Joy the Baker's Chocolate Beet Cake

First, this cake!  It can’t be BEET! 

That was neither or a typo or a misspelling.  It’s a beet cake.  A cake full of beet, frosted with beet.  And it can’t be…beat.  (Sorry about the punning, it’s genetic.)  I pulled the old fisherman's trick of holding my catch out in front of me for the picture, so I should tell you this does not make a giant mutant cake, as this photo might lead you to believe.  It's a perfectly normal-sized two layer cake. 

Go make this cake –STAT.   It will become my standard chocolate cake.  It’s moist and flavorful and secretly slightly better for you.  Just one more amazing recipe from Joy the Baker.

So, yes, I’ve been away.  I have some ‘splaining to do, I know, and I’m sorry.  It’s been hectic – the wedding planning, a job change, and home renovations, which exploded in an invasive cloud of plaster dust that had us Swiffering the avocados on the kitchen counter along with every other item in the house.  We did 14 loads of laundry that weekend.  It was an oops, an ugh, and a cough that lasted a week. 

I should mention that this happened four days before my mother-in-law came to stay with us for the first time.   Anything that I had planned to do in advanced of her visit was scrapped and the day before she landed I managed to buy only flowers for her room (finally plaster dust free but still somehow lacking), a vacuum cleaner, and a large bottle of gin.   I still can’t figure out what my intentions were with the last two – but the flowers were marvelous.

The trip was marvelous, too – very productive, but still calm and easy.  Maybe it was the gin.  We had a few lovely dinners at home including a Bolognese I will post tomorrow - promise.  We had it with fresh fettuccine but I like it best with dried rigatoni – and always with pecorino romano and a little crushed red pepper.

As long as we don't have another major plaster dust uprising, I should be back to regular programming.  So happy to be back!

A Hill of Beans

I’m so very excited! After months and months of procrastinating, I have ordered some Rancho Gordo heirloom beans. I wanted to experiment on some plain old beans first. This was likely a dumb choice; plain old beans are often extra-old (no extra charge!) and I’m betting that they don’t taste as good. Eating old, strange-flavored beans doesn’t seem like a smart way to get myself on the bean wagon, but that’s me – always thinking.
I was not able to foil myself so easily, though. I am so excited by the amount of food in beans that I am undeterred – I believe that Rancho Gordo will be the end all, be all of beans, quality and flavor-wise. According to the day dream I had while eating leftovers earlier, they will require little but some good olive oil and garlic, some lemon zest and chopped parsley.
I’m planning to try this recipe for Brazilian Black Bean Stew from Simply Recipes, this recipe from Heidi Swanson, which led to my first bean purchase, and this recipe, which was posted on Orangette before it made it to Bon Appetit. And of course, I'm looking forward to trying this with my new beans!
I ordered a lot of beans – making up for lost time, I suppose!
In non-bean related news, my mustard went awry. It was god-awful. I may have left it too long. I’m going to take another whack at it, though. In semi-bean-related news, we thawed some chili from this recipe last night and it’s confirmed: that was damn good chili.
Happy Leap Day!

Secret Sauce: Wicked Basic Tomato Sauce

My stepmom is the reason I came to cooking.  When we were kids, we had meals from around the world and dinner as a family nearly every night – even if it was a little on the late side to accommodate everyone’s schedules.  She’s fearless – she’ll try any recipe; she made cooking seem…doable, limitless.   Also limitless: her creativity.  I was in my mid-twenties before I realized we’d eaten chicken in one form or another pretty much seven days of the week.

One of my favorite meals hands-down was always her sauce – meat sauce, meatless, meatballs, I loved it all.  It wasn’t exotic, but it was magnificent, every time.  My seconds were always just sauce.   Sauce on a plate.  To this day, I crave tomato sauce on a regular basis.

I have a couple of recipes on deck  that, like the Sausages Baked with White beans recipe, that call for basic tomato sauce.  While I do worship at the church of Rao’s jar sauce, it’s super expensive, plus, it’s nice to make your own.  So, here’s my basic tomato sauce recipe – enjoy!

Wicked Delicious Basic Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

½ cup good quality extra virgin olive oil

1 28oz can whole plum tomatoes

1 large onion, chopped

1 medium carrot, grated

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/8 tsp crushed red pepper

½ tsp coarse kosher salt

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

5 leaves fresh basil

Directions:

In a medium-sized heavy-bottomed pot, sautee onion, carrot and garlic with salt and black pepper in olive oil until translucent.  Add tomatoes, crushing by hand as you add them to the pot, and all of the juices in the can.  Add basil leaves whole.  Bring to a simmer and keep on low heat for an hour, stirring occasionally.  This is a matter of preference and application, really. If it's getting a bit dry, you might need to put the lid on it for a bit.

Using an immersion blender or food processor, blend until relatively smooth.  Test for salt and pepper.  If it taste a bit acidic, add a tablespoon of butter and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and give it another taste. 

Note:

Using a blender isn’t recommended – it tends to aerate the sauce too much for my liking.  Also, if your basil is super sweet, you may want to taste-test before blending; remove the basil if it’s already on the sweet side.  Finally, I like a little more kick in my sauce as a rule, but I almost always add a little extra when I use the sauce in preparation, so I go easier here.