Mac & Cheese, Attempt #2

Okay, I gave this another try based on Devin's comments about what might've gone wrong the first time with the stringy cheese and the bland flavor. I followed the recipe to the letter except 1) I only did a scant cup of elbow macaroni, in case I had too much pasta last time and there wasn't enough sauce for the dish which could've led to the blandness problem and 2) I was super careful not to overheat/overcook the cheese sauce. When I heated the milk/flour mixture and the cheese, I had the burner on low and was stirring the sauce as the cheese melted. At first everything looked okay but then the liquid started to separate from the cheese. In baking (with butter), that's usually a sign that the mixture is getting too hot. The cheese wasn't completely melted yet and I'd been whisking all along so I didn't think it was too hot. Just in case, I took the pot off the heat and whisked until the cheese had completely melted in the residual heat. The sauce looked good and was creamy. It definitely wasn't as stringy as before. I added the elbow macaroni and kielbasa and stirred it all up. It certainly looked better/more "saucy" than my previous attempt a couple of days ago. I could taste more of the salt so it wasn't as bland.

But I'll be honest - it still wasn't as creamy as I had hoped. I'm going to blame the low-fat Cabot light cheddar cheese. While attempt #2 wasn't as stringy, the pasta with cheese sauce did clump a little once it was cool and this time, there was a little bit of liquid separating from the cheese again. That didn't happen with the first batch so not sure what's up with that. In general, this recipe was okay and I certainly don't mind having it for lunches next week when I go back to work. Not sure I would make it as a "company" dinner though. On the plus side, I really appreciated how easy this was to make. This is easily something I could throw together after work instead of just microwaving the nearest frozen dinner. I'm even glad I "failed" the first time and thank you, Devin, for your comment and tips on how to make it properly. I learn more from my failures than I do with successes. Biggest takeaway for me with this recipe and with using the Cabot light cheddar cheese was not to overheat it because it will get stringy.

Mac and Cheese with Polish Sausage

True to my intentions to learn how to cook, I started off today with a fairly simple recipe: Mac and Cheese with Polish Sausage from The Most Decadent Diet Ever by Devin Alexander. I figure you can't go wrong with pasta and there were few enough ingredients that the recipe wasn't intimidating. But, like all my past cooking attempts, I did have to go into a bit of a production before I started cooking.

For one thing, I had to go buy ingredients since I literally had none of them in the house. So off to Trader Joe's I went. Fortunately, Devin Alexander also seems to be a TJ's disciple and I was able to find all the ingredients easily enough. I even planned ahead to the next several recipes I'd be cooking from her book and stocked up on those too - imagine that. Then I had to invest in a few cooking gadgets/utensils I don't have so a few simple recipes added up to more $$s than any person could reasonably expect. However, I'm trying not to be a flash in the pan (haha) with this cooking thing so I'm looking on these purchases as an investment and that I won't automatically be defaulting to TJ's ready-made Chicken Tikka Masala so quickly. I even bought a meat mallet for an upcoming Chicken Piccata recipe and I envision using it on future occasions, you know - on meat.

Anyway, back to the Mac and Cheese. This was easy enough even for my limited cooking skills. The biggest pain was grating the block of light cheddar cheese but even that wasn't a big deal. The cheese melted easily enough in the pot but once I had everything mixed up and was portioning it out into single serving sizes, the cheese seemed rather stringy. And cleaning up the pot was a huge pain in the arse since the cheese didn't really want to come off. That's what you get with low-fat cheese, I guess. As for the dish itself, it tasted okay. The kielbasa added nice flavor to it but overall, this dish was pretty bland. And I followed the recipe faithfully so for once, it wasn't me or my screw up. I think I'll add a bit more salt and some pepper to the rest of the servings to try to liven it up. I've already said I have bland taste buds so when even I find something bland, you know it's really bland.

4 ounces extra-lean kielbasa or smoked turkey sausage (3 grams of fat or less per 2-ounce serving)
1 cup dried elbow macaroni
2 teaspoons unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup fat-free milk
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 ½ ounces (1 ¾ cups) finely shredded Cabot’s 75% Light Cheddar cheese or your favorite low-fat Cheddar

1. Bring a medium pot of lightly salted water to a full boil.
2. Cut the sausage into ¼-inch-thick slices.
3. Add the macaroni and the sausage to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the macaroni is cooked al dente, about 5 minutes. (It should still have a bit of bite to it.) Drain.
4. Meanwhile, mix the flour with just enough milk to form a paste in a small bowl. Slowly add the remaining milk, stirring as you do, making sure to remove any lumps. Place a medium saucepan over medium heat. Pour the milk mixture into the saucepan. Stir in the salt. Add the cheese and continue to stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until the cheese is completely melted and the mixture starts to thicken. When the mixture is almost smooth, stir in the cooked macaroni and sausage until it is well incorporated. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

Old-Fashioned Glazed Orange Cake

This is the last thing I've baked in 2009 and will be the last thing before my baking hiatus for the month of January. The original name was Old-Fashioned Glazed Lemon Cake from In the Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley but I swapped out the lemons for oranges to make an orange cake with an orange glaze. The original recipe is below with lemons but you can easily substitute oranges. Or try the original with lemons as that's good too.

Tomorrow, New Year's Day, I'm headed to my parents for lunch to celebrate the new year with them and some of my mom's relatives. Most Filipinos, especially (cough) the older generation, don't care for sweets. No chocolate, no sugar, nothing overtly sweet at all. So I settled on a citrus cake as a safe bet that hopefully they won't consider too sweet. I like this cake because it has a nice tender crumb but also the texture of a good pound cake. The orange flavor blends nicely with the butter flavor and the glaze, with bits of orange zest, tops it nicely. I like to take about half the glaze and cover the cake with it while it's still a little warm (not hot). The glaze melts into the cake without sliding off too much. Then once it's completely cool, I cover it with the rest of the glaze. The first layer of glaze that somewhat melted into the cake gives it added moisture and flavor into the cake - yum.

Cake
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
Grated zest of 2 large lemons
Juice of 1 large lemon (about 2 ½ tablespoons)

Glaze
¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups to 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, well sifted
Finely grated zest of 1 large or 2 small lemons
Juice of 1 lemon (about 2 ½ tablespoons)

Additional unsalted butter, at room temperature, for greasing the pan

1. Preheat oven to 325˚F. Grease a 10-inch Bundt pan and set aside. Using a wooden spoon, or the paddle attachment of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until fluffy and pale. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, and scraping down the sides of the bowl.
2. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a small bowl. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Don’t overmix; just fold gently until the batter looks well blended. Fold in the lemon zest and juice.
3. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with a rubber spatula. Bake the cake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, and the cake has begun to pull away from the sides of the pan. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the glaze.
4. For the glaze: in a medium-sized bowl, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the sifted sugar and the combined zest and lemon juice, alternating one then the other, until a creamy, pourable consistency is achieved.
5. In cake onto a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Spoon the glaze over hot cake and allow to cool completely before cutting. Best the day it is made, it will keep fairly well, in an airtight container at room temperature, for up to 3 days.

A cooking blog?

It's no secret that I can't cook. People assume that because I can bake, that I can cook. That's like saying because I can drive a car, that I can also ride a motorcycle and drive an 18-wheeler. Um, no. Actually, I shouldn't say I can't cook. Does being able to boil water for pasta and heating things in the microwave count? Truth is, I've never bothered to learn how to really cook and to become good at it. In today's world of convenience food, I've skated this far in life without learning how to do more than the basics. I don't eat fast food anymore and haven't for years (try reading Fast Food Nation and watching SuperSize Me in the same timeframe and see if you walk into a McDonalds or Burger King ever again) but places like Trader Joe's and Costco were made for cooking simpletons like me and they do all the work. Open package, remove any overtly plastic-y or metal things and put in microwave. Voila, dinner. Don't knock TJ's Chicken Tikka Masala until you've tried it. Even comes with basmati rice.

I also have bland taste buds and am a picky eater so all those ingredients in a recipe, half of which I don't eat most of the time, just don't inspire me to cook. The times when I've attempted it, I left out the ingredients I don't eat and ended up with some strange (and usually tasteless) concoctions. However, we're coming up on a new year and while I shy away from all things to do with "New Year's Resolutions" as seemingly too fleeting to be any good, it's easier to feel motivated to try to hone my cooking skills once again.

Actually, the real crux of the matter is, I don't bake in January. Too many people (plus me) are on a diet or trying to eat healthier and I don't want to sabotage their efforts (or mine). So if I can't bake, I need to do something. Might as well try to learn how to cook....again. I don't aspire to be a Julia Child or even to become a great cook. I just want to be able to put together some decent meals without it being a production. I can whip up almost any baking recipe with just the ingredients in my pantry and refrigerator but for a simple recipe of "real food", I will literally have to write down all the ingredients needed that I don't have (likely all of them), go make a special grocery shopping trip, and in some cases, figure out if I need to buy whatever pan(s) are needed or if I can make do with what I have. I do have pots and pans (more or less) but the only one I really use is my small frying pan since I can make scrambled eggs. Oh, and a pot for boiling water for pasta. All the other stuff I gathered over the years in my previous and aborted attempts to learn how to cook so I have a hodgepodge of cookware, none of which are really top quality since I wasn't going to invest in something I know won't capture my attention for very long.

This time, however, I've learned enough to set realistic goals. I'm only going to make simple dishes that don't require massive amounts of ingredients or lots of chopping and slicing (I suck at that too). Preferably food I can pack into containers and bring to work for lunch so they have to take kindly to being reheated. I can microwave with the best of them.

So, this baking blog will temporarily be hijacked by my cooking attempts - come along for the ride. At best, you can laugh at my efforts :).

Before I inflict that torture on you though, I have another recipe to share from a real cook - my mom. This is for Minced Chicken with Lettuce Leaves or Mushu Chicken as we call it in my family. It's my niece Lauren's favorite dish that my mom makes. Whenever the girls are in town, Lauren asks for Mushu Chicken and my mom makes it for her (c'mon, have to feed the grandchildren and all). I don't know where she got the original recipe so I can't cite the source here. All I've got is a well-used recipe card. Incidentally, this is exactly the type of recipe I'm talking about that's my Waterloo - too many ingredients and too much chopping, slicing and dicing. But it's really tasty - enjoy.

Minced Chicken with Lettuce Leaves

1 head lettuce

6 dried Chinese black mushrooms

3 tablespoons sesame seeds

5 boned, skinned chicken thighs

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/4 cup peanut or vegetable oil

2 green onions

One 1/2-inch piece fresh ginger, minced

3/4 cup minced water chestnuts

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons cold water

Salt

Freshly ground white pepper

1. Separate the lettuce leaves, wash dry, wrap in a cloth and chill for at least 1 hour.

2. Cover the dried mushrooms with warm water and let stand for 2 hours. Drain and squeeze water, discard stems, mince and reserve.

3. Toast sesame seeds until golden.

4. Mince chicken thighs and reserve.

5. In a small bowl, combine oyster sauce, soy sauce, sherry and sugar. Stir well and reserve.

6. Heat wok over high heat, add vegetable oil and quickly swirl surface of pan. Add minced chicken, green onions, and ginger. Stir fry 2 minutes over high heat.

7. Add water chestnuts and mushrooms, stir fry for 2 minutes.

8. Add sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, oyster sauce mixture and cornstarch mixture. Stir fry until well blended and slightly thickened, 1 or 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Chicken Adobo

Few dishes epitomize Filipino cooking like adobo. It's a vinegar-and-garlic-based dish and can be made with pork ribs or chicken. My mom has made adobo throughout the years and never seemed to follow a recipe but her adobo always came out really well and is one of our family staples. This last time, she showed me an actual recipe (huzzah!) that she had been using lately as we all really liked that version of adobo. It was a recipe she'd cut out of the newspaper but it turns out it was from a Filipino cookbook a friend had given me a couple of years ago - Memories of Philippine Kitchens: Stories and Recipes from Far and Near by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan. Which, of course, I'd never cooked from since I'm just not a cook but I liked reading the cultural tidbits associated with the different recipes. But now I have an actual recipe to post! This recipe calls for using baby back ribs but my mom made it with chicken. She cut up a whole one and used all the parts except for the back of the chicken as she said that had too much fat.

Baby Back Ribs Adobo (but with chicken)

1 cup organic apple cider vinegar (preferably aged in wood)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 small bay leaves
1 or 2 large jalapeno chiles, left whole
1 side of baby back ribs (about 2 pounds), cut up into individual or 2-rib portions)
2 teaspoons rock salt
6 garlic gloves, peeled
2 teaspoons Tellicherry peppercorns
Steamed rice, for serving

1. In small bowl, combine vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves and jalapeno. Arrange ribs in baking pan and season with salt.
2. Using a mortar and pestle, gently pound garlic cloves and peppercorns until they are combined and coarsely ground. Rub spices into the pork. Pour vinegar mixture over ribs, turning meat to coat evenly with the liquid. Cover pan tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to overnight.
3. When you’re ready to cook ribs, transfer ribs and marinade to large, heavy saucepan. Bring mixture to boil, then reduce heat, cover and cook until meat is tender and falling off the bone.

Molten Chocolate Cake - Gale Gand

I've been MIA for a few days because of the holidays and also because I'm slowing down on the baking. I think I pretty much hit the baking peak the week before Christmas in terms of volume. Fortunately, for Christmas Day dinner, I only had to make sure there was enough for 7 people. Per my sister's request, I made molten chocolate cake (aka lava cake) for dessert. I got this recipe from foodnetwork.com and it's from Gale Gand. I have several of her cookbooks although I admit I haven't made many recipes from it. This lava cake was pretty good but, as with most recipes with a high concentration of chocolate, make sure you use "good chocolate". I prefer Lindt or Valrhona but Trader Joe's also carries good chocolate.

Lava cakes are simple and easy to make but the baking of them can be tricky. If you don't bake it long enough, it's raw batter instead of "lava" chocolate. If you bake them too long, then worst case scenario, you have a dry cake and best case scenario is you have a cake but no lava. I made the batter for this earlier in the day so I wouldn't have to do anything at the last minute. I portioned them out into individual ramekins, covered each one with plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator. When we were nearing the end of Christmas dinner, I preheated the oven and popped the cakes into the hot oven.

Because they had been refrigerated, they were nowhere near baked, even for lava cakes, at 6 minutes. I left them in for about 10 minutes but in retrospect, that wasn't enough time. The top half of the cake was just right but the bottom half was still more batter than cake and even a bit cool so they definitely hadn't had time to bake long enough. I had batter left over so I made a few more ramekins of lava cake the next night when my sister's boyfriend, Patrick, was over and she had asked for lava cake again for him. This time I baked the cakes a little longer but now it seemed I baked them too long as the bottom of the cake baked and there was still the fudgy middle but the top of the cake I had was just a bit "tough". Taste-wise, I like this recipe. But I will have to play with baking times to really get it to the right combination of cake and molten cake.

8 ounces plus 6 tablespoons butter

10 ounces bittersweet chocolate

6 yolks

6 eggs

3 cups powdered sugar

1 cup flour

1. Melt the chocolate and butter together. Cool slightly.
2. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together the yolks and eggs then mix in the powdered sugar.
3. Whisk this into the chocolate mixture then whisk in the flour.
4. Fill 12 greased 4-ounce foil tins with the batter and refrigerate until ready to bake, or bake immediately.
5. Bake in a preheated 450˚F oven for 5 to 6 minutes from cold, or 4 to 5 minutes from room temperature. Turn out of tins immediately onto the plate.

Chocolate Pan Cake with Fudge Frosting

Chocolate Pan Cake with Fudge Frosting - December 21, 2009

If you ever need a quick and easy chocolate cake with frosting and you don't want to mess with making separate layers, waiting for the cake to cool and frosting it, use this recipe. You bake it in one pan, you make the frosting while it's baking and you spread the frosting right over the cake when it comes out of the oven. The frosting partially melts on top of the cake and it's just all chocolatey, fudgy goodness. Not to mention, this cake is light, has a tender crumb and is moist. The recipe is from A Country Baking Treasury by Lisa Yockelson and as I've mentioned before, was the best $5 I ever spent on a bargain book at a bookstore. This recipe alone is worth more than the $5, not to mention all the other great recipes I've gotten from it.

The batter for this cake is pretty liquidy and contributes to how light it bakes up and its moistness. It calls for a high baking temperature and a relatively short baking time so don't take your eye off the clock for this one. The main drawback to it though is because the cake batter is so liquidy, it's prone to lumps of flour. Cake flour is notorious for lumping. You can sift it beforehand but when I make this recipe, I make it because it's easy and I'm pressed for time. When I'm pressed for time, I don't sift. Which is sloppy baking work on my part but the taste of this cake makes up for any minor lumps here or there :). Oh and I never add pecans to this - it doesn't need it. Try making it with a little less powdered sugar than a whole 1-lb box. The full pound makes it a bit stiffer in consistency. You don't want the frosting too soft though as remember that you're going to spread it over a hot cake and it'll melt. Sometimes the butter in the frosting gets too hot when you pour it over the cake so it separates a bit. Don't worry about it - once you have the frosting spread out the way you want it, just blot it gently with a paper towel to take a little of the shine off. It'll still taste good.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into rough chunks
4 tablespoons unsifted unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup water
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups unsifted cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup buttermilk, blended with 1 teaspoon baking soda, at room temperature
2 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Chocolate Fudge Frosting
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
5 tablespoons milk, at room temperature
1 tablespoon light cream, at room temperature
1 box (1 pound) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1 cup chopped pecans


1. Lightly butter and flour a 9 x 13 x 2-inch cake pan; set aside. Preheat the oven to 400˚F.
2. For the cake, place the butter, cocoa, and water in a large saucepan, set over moderately high heat, and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat. Sift together the sugar, flour and salt into the large bowl of an electric mixer. Whisk together the buttermilk, eggs and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Pour the hot butter-cocoa-water mixture over the sifted dry mixture and beat on moderate speed until thoroughly blended. Add the whisked egg mixture and continue beating on low speed until the batter is a uniform color, about 1 ½ minutes. Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake the cake on the lower-third-level rack of the preheated oven for 20 to 22 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and dry and the cake shrinks slightly away from the edges of the pan.
4. About 10 minutes before the cake is done, make the fudge frosting. Place the butter, chocolate, milk and cream in a large saucepan, set over low heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate has melted down completely. Remove from the heat and beat in the sugar by cupfuls with the vanilla and salt. Blend in the pecans.
5. As soon as the cake is done, remove it from the oven to a wire cooling rack. Immediately spread the frosting evenly over the top with a flexible palette knife. Let the cake cool in the pan.
6. For serving, cut the cake in squares directly from the cake pan.