The Beet Salad Recipe of Your Dreams

I don't know about you, but when dealing with vegetables, rarely does the word 'gorgeous' come to mind. Vegetables tend to look a bit—well, not the most attractive. Stand in the produce section, and take a look around. Fruit definitely wins out in the looks category. Veggies tend to remind you of gawky, bad-skinned, knob-kneed teenagers with consistently bad hair-days.

That is, until you look inside.

Suddenly, some veggies become positively striking. Like the beet I couldn't help but share in my old post Talk About Random.  Take a look at that beauty!

Maybe their gorgeousness is part of the reason why I've become addicted, but beets have suddenly turned into my go-to veggie for an easy lunch salad. Chef Reiton hates beets, no matter how hard he tries to like them, so my only way of eating them is when he isn't here. Lunchtime has become perfect for that.

"So—a beet salad???" you say (I can see that lip tweaking...).

Believe me, yes, and it's delish and incredibly easy. That is, after you roast the beets. Which is also easy. I'll even show you how tomorrow because I'm going to roast some tonight (please note: TONIGHT is key in my easy roasting and peeling method).

Alright, so back to the salad. In Real Simple's November 2015 issue there was an article on easy side dishes to create for the holidays. Modestly introducing their beet salad recipe was a small notation that their beet salad is so good, the RS crew make it all the time for their gatherings.  Intrigued, I made it for our Christmas dinner, and the entire family gave a resounding 'YES!' to it's deliciousness—despite it being made with beets.

Since then I have tweaked the recipe to fit with ingredients that I tend to have at home and that I can quickly toss together for lunch. Almost all of the ingredient amounts are to what I'm in the mood for that day. So, here you go: a beet salad that is remarkably good for you, gorgeous, and incredibly delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 roasted beet, cooled, skinned and cut into wedges
• a small (1-in. x 1 in.-ish) hunk of ricotta salata, a firm ricotta cheese, sold in wedges in the "nice cheese" section
• a small pinch of the tops of some fresh Italian, flat-leaf parsley sprigs, roughly chopped 
• chopped pecans, toasted (toss in a small skillet over medium heat until they smell nutty)
• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil
• red wine vinegar

Directions:

1. Place beet wedges on a plate or in a bowl.
2. Crumble ricotta salata over the beet wedges.
3. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.
4. Sprinkle with chopped, toasted pecans.
5. Drizzle with olive oil and red wine vinegar.
6. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
7. EAT!

If you want to print the recipe, click "Print this recipe" below for a download and/or a print option.

Come back tomorrow for a quick how-to video on roasting and peeling beets–something I used to hate doing because the damn peel never came off easily. No more! I'll show you how.

Until then, here's to those of us who may be knob-kneed with lots of bad hair-days but strive to be beautiful on the inside! Yeah, beets!

Clarified Butter: The Truth of Ghee Matter

I know I've blogged about ghee before in Thank Ghee for Reading, but I just finished making another batch this very minute, and I thought I'd post again to encourage some ghee making out there.

Ghee is a cooking fat made from heating unsalted butter reeeeeeeeeeeeally slowly and NOT TOUCHING IT.  While the butter is melting, the butterfat (the clear stuff) separates from the milk solids (the stuff that looks like tiny cheese curds).  If you stop the process after the milk solids separate from the fat, the leftover yellow oil is clarified butter.  It's the stuff that you seafood lovers love to dunk your lobster and crab into.

If you keep the process going, however, the water in the butter will begin to evaporate off (you will hear and see it simmering off, sputtering and popping away), and the milk solids will begin to brown and settle to the bottom of the pot, leaving a clear brownish oil that is ghee.  This cooking fat is  highly heat tolerant as well as rich in flavor, but it also wonderfully rid of the things that make some of our bellies not feel so great (the milk stuff such as casein and lactose).

To strain the ghee from the solids, simply pour the liquid in the pot through a cheesecloth-lined sieve into a bowl, then let the oil cool. Voila! You've got your ghee!

The quantity of ghee you get will depend on the quality of the butter you use.  European butters with a higher butterfat content will yield more ghee than the cheaper butters that contain a bit more water. They are more expensive, but they are worth it—not just for the amount of ghee produced but also for the flavor.  This is an area where cheap ass me doesn't skimp.

Once your ghee has cooled, you can store it in a jar on the counter or in the fridge.  It will become harder in the fridge, but it will last longer (about 12 months vs. 6 months on the counter).  If you are like me, it doesn't last 6 weeks much less 6 months, but you do what works for you.

For more info about ghee, check out What's Cooking, America's page all about it.

And give a shout if you make a batch! I'd love to hear your thoughts and how you are using it!

A Lazy Creation: Messy Caprese Salad Recipe

To accompany our Italian-themed dinner the other evening (I totally cheated--it was a pre-seasoned Italian pork loin.  Sorry.), I decided to make a Caprese salad to use some of our beautiful Roma tomatoes and sweet basil from the garden.  But--due to my laziness--I just wanted to throw it all together and not take the time to get all pretty with the typical layering.  So that's what I did, darn it! And what resulted tasted better than almost any Caprese salad I have ever tasted! It doesn't look as pretty (especially with a kind-of crappy photo), but you can count on those flavors melding together for a true Italian eating experience!

I'm going to pull a David Rocco on you and tell you to quanto basta everything: use how much you want to—no exact measurements needed! I'll tell you below what I did, but definitely feel free to use more or less of an ingredient to suit your own tastes.

The amounts below fed just two of us, so gauge your quantities from there, too.

What you'll need:

• good, ripe Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise and then sliced into chunks: I used 3
• fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into bite-sized pieces: I used 3 balls, still dripping brine, from BelGioioso's Bocconcini tub, usually found in the "nice cheese" section near the deli
• fresh basil leaves, slivered or torn
• fresh lemon, juiced: I used half a lemon
• extra virgin olive oil: I used about 3 Tblsp.
• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper until it looks like everything has completely incorporated.  Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and toss gently but well, making sure everything is coated.  Let the salad rest in the fridge while you finish dinner.  Toss once more before serving.

Delizioso!

Giant Swiss Cake Roll: A Recipe for the Kid in You

I have a friend at work who loved my sugar cookies that I took in the other day, and he asked me if I would make him his very own batch, so I set aside a morning to do so.  But I find it hard to set aside a day to bake and only make one thing.  Especially when it is something that I'm giving away.  So, on a recent morning, as my buddy's sugar cookies were baking in the oven, I opened up the fridge and looked to see what needed to get used up.  The only thing I could see was whipping cream.

Hmmm.

How about...a giant Swiss cake roll?

I'd always wanted to try a cake roll.  Here was my chance to experiment.  I decided to use Hershey's trusty chocolate cake recipe, and, using a mathematical equation or two, I figured that if I halved the recipe, I would be able to make a nice thin sheet cake using a half sheet pan.

I wasn't quite sure how or when to do the rolling, so while the cake baked (only for 20 minutes) I consulted Peterson's book, Cooking, which said to cool the cake, but not too much; cracking could occur if the cake got too cool.  Using a number of flipping maneuvers, I got the cake cooling on a sheet of parchment paper sprinkled with confectioner's sugar and lightly covered with the sheet of parchment that I had lined the pan with (and then peeled off the warm cake).

While the cake had its time-out, I decided to make the filling.  After freezing the bowl and the whip, I whipped about a cup of cream until soft peaks formed, sprinkled in about 1/4 cup of sugar and vanilla to taste, whipped it again until the peaks were almost stiff, and then whipped in about 1/2 cup of sour cream until the mixture was blended and stiff.  Yes, I just said sour cream.  I knew that it would have the same consistency as the whipped cream, so it wouldn't kill it, and it would cut down on the sweet factor of the cake.  Besides, I just needed the volume—so I thought I'd try it.

As soon as the filling was done, I decided to go ahead and spread it on the cake.  I had to chill the whole roll when I was done, anyway, so I didn't see the hurt in the cake being too, too warm before I rolled it.  I flipped the cake again (so the sugar side was on the inside) and spread the filling using an offset spatula (best spreading tool EVER) to within an inch of the borders.  With baited breath I grabbed the short end of the parchment paper and gently lifted... It was rolling!!!  Quite easily, actually! I just kept lifting the paper with one hand to roll the cake and tucking the cake with the other as it rolled to keep the roll tight.

It cracked, anyway.  Not horribly.  But apparently I either could have rolled it even sooner, or I needed more filling to make the roll fuller.  Oh, well.  It didn't affect the taste!  I froze the whole thing on a baking sheet for a few hours to keep it from settling and cracking more.

When it was time to get ready to head into work, I trimmed the ends off to make them nice and neat (rinsing the knife in hot water after each slice to keep the slices clean and perfect).  I really wanted to coat the whole thing with a ganache shell to make it like one giant Swiss cake roll, but I didn't have any more cream.  Rats.  So I just dusted the whole thing with cocoa powder.

Here's a picture before it was sliced:

Ooooh, it was yummy!  It was an experiment that I really wouldn't change at all, ingredient-wise.  BUT, I will make it with the ganache shell next time!

Perfecting an Ice Cream Base Recipe

I found somewhere online a couple years ago a quick ice cream recipe.  Many may call it cheating, but I'm going to pull a Bittmann here and tell you that I'm just too happy with the quick way to bother with the hard way many times.  The hard way is actually making a custard, using eggs.  It is fantastically delicious, but so is making ice cream.  So, I make ice cream.

The recipe that I found used to delight me to no end.  But a few months ago I made my chocolate version of it, and it was really, really sweet for me.  I don't know if my taste buds are changing, or if I've just not eaten the amount of sugar that I used to, but I knew I had to change the recipe.

The old recipe was simple:

• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 cup of heavy whipping cream
• your flavoring of choice

In a discussion with Chef Reiton, we decided that trying a cup and a half of cream might adequately balance out the sugar of the condensed milk, so the next batch of ice cream I made, I did the following:

1.  Macerate a small container of rinsed raspberries (what is that, 6 oz.?) in a tablespoon of sugar for about 10 minutes.

2.  In a large bowl, blend the cream and the condensed milk until the mixture is completely smooth and combined.

3.  Turn on the ice cream maker and slowly pour the cream mixture into the container.  Let it run for about 5 minutes.

4.  Stir the raspberries and scoop them into the container as it continues to run.  Continue mixing for another 25 minutes until the ice cream is of soft-serve consistency.

5.  With a spatula, scoop the ice cream into a freezer container, then lay a piece of plastic wrap over the ice cream and smooth it down completely to make contact and leave no space for ice crystals to form.  Cover with the lid and "ripen" or freeze the ice cream for at least an hour.

I actually macerated more raspberries than I needed when I did this, so I whipped up a quick batch of Cook's Illustrated Perfect Pie Dough that uses vodka (only I used all butter) and made a few hand pies with the leftover berries to eat with my ice cream.

The ice cream result? It was perfect.  Sweet, but not gag sweet.  Creamy, but it still froze up nice and firm, just how I like it.

So, here it is: raspberry ice cream with raspberry pie, summer in a bowl!