An Ode to the Sandwich Press

Sandwiches are all over the blogosphere this week, thanks to one woman's quest for an engagement ring. Now, the debate as to whether she's a marraige-obssessed harpy kowtowing to regressive gender politics or a business savvy woman who's blatant ploy to grab a book deal is transparently obvious is outside the purview of this blog. However, sandwiches themselves are totally on topic!

I normally eat sandwiches for lunch every day, and have since elementary school. They're easy to make, and have endless variations. Sometimes I get fancy and eat cheese and fruit for lunch, but I love a good sandwich. And since I've been working from home, I get to use my sandwich press! I didn't use it that much in Boston, since my kitchen was tiny, but now I have tons of counter space and the press sits prominently on the counter, rather than on the bottom shelf of my kitchen rack. I feel like the simple act of pressing the sandwich really elevates it. The sandwich press can also be used as an impromptu grill. I've made hamburgers on it, and last week grilled some corn up. It's so versatile!

CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES

I brought my favorite last-minute dessert to a function this week and someone asked for the recipe.  I was just going to refer them to this blog but I was surprised that I had never actually posted this.  So, here it is.

Ingredients

Fresh strawberries
Molding chocolate

The most important part of this recipe is the "tricks".  They are easy enough to follow, but if you don't know them you can possibly be disappointed with the results.

1.  Fresh strawberries - Ideally you do this on the day you buy the strawberries.  But let's get real - who ever does that?  So you can wash them and store them in an airtight container in between paper towels.  The longer you wait to use them, the worse the results will be.  So I try to use them no later than the next day.  Bring the strawberries to room temperature for the best results.
2.  Chocolate - The better the chocolate the better the results.  Molding chocolate has some kind of "emulsifier" that makes it more waxy.  If yours is too thick and is not coating the berries the way that you like, just add some solid shortening to it until it is the way you like it.  Start with a tablespoon.  If it gets too runny, just add more chocolate.
3.  I buy chocolate in bulk.  Although your initial outlay may seem a lot ($30-80), that can last for years and it is at your fingertips when you need to make something at the last minute.  If you have a choice, get it with 3 "drips" (marking on the package).  If it is not available locally, you can get it online from Surfas (www.culinarydistrict.com).  The molding chocolate is Callebaut.  Store in a cool place.  If it separates (areas of paleness) you can still use it.  It is not bad and the color becomes even when you remelt it.

4.  Use a double boiler to melt the chocolate.  If you don't have one, then make one by putting a smaller pot in a larger one.  Just make sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the smaller pot.  Don't be skimpy with the amount of chocolate you melt.
5.  Put them down to dry.  Parchment paper works best, but you can use wax paper or tinfoil.  It takes 30-60 minutes to dry in a cool room.  Better not to put them in a refrigerator because the chocolate can be uneven.
6.  Take the leftover chocolate in the pot and put it in a container to harden.  Yo


Now, just dip the strawberries.  Do it with no one around otherwise you will find that they will never make it to your function.

Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce

Last Monday was Earth Day. It was also Meatless Monday. Reducing meat consumption is a great way to help combat climate change, so I try to stick to having vegetarian meals on Monday. I whipped this up in about 15 minutes. For one serving, I took the leftover canned tomatoes that I had in the freezer (about two whole tomatoes, plus some sauce) plus half of a fresh tomato and heated them in a pot with some minced garlic, a little olive oil, and some basil leaves. The tomatoes were broken down pretty well, but I decided to give them a mix with the immersion blender to make the sauce even smoother. You can serve this with basically any pasta. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese (the real kind, not the crap from Kraft), add a nice slice of crusty bread, and voila! You have a simple, easy meal that's entirely meatless and vegan if you forgo the cheese. Delicious!

Cabbage Soup

Cold weather is upon us here in Boston, which means soup. I actually made this soup the day before Sandy came to Boston, as I still had quite a bit of cabbage left from my Farmer's box. This cabbage was huge. I wish I had a picture. It was actually half of a head of cabbage, and it weighed in at 5 lb 14 oz, making the entire cabbage ~12 lbs. Craziness. So, with all this cabbage I needed to do something. I called my mom, and she told me to e-mail my aunt for the recipe for my great-grandmother's cabbage soup. Here it is. I'm transcribing it from a handwritten recipe, so I'll try to leave the idiosyncrasies in. I think it was written down by my grandmother, based on the bizarre underlining, but it's legible so I'm not sure.

1 large head cabbage (4 or 5 lbs) (n.b. my pot could only hold 4 lbs)
4 or 5 medium boiling potatoes
1 pint heavy sour cream
3 sour salt chips, which is called sour salt (can only be bought in a Jewish store) (n.b. Despite living in Brookline, which is home to quite a few Jews, I couldn't find sour salt. The internet told me it was citric acid, so I just used a lemon)
6 very large size onions
1 tablespoon or more salt (to taste) (6-8 qt size pot)

Shred cabbage with knife (not fine) and put into large pot with (more than to cover) water

While that is boiling peel potatoes and insert right in pot in quarters

While this is boiling brown onions VERY brown (n.b. this is excessively underlined) with LOTS (n.b. again, very underlined) of butter and when real brown pour in the sour cream (something illegible) and on LOW FLAME (n.b. again, underlined, you don't want to curdle the sour cream) mix all liquid.

These are my onions. They're pretty brown, but I got bored. Getting your onions really brown takes quite a while. I think this was after 30 minutes.

Merge together very well until no liquid in pan.

Pour back into soup. Not a high flame (or cream will curdle), but low simmer. (Scrape all brown from pan and pour into soup). Remove the potatoes and smash and insert in soup.

Add sour salt to taste (one nice size or 2 small ones) just to give it a little tart and cook one hour.

All in all about 2 hours of cooking time.

My soup. I toasted some rye break to go with it.

Quick and Easy Dinner

This is one of my favorite go-to recipes for a quick, easy dinner: Stir Fried Sesame Shrimp and Spinach. No pictures, because I was hungry. It's easily adaptable for one person; I'll take one serving of frozen shrimp and then enough spinach to fill the frying pan that I'm using. It will cook down. I like to keep frozen shrimp on hand (not pre-cooked, preferably peeled by EZ peel is also fine) because they cook quickly and they're easy to prepare. It doesn't seem like a pantry staple, but there have been numerous nights where I'll just take out some frozen shrimp and whip something up. Even if I don't take them out to defrost, if I run some hot water over it takes care of it. I don't use ginger with it, since I use a ginger infused stir-fry oil, but if I have some I'll toss it in. I also don't put the chili flakes in, since I'm not a huge fan of spicy food. It's good plain, but also good with rice, which you can just make in the rice cooker. Today I added some broccoli to up the veggie content, which I got from the new Brookline winter Farmer's Market.

Pickles

One of the farmers at the BU Farmer's Market does a CSA. I don't get a season share, since I live alone, but I'll do the week-by-week. A while back, I got a bunch of pickling cucumbers. I also have pickling spices, because I'm a weird impulse shopper and I bought them back when I lived in Irvine. I had six cucumbers, which I quartered to make 24 pickles.

I made a sort of dill-half sour combo, which turned out pretty well. This is what I did for the six cucumbers.

6 pickling cucumbers
5 cups water
1/8 cup white vinegar
1/8 cup salt--many recipes call for pickling salt, but regular salt will do. I used salt with no iodine or caking agents, as that can make the brine cloudy.
1/2 tsp pickling spice
4-5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
Couple sprigs of dill


Boil water, salt, and vinegar. Quarter cucumbers, place in a jar. I used a storage jar that I had lying around. Pour mixture in jar, add spices, garlic, and dill sprigs. Put in refrigerator and let sit overnight. Eat delicious pickles.

Seriously, this was so easy and they turned out really well. I had no idea it would be this easy.

Hard Cider

Been making some hard cider recently, now that apples are in season.  It's incredibly easy. The latest batch to come out: Hints of Citrus.

1 Gal apple juice (fresh)
1 cup orange juice
1 cup brown sugar
orange zest
Champagne yeast

Mix ingredients, wait a week or so for fermentation, add 1 Tbsp honey to jars (for carbonation), bottle.



Next batch: Raspberry cider
1 Gal apple juice (fresh)
1 lb frozen raspberries
1 cup honey
Champagne yeast

See previous recipe for details.


More to come, hopefully.