…for a very important date!  At the opera!

Would you believe me if I told you I posted my May Daring Bakers challenge post a day late just so I could use that Alice in Wonderland reference?

No.  No, you wouldn’t.

And you’d be right.  It completely slipped my mind this month that our post was due on the 28th and not on the 31st.  By the time I realized I hadn’t posted, it was too late and Mr. K had lost the camera cable.

But all is well, and I did NOT skip out on this month’s challenge, which was brought to us by four very talented ladies - Fran of Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie, Shea of Whiskful, and our two founders, Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice.

This month’s challenge was a spin on the classic opera cake, a lighter version of the normally rich chocolate cake.  The light color and flavor requirement was due in part to the advent of spring (finally, although here in Chicago, it threatened to dip below 40 degrees the other night!), but also dedicated to Barbara of Winos and Foodies for all of her work with the LiveSTRONG food blogger event.

I chose to make miniature cakes cut from the layer cakes with a biscuit cutter so that I might pawn the calories off on friends and neighbors in a more simplified manner.  I topped my cakes with lemon syrup, strawberry buttercream (just folded in some pureed strawberries after assembling the buttercream), lemon mousse, and a white chocolate glaze.  I bought these adorable little Martha Stewart boxes, packaged up my cakes, and headed off to spread the opera love!

The Daring Bakers’ Opéra Cake
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets and Tish Boyle’s and Timothy Moriarty’s Chocolate Passion.

For the joconde:

• 6 large egg whites, at room temperature
• 2 tbsp. (30 grams) granulated sugar
• 2 cups (225 grams) ground blanched almonds
• 2 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 6 large eggs
• ½ cup (70 grams) all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp. (1½ ounces; 45 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Divide the oven into thirds by positioning a rack in the upper third of the oven and the lower third of the oven.

Preheat the oven to 425◦F. (220◦C).

Line two 12½ x 15½- inch (31 x 39-cm) jelly-roll pans with parchment paper and brush with melted butter.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or using a handheld mixer), beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Add the granulated sugar and beat until the peaks are stiff and glossy. If you do not have another mixer bowl, gently scrape the meringue into another bowl and set aside.

If you only have one bowl, wash it after removing the egg whites or if you have a second bowl, use that one. Attach the paddle attachment to the stand mixer (or using a handheld mixer again) and beat the almonds, icing sugar and eggs on medium speed until light and voluminous, about 3 minutes.

Add the flour and beat on low speed until the flour is just combined (be very careful not to overmix here!!!).

Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the meringue into the almond mixture and then fold in the melted butter. Divide the batter between the pans and spread it evenly to cover the entire surface of each pan.

Bake the cake layers until they are lightly browned and just springy to the touch. This could take anywhere from 5 to 9 minutes depending on your oven. Place one jelly-roll pan in the middle of the oven and the second jelly-roll pan in the bottom third of the oven.

Put the pans on a heatproof counter and run a sharp knife along the edges of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Cover each with a sheet of parchment or wax paper, turn the pans over, and unmold.

Carefully peel away the parchment, then turn the parchment over and use it to cover the cakes. Let the cakes cool to room temperature.

For the soaking syrup:

• ½ cup (125 grams) water
• ⅓ cup (65 grams) granulated sugar
• 1 to 2 tbsp. of the flavouring of your choice (i.e., vanilla extract, almond extract, cognac, limoncello, coconut cream, honey etc.)

Stir all the syrup ingredients together in the saucepan and bring to a boil.

Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.

For the buttercream

(Note from the head DBers: The recipe for the buttercream that is listed here is based on the original. When testing the buttercream, we tested a slightly modified version that had 2 cups sugar, ½ cup water and 1¾ cups butter. The eggs remained the same. We ended up with a very creamy buttercream. But we don’t want anyone to be afraid of our modified version so you have the option of using the original above or the quantities we’ve listed here in this note):

• 1 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar (Used to say 2 cups but should be 1 cup)
• ¼ cup (60 grams) water (Used to say ½ cup but should say ¼ cup)
• seeds of one vanilla bean (split a vanilla bean down the middle and scrape out the seeds) or 1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1¾ sticks (7 ounces; 200 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature (Used to say 1¾ cups of butter but it should be 1¾ sticks)
• flavouring of your choice (a tablespoon of an extract, a few tablespoons of melted white chocolate, citrus zest, etc.)

Combine the sugar, water and vanilla bean seeds or extract in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves.

Continue to cook, without stirring, until the syrup reaches 225◦F (107◦C) (Note: The original recipe instructs to heat the syrup to 255◦F (124◦C). We heated it to 225◦F and it worked just fine. However, if you are concerned, then by all means heat your syrup to 255◦F.) on a candy or instant-read thermometer. Once it reaches that temperature, remove the syrup from the heat.

While the syrup is heating, begin whisking the egg and egg yolk at high speed in the bowl of your mixer using the whisk attachment. Whisk them until they are pale and foamy.

When the sugar syrup reaches the correct temperature and you remove it from the heat, reduce the mixer speed to low speed and begin slowly (very slowly) pouring the syrup down the side of the bowl being very careful not to splatter the syrup into the path of the whisk attachment. Some of the syrup will spin onto the sides of the bowl but don’t worry about this and don’t try to stir it into the mixture as it will harden!

Raise the speed to medium-high and continue beating until the eggs are thick and satiny and the mixture is cool to the touch (about 5 minutes or so).

While the egg mixture is beating, place the softened butter in a bowl and mash it with a spatula until you have a soft creamy mass.

With the mixer on medium speed, begin adding in two-tablespoon chunks. When all the butter has been incorporated, raise the mixer speed to high and beat until the buttercream is thick and shiny.

At this point add in your flavouring and beat for an additional minute or so.

Refrigerate the buttercream, stirring it often, until it’s set enough (firm enough) to spread when topped with a layer of cake (about 20 minutes).

For the ganache/mousse:

• 7 ounces white chocolate
• 1 cup plus 3 tbsp. heavy cream (35% cream)
• 1 tbsp. liquer of your choice (Bailey’s, Amaretto, etc.)

Melt the white chocolate and the 3 tbsp. of heavy cream in a small saucepan.

Stir to ensure that it’s smooth and that the chocolate is melted. Add the tablespoon of liqueur to the chocolate and stir. Set aside to cool completely.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the remaining 1 cup of heavy cream until soft peaks form.

Gently fold the whipped cream into the cooled chocolate to form a mousse.

If it’s too thin, refrigerate it for a bit until it’s spreadable.

If you’re not going to use it right away, refrigerate until you’re ready to use.

For the glaze:

• 14 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped
• ½ cup heavy cream (35% cream)

Melt the white chocolate with the heavy cream. Whisk the mixture gently until smooth.

Let cool for 10 minutes and then pour over the chilled cake. Using a long metal cake spatula, smooth out into an even layer.

Place the cake into the refrigerator for 30 minutes to set.

Or rather, I chose to let it go.  For the sake of sanity.  And our budget.  And Mr. K’s waistline (hey, someone had to eat all 366 recipe’s worth of leftovers).

But what I didn’t give up on was The Daring Bakers.  Believe it or not, with all this stress going on, the idea of baking up some mad-crazy recipe was one of the few things I had to look forward to last month.

This month’s challenge comes to us from the talented Morven and is for Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake, a fabulous white layer cake that Morven was wonderful enough to let us customize to our hearts’ content.

Of course, I was a little less than coordinated when slicing one of the two cakes in half:

But buttercream frosting and orange-mango curd cover all manner of wrongs!  To wit:

I chose to go with the basic white layer cake recipe, filling it with the orange-mango curd for two layers and the suggested raspberry jam for the third. I used lime juice instead of lemon for the frosting.  It turned out fabulous!  We served it in celebration of my brother-in-law’s seventeenth birthday, and a good time was had by all.

Note:  Please visit Morven’s blog, Food Art and Random Thoughts for the complete cake and buttercream recipe - yes, I know I’m too lazy to enter it all here, but she has done it beautifully!

Orange Mango Curd
Adapted from recipe found on Food Migration.com

• ½ cup mango, pureed
• ¼ cup orange juice
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 T. orange peel
• 6 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• ½ cup unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

1.  Heat mango, orange juice, and lemon juice, and orange peel in a nonreactive saucepan over medium heat until hot, but not boiling.  Whisk eggs and egg yolks in a medium nonreactive bowl and gradualy whisk in sugar.

2.  Whisking constantly, gradually pour hot juice mixture into egg mixture, then return to saucepan.

3.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until mixture reaches 170 degrees and clings to the back of the spoon, about 3 minutes.

4.  Immediately remove from heat, stir in cold butter until incorporated.  Strain through a mesh strainer into a nonreactive bowl.  Cover surface directly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.

The winds of change are blowing around here.  Not in a food-related or blog-related sense, necessarily, but our lives are changing.  I won’t share everything here now, but we are excited about what’s going on (and no, I am NOT pregnant…ack!).

Spring is coming.  Spring WILL come.  And even that is change enough for me.

This morning, I am sitting with the laptop enjoying the sunshine streaming through my windows and baking cookies for something at church this weekend (chocolate chip, cinnamon sugar, and World Peace cookies - all Dorie recipes, in case you’re curious).  The sunshine creeps in, and suddenly I am daring to believe that things just might be different.  That I can put myself out there, and that good things will happen.  That’s what spring does to me.

So, with all this talk of spring, why am I sharing our Valentine’s Day with you (I know, I know - a good blogger would’ve made their V-Day dinners early so they could post about them on Valentine’s Day itself, but I am a certified Bad Blogger, so you get it now, nigh St. Patty’s day)?

See, Mr. K and I are not big on Valentine’s Day.  Love shouldn’t be mandated by a greeting card company and, in reality, is just as valid and special on, say, March 14th as it is on February 14th, October 23rd, or whatever.  In fact, we are so cynical about the silliness of Valentine’s that we have a long-standing tradition of celebrating it in this manner:

That’s right.  Portillo’s.

If Tony Bourdain has taught me anything, it’s that every major locale has it’s own spin on meat in its tubular form.  And while I think Chicago-style pizza is highly overrated, Portillo’s = best.  hot dogs.  ever.

This is a true Chicago hot dog.  It is apparently blasphemous for a Chicagoan to include ketchup on a Chicago-style hot dog, but I have never done anything this city has told me to, so I say go for it!  In fact, I find most “true Chicagoans” to be so obnoxious about these hot dogs that I eat nothing but ketchup on my Portillo’s dogs.  Oh the horror!  This isn’t exactly a “real” recipe persay, but if you want to feel like a true Chicagoan, fix yourself one of these and share it with the one you love.

Chicago-Style Hot Dog
A la Portillo’s

• All-beef hot dog
•  Poppy seed bun
• Mustard
• Chopped onion
• Sweet pickle relish
• Sliced tomatoes
• Sport peppers
• A dash of celery salt
• An entire dill pickle spear

Boil or steam the dog - buying a decent brand is important here.  I understand that hot dogs barely classify as consumable food, but try to get one that at least tastes like meat, not rubber.  Steaming the bun for a little while makes it nice and soft, too.

Top with remaining ingredients, with pickle spear on top.  Enjoy, and Let’s Go Cubbies!

Note: I do not speak French. At all. Sure, I like to sound like I know what I’m talking about. A la carte. Au bon pain. L’homme mange.  The truth is, my knowledge of the French language is limited to what I have picked up from food-related items, American pop culture, and my favorite movie of all time, Amelie. However, just one whiff of this month’s Daring Baker challenge will have you and yours spouting off French as if you were a true Parisian.

Okay, not really. But it does smell good.

This month, the DB challenge was hosted by Mary at The Sour Dough and Sara at I Like to Cook. And before I forget, the complete (massively huge!) recipe can be found here and you can see what other DB’ers have done with their breads by checking out the blogroll here. Yes, my friends, it is Julia Child’s famous French bread recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume II.

Many of the Daring Bakers seemed to have approached this one with much fear and trepidation. Understandable, considering the recipe is so. flipping. long. and that it takes nearly an entire day to complete. However, I had the upper hand for this, my first DB challenge ever: I had made Julia’s recipe before. In fact, I do believe it was the first yeast bread I ever made, having just bought the fabulous book, The Way to Cook, also by Julia.

Yeast breads have never quite freaked me out the way they do some people. I guess I’ve always figured that, if all else fails, I’ll end up with something potentially resembling bread. Something that can at least make good croutons. Or dog biscuits. Whatev.

And so it began. With the exception of the initial mixing in the KitchenAid, I made the whole thing with my own two little hands. I had Mr. K firmly affixed to the laptop, reading the gargantuan recipe out loud as I went along. Here is the bread during the initial rest, just after all that kneading.

Here’s what is quickly becoming my favorite bread-related object (you know you’re addicted to food when you have a favorite bread-related object!). This is simply a clear plastic, food-safe bucket with quart/liter measurements marked on the side. Mr. K was at a food specialty store and mentioned that he’d been looking for one, and they just happened to have one in the back that they weren’t using. Score! Not only is this good for rising dough (note the straight sides), but you can mix up a giant batch of iced tea or lemonade or whatever. Plus, no need to pour in the 10.5 cups of water, since the measurements are already on the side of the bucket! We use a dry-erase marker on the side, which wipes off quite nicely.

Finally, here are the batards on the baking sheet, ready to go into the oven. I used a sort of hybrid between the regular recipe (in which you bake the loaves on the baking sheet the entire time) and the baker’s oven variation. I picked up this method from several recipes in The Bread Bible, which gives you all the benefits of the baker’s oven with none of the requisite physical coordination requirements of the dreaded baker’s peel. Follow the directions for the baker’s oven (preheat the baking stone, use the brick or ice cubes, etc. to create the steam, and so on), but begin by setting the baking sheet directly on top of the hot stone. At some point, the crust will have formed enough that you can slide the bread easily off the baking sheet and onto the hot stone itself - this is also a good time to rotate the loaves if they aren’t baking evenly.

It is torture to wait for this stuff to cool enough to eat. However, if Julia says the French never eat warm bread, then there will be no eating of the warm bread! C’est la vie! We did, however, spread it with lots of European butter and warm roasted garlic.  And for that, my friends, there are only three words to do this bread justice, and they are most certainly NOT French:

Nom. Nom. Nom.

Oh, Internets!  I have not abandoned you, I swear!!

I realize that I have gone nearly the entire month of February without a single post, and am fully aware that if it weren’t from my very talented husband and his giant sweet tooth, you would’ve been left with nothing.

And I am SORRY!

While you have all been delighting me with your recipes and photos and concoctions, I’ve been barely scraping by just keeping up with The Project, let alone photographing and blogging it.  I’ve been on antibiotics for the last month treating my never-ending sinus infection, and one unfortunate side effect is that I don’t want to eat.  At all.

We’ve managed to stay on top of things, though, and to date have created 63 of our 366 recipes for the year.  Go us!  I managed to photograph a few and am planning on posting them really soon, as March is nearly upon us!

I feel like a bit of a loser posting yet another soup recipe, but lest I remind you, it is still winter here in Chicago, which means soup is still (always) on the menu.  And besides, I felt sick, and the only thing that sounded good was a big bowl of CHEESE.

I wanted a smooth soup, so we broke out the boat motor (aka a hand blender) on this one.  It spewed orange soupiness everywhere, to the point where I am still finding little specks of it in places I never knew existed, but man was it good!  I think it would be equally tasty, though, if you skipped the pureeing and left the veggies in their chunky state.  We used a sharp white Cheddar cheese (the orange in the photo comes from the pureed carrots) and topped it with some croutons we had lying around because, again, sick and lazy is the name of the game.

In other news, my first Daring Baker post is scheduled to go up tomorrow, so I really need to get cracking on that.  Also, Mr. K and I are heading off just now to our first of four knife skills classes.  The ever-fabulous Mr. K signed us up at our local community college as a Christmas gift, and it is finally here!  We plan on sharing a few tips and whatnot on the blog, so stay tuned!

Cheddar Cheese Soup
Adapted from Joy of Cooking

6 tbs butter
1 c diced onions
1 c diced celery
3/4 c diced carrots
1/4 c all purpose flour
4 c poultry stock or broth
1 c heavy cream or half-and-half
2 c Cheddar, grated
1 tsp dry mustard

1. Melt butter in a soup pot or Dutch oven.  Add onions, celery, and carrots and cook until tender.
2. Sprinkle with flour and cook for 3-4 minutes until golden brown and fragrant.
3. Slowly whisk in chicken broth and bring to a boil, whisking constantly.  Reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes.  Puree until smooth and return to a simmer.
4. Stir in heavy cream or half-and-half, Cheddar cheese, and dry mustard.  Reduce heat to low and stir until cheese is melted.  Do not let the soup boil - if it gets too hot, the cheese will separate or curdle.
5. Season to taste with Worcestershire, hot sauce, salt, pepper - whatever your heart desires!

Ah, cooking.

Certain things are just impossible to screw up. Spaghetti, for instance. Taste it. Is it crunchy? Taste it again. Drain, pour sauce, done.

Then there’s buttermilk fudge.

It’s a short list of ingredients - buttermilk, sugar (lots), butter and walnuts. The basic idea behind fudge is to create a very, very sugary liquid and boil it down so that when it cools, you have yourself a nice bar of sugary goodness. Oh, but the details.

When you first start to heat the buttermilk and sugar solution, it turns a fairly transparent milky white color as more of the sugar dissolves into the buttermilk. One of the ways to protect yourself should you get burned (sticky, 215° F liquid hurts!) is to keep a bowl of ice water nearby, just in case. That said, it’s not something to be terribly worried about, as the sugar mixture isn’t exactly sloshing around the whole time.

Regarding the soft ball stage

This stage of sugar doesn’t refer to the sport, but instead to how pliable the candy is once it cools. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can test the candy by dunking a teaspoon of syrup (carefully) in cold water and then rolling it between your fingers to see what form it takes. If you can form it into a soft, pliable ball, voila! Soft ball stage. For lots of details, click here.

The longer you simmer a sugar and liquid mixture, the more water boils out of it. The liquid will look the same from 210° F to 240° F - like a thin syrup - but as it cools and crystallizes, it takes on different forms depending on how much water boiled out from the mixture. If you heated the mixture to 230° F, it becomes something akin to caramel. At 235° F is the soft ball, fudgy stage. At 240° F, you enter the hard ball stage, at which point any hopes of fudge are lost to something resembling a thick, hard brittle. And thus, I was afraid to heat the mixture too much beyond the lower limit of the recipe’s target temperature.

The recipe specified 234° F as soft-ball stage. I managed to get it to 233.8° F and called it done. Oops. At this temperature, you get not fudge, but something akin to “sludge”.

In the classic style of “do as I say, not as I do”, I now offer a few tips to avoid “sludge”.

DO stir constantly for 35 minutes. The goal is to keep the fudge-to-be at the same temperature throughout, so let’s just call it a biceps workout.

DON’T be afraid of overheating the fudge if you have a digital thermometer. Obviously, if you’re testing for soft ball stage via the “dunk in water” method outlined above, this doesn’t apply to you. By having a digital thermometer, this uncertainty can be eliminated - and then the risk is in undercooking your fudge if you get nervous and jump ship. Heat the fudge to 235 or 236 - then you can be sure you’re firmly in the soft ball stage.

DO know your candy thermometer, especially if it is of the non-digital variety. Bring a pot of water to a rapid boil and stick the bulb/sensor of the thermometer into it. Does it read 212 degrees (assuming you are at sea level)? If not, you’ll need to take the difference into account when making any type of candy.

Buttermilk Candy
Adapted from the America’s Best Lost Recipes cookbook

2 cups low-fat buttermilk
4 cups sugar
4 tablespoons butter, cut into 4 pieces
1 1/2 cups walnuts or pecans, chopped

1. Line an 8-inch square pan baking pan with foil, leaving some excess over the sides. (You’ll pull the fudge out with the excess later.) Grease the foil.
2. Combine the sugar and buttermilk in a medium or large heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. (Be careful - buttermilk boils over in a hurry!)
3. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches the soft-ball stage on a candy thermometer, 234-240 degrees. This will take 35-40 minutes. At this point, the mixture will be milky, yet translucent. And very, very hot.
4. Off the heat, add the butter, mixing with a wooden spoon until the candy begins to thicken, about 5 minutes. Stir in the nuts until the mixture becomes difficult to stir, 3 minutes. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and cool for at least 2 hours
5. Remove and cut into 1-inch squares. The candy will store for 2 weeks.

We are hoping that exciting things will be coming soon now that the jump over to the new domain is complete. Don’t forget to change your bookmarks and RSS feeds if that is how you navigate to our site.

A real post will be coming soon, we promise!

In my (Mr. K’s) opinion, our dutch oven is the best $39 I’ve spent on a kitchen appliance. Before I get to why, though, I should probably explain what one is to those of you who haven’t heard of it. And, why I ended up getting one for my wife for Christmas.

A Dutch oven is at its core a large, heavy pot. In the last Christmas season, the linked Dutch Oven was actually called a casserole. The best known ovens are made by Le Creuset, which makes a 7.25 quart Dutch Oven that retails for about $225. Since I didn’t really want to spend more on a Dutch oven than our stand mixer (which technically was a wedding present, but still), I picked up the 6.5 quart Tramontina at Wal-Mart - at the time, the only store selling it.

Dutch ovens are typically made of cast iron, but Tramontina, Le Creuset and other oven manufacturers now bake an enamel coating onto the cast iron. This is done for a couple of reasons - it’s easier to clean food off of an enamel surface, and baked enamel doesn’t require seasoning. With bare cast iron you have to season the oven (which pretty much means “bond fat to the cast iron by heating it up at high temperatures”) to prevent the pot from rusting, the food from tasting like iron, and to make the pot nonstick. (See here for more info.)

Dutch ovens can withstand temperatures of up to 800° F as the enamel is bonded to the cast iron. Compare this to your typical nonstick cookware, which is oven-safe to 450° or so (find out your cookware’s oven-safe temperature by going to the manufacturer’s website). The Tramontina Dutch oven is rated to 450° F (because of the plastic resin knob), but if the knob is replaced with a stainless steel knob, for all intents and purposes the Dutch oven becomes oven-safe to any temperature.

In addition to our pot being larger than the 4 quart stockpot we used to use, it’s also heavy. As in, 15 3/4 pounds heavy. Fill it with food, and it may very well be impossible to lift (work those biceps, people!). It is easily 3 times as heavy as the next heaviest pan we own. So what do we use it for?

1.) Soup and chowder. Enamel coatings don’t quite have the properties of non-stick coatings, so as a result you get those “brown bits” when browning meat in a Dutch oven. Those brown bits come in handy when you’re making soup, because that’s where all the flavor is!

2.) Frying meat. Okay folks, a little bit of high-school physics: cast iron holds its heat better than stainless steel. If you’re trying to fry chicken in a skillet, you’ll find that it takes a while for the oil to come back up to heat again after you drop in the chicken. That’s because the temperature of the oil drops when the chicken is added, and so does the temperature of the skillet. On the temperature rebound, nonstick pans and skillets are prone to reheating meat unevenly, possibly resulting in both undercooked and burnt meat.

When you toss chicken in a Dutch oven, the temperature of the oil drops, but the temperature of the Dutch oven does not. As a result, you get more even browning of your meat.

3.) Deep frying. Okay, I admit, I haven’t come up with something to deep fry yet… but four quarts of evenly-heated vegetable oil at 350° is good for something, right?

4.) Braising. A sufficiently large Dutch oven is big enough to hold a whole chicken. Combine that with a lid that weighs 2 pounds, and you find that nearly anything stews in its own juices very well.

5.) The infamous no-knead bread. You know the one…the one that everyone’s talking about. It calls for a “6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic)” - a.k.a. a Dutch oven!

Is it possible to cook without one of these? Sure. But if you get one, you’ll find that the flavor of your dishes will go up - and at $39, ($59 at Target, for whatever reason), it ends up being quite the deal.

Note from Kitchenette Jen:

Isn’t my husband adorable? Who else would be so crazy about a Dutch oven? I mean…seriously!

Mr. K is a huge kitchen gadget nerd, so expect his equipment reviews to become a regular thing around here. No one is paying us to say good things about any of these products (although, we’re not above selling out to the corporate machine…any takers? Anybody?)- we just happen to like them and use them a lot.

In the spirit of Dutch oven goodness, I bring you this recipe for Chicken Tortellini Soup. Mr. K and I visited the great state of Alaska last summer and were lucky enough to go on an all-day wildlife cruise. The first mate on the ship was in charge of preparing lunch, and he delivered the absolute most amazingly delicious chicken tortellini tomato soup I have ever had. I have been trying without success to recreate it ever since. This is the closest I have come so far, although it’s still miles away from the Alaska soup.

If anyone knows of a fabulous tomato-based tortellini soup recipe, send it my way!

Tortellini and Chicken Soup
From SparkRecipes

2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp olive oil
2 whole boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 pkg cheese tortellini
47 oz chicken broth (give or take, vegetable broth would work as well)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 pkg fresh baby spinach
1/4 c chopped fresh basil

1. Saute garlic in olive oil in large pot or Dutch oven until fragrant.

2. Add chicken broth and chicken. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat for five minutes.

3. Add tortellini and cook per package directions.

4. Add tomatoes, spinach, and basil and cook until spinach is wilted. Serves 8.

This winter is making me crazy. Snow, melt. Snow, snow, melt. Snow, snow, snow, snow, melt, melt, snow. And so on.

Hi, my name is Jen, and I live in Chicago. And I am NOT very happy about it.

In the spirit of misdirected rage, I bring you this: my spit-in-the-face-of-Chicago-and- all-it’s-deep-dish-monstrously-overrated-pizza-glory. The truth is, I first made this pizza in an attempt to copy my favorite pizza from California Pizza Kitchen. However, they have since dropped it from the menu (oh, the horror!), so looks like I’m flying solo on this one.

In order to be abso-fabulous, this pizza requires five things: crust (duh), a butter sauce, chicken, cheese, and a potato. The rest is up to you - it’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure pizza!

And because this winter is wearing thin on my patience, hey look! A recipe!

Garlic Chicken & Potato Pizza
Adapted from the lonely recesses of my troubled mind (aka a Kitchenette original)

1. Choose your own crust! A few that I have enjoyed are here at Use Real Butter and here at Smitten Kitchen. I always ordered the whole wheat crust at CPK. Alternatively, use a premade crust or even one of those little tubes of pizza dough that come in a can if you’re feeling frisky (or brave!). Anyway, prepare your crust according to recipe instructions. Preheat the oven and partially bake the crust if desired.

2. Choose your own potato! I typically use a russet, but nearly anything will work - a smallish russet (or equivalent) will cover one pizza. Cook the potato however you like - I typically slice mine, drizzle some olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast it at 350 for 45 minutes or so. You could also slice up some leftover baked potatoes or boil it. The point is to cook those taters until they’re almost, but not quite, done. They will finish cooking on the pizza.

3. Choose your own chicken! I’ve found one boneless-skinless chicken breast to be adequate. Roast it, grill it, poach it, whatever. This is also a great recipe for using up leftover chicken. Once it’s cooked, shred or cut it into bite-size pieces.

4. Choose your own cheese! Mozzarella is still my favorite for this pizza, but anything goes. It’s YOUR pizza.

5. The butter sauce: Okay, this one actually has rules, people. Melt 6 tbs butter and add 6 tbs olive oil. Once hot, add and saute 2 cloves of minced garlic (or more - the choice is yours!) until fragrant. Add 2 tbs white wine and mixed herbs to suit your palette - I love fresh rosemary and basil, but dried herbs work well, too. Simmer 15 minutes or until it’s a consistency you can live with. If you like a lemon-butter sauce similar to the CPK pizza, squeeze in lemon juice to taste.

6. Spread the butter sauce on the crust and top with remaining ingredients. Using your crust recipe as a guide for time and oven temperature, bake until the cheese is just beginning to brown on top and the crust is nice and golden.

7 . Now come over and shovel my driveway!

I have been a bit lazy and slow to post lately.  Part of the reason is, of course, that as I’ve gotten more and more excited about food blogging, I’ve naturally found more and more food blogs out there to add to my RSS feeds.  Just the other day, I had over 40 blog posts waiting for me to read.  Forty!

Of course, I spent most of yesterday enamored with so many lemon meringue pies, I could hardly stand it.  Yes, the Daring Bakers were hard at work this month, making pie crust, lemon curd, and meringue (three things that terrify me), and the results were scrumptious.

So scrumptious, in fact, that I’ve decided to throw my hat into the ring and become a Daring Baker myself.  I think that makes me brave…or crazy.  Either way.  I am hoping to begin with the March challenge.

Speaking of things that are both brave and crazy, we are moving right along with the whole 366 recipes in 366 days thing.  One of the consequences of The Project is that, in order to fit all these recipes in while still maintaining some semblance of a life outside the kitchen, we have to make things we would ordinarily buy instead.  Like hamburger buns!

Something tells me that topping these delicious whole wheat buns with a big juicy hunk of beef and cheese kind of defeats the purpose of them being, you know, healthy or something.  But who cares?  It was tasty!  Just look at those sesame seeds!  And the pretty tomato-y color!

A few notes:  Yes, the recipe says two tablespoons of yeast, and yes, that sounded like a lot to me, too.  But everything will be fine.  Just trust me.  The dough rises quickly as a result (mine doubled in a half hour), so keep an eye on it.  I found whole wheat pastry flour in the bulk section at Whole Foods, but it’s also available here.  It provides the nutritious whole grains without being too dense and heavy, but you could maybe substitute regular whole wheat flour and adjust the unbleached/whole wheat flour ratio.

Also, here is what one looks like when stolen and devoured by a Labrador Retriever.

Whole Wheat Sun-dried Tomato Buns
Adapted from Cal-a-Vie Living’s recipe for Epicurious.com

2 tbs dry yeast
2 c warm water
1 tbs honey or sugar
8 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp vegetable oil
2 c whole wheat pastry flour
2 c unbleached flour
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbs cornmeal
1 egg white, beaten with 2 tsp water
2 tbs sesame seeds

1.  Dissolve the yeast in the water and honey.  Let stand until frothy to activate the yeast.  Add the tomatoes, oil, flours, garlic powder, and salt.  Mix with a mixer or by hand.  Knead on a floured surface (I was lazy and used the KitchenAid) for 5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic.

2.  Place in an oiled bowl, turn to coat, cover, and allow to rise until doubled.  Divide into 10 portions and shape into balls.  Flatten into buns and place on a baking sheet lined with a silicone mat, parchment paper, or sprayed with cooking spray.  Sprinkle with cornmeal, brush with the egg white, and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

3.  Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, or until golden brown.  Remove to a wire rack and cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing to fill.