Zosia's Profile

From: Toronto, ON

Joined: October 19th, 2011

Silk Chocolate Cream Pie with Pecan Crust from The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle

This is a showstopper of a pie with rather sophisticated flavours - intense chocolate filling with salty, crunchy crust. Can't say I cared much for the crust on its own but it was a great foil, both texturally... read more >

recipe reviews (781)
book reviews (23)
useful review votes (669)

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Zosia's Reviews

12 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 12Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

By Deb Perelman
Knopf - 2012

This recipe was a disappointment…..perhaps I misinterpreted what Deb wrote in the headnotes, but I was expecting a method of preparing this vegetable that toned down its inherent bitterness. This doesn’t come close. The onions caramelized in butter and the mozzarella were nice complements to it, but they don’t mask the bitterness.

Another issue is that you’re asked to exclude the stems…….exactly what is one supposed to do with (edible) broccoli rabe stems? It’s not a vegetable anyone would willingly add to a stock…..I sliced them thinly and cooked them with the leaves and florets.

I would actually make this sandwich again but I would first blanch the vegetable, a step I find goes a long way in reducing the bitterness.

useful (1)  

Caramel corn in cookie form! These are little drop cookies made by folding freshly popped, buttered popcorn into a sweet, caramel flavoured cookie dough before baking.

They're best eaten freshly made, while the popcorn retains its crunch, and perhaps that’s how they’re meant to be enjoyed as the recipe doesn’t include storage information. After just a few hours, the popcorn has a stale, chewy texture though the cookie part is still nice and crisp. Also, I think the dough needs a little salt as the salted popcorn is so unevenly distributed, some bites have none at all (of salt or popcorn). My yield, using a heaping tbsp, was 40 cookies.

So far opinion is divided and seems to change with every cookie eaten so my rating prevails….

useful (0)  

Very nice, lightly spiced baked pancake with enough flavour to stand on its own without accompaniments.

I doubled the recipe (except for the butter) to fit a 12” cast iron skillet, which I automatically preheated in the oven before noticing in the directions that that step wasn’t required. The pancake baked in the allotted time but I didn’t get the dramatic puffing I was expecting - don’t they all do that? Perhaps a consequence of having a little too much batter in the pan (I really should have made only 80% extra).

Delicious departure from my usual pancakes.

useful (1)  

What Queezle Sister said except that it's not low altitude friendly either!

I, however, did choose to serve it to company....if you cut the pieces small enough and put them in pretty paper cups, you don't really notice the hills and valleys on the surface : )!

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Easy to prepare, great tasting and much more substantial than a lettuce based salad.

I particularly enjoyed the contrast between the crunchy pecans and sweet/tart cherries and the other ingredients though I wasn’t quite sure of the purpose of the radishes – you could barely taste them. I would probably reduce the amount of Dijon mustard in the dressing next time as it was a little intense.

Deb recommends letting the dressed salad sit for 20 minutes before serving, which I did, but the texture was still good hours later.

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This is a delicious, albeit labour intensive, version of roasted ratatouille which made an excellent vegan sandwich filling.

I used my mandoline set at 1/8” thickness to slice the vegetables….this part took very little time. Arranging the vegetables on top of the tomato-onion base was a different story. I took a shortcut and arranged them in concentric circles, each circle containing a different vegetable, and made 2 layers to use them all up, changing the order of the vegetables arranged on the top layer. The recipe called for long, thin vegetables; cutting a regular eggplant and pepper in half lengthwise before slicing worked fine. I increased the garlic to 3 cloves and added salt and pepper to the vegetables (which they needed).

I’m sure the same flavour could be achieved by dicing the ingredients and mixing them before roasting, but that would make a very messy sandwich filling. With this method, the ratatouille was compact and easy to serve, and every bite of the sandwich had a little bit of each ingredient. I used this multigrain bread.

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The flavour of this cookie is amazing….tart rhubarb jam with a crisp almond cookie.

I made the jam from rhubarb I’d bought in the spring and frozen; Ontario had a very poor crop this year and the stalks were on the green side so my jam was more of a peachy-pink shade than the pretty ruby colour pictured in the book.

The pastry was the most difficult dough of any type I’ve ever worked with. I weighed all of my ingredients and made it by hand. It was so dry that it never came together, even after kneading as instructed. I considered adding water, not one of the ingredients in the dough, but felt I’d already worked it too much and was concerned that it would be very tough.

Rolling it out was an exercise in frustration as it kept cracking and scraps wouldn’t come together to be re-rolled. My yield was 28 instead of 30 cookies but I did throw quite a bit of dough out, not something I usually do.

Remarkably, the cookie was light and crisp and if it was tough/dry, you didn’t notice because of the moist jam filling. I’m going to give the recipe the benefit of the doubt and assume the problem with the pastry was mine – ingredients or technique – but I think I’ll just find a different almond cookie dough to use with this jam.

useful (2)  

A favourite snack from childhood, Rice Krispy Treats, kicked up a few notches by replacing regular butter with browned butter and adding sea salt.

This recipe's not any more difficult/time consuming to make than the one that appears on the cereal box, but the results are so much more delicious.

But much as these were enjoyed, the vanilla was missed. For this reason, I prefer Joanne Chang's version. This recipe deserves 4 1/2 stars.

useful (1)  

A tasty falafel inspired dish. The meatballs were moist and flavourful (and actually tasted of turkey) with the sesame seeds adding a crunchy texture, and the brightness of the chickpea salad was a great counter to the heat (which was quite mild) of the meatballs. Flavours of the Middle East but toned down a little.

The meatballs took a few extra minutes to put together as time was spent toasting sesame seeds and making fresh breadcrumbs but they were still quite easy to make. I made mine a little smaller and broiled them instead of frying and baking.

The chickpeas (I used freshly cooked) were almost a disaster: the directions to mash them slightly resulted in an unappetizing mess of partially mashed chickpeas and loose skins. I spent 5 minutes removing the skins and was just glad that I hadn’t yet added the other ingredients.

I served them with pitas, a cucumber-tomato-mint salad and a dollop of Greek yogurt.

I would like to give this 3 ½ stars – 4 for flavour with a half-star deduction for the issue of the chickpeas.

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I really liked the idea of these tacos but they were a little bland if made as instructed: I actually thought that the section for prepping the black beans was omitted in error until I read that they were to be used rinsed and drained but otherwise straight from the can. Unseasoned black beans=flavourless black beans. The seasoning on the cooked squash was good but not enough.

To make this dish delicious, I added extra seasoning to the squash (I used roasted butternut) making sure to use some chipotle chili powder since this spice was the only source of heat, and added sautéed onion and garlic and more of the same seasonings (cumin, coriander) to the beans. I found the overall flavour a bit too sweet for my taste so added this fresh salsa to shift the balance towards the savoury side.

I would give my version 4 stars.

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Lovely dessert, elegant in both appearance and flavour.

The delicious pudding is silky and creamy and not overly sweet and the tart berry curd is the perfect complement. It’s not nearly as rich as custards, pots de crème etc that contain cream, it’s easy to make and can be made well in advance – perfect company fare.

The instructions start a little oddly: you’re directed to combine the pudding ingredients in a heavy saucepan but then cook them over simmering water – I think "saucepan" should have been "heatproof bowl". Since I’d already put everything into a pot, I cooked the pudding over direct heat (med-low), removing it from the burner when it was time to add the white chocolate. The residual heat was enough to melt the chocolate. Though the recipe doesn’t specify, I waited until the pudding had set in the fridge and the curd had cooled to room temperature (~30min) before layering the two.

This was enjoyed by everyone, even those who don't care for white chocolate.

useful (1)  

Very nice tender scones….not as flaky as some, but more moist than most.

I decided to make a double batch to use up most of the container of ricotta (I used low-fat) but replaced the berries with chocolate chips in 1 batch. I made the chocolate chip version first and found the dough to be a little dry so added an extra spoon of ricotta to help it hold together. I thought perhaps it was just lacking the added moisture from the fruit but I had the same issue with the raspberry batch using mostly defrosted, drained raspberries instead of fresh. I ended up using the whole 454g container of cheese.

Deb’s recipe doesn’t call for spices or additional flavourings and the raspberry version doesn’t need them but the chocolate chip version could have used a little vanilla. Definitely a recipe I’ll make again.

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