Perfect-er Perfect Ricotta

I've continued to make fresh ricotta pretty frequently using the sous vide method from Ideas in Food that I outlined in a previous post. This became even easier when I got my chamber vacuum, making it possible to vacuum-seal the bag of ingredients without messing around with having to seal a zip-top bag inside a vacuum bag. The one thing that was still bugging me was having to go through cheesecloth during production. Over the course of the past few months, I've come up with a (quite ghetto-looking) solution to this problem, so I figured I would share it here. The new method has taken my perfect ricotta and made it even perfecter...

Still My Favorite Way to Cook Corn...

Corn was on sale $1.50 per 6-pack last time I ordered groceries, so I had no choice but to order lots of corn. I was originally thinking of doing a "creamed" corn with basil (which I mentioned, among other things, in this post), but then the first issue of Lucky Peach arrived at my door, and as David Chang wrote about ramen I remembered how awesome it was making his ramen broth, and then I remembered how I had ramen broth in the freezer... and remembered the dish for which I had made it... and I instantly knew (well, instantly once all that remembering was done) what I had to make with my giant pile of corn: Roasted Sweet Summer Corn with Miso Butter, Bacon, and Roasted Onions.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned 32 a few weeks ago, and had a dinner party with friends this past weekend to celebrate. Thanks to the total awesomeness of my friends, it was an incredibly fun evening. The food didn't turn out too shabby either. A few highlights below...

Blueberry Goodness

I've been on a blueberry kick lately, pretty much ever since they were on sale at a too-good-to-pass-up price and I was reminded how awesome they are. While I enjoy just eating them on their own, my favorite thing to do with them is to make Blueberry Clafouti. The first recipe I tried was the one here, and it never gave me any reason to move on to experimenting with any other... I like to rewarm them to have with my morning coffee, or to serve with a soup of vanilla frozen yogurt as dessert. Simple, quick, and totally delicious.

Playing with a New Toy: Applewood-Smoked Scallops with Spring "Succotash" and Bacon Beurre Blanc

After months on my mental wish list, a cool new toy arrived at my door for my birthday: The Smoking Gun. I knew I wanted to play with smoking a scallop first... and thought about pairing bacon with the smokiness... and also using gorgeous spring favas and asparagus... This is what I came up with:
The Bacon Beurre Blanc broke under the heat of the smoke (I'll be tweaking that component today... update to follow), but the flavors of this dish were amazing. It was almost as though I am a genius...

Cookbook Adventures: Ricotta-Stuffed Chicken with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

So, here's the thing: I've had this cookbook for years, but on the back flap is a photo of the author. Every time I see that photo, I think to myself "Um... I don't think this is going to turn out well..."In spite of this (understandable, yeah?) trepidation, I tried his Caesar Salad recipe a few weeks back with Mindy and it rocked, so I decided to forge ahead and try another recipe that sounded great to me: Ricotta-Stuffed Chicken with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce.
It's a bit on the rustic-looking side, but it's so delicious that I don't really care. I'll admit to not following his recipe 100% (I mean... look at him! Plus, I have a sous vide obsession...), but this dish was fantastic and I will definitely make it many many many more times.

Compressed Melon and a Gorgeous Summer Salad

When I was ordering groceries last week, sale prices dictated that I had no choice but to order a watermelon. While this fruit is delicious and refreshing on its own, it also presented a fun opportunity to play with compressing fruit using my new favorite toy...The watermelon on the left is freshly cut, while that on the right has been compressed. Nothing added but pressure. Pretty cool, yeah? Which would you rather put on your fresh, beautiful summer salad?

Cryo-Blanching to Improve a Classic

If you know me at all, you have probably noticed that I have an obsession with fava beans. I can't explain it. I just love them beyond all reason. I eagerly anticipate the approach of fava bean season every year, buy a big pile of them almost every weekend when they are in season, and then mourn for a while when the season cruelly and inevitably ends...

FYI: Prosciutto Powder is Awesome

I was screwing around in the kitchen last weekend, trying to think of more fun things to do with scallops... and fava beans. I wanted to incorporate a ham-y flavor, and I had been reading a few posts of people making the ham powder from the Alinea cookbook... but I didn't have any ham. I did, however, have some prosciutto in the freezer, so I decided to see if I could make it work. Turns out it does work... And it's awesome.

A Good Use for Extra Strawberries

I found myself with a bit of a dilemma this week: I have a policy that if I buy produce and it goes bad before I eat it, I put myself on produce-buying probation (with respect to that item) for several months. (I'm pretty much not allowed to buy peaches or grapefruit ever again unless I have an immediate use planned.) Strawberries had been on sale half-price during my last grocery order, and have been so delicious lately that I ordered more than I could possibly consume. I enjoyed them on their own at breakfast and sliced up on top of Crescent Ridge vanilla frozen yogurt for dessert... and then forgot about them in the fridge until it was almost too late and I feared that I was going to end up on strawberry-buying probation. Luckily, smittenkitchen posted a recipe for Strawberry Summer Cake just as I sat down to figure out what to do with the last of my strawberries.