Homemade tortillas

After seeing this recipe at AnnArbor.com, we decided to make our own tortillas.  We ended up using the Joy of Cooking recipe due to logistics.  In any event, this was a resounding success.

Our notes:

• These were absurdly easy to make.  Five ingredients total: flour, baking powder, salt, vegetable shortening (or, in our parlance, "olive oil"), and water.
• The two recipes differed only in the amounts of baking powder and shortening.  Joy of Cooking called for less baking powder but far more shortening: 2 tsp. shortening vs. 1/4 cup (!).  The tortillas we made tasted heavily of olive oil--not a bad thing but next time I think we should try the recipe that uses less oil and see if that makes a difference in the texture.
• We used our handy griddle rather than a skillet.  This worked fabulously.
• Our tortillas came out a bit thicker and denser than store-bought ones, and they seemed to be less pliant (i.e. they would tend to crack if you tried to roll everything into a burrito).  Perhaps we should have used more baking powder?  Or less oil?
• The original recipe I had seen called for vegetable oil, and we used olive oil instead.  As a result our tortillas had a stronger taste than if we had followed the recipe more closely, but the substitution did not seem to affect the cooking time at all.

Resting the dough before cooking.

Once again, the griddle came through for us.

Stack o' tortillas.

yum.

Joy of Cooking (2006), p. 608

Key lime sherbet

For the key lime pie, we had only used about half of the lime juice as what we had gotten from the bag of limes.  What to do with the other half, we asked ourselves?  Once again, it was Joy of Cooking to the rescue with a lime sherbet recipe.

Our notes:

• Unbeknownst to me before the fact, this sherbet recipe called for gelatin as an agent to keep the finished product smooth.  Due to our previous almond pudding mishap we had a few envelopes of gelatin in the cupboard.  Much better results this time!
• The recipe called for 1 cup of sugar and we used somewhat less than a full cup; even so, my first impression upon tasting the finished product was one of overwhelming sweetness.  Probably reduce the sugar to 3/4 cup or even 2/3 cup next time.
• The sherbet had a better consistency after putting it into the freezer for a day than it did right from the ice cream maker.  I suppose it'd be the difference between soft serve and what I call 'real' ice cream.
• Our past experiences with our ice cream maker from the 1980s led us to believe that after churning and then storing the finished ice cream, you'd end up with a solid block of frozen product rather than something resembling a scoopable ice cream since the freezer wouldn't freeze it quickly enough.  That was not the case with this sherbet recipe, for which I credit the gelatin.  Surprisingly enough for our homemade ice cream (and related products), this was actually better not directly from the ice cream maker.

Soft serve sherbet.  Delicious, but it melted very quickly.

After one day's storage in the freezer.  Delicious, and it still has a smooth consistency.

Joy of Cooking (2006), p. 838

Key lime pie

We saw a bag of key limes at Meijer for $1.99 which I was naturally unable to resist due to my affinity for key lime pie.  Once I found out how easy key lime pie was to make (3-4 ingredients plus the crust), there was no stopping it.  I used elements from multiple recipes which were more or less all the same: beat egg yolks, add condensed milk, add lime juice (and zest if wanted), pour into crust, and bake in order to kill bacteria.

Our notes:

• Juicing the limes was the hardest part of the whole endeavour.  We probably used about half of the bag to get the 1/2 cup of juice needed, but at the same time, that's really only about $1 worth of fruit.
• I used about 1 1/2 tsp. of lime zest.  This was probably too much for the resultant pie we had; at first glance it looked like I had made a quiche with green onions in it.  Ordinarily I would have just slathered on a bunch of whipped cream (none of that Cool Whip stuff, thanks) to cover any blemishes, but because of the circumstances I couldn't do this.  So the solution is to either use more lime zest and cover the pie with whipped cream or meringue, or not use much (if any) zest and just serve the pie straight.
• However, the amount of filling the recipe produced only filled the pie shell maybe 2/3 of the way up.  Given this, I would tend to just use the lime zest and then use whipped cream to fill the rest of the pie shell.
• One of the few variations among the recipes I looked at was baking time.  Technically, key lime pie does not need to be baked due to the chemical properties of the ingredients, but with bacteriological concerns today most recipes tell you to bake the pie.  I baked mine for 12 minutes; it's hard to say whether a longer baking time would have resulted in a firmer consistency as this pie was a bit softer than I had been expecting.
• This is definitely not a pie to eat before chilling it for several hours.

Multiple people gave their approval; I would consider that a success in any culinary adventure!

Not Pac-Man.  Also, not a quiche.

Slow cooker Cuban braised beef and peppers

Real Simple lived up to its name with a very easy slow cooker recipe that did not require much prep work (my kind of recipe).  The result was several hours of amazing aromas wafting through the apartment followed by a very tasty dinner.

Our notes:

• We generally cut the recipe in half since there are only two of us; we only used half an onion, one red pepper, and one 14-oz. can of tomatoes.  However, we probably used more than half of the amount of flank steak called for.
• We had an abundance of canned stewed tomatoes in the apartment, so we used those rather than diced tomatoes.  Breaking up the tomatoes a bit before cooking rendered them indistinguishable from the diced variety.
• Cumin was not used.  We don't keep cumin around and I usually don't like buying an ingredient that will probably be used only once.
• Cooking time: 4 hours on high and then intermittently on low and warm (our slow cooker switches to warm when the timer ends; when I remembered to I turned it back to low to cook it a little longer)
• We also did not use fresh cilantro.  While I find cilantro delicious, we figured that the dish would be all right without it (and it was).
• Avocado was a fantastic accompaniment, but then there are very few things that I would not say that about.

Due to extenuating circumstances, we had a small amount of leftovers even a week later, but these were still edible and, more importantly, quite tasty.  Next time I would probably make a full recipe in order to have a better amount of delicious leftovers.

A lot of flavour for not a lot of prep work.  My kind of recipe.

Pasta all'amatriciana...all'americana

In a quest to try new pasta recipes I found one for pasta all'amatriciana, typically a tomato-based sauce with pancetta and pecorino cheese.  While grocery shopping yesterday, we decided to make this for dinner and consequently we had to substitute for items not commonly found at Meijer stores since we didn't want to have to make another stop on the way home.  Thus we called it: pasta all'amatriciana...all'americana.  It was still quite delicious but probably not anything like traditional.

Our notes:

• Meijer does not carry pancetta which is hardly a surprise.  Thus we used both Canadian bacon and regular bacon as a substitute (though if it had been up to me, I would have skipped the Canadian bacon and only used regular bacon...).
• Meijer also does not have bucatini pasta (again, not a surprise).  Linguine worked fine.
• The recipe called for a can of plum tomatoes which would then be run through a food mill.  Not owning a food mill, we opted for a can of crushed tomatoes.  Our dish looked much like the photo from the recipe's original site so this was probably all right.
• The addition of a very small quantity of baking soda (<1/8 tsp.) near the end of cooking reduces the acid in the sauce nicely without much affecting the overall taste.
• Red pepper flakes are not as inexpensive as you might think given that every single pizza joint has a jar of them on every table.
• We used closer to 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes; even I think I could have put in a few more to make it a bit spicier.
• A bit of black pepper made a fine addition to the sauce.
• BelGioioso Romano cheese was perfectly serviceable.

Verdict: a recipe to try again, though with a little more planning next time around in order to get the traditional ingredients.  What we made was delicious already but presumably with the actual ingredients called for it would be even better.

An American interpretation.