Kosher-Style Pork Cracklins

This turned out really well and is fairly quick to make. I was suprised to be eating whole leaves of sage and liking it! This was my first time working with portabella mushrooms, and I struggled with it. They were difficult to scrape clean, the mushrooms easily fell apart, and slicing wasn't all that easy, either. Plus it looked disgusting (worse than chicken!) while I was working with it.

I used only a half pound of spaghetti (recipe calls for 3/4 lb) and also cut the other ingredients accordingly. I'd say the original recipe is 6 servings, not 4. I used whole wheat spaghetti, which goes very nicely with this recipe. One of the steps has you adding 6 Tbs of butter(!!!!) I halved it, and I still feel I could have had less. Probably 3 Tbs is all you need if making the full recipe. I like that the majority of the ingredients I probably already have at home.

Lessons learned:
• Start the water for the pasta before prepping everything.
• Remember the cheese! (I added it on after the photo.)
• Placing a measuring cup in the colander is a great reminder to reserve the pasta water.
• Cooking sage leaves in butter makes them crunchy. Weird!

• Spaghetti with Portabellas, Sage & Walnuts (Fine Cooking, March 2007, p.26A)

I got to spend an early July afternoon over at Amy's house and we made bread! It's the first time I've ever baked bread (unless banana nut bread counts and I'd say it doesn't). I've pigged out on this bread before when Amy has made it, and it's sooo delicious. This recipe is ridiculously simple, easy and quick. It's a winner. Amy says it makes good sandwich bread (but Jay and I ate it all before I could find something to put in between two pieces).

Focaccia

2 cups lukewarm water (85-95 degrees F)
2 tsp. active dry yeast
4 cups unbleached bread flour
2-3 tsp. salt
2-3 tsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp. kosher or sea salt

In a large bowl, sprinkle yeast over the water. Stir until dissolved. Stir in 2 cups flour and the salt, until smooth. With a strong wooden spoon, stir in the rest of the flour until incorporated. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in volume, 30-40 minutes or overnight in refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Oil one or two nonstick baking sheets and pour the dough onto the sheet, carefully scraping it from the sides of the bowl, being careful not to deflate it. Brush the dough with 2 tsp olive oil. Dip fingers into cold water or olive oil and insert them straight down into the dough. Make holes in the dough with your fingers as you gradually stretch it into a 1" thick oval. Brush with 1 tsp more olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary and salt.

Place the pan into the oven and reduce the temperature to 450. Bake 15-20 minutes, until golden brown all over with a few darker brown spots. Cool on a rack.

One of the best things about getting Fine Cooking is that the recipes are seasonal, so they include fruits and vegetables that are in season. I made a quick visit to Boggy Creek Farms one morning and picked up some heirloom tomatoes and eggplant for two recipes I found in the August/September issue. However, I wasn't there right at the moment they opened, so it was slim pickin's in terms of good tomatoes. I found a couple that were satisfactory, but I had to cut out a lot of bruised and unripened parts. I swung by Whole Foods to pick up some other ingredients and completely forgot about getting an extra tomato or two. After getting the good parts off the tomatoes I had, I still needed a lot more, so I went back again to Whole Foods for more tomatoes. (and these babies are not cheap!) As you can see from the picture, I made sure I would not run out! I liked that I could let this no-cook tomato sauce sit from 30 minutes to 3 hours while I worked on preparing the rest of dinner. I made a topping for the grilled eggplant that had anchovies, olives and orange in it! I also made my first solo attempt at the Rosemary Focaccia Bread.

The meals were good. I think the salsa cruda would have been better if my tomatoes were all properly ripened. They didn't have a whole lot of flavor, but the dish was good. I invited my neighbor Gen over since I figured I'd have plenty more food than just for two. She said the salsa cruda reminded her of bruschetta. The grilled eggplant on its own was excellent, and the topping was good, too. Although it was good, I think there might be a better one of the four recipes listed. I'll definitely be trying one of the other recipes soon because grilled eggplant was easy and yummy. The rosemary bread tasted as delicious as always, but it really, REALLY liked the pan and wouldn't let go. There was a lot of pasta leftover. Like usual, I used whole wheat pasta. Jay did an excellent job of grilling the eggplant!

• No-Cook Tomato Sauce (Fine Cooking, August/September 2007, p. 39)
• Grilled Eggplant (Fine Cooking, August/September 2007, p. 49)
• Olive, Orange & Anchovy Vinaigrette (Fine Cooking, August/September 2007, p. 50)
• Focaccia Bread

I was looking for a vegan dessert recipe, and Google wasn't so helpful. I'm pretty sure I went to fine cooking, but didn't find anything exciting or workable. So I went to epicurious and held my breath as I typed in "vegan dessert". Hundreds of recipes came back and glancing over them, it did look like they were desserts and vegan recipes. Nice feature!!!

This was a 4 out of 4 forks, and so many people would make it again. Plus it looked easy! I took the advice written in one of the reviews to put it over peach sorbet. It didn't take much peach sorbet, and I thought it tasted much better than just the pure fruit and sauce. I do think the yield of 4 is pretty low, especially adding in the sorbet. Either that, or my bowl was a nice small size. A half serving felt like plenty enough for me. (I ended up having the whole serving, anyway. Dessert is a rare treat at our house!)

• Balsamic Blueberries and Peaches (epicurious)

My last crackle cookies were so delicious, I was eager to make more. I was invited to two Superbowl parties, so I made a batch of cookies to split between the parties. I'm not a big chocolate fan myself, but these were pretty good cookies! I definitely liked the double ginger crackles the best. (The longest lasting cookies in the batch tasted fantastic!! But remember, I'm not a huge chocolate fan....) The neat part of these cookies is that there are melted chocolate chunks in them along with the chocolate and cocoa in the cookie itself. The orange zest in the cookies really added to the flavor of the cookies.

This was the first time I finally used my bigger Kitchen Aid, so it was fun to figure it out. (I got chocolate batter all over it!) I bought two silicone tray liners and those made it very easy to slip the silicone off the tray and onto the cooling racks. The cookie dough seemed a little greasy when trying to roll it into balls. Rolling just the top of the ball in sugar made it go faster than the last time I made crackle cookies, where I just rolled the whole ball in sugar.

(Although these cookies were really good, personally I'd rather have a brownie!)

• Double Chocolate Crackles (Fine Cooking 89, p. 71)

How often have I had to compost outdated baby carrots, half a red pepper or some leftover broccoli? This recipe is just the solution to use up your veggie bits before they go bad! While typically fried rice is not the healthiest option, this recipe uses brown rice and lots of veggies.

I decided that the best way to try the recipe was exactly as it was described. Then if I liked it, I could try it with whatever veggies were around. I used fresh corn, and cut the kernels using an angel food cake pan to hold up the cob. It worked great. I did I still end up with some kernels on the floor, though.

A warning on this recipe: You need to use "very cold" cooked brown rice. So I'd advise making the rice a day ahead or in the morning, as hot rice does not cool quickly.

For me, the part that may not have worked right was getting the fresh ginger freshly grated. Does ginger actually grate? Or does it just turn into paste? I figured the paste was good enough, and mixed it in. Another issue I ran into was the rice sticking into chunks. As I stirred everything together, a big part of my task was breaking up the rice chunks. Not sure if there's an easy way to avoid that or not, but when it was all cooked, I didn't see any remaining chunks of rice.

I really really need to get a big pan. All the ones I have are medium sized. I realized pretty quickly that I was running out of room and ended up filling two pans. It was easy enough to do. Right before adding the rice, I put half the veggies in one side, and added only half the rice, bacon, oil and eggs to each pan.

This recipe was great! To me, it didn't have an overly "healthy" taste or texture. Brown rice works pretty decently in fried rice, and I think the edamame was a better choice than something like peas. Easy and yummy as leftovers as well.

• Five-Treasure Fried Rice (Fine Cooking 97 Feb/March 2009, p. 33)