Panini Perfection

I bought myself a new kitchen gadget -- a panini press! It's more than just a panini maker though, I went for the Cuisinart Griddler so it serves a lot of functions, including the fact that I can buy waffle inserts to make my own Belgian waffles. YUM.

In the past week I’ve tried it out three times, all with amazing success. I’ve made two grilled sandwiches and one quesadilla. What I love about this grill/panini press is that it has removable/reversible plates so you have the option of a flat surface or a rippled one -- I’ve learned that I completely prefer flat.


MEAL 1 : Proscuitto, Fig & Fontina Panini

Ingredients:

• A few slices of proscuitto
• Fig spread
• Fontina cheese
• Salad greens
• Good bread (I splurged and used $6 a loaf rosemary/garlic bread from a local bakery – Nashoba Brook Bakery -- that I got at Whole Foods. It made an incredible difference.)

Directions:

• Spread fig preserve on one slice of bread.
• Add cheese, greens, and proscuitto on top of spread and top with second slice of bread. 
• Grill on medium until cheese is melty and bread is toasty. Cut in half. Enjoy!

Photographing sandwiches is hard....

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MEAL 2 : Beef & Cheddar Quesadilla

Ingredients:

• A few slices of roast beef
• Sharp cheddar cheese (I recommend using really good cheese, not that phony cheese stuff. The better the cheese the more delicious this quesadilla will be, and with only a few ingredients you really want the cheese to shine.)
• 1 medium onion
• Tortillas

Directions:

• Slice onion and sauté until translucent. While onion is cooking slice cheese into thin strips to help it melt.
• Layer cooked onion, cheese, beef in a tortilla and fold over so it looks like a big taco.
• Grill on medium until cheese melts and outside of tortilla is toasty. Enjoy!
• (Note: Watch out that cheese doesn't melt too much and run all over the panini plate… mine did.)

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MEAL 3 : Roasted Pepper & Veggie Panini

Before grilling... it looks like a big piece of bruschetta.

Ingredients: The best part about this panini is that you can use basically anything you have on hand. I used:

My ingredients all chopped up

• Roasted red peppers
• Artichoke hearts
• 10 kalamata olives
• Basil & sun dried tomato goat cheese
• Salad greens
• Good bread (I used the same bread as Meal 1.)

Directions:

• Chop up all veggies and cheese.
• Layer all ingredients between two slices of bread.
• Grill on medium until cheese is melty and bread is toasty. Cut in half & enjoy!

All three of these meals were incredibly delicious and relatively healthy, too! I’m so excited to make some more. Thank goodness I no longer have to do the awkward attempt to flip sandwich/quesadilla on pan and watch all my fillings fall out routine that I used to do when making grilled sandwiches. YAY!


If you have a favorite sandwich/panini recipe I would love to hear it! Share!

Pasta With Mushrooms & Rosemary

Last week a fellow Simmons grad student lamented about the difficulties of meal prep/planning on her food blog, and I couldn’t agree more. Planning meals is hard work! Especially when you have boyfriends to factor into the equation and can’t do the single girl thing of “eat a bunch of cookies for dinner and call it a night.” I have a hard enough time deciding what I want to eat for dinner on Wednesday night ON Wednesday night, let alone trying to decide that on Monday night as I pour over food blogs and cookbooks and try to plan out my week. But I’ve been trying… with some success. With such a busy schedule this semester I’m still relying heavily on take-out, but I’m trying much more to do some easy meal-prep and to shop accordingly.


I’ve also re-instituted “date nights” which makes The Boyfriend laugh when I call it that since we live together and all it’s not like we’re really going out for a date. But I insist we are… it’s a reward for my careful meal planning and preparations all week long. And it’s our chance to get out of the house.


I’ve been on a mushroom kick lately, so when I saw that Fellow Grad Student posted that one of her recent meals was pasta with mushrooms I knew I had to try it. 

After all, it already had a stamp of approval. The original blogger she got the recipe from HERE served it with a side of sautéed kale, but heeding Fellow Grad Student’s warning that pasta plus kale was a lot to cook together, I saved the tasty-sounding kale recipe for a later date and just stuck to the mushrooms and pasta. Definitely a good idea.

I couldn’t find the cute little ear-shaped pastas at Trader Joe’s so I had to settle for bow ties, which were still cute. It made an enormous batch and we had leftovers that I ate for lunch for a few days after. I liked that this recipe was so easy... it was definitely a good mid-week meal for when I drag myself home from class or writing group or pull myself away from the computer after writing/working all day long. I think next time I try to the recipe I might fancy it up a bit with some wild mushrooms to give it an extra kick.

I served the pasta with steamed artichokes and butter for dipping. Delish!

Krispie Crazy

I am a kid at heart. I have never grown out of loving Rice Krispie Treats. If anything, my fondness for them has only grown over the years. They are so simple, yet so delicious. That’s why when there was a bake sale earlier this year (I know, I’m a little behind writing this post) at the MSPCA where I volunteer I knew exactly what I was going to make.

I thought it was possible that someone else might have the same brilliant idea so I wanted to add some extra flair to my treats. I began with a little search of the internet. When my sister was living in Philadelphia a few years back we were at a restaurant that boasted a “Rice Krispie Treat Platter” for dessert. (Had we not been so stuffed from dinner we would have ordered it. And to this day I still sort of regret that we didn’t. C’est la vie.) I hunted around online trying to find the types of unique Krispie Treats that might have graced that list. What I found was incredible. People do all sorts of unique things with Rice Krispie treats!


First thing’s first, you can find THE ORIGINAL RECIPE HERE. Now… on to the fun part. I found people who did just about EVERYTHING. Mixing in Oreo cookies (YUM!), M&Ms, layering with chocolate, caramel, butterscotch, etc.

I decided to buy a bag of chocolate and peanut butter chips which I melted over my super old school flat top plug in heater (the official name for which I don’t even know). I made the Rice Krispie treats according to the box directions (same as the directions above). When the chips were melted into a nice smooth creamy consistency I spread out the chocolate/peanut butter mixture on top of the treats. I then tossed on colorful sprinkles and let the whole thing sit for a while so the chocolate/peanut butter could cool and harden.

Let me tell you, it was AH-MAZING. I wish I could make treats every day.


Here’s a list of a few treats that sound interesting:
(I think I am going to have to pick something off of this list and whip them up for class and/or writing group this month!)
FOR EASTER 
FOR EASTER
CHOCOLATE & COVERD W/GOODIES
PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY 
COOKIES & CREAM
COOKIES & CREAM


Have you ever made Rice Krispie Treats with unique mix-ins and ingredients? If so, share!

My March : Dining Out, Bangers & Stew

I have been such a bad, bad little food blogger. I deserve to be doomed to eat nothing but McDonalds French fries and burnt toast for the rest of my life… Ok, not really. I keep promising myself I’ll post more regularly, but this semester/past few months have just been insane. I’m trying to write a novel, edit the novel I wrote this fall, keep up with TWO classes, keep up with my 30 hour a week job AND cook more? Yowzers.


So here’s a little recap of what my past month has entailed:


>> I found a delicious restaurant in Newton that I LOVE called 51 Lincoln (http://www.51lincolnnewton.com). Highlights: house-made charcuteries (which were so very tasty!) and this awesome prix fixe option Mondays through Thursdays called the “Chef’s Whim.” Seriously, it’s his whim. For $35 he gives you an appetizer, an entrée (specify if you want veg, meat, or seafood) and a desert. Byron and I both ordered this. We got different appetizers (myself a salad, him a soup) and the same chicken entrée and different deserts (myself Italian donuts, him banana flan). INCREDIBLE. I can’t talk this place up enough. Definitely placing it on my “date night go-to” list.


>> I made bangers and mash the day before St. Patrick’s Day… look I was festive!

>> I pulled out my crockpot and made an incredibly delicious pork and tomatillo stew. I ALMOST erred in making it though (eeep misadventure!) I got everything into the crockpot and had it on cook when I realized that I forgot to add the hot peppers (the 6 seranos!) Whoops! So I stuck them into the oven and roasted them on their own and then used my handy little food processor to chop them up. They really made my kitchen smell like spicy goodness and I had to be super careful not to touch my fingers ANYWHERE NEAR MY EYE. Luckily, I escaped without tears.

tomatillos sort of look like mini apples

I was first introduced to tomatillos when I received them in my farm share last summer. They are awesome. I always wondered how green salsa was green but I guess I never wondered quite enough to look on the back of the bottle and read the ingredients to find out. Tomatillos are tasty.

Here they are all browned up from the broiler

The stew was so easy to make. I used a recipe from one of my cookbooks but you barely even need one. Here is my simplified HOW TO:


Step 1: Brown 2 lbs. of cubed stew pork then add to slow cooker
Step 2: Roast under broiler 2-3 lbs. of tomatillos, 1 onion, ½ clove of garlic, 5-7 serrano peppers (depending on preferred spiciness) until browned. Chop then add 2 cups of chicken stock and puree and add to slow cooker. You can add some tortillas to the pureeing if you want to thicken it up a bit.
Step 3: Cook for 6-8 hours on low heat.
Serve with shredded cheese and tortillas. Done!

Mmmmm cooking pork!

This stew had the perfect amount of spiciness and tang. YUM! I almost never cook with pork (I’m not sure why exactly, other than the fact that in the history of my cooking I just haven’t) and I was pleasantly surprised.

So that’s been my month of March. Hopefully April will bring me some extra time to cook, some extra time to post, some extra time to brew up a new batch of beer, and some extra time to dine out so I can share all of these wonderful things with you… my fabulous readers.


Cheers!

Patiently Awaiting My Beer

Our third and fourth batches of brew are now in bottles (an Imperial Stout & a Nut Brown Ale) and I'm anxiously awaiting the day they will be ready for drinkin'. I'm super excited for the Nut Brown Ale, my selection, which I hope turns out tasty because I really want to do some experimenting with it -- think Hazelnut Nut Brown Ale, Vanilla Nut Brown Ale, Cinnamon Twist Nut Brown Ale, Raspberry Nut Brown Ale, Chocolate Nut Brown Ale... oh the possibilities are endless!


Here's a little preview of our work from our taste test pre-bottling:

Meanwhile, I just read a great article in The Atlantic about shattering beer's glass ceiling. Yay, girlpower! << Read it!

I'm really excited to start planning brew batches 5 & 6. I'm thinking something spring-like and summery. Perhaps a honey blonde. Mmmmmm.

Foodie?

I found this recent article in the Atlantic interesting. As someone who enjoys food writing (reading it as well as making attempts at writing it) it's a fascinating look at what it means to be a foodie, enjoy the food experience, as well as write about it:

THE MORAL CRUSADE AGAINST FOODIES
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/03/the-moral-crusade-against-foodies/8370/1/

Eating Healthy and Eating Cheap(er)

I love food. So a lot of my money naturally goes to filling up my belly with delicious goodness. In a city like Boston it's so, SO easy to abandon the kitchen and order moderately priced take-out every single day... and when one is tired and over-worked and doesn't have energy for cooking, those menus look better and better. Indian, please. Oh, no, wait, Thai. Oh, or pizza! Thin crust! Wait... wait... there's an Anna's down the street... I want a burrito. *sigh*

But while there's tons of great, easy food that can come right to my door, I love dining out even more. Perhaps if I can do a little more homecookin' I can convince the boyfriend that we deserve more date nights out. 

So in a effort to be a little healthier, and save a little cash (not that Whole Foods is inexpensive by any means, cooking at home can be pricey too), I'm trying to reconnect with my kitchen. The problem I've had this past year is that when I cook it's a big production. It takes hours, I labor over recipes and chop veggies til my fingers hurt. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the meals I have been making take time. And time is a precious thing right now...

I decided what I really need are some quickie recipes. But I don't want to sacrifice flavor either. Ramen noodles might have cut it in my younger years, but not anymore.

So I scoured my cookbooks for some relatively easy, moderately priced recipes and planned out some meals for the rest of my week. What's cookin' at casa de Jillian?

Pasta with Shitake Mushrooms & Panchetta in Cream Sauce

Puttanesca Bianca (kalamata olives, anchovy and caper sauce)

Penne with Spinach & Ricotta Cheese

Wild Mushroom and Rice Soup

Black & Blue Beef Quesadillas (with blue cheese)

Veggie stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Off to Whole Foods I go!

Do you have quick go-to recipes that are somewhat inexpensive and don't take hours to prepare? I would love to hear them! Share away! 

In Which We Brew

I waited years for this day. I dreamed about it while I lived in my little studio apartment. I thought and I planned and I imagined what it would be like. And now that I have a big kitchen, the day finally arrived -- HOMEBREW DAY!

Instead of going into elaborate detail about the brewing process (*snore*) I’ll give you a little pictoral showcase of our handiwork.

Our first brew was called Liquid Desert. We got the recipe from the Homebrew Emporium in Cambridge, where we also picked up all the ingredients and supplies. (You can find the recipe through the Homebrew Emporium’s website here: https://www.beerbrew.com/downloads/recipes/LiquidDessert.pdf) No brewing kit for us on our first time! We picked out the grains, malts, hops, and followed the directions (mostly). We erred a bit in our first batch, but errors are to be expected! We learned from it and have moved on. But even with errors, Batch 1 turned out delicious.

Since that fateful day, we’ve brewed 3 more batches of beer. First we did a second attempt at Liquid Desert (which we recently bottled), then an Imperial Stout (currently in the first fermenter), and then a Nut Brown Ale (in its first fermenter). I’m very excited about the Nut Brown Ale... I want to play around with the recipe in the future, adding some things like Hazelnut, Vanilla, Cocoa, Raspberry, and the like. Mmmmmm Hazelnut Vanilla Nut Brown.

The one thing I've learned so far about brewing is that you have to be patient, there is a LOT of waiting! But, hey, I've been waiting years to start brewing so what's a few more weeks? :)

Without further ado, I bring you BEER:

Mashing up the Cocoa Beans

All crushed up.

We didn't have a big enough pot to handle all the ingredients (we've
since purchased one) so we had to brew two pots at once, thus had to
divide all ingredients in half. 

Steeping the grains.

Grains steeping.

Boiling hops in with the grains.

Of course, kitty wants to sit on the kitchen mat and watch what we're doing.

After the hour boil of the hops cooling the pot down in the sink.

More lessons learned: buy a strainer so you don't have to reuse
the grain sack to try to strain as you pour into the fermenter.

Straining/pouring into the first fermenter.

After two weeks of sitting in the closet it's time to transfer over to the
secondary fermenter!

Utoh, here's where things went wrong. We SHOULD HAVE added this
malt to the original boil. We wonder if we can just toss it now. Hmmm...

It worked. (Sort of.) It was very clumpy. But it didn't ruin our beer
like we thought it might.

Taste test!

Wow, sludge.

Lots more sludge.

Secondary fermenter. A few more weeks
in the closet.

Siphoning so we can bottle.

Getting ready to bottle.

Putting on the caps.

FINAL STEP: Wait (again) then drink & enjoy! Cheers!

Food Porn for Carnivores

Does the idea of a juicy burger or a big old meaty sandwich get you all hot and bothered? If so, this week’s post is right up your alley. I don’t have quite enough time to dedicate one post to each thing I made, so I’m lumping these delicious meals together into what I call “Food Porn for Carnivores”.


I could go on a long speech about the use of food in literature and how in children’s literature it is typically a substitute for sexuality and sex… but let’s save that for a later date. Or just the grad school classroom.


For Christmas I bought my boyfriend nearly 100 dollars of meat. And not just any old meat, but exotic meats -- antelope, kangaroo, elk, alligator, boar… to name a few. I went with simplicity when making each of these dishes because I wanted the flavor of the meat to really come out. Though the idea of eating wild boar burgers was a little strange, each meat so far was very tasty -- I think I’m an exotic meat convert. I can’t help but wonder if I lived in movie-world (and rich, of course) if I would have been one of the first people to snag a ticket to the Endangered Animal dinner in "The Freshman."


Without further delay, I proudly present to you: FOOD PORN FOR CARNIVORES.

FRENCH DIP SANDWICH. DOESN'T FALL UNDER THE "EXOTIC
MEAT" CATEGORY...BUT I MADE IT A FEW WEEKS AGO AND IT
WAS DELICIOUS AND DESERVED REPRESENTATION.

BOAR BURGERS FRYING IN THE PAN. I TOPPED THESE WITH
A LITTLE BIT OF SPICES... DELISH!

BOAR BURGER ALL COOKED UP AND WAITING TO BE EATEN.

ELK STEAKS READY TO COOK.

ELK STEAKS WERE VERY TASTY. SERVED WITH POTATOES
AND SARDINE/TAPENADE TOASTS.

OSTRICH STEAK SERVED RARE/MEDIUM-RARE. VERY
SOFT, TENDER, AND TASTY.

ELK BURGER TOPPED WITH GOODIES. THOUGH THIS COULD
HAVE BEEN THE ANTELOPE BURGERS... I DON'T REMEMBER. EITHER
WAY, VERY GOOD!

Welcome 2011, Year of the Rabbit

Ok, so I know it’s not actually Chinese New Year yet, but for the sake of my blog, can we just pretend? Because 2011 marks the year of the rabbit. Sweet, cuddly, fluffy bunnies. My sister owns one, actually. Its name is Toffee (though it has gone by other names including Robot, Bunnix, and Nixon -- my personal fave.) I volunteer at an animal shelter here in Boston, and I sometimes visit with the bunnies. I LIKE rabbits. They’re cute. They remind me of Easter and candy and cartoons.

** NOTE: Bunny lovers, be warned, this is where you should stop reading this blog post**


So why, you ask, did I decide to cook rabbit stew?


I recently purchased a few Polish cookbooks (part to get in touch with my Polish heritage, and part as research for a novel I’m working on.) And what did I find inside each one of them? A recipe for rabbit. And in some cases, MANY recipes. What I gleaned from this: at one time eating rabbit was cool. And based on these cookbooks, I get the impression that Poland was overrun by rabbits – sort of like my neighborhood here in Boston is overrun by rats (ew). But unlike rats, rabbits made for good eating.

So why are Americans (many of who are descendents of Europe) so horrified by the idea of eating rabbit? I blame Disney. And Warner Brothers. I had the same feeling of shock and horror the first time I ate venison. BAMBI!? NO! This time while I was at the butcher shop and looked at the rabbit meat in the freezer I had images of Thumper and Bugs Bunny flash through my head.


Bunnies are for snuggling and hopping around your apartment and nibbling on power cords and scaring your cat. Not for EATING! Right?


But people DO eat them. Many people.


As I stood at the freezer at the butcher I got to thinking: What makes some animals good eats and others taboo? I’ve decided it is The Snuggly Factor. We have no problem eating chickens (man, are they ugly) or cows or pigs or turkeys (also quite ugly) or fish (certainly no snuggling there.) But cats and dogs, no way, they are so CUTE! And rabbits, CUTE! I recently learned that we are genetically programmed to think baby animals are cute and they trigger nurturing instincts in us. Is that why we have a hard time eating cute animals? Because it goes against our nurturing instincts? I’m no scientist, but I might be on to something.

In any case, I threw caution to the wind (and instincts) and bought rabbit. I cooked it up in a traditional German style -- slow cooking it as a stew. Verdict: Tastes like chicken.


Dear Readers, Do you eat rabbit, or any other “non-traditional” animals? Tell me about it, I’d like to hear. PS: For you meat fanatics, I just bought my boyfriend a whopping of strange meats for Christmas (elk, antelope, kangaroo, alligator) so stay tuned while I serve up some of that in the coming weeks! I’m also going to work on posting more regularly. Happy 2011!