Cost-effective pantry staples

There's an interesting article on Slate this week. Jennifer Reese makes bagels, cream cheese, yogurt, jam, and granola from scratch to see if they are cheaper than their store-bought counterparts. The results: bagels and yogurt, cheaper and tastier; cream cheese, more expensive and less tasty; jam, tastier, cost varies; granola, more expensive, tastier. For the most part, she's using the cheapest possible raw ingredients (generic sugar, not organic dried cane juice) and comparing her results to the cheapest grocery store products.

More often than not, I've been cooking and baking with high-quality ingredients lately (organic whole-grain flour and vegetables, local honey, etc., etc.). Not exclusively, but I try to avoid the "dirty dozen" and refined flour. I'm pretty sure that my homemade foods are more expensive than cheap grocery store versions, but less expensive than upscale grocery store versions. It's a dilemma. Ingredients like maple syrup and organic flour are extraordinarily expensive, and I'm finding it hard to cut my grocery budget down really low. But we're eating better than ever. The sad truth is that upscale grocery store items are sometimes kind of mediocre, or stale, or oily. (Whole Foods deli counter, I'm looking at you.) That's the worst bummer, spending big bucks on so-so upscale chow. And I'm exceedingly happy to avoid vegetarian freezer items—Morningstar Farms veggie burgers and the like. They are expensive, high in sodium, and have ingredient lists as long as your arm.

I've never made homemade bagels, but I'm going to try this soon.

chocolate cake number two

The second chocolate cake I made is from Nigella Lawson's Feast. I'm on the lookout not only for the perfect plain cake, but also for the ultimate fancy cake. My ultimate cake must include chocolate and coffee, and perhaps caramel or hazelnut. I haven't found it yet, although tiramisu isn't too far off. Nigella's Chocolate Espresso Cake with Caffe Latte Cream (p. 292) sounded like a candidate, so I wanted to try it before returning Feast to the library. I didn't make the Caffe Latte Cream, since this was just a test run.

Another motive for all these chocolate cakes is my friend John's upcoming birthday. I kind of want to make a cake, although I'm not sure yet if a cake will be called for by the festivities at hand, or if this is the cake. He's visiting from out of town. Sigh, it's been a long time since John and I have lived in the same place, and I no longer remember what his favorite type of cake is. I wish that I knew everyone's favorite cake, and had happy dinner parties with loved ones, the sort of dinner parties that Nigella has. Or Orangette. I love the fantasy of bonding over food. It doesn't happen often enough in my particular social circumstances. Still, I'd like to make a nice cake for John.

I do have one memory of an idyllic food get-together: Thankgiving 1997. My friend Joanna and her husband Ed lived in our neighborhood in Chicago, and they came over, along with some other friends. There was a lot of wine, beer, and hard cider involved. We thawed a frozen turkey in the bathtub, and Joanna and I made pies. One guy brought over some red bell peppers cooked in olive oil over low heat until melted down to nothing. So delicious with crusty bread. The turkey, despite great ignorance and drunken preparation, came out perfectly. I drank so much that I had to go lie in bed for a while, but then I rallied, returned to the group, and thus avoided shame.

But back to Nigella's fancy cake. It turned out good. It's an eggy cake with only a little flour, and it puffed up gorgeously while baking, then deflated as it cooled. It's a rather delicate cake, not at all dense or heavy, and would probably be a good choice to impress guests. I don't know. It was pretty and lavish, and but perhaps not my heart's desire. Clearly I'm looking for more than just cake here. But don't let that stop you.

Chocolate Espresso Cake
adapted from Feast by Nigella Lawson, p. 292.

For the cake:
5 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1 stick plus 3 T. unsalted butter
6 eggs
1 1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
5 t. Medaglio d'Oro instant espresso, or other espresso powder
1/4 c. Frangelico or other coffee liqueur

Take all ingredients out of the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature. The most important thing is that the eggs be room temperature. If, like me, you can't be bothered to take everything out ahead of time, set the eggs in warm water for 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter and line a 9-inch springform pan.

Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring in between heatings to prevent scorching. Set aside. Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla with hand mixer until thick, pale, and doubled or tripled in volume. Nigella does this in a standing mixer (I want one of those). It took me close to ten minutes of beating for the mixture to reach this state.

Gently fold in flour and espresso powder, and then chocolate-butter mixture, taking care not to lose volume. Pour into prepared pan and cook for 35-40 minutes. The top of the cake should be firm. Immediately pour the coffee liqueur over the top and let the cake cool completely before releasing it from the pan.

This was perfectly delicious without the Caffe Latte cream, but maybe it would be even better with. Here is another blogger's account of making this cake that includes the cream recipe. The liqueur flavor was rather pronounced. If you don't like that, you might want to leave it off. I wonder if the cake would not deflate if you nixed the liqueur. Any readers out there, let me know if you try these variations.

chocolate cake #1

There's a certain yin and yang to my cooking habits. When last I wrote, I was making salads, brown rice, and chard, but since then I've been all about chocolate cake. I've baked not one but two chocolate cakes in the last week.

I love cake but I'm not crazy about frosting, so I'm always on the lookout for cakes that are complete unto themselves and don't require buttercream. French yogurt cake is a good example. I'd been reading More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, which I checked out of the library after reading a scathing review of Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte on amazon.com that, among other things, complained that Hesser is no Laurie Colwin. I'm not so sure. I enjoyed Cooking for Mr. Latte at least as much as I did More Home Cooking. To Colwin's credit, upon reading this chocolate cake recipe, I went immediately to the kitchen and started making it.

Buttermilk Cocoa Cake
Adapted from More Home Cooking, p. 161.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and butter and flour a 9- by 2-inch round cake pan.

2. Mix together the following:

1 3/4 cups flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

3. To these ingredients add:

1 c. buttermilk (I used 2/3 c. plain yogurt mixed with 1/3 c. rice milk)
1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix.

4. Turn the batter into the pan, bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean, and let it cool for 5 minutes before turning it out of the pan.

Here's what Colwin says about the cake:

It is hard to encapsulate the virtuosities of this cake. It is fast, easy, and scrumptious. It has a velvety, powdery feel—the result of all that cocoa. It is not so horribly bad for you, because you use buttermilk, which is relatively low in fat, and cocoa powder is defatted anyway. Furthermore, it keeps like a dream and tastes even better after a few days. If you want to be lavish you can dress this cake up by serving it with ice cream or crème fraîche. This mitigates its purist, minimalist virtues, but that is the way of chocolate cakes. They are good in themselves but sometimes call out for window dressing. You can eat them gussied up with all sorts of rich and fattening things or you can leave them quite alone and serve them in pristine, solitary splendor on a nice white plate.

Right after making it, I found the cake disappointing. It isn't very moist, and the texture is crumbly. This is common for eggless baked goods, and I may have caused yet more crumbliness by using whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour. The batter, too, is very thick; it seems more like muffin batter than cake batter. The next day, though, the cake was unbelievably delicious. I found myself standing over the pan, cutting myself little slivers and picking up the crumbs with my index finger. It also has the virtue of being easy to veganize. You could use nondairy yogurt instead of buttermilk, or add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to soy milk.










Next I'll write about chocolate cake #2.

detox and the beauty of salads

I've been cooking plenty lately, but haven't been taking pictures. Dinner is usually my main cooking project, and it's hard to snap good food pics when there's no natural light. Excuses, excuses. In the evenings, I've made soup regularly, and also tofu/greens/brown rice/sauce–type dinners. When my mood is not good, as it hasn't been lately, I try to eat ultra-healthy. It seems to help. I find things like cake, cookies, and bread more irresistible than usual if I'm feeling low. I think it's a grasping for pleasure. Apparently carb-loading boosts your serotonin levels, but I think it's a faster feedback loop than that: Eating something tasty is the most instantaneous pleasure I can think of. Of course, eating carbohydrates to self-medicate backfires. You feel worse soon enough. But fortunately the world is full of good things to eat that won't give you a carb hangover.

Sometimes I loosely follow a three-day "detox diet" that I clipped from Body + Soul magazine a couple years ago. It's nothing like the hard-core detoxes where you consume only lemonade for ten days. I deviate from it a lot, too. I drink coffee in the morning and whenever I feel like it, and usually skip the tea and lemon water. I eat more rice and oatmeal than allowed, and I sauté my greens with garlic in olive oil and salt them. Steamed beets are horrible, so I often substitute some other vegetable. And since the dinner's so small, I add tofu and tahini sauce, and I have a bedtime snack, too. Even though I play fast and loose with the rules, I feel some sort of refreshment after a day or two.

Do-It-Yourself Detox
from Body + Soul magazine

For a week leading up to this simplified, moderate three-day cleanse, created by Cathy Wong, ND, gradually reduce your intake of sugar and artificial sweeteners, white flour, dairy, alcohol, salt, and caffeine while increasing your intake of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Throughout each day of the cleanse, aim to drink at least 8 cups of water and do moderate exercise. Alleviate digestive stress by chewing your food thoroughly and stopping before you're full.

THREE-DAY CLEANSE

Upon waking: A cup of hot water with lemon; meditate for 10 minutes
Breakfast: Smoothie (1 cup berries, 1 cup rice or almond milk, 1 scoop protein powder) or 3/4 c oatmeal and 1 cup berries; green or black tea with lemon
Snack: One small organic apple or pear and 10 unsalted raw almonds
Lunch: 3 oz. organic chicken or turkey, or 1 cup legumes; 1/2 cup brown rice or quinoa; 1 cup boiled swiss chard
Snack: Celery and carrot sticks with 2 tablespoons hummus
Dinner: 1 cup steamed beets over 3/4 cup brown rice; 1 cup boiled kale; 1 cup green, black, or herbal tea with lemon
Before bed: 1 cup hot water with lemon

So, last week I halfway followed the detox for a couple days, and felt a bit less like yuck. Mike then went out of town, and I made a few good salads. Salads are nice for low times because they are quick to put together and energizing. We had a lot of oranges and grapefruits on hand, and I love citrus in salads. (The detox diet has something against citrus fruit, but I'm not sure what, especially since it's in love with lemon water.) I also just discovered raw fennel. I knew about braised or roasted fennel, but it's amazing raw, too.

Here's a simple orange and shaved fennel salad, dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, and some Hawaiian black sea salt that I got at Trader Joe's a while ago. This beautiful salad reminds me that life is good, and that summer will come eventually even though it's Indian Winter in Chicago.



Here's a salad with butter lettuce, orange, raw almonds, sunflower seeds, and raisins. I ate it with some tahini dressing.