Chocolate Meringue Cake

It is no fair to anyone, if you don't use your talents to make other's happy.

My talent (among many) lie in cooking and the person I would like to make happy is my friend Staci who just happens to have Celiac. Her birthday was this week and I decided to give her a cake for her birthday. Due to the no wheat restriction this could be a difficulty, but not so! I have the perfect Wheat-free cake recipe: Chocolate Meringue Cake.

You will need:

A mixer with a whisk.
A double boiler or: a sauce pan and a metal bowl that fits in it loosely.

A spatula
A whisk
An oven
A stove
A straight sided cake pan (I'm using a spring form pan for ease of serving.)
Some parchment paper

Ingredients:
½ C Unsalted Butter (1 stick)
12 oz of bittersweet Chocolate pieces
3 Tbsp of Dutch Process Cocoa
10 eggs, separated
½ C sugar

You can top with:
Whipped cream and honey or powdered sugar.

Directions:

1.Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
2.In your double boiler (or equivalent) melt the butter and the chocolate.

3.Whisk in the cocoa into the melted chocolate and keep warm
4.In the mixer beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, adding the sugar a little at a time.


5.Add the egg yokes to the melted chocolate, mix well.
6.Carefully, fold the chocolate mixture into the eggs. Do not over-mix.

7.Cut out parchment paper to line the cake pan. You want the sides to be taller than the edge of the pan.
8.Pour the batter into the lined pan and bake for 40 -50 minutes until done.

Meatloaf Meal: Take 1

I received a request via my sister while I was in Florida for Meatloaf Dinner. I am more than happy to oblige my friends and family with meals of their request so...Here is my first attempt at meatloaf.

First a few words about the humble meatloaf. I feel that meatloaf is a formidable weapon in any parent's arsenal of comfort foods. However, if done wrong it is not a comfort but a torture. Bad meatloaf is a common problem if the media is to be believed. Nearly every show and occasional movie that features a family portrays the overtaxed mother placing a lump of something slimy, gray and coated in ketchup as the family dinner. To which the family in question groans and begins the arduous task of eating the tasteless mass.

This doesn't have to be the case! Don't let bad meatloaf ruin your self-respect or the respect for you of those around you!

Meatloaf may appear deceptively simple but it really is just this simple. Meatloaf is a couple kinds of ground meat combined with some binders and flavorings. Don't over think it. There are a two secrets to good meatloaf: spice and patience. Spice for flavor (like I needed to explain that) The Patience is a little trickier...Patience comes in a two part trial. Part one: Meatloaf takes a long time to cook, you will have to check on it a bunch of times because over cooking will make it awful and under-cooking is gross. Part two: You are going to have to let is sit for at least 15 minutes after it comes out of the oven to redistribute the juices or it will be both horridly dry and greasy at the same time.

A lot of people top meatloaf with ketchup. I feel that this is a mistake on multiple levels. 1.) Ketchup is a very strong flavor and is fairly obviously being used in this instance to cover up for bad meatloaf. 2.) The appearance and texture of baked ketchup on a meatloaf is fairly unappetizing. 3.) The natural accompaniment to meatloaf is mashed potatoes...therefore gravy should be the toping of choice for meatloaf.

This meal does utilize several fairly uncommon pieces of equipment that, though not completely necessary, do make things much easier: Food Processor (blender can be substituted), Loaf Pan, Masher -for chunky potatoes (Food Mill-for smooth potatoes). Other than these odd items you probably have everything you are going to need already on hand.

So with out further ado...Meatloaf meal Take 1

Italian Meatloaf with Garlic/Vermouth Mashed Potatoes, Gravy and Dilled Baby Carrots

To make this you will need:

1 Small Baking Pan (brownie style with high sides)

1 Cutting board

1 Sharp Knife

2 Medium Sauce Pans

A large Mixing Bowl

A Food Processor

A small Scraps/Prep Bowl

A Fork

A Masher or Food Mill

A Glass Loaf Pan

A Small Sauce Pan

Ingredients:

1or 2 Heads of Garlic (actual garlic not the pre-chopped stuff in the jar)(Number depends on how garlicky you want the potatoes)

½ C Dry or Extra Dry Vermouth (more if using 2 heads)

2-4 Tbsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

¾ lb of Yukon Gold Potatoes (ordinary Idaho russets will not do, you need to get Yukon Golds)

9 Tbsp Butter

0 to ¼ C Chicken Broth (Depending on how moist you want the mashed potatoes)

½ lb Ground Beef

½ lb Ground Pork

1 large Onion

10 baby Carrots

1 Tbsp Garlic if Chopped (3 large cloves if fresh)

3 Slices of whole wheat bread

2 Eggs

2-5 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

2-5 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

0-5 tsp Hot Sauce (Optional)

1-3tsp each of 2 to 5 different spices (I chose Tarragon, Oregano, and Marjoram)

4 Pieces of Bacon (Optional, I recommended not using any it makes it very greasy and adds fat and calories no one needs)

½ lb of baby carrots

4 Cups of Orange Juice

½ C Fresh Dill

¼ C Fresh Cilantro

¼ to ½ a Jalapeño (Optional)

4 Tbsp Flour

Salt and Pepper to Taste

3/4C or more Chicken Broth

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (This will take at minimum 15 minutes, some ovens come with a buzzer that lets you know when it has reached the desired temp.)

2. Cut the top ¼ to ½ inch off the top of the head(s) of garlic

3. Place the garlic in the small baking pan

4. Pour the Olive oil on the garlic

5. Pour the Vermouth in the pan

   

6. Bake the garlic in the oven for 25 to 35 min (until golden brown but not burnt check periodically)

7. Assemble the meatloaf ingredients...Beef, Pork, Onions, Carrots, Garlic, Bread, Eggs, Vinegar, Worcestershire Sauce, Hot Sauce, Spices...on a clean surface along with the food processor, knife, cutting board and a mixing bowl.

8. Place the meat in the bowl and mix some with your hands (rubber gloves can be worn and are recommended if you have long nails)

9. Peel and quarter the onions (Go ahead and cut both the top and bottom off the onion then peel it. Then cut in half lengthwise and width wise)

10. Place onion and carrots in the food processor. Pulse until the onion and carrots are evenly chopped and look kind of like wet pencil shavings. (don't liquefy these veggies)

11. Round about now the garlic should be ready in the oven. Take the pan out and cool down. Leave oven on and at the same temp.

    

12. Add the garlic (if while cloves are being used) and the bread (after tearing it into medium sized pieces...6 to 10 chunks per slice) to the food processor and pulse again for a few moments. The result should look kind of like a slightly coarser version of cooked instant oatmeal in texture.

    

13. Add the bread/veggies mixture to the meat in the bowl and combine with your hands.

14. Add the eggs and incorporate

15. Add the spice and sauces/vinegar to the meatloaf mixture in the bowl and incorporate.

16. Carefully put meatloaf mixture in the loaf pan. Top with a few slices of bacon. (I now feel that the bacon is a bad idea as it makes the meatloaf very greasy, I recommend omitting or perhaps cooking the bacon ahead of time and adding to the meatloaf at the end of cooking time)

17. And put meatloaf in the oven for the next 60 to 90 minutes. (My meatloaf is fairly dense and just wouldn't cook, I ended up upping the temp to get it done.)

18. Seeing as the meatloaf takes so very long to cook you can freely take 30 minutes and talk to you family...watch the news...read a book...Or you can keep cooking and reheat everything at the end if they finish before the meatloaf.

19. Peel and Chop Potatoes into 1 inch pieces (roughly the size of standard dice)

20. Put potatoes in a medium sauce pan and cover with water, add salt if desired. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes until done. (Check doneness with a fork, stab a potato piece, the fork should pierce the potato easily but the potato should not fall apart.)

21. Place the remaining baby carrots in a pan and cover with orange juice. Cook over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes. (Check doneness with a fork . Carrot doneness is a matter of choice and can be cooked until they feel like fully cooked potatoes – see step 19 – or until the fork can barely pierce the side)

22. While the carrots and potatoes are cooking...chop some fresh cilantro and dill herbs and some Jalapeño if you are using it.

23. Take the small the sauce pan and melt 4 Tbsp of butter, but do not burn. To the melted butter add the flour, some of the same spices you used in the meatloaf, hot sauce if you like it and stir until the flour has begun to brown. You will know your roux is ready when your flour butter mix is slightly darker than your favorite khakis.

24. When the roux is the right color slowly add some chicken broth and then whisk until the mix is smooth and repeat (if you have the dexterity or help you can whisk and pour at the same time). Stir occasionally over low heat...This gravy is done.

25. Drain carrots but do not drain completely, add a Tbsp butter the pepper and the herbs and stir.

26. Put a lid on the carrots...They are done.

27. Drain potatoes. (A colander is useful for this but not necessary) Feel free to leave some water in with the potatoes if you want to forgo the chicken broth (This will also help preserve some of the vitamins)

28. While the potatoes are still hot, but after that have been drained, add 4 Tbsp of Butter. (You can choose less or even none but I would not recommend more than 4 Tbsp) And then begin mashing by whatever means you prefer or have available. (A food mill will give you a creamier result as the potatoes are going to be smaller and more uniform in the
    resulting mash; a masher will give you a home-style lumpier result) (If making food for children...remember that texture is as important as flavor for winning them over on a food. If the didn't like your mashed potatoes last time, try them the other way and see if they like it this way – Of course the same goes for picky eater adults)

    

29. Carefully (the garlic might not be fully cool) remove the individual cloves of garlic from the head(s). You can squeeze them out with a firm grip on the head or you can pick them out with a fork. I tend to prefer the fork method as it is less messy. Drop the garlic cloves as you acquire them into the mashed potatoes and them mix them in with more mashing or simply stir them if you want more of a surprise bite than a uniform flavor.

    

30. Put a Lid on the potatoes...They are done.

31. When the meatloaf is done it will be brown in the center when pierced with a knife. It will be very moist. You can check the internal temp if you have a handy meat thermometer...it will read: 160° to 170°.

32. You will need to let the meatloaf rest for at least 10 minutes and probably better off at 30 minutes...During which you will reheat the side dishes.

This meatloaf was terrific but is needs to be better. Some questions...Why didn't my meatloaf cook like the websites say it will? Can I cook the bacon by itself to prevent the added fat?

This meatloaf will feed 8 well.

Nutrition:

Calories per serving: 548

Fat: 37g

Protein: 17g

Cholesterol: 129mg

Sodium: 677mg

Potassium: 989mg

Fiber: 3g

Calcium: 137mg

Iron: 5mg

Zinc: 3mg

Vitamin C: 36mg

Vitamin A (as Beta carotene): 7384IU

B6: 4mg

B12: 1.2mcg

B1: 4mg

B2: 3mg

Folacin: 77mcg

Niacin: 6mg

Frittata: First Draft

Cooking is a lot like writing/reading a novel. The ingredients are like the characters and the steps are the story lines. When you don’t have a recipe you are writing your own stories. When you have a recipe to follow you are reading someone else’s finished product.

I think one of the reasons that people don’t cook something new is perhaps they think that the recipes that they have used sprouted fully formed from some master chef’s imagination. Well, somehow I doubt that that is the case. It takes many drafts before the recipe is ready to be published.

I didn’t want to put any recipes on this blog for people to read that I myself had not put through a stringent drafting process, and had several very tasty and consistent final drafts. However I realize that this is the wrong way to think about this. I would be habitualizing the same problem that I am railing against if I did that.

Since I’ve decided that you all deserve to see the whole processes I will walk through the steps I took last night to make a frittata. The end resulting dinner was fine tasting but not nothing special and the visual appearance was less wonderful than I was hoping for.

So without further ado…Spring Vegetable Frittata – Take One:

Frittata is kind of like a quiche, kind of like an omelet, and kind of like a German pancake. It is also one of the easier foods to make...in my opinion. It is certainly easier than all of the afore mentioned food items that it is similar to.

One of the great things about frittatas is that you don’t really need to plan them into your week. As long as you have eggs you have everything you need to make a frittata…guaranteed. This is true because you can put basically anything into a frittata. Some good combinations are: Bacon pieces-green onions-Swiss cheese, Pees-cooked chicken-cheddar, spaghetti noodles-cooked hamburger-peppers-mozzarella, Feta-Black Olives-Capers-Diced cooked potatoes. Just open your fridge and look to see what you have available. Any starch veggie and cooked meat will work fine. All cheeses are good, though some are better than others.

For this frittata I decided to use some angel hair noodles, Asparagus spears, diced ham, chopped onion, artichoke hearts, mozzarella, feta cheese, garlic, oil, and some spices. And of course, eggs.

I turned my oven on to 250 degrees because I figured that eggs are pretty easy to cook and didn’t need to have a high temp.

I did not have any leftover noodles in my fridge, so I made some to start off. While I was waiting for the noodle water to boil in my large pasta pot, I chopped up an Onion and then sautéed it in a small frying pan/sauté pan with some Garlic in Olive Oil.

Then I added the Noodles to the boiling water and cooked them until they were fully cooked. And then I drained them fully and added some Olive Oil to the drained noodles to keep them from caking together.

Then I cracked 6 Eggs and scrambled them in a bowl. To the eggs I added some leftover Artichoke Hearts, some leftover Diced Ham, some fresh Asparagus Spears snapped into 2 inch pieces, and the sautéed onion/garlic mixture. I also added some spices and herbs to the egg mixture: Marjoram, Paprika, Salt, Pepper, Oregano.

Note: You don’t need a knife to prepare asparagus for the dinner pot. If you hold the asparagus in both hands near the cut –off end you can break off the woody end and the remaining spear should be fairly tender. For this meal I just snapped the remaining stalks into bite sized pieces using the same technique all the way up the spears.

The oven is ready and now so are all of the ingredients. I took out my cast iron skillet and placed the noodles in the bottom of it to act as a kind of base. Then I poured the egg mix over the noodles and finally I added the Cheeses to the top. At this point I realized that there was not enough egg as the whole thing looked fairly dry so I quickly scrambled 2 more Eggs and poured those on top and placed the whole thing in the oven.

After 25 minutes I checked the frittata and it really wasn’t cooking to I turned up the oven to 350. After an additional 20 minutes the frittata still wasn’t done so I put the oven put to 400. Then it cooked. It was done about 10 minutes later.

The result was stuck in the pan, when it should be easily plated as you turn the pan upside down with a plate on the top like a lid. It did eventually come out with only a little that stuck into my skillet – this may have only been because my skillet is not well seasoned.

Joe and I ate the frittata. It was good but as I said earlier not great and required some condiments. Joe added hot sauce and I used mayo – my favorite condiment.

I will work on this until I think it is just how I would serve it to the people on the Food Network's: Nest Food network Star.

The frittata servings have:

P.S. Food journal for yesterday: Breakfast-Banana and Red Bull. Lunch-Chicken Pot Pie from Pinkus and Pepsi. After work Snack- BLT from the Library. Dinner-1 Serving for Frittata and Red Bull.

Exercise: Nope-missed my workout time and had to get to the grocery store. I promise to go today.

Kitchen Techniques: Ingredients: Onions

Onions are one of my favorite ingredients. I use them in nearly everything. I enjoy them both raw and cooked.

Recipe Note: When I say onion, I am generally referring to the common yellow storage onion. There are many other onions in the world that are available at your well supplied grocery store like Green onions – scallions, Sweet onions, Leeks, Shallots, Ramps, Red Onions, White Onions, and Pearl Onions. I use these in recipes but I will always specify which variety when I am not using standard yellow storage onions.

Why use them? They provide a flavor punch with very few calories. In about ½ a cup of chopped onion (3.5 ounces) you only have 38 calories. They also provide 10% of the Vitamin C and Folacin you need.

Shopping for Onions: Onions should be heavy for their size. This means if you have two onions that are about the same size the one that feels heavier is the better onion. The difference in weight is due to water content. The outer skins should be papery. You can select your onions individually or you can just go ahead and buy the orange mesh bag of them (that's what I do). The mesh bag offers a fast way to get a bunch of onions.

Availability of Onions (Seasonality): Onions are available year round but are most common March to September when they are fresh to most markets. Onions store well given the right conditions so stocking up on them when you have a good price at market is not a bad idea.

Storage of Onions: Onions can last several months in ideal conditions and can go bad in a couple of weeks in crappy conditions. What, pray tell, are ideal and crappy conditions you may ask? Onions want a cool dry place with lots of circulating air. If it is too humid you will get sprouting onions or rotting onions. The mesh bag is ok for storage if you are going to eat up the onions in about a month (I go through a mesh bag every other week if I'm cooking 2 times a week), or if you hang the bag so it is exposed to a lot of air. If you are going to hold on to your onions for longer you might want to try to store them in pantyhose hung from the ceiling. (To store them in pantyhose place them - one at a time - into a clean pair of hose and tie a not between each so that they have their own little nylon sack.) As you need them you can cut off the onion(s) you need and leave the rest hanging. (This is a great use of nylons with runs. You can also use this with thigh-highs too.) Do Not store them in the fridge!! Storing them in the fridge causes them to rot – The exception to this is an onion that has been cut but not used entirely. If you have a half-used onion you can store it for about a week in the fridge before it will go bad.

Preparing Onions: Onions can present somewhat of a problem for cooks in that they are round and not easily chopped into regular pieces. Be sure you have a sharp knife. A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one as they tend to slip off what you are cutting and cut you instead. Also onions can make people cry so the faster you can get them cut the better off you are likely to be. Here is the technique I use to more easily deal with onions:

Cut off the stem end first, leaving the root end intact. Discard the stem end into the scrap bowl.

Then you peel off the papery outer layers and the first thin inner layer and discard into the scrap bowl. Then you turn the onion onto the cut stem end and slice off one side of the onion the thickness of the chop you are looking for.

Then turn the onion onto the freshly cut side and again slice off an un-cut edge at the same thickness.

Now make parallel cuts across the width of the onion making sure not to slice through the root end.

Now turn the onion over onto the second of the side cuts and make cuts parallel to it making certain not to slice through the root end.

Now you cut across the length of the onion getting the exact size pieces you want. Discard the root end into the scrap bowl. Chop the two remaining side pieces and move all the cut onion into a prep bowl.

Hints and Tips for Onions: Onions can make your hands smell funny after you've been handling them – try rinsing your hands with lemon juice to rid yourself of the smelly fingers (also works for garlic-fingers). Onions can make you cry – lots of old wives tales for solving this (and just like cures for hiccups) some work for some people others don't. Try a few until you find one that works for you (Light a candle next to your cutting board, hold matches in your mouth – heads out- to block the smell, put bread under your tongue, etc) Raw yellow onions are bitter – after cutting them, soak them in ice water. Change the water several times over the course of up to 2 hours before serving they will be oniony with out being bitter. Onion Breath? - Chew fennel seeds, Parsley leaves, gargle vinegar, or drink some coffee.

History: Onions have a long and distinguished career as a domesticated food-stuff. There is evidence from the Bible and other sources both literary and archaeological that the onion has been cultivated since about 3000 BCE. It is believed that onions were part of the diet of the slaves who built the pyramids.

Myths and Legends: It is said in early cultures that onions were linked to the afterlife or eternal life because of the concentric circles you see when you slice an onion across its middle. Onions are also believed to have medicinal qualities. I don't know if I believe that they can cure any diseases but I eat them and enjoy a decent level of health. (Then again my sister won't touch them and she is as healthy, and perhaps more healthy than I am)

Food Journal-

Breakfast – 2 doughnuts – Red Bull

Lunch – Lasagna (my own) and a bowl of wild mushroom and rice soup (also my own) – Mellow Yellow

Dinner – Spicy shrimp over rice noodles (my own) – Mellow yellow

Exercise? - Sort of, I walked home instead of hitting the gym.