Consuming Consciousness

Savory Cheddar & Onion Griddle Cakes

kali — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:54:00 +0000

I like to make pancakes on Sunday morning, but today I wasn’t in the mood for anything sweet. Instead, I assembled these savory, cheesy griddle cakes, which were perfect with smoked trout salad and cottage cheese. I can easily imagine them going well with eggs, or as a side dish for a chili. Here in Switzerland — a country in which good tortillas are sadly absent — I’ll make them to accompany my next Mexican dinner. They are quite tasty with hot sauce.

Kali’s Brownie Cheesecake

kali — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:14:12 +0000

I’ve tried just about all the chocolate cheesecake recipes out there, and I was never very impressed. Chocolate is fabulous with cheesecake, but it doesn’t taste nearly as good when it’s actually beaten into the cheese. And I’ve been disappointed in all the cream cheese brownie recipes I’ve tasted, because I never felt like the cheesecake swirl or layer was as good as I know a cheesecake can be. After some experimentation, I’ve come up with something I like a lot better — a dessert that matches a fudge brownie top layer with the creaminess of a fine cheesecake. Unlike other layered cheesecake-brownie recipes out there, I’ve put the cream cheese layer on the bottom, where it belongs, and I bake it for longer than the brownie layer. The result — a perfect cheesecake on the bottom, and perfect fudge brownies on the top. The only challenge is in letting it cool long enough for it to set up perfectly — it smells so good you’ll want to dig in while it’s still warm.

Rhubarb & Blueberry Preserves

kali — Wed, 26 May 2010 11:58:05 +0000

I was surprised and delighted to find a well-developed rhubarb patch in the garden of our rental house this year. I’d had some rhubarb preserve and pie before, but never worked with it in its natural state, so I tried my hand at this blueberry-rhubarb jam. There were a lot of awful recipes floating around the internet that used canned blueberry pie filling instead of real blueberries (yuck!), so I did some reading and put together a recipe I thought would work. The result is sweet, gels beautifully, has a ton of flavor, and results in a product where the rhubarb isn’t overwhelmed by the blueberries. I’ll definitely make this again. Take a look at the recipe…

Shrimp, Black Bean & Corn Chowder

kali — Sat, 22 May 2010 09:53:08 +0000

I’ve filed this recipe under “Soups” but it’s easily hearty enough for a main course. You need to think ahead if you’re using dried beans (which is what I recommend), and it’s a pain to peel the shrimp, but it’s definitely worth the prep time. Preparing the broths separately, and adding the ingredients at different intervals gives this soup a rich, layered and complex flavor. Check out the recipe.

The shrimp shells and heads are essential to flavor the soup. I love shrimp, but it’s important to think about the effect of shrimp farming on the environment. Check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s sustainable seafood guide to see which shrimp are the best choice.

Tiramisú: A Home-Made Antidote to Restaurant Versions

kali — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:29:56 +0000

Tiramisú is my husband’s favorite dessert, and when he complained about the awful version of the dish available in the corporate cafeteria where he works, I decided to make one for him. Although it’s not a very difficult dish, and although the home-made version is far superior to that served in any but the finest Italian restaurants, I rarely indulge myself. Ounce for ounce, it has to be one of the highest calorie and highest fat desserts around. Nor is it any use to create lower-fat versions — they just don’t taste the same. Fortunately, my husband is a natural mesomorph and burns calories like a furnace, so he did for all of it except one small portion. That was enough to last me another five years, but my guess is, now that I’ve made it once, he will request it on regular rotation every couple of months. Check out the recipe!

Note: This recipe uses raw eggs. A lot of bad restaurant Tiramisú features an egg-custard filling, so that they can avoid using the raw stuff. In my opinion, though, it’s not worth eating. So I don’t recommend making the dish if you live someplace where salmonella is a real risk.

Bread Machine Sour Dough Rye

kali — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 08:12:46 +0000

This is a great, authentic Russian rye recipe adapted for the dough cycle on most modern bread machines. It begins with a sour dough starter, and adds rye flour to that, so if you’re starting from scratch it’ll take 3 days before you’re ready to actually bake the bread. If you’re like me, though, and keep a batch of starter ready in the refrigerator, you just need to start this bread the night before, and put it in the machine in the morning.

Warm Potato Salad

kali — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 07:06:29 +0000

I’ve loved this particular potato salad since I was a kid, and I just tried it with high-quality Swiss potatoes. Wonderful, satisfying comfort food! The many ingredients combine to create the perfect potato salad taste and, although you can serve it warm, it’s also excellent at room-temperature or cold. You can substitute a low-fat mayo to lower the calorie count. See the recipe….

Dandelion, Shitake & Sesame Soba Noodle Salad

kali — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:38:45 +0000

This year I’m lucky enough to be living in a house instead of an apartment, with a garden and a lawn. The lawn, like many things about the house, is a bit ragged and in spring it came up more dandelions than grass. I thought about weeding, but we’re only here until December — not enough time to see serious yard work pay off. So, instead, I decided to to eat them. I adapted my usual recipe for sesame & spinach salad, and it worked very well with the greens.

Peach Pecan Bread

kali — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:41:25 +0000

It’s the middle of winter and I just can’t seem to get warm, so, as usual, I turned to the kitchen to see if I could find a cure. There were a couple of tins of canned peaches in my cupboard, which had been sitting there for a while because I’m never really sure what to do with canned fruit. But peaches remind me of hot, sultry Augusts in DC, so I decided to figure out a way to use them.

Next to the peaches was a package of pecans (I hoard pecans because they’re hard to find in Europe) and an idea for a summery quick bread began to form. The result of the experiment was so aromatically peachy and tenderly nutty that I had to share it. This recipe makes two large loaves, so you can halve it if you want to make only one. (I make two because fruit breads freeze so well.)

This is a quick and simple recipe, using only one large bowl to mix the dry ingredients, and a blender to mix the wet ingredients. Like all quick breads, this should be folded gently to mix, rather than vigorously stirred.

(My Russian husband and my German friends had never tasted American quick breads, but now they are all addicted. German baking is, in my opinion, too dry and far too sweet, and quick breads are moist and rich without sending a person into sugar shock.)

Check out the recipe…

Carrot Cake with Lemon Glaze

kali — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:21:34 +0000

There are dozens of great recipes for carrot cakes and breads, and they all have their fans. The one I choose usually depends on my mood at the moment. This cake was invented at a point when I was craving a rich and nutty, tender, glazed, citrus-flavored cake, suitable for either dessert or for munching with a cup of tea/coffee.

Check out the recipe!

It’s very quick to make if you have a food processor and a blender, which adds to its charm. If you have only a blender, you’ll have to grate the carrots by hand. Cut the recipe in half if you only want to make one loaf instead of two. Between the oil and the sunflower seeds, this is a full-fat, mega-calorie cake. My very lean partner, who needs to consume about 3000 calories a day just to maintain his weight, can eat it by the plateful. I stay on a restricted calorie diet, and so I confine myself to thin slices, parceled out carefully and enjoyed fully with a big cup of hot tea.