Posts from — November 2008

Every now and then, it’s good to be reminded of one’s relative unimportance, I think. To say to yourself: I am just one of the many __________, for heaven’s sake! (Insert your title there, be it waitress or lawyer or salesperson or, well, you know, copywriter.) In the grand scheme of things, life will go on without me, and everyone will be fine. What seems so important in the light of a few angry exchanges today won’t matter a bit in a few years (Or months! Or days!) from now. In fact, some time all too soon, I probably won’t even remember it.

Do you ever have days like that? Days where you are repeating to yourself handy little sayings like, “You aren’t a brain surgeon, you know?” (Unless, of course, you are a brain surgeon, in which case I don’t know what you say to yourself when having such a day. But, on second thought, you probably don’t even get that luxury, and you’re definitely not reading my little blog. My outlook is improving already.)

Well, here’s what I suggest next time it happens to those of you who understand, right after you tell your best friend or closest family member the whole story and listen to them tell you they still like you even if you do make mistakes once in a while: go to the kitchen.

I know, I know, this is sort of my end-all solution for things, and that can seem a little false. But don’t knock it until you try it. Pick something you want to make—something delicious and sugary and with a wow factor if possible—and see if there’s a way to have the kitchen to yourself. Then, with nothing but some music or even total quiet if you’d like, focus on nothing—nothing!—else but putting ingredients together and watching the outcome.

I did this the other night with pumpkin soup, the recipe for which I got out of my friend Alicia, after her Facebook status referenced it, and I said I had to have it. That Alicia, she’s a nice one. In college, when she was a professor and my brother and I were students, she had us over for spinach-artichoke dip, and I knew I liked her.

Her soup, as easy as it is perfectly delicious, is a warm, creamy mixture of pumpkin, spices, onions, garlic and milk and cream. It feels comforting on your throat, with the kick of curry and coriander, and is so tasty, you’ll be saying things like, That Alicia! She’s really something! too.

Alicia’s Pumpkin Soup
Halved Recipe

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onions, chopped
1 teaspoons minced garlic
1/16 to 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch ground cayenne pepper (optional)
1.5 (each 15-ounce size) cans of 100 percent pumpkin, or 6 cups of chopped roasted pumpkin*
2.5 cups of chicken broth (or vegetable broth for vegetarian option)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup of milk
1/4 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Melt butter in a 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 4 minutes. Add spices and stir for a minute more.

Add pumpkin and chicken broth; blend well. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

Transfer soup, in batches, to a blender or food processor. Cover tightly and blend until smooth. Return soup to saucepan.

With the soup on low heat, add brown sugar and mix. Slowly add milk while stirring to incorporate. Add cream. Adjust seasonings to taste. If a little too spicy, add more cream to cool it down. You might want to add a teaspoon of salt.

The day after I made cowboy cookies, eating two of them at my desk in the middle of the afternoon, I told my coworkers that I wasn’t very impressed. The cookies were fine, good maybe, but they weren’t anything that special. A chocolate-chip cookie at heart, they include extras like coconut and nuts and oatmeal, becoming something too complicated and yet fairly simple at the same time. I managed to polish off both cookies, though, commenting aloud that they really were just fine, all while looking down at my plastic baggie, more sad than I’d admit that it was empty.

That was the first batch.

One habit I’ve developed after my experience with the New York Times chocolate-chip cookies is chilling the dough before baking (well, that and forming it all into rounded balls and placing the lot of them on the cookie sheet in the fridge ahead of time, meaning later I can just pull out as many as I want, ready to bake). So the first day I made cowboy cookies was the day I made the batter: I baked about 12 (two sheets).

The second time was a day later, another six cookies. I would have baked more, but I was tired and didn’t want to wait for them in the kitchen. This time, I liked the cookies a little more; maybe they had grown on me or maybe they had changed. It should also be noted, for the record, that the first batch was already gone by this second day.

The final batch I made two (or three? now I’m forgetting) days later, needing to finish baking them all before the dough went bad. The huge benefit of pre-forming the dough is that the baking is SO easy. Literally, I turned on the oven and went to watch TV, then I came back and stuck my cookie sheet with its Silpat and six doughy balls in the oven. Out a batch, in a batch: the kitchen as clean as ever.

This third batch really was the best, less crunchy for some reason and very addicting. For the few days after that they lasted, I got into the habit, unfortunately, of grabbing one every time I would walk through the kitchen, which, truthfully, became more and more often.

These aren’t wow-someone cookies. They’re not especially beautiful or especially hard to make, and, at first bite, you’ll think ho-hum. But wait for the after effects. A few days into these, I swear you’ll wish you still had some left.

Cowboy Cookies
Adapted from the queen of cookies, Martha Stewart

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
3 ounces (3/4 cup) pecan halves
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you’re not using a Silpat, coat baking sheets with cooking spray, line with parchment, and spray parchment. Sift flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl.

Beat butter and sugars with a mixer on medium-high until pale and creamy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.

Reduce speed to low, and slowly add flour mixture, beating until just incorporated. Beat in oats, chocolate, pecans and coconut until combined. (Dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

Using a tablespoon, drop dough onto baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart.

Bake until edges of cookies begin to brown, 11 to 13 minutes. Transfer baking sheets to wire rack, and let cool for 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks. Let cool. (Cookies can be stored up to 3 days.)

When a restaurant sends you a coupon for a free meal, no matter what kind of food or if it’s a chain, you go. No questions asked. That’s how I ended up at FlatTop Grill in Lombard the other night. They send free birthday-meal coupons if you register (so if you’re interested, and near Illinois/Wisconsin/Indiana, go here), which is how my brother got one, and why I went with him for some stir-fry. (Plus, I really didn’t want a certain horrible dining experience to be my latest restaurant memory for too long. I’m nothing if not a try-again eater.)

FlatTop, if you’ve never heard of it, revolves around a concept that’s not especially new: essentially, it’s make-your-own stirfry, where you fill a bowl with your choice of veggies, sauces, meat and give it to the strong men around the grill, who fry it all up for you. It’s a lot like Mongolian Barbeque, if that’s more familiar, but with a few changes.

1) Stir-fry only.
Other menu options, beyond drinks, are just appetizers and desserts. So if you go to FlatTop, you’ll be eating from the create-your-own bar. At the Lombard location, for dinner, this means $12 or $13, depending on if you want seconds/thirds.

2) Go soup/salad, add bread?
The other big difference between FlatTop and Mongolian barbeque is in the additions FlatTop provides. At the end of the buffet, you pick from colored skewers labeled with extras: tofu, scallops, bread (pita). There are even options to turn your mixture into a soup or salad, as well as skewers to signify you have allergies and need your food far away from anything else on the grill. Though it’s not technically required, I’d say you really ought to get the roti prata bread. I loved watching the pitas heat up on the grill, puffing high into doughy, flavorful pillows. And the taste! Flaky, buttery, delicious.





While we were waiting to be seated, I had a clear view of the cooking process, so I watched to see a very organized system at work: bowls on counter, bowls dumped onto grill in rows with their corresponding bowls below, meat/veggie combos poured out, wait—begin with second batch of bowls on other side of grill counter. The guys knew exactly when to turn the pitas and the stir-fry, and they never—not once—burned themselves on the hot surface. That, I’m quite sure, is hard work.



Flat-Top Grill, Lombard
305 Yorktown Center
Lombard, IL 60148
Phone: 630-652-3700
Fax: 630-932-4575
Other locations here