; bring to simmer, stirring often. Add cheese and mustard.

5. Stir until cheese melts. Remove from heat.

6. Whisk eggs in medium bowl. Gradually whisk in 1 cup cheese sauce. Stir egg mixture into cheese sauce in saucepan. Add cooked pasta to the cheese sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour into 2-quart casserole.

7. Run two slices of bread in a food processor to make crumbs. Combine bacon and crumbs in a small bowl and sprinkle over mac and cheese.

8. Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake pasta until cheese sauce is bubbling around edges, about 20 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes. Serve hot.

I was pretty happy with this mac and cheese. Some changes for next time:

- Whisk the flour more thoroughly. I felt it was a little on the grainy side. Matty didn't notice.

- Use all 10 slices in the package of bacon. Incorporate half of them in the cheese sauce. Why? Why not.

- Because the leeks are so mild, I'd love to experiment with bolder add-ins. Goodies like kale and mushrooms come to mind.

It's getting to be that time of year to start thinking about our annual day-after-Christmas mac and cheese. The rest of the equation still needs experimenting, but I feel this may be the year of the bacon topping. :)

he's alright, but he's not real

Don't let that bowl fool you. It's not the world's thinnest angel hair. It's a spaghetti squash! Spaghetti Squash with Ricotta, Sage and Pine Nuts. And some spinach thrown in for good measure.

Verdict: just tolerable. Well, maybe just under tolerable. We had to go to The Alcove for a slice of banana-toffee tart and a decaf mocha to make up for the overwhelming sense of healthiness we felt after eating this.

And I guess that's where the diet food part of this dish comes in. After you've chewed on it for a while, you just get bored of eating it. No way you're going to overindulge here. Good thing dessert is always just a few blocks away.

The disappointing thing is that I've had spaghetti squash before, and I quite enjoyed it. The difference, I think, is there, it maintained vegetable status. Throw in things like ricotta, sage and pine nuts, and then there's this insurmountable pressure for it to be some kind of comfort food. And when you know what to expect if those ingredients are combined with delicious, chewy, filling real pasta, and you get spaghetti squash, you're going to wonder why you would ever do something like that to the love of your life, especially after he's shown you a great birthday weekend.

He was pretty nice about it, though. He just wisely summed it all up by saying, "Well, that's what happens when nature tries to make pasta. We Italians just do it better."

Touché.

you can have whatever you like

I turned 27 yesterday. Kinda scary. Maybe a little dramatic, but kinda scary. I mean, 27 doesn't MEAN anything. It's just another year gone (and faster than the last, too).

To ease the drama, I thought I'd spoil myself and start Saturday off with some Carrot Cake Pancakes. Taking a cue from the reader comments, I used one of the smallest holes on my box grater to ensure there were no crispy carrot bites in these pancakes, and luckily, I was successful. Each bite was fluffy, cinnamon-y heaven.

I managed to exercise a semblance of self-discipline by avoiding the cream cheese spread and only dressing the pancakes with maple syrup. I mean, after all, I'm 27 now. Those inches and pounds don't come off quite as quickly anymore.

But don't worry, I still had a chocolate cake to make a wish on.



A Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake, to be exact. The kind folks over at Capitol City Sports were cool with me providing my own cake, so as a celebratory cap to the nail-biting USC win over Notre Dame, we dug into this little vegan delight.

To be honest, it's not my favorite, but the Chocolate Buttercream Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World made everything right with the world. You see, the cake itself LOOKED to be deliciously dark and perfectly fluffy and even sprang back each time I sliced it. However, there was something a little sticky about the texture, and it just tasted a little off to me even though I didn't taste the individual flavors of the coconut oil or the avocado. I mean, what do I know - everyone else said they loved it, including the vegan that I wanted to include in the festivities.

That frosting, though, is killer. Really intense, not too sweet, and very rich. Matty, whom I had left the frosting duties to, said it wasn't the easiest thing to spread, but I think he did a pretty fine job. :) Happy birthday to me!