Apple Upside-Down Cake

This recipe calls for a 6-inch cake pan.  I do not have such an item, but I do have a 7-inch pie pan!

It's pretty straight-forward.  Goo up some apple slices in a skillet with butter and brown sugar, then put into pan.  Whip up some cake batter, pour on top of the apples, and voilá! Apple upside down cake!

Right side up? Or up side down?

The only hitch came when all the apple pieces didn't fit in the pan.  In the vernacular, that pan was full-up.  But that's not a problem, because the cake batter will fill in all the spaces and fit nicely, right?  Right?  Well...maybe not.  At least we didn't have any spill-over.

Upside down?  Or right side up?  Things get tricky when upside down is right side up.

Maybe there were just a few too many apple slices for the ideal cake.  I'm not complaining, though.

Jealous yet?

What: Apple Upside-Down Cake

Where: America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2011

Results:  Mmmm...., but maybe use fewer apples.

Skillet Brown Rice and Beans

Here's a pretty tasty variation on rice and beans.  Brown rice, black beans, and corn concoction topped with a tomato and green onion salsa.

Dinner, deconstructed.

It does take a while, brown rice being brown rice and all.  I suppose you could make it with quick brown rice, if you really wanted to - or even frozen brown rice that comes in the steamer bag you put in the microwave.  The frozen brown rice is super easy and surprisingly tasty, but not nearly as cheap as plain brown rice.

Dinner, constructed.

Did you notice how healthy it was?  Brown rice, beans, vegetarian (or to be more precise, vegan) or at least it would have been if I hadn't used chicken broth.  I will definitely make this again, and possibly some of the variations: skillet brown rice with chickpeas and coconut milk, spanish-style skillet brown rice and chickpeas.  It's going to be hard to beat the black beans, though.

What: Skillet Brown Rice and Beans
Where: America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2011
Results: Pretty good.  Will make again.  The salsa really improves the dish.

Quick Apple Strudel

I've never made apple strudel before, so I have no idea what the non-quick version involves.  Maybe making your own dough instead of using frozen phyllo dough?

Counter-clockwise from top: raisins, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon.  Mise en place!

Our filling consisted of apple, cinnamon, a little lemon juice, sugar, and golden raisins that had been plumped by microwaving them in a liquid.  The liquid suggested was apple brandy, or apple whiskey, or apple cider, but you could use apple juice or probably even just water - the one tablespoon of liquid gets poured off after performing its moisturizing duties.

Raw strudel - looks promising!

Roll up filling in 5 buttered and sugared pieces of phyllo, cut some venting strips, and bake.  Frozen phyllo can be fussy, and there's a whole lot left, even if you end up tearing and throwing out a bunch of sheets.  Perhaps frozen puff pastry would be a good substitute.  Would that make it not a strudel anymore?  What part of the strudel makes it a strudel and not some generic apple-filled pastry?

The finished product, plus burned goo.

The strudel was super fantastic!  A little bit of goo leaked out and started burning, so we pulled it out of the oven before the top was golden brown, but Mr. Pots and Pawns pulled out the crème brûlée torch and golden browned the top.  Yes, I just verbed golden brown.  

Yes, it is as delicious as it looks.

This recipe came from America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2011.  Having meals that are sized for two is okay - 1) there are rarely left overs, but delicious left overs are not a bad thing, and 2) when things don't work out it's not nearly as traumatic.  However, deserts for two is about the best thing ever, for obvious reasons, including the fact that they tend to be incredibly cute.  

What: Quick Apple Strudel

Where: America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2011

Results: Crazy good!

Failure: Spelt Risotto

Firstly - this was supposed to be a recipe for farro risotto.  That was the first problem.  Farro.  

It sounds good in theory.  It's super healthy and purportedly tasty and toothsome with a nutty flavor.  I imagine something like brown rice crossed with barley.  It's also incredibly hard to find. 

Target had some precooked farro in a vacuum sealed bag.  I passed this up reasoning that the starches from cooking were necessary for proper risotto.  At Whole Foods, there was no bulk farro to be found, and the shelf space for farro was bare.  However, a "helpful" employee told us that spelt was pretty much the same thing and would work just fine in a risotto.  So we go spelt.

Here's just some of ingredients used.  That's spelt over there.  Weren't there cherry tomatoes?

Another thing you should know: this was a Test Kitchen recipe.  Those guys really know their stuff, and their recipes always turn out well if you follow the recipe.  ALWAYS FOLLOW THE RECIPE.  Once you deviate from the recipe, all bets are off.  

I'm a good enough cook that I'm usually confident about changing a (non baking) recipe around if it suits me, but this time I was working with two unknowns: 1) grains I am completely unfamiliar with and 2) risotto, which I have eaten before but never made.  Red alert!  Danger!  We have gone from trying to solve a two-body problem to trying to solve a three-body problem.  

Here are the cherry tomatoes!  They were busy getting quartered.  But not drawn. 

The first clue I had that all was not well happened while cooking the grain.  I was supposed to "simmer and stir often until all the liquid was absorbed or evaporated, about 20 to 25 minutes."  I have a hard time with reducing liquids as it is - I get impatient.  I almost never let a sauce reduce as much as it needs to in order to get properly saucy.  However, after 40 minutes of simmering and frequent stirring, I simply poured off the excess and continued on my way.

The results weren't terrible.  The flavor was quite good.  You see, after cooking the grains, I stirred in cherry tomatoes, baby arugula, lemon zest, lemon juice, butter, and parmesan.  Tasty stuff.  However, the grain was quite chewy and not at all risotto-esque.  And when I say the grain was quite chewy, I don't mean in a bad way, just in an out-of-place way.  I think spelt would work well as a salad topping, for example.  

See? Not bad looking, just not risotto...

Here's how I'd fix this recipe.  Forget fancy new healthy grains.  Forget risotto.  All that tasty stuff that got added to the grains?  Add it to brown rice or maybe just noodes.  Yummy, easy, and solves the problem of waiting for liquid to disappear.  

On the plus side, I discovered another reason to love Cooking for Two.  When a new and experimental recipe doesn't turn out as expected, there's less food to be disappointed by!  

What: Farro Spelt Risotto
Source: America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2011

Results: Veto.  *Maybe* try again someday with real farro.  

Lighter Pasta with Vegetable Sauce

Lighter than what?  Who knows?  But I think it means the sauce is lighter than a standard tomato sauce.

Here's what it looked like in real life:

Beautiful!  Except for, you know, the labels all over it.  I'm not really sure who to credit for this.  The watermark says "Photo by Carl Tremblay."  It's definitely the official America's Test Kitchen photo.  I know this because it's the same photo that's in my cookbook.  

Here's what our pictures looked like:

Shadowy, blurry...oh yeah, I'm awesome.  First, fix the blurry.  No more phone pics.  Use the tripod.  Yeah, I have one of those.  Second, I was going to say fix the lighting, but the "enhance" button in iPhoto mostly fixed that problem.  

The recipe itself turned out to be pretty good.  It's a nice veggie pasta when you're not too hungry.  But!   It involved browning zucchini in the pan, then transferring to a bowl whose sole purpose in this recipe is to hold the cooked zucchini, and browning more veggies in the pan.  I'm against extra dirty dishes.  

Here's what needs to happen:

Just skip the zucchini.  Save time and dishes.  Plus, the recipe only calls for half a zucchini.  What are you going to do with the other half?  

Double the noodles, because noodles are awesome.  

Remember to add the basil.

Note: Fresh basil is awesome.  The so-called "living herb" basil that comes with its own little clod of dirt is not awesome.  I got some once and it was mostly dead after two days.  I swear I followed the directions and watered it correctly, but alas.  Someday we'll have a magic garden (magic because it will have to garden itself) and grow herbs and peppers and other delicious gardeny vegetables.  

Here's the brilliant plan for the left over half zucchini, half red pepper, and half onion:  Nachos!  

What:  Lighter Pasta with Garden Vegetable Sauce

Results: Pretty good

Where: America's Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2009

PS - This is similar to another veggie pasta thing I do where I cook whatever vegetables are around in a mixture of butter and olive oil and then mix it up with noodles.  Yummy!  The biggest difference is that this recipe adds tomato paste (and no butter), which makes it *taste* healthier, but I do *really* like the tomato paste-less version a lot.