Bananas Foster Tart Tatin

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Alisa

My mom and dad got me an awesome tart tatin pan for my birthday this year and I couldn’t wait to use it. I had a recipe from Martha Stewart saved on my phone for the longest time and hadn’t gotten around to making it, but when I received this pan in the mail and looked at my five mysteriously mushy bananas on my counter, I knew what had to be done. Okay, so the mysteriously mushy bananas – I bought a perfectly yellow, no bruise bunch that were on the top of the pile, and a day later, I went to cut up one for Olive and they felt like bags full of jelly. ALL OF THEM. Still perfectly yellow, still no bruises, but all mush. What in the world?! I thought maybe since I’d put them beside tomatoes, that maybe the gasses from the tomatoes instantly ripened the bananas? So a day later, I bought another bunch and put one banana with the tomatoes and the rest far away from them and the banana that was with the tomatoes was fine. So, the mystery remains. Maybe they were on the bottom of the truck since they were on the top of the pile!

Despite their mushy texture, the bananas worked out perfectly for this recipe and I was glad to be able to use them. The French love their tart tatins. They basically do it with every fruit in season. And my theory is that the French use fancy terms to make ordinary dishes sound fancy. Like tartines. Tartines are various toppings on toast. That’s it. Some might call it bruschetta, some call it toast. It’s all the same. Or how about this tart tatin? Yeah, it’s an upside down cake/tart. They typically use puff pastry instead of cake batter, so the result is a crispy, almost turnover texture with caramelized fruit on the top. It’s a wonderful way to use up old fruit and to do something really simple in a hurry for guests. And you should always keep frozen puff pastry on hand. It’s a freezer staple for me. You can use it in so many ways from topping little strips with shredded cheese or sausage or peppers for an instant appetizer to using it as a base for a cobbler, strawberry shortcake or whatever you can dream up!

Bananas Foster Tart Tatin*
serves 8

All-purpose flour, for work surface
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 large ripe bananas, peeled, halved lengthwise
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons dark rum
1 cup creme fraiche, for serving

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out pastry on a lightly floured work surface to a 13 1/2-inch square. Using a large skillet as a guide, cut out a 12-inch round. Transfer pastry round to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes. Make three 1/2-inch slits in center of round; set pastry aside at room temperature.

Melt butter in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Cook, swirling skillet occasionally, until mixture turns medium amber, about 3 minutes.

Arrange bananas in skillet, overlapping slightly. Cook, without stirring, 3 minutes. Drizzle vanilla and rum over bananas, and cook until most of the rum has evaporated and liquid has thickened, about 1 1/2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Place pastry round on top of bananas, and transfer to oven. Bake until pastry is golden brown and puffed, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven, and carefully invert the tart onto a serving plate. Whisk creme fraiche until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Serve dessert warm or at room temperature with the creme fraiche.

*I didn’t adapt this Martha Stewart recipe at all, except that my tatin pan was 9″ instead of the 12 the recipe calls for. I didn’t have too many bananas – it worked out perfectly.

You Only Get One Night

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Alisa

This post won’t have a recipe. It’s about one night that we spent with our friends in Seattle this summer when we went on our big adventure. This was our first full day exploring Seattle with our friends. Little did we know the day before that Rod’s mother would pass away and he and Jill would have to abruptly alter their year-long travel plans and drive home the next day. We had planned on enjoying another full week with our traveling companions and that week was reduced to just a few hours. We asked them what they’d like to do on their first and last night in Seattle and we all agreed that having a crab boil on the beach in Bainbridge Island where our hosts, the Ware family, lives, would be the best way to enjoy each others’ company and make some lasting memories for everyone and for Rod and Jill who would be going home the next day.
So we packed up all the needed supplies and we drove down to the beach. We played in the sand and watched Ollie girl experience the ocean and sand between her toes for the first time.
There were long conversations sitting on logs overlooking the water and the amazing view of Mt. Rainier in the background with the glorious pink moon that was settling on the water as a backdrop for our meal together.

Mount Rainier and the rising moon in the same shot. An other-worldly experience.
We brought live crabs and potatoes, corn and sausages and got our water to boiling and while everything simmered, we played in the fading light of a very long and adventure-packed day.
It was one of those nights you read about in books written about summertime. It was like one giant cliche for how you’re supposed to spend your summer. I’d never had the opportunity to do anything like it, being from a place where there’s no water in sight for miles. And our lovely hosts knew exactly what to do to arrange a beautiful trip for us, and through their giving and sacrificing spirit, we had the time of our lives. The whole trip, not just this night, was a dream!

I had my first oyster – a briny, creamy and amazingly flavorful little creature that I will admit, I wasn’t sure if I loved or hated. It gave me shivers – whatever that means. But I’m glad in THAT place with THOSE people, that I tried something new and didn’t hold back from the experience.

Because, you see, you only get one night.

This evening is the last evening you’ll get to spend with the people you love. It’s the last meal you will enjoy and it’s the last evening of doing whatever it is that you love with whomever you love most. I’m not trying to be morbid, I just realize with new clarity that we are not guaranteed tomorrow and so today, tonight, this present moment is all we have. How often we spend our days planning for tomorrow. How often we waste our moments fretting about the past, what our lives should have been or could have been. And every moment we do that is a moment wasted and gone forever. Today is it. You survived the night – how will you celebrate that fact today?

The meal was amazing and we were salty and smelled like the sea from head to toe when we all piled back into the cars to go home. I got to spend that night with some of my favorite people in the world and I’m glad that Rod and Jill got to experience such a perfect moment before having to cut their trip short to go home and deal with much more serious matters. We snapped this picture right before we lost the light and I think it’s one of my favorite pictures from the trip. I am forever grateful to the Wares for sharing their home, their beach and their city with us. I think we spent our “one night” very well and I can say that I had no regrets or “should haves” on this trip.

Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Cinnamon Rolls

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Alisa

RECIPE UPDATED! I made some changes and they’re even better, now! Go make these, QUICK!

For the South Plains Fair this year, I decided to enter the cinnamon roll category, if for no other reason than to de-throne my friend, Rod from his previous win in the category. A little healthy rivalry makes everything more fun and I KNOW his are amazing. But in the night, right before drifting off, I came up with what I figured would be a wonderful way to make the filling for the cinnamon rolls and the icing. The dough, I figured, could be altered to fit in with the rest. So I got kind of excited to embark on the process and after killing the yeast in my dough from boiling hot butter in the first round, I ended up with a good second batch of dough and proceeded with the plan! I think the secret to anything truly delicious in a baked good is butter. And I figure everyone knows, but in case you don’t, browned butter is the goodness of butter x 1,000,000. So at every turn, I turned the butter into browned butter and I formed a paste with the filling instead of doing the traditional method of smearing on a lot of butter and then dumping sugar and cinnamon, which, when rolled up and cut, inevitably dumps out a little on your cutting board.

The paste. was. genius. I’m not even going to act humble about this. I browned the butter with two vanilla beans that were split (holy mother that was a great smell) and once browned, I combined the sugar and a little less cinnamon than the original recipe called for and formed this amazing smelling liquid that I let firm up in the fridge a bit so that it would harden up enough to be spread like jam instead of being liquid. It made the filling so incredibly easy to get perfectly uniform so that each cinnamon roll had exactly the same amount of filling.

And then…The Icing. I’m definitely not one of those people who says something is “too sweet” when it comes to desserts. Desserts are supposed to be sweet. However, the traditional powdered sugar and milk icings for cinnamon rolls can be just SUGAR and nothing else and I thought a cream cheese icing would be too strong a flavor for the delicate brown butter and vanilla beans. So I used heavy cream, milk, powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste (so it would be pretty and flecked) and THEN I gradually added tiny pinches of kosher salt and stirred after each addition, until the edge of the sweetness was taken off and it was perfect. I will henceforth salt all my icings. Just a bit – it MATTERS! I was amazed at how good these turned out and….

TA-DA! Blue Ribbon! I was quite giddy!

And then sad, because my husbands absolutely perfect bread didn’t place and my thoughts were that it was too sophisticated and the fair is a veritable sugar bomb. I think it just depends on what you respect when it comes to traditional bread, and Matt is a purest. 4 or 5 ingredients at the most. This guy is the most amazing baker I know! Anyone can make a good bread if it’s slathered in sugar and butter, but only a true baker can make a bread SING with only 4 ingredients.
These were our submissions – Matt submitted his biscuits, baguette and traditional boule. All perfect and the best I’ve tried, but sometimes in a sea of bundt cakes and chocolate sugar loaves, plain bread doesn’t get noticed. A shame, really.

Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Cinnamon Rolls with Vanilla Cream Icing
makes about 16 rolls, depending on how thick you slice them

For the Dough:

1 cup whole milk
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (bread machine yeast
1/4 cup sugar
4 TBS unsalted butter, browned and cooled
2 large egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 3/4 cups AP flour
3/4 tsp salt

For the Filling:
12 TBS unsalted butter, browned with two split vanilla beans
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 TBS cinnamon

For the Icing:
1 heaping cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2-3 TBS whole milk
a few pinches of kosher salt

Make your Filling first! Brown the butter in a large, stainless steel skillet (non stick you can’t see the butter browning) with the split vanilla beans, mushing them around as they warm up to release their seeds. Once browned, remove from heat and stir in your sugar until fully incorporated. Then add in the cinnamon, stirring to combine. You can do this a day in advance – you want this paste to be slightly firmed up so put it in the fridge and stir it once in a while until it’s the consistency of wet sand.

For the dough: brown your butter on the stove by swirling it around in the pan over medium heat until solids begin to form at the bottom and it’s giving off a nutty aroma. Remove from heat and place in a medium bowl and let it cool for a few minutes. Once cooled (about 5 minutes), add the milk, the egg yolks and vanilla paste. Whisk to combine. Then whisk in the yeast.
Whisk the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk mixture. Mix on low speed with a dough hook until thick and slightly sticky. Knead on medium speed until the dough gathers around the hook, adding up to 2 more tablespoons of flour to get a nice, smooth texture. Don’t beat it to death.

Remove the dough and shape into a ball. Butter the mixing bowl and return the dough to the bowl, turning to coat in the butter. Cover with a towel and put it in a warmish place (like on your dryer) for a couple hours until doubled in size. This is a pretty slow-rising dough. Don’t lose hope.

Roll out the dough on a floured work surface to a shape of about 10″ x 16″ (about 1/4″ thick all around). Now comes the fun part! Spread your filling all over the dough with an offset spatula until completely covered, leaving about 1/4″ all around clean for ease of rolling up the dough. Starting on the long side, roll the dough up tight and then slice about 1.5″ slices and arrange them on a buttered, double lined rimmed baking sheet (if you don’t have one, you can always stack pans together to form a double wall) and cover with loose plastic wrap and set in that same warm place to rise about an hour until doubled.

Preheat the oven to 325 and bake about 30 minutes, until golden brown (mine were done in about 28 min). Cool in the pan 15 minutes. Meanwhile, make the icing by adding the cream to the sugar in a bowl and whisking till smooth. Then add the vanilla and milk until a nice, smooth texture is achieved. Then, little by little, tasting along the way, add pinches of salt till it tastes right. I can’t really tell you how much I added. Probably two and a half pinches! Stir till fully incorporated and pour over the rolls!

Enjoy!

The Homegrown B.L.T. with a recipe for amazing mayo!

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Alisa

Every year we look forward to this. An entirely home-grown (or made) BLT! When we are fortunate enough to have a tomato crop, as we were this summer, the homemade BLT is the first thing in our minds to make. So when the tomatoes started looking like this:

…we knew it was time to assemble the ultimate sandwich. Matt cures pork belly and then smokes it in our electric smoker, I made the mayo, Matt made the bread and we grew the tomatoes, but sadly had no lettuce this year. So other than the lettuce, this was entirely from scratch! And what a good feeling. I think this is kind of like remembering how good the food was on vacation – most of the goodness came from the setting or the mood, or the fact that you didn’t have to cook. Similarly with this sandwich, the ingredients are certainly wonderful, but part of the joy is knowing that we worked for each component (minus the lettuce). We thoroughly enjoyed this sandwich and this moment and Olive deconstructed hers, discarded the impostor (lettuce) and ate the rest. She’s adoring these tomatoes, and I absolutely get giddy knowing that she likes tomatoes and that her first taste of tomatoes (besides tomato sauces) was out of our yard! She won’t remember, but I know we will.

For the recipes, I will post our mayo recipe and method, which is super easy and totally worth it for the huge flavor you get. I’ve posted Matt’s bread before, which is the bread we used for this (plus an addition of rosemary) and for the tomatoes, well, you’re probably too late to grow them yourself, but if you know someone who has an abundance, beg one off them and grab some good, thick-cut bacon and have yourself a BLT party!

Mayo (made with an immersion blender -might be my most used kitchen tool, next to my knife)

2 egg yolks
1.5 cups light oil like canola. I used a blend of canola and olive oil
1 TBS lemon juice
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard (or even dry would work)
Salt, pepper and a dash of cayenne and paprika for me!

Place the egg yolks in the bottom of a tall, wide cup (immersion blenders come with their own). Place all the other ingredients on top of the egg yolks and stick your immersion blender all the way down to the bottom. Turn it on the lower setting and start graaaaaaaaadddddddduuuuualllllly pulling the immersion blender up toward the surface of the oil. As you pull up, the oil will slowly become incorporated into the egg yolk/spice mixture and in about 45 seconds, you will have perfect mayo! It will keep two weeks in the fridge and I recommend slathering both sides of your bread and searing it on a griddle before assembling your sandwich. Hey, if you only eat a proper BLT once a year, make it a good one.

Citrus Cured Salmon

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Alisa

It’s Monday – time to scale back. Drink more water, take a walk after dinner. Eat lighter, eat simpler. Undo what might have been done over the weekend of eating out with friends, drinks with co-workers or quick meals eaten on the run out of paper bags. I am currently in a very scaled-back mindset. This blog obviously has the most popularity when I post sugar and flour concoctions (don’t worry, there’s plenty in the queue) but for this week, I’m going to write about simple, clean, mindfully healthy recipes that are also incredibly fulfilling and delicious.

Over the weekend I dipped into Michael Ruhlman’s cookbook, “Ruhlman’s Twenty” and tackled the citrus cured salmon. This is not the type of recipe that calls my name. I love cured salmon in the form of lox, but this type of do-it-from-scratch recipe is a direct influence of my husband. He has made me see the joy in cooking for cooking’s sake. Not just eating the food, but enjoying the process. I can honestly say I thought he was crazy when I first heard him say, “I don’t even need to eat what I made, as long as I taste it and see that it came out well, I can move on.” I used to think this was ridiculous because I used to be a quantity over quality type eater. I used to think more was more. More mediocre food is better than less high-quality food. This is a mindset of an over-eater. As Matt taught me the joy of the process of cooking, I began to see what he meant. Just tasting that something you spent hours making came out well is beginning to be enough of a pay-off for me. And when you don’t eat as much, you have more to share. Which puts you in the middle of what food should be: communal.

I know what you’re thinking: this stuff is pretty easy to buy in the store. However, I never want to buy it because how old is that fish, anyway? And where did it come from? All these questions are answered simply if you just do it yourself. So, we bought a pound of salmon from the fresh fish counter, I grated lots and lots of zest and dumped kosher salt on it. 24 hours later – perfectly cured salmon with a HUGE citrus flavor. Amazing with cream cheese and capers and diced shallots on top of Matt’s homemade, toasted bread. This is eating simply and without regret!

Happy Zesty Monday.

Citrus Cured Salmon*

1.5 lb salmon filet
1 tsp orange zest
2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp lime zest
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar

In a small bowl, combine the salt and sugar and stir to distribute the sugar throughout the salt. In another bowl, combine the citrus zests. (Buy a Microplane.)

Lay a sheet of aluminum foil large enough to extend beyond the length of the salmon. Spread a third of the salt mixture in the center of the foil to serve as a bed for the salmon. Place the salmon skin-side down on the salt. Distribute the zest evenly across the salmon. Pour the remaining salt mixture over the salmon. It should be covered. Fold the foil up to contain the salt. Place another sheet of foil over the salmon and crimp the sheets together firmly. The idea is to have a tight package in which the salt mixture is in contact with all surfaces of the salmon.

Set the foil package on a baking sheet. Set another baking sheet or dish on top of the salmon and weight it down with a brick or a few cans from your pantry. This will help press the water out of the salmon as it cures. Refrigerate the salmon for 24 hours.

Unwrap the salmon and remove it from the cure, discarding the foil and the cure. Rinse the salmon and pat dry with paper towels. To remove the skin, place the salmon skin-side down on a cutting board. Holding a sharp, thin, flexible knife at about a 30-degree angle, cut between the flesh and the skin. When you can get a grip on the skin, pull it back and forth against the knife to separate it from the flesh. Set the salmon on a rack or on paper towels on a tray and refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours, to allow the salt concentration to equalize and to dry the salmon out further. Wrap the salmon in parchment and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Serve sliced extremely thin on crackers, bagels, or with scrambled eggs for a hearty breakfast – the options are up to your tastes!

*adapted from Rhulman’s book in that we could only find 1.5lb filets of salmon and his recipe called for 2-3lbs.

Espresso Chocolate Cake with Cinnamon Cream

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Alisa

I’m a pretty big fan of the combination of chocolate and cinnamon. They compliment each other so well in baked goods and the combination nearly exudes warmth. This flourless indulgence boasts the rich flavors of espresso, as well. And if there’s anything the first year of motherhood has taught me, it’s that coffee is from the Good Lord. Chocolate is, as well, but coffee has really become a friend in need this year. Together, they have become our go-to desserts. This cake should be enjoyed with coffee if you are into that kind of supreme happiness. The original recipe doesn’t call for cinnamon, but lately I’ve been adding it to just about everything including the fresh whipped cream I made for this cake. I put more cinnamon than I thought I should and it turned out perfect. And then I sprinkled it with cinnamon. Maybe I have a deficiency?

Either way – try this cake. And don’t leave out the whipped cream. It was extra special. Happy weekend and happy baking!

Flourless Espresso Chocolate Cake with Cinnamon Cream*
makes one, 9″ round cake

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for cake pan
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, preferably 70 percent cacao, chopped
6 large eggs, separated, room temperature
1 cup sugar, divided
3 tablespoons instant-espresso powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups heavy cream
2 tbs cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter the sides and bottom of a springform pan. Melt butter and chocolate in a glass or other heat proof bowl in the microwave at 30 second increments until melting and stir together to fully melt and incorporate. Set aside.

Beat together egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar with a mixer on medium-high speed until thick and pale, about 3 minutes. Add espresso powder, 1 tsp cinnamon and salt; beat until combined, about 1 minute. Add vanilla and melted-chocolate mixture; beat about 1 minute more.

In another bowl, beat egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy. Increase speed to high; gradually add remaining 1/2 cup sugar, beating until stiff peaks form, about 5 minutes. Fold into chocolate mixture in 3 batches. Transfer batter to pan and bake until set, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cake cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Remove side of pan; transfer cake to a serving plate. Serve whipped cream alongside cake. To make the whipped cream, beat the heavy cream in a mixer on medium-high until soft peaks form. Sprinkle in the cinnamon and whip a little longer, but not too long – you want the cream to stay soft, not get clumpy (which happens from too much whipping.) Serve with coffee and be sure and save some for yourself for breakfast tomorrow!

*adapted from Martha Stewart Living

Cinnamon Oatmeal and Yogurt Pancakes

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Alisa

I don’t believe in labeling food as “healthy” or “not healthy.” I believe in good habits and bad habits. I think it’s a bad habit to eat lots of refined sugar and processed junk that lives in a box on a shelf on a daily basis. I think it’s a good habit to enjoy a totally sugar-laden cupcake once or twice a month and really enjoy the cuss out of it. I think it’s a bad habit to eat fast food multiple times a week. I think it’s a good habit to enjoy an amazing cheeseburger and fries on a weekend and have no regrets! I think it’s a bad habit to let kids snack between meals on junk like salty fish shaped crackers and candy posing as “fruit.” I think it’s a good habit to let your kids know what snack food is and that it is to be eaten once in a while and not every day and certainly not in place of a meal. Good habits and bad habits – to heck with worrying about good foods and bad foods or worrying that I’m bad for having refined flour and sugar in the house. If you really believe in the adage of “everything in moderation” you won’t run from these ingredients. You’ll just put them in their time and place.

Because of the awesome blog by Dina Rose that I read on a regular basis, I am coming more and more into the understanding of focusing on conquering habits instead of worrying about the nutrition of each individual meal I cook. I’ve developed a few habits I’m proud of and I’m working on changing the habits I’m not so proud to admit. A bad habit I’m working on is eliminating my “adult right” to snacking throughout the day. I have been bad about this in the past. A piece of chocolate here, a cracker and cheese or seven there…I don’t want Olive to grow up snacking between meals and having her around has really shed light on my bad habits for randomly and mindlessly eating. I’ve been tackling that problem this week and it’s getting easier and easier to wait till the next meal – just like I expect her to learn.

A good habit I really love is cooking a bit more indulgently on the weekends. This Saturday it was just us girls as Matt was somewhere in the Colorado wilderness hiking and eating freeze dried gravy. I love not camping. So for breakfast, before Olive woke up, I looked up a recipe for yogurt pancakes and modified the one I found to have cinnamon, oatmeal and a splash of sweetened milk I had in the fridge from the tres leches cakes I made a couple weeks ago. It was the best stack of pancakes I’ve ever made. They were wonderful. These pancakes are by no means “healthy” in that you should eat them all the time, but they are filled with good ingredients and that just adds a bonus to getting to dig into a stack of pancakes on a weekend. I topped them with banana slices and a bit of my favorite syrup – dark amber agave nectar (tastes like caramel) – and they were awesome. And filling. I threw the leftovers in the toaster this morning before church and they were magical all over again. Three cheers for refined flour weekends and learning good habits!

Cinnamon Oatmeal Pancakes
made about 8, 3 inch pancakes

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup plain yogurt
2 eggs
2 tbs melted butter
2 tbs milk or heavy cream or evaporated milk (I had leftover tres leches concoction in my fridge)

Heat a griddle or a non-stick frying pan over medium high heat. Combine all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Then, in a separate bowl, combine all the wet ingredients and whip up the eggs in the mixture until smooth. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and blend with a fork until fully incorporated. Spray the skillet with spray oil with each batch of pancakes and cook till browned on both edges, 2-3 minutes per side.

Serve with sliced bananas or peanut butter and syrup – whatever makes you happy!

Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches with Blue Cheese Slaw

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Alisa

In the Palmer house, we like to do things from scratch. Sometimes we even go so far as to make the contraption that makes the food (thank you, Alton Brown). But I would say our current favorite food-past time is eating a dish at a restaurant and saying, “I bet we could make a better version of this at home” and then going home and trying it out. One of our favorite restaurants here in town is Crafthouse Gastropub. They always have good brews on tap and they have a creative menu and generally execute things pretty well. Matt was really excited to try their buffalo chicken sandwich and had been anticipating it for a long time, but it fell kinda short when we finally had it. Maybe it was because we had this idea in our heads of what it would be and it wasn’t that way – sometimes you can really cheat a restaurant by doing this. The slaw was really wet and ran down his arm and pooled onto the plate. The chicken wasn’t “buffalo” enough and was also too big, so it was really hard to eat. It was a good enough sandwich for what it was, but we said then and there that we’d try this one at home.

So we did. And it was tremendous. We used the recipe for the fried chicken sandwich from Serious Eats and I think they really have a perfect process. Using chicken thighs instead of the breast makes for a smaller patty and a more flavorful one, and it’s easier to eat. We used our very favorite buffalo sauce and Matt thickened it with a bit of roux and it worked perfectly. We didn’t want the drippy situation and making the sauce thicker like buffalo gravy – if you will – was the right move. Matt found a slaw recipe online from a girl who really knows her stuff, Carla Hall from Top Chef, that had celery and blue cheese. What is more perfect with buffalo chicken than blue cheese and celery? Then, we totally cheated and bought a nice jar of ranch dressing and mixed in some chunky blue cheese crumbles for the sauce. And to finish everything off, Matt made outrageous potato rolls for the buns. It was, by every definition, the perfect chicken sandwich. Right size, right proportions, right flavor – right on.

I’ll post our thickened buffalo sauce recipe below, as well as Matt’s potato rolls. There’s a lot of components to this sandwich, but you can improvise on pretty much all of it if you want. I’d highly recommend keeping the fried chicken thigh the same, though. I can’t imagine how to improve it.

The Perfect Buffalo Sauce

1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons Frank’s hot sauce
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

Mix all the ingredients together in a medium saucepan over low to medium heat until well combined and heated through. To thicken, like we did for our sandwiches, take two tablespoons of unsalted softened butter in a small dish and add about two tablespoons of flour to form into a paste (an uncooked roux). Throw this little ball of buttery flour into your buffalo sauce and whisk until fully incorporated and thickened. We dunked each crispy chicken patty into the buffalo sauce before assembling our sandwiches.

Potato Buns*
makes 8 sandwich-sized buns

1 russet potato (big enough to make 1/2 cup mashed potato), peeled and chopped
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp. honey or agave nectar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk, warmed
1 1/8 tsp. instant yeast
1/4 cup reserved potato water
2 1/2 – 3 cups bread flour
2 tbs salted butter, melted, for brushing the buns

Boil potato until tender. Drain cooking water, reserving 1/4 cup for use in the rolls. Finely mash the potato and measure out 1/2 cup. Let cool to nearly room temperature.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the mashed potato, butter, honey, salt and egg. Mix together on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Combine the yeast with the warm milk and reserved potato water, and pour into the mixer bowl. Mix on low speed until incorporated. Gradually add the flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until a soft dough forms. Switch to the dough hook attachment on knead on low speed for 5 minutes, adding more flour if necessary to achieve a soft dough that is slightly tacky but not sticky. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 60-90 minutes.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Turn the down out onto a lightly floured surface and punch it down. Separate into 8 equal pieces and shape into buns. Place the buns on the prepared baking sheet, about 1 1/2 inches apart. Brush each bun with melted butter. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let the dough rise again until the rolls have grown into each other, about 30-45 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until golden. We started checking the buns for doneness around 12 minutes. Serve warm.

*recipe adapted from Annies-Eats where we made bigger rolls, left out the sugar and brushed with butter instead of dusting with flour to make extra soft buns.

Sweet Soy Glazed Chicken

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Alisa

Happy Wednesday. I got to spend today baking in the kitchen with one of my favorite people in the world, Becky McGrew. We baked something truly decadent and crazy rich, but that will be a post for another day. 🙂 Today is more practical. At the beginning of the week, I have such gusto for cooking my meals. I go to the store on Sunday nights and buy my grocery list for meals to get me through at least Wednesday night (I don’t like to buy more than that, lest things go bad in the fridge, waiting to be cooked.) Thursday morning is usually winding down and trying to find a use for my many leftovers. It’s good to have a few recipes you can always rely on to be great and interesting in the middle of the week. Recipes that aren’t hard, aren’t boring and make you feel glad you didn’t just give up and go out to dinner.

This is a perfect mid-week meal because it gets you over the hump in the week and gives you amazing leftovers. Such a rich, sweet and savory glaze on this chicken pairs perfect with a few light sides like stir-fried snap peas or roasted brussels sprouts with fish sauce vinaigrette.

Honey Soy Glazed Chicken*

12 chicken legs (or other parts, but I’d definitely use chicken on the bone)
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons neutral oil (not olive)
2 tablespoons ketchup
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 cup honey
2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Wash and dry and lightly salt and pepper the chicken and place in a 9X13-inch pan.

Combine remaining ingredients and pour over chicken. Toss chicken in the sauce and then arrange, skin-side down in the baking pan. Place in the oven for 30 minutes. Remove pan, turn chicken over, and return to the oven for another 30 minutes. Remove pan and turn chicken over once more. Turn the oven down to 375ºF and bake for an additional 15 minutes. My chicken didn’t get as glazed as the original recipe appears, so I took matters into my own hands and placed the chicken on a serving platter and tented it with foil to keep warm and then put the sauce on the stove in a medium saucepan and let it reduce by half until really syrupy. BEST DECISION EVER. I then took a ladle of the syrup and added it to rice as an accompaniment. BEST DECISION EVER. I think you could add the reduced soy glaze to just about anything and it would be…the best decision ever. Totally delictable, dresses up any sad chicken, any sad side dish. Would be great tossed with roasted broccoli for a stir-fry. Geez, the possibilities are endless. Enjoy!

*recipe adapted from Alaxandra Cooks

Beautiful Beets and Second Chances

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Alisa

This is a perfect Monday post because no one really reads my Monday posts so I can be as nerdy as I want. Here it comes…

I took a lot of pictures of beets the other today. They’re beautiful. Why aren’t they more popular in this country? A PINK food? Come on! Kids should be all over these. They stain worse than food coloring. They roast up sweet and savory. I think a lot of people in this country have been scarred by canned or pickled beets. That’s the taste they have in their minds. I can understand why that wouldn’t be the most appealing taste memory. But think about this – what if someone decided a long time ago that the best way to eat a potato would be to brine it? Everyone would say, “Eww, potatoes.” THINK ABOUT THAT! So, my determination is to try previously unappealing foods in different ways than they are known for. Roasting is almost always the best way to cook a root vegetable. It works with just about anything from asparagus to parsnips to turnips. It’s good to give foods with a bad reputation a second chance. You never know if you’re one recipe away from your new favorite food.

This post is really just for showing the pics I took of beets. And if you are curious, peel them, chop them into cubes, coat them in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast them for 30 minutes at 400F until tender. No brainer.

Ready for roasting

My family looking at me as if I’d gone crazy while I took pictures of beets for 30 minutes.

The Family Meal

we eat together

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Sweet Soy Glazed Chicken

Beautiful Beets and Second Chances

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