Riddle Me This, Jishman

I love Bruschetta. It’s easy to make. It’s light and very tasty. Sometimes, though, I find tomato bruschetta too acidic and it makes my tongue hurt. A few months ago, however, JishSis and I went to Eataly in New York City and had a dish very similar. Fall foods are my favorite food stuffs (as the three loyal readers of my blog know). Apples, pears, beans, and pumpkins are great - speaking of which, Seasonal Meal is coming up soon! - but I really love squash. In the summer, it’s Zucchini and Yellow Summer Squash, but in fall, it’s all about Butternut and Acorn Squash. Spaghetti squash is good and fun too, but I’ll definitely roast me some acorn or butternut ones.

Why Bruschetta though? Why not just roast and eat it? Well, you could, I suppose, but there’s just something about “finger food”. Plus there’s cheese, so who wouldn’t enjoy that? So, here it is.

Ingredients
1 Acorn Squash
8 oz Ricotta Cheese
1 pkg Sage leaves
Canola Oil
2 TBS Butter
1 Loaf Italian Bread, French Baguette, or Roasted Garlic loaf
1 Head Garlic
1 Lemon
kosher salt
1 microwave safe container
1 oven safe container
2 mixing bowls
1 baking sheet

Instructions
1.) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Slice the top off the head of the garlic, drizzle some oil over the top, wrap it in a sheet of aluminum foil and place it in the oven for 40-60 minutes.
2.) Mix Ricotta with the juice and zest of lemon until it makes a smooth paste.
3.) Place about an inch or two of oil in a sauce pan and heat on medium to “fry” temperature. (I take a drop or two of water and place it in the pan to see if it “pops” to check.)
4.) Place one leaf at a time in the oil and cook for a minute or so or until the leaves turn dark green. Place on a sheet of paper towel to dry.
5.) Cut the Acorn Squash in half around the equator and place in a microwave safe container. Scoop out the seeds from the inside and place a pat of butter (1 TBS) and some salt over the top of the squash. Place in Microwave for 8 minutes (if it needs more time to get softer, place for 2 more minutes).
6.) Once garlic is done, reduce heat on oven to 375 degrees.
7.) Place Acorn in oven safe container, and cook (covered) for 30-35 minutes.
8.) Once finished, scoop out flesh and place in a mixing bowl with roasted garlic cloves (I recommend 4-6 garlic cloves) and salt until smooth enough to spread.
9.) Toast slices of bread on a baking sheet until lightly toasted.
10.) Spread ricotta on the bread, squash mixture on the ricotta, place a sage leaf atop the batch with a small amount of salt for flavor, and enjoy!

Let me know how you enjoy it.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Most of you know that as a consultant, I tend to travel a lot, and so unfortunately, I don’t have as much time to post as I used to (you know, back when I had a job I didn’t work 100 hours a week at). I like what I do for work, to be sure, but even more than that, I love cooking. I especially love cooking seasonal vegetables - fall vegetables being my favorite, as loyal readers of the blog know - but once in a while, I like summer foods. Fruit - blueberries, cherries, and plums, especially - tend to be three of my favorite during the summer, but when I get the chance, I love radishes. I love watermelon radishes because of how rarely I get them, but the thought of white radishes (with the red outside skin) makes my mouth water. I love them.

Growing up, we leaned towards using them in your normal green salad, and I would definitely do that now when I have no time. Tonight though, I had the time…and so I made something slightly different. It was definitely a salad - because we had leftovers from Friday night - but not your usual green one. Tonight, I decided to make a more contained salad. I made rounds of radish and cucumber (love my mandolin), while adding diced apple, avocado and a tarragon vinaigrette as dressing.

Result:
The salad was good. I probably overdressed it a little (thank you, Mrs. Jishman) but I thought the flavor was incredible. I love the mix of the sweet from the apple, acidity from the rice wine and apple cider vinegars and the herb flavor from the tarragon. I kept thinking of ways I could have improved it, but at the end, I just really enjoyed it. Hopefully you will too if you ever make it.

Ingredients
Dressing:
3 TBS apple cider vinegar
2 TBS rice wine vinegar
1 TBS honey
1 pinch sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
4 sprigs tarragon
2 TBS dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Salad
6 radishes, thinly sliced on mandoline
1 red apple, peeled, cored and finely diced
2/3 cucumber, peeled, thinly sliced on mandolin (same setting as radish)
1 avocado, chunked

Directions
Chop tarragon finely and chunk avocado and apple. Slice radishes and cucumber. Whisk together vinegars, oil, mustard, tarragon, honey, sugar, salt and pepper. Toss radishes, red apple, avocado, and cucumber together with dressing right before serving.

Last week, I was 6 for 6 in predicting the top guys in the competition. I was 5 for 6 predicting the women; America was wrong to select Karen! Ashton as a thirteenth was a bad choice as well.

As I start the new season; I am 11 of 12 in my predictions.

Tonight was our first look at the finalists. I will tell you who will be in the bottom three and which singer will be packing their bags tomorrow night.

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Last night I predicted which six guys would make the top 12. Tonight I will focus on how well the girls did.

Much like last night, it was a tale of two contests. Those who could sing well and those who got a shot to make it to the top 12 and didn’t earn that coveted spot.

This week I am listing the names of the six guys who should make up half of the top 12 contestants.

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So American Idol is back! That means I am back for another season of predicting the winners and the losers each week.

The top 12 guys performed tonight and the twist this week is that six of them will be eliminated on Thursday! Instead of three weeks to make it to the top twelve, performers got one song.

And this week, there was not a question in my mind as to who the top six should be. Yes, the bottom six proved they should go home quickly.

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So, as many of you may have heard, Aaron Sorkin is working towards doing yet another of his “behind the scenes, walk-and-talk, show-within-the-show” type of shows. I love them. I can’t wait. This time, it’s about a cable-news talk show. “More As the Story Develops” is the tentative title and looks to be on HBO.

The intent is to explore a less cynical view of the news media, he explained. “It’ll be aspirational. It’ll be wish fulfillment. But they’re going to lose as much as they’re going to win. In other words, it’s not going to be a fantasy. They’re going to be trying to do well in a context where it’s very difficult to do well when there are commercial concerns and political concerns and corporate concerns.”

Sorkin will be re-teaming with Hollywood über-producer Scott Rudin, who headed up The Social Network (as well as True Grit), and has consulted with several real-life cable news shows and their on-air personalities across the channel spectrum, including Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.

I might need to get HBO just to see this show. (semi kidding) I will admit, I am definitely looking forward to this type of show again. I wanted Studio 60 to be so much better than it was. Hopefully this will live up to half the hype this show will inevitably get.

Yup, that’s right. The due date for the newest member of the family is February 10th. We’ll let you know about the status but below we’ve got a picture of the progress.

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So, one of the dishes I really miss from when I lived in Israel was Shakshuka. The way I had it, it was kind of like rustic, spicy tomato sauce. Plus, when you add a sunny side up (lightly cooked) egg, added this amazing richness to the “sauce” and made the whole dish come together. Taste wise, it should be slightly sweet, tart and definitely rich.

This morning though, we decided to “deconstruct” it a bit. We had a pregnant guest (and a 2+ year old), so instead of adding the sunny side up eggs in the recipe, we made a slightly Italian-style frittata (a kind of omelet). Frittatas are great because they’re easy, light, and can serve up to about 6-8 people from a 12″ pan with 5-7 eggs. Adding Monterey Jack cheese, shallots, salt, black pepper, yellow pepper spears on top, it looked good, browned nicely, and was just very, very easy. Cook on stove top for 5 minutes on medium heat, then bake at 300 for 20 minutes.

The Shakshuka similarly was simple to make. Brown, cook everything together, and just let it thicken. Couldn’t have been easier. We added some oregano and instead of fresh, added dried parsley. Now, as a note, I am not an herb snob. I like fresh, and when I have it, I add it. But, if not, I will add dry and be perfectly fine with it. I have had both, and I think the dried herbs added more than the fresh ones would have. We also used Paprika (and a teaspoon of red chile flake) instead of Harissa. Trust me, we thought about using Harissa and more so about making our own chili paste (Cayenne) for a moment, but with a 2+ year old and guests, we decided against it.

Service options: I poured the sauce over my eggs, over slices of Italian bread, over both, and alone. Really it’s entirely up to you.

Enjoy! Here’s the modified recipe we used.

Ingredients
* A couple sprays of Pam (non-stick spray)
* 1/2 yellow onions, finely chopped
* 1 rounded tablespoon tomato paste
* 2 tablespoons paprika
* 3 medium garlic cloves, minced
* 2 medium jarred roasted bell peppers, small dice
* 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes with juices
* 1 tablespoons kosher salt
* 1/4 cup dried parsley leaves
* 1 tablespoon dried oregano
* 1 long Italian bread loaf

Directions

Heat a frying pan over medium heat (4 out of 10). Add onion and cook until just softened, about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, Paprika, and garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add peppers and stir to coat. Add tomatoes with juices and salt and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened. We cooked it for about 40 minutes or so.

Happy Birthday, Jishman!

Okay, so for the record, I have no idea how to cook a holiday ham, but luckily Serious Eats does - and they were kind of enough to give it to us.

Since we are a fan of all faiths, we are passing this along for our non-kosher keeping brethren.

Enjoy and happy holidays!

Okay, not really so much a battle, but I was definitely unsure of what I was going to do with it before I bought it. Normally with fish, I go conservative - tuna, salmon, mahi mahi, that sort of thing - but with Black Bass, I had really no idea. I’m usually not one for white, flaky fish, but at a company dinner the other day I had a GREAT Chilean Sea Bass, and decided when I saw bass at the store, I’d take the plunge.

When I had it at the restaurant, it was a simple dish: butter, salt, pepper, butter, orange marmalade, and butter. Now, not having any orange marmalade, uninterested in MAKING orange marmalade, and having it with items prepared in dishes that had meat, I decided against boatloads of butter.

However, I wanted simple too. I wanted to know if the fish was something I was going to enjoy as much when I made it as well. So, I decided on basically just spices atop the fish, some margarine (for that butter flavor) and olive oil - pan cooked. But I needed more, and we still had these potatoes left over from our hanukkah party, so I went with mashed potatoes - Mustard Mashed potatoes to be specific.

I hope you enjoy!

Black Bass
2 filets of black bass
1 teaspoon margarine
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon of black pepper (fresh cracked)
1.5 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Instructions:
Heat the oil and margarine together until the margarine is just melted. Put the spices on the fish and pat it in. Cook flesh side down first for 2 minutes then flip. Cook for another minute.

Mustard Mashed Potatoes
2 small Russet potatoes
2 tablespoons grain mustard
1 tablespoon salt
1.5 tablespoon fresh cracked black pepper (I love black pepper)
2 teaspoons margarine

Instructions
Microwave the potatoes for 3 minutes (and add 1 minute at a time after that until you get the texture you want) while covered in wax paper. Mix all of the other ingredients with the potatoes and mash.

Jishman,

As a nominating member and voting member of “Riddle Me This, Jishman”, I would like to nominate CVS Pharmacy for Dumbass of the Week! (with a special recommendation for Dumbass of the Year!)

Why?

I was in CVS this morning buying cold medicine for the kids. As I stood in line, the woman in front of me was trying to buy a carton of cigarettes. The man working the register couldn’t get the carton of cigarettes to ring up correctly. After a few attempts, he called the manager to the front.

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Years ago, as a junior in high school, I was lucky enough to go to England for the Harrogate International Music Festival with the band. We had a great time while there, but besides a latent addiction to laser tag that most kids of my generation had, I found that we went from restaurant to restaurant eating scones. With a great mix of flaky and tender (read: a BOATLOAD of fat added), a great scone should be mild of its own flavor but then you add “something.” (”Something” can be defined as a glaze, fruit, bacon, anything really.)

In this case, I definitely wanted a very basic scone. I wanted only one thing in it. I was just looking for the “doughy” flavor and craisins. I love craisins this time of year, so it seemed appropriate. (Yes, knowing my love of Apples - next time, I might go for something like Maple-Oatmeal or Blueberry Lemon scones.) I also didn’t do an egg wash, because it didn’t call for it, but you definitely can. I think next time I make this, I definitely will.

Up front, I want to tell you, Scones are the next step in my baking evolution. I started with drop cookies. In the next steps, I wanted to do (in this order): Cupcakes/muffins, Cakes, Breads, and finally, PIE(!!!). I moved onto cupcakes last week when I attempted to make chiffon cupcakes. They had the correct texture for cupcakes, but the taste was just bland and barely there. Needless to say, I will be returning to that soon.

But back to the scones, here are the ingredients:

* 2 cups flour
* 4 teaspoons baking powder
* 3/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 4 tablespoons butter
* 2 tablespoons shortening
* 3/4 cup +2 tablespoons of cream
* 1 egg
* 2 handfuls of dried cranberries

Optional
* 1 egg + 2 tablespoons of water for egg wash
* 1 tablespoon of sugar for topping

As for directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in butter (I made small cubes) and shortening. In a separate bowl, combine cream with beaten egg then add to dry ingredients. Stir in fruit. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Roll dough out. I cut the dough with a small knife, but if you have biscuit rounds or square cutters, you can use those too. I baked for 17 minutes or until brown.

All in all, they came out great. Definitely make them. Stupidly easy and taste delicious!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Have a turkey leg for us. And remember, J-E-T-S! JETS JETS JETS!

Sincerely,
Jishman

A year ago, when Google Wave was the discussion topic on most of the blogs, the public largely reacted with “uh…say what now? What is this and how do I use it?” Facebook announced it wanted to integrate all of your communication in one place less a month ago, and the world reacted with “wait, so the hundreds of messages per day I get go where?” Both Google and Facebook have assumed the following:

Assumption #1: The public wants to put all of their messages in one place and only go to that one place
Assumption #2: The public is annoyed by having to go to multiple places to find all of their communications all the time
Assumption #3: The public trusts any one public company to be the recipient of all of their communications

I am not here to tell you that any of the above are true or false - mostly because I have no date one way or another. What I do know is that I personally don’t see integrating my communications as a “need” that I have. I am not bothered by it.

But when Google Wave was announced, wasn’t that what it was supposed to be? Wasn’t it supposed to be the new communications medium that people were talking about? Everything you need, right there. In one place. It was a bulletin board system, conversation-style communication, and when they reached their next interim state, it was supposed to integrate all of the features that existed in other Google apps - Email, Chat, Voice, Contacts, Tasks, Calendar, etc.

Well, regardless, even though it seems that this is what Facebook is proposing in the present, in the past, Wave died a quick and painfully public death and was relegated to obscurity…almost. Well, Wave is kind of back from the dead. Apache wants it, and wants it bad. They want to take it and make it a usable product, like they have with so many other orphans before.

I have always thought Wave was ugly but genius. GMail already has conversation style messaging. Integrating chat shouldn’t be that hard. Voice can do dialing, text messages and Voicemails all from one screen - and, by the by, if they integrate recording software, could be used to trade voicemail without use of a phone and done entirely over the web (not hard) and one product - Wave. Contacts, Tasks, Calendar, it should have all been trivial to include. And for the millions of people who use iGoogle, this could have all been done through one screen.

Maybe it was too hard to get people to adopt, but it might have been something. Maybe Apache can do something better with it…but without access to those services, I doubt it.