Friday, July 27, 2012

Cooking Adventures with Nora Ephron

I've just finished reading Heartburn (see previous post) by Nora Ephron and I really loved it. The novel included a bunch of fun recipes scattered within the story so my sister and I decided to cook/bake our way through as many of the recipes in her book as possible this week. I don't want to make this blog too random and it is still dedicated to reviewing books gone Meryl Streep movies. However this was really fun and yummy, so here are some of the things we made!

Day 1: Cheesecake 
This picture is also in my Heartburn post, but I've put it here again anyways. This was our first recipe. It wasn't perfect because we ran out of regular sugar and we had to top the 1 cup off with some brown sugar. We also didn't make our own crust because we had a pre-made crust already. This crust was chocolate. We added the sour creme late also because we ran out and had to go get some more before we could add it in for the last 10 minute baking.
Chilling out in the fridge with sour cream on top. It didn't turn out exactly as expected because we waited longer than we should have to add the sour creme part. It tasted alright though: extra tangy!
*It tasted a lot better on the second day because the new layer of sour cream & sugar had a better consistency.

Day 2: Toasted Almonds

So this took all of 10 minutes to complete, but I had actually never done this because normally I a.) dislike nuts, except when they are in peanut butter and b.) have seen my family toast in the microwave. But today, my sister and I wanted to do something easy and quick so we just did these and counted it as a recipe for the day. We didn't exactly follow the instructions because we didn't have blanced (white) almonds. We used the regular brown kind so it was a little harder to see the burned parts. Anyway, so basically you just have to melt butter in a pan and cook the almonds until you can smell them or in the case of blanced almonds, see the burned parts. My conclusion on Ephron's toasted almonds compared to making them in the microwave is this: More butter, more better. 


Day 3: Key Lime Pie
Making Key Lime Pie was amazing because we didn't have to use the oven or the stove. After mixing everything together, you just have to let the pie freeze. Overall the pie was really simple & quick to make and very much worth it because it tastes so good! I recommend making Key Lime Pie any day, but it is especially perfect for the summer!

Day 4: Swiss Potatoes
Today we made Swiss Potatoes, which are just like potato pancakes. We made ours a lot smaller than the size that Ephron suggested, but they were still very good. However, they were very time consuming to make and I only suggest making them if you a.) really love potato pancakes (which I do) or b.) if you have a lot of time/patience. We had to wash and peel all the potatoes and then grate them, which took a while because we wanted to make a lot of them. You can use a Cuisinart Potato Slicer, but we couldn't locate one.  Then my sister fried the potatoes pieces in a hot frying pan filled with oil, which was difficult at first because the potato pieces stuck to the pan and were difficult to flip at first. The Swiss Potatoes were absolutely delicious and greasy and salty and unhealthy and wonderful. I really loved them, despite all the time they took to make!



Day 5: Vinaigrette 
We are planning on making Ephron's special vinaigrette later today. I'm sure it'll be amazing! As for the last 2 days of this week, we're not sure what to make next, but I figured this post is long enough as it is!

*Thank you to my wonderful sister for helping me out with this because I really have no clue what I'm doing when it comes to cooking/baking/anything in the kitchen.*

**And thank you Nora Ephron. I miss you! Here's to you and here's to food...**

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