The Amateur Gourmet

Dear Readers,

To quote Kit-Kat: I deserve a break today. Tomorrow I leave for two and a half weeks, travelling through Europe with my family. Loyal readers already know my plans: we start in Venice then move through Croatia, Greece, Monaco and wind up in Rome. Even though I may have internet access, I"m not planning on blogging until I return.

So whatever will you do these next two and a half weeks? Whoever will you turn to for ineptitude in the kitchen?

Never fear! I will now announce our interim blogger, someone you know and love from Pumpkin Cake singalongs, Celebrity mockery, and hardcore eating tours. She's peppy, funny, and she knows this website's password: give a warm hand for LISA!!!

Lisa shall keep you entertained with cooking adventures and whacky escapades until I get back! So please treat her with respect and love and accept her as a temporary me minus the glasses and the sexual deviancy.

Hope everyone has a great two and a half weeks and I can't wait to tell you all about my trip when I get back!

Much love,
Adam "The Amateur Gourmet"

PS I was tired of all the e-mail spam at my main account, so I just created a Gmail account for Amateur Gourmet e-mail. Can you guess what it is? Ready? It's amateurgourmet AT gmail DOT com. (You can access it through my About Me page.) I usually write back to all my e-mails, but don't be insulted if you don't hear for me for the next 18 days! Arrivederci!

PPS Oh! I forgot to tell you where I ate dinner tonight. It was raining and lightning so my grandparents wanted to eat close: we went to the Olive Garden! It was sort of perfect: why not eat the most homogenized Americanized fake Italian food you can before going to eat the real thing? (Does Italy have limitless breadsticks and bottomless salad bowls?) Ok Arrivederci for real this time!

Before we continue on our discussion of culinary matters, I’d like everyone to take a moment and think back to Thursday.  There was a terrible oversight in my first post and it’s important that I rectify the situation before I’m deemed a liar and a cheat. Remember the brilliant bagel tune we all enjoyed?  Well… as it turns out I don’t know how to play the guitar, nor do I have the capacity to record music and put it on the computer.  “But Lisa,” you may ask, “how did all of that magic happen?”  The answer is simple.  It’s all thanks to our good pal Ricky.  And not only did he postpone a date, play the guitar, record the song on his computer, harmonize with me on the chorus, and take me out for tapas and sangria (this went undocumented due to my first night AG status – please forgive us our trespasses as we forgive your trespasses against us), BUT he also has done us the biggest favor of all and lent me his digital camera for the duration of Adam’s absence.  So let’s all send Ricky e-cards, roses and diamonds as a thank you for keeping the dream of the Amateur Gourmet alive (please pick whichever item best suits your budget).

That being said, we can get down to business.  Oh wait – one more disclaimer.  Ricky’s camera ran out of batteries in the middle of my meal preparation, so you’ll notice an abrupt change in picture volume (and quality) at the point where I start using Annette’s camera phone instead.  I deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but you can take solace in the fact that none of the dishes were really THAT good, so you won’t necessarily be attempting to recreate them anyway. 

So now let’s get started with the eating talks.  Friday night my lovely roommate Annette and I had some people over for dinner and lively conversation.  Our meal consisted of three courses: 

1. The Appetizer: Artichoke-Pesto Roll Up Wrap Things
2. The Main Course: Roasted Vegetables with Cous Cous and an Optional Spicy Peanut Sauce (you’ll understand later)
3. Dessert: Butterscotch Pudding

As you may or may not have noticed, I’m a tad long-winded.  For this reason, I’m going to divide Friday’s meal into three posts so that those who are more interested in one item and not the others can be spared the trouble of trying to find it within one ENORMOUS post (and clearly this is also to make up for the fact that I haven’t posted since Thursday.  Adam would certainly flog me for that if he were in the continental U.S.).

So here we are at Part 1: The Appetizer.

This is a creation that Annette and I whipped up a few months ago and decided to recreate for our guests because it was that delicious.  It doesn’t come from a recipe book, which might be frowned upon in the AG world, but I’m going to throw it in here anyway in an attempt to “make it my own” (I think it would make the American Idol judges proud). 

This recipe is simple simple simple.  It begins with artichokes in a food processor:

Grind them up to your preferred chunkitude, and add in a simple pesto dip/spread. We also like to add a little lemon juice to this concoction and we recommend you do the same. 

In our case, our pesto dip consisted of garlic, ground pine nuts, basil, parmesan and cream cheese, but it can surely be tweaked to your liking.  I don’t have measurements for you (I’m beginning to see why this is less useful to share than an actual recipe…), but you can’t go wrong trusting your instincts.  If you have trust issues with yourself, start with the cream cheese and ground pine-nuts, and add in the other ingredients bit by bit until it pleases you.  And maybe see a therapist. 

We’re not sure if there was artichoke water left in the processor or if our cream cheese was too gooey or what, but our blend was a smidge watery.  But have no fear, the ever-resourceful Lisa-Annette team whipped out our trusty strainer and set things right in the world. 

We then spread the mix onto some wheat wraps.  After the fact, we thought they might have been better on spinach wraps or perhaps another wrap with some oomph, but the wheat wraps definitely got the job done.

All we did then was roll them up and slice them into handy appetizer-sized pieces for our guests to enjoy while we continued to fumble around in the kitchen for many minutes (hours) trying to put together the rest of the meal. 

What actually happened is that our friend Anna arrived about 20 minutes earlier than everyone else, and by the time the rest of the crew arrived the wraps were all gone.  Lauren and Kate cried.

But don’t think Anna’s a hog or anything, though.  Annette and I had our fair share as well.  The wraps were just REALLLY good and they make you want to eat them before your guests arrive.  You don’t have any control over it.  You’re not a bad person if you eat the appetizer before everyone gets there.  You’re still valuable to society.  Stop blaming yourself. 

And that brings us to the end of the beginning. 

But LISA????  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT??? HOW DID THE REST OF THE MEAL GO????  Stay tuned for Part 2 and/or 3, depending on your personal interests.  Do you feel like this is a choose your own adventure?  If you like dessert turn to page 134, if you like optional sauces, turn to page 88….

Okay, prepare yourselves.  This is going to be an emotional journey.

It started off innocently enough.  While flipping through (again) Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven, Annette stumbled upon a Peanut-Chile Dressing.  It sounded good.  We blindly trusted this Mollie Katzen character. She recommended the dressing for such dishes as Vietnamese Salad Rolls, or with raw, steamed or grilled vegetables, so it seemed perfect – we were looking for something to liven up some vegetables since it was a vegetarian friendly crowd.  The recipe looked simple enough.  We were doing a lot of other things, but surely we could fit in a simple dressing recipe from our pal Mollie.  Surely.   

Step 1 – Place ½ cup peanut butter and 1 tbs. honey in a medium sized bowl.  Add about ½ cup of boiling water and mash with a spoon until uniform. 

Okay, Mollie.  That sounds really delicious so far.  I’m so glad we’re friends.  I’m learning so much from you. 

Step 2 – Add another ½ cup of boiling water and all the other ingredients (SIX TABLESPOONS cider vinegar, 2 tsp minced garlic, 1 tbs sesame oil, 1 tbs soy sauce, 1 tsp sale, 1 small minced Serrano chile) and stir until well blended.  Store in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator. 

What?? That’s all?  But Mollie!  This recipe is so EASY!  Just two steps?  Mollie, you are the best friend a girl could ask for.  We should hang out all the time. I think you should be the godmother to my unborn children. 

And then I did as she said.  I combined the remaining ingredients.  I stirred until well blended.  And then I realized that Mollie was trying to kill me.   Clearly, I immediately rescinded that godmother offer, but it was too late to save myself. 

Before me sat a bowl full of peanut butter flavored vinegar.  It was this brown sludge that was far too thin to be a dressing and I cannot express to you how offensive it tasted.  I might as well have been drinking my Easter egg dye after eating a peanut butter sandwich.  Ew. 

(You might think at this point that I wasn't giving it a chance because I hadn't completed the refrigeration portion of the instructions, but you'd be wrong.  You really have to trust me that no amount of refrigeration would have turned this into something palatable).

Determined to salvage the meal, Annette and I took matters into our own hands.  First step:  balance out the killer vinegar.  This involved an absurd amount of peanut butter, a reasonable amount of honey and sesame oil, some garlic and another chile.  It was still too thin, but we put it on the stove and let it congeal a little and it turned into something normal. 

Well, Annette said it was normal.  I had to stop eating it after countless cycles of adding random ingredients and tasting the sauce again, because the vinegar already had its grip on my brain and I couldn’t taste anything other than vinegar for about a half an hour. 

We actually roasted many a nice vegetable for this dish:

Before:

Pre-Oven

Post-oven, atop a bed of couscous, taken with a camera phone because I was unprepared for battery failure:

So please don’t think the whole meal was a failure.  It just didn’t really include the peanut sauce.  After my repeated UGH-I-can’t-taste-or-smell-anything-but-vinegar type exclamations, I’m pretty clear as to why our guests opted for the butter and parmesan cheese to go with their couscous and vegetables.  Annette ate the peanut sauce and said it wasn’t bad, but the majority of it went into a Tupperware and was placed in the fridge. 

That’s so sad, you may say.  What a waste, you might think.  But the story isn’t over, my friends.  It has a touching, warm, fuzzy ending.

Tonight, Annette cooked up some broccoli, mushrooms and green beans with the peanut sauce that we’d created.  And believe it or not, it was most delicious.  Once we'd exorcised the spirit of Mollie Katzen and gotten past the onslaught of vinegar, it turns out that we really did create a decent sauce and we’re both planning on eating it over a bed of rice tomorrow for lunch. 

Even though we felt betrayed upon learning that Mollie is a crazy liar who is trying to ruin everyone's lives, my roommate and I are too strong to let ourselves be victimized by a psychopathic meal killer. 

Score:  Annette and Lisa: 1, Evil Mollie: 0. 

Tonight’s saga begins in the living room of my erstwhile roommate, Liz.  After Liz brainwashed my brother and tried to kill me (but instead killed my evil twin), I had to move out, so now she lives with Alyssa.  Alyssa is my brother’s girlfriend’s ex-wife and the mother of my eldest step-child. 

To celebrate Liz’s newfound freedom from an insanity serum that her ex-husband had been slipping into her coffee every morning, we decided to make something from our favorite cookbook.

After much deliberation, Liz and Alyssa came to the conclusion that we should make Alice Horton’s recipe for cinnamon sugar donuts.  After all, it was a cinnamon sugar donut that saved Liz from that alien back in ‘84. 

For step 1, Alyssa took the driver’s seat.  We first needed to beat the eggs, then gradually add the sugar.  Being the daughter of the evil Stefano, Alyssa couldn’t help but add a touch of mind control powder to the mix. 

After adding milk, shortening and vanilla, then combining with the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt), we ended up with a respectable looking dough:

Unfortunately, Liz took a few too many tastes of the dough, and Alyssa’s mind control powder had already gone to her head…

You can see here the gray hair stripe commonly associated with mind control powder victims… It took about eight glasses of antidote to calm her down (she thought the whisk was her long lost cousin Ambrose).  Luckily, we had to refrigerate the dough for 30-60 minutes, so we didn’t lose too much time. 

Once the dough was ready, we were then to roll or press it to a ½ inch thickness.  Liz was still a little doped up at this point, so Alyssa worked her magic. 

At this point the recipe called for a doughnut cutter, but Liz and Alyssa had lost theirs back in May when a tribe of mutant bakers attacked them and took all of their fanciest cooking supplies.  So we used a glass to cut the circles and a knife to cut out the middles.  I think it did the job.  Here are the donuts pre-oven:

As you can see, everything was in order when we put the donuts in the oven.  They only take ten minutes to bake (I know that donuts are usually fried, but I guess this recipe called for baking because people on soap operas need to stay slender…), but boy did a lot happen in those ten minutes.

Once Liz came to, she realized that her precious emerald pendant was missing.  She accused Alyssa of stealing it since Alyssa has always said it was rightfully hers (Alyssa was Liz’s mother’s step-daughter for over two years and feels she should have inherited it), and a horrible brawl ensued. 

Though Alyssa can throw a mean punch, Liz was one step ahead of the game.  Since her fourth husband was a doctor and she got some of his equipment in the settlement, Liz had a syringe filled with poison in her pocket!  In the heat of the moment, she stabbed Alyssa in the thigh with it, and in just moments Alyssa was DEAD.

I ran to her side, but then I heard the oven ding so I had to take the donuts out of the oven. 

I debated at this point whether to call 911 or brush the donuts with butter and cover them with cinnamon sugar.  But then I heard some weird beeps and I realized that Alyssa was actually a robot.  The syringe with poison had just caused a malfunction.  But what happened to the real Alyssa?  We may never know….

At least the donuts turned out well.

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...

Well… I have good news and I have bad news.  The good news is that I’ve spent the last few days cooking, going to restaurants and taking pictures for your reading/viewing pleasure.  I’d planned to post FOUR times tonight so that you’d have several wondrous adventures to read about come Monday morning.

The bad news is that my computer died (it’s not entirely unfixable, but it’s certainly not going to be working tonight), thus I have no access to the beautiful pictures that should accompany my posts.

Lucky for all of us, my roommate has a computer and I can re-upload the pictures that are still in Ricky’s camera, but that means we can only access pictures from my most recent outing. So we’ll have to survive with just this one Sunday night post for now, but I promise to work hard to get my computer up and running so that I can share my weekend eating tales with you sometime soon.

So let’s get on with the show…

Today my Sunday brunch friends and I had originally planned to go to the Sunburnt Cow on the lower east side (highly recommended by all), but instead of their regular menu, today they were having a special barbecue.  We opted not to participate in that due to the non-brunchy nature of it and the 450°/99% humidity weather.  Fate pointed us instead to Three of Cups – just blocks away at 5^th St. and 1^st Ave.

The Three of Cups card in the world of Tarot signifies feeling exhuberant, enjoying friendship and valuing community (no, I didn't know that.  I just looked it up), and I would say that the restaurant Three of Cups hits that nail on the head. 

After about ten minutes of enjoying our friendship and valuing the community at our table (and some forceful prompting from Annette), the waiter brought us our menus.  The first thing we all noticed was a brunch special that included TWO mimosas or Bloody Mary’s AND coffee or tea with your choice of one of thirteen egg/french toast-type menu items.  All of that food and drink was offered for the bargain price of $11-13, depending on your order.  I believe all ten of us opted for that combo deal, as it's clearly too good to pass up (I think this was the point at which we felt the most exhuberant).

Look at the delicious beverage choices - how could we say no?

I opted for the Bloody Mary, which was a little watery, but was easily improved with the addition of some pepper and Tabasco sauce.

My choice for the main course was the “Ouva Al Omelet Alla Florentine” which was stuffed with spinach, onions and ricotta.

Overall I enjoyed the meal – I’d never had ricotta in Eggs Florentine and I think it was a positive change of pace.

The other most popular choices at the table were the “Benedict Alla Tre Di Cuppa” (basically Eggs Benedict on foccacia with roasted red pepper hollandaise sauce) and the “Polenta D’Amore” (poached eggs served on polenta with sautéed peppers, onions and Italian sausage). 

Here is Annette looking beautiful with her Benedict:

She was pleased with it for the most part, but her eggs were over-poached (ick):

Here are Adam and Kate modeling the Polenta D'Amore (no no, NOT the A.G. Adam – I have another friend Adam. I know it’s confusing, but I promise Adam the A.G. will be back soon and we won’t have issues like this anymore):

Unfortunately, Adam and the others who chose this dish did not feel much amore for it. They said the polenta was too mushy and it just wasn’t what they were expecting. 

I realize that doesn't sound like the greatest experience, but the Three of Cups tarot card never indicates a phenomenal meal.  That's not what this place is about.  The service was notably slow, even though there were only three other occupied tables in the restaurant.  The hostess/bartender/water refiller seemed crazy and was caught talking to herself on multiple occasions.  The food was decent, though definitely nothing to write home about.  BUT, the brunch special was definitely a good deal, and the restaurant was cozy and easily accomodated a party of ten.  The food wasn't exceptional, but it fit in well with the laid back, homey feeling of the restaurant. 

So as long as you enjoy the people you're brunching with and don't mind lingering for a while over your brunch special beverages, I'd say Three of Cups is a good choice.  Just beware of the Polenta D'Amore.  You should never trust anything that throws out words like "amore" when you've only just met anyway. 

Well gourmet readers, it hasn’t been an easy week to be the Amateur Gourmette.  My computer is still not cooperating with me, which is sad because there are actually some decent food pictures on there (and I didn’t even run out of camera batteries!).  On top of that bothersome obstacle, last night my internet wasn’t working.  It’s like forces greater than we are forcing me to be bad at my job as interim blogger… Or maybe it’s all a ruse and I’m just trying to make everyone appreciate Adam that much more.   The world may never know. 

Lucky for us, last week I made Bananas Foster and used Kate’s camera (since Ricky’s camera had run out of batteries) and she was able to email me the pictures for your viewing pleasure. 

Did you know that bananas are so popular in Uganda that in parts of the country the word for bananas is the same as the word for food?  Yeah, I just learned that too.  But it makes sense once you’ve had some good Bananas Foster.  I don’t know why a person would need to eat anything else. 

I originally decided to make Bananas Foster because when asked what dish they’d like to see on the Amateur Gourmet, not one but TWO of my friends suggested it.  I didn’t have a recipe readily at hand, so I looked online and got a recipe from Brennan’s Restaurant (Brennan's Bananas Foster Recipe  - there’s also a history of Bananas Foster on that site if you’re interested). 

The process itself was fairly simple, which I found surprising since the whole fire thing makes it a bit daunting.  First we combined the brown sugar, cinnamon and butter over low heat.

Once it was all in an even-textured goo, we very carefully stirred in the banana liqueur and placed the bananas in the mixture.

A note about banana liqueur – I couldn’t find a small bottle of it, so I was forced to buy a fairly large one that I can’t think of too many other uses for.  We have considered banana daiquiris and perhaps banana martinis (but those sound slightly disgusting to me).  If you have any other suggestions for banana liqueur uses, please let me know so I don’t feel that I was wasteful in my purchase. 

We wanted our bananas browned on both sides (though I suppose the fire could have browned the top, but we didn’t want to risk it), so we flipped them after a little while.  When we thought they were ready, we added the rum.

Ever since a frightening blintz-oil-grease fire incident I had when I was eleven, I’m a little nervous around flames in a kitchen, so I made my friends handle this part.  Once the rum was hot, they tipped the pan to set it afire.  Check this out (best picture EVER):

It turned out that my flame fears were unfounded.  If you have a traumatic experience in your past similar to my blintz fire, don’t let Bananas Foster scare you.  You will be completely in control and you won’t have flashbacks. 

I forgot to mention - at some point during this process you should prepare a plate with the other ingredients.  Brennan’s suggests putting it over ice cream, but we wanted that little something extra, so we put it over waffles AND ice cream (it’s all part of a new fad diet.  It’ll make you skinny, I swear). 

We had prepared such a plate, so we immediately spooned the goo over the ice cream and waffles and placed some bananas on it. It was hot, the ice cream melted immediately and it turned into mush with bananas on waffles.  But YUUUMMMMM. 

Once we’d scarfed that down (two minutes, tops) we prepared a second serving that was much more photo-friendly since the goo and bananas had cooled a bit. 

Now I know it might have been hard to see this coming, but guess what happened?  Kate’s camera ran out of batteries!!!  So our artistic presentation had to be captured on a camera phone.   And even though Annette’s camera phone had run out of memory (I’m telling you, the forces of nature have been working against me), we were smart enough to have a third roommate whose camera phone captured the Bananas Foster in all of its glory. 

I know it would have been better with the digital camera, but I hope you can get a sense of how well it turned out.  If you like bananas even the tiniest bit, you should immediately buy some banana liqueur (or come over and borrow some of mine) and make yourself some Fostery goodness. 

It might seem to you that all I make is dessert.  I could pretend like that’s not true, but let’s face it – I like me some sugar.  I’ll try to make some actual food tomorrow so you don’t worry about my nutrient intake, but I can’t make any promises. 

Tonight’s dessert comes to us from an avid AG reader named Chris who emailed me a recipe for Raspberry Bars. 

Step one – combine ½ cup packed light brown sugar, 1 cup all purpose flour, ¼ tsp. baking soda, 1/8 tsp. salt and 1 cup rolled oats.  Rub in ½ cup (1 stick) butter using your hands or a pastry blender to form a crumbly mixture. 

Press 2 cups of the mixture into the bottom of a greased 8-in. square pan.  (Chris’s recipe says that you should also line the greased pan with greased foil, but since I was using a foil pan I decided to skip that step). 

Spread 3/4 cup raspberry jam to within ¼ inch of the edge. 

Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture over the top and lightly press it into the jam.  Bake in a 350° oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until lightly browned. 

Wait to cool before cutting into bars. Then test it out on your roommates.  Here is Annette’s first taste. 

And here is Aaron's (he’s the new roommate.  He’s also sick and that’s why he hasn’t shaved.  Don’t judge him.)

Did they like them? Do they like me?  Did my raspberry bars earn me their love and respect?

YES!

So, thanks Chris for this great and easy recipe.  The raspberry bars were a hit!