Traditional, twisted.

I made marmalade a few weekends ago. The meyer lemons I’ve been buying at People’s are so floral and sweet that I’ve been eating them straight up. And the oranges… and the grapefruit... It’s citrus season! I couldn’t NOT try marmalade.

This being my first attempt, I got two books on preserves and jams. Perused them, then decided that I prefer to read the useful-but-detailed instructions and the science behind jam-making AFTER I make my mistakes. Plus I watched a 2-minute video online, which I naively thought was sufficient to give me an idea of what set jam would look like. So… I made a ruby red grapefruit-orange-lemon marmalade that’s tasty, albeit with a very stiff set. Then I made a meyer lemon marmalade that tastes... not unlike a bunch of lemons. Seems like the sweetness and the floral notes that I covet in the meyer lemon grew wings and flew out of the pan as quickly as they could.

Both are bitter, that's the MO of marmalade. Nary a sliver of pith sneaked into the gooey mixture, maybe the pith's bitterness oozed out of the pip bag, where I included it to develop the pectin? I need to test these marmalades on my favorite Irishman, who is a jam-and-marmalade fanatic.

Until then, I have 8 jars of marmalade waiting to be given purpose. So I made sugar cookies filled with lemon marmalade, hoping that the sweetness of the cookie would balance the tartness of the jam. It did okay...the richness of shortbread might stand up better to the preserves.

Half the dough went toward this experimental lemon sandwich, half went to the traditional frosted sugar cookie. And I might have been convinced that the lemon cookies were pretty good. Good, until the old standby stole the show back from this interloper.

Sugar cookie recipes are all pretty much the same. There are slight variations in butter or eggs, it seems one balances the other. Some leave out the cream of tartar. The older recipes I've found use less butter. This recipe is adapted from my favorite of mom's cookbooks: the 1970s orange hard-back Betty Crocker cookbook. There are two sugar cookie recipes in there: the Traditional (here, minus the cream of tartar) and the Deluxe (more butter, powdered sugar, cream of tartar).

A side-by-side bake-off revealed that I am, after all, a traditional sort of girl.

Traditional Sugar Cookies
3/4 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2.5 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (optional)

Cream together butter and sugar until light. Add vanilla, then eggs- 1 at a time. Mix until incorporated. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add in 3 batches, mix just until combined. Chill dough at least 1 hr, overnight is better. Roll out on a well-floured surface, cut out cookies. Bake at 350.

If you take the preserves-filled route: spread marmalade/jam between 2 raw cookies. Use a fork to seal the edges so that jam doesn't leak out everywhere. Bake it as a sandwich.

If you take the frosting route: Cream 1 stick butter and 1 tsp vanilla together in a mixer, add powdered sugar to taste along with 1-3 tablespoons milk to achieve desired consistency. It usually takes about 1 of those cardboard boxes of confectioners' sugar for 1 stick of butter. Frost when cookies are cool.

Here's a better view of the marmalade cookies:




post script: Not all is lost on the marmalade front. A versatile condiment, the orange one goes with everything from roasted pork tenderloin, to mashed sweet potatoes, to butternut squash.

Eggplant! Hold the chocolate.

My favorite eggplant story: a good friend of mine took a bite of a sandwich stuffed with a medley of roasted vegetables (including a thick slice of eggplant) and proclaimed, “This pork chop is amazing!”

If you’re not a big vegetable eater, don’t let the poor lighting in the photo above scare away your appetite. It is easy to settle into a dinner centered on this ragu and find in it a satisfying winter meal; it is warmth and comfort without a hint of aggression.

Why do some people gravitate to eggplant if it's on a menu? I've heard it said that, in cultures where chocolate is not readily available, women have been known to crave eggplant. While I am inclined to believe this, a few Google searches offered no corroboration. However, “crave eggplant” turned up some 63,000 hits. Also, there are a surprising number of recipes out there for cubes of eggplant sautéed in oil, then dipped in chocolate. I was looking for “eggplant in lieu of chocolate”, not “eggplant in chocolate.” In the case that you are one tempted by the unusual, this combination didn’t get rave reviews by those who tried it. The most interesting thing I learned is that eggplant and its relative the tomato both contain trace amounts of nicotine.

No matter how you slice it, I love it and crave it- roasted or sautéed, salted or not, stuffed or pureed.

This recipe capitalizes on eggplant’s ability to soak up the flavors around it, and here the flavors meld together beautifully. Simple preparation leads to a dish complex in texture- the tomatoes fall apart a bit and lend slight acidity, the eggplant softens but holds its shape, the roasted peppers add a hint of something almost sweet. The whole mess thickens up as the eggplant absorbs the water. Try it on a heap of red quinoa with toasted pine nuts. Toss the leftovers with pasta and shaved parmesan. Decorate grilled polenta cakes with the ragu and feta cheese. Spread it over homemade pizza.

Next time…I already bought the ingredients for next time.

Recipe adapted from Gourmet, February 2008

1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 cup onion, chopped
2 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tsp dried oregano
3 T olive oil
1/2 c. roasted red peppers, chopped
3/4 c. water

Toss the eggplant with 1 tsp salt in a colander and let it sit for 30 minutes to drain. If you've got a meyer lemon rattling around your house, squeeze half of it over the eggplant- it brightens it up and adds a sublte undertone of floral tang. After the eggplant has drained, grab handfuls of it and squeeze to get out the excess moisture. Transfer the eggplant to a plate and blot it with a paper towel.

Cook the eggplant, onion, garlic, and oregano in olive oil over medium heat with a dash of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Give it a few stirs and cook until the eggplant and onion are soft, then add the tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and water. Simmer everything together, covered, stirring occasionally until the eggplant is very tender and the tomatoes have fallen apart a bit (about 10 min). At this point, the ragu should have thickened up. If it gets too thick, no worries, just add a tablespoon or two of water.

When it's done, add some chopped flat leaf parsley for both flavor and color.

To serve with red quinoa, while the ragu cooks, bring 1 1/2 c. salted water to a boil. Add 1 c quinoa and simmer on low heat 20-30 min. The grains will sprout. Let it stand 5 min off the heat, then fluff it with a fork.

Yes, that's an egg on my pizza. And I'm happy to see you

What goes into a good egg sandwich? Toasted sandwich bread slathered with mayo, cradling a fried egg topped with molten cheese that oozes onto the plate upon slicing? A juicy tomato in the summer, or an avocado? Add a side of spinach salad- that's what I call lunch.

Sometimes, though, inspiration calls for a bastardization of said culinary delight.

Today, that inspiration came in the form of pizza. We made pizza one night this weekend and I had some leftover tomatoes, which, really, only improved with age as they were marinating with basil and garlic for the past few days. Add to that an assortment of cheeses. And some baby spinach... the pizza was practically crying out for an egg to be cracked on top.

This, while I'm sure is not novel, has struck me as an interesting idea for some time. In the beginning, I wanted to make it like an Italian take on the breakfast burrito with egg and small pieces of either bacon or proscuitto. Tomatoes instead of the salsa. I think potatoes would be too heavy, but if I had hash browns sitting in the fridge, I don't doubt that a few would make it on there.

But it was lunch, and I didn't have bacon. Or hash browns. And, truth be told, I wouldn't change anything about this. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner, it would be satisfying and delightful at any of those meals.

Crust:
360 g. flour (3 cups)
2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp instant yeast
3 T olive oil
1 c water, room temp

The night before:
Mix together dry ingredients. Add water and oil. Knead. Place in a bowl oiled with remaining 1 T oil and set in a cool spot in a covered bowl (this winter trick works brilliantly in a coastal San Diego apartment with relatively poor insulation and heat that is left off all night for fear of burning the place down). I don't know what my average night time room temp actually is, I'd guess in the low 60s F?

If it's a cool day, leave it on the counter until you're ready to use it. If it's warm, throw it into the fridge. Keep an eye on it, if the dough has risen a lot, stick it in the fridge until about 1.5-2 hr before you want to use it, then take it out and bring to RT, turn your oven on to 475F while you think of it. If you don't have a pizza stone, put a baking sheet on the bottom rack while the oven heats up.

20 min before you're ready to make pizza, divide the dough into 2 or 3 rounds. Let the rounds rest to relax the gluten.
Shape pizza on parchment by either stretching it out with your hands or by using a rolling pin. If you're doing battle with the dough, try letting it rest some more then stretch it out again.


Topping:
For the tomatoes, mix together:
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes, drained.
Add lots of dried oregano. At least 2 tsp.
Salt, to taste. Start with 1/4 tsp, you might need 1/2 or more
Pepper, fresh ground
Red pepper flakes- a good shaking if you like it hot
Olive oil- more of this than you might think. Drizzle it in there. You will need at least 1 T., maybe more.
1 minced clove garlic (optional)
It's hard to screw this up, feel free to play.

Assemble the pizza:
For extra deliciousness, spread a clove or two of garlic over the bottom of the pizza. Or, for more subtle flavor, halve a clove and crush it a bit, then rub the dough with the exposed surface of garlic.

Spread the tomatoes lightly over the crust. It won't be a solid layer of tomatoes by any stretch. You don't have to use them all.
Fashion a well in the center of this tomato topping.
Crack an egg into the well.
Grate a combination of mozzarella and cheddar on top of the pizza. (Go easy. A little cheese goes a long way in its melted state.)
Put baby spinach on top of everything.
Drizzle with olive oil. (Do this after the spinach is added, it will prevent the leaves from getting as browned as mine did).
Sprinkle with salt.

I bake it on the parchment, since I don't have the skills to slide the pizza from a baking peel directly onto the pizza stone (yet). It should take about 8-12 min. If you time it right, you can get it so that the cheese is melted and starting to brown, but the yolk is still runny.

Next time? Carmelized onions.