Bacon Balsamic Braised Brussels Sprouts

As my favorite at-home personal fitness guru* Tony Horton would say, man oh Manischewitz. These sprouts will be the end of you wanting to eat anything else. Really. I've made them twice this week already—and I'm in the middle of finals, I don't really have the time to make anything, especially a braise.

You know how there are some things that you enjoy now, as a grown up, that you couldn't imagine enjoying when you were a kid? Like: long conversations and long drives—simultaneously, or not. Or: documentaries. Museums with old things in them. Concerts where the musicians are sitting down and the audience doesn't dance. Yet, now, as bona fide adults, these things are enjoyable, maybe even so enjoyable that they are some of our favorite things. Unthinkable, yet entirely true.

Had I encountered these brussels sprouts in my youth,** I most likely wouldn't have touched them. But now I can't get enough. Want to know why? Because they have everything: the slightly bitter taste of the sprouts, the crusty texture of the breadcrumbs, bacon, the vinegariness of the vinegar. I used smoked bacon and, combined with the balsamic, there is a definite resemblance to barbecue sauce—but even if you're one of those people that doesn't like barbecue sauce, you're going to like this. It makes your house smell good, it satisfies the winter need to eat something hearty, it makes you feel good about eating a vegetable, it makes you feel good about eating bacon.

I link back to Smitten Kitchen so much here that it feels ridiculous, but guess where the recipe came from? Yes.

My changes to the recipe were these:

• Panko instead of regular breadcrumbs. I think it gives more exciting texture.
• Bacon instead of pancetta, for budgetary reasons. Tucsonans: 17th Street Market sells ends of uncured, applewood smoked bacon for cheap. Since it's not in slices, it keeps you from just eating a lot of bacon straight, but since you have it in your kitchen you end up cooking a lot with bacon.
  
• The second time I made it I added a few tablespoons of...anchovies! The result was subtle, but more saltiness.
  

Look at how excited my polar bear potholder is about these sprouts! Also surprised about their deliciousness! You should be too!

*Not kidding.
**I actually encountered no brussels sprouts in my youth despite the, you know, Belgianness. Also unthinkable, yet entirely true.

White Bean and Chicken Soup with Salsa Verde

Mariana -- you and I have recently had some chats about complaining. In order to recap for those who haven't been privy to our conversations, complaining isn't good. But we do it anyway, even (perhaps especially) when we are trying to restrain ourselves. And we might even enjoy it -- correct me if I'm inadvertently misrepresenting our conversations. My personal, possibly all-time favorite, subject to complain about is the weather, specifically the cold weather. Having grown up in Arizona that means anything below 60 degrees. Truthfully, weather is one of the worst topics to complain about though, it is cliched and most of all boring -- if you are going to complain, I suppose it should be about something fun and gossipy.

What does any of this have to do with food? Not a lot, except this soup with chicken and white beans makes the cold weather just a little bit better and makes me want to complain just a little less. It's easy, spicy, and delicious. AND despite using pre-made ingredients (i.e. salsa verde and chicken broth) it tastes fresh. In my opinion what elevates this to delicious as opposed to plain tasty are the toppings -- jalapeno, cilantro, avocado slices, a splash of lime juice and some plain yogurt -- all contribute to the "freshness" and complexity of the soup. Though this soup is more "southwestern-style" than Mexican, it reminds me of a friend I had while living in Mexico. This friend claimed that Mexican cooking is all about the "accessories" -- the sauces, toppings, and other little additions. And while I'm not prepared to stand behind this statement 100%, it is certainly true for this soup that the accessories make it awesome.

White Bean and Chicken Soup with Salsa Verde

I adapted this recipe from one of my mom's and I encourage you to fiddle around with it as well -- for example, onions and radishes would also make lovely toppings.

Ingredients

Soup

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 12-oz jar of salsa verde
• 3 cups cooked chicken pieces
• 1, 15-0z can of cannellini beans, drained
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 cup cilantro
  

Garnish

• sliced avocado
• plain yogurt
• jalapeno, finely chopped
• cilantro, finely chopped
• 1 lime

Saute the chopped onion in a large sauce pan until translucent. Add the salsa verde and cook 2 minutes over medium heat. Next add the broth, chicken, beans and cumin. Bring to boil, then simmer for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. About 2 minutes before removing the soup from the heat, add the cilantro. Remove from heat and serve, garnishing each bowl individually to your personal taste.

Cranberry vanilla sorbet

I think everybody loves to eat pie, but not everybody can eat pie, and that's a tragedy, especially on Thanksgiving. Somebody like that came to our Thanksgiving—no wheat, no dairy—and I wasn't even considering making some sort of no-butter, rice flour pie crust (is such a thing possible?), and so I made this beautiful cranberry vanilla sorbet, which I found here.

But! It gets better! Not only was the dessert food allergy-friendly, it was also chemist-friendly! Yes! As you know, as do others, my mother is a chemist and, of the total of 12 people that came to Thanksgiving, she invited not one, but two, chemists. Yes! One quarter of our Thanksgiving crowd were chemists! Nerd alert! And most of the rest of the crowd was under 32 and not-chemists. How to bridge the gap? I know!: Let the chemists show off a bit and marvel at something that seems magical to a regular person. Enter: invert sugar.

That's what it looks like and you make it. It's like having your very own personal Mr. Wizard show in your kitchen. What does it do? It makes your sorbet smooth and creamy and it will never freeze super-hard and will always be scoopable—it makes your sorbet blow its own mind.

But what is it, really? We had several explanations about it over the course of our dinner, one read verbatim from a textbook, and this is what my mother neatly summarizes for our blogging pleasure:

Table sugar is sucrose, which is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose. When sucrose is heated in water in slightly acidic conditions (tartaric acid), it splits into the glucose and fructose molecules. The mixture does not crystallize as easily. The name "invert" comes from the fact that sucrose rotates polarized light at a positive angle (α = 66º), while the mixture of glucose and fructose rotates it at a negative angle (α = -22º).

Got it? Ready for a test about that? The part I understand is "The mixture does not crystallize as easily." Truest fact ever.

Invert sugar —so scientific, so super-easy

1 1/2 c. water
1 1/2 c. white sugar
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar (this is the acid that will rock the sugar molecule's world)

Simmer all these things together for 30 minutes, then let cool.

Cranberry vanilla sorbet with invert sugar

12 oz. fresh cranberries
1 batch invert sugar
1 c. water
1/2 tsp. salt
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise with seeds scraped out
1/4 c. lemon juice

In a heavy pot over medium heat, bring the berries, water, invert sugar, salt, vanilla bean seeds, and vanilla bean to a boil.

Reduce to low heat, simmer until all the berries pop, about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Remove the vanilla bean. Puree the mixture. Strain and stir in lemon juice. Chill for a few hours, or overnight.

Put it in your ice cream maker! Ice cream make it!

The sorbet is nice because it's tart like cranberries, but very mellowed out by the vanilla and not too sweet. And the invert sugar—I don't think I need to say anything more about it.

Sweet potato gnocchi

So, one of the secrets that I accidentally end up telling more people than I'd like (case in point) is that I subscribe to, and read, Gwyneth Paltrow's newsletter, GOOP. The thing about GOOP is that the title always seems to be yelling at you: GOOP. DO. GET. BE. (I am!) MAKE. Most of the time it makes me wish Gwyneth Paltrow would stop yelling at me.

I don't always read GOOP closely and I hardly ever take GOOP seriously, but this year's Thanksgiving newsletter was full of things that regular humans can do. For example, I sent the slow-roasted turkey recipe to my mother who wanted a spatchcocked turkey but has, in the past, spatchcocked a turkey herself, didn't want to do it again, but then the grocery store where she bought this year's turkey didn't want to do it either. For myself, I found the Sweet Potato Gnocchi recipe and this coincided with a desire to make gnocchi that I've been having for a few months. And so began my adventure.


The original recipe is available here. You would think I would think that I was being silly enough by just following a GOOP recipe, but I made myself even sillier and didn't quite follow the quantities. So my version makes a ridiculous amount of gnocchi, as you will see.

I'd recommend taking some breaks in between stages. Otherwise you might go crazy. I also recommend being in a mood to spend a LOT of time doing this.

Sweet potato gnocchi
Adapted from GOOP MAKE

4 large sweet potatoes—not yams
2-4 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp oregano
2 large baking potatoes
2 eggs, beaten
3-4 c. white flour, and then more
2-4 tsp. salt

Stage 1: Potato-cooking

Put your oven at 375º. Peel the sweet potatoes and then cut into 1-inch chunks. Toss with olive oil, pepper flakes, and oregano. Put in a baking dish, cover with aluminum foil, and roast for 20-30 minutes, until they're soft.

Boil the baking potatoes in a large pot until soft, 30-40 minutes.

Stage 2: Dough-making

Peel the baking potatoes and cut into chunks.

Puree the potatoes together. This can be done with a food mill, which I don't have, or a food processor, which I do. Be serious about not having chunks and really pureeing to smoothness because chunks ruin the shape of the gnocchi and make the shaping process more difficult. Trust me, I made this mistake already.

Transfer puree to a very, very big bowl. This bowl cannot be too big. Stir in the beaten eggs.

Then, gradually add flour by the cupful. You'll start with a wooden spoon and this will get difficult, so you'll switch to your hands and here begins a giant mess.

I added flour until the dough became very thick and wouldn't let clumps of itself go easily. Such as, I would lift a wooden spoonful of the dough from the bowl and had to lift it rather high for the spoonful to disengage from the bowlful. It looked like this:

Step three: Gnocchi-making

Clear a large space on your counter and have a cookie sheet covered in flour next to you, ready for the shaped gnocchi. Have a dishtowel near too, to cover the gnocchi.

Put lots of flour on your counter and drop a spoonful of dough onto it. Roll into a log about 3/4" in diameter. Cut into 1" sections. It should look like this:

Adorable, right? The dough should be sticky, but then it gets covered by the flour and becomes surprisingly easy to roll into a log. If this isn't happening, you probably don't have the right amount of flour in your dough. It shouldn't be falling apart, and it should be dense when you cut it into the individual gnocchi. If you've made pasta before, it should seem more like the texture of that pasta than of a bunch of pureed potatoes.

Step four: Gnocchi-cooking

Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil. Drop gnocchi in, cook 4-5 minutes. They should float and not fall apart:


I was surprised when my gnocchi didn't disintegrate in the boiling water. If you're afraid of this happening to you—which maybe you should be? it seems like a reasonable fear—boil some gnocchi before you've finished making them all so that you can fix the dough if it needs some fixing.

Here's the set-up I had: two pots of water going, lots of gnocchi to boil:


And here's how much gnocchi it made:


And here's what happens when you boil gnocchi too long (i.e., longer than 5 minutes)—they start falling apart and then clump together:


But here are successful gnocchi!


The other thing about these, besides being gorgeous dumplings of goodness, is that they are, in fact, quite delicious. Because they're made with sweet potatoes and have seasonings in them, they're pretty flavorful. I would make them again, maybe in three years.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm not sure about everyone else, but three hours post dinner I'm totally stuffed and borderline incapable of forming coherent sentences.  It's possible I'm a bit delirious.  AND I'm trying to convince myself to wake up for an early morning jog/walk (this might be the delirium).  Ah, Thanksgiving.

I'm super curious about your Thanksgiving dinner -- what did you make?  Do you have any special traditions?  I usually try new things each year and this time around was no exception.  I prepared tiny little stuffed pumpkins:

Yum.  I got the recipe from here and basically followed the guidelines which call for blue cheese and bread and fresh nutmeg, though I added caramelized onions.  I also made, per my mom's request, an apple cranberry pie from Cook's Illustrated:

The recipe for this pie, which involves distinct layers of apple and cranberry can be found here.  Finally,  I made some salt and vinegar mashed potatoes, this time around using goat cheese as the main dairy component. 

 I hope everyone had an awesome and delicious day.  My brother also says Happy Thanksgiving: 

(as he hones his autopsy skills)

Roasted garlic

I love garlic big time, and roasted garlic a little bit more. It's great for so many reasons: it's easy! It makes you feel fancy! It makes your house smell delicious! You can make a lot all at once! It's so easy that there's not really anything to write about it—and yet it feels like there should be a lot because it's so fantastic. So, just make it. You'll be happy.

Roasted garlic

6-10 heads of garlic olive oil
fresh thyme—optional. Rosemary would be great too.
salt, pepper

Put your oven to 325º.

Cut off the tops of the heads of garlic and peel away any extra skin(s). Put them in a baking dish, drizzle each one with a little olive oil, sprinkle thyme, salt, and pepper over them.

Fill baking dish with water until it goes halfway up the dish. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake 1 hour, or more, until garlic is soft and squishy. Done and done.

Cinnamon sugar cookies

I found this recipe in Cooking Light, back when I used to live with my parents. I tell you this to let you know that my love for this recipe is strong and incredibly true and has been going on for a looooong time. I love cinnamon sugar maybe more than any other flavor combination that is associated with dessert and I love the texture of these because they're crackly and crispy around the edges and chewy in the middle. And when I make them, I eat them all in a surprisingly short amount of time compared to how many cookies the recipe makes (it makes many). Sometimes I try to trick myself by putting some in the freezer—but they are also delicious straight out of the freezer, or quickly warmed up in the microwave. They are delicious dipped in coffee, they are fantastic by themselves, and especially right out of the oven.

The other thing is that if, by some crazy circumstance, you find yourself not wanting to eat cinnamon and sugar, these are also delicious, and slightly more sophisticated, slightly less Cinnamon Toast Crunch, with cardamom. Keep it in mind.

Are these snickerdoodles? Excellent question. I think snickerdoodle dough generally has cream of tartar in it and the finished cookie has a more uniform texture. But you could call them snickerdoodles and nobody would correct you, not even me.

Cinnamon sugar cookies

1 c. sugar
6 tbsp. butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp. light corn syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon or cardamom
1/4 tsp. salt
cinnamon-sugar or cardamom-sugar mixture to coat the cookies

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Once that's fluffy and light in color, add the corn syrup, vanilla, and egg. Beat 3 minutes.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon/cardamom, and salt.

Add dry ingredients to butter ingredients. Mix until combined. Let chill 1 hour, or more.

After the hour, set oven to 375º.

Make small balls of cookie dough (small as if a quarter were a sphere instead of a disc), roll it in the cinnamon-sugar mixture, and put on greased baking sheet, like so:

Bake 10 minutes for chewy cookies, 12 minutes for less chewy.