Cheese Blintzes

by Sheila Connolly

A week ago I spent four days in New York City for a romance writers’ conference. I know—I write mysteries, but I started out trying to write romance, and now I’ve come back to it with a self-published paranormal romance series. I figured it was time to see what the opposition, er, our colleagues were up to now.

I won’t bore you with the details of a very large, very busy and very interesting convention. And I’ll admit up front, I wanted to go in part because it was held in New York, on Times Square. It’s a city with more restaurants than you could eat at in your life, assuming you ate out three meals a day. Or maybe four. You have Thai restaurants next to French bistros next to Cuban nightclubs next to Irish pubs. Yes, I found an Irish pub named Connolly’s and had dinner there, and a couple of pints.

But even the hotel food surpasses 97% of what I can get in my neighborhood. My last (sob) meal in the city, in the conference hotel, was breakfast at the hotel buffet, where I ate my first blintz. And then I went back for seconds. How was it I had never met these cuties before? They’re a bit time-consuming to assemble, but the ingredients are simple. Mostly they’re a thin crepe wrapped around a flavored ricotta filling, then sautéed in butter. The crepes and the filling can be made ahead, if you want to wow your guests at breakfast. (What, you never have guests at breakfast? Go ahead and eat them all yourself.)

Cheese Blintzes

Crepes

1 cup milk

1/4 cup cold water

2 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

Pinch salt

1 Tblsp sugar

3 Tblsp unsalted butter, melted

More butter for sautéeing the crepes

Combine the milk, water, eggs, flour, salt and sugar in a food processor. Blend on medium speed for about 15 seconds, until the batter is smooth and there are no lumps. Scrape down the sides and pour in the melted butter. Blend again to mix.

Refrigerate the batter for an hour to let it rest.

Place a non-stick skillet over medium heat and brush with a little melted butter. Pour 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan and swirl to cover the bottom evenly.  Cook for 30-45 seconds, until the batter sets. Loosen the crepe from the pan, then flip and cook the other side for 30 seconds. (They will not be crisp—you want to be able to fold them.)

Slide the crepe onto a platter. Cover each one with a paper towel to keep them from drying out or sticking to each other. Repeat until all the batter is used up (this recipe made nine—if I’d made them a bit smaller I could have had a couple more).

Filling

1-1/2 cups ricotta cheese

4 oz cream cheese

3 Tblsp confectioner’s sugar

Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

1 egg

In a food processor, combine the cheeses, the sugar, the lemon zest and the egg and blend until smooth. Chill to firm up a bit so it won’t squish out when you make the blintzes.

Forming the Blintzes

Lay a crepe in front of you and spoon 1/4 cup of the filling along the bottom third. Fold that edge away from you to just cover the filling. Fold the two sides in toward the center, then fold the top side down. Roll it around to make a package, ending with the seam side down.

Halfway there

In an oven-proof skillet over medium heat, brush on melted butter, and pan-fry the blintzes for 2 minutes per side, until they’re crisp and golden.

When they’re all sautéed, place the pan in a 400-degree preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes, to cook the filling through. Transfer to serving plates.

There are only eight here because one collapsed
in the making. I ate it.

You can serve these as is, or you can add a fruit sauce or fresh fruit of your choice (blueberries or a mix of blueberries and raspberries works well). I went with a lightly-cooked blueberry compote.

Yes, dear readers, I write romance--a paranormal romance series (available in multiple e-formats). The only mystery in them is why my heroine starts seeing her dead ancestors. Luckily her boyfriend does too. BTW, I borrow a lot of my Massachusetts ancestors for this series, but I haven't met any of them face to face. Yet.

In Search of Umami

by Sheila Connolly

Recently I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s book Cooked. It’s one of those books that’s easy to pick up and put down after reading a few pages, so I’m not rushing through it. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading any of his books, he’s immensely entertaining, well-informed, and curious about a lot of things, including food. And he really loves food: the history, the making, the meaning, and the eating.

The book is divided into sections. The first is Fire (how humans started cooking food with heat, which does all sorts of great things for the food and how we digest it). The second is Water, or how people cook with liquid. And that’s as far as I’ve gotten so far. Still to come: Air (baking) and Earth (fermentation). In the Water section, Pollan talks about umami.

For those of us who grew up believing that there were four flavor senses on our tongue (salty, sweet, sour and bitter), surprise! Scientists have confirmed a fifth one, which has its own receptors not only on our tongues but in our stomachs. We’ve all been enjoying it all our lives, but we didn’t know it. Its main characteristic is that it balances flavors (it may also make you drool and make your tongue feel fuzzy).

The sensation is based primarily on glutamate, which is present in soy and mushrooms and tomatoes and a lot of other things. And MSG (aka monosodium glutamate, or to us older folk, Accent, which my mother used liberally), no surprise. I love Pollan’s characterization of umami/glutamate: it italicizes food. It has no flavor of its own, but it makes everything else taste better.

I asked my husband (a scientist!) if he’d ever heard of umami, and he looked blank.

I developed a sudden craving for umami. If there are umami cookbooks, I don’t know about them. I looked at my fridge and my pantry. Hmm, a nice slow-cooked pork roast (a tribute to Pollan’s first section!). I had scallions (Pollan also talks about the significant contributions of the onion family in that first section). I had soy sauce.

And I had a weird package of dried something Chinese called “Black Fungus,” also known as Cloud Ear Fungus. When our daughter lived with us, she would bring home all sorts of exotic food products, many of which are still sitting on a shelf waiting for me to figure out what to do with them. This was one of those. It is widely used in all sorts of Asian cooking even outside of China, in Japan, Hawaii, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. It is reputed to possess anticoagulant properties, and may reduce cholesterol. How could I go wrong?

The instructions were in Chinese, except for about three lines of English that were not very helpful (1. Soak and wash the black fungus clean with cold water. 2. Cook the black fungus throughly (sic) with 100 deg C boiled water. 3. Stir-fry or stew the black fungus as per personal preferences.). But I figured, what the heck?

When I was last at the market, I also realized that I’d never cooked with soba (buckwheat) noodles. Since I was venturing into uncharted territory for this recipe, I decided that they were going into this dish too.

So here is the result: my multi-national mishmash in search of umami.

In Search of Umami

1 lb. cooked pork shredded (you can chop it finer if you insist, but the shreds work well for texture)

4-5 scallions, cut into 1/2” lengths

1 clove garlic, mashed or minced

Neutral cooking oil (not olive oil)

1 package dried black fungus (if you can’t find this, you can used any dried mushroom. You might find dried wood-ear in your market, which is similar in texture to the fungus.), soaked in boiling water and drained (you can save the soaking water, strained, if you want to add more liquid to your dish). Note: as a newbie, I made the whole package. These things expand! I’ve still got half of the rehydrated fungi in my fridge, waiting for…I don’t know what.

Dry black fungus

Soaked black fungus

Chopped black fungus

1/4 cup soy sauce

Salt to taste (depending on how salty your soy sauce is)

1 lb soba (buckwheat) noodles

Rehydrate your fungi (wow, I never expected to say that!), then drain and slice into ribbons or chop coarsely.

In a broad pan or wok, add a bit of oil and briefly sauté the green onion and garlic over medium heat (do not brown). Toss in the pork and fungi. Add the soy sauce and toss, then heat through (you can add more soy sauce, or some of the fungus liquid, if the mixture seems too dry).

Prepare the noodles according to the package directions. (My package said, basically, boil for 4 minutes and drain.) Put a serving of noodles in a bowl and spoon the meat-fungus mixture over them, along with some of the liquid.

Quick and easy. The fungus has a nice crunch, even after cooking, and there’s a good blend of savory flavors—including umami!

And introducing... Defending the Dead, the third book in the Relatively Dead paranormal romance series.

Abby Kimball is slowly adjusting to her recently discovered ability to see the dead, but none of the harmless sightings she’s experienced so far could have prepared her for the startling apparition of a centuries-old courtroom scene—where she locks eyes with a wicked and gleeful accuser. Suddenly thrown back more than three hundred years, Abby realizes she’s been plunged into a mystery that has fascinated people throughout American history: the Salem witch trials.

With her boyfriend Ned at her side, Abby digs into the history of the events, researching the people and possible causes of that terrible time and her own connection to them—all the while going more deeply into her connection to Ned, both extrasensory and romantic.

As Abby witnesses more fragments from the events in Salem and struggles with the question of how such a nightmare could have come about, she’s suddenly confronted with a pressing personal question: Were one or more of her ancestors among the accused?

 Available in most e-formats, from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.

SUSAN MALLERY IS DREAMING OF SUNNY WEATHER

New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery has entertained millions of readers with her witty and emotional stories about women and the relationships that move them. Publisher’s Weekly calls Susan’s prose “luscious and provocative,” and Booklist says, “Novels don’t get much better than Mallery’s expert blend of emotional nuance, humor and superb storytelling.” Visit Susan online at www.susanmallery.com.

I live in Seattle. According to a local news website, Seattle averages 226 cloudy days per year, plus 81 partly cloudy days. That’s a total of 307 days – 84% of the time – when the sun is either absent or playing coy. Something about the cool air gathering over the ocean, then pushing inland, hitting the Cascade Mountains… it’s all very complicated and, frankly, not very interesting. Suffice it to say that we go so long without seeing the sun during the winter that I rely on a happy lamp to keep my hormones endorphinated. (Yes, I made up that word. I’m a writer. I’m allowed to do that.)

Some of the local newscasters should seek endorphination, too, I think. As the short, dark days accumulate, their smiles get a little less perky, a little wobbly at the edges.

“Top headline tonight: It’s been 41 days since we’ve seen the sun here in the Seattle area.”

I swear I can hear a tremor in her voice.

I grew up in L.A., where they’re perky year-round. (A little double-entendre there for male readers.)

Books provide a great escape from dreary weather and dreary real-life. For a few hours, we’re transported to the world the author created. When I create a series, I want to ensure that it’s set somewhere that readers will love visiting over and over again. And, frankly, a place that I’ll love to visit, since I spend several months living in that world while writing each book.

BAREFOOT SEASON is the first book of my brand new Blackberry Island series. Although Blackberry Island is 

within commuting distance to Seattle, it’s a world away.

BAREFOOT SEASON takes place during the lovely, long summer days, when there’s nowhere as beautiful as the Pacific Northwest. The sun, when it shines, has a different quality here. The light is pure, and the colors are deeply saturated, vibrant. The sky is bluer, the flowers are brighter.

Wounded veteran Michelle Sanderson is eager to return to Blackberry Island, where she grew up. When she discovers that Carly, her former best friend, has been running her family’s inn – and badly, it seems, since the inn is on the verge of foreclosure – Blackberry Island is no longer a haven from her problems. It’s the source of them. Will Michelle run away again, or will she finally make peace with Carly and with the pain she caused so many years ago?

Visit Blackberry Island online at www.blackberryisland.com to read Chapter 1 of BAREFOOT SEASON, see a map and Visitors Guide, get some fabulous blackberry recipes, including a printable version of the recipe I’ve shared below. There’s also a fabulous recipe for Helen’s Chicken Salad within the pages of BAREFOOT SEASON.

OVEN-BAKED PORK CHOPS WITH BLACKBERRY CHIPOTLE SAUCE

¼ C olive oil

2 pork chops, 1-1 ¼” thick

Salt and pepper

 ¼ C Blackberry Chipotle Sauce (recipe at www.blackberryisland.com)

Preheat oven to 350. Heat olive oil in heavy, oven-safe pan with a lid. Salt and pepper the chops, then brown for five minutes on one side. Flip the chops, cover the pan, and transfer it to the oven. Bake for 30 minutes. Add 2 T Blackberry Chipotle Sauce on top of each chop. Cover again and bake until the internal temp reaches 

165, about 10-20 minutes more.

What’s your favorite time of year? Why? What does the phrase “Barefoot Season” bring to mind for you?

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Thank you, Susan, for being such a wonderful guest!  ~Avery