aSweetPeace

Daring Bakers: Cheesecake

2009-04-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

This post is bare-bones for now... alls I can say is WOW was this cheesecake easy, amazing, and will be made again. Has already been made again, actually... more later.

Easter: Deviled eggs

2009-04-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

This post comes after a weekend of holiday cooking, first for Passover and then for Easter. I love both holidays, and will share with you one of my favorite recipes.

Lemon-Dill Deviled Eggs:

This recipe is an amalgam of the many deviled egg recipes I found on the web, which are all variations on the same theme:
eggs+mustard+mayo+anything else= YUM.

I'm including some of my own cooking philosophy here, too: The appeal of deviled eggs is the taste and the uniform look, in equal proportions. Luckily, the egg makes this pretty easy for the chef, since it's white with a smooth texture.

However, there is some technique here.

The two tricky parts are The Boiling of The Egg and The Piping of The Filling.

I'd say don't even bother making the eggs if you don't pipe the filling... Why go to all the effort of peeling a dozen eggs if you are just going to shlopp in the filling with a spoon? I mean, the taste will be the same, but you are only selling yourself short.

The recipe:

1 dozen eggs+ 2 (old are best! easier to peel!) Why plus one? Well... stuff happens. Boil yourself two extra eggs, just in case one bursts during boiling, or cracks while you peel it, or looks funny when you cut it.
1 teaspoon mustard
1/3 cup mayo
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
zest from 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
3 tablespoons chopped dill
paprika, preferably smoked, for garnish

1. Boil the eggs: Put your eggs in the bottom of a pot. Add water to cover them 1 inch. Add 1 teaspoon salt to the water. Heat the water till it simmers, then keep it simmering for 10 minutes. DON'T overcook these puppies, you want the filling to be creamy, not dry. Using tongs, remove eggs to a bowl of ice water, let sit until they feel cool to your touch.

2. Peel the eggs. Tip: on the flatter end of the egg, there is usually an air pocket. This is a good place to start peeling. If there are shell bits stuck to them, rinse and dry thoroughly.

3. Cut eggs in half. Over a medium bowl, place a sieve. Squeeze out the filling gently into the sieve and mash it through the holes with a spoon. OK, so you could forget the sieve and just mash it with a fork, sure. But must I remind you, you have ALREADY peeled the eggs! That was the hard part! Go the extra mile here and feel like a winner.

4. Put all other ingredients in the bowl, mix, adjust for seasoning. Mmmm.

5. Get your pastry bag out and choose a nice fat tip. Fill the bag and pipe the filling into the eggs, really pushing it down so there is a mound of filling for each egg. This is not like cake decorating... we want maximum fill, not a nice little nubbin. You should have exactly enough filling for all the eggs, plus a few squirts to put on top of some cucumber slices.

6. Make it pretty with dill, paprika, lemon zest, etc. Enjoy!

Daring Bakers: Homemade Lasagna Noodles

2009-04-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I had a super time with this challenge, using it as an opportunity to have a fancy-shmancy dinner party for six friends. OK, so the lasagna took two days, loads of planning, two rooms (for hanging the noodles) and myriads of pots and pans, but it also gave forth pure gustatory pleasure and heaps of leftovers.

The components of the challenge were as follows:

1. Make spinach lasagna noodles. This involves 10 ounces of spinach, which is two of those large plastic containers of baby spinach.

To make the noodles:

- Make a well of flour on your counter. Add the pulverized spinach, and eggs.

-Mix with a wooden spoon. Why wooden? I dunno.

-Kneed for 10 minutes, then let rest, covered, for several hours.

-Cut dough into 4, and roll out each section.

-The rolling isn't so much about pushing and squishing as it is about stretching and pulling.

First, you pull it along the length of the rolling pin, then you hold the dough down on the counter and pull the rolling pin up with the dough attached. Confusing? You betcha.

-The dough should ultimately be thin enough to be translucent.

-Cut noodles into thick strips, then hang to dry over kitchen towels draped over brooms. Or, you know, hang them on that pasta rack that you have stored in your cupboard, right next to your pasta machine, which is next to your dough-kneader, which is next to the package of store bought pasta.

-Cook noodles in salted water for 2-4 minutes. These noodles are sooo tasty right after you have made them!

2. Make a ragu. The Daring Bakers recipe called for many kinds of meat, as well as milk, and I substituted with a mushroom ragu. I changed the recipe by chopping up the mushrooms ridiculously small so that they would have a consistent mouth-feel, almost like a meat sauce. I would totally make this sauce again- you can add any kind of mushroom! I chose the four pictured here.

3. Make a bechemel. This is a white sauce of milk, flour, and butter. Since I had one guest who does not eat dairy, I made two bechemels: one dairy and one with hemp milk and cashew butter to replace the milk and butter. Both turned out great- arguably the cashew butter sauce was better! Something about the nuttyness of it made the lasagna feel rich and creamy.

4. Layer the noodles, the ragu, and the sauce with parmesan cheese, bake it, and eat it.

You can see some other examples of Daring Bakers' lasagna interpretations here. Also, check out the original recipe here.

Thanks to Andy and Diana for taking lovely photos! You can see more of Diana's work here.

Daring Bakers- Flourless Chocolate Cake

2009-02-28T06:04:00.000-08:00

Imagine a chocolate cake that's rich, fluffy, and dark as all get-out. Then put a dollop of tart-sweet strawberries in the middle... yum! Every month, food bloggers around the world participate in the Daring Bakers challenges, which motivate us to make ever-more complicated and delectable dishes; this February we made Flourless Chocolate Cakes.

The challenge wasn't too hard because I didn't make the ice cream that should have gone with the cake. Long ago, my mother asked me whether or not she should save the old ice cream maker, and I said, "No! I am never going to make ice cream." Now I don't really regret that decision... but I do hold it forth as an excuse. I have to set limits on my cooking somewhere, and Ice Cream is where I draw the line. Your line might be different, say, at Pickling or Canning or Bread Baking. You may have no lines, and spend all your time in the kitchen.

But the cake itself was fabulous! The first round turned out the best because I used bitter and semi sweet chocolate. The second round was missing a bit of sugar. I will certainly keep this cake in my repertoire due to its simplicity and versatility. I halved the recipe, by the way, and used ramekins instead of a heart mold.

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

Thanks to Husna, Noah, Andy, and my parents for sharing this tasty dish!

TWD: World Peace Cookies

2009-02-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

The black tie of cookies. Not too sweet. Handsome, but not too pretty. Deep, rich chocolate- the finest chocolate- cut into chunky morsels. And then the catch: tiny grains of sea salt to tickle, tease, and elude your palate.

The texture is buttery without being crumbly, moist but not gooey, crisp but not crunchy. The scent is divine.

This week's Tuesday's with Dorrie challenge, where cooks from around the globe bake recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book "Baking, from my Home to Yours," was a success. See other successes here.

The one thing I didn't post... the cookies before I cut them. See, um, you roll the chunky chocolate dough into a log, then chill it, then cut it. And, well, there was no way I could make that log o' chocolate look appetizing.

In fact, I have another log waiting in my fridge, ready for baking, and it kind of repulses me. Um.

Daring Bakers: Tuiles du Coeur

2009-01-30T19:59:00.000-08:00

This month's Daring Bakers Challenge involved a lot of... equipment.

We made "tuiles" and no, I don't have a good grasp on how to pronounce that, though the French teacher said "Tool" was accurate. It just feels wrong, I suppose.

Here's the description taken from the Challenge on the Daring Bakers Website:
"Traditionally, tuiles are thin, crisp almond cookies that are gently molded over a rolling pin or arched form while they are still warm. Once set, their shape resembles the curved French roofing tiles for which they're named."

On to the equipment:

Silicon Baking Mat
Stencil
Offset Spatula
Tuile pan

I had none of these things, so I went out and bought 50% of them, the Silicon Baking Mat ($10 at Weggies and the Stencil ($18 for a stencil, plus $12 shipping, because not a single store in Syracuse had anything close.) I declined to buy the Offset Spatula and the Tuile pan.

For my 50% efforts, I got halfsies returns. My Tuiles have a pretty heart shape (gracias Stencil) and they slid right off the pan (merci Silicon Baking Mat). HOWever, the tuiles were a b**** to spread on the pan due to my inadequate, floppy, and flat spatula. Furthermore, they never achieved a lovely curvature, since I didn't have a curvy pan.

Not surprisingly, I managed to get one beauteous batch and one batch that burned. Half perfect hearts, half brown and crusty... Portents for Valentine's Day this year? Hope not. I offer you the loveliest of the photos here, with one of the better hearts displayed on a bit of vanilla ice cream dotted with raspberry sauce. Tres delicieux.

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

TWD: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

2009-01-13T05:05:00.001-08:00

These muffins were tasty... but nothin' to write home about. I made them with black bean chili flavored with chipotle and smoked paprika, topped with local cheddar. The chili was amazing, though! You can see more samples of corn muffins here.

Tangelo and Lime Pie

2009-01-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

This pie was the perfect winter dessert: tart, creamy, sweet filling, and crumbly, rich, pecan and graham cracker crust. Yum.

But tangelos are very seedy; be prepared to pick them out! (Or just use clementines like the recipe calls for...)

TWD: Rewind Granola Grabbers

2009-01-06T16:38:00.000-08:00

I've had a rather busy few days... school starting up again, and several incidents involving fighting, injured, and visiting pets. Now that these have passed, I will share with you my Tuesdays with Dorrie rewind: I made Granola Grabbers instead of the pear tart.

These tasty little nubbins hit the spot for school lunches, gifts for friends, and a stolen treat for the dog I am sitting.

To enjoy others' interpretations of this week's true challenge, go here.

Daring Bakers: The Log

2008-12-30T21:07:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! This post is long, so here's the setup:

1. introduction to my experience making the Yule Log

2. Explanation of the Yule Log challenge from Daring Bakers Website, with a few additions in green from me

3. Link to the Daring Bakers Blogroll, where you can explore all the other pretty yule logs!

1. I LOVED making the log. It took weeks of planning the flavors, purchasing the ingredients, (no, Wegmans does not sell mango puree) and days of cooking, photographing, and decorating. I learned SO MUCH from making this log, mainly because it was about 10 different recipes in one. Most of all, I am proud to have conquered my fear of caramel. Thanks ever so much to Diana, for being there to take photos and for lending moral support. You can see more of her work here.

2. Introduction to the log from the Daring Bakers website:

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand

SO, what is a French Yule Log you say and how is it different from the Yule Log we made last December if you were a member then?

In France you can buy two kinds of Yule log, either the Genoise and Buttercream type that we made last December, or what is more commonly purchased which is a frozen Yule Log very reminiscent of an ice cream cake, only often it’s not made of ice cream but rather frozen mousse of some sort. In French this is called an entremets which is sometimes loosely translated in English as simply a cream dessert. This also means that this recipe is not holiday-specific, it is also just a scrumptious dessert recipe.

This recipe comes almost entirely, except for one small labeled portion and some of the variations courtesy of our dear Daring Baker Fairy Tartelette, from the website: Florilège Gourmand (address above) which belongs to Flore (who has not disclosed her last name to me in my exchanges with her) and is unreal. Her website is in French and different portions of the recipe have been pulled from the recipes in the entremets section.

So, to the business of our Yule log:

#1 DO NOT PANICK when you see that this document is 18 pages long. The actual recipe is not 12 pages long, it’s more on the order of 3-4 pages once you choose your flavors.
Marion and I believe in Culinary Freedom and wanted to make this as fun and accessible as possible for everyone around the world.

#2 THE CHALLENGE RULE is that you MUST MAKE ALL 6 of these elements for the log:

1) Dacquoise Biscuit This is a egg white and almond meal cake that stays very light and puffy, and can be formed into different shapes.

2) Mousse I chose to make a mango mouse instead of chocolate. Good choice!

3) Ganache Insert I made a white chocolate caramel ganache.

4) Praline (Crisp) Insert Based on comments from other Daring Bakers who said the crisp was hard to cut, I made the coconut crisp (with homemade Lace Gavottes) outside of the log. I cut the crisp into stars to decorate the log.

5) Creme Brulee Insert I made a cardamon creme brulee.

6) Icing The assembly will essentially be a Dacquoise Biscuit at the bottom, and the inserts inter-layered with mousse, with an icing finish.

That’s about it for rules. Oh yeah, please have fun!

3. Now that you have been fully acquainted with French Yule logs, check out other people's creations here.

No Tuesdays with Dorrie... Chanukah party!

2008-12-25T13:19:00.000-08:00

I have been cooking up a storm, but not for TWD. Feel free to check out other people's butterscotch pudding creations here.

Here is a shot of me turning some latkes for my Chanukah party. We had applesauce, Israeli salad, and Jason even brought "Chanukah Balls," the traditional fried dessert of choice for this Jewish holiday. Of course, most of us just bought Dunkin' Donuts. Jason is a cooking overrachiever, and I hope to taste more of his creations soon!

TWD: Yet. Another. Cookie. (Buttery Jam!)

2008-12-15T17:53:00.000-08:00

Welp, I am officially underwhelmed. After many straight weeks of recipe hits, this buttery jam cookie from Dorrie Greenspan's cookbook, Baking, from My Home to Yours, was a tasteless, texture-free flop. And that dough was so sticky! So hard to get off the spoon! Ah well, win some, loose some.

And it's not like I'm not eating the durned things. For more (and more interesting) takes on this cookie that sticks in your throat like the words "I broke your blender", go to Tuesdays with Dorrie.

TWD: Sugar Cookie!

2008-12-08T18:02:00.000-08:00

A quick posting this week for a quick cookie: sugar cookies! Tuesdays with Dorrie, the weekly baking group that makes recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book, Baking, from my Home to Yours, made sugar cookies this week. Check em out here.

Caution: woe betide the baker that does not refrigerate this dough for copious amounts of time. You will end up with a sticky mess.

Suggestions: go for the lemon peel! Go for it! Adding lemon zest to sugar cookie dough makes the flavor subtle and fragrant, alluring and memorable. Also, try subbing whole wheat pastry flour, just because it tastes so good!

Thanks to Diana for this photo. You can see more of her delightful photography here.

The Promise of the Cookie

2008-12-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

This is the cookie you reached for, high above you on a counter top. This is the cookie your grandmother made- or the cookie your best friend's grandmother made. This is the cookie in the pastry shop you couldn't have, this is the cookie you read about in story books, this is the Promise of the Cookie.

A Cookie will taste moist, but also crunchy.
A Cookie will be nutty, but also have a bit of jam.
A Cookie will be rich and chocolaty.
A Cookie will be yours alone, will be fulfilling, will be more than a bite.
A Cookie will be Beautiful.

This week, for Tuesdays with Dorrie, we made Linzer Sables from Dorrie Greenspan's book, Baking, from My Home to Yours. Check out the other lovely takes on this recipe here.

Linzer: refers to an Austrian or Hungarian torte or cookie with a lattice design. The Linzer torte is the oldest known torte in the world, according to Wikipedia. (There's a recipe from 1653!) Who cares?!?! I totally do.

Sable: A classic French cookie, slightly crumbly, often with nuts; comes from the French word for sand.

These cookies called for half flour, half ground almonds. I subbed whole wheat pastry flour for the white flour. I also cut the sugar in half. Then I baked 'em, stuff 'em with raspberry jam and very dark, very fine chocolate ganache.

And then the Promise of the Cookie was fulfilled. All the disillusionment of childhood melted away... because This Cookie was Everything I Thought a Cookie Would Be.

TWD: Giving thanks for Pies

2008-11-28T07:56:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving I made two pies:

1. Thanksgiving Twofer Pie, (Pumpkin and Pecan) from Dorrie Greenspan's book, Baking, from my Home to Yours. (Catch more interpretations of this pie from Tuesdays with Dorrie, the on-line cooking group, here!)

2. An ultimate caramel apple pie by Tyler Florence. I found a video of the pie on Hulu, and the recipe is here.

I should have known that the fancy food network pie wouldn't hold a candle to Dorrie's tried and true recipes! The Pumpkin Pecan Pie was a hit, warm and crunchy and with a hint of dark rum.

The Caramel Apple Pie, while it had delicious caramel made with red wine, and a robust, flaky crust made with egg yolk, turned out watery. Kind of like a tasty, apple-y pond.

But the crust was GREAT! The yolks made it rich and flavorful... using all butter made it flaky and light. Check out the recipe above for the link.

Here are some photos of my endeavors.

I would like to draw your attention to the technique I learned for rolling out the pie crust:

Use plenty of flour on the counter when rolling, then just wrap it around your rolling pin and unroll it onto the pie!

Be gentle, folks. This sure works better than the technique of folding it into quarters, though, especially if you're like me and your crust isn't always perfectly even.

The last photo- of that delicious red-wine caramel being poured over the apples- is my favorite.

The beautiful Caramel Apple Pie photos are courtesy of Diana, and you can check out more of her photos here at flickr!

This last photo, of the Pumpkin Pecan Pie, doesn't look like much. But that brown crust is crispy and chewy, and underneath the tasty pecans lies a creamy, rum-flavored pumpkin pie filling that is not too sweet.

Iron Cupcake Earth: Snow White Cranberry Cupcakes

2008-11-23T18:12:00.001-08:00

VOTE NOW! VOTE HERE! Scroll down on the left side of the page.

This month the cupcake bakers of the world will duke it out over a tiny, tart, Thanksgiving-oriented berry: the cran.

Perhaps because I am teaching a unit on fairy tales in school, I created the "Snow White Cranberry Cupcake," a cupcake tasty enough to tempt any princes or woodsmen that happen to drop by.

Coconut cake as white as snow,
Cranberry filling as red as blood,
Chocolate Ganache as black as ebony.

The cake is white coconut cake, based on a recipe for Coconut Apple cake found in Dorrie Greenspan's book "Baking, from my Home to Yours." Very moist, made with canola oil instead of butter.

The cranberry filling is nothing more than ye old cranberry sauce, but of course with my special touches. (These are tips for Thanksgiving, folks!)

Killer Cranberry Sauce:

2 parts cranberries
1 part water
1 part dark or light brown sugar
2 -4 star anis
2-4 cinnamon sticks

Bring all to a boil, simmer 10 minutes, let chill. Remove spices. That's it! So tasty! DO NOT substitute ground cinnamon for the sticks, it will just make your sauce taste overly spiced.

Chocolate ganache topping made with very dark, Dagoba brand organic fair trade chocolate. Yum!

Thanks to Diana for taking the top photo! You can see her photostream here.

Strong Hearts Cafe in Syracuse, NY

2008-11-16T16:55:00.000-08:00

Pictured: One of the owners/chefs at Strong Hearts Cafe. OK, get this: He was up till 3 AM making the potato leek soup!! That's devotion. That's also tasty soup!

Intro: I love cooking. I love eating out. Some people think these things are opposed to one another, I think that each informs the other; good food at restaurants inspires creative ideas in the kitchen.

Review: This weekend I ate at an inspirational new vegan restaurant in Syracuse, NY: Strong Hearts Cafe. Basically, if you thought that being vegan meant you had to give stuff up, the Strong Hearts Cafe shows you that the following things can be had without harming, sacrificing, or eating animals or animal products:

1. Cupcakes
2. Milkshakes
3. Good coffee
4. Delish soup and sandwiches
5. Free Wireless
6. Tasteful, airy, clean ambiance
6. Gorgeous Chefs

On Sunday I showed up with my friends Diana and Hinda, two fine women who also happen to be amateur foodies like myself. We went with the intention of trying everything, and left somewhat defeated- we got too full to try hardly anything!

Here's a sampling of what we did try: (listed in order of the photos)

--The star of the show, pictured here, is the "Chicken" Salad Sandwich, for $5.50. What a steal! It tastes fresh, creamy, and flavorful- but it's also filling. Hinda couldn't even finish her sandwich.

I ordered another sandwich, the "BLT", made with soy bacon- yum! At Strong Hearts you can add many veggies to your sandwich, and we both chose avocado. This was a great choice; the creamy avocado tasted great with the crunchy bacon!

--We tried the Citrus salad, for $3.50, which had plenty of toasty pine nuts and sections of fresh oranges and grapefruit. We weren't crazy about the dressing, though, which was too tangy. (And was it made from bottled lime juice?) We would have preferred something sweeter, or with more olive oil.

--The mocha late (soy milk!) was fragrant and lightly dusted with cinnamon. I have decided that soy milk is much better than milk because it stays very foamy in your cup!

--The dessert cooler, which is only a small section of their sweet offerings, holds vegan cakes and vegan cheesecakes in many flavors: pumpkin pecan, lemon, blueberry, and chocolate cherry. Yum! These tasted like the "real" thing. But what I really love? That sign.

Thanks to Strong Hearts for feeding us. We heart you, your food, your decor, and your humor.

Don't you LOVE these photos? I absolutely love Diana Ecker, the increasingly skilled photographer, who took them. Check out more photos at her site!

No TWD; Spiced Applesauce and Purple Potato Salad

2008-11-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

I had a day off today. Which means, of course... lesson planning and cooking! I did not, however, cook for Tuesdays with Dorrie, the food blogging group that makes delightful recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book, Baking, From my Home to Yours. If you'd like to see everyone's amazing examples of Kugelhopf, a ridiculously fancy looking dessert creation, please go here!

Spiced applesauce and purple potato salad:

Applesauce is so easy, if you have a Foley Food Mill. I happen to think this is the best $30 food gadget you can buy, because it creates a texture that just can't be accomplished with a food processor. This is because the food mill allows small solids and water to get through, but not any fibrous or tough parts. In the applesauce, it keeps the skins but pushes the flesh through, while also preventing any seeds, stems, or cloves from entering the sauce.

Leek soup is also great in a food mill. But back to the sauce: I added 1/4 cup water, 7 apples, cores removed, cloves, cinnamon sticks, and star anis to a pot. I covered it and simmered the mixture for 45 minutes or so, then popped it into my Foley. Lo and behold, after only 5 minutes of spinning the handle, I had hot, spiced applesauce with the perfect texture.

Note: don't overcook your apples, kay? Otherwise it will be mushy.

Then, after the sauce, I boiled some pretty local purple potatoes I purchased from the Syracuse Real Food Coop. Look at how lovely the color is when they are cooked!

Hint: boil your potatoes at the same time as your eggs. This makes it super fast and easy!

Mix together:

Two cooked, skinned, diced potatoes
Three chopped hard boiled eggs
Two stalks of celery, chopped
1/8- 1/4 cup Mayo (I use vegan mayo)
1-2 tbs dijon mustard
smoked paprika, if you have it
Salt and Pepper to taste

You may want to add capers or other tasty things. I don't add onions because their sharp flavor can grow strong over time and distract from the sweet, subtle flavor of the potatoes- the purple stars of the show!

TWD: Rugelach

2008-11-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

Tuesdays with Dorrie, the weekly baking group that makes recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book "Baking, from my Home to Yours", made rugelach this week.

I dislike the dry, old rugelach available in stores, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the fresh, cream cheesey, flakey, not-too-sweet taste of these puppies. Unfortunately, they take a really long time to make. Make the dough, wait around while it chills, make the fillings, roll the dough, wait around while it chills, glaze 'em, bake 'em, eat em.

I like the last part. OK, I like all the parts. But seriously, for such small returns on a recipe- it only made 32 small pastries. Oh well, a double wouldn't have been that hard- but still time consuming. I get it: theoretically, cooks can do other things while they wait around. Like cook! Clean! Laundry! Listen to the radio! But you still gotta keep your mind on the recipe, as in one more thing on the to-do list. I prefer the recipes that are all-in-one-go.

Check out other folks' recipes here!

Daring Bakers: Pizza

2008-10-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

It's time for Daring Bakers again! This month we all made pizza dough from scratch, which I thought was such a great challenge that I invited over several friends to share in the pizza making and eating.

Here are my four little pre-pizzas, ready to go into the fridge, rise, and become grown up pizzas by way of hand tossing. How exciting!!!

The next day....
Oh, wait. They feel quite stringy. Oh, dear, this tossing thing is not working out, despite watching three "Sexy Pizza Toss" u-tube clips.

So... one of the pizzas became a pizza roll, OK? All those holes didn't matter once it was rolled up into a long tube filled with cheese and sauce. The other three pizzas were treated with tender loving car, and yielded stunningly crunchy, crusty results.

I bought ingredients for two kinds of pizzas:

1. traditional (OK, when I say traditional I mean dandelion pizza sauce, organic mozzarella, and marinated artichoke salad)

2. Brussels Sprouts with Gruyere cheese. I sauteed the sprouts with some garlic, shallots, and onion, then tossed them on some pizza with a mixture of gruyere and cheddar cheeses.

I recommend, at the recommendation of my dad who is always on the hunt for efficiency and cool gadgets, using kitchen shears to cut your pizza. Here's why:

1. Shears can cut on any surface.

2. Shears can cut around big chunks of topping.

3. Shears come apart and go into the dishywasher. :)

Don't the sprouts look good? Lurking in the background you will see the aforementioned pizza roll, which looks a bit unwieldy but tasted fabulously doughy and cheesy.

Finally, thanks to Diana Ecker for taking lovely photographs. You can see more of her work here.

TWD: Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

2008-10-27T17:26:00.000-07:00

I am sad they are gone. Will they ever return? Do you ever feel that something you bake tastes so lovely that the experience must be fleeting? That no matter how precisely you replicate the recipe, you will never find that taste again?

I am not gonna write much for this Tuesdays with Dorrie post because the pictures say it all: perfect, perfect, perfect cupcakes.

Moist chocolate cake.

Marshmallow creme filling.

Dark Chocolate Ganache.

All organic.

OK, the cutie sprinkles are not organic, and probably not natural in any sense of the word, but they look pretty no? You can eat around them.

Because god knows you want to eat this cupcake. The recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book, Tuesdays with Dorrie, just keep getting better! Check out the other cupcakes made by members of this food group here.

Pics are: cupcake in fall leaves, cupcakes on cute Martha Stewart stand, cupcakes pre-ganache.

Iron Cupcake Earth: Cheese

2008-10-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

Local Cheddar Biscuit Cupcakes with Apple Pie Filling

Voting is open! Vote for my cupcake at the Official Iron Cupcake Earth site by selecting "a sweet peace" from the column on the right. Then you can browse the other wonderful cheesy cupcake creations.
Now let me tell you about how I made these cupcakes. At first, when I heard that the challenge ingredient was Cheese, I thought about ricotta, marscapone, and cream cheese. These are the sweet cheeses that one traditionally finds in baked goods. Not surprisingly, many of the other cupcake entries include these cheeses. But I wanted to branch out- be a little different- and to include the feeling of autumn in my entry, therefore I created a combination of cheddar and apples. Not surprisingly, many of the other cupcake entries ALSO had these thoughts. However. I truly believe that of all the apple cheddar combinations, mine tasted the best.

Imagine eating a warm, flaky, cheddar cheese biscuit. Now imagine that biscuit topped with warm, gooey, apple pie filling. A tart slice of a pple crunches in your mouth. A sliver of sharp cheddar slides past your tastebuds. Your hands are covered in apple pie filling and you lick every finger. You smile, thinking happy, homey thoughts.

Here is how I did it:

1. I made Martha Stewart's recipe for Spicy Cheese Biscuits, which can be found on the blog Eat, and baked them in a muffin tin. I used local organic cheddar cheese. If you make these for dinner, use some spicy smoked paprika! If you are making cupcakes, use regular or sweet paprika, which will give it color but not spicy flavor. I didn't have a pastry cutter, so I mixed in the butter with my hands.

After baking, I cut out a well from each cupcake where the apple pie filling would sit. Do this by angling your knife downward as you cut in a circle. Lift off the top and cut off the small cone you have created. Eat the cone. :)

2. I made a canned apple pie filling to put into the muffins using local organic apples. This was super tasty, and I have been eating it as a topping for yogurt, ice cream, and granola. OK, and by itself, too.

Thanks to Diana Ecker for taking lovely photographs! See more of her work here.

TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

2008-10-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

Oops! OK, so I forgot to post my pictures this week, because I had SOOO much fun with the challenge that I posted early on Facebook and then thought, "I already did my post!" Thanks, Jes, for reminding me. So here goes:

This week's recipe for Tuesday's with Dorrie, the on-line cooking group that makes tasty recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book "Baking, from my Home to Yours," was pumpkin muffins. I loved them!! Too moist for words, and full of pumpkin flavor, especially since I used the full can of pumpkin. (Why do I need a quarter can of pumpkin hanging around in my fridge?)

Now I have to admit something here: I lied about the muffins. Since my friend Jes and I were hosting a dinner party with college buddies (and their cool girlfriends), I decided to dub the muffins "cupcakes" and put together a cupcake decorating activity to stimulate our inner children.

Decorating Cupcakes+ dinner party with college friends+ playing Apples to Apples= Best way to celebrate fall!!! Enjoy our creations!

Before the decorating began... innocence.

TWD: Lenox Almond Biscotti

2008-10-13T16:33:00.000-07:00

This week's TWD challenge, (the weekly on-line food event where bakers with blogs cook the same thing from Dorrie Greenspan's book, "Baking, from My Home to Yours") was to make Lemon Almond Biscotti.

I don't normally like biscotti. I have found that many people feel the same way... Too crunchy! they said. Too dry!

Have we always been a biscotti-hating nation but never realized it, forced into consuming $3 sticks wrapped in plastic because it's the right thing to do, according to some barista?

No more. These were hands-down the best Tuesdays With Dorrie recipe I have ever made. Thank goodness I took her advice and made a double!

I have become a biscotti fan. The dough for this recipe includes cornmeal and flour (I subbed 1/2 white flour, 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour), so the cornmeal gives the biscotti an enduring crunch without dryness.

The fillings are almonds and currants, which have been soaked in rum. Mmm!

Before baking, the dough is formed into rectangular logs that look so much less gracefull than the end result!

After baking for 15 minutes, the long log of dough comes out of the oven and cools.

Then you cut the log into strips, and bake again for another 15 minutes.

Perfection... these biscotti have been taste-tested with coffee, tea, beer, dessert wine, water, and other beverages. All recieved a resounding "Can I have another?"

TWD: Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake

2008-10-07T03:34:00.000-07:00

The pics of this dish speak for themselves: yum. But I will say that in all perversity I think I prefer the gooey, dense texture of boxed brownie mixes... could I get this by using oil, instead of butter, I wonder?

Check out the other Tuesdays With Dorrie Posts for more deliciousness.

Pumpkin Lump and a Triumphant Potluck

2008-10-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

The day started with a beautiful pumpkin pie.

And then I ate it. Oh dear, my pretty pie tasted like Lump. I forgot the sugar!

I got several recommendations to douse the pie in maple syrup... Voila! Pumpkin Lump in tasty syrup. Edible, but not exactly desirable.

Thankfully, I had plans to go to a potluck that very night. Normally, potlucks involve lots of yummy dinner treats; greens, soups, dips, and bread. This potluck had those things, true. But dessert is usually an afterthought. Someone throws in a pan of brownies from a mix... A few cookies...

At this potluck, the hosts made not one, not two, not three, but four pies. Tasty, sugary pies.

Oh yeah, and homemade ice cream. Doesn't it look like clouds?

This was my favorite pie. A tart apple concoction with currants and blueberries and a homemade crust.

Yummmmm. Hot, sweet-tart pie and cool vanilla ice cream.

Thanks to Paul Salvatore Mercurio and Mike Sanoki for hosting their "Fall is for Food" triumphant potluck. You made my day by rescuing me from my Pumpkin Lump.

Vegan Daring Bakers: Lavash Crackers

2008-09-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

Lavash crackers are traditional Armenian style crackers... otherwise known as those expensive crackers you can get in very small packages at specialty stores.

I made my lavash crackers with the traditional seeds and salt and paprika on top, nothin' fancy, since I have never made these before. Also... I like the combination of poppy seed, sesame seed, and caraway... reminds me of an everything bagle.

These crackers weren't easy. Getting the thickness of the dough right- paper thin- took some fancy rolling pin work. Nonetheless, the first batch of crackers was a success! I did have to turn the pan multiple times, though, and lift out the edge crackers before the middle ones.

Unfortunately the second batch, which should have been perfect, was a total disaster. Part of the directions on the recipe were to let the gluten "rest" periodically during rolling and after.

Woe betide the baker that leteth the gluten kick it's heals up, close its eyes, and have a full-on nap. Because if you do that, the sheet of crackers you have so carefully rolled out will turn into a stretchy spider web, and when you put it on the baking pan it will stick to itself. When you try to fix that mess...you will realize the only thing to do is give up and make a glutenous ball out of the dough and toss it around like a baseball.

Thanks to RJ for his kitchen and kneading.

Letting the yeast do its work: I put it in the oven with the light on, keeping it at a perfect temperature.

Check out other alternative Daring Bakers at the blogroll HERE!!!

Here is the dough just before rolling, formed into a square.

RECIPE - Recipe Reference: The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. Copyright 2001. ISBN-10: 1-58008-268-8, ISBN-13: 978-158008-268-6.

Iron Cupcake World: Basil

2008-09-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

This month's Iron Cupcake World challenge threw me. I kept thinking about a not-so-good savory muffin I once made... I just don't like cooked basil, I guess that's the problem. (Except in pasta dishes.) So I decided to focus on fresh basil, but only hints of it. I didn't want to have that "I just ate a mozzarella sandwich" taste, either. So. I let my mind wander. Waft. Wonder.

And I came upon this combination:

Greek Donuts/ Loukoumades / Honey Balls (You pick your favorite name!)
Basil Honey
Peach Walnut compote
Lebnah (Greek strained yogurt)

All this, together in a cupcake paper, would be my Iron Cupcake presentation. Sure, it's off the cupcake track, but man o man, once I started thinking about those little delicious donuts, I really wanted to make 'em.

First, I found a delicious recipe for Basil Honey here. It has cinnamon, cloves, and brandy- I just happened to use plum brandy, which I think worked out tastily.

Then I found a great recipe for Loukoumades, a yeasted donut. I first had these donuts at the Syracuse Greek Festival. The Greek festival features dancing (my mom used to do this!) and music and TONS of people and lots and lots of great food. But I always make a beeline for the donuts.

The recipe I used was easy and fun- but I will admit that I have a good time whenever I make anything with yeast. It's just cool to watch little organisms transform your food into something tasty. Feels like you have hired dozens of robots to work for you.

I then fried the dough and voila.

Then. Then I made peach compote, my very own creation.
This compote remindes me of the haroset eaten at Passover seder.

Recipe for Peach Walnut Compote:
1 ts grated ginger
1/4 ts cloves
1 ts cinnamon
3 firm peaches, diced
1/3 cup honey
2-3 tbs lemon juice
Grated zest 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix all ingredients in a bowl except for the walnuts. Let marinate or eat fresh; add walnuts when ready to serve.

TWD - Chocolate Chunkers

2008-09-16T03:21:00.000-07:00

This is an adult cookie.
Not that kids wouldn't like it... but it's a cookie that appeals to the adult palate. Reasons:
1. The base of the batter is chocolate, not flour.
2. The salty roasted nuts counterbalance the sweetness.
3. The crunch is fabulous. These cookies are all about the experience of eating, not just washing the food down.

Changes to the recipe:
1. I added just under a half a cup sugar, instead of the full two thirds.
2. I subbed dried cherries for the raisins, because I wanted a more sweet-tart taste to go with the chocolate and peanuts.
3. Instead of milk chocolate chips I used butterscotch, which gave the cookies a hint of toffee flavor that again complimented the peanuts.

See more fine examples of cookies that are probably all eaten up at Tuesdays with Dorrie!

TWD: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

2008-09-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

I'm late, I know. I am supposed to post on Tuesday for Tuesdays with Dorrie, the food blog group that bakes recipes each week from Baking, from My Home to Yours by Dorrie Greenspan. And I swear, I did all the cooking on Sunday, nice and early. But I dropped the whopper ball on the posting... nonetheless, here goes.

These cookies were AMAZING and really I must admit something here: I am not a batter girl. I can't stand the thought of salmonella and raw eggs in my mouth. But I just happened to get some malt drop batter on my hand, and it was easier to lick it off than to wash... OMG. Hooked. Like a warm gooey malt milkshake.

Yeah, and I ate too many Whoppers while I was making them. I love Whoppers. I was always the kid that other kids would trade their Halloween candy for: I got rid of my Reeses in exchange for Whoppers and Dots. No one liked Dots... why?

The cookies would have been overly sweet for me, as I have discovered many of Dorrie's recipes tend to be, but I cut the sugar by half. As always, I used whole wheat pastry flour.

I then brought the cookies into work, where they proved to be a hit. People were talking about them for days afterward. Like, when I wasn't even there, and I heard the rumors... So you brought in some amazing cookies, huh?

Sigh, that's some fine satisfaction out of a humble cookie, no?

RJ's Peanut Butter Corn Bread

2008-09-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

My friend RJ has humbly submitted a recipe for publication, and I was happy to oblige.
But RJ, I am going to insist that you find a different adjective to describe your bread... something other than "nutty-mealy". You were quite insistent with me that this bread tastes amazing; from "nutty-mealy" I get a sense of granola-gone-bad. What about... this bread has the creamy taste of peanut butter with a hint of cornmeal crunch?
From the photo, this unassuming bread looks like it holds some tasty secrets, doesn't it? I love the golden-brown crust. Thanks for sharing, RJ!!!

Here's my peanut butter corn bread picture and recipie :0) It's simple and quick!

a.. 2 packages of corn bread baking mix
a.. 1 cup of creamy peanut butter
a.. 1 cup skim milk
a.. 2 eggs

Preheat oven to 400oF. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Bake for ~20 minutes in a well greased bread pan. Cool, slice bread, and enjoy!

...this bread sure is tasty! It's got a unique nutty-mealy texture.

RJ

TWD: Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters

2008-09-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

Once again I spent part of my Monday rushing around to bake something for Tuesdays with Dorrie, the baking group that makes weekly recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's cookbook, Baking, From my Home to Yours.
Fortunately, this week's cookie challenge was really easy, and ammounted to basically throwing stuff in bowls and beating it. The substitutions I made were as follows:
1. Raisins for Chocolate (As suggested by Dorrie)
2. Whole wheat pastry flour for White flour.
3. Cut the sugar in half. (Which still left the cookies really sweet... was it the raisins?)

Yum! I loved my cookies. I wanted to give some away, because the recipe made 48 large cookies. But like many other tasty concoctions, these cookies looked best all hidden away, tucked in baskets where no one could see their craggy, raisiny depths.

No TWD this week

2008-08-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

I was too busy flexing my Iron Cupcake World muscles! (See post below!) I can't wait to see all your lovely ice cream confections, though!

Triple Cherry Chili Cupcakes: Iron Cupcake World

2008-08-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

Triple Cherry Chili Cupcakes:
dried cherries, maraschino cherries, and cherry peppers in a almond paste and coconut milk cake, topped with almond cream cheese frosting.

In this cross-section you can see how moist and rich the cupcake batter is... it has lots of eggs, butter, almond paste, coconut milk and extract, as well as a bit of flour to hold it all together! Every bite has tart dried cherries, sweet maraschino cherries, and a hint of heat from the minced cherry peppers.

Check out my photo stream on flickr.

Recipe to Follow!

TWD: Sunflower and Date Alien Grabbers

2008-08-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

hello i am granolagon, an alien from the planet oopso. i have arrived on your counter top to alert you to the perils of ignoring even small hints from dorrie greenspan, author of the book, baking, from my home to yours. if you do not flatten the granola grabbers, (this week's recipe pick for tuesdays with dorrie) then you will end up with a tray of aliens like myself. fortunately, although i am shaped like an alien pod, i am still tasty. here is the story of how i came into being... it begins with some rainforest granola, mixed with chopped dates, coconut, wheat germ, and sunflower seeds.
then came the butter and sugar, one egg, and a bit of whole wheat pastry flour. it's easy to scoop out granolagon aliens like myself- or any other cookie- with a melon baller. at last, a tray of tiny aliens is ready to eat you. oh no, did the cook finally remember to flatten the cookies? where have all my brother and sister granolagons gone? i must quickly return to the planet oopso before i, too, am targeted by the evil human spatula.
And mighty tasty he was.

Pesto with Zucchini Ribbons

2008-08-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

I grew up on pesto made from the basil we grew in our yard. My mom sent me to school with leftovers for lunch, and the kids all made fun of me for eating green worms, ew! But then they all wanted some, too, go figure.

My mother made the pesto from the classic Moosewood Cookbook recipe. The Moosewood, a vegetarian mecca in Ithaca, NY, used to be owned and operated by Molly Katzen, who published a number of books under the name. For reasons unclear to me, she left the Moosewood and now has several books under her own name. The restaurant continued publishing books, too, which are also quite good.

This pesto recipe has loads of olive oil and cheese, a bit of butter and garlic,
and tastes really really good.  It's hard to find in the cookbook, though, because
Katzen listed the index using ingredients, not titles.  As in I had to look for
Pasta or Parmesan.  I added my own flair by grating long zucchini ribbons, sauteeing
them in butter and garlic, then placing them on top of the pesto when they were just
tender.

SO GOOD!  Oh, and I always use whole wheat pasta because the flavor is so much better.

This is the final, delicious result.




















This is the paste.




















This is where I picked the basil and parsley.

Tuesdays with Dorrie: Black and Green Loaf

2008-08-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

This cake (loaf, if you will) was supposed to be made with bananas. But... I entered the produce section at Wegmans grocery store and came face to face with a stand of gorgeous local produce, overflowing with squash and peppers and zucchini. Yum!

I recalled this great passage from Barbara Kingsolver's book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," a book about the fiction writer's attempt to eat locally with her family for one year. (She's the one who wrote "The Poisonwood Bible," "Animal Dreams," and several other good reads.)

In her book about food, Kingsolver describes a grocery trip with her teenage daughter and a visiting friend. The friend wants to buy bananas, but Kingsolver basically says- Hey, it's summer! Why don't we get some of these tasty peaches and plums and whatnot.

At the time, I thought it was a cruel response, but it must have influenced me, because I went and bought the pretty zucchini, not the bananas.

And it turned out quite tasty, thank you!

ps- this was also made with 100% Whole Wheat Pastry flour- see post below for delicious details on why to use this and how to get it!

The Cake to End all Cakemaking

2008-07-31T08:07:00.000-07:00

Was this cake worth it?
No, Wait.
Ah:
Am I worth this cake?

This month's Daring Bakers challenge was to create a Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream, otherwise known as Devote your Life, Kitchen, and First Born to a Cake.

Here is a photo of just one of the seventeen parts of the cake (I won't bother posting the 8-page recipe here, it's just tooooooo long and trust me you don't want to make it.)

This is the praline paste, which goes in the praline buttercream.

Here is a photo of one round of dishes, and then the finished product.

Pretty,
Tasty,
But I will not make this cake again if I can help it.

Some Enchanted Galette

2008-07-29T10:15:00.001-07:00

I wish you could have been there. The evening air was so light, and the deer came out of the woods to start munching on our neighbor's garden. Then, we saw the hummingbird. It was peacefully sipping at bee balm, a raucously red flower that looks like a firework. Then, it approached us. Slowly, it buzzed closer and closer until we could see into its eyes, hear its chirp, hear its wings. It stayed there for a full minute, and we didn't move, scared to chase it away but also fearful that we might miss the message it was trying to tell us: beware? be joyful?

When it finally flew away, we felt changed. How sad it would have been, to have to return to real, hard-edged life after that moment out of Pan's Labyrinth. How disappointingly ordinary it would feel. Fortunately, we did not have to step out of the magical world just yet. We had the galette:
So easy. So tasty. So dripping with juices and full of peaches and custard and all seated atop a light-as-air whole wheat pastry flour crust. Oy, joy. The hummingbird- I am sure now that he wanted us to be joyful!

The recipe came from Dorrie Greenspan's book, Baking, from My Home to Yours. Here is Dorrie's trick: on the bottom of the galette, put some jam and graham cracker crumbs.
I also mixed in some grated ginger, because, well, yum! Then, in go the peaches:Ooh la la! Bake it, add a bit of quick custard on top, and MAGIC. Thanks to Molly and Jodi for sharing this special enchanted evening with me!

Also, for those of you who are interested in whole wheat pastry flour, I use it because it has a great flavor and is healthy. Also, I think it tastes flakier, especially for leftovers. Here's one brand and here is the link to buy it: (King Arthur Flour is all sold out right now!)

  Buy Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

cherry and celery cobbler- oops!

2008-07-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

Pre-baking... mushy balls of love. yum! Another Tuesdays with Dorrie looks like it's going to be delicious. I made a date with two friends to share cherry rhubarb cobber and possibly to get a look at their new baby. The baby fell asleep, so we fell to the cobbler. We scooped out some ice cream... and scooped out some of this:
Isn't it pretty?
But... the rhubarb didn't cook all the way. So while it tasted good, some of the rhubarb had the consistency of celery. Oh well- my friends still liked it. And me. That is the most important.

TWD: Mexican Chocolate Cupcake Pudding

2008-07-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

I love pudding. It's so easy: just put some stuff in a pot and stir, stir, stir, then eat on the spot or refrigerate for later pleasures.

I do not love washing dishes, cleaning counters, or pouring hot liquids from one container to another.

Therefore, this week's Tuesdays with Dorrie challenge was kind of a bust. I never thought that a pudding recipe could use so many dishes, or require so many spins through the food processor. Oh well.

I made the pudding "Mexican" by adding 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon with the cocoa and substituting almond extract for the vanilla. Cinnamon and almond are traditional flavors that get added to chocolate produced in Mexico.

I topped my pudding with a swirl of meringue and colored sugar to make it look like a cupcake- though I should have made the swirls a bit bigger.

Taste? Awesome. Verdict? I would make Mexican Chocolate Pudding again using a traditional recipe for chocolate pudding.

To find the original recipe, get a copy of Baking, From my Home to Yours by Dorrie Greenspan.

Cookie of the Month

2008-07-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

A rich dough made with egg yolks sandwiches raspberry and blueberry jam fillings.
These delicate and rich cookies are called "Red, White, and Blue Stars," and they are Martha Stewart's July cookie of the month. (Last page of the magazine) They took a long time to make, but they made me happy for a few days.

I thought the filling needed more zip- jam is nice, but not addictive, you know?- so I added my new favorite product: ginger in a jar. I'm not talking about the stuff you get at Japanese restaurants with your sushi, although I love that stuff, I am talking about The Ginger People's Minced Ginger:

I added two tablespoons of ginger for each type of jam, and wow! It really made the cookies worthy of adult consumption- though it wouldn't have repelled any child, either. The taste of this fresh ginger is completely different than powdered. It doesn't have that old, peppery taste. Instead, it tastes jazzy and exciting.

I have tried mincing ginger before, and the stuff in this bottle is more analogous to finely grated ginger. There are no chunks, only tasty ginger mush.

Thse muffins are for you...Thanks!!!

2008-07-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much... everyone who wrote to me with words of encouragement. I can't tell you how meaningful it was to have strangers wish me a speedy recovery. I felt so inspired that I made zucchini muffins for everyone: zucchini, lemon, and basil muffins. I didn't post the recipe because frankly, it was not that great. But I did enjoy the combination of flavors, so I photographed a little montage.

Some gory details about my surgery, for those who wish to hear them:

I have a schwannoma- a benign tumor- removed from my ulnar nerve, just above my elbow. This nerve controls the pinky, half the ring finger, and part of the hand. The recovery takes a long time, over a month, because it's a nerve and it is very sensitive.

I've been having lots of pain because the nerve misfires. Fortunately, modern medicine has some very good drugs. Anyhow, I really, really appreciate everything that the Tuesdays with Dorrie group posted. In order to heal my arm, I need to use it! Things like cooking are really good for me. (Typing is still wicked hard, though. I'm using the backspace key a lot.)

All of you are so encouraging. I am going to keep cooking, healing, and sending happy thoughts and muffins your way!

Love,

Libby

Epitomy of Summer: Blueberry Pie and Iced Mint Tea

2008-07-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

The berries before baking, coated in flour, organic sugar, lemon zest, and my own addition- almond extract.
The finished product. Crust looks a little darker than normal, but that's not just because I burnt the edges. I also substituted whole wheat pastry flour- and it's FABULOUS. If you haven't tried it yet, go get yourself a bag today!

This pie, made for the weekly cooking challenge "Tuesdays with Dorrie," shouldn't have been hard to make. After all, the recipe was clear and the ingredients were simple- I just didn't have all the equipment.

I had: a rolling pin, pie pan, parchment paper, oven, timer, measuring cups, and even a sieve to wash the blueberries... but I didn't have a functioning right hand. Surgery on my right ulnar nerve has left me with a tender and weak right hand, so when I went to roll out the crust (the hardest part!) I failed!

Fortunately, Dorrie Greenspan's book, "Baking: From my Home to Yours" is SO clear, SO easy to follow, that I was able to enlist my younger brother to create the most important part of this pie. (Thanks, Tim!) She instructed us to turn to crust 1/8 of a circle, then roll out from the middle. So simple! Of course, once I got it in the oven I forgot to cover the crust- hence the sawed-off edges. But it tasted. Absolutely. Amazing. Just like summer!

No TWD this week....

2008-07-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

Just had surgery on my arm. Back next week!

Tuesdays with Dorrie: Cobbling together some Berries

2008-06-24T18:41:00.000-07:00

My first Tuesdays with Dorie!

I was so excited when my copy of Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking, from my Home to Yours" arrived. It's also my first time participating in a food blogging event. I feel like one of the cool kids now!

This Tuesday, participating bakers made the "Mixed Berry Cobbler". Though the recipe was a bit contentious, a very few modification seem to have done the trick. I added a cup of heavy cream instead of 3/4 cup, and instead of using two cups white flour, I used 1 cup whole wheat, 1 cup white. Finally, I put half the dough on top and half on bottom.

The ramekins were the stars- see below!

Check out Dorie's website to participate... Or buy the book to get this recipe!

These are the sugared berries. I added a teaspoon of almond extract to them, in addition to the other yummy things that Dorie's recipe calls for.
These are the cobblers fresh from the oven: two individual ramikins and one larger pie dish. The smell of warm berries and buttery crust is SO GOOD.
This ramekin looks quite tempting, no?
But they were even better when I cut around the sides and served them upsidedown. You can see that I buttered and sugared the bottom of the dish, then put a circle of dough on the bottom and the top. The bottom soaked up all the tasty berry juices.

Dough Boy Cartoon- Link

2008-06-22T17:42:00.000-07:00

For all of us bakers that have ever put something in the oven that looks perfect... only to have it bake into an entirely different creation.

Never have the consequences been so dire!

From the comic, "Truck Bearing Kibble"

Ricotta and Almond Paste Cupcakes with Raspberries and Cream Cheese Frosting

2008-06-21T14:13:00.001-07:00

Cupcakes fit for a Bridal Shower! (Which is what I made them for!) These cupcakes are a modified recipe from Chocylit's now defunct Cupcake Bakeshop:

 Cupcake Bakeshop

Still, she has many fine recipes to look through on the website. These are my favorite, though! They are always a hit, and the recipe turns out perfectly each time.

Ricotta Raspberry Almond Cupcakes
With Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from http://www.cupcakeblog.com/

~18 cupcakes / 350 degree oven

7 ounces almond paste (not marzipan)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1 stick salted butter/ room temp
4 eggs, large/room temp
2/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup raspberries OR ½ cup raspberries and ½ cup blueberries (FRESH, only)

1. beat almond paste at low speed to loosen up, about 30 seconds
2. gradually add sugar while beating at low speed
3. continue to beat at low speed for 1 minute or so
4. add the ricotta and beat to combine
5. while beating at low speed, add a tablespoon of butter at a time, waiting for the butter to incorporate until adding the next pat
6. stop the mixer, scrape the bowl, beat at medium for about 2 minutes until fluffy
7. crack eggs into a bowl and break up with a fork
8. at low speed gradually add eggs about a tablespoon at a time, waiting for the eggs to incorporate until adding the next bit
9. beat again at medium speed for about 2 minutes
10. measure out flour and baking powder into a bowl and whisk to combine
11. Gently mix or fold the flour and baking powder into batter
12. fold in raspberries
13. scoop batter into cupcake liners, fill about 1/2 inch from the top (3/4 full)
14. bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean

Frosting:

1 8oz package cream cheese
½ stick butter/ room temp.
3-4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Food coloring if desired

1. Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed till creamy.
2. Add sugar and vanilla, beat till combined.

The Joy of Veggie: a Mark Bittman Cookbook

2008-06-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

So I really, really, really wanted to like Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian." And in some ways I did- just not in the way that I wanted to like it. OH well. Here's the scoop:

Mark Bittman is a paragon of simplicity. I love his short films on the NYT that demonstrate easy and pared-down recipes. I felt excited when I heard that he wrote a book just for us veggies!! So I ordered the book. But...

Then it arrived. All 996 pages of it. Oof.

So anyway, the book has many recipes, tips, and lists, such as "Everyday Stuffed Vegetables." When I looked up "cauliflower," I found 31 entries. Wow. I mean, the recipe I decided on- Cauliflower soup, Italian Style- was tasty, no doubt. But I kind of wish that Bittman would have pointed me there- would have highlighted his very best.

Then I decided I needed to think about this book differently- this isn't a simple book. It's all text, charts, and no pictures. This is the "Joy of Cooking" for vegetarians! How exciting!

If you want to buy the book, here's a link:


 Amazon.com

Veggie Cartoon- Click here for irony

2008-06-12T06:54:00.000-07:00

This is the answer to all the folks that say, when confronted with the fact that someone is vegetarian, "But you're killing plants!"

I like the cartoon because it essentially says, "You're right!"

Saratoga Springs: Mrs. London's pastries

2008-06-07T17:19:00.000-07:00





















Saratoga State Park

Mrs. London's

I spent the day in Saratoga Springs, home of horse-racing. I eschewed betting in favor of stomping around hiking trails and eating fabulous food at Mrs. London's, a pastry shop I visited at my mom's suggestion. (The above are pictures of their beautifully wrapped boxes and of the almond croissants that I bought.) Crunchy and sweet on the outside-- buttery, almond-pasty, and soft on the inside. Perfection. If you go, feel free to get anything you want, but don't leave without the almond croissant. It beats any pastry I've ever tasted in my life.

Also: Saratoga Spa State Park is AMAZING, and anyone who lives in Central NY should definitely go. It's a normal state park studded with ancient geysers that spew smelly water. In particular, the instant fossilization process that occurs due to the high mineral content of the water is quite fascinating. I took off my shoes and climbed up enormous mountains of fossilized leaves and minerals- so soft! So unlike anything I have ever seen or felt!

There are many picnic tables and hiking trails and other goodies at the park: above is a link to the (rather inferior) park website. DO NOT let that deter you. The trip is worth it. The $6 is worth it.

(Am I cultivating an obsession with mineral water? I did just visit Sharon Springs last weekend, another town that became famous for its foul-smelling carbonated springs. (Sharon Springs is about an hour south of Saratoga Springs, on Route 10).

Sharon is far more dilapidated than Saratoga. Some of the Gazebos that house the geysers at Sharon Springs were a bit scary to approach, as in: this soft board I am stepping on looks like it is rotting, and I can hear rushing water running underneath it... hmm.

But Sharon Springs is also more manageable, especially with the cute "historical walk" that takes you through a quarter-mile of main street with plaques as guides. Just don't spend too much time looking around you for the buildings pictured on the plaques- most have burned down. Fortunately Sharon Springs isn't shy about filling you in on the gory details.

Interesting tidbit: Sharon Springs became a hot vacation and business spot for Jewish patrons who wanted to "take the waters". Apparently Saratoga Springs was very antisemitic for a while, and wouldn't let Jews set up businesses.)

My first contest: Coconut and Lime Recipe

2008-06-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

This is my favored cooking drink: some cheap red wine with ice, frozen raspberries, and lime. Mmm.
This will be my first web contest- OK, it's just a random drawing for the winner, but still. I made the Broccoli Pesto recipe from Coconut and Lime- very easy to make. I added some marinated artichokes on top, which really complimented the delicate broccoli and garlic flavor of the pesto. I think next time I would up the cheese and oil, too.

Link to Recipe

Fig Twist- Recipes Gone Wrong

2008-06-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

Link to recipe

Recipes Gone Wrong...

If you check out the link, you can see the gorgeous-looking thing I was aiming for from "Cook Almost Anything At Least Once." It is a rolled scone stuffed with rum flavored fig filling, with a jam glaze. However, this is what came out of my oven. Ick, right?

But then, I cut it open and YUM! it is so pretty and even more tasty. I highly suggest this recipe, even though it was hard and frustrating at times. And sticky. And I was covered in flour.

Mangosteen- you used to make me feel special

2008-06-01T12:41:00.000-07:00




   Link to Article

When I first read about the mangosteen I envisioned subtlety: the NYT article several years ago promised a luscious texture and subtle floral aromas. Mmm. Since the fruit was banned for import in the US due to (overblown) fruitfly contamination concerns, I began my search in Oaxaca, Mexico. I hunted down one false lead after another, including a deceptive poster at a cafe that had pictures of the "Frutas de Mexico," which included a mangosteen.

I then searched in England, where I finally found a mangosteen at Fortnum &Mason in London, a pricey yet pristine department store with a level devoted to the most rarest and specialest comestibles. But once I touched the long-awaited fruit, I realized that with my modest traveler's equipage there was no way I would be able to open it. The shell, dusky scarlet, is like a thick nut! Not at all subtle. Oh, how I wanted the tender white segments inside, and oh-how-much money I had paid for them! I asked the kind, if uninformed, deli counter proprietor to help me open it, and what resulted was a macerated mess of mangosteen flesh. I didn't really care. It was really, really tasty.

The next year, I returned to England and found a whole bag of the darned things in London's Chinatown. And I found a knife.

But today the mangosteen is available in the US, and my search seems a bit pointless. Couldn't I have waited a few more years? Perhaps. But I guess it was worth it, to have tasted the mangosteen two years ago, and feel special for a little while.

Blueberry Buckwheat and Almond Cake

2008-05-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

This cake tasted as delicious as it looks. The recipe, from fx cuisine, is NOT as complicated as the website makes it out to be. I mean, grinding the buckwheat flour? Whipping the egg whites by hand? (Well, ok, I did that, but only because I was too lazy to wash the mixer, and Aaron was there to help me.)

But seriously, the recipe is simple and the results are dramatic. The batter has ground almonds and buckwheat flour as the base, with whipped egg whites as the rising agent. I used a very fine-ground buckwheat flour, (Russell farms) so the result was a near perfectly-white cake, in contrast with the dark blueberry jam.

Covered, the cake keeps well and stays amazingly moist. Comment from Aaron: "It's verry verry good."

Link to Recipe

$$$ for Vintage cookbooks?

2008-05-30T05:18:00.000-07:00

I don't remember where I first found "Greene on Grains", Bert Greene's intimate and surprising cookbook. Probably at the library, where I tend to try on cookbooks for size before purchasing them.
(This strategy can backfire, though, as it did when I received a call from an annoyed librarian last month who asked me about the oil stain on a brand new book I had returned. She said I had to pay for the book ($42!) but that she would send it to me in the mail. Sounds like a good deal, but the irony was that I hated the book! I never used it to cook a thing, and have no idea where the oil stain came from. Oh, I'll own the blame, I just didn't want to own the book.)
Back to Greene- I read his book cover to cover the week I took it out. For every single grain, from amaranth to semolina to wild rice, he gives deeply personal stories of his experiences with it. Added to this are the history of the grain, common uses, how to choose and store it, and nutritional information. Then come the recipes- also with little stories- and what recipes they are! Sweet and savory, traditional and modern, from all corners of the globe.
Of course I bought the book, upgrading to the double copy of "Greene on Greens and Grains," which uses the same treatment I just described for beets, lettuces, broccoli, etc. (Note: I would not suggest getting the double copy. My binding has cracked in several places!)
I am always searching for cookbooks at used book stores, and really wanted to replace my tattered Greene volume. I visited a tiny bookstore in Delhi, NY last week, and found two great cookbooks to use in my classroom- one was a compendium of South American recipes with great 60's pics of wealthy housewives, and one was Diana Kennedy's quintessential guide to Mexican cooking. Then I found Greene on Grains! Hooray!
But. At the cash register my bill came to $82. What?!?! The proprietor told me the Greene book was $65, and explained that some cookbooks are collectible, out of print, etc. I balked- no way was this book worth that much. But she wouldn't lower the price, so I left it behind... and went home to discover that on Amazon, even "like new" copies can be procured for under $15. So Hah! proprietor: I know my cookbooks. And you didn't even know what the Moosewood cookbooks were! That's, like, standard used bookstore fodder!

Link to Purchase Book

Syracuse-area restaurants

2008-05-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

• Alto Cinco – A Syracuse classic; Mexican for veggies
• Blue Tusk
• Empire Brewing Company
• Lemon Grass
• Syracuse Suds Factory

More to come...

Contact aSweetPeace

2008-05-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

You can leave a comment at aSweetPeace.com.