A Guest Mess

This week's post is being ably handled by the lovely and talented Brandi Wills of The Good in Food. (And no, she did not pay me to say that. She's far too much of a nice Midwestern girl.) Enjoy!

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Hello all! Sorry you had to wait a few extra hours to get your "Messing" fix, but I don't get up as early as Ms. H. 

On my blog, I chronicle my mission to be an educated cook and consumer of foods. Awhile back, I taught myself to make pancakes from scratch for the very first time. I used a recipe for Spanish Pancakes with Olive Oil from a Spanish cooking show. Later, while making cornmeal muffins, I realized that the recipes for Spanish Pancakes and cornmeal muffins were nearly identical. So when Heidi asked me to guest-blog for her, I decided this was my chance to create my very first recipe: Cornmeal Pancakes. I have never cooked something without following someone else's recipe, so merging these two into one of my very own was exciting.

I started with the Spanish Pancake recipe, turned 1½ cups of flour into 1 cup of flour + ½ c. cornmeal. Plus, I left out the chopped chocolate and omitted the olive oil on a whim.

As I worked with the pancakes in the skillet, I found that the cornmeal in the mix made the batter a little more cohesive than the Spanish pancake batter. It held together better during pouring and was much easier to flip and keep in its circular shape. Plus, they left less mess in the pan, meaning it didn't need to be cleaned as often between batches.

After the first batch was done, I took a taste. It had a very light cornmeal-y flavor and slightly grainy texture that was slightly weaker than your average cornmeal pancake, but I liked it. 

I could have happily stopped here. However, I didn't think this constituted enough "messing" to live up to Heidi's standards. So, with half the batter left, I added another tablespoon of cornmeal to see if I could match the expected flavor and consistency. Even thicker and grainier, you could really see the cornmeal in the finished product.

For my third and final trick, I decided to reintroduce the chopped chocolate from the Spanish pancake recipe just for fun. The result was an interesting mixture of flavors and textures. The gritty, earthy cornmeal paired nicely with the sweet, creamy melted chocolate. It was surprisingly good, yet unsurprisingly heavy. The weight of the cornmeal and the sweetness of the chocolate made it an alteration I would only consider if really in the mood for such a thing. 

Ok, time for the Ds—

Deliciousness: All three versions yielded different results, though all were tasty.

Difficulty: Actually, easier than your average pancake.

Do-Over: Next time, I’d stick with the original recipe I created and top it with butter and powdered sugar for a lighter version of a classic.

Details:

1 c. flour

½ c. cornmeal

2 T. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

touch of salt

1 ½ c. buttermilk

1 beaten egg

Stir gently from the middle outwards, just until the ingredients are blended. Don’t over-mix.

Drizzle olive oil in skillet (or on griddle if you have one) and heat to medium-low. Use a ladle to drop batter onto skillet and spread into a circle with the back of the ladle. When tiny bubbles appear along the edges of the pancake, it is ready to be flipped.

Two Composed Salads

Above, we have the salad that came as part of the Valentine's Day meal at Aya Sofia. Simple, beautiful, delicious, and I won't lie, I gave a little gasp of delight when it arrived. Not being familiar with the precise definition of "composed" when it comes to food, I don't even know that it counts as such, but to my mind, this is a gorgeous, logical way to arrange a salad. Top it off with olives, a slice of grilled summer squash, and one of the best house dressings I've ever had, and it's a lovely way to start a meal, romantic or otherwise.

Below, the Crossings roasted beet salad at The Terrace View, the Fiala venture that overlooks downtown's Citygarden sculpture park. No gasp, because for $8, I was expecting it to look as good as it tasted. And it was indeed delicious -- both varieties of beets were roasted to their full glory, and I'm convinced that the roasting made it easier to appreciate the differences between the two. The goat cheese and sprouts provided a gentle tang and crunch, both necessary counterpoints to the earthy-sweet beets.

Week 10: Double Lemon Chicken

Ah, Christmas. Fraught with the perils of gift-giving etiquette and emotional landmines. Also one of my favorite times of year because oh dear Lord the pounds of butter, the rivers of heavy cream, the mountains of kielbasa and potatoes. Last Christmas, I gained five pounds in the space of a week. About two years before that, my older brother bestowed a most excellent gift: A box of Penzeys spices.

It was my first Christmas as a newlywed, so it, um, took me a while to get around to using all the items in the trip-around-the-world box of wonder. Penzeys' soothing, clean typeface adorned bottles of Indian peppercorns, Dutch process cocoa, French thyme, and what I think of as an American favorite: lemon pepper.

I don't think I had ever purchased a bottle of the stuff; I just wondered what people did with it when I encountered it in the spice aisle. Thus, it languished the longest of all the spices in that box, until I was looking for something to enliven my never-ending hunks of of lean protein, i.e., chicken breasts. Somewhere in my reading and Food Network watching, I had picked up the idea that chicken and lemon are good friends, so it seemed only natural that chicken might at least like to meet lemon pepper.

Sprinkled over a few pinky-beige slabs of poultry, it saved me from being bored to death by my diet. And when I paired it with lemon juice, the chicken went from yay-it's-not-bland to oh-wow-this-is-delightfully-zingy. I use it on pizza, in salads, and for sandwiches, and I'm not sure I'll ever get tired of the flavor. Which is good, because I'm in a wedding Labor Day weekend and I have more than a few pounds to go before I reach my goal weight.

The Hipstamatic app makes even raw chicken look fab.

Deliciousness: It's tangy, versatile, and low in fat. What more do you want?
Difficulty: None to speak of.
Do-Over: At least once a week.

Details:
 
1. Preheat oven to 425.
 
2. Juice one lemon and remove the seeds. Briefly rinse as many frozen chicken breasts as you want to make (and will fit in a single layer in your baking dish). I only do this because it helps the lemon pepper stick. Sprinkle one side of the meat with a fair amount of lemon pepper and drizzle with half the juice. Turn over and repeat.
 
3. Bake for 25 minutes, turn over, and start checking for doneness 10-15 minutes later. Most cookbooks will tell you that you want the juices to run clear when you cut into the thickest part of the meat, and who am I to argue with experts?
 
NOTE: Next week I will be unable to post due to a prior engagement, but my friend Brandi, who happens to be a fellow food blogger, has agreed to take the reins. You'll be in good hands. Thanks, B!

The Oranges at Mizu

A while back I met a friend at Mizu for a sushi lunch. I was seated against the wall and noticed the staff's constant attendance and contribution to a line of plates. They turned out to be what every patron receives for dessert -- an end-of-meal amuse-bouche. Each cross-section slice was peeled and sliced into quarters for ease of consumption, and the fruit itself was perfectly ripe.