gadgetry

No, not a kitchen gadget, one for the blog! I recently discovered how to create quick little response boxes at the end of every post. So now you should see three options at the end of all posts here on kitchen to kitchen, and you can share what you think about each post once you've scrolled down to the end.

The options are:
i'll make it
looks yummy
no thank you
So, if you feel in accordance with one of those reactions, just click the box and it will record your response. Also, if you think we're missing some obvious option, let us know and I'll go in and add it.

Any other feedback, requests, advice, comments, etc? Either post a comment or email/facebook Katie or me (if you know us), and we will do what we can to keep you happy.

Also, blogger tells me that our little blog has had over 1000 hits since we started it back in October, so thank you for coming by and having a look! It has definitely added to my culinary experience and exploration to play with taking pictures and get to post about how things worked out. It has also encouraged me to keep trying out new recipes so that I can keep sharing.

Note: I just wanted to make a little note of something in case people have noticed that I post quite a bit more often than Katie does. While teaching is absolutely a full-time job, it does give me most of my nights and weekends relatively free. Katie, on the other hand, is working a full-time job and taking night graduate school classes at the Harvard Extension School (I think I have the name right), along with some other things that take up her time. I've heard that she is cooking and has things to post, but I suspect that her life is just a bit busier than mine. In the meantime, I have free time and am enjoying cooking as a significant part of my personal winding-down time and hobbies, so that's why I am the one dominating the wires for now. 

potato leek soup

I returned to SK for my recipe for dinner this week. Actually, I ended up being the only Pink House dinner, which is exciting for its social implications but not for the health ones. I cooked Sunday night, Monday was Valentine's so the single ladies went to Ugo (уго) for pizza, Tuesday was book club, and Wednesday was parent-teacher conferences (so after 12 hours at school, we just needed food to be handed to us, plus it was one of the teachers birthdays).

At any rate, I felt like I wanted something sort of healthy but also delicious. I found a recipe for Baked Potato Soup and decided to give it a try. In practice, there was a much stronger leek and garlic flavor, likely because I didn't quite follow the recipe, but we still found it very delicious. I ate it for lunch the next few days, and in spite of its less appetizing color, it was really good.

So here is the ingredients as listed with the way that I cooked it instead of the real instructions that SK had. My variations are largely due to my (apparent) inability to read carefully. So it goes. Speaking of Kurt Vonnegut, my fingers are crossed that our elective on him goes through but it isn't looking good. I'm a little sad as I was quite looking forward to a literature discussion class about Slaughterhouse Five and Sirens of Titan, but if it doesn't work out, then so be it.

1 head garlic
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium leeks, white and light green parts halved lengthwise, washed, and chopped small [I have no idea if I used two leeks or what, it was already chopped and shrink wrapped at the HIT)
5  cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth [I used water and bouillon cubes]
2 bay leaves
Table salt
2 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes [I left the skins on]
1/3 cup sour cream
Ground black pepper

I found SK's instructions about the garlic rather confusing and I think if I knew how to read the whole recipe first carefully before cooking she had explained how that was all going to play out, I would have followed instructions better. So this is what I did:

Peel off all the outsides of the garlic and get each and every one of those little cloves cleaned off. Then because I can't follow a recipe, I chopped up all that garlic into pieces. Don't worry, the story has a happy ending and the soup tastes good, and you won't kill any vampires (like your boyfriend, Edward) with the amount of garlic in your kiss after eating this.

In one of your bigger pots/pans, melt the butter over medium heat. I used a big silver pan (if only I knew actual categories of cooking instruments. Note to self: learn appliance terms if you are going to tell others how to cook things). Add chopped up leeks and cook them until soft (but not brown), about 5 minutes.

According to SK, you should be doing a variety of things with the different garlic situations you have going on. Since I chopped all mine up together, I just brushed all of it in with the leeks with the broth, bay leaves and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Unlike the recipe's instructions, I turned the heat up to get it to really simmer until garlic was tender, so about 15 to 20 minutes because I had roommates that needed feeding as close to 7 pm as possible, and I was already late.

I looked at my "pan" and the pile of potatoes, so before putting them together and making an absurdly big and hot mess all over our stovetop, I poured the leek mixture into a big pot. Then I added the potatoes with a clear conscious and set those to simmer, partially covered, until potatoes were tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. I was suspicious that potatoes would really get soft that quickly, but they did!

Once everything is soft, discard bay leaves and add the sour cream to soup and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. Then I turned off the burner and used our handy immersion blender to process the soup until it was a chunky-creamy texture.

I also happened to have steamed some broccoli hanging around the fridge, so along with the grated cheddar cheese, we all mixed some broccoli into the soup as well. 

BLBC

I am a happy (and currently very full) member of the BLBC, or Bulgarian Ladies' Book Club. Actually, it is all the international female faculty of our school, and we get together about once a month to eat a lot of delicious things and talk about the book we just read. We voted on the books over the summer, assigned them each a month, picked dates to cook (so you only cook once but eat many times) and host, and then got started. So far, I haven't fallen in love with any of the books we have read, but it has been really fun to be back in an environment where people are discussing books, and the food is always delicious.

Last fall, I did the food with one of my roommates, and that is when I made the incredible chocolate peanut butter cake. Tonight, my other two roommates hosted, and while I am not posting their recipes, I thought I would show the pictures I took of their snacks. Tonight's books was Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence, and I was the discussion leader. Off the top of my head, our food options for the evening were:

• 7 layer dip, homemade onion dip, ranch dip with chips, carrots, celery, and cauliflower 
• homemade pretzels with nacho cheese or mustard
• homemade lamingtons (this recipe I will have to post later, they are incredible)
• banitsa (a Bulgarian pastry with cyrene cheese inside)
• that worms in mud dessert... you know, oreos, pudding, whipped cream, and gummi worms
• mulled wine

 Wagon wheel of banitsa (not homemade, from the grocery store frozen aisle):

I may have forgotten something, but it was all really delicious. I am absurdly full.

broccoli cauliflower pasta

So I swapped dinner with my roommate to cook tonight [edit: Feb 6], Sunday night, and to make things even more out of the ordinary we didn't play Settlers of Catan tonight. Wait, nevermind. We did play Settlers for probably the 84th time since my roommate brought it back from winter break. No, the real way I mixed things up was by using a recipe NOT from Smitten Kitchen. Yes, folks, I acknowledge that other food blogs exist. I always knew it but I saw no reason to change. What are all of those sayings - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" - and so on. Well, I tend to agree. But so many friends had linked to 101 Cookbooks on my facebook and in emails that I figured I would go peruse their vegetarian dinner options and see if there was something that excited me. I found a recipe accompanied by an interesting description of a school in California, Oxbow School, and decided to give it a try. It was titled "Best School Lunch" and I figured that if students liked it, why wouldn't teachers?

Ingredients (as listed on 101 Cookbooks, I didn't quite have everything)

1 bunch broccoli
1 head cauliflower
2 medium yellow onions
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
A generous pinch of saffron threads
A generous pinch of red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
olive oil as needed
2 tablespoons golden raisins
1/2 cup lightly toasted pine nuts
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley for garnish
Freshly grated Parmesan, to taste, about 1 cup
1 pound dried pasta
1 cup pasta water, reserved from cooking (may or may not use all of it)


Slice/chop up broccoli and cauliflower into bite size pieces, but keep separate from each other. First, cook broccoli in pan with olive oil and a generous amount of salt to ensure flavor. Once broccoli is cooked (I alternated having a lid on the pan and then stir frying it), pour it into a bowl and repeat the process with the cauliflower.

Meanwhile, boil water and cook pasta.

Cook onions in olive oil (if using onions, I didn't because the grocery store didn't have any fresh) until halfway cooked. Add in garlic, a pinch of saffron, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and some salt. Cook until onions are tender.

Drain pasta and reserve some pasta water. Return pasta to pot, mix in cauliflower, broccoli, and some of the pasta water. Mix in raisins, pine nuts (I used almonds because we didn't have pine nuts), and rosemary. Put on medium low heat for a few minutes and mix. Serve with grated parmesean on top and salt/pepper to taste.

Valentine's Day Cookies

Well, the actual recipe for these simple sugar cookies is in my last post. I took so many dang pictures of the cookies, though, that I thought it made more sense to just make a post solely devoted to the silly number of pink cookie photos taken. My lovely roommates were so good as to indulge me by consulting on how best to take pictures. They then asked if we could get some kind of poll/response on who had the better photo idea:
heart with gradient of colors or heart with mixed colors
so, please let us know which you prefer!
option a) gradient

option b) mixed

Then I just went on to keep taking pictures. I also got bored in the 15 minute wait time between cookies, so I started making designs out of them, like hearts and weird twists and other things that mostly turned into blobs. Lindsay advised me to layer colors and cut them to they would make checkered squares, so I have some of that going on too. Anyway, less talk and more cookies:

 Another of Lindsay's ideas for cookie design:

And no, I did not have a Valentine. But I did get chocolates from one of my student's for her Name Day and Birthday and another for her Birthday (it is a Bulgarian tradition to hand out chocolates to all of your friends/etc on your name day and birthday), and I am going out to dinner with a few friends, which will be delicious. After getting to play with food coloring and make cookies, I'm pretty happy with my Hallmark holiday.

Update: I also took 18 cookies to my advisory group today, and I am pretty sure teenagers never mind cookies, especially when they are given while they are stuck in a room during their lunch period. 

Martha's Sugar Cookies

In the small cookbook cupboard of Pink House, we have quite the cookie cookbook by Martha Stewart. It has lovely pictures of all the cookies for the table of contents as well as spread throughout the book with the recipes. My roommates have made a few of them before, but this was my first experience with Martha. I really love plain sugar cookies and have been hankering to make them for a week or so now. I kept planning on baking them this weekend, but I was so busy doing things like playing Settlers and going out to eat and watching tv that I didn't get around to it.

But last night, as I was going to sleep, I had visions of white, pink, and red sugar cookies dancing through my head and I knew that it would be my Valentine's day gift to my roommates at Pink House. Also, I love playing with food coloring. When I was a kid, I used to make pancakes on the weekends with my parents, and I would always make them weird colors. My mom would try to convince me not to and remind me that green pancakes weren't necessarily appetizing, but I was enamored. I also used to mix my Blue Bell Ice Cream (the best in the world, to my well-sample tongue) until it turned to liquid and then stir in food coloring. So this multi red hued experience was a good Valentine's Day gift for myself as well.

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies

3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
1 cup / 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift or whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.

In another bowl, put in both sugars and zest. Mix with an electric mixer on medium for 30 seconds. Then mix in butter until pale and fluffy, about 1 minute. Mix in eggs one at a time, and then the lemon juice. Reduce speed to low and gradually mix in the flour mixture.

Drop dough onto parchment paper with a 2-inch ice cream scoop (I use tbsp spoons) about 3 inches apart. Flatten slightly. Bake for 15 minutes until golden. Cool on wire rack.

Martha advises sprinkling with sanding sugar, but I just let mine be as is. I also separated the batch into 4 different smaller balls and mixed in varying amount of red food coloring with each. 

guest blog: chocolate cookies

One of my roommates has a go-to chocolate cookie recipe that she uses from Martha Stewart's cookie book, which is really a lovely book to look at, if only for the pictures of the cookies. They are Martha's Grammy's Chocolate Cookies, and we are all big fans. She made a batch the other night as a thank you to another teacher for doing her a favor (proctoring her exams after missing a layover on her way back from Prague), and I asked if I could take pictures and include the recipe on my food blog. So, here is the recipe, which she also submitted to our Bulgarian Ladies' Book Club cookbook that we are compiling.

 The guest pastry chef, ready to put a batch into the oven and graciously allowing me to paparazzi her simple cookie baking experience

2 cups plus two tablespoons flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
Sugar for rolling

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a different bowl, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and beat to combine. Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour mixture; beat to combine. Form dough into a flattened disk, wrap with plastic wrap and chill for one hour. Shape dough into 1 ¼-inch balls and roll each ball in sugar. Place the balls on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350 degrees for ten to twelve minutes.

Makes about 40 cookies.

spice scones!

I had not made scones since I was in Morocco, but I loved them very much and had them in the back of my mind for a while recently as something I needed to make. Lately, Settlers has been, well, completely out of control at our house. The main reason I don't completely hate the game is that some sick part of me loves playing but also that it has made us more social in some ways. In addition to playing a lot among the housemates, we have had way more visitors in the past few weeks coming over to play. This has also encouraged me to cook things because I know it will quickly get eaten up and be appreciated. So, I was commissioned to make the homemade oreos the other weekend, and last Monday I decided to make scones along with my regular dinner. All the house visitors put an end to the scones expeditiously, and I ended up making them a couple days later so that my housemates got more since the influx of visitors reduces our per capita consumption of treats.

When Courtney came to Morocco and taught me how to make the scones, she used cardamom and candied ginger, which is really delicious. We also, evidently, added more of the liquid ingredients than normal, so the scones were a little more moist than normal. I also made them with chocolate chunks instead of ginger in Morocco,  and that tasted nice but obviously different. Here, we don't have candied ginger or, as far as I can find, ground cardamom, so I have changed things up a bit to make the recipe my own. Now it is more of the traditional dry scone and is just a sort of spice flavor, which I really like and smells wonderful as you are mixing the dough.

Whole cardamom pods:

 Dry ingredients with the crushed cardamom seeds on top:

 The dough really takes kneading by hand to come together, but it will. Or, you can just add in more of the wet ingredients and they will be a different consistency but still work.

3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¾ tsp ground cardamom or cinnamon*
dash nutmeg
1 egg
1 cup yogurt/crème fraiche (I have used a wide variety of substitutes and it always seems to work)
½ cup sugar
1 stick butter

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.

Mix dry ingredients first. Add stick of butter (cubed into small pieces). Add egg, yogurt, sugar, and ginger. Mix together until thick dough mixture forms. The dough really takes kneading by hand to come together, but it will. Or, you can just add in more of the wet ingredients and they will be a different consistency but still work.

Grease cookie sheet and form scones into balls or triangles. Cook in oven for around 25 minutes until light golden brown.

Notes: *I did not have ground cardamom in Bulgaria (or know where to get it), so I replaced it with cinnamon and then got whole cardamom and crushed a few seeds that I mixed in. They added a lovely and fragrant smell.

Makes about 12 scones

cinnamon and honey

The other day I got a forwarded email from my mom touting all the amazing medicinal benefits of cinnamon and honey. Now, the claims are pretty bold so it is a little hard to believe that these two simple, everyday spices/foods can have such an incredible and beneficial effect on our health and no one knows it, but on the other hand, Americans today seem to much prefer and believe in pills and medications over using lifestyle changes and food to improve their health, so I can believe that some or all of this could be true but that Americans wouldn't give credence to such simple homeopathic solutions.

On a non-cooking related note, I have had horrible eczema my entire life. It was miserable, ugly, and humiliating for me, and I visited so many doctors and tried so many medications throughout my childhood and teenage years that didn't work, so I assumed it would never really get better. When I moved to Morocco, I bought a book on my kindle one day because it sounded interesting. It was called You're Not Sick, You're Thirsty. I was definitely skeptical when I started reading the book, but the author explained things well and it all made sense, so when I came to parts that professed that allergies were caused by being dehydrated, and I knew my allergies caused my eczema to act up, I decided to give his methods a try. I started drinking the recommended amount of water and stopped using my allergy pills. I was really and truly shocked at how much better my skin got. For the past 9 month, then, I have barely used any medication for my skin, which is a huge contrast to the steroids, allergy pills, and other variety of medication I used regularly for the first 23 years of my life. In addition to being happy that my system has probably flushed out at this point most of the medications I was putting into it on a regular basis, my skin doesn't look like I have a disease, except for all the scars. So after that experience, I am a little more likely to believe that simple attention to incorporating something into your diet and routine can have a really wonderful impact on your health.

So, before I pasted in the text about cinnamon and honey that my mom sent me, I wanted to do a little research and see what I could find about cinnamon and honey and their medicinal value. I will go ahead and paste the email text in now, and at the bottom you can find some sources I found that are related to or support the claims made. I also want to say that I don't know who wrote this email, and I haven't tried any of the treatments myself, it is just something I found interesting and curious and thought I would share.

Cinnamon and Honey 

Honey is the only food on the planet that will  not spoil or rot. It will do what some call turning to sugar. In reality, honey is always honey. However, when left in a cool dark place for a long time it will do what I rather call "crystallizing". When this happens, loosen the lid, boil some water, and sit the honey container in the hot water, turn off the heat and let it liquefy. It is then as good as it ever was. Never boil honey or put it in a microwave. To do so will kill the enzymes in the honey. 

Facts on Honey and Cinnamon:  

It is found that a mixture of honey and cinnamon cures most diseases. Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also accept honey as a 'Ram Ban' (very effective) medicine for all kinds of diseases. Honey can be used without any side effects for any kind of diseases. 

Today's science says that even though honey is sweet, if taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm diabetic patients. Weekly World News, a magazine in Canada , in its issue dated 17 January, 1995 has given the following list of diseases that can be cured by honey and cinnamon as researched by western scientists: 

HEART DISEASES: 

Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, apply on bread, instead of jelly and jam, and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol in the arteries and saves the patient from heart attack. Also, those who have already had an attack, if they do this process daily, they are kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of the above process relieves loss of breath and strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada , various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as you age, the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and veins. 

ARTHRITIS: 

Arthritis patients may take daily, morning and night, one cup of hot water with two spoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. If taken regularly even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the 

Copenhagen University, it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon honey and half teaspoon cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week, out of the 200 people so treated, practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain, and within a month, mostly all the patients who could not walk or move around because of arthritis started walking without pain. 

BLADDER INFECTIONS: 

Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder. 

CHOLESTEROL: 

Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water, given to a cholesterol patient, was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours. As mentioned for arthritic 

patients, if taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol is cured. According to information received in the said Journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol.

COLDS: 

Those suffering from common or severe colds should take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough, cold, and clear the sinuses. 

UPSET STOMACH: 

Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache and also clears stomach ulcers from the root. 

GAS: 

According to the studies done in India and Japan , it is revealed that if honey is taken with cinnamon powder the stomach is relieved of gas. 

IMMUNE SYSTEM: 

Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system and protects the body from bacteria and viral attacks. Scientists have found that honey has various vitamins and iron in large amounts. Constant use of honey strengthens the white blood corpuscles to fight bacterial and viral diseases. 

INDIGESTION: 

Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of honey taken before food relieves acidity and digests the heaviest of meals. 

INFLUENZA: 

A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains a natural ' Ingredient' which kills the influenza germs and saves the patient from flu. 

LONGEVITY: 

Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken regularly, arrests the ravages of old age. Take four spoons of honey, one spoon of cinnamon powder, and three cups of water and boil to make like tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans also increase and even a 100 year old, starts performing the chores of a 20-year-old. 

PIMPLES: 

Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon powder paste. Apply this paste on the pimples before sleeping and wash it next morning with warm water. If done daily for two weeks, it removes pimples from the root.. 

SKIN INFECTIONS: 

Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm, and all types of skin infections. 

WEIGHT LOSS: 

Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast on an empty stomach, and at night before sleeping, drink honey and cinnamon powder boiled in one  cup of water. If taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow  the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet. 

CANCER: 

Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed that advanced cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon powder for one month three times a day. 

FATIGUE: 

Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than being detrimental to the strength of the body. Senior citizens, who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts, are more alert and flexible. Dr.  Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M.. when the vitality of the body starts to decrease, increases the vitality of the body within a week. 

BAD BREATH: 

People of South America , first thing in the morning, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water, so their breath stays fresh throughout the day. 

HEARING LOSS: 

Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal parts restores hearing. 

Now for my research findings, though let me say that I didn't really read through all of them terribly closely or check them out too stringently. I just wanted to see what was out there. 

• Cinnamon medicinal value, wikipedia
• Honey in medicine, wikipedia
• Cinnamon against mosquitos
• Cinnamon and diabetes
• Book about medical benefits of spices and seasonings
• Honey as topical antibacterial agent for wounds
• Honey as treatment for infections
• Honey as treatment for cough
• Honey as aid for burn treatment