After the gorgeous squash cakes and tomato salad from my last post, I have to get a little unhealthy on you for one quick second. But even this, this crazy entry about fried goodness, is totally fine. Because barring one moment where I totally ate fried okra 2 nights in a row, I don’t really eat fried food all that often. So whenever it happens, you just have to let it rip, and revel in every minute of it, because it’s delicious, and it’s a treat, and y’know what? The next day you’re probably going to want to go back to something light, cleansing, and guaranteed to help chase the grease from your pores.
Or at least, I usually do.
About a year ago, I developed a blog friendship with Nishta, from Blue Jean Gourmet. And around this time last year, Nishta mentioned (possibly on Twitter) that her sweetie, Jill, made some mean fried okra.
Being from New England, I had never seen okra in person. I’d only ever heard of it as an element in gumbo. But, having something of a flirtation with Southern food all my life, and loving anything fried, I have been intrigued by the idea of frying okra (or really any vegetable) since I found out that this is something people just….do! My ancestors didn’t really deep-fry. You want a pot roast, or something involving cabbage? A way to figure out how to feed a family on a pound of beans and a hunk of salt pork? My people, the Yankees, the Scots and the Poles, we got you covered.
But breading/battering and deep-frying veggies? Shit, dog, that’s uncharted territory!
And when I see uncharted territory, I barge right in, because who knows when I might end up eating something like Jill’s fried okra.
And trust me friends, Jill Carroll’s Fried Okra is something you want to be eating. These little nuggets of fried deliciousness are enough to make me contemplate running to the store and getting okra right now….when all the stores are closed. Honestly, follow Jill’s recipe. I did, except of course I added some cornmeal in with the flour I dredged in, and oh yeah, I deep-fried instead of doing a shallow fry, because it seemed less likely that I would burn the okra on my first try. Holy god this stuff is good. Seriously, even if you don’t think you like okra, make this. Please.
In exchange for the fried okra recipe, Nishta asked for my fried pickle method. I’ve been working on it for a while, and part of the wonder of this particular batch of fried pickles is that I made them using homemade pickles. Cucumbers that I sliced, brined, and processed by using this garlic dill recipe from Marisa’s exemplary blog. And these pickles? I made them basically the same way that Jill makes her okra.
I took my pickles, and put them in a big bowl. I drizzled buttermilk over them, and let them sit, although I have also done a basic flour, egg, flour dredge. When my stock pot of frying oil (usually vegetable or canola) has reached 370, I scoop the pickles out of the buttermilk, and into a combination of flour, cornmeal (usually in a 1:1 ratio) and salt. Oftentimes, I’ll use Old Bay or cayenne as well, but these are some speecy-spicy dill pickles, just the way I like them, so I left out the additional spices this time.
After a solid coating in the flour and cornmeal, I drop them in the oil, being careful not to crowd, and being REALLY careful that the oil temperature doesn’t drop below 350. When they’re nice and golden brown, I scoop them out to drain.
I’ve eaten fried pickles that were more like doughnuts with pickle filling, and while they’re interesting, they’re not my thing. I like a nice, thin coating on my fried pickles, and a good crisp. I think that the quicker you can get the coating to crisp, the better, because your pickle can also stay crispy.
Oh, and one last thing.
Always, ALWAYS chips. Never spears. Anyone who’s ever gotten burned by hot pickle juice running down their chin knows this. And if you don’t, well, consider this your lesson.
My favorite thing about the summer is when it gets hot and sultry out, and tomatoes burst forth with all their colorful, vibrant glory. I mean, look at this:
This is a salad (ok, in my world, it’s a salad) involving items that we got in our CSA share this week – 2 big beautiful heirloom tomatoes sliced, and a handful of beautiful little yellow baby tomatoes cut in half. Some parsley, also from the CSA. Salt and pepper. That’s literally all it is, and it’s the most beautiful thing ever. This salad is what I love best about summer. The funky old tomatoes, green and brownish and yellow, orange, pink, red, multicolored and mottled, they’re all finally coming ripe, and being their amazing selves. I love tomato season.
Fun fact: when Jesse and I started dating, he told me that he didn’t like tomatoes. I told him, honestly, that what he disliked was crappy tomatoes. A good tomato is a joy, and judging by the happy look on his face when I gave him his plate tonight, he has learned that lesson well.
The other amazing thing about this particular summertime is our CSA share. Where before, on a night like Sunday night, I would have needed to go to the store to get something to make for dinner, I could just open the crisper and see what veggies we had, or had left from previous weeks. I haven’t had this ready access to fresh, excellent vegetables since I was a kid and my parents and grandparents had gardens. And while just a week or two ago I was bemoaning the fucking omnipresence of zucchini (seriously, there was none this week in the share. I did a happy dace), Sunday night it was a lifesaver to have those squashes in the crisper.
Because it meant that I could make squash cakes to go with our tomato salad, thereby giving us a full on vegetarian meal, complete with the inclusion of fruity beer and cheese!
Squash Cakes
adapted from Epicurious
I pretty much stick to the recipe when I make these cakes, which I have made a couple times now. I hope to use the same recipe to make sweet potato cakes in the future, because sweet potatoes with some curry spices and cheese…. just the thought makes me happy!! In fact, it makes me wonder if I could do this with butternut squash and white cheddar, or acorn squash and goat cheese. The possibilities seem endless!!
Anyways.
Squash cakes.
I grated up 1 small zucchini, 1 yellow goose-neck squash, and 1 pattypan squash, put them in the colander, and sprinkled them with salt. Then, I squished the shredded squash with my hands, squeezing out the water after the half-hour was up, and rolling it up in a dishtowel to squeeze out some more water. When making the batter, I used 1/3 of a cup of Bluepoint Blueberry Ale, because I’m convinced that the quarter-cup I added the first time wasn’t enough. I also added 1/4 teaspoon of cumin and 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne, because I’m a punk.
From there, the only real change I made this time was using shredded mozzarella instead of goat cheese, because it was what I had in the fridge. I really like the way the mozzarella melts, and gets kind of crispy, so it’s a little like you’re eating pizza or the best grilled cheese. It’s also a little like you’re eating a latke, only a latke jacked up about 10 degrees. In fact, I bet this would be really good with straight up potatoes too, if you could squeeze out enough water, so if anyone’s interested in the attempt, let me know.
This was an awesome Sunday night supper, and used up a lot of the veggies that I was wondering what to do with, and how I could use them before they became a waste. Hopefully it can help you get rid of some of your excess zucchini, or help you appreciate your summer tomatoes a little better. Or maybe both.
Any summer favorites from you guys out there?
I realized today that it is entirely possible that we either have new readers, or readers who still don’t know certain information about me. In the interest of bringing people some new stuff, or at least some new information, here we go with a few fun facts about the Improviser that you may not have known.
#1 – I really DO improvise a lot. Most dinners at our house are the result of me reading a recipe, thinking “wow, that sounds good” and proceeding to forget half of the procedures and just going with the ingredient list. I cook by feel, and I’m working really hard to train myself to use my senses more in my daily life, including cooking. This means that things may burn a little more often because I’m not setting timers. It also might mean that I have to guess how long something baked for – but if you cook my recipes frequently enough, you’ll get the hang of it.
#2 – I do not drink anything even remotely close to the recommended amount of water every day. Or at least, I didn’t, until this baby came into my life. Who knew that all it would take to make me drink water was a cute orange metal water bottle with a sport bottle top? I’m actually thinking about getting an even BIGGER KleanKanteen soon, because I love the little one, but I have to get up and refill it ALL THE TIME. The good thing about drinking this much water during the day is that when it’s time for hot yoga class, I don’t feel like I’m going to die. This is seriously the best.
#3 – My favorite comestibles are, in no particular order: chicken fingers, bourbon, french fries, chocolate chip cookies, macaroni & cheese, pizza, cheeseburgers, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, lobster, spicy tuna rolls, strong dark coffee, chocolate croissants, and cookie dough ice cream. Oh, and buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy. And Gie’s Mince & Tatties. And Jaffa Cakes. And Diesels and Guinness and Vino Verde. And Riesling. And cheese in its many wondrous forms. You may have noticed that a lot of these things are the same foods that 9 year old boys love. That’s totally cool with me, since they’re also freaking delicious.
#4 – If I’m going the boneless-skinless route, I will from now on be choosing ONLY chicken thighs. No more boneless, skinless, textureless, TASTELESS chicken breasts for this girl – give me a little more fat, which means a little more flavor, and a little more *snap* in the texture. Give me more. If I’m paying the same money, I’m taking as much as I can flavor-wise out of it.
#5 – I have no problem, at all, with plunging a lobster into a pot of boiling water, clamping down the lid, and cooking the sucker.
#6 – I forgot to mention that one of my favorite things to eat is my dad’s Red Beans and Rice. And that by mashed potatoes, I mean my mom’s. By biscuits I don’t mean from a can. I love curry and chickpeas, and risotto (I forgot to mention risotto) and things that involve pumpkin, sausage, stock and cream. I also love cold leftovers, topped with a fried egg, for breakfast. Basically, anything topped with a fried egg.
#7 – I do not consider white chocolate to be chocolate.
Hello friends! I’m back, after a brief hiatus known here as The Month of July, or Way Too Hot to Eat, Let Alone Cook month.
The month of July in Brooklyn included the hottest day in New York City history, as well as roughly 3 weeks of temperatures over 80 degrees, with no respite. Possibly closer to the whole month. I think my brain melted somewhere around the middle of July, conveniently coinciding with the day I began training for the New York City Marathon. Since then, there have been a lot of dinners cobbled together from whatever might have come in our CSA share that week. By the way, friends, when on earth does zucchini season end????? I have pickled it. I have sauteed it. I turned it into fake pasta. I put it in a fritatta. I put it in tomato sauce and turned it into zucchini pancakes (which were delicious) and seriously it keeps on coming. I don’t understand. Help me.
Now, it’s August, and my oven worked for 3 days, which was nice, and now it doesn’t work again, which is aggrivating when one plans to make chicken enchiladas for dinner and realizes one cannot, because one cannot BAKE the enchiladas (yes, I know it’s hot out, and yes, I still planned to bake them). But, we will adapt.
As an element of marathon training, I am covering more miles than ever before every week. So far, I’m running between 18 and 22 miles per week, and it will increase from there. In 2 weeks, I will embark on a 14-mile run, which will be the longest run I have ever undertaken. And every run from there until mid-October will be longer than the one before it, and will be the furthest I have ever run. I have been told that somewhere along the way, I am going to become ravenously hungry all the time, and will begin to eat more than ever before as well. I’m kind of looking forward to that, honestly, knowing that there is truth in the statement that hunger is the best sauce.
One thing I’ve noticed in the running community, such as I am a member, is that a lot of runners view foods as a “treat”, something they can “earn” after a hard workout. I often see running folk posting tweets or blog posts that go somewhere along the line of, “x number of miles logged this week, baking a pie now because I earned it”. This has upset me pretty much every time I hear it or see it, for many reasons. Many people have disordered eating in this country, both overeating, and under-eating. Some people count and restrict every single calorie they put in their bodies, while some people just eat and eat, never once thinking about the calories they put in their bodies.
I’ve worked my whole life to fight disordered eating, and seeing food as a reward. It’s hard sometimes, because there is so much in the world that tells us that we “deserve” a treat after a long day, or that we exercise to “earn” or to “make up for” those little “indiscretions” we make with food.
Since I’m embarking on something that will presumably have me embracing the calories, I’m making a new promise, to myself and to the blogosphere as a whole :
I will make sure that I treat food as fuel, as something I need, and as something to be respected. I won’t treat food as something to be earned, or a reward.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to eat french fries every night. Because I don’t WANT to eat french fries every night. But if I want french fries? I’m gonna have ‘em. In fact, I’m having them for dinner tonight! But I’m having them with grilled chicken thighs and a salad. Because that’s what I want.
Another girl is writing writing a blog about this, and I highly recommend her. Jessica’s One Girl No Diet is a refreshing chance to look at life where food is just food – something you gotta get. Something you love. But not something you earn.
I’m sick of reading about what I should be eating/what others think they should be doing/what we think we deserve regarding food.
It’s about love. Love yourself. Treat yourself well. You’re worth it.
And so am I.
Last week, I sent out a missive to the internets, wondering what on earth I should do with a massive head of napa cabbage I’d received from my CSA share. This week was a bit crazy, and I didn’t have a chance to actually sort out how to cook it or use it until yesterday. And what I came up with was a riff on lettuce wraps. If you’re not feeling up to eating the monster raw, take heart. I will be trying a whole bunch of other recipes soon to get this cabbage cooked before it goes bad. Kimchi anyone?
I used a mishmash of items from the fridge, and came up with something lovely and delicious. I would definitely recommend using the tender, inner leaves of your Napa cabbage, since the outer leaves can be somewhat tough. I would also recommend cutting out the central rib from the leaves, as this makes it easier both to roll AND to eat without spraying the filling all over your face.
Napa Cabbage Lettuce Wraps
1. Begin by breaking 1-2 handfuls of rice stick noodles in half, and putting them to soak in hot tap water.
2. Julienne 2 golfball-sized Japanese turnips, chop a few bundles of baby bok choy, and mince 2 cloves of garlic. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a skillet over moderately high heat, and throw in the veggies. Season with salt, and saute until they’re starting to pick up some color.
3. Throw in some diced cooked chicken (or shredded, or whatever) and stir around until the chicken is heated through. At that point, add the rice noodles into the pan, with some of the soaking water to make sure everything gets cooked. Add more salt if you need to at this point.
4. Make the sauce. Scoop 2 tablespoons of peanut butter (I used honey roasted, but any kind will work), and 1 teaspoon of red curry paste into a bowl. Whisk together as best you can, and then add a small drizzle of sesame oil. You just want it to thin out the sauce, and add a little depth. When the noodles are softened, add the whole mess in the skillet to the sauce and toss. The heat from the items formerly in the skillet will melt the sauce and help it coat everything. Now is the time to add an additional drizzle of sesame oil, more curry paste, or maybe some soy sauce, if you feel like it needs something.
5. Prepare the cabbage. Peel the leaves off, rinse them under cold water, dry them, and cut out the central ribs. Then, assemble your friends and loved ones, and start rolling!
Cabbage wraps are tasty. There’s lots of green in this dish (as well as protein from the peanut butter and the chicken) and plenty of crunch. The warm filling plus the cool cabbage made a nice contrast, and tasted pretty fantastic.
The stove was on for a grand total of 15 minutes to make this dish, which feels like an instant AND a lifetime as the weather heats up and my kitchen remains windowless. But from those 15 minutes at the stove comes a lovely, crisp, cool-warm-crashing meal that you can cook for 2 or 10 with basically the same items.
And honestly, if I’d thought about it, I probably should have made it for 12 — much less cabbage left to work with that way!
Not sure that I’ve mentioned it lately, but I am a member of the Greene Harvest CSA. It’s a wonderful organization, and I’m already so excited about what we’ve been getting and will continue to get for the rest of the summer. We’re having some trouble consuming all the veggies each week, but as my schedule becomes more of a…. schedule, and as we can plan meals around our haul every week, I’m sure this will all improve.
Yesterday, part of the pickup involved a HUGE napa cabbage. When the volunteer passed it over to me, she laughed and said that I’d won the prize. Seriously this cabbage is bigger than my head, and weighs a ton. I asked the volunteer what she would do with a napa cabbage, and she gave me suggestions such as miso soup and stir fry. I’m not a closed-minded cook, but it’s hotter than bejeebus, and I’m certainly not going to stand over a pot of soup or a blazing hot wok right now. So I’m looking for other options.
Things that I’ve found on the internet include modified lettuce wraps, several salads, a few noodle dishes that look really enticing, and various pickled twists on kimchi.
I’m not sure which of these I’ll try, but as I’ve got so darn much cabbage, I can probably play with as many of them as I want. What would you do with a big-ass head of napa cabbage?? I’m definitely thinking some chicken-rice cabbage wraps might be on the menu for this hot week, as they’ll feel nice and cool. Maybe I can even cute it up and make a curried chicken salad and use that, along with some of the Japanese turnips and scallions from last week, and roll it all up in some napa leaves. Any suggestions from any of the readers out there for what I should do with the ridiculously huge Napa Cabbage sitting in my crisper?
Shout it out, and stay tuned for this and more adventures from The Improviser Learns New Veggies!
I love Brunch. The best thing, I think, about living in New York City is that brunch is a real meal. On Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 4pm, you can go to a restaurant and get foods that are neither on the breakfast nor the dinner menu – and drinks that you would never order if it was dinner.
My favorite place to get brunch is Essex, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Essex serves som great brunch fare – excellent eggs benedict, a cubano that makes even this skeptic’s mouth water. Their Bloody Marys are spicy and strong, and the waitresses walk around with pitchers of mimosas, and up until recently, they didn’t keep count, so your 3 free mimosas were more like “3″ free mimosas.
Shamefully, even though I always say that I’m going to branch out and try some of their other wondrous things, I always end up getting one of 2 things; I love the Southern – biscuits and sausage gravy with fried eggs – and I love love the Mexican Matzo Brei – basically migas, with black beans and chunky guacamole.
I’ve tried a couple of their other offerings, but sadly I was disappointed – I always come back to the two faves, and my absolute favorite is the Mexican Matzo Brei. I generally don’t try to replicate restaurant favorites at home, instead leaving them to the experts. I believe that if you can do something perfectly, I should pay you for that.
However, a few weeks ago I was motivated to attempt to make Mexican Matzo Brei in my own kitchen. I blame the Pioneer Woman, mostly. She had a recipe in her cookbook for Migas, which I decided I would hack, because I didn’t have the patience to fry my own tortillas, and I don’t do cilantro. As I was reading it over, I realized with a start that here was the thing I’d been hoping for all my life! A recipe for Essex’s Mexican Matzo Brei!! I ran to assemble the ingredients, and started cooking.
Mexican-Matzo-Migas
adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks and Essex restaurant
1. Assemble your cast of characters: 1 bag of tortilla chips, 6 eggs, Shredded “taco” cheese, 1 red bell pepper, 1 jalapeno pepper, 1 fryer pepper(aka cubanelle), 1 tomato, 1 red onion.
2. Dice 1/2 the red onion, 1 red bell pepper, and 1/2 the fryer pepper very finely and evenly. Heat up 1-2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, and add the red onion and peppers. Cook until they are brown, but NOT sweated- we want crunch, not mush.
3. Beat the eggs with 1/4-1/2 cup of milk, salt, and pepper. Crush 2-3 big handfuls of tortilla chips until they’re roughly 1/2 inch squares, not to powder.
4. Chop up 1 tomato and 1 jalapeno pepper, seeds and ribs removed (unless you want the heat) and add the tortilla chips and jalapenos to the skillet. Stir, cook for about 30 seconds, and add the tomatoes.
5. Add the eggs, folding gently to cook the eggs without smashing things up or turning them to mush. When they’re mostly set to your liking (I like mine pretty soft), sprinkle with shredded cheese and try not to drool.
I also served these with some Tasty Black Beans, which I’m premiering later this week on this blog, and some chunky guacamole. While it’s no replacement for Essex, and I’d rather go drink mimosas and not have to wash the dishes after, (not to mention eating a pre-brunch cupcake if the line is long at Essex), I really enjoy knowing that I can have Mexican Matzo-Brei anytime my little heart desires!
Try this, and tell me about YOUR favorite brunch dishes! Maybe we can have an at-home brunch revolution!
You might know that something pretty big happened in the TV world Sunday night.
And if you don’t know, here’s the scoop — LOST, the biggest TV phenomenon since Dallas (apparently) aired its final episode Sunday night. I won’t give any spoilers, because frankly I’ve never watched a full episode of the show, so I only kind of know what the hell was going on. But I cried a lot, and apparently most of the people that watched it enjoyed it.
We were a bit low on supplies when we got home from various places on Sunday, and needed a dinner solution. We had potatoes, butter, eggs, flour, bacon, peppers, and onions. One of my favorite foods happens to be mashed potatoes, but of course you can’t eat just mashed potatoes…. even LOADED mashed potatoes….. for dinner. Even on Sunday night. It’s just not right.
However, I had recently heard of something called Rosti: basically they’re the swedish version of hash-browns. Laurie Colwin calls them an excuse to eat a quarter pound of butter, which is totally fine with me. I call them an epic win. In the Colwin method, you boil a potato for 7-8 minutes, peel it, and shred it in your box grater. Then, you put the potato shreds into a pan with a stick of melted butter, pat it out like a hash brown, and fry till crispy. Tyler Florence has a recipe that involves bacon and mushrooms, as well as gruyere, which was like music to my improvising ears.
I boiled 3 potatoes for 20 minutes, per Chef Tyler’s recipe. While they were cooling, I crisped 4 slices of chopped bacon, a diced cubanelle pepper, and a diced red onion.
Once the potatoes were cool, I peeled them, and shredded them wtih my grater, and added a pinch of salt, and the bacon/pepper/onion mix. I stirred these together, and heated a few tablespoons of vegetable oil in a pan over high heat (Tyler suggests olive oil, which breaks down and starts to smoke over high heat, releasing all sorts of nasty things into the air and into your food. Go with a high smoke point oil like vegetable, sunflower, or something like this).
I patted the first few rosti together, and tried to fry them crispy, but they fell to pieces pretty quickly.
Eventually, I made the executive decision to go off-script just a little further, and turn this into more of a latke batter. I added an egg, and a few tablespoons of flour, until the batter resembled gummy mashed potatoes (which I realize sounds absolutely disgusting. trust me). This made the later pancakes hold together much better, and cook much more evenly.
Admittedly, you can see that I still had some trouble with the oil temperature, since parts of them are much darker brown, and parts of them aren’t crisped. But in general, these held together nicely, and they tasted delicious.
On the island, I’m sure they had to make do with what they have, since everybody who tried to get off died, or some shit like that. And in my kitchen, on a Sunday night with little food, sometimes you have to make do, and you have to throw together what’s there. And when it involves potatoes, peppers, onions and bacon, I’m probably going to eat it. And even better, I didn’t have to eat it alone. 
On Saturday, after a successful 10-mile run in the morning, and a gorgeous afternoon walking around Brooklyn, I was feeling mixed about dinner; I thought I knew what I wanted to make, but things that I was thinking about weren’t exactly congruent. I wanted mussels, steamed in a green curry-coconut broth. Unfortunately, our grocery store’s fish counter doesn’t run to mussels, but I already had seafood on the brain. I ended up buying shrimp instead, along with a strange amalgam of other ingredients – lemons, green beans, a yellow pepper (which ended up disappearing between checkout and home), and of course…. these:
Living in a neighborhood amassed mostly of people from island nations, our grocery store also doesn’t run to Thai or Indian curry pastes, although it does run to several brands of coconut milk. In the end, I came home completely confused – my ingredients seemed to conflict between two worlds. On the one hand, I had lemons, green beans, and a pepper (or so I thought) to make something light, springy, and clean. On the other hand I had coconut milk and hot sauce, and a yen for something curried. And of course, I had the shrimp. So, I lived up to my name, and improvised. I’ve never had shrimp in a way other than scampi, and certainly never in a curry application, but I figured that as long as everything else tasted good, the shrimp would be a happy accent. And hoooo boy, was I right!
Sorta-Curried Shrimp with Coconut Rice
1. Make the coconut rice: Combine 1 cup of water and 1 1/4 cup of coconut milk in a saucepan, along with a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, and add 1 cup of rice, 1 teaspoon of butter, and another pinch of salt. Stir, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes.
2. Mince 1 small onion, and saute in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add 2 minced cloves of garlic, and 1 chopped red pepper. Season with salt, and cook until the peppers are starting to soften. When the peppers are softening, add 1 chopped tomato, and 2 handfuls chopped green beans. Season again with salt and cook covered on medium-low for 2-3 minutes, until the tomatoes start letting out their juices. Add 1/2 cup water, and simmer uncovered while you’re making the next moves.
3. When the water has simmered out, add 1/4 cup mustard-based, Barbadian-style hot sauce (or the curry paste of your choice) and toss until everything is coated. Add 1 pound of peeled, deveined, de-tailed medium shrimp, and saute until they are just starting to turn pink. Add the rest of the can of coconut milk, and simmer until the shrimp are done and the flavors have combined nicely.
Sometimes, it’s incredibly scary to improvise – especially with a delicate ingredient like shrimp. But it’s also really empowering to go with your gut and get a delicious result. I’m very proud of this dish, because it was delicious, and because it was something I’d never even heard about before, let alone made. Having no frame of reference was very freeing, and the bonus is, you all now have a recipe to try and replicate, tweak to your own tastes, and fall in love with all on your own!
On the night before my 26th birthday, I remarked to Jesse that I had a favorite word.
Whimsy.
I’ve decided that I love the joy, the silliness, the lightness and sense of play that come pouring out of the word. As I begin my 27th year, I’ve decided to be more joyful, playful, and whimsical in my daily life.
Another of my favorite words, by the way, is what you see above: Clafoutis. Say it with me now. Clafoutis. Cluh-FOO-tee.
Clafoutis is a tart, comprised of fruit and a baked custardy type stuff. There is no crust. I baked this one in a springform pan, and I’ll be honest, I don’t even remember exactly what recipe I used. I didn’t write anything down, so I’m not 100% sure the amounts of seasonings I added in, and in general this was truly thrown together. I made it for breakfast on my 26th birthday, with blackberries that were on sale at the grocery store the night before. I shudder to think where they might have originated, but they were tasty and made for a lovely baked breakfast.
Blackberry Clafoutis
1. Preheat the oven to 350. Butter your vessel. I used an 8 1/2 inch springform pan, but you can also use a 9-inch deep dish pie plate, a 10-inch pie plate, a cake tin, or anything else that makes you happy.
2. Scatter 8 ounces of blackberries (or blueberries, cherries, raspberries, plums, strawberry pieces, whatever) over the bottom of your vessel.
3. Combine 4 eggs, 1 cup of milk, and 1 cup of sugar in a bowl. I used half a cup each of brown and white sugar, but you can use either/or. Beat until everything is well combined.
4. Add 3/4 cup of flour and a pinch of salt. At this point, you can add any seasonings you want – I used orange zest, cardamom, and cinnamon.
5. Pour the custard over the berries in the bottom of your vessel, redistribute the berries, and bake for 40-45 minutes. You want the top to be springy and not liquidy when you touch it. It will puff and then slump when you let it cool. Mine took closer to an hour because it was in such a small pan, so start checking at or around 40 minutes, and you should be good.
This dish is very forgiving, and as long as you stick to the proportions of the custard, everything else is fair game. Plus, you can be free with it, and make it with things that you probably have at home anyways. You can get creative, and fancy, using different fruits, more fruits, a variety of fruits….everything about clafoutis is customizable.
Plus, it just makes me giggle to say. Clafoutis.
Whimsy.
