Category: Dip

This is Not Whipped Cream

June 17, 2009

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So, this dip is what I mistook for whipped cream the other night.  Yes, I brought this to sandwich between layers of strawberry shortcake and strawberries.  In my defense, it didn’t have the garnishes in it yet – it was just white.  But trust me, it’s much better served with crackers than with chocolate sauce.

This is a great recipe to have in your repetoire because it has few ingredients and takes next to no time.  It also tastes really good and can be made one day ahead.  It’s a lovely place to put all those gorgeous radishes you are seeing at the farmer’s markets.

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One Year Ago: Feta and Ricotta Cheese Skillet Pie

Feta-Radish Spread
Adapted from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook, The New Classics
Serves 4-6

Martha tells you to make your own pita chips here but I simply ran out of time.  I brought my clients store-bought pita chips instead.  Another change I made was to use more yogurt (a full 7 oz. container instead of the 1/4 cup she called for) to eliminate the need for olive oil in the spread.

1 package sheep’s milk feta cheese (7 or 8 ounces), coarsely chopped
1- 7 oz. container Greek yogurt (DT: I used low fat)
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
3 tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
4 radishes, quartered and thinly sliced

Pulse the feta, yogurt, and lemon juice in a food processor just utnil the mixture is thick and spreadable, about 10 pulses.  Transer to a medium bowl, and stir in the parsley and radishes.  Serve with pita chips or crackers.  (The dip can be made, without the radishes and parsley, 1 day ahead.  Cover and refrigerate.  Add parsley and radises just before serving.)


Category: Appetizer,Cheese,Dip,Quick and Easy
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Veggies and Dip

May 8, 2009

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I love vegetables and dip.  I really do.  Now lest that sound ultra-virtuous, please realize that most dips are so bad for you that it cancels out the good that the veggies do.  Pre-made supermarket dips are usually loaded with artificial flavors and chemical stabilizers.  Many that you would make at home have no artificial ingredients, but do have enough calories and fat per serving to make it really unhealthy.

So here are two for you.  They have a similar base but different flavorings.  I use low fat sour cream and low fat buttermilk but the flavor is of the luscious full fat variety.  You can choose the peppery version (coarse ground pepper and chives) or the lemon-y herb one.  Or, if you are cooking lunch for 20 hungry Yoginis as I am on Saturday, you can make both.

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Buttermilk Peppercorn Dip
Adapted from Martha Stewart Hors D’Oeuvres Handbook
Makes 1 1/2  cups

1 cup low fat sour cream
2 tbsp. low fat buttermilk
1 tsp. coarsely ground mixed peppercorns (black, pink, and green)
2 tsp. minced chives
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 large shallot, miced
1/2 tsp. kosher salt

Place the ingredients in a medium bowl and stir well to combine.  Serve immediately or store, covered, in the refrigerator, for up to 48 hours.

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Lemony Herb Dip
Adapted from Bon Appetit
Makes about 1 cup

1 8-ounce container low fat sour cream
2 tbsp. chopped fresh chives
2 tbsp. chopped fresh dill
Juice of 1 small lemon
Salt and pepper

Mix first 4 ingredients in medium bowl.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Can be made up to 2 days in advance, cover and refrigerate.


Category: Appetizer,Dip,Party Food,Quick and Easy
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Simply Delicious

January 28, 2009

If you ask my husband what he wants for dinner, without hesitation he says,”Mexican.” If you ask him where he wants to go out for dinner, he also says, “Mexican.” I honestly don’t even ask him anymore or if I do I have to ask like this, “Honey (deep breath), what-should-I-make-for-dinner-don’t-say-Mexican?” Phew.

I too love Mexican food but seeing as live far far away from Mexico, there aren’t a lot of places around here to satisfy the craving. Randy thinks bad Mexican is still good. I think bad Mexican is greasy and fattening. So I would rather make it myself.

Two things make a Mexican meal complete for me. Beans of some kind and lots of guacamole. For my clients last night I made Mushroom and Pinto Bean Enchiladas, Mexican Rice with Peppers and Tomatoes, and Salad with a Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette. I included a container of my guacamole which has gotten raves from them before and from others too. It is one of the only things I make completely without a recipe and totally to taste (hummus is another one.) I thought I would write a post about it so I paid attention to the proportions of what I added. Sometimes simple is best.

Guacamole
Serves 6 generously

I like my guacamole very limey and salty. You can always add less lime juice and salt and see how it tastes to you. If there is not too much going on in the meal, or if I am not serving salsa, I will dice up two seeded roma tomatoes and add it to the mix.

2 large ripe avocados, diced
1 1/2 large limes, cut in half
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 tbsp. cilantro, or more to taste

Place the avocados in a large bowl. Juice the limes into the same bowl and add the salt and pepper. Using a potato masher, mash up the avocados and incorporate the juice. You will want to leave some texture. Add the cilantro and mix carefully with a spoon.


Category: Appetizer,Dana Treat Original,Dip,International,Mexican,Quick and Easy,Vegan
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How My Business Works

November 4, 2008

I’ve written here about how I became a personal chef and I’ve written here and there a bit about my clients, but I realized I haven’t described the nuts and bolts of my little business.

I currently have three permanent clients and one temporary one. They are all couples and I cook for them on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Before I had my second son, I cooked for them on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, but my older son took two longs naps a day until he was 2 years old and went to bed every night at 6pm and woke up around 8. Those days are no longer and while both my boys nap at the same time (which is the ONLY reason I can even keep this business going), I have a lot less free time to cook. Two days a week it will have to be until we have more preschool in place.

For each meal, I bring them an entree and usually two sides. Occasionally there are other components to the meal (like chutney and raita if I were making Indian food). Tuesday is the day I bring the “treat”. Everything is made 100% from scratch and is all vegetarian. I would say about 25% of the time the food is vegan, but the “treat” never is.

I cook everything in my kitchen and divvy it all up into plastic containers. I get everything as ready as it can be and deliver it to their homes with a handwritten note explaining the night’s menu and any last minute prep the food needs. Some nights it is as easy as popping stuff in the microwave and tossing a salad, other nights something will need to go into the oven or a little more prep will be involved. On my next visit, I pick up all my empty containers – I have quite a collection!

Because the meals I make are fairly involved, I use Mondays and Wednesdays as prep days. I almost always bake on Mondays and I will do any prep work possible in advance, even if it is just chopping vegetables. I find (and this is good advice for dinner parties too) that any little thing you can do in advance, from making the salad dressing to taking the leaves off parsley, will make your food prep the day of that much easier.

Since I tend to be busy prepping on Mondays and Wednesdays, our dinners those nights are a little simpler. Last week I was glancing through one of my favorite cookbooks, Real Vegetarian Thai, looking for a curry paste recipe to send to Beatrice at Ginger Beat. I love this cookbook – it is written by a woman who spent two years in Thailand while in the Peace Corps, and all recipes come with some kind of back story and lots of thoughtful tips. I decided to make a quick rice noodle soup with some lemongrass stock I had in the freezer and a salad with this incredible dressing.

The dressing comes from the New York Times and it tastes exactly like that perfect one you get at sushi restaurants. It is incredibly simple to make, it makes a lot, it lasts for a week in the refrigerator, and it is so nice and thick that it can also be used as a dip. I can also imagine it spooned over tofu, or even over soba noodles. It is so good, I was tempted to eat it straight from the jar – a desire I have never experienced for salad dressing!

Before the recipe, let’s talk about miso. There are several different types of miso – white being the most mellow in flavor. It is often kept in the produce section of your grocery store, or where you would normally find tofu. You will end up buying more than you need for this recipe but, if you keep plastic pressed directly on top of the miso once it is opened, it will keep for a year in your refrigerator. And you will want to make this dressing again!

Miso Carrot Sauce
From The New York Times
Makes 1 1/4 cup

The salad I made for this dressing had butter lettuce, thinly sliced mushrooms, halved cherry tomatoes, and chunks of avocado.

1/4 cup peanut or grapeseed oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3 tbsp. white miso
1 tbsp. dark sesame oil
2 medium carrots
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and cut into coins

Put all ingredients into food processor and pulse to mince carrots. Let machine run for 1 minute, until mixture is chunky-smooth.

Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. (Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)


Category: Asian,Cookbooks,Dip,International,Salad Dressing,Vegan
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Eggplant Even I Can Love

November 1, 2008

NaBloPoMo has started. I will do my very best to
a) post everyday
b) not bitch about how hard it is to post everyday

Onward! I don’t know when it was that I first tasted hummus. I think it was somewhere around the time that I became a vegetarian but for the life of me, I can’t remember where it was or the circumstances. But I do know that I fell in love. I swooned over the recipe in The Greens Cookbook and begged my mom for her Cuisinart so I could make it. She surprised me by buying me my own – the one I still have 15 years later. Every party I would throw, I would make a huge batch of hummus and people would just wolf it down.

Baba Ghanouj came to me later in life. I shied away from it for a long time because I don’t really like eggplant. I have mentioned this here before here, but it feels almost like blasphemy to be a vegetarian and admit to not liking eggplant. You are supposed to like it because it has a “meaty” texture and can be substituted for meat in certain dishes. Personally, one of the reasons I don’t eat meat is because I don’t like the texture of it, so eggplant scores no points with me there. Another reason I don’t like it is because, well, it’s bitter. Or it can be.

If you are with me on either of the above two points, meet your new best friend, baba ghanouj. This incredible smoky, rich, and tangy dip is a close relative of hummus in that it stars some of the same ingredients. But, and this is hard for me to believe – the person who LOVES chickpeas – but I like baba ghanouj better. The flavor is more complex and the smokiness just can’t be beat. I like to serve it with grilled pita bread, but any kind of vegetable dipped in it tastes just great.

I have tinkered around with different recipes and have come up with one that I really love. There are a couple of keys here. Make sure the eggplant is completely soft before you take it out of the oven. You can also grill it, but I would cut it into slices to make sure that it gets cooked through. Finally, in my experience, both hummus and baba ghanoush need a lot of salt, cumin and lemon juice to wake up the flavors. Be sure to taste as you go and adjust as necessary.

Baba Ghanouj
Dana Treat Original
Makes about 2 cups

Almost all recipes you see for both hummus and baba ghanouj call for garlic. I don’t add any to mine because I really don’t like the bite of raw garlic, but feel free to add it if you like. 1-2 cloves would be right for this amount. I like my baba ghanouj very smooth but you can leave it chunkier.

3 lbs. globe eggplant
3-4 tbsp. olive oil
4 tbsp. tahini
1 tsp. ground cumin
Juice of 1-2 lemons
1 tsp. salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut each eggplant in half and drizzle with olive oil. Place cut side down on a baking sheet and bake until completely soft, about 1 hour. Remove from oven and allow to cool enough to handle.

Over the bowl of a food processor, scrape the eggplant flesh out of the skin and discard the skin. Add the tahini, lemon juice, salt, cumin, salt, and cayenne and start to blend. Add the olive oil through the tube of the processor until you have a paste-like consistency. Stop, scrape down the sides and taste, adjusting seasoning as necessary, and adding pepper. Process one more time.


Category: Appetizer,Dana Treat Original,Dip,International,Vegan
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