Two new recipes

Hello!

So lent started this week. I decided to give up eating meat (not including fish) for lent. This actually works well for my "new recipes" resolution, as I haven't cooked a lot of fish or tofu, so that should be a fun experiment!

I've got two new ones for you today- Bluefish crusted with chili crumbs and Cream of Broccoli Soup.

The first comes from the Live Longer cookbook. This is a great cookbook that my brother got for me and gave to my mom. We tried a lot of recipes from it when I was in high school, and 2 Christmases ago, my mom gave it to me! That's a good mommy!

This recipe is great, as is typical of everything in this book. I didn't have bluefish, but had picked up some tilapia at the Lobster Shop in Chelsea Market (? I forget what the real name is, but "Lobster" is definitely part of it.)

Bluefish with Chili Crumbs

1 Tbsp. each butter and olive oil

1/2 tsp. minced garlic

1 1/2 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. each ground cumin and dried oregano, crumbled.

1/4 tsp. salt, or to taste.

1 c. fresh bread crumbs

2 Tbsp. minced parsley

4 bluefish fillets (5 oz. each)

2 Tbsp. cornmeal

Nonstick cooking spray

lemon wedges

1. In a 10-in. nonstick skillet, heat the butter and oil over moderately low heat. Add the garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and salt and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. (whoops forgot that step) Add the breadcrumbs and parsley, stir and cook for 5 minutes or until crisp. Transfer the crumb mixture to a small bowl and set aside.

2. Dredge the fillets in the cornmeal. Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel and coat with the nonstick cooking spray. Heat the pan over moderately low heat. ADd the fish fillet, and cook, partially covered, for 4 minutes. Turn the fillets over and cook for another 4 minutes longer. Transfer the fish to warm dinner plates and sprinkle the crumb mixture on top of each fillet. Serve with the lemon wedges. Serves 4.

The Cream of Broccoli Soup is from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I got this cookbook during the same Christmas as the last one, but from my cousin Jen. I haven't tried too many recipes from here, but the ones I have are great. Likewise, it's Bittman... so... we all know it's good.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

About 1 lb. broccoli, trimmed and cut up, to yield about 4 loosely packed cups of broccoli

1/2 c. rice or 1 medium baking potato, peeled and cut up into quarters.

4 c. chicken, beef or vegetable stock.

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste (and any other spices you like)

1/4 to 1 c. heavy cream or light cream or half-and-half

minced fresh parsley leaves or chives for garnish

1. Combine the broccoli, rice or potato, and stock or water in a large, deep saucepan pr casserole and turn the heat to medium-high. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to medium and cook until the vegetables are very tender, about 15 minutes.

2. Cool slightly, then puree in a food mill or in a blender. (You may prepare the soup in advance up to this point. Cover, refrigerate for up to 2 days, and reheat before proceeding)

3. Return to the pot and reheat over medium-low heat. Season with salt and pepper, then add the cream; heat through again, garnish and serve.

Enjoy!

Valentine's Day, and delicious candy

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! And Chinese New Years, and President's Day.

For those of you who I haven't been babbling to about this already, I'm in a show called The Fordham Follies. What you've got here is your basic show where we mock the law school experience at Fordham through song and skits. It's a blast to do, and from what I hear, pretty fun to see as well. (Come! March 26/27 in Pope Auditorium at Fordham, Lincoln Center Campus.)

We have a rehearsal for Follies today, so I thought it would be nice to bring everyone who has to be there some homemade candy. So that's what I spent yesterday doing, which also allowed me to try another new recipe from my collection! This one comes from Chocolate Bliss, which is only partially a cookbook- it has about 16 different chocolate recipes in it that come on these little cards, but also comes with a music CD, which I should still check out. My friend at work gave it to me as a Christmas present a few years back, and I am ashamed to say that this is the first time I've used a recipe. The one I used was Caramel Chocolate Truffles.

Now, what I can say is that my roommate says they're fantastic. But it was no thanks to that recipe, which was about as convoluted as a recipe for truffles can be. The basic recipe for any truffle is: melt chocolate, stir in cream and flavoring, cool, roll into balls, coat in some way. The issue with these one came with the caramel part of the instructions. I have never made caramels before, but I do know that there are two different ways to make them- one which makes them hard, and one which makes them soft. This one made them crazy. Basically, when I added the cream to the caramel (sugar mixture), it seized up, and became this weird hard caramel stringy structure that I then had to melt back into the cream which took about an hour, in order to make what I presume are the soft type of caramels. My assumption is that if the cream had been warmed, then the caramel wouldn't have seized up. If I do these again, I'll try that theory out. The second part is that it tells you to refrigerate it until they can be rolled into balls. With most truffles I've made, that means a couple hours at least. With this, it means, 10 minutes maybe. But of course, as I was expecting these to work like regular truffles, I had left them in over night, and had to warm the mixture up for about a thousand hours before I could roll them into balls. But whatever, they came out delicious, and that's the important part. Here's the recipe:

Caramel Chocolate Truffles

12 oz. dark chocolate, chopped, plus 6 oz., melted

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. water

1/3 c. heavy cream

1/2 tsp. fleur de sel sea salt

Unsweetened cocoa powder (this is supposed to keep your hands from sticking when you're rolling- if the chocolate is a little extra hard like mine was, you don't need it)

1. In a double boiler over simmering water, melt the 12 oz chocolate, or melt in a microwave on medium.

2. In a small, heavy saucepan over high heat, bring the sugar and water to a boil and cool until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Immediately remove from heat and carefully stir in the cream; the mixture will splatter. (and seize up! You forgot to mention that, people!!! You also forgot to mention "after it seizes up, stir it for hours and hours to melt it again)

3. Stir the melted chocolate and the 1/2 tsp. sea salt into the caramel. (oh- I also put in the sea salt with the cream, so the salt would melt evenly throughout the caramel- that's just a taste thing) Cover and refrigerate until firm enough to roll in to balls.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Using a teaspoon or small cookie scoop, scoop out balls of the chocolate mixture; coat your palms with cocoa powder and roll into balls. (at this point, I put them back into the fridge to harden up some more, so they wouldn't melt into the dipping chocolate.)

5. Skewer a truffle and dip it in the melted chocolate; let the excess drip off. Transfer to the prepared pan and sprinkle with seas salt. and let them set at room temperature. Cover and refrigerated, truffles keep for up to 1 week. Bring up to room temperature before serving.

So I made those, but actually made boxes that included 4 candies- one of these, one chocolate covered marshmallow (tip: if dipping in chocolate, stick the marshmallows in freezer for a while first so they don't melt into the chocolate), one oreo truffle that I shaped into a heart, and one orange chocolate truffle (this are REALLY messy- even after being frozen for a few hours, they were still really liquidy, and the butter separated out of the mixture. The flavor is great though- I would suggest that if you have chocolate molds, you use this as a filling for some chocolates). My roommate tested them all and said they all tasted really professional. That's nice to hear! I had some little boxes left over from when I had made truffles for Christmas a number of years ago, so I made them up, with a little written explanation of what was inside, and am about to head over to hand them out. Yippee! Let's hope everyone at rehearsal likes them :)

Update

It's been a while since I wrote- Sorry! School has taken over my life. So here is your basic update:

1) Be Myself: Meh- ok. I had mopey day last week where I had some wrong-headed thoughts, but was able to get myself out of it, especially with the help of my friends.

2) CCs: not much to report.

3) Back in Shape: The game's going well! We may win!

4) Mass: Not this week.

5) Cookbooks: Woot! Superboooowl! My new recipe this week for was said event. I made "Saucy Turkey Meatballs" from Taste of Home's Light & Tasty Annual Recipes 2003. So.... I like them, but they might not be for everyone. They kinda tasted like my mom's meatloaf, but a bit lighter.

Here's the recipe:

Saucy Turkey Meatballs

1 c. old fashioned oats

3/4 c. fat-free evaporated milk

1 medium, onion chopped

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. garlic salt

11/4 tsp. pepper

1 1/2 lbs. lean ground turkey

Sauce:

2 c. ketchup

1 1/2 c. packed brown sugar

1/4 c. chopped onion

2 Tbsp. liquid smoke

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

In a bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Crumble turkey over mixture and mix well. Shape into 1" balls. Place in a baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Combine the sauce ingredients; pour over meatballs. Bake 30-35 minutes longer or until meat is no longer pink.

6) Meditation: Sigh... I really should start working on this...

7) Praying: I've been slacking a little bit on this- I generally pray at night before I go to bed, but my brain's been kind-of go-go-going, making it difficult to concentrate. I'll try being better about that.

8) Organization: Well, the bad part is that I had my first moment this year of not being able to find something. It actually was where I expected it to be- it just had some papers laying on top of it, hiding it. I need to find some time to dedicate to cleaning again.

9) Knitting a Sweater: Well, I've picked a pattern and have started.

10) Volunteer: Haven't come up with my plan yet- I'm assuming that's basically on hold until post-Follies.

That's all I've got right now- back to homework!