mid-week middle eastern meal

Posted in vegan, vegetarian by

I used to work at an ad agency in metro Detroit.  I love that city, I really do.  I could devote a whole post (or two or ten) about my love for it but will start by talking about the food in the cafeteria at the ad agency I used to work at.  It was run by people of Lebanese and Yemeni descent and the food very much reflected that.

I had a few exposures to Middle Eastern food before living in metro D but it was pretty much restricted to pita and hummus.  The cafeteria opened my eyes to the beauty of things like shish tawook, chicken kafta, and a beautiful dish called mujadera.

Mujadera involves lentils, (and you know how much I love lentils) rice, and onions– both cooked and caramelized.

I had plenty of rice on hand but also had farro and thought that might make a nice substitute.  Farro is in the wheat family, similar to barley.  It is hearty and nutty and delicious in savory dishes.

While the lentils, onions, and farro were cooking on the stovetop I turned my attention to caramelizing some onions to top the mujadera with.

Caramelizing onions is easy and the results are delicious.  I’d venture a guess that even people who don’t like onions under normal circumstances like caramelized ones.

If I were making caramelized onions to go on a burger or to top a pizza I might stop at the below….

But for this dish you want them brown like the below image.  I don’t even mind if they’re a little on the black side even though the recipe warns you to be careful of burning them.

I was psyched to find this recipe in a cookbook I had because Wisconsin is relatively void of Middle Eastern food and now I can make this for myself at home.  Score!  Takes me back to my days of eating lunch at the cafeteria in Detroit…

Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions (Mujadera) (from “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman)

  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped, plus 1 large or 2 medium onions, halved and sliced
  • 1 clove minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • 2 cups lentils, washed and picked over
  • About 6 cups chicken, beef, or vegetable stock, or water, warmed
  • 1 cup long- or short- grain rice (or farro)

Place 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large, deep saucepan and turn the heat to medium.  A minute later, add the chopped onion and cook until it begins to become tender, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper, and cook 3 minutes more.  Add the lentils, stir, and add about 4 cups liquid.

Cook, stirring occasionally, until the lentils begin to soften, about 20 minutes.  Add enough of the remaining stock or water so that the lentils are covered by about an inch of liquid.  Stir in the rice.  Cover and turn the heat to low.

Meanwhile, place the remaining oil in a medium skillet and turn the heat to medium-high.  Cook the onion slices, stirring frequently, until they are dark brown but not burned, about 15 minutes.  Scoop out the onions and let them drain on paper towels while you finish cooking the lentils and rice.

Check the rice and lentils after 20 minutes.  When both are tender and the liquid is absorbed, the dish is ready.  If the lentils and rice are not tender, add more liquid, cover, and cook for a few more minutes.  If, on the contrary, the rice and lentils are soft and there is much liquid remaining, raise the heat a bit and cook, uncovered, stirring until it evaporates.

Serve the rice and lentils, garnished with the caramelized onions.

life-changing marshmallows

Posted in brownie by

Growing up I always enjoyed marshmallows.  My brother taught me to eat them directly from the bag that my mom always seemed to have hanging around in the cupboard for future baking projects.  However, I did not know that marshmallows could in fact be life-changing until I had the homemade ones at City Bakery in New York.

Fortunately for me they sell them by the bag so when I was in NYC for work in December I bought two bags to take home.

This weekend I wanted to bake something that featured these beautiful, pillow-like marshmallows and thought what goes better with marshmallows than chocolate?  My brother’s girlfriend gave me some awesome German chocolate for Christmas so I thought I’d use that and make some brownies.

I did all sorts of searching on the interweb for the perfect marshmallow brownie but was not feeling it for any of the recipes I found.  Then I remembered that around this time last year I made some award-winning brownies and thought I would adapt that recipe to incorporate the marshmallows and voila.

The results were a fudge-y brownie with nice caramelized, almost crusty marshmallow bits on top.

I’m not suggesting you run out to New York to scoop up a bag of these heavenly marshmallows in order to make this recipe (though if you are there, you owe it to yourself to do so) as I think this recipe would work just fine with store-bought marshmallows.  If you wanted a s’more-like effect you could add some graham cracker crumbs into the batter and I think that would be great too.  Or you could combine graham cracker crumbs and butter and line the bottom of the pan with that!  It’s fun to experiment with baking, so go nuts.  (You could add nuts too!  Now we’re just getting plain crazy…)

Marshmallow Brownies

  • 1-½ stick butter
  • 2 ounces dark or milk chocolate (or a combination of the two), broken into chunks
  • ¼ cups plus 2 tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
  • 1 ¼ cups sugar
  • 3 whole eggs, warmed to room temperature
  • 1-½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 9 marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350°. Place a large piece of foil in a 9-inch square metal cake pan, draping the foil over the edges. Grease foil with butter.

Melt the 1 ½ sticks of butter with the chocolate chunks over very low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat. Whisk to combine. Add the cocoa, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour.  Whisk to combine, though be careful not to over mix.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula.  Insert whole marshmallows into brownie batter.

Bake for about 18 minutes then rotate pan.  Bake for an additional 20 minutes

Cool at room temperature in the pan for about a half hour, then lift the brownies from the pan and refrigerate in the foil just until they are firm.  Remove from foil and cut the brownies into 12 or 16 squares

if you ever find yourself in Lansing, MI…

Posted in city eating guide by

When I was home over the holidays I ate at some fantastic new (or at least new to me) dining establishments in Lansing, Michigan and feel compelled to mention them here.  Should you ever find yourself in that vicinity, do yourself a favor and check them out.

My first night home my brother took our family out to Fork in the Road where they are all about locally-sourced food and feature daily specials based on what’s in season and readily available.  I had their “Ballin’ Ass Tacos” which lived up to their name and finished the meal with Buttermilk Brown Sugar gelato.  Unfortunately we were all so hungry I totally forgot to take photos before we dug in.  I can assure you it was as pretty as it was tasty.

The next morning my bro and a few friends and I got breakfast at Golden Harvest in the Old Town section of Lansing.  I was forewarned before we went that there would be a cold wait outdoors (the restaurant is tiny with perpetually full seating for about 25), that the music would be loud once we got inside, that the punk/goth staff was prone to cursing at patrons, but that the food was exceptional.  All were true.

I had the “Yard Sale” French Toast special which featured pumpkin pecan, vanilla custard, and berry French Toast:

Ah-mazing.

My bro had some sort of chorizo breakfast burrito dish:

I don’t remember what his friend had but it also looked delicious:

If you can handle a loud soundtrack that goes from Salt N’ Pepa to the White Stripes to Johnny Cash to David Bowie and are not distracted by busy decor or offended by body piercings and multiple tattoos on the waitstaff then this is definitely a place worth checking out.  The food did not disappoint.

After stuffing ourselves there we popped over to the Soup Spoon Cafe for a Michigan-brewed craft beer.  Their food menu also looked wonderful but we were way too stuffed to eat a bite.  Next time I’m home I am definitely going back for food though because the soup list alone looked incredible and I know that they also are into locally-sourced food which is great in my book.  I’m so proud of my little section of the mitten state!

a tasty start to the new year

Posted in bread, breakfast by

When I lived in New York I would sometimes motivate myself to workout by promising myself a trip to a bakery or takeout place on the way back from the gym.  It’s a lot easier to get up extra early before work or drag yourself after a ten-hour-workday if there is a reward waiting for you in the form of delicious food.  It works for me every time.

Sunday mornings I would often take a free class at the local Lululemon (Sidenote: those people are brilliant to offer free classes in their stores before business hours; people shopped with their eyes while doing warrior-one and downward-facing-dog.) which was within a few blocks of a then new place by the City Bakery people.

On my first visit to this bakery I was completely sold when I saw Maple Bacon Scones on their menu.  Um, yes please.

And I figured what better way to start the New Year then with a breakfast of champions where I would recreate said scones?

I started out by candy-ing some bacon.  Then I hunted all over town for pure maple extract.  That part wasn’t easy, but the hunt for the real stuff as opposed to the artificial stuff was well worth it.  I suggest you do the same as the imitation kind alters the flavor of the scones and doesn’t in fact taste much like maple at all.

Then I mixed together some flour, a lot of butter, some sugar, the usual baking suspects (baking powder, soda, and salt), an egg, a little cinnamon, buttermilk, and the star ingredient.  Once the dough was kneaded and formed into scone shapes I brushed them with the remaining buttermilk and dusted them with raw sugar and baked them.  Afterwards they got glazed with a little confectioners’ sugar and maple syrup.  Very tasty.  And better yet, no strenuous yoga was necessary to enjoy them this time!

Happy New Year!!!

Maple Bacon Scones (adapted slightly from Maple Walnut Scones recipe in “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking” by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito)

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 2 teaspoons pure maple extract (do not use imitation extract as the flavor is not the same)
  • 1 cup candied bacon (or walnuts if candied bacon is not your thing)
  • ¼ cup raw sugar
  • ½ cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
  • 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Whisk until combined.

Add the butter.  Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until the butter is pea-sized.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, ¾ cup of the buttermilk, and the maple extract.  Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and then gently knead the dough with your hands until the dough starts to come together.  Add the candied bacon (or walnuts) to the dough and knead gently to incorporate.  Move the dough to a lightly floured surface.  Use your hands to shape the dough into two discs (about 1 ½ inches in height.)  Do not overwork the dough.

Cut each disk into 6 wedges with a knife.  Place the wedges onto the prepared baking sheet.  Brush each scone with the remaining buttermilk and sprinkle with raw sugar.  Bake in the center of the oven for about 25 to 30 minutes (rotating the baking sheet halfway through the baking time) or until the scones are golden brown.

Transfer the scones to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Place the wire rack with the cooled scones over the baking sheet.

Whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and maple syrup until the mixture is smooth.  Slowly pour the glaze over each scone in a zigzag pattern.

Allow the glaze to set (about 10 minutes) and serve immediately.

Scones can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

baxter & main now on twitter

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If you tweet please follow me at @baxterandmain on Twitter.  I don’t totally “get” Twitter just yet but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it one of these days… Bear with me.