VTD: Always Tasting

Summer Cornbread: Fresh Corn, Browned Butter, Basil & a Peach

2011-07-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, you enjoy a fat wedge of hearty cornbread alongside your favorite winter soup. It's even better drizzled with honey. Growing up in the wilds of Minnesota gave me insight into the cornbread experience, and it wasn't all good. Cornbread can, in fact, be awful: so gloppily thick that it's even difficult to improve with quantities of honey.

It's taken some time to perfect my cornbread recipe. My standard fare is rich with browned butter and textured with corn, usually of the frozen variety because I make it in winter. But I decided — due to the leftover cobs frowning at me from the depths of the fridge — to try creating a summer staple. (No worries, I kept the browned butter aspect.)

Fluffy and moist, this bread pairs well with a fresh salad and, as always, honey. It barely clings together and offers an intense corn-centered experience with fresh corn, cornmeal and corn flour. The peaches nearly dissolve if chopped finely, creating a hint of sweetness on the tongue, fragrant with basil. It's not a fast recipe, though it bakes up quickly enough once you're organized, but it's a nice changeup from the usual sweet corn recipes and it smacks of summer. If you love cornbread, don't miss this delicious version!

Summer Cornbread
Makes 8 wedges or one castiron skillet's worth

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 cobs of corn, husked, kernels sliced off the cob (about 1 cup or so)
1 large peach, peeled and diced
1/4 cup basil, chopped (I used sweet purple but green is just as nice)

3/4 cup AP flour
1/4 cup corn flour (or another 1/4 cup AP)
1 cup cornmeal
3/4 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp baking powder
3 T sugar

1 cup soymilk + 1 tsp cider vinegar (or 1 cup milk)
1 egg

Note: If you have a castiron skillet, I highly recommend you use it here for both browning your butter and baking the cornbread. If not, use a saucepan for making the browned butter and an 8"x8" baker or deep dish pie plate for the cornbread. I'm going to proceed as if you own a castiron skillet.

Does your browned butter look like this? A little caramelly in color means yummy flavor.

Preheat your oven to 425º and set your skillet on the stove over medium-high heat with the stick of butter inside. It will melt as the skillet heats up. You're looking for the foaming part of the butter solids to brown and fall to the bottom of the pan, where they'll start to smell really nice for you. When this happens, take the skillet off the heat, swirl the pan to coat the sides a bit — this is for when the bread starts baking – and then pour the butter off into a glass or ceramic bowl to cool. (If this is your first time making browned butter, keep an eye on it the whole time. Once it starts to brown, the process goes quickly from browned to burnt.)

Dry ingredients mixed together with corn, peaches & basil

Measure the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and swirl together well with a spatula. Prep your corn, peach and basil on a cutting board and then toss them into the dry ingredients. Mix lightly, until everything is coated with the flour mixture.

And into the oven you go!

Pour the soy (or milk) into a separate bowl and add in the egg. Whisk to combine and add in the slightly cooled browned butter. Pour over the dry ingredients and fold gently with the spatula, just until no clumps of dry flour remain. Smooth batter into the warm skillet and bake for 20-25 minutes. The top should be puffed, dry and golden brown, and the edges around the pan should be browned and crisp where we left that nice ring of butter.

The longer it cools, the better the slices will hold their shape. I can manage to wait about 10 minutes, however, so my first slice is more of a pudding. Mmm, corn pudding.

Ready to go outside and eat on the patio...

Breakfast Pizza

2011-05-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

You heard me.

People make all kinds of things for breakfast, and I like pizza. Not just the leftover kind all the time either.

Back when I worked at the bakery, I introduced this pizza, topped with eggs and chorizo, and everyone's nose turned up slightly as they asked "What is that?" And yet, they had to try it. Within a week, it flew off the shelf still warm. The local favorite was a vegetarian Greek variety. It's been three years since I made this pizza, and I'd nearly forgotten about it.

Then I had a plastic container of pizza dough from Whole Foods (they make excellent dough, if you are in a hurry), and my husband craved his favorite pizza buffet the night before. So I was wondering why on earth I should make another regular pizza when I finally remembered my yummy breakfast treat.

Funny thing, I had never made it at home. George turned up his nose at the thought of breakfast pizza, and I laughed with the memory. "It's made of pizza," I flung back at him confidantly, "you'll love it." And he did.

The one trick to breakfast pizza is cooking the crust a bit first so your scrambled eggs don't get overhard. But otherwise, it's just like making breakfast on top of a pizza. I cook the eggs separately, until they're barely set, and then load everything on top of a halfway cooked crust. This one in the photos is the simplest pizza you can make, just a few slices of tomatoes and cheese atop soft scrambled eggs and a salsa-tomato sauce. It's easily improved by olives, capers and feta, cooked hash browns and leftover veggie sausage — anything you can imagine on pizza. Feel free to experiment. Breakfast pizza is delicious and super easy!

Breakfast Pizza
Makes 1 large pizza for 3-4 hungry eaters

1 recipe of pizza crust or the small size Whole Foods prepped crust, at room temperature
1/2 cup pizza sauce
3/4 cup salsa
2 red potatoes, very thinly sliced
6 eggs
2 T cream
1 T butter
1-2 ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced
1-1/2 cups pepperjack cheese, or a mix of mozzarella and cheddar, shredded

Heat the oven to 450º with a pizza stone inside. (If you don't have a stone, use the back of a baking sheet instead.) Let the oven come to temperature.

Scramble the eggs into a bowl with the cream and heat a frying pan over low-medium heat with the tablespoon of butter inside.

Cover your potatoes with saran wrap and microwave for 2 minutes, until they are soft. They should be very nearly cooked through.

Once your oven's hot, roll the dough out to the size of your pizza stone, usually about 12-14" in diameter and slide it onto the stone. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the crust is dry on top and the bottom is starting to brown.

While the crust bakes, cook the scrambled eggs, continuing to scramble them slowly in the pan. It should take about 8-10 minutes for the eggs to grow somewhat solid, still really soft, but not runny. If they seem to be setting too quickly, turn the burner down. When they're getting close to set, turn the burner off and remove the pan from the stove.

When the crust is out of the oven, slather the sauce and salsa onto the crust. Spread potato slices over the sauce/salsa. Layer the eggs over the sauce, and then the tomato slices. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over everything. I usually sprinkle a little pepper on top, too.

Bake another 8-10 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and hot. Let it sit about 5-10 minutes to let the cheese stand up and then slice and eat. Serve with more salsa.

Hummus Dressing

2011-04-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Another fantastic discovery today: hummus makes exquisite salad dressing. Think about it. Don't be a-feared. Why not loosen it up and pour it over your favorite cut vegetables — things you'd otherwise be dipping in it?

I had seedless cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots on hand, but this would be delicious with some red onion, green pepper, even some whole chickpeas, tossed in. And some toasted baguette slices to sop up the dregs. What I love about these lettuceless salads is their longevity. Crisp and refreshing, they stay that way while I eat them, a bite here and there, between answering my baby's alternating cries and squeals.

Hummus Dressing
Serves 1

Use a large spoon for "measuring" and just eyeball it, then use the same spoon for stirring and eating your salad!

1 T of your favorite hummus (homemade works great!)
1 T water
1/2 T olive oil
1/2 T red wine vinegar, if desired
pinch salt + freshly ground pepper to taste

"Measure" everything into an empty jam jar and shake vigorously. Pour over 2 cups of chopped veggies, stir and eat.

Whole Orange Cake

2011-04-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's spring. I should be rhapsodizing about rhubarb or pea shoots. Just let me get this out of my system.

You see, I had to skip the entire citrus-eating season this winter. Blah, blah, baby stuff... I'll spare you. And now, with the end of my pox at hand, some friends brought me an entire bag of oranges, and a handful of lemons, FROM THEIR TREE. Now, I ask you, how do I pass that up?

A quick shuffle through some of my cookbooks gleaned a whole orange poppyseed loaf from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book that sounded amazing. Anything that uses the whole orange is worth a try. It turned out nicely, the crumb drier than I like and I used all of my poppyseeds in the first iteration, but the recipe ended up being a fantastic springboard.

Now that I live at altitude again, a few alterations are necessary to baked goods in order to avoid a floppy, sunken center. After making the recipe for the third time, I hit on the perfect combination of revisions. I reduced the sugar and weighed the oranges, since mine were small, adding an extra one and finding the cake's flavor even more pronounced. I added oil to the recipe and got a cake with the nicest crumb, soft and moist. If I had it unpacked, I would've made this into a bundt cake!

If you find, as I did, that you are not quite finished with oranges this season, grab a few lovely specimens and bake this cake.

Whole Orange Cake
Makes 2 or 3 loaves, depending on pan size
Note: You will need a food processor for this recipe!

For the cake:
2 large oranges (or 16-18 ounces of smaller oranges)
1 + 3/4 cups sugar
5 large eggs
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup vegetable oil
5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1-1/2 cups flour (minus 3 T for high altitude baking)

For the glaze:
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
juice of half a large lemon
1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350º (or 325º for high altitude bakers) and oil or butter two 9-inch bread pans or three smaller ones. Place the loaf pans on a baking sheet — just makes it easier to slide them into the oven.

Remove the green stem from the top of your oranges and cut oranges into a few pieces. Pulse the orange pieces and the sugar in the food processor until the oranges are finely ground with no chunks larger than mustard seeds. Add the eggs and pulse until smooth, then add the oil and melted butter. Scrape the sides down and pulse several more times for good measure.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Pour the orange mixture into the flour mix, scraping the sides down to get every bit, and gently fold together with a spatula. When the batter is smooth, pour an even amount into your baking pans.

Bake 45-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and dry. The loaves won't necessarily brown much because of the orangey color, so you'll have to watch them near the end. You want them set, but just barely, so the center is moist. Let the loaves cool 30 minutes in the pan, and then turn them out onto a cooling rack while you make the glaze.

Mix glaze ingredients in a small saucepan and let come to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer two minutes, until thickened. Brush the glaze over the sides (start there, turning as you go) and then the top of each loaf. Pour any extra over the top and let it puddle or drip down the sides. It's really good so you don't want to waste any!

Try to let the loaf cool completely before you tuck in or you'll risk drying out the nice crumb. If you absolutely must, set the loaf onto the counter, cut side down, while it finishes cooling.

*This freezes really well, wrapped in parchment and then plastic or a tupperware.

Oatmeal Coffee Cake

2010-08-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

My crush on coffee cake goes back decades. At fourteen I worked as a kitchen assistant at a day camp in Brainerd, Minnesota, where a handful of cabins ringed Rice Lake in two little boy/girl half-moons separated by an evil-smelling, leech-infested lagoon. My main task was dish washing, of course, and then peeling mountains of veg or prepping salad greens. Nothing too difficult for an amateur kitchen aide. But on Saturday mornings half of the staff had the day off, while the rest of us would enjoy a free Sunday. Thanks to our reduced staff, I had to wake an hour earlier and bake the weekly coffee cake. Two glorious, buttery batches of cinnamon-scented heaven that spread over four hotel pans.

Prior to this initiation, I had thought coffee cake (a) had coffee as an ingredient and (b) was reserved for old ladies’ tea parties with those little paper lace inserts on the plate. The camp recipe was nothing special, truly, and in fact when I snuck a copy home and insisted my mother help me scale back the quantity to family-sized, she balked, not wanting me to waste good ingredients on what was clearly a simple recipe designed to feed a crowd. I made it anyway, and for most of the following winter we had coffee cake every weekend. In fact, fifteen years and countless moves later, I’m still disappointed to have lost that particular recipe.

Instead I’ve tried a plethora of cookbook recipes for coffee cake and typically alter the simple one from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook to suit my ingredients. Until this time.

While my mother-in-law was visiting, I had decided to make Molly’s Oatmeal Pancakes — my new favorite pancake recipe — with scads of the fresh blueberries I’ve been hoarding in the fridge. But we ended up going out instead, and so I had a puddle of oats soaked overnight in buttermilk to contend with that evening. Rather than throw them out, I decided to convert the pancake recipe into a coffee cake one. I ended up with a denser, textured coffee cake speckled with fresh fruit and a sweet, crunchy, cinnamony top. It’s less sugary than my usual version, but the crisp topping lends an extra dose of brown sugar and the fruit’s flavor shines through. I used both blueberries and peaches, fruits that I love to pair with oats, but one or the other would work fine. Or apples or raspberries. . . whatever.

Oatmeal Coffee Cake
Makes a 9”x13” pan

2 cups oats
2 cups buttermilk

Day one: mix oats with buttermilk and set in the refrigerator 24 hours or at least overnight.

3 eggs
¾ cup sugar
½ cup melted butter
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla (optional)

½ cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or more all-purpose)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt

2 peaches, peeled and diced
2 cups blueberries, washed and picked over

For the crumble topping:
6 T butter
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat pastry flour (or more all-purpose)
½ tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt

Day of baking (day two): Proceed as usual. Heat the oven to 350º and oil a 9”x13” baking pan.

To make the topping, in a clean bowl, use your fingers to rub the butter into the dry topping ingredients until the mixture sticks together when pressed and has the texture of wet sand. Set aside.

Into the oat mixture, add the eggs, sugar, melted butter, sour cream and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together, whisking to combine.

Prep the fruit for the filling and then mix into the dry ingredients (this helps the fruit not to settle at the bottom of the cake). Pour the wet oat mixture into the dry flour mixture, stirring to combine. Fill the baking pan with the mixture and spread evenly. Crumble the topping evenly over the batter.

Bake, uncovered, for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is set in the center and nicely browned. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.

Note: Because of the buttermilk in this recipe, please refrigerate any leftovers and reheat gently in the oven wrapped in foil.

Mexican Lasagna

2010-08-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

No, she’s not the prettiest dish to look at, but she’s tasty and filling and she works up fast. Give her 30 minutes to bake…er, heat up, really, and dinner’s on the table.

I’ve been craving less spicy forms of Mexican food lately. After 32 weeks of enduring this pregnancy, I’m finding heartburn to be a real appetite dampener. It sucks. I’m always thinking oh that sounds good, and then my eyes narrow and visibly question whether I’ll want to keep burping it later. A grimace. Usually the answer is no (with occasional exemptions for samosas or ginger broccoli). So making my own form of Mexican food is a good compromise that lets George dump salsa over the entire thing later (he craves the extra flavor) while letting me get to sleep painlessly.

It’s a pretty simple lasagna idea: swap in tortillas for noodles and proceed as usual. I mix a splash of salsa and lots of sour cream into the cheese layer, so it gets creamy and thick. Then I use enchilada sauce for the liquid and blend a little into the refried beans and some chopped up olives so they’re easier to spread. We have lovely corn here lately, and I find the sweetness of it in this dish adds a nice contrast, but you can take it or leave it. Then I added a crisp handful of lettuce and halved tomatoes to the hot lasagna, finishing it off with a nice crunch and some texture.

Mexican Lasagna
Serves 6

12 oz can enchilada sauce (I used green chile)

8 fajita-size tortillas (can use flour or corn)

12 oz can vegetarian refried beans
6 oz can diced olives
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

2 cups fresh corn, cut off of the cob
2 T cilantro, minced
jalapeno, minced (optional for those without heartburn issues)
½ red onion, minced (optional for those without heartburn issues)

1 cup sour cream
2 cups monterey jack cheese, shredded
½ cup salsa, as spicy as you like

For serving:
4 cups shredded lettuce
1 cup diced tomatoes
sour cream
salsa

Heat the oven to 350º and oil a round baking dish, about the size of your tortillas or slightly smaller. Pour about 2 T of the enchilada sauce in the bottom and press a tortilla into it. Pour another 1 T of sauce over the first tortilla and stack another one on top. This is your lasagna base.

Shred your cheeses and reserve a large handful of each in a bowl.

Make the refried bean layer by mixing the whole can of beans, cheddar, and the whole can of olives in a bowl. Add about ¼ to ½ cup of enchilada sauce, just enough to make the beans spreadable. Layer a third of your bean mixture on top of the tortilla in the baking dish.

Blend the corn with the cilantro (and the optional onion and jalapeno) and scoop 1/3 of the mixture onto the bean layer.

Mix the jack cheese with the sour cream and salsa in a bowl. Spread a third of the mixture over the corn in your baking dish, then add a tortilla. Spread 1 T enchilada sauce evenly over it and sandwich a second tortilla over that.

Layer the beans, corn and cheese on your tortilla sandwiches twice more, ending with a tortilla layer at the top. Pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the top tortilla (there shouldn’t be much left) and sprinkle with the reserved handful of cheese. Bake, covered with foil or a lid, for 30 minutes, until the beans and cheese bubble at the edges of the dish. Remove the lid and bake another five minutes to give the cheese some color.

Serve with a handful of lettuce and sprinkling of tomatoes, and more salsa and sour cream, if desired. A side of guacamole and chips is always appreciated.

Yellow Cake (for Jello Cake)

2010-07-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

I've had a few disappointments lately.* First and foremost was this jell-o cake gone wrong. I believe it had something to do with my overly ambitious game plan. See, first I made my own gelatin mix out of fresh blackberries that were wasting into a juice puddle in the fridge. Then I doctored up a yellow box cake (so I wouldn't have to pack it along to Denver, right?) with leftover apricot jam and reduced the oil. And lastly I didn't make nearly enough whipping cream for the top, not to mention I used every single blackberry in the jell-o, leaving none for decorating the top. That was the least of my concerns. The foremost was the taste of it.

My jello turned out okay. I know this because I had some leftover and tried it plain. I followed the package directions for those generic gelatin packets and added hot blackberry juice, from smashed, boiled blackberries that were strained thoroughly, instead of hot water. So this part I would do again.

The box cake was my primary enemy here. Overly sweet and with that gummy, box-cake taste. I shouldn't have used it. The apricot jam had a little bite of lemon to it, which helped, but overall the paired sweetness of jello with cake was too much.

Next time I will use my usual from-scratch yellow cake. It's not too sweet but also dense enough to stand up to the jello without going soggy in a day. I will also recommend loads of whipped cream on the top, dotted with fresh berries. My very favorite is raspberry jello cake, and I can eat half a 9"x 13" pan in 24 hours. Then I eat it again the following day for breakfast. When I can gather up my courage, I'll be making a blueberry version.

Yellow Cake
Makes a 9" x 13" pan or 24 cupcakes

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs

3 cups + 3 T all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1-1/4 cups milk

Whip the butter and sugar together until creamy, then add the vanilla and mix in one egg at a time until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar-egg mixture a cup at a time, alternating with a third of the milk, so that you end with the rest of the milk mixed in last. Pour into your buttered pan and bake at 350º for 30-35 minutes (18-20 minutes for cupcakes). Let cool completely.

To make a jello cake, use a straw or skewer to poke holes all over the surface of the cooled cake. It won't be pretty and it doesn't have to be even — you'll cover it with whipping cream soon enough —, but the holes let the jello soak in. Prep a package of jello or make your own, about 2 cups worth, and pour it over the cake. Cover and chill until the jello is set, about 2 hours. Make whipping cream by whisking (at least) a pint of heavy cream with 3-4 T of powdered sugar and a swig of vanilla. Spread whipping cream over the cake and garnish with berries to compliment your jello flavor. Eat cold and keep refrigerated until you've licked the empty pan clean. Wonder how long you can go without making another one. Wonder if you should add bits of fruit to the cake batter this time (you should). Wonder why you ever eat cake without jello (you didn't know any better). Practice all kinds of self-forgiveness and bake another cake.

* Note: Second was this Bon Appetit recipe for tagliatelle pasta with fresh corn pesto, which I admittedly made without the bacon. The color of it is particularly unappetizing unless you are doing a photo shoot for a magazine and tucking bits of corn and basil attractively throughout, and the flavor was just okay. Mostly the color of it grossed me out — sort of snotlike. Their recipe for Shaved Zucchini Salad with Parmesan and Pine Nuts redeemed the meal, however.

Cranberry-Date Bars

2010-07-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

I adore those fruity, oatmeal-based dessert bars that everyone makes. No matter the filling choice, I'm always drooling over the toasty taste of baked oats. They seem to be so friendly with fruit of all kinds, so open to forming new relationships. I spent the last couple of years perfecting my raspberry oat bar recipe, and then making it about a half billion times for my farmers market booth, and now the triple-berry variation I adapted for the bakery. These are bars that I crave at home despite having baked them so frequently. Now I simply vary the fruit — peaches, blueberry-coconut, blackberries, even apples and caramel — and know I can rely on my trusty oat base to make a fabulous dessert.

When I stumbled over the Fig-Cranberry Oat Squares recipe at Dinner with Julie, I remembered the bag of cranberries I'd frozen in January, back when prices were low and my inspiration petered out (pregnancy hormones are like that). Cranberries aren't simply a holiday item, I postured, then completely forgot about their existence. I wanted to use them, especially since we're packing to move, and couldn't pass up another oat bar recipe. I tweaked the recipe a bit, me being me, and ended up in love with the sweet-and-tart, jammy flavors of cranberries and date cooked together with an apricot and a squeeze of lemon. Add in whole wheat flour for the base, and the whole thing starts to feel like it might be healthy. I assure you it's not. There's enough sugar and butter to fully satisfy your sweet tooth. But the fat, gooey ratio of fruit sandwiched between crisp oat counterpoints is a beautiful thing. Trust me.

Cranberry & Date Bars
Makes an 8"x 8" square pan

Filling:
12 oz package fresh or frozen cranberries, picked over
10 medjool dates, pitted
1 apricot, washed and pitted (optional, but it's good!)
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup brown sugar
squeeze of lemon juice

Crust & topping:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

In a saucepan, combine the filling ingredients and cook over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil. The cranberries will burst in the heat, so make sure to keep the area clear! Turn heat down to medium-low and let simmer until berries crumble and dates soften. The mixture will thicken and turn a beautiful maroon shade. Take off the heat and use a potato mashed or a fork to smush up the dates into the cranberries. Set aside.

Turn oven to 350º and grease an 8" x 8" baking pan.

Measure crust/topping ingredients into a bowl and use a pastry cutter or a fork to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until crumbly. Press half of the mixture into the bottom of the baking pan, then layer the jammy filling over it, spreading to even it out. Then use your fingers to sprinkle the remaining oat crumbs over the jam, pressing down lightly. Bake for 30 minutes, until the oats at the top are golden brown and the filling bubbles at the edges. Let cool in the pan before cutting.

Grilled Corn, Smoked Almond, Goat Cheese & Tomato Salad

2010-06-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago in Denver, I ordered this amazing salad at North, an Italian bistro in the Cherry Creek shopping district. I don't normally go there, but I've had good food when I've been before, and it was hot out and I didn't feel like walking anywhere else. So that's where we went, me and my sister and our friend Wynell. I'm also not generally a salad orderer unless the thing looks particularly inspired. But it was hot out, and once I thought about it I couldn't do a warm entree. Luckily, there was a salad on the menu with baby lettuce, corn, marcona almonds, goat cheese, avocado and tomatoes that had me wishing I could clean my plate — I'm not a lightweight, it was a really large salad. So, after picking out all of those delicious almonds, I called it quits.

Then I went home and, now, a few weeks later, got to thinking about that salad again. For me, the avocado added nothing to the salad, same texture as the goat cheese, and the flavor was completely lost against the tang of the cheese, sweetness of the corn and tomatoes, the crunch of the almonds. I edited it out and didn't miss it. Then I grilled the corn, which wouldn't be necessary except this early corn isn't as sweet as it will be later in the season, so grilling brings a bit of extra flavor out of it. I swapped salted, smoked almonds for the marcona, simply because that's what I had on hand. The smoked flavor added a nice touch.

Dashed with a mustard-y red wine vinaigrette, this salad is simple, delicious and quite filling. I should also mention that I do not like my salad greens drenched in dressing. Yes, it's caloric and so it may seem I'm on a dressing diet, but that's really not the point. I like my greens to stay firm and crisp, not soggy. I under-dress salads and factor in the oozy components like halved tomatoes adding moisture to the mix. If you like more dressing, feel free to double it.

Dressing issues aside, this recent batch of salad will be the third in the past seven days that I'm eating for dinner, accompanied only by the heel of a baguette.

Grilled Corn, Smoked Almond, Goat Cheese & Tomato Salad
Big salad dinner for one or a side salad for 2

half a head of red leaf lettuce, washed and torn into bite-side pieces
1 ear corn, husked and lightly grilled, then cut off the cob
handful salted almonds (smoked if you have 'em, marcona or plain)
handful sweet cherry or grape tomatoes, washed and halved
1-2 oz fresh goat cheese, crumbled
fresh ground pepper

Dressing:
1-1/2 T extra virgin olive oil
1-1/2 T red wine vinegar
2 tsp dijon mustard
tiny squeeze of honey or agave nectar
pinch of salt & pepper

Stack your salad ingredients in a large serving bowl. To make the dressing, pour ingredients into a jam jar with a tight-fitting lid and shake vigorously until combined. Pour over the salad and toss briefly. Let sit 5 minutes to let the flavors combine and the juice from the corn and tomatoes will help dress the salad. Add pepper to the top, if desired, toss again and, if you're me, eat it straight out of the bowl.

Quick Asparagus Quiche

2010-06-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I love asparagus. Its bright green flavor and that snap when it's perfectly cooked, preferably grilled, is such a testament to spring. But sometimes I am greedy. Every week I worry that this will be the last of the asparagus, and I often buy too much of it. And when it starts to wilt in my refrigerator, I see the error of my ways. (Not that I repent, really, I just make quiche.)

This summer I've been particularly creative in finding ways to use my abundant asparagus, including an excellent dill-riddled asparagus & potato salad. Quiche is my favorite.

Quiche is an excellent way to use any asparagus, of course, but especially the aged, less snappy ones that aren't worthy of grilling. I'm using a store-bought crust here, but feel free to make your own or roll one out of puff pastry instead. Don't judge, people. It's summer, and the heat is making me a bit lazy.

Quick Asparagus Quiche
Serves 6

1 store-bought crust, thawed if frozen

1/2# asparagus
4 eggs
about 2 cups combination of milk and cream (details below)
2 oz dill havarti (or your favorite cheese; parmesan is also good)
salt & pepper

Preheat your oven to 300º and place the crust on a rimmed baking sheet, just in case of spillage. When the oven is ready, bake the empty crust for 15 minutes, enough time to gather the rest of your ingredients for the recipe.

Wash asparagus and roll on a kitchen towel to dry. Cut into pieces about 1" long and set aside.

For quiche, I like to use a large liquid measuring cup for the filling. My goal is to have about a cup of vegetables and then three cups of liquids. This allows you to substitute nearly any vegetable for the asparagus and still have the quiche turn out as expected. Break the eggs into the measuring cup first and then add enough milk and cream to reach the three cup mark. I add half cream and half milk, but the quiche ends up super-smooth if you're feeling decadent and use all cream. Since this is something I make often, I use 2% milk myself. Add a big pinch of salt and a generous grinding of pepper. Chop your cheese into small cubes, and now you're ready to fill the crust.

Remove crust from oven and add the asparagus pieces. Sprinkle cheese cubes over the vegetables, then slowly pour the liquids over everything. Bake for one hour.

While I'll eat quiche any time of day, in summer I usually don't start up the oven until dinnertime, if at all. A nice green salad alongside rounds out the meal.

Apologies. . .

2010-05-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed, if you've visited in the past four months, that I have not been here. Ever. Not even once. I'm sorry about that. Let me tell you about morning sickness: it's not pretty. Or fair-minded.

So, not only have I not been posting anything because my computer screen made me unbearably nauseated, but I have been eating little more adventurous material than cereal and crackers since January. Okay, sometimes peanut butter toast, if you require absolute honesty.

But now, secured in my second trimester of abated nausea, I have returned. More upset to come, I'm afraid. We're selling our Kansas house and moving back to Denver as soon as we can, so my time is limited at best. And I've been cooking for myself now, mostly plain, solid midwestern fare. Nothing too spicy or weird. Hearty breads and salads loaded with colorful veg, things of this nature. And cereal, always with the cereal. Now I can eat it with berries!

Do not fear, gentle readers. I am still vegetarian and I am still eating (constantly). So there will be a post in my future with a recipe and a photo involved, I swear. Sit tight (like my pants lately) and I will prove it to you.

Eat your tasty wheat. . . Gluten!

2010-01-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

Wait, gluten? Isn't that a food that weirdo, rural vegan people made? Like, in the '70s? Prrrrobably. Indeed, my mom nabbed this recipe off a woman at church potluck. So, yep, rural weirdos converge. I know I am one of the many who shunned the packaged stuff, which looks eerily like offal in a thick gravy. Who's hungry now?

Yet, several months ago, on a visit to my parents' Missouri home, I tasted gluten for the first time, breaded with parmesan and Italian herbs. I fell in love with its texture, a surprisingly buttery softness inside a fried crust. "You made this?" I insulted my mother with the question multiple times. She admitted that, yes, she'd made it earlier that day, and that it was easy.

Gluten burbles in the pot with broth

Over Christmas, she shared her recipe, which I'd hoped she would demonstrate. Holiday timing being as it always is, we didn't get a chance. She left it with me, saying, "Really, it's easy. Just try it." And as her only caveat: "Make sure you have all the dry ingredients together before you add the wet. It comes together f-a-s-t." I didn't know what that meant. I looked over the recipe again. And yeah, there are a few weird ingredients, nothing impossible to find, though. Still, I let everything sit out on the countertop for two weeks, working up my nerve.

One day, I awoke with such a great attitude, I decided to attack the gluten first thing, prepared to spend the morning on it. But the mixture comes together in seconds, babysits itself for an hour in a steamy, stovetop bath and the recipe yields more than six pounds of yummy, high-protein product. The tapioca makes pockets in the gluten, a little texture surprise that you won't find in storebought, and the seasonings imbue the gluten with flavor. (P.S. It also freezes well.) I have to admit, that of the stewed, chilied and fried versions I've tried, I like the fried best.

Seriously, if you're looking for a high-protein vegan/vegetarian food source, try making gluten. It's incredibly cheap (about $6) and quick (budget 75 minutes for start to finish), so if you end up disliking it, no big. But if you like it as much as I do — and my husband does, yay! — you'll be quickly inventing new ways to season and serve gluten for years to come.

Amy Bryant's Mother's Gluten
Yields 5 to 6 pounds
Broth
1/2 cup soy sauce (can use Bragg's aminos instead, or half-and-half for lower sodium)
6 tsp vegetable broth seasoning or boullion cubes
2 quarts water
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
Gluten
3 cups instant gluten flour (vital wheat gluten)
1/2 cup Minute-brand tapioca
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brewer's yeast flakes
1/4 cup soy sauce (can use Bragg's aminos instead, or half-and-half)
3-1/4 cups water

Mix the broth ingredients in your largest stockpot on the stove. Make sure there is plenty of room left at the top of the pot. Turn the heat to high and start the gluten while you wait for it to boil.

Dry ingredients all mixed and ready

For the gluten, add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl and make a well in the center. In a separate bowl, mix the soy sauce with the water. Pour the wet ingredients into the well and use your hands to knead the ingredients together.

Ta-da! Seriously, 10 seconds after I poured in the soy/water mix.

In about 10 seconds, it will form a solid mass. Knead it lightly for a minute or so, just to make sure everything is well spread.

Can you tell this is my first time making gluten?

Pull into three pieces and roll each one into a long, skinny log. Use a sharp knife to cut each log into 1/2" thick slices. (FYI, even if you want the gluten smaller for use in tacos or chili, just keep it large here. It's difficult to fish out of the broth unless the chunks are big, and you can cut it up more later.) These slices will absorb most of your broth and grow to more than double in size.

The slices, awaiting their savory bath.

When your broth is boiling, add the gluten and bring it back to a boil. Let simmer over the stove for an hour, stirring as you happen to pass by. Let cool. Refrigerate or freeze in a bit of the liquid. If wanted, cut chops into bits for chili or stew before freezing.

This is 75% of what the recipe made for me, some chops and chili-size,
loaded into quart-size freezer bags.

Let frozen gluten thaw completely in the refrigerator before using.

Hello yummy, fried gluten.

Health(ier) Fried Gluten Breading
Makes enough for four or five batches

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup yeast flakes
1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1 T dried basil
1 T dried oregano
2 tsp garlic or onion powder

Mix together all ingredients. I like to freeze portions of this alongside the gluten, so I can quickly assemble everything. Or you can just keep the whole batch in the refrigerator.

Cardamom-Apricot Granola

2010-01-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

What? You're not a granola person? I'm sorry, but we can't be friends. Couldn't possibly. Huh uh. I only befriend people with the highest respect for oats, something about my Irish ancestry. So maybe you should just look away now, while I unveil perhaps the greatest feat in granoladom for quite some time. It's cardamom. As warm and spicy as cinnamon, but deeper, more potent, and the perfect counterpoint for dried apricots and maple syrup. Ah, yes, winter seems a distant, faraway land right now. Don't talk over my breakfast.

Cardamom-Apricot Granola
Makes about 10 cups

4 cups old-fashioned oats
2 cups rice cereal (I had leftover Cheerios to get rid of, so use whatever you like)
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup dried apricots, diced
1 cup raw sunflower seeds, unsalted
1 cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened
1/4 cup wheat germ, optional
2 T ground flaxseed, optional
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt

1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff is amazing here)
3/4 cup mild-flavored vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 250º and get out a rimmed baking sheet, 13"x 17" works great.

In a giant bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients. Go ahead and use your hands. It's easier. In a small pitcher or another bowl, mix the oil, syrup and vanilla together. Pour the syrup and oil over the oat mixture and use your hands to toss everything together. Turn the granola out onto your sheet pan and spread it into an even layer. Use your fingers to poke the bits of apricot underneath the oats. It's impossible to get them all, but try for about two minutes.

Bake the granola for one hour. Take out of the oven and use a spatula to turn it, scraping down to the bottom. Let it set on the countertop until it's fully cooled. Bag it and store.

I store granola in a clear glass cookie jar on the countertop, so cereal is always available. It stands up to this type of storage nicely in the winter. Summertime, it lasts about a week. Damn humidity. But granola also freezes nicely for months.

Mushroom Stroganoff (for reals)

2010-01-19T14:27:00.000-08:00

No more adding cans of mushroom soup to a quick saute. I've foiled the easy version of stroganoff by making one with so much more flavor, nobody misses it. Certainly not I. I much prefer feasting on this creamy, mushroom-thick broth, oozing with sour cream and spiced with sage, ladled over soft, buttered noodles. What could be better when it's 4º outside?

Mushroom Stroganoff
Makes 6 generous servings

2 T olive oil
2 T unsalted butter
1 yellow onion, chopped
1# button mushrooms, washed or rinsed or wiped clean
6 oz baby bellas or portabellas, washed or rinsed or wiped clean
1 pkg Field Roast vegan sausages (I used the sage flavor)
1/4 cup white wine
2 cups vegetable broth (or water + broth powder)
2 T chopped sage leaves (or parsley)
2 cups sour cream (full fat, please, or you'll see specks)

1# wide egg noodles
1 T butter

In a wide-bottomed stockpot, heat 1/2 tablespoon of butter with 1/2 tablespoon of oil and brown the onions. Start to chop your mushrooms, a fat handful at a time, tossing them into the pot as you go. Let them brown, move them over with the onions, and melt a little more butter and oil. Continue chopping mushrooms and browning them until they're all in the pot. This isn't fancy, but you can take them out and set the browned ones aside if you're worried.

Pour in the white wine, stirring and scraping the bottom to get the burnt bits up. Then add the water and reduce the heat to medium-low. You want the stock to boil, but a slow, consistent boil. Chop up the sausages and add them to the pot with the sage. Let this simmer for 20-30 minutes, until most of the water reduces and the stock is fragrant and thickened. Boil the water for your noodles now and get those started.

Season the stroganoff with salt and pepper. Let sit 5 minutes, then taste again. You may need to season more than once. Mushrooms like their salt. Stir in the sour cream and turn off the heat. If you're using parsley instead of sage, add it now. Cover the pot and let the flavors meld.

Drain the noodles and set in a large bowl. Add the butter and stir to coat. I like to add pepper to the noodles, too. But, then again, I really like pepper.

Serve a large scoop of buttered noodles with the stroganoff over top. Crusty bread alongside is lovely for sopping up the plate. Sometimes I serve spinach alongside to cut the creaminess.

Breakfast of Champions

2010-01-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

Sturdy. Steadfast. Solid. Three things this breakfast is, and then some. It will stick by you, possibly past noontime, and that's nothing to shake a stick at. Just don't buy the non-melting, freak brand of smoked gouda that I used. You can see the individual strands straddling my brekkie like toasted coconut. Ridiculous. Thankfully, they still tasted okay, a bit on the bland, American cheese front, but okay. Wish I had saved the wrapper from that hunk so I could blacklist it. But on to the good stuff. . . breakfast.

Nothing better than cooking a hearty meal full of rib-sticking goodness in a single skillet. No muss, no fuss — or very little muss at least.

Ye Olde Skillet Breakfast
Sunday breakfast for two

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 large potato, peeled
4 large eggs
1-2 ripe tomatoes, quartered
4 frozen vegetarian breakfast sausages or patties
1/2 cup grated cheese (cheddar, smoked gouda, etc.)

Turn the oven on to 400º. Choose a skillet with an iron handle, one that can go in the oven without melting anything. Put that skillet on the burner and turn it up to medium with a quarter of the tablespoon of butter inside. Warm up the veggie sausages in the pan, turning to let brown slightly.

While those warm, slice your potato as thinly as you possibly can, lining the slices on a paper towel. Press another paper towel over them and soak up as much of the water as possible. Set the veggie sausage aside and melt the remaining butter in the hot pan.

When the butter melts in your skillet, layer the potatoes around the edge in a big circle, then make a smaller circle in the center. Let them sizzle away for about 5-7 minutes, until the bottoms are starting to brown.

Shut the burner off and flip your potatoes over. Rearrange them as neatly as you can to cover the bottom of the skillet again. Sprinkle them liberally with salt. Set one veggie sausage in each quadrant of your pan, then crack an egg between them. Arrange the tomato slices somewhat artistically. More salt and pepper over the whole thing. Set the skillet in the oven to bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the eggs are just about set (I like them a little soft, but keep going if you want the yolks cooked through). Sprinkle the cheese over the top. Bake for 5 minutes more, until your cheese (hopefully) melts and maybe browns a little. Whatever you like.

Cut your breakfast into quarters and share. Or not. George thinks a little hot sauce over the top adds something extra. I like a nice piece of buttered toast on the side.

Avocado & Cucumber Soup

2010-01-15T09:54:00.000-08:00

Maybe nobody else looks for these easy blender soup recipes. Maybe it's just me out to score a speedy, healthy lunch with little cleanup. I am okay with being alone in this. Me and my soup. I think she took about three minutes to whiz together.

In case it needs saying, please don't heat your avocado soup up. It'll brown. As it is, the smoothness of the soup has a yogurt-like mouthfeel, and it's really subtle in flavor, much like the avocado itself. If you're serving it alongside something else, drink it first or you might find it bland. The cilantro helps perk up the blandness, but if you don't like cilantro, nix it. On the upside, it also adds dark green flecks to the soup and I think they're pretty.

Avocado & Cucumber Soup
Serves 2 as a side; 1 as a light lunch

1-1/2 cups water
1 ripe avocado
1/2 cucumber, peeled
1 T lime juice
salt
a handful cilantro, optional

Blend until smooth. Season, then blend again. Let sit 5 minutes. Taste, then season again if necessary.

Prep time: 2 minutes

Blending: 30 seconds

Pouring: 30 seconds

Hummus & Veggie Wrap (Winter)

2010-01-14T12:00:00.000-08:00

Lunch this week feels particularly inspired. I eat these wraps in phases, basically remembering them when I'm tired of dipping carrots into my hummus. But lately, I also have homegrown alfalfa sprouts kicking me to use them. To me, this combination of veggies has it all: spice, texture variety, saltiness and crunch. But you could put anything you want in a wrap. That's the beauty of it.

Hummus & Veggie Wrap (Winter)

1 wrap or burrito-sized tortilla, or two smaller tortillas
2 T hummus, any variety you like
2 cups lettuce leaves or sprouts or mixture of both
1 sliced artichoke heart
4-5 chopped kalamata olives
a small handful of red onion or shallot slices
1 T crumbled feta

Build the wrap by smearing your tortilla with hummus first, then layering the rest of your ingredients over it. Stop to admire your work. Wrap the tortilla up and slice in half. Keep a napkin close by while you're snarfing it down.

In case you're wondering, the summer variety of this wrap includes cucumbers and tomatoes, rather than olives and artichokes. But in winter, as you know, fresh ingredients are difficult to come by. I had to make a winter variation to keep myself enthused about sandwiches this season, and the artichokes and olives do a great job of letting me forget.

Have you ever grown alfalfa sprouts? It makes you feel summery and gardeny without dirty fingernails, and it's perfectly easy to do. They grow in a jar on your countertop. Just buy one of these lids (see photo, right) to go on top of any wide-mouthed canning jar or cover your jar with a clean section of pantyhose, then buy a few tablespoons of sprouts at your co-op or bulk foods store. The lid costs about$4, if you go that route, and the seeds cost 50 cents and will last you for months. Read this how-to and you're off. I have mixed sprouts, lentils sprouts and more. Yum.

Pearberry Pie with Lynn's Pie Crust

2010-01-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

What to do with this leftover pie crust? My mom's recipe that I quadrupled for holiday baking had lots of leftover bits that I smooshed together into a large handful and refrigerated. It's not enough for a big pie, but too much to toss. I love this crust because it's straight-up pliable, even from the refrigerator, and it still bakes into a crisp crust.

Let's make a 6" pear pie! Okay, first we'll roll out our crust and pinch it cutely. Then we'll chop up a fat, moderately-ripe d'anjou pear and toss it with the juice of 1/2 a lemon, a tiny pinch of salt, a tablespoon of flour and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Let's dust it with cardamom and cinnamon, too. Great.

What about that handful of summer blackberries I froze in a way-too-big tupperware that's taking up room in the freezer? We'll throw those in too. Oh and we'll use up the last two tablespoons of ginger-pear jam that's loitering in the refrigerator by spreading it over the pie crust. Excellent. Now toss in the filling and let's bake it up. You're right, I can't toss the extra little bit of crust leftover. I'll give the pie a yamulke.

It bakes up brilliantly at 375º and after about 45 minutes I am drooling from the fragrance in my kitchen. I manage to wait until it cools to non-lip-burning levels and then eat my half of the pie seated on the countertop, leaving the dishes for another day.

Lynn's Pie Crust
Makes one 9" pie

1-1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 T sugar
1 tsp milk
1/2 cup vegetable shortening

Mix together the flour, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk and add the shortening. Cut together with a pastry cutter or a fork until mixed completely. The crust will be soft and pliable. Roll it to 1/4" thick and fill as desired. Bake at 375º for 30-45 minutes, or follow the recipe for your filling.

You can refrigerate it for two weeks or freeze indefinitely, wrapped well in plastic.

Spicy Thai Tempeh with Broccoli & Cashews, Zesty Rice & a Simple Salad

2010-01-07T08:22:00.000-08:00

In 2009, Terry Walters penned Clean Food, sparking my culinary block with creative use of foods like tempeh. A few months after reading the book, I rose to the challenge of her Baked Maple Mustard Tempeh, and found there might be something to this ugly package of smushed seeds after all. And more than just maple, which I like to use in everything regardless. So for a while, I rode her book like some kind of food stallion, galloping through Maple Nut Granola, Coconut Cranberry Pecan Balls, Ginger Pear Butter, and Tofu Salad. Coming to an abrupt halt only when the Spicy Coconut Pumpkin Soup recipe threw me to the ground and trampled me over (something about the lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, ginger and galangal combo — yuckers). Suffice it to say, I put the book aside to let distance soften my bitterness.

I pulled it out this week, newly inspired to try more tempeh. Walters suggests the pairing with the Zesty Basmati Rice (recipe below), which sounded delicious, and truly is. I'm still not sure her method of soaking the rice grains first helped speed the cooking along, so skip that step if you're short on time or have a rice cooker. Note to self: need rice cooker.

I adapted the tempeh recipe from a quick cook to an overnight marinade — opposite of my usual methodology — simply to let the flavors infuse because I was feeding it to George for the first time. It worked. Steaming the tempeh first softens it up and allows the marinade to soak in nicely. George really liked it, though he had no idea what he was eating. I asked him and he said, "Cashews?" Ha ha. If you're a tempeh lover already, go ahead and brown the tempeh in the pot with the onion and add the marinade from there. Much faster, I know. But sometimes it's worth a little extra time if it means I can coerce George into liking something he finds questionable. And then the next time, if he hates it, I can say 'But remember it's good in that stir-fry with broccoli and cashews' so he'll try it a third time. At least this is my wiley, circuitous way. Don't question it; it works for me.

Browning the onions and tempeh, with broccoli and marinade at the ready.

Spicy Thai Tempeh with Broccoli & Cashews
Adapted from Clean Food
Serves 4

8 oz tempeh, cut into thin 1" slices
1 T EVOO
2 T maple syrup
2 tsp tamari
1/3 cup water
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp EVOO
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 cups steamed broccoli florets

1/2 cup cashews, roasted and salted, chopped

Steam the sliced tempeh for 8 minutes, then drain. Mix the EVOO, maple syrup, tamari, red pepper flakes, and water. Put the tempeh in a ziplock or tupperware with lid and pour the oil-syrup mixture over it. Let sit overnight, or longer, to marinate. To make the dish, steam the broccoli 2-3 minutes and drain, then quickly rinse the pan and let dry out over the burner. Add a teaspoon of EVOO and brown the onion. Crumble the tempeh into the pan, reserving the marinade, and let it cook just to warm through. Pour the remaining marinade into the pot and mix in the broccoli, turning everything to coat with marinade. Just before serving, sprinkle with the cashews (you can also use peanuts if you don't have cashews on hand).

*Please note that you can halve the recipe for one or two servings only. It kind-of goes to mush the next day and is much, much better eaten right away.

Midway through cooking the rice. My water didn't all absorb.

Zesty Basmati Rice with Cinnamon and Cumin
Adapted from Clean Food
Serves 4

1-1/2 cup brown basmati rice
3 cups vegetable stock
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tsp orange zest
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 T sesame oil, plain or toasted (can substitute peanut oil)

Soak rice for 1 hour in a bowl with water to cover. Drain and place in a stockpot with the stock, cinnamon stick, cumin, salt and zest. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer, covered, until water is absorbed or the rice is tender, about 25 minutes. If rice is tender, drain off additional water and fluff with a fork. Toss with the oil and cilantro. Serve.

Simple Orange & Avocado Salad
2 hearty servings

2 cups red leaf lettuce, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces
2 clementines or 1 orange, segmented
1/2 ripe avocado
handful of cilantro leaves, washed and chopped

Dressing
2 T EVOO
1 T champagne vinegar
1 tsp agave nectar
salt & pepper to taste

Arrange salad ingredients on a bowl or plate. Mix dressing and pour over salad, gently tossing to coat. Juice from the orange will help keep the avocado from browning. (To make this salad a full meal, double the quantities and add toasted sliced almonds and thinly sliced red onions.)

Favorite Cookbooks: Jamie at Home

2010-01-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

It's been more than a year and I'm still working through this inspirational collection of seasonal recipes. Frankly, I'm appalled it's taking me so long when everything I make turns out lovely.

Jamie Oliver, my cooking icon, uses veggies as the centerpiece in the majority of the recipes grouped here and every passthrough I find something droolworthy. One of my favorite recipes, the Asparagus and Potato Tart, has made numerous dinner appearances, despite the pitfalls of creating a filo crust. Grrr, filo. Although many recipes have meat in them, it's usually either something that's simple to leave out or something I'm inspired to make with a meat substitute. The Italian Ham and Spinach Tart, for example, I'll be making this week and leaving the ham off. Easy peasy.

All the recipes I've tried have been successes. Many have earned repeated rounds on the menu, like Sweet Pear and Apple Salad with Endive, Superb Squash Soup, Creamy Asparagus Soup, Fresh Tagliatelle with Sprouting Broccoli and Oozy Cheese Sauce, Rhubarb and Sticky Ginger Crumble, Mothership Tomato Salad and more. Top two recipes on my 'to make' list: Baked Cauliflower & Broccoli Cannelloni, Incredible Smashed Peas & Fava Beans on Toast. Note to self: plant fava beans.

I admit, I'm a sucker for Oliver's excitement over good-quality, fresh produce. Why shouldn't I be? He's absolutely right. Jamie's abstract directions (a 'good handful of parsley') may worry a more methodical cook, but I find them an opening, a verbal head-nod to improvisation and creativity. I find Oliver's recipes and his hands-on approach to home cookery continually inspiring, making this book one of the first I reach for in a pinch.

Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life
Jamie Oliver
Hardcover, Hyperion, 09/2008

Cranberry-Orange Scones

2010-01-01T08:51:00.001-08:00

If 2008 was the year of the muffin and 2009 was the year of the scone, why am I already baking a batch of scones in 2010? Shouldn't I be moving on now? To cookies, perhaps, or cupcakes or brownies or croissants. There are too many bakeable lovelies, really, for me to remain so enamored with scones. Except that they're easy to pull off. Give me twenty minutes and a pint of cream, I'll be sliding a batch into the oven only to stare lovingly at them through the glass until they reach an appropriate shade of toastiness. Then, I'll eat one straight up, searingly hot and soft, which gives me the strength to wait until the remainder of the batch cools. Add a fat cloud of gently sloped frosting and then the rest of them may not last the day. Honestly, I'm not sure I can move on from the scones. Especially when I just keep getting better at making them. They may be my signature baked good, so take note: you'll be seeing plenty of scones again this year.

Cranberry-Orange Scones
Makes 18 medium-size scones

Scones
3 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup sugar
5 tsp baking powder
scant 1/2 tsp salt
zest of an orange
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold
1/2 cup dried cranberries (sweetened or plain, your choice)
3/4 cup whipping cream
1 egg, lightly beaten

Frosting
3 T butter, softened or melted
3 cups powdered sugar
1 T maple syrup
juice of an orange

Turn the oven to 350º and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with nonstick spray.

Use a food processor to whirl the flour, salt, baking powder, orange zest and sugar together to mix. Add the butter, cutting it into tablespoons and pulsing until the mixture is crumbly like thick, wet sand. (You can cut the butter in by hand too.) Add the cranberries and pulse until spread throughout — this chops a few of them up which spreads them throughout the batter. Place the mixture into a large bowl and form a hole in the center. Pour the cream and egg into the hole and use a fork to stir them together, gently pulling the sandy flour into the center until everything is barely mixed. The dough should hold together when pinched.*

Shape the dough into three balls about the size of your two hands cupped together. Do this as gently and quickly as possible. Against a floured countertop, press the balls into flat rounds, one at a time, until one inch thick. Use a knife or bench scraper to cut each round into six wedges. Place the wedges on the baking sheet, at least an inch apart, and continue with the next ball. When all the scones are shaped, bake for 20 minutes then check for doneness. They may need another 5 minutes. They should be puffed to double their size and brown at the edges.

While the scones cool, whisk the frosting ingredients together, adding only enough orange juice to make the frosting fluffy and spreadable, not too loose to hold its shape. Frost when the scones are completely cooled and let set to dry or eat immediately. If you'd rather not frost your scones, simply brush the cut wedges with more cream and sprinkle with sugar before baking.

* Note: If you live in a dry climate, you may need to add more cream to get the dough to hold together. Don't be afraid to do so. Add one tablespoon at a time until the dough sticks together, then proceed.

The 'To Make' List 2009/2010 Flagged recipes from cookbooks, friends, blogs and more

2009-12-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

Sweet Baking & Desserts
~~Banana-Macadamia Pancakes, Cook (32)~~ 1/16
Crumb Buns, GCC (168)
Lemon Cake, SK (10/09)
~~Roasted Pecan Cake with Caramel Orange Marmalade & Burnt Orange Buttercream, SMBB (107)~~ 1/10
Tarte au Fromage, SSL (75)
Pumpkin Cake with Pecan Streusel, SSL (284)
Rustic Cinnamon Walnut Horns, GCC (178)
Fresh Fruit & Bavarian Cream Tart, TART (62)
Lemon Bars on Brown Butter Shortbread, TART (149)
Sbrisolona, VEN (195)
~~Apple Cider Doughnuts, SmittenKitchen~~ 11/09
Orange Cream Cheese Muffins, GCC (106)
Croissants, TART (21)
Pumpkin Bread, MS (49)
Pear-Banana-Hazelnut Crumble, ORG (12/04)
Maple Syrup Scones, 101 Cookbooks (03/09)
Bourbon Peach Hand Pies, SK (08/08)
Peanut Butter Banana Bread, DD (11/08)

Savory Baking
Wild Mushroom Tart, TART (187)
Country Feta Pies, LBB (66)
Layered Focaccia with Cheese & Arugula, HD (238)
Gougeres, TART (183)
Tomato, Garlic & Fontina Tarts, MS (268)
Mushroom-Onion Scones, LBB (182)
~~Quiche Lorraine, Smitten Kitchen~~ 11/09
Pissaladiere on Brioche, TART (189)
Potato & Onion Tarte Tatin, MS (268)
Blue Cheese-Walnut Gougeres, MS (366)
~~Parmesan Cheese Scones, LBB (184)~~ 10/09

Breads
Quick Whole Wheat & Molasses Bread, HOW (689)
Parker House Rolls, MS (318)
Rewena Paraoa (Maori Potato Bread), GB (32)
Egg Bagels, BEB (10/09)

Soups & Salads
Avocado & Citrus Salad with Green Olives, SSL (364)
Black Bean Soup, MR (23)
Asparagus Soup with Parmesan, COOK (96)
~~Squash Soup with Parmesan Croutons, JH (361)~~ 10/09
Tangy Autumn Salad: Cherries/Walnuts/Stilton, HPS (23)
Endive Salad: Lemon/Fava/Olives, SSL (37)
Warm Wild Mushroom Salad: Herbs/Pecorino/Hazelnuts, SSL (255)

Appetizers, Sides & Mains
Spicy Fava Bean Fritters with Lemon Yogurt, JH (163)
Chipotle Mashed Potatoes, COOK (104)
Skillet Browned Broccoli & Cauliflower, HPS (129)
Baked Jerusalem Artichokes with Thyme & Lemon, NC (208)
Snap Peas in Lemon Butter, MR (90)
Goat Cheese & Chive Souffle, EB (304)
Potato-Tomato Gratin, SSL (221)
Sweet Potato & Cream Cheese Gratin, HOW (384)
Crisp-Fried Noodle Cake, HOW (469)
Tortellini of Ricotta/Lemon/Parmesan/Sage, NC (120)
Mint Asparagus Ravioli with Potatoes/Mascarpone, NC (114)
Kabocha Squash Risotto, HPS (114)
Italian Spinach Tart, JH (347)
Cauliflower & Broccoli Cannelloni, JH (25)
Braised Tofu with Eggplant & Shiitakes, HOW (650)
New Potato & Pesto Pizza, COOK (60)
Rava Dosas with Potato Chikpea Masala, Gourmet (09/09)
~~Lebanese-Style Stuffed Eggplant, SK 10/09~~ 12/13

Abbreviation Key
COOK = Cook 1.0
EB = Essentials of Baking
GB = Global Baker
GCC = Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins and More
HB = Heaven's Banquet
HD = Happy Days with the Naked Chef
HOW = How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
HPS = Homegrown: Pure & Simple
JH = Jamie at Home
LBB = La Brea Bakery
MR = Moosewood Restaurant
MRCH = Moosewood Restaurant: Cooking for Health
MS = Martha Stewart Baking Handbook
NC = The Naked Chef Takes Off
SMBB = Sweet Melissa Baking Book
SSL = Sunday Suppers at Lucques
TART = Tartine
VEN = Venezia
101 = 101 Cookbooks, www.101cookbooks.com
BEB = Brown Eyed Baker, www.browneyedbaker.com
DD = Delicious:Days, www.deliciousdays.com
ORG = Orangette, www.orangette.blogspot.com
SK = Smitten Kitchen, http://smittenkitchen.com

Black Bean Soup Nachos with Eggs

2009-12-30T14:21:00.000-08:00

A nice plate of creative nachos never hurt anyone.

Give me a minute now to explain the weirdness. Deep breath. When my family comes to stay, I buy way, way, wah-hay too much food. It stems from the looks my mother gives me when she sees space in my refrigerator, like we might starve. And, yes, I overreact to this, despite years of visits and their aftermath, despite knowing we'll shop at some point for even more food, despite knowing we'll assemble a dinner or two from things that now exist in the cupboard and will afterwards need to be puzzled into the refrigerator. I stuff the appliance to the gills just to avoid that look. It needles me.

This holiday visit, due partly to the abundance of Christmas dinner leftovers and also to the storm that moved in, we skipped several planned meals together. Meals I had shopped for. At Costco, no less. Uh-oh. For a while, it worked out swell. George and I got stuck here too, and ate at the crowd-sized portion of veggie stroganoff that barely fit into a 9x13" casserole. Took a week to polish that off. Midway through, I started the black bean soup, which I adore and George hates. I puree it lightly, keeping it a bit on the chunky side, and then swirl some brilliant green cilantro-lime creme across the top for serving. Doesn't matter what I do to the stuff, George dislikes it. He'll eat it only once. And here I'd made a group portion, crockpot style. So I got creative yesterday, spurred by the desperate knowledge that if I didn't, I would be eating this for two more weeks. The result: eggs poached in leftover soup served nacho style over crushed (nearly stale) chips, made more appealing with cheese and cilantro-spiked sour cream. It was actually delicious. Really. Thick and filling and warm and George really liked it. Ha. Fooled him.

Black Bean Soup Nachos with Eggs
Serves 2

3-4 cups leftover black bean soup
4 eggs
2-3 large handfuls of almost stale chips (you can use fresh, but this is a perfect use for slightly stale leftovers)
1/4 cup grated cheddar
salsa
sour cream
cilantro
lime, optional

Eggs bubbling in a pot of soup? Who knew it would taste so good.

In a wide bottomed pan with a lid, reheat the soup over medium heat. When the soup starts to bubble, add in the eggs, one per quadrant, if you imagine your pan is divided into quarters. Place the lid over the top and let simmer for 5-7 minutes, depending on how well set you like your eggs. In the meantime, crush a handful or so of chips onto each plate, grate your cheddar, and get out your condiments. If you want to make cilantro creme, wash a fat handful of cilantro and whir it in a blender with 1/4 cup of sour cream and a squeeze of lime juice. Easy. Otherwise, just get everything out of the fridge and set it aside.

It doesn't look overly appetizing here, but wait for it...

When the eggs are set, use a spatula to arrange two of them on each stack of chips, then split the remaining soup by pouring it over the plates. Top with grated cheese, sour cream (or cilantro creme), salsa and another handful of chips, if desired. Eat and be amazed that you didn't think of making this before. Make a mental note that you will immediately forget. Move on.

Not bad looking, right?

What's left in the refrigerator, you might be wondering? Well, I was able to freeze a good portion of my stockpile, cheeses and tortillas mostly. Only one head of lettuce remains, and a pile of cauliflower/broccoli/eggplant/mushrooms that I'm roasting as I write this, hoping to toss it into last-minute salads. We're on the last dozen of eggs, thank goodness for holiday baking! To use the milk, we're having biscuits and gravy tonight. Maybe I'll post that later on. Mmmm, biscuits. Happy new year!

What we've been eating

2009-12-27T08:51:00.000-08:00

These cinnamon rolls were an instant family fave...

Unfortunately, I have been following others' recipes most of this month. December doesn't bring out the most creativity in me. In part because I am responsible for feeding family members who, unlike George, tend to complain loudly if they don't like something. Takes away one's daring nature. So, aside from a few new cookie recipes I tried, I stuck mainly to tried and true menu items: mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes a la Rosette, mom's lefse, stuffing (can't go wrong with this no matter what), veggie meatballs, etc. I crammed handfuls of stuffing into chicken breasts to pacify the meat eaters and otherwise purchased cold cuts to keep complaints to a minimum. End of my holiday food worries. Begin handing out warmed plates of steaming leftovers with mugs of hot chocolate, apple tea and cider.

My inspired leftover squash and fennel spaghetti dish. Yum.

Leftovers, on the other hand, were a weird mix. I made this broken spaghetti bowl by mixing roasted squash and fennel chunks with vinaigrette and leftover pasta, garnished with parsley. No complaints here, though it seems too complicated to set up as a routine recipe.

Probably the standout treat we ate this year was the cinnamon rolls from The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond, which makes about 50 rolls. I started the dough in advance and froze them in pie tins of 8, thawing them one or two at a time as needed for breakfasts. They're pill0w-soft and delicious. I added orange zest to the recipe (because I like a hint of citrus to cut the butter) and then glazed half with the coffee icing she makes and half with a simple vanilla version (my parents and one sister are anti-coffee). I'm hesitant to write out the book's recipe, since I can't find it previously posted online and don't wish to be the first to steal it. Instead, I'm repeating her post here, with a direct link to the original, because Ree's step-by-step also has a gorgeous photo alongside it. Very easy to follow. I'm telling you, this may make a whole lot of rolls, but you WILL eat them. Or give them away so that you won't. Either way, you won't be sorry.

Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients

1 quart Whole Milk
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Sugar
2 packages Active Dry Yeast
8 cups (Plus 1 Cup Extra, Separated) All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon (heaping) Baking Powder
1 teaspoon (scant) Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon (heaping) Salt
Plenty Of Melted Butter
2 cups Sugar
Generous Sprinkling Of Cinnamon

To the filling, VTD adds: zest of two oranges

MAPLE FROSTING:

1 bag Powdered Sugar
2 teaspoons Maple Flavoring
½ cups Milk
¼ cups Melted Butter
¼ cups Brewed Coffee
⅛ teaspoons Salt

This recipe makes about 50 cinnamon rolls. Or six lovely pie plates worth for all of your visiting relations. For preparation instructions with step-by-step photos, visit this Pioneer Woman Cooks original post from June 1, 2007.

Second-Wind Hazelnut Bites

2009-12-09T08:10:00.000-08:00

Tiny bursts of energy (for what's wrong with my fingernails, see note)

I've been reading and reviewing cookbooks at a somewhat alarming pace. In order to give solid recommendations, I try to follow at least one recipe before delivering my verdict on someone's years of hard work. While I've never really been curious about raw food, Stephanie Tourles book about raw snacks hit a different note. Suppose it's possible to reap the benefits of eating raw by simply incorporating it into my snacking regimen, why, I'd have to reconsider my view. The recipes sound surprisingly delicious, particularly the energy bar and snack section. I flagged a number of pages, perused my local bulk store and came home with ingredients to test several raw snacks. Let's pretend I started with the PMS-preventative ones at random.

To my surprise, these Second-Wind Hazelnut Bars are extra sweet and chewy with just the right amount of texture. If this is how raw foods go down, count me in.

The recipe makes 24 small snack bites.

Second-Wind Hazelnut Bites
Recipe by Stephanie Tourles (as printed in Raw Energy)
Makes 24 small bites

1/2 cup raw hazelnuts
1/2 cup raw, hulled sunflower seeds
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut, finely shredded
1/4 cup raw honey
1/4 cup raw sesame tahini

Grind the hazelnuts and sunflower seeds into a medium-fine meal in a nut and seed grinder. [I used the food processor.]
Transfer the nut mixture to a medium bowl and stir in coconut, honey and tahini. Use your hands to blend the ingredients well and mash them into a small, cohesive dough ball.
Pinch off small pieces of dough and roll them into bite-size balls about 1 inch in diameter.
For the best flavor and consistenty, allow the balls to set for 24 hours before eating. Store the balls in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator and consume within 2 or 3 weeks. They may be individually wrapped, using waxed paper or plastic wrap, and taken with you to enjoy as portable energy bites.

Close-up of the final product, which resembles raw oatmeal cookie dough.

Stephanie Tourles is the author of Raw Energy: 124 Raw Food Recipes for Energy Bars, Smoothies, and Other Snacks to Supercharge Your Body, due out this month from Storey Publishing.

Orange and Oat Scones, Take 1

2009-12-08T11:05:00.000-08:00

The crumbly little boogers.

My weakness for scones parlayed into an early test run of this recipe, which I'd originally scheduled to coincide with visiting holiday guests. Thankfully my greed got the best of me, as these did not turn out. I mean, yes, they tasted good. So in a sense they're fine. But in the super fluffy, light scone sense, the baking sheet of crumbs I pulled from the oven was not really fine at all. Unexpected. The recipe, printed in My Nepenthe by Romney Steele, has garnered a bit of food blogger attention.

This relative failure has me convinced the weather is ruining my scones. You'd think the cooler temperatures would be condusive to the already-rushed process of mixing chilled ingredients, yet it seems to keep the butter so cool that the mixture never gels. Unless I knead it, which isn't recommended. So, for now, I've got my eye on this Heidi Swanson adaptation, hoping the buttermilk substitution will resurrect the dough into unified, solid scones.

Tomato-Onion Jam

2009-12-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

Layered on olive foccacia bread, yellow tomato, fresh mozzarella
and tomato-onion jam stand ready to go on the panini grill.

There's no good way to photograph this and I'll tell you why. First, I used up my slowly-ripening garden tomatoes that have been sitting on a sheet tray in the dining room for two months. They're more mottled than any single color, though they still taste delicious, and they made the jam a precarious shade of purple I hadn't hoped to see. Second, caramelized onions look terribly inedible to me, brown and transcluent, like ghosts of themselves. Between the description and subsequent hue of my jam, you probably don't even want to make this anymore. Which is why you should ignore me completely and make it. Throw caution to the wind. Just know that you'll end up with a rich, complex, flavorful condiment that moistens a sandwich nicely while managing to be outright good for you. That's right, no mayo needed. Now are you with me?

Tomato-Onion Jam
Makes about a cup

1 tsp olive oil
1 large yellow or white onion, peeled and diced
4 large tomatoes, any kind or color, cored and diced
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp sugar
salt & pepper to taste

In a heavy-bottomed pot, warm the oil over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add the onion and toss to coat with oil, then cook with the lid over top for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions go brown and transclucent. Add the tomato, vinegar, sugar and a pinch of salt and cook, lid on, for another 10 minutes. The tomatoes should cook down quite a bit, making a sauce in the bottom of the pan, but still retain some of their shape. Turn the heat off and taste, seasoning with more salt and pepper as needed. Use on a sandwich now or let cool and store.

Keep the jam in the refrigerator as you would a fruit jam. It goes well on sandwiches with vegetables like eggplant and mushrooms and nearly any kind of melting cheese.

Olive Foccacia

2009-12-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

Chunks of fresh foccacia in a glass cookie jar, ready for Thanksgiving dinner.

I must say, I do love bread. Especially multi-textured bits that can be used for sandwiches as well as eaten with dinner. Foccacia is one of my favorite bread children. Plain, it has so few ingredients you can assemble it quickly and bake it up immediately. Flavored, it turns into an entirely different bread without much extra effort. I start the flavored recipe at night, whipping everything together and kneading, then shoving the bowl in the refrigerator overnight to let the flavors blend. Come morning, I flip it out into an oiled baking sheet and let it rise for a few hours, then 25 minutes of baking and it's done. The problem is that though the recipe is pretty hands-off, I can't stay away from it. Something about the way it burbles up in the pan, spreads itself out, it all begs to be touched. I'm already proud of it, the brainlike, wrinkled dough. I have this idea that it will one day be president.

Olive Foccacia
Makes one baking sheet-sized bread

5 tsp active dry yeast
1 + 3/4 cups warm water
1 tsp sugar or honey
1/2 cup EVOO
5 cups flour
2 tsp sea salt
1 cup kalamata olives, drained thoroughly
zest of one lemon
2 tsp dried oregano
coarse salt for sprinkling, about a teaspoon

1/4 cup EVOO for pan

In a cereal bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water and sugar. Let sit 5-10 minutes, until the mixture is bubbly and you can't see granules of yeast. While the yeast does its thing, zest the lemon and drain the olives into another small bowl and add the oregano. Mix together and let sit to combine flavors.

Measure the flour and sea salt into a large bowl. Add the oil to the yeast mixture, then pour over into the flour and salt, using a wooden spoon to make a shaggy, soft dough. Scrape the dough out onto a floured surface and knead, about 5-7 minutes, until the dough comes together smoothly without sticking, adding up to another 1/2 cup of flour in the process. Flatten the dough as best you can on the counter, then pour the bowl of olives and seasonings over it. Knead it in gently, poking olives back inside as they fall out. It will look a mess, but somehow it works out okay. Oil a large bowl and place the dough inside, covering with saran wrap. There should be plenty of room for the dough to rise. Place the dough in the refrigerator and let rise overnight.

Two hours before baking (in winter; for summer, it will take less time to warm), remove the dough from the refrigerator. Add the 1/4 cup EVOO to a rimmed baking sheet, using your fingers to spread it evenly around and coat the corners well. Place the dough on the sheet, spreading and flattening it as much as possible. Don't worry if it doesn't reach the corners yet, it will relax more as it warms up. Let the dough soften for an hour, then spread and flatten again, working until the dough reaches the edges and corners of the pan. Let rest and rise for 30 minutes to an hour.

The dimpled dough, ready for the oven.

Preheat the oven to 450º. Poke the dough with your fingers, making divots and dimples on the surface. Sprinkle it with the salt, if using, and more oregano, if you like. Bake 20-30 minutes until golden brown. Remove from pan and try to stop yourself from tearing into it with your bare hands. Or don't stop yourself.

To freeze, and foccacia freezes beautifully, cool on a wire rack completely. Slice bread into sandwich-sized rectangles or dinner-sized squares and wrap in aluminum foil. Reheat in the oven, inside the foil, for 10-15 minutes at 375º. If using a panini grill for sandwiches, let the bread come to room temperature and then stuff and grill it. The oils will pop out of the crust without any additional fat and give it a nice crisp texture.

Lately...

2009-12-04T07:34:00.001-08:00

These soft pretzels only took about 20 minutes to put together.

What I've made for dinners and treats and breakfasts lately has been, uniformly, just okay. That's it. It's really been one of those months. I didn't make a shopping list, even, which is a rare misstep for someone as plan-happy as I am. Even Thanksgiving was a last-minute endeavor, and I ran to the store at 8:50 pm Wednesday to grab stuffing.

Spicy Pumpkin Soup from Terry Walters' Clean Food was so terrible, I even tossed the leftovers! I'm pretty sure that's how it was supposed to taste.

Soft Pretzels from The Amish Cook's Baking Book weren't very soft. I mean, compared to the hard ones they were, but. . . I am going to tweak this recipe and remake. I'm in the mood for soft pretzels, dammit.

Look how orange my pumpkin cheesecake is. Beautiful.

Pumpkin Cheesecake, my own recipe. This actually turned out fine the day after, when it sat overnight in the fridge and the cheese stood up and developed more flavor. I wanted it to have much more pumpkin than all the recipes I could find, so I added the big can. Turns out I should have made it two days in advance, because it kept getting better and better as it sat.

At least the Chocolate-Cream Cheese Pudding Pie tasted okay. I used devil's food pudding flavor and added more items to it: cream cheese, cocoa powder, espresso granules, more. I'd never seen devil's food pudding before, but it has a reddish tint that doesn't go away. In fact, when exposed to air, the pudding turns a regular brown, so the top is deceiving, then you cut in and it's reddish in a blood-tinged way that made me uncomfortable.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with quick alfredo sauce turned out completely gloppy. Cooked from the freezer, the gnocchi tend to be slightly more dense, but I was too lazy to make a better sauce and this is what I get. Eh.

Looks good, just overpoweringly ginger-y.

Ginger-pear butter was decent for a first attempt, I'll generously say. Too much ginger for me. I could barely taste the pear and cinnamon.

Salmon chowder. George really liked it, but I'll never make it again. (Yes, yes, I know, it's not even veg.) Something about the smell of poaching the salmon in the soup grossed me out. The garlic crostini were good, though.

Sourdough bread baked into dense, terrible rocks. George eats this. I think because he's forgotten how it's supposed to taste. My sourdough has never once turned out since I moved to Kansas. I'm furious about it.

Leftover Broccoli Soup seems like but is not a good idea and also smells like leftover broccoli start to finish, unless you, like me, can't actually finish it.

(In case you're worried by now that George died of starvation during this week of mishaps, fear not. On Friday I talked him through a large pot of beef chili, mostly so I wouldn't have to make it myself. He ate that whenever circumstances looked grim. When it was gone, he wondered aloud to me when he might be able to make some more. Sigh.)

And then, starting on Wednesday, things began to look up. For instance, I made the Best Sugar Cookies recipe from The Amish Cook's Baking Book (mustering my reserves of hope) and they turned out delicious, crisp and fine-textured, really perfect. Then, startled and encouraged by my success, I moved on to experiment with my usual oatmeal-molasses bread recipe, adding more oats, stone-ground whole wheat flour and honey. It worked beautifully, nicely crumbed and hearty with a soft center. I made half of Gourmet's reprinted recipe for Smoky Chipotle Grits and ate far more than is healthy or appropriate, just for the sheer deliciousness of them in my mouth. Can't even remember what else I served them with. Last night, I scooped baked giant white beans with onion, tomato, chipotle and garlic that had simmered all day in their broth into a baking dish and crumbled feta and butter-cut bread crumbs over the top. They baked into a delectable, meaty mix of full-flavored beans and crunchy topping. Hungry from the previous night, I again ate far too many.

So now I'm hoping, in almost a painful way, that this week might prove more edible. I've even got a shopping list at the ready.

Homemade Yogurt (without a machine!)

2009-11-25T06:39:00.000-08:00

Fresh from the fridge, the yogurt is thick and creamy in its tall Mason jar.

Recently, I read the The Home Creamery by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley for a pending book review. I'm enamored with cheese (as I've never tried to keep secret here) and naturally the idea of reading this particular book for work was a double-edged sword I decided to fall on. Happily. Call it sacrifice if you must, but ever since I raged through the two-step recipes for Creme Fraiche and Sour Cream, I've been completely sold on the concept of making dairy products myself. Of course, I don't have access to raw milks. Maybe I could have access, there's definite potential. But the one contact I have in that regard told me to drive down the road in my car with clear milk jars and ask the farmer on route 16 to fill them for me. No names, no addresses. I'm not confidant pursuing that lead and nervous that he knows I haven't followed up.

So my new policy is to buy milk from Whole Foods, where this new dairy is bringing it in fresh. If it can't be raw, at least it can be local and organic and bottled in heavy-duty glass with an adorable cow logo on the side. Or so I feel.

Yesterday, feeling all empowered by my bottles of new milk clinking together in the fridge, I embarked on the yogurt recipe. I'd wanted to try it for weeks, but, honestly, was afraid of the incubation period. See, if you have a yogurt maker, the electronic part holds the yogurt's temperature steady while the curd (that solid shape yogurt has to it) forms. Without the machine, the book offered several viable methods for curing your yogurt. I just hate wasting anything and so I was afraid to try it. But the success of my second sour cream batch buoyed me immensely, and I took a deep breath and dove in.

There's only three steps: Heat the milk. Add the yogurt starter (just a bit of store-bought yogurt with live cultures). Incubate for 6-12 hours. Last night my alarm went off at 10:30 p.m. and I padded downstairs to the mini cooler where I'd wrapped up my Mason jar of yogurt with a towel and sat it inside with two smaller jars of boiling water. Success. Again. The yogurt was thick and smooth, extra creamy. It had a slightly sweeter taste than the plain yogurt I've purchased in the store, and the texture was fluffy yogurt heaven.

Do not be afraid to try making your own yogurt. I've included extra verbiage here simply because I am wasteful that way. It is painfully easy.

I especially like it with a spoonful of homemade jam stirred in.
This one was homemade, just not by me.

Homemade Yogurt
Makes 4 cups

4 cups milk, whole or skim, your choice
1/4 cup plain yogurt with live cultures (read the label!)

Equipment:
Stove & heavy-bottomed saucepan
Food-safe thermometer
Cooler (small works best, but a large one will do)
Quart-sized Mason jar with screwtop and lid
Kitchen towel or hand towel
Two pint-sized Mason jars with screwtops and lids
Timer or alarm clock

To start, pour the milk into a the heavy-bottomed saucepan on the stove and heat to 185º. This will take 10-20 minutes, depending on your stove (gas=faster!). Once the milk has been heated to 185º, take the pan off the burner and let it cool slightly to between 115º and 105º. While it's cooling, about 10 minutes, get your makeshift incubator ready.

Boil water and fill the two pint-sized Mason jars. Screw on the tops and place them on either side of the cooler, leaving space in the center. The idea is to keep the yogurt at a consistent temperature of about 110º for 10-12 hours. The heat allows the curds to develop and form a thick, smooth yogurt. The longer it sits at that temperature, the thicker and tangier it gets. So once you try making it and know how it works, you can experiment with the process.

Now that your milk has cooled, stir in the 1/4 cup yogurt and ladle the whole pan of hot milk into the quart Mason jar, placing the lid on tightly. Wrap the towel around the jar and place in the center of the cooler. Firmly replace the cooler's lid and your yogurt is already starting to form. Set a timer or alarm clock for 10-12 hours from now. Check your yogurt. The top should look like the top photo here. When you dig into the yogurt, it will be soft and smooth. Refrigerate and eat, reserving 1/4 cup of this yogurt to start your next batch.

Garam Masala Veggie Pockets

2009-11-21T10:04:00.000-08:00

My overstuffed pockets leaked a bit during baking. Still tasted great.

Adapted a bit from Heidi Swanson's first book, Cook 1.0, these little puff pastry pockets were a great addition to the tandoori grilled tofu and a giant salad dinner. I changed them only a little by stuffing more veggies inside, leading to a few blowouts, so not as pretty a product. But overall it made me feel better about eating loads of puff pastry, since George didn't like them and they were mine to finish up. All eight of them.

My filling of spiced onions, chickpeas, tomatos and eggplant.

Garam Masala Veggie Pockets
Serves 4 as a side dish

1 small onion (I used red)
1 T butter
2 large tomatoes, diced (I used yellow, which made my pictures very brown indeed)
1 cup cooked eggplant, diced, optional (I already had it on hand)
1 cup cooked chickpeas
1 T garam masala
pinch of salt
1 sheet of puff pastry dough, thawed at room temperature for 30 minutes
1 egg white, whisked

Quickly saute a small onion in the butter over medium-high heat, just until you start to get some good color on it and it's cooked through. Add the tomatoes, eggplant pieces and garam masala. Let cook only to heat through, then pour mixture into a separate bowl and chickpeas.

You can see where I'd already eaten this guy's neighbor. Messy but delicious.

Roll the puff pastry out a bit to thin it, and then cut into 9 pieces. Scoop two tablespoons of filling into the center of each square, pinched the edges together all the way around until you have a fat triangle. Place on parchment paper on a baking sheet and use a fork to crimp the edges. Brush with egg white and bake at 400º for about 20 minutes, until golden brown. Give 'em a few minutes to cool before biting in — that steam is hot!

Jam Coffee Cake is genius!

2009-11-13T13:44:00.000-08:00

Wanna use up the dregs of two or three remaining jam jars, currently hogging valuable refrigerator space? Do I hear you screaming in the affirmative? Oh yes, this is the easiest way to do it. First, make your favorite coffee cake recipe (I prefer the easy peasy Martha Stewart one in her baking book). Second, swirl in the jams at intervals — make it pretty! I used blueberry, strawberry and pear jams to make mine. Third, bake it. Fourth, eat it yourself and cut up squares to send with your husband to his office on Friday morning (or Monday, either way they'll love you).

Seriously, this was delicious and easy AND I have more shelf space now, which is a pre-holiday imperative!

Oh so pretty!

Apple Cider Donuts

2009-11-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, okay, so I knew these wouldn't be a good idea when I saw the post on Smitten Kitchen. But I've never made donuts, so. . . yeah, I had to go there. Plus it is cider season and I had some good stuff.

Day one, I had some time to stand over the stove while cooking something else for dinner, so I reduced my cider then and let it sit in the fridge overnight. That was easy because everything was ready to go at 7 p.m. yesterday when I decided not to wait any longer. Actually, donuts are no trouble at all to put together. It's the frying part that went terribly wrong. I do not have a candy thermometer to take the oil's temperature and, apparently, I also didn't have enough vegetable oil in the house to make the pan 3" deep with it. I've been meaning to go to Costco.

Oh well, I thought, pouring in what I had, scarcely 2" depth. Turns out that's not quite enough to let the donuts puff up on both sides at the same time, so the flat-top look they're sporting is quite on accident. My stovetop is also electric, one of those burner-less types where the heat fluctuates. I hate it. Yesterday I hated it the most. My first batch of donuts burned to a crisp in under 15 seconds. I turned to deep breathing for five minutes until the burner figured things out, then started again. My oil was always a combinations of things: too hot plus too shallow or too cool plus too shallow. Neither path leads to victory.

After an hour of frying, I had mostly greasy donuts and a few gloriously perfect ones. We ate the goods ones first and debated buying a deep fat fryer again. If you are brave enough to try these without a deep-fat fryer, make sure you have enough oil to fry them in. Seems like a key element.

The ones we didn't eat. Yet.

Apple Cider Doughnuts
Recipe very slightly adapted from the original on SmittenKitchen

Makes about 22 donuts + holes

1 cup apple cider
3 1/2 cups flour, plus additional for the work surface
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick or 2 ounces) butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
Vegetable oil for frying

Toppings (optional)
Glaze (1 cup confectioners’ sugar + 2 tablespoons apple cider)
Cinnamon sugar (1 cup granulated sugar + 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon)

Make the doughnuts: In a saucepan over medium or medium-low heat, gently reduce the apple cider to about 1/4 cup, 20 to 30 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer on medium speed (with the paddle attachment, if using a standing mixer) beat the butter and granulated sugar until the mixture is smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue to beat until the eggs are completely incorporated. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the reduced apple cider and the buttermilk, mixing just until combined. Add the flour mixture and continue to mix just until the dough comes together.

Line two baking sheets with parchment or wax paper and sprinkle them generously with flour. Turn the dough onto one of the sheets and sprinkle the top with flour. Flatten the dough with your hands until it is about 1/2 inch thick. Use more flour if the dough is still wet. Transfer the dough to the freezer until it is slightly hardened, about 20 minutes. Pull the dough out of the freezer. Using a 3-inch round cutter for the outer shape and a 1-inch round cutter for the hole to cut out doughnut shapes. Place the cut doughnuts and doughnut holes onto the second sheet pan. Refrigerate the doughnuts for 20 to 30 minutes. (You may re-roll the scraps of dough, refrigerate them briefly and cut additional doughnuts from the dough.)

Make your toppings (if using): While the cut doughnut shapes are in the refrigerator, make the glaze by whisking together the confectioners’ sugar and the cider until the mixture is smooth; make the cinnamon sugar by mixing the two together in a large paper bag. Set aside.

My donut shapes post-refrigeration. The second sheet turned out better.

Fry and top the doughnuts: Add enough oil to a deep-sided pan to measure a depth of about 3 inches. Attach a candy thermometer to the side of the pan and heat over medium heat until the oil reaches 350 degrees. Have ready a plate lined with several thicknesses of paper towels.

Carefully add 2-3 doughnuts to the oil, being careful not to crowd the pan, and fry until golden brown, about 60 seconds. Turn the doughnuts over and fry until the other side is golden, 30 to 60 seconds. Drain on paper towels for a minute after the doughnuts are fried. Dip the top of the warm doughnuts into the glaze or drop into the bag of cinnamon sugar mixture and shake lightly to coat. Eat immediately.

Essentials of a Dutch Baby

2009-10-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

Apples, sauteed in butter, start to relax at the bottom of my cast-iron pan.

Nothing inspires me more than a handful of shiny apples lying forlornly at the bottom of their formerly full bushel box. What to do, I wondered. I decided last week that I should highlight a few of the cookbooks I rely on regularly to bake or cook away the doldrums of a gloomy, midwestern fall once the leaves are all raked up. I found it easiest to combine the two projects: apples and cookbook.

The Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking book is one I opened on Christmas, wrapped in laughing santas with a note from my mother. I'd just begun to fling handfuls of flour recklessly about my Colorado kitchen, with mixed results. Altitude, I quickly learned, was not the friend of handwritten recipe cards from middle America. Initially my favorite thing about the cookbook was a handy chart in the introductory section that described your problem and told you what part of the recipe you screwed up. I rapidly grew more confidant. Later my favorite thing became that everything turned out perfectly, but that was after I figured out how to follow the yeasty (and sometimes lengthy) directions.

Pour the egg-y batter over the apples in pre-heated skillet.

The very first and simplest bread I started baking was an olive bread. It turned out golden and crusty outside with pillowy soft guts, dotted with olives aplenty. The walnut variation of this bread is one I make monthly even now, baking and freezing in smaller loaves sized for a two-person dinner. From there, the sourdough called to me, then baguettes, foccacia, oatmeal molasses, cinnamon rolls, all in quick turn. And, growing braver, I turned to pastries. Months after receiving it, I could whip up a batch of danish to make George's father proud. Then came the croissants, bagels, a plum and almond frangipane tart, pizza dough, angel food cake, eclairs, cheesecake. I'm so brave now that I've taken to writing in the margins, little notes about how things turned out or how to make them better.

Six years later this is still my most-used cookbook, though now I've handwritten some of my bread staples onto recipe cards to prolong the book's spine. It's given me the confidance to branch out into tricky, multi-paged recipes, to know when it'll be better to chill the dough even when another cookbook skips it, to read a recipe and sense when the measurements are off — like one Martha Stewart recipe that calls for two tablespoons of salt when it should be teaspoons. If you need just one baking guide to get started, I highly recommend Essentials of Baking.

This week I made the Apple Oven Pancake (called a Dutch baby when you do it in cast iron) and I wrote " halved recipe to bake in cast iron but doubled apples — sank right away, still good tho." It would've turned out fine if I hadn't adjusted the fruit content. Still, are there leftovers? No. Which, really, says it all.

Just before falling, my dutch baby billows nicely.

Olive & Sun-dried Tomato Fougasse with Baked White Beans

2009-10-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

Two cooling layers of finished fougasse. Yum.

I might as well admit it. I am always looking for bread recipes. I had to stop flagging interesting items in my last two baking books when I realized there were notes on every other page. Each recipe ran two pages long. And so, yes, maybe I do keep 12 pounds of butter in the refrigerator at all times. What of it? Everyone has their weakness, and mine is bakery. Period.

Another fault I have: I'm disloyal. Always looking for the greener green; swapping sides for the chewier crust, the flakiest crumb. I have another recipe for fougasse marked in my cookbook library (two, actually), but when I saw that Dorie's was loaded with olives and sun-dried tomatoes I forgot all about them.

Dorie Greenspan's recipe for Olive and Sun-dried Tomato Fougasse, printed in the November 2009 issue of Bon Appetit magazine, isn't difficult, just long. You'll have to wait overnight to test out your breads, which doesn't seem fair. But if you work from home, like I do, you'll find it's easy to run downstairs and peek at your breads throughout the day, perhaps even baking up half of the recipe over your lunch break. Unfairly, yes, but your hard work should be rewarded.

Not quite as prettily leaf-shaped as Greenspan's version, but it'll do.

The good news is that the bread bakes up fast — 20 minutes! — with a chewy crust and a puffy, light, tearable center. It was fabulous for dipping into the roasting juices from the pan of baked white beans I made (more on that below). I'm not as great at recreating the leaf shape, but, hey, it's my first attempt. This is a bread you'll quickly add to your dinner repertoire.

Pre-baking, the beans are mixed with loads of garden
fresh tomatoes, sauteed onions and fresh parsley.

Now for the beans. Every once in a while, usually once per season, George allows me to make beans for dinner. He permits their anytime use as an ingredient or side item, but serving them as the main course is mostly nixed. But these white beans, inspired by Heidi Swanson's Chipotle White Beans recipe were the beginning of something great for me. Namely, beans are a permissible main course. Me being me, I have not made either Heidi's or the original Food&Wine magazine recipe that inspired it exactly, but a weird hybrid of the ideas in both of them with things I like and have on hand. It was the weekend, so we let this sucker cook all day long. The flavors married well and the whole thing got thick and gooey, a perfect match for the bread.

Our beans featured giant dried limas that I soaked and cooked in water, flavored with garlic, bay, and a handful of fresh oregano. While they cooked, I chopped up eight tomatoes and sauteed an onion, then I mixed the two things, adding a bit of the bean cooking water to the baking dish. I also added basil salt, which I've sprinkled over everything since August. I baked them at 250º for two hours with a lid on the pan, then drained some of the liquid. I added a tablespoon of butter, dotted across the top, and then spooned over 4 tablespoons of homemade basil pesto frozen from my summer crop. Over this I grated 1/4 cup of parmesan, then I replaced the lid and let it all marry for another three hours, stirring it up a little every hour. When we were starting to starve, I took the beans out and turned the oven up to 450º to bake the bread. I cut 3 T of butter into 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs with a pinch of salt and another 1/4 cup of parmesan. I poured the crumb mixture over the top of the beans and let it crisp in the oven (no lid) for 20 minutes, until the bread was finished too.

Best meal I've had in a long time, which is great because it truly did take the whole day. I'm sure I could have put the beans into the crock pot and just finished them in the oven, but, heck, it's the weekend. Why dirty more dishes?

A Mess of Apple Coffee Cake Tatin

2009-10-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

The real problem was that I didn't have anything to snack on that went with my tea. See, I found this maple-y, lemony tea that's delicious any time of day, only sort of naked without a munchy counterpart. I should have stuck with cookies. But what did I have? Apples. Still. A glut of lovely, crunchy, farm-fresh apples. I thought of coffee cake. I thought of tatin. I thought of marrying the two in a gooey, soft, rich concoction that I could eat throughout the day without too, too much guilt. It was a fabulous idea that went wrong right at the end.

I arranged fat apple wedges, doused in lemon juice, cinnamon and brown sugar, into a parchment lined pie pan over 2 tablespoons of cut up butter pieces. Over that I spooned a thick, vanilla-flavored sour cream batter and then some walnuts, er. . . wait! Here's where things went wrong. In the freezer I had a small tupperware of what I thought was leftover muffin crumb topping — you know, flour, cinnamon, sugar and butter. I make a batch and then freeze the rest because it keeps forever. Unfortunately, this particular batch was unlabelled and I sprinkled it liberally everywhere, thinking the topping would add a nice crunch to the cake and it would be funny that the top was the bottom. Ha ha I'm so clever. Joke's on me. The 'topping' was actually almond croissant filling, a grind of thick almonds with almond flavoring and sugar. Much as I tried to scoop off the big chunks, it was too late. The heavy, frozen pieces sunk deep into the batter.

Oy vey. What to do. I baked it up until it got all golden and caramel at the edges, just as I expected it would. When flipped, the apples were deeply colored and cinnamon wafted through the kitchen. The whole thing looked amazing, but smelled a bit confusing. Almonds, vanilla, apples, cinnamon, it all sounds okay. George thought it was fine, good, even. So whether I was just upset over the mistake and exaggerating it, I swear I could still taste an odd cherry flavor in my apple mess. Deeply unsettling. When I get up the nerve, I'll try this one again. She has promise.

We'll try 'er again without the mixup, because, honestly, it still looked great.

Burn Notice, Food Network version

2009-10-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

Did I mention the panini press earlier? I'm not sure how it slipped through the cracks of my rambling commentary. Several months ago I had a gift certificate for Crate&Barrel, something I'd been hoarding since the holidays. Once I lured George and his wallet into the store, I ditched him for the kitchen tools. I've been weighing the pros and cons of another electrical kitchen appliance. It's been either a panini grill or a waffle iron in head-to-head combat inside my head. But when I saw this gorgeous, red Mario Batali panini press, I thought, "It's multipurpose AND saves me counter space." Add in a sale price alongside my gift card, and I only had to ask George two times if she could come home with me.

Which leads me to the downside: I cannot use this thing. I've followed all of the directions, I swear. I preheat every time for the appropriate amount of time. It's starting to get a nice luster of oily residue from my attempts at friendship. Yet. Yesterday when I started grilled cheese — crisp apples and aged white cheddar on a lovely beer bread I'd reserved for exactly this sandwich — I burned the shit out of everything. Repeatedly. Oh I should say I burned only one side of three different sandwiches, still had to flip them to make a mark on side B.

Evidence of my amateur operation.

What am I doing wrong? Help. Someone. Please.

Apple-Cinnamon Scones

2009-10-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

Maybe by now you're thinking: enough scones already! But maybe you, like me, can never have enough scones. Especially hot, cinnamon-y, fruity ones with a crusty sugar top. Well, I had company for the weekend, and that means I get to bake something yummy. (I use every excuse.) These scones need no butter or jam, just a cup of hot tea and a plate to catch your crumbs.

Apple-Cinnamon Scones
Makes 8

1/4 cup sugar
1 T baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
zest of one lemon (or 1/2 tsp dried zest)
6 T butter, cold

1 cup whipping cream + 1 T
1 cup diced apple (with or without peel, your choice)

Topping
3 T raw sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 425º and line a baking sheet with parchment. Mix the 3 T raw sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside. Wash and dry the apples, about 3 medium or 2 large, and cut into pieces. Slice thinly, no larger than 1/4" thick, and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and lemon zest. Cut the butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter or fork, working until the butter pieces are no larger than small pebbles. Pour in the cup of cream and use the pastry cutter to incorporate most of it, then add in the apples. Use your hands to gather the batter together, kneading it lightly until it comes together, about 6 times. Pat the dough onto the countertop in a circle, working until it's no more than 1" high and round. Use a knife to slice into eight pieces and transfer to the baking sheet, spaced evenly. Brush each scone with the extra tablespoon of cream. Sprinkle the scones generously with the raw sugar and cinnamon mix.

Bake 15 minutes, then turn the baking sheet around. Bake another 8-10 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi for Real

2009-10-21T09:25:00.001-07:00

Finally the promised Sweet Potato Gnocchi is delivered to our tabletop drenched in sage browned butter and topped with toasted pecans. Fresh from the freezer, the gnocchi minutes to cook and still ended up feather light as the recipe promised. I have to admit, I was relieved. After years of terrible, store-bought gnocchi, I'd finally worked up the nerve to make it myself just a few years ago. But nerve is only a small part of successful gnocchi, I found. The second, and perhaps more important part, is a great recipe.

Gourmet's Sweet Potato Gnocchi recipe is lovely, even in color. Let's not discuss how my shapes are never quite right or even alike in nature, as I've never claimed to be a professional that way. Instead, we'll focus on the concentrated, nutty flavors working together — browned butter and pecans! sweet potato and parmesan! — inside soft little pasta pillows the color of autumn oak leaves. One bite and I was hooked. The very best part of all is that I only used half of my frozen stash, meaning I'll reap a second meal from one evening's hard work!

Changes? Substitutions? Yes and yes. You'll notice I used pecans instead of chestnuts, but that's merely for availability. And, no, I didn't fry my sage leaves, just browned them in the butter. But my major change was using only sweet potatoes in this recipe, rather than adding a russet. I'm sure to have sacrified a bit of fluffiness, but the vibrant colors and flavor of pure sweet potato more than made up for it.

Poblanos with Eggs & Rice

2009-10-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

I happen to have planted poblano peppers this year. Not in the garden, but alongside the house, where the plant grew in fits and starts until, late in September, it finally bloomed a few tiny, shiny peppers. Fearing frost over the weekend, I picked them, each a handful, not quite two-thirds of the large poblanos I'd buy in the store. Still, they were cute and spicy, watering my eyes when I sliced into them, carving out the tops and chopping the extra bits to fry up with onions. I didn't have enough of them for a main dish, just six small ones, so I made a spicy tomato soup with toasted tortilla strips to go alongside.

The fixings: Fried pepper tops and a shallot in a teaspoon of oil.
Three eggs slowly scrambled with some milk in a fat nub of butter,
then seasoned with parsley, cumin, salt, pepper.

One cup of pre-cooked brown rice mixed into the eggs,
plus two ounces of aged white cheddar, cubed.
Scooped inside each pepper shell.

Another ounce of cubes cheese sprinkled over top,
then slowly baking at 300º for an hour under aluminum foil.
Removing the foil, taking another 15 minutes at 400º until gooey, golden.

A lovely weeknight dinner: eating toasty, spicy stuffed peppers alongside a warm tomato soup, everything garden fresh and delicious. Wishing there were more peppers. . . .

Sweet Potato Gnocchi (Teaser)

2009-10-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

Do you ever start making dinner far, far too late for it to be feasible that you'll be eating it that day? I do. This is what happened to me on Friday. Oh it all started out okay. My recipe, a torn page ripped from Gourmet's October issue, started out with roasting sweet potatoes. In a horrible twist of fate, the two fat potatoes I procured took more than 90 minutes to cook through, rather than the 45 minutes I was counting on. I was starved. Then my husband came home, starved. The potatoes were only halfway cooked and still needed to cool completely before I could work with them properly. We ordered Chinese.

Once my belly was full and the potatoes were finally cool, I proceeded with the recipe, adding parmesan, egg, flour, salt, nutmeg, and (my own twist) cardamom, pepper. Thirty minutes later, I now have a tub filled with frozen gnocchi awaiting another day's dinner. They smelled delicious, and I could just imagine them with browned butter, sage and toasted walnuts. I hope they taste good, whenever I get around to making them.

Curry Roasted Cauliflower

2009-10-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

We're headed for that part of the year when vegetables are wintery pale. Using what George calls my "fancy spices," I've decided to drum up some excitement in advance with this cauliflower recipe. My husband, George, is a cauliflower hater, also a curry hater. But there's something about golden brown, tiny, florets that makes this cauliflower seem a whole different vegetable. Honestly, it is still not his favorite, but I also don't have to goad George into eating large spoonfuls when I cook it this way. On the other hand, I have to remind myself not to consume the entire remaining portion — it's THAT good. Delicately spiced with yellow curry, smoked paprika, and cumin, this is a flexible side dish that will have you licking the pan clean.

Curry Roasted Cauliflower
Serves 4 as a side

1 head of cauliflower, washed and left to dry
2 T olive oil or vegetable oil
1-2 tsp yellow curry powder, use more if you like curry and spice (my husband doesn't)
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp smoked paprika, optional
generous sprinkle of salt & pepper

Heat your oven to 450º while your cauliflower air dries. Thinly slice the cauliflower heads, using up to 2" of the stems if you like, until the pieces are no more than 1" in diameter and about one-eighth to one-quarter inches thick. The tinier, the better. Those minute, crumbly pieces will be the best bits. Pour your florest onto a large rimmed baking sheet and add the oil and seasonings onto the tray. Use your hands to toss everything together and spread the cauliflower evenly in the pan. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the cauliflower and bake another 10 minutes. It's done when the floret edges go a caramelly, golden brown. Sprinkle the whole pan with salt and pepper, then toss one last time. Eat while it's hot!

You'll want the raw cauliflower florets to be tiny,
no more than 1" in diameter and 1/4" thick

Variations

Simple salt and pepper works well if your eaters like cauliflower already.
You can also roast the florets with salt and pepper only and then drizzle with browned butter and sprinkle with fresh sage leaves for an entirely divine treat.
For a mexican variation, use 1 tsp cumin + 1 tsp coriander with a dash of garlic or onion powder instead of the curry and paprika.
Leftover curried cauliflower mixes well with a hearty lentil soup.

Cheater Mushroom Soup

2009-10-15T07:20:00.001-07:00

It's not the prettiest girl in school, but when cool weather blows around I'm grateful for Cream of Mushroom Soup nonetheless. Especially my cheater variety, which couples freshly sauteed mushrooms and onions in a homemade broth with a can of the Campbell's true and tried variety. This makes the process much quicker, since I don't have to wait around for hours waiting for the soup to slowly thicken after I add the cream. It seems being cold and hungry scares off my patience. Anyway, if you like the richness of creamy soup with chunky, earthy, fresh mushrooms, you'll enjoy this recipe (and the fact that it comes together in under 30 minutes).

Cheater Mushroom Soup
Makes 2 big servings

2 tsp olive oil
1 T butter, cut into small pieces
6 oz baby bella or cremini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thinly
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
6 fresh sage leaves, minced
1/4 cup white wine
1 dried bay leaf
4 cups water + salt-free vegetable bouillion (or low-salt vegetable broth)
1 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup
salt and pepper to taste

In a wide-bottomed pan with a lid, let the olive oil and butter melt together over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute for 2 minutes, until it starts to go translucent. Add the mushrooms, a large handful at a time, stirring to coat with the oil-butter mix. Once a batch starts to color, move it around the pan and add another handful until all the mushrooms are in the pan. Toss the sage leaves in and add the white wine, stirring to clear the bottom of the pan. When the wine evaporates, add the water and your vegetable bouillion (or vegetable broth) plus the bay leaf. Turn the heat up to high and let the soup boil until reduced by a third, about 15 minutes. Fish out your bay leaf. Lower the heat, stir in the Campbell's and season to taste. Let bubble together on the stove 5 minutes to heat through. Ladle into bowls and serve. Best eaten with a buttered baguette for dipping.

Caramel Apple Bars

2009-10-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote "These Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars from Picky Palate are what I'm bringing to the football watching event this coming Sunday. Easy, yes, and filled with terrible-for-you ingredients that come together droolingly. I can't wait."

So I made them, excitedly, with a few modifications for a slightly healthier version (sorry!). Really, I just stretched the recipe to fill an 11x13" pan, rather than the 9" square one. While the base recipe is delicious, I think I'll modify it a bit more in the next iteration. I'd like to balance the sweetness next time around and want to try it with fresh apples, cinnamon and lemon juice. It would also be great with an oatmeal cookie crust rather than the granola bars smashed with cookie dough. If you refer to the original recipe Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars from Picky Palate and her beautiful pictures, I'll just tell you what I did differently. Fully informed, you can make whatever version strikes your fancy.

All of my ingredients, prepped and ready. I mixed a pinch of cinnamon into
the apple filling because it just felt like the right thing to do.

The baked crust, smeared with cream cheese and layered with apple
filling (the whole can), a smashed granola bar and chunks of the
remaining sugar cookie dough.

Mmm, all done baking.

After cooling a few hours, I drizzled the whole thing with 4 oz of caramels that
I melted in 2 T of milk. The whole thing was still extremely sweet.

Onion and Potato Tart

2009-10-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

The newly chilled air inspired me to make something warm with these farmers market potatoes. It uses nearly all I can buy fresh, vegetable-wise, at the markets these days: potatoes, fall herbs and onions. Plus I love any excuse to use Musser's Artisan Cheese in a dish. It melts beautifully and goes particularly well with potatoes, like a cheddar.

Onion and Potato Tart
Serves 4 as a main, 6 as a side

For the filling:
1 large red onion, peeled and sliced
6 medium red potatoes, washed and dried, peels on
10 large sage leaves
4 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 oz cheese, cut in a small dice (use cheddar or gruyere, anything bold-flavored that will melt)
2 oz cheese, thinly sliced (use cheddar or gruyere, anything bold-flavored that will melt)
salt and pepper

For the crust:
4 oz filo dough, about 10 sheets, thawed
3-4 T butter, melted

Slice the potatoes very thinly and set aside. Prep the cheese too,
so it's ready to go. Heat your oven to 400º.

Whisk the eggs with the milk, adding a pinch of
salt and pepper. Add your potatoes to this
mixture to keep them from browning.
Stir in the sage and the cubed cheese.

Spray or lightly oil a frying pan on medium heat.
Let the onions cook slowly, growing dark and
carmelly but not crisp. While they cook, make
the filo crust.

I have a lot of respect for filo, so I try to have everything
ready to go before I start this part. Butter a 9" square pan
very well, then unroll your filo to cover the bottom and sides.
Alternate draping the rectangle one way and then the
other to make the edge even, folding the sides back
down and buttering each paper-thin layer of filo before
adding another. Once you have about six solid layers of filo,
spread the cooked onions over the bottom. Pour the filling into
the pan, spreading potato slices by hand to even them out.
Drape the slices of cheese across the top and
drizzle with any remaining butter.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the center is puffed and the
top and sides are golden brown. Let rest for 10 minutes before slicing
and any thick slices of potato will continue to cook through.
For a complete meal, serve warm with a spinach and apple salad.

Home Cannery

2009-10-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

So lovely to see the Caramel Apple Jelly and Apple-Pear Jam stacking up.

I've been shirking my web updates, but, I assure you, not my home cookery. This season, I decided to test out a recipe that's pretty common here in Kansas, the apple jelly. I've never made it before, and I won't presume to tell you how to proceed — I'm pretty new to canning and prefer to keep the directions handy and my mom on speed-dial. But I will tell you that I'm pleased with the results. It's like I was born on the prairie.

Next time, I will keep an eye out for apples that are larger, as peeling hundreds of the tiny ones took up the majority of my time. Thank you to Pome on the Range, a neighboring farmers market vendor, for the gorgeous apples. If you're in the area, they also have scads of the best Honey Crisp apples around for sale at their store.

It looks pretty neat right now, which is how you can tell I'm between things.

A full day's work for me, though the magazines seemed to think it takes only
two hours to produce eight jars of jam. I am clearly a beginner.

The remainder of my bushel of apples after 12 jars of jam and jelly,
myriad caramel apples, and eight quarts of applesauce. Oy vey.

Aside from the apples, I canned pizza sauce and tomato soup using tomatoes from my garden. They turned out lovely — we had a soup test run because it smelled amazing —, and I'm excited to have fresh, yummy things any time I want. Also ready to go this winter, butternut squash puree and creamed corn, thanks to the end of this year's farmers market freeing up some of my freezer space, though I still plan to cram the rest of it with bread. Mmmm, fall.

Craveables (aka Idea Borrowing)

2009-09-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

Since I've been blogging, I've also rounded up quite a variety of foodie websites that I scoot over to read quite often. My very favorite, Heidi's 101 Cookbooks aside, most of these are not healthy foods, which is partly why I gleefully log in and comment using excessive amounts of exclamation points, as in HOLY Crap!!! Yum! That looks soooo great!!! And so forth.

Here are a few of the recipes I've flagged for testing this month, in no real order. Please visit them if you have time. I know I've wasted enough time blog-surfing to have at least weeded out the terrible ones. Take advantage of the research I've put in.

These Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Bars from Picky Palate are what I'm bringing to the football watching event this coming Sunday. Easy, yes, and filled with terrible-for-you ingredients that come together droolingly. I can't wait.

If this Chilled Ginger Cantalope Soup doesn't sound good to you, I don't know what to say. Maybe you'll find this Summertime Strawberry Soup more appetizing. Or maybe you just aren't into cold soups at all.

Hannah's sweet individual Delightful Baked Pears look somewhat healthful and yet grown up. I'm excited to try them with apples as well.

A slightly different take on pound cakes, Hannah Kaminsky's Sweet Corn Pound Cake looks tender and perfectly crumbly, and it's also vegan.

An adaptation of Molly Katzen's original recipe, these Dreamy White Beans are dripping with sage, garlic and olive oil. They sound so much like the perfect side dish for fall.

It's true that Homemade Mayo tastes entirely different from jarred, in the best possible way. Nicki's easy recipe makes it even simpler to try. Quit putting it off!

I'm guessing that leftover Sweet Corn Pound Cake would be delicious substitute for cornbread in this Corn Bread Salad, but I doubt I'll have enough left over to test that theory.

I'm thankful that the Kitchen Sink has offered me a new way to cook okra, since mine is just now poking into little pods. Once I have enough, I'm making this Roasted Potato and Okra Salad.

Perfect game-watching dip, if you're also forced into that sort of environment, as I am. Matt's Spicy Black Bean Chipotle Dip looks pretty easy and goes with tortilla chips, a key combination.

Last but not least, props to my new panini grill, which I've finally learned how to use correctly — the key is to warm it up properly first. These PB&J (&B) Paninis sound like the perfect lunchbox replacement lunch for we old, graduated folk. Plus, anything with homemade strawberry jam will be amazing.

Basil Salt

2009-09-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

In the summer, I'm obsessed with basil. I normally grow several varieties, choosing a favorite for pestos, and otherwise festooning every basil-friendly creation with a handful of all of them. So when growing season fades, I start to panic. Gathering up my basil leaves by the baggie-ful, I fritter away a few hours making pesto after pesto for the freezer. Walnuts, sundried-tomatoes, pine nuts, there's no variety I won't try. Last year the plants kept on giving far beyond my meager pesto needs, so I tried making a basil salt. Delicious. For six months, I gloried in the flavors of fresh basil added to all of my salads in the form of salt. It's green and lively and fresh tasting and lasts forever in the refrigerator.

Ever since I ran out, I've been dying for more. Last week's abundant basil crop cried out to be used for basil salt, and it's been tossed over everything from roasted eggplant to grilled corn with no complaints. It's success has me pondering the wonders of thyme salt, sage salt, parsley salt, lavender salt. . . is there no end to the lovely salt combinations? We shall see.

Added to an empty spice shaker, basil salt doesn't take up much room in the fridge.

Basil Salt
Makes 1/2 cup

1 cup packed fresh basil leaves, your favorite variety
1/2 cup kosher salt

Thoroughly and carefully rinse your basil leaves and place in one layer onto paper towels to dry. Roll the paper towels gently into a cylinder and then unroll them again, replacing any paper towel that's thoroughly soaked. You may need to do this twice to get the leaves completely dry.

Place your clean basil leaves in a food processer and pulse 3-4 times, just to start breaking up the leaves a bit. Add the salt and continue pulsing until combined. The salt will turn green, flecked with basil, and become a bit clumpy. (In time, the salt will dry the basil, keeping it vibrant green and absorbing its flavor. You can also do this with sugar, and let me just say that Basil and Blueberry Scones are a revelation. I'll leave it at that.)

Scoop your finished salt into a lidded jar or bottle and keep it in the refrigerator. This keeps indefinitely as it is cured by the salt.

May I suggest using your basil salt to pack extra herby punch into a caprese salad?

Slow-Roasted Tomato Pasta

2009-09-04T10:28:00.001-07:00

Don't know about you, but I'm harvesting tomatoes by the armload these days. They're super juicy and delicious, but I'm pretty sure I was crazy to think all 24 plants were necessary. Nutty. I recently read Molly Wizenberg's tomé, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen and ransacked the recipe for her Slow-Roasted Tomatoes with Coriander. My tomatoes weren't doused with coriander. I just kept 'em plain with salt and pepper, and I quartered every kind of tomato in my garden rather than using the paste varieties she recommends. Five hours later, my house was fragrant with tomato essence. I popped the quarters into my mouth and ate as many as I could straight from the oven. They'd cooked down to a fraction of their size while the flavor escalated. I still had a half sheet pan full of them, however. Now what?

Why not make pasta? I made a slurry of sauce by pureeing part of the leftover batch with a smidge of oil and lemon juice. Then I tossed in the rest of the tomato pieces, a bit of lemon zest, tons of torn basil and doused the whole bit with parmesan. The result: a gooey, decadent texture without much fat and a big punch of tomato flavor.

Try oven roasting your tomatoes. Please. I know it seems a lot of work for a tomato that's already delicious plain. But roasting solidifies the core essence of the tomato, bakes it down until it's twice as potent and amazing. You only have to try it once. If you don't like it, never do it again, okay? Okay.

Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
Idea stolen and adapted from Molly Wizenberg

10-20 tomatoes, washed and dried with stems cut out
olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat your oven to 200º and pull out a sheet pan with edges. If you have paste tomatoes (plum, roma, etc.) cut them in half. If you're using round tomatoes, cut them into quarters. Put a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a small bowl. Dip your fingers into the bowl and gently rub each bit of tomato before placing it on the baking sheet. When you're finished oiling all the tomatoes, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, just a bit per slice, less than you'd sprinkle on if you were eating it right there. Then bake in the oven for 4-6 hours. Just let them go for 4 hours before you check them, then let them go for another hour or two until done. In the end, they should be about half the size with crinkled edges. The centers will still be soft and juicy. You can eat them immediately and reserve any leftovers for pasta. (Sadly, I don't have any pictures of these because I was busy eating them.)

Slow-Roasted Tomato Pasta
Serves 4 as a side, 2 as a main

8oz tube pasta (penne, ziti, rigatoni, mostaccoli, etc.), cooked to al dente

10 halves or quarters of slow-roasted tomatoes
1 T balsamic vinegar
3 T olive oil or vegetable oil
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp lemon juice

10-15 halves or quarters of slow-roasted tomatoes
handful of fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup grated parmesan
salt and pepper

Drain the cooked pasta and set aside in a large bowl. Use a blender to combine the first section of slow-roasted tomatoes with the balsamic, lemon zest and juice, and olive oil to make a smooth, loose sauce. Pour over the pasta and combine. While that sits, slice the remaining tomatoes into bit-size pieces. Add them to the bowl and grate the parmesan right over it. Tear the basil leaves into the bowl, then toss everything together. Taste it, adding salt and pepper to your liking. Serve at room temperature with loads of crusty, garlicky bread.

Pear Pie

2009-08-20T14:27:00.001-07:00

I've not always been a pie fan. In fact, pie is one of the few things I never buy, ever, and only crave a bit of the pumpkin variety come November. So when I started making pies for the bakery, now more than a year ago, I was surprised to find that I could even make pie. And people came back for it. I had a rhubarb crunch pie that people had on reserve, so the pie would be made and all six fat wedges pre-sold. How ridiculous is it that I never even tasted that pie? It MUST have been good, but I wouldn't really know.

My second foray was pecan, only because the pie went over so well I thought I should have a fall variety and nuts make a cheaper pie filling than fruit. Nobody should pay more than $4/slice for pie. Pecan pie is one of those things I've actually never tasted in my life. Still. That one also sold, but I kept to my anti-pie credo.

This leads me to the actual pie of today, whose crust I made up after a few test runs with combining directions for a Martha Stewart jam tart (I DO like tarts) and the standby pie crust recipe I adopted from a now-forgotten magazine. I'd started making jam tarts for the bakery booth because they're cute and because, if I ate pie, I certainly wouldn't want ten slices of it. By the time you get to the end, the crust is mushy, so you're eating it breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yuck. I'd prefer to eat cake for those three meals. Well, one week I had leftover crust from my experiment and I decided to use up some tired fruit in the kitchen basket. I had a nice pear that I didn't feel like eating and a few worn blackberries, plus a peach. What better time to invent a new kind of pie? I searched the refrigerator for inspiration and found a lonely Ginger-Pear jelly. To be honest, the jelly was decidedly too strong for toast, so it was awaiting its demise in the far corners of the fridge. I sliced up the pear, doused it with a spoonful of sugar and some lemon. Then I spread the jam over the 3" mini-crust, poured over the pear and lattice-topped it. The blackberries and peach kept each other company in the second crust, doused with cinnamon. Both pies baked, glistened with sugar, and cooled. I actually ate the peach pie first. Mmmm, lunch. But later I found the pear was actually calling to me. I ate it, not expecting much. Yet this is the pie I've been thinking about for weeks. It's THAT delicious. The pear gets soft and mellows, melds with the jelly perfectly, and then there's the touch of almond in the crust that makes it extra crisp. Yes, after more than three decades of life, I'm becoming a fan of pie.

So imagine how lucky I felt when the last of our sixteen recent storms (in only 3 days) knocked a few beautiful pears from my neighbors tree. Yep, pie at our house.

Pear Pie
Makes one 6" double-crust pie

Crust
3/4 cup flour
3 T sugar
2 T ground almonds
pinch of salt
4 T cold, unsalted butter
1-3 T ice water

Filling
2 big bartlett pears, a bit underripe
juice from 1/4 of a lime
1 tsp flour
2 T sugar
2 T pear jelly, whatever kind you have (I used Colorado Mountain's Organic Ginger Pear

Extra sugar and half-and-half or cream for topping, optional

Make the crust by mixing the dry ingredients together first and then cutting in the butter. Try to go quickly or use a food processor on this because the colder you keep it the crisper your crust will be. Once your mixture has the consistency of clumpy sand, add in the ice water a tablespoon at a time. You want to add just enough that the dough will gather into a ball. Wrap it up with saran wrap and put it into the fridge to chill while you make the filling.

Wash and dry your pears. Cut out the center and seeds, then slice them thinly into a bowl, skin and all. Take care to cut out any hard bits. Douse the lime juice over the pears and mix together gently, then add in the flour and sugar. Let them sit while you roll out the crust.

Heat your oven to 350º. Dust some flour onto the countertop and divide the crust in half. Roll out one half to fit your pie tin and place it inside. Spread the bottom crust with the pear jelly, as evenly as you can. It'll melt and smoosh around so it's not a big deal. Heap the pears over top of the jelly. Roll out the second crust, just to cover the pie, and let the edges hang over the sides. Pinch the top and bottom crusts together all the way around the pie, then use a knife to make a decorative carving in the crust or just stab it a few times to let the steam vent.

Brush the top with cream, if you're using it, and sprinkle with a bit of sanding sugar or raw sugar. No big deal if you don't use it, just makes things pretty.

Bake for 30 minutes, using a cookie sheet to catch any extra drips. (Come back here and look at the pictures again to stretch your patience.) Turn the pie and bake another 20 minutes. The crust will be golden brown and any juice that leaked over your crust should be thick, ready to set. Let the pie cool as much as you can before you eat it.

Pecan Sticky Buns

2009-08-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

Ages and ages ago, I posted a picture of these Sticky Buns. I've made them to sell at the bakery in Colorado and I've made them for myself and now I've made them again to sell at the farmers market. They're super delicious. It should be said that Carole Walters, whose recipe I've poached and simplified, has never lead me wrong. She is, however, quite a complicated recipe developer, liking the multi-stepped, overnight-type things. They're often worth the time or effort, but they're not for the shy of heart. Nor for dieters. But if you've neither of those frightful qualities, you'll be glad of this recipe.

It is one of the best things to pop these out of the pan all gooey gorgeous and burn your tongue on a hot pecan. When your eyes roll back in your head, you'll know it was worthwhile. Just plan a day ahead for this recipe and you're set.

Simple Sweet Dough
Makes 2#

1 T sugar
2-1/4 tsp (1 pkg) active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water

3 T sugar
1 tsp salt
3 cups flour + more for kneading
1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter

1/2 cup milk
3 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla

Combine the yeast with the tablespoon of sugar and the warm water in a small bowl. Let rest 5 minutes, until yeast is dissolved and the mixture is bubbly.

In a separate bowl, cut the butter into 3 T sugar, salt, and flour until the mixture looks like sand, very finely textured. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the milk, egg yolks and vanilla. Use a fork to blend the wet ingredients lightly together and then add in the yeast. Mix into the dry ingredients a little at a time until a rough dough forms. Knead lightly, adding up to 1/4 cup of extra flour, until the dough is smooth. Dough will be really soft and sticky. Butter a bowl and place dough into it. Smooth more butter over the top of the dough. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight.

Sticky Buns
Makes 12 muffin-sized buns

Topping
1/4 cup soft butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 T honey
2 T light corn syrup
2/3 cup pecans, roughly chopped

Mix until smooth. Prepare the muffin tins by buttering each one generously, then smear a spoonful of this topping into each muffin cup, as evenly as possible.

Filling
2 T soft butter
2 T sugar
2 T brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped

Heat oven to 350º. Roll out 1# of the sweet dough* about 1/2" thick or into a rectangle. Mix all ingredients and spread over the dough. Roll up the dough on the widest side, pressing to seal the end, and slice into 12 equal pieces. Press one piece lightly into each muffin cup. Bake 20-25 minutes, turning once midway through, or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted through the center comes out clean. Let rest for 5 minutes, then invert — carefully! hot + gooey = burns — onto a platter. Eat as soon as you can safely touch the pecans without singeing a finger. They're also great the next day, if they last.

*Note that the dough recipe will make twice as much as you'll need for the sticky buns. Either double your sticky bun recipe or, as I like to do, make one half into cinnamon rolls instead. Super easy filling: roll out the dough to 1/2" thick, smear with butter, sprinkle with 2 T sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon, then roll them up and slice into 12 again. Bake in a buttered 9" square dish, about 20-25 minutes. Ice them if you like, but they're delicious plain.

Tarragon Bean Salad

2009-08-17T07:52:00.000-07:00

Simple, flexible and delicious, this cold salad is an effective use for leftover steamed beans. I have been picking mine — gorgeous purple beans intermixed with haricot vert and traditional green beans — and am a bit tired of the usual steamed with butter drill. (And don't bring up the completely overused dill idea, which I've been avoiding since the overdose in early June. Ugh.) With two pounds of beans and counting awaiting use in my frig, I'd been poring over cookbooks hoping to find something just like this. Or sort of like this. Inspiration struck from a recipe in Cooking Light magazine or maybe it was just a beam of light from the window, illuminating the tarragon component of a salad. I didn't grow any tarragon and have no real idea if I liked it, but I went out and bought some anyway. It's got a very light licorice component to it, which doesn't overpower things but adds a different flavor than any other herbs I've got.

What I like about this salad is you could add about any bean or herb and have something completely different. The original recipe had olives and artichoke hearts in it, which are also good but, for me, not summer vegetables. I don't like to use so many canned things when fresh are widely available. But I'm keeping that idea alive for winter when the tomatoes start to go to mush.

Tarragon Bean Salad
Serves 4 as a side, 2 as a main

1# steamed beans, just crisp-tender, drained and cooled (green, purple, yellow, haricot or a mix)
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved if large
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
salt & pepper to taste

Dressing
1/4 cup EVOO
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 T maple syrup
3 T champagne or white wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar will do in a pinch)
2 T tarragon leaves, minced*
2 T parsley, minced

In a small jar with a lid, mix the dressing ingredients. Shake it well and let them get acquainted. Set aside. Make the salad by cutting the beans into bite-size pieces and then tossing in the rest of the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper.

*If you don't have or don't like tarragon, use basil or dill. It's not at all the same, but the salad is still yummy.

Zucchini Pudding Bundt

2009-08-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

Do you have too many summer squash? Ha. If you planted even one zucchini plant this year, you're sure to have gone away for the weekend at some point and returned to a handful of squash cousins, some of them well into middle age. It's terrible. I devised this recipe as a way to use up six admirably-sized squash at a time, and I mix them together, zucchini, yellow summers and even the patty pan varieties.

Before you start tweeting your friends, first stop and consider whether you really appreciate the texture of pudding bundt cakes. You know, they're sort of crusty at the edge and then go progressively to goo in the center, almost in a jiggle-able, eggy way? That is so totally this guy. Made almost entirely of summer squash, this cake is dense and filling with a light spice flavor that turns zucchini into an entirely different bird.

Loosely based on a recipe for coffee cake, this cake also makes a great breakfast, hearty and filling, with enough of a touch of lemon to hit the lighter notes that denotes morning. Goes well with coffee, too, and that's important.

Zucchini Pudding Bundt
Makes one large bundt cake

Crumbles
4 T cold butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt

Cake
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
3 eggs
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
5-6 cups shredded squash, any variety or a mixture, extra water squeezed out*
1-1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon zest (optional)

Icing
2/3 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
2-3 T water
14/ cup toasted walnuts, slightly crumbled

For this recipe, use a 10-cup bundt pan, very well buttered or greased, set aside. Be aware that if your bundt has ridges, as mine did, the cake will not release very well. Heat your oven to 350º.

Make the crumbles by cutting the butter into the other ingredients in a small bowl. Sprinkle the crumbles into your prepared bundt pan, letting most of them fall into the bottom, but also sticking some to the sides.

Start the cake batter by mixing the oil, sugar, syrup, eggs, and lemon juice in a bowl. Add the cinnamon and cardamom and whisk to combine.

Place your shredded squash into a second, larger bowl. Sift the flour into the bowl over the squash and add the baking powder, soda, salt and zest, if using. Use your hands to toss the flour into the squash. The mixture should be dry and the squash shreds should be separated and coated with flour. Pour in the wet ingredients, using a spoon to mix well. (You might be surprised that it looks like a whole bunch of squash in a very thin batter. If this is the case, you're doing it right.) Spoon squash into the bundt pan, making sure to even it out as this batter won't right itself.

Bake at 350º for 75-90 minutes, depending on your oven. Use toothpicks to test the doneness of the cake. It will brown on the top and the toothpick should come out clean. Even though the center of the cake is dense and pudding-like, it will set. Let the cake cool 10 minutes, then flip your pan over a plate or another pan lined with foil, which will allow you to move the cake more easily after it's cool. Cool to room temperature.

Mix the icing ingredients, except the walnuts, together until smooth. Drizzle over the top of the cake and the sides in a decorative pattern. Sprinkle the wet icing with the walnuts. Let set 10 minutes and then serve.

*You can use either 5 or 6 cups of squash, whatever you have. This recipe will work either way, so I don't even measure, just eyeball it.

Sweet Pear & Apple Salad with Endive

2009-07-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

A longtime fan of British chef Jamie Oliver, I purchased his book, Jamie at Home, more than a year ago and have been working my way through it seasonally. (Everything I've tried has been delicious.) I'd been eyeing this salad for quite some time, so I was excited to find great-looking endive at the co-op. Of course, I've mashed up the recipe a bit, but there's only two of us, so we had to halve it and adapt for our lack of creme fraiche at the moment. In hindsight, I wish I'd added some walnuts over top, but I'll definitely be making this again (and again). If you like composed salads, this one is a beauty and would make a show-stopping centerpiece for a big dinner.

Sweet pear and apple salad with bitter endive and a creamy blue cheese dressing (for two)
Adapted slightly from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie at Home, page 298

2 heads baby endive, white or red or a combination
1 hard red apple like braeburn
1 slightly underripe bartlett or anjou pear
a handful of parsley, basil and chives, chopped

Dressing
1 ounce strong blue cheese (I used Point Reyes)
1 large spoonful sour cream
2 T EVOO
2 T apple cider vinegar
2-3 T water

Separate all the leaves of endive, then wash and spin dry. Quarter and thinly slice the apple and pear. Arrange a handful of the endive leaves on each of two plates, then layer apple and pear, then another few leaves of endive, and the rest of the fruit. Sprinkle half of the herbs over top.

Mix the dressing by using the tines of a fork to smash the blue cheese into the sour cream. Add the oil and vinegar, and mix together well. Add enough water to thin the dressing out to a pourable consistency. It will also help reduce the strength of the blue cheese, so add enough that it tastes good to you.

Pour the dressing over the salad plates, just enough to get little pools for dipping but not so much that the salad is drenched. You can always add more. Toss the remaining herbs over the entire thing, and serve with fresh pepper cracked over the top.

Basil-Walnut Pesto

2009-07-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

This year I tucked Lettuce Leaf Basil seeds into a large planter in a swath of sunshine on the front porch. Weeks later, I watched the seeds sprout and leaves form, and then one day, when my back was turned, bugs ate it down to stems. Good stuff, I guess. I formed a nice barrier of garlic powder around the planter and used some insect soap on the nubby stems. Then I took a few deep breaths — I didn't have more seeds to spare! — and waited.

A single leaf from my basil plant.

They were not kidding about the leaf size, and I picked about two cups of leaves from eight plants, no problem. Of course, I made my first pesto of the year with walnuts that I'd already toasted. I like to vary using pine nuts and walnuts to thicken my pestos, just for variety. They have a completely different taste. If you're a pesto lover and you haven't tried walnuts, consider it a must.

Basil-Walnut Pesto
Makes about a cup

2 cups basil leaves (no stems)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 cup walnuts (I like them toasted first, but plain is fine)
1 clove garlic, optional
squeeze of lemon juice, about 1 tsp
1/2 cup EVOO
1/4-1/2 tsp salt + pepper, to taste

In a food processor*, whiz the basil leaves to a green mush and then add the walnuts, parmesan and garlic, if using. Process until it's all finely ground, using a spatula to wipe the edges clear. Add the oil by streaming it in through the top while the processor is running, until the mixture is loose but well combined. Add a 1/4 tsp of salt plus a good dash of pepper and whiz a few more times. Taste the pesto, and add more seasoning if necessary. It's ready to eat when you are.

If you're going to store the pesto in the refrigerator, a small drizzle of oil over the top will keep it from browning. You can also freeze portions of pesto in ice cube trays and store in a plastic bag until you need them.

*If you need to use a blender, you'll have to puree all the ingredients together at once. You'll have to scrape the sides several times and possibly add a bit more oil to get everything to come together.

Chickpea, Feta & Cilantro Salad

2009-07-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

Simple and quick yet hearty enough to stand as a meal on its own, this salad features my favorite centerpiece, chickpeas, and loads of fresh herbs. From Falling Cloudberries page 81, Tessa Kiros' recipe offers a bit more heat and herby mix-ins than my usual fallback Chickpea Salad with Lemon and Parmesan from Orangette — though if you haven't you should try that too. Since I adore chickpeas, I generally try any recipe that falls into my hands because it keeps me from eating them plain right out of the colander. It's what I love most about chickpeas: complete versatility. The medley of herbs here elevates this salad from a something I'd save for winter, making me a very happy herb-grower and a hand-clapping salad eater.

Chickpea, Feta & Cilantro Salad
Adapted from Falling Cloudberries
Makes a hearty lunch for two or serves 4 as a side

14-oz can Bush chickpeas,* drained and rinsed
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 small red chile, finely chopped (can substitute jalapeno or any other hot pepper you like)
2 scallions, greens only, sliced
1/4 cup cilantro, finely minced
1/4 cup italian parsley, finely minced
2 T chives or garlic chives, finely minced
juice of half a lemon, about 2 tsp
1/4 cup feta, crumbled
2-3 T EVOO
salt & pepper to taste

Short version: Mix everything in a bowl and let sit in the refrigerator overnight to combine the flavors. Spoon into bowls and eat, using crusty bread to top up the yummy bits.

Long(er) version: Saute the onion and chile in a teaspoon of the olive oil until they've softened and started to brown. Scoop out of the pan into a bowl and let cool. Add everything else to the bowl and let sit at room temperature for at least an hour to combine the flavors. Spoon into bowls and eat, using crusty bread to top up the yummy bits.

*In spite of our ex-Prez, you'll really be happier using Bush brand chickpeas. They're the very best and least mushy kind of chickpeas on the market. Trrruust me, I've tried 'em all.

Blueberry-Basil Scones

2009-07-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

Crunchy on the outside with steamy soft guts, I like my scones flavorful enough that I don't need butter and jam. After all, they're chock full of butter and cream already. This week's basil was growing crazy tall in the planter on my porch, so I pinched off some leaves and tried to think what to do with it. As I started to make blueberry scones, it occurred to me that this was a duo I'd never tried — blueberry and basil. No time like the present.

The basil is subtle and adds a tiny lilt of flavor to the soft crumb of the scones. It's funny to me how the heavier the ingredients, the lighter the scone. These are gushing with whipping cream but melt on your tongue.

Scones, ready for baking

Blueberry-Basil Scones
Makes 8 medium-sized scones or 6 large

2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
6 T cold unsalted butter
10-12 large basil leaves

3/4 cup cream + more for brushing

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

2 T sugar (I use raw here for added texture)
1 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 400º and butter or spray a baking sheet. Set aside.

In a medium size bowl or food processor, mix the dry ingredients down to the butter. If mixing by hand, cut the butter in with a pastry cutter or crumble it with your fingers until everything has the texture of sand. Add in the basil and toss to coat, then pour in the whipping cream. Try form the dough into a ball without overworking or kneading it. Sprinkle the blueberries over top and press them into the dough gently. If too dry to stick together, add more cream; if too wet, add pinch more flour. Press onto the countertop to form a circle about 1" tall. Use a knife to cut into 8 equal triangle-shaped scones. Place each scone onto the baking sheet, spacing them evenly apart.

Brush generously with whipping cream. Using your fingers in a small bowl, mix the cinnamon and sugar together, then sprinkle it over the scones. Bake at 400º for about 20 minutes, turning the tray midway through, until the tops are golden brown and the centers are set. If you wish, you can poke them through with a toothpick.

Let cool 10 minutes before eating.

Cooling a little before I eat one.

Smoked Corn Salad

2009-07-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

I've been obsessed with smoked sea salt. Mostly, I sprinkle it over potatoes before roasting them, but lately I've become a bit more adventurous, less fearful of wasting my precious salt stash. Everything I try seems to taste a bit better, more exotic. I do love the depth grilling adds to food, and smoked sea salt is like a flavorful cousin or step-sibling to that.

This salad is a great way to use leftover grilled corn, as well as a good excuse to grill corn in the first place. The combination of grilled corn with the sea salt and fresh herbs gives this simple salad a complicated flavor. Lovely on its own, this would also be yummy on top of nachos or left to marinate for several hours (sans cheese) and used as a creative pico de gallo. You decide.

Smoked Corn Salad
Makes about 4 cups

Dressing
1 tsp honey
2 T lime juice, fresh if possible
1/4 cup EVOO
1/2 tsp coarse smoked sea salt* (or use kosher salt and it'll taste just fine)

4 ears of grilled corn, kernels cut off
1 medium ripe tomato or several cherry tomatoes, diced
1/2 jalapeno, finely diced
1/2 small white onion, finely diced
1/2 cup diced jicama*
8 big basil leaves, chopped
small handful cilantro leaves, chopped
small handful chives, chopped

1/4 cup queso fresco, crumbled*

In a small jar with a lid, combine the dressing ingredients by shaking together. Set aside.

Chop and combine all of the salad ingredients except the cheese. Pour the dressing over, stir and then let sit for at least 15 minutes to combine the flavors. Taste, and add more salt (or olive oil if it seems dry). Just before serving, add the crumbled cheese and stir again.

*If you can't find smoked sea salt, it's no big deal to use regular salt instead. The jicama adds crunch to this salad, but diced cucumber or pepper also works well as a substitute. Queso fresco tastes a bit like a really mild feta, so you're welcome to use that instead. If using feta, crumble it super small and add 2 tablespoons instead of the full 1/4 cup.

Tomato and Herb Salad

2009-07-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

Let's go out on a limb here and assume that I love caprese salad. I do. It's not a secret. But who said that only basil marries well with tomatoes? Not me. I decided to honor the variety of herbs that are blooming in my gardens by including them all in this salad-y bash. Add in the crunch of toasted bread crumbs and the softness of the mozzarella, and we're golden. Best lunch ever!

Tomato and Herb Salad
Serves 2

1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 T butter

1 pint mixed cherry tomatoes, washed and halved
2 oz fresh buffalo mozzarella, torn or cut into 1/2" pieces

2 T fresh basil leaves
1 T fresh parsley leaves
1 T fresh oregano leaves
1 T finely diced shallot or spring onion
3 T EVOO
1 T balsamic vinegar
pinch of sugar
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt, to taste
dash of pepper

Wash and gently pat the herbs dry. Slice them super fine and place in a tupperware or small glass jar. Add the EVOO and vinegar, and toss to combine. Let sit for 10 minutes.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and then toss in the breadcrumbs, turning to coat. When the crumbs are golden brown, turn off the heat and set aside to cool slightly.

Arrange the tomatoes and mozzarella on a plate, then pour the dressing over, tossing to coat everything evenly. Let sit until just before serving, then sprinkle the breadcrumbs over top. Eat!

Chilled Cucumber-Dill Soup

2009-07-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

I have never, ever been a fan of cold soups. Truly. I've tried a few soups before and they've been fine, but it's not something I crave. In fact, it's something that generally gives me the willies. I choke down a few sips at parties because friends are smiling expectantly at me, and it's too hard to explain my disgust. These are all ingredients I love, just blended into soup. I can't explain my nose-wrinkling disdain.

However, stuck at the market on Monday awaiting my ride, I passed a cucumber-dill soup in the ready-made aisle. I picked it up, smelled it, and thought it sounded good. Yes, I was starving. It was 8:30 p.m. and still no dinner in sight. I picked up a box of caramels to stave off the pangs. (Incidentally, these Das Caramelini Candied Ginger and Pistachio Fleur de Sel Caramels are delicious!)

The next night, come dinnertime, I was still thinking about that blasted soup! So I made it. While I do not take back my harsh words about cold soups in general, this one is okay. Decent, even. To my complete surprise, George really liked it. And since it was 90º outside, it really was the perfect dinner, alongside a beautiful salad and fresh bread.

Chilled Cucumber-Dill Soup
Makes about 4 cups

2 large cucumbers, peeled and cut into chunks with the big seeds cut out
1 medium zucchini (if you like, it's mild-flavored and just adds volume)
1 small spring onion with 1" of greens
1 T fresh dill + more for garnish
2 T fresh chives (a mix of regular and garlic chives is nice too)
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp champagne vinegar (or white wine vinegar, something really mild)
3 T EVOO
1/2 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
water, for texture

Use the blender to whir everything together down to the EVOO. It should be a lovely celery green color. Puree until it's super smooth, then add in the sour cream and blend again. Season to taste. I like a good bit of salt in this, as I always have with cucumbers. Refrigerate in the blender for an hour or so, just to get it really cold. Before serving, taste again and adjust seasoning. Then blend a final time, adding water if necessary to get the consistency as you like it.

Note: Keep in mind, if you're making this, that all of my ingredients were super fresh — as in JUST picked. I don't recommend making any kind of cold soup like this with worn-out ingredients. That wilted bunch of herbs won't brighten the flavors any, and good luck with a limp cucumber. Just my opinion.

Almond Mini Bundts

2009-07-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

Part of an inspired fun-with-the-food-processor cycle, I tested out the pulsing function on 2 cups of almonds this week, ending with a variety of textures. I wanted to go for almond meal, but in the end I was afraid to end up with mush and only pushed as far as almond crumbs. Maybe next time. Anyway, using the various almonds was the ultimate goal, and this recipe incorporates the most coarse grind and a much finer, crumbled blend.

The bundt recipe that follows is moist and dense with a bit of a crunch. Thick and fragrant with almonds, they're yummy with tea. Bringing dessert for dinner with friends? Top each cake with a spoonful of sliced cherries and whipping cream, and you'll be asked to return next week, if not tomorrow.

Almond Mini Bundts
Makes 16 muffin-size bundt cakes (or 12 dense muffins)

1/2 cup finely ground almonds (rounded pieces no larger than 1/8")
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup semolina
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt

2 whole eggs + 2 egg yolks (for color, or use 3 whole eggs)
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup melted butter, cooled slightly
1 tsp almond extract

2 T sliced almonds, bashed a few times with a rolling pin

Heat oven to 350º with rack in the lower third. Butter or use nonstick cooking spray to thoroughly coat a mini bundt pan or muffin tins. Sprinkle the bashed, sliced almonds and their crumbs evenly in the pan and set aside.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside. Whisk the eggs until frothy, then add the sour cream, butter and almond. Stir to combine, then add in the dry ingredients. Fold together gently, just to wet everything evenly. Scoop into the prepared pan, filling each compartment about halfway, if you're using the bundt pan. Bake 15 minutes, until golden brown on top and a toothpick stuck through the center comes out clean. Let them sit for 10 minutes on the counter, then use a spoon to gently pry them out of the cups. Invert onto a rack or pan to cool.

Summer Mizuna Salad

2009-07-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

For those who, like me, have never tried mizuna lettuce, it's a sturdy, leaf-type lettuce, slightly bitter in flavor, with a hint of radish, and a hardy, steminess similar to frisee. I liked it, though I tempered it with strongly flavored ingredients. I would probably pair it with a kinder, crunchier lettuce in a leaf-only salad. But as it's become so popular in restaurants, I was able to find bundled mizuna leaves near the spinach in the produce section and cheaply priced at my co-op this week — meaning I had to give it a try.

Summer Mizuna Salad

1 bunch mizuna greens, washed and spun dry
1 cup jicama, peeled and diced
1 ear of corn, cut off the cob, raw
big handful cherry tomatoes, washed and quartered
handful cilantro leaves
1 T jalapeno, finely diced
2 T red onion, finely diced (use shallot here or spring onions, whatever you like)
juice from 1/4 to 1/2 of a lime, to taste
pinch of sugar
3 T EVOO
salt & pepper to taste

Toss everything together in a big bowl and let it stew for at least 10 minutes before serving. Taste it, add more seasoning, if it needs more, then toss again and eat.

Decadent Challah French Toast

2009-06-30T11:21:00.001-07:00

Who doesn't love French toast? You'd think a child would like anything bathed in syrup and sprinkled with powdered sugar, but I used to hate it. Up until a few years ago, I had nothing to do with it. Then I saw a menu with raspberry-mascarpone stuffed French toast with an orange glaze, and I was SOLD. It was every bit as good as it sounds. From then on, I started making my own versions at home. Some turned out grand and others a bit gloppy or too eggy. This simple Challah version is one of my favorites. A rich cup of cream adds fluffiness to the centers of the bread, and then I bake it, which lets everyone eat at once.

Decadent Challah French Toast
Serves 4

2 cups half and half
2 large eggs
1 T sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
pinch of ground cardamom
pinch of salt

Whisk everything together in a bowl and let sit 5 minutes to dissolve the sugar. Slice 8 thick (1") pieces of Challah bread and squish them pretty closely together into a rimmed pan. Pour the milk-and-egg mixture over the bread slowly, covering all of the surface area.

Heat the oven to 350º while the bread soaks. Flip the slices over after about 5 minutes, making sure each side is coated thoroughly. There should be a bit of liquid on the bottom of the pan, but it will soak into the bread after 10 minutes of resting.

Spray a sheet pan with nonstick spray (or butter it well), and place the bread slices on it, keeping them at least an inch apart. Bake for 10 minutes, then flip them over with a spatula. Bake 15 minutes more, until puffed in the centers and golden brown, then serve with butter, syrup and powdered sugar, if you like. To me, this French toast is perfect with plain syrup.

Recipe Smackdown

2009-06-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

Sticky Fingers Bars look delish, but they're not particularly good tasting.

Okay, okay, so I've been gone. And I've been here but not posting regularly. That's because the farmers market booth has taken up quite a bit more of my former blogging time than I'd like to admit, though it's calming some now. The good news is that I've been experimenting like mad in the kitchen and I've baked some really great things. A few of them can be found in the following books, which I thank the library for loaning me. Yay! So, good things and bad things I've tested recently. . .

Bakeable
Rocket Rolls from "The Pastry Queen" Rebecca Rather are a delicious break from the usual dinner rolls. They're a bit sugary, yes, but the hint of cinnamon twirled throughout elevates them to pretty special ground. Rather doesn't seem to adjust her recipes well for non-commercial use. I used the amount of yeast inferred from her packaging reference (2-1/4 tsp x 4 pkgs), which was a far cry more than the tablespoon she suggests right alongside. I also reduced the salt by a teaspoon as the first batch of these rolls was overpoweringly salty. I swear these are worth the minor effort of two adjustments and a few minutes mixing time — no kneading!

These Itsy Bitsy Chocolate Chip Cookies from Heidi Swanson were so impossibly tiny, I tried them immediately. Nothing better, I swear. Do yourself a favor and give up the Hershey's for these. Nab a $4 bar of good chocolate and you will be happily clothed in sweatpants and berating yourself for eating all six dozen of these beauties. (Even better, add 2 tsp of ground espresso to the batter and use them to fuel your next workout!)

The "Baked" Brownie is crowd-pleasing and easy to assemble, thanks to Matt Lewis' breezy writing style and down-to-earth ingredients list. I've also got their Malted Milk Ball Cake on my list of upcoming birthday cake musts.

Save your butter
Sadly, the Sticky Fingers Bars, also from "The Pastry Queen" were a disappointment to me. I do love the PB + Chocolate combo and was expecting much more from these. They turned out beautifully, but the flavors were disappointing.

Unlike the things I generally make from Heidi Swanson, this Peanut Butter Cookie recipe was something that looked like it would taste horrible and I made it anyway. I wanted her to be right, that PB-laden goodies can be healthfully concocted. Ummmm, no.

Cute, cuter mini bagels from delicious days suckered me in with their cutey cuteness. Really, teensy weensy bagels can be bad? Well, no, but they can certainly not be that good. This shortcut is bland and loses the chewy, bagel essence. Take a little extra time and a good bagel dough, one with potato-laden starch, and if you need to shape 'em tiny and make a doughy ring for your finger, I say go ahead.

I admit to never having tried anything else from this blog, but when Bakerella posted these sweet Cupcake Pops, I had to make them. They are a huge pain. It will take you at least one batch of them in order to even make things that resemble her beautiful pops, so get used to failure. Now that you're comfortable with that, you might like that even the mistakes taste good. So if you take a look and decide to try it anyway, there's comfort in that.

Farmers Market Website!

2009-05-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

It's new! Sweetly has a website now, boasting a complete list of upcoming farmers markets items that will be for sale at the booth each week. Please visit it (especially if you live in southwestern Kansas) and stop by the booth if you can!

www.sweetlybaking.com

Apple Hand Pies with Cheese

2009-05-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

This was the best breakfast a girl could hope for. I'm telling you.

Pecan Sticky Buns

2009-05-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

If you're smart, you'll ask me how to make these.

Lemon Thyme Bars

2009-05-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

It's cheating, I know. But I'm in such a hurry these days. I DVR Giada at Home and occasionally get to watch it during my lunch hour, which is when I saw Giada preparing this recipe for Lemon Thyme Bars. I had the ingredients on hand, and the match of lemon and thyme was alluring. Made it and loved it. I followed the recipe, adding lemon zest in addition to the juice in the bars, mostly because I hate to throw it out unused. The pairing of lemon and thyme is interesting, plus the green in the bars is just so pretty. I will say that there are not 16 traditional servings here; rather eight to twelve if you cut them regular size. But the small squares are perfect and cute served alongside espresso.

Asparagus and Potato Tart

2009-04-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

Jamie Oliver is my absolute hero. I love his cookbooks, I love his shows, I love the way he talks about food. Plus he's adorable. There's nothing wrong with this guy. So his latest book, Jamie at Home, has enjoyed a spot of reverence on my cookbook shelf since its birth last fall. This entire time, bookmarked and ready, I've been waiting restlessly for asparagus season. Why? you ask. To make this, my pretties. This is the reason I really bought my first pound of filo dough, intimidated though I still am by that tenuously thin roll. And was it ever so much better than I imagined? you ask. In a word, yes.

Crispy & Delicious Asparagus & Potato Tart
Excerpted from Jamie at Home, by Jamie Oliver, page 25*

1# potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1# asparagus, washed, woody ends cut off
8 oz filo pastry, thawed
4 T butter
1/4 cup parmesan, grated
1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
3 large eggs
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
sprinkle of fresh nutmeg

Boil your potatoes in salted water for 15 minutes or until cooked. Meanwhile, blanch the asparagus in boiling water for 4 minutes, then shock with ice water to stop them from cooking. Set asparagus aside.

Heat the oven to 375º and melt the butter in the microwave. Use a pastry brush to butter an 8" x 11" (or thereabouts) pan. Get your filo dough unwrapped and sort of smash one layer of filo into the center of your pan, not worrying if it hangs over the sides for now. Quickly butter that layer of filo, then add another, then butter, etc. Continue until your dough is 6 sheets thick, ending with more butter. Gently fold down the edges of the filo until you have a crimped little crust, buttering that edge to hold it. Dampen two paper towels and lay them over your pan.

See the depth of potato and the crisp crust and the yummmm.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them and use a masher to mash them well in the pan. Add most of the remaining butter from the filo, plus both of the cheeses and salt and pepper. Taste them — they should be good just plain. Whisk the eggs together with the milk and cream, adding nutmeg. Whisk the egg mixture into the potatoes until combined. Pour the entire mess over the filo crust (moving your paper towels, of course) and spread evenly. Arrange the asparagus across the top so that they'll fit and look pretty. Brush the asparagus with the last of the butter and sprinkle with pepper. (If you run out of butter, just melt some more.) Bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and crisp. Let set for 10 minutes more, to keep from burning your mouth. Use a sharp knife to slice this into eight servings, for a side, or four big wedges for your main. Savor with a plain green salad.

If you have leftovers, do yourself the favor of reheating gently in the oven, keeping the crispness of the crust, rather than the soggy mess the microwave will give you. I promise it's worth those 10 extra minutes.

*Ridiculously adapted by me, for partially uneducated reasons - what is lancashire cheese? - and partially for health (you won't miss the extra cream and butter, I swear!)

Chickpea & Mushroom Burgers

2009-04-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

They're veggie and they're grillable. Win and win, as far as my vote goes. Add in a little easy, and a sprinkle of good for you — yep, we're golden. I've been experimenting with quick burgers, rather than heating up those ol' Morningstars I love so much. Mostly I've had success with ones that I can cook in a pan, but they either explode on the grill or fall apart, disappearing through the grate as I watch. Disappointing to say the least. These burgers take a little arm work with smashing up the chickpeas, but in absolutely no time they are grill ready. And, as you can see from the photo, stayed solid throughout the grilling process.

George tried them and gave a thumbs up, even though he was eating a buffalo burger instead. Whatever. Sometimes it's best to keep these experiments to myself until they're proven yummy. Like this time. Next go round, no backups for George.

Chickpea & Mushroom Burgers

1 red onion, chopped
1 large portabello mushroom, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
8 whole wheat crackers, squished into crumbs (I used Ritz)
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp cilantro or parsley, minced
ground black pepper
big pinch of salt

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, saute the onion and mushrooms in olive oil until they're completely soft. While they cook, put the chickpeas into a bowl with a wide bottom and use a potato mashed to smush them up. Add the onions and mushrooms to the bowl, then the rest of the ingredients. Keep smashing everything together until it's good and combined. Taste a bit for seasoning before you shape it. Divide the mixture into four balls, and pat each into a burger shape, firmly pressing it together. They should feel pretty solid. Grill until charred the way you like it, about 4 minutes per side for me. Eat on a bun with salsa or ketchup.

Salad of the Week: Arugula with Cranberries, Pepitas and Goat Cheese

2009-04-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

Spring salads come and go. Really, even I can't stick to one. But if you're searching for a way to usher in a little spring during lunch this week, try this salad out for temperature. When you toss the salad together with the oil and vinegar, the goat cheese turns into part of the dressing. Mmm.

Arugula with Cranberries, Pepitas and Goat Cheese

2 cups arugula, washed and spun dry
handful dried, unsweetened cranberries
small handful salted pepitas
1 oz goat cheese, crumbled (I used Cypress Grove's Purple Haze)
big splash of balsamic vinegar
drizzle of EVOO

Spanikopita

2009-04-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

Buttery crisp and oozing with feta and spinach, these delectable snacks are addictive. And with so much fresh spinach tucked inside, I choose to believe they're good for me. I can barely pronounce spanikopita, so I never attempted to cook them. Before today, that is. While it took me 45 minutes just to get them in the oven, I knew the effort was worthwhile after a single bite. It's not often I can say that.

I hope you don't want me to tell you how to make these. I can't. Too much typing and I feel like a slug from eating far, far too many. But the directions are ridiculous and all pretty much the same. Google it yourself or use these, or these. In an effort to be healthy and avoid the ridiculous 1/2 cups of olive oil everyone seems to advocate, I boiled the spinach for 30 seconds and then shocked it in ice water, squeezing it dry by the handful before chopping to add to the rest of the ingredients.

If you're curious, I filled the filo with:

1o-oz bag fresh spinach
4 oz feta
1 egg white
1/2 spring onion, minced
teaspoon lemon juice
tiny dusting of grated nutmeg
lots of cracked black pepper

5 T melted unsalted butter, for brushing the filo
1/2# filo dough

Made 12 large triangles, each with a heaping tablespoon of filling inside. If you're new to this, as I was, it's daunting to be trying to rush through in order to keep the filo from drying out. Halve the recipe. Don't be a hero. Yet. . .

Mediterranean-Style Stuffed Eggplants

2009-04-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

These attractive eggplant boats are edible and delicious, and the filling is indeed, well, filling.

I've been wanting to stuff eggplants for a while, just wrestling with what to use as filling. I found an old recipe of my mom's called Sabbath Roast, who knows where she found it, that used to be a sagey bready stuffing baked meatloaf style. I loved it. But the basic elements were all there — cheese, protein, and spices. I sensed to be what these eggplants wanted to be mediterranean themed, so a few adjustments were made. These weren't the fastest thing I've made, but I liked how vegetable-centered they are. Using the eggplant as both delivery piece and filling keeps the ingredient list down and the presentation simple.

George loved these, though we both initially burned our mouths. Grr. Step back a moment and let them cool a little, is my advice.

Mediterranean-Style Stuffed Eggplants

4 small eggplants, washed and dried

4 eggs
1 spring onion or half a medium-size white onion, diced
12-16 oz vegetarian burger crumbles (use your favorite kind or Morningstar Burger Crumbles)
3 oz crumbled feta cheese
4 oz mozzarella, cut into small cubes + extra for the top
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, drained and diced
2 tsp italian herbs (or 1 tsp each basil and oregano)
1 tsp black pepper
6 slices of whole wheat bread, toasted

Heat the oven to 350º and spray a sheet pan with nonstick spray. Cut the eggplants in half and use a melon-baller to scoop out the insides, leaving about 1/4" of flesh on all of the sides. Sprinkle each eggplant lightly with salt, set on the sheet pan and let rest while you prep the ingredients.

Whisk the eggs together in a large bowl. On a cutting board, dice up the insides of the eggplant that you just scooped out and add it to the eggs to keep it from turning brown. Add the onion, burger, crumbled feta, tomatoes, herbs, pepper, and half of the mozzarella to the bowl, stirring to combine. Stack the toast and slice into small cubes. Add these to the bowl last and mix everything completely.

The filling, just before adding the bread cubes.

Take a paper towel and gently wipe the middle of each eggplant, wicking away any moisture that the salt brought out while they sat. Sprinkle each eggplant boat with some pepper, then fill to the brim with the stuffing. Use your hands to press stuffing into the eggplants, mounding it over the top. Sprinkle the remaining cubes of mozzarella over the tops of the eggplants. Wrap the baking sheet loosely with aluminum foil, taking care not to let it touch the cheese.

I baked mine in two batches, but I should have put them on a sheet pan.
Here they are, stuffed, ready to be covered in foil and baked.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 30-40 minutes, until the eggplant boats are soft and the cheesy tops are browned. Let them rest for 10 minutes or so, so nobody burns their mouth. These are crazy hot, cheesy, filling and perfect with a huge greek salad.

Lemony Angel Food Cake with Lemon Curd and Strawberry Sauce

2009-04-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

Browsing along in my food magazines the Saturday before my inlaws' Easter dinner, I read a recipe for Lemony Angel Food Cake in Martha Stewart Living. I'd been asked to bring dessert already and knew dinner would be on the heavy side, so I was searching for something light, preferably lemony. I've never made angel food cake. I even have a cake mold from the secondhand store that I've never used.

For some reason, I can never justify using a whole crate of fresh eggs. It's a mental block. I had to use egg powder instead, which worked beautifully. While you don't need to make the curd, you'll find yourself with six leftover yolks and lots of naked, zested lemons. In my mind, that's a great excuse for curd.

The cake was perfect! Light and fluffy, a soft, pillowy goodness that I spread with lemon curd and drizzled with strawberry sauce.

Lemony Angel Food Cake with Lemon Curd and Strawberry Sauce

Lemony Angel Food Cake
Cake recipe only adapted from Martha Stewart Living, May 2009 issue, page 170-171

1 cup sifted cake flour, not self-rising
1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup dried egg white powder
3/4 cup warm water
6 large egg whites
zest of three large lemons
2 T lemon juice
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
1 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 325º and set the rack on the bottom third. In a small bowl, sift together the cake flour and 1/2 cup of sugar. Set aside.

Soft peaks, just prior to adding sugar.

In a mixing bowl, add the egg white powder to the warm water, mix briefly and let set to dissolve. Meanwhile, zest and juice the lemons and separate the eggs, keeping the egg yolks and leftover, unsqueezed lemons nearby for the curd recipe, below. Add the egg whites to the mixing bowl and whip for a minute, until frothy. Add the lemon zest, juice, cream of tartar, vanilla and salt, and whip the eggs for another 2-3 minutes on medium-high speed. The mixture should form soft peaks, meaning you can see the trail of the beaters in it just for a second or so. Keeping the mixture running, drizzle in the sugar slowly. Continue to whip the eggs until the peaks stay when you lift the beater out of the batter, firm but not stiff — if you whip it too far you'll get meringue. Sprinkle the flour and sugar mixture over the eggs in two batches, folding gently to incorporate each addition. Once they're combined, spoon the batter into an angel food mold. Smooth the top and run a knife in a circle around the pan, gently, several times to prevent air bubbles. Bake the cake for 45-50 minutes, until a long toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Invert the cake immediately, setting to cool upside down on a heat-safe surface for at least an hour.

Once completely cool, run a knife around the edges to loosen from the sides and center, then slide out the center piece and run the knife around the bottom. Invert to right side up, and place on a cake platter. Tightly wrap any leftovers.

Glass bottles of the curd and strawberry sauce, ready to go and oh so pretty.

Lemon Curd
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup lemon juice (whatever you get from your remaining lemons
6 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
pinch salt
3/4 cup cold, unsalted butter (1.5 sticks)

Heat 2-3 inches of water to a boil in a small saucepan. Find a heatproof bowl to fit snugly over the top of the pan without touching the water and use this to make the curd. While you're looking for things, find your candy thermometer.

Once the water boils, place the lemon juice, egg yolks, sugar and salt into the bowl and stir constantly. If you don't stir it until it's at least 120º, the sugar will cook the yolks and make hard chunks, so try not to leave untended until it's quite warm. You're going to cook this, stirring often, until the mixture has reached 180º. It will thicken and be a bright yellow in color. Take off of the water carefully — don't burn yourself with the steam! — and let cool to 140º, stirring occasionally to release the heat. When the curd has cooled, cut the cold butter into thumb-sized pieces and whisk them in two at a time. They will melt slowly and thicken the curd, lightening the color and texture.

Let cool to room temperature to use that day. This recipe makes about 2 cups, which is a lot. Lemon curd keeps 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator and is delicious on scones.

Lemon-Scented Strawberry Sauce
4 cups frozen unsweetened strawberries (or 3 cups frozen + 1 cup fresh, whatever you have)
juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
pinch salt

Place all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat until the berries thaw and it starts to boil. Turn down to low-medium heat. You want it to reduce and thicken, but not splatter all over the stove. Take a potato masher and gently squish the berries a few times, just to break up the big ones and get a nice consistency to the sauce. Let it bubble about 15 minutes, then take off the heat and let cool. Keep at room temperature until ready to use. Refrigerate leftovers.

Falling Cloudberries: New Cookbook Review

2009-04-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

Jealous of Kiros' diverse family recipes and map-skipping travels, I read Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes from cover to cover, bookmarking tasty bites with flavors that span the globe. I was inspired to cook something immediately, but choosing a recipe proved difficult. My sweet tooth argued for dessert. But would it be the crumbly crisp Cinnamon and Cardamom Buns from Finland? Bougatsa from Greece, its layered filo baked with sweet, custard-like filling? Cream cheese-filled Bourekia cookies from Cyprus? In the end, Kiros' grandfather's Rice Pudding recipe (page 192), a mildly sweet and comforting dish, was the perfect footnote for the dinner I'd already eaten.

Part memoir, part family scrapbook and entirely food-driven, this is the cookbook I wish I had written. Reading it feels familial, infused with childhood and nostalgia. Finished with my initial reading, I flipped through the book a second time to make my grocery list. The book already looked like a member of my (admittedly large) cooking library, torn paper scraps marking favored items and desserts with my notes for accompaniments. It being April, I'm baking up the South African cinnamon-swirled Bobba's Babka (page 246) for Easter brunch. Hopefully my family will love the recipe as much as I do.

Served with a bit of nostalgia, this recipe collection provides a great balance of flavors with an approachable, continental flair. When this book arrived in the mail, I celebrated. There's a beautiful heft to the book — brimming with gorgeous patterns, color photography and thick, glossy pages — that makes it seem a prize, worthy of celebration and, perhaps, a bit more of that lovely rice pudding.

More recipes on my "To Try" list:
Chickpea, Feta & Cilantro Salad
Baked Lima Beans with Onions, Tomatoes and Parsley
Spanakopita
Fried Potatoes and Artichoke Bottoms
Little Lemon Cakes
Olive Oil Bread
Pistachio and Rucola Pesto
Red Pepper Soup with Olives, Lemon Zest and Yogurt

Spicy Garlic Noodles

2009-04-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

One of the easiest dishes to put together, these garlic noodles smell so delicious you won't be able to stand it. If you're a garlic lover, adding more is always an option. Beware reheating leftovers in the office microwave — the scent of garlic will follow you to your desk!

Spicy Garlic Noodles
8oz spaghetti

3-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
2 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T butter
1-2 T red pepper flakes, seasoned to taste
lots of black pepper
pinch of salt

Boil some water for the pasta on the stove and toss it in to cook as usual. In a small saucepan, place the oil, butter and garlic. Turn it onto low heat, just until the butter melts. The garlic should smell delicious already and cooking it just a little will take some of the edge off. Add the pepper flakes and black pepper to the oil/garlic mix, and let sit with the burner off until the pasta is finished cooking. Drain the pasta, then toss together with the butter-garlic-spice mixture. Add salt to taste and it's ready to go!

Serves 2 with a big salad for a simple meal or 4 as a side for eggplant parmesan.

Roasted Banana Bars with Browned Butter Frosting

2009-03-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

If you love bananas, you'll find these bars lip-smackingly good, especially with the addition of the browned butter frosting. Best of all, they're not half bad for you, health-wise.

Inspired by a recipe I found in Cooking Light, I still couldn't help adjusting and refining these to make them a bit healthier and banana-centric. I love bananas and am thrilled they're so upscale in this homestyle dessert.

Roasted Banana Bars with Browned Butter Frosting
Makes 16 bars

Roasted Banana Bars
4 bananas, sliced
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 T butter, cut into small pieces

5 oz whole wheat pastry flour
4 oz all-purpose flour or cake flour, use what you have
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup raw sugar
1/4 cup low-fat milk*
1 tsp buttermilk powder*
1 tsp vanilla
2 T vegetable oil
1/4 cup applesauce, preferably natural, unsweetened

Frosting
1/4 cup butter

4 oz reduced fat cream cheese (half a package)
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup honey
pinch salt
1/4 cup pecans or walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

Heat the oven to 400º and mix the bananas with the brown sugar and T of butter pieces in a baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring midway through, and let cool, turning the oven down to 375º.

In a small bowl, weigh the flours and add the baking soda, salt and baking powder. In a second bowl, mix the eggs and sugar together, then add the milk and buttermilk powder, oil, applesauce and vanilla. When the bananas have cooled enough that they won't curdle your eggs, pour them into the wet mixture, smashing the bananas with a wooden spoon as you stir. Add in the dry ingredients, mixing just to combine. Butter or spray a 9"x13" pan and in pour the batter, spreading it evenly. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the edges start to pull away from the pan and the center is set. Turn the oven off and let the bars cool completely.

I couldn't resist cutting into these right away.
And then they were so delicious, I had to freeze the rest of them!

On the stovetop, melt the 1/4 cup butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Continue to cook it until the color deepends to a brown, caramelly shade, and the butter starts to smell nutty. Turn off the heat and let cool 10 minutes. Add the cream cheese to the still-warm butter to melt it slightly. Once it's mixable, add the honey, powdered sugar and salt. Blend until smooth. Once the cake is cool, drizzle the frosting over it and sprinkle with the nuts. Slice and serve.

* If you keep buttermilk on hand, use 1/4 cup of it in place of both the milk and buttermilk powder here. I rarely buy buttermilk, instead I use the powdered version in the supermarket baking aisle and mix it with water or milk as directed.

Healthy(er) Blueberry Scones

2009-03-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

Toasty and light, scones are some of my favorite things to bake. They're super easy, which I like, and you can whip up a batch in 10 minutes plus baking time. I'd been thinking of a few ways to make scones more healthfully, and this is the first iteration. Deliciously, these fiber-added scones blend the antioxidant kick of blueberries with the yum powers of butter. Don't be afraid.

Blueberry Scones with a Fiber Kick

1 cup flour, regular
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 T raw sugar
2 T toasted wheat germ
2 T ground flaxseed
2 T wheat flakes (or oat flakes)
1 T baking powder
1 tsp lemon zest (or zest of a lemon)
1 tsp orange zest (or zest of an orange)
6 T butter, cut into small cubes
juice of 1/2 a lemon (or 1 T bottled lemon juice)
1/2 cup half and half or whole milk, plus more for
2 eggs, lightly beaten

1-1/2 cups blueberries, frozen

Heat oven to 375º and butter or spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray. Mix all the dry ingredients together down to the zests. In a food processor or using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until the mixture looks like gravel. Pour in the lemon juice, dairy and eggs, mixing briefly, just to combine.

Scrape the dough out onto a small amount of flour on the countertop. Mix in the berries, kneading the dough together very lightly. If the berries fall out, poke them back inside. (This part will be quite messy.) Wash your hands, using your wet hands to pat and smooth the dough into a circle about 1" high. Cut the circle in half, then each half into thirds. Place on the prepared sheet. Pour a bit of your milk or half-and-half into a cup, then brush it onto the tops of the scones. Either sprinkle them generously with raw sugar now or finish with the glaze recipe below. No need to do both. Bake 25-30 minutes, until browned on top and the centers are set, not jiggly. Test with a toothpick if uncertain. Eat right away or let cool slightly and then add the glaze.

Browned and toasty, straight from the oven

Lemon Glaze
Juice of 1/2 lemon (or 1 T bottled juice)
2 T milk
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Mix together until smooth, then drizzle over scones. For a thicker or whiter-colored glaze, add more powdered sugar, up to 1/2 cup.

Mixed Potato Hash with Eggs

2009-03-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

By the time I actually made this, I'd already been craving it for weeks, fully crafted and tasted in the corner of my mind. Living in rural Kansas makes it difficult to find some ingredients, especially now that winter's stock is starting to look weathered. I had to wait until a trip to the big city to find my veggie sausages and sweet potatoes that looked edible. And then, yum, just as I imagined.

For the past few months, I've been nabbing eggs from one of George's co-workers who keeps a flock in the country. She charges $1.50 for a dozen extra large, free range eggs. I love her so. The yolks are sunny yellow and delicately flavored, perfect for highlighting in a dish like this one.

Mixed Potato Hash with Eggs
Serves 4

1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
2 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 yellow onion, peeled and diced
1 T vegetable oil
1 T maple syrup
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 vegetarian sausages, diced (I used Field Roast's Italian sausage

4 large eggs, preferably organic or free range or both

4 slices whole wheat bread, toasted and buttered

Heat the oven to 400º. Mix the potatoes and onions on a rimmed baking sheet. Pour the oil, syrup and spices over them and toss to coat. Bake for 20 minutes, turning once. Add the diced sausages, mixing together, then bake another 5-10 minutes, until the potatoes are golden and the sausages are starting to color and heated through. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and pepper if needed. Set aside.

While the hash finishes, warm a saute pan over low-medium heat. Add oil or a pat of butter to coat the pan, then break the four eggs, one into each quarter of the pan. Break the whites around the yolk, but keep the yolk whole, if possible. Cook 4-5 minutes, depending on your heat and your eggs, until the whites are solid but the yolks are still runny.

Toast the bread and butter it generously, setting each piece on its own plate. Divide the hash between the plates, piling it atop the toast. Place an egg on top of the hash. Sprinkle the egg with salt and pepper, then serve.

Apple-Cheese Quesadillas

2009-03-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

Gooey great. I'm in love with this lunch! I mentioned my affinity for these tortillas earlier, so hopefully a second tomato tortilla post is kosher.

Apple-Cheese Quesadillas
Makes 1

1 small, firm apple, washed and thinly sliced
1/2 shallot or 1/4 small red onion
2 mushrooms, sliced
small handful walnuts, roughly chopped
small drizzle of honey
1 oz havarti or mild cheddar, something melty
1 flavored wrap or 2 fajita-size tortillas

While you slice your fruit/veggies, toast the walnuts in the large saute pan you'll be using in a sec, heating over medium-high heat and tossing regularly for 5 minutes or so, until lightly browned. They should smell yummy, like walnuts. Set them aside to cool.

Heat a teaspoon of oil in the pan, then add the shallot, mushrooms and 1/2 of the apple slices. Arrange the remaining apple pieces over half of the tortilla, sprinkle with the walnuts and then layer with cheese. When the apple-veggie mix is nicely browned, spread it over top of the tortilla, keeping to the one side. Drizzle the honey over everything, then fold the tortilla in half.

All layered up and ready to cook!

Splash a tiny bit of oil into the pan again, then carefully lay the folded tortilla inside. Cook about two minutes per side, until the cheese is melted and the tortilla is golden brown. Flip out onto a plate and cut into four slices, sprinkling with a bit of salt. Enjoy your lunch!

Balsamic-Glazed Roasted Eggplant

2009-03-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing is better than simple, roasted vegetables. This eggplant is no exception and dead simple to make. Eggplant tends to go bitter, especially in the peel, but an hour soak in a bit of salt quickly fixes the problem. Choose eggplants with bright, even skin colors, firm rather than mushy feeling, without any bruises. If there's discoloration by the time you're cooking it, peel that skin away.

Balsamic-Glazed Roasted Eggplant

1 large eggplant
1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp olive oil

Balsamic Glaze
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp honey or brown sugar

Wash the eggplant and dry thoroughly. Place a clean kitchen towel on the counter. Halve the eggplant and slice into about 1-1/2 to 2" cubes, keeping the skin. Spread the pieces on the kitchen towel, skin side down, and sprinkle with the salt. Make sure a little of the salt gets onto each piece. Let sit for 45 minutes to an hour. You should be able to see little beads of water forming on the vegetable cubes.

Heat the oven to 400º. Use the kitchen towel to gently press the salt and excess moisture out of the eggplant. Spread the eggplant on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with black pepper. Toss to coat. (Add more oil if you like but don't add too much because eggplant just absorbs it.) Bake 30-40 minutes, turning the pieces once to let them brown evenly. The finished eggplant should be soft and deeply browned. Try a piece to determine if it's finished.

Mix the glaze in a bowl or shake it up in a small jar. Pour over the eggplant and toss. Serve the hearty, roasted eggplant alongside grilled tofu and green salad. Or just do like I do and eat it by hand straight from the pan.

* A quick note about roasting from a mistake-maker (me!) — don't crowd the pan. If you need to double the recipe, make a second baking sheet. Vegetables will steam and not roast if they get too crowded.

Sauteed Veggie Wrap

2009-03-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

I scored a pack of fresh-made tomato totillas on a recent trip to Whole Foods. Since they're wrap size, I decided to actually make a wrap. My lunches are normally pretty free-form, and this is no exception. If you don't have an ingredient, substitute.

Sauteed Veggie Wrap

1 tsp olive oil
1 small shallot or a quarter of a red onion
3-4 mushrooms, sliced
1 small zucchini, sliced
1/2 of one Field Roast sausage, diced (I used Italian)
sprinkle of balsamic
salt and pepper to taste
1 ounce fontina or other melting cheese, thinly sliced
1 flavored wrap

In a frying pan over medium-high heat, saute the shallot and mushrooms in the olive oil. When lightly browned, move to the side of the pan and saute the zucchini slices. Add the veggie sausage, cooking just to heat it up and get a little color. Take off of the heat. Sprinkle with balsamic, just a tiny bit, and then salt and pepper to taste.

Ready to roll . . .

Place the sauteed veggies in the center of your tortilla and dot cheese over the top. Push the sides in and roll up like a burrito. Let sit just a minute, to heat the cheese, then cut in half and share.

Brown Rice Salad with PB Dressing

2009-03-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

Brown Rice Salad with Peanut-Butter Dressing
Serves 4

Salad
1 crown broccoli, cut into small pieces
1 tsp peanut or sesame oil

1 egg, beaten in a small bowl with 1 tsp of water

1/2 red onion or 1 shallot, minced
1 crisp apple, thinly sliced with skin on

3 cups fresh spinach leaves, thinly sliced
3 cups cooked brown rice
handful of salted peanut halves or lightly chopped whole peanuts

Dressing
2 T creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup apple juice or water
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
pinch brown sugar
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
pinch red pepper flakes, optional
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oven to 400º and spread the cut broccoli out on a baking sheet or tray. While the oven heats, mix the dressing together and set aside. Toss the broccoli with the teaspoon of oil and bake 15 minutes, until browned on the edges. Set aside.

Roasted broccoli

Over medium heat, set a small frying pan to warm and spray with nonstick spray or brush on a thin coat of oil. Add half of the egg mixture, turning the pan to coat (like with a crepe batter). You're making two thin egg pancakes. Flip the egg when it's solid, then set aside to cool and start the second one.

Sliced egg pancakes add protein and color to the dish

When the eggs are complete, add a smidge of oil to the pan, turn it up to medium-high, and saute the onions and apples together until browned. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and take off the heat. Stir and set aside to cool slightly.

Put the salad together by mixing the rice, spinach, broccoli, apples, onion in a large bowl. Layer the egg pancakes on top of each other on the mixing board. Roll up into a cigar shape, then thinly slice across (see photo). Add sliced egg to the bowl and the peanuts. Pour dressing over the top and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper as needed. Serve alongside teriyaki tofu or salmon with chili glaze.

Blueberry Oat Bars

2009-03-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

Scrumptiously buttery and high in fiber? Hard to believe, I know. George doesn't eat anything with seeds, so I had to adapt my favorite raspberry bar recipe to be seedless and shareable. I threw in more fiber and whole grains, then balanced the flavors with the tang of lemon zest. I've also called upon the trick of smaller portions, cutting a 9x13 pan into 24 small squares.

Blueberry Oat Bars

Makes 24 small bars

Crust
3 sticks butter, cold
2-1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup wheat flakes*
1/4 cup oat flakes*
3/4 cup brown sugar (or raw sugar)
1 tsp cinnamon
zest of a small lemon (or 1 tsp dried zest)
pinch of salt
2-1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

Filling
4 cups blueberries (if using frozen, thaw enough to smash slightly)
1 cup blueberry jam (if unable to find, use grape)
juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 350º and spray or butter a 9" x 13" baking dish.

Crust mix, straight from the Cuisinart

In a food processor or using a pastry cutter, cut butter into all of the crust ingredients except the oats, until butter is smaller than pea sized. Add the oats, just to combine. Press two-thirds of the mixture into the prepared dish. Bake 20 minutes, until edges are golden brown. Remove from oven and make filling.

Crust comes out of the oven, golden brown

Mix filling ingredients together, smashing blueberries slightly, just to break some of them for more coverage. Pour over the crust and spread as evenly as possible.

Blueberry-grape filling mixture

Pour filling over the crust, spreading to cover as much as possible.

Pour remaining crust over the top of the filling, covering evenly. Press down slightly, taking care not to burn yourself on the hot pan. Bake another 20-25 minutes, just until golden brown on the top of the crust and the filling bubbles at the edges. Let cool 20 minutes, then cut into small bars and cool completely.

Cooling bars, pre-cut

*These ingredients are typically available in bulk at a natural foods store. If unavailable in your area, replace with oats.