Portabello Marinade (10 min or less)

Ok, here goes my first attempt at recipeeeez! This has been adapted from Colleen's veggie cookbook... The marinade can be strong (salt from miso and sour from balsamic) if you are eyeballin' the ingredient amounts, so be careful and dilute with water if necessary.
3-4 portos
2 tbsp Miso Paste
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp balsamic
1 tbsp water
Optional depending on desired flavor is grated garlic, ginger, or pepper to taste.

Add the portos to a gallon ziploc, then add the above ingredients after mixing separately in a bowl. Seal the bag almost all the way, but leave a small space to blow into. Inflate the bag (a la, Franzia volleyball), and gently shake for a minute. The inflated bag will keep the shroomies from crushing. heat oven to 350 degrees, and by the time the oven is warm, the marinade should be sufficiently soaked in. Lay the caps out, gills up, on a cookie sheet and cook for around 10 min (depends on how cooked you like your mushies.

You cant go wrong with this and it is really easy and quick to make, though not very appetizing looking unless you can figure out something to put it on/garnish. (parsley anyone?)

No Knead Bread

I blatantly stole this recipe from my cousin Erik, who deserves much of the credit for perfecting the technique. This recipe is EASY, and on a given batch you probably do 15 minutes of actual work; the rest is just rise time, temperature and equipment. The bread has the good, springy texture of artisan bread complete with the big gas bubbles. I have had great results letting the dough rise 24 hours (my house is about 65 degrees F) and you could let it rise for up to 36 hours, depending on the the temperature. A longer rise time will typically yield stronger flavors, and this is part of the reason the bread is tastier than plain ol' white bread. I baked mine in a dutch oven and sprinkled on cornmeal, which makes for a spiffy crust. The recipe doesn't mention, but I usually wet the towels to hold in moisture. I also like a bit crispier crust so I bake the bread out of the dutch oven and right on the rack for the last 5-10 minutes. Think that's it. Enjoy!



Recipe: No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street BakeryTime: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.


Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Olive apricot and pistachio quinoa

I tweaked a Martha Stewart couscous recipe and it was really good. I used quinoa instead of couscous and upped the apricots, olives, pistachios and added feta. Its a great mixture of flavors, i was really pleased with how it came out.

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water

½ cup dried apricots chopped

½ cup green olives chopped

1/3 cup pistachios chopped

juice for ½ a lemon

feta

 

cook quinoa until mostly done. Add apricots an olives and continue to cook. When finished, mix in pistachios and lemon juice. Serve topped with feta J

Lard; Why are we so afraid of it?

 LARD...dun dun dun. Who cooks with lard? "I don't want all that fat going straight to my ass... talk about a a heart attack waiting to happen...I don't eat stuff like that." Sound familiar? 

Why are we all of the sudden so afraid of something our ancestors have been doing for centuries? I know that many of my favorite recipes from home call for lard... or if you are weary of animal fat you can opt for the Crisco substitute, which I always have been. But, I've got to thinking, hy is it that we look down upon traditional ways of cooking as unhealthy, and instead use processed chemically derived ingredients? 

Crisco was invented before the civil war when a soap maker James Proctar, and a candle maker William Gandle got together and invented it as a response the the monopoly that was held over lard and tallow, ingredients needed to produce their products. Scientist E.C Kayser helped them develop the science of hydrogenation which changes oils into solids, creating a lard-like substance.  It wasn't until 1911, that Procter & Gamble realized they could turn a profit by introducing Crisco into the public for cooking and baking. It was marketed under the slogan "A healthier alternative to cooking with animal fats...and more economical than butter". It was an amazing marketing scheme that demonized lard forever.  As we now know, Crisco is not healthier than other forms of fat, and hydrogenated oil has been found to increase heart disease because our bodies have a hard time processing the man made chemical  structure.

Despite all the new information about hydrogenated oils and transfats, people still seem scared of the one thing that should be the least threatening, the traditional way. Lard is all natural and worked just fine for generation after generation before we decided that we can create something better (which obviously didn't work). How disconnected from our food and our traditions have we become? How can we believe it is more healthy to put chemically altered substances in our bodies as opposed to something natural?

A couple weeks ago I made bizcochitos the traditional way...and they were delicious!

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

These are amazing. Possibly the best cupcakes I've ever made. It's funny because I'd decided to make cupcakes for a friend's birthday this weekend and got online to poke around on some food blogs to see if anything looked interesting. I went to smitten kitchen first and Deb had posted these cupcakes that very day. Ironically this exact same thing happened a couple weeks ago when I was looking for a good sandwich bread recipe and Deb had posted one that same day as well. It makes fantastic bread by the way, but I've been upping the salt to 2 1/2 tsps.... in case you give it a whirl. It's like smitten kitchen is my baking oracle; Deb knows what I want to bake before I do!


Anyways, back to the cupcakes. Considering all the steps involved, they aren't too hard to make and it's totally worth the extra time. They are super moist, and have a really rich flavor... the beer maybe?? The centers are cut out and filled with a simple ganache, I might add a splash of whiskey to it next time to make it really authentic. Then they are topped with a totally decadent Bailey's frosting. I'm not usually one for lots of icing, but I could eat this stuff with a spoon.

I also have to confess I caved and bought a cupcake tote this weekend. I feel like a total dork, but man is it nice. I could only find 12 and 36 seater boxes, and since bigger is always better... I now have the world's biggest cupcake carrier. But it makes it so unbelievably easy to carry and keep these babies, and they stay nice and fresh.