Mushroom and Chicken Fake Crepes

You might come home from work and not feel like making dinner. So you might then look in the refrigerator to see what you can make quickly. And then you might see 2 packages of mushrooms languishing there which you bought because they were 3/$5 but who can eat that many mushrooms? And also you see the remains of a whole chicken breast that you roasted with garlic and lemon. You would think at this point you would decide to make something quick and easy like maybe a SALAD with some CHICKEN and MUSHROOMS on it. Or possibly you would instead decide to make CREPES - not really that easy and certainly not quick. What is wrong with me?

Anyway, I called these fake crepes because they don't have any flour in them, they are just eggs and cream. But they cook up like crepes and are terrific with savory fillings. They might be good with sweet stuff although for some reason, I'm not convinced. You try it and let me know. Your imagination is the limit as far as the fillings go - roasted veggies, cheese, spinach, and any various proteins would be great. Here's how I made mine:

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1/4 cup heavy cream

12 oz. mushrooms

1 tbs chopped thyme, or more to taste

1 tbs parsley, or more to taste

s&p

butter

chicken

shredded cheddar cheese (I bet I used a cup total - really, its up to you to decide - which was a fortune Elaine once got in a fortune cookie, so it just goes to show you - IT'S TRUE, it IS up to you to decide.)

Whisk together the eggs and heavy cream and salt/pepper - you can also use whole milk if you prefer. These proportions made me 6 crepes, plus 3 that went awry, so you can adjust as needed. Heat a small non-stick skillet over medium heat and butter the pan - you don't want too much, just a thin layer. Add 2 tablespoons of egg mixture to the pan and swirl to coat the bottom. Cook about 1 minute until it is set and flip using a spatula. It won't need as long on the second side. Slide crepe out of the pan and onto a plate and repeat until your batter is gone.

For my mushrooms, I heated some butter and oil over medium heat and added the mushrooms and salt and pepper to taste. I don't like to mess around a lot with my mushrooms, just leave them alone and they will get nice and nutty and brown. Once they've browned, add chopped thyme and parsley and let the herbs heat through for just a minute and then remove from heat.

To assemble your crepes, lay a single crepe on the counter and top with mushrooms, chicken and shredded cheese. Roll it up and place it in a baking dish. Repeat with the rest of your crepes. Top the whole thing with more cheddar cheese and put in a 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until they are warmed through and the cheese on top is melted. Garnish with some fresh chopped tomatoes, or whatever else you like.

Lemon Cheescake

I thought a good dessert for Mother's Day was a cheesecake, and when I asked my mom about it she enthusiastically agreed. I gave her the choice between strawberry topping or lemon curd, and she chose lemon, saying the strawberry was a little too... typical (she's a unique and classy lady). I really wanted to make the Cook's Illustrated New York style Cheesecake from March/April 2002 because my friend Emily swears by it, but I liked some elements of their Lemon Cheesecake from May/June 2003. There were differences in the ingredients and cooking method (the lemon one was much fussier, and also seemed to be aiming for a denser, wetter texture than I like in a cheesecake, with the New York style trying to have that cake-y texture at the edges, which I like). So this hybrid was born, and lo, it was very good.

Here are some points Jenean suggested I make when writing about this cheesecake:

- WOWZA!

- AMAZING!

- !!

- Light and creamy!

- Not like regular chessecake where you want to die after you've eaten a piece. After you've eaten a piece of this, you just want another piece.

We are a cheesecake loving family, no doubt, but everybody kind of lost their minds about this one. Jenean texted me super late the night we had it to say she's obsessed with it now.

So you should probably try it. Because of all the steps (relatively easy but there are several parts to it) and cooling down process, this is a good cake to make a day in advance. Take it out of the fridge to let it come to room temperature for about 20 minutes before serving it.

Light and Creamy Lemon Cheesecake

adapted from Cook's Illustrated as noted above

Crust:

5 oz animal crackers

2 tbsp sugar

5 tbsp butter, melted, plus an additional 1 tbsp melted to brush the pan with

Filling:

2 1/2 pounds cream cheese (5 blocks)

1/8 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 oz) sugar

1/3 cup sour cream

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp EACH finely grated lemon and orange zest*

2 tsp vanilla extract

6 large whole eggs plus 2 egg yolks

Lemon curd:

1/3 cup juice from 2 lemons**

2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk

1/2 cup (3 1/2 oz) sugar

2 tbsp unsalted butter, cold, cut in 1/2 inch cubes

1 tbsp heavy cream***

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

pinch salt

To make the crust:

Use the 1 tbsp of melted butter to grease up your 9 inch springform pan using a pastry brush. Preheat the oven to 325 and make sure your rack is in the middle of the oven.

pulse the animal crackers in the food processor until very finely ground. Add the sugar and pulse to combine. Turn the processor on and drizzle in the 5 tbsp of butter slowly, and pulse until it looks uniformly moist, like wet sand.

Press the cookie mixture into the bottom of the springform pan using a flat bottomed glass or similar to get it packed down and even.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, take it out to cool on a rack.

While it cools make the filling:

Turn the oven up to 500 degrees.

Cut the cream cheese into roughly 1 inch chunks and put them in your stand mixer bowl. The chunks need to sit at room temp for a while, so I waited to juice my lemons and zest my citrus until after I cut up the cream cheese.

Combine the sugar, the lemon juice, the zests, the sour cream, the vanilla and the salt in a bowl. Crack all your eggs and put them with the egg yolks in another bowl.

add a third of the sugar/juice mixture to the cream cheese cubes (which have sat out at room temp at least 30 minutes by now) and turn on the stand mixer to low to combine, then turn up a little more to beat until uniform. Stop the mixer and scrape the beater and the sides and bottom of the bowl well. Do the same with the remaining sugar/juice mixture, in two more parts. Add the eggs and yolks a couple at a time, again scraping the bowl and beater thoroughly between each addition.

Put the springform pan with your golden brown crust onto a big sheet pan or cookie sheet to make transfer easier. Pour the filling into the springform pan (I found I had too much filling, not sure why; it made a good snack, I confess). Put it in the 500 degree oven for 10 minutes. After ten minutes, turn the heat down to 200 WITHOUT OPENING THE OVEN DOOR**** and let bake for about an hour and a half, until and instant read thermometer registers about 150 degrees. I guess if you don't have one of those, you should look for the very middle of the cake to just barely reach the point where it doesn't jiggle. If you go so long the top cracks, you've gone too far, but it'll probably still be delicious.

Take the cake out and after 5 minutes, slide a thin knife all around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the sides, but leave the springform collar on. Cool all the way down at room temperature, 3 hours, about.

While the cake bakes, you can make/cool the lemon curd:

Heat the lemon juice in a non-reactive saucepan, till hot, not boiling (this will happen fast because it's not much juice). In a medium non-reactive bowl, whisk the eggs and egg yolks (try to remove those little white things that stick to the edges of the yolks, if you don't, you'll need to strain the curd later). Gradually add the sugar, whisking the whole time vigorously. Whisking constantly, pour the hot lemon juice very slowly into the yolks (you risk lemony scrambled eggs if you aren't careful with this step). Return the lemon/egg mixture to the saucepan, and stir constantly, scraping every surface, with a heat resistant spatula or a wooden spoon, over medium heat, until it registers 170 on an instant read thermometer - it should thicken enough to cling to the spatula and leave a trail on the bottom which fills in quickly. This should take about 3 minutes. Remove it from the heat and stir in the cold butter cubes. Then add the cream, vanilla and salt and stir till combined. Pour into a bowl, cover with plastic (put it right down on the surface so a skin doesn't form and chill.

Once the cake and the curd are fully cool:

Scrape the curd onto the top of the cheesecake with the springform collar still on. using an offset spatula, smooth the curd over the whole top of the cake evenly. Cover the whole thing well with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours, preferably about 24 hours.

To serve:

Let the cake come to room temperature (about 20 minutes out of the fridge should do it). Remove the springform collar, slice into wedges, and serve. I bet a couple of raspberry would be awesome alongside this, but it was plenty great just like this.

*I recommend using the really tiny holes on a box grater - yes, it's super annoying to clean, but you get really fine zest that disappears beautifully into the filling, and doing it this way allows you to skip a fussy step cooks uses because of grating the zest on a microplane, which I really do not recommend because the chunks are too big.

**I substituted about a third of the lemon juice with orange juice, myself, and I don't recommend it, and won't do it again I don't think - I guess you need a specific acid level from the lemon juice to "denature" the proteins in the eggs and get the curd to set, and my curd very clearly did not set very well, and I blame the orange juice. It TASTED great, but it was a bit of a mess.

***I didn't have any heavy cream, but I did have an excess of cheesecake filling by the time I was making the curd, and I thought, well, THIS is creamy, right? So I used a tablespoon of the cheesecake filling instead of heavy cream. That could be another reason my curd didn't quite set up, don't you think?

****sorry for the all caps. I think you can save yourself some trouble (i.e. an extra 45 minutes of baking time) by paying attention to this point (which I, alas, failed to notice). I think if you open the oven door at this point, it loses a lot of heat, and causes you to have to bake the cake way longer than you would otherwise (or at least, this was my experience, and either that was the problem, or my oven temps are just way off (also possible, I should buy and in-oven thermometer).

Flinstonian Lamb Chops and Grilled Baby Zucchini

I like Michael Symon because of his cute bald head and homey mid-western accent. I also like him for his delicious herb brined lamb chops featured in last month's Bon Appetit.

The recipe called for 24 lamb rib chops cut from a 1 1/2 lb rack. I had 2 mammoth lamb chops from the CSA - I think they were probably double chops, I don't really know. Elaine and I brine meat a lot, usually a mixture of salt/sugar/water, sometimes some herbs or other spices. This recipe is intriguing because it uses a dry herb brine instead, sort of like a dry rub. The proportions below were for my 2 big chops, see the original for proportions for 24 smaller chops, plus, you know, the standard, I didn't have all the ingredients situation.

Ingredients:

2 large shallots, minced

4 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano

4 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

3 large garlic cloves, minced

s&p to taste

lamb chops

olive oil

zest and juice of one lemon

Mix the shallots, oregano, mint, garlic and s&p in a small bowl. Press a tablespoon of the mixture onto both sides of each lamb chop. The recipe calls for you to then cover the chops with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. But maybe sometimes you have a really long week at work and you don't get home until 9 o'clock several nights in a row at which point it is too late to make a complicated dinner. In which case, you will be happy to know that you can actually let the chops brine for 3 days and you'll be totally fine.

Once you are ready to cook your chops, whisk olive oil, lemon juice and lemon peel until well blended. You want a 2:1 ratio of oil to lemon juice. Season with s&p. Spoon mixture over both sides of the chops and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour. Grill chops until they reach an internal temp of about 140 degrees for medium rare - mine took at least 5 minutes a side since they were so thick.

As always, tent your meat and let it stand for about 10 minutes before serving. I served these with grilled baby zucchini that I tossed with olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper - because obviously very large chops go well with abnormally small vegetables.

Chinese Style Spareribs

We had a tiny little rack of spareribs from the CSA, and I felt like trying something different with it than my usual barbecue. Actually, this is just another kind of barbecue, and wonderfully, can all be done in your oven. There are a lot of recipes out there if you ask the internet, many based on hoisin sauce. But I was out of hoisin sauce. So I used (gasp!) ketchup (actually I read that it's kind of the legit Hong Kong approach, though I'm not sure that's actually true...) You need to be able to set these to marinate ahead of time - at least 2 hours; more is totally ok, so if you want to do this on a weeknight, put them in the marinade in the morning, they'll be ready to cook when you get home from work.

Chinese Style Sticky Barbecue Spareribs

a rack of pork ribs (plan on having 4-5 individual ribs per person)

4 cloves of garlic, smashed then finely minced

1/4 c soy sauce

1/2 c ketchup

2 tbsp oyster sauce (or hoisin, or black bean paste)

2 tsbp sweet chili sauce (optional)

1 tbsp sriracha

1 tbsp white wine, sherry or rice vinegar

1/3 c hot water

2 tbsp honey

Start by cutting up the rack into individual ribs. Combine the garlic, soy sauce, ketchup, oyster sauce (if you have/use hoisin sauce, you can use more, like 1/4 cup), chili sauce, sriracha (use more if you like spicy) and the wine (or sherry or vinegar) in a large, shallow dish, big enough to hold all the ribs in a single layer. When it's all thoroughly mixed, add in the ribs and toss around till they're all thoroughly coated. Leave to marinate at least a couple hours, preferably more.

Preheat the oven to 350. Line a sheet pan with foil, and on top of that put a rack (I used one of my cookie racks) that fits well inside the pan and will hold all the ribs. Remove the ribs from the marinade, shaking off some of the excess, but leaving them pretty well coated, and arrange them on the rack.

Put them in the oven for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile mix your hot water and honey. Halfway through the first 30 minutes in the oven, pull out the ribs and using a pastry brush, brush on the honey/water mixture, and flip the ribs over. Bake for another 30 minutes, basting and flipping again.

They should be getting pretty nicely dark and lacquered looking by now. Let them go longer if not.

Serve with rice and stir fried broccoli* on the side.

*Toss broccoli (cut into florets, stems sliced) in a hot pan with minced garlic, ginger, crushed red pepper flakes, salt and 2 tsp of sugar. Fry till the garlic and ginger become fragrant and take on a little color, then add 1/4 c water and cover; cook for two minutes, just until the broccoli is tender and bright green. Uncover the pan and cook off the water over high heat. Optional yummy addition - make your very first step to fry some cashew pieces in your oil (in the pan you're going to cook the broccoli) until nice and dark; drain them out of the oil with a slotted spoon and reserve till you've cooked up the broccoli. Throw the toasted cashews on top before serving.

Chicken with Spinach Two Ways

Calling this chicken with spinach two ways is really just a fancy way to say that all I had in my fridge was a chicken breast and a half a bag of spinach. And I was really bored and cranky and didn't want to eat something boring which would make me even more cranky. So, I improvised. What you see above is a sauteed chicken breast on a bed of garlicky spinach, topped with a spinach pesto. Super simple, but a ton of flavor.

What you need:

Chicken breast(s)

Spinach

Hazelnuts

Garlic

Lemon juice

Parmesan cheese

Olive Oil

S&P

For the garlicky bed of spinach, thinly slice one clove of garlic and saute in about 2 tbs of olive oil. Add your washed spinach (about 2 cups in this case) - no need to dry it too thoroughly as the excess water will help to cook the spinach in the pan. Turn the spinach to coat it in the garlic and olive oil and allow to wilt until done.

For the pesto, add 2 cups spinach, a handful of hazelnuts, 1 clove garlic and 2 tbs lemon juice to a food processor and combine. Slowly stream in olive oil, about 1/4 cup to start - check your consistency...it should be, well, pesto-y. Taste and adjust seasonings, adding more lemon juice, salt and pepper according to your liking. I like to add grated parmesan cheese at the end just before serving, in this case about 1/4 cup.

This method for the spinach pesto is exactly like a regular basil pesto. I also like to make this with arugula or kale and walnuts. Its a fresh accompaniment to grilled chicken or a nice piece of fish.

I just sauteed my chicken very simply in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper.

To serve, and pretend that you made something way fancier than you actually did, make a bed of sauteed spinach on your plate, place chicken on spinach and spoon pesto over top.

squash and potato pizza (with an optional sprinkle of bacon)

Next time you have some squash (maybe from your winter CSA) sitting around malingering, and you don't have anything in mind to do with them and don't feel like eating it right away, you can roast them up and store them in the fridge or freezer, till you're ready to try this, a pizza where mashed squash replaces tomato sauce, and potatoes join the ranks of whatever cheese you have in the house. Any kind of winter squash will work - it was a butternut squash in this case, acorn squash would work too. You could probably use about 2 pounds worth on a large pizza, but you can make do with any amount you might happen to have around.

Amounts on everything are intentionally vague because really any amount of anything here can be made to work.

Squash and Potato Pizza

a batch of your favorite pizza dough (you could use that kind they sell in a bag at the store)

winter squash (1 big, or 2 small)

chopped garlic

chopped parsley

chopped fresh rosemary

salt and pepper

par-cooked* whole small waxy potatoes, sliced thin

extra virgin olive oil

cheese of practically any variety you have on hand (a total of about 2-3 cups shredded will make a nice cheesy layer; cheddar is a great match for the potatoes, ricotta would be fun, and parmigiano would be great for crisping up on the very top)

scallions, sliced

bacon, crumbled (optional)**

Roast the squash in whatever way you prefer (I like a 400 degree oven for an hour, cutting the squash in half, removing the seeds and lightly oiling the cut side before roasting. Our friend Jeremy roasts acorn squash entirely whole until soft, just on a sheet pan, and cuts in and removes the seeds after they're all cooled down, which I suspect imparts an extra squashy flavor and moist texture); this squash-roasting can be done well ahead of time and refrigerated, just be sure to get your squash to room temp or warmer to put on the pizza. After removing the peel (skin?) of the squash, break it down into chunks and place in a bowl. Add garlic, parsley, rosemary, salt and pepper and some extra virgin olive oil, and mash around until it has a sort of paste-like consistency.

In another bowl, toss the sliced potatoes with some olive oil and salt and pepper.

Grate or crumble your cheeses. As you can see, I was using this opportunity to use up the alarming hoards of bits of cheese in our cheese drawer.

We had bits of cheddar, taleggio, queso blanco, gruyere, parmigiano and romano. I used most of the cheese you see here, on this and one other pizza I'm not telling you about (it's not a secret or anything, it's just no big deal, tomato sauce, etc).

Roll or press out your dough onto the oiled pan of your choice - I've been using an 11x17 sheet pan for pizza lately. Oil it generously before fitting the dough in there or it'll stick when you bake it and you'll feel sad. If you have trouble with the dough shrinking back, leave the dough for 20 minutes to rest (if you can) and then it should be more cooperative.

Drizzle a little olive oil onto the dough and then spread on the squash in an even layer. Lay out the sliced potatoes over the whole surface, and sprinkle on your cheeses.

Let the pizza sit in a warm place, like on top of your preheating oven, to allow the dough to rise, about 20 minutes.

Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes, until the cheeses are all melted and the crust is nice and golden brown. When you get it out of the oven, sprinkle on the sliced scallions and the bacon, if you want it, and then let the pizza cool briefly before slicing it up and eating it.

This was delicious leftover. Actually I ate cold pieces of it for lunch the next few days and it was awesome.

*For quick par-cooking to speed up things like this (or for home fries) I like to wash potatoes and pop them whole into the microwave for 2-3 minutes until they give a little when pressed.

**What I actually had was some leftover bacon wrapped (pecan stuffed) dates from a party, which I chopped up and put on there. While bacon wrapped dates stuffed with pecans are over the top delicious on their own, the pizza would also have been great with regular chopped crispy bacon, or actually no bacon at all would really have also been good, and that way I could have shared it with my vegetarian friends.

The most work intensive cookies I've ever made

Many times on this blog we find ourselves writing "this is so easy and fast" as a reason why you should try to one recipe or another. What I am about to share with you is neither easy nor fast. It will take you a lot of time. Possibly several or 5 hours. It isn't that easy (although I guess once you get the hang of it, its definitely not brain surgery). I had to read the instructions 5 times and I still didn't understand what was going on. Thank goodness our friend Jess (who orchestrated this cookie adventure) is smart, because I definitely wasn't going to figure it out.

These cookies are beautiful once baked and totally impressive. They are a pretty simple shortbread cookie but the addition of hazelnuts and orange zest make their flavor something special, to match their beautiful appearance. I'm proud that we made these - I generally think of myself as a good baker, but I'm not that great at intricate desserts. Those cake pop things? Forget it. Beautifully decorated cupcakes? Well....mine TASTE good. But, successfully making these cookies give me hope that I'll be able to tackle my next aspiration - macarons. I'll let you know how it works out (obvy).

We found the recipe here, but decided to double it. Our measurements are below, for a single batch, see the original.

Checkerboard Cookies

from Joyofbaking.com

Ingredients:

2/3 cup hazelnuts

4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder - Jess had Valrhona, because she's fancy

5 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups butter at room temperature - Jess had Plugra, again, fancy

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

3 tsp vanilla extract

3 tsp orange zest - we used the zest of one orange and we definitely wish we had used more, at least the zest of 2 oranges

Toast your hazelnuts in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until you start to smell them. Don't burn them! (You always have to say that when toasting nuts, its so easy to forget about them.) Wrap them in a towel, then rub them to get the skins off. Combine the skinned hazelnuts and cocoa powder in a food processor and process until the nuts are finely ground.

Mix together flour and salt and set aside.

Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs, vanilla and orange zest and mix. Add the flour mixture and beat until just incorporated, don't over-mix. Divide the dough in half and mix one half of the dough with the cocoa/hazelnut mixture in the bowl of your mixer until incorporated. Now you have your two colors of dough ready. Gird your loins, because from here on out its a lot of measuring and rolling and chilling your dough. Oh, and don't even try to do this without parchment paper. It won't work.

Lay out parchment paper and roll out the vanilla dough to two 6 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles. Or one 6 1/2" x 21" rectangle. Either one. Or, if you're not doubling it, just do one smaller rectangle. I trust you to figure it out. Wrap in the parchment and put in the freezer to chill for about 15 minutes.

Remove about 1 cup of chocolate dough and set aside. This is what you will use to wrap the entire thing and create that pretty chocolate border you see around the edges of the cookies above. On another sheet of parchment paper, roll out the remaining chocolate dough to two more 6 1/2" x 10 1/2" rectangles. Wrap and put in freezer to chill.

Once the dough is firm, take the out of the freezer. Lay the vanilla dough on the counter, brush with water and lay the chocolate dough directly on top of the vanilla dough. In some fantasy world, these two layers of dough will be exactly them same size. In real life, you will have to trim the edges and square of the corners - you should have a final rectangle of 6" x 10" (yes, we did measure, a lot). Add all your trimmings to the reserved chocolate dough.

Cut this stack of dough into thirds, lengthwise. Stack these strips so that the colors alternate, brown, white, brown, white and so on (above). Press down to get the layers to meld together. Wrap in plastic wrap and put in the freezer until firm, about 15 minutes.

Once the stack is firm, cut it into four slices, lengthwise, about 1/2" wide. Turn every other strip so that you again have alternating colors (above). Re-wrap and pop back in the freezer for another 15 minutes or so.

While those firm up, take your chocolate trimmings and roll out into a rectangle about 9 1/2 x 10 1/2. Put in the freezer to firm (surprise!!). Once firm, remove the stack of dough and chocolate sheet from the freezer. Carefully wrap the stack with the chocolate dough. Smooth out and trim any extra from around the edges. You will have to do some cajoling to get all of this to go down correctly, but don't worry, just keep at it and you'll do fine. All the time in the freezer is really your friend as you can mold the dough to do what you want and then pop it in the freezer to solidify the shape. Once you've wrapped the chocolate dough around the stack, wrap again and put back in the freezer for another 15 minutes or until firm.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Remove the dough from the freezer, unwrap and slice (with a very sharp knife, may I add) into 1/4 inch slices. Slicing these suckers was the easiest part of the day. Put on a baking sheet and bake for 5-8 minutes until slightly brown around the edges. Cool on a wire rack. Then, decide if you want to shovel all that hard work down your gullet or just stare at how pretty they are and marvel at the fact that you just made those!! I say, eat them!