My youngest sister started college a few weeks ago, fah fah away. The last night we all had dinner together, I went a little wild. She had requested chicken enchiladas and I decided to go all out and add appetizers, ramp up the enchiladas and do dessert. She and I have been known to devour guacamole at really unhealthy speeds, so homemade guac seemed the way to go.

I hit up our local farmers market fairly often and got this gorgeous heirloom tomato the week before. It’s a German Stripe and this picture does not do its size justice. This thing was huge. I took half, removed the seeds and diced.



Roasted some garlic



Roughly diced half a red onion



Juiced some beautiful limes. These are not all for the guac, I also used limes in the chicken for the enchiladas.



Juiced 3 of them for the guac with the best juicer ever.



A note: this juicer, which I adore, is a Williams-Sonoma product. I’ve added a disclaimer to my about page and included it here as well:

I work part-time at my local Williams-Sonoma store and as such, you will see a number of WS products that I use in my daily cooking within my photography. While my colleagues at the store are aware of my blog, there is no sponsorship or relationship of any kind between me, my blog and Williams-Sonoma Inc. The products shown are items I use regularly and are included because I genuinely like them and because they are relevant to the production of whatever food I am showing. If at any time a product outside of these parameters appears, I will make specific note of it within any post it appears.

Anyway, by this time the garlic was done roasting.



Chopped a handful of cilantro



Split the avocados and removed the nut. All together now with seasonings!



What you do next depends on your preference for chunky versus smooth guacamole. I prefer a smoother consistency, so I processed most of the avocado pretty thoroughly. Add the tomato and lime juice at the end and stir in, no need to process everything to a pulp.



You can download this recipe here!

Tags: appetizer, mexican, summer, seasonal, vegetables

I woke up this morning to 60° temperatures, beautiful blue skies and the realization that summer may just be over. And what a summer it has been.

We’ve had natural disasters -

A flood! (Thanks Tropical Storm Lee!)



A tornado!



An earthquake!



A hurricane!




No joke, it’s been a little ridiculous.

But it wasn’t all disaster.






It’s been a beautiful summer. And that’s the summer I’m clutching onto with this recipe.



It’s almost not fair to call this a recipe. It’s basically two steps. One ingredient: chunks of juicy, delicious watermelon. Put them in a blender. Blend. Add straw. Drink.



I’m also hard at work overhauling the navigation on this here blog. My months away have given me new eyes on some clunky tools and missing features. Currently up, but pretty bare: my recipe page! Every recipe I post will be available on this page, sorted by dish type, seasonality, special diet...but I need you to tell me what would make it easiest for you: What categories do you look for? Is dinner versus side specific enough? You tell me.

Tags: fresh, fruit, seasonal, summer, easy

Now, I realize that most people are still holding on with their teeth to the tattered remains of their New Years resolutions, but bear with me. These are worth it. Hopefully you haven’t been good and scrolled right past this without even looking, but these are seriously, really truly, utterly worth it. And pretty easy too!

These were originally posted by Jenna on EatLiveRun.com, who adapted them from Smitten Kitchen. When I read them on Jenna’s blog, they immediately got starred and logged into my recipe software.

Start out by browning the butter. This isn’t a strictly necessary step, but it definitely adds a certain something. If you opt not to brown, use room temperature butter and skip this step.

If you’re sticking around for the browning, this is very nearly the same process I used in the carrot cake and the pumpkin cake, just minus the chilling step. So melt the butter in your saucepan and, watching pretty carefully, cook it until, well....it browns. There’s a pretty small window between browning and burning, so don’t wander away.



Mix the browned butter with your dark brown sugar a stand mixer, or large bowl. And cream thoroughly.



Once it’s thoroughly mixed, add your eggs and vanilla extract. Once those are mixed, add your flour and salt. Stir or mix until they are well blended.

Add in your toffee and nuts. I made the recipe twice, once with nuts and once without, so unless you’re dealing with an allergy, I’d strongly recommend the nuts. It’s well worth it. Both pecans and walnuts work well.





Take the caramel sauce. This had been in my fridge for a while, so it’s a bit granular and quite thick.



Microwave it for 30 seconds, repeat if necessary.

Meanwhile, grease a 9x13 pan well. Very very well. Spread half of the dough across the bottom. Be very careful not to have any holes in the dough, or the caramel will cook onto the bottom of the pan and you will get a really really thorough arm workout trying to get them out of the pan. Just trust me on this.



The caramel is looking much better.



Drizzle the caramel over the bottom layer of dough and spread around with a spatula so the whole area is covered. Divide the rest of the dough into pieces and spread them throughout the top.

This dough is pretty thick and you are going to want to cover all of the caramel, so use your (freshly washed) fingers or a clean spatula to spread it out. It’s not a big deal with the caramel layer is not completely covered, but do your best.



Bake at 375 for 35 minutes.



This kind of hole is what happens when your top layer isn’t solid. Obviously, not the end of the world. But doesn’t it look delicious?



Let them cool for about 30 minutes, then slice and for the love of everything, remove them from the pan. Immediately. Put them in some kind of tupperware with wax paper, or eat them all immediately, but do not, I repeat do not allow them to cool completely in the pan. These get delightfully chewy but for whatever reason, were incredibly difficult to remove from the pan once they were cold. I was fairly baffled. Just learn from my struggles, slice completely and remove.





The recipe is available here

Tags: baking, dessert

After the recent glut of baked goods, I thought perhaps I should offer a slightly healthier option. Vegetarian even. With vegetables in it. Amazing.

Butternut squash is one of those things I’ve always seen at the grocery store and been mildly intrigued by. Once it showed it’s utterly omnipresent face throughout the food blog world, I knew I was going to have to investigate.

The biggest challenge is not actually cooking it. That’s not hard. The biggest challenge is getting to the edible part of the squash. I will warn you now, this is physically strenuous on your hands. I would actually kind of recommend a rubber mallet. But once you get there, look at this, it’s so pretty:



But you have to start here:


(source)

Here are your tools: a really big cutting board (or a really clean counter I suppose), a vegetable peeler, a grapefruit spoon and your big knife of choice.



You need to cut off the rounded ends of the squash. So it can stand upright, like so



Now you need to get the skin off. I have no idea if it’s actually called a skin, but bear with me. Use the vegetable peeler, be ruthless.



Now cut rounds off both ends, until you come to the seed-filled cavity. You’re going to use the grapefruit spoon to get the seeds out, very much like carving a jack-o-lantern.



Dice into relatively uniform pieces and drop into a big pot along with vegetable broth. I’ve made this bisque with chicken broth and it just overpowered the taste of the squash. So go vegetarian here.



Cook, much like you would mashed potatoes, for 20-30 minutes or until pieces break apart when you try to stab them with a fork. At that point, the liquid will have reduced, so bust out the potato masher or immersion blender and blend until smooth. I recommend some garlic salt, plenty of black pepper and some paprika at this point. At the very end, add about a quarter cup of half and half, just enough to make it creamy. Stir and serve, recommended with a crusty bread.



This is not my picture. Thank you Google Images. (source)

Tags: soup, vegetables, vegetarian, seasonal

Something about the winter makes me crave the flavors of summer. At the time of year that, of course, they’re hardest to find. Figures.

But this afternoon I found a solution. Or at least a stop gap. Lemon poppy seed muffins. The lemon-y freshness of summer, coupled with the sour cream in the recipe makes this a really nice, light and refreshing baked good.

And!! A new feature I’m trying out, you can now download a pdf of this recipe, for your very own self! Just click here and just like magic, your very own copy of this recipe will appear on your computer. Technology is simply amazing. But don’t let that stop you from reading the whole post, and admiring the pretty pictures.

Get your ingredients ready



The butter and eggs should be at room temperate. The butter is crucial, so plan ahead. Don’t microwave it, melted is not the same as room temperate.

I buy my poppy seeds in bulk at Wegmans and keep them in a jar, but they’re also available in the spice aisle.



Now you need to really, really cream the butter. Thoroughly.



And then add the sugar



In another bowl, combine the sour cream (plain Chobani would work as well) with the lemon extract and vanilla



And elsewhere, the flour and baking soda



Prep a pan with muffin papers or greasing it



Beat the eggs in, one at a time.



Add the flour and sour cream mixtures alternately, then poppy seeds at the end.



Be careful not to overmix. Chunks are better than tough muffins.



Fill cups to about 3/4s full and sprinkle with sugar. Turbinado is better, but white will suffice.



Bake at 350 for at least 30 minutes. It took about 32 in my oven and rotate once midway through.



Let them cool



When you put the sugar on at the beginning, it forms a really nice solid crust.



Enjoy!

Tags: baking, muffins, lemon

Being an overachiever, I like to make virtually everything from scratch, including pie crust. Yes, I know you can just buy reasonably good pie crust, pre-made and rolled and ready to bake at the grocery store. But it’s just not the same. For one, it truly doesn’t taste as good. And two, there is achievement in the perfect pie crust. Achieving the perfect pie crust is truly an accomplishment, with tears and cursing along the way. I’ve lost count of how many pies I’ve made, how many crusts I’ve thrown away, how many different recipes I’ve read and discarded. But I think, at long last, I’ve finally got this recipe down to a fool proof science.

In honor of National Pie Week (January 23-30), I’m going to share this painstakingly, hard-won, agonizingly perfected recipe. Because you are my readers. And I love and appreciate you. And I want good things, and good pies, for you. So please, throw away your Pillsbury doughs and take a shot at the real stuff.

I offer you two methods, one stand mixer, one manual. And mark this day down, because I think this is probably the first (and maybe only) time I will tell you that not using a stand mixer is better. I love my stand mixer, I can’t imagine baking without it, but for this one instance, it’s worthwhile not to use it.

But I leave that to your better judgement. Make two, one in each method. Report back.

Before you start anything, think about what kind of pie you’re making. Specifically, does it require a bottom and top crust. Apple, chicken pot, peach...these are two crust pies. Pecan, pumpkin, quiche...one crusters. The proportions will be different, obviously. I’m posting this as a two crust pie, with one crust measurements in parentheses.

You also need to put your fat (one cup of butter or Crisco) in the freezer right now. Along with a measuring bowl of about a cup of water. Leave them there for at least half an hour, until the water has a light crust of ice on the top and the fat is very very cold.

Take 4 (2) cups flour and a teaspoon (1/2) of salt, in the well of the mixing bowl.



Take your extremely cold fat, slice it into little pieces



Add gradually to the mixer, beating constantly. You want the fat mixed well, but without creaming it. It should be a chunky (ew) mixture.



Here we are.



Now we’re going to take the nearly frozen water and drizzle it in. Drizzle I said, not pour. The amount of water required will vary hugely, on the day, the humidity, etc etc. So drizzle judiciously and only until you achieve a good clump.



To the other method. A bowl and a pastry blender. Mine is from Williams Sonoma and it’s both fantastic and cheap. Flour and salt.



Grate the butter (this is Plugra) or Crisco into the flour.





Stop midway through and use the blender to combine. I found that if I grate the whole block and then blend, it’s very difficult due to the massive layer of butter on top. So pause, blend and return.



Drizzle the water, and blend some more. I’ve used anywhere from 6 tablespoons to 10, so use your best judgement.



You’ll notice, since you’re working it with your hands, that this dough is quite sticky. Keep blending.



You’re aiming for a shaggy consistency. And I think that’s actually the technical term. No joke. It should be beginning to stick together, but not enough that you could roll it out. That’s what this saran wrap is for.



Ball it up, as much as possible, and wrap it in the saran wrap to chill.



And here is where the two methods merge. You wrap both and chill, for at least an hour. There’s a delicate balancing act, for you need the coldness for it to stick together. On the other hand, if it’s too cold, it’s near impossible to work. So check on it, but an hour seems to be a good amount of time.

Sprinkle your work area generously with flour. And I mean generously.



Take out the nice chilled ball of dough and cut it in half (if it’s a two crust pie)



More flour



After you put flour on the rolling pin, roll out the dough until you’ve got a reasonably uniform thickness. Rotate the dough (clockwise or counterclockwise, just not flipping) and add flour underneath if you encounter any stickiness.



Lay your pie pan, upside down, on top of the dough and cut, with a paring knife, about 1” to 1.5” outside of the circle of the pan.



Remove the pie pan and loosely, loosely roll the dough onto your rolling pin.



Lifting the pin, place the whole thing on top of your (now right side up) pie pan and unroll





Taking more care than I thought was necessary, press the crust down into the pan, pulling the excess in





If this is a one crust pie, edge it and place the whole thing in the fridge for at least an hour before adding filling. I have no idea why, but this dramatically reduces the shrinkage problem that would otherwise occur upon baking.



If it’s a two crust pie, fill and set aside.

Take out the other half of the crust and, with more flour, put out to roll.



Since your pie pan is now full, freehand a circle. And don’t mock mine until you try it yourself.



Using the same rolling pin method as before, place the second crust atop the filled pie.

And now you get to be creative. You need to seal the crusts so that your filling doesn’t just ooze out the outside of the pie while it bakes. You can do the functional, yet ugly, and fork it. Take care just to go the whole way through to the pan.



Like so. Trim the excess.



Or you can do a much prettier edge. Either way, you’re then going to cut a vent, so the whole crust doesn’t puff up in the oven.





And you could just toss the whole thing in the oven right then. I prefer to be a little more decorative.

Take a milk product (your choice, I’ve used skim and half ’n half) and a pastry brush



And large granules of sugar.



Mine is raw turbinado from Whole Foods. There is also non-raw ie: white turbinado sugar, but I like the browning better.



Brush the whole thing down with milk



Outside edge, everything.



And sprinkle with sugar





Your baking time is going to vary on what your filling is, but expect about an hour at 375 or 400.



The benefit of the sugar and milk is this beautiful caramelization.



Take your scraps of crust and bake them, with sugar and cinnamon, on a flat pan for about 15 minutes.





And this is where you can see how wonderfully flaky this crust is.



Show me that with a Pillsbury crust.



Notes of caution: be careful to really fully push the crust to the bottom of the pan. Or else you’ll get problems like this pumpkin pie had.



Forgive the Blackberry camera photo from Thanksgiving 2009, but a successful apple pie.



So, have I convinced you?

Tags: pie, crust, baking

This recipe is actually a Thanksgiving remnant. Since it wasn’t really seasonal and since I just made it (‘cause I wanted to) as finger food to have about, I didn’t post it then. But honestly, it’s so good, I couldn’t not eventually post it. After making this, I can’t ever go back to “regular” shortbread. Just can’t compare.

In a bowl, combine 1 3/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup white sugar.



Take a tart pan. If it’s non-stick, DON’T SPRAY IT. Bad. I lightly “floured” with powdered sugar. And didn’t photograph. Oops!



Plugra is a really nice European style butter. It’s absurdly expensive so I only buy it at the holidays or to make something where it will really matter, but since this was Thanksgiving, I had some on hand. Unsalted please. You’re going to use half of this block, so 4 oz.



Cut up into little pieces. And I mean little. Unlike the chocolate cake where it really didn’t matter, this one does. Small pieces.



Pastry blender until the butter is in pea sized bits and the dough is quite well mixed.



Into the tart pan.



Press it down with your fingers and/or a fork. Technically you should now “dock” it, which means stab it repeatedly with a fork. I didn’t. All was well with the world.



Key: put the pan in the freezer. For at least 30 minutes.



Meanwhile, 1/3 cup honey and some reasonably good sea salt.





See how thick this honey is? Well, it’s too thick for our purposes. So after the tart pan has been in the freezer for at least 30 minutes and gone into a 375 degree oven for about 30, we’re going to microwave this honey.



Take the shortbread out when it looks about like this. Lightly browned, not yet fully cooked. Five minutes shy of its full cook time.



More accurate coloring picture



See, after 15 seconds in the microwave, this is what the honey will look like. See how the edge just barely folds under? This is sufficiently liquid.



Using a pastry brush (if needed) cover the whole shortbread with the honey. 1/3 cup should be plenty.





Sprinkle generously with sea salt and pop it back into the oven for the last five minutes.

Cool thoroughly.



Admire



Shortbread being, well, shortbread, it’s simultaneously quite brittle and quite rich. So cutting cake-style slices just won’t quite do.



I took a biscuit cutter (you could use a glass if you don’t have a biscuit cutter) and cut out the center, then sliced accordingly.



You can also just try and slice it like a cake, but I found these to be a bit much.



The honey bakes into the top of the shortbread (you can just see it in this picture) and gives it this amazing density. Coupled with the salt on top, which is just enough to really enhance the honey, you won’t ever eat regular shortbread the same way again.

Tags: dessert, baking

As soon as I saw this recipe in Real Simple, I knew I had to make it. Flourless Chocolate Cake. I’m a total sucker for recipes that will allow me to create something without a major ingredient. For whatever reason.

Go all double boiler-y and melt two sticks of butter with 1/4 fat free half ’n half (recipe calls for heavy whipping cream, I fought the man).



Yes, the recipe also says to cut the butter up into pieces. I obviously did not. And guess what? It didn’t matter. I suppose it would have melted faster, but oh well.

Also, butter a 9” springform, then lightly coat with cocoa powder



This is excess:



Dump the excess out into the sink, it makes a delightfully easy to clean mess.

Mix 1 cup sugar in a bowl with 1/4 cup cocoa powder



Elsewhere, beat 5 eggs, then whisk into sugar/cocoa mixture



Add 8 oz chocolate to the double boiler party. I used semi sweet chips, the recipe called for bittersweet chocolate, chopped. I don’t know about you, but if there is bittersweet chocolate in my house, it doesn’t stick around long enough to be used in recipes. So chocolate chips it is!



Mixed with my baby spoontula. Love.

Once the butter/cream/chips meltage is smooth and consistent, whisk into the sugar/cocoa/eggs bowl



Pour into the prepared springform and bake for 35-40 minutes at 350.



You’ll know it’s done when it’s puffed and cracked on the top.



Allow to cool for one hour, then running a knife (or a freshly cleaned spoontula) around the edge to separate the cake from the pan, remove, slice and serve.



Does not require icing, at all. It is moist and slightly gooey and delightful. The author calls for confectioners sugar on the top, but I was out. And while it would have been lovely, I think it might have pushed the sugar levels a little over the top.

Beautiful.



Quarrels: I think this should have been done in an 8” springform. The recipe specifically calls for a 9”, but I think the depth of the cake would have been better in the 8”. It is quite thin, which makes it pretty difficult to remove from the springform base.

Anyway, highly recommend. Hardest part of this recipe was resisting the incredible smell for the whole hour it took to cool. The cooling process did seem crucial, as it allowed the cake to settle and dense...densen? Dense up? I don’t know what word I’m looking for.

So the recipe can be found here and is highly recommended. If you can master a double boiler and own a springform, you can make this cake. Do it to it.

Tags: cake, chocolate, gf

Sometimes I think cookies and cookie recipes are a bit overwrought. Coconut raspberry chocolate thumbprint cookies anyone? Who needs a cookie with 87 different elements in it?

The beauty of cookies is sometimes in their simplicity. Sugar cookies. Peanut butter cookies. And these, lovely, chocolate cookies. Not chocolate chip, not chocolate dipped or triple chocolate...just chocolate.

These start out, as all good cookies do, with Crisco and sugar.



Creamed, plus brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract



Then the chocolate!!



Now flour and baking soda and salt



More chocolate, cause they don’t look chocolate-y enough.



Plus a dough scoop



Baked at 375 for 8 minutes. And I mean 8 minutes. Because these are already brown, it’s tough to tell when they’re...ya know, browned. But 8 minutes is perfect.



If you baked them on parchment paper, just slide the whole sheet off to a table to cool.

If not, let them sit on the pan for 1 minute, then remove to foil to cool.





So simple. So delicious.

These cookies are actually based off my original cookie recipe, but plus 1/2 cup baking cocoa and minus the chips. Because you’re adding additional dry ingredients, you may consider adding more butter or Crisco. A tablespoon or two should do it.

Tags: chocolate, cookies

So after my epic apple pie fail (okay maybe it wasn’t epic) of Thanksgiving, I was determined to re-do my apple pie.

I knew the problem wasn’t with my recipe, but rather with the corn starch. So taking the same recipe I used before and being insanely heavy handed and totally disregarding presentation, I give you: Apple Pie Redux.



You know that saying that everything is bigger in Texas?



Think of this as a Texas pie.



Bigger chunks of apple, bigger crust, bigger portion of cinnamon



The whole picture:



A pie that holds together. Amazing.



Note: this had WAY too much cinnamon. Like...way. And this pie had it’s own share of problems (the crust was too thick, there may actually have been too much corn starch, the apple slices were too think) but it was delicious. So stick with that original recipe, make sure you’re using good corn starch and all will be well.

By the way, apparently this month contains National Pie Week, January 23rd to the 29th. Do you like pie? Baking pie? What’s your favorite?

Tags: vindication, pie, baking

Growing up, virtually every Christmas in my recollection revolved around the same traditions. I love traditions, they define holidays for me. You can add new ones to an existing set, but a total change is...uncomfortable for me. The last several Christmases have each been completely different. One year my extended family is all together, the next it’s just my immediate family and one set of aunts and uncles. It’s been crazy.

The one element of Christmas that has remained consistent is monkey bread (or pain de singe. Choose your language!) Monkey bread is dead easy, requires very little and has come to be essentially Christmas. I’ve made monkey bread for Christmases in West Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia, for family Christmases and boyfriend’s family’s Christmases. It’s a universal crowd pleaser.

Take sugar and cinnamon. At least a half cup of white sugar and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon



Enough cinnamon that you get to this shade of brown



Take four cans of Pillsbury biscuits and quarter each. I recommend the flaky style, but any will work.



Grease a bundt!



And roll each piece of biscuit in the cinnamon sugar mix until it is coated



Meanwhile, in a small saucepan across the kitchen...melt a stick of butter, one half cup white sugar and one half cup brown sugar.



Continue with the biscuits until the bundt is nearly full. Take care not to overfill as they will rise somewhat in baking.



Whisk the butter sugar mixture and continue melting until it’s consistent and creamy



Pour over the bundt



Take a picture, including my mother’s hand



Bake at 375 for 35-45 minutes. I could have loosely foiled this, but I didn’t. And there are delightly carmelized/burnt pieces to show for it.



Nomnomnom



Take the platter you want to serve on and place it, top side down, on top of the bundt


Related: probably a good idea to bake inside a roaster, as there will be drippage.

Using oven mitts, hold the platter and bundt together and...flip!!



Beautiful





This is why it’s an annual treat:







This is all that was left after about 10 minutes. Impressive.



What’s essential for your Christmas?

Tags: baking, easy

And so, we conclude, the Great Thanksgiving Feast of 2010.

We had appetizers.

We had turkey.

We had some vegetables.

We had rolls.

We had a bunch of desserts.

And we learned some lessons.

Use your space effectively:



Chaos happens:



Cans of beans make great cookbook holders:



Butter, and tripods, are your friends.



Keep all your recipes together



Keep your workspace clean



Use an second (nicer) camera



Again, chaos happens



Post-it Notes are your friends






As is mise en place



Anything that can be done ahead, do it. If it can be made and frozen, do it. If it can be peeled and cut, do it.







Complicated decor is overrated. Plants rock.



Cover your tables in butcher paper, put out crayons and let everyone write what they are thankful for this year.



Gingerbread houses will keep any number of people busy for hours







And provide near endless fun





This holiday is all about family













(and bread)



And we’re a Mac family











Keep some things simple



Utilize your resources effectively



Serve buffet style



Accept the failure will happen and not everything can be perfect



And remember, amidst all the cooking, all the planning, all the shopping, all the dishes and all the house guests, to give thanks.

Tags: lessons, photo

As I said in the pie post, every Thanksgiving brings one brand spankin’ new dessert recipe. It has to be something seasonal, but other than that? I’m open. I had been toying with a few different ideas until the holiday edition of Fine Cooking landed in my mailbox. A brown butter pumpkin cake. My curiosity was piqued.

I used the icing recipe on a carrot cake and found it, as FC recipes usually are, to be freakishly delicious. And then it was set. Let them eat cake!

Melt the butter



I was working on another Pioneer Woman recipe that day, but I really love the splash of color her cookbook adds to these pictures, don’t you?



Browned





Spices and flour!







With the liquids





Plus the chilled browned butter



Baked. With two finger stab wounds!




Candied ginger. A deviation from the recipe and a mistake. Don’t do it.



But gosh it’s pretty.



More browned butter! For the icing this time. (if you didn’t read the initial browned butter effort, I recommend you go back and do so)



Cream cheese and brown sugar



Powdered sugar



Chilling



Gelled



All together now!



Death by hand mixer.





At this point I did something I don’t at all recommend and manually held this bowl underneath my stand mixer, ball whisk attachment, and beat the icing the rest of the way. Really, don’t do it unless you absolutely must. Forgive the lack of pictures, I was desperately clutching the bowl with two arms.

Anywho. Iced!



It’s really hard to take an appealing picture of a cream colored cake, on an off white cake pan, sitting on top of a pebbled white folding table.



Thank you veggie tray!



I am going to shoot Fine Cooking an email and ask if they mind if I post the recipe for this, but until/unless they give the okay, I’m just going to strongly encourage you to subscribe. It’s literally my favorite magazine.

Tags: Fine Cooking, dessert, baking, seasonal

As you’ve no doubt noticed, Thanksgiving is all about tradition for me and mine. I cook traditional foods, generally traditional ways, and we all pretty much like it! One planned deviance is in the desserts. I do three pies and one...something else. The something else this year deserves a post all to itself, so here are the three pies.

Each of these pies is a result of testing, usually multiple attempts. One year there was multiple apple pieces, one year multiple pecan, etc etc. So these final versions are, in short, really good. They are of course influenced by my family’s Southern/British/New England tastes, but I would recommend all of these highly to any pie lover.

This pecan pie is a seriously pecan-y pie. I always hated the pecan pies that were crust, goop and a thin layer of pecan on the very top, so this pie is...well, the opposite. This is a nutty extravaganza.

Start out melting white sugar, light corn syrup, dark corn syrup, brown sugar, butter and salt in a large sauce pan.


Yes, I did choose, of all the tools and implements in my kitchen, to stir this with a butter knife.



Note: the pie crust is going to get its very own post, but before you start any of these pieces, you should have crust at least chilling in the fridge.

Anyway, stir well as it melts and becomes a consistently smooth pot of liquid sugary goodness. Beat three eggs in another bowl and add, with 1 1/2 cup roughly chopped toasted pecans, to the sauce pan at the same time. Stir everything in and promptly pour into a prepped crust.

Spread whole (toasted) pecans on the top.



Bake at 350 for at least 1 hour and cool for again, at least 1 hour.

Slice and enjoy:




Pumpkin pie is absolutely non-negotiably necessary at Thanksgiving. And though I can’t claim this one as my own, it’s honestly the best one I’ve made. I made three several years ago and had blind taste testers (not literally blind, but you know what I mean) and the most popular, by far, was the recipe on the can on Eagle Sweetened Condensed Milk. Seriously.





One of the ugliest pies I’ve ever made, but it was really good.

Fresh out of the oven, pre-settling



Sliced and ready to be devoured




Now, this last pie is mine. I mean, all mine. Inspired by others, but I’m comfortable taking credit for it.

Apples, peeled sliced. Bite sized pieces. Corn starch. White sugar. Cinnamon. Ground ginger. Nutmeg.



Bottom crust, top crust. Sealed. Milk and sugar.



Lots of sugar. This is raw turbinado.



Baked at 400 degrees for an hour.



Look at how pretty this is.



You’ll notice there is no picture of the slice. That’s because, while this is easily the prettiest pie I’ve ever made, there was some kind of massive malfunction with this particular one. I ran out of corn starch midway through the day and I’m fairly sure the new can of it was a bad batch. Presentation is easily what I struggle with the most and I was so pleased with how well this turned out visually. But it never gelled, after plenty of extra baking, plenty of time...nothing. And got thrown away.

So learn from my lesson: buy good quality corn starch. And sometimes, no matter what you do, baked goods just don’t turn out. Shake yourself off, and try again!


Pecan Pie

1 ready pie crust for a 9” pie pan

Tools:
large sauce pan
9” pie pan

Ingredients:
3/4 cup light corn syrup
2 tbs dark corn syrup
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tbs melted butter
1 pinch salt
3 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cup roughly chopped toasted pecans
1 cup whole toasted pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine all ingredients, up to eggs, in a large saucepan
3. Stir and melt until smooth and liquid
4. Beat eggs in bowl
5. Add chopped pecans and beaten eggs to sauce pan
6. Stir until well combined.
7. Pour into pie crust
8. Spread whole pecans over top
9. Bake at 350 degrees for at least one hour or until outer edges of filling are firm and center is beginning to set
10. Cool at least one hour before serving.


Apple Pie

2 prepared pie crusts, one top, one bottom, for a 9” pie pan

Tools:
9” pie pan
pastry brush

Ingredients:
Four large apples, peeled and sliced (I recommend Gala)
4 tbs corn starch
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tbs ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tbs turbinado sugar
2 tbs half ’n’ half or milk (not skim)

1. Combine apples and spices in large bowl, allow to sit at least one hour in warm place
2. Press one crust into pan, pour in apple spice mixture
3. Seal second crust on top, cutting small slit near the center
4. Using pastry brush, coat top crust in milk or half ’n’ half
5. Sprinkle turbinado sugar atop spread milk
6. Bake at 400 for at least one hour, or until filling appears set (through vent slit)
7. Cool at least one hour before serving

Tags: dessert, pie, baking, fruit

So...preparing and photographing a Thanksgiving dinner is hard. Really hard. Way harder than I was expecting it to be. The logistics of holding a camera and cooking are bad enough. Add in lighting challenges, a crowded kitchen and just trying to remember what I’ve already taken a picture of and what I still need to? A couple things fell through the cracks.

Like this post.

Luckily, nothing about the actual preparation of the bird(s) was forgotten or done wrong. They turned out beautifully. And deliciously. So beautifully in fact, that I’m really disappointed in my lack of pictures. I didn’t take a single picture of the completed bird. It’s not that I’m being picky about the quality of the picture or a little blurriness or bad lighting (c’mon, look at this first one!) but literally, not a single one.

So you’re going to have to imagine!

Take two birds, each 18 pounds. Fresh, not frozen. Stored in my (very cold) garage from Monday until Wednesday night.

Each into a ginormous disposable roasting pan.

Rubbed in sea salt, black pepper, chopped fresh rosemary. And I mean rubbed. Not sprinkled.

Like so:



Fistful of fresh sage, half a stick of butter and three or four long stalks of celery, cut into pieces, all into the cavity:





Foiled and returned to the garage overnight. Looking a lot like this.



And that’s all the pictures I took. So disappointing.

But! The turkeys went, unfoiled, into the oven around 9 am, at 400 degrees. Where I literally did not touch them until 12:30 when I started checking doneness. No basting, no flipping, no nothing. I was planning the main meal for 2 pm, and wanted the turkeys done at 1, leaving them an hour to rest. They were actually done a little early, but I left them in until 1, then pulled them out and tightly foiled them.

So you’re going to have to believe me. Or my sister, who described it as “succulent.” Well browned, crisped skin, moist herb infused meat. I literally ate nothing but turkey, gravy and a roll and it was all I wanted it to be.

So for next year, better planning. Like a checklist. Or a spreadsheet. But for now, the delightful memory of a tasty turkey.

Tags: turkey, herbs, entree

There are a few food groups I very simply could not ever give up. Not for anything. One is shrimp. I love shrimp. If it were not expensive and I wouldn’t be putting myself at risk for mercury poisoning, I would eat shrimp multiple times every day. No joke. Hot, cold, grilled, boiled, baked, fried...I love it all.

Along the same lines? My love for bread. My family has a lot of its own vernacular and one of my own contributions to it is: bread item. As a kid, no meal was complete without a bread item. I wasn’t too picky about what it was, but there had better be one. Last year my mom convinced me that making rolls wasn’t necessary and that the effort required could be better spent elsewhere. Being 20-something and ya know, no longer 8 years old, I decided to go along with it. And it was so. very. sad. I don’t know if anyone else in my family noticed, but I totally did and vowed not to do it again this year.

So this year! Rolls were a priority. I relied on my stand-by BHG recipe (found here) and off set the prep time by cooking them literally weeks in advance. Well, not cooking. Making, proofing and freezing. These froze incredibly well after the second rise and after setting them out, covered on baking sheets (all over any flat spot in my living room), baked wonderfully the next day.



As you can see, I doubled the recipe. AND made them pretty small, so the yield on this was probably closer to 60.



My small cast iron skillet served as the Island of Misfit Toys/rolls.



I didn’t do the dollop of butter on the inside of the roll, but they did get a pre- and post-bake brush of melted butter.



And aren’t they lovely!

In the caloric extravaganza that is pretty much any holiday meal, including good vegetable dishes is crucial. In keeping with the general theme of the meal, most of these are Thanksgiving standards, with a family specific twist.

Every single dish required peeling and/or cutting. So along with the apples for the apple pecan brie (and apple pie), we had a peeling station.

The first dish is a new one my mom wanted, roasted parsnips and carrots:



Through my own mistakes in past years, key lesson: if you don’t want curly carrots, keep them submerged in water.



This year we did the peeling Thursday morning, but they could have been done on Wednesday. See how nicely they hold up?



Anyway, spread them in a single layer on a jelly roll/cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil and generously sprinkle cumin, salt and a bit of black pepper. Roast at 375 or 400 (on Thanksgiving the turkey takes oven temperature precedence, so that temperature is based on the turkey, not the vegetables.



I did not broil these at the end of the 20 minutes, but I think that would have been a nice addition.



In past years, I’ve made the (clichéd) traditional sweet potatoes, with the marshmallows and all that. Snore.

Even though I’m not a big fan of sweet potatoes (I have a major sweet-savory thing), I wanted to try something new but still provide something my family would like. So I went to my go-to cookbook: Cook’s Illustrated’s Best New Recipes. I read their basic sweet potato recipe and...promptly wandered off the reservation.

I peeled and cut up the potatoes and braised them in a skim milk and fat free half ’n’ half combination (80% skim, 20% half ’n’ half?), covered, on medium heat for 35ish minutes, or until a piece broke apart easily when stabbed with a fork.

Added butter and heavy cream



And sugar.

Aside: look at this awesome picture!! My sister Alex was my foodtography assistant for the whole show and she took this super-cool shot of sugar being poured. I love it.



Mashed, by hand. Stupid cheap hand mixer that I totally destroyed the night before.



Until creamy



Then into a baking dish. This one coincidentally matches beautifully!



Garnish with brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped toasted pecans (left over from Wednesday’s massive pecan preparation)



And now asparagus! This is one I make at virtually every family gathering. We all pretty much like asparagus and the method is incredibly easy. And I totally made it before it was in every women’s magazine in EVOO ads.

Chop off the woody part of the stalk and place in a single layer on a jelly roll pan, drizzle olive oil and go wild with the salt, pepper and a grated parmagiano reggiano.



Roast for...well the time varies on the thickness of the stalk. These were thick and took 18ish minutes. I cooked them for 20, 22 and it was too long. A more “baby asparagus” thickness will be done at 12 minutes. Keep an eye on them.

And the major one, and one of my minor Thanksgiving disappointments: the smashed.

With the aformentioned hand mixer death, these mashed potatoes never got to where I wanted them. I’m now wishing I had a ricer, ‘cause that would have solved the whole thing. But anyway.

Yukon Golds. Peeled, rustically, and cut into about 6 pieces for an average potato. Keeping the size of the pieces consistent is important.

Cook in salted water



That pot is overfull. Oh well. Cooked covered for 30 minutes or until the pieces break apart easily when stabbed with a fork.

Drain into a colander.



Look at all that steam! Love this picture.



Why I put the potatoes back into the pot escapes me. But I then scooped them back over to the ceramic insert for the slow cooker.





Added butter and mashed a bit until it was all melted. Added half ’n’ half and mashed some more. Salt, pepper and garlic. More mashing. These never quite got where I wanted them to be, sadly. But they were pretty good. The seasoning is all to your personal taste.



It’s my mission to get all the Thanksgiving posts up before Christmas. Still outstanding: starches, desserts, method, decor and activities and...I think that’s it!

So, what is your absolutely crucial Thanksgiving dish? What dish has to be there, or it’s not Thanksgiving? Mine is turkey and mashed potatoes. And cranberry jelly, even though I don’t eat it. It’s just tradition.

Tags: vegetarian, vegetables, seasonal

As this was my third year making Thanksgiving, I’ve settled into a couple routines. We serve buffet style, I start planning a month ahead, I cook all day Wednesday in prep, and I make the exact same appetizers every year. I really doubt anyone in my family is complaining, mostly because they’re freakishly delicious, but nonetheless, they are the same. I serve them two hours prior to the main meal, which is in my mind, enough time to regain some semblance of hunger.

From my aunt’s recipe, apple pecan brie:



And from my own mash-up of restaurant-style and slightly healthier versions, spinach artichoke dip:



Usually we also serve crudite and dip, but I completely forgot this year! But I don’t think anyone noticed.

Anyway, both are made pretty easily ahead of time, or assembled at the last minute.

For the brie, peel the apples



Then slice them up. Since I serve this with crackers, I try to keep the pieces pretty small. My sister came up with a pretty fool proof way to do it this year.



Draw the knife around 1/3rd and 2/3rds the way down, horizontally. Then slice down and into a bowl.



I used 6 apples and had too many. So go with more like 4 if they’re good sized.

Meanwhile, put a brie in a pie tin



In a skillet, melt a couple tablespoons of butter and 1/3rd cup brown sugar




On Wednesday, I toasted 6 cups of pecans, at varying levels of chopped-ness



I did a third whole, a third rough chopped and a third finely chopped. All toasted at 375 for 10-15 minutes.



Sautee 1 cup of the roughly chopped (toasted) pecans in the butter and brown sugar until well candied.

Meanwhile, take a larger saucepan with maple syrup and lightly sautee the apples



(this is actually the remnants of a maple reduction I made for cinnamon roll icing. But it worked!)

Add a pinch of cinnamon and then assemble!

First brie, then apples, then pecans



Then bake the whole thing in the oven at 375 for 35-40 minutes, until the whole thing looks melty. Serve with table crackers of whatever kind floats your boat. Serve hot and throw away whatever you don’t eat, it really doesn’t keep well.



For the spinach artichoke dip, roast some garlic



Note the very full stove top.

Make some alfredo sauce. See here for my recipe or be lazy and buy a jar.

But I guarantee this is better



In a bit bowl, combine a 10 oz package of frozen spinach, thawed and drained, an 8 oz package of softened cream cheese and a 14 oz can of artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed and chopped. And the roasted garlic, peeled and minced.



Oh, and black pepper and mozzarella cheese. The measurements aren’t really important, this whole thing is a cheesy extravaganza.

Add the alfredo and mix



Top with more cheese (mozzarella, asiago and parmagiana reggiano are pictured) and bake (I used the same square Pyrex in which I roasted the garlic) covered, then uncovered, until the cheese browns and is bubbly.



Now, I stopped trying to kid myself into thinking this was even remotely healthy this year, but there are ways to make it a little bit less calorically devastating. I use all part skim mozzarella, reduced fat cream cheese (never fat free, ew) and fat free half and half in the alfredo. I also use less mozzarella in favor of more flavorful cheeses like asiago and reggiano, which get the point across without needing a huge amount. I haven’t calculated how much of a difference these substitutions make calorically, but every little bit counts, right?

I serve this with tortilla scoops. Or with spoons. It’s up to you!

Next up: main course...in which I show off my totally experimental, yet delicious sweet potato dish.

Tags: appetizer, vegetarian

So between my sister and me, two cameras and two days of prep and cooking, there are well over 1000 photos of this year’s Great Thanksgiving Feast. Before I go through each with recipes and prep, here’s an overview of the two days!



Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls



Browned butter, setting in a pretty glass bowl



36 lbs of turkey, dry herb rubbed Wednesday night



The peeling station



Ben making his gingerbread house



A completed architectural feat



A shaggy dough



Pecans



Appetizers



A new attempt at sweet potatoes



Roll success!



Yukon golds steaming up the place



Pan roasted veggies



Smashed



Out of 1K+ pictures, these are the only ones of the completed turkeys...fail



Half the spread



The completed sweet potatoes



Wait, how’d that get in there??



Pre



Post



Pecan



Cake, sans topping



Pumpkin



Shortbread

I don’t seem to be getting any better at coming up with clever, yet relevant post titles... fellow bloggers, tips?

Anyway, in my house, winter = soup. I’m trying to expand my soup repertoire, but baked potato soup is the go-to family favorite for now.

Baked potato soup is time consuming, but not labor intensive.

I do one large potato per person I’m feeding. Wash (scrub) and cut out any eyes.



Put the potatoes in a 400 degree oven for at least an hour. Definitely no less than an hour, but if it’s large, it could be more. You can tell they’re done if they give when squeezed. Use a pot holder, not your bare hand. Learn from my experience.

Anyway, while the potatoes are baking, you can walk away. Check your Facebook, read a book. The rest of the prep isn’t going to take long.

When you’ve come back, chop half an onion



It was a big onion.

Sautee in a big kettle with some butter and some olive oil until they’re golden and translucent.



Take 3/4 cup flour. I used whole wheat because it was sitting on my counter, it doesn’t especially matter.



Dump into the pot.



Now whisk in 6 cups milk and turn the heat up to medium high. You don’t want it to come to a boil, but you want it to get hot



By now, the potatoes should be done. Slice them in half to allow them to start cooling. Once they’re touchable, use a fork and spoon to remove all the “meat” from the skin.



Mash them up a bit



Add the potatoes to the pot. I failed to take a picture of the rest of the stuff, but add cheddar cheese, a regular container of plain greek yogurt, garlic, black pepper and salt to taste, and a handful of bacon.

Stir!



Serve!



Ingredients:
potatoes, one large per serving, scrubbed and eyes removed
3/4 cup flour
1/2 onion, chopped
olive oil
butter
6 cups milk
1 container plain greek yogurt
bacon, chopped
cheddar cheese

Tools:
large kettle
knife
whisk
ladle

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Bake cleaned potatoes for at least an hour or until soft
3. Chop onion
4. Sautee onion on medium heat in butter and olive oil until golden and translucent
5. Add in flour and milk, whisk thoroughly
6. Increase heat to medium, but do not bring to a boil
7. When potatoes are done, remove and slice in half to cool
8. Remove meat of potatoes and mash lightly, add to pot
9. Add greek yogurt, cheese, bacon and seasonings
10. Stir and serve!

This time next week, I’ll be cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Ack. This is my third year cooking Thanksgiving for everyone (first time blogging it!) and while I’ve got the planning down pretty well, it’s still extensive.

Last night, I sat down with last year’s notes, my recipe binder and a couple cookbooks to lay out the plan. Because we have so many people, we don’t do courses, but we do serve appetizers a couple hours before the main meal. One is a recipe from my aunt, plus veggies (gotta get something nutritious in there somewhere!) and the third is spinach artichoke dip. My own version is a mash-up of a Cooking Light Recipe and traditional restaurant style dip, but it calls for a jar of alfredo sauce. Being the ornery person that I am, there will be no jar sauce involved. Of any kind. I don’t do jar marinara and even though it’s Thanksgiving and I will have 97 things going, I will not do jar alfredo.

I make this sauce throughout the year and have now made it so many times that the biggest challenge of writing it up was figuring out measurements. But these are, roughly, the ingredients you need (though I forgot the fat free half and half):



The form of the mozzarella (fresh or shredded or sliced) is pretty irrelevant in the end, but what is crucial is butter:



Cheese





Cream cheese



Melting





Seasoning



Half and half



And a proper appreciation:



Yeah...



The key to this one is experimenting. It needs less butter than you think, but the cream cheese is crucial. There can never be too much garlic in the world: I know because I’ve tried to put too much in this. I’ve used fontina in place of and in addition to mozzarella, if I have asiago in the house, it goes in. The cream cheese bulks it up, the half and half thins it out and cooking it longer brings it back to that ridiculous melty amazing state. My sister has stood over the sauce pan after the meal and scraped what’s left of it onto any piece of bread she can find. Get yourself to a stove top and find an excuse to make it.

Tags: cheese, vegetarian

In light of the recent glut of baked goods, chicken enchiladas notwithstanding, I thought I’d go to the other extreme...with BACON! This is an awesome summer sandwich, complete with fresh basil, local tomatoes, local fresh mozzarella and bread.

I made this again last month for a friend (hi Puja!) but sadly my camera ate the far superior pictures I took. So please forgive my beginner photography, complete with date stamp, and focus instead on the deliciousness that is a Pesto Aioli BLT with Mozzarella.

First, fresh basil, from my basil plant. If you do no other gardening, grow a basil plant.

Washed.


In my mortar with three cloves of garlic.



Plus sea salt and black pepper



Well pestle’d, with olive oil-based mayo



What a pretty green! (A food processor will substitute for a mortar and pestle)



Bacon, in a cast iron skillet. Did you know if you put the bacon in a cold pan and heat from there, it will curl less? I didn’t ’til I made this.



The rest of the materials: a fresh crusty bread (this is Portuguese Salolio from Giant Foods), fresh mozzarella, sliced (less savagely than I did please) and a beefsteak tomato







The bacon!





Ranging from crispy to soft, I prefer mine soft.



I drained most of the bacon grease (through a sieve and to save in the fridge) then add the bread. I was making three sandwiches.



Add the mozzarella to half the slices in the skillet and allow it to begin melting.

Take out the other half of the slices (the ones sans cheese) and spread the aoili

Then assemble!





Assembled!



No recipe, because, well, there isn’t much of one. Even though this is a predominantly summer sandwich, I will definitely be making this through the winter. Sparingly, because this totally clogs your arteries.

Tags: bacon, herbs, sauces, fresh

For a family as wholly not Latin as mine is, we eat a lot of Mexican/Tex-Mex food. Probably one meal per week. It’s a little weird, I’ll admit, but we love it.

Chicken enchiladas is a quintessential family meal and one we keep coincidentally serving to visitors. This can be modified and made as spicy or mild as you prefer. The key ingredient:

Green sauce.



While our local grocery store has recently branched out from Pace and all the regular American brands of Mexican products, our local Walmart tends to have a better selection of more authentic products. This was a medium spicy can by Las Palmas, and wasn’t all that hot.


Anyway, you start out with chicken.



I didn’t plan, so these were defrosting in the sink.

Cooked in a skillet



I usually just toss them in there, cover and walk away. Flip them occaisionally.



And while they’re cooking, get everything else ready



Tortillas and cheese



Lots of cheese!

Spread a few spoonfuls of the green sauce on the bottom of your baking dish (9x13 Pyrex here)



Hopefully your chicken is cooked by now, so cut it up



Cut the pieces smaller than you think is necessary. Or just shred it with two forks.



I didn’t do it, but if you like things spicy, adding a packet of fajita seasoning at this stage would be good. Because construction comes next.

Take your tortilla



Lay cheese down the middle



Add chicken (bearing in mind you’re doing this 8 times, so don’t be too heavy handed)



Roll and place in prepared pan



Repeat 7 more times



I was experimenting with the rolling method (folding the ends in like a burrito or not) so that’s why they’re all so inconsistent. If you leave the ends untucked, they will get crispy. If you fold, the whole thing remains soft. Up to you!

Now pour more green sauce on top. Remember, most of your flavor comes from this stuff, so don’t hold back. This was a giant can, so I used half and froze the other half. Then sprinkle more cheese on top.



Now cover the pan with foil and bake at 375ish (doesn’t have to be specific) for 25 minutes. Then uncover and bake for another 5-10, until the cheese is browned.

Should look like this when it’s done



Another picture because it looks delicious



I serve enchiladas with white rice (brown if you’re feeling healthy and can deal with the texture, I can’t).



Plated.

Tools:
Skillet
Knife
9x13 baking dish

Ingredients:
5 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can green chile enchilada sauce
cheese, lots (pictured is a combination or colby jack and mild cheddar)
8 medium tortillas

Note: this serves 4 or 5, depending on your appetite. Scale according to your needs.

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Defrost chicken breasts
3. Cook chicken breasts in skillet, dicing when nearly cooked
4. Spoon green sauce into baking dish, enough to lightly cover bottom
5. Assemble, placing completed enchilada in prepared pan
6. Repeat
7. Pour green sauce and sprinkle cheese over top
8. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 25 minutes
9. Uncover pan and bake for another 5-10, until cheese is browned


What do you find yourself cooking regularly? Is it something unexpected?

Tags: chicken, mexican

To fully appreciate how much of a win this recipe is, you have to understand how complete my rolled/cookie cutter epic fail status is. I mean, really. It’s terrible. I’ve attempted rolled cookies pretty much every Christmas season and usually end up throwing something. The dough is too cold to work, too sticky to handle, gets stuck in the cutter, is totally disfigured by the time it gets to the pan...you name it.

So bearing all that in mind, these cookies are a total win. It may be that I’ve finally found a technique that works for me, but if it works for me, I bet it’ll work for you. So here we go!

Standard creaming: 2 sticks unsalted butter (at room temperature), 1 cup packed brown sugar, 1 large egg (also at room temperature).



In another bowl, combine all the spices and dry ingredients. 1 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tbs cinnamon, 4 tsps ginger, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cloves. I like my baked goods really well spiced, so while I’d recommend keeping the proportions roughly the same (lots of cinnamon and ginger, tiny amounts of nutmeg and cloves) feel free to mess with it.



Then add 5 cups all purpose flour to the seasoning bowl. And stir.

Now add 1 cup molasses to the creamed bowl and mix well.



Add the flour/spice bowl contents to the creamed bowl.






Nom nom nom.



Divide in half and wrap in seran wrap. And refridgerate for at least 2 hours. Or overnight it it makes your life easier.

Meanwhile, put parchment paper on your cookie sheet. I’ve only recently discovered the wonders of parchment paper and I cannot overstate how great it is for baking. Seriously.



Once your dough is thoroughly chilled, lay wax paper out on your counter/workspace. Pull the dough out of the fridge (if you left it in overnight, you may need to give it a few minutes to warm up).



Keeping the seran wrap on top of the dough (and the wax paper below) roll out the dough until it’s a consistent thickness. How thick it is isn’t really important, as long as it’s all the same.



Peel off the seran wrap and use whatever cookie cutter you want.



Lift the wax paper to peel off each little man and put each on the parchment paper covered cookie sheet

You’re going to have a bunch of leftover scraps. You could eat them, or you could get more cookies out of them. Your call.



If you want more cookies, ball them back up, roll them up and repeat! I got one good re-roll out of the dough before it had to go back in the fridge and re-chill.

I don’t recommend using wax paper on the top layer, this attempt was a fail. Stick with seran wrap.



Cookies on a pan. Poor warped man on the bottom right.



Baked 11 minutes at 350. Since the dough is already brown, it can be hard to tell when they’re done. I prefer softer cookies, so I always err on the early side.

The ones pictured are a little gunked up because I stacked them when they were still warm. Don’t do that.



I brought most of these to a group of high school kids I work with and even sans icing or decoration of any kind, they were GONE.




Tools:
2 mixing bowls
Parchment paper
seran wrap
wax paper
cookie sheet
rolling pin (or wine bottle, or vase, whatever you have that’s uniformly cylindrical)
cookie cutter of your choice

Ingredients:
1 cup/2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup molasses
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
4 tsps ginger
1 tbs cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
5 cups all purpose flour

1. Combine wet ingredients until well mixed
2. In another bowl, mix dry ingredients
3. Gradually mix dry ingredient mix into wet ingredient bowl
4. Split dough in half, wrap each half in seran wrap and refridgerate for at least 2 hours
5. Place chilled dough on wax paper, using seran wrap to form a top layer
6. Roll dough to uniform thickness, between wax paper and seran wrap
7. Use your choice of cookie cutter
8. Place cut cookies on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet
9. Ball and re-roll remaining scraps, repeat steps 6-8
10. Bake at 350 for 11 minutes or until firm
11. Cool and decorate, if you’re cooler than me.


I think I’m going to try this recipe for gingerbread house pieces, will report back!

Tags: ftw, seasonal, fall

Anyone who bakes aspires to making a really, truly excellent chocolate chip cookie. Other cookies come and go, but a fantastic chocolate chip cookie? Incomparable.

These cookies are everything I hope to find in a cookie. They are soft and chewy with a really satisfying density. They have the granularity of a lot of sugar and a rich deliciousness. They are, in one word, bangin’.

There are a few really crucial ingredients that make or break this cookie, and the first is butter flavored Crisco. Own it, it’s totally worthwhile. Take one stick...



A packed 1/2 cup of light brown sugar and 1 cup white sugar, plus vanilla.

Anyway, if I measured the vanilla, it’d probably be somewhere around 3 teaspoons. But I don’t measure it. I add with abandon. There’s far more room for abandon in baking than you’d think. And it’s more fun.



Aside: do yourself a favor and buy really good vanilla. Not imitation vanilla. Down with imitation vanilla, seriously. The difference is huge and well worth the price difference. Anytime a member of my family goes to South America, which is more often than you’d think, I ask them to bring back vanilla extract. And it’s crucial.

This is the vanilla I’m using right now, I have no idea which country it came from, but it’s wonderful.



Anyway, cream until well mixed and fluffy. Then let the mixer run some more.



Beat in two eggs.

Now for the dry ingredients. Flour, salt and baking SODA. Not powder. Trust me.

Somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt and a generous teaspoon of the baking soda.



Chocolate chips. 1 normal sized bag, 1/2 a giant bag.



Pretty



I was pretty excited about actually baking in daylight and having nice light and make have gotten carried away...Forgive me.



Anyway, ungreased cookie sheet. I highly recommend buying a spring loaded cookie scoop. It pleases my OCD soul and was well worth the $12.



Bake at 375 for 11 minutes. Let them cool for 1 minute on the cookie sheet, then move to aluminum foil. It makes a difference.





Go bake!


Tools:
Mixer
cookie sheet
Aluminum foil

Bonus:
cookie scoop

Ingredients:
1 stick butter flavored Crisco
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
3ish tsps vanilla
2 1/2-3 cups white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaping teaspoon baking soda
1 bag chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Cream together Crisco, sugars and vanilla
3. Beat in eggs
4. Combine and add dry ingredients, mix until blended
5. Add chocolate chips
6. Scoop dough to ungreased cookie sheet
7. Bake for 11 minutes
12. Remove and let cool on pan for 1 minute
13. Remove to aluminum foil, allow to cool. If you don’t eat them all first.


So, what’s your go to cookie?

Everyone has a food that takes them right back to childhood. The smell, the sight, the taste...instant time travel. It’s one of the reasons I love to cook. Food is such a loaded part of our lives. It carries memories, emotions, even physical sensations.

Growing up, we spent a lot of time at my grandparents house in Virginia. I lived there for 2nd grade and even after we moved north, spent many weekends there. My grandfather was an Anglican priest, now bishop, and so Sunday mornings were always a frenzy of activity. My grandmother’s Sunday morning specialty was Sara Lee coffee cakes, one regular and one with pecans. We’d quickly grab a piece and skip up the hill to the church.

But Saturdays... Saturdays were a different story. My grandparents had this huge wooden kitchen table, and Saturday mornings, any family member in the house could be found there. My mother has four siblings and throughout the years, at least one of them was living at that house. We’d all tumble out of our beds, wake whatever aunt or uncle was home, and find our way to the kitchen table, where my grandfather would hold court.

They had this enormous quasi-commercial stove and on Saturdays, it was my grandfather’s domain. Because Saturday mornings meant crepes. He would have an enormous bowl of batter and two skillets going until everyone was fed. We’d sit around the table, waiting our turn for the next crepe, and talk. If you’ve ever made crepes or been to a creperie, you know the smell... there’s a uniquely crepe smell, and it had this amazing ability to penetrate the house.

I for one have very strong feelings about what toppings are acceptable for crepes. A standard Saturday morning was white sugar, then rolled, then orange juice over the top. A special treat might be Nutella or jam. I’ve seen fruit and the horror, whipped cream. Some of my more uncultured cousins put butter and maple syrup. Suffice it to say, crepes can carry...whatever you want. And they are easier to make than you think.


1 cup flour, 1 cup milk and 1 egg, whisked together.



And canola oil in a mug

The batter should be very thin and a little frothy



In a very hot skillet, pour a bit of oil and swirl the pan, enough to cover the surface. Drain any extra back into the mug.


Then add batter, using the same swirling motion. It should very quickly cook around the edges and begin to pull back from the pan.



Flip and continue to cook.


This is the level of doneness we look for:



And here is my baby sister eating a crepe properly, albeit standing.




My grandparents have since moved from that house and my own immediate family has absconded with the recipe, but no matter what, that smell and that taste will always take me back to being 8 years old and having everyone in my world around one table, eating my grandfather’s crepes. And that’s the magic of a good family recipe.



So, what’s your magical family recipe?

Tags: family

I am a picky eater. There, I said it. My extended family has these stories of me as a willful child, sitting at the dinner table for hours because I wouldn’t eat something on my plate. I nearly always won those battles, by the way. I’ve always had certain foods I’ve irrationally not liked, things I simply refuse to eat. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it, just an adamant, unwavering commitment to avoiding them.

As I’ve gotten older and learned to cook, my pickiness has taken a turn toward the slightly more reasonable: snobbery. Now there are certain foods that I don’t really eat unless I’ve made them. It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong or bad about them, it’s more that...I like mine better.

The clearest example is definitely red sauce/marinara/gravy. Once I figured out just how simple it was to make it for myself, with my preferences in seasoning and thickness, there was no going back.

Pot plus olive oil



Onion



Diced and sauteed



Garlic, lots



Cooked



Crushed tomatoes and tomato paste and water



Reduce



Season



Done




If you’re making pizza sauce, throw a blending step in there somewhere. If you’re using it in a baked dish, reduce it even further. If you’re just throwing it on top of some fresh pasta, eat it right from the pot. There’s no limit to the tweaks you can make to it. And it leaves all those jar sauces in the dust every single time.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 onion
4 cloves garlic, well minced
2 large cans crushed tomatoes
2 small cans tomato paste
water
dried oregano
dried basil
salt
black pepper
whatever seasoning your heart desires
1 tablespoon sugar

Tools
1 large pot
cutting board
good knife

1. Dice the onion and saute in olive oil until translucent but before carmelizing
2. Add garlic and stir
3. After thirty seconds, add crushed tomatoes and tomato paste
4. Using one of the crushed tomato cans, add 2 cans worth of water
5. Stir
6. Cook uncovered for about 2 hours, until volume has gone down nearly two inches on the side of the pot
7. Add seasonings to taste
8. Cook uncovered for another hour
9. Stir in sugar
10. Serve or freeze


I wish I had taken a picture of it, but filling a gallon bag, pressing out all the air and freezing the bag horizontally flat is the best method for keeping sauce long term.

So, what foods are you a snob about?

Tags: vegetarian

Look at me go! Twice in one day. That’s the posting schedule I’d like to get on, one recipe and one...non-recipe post per day. Non-recipe might include a farmers market write-up, a review...something else. I’m open to all suggestions and ideas.

This post is new in that...it was not a success. Well, it was...ish. I have this cookie recipe that I made several months ago. It requires these miniature peanut butter cups. The cookies were a great hit, but unfortunately, the store where I bought the peanut butter cups is no longer. So I’ve been on a quest to find a new source.

We have this bargain basement grocery chain in my area called Sharp Shopper. After I picked my sister up from school, we headed to the closest one to see if perhaps they might have my little peanut butter cups. Sadly, they didn’t, but I was inspired by some of the items in the bulk food aisle.



Caramels! And dark chocolate Wilbur buds.






I had this idea: what about wrapping a bud and a caramel in cookie dough and baking it? They should melt and fill the center of the cookie with deliciousness. And so we embarked on a cookie adventure...




I used my standard chocolate chip cookie dough, minus the chocolate chips of course. And plus extra flour to bulk the dough up enough to cope with the large center filling pieces.

I started out taking one bud, one caramel and wrapping the whole thing in cookie dough. I was pretty generous with the amount of dough, and spaced them out pretty widely on the pan so they wouldn’t into one enormous cookie mass.

Eleven minutes of baking turned out some very pretty cookies.






Aren’t they lovely? They’re a perfect golden brown.

Regrettably, there was an internal problem.




The caramel had melted through to the bottom of the cookie and even getting them off the pan was a challenge. I have no idea how I’m going to get them off that foil.


So that was a dud. The next attempt ditched the buds entirely and tried to alleviate the melting out the bottom problem by simply placing the caramel on top of the dough.



It worked...but gosh, they’re ugly. They’re also about three inches in diameter, as were the first batch, so by now I was running low on dough.

So what we have left? A really really big single cookie.



Complete with buds.

So! Take away lessons:

1. the dough was great. And very versatile. If you are looking for a generic cookie dough, this is the one for you. You could add cocoa powder and make it chocolate, peanut butter chips, chocolate chips...whatever. I’d recommend lowering the flour to somewhere between 2 1/2 cups and 2 3/4 cups though.

2. the caramel is a wild card. I’m betting it would be great in a brownie, but for cookies, it’s too much.

3. dark chocolate buds don’t seem to have enough fat in them to melt well. Tasty, just not great for baking.

4. experiments are fun! I certainly can’t give these away, but they’re still good. And the baking of them was enjoyable. So go ahead and mess around in the kitchen, see what happens.






Ingredients:
2 sticks butter, one salted, one unsalted (not recommended, it was just what I had. Use unsalted if you can help it)
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 1/2 cups flour (variable! No less than 2 1/4 cups)

Tools:
stand mixer
cookie sheet

1. Cream butter, sugars and vanilla until well mixed.
2. Beat in eggs.
3. Combine dry ingredients in another bowl
4. Gradually add dry to wet until well combined.
5. Bake at 375 for 8-11 minutes depending on the diameter of the cookie
6. Cool on foil

And we’re back!! I’ve been a dreadfully inconsistent blogger. My bad. Forgive me.


We’re back with possibly the easiest soup ever. Like 5 minute soup. That’s not from a can! No one in my family likes this but me, but if you like black beans, disregard their opinion. And try it.

Start out with a normal size can of black beans. Seasoned if you feel so inclined.



Open the can.

Pour half into the blending tool of your choice. Mine is the Magic Bullet. Keep most of the liquid in this half.



And the other half into a saucepan.




Blend the blend-y portion. Until it is mostly smooth. We’re obviously not too concerned with chunks, so there’s no time or rule here.




Add the blended half to the saucepan.

Add 1/2 cup salsa.



By the way, if you aren’t attached to a particular salsa already, I highly recommend this one from Costco:



Very very good.


Anyway, you’ve got a saucepan with half a can of whole beans, half a can of blended beans and 1/2 cup salsa. Add your seasonings!



Here we have 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt.


Stir!



Lovely. Now turn the burner on and heat!

A word of warning: this soup sticks to the pot. The why eludes me, though I suspect if I sauteed onions in some olive oil at the beginning, it wouldn’t. But that would complicate this nice simple soup. So I deal with it. It’s not that bad:



If you stick it in the sink and immediately fill it with water, it cleans very easily after you’ve eaten.


The one normal can version of this recipe will feed two, or refridgerates well for a second meal. If you’re serving more, just get the big can of black beans, and double everything else. Easy peasy.



I’d recommend this with mozzarella cheese and a nice piece of crusty bread.


Ingredients:
1 can black beans
1/2 cup salsa
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Tools:
Saucepan
Can opener
Blender


1. Separate the beans, keeping the majority of the liquid with one half.
2. Blend the liquid/bean half.
3. Mix beans with salsa and seasonings in sauce pan.
4. Heat to suit.

Tags: vegetarian

In my efforts to eradicate the scourge of carrots in the fridge (see carrot bread), I made some cake. Carrot cake obviously. This is great cake, but I have to admit, the real star here is the icing. This cake was made on the best of days, the day a new edition of Fine Cooking Magazine landed in my mailbox. This icing, a brown butter cream cheese icing, is on the cover of the current edition and really, it’s incredible.

Please don’t lick your computer screen. That’s kind of gross.



Just get yourself into the kitchen and make it.

I will include the cake recipe and ingredients below, but to be totally honest, it looks almost exactly like the making of the aformentioned carrot bread. So let’s just focus on the icing for now.

Brown the butter.



Now, this is the first time I’ve ever browned butter. But it really couldn’t be easier. Take a heavy saucepan, melt the butter and let it keep cooking. Swirl it occaisionally and just like magic, it will turn a lovely nutty brown.

Meanwhile, cream cheese and brown sugar.



Once the butter is a nice brown, pour into a container you’re comfortable sticking in the freezer. Pyrex is nice.



Into the freezer!



The point here isn’t to freeze it, but to firm it. You don’t want those solids at the bottom either.

I started to mix the cream cheese and brown sugar while I was waiting.



And got the powdered sugar ready.



By this time, the cake was done and cooling.



I baked this cake at night and so yes, my lighting is a little wonky, but this cake is exactly that rich an orange. This really isn’t an affect of terrible lighting. Make it and see.



So, the butter was in the freezer for about 16 minutes and firmed up. Scrape the good part out, leaving the brown solids.



I scraped a little too deep and got a bit of it. Oops.



Add the good part of the butter to the cream cheese and brown sugar mixture. Mix!



Gradually add the powdered sugar and beat until fluffy.



Frost the cake!









Every time I make icing from scratch, I’m more convinced that buying it is ridiculous. This recipe seals the deal.


Okay, so because this recipe is currently on news stands, I’m going to tell you to go buy it yourself. I have no idea what the ethical requirement is here (fellow bloggers please enlighten me!) but my love for Fine Cooking compels me to tell you to go and buy it for yourself. Please note: this is totally unsponsored. My subscription was a Christmas gift from my aunt. Thanks Helen!


The original recipe for the cake is from the September ’99 edition of Bon Appetit and can be found on Epicurious here.

The recipe for the icing is from the October/November 2010 edition of Fine Cooking and you should go buy it. Immediately.


Carrot Cake

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 heaping teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup canola oil
4 eggs
4 cups shredded carrots

Tools:
two large bowls
2 9” cake pans
food processor or shredded (to shred carrots)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Grease pans
3. Mix dry ingredients
4. Shred carrots
5. Mix sugar and oil until blended, gradually add eggs.
6. Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix lightly
7. Divide batter evenly between cake pans
8. Bake 40 minutes or until tester comes out clean
9. Cool on wire racks and frost when completely cool


Make It Yours: The allspice is a personal choice. It makes this cake a bit pumpkin pie-y. Even with no pumpkin. Or pie of any kind really. Also the quantity of cinnamon and the inclusion of nutmeg. Your call.

Tags: carrots

This post is a smidgen out of season, now that it’s September, but I wanted to share it anyway.

I contemplated starting a blog for a long time before I actually did it. Probably a lot of people I discussed it with thought I’d forgotten or dropped it. But I hadn’t. Instead I spent a lot of time flailing reading and thinking and trying out the process of “cooking for blogging” to see if it worked for me. This is one of posts I did way back in June to test all this out. Let me know what you think...

Asparagus is great. Bacon is great. Grilling is great. Put all three together? Predictably great.

Take asparagus, enough for however many you are serving. We eat about 5 or 6 per person, you do the math.

Trim off the hard woody end.


I know I said bacon, but this is prosciutto.



Wrap 4 stalks in one piece of prosciutto, layering so that most of the stalks are covered.

Place the wrapped bundle in a grill basket.




Repeat



Drizzle olive oil, paying particular attention to the heads.



Grill!



Grill until the exposed stalk has nice grill marks and the prosciutto is crisping.








Sprinkle with a little salt and serve!

Tags: seasonal, grill

Ha! That title got your attention, didn’t it? I struggle with writing blog titles, coming up with something both intriguing and informative that isn’t completely dull. But this one just came to me!

My mother hates portobello mushrooms. Hates hates hates. Will not eat. She says they look like cow flops, which here in Central Pennsylvania, is a cow turd. The comparison strikes me as fairly illogical, but hey.

Regardless of what my mother says, this is an incredibly easy and delicious way to eat portobellos. I owe this recipe to a former boss, who took our whole office out to dinner in Little Italy while we were at a conference in Manhattan. Normally I would never ever have tried this, but he insisted and well, I owe him.



Basically, this is a portobello marinated in a balsamic vinaigrette, pan seared with cheese melted on top, then sprinkled with sea salt and sometimes bits of bacon. If that doesn’t make your mouth water, I don’t know that we can be friends.

So, take a nice sized portobello.


Remove the stem and the gills

Sans stem:



Please use a sharp knife so you don’t totally ravage the mushroom like I did:



I’m not even going to show you the underside of the poor thing, it was really that bad.

Put the mushroom in a bowl or container of some kind where it can marinate



See what I mean? I abused that thing so badly even the cap is maimed. Learn from my failure: sharp knife.

Anyway, pour the balsamic vinaigrette of your choice over it and let it marinate for at least a couple hours, I left it overnight.



Now a skillet, over medium heat:



Now, this is a non-stick skillet. So this isn’t really a “sear”, but whatever. The purpose here is to get the mushroom cooked and hot the whole way through.

Because there’s still an edge around it, you’re going to have to flatten it with a spatula. Gently.



It’s going to give off liquid, that’s okay.



Flip it a couple times so that both sides are cooking. Eventually, once the liquid output has slowed, add pieces of the cheese of your choice to the top and lower the heat.

This is mozzarella, the first time I had it was with fontina. You’re looking for a soft white cheese with good meltability. Both mozzarella and fontina were delicious.



Melting...



Once the cheese has melted, add just a pinch of a good salt. This particular time I cooked, I didn’t have any bacon. I would strongly recommend going out and getting some, specifically for this.

Plate and serve hot.






I wish I remembered which restaurant this came from, but New York, Little Italy, small place with to die for lobster cannelloni. Ring a bell for anyone?


Ingredients:
large portobello
balsamic vinaigrette
white cheese (mozzarella, fontina etc)
sea salt
bits of bacon

Tools:
flat bottomed bowl or tupperware
skillet

1. Clean portobello thoroughly and remove stem and gills
2. Marinate in balsamic vinaigrette for at least 2 hours, but overnight is fine
3. Cook marinated portobello over medium high heat until liquid release slows
4. Lower heat, place cheese on top and allow cheese to melt
5. When cheese is melted, add salt and bacon
6. Plate and serve


So, anyone have a portobello recipe to share?

Tags: vegetarian, mushroom, cheese

So chili and cornbread are one of the meal combos that is in regular rotation in my house, especially in the winter. This recipe specifically has been in such rotation that the Food & Wine magazine from whence this recipe comes has barely left my kitchen. There are probably 30 cookbooks in my house and we keep exactly two of them in the kitchen. There isn’t much storage space available. So for this magazine to have been kept there? It’s saying something.

So, pitch #2 (see #1) for you go to out and buy a cast iron skillet. Really. I mean it. Go buy one. Incredibly versatile and it will last you forever.

Anyway, put the pan on the stove top and turn the burner on, medium heat.



Add 2 tablespoons of butter, the recipe says unsalted, I’ve used both and it’s fine.



Keep an eye on the butter. You want it fully melted and bubbling well, but not burning. It’s a balancing act, but well well worth it.

Dry ingredients! 1 1/2 cup flour, 3/4 cup cornmeal, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 2 teaspoons salt.



Melt 6 tablespoons butter (the rest of the stick from above) in a microwave-safe container. 50 seconds does it in mine.



Lightly beat 2 eggs



Add in 1 1/4 cup milk (I use skim, but whatever works)



Look! Melted butter.



Add the butter to the egg/milk combination and add all at once to the dry ingredients. Stir until the batter is moist and evenly mixed.



By now the butter should be nicely melted and bubbly. This picture is actually a little premature.



Pour in the batter and spread if it doesn’t cover the whole pan.



Pop that sucker in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes at 425. You’ll know it’s done when the edges are browned and a toothpick or fork come out of the center clean.



Devour.




We would eat this with chicken chili. And all would be well with the world for the rest of the evening.

This recipe is modified from Food & Wine, the August 2010 edition, page 103. The original can be found here. I’m not so much on the whole “relish” concept, so I cannot comment on any taste/texture differences between mine and theirs. I can tell you that mine is mildly sweet and totally delicious.


Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup milk

Tools:
10” cast iron pan
large bowl
microwave safe bowl

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Heat skillet on stovetop at medium heat
3. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in skillet
4. Mix dry ingredients
5. Melt remaining butter in a microwave
6. Mix melted butter (from step #5, not step #3) with milk and eggs
7. Combine wet and dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix (unless you want stone bread)
8. Pour batter into skillet and spread if need be
9. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a tester comes out clean from the center
10. Let the skillet cool and devour


Make It Yours: The amount of sugar is the real variable here. If you go up to 3/4 cup sugar, this is a definitively sweet corn bread. If you go below 1/2 cup, it is not. The recipe from F&W called for 1 tablespoon. In my mind? Blech. But this is you, cooking in your kitchen for your family. Use your best judgement, or make it a couple times and play around with it.

So, how do you like your cornbread?

Tags: vegetarian, bread item, baking

Now that fall is imminent, ie: tomorrow, my taste in breakfast has swung not quite to oatmeal, but to granola! Sure, you could just go buy a bag at the grocery store, but wouldn’t you rather have exactly what you want and cheaper? And gosh, look at that bowl:




When the idea to cook a food comes to mind, as opposed to being inspired by something I read, my first consideration before I look for a recipe is high or low. Haute cuisine versus...not haute. My use of “low” is not in any way pejorative, in fact my whole blog is pretty much dedicated to the lowering of “cuisine”. But anyway. If I’m looking for something more “haute”, my first stop is almost always epicurious.com. If I’m not, it’s allrecipes.com. And All Recipes came through gloriously for the recipe I used here.

The goods:

Full disclosure: I got the idea to picture everything I use in a recipe from Jenna at Eat Live Run. It’s one of my very favorite blogs to read, so I’m testing out her method to see if it helps me organize better. Stay tuned.

Anyway, take 4 cups old fashioned oats, 1 cup wheat germ, 1/2 cup flax meal, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, 1 cup chopped almonds, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon nutmug. In a BIG bowl. The bowl I used wasn’t exactly big enough.



Stirring was tricky, but we got there.



Then mix 1/3 cup canola oil, 3/4 cup water and 2 teaspoons vanilla in a separate bowl. Or big measuring cup like me. This looks pretty gross, so I didn’t take a picture, but I’m sure y’all can visualize sufficiently.

Take a 13x9” pan, grease it. Again, PAM for Baking ftw.

Spread the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients. Mix until it clumps up and most of the dry ingredients are no longer dry.

Bake at 300 degrees for an hour, stirring a couple times throughout. The original recipe says to stir every 20 minutes, but I got distracted and stirred at 30 minutes and then 45. And it turned out fine.

See?





Let it cool and transfer to the air-tight container for your choice. I used a gallon bag.





All told, this is about a half gallon of granola. I expect it to last me quite a while, so many more of these delicious breakfasts to come.






The original recipe can be found here courtesy of AllRecipes.com


Ingredients:
4 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup flax meal (ground flax seeds. Toss ‘em in a clean coffee grinder if you have whole seeds)
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 chopped pecans
1 cup chopped almonds
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/3 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup water

Tools:
13x9” pan
PAM for Baking
big bowl
smaller bowl

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees
2. Mix dry ingredients
3. Mix wet ingredients
4. Pour dry ingredient mix in greased pan
5. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and mix
6. Baking for one hour, stirring midway through, until crispy/chunky
7. Cool and store in airtight container

Make It Yours: the only real essentials in this granola are the oats, the wheat germ, the oil and the water. You can change the nuts, change the spices, add dried coconut..whatever strikes your fancy. I happened to have almonds and pecans in my kitchen, so that’s what went in. While I realize that this recipe is totally delicious (it’s okay, I’ll own it), part of the point of me sharing this with you is to show people how easy it is to create recipes for yourselves. So go wild! And report back!

So tell me, how do you eat granola?

Tags: vegetarian