Croque-Végétarien & Croque-Monsieur

So, you know how there really wasn't much winter this year?

Its been like, November (but without the rain), all winter long.

We're so spoiled by it...  Because this year, any time it goes below 35 or is rainy, we're all 'ew, gross!  couch!  comfort food!'

Since our honeymoon in Paris was quite rainy and chilly, one of the newer additions to our 'ew, gross! couch! comfort food!' repertoire is the Croque Monsieur.  While in Paris there was more than one night where the sightseeing got in the way of the marathon dinner events that we planned for many of the nights and, as a result, we ended up at Cafe Le Depart-St. Michel more than once...  While it wasnt much more than our equivalent of a 24 hour diner, it was open 24 hours (important to NYers who are used to such things) and close to our hotel(s) to boot, so it worked.  And this cafe's croque végétarien was one of the best I had while we were there...

This version is my favorite of all of the ones I've had since leaving paris (admittedly, there havent been that many, but this one is good, i promise!) and will probably become my new standard, not to mention a regular part of the 'ew, gross! couch! comfort food!' rotation.

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Croque Végétarien & Croque-Monsieur

courtesy of me, as adapted from Ina Garten

Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

6 slices good white bread

1 tablespoons unsalted butter
1.5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 c warm milk

1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Pinch nutmeg

3 oz Gruyere, grated
3 oz Emmentaler, grated
1/4 c freshly grated Parmesan

Dijon mustard

2 plum tomatoes, sliced

For Croque-Monsieur:
1/4 lb jambon de Paris

***

Preheat the oven to 400°.

Toast your bread in the oven on a cookie sheet - 5 minutes on the first side, then 2 minutes on the opposite side. Set aside.

In a small saucepan set over low heat, melt the butter and then add the flour, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon for ~2 minutes.

Slowly pour the warm milk into the pan with the butter/flour mixture and cook, whisking constantly, until the sauce is thickened, about 3 - 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and add the salt, pepper, nutmeg and stir.

Add in 1/4 c of the Gruyere, 1/4 c of the Emmentaler and all of the Parmesan and stir until cheese has all melted. Set aside.

Spread dijon mustard on all of the bread.
On half of the bread, lay out tomatoes on a single layer.
If desired, add a couple of slices of ham on top of the tomatoes. (croque monsieur)
Top the same slices with the remaining Gruyere and Emmentaler, about 1/3 of the total cheese on each.
Top each 'loaded' slice with one of the dijon-only pieces of bread.

Top each sandwich with about 1/3 of the bechamel (cheese sauce)

Bake the sandwiches for 5 minutes.

Switch your oven to broiler and broil for 3 to 5 minutes (depending on how close your heating element is to your sandwiches) or until the topping is bubbly and lightly browned.

Serve hot.

Chocolate-Raspberry-Marshmallow Cupcakes

That's a mouthful, huh?

Nothing pains me more than a birthday without cupcakes...  so this year, I asked Jordan what he wanted me to make for his birthday party/100th unique beer at Pony Bar celebration...  I got a lot of vague, 'um, i dont know...'s so I just went ahead and picked something.

(ladies, if you are ever dealing with an indecisive man, just make a decision...  He'll immediately tell you what he really wants when you tell him what he's about to get if he doesnt say otherwise...)

That something that i picked never got made but what did eventually get made is the cake and frosting components that will now be my official standards...  Jordan's final request was raspberry chocolate cake...  and then somewhere along the way, he decided it needed marshmallow frosting...  So we set out.  I was hell-bent on keeping it as simple as possible so i decided i wanted to start with a boxed cake mix and just doctor it up a bit...  In googling, i stumbled upon "Too Much Chocolate Cake" and decided that, with a few slight modifications, that was going to be the base...

I knew that adding a raspberry jam filling would be simple (and i wasnt making my own jam or anything crazy like that), so next up was frosting.  We knew that the chocolate and raspberries were going to create a really sweet cake, so we wanted a frosting that was a little less-so...  In searching, we found Smitten Kitchen's post on making homemade devil dogs which included a recipe for Marshmallow/Seven Minute frosting...  seemed easy enough and like it might be a bit less sweet than the versions made with fluff, so we figured why not?

In the end, it all came together like one huge pile of YUM.  The sum much greater than the parts and the cupcakes a HUGE hit among friends, bartenders and other patrons alike...

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Chocolate-Raspberry-Marshmallow Cupcakes
courtesy of me, with component parts from Denise on Allrecipes.com and Smitten Kitchen
Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

For the cake:
1 package devil's food cake mix
5.9 oz instant chocolate pudding mix (this is one large package or about 1 1/2 small packages)
1 c sour cream
3/4 c vegetable oil
4 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 c warm water
2 c mini chocolate chips

For the filling:

1 jar of your favorite raspberry jam

For the frosting:
2 large egg whites
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c light corn syrup
2 tbsp water
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

***

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 350°

Line muffin tray with foil liners

In a large bowl, mix the first 6 ingredients together.  

Once they are all well-combined, stir in the mini chips.

Pour into cupcake liners, filling each about 2/3 full.

Bake 20 - 24 minutes or until toothpick comes out mostly clean.

To add the filling:

Once the cake is done baking and cooled, use a butter knife to cut a little divot out of the top of each.  (Each divot should be about 3/4 of an inch circle with about the same depth.)  

Pop out the divot, plop in a teaspoon or so of jam and then pop the divot back in.

For the frosting:

Set a saucepan on the stove and bring a couple of cups of water to a simmer.

Combine all ingredients in a metal bowl and set the bowl over the simmering water. 

Beat at high speed until frosting is thick and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. 

Remove bowl from heat, place on a heat-proof surface, and continue to beat until frosting has slightly cooled. 

Final Assembly:

Once frosting has cooled down, frost cupcakes, taking care to not knock the filling divot out.

If you have any mini-chips left over, sprinkle on top for decoration.

NOTE: Frosting will harden slightly as time goes on, so it is best to do any decorating while the frosting is still 'fresh'.

Sunday Morning Bagels

Long time, no post...

Its been a whirlwind, to say the least...  but it looks like Kitchen Hell will be moving up in the world!  No, not the blog-world, but the real world...  Let's just say that teeny tiny kitchen?  We'll be upgrading.  and the 2nd biggest greenmarket in NYC?  Right outside of our front door.  Cooking won't be the hell that it is today and we can't wait...

As a result of the impending move (to an apartment we chose 50% based on its kitchen alone), we've been hard-pressed to do much of anything in our current tiny, cramped, half-sized-appliance kitchen and as a result, there's been a lot of eating out, ordering in, frozen dinners and pasta (boxed) with red sauce (from a jar)...

Quite frankly, frozen Amy's dinners, while yummy in their own right, don't make for the best blog fodder...

Our weekend morning rituals haven't been much better than the dinners - pretty dependent on our local diner and bagel shop and when you can be served really good, still-warm-from-the-oven bagels by walking about  2 blocks from home (and barely beyond the store where you would have to fight your way through the crowds to buy anything to make at home) it's really hard to motivate to do anything different...

However, this past week, someone posted a bagel sandwich that looked so good that it was just the motivation I needed...  I needed that bagel sandwich...

This isn't earth shattering, it's not life changing, so why am I posting it?  Because, frankly, it was so good that we've already talked about how we should really be sure to keep these ingredients in the house from now on...  Even when cooking isn't the hell it is today.

With this one, the tiny smidgen of motivation it took paid dividends...

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Sunday Morning Bagels

courtesy of me
Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

2 everything bagels

~1/2 c whipped cream cheese

1/2 of a ripe avocado, sliced

a few paper-thin slices of red onion

lemon pepper

***

Slice bagels in half

Spread half of the cream cheese onto each bagel - covering both sides of the bagel (i like a lot of cream cheese, 1/2 c might be more than most people need...)

put half of your avocado slices onto one side of each bagel

sprinkle a few slices of the red onion over the avocado (this is optional - Jordan doesnt like raw onion, so he skipped this...)

Sprinkle the avocado and onion with a generous shake of lemon pepper

Close bagels up, slice in half and enjoy

Dutch Baby Pancake

I'd never heard of a dutch baby pancake before...

But just as I was starting to think about New Year's Day breakfast, Martha, bless her heart, sent me this recipe and it sounded like the perfect way to start off the new year...

And it turns out it was.

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Dutch Baby Pancake

courtesy of Martha Stewart

click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

NOTE: I'm providing the recipe as we followed it, but next time I make this, I'll probably cut the lemon juice by 25%. It was good, don't get me wrong, but just a little too much lemon for our personal tastes.  Also, Martha claims this serves 4.  I say, 4 children, maybe, but for adults?  2 of us had no problem finishing this whatsoever...

3 tbsp butter, divided

3 eggs
3/4 c whole milk
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 c plus 1 tbsp sugar, divided

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

***

Preheat oven to 425°.

In an oven-safe, medium-sized skillet, melt 2 tbsp butter over medium heat and then set aside.

In a blender, combine eggs, milk, flour, salt, vanilla, and 1/4 c sugar. Blend until foamy, 30 seconds to 1 minute, depending on the power of your blender.

Pour batter into skillet and place skillet in the oven.

Bake ~ 20 minutes or until pancake is puffed and lightly browned.

While baking, cut the remaining tbsp of butter into small bits.

Once the pancake is cooked, remove from oven and dot with the butter bits.

Sprinkle with remaining tbsp of sugar and lemon juice.

Slice into wedges and serve immediately.

Cold Crab Dip

This year it was just Jordan and I for the holidays...  with the impending move, we're hoarding money like crazy and travel and gifts just didnt really fit in.  However, holidays can be saved, what with the miracle of Facetime and the recreation of culinary traditions...

This is part 1 of a series i'll call "how we ate our way though the holidays"

I never knew that crab dip was a Christmas tradition for so many people...  That was, until I started googling, looking for the crab dip my mom has made for the past bazillion Christmases...  However, it seems most of you enjoy hot crab dip.  and while i'm never one to turn up anything warm and cheesy, these holidays had specific demands - recreate the traditions...

so when google failed, i called my mom and just asked for the recipe.

duh.

Oh?  Did I forget to mention that there was a block of cream cheese involved?  One of my favorite culinary phrases has got to be "serve over a block of cream cheese"...

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Cold Crab Dip
courtesy of my mom
Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

1 c ketchup
2 tbsp horseradish
1 tbsp honey

8 oz crab meat, cleaned and picked over

8 oz block of cream cheese

***

In a small bowl, mix ketchup, horseradish and honey together.

Add in the crabmeat and stir until incorporated

Chill in the fridge for at least a half hour

Spoon the dip over the block of cream cheese and serve with your favorite butter crackers.