Oven Overdrive

I've finally got a working oven!! In honor of the oven -- well, really to test it -- I baked brown sugar shortbread cookies. It's a recipe from The Washington Post. It's really quite simple. Blend two sticks (or 8oz) of butter, 1/3 cup of light brown sugar and 1/3 cup of sugar. Add a teaspoon or so of vanilla and a half teaspoon of salt. Mix. Then add 2 cups of flour. I actually used my hands when it came to the last cup of flour -- I'm sure a stand mixer would have been fine. Spread in a 13x9 inch pan and cook in a 325 degree oven for about 55 minutes. Let cool in the pan and then cut into squares.



It's definitely shortbread -- dense, buttery, dry but with a nice sweetness to it.

Now that the kitchen work is done, I also cooked some dinner. I stumbled on the Penn Quarter farmers market. I thought it had closed -- it does next week. I picked up some radishes, arugula, apples, and trumpet mushrooms. I sauteed the mushrooms and radish tops in olive oil and garlic. It was tasty!



An experimented with the radishes and apples. I keep seeing apple fennel slaws or salads on menus. I thought I'd try an apple-radish salad with a light lemon vinaigrette. Not really great - but the sweetness of the apple did balance the tartness and almost pepper-iness of radish. It was worth trying but I think I'll use the rest of the radishes in a salad!

No Bake Desserts

As you may or may not know, my oven hasn't been working. I'm getting a new one -- actually from the sounds of my landlord a new kitchen entirely -- soon. But I still tried to bake. As you can see -- the results haven't been good. The oven doesn't get too hot, it doesn't maintain the heat, but it manages to burn the top. That was a banana bread. The one that went straight to the trash. The other I covered with tinfoil. It took about 2 hours but I got something that was edible. My latest attempt were cupcakes -- pear and walnut with a cream cheese frosting. The cupcakes didn't work out, but I did manage to get some mini-cupcakes baked all the way through.
I've been experimenting with no-bake desserts. I've been using a chocolate ganache torte as my basis and done a couple of different variations. I got the idea form a chocolate peppermint torte I did a couple of years ago. I've made a gingerbread crust and then did a mix of milk chocolate and bittersweet for the ganache. It was good but really rich and heavy. I tried a new recipe -- this one has a layer of caramel. Now, I've not had luck with making caramel in the past, so I was a bit apprehensive. But I finally got the amber color you're suppose to get! The trick, I think, is not stirring. I just let it boil away. And seeing it turn that beautiful amber color was incredibly satisfying! After adding cream and butter and getting a caramel look and taste, I mixed in some chopped nuts. On the second try I salted the caramel a bit -- I really enjoyed that taste -- and then topped it with the ganache. I got second place at my work's holiday party dessert contest!

Peruvian Cuisine

It's taken me awhile to recover from Peru. For a vacation, it was exhausting, grueling, filled with highs and lows -- literally and figuratively -- but it was worth the cold, the numbness, the illness and the exhaustion. I finally got to see Machu Pichu! One of the things I was looking forward to was the food. It did not disappoint. When I was in Lima, I got some great food suggestions, one of which was Astrid and Gaston -- a local celebrity chef restaurant. I went for lunch and it did not disappoint. Because I was in Peru, I had to have chivche. It's suppose to be eaten in the morning and lunch -- never for dinner -- because the fish is fresh. I got the mixed catch of the day. It was spicy with good texture and flavors. My main course was fish -- cooked and topped with a parsley sauce over a bed of roasted quinoia and vegetables. I ate lots of quinoa on this trip and enjoyed it immensely. But what I remember most was picking at the sauce. It was rich and reminded me of barbecue sauce. I did not have room for dessert, but they brought me out some small bites of candy -- one was chocolate the other a gummy sweet -- which honestly I didn't enjoy much. I also got some local white wine which was wonderful. It was my main meal for that day and honestly one of the few meals I completely ate. I hadn't gotten sick at this point and was still enjoying food!
I felt bad about getting sick because the chef that traveled with us hikers did some really great meals in the middle of nowhere. We always got three courses and our lunch and dinners were wonderful -- pasta, a barley risotto, fish, stewed fruit (granted, I wouldn't have eaten them anyway -- and I was too sick to eat it. I was totally passed out when they had the local feast of cuy (guinea pig) but since I'm still in my year of vegetarianism, I would have had to pass. Well, I might have made a small exception. In fact, once we hit Cusco I didn't have much of an appetite. One dinner consisted completely of an appetizer for me. But it was pretty and good. They shape mashed potatoes into little cylindars and top it with avacado, tuna, and chicken. I got two avacados instead of a chicken. Hopefully the n ext time I go to Peru, I'll be able to enjoy more of the food.