ONE NEW RECIPE

I travel too much for work to be part of a CSA but I have a wonderful farm stand nearby and headed over there this weekend to see what they had for their summer bounty. And I wanted a recipe to make something that used it all: squash, tomatoes, eggplant. This recipe comes from Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller. The cookbook has one of my all-time favorite recipes of Roast Chicken on a Bed of Root Vegetables--but since the whole point to this blog is new recipes --I decided to keep turning pages until I found a way to use the summer veggies.

I warn you--once you make this you will find yourself planning to make it again. The onions caramelize into a sweet oniony jam. The veggies melt together and the bread crumbs make for a savory veggie crisp. You will look forward to someone asking you to bring a side dish. This one's a keeper.

Ingredients

2-3 tomatoes

1 medium yellow squash

1 medium zucchini

1 Japanese eggplant or baby eggplant

Canola oil

3 cups chopped onions

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1/2 dried bread crumbs

Preheat Oven 350

Slice the vegetables into rounds very thin. Keep each of the vegetables together--and drizzle with olive oil.

Heat Canola oil in pan and saute onions and garlic until they are soft and golden. I like them a bit more carmelized than the original recipe. About 20 min.

Combine Parmesan and bread crumbs

Spread onion mixture into bottom of casserole (9X13 or 13" round).

Layer vegetables in the dish, working in rows, or in a circle around the outside. After each row, sprinkle the veggies with cheese mixture, and then place another row of veggies. Keep this pattern until all the veggies are in the pan. Top with any remaining cheese mixture.

Bake for 1-1.5 hours

Remove from oven and allow gratin to rest for 10 min.

Turn on Broiler. Just before serving, place gratin under the broiler to brown the top.

Ad Hoc at Home (The Thomas Keller Library)

By Thomas Keller

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I have never made a chocolate cake from scratch. I was intimidated by chocolate. You had to melt it, and if you spilled any (as I am wont to do) it would make a huge mess. So I stayed away. But a couple of years ago, I read Ruth Reichl’s amazing book My Kitchen Year where she described an enormous chocolate cake that ‘could cure anything.’ And that cake has been floating around in my imagination since then. This week I had a break from a big writing project, a planned weekend of recuperation, and a nephew’s birthday: the trifecta of reasons to get over my chocolate phobia and make a giant chocolate cake. It’s easy. It’s fun. And it’s really the best chocolate cake you will ever eat.

Ingredients for cake

1-1/8 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)

¾ cup whole milk

1½ teaspoons vanilla

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

¾ teaspoon salt

1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1½ cups dark brown sugar

1½ cups white sugar

6 eggs

Prepare pans. The original recipe uses 13’ X 9” pans, but I didn’t have those, so I used 12” round pans I used for the middle tier of a wedding cake. They worked well.

Butter pans and use parchment for bottom. Use cocoa to ‘flour’ the pans, or flour.

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix cocoa with 1 ½ cups boiling water until it is smooth. Add vanilla and milk, set aside.

In a stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar and white sugar until creamy. Add eggs to butter/sugar mixture 1 at a time. Beat well.

Whisk together flour and baking soda and salt.

Mix flour mixture and cocoa mixture into butter alternating a third of each. The mixture will be slightly liquid.

Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Let cool before frosting.

Frosting

5 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1 cup whipped cream cheese

2½ cups confectioner’s suga

r ¾ cups (1½ sticks) unsalted butte

r 1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Let cool enough to touch.

In mixer, beat butter and cream cheese until combined. Scrape in chocolate and add vanilla, and then beat in confectioners sugar until you have a good consistency for frosting.

I needed two batches for my 12 inch round cake.

To build cake: Remove cake from pan. I put it on a cardboard round, and then place this on parchment to aide clean-up. Frost this layer. Then remove send layer from pan (Use of a cardboard round or plate can be helpful) and place carefully on frosted layer. It’s ok if it cracks a bit—your frosting will cover this up. Frost sides and then top. Decorate however you want.

My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life

By Ruth Reichl

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