Chop Bouie

on to the next one

Here’s the deal:

As of today, Chop Bouie is no more. I mean, the website will still exist—on account that I don’t want to go through the trouble of exporting data—but I won’t update it. This will be the last post.

If you want recipes, photography, and assorted thoughts on other things, you’ll want to go to jamellebouie.net. There, you’ll get everything I post at Chop Bouie, plus anything else that comes from my brain and isn’t (directly) related to politics. In addition, I’ll have information for anyone who wants to contact me for professional reasons.

So, change bookmarks, change your RSS feeds, and come join me at my new place.

In a few days, this blog will fold into a slightly larger venture. Details to come, in the meantime, thank you for following this project of mine!

martha stewart’s lemon tart

I have been on a serious lemon kick, where almost every dessert I make involves lemon in some way, shape, or form. I tried a lemon tart last week, and that turned out…poorly. It was incredibly bitter and unpleasant from first bite to final swallow. But, because I’m a little stubborn, I immediately began a search for a better lemon tart recipe. This one is from Martha Stewart, and it is the perfect combination of sweetness and tartness. Be sure to use Meyer lemons—they are sweeter than the regular lemons at the grocery store—and be warned: this is a little heavy on the butter and eggs.

Martha Stewart’s Lemon Tart

Makes one crust and one tart.

Crust:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• good pinch of kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon finely grated Meyer lemon zest
• 1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Lemon Curd:

• 2 large eggs plus 3 large egg yolks[^1]
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons finely grated Meyer lemon zest, plus 1/3 cup fresh Meyer lemon juice (from 3 lemons)
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 375˚. Make the crust: Whisk together flour, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and the lemon zest in a large bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or your fingers until dough begins to hold together.

Stir together 1 tablespoon water and vanilla, then mix into dough. Shape dough into a disk, and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Using your fingers, press dough evenly into bottom and up sides of a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Freeze for 30 minutes.

Bake tart shell until golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the lemon curd: Whisk together eggs, egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Whisk in lemon zest and juice. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in butter, 1 piece at a time.

Pour filling into cooled tart shell. Bake until filling is browned, slightly puffed, and set, about 30 minutes. Let cool completely.

The tart can be refrigerated up to 3 days.

fried plantains!

When ripe, plantains are sweet and delicious, and this is an easy and straightforward treat.

Take a ripe plantain and slice it at an angle into pieces that are a 1/2-inch thick. In a large, thick-bottomed skillet (think cast-iron), heat enough oil to cover the surface until its hot. Fry the plantain pieces on both sides until they have a nice crust, about 30 seconds per side.

Remove from pan with a slotted spoon, sprinkle with kosher salt, and enjoy.

lemon cornmeal cake with blueberry compote

I made dinner for people a while ago, and the original plan for dessert was to make a pudding. But then I remembered a key fact: everytime I’ve made pudding—ever—it’s turned out less than satisfactory. Instead, I opted for a delicious, gluten-free cake that smells and tastes like summer. The topping was perfect too—blueberry compote, made with frozen blueberries (which are just as good as the fresh version, if you’re using them to bake). This is a simple dessert, that I really recommend if you’re looking for something to serve at a small dinner shindig.

Lemon Cornmeal Cake with Blueberry Compote

Serves 6 to 8

• 1 cup stone ground cornmeal
• ½ cup ground almonds (⅔ cup whole almonds ground to a meal)
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teapoons salt
• ½ cup butter
• 2 tablespoons finely grated lemon peel
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup sour cream (or full fat plain yogurt)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons coarse or organic sugar, for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch cake pan with 2-inch-high sides (I used a springform cake pan). Dust pan with cornmeal, tapping out excess.

Sift cornmeal, ground almonds, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth and fluffy. Beat in lemon peel. Gradually add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, occasionally scraping sides of bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in sour cream, lemon juice and vanilla. Fold in dry ingredients in three additions until just incorporated.

Transfer batter to pan and smooth top. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan on rack 10 minutes. Run knife around pan sides to loosen. Turn cake out onto plate, then turn onto a rack, coarse sugar side up. Cool completely.

Blueberry Compote

• 2 cups frozen blueberries
• 3 tablespoons water
• ¼ cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

Combine 1 cup of the blueberries, water, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Cook over a medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add the rest of the blueberries and cook for 8 minutes more, stirring frequently. Serve warm.

the most useful apps on my ipad

Since buying my iPad last year, it’s become a crucial tool for me as a writer, reader, and someone who likes to keep himself organized. It’s a place where I can focus on a single task—like writing this post—without being bound to the limits of an iPhone. I’ve built a fairly large stable of apps that have helped become a more productive person, and because I like to share, I thought I would write them up as something as a guide for people who are either new to the iPad, or want to make more of it. All of these apps appear on my homescreen, and I use each of them on an almost daily basis. 

Calvetica: The native Calendar app is ugly as sin, and not particularly functional. since Apple loves to load apps with useless gestures. Calvetica fixes both problems, and is really attractive to boot. Universal. $2.99.

Taskpaper: It’s a to-do app for people who hate to-do apps. Basically, it’s a heavily formatted text document that focuses on list making and works well for those of you who are adherents of the GTD system. I also use it for note-taking and keep track of individual projects. It doesn’t have notifications, but I use a separate app for keeping track of recurring tasks and things I need to do at a particular time and place. Universal, uses Dropbox for syncing, and available on OS X as well. $9.99 ($29.99 for OS X).

Tweetbot: I’m not saying anything new when I say that this is the best Twitter client on the iPad, and frankly, the the best Twitter client on any platform, period. If you’re the kind of person who uses lists to manage Twitter, it’s a must have. Also available on the iPhone. $2.99.

Facebook: Self-explanatory, also free. Link.

Day One: If you’re into journaling, I really recommend this. It syncs across companion apps on all Apple devices, and is really perfect if you’re looking for a private, reliable way to record your thoughts. Universal. $1.99 ($9.99 for OS X).

Verbs: If Apple made an IM app for iOS, this is what it would look like. Access to all of the major instant messaging services, and if you opt for the $4.99 in-app purchase, you get always-on push notifications. $2.99.

Instacast HD: Fact—Searching for, subscribing, and listening to podcasts through iTunes is a huge pain in the ass. Civilized people shoud use Instacast, an easy, attractive way to discover, manage, and listen to podcasts. Since I bought it, I listen to way more podcasts than I ever thought reasonable. Highly, highly recommended. $4.99 ($1.99 for iPhone).

Instapaper: I’m really not sure if there’s anything I can say about Instapaper that hasn’t already been said. It’s a great “read it later” service that, I think, is superior to Read It Later and Readability. It has great fonts, and the creator, Marco Arment, supports the app with regular updates. If there’s a must-have app for the iPad, this is it. Universal. $4.99.

Pinboard: This is actually a bookmark and not an app, but it’s still a crucial part of my writing workflow. Pinboard is a bookmarking service that is something of a successor to Delicious. You can save web pages for later viewing, as well as use it as an archiving service for Instapaper, Twitter favorites, and other services. To sign up, you have to pay a small fee, but it’s worth it. Link here.

Reeder: The best Google Reader client, period. $4.99 ($2.99 for iPhone, $9.99 for OS X).

ComicZeal: If you keep digital comics on your computer, either as PDFs or in the .cbr zip files, then this is the best general purpose reader. $4.99.

Articles: There might be better Wikipedia apps, but this is the on that I prefer. It’s full featured and attractive. $4.99.

Byword: My favorite text editor, bar none. I’m using it to write this post! A “distraction-free writing enviroinment,” it uses iCloud to sync to companion apps on OS X and the iPhone, and it is designed for people who write in Markdown. It exports to HTML in all versions, so you can take your writing directly to your blog. On the Mac, it converts your Markdown (or MultiMarkdown), and exports to PDF and .doc, as well as HTML. And it’s extremely well-designed, as far as text editors go. $2.99, though it will later go up to $4.99. ($9.99 for OS X).

1Password Pro: Basically, anyone who uses an iPhone, a Mac, or a Windows computer ought to own 1Password. It is a vault for all of your passwords, login information, and sensitive information of any kind. I use it everyday, and while it’s expensive, I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth out of it. Universal. $9.99 ($49.99 for OS X).

Apps that aren’t on my home screen, but are still awesome:

Evernote:  Most people use Evernote for taking notes and documenting their day-to-day with pictures and voice notes. For me, it’s a recipe manager and place where I keep important documents. It doesn’t get everyday use, but it’s definitely worth mentioning. Free.

TextExpander: A must-have on my Mac, TextExpander lets you create snippets of text that expand into whatever you want them to. For example, if I type “bhs”, “Barack Obama” pops up. Because Apple doesn’t give apps system wide access in iOS, TextExpander is a little less useful. But most third-party writing apps support it, and it’s tremendously useful. $4.99 ($34.95 on OS X).

I keep a lot of other apps on my iPad—games take up a ton of space—but these are the ones that I use the most. Let me know if you check them out; I’d love to hear what you think.

pasta with pea pesto

When I went to the grocery store to pick up supplies for this recipe—adapted from smitten kitchen—they were out of pine nuts, and so I picked up walnuts instead. I have no idea what this pea pesto would have been like with pine nuts, but with walnuts—which, of course, were toasted—it was delicious. The only thing I would do differently is add more lemon juice and lemon zest to lighten the flavor; I only used a tablespoon of juice and half a lemon’s worth of zest, but I could have used a little more.

Pasta with Pea Pesto

• 1 10 ounce package frozen peas
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• 1/3 cup walnuts, toasted and cooled
• 1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt, plus more for pasta water
• 1/3 cup good olive oil
• 12 ounces dried pasta (I used spaghetti)

Bring a small saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add peas and cook for 4 minutes (this leaves them with a bit of structure). Let your peas cool to lukewarm before making the pesto.

Set aside 1/2 cup of your cooked peas. Whirl the remaining cup of peas in the work bowl of a food processor with garlic, walnuts, parmesan and salt until smooth, about 2 to 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl as necessary. With the machine running, drizzle in olive oil and continue processing until completely smooth.

Cook pasta until al dente. Reserve about two cups pasta cooking water, then drain pasta and return it to pot. Over moderate heat, toss pasta with pesto, reserved peas and as much reserved pasta water as needed to smooth and distribute pesto (I was good with just a 1/4 cup); let cook for one minute so that the pesto adheres. Toss in remaining peas. Adjust salt to taste, add freshly ground black pepper if desired. Serve immediately.