Preserved Lemons

Somebody recently over-purchased lemons. I'm not saying who. In any case, we had about 20 lemons lying around and Tim noticed that some of them were teetering on the edge. I needed a quick but tasty way to use up the extra lemons; to preserve them (har har).

I've always had preserved lemons on my list of to-dos. Once fully pickled, the preserved lemons are used in Moroccan dishes like tagines. They're super easy to make (prep lemons, coat in salt, squish in jar, let jar sit); I used the directions from Simply Recipes. I'm excited to try out some of the various options when mine are ready in a couple weeks... maybe this recipe for Israeli couscous with roasted butternut squash and preserved lemons? I'll keep you posted.

Belated Birthday Magic Bars

Tim's birthday was last Saturday, but I didn't get around to baking something sweet in honor of his 32nd until Sunday. And we were hungover. So basically we ended up with whatever I could easily make with goodies out of the cabinet.
Ta da: Magic bars! A perennial favorite...

Tofu and Veggie Fried Rice

We made way too much pilaf for Sunday's Armenian-style horovatz, so I decided to make fried rice with all of the leftovers, also incorporating the leftover beet greens and stems. Feeling a little sluggish after a weekend of drinking and meat-eating, I decided to do a non-traditional spicy tofu and veggie fried rice with a little egg, loosely based on a couple fried rice recipes from Jaden Hair at Steamy Kitchen. My recipe after the jump!

Horovatz in Mer Nation's Capital

As I said last week, Tim hosted a mini Peace Corps Armenia reunion this weekend in mer nation's capital (i.e. DC)... having practiced some Armenian-style cooking last week, we were pretty well prepared to host the metz kev (big party) for a horovatz (BBQ).

Still using "Simply Armenian" by Barbara Ghazarian as the basis for our meal, we repeated the beet salad and minted cucumber and yogurt soup, improved upon the lamehjun by cooking it on a pre-heated baking stone at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes so it crisped up evenly all around, and made a couple new dishes to make sure everybody got enough to eat: grilled lamb skewers and pilaf. Recipes after the jump!

Belated St. Patrick's Day Treat: Irish Soda Bread

Inspired by this Endless Simmer post on "authentic" Irish soda bread and with memories of my grandmother's version in my head, I baked up a loaf for St. Patrick's Day. I took a middle route, a hybrid approach somewhere between the authentic version and the version I ate as a kid.

I basically followed the directions from Endless Simmer, with a few modifications:

1) I used about 1.5 cups of cake flour, with the addition of approximately 1 cup of all-purpose unbleached flour because I a) ran out of cake flour and b) found the dough to be super sticky, wet and unmanageable without additional flour

2) I threw the loaf directly onto a pre-heated baking stone rather than use the cast iron pot

3) Finally, in deference to my grandmother's recipe (which I'm sure was only remotely related to the recipe above- yogurt not being a resident in her fridge), I threw in about third of a cup of raisins.

It came out pretty delicious! More moist than I remember, but still with that crusty, craggy top. Mmmm. And, yes, I drank some stout whilst mixing up the ingredients for this tasty treat.

Sunday Dinner: Armenian Meal

Tim's friends from Peace Corps Armenia are coming into town next weekend, so he wanted to cook an Armenian meal for them. But he wanted to practice first, which is where we came in. This week's Sunday dinner was an Armenian feast: minted cucumber and yogurt soup, beet and walnut salad, lahmahjoon/lamejun (basically Armenian lamb pizzas), and apricot cake. We based all of the recipes off of a cookbook Andrea gave Tim for Christmas: Simply Armenian, by Barbara Ghazarian. Recipes after the jump!

Chocolate Sponge Cake Roulade with Chocolate Ganache... AKA Giant Homemade Ho Ho

Kate has been having some serious pregnancy cravings... lots of fruit, lots of sugar... and for the last couple weeks she's been talking about those tasty childhood favorites: Ho Hos.
I told her I could make a homemade version, and since her birthday is this week, so I took the opportunity to give it a try. I searched the internets for a homemade Ho Hos recipe, but all of the recipes I found had poor reviews or the cooks were having trouble executing them without having them fall apart. Ho Hos are really just thin chocolate cake rolled up with a creamy filling and coated in a layer of chocolate, though, so I went to a reliable source for a recipe for a chocolate sponge cake roulade with chocolate ganache. Basically a fancified, giant Ho Ho. Super fluffy flourless cake, lightly sweetened whipped cream, silky ganache. Yum.