CSA, Week Seven: Two doughs, four flatbreads

We've been getting herbs nearly every week in our CSA share, and even though I am splitting a single share with four other people, the big fresh bundles of dill, parsley, and cilantro were piling up in my refrigerator. I'd been storing them covered in a plastic bag with their cut stems submerged in a cup of water; while after a few weeks most had fared well, I was worried I wouldn't get around to using them before they rotted. I knew that adding a sprinkle of chopped dill or cilantro to dishes here and there wouldn't cut it. I started looking for recipes that would use up a lot at once, and that's where the idea of making herbed flatbreads came in.

My first experiment was to attempt a replication of the roasted garlic and parsley flatbread JL had served for our sockeye salmon feast, but since she hadn't posted a recipe for it on FoodMayhem, I was left to figure one out on my own.

Luckily, Colorado Review editor SG had recently given me a stack of old Cooking Light, Gourmet, and Bon Appetite magazines. While flipping through the August 2006 issue of Cooking Light I came upon a recipe for Bell Pepper Focaccia, and the base seemed good for what I was envisioning. I swapped out the bell pepper topping for mashed roasted garlic and finely chopped curly parsley, which I mixed together with olive oil and salt to form a loose paste; then I spread this paste over the risen focaccia dough and put it in the oven to bake for 28 minutes, as the Cooking Light recipe directed.

Unfortunately, 28 minutes was way too long. When I opened the oven door, I was dismayed to find dried-out herbs atop a tough, dark brown crust. It was far from the focaccia of my dreams, though the flavor of the roasted garlic and parsley tasted spot-on.

So I tried the focaccia again, this time with a topping of finely chopped cilantro and minced garlic, also mixed with olive oil and salt to form a loose paste. This time, I only baked the focaccia for fifteen minutes, and it was perfect. The slight sweetness of the fluffy dough combined with the cilantro, garlic, and salt was positively addictive. (Recipe at bottom!)

After that success I probably would have kept on going with focaccia, but then KS, who works at Cozzola's, bestowed upon me a large bag of leftover pizza dough. I wasn't sure how to work with the stuff so I just winged it: I rolled out the dough and topped it with layers of chopped up roasted cauliflower and broccoli (also from the CSA) and grated Monterey Jack cheese, then baked it in the oven at 400 degrees for about twenty minutes or half an hour. This combination proved delicious, but I should have let the dough rise for a bit before topping and baking—the crust was tough and almost cracker-like in the thinnest areas.

I wasn't going to try making another bread at that point, especially because I was leaving for NYC in just a few days, but then I realized I had a nearly full container of cottage cheese in the fridge that I had mixed with lemon juice and chopped CSA dill. (I'd done this with whipped cottage cheese before and had been delighted with its dip-like properties, but done with small-curd cottage cheese, the dip seemed to lose its charm. So I'd ignored it for a while.) I figured if I spread the mixture on top of pizza dough and baked it, it would be another decent flatbread of sorts and I'd want to scarf it down.

Unfortunately it didn't come out quite as I envisioned it, and the flavor was just okay. I ended up sticking most of it in the freezer, where it will probably languish some more. I'll have to work with this idea again.

As for other CSA recipes, I only made a few new things: a salad combining chopped cherry tomatoes and CSA fresh raw peas with lime juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper; and a minimalist version of my "very merry broccoli salad," meaning chopped up broccoli, a dressing of half mayonnaise and half nonfat plain yogurt, and a few spoonfuls of cranberry chutney.

Oh, and French breakfast radishes? I know it sounds weird, but they are delicious when eaten sliced up on top of pita chips (specifically the Stacy's brand, which I am addicted to). Something about the toasty, salty, hearty crunch of the pita chips paired with the spicy, fresh crispness of the radishes just really works for me.

As always, if you have any suggestions for veggie preparations, I'd love to hear them. Hope everyone is doing well with their CSA bounty!

Cilantro-Garlic Focaccia
by Soopling

Dough
1 package dry yeast (about 2.5 teaspoons)
1 cup warm water (100 degrees to 110 degrees)
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour, divided (about 12.5 ounces)

Topping
1 cup finely chopped cilantro (about 1 bundle)
4 cloves minced raw garlic
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt

To prepare dough, dissolve yeast in warm water in a large bowl, followed by honey and salt. Stir until well blended. Stir in 2 1/2 cups flour to form a dough and turn out onto a floured surface. Knead about 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic; as you knead, add enough of remaining 1/4 cup flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands. The dough will still be a bit sticky when it's ready.

Place dough in a large bowl coated with oil, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in a warm place free from drafts for about 45 minutes or until doubled in size. (It's done rising when an indentation remains in the dough after you've gently pressed a finger into it.) Punch dough down, and turn out onto an oiled jelly-roll pan or cookie sheet; press into an 10x8-inch rectangle. Cover and let rise 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

In the meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Make the topping: mix the cilantro, garlic, olive oil, and salt together and let sit until dough is ready.

Uncover dough and make indentations in top of dough using your fingertips. Using a spoon or your fingers, evenly spread the cilantro topping over the dough.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until loaf is golden brown around edges and sounds hollow when tapped.

Yield: 8 servings

Changing up chefs in the family kitchen

The night before I flew back to Colorado, my family and I gathered around the dining table for a vast home-cooked meal. Unlike other feasts that were primarily created by my mom, this time my brother did most of the cooking, coming up with seven or eight dishes by himself over the course of an afternoon. On the table were fried pork chops; a stir-fry of shrimp, carrots, and celery; marinated burdock root; stewed lotus root; sauteed snow peas; braised tofu; and sauteed Taiwanese cabbage. We ate everything atop bowls of my dad's multigrain "rice," and it was a meal that tasted all the better from my older sibling's touch.

The next morning, I pulled out several batches of homemade bagels from the oven—I had kneaded and shaped the dough the night before, and gotten up early in order to boil, top, and bake them in time for breakfast with the fam. I'd also picked up some smoked fish at a tiny Russian grocery next to my bus stop the day before, and that on the bagels along with some veggie cream cheese and lettuce picked from the garden meant we were truly dining in style. There was only so much time to linger over the meal though—I had a plane to catch, my dad had an exercise class to lead in the park, and my brother had to go back to his apartment. In other words, it was time for my brother and I to remove our chef hats and return the kitchen to our folks.

Via Emilia redux

When DL suggested going to Via Emilia I was happy to say yes. I'd enjoyed the meal I'd had there last time, and since the place is tasty, inexpensive, and close to her office, meeting up there for lunch was an easy decision.

As before, they started us off with a basket of sliced focaccia and a dish of fruity olive oil for dipping.

As a starter we went for one of the day's specials, mozzarella in carroza. I have a feeling this is one of those recipes that has a lot of variations, but the basic concept seems to involve slipping mozzarella cheese between two slices of bread, and then dipping the whole thing in batter and pan-frying it until the bread crisps and the cheese gets gooey. Like the love child of french toast and grilled cheese, maybe. Via Emila's version added thin slices of proscuitto to the mix, as well as a weird green puree on the side that tasted vaguely of spinach. I don't know what that puree was supposed to accomplish, but it neither added or detracted from the dish.

During my last meal at Via Emilia I'd eyed my friend's tagliatelle al ragu with envy, and I seized the opportunity to order it for myself this time. I have a feeling I've found my go-to dish at this restaurant—the tender ribbons of fresh pasta were coated in a rich, beefy sauce that made each bite pure pleasure. DL ordered the farfalle al salmon I had liked, but after the tagliatelle al ragu I wasn't even interested in taking a bite.

I think I crave that fresh pasta even now…I might have to start looking into how to make my own.

San Francisco, Day 2: Slanted Door, Ciao Bella, Acme Bread Company, Ghirardelli, Mangarosa

Catch up! Day 1

We started off the next day at the Ferry Building, where after sufficiently whetting our appetites by passing through the rows of food vendors and shops, we sat down to have lunch at the Slanted Door.

Both GQ and BH are part Vietnamese, and so have exacting specifications for Vietnamese food; BH said he was a fan of the crepe served at the Slanted Door, citing it as one of the better versions he'd tried. What came out was a shatteringly crisp shell filled with shrimp, pork, bean sprouts, and onions, pieces of which were meant to be rolled into leaves of cool lettuce and dipped into nuoc mam. The combination of flavors, textures, and temperatures was quite wonderful.

The crepe was the highlight, and from there it turned less exciting. We got a spicy rice vermicelli salad, with cabbage, cucumber, mint, chicken, lime, and peanut sauce, which wasn't actually that interesting in flavor or execution. Just your average cold noodle/veg/chicken salad.

GQ went for the Alaskan halibut over vermicelli noodles; MH ordered the lemongrass chicken, which came piled with peanuts, jalapenos, and slivers of red onion. I took bites of each of their dishes and thought they were good but again, not outstanding. Maybe I just have higher expectations when dishes like these cost nearly two or three times what they are priced in regular Chinatown (or Saigontown) joints; I appreciate the increased attention to decor and presentation, as well as to possibly fresher, better quality ingredients, but then it comes down to, is it three times as fresh? Three times as high in quality? Three times as tasty?

Sometimes, the answer is no. My grilled lemongrass pork over vermicelli was no more delicious than anything I've had elsewhere. The fried "imperial" rolls it came with were decent—super crunchy on the outside, and filled with a good combination of shrimp, pork, and glass noodles—but they needed a dip in nuoc mam to fulfill their potential. Had they charged me six bucks for this plate, I would have been happy. But it was twelve, and so I felt critical. Hipness and scene just isn't worth that much to me, I guess.

Afterward, in the marketplace, we stopped by Ciao Bella and topped off our lunch with gelato (a single scoop of pistachio in waffle cone, for me). And I was going to pass by Acme Bread Company, reasoning that there was no good reason for me to buy a loaf of bread, but when I saw they were selling a loaf dotted with scallions, I couldn't resist. The bread could have used more scallions and a bit more salt (okay, maybe it's unfair to wish for scallion pancakes) but nonetheless I ended up tearing off little pieces of that bread and popping them into my mouth all afternoon.

After the Ferry Building GQ and I walked along the water to Fisherman's Wharf and then eventually hit Ghiradelli Square, where we were handed samples of their new peanut butter flavor. I love bringing back food and sweets from different places, but with Ghirardelli, I felt absolutely zero need to buy chocolate. Why bother, when it's so readily available across the nation? It's the same as when I went on the Celestial Seasonings tour—I could have bought some tea, but then again, I can get Celestial Seasonings tea at any grocery store, anywhere. So on Ghirardelli chocolate, I passed.

We spent a while poking around before getting on a cable car to return to the apartment. After resting up, GQ and I were joined by BH and MH and we all went to Mangarosa for dinner. The lively restaurant features samba dancers who get up on the bar and who circle the dining room, urging patrons to get up and dance with them. I arrived during the middle of one set, and managed to snap a few photos of the dancers before we were seated at our table.

We started with pão de queijo, the delightful, chewy cheese breads made from yucca flour. The ones at Mangarosa were small little puffs, and so good that we ended up ordering a second basket.

None of us were especially hungry, so we opted to share two different salads plus a main course. On the left is a salad of hearts of palm with arugula, endive, and radicchio in a citrus vinaigrette, and on the right is a warm spinach salad with goat cheese, polenta croutons, grilled pears, and caramelized onions.

Above is the Brazilian Steak Réchaud, which came sliced in pieces on a very hot grill. I don't know what kind of steak it was, but it was richly flavored and almost buttery. There were little bowls of fried garlic, toasted yucca flour, and tomato and cucumber salsa as condiments, too, which nicely complemented the grilled meat.

Despite GQs protests (she wanted something else) BH succeeded in ordering quindim, or Brazilian coconut flan, for dessert. I sort of wish she had won—the heavy custard was as thick as cheesecake and tasted like sweet egg yolk. It was cold and hard and way too rich, and the raspberries around the plate did little to lighten the taste. After one bite I put down my fork and just drank coffee instead. We hit up a few bars in the area afterward before I headed home with GQ and BH—and the first thing GQ and her unsatisfied sweet tooth did upon arrival was head straight for the freezer to scoop out a bowl of ice cream. After that disappointing flan, there was no way I could blame her.

San Francisco:
Day 1: Civic Center Farmer's Market, Bund Shanghai, Paulette, Miette, Mandalay
Day 2: Slanted Door, Ciao Bella, Acme Bread Company, Ghirardelli, Mangarosa
Day 3: Saigon Sandwich, Flying Fish Grill
Day 4: El Tonyayense, Pica Pica Maize Kitchen, Bi-Rite Creamery, Pagolac
Day 5: Lee's Sandwiches

Meatballs and sauce, in bread

Around here the end-of-year readings by graduating MFA students serve as events for both celebration and farewell, and at the last one KS and WP took the opportunity to host a potluck at their house beforehand, providing a full pasta bar for everyone as part of the festivities. On the toppings menu were meatballs, mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, and shaved Parmesan; marinara sauce, pesto sauce, alfredo sauce, and browned butter. They also cooked up a giant bowl of ziti, which sat steaming in the middle of all these ingredients, asking politely for adornment.

I used the occasion to take care of the remainder of a bag of frozen meatballs that had been languishing in the freezer (several months earlier I had bought a large bag, thinking they would be convenient, but since then I'd resolved to start making my own instead). I had stuffed bread in mind, since the last version had been so successful. Plus, it was the kind of dish that I could use to finish up other items in my fridge and pantry, which is exactly what I was going for.

Call it a bread of odds and ends. Into the filling went the meatballs (halved), an onion, a head of garlic, a can of diced tomatoes, half a can of tomato paste, and half a jar of pineapple salsa. I also included what remained of a bag of grated monterey jack, reserving half a cup to sprinkle over the tops of the loaves before they went into the oven.

In the end, I would've done it differently: there wasn't enough cheese, and I didn't give the bread enough time to rise after shaping the loaves, so the crust was flat. I would have cut the meatballs into smaller pieces, too. Because of their lumpy shape I wasn't able to form the bread as compactly as the last time, and once I sliced the loaves into wedges the filling spilled right out. Still, I'm not giving up on making more stuffed breads, since they're fun to make (and eat). Anyone have some healthy filling ideas?

With friends, a meal of mac 'n' cheese

My reasons for wanting to invite friends over for dinner were several: 1) I needed to start emptying my refrigerator in preparation for going home to NYC for a month; 2) It was about time I started having people over at my apartment; 3) I wanted an excuse to make a huge pan of mac 'n' cheese.

So dinner, with mac 'n' cheese, it was.


I knew the main course was going to be heavy, so I just came up with a few simple sides to go with it: green salad with tomatoes, olive bread, and slices of roasted kabocha squash. I roasted the seeds from inside the squash too, for snacking.

I'd made this particular recipe for mac 'n' cheese once before, for a friend's Thanksgiving potluck, and had been wanting a reason to make it again ever since. The nice thing about this recipe is that it doesn't require the pasta to be boiled first; you simply stir the uncooked elbows into a slurry of milk, cottage cheese, and grated sharp cheddar and then throw the whole thing into the oven, covered with tin foil, for half an hour. After that, you uncover the pan, sprinkle on more cheese, and bake until the top gets crusty and browned.

The mac 'n' cheese was a hit the first time I made it, and this time was no different; four of us went through nearly three quarters of the pan that night. (I had increased the original recipe by half, too!) After finishing up the meal with slices of key lime pie, I sent everyone home with blackberry muffins and leftover mac 'n' cheese: had all that food been left with me, I probably would have exploded trying to finish it all.

Here's a shameless plea

Vote on my recipe here (via stars at the bottom)!
Original post

Olive Garden, over a decade later

The last time I remember going to an Olive Garden was in high school. Back then the place was the sh*t, particularly because of their unlimited salad and breadsticks. When school let out we'd head over to the Times Square location, excited about going for a meal in a real restaurant. Free, unlimited salad and breadsticks paired with a bottomless pasta promotion: Olive Garden offered the finest bang for the buck my friends and I could imagine.

Over ten years later, in the Fort Collins location of the chain, nothing about Olive Garden has changed much. The salad and breadsticks are still free and unlimited, and they taste just as I remember—a tasty vinaigrette over bagged greens and croutons, and hot, squishy, salty buttered bread reminiscent of soft hot dog buns.

SD and I opted to split a full order of the Seafood Portofino, an assortment of shellfish and seafood with mushrooms in a garlic-butter wine sauce over linguine, so what you see in the bowl above, and in the top picture, is only half of the full entree. (I appreciated that they gave us each portion in a nicely presented separate bowl.) While it tasted pretty good, the pasta was so rich we found that sharing one entree was a great idea—the amount we received was huge. NH, who went for a full entree of Chicken Alfredo, ended up full only midway through his plate.

Being sensible creatures, we split our dessert, too. The Chocolate Ciottoli Cake ("dark chocolate cobblestone cake chunks layered with chocolate mousse and a soft brownie topped with hazelnuts") was too heavy and too sweet, and tasted like the frozen and thawed cake it was. But I hadn't expected any different, and maybe that's the key to eating in restaurants like these—embrace these chains for their consistency, average level of tastiness, and huge portions; don't wish you were at Otto or Max. You'll end up okay.

A round of cheese, a braided loaf

Sometimes you say no, and sometimes you say yes.

When Ile de France contacted me with an offer to send over one their cheeses to sample, I hesitated. I generally don't like exchanging samples for blog posts, because I don't like being obligated to write about something I might not be excited about. But then I thought about it again—hey, it's cheese! What's not to be excited about?

So when the wheel of Camembert arrived in the mail, I went off in search of a good way to use it. There were chicken breasts in the freezer, and onions on my counter; a batch of bread dough nestled at the bottom of a mixing bowl in my fridge. Once I spotted this post, I had my plan: I would bake a stuffed bread.

After dicing and caramelizing two large onions, I poached three chicken breasts, which yielded about a pound of moist, flavorful cooked meat (I used this method, but omitted the ginger and sherry because I didn't have any). I had about four ounces of turkey ham in the fridge, too, so I diced that up too. For the Camembert, I simply cut the entire wheel into slices after taking off the rind.

I had originally envisioned one loaf, but I soon realized I had enough ingredients for two—even after nearly eight months of living alone, I haven't broken the habit of cooking in mass quantity! To assemble each one, I rolled out the dough on a floured cutting board, trying to achieve an even thickness. I arranged half the chicken, half the turkey ham, and half the caramelized onions down the middle, and then layered half the cheese slices on top. Because the dough was so sticky, my first attempt at braiding the dough pretty much failed miserably, so for the second one I just ended up pressing the ends together on top to seal the dough around the filling. An egg wash would have made them prettier, but I went only with a sprinkle of grated smoked Swiss cheese, and after moving the loaves to a greased cookie sheet and letting the dough rest for ten minutes, I put them both in the oven at 400 degrees for half an hour.*

The resulting loaves came out just as I'd hoped: crusty, chewy bread with a center of chicken pieces, sweet caramelized onion, and salty, smoky bits of turkey ham, all bound by the rich, earthy-tasting Camembert. Not exactly light fare, but utterly comforting and delicious.

I think this recipe is quite flexible, too. You can substitute homemade or store-bought pizza dough instead, or any kind of bread dough really. Roasted chicken instead of poached; a different kind of ham, or bacon; a different type of cheese. Even the caramelized onions can be swapped out for something else—I've been thinking that the cranberry chutney I've got in my fridge might work pretty nicely. Next time!

Camembert, Chicken, and Caramelized Onion Loaf
by Soopling

Makes two large loaves

Bread dough, divided into two portions (I used half the yield from this dough recipe)
16 ounces poached chicken breasts (about 3 medium sized breasts), cut or torn into chunks
4 ounces turkey ham, diced
8 ounces caramelized onions (from about two large onions)
1 wheel Ile de France Camembert (7.7 ounces), sliced into pieces
Egg wash (optional)
1 ounce shredded smoked Swiss cheese (optional)

On a floured cutting board, roll out one bread dough portion into a 9x12 rectangle about one centimeter thick.

Layer half the cheese slices down the middle, and then layer half the chicken, half the turkey ham, and half the caramelized onions on top. Lift the sides of the bread dough up to close over the filling and press the ends together to seal—there shouldn't be any holes in the dough. Transfer to a greased baking sheet, flipping the loaf so that it rests seam-side down on the sheet.

Repeat with other bread dough portion and remaining ingredients. Let assembled loaves rest for ten or fifteen minutes.

Brush loaves with egg wash and/or sprinkle with shredded cheese, and bake in 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.*

*Originally I had written that these loaves should be baked at 350 degrees for half an hour. But I recently learned that my oven has been running 150 degrees too hot—which means that while I had my knob at 300 degrees while baking these loaves (to compensate for my oven running what I thought was 50 degrees hot), they were actually baking at about 450 degrees. And though these breads miraculously came out okay, I did have to rescue them a little early to prevent them from burning. I'm going to say 400 degrees, for half an hour, is the best bet for this recipe.

Chock full o' scallions pancake

I got really excited when I saw a recipe for scallion pancakes posted on Use Real Butter. I have fond memories of rolling these out with my dad and trying to keep the pockets of oil, salt, and scallions from squishing out the edges of the dough. We usually made these on days we made dumplings—using the leftover dumpling dough once the filling ran out—and it was always so awesome to have a platter of scallion pancakes alongside the dumplings for the whole family to enjoy.

(Which reminds me, I really ought to tackle making dumplings from scratch sometime soon.)

Though Jen's recipe calls for vegetable oil to be spread over the rolled-out dough before adding salt and scallions, I chose to use dark sesame oil instead because I think it adds an extra depth of flavor. I also really loaded the pancakes up with chopped scallions—you can tell by how the pancakes look like they've burst apart (what can I say, I really like scallions). Finally, because I was trying to keep the fat and calories down, I used a minimal amount of oil in a nonstick pan to fry these up: I'm sure they would have been tastier had I done a more liberal pour of canola, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Hey, they were still delicious!