Milk and Cookies, Twitter and Bacon

Just as I was getting ready to teach my Twitter class* here at the Library, I saw this and laughed: "Bacon: the duct tape of food," tweeted by chef Michael Symon.  So true.  It's the all purpose fix-up for food that needs a little help.

Amazing when used well, but often overused, sometimes overpowering all else with its smoky salty flavor.  I admit that I have fallen under the spell of this seemingly magical ingredient and used it in some delicious preparations.  To wit:  bacon butter and bacon maple biscuits.  One bacon addition which I disliked:  Bacon Cookies from gourmet cookie shop The Milk and Cookies Bakery in the West Village of New York City.

Download this e-book from our Library website!

However, way over on the plus side for me were the Chocolate Chip Cookies from the very same Milk and Cookies Bakery.  They absolutely do not need bacon to be delicious. They are memorable and perfect just the way they are. In fact, I booked my family on a food tour of Greenwich Village on the basis of my foodie hair stylist Stacy rhapsodizing about those cookies. (Our tasting tour completely confirmed their wonderfulness.)

Best of all in my opinion is you can make these cookies anytime yourself using the Milk and Cookies bakery cookbook. We have it available at our Library as an electronic book.  (Just use your library card, then you can read it in your browser, or download it to your computer,  e-reader or mobile device.  Call us at 732-329-4000 ext. 7286 if you need help. Choose Libraries of Middlesex Automation Consortium as your lending library from the drop down menu.)

Photo from the The Milk and Cookies Bakery

Back to those Chocolate Chip Cookies - 1. They have an amazing crunch due to the addition of oatmeal that's ground up and mixed into the batter.  2. They have great depth of chocolate flavor from two kinds of chocolate: bittersweet chocolate flakes (make these in your food processor or blender) which are streaked into the batter, and large semisweet chocolate chunks (not wimpy chocolate chips).  And 3. They have both a  crunchy exterior and a soft middle.

Result - cookie nirvana.  Cookies even a bakery would be proud of. Or as my friend Barb said:  "You should sell these!".

I'll let you in on a few secrets:  these cookies require a little attention to detail, but it's totally worth it.  The first time I made them I brought them in to the Library and they were pretty good - see items 1. and 2. above.  But the texture, well, it was not quite right - the cookies were too big and too crunchy.

First attempt:  too big, too flat, too crunchy.
Second attempt:  gone before I remembered to take a picture. But totally like the first photo above.

I was determined to make them taste as great as the ones we'd had at the Bakery, especially since now both my daughter Kate and Stacy had raved about them, and I wanted to surprise my daughter with them for her birthday.

The second time I made them was a couple days later and I changed three things:  I shaped them into 2 inch (not 2.5 inch) hockey-puck-shaped rounds and then, before I baked them, I chilled the shaped rounds on the cookie sheets in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, and finally, I was careful to take them out of the oven when they were firm on the outside but still soft in the middle.

We had them as dessert after Sunday dinner, and then I gave the rest to Kate to take home for a belated birthday treat (make that really belated - her birthday was in June!)  I asked her to share some with Stacy who consequently texted:

Stacy:  I LOVE YOUR MOM!
Kate:  They pretty much taste just like the cookies haha.
Stacy:  "They taste EXACTLY LIKE THEM!".

So here you go, click here for the link for the Milk and Cookies  Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, and just be sure to follow the caveats above.  And please don't add bacon.

Diane Whitman
@whitlibrarian
Reference Librarian
Persistent Baker

P.S.  I read some of the comments for this recipe so there's one more thing to be sure to do:  when you cream the butter and sugar, be sure to use a standing type mixer (like a KitchenAid), not a hand held mixer, and when the recipe says "beat until very light and creamy", this means to be sure and beat it for 5 - 6 minutes until the color changes to very pale yellow and the mixture is noticeably light and fluffy!

* Check the Event Calendar for the next Twitter class, scheduled for early May 2014.

Zucchinis and Twitter

Zucchinis and Twitter

It's that time of year again when good looking zucchinis are in every New Jersey market, and you can't help buying them because they look so fresh and healthful.  If you have a garden you probably have been resorting to dropping zucchinis off at neighbors houses. (Ringing the front door bell and running? -  well, maybe not that bad.)

In any case, here's a yummy way to not only use up but to enjoy zucchinis (and/or any kind of summer squash) in a versatile and delicious preparation:  Zucchini Butter.

(from Food 52's website)

Zucchini Butter is perfect warm and unctuous slathered on bruschetta, as a dip for crackers, carrot sticks or even zucchini sticks.  Or you can just do what my friend Carol did and simply eat this out of the bowl.  She proclaimed this "the best zucchini I ever ate", and my friend Barb texted me the next day for the recipe to make for her weekend guests.

This comes from the website Food 52, which I initially found because it sponsors and publishes an awesome competition for the best cookbooks of the year, but which I keep in my Twitter feed because it showcases some of the best food trends and recipes out there.  (www.food52.com, @food52 on Twitter)

Did I mention that Zucchini Butter is easy, cheap, and would keep well in the fridge for a day or two if all of it is not eaten immediately?

Yep, you should buy some zucchinis right now and have this tonight.  Disclaimer -  this may have been fantastically delicious because of the great quality of the ingredients I used:  fresh from the farm zucchinis and onion, flaky Maldon sea salt, black pepper imported by a friend from India, and olive oil purchased from Natirar Restaurant which they import themselves from Tuscany.  Which all goes to prove that sometimes great cooking is really just great shopping.

But don't despair if you don't have these same exact ingredients - the silky smooth "buttery" texture that the zucchini takes on from cooking down and having its flavors concentrated will still be present and wonderful; if not that elusive sweetness and freshness that you get from cooking with just picked ingredients.


Jennie Cook's Zucchini Butter adapted from Food 52's Twitter Feed, from July 24, Kristen Miglore

1/4 cup good tasting extra virgin olive oil
1 small white onion (OR 2 shallots, OR 3 large cloves of garlic - in fact, anything from the allium family, to give that onion-y flavor)
Sea salt, if you have it, kosher or regular salt if you don't
Freshly cracked black pepper
3 or 4 medium zucchini (1.5 to 2 lbs.), grated to make anywhere from 6 to 8 cups (can mix in yellow summer squash too!)

Saute the onion (or shallots), sprinkled with salt and pepper, in the olive oil in a large skillet on medium low heat for 5 or 10 minutes until softened and translucent.  (If using garlic, cook only for 30 - 60 seconds.)

In the meantime, squeeze out handfuls of the zucchini to rid the squash of excess water, and then add all the wrung out grated zucchini to the skillet.  Add more salt, turn up the heat to medium high, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes.  It's ok if the zucchini browns here and there, it will just add to the flavor.

Serve warm, or gently reheat if used later.  Yields about 2 cups.



Enjoy the bounty of the Garden State in summer!  And sign up for my All About Twitter class at the Library on Friday, September 27 from 12 - 1 to learn how to get connected.

Diane Whitman
@whitlibrarian
Reference Librarian
Jersey Girl/ Tweeter

Is #Asparagus Trending?

When I lived in Austria one year,  and worked as an au pair for a very rich (old money) family,  the only asparagus they ever ate was white.  Asparagus often appeared as a kind of edible decoration for a platter of lunchtime scrambled eggs, served poolside, surrounded by tomatoes, the tinned white asparagus, and buttered toast points.

Turns out, most of Europe prefers white asparagus; green is quite uncommon. At that time, it seemed to me that white asparagus was the height of elegance;  besides that, I loved the name in German too: Spargel, (pronounced spar'-gull) as though it were sparkling.

Back in the U.S., even green asparagus seemed like an upscale vegetable during the Mad Men era. It was served on special occasions,  usually with a decadent hollandaise sauce.

Nowadays, asparagus is an everyday vegetable, a welcome harbinger of springtime in the markets.

Lately there seems to be a trend for horizontally slicing all manner of raw, fresh vegetables into ribbons, including asparagus.  Zucchini sliced into ribbons can replace pasta, great for the gluten free or the health conscious (see my blog post: "Zucchinis Take Over the World" from 8/5/2011). I've seen trends for beets, turnips and kohlrabi sliced this way for roasted chips, a la kale chips, too.

In regards to trending, last week I taught a class in the Library about Twitter. Using Twitter is not only interesting and fun, it's vastly informative.  You can follow breaking news in real time, (I saw eyewitness' entire videos of the Boston Marathon bombing within hours). You can follow well known people you admire in any area at all of your interest (cooking! libraries! technology!). This can lead to all sorts of serendipitous discoveries and references.

When I tweeted about making Kokkari Prawns from Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Chef (great book, wonderful dish, by the way)  - he favorited my tweet.  My brush with celebrity!  I was thrilled.  I'm sure it was auto-generated, but still, it's fun.  My friend's daughter has even tweeted back and forth with famous chefs.

Here's an example of asparagus pizza from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman:   ribbons of asparagus topping a homemade  pizza.

I made this one day when I wanted to try out all the great looking pizza dough variations in the Smitten cookbook.  Pros:  thought the greens topped pizza and regular pizza were very good, but what everyone really loved was the eggplant calzone.  It was a perfectly balanced temptation of eggplant, creamy cheese, and oozing mozzarella,  not too much of any one element.  LOVE.

Eggplant and Three Cheese Calzone adapted from the Smitten Kitchen

Prepare the dough, or purchase 3/4 pound of pizza dough:

1/2 cup warm water (between 110 and 116 degrees)
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (NOT rapid rise)
1 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour or bread flour, plus more for kneading
1 teaspoon table salt
olive oil, to coat bowl

Warm oven to 200 for 5 minutes, then turn off.

Pour the warm water into the bowl of an electric mixer. Sprinkle the yeast over it and let stand 5 mins.  Add flour and salt; mix with a dough hook at medium speed until the dough just comes together.  Change to low speed and mix for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic (or mix by hand, and then knead).

Coat a mixing bowl with oil, drop in the dough, cover with plastic wrap and place in the warmed, but turned off, oven.  Let rise for 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.



Prepare the filling:

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 medium eggplant (about 3/4 pound), sliced 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
Pizza dough
1 cup ricotta (8 oz.)
1 cup mozzarella (4 oz.), coarsely grated
1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan
dried oregano
1 egg, beaten with 1 tsp. water
bit of fresh basil

1 cup tomato sauce

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Cover a baking sheet with foil, spread with the olive oil.  Dredge the eggplant slices, on both sides, lightly in the oil.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast 20 minutes, flip, roast another 10 minutes.  Remove from oven, but leave oven on.

Roll the dough out to a 12 inch circle.  Mix the cheeses together, season with 1/2 tsp. salt, and the pepper and oregano to taste. Fold in the eggplant, and mound it in the center of the round of dough.  Pull the sides of the dough up and over the center, crimping it to seal.

Brush the outside all over with the egg wash.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until deep golden brown (a pale crust will be less flavorful).  Serve with tomato sauce on the side, preferably with someone who loves good food!

I'll be teaching the next Twitter Basics class in June, so please sign up, come to the class, see what's trending, and maybe take out some great (cook) books while you're here.

Diane Whitman
Reference Librarian
Twitterer (Tweeter?)
@whitlibrarian