Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate

Banana-nut breads are some of my very favorite things, and after much trial and error, I lucked into the perfect recipe some years back. It is everything banana bread should be: a short list of ingredients, an easy technique, dense and perfectly moist, simultaneously creamy and nutty, with the ideal level of banana flavor. And no matter how many times I have made this recipe (probably close to a hundred), I always get the same impeccable quality. The weather never affects the outcome (bring on the humidity), and neither does the quality of ingredients (generic butter, here I come).

I had no interest in reinventing the wheel, and so I halted all experimentation with ingredients and virtually turned my nose up at all other recipes. I know better. As a matter of fact, I can't count the number of times I have tinkered around with perfection on some of our other favorite recipes, only to have The Carnivore throw up his hands in bewilderment and make noises about why I am incapable of leaving well enough alone. Especially when my tinkering results in an inferior product, as it does all too often.

So, like I said, no new banana bread recipes.

I meant it this time.

Well, until recently, that is.

You see, Orangette, who also has a addictive-like weakness for banana breads, would often post about them, listing no fewer than four different recipes in her index. And I trust her. Dearly. She has steered me wrong only once (and it was nothing more than a difference in heat-level preferences that caused me to flick one of her recipes straight into the recycling bin), so every time she waxed poetic about a new banana bread recipe, I felt that old temptation coming on.

I held strong for as long as I could. "No new recipes," I would mutter, quickly clicking away from her site. But then her much-anticipated book came out.

Oh, how I enjoyed reading it. This Homemade Life arrived in the mail on the day of release, looking splendid in its beautiful, pale-green jacket; thick with recipes and exquisite little line drawings, rich with intimate descriptives of both her life and her food. I cried when her father died and rejoiced when her wedding plans came together. I tried to drag out the reading so that it would never have to end, but alas, it didn't help that I just couldn't put it down.

We are the best of friends, Orangette and I.

Well, except that we've never met and she has no idea who I am. Those facts notwithstanding though...

Anyhow. Her book included a banana bread recipe that I simply couldn't shake from my mind. The ingredients included dark chocolate, mind you, which will someday be my downfall, I am sure, along with crystallized ginger (which just sounds so, well, sophisticated and elegant - two adjectives that draw me in even though they in no way apply to either me or my life). And so it was that I found myself unable to keep from buying a small packet of said ginger and pulling some frozen bananas from the freezer.

I possess woefully little self-control in matters such as this.

The only stumbling block came in the complexity of the recipe. The ingredient list was just so tediously long, and the instructions had so many steps, and, oh, I don't know, but it just all made me so tired looking at the page. And then I pulled a piece of the crystallized ginger from the bag and popped it into my mouth and thought, "No, oh no, this will never do." The flavor was too strong, the texture not right for a quick bread, the whole concept just a little too hoity-toity for good, old-fashioned banana bread.

And then, Eureka. What if I took my favorite idiot-proof, crowd-pleasing banana bread recipe and threw a cup of dark chocolate chips into the batter? Was it really so easy? Could I, by adding a little (okay, more like a lot) dark chocolate to my tried-and-true recipe, make The Best Banana Bread even better? Oh, yes.

Yes, I can.

I made two loaves on the spot, one to take to a gathering the following day and one to enjoy at home, and I am happy to report that this bread takes a backseat only to the Creme de Menthe Brownies for Most Compliments at a Potluck. It is so perfect, in fact, that my mother (the busiest woman in the world) snuck over to my house two days in a row to have a slice of this banana bread.

Dense and moist, flecked with crunchy pecans and toothsome bits of dark chocolate, ever-so-slightly sweet, rich and decadent, this is, honest to everything, the best banana bread I've ever eaten. And I've eaten a lot of banana breads.

*****

BANANA-NUT BREAD WITH DARK CHOCOLATE CHIPS (makes one 9x5 loaf)

Note: the riper the banana, the better; and frozen bananas work wonderfully

• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (that is one and a half cups)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe banana
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips (such as Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet)

1. Stir butter, sugar and eggs together in a large bowl.
2. Sift the dry ingredients (the flour, baking soda and salt) together, and fold into the butter mixture.
3. Stir in mashed banana, nuts and chocolate.
4. Bake in a 9x5 loaf pan at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes, until browned and domed on top, and a knife inserted into the middle comes out mostly clean.
5. Cool completely, then refrigerate before cutting in order to get cleanly-cut slices.
6. Serve warm or cold, plain or with butter or cream cheese.

Risotto with Chicory

I just fell in love with chicory.  It seems odd to say it, I know, and I’m sure I just planted disgust in the heart of most of those who would read this, but the thing is, after wrestling with this odd green for the past few summers, I finally found one of those blessed New Southern ways of preparing it.  Please trust me.

The silence was deafening on the subject of the Boiled Kale on Toast with Fried Egg, and oh, what a loss.  And if you didn’t believe me on that one, when I was backed up by The Zuni Cafe, Orangette, and Bitten, then I suppose this chicory recipe will require even more suspension of disbelief.

Chicory is a strange thing.  It looks like lettuce, has a strangely bitter, almost astringent quality to it, and comes replete with all manner of preconceived notions.  And then there is the small matter of it’s name. Two of its varieties, radicchio and endive, at least sound edible, but 'chicory' itself?  Ugh.  

In previous years, when it showed up in my CSA box, I tried to hide it in salads, mixed in with other, sweeter lettuces, but it took work.  Like capital ‘W’ Work.  Eventually, I found my way with it.  Tossed with a sweet fresh-picked carrots, a fruity homemade blackberry vinaigrette, and tart crumbles of feta cheese, it actually made for a reasonably nice, if ever-so-slightly-too-gourmet-ish, salad.

Then last week, I found myself bogged down under a ginormous bag of the leaves, and I stared askance at it for a few days, unable to bring myself to chunk it into the compost, but not quite ready to drown it in dressing either.  Finally, with a handful of sorrel in one hand and the bag of chicory in the other, I sat down at the computer to do some recipe searches.  And, people, I struck gold.  Bright, shiny, valuable gold.  

The sorrel ended up in an omelet with wondrous flavor, and I chopped up a handful or two of the chicory, wilted it in a hot pan with a little olive oil, and tossed it into one of my Any Vegetable Frittatas, but the real star, the true gem, was a recipe I found for Risotto with Chicory.

I know how that sounds. Honest, I had to suspend my own disbelief while stirring the mad concoction, and then, oh, the horror I felt when I stared at the mountainous pile of greens shredded into cole-slaw-looking ribbons.  But I forged on.  I did, after all, have to do something with all this chicory.  

The results were phenomenal.  The risotto was everything it should be, rich and luscious, decadent in it’s texture and creamy-chewy on the tongue.  And the flavor of the chicory itself?  I’m sure I can’t describe it.  The flavors melded so well that the chicory flavor didn’t even bother to try and have a flavor of it’s own, there was just the slight earthiness it imparted to the rice, tempered and made more elegant by the Parmesan, the white wine, and the butter.

I imagine Edna Lewis would have approved of this treatment, but shockingly, my picky five-year-old son and even the conservative, meat-eating husband devoured it (the 20-month-old loved it as well, but she’ll eat anything).  

I’ve made my share of risottos, and this one is my new hands-down favorite.  Now if only I could figure out where to purchase chicory all year-round...

*****

CHICORY RISOTTO (serves 4 to 6 as a side dish, adapted from Cook It Simply)

    

Note: Risotto is best served immediately, and will turn a little gummy when stored.  To reheat, add a tiny bit of broth and bring to simmer on the stove, stirring constantly, adding more broth as needed.

• 44 oz vegetable broth
• 3 oz butter, divided
  
• 1 small white onion, finely chopped
  
• 7 oz chicory (red or white), shredded into a chiffonade (ribbons)
• 11 oz arborio rice
• 4 oz white wine
  
• 2 oz grated Parmesan cheese
  
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a small saucepan, bring the broth to a simmer.
2. In a wide saucepan (I love to use an enameled cast iron pan for risottos), melt 2 oz of the butter over medium heat.
3. Add onion to pan, and saute gently over medium-low heat until translucent, taking care not to brown the onion.
4. Add the chicory and stir until wilted.
5. Add the rice and cook, stirring, until well coated.
6. Stir in wine, and cook for one minute.
7. Pour in 1 cup of hot broth and cook, stirring frequently, until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
8. Continue adding broth, 1 cup at a time, to the pan, stirring often, until rice is al dente (should take about 15 minutes).  There will probably still be 1/2 to 1 cup of the broth left over in the broth pan.
9. When rice is tender, remove pan from heat, and stir in the remaining butter and the Parmesan.  The final dish should not be soupy, but should have enough broth left in the risotto to allow it to be a little runny.  If finished risotto is too clumpy, add broth by the 1/4-cup to achieve desired texture.
10. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cooking for Freaks

I don’t want to talk about the economy.  I really don’t.  I am an accountant by trade, if not by nature, and I just hate talking about money. Especially now, when tax season is finally, blessedly, over, and I can get through a nice sunny weekend day without being involved in (or, ahem, overhearing) a conversation about deductions and capital losses and all of that other dismal nonsense.  And I am pretty good at ignoring the business news these days.  I have to be, so that I can avoid going completely mad.

But here’s the rub (and there always seems to be a rub with me, doesn’t there?): the economy has just gone too far now and it has been affecting my grocery list. 

There is just so much that is wrong with that sentence, not the least of which is that I don’t like my obsessions to collide in such a grotesque and vulgar manner.  And, you know, I don’t like to talk about personal financial matters.  Food is my little escape, you see, and it is the lone area in which I try to give myself a little leeway.  I scrimp and I save in almost every facet of my life, but please, for goodness’ sake, can’t a girl spend a little at the grocery store?

A few months ago, when it became clear that I was going to need to trim the budget a little, I did my best to rein myself in, to not jump to extremes, to find my inner middle-of-the-road personality.  I failed, of course, because I am of the all-or-nothing ilk, and I practically specialize in extremes.  And so it was that I suddenly found myself in the inner circle of Hell, of all places, burning holes in my grocery list.  Oh, how I slashed.  We went from the all-organic, local-where-possible, ingredients to the mass-market, conventionally-grown items.  And even that might have been tolerable, had I not decided to loll about in the nether regions of the rock-bottom.  

I purchased regular old processed white sugar instead of the gorgeous voluptuous raw sugar crystals we had become accustomed to, started cooking with water instead of broth, and began making my morning fried egg sandwiches with dollar-a-dozen eggs that tasted flabby.

I still bought olive oil, whole-wheat bread, and organic milk (albeit store brands, all), but I scrutinized the cost-per-ounce labels to get the best value, and within a matter of weeks, I had reduced our grocery bills by about half.

Sounds laudable, you say?

Well, sure, I’ll take a little credit for making the equation balance.  But only a little credit, you see, because it wasn’t just the bills that were cut in half, it was our enjoyment in meals as well.  Bit by bit I began to lose interest in cooking until I found I was doing it by rote, forgetting even to play music in the kitchen.  And, as you may have noticed, writing about food wasn’t even on my radar.  

Tonight was the final straw, I hope.  I made a mozzarella-stuffed arancini recipe that we have always been a little head-over-heels for.  But, and this is a little embarrassing to admit, I thought this would be the perfect recipe for an experiment.  I decided to see just how cheaply I could make it, and instead of using fresh mozzarella, I bought the Great Value brand.  And for the final insult, I used  store-brand parmesan-in-a-can instead of Romano, and cooked the rice in water rather than broth.

I’m sure you can guess how it turned out: with us pushing the bland food around on our plates and The Carnivore expressing his dismay that I would take my penny-pinching to such an ill-conceived extreme.

Something is clearly going to have to give around here, and I suspect it is me who will need to whip herself into submission.  There is some obvious middle ground that I could choose, and I know which ingredients I can scrimp on without sacrificing the dinner table entirely, but out of all my faults, this is probably my biggest.  I’m just not a middle-of-the-road believer.

And so I think I will try to trick myself.  If I were to give myself a goal of, say, increasing our current grocery bill by, oh I don’t know, maybe 17.5%, which is still lower than our previous height by 32.5%, then the mathematical challenge may be just the impetus I need in order to make some compromises here and to part with the extra penny or two to buy the better-quality ingredients that actually matter like, say, cheese.

For the love of all that is sacred.  I don’t try to be a freak.

It just comes naturally.

Black Bean Tacos with Southwestern Slaw

As if it isn’t embarrassing enough that the month of December caught me by surprise and then flew by before I could get my Christmas list in order, you won’t believe what happened to me in January.

The same doggone thing.

I was just so relieved when Christmas was over and I could pack up my seven Christmas ornaments and throw the tree into the woods and put the stockings somewhere obscure so that I won’t be able to find them next year (again) that I ended up doing the same thing I do every year: entirely forgetting that January is my busiest work month of the year. I settled in all cozy and happy in my warm house, planning to hunker down for the cold month of January in which (I thought) my schedule would be free and clear and the kids and I could work on art projects and new recipes and that sort of thing.

But somewhere around the middle of January, my eyes rolled back in my head and I jumped up from The Snuggle Chair where I was reading a book to the kids, and I ran to the computer to try and make up for lost time when I remembered (finally) that there were three major deadlines looming at the end of the month.

Just like they do every year.

I don’t know what to do about this utter failure to remember routines. I can recite various tax rates off the top of my head and keep the most fastidious calendar and daily to-do list that you’ve ever seen, yet I am incapable of getting my act together in December and January.

This is a cry for help. I need for someone, anyone, to please, pretty please, remind me in December that Christmas is coming and to make sure I do not let my guard down in January because, you know, little-bitty things like W2s are due.

I began the month with the best of intentions. It seemed the ideal time for slow roasting, for simmering stocks, for tackling that page-long, 8-point type, totally complicated cake recipe from last month’s issue of Bon Appetit. I was thinking of taking a knitting class and making our own hats, reading up on F-stops and apertures because those concepts are still blowing my mind, and going to the kids' storytime at the library.

Nowhere in my plan for a happy winter was there any mention of insurance audits and financial statements and SSA-required paperwork. Under no circumstances was I going to hunch over the laptop in the late evenings, starting my work days a whopping 14 hours after I actually woke up, worried sick about deadlines.

For the love of all that is sacred…

The bright side is that its all over now, and if I gloss over the fact that I spent the past few evenings recovering in front of vapid television shows after the kids were in bed, there really is no downside. I mean, I did get paid for, you know, working, and from what I understand, people do that sort of thing all the time.

Actually, there is another layer of silver lining to unfurl here, and that is my newfound appreciation for quick and easy dinners (though I must admit I loathe saying the phrase ‘quick and easy’ – it just sounds like it involves a can of condensed something-or-other, doesn’t it?).

Anyway. This just clearly wasn't the kind of month where I had the time to make my own pasta or spend an entire day prepping arancini.

So one afternoon, right in the midst of all those deadlines, when I was trying to ignore the fact that I was playing with my children when I really should have been working, The Big Boy and I were taking an imaginary vacation, pretending we were on a houseboat in Alaska and planning what we would eat on our “cruise” from what we saw in the February issue of Bon Appetit. See, in our pretend vacations, someone else is cooking and everything is always in season, so we are allowed to simply salivate over all the luscious food photos and even pretend to eat the pictures if we are so inclined. But when we turned the page past an advertisement which featured gi-normous slabs of beef posing as island mountains (because apparently even the advertisers have vacations on the brain), I stumbled across a hunger-inducing photo of crispy black bean tacos in their Fast Easy Fresh column.

I kid you not, the tacos looked so delicious and sounded so blessedly quick and easy (there I go again) that I planned them for that night’s dinner. Now obviously I had to make things a little difficult on myself because otherwise I just wouldn’t be me, you know, so instead of using canned beans, as called for in the recipe, I set some dried beans to soaking. It was early in the day when we ran across that picture anyway, so I had ample time to cover a few beans with a little bit of water. And, well, because it seems like virtually nothing is available fresh around here during the end of January and the first couple weeks of February, I broke down and went to the supermarket to pick up a bag of pre-shredded coleslaw mix (man, that hurt) and some fresh cilantro.

I will atone for these sins come springtime when some veggies start showing up at the farmer’s markets.

In the meantime though, I was charmed to pieces by this recipe. It really is easy, and it is crazy-quick, and the unexpected combination of feta and a southwestern-type slaw served atop pan-crisped tortillas stuffed with simple black beans is, well, kind of enchanting, I think. The crunch of the cabbage along with the tartness from the feta and the lime juice provided the perfect foil to the earthiness of the beans, and frankly, I thought the dish looked simply beautiful. The Carnivore and I both enjoyed it, so I’m going to keep this in rotation for a little while here although, actually, I suppose a more virtuous person might hold off until the cabbage harvests start back up.

I'm running a little low on virtuosity myself.

*****

CRISPY BLACK BEAN TACOS WITH SOUTHWESTERN SLAW (serves 2 as an entree, adapted from Bon Appetit)

• 1/2 cup dried black beans, soaked and cooked (or 1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed & drained)
• 1/2 tsp dried cumin
• 5 tsp olive oil (may need a little more, depending on type of pan being used), divided
• 1 Tbs lime juice
• 2 cups shredded mixture of green cabbage, purple cabbage, and carrots (also known as coleslaw mix)
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• salt & pepper
• 4 yellow corn tortillas
• 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
• bottled hot sauce (like Texas Pete)

1. Coarsely mash together the beans and the cumin. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine 2 tsp olive oil with the lime juice. Add the coleslaw mix, green onions and cilantro and toss to coat with the dressing. Add salt & pepper to taste.
3. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the remaining 3 tsp olive oil. If using cast-iron, a little more olive oil will be needed. You're looking for a shimmering layer that entirely coats the bottom of the skillet and is able to slosh around just a little.
4. Two at a time, add the tortillas to the skillet in a single layer. To make them fit, it is okay to let a little of each tortilla come up the sides a little (the tacos will be flipped and cooked on both sides).
5. Spoon 1/4 of the bean mixture onto half of each tortilla; cook for one minute.
6. Fold tacos in half and cook until golden brown on each side (about 1 minute per side).
7. Place 2 tacos on each of 2 plates (rear end to rear end) and top each plate with half of the slaw and crumbled feta. Drizzle with a little hot sauce and serve immediately.

Stuffed Portabellos

Oh, rats. You know those people who put themselves down just so you will compliment them and make them feel better? They play a new song they wrote, but preface it by saying, "I don't really like it." Or they hand you a hard copy of a story they penned, and mutter, "It isn't very good." So of course, OF COURSE, you have no choice but to say something positive. "Well," you say about the song, "The hook is really cool." And for the story, "The character development is very intriguing," you enthuse in a reassuring fashion.

I am not one of those people. I swear.

The thing is though, I made this Portobello Mushroom Stuffed with Spinach and Goat Cheese recipe last night, and it was smashingly good. Lick your lips, steal a bite from your kid's plate, eat-more-than-you-should good. And I just couldn't WAIT to sidle on in here during Little Miss Piggy's nap today so that I could share it. But then I uploaded the photos from my camera, and, well, the picture looks a little disgusting. I mean, everything is all brown and white in the most unappealing fashion, and even after I typed the title directly above said disappointing photo, you still can't really tell what is depicted. So I almost just scrapped the whole thing, thinking I would post about chilaquiles instead, but no kidding, that mushroom recipe is too good to not share just because the photographer failed in her mission to make it look as yummy as it tastes.

So, please. Don't feel like you need to stroke my ego. I'm sure we can all agree that it isn't a very good photo, and I don't have a clue as to how to make it more palatable (nor do I have any more portabellos in the house to use as target practice), but I had to post it. Really, I had no choice. Because truly, if you look carefully at the aforementioned sad-looking picture, you will notice the height of the finished dish, and you have to admit, that is pretty impressive. Right?

Hi. My name is Sarah, and I am an apologist.

This recipe (sans photo, I might add) appeared in the January issue of Bon Appetit and I couldn't wait to try it. I have kind of a thing for mushrooms in the first place, but what really caught my eye about this particular one was the description in which the writer, who is not a vegetarian, makes note of it's appeal as a vegetarian entree. For obvious reasons, I was intrigued. Seven or eight years ago, I found a very simple recipe for a similar spinach-and-Fontina-stuffed-portabello, but even after countless tinkerings, The Carnivore and I finally agreed that it just wasn't that good. Fontina, as a whole, doesn't have very much flavor of it's own, and I was never able to come up with a proper marinade to flavor the mushroom. And then there was the small issue of The Carnivore feeling that the mushroom was trying too hard to pretend to be a piece of meat.

But this recipe used ample amounts of olive oil in the marinade, which, I'm a little embarassed to admit, is something that never occured to me, but which seemed a stroke of genius since that would clearly help the other flavors to better cling to the mushroom. And it was in Bon Appetit, giving it a little more authority, I felt, to reassure The Carnivore that it was worth a try. He looked a little skeptical when I announced the menu last night, but I pressed on. This recipe was going to be attempted, if for no other reason than I had planned it for earlier in the week, but had been flummoxed when, an hour before dinnertime, I actually read the recipe a little more carefully and noticed the minor detail in the instructions about marinating for four hours. I hate it when that happens.

[And to be honest, that happens much more often than it should. I try to read recipes in full the morning before I will be cooking them, to be sure I have everything on hand and that I have done any advance prep work, you know, in advance. You wouldn't believe how often though, at 5:00 in the afternoon, I discover I am missing a crucial ingredient or that I failed to soak the beans or something else equally obvious.]

With these mushrooms though, the end result was nothing short of spectacular. The filling, as I have already mentioned, achieved great height, making for a very majestic presentation, and the moist and tender texture of the mushroom provided a welcome foil to the ever-so-slight-crunch of the Parmesan topping. There was a bit of tartness from the goat cheese, which had turned silky during the cooking time, and a surprising balance of sweet and salty in the mushroom from the marinade. Most interesting though, was how hearty the dish was, so much so, in fact, that it may become one of my new favorite vegetarian entrees.

And The Carnivore? After he cleaned his plate, I caught him leaning against the oven, prying up fallen bits from the baking sheet. The true test of the universality of a vegetarian entree is whether or not a dyed-in-the-wool carnivorous type gets true enjoyment out of the dish, and this one passed with flying colors.

*****

PORTOBELLO MUSHROOMS STUFFED WITH SPINACH AND GOAT CHEESE (serves six, adapted from Bon Appetit and attributed to the Arizona restaurant Cucina Rustica)

Marinated Mushrooms

• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 tsp coarse kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup red wine
• pinch of dried thyme
• 6 large portobello mushrooms

Filling

• 10-oz package frozen spinach, thawed
• 1 pound button mushrooms
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup plus 6 Tbs finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup unseasoned dry breadcrumbs
• 5-oz soft fresh goat cheese, crumbled

1. Whisk first 8 ingredients (through thyme) in a medium bowl.
2. Cut stems from portobellos and set aside.
3. Arrange mushrooms, gill side up, in a large glass casserole dish.
4. Pour marinade over mushrooms, letting plenty of it pool up in the gills, and marinate for four hours.
5. Squeeze excess water from spinach and place spinach in a small bowl.
6. In two or three batches in a food processor, pulse the reserved portobello mushrooms with the button mushrooms until coarsely chopped.
7. Heat 2 Tbs oil in a heavy, large skillet over medium heat.
8. Add onion to skillet and saute, stirring frequently, until beginning to brown, about 3 minutes.
9. Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds, stirring.
10. Add chopped mushrooms and stems to skillet, sprinkle with salt, and increase heat to high. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 8 minutes, until liquid has almost completely evaporated.
11. Season mushroom mixture with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.
12. When mushrooms have cooled to about room temperature, add the spinach, 1/4 cup Parmesan, and breadcrumbs to the mushroom mixture and stir.
13. Fold in the goat cheese.
14. Remove the mushrooms from the marinade and place them on a rimmed baking sheet, gill side down.
15. Roast mushrooms at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, until mushrooms are becoming tender.
16. Turn mushrooms over and divide filling among mushrooms.
17. Sprinkle 1 Tbs of remaining Parmesan over the top of each mushroom.
18. Bake for another 15 minutes.
19. Run under the broiler for 1 or 2 minutes, until Parmesan browns and crisps up.
20. Serve immediately.

Dark Chocolate Truffles

I'm finally getting into a rhythm with this new chocolate-on-a-daily-basis resolution. There were a few stumbles in the first couple of days, like the morning when I had trouble buttoning my pants (ahem) and the one day last week when I realized I wasn't really craving chocolate, but all in all, I still believe in the feasibility of this experiment. After all, doing an extra workout or two per week never hurt anyone, right? And besides, I have found the perfect solution to those moments in which I might not have chocolate on the brain. Truly, do 30 minutes of yoga and then eat a truffle. The state of calm that can be achieved in this manner is peerless.

There used to be a place downtown where The Carnivore and I would pop in occasionally to purchase a couple of truffles. We loved the little locally-owned candy store, where the truffles were made on site and the selection was of mind-boggling variety, so we were aghast when they closed down five years (or so) ago. See, I'm a little picky about my confections. While Godiva makes perfectly luscious little treats, I just don't get the same thrill from mass-market goods as I do from something handmade. And it was with no small amount of dismay that I discovered the new candy store in town buys their truffles from California and merely displays them, unboxed and on wax paper, behind glass as if they were made that morning.

Obviously, I knew that this, my Year of Daily Chocolate was going to involve learning some new recipes and I was looking forward to that aspect. And where I generally adore baking new brownie recipes and and making rich chocolate tarts, most of the time I would prefer something more simple. Some little bite-sized bit of heaven to go with my afternoon coffee. A taste and texture more interesting than a square from a bar of dark chocolate, but which doesn't include a long and arduous list of ingredients.

You know, like a truffle.

So I climbed up on the stepladder in the kitchen and started pulling down some cookbooks. Only once before had I attempted a truffle recipe and it was one from a leading and rather pedestrian women's magazine that, while easy enough to make, wasn't really anything to write home about. There was no hard outer coating and the truffle itself, while rich and creamy, was rolled in nuts and just seemed a little too fussy for my taste.

I have a tidy little stack of chocolate cookbooks and so I tagged a handful of truffle recipes in the indices. Each sounded incredible and well worth the work (and the cost of the ingredients) required, but it was in David Lebovitz' The Great Book of Chocolate that I stumbled across a recipe for Deep Dark Chocolate Truffles which used only a handful of ingredients, had both the creamy interior and the hard outer shell that I consider non-negotiable, and was billed as simple enough for any trained monkey (my words, not his).

I should mention that I really like David Lebovitz. He had a post on his blog a year or so ago in which he included detailed instructions for peeling a banana and I can't help but trust him implicitly now. Irreverance is a virtue in my book.

Anyhow.

I adapted his recipe slightly, making the truffles a little larger than he suggested (mainly because I'm a six-fingered slob when it comes to using a melon baller), skipping the cocoa powder coating (because I hate/loathe/abominate getting dust all over my lips - powdered doughnuts are obviously a deal-breaker for that reason), and substituting coffee liqueur for cognac.

There is time involved here. Not hands-on time, mind you, but there is dead time between steps for firming and chilling and all that nonsense, so no small amount of patience is required. This used to be just the kind of thing that drove me batty, but now that I have grown accustomed to interruptions (thanks be to The Boy Wonder and Little Miss Piggy), the waiting periods meshed nicely with all the other things I had going on last weekend when I was making these.

But enough about the little details, right? All that really matters is the final result and oh my stars, these were incomparable. The texture inside was spot-on, the hard outer shell was thin and cracked just perfectly when the truffle was bit into, the flavor was intense and complex and just barely sweet and I am deeply in love.

These are so superb, in fact, that I'm afraid to try any of the other recipes that I flagged. I just don't see how they could live up to this one.

*****

DEEP DARK CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES (adapted from The Great Book of Chocolate, makes 20 or so truffles)

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 14 to 16 ounces bittersweet chocolate (divided), chopped
• 2 tsps coffee liqueur

1. Bring the cream just to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in 10 ounces of the chocolate, stirring until melted. Stir in the liqueur and let the mixture stand for at least two hours, or until firm enough that it will hold it's shape when rolled into balls.
2. Dip a melon baller into very warm water and scoop the chocolate mixture into 3/4 to 1-inch balls and set them on a plate. Once you have scooped all of the mixture, use your hands to roll the balls until perfectly round (or thereabouts). Rinsing your hands in warm water will help keep the chocolate from sticking to your palms and making a ginormous mess.
3. Place the chocolate balls in the refrigerator and chill completely.
4. Melt four ounces of the remaining chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds).
5. Butter a couple of plates or a cookie sheet and set aside.
6. Using a small spoon, place the chocolate balls, one at a time, into the melted chocolate and roll them around to coat them completely. Place the coated truffles onto the buttered plate as they are completed. If the melted chocolate runs low, melt the remaining 2 ounces of chocolate and continue dipping and coating.
7. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Red Lentil Dal

Oh, dear. If I am really going to stick to my New Year's Resolution, then some adaptations are going to need to be made to the other ways in which I live my life. By Day Two of this little experiment, my pants felt a little snug and it occured to me that maybe I should have first tried to recover from the holiday excesses before embarking on a year-long quest to increase my dark chocolate intake.

Just as with Thanksgiving, I finished out the week of Christmas with a profound (though always short-lived) disdain of, but not limited to, the following: anything in a casserole dish, cookies of all kinds, pecan desserts in any form, vegetables that can be swallowed without first being chewed, and substances that can be slurped from a spoon.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I baked my way through at least six pounds of butter, more than one five pound bag of sugar, three or four pounds of pecans, and what felt like a bushel of sweet potatoes. I don't mean to sound dissatisfied. I love the holidays. Spoiling the kids rotten was an immense amount of fun this year, and though I was exhausted by the time it was all said and done, I enjoyed every minute (and every bite) of the laughter and food shared with family and friends.

But it is high time to get back to normal (even if 'normal' does include a daily dose of chocolate for the next 365 days). So I'm ramping up the exercise and taking a good, hard look at our menu to see how healthfully we can eat for the next month or so while we hibernate in our lounge clothes and turn into unsociable trolls during the cold days of January. And, since it is winter, and the variety of fresh, local vegetables is limited, that means a lot of beans.

I say that in a much more positive manner than it might initially sound. We like beans. Kind of a lot, actually. As a matter of fact, Little Miss Piggy would be perfectly content to eat beans for every meal, including a handful of garbanzos for a snack. Come to think of it though, between the soymilk we pour over our granola, the chickpeas I tuck into salads, the black beans we load into our quesadillas and chili, and the silken tofu I have used in cheesecake, there have been entire days when we HAVE had beans for every meal.

Such is the life of a vegetarian and the family who depends on her for sustenance.

We started the year off right, of course (even beyond The Daily Chocolate), happily gorging on Black-Eyed Peas and Collard Greens for our traditional New Year's Day meal, and since we had half a skillet of cornbread left over, The Carnivore requested lentils for dinner the following night. And oh, did I ever oblige.

Lentils are fun to cook anyhow, because there is no pesky soaking time and thus no advance planning involved. And, well, I like the pretty colors they come in, though the red ones are my hands-down favorites. Our current favorite lentil recipe is one that I clipped from an issue of Cooking Light a year or so back, and which includes charred onions (be still, my beating heart) and a heady combination of spices that warms both the tummy and the soul. It is a relatively easy recipe, though the flavors are nicely layered, and makes a delicous vegetarian entree when served over brown rice.

As for the desire for healthful foods right now, this meal is spot-on: high in fiber and protein, low in calories, and chock full of vitamins and minerals. It is so good for you, in fact, that it nearly cancels out the batch of Dark Chocolate and Coffee Liqueur Truffles that I am putting the final layer on right now...

*****

RED LENTIL DAL WITH CHARRED ONIONS (adapted from Cooking Light, serves 6)
Serve over brown rice for a vegetarian entree

• 3 tsp olive oil, divided
• 1 onion, cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 whole clove
• 1 small red chili pepper, chopped
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 Tbs minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup dried small red lentils
• 1 can diced tomatoes (do not drain)
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 Tbs fresh lime juice
• salt

1. Heat 1 tsp olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion to skillet and cook for a few minutes, until blackened and charred. Carefully turn onion slices over and char on the other side. Remove from heat, coarsely chop, and set aside.
2. In a small metal skillet, toast the mustard seeds, coriander seeds and clove over medium heat for a minute or two, stirring frequently, until fragrant.
3. Remove seeds and clove from skillet and set aside.
4. To the small skillet, add the chopped chili pepper and cook for a minute or two, stirring frequently, until charred and dried out a little.
5. In a coffee grinder (or spice grinder), combine the mustard seed mixture, the chili pepper, cumin, cinnamon and cardamom. Pulse into finely ground.
6. Heat remaining 2 tsp oil in small Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add ginger and garlic to pan; saute for 1 minute. Stir in spices and saute for 1 minute more.
7. Add broth, lentils and tomatoes to pan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
8. Uncover the pan; add onion, and cook for 10 more minutes.
9. Turn the heat off. Stir in the cilantro and the lime juice. Add salt to taste.

The Daily Chocolate

I am in a decadent mood. I was asleep before midnight on New Year's Eve (not a terribly unusual occurence now that I have children), so I saved the hedonism for today. My primary New Year's resolution this year is to eat chocolate every day. Not just any old chocolate, mind you, but good-quality chocolate. So to properly set 2009 in motion, I woke up early this morning, did 30 minutes of yoga, and then sat down to enjoy a cup of strong, locally-roasted coffee and a luxurious, fist-sized, wicked-good pain au chocolat.

And then I ate another one.

I would have taken photos, because I have this new camera and tripod that I have played with incessantly for the past week, but, well, The Boy Wonder polished off the last one before I could photograph the evidence.

If you really must see pictures though, you could always Google it. In the interest of full disclosure, I do that myself, every time I get a hankering for a flaky, buttery croissant oozing with chocolate.

I know that many resolutions center around getting healthier, so I suppose I should apologize for publicly announcing my intention to live more unrighteously, but let's be honest, dark chocolate is actually good for you. And did you notice that I exercised first? That has to count for something.

Dark Chocolate Chip Shortbread

I don't know what happened. I woke up this morning and it was December 20. According to my math, that means Christmas is a speedy five days away, but see, the last thing I remember is Thanksgiving.

Oh, sure, that isn't entirely true. I have actually been quite preoccupied lately, mostly with researching homeschool curriculums (because clearly, I have lost my mind), but the honest truth is that I have no idea what happened to the month of December. And I started the month with the best of intentions, of course. I was going to make my Christmas list, get The Boy Wonder to narrow down his litany of wants, decorate the tree, arrange the creche, plan the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day menus, and prepare a grocery list well in advance so I wouldn't have to take down any old ladies who tried to fight me for the last bag of pecans.

I should have known better. I am nothing like Martha Stewart, and even though I tend to live by my to-do list when it comes to absolutely everything else in life, Christmas still comes as a shock every single year.

Now that I think about it, my 2009 New Year's Resolution is to be prepared for next Christmas, even if it takes me all year to get it right. The only thing I ask of you is that you remind me of this goal late next November because I am genetically incapable of planning for Christmas until well after Thanksgiving. Surely if I get started by November 30 instead of December 20...

In exchange for your help in keeping me on task next year, I have an early Christmas present for you. In a most roundabout way, I stumbled upon the most wonderful cookie recipe, one that is durable enough to withstand some travel, and, best of all, uses ingredients that most people keep on hand anyway. There is no fancy decorating involved, nor any desperate cookie-cutter antics, yet the little beauties still look like you went to a bit of trouble to dress them up. And a single batch makes enough for three gift tins/boxes/baskets/buckets/whatever. I'm telling you, this is the perfect cookie.

Oh, and did I mention that it uses a pound of butter? Oh, yeah. This isn't a health food or anything. It is rich and it is decadent and it tastes just like a holiday should. Like butter. And chocolate.

Matter of fact, that is what everything should taste like.

These cookies are one of the best things that happened to me in the past week. Last Friday, true to form, I waited until the last minute to attempt a new complicated candy recipe to use as gifts for a gathering the very next morning. Sometime late in the day, I realized I had made a gross miscalculation in timing between steps and the candy recipe just wasn't going to be of adequate caliber for gifting (though The Carnivore was happy to eat the rejects). After some brief histrionics, I took a quick inventory of the pantry and refrigerator and madly started flipping through recipes I had clipped from the holiday issues of the various food magazines I read. And of all the unlikely places, it was in the December issue of Vegetarian Times that I discovered what I will now refer to as The Perfect Cookie Recipe.

Have you ever tried the recipe I use for Toffee Bars? This is very similar in taste, but with a sturdier, crispier, more bar-cookie-than-brownie texture, if you know what I mean.

If you aren't going to take my word for it and try these right away, at least print the recipe out and stick it to the refrigerator. You just might need it at the last minute.

*****

DARK CHOCOLATE CHIP SHORTBREAD (adapted from Vegetarian Times, makes 60 cookies)

• 3 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 lb unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup real 100% maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate chips (like Ghirardelli), divided

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch and salt. Set aside.
2. In an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla extract for 4 minutes (until light and fluffy).
3. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir just until combined.
4. Stir in 1/2 cup of the chopped chocolate chips.
5. Transfer dough to an ungreased 15x11-inch jelly-roll pan (or another heavy-duty, rimmed cookie sheet of the same size). Press dough smooth with fingers (this took a few minutes, until my fingers had warmed the dough enough to obey my commands). Prick all over with a fork (in as haphazardly of a fashion as you desire - the little holes will not show).
6. Bake at 325 degrees for 35 minutes, until edges just begin to brown and dough looks slightly firm.
7. Remove pan from oven and immediately, using a thin knife (a steak knife worked really well), cut shortbread into approximately 3x1-inch pieces in pan: first cut four 3-inch rows lengthwise; then cut 1-inch pieces crosswise.
8. Allow shortbread to cool completely in pan.
9. Melt remaining 1 cup chopped chocolate chips (in a double boiler on low heat or in a microwave for about a minute).
10. Spread melted chocolate onto cooled shortbread, spreading just to the edges. To do this, use a thin plastic spatula and go back and forth a few times in each direction. I swore there wasn't enough chocolate to cover the whole pan, but after spreading for a few minutes, it was just right.
11. Refrigerate the shortbread for 15 to 20 minutes (or overnight, if you're so inclined) to allow chocolate topping to set completely.
12. Break the cookies apart and serve (or pack into gift containers, reserving a few for the hard-working cook).

The Most Popular Kale Recipe in the Room

I feel I should begin with a disclaimer: this is not an original recipe. And most likely, if you tend to keep up with food blogs, especially some very well-known ones, you've already heard about this dish. Orangette wrote about this kale a few weeks back, and I was more than a little intrigued. It was kale, after all, which I'm very fond of, and it was topped with a fried egg (my favorite food group).

The thing is, the kale was boiled, and for more than a few minutes, I might add. So I was understandably concerned. I gave her the benefit of the doubt though, partly because she is Orangette, and also because what she posted was an adaptation from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. I don't really think I have the street-cred to overlook that sort of pedigree.

I printed the recipe, ordered a pound of kale from Locally Grown, and then commenced to dragging my feet. I was mildly wary about how The Carnivore might view this dish, particularly since I wasn't entirely sure what to serve alongside it. While boiled kale served over toast and topped with a fried egg might make for a very appealing vegetarian entree, I try to be sensitive to the not-to-be-overlooked fact that I am the only vegetarian in the house. Well, other than Little Miss Piggy who doesn't have any molars yet and hasn't been deemed old enough to make her own ethical decisions regarding food. As she tends to subsist on grubby handfuls of beans and brown rice though, her status as fully-vested eater in our house has yet to be granted.

So, like I said, I wasn't terribly sure how well this dish would go over. Actually, I almost punked out entirely, thinking I could just make this for my lunch and that way I wouldn't have to worry about companion dishes, but then I noticed the recipe had jumped ranks and was also being featured on Bitten.

That sealed the deal. When two omnivorous types are both head-over-heels for something as humble as boiled kale with soggy toast, well, who would I be to buck the trend? And besides, I love, love, love kale and am always in the market for a fresh spin on it. Kale can be a bit bitter, and when it is cooked wrong (read: simmered for hours with a ham-hock), it can be truly vile. The thing is though, when served properly, it can make a convert out of anyone. Winter Greens and Potato Casserole, Bitter Greens with Sweet Onions and Tart Cheese, and Kale and White Bean Soup are but a few of my favorite variations on kale.

After seeing the recipe on Bitten, I scrapped my original plans for that night's dinner and decided to make a go of this here boiled kale thing. I made a few changes to Orangette's version: substituting vegetable broth for chicken stock, using hunky ciabatta rolls for the toast, and frying the egg in the method of the Deep South, and I must say, she is really on to something with this whole soggy toast thing. I know it sounds spectacularly unappealing, but with the right bread, thick, rustic and crusty, it is comfort food in the best sense. And while I don't understand the science behind it, something about the slow boiling of the kale transforms the greens into silky, slightly sweet ribbons that have just the right "chew" to them.

And The Carnivore? He thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so, in fact, that when I cooked the dish twice in as many weeks, he was almost excited to be having it again. As for companion dishes, I'm still a little stumped. The first go round, I served those Crispy Flattened Potatoes alongside and they were an okay addition to the table (because, as well all know by now, those potatoes go with EVERYTHING), but there just wasn't any synergy to the flavors. The second time, I served it with some leftover brown rice topped with cowpeas cooked in a spicy broth and again, it was an okay combination but nothing to write home about. Maybe for the next attempt, and there will be a next time, I'll give those Wild Mushrooms with Mozzarella a go. I've been craving those lately anyway...

*****

BOILED KALE WITH A FRIED EGG AND TOAST (adapted from Orangette and The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, serves two)

• 8 oz fresh kale
• 6 Tbs olive oil, divided
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• pinch dried red pepper flakes
• 2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced, plus one whole garlic clove
• 3 to 4 cups vegetable broth
• square ciabatta roll, sliced in half (or another rustic bread, thickly sliced from the ends so that one side has crust)
• 2 eggs
• coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
• dash of hot sauce
• Parmigiano-Reggiano

1. Remove and discard thick ribs from the kale, and slice leaves into thin ribbons. Rinse well.
2. In a large saucepan, warm 5 Tbs oil over medium-low heat.
3. Add onions to pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent.
4. Add the red pepper flakes, the sliced garlic and the kale to the pot and stir until the kale is fully wilted (about 2 to 3 minutes).
5. Add broth to the pan to cover the kale.
6. Bring broth to a simmer. Cover, and continue to simmer for about 30 minutes, until kale is tender but not mushy. Add salt to taste.
7. While kale is cooking, toast the two halves of the ciabatta roll (or two crust-end thickly-sliced pieces of rustic bread). While toast is still hot, rub one side with the clove of raw, whole garlic.
8. To fry the eggs in the Deep South method: warm the remaining 1 Tbs olive oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium-high heat until very hot. Crack both eggs into the skillet and then break the yolks with a fork, running the fork around gently to spread the runny yolk over the top of the whites. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and a dash or two of hot sauce. Cook for about 2 minutes, until bottom is browned and top is set. Flip eggs and cook on other side for an additional minute or two until browned on both sides. Run spatula down the middle to separate into two pieces for serving.
9. To plate individually, place one piece of toast in the bottom of a wide soup bowl or on a plate with a rim. Pile a big scoop of the kale on top of the toast, drizzle with olive oil, and top with a fried egg. Grate a little bit of the cheese over the top and serve immediately.