Mrs. O'Callaghan's Soda Bread

Bon Appetit's piece, "A Slice of Ireland" really lured me in this month with its luxurious spread on the Irish countryside and the enticing food found there.

Bon Appetit/Mrs. O'Callaghan's version**:

**Updated: Just realized that this photograph is actually NOT Mrs. O'Callaghan's version, but brown bread from Avoca in Dublin. Oooops. Sorry. (This explains a lot.)

our version:

I loved the first picture of the thick, grainy soda bread, which spanned two pages and then the one of Mrs. O'Callaghan herself.

She totally reminds me of my grandma--also Irish, also doesn't read this blog.

(above two photos by Andrew Hetherington)

When it came down to us making soda bread, we tried to keep things similarly dreamy.

This bread was super simple--no yeast or rising-time necessary. But since we had whole wheat pastry flour on hand, we used that instead of regular whole wheat flour, and we think that made the difference when it came to the appearance of ours vs. Mrs. O'Callaghan's--O'Callaghan's appearing decidedly more rustic.

Oh and speaking of Mrs. O'Callaghan and in the spirit of old-school Bon Appetempt...

Ingredients
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
3 cups all purpose flour
3 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) chilled margarine or butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 cups buttermilk

Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°F. Spray heavy baking sheet with nonstick spray. Whisk both flours, sugar, and baking soda in medium bowl to blend. Add margarine and cut in until margarine is reduced to pea-size pieces. Add buttermilk; stir until shaggy dough forms. Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Knead until dough comes together, about 10 turns. Shape dough into 7-inch round. Place dough on prepared baking sheet. Cut large X, 1/2 inch deep, in top of dough.

Bake bread until deep brown and bottom sounds hollow when firmly tapped, about 40 minutes. Transfer bread to rack and cool completely.

Ina Garten's Raspberry Cheesecake

I've noticed that a lot of people are talking about why they cook. I first noticed this back in November when I read Adam Gopnik's piece in The New Yorker, What's the Recipe?. I wanted to mention it a while ago, but realized that I didn't really know how I felt about it. He seemed to come to a kind of cynical conclusion on what we get out of cookbooks: "We reanimate our passions by imagining the possibilities, and the act of wanting ends up mattering more than the fact of getting. It’s not the false hope that it will turn out right that makes us go on with our reading but our being resigned to the knowledge that it won’t ever, quite." Back in November was pre-my minor announcement (that I've kind of fallen in love with most things culinary) and I think I sort of liked that Gopnik was getting all grumpy about failed attempts at recipes: "Anyone who cooks knows that it is in following recipes that one first learns the anticlimax of the actual, the perpetual disappointment of the thing achieved."

But then, as we all now know, I've sort of turned a corner and started to embrace the misadventures, the complexity, and even the often called for gadgetry of certain recipes. Speaking of gadgetry, I went to Surfas this past week and got me a springform pan so now I can finally join in on all fun recipes I'd been missing out on. Like, say, Ina Garten's raspberry cheesecake for example.

Lady Ina's version:

our version:

Then, a few weeks ago, I was on Ruth Reichl's website and read an entry titled, On Cookbooks, which began, "Rereading Adam Gopnik's New Yorker piece on cookbooks made me mad all over again... Before asking why we read cookbooks, we need to question why we cook in the first place." (At this point, you may want to click over to the entry because I'm about to copy and paste a big chunk of it anyway.) Ruth goes on to describe quite beautifully why she cooks:

For me one of the great pleasures of cooking is that nothing ever turns out the same way twice. Each time you walk into the kitchen you are setting off on an adventure. What will it be like this time? Will it make people happy?

And that, to me at least, is the crucial question. Gopnik seems to cook for himself; for him it is an act of wanting. I cook for other people, and to me, cooking is an act of giving. When I leaf through cookbooks or magazines I am imagining all the people who will be sitting around my table, and I am looking for food that will make them happy.

In the end it is their pleasure that will take me back to the kitchen for the next experiment. I love the physical act of cooking - the feel of the knife as it slices through the apples, the scent of the onions as they caramelize in butter, the moment when the cake comes sashaying out of the oven. But more than that, I love to watch as everybody takes the first bite, and then, hurriedly, another. And another.

Blame it on my slight obsession with Ms. Reichl, but I like her thought process and conclusion best.

Things came full circle when I happened upon Michael Ruhlman's blog entry on why he cooks, which was finally straightforward enough to get me thinking about why I cook instead of thinking about how much I like reading the aforementioned pieces. (Rulhman actually out and out asks bloggers to write about why they cook.)

So, apart from my love of taking aerial food shots, why do I cook?

Well, first and foremost, I cook because I love to eat. That one is easy. And I wish I could copy Ruth and say that the second reason was to make people happy, but that's not really a main objective for me. I mean, I'm just not confident enough of a cook to derive too much pleasure from cooking for people that aren't Matt. With that said, I would have to say the other main reason I cook is for the sense of accomplishment, the pleasure in the finished product, which of course increases with the difficulty level of the recipe. This is kinda obvious/how this blog got started in the first place, no?

And while I'm talking about why I cook, I should mention that Matt made this cheesecake. And it was insane--the creamiest cheesecake I've ever had I think. And Ina is right, it doesn't crack on the top so that you can serve it plain, though, as Ina would say and in fact does say in the book version of the recipe: "The fresh raspberries are so delicious on top, though, why would you want to?" (For some more fun with Ina-esque catchphrases, click here. And much thanks to Heather for leading me to these great works of video montage.)

RECIPE:
For the crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (10 crackers)
1 tablespoon sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
2 1/2 pounds cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
5 whole extra-large eggs, at room temperature
2 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the topping:
1 cup red jelly (not jam), such as currant, raspberry, or strawberry
3 half-pints fresh raspberries

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

To make the crust, combine the graham crackers, sugar, and melted butter until moistened. Pour into a 9-inch springform pan. With your hands, press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan and about 1-inch up the sides. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool to room temperature.

Raise the oven temperature to 450 degrees F.

To make the filling, cream the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed of the mixer to medium and add the eggs and egg yolks, 2 at a time, mixing well. Scrape down the bowl and beater, as necessary. With the mixer on low, add the sour cream, lemon zest, and vanilla. Mix thoroughly and pour into the cooled crust.

Bake for 15 minutes. Turn the oven temperature down to 225 degrees F and bake for another 1 hour and 15 minutes. Turn the oven off and open the door wide. The cake will not be completely set in the center. Allow the cake to sit in the oven with the door open for 30 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven and allow it to sit at room temperature for another 2 to 3 hours, until completely cooled. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the cake from the springform pan by carefully running a hot knife around the outside of the cake. Leave the cake on the bottom of the springform pan for serving.

To make the topping, melt the jelly in a small pan over low heat. In a bowl, toss the raspberries and the warm jelly gently until well mixed. Arrange the berries on top of the cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Note: Measure your springform pan. The bottom of mine measures 9 inches, but it says 9 1/2. I put the springform pan on a sheet pan before putting it in the oven to catch any leaks.

butternut squash soup & culinary freedom due to banana stuff

Remember the recent post when I went on and on about how I needed a picture to be inspired to cook something? Well, a friend of mine told me about this curious butternut squash soup by Ina Garten with toppings that included but were not limited to: diced bananas, coconut flakes, and scallions. For some reason, without a beautiful photograph of the finished soup to taunt me, I kept thinking about those diced bananas. Diced what, Ina? On butternut squash soup? How bad can that be?

I took a look at the recipe and realized it was a curry-inspired version of the soup, which while gave more sense to the condiment selection, also increased my desire to make it. But alas, that left me with no "their version" photo and I couldn't just make the soup like a normal non-attempt meal, could I? That wouldn't be fair to the world--the world that needs this food blog, right? (I'm sorry, Conan. That was cynical.) So, I thought about it and came to the decision that Ina Garten with her Martha-Stewarty-but-in-a-much-more-approachable-way lifestyle and beautiful Hampton's kitchen was inspiration enough.

Ina's version(?):

our version:

As it turns out, throwing out the one mainstay element of this blog proved extremely freeing for me. All it took was Matt and I accidentally eating both of the bananas we'd bought for the recipe during breakfast for me to forgo the entire curried nature of the recipe. (We ate at separate times. Who ate the second banana? We don't know. Is this like reverse Gift of the Magi?) And what resulted was a butternut squash soup inspired by Ina's recipe, but with a heavy dose of Bon Appetempt improvisation (read: half and half).

Ina's soup was essentially three ingredients: b-nut squash, yellow onion, and apple. And they were all roasted together, the smell of which was supremely autumnal and lovely.

After the roasting, we blended with chicken stock, watched the U.S.A Men's curling team blow it, and then poured the mixture into a thick-bottomed stock pot.

At this point, Ina would have you heat it up, serve into bowls and add the weird stuff on top, but might I recommend adding some half and half first? I think it really mellowed the squash and apple flavors while making it a little richer. Also, don't go light on the salt here. To serve, we skipped the banana and coconut, but went for the scallions and toasted cashews.

Thanks, Ms. Garten!

RECIPE:

Ingredients 
3 to 4 pounds butternut squash, peeled and seeded
2 yellow onions
2 McIntosh apples, peeled and cored
3 tablespoons good olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 to 4 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
1/2 teaspoon good curry powder

Condiments for serving:
Scallions, white and green parts, trimmed and sliced diagonally
Flaked sweetened coconut, lightly toasted
Roasted salted cashews, toasted and chopped
Diced banana

Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the butternut squash, onions, and apples into 1-inch cubes. Place them on a sheet pan and toss them with the olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Divide the squash mixture between 2 sheet pans and spread in a single layer. Roast for 35 to 45 minutes, tossing occasionally, until very tender.

Meanwhile, heat the chicken stock to a simmer. When the vegetables are done, put them through a food mill fitted with the medium blade. (Alternatively, you can place the roasted vegetables in batches in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add some of the chicken stock and coarsely puree.) When all of the vegetables are processed, place them in a large pot and add enough chicken stock to make a thick soup. Add the curry powder (OR some half and half?), 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Taste for seasonings to be sure there's enough salt and pepper to bring out the curry flavor. Reheat and serve hot with condiments either on the side or on top of each serving.