San Francisco Fried Ravioli

A few months ago, Nick and I went to San Francisco for a little vacation. I've never been to a city outside of Italy that cared so much about what it put in its mouth. Refreshing.

Anyway, we were there over New Year's Eve, which of course deserved celebration with a nice dinner and some champagne. Unfortunately, I'd hurt my foot earlier in the trip, and by the end of December 31, was in no condition to walk very far for any reason, even great food. Luckily, in San Francisco, great food always seems to be right around the corner. So I agreed to schlep a block and a half to a nice restaurant visible from our hotel window in return for a bottle of California champagne from the wine/convenience store across the street (did I mention I love San Francisco?)

The restaurant was packed when we got there - it was New Year's Eve, after all - so we grabbed a couple seats at the bar and sipped something from Napa or Sonoma until a table opened up. The menu was mostly modern Italian dishes - California twists on lasagna and the like. The most unusual offering was fried ravioli - I didn't know you could fry ravioli! So of course I ordered it.

I was delivered a bed of greens in a light balsamic vinaigrette, topped with a few large, fried ravioli. (Interestingly, ravioli and raviolis are both acceptable plural forms; ravioli is actually the plural of the original Italian raviolo.) They looked much as you would expect fried ravioli to look. But beyond that, they far exceeded expectations! The breaded pasta shell was crunchy but light and never chewy (I'm pretty sure the pasta was homemade.) After the first bite, hot, melted cheese oozed out luxuriously, having been exposed to the heat but not the hot oil of frying. It would have been worth a much longer walk.

Since then, fried ravioli has been near the top of my list of things I want to try to make. So the other night, when Dana and Seth and I were all wondering what to eat, I offered to fry up the package of fresh ravioli I had in the fridge. Dana proffered some brussels sprouts, and we dug a red bell pepper out of our vegetable drawer. Then we did this:

San Francisco Fried Ravioli

1 Red Bell Pepper
1 pkg Fresh (or homemade!) Ravioli
Breadcrumbs (I used some w/ Italian seasoning, although I'm sure homemade would be better)
Olive Oil
Brussels Sprouts
salt & pepper

Put a pot of salted water on to boil and preheat the oven to 425º.

Slice the bell pepper in half, right through the stem. Place cut side down on a foil-lined baking sheet and throw it in the oven.

Slice brussels sprouts in half lengthwise. Toss them on a baking sheet with a generous splash of olive oil and some salt & fresh-ground pepper. Slide the pan into the oven either next to or below the peppers. After about 10 minutes, toss the brussels sprouts around.

Pour your breadcrumbs out onto a plate. Pour a quarter inch of olive oil into a cast iron skillet.

Boil the ravioli until slightly less than al dente - take a couple minutes off the time on the package.

Don't forget to turn the brussels sprouts!

Just before the pasta is done, heat the oil in the skillet until very hot but not smoking.

Take the pasta off the heat, but leave it in the water. Using a slotted spoon - preferably one of those circular ones full of holes - transfer a few ravioli at a time to the breadcrumb plate, and turn to coat.

Use tongs to place the ravioli - carefully - in the oil. They cook fast, so keep an eye on the edges and flip when browned on one side.

Repeat until all the ravioli is fried, adding more oil and letting it heat up as needed. Keep the cooked ravioli on a plate under foil.

Take out the peppers and brussels sprouts, remove the seeds from the peppers and slice them into 1 by 1 inch squares, more or less.

Serve the peppers, brussels sprouts and ravioli together in shallow bowls with fresh ground pepper.

I didn't truly blacken the peppers for this, or do the whole plastic bag/skin peeling thing (mostly because we were hungry) but I like them this way - soft and hot but still bright red and flavorful.

The ravioli were good, but they didn't have the oozy cheese that was so great in SF. Guess I'll have to start making my own pasta!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake

I've been eating ice cream cakes from Dairy Queen for years, and I have to say, they're pretty great. So when Nick, whose birthday was on Wednesday, told me his favorite kind of cake is ice cream, I was slightly disappointed at the lost opportunity to bake for him. But it was his birthday, not mine, so I agreed to buy him one. But my mind wouldn't rest, and as I thought about it, I remembered seeing a recipe for ice cream cake in one of my mother's cookbooks.
Armed with the knowledge that it is, in fact, possible to make an ice cream cake at home, I turned to the trusty internet. Lo and behold, epicurious.com produced several recipes for ice cream cakes, pies and tarts. There was cherry-almond, mocha crunch and cookies and cream. Some had layers of cake between the ice cream, others chocolate. One used macaroons for a crust, another, amaretti cookies. Whichever would I choose?

As I tried to find a cake that would please the birthday boy, I remembered his request, months ago, that I make something chocolate with peanut butter icing. I narrowed my search, and this time, was less-than-satisfied with the results. It appeared that if I wanted to make a chocolate and peanut butter ice cream cake, I would have to make it up myself. So that's what I did.

The first order of business was a shopping trip. First, to Crate & Barrel, for a nine-inch springform cake pan. Then, to the grocery store, where I picked up the following things:

1 package Oreo cookies (45 cookies)
1 pint chocolate ice cream
1 pint vanilla ice cream
Peanut butter (I like it smooth, but I suppose chunky would work too)
Unsalted butter
1 jar hot fudge sauce
Reeses peanut butter cups
Wax Paper

This was Tuesday morning. I started the cake that afternoon.

First, Dana and I scraped the cream filling out of the entire package of Oreos. (Except 2, which we ate.) Result:

While we did this, we let the chocolate ice cream sit out on the counter to soften.

Then, we chopped the cookies up in the food processor (we threw out the filling) with 2 tablespoons of butter and 4 or 5 spoonfuls of peanut butter. The mixture was crumbly but moist. We patted it into the bottom of the pan, about 1/3 inch deep.

Then, we spread about an inch of the softened chocolate ice cream on top. We covered the surface with waxed paper and popped it into the freezer.

Then we went to get coffee. We may have studied a bit. It wasn't memorable.

We came home to our frozen cake, and I decided it was time for another layer of cookies, and some chocolate sauce. I wanted to use my mom's hot fudge recipe, as I remember it being delicious. So, following her instructions, I put sugar, chocolate and butter into a pot on the stove. The problem was, the first four ingredients in the recipe were sugar, chocolate, water and butter. But the recipe made no mention of the water. So, as I often do in moments of baking doubt, I called my mother. She agreed that the sugar, chocolate and meager amount of butter in the pot looked prime for burning. She also agreed that melting chocolate and water together is generally a bad idea. But, for possibly the first time ever, she didn't know what to do either.

So she called her mother. Her mother, my grandmother, tried to find the original recipe, which, supposedly, is Julia Child's. But to no avail. But, she said, put the water in, the butter will protect the chocolate. She also instructed me, via my mother, on testing the sauce for done-ness by dropping a bit into a glass of water. It's supposed to form a soft ball. I was not so good at this.

Which is why I do not provide my mother's/Nana's/Julia Child's chocolate sauce recipe here. I don't know if I cooked the sauce too long or if it's just not a good sauce for freezing, but both chocolate layers in the cake were harder than they should have been. And although the one in the middle was delicious and took on a chewy, candy-like consistency after slight thawing, it makes the cake very difficult to cut without an electric carving knife.

Anyway, after the game of telephone and a few false "soft balls," we poured the finished chocolate sauce onto the cake. Then, another layer of cookie crumbs, and back in the freezer.

I forget what we did for the next hour or so. I'm sure it was riveting.

Once the cake was frozen again, I took the vanilla ice cream out of the freezer and put it into the food processor with a few spoonfuls of peanut butter. Maybe 7. I mixed until it was all mixed and soft enough to spread. Then we spread it on the cake, covered with waxed paper, and popped it back in the freezer.

Then we went to Seth's, watched some bad TV and drank some wine.

Finally, we came home and cut a handful of Reeses peanut butter cups in half. Then we reheated the chocolate sauce (I think that was the problem with the top layer) and poured it on top of the cake. While the sauce was still warm, we stuck the Reeses on in an attractive arrangement. I wanted to try and make the stand up, but they melted as we stuck them on, so that didn't work.

Then, back in the freezer, for the last time.

It was now almost midnight. This is why most people just buy ice cream cakes.

But apparently I never learn. Either that or I'd just rather be cooking than doing anything else (like writing a research paper.) This is why I spent a solid four hours the next day making Nick corned beef and cabbage. I won't go into detail here, as corned beef and cabbage is really not half as good as ice cream cake, but suffice it to say that this required yet another call to my grandmother, the master. It was also pretty good, if you like that sort of thing. (Nick does. I'm less sure. And Dana and Vicky are vegetarians.)

We were unanimous, though, on the spectacular ice cream cake. Cutting difficulties aside, it was delicious. Granted, you can't go too wrong with ice cream, Oreos, peanut butter and Reeses.

Of Easter, Eggs, and Excess

I’m sure anyone from New England has heard their fair share of complaints about the incessant cold, the miserable rain, the sunless skies, and the seemingly eternal winter. Yesterday, however, was one of those mornings where you wake up and the carpet is dappled with little puddles of sunlight and the birds are singing blithely, and everything just seems like a Disney movie. Since spring finally seems to be arriving (never mind the ominous grey sky as I type), it seems time to do a quick seasonal, albeit belated, Easter re-cap.

Being the good Jewish girl that I am, I do not celebrate Easter for remotely religious purposes. Usually I would say that I celebrate egg dying, colorful dresses, chocolate bunnies and being with family. But to be truthful, this year our Easter was pretty much an homage to excess, which consisted of me striving to eat as much food as possible (I think Chloe was celebrating similarly).

Saturday was a day of preparation. There was many a pie crust to be made and myriad eggs to be dyed. Egg dying is a skill to be honed over many years, and everyone had their own spin on how to best display their creativity. I used to draw idyllic scenes on one surface of the egg, but stuck primarily to an abstract array of swirls and dots this year. When I saw fifteen boxes of eggs sitting on the counter I was quite intimidated, but with all of the Lutts clan hard at work, they were all colored and ready for hiding in just a few hours.

I woke up early on Sunday morning to a household overflowing with people and a counter laden with golden sticky buns dripping with nuts and glaze, and a mounded bowl of fresh fruit salad. After eating two of the sticky buns (logically I had a heaping plate of fruit to counteract the early onset of diabetes), I was taught how to properly slice and dice an avocado for guacamole, the correct way to cut lemons for pink lemonade, and finally piled our homemade piecrust high with fresh apple slices doused with cinnamon and sugar. The egg hunt commenced and breakfast turned to a brunch buffet. I can’t possibly list everything but there were deviled eggs (but of course), immense hams, turkey, asparagus, multiple green salads, potato salad, crudités, mimosas, two chocolate pies piled high with whipped cream, and finally our apple pie, crystals of browned sugar adorning the top.

I forgot to mention that despite both wearing delicate floral Anthropologie Easter dresses, Chloe and I wore puffy winter coats over them all day. The temperature wasn’t too cold, but the wind was brisk and biting. As I spied an egg behind a barren tree, I mused rather dejectedly that you can’t depend on spring weather for Easter in New England. But soon enough I was back inside, curled up on the cushy couch with a mimosa in one hand and a thick slice of warm pie in the other. And I think: maybe that’s okay. It’s not just the weather that makes a season, or a day, or a holiday. It’s the people, it’s the experience, it’s the tradition. And oh yeah, lest I forget: it’s the food.

Ode to a cupcake

There once was a cupcake of pink
Who feared he'd be thrown in the sink
He tried to look cute
And put on a suit
And said "Miss, I'd go well with a drink"

by Victoria Chao, Age 21



Oh, by the way folks, Happy Belated Easter! More on this topic to come...

Amazing Chai Honey Cupcakes

I've developed a newfound appreciation for honey. I was always okay with it, and particularly enjoyed those straws filled with honey sold at farmers markets and apple orchards. But then I tried Starbucks' new honey latte. I initially thought it sounded gross, but to maintain my almost obsessively comprehensive knowledge of Starbucks' beverage offerings, I thought I should at least try it. Wholly unexpectedly, its dulcet honeyed tones have converted me back to drinking sweetened lattes - and I was on a strict routine of black coffee in the morning and double tall nonfat lattes in the afternoon. But the peaks of frothy whipped cream criss-crossed with honey have made me look at the pairing of sugar and espresso in a whole new way.

So when Dana suggested we make these Chai and Honey cupcakes, I agreed immediately. Their whipped cream and honey cap is nothing is not evocative of my now-beloved honey latte. But the cake beneath it – moist yet fluffy – replaces the bite of espresso with spicy chai tea. The recipe comes from Shelly Kaldunski's cupcakes, the joyous answer to my long search for a cupcake cookbook that is neither too simple nor full of yellow cupcakes decorated with panda bears and balloons (I found it at Williams-Sonoma, if you're on a similar quest.)


Chai & Honey Cupcakes

3 chai-spice tea bags
2/3 cup boiling water
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup honey
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 large egg, at room temperature

Make the chai tea far enough ahead of time that it will cool by the time you need it. You might need to add a little extra water if some boils away. We put the tea in the fridge until it was nearly room temperature.

Preheat your oven to 350º and line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

In medium-size bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, combine the honey, melted butter, buttermilk and egg. Add the flour mixture and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until just combined. Add the cooled tea and beat until just combined. The batter will be very thin, almost like soup.

Divide the batter evenly among the cups. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 18 minutes. The cupcakes should be nice and brown.

Honey Whipped Cream

1cup cold heavy cream
2 tbsp honey

Using an electric mixer on low speed, beat the cream and honey together until slightly thickened, 1-2 minutes. Gradually increase the speed to medium-high and continue to beat until the cream holds soft peaks, 2-3 minutes.

Top the fully cooled cupcakes with nice big dollops of whipped cream. Drizzle with honey just before serving (it will be gradually absorbed by the whipped cream otherwise.) Take a bite and bask in the deliciousness.