Raspberry Cornmeal Muffins

Oh my god, they were delicious, perfect for that late Sunday morning treat.

We used Beth Hensperger's recipe from The Bread Bible:

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup fine yellow cornmeal
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Grated zest of one lemon
1 cup milk
2 large eggs
1/3 cup corn oil
1 1/2 cup fresh raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F; grease muffin tin; combine dry ingredients with a whisk.

2. Combine milk, eggs, and corn oil for 1 minute; pour into flour mixture and stir until just moistened, about 20 strokes. Gently fold in raspberries. Batter will be lumpy.

3. Spoon batter into the muffin tins until just level with the top of the pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cool the muffins in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

So delicious. Our alterations: olive oil instead of corn oil (too cheap to buy new oil) and soy milk instead of dairy. It was still perfect.

Orange-Fennel Tilapia with shredded Brussel Sprouts

Alison tried her hand at creating her own recipe tonight, and for the first time, she really felt proud! This elicited, of course, the "Why do we never post on our blog?" conversation. Plus, Brian just bought a camera, so it only made sense to begin putting it to good use...

So, here is the recipe for Alison's Orange-Fennel Tilapia with shredded Brussel Sprouts

Ingredients (serves two):

• Two tilapia fillets
  
• One orange
• 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
• Two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
• 1/8 cup water
  
• 10-12 brussel sprouts
• 1 garlic clove
• Pepper to taste

Begin by juicing and zesting the orange into a medium-sized bowl, allowing smaller chunks of orange to remain in the juice. Add one tablespoon of the olive oil, 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar, and the fennel, and mix thoroughly. Add the cranberries and stir. Marinade the tilapia in the orange mixture for about a half an hour.

Meanwhile, toast the almonds and wash and cut the brussel sprouts into fine strips.

When the tilapia has marinaded sufficiently, place it in a pan on medium-high heat with about half of the marinade; be sure, however, to include all the cranberries. The marinade will boil down into a nice sauce. Turn after about 3-4 minutes.

Heat up a second pan on medium-high and mince a garlic clove in your remaining tablespoon of olive oil until it barely begins to brown. Add brussel sprouts, water, 2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar and toss gently.

In about 3-4 minutes your brussel sprouts will have wilted and the tilapia will be cooked through. Toss about two thirds of the toasted almonds into the brussel sprouts, reserving the rest for garnish.

Serve tilapia over a bed of the brussel sprouts, with cranberries and almonds as garnish.

Broccoli Rabe and Salami Pasta (with a side of thoughts-on-Rachael-Ray)

This is our third post, which means, dear reader, that you and I/we are becoming friends of sorts. And with friendship comes trust. Thus, an unabashed confession:

Alison and I love Rachael Ray.

Now, it might be that neither of us have actually seen her show (though - coincidentally enough - Alison saw Ms. Ray board her Rachael-Ray-mobile somewhere in Midtown East this week). Our friends love to tell us how obnoxiously bubbly and loud she is, but hey, as long as she keeps churning out fantastic cookbooks, our own tastebuds will continue to trump our friends' ears, thank you very much.

Anyways, because Brian is an amazing, considerate, loving boyfriend with supermodel-like good-looks, he recently purchased the latest Rachael Ray cookbook for Alison, seen here:



Not only is it full-to-the-brim with delicious recipes, but it accommodates Alison's and my OCD-tendencies to organize, schedule, and categorize: each recipe is labeled with an estimated cooking time (of 15-, 30-, and 60-minutes). So hello turmeric, good-bye ritalin!*

Anyways, we decided to try out the Broccoli Rabe and Salami Pasta tonight. We paired it with a spinach salad with walnuts and grapes. Here are the (visual) results:



A couple of thoughts:
- Why salami? We'll have to use an extra pan, but try a hot italian sausage next time.
- Perhaps cottage cheese, rather than ricotta?
- Re-heat noodles after mixing with sauce.
- Healthy tips: use wheat pasta, fat-free ricotta (doesn't affect the flavor too much), cut back a little on the salami.

Overall, the first recipe from our new book made a great impression. We'll see how the leftovers hold up for lunch tomorrow.

Amazing-considerate-loving-boyfriend-with-supermodel-like-good-looks, out.


*Neither Alison nor Brian endorse this as responsible medical behavior.

homemade mac n cheese

tonight, alison made her homemade mac n cheese, a recipe handed down by her mom. the sauce recipe goes a lil something like this:

1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1 cup milk or cream
any kind of cheese; as much of it as you like!
salt and pepper

directions: melt butter. add flour and make a paste. add cup of milk/cream slowly, stirring it into the paste (avoiding clumps). keep heat on low, constantly stirring until the mixture thickens. grate cheese directly into the white sauce, melting and tasting until you like the taste. season with salt and pepper.

to finish it off, alison poured the sauce over whole wheat noodles and steamed broccoli.

things we liked:
-the sauce was nice, thick and creamy.
-we used cheddar cheese--classic and yum.
-broccoli posed a good addition
-it was relatively healthy, in spite of the cream sauce

things we'd change:
-the sauce was definitely not cheesy enough!
-consider another cheese for a less classic feel?
-season earlier? before melting cheese?
-melt cheese sooner. the sauce was thick, but it didn't need to be THAT thick (ie, kraft mac n cheese)
-the whole wheat pasta, which we usually like, overpowered the cheese sauce. we'll probably try it with a different brand in the future
-for a quick fix to improve the cheese factor: sprinke feta over top

potential variations, future goals:
-learn to make it spicy, with tomatoes? mmm...

we like to cook.

tonight, over dinner, brian and i found ourselves involved in a conversation typical to one of our home-cooked meals. after having put together a meal of curried tilapia with mango salsa, peppers roasted with garlic, basic, and tomatoes, with a side of basic brown rice, we critiqued our own food.

"this tilapia is too salty," i commented, feeling a twinge guilty (brian had made the tilapia).

"and we left the jalapenos out from the salsa" brian commented, feeling a twinge guilty (alison had forgotten to buy the jalapenos).

"and i made the rice too dry!" i replied. i normally consider myself a "rice connoisseur."

we continued along in this fashion, knowing that the next time we approached this meal, all would be forgotten. we mourned our future selves for unknowingly repeating the same mistakes. then, brian was struck with brilliance: "let's make a blog, where we document all of our meals, what we put in them, what we liked, and what we'd change!" what a great resource! now we'll never have trouble again!

i thought it was great. (plus, since i'm the girly one, i was excited that we could do a cute couple thing like post our meals on an adorable, smiley blog.) so, we like to cook. obviously, we kinda stink at it. this blog is our first step towards improvement.

Love,
Al and Bri