shrimp enchiladas

We’ve had annual subscriptions to Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines for as long as I can remember. Each time a new issue arrives, I eagerly flip through the pages, drooling over the food porn and bookmarking the five-course meals and sky high cakes that I plan on making. Unfortunately, my lofty culinary goals usually get cast into the ever-growing pile of magazines that adorns our living room. Soon thereafter, the next month’s issue arrives, and the delicious dishes I dreamed of cooking never come to fruition.

Today, Papi ended this vicious cycle.

The cover of June’s Bon Appetit had been staring at us for weeks—artfully prepared shrimp enchiladas with salsa verde. Before we had even eaten breakfast, Papi resolutely declared that we were making these for dinner. We were so excited to finally bring a beloved cover to life that we spent all day shopping and preparing for the meal. As 5pm rolled around, smells of freshly chopped oregano and cilantro and caramelizing onions filled our house. After a couple hours of kitchen teamwork, we sat down to an amazing dinner.

Papi attributes the incredibleness of this dish to all of the layers of flavor. The enchiladas were simply stuffed with sauteed shrimp, caramelized onions, and cotija cheese (a hard, crumbly Mexican cheese similar to feta), and layered with salsa verde (we took the easy way out and used Goya). But when served with creamy avocado, fresh sliced red onion, cilantro, lime, and crema (a liquidy Mexican sour cream), magic happened. The melange of textures, temperatures, and tastes melded perfectly. We served the enchiladas alongside Mom’s homemade black bean salad and roasted corn on the cob. It was a perfect meal for a leisurely summer night. Hopefully, the curse has been broken, and many more of our treasured magazines will be uncovered.

herb garden pesto

Nobody in the family has a green thumb, so I was shocked on a recent visit home when my mother’s formerly dinky Chia herb garden had overtaken an entire corner of backyard, all wild and green and begging to be simmered into soups and snipped into salads.  The thyme, rosemary, and oregano are plentiful, but it’s the summer basils and mint that are truly impressive.  Mom claims they tripled–if not quadrupled–with the first big rain, a la Jack’s beanstalk.  I half listened while daydreaming of my new mini-prep food processor and the delicious pesto I could make by mixing basils and perhaps a sprig or two of mint.

It was as bright and and fresh as I had hoped, and made for a 10-minute weekday lunch or dinner served over orzo with diced tomatoes.

Recipe after the jump.

mango salsa

They’re back.

They began falling early and in abundance.  Trees that lay dormant in past years are hanging low with the weight of fruit shining violet and green and all shades of orange like long forgotten Christmas lights.  While walking the dog in my parents’ neighborhood I spied an elderly couple tying extra support beams to their year-old sapling whose young branches bent earthward, the dozen or so absurdly large mangoes flirting with blades of grass.

For me, the beginning of summer is not defined by a holiday weekend or the end of school or the tilt of the earth but by two distinct smells: imminent thunderstorms and ripe mangoes.  This weekend, as Joanna and I watched grey-black clouds overtake Biscayne Bay from a bench swing in Stiltsville, our sweet-smelling fingers stained orange, my summer arrived.

rollin’ into summer

After a lengthy blog hiatus, mumblepie is back with a vengeance to share the flavors of Miami!

We wanted to inaugurate summer 2009 with an easy and flavorful recipe for Vietnamese summer rolls. We’ve always enjoyed summer rolls in restaurants, but we never realized how easy it was to make our own. Fresh vegetables, zesty herbs, shrimp, and rice noodles are simply wrapped in a rice paper skin, which can be found at a local Asian grocery store. Whip up a simple peanut sauce alongside and you have a light and summery dish.

We served these as appetizers at a family party, so they were cut into thirds, but you could easily leave these whole and make a meal out of them.

Welcome back to mumblepie!

See recipe after jump.

holiday cookie baking

After a long set of final exams, I’m finally back in Miami to enjoy the warmth and the holidays. I wanted nothing more than to spend my first weekend home in the kitchen and surrounded by family. These two desires merged perfectly on Sunday afternoon when my sister, mom, aunts, and I got together to bake holiday cookies. Everyone brought a recipe and ingredients, and we ended up making five very different and very delicious cookies

Mom made incredible Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies filled with ganache. They had a slight hint of saltiness that perfectly matched the richness of the chocolate. These are to die for.

Aunt Susan made Giant Ginger Cookies, full of molasses, brown sugar, and spices. These are soft and chewy and encapsulate true holiday flavor.

Aunt Karen made classic Russian tea cakes. They were buttery, crumbly, and covered in powdered sugar. Simple and incredible.

Erica recreated her favorite French iced sugar cookies. Rolling them out proved challenging given the humidity in Miami, but she devised an ingenious technique of rolling out the dough on a refrigerated metal cookie sheet. It worked like a charm, and resulted in soft, sugarplum colored hearts with a sprinkling of glittery sugar for holiday flair.

I also tried my hand at a rolled cookie, Rugelach. I encountered some challenges in rolling out my dough, and ended up with unruly mounds, rather than uniform crescents. Given their haggard appearance, I lovingly renamed them “ugelach.” Looks aside, they tasted great. The cream cheese dough was filled with apricot jam, cinnamon sugar, walnuts, raisins, and chocolate. I have already made and frozen another batch for Christmas morning. These actually held their shape, so I will post a photo of the non-ugly rugelach soon!

All in all, baking with the family was the perfect way to spend my first Sunday home. This was the first time we’ve done a holiday cookie bake-off, but I hope it will become an annual tradition!

fried chicken

Generally, I’m not a fan of chicken (gasp!). The chicken widely available in American supermarkets is at best a bland slate for any number of sauces and flavors. Even for the chicken dishes I sort of like, my enjoyment is in spite of, not because of, the bird at the center. Fried chicken usually falls under this category, the bone-in poultry serving as a socially acceptable delivery method for the actual goodies: spicy breaded animal fat, deep fried to a crisp. I started work on my chicken frying skills this summer, and to my shock, have perfected the art of golden chicken pieces whose flesh tastes nearly as good as their skin.

The secret is starting at least 48 hours ahead of the first bite, which takes special motivation if, like me, your best cooking results when precious free time meets creative culinary whim. But I promise, this is one dish worth the planning. What gives the flesh its flavor is a highly seasoned buttermilk brine or marinade. The technique is old news, but I think the level of seasoning and time spent soaking are the keys to making this chicken meat the most tender I’ve tried.

a tale of two pizzas

Miami should be the easiest place in the country to avoid gaining the 5 pounds the average American puts on during the prolonged holiday season. As frost descends on northern fields and produce markets fill with tubers, South Florida’s growing season begins (more on this soon).

But television ads and weather reports blow high definition snow into the living room; department store windows display faux hearths and cashmere gifts; and every food magazine arrives replete with sublimely photographed holiday recipes. So in the spirit of seasonal camaraderie, I’ve gone on a comfort food cooking binge. This weekend’s experiment was a duo of pizzas.

fall flavors

It seems that as the seasons change, so does my appetite. The faster the leaves turn colors and the chillier the air gets, the intenser my cravings for the flavors of fall become. Pumpkin has been a star ingredient in many of my meals for the past month. From oatmeal to yogurt to soups to pastas, it adds warmth and creaminess to every dish. Today it found its place in a delightfully moist cake, made all the more decadent by a gooey ribbon of chocolate chip walnut streusel. This will definitely be a staple in my autumn repertoire.

Recipe after jump.

apples for days

Today was the perfect fall day. Not in the conventional blue sky, crisp air, colored leaves sort of way—it has actually been raining since the early morning. Rather, the day’s dreary weather coupled with my fortuitous class cancellation made for an afternoon filled with lazing in sweatpants, sweeping cups of flour, and permeating my suite with a cinnamony aroma.

This past weekend, Mom and Aunt Susan visited. The weather was gorgeous and the time of the season was just right for us to take a trip to Eckert’s Farm to go apple picking. As native Floridians with picking experiences limited to mangoes and strawberries, we were giddy with the chance to hop on a tractor and stroll through the orchards, tossing apple after apple into our bags and even eating a few sweet, juicy ones straight off the tree. We ended up with nearly 15 pounds of Golden Delicious and Jonathan varieties, and since Mom and Aunt Susan could only take so much on the plane back, my suitemates and I were left with a mountainous bag of apples that will last us for quite a while!

When I set out to bake this gloomy afternoon, I knew apples would be the star ingredient. I had recently seen a scrumptious looking apple cake on smittenkitchen and decided to give it a try. The recipe called for a tube pan, but given the confines of my humble toaster oven, I halved the recipe and baked it in a 9×9 pan. The sweet yellow cake rose up beautifully around the cinnamon-coated apple chunks. It was delicious when I had a test taste warm from the oven, and equally as good when I went back for seconds once it had cooled. As my suitemates file in from the rain, I hope the smells of my lazy day of baking and the tastes of fall help to brighten this gray day!

staying toasty

In college many students covet their DVD collections, their Xboxes, or their overstuffed lounge chairs. I covet my toaster oven—my 10×10” haven for breads, potatoes, and, most recently, a baking experiment.

Earlier this week I found the spare time and ingredients to whip up a variation on one of my favorite recipes: blondies. I set out to make a traditional chocolate chip batch, but browning bananas beckoned from the fruit bowl and made their way into the batter. The brown sugar-banana-chocolate combo was delicious and a hit with my suitemates. The bananas made the bars denser and moister than usual, though, so next time around I’ll add some extra flour.

Overall, the toaster oven proved itself worthy in the baking arena. Armed with this knowledge and a big bag of flour, I’m sensing that my experimentation will go beyond the science lab this semester.

Recipe after the jump.