Renaissance Cook Challenge: A Three-Course Meal Inspired by Three Dynamite Ladies

Last night I completed my own entry for the Renaissance Cook Challenge. I had originally planned to base each course of the meal on a cherished piece from my own wardrobe, but then thought hey, why not spread a little love and plug some dynamite style bloggers instead?

The appetizer course was based on this post by Jessica Schroeder of What I Wore. Jessica's style appeals to me because, well... she IS me. She's in her mid-twenties (check), loves vintage clothing (check), believes that personal style should not be wholly governed by trends (check- check), and believes that one need not be uber-wealthy to be uber-classy (check-check-double-check). She suggested I invent "something spicy" based on the outfit pictured. I was happy to oblige, as it's one of my favorite combos of hers.

Roasted Tomato Salsa

Inspired by Jessica Schroeder

Ingredients

1 large tomato, cut in half

2 thick slices of onion

Salt, black pepper, and dried cayenne pepper to taste

1 head garlic

2 Tbsp. olive oil

Juice of 1/2 a lime

1/2 c. cilantro leaves

Splash sherry vinegar

Directions

Heat the oven to 425.

Season the tomato halves and onion slices with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Peel the outer layer of skin from the garlic, leaving the cloves attached to the head. Arrange the tomato, onion, and garlic in a roasting pan and drizzle the olive oil over. Roast 30 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and allow to cool. Transfer the tomato and onion to a food processor or paddle blender. Add the pulp from the garlic cloves, discarding the skin. Add the lime juice, cilantro, and vinegar.

Pulse on medium speed about 3-5 times, or until the salsa has reached its desired chunkiness. Scrape the salsa into a container with a lid, seal tightly, and chill. I made mine a day in advance so that the flavors would have plenty of time to get to know one another, but a couple hours' chilling time would suffice. Serves 6-8 as an appetizer.

My entree took its color cues from this "costume of the day" posted by Kelly Framel, aka The Glamourai. When she's not working her day job as a stylist, Kelly breathes new life into vintage jewelry, which you can find for sale at Shrimpton Couture and The Glamporium. She did not have any special requests as far as what dish I made in honor of her, so I picked an outfit I loved and carried on with the Southwest-ish culinary theme.

Pork Loin Spirals With Corn and Black Beans

Inspired by Kelly Framel

Ingredients

1 c. black beans, cooked

1 c. corn, fresh shucked or thawed frozen

1/4 c. olive oil, plus extra to baste

2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar, plus extra to de-glaze

1 Tbsp. cumin

1 tsp. dijon mustard

1/4 tsp. salt, plus extra to season the meat

1/4 tsp. pepper, plus extra to season the meat

6 large garlic cloves, minced

Zest of 2 lemons, grated or minced

Juice of 1/2 lemon

4 inches fresh ginger, grated

2 pork tenderloin fillets, weighing about 1 1/4 lbs each

1/2 c. Manchego cheese, diced small

Directions

Mix all ingredients except the pork loin and Manchego in a container with a lid. Store in the fridge to marinate for 8-48 hours, stirring periodically.

Around the same time you assemble the filling, cut into each pork loin lengthwise. Stop at least 1/4" short of cutting it in half. Make another incision from the center moving outward. Again, do not cut all the way through. Unfold. Each loin should now be about 4 times its original width.

Spread the meat on a hearty surface that can take a good pounding. Cover it in plastic wrap and bang it with a mallet until it's good and flat. Season with salt and pepper. Store in the fridge until ready to cook.

Heat the oven to 400.

Saute the marinated filling over medium heat until the garlic grows soft and flavors the other components. Deglaze with additional sherry vinegar if necessary. This will take about 5-7 minutes, but if you were a chickenless cook, you would taste as you go ;)

Spread the pork flat in an oiled baking pan. Allow the filling to cool a few minutes, then divide it evenly between the two fillets and spread it over, leaving a border of 3/4" to 1". Sprinkle on the cheese. Roll the loins up lengthwise and secure with 6 or more pieces of kitchen twine each. Baste each loin with a bit of olive oil. Roast about 1 hour. Remove the twine and cut into rounds from top to bottom. Serves 6-8.

Dessert was inspired by this frock posted by Fleur de Guerre of Diary of a Vintage Girl. She, like Kelly, gave me free reign to choose from her oodles of fabulous photos. I imagine this one wouldn't have been her first pick; she's a self-described "part-time pinup girl and full-time Forties enthusiast," and this look is more 50s. But I'm sure she'll approve of the azure after-dinner cocktails I served in her honor.

Blue Hawaiian Pina Coladas

Inspired by Fleur de Guerre

Ingredients (Alcoholic Version)

4 oz. rum

2 oz. blue curacao

6 oz. unsweetened coconut milk

1 c. fresh pineapple chunks

1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar or simple syrup

10 ice cubes

Ingredients (Kid-Friendly Version)

6 oz. whole milk

6 oz. unsweetened coconut milk

1 c. fresh pineapple chunks

2 Tbsp. sugar or simple syrup

A few drops blue food coloring

10 ice cubes

Directions

Place all ingredients in a blender and run on high until smooth. Serves 4 (or 2 double-tall as pictured).

Thanks to everyone who participated in this challenge! If you haven't participated yet and you live on my side of the globe, it's not too late. Your time isn't up until the day is over...

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

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Kumquat Shortcake

Last night, friends treated my husband and me to a smashing roast chicken dinner (thanks again, Paul and Alice!) I volunteered to bring dessert. In recent weeks, I've had a hankering for something fruity and chile-influenced, which led me to poach these kumquats with a poblano pepper and serve them over a Sara Lee pound cake.

Oh, all right, you caught me.

The Sara Lee pound cake was a last-minute save. Anti-corporate control freak that I am, I made a batch of biscuits; but for some reason they came out tasting like bitterness incarnate. Will have to play around with that recipe for a bit and post it at a later date.

These kumquats, on the other hand, are to die for. Their tart-and-sweet flavor meshed excellently with the cinnamon, cloves, and chile.

Poached Kumquats With Poblano

Ingredients

2 pints kumquats

1/2 a poblano pepper

2 c. water

2/3 c. orange blossom honey

2/3 c. granulated sugar

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ground cloves

Directions

Heat your broiler to the highest setting. Meanwhile, cut the kumquats into thirds horizontally (yes, you have to de-seed them, which is a pain; but it's not necessary to peel them.)

Place the pepper skin-side-up on an oiled baking sheet. Broil about five minutes, or until the skin is wrinkly and partially black on top. Remove and let cool. Peel off the skin.

Combine the water, honey, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the kumquats and poblano, then reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer 20 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and let cool. Fish out the poblano, drain so that the poaching liquid runs back into the pan, and chop. Store the chopped poblano in a small container with a couple spoonfuls of poaching liquid to cover. Store the kumquats separately in the rest of the liquid. To serve, spoon the kumquats over any of the following (or something else that I haven't thought of):

Ice Cream

Cake

Biscuits

Sweet Cornbread

Corn Pudding

Bread Pudding

Fruit Salad

Pancakes

Crepes

Waffles

Cookies

Garnish with the chopped poblano. (Optional: Beat 2 Tbsp. of poaching liquid from the kumquats with 1 c. heavy whipping cream.) Serves 4-5.

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

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Pineapple Crisp With Lentil Cookie Topping

I admit it: I've led you astray. Turns out those lentil cookies I told you about don't store well at all. The lentils in mine dried out forty-eight hours after they left the oven, and I imagine that in drier climates (read: anywhere but Florida) their lifespan would be even shorter.

I advise that you either make these treats in small batches only or have some other use in mind. Since crisp topping is supposed to be crunchy anyway, I opted to crumble up my dried-out cookies, sprinkle them over a pan of juicy seasonal fruit, and bake. Dessert doesn't get any easier or tastier than this.

Pineapple Crisp

Ingredients

1 1/2 pineapples, cut into chunks

1 Tbsp. flour

8-10 lentil cookies, crumbled

Directions

Heat the oven to 375.

Mix the pineapple chunks and flour. Put them in a 10" pie pan (bet you're jealous of the adorable one that my mom got me for Christmas).

Bake the pineapple chunks on their own for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the cookie topping over. Bake until sufficiently browned on top, about 20-30 minutes more. If the topping browns too much before the pineapple is soft, cover with a sheet of foil for the remainder of the cooking time. Serves 6.

I attempted to make pineapple whipped cream, but it came out tasting an awful lot like regular whipped cream. In case you want to play around with the recipe, here it is. By all means, please contact me if you find a better way!

Pineapple Whipped Cream

Ingredients

3/4 c. heavy whipping cream

2 Tbsp. pineapple juice

1 Tbsp. sugar

Directions

Whisk or beat all ingredients with an electric mixer until stiff. Makes about 1 1/2 c. whipped cream.

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

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Lentil Cookies

You probably get bombarded with lies on this subject every day: "Don't worry, it's healthy but you still feel satisfied." "Tastes just like the real thing!" "Your kids will never know the difference if you substitute spinach for sugar." But the fact is, most diet desserts suck. And they will ultimately lead to a breakdown during which you will shovel too many un-diet desserts into your deprived piehole at one sitting.

All that said, PLEASE GIVE THESE COOKIES A CHANCE.

I know they sound like the Valium-fueled concoction of a 1970s ex-hippie supermom, but THEY REALLY DO TASTE GOOD. And if you are among my many vegetarian readers, you're sure to appreciate the extra protein that comes from combining lentils with oatmeal.

I adapted this recipe from the one underneath the lid of the Quaker Oats canister. The original is called Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, a longtime favorite in my house. In addition to subbing lentils for 1/3 of the oats, I threw in some dried ginger and cloves, which I thought would complement the other flavors nicely and help disguise the lentils. And of course, you can use anything you'd like in place of the raisins. This time I went half and half with golden raisins and chocolate chips. On my list to try are dried apricot chunks, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, and candied ginger (preferably chocolate-covered).

Lentil Cookies

Ingredients

2 sticks butter (salted if desired), softened

1 c. firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. dried ginger

1/8 tsp. dried cloves

1/2 tsp salt

2 c. oats (I used Quaker)

1 c. cooked lentils

1/2 c. chocolate chips

1/2 c. golden raisins

Directions

Heat the oven to 350.

Beat butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla in a mixing bowl.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt in a separate bowl, then incorporate this mixture into the wet ingredients.

Stir in oats and lentils.

Stir in chocolate chips and raisins.

Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 10-12 minutes at 350. Makes 4 dozen.

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

Christmas Presents

Another year of no money, another year of packaging cheap homemade foods up pretty and calling them gifts. This Christmas it was jam and cookies.

I had made jam before, but never canned it, and was excited to try. This recipe for Florida Citrus Marmalade (see below) was inspired by a recipe for Cranberry Orange Marmalade on page 188 of a Cooking Light holiday edition from November/December 2007. I wanted to see if I could achieve sufficient tartness using grapefruit and key limes instead of cranberries, which aren't native to Florida. In the future I may increase my limeage, but it came out pretty well for a first attempt.

As for the cookies, I made these of the potato chip variety (thanks a million to Brie le Grand Fromage!) and added chocolate chips. I wanted to dip them in chocolate, but there would be days' worth of car travel before many of these packages reached their destinations. As my Florida readers can tell you, the weather fluctuates like mad at this time of year, so I wouldn't want to risk making a melt-prone gift.

Here's what my kitchen looked like while I was making the cookies. Thought you may get a kick out of it:

Florida Citrus Marmalade

Ingredients

8 lbs. navel oranges (about 14 oranges)

2/3 of a ruby red grapefruit

6 key limes

6 c. sugar, divided

3 c. water

Directions

Zest two oranges and two limes. Remove peels from these and all other fruits. Chop the fruit and remove all seeds.

Combine chopped fruit and zest in a large saucepan with water and 2 cups of the sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 15 minutes.

Add remaining sugar. Simmer approximately an hour and a half.

Meanwhile, sanitize your canning equipment. Pre-wash all jars, lids, and bands with antibacterial dish soap and water. Fill a pot with enough water to completely submerge your jars. Bring to a boil over medium-high and place jars, lids, and bands gently in the boiling water for five minutes or more. For the last minute or so, lower the end of a pair of tongs into the boiling water. When time is up, use the sanitized tongs to remove each piece from the pot and place it on a clean towel.

Spoon jam into the jars while still hot. Wipe anything that spills over the edge with a clean damp towel. Put on the lids and secure with the bands.

Lower jars gently back into the boiling water. Boil for ten minutes, then remove carefully with the tongs and place back on the towel. (The towel is there as a buffer between the hot jar and the cold countertop, a trick I learned from Alton Brown via a recommendation from Peas Love Carrots. This helps prevent spontaneous shattering). A couple hours later, check the tops to be sure they have sealed. If the button doesn't bounce back when you push it, hooray! Your jam will keep in the same condition for about a year. This recipe makes about a dozen 8-oz jars.

I had a jar left over for myself and my husband. Before I left to visit family on Christmas Eve, I had some for breakfast over toast and melted havarti. Yum! A little too sweet, but overall... yum!

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

Nutella and Lemon Curd Sandwich Cookies

I know it's not very chickenless of me to share two recipes from the same cookbook in one month. Believe me, I was just going to do Cook of the Week and post this sometime down the road.

As I write this, there's a gunman on the loose within a few blocks of my house. As of fifteen minutes ago, they had no suspects and were still attempting to secure the office building where it happened. I'm sure you'll all read about this in the news later, and by then what I just told you will be out of date. But right now, I'm scared and confused. What the hell is going on? First Fort Hood, now this... What's wrong with the world? If that sicko is prowling my neighborhood right now, looking for a place to lie low, if he just busts into my house right now, I WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT WAS GOING THROUGH HIS HEAD. I may never know anyway. We may never be able to point to it. They may never prove that it's hormones in the water supply, or an undercurrent of political resentment on all sides that's finally built its way to this, or ANY ONE THING. As a human being, that makes me nervous. Human beings like to know things. They like to dissect incidents, to overcome hurdles. Puzzles with no answers are the essence of Jung's Shadow.

So if I'm so nervous, what am I doing here at my laptop, sitting on the floor so my head is below all the windows, writing about cookies? Because I may not know how to solve the tragedies of the world, but I do know cookies. Especially these cookies. I've baked them many times, and their sweet buttery perfection never fails to distract me. So at least for the short time that I'm blogging about them, I'll be the boss. Not some nutcase wandering around town with a gun. ME. I'm in charge.

And I say we're baking cookies, damn it.

We're baking Grandma Sylvia's Salt Butter Cookies on page 188 of America's Best Lost Recipes:

But we're baking them the Chickenless Kitchen way, which means that instead of the chocolate filling they tell you to use, we're using Nutella and lemon curd. And because there is currently no whiskey in the Chickenless Kitchen, we're using lemon juice instead.

Nutella and Lemon Curd Sandwich Cookies

Ingredients

2 large egg yolks

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. lemon juice

2 sticks salted butter, softened; or 2 sticks unsalted butter plus 1/2 tsp. salt

2/3 c. granulated sugar

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp. each Nutella and lemon curd

Directions

Heat the oven to 350.

Beat the yolks, vanilla, lemon juice, butter, and sugar in a mixing bowl.

Incorporate the flour (and salt if using).

Roll bits of dough between your palms to make balls about 3/4" across. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. You should end up with about 36 small cookie halves. Let these cool completely (both Nutella and lemon curd are lousy to work with at high temperatures).

Once the cookies have cooled, separate them into two groups of the same number. Spread a paper-thin layer of Nutella on one group, lemon curd on the other. Take one of each (it helps if they're approximately the same size) and marry them. Press firmly, or else the lemon curd side will slide off. Makes 1 1/2 dozen sandwich cookies. Store in the refrigerator.

Just checked the news again. Apparently they have ID'd the suspect, an ex-employee who was fired last year for "performance issues." They're saying it's too soon to pinpoint that as a motivation.

They haven't physically caught him, at least not as of three minutes ago. I can hear the noise of the police helicopters over my house starting to fade. Maybe that's a good sign. Just going to have to wait and see. In the meantime my heart goes out to the victims and their families, those poor people who can't just look at pictures of cookies and make this go away.

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

Maple Oatmeal Clafouti... Yes, I Only Got the One Good Picture of It

Introducing another fabulous guest recipe by The Chickenless Chick's mom!

Now I have to warn you- and I doubt I'm embarrassing her by saying this- my mom is no chicken in the kitchen; and this is a far cry from traditional clafouti, which I find quite bland. So if you're looking for an exemplary clafouti, then I'm sorry I wrote the word clafouti on this page so many times that the search engine picked it up... clafouti clafouti clafouti. (Meh, I'm not that sorry... I'll take hits where I can get 'em.)

Maple Oatmeal Clafouti

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups old fashioned oats (uncooked)

¾ cups brown sugar

¾ cup dried cherries or cranberries

¾ cup walnuts (optional)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ tsp maple extract (or 1 tbs vanilla if you don’t have maple)

1 ½ tsp apple cider vinegar

2 cups milk

2 eggs (whipped)

1 large tart apple, like Granny Smith, diced

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil or grease 13 x9 casserole dish. (Filippo Berio extra light olive oil comes in a nice little spray pump now if you don’t have your own sprayer.)

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Set aside.

In another bowl, whip eggs. Stir in milk, vanilla, maple, and vinegar. Add to dry ingredients, and mix together. Stir in apple. (It will look watery and gloppy. Don’t panic!)

Pour into casserole dish. Spread the solids around evenly throughout the wet mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees, 50 minutes. Test with toothpick for doneness.

Cool slightly and cut into twelve squares.

Top with homemade applesauce, plain or vanilla yogurt, and drizzle with grade B maple syrup (for a more intense maple flavor).

Simple Applesauce

Ingredients

3-4 apples (I like to mix sweet and tart – like 2 MacIntosh and 1 Granny Smith, for instance.)

3 T. brown sugar (optional)

1 T. lightly salted butter (optional)

2 T. water

Directions

Chop apples, add to pan with water. Bring to boil on medium heat, stirring often.

Add butter and sugar, turn heat down and simmer 10-15 minutes depending how chunky you like your applesauce.

Thank you, Chickenless Chick's Mom, for indulging my blog addiction and letting me share your recipe with my food nerd friends!

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.