French Onion Soup

All of the Eastern seaboard is going crazy over Hurricane Irene, expected to hit New York City on Sunday. I had planned to spend Sunday at the beach, but given the weather I’m quickly reevaluating my plans and a cozy home-cooked meal suddenly seems like a great idea. I loved Sam's summery gazpacho post earlier, so here's a complementary recipe that's perfect when it's rainy. But I have to warn you that your apartment – and yourself – will smell like onions for days afterward. Not exactly ideal when you’re cooped up.


French Onion Soup
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

Makes about 8 cups

Ingredients:
5 medium white or yellow onions
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons dry sherry or cognac
3 ½ cups broth
French bread
1 ½ cups Gruyere cheese
thyme
salt
pepper

Directions:
Thinly slice 5 medium onions.

Put 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil in a pot and heat over medium-low heat until the butter is melted.

Add the sliced onions and a pinch of thyme (dried or fresh). Keep cooking over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes.

When the onions start to brown, reduce heat to medium-low and cover. Keep cooking, stirring occasionally, until the onions are a rich brown (about 40 minutes).

Stir in 2 tablespoons dry sherry or cognac, increase heat to high and cook to evaporate the alcohol.

Add 3 ½ cups of your favorite broth. I use chicken, but beef is traditional and has a fuller flavor. Vegetable broth works too if you’re serving vegetarians.

Turn up the heat and cover to bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer partially covered for 20 minutes.

Add salt (about 1 teaspoon) and pepper (about ¼ teaspoon).

Note: Everything up to this point can be done in advance, since it takes so long to cook down the onions. I like to make it the day before when I have guests coming to dinner, then finish with the final steps right before people arrive. Trust me though that you don’t want to rush the onion-cooking process – it’s what gives the soup such great flavor.

Take about 8 ramekins and pour in the soup so that each is about ¾ full. Add a slice of good toasted French bread to the top of each, and sprinkle (or heap) grated Gruyere cheese on top (about 3 tablespoons per ramekin).

Put the ramekins on a cookie sheet and broil until the cheese is melted and starting to brown. Serve hot!

Hello there

Where's your kitchen? It varies. There was a time when I had a two-oven kitchen in Charlottesville, VA (those were the good times), then I had a pretty terrible kitchen in Green Bay, WI, which I never used, and now I have been accused of taking over a kitchen in the UES.

What's your signature dish? Anything involving a wok.

What's the best thing you ever ate? That is an impossible question. I will say that a restaurant in Charlottesville, Mas Tapas, makes these bacon wrapped dates which are, technically speaking, delicious.

What's your favorite item in your kitchen and what does it say about you? The wok. Let me tell you why the wok is brilliant. 1) You can cook things really quickly - throw in a little oil, a little whatever-you-want-to-stirfry, turn the heat up to high, and a couple minutes later you've got yourself something to eat. Patience is not a virtue in my world. 2) You can cook many and a lot of things in a wok, which cuts down on cleaning time later. 3) The wok is a perfectly legitimate instrument to cook chinese and thai-inspired food, which I would describe as delicious.

What's your kitchen resolution(s) for 2011? To have a kitchen? Alas, life on the campaign trail is not 100% conducive to being able to cook.

Coming up - an important examination of the deliciosity of Ricotta Salata. Don't touch that dial.

Sam's Intro!

Where's your kitchen? A tiny little thing in Highland Park, NJ
What's your signature dish? I am a one pot cooking kind of gal, as I mentioned time management isn't my strong suit, so if it is all in one pot, it is harder to mis-time things. I don' think there is one particular thing though...maybe my vegetarian chili!
What's the best thing you ever ate? This is hard too, I can't think of one thing, but I will say most recently I guess, this amazing fresh spinach pasta in a shrimp scampi dish at a restaurant in Redbank, I had dreams about this garlicy delicious pasta.
What's your favorite item in your kitchen and what does it say about you? My immersion blender! Why? It is red, i is versatile, and everything is more fun when an immersion blender is involved! What does it say about me? It says that I love a little adventure, and soup!
What's your kitchen resolution(s) for 2011? I really want to start making my own ice cream, or pasta...but honestly don't see either of those happening.

Kitchen Experiment: Gazpacho

Lovely thing about my new apartment is that I am right across the street from a farmer's market every Friday. Alas in the month + I have lived here I have never managed to actually make it there during operating hours. But this past Friday I finally made it. And after using most of my market bounty for fixings for a picnic at my local petting zoo (now don't you wish you lived in New Jersey), I found myself left with: a 1/4 of a cucumber, 3 plum tomatoes, several day old baguette, a chili pepper (type unknown, large, like a poblano, but smaller than a bell pepper, and red, I believe a fresno pepper), and half a red onion.

What to do with such an assortment, in my hot apartment, that gets hotter when you turn on the stove? I vaguely recalled an episode of "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef" while at the gym (yes I watch food network at the gym) where Anne Burrell is making sexy noises (you know what I mean if you watch the show) as she is throwing chunks of bread into her tomato concoction and thats when it hit me...GAZPACHO

So I googleed gazpacho recipes. Most required things I didn't have, in amounts I didn't have, so I decided to sort of wing it, me and my immersion blender. I warn you this was an imprecise science, non traditional, things I had in my house, mimicking recipes I read...

1/4 of a cucumber, seeded and cut into chunks

3 plum tomatoes, cut into chunks

1/4 several day old baguette cut into crouton size pieces

Fresno? chili pepper, in chunks

1/4 red onion, in chunks

3/4 lemon

olive oil, enough to drizzle over vegetables, and then another splash or two to taste

salt, pepper...and if I had it, homemade celery salt I think would go nicely, I will attach that recipe below

Honestly, throw it all in a food processor (I didn't want to bother getting mine out so I used my immersion blender, which worked but was very messy. Puree the veggies and olive oil first, then add the bread. Blend until smooth, add lemon juice, salt and pepper and olive oil to taste, and chill! Delicious!!

Top with celery salt! I mentioned Smittenkitchen in my previous post, but this is from my other favorite food blog: 101cookbooks. Also beautiful pictures, mostly vegetarian, and usually a little more complex/using things you have never heard of, but still excellent.

Mango Smoothie

When making smoothies, it’s all about the blender. My trusty Oster Counterforms has been pulverizing ice for several years now at about a quarter the price of bigger, fancier machines. The blade pauses and reverses a couple of times when you first start blending, which greatly reduces the chance of cracked carafes or broken blades. Very nifty!

Ingredients

6 ounces of mango nectar

1 cup of ice cubes

1 cup of frozen mango chunks (Trader Joe's are the best)

½ cup of plain or vanilla yogurt

Makes enough for one smoothie

Directions

Combine all ingredients in your blender. Pulse a few times and then blend on high. Stand nearby with a little bit of water just in case. Ice cubes and frozen fruit chunks are unpredictable and you may need to add a little more liquid while blending to get the perfect consistency.

Additional notes

Pear nectar makes a good alternative to mango. It mixes well with almost any fruit and, unlike orange or apple juice, allows the flavor of the frozen fruit to be the thing you taste the most. You can use any frozen fruit but I would avoid raspberries. A raspberry smoothie tastes great, but those little seeds will drive you crazy!

About Me

Name: Andrew

Where's your kitchen? Montclair, NJ

What's your signature dish? Chicken with vinegar, pan roasted potatoes, apple pie

What's the best thing you ever ate? A small, perfectly roasted piece of lamb consumed in a tiny restaurant on the outskirts of Lucca, Italy

What's your favorite item in your kitchen and what does it say about you? My iPod radio. I like a little music or baseball play-by-play during a long, leisurely afternoon in the kitchen!

What's your kitchen resolution(s) for 2011? To perfect my technique for making pasta from scratch

Since I already posted my first recipe, here's my introduction...

Name: Rebecca

Where's your kitchen? Up 4 flights of stairs in Manhattan, NY

What's your signature dish? Poached eggs. Chocolate cake with mocha frosting.

What's the best thing you ever ate? Lobster miso soup at a restaurant in San Francisco. Tragically, I forgot the name of the restaurant and can’t go back for more.

What's your favorite item in your kitchen and what does it say about you? My Sol LeWitt plate, a gift from the artist’s widow. That I’m an art snob?

What's your kitchen resolution(s) for 2011? Get it together to pack lunch for myself every day.

Bringing the fancy, with really very little effort

I love cooking. Sometimes I cook, not because I am hungry, but just because I am bored, want to try a recipe, or because I want to procrastinate from my studies. I also really like to show off my food. If it is just me, it is somehow less exciting, I appreciate it, but honestly, I would also appreciate a box of mac and cheese. Now that I have my own place, I feel the burning desire to show off even more. But the problem is I am also an incredibly SLOW cook. I don't know why, maybe it is my prep skills, maybe it is that I am savoring the process. It probably has something to do with bad timing in the kitchen, but some how even Rachel Ray 30 minute meals take me longer. So when I do have dinner parties, I end up cooking all day, and rushing at the at the last minute and getting super stressed.

So here are two recipes that have very few ingredients, are pretty fool proof, and honestly take very little time, even for me. One is an appetizer, one is a desert. They also really elevate a dinner party, and people will think you are this amazing chef, even though you know (and we if you ever make this for us) you didn't really work that hard.

Flatbread with honey, thyme and salt

Recipe by: SmittenKitchen.com (this is seriously one of my favorite food blogs, she has great recipes, and amazing photos, highly recommend)

Honestly, I would eat this entirely on its own, sans the rest of the courses of a dinner party. It is sweet and nutty and salty and totally delicious. I made this for the first time for Erik's mom's birthday and it was a total hit! And Erik's mom is a serious Italian mom and quite adept in the kitchen, so she knows what she is talking about.

The recipe calls for Mahon cheese, if you can't find it, which I couldn't go for a similarly nutty cheese. I used Dubliner, and that work, Alison just made this, and used 1/2 parm and 1/2 cheddar, I don't know how it turned out, you'll have to ask her, but I can't imagine you can really go wrong.

1 3/4 cups (7 3/4 ounces or 220 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup (118 ml) water
1/3 cup (79 ml) olive oil
2/3 to 3/4 cup (about 3 ounces or 85 grams) grated Mahon cheese (see above for replacements)
1/3 to 1/2 cup (79 to 118 ml) honey
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
Flaky sea salt such as Maldon

Preheat oven to 450°F with a heavy baking sheet or pizza stone on a middle rack.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Make a well in center, then add water and oil and gradually stir into flour with a wooden spoon until a dough forms. Knead dough gently on a work surface 4 or 5 times. It will feel quite oily (but just think of how great your hands will look later!).

Divide dough into 4 pieces and roll out 1 piece at on a sheet of parchment paper into a longish irregular rustic shape; mine were about 12″x6″. The dough should be rolled super thin, so thin you think it might be too thin, I promise it tastes better that way and it be crazy oily and you’ll think I’ve lost my mind suggesting that it will make anything but a mess, but you’ll see in a few minutes how perfectly ungreasy it bakes up, promise.

Slide rolled out dough and parchment paper together onto the preheated baking sheet or stone, and bake about 5 minutes, until lightly golden. Leaving the oven on, remove tray from oven and quickly sprinkle with 1/4 of grated cheese. Bake an additional 3 to 4 minutes, until browned at edges and in thinner spots. It is very important that the breads be browned, they are so much more delicious!

Remove flatbreads from oven a final time, quickly drizzle each with honey (I just squeezed a honey bear over the bread until I was satisfied), sprinkle with sea salt and garnish with thyme leaves. Cut each cracker width-wise into 4 sections (about 3″x6″ each) with a sharp knife. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough. Serve warm.

Makes about 16 flatbreads.

Note: I also think this bread would be great with rosemary instead of thyme. There was this fantastic flat bread they sold at Adam's in Poughkeepsie that I was obsessed with, and it was a rosemary flatbread. I think it would be good with the rosemary in place of the thyme, or also actually in the dough, that was you get that amazing baked rosemary aroma.

Easy Lemon Ice Cream

No ice cream machine required, I swear this doesn't freeze solid and freezes in a totally ice cream consistency way. So easy and delicious, you won't believe it. This is also a recipe courtesy of Maria Keenan. I also think this would be great with limes instead of lemons, with a little graham cracker crumbled on top key lime pie style. OMG now I need to try that.

2 cups heavy cream or whipping cream

1 cup sugar

Grated peel of 1 lemon

1/3 cup lemon juice

In a large bowel, combine cream and sugar; stir to dissolve sugar. Blend in lemon peel and juice. Mixture will thicken slightly. Pour into a shallow pan and freeze until firm, at least 4 hours, but can freeze longer. Garnish with mint leaves.

Yields 6 servings.

Intros: Let's get to know each other

Hey Friends,

Now that we have this thing up and running, please fill out the following questions with your first post! C'mon everyone loves those icebreakers!!!

Name: Chloe

Where's your kitchen? Brooklyn, NY
What's your signature dish? Eggplant Ratatouille. Pancakes from scratch!
What's the best thing you ever ate? Gnocchi bolognese from on a Thursday night in Rome. That's gnocchi night there. Man, I really should live in Italy...
What's your favorite item in your kitchen and what does it say about you? My dutch oven. I'm versatile and always ready to braise.
What's your kitchen resolution(s) for 2011? Learn how to make short ribs.

In the News: Boxed Wine is Cool Now

NYTimes has finally offered its stance on boxed wine, an ongoing debate that has been taking place with my friends. I think I'm jumping on the bandwagon. C'mon R, you don't want to be the odd girl out...

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/reconsidering-boxed-wine/