Plate #7: Penne alla Vodka

Booze in food. I. Am. Into. It.

This stems, I think, from sparkling jello. The Internet hardly seems to remember it, but some time in the '90s, I was mesmerized by what Kraft was touting as its newest fancy, high-end, adult dessert. "The Champagne of Jell-o!" Just like the gross shit your kids are eating in the school cafeteria! But white grape flavored! And with bubbles! Goddamn did I think it looked grown up. You know why? Alc. O. Hol.

(Is it a digression if you haven't even started talking about the topic from which you would have digressed?)

The point is I made some pasta and also some vodka sauce.

Is there really vodka? It doesn't taste boozy. (Neither did sparkling white grape jello.) Why not just tomato cream sauce? Why not just pink sauce?!

Cream. Vodka? The world may never know.

Well. Let me put on my science pants.

Apparently tomatoes have certain flavor compounds that are most soluble in alcohol. Vodka, as opposed to wine or any other kind of alcoholic cooking liquid, is flavorless (in theory) and therefore releases enhances the hidden tomato flavors without adding any new ones. Putting the art on a pedestal, you might say, without bringing attention to the pedestal itself. And if you don't believe me, then at least believe the New York Times.

There we have it. Tomatoes. Vodka. Cream. Other yum things.

Other yum things.

We proceed as one would with any basic tomato sauce. Saute garlic and shallots or onions or whatever. Hit that with some red pepper flakes too, if you jive that way. Add a big can of crushed tomatoes. And salt and pepper. Let it hang for a while. Then! Vodka! Stir it in! Cook that until it doesn't smell like you're nostril hairs are burning. And finally, three of my eleventy faves, cream and basil and parm.

I know I say this about everything, but I could
die swimming in that pot.

So despite whatever urges you might have to eat that right out of the pan with a spoon, you should probably pour it over some penne. Because, that's like what the dish is called. Penne alla vodka. You should probably make sure the penne is cooked too.

I remembered to cook the pasta.

Penne alla Vodka
adapted from Food Network Magazine

2 shallots, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
salt, pepper, red pepper flakes to taste
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
½ cup vodka
⅔ cup heavy cream
½ cup grated parmesan
handful of basil, roughly chopped

Saute shallots and garlic in butter. Season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Add crushed tomatoes and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Add vodka and simmer until alcohol cooks off. Stir in heavy cream and parmesan, and then basil. Serve over penne.

Plate #6: Tres Leches Cake

Firstly. I'd like to apologize to all my loyal followers (whaddup, roommates and friends from high school) for the huge gaps between posts. I've been really busy, you know, being late to work and smiling at cute boys and also picking my nose (sometimes simultaneously!). It is my springtime resolution to be better, in all ways, really, but then again, it's supposed to snow tomorrow, so, like, whatever.

B. Recently, Jenny was trapped under an avalanche of socks. She survived.

Jenny doesn't like doing laundry anymore.

3. (is for) tres leches cake! I think there was a time when I considered myself primarily a baker, but then I probably realized that I'm not so great with things like measurement precision or setting a timer for the oven. La la la oh well.

Technically, this should be called a quatro leches cake, since the whole thing gets smothered in whipped cream at the end, but I suppose that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely. The eponymous tres leches in this cake however are los Señores Sweetened Condensed Milk, Evaporated Milk, y Half and Half. Whisk them together. Let them siesta in the fridge for a while.

More milks in more places.

But before them, we begin with that dense cake, perfect for soaking up a thick milk medley. Cake flour (2 cups of cake flour = ¼ cup of cornstarch and 1 ¾ cups of all-purpose flour sifted), butter, sugar, 5 whole eggs!

Don't forget to butter and flour that pan, babies.

I'll warn you now that if you follow the directions to this recipe correctly, your cake will look far prettier than the one I made below. (See: measuring, bad at. Also: weight conversions, doesn't know how to do the math for.)

Anyway, in theory, you will have baked this beautiful, properly measured cake and you will have also pricked it repeatedly with a fork until it looks like your pockmarked face in middle school. (I will get back to you soon with a better, more appetizing metaphor.) And after that, you'll retrieve los tres leches and pour them all over that cake.

Piscina del leche.

Hopefully, unlike me, you won't get to this step and say to your dog, oh, shit, I have a pool of milk, I've done something terribly wrong, I probably should have spent that extra 10 seconds remembering dry ounces are not the same as fluid ounces. All of this, only to realize that the purpose of the cake is to soak up all that liquid (but you still should have remembered that thing about dry and fluid ounces).

Many hours later, perhaps even after a whole night of fretful sleeping, you will open the fridge and find that the cake did soak up the milk. You know, 80%, but whatever.

Charco del leche?

I think around now would be a good time to whip some heavy cream with a few tablespoons of sugar. Once it's transformed into whipped cream, it would be best to slather it all on top of the cake.

Like I said, mine's not pretty, but it sure tasted like yum with 9 Ms.
YUMMMMMMMMM.

I think the moral of this story is, someone please buy me a kitchen scale.

Tres Leches Cake (makes 1 9x13 cake)
adapted from Alton Brown

6 ¾ oz. cake flour (approx. 1 ½ cups)
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 stick butter
8 oz. sugar (approx. 1 cup)
5 eggs
1 ½ tsp. vanilla

12 oz. can evaporated milk
14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup half and half

1 pint heavy cream
2 tbsp. sugar

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and then vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients in batches. Bake in buttered and floured pan for 20 minutes at 350°. After cake has cooled, prick with fork. Whisk milks and pour over cake. Let stand overnight. Cover with whipped cream.

Plate #5: Broccoli Cheddar Soup

It's February now, and for such a midget of a month, it's awful. The months of cold and wind are becoming unbearable, and then it teases you with one succulent 60 degree Friday afternoon, only to follow up with horizontal snow on Monday. Not to mention all that goddamn wintry mix. I've recently reread Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins (to die for, really) and he says it perfectly:

However more abbreviated than its cousins it may look, February feels longer than any of them. It is the meanest moon of winter, all the more cruel because it will masquerade as spring, occasionally for hours at a time, only to rip off its mask with a sadistic laugh and spit icicles into every gullible face, behavior that grows quickly old.

It makes a girl start to wonder why she moved to New York at all. (Oh, yeah.)

The point of all this though is soup. If there's anything that keeps you keepin' the faith besides under-the-covers shared body heat (or perhaps an adorable pooch), it's hot glorious soup, warming you from the esophagus and out.

Jenny, waiting for spring to arrive at the door.

I like broccoli. And I'm really into cheddar. I also dig cream and onions. Thus, a soup featuring these dudes is an ideal foul-weather friend.

Naturally, we start with butter in the pot. Toss in some diced onions and minced garlic to sweat it out Russian bathhouse-style. Maybe some thyme, too? Dust in a couple tablespoons of flour and let that cook until nutty to get that coats-your-mouth-and-tummy texture. And after that, roughly chopped broccoli (fresh or frozen, whatever your icy February heart prefers). And after all that, chicken stock. Let them simmer, make friends.

Friends cooking/thickening/escaping the heartless, heatless
clutches of February

After about 10 minutes of everyone getting to know each other, it's time for a puree. In an ideal world, one would accomplish this with an immersion blender, to avoid potentially spilling hot soup all over oneself and the counter and the dog. I do not live in an ideal world. At the very least, I have learned from my previous supper club mishaps that pressure builds when a sealed container is filled with hot liquid and perhaps that container should have a vent.

Soup blending master and genius.

Once everyone is nice and smooth, return them to the pot. Add some cream. Add that wonderful shredded cheddar. Add salt and pepper.

And so, once more, you have staved off weather-induced depression with a creamy bowl of soup. You even feigned extra sunshine with a couple olive-oily croutons. Until it's time for the dust off that sundress and those sandals, you do what you can to keep the faith.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup (makes 4 servings)
adapted from Emeril Lagasse

3 tbsp. butter
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 thyme leaves, chopped
3 tbsp. flour
3 cups chicken stock
1 lb. broccoli, chopped
½ cup heavy cream
1 ½ cups sharp cheddar, shredded
Salt and pepper, to taste

Saute onions, garlic, and thyme in butter. Add flour and cook until fragrant. Add broccoli and cook until soft. Add chicken stock and simmer for 10 minutes or until thickened. Puree. Mix in heavy cream and cheese. Salt and pepper to taste.

To make croutons, slice baguette thinly. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 400° until golden and crisp.

Plate #4: Crunchwrap Supreme

I don't care what anyone says about Grade F beef and decade-enduring preservatives, I love Taco Bell. I luuuurve Taco Bell, I loave it, I luff it, you know? What some (dumb) people hate about it is probably what irresistibly draws me. Goopy meat and gloopy cheese and soggy lettuce--it's so elegantly disgusting. I mean, who, if not a sick genius, would think up something like this?

My preferred suicide bomb is the Crunchwrap Supreme.

Gorgeous.

From bottom to top: ground beef, nacho cheese, a flat crunchy shell, sour cream, lettuce, and tomato, all neatly wrapped in a flour tortilla the size of your torso and grilled into a hexagon. Architecturally and culinarily perfect.

Of course, I wanted to recreate it. There was, however, the challenge of making this handheld snack of the gods from ingredients that I could properly pronounce.

First, beef and that very distinct Taco Bell flavor, without caving to those Taco Bell brand seasoning packets next to the Pace Picante.

Confession: I did not do this flavor research by myself.

Add to that a cup of water, and add that to a pan with a couple pounds of ground beef until fragrant and brown.

Next, nacho cheese. Problem: how do we create a sauce that won't seize or separate once it's cooled, the way a fancy and proper bechamel will? Solution: cornstarch and evaporated milk.

Confession number two: I did not figure this out on my own either.

After that, we're pretty much ready for assembly!

First, flour tortilla.

Then, goodly smear of nacho cheese.

Then, ground beef.

Then, flat crunchy shell. I fried corn tortillas, which do not 
recreate the authentic Taco Bell experience, but 
delicious nonetheless.

Then, sour cream.

And finally, shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes.

Here, I cheated a little bit. Since I couldn't find any flour tortillas as absurdly massive the ones used in the real deal Crunchwraps, I tore off a bit and gave it a little hat before packaging.

Quick toast in the pan, and BAM, it is mothereffing Crunchwrap Supreme time.

Crunchwrap Supreme (makes 8)
10 large flour tortillas
8 corn tortillas
2 lbs. ground beef
Taco Bell seasoning*
1 ½ cups nacho cheese**
1 cup sour cream
2 cups iceberg lettuce, shredded
2 tomatoes, diced

Fry corn tortilla until crisp. Brown ground beef with seasoning. Layer flour tortilla with nacho cheese, ground beef, corn tortilla, sour cream, lettuce, and tomato. Wrap in hexagon shape. Toast in pan until golden.

Heck yeah, dude.

*Taco Bell Seasoning (makes seasoning for 2 lb. beef)
adapted from eHow.com
2 tbsp. flour
2 tbsp. cornstarch
2 tbsp. onion powder
2 tsp. beef bouillon, crushed
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. paprika
2 tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. cayenne pepper
½ tsp. sugar
1 cup water

Mix dry ingredients. Dissolve in water.

**Nacho Cheese Sauce (makes 1 ½ cups)
adapted from Serious Eats
1 cup sharp cheddar, grated
½ cup pepper jack, grated
1 tbsp. cornstarch
12 oz. can evaporated milk
Hot sauce

Toss cheeses and cornstarch. Cook all ingredients over low heat until melted.

Supper Club: Christine's Birthday

Woops, I'm a slacker. It's been a month! Things have happened, as they tend to do--mostly holiday hibernation and contemplating life on my parents' couch during marathons of No Reservations. On occasion, I was social! I even managed to plan and execute the first in (hopefully) a long series of dinner parties with my friend Christine, tentatively called The Fat Kid Supper Club. Sit on it, get back to me with your thoughts.

This is Christine. She's cute. And on sale at Staples.

On account of it being Christine's birthday, and needing to redo the mousse thanks to 10 curdled egg yolks, and copious amounts of champagne, and a blender of hot soup exploding in my face twice, and ending the meal by splitting an entire bottle of port (but luckily not participating in the surprise appearance of fruit punch Four Loko)--on account of all these things, photographic documentation of the evening and its eats are at a poorly lighted minimum.

Next time I'll be better, I promise. I'll even write down the recipes so I can remember how to make them the second time around. New year, new you, etc. etc.

Menu
Prosciutto-Wrapped Pears
Parmesan Rosemary Crackers
Cheese Board
Spiced Nuts
Olives

Mushroom Fennel Soup

Beef Wellington
Green Peppercorn Sauce
Roasted Potatoes
Wilted Swiss Chard

Vanilla Chocolate Salted Caramel Layered Mousse

Snacks to snack on, while I slave away in the kitchen.

'Shroom soup.

Who would've known that green peppercorn sauce turns out pink in
the end? Also, there are vegetables behind the meat, I swear.

A herd of mousse.