Our Valentine's Dinner

For Valentine's Day I really, really wanted to make nachos for dinner. I'm not joking. I had some spicy chorizo, a couple of ripe avocados, and, as you might expect, a huge stash of cheese, and aren't holidays an excuse to splurge and eat unhealthy things that you wouldn't normally eat? I think so. Unfortunately my valentine wasn't down with the nachos idea, so I ended up going a little more traditional and made steak. It worked out for the best, as Matt told me that it was the best meal I've made in a very long time. A compliment like that is the best Valentine's gift a girl could get. At least I think. Now that I'm repeating it it sounds a little backhanded, but I can assure you that he meant it in the nicest possible way.

The menu:

Homemade rye bread

Roasted broccolini

Blue cheese mashed potatoes

Rib eyes with chimichurri

Chocolate mousse with freshly whipped cream

The bread recipe is from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I recommend both the book and the bread.

I bought these gigantic rib eyes because they were on sale at Whole Foods for something like $10.99/lb, far cheaper than the $23.99/lb. filets I was planning on buying. Between the two of us we didn't even eat one, which means steak salads all week for me! Just as I started to get nervous about how my pesky fire alarm was going to react to me cooking a steak on the stovetop I saw Matt's friend Sarah's tweet about Bittman's method for pan-cooking a steak in a poorly ventilated apartment with no smoke. Miraculous!

Speaking of Bittman, I used his recipe for chimichurri to top off the steak. It was so good that I used it top off the potatoes and the broccolini as well. Then I used my bread to sop up every last drop. You can find a recipe here, and I would recommend making it in a food processor as he suggests in his book rather than chopping it by hand.

I had some red potatoes that I'd boiled earlier in the week for a salad that I turned into blue cheese mashed potatoes. Simply mash up some boiled potatoes and add any combination of milk, cream, sour cream, cream cheese, and butter, season with salt and pepper, and crumble in a generous amount of blue cheese.

Since my potatoes were cold I transferred them to a baking dish, topped them with some pats of butter, and baked them with the broccolini until they were heated through.

Oh yeah, the broccolini. Toss it with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper, and bake on a cookie sheet at 375 or so for maybe 10 minutes. It's to die for. I may be exaggerating, but only slightly.

This meal was incredibly delicious and very easy to whip together. The chocolate mousse was the only thing that took more than about 15 minutes to make, but it was far from difficult. For as delicious as it is, it's totally worth the effort. If it weren't for the sinfulness of the mashed potatoes and the fact that I don't eat much steak I would make this meal all the time.

All of that chocolate is proof that this dessert is worth making. And check out my reflection in the double boiler. Hello, me!

The chocolate mousse recipe I used was from Orangette. You can follow the link to her recipe; I'll just show you some pretty pictures of the process. The only change I made was the addition of a little cinnamon to give it a little Mexican flavor. It was my consolation prize for not having nachos, I guess.

Molten chocolate.

+ egg whites

Folding in the egg whites.

WHIPPED CREAM

Sigh.

Sigh again.

There's nothing better than licking a spoon and discovering a second layer of chocolate underneath. NOTHING.

Extra whipped cream to top it off.

The big blue bowl remains. Who wants to help polish it off?

Pumpkin Bread

The number one sign for me that fall is here is that I traded in my flip flops for socks and shoes this morning. Maybe I'm becoming more sensible as I get older and choosing comfort over fashion or maybe I'm slowly morphing into my perpetually frozen dad, but there are only so many days when I can walk to school with white toes that have lost all sensation before I realize I should stop being so lazy and put on some stupid shoes. Breaking out the socks and shoes is a pretty big step for me. I don't really have anything against shoes and I love boots, but there is nothing I hate more than socks. Well, maybe bad grammar, people who smoke cigarettes on the running path, and Penn State fans, but socks are next in line. Actually I don't even hate Penn State fans. I just feel bad for them.

Anyway, fall has finally arrived. It's in the 50s, it's insanely windy, and I have to wear socks. To make myself feel better about the whole socks thing, I baked some pumpkin bread this afternoon. I might at well enjoy one of the best things about fall while dealing with one of the worst, right?

Pumpkin Bread

Adapted from Simply Recipes and Joy of Cooking

1-1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 cup fresh or canned pumpkin puree

1/2 cup olive oil

2 large eggs

1/4 cup water

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup diced apples, raisins, chopped pecans or chopped walnuts (optional)

1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional, but strongly recommended)

Recipe makes 1 loaf.

If you're using fresh pumpkin, preheat the oven to 375. If you're using canned pumpkin or you've already cooked the pumpkin, preheat the oven to 350.

To cook the pumpkin slice it it half lengthwise and scrape out the stringy stuff and the seeds. Save the seeds for these, and discard the stringy stuff. Lay the pumpkin halves skin side down on a rimmed baking sheet, pour about 1/4" water into the pan, and loosely cover with foil. Bake for 30 minutes or until tender. Reduce the oven temp to 350.

Let the pumpkin cool and then scoop the flesh into a food processor.

Process until it's pureed and no longer stringy.

Over a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg.

In a separate bowl combine the pumpkin, oil, eggs and water. Next time I'll remember to not use a yellow bowl when taking photos of orange and yellow food. And no, you're not hallucinating. There are four eggs. I had a lot of pumpkin, so I doubled the recipe.

Whisk to combine.

Pour the egg/pumpkin mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients.

Stir until mostly combined.

I decided to add some chopped apples since I have several pounds of them taking up a ton of space in my fridge.

And I really don't see the point in baking anything if chocolate chips aren't involved.

Mix until the apples and chocolate chips are evenly distributed.

Butter and flour the loaf pan(s).

Then pour in the batter.

Top them off with a few more chocolate chips for good measure.

Bake for about an hour or until a tester comes out clean. One of my loaves took 60 minutes and the other one took closer to 70.

Leave the bread in the pan to cool for at least 10 minutes (and preferably longer) before trying to remove it. Trace around the edge of the pan with a knife and turn in over onto a plate or cooling rack.

This is great on it's own, but it would make a lovely dessert with a little dollop of freshly whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream.

If you give a mouse a corner of a of loaf of pumpkin bread...

He's going to ask you for a whole slice.

Raspberry + Nutella Pizza

First off, I have to apologize for the abysmal quality of the photos (and I don't mean abysmal in the way that Joey used it in that episode of Friends).  This was the fourth pizza of the night, and the daylight was pretty much gone at that point.  On the bright side, this pizza was a-m-a-z-i-n-g!  I'm fairly certain you can spread Nutella and raspberries on anything and enjoy it.  Try to prove me wrong on that one.  

Raspberry + Nutella Pizza

Pizza dough

Nutella

Raspberries

I'm not even going to make up measurements because it all depends on how big  your pizza will be, how much Nutella you have, and what kind of fruit you're using.  I was scraping the bottom of the Nutella jar, which is probably a good thing in hindsight.  Knowing me, I would have slathered on a quarter-inch of Nutella if I could have gotten my hands on it, and then I would have to guiltily run an extra mile or two the following day.  I used raspberries because I had just picked some up at the farmers' market, but strawberries or blackberries would also work.  Apples might work well if you're making this in the fall, but I'm only basing that on my history of dipping apple slices into jars of Nutella. 

Start by rolling out the dough like you normally would.  This might be a good time to roll it out on a floured surface instead of a cornmeal-covered surface, but that just dawned on me now.  You'll probably be too distracted by the delicious chocolaty-hazelnutty flavor to even notice whether there's cornmeal stuck to the bottom of the crust.  

Here's a fun fact: hazelnut in German is haselnuss.  My friend Kathryn and I learned that on a boozy flight to Ibiza in college.  In case you were wondering what the German word for cornflakes is, it's knusperflakes.  It's amazing what you can learn from a chocolate bar wrapper. 

Bake at 450 on a sheet pan or pizza stone until it looks a little something like this.  

Then try to refrain from eating the whole thing.  

And finally, Happy Wedding Day, Kelsey! 

Coconut Macaroons

I'm really good at justifying the baked goods I eat.  I think I learned it from my mom who eats two cookies for breakfast after her daily run.  She also eats a big bowl of fruit, which cancels out the cookies, right?  

I made macaroons on Sunday, but I ran 18 miles on Saturday, so I kind of earned my right to eat them.  Let's just not worry about the fact that I also ate a giant carnitas burrito and half of a vanilla milkshake to reward myself for the run.  Oh, and a big cup of root beer.  Ooooooh do I love root beer.  The thing is I never really had any dessert on Saturday, save that half of a milkshake, but that was more like a snack.  Or maybe I'll consider it dessert after lunch, and I didn't eat dessert after dinner.  And I ran 18 miles!  And I walked at least a mile after that, wanting to cry with every step and trying hard to refrain from asking every passerby if they had any ibuprofen.  That's got to count for something.  Then on Sunday I went to Mall of America, and spending time in any shopping mall, let alone an enormous one, earns me a macaroon.  Don't even get me started on the Renaissance Fair people who were holding court at the mall.  The payoff for having to witness that is at least four macaroons.  I guess this logic explains why obesity is such a problem in America, but I ran 18 miles!  I've earned myself a macaroon or two.  

The macaroon recipe I used comes from a wonderful book that I just finished reading and highly recommend: A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg.  You should read the book and check out her blog.  Then you should make macaroons.  

Coconut Macaroons

Adapted from Orangette

3 cups sweetened, flaked coconut

3/4 cup egg whites 

3/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Handful of chocolate chips (optional)

Combine the coconut, the egg whites, and the sugar in a heavy saucepan.  It takes about 5 large eggs to get 3/4 cup egg whites, unless a couple of your eggs are frozen, in which case you'll need 6 or 7 eggs.  

Cook the coconut mixture over medium-low heat, stirring frequently.  It will initially become kind of creamy and look like the mixture in the picture below.  

After maybe 10 or 15 minutes it will start to dry out a little and the individual flakes will emerge.  At that point, remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the vanilla. 

Spread the mixture out into a baking dish or pan of some sort, then stick it in the refrigerator to cool for about 30 minutes.  

Preheat the oven to 300, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  If you don't have parchment paper, just grease the cookie sheet.  Use your hands or an ice cream scoop to form balls of coconut a little larger than a golf ball.  

They remind me of little Muppets or Fraggle Rock guys.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until they're browned.  Eat immediately or...

...drizzle them with chocolate.  I recommend option 2.  

The original recipe calls for a mixture of chocolate and cream, but I didn't have any cream so I stuck with straight chocolate.  And I didn't feel like waiting for water to simmer to use the double boiler, so I melted a handful of chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave.  Sue me. 

Use a spoon to drizzle chocolate over the tops of the macroons, or if you have more chocolate to work with you could dunk each one in the bowl of chocolate.  Send me an email if you need help justifying that kind of behavior.  I'd be happy to help. 

How good do those look?  

This one is the Denise, the most chocolately one of the bunch.  I stuck it in the freezer so my mom can eat it the next time she visits.  

The more I look at this picture, the more convinced I am of the chocolate-dunking method.