Frosted Deception

A number of people have asked me if this blog was inspired by the movie Julie &Julia, to which I say an emphatic "No!" because I haven't even seen that movie for starters and I'm not exclusive to just one cookbook.  However, that said, if I were to pick a cookbook to follow, it might just be the one I was using last night titled "Chocolate: Cooking with the world's best ingredient."

I was inspired, as usual, by a chocolate craving attack, and so I started flipping through my books looking for something a little more creative than my usual brownies.  As I drooled over the different recipes in "Chocolate," I started cursing myself for not having the ingredients on hand to make some of the more delicious looking recipes (why on earth don't I have dark chocolate in my pantry??)  But finally, I came across something that seemed just right - Chocolate Fairy Cakes.  This was basically a recipe for chocolate cupcakes, which I've been dying to make for a while, so it sounded like a surefire winner, especially since I actually had all the ingredients on hand and wouldn't even have to fiddle with substitutions.

I began with the icing, because I have a terrible history with making icings so if this didn't work, there would be no point in baking the cupcakes.  Unless the base is cream cheese, I can never get them to come out right so for years I have avoided recipes that called for frosting, unwilling as I am to buy pre-made things.  But, to my surprise, I followed the directions and added the milk slowly, and voila!  Icing appeared in my bowl!  Very exciting, but sadly, this was to be the night's only success...

Next, I started melting the chocolate for the cupcakes.  I do this all the time directly in the pan for brownies, but I decided to try this double boiler business since sticking to the recipe worked for the icing, so why not here, too?  But when I attempted this, I was left with a mound of chocolate that simply would not liquefy.  So I decided to go back to the tried and true technique of melting it in the pan, and dropped my two ounces of chocolate into a small pan on low heat.  But just like before, only a mound of mushy chocolate appeared with no liquid in sight.  Finally, it dawned on me - what was different here from my brownie recipe that works like a charm every time?  Butter!  Butter makes everything better!  So I dropped the softened butter that would just be added later anyway into the pot with my chocolate, and voila!  A nice, velvety chocolate sauce.

From there, things continued to get weird - once the batter was assembled (which almost killed my hand mixer in the process - that should have been a sign of bad things to come...) it looked more like a mousse than a cake batter (probably because I melted the butter...).  But, since I had come this far, I decided to press on and bake it anyway to see what came out.  Who knows, maybe I'd get lucky like with the frosting?  And indeed, when they came out of the oven, they looked simply glorious!  Perfectly puffed cupcakes just begging for frosting.

And then I tasted them, or rather, the lack of taste.  How could a book called "Chocolate" steer me so wrong???

Into the trash they went, because we're technically dieting in my house and there's no point in wasting calories on non-delicious chocolate items (a very strange phrase, I know...)  I'm going to look for a better recipe, but I'd definitely take suggestions on how this one might be improved, too.  (Click "read more" to see the recipe.)

In the mean time, it'd be a shame to let the frosting go to waste...

Culture or copyright infringement?

Ever since I had the idea for this blog, I've been concerned about copyright infringement issues associated with reposting recipes online.  Although I credit the authors of all of the recipes and try to provide links to where their cookbooks can be purchased, the fact of the matter remains that you can still find some of their hard work for free on my blog.  So with this concern in mind, I'd like your suggestions for how to continue this blog, if it can be continued at all. 

One format I've considered is to just post descriptions of the recipes (perhaps a list of ingredients only without quantities) and pictures and provide an email address for people to request more details on an individual basis.  After all, recipe sharing is such an integral part of our culture, it's hard to imagine that there could really be something wrong with friends sharing a couple of recipes via email. 

Another idea is to privatize this blog so that the contents are not really public per se - it's more like I'm letting you all into my kitchen to peruse my cookbooks, as friends and family normally do, but in this case my cookbooks are a little easier to get to. 

And of course, a final option is to simply close the blog.  I've wondered why I really wanted to start this from the get go - did I think I had free time?  My advisor would certainly disagree...  Just about all my friends and family are great cooks, too, who have their own wealth of wonderful recipes, and really, who doesn't own a copy of The Joy of Cooking these days, which is probably my most used source.  Perhaps a better way to share my love of cooking is to do as I have been doing - keep inviting you all over to help concoct and taste the latest creations from my kitchen in person. 

So if any of you have any ideas or suggestions regarding this issue, please let me know!

Teff

I hadn't heard of teff until I took a cooking class at Kripalu a few years ago.  But like quinoa, teff is making a resurgence and can now be found with other baking supplies at Whole Foods. (It's the one that looks suspiciously like hot chocolate mix - probably shouldn't mix those up.)  For those who haven't yet experienced this unique ingredient, teff is a grain native to Ethiopia that has a really interesting nutty, even somewhat chocolaty taste (in my opinion).  It's rather dense, like whole wheat flour, so baking with it requires lots of leavener, and it has a fine, grainy texture in most finished products.

Below is a recipe for teff banana pancakes from my favorite source for breakfast recipes.  I finally found the magic amount of heat to use on my pancakes so that they didn't have a black sear on the outside like they so often do - medium heat, about 2 minutes/side.

Teff banana pancakes
From: Going Wild in the Kitchen by Leslie Cerrier

This recipe yielded 12 pancakes for me (about 2-3 inches across).

2 tbsp flax seeds
2 ripe bananas
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups teff flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Grind the flax seeds in a coffee grinder or blender.  Combine in a blender or food processer everything from the flax seeds to the oil and blend well.  In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients, then add the mixed wet ingredients.  Make pancakes as usual and enjoy!

Fabulous flax seeds

Flax seeds totally saved my butt last night, so I decided to give them their own feature on this little blog. 

I had a wicked cookie craving so I decided to whip up some oatmeal cookies, since they're fast and I had all the ingredients in the house already - or so I thought...  With half the ingredients already mixed together in my sugar-craving haze, I reached for the eggs only to find they were all gone (used up for some home made pasta that didn't go as planned the first time.)  I usually use this handy chart in the back of the Joy of Cooking to find substitutions, but there were no good ideas for eggs, so I was at the mercy of the internet.  This happened once before, and the internet suggested substituting 1 ripe banana/ 2 eggs, but that didn't work very well.  Option #2?  Well, actually this was more like 5 or 6 down on the lists of substitutes I found, but it worked so well!

1 egg = 1 tbsp ground flax seeds + 3 tbsp water; mix until gooey.

The cookies were so moist and delicious, I think I'll use this substituion every time!  Try this in your favorite cookie recipe and you, too, can pretend your cookies are actually super healthy!

Soup du Jour

First, just let me say that soups are not photogenic, at least for me, so there are no pictures to go with this post.

Soups were a staple in our house all winter, and even though the cold weather is finally making its exit (fingers crossed!) we're still continuing to enjoy them.  They're just such an easy way to use up some of the strange vegetables that make their way into my kitchen via Boston Organics (rutabega? kale? cabbage? turnips? what do I do with these?!).  I actually used to be intimidated by making soups, but now I have no idea why because they're just about as easy as it gets - throw everything in a pot and simmer until you want to eat it.  And, soups are versatile - don't have one ingredient?  No problem!  Substitute something similar or leave it out altogether, and the taste is usually not impaired.

Below are two wonderful soup recipes from my soup Bible, Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special.  I don't usually try to tackle dairy soups because I'm afraid of recipes where I have to heat milk or cream, but this one uses cream cheese and is just delicious.


Moroccan Root Vegetable Stew
Grade: A!  I was wary about this combination of spices, but it's so awesome!  A crowd pleaser, and an excellent winter recipe for when root vegetables abound.


Creamy Potato Cabbage Soup
Grade: A-  This is my latest solution to my cabbage problem (the heads just keep coming!) and it's a delightfully creamy soup with great natural flavor.  Would be great with some homemade croutons.

Pecan roll redemption

After my orange bread debacle I wasn't sure what to make of my new Tassajara Bread Book, but yesterday I made some delicious pecan rolls from the book that assured me this one is a gem, indeed.  These rolls are loaded with butter, brown sugar and pecans, but they have whole wheat, so that must counterbalance all of the fat and make them good for you!  Hope you enjoy these as much as we did.  They're very best right out of the oven.

This recipe is easily adapted to making cinnamon rolls, if you're not partial to nuts.  Just stop before the pecans in the filling ingredient list.

Pecan Nut Rolls
From: The Tassajara Bread Book
Grade: A!  These are as good or better than any from a bakery in my opinion, and they don't even take as long to make as most yeast breads.

The recipe listed below makes enough rolls to fill 2 round cake pans - I cut it in half for just the two of us.

Dough:
1 cup lukewarm water
3 1/2 tsp dry yeast
3 tbsp honey or sugar
1/3 cup dry milk (regular milk works just fine, but you may need less water or more flour - or you can omit this all together for a grainier bread texture)
1 egg
1 1/2 cups white or whole wheat flour

3 tbs melted butter or oil
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sifted white or whole wheat flour
1/2 - 3/4 cup additional flour for kneading

Filling:                                                                     
1/4 cup melted butter                                              
3/4 cup brown sugar                                              
1 tbsp cinnamon                                                    
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
Stop here for just cinnamon rolls
1 cup chopped pecans
6 tbsp butter (for lining the pan)
1/2 cup brown sugar (also for the pan)

To prepare the dough, dissolve the yeast in water and stir in the honey, milk, and egg.  Stir in 1 1/2 cups flour (I used 1 cup white and 1/2 cup whole wheat) and beat well (100 strokes if you're going with the Zen method).  Let the dough rise for 30 minutes, covered with a damp cloth (mine did not rise a very noticeable amount).

Fold in the butter, salt, and 1 cup of flour (I used 1/2 white, 1/2 whole wheat).  Try to fold in and not cut through the dough.  Turn the dough out and knead on a floured board using extra flour as needed until the dough is smooth (5-10 minutes).  Let rise another 40 minutes (again, I didn't see much action in this time frame).

Roll the dough out into a square about 1/4 inch thick.  Brush with the melted butter and sprinkle with the brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins (if using), and pecans.  Begin at one edge and tightly roll up the dough like a jelly roll.  Have your cake pan(s) ready, each dotted with 3 tbs butter and 1/4 cup brown sugar.  Cut the log into 1/2-3/4" pieces and place in the cake pan(s).  Let the rolls rise an additional 20-30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F (375 for cinnamon rolls).  Brush the rolls with an egg wash if desired (for cinnamon rolls only).  Bake the rolls for 30 minutes (20-25 for cinnamon rolls).  Cinnamon rolls are done after baking and can be topped with frosting or glaze if desired.  For the pecan rolls, turn them out of the pan to reveal the tops already coated with a nice glaze.  Serve immediately!

Sugar and Spice

Last week I got a new cookbook! (Thanks Mom!) But not just any cookbook, a bread book.  Since we always have ripe bananas in our house, I decided to try making their banana sandwich bread, a nice departure from our usual banana quick bread.  But, I should have known that when something calls for the zest of not 1, but 2 oranges, you're not going to be tasting anything else...  Still, the bread had a wonderful texture and their method of making it is something I'd never tried before (the sponge method?) so I decided it was blog-worthy.  I can't wait to try some of the other tasty recipes (accompanied by equally tasty-looking pictures!) this book has to offer.

Also featured in this post: Gingersnaps!  I made these a while ago when my dad came to visit - my dad is the ultimate chocoholic but can no longer have chocolate.  I was looking for something that 1) did not have chocolate (I have very few recipes that meet this criteria to begin with...); and 2) could be made from ingredients I already had in my kitchen.  And as usual, when I'm trying to meet criterion #2, the Joy of Cooking made itself useful.  Though these gingersnaps were not actually crunchy, they had a great taste and went fast!

Gingersnaps
From: The Joy of Cooking
Grade: A-  Pretty easy to whip up, but could not get them crunchy.  Still, great taste!

This is the original recipe and makes 6 dozen cookies.

3 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp orange or lemon zest

Combine dry ingredients.  Beat together sugar and butter, then add remaining wet ingredients.  Stir in the flour intil smooth.  Roll small 1" dough balls and place onto a greased cookie sheet.  Flatten the tops slightly.  Bake at 350F for 10-13 minutes.


Whole Wheat Orange Spice Bread (or "lightly spiced" Banana Sandwich Bread)
From: The Tassajara Bread Book
Grade: A- if you want an orange bread, C+ if you were hoping to taste any banana...  But a wonderful texture!


Caution: This recipe makes 2 loaves, something I always forget to check when making bread and before I know it, I'm elbow deep in way too much dough to handle.  So, I'd highly recommend cutting this in half.  Also, I have an extra loaf of this in my freezer if you want to save yourself the trouble...

Pretty on the Inside

The title for this post comes from a song by one of our favorite bands, Ceann.  The dishes in this post might not look like they're worth your time (I'm a cook, not a photographer...) but they are delicious!  The first is a favorite from my childhood, despite the fact that it contains mushrooms, and the second is one that, apparently, was part of everybody else's childhood but I've never had before.


Mom's Beef Stroganoff
Adapted from: My mom's recipe
Grade: A!  Easy as any pasta sauce, but with a wonderful velvety texture.  Perfect comfort food.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
Adapted from: The Joy of Cooking
Grade: B+  Surprisingly good flavor, but a little labor intensive.

Mom's Beef Stroganoff

3/4 lb white button mushrooms, sliced
3/4 minced onion
3 tbsp butter
1 lb ground beef
1 can (10.5 oz) condensed beef broth (I didn't have this on hand so I disolved a cube of chicken bullion in 10 oz water)
2 tbs ketchup
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp flour
1 cup sour cream (I also didn't have this on hand - instead, used 3/4 cup + 2tbsp plain yogurt + 3 tbsp butter + pinch of sugar to taste)

Sautee the mushrooms, onion, and 3tbsp butter on medium heat until onions are translucent and mushrooms are soft.  Remove and set aside.  Brown the meat and drain the fat, then add in garlic, salt, ketchup and 2/3 of the broth and simmer covered for 15 minutes (medium heat or so).  In a small bowl, blend the remaining broth with the flour (add one tbsp at a time, stirring constantly to keep a smooth texture).  Add the flour/broth mixture, as well as the cooked onions and mushrooms, to the pan and cook on medium high heat (boiling) for 2 minutes (I found I only needed about 45sec-1 min), stirring constantly.  Stir in the sour cream (or yogurt, butter and sugar).  This was always served over egg noodles in my house, but I didn't have those either so it went onto regular spaghetti.  Scrumptious!!



Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
We got a head of Savoy cabbage in our Boston Organics box last week and I didn't know what the heck to do with it, since neither of us really like cabbage.  But we both loved this dish!  Although, next time I make this, I'm not going to bother peeling off all those leaves, but just do what they did on Iron Chef tonight, and stuff the entire cabbage head!

For the cabbage leaves:

16 quarts water
1 1/2 tbsp salt
1 head Savoy cabbage

For the filling:
1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup white rice (I only had brown)
1/2 cup water
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced (oh please, we never use just 1 - 3 at least!)
salt and ground pepper

For the sauce:
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine (always Pinot Grigio at my house)
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 cup water
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
8 gingersnaps (I used a pinch of ginger and some sugar)
juice from 1 lemon
2 chunks sour salt (okay, I don't even know what this is so I obviously didn't have it on hand, but the cookbook says it's citric acid so I just put in extra lemon juice).

Bring the water and salt to a boil.  Cut the core out of the cabbage (don't cut the cabbage in half to do this like I did!  You end up with smaller leaves to stuff) and place the head in the boiling water, stem sides of the leaves down.  Boil ~5 minutes, then remove the outer leaves.  Repeat this until you get most of the good leaves, then soften the remaining cabbage for use in the sauce.  I laid the leaves out on a hand towel to dry/cool, and you're also supposed to cut out the spine - I manged this for some, but ended up losing a few leaves...

Mix the filling ingredients in a bowl and combine with your hands - it's the only way for meatball-type fillings, in my opinion.  Spoon about 1tbsp of filling into the base of a leaf, fold the right side of the lef over, roll up, then fold the left side of the leaf in.  That's about as well as I can describe it because I didn't really get it myself and my rolls weren't too much to marvel at...

Chop up the remaining cabbage and heat it with the oil and onion in a pot.  Cook over medium heat until golden-brown, then add the wine.  Simmer on low heat for 5 minutes and add the rest of the sauce ingredients.  Bring the sauce to a boil, then add the rolls seam side down.  Add water as needed to cover the rolls.  Cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours on med-low heat, shaking the pan every 30 minutes to prevent sticking.

The good thing about this recipe is it made a lot of rolls, so we had dinner and lunches for a few days from all our efforts.

Weekends are for Waffles

This is one of my favorite recipes to make on a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning.  The great thing about this recipe, besides the wonderful taste, is that it's pretty versatile, like most of the recipes from this cookbook.  I've made it as waffles or pancakes, with whole wheat or white flour, with blueberries or strawberries, etc.  Any leftovers are good as new later in the week if you reheat them in the toaster.

Berry Good Waffles
From: Going Wild in the Kitchen by Leslie Cerrier
Grade: A!  Very easy to make and always delicious!

I often cut this recipe in half since there's only 2 of us - makes about 3 waffles.

2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour (the original recipe calls for whole wheat pastry flour, but I don't use that because someone in our house won't touch the stuff...)
1 tsp baking powder (the original recipe calls for 2 tbsp - you only need this much leavening power if you're using only whole wheat flour, or if you want to have some really crazy looking pancakes...)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk (original calls for apple juice)
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla (original calls for 4 tbsp vanilla, but like I've said before, I'm not made of money and 1 tsp does just fine)
1 cup blueberries (frozen works as well as fresh)
1 tbsp honey

I love this cookbook because the instructions for most recipes are the same as this one - mix everything in a bowl.  So easy!  Then just spoon onto your griddle, pan, whatever (I use nonstick spray for every batch) and cook to desired doneness.  Best with maple syrup, of course!  If you're using strawberries or any other berry you like, just make sure the pieces are as small as blueberries, or else you'll have trouble keeping the waffles/pancakes together.

Love = bread!

One of these days I should give up the charade that this is a "cooking" blog and acknowledge that it's actually a baking blog.  Here are a few recipes from the last couple of weeks that have been lingering on my desktop, waiting to be shared.

Oh, and by the way, here is this week's excuse for not blogging more often:

 

We've been renovating our bathroom.  Like, down to the studs.  This is why we can't have nice things...

Focaccia with onions
From: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
Grade: A- (Not too hard to make, though time consuming like any bread, with a nice texture and taste.  Added points for having lots of fun slapping the dough around!)

Dough:
2 1/2 tsp dry yeast
2 c lukewarm water
6 1/2 cups all purpose flour (unbleached is always preferable)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp salt

Topping:
2 tbsp exta virgin olive oil + 1/4 cup for the emulsion
4 cups very thinly sliced onion rounds
2 tbsp water (for emulsion)
1 tsp salt (for emulsion)

Amaranth Bread

This is a first for me and the blog - I attempted my own bread recipe for this entry!  Well, I suppose it's not such a big deal - I just made some substitutions to the recipe for quick-rising white bread in the Joy of Cooking, but still, it counts as an original creation!

That said, it needs some tweaking, so I'm open to suggestions for how to improve this bread.  My assessment of this bread was, "It tastes like it's healthy," which was probably true but not what I was going for.  However it's hard (at least for me) to find good recipes for whole wheat breads, so I figure I'll keep fidling with this one a little more.

I also wanted to experiment with amaranth, a grain I'd heard of before but never worked with.  It is very small and round and the Joy of Cooking claims that you can put it into bread raw; however, I didn't realize that when you do this, it's basically like you're adding seeds, and the stuff comes off and gets everywhere in the kitchen every time you touch the loaf.  So perhaps I need to cook it first next time...

Amaranth Bread
Adapted from: The Joy of Cooking (Quick-rising white bread)
Grade: B (definitely healthy, but could be a lot tastier with softer texture)

The original recipe makes 2 loaves, so I cut that in half and subbed some of the whole wheat flour and amaranth for 1 cup of bread flour. 

1 1/4 tsp yeast
1/8 cup warm water
2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup amaranth, uncooked
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup warm water
1/2 tbsp melted butter
some honey (I don't remember how much but I was trying to replace the 1 tbsp sugar)
1/2 tbsp salt

Dissolve the yeast in water in a bowl and let stand for 5-10 minutes until nice and bubbly.  Add 1 1/2 cups bread flour, the remaining water, butter, honey, and salt and mix.  Add the remaining flours and amaranth in increments until the dough comes together and is moist but not sticky.  Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, incorporating the sunflower seeds in small amounts.  Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with saran wrap, and let it rise 1 1/2 hours. 

Grease your loaf pan.  Punch the bread down and form it into a loaf.  Let it rise in the bread pan, covered with saran wrap, for another 1 1/2 hours.

Bake the bread for 10 minutes at 450F, then for another 30 minutes at 350F, or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.  Let cool on a rack before cutting (the sunflower seeds and amaranth made this loaf a little harder to hold together).

On another note, we had an epic fail in the meringue department this evening.  I was quite put out about it, but vowed to buy a dozen eggs next time I'm at the store and keep trying until I get it right.

Homemade Pasta

Sorry for the long absence - turns out it's a lot harder than I thought to get my computer and my cookbooks in the same place.

This has been a pretty carb-heavy week, but I'll start with the project I was most excited about - homemade linguine.

We made two types - regular, for lack of a better term, egg pasta, and spinach pasta (hence the green color).  On paper this process doesn't look so hard, but it took us a good hour or two to get it right.

The recipe and instructions come from a new cookbook I got for Christmas: "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking," by Marcella Hazan.  I'd give it a B: the wow factor was fun, but it was a lot of work to make and didn't have any particularly noticeable taste.

Yellow Pasta Dough
1 cup unbleached flour
2 eggs

Green Pasta Dough
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 eggs
1/2 lb fresh spinach, cooked*

*To prepare the spinach, rinse with cold water, discard stems, and place in a pot.  Add 1/2 tsp salt and cook until the spinach is wilted, about 5 minutes.  Drain well, then squeeze the spinach gently with your hands or a towel to remove as much water as you can.  Chop finely.

Yes, you can make that at home!

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Monday brunch

Joanna joined us for brunch today, and despite being snowed in this morning and unable to go to the store, we still managed to put out a pretty good spread. 

The star of the brunch was my cinnamon swirl bread, with my dry and much less successful banana bread hiding behind it.  (For those who love my usual banana bread, this was a new recipe, so I'll put up both but recommend that you stick with the Joy of Cooking recipe.  Lesson: whole wheat flour is not the same as whole wheat pastry flour.)  You can't see it in the photo, but the steam was actually still rising out of the cinnamon bread!  I'm looking forward to cinnamon bread toast for breakfast this week.

I find that a lot of people are intimidated by making bread, and I definitely was myself when I started a few years ago.  You need two things to make bread properly: 1) time, and 2) a good set of hands.  You need to let this bread rise for a total of 3 hours, and you need your hands to get used to feeling when the dough has been kneaded sufficiently.  But after a few loaves, you will definitely get the hang of it!  And don't ask me how to adapt this for a bread machine - I don't own one and never will.

Cinnamon swirl bread
Adapted from: The Joy of Cooking
      Grade: A- (time consuming to make, as most yeast breads are, but much simpler than many and extremely soft and tasty)
The original recipe is for a cinnamon raisin bread, but since I never stock raisins (Rob is not a fan...) I just left them out.  If you'd like to make this with raisins, place 1/2 cup raisins in a asauce pan and cover with cold water - bring to a boil, then drain and cool and apply them with the first application of cinnamon sugar.

This is based from a milk bread dough, which is very versatile and can be used to make a variety of different things, such as biscuits, sandwich bread, or in this case a sweet treat!

Girls night in

What's better than a girls night in with pizza, brownies and some red wine?  I can't think of a whole lot!

This pizza dough recipe is a staple in our house, and the sauce recipe is courtesy of our friend Sam. 

Pizza crust
     Grade A!  (Easy to make and delicious!)
 Adapted from: Italian, by Kate Whiteman, Jeni Wright, and Angela Boggiano


2 1/2 tsp yeast (or 1 packet - there are all types of yeast, but no need for anything fancy here)
1 cup warm water
pinch sugar (about 1/2 tsp if you must measure)
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
A drizzle of canola oil

Place the yeast in a mixing bowl and cover with the warm water and sugar.  Mix with a fork to blend and let sit about 10 minutes.  A nice bubbly head should form over the mixture while the yeast does it's job (i.e. eating the sugar and producing carbon dioxide so your dough will rise). 

Dinner for the in-laws

I had fun putting together this menu, and everything was made with things already in the house, since I had no car to go to the store anyway.

Appetizer: Rutabaga, broccoli and cheddar cheese knishes
     Grade: B- (very time consuming to prepare, and the flavor is not that remarkable)

Salad: Chopped spinach with apples, oranges, and raspberry vinaigrette
     Grade: B+ (very easy to prepare and quite tasty, but the dressing has a short shelf life) 

Side: Mashed potato and rutabaga casserole with carmelized onions
     Grade: A! (not much more work than making regular mashed potatoes, but much tastier!)

Main Dish: Sauteed pork tenderloin and pears in mustard-port sauce
     Grade: B+ (not too hard to prepare, but the flavor was a little dull) 

Desert: Blueberry pie
     Grade: A! (very easy to make - not your usual pie crust - and absolutely delicious!)



Appetizer: Rutabaga, broccoli and cheddar cheese knishes
Adapted from: 1001 Jewish Recipes, by Faye Levy
Caution: This is a very time consuming dish to make!

Dough:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
~5 tbsp ice water

Mix flour and salt in a food processor. Add butter (cut into ~1/2 inch pieces) and process so mixtures becomes crumbly.

Welcome to my blog!

When I was living in Paris five years ago, I bought a magnet with the phrase "J'embrasse mieux que je ne cuisine." This roughly translates to "I kiss better than I cook," which was a pretty accurate assessment of my cooking skills at the time.

For most of my life, I had no interest or aptitude for the kitchen, despite the fact that my mom is an awesome cook and I love to eat! Throughout my time as an undergrad at MIT, where I studied chemistry, I always heard, "Oh you're a chemist? Then you must be a good cook!" That one silly comment, combined with the fact that I was awfully tired of eating nothing but pasta for lunch and dinner, motivated me to get into the kitchen and start fiddling around until I made something worth eating.

Fortunately, somewhere along the way, between the numerous pots full of inedible glop that had to be tossed, I started to get the hang of things. These days, I have no fear of trying new recipes because I've finally learned my cardinal rule of cooking:

The process of cooking is not going to magically transform a list of ingredients you don't like into a dish that tastes great.

This might sound a little ridiculous or incredibly obvious, but it actually took me a long time to figure out. But now that I have a grasp on which ingredients I like and what can be substituted for what, I only rarely end up with a dud.

So why did I start this blog? 1) I want to keep track of all the recipes I've tried, how they came out, what should be changed, and how I could improve their presentation; and 2) I want to hear from anyone who might be reading this about their suggestions for recipes, ingredients, or their stories (good or bad!) about their own adventures in the kitchen. And if, along the way, I can give some one a good idea for a recipe or inspire some one to try a new ingredient (something I've been incredibly resistant to most of my life), then all the better.

Every recipe I post on the blog will receive a grade based on ease of preparation and taste.  Additionally, I'll try to add tags to each recipe so if you're looking for something, say, Mexican for dinner, you can use the labels on the sidebar to find some inspiration.

One final note: Most of my recipes are adapted from previously published ones, so I will always give credit to the source of my recipes. Most of the time, I find recipes in my arsenal of cookbooks, but sometimes I also use Epicurious.

So with that, I just want to say thanks for stopping by my blog, and bon appetit!