Fridgg: What's For Dinner?

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

In today’s edition of ‘Foods Allison hated when she was a kid’ (trust me, this could go on for a while)… CAULIFLOWER.

Growing up, my sister loved cauliflower. Me, I was more of a broccoli kind of girl. (Cauliflower for dinner?! Eeewwww… gross.)

(As an amusing aside, the other day I mentioned to my mom that I’m not a huge fan of bell peppers. She responded, “Really? I thought you like everything?!” I looked at her askance and burst out laughing. “You do realize I’m the kid who wouldn’t eat anything when I was younger…” “Yeah,” she mused, “you were so picky when you were little!”)

I actually had no plans to try making anything with cauliflower in it anytime soon… the subconscious memories of my childhood aversion to it meant that it simply never occurred to me to even consider buying any. But a conversation with a friend about roasting vegetables (hi, Joann!) convinced me that maybe it was time to give that squeaky white vegetable a try once more.

So I bought a head of cauliflower.

And proceeded to look at it for two days, never quite going through with my intention to roast it.

But then I saw this recipe for Creamy Cauliflower Soup and thought… “okay, I can do that.”

Despite a few mishaps along the way (I didn’t check my pantry before going grocery shopping, and found out once I started cooking that – oops – I only had chicken stock, no vegetable stock), the soup turned out wonderfully. The potato adds enough creaminess and the caramelized onions enough sweetness to make the soup taste really decedent, even though it’s really just a bowl full of vegetables.

So do I love cauliflower now?

Well… not quite. The “squeakiness” of it still gets to me. However, I did eat up the entire batch of this cauliflower soup… so I will admit it’s starting to grow on me.

My Week in Food – wagashi, ramen, tons of Vietnamese food, and Thanksgiving, of course!

This week was a fun week. A busy week. A very food filled week.

It started with these. I took a wagashi class!

More about that on Sushi Day later, but it was pretty awesome getting to hang out and make wagashi with Rachael and Jen (and Jen’s mom) all day.

And how can you go wrong with a huge bowl of ramen afterwards?

Rachael, Son, and I went to Shin Sen Gumi Hakata Ramen after the wagashi class… my first time there, and man was it good! Between the three of us, we got a ton of toppings to share, and spent the meal discussing some very exciting things that I’ll get to tell you all about very soon (and raving about the ramen, of course!)

As if that wasn’t enough, then we drove to Son’s parents’ house, where we feasted on grilled catfish.

And then goofed off with the fish head before eating it.

“Kiss it!”

After we recovered from the weekend of gluttony, there were definitely open-faced bacon and kimchi sandwiches on Japanese milk bread.

Yeah, that happened. Don’t judge me.

Fierce red nails make me feel like I can conquer the world.

Trust me, I needed that extra boost of confidence when my pie crust ended up looking like this. At least the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie that I make every year still tasted good, even if the crust looked like a five-year-old had patched it together…

The next day, Son’s coworkers decided they wanted to go get Vietnamese food.

So off to Pho Ever we went!

We stuffed ourselves with spring rolls, egg rolls, broken rice, pho, ca phe su da… while Son was nearly in tears from laughing at his coworkers’ poor Vietnamese pronunciation (and even the waiter joined in!)

For some reason, even though we were all beyond stuffed, the guys wanted to go get boba. (The glass Son and I shared was huge… as big as his head!)

And sugar toast (butter and sugar toasted on Japanese milk bread). I think Son is addicted, now.

And squid balls. (Similar to takoyaki… but would it be right to call them ikayaki? I don’t know.)

Then, as if it wasn’t a gluttonous enough week already, Thanksgiving happened. (I am so thankful for you readers!)

It started with a Hi-Chew. (Why… I have no clue. It was Son’s idea – he pulled them out of his jacket pocket on the car ride to our Thanksgiving festivities.)

And of course there was food. Soooo much food. (In between the eating so much I wanted to burst and laughing so hard there were tears running down my face, I was ready to faceplant on the table… food coma!)

In typical Kajiwara fashion, there were way too many desserts… possibly more desserts than actual dinner food.

But it’s all good, as long as Grandma brings her 7-layer dip.

Even though Patrick stole the chips and ate it all.

There were even gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and a delicious gluten-free apple tart from Good Habit.

Since I always have leftover pumpkin pie filling, I just had to make these Pumpkin Pie Brownie Bars. (In related news, everyone at my physical therapy office adores me now… ~_^)

And to fill out the food-filled week… that mess-in-a-pan happened. We’re not sure what it is. It started with three packages of silken tofu, a few pieces of butternut squash… then three types of kimchi, several pieces of pork that Son’s parents gave him, and two eggs. An odd mixture, to be sure, but that’s the sort of thing Son loves. (I stayed far away from it…)

What sort of interesting things did you eat this week?

Zucchini Blossom and Pancetta Pizza

There are two big themes that seem to run through my cooking ever since I “grew up”. The first is the realization that I actually like foods that I always swore I hated when I was younger, and the second is the discovery of many foods I never knew about as a child.

Well, that isn’t exactly true. Several of these foods – like Brussels sprouts, for example – I had heard of quite often. Every children’s book talks about kids who refuse to eat their Brussels sprouts. But they seemed a kind of fairy-tale invention… in the same way that curds and whey or Turkish delight did. These were foods that, to my younger self, didn’t really exist in the real world (or, at the very least, my idea of what they actually were when I read about them in stories greatly differed from what they are in real life. I always thought curds and whey was something like oatmeal…)

But it’s these “fairy tale” foods, or the foods that I’d never even heard about until several years into food blogging, that hold the biggest fascination for me. Like Brussels sprouts. (I never had them as a child, and have loved them ever since I first tried them as an adult.) Or zucchini blossoms… why didn’t anyone ever tell me that you could eat flowers?!

Just as with my first encounter with Brussels sprouts, it took a year or two for me to build up the courage to actually buy them. I’ve never cooked these flowers… what if I do something wrong, or buy them and make a disaster of them, or…

But last week at the farmer’s market, I saw them for the first time at one of my usual stands… and on a spontaneous whim, they somehow ended up coming home with me. But now what?

Thank goodness for Twitter. It’s a lifesaver, in times like these. The very awesome Gaby Dalkin rescued me with the idea to put them on pizza (and she even had a recipe on her blog that I could check out!)

Oh my… yum. I had some flatbreads in the freezer from the hummus stand at the farmer’s market that my mom had told me were great for pizza, so I pulled those out, spread them with a little olive oil, mozzarella cheese, pancetta, and these squash blossoms. So good. The squash blossoms have a very delicate flavor, so you don’t want to overwhelm them with strong cheeses or other toppings… but this was perfect.

Very closely based on the Squash Blossom and Pancetta Pizza recipe from What’s Gaby Cooking. If you want real pizza, follow her recipe… mine uses a pre-made flatbread, so the cooking times and temperatures are different.

Ingredients

• 1 8″ flatbread
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 squash blossoms
• 1/2 oz pancetta

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Saute the pancetta in a skillet until it gets browned and crispy.
3. Brush the flatbread with olive oil. Sprinkle with the mozzarella cheese.
4. Cut off the bottom of the blossoms and clean out the insides, then tear them into large pieces.
5. Top the pizza with the pancetta and blossoms.
6. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted.

Butterbeer Cupcakes

I was an early adopter, when it came to Harry Potter. My grandparents got me the first book when I was in middle school. I loved it, of course.

I then proceeded to dress up as Draco Malfoy that Halloween. Complete with cape and Nimbus 2000. (My little sister dressed up as Harry Potter. No, you don’t get to see pictures.)

Not a single person at my school had any clue who I was. (Once a dork, always a dork…)

Flash forward a decade, and Harry Potter is all the rage. And… I’m just not feeling it. Yeah, I know, I know. But somewhere between the 4th and 5th books, I just fell out of love with it.

(I haven’t seen the movies, either… just bits of the first one. But I’ve never been much of a movie person.)

My sister, on the other hand, is still a huge Harry Potter fan. So when she and her girlfriend (also a huge Harry Potter fan) came home for a few days before the school year started, I pulled this recipe out of my long list of bookmarked recipes (I’d been saving it up for them).

I’m not sure exactly what I had been expecting, but holy cow these are good. Sweet, but not too sweet, as some butterscotch-flavored desserts can be. Moist, especially after I accidentally poured in an entire cup of buttermilk instead of just half a cup. And ohmygod that buttercream frosting… in the past I hadn’t been much of a fan of the buttercream frostings I’ve made, but I’m a believer now.

Slightly altered from The Pastry Affair’s Butterbeer Cupcakes, which were adapted from the Butterbeer Cupcakes on Amy Bites.

Brown Sugar Cupcake

• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 3 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp butter flavoring
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup cream soda

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one. Add the vanilla extract and butter flavoring.
4. Fold in one third of the flour mixture, then the buttermilk, then another third of the flour mixture, then the cream soda, and then the remaining flour.
5. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the cupcakes are golden-brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

Butterscotch Ganache

• 11 oz (1 package) butterscotch chips
• 1 cup heavy cream

1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butterscotch chips into the heavy cream, stirring until smooth. (Or heat in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring in between.) Remove from heat and cool to room temperature before using.

Butterscotch Buttercream

• 6 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup butterscotch ganache (recipe above)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp butter flavoring
• Pinch of salt
• 3 cups powdered sugar

1. Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Mix in the butterscotch ganache, vanilla, butter flavoring, and salt. Beat in the powdered sugar for 2-3 minutes.

To Assemble:

1. Pour the butterscotch ganache into a plastic squeeze bottle. Push the tip of the bottle into the cupcake and fill each cupcake with butterscotch ganache until it starts to overflow. (I made 3-4 holes in each cupcake.)
2. Fill a pastry bag with the buttercream and pipe onto the top of each cupcake. Drizzle with more butterscotch ganache, if desired. (You will most likely have left-over butterscotch ganache – this can be used as a topping for ice cream, or it’s an excellent excuse to make another batch of these cupcakes.)
3. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
4. Enjoy!

Homefries U Back to School Weekend

Palm Springs.

Awesome people.

It’s a good combination.

I got to go to the Homefries U Back To School Weekend.

Pretty much summer camp for grown-ups.

There was lots of good food, of course.

And cameras. We may not have all been food bloggers, but we were definitely all camera people. (Which was awesome, because there was a very cool photography session with Michael Friedman.)

And peppered brown sugar bacon. Oooohhhh, that bacon.

(I’d make it at home, except there’s a definite danger of the entire batch disappearing before anyone else gets to try it.)

We hung out around the gorgeous house (and laughed until we nearly cried), we lounged by the pool…

But we’ll leave the swimsuit pictures out of this.

Did I mention the amazing food?

We got to see Joy and Tracy be their awesome, wonderful selves.

And we totally got behind-the-scenes access to how Joy photographs her blog posts.

(And then got to eat the results when she was done!)

More amazing food. Early in the morning and later in the day we would eat outside, and then retreat to the cooler house when it got too hot outside.

And there were friendship bracelets.

Er… friendship anklets. Awesome either way.

We got to learn about sparkling wines and gin…

Too bad I don’t drink. But it was still tons of fun… and a pretty cool experience since I’d never have tried any of it otherwise.

A delicious pasta dinner, with garlic bread to die for.

We were all laughing so hard on the shuttle ride back to the hotel after the second day, you’d never know we were all completely exhausted.

Day three was a short day. But still fun!

Tracy gave a neat little lesson about spices (I think I just fell in love with smoked paprika.)

But we were all really waiting for the doughnuts that Joy was frying up.

Ohmygod those doughnuts.

Ohmygod, that entire weekend. When I got there (late, thanks to bad timing and awful traffic), I was terrified – I didn’t know a single person who was going to be there. When I left, I had made so many new friends. We bonded over food (of course), same names (there were two other Al(l)isons there!), and dance (who knew there were so many other food bloggers/Joy the Baker fans who are dancers? Unexpected, but totally awesome.)

So much awesome.