OMGSNAX!

so i’ve been thinking that maybe i should take a break from the less-than-successful main dishes & go back to my roots: baking! i’m really good with baked goods! so i found this cornbread recipe & thought it’d be good with my now-standard weeknight fare of bell pepper-&-cheese quesadillas.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 cups cornmeal
1/4 cup unbleached flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
1 (4-ounce) can chopped (mild) green chilies, well drained
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeno peppers
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil

METHOD
preheat the oven to 400 degrees. butter an 8×8-inch baking pan. in a large bowl thoroughly combine the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, & sugar. stir in the corn, chilies, & cheese until well coated. beat the eggs in a medium-size bowl. beat in the milk & oil. pour into the cornmeal mixture & stir just until evenly moistened. scrape the batter into the prepared pan. bake 30 minutes. let cool on a wire rack at least 15 minutes before cutting into squares. serve barely warm or at room temperature.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
no, no, no. i stuck to the recipe exactly. i even included the corn — which i happen to find pretty much revolting. it’s a texture thing.

dry ingredients + spicy ingredients

shoulda left out the corn. baking it into bread did not improve the texture. i just wasn’t sure how to make up the extra volume.

uncooked

cooked

other than the whole corn kernels, i thought it was quite good. daniel thought it was a little bit spicy, but he said he’d eat it again, so take that how you will.

 

 

“Cornbread with Chilies & Cheese” from Vegetarian Classics: 300 Essential Recipes for Every Course and Every Meal by Jeanne Lemlin, © 2001.

i’ll be honest with you: i don’t know what recipe to put here b/c i combined two different recipes & made the rest up, so secretly maybe it’s all mine & i’ll play it that way.

INGREDIENTS
refrigerated bread dough
1/2 cup to 1 cup marinara sauce
8 oz fresh mozzarella cheese
1/2 bell pepper, diced
1/4 white onion, diced
a couple mushrooms, sliced
black olives, sliced
olive oil

METHOD
preheat the oven to 375 F. dice the bell pepper & onion; sauté in a little olive oil. roll out the bread dough & divide in half. spread the marinara sauce on half the dough, then add the vegetables & the cheese (cut into quarter-sized chunks). fold the other half of the dough over the filling to form a half-moon. pinch the edges of the dough together using your fingers or a fork. using your fingers or a pastry brush, lightly coat the tops of the calzones with some oil. bake 20 minutes.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
the whole recipe was basically a deviation, b/c the calzone recipe i found called for smoked cheese, potato, & spinach. potato? no. i’m done with potatoes for a while, i think.

basically, my made-up recipe came down to a normal pizza, only folded in half. it tasted damn good, though.

my my, that’s a lot of cheese

see? a folded pizza!

the main problem we encountered was that, due to our hunger, we used a ready-made pizza crust in a can (pillsbury-style) & it came out as a huge rectangle, & when i tried to form my half into a circle (so i could have the traditional half-moon-shaped calzone), the dough wouldn’t really roll out. it was super-stretchy & just snapped back no matter what i tried! very frustrating. & for the record, the calzone recipe i had DID call for pre-made bread dough, so it wasn’t 100% laziness on my part.

daniel tries to figure out the magic elastic dough

anyway, you really can’t go wrong with tomato sauce & cheese, you know?

yum!

 

 

“Calzone” from two different recipes in Vegetarian Classics: 300 Essential Recipes for Every Course and Every Meal by Jeanne Lemlin, © 2001.

so last week was a bust as i:
- worked till 8pm monday night
- had class till 8pm tuesday night
- worked till 930pm wednesday night
- had dinner with my friend cat (to celebrate her birthday) thursday night
- had dinner with my cousins (to celebrate cinco de mayo) friday night
- had dinner with my other cousins (to celebrate another birthday) saturday night
- was in the studio all day sunday & was too hungry to cook sunday night

cooking? not gonna happen.
& i’ll tell you something. it PAINED me. hand to god. i LIKE omgsnax! i WANT to try new recipes. (although lately everything i’ve looked up has involved frying, which i find vaguely disturbing.)

this week i continued in my quest to come up with a good sweet potato recipe. some might call it an obsession, i don’t know, an unhealthy fixation, a calling — but what i do know is this: i’m tired of recipes that bury the sweet potato under cumin & chili powder, under brown sugar & marshmallows. i just want to enjoy the sweet potato without all those distractions. is that so wrong?

INGREDIENTS
500 g (1 lb) orange sweet potato, cut into large pieces
1/4 cup (60 ml/2 fl oz) olive oil
150 g (5 oz) ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
2 x 250 g (8 oz) packets egg won ton wrappers
60 g (2 oz) butter
4 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal
2 cloves garlic, crushed, extra
300 ml (10 fl oz) cream
baby basil leaves, to serve

METHOD
preheat the oven to hot 425 F. place the sweet potato on a baking tray & drizzle with oil. bake for 40 minutes, or until tender.

transfer the sweet potato to a bowl with the ricotta, basil, garlic, & parmesan & mash until smooth.

cover the won ton wrappers with a damp tea towel. place 2 level teaspoons of the sweet potato mixture into the centre of one wrapper & brush the edges with a little water. top with another wrapper. place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper & cover with a tea towel. repeat with the remaining ingredients to make 60 ravioli, placing a sheet of baking paper between each layer.

melt the butter in a frying pan. add the spring onion & garlic & cook over medium heat for 1 minute. add the cream, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat & simmer for 4-5 minutes, or until the cream has reduced & thickened. keep warm.

bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. cook the ravioli in batches for 2-4 minutes, or until just tender. drain well. ladle the hot sauce over the top of the ravioli, garnish with the basil leaves, & serve immediately.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
no, i pretty much followed this one without making any adjustments. except i substituted minced garlic for crushed garlic. but let’s not split hairs.

while the sweet potatoes roasted — or baked, or whatever they were doing — i worked on my statistics final, & from there on out, i was standing at the counter making ravioli. i made twelve & decided maybe i ought to give those a shot before making the rest, b/c as i’ve learned, it’s a huge bummer to go to the trouble of making something that’s pretty involved, only for it to taste like, as the french say, zee cat butt.

before mashing the filling

as it turns out, they did not, in fact, taste like zee cat butt. the filling was actually pretty awesome. the won ton skins? less awesome. i used to eat won ton soup when i was a kid, & that’s the thing to keep in mind: won ton skins may be EQUIVALENT to pasta somehow, but are not IN FACT pasta. this sweet potato/ricotta filling would’ve been WAY better in your standard stuffed pasta (as tortellini or ravioli), b/c there were a couple problems with the won ton wrappers.

uncooked ravioli

problem numero un:
the wrappers were pretty limp, even though the ravioli only cooked for three minutes.

problem number deux:
the wrappers were significantly larger than the amount of filling i put in — but had i added more filling, chances for explosion would’ve increased exponentially.

problem numero trois:
did i mention limp? just not the right consistency for what we were going for, i think.

i appreciate not having to make a dough from scratch — b/c that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen when i didn’t even get started till after 8pm — but some things are worth the effort, i suspect.

in addition to the puzzling texture of the won ton wrappers, there was the matter of the cream sauce, which actually didn’t thicken at all. & also my thinking is that maybe the ravioli would’ve been better in straight up butter with just a little garlic/onion. although i understand that the sweetness of the cream was to complement the flavor of the sweet potato, & it did — i just think it was almost too much.

there’s a lot of butter in that there cream sauce

all in all, it was a good dish but probably not worth the effort it’d take to make it again. i’d order it at a restaurant, though.

daniel liked it but said that he’s tired of “sweet things in non-sweet dishes,” which, translated, means that he’s tired of my trying to woo the sweet potato away from what he feels is its prime directive: being sweet with butter & brown sugar.

arty close-up

 

 

“Sweet Potato Ravioli” from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, edited by Jane Price, © 2000.