Electric Strawberry RhuBarbarella

What is a Rhubarb?  Science may never know.  All I know is that it looks like red celery and tastes dang good in a Strawberry Pie.  It adds tartness and texture to what might otherwise be too sweet of a pie.

On this particular occasion we needed a quick and easy pie.  Strawberries were on sale, so we grabbed some frozen rhubarb and frozen pre-made pie dough.  We don’t ALWAYS do things the most complicated way (just most times).

We followed yet another America’s Test Kitchen recipe, reprinted here.  As this blog notes, you’ll want to judge for yourself how sweet your berries are and alter how much sugar you add.  I added about 1¼ cups.

Making pie crust takes time… so it’s easy to buy the premade sheets (not the premade crusts.)  The sheets are usually in the grocery store near the eggs. 


The mysterious rhubarb pieces!  Unlike a previous recipe we’ve tried, this one called for pre-cooking the rhubarb to get some of the moisture out.  As you will see, it is good that we did this step.


4 cups of strawberries and a blue tooth mouse.  This aint yo’ grandma’s kitchen.


Berries, ‘Barbs, sugar, corn starch (for the thickening!), sugar, and lemon juice.  Just stir it up… and then



Pile it into the pie!  This is one sheet from the two-pack of premade crust pressed into a glass pie pan.  At this point, we maybe should have realized it was looking a little… too full.



Sealed up nice and tight.  The second sheet is laid across the top, folded under the edges of the first sheet, then pinched shut and crimped all around with a fork.  The top is brushed with egg white, sprinkled with sugar, and vented with a knife.  Don’t forget the venting! Vent it more than we did. Also don’t forget to put a pan covered in foil under this bad boy!



Molten Pie lava!  It seems our sealing of the crusts was too perfect and our vents insufficient.  The pie burst forth in a couple of places and leaked delicious goo.  It somewhat spoiled our lovely picture, but it in no way spoiled how awesome this pie tasted.

Rhubarb…. someday scientists may unlock its mysteries, but not if we eat it all first.

Hard to peas? Where there’s a will, there’s a puree!

We at Chez Venza are semi-shameless (meaning one of us is at least slightly embarrassed about it) watchers of food tv, including a number of food reality programs.  The best of these programs is undoubtedly Top Chef.   A season or two ago, there was much ado made about whether one contestant had stolen another’s pea puree.  Not only had we never eaten pea puree, we’d also never even heard of it… nor heard it mentioned so… many… times.
Growing up, neither of us were real pea fans.  What kid is?  In spite of this, we decided to give this bizarre sounding, vaguely British dish a go.


We used this recipe from British food goddess, Nigella Lawson.  As it is a recipe for a single serving (kind of weird) we had to double it.  Also, as we had no “crème fraiche,” we substituted leftover plain yogurt from our Indian cookout, which worked just fine.

Leftovers: Peas and yogurt.                                                                                                                
 Expensive ingredients purchased so that we might use leftovers: Fresh mint and parmesan.


 Chop and grate.  Grate and chop.



The recipe called for the peas to be boiled in water with garlic cloves already in it.  How odd! How bubbly!


So, after boiling the peas and garlic for just a couple minutes, they went into this container, along with the cheese, mint, and yogurt.


Then, using our new toy, we pureed the ever-loving bajesus out of  the whole shebang.


A lovely spot of dinner.  Pea puree served with filet mignon and mashed potatoes.  Notice our almost disturbing attempt to artistically plate it.   Overall, a tasty puree, which we will certainly make again, though maybe not with mashed potatoes because they are strangely similar in texture. 

So what did we learn?  Peas can be delicious if you mix them together with other ingredients in an artistic way that makes you forget you are eating peas.  Pass the pea puree please!

India a-Jonesin’

Earlier this year, the Chez Venza team took a fairly substantial tour of exotic India.  The sights, the sounds, the food… the food…. the food.  We consider ourselves to be fans of Indian cooking, but after weeks of eating it on a semi-daily basis, we both felt the need for a culinary respite.  That respite came to a glorious end when we attempted, yet again, to overdo weekend entertaining in a grand style.  Cue the bollywood music…
Course 1: Mulligatawny Soup.
This is a soup I’d had at a local Indian restaurant, but I knew it also from the Seinfeld Soup Nazi bit… there’s something about the name… Mulligatawny… such a nice ring to it!  Find a copy of the recipe and a well documented account of how to make it here.

Exotic elements include coconut and banana.

Due to a transcription error on my pdf of this recipe, we ended up with a significantly thicker, heartier version of this soup.  Due to this error, we will omit the usual detailed steps.  See the above-linked blog post on how it SHOULD be made.  However, the same error led to an aggressive seasoning of the soup, which worked out very nicely.  All in all, it was delicious.  Pictured here with parsley and yogurt garnish.
Course 2: Samosas
Samosas are the empanadas of India.  So much so that this “short-cut” recipe from Aarti Sequeira is probably nothing like the real thing, but it was really easy to make and quite tasty.  The short-cut part is the dough - I used puff pastry instead of making my own.  I would be up for making my own dough, but we had so many other things going on that we were willing to make this small sacrifice for the sake of convenience.

The filling was pretty simple to make:  boil the potatoes, saute the onions, then add some tasty spices, jalapeno, peas, and cilantro.

For the dough – I cut out 7-inch circles and then cut them in half.  Add the filling and then fold them over into triangles, sealing with egg wash.

The puff pastry does all the work and comes out brown and flaky.  These are baked instead of fried, so they really are nothing like samosas except for the filling.  I didn’t hear anyone complaining though!

Next step is a make a tasty mint chutney to go with it.  Mint, cilantro, ginger, lime juice, salt & pepper go into the food processor.

The fun part is browning the mustard seeds in vegetable oil.  It was a little scary – once they hit the hot oil you have to cover the pan with a lid.  They pop around all over the place like popcorn!

Here’s a delicious samosa with mint chutney:

Course 3: Chicken Tikka Masala
Ah Tikka Masala… Am I wrong that basically everyone likes this dish?  One friend of ours in particular seems to eat only this dish at Indian restaurants and had gently requested that we make it sometime.  So here it is!

Plus Chicken breasts.  As you can see, there’s very little that’s terribly exotic in the ingredients of this dish.  The full-fat plain yogurt and the garam masala spice mixture are probably the hardest ingredients to locate.  We happened to have the garam masala cause we’d gotten a $5 promotional coupon for a local health-food store that had just opened.  The recipe we used indicated that you can substitute 2 teaspoons ground coriander, 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom, 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper for the garam masala.

Fresh ginger, garlic, jalapeno (HEB didn’t have serrano), tomato paste and garam masala… all ready to dive into the pan.

Unfortunately, in all the hubbub… all the rigmarole… all the getting jiggy-with-it of cooking, we took less pictures than usual of this particular dish.  The sauce, which had been a strikingly bright red, moderated to a more appetizing hue once the cream was added at the very end. 
The Chicken, which had marinated in cumin, coriander, cayenne and salt before being dipped in a yogurt/garlic/ginger mix and broiled was fantastic.  Tikka Masala sauce aside, this is a fantastic way to cook chicken breast on its own.
We served the tikka with a basmati rice that was mixed with golden raisins and sliced almonds.  Yeah, we’re kind of awesome.
Course 4: Kulfi
Yet another recipe from Aarti Sequeira.  This is a really simple ice cream that does not require an ice cream maker.  So there’s really no excuse for you not to make it!  Ok, the only excuse you might have is that you don’t want to buy cardamom.  But if you’ve ever had cardamom, you will realize how awesome it is, and now you have a recipe that you can use it with.  Are you convinced yet?!

First you gently heat the evaporated milk in a saucepan and then EMPTY four bags of Earl Grey tea into the mixture.  Very strange cutting open tea bags.
What is evaporated milk anyway?  It’s basically canned milk with most of the water removed.  Theoretically you could add water and it would be similar to fresh milk.  Yeah, anyway…

After 30 minutes of steeping, we strained out the tea.  Then you add the condensed milk and some regular milk. 
What is condensed milk, you ask?  It’s evaporated milk with added sugar.  It’s very sticky, sweet, and I would be tempted to eat a whole can of it (except that’s kind of gross). 
 
Then all you have to do is pour it into some sort of container and stick it in the freezer.  We used large ice cube trays, but you can use anything, really.  Top it with chopped pistachios and you’re done.


See how pretty?  After just a few minutes out of the freezer, the Kulfi is soft enough to be eaten with a spoon.  It is sweet and creamy and pretty much awesome.  Just the thing to prepare a full stomach for some digestion.

When life gives you another year, make lemon cake!

Another year, another birthday.  Time to make a lemon cake, as someone is very fond of lemon desserts (as opposed to something normal like chocolate).  Last year's birthday "cake" was a lemon pie, so it was time to come back around to a more traditional cake.  Getting older makes you more sophisticated.

Here's last year's pie:

So young and carefree at 30

Whereas this year is more classy and dignified:

Implicit is a frown, to represent the weight of old age

You will notice the use of the bundt. Bundt, bundt, bundt! It's pretty fun to say.  This was my first attempt at a bundt cake, and I think it turned out pretty well.

Bundts are kind of old-fashioned, but they make a nice presentation.  The original recipe is actually a pound cake from Barefoot Contessa, but instead I followed an adapted recipe from Smitten Kitchen that uses a bundt pan. Smitten Kitchen sounds like Smitten Kitten, which is also fun to say.

There once was a smitten kitten who stole a mitten; from where the jury was sitten, there was no acquittin'.

Here's a snap of the ingredients.  I am one of those people that doesn't read the recipe all the way through and prefers to "figure it out" as I go along.  Unfortunately for me, this whole "blog" thing has forced me to gather my ingredients ahead of time for the requisite snapshot.  Sooooo annoying, and yet, so much more convenient than my traditional methods.

When life gives you a recipe for lemon cake; buy lemons!
Several lemons were harmed in the making of this cake.

I did unfortunately discover at the outset that many of my ingredients needed to be at room temperature, and I therefore had to wait.  Confound you, preparedness! Luckily, I was able to spend all that time zesting and juicing the lemons, so it worked out in the end.

Here's a tip - cutting the butter into small pieces
helps it warm up faster

Getting 1/3 cup of lemon zest takes forever!
The zest must flow!

The juicer was quite handy because that's a ton of lemons.
I ended up with extra juice, so I froze it in an ice tray for
future use - Ec-O-Nomical!

Expertly greased and floured bundt pan.
(That sort of sounds dirty.)

Making the batter...not that interesting

Fresh out of the oven. 

At this point, it is time for Glaze #1 (lemon juice + granulated sugar) heated in a saucepan until the sugar is absorbed).  Getting the glaze to absorb was a little tricky, so I used a basting brush. The glaze soaks into the cake a little bit to give it some extra tartness.

After the cake is cooled, it's time for Glaze #2 (lemon juice + powdered sugar).  Let it drip over the warm cake and down the sides into an elegant, gooey mess.  Thats right.... elegant AND gooey.

The cake comes out light and airy, which is completely opposite of what I would expect from a pound cake recipe.  The icing is tart yet sweet, which matches perfectly with the subtlety of the cake.  Another successful lemon recipe to add to the ol' collection!

And it 'twas a Happy Birthday indeed!

Shrimp FƩtα-αccΘmpli

To do our part in supporting the Greek economy, we purchased some feta at the grocery store.  As it turns out, it is really hard to buy imported feta at your neighborhood HEB.  All the brands they carry are made in the U.S. and presumably aren't nearly as delicious.  Well....didn't feel like making a trip to Whole Foods to find better cheese, so let's just move on.

So, as we’ve previously mentioned, we’re big fans of buying the individually frozen, deveined shell-on shrimp.  They defrost quickly and require very little prep work.  Also makes us feel all  fancy pants having a shrimp dinner mid-week.  This greek shrimp recipe from America’s test kitchen is a real winner (free registration required to view).  It’s chock full of goodness… and deliciously salty feta.

Some special ingredients here that make all the difference: orzo (which is basically a ric-shaped pasta), anise liqueur (which is licorice-flavored), wine (which you know what that is) and bell peppers (red peppers were on sale this week!).  The recipe actually calls for ouzo, which if you watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" then you will know what that is all about.  The anise liqueur works just as well (the recipe itself offers some other potential substitutions).

First you marinade the shrimp in garlic, olive oil, lemon zest, and the anise liqueur.  It only needs like 20 minutes, so you can proceed with the rest of the recipe while it's marinating.

Sauteing the peppers and onions. 

Add the tomatoes, wine, and more liqueur.

Add the shrimp only at the very end.  They only need a few minutes to cook and turn pink.  The secret is to turn the heat down really low.  The shrimp won't get tough if you cook them over low heat.

 

Finish it off with feta and dill. It may seem a little weird to have feta with seafood, but it really is quite delicious.  The feta melts into the sauce a little bit and gives it a nice tangy flavor.  Serve it over orzo pasta and it is quite amazing.  The pasta soaks up the sauce but isn't as filling as say rice would be.  Plus, somebody in our household is obsessed with pasta (but I won't say who).

As the Greeks say, “ƩɸΔΘάΩβπ!,” which means “our country may be broke, but as long as we have our goats and this meal… we’re solid.”

Upgrade, baby!

This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or as random as a blaster, but an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.