We’ve been watching Freaks and Geeks, the best show on earth.  Alex owns the complete DVD set and brought it to my apartment.  His roommate owns another complete set, which stays at his apartment.  This means that we never have to worry about not having an episode, because I don’t think we could handle that.

So the show follows two groups of friends at a high school in the 80s.  Freaks and Geeks.  It’s caused us to start thinking about everything in terms of these to categories.  Our friends: freaks or geeks?  Celebrities: freaks or geeks?  And today, the purple potato: freak or geek?  Both.

The purple potato is a freak because it’s a rebel and, often, people don’t really know what to do with it.  But its a vegetable, which registers automatic geek points.  But like Lindsey, who so amazingly captures the best of the freak and geek worlds, these potatoes rock.

We threw them into a Spanish tortilla, which surprised us by tasting deliciously authentic, and took very little effort.  We found it freakishly good.

Ingredients:
3 purple potatoes
1 white onion
9 eggs
salt and pepper
5 tbsp olive oil, divided

Instructions:
Slice potatoes and onions very thinly.  Heat 3 tbsp olive oil in a large pan.  Add potatoes and onions, and cook about 15 minutes, until ingredients are soft but not brown.  Break eggs in a large bowl, and beat them for about 2 minutes.  Pour potatoes and onions into the bowl, and stir them into the eggs.  Add remaining 2 tbsp olive oil to the pan, then pour the mixture back into the pan. Preheat the broiler on your oven. Cook on the stove over medium for about 10 minutes, until nearly all of the egg has set.  Place pan in the oven, and broil for 1 minute until eggs are firm.  Remove tortilla from pan, and let cool to room temperature before serving.

This is a recipe that we did not invent.  We found it in Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food, which we purchased over the weekend.

The cookbook is amazing — I feel inspired and excited by every recipe it contains.  I want to cook something on every page.  This biscotti recipe is actually one of the first that I happened upon when thumbing through the book.  As soon as I saw it, we beelined to the nearest grocery store to find the ingredients that we needed to bake them that afternoon.

Because we’ve been so consciously trying to cook and post mostly original recipes, it was surprisingly relaxing to just step back and follow precise instructions.  No worrying that that the ratios were off, or that the ingredients would clash, and of course they turned out better than any biscotti I’ve purchased.  Not that I want to revert back to the old days, but you’re looking for a biscotti recipe that’s guaranteed to have that perfect crunch, crumbly texture, and subtly sweet flavor, here it is.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole almonds
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp lemon zest

Ingredients:
Toast almonds in oven at 350 for five minutes, then cool and coarsely chop.  In a bowl, combine flour and baking soda.  In a separate bowl, beat together eggs and sugar until the mixture forms a ribbon (you will be able to lift it out of the bowl a few inches with the beater). Gently stir in flour mixture until just incorporated and then gently fold in almonds.  On a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, form the dough into two 3-inch wide loaves.  Smooth with wet hands, then cook at 350 for 25 minutes.  Lower oven to 300, let loaves cool for 10 minutes, then cut them into 1/2-inch thick cookies.  Bake cookies on each side for 10-12 minutes until beginning to brown.

Tofu has historically been a problem food for us. While we love eating it when other people prepare it, it has been a culprit in some of our hugest cooking disasters to date.

Until today, we had never really been able to make our tofu taste like anything except plain tofu, and we definitely had never succeeded in changing its texture from soft and mushy to firm and gummy. This meal marked concrete progress on both fronts. This orange tofu has taste — it’s sweet, orangey, savory, and delicious, and it’s even a bit crunchy around the edges!

We attribute the success to a first attempt at this “pressing and draining” technique we’ve been hearing so much about around the blogs. Lesson learned: if everyone else is doing it, there’s probably a reason for it.

This tofu went wonderfully over a healthy version of coconut rice (no milk, just toasted coconut, ginger, and lemongrass stirred in). It’s definitely a recipe to add into the weeknight rotation.

Ingredients:
two block firm tofu
¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup sherry
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp lemon zest

Instructions:
Drain and press tofu by placing blocks in between two thick layers of paper towels (about 3 sheets per layer). Place a heavy item, like a baking dish with water, on top of the tofu. Press tofu for two hours, changing the paper towels after one hour. Whisk together orange juice, sherry, soy sauce, brown sugar, ground ginger, and lemon zest. Place tofu in a baking dish, and pour marinade over it, turning tofu over to make sure there’s marinade on both sides. Let marinate for 30 minutes, and then preheat the oven to 375. Bake tofu covered with aluminum foil for 20 minutes, then without foil for an additional 15 minutes. Drain marinade, and reserve for pouring over tofu later. Turn on the broiler, and broil tofu for an additional 5-7 minutes until browned. Serve over coconut rice with extra marinade.

When shopping for clothes, I like to calculate “price per wear” by dividing the price of the item by how many uses it will get. That way, if I want an obscenely expensive coat or pair of shoes, I’ll justify it by assuring myself of its low price per wear.

Certain tasks in the kitchen are subject to a similar analysis: we evaluate the effort of the dish, and divide it by the number of uses we’ll get out of it (like freezing meals for later, or turning it into something else the next day). We use the formula to justify making things that we really want to make, but could easily pick up at a store — like pasta, sauces, bread, etc.

So for a few hours of effort, here’s what became of some delicious French bread we baked: crutons in a salad, toast for French onion soup, a vehicle for mopping up gravy, breakfast with orange marmalade, sandwich bread for lunch, and a side dish for two dinners. Definitely justifiable.

The recipe for the bread comes from Mark Bittman, who promises in How to Cook Everything that this is the easiest and best French bread you will ever make (just in case you still didn’t feel like baking it is justified). It takes a few hours to rise etc., but you’ll be reaping the benefits of your efforts for days.

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
scant 1 1/2 cups warm water

Instructions:
In the container of a food processor, combine flour, salt and yeast. Process for five seconds, then slowly pour water into the processor while the machine is running. Process for about 30 seconds until the dough is in a shaggy ball, then transfer it into a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise for about three hours. Sprinkle a little flour onto a counter, and divide dough into three balls, and let them rise covered for about 30 minutes. Then, flatten each ball and fold it over itself twice, sealing the seam. Spread a towel onto the counter and place the loaves into folded seams of the towel. Let them rise for another 1-2 hours. Preheat the oven to 450, and bake loaves on a lightly floured baking sheet for about 25-35 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

I find that when we’re cooking for friends, which is all of the time, we always make what we want.

We’ll usually inquire about dietary restrictions, but other than that, we create the meal around recipes that we feel like testing, ingredients that we love, etc. It’s not because we don’t want to take requests, because we do. It’s just that people are always like, “oh, you guys know better than I do.” Or, “you’re the ones with the food blog.” Yeah, so? Just say what you like!

It gave us great pleasure yesterday to cook for Alex’s wonderful friend from home, and not because he requested anything in particular, but because Alex knew he loved chocolate and peanut butter. It was amazing — instead of flipping through dessert recipes trying to decide between dishes as different as flan and strawberry mousse, we knew right where to go. We turned to the ultimate chocolate peanut butter combo: the peanut butter cup, via a recipe from Baking Bites.

The only problem was we didn’t have mini cupcake cups, so we had to make giant ones. This is the type of “problem” we love to encounter in the kitchen. So yes, these were huge and rich, but they were so delicious that we each managed to eat a entire cup (plus the “test” one that we all split earlier). We’d make these again in an instant, as they’re super easy to do, but look like they’ve been handcrafted by a professional confectioner. You can do mini versions if you like, but we say they’re amazing enough that the bigger, the better.

Ingredients:
3 cups dark chocolate chips
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
generous pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
14 muffin cups

Instructions:
Melt half of the dark chocolate by microwaving for 30 seconds then stirring until chocolate has melted. Use a spoon to pour a little chocolate into each muffin wrapper, and spread the chocolate up the sides of the wrapper. Freeze candy shells immediately until set. In a small bowl, whisk together peanut butter. confectioners’ sugar, salt and vanilla. If it is not soft, you can microwave it a bit. Add a generous amount of the filling into each prepared candy cup, and chill again until set. Melt all remaining chocolate and then cover peanut butter filling with chocolate, and chill a final time until set. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Hello again, blogosphere. Miss us?

Samesies. We miss your wry humor and dramatic flair, the way you held us tight and promised to never let us go (not even to pee, and only occasionally for diet coke break). Let’s not lie: we were addicted to each other.

And now? Grad school. Anatomy and Contracts are no Chem and Early American Lit. These classes have work. But we’re trying so hard to come back to you. We’ll make it happen.

We even created this delicious dinner for you to remind you that we’re still around. Fresh figs are in season, and they make the sauce in this dish so aromatic and just slightly sweet. It only took about 30 minutes total, but the chicken was as moist as anything we could have marinated. The flavors are ideal for a quick early fall dinner — your favorite. And ours.

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
2 tbsp olive oil
20 fresh figs, halved
1 tsp sweet paprika, divided
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, coarsely chopped
1 ½ cups red wine
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Sprinkle chicken with ½ tsp paprika, salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large pan. Add chicken breasts and brown both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Add wine and figs, and sprinkle rosemary and remaining ½ tsp paprika on top. Turn heat to medium, cover, and cook until chicken is cooked through, about 12-15 minutes. Move chicken from pan to a plate, and let it rest covered. Let the wine and fig sauce reduce without a cover for an additional 5 minutes, until thickened. Divide chicken breasts among plates, and pour sauce on top.