Madhu Knits and Cooks

A Rare Milk Street Misstep - Cilantro Rice

Upon typing this post's title, I realized that I may be too harsh on Milk Street.  The ultimate issue with their Cilantro Rice recipe may in fact be user error (surprise, surprise).  

That user error becomes apparent with the first images of how I prepared this dish - with leftover Chinese takeout rice instead of making the rice myself.

The secondary user error probably comes from my eye-balling the remaining ingredients to fit the assumed amount of rice that I had.

The ultimate result was a bland rice, far below the expectation I had for a flavorful, punchy side dish.  I added more salt and lime juice, but unfortunately nothing could change the limited taste profile.  Oh well.  Next.

Delicious and Simple Berry Cake

One of the saddest things about being 6 months behind in my blog posts is that I now regularly torture myself when I edit pictures of beautiful summer fruits and vegetables.  This post is probably the worst to date because it involves perfectly ripe and seasonal Maine blueberries.  These blueberries were the centerpiece of a lovely Late Berry Summer Torte recipe I made from King Arthur Flour.

This torte is definitely one of those prepare-while-the-oven-is-heating recipes, which makes it perfect for a weeknight or impromptu summer gathering.  

You simply cream together the sugar, butter, and eggs before adding in the flour.

Then spread the batter in the pan, top with the berries, sprinkle with a cinnamon-sugar mix, and into the oven the torte goes for 35 - 40 minutes.  I may have slightly overbaked the cake because the center was a bit hard for me to tell if it was cooked, but it was still a great result.  This will be an annual staple in my home!

Blueberry Cobbler - A Chez Panisse Almost Homemade Hit!

I have an Alice Waters cookbook on my bookshelf, but somehow I still end up using the Internet to learn about her recipes!  The latest example is my homemade recreation of the NYTimes.com published Chez Panisse Blueberry Cobbler.  

This cobbler is a wonderful summer treat, but because you are baking the fruit with sugar, it really can be a year-round treat with out-of-season fruit.  The recipe is also simple enough that I think you can easily sub in the fruit fillings for whatever you are in the mood for. 

I made the cobbler by eyeballing the ingredients, except for the flour, heavy cream and butter used in the biscuits themselves.  This probably caused the slightly too-grainy biscuits, so I will probably next "experiment" with actually following the recipe or increasing the amount of fats (heavy cream, butter) to produce a more smooth biscuit.  

The other edit I will probably make is to slightly increase the sugar tossed with the fresh fruit because my initial attempt was a little too tart for my taste.  That being said, the tart berries were perfectly offset by vanilla ice cream so I think more sugar is only needed if the dish will be served on its own, without ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.

To construct this while-the-oven-heats dessert, start by tossing the fruit with sugar and placing the mixture at the bottom of a small baking dish.

Then assemble the dough, which takes just only slightly longer than the blueberry prep.  

Then form six equal patties of the dough to place on top of the blueberries in the baking dish.

Bake in the pre-heated oven and serve while still slightly warm - yum!