Catalan Spinach

Pinenuts + raisins + garlic + spinach = Catalan, according to Bon Appetit c. 1992. Who knew? And yes, I skipped the raisins. Call me an impurist.

Mussels in White Wine Sauce

Since break started last week, I've been adding white wine to a lot of things. Like apple pie. And soup. And chicken marinades. So I set out to test out the cliche: mussels in white wine sauce.

Banana Nut Bread Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

There is just something about cupcakes. I find them more appealing than a slice of one of it's bigger brethren. I think it's because my gluttinous subconscious is gleeful in the fact that I am devouring an entire cake (even if it is in mini form), which is much more satisfying than knowing that you're only getting a measly slice of something bigger.

vicki's "looks like puke but tastes great, i swear to god, no really it does" lasagna with homemade tomato sauce

ok, i completely failed to take a picture of just the tomato sauce, and was way too hungry to take a good looking pic of the lasagna because even the steam coming off the thing was making me salivate, and i had spent about 5 hours making and putting together the dang thing! so excuse the ugly picture. i dont even think its in focus because my hand was probably already moving to hurry up and cut a square to stuff in my mouth before the shutter closed completely. ha.

Gingerbread Buffalos

Followed a recipe from Gourmet, Dec 2002. 'Tis the season...

No Knead Dough

V is a genius. Replicated the bread method below with FANTASTIC results. In 2006, Jim Lahey of Sullivan St Bakery in NYC (NOT to be confused with Trailer Park Boys star, as my dear lab partner LK guessed), offered this recipe to NYTimes food writer Mark Bittman on how to make bread without kneading, excessive time, or getting your hands dirty. The trick is waiting 14-20 hours for the yeast to replicate & do its job. Easiest & tastiest loaf I've ever made. Goodbye, inedible & awful crusts.

Rosemary Potato Cakes with Lemon Garlic Aioli

I had wanted to make a hollandaise for this, but since it seemed against kashrut, I made something else up. Which is silly, since I'm not Jewish, and the potato pancake is not strictly Jewish, but I'm funny like that, being the high holidays and all. It must be the Long Island in our family.

La Bouillabaisse! (sort of)

(Before adding broth - see below for the finished product!)

In honor of National Bouillabaisse Day, and the last (real) exam I finished this year, I made a fish stew - not quite bouillabaisse (which has a 1001 specifications for it to be called the real deal), and not quite cioppino (the Italian rendering of the stew with tomato).

Butternut Squash & Black-eyed Pea Soup

Followed this recipe with the following mods: Used a ginger/lemon/chicken broth base, made out of last night's chicken bones, instead of whatever was written. Green onions for garnish. And a tsp of bacon fat instead of olive oil. Prep time: 10 min, mostly peeling/cutting squash up.

Beer Chicken

Here's something to do with the leftover beer that I no longer have the chugging willpower for: make it into a marinade.

Apple Bourbon Chutney

Had a hankering for chutney - one of those projects that makes the entire house smell like vinegar.

Kalamata Olive Bread with Thyme and Rosemary

Sniff.... ssniiiiiiifffff......snrrrrkkkk.... mmmm.......

Does anything smell better than the scent of baking bread wafting through your home?

Israeli Couscous, Turkish style?

After reading J's post on giant couscous, I spied some at the local grocery store on sale, and decided to try my hand at this trendy new pasta.

Reconsider the Crucifer: Cauliflower Soup

A former track coach convinced me once that vegetables without much color have little nutritional value. Lies. Cauliflower is, in fact, better for you than eating cheese doodles, and that's all the health information I need.

CREPES! A work in progress.

My classmate, MR, received a shiny steel crepe pan from his mama, and recently we experimented with crepe fillings and recipes. Definitely beats making them in a nonstick pan (though seasoning the pan makes for a bit more work). If you have butter/milk/eggs/flour, you can make this at home.

Almond Baklavadakia

Inspired by VC's puff pastry posts, I decided to revisit an old friend of mine: phyllo dough. Baklavadakia are like baklava, except in a roll form instead of the flaky parallelograms more commonly seen.

Chestnut Soup

Used leftover quail for this soup, which I made last week for the fam.

Potato & Leek Soup

I'm kind of proud of this, even though it's standard English fare, only because there is nothing else I've been able to do with leeks. Pan-frying them takes too long, and I don't really believe in casseroles. Goes well with a hard cheddar (I had mine with Dubliner, my favorite cheese).

Honey Cornmeal Biscuits

Modified this recipe from cooks.com and added honey to the batch instead of sugar. Also, since I don't usually have buttermilk (eww) in my fridge, I subbed with 1/2 c milk plus 1 tsp vinegar. Added flax seed, too. Results: crunchy on the outside, moist in the inside. Cons: baking soda-ey. Need to branch out on leaveners.

Mini Apple Tartlets

After making the sweet potato tart tatin, I still had some leftover puff pastry, and decided to try to make mini apple tarts using the same technique.

Turkey Cilantro Soup

I spent most of my childhood hating cilantro, picking it out of my food and cringing whenever my mother served cilantro soup. The version she made involved minced beef, very similar to this recipe (much faster to make than mine). I like cilantro now though, and I found a way to use the stuff, and whatever meats/vegetables are in my fridge at the moment. Not bad for a camera phone.

Pomelo-Traminette Granita

I don't have a photo for this because I got too excited and ate it all before photographing. Does this count? I think it does because it was delicious, and granitas are good to know how to make. Anyway, this recipe is good for the leftover wine that you just can't bear to throw out.

Chinese (Cornish Hen) a l'Orange

Played with a Cornish Hen recipe this Thanksgiving. Learned that the freshness of the meat is a big factor in your product. As the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. Or, in this case, amazingness in, amazingness out.

Sweet Potato Tart Tatin

In addition to the cranberry sauce, my parents charged me with the responsibility of making dessert. I decided to make the Sweet Potato Tart Tatin from Chef David Guas' recently published DamGoodSweet cookbook because it just sounded and looked so, well... damn good, from the photo online.

Pan-Fried Vietnamese BBQ Quail

Secret's out. I photoshop my food photos. The computer in my parents' house does not have the fancy editing software that comes with my Mac, so there you have it. UNEDITED quail.

Orange Cranberry Sauce with Crystallized Ginger

Cranberry sauce is my favorite side for Thanksgiving. I ladle giant spoonfuls onto my turkey and mix it into everything else on my plate. I've never made cranberry sauce from scratch before (I unabashedly admit that I'm a big fan of the canned jelly stuff), but this year, since my parents are coming to stay at my place for T-day, I decided it was time to make an appropriately grown-up version of my favorite side dish.

Chocolate-Almond Banana Muffins

Delicious. Some of the chocolate morsels sank to the bottom of the cakes, so I might recommend a touch more flour, but even so, the results were very moist and tasty.

Persimmon-Cranberry Sauce

Lesson of the day: all persimmons are not created equal. Fuyus, the squat round kinds that my mother is so fond of, have different ripening characteristics than hachiya varieties (which are bell-shaped and more commonly found in supermarkets).

No Frills Apple Pie

I like to switch up this recipe, almost every time I make it, which is why my strengths are in cooking, not baking. Nevertheless, this was a big hit at the Pre-Thanksgiving Turkey Partay, and I found ways to scrimp on time without losing flavor.

Stuffing Gone Wrong

Tried to make stuffing yesterday with a few slices of stale toast I forgot to eat on Friday morning. Going by the proverbial "There is nothing to fear but the fear of dry stuffing itself," I went ahead and tried to create my own stuffing recipe from scratch. Results: Gooey stuffing, the consistency of baby food. Grade: Delta Airlines

Pumpkin-Apple Tart

While preparing an apple pie for a pre-Thanksgiving feast yesterday, I decided to experiment with the leftover ingredients I had on hand - a roasted pumpkin/pear dessert that was less than impressive, a few extra gala apples, and leftover pie dough. The pumpkin layer resembled a custard, and gave some extra body to the apple slices. If I had to do it over, I'd remember to cover with aluminum foil before throwing it in the oven. Grade: Olive Garden.

Chocolate-Banana French Toast

Using only kitchen/pantry staple ingredients, you can provide yourself with a simple, toothsome breakfast. And it's a quick way to use up random fruits and nuts that you have laying around. I tossed in a banana and some chocolate chips, but the flavor combinations are limitless.

Food photography

This is a learning curve for me, and the colors/focus/lighting modes are all over the place in the images below. For those interested, here's a great series on how to shoot food, from a Seattle-based blogger, with a compact digital camera.

EASY ON THE SAUCE, PAL

In general, I dislike biting into something that has more sauce than meat. As long as your chicken is fresh, your food will come out delicious. This recipe avoids the toothpaste consistency of BBQ sauce commonly found at commercial restaurants - it's too salty, for one thing, and masks the chicken fat & drippings that naturally combine with your sauce. I like using dark meat (thighs/drumsticks/wings) because there's more muscle & fat, and therefore more flavorful. Fat = flavor. In moderation. You dig? An added bonus: no need for pre-marination.

Whole Wheat Couscous

Not much to this dish; I just wanted to contrast the size of normal vs. large couscous below. The whole wheat makes for a grainier texture and it's much more resilient in case you forget to take it off the heat or overcook, unlike the normal stuff. You can find it at Wegman's in the bulk foods section, at a considerably lower price than the boxed brands. Another very quick dish (see the theme?), and very edible. The beet juice was taken from the pan after the dish below (brown sugar beets) and added with a few drops of olive oil before fluffing the coucous.

Brown Sugar Beets

This is a quick one, and if you're preparing a big meal, you want to leave the very last 10 min before serving for its preparation. Can leave the beets for another day and just enjoy the stems/leaves as a vegetable side dish.

Giant Couscous Salad

There are certain meals that you remember for the rest of your life - dishes that stick out and set the tone for the rest of the day or evening. This recipe is one of my favorite starters, borrowed from my friend Justin in Baltimore. He made it for a goodbye party that our coworkers threw for outgoing staff. It's easy to modify, depending on what you happen to have around the kitchen. Substituting the dressing for a honey-dijon glaze can also work.

Setting the table

Welcome to Fusiana! This blog is an attempt to relive and revive the culinary dreams of our college years. At the prime of our mid-twenties, we are back in full force, with a little more experience, and the hope of sharing our creations with one another - between Buffalo and Alexandria, with love!

Cheers,
Jen & Vicki