Tahini Dip

Well, this is embarrassing.

I feel like that awkward kid in middle school who forgot about the science fair and shows up with a crap paper mache volcano while the girl next to him demonstrates the aerodynamics of her homemade hovercraft.


The source of my shame? I'm not sure if what I have to share with you today is a "recipe" per se. Calling this a recipe would be like calling the directions on a bag of microwave popcorn a recipe. It's THAT simple. But I am still posting in the hope that one day, someone just like me (aka someone craving hummus who is too lazy to go to the grocery store to get chickpeas because it is FINALLY SPRING BREAK goddamnit and I just want to sit on my fire escape in the sun and read the latest issue of World Soccer magazine).... ahem, yes, JUST LIKE ME will see this and think "oh good! Here's what I can do with my lifetime supply of tahini paste."

So here is a non-recipe recipe for Tahini Dip, a rich and creamy creation perfect for those times when you want something a little zestier and thicker than hummus and/or are too lazy to get off your ass and get some chickpeas.

Tahini Dip

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup tahini paste
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cold water

Mix the first 4 ingredients together. Add the cold water, little by little, until the dip reaches the consistency you want. Garnish with a sprig of cilantro/parsley.

Looking at the ingredients you may wonder how this doesn't end up a soupy mess because tahini is pretty runny to begin with. But a weird thing happens when you add the lemon juice- the tahini seizes up and thickens, until it is almost like a coarse dough.


The cold water then counteracts this and brings the tahini back to its creamy consistency.


This dip is pretty good with almost any vegetable. Serve it with pita wedges, bell pepper or cucumber slices, or make a meal out of it by sprinkling with some feta and serving with panfried zucchini. Yum scrum.

Healthy egg salad

Sadly enough, I got the idea for this from a premade egg salad at Westside Market. But anything they can do you and I can do better, so give it a try:

Ingredients:

• Hardboiled egg whites, roughly chopped
• Baby spinach
• Cherry tomatoes, quartered
• Red onion, roughly chopped
• Feta cheese, crumbled
• Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper

Mix the first 5 ingredients together (proportion to taste). Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Can be eaten alone, or on a salad, sandwich, or bagel.

Easy. Healthy. Make it. Enjoy it.

Leek, Zucchini and Cheese Casserole

This lovely recipe is introduced in Olive Trees and Honey as follows:

A classic example of the Sephardim's love of vegetables mixed with cheese and eggs, this comforting casserole goes by many names: quajado/cuajada ("coagulated"), sfongato de puerro ("leek sponge"), and almodrote de prassa ("hodgepodge of leeks")...

First of all, since when is the "Sephardim's love of vegetables mixed with cheese and eggs" a cultural characteristic of note? And secondly, what a hilariously unappetizing collection of names. Although "hodgepodge of leeks" is kind of great, if only because it gives me an excuse to use the word hodgepodge. Repeatedly. Hodgepodegehodgepodgehodgepodge.

Err, anyways... the original recipe was a straight up leek and cheese casserole but I thought that would be a tad bit too one-dimensional. I love me some veggies, so I made a modified version by replacing half of the leeks with grated zucchini. I used feta and Gouda as my cheeses but you can also use kefalotyri or parmesan instead of the feta and Muenster or cheddar instead of the Gouda.

This dish represents a lot of firsts for me:

• My first time cooking with leeks
• My first time making anything with Gouda.
• My first time using fresh dill since a scarring incident that started with me making greek zucchini fritters for my family and ended with my mother discovering that she has a violent allergy to dill

So needless to say I was a little nervous about this one. How did things go? Let's take a look!

Remember when using leeks...

...to only use the white and light green parts. Wash them carefully; leeks can hold a lot of dirt. The fresh leeks smelled delicious.

The grated zucchini adds some extra flavor and texture, and helped me tone my right bicep

Sautee the leeks and onions in a saucepan with vegetable oil until slightly softened and then simmer with water, zucchini, and kosher salt until tender
Strain the leeks and then add them to a mix of feta and Gouda cheeses, eggs, salt and pepper, olive oil, and fresh dill

Spoon the mixture into a 9x9 casserole pan and bake in the oven for 55 min until firm and golden brown on top

The verdict? Delicious! The heaviness of the cheese and eggs was nicely countered by the light vegetables. The dill added some complexity to the briny feta. Since I used the feta I probably could have cut down on the salt. Otherwise, the dish was perfect- like a greek frittata. Love. The casserole can be served warm or at room temperature with some rice or a side salad.

Melting Snowman Cookies

Now is the winter of my discontent.* Mild temperatures are nice and all, but I want SNOW. I want sledding and snowmen and rosy cheeks and warm mugs of hot chocolate drunk slowly while reading the New York Times Style Section (don't judge) and watching the snow fall outside my window. Alas, it is not to be. And given that for the first time in recent history I've made it through the winter without losing a pair of boots to salt stains and water damage, I guess I should be thankful. But, well.... I'm not. I still want snow. Luckily these adorable melting snowman cookies take me back to the magical times of yesteryear aka last year when I knew what being cold felt like. I made them for a party and they were a HUGE success. And quite tasty, if I do say so myself.

Melting Snowman Cookies

Ingredients:

• sugar cookie dough (use your favorite recipe)
• marshmallows
• royal icing (confectioners sugar, meringue powder, warm water)
• food coloring or premade cookie icing
• mini chocolate chips

Make a batch of sugar cookie dough using your favorite recipe. Shape balls of dough about the size of a small ice cream scoop into uneven, lumpy pancakes about half an inch thick. You want the dough to bake in the shape of a melted puddle, so the more uneven the better and no two cookies should be the same. Bake according to recipe directions, although you may need an extra minute or two because the cookies are rather large. Allow to cool.


Make the royal icing by beating 4 cups of confectioners sugar, 3 tablespoons meringue powder, and 6 tablespoons of warm water until stiff peaks form. This will take about 10 minutes. Transfer half of the icing into a bowl and add 1/2 teaspoon of water at a time until the icing get slightly runny.

Place a piece of tinfoil or parchment paper on a tray, and arrange the cookies on top. Spoon some of the runny royal icing onto each cookie and spread it around with the back of the spoon, allowing the icing to drip over the edge of the cookie.

Before the icing fully sets, grease a plate with butter or shortening. Place several marshmallows on the plate and microwave for approximately 20 seconds, stopping the microwave before the marshmallows double in size. With well-greased fingers to avoid stickiness, smoosh a marshmallow onto each cookie to make the "head." Repeat until each snowman has its own little mushy face.


Now comes the fun part- decorate however you wish! I used mini chocolate chips for buttons and then put food coloring in the remaining icing and piped scarves, bows and hats onto my snowmen. I used Wilton's cookie icing in orange and black for the faces and hands (if you do this, do NOT microwave the icing for the full time suggested on the bottle- it will be too runny. I had several deformed, sinister-looking snowmen as proof of that fact, but my family ate them before they could be photographed.)

*This reference is not as random as it may seem. I saw Richard III at BAM last week and it was AMAZING. A very long production (3.5 hours), but the actors were fantastic, the set production was striking, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Plus, Kevin Spacey is badass. Go see it if you have the chance!

Annnd we're BACK!

So, it's been awhile...
I didn't write. I didn't call. I'm sorry.
I promise I still care.

It's just, this blog started as a method of final-exam-studying procrastination. And then finals were over. And then I started work. And then work was over. And then I spent a semester in Barcelona. And now THAT'S over, and I'm back in NYC, yet again in the mood to procrastinate, and hoping to cook as much as possible during the next couple of months before I become a corporate law drone with no free time who comes home to a fridge stocked solely with beer, water, and a lifetime supply of condiment packets hoarded from seamless web deliveries.

BUT things are going to be a bit different this time around. Because.... brace yourself.... I won't be making that many desserts.

I know, I know, its madness. What's Torts & Tarts without the Tarts? It's just torts... and that's no fun. But never fear, when JSus closes one kitchen cabinet she opens another one, and the one I just opened is full of yummy ingredients I can use to make recipes from this book:

And this book:

And this book:

And all the other underutilized cookbooks I've accumulated over the years.

Why? I don't know, I guess I've been belatedly inspired by the Julie & Julia craze of cooking your way through a cookbook. While I'm no longer strictly vegetarian, most of the meals I make are, and there's only so many stir-fries and salads a girl can eat before she goes crazy. Plus this will provide some structure and hopefully keep me cooking and keep me posting! So here goes.

Happy Birthday America!

Happy Fourth of July! I hope you're all out celebrating with family, friends, fireworks, food, and festivities. Here's a patriotic parfait to get you in the spirit. Blackberries, strawberries, whipped cream, and chopped up Madeleines. Perfect for summer!

Dessert Hall of Fame: Churros con Chocolate

Those who can't do, teach.
Those who can't eat dessert because they are on a self-imposed low carb diet, daydream about desserts they once ate before said diet began.
That being said, feast your eyes on this:



Today's Hall of Fame inductee hails from the sultry city of Madrid, Spain. It's tall, thin, blonde, and likes to party with the rich and chocolaty. Please give a kind welcome to churros con chocolate from Chocolatería San Ginés!

A couple of months ago, Delta had a crazy flash sale to Europe which allowed my long-lost roomate Akshaya and I to fly round-trip JFK <--> MAD for $230. BTW when I say long-lost I mean it: she's currently living in a tent in South Sudan. (Yes, that South Sudan. The place that is not technically a country yet).

My memories of the weekend are snapshots of sunshine, museums, parks, and tapas bars. (There was also a run-in with a bachelor party of French men decked out in fanny packs and pink tshirts, save the extremely attractive groom-to-be who was sporting an off-the-shoulder cow costume onesie, but let's not go there). Our first night, after doing a tapas crawl down Cava Baja, tired but tipsy on wine and pretty damn proud of our jetsetting awesomeness we rambled over to Chocolatería San Ginés and pulled up two chairs at one of the little aluminum tables on the quiet cobblestone street. We asked for two orders of churros and sat back to see what the fuss was all about.



The churros themselves are neither dense nor sweet- the light and airy dough is fried in olive oil and if one ignores the whole "deep frying" thing actually could be considered a light dessert. They are crunchy on the outside and airy and fluffy on the inside. But they are served with the thickest, richest hot chocolate you can imagine. We're talking Max Brenner-style thick, gooey, dark chocolate goodness. Absolutely fabulous. We came back two days later for more. But only one order that time. I swear.

Is that an empty plate I see in the background?

These are not your garden variety carnival-style cinnamon-and-sugar sprinkled churros. These are the real deal. Welcome to the club, boys!