Ypsi Cooks

Since I've been home for the summer I think the kids and I have had quesadillas a few dozen times. They're so good and easy, and we can pack in a lot of nutrients. What goes in our quesadillas? Greens. We always have some greens on hand, if not in the freezer or fridge, at least in the garden. Also beans and cheese, and sometimes corn, onion (caramelized or otherwise), garlic, brown rice, salsa and/or red pepper spread. The key is to mush the beans with all the other ingredients we're using except cheese, then spread it on 1/2 a tortilla (we use whole grain), sprinkle with cheese and heat on one side until crisp, flip, remove from heat when second side is crispy, cut into wedges and serve. This with a piece of fruit is about as good as it gets for lunch, and also makes a great dinner. I've been known to make it more Italian-esque, using cannellini beans, red onion, mozzarella or provolone, greens, and Trader Joe's red pepper & eggplant spread. Not only is this a great way to cover all the basic food groups, it's good for using up little bits of leftovers, and a wonderful medium for improvisation. Plus, both the kids DEVOUR these. You wouldn't think a 1-year-old could eat her weight in “quesadillas,” but she can. And another thing. In these hotter days of summer, cook them on the grill: they get especially crispy and are down-right delicious. Happy munching!

It's been hot, sticky and hot. We were going to have dinner with Tom's family and I thought we should bring dessert. I've had my eye on this S'more Chocolate Pudding for a few weeks now. I made vanilla pudding over the weekend for Peanut butter Banana Cream Pie, and it was a lot of stirring over a hot stove. Not exactly something I wanted to do in this weather. But the vanilla pudding had some microwave directions: stir and heat a little, then repeat. A lot. I figured I could do the same homemade pudding. I checked around on the internet and found some recipes that sounded good, and easy, and had good reviews, so I compared and combined as I saw fit. I tasted the pudding as it was beginning to thicken up and it was quite good even without the chocolate and vanilla. I poured it into a lovely glass bowl (a gift from my mother-in-law) layered with the graham crackers and marshmallows (note: they float, don't try to layer them IN the pudding). It looked quite lovely and tasted delicious.
Tom's “Uncle” declared it one of the best desserts he's ever had (!). Tom's brother, who is not the biggest chocolate fan, thought it would be good as a cake “frosting.” It could be like a lazy Boston Cream Pie where the chocolate and cream are all mixed together and poured over the top of a lovely yellow cake. I on the other hand think it would be great as a dip for some strawberries, or any of those other fruits that taste great with chocolate. Really, the possibilities are endless. Make some this weekend. I doubt you'll be disappointed.Easy Chocolate Pudding
Serves 6 (or a few more, especially if you use any of the additions listed below, many more if using as aforementioned fruit dip)

1/4 c corn starch
1/4 cup cocoa
1/3 cup sugar (a little heaping)
pinch of salt
***
3 cups milk
1/4 cup powdered milk if using skim
4 oz chopped dark chocolate (2 oz or even none if you're hoping for something more along the line of boxed pudding mix)
1 t vanilla

Whisk the first 4 ingredients in a large, microwave safe bowl. Slowly whisk in the milk. Microwave for 3 min, then stir. Continue microwaving, 1 minute at a time, stirring (it seems wise to scrape the sides) throughly in between. When the mixture is thickened and holds to a spoon, slowly whisk in the chocolate, stirring until melted, then whisk in the vanilla. Pour into individual cups & cover with plastic wrap (the wrap should be touching the pudding if you don't like skin, at the top of the container if you do). Chill for about 3 hours. The pudding will set up considerably.
If you're like me and you decide you want to serve it from one large bowl, allow MUCH more chilling time.

Alternatively, use the stove, but follow the same process, stirring regularly.

For S'more Rocky Road Pudding

1 recipe Easy Chocolate Pudding
4 oz graham crackers (or Trader Joe's Cinnamon Cat Cookies, or vanilla wafers, or animal crackers…)
1 tbsp melted butter
Mini marshmallows
Almonds

In a food processor, use short pulses to break up the cookies. Once mostly broken up, pulverize until a fairly even crumb. Add butter and mix for a few more seconds until even. Pour half the pudding into the cups, top with crumb mixture, top with the remaining pudding, (chill for a few minutes before adding the second layer of pudding if you're serving in a clear dish) and top the whole thing with marshmallows and chopped nuts. Chill as above.

Just as the Bon Apetit article promised, these french apple turnovers were light, buttery, flavorful and not overly sweet.We made the filling (with only one variety of sweet-tart apple because it's what we had) Friday night, rolled and filled the dough Saturday morning, and sat down to an amazing brunch just before noon. To go with the turnovers, Tom made scrambled eggs with scallions, spinach and garlic topped with a little cheddar. Delicious.

We took the leftovers to Tom's folks and had them for dessert with hot chocolate. Delicious #2.

Turnover note: we made 9 (it seemed silly not to) and used the extra filling to top Sunday morning's pancakes. Delicious #3.

Two weeks ago, scratch that, last October (I've had a hard time getting to back to the computer with the cookbook in hand to finish this post, but I just told a friend about one of the recipes below, so I figured I MUST finish this post now) we had some of our first squash of the season. Hearty, sweet and full of great nutrients, it's hard to go wrong. Pretty much every time we turn on the oven, we cook up a squash with whatever else is going in. It reduces energy consumption and guarantees that there is always some squash in the fridge to heat up. 1. A squash and spinach galette. 2. Cheese ravioli with squash sauce, walnuts and goat cheese. 3. Vegetarian pot pie with squash base. Oh yeah. Looking forward to making some stuffed acorn squash soon. We'll keep you posted. Read more for recipes.Squash & Spinach Galette
1 pie crust (we use 1/2 whole wheat flour or more in ours)
2-3 c. cooked squash
1 cup cooked spinach
1/2 cup ricotta
Salt & Pepper
1/2 t. nutmeg
Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350/400. Spread the rolled pie crust on a cookie sheet. Thoroughly mix the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the parmesan. Shred a fair layer of parmesan onto the center 9″ of crust. Glob the filling on top. Fold over the edges to create a freeform pie. Bake for 30-45 mins until the crust is golden. Let stand a few min before serving.

Autumn Ravioli
1 lb dried cheese ravioli
2-3 cups squash (we used 1/2 a butternut and 1/2 a buttercup. 1 small buttercup should do)
3-4 shallots, sliced
Oil for sauteing
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 oz cream cheese
1/4 c. broth

Salt and pepper
goat cheese
1/4 c walnuts
1 tbsp butter, optional
1 tbsp brown sugar

Boil ravioli in a generous amount of water. Saute the shallots until beginning to caramelize. Add chopped garlic, saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Empty pan into food processor. Put stock in pan, add cream cheese. Break up the cream cheese and stir until heated through. Add the squash if it's cold. Empty pan into food processor. Blend until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Toss sauce with drained pasta. Sprinkle with goat cheese & walnuts (melt butter & brown sugar in a pan and cook chopped walnuts for a min or two, if desired). Serve with a green salad or some broccoli. Baked apples would be a delicious dessert!

Deluxe Vegitarian Pot Pie in spired by Wynell's Pie from Sunday's at Moosewood Resturant.
Base: 2-3 cup squash, seasoned to taste (nutmeg, salt, pepper, maple syrup would all be good…). Smooth into the bottom of a large casserole dish (9×13 or a bit larger)

Filling (all veggies coarsely chopped/sliced):
1 large onion
2 carrots
1-2 med. potato
1/2 t dried basil
1/2 t dried marjoram
1 cup mushrooms
1/2 c frozen peas
1/2 c frozen corn or beans

Sauté the onions w/ some oil until soft. Add carrots, potato and herbs and cook, covered for about 10 min, stirring frequently. Stir in remaining veggies and continue to cook, covered until the carrot are just tender. Gently spoon on top of the squash.

Sauce:
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
salt & pepper

Melt butter, stir in flour until smooth and stir constantly about 3 min. Mix in milk and seasonings and continue to stir until thickened, but do not boil. Remove from heat and add cheese. Stir until melted, season with salt and pepper. Pour over the vegetables.

Crust:
1 pie crust, preferably made with at least 1/2 whole wheat flour.

Why do they call it canning when you use jars not cans?

Anyway, this week we canned a bunch of applesauce that we made up last week. We added cranberries to the mix to give it some pizazz.

Fall is upon us (actually it's almost gone). One of the best things about fall is apple cider. The only way to make cider better is to make it alcoholic. The easy way is to have warm cider with a but of whiskey, but we are talking about hard cider here. And now we have two different hard cider related bits:

1. The Corner Brewery is going to finally have hard cider.

2. We are going to give making hard cider a try. I saw this article and thought that it looks easy. The plan is to do a batch of 3 gallons. We are going to pick up the cider and the couple brewing items we need this weekend, so in a few months we should have some ready for consumption.

Last night I tried the Stovetop Roasted chicken from the newest Cooks Illustrated. The advantage is that cooking a whole chicken (cut into pieces) gets moist chicken with crispy skin in about a half hour. The chicken was amazing, but required way more attention then a roaster in the oven.

I enjoy fire and forget cooking. It is the best kind of fast food. throw some stuff in a crockpot turn it on and 6 hours later your dinner is ready. Putting a roaster in the oven takes 5 minutes. Then you can get the kitchen cleaned, make a salad, pay the bills, and probably some other things while the chicken cooks.

I am not ruling the process out totally, the first time with a new recipe is always a little hectic. I will give it another shot before I give up on it. It delivered as advertised and is pretty simple: sear, steam, sear. It just requires more attention but less overall time. Using pre-cut chicken would save on the prep time, but I couldn't harass my wife with the chicken carcass as I cut it up (the best part is the chickens we get have necks attached) or the noise of crunching bones.

The meal was great. We had friends over for dinner. The chicken was in a lemon herb sauce, served on rotkohl (braised red cabbage). We had fresh corn and broccoli and a brown rice pilaf to round the meal out. Dessert was pumpkin dip with apples and ginger cat cookies.

So we have almost the full collection of Nigella Lawson cookbooks, and they really are full of good recipes. She has had a few cooking shows in the UK, some of which have made it across the pond, but they are so strange to watch. Sometimes she cooks in a nightgown with the lights all down low. The camera work combined with everything else makes it what can only be described as cooking porn.

While the show is strange, the books are amazing. Feast has a chocolate cake hall of fame; The Guiness Cake is amazing. For Bridgit's B-Day I made the Zucchini Cake from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. For valentines day I did a variation on Slut Red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly with blackberries and Muscat jelly. We often use her pancake mix recipe, which Bridgit modifies until it is unrecognizable.

Below are some clips from youtube.
What brought the topic up is a clip from This Hour Has 22 Minutes, a CBC show similar to SNL. The scary thing is that it is only barely a parody.

Here are some others:
Chicken Soup

Doughnut French Toast

Raspberry Oatmeal Swirls

Who doesn't love drinking bubbly? Be it actual Champagne, Prosecco, or any of the sparklers and naturally effervescent wines out there people love popping open a bottle in celebration. I think it should be drank more often. There are a few problems though: cost, preservation, and education.

Unless it is New Years Eve it is hard for many people to find inexpensive options. Champagne is such a dominate name and you tend to pay for it. There are plenty of inexpensive sparklers, or near sparklers out there that are under $15. They aren't amazing, but for casual consumption they do the trick. If you were going to get a $10 bottle of wine why not get a $12 bottle of nice sparkler. People will think there is a special occasion. Also a good way to impress the ladies.

The problem with fizz is that it goes flat quickly, so people are hesitant to open a bottle of bubbly unless they know it can be finished off quickly. There are a few options to this dilemma. The first is to not buy full sized bottles. Sparklers can be purchased in magnum (1.5 litres), full (0.75 litre), half (0.375 litre), and quarter (0.1875 litre) sized bottles. A quarter bottle is a perfect for size for a couple people to have with some dessert. We recently got a couple quarter bottles of Cava, a Spanish sparkler for $3 a pop. For that price there is no reason not to have some. The other solution is to use a special stopper. Bridgit got me one for a wedding present. On our honeymoon a nearby table found out we were just married the day before (and it was New Years Eve), so they got us a bottle. We weren't able to finish it, so we took it to our room and Bridgit presented me with the stopper. It clamps onto the bottle so the pressure won't pop it off, and the one she got has a lever that opens a pour spout. We had fizzy drink and some wedding cake for breakfast New Year's morning. This week we opened a bottle on Wednesday, immediately put the stopper on it, and also drank it on Thursday and then again on Sunday morning. There was a pop as I opened the spout and it was still bubbly 4 days later.

People need to know that sparklers from all over the world are good: Spanish Cava, French Crémant (sparklers not from Champagne), Itallian Asti, German Sekt, American “Champagne”. There are also semi and barely sparkling wines that worth a try. They come also come in white, red, and rose varieties. There are also good options out there for under $15.

So this weekend open a bottle of bubbly, for reason but to enjoy it.

Last night I made a Summer Corn Soup from BA and it was good, but not as good as corn chowder.

To go with it I made a tart (I have been craving pastry lately) with tomatoes, caramelized red onion, and zucchini. The tart was all I had hoped for. Then later in the evening I was reading the new BA and found an article all about what I had just made.