Dungeness Crab Cheesecake

This is a savory cheesecake and will be served up with some crackers as an appetizer. It is the same baking process as a dessert cheesecake, except this one is made without a water bath. Frankly, I think the only reason to bake it is so that the eggs get cooked; otherwise, everything else that went into the recipe can be eaten as is. This recipe ratio, minus the onions, is adaapted from the 1999 issue of Taste of Home. I baked this one in a 9" springform pan, like the one used for cakes. For the crab part of the recipe, I steamed a dungeness crab the previous night and reserved the meat.

Dungeness Crab Cheesecake. Looks a little boring.
Tastes like it desperately needs a contrasting flavor or
roasted red peppers added to it.

On the seafood seasoning, you could just use Old Bay seasoning; though in lieu of that, this is what goes into it: celery seed (adds a savory depth to meat rubs), black pepper (spicy), bay leaves (savory), cardamom pods (sweet & spicy), mustard seeds (savory), whole cloves (sweet & spicy), sweet paprika (mild & sweet, mostly for color) and ground mace (sweet).

[edit] This came out tasting terribly bland, like it was just cream cheese mixed with crab. To bring out the flavor more, perhaps next time add in a cup of shredded smoked gouda or fry some red/green/yellow/orange small diced bell peppers into it for color contrasts.

Ingredients

16 oz cream cheese, softened

3 oz sour cream

1 c crushed butter crackers + 1/4 c melted unsalted butter

1 c cooked dungeness crab meat, flaked

3 eggs lightly beaten

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp seafood seasoning (I used ground mace, smoked paprika, pinch of ground cloves)

dash of chili sauce (like a sirracha or Tabasco sauce)

freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, seafood seasoning, and chili sauce. Set aside.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine cream cheese and sour cream. Beat together until smooth. Add in lightly beaten eggs, lemon juice, seafood seasoning, chili sauce and some freshly ground black pepper. Blend until smooth-ish.

3. Take 25-30 round butter crackers (like Ritz or Trader Joe's) and crush them with your hands, in a food prep, or in a sealable plastic bag with a bottle or rubber mallet. You could also substitute panko crumbs in this step, I suppose. Mix the cracker crumbs with melted butter and gently press into the bottom of a buttered springform cake pan.

4. Bake cracker crust for 10 minutes, remove from oven and turn oven heat down to 325 degrees F.

5. Pour cream cheese mixture into the prepared cake pan and use a spatula to spread the filling evenly. Bake for 35 minutes, until center has set.

6. Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes. Use a butter knife to loosen the cheesecake from the edge of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let refrigerate for an hour or more before serving.

Serve with freshly made bread or crackers.

Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

If you enjoy the salty-sweet taste of kettle corn at the farmers market, you'll definitely enjoy these cookies. The savory cookie is a more adult version of the cookie genre. Something that you'd probably not nibble on over tea, but would go down pretty well with a glass of wine. All of my bakeware is in storage, so I'll have to improvise and borrow the toy cutters from my nephew's toy bake set. Hehehe. This ingredient ratio comes from Gourmet Magazine.

Ingredients

2 c all-purpose flour
3/4 c (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1/3 c confectioners (powdered) sugar
2 tbsp raw mild honey, clover or wildflower
1 tbsp organic granulated cane sugar
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, stems removed, leaves coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

1. Whirl together dry ingredients in a food processor. Add in butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Empty contents into a container with a lid. Cover and refrigerate until firm.

2. Roll out cookie dough to 1/4" thickness and cut out with cookie cutters. Place unbaked cookies on a parchment-lined or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden brown. Let cookies cook on a wire rack.

Alternative Flavorings:

Savory Thyme Cookies: substitute with fresh thyme

Savory Pie Crust

I have been using this pie crust recipe for pot pies. Seeing how there is a lot of turkey meat leftover, I think a few mini pot pies will be good to make this week.

Ingredients

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
8 tbsp (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3 to 4 tbsp cold water

Directions

1. In a food processor, pulse together flour, salt, black pepper and butter. Gradually add enough cold water so that the dough comes together.

2. Gather dough into a ball and flatten into a disc. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

3. To use, roll out dough to desired shape and bake according to pie or tart instructions.

Yield: one 9-inch or 10-inch crust

Kitchen note: This amount of crust is enough to make four 6 oz double crust pot pies which are baked at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes.

Ratatouille Tart

I made a double cornmeal crust for this and even after baking it twice, once for the crust and again with the assembled tart, the crust did not hold up too well to slicing. Some potluck guests had suggested that instead of it being the crust, to use the cornmeal as a topping on top of the crust. That would be an interesting notion. I'll have to think about how to make it so that it cuts well and is crust-less. It is entirely doable if the bottom layer is comprised of sturdier slices of vegetables like more overlapping layers of eggplant and zucchini. This tart only had a single layer of roasted eggplant, zucchini and tomato slices. Without the 1/4" cornmeal crust it can easily accommodate more layers of vegetables. The inclusion of the shredded Gruyere and Swiss cheese into one of the cheese layers was certainly worth repeating. The original Food Network recipe only called for shredded mozzarella cheese, and three ounces was not enough for a 10" tart. I don't think it would be enough had I used a 9" tart pan.

For roasting:

1 green zucchini
1 Japanese eggplant (the long, thin one)
3 medium tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
kosher salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Slice vegetables into 1/8" slices and lay out in a single layer on a 9" x 13" glass baking dish (for easier cleaning) or onto a Silpat-lined baking tray. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and bake vegetables for 12 minutes. The vegetables should be soft and doesn't have to be cooked all the way through. Take roasted vegetables out and set aside to cool until ready to fill the tart pan.

The cornmeal crust (optional):

One batch will supposedly fill a 9" tart pan with a removable bottom. But, that is not the size I had on hand. I made a double batch and packed it all into the 10" tart pan, which turned out to be way too much crust.

2/3 c. finely ground white cornmeal
1/3 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp dried rosemary
2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into chunks
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp kosher salt

In a food prep, pulse together dry ingredients, then add butter and pulse until coarse crumbs form. Add in the olive oil and pulse until well combined.

If you managed to roast the vegetables first, turn the heat down to 350 degrees F. After packing the crust into the tart pan with a 1/4" edge around the base of the tart. Place a sheet of aluminum foil between the top of the tart and the pie weights. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil and pie weights and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until the crust no longer looks shiny.

Kitchen note: this crust did not hold together and tasted very dry. The combination of olive oil and butter did not do much as a binder. Perhaps just a water, butter, flour crust would have sufficed.

Putting it all together:

The remaining ingredients for this recipe involves shredded cheese, sliced basil leaves, and grated Parmesan cheese (or some comparable tasting hard cheese).

3 oz - 5 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded
4 oz Gruyere and Swiss blend cheese, shredded
5 medium fresh basil leaves, sliced
1/4 c. grated Parmigiano-regianno cheese

Bottom layer:  roasted eggplant slices and mozzarella cheese. When I did this, I placed the slices in a circular manner with the slices slightly overlapping each other.

Middle layer: zucchini slices and Gruyere and Swiss cheese

Top layer: tomato slices, fresh basil leaf slices, and the remainder of the mozzarella cheese. Generously scatter the grated hard cheese on top of the tart.

Bake tart for 30 minutes, or until all the cheese has melted. It will smell a lot like a pizza because it is made up of similar ingredients.

Remove tart from oven and let cool before serving.

Diced pear with brocolli, fried

There's a reason why you don't find certain dishes at restaurants, like this one. It didn't come out tasting too bad. I mean, it's edible.

Among apples and squash, it is also pear season out here in the Pacific Northwest. You name it, bosc, red anjou, green anjou, etc. The fruit is plentiful and inexpensive to procure a few pounds of each. The pear, while delicate in flavor, tastes fairly strong when not fully ripened. The flesh is firm and it stands up to harsher cooking methods like frying versus poaching.

I have really only seen sweet preparations of pears: pear tartlets, pear and almond tarts, pear jam, preserved pears, pear bread, poached pears with honey and rosewater, pear paired with much stronger flavored cheeses like bleu and Gorgonzola, pear salad. It is the sweetness that the pear brings that allows some dishes to flourish across continents and cuisines.

I tried a dish on a whim tonight using an almost though not quite ripe bosc pear. It has an interesting taste that might just stay as bachelorette cooking and not something to be served up to guests. Broccoli isn't my favorite vegetable, but it is readily available during winter and aside from frying, blanching, steaming, baking, roasting, or boiling it into a soup, it's a pretty boring vegetable to eat. Nonetheless, it's what was starting to wilt in my fridge.

I wanted to do something different. Be experimental. I made this one up as I was cooking it:

1 small broccoli head with stem
1 bosc pear, cored and diced
2 tbsp EVOO (for frying)
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
dash of salt

Heat the oil until hot but not smoking. Add the pear and broccoli stem slices and sauté.

Add the broccoli florets, vinegar, and soy sauce. Stir fry until the florets turn a dark green color.

Remove from heat and serve.

The flavor combinations of this ratio is a bit "off" and lacks the basics of cooking fundamentals, but who the hell cares? I was cooking for one and not for guests. I enjoy every ingredient by itself on this ingredient list and I know what pairs really well with pears.

In retrospect, any type of fruity vinegar--balsamic, apple cider, or rice wine vinegar--is likely too sweet for this dish. It really brought out the sugary taste of the bosc. That was unexpected. Just so you know. I don't have any leftover broccoli. What is leftover in the dish is the diced pear.

And about the broccoli stem. That hard and thick, almost waxy skin that wraps around the broccoli stem that most Americans and restaurants throw away? It can be peeled and the inner stem is quite tender.