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Rallying for Roll-ups! Part 3: Rugelach

Marcia March 31, 2009 Banter, Recipes, Restaurants 0

A year or two ago my friend Kate presented me a shoe-box-sized plastic container of rugelach. She said it was so easy to make; she found the recipe in a magazine — no-fuss rugelach via refrigerated pie crust dough!

In a word: EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I thought her rugelach was rich, flaky, and fruity — it took much effort to NOT devour the entire containerful in one day. Gary agreed it was mighty tasty.

So, onto my roll-up-only menu it went. I found what I believed to be the right recipe on realsimple.com. Now you read that recipe and tell me what to do with the walnuts and raisins, because the recipe certainly doesn’t. Interestingly, the same recipe at realsimple television does say what to do with the nuts and raisins, but for some reason says the yield is 12 rugelach, though the original recipe says 22. Does anybody proofread or test these recipes?

This is Real Simple's photo; my pastries went straight to the trash bin. . .

This is Real Simple's photo; my pastries went straight to the trash bin. . .

Anyway . . . the sprinkling, unfolding, rolling, spreading, sprinkling, rolling, and slicing steps went well. Except that for one log I forgot to add “half” each the walnuts and raisins, and, oh yes, I had also decided that one-sixth of a cup of jam did not cover a the dough very well AT ALL, so I put on about twice as much each time. What harm could that do?

After the rugelach baked for barely five minutes, the jam oozed out of the swirls, congregated on the cookie sheet, and bubbled into a dark, gooey glue. I had to wait for the rugelach to cool before attempting to scrape/cut/trim the black, crispy lacquer from each piece while maintaining its structural integrity. It didn’t go well.

Well, I thought, at least there would be YUM. But actually there was no YUM. Not YUCK, just YAWN. This rugelach tasted sorta like jam baked in refrigerated pie dough. I’d have to ask Kate for the recipe she used. In the meantime, time was scarce, so we headed to Whole Foods to seek sweet rolled-up anythings, preferably freshly baked. Failing that, it would be off to the convenience mart for HoHos.

At Whole Foods, in the spirit of stubborn menu stick-to we passed over a couple of nice-looking jelly or swiss rolls in favor of prepackaged rugelach. Though this rugelach tasted better than the trash-bin inhabitants–we could detect some butter and cream cheese in these somewhere–they were still disappointing. Not the WOW we were looking for.

Turns out, the recipe I had tried WAS the recipe Kate swore by. She’d made it so many times, in fact, to so many rave reviews she had at the ready her list of preparation tips:

  1. Line the cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
  2. Spray the foil with a nonstick cooking spray (Pam)
  3. Sprinkle the cinn/sugar mix all over the foil
  4. Use Pillsbury pie rounds.
  5. Use a thin layer of jam/preserves
  6. Use a lot of raisins/walnuts
  7. Cut the log at a slight angle

This should help. There is always a lot of goop that comes out. It’s so yummy though. Good luck!

I’ll be taking votes: Should I try the Real Simple recipe again, or next time attempt a full-scale decadent cream-cheese laden version?

Rallying for Roll-ups! Part 1: Sushi

Marcia March 24, 2009 Banter, Book Reviews, Recipes 0
Assorted homemade maki

Assorted homemade maki

Rarely do I entertain, but when I do I use the Happily Upcoming Guest Event (HUGE) as an excuse to make appetizers, entrees, or sweets that I wouldn’t otherwise make due to time, ingredient, or calorie restrictions. When I do decide to that that annual or semiannual HUGE plunge, suddenly thousands of recipes become intriguing possibilities and the what-to-serve dilemma becomes dauntingly enormous.

Past gatherings have inspired tortilla chips with strawberry salsa and a sausage and red bell pepper quiche from epicurious.com, and a deceptively delicious low-fat dark chocolate pudding from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites. A few gatherings back, my then-boyfriend (and current hubby) Gary offered to make sushi. His assorted maki and nigiri plate was a hit. Since it’s been a long time since we’ve made our own sushi, I decided to build the next HUGE menu around it. In a crazed attempt to narrow menu options while still allowing for fun and creativity, I embraced an all roll-up event. Though Gary was slightly bummed that my decree ruled out his beloved nigiri, he dashed out to the Kotobukiya Market in Porter Square and eagerly bought up sushi rice, sushi vinegar, tobiko (flying fish roe), nori (seaweed wrappers), and sushi-grade salmon and tuna. Plus some avocado and cucumbers at the local Shaws. Knowing that one guest will not get near raw fish, I picked up some neufchatel cheese and lox as well.

The maki assortment was salmon maki, tuna maki, New York roll (salmon, avocado, apple), Philadelphia roll (cream cheese, lox, cucumber) and veggie roll (avocado and cucumber). I gotta confess, the avocado we had was absolutely divine; were they all avocado-only rolls I would not have complained.

A most divine avocado

A most divine avocado

Lessons learned:

  • Allow yourself plenty of time to prepare and roll your maki, especially if you haven’t made maki in over two years. If you don’t have the time to carefully press a thin layer of rice onto the nori, or you forget not to cover the entire nori sheet with rice, you might end up with giant rice balls with a relatively small smidgen of fish or filling within. The only problem with these rolls was they were too big and overstuffed with rice.
  • If you will be storing uneaten maki in the fridge, you have to prepare the rice so it won’t dry out, losing much of its taste and creamy texture. Gary remembered after the fact that the rice should have been prepared somewhat differently, but he couldn’t remember exactly how.
  • Don’t try to make inside-out rolls in a pinch if you’ve forgotten how to make them.
  • Cream cheese is a real pain in the ass to work with when you’re trying to make sushi.

Stay tuned for Rallying for Roll-ups! Part 2: Summer Rolls (Sort of)

Oatmeal embellishments 1: Apples and cinnamon

Marcia February 22, 2009 Cooking, Recipes 0

This morning I discovered a recipe from the William-Sonoma Kitchen Library’s Breakfasts & Brunches that actually needed no lightening—the Apple-Cinnamon Oatmeal was a low-fat healthful winner compared to that book’s Zucchini Frittata, an unnecesarily oily version of a potentially healthful dish.

The oatmeal recipe was simple: Cook  1 cup of  your favorite coarsely ground oatmeal (we use Bob’s Red Mill Steel-Cut Oats) as you normally do, preferably according to the package directions “for the precise proportion of water to oats and the necessary cooking time.” Then, when the oatmeal is done, leave it in its saucepan and grate two sweet apples, halved and cored, directly on top of the oatmeal using a box grater. Add one teaspoon cinnamon, and stir it all together. Plop into serving bowls, and add honey to taste. The recipe says it serves four, but between me and my hungry husband, we eked out two servings: for me, my one-and-a-half cupper, for him, the rest of the batch.

He eschewed the honey in favor of pure Grade B maple syrup; we both sprinkled broken walnuts over our oatmeal.

My best stab at oatmeal photography:

Apple-cinnamon oatmeal. Those black things that look like bugs are the walnuts.

Apple-cinnamon oatmeal. Those black things that look like bugs are the walnuts.

Comments: I liked the idea of adding the fresh shredded apple directly to the cooked oatmeal in the pan. Saves me from dirtying a separate saucepan trying to improvise a nice apple topping using on a second burner. But shredding the apples directly into the pan with the box grater was cumbersome at best: I guess I’m not strong enough to hold the grater in place while my other hand was pressing and scraping an apple half against it. And apple shavings were flying everywhere! So, next time, I’ll shred onto a cutting board, then add the apple to the pan. By doing this separately, you can also have the apple ready to add as soon as the oatmeal is done — the oatmeal cooled off too much while I was shredding the apple. Last, a little more spice would have been nice; I’ll up the cinnamon measure next time, or add another spice, such as nutmeg or cardamom.

Adapting Ramsay’s sautéed chicken breast recipe

Marcia February 15, 2009 Recipes 0
zucchini_img_8322_

zucchini

(Yes, it calls for zucchini.) The original recipe can be found on the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 Web site.

Here is my adaptation I’m about to try and report on later in this post. I’ll adjust the recipe as I go along. My goal is to lighten it up from about 600 calories and 20 grams of fat per serving to 460 calories and 16 grams, respectively. Most of the lightening comes from shunning the butter and reducing the amount of olive oil from over 6 tablespoons to three. Removing the chicken skin will also save fat and calories, but by how much I don’t know offhand. I’m also making a potentially disastrous attempt of converting British measurements and terms to American equivalents.

Sauteed chicken breast with ratatouille couscous and apple and lemon olive oil, slightly lightened and Americanized

4 chicken breasts (I’m assuming half breasts)
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
Olive oil cooking spray
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 Granny Smith apple, cored and sliced
1 lemon, sliced
Handful of fresh coriander (cilantro), chopped
1-1/2 cups canned low-sodium chicken stock
1 cup whole-wheat couscous, uncooked
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 medium eggplant, cut into half-inch cubes
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 zucchini, cut into half-inch cubes
1 tomato, skinned, seeded, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Season the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. Spray nonstick skillet with cooking spray, heat skillet, then fry the chicken, skin-side down, for 5 minutes until the skin is golden and crisp. Turn the chicken over and sear the other side, 1–2 minutes. Transfer the chicken to an ovenproof dish.

2. Drain fat from the skillet. Add one tablespoon of the olive oil, then cook the apple and sliced lemon for 2 minutes until they start to release their juices and soften slightly. Pour into the dish with the chicken and roast for 15–18 minutes or until cooked through. (After-note: Cooking through to 170˚F added at least 30 minutes to this cooking time.)

3. Put couscous in large bowl. Bring the chicken broth to a boil. Add hot broth to couscous. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to soak for 5–10 minutes. Remove the plastic wrap then fluff up the couscous with a fork or cooking chopstick to separate the grains.

4. Meanwhile, add 2 tablespoons oil to another sauté pan on medium heat. Cook the onion for 3-4 minutes then add the eggplant and cumin. Cook for another 2 minutes, then add the zucchini. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Keep warm until chicken is almost ready.

5. When chicken is almost ready, remove vegetable mixture from heat then stir in the tomato and coriander. Check for seasoning. Mix the couscous into the vegetable mixture.

6. To serve, pile one-fourth of the vegetable-couscous mixture into the center of each of four plates. Slice the chicken on the diagonal then arrange on top of the couscous. Drain the juices from the baking dish into a bowl, check for seasoning and stir in the chopped coriander. Spoon chicken-juice mixture over the chicken and serve immediately.

A close-up of the couscous mixture (before the cilantro was added)

A close-up of the couscous mixture (before the cilantro was added)

Per serving (1/4 recipe, including chicken skin and assuming the chicken breast isn’t enormous): 458 calories, 16g fat (0g trans fat, 3g sat fat), 56mg cholesterol, 925 mg sodium, 56g total carbohydrates (12g fiber, 11g sugars), 28g protein. Percent daily values: 29% Vitamin A, 38% Vitamin C, 6% Calcium, 22% Iron The good: This food is a good source of protein and niacin. The bad: None, apparently.

Nutritional analysis via NutritionData.com

How it went. It became unclear whether or not the breasts should have been deboned before cooking. Or whether they were too big to begin with. But the four breast-with-bone halves I had didn’t all fit in my largest skillet, so I cooked three together, then the last one separately. In the oven at 350 degrees, the chicken took much longer than specified to cook; I added 30, maybe 40 minutes to the cooking time. However, they breasts looked lovely throughout and when they finally were done, they were melt-in-your mouth succulent. Worth the wait. The longer cooking time did take a toll on the chicken and lemon slices, which started to burn. Throwing a sheet of foil over the chicken helped the char from spreading.

Mysteriously, the size of the eggplant was specified (medium), but not of the zucchini. I got a medium  zucchini. But without approximate weights or cup yields given in the recipe, I have no idea if I had too big a medium eggplant, etc. The upshot: I had a lot of veggies, which I cooked in a nonstick wok. I added extra cumin to compensate. I think an extra tomato would have helped bring more balance to the veggie mix, and add a little more color and moisture.

I added to the recipe the instruction to keep the vegetable mixute warm until the chicken was ready. There may be a long wait, and having yummy juicy chicken over a lukewarm bed of couscous can be a bummer — and don’t forget you have to cut the meat off the bone for serving. There’ll be no plopping the breast-with-bone on the serving plate here: pre-slicing the chicken makes it a kinder, friendlier dish, and one that was ultimately very good looking, good tasting, and mighty healthful!

The result (pardon the blurry photos; we’re still learning . . .)

Another photo of the dish

The plated dish (cilantro on side because I forgot to add it to the couscous!)

Polenta and vegetable casserole, Italian-style, take one

Marcia February 3, 2009 Recipes 0

Polenta is one of my favorite comfort foods. Like mashed potatoes, it’s warm, rich, and smooth and complements many an entree. But even when made from scratch, polenta can be worlds easier to prepare than mashed potatoes. And it can be made mighty tasty without adding too much fat. An easy, satisfying dish consists of coins cut from a prepared tube of polenta, baked in the oven with pasta sauce and mozarella cheese on top.

Though my last foray (years ago) into preparing polenta from scratch had been woefully unsuccessful — the dang concoction never thickened — I thought I’d try the Chicken, Black Bean, and Corn Enchilada Casserole from the Weight Watchers Web site. I used canned enchilada sauce instead of the mix specified. I loved the casserole, especially the generous polenta underbelly, but I couldn’t help thinking, I’ve gotta try this with pasta sauce.

Here’s the ingredient list for trial numero uno. If you’re at all familiar with cooking with zucchini or mushrooms, you’ll know where this is going:

36 ounces bottled pasta sauce, Classico Tomato and Basil, specifically, which I now find too sweet
5 cups water, divided
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 medium garlic cloves
1½ cup uncooked cornmeal
1 medium or 1 large zucchini (forgot to weigh the zuchini), sliced into coins then cut in strips
1 lb. mushrooms, sliced
1½ pound very lean ground beef
1½ cups Kraft Free Shredded Mozarella Cheese

I more or less followed the directions of the original recipe.

The result? Er . . . see for yourself:

aka Polenta Goop, this casserole was more soup than solid

aka Polenta Goop, this casserole was more soup than solid

Admittedly, this looked great straight from the oven, and I let it sit for about 7 minutes, but once I removed the first slice, a flood of tomato juice and vegetables took its place.

The casserole looked great straight from the oven

The casserole looked great straight from the oven

Overall, the goop was tasty, but could use a little more zest, perhaps from some fresh basil or oregano. And I should have perhaps covered the casserole with foil for the first 30 minutes or so of baking, to avoid that big mass of nearly impenetrable mass of mozzarella. (Yeah, real mozzarella may not have done that.) But the biggest challenge for next time is how to absorb all that liquid without adding too many calories. More cornmeal? Couscous? Tomato paste? Better drainage of the cooked vegetables?   We’ll find out in a few weeks when I try again. . .

Blueberry-Banana Smoothie

Marcia July 5, 2008 Recipes 0

This smoothie has a gentle tang and a beautiful bluish-purple color. A light meal in itself, a fruit-packed smoothie such as this, plus a cup of coffee, serves as one of my favorite weekend morning breakfasts. You’ll need a 16-oz. tumbler to hold the entire recipe, and a not-too-thin straw.

Ironically, just a few hours after typing up this recipe, I stumbled across New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope’s blog entry that listed frozen blueberries as one of The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating.

Makes one serving

4 ice cubes
1 tablespoon honey
6 oz. plain nonfat yogurt
1 frozen banana
1/2 cup frozen unsweetened blueberries

Crush ice in blender. Add yogurt and honey, process on a medium to high setting until honey is blended in (you might need to scrape the sides of the blender with a spatula to make sure all the honey is incorporated). Cut the banana into 6 or 8 pieces, add to mixture, and process some more. Add the blueberries, and process until all blueberries are incorporated and the entire mixture becomes a lovely blueberry purple. Pour into tumbler.

Per serving (entire recipe): 302 calories, 1g fat (0g trans fat, 0g sat fat), 3mg cholesterol, 132 mg sodium, 67g total carbohydrates (5g fiber, 51g sugars), 11g protein. Percent daily values: 2% Vitamin A, 23% Vitamin C, 35% Calcium, 4% Iron The good: Low in sodium and very low in saturated fat and cholesterol. Also a good source of calcium. The bad: A large portion of the calories come from sugar.

Nutritional analysis via NutritionData.com

How I made a can of Progresso Light Italian-Style Vegetable Soup taste less like canned soup and feel more like a meal

Marcia June 15, 2008 Recipes 0

Makes one meal-sized serving

1 small or medium zucchini, cut into 1/3- or 1/2-inch coins
1/4 small onion, chopped
1 large or 2 medium garlic cloves
2 tsp. olive oil
salt-free Italian seasoning (such as Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset)
2 T tomato paste
1 can Progresso Light Italian-Style Vegetable Soup

Heat oil in a medium (1-quart?) saucepan. Press garlic clove into oil and swoosh it around a bit. Add the onion, swoosh it about, and sauté until soft. Add the zucchini and cook, stirring and scraping bottom of pan occasionally, until zucchini starts to get golden brown and translucent (not all pieces have to be golden brown or translucent).

Carefully stir in soup. Bring heat up two notches. Add tomato paste, mushing it around to blend. Sprinkle in seasoning. Heat until desired temperature.