Yummy to the extreme

Things that are not photogenic with my not so awesome camera: things that are white, which mostly today includes tzatziki sauce and the pita bread. So I’ll provide the links for both of those, but only talk about the kebabs here.

These kebabs were awesome, I was unsure about how cooking something covered in yogurt was going to go down, but that all burned off and left a slightly lemony purely delicious meat. I love lamb, as a side note. Like love, like I don’t understand why I forgot about it until this recipe and never buy it at the store. Maybe because the word lamb is so cute and makes me feel like a bad person? Something for you all to ponder.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, as well as the Pita and tzatziki
Lamb Kebabs

1 pound plain yogurt (regular or lowfat)

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for brushing grill

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (This takes more than the lemon you bought for zest)

5 tablespoons fresh whole rosemary leaves, chopped

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 pounds top round lamb (I used a shoulder cut that was awesome)

1 red onion

First mix everything except for the lamb and onion together in a bowl. Stir. Cut the lamb (using scissors people! How thrilling is that?) into little kebab sized chunks about an inch and a half big. Let marinate between two days and four hours, then stick on a kebab stick as well as cut up pieces of red onion. Pop on the grill for a about 10 to 15 minutes. Serve with tzatziki and homemade pita.

Now eat.

Mmmm orzo

I am cooking for two, and this recipe says it serves four. I didn’t think to halve it because leftovers never hurt, however, this recipe lied. It really serves far more than four people, and my Dad is leaving on a business trip so I scooped up some leftovers for my sister’s boyfriend, and some for two of my friends in the neighborhood. This was good, basically homemade risotto and the tomatoes were by far the best part.

I love recipes that call for cherry tomatoes, because my Dad grows a few varieties they add so much color. I just halved them for this recipe, but you could quarter or even just cook them whole. Either way, the more the merrier, because they were little bits of deliciousness in the creamy but sort of bland orzo.

Adapted from Sidewalk Shoes
Tomato with Orzo
Serves at least 6

3 tablespoons butter

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound cherry tomatoes

5 cups chicken stock

2 cups orzo

1 cup fresh basil leaves

1 cup fresh ricotta

kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

finely grated parmesan for serving

Heat the butter in a deep frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and tomatoes and cook for about 2-3 minutes or until the tomatoes soften. Add the orzo and the stock and cook like pasta (which is to say until orzo is cooked). For me very little broth was left at the end. Stir through the basil, ricotta, and salt and pepper. You can top with the parmesan, though I didn’t and serve. This would also be good with some shredded chicken in it, and I served it with French bread I spent yesterday making.

Peel a tomato?

If the judge of the quality of a dish is how fast it disappears then this counts as a success. Considering that I made two pies, and the only people in my household who are eating it are me and my Dad, it is rapidly disappearing. The first night both me and my darling ex-roommate and my Uncle all had seconds, and the rest of it has spiced up lunch like PB&Js never did.

This says it made enough for one pie, and while the crust measures out to that I had more than enough filling for two pies, and I even forgot the cheese. So I’ve adapted the recipe for enough filling to make only one pie. I thought it tasted fine without cheese (I’m not a huge cheddar fan) but it would probably be better with it.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Tomato Pie that isn't Pizza

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 3/4 teaspoons salt, divided

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons or 3 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, plus 2 teaspoons melted

3/4 cup 2% milk

1/3 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 pound beefsteak tomatoes (about two large ones)

1 ear corn
1 tablespoons finely chopped basil,

1/2 tablespoon finely chopped chives,

1/8 teaspoon black pepper,

3.5 ounces coarsely grated sharp Cheddar (1 cup),

Crust: Have butter room temperature/slightly softened (I popped mine in the microwave for a quick ten seconds because I have no foresight). Mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Then fold in butter with your hands until it has a sort of coarse texture. Add in milk and make dough. Divide into two balls, and roll one out on a floured surface. Mine did not come out round and pie shaped, but I made it fit into the pie pan anyways.

Whisk together mayonnaise and lemon juice. This will look like icing, which is misleading.

Cut large a large ‘x’ in the bottom of each tomato and then blanch. You do this by dropping in boiling water for ten seconds and then immersing in an ice bath, this makes it easy to peel which is the next step. Which was weird for me because normally I skip the peeling step in most recipes, but what Smitten Kitchen recommends I blindly follow, and the result was nice. This is also a little soupy so the recommendation is to remove the seeds and tomato juice, but I couldn’t bring myself to follow.

Pre heat oven to 400 degrees. Chop tomatoes into slices and lay on top of crust, put corn over this (you could also just use a cup of frozen already cut corn, but I am always one for fresh ingredients) and sprinkle herbs and cheese. Pour mayonnaise over this, and then roll out second half of dough and cover. Cut four vents and brush with the melted butter. Cook for 30 to 35 minutes (32 worked well for me). The top is biscuity and the filling is delicious, and this is all super easy.

The ugliest Papple Pie

The awesome thing about having friends that are adults is that sometimes they have houses. And sometimes, those houses come with trees. And sometimes those trees bear fruit, as in the case with my friend Kari’s house with its papple tree! And maybe papple isn’t the proper term (pear plus apple? Yes) but it is so much more fun to say than Asian Pear which is what the fruit is technically called.

So I foraged a bag of fruit (legally this time, with permission and everything!) and decided to make a pie. The response to this was generally, “A, pear, pie? I’ve…never had that.” But I’m never one to shy away from experiment. I’ve never made a pie before, and so maybe I should have like, rolled out the crust and the like, but this turned out good. You want to keep an eye on it because mine turned out a little burnt. It tasted more like a coffee cake than anything because the crust had that texture and the filling ended up smooshed down.

Adapted from Group Recipes
Papple Pie

8 pears, sliced*
½ a lemon’s juice
1 lemon’s zest
½ cup white sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tbls cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
¼ cup flour
Pie crust recipe plus cinnamon, doubled

Preheat oven to 350. Spread bottom crust out, combine all other ingredients in bowl for filling that toss into pie pan. Spread half of curst dough out on top of pie, make holes for venting. Cook for 50 minutes. I let mine sit for a day before serving to le tthe flavors settle, and served with ice cream.

*The recipe calls for peeled pears, but I honestly like to leave the peel on most things I eat

Good morning Baltimore!

My eldest sister came home from Baltimore recently, and was thoughtful enough to bring me back some Old Bay spice. To celebrate her return, I stayed home and made crab cakes while she went out with her boyfriend. Keep in mind that prior to this night I had never seen a crab cake, much less eaten one. But, there was a recipe on the box of the spice so I thought I might as well try. And I’m glad I did, the recipe makes enough for three and was delicious. Clearly, it is unreasonable to expect everyone to have an obscure brand of seasoning on hand, and this seems to be a combination of celery salt, red pepper, black pepper, and paprika. The recipe calls for parsley flakes, but we only had a little so I mostly used dried basil.

Adapted from the Old Bay box
Crab Cakes

2 slices bread, un-toasted
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tsp Old Bay seasoning
2 tsp parsley flakes
1 egg beaten
1 lb crab meat
½ tsp Dijon mustard

Break bread into small pieces, or get someone to do it for you (as seen below). Combine in bowl with everything but crab. Stir in the crab meat (I used one can and didn’t actually weight it), and shape into small patties about 1.5 inches in diameter. Place on baking sheet, un-greased, like your making cookies, and broil for 10 minutes. We served it with corn and I’d recommend tartar or cocktail sauce.

I have no idea if these are what crab cakes are supposed to be like, but I do know they were good.

Not so tarty tarts

I’ve been busy moving (into my parent’s basement like every successful cliché) and unpacking so haven’t had a chance to post this yet. The recipe title for this was a Brandy Tart, but it much more resembled a not crumbly coffee cake to me. Good, just not super dessert tasting. The recipe calls for mextaxa or other good Brandy, and we used Christian Brothers Brandy so whatever you have around (or if you’re under aged like me, can get people to buy for you) should work fine.

I lucked out with my family; my Uncle married a very nice woman who has very nice parents who are amazing Greek cooks. Every Thanksgiving we have normal Thanksgiving and then Greek Thanksgiving. This recipe comes from their wonderful cookbook.


Adapted from Papas' Art of Traditional Greek Cooking
Brandy Tart

5 eggs, separated
½ cup sugar
½ cup brandy
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
½ tsp pure almond extract
1 cup farina
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
1 cup sliced almonds

Beat the egg whites in an electric mixer until stiff. In a separate bowl beat egg yolks and sugar until fluffy. Add the brandy, vanilla, and almond extract and beat for an additional two minutes. Add farina, baking powder, cinnamon, clove and almonds together, then slowly fold in the egg whites a little at a time with a rubber spatula. Slowly add this to the brandy mixture. Butter a ten inch spring form pan (I used a normal 8 inch pan), and pour in the batter, spread evenly. Cook for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.


One of the suggestions the book gave (that I didn’t follow but sounds pretty damn good) was pouring basic syrup on top as a sort of glaze. I’m including the recipe here so you can try it out. It would also be good with ice cream I think, but then again I think everything would be good with ice cream.

Basic Syrup

4 cups water
8 cups sugar
½ cup fresh lemon juice
2 oranges cut in half
2 lemons cut in half
2 cinnamon sticks
1 cup honey

Add everything but honey, and bring to a rapid boil. Continue to boil until thickened, about 20 minutes. Remove pan from heat and remove cinnamon sticks, orange halves, and lemon halves. Add the honey and stir well. Refrigerate to cool completely for later use.

Happy Birthday Cupcakes!

Let me preface this: mixed reviews. As in some people thought that these were delicious, and some people were not big fans, and no one really asked for more than one, so on the whole, pretty average. Better when they first came out, and I think I paired the wrong sort of frosting with them so I’d either eat them as sweet muffins, or use a butter cream, so I’m not including the frosting recipe.

However, they were pretty adorable cupcakes, and I made them for my friend Ilana’s birthday (23!), even though she requested chocolate. Which, upon reflection probably makes me not the greatest friend, but I should get an ‘A’ for effort considering I foraged these raspberries. And that is illegal, according to a nice police office I chatted with hours after the fact. But you know, good to know. Anyways, all the recipes I found had jam in them and I wanted to use real fruit so that was something, and I very loosely based it off this recipe.

Adapted from We Are Not Martha

Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes
Makes 22

1 ¼ sticks butter
2 eggs
1 ¼ cup self rising flour
½ cup lemon juice
1 ½ cup raspberries
1 ½ cup powdered sugar

Beat butter (softened) and powdered sugar together until it is a fluffy. As a first warning, this is the weirdest batter, it is just so fluffy and light and I felt like I had beat egg whites and not made a batter. Then add in eggs, then flour and lemon juice slowly. Now, beat in softly by hand raspberries. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and spoon batter into cupcake/muffin pan. Mine needed to cook about 28 minutes, but the original only suggests 23 so keep an eye on them.

Not Marina Sauce

So this was meant to be a sauce, only it was not very saucy. Still delicious and served with some plums that I foraged. Maybe slightly unethically, but hey, they were not picking them. Anyways, if you wanted to turn this into a sauce you could probably just add some tomato paste to thicken it up. Also, this is a little mushroom heavy which makes me ridiculously happy, but my dinner guest didn’t like mushrooms. My bad.

Faux Marina Sauce
Serves 3 and a half

8 white mushrooms
2 tomatoes
1 teaspoon garlic
2 cups coarsely chopped spinach
Handful of fresh oregano and basil leaves
1 piece bread
1 walla walla onion

Mozzerella cheese for topping

Take out a pot, and put in the diced tomatoes and sliced mushrooms, diced onion, and all ingredients but bread. Garlic should be minced and is about two cloves worth. Turn on stove medium heat and cover, make sure you stir it a lot. It may seem tempting to add liquid considering that there is none, but resist the urge. The juice from all vegetables will come out soon. Put piece of bread in toaster. Then chop into smaller pieces and add into mixture 30 minutes in. I cooked mine for about 45minutes which seemed to do the trick, but cook until the vegetables are as tender as you want them. Serve over spaghetti noodles. Sprinkly a little cheese on top, and viola!

As a side note, it always amazes me how much spinach shrinks when cooked. It is sort of like a magic trick.

Baked Salmon (with milk?)

My tomato plant may have only produced one tomato, but it is glorious. And homegrown, and I may have left it on the vine a touch too long. So I bought another salmon fillet because it was ridiculously cheap and I’m a bit of an impulse buyer, and decided that to spice things up I’d bake it this time. After laying down a sheet of foil in my shallow baking pan, I then reflected that I had no idea for how hot or how long one is supposed to bake a salmon. A quick google search turned up a recipe with…milk?

Not one to shy away from experimental cooking, I went ahead and used milk along with a heaping of vegetables (spinach would have been good with this, and it’d be excellent served with wild rice) and the result? A pretty excellently textured salmon. I’m not sure if the milk steamed it or just kept it moist, but I didn’t taste a difference.

Lightly adapted from Cooks.com
Baked Salmon
Serves one

1 small salmon fillet
4 leaves fresh basil
¼ cup cut corn
3 white mushrooms
1 medium tomato
1 clove garlic, pressed
Salt to taste
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 30 degrees. Line a shallow baking ban with foil, place fillet skin side down on foil. Cover with chopped basil, garlic, and all various vegetables, then pour over 1/3 cup milk and salt to taste. Bake for 30 minutes, or until salmon skin is light pink (my tomato was the color of uncooked salmon, not helpful). Serve without the milk juices.

Bell Peppers stuffed

At a local grocery store down in Kent the other day, I spotted a rarity. A purple pepper. Having previously exclaimed my love for the color, you can imagine that I went and bought one (it tastes like all other bell peppers, closest to red I’d say), and since my friend was coming over to cook I decided to combine the two occasions. Stuffed Peppers Granted, by the end the peppers were pretty weak and not the best containers, and the filling wasn’t as flavorful as I’d have like (bread crumbs would have been a good edition as would mushrooms) but it was tasty and filling and though this recipe makes two there was still leftovers.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

½ cup brown rice or some sort of grain
½ large onion (I used walla walla)
¾ cup fresh spinach
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 bell peppers
Mozzarella cheese
1 ½ cup water
1 small tomato
Spices to preference

Brown rice/grain, diced onion, diced tomato, minced garlic, and ½ of a bell pepper diced in a saucepan with olive oil. After 3-5 minutes add in water and cook rice/grain per directed (I simmered mine for 45 minutes covered). Once 20 minutes are left place bell peppers deviened and open on top in oven on sides, turn every five minutes. When there is only 15 minutes left add in the spinach and spices, I put in some fresh basil leaves, thyme, savory, and oregano, but many other combos would work as well. Once the mixture is cooked spoon it into upright standing bell peppers (though mine were more than a little tipsy), place some mozzarella slices on it, and let cook eight more minutes.