Chez Shai

I have been posting from www.chezshai.com/Food for a few months now.
It's awfully boring to look at, but the material is good and the look will improve eventually. You should check it out!

Shaina

What's a cook to do?

I'm living in temporary housing for the next two weeks and after catching up on all of my cooking blogs, I'm starting to go a little crazy. Nearly all of my kitchen stuff is in boxes. I was planning on purchasing paper plates and plastic cutlery but I haven't gotten around to it yet so all I've managed to scavange up is four bowls, a plastic fork, and a plastic knife. Needless to say, we've been cooking dinner at friend's places a lot lately. Last night for dessert, Brian was eating some gelato and I was eating my favorite breakfast/snack/dessert these days; Traderspoint Creamery yogurt (which comes in a wonderful glass bottle, above), sprinkled with granola, dried cranberries, and a little bit of honey. To accomplish this feat of eating concurrently, we had to pass our one plastic fork back and forth, licking well to clean between bites. Eventually I resorted to just going at the bowl with a finger. Quite barbaric.

Some of the things I want to make right now, but can't: Coq a Vin, Boeuf Bourguignon, and Tarte Tatin. Why so many French dishes? Well, maybe because I saw Julie and Julia yesterday. Or maybe just because they're delicious. Hopefully in two weeks I can work on sending some more dishes your way- light summery ones and buttery French ones alike!

Last week I was in Maine where I valiantly attempted to love fresh lobster (I get psyched out by their little faces) and got some cooking tips from a couple of deliciously domestic ladies in Brian's family. I also baked up a storm despite the heat wave that has been boiling the East Coast lately. I made my latest favorite, the Wining Hearts and Minds cake again as well as Bobby's Caramel Cake. I hope to get more creative and develop some of my own recipes some time in the near future, but right now I'm caught up in everyone else's delicious ideas and without the proper equiment to execute any recipes at all!

In Other News...

I'm moving!!

I've decided to purchase a domain name and make a real website to feature my cooking, travels and photography. This website will be called Chez Shai, but don't try to visit it yet- there's nothing there!!

When I figure out all this web hosting and design stuff, I'll let you know!

Spaghetti Pie and More!

It's been way too long but I still don't really feel like blogging. I'm sorry!! I've been keeping busy volunteering for the fabulous Community Servings until my classes begin. I'm still cooking, I'm just a bit behind on writing about it.

As promised, here are some pictures of my spaghetti pie:


Flaky and delicious.

Some veggies would really make this tasty!

Other things I've been baking:

Orangette's Winning Hearts and Mind's Cake - a deliciously decadent cake for chocolate lovers.

And some cute little berry cobblers by the Pioneer Woman!

These are some of my favorite food bloggers. I hope you like their stuff!

Dinner Tonight: Spaghetti Pie

I was entranced by a meal that I had at Brian's sister-in-law's house one night a year or two ago and that meal was the deliciously carb-ful Spaghetti Pie. It was a flaky brown drum sized crust surrounding steaming spaghetti and meat sauce. Since then, I have been looking online for something similar but have only come across spaghetti al forno (baked spaghetti), spaghetti casseroles, and worst of all, some kind of pie with cheese and marinara filling and a spaghetti crust! Hmm...

Luckily, after I pulled a few google tricks out of my sleeves, I found a recipe on vegweb for a crusty, spaghetti-filled "pie". The recipe, which can be found here, was not so much a recipe as a set of guidelines which when distilled reads:

1. Make/Buy a crust
2. Put half the crust in a casserole dish
3. Fill the dish with cooked pasta, sauce, seasonings, and veggies/meat
4. Cover with more crust
5. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown (30-45 min)

There werent even amounts for most of the ingredients! The exception was the crust. This came in handy because my local grocery store was out of the pre-made kind. I made the crust in about 3 minutes using the recipe listed:

7/8 c. oil
1/2 c. ice water
3 c. self-rising pastry flour
(I never buy the stuff- For each 1 c. all-purpose flour, add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder & 1/2 tsp salt.)

I filled it with spaghetti and meat sauce and it's currently baking. I hope it's as good as my first one!

Photo Quality & Artichoke Dip

I should really edit my pictures before I post them here. The difference may be subtle, but food definitely looks more professional and more tasty when edited! Here's an example of some artichoke dip I made a couple days ago for lunch. Before:


After:


And the recipe...

Artichoke Dip
All measurements are approximate.

Dip:
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 c. mayonnaise
2 oz. softened cream cheese
A few dashes of red pepper
salt & pepper

Topping:
a handful of grated cheese
a sprinkling of breadcrumbs

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Spread in a pan or cute little ramekins for individual portions (pictured). Top with topping. Bake at 350 degrees until warmed through and browned on top.
Serve with your favorite chips.

Use Your Noodle!

I can't believe I haven't posted about my noodle experiments yet!

Since Italy, I have been driven to make various kinds of noodles, mainly out of curiosity and also because fresh pasta is delicious and requires very few ingredients. Brian got me a pasta maker back in December but I only got to use it once or twice before skipping town so I'm trying to make up for that now.

With a pasta maker, noodles can be as simple as mix thoroughly (2 c flour, 3 eggs), roll (insert pasta maker here), and roll again to cut, but for some reason I like to pick the really difficult kinds of pasta...

Like penne. With the penne noodles I had to mix, roll, cut into squares, and roll each square point to point around the back of a wooden spoon.

The result, covered in some doctored up tomato sauce from a jar, was pretty good but only moderately better than the $0.80 boxed kind and a LOT more labor. Still I was proud.

Then I made gnocchi. This was actually slightly less arduous then the penne but even less rewarding. I used the method in Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Basically, you boil 1.5 lbs small potatoes until tender (about 20 minutes), peel off the skins while hot, rice the potatoes (I don't have a ricer, so I grated), mix with up to 1.5 c flour, then roll into long cylinders and cut into 3/4" sections. Roll each noodle on a fork while making an indent on the other side with your index finger. That step may be optional. Boil for 10 +/-3 seconds and consume.

The result seemed right on the outside but was sort of mushy and gummy on the inside. Brian and I agreed that this probably wasn't my fault and is maybe just how homemade gnocchi turn out sometimes. He said the ones he ate at Julienne in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago weren't too different. (I highly recommend Julienne, by the way, except maybe for their gnocchi.) We left the rest out to dry overnight to see if that helps, though I'm not counting on it.

Anyway, I didn't want to eat them or make him eat them either, so we went with some boxed pasta instead. It was the perfect compliment to my homemade pesto (recipe to come)- much more fitting!

Summer Produce

Shopping in the summer is so fun & cheap! Yesterday for dinner I came home with a huge honeydew ($2) and 5 ears of corn ($0.32 each).

Brian was not exactly thrilled with my idea of produce for dinner, but we boiled the corn, made some chicken with maple chipotle grill sauce, I whipped up a quick (and sort of mediocre) pasta salad and sliced the honeydew and we actually turned out a great summery meal!

I'll try not to forget the protein tonight to avoid any more grumbling.

Roasted Butternut Squash Ginger Soup & Roasted Broccoli

As I'm sure I've mentioned on here before, I don't usually cook with recipes and I find that this makes it much harder to keep up with this blog. It's easier when I bake and can simply link to an outside recipe. However, I have to try because otherwise what good am I? Just know that all measurements are approximate...

A few months ago I read my middle school friend Kayli's blog about roasted broccoli (above) and just how easy it is to make. I have been hooked on adding roasted vegetables to every dinner since. The other day, on a whim, I bought a lovely pale orange butternut squash thinking that I could make it in to soup, or in a pinch I could just roast it. In the end, I decided to do both.

Tonight for dinner I made that broccoli and the soup while Brian cooked up some pre-breaded Mustard Panko chicken from Whole Foods. I looked at a bunch of recipes before I made this soup (notably this one and this one), but I can't really give credit to just one because in the end I made something that was super simple and all mine.

Roasted Butternut Squash Ginger Soup

1 butternut squash
butter or olive oil
salt & pepper
paprika
red pepper
1/2 small onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 tsp ginger, minced
2 c chicken broth
croutons

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Halve butternut squash and scoop out seeds and stringy area. Place in a baking dish.
Brush with melted butter or olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, red pepper, and paprika.
Bake in the oven covered for 20 minutes, remove foil and continue baking for 15 to 20 minutes, or until tender. (You can do this several hours ahead of time if you'd like.)
While the squash is cooling put a glug of olive oil or a pat of butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onions, garlic, and ginger and let brown. Scoop squash from skin and add to saucepan. Add chicken broth and more salt, pepper, paprika, and red pepper to taste. Let simmer covered for approx. 15 minutes. Puree. (Immersion blenders are the easiest and least messy way to puree soups.)
Garnish with croutons (No boxed croutons please; they offend me!) and serve.

This soup has a strong ginger taste so it's not for the faint of taste buds. Curry or cinnamon might make a nice contrast to the sweet squash. I tried to bring out the smoky paprika and spicy red pepper but the soup still wasn't as punchy as I might have liked.
Try new things! Have fun! Make it yours!

PB Cups

I made peanut butter cups a couple times in Italy (including once for a class pot luck, pictured alongside some brownies below) and I'm currently in the last step of making them right now (freezing). They always go over well because A) they seem impressive but are shockingly easy to make and B) they are a perfect one or two bite sweet treat to pop in your mouth!

I use this recipe, though this time I used half milk and half semi-sweet chocolate. I also found Italy to be lacking in mini muffin liners, so there I made them with small plastic cups, about the size of Dixie cups. The cups lacked the cute ridged look of a muffin liner but it was easier to paint the chocolate on because the plastic was so much sturdier and the pbs were easier to remove from plastic than paper. I also don't have a paintbrush, but I find that the back of a spoon works just fine.

Good luck with your cups!

Breakfast!!

Breakfast is my favorite meal! Today I even ate it for dinner!! I love the simplicity of the ingredients and the creativity that can be applied. Here's a couple of breakfasts I have made recently...

Breakfast tacos! This can be done in any number of ways. This time I sauteed some onions and spinach and put them in warm tortillas topped with shredded mozzarella, scrambled eggs, and a little salsa. Delicious!

For dinner tonight I wanted to be sort of creative so I opted for a breakfast dinner. I made a big batch of Buttermilk Pancakes (the leftovers of which should last a few weeks) and Alton Brown's lemon curd to go on top.
The buttermilk pancakes were delicious and fluffy, though I would have liked a little bit more crispiness. I also didn't cook the lemon curd quite long enough so it didn't thicken up. It was still very tasty and I don't feel too bad since it was my first attempt at emulsifying anything. Maybe I'll try it again with the rest of my bag of lemons. Or maybe I'll move up to an aioli and make some bangin' sandwiches. We'll see....

Bobby's Caramel Cake

I was in Italy and in Italy I was inspired. I made up recipes and ate new things. My roommates were happy to be fed. Here are a couple of simple dishes:

But one thing I missed was baking. For the first 2.5 months in my apartment on Via del Cane, I thought the oven didn't work. However, with a flick of a switch from the dark-haired, over-sized housing assistant who rode up to the house on her moped, it suddenly functioned again. However, it was finicky and powerful and left my brownies covered in a layer of burnt char. I had to stick to less precise foods like lasagna and one of my signature dishes there, chicken and eggplant rolontini, so baking was simply not an option.

Upon my return to Boston, I took a while to settle myself, and once I did, I celebrated by baking a big cake. I'm personally not a huge cake fan because for many the cake is too dry and the icing is too sugary and it all becomes a dry spongy mess in your mouth when you eat it. I chose this one by Paula Deen because the caramel icing sinks into the simple white cake layers to make them moist. The frosting was extremely spreadable but still pretty sweet so if you make this cake, you'll need to pour yourself a big glass of milk.