Pita salad (Fattoush) (p. 159)

I had a good feeling about Pita salad (Fattoush) (p. 159) because I really like pita bread.  I'm not a big salad eater.  I want to be.  I really want to love salad.  But I don't.  

I started by tossing cucumber and salt in a colander and leaving it to drain for a half hour:

I also split some pitas and baked them until crisp:

I whisked together olive oil, lemon juice, a crushed garlic clove, salt, and black pepper.  The dressing was good, nicely spiced.  I'm sure I used more garlic than I was supposed to, I always do.

I mixed tomatoes, romaine lettuce, scallions, parsley, cilantro, and mint in a bowl:

And tossed it with the dressing.  The pita chips were added to the top and it was done!

The salad was easy and very tasty.  I like a crunch in a salad (I notice that they really care about texture on the cooking shows but I don't usually pay a whole lot of attention to that--even so, the crunch is nice in salad).  The dressing was perfect, although I would have liked to add some olives or feta or something briny.  I've never had fattoush before this--anyone have any experience with the dish?  Does this seem similar?

Joy of Cooking-75th Anniversary Edition - 2006 (Google Affiliate Ad)
Acacia Salad Bowl, 11 3/4 " x 4" (Google Affiliate Ad)

Pizza dough (p. 607) and Focaccia (p. 607)

I'm not sure what motivated me to make Pizza dough (p. 607) other than I wanted to make a bread recipe and pizza sounded good.  I usually just buy my pizza dough at Whole Foods because I hated baking at high altitude.  And Whole Foods has good pizza dough! 

(I know these posts are super late so I'm not going to backdate them.  Look forward to a lot of posts all at once)

I mixed water and yeast:

Yeasty!

I added flour, olive oil, and salt.  I omitted the sugar because I don't like my pizza dough sweet (does anyone?):

I mixed it by hand for a minute:

And started kneading.  TJOC always recommends kneading for what I think is way too long.  I kneaded until it looked good:

At this point I separated the dough into three sections because I was only going to make pizza with part of it, I was going to make Focaccia (p. 607).  I covered all the dough so that it could rise. 

It went from this: 

To this: 

   I punched it down, rolled it into a ball, and let it rise for another 10 minutes.  I flattened the ball, stretched it, brushed it with olive oil, and made a pizza!  I never use pizza stones but some people swear by them.  I would love to know your experiences in the comments....

It was really good although no better than the pizza dough from Whole Foods!  So I don't know if I would bother with it in the future.  You all know my theory--if it's not better or cheaper homemade than I might as well just buy it.  Your time is worth something, right?

I like focaccia but almost never buy it.  I took the pizza dough, rolled it out, and put it in a baking dish.  

Well, actually two dishes.  They were let raise in the pans.

I topped mine with garlic, olives, and spices!

I topped moms with mushrooms, garlic, and tomatoes:

I wish you could have smelled how terrific these were when they were cooked:

Focaccia is totally worth making.  Honestly, it was delicious and easy.  And I'm sure you could make it with store-bought pizza dough if you didn't want to make it from true scratch.  I even think mom froze some of it and ate it later and that totally worked.  Has anyone else made focaccia?  How did it turn out?

Sur La Table Cordierite Pizza Stone, 23 1/2" x 13 1/2" (Google Affiliate Ad)
Joy of Cooking-75th Anniversary Edition - 2006 (Google Affiliate Ad)

Corn and tomato relish (p. 949)

Tart corn relish (p. 949) is perfect for people with a lot of fresh garden veggies. I blanched three ears of corn in boiling water and cut off the kernels (nothing is better than fresh Iowa sweet corn). I mixed the corn with tomatoes, red onion, sweet pickles, cider vinegar, sugar, celery seeds, salt and pepper:



Dad took one bite and proclaimed it the worst thing he had ever eaten.

I don't know how to describe the flavor--I didn't think it was nearly as bad as he did--but the sweet corn, tangy vinegar, acidic tomato, and sugar did mix in an odd way. Way too many flavors were competing for the spotlight.

Dad and I were splitting everything we made--he was keeping half and I was taking half back to mom's house (and, ultimately, all the way back to Colorado). As I was driving home he called me and pointed out that I had forgotten to take the hated corn relish (a point I thought was hilarious) which had been forgotten because it was in the fridge. Apparently the flavor mellowed, because dad said that the next day it was actually really good (why he kept eating something he hated is a mystery). So I recommend giving the flavors a day or two to meld.

This recipe is vegan, too, so it would be a good vegan side dish if you needed one.

Short post! So a question--what do you think of when you hear the word "relish"?

High-altitude angel cake (p. 748), Fresh strawberry sauce (Strawberry coulis) (p. 853), and Custard sauce (Creme anglaise) (p. 846)

As much as I complain about living in the hell that is high-altitude, I have this terrible suspicion that I'm going to end up moving without completing all of the high-altitude recipes, which would be terrible. Frankly, I'm not sure what you would do in regards to the high-altitude recipes if you were trying to cook-through TJOC and lived around sea level. Would you go to a friend's house in the mountains and make 14 cakes? Would you adjust them so they weren't high altitude (which seems bizarre)?

With this in mind (and the fact I've only made 5/14 of the high-altitude section so far) I decided to make High-altitude angel cake (p. 748). I'd never tried my hand at angel cake and it has a reputation for being challenging, so I was nervous.

I measured out 1.5 cups of egg whites. It took about a dozen eggs:



That's a lot of egg white! I added the egg whites, a bit of salt, and some cream of tarter together and beat it until slightly droopy peaks formed. It went from this:



To this:



That's one of my favorite parts of baking. I love seeing huge changes like egg whites changing color. I added in sugar and then folded in vanilla extract, almond extract, and water:



In another bowl I sifted together sifted cake flour and sifted confectioners sugar (that is two sifts, each) and returned it to the sifter:



I sifted the dry ingredients one quarter at a time in to the egg white mixture and folded:



It took quite a bit of folding. Eventually, I (messily) poured the batter in to my cake pan and ran a knife around the middle to burst any bubbles:



Popped it in the oven:



When the cake was finished, I inverted it on top of a funnel until it was completely cooled:



Delicious! The almond extract really helped the flavor of the angel cake "pop". The cake was moist and light, not as tall as I would have liked (although taller than I would expect in Colorado). It was also pretty easy.

I thought that angel food cake is really a great canvas for sweet sauces, so I decided I would make two. The first sauce was Fresh strawberry sauce (Strawberry coulis) (p. 853). Super, super easy.

I took a pint of strawberries, some sugar, and a little lemon juice and popped them in the blender:



And got this:



Finished! I didn't even have to strain it. It was really good, reminiscent of a strawberry Julius at Orange Julius. And certainly easy (much easier than the raspberry coulis, which took forever to strain).

I thought that Custard sauce (Creme anglaise) (p. 846) would be a good use of some of the leftover egg yolks.

I lightly beat egg yolks:




I whisked in sugar and salt. I heated two cups of milk until bubbles started to form around the edges and then slowly whisked the hot milk in to my eggs (always mix hot in to cold, not cold in to hot--you will get scrambled eggs):



And the whole mixture went back on the stovetop. I needed it to heat to 175 degrees. Just like heating anything in Colorado, this step took FOREVER. Honestly, it should have taken about five minutes but instead took around an hour.



(Ignore the messy stovetop! It was a big day of cooking) I was so thankful when it was finally done (well, done after stirring in a little vanilla).



This custard sauce was so delicious that I could (and did) just eat it with a spoon. It was creamy and rich and absolute perfection. I can't wait to make it again at sea level when it should only take a few minutes. Plus it's a great use of egg yolks.

My angel food cake with both sauces:



Delicious! The two sauces together were particularly good.

Do any of you make awesome angel food cakes?

Random facts:

• If you go to too high of a temperature with creme anglaise, just 5-10 degrees over, the custard will collapse and you will get grainy curds (On Food and Cooking, p. 93), giving you low quality scrambled eggs (Wikipedia). So make sure you are using a candy thermometer.
• Creme anglaise is French for "English cream" (Wikipedia). For some reason, I think it's hilarious that English uses the French version of an English phrase.

Chilled grapefruit (p. 226)

I like the super simple recipes in TJOC because I can knock them out relatively easily when I have the ingredients. Chilled grapefruit (p. 226) was one of these recipes.

I halved a grapefruit, loosened the sections, dusted it with powdered sugar, and sprinkled Grand Marnier over the top.



Personally, I think the liqueur was a bit much. I don't really need a tablespoon of alcohol on my morning grapefruit and it was pretty overwhelming. I also like table sugar rather than powdered sugar, which I think was too sweet. So, although this is an insane recipe (doesn't everyone already know how to eat a grapefruit?), I doubt I will make it again.

Random facts:

• The bitter compounds in citrus peel are water soluble while the oils are not. That is why soaking is recommended when you use it. (On Food and Cooking, p. 373)
• The grapefruit was originally the hybrid of the sweet orange and pummelo (OFaC, p. 376)

Fruit sodas (p. 39) and Citrus juice medley (p. 38)

The "beverages" chapter in TJOC is just not very exciting to me. I really feel like I'm just powering through them. Maybe it's because I don't require much in the way of fancy drinks. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out who I'm going to pawn the "Lemonade for 100" off on when I get to that recipe.

I was hopeful about Fruit sodas (p. 39). I combined club soda, pineapple juice, and sugar syrup:



It was tasty! It was pretty close to soda, which I liked. I really love club soda--and I drink a lot of it--so that was great. I think I would rather have another juice, maybe cranberry or grape juice or something. And I think it would be absolutely perfect for juices that are really sweet (too sweet for me, at least) like apricot nectar.

I also made Citrus juice medley (p. 38), which Josh got to enjoy. I combined grapefruit, lemon, and orange juices with sugar syrup:



It was REALLY sour. If you like sour drinks, this is the one for you. If you don't, steer clear. I recommend using sugar syrup instead of sugar in these drinks, since sugar doesn't dissolve very well in cold liquids.

There really isn't a whole lot to say about these drinks, they are juice blends, that's that, right?

Hummus (Chickpea and tahini dip) (p. 74)

Ah, Hummus (Chickpea and tahini dip) (p. 74). There are about a thousand variations of hummus and I wasn't very impressed by TJOC's previous hummus recipe (Half moon hummus), which was far too lemony for my liking.

I took my (canned) chickpeas, combined them in the food processor with lemon juice (way less lemon juice than the HMH recipe, thankfully), tahini, garlic, and salt:



Drizzled a little olive oil on top, sprinkled a little paprika, and done!

This was a tasty, simple hummus. Was it my favorite hummus recipe ever? No. But it was super easy. I think it would be a good base recipe for creative cooks--I see myself adding a ton more garlic or black olives or something. It's nice to have hummus on hand since it's a nice, filling snack. And it always seems like a waste to buy since it's so easy to make.

Any favorite hummus recipes out there? Favorite add-ins?

Random facts:

• Hummus comes from the Arabic word for chickpea (Wikipedia). Simple right?
• Chickpeas have much more oil than most other legumes (On Food and Cooking, p. 491)
• Chickpeas and garbanzo beans are the same thing. The word "chickpea" comes from the Latin name and "garbanzo" comes from the Greek name (On Food and Cooking, p. 491)

Daiquiri (p. 60), Gin fizz (p. 56), Moscow mule (p. 58),and Cuba libre (p. 60)

I thought it would be a great idea to make Josh and myself a few drinks to enjoy during "The Amazing Race" to enjoy along with our delicious meal. Surprisingly, I am making great progress through the Cocktails chapter and I don't have a huge amount of drinks left to make.

I made myself a Daiquiri (p. 60). I shook light rum, lime juice, and sugar syrup together with ice, then strained them in to a chilled glass:



Odd. First, I don't really understand these drinks that have a couple ounces of liquid in the bottom of a glass. This drink was STRONG and way, way too sour for me. Plus I thought daiquiris usually had fruit involved. This daiquiri was fruit-free.

Josh's first drink was a Gin fizz (p. 56). I shook gin, lime juice, and sugar syrup (oddly, the exact same ingredients as the daiquiri, except for rum versus gin) with ice, poured it in to a glass, and then filled the glass with club soda:



Josh liked it. He thought the club soda really rounded out the flavor, nicely balancing the sweet and sour.

I made myself a Moscow mule (p. 58). I actually had completely forgotten about this drink and it took me quite a while to figure out what the heck it was. I poured vodka and lime juice in a highball glass (TJOC also recommends a mug [a mug?? Really??]), filling the glass with ginger beer.



I really don't like ginger beer. What a strange drink this was. It was like drinking a big glass of sour beer with a vodka chaser. I can't say I will sign on for this drink again.

I thought Josh would actually like a nice Cuba libre (p. 60). The drink was incredibly simple--rum, Coke, and lime juice poured over ice:



Josh was a big fan. It's essentially a rum and Coke with lime, so if that sounds good to you, order one the next time you go out.

These posts are really hard for me because how much can you say about a cocktail? I don't know how people write entire blogs about alcohol.

Random facts:

• Ginger beer peaked in popularity in the early nineteenth century and was seen as healthy due to ginger's reputation as a digestive aid (Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, p. 259)
• Ginger beer seems to be alcoholic while ginger ale is not (personal observation)
• Some rum is fermented from molasses. (On Food and Cooking, p. 765). I totally did not know that
• A gin fizz becomes a "golden fizz" if you add an egg yolk (Wikipedia). I think that sounds repulsive

Technorati Favorites">