A Girls Night In with Mark Bittman for I Heart Cooking Clubs

When I think of a Girls Night Out, I think of ditching the men, getting Barbie’d out and dancing our butts off in some too-loud bar that I am too old to be seen in.

On the other hand, a Girls Night In is just as fun, without all the sweat, stress, and body contouring foundation garments.

So, when I saw the I Heart Cooking Clubs theme for this week, I knew just the ticket. Cocktails and finger food. And since Ginny was about to come for a visit (yes, I did this recipe weeks ago, knowing about the theme, and just waited to post about it), it was the perfect setting for a Girls Night at the house. I even managed to get the hubs to locate himself elsewhere for the evening, so as not to disrupt our girliness.

So what was on the menu? Well, God bless Mark Bittman, cuz he knows his shrimp. We fired up the grill and skewered some of his Spicy Grilled Shrimp, which we served with grilled tequila pineapple skewers and Mofongo. Mofongo is not a Bittman recipe, but a carryover from Ginny’s recent trip to Puerto Rico that she was itching to try back here in the landlocked Midwest. It is a dish that takes roasted, mashed plantains to a new level.

And since I did say “cocktails” I looked to our buddy Mark again. We sampled a variety of libations, including his Tequila Sunrise (from How to Cook Everything), an old standby from my bartending days.We also had Cherry Margaritas and Lemon Basil Mojitos (a recipe Ginny brought with her that is a lovely blend of Bacardi Limon, our fresh sour mix, club soda, fresh mint, basil and lime).TEQUILA SUNRISE
From Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything

1 cup tequila
Orange juice as needed
Grenadine

Divide the tequila evenly between 4 glasses.
Add orange juice and a few drops of grenadine, as desired.
Mark Bittman's Spicy Grilled Shrimp
From Fish, The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking, by Mark Bittman
Makes 4 servingsTime: 20 minutes

2 pounds large shrimp
1 large clove garlic
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
Lemon wedges
Peel the shrimp (you can butterfly them if you like; just cut along the line of the vein, a little deeper than usual). Mince the garlic with the salt; mix it with the cayenne and paprika, then make it into a paste with the olive oil and lemon juice. Smear the paste all over the shrimp. Start a charcoal or gas grill or preheat the broiler; the fire can be as hot as you like. Grill or broil the shrimp, 2 to 3 minutes per side.Serve immediately or at room temperature, with lemon wedges.Now, clearly, as a former bartender, I didn’t need a recipe for the tequila sunrise, but since there was a rendition of it in Bittman’s HTCE, I thought I’d go ahead and include it here for your reference. What we REALLY did was pour a shot (or so) of good tequila in each glass, then topped that with a orange-pineapple juice blend (since we had a “pineapple” theme going already). Just as a rule of thumb, the proportions should be about 2 to 1. Two parts juice to one part alcohol. Then, very carefully, drizzle a little bit of grenadine around the edges of the drink. As the syrup falls into the glass, it makes the famous “sunrise” effect, as you can see in the picture.

For the shrimp, we actually followed Bittman’s recipe. Although I usually find that I have to supplement the seasonings in his dishes, I was pleasantly surprised to find that these little babies had plenty of oomph just as they were. I couldn’t keep myself from nibbling on the last of these at the end of the evening, even though I was much too full to be eating any more. This would be a fabulous appetizer for any cocktail party!

I have to say, the traditional mojito is not my favorite drink. Apparently, even though I like mint, I don’t care for it in my beverages. However, the Lemon Basil Mojito was a revelation that I look forward to having again and again! Tart and sweet at the same time, it had just the right amount of bite with an herby undertone.

All in all, we had a fabulous Girls Night In! A few cocktails, some tasty treats and a movie or two rounded out the evening perfectly.

Of Words and Wine - Food and a Book Review

Did you all know I have a book club? Yep, sure do. It’s a lovely little group. Just three of us, actually. We originally intended it to be a bigger group, but we decided that we like it the way it is, so we’re not changing a thing! We have a list of books we are interested in reading and then we draw them from a hat to decide what we will read next. We meet monthly, and take turns meeting at each others’ houses, then on the fourth month, we meet somewhere else, like at a local eatery. We just had our fifth meeting last Friday, and it was my turn to host the club. One of the best parts for me is the fact that I get to cook for people who enjoy food, and we get to drink wine, and gossip, and rant if we need to (all after we get done talking about the book, of course!)

So, for this month’s meeting, I made a selection of little appetizers that were all recipes I got from my blog reader and had never tried, They all had great potential, but for one reason or another, they all ended up being just okay, in my opinion.

For starters, I made the Tandoori Chicken that I spied on The Food of Love. It looked tantalizing and easy to make. I added some additional seasonings of my own as well (a little turmeric, some garam masala) and, while the chicken did have fabulous flavor, it fell short. You want to know why? Two reasons; One, I should have grilled it instead of using my grill pan. It stuck something fierce (I need a new grill pan) and never really got the caramelization that I was hoping for. I will be trying that one again when I have time to fire up the grill.Second, I have had this Caramelized Chili Shrimp saved for eons (but I can't remember where I got it from!), and decided this was the night I would finally try it. Both the girls really liked it, and I agree that the flavors were spot-on, but there were two things I should have done differently. One, I wasn’t about to use precooked shrimp, and the only raw shrimp I could get my hands on were pretty small, so they didn’t get to cook long enough to get that nice crust going that I wanted. Two, I committed one of the all time worst culinary sins....I crowded the pan. Yep, I was too lazy to get a bigger pan out when I realized I was out of room on the pan I was using, so I crammed them all on there and they poached, rather than caramelizing. Again, a recipe worth trying another time, with more patience.Finally, I had been drooling over these Thai Meatballs with Peanut Dipping sauce from Krista's Kitchen. You know, the meatballs were really easy and quite tasty. When I read the ingredients for the sauce, however, I paused. It called for a half a cup of peanut butter (to a mere cup of coconut milk). Having had experience with peanut sauces in the past, I decided to edit this one ingredient. I whittled it down to about a quarter cup or less, but I should have stuck with a bare tablespoon, as we all thought the peanut flavor was just too overwhelming.One last thing. Normally I drink wine when we meet, but I also found a lovely looking cocktail over at The Italian Dish and was dying to try it. The drink calls for Aperol, which is an orange liqueur, not readily found in my area. However, it reminded me that I have an unopened bottle of Orangecello in my cabinet, so I broke that out along with a bottle of Zonin Prosecco, and in place of the club soda, I tossed in a dash of lemon lime soda. It was quite a refreshing choice for a night when we actually had weather lovely enough to open the house up and feel the spring air! Definitely one I'll make again...after all....I still have half a bottle of Orangecello to use!So, all in all, I liked each recipe, but I need to try them again, with a little more effort. Lesson learned? Always have at least one “old standby” on the list when serving friends instead of using all new recipes.

For the last part of this post, I decided to try something different. I’ve been meaning to start reviewing the books I’m reading, but I just never get around to it. That, and I’m not the greatest at putting my thoughts into words when I talk about books I have read. So, I have enlisted the help of my friend Whitney, who is also in the club, and she has written up a little review for you on the book we just read, The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant.

Introducing Whitney!

Hello, I’m Beth’s friend Whitney. Before I go into my review of my Red Tent, I’d like to tell you a little bit about my background. I’m a southern gal through and through, born and raised in Memphis, TN. Most people raise their eyebrows when they hear I’m from Memphis and that’s probably because it’s featured on A &E’s First 48 weekly. However, I didn’t grow up in that part of Memphis; I grew up in Germantown, the city’s utopia. As you know Tennessee is part of our great nation’s Bible belt and I’m a God fearing girl who knows her Bible backwards and forwards, my Bible Bowl trophy from ’96 proves it. So every time I hear about a book that tells a Biblical story from another perspective, I’m really wary. The God fearing part of me feels that I’ll get sent to hell for reading this blasphemy. (Just kidding) The Red Tent really did disprove my feelings on Biblical stories told from a different point of view though. The story of Dinah is found of Genesis 34:1-31, which is roughly 2 paragraphs. The story of Dinah is tragic and I remember thinking that she deserved more than two paragraphs. For those of you who do not know the story of Dinah, I will give you the Cliff Notes version. She is Jacob’s daughter; You know Jacob? He stole Esau’s blessing. Well Jacob’s family was traveling and Shechem, who happened to be a wealthy prince decided to have sex with Dinah. In the process he fell in love with Dinah and decides he wants to marry her. Shechem’s father comes to Jacob and offers him many gifts for Dinah’s hand, including daughters for Jacob’s sons to marry. But Jacob says, “No, you and all the men in your house must get circumcised.” (That’s not a direct quote by the way) Shechem “loved” Dinah so much he granted Jacob’s wish. Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi go to the palace later that night and kill Shechem and all the men in the palace because they claimed that no man could treat their sister that way! As an adolescent I thought, “Wow, that is so cool, they’re defending their sister’s honor.” After reading the Red Tent my perspective of this Biblical story changed. I began to see the Biblical heroes such as Joseph and Jacob, dare I say it, as evil men who were only looking out for themselves. This book celebrates women unlike the stories of the Bible you’re used to and at the end you’ll find yourself wondering what really happened to Dinah.

As a side note, all three of us loved this book. We were all raised in the church, and have a background in the history of the bible. After reading this book, we now all have a different view of the women of the bible and the lived they lead. I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say we give this book a strong thumbs up!

I hope you enjoyed the recipes and the review....stay tuned for April's club meeting. We'll be reading The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver!

Missing in Action

Clearly, the holidays and the several weekends preceding them have taking a toll on my blogging. Thinking back, I have not had a weekend without house guests or a major event since before Halloween. Not that any of this is an excuse for me being such a blog slacker lately, but at least I now know where the last couple of months have gone.
In the effort to make a new start, I have lots of pictures piled up from Ginny's recent visit to blog about! As usual, we were cooking fools, but the weekend did have an actual purpose. A dual purpose, even.
See, Ginny and I always get together in December to spend an entire weekend making candy. We then arrange all of the candy on trays to distribute to the various friends and businesses that we have done a lot with over the past year. And, every year, Ginny puts on her "slave driver" hat because I am not as motivated to do all the candy as she is. This year, unfortunately, we had multiple distractions to work around, which didn't help, but we still managed to get all the trays made. For one thing, both of our birthdays land in the general vicinity of Christmas/January, so we decided to treat ourselves to a nice birthday lunch out at a restaurant we've been dying to try since we started attending some cooking classes led by the executive chef and wine director from Annie Gunn's in St Louis.
If a drive to St Louis for lunch wasn't enough of a detour from the weekend's workload, we also were in charge of cooking breakfast for twenty on Sunday morning, my annual Christmas sugar cooking decorating day at my sister in law's....and for some reason, Ginny thought we needed MORE to do, so she brought along about five other recipes she wanted us to try.
What the hell were we thinking?
I guess I should just start from the beginning! The first dish we made (Ginny has recently developed a fascination with Rick Bayless' recipes) was Chilled Shrimp and Crab a la Veracruzana. Talk about an easy dish to make! Ginny made the salsa up ahead of time and brought it with her, so there was almost no prep work to speak of for this one. We snacked on this one the night she arrived with a lovely bottle of wine. I would not have expected that having olives in a latin-inspired dish would appeal to me, but the flavors really worked!

Chilled Shrimp and Crab a la Veracruzana
(Mariscos Frios con Sabor Veracruzano)
Makes about 4 cups
Recipe from Season 7 of Mexico - One Plate at a Time

Ingredients:
2 cups top-quality bottled tomato salsa (I prefer one made from roasted tomatoes)1/4 cup chopped green olives (the firm texture of a manzanilla olive is welcome here)2 tablespoons capers, drained (rinse them in a small strainer if they seem really salty/briny)2 to 3 tablespoons coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves1 pound medium-to-small cooked shrimp4 or 5 ounces of crabmeat (lump crabmeat holds up best in this preparation)

Directions:
In a medium saucepan, combine the salsa, olives, capers and parsley. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, simmer for several minutes to blend the flavors (and if the salsa is at all watery, to reduce a little of the liquid), then remove from the heat. Cool to room temperature. In a large bowl, combine the shrimp and crab meat.
Gently stir in the sauce, then cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.

Caramelized Onion Focaccia

Wow! I just realized it has been an entire week since i posted....what's up with that??? Its not that I haven't been doing stuff, really, I guess I've just been otherwise occupied.

Well, I have been wanting to share this with you since I made it this weekend, so I guess now is as good a time as any! See, my girl Tracy came to see me Saturday. She only lives about a half hour from me, but with our schedules, we don't see very much of each other. I did get to see more of her than usual this time, though, considering she is six months pregnant!
There is always one sure fire way to get a pregnant woman to come see you. Yep, that's right, I promised to feed her. Ok, so I've used that bribe with her for years and it has nothing to do with her being pregnant, but I used it anyway. And, I always follow through. Mama-to-be has been in the mood for pasta, so I got a bag of raw shrimp out of the freezer, and started some water to boil for spaghetti. Once the water comes to a boil, toss in the dried spaghetti and start your sauce:
In a skillet, I sauteed up some diced shallot and fresh garlic in a little bit of oil. When that started to soften, I added just a little white wine (don't freak out on me, you all know the alcohol cooks out!) and let it cook down just a touch.
Then I turned up the heat a bit, added some red pepper flakes, and the shrimp, just for a couple of minutes until the shrimp was opaque.
Add in one can of diced, fire roasted tomatoes, and you have a lovely sauce.
Pull the pasta out of the water and toss it in the pan with the sauce. Serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese and caramelized onion focaccia, a la Tyler Florence.
I caramelized the onions earlier in the day and set them aside so that I could just pop this in the oven when I started the sauce. I had had a beautiful vidalia onion on standby, but with the summer heat, it was starting to go soft on me. I didn't realize that until I was ready to start cooking, though, so I ended up using 2 red onions instead, and it worked out just fine. I also cheated in a few more ways! I used a pizza dough mix that I had in the pantry (It was a bad day for staples in my kitchen...I also had 3 tubes of Pillsbury pizza dough in the fridge, but apparently I bought them longer ago than I thought, and they were all too old, too.) and since I've been out of fresh rosemary for a while (and we all know I don't like thyme) I used some fresh oregano from my garden. All in all this turned out fabulously! I made so many substitutions that I'm not going to submit it to Tyler Florence Fridays this week, but I'm going to try doing it again sometime and actually FOLLOW the recipe! Instead of posting Tyler's recipe, I'm just going to tell you what I did.
In a large skillet, cook thinly sliced onions over medium heat, stirring only occasionally until they are caramelized. I mean it, don't over-stir it or they'll never caramelize. If you're using red onions like I did, toss in a tablespoon of sugar to help the process along.
Roll out a tube or package of pizza dough and brush it with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese, some chopped herbs, and then spread the onions over the top, pushing down gently into the dough. Bake at 350 or until the crust turns golden. Cut and serve with a little more parmesan cheese. Enjoy!!