The Al Dente Accountant

With my first foray into apples I wanted to do something decidedly different. The pies, ciders, crisps and other delicious treats can wait till later. To begin I wanted to go in a totally new direction and use the apple in a savory application. The result? Homemade turkey apple sausage (or meatballs, more on that in a moment) with an apple chutney and nutmeg roasted potatoes.

Ingredients
1 pound of ground turkey
3 apples (any except Granny Smith or Golden Delicious) diced
1 large white onion
1 pound of boiler potatoes, quartered

Honey
Dijon mustard
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
salt
pepper
garlic powder
thyme

1) In a bowl mix the potatoes with 1 tbsp of nutmeg, 1 tsp of cinnamon, 1 tsp of garlic powder,1/2 tsp of thyme, salt, and pepper. Toss to combine well. Transfer the potatoes to a cookie sheet lined with tinfoil (to make clean up easier) and baked at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Ten minutes into the cooking time, open the oven and turn over all the potatoes so that they cook evenly.

2) Meanwhile, in a bowl mix the ground turkey, half of the diced apple, and half of the onion diced. Mixing well is important in order to spread the ingredients out. Add in 2 tbsp of mustard and 1 tbsp of honey. Continue to mix while sprinkling in 2 tsp of nutmeg, 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1 tsp of thyme.

3) Form the mixture into golf ball sized meatballs or links slightly thicker and shorter than a hot dog. Pan fry them for 3 minutes on each side in oil in pan over medium high heat, then transfer them to the over at 375 degrees. Let cook for another 20 minutes. Remove and serve.

4) As the sausage cooks, in a saute pan sweat the remainder of the onion and the apple with a little melted butter. Once the onion begins to get translucent, add in 1 tsp of honey and 1 tsp of mustard. Keep the heat low. After about 5 minutes turn the heat up a bit and add in 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar to de-glaze the pan, scraping all the bits off the bottom. Reduce the heat to a simmer and let all the flavors blend together. After testing, add in more honey or a bit of sugar to accommodate your desired level of sweetness.

In this recipe I did not put egg in with the sausage. The mixture was moist enough to hold up and stay together without it.

The sausages can either be made in a the more familiar oval shape or as a meatball. In fact, you could make them as a patty and make some sort of sandwich or burger with them. I have not tried this, but the results probably would be tasty.

I wanted the recipe to be a little lighter. Its certainly inspired by some of the great German cuisine that is so famous for sausage and potato dishes that combine sweet and tart flavor profiles so well. Because of that, I went with the chutney instead of some sort of pan sauce or gravy. I had been toying with an apple nutmeg gravy to tie it all together, but in the end it just made the dish too heavy.

As a bonus, when the potatoes go in the oven, take another apple and score the top and bottom of it like a baked potato. Place it in the oven and leave it there all the way through the potatoes and sausage cooking. Then remove and slice open after it cools a bit. You’ll have a wonderful baked apple to enjoy as the ending note for this terrific apple inspired meal.

—Keep Cooking

The change of season to Fall is always a wonderful time of year. For those of us living in the Northeastern part of the United States its the one time of the year when we can actually gloat to the people living in the constant fun and sun of California and the southern states about the weather. Its cool but not frigid, and the turning of the leaves and last bits of life that nature displays before the cold winter are a tremendous sight to behold.

For cooks everywhere, changes are also taking place. The grills and bbqs are winding down for the most part, and the harvest of a new years worth of crops signals another turnover of products and goods at our local grocers. Chief among these renewed resources are apples! A favorite past-time of mine is apple picking at least once or twice before the snows begin to come. There are very few joys better than spotting the perfect apple dangling from a tree, plucking it, wiping it off against your sweater in an entirely cosmetic and in no way useful manner, and then taking a bite. The slightly tart initial taste soon gives way to a supple sweet flavor as you reach the juices near the center. In these moments you can really sense the change in the landscape, almost as much as watching the oranges and reds of the leaves as they begin to fall.

With all the apples lying around the kitchen I’ve been moved to integrate them into some new and old recipes. Stay tuned for a couple classic applications, and one or two that you might not have ever seen.

–Keep Cooking

It seems to me an awful shame that seafood has so many prohibitive costs for many areas of this country. Whether its just the overall expense of buying enough seafood for a family, the poor quality because of the need for pre-frozen fish that has traveled hundreds if not thousands of miles from its destination to the market. Luckily, being only one person I find it a little easier to buy seafood, but even then its only from time to time. This past week seafood prices at the local mega-mart finally dropped to “college kids can afford this” prices, so aside from the shrimp that I snatched up and cooked earlier, I grabbed a few pieces of tilapia too.

photo by al dente accountant

Tilapia is a basic white fish and one of my favorites. Its got a very clean and light flavor, not “fishy” in any way. Its great for anyone who is just learning to work with/eat seafood. Its very versatile and responds to almost any cooking method. In fact, its among the better fish to fry with if you are trying to make fish and chips. The goal with this recipe was to make a realy light and flavorful dish that was comforting,  but at the same time wouldn’t weigh you down leaving you feeling lethargic.

Ingredients
1/2 pound tilapia filets
1/3 cup white wine
1 tbsp stone ground mustard
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp of butter (unsalted)
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 tbsp grated pecorino Romano cheese
handful of fresh parsley
Salt, pepper, and olive oil

1. In a bowl combine the the cheese, breadcrumbs and garlic powder, along with a little salt and pepper.
2. Lay the tilapia filets down on a baking pan that has been lightly lubed with olive oil. Sprinkle half of the cheese and breadcrumb mixture on top of each filet pressing down so it sicks.
3. Next pour the white wine, minced garlic and ground mustard around the filets, do not pour on top. Mix the liquids together slightly before adding to the baking pan.
4. Cover the baking pan with tin foil and cut two small slits in the foil to help steam release.
5. Cook in oven at 375 for 10 minutes. Remove foil, and cook for 5 minutes under broiler on “low”. Place 1/2 tbsp of butter on each filet before turning on the broiler.
6. Remove and serve over pasta or rice. Serves two people.

Some might question why the wine and mustard isn’t being poured directly over the filets. The reason being that I don’t want the flavors to overwhelm the fish, instead I’m using the steam pocket created by the aluminum foil to take the flavors from all the other ingredients and instill them into the fish. This also keeps the fish light, flaky, and moist.

Nothing improves a boring or bad day then a leisure stroll through the super-market. Today’s journey yielded the following recipe. Enjoy

Ingredients:
10 peeled uncooked shrimp
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp Chipolte Tabasco sauce
1 tbsp Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup Red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp Honey

Directions:

1. Peel and de-vein (if needed) shrimp and place in a bowl. Meanwhile, in a frying pan melt the butter and heat the olive oil over medium low heat.
2. In a bowl, mix together the Tabasco sauce, Dijon mustard, vinegar and honey. Slowly drizzle in olive oil and stir constantly, creating an emulsion. This technique is exactly the same one you would use to make a salad dressing or vinaigrette.
3. Place the shrimp into the hot pan. There will be a lot of sizzling and searing, but the shrimp should not burn. After about 1.5 minutes, flip the shrimp over and cook the other side. Just after the othe side is finished, remove the pan from the heat, pour the dressing over the shrimp and toss to coat in the pan. Remove to a bowl and serve.

These shrimp are great with a little rice. The rice will soak up some of the excess dressing. Serve as an appetizer or part of a main course.

The cupcake might be the most perfect dessert food ever created. At its simplest form, its a personal cake. Small enough so that you don’t need to share it with anyone, and won’t need to feel guilty about eating the entire thing. At the same time, still large enough to doctor up with all manner of ingredients, fillings, and toppings.

I like to consider myself sort of a cupcake expert, because I went to public school in this country. If you attended public school you can’t probably understand what I mean. Remember in elementary school when kids would have birthdays? Mom’s would show up carrying trays and trays of cupcakes that they had baked for little Susie or Jimmy so that she/he could have all their classmates sing for them and clap. At that young age some kids didn’t even realize what  a “birthday” means. All we knew was that if we sang this little 10 second rhyme, someone would give us a cupcake. So its easy to see why kids are always so boisterous and passionate whenever they sing Happy Birthday. If someone promised you a cupcake every time you sang the pledge of allegiance, you’d be more patriotic than Uncle Sam himself. I have a summer birthday so usually I didn’t get to celebrate it in school. Yet, on the days when teachers would have the “everyone with a summer birthday can bring snacks in day” I asked my mom to bring in Jell-O.

Back to the cupcakes…

photo by Eric Levin/Elevin Studios

Despite its design brilliance and virtually universal love, very few establishments actually choose to specialize in the cupcake. Its an afterthought, kept at the end of the display case at many posh bakeries which are these days far more concerned about how many mocha-frappa-double half caf-green tea-soy lattes they can sell. A shame, because you can get a good cup of coffee in most places, but a good cupcake is much more difficult to find.

Luckily, for those residing in the Boston area, there is hope. A beacon of sweet confectionery deliciousness amidst the moribund background of every day pastries and baked goods. Appropriately called SWEET Cupcakes, this bakery has been praised and lauded for its spectacular creations and fantastic seasonal flavors. There are two locations in the Boston area, one in the Back Bay and another in Havard Square. Popular everyday flavors include Organic Karat, Cappuccino, and a Red Velvet cupcake which is irresistible.

Aside from the daily flavors, SWEET is constantly overhauling the menu, all the more reason to make repeat visits (as if you needed another excuse to get a cupcake). At the turn of each season they release a special set of desserts specific to the flavors and traditions of that time of year. The fall collection starts on September 22 (today!) and runs until around Thanksgiving. Highlights of the fall menu are Pumpkin, Caramel Brownie, Apple Pie, and Smore’s flavored cupcakes.

SWEET has found a way to perfectly balance all parts of the cupcake. The icings are sweet but not overpowering, and enhance rather than mask the cake portion underneath. The cake itself is moist and rich. The Red Velvet in particular is dense but not overly so and the hints of cocoa at the end of each bite finish perfectly with the cream cheese frosting.

One of my favorite parts of SWEET is that they do “mini-cupcakes”. The cupcake version of the donut munchkin if you will. Great for parties and gatherings, the mini-cupcakes are one or two bite sized morsels with all the look and flavor of their larger counterparts. If you have a birthday or special occasion, SWEET also does cakes, though they can get a little pricey after you start adding some of their intricate decorations and designs. Definitely worth every penny though if you want to impress someone.

Summer might have ended, but there are still sweet treats to be found. Ice-cream might be gone for now, but there’s always the cupcake. A better dessert you’d be hard to find.

–Keep Cooking

I spent much of the summer extolling this wonderful “accountant’s diet” I was working on fleshing out and that I had found some success with it. Fourteen pounds lost from the beginning of June through the middle of August had me feeling great and working toward getting into the type of shape I’d be comfortable with. Coming back to school recently I felt like I’d be in an equally great position to continue that lifestyle and lose some more weight.

Two things I didn’t anticipate and which both conspired to derail my newly adapted eating habits were JP Licks ice-cream, and Sweet Cupcakes. When I say derailed, I mean steamrolled. They snuck right up on me and I never had a chance.

JP Licks is a Boston based “homemade” ice-cream company. They specialize in not only making everything from scratch (something I can appreciate tremendously), but also having some very unique and special flavors. During my first and only visit so far they advertised “Tomato Basil” “Noodle” and “Avocado” ice-cream. One of the employees assured me that indeed the “tomato basil” flavor tasted just like it sounded, and no…it’s not very good. My friend, Christine, who accompanied me agreed that perhaps Avocado would have tasted good, but not the other two. Some of the charm of the place isn’t so much how great the new and exotic flavors taste, but the fact that you could go around extolling the virtues of “noodle” flavored ice-cream in the future.Everyone else might think you’re crazy, especially since JP Licks rotates new flavors all the time, so if you do find a favorite with one of their strange flavors, be warned that it might not be around wrong.

JP Licks also has many different ice-cream and coffee related drinks. While some of the flavors, like the Oreo Cake-batter that I had, will evoke similarities to Coldstone Creamery, JP Licks actually has more of a coffee shop vibe to it. Luckily without the pretense and corporate feel that Starbucks seems to carry around like a badge of honor. The ice-cream itself is sweeter than that which you’ll find either in your super-market freezer or at the local Carvel. The flavor is rich and the drop in ingredients (in my case Oreo cookies) are fresh and plentiful. The ice-cream is cold but they don’t keep it at the blisteringly freezing temperatures of super-market ice-cream which is a positive. The colder the ice-cream the less intense the flavors. That’s why products like gelato which is kept at a much higher temperature than normal ice-cream is often catagorized as having more rich and powerful flavors.

Finding a great new ice-cream shop is nice, but if there’s one thing I know of that’s better than dessert, its second dessert.

–Keep Cooking

Today was my first day for classes, I learned the following two pieces of wisdom from my professor.

1) Not paying your taxes is a felony

2) The tax code is very complex.

Thank you Grad school. One day in and already I can see this is going to be a fulfilling experience.Looking forward to the wonderful fortune cookie pearls of wisdom that await.

—Keep Cooking

It’s been awhile since I posted an actual recipe. I’ve spent so much time with angst ridden little messages about being frustrated and hungry, or lamenting about how all the cool kids love to do dishes. Enough moping! Time to get back to food.

This is an easy recipe thats incredibly versatile. Don’t worry about the ingredients I use for the most part. Think of this more as a technique which you can alter and vary to suit your tastes.

My mother taught me this recipe. It uses store purchased pizza dough. If you make your own pizza dough at home, then by all means use it, and kudos for doing so. My own attempts at pizza dough haven’t been very successful (yet) so for the moment I use a dough I buy from a fresh grocer. Some pizza parlors will also sell you dough for a small price, so you can look there as well.

Ingredients:
1 package of pizza dough
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh garlic
1 cup cooked and chopped spinach
1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup of grated pecorino Romano cheese
Olive oil

photo by al dente accountant

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Take the dough from the refrigerator and ensure that it is almost room temperature before you begin working with it. The colder it is, the less elastic it will be, and thus, harder to roll out. On a lightly floured service, knead the

dough for approximately thirty seconds.

Once kneaded, begin to roll it out using a rolling pin. The overall shape you are looking for is like an ovular-rectangle. The dough should remain about a half inch thick if not a little thicker. Next, begin to spread the ingredients onto the dough. Be sure to spread them out in an even and thin layer over the entire surface, leaving a little bit of an edge on one side of the dough. if you just pile the ingredients in the middle, then when you cut into the bread later, all the innards will be on one side and you’ll have a lot of pieces with almost no filling.

Next, fold the two ends in slightly then roll the dough over itself toward the end where you left room. Once you have it rolled over, crimp and seal the dough with your fingers. Place the bread onto a oiled or lined baking sheet. Before placing it in the oven using a sharp knife, make a few slits in the dough to help release steam.

Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 20 minutes or until the bread firms up and begins to brown. You may want to spread a thin layer of melted butter and or olive oil on top of the dough to help create a more crisp crust. Remove from the oven and let the bread sit for a minute or two. Then using a long serrated blade, slice along the bias and serve.

If you are someone who enjoys an extra crispy bread, then once it has baked, place it under the broiler for just a minute to get that extra crunch. Don’t worry if you get a few rips in the top of the dough when it rolls, since you will be cutting the slits to release steam anyway.  Depending on how big you make the slices, you can get anywhere from 6 to 10 pieces from one bread.

Like I mentioned earlier, this is about a technique, so if you prefer other veggies, then go ahead and substitute them ahead of the spinach. I’ve made this recipe with veggies, stuffed with pepperoni and cheese, and even a bbq chicken version. As with most dishes, the limit is only in your imagination and your pantry. You can also play with the ratios a bit too, (try a little hot sauce maybe?) just make sure that you don’t overfill the dough so much that its impossible to roll.

These stuffed breads are fantastic as a starter for entertaining guests, if you and your buddies need something to munch on during a game. Or, like I was last night if you’re just hungry. I always save the leftovers for breakfast or lunch the next day. And, since pizza dough usually runs you less than a dollar, you can make these all the time and it will not break your budget. Accountants love to hear stuff like that.

—Keep Cooking

Picture the following scenario.

Its late on a Sunday evening. The work week is slowing creeping up on you, but all your obligations for the day are over and you settle down onto the couch for a couple hours of pure relaxation before bed. Its the most tranquil part of the week, until you glance over and see the over-flowing sink of dirty dishes you forgot about.

In college, this scenario gets played out over and over without fail. The evening turns into a day, which stretches into a week. Soon rather than debating who is actually going to clean all those dishes, roommates everywhere argue over the identity of the strange blue mass now gestating in the sink. Things used to get so bad for my former roommate and me that we instituted a rules that uncleaned dishes would be dropped on your bed if left in the sink past midnight. Given the potential punishment, you can guess that dishes were cleaned and put away rather quickly after being used in my apartment.

In the process of trying to maintain this detente I came to realize that in fact I really enjoy doing the dishes by hand and scrubbing pots. I’ll repeat that, I enjoy doing the dishes.  To answer your question ladies, yes I’m single, but I don’t think a relationship built on washing dishes is going to work out, sorry.

Hopefully you’ll forgive me, but I’m about to wax poetic here for a moment or two (wax on…wax off….wax on…wax off). Doing dishes just happens to put me in a really calm state of mind. Its soothing really. I’m not sure if its the water, or the bubbles from the soap, but whatever it is I always feel better after clearing out the sink. I think maybe it has to do with the meticulous nature of having to wash everything by hand. With a dishwasher you just clear off your dishes then plop them in so the machine can do the rest (of course with pots and pans that’s not an option). But, when that convenience isn’t available to you, you have to take your time. Washing dishes gives me time to think, time to reflect. I retrace my steps through the meal, trying to decide how it came out, whether I would change anything. Some of my best food inspiration came while I was standing over a sudsy sink, sort of ironic I suppose.

Think of it as a time where you can let your mind wander a little. We have so very few of those instances available to us on a daily basis. Every task requires so much focus and thought that we can’t shift into neutral and focus our thoughts on reflection and improvement. We constantly are pushing ourselves from one task to another, always with an eye toward our next obligation. Doing dishes, we can break that cycle.  That’s probably the essence of why I enjoy it so much. You’re not only renewing your pots or your dishes, though it might sound cheesy, it gives you a chance to renew and refresh your soul a little bit.

Maybe next time you won’t overlook that task. Perhaps you’ll glance over at that pile of dirty dishes and see not another chore to perform, but an opportunity for you to focus on yourself and let yourself go a bit. I promise it can be just as relaxing as laying around on the couch.

—Keep Cooking

photo by al dente accountant

I have a new kitchen today.

With work long over for the summer, and my time as a graduate student just beginning, I finally moved into my new apartment for the next year. I imagine given my schedule, and the ludicrous idea I have that its possible to study for and pass the CPA exam while trying to go to graduate school full time, that the only other thing I will have time for is to cook. This means that a proper kitchen will be key.

Getting a new kitchen is like getting a new girlfriend. You have a list of everything that you want it to be, you’re absolute dream. I usually ends up falling short of your lofty and irrational expectations, but is wonderful and surprises you in many ways along the way. There’s an adjustment period where you feel it out and try to gauge exactly how its going to function. In the end, you try to take care of it the best you can and hope you don’t end up getting burned.

To be completely honest, I probably have had more trepidation about some aspects of my kitchen than I have about some aspects of my past relationship(s). Given the state of the stereotypical dorm room you can probably imagine why. Before move in I feared I would walk into the apartment to find a dilapidated little kitchen nook with a clogged sink, a stove that threatened to violate 3 different portions of the fire code, and a refrigerator that had one of those awful but completely unidentifiable stenches permanently emitting from it. Thankfully I lucked out. The only such surprise for me was a frozen pizza that the former tenant decided to leave in the freezer. I’m not going to eat it.

It might sound lame, but a new kitchen really is a big deal, but maybe not for the reasons you think. In the past I’ve said that its the chef that makes the kitchen, not the kitchen that makes the chef. Kitchens are social rallying points. Places in the house or apartment where people seem to naturally flock. Larger and newer kitchens mean more dinner parties, more guests, and more help in making big meals. Big kitchens give a chef confidence and are tremendously inviting. For a younger or more inexperienced cook, they let you spread out and express yourself. Unhampered by any sort of space constraint you can be free to focus on the food. That, and its always nice to have a decent space to chop in.

Every kitchen eventually tells the story of your life. People joke often about “what if the walls could talk” when they refer to a busy bedroom. But what if your stove cook talk? What would it say? What kind of memories do you make in the kitchen? These are all the things that run through my mind as I glance over my new kitchen, slightly excited and raring to christen it with a first meal.

I might be here only a year, but what happens in this kitchen will most definitely not stay here.

–Keep Cooking