Eat Boutique

I’m on a Barefoot Contessa kick this week. In fact, I think I may be in love with her. Not real love, like the love I feel for my husband or even my dog. It’s the kind of love I feel for people who build community via their food. She helps me nurture my little community. She makes it so I pledge to cook everything ahead of time and really enjoy my time with family and friends. Plus, she makes it all taste some damn good with very few steps. I love her. I really do.

Her version of Grown Up Mac and Cheese wasn’t for some fancy dinner party. It was my superhero moment for my husband. I just recently went back to work full-time. I have less time to cook and my husband has fewer fancy meals each week. My family and friends also see fewer posts on this blog each week. But I made a commitment to them and me to post at least three times per week, and I plan to keep that promise. That means cooking nice dinners in far less time.

On Thursday night past, I wanted a glorious meal to celebrate the premiere of my husband’s favorite show, Lost. I didn’t have time to scheme up something exotic or island-like, as a true tribute. So I spent five minutes staring at the contents of my fridge and decided. I had three fancy cheeses. No basil nor defrosted bacon, but that wasn’t necessary. I set about to becoming a superwoman by making a fancy, gooey, filling mac and cheese.

I quickly got the water and pasta boiling. In that time, I warmed my milk, added my freshly grated cheddar, gruyere and blue cheese. A sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg and black pepper, and I was ready to pile on some bread crumbs. Thirty minutes in the oven, and wow. Filling, satisfying and WAY TOO MUCH for a week night meal. But I felt accomplished and very “super” for even trying. The husband was grateful, and did the dishes all weekend, as a little thank you.

Now it’s time to find some less filling meals that take a lot less time, so I can do everything - work hard, feel like superwoman at dinner time, but also feel healthy at the same time. I think I need to re-read Super Natural Cooking…

I’ve never really made a gratin recipe. I may have tried a recipe years ago, only to find that when exact measurements weren’t followed it cooked into a big, gooey mess. Last night was a very different experience.

My husband and I had some friends over, as we’re like to do most Saturday nights. My husband was begging me to make beef short ribs. Over the last two years or so, I’ve come to master my own little short rib recipe and really love making something that seems so impressive to people (because it does take 3 hours or so), but is really so simple and forgiving.

Anyway, my husband wanted some potatoes on the side, and, alas, I have yet to master any great mashed potato recipes. Perhaps I’m a little shy because his entire family is Irish and always makes the BEST mashed potatoes, bursting with cream, butter and salt. Mine just don’t measure up. But I love gratin potatoes and have always wanted to find an easy recipe.

In walks Ina Garten. The Barefoot Contessa has a simple recipe for Potato Fennel Gratin from her first book, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. It’s so easy and pretty that folks will think you spent hours making something that took about five minutes of preparation, and 60-90 minutes in the oven. Well, you did spend just over an hour, but it was all hands off. The oven did all the work!

I made some slight modifications to the recipe. Instead of fennel (my husband hates that mild licorice taste), I quickly sauteed some leeks and shitake mushrooms, separately, in a little olive oil. I added them to the bowl of sliced potatoes (quickly done in my food processor with the slicing blade), cream, gruyere, salt and pepper. A quick mix and then a big pile/pour of the ingredients into my baking dish. Sixty minutes later, we had a beautiful, golden dish that nicely complimented the rich short ribs.

In the midst of one of the busiest weeks ever, I’ve found solace in a recipe that tastes as gorgeous as it looks. These Butternut Squash Muffins were a last minute addition to a huge party I hosted this past weekend. I prefer to serve dishes I have made over and over again, so you know what you get. But Jamie Oliver is gorgeous and his luscious moves as he whipped this together begged me to give it a quick try before the party started. Thank goodness! They were well-received by all; and, I’ve had three in the last 18 hours. They’re adorable and charming and totally imperfect, which is why I love them. And how can you resist those vanilla bean seeds speckled throughout the citrus glaze?

While Jamie Oliver is finally securing his footing in the U.S. as a celebrity chef, I have always found him to be very “boutique” in spirit. He eats local, prefers organic and buddies up with boutique chefs all over Europe. At the same time, he’s very modern with his lovely podcasts over at his very cute website/online diary. My favorite TV series chronicles his travels eating and cooking all over Italy.

I served these muffins as dessert, and my non-dairy guests loved them. (I nixed the glaze for them.) Definitely taste the glaze before you top the muffins; I loved the sweet tartness, but it was too tangy for some.

Butternut Squash Muffins with a Frosty Top

Ingredients:

• 14 ounces butternut squash, skin on, de-seeded and roughly chopped
• 2 1/4 cups light soft brown sugar
• 4 large free-range or organic eggs
• Sea salt
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted
• 2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
• Handful of walnuts, chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

For the Frosted Cream Topping:

• 1 clementine, zested
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 heaping tablespoons icing sugar, sifted
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped out

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line your muffin tins with paper cups.Whiz the squash in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the sugar, and crack in the eggs. Add a pinch of salt, the flour, baking powder, walnuts, cinnamon and olive oil and whiz together until well beaten. Don’t overdo it with the mixing - you want to just combine everything and no more.

Fill the paper cups with the muffin mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Check to see whether they are cooked properly by sticking a wooden skewer or a knife right into one of the muffins - if it comes out clean, they’re done. Remove from the oven and leave the muffins to cool on a wire rack.

As soon as the muffins are in the oven, make your runny frosted topping. Place most of the clementine zest, all the lemon zest and the lemon juice in a bowl. Add the sour cream, icing sugar and vanilla seeds and mix well. Taste and have a think about it - adjust the amount of lemon juice or icing sugar to balance the sweet and sour. Put into the fridge until your muffins have cooled down, then spoon the topping onto the muffins.

Serve on a lovely plate, with the rest of the clementine zest sprinkled over. For an interesting flavor and look, a few dried lavender flowers or rose petals are fantastic.

Sometimes, when I have an excess of organic fruits or vegetables from the farm and haven’t found independent inspiration for their preparation, I type what I have into a search box and see what pops up. Though I have over 200 cookbooks, I still go straight to the Internet. Today, I was overwhelmed with the number of apples and cranberries I had leftover from the holidays. Perfectly. Delicious. Organic. Local. Apples. And. Cranberries.

A search on Google led me to Deb’s recipe for Apple Cranberry Crisp over at Smitten Kitchen. It was beautiful. Beautiful photos. Beautifully written post. But it was way too complicated for me. Well, really just too many steps.

A search on the Food Network site lead me to Emeril Lagasse’s Apple Cranberry Crisp with Oat Topping and Cheddar Cheese. I never really got into him, but lots of ingredients already in my kitchen and very few steps. I’m all about easy, especially when baking. I followed the recipe closely, except for one huge thing. Walnuts. My husband hates nuts in food. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps he’s nuts? So I omitted the walnuts to ensure he’d enjoy the dessert with me. I mean who wants to be stuck with a full 13X9 inch pan of gooey, sweet crisp? Well, me. But my doctor and waistline would be very unhappy with me. So no walnuts.

So here’s what we think:

My sister: “I thought it was very good.” She had no idea that there was a layer of white cheddar cheese on top. She thought the cheese did nothing for the dessert, but loved it anyway.

My husband: “I thought it was good, but would have thought it was better if it wasn’t forced on me when I was already full.” It’s true; I encouraged him to eat it right after dinner because I so wanted to dig into it. I didn’t force him but once he saw me assemble my bowl with ice cream, he insisted that he couldn’t wait if I wasn’t waiting. So really it’s all his fault. And, contrary to the sister, he believes the cheddar cheese is necessary; it adds a nice texture thing for him.

Me: “Yummy.” I really liked it and have decided to add it to my recipe drawer. My recipe drawer holds those dishes I make over and over again. This would be a nice crowd pleaser. Next time, I plan to reduce some of the sugar. I mean, come on, Emeril - three cups total? It was a bit excessive to me. But it tasted damn good.

The Barefoot Contessa showcased a lovely recipe for French Chocolate Bark earlier this month and it was so easy. I am all about easy, so I had to try it. I made a large batch earlier this week for delivery to my husband’s work. I found that it was a dessert masked as a slightly healthy treat, so all those greenies loved it. Here’s my adapted recipe.

Ingredients

• 8 ounces very good semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used fair trade chocolate)
• 8 ounces very good bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
  
• 1 cup whole roasted, almonds
  
• 1 cup chopped dried apricots
  
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  

Melt the 2 chocolates in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Using a ruler and a pencil, draw a 9 by 10-inch rectangle on the paper. Turn the paper facedown on the baking sheet.Melt the 2 chocolates in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water.Pour the melted chocolate over the paper and spread to form a rectangle, using the outline as your guide. Sprinkle the almonds, apricots and cranberries over the chocolate. Set aside for 2 hours until firm. (I placed mine in the fridge for about 20 minutes just before I cut it.) Cut the bark in 1 by 3-inch pieces and serve at room temperature.