Fridgg: What's For Dinner?

Ravioli with Spinach and Bacon

Ravioli with Spinach and Bacon

In the northern hemisphere, it’s summer. Has been, for a while. But in Southern California, it has felt like spring up until a few days ago. Temperatures have been in the low 70s, which is just fine by me. Which is why, just days ago, a quick meal like this one that just happened to use the stove a little was a great dinner.

I couldn’t get enough of that spinach.

But now, it’s hot. Not inland, desert, burn-your-face-off-the-moment-you-step-outside hot. We are fairly close to the beach, after all. But in an upper-story apartment with no air conditioning and a downstairs neighbor who smokes 24/7 (meaning we can’t open our windows), it’s quite uncomfortably hot. Sweltering. Even despite the fans running all the time when we’re in the room.

Who needs the ravioli? I’d eat the spinach all by itself.

So now, with the heat, it wouldn’t be so comfortable to make this dish like it was just days ago when I made it. But even so… I would. Oh man. That spinach… that spinach! Screw the ravioli (which wasn’t all that great anyways – I used chicken and mozzarella ravioli… meh), I could eat that spinach by the bunch, all by itself. Even the bacon… a nice extra, but not entirely necessary. And if you know me at all – lover of all things bacon, not so much a friend of anything vegetable-like – you’ll know that says a lot.

Had to get that money shot of the bacon.

I got this recipe from the May 2009 issue of the Real Simple magazine. I did make a couple of changes, which are reflected in the following recipe.

Just sitting there, waiting for someone to eat it.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ravioli
• 6 slices bacon
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced (you can use more, if you like garlic. We do.)
• 2 bunches of spinach, stems removed

Cooking Directions

1. Cook the ravioli according to package directions. Drain and divide among bowls.
2. Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a skillet over medium-high heat until crisp, about 6 to 8 minutes; transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Crumble.
3. Drain all but about 2 tbsp of the bacon grease. Add the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the spinach. Cook, tossing, until just wilted, about 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Stir the bacon into the spinach. Spoon the mixture over the ravioli.

Bakewell Tart

Bakewell Tart

The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.

… with strawberry jam.

As far as Daring Bakers challenges go, this wasn’t so much one of my favorites. It didn’t seem like much of a challenge to me (the hardest thing was grinding the almonds by hand, which is why my frangipane probably ended up a little crunchier than it should have been). And the tart itself… it wasn’t bad, per say, but I wouldn’t make it again. All of us who tried it enjoyed it well enough, but just found it sort of… meh. Nothing special. If it had stayed at home, it probably wouldn’t have been eaten up. Of course, with something like the Daring Bakers challenges you can’t expect to love every single one of them… it’s too bad this Bakewell Tart was one of those that I just couldn’t fall in love with.

Son ate it so quickly, I barely got a bite!

Ingredients

Sweet shortcrust pastry:

• 225 g all-purpose flour
• 30 g sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 oz unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1-2 tbsp cold water

Frangipane

• 4.5 oz unsalted butter, softened
• 125 g powdered sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 125 g ground almonds
• 30 g all-purpose flour

Finishing the tart:

• 1 cup jam or curd, warmed for spreadability
• One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Cooking Directions

1. Sift together flour, sugar and salt.
2. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater.
3. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.
4. Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract and quickly mix into the flour mixture.
5. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.
6. Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes
7. Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy.
8. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle, but that’s okay.
9. After all three eggs are mixed in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds then scrape down the sides again.
10. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.
11. Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it’s overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out.
12. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 1/4″ thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the center and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll.
13. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to a 9″ pie pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits.
14. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.
15. Preheat oven to 400°F.
16. Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base.
17. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart.
18. Smooth the top and bake for 30 minutes.
19. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.
20. The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking.
21. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter.
22. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

Chinese Shrimp and Pork Potstickers

Chinese Shrimp and Pork Potstickers

This month’s Daring Cooks challenge is Chinese potstickers/dumplings from Jen Yu of Use Real Butter.

As any good Asian household, Son and I love most any sort of dumplings. Often we’ll eat them with ramen or rice, for a delicious meal. But aside from my grandmother’s wontons (which are nothing like Chinese wontons… and yes, I know those of you who have tried them want the recipe. I’ll make them soon, promise.), I’ve never made any sort of dumplings from scratch.

So this challenge was definitely a welcome challenge for me. I never would have made dumplings completely from scratch like this (we all know how easily intimidated I am by scary-looking recipes), so I appreciated the push from Daring Cooks to try this.

Holy cow these are good. I used Jen’s shrimp and pork filling recipe, and pan-fried them so they were potstickers. (For other filling recipes and instructions for boiling or steaming them, visit Jen’s blog.) Okay, so maybe mine weren’t nearly as pretty as hers are, but the way I see it, they’re like sushi – even if they’re falling apart and look terrible, they still taste pretty darn fantastic. They’re so good, and worth the extra work, I already have plans to make them again.

I made a double batch, and froze half. Put them on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper (make sure they’re not touching) and freeze them. Then fry them like normal, just a little longer than you would if they were fresh. A word to the wise – make sure the potstickers are completely frozen before transferring them to a ziplock bag – otherwise they’ll stick together and you won’t be able to get some of them unstuck without tearing them, even if you throw the bag against the counter several times. Then you’ll just end up frying them as is, and have big lumps of potstickers instead of pretty little nicely formed ones. Not that I’m speaking from experience, or anything.

Crispy, delicious, perfect.

Ingredients

Dough:

• 4 c all-purpose flour
• 1 c warm water
• flour for work surface

Filling:

• 1/2 lb raw shrimp, peeled, deveined, and coarsely chopped
• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 3 stalks green onion, minced
• 1/4 c ginger root, minced
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp corn starch

Dipping Sauce:

• 2 parts soy sauce
• 1 part vinegar (red wine or black)
• a few drops of sesame oil
• chili garlic paste (optional)
• minced ginger (optional)
• minced garlic (optional)
• minced green onion (optional)
• sugar (optional)

Cooking Directions

1. In a large bowl mix the flour with 1/2 of the water and stir until water is absorbed.
2. Continue adding water one teaspoon at a time and mixing thoroughly until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. We want a firm dough that is barely sticky to the touch. If the dough is too hard or dry, feel free to add a little more water.
3. Knead the dough about twenty strokes then cover with a damp towel for 15 minutes.
4. Take the dough and form a flattened dome.
5. Cut into strips about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide.
6. Shape the strips into rounded long cylinders.
7. On a floured surface, cut the strips into 3/4 inch pieces.
8. Press palm down on each piece to form a flat circle (you can shape the corners in with your fingers).
9. With a rolling pin, roll out a circular wrapper from each flat disc. Take care not to roll out too thin or the dumplings will break during cooking – about 1/16th inch. Leave the centers slightly thicker than the edges.
10. Place a tablespoon of filling in the center of each wrapper and fold the dough in half, pleating the edges along one side (see images in this post for how to fold pleats). Keep all unused dough under damp cloth.
11. Repeat until you have used up the dough and filling.
12. Place dumplings in a frying pan with 2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil.
13. Heat on high and fry for a few minutes until bottoms are golden.
14. Add 1/2 cup water and cover. Cook until the water has boiled away and then uncover and reduce heat to medium or medium low.
15. Let the dumplings cook for another 2 minutes then remove from heat and serve.
16. Mix the ingredients for the dipping sauce, and serve with the warm potstickers.

Peanut Butter Cookies

My very favorite peanut butter cookies

Everyone has a favorite cookie. Some would die for a chocolate chip cookie, others prefer a good oatmeal-raisin. Some people prefer a specific store-bought cookie, others will eat nothing but homemade. Some like their cookies thin and crispy, with nothing more than a glass of cold milk. Others love them deep dish-style, with a big scoop of ice cream and maybe even with some sauteed apples.

My all-time favorite cookies are peanut butter cookies. And not just any peanut butter cookies – it has to be these. They’re crispy, crumbly, not cloyingly sweet, but with a great peanut butter taste and an irresistible addictiveness. And I’m not the only one who feels this way – several people who have tried these have told me that they’re the best peanut butter cookies they’ve ever had. Like I said, they’re very, very good.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups unsifted flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter

Cooking Directions

1. Sift first 4 ingredients together, then set aside.
2. In large bowl with mixer at medium speed, beat butter, shortening and peanut butter until smooth.
3. Beat in sugars until blended, then eggs and vanilla.
4. Add flour mixture; beat until well blended.
Chill dough for at least an hour, overnight if possible.
5. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
6. Shape the dough into 1″ balls. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
7. Flatten with a fork dipped in sugar.
8. Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from cookie sheets. Cool on rack.
9. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

Sweet and Savory Strudels – Daring Bakers

Chocolate Banana Strudel

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

… with marshmallows!

Well. I complained mentioned last month that I wanted a real challenge for Daring Bakers, and that I didn’t find cheesecake to be enough of a challenge. Heh. I got that challenge this month.

The challenge was apple strudel, though were were allowed to choose whatever fillings we wanted as long as we made the strudel dough. Oh man. It looked scary. And as you can probably tell, I ended up procrastinating until the last minute on it (I made it yesterday!) But, aside from a momentary scare when the dough looked more like a batter (I had forgotten the 1/3 cup of flour), it was actually doable.

Oooey gooey yumminess.

Now, I am not much of a fan of apple desserts. I don’t like apple pie (though I can always go for an apple fritter!) So I was very glad to read that we could pick whatever fillings we wanted. Problem was… I’ve never had strudel before. So… I really, really didn’t know what sort of fillings would work with it. Lucky for me, I work well under pressure. Yesterday, in my last minute baking, I came up with not one, but two ideas!

For my first idea, a chocolate-banana strudel. About a year ago, I was at a friend’s house for a barbeque, and we made barbequed bananas stuffed with marshmallows and chocolate. Both Son and I loved them, and I’ve been meaning to make them ever since. Since I had all the ingredients, I figured heck, why not? These were pretty decent.

But they were nothing compared to the barbeque chicken strudel. We had some barbeque chicken from Son’s parents, and I modeled these after a well-known barbeque chicken pizza. With the chicken, bacon, mozzarella cheese, and red onion… these were a definite success. I would go through all the work of making strudel again, just to have these. They were so good.

Since I have a teeny tiny kitchen and very little counter space, there was no way I could make a full-sized strudel. There was just nowhere to stretch out the dough like that. So instead, I made an entire batch of dough, then split it into three different pieces and made three little baby strudels. And (oops) I forgot the butter for all three strudels. But they still turned out well (thank goodness!)

Barbeque Chicken Strudel

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 c unbleached flour (I used all-purpose flour)
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 7 tbsp water, plus more if needed
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
• 1/2 tsp cider vinegar
• 5 tbsp melted butter

For the chocolate-banana strudel:

• 1 banana, sliced
• 6 marshmallows, cut into quarters
• chocolate, broken into pieces

For the barbeque chicken strudel:

• 2 cups barbeque chicken, shredded
• 1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
• several slices of red onion
• 6 strips of bacon, cooked, crumbled

Cooking Directions

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.
2. Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.
3. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.
4. Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).
5. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.
6. Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.
7. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it’s about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.
8. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper).
9. Spread about 3 tbsp of the melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Spread the fillings about 3 inches from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-wide strip.
10. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.
11. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.