Jim's Night: Gnocchi, from a French point of view.

Our official menu tonight:

French Bread with garlic parsley olive oil ...and Taleggio?

Spinach Gnocchi

Baby Arugula Salad

Polenta and Roasted Squash

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with Walnut Crust

Appetizer

It's Jim's night and as usual, he has graciously provided us with appetizers, something Deb and Brian often forget.  This might be our favorite appetizer, yet. Even though Brian and I are not big fans of Brie, we LOVED a cheese that Jim bought with which looked a lot like it, called Taleggio. Wait a second... no, scratch that...I just looked up Taleggio on Wikipedia and our cheese doesn't look anything like it. Ok, so the store lied to Jim. We have no idea what cheese this is. Do you?  We love a mystery cheese, apparently. Geez, maybe it IS Brie. Maybe this is what really good quality Brie tastes like. Hmm. Anyway, besides that, Alex made us a parsley infused garlic oil dipping sauce which was perfect for baguette dipping.

Spinach Gnocchi
The recipe said it was the perfect pasta to make for beginners. "30 minutes to prepare" it promised. Ha, we say. Getting the right consistency is a nerve wracking challenge. If you knead it too much or roll it too much, it can be tough. It can be too oily, too floury. "So did you get the right texture?" I asked. "We hope so." is all they can reply.

It should be noted that "to prepare" apparently doesn't include the hour of chilling time in the middle, just the actual chopping/grating/mixing bits.  Tricky, tricky recipe!

Brian here, taking over
the blog while Deb
takes Rommy out for a walk.
 Hellooooooo, loyal readership!

Making the gnocchi
This is our biggest countertop challenge, as to roll out each piece they want us to cover a flat surface with flour and roll our little proto-gnocchi-nuggets through it.

Interestingly (to me, at least), the gnocchi balls at this stage looked like little green dessert truffles.  The first batch tasted VERY healthy...so healthy that Steps Must Be Taken.   A sprinkling of grated cheese across the top and a tomato sauce are suggested, as is just coating them in breadcrumbs and turning them into arancini, as is just plain ol' sauteeing them in butter.  The decision was to toss them in butter/olive oil/paprika/rosemary mixture, saute them, THEN toss them in an improvised sundried tomato/cream of porcini & white truffle/butter sauce (YES. I KNOW), and sprinkle pecorino cheese on top.  If Paula Deen was a vegetarian, this would've been the solution she came up with.


...And I'm okay with that.

Here we are in our action poses:

The polenta is going to be basted with the olive oil-garlic mixture also used on our bread, then broiled, cooled, and turned into nummy medallions.

Roasted Squash
There's cubed squash going into the oven, roasted with olive oil and Herbs de Provence, AS I TYPE.  (The excitement is palpable.)  When they're all cooked we'll combine them and drizzle them with a balsamic reduction, bam!  (Or, wait, that should be the French variant.  Le Bahm!)

The balsamic drizzle is an old friend at this point; your old friend with a big truck who never seems to mind when you need to move an appliance, as long as you kick in for gas and maybe a burger.  Everyone needs a drizzle like this.

While there's a slow moment I'll take this time to grade our "mise en place" tonight, which....well, we're able to mostly contain the prepping to the kitchen.  Not exactly Michelin standards, but we've done far, far worse. (And probably will for my meal next week.) Plus, extra points for having a flashlight in the middle of the prep area, in case of a blackout.  B+!

The polenta and gnocci recipes are from 'Cooking School Provence', by the way.  Authors: Gui Gedda and Marie-Pierre Moine.  The squash is a Supper Club Original, and was kept in the oven just long enough to become crispy and caramelized.


Baby Arugula Salad

Arugula, like rising sea levels, happens.  (Is that negative, you ask?  Not if you're a whale, it's not.  An arugula-eating whale. Yes.)  If the salad is the star of your meal, Jim avers, you've either done something wrong or you're having a meal of nothing but salad.  We'll have a parsley-parmesan dressing with it.  We have some grated carrots for it, some cucumbers, and some CSA Mystery Mixed Greens. (They're green, local and organic...what, you want names, too?  

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with Walnut Crust
There's been a little confusion with the sour cream topping for the cheesecake--the directions call for it to be poured/brushed across the top, then put in the oven for just 5 minutes.  As far as we can tell, the 5 minutes did noooothing....it was a delicious schmear of glop when we put it in, and it's a delicious schmear now.

('Delicious Schmear' is also the stage name of a Tel Aviv stripper, btw.)

This recipe was found on FoodandWine.com

To our surprise, as the cheesecake cools it sinks a little in the middle, souffle-style. It's not that attractive looking in this photo, but 3 out of 4 cooks loved it.

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Jim
Appetizer	B I thought it was great, but hard to good grades to things that you had no hand in cooking.	A Delicious and a cheese that would make you proud to be in a cave in Italy	B+ Good bread. Totally loved the mystery cheese and the garllic oil infusion was excellent. But the oil was all we made	A Good bread, excellent cheese...whatever it was
Polenta	B  I feel like I learned a lot about polenta. It's really easy to make and broiling it gave it crispness. Lots of potential with this recipe.	A-  Without the cheese it would have been not as good. Cheese=goodness	A- I thought it was awesome, but it needed a sauce...some mushroom.	B I thought it needed something. Maybe more balsamic drizzle.
Spinach Gnocchi	B-  I think I learned a lot about it. You have to make it delicious before you boil the balls. We should have added more salt.	A  We went through a lot of hoops for this. We went a few miles off course from what the recipe called for (out of necessity. to make it tasty)	B+ They were so damn healthy until we sauteed in butter and drenched in cheese. I feel like we could make these and put them in tomato sauce and they would be delicious.	C- As "gnocchi" they were a dismal leaden failure. As "Spinach meatballs" they might have had some potential. But this recipe needed a lot of help.
Roasted Butternut Squash	A-   On the whole, it was great, but we still have room for improvement. The flavors were good, but safe.	A   Surprising what a high point it was considering how easy it was.	A-  They were good, but we have had this dish before. Very healthy, though. Just squash and balsamic vinegar!	A   Delicious.
Cheesecake	A  Really good. Flavor, texture perfect, presentation just ok	A Really tasty. Only reason it's not an A+ is that it was missing caramel or chocolate on top.	B-  I don't get the love. To me, it tasted like a vegan cheesecake, but it wasn't! All the fat and cholesterol for a vegan flavor? Odd.	A+  Strawberry coulis would have made it better. The sour cream might not be necessary.

Farscape, Season 1, Episode 21: Bone to be Wild. 

Brian: There was actually a lot more plot advanced than I expected there to be. It started off with a Monster of the Week sort of feel.

Deb: I loved it, especially the bonding between Aeryn and the Leviathans.

Alex: I liked the "who's the bad guy feel".

Jim: I liked it. I hope we meet Imle again. 

Farscape: Season 1, Episode 22: Bad Timing.

Deb's Night: Stations of the Place

One of Deb's seven stations!

Any time you go to a cooking night, and Deb says "here are the seven phases of this meal" and she's written each one out by hand on a separate piece of paper, you expect it's going to be good.  It's like there are different stations...stations of the [mise en] place.  Yesssss punnnsszzz.

Uncooked bread with onions.

Rosemary Onion Focacia!

We're using the recipe from Artisan Bread in 20 minutes a Day or Less.  The trick is that you don't have to knead the dough, and that you have to fill the oven with steam as you bake the bread.  Deb read that we cook the bread for five minutes, which seemed incredibly surprising to me, but Deb baked us delicious focacia before.  Well, it was 25 minutes.  But it was pretty good!

The Baked Focaccia! 

Jim with unbaked cookies.

Polenta Almond Cherry Cookies! 
With maple syrup as the sweetener and coconut oil as the fat.  Gotta love the vegans.  Quick-cooking polenta, rice flour and almond meal.  Take that, gluten.  Jim made them, and was shocked by the dryness of the dough - the only liquid came from the coconut oil, which is solid at room temperature.  Yum, saturated fat.

Cookies, in their cooked glory.

Sauteeing was great for the fake meat.

Steak Sandwiches! 
A foreman grill plus fake meat and horseradish dressing.  Not to mention fresh watercress to go on top.  Nothing says manly steak sandwich like fresh baby watercress.  I feel bad for dissing the gluten, earlier, since we're relying on it for our protein...and...uh...the bread.  We're still trying to figure out how to make it not taste like a gummy mess, but I think that might just be gluten getting back at us for being so snarky in the above paragraph.  :-(  We grilled it on the foreman, but that didn't quite cut it, so we're trying to sautee it and see if we can induce a more delicious texture.

We also made a mayonnaise horseradish sauce, with a little agave and some salt and pepper.  Simple, but pretty effective...


Tapioca pudding! 
Tapioca, coconut milk and agave nectar for sweetness.  He's making it on the stovetop, and it's looking dangerously bubble-over-y.  As it turns out, Bri did the whole 'accidentally add twice as much tapioca to liquid' trick!  We attempted a rescue by adding more liquid to the pudding, and that liquid was pineapple juice.  A food chemist might know if there is some sort of acid in the pineapple that would prevent tapioca strands forming, but we're much more in favor of just throwing caution to the wind.  But that's what our backup dessert is for anyway, right?  Speaking of which, hey, we have leftover cherries.  Into the pudding they go!  We used pearled tapioca, which gives it a pretty groovy "thing from outer space" look once it's cooked.

Attack of the killer tapioca.  Watch yourself, Internet.

Don't forget the taters.

Corn Chowder! 
 Deb is making corn chowder, vegan style.  Her current cookbook guru says that you should head up the pan, then add salt, then add oil, which is pretty much the opposite of how we normally roll.  We added some mirepoix, and a chipotle pepper which came in a can of adobo sauce.  Meanwhile, we're broiling some corn in the toaster oven to give it that toasty browned goodness.  We made cashew cream, which was soaked cashews that were food processed.  It was a little grainy, so we strained out the gritty bits, but aside from the oil, that's the only fat in this one.

Deb's vegan meal, ruined by the "I can't believe it IS chicken" moment.

Salad 
This salad is mostly a delivery vehicle for a Caesar Dressing, which is a blend of capers, garlic, nutritional yeast, miso, fake mayonnaise, water, olive oil and agave.  Those vegans, they just put the agave in everything!

All together.  We spread the horseradish sauce on the focaccia first, then the
'meat' and the veggies.  Watercress, red onions and red peppers.

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Jim
Soup	C+  I’ve had way better corn chowder.  The corn could have been fresher, and the flavor was just OK.	C+  It was too hot for me and it stuck on and the corn we used could have been better.  Fresh corn would have made it go up.	“I’m really full now...”  A solid B.  You could serve it to your mama.	B  I really liked the spice from the chipotle.
Salad	B  Fun dressing, but nothing else distinguishing.	B  It’s an eh salad with a great dressing.	A-  I loved the dressing...but it wasn’t very healthy.	The dressing was awesome (A).  The salad was just a delivery vehicle.
Sandwich	B+  The bread could have risen a little more - it wasn’t perfect for a sandwich.  The sauce was great, but the innards didn’t blow me away.	A  It’s only the rookie mistakes with the seitan and focacia cooking time that keeps it from an A+.	Oh my God, A fucking plus.  I looooved that sandwich.	I give it a solid A.  Shocked at how good it was!  Awesome focaccia, sauce was amazing, and the stuff was just fine.  Red onions!  Zing!
Cookies	B+  I think the coconut oil was amazing.  It was rich and had an interesting texture, and the cherries were lovely.  Gluten would have been great, though...	C+  The coconut oil reminded me of a girl scout cookie (in a good way).  The grainy cornmeal texture reminded me of cream of wheat in a bad way.	I really wasn’t in the mood to eat them...they didn’t strike me as being perfect.  I got a weird aftertaste...?  I have to wait until I’m hungry again.	B+  I like the texture, I could live without the crunchiness that persists after you’ve eaten it, and I thought the taste was pretty darn good.  And no liquid at all!  (Bri:  It was the greatest cracker I’ve ever eaten...)
Pudding	D-  Pineapples and cherries alone would have been better.  Poor, unloved tapioca.	The pudding curse continues.  Rarely has there been such a dessert...in a bowl...in front of me.  D	Full Deb is full.	F.  The consistency was horrible.  I like pineapple and cherries, but otherwise.  The taste wasn’t very good for the pudding itself.

Alex's Night: Spinach Custard and Mushroom Pate Sushi

Tonight's Deep Space menu continues our collective assault on the world of pudding which did us so wrong a few weeks ago. Having broken the pudding curse last week and yet still consumed by thoughts of vengeance, Alex wanted to continue the attack on congealed food by attempting a custard. 

The other portions of tonight's menu were inspired by a variety of sources: the happenstance of leftover pate, casual leafing through Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for ideas, and Jim's desire for ice cream sandwiches.

Alex's menu evolved into:

Egg and Spinach Custard
Bittman's Yogurt Biscuits
Mushroom Pate Sushi
Snickerdoodles and Cherry-Strawberry Ice Cream Sandwiches

Biscuits
It was one of our easier menus to prep. The biscuits were particularly easy; I know, because, luckily, that job fell to me- only 5 ingredients. I had a fun time rolling them out...I used one of Jim's handmade, fragile tea mugs to cut out the shape, which was probably all kinds of blasphemy to the long and venerable tea ceremony tradition of Japan, but it worked perfectly.  The only problem I had was that I rolled the dough too thin, so I had extra dough left over at the end. I cut out a few more circles and made some double-decker muffins, which is why some came out looking like the muffins on the left here:

Overall, the biscuits were tasty, but I think I worked the dough a bit too much. They were a little on the dense side, when they should have been light and flaky.

Custard
While I was working on the muffins, Alex and Jim were making the custard and sushi. The custard was interesting to see prepared: Jim lined the ramekins with spinach and after the custard was poured in, he folded over the tops of the spinach, thus creating the walls and floor of the custard.


Bittman told us it takes courage to take a custard out of the oven, because you'll think they're undone, but if you wait until they look done, then they will be overcooked.  So if you think they're undone, --they're done! That's what I said to Alex and, courageously, he took them out of the oven. Unfortunately...they probably needed a few more minutes. The custards kept their shape quite well when we upended them out of their ramekins, but the insides were runny. We stand at 1 win 2 losses in the battle for tasty congealed food.


Sushi
That's "sushi", of course--there is no fish in our vegetarian cooking club. Instead we wrapped mushroom pate in long cucumber slices. It gave us an excuse to practice our artistic presentation skills. We painstakingly knotted carrot ties around cucumber rolls that were spread with mushroom pate. I felt like a real chef for a few minutes there.


Unfortunately, from a taste point of view, this texture combination of mushy interior with cold exterior was not delectable. The mushroom pate had a really strong flavor and needed something stronger to pair with it.

Here is what dinner looked like overall: a double decker Yogurt Biscut, an Egg and Spinach Custard and Mushroom Pate Sushi.








Dessert
Dessert was the real star of this meal. The snickerdoodle cookies turned out perfectly since we let the former baker from Charlottesville, VA- Brian- make those.  They came out just the way they used to look at the Rising Sun Bakery, back in the day.

Alex, who has always had a fondness for fruity ice cream, made some delicious cherry/strawberry ice cream before we arrived tonight. Apparently, it was made with ricotta! Someday, I'll have to get the recipe from him.  I thought both the cookies and ice cream were excellent and happily had two of the sandwiches. I'm not sure I would make them like that again, though. I really wanted something like a chocolate mint ice cream in between these cookies. These were much healthier than that, though.

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Jim
Mushroom tofu pate rolls	B Good job with presentation, but the cucumber and pate weren't a perfect match.	B+ For our first time, it was really tasty.	C+ Fun to make, but kind of cold. The pate would have been awesome on bread.	B+ Would have been better if the wrapper was prosciutto rather than cucumber.
Yogurt Biscuits	B Flavor was ok. Texture was a little off.	A- Very tasty. Did everything a biscuit should do.	B+ A little too yogurty tasting.	B- Wasn't flaky, but the taste was good.
Spinach Wrapped Savory Custard	C- I ate the whole thing. Has potential, but it was soggy.	C It got spinach into my body and spinach has lots of nutrients so I am healthier as a result.	C Spinach pieces were large and we should have cooked it longer (too much courage!).	D It looked good, but it wasn't that good. Mine was very undercooked.
Snickerdoodle Ice Cream Sandwiches	B Ice cream had a very fresh flavor and the snickerdoodles were buttery and had a great texture, but altogether it was just ok.	A- Cookies could have been flatter, but it held together and was tasty.	A I would each element again, but maybe not combine them together again.	A I thought it was great. Who would have thought that you can make an ice cream type of thing out of ricotta.

Farscape

S01E13, "Rhapsody in Blue"
S01E14, "Jeremiah Crighton"

Deb: "Both episodes were pretty stupid, weren't they."
Bri: "Filler episodes are painful.  It felt like a script for Deep Space 9 with the names changed."
Jim: "Blue people and Space Hawaiians - what's not to love?  Well, these two episodes."
Alex: "I like episodes where three months pass and there are no flashbacks.  Nevertheless..."

Deb's Night: DIY Quiche

Do it yourself quiches! Deb was kind enough to chop up a million vegetables for us before we came, and even prepared a loaf of "real French bread" to be baked. And it's our inaugural blog post! Alex (me) is writing up the post, and somehow, we'll try to also watch our beloved trashy sci-fi (Farscape, this week) and eat, while writing the blog entry.

Bread

Deb had prepared a loaf of bread that was touted to be "really French", whatever that means! It was fun to watch the beautiful loaf get moved, and turn dramatically less beautiful, but the bread turned out just fine in the end. This recipe differs from the artisan bread style that I've used, as the dough was super dry, and there was no gluten cloak or steamed oven or anything like that. We finished the dough with an egg wash, which gives it a nice sheen. The interior wasn't super moist, but was warm and delicious! Deb was disappointed with the crust, but then again, after eating all of the quiche ingredients, she wasn't hungry and can't really be trusted!

Salad

Ok, our salad was actually pretty boring, because we put all of our chopped vegetables into the quiche instead of the salad! Whoops! It's alright though, because we had some adventurous dressing experiences. Deb has this goofy collection of really flavorful vinegars, and we made a "spicy pecan" vinaigrette, which was a freaking disaster. We replaced it with a regular balsamic (with some parmesan added in) and it turned out just fine. And it goes great with a slice of fresh-baked bread!




Quiche

For the quiche, we started with a cornflake-butter crust, made with goofy Whole Foods cornflakes that looked like they were giving dirty looks to the Kellogg's cornflakes...It called for a short prebaking, and we dry-sauteed onions and mushrooms to add to our quiche. Since it was DIY, we each picked our own style. I added a ton of chard and cheese to mine, Brian went for a few red peppers, and with Jim, had some bacon inside too. Deb I think was going into 'dairy-averse' mode, and did more veggies than I did, if that was possible!

It took us a little while to cook the quiche - maybe 35 minutes - and we weren't super careful about keeping the egg amounts the same in each quiche, but it looks like things turned out OK! Well, the small ones finished first, but they look beautiful!


This one is Jim's quiche - arugula, corn, Jarlsberg, mushrooms, onions, bacon, faux-sausage and chives. It looks pretty delicious! Mine was a little too overcooked, I thought. I feel like quiche is supposed to be creamy, but mine was definitely not creamy. Maybe not enough cheese, they say...each quiche had its own flavor, though, so I probably can't judge everyone else's.

Pudding

So, in cooking club, we've had some problems with puddings. Jim found this cornstarch heavy chocolate pudding from a friend, and it definitely worked! We fortified with chocolate chips and vanilla, and it was thickening even on the stove. Maybe that's the secret - lots and lots of starch. In the past, we tried to add agar too, and man, that can give you a gross texture.

The pudding was rich, and pretty creamy. Definitely had a good texture. I thought the flavor was pretty good, but the complete absence of spices was a little bland. I'll give Jim points for a beautiful picture though. Take a look at that vanilla bean! Sometime, we have to try cooking with them, too!

Final Thoughts

Well, there was a lot of waiting in this meal! Different cooking times for quiches, a late arrival, a post-9:30 entree starting time. That's the price you pay for a fancypants home cooked dinner...when you start at like 7. Oops.

Farscape Episodes

Deb: "I'm really glad we don't have to watch those again."
Bri: "So much better than Star Trek. Even a bad episode is so much better than Star Trek."
Jim: "Each episode had a great guest actor, but neither episode thrilled me until 'I love you D'argo'"
Alex: "They almost died, but then they didn't. I was shocked!"

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Jim
Salad	C+ Dressing was alright, and I love arugula, but nothing was special about it.	B+ Good blend of fixings	B Needed more stuff. Beans would have been good.	A My mix of ingredients was just right and dressing was quite tasty.
Bread	B It’s hard to give fresh bread a bad rating. Who cares where it comes from!	A- Delicious Italian bread for anyone expecting Italian bread it was a treat.	B Bland and not crispy. That was not French Bread.	A- I’m glad it wasn’t French bread.
Quiche	C- My quiche had a crappy texture and just an ok flavor. Jim thinks I mixed it too much.	B+ Fixings make the quiche.	C “Not sophisticated at all.”	A- Bacon.
Pudding	B Plain jane chocolate pudding. It worked! But it didn’t sing to me.	A+ Well, for supper club. B It was thick, it had a skin on top. It was a functional basic pudding. Bill Cosby might have been enthusiastic.	B+ “Needed alcohol or something - something different in the taste”	B It was a good basic pudding but we could have bammed it up.