Review: Gotham Bar and Grill

Gotham Bar and Grill, located at 12 E. 12^th Street, in Greenwich Village, serves contemporary American cuisine.  Upon entering the restaurant, you’ll notice a long bar to the left, with tables to the right and back.  It really is more restaurant than bar.  At lunch, it is filled with business executives and their clients.  Still, it retains a rather quiet, low-key atmosphere.  The dress code is what I would call business casual at lunch, and perhaps a little dressier at dinner.

The prices don’t differ much between the lunch and dinner menus for appetizers, with a couple of notable exceptions.  A la carte appetizers are in the $20 range, while entrees are about $25. In addition to a la carte lunch items, there is a budget-friendly two-course prix fixe option available for $25.  The prix fixe menu offers a choice one of three appetizers, and one of three entrees.  Many of the items on the lunch menu are seafood, though meat and vegetarian options are available.  The prix fixe lunch menu is very vegetarian-friendly.

At dinner, caviar is available as a starter, for upwards of $100.  Expect to pay in the neighborhood of $35-$50 for a dinner entrée.  Although not a seafood restaurant, seafood also features prominently on its dinner menu.  Other options include duck, chicken, beef, and lamb.  Vegetarian options include a salad or risotto.

I have never had a bad meal at Gotham Bar and Grill.  The food is always impeccably cooked and presented.  As much as I love duck, I have always ordered seafood.  This is simply because when I eat out, I tend to order something I would make infrequently at home, and with not nearly as much panache as a professional chef.

Dessert items are approximately $15 each.  Gotham Bar and Grill has an excellent pastry chef, but my favorite is the cheese plate.  Several different artisanal cheeses are served with nut bread, jam, and crackers.

Service is excellent.  The wait staff is attentive without being intrusive.  There’s no undue wait for the food, nor is there any pressure to eat up and get out of there, so they can turn over the table.  I would suggest making reservations for dinner, but it is probably not necessary at lunch.

Zucchini Soup

This is one of those quickie 20-30 minute soups.  The potato makes it thick and hearty.  It's probably good chilled, too, but I can never bring myself to wait.  It makes approximately 1 quart of soup.

Ingredients:

• 3 smallish zucchini, or two larger ones, diced
• 1 medium potato, peeled and diced (1/2" dice)
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 c. chicken broth
• 1 Tbs. chopped fresh basil
• 1 tsp. fresh thyme
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 Tbs. or so of olive oil

Method:

1. sautee/sweat the diced onion in olive oil until translucent
2. add the diced zucchini and potato
3. add the chopped herbs
4. add the chicken broth
5. simmer for 20 minutes or so, until the potato is cooked
6. "blenderize" it with an immersion blender (aka boat motor), in a blender, or in a food processor until smooth
7. adjust salt/pepper seasoning to taste

Notes:  dried herbs can be used, but fresh are better, and won't get "wonky" in only a 20 minute simmer.  Also, in a pinch, it's okay to use bullion cubes, if you're out of chicken stock or broth, but you will undoubtedly have to add less salt at the end if you do.

Review: Havana

Location:  105 S. Main St., New Hope, PA, 18938

This restaurant in New Hope, PA, is not really Cuban, despite the name.  The cuisine could be called SoCal meets granny's kitchen.  I had tilapia tacos, while my fearless partner went for something that resembled a giant chicken and shrimp pot pie Hot Pocket, grilled on a panini press.  He finished his meal.  I had to ask for a doggie bag -- oddly enough, for my fries, not for the tilapia.  Two entrees, plus three Yuenglings came to $41 and change.

My understanding is that this place is really all about the music and nightlife, not the food.  They do have some good music, although we went on a Sunday afternoon, not during one of the evening concerts with Nils Lofgren or Jefferson Starship.  We've walked past this place a bajillion times, but this was the first time we stopped there to eat.

The food's actually pretty good, but not spectacular.  For the price, it's a decent value.  The tacos came with a nice pineapple and cantaloupe salsa that I liked better than the fish.  I'll have to make something similar.

The service was a little slow, but that could be a function of it being the middle of the afternoon when we visited.  It would have been a nice touch if the Yuengling had been served with a glass, rather than in the bottle.  On the other hand, if the place gets as rowdy at night as I've seen it on other occasions, there's probably a reason they serve it in a longneck.

Overall, I'd give the place an A-, for the food, and for the swing they were playing while we were there.  I like swing.  The food was fine.  The price was reasonable.  The service could have been a little faster.  It probably is at night.

Alien Soda Bread

I made a loaf of Irish Soda Bread this morning, following James Beard's recipe for the all-white flour version.  I never buy buttermilk, so I typically either use milk that's starting to go sour, or sour regular milk with lemon juice.  Aside from that, it's Beard's recipe.

Evidently, I did not slit the cross on the top to a uniform depth before I baked it.  The result was hilarious.  It looks like an alien skull.

The Barefoot Contessa vs. Keyboard Warriors

Drudge Report Picked up a story from the L.A. Times, which picked up a story on TMZ about how Ina Garten (aka The Barefoot Contessa) is such a meanie-weenie for not granting the wish of a 6 year old kid with leukemia, to come cook with her.  The comments from the "keyboard warriors" were brutal, essentially vilifying Ms. Garten as some sort of hard-hearted-Hannah.

TMZ reports:

A family member involved with the Make-A-Wish foundation tells us ... a little boy named Enzo was approached by the organization after he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia three years ago.

Enzo told Make-A-Wish ... he really wanted to cook with the "Barefoot Contessa" host because he would often watch the show with his mother while resting in bed.

So, a three year old wanted, above all other things, to cook with The Barefoot Contessa?  To me, it sounds like it's the mother's wish, and she encouraged her son to ask M.A.W. for that.  Kids that age generally want to please their mothers.  Who lets a toddler cook?  Maybe help stir in some flour to the brownie batter, but actually cook a meal?  C'mon!

The boy's mother has a blog of her own, with an entry about the incident.

Unfortunately as we were arriving home from the hospital I got word from “Make A Wish” that it is has been officially confirmed that Ina Garten (the “Barefoot Contessa” ) has declined Enzo’s wish to meet her and cook a meal with her. I felt terrible for him, he has been unwavering in his desire to meet her for 3 years and despite many attempts to get him to pick a 2^nd wish or change his mind he would not.

I find it really hard to believe that a child that young couldn't find something else he wanted to do, given three years.  Have a little whine with that cheese, mom?

Even yesterday when I told him the unfortunate news, his reply was simply “why doesn’t she want to meet me”? 

So, it was the mother who told her son, not that Ms. Garten had other commitments, but that she "didn't want to meet with him."  Good going mom!

I would be lying if I said that I don’t find this to be shocking. To know that out of EVERY THING (material Enzo could choose to have), or ANY PLACE (in the world Enzo could travel to) and out of EVERY PERSON on this earth he chose Ina, and she cannot see what an honor that is. And he wanted to actually be with her for NO reason other then to have her company and cook with her. I actually feel badly for her because Enzo has NOTHING but pure love and intensions and she will never get to have that experience with him and she is missing out on something so authentic and beautiful. 

Whine.  Cheese.  It takes real gall to think that The Barefoot Contessa owes the mother, or the child, for that matter -- neither of which she knows -- anything.  I find it extremely distasteful that the mother would use her child in such a manner, so that she could meet and cook with Ina.  Kids that age either watch mommy in the kitchen, or they do harmless stuff like hand mommy a spoon, or lick the bowl.

The mother's sense of entitlement.is disturbing.  Sure, it's flattering to know that someone you've never heard of wants to meet you, but that doesn't make it your obligation to cater to their demands.  The proper thing to do would have been to accept the "sorry, but no can do" answer, tell the child that "his" wish is impossible, and move on.  Instead, she made a long, whiny blog entry about what a jerk she thinks Ina is for not kowtowing to her son's wishes her demands.

No doubt, having a sick son is stressful, but there are some things you just don't do.  Whining on your blog and/or going to the press about it, fit that category.  The mother's way too old to be throwing a public temper tantrum like that.

To top it off, the kid did select a back up wish to go swim with dolphins, and is getting swimming lessons so he can do so.  I'd say it's a happy ending, for the kid, anyway.  The kid may be disappointed.  Maybe he isn't.  But the mother sounds really bitter, which is just wrong.

There's an interesting discussion here.  Evidently, I'm not the only person who feels the way I do about this subject.

Also, see this blog for a marvelously snarky take on the situation.  The comments are priceless.

*UPDATE*
Now, the boy's mother, who started the whole firestorm, wants to "stop the madness."  I don't think she "gets" it.  If she didn't want to cause Ina Garten any grief, then she shouldn't have posted that entry whining about how she couldn't understand how anyone could possibly deny her special snowflake son, and how he couldn't understand why Ina "didn't want to meet" him.  Basically, the mother blames the press.  What she doesn't understand is that half the kerfuffle is directed at her, not Ina, and it's because of her sense of entitlement evident in her own blog entry, not the press coverage.

Apple Custard Tart

I didn't use any recipe at all for this, and completely winged it.  If I had to do it again, I'd probably let the apples juice a bit more in the sugar and spices before arranging them in the dish.  Mostly, I threw this together because I had a cup of heavy cream that needed to be used, and a whole bunch of apples that were sitting around, unlike my still-frozen pumpkin mash.  I used a combination of granny smith and cameo apples, just because that's what I had on hand.  The spices I used were cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.  I'm a huge fan of allspice, and sneak a pinch into just about any sort of fruit thing I do that doesn't involve berries.

Pita Bread

This is the first time I tried this James Beard recipe from Beard on Bread.  What I love about that book is that Beard gives a little background about the recipes, and the ones that can be a bit hit-or-miss, he identifies as such.  Most of them work beautifully, although I probably wouldn't want to try making monkey bread on a sticky hot summer day, any more than I would, say, meringue.

I only made half a batch, because I really didn't want to use 6 cups worth of flour on a full batch, in case it came out like something best fed to squirrels.  As it turned out, the recipe worked like a charm, and I'll be making it again.  It's probably a little more expensive to make than store bought, but it's fresher, and tastier.

Shoo Fly Pie

New Kitchen Gadget

I bought this food processor today to replace a Cuisinart that was over 30 years old.  The old one had a pretty powerful motor, which still works like a champ, but one by one, all the plastic pieces cracked and broke, leaving me with a motor, a bowl with no handle, the cover, and just the one metal chopping blade.

The thing was so old that it didn't even have on/off/pulse buttons; the lid had to be rotated by hand to engage the motor.  In all fairness, my mom probably used it three or four times, so she gave it to me when they moved, and were looking to give away or get rid of some things.  It was intact, with all its parts/accessories, but as soon as I started using it, plastic parts started cracking, rendering them useless.

Comparing that one to this one is sort of like comparing a mule to a thoroughbred.  This one has a 1000w motor.  Lesser models were available with 500w motors, but I really didn't want to bother spending the money on something potentially underpowered, when it encounters a chunk of raw root vegetable, or cabbage.

What I love most about this model is its nesting smaller bowl.  It allows me to whoosh together a batch of hummus in the smaller bowl without having to get the entire rest of it gooky.  It also helps a lot that the slicing blade is adjustable to various heights, like a mandoline, which sort of eliminates the need to use my mandoline for root veggies.  I can go from potato chip thin to cole slaw cabbage thick fairly quickly.

I know -- this reads like I'm a new convert to food processors.  That's not completely true.  I understood their value, but never had one before that worked for their purpose as well as the 1950s Kitchen Aid Professional model table top mixer I have, and use, for making cake batter, especially cheesecake and red velvet batters.

At the very least, I will no longer have to shave slices of cabbage and shred carrots by hand with a knife and grater, or a mandoline.  That saves a heck of a lot of time.

It's a rather large.  If you don't have the countertop space for it, or the space to hise it away, it probably isn't the appliance for you.  But, if you do, I think you'll like it.

Classic Scottish Shortbread

These were a hit at the office.  I've tried several shortbread recipes over the years, but these seem to come out the most "classic."  Sure, you can vary them by adding, say, almond extract, or cinnamon to the batter, but the recipe that follows produces what I remember from my childhood.  Caution:  loads of butter ahead.  That slogan would make a good roadside sign, wouldn't it?

Time:  one hour, overall; 20-25 minutes baking at 350F; plus 5 to make the dough, and 30 to let it chill in the fridge

Quantity:  Approx. 3 dozen 1" x 2" cookies

Ingredients:

• 3.5 cups of all-purpose flour
• 3/4 lb. of butter (3 sticks), room temperature, or nuked for 30 seconds to soften it
• 1 cup of granulated sugar, plus about a teaspoon, reserved for sprinkling on top
• 1 tsp. of vanilla
• pinch of salt (or 1/4 tsp. if you use unsalted butter)

Method:

1. Cream the sugar and butter together
2. Mix in the vanilla and salt
3. sift the flour, and mix it in, half a cup or so, at a time
4. When it forms a stiff dough that sticks together pretty well, form it into a disk or rectangle, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate it for half an hour (same thing as you'd do with pie crust dough)
5. Roll it out until it's about 3/8" thick, on a floured board
6. Cut it into whatever size/shape you want*
7. Transfer the cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet, jelly roll pan, or whatever baking sheet you have, spacing them about 1/4" apart (they don't expand a whole lot, but they do expand)
8. Sprinkle a little extra granulated sugar over the top of the cookies
9. Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, until the edges looks set, and just barely start to develop some color
10. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet, then remove them

* Alternately, transfer the entire rolled-out block of dough onto your baking sheet, then cut the cookies as they cool, about 2-3 minutes after they come out of the oven. I've done this with a pizza cutter, for basic rectangular cookies, and it works.  Call it cheating, if you want, but it's expedient.

Notes:  These can be cut into rounds, wedges, or whatever.  I don't believe in wasting cookie dough that has that much butter in it, so go ahead and bake those oddball edge pieces you may get.  You can prick the dough with a fork before you bake it, but if it's rolled out to a consistent thickness, it's not really necessary.  They will come out of the oven soft, but will harden as they cool.

Stuffed Poblanos

Recipe: Reverse Chip Cookies

I'm sure there are various other names for these, but they're basically chocolate chip cookies, with chocolate dough, and white chocolate chips. They stay chewy after they cool, and don't have that cake-like texture that some chocolate cookies have.


Yield: about 4 dozen cookies
Time: 15-20 minutes to make the dough, plus 10 minutes at 350F baking time per batch

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
• 2/3 c. cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 lb. of butter (one stick, or half a cup), softened
  
• 1/4 lb. of vegetable shortening (or just use all butter)
• 3/4 c. granulated white sugar
• 2/3 c. of brown sugar, packed
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 c. of white chocolate chips (a 12 oz. bag)

Method:

1. let the oven preheat to 350F while you make the dough
   
2. sift together the dry ingredients in one bowl
3. cream the sugars and fats together in another bowl
4. beat in the vanilla to the wet ingredients
5. add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each
6. mix in the dry ingredients, a little at a time, incorporating well between additions, until thoroughly mixed
7. stir in the white chocolate chips, taking care to get them as evenly distributed throughout the dough as possible
8. form balls of dough, about an inch in diameter, and arrange them on an ungreased cookie sheet (or use a small ice cream scoop or soup spoon, and drop them in place)
9. bake for 10 minutes at 350F
10. let cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack

Notes: you can use all butter, all margarine, or half butter and half shortening, like
I do. It doesn't really matter -- whatever you've got on hand, but don't use oil. There's no reason you couldn't use peanut butter chips, as suggested to me by someone, instead of the white chocolate. PB chips sounds really good, although I've never tried it. If you don't have powdered baking cocoa, you probably could substitute melted unsweetened chocolate blocks, but I suspect you'd probably have to add some extra flour (1/8 c.?) to make up for the additional oils it contains.

Recipe: Acorn Squash Soup

It's a crummy, cold, rainy day, so "comfort food" was in order for dinner. My theme was squash.

Yield: approx. 1.5 qts.
Time: 1 hour to roast and cool the squash, plus 1/2 hour to cook the soup

Ingredients:

• 1 large acorn squash, roasted, and mashed
• 2 c. chicken broth
• one onion, chopped
  
• salt
• pepper
• cumin
• Madras curry powder
• pinch of five spice powder
• one large or two small bay leaves
  
• dollop of sour cream for garnish, right before serving
• optional garnish: a few roasted seeds from the squash

Method:

1. cut open, clean, roast and mash the squash
2. sautee the onion until translucent, and add the chicken broth, and spices
3. stir in the mashed squash
4. simmer for about half an hour, adding more liquid, if needed
5. adjust seasonings
6. garnish and serve
   

Recipe: Salsa Verde

There are probably as many ways to make this as there are people making it -- sort of like chili, really. Here's my version.

Yield: 2/3 of a quart
Time: 20 minutes, if you chop everything by hand, or less, if you use a food processor

Ingredients:

• 7 or 8 tomatillos, finely chopped
• 4 -5 large cayennes, still at the green stage, seeds, ribs, and all
  
• a good handful of fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped
• half a large onion, or one small one, finely chopped
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
• salt, black pepper, and lime juice

Method:

1. finely chop all your ingredients, except for the garlic, salt, black pepper, and lime juice
2. combine them, stirring well
3. Mince your garlic, and stir it in to incorporate it
   
4. Season with salt, black pepper, and lime juice until it meets your satisfaction

Notes: This might look watery at first, but tomatillos will set up a bit after the pectin they contain releases. Stir it around, and you have one nice hot sauce to pour over chicken, or dip pita chips. It looks harmless, but it's hot. If you want, you can run it through a food processor, or take a boat motor (immersion blender) to it, but I prefer it with some texture.

Recipe: Feather Bread

This is a fairly quick yeast bread to make, as it only requires one rising before baking. Crunchy on the outside, with a chewy inside, it makes great garlic toast, as well as anything else you might use a baguette for.

Yield: 1 loaf
Time: 10 minutes prep; about an hour to rise; 40 minutes to bake at 425F

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of yeast
• 1/2 c. warm water
• 1-1/2 tsp. sugar
• 3 oz. hot water
• 1 tsp. salt
  
• 3 Tbs. butter, cubed
• 2-1/2 to 3 c. flour
• egg wash (optional)

Method:

1. proof the yeast with the sugar in the warm water
2. melt the butter into the hot water with the salt, and let cool
3. combine the butter and yeast mixtures
4. stir in flour, one cup at a time, until it pulls away from the sides of the bowl (it'll be a bit sticky, but that's alright)
5. turn out the dough onto a floured board, and knead it for a few minutes, working in more flour as needed, until it's soft, elastic, and no longer sticky
6. roll it out into a rectangle, approx. 8" x 12"
7. roll it up along the wide side like a jelly roll, pinching the ends together as you go
8. place the formed loaf on a greased baking sheet, cover with a towel, and let rise until doubled in bulk (approx. an hour, or faster, if you use rapid-rise yeast)
9. optional: brush with egg wash
   
10. bake at 425F for 40 minutes, until it looks done, and sounds hollow when you flip it over and rap the bottom with your knuckles

Note: I did not bother to use egg wash on this particular loaf.

Almond Biscotti

I baked these this afternoon. If I'd realized how easy they are to make, I'd have done so before now. The dough is really stiff and crumbly, but the warmth of your hands makes it hold together when you shape it out on the cookie sheet. I probably should have let them cool a little longer before slicing them between bakings, but in the end, they came out fine.

The only part that was kind of a pain was that I didn't have slivered almonds, so I had to soak the whole salted ones I had in warm water for a few minutes, then peel and sliver them by hand, but it wasn't that big a deal.

Pecan Pie

I've never before baked a pecan pie, but the recipe (straight from the Betty Crocker cookbook) looked really easy, and I had all the ingredients on hand, so . . .


It smells divine! I'm finally getting used to this electric oven. It browns pie crust better than my previous gas oven did.

Review: The Blue Tortilla

Type: Mexican
Location: 18 N. Main St., New Hope, PA, 18938
Phone: 215-862-5859
Website: http://www.thebluetortillarestaurant.com
Liquor License: No
Take-Out: Yes
Price Range: $16 - $20 for entrees, with a $13.95 lunch special for all regular menu entrees ($15.95 for special entrees)

We went into New Hope yesterday to poke around the shops for the afternoon and grab a bite to eat. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, we happened to hit an all-weekend arts & crafts fair, which meant the town was mobbed, with several blocks closed to all but pedestrian traffic, and loads of vendor tents/booths. After poking around the booths, and a few of the shops, we settled on The Blue Tortilla for a late afternoon lunch.

Before writing this review, I decided to check on its reviews at Trip Advisor, and mostly agree with them. Apparently, The Blue Tortilla has been there for years, but I never noticed it, right next to The Landing, the latter of which I've eaten at many times over the years.

We caught the $13.95 lunch special deal for any entree on the menu, that runs from noon to 4pm. At 3:30pm, despite the crafts fair, most of the lunch crowd had disspiated, and we found a seat-yourself table outside for two. The waitress/hostess brought us menus within a few minutes, and a waiter came by a few minutes later to take our order.

I opted for the chile relleno, and my companion opted for the chicken enchiladas with mole sauce. Below are the descriptions of each dish, from their menu.

Chile relleno: Poblano Pepper roasted and stuffed with mozzarella cheese, dipped in egg, lightly fried and baked. Served covered with our Grandmother's Tomato Sauce, re-fried beans, rice and hand-made corn tortillas. Um, no, there were no beans served with this dish, refried or otherwise.

Chicken Mole Enchiladas: A soft corn tortilla is dipped into our homemade dark red Molé Sauce. We wrap shredded chicken breast in it and top it with cream. Served with re-fried beans and Mexican style rice. Ditto on the beans -- there were none.

While the food was tasty, it seemed expensive for Mexican. For that price, any other Mexican restaurant I've been to would have served two chiles relleno, not one. Both my tomato sauce, and the mole sauce were very good.

Several reviewers at Trip Advisor complained about lousy service, and a few complained about being served the meat version of vegetarian orders, and being forced by the owner to pay for them anyway.

We didn't have any of those problems, but it's a bit of an issue when the dishes you are served are not as advertised on the menu, and are missing a component. Although being served entrees without the beans that the menu clearly states come with them isn't quite the same as being served chicken mole without any mole, or a chile relleno without the chile, it's just plain wrong.

To put this in context, New Hope is a touristy town with cute little shops, antiques, and art galleries, that attracts a lot of day-trippers on weekends. With a location on Main St., right smack in the center of town, The Blue Tortilla can get away with charging high prices, but when it completely omits ingredients listed on the menu for its entrees, and keeps raising its prices as another reviewer noted, it probably can't count on a lot of repeat business from locals such as us.

For my money, I think I'll stick to The Landing, Ninety Main, or the Mansion Inn.

Recipe: Spice Cake with Caramel Frosting

I needed to bake a birthday cake, and settled on spice cake. The cake batter recipe is a bit of a mish-mash of several other spice cake recipes I read that sounded pretty good. I'm sure this would be good with buttercream or cream cheese frosting, but caramel sounded good to me, so I went with that.

Spice Cake

Yield: one 2-layer cake, or one sheet cake
Time: 15 minutes prep; 30-35 minutes at 350F, plus cooling time

Ingredients:

• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 c. packed brown sugar
• 1 c. sour cream
• 1/2 stick of butter (1/8 lb., or 1/4 cup)
• 1/4 c. shortening or vegetable oil
• 2+ tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
• 1-1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 c. water
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c. walnuts, chopped (optional)
  
• frosting

Method:

1. preheat the oven to 350F, grease and flour your cake pan(s)
2. make sure the butter/shortening is soft, and toss all but the last two ingredients into a big bowl
3. stir everything together, then start off slowly with a hand mixer, and increase the speed when all danger of flying flour is past, until the batter is smooth
4. pour it into your cake pan(s)
5. bake for 30-35 minutes at 350F
6. cool in the pan(s) on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn out onto the rack to cool completely (or just cool in the pan if you use a 9" x 13" dish, and only frost the top)
7. frost the cake (I'm awful at this, but whatever)
8. sprinkle the chopped walnuts on top of the frosting
   

Notes: Some people mix the walnuts right into the batter, but I used them to partially hide my lack of frosting skills. Also, add a pinch of salt, if you use unsalted butter. I also piped on little peaks of cream cheese frosting around the edge, just for the fun of it.

Caramel Frosting

Yield: approx. 2 cups
Time: about 45 minutes, but most of that is spent waiting for the caramel sauce to cool before beating in the powdered sugar

Ingredients:

• 1 stick of butter (1/4 lb., or 1/2 cup)
• 1 c. packed brown sugar
• 1/4 c. milk
• 2 c. powdered sugar

Method:

1. melt the butter in a large saucepan
2. stir in the brown sugar, and bring it to a boil on medium heat, stirring constantly
   
3. reduce the heat to low, and boil for 2 minutes
4. stir in the milk, and bring it back to a boil
5. remove it from the heat, and cool to lukewarm
6. stir in the powdered sugar, a little at a time, then beat until smooth

Note: If you stop after step 5, you basically have a caramel sauce that you could use on ice cream, or whatever you like.

Eggplant Gratin

We've had quite a crop of eggplant this year, from a mere six plants. Although we have given more than a few away, we mostly are looking for different ways to disguise the fact that the main ingredient is eggplant. Don't get me wrong -- we both like it -- but in and of itself, eggplant has more texture than flavor, and has a way of soaking in the flavor of anything with which you cook it.

I'm getting sick to death of ratatouille and eggplant parmesan, so I decided to do an eggplant gratin today. What's not to like about any veggie hidden within layers of cheese? I adapted this from Ina Garten's recipe on Food network. Ina's recipes are always pretty reliable, and the reviews of this one give it five stars, overall.

Yield: 2 servings
Time: 20 minutes prep/assembly, and 30 minutes to bake at 400F

Ingredients:

• 3/4 pound eggplant, unpeeled, sliced 1/2-inch thick
• 1/4 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 extra-large egg
• 1/4 cup half-and-half
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup good bottled marinara sauce (I didn't use any, so I'd call it optional)
  

Note: I have plenty of quarts of my own homemade tomato sauce, canned, and I didn't have to open a new one for this. It really doesn't need any, one way or another.

Method:

1. slice your eggplant into 1/2" slices, brush it with olive oil, and roast it at 400 - 425F for approximately 20 minutes, flipping it over once (you can fry it in a pan for a lot less time, but that soaks up way too much oil, even if your pan is almost smoking hot)
2. Take it out to cool down, either on a cooling rack, or paper towels
3. mix up the egg, ricotta, milk, salt and pepper (it's okay if it's still a little chunky, but smooth works, too)
   
4. layer in the roasted or fried eggplant, with the mixed up wet ingredients, topping it all off with shredded cheese
5. bake uncovered at 400F for about half an hour, until the top browns nicely
6. let cool for a few minutes, and serve while still warm

Note: I used 10-oz. ramekins for this. It doesn't really matter what you use, but you may have to adjust the cooking time accordingly.