Author Archives: lovettlovett

creamy cauliflower soup

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I saw cream of cauliflower soup on a menu Tuesday and I haven’t been able to get it off my mind. The only hope of exercising these cauliflower demons was to try my hand at my own and I’m glad I did! Now if the fam and I hadn’t risen at the crack of dawn and Turkey Trotted with a couple thousand of our favorite Houstonians, I might have opted for a lighter Thanksgiving lunch in anticipation of the real meal later this evening, but alas we jogged/ran/walked 5k miles and deserve to refuel our weight in whole milk and half and half. Sass aside, this soup could have been way heavier. Baby bro even remarked it tasted “light”.

I borrowed the recipe from the Pioneer Woman, and it’s a keeper! You’ll need:

~20 chopped baby carrots

2 stalks of celery

1/2 one white onion

1 stick of butter

3 tbl dried parsley

2 heads coarsely chopped cauliflower (I used one white & one golden)

8 cups of veggie broth

2 cups of whole milk

6 tbl flour

1 cup 1/2 & 1/2

1 cup soup cream

salt & white pepper to taste

Chop your holy trinity, your mirepoix & roughly chop bothheads of your cauliflower. I think it’s fun to have a mix of floret sizes–some itsy bitsy pieces & some coarser, rougher, bigger pieces.

In your favorite soup pot, melt 1/2 a stick of butter and add your onions. Sautee until they’re soft and then add your carrots, celery, and parsley. Sautee for 5ish minutes until they get soft and then add your cauliflower. Put a top on your pot and wait about 15 minutes (this is where I got impatient, but it’s worth the wait!). Then pour in all of your broth.Put your top back on and bring the pot to a boil.

Once you reach a boil, turn the heat down a little bit & in a separate sauce pan melt the other half of your stick of butter. Pour in 2 cups of milk & whisk in 6 tbl of flour. You’ll have a great white sauce, then pour this into the simmering pot. Add your cup of 1/2 & 1/2 and let those flavors gel for at least 10-15 minutes or until you’re ready to serve. I seasoned throughout, but now’s a good time to start tasting spoonfuls until your salt & pepper are just right.

Right before you serve, dump and stir in your cup of sour cream. Serve with your favorite crispy bread–I recommend an herbed loaf (ours was rosemary!).

 

Boozy Chocolate Nut Balls

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The title leaves no surprises. These ‘lil babies were quite boozy, so boozy you almost feel bad bringing them to the office an asking your coworkers to indulge in a flavorful bomb of chocolaty rum before 5 pm on a Tuesday. They say “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker, ” but with these treats you don’t have to choose one or the other! If I made these again, I think I’d try Bourbon, and I think I’d try serving them alongside after dinner drinks, but with this basic recipe in our back pockets the opportunities to innovate upon it are endless.

Start with:

1 package chocolate teddy grahams

1 1/2 cups pecans

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup rum

1 tbl vanilla

3 tbl cocoa powder

1 1/2 tbl honey

All you need to do is mix your teddies and nuts in the food processor until you have a coarse crumb. In a separate bowl stir together your rum, cocoa, honey, and powdered sugar, then dump your crumbs to the liquid mix. Mix, mix, mix it all together and then chill until the dough is cold and you’re ready to ball. Shout out to RyBei who rolled this dough into perfect little balls. Once you have your balls, roll in powdered sugar and they’re ready for eats. These balls are super forgiving, chill well for days, and would be pretty precious stacked on top of each other in a cellophane bag and a red ribbon tied around them (#Holidays2012, I’m just sayin’!).

Mimi’s cranberry relish

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The irony of this cranberry relish (and many, many things I’ve now come to love)  is it disgusted me for the first 15 years or so of my life. Thanksgiving dinner for this HungryTexan meant the blandest of plates. Turkey, mashed taters, dinner rolls. What about the dressing, gravy, sweet potatoes and cranberry relish? Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! and extra Yuck! so thought the tastebuds of a tinier Texan. Little by little my tastebuds matured and I learned the wonders of a more colorful Thanksgiving plate. I warmed to the cranberry relish last, but it’s since become one of my all time faves and it couldn’t be simpler.

Seriously, yall.Once you know how simple this homemade delight is, you better not even think about carving open a can of store-bought gelatinous cranberry goop! All you’ll need is:

1 bag of cranberries

1 apple (I used honeycrisp)

1 orange

1/2 c sugar

Slice your apples & oranges (keep the skin on!) and remove the seeds. I’d cut ’em a tiny bit smaller than the slices pictured above. Dump your cranberries, apples, and oranges into your food processor until all your fruits are pulverized. Then add your 1/2 cup of sugar and process it all together. You’ll be (cran)berry, berry happy you spent the 15 minutes to whip up this classy condiment for any Thanksgiving spread. It’s the perfect pop of color for any plate & a sweet-tart pop of flavor for your palette. Also, make this a few days in advance — it only gets better with age!

 

Butternut Squash Soup

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Confession. Until this soup, I’d never cut, cooked, or seen the inside of a butternut squash before. It was a lot more like carving a pumpkin than cutting a vegetable. Pro tip #1: don’t try to peel it with a vegetable peeler. Pro tip #2: when skinning try to cut rectangular pieces. Pro tip #3: I recommend scooping the seeds with a spoon. Another confession. I used Rachel Ray’s veggie stock. It was very good. It was seasoned way better than your typical veggie stock.

Collect all of these ingredients:

Your spices: thyme, cayenne, 1 bay leaf, salt, pepper
4 cups of your preferred stock
1 cup water
2 average-sized butternut squashes
1 leek (just the white and light green parts!)
3 tbl Butter
1/4 cup heavy cream

Chop, seed, and skin your squash in 2-inch cubes. Put it all in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and zap it for 14 minutes (14 minutes! yes, you read correctly). Once that’s thoroughly cooked, melt butter in a large pot, add the leeks & squash, cook for 10+ minutes. Then add 2 cups of your broth, to loosen your veggie mix up. Then add the second 2 cups, 1 cup of water & your spices (a couple dashes of thyme, 1 bay leaf, a pinch of thyme). Take the heat up a few notches until you get to a simmer, once you’re simmering reduce your heat and cook until your leeks look tender. Add the mix to your blender/food processor (be careful not to excede your “no liquid above this line” line). Pulse until smooth. Bring it back to the pot and back to a simmer. Add a 1/4 cup of cream for good measure. And season with S&P ’til it tickles your tastebuds.

tres leches

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The man chefs made Mexican brunch today (nom nom nom), so this lady baker opted for a classic Mexican cake to bring for dessert. I’ve made tres leches a time or two before, but this was by far the fastest (most recipes call for a multi-hour soak!) & most successful. The cake was so spongy that it sopped up lots of liquid in a relatively short amount of time, and I know it’ll be even better tomorrow!

To recreate this sweet, make sure you have the following:

5 eggs, separated

1 c & 3 tbl sugar

1 c flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

vanilla

1/4 c whole milk

1 pint + 1/4 c heavy whipping cream

1 can condensed milk

1 can evaporated milk

cinnamon

 

Preheat your oven to 350 & prep a large rectangular pan. Start by mixing your yolks & 3/4 cup of sugar until they’re pale yellow. While that’s mixing, mix your dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the milk & as much vanilla as you want to the pale yellow mixture & then gently fold into your flour mixture. Next, take your egg whites & the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and mix those until the peaks are stiff. Be patient and wait for those peaks, then gently fold that into the mix. Pour into your prepped pan and bake for 30ish minutes or until you pass the toothpick test.

Let your cake cool & then poke holes in it with a fork. Combine 1/4 c heavy whipping cream, evaporated & condensed milks in a pitcher & pour it all over the cake watching it slowly sopp up all this sweet milky mixture. Let that cake relax and make your whipped cream topping. I made a simple whipped cream with 3 tbl. sugar, 1 pint heavy whipping cream, and vanilla & cinnamon to taste. Try to be as patient as possible to let the flavors absorb, but slice this baby whenever you please.

¡Buen provecho!

Election Night Chili

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“Chili today, hot tamale” has long been one of my fam’s favorite phrases. While yesterday brought chilly temperatures and piping bowls of chili, today brought neither warmer temps nor hot tamales (stay tuned for these HungryTexans annual holiday tamales coming soon!). Today did bring reheated lunch and dinner chili and I dare say this funky spin on chili improved with age. Important to note, this is not this HungryTexan’s normal chili recipe — that I can whip up blind folded, but this was inspired by a real recipe (Cook’s Illustrated, of course) and required a wee bit more focus. It also requires a lot more time, so I might recommend you file this as a weekend recipe or a weeknight you’ll be glued to your TV (ahem…election night).

los ingredientes:

2 cans of black beans

2 cans of white beans

4 racquetball-sized onions

12 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup walnuts

2 ounces dried shiitake mushrooms

1 can diced tomatos (reserve that juice!)

3 tbl tomato paste

3 tbl soy sauce

2 jalapeños

1/4 cup chili powder

3 tbl oregano

cumin

veggie oil

1 cup barley

3 cups water

I recommend these three prep steps first:

  1. Combine mushrooms & walnuts in food processor until you’ve got a coarse walnut/mushroom meal
  2. Combine tomatoes (sans juice), tomato paste, soy sauce, coarsely chopped jalapeños, & garlic in your food processor
  3. Chop all your onions

With these steps under your belt, you’ll be ready to start simmering. Heat the oil (about a 1/4 inch high in your pot) and then dump in your onions, let those get soft and start browning, and be sure to salt them while they’re sizzlin’. Next, dump in your beans, add your chili powder, cumin, oregano. StirStirStir. Add your tomato mixture. StirStirStir. Pour in your walnut/mushroom mixture. StirStirStir. Add 1 cup barley & 3 cups water. Cover and let this bubbling pot ride the heat wave until your bulgar’s tender.

Serve piping hot and serve with your favorite dairy (I recommend that other HungryTexan’s sauced up sour cream!)

Pumpkin Bread

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Still crawling out of your Halloween candy coma? Believe it or not this HungryTexan resisted most of the tricks and treats this Halloween season (save a few handfuls of ceremonious candy corn), but I couldn’t resist nibble after nibble of this perfectly punk-in-y loaf. Baked at the height of the hurricane, this Fall treat warmed the home, hearts & tummies of our house-full of hurricane refugees. OneSockWonder described it as, “Fit for a pum-king!”

You’ll need:

Topping:

5 tbl brown sugar

1 tbl flour

1 tbl butter

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

Bread:

2 c flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 can pumpkin

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

a hearty swirl of vanilla

1 c sugar

1 c brown sugar

1/2 c canola oil

4 oz cream cheese

4 eggs

1/4 c buttermilk

Mix all your toppings together in a small bowl. For the BREAD, preheat to 350 and prep a loaf pan (or two). First, combine your pumpkin, spices, and vanilla and heat on the stove for 8ish minutes (stirring constantly!). Remove from heat and add both sugars, the cream cheese, and your oil. On the side, combine your eggs & buttermilk and then add that combo to your pumpkin mix. Finally, fold in your flour mixture (flour, soda, powder, salt). StirStirStirStirStir. Pour into your pans and bake 35ish minutes or until your loaves pass the toothpick test!

a saag story

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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this one was a literal saaga, but well worth it in the end. Complications with the creation of this recipe include, but are not limited to:

  1. This is one stubborn HungryTexan, when she has her mind made up on what she wants to cook for dinner, she will go to great ends to make it happen. With my mind made up I braved Giant (gasp!), which I do everything I can to avoid on a normal Sunday, let alone Hurricane Sandy Sunday. While everyone else was stocking up on all their Frankenstorm supplies, this girl’s just trying to fetch ingredients for some Sunday Saag Paneer. After conservatively 35 minutes in line reading all of the Internet and exhausting all my coins in Scramble with Friends, I made it through checkout and all the way home just as it started to drizzle.
  2. Note: there was no buttermilk in all of the Giant.
  3. So you thought an absence of buttermilk was an inconvenience, yes, but did you know it would go on to be the “paneer” portion of this recipe’s kryptonite? Neither did I when I thought I could pull a clever few tablespoons of vinegar in cream substitution. May work in a pinch for pancakes, but paneer…no way. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to curdle my milk and my amateur-attempt at cheese mongering was for naught. I’ll try again, but that’s a story for another day and proper ingredients.

Once the stress from the shopping and mess from the mongering were behind me, I got started on the spinach and that, my friends was a relative breeze! For this HungryTexans-twist on a Cook’s Illustrated version you’ll need:

a bag of baby spinach

3 heaping handfuls of mixed greens (I used a mustard/turnip/kale mix)

3 tbl butter

onion (finely choped)

3 cloves of garlic

1 tbl fresh ginger (I used more!)

1 jalapeño

1 can diced tomatos

1/2 cup of peanuts

1 cup water

1 cup heavy cream with a tablespoon of vinegar

+ All of the spices! 

 

 

 

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cardamom

1/4 tsp cinnamon

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itty bitty crabcakes

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A tale of two bays: the Chesapeake meets Galveston Bay in this Papa Lovett classic. I needed a simple, but substantive app for our house’s leg of the progressive dinner party this Saturday, so crab cakes were an easy answer. These ‘lil guys couldn’t be simpler and they’re oh, so scrumptious. The calories don’t count if they’re bite-sized, right?

All you’ll need is:

a container of crab meat (I used backfin, but if you want to #treatyoself spring for jumbo lump!)

juice of a lemon

Ritz crackers or their Whole Foods equivalent (tip — crumble them all in their sleeve, so you can pour in the crumbs!)

mayo

stick of melted butter (+ more for pan frying)

scallions

old bay + salt + pepper + some splash’s of tabasco

Mix everything together in one big bowl (that’s right — one big bowl #oneanddonedishes) in this order: crab meat + lemon juice + mayo + melted butter + scallions + seasoning (you should be tasting throughout!). I add the egg last (nothing scientific except the aforementioned tasting throughout and a desire to minimize my raw egg consumption). Then add your Ritz Cracker breadcrumbs. Take a tablespoon and start scooping mini-patties. Lay ’em on a cookie sheet and keep ’em in the fridge until you’re ready to pan fry ’em. Once it’s time to sizzle — melt a combo of butter & olive oil in your pan & cook these lil guys have a golden glow!

French Apple Cake

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Don’t fret…still cleansing. But all this cleansing frees up all the time we’d spend eatingcookingeatingcooking with time for blogging. Texas may be bigger than France, but what they lack in size they make up for in pastry proficiency. I spotted this recipe last weekend and was immediately drawn to a non-pie recipe for Fall’s favorite fruit! A friend’s birthday was the perfect occasion to give this recipe a whirl in the HungryTexans test kitchen.

Weeknight baking begets little time for lots of ingredient scrutiny — without fail I’m missing something and on weeknights seldom have the time or energy to make that second & third trip to the store for the [INSERT MISSING INGREDIENT DU JOUR]. Per usual, couple substitutions from the orig, below’s this HungryTexan’s spin on Cook’s Illustrated’s French Apple Cake.

4 granny smith apples, cut into 8 wedges and the sliced 1/8 thick

A healthy pour of vanilla

1/2 tsp vinegar (no lemons on hand)

1 cup + 2 tbl flour

1 cup + 1 tbl sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg + 2 egg yolks

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup whole milk

The best trick of this recipe was — zap your apples before you bake ’em! Microwaving them first makes sure their tender, but not mushy. Quick 3 minutes in a glass pie plate. Let them cool and pour in the vanilla & vinegar.

While those babies relax, get your liquids whisking in your stand mixer. Start with the oil, milk, and large egg. In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, baking powder & salt. Add the dry to the liquid and whiskwhiskwhisk.

Remove a cup of the batter and set it aside. Then add two egg yolks to your main mixture. Once that’s all wonderful looking, gently fold in your apples. Pour the extra two tablespoons of flour into the mix you set aside.

Assemble your baking dish — I used a springform round pan and covered the bottom with parchment paper. Pour the apple mixture in first — make sure you have a nice healthy layer of evenly-distributed apples. Then, you can add the mixture you set aside on top. Look at you! Double layered, you’re doing great.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar over the top and pop in the oven at 325 for oh…45 to an hour until it passes the toothpick test. When we sliced it the next day, it definitely passed everyone’s tastebud test! Custard meets cake meets apply yumyums! Plus, it’s the kind of cake you can eat unabashedly with your bare hands. Extra bonus, it’ll make your house full of boys smell like a well-kept home for 3 whole days.