February’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge is hosted by Foodie Chickie this month and she’s chosen Nigella Lawson as the theme. This is awesome as I recently got a Nigella Lawson cookbook. Perfect!

This is a super quick dinner (it’s from Nigella Express) and it was pretty tasty. Something about bacon drippings (or pancetta, I s’pose), wine, rosemary, white beans and tomatoes. Mmm!

Pollo alla Cacciatora
1 tbsp garlic oil
1/2 cup pancetta cubes (alternately, you can the fat from cooking 1 piece of bacon and add a clove or two of garlic)
6 scallions, finely sliced
1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
1 pound chicken thigh fillets, each cut into 4 pieces (I used breast meat)
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 cup white wine
1 (14-ounce) can chopped tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp sugar
1 (14-ounce) can cannellini beans

Nigella writes to put the garlic oil into a pan with the pancetta, sliced scallions and chopped rosemary and fry for a couple of minutes. Now, what I did is use some bacon grease I had in the freezer (instead of the pancetta), about a teaspoon and a half’s worth and sauteed the rosemary and green onions in that. I also added two minced cloves of garlic here. Worked well. But was there really any doubt? No. Not really.

Add the chicken pieces, stirring well, and sprinkle in the celery salt.

Pour in the wine and let it come to a boil before adding the tomatoes, bay leaves and sugar. Put the lid on and let everything simmer for about 20 minutes. Next, drain and add a can of cannellini beans and let it go for an additional 2-3 minutes.

Dish up, grab a spoon and nom-nom-nom-nom-nom.

Next time, I might try dredging the chicken in a little seasoned flour just to see what (if anything) that adds to it. Just because I’m like that.

Thanks again to Foodie Chickie for hosting this month’s event!

I am very pleased to announce, thanks to Sara, that I am guest hosting October’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge! Hooray! And the theme is…Halloween.

Boo!

Now, you might be thinking, hmmmm, Halloween…what can I make for that? Well, my answer is, pretty much anything — pumpkins, root vegetables, snacks for trick-or-treaters, dishes for Halloween parties, perhaps even a super-scary Sandra Lee recipe — ha! Really, anything that can be remotely tied into Halloween will work..I’m not picky.

Of course, since this is a cookbook challenge, you should try to get your recipe from a cookbook, but if you see an amazingly awesome Halloween recipe in a magazine that you really want to use for this, I’m not going to stand in your way. See? Not much pickiness.

To participate, please make a recipe and post about your dish and send your entry to mlbATjemangelavilleDOTcom by Sunday, October 21. I will plan on getting the recap up very soon after that. Thanks again to Sara for generously letting me host this month — I’m very excited. I hope everyone has fun with this challenge! Please feel free to email if you have any questions.

Libby from the local nonprofit Growing Gardens emailed me today about an event at Sub Rosa next Wednesday, June 13th. The restaurant will be donating 50%(!) of all profits that evening to Growing Gardens. I’ve posted the press release in its entirety below.

So, if you’re hungry next week and in the mood to do some good, you know where to go for dinner. You get a tasty meal, Growing Gardens get some money to continue their mission and Portland families in need get vegetable gardens and the training to keep their gardens thriving — everybody wins!

SubRosa will donate 50 percent of profits to Growing Gardens - June 13th, 2007
PORTLAND, OR – June 6, 2007– Spend an “evening with an old friend who knows you better than anybody else” (Portland Mercury), and half the proceeds will benefit Growing Gardens. “I think it’s a shame that eating nutritiously is so expensive in our community,” says SubRosa’s owner, MaryAnn Archambalt.

“That’s why I’m dedicating this night to Growing Gardens. I believe deeply in its mission to teach low-income families and folks how to grow their own healthy food. Everyone deserves to eat well.”

About SubRosa
SubRosa specializes in thin-crust, hand-tossed pizza, pasta and seasonal salads in an airy corner dining room at 2601 SE Clinton St. Fans rave about the attentive staff, community feeling and generous, flavorful dinners and desserts. Hours are 5 to 9pm weekdays.

About Growing Gardens
We plant seeds for good food and healthy people by making sure low-income people have the knowledge and resources they need to grow organic vegetables at home, improving nutrition, creating food security and deepening self-reliance. We organize hundreds of volunteers to build organic, raised bed vegetable gardens in backyards, front yards, side yards and even on balconies. We support low income households for three years with seeds, plants, classes, and mentors. Our Youth Grow after school garden clubs grow the next generation of veggie eaters and growers! Through Learn & Grow workshops and work parties, we teach gardeners all about growing, preparing and preserving healthful food while respecting the health of the environment. Through this work, community members meet over the backyard garden, through volunteering, by attending classes, and through sharing extra produce.

For more information, visit Growing Gardens.

First off, Happy Bastille Day. Second — I can’t believe that started this blog one year ago today. Let’s see, what has changed in the last year — I have a new job and uh, I guess I’m a year older but that’s not really important. What is important is– I’ve had this blog for a whole year! To celebrate the one year anniversary of Je Mange la Ville, I suggested a cake-athon. While deciding what kind of cupcakes to make, I found two recipes that intrigued me — so I made both.

Lemon cupcakes with a lemon and cream cheese frosting and chocolate stout cupcakes with an espresso cream cheese frosting. Very different flavors but both cupcakes were really good. Seriously, the best cupcakes I’ve ever made. And, the nice thing about making two kinds of cupcakes is that I made a half recipe of each and then made one full batch of cream cheese frosting, that I divided to make frosting for both types of cupcakes. See, math can be fun.

The lemon cupcakes started with a recipe for lemon cake. I had made it a couple of years ago for one of jwa’s birthdays. We both liked it a lot and I thought it would make great cupcakes. I was right.

Lemon Cupcakes
(Full recipe — this will make about 20-24 cupcakes, depending on your muffin tin size and how full you fill them. This recipe will also make a cake. If going that route, divide among 2 cake pans and bake for about 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.)
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large whole eggs, at room temperature
3 large egg yolks, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup whole milk
extra lemon zest and mint leaves for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two muffin tins (12 muffins each) with paper muffin cups. Next, in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In an electric stand mixer, using the paddle attachment or beaters, beat the butter on medium speed for about 30 seconds, or until creamy. Gradually add the sugar and increase the speed to medium-high, and continue to beat until the mixture is light, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Then, add the whole eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and lemon zest. Reduce the speed to low and gradually beat in the lemon juice.

Beat in the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk in. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for another 10 seconds. Scrape the batter into the prepared muffin tins.

Bake for 22-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack. When they are cool enough to eat, you will have a very lemony, rich, delicate tasting cupcake. And with the tangy cream cheese frosting? Wow, they are amazing.

Now, open a bottle of stout.

These next cupcakes are very rich and very moist. They also have a nice stout taste to them. So, uh, I guess if you don’t like beer, they are probably not the cupcakes for you. If you do like beer — you will love these. They’re originally from Dave Lieberman (on Food Network) and jwa and I both liked them quite a bit. A fresh raspberry or two on top looks both very visually appealing and tastes great with the chocolatey, coffee taste of the frosted cupcakes.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes
(Again, this is the full recipe — will make 24 cupcakes)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, plus more for dusting finished cupcakes
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch fine salt
1 bottle stout beer
1 stick butter, melted
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
raspberries for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt. In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, one at time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

Divide the batter equally between muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full.

Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out.

When the cupcakes are cool, it’s time to make the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
zest of 1 lemon (for lemon frosting)
1 tsp instant espresso powder (for espresso frosting)
1/2 tsp vanilla (for espresso frosting)

Beat the cream cheese with an electric mixture until lighter and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar until it’s well incorporated and the mixture is still fairly fluffy. Divide frosting into two bowls (I made a bit more of the espresso frosting, as I had 12 chocolate cupcakes and only 9 lemon ones).

To one bowl add the lemon zest and to the other, add the espresso and the vanilla. Mix each well to combine.

Now, it’s time to frost. Use a knife and spread the lemon frosting on the lemon cupcakes and the espresso frosting on the chocolate ones.

When you are done, they will almost be too pretty to eat.

But, you will manage. If it is a warm day, you might want to pop them in the refrigerator for the frosting to firm up a bit. I’ve found that a good way to do this is to place them all in a deep dish lasagna pan and then cover that wit plastic wrap. That way, the wrap doesn’t mess up the frosting, as the pan sides are taller than the cupcakes.

So, there are my amazing, celebratory, cake-athon cupcakes. Please send me your cake-athon snacks, if you feel inspired to whip up a cake or some other type of baked good this weekend! I know, I know, it’s hot — I totally understand if it’s too hot for cake baking. Also, feel free to send a previous cake post. I’d say anything you’ve posted in the last two months or so would work too. I’m not picky!

jwa has promised to make me a pineapple upside down cake this weekend, so that is nice and I’ve already gotten two other cake entries so far! I will recap the cake posts that I get on Monday.

Thank you all for reading my blog this past year and hopefully getting something out of it. For me, it’s been really fun to write and photograph my kitchen exploits. I hope to try more recipes in the coming year and document them all here!

Monday: Cake-athon round-up.

Yep, Little Big Head herself! Taking a break at work to scroll through the Powell’s calendar and I see:

Giada De Laurentiis
Thursday April, 27th, 7:00PM Powell’s Books for Home & Garden, 3723 SE Hawthorne…cool. I am a little frightened of her teeth but I like her food just fine.

Now, back to the sprouts!

Leftover cookies from the dinner — they are gone now!

So, last Wednesday was the day I made 34 cookies. I followed the basic cookie recipe here, but used 3/4 bittersweet chocolate chips (Ghirardelli 70% bittersweet) and 1/4 white chocolate chips (just for fun).

After baking them I let them cool for a few hours then wrapped them all in plastic wrap and made cookie flowers. These I tied ribbon around and put each person’s name on a piece of 2 inch by 3 inch card stock and we used them as place cards. Quite festive!

Cookie Flowers
1 roll of red cellophane
floral tape
fake leaves
floral stakes
cookies

Ahh, this I learned while working at Cookie Creations, in Glen Ellyn, IL. To start, attach leaves to each stick using floral tape. Wind the tape around over the wire to attach each leaf. You don’t have to wrap the tape all the way to the top.

Next, cut circles about triple the size of your cookies from the cellophane. Place a cookie on a circle and gather up the cellophane, wrapping and gathering it up an around a stick. Use a 4-5 inch piece of floral tape to secure the cellophane around the stick and attach the cookie to the stem. Repeat for all the cookies.

They look really nice but I’ve found that hands hurt after a couple dozen or so…

I’ve decided that my new favorite thing at Trader Joe’s is the pre-made pie crust. This stuff is actually very good — I was impressed! I used it to make dark chocolate tarts for the dinner and they were delicious and very nice looking (if I don’t say so myself). Of course, I have no photograph to collaborate this — you all will just have to take my word for it.

Easy Dark Chocolate & Orange Tart:
1 cup chilled whipping cream (reserve any remaining whipping cream to whip for a garnish)
12 ounces dark, bittersweet chocolate, chips or finely chopped (I also used Ghirardelli 70% bittersweet chocolate chips for this)
1 tbsp grated orange zest
1 prepared tart crust

Bring 1 cup cream to a simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Mix in 1 tbsp orange peel. Pour chocolate into cooled crust.

Refrigerate tart until filling is set, about 1 hour. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and keep refrigerated.) When set, remove pan rim from bottom. A trick for this is to get a can of food, set the tart on the can and gently loosen the rim. Slide it down and the tart stays up on the can of food. Slice into wedges.

To serve, I dolloped each piece of tart with whipped cream and a mint spring. I made two of these (16 pieces) and everything except one slice got eaten. I also bought an Old Fashioned Cheesecake from TJ’s — this didn’t go as fast at the dinner, which made me feel pretty good about the chocolate tarts.

Okay, no more donor diner recaps. Back to regular posts Thursday!

Okay, so for this dinner for 26+ people, I took it a little easy on the starters. Little skewers with mozzarella balls and cherry tomatoes, crostini with a white bean and sage dip and olives. See, easy.

The skewers were simply marinated mozzarella balls from Trader Joes and cherry tomatoes. I also experimented with putting olives on a few of them just for color. If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s by you or you want to marinate the mozzarella yourself, here’s a good recipe.

Marinated Bocconcini
1 clove garlic, smashed, plus 1 other clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp chopped parsley
12 bocconcini (small mozzarella balls), about 8 ounces

Combine the garlic, salt, pepper flakes, and olive oil in a medium glass bowl. Cover and microwave on high until the garlic is golden, about 2 minutes. Cool. Add the parsley, minced garlic and bocconcini and refrigerate for at least 1 and up to 24 hours.

Then you simply skewer a cherry tomato and then a mozzarella ball. Fini.

Now repeat like 50 times.

Roasted Garlic and White Bean Dip with Sage
1 can white beans, drained
1 head of garlic, excess outer skin removed
1/4+ cup olive oil
juice of half a lemon
1 tbsp chopped fresh sage
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Wrap garlic bulb in foil and roast 30-45 minutes until soft. Let cool until it can be handled easily.

Add beans to a food processor bowl. Squeeze roasted garlic paste out and add olive oil, lemon and sage. Process until smooth. Add more olive oil if desired. Taste and adjust seasonings, adding salt and pepper. Serve with crackers or toasted baguette slices.

Happy Valentine’s Day
I know I am a big tease but I am going to cover the cookie flowers and talk about the dark chocolate and orange tart I made for the dinner on Wednesday.

34 huge cookies done. Two garlic bulbs roasting in the oven. Next, prepping the vegetables and making the meat sauce!

I bought 10 (10!) cans of plum tomatoes yesterday at Trader Joe’s. This morning I’m back for the cold and frozen items, Fred Meyer and then Zupans.

Then it’s cookie time!

I’ll update throughout the day (at least that is my plan for now)…

Last weekend, I experimented with these lemony biscuits. I added some chopped, fresh rosemary as I had cut a bunch of it from the front bush while taking pictures for the blog redesign. So, I figured I should start using some of the rosemary I detached from out front!

Lemon & Rosemary Biscuits:
2 cups AP flour
1tbsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening or butter
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp fresh, chopped rosemary

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a bowl stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, rosemary, lemon zest and salt. Cut in shortening or butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center; add milk all at once and combine until dough just comes together.

On a lightly floured surface, knead dough gently 10-12 times. Roll out to about 1/2 an inch thickness. Cut with a circular biscuit cutter (about 2 1/2 inch diameter). Dip cutter in flour between cuts if dough is sticking.

Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. Serve warm.

Christopher Kimball at Powell’s

Last night, with a lot of other people, I made my way to Powell’s Books for Cooks & Gardeners to see Christopher Kimball of America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated Magazine. It was really packed. I got there around 6:20 and managed to get a seat about midway back.

He was pretty funny — answering questions after a brief introduction with e-mails he had recently received:

“Do I have to cook a potato before I mash it?”

::beat::

“No.”

He took about 15 audience questions then the book signing began. I opted not to get a book so snuck out right after the talk. Bonus: They had some Cook’s Country and Cook’s Illustrated back issues up front for free. Score!

I think what I like most about CK and Alton Brown and other geeky, science food types is — the science approach, yes — but also the kind of snarky sarcasm that they employ.

Hey, I just got my America’s Test Kitchen e-newsletter and Christopher Kimball (one* of my favorite food geeks) is coming to town!

When: November 2, 2005, 7:00 pm
Where: Powell’s Books for Cooks and Gardeners
3747 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR
503-228-4651
Other tour dates and locations can be found here.

* The other one, is of course, Alton Brown.