Baking Class: Upside Down Cobbler

Many years ago my sister and I drove down to Houston from Austin to visit my brother and his girlfriend (now his wife). They had been dating for a while, but had only recently moved in together, and if memory serves it was the first meal she cooked for us. On the menu were lemon-pepper chicken breasts that were tart and savory and quite delicious. For dessert, she mentioned there was peach cobbler.

I am not generally a cobbler person. My mother's cobblers were basically just a lot of cooked fruit with no bottom crust and a pie crust laid over the top. Since the crust was the only thing that made a pie worth eating to me, cobbler was just a waste of fruit with too little of the good stuff to go with it. So I was not looking forward to dessert, but I didn't want to offend my possible future sister-in-law.

What she brought out did not look like any cobbler I had seen before. The top looked more like a cake than a crust, so I was intrigued. And the ratio of fruit to cake seemed weighted on the cake side, which was much more to my liking. The fruit was enveloped in the batter, which was soft and moist, and not too sweet. The canned pie peaches tasted much better to me than regular canned peaches, whose overly sweet taste and slimy texture was something I struggled to get down whenever my mother served them. And the scoop of vanilla ice cream served over the top took the cobbler over the top as well.

I found myself asking for the recipe, and not because I was trying to suck-up to my brother's girlfriend.

In the next few years, I made it often. I discovered early on that I could substitute any can of prepared pie filling (blueberry and cherry became my favorites) with the same spectacular results. It is easy to throw together, and other than the pie filling I always had the rest of the ingredients on hand.

One of the things I liked the most about it, though, is that you put the batter on the bottom and the fruit on the top, and while it is cooking the batter rises up over the fruit and comes out on the top, but the fruit is mixed in with the batter as well so it is a cohesive piece, rather than a mess of fruit with a small piece of pie dough laying on top of it.

After I moved to Chicago, I forgot about it for several years. By the time I had rediscovered it, I was eating more healthfully, and when I read the label on the canned fruit pie fillings, they were loaded with HFCS and chemicals, and I couldn't bring myself to buy them.

But seeing all of the blueberries, strawberries, and rhubarb at the green market inspired me to see if I could adapt the recipe for use with fresh fruit instead of the canned pie filling. It was surprisingly easy. I have made strawberry, rhubarb and blueberry cobblers and I am so pleased with the results. I'm hard pressed to say which is my favorite. And when peaches come into season, I will happily add those to the mix.

This makes a small cobbler, so it's perfect for those times when you need something fast and delicious. It also keeps well, if it lasts that long.

UPSIDE DOWN COBBLER

Serves 4

2/3 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, slice strawberries, or chopped rhubarb, peaches or apples
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 300 deg. F.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Add oil and milk and whisk until smooth. Pour into a 1.5-quart or a 10 x 6-inch greased baking dish.

Place fruit, sugar and butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Bring to a boil. Pour over the batter and place in the oven.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the cake is set and browned on the edges.

Ad of the Week: Del Monte Canned Corn

According to Del Monte's latest commercial, you get a whole lot more corn for a better price when you buy a can of corn rather than fresh or frozen, and there's virtually no difference between the three.

Let's see. Right now corn is in season, so it's on sale for .19 cents an ear. A 15.25-oz. can of Del Monte canned whole kernel corn is $1.49. You can buy 8 ears of corn for $1.49, which I reckon could fill about 4 cans (which brings the total up to $5.96). And right now at my grocery store a 16-oz. bag of frozen whole kernel corn is on sale for $1.09 through October of this year. (Full disclosure: It's normally $1.83.)

Maybe there's something wrong with my math, but I don't see the price of Del Monte's corn even coming close to fresh or frozen. It gets more interesting when you look at the ingredients of the three items:

Fresh: Corn
Frozen: Corn
Del Monte Canned: Corn, water, salt

It's kind of funny. When I was younger, I preferred canned corn to frozen. Most likely it's because that's what I grew up eating. The canned corn had more flavor, and was more firm than the frozen. But now that I have been eating only fresh and frozen, I find that it was the salt in the can that made it taste better to me, and made it seem more firm. Of course fresh is best, but for my money, when it's out of season frozen is the next best thing.

Another advantage of using frozen over canned is that you don't have to use the whole bag at one time. I open the package, take what I need, close it back up, and leave it in the freezer until the next time I need it.

I know this is a little one as far as the gap between the ad and the product goes, but still, the gap is there. And even if the canned corn really were cheaper, I'd still buy the frozen. All things considered, it's still the better value to me.

Cooking on a Budget: Vegetable Stock

Once I realized I was going to have to put myself on a food budget, I started looking at everything that was happening in my kitchen. In addition to making the smartest choices I could at the grocery store, the butcher, and the green market, I wanted as little to go to waste in my kitchen itself as possible. And within a few days, I was noticing how many produce tips and ends were going into the trash bowl.

I make a lot of soups and stews, so I have been in the habit of always having quart containers of chicken and vegetable broth on hand. When I discovered how easy it was to make chicken stock in the slow cooker, I rarely used the store-bought stuff. But I was still buying quarts of vegetable stock to have on hand. And that stuff can get expensive.

And not only expensive, most of it is crap. Ok, ok, it's purely subjective, but most prepared vegetable stocks just do not taste good to me. It must be the ratio and blend of the vegetables that are used, and some of them are suspiciously thick for being vegetable stock. All of the mainstream brands have a nasty chemical aftertaste to them. And most of the organic brands have a muddy taste to me. That's the best way I can describe it, like the vegetable they use the most of is overpowering everything else, including the dish I want to make.

For a while, I was buying Kitchen Basics Natural Roasted Vegetable Broth at Trader Joe's, which was light and clear, with a delicate taste that enhanced my dish rather than overtaking it completely. And then Trader Joe's stopped carrying it, and I never could find the Roasted Vegetable Broth at the grocery store, and they don't have it on their website, so I think they discontinued it. In the meantime, Imagine's Organic Vegetable Broth made a reasonable substitute. While I did not care for the flavor as much, it was at least a light enough flavor that stayed firmly in the background.

But the organic brands are even more expensive than the conventional broths. I started thinking of spending all of that money for something I knew I could make myself, and probably make more to my liking than what I was finding at the store.

My father made a lot of soup when I was living at home. At some point he read a tip that you should save and freeze all of the liquid in which you cook your vegetables, and throw them into your soup pot. This was when most people were eating frozen vegetables, and there was a lot of liquid being thrown away. It was also about the time that it was discovered that there were a lot of nutrients leaching out into that water that was being thrown away.

From that point on, I would always find little jars half-filled with green, brown, and yellow liquid whenever I went into the freezer. After I graduated high school and moved out on my own, I too would periodically take my leftover vegetable liquids and throw them in the freezer. The difference is that he used all of his little jars, and I would end up throwing them out after a couple of years, by which time I had no idea what they were.

But now I was finding myself looking at every piece of food that I was using, and what I was throwing away. And within a few days I started paying particular attention to how many vegetable ends and pieces were going into the trash. And there was a lot going into the trash that had enough meat on it (so to speak) that I started thinking I could probably make a decent stock out of it.

So I began saving the tips and bottoms of all of my vegetables. I put them in a gallon-sized self-zipping freezer bag. And I even started a collection of little jars with the leftover liquids from steamed spinach and the beet, turnip and kohlrabi greens I have been enjoying. It was a challenge because my freezer is not that big, but I hoped it would be worth it.

The bag filled up pretty quickly. I was somewhat gratified to see how many vegetables I use in a short period of time. Here you can see onions, carrots, celery, zucchini, kohlrabi, asparagus, and more that I'm sure I'm forgetting. Oh yes, there are some string bean ends you can't see, and parsley stems.

After I took the vegetables out of the bag and put them in the stock pot, I took a look in the vegetable crisper to see if there were any good volunteers in there. I had some celery that looked like it was starting to lose some of it's freshness and I didn't have any immediate plans for it, so I threw it in the pot. I also added some of those small garlic cloves that are a pain in the ass to peel and chop that I saved just for this purpose. I did not have too many carrot ends in the bag, but I had a couple of carrots in the crisper so I threw those in too.

I defrosted all of my little jars and added them to the pot, and then I filled up the rest with cold water. I added 12 whole peppercorns and a few bay leaves. I did not add any salt - I figured I could add that when I was ready to cook with the stock.

I brought the stock to a boil, skimmed what scum had accumulated, then turned the heat as low as it would go and simmered the stock for a few hours. I thought about using the slow cooker, but unlike chicken stock you do not need to cook this for hours and it didn't take too long on the stovetop. But you could certainly make it in the slow cooker using the same method I used for the chicken stock.

After it was done I let it cool a little, then strained out the vegetables. I put the liquid back into the pot and brought it back to a boil, just to be sure. It smelled light and sweet and I was pleased with how well it turned out. It was clear, with no hint whatsoever of chemicals. And whatever vegetable lends that super strong overpowering flavor to the store-bought varieties was absent from this batch.

It made about 4 quarts in all. I froze some of it in a quart jar, and the rest in one- and two- cup increments so I would have a variety of amounts available as I needed them.

Because I used mostly the parts of vegetables that I would have otherwise thrown away, this stock is virtually free. It makes a perfect soup base, and it adds an incredible amount of flavor when I cook grains in it.

It might seem like a lot of trouble to make your own stocks, but it doesn't really take any time at all. The items are already prepped, so there is little chopping involved. And it accumulates fast. I already have another bag in the freezer that is almost ready to go . . .

Clapshot, Anyone? Mashed Turnips and Potatoes

No baking class today. Instead, I want to talk about turnips. I saw them at the Green Market last Wednesday, and they looked so fresh and pretty that I had to bring some home with me. It didn't help that Lynda was right there whispering in my ear about how good they were mashed with potatoes. And they had the most beautiful greens, which I am really getting into this season.

We were not a big root vegetable family. In fact, other than carrots and potatoes (do those even count?), the only root vegetable we ate with any regularity was canned beets, which I absolutely hated with a passion exceeded only by my hatred of black-eyed peas (which continues apace).

Until I tasted my first pickled beet (which was the canned beets marinated overnight in a vinegar/salt/sugar mixture with onions). The vinegar brightened up the musky, somewhat earthy taste and completely transformed them into a slightly sweet, slightly tangy salad, served chilled, that complemented the flavor of any meat with which it was served. I still did not like them any other way, but at least I recognized some value to the beet, which developed into a full-blooded passion for them over the past couple of years.

Other than that, we never came into contact with the likes of turnips, rutabagas or parsnips at our dinner table. Oh, I'm sure I must have come across them at some friend's house now or then, but to my knowledge they never passed my lips. Nor would I have wanted them to, given their reputation.

Until I was in my twenties and we were visiting my grandmother in Houston. Her cousin Sylvia brought over a huge salad made with vegetables fresh from her garden, dressed with a tangy home-made honey-mustard vinaigrette. In addition to the easily-recognizable lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and celery, there were round white thin slices of something that was bigger than a radish, but had a similar consistency. They were milder, and slightly nutty, and I fell in love with them. Imagine my surprise when Cousin Sylvia announced that they were turnips. It immediately changed my opinion of them, and I determined to explore them when I got home.

And promptly forgot about them. Until I saw them at the market last week and (with Lynda's help) brought them home with me. I happened to have potatoes in the pantry, not something I generally keep on hand, so it seemed like fate.

I looked up several recipes and techniques for making mashed turnips and potatoes. In my searching, I discovered that it's a Scottish dish called Clapshot. Although there seems to be some confusion (on my part, at least) over whether Clapshot uses turnips or rutabaga. Some recipes that I saw called for turnips and some called for Swedish turnips or swedes, which is rutabaga. I don't think it matters much, and for my purposes the turnips worked out just fine.

So fine, in fact, that I have discovered a new love. The turnips add a light, slightly nutty flavor to the potatoes, and they also lighten up the texture. As you can see in the picture above, they are light and fluffy. And very white

I love mashed potatoes, but I have found a new love in Clapshot. And I found I didn't have to use as much liquid (read milk and butter) as I do when I'm mashing potatoes all by themselves. And it's quick and easy, too. At only thirty minutes from start to finish, this would make a brilliant side dish to any meal.

Home Cookin Chapter: My Recipes

CLAPSHOT

Makes 4 servings

3 medium turnips, peeled and cubed
1 large russet or red potato, cubed
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup milk
1/8 cup cream (optional)
1-2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp finely chopped fersh parsley, for garnish

Place turnips and potatoes in saucepan and add cold water just enough to cover. Bring to a boil and remove any scum that forms on the top. Lower heat and cook at a simmer until tender, about 15-20 minutes.

Drain the water, and return the pan with the turnips and potatoes to the burner, leaving it on low heat to get rid of any excess moisture, shaking the pan often to keep the turnips and potatoes from burning.

Remove pan from heat. Add milk, cream and butter and mash with a potato masher. Adjust amounts of milk, cream and butter to taste. Add salt and pepper to taste.

If not serving immediately, keep warm or reheat just before serving.

Garnish with parsley just before serving.

6/25/09

Exported from Home Cookin 5.7 (www.mountain-software.com)

Nestle USA Recall of Refrigerated Raw Cookie Dough Products

You have probably already heard about Nestle USA's voluntary recall of their refrigerated cookie dough products, due to the possibility of E-coli 0157:H7 contamination.

If you haven't, tear yourself away from the Michael Jackson Farah Fawcett Ed McMahon Gale Storm Billy Mays death ride and take a look at something that actually affects you.

The recall was announced last Friday, June 19th, due to a CDC investigation into the E-Coli outbreak that might have been related to consumption of raw cookie dough. As of now, the cause of the outbreak has not actually been determined. Nestle USA initiated the recall voluntarily, as a precautionary measure. It may turn out not to have been the cause, but in the meantime will have cost Nestle millions of dollars. I wonder how they will try to recoup those losses?

This is just the latest of a series of E-coli and salmonella outbreaks involving pistachios, peanut butter, chicken pot pies, peppers, tomatoes (not actually a cause, but were recalled as suspect, costing the tomato industry hundreds of millions of dollars), beef (millions of dollars), and spinach. If you don't know what I'm talking about, a simple Google search will tell you more than you need to know.

As a matter of fact, it was only while doing some online searching that I just discovered another beef recall in May of this year, and another one this month, that was expanded yesterday.

And now I must stop searching, because I am starting to scare myself. I would be even more scared if I bought my meat at the grocery store. But here's an interesting item on the beef recall, posted on Obama Foodarama, which is a pretty cool site I just found.

Most of these outbreaks were caused by products that were contaminated in a plant where they were being processed to be sold in a pre-packaged format. So, in addition to all of those pesky transfats, HFCS, and who knows what other chemical additives you find in processed foods, you are also putting yourself more at risk for contamination the more you use processed and convenience foods .

So what's the lesson to be learned here? If you didn't say "There's something fundamentally, seriously wrong with our food production and distribution systems," then go to the back of the class.

Any time I think I might be overly paranoid by so assiduously avoiding processed, pre-packaged, factory farmed "foods," I just wait for the next recall notification.

For what, exactly, are you waiting?

(6/30/09, 11:15 AM) Update: It looks like they did find the E-Coli 0157 in the cookie dough, according to this Washington Post article.

Chickpea Tabbouleh Salad

Summer seems to have arrived with its usual vengeance and I am always on the lookout for easy recipes that require as little cooking as possible and can be eaten cold, or at room temp. I am also always looking for ways to use those ingredients that I buy for a specific recipe and for which I have no other use.

Bulgur is one of those ingredients. I buy it to make Imjadara, and then the cracked wheat sits in a jar on my pantry shelf until enough time has passed for me to make it again. I would look at it every now and then, and think about figuring out something else to make with it, but my old friends rice, pasta, couscous and polenta were always there as well, and I knew what to do with them.

I know, I know, there's always tabbouleh. And I do love tabbouleh. But I have always associated that so strongly with middle eastern food that I have never thought to make it unless I was also making hummus or baba ganouj. (Note to self: both hummus and baba ganouj are good summer no-cook dishes, if you cook the eggplant in the microwave.)

But I had some blanched asparagus and wilted dandelion greens in the refrigerator and they were getting a little long in the tooth. I had defrosted some pork chops and was in need of a side dish. I wanted to use the greens and the asparagus together and neither of them needed to be cooked. I wandered over to the pantry shelf and looked at the rice and grains.

When my eyes fell once again on the bulgur, I almost kept on going. I don't know what made me start thinking about tabbouleh, and how maybe I could kinda sorta use the same technique and ingredients, but add the asparagus and greens? I had lemon and parsley on hand, and that's really all you need for tabbouleh.

So I pulled out the Tabbouleh recipe I had taken from the package of the Ziyad brand bulgur I buy, and used it as my frame of reference. The main thing I like about this recipe is that you don't cook the bulgur. You just mix it with all of the ingredients and it absorbs the liquids and gets soft enough to eat. The grains are more sturdy this way - they hold their shape and texture and don't get as soggy as they do when you cook them.

I only had a little bit of parsley and I wasn't sure if it would be enough, but it was. It takes a surprisingly small amount of parsley to provide that fresh-herbed kick to the salad. I also only had about three-fourths of a lemon, but that was enough acid to brighten up the salad. And the asparagus and dandelion greens complemented each other perfectly, each contributing their own subtle bitterness that was highlighted by the pungent parsley, lemon and bulgur salad.

I didn't have any tomatoes or cucumbers on hand; I had just used them all up on my first batch of gazpacho. Ever the improviser, I simply added some of the gazpacho to my salad and I think it actually worked better that way - it imparted all of the flavor while leaving the asparagus to shine in the forefront while the greens smoothly enhanced the background.

It turned out so well that I realized I was onto something. The next time I went to the grocery store I made sure to get lemons, parsley, tomatoes and cucumbers, to get even more of a tabbouleh-style base for the dish, and in the weeks since that first experiment I have made many variations. They have all been successful.

The culminating point for me was when I was trying to figure out how to get some protein in there, so it could be a meal unto itself. I almost smacked myself on the head when I realized that chickpeas would be perfect. Combined with the bulgur, they make a complete protein and add a nutty taste and texture that blended so harmoniously with the rest of the ingredients. And they certainly matched the theme!

The true beauty of this salad is its versatility. Outside of the bulgur, parsley, lemon juice and olive oil, you can pretty much throw in anything that you have in your refrigerator. I had a green bell pepper and some radishes that were not on any other agenda when I made the salad in the photo up on top so I threw those in. There's no limit to where this can go.

Home Cookin Chapter: My Recipes

Chickpea Tabbouleh Salad

Note: Ziyad bulgur comes in three sizes: fine, medium and coarse. Their tabbouleh recipe calls for fine, but I think the larger-grained coarse works better for this dish. Any size can be used.

1/2 cup bulgur wheat
2 tomatoes, chopped fine
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped fine
1/2 small red onion, finely diced
14.5-oz. can chickpeas, drained
1 green pepper, chopped fine (optional)
5-7 radishes, chopped fine (optional)
1 bunch parsley, rinsed, dried and chopped
1 Tbsp fresh mint, chopped fine (optional)
juice from 1-2 lemons (depending on size and amount of juice)
2 Tbsp olive oil (or to taste)
salt and pepper to taste

Rinse bulgur under cold water and drain. Place in a large mixing bowl with the vegetables.

Add lemon juice and oil and stir to mix. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours, until the bulgur has absorbed the liquid and is tender.

Bring to room temperature before serving.

6/9/2009

Exported from Home Cookin 5.7 (www.mountain-software.com)

Skirt Steak in Six Minutes (Dinner in under an Hour)

It turns out there was nothing wrong with my computer. It's a long story involving some tears and frustration that you don't really need to have inflicted upon you. Let's just say that sometimes, even if it does look like a duck and quack like a duck, it might actually only be a chicken. It took three wipes of my hard drive to figure that out. I must say, my computer is now running more smoothly even than when I first bought it, so there's that silver lining at least.

I didn't do much during the time I was trying to figure it out. Except for the whole wheat french bread, a little baking, and some lentil soup. More on those later.

It also got hot while I was preoccupied with my computer. We've climbed up close to (and even into) the 90s, which is way outside my comfort zone. I don't feel much like cooking when it gets that hot, and I certainly don't want to make anything that's going to involve a lot of time in a hot kitchen.

I've written about skirt steak before, but I thought this would be the perfect time to reintroduce the subject. It's an incredibly flavorful cut that cooks on the stovetop in just minutes. How many minutes depends on how well-done you like it, of course, but it only takes about six minutes if you like it medium rare, and maybe eight minutes if you like it a little more done.

And in one of life's little coincidences, Emeril Lagasse is grilling up some skirt steak on "The Essence of Emeril" as I am writing this post. But I think he's a little confused. He just said that flank steak, London Broil, and hangar steak were all the same. That's wrong. London Broil is a cooking method, not a cut, and hangar steak is not the same as flank steak.

But all of them are delicious, and relatively fast to cook. This method for skirt steak is by far the fastest.

Take the steak out of the refrigerator at least half an hour before you are going to cook it, and let it come to room temperature.

Open it up and inspect for any silver skin. Skirt steak usually comes well trimmed, but it never hurts to check. Remove any excess fat and any silver skin that might still be on the meat.

Season the steak with salt and pepper, and garlic powder, paprika, or any other herbs if desired. This time I just used salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Heat a large skillet (cast iron is preferable, but not required) over high heat. Add about a tablespoon of an oil with a high heat point (grapeseed, canola, peanut). When the the oil is rippling and looks like it might be separating, add the steaks to the pan carefully (laying them down away from you to avoid splatter burns), seasoned side down. They should start sizzling loudly as soon as you lay them down.

Once they are in the pan, season the top side with the salt, pepper, and other herbs or spices. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes for medium rare, or 4 to 6 minutes for medium well. You can cook it longer if you like it more done, but it will be tougher. Do not touch the steaks, or move them. You want to get that beautiful brown sear going.

Turn the steaks carefully, and cook for about the same amount of time as you cooked the first side. Again, do not move the meat around in the pan. You want that second side to get just as nice a sear as the first.

When it's done, turn off the heat and remove the steaks to a plate so they can rest for about fifteen minutes. This would be a good time to work on or finish up any side dishes you are making to accompany the steak. When you are ready to serve, be sure to slice the meat against the grain, so the pieces will be more tender.

This steak was cooked for about two and a half minutes per side. The more I work with meat, the more rare I am starting to like it. If this is too rare for you, just cook it for another couple of minutes on each side.

Mashed turnips and potatoes and braised dandelion greens rounded out this dish. Taking into account the twenty minutes it took to cook the potatoes and turnips, it took just under an hour to make this meal.

Skirt steak is versatile. You can serve it hot right out of the skillet, or you can use it in a cool summer salad. However you want to serve it, it's a go-to dish for those dayswhen you're too hot or too tired to put on the dog but still want a satisfying, delicious lunch or dinner.