Bread: the high-altitude edition

Cooking at five thousand feet has been interesting. Pasta and noodles need to be boiled for several minutes longer, because high altitude creates a lower boiling point. Braising requires a higher flame. Baked goods left out on the counter dry out in a day and not several. And making bread, which I'd thought I'd mastered, has become a game that I don't seem to know how to play.

As it's composed only of flour, salt, water, and yeast, it seems wrong that bread should be so tricksy. But the first time I tried to bake my customary loaf in my new digs, the dough was strangely wet and gloppy, almost like the dough for the Lahey No-Knead rather than the recipe I usually use. The second time, though I made no adjustments, the dough was almost too dry.

I've adjusted the temperature, adjusted the amount of flour I use, and adjusted the length of time I allow for the dough's second rise. Aside from how much faster the dough expands, few things have been consistent. Sometimes the bread bakes up small and shrunken, sometimes it rises so much the surface puffs and splits with complete disregard for the cuts I've made with my knife. Sometimes the crust takes on an unpleasant toughness; sometimes the crumb is dense and tastes heavily of yeast. Half the time, the loaf burns on the outside.

Although the olive loaf I brought to an end-of-summer barbecue at the beginning of the semester was well received, this is, unfortunately, not a post in which I reveal how to consistently bake up a perfect, crusty loaf at high altitude. I'm still learning, and I will post my findings once I figure it out. In the meantime, if anyone has suggestions, please let me know!

A very merry broccoli salad

Years ago, I attended an intimate holiday dinner in Rego Park, Queens for which I was forced to show up alone and not knowing a single person there, including the host. The person who had invited me—the one who did know the host and the other guests—was very late, and though I had spent a good amount of time trying to amuse myself on Queens Blvd while waiting for him, as it became fully dark outside and the stores began closing, I realized that I had to start walking over to the host's apartment before it got too late.

So I found the apartment, knocked on the door, introduced myself, and then after hanging up my coat and handing over the bottle of wine I had come with, undertook the only other non-awkward action available to me, which was to eat. Luckily, it was a casual serve-yourself instead of a sit-down dinner, so I was able to mingle well enough until my companion finally made his appearance…two hours later.

All was not lost, however. Among the many dishes laid out on the counter that night was a salad of raw broccoli paired with cashews, red onion, and dried cranberries. In the bowl the salad looked like Christmas, with its cheery little green trees dotted with red fruit. Until then I had never eaten broccoli in this manner before, and I was amazed at how the crucifer had given up its squeaky raw crunch in the dressing, gently relaxing the same way cabbage does when turned into coleslaw. The roasted cashews and chopped red onion added savory heft to the sweet cranberries and snappy broccoli, and with one bite, I was sold.

By taste, I recreated the salad a few weeks later for my family, and they were similarly enamored. This is an easy recipe that I unfortunately don't have exact measurements for, but here's a basic overview: chop about one and a half heads of broccoli into teeny florets (I small-dice the peeled stems, too); chop half a red onion fine; dollop on your choice of mayonnaise; add a few splashes of lemon juice; add a teaspoon or so of sugar (depending on your taste); and then mix and stow in the fridge for at least several hours or overnight. Half an hour or just before you're ready to serve, stir in a few handfuls each of dried cranberries and roasted cashews. I like adding these two last because with time, the cranberries tend to stain their neighbors and the cashews turn limp. If it sits for a while the salad will still taste good, but its texture and appearance will seem just a bit more worn.

If you'd like to lighten this up, I think subbing in yogurt for part of the mayo would work just fine, though I haven't tried it myself.

Anyway, I mixed up a batch for a potluck in the first few weeks of school, but due to a shortage of utensils and serving plates, it went largely uneaten in favor of more easily hand-held burgers and some pop-in-your-mouth mini empanadas. I took home the bowl and ate this salad for several days, after which it became endless. Just another case of one person, too much of a good thing.

Biscuits and beignets at Lucile's

Is it a house, or is it a restaurant? Above is Lucile's, a Cajun and Creole place CH had been wanting to check out for breakfast. This restaurant has branches in several Colorado cities, and seems to be one of the more popular breakfast spots in Fort Collins, as I've heard about it several times since.

We started right off with a half order of beignets—two; a full comes with four—so that CH and I could each try one and not overload ourselves. (Everyone remembers my love of beignets, right?) Sadly, these were not like Café du Monde's; they were definitely not like Cafe Beignet's, either. The beignets at Lucile's were flat, not nearly hot enough, and possessed none of the custardy innards that made the ones in New Orleans so delightful. But they were good, in the way that fried dough covered in sugar is always good. Always.

Soon after we polished off the beignets, the buttermilk biscuits that accompany nearly every order arrived. You might not be able to tell, but they were huge, nearly overhanging the plates they came on. They weren't biscuits like any that I'm used to, as in buttery rounds with tender, flaky insides; these looked as if they had been baked in one large pan and sliced into squares, and their texture was much lighter, almost loose, and very fluffy. I thought I would love them; I tried to. But they had the slight taste of baking soda, and their dry texture just didn't appeal to me as much as that of typical biscuits. Butter and the two pots of excellent jam on the table—a spicy pepper jelly and a thick strawberry rhubarb—helped, but maybe I'm just not used to these. Anyone know if this is a particular regional style, or something?

Here's my order of Eggs Sardou: "creamed spinach, Gulf shrimp, poached eggs, and hollandaise; served with grits or potatoes." I asked for the hollandaise to be left off—I've never been fond of the stuff—and chose grits as my side. (Note: potatoes might have been a better foil for the soft spinach and soft eggs.) Aside from the over-fishiness of the small shrimp dotting the creamed spinach and being a bit too salty overall, this was a decent pick.

So is Lucile's the best breakfast in town? I'm not sure; most of what I had was good but not amazing, and I feel like there might be better. It's too early to determine anything, of course, but I'll find out!

Black and Bleu (and Green) at Coopersmith's

After the first meeting of our fiction workshop for the semester, I met up with MC at her apartment and we walked over to Coopersmith's, a popular Old Town pub and brewery, to have dinner. Above is the Black and Bleu Burger, a charbroiled patty topped with Gorgonzola cheese, two strips of bacon, and a pile of caramelized onions. The bacon wasn't crisp enough but on the whole the burger was juicy and smoky, with the bun fresh and just sturdy enough to contain the artery-clogging mass.

Once I bit into the burger I realized I should have requested a salad on the side instead of mashed potatoes. The spuds that appeared were buttery, dense, and skins-on, which made them tasty but much too hearty to pair with the hefty burger. To wash it all down, I asked for a pint of Sigda's Green Chili, which is a "crisp golden ale" infused with Anaheim and Serrano chilis. It's now my favorite beer to order at Coopersmith's—the heat of the chilis was just right, not overwhelming but noticeable in every sip, and enough to have brought a flush to my face by the time I finished. Without that beer, I don't know if I would have made it to the end of my plate.

After dinner, MC opted for ice cream from the adjoining Ben & Jerry's. I considered a scoop, but with the lingering of green chilis on my tongue and a belly full of black and bleu, it was really just time to get myself home for a nap.

Pantry pasta

Here's another thing I made* that was all about the quick 'n' easy: a cold pasta salad with corn, peas, carrots, tuna, and mayonnaise. The veggies had been frozen, the tuna was from a can, and the mayo was from…a jar. Um, and the macaroni was from a box.

Oh, I added in some chopped jalapeños, too. Jarred.

What can I say? At the time I didn't have a bike yet, and when I went grocery shopping with CH I bought a ton of non-perishables and things I could freeze, since I didn't know when I would have a car taking me around again. So from the pantry and the freezer, this is what I came up with. Unfortunately, unlike veggie/pinto stews, pasta salad does not freeze well, and I was still overestimating. So it was tasty, for the first few days at least….

*Sorry about the grainy pics. I went a full week with the wrong ISO setting turned on!

Getting my veggies in

One of the first things I cooked after moving is this sorta-stew, sorta-sauce of tomatoes, zucchini, onions, garlic, and pinto beans. Basically, I sauteed onions and garlic in olive oil, added diced zucchini, added a can of chopped tomatoes and a small can of tomato paste, added a can of pinto beans, and simmered the whole thing on low for a while, stirring occasionally until it got thick. Call it the half-fresh, half-canned style of cooking.

I ended up eating this stew/sauce ladled over various pasta shapes, spooned on top of biscuits, spread between flour tortillas for quesadillas, and layered on top of toast covered with melted provolone. And that was one of the first lessons of cooking for myself in graduate school: those huge pots of food I was used to making? Well, unless I was cooking for a potluck, I better start scaling down, unless I wanted to eat the same thing for an entire week straight. Lucky for me, this concoction froze beautifully.

Pass the eggs, cheese, and bread

Now that I am a full-time graduate student, my eating lifestyle has changed quite dramatically. Restaurants have all but disappeared from the scene. The urge to roast entire chickens or bake elaborate cakes has decreased in direct proportion to my income (pennies), free time (reading and writing trumps cooking), and people to share meals with ("Eat? I'm poor/I'm studying/I'm grading"). I spend most days preparing my own meals, but what I make tends to be cheap and simple.


Which brings me to eggs, cheese, and bread. I shamefully admit that I ate some variation of these three for nearly the entire first two weeks after I moved to Fort Collins. After that I became more attentive to my meals, but with all that was going on then, it felt so much easier to toast up bread and slice up cheese, fry an egg or two in a pan, and think about food no further. For variety I'd alternate between pepper jack and swiss; throw on some olives or scallions or chopped jalapeños; lay the eggs on top of rice instead of toast; spread on a tablespoon of Branston Pickle for a sandwich. (You'll be relieved to know that after the first week, at least, I started baking my own loaves.) Eggs, cheese, and bread. The trinity; my saviors.

Thankfully, as things settled down, I started exploring some of the small groceries and farmer's markets in my town, and as a result I began cooking again too. Nothing fancy, mind you. But certainly more than laying a slice of shrink-wrapped provolone on packaged bread for the toaster oven. Still, if anyone has a favorite cheeseandegg/eggandbread/breadandcheese/eggbreadandcheese combination, I'd love to hear it!

Seva, you complete me

Astute readers of this blog (hello!) might recognize these pappadum crackers, so gracefully tilted on the plate. Yes, TL and I were at Seva again, this time for lunch the day before I flew out to Fort Collins. I don't think either of us meant to eat at a restaurant we had gone to only a few weeks earlier, but I wanted a really good meal and we knew Seva would satisfy.

Once again we took advantage of the lunch specials, but added on two appetizers. On the left is a shrimp dish—a special that day—which consisted of shrimp, onions, and peppers cooked in a sweet and tangy sauce, and on the right are masala crab cakes, described as "lump meat, garam masala, mint, lemon-cilantro dip." The filling of the cakes was a little mushy and seemed more like krab than crab, but like the "bok choy crispy curls" we had previous, they were perfectly fried.

The Mulligatawny soup seemed slightly different on this visit—a little less creamy, a little more chunky maybe—but the flavor was still good. And I took a sip of TL's mango lassi (top photo) and it was sweet and thick and mango-ey. Good stuff.

For my entree I went with the chicken saag ("pureed spinach, peppercorns, onion, ginger, garlic, tomato"), which had the same lightness and good flavor as the korma and tikka masala we'd eaten last time, but which was also much spicier than I expected.

Same went for TL's chicken vindaloo (on the menu as "fiery sauce, dried red chilies, potato, tamarind, vinegar"—I guess "fiery" should have tipped us off). Immediately once the owner noticed us sweating over our curries he came over with an offer to replace both with new, less spicy versions, a surprising gesture that I really appreciated. We didn't take him up on it, as we were enjoying the flavor; I just asked for some raita to mellow out the heat and he came back with a good bowlful, which made my eyes light up. That stuff is delish.

Later, as the owner cleared our table he commented that before we had chosen the two most mild curries and now we had chosen the two spiciest, and that next time he will be sure to turn the heat down a little. He even seemed apologetic, like he should have realized our preferences somehow. He was just so nice, and I was impressed that he had not only recognized us but remembered what we'd ordered, too. And when I unpacked our leftovers later, I discovered he had thrown in an extra container of raita.

So once more: I love Seva. You can bet I'll be heading there once I'm in NYC again.