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Tastier than a Gold Medal

31 Jul

If you haven’t noticed, the Olympics are on! London being six hours ahead combined with the Internet being the Internet means that I’ve had almost every swimming event spoiled ahead of time, but it’s still fun to watch the races. Sometimes miss those multi-day swim meets. There’s something about sitting around a gym waiting for your race with a bunch of other chlorine-laden people that fosters camaraderie.

The U.S. has already had some pretty shining performances. Most notable to me was Dana Vollmer’s incredible 100 butterfly gold medal finish with a time of 55.98 seconds! She’s got a pretty wild back story too:

In 2003, at the age of 15, Vollmer was training for a chance at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. She battled dizzy spells and light-headedness. In addition, her heart rate was abnormally high and would be very slow to return to normal after her training sessions.

Her parents took her to see a doctor, then a cardiologist, and Vollmer was diagnosed with a heart condition called supraventricular tachycardia. Without getting into too much medical vernacular, this caused Vollmer’s rapid heart rate.  At the age of 15, Vollmer underwent heart surgery.

However, during the surgery, the doctors found a more daunting issue with her heart. Vollmer had the symptoms of long Q-T Syndrome, which is an abnormality where irregular electrical impulses can be sent to the heart. (From Bleacherreport.com)

Rather than undergo more surgery, she elected instead to have an external defibrillator available during training sessions in case of an emergency. She went on to win a gold medal in the 4×200 freestyle relay at the 2004 games, but failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Here she is in 2012 back with a vengeance swimming butterfly like no woman ever has. What a champion!

So it’s only appropriate that Neen’s Notes shares its own favorite little gold medals this week, and that means buttery, nutty blondies. A good friend (also an excellent photographer whose work you can find here) brought me roasted, salted macadamia nuts back from her recent honeymoon trip to Hawaii and I’ve been putting them in everything. Pretty sure Joe is glad that I’ve now gone through the whole bag because he’s so tired of hearing “Oh my god these are the best thing EVER.” I even stowed a few in my pocket for Sunday’s 5.5 mile Reagan airport-and-back run.

I love any baking recipe that makes very few dishes to wash, so I’ve now made these three times. Lest you think I am gluttonous, the latter two batches were donated to coffee time at work.

Gold Medals: Macadamia Nut Brown-Butter Blondies

  • 4 oz. unsalted butter
  • 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 egg
  • ½ tsp. vanilla butter & nut flavoring (vanilla extract works too, but I love this stuff.)
  • 2/3 cup roasted, salted macadamia nuts
  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line an 8 in. square pan with parchment paper or buttered foil. Parchment works a lot better for these, so if you have it use it.

Grind the macadamia nuts in a food processor until they resemble a coarse meal. They’ll stick together a little bit, but don’t process them all the way to a paste.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Once it begins to foam, swirl the pan every so often and cook just until it begins to brown. Remove the pot from the heat.

Add the brown sugar to the butter and whisk until thoroughly combined. Resist pouring this directly from the pot into your mouth. Mix in the egg and extract/flavoring until smooth, and then stir in the flour just until no dry spots remain. Fold in 2/3 of the macadamia nuts.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan, top with the remaining nuts, and bake for 25 minutes. The top will look shiny and the edges will be lightly golden. These are fudgier and less cake-y, so don’t be afraid of under baking them too much.

Extremely difficult part: Let the blondies cool in the pan on a wire rack for one hour. Using the parchment paper, gently lift them out of the pan and cool for another 15 minutes before cutting into squares. I’ve found that a long knife with a scalloped edge or a very sharp chef’s knife does the best job.

Now you can enjoy your very own gold medals, and while not as shiny, I can almost guarantee that they will be much tastier than the ones Olympians receive.

“I just swam my brains out, can I please have a snack?”

Enjoy the games everyone!

Ciao for now,

Neen

DIY Charcuterie Returns: Duck Prosciutto

21 Sep

First, a bit of shameless self-promotion:

The Choral Arts Society of Washington (of which I am a member) is performing Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rafael Frübeck de Burgos and featuring soloists Nicholas Phan (tenor), Laura Claycomb (soprano), and Hugh Russell (baritone). The performances will take place at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on the evenings of September 29th, 30th, and October 1st. Also on the program is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8.

Please come hear what is going to be a really spectacular show! Tickets are available through the Kennedy Center’s website here: http://www.kennedy-center.org/events/?event=NLCSV#blurb

Secondly, football season is at last in full swing, which is awesome, and also means the return of fantasy football. Let me tell you, team Merchant of Menace is looking pretty good so far (fingers crossed) aside from an injury or two. Here’s this year’s lineup so that I can look back at the end of the season and go “What was I thinking?” But hopefully not. The starters are in boldface:

  • QBs: Matt Ryan, Kyle Orton
  • WRs: Roddy White, Mike Wallace, Kenny Britt, Pierre Garcon, Hines Ward
  • RBs: LeSean McCoy, Tim Hightower, Ryan Mathews, LaDanian Tomlinson
  • TEs: Owen Daniels, Aaron Hernandez
  • K: Sebastian Janikowski
  • DEF: New England

I’ve been luckier than most the first few weeks. My only major downer is Aaron Hernandez going down with a sprained MCL. It could be anywhere from 2-6 weeks before he returns, but I’ll keep him on the bench until I absolutely need the roster spot. It’s a shame; he started off the season really strong.

Now let’s switch gears entirely and talk about duck. How is it that in all of my charcuterie posts from earlier this year that I never got around to sharing the delightful creation known as duck prosciutto? You can even see it hanging in the pictures of the pancetta and soppressata!

But honestly, it’s a good thing that I waited. Really. I’ve made the duck prosciutto from Charcuterie a few times now with my own little changes and have discovered a few things along the way that I think will make your first time trying it more successful. This is definitely the easiest charcuterie project to take on, so if you’re looking for a place to start, you’ve found it.

Duck Prosciutto, adapted from Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn

  • One duck breast (I normally use a moulard duck breast weighing in around 20 oz.)
  • 2 cups kosher salt
  • Fresh sage and orange zest
  • Cheesecloth and butcher’s twine

First, find a lidded container that will snugly fit your duck breast. I use a small rectangular Ziploc tub, but a 1 qt. oval baking dish covered with plastic wrap would work well too.

Pat the duck breast dry and set aside.

Combine the 2 cups of salt with the herbs and zest to make a cure. You can use other flavors too. Some people like to add crushed juniper berries, herbs de provence, or a combination of hot pepper and brown sugar to their cure. Think about the kind of flavors you like. For my preference, nothing brightens up duck like orange zest and a few torn sage leaves.

Pour one cup of the salt cure into the storage tub or baking dish and place the duck breast on top of it. Pack enough of the remaining cure around and on top of it to just cover the surface on all sides. Cover the container and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Remove the duck breast from the cure and rinse it under cool water. Pat it dry once again and weigh it.

Wrap the duck breast in a layer of cheesecloth and hang it in a cool, dark, and mildly humid place to dry. Ideal conditions are around 60 degrees F. and 60-70% humidity.

Hang for 1-2 weeks, or until it has lost 1/3rd of its original weight. Store wrapped in butcher paper in the refrigerator or vacuum seal for longer-term storage. Serve very thinly sliced with peppery greens like arugula, and fresh tomatoes.

On slicing: To make it easier to slice thin, you can put the duck breast in the freezer for a half-hour or so prior to slicing to make it firmer. And just look at the beautiful color:

Happy Autumn to you all. I assure you that after the Carmina Burana performances, I’ll be back with more fall (football!) recipes.

Ciao for now,

Neen

Black and Goldies: Super Blondies

1 Feb

Two entirely different things inspired this post. First, there was the February 2011 issue of Bon Appetit. If you haven’t seen the cover of said magazine, it was a siren calling, “Look at these delicious cocoa-walnut brownies, don’t you want them right now?” To use a Bourdain-ism: Total food porn.

Then there was January 23rd. It was the day that my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers valiantly defeated the New York Jets to secure their spot in Super Bowl XLV. I can’t wait for the big game this weekend vs. Green Bay. It has potential to be one of the best ever: Two teams so well-matched that it’s the lowest Super Bowl point spread in 27 years.

Having already made and devoured Bon Appetit’s dark and decadent goodies last week, I decided to switch it up this week and go for the gold. This one’s for you, Steelers.  Good luck in the big game!

Black and Gold Blondies

Black and Goldies

These are a one pot wonder, so make sure that your saucepan is big enough to accommodate all of the ingredients. I used a 4qt. to account for whisking space.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup light or golden brown sugar, packed
8 tablespoons (4 oz.) unsalted butter
1 egg
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. coconut flavoring (optional, but soooo good)
¼ tsp. salt
2 oz. dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line an 8×8 in. pan with parchment or buttered foil.

To toast the pecans, spread them out on a sheet pan and bake for about 8-10 minutes or until lightly fragrant.

Cut the butter into 1 in. pieces and melt in a saucepan over medium heat. Stirring gently, allow it to cook for about 5 minutes or until the foaming subsides and the butter browns just lightly.

Take the pan off of the heat and beat in the brown sugar until the mixture is smooth and shiny.

Beat in the egg and extracts until thoroughly combined.

Slowly beat in the flour and salt until no dry spots remain and then add the pecans and dark chocolate pieces.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick poked into the center comes out mostly clean (a crumb or two is fine). The top of the blondies should look shiny and set. This may take up to ten minutes longer depending on your oven, but start checking for doneness at 25 minutes.

Here’s the hard part: Wait. Let them cool in the pan on a wire rack for an hour and a half and then gently lift the whole slab out of the pan (this is where your foil/parchment is so handy). Let them cool out of the pan for an hour more and then cut into squares. Yield: 16 blondies.

Cook’s note: There is no leavening agent in this recipe, so these will be more fudgy and less cakey than some brownie/blondie recipes. The edges (especially if you use buttered foil) are lightly crispy. Personally, I love a gooey cookie so I have no complaints.

Enjoy the treats and GO STEELERS!

Troy Polamalu and Ryan Clark after the AFC Championship

Ciao for now,

Neen

Ms. MLIS and the 114 Dozen Treats

6 Jan

Happy New Year from Neen’s Notes!

I took a hiatus from blogging in December for a multitude of reasons. The first was to focus on completing my final projects for graduate school. You may recall such posts where I defeated the Great Perl Dragon and other beasts along the way, but this was (to put it in super-nerd terms) the true Boss Battle. And yes, I won the game of graduate school. I’m now a bonafide library and information scientist.

And then came the baking and candy making. Once the final papers were off to my instructors, I suddenly had…time. It’s not as though I never had free time while I was in school, but I always had a lingering, “I really should be working on (blank)” feeling whenever I tried to take some down time. Last December, when I was only a little more than half-way through school I made 65 dozen cookies for friends and family. I did not anticipate ever coming close to breaking that record. After all, I only have two cookie sheets and two 9×13 in. pans.

Armed with my favorite recipes from last year and a brand new confectionery book, I warned my family not to bake and that I’d bring more than enough home for Christmas. I’m not sure they anticipated quite how excited I was to be back in the kitchen.

Here’s the final tally:

7 dozen peanut butter cups
3 dozen Nutella cups
6 dozen orange chocolate truffles
6 dozen gingersnaps
4 dozen thumbprints
6 dozen peanut butter blossoms
3 dozen chocolate almond coconut biscotti
4 dozen chocolate cherry walnut biscotti
4 dozen cranberry orange pecan biscotti
8 dozen Russian tea cakes
10 dozen coconut joys
17 dozen walnut caramels
7 dozen torrone
10 dozen chocolate marshmallows (for Folger party)
12 dozen vanilla-almond spritz cookies
3 dozen walnut-coconut patties
4 cups sweet and spicy pecans
4 cups sweet and spicy peanuts

Total? Not counting the candied nuts, 114 dozen. I should go into business! If you have a request for any of the recipes above, let me know. There may be photo-tutorials for some of them in the coming weeks. Candy is so temperamental that it can be hard to get pictures of the process, but I’m getting better at setting the timer/one-handed photography.

My final reason for a blogging hiatus? Pittsburgh, of course! I can’t believe that I somehow didn’t write about the fact that (back in October) Joe got us tickets to the Steelers’ last home game of the season as an anniversary gift. The game was 2 days before Christmas and so we decided to spend the first week of our holiday up in PA.

Joe has taken me to a few Steelers games when they’ve played down here at Fedex Field, but I had never been to a home game at Heinz Field. In fact, the only home game I had ever gone to was a game at Three Rivers Stadium when I was…12ish? Needless to say, my anticipation was building for a very long time.

Thursday, December 23, 2010 I watched the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Carolina Panthers 27-3 from Section 223, Row K, and it was incredible. My favorite part of the stadium was the Great Hall, where memorabilia (including all of the Lombardi trophies!) from Steelers and Pitt Panther stand-outs are on display for all fans to see. A live band, members dressed in black and gold and donning Polamalu wigs, blasted rock music to get the crowd milling around excited and ready to go. Fans wore jerseys from every era emblazoned with names like Lambert, Greene, Harris, Bettis, Stallworth, Bleier, and Swann. Of course, current players were heavily represented as well, and even some…interesting throwbacks like Kordell Stewart. I did not, however, witness any Neil O’Donnell jerseys and do not believe I ever will. 

And everyone, I mean everyone carried a Terrible Towel. Even before the announcer could start naming the players who ran onto the field, the crowd looked like a sea of Vegas-gold waves. The experience of being in a place where 60,000 people are excited and proud of the same thing was unbelievable. The players on the sidelines too, waved their Terrible Towels to liven up the crowd during crucial moments. (The glorious noise forced 2 Carolina time outs and contributed to 3 false starts. Hope we helped, boys!)

I don’t think I stopped smiling the entire evening. Thank you again, Joe, for making yet another one of my dreams come true!

Yet, that was only the very beginning of our vacation. You’d think it couldn’t get any better but it did. We spent the next 4 days celebrating with family we don’t see nearly enough. There are few things that make me happier than just having time to spend with my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and Joe. We had some wonderful meals together, wandered the Strip District, and just caught up on life over wine and board games. Cigars, too. Oh, and cookies…days and days of cookies. I feel like we should install a fire-extinguisher type case in each family member’s house that contains a tray of cookies: “Break glass in case of celebration.”

I hope your holiday held wonderful memories as well. My hope for this year is that I may continue learning how to have more compassion for both others and myself, to remove the ego and respect what my body and mind can do on each day that I am alive, and to live with a sense of respect for all that this amazing planet provides each day.

Happy 2011—Ciao for now!

-Neen

Mystery Food Week 18: Changing Seasons edition

1 Oct

Well autumn has definitely arrived. This week, I wore a jacket to work for the first time since the spring. We also went to the last Nationals home game of the season. I really like going to Nats games and I think that part of it is because it reminds me so much of going to Pirates games in Pittsburgh. (Ladies and gentlemen, you can get your “Haha, that’s because both teams are terrible, right?” jokes out of the way now.)

But in truth, I say that for several reasons. The parks are similarly designed—small, not steeply graded, and open on one side. There isn’t a bad seat in the house at either place. Then there’s the price-tag. Our seats Wednesday night were on the 1st baseline in the top section and I think we had the best view in the house–for $13. While I’ve seen the Steelers play down here at Fedex Field, I’ve never seen them play at Heinz Field. I did see the Penguins play at the Civic—excuse me, Mellon Arena, but I highly doubt my chances of getting into a game at the new arena for a long time. Tickets are difficult to get and often very pricey. Joe and I like to get to a Redskins game once or twice a season, but even if you grab a set of tickets they gouge you terribly for parking at Fedex. And, unlike the baseball stadium, there is no direct Metro access. You can see into Nats Park as soon as you come out of the Metro station—that’s my favorite part. I always start to get excited as soon as I see the stadium all lit up. Finally, there is the culinary joy of the ballpark. Pittsburgh has its Primanti’s sandwiches and Quaker Steak wings and DC has Ben’s Chili Bowl and Teddy’s BBQ (which includes a giant caricature of Teddy Roosevelt in chef regalia outside). We opted for the more traditional hot-dog-and-a-beer route on Wednesday, but the smell of the giant smoker with all of that tasty barbecue was wonderful! 

The ballgame ended with fireworks and a video of the players, announcers, and vendors saying “thank you” for a great season. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Wednesday evening. Now, I am officially, fully, and completely in fall sports mode.

This week’s Mystery Food is an interesting mix:
Cabbage, kale, green peppers, squash, zucchini, apples, and potatoes.
I’ve accumulated two weeks worth of potatoes now and this chilly weather encourages the making of some potato soup. My main issue with potato soup/potato cheese soup is that it’s either incredibly heavy and garnished with an ice cream scoop’s worth of sour cream and bacon, or it’s really one-note. I’ll try to strike a balance…maybe add some slow caramelized onions and roasted garlic and other veggies for color/sweetness. 

That will likely be this weekend’s project in between the ongoing writing of super-portfolio-thesis. Oooooh and maybe a loaf of fabulous no-knead effortless bread. Welcome, autumn. 🙂

Ciao for now, 

Neen

Mystery Food Weeks 14 and 15: Back to School edition

9 Sep
Another double-edition of Mystery Food today. This should tell you that my fall semester of graduate school is officially in full swing. Apart from working on my e-portfolio-thesis-magic, I’m taking a course in Medieval Manuscripts. I’ve always wanted to take a course on illuminated manuscripts, because pre-printing press books (and not simply their content) were intricate, one-of-a-kind works of art. Our class will focus mostly on Western Europe during the Medieval period, but one of our assignments is to create a wiki on scribes and writing in a different part of the world. Since everyone is required to post the assignments to our class discussion board, I’ll hopefully get to learn about a lot of different places.

All work and no play would make me a very dull Neen though, so I’m really excited that football season starts today. New Orleans and Minnesota play at 8:30 tonight! This year, I am participating in two pick’em leagues and one fantasy football league. It’s the first year in the seven (wow…) I’ve been playing that I’m only in one fantasy league. The final semester of graduate school has to get some priority. The pick’em leagues are different in that one uses the point spread and the other does not. I like the added challenge of the point spread, but I’m admittedly not very good at it.

My beloved Steelers are down a starting QB, but it’s alright because my favorite player (and his million dollar hair) is back!

 
On to Mystery Food…

Week 14 brought a giant eggplant, tomato, sweet corn, concord grapes, beans, Asian pears, summer squash, apples, and peaches:

Week 15 continued to spoil me with zucchini, patty pan squash, sweet corn, concord grapes, beans, Asian pears, apples, peaches, small watermelon, and a tomato:
Oh, those beautiful flowers in the week 15 picture? No, they are not mystery food. I’ve been sick all week and Joe got them to cheer me up! He really is quite the catch. 😉

Ciao for now,

Neen

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