Category Archives: Breads

Savory Crepes

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savory crepes

I am a lover of crepes.  They are so versatile, the batter always makes enough for 4 or more people, and you can fill them with virtually anything.  I’ve been slightly obsessed with making crepe cakes and made one for Matt for his birthday last year that had chocolate crepes layered with caramel buttercream and chocolate ganache.  It was pretty fantastic and I think it was about 25 layers.  I want to go bigger!  The only thing is that those cakes are hard to cut unless they are semi-frozen, and even harder to eat!  But I find it fun to peel away the layers one by one, enjoying each piece!  That recipe will come soon.  Very soon.  Because I was inspired by my reflecting on crepe cakes, that I had to go make one – an hour ago.

So yeah..I just did.  It’s pretty awesome.  Post coming tomorrow or Sunday!

THESE crepes, however, were also wonderful.  Stuffed with gruyere cheese, bits of leftover brown sugar ham and fresh chives, they were the perfect lunch.  They fed me, my baby, my sweet friend, Katrina, and her baby!  And he’s been known to pack away a man-sized meal 🙂

Make your batter an hour in advance and you’ll have much more pretty crepes that don’t fall apart!

savory crepes with ham and gruyere

Savory Crepes*

2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter
Butter, for coating the pan

Fillings:
1 cup shredded gruyere cheese – any melting cheese will be great!
1/2 cup diced ham
2 tbs fresh chopped chives

In a large cup, place all ingredients except the butter and blend with an immersion blender for a full minute, making sure all the flour is incorporated.  Then drizzle in the melted butter. Place the crepe batter in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Heat a small non-stick pan over medium high. Add butter to coat. Pour 1/4 cup of batter into the center of the pan and swirl to spread evenly. This takes a bit of practice and your crepes might look like mine and have tiny fingers coming off the sides.  They’ll taste the same, promise. Cook the first side for about a minute until edges brown and you can run your spatula around the edges to loosen.  Slide your spatula under the crepe and flip over.  Cook for another 10 seconds and fill the crepes with desired stuffings, fold into half circles and then in half again and place on a baking sheet in a 200 degree oven to keep warm until done with the rest and ready to eat!

*adapted from Alton Brown’s crepe recipe on Food Network

Literal Banana Bread

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Banana Oat Bread
We always have bananas around here.  I realize my last post was about bananas and I apologize for the redundancy.  They are the most logical, good-in-a-pinch snack or breakfast for a little one.  I cut them up and put them in oatmeal most mornings, so one day when I had a lot of ripe ones and it was cloudy out, I thought that I’d do a literal banana bread and mix banana into the dough and add a lot of oatmeal to kinda make a bread version of my daily breakfast.  I really loved how rustic it turned out.  It was really great warmed with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon – as most things are.  I always think of how I could improve something the second it comes out of the oven.  With this, I think thick slices dipped in batter and turned into banana French toast would be amazing.

Banana Oat Loaf

Banana Oat Bread*
makes two loaves

3 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp salt
1/2 oz yeast
1/2 stick butter, softened
generous 1 1/4 cups water
2 large bananas, chopped
1 bowl of oatmeal, muesli or granola

Put the flour, salt, yeast and butter into a bowl.  Slowly add water to the bowl and mix carefully by hand until the dough becomes elastic.  Knead the dough for 5 minutes, then cover the bowl and set aside to rest for two hours.

Divide the dough into two, then add a chopped banana to each, using your hands to mash the banana into the mixture.  This makes the dough crazy sticky, so add enough oatmeal to each to regain the original texture.

Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silpat.  Roll each dough into a ball, then press into the bowl of oats, so that the dough becomes completely coated.  Place the loaves on a baking sheet and let rise for 1-2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 400F.  Using a knife, deeply score the top of each ball into 8 sections.  Bake the loaves for 25-30 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

*adapted from the amazing book, 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood.  

Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Cinnamon Rolls

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Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Cinnamon Rolls

RECIPE UPDATED!  I made some changes and they’re even better, now!  Go make these, QUICK!

For the South Plains Fair this year, I decided to enter the cinnamon roll category, if for no other reason than to de-throne my friend, Rod from his previous win in the category.  A little healthy rivalry makes everything more fun and I KNOW his are amazing.  But in the night, right before drifting off, I came up with what I figured would be a wonderful way to make the filling for the cinnamon rolls and the icing.  The dough, I figured, could be altered to fit in with the rest.  So I got kind of excited to embark on the process and after killing the yeast in my dough from boiling hot butter in the first round, I ended up with a good second batch of dough and proceeded with the plan!  I think the secret to anything truly delicious in a baked good is butter.  And I figure everyone knows, but in case you don’t, browned butter is the goodness of butter x 1,000,000.  So at every turn, I turned the butter into browned butter and I formed a paste with the filling instead of doing the traditional method of smearing on a lot of butter and then dumping sugar and cinnamon, which, when rolled up and cut, inevitably dumps out a little on your cutting board.

The paste. was. genius.  I’m not even going to act humble about this.  I browned the butter with two vanilla beans that were split (holy mother that was a great smell) and once browned, I combined the sugar and a little less cinnamon than the original recipe called for and formed this amazing smelling liquid that I let firm up in the fridge a bit so that it would harden up enough to be spread like jam instead of being liquid.  It made the filling so incredibly easy to get perfectly uniform so that each cinnamon roll had exactly the same amount of filling.

And then…The Icing.  I’m definitely not one of those people who says something is “too sweet” when it comes to desserts.  Desserts are supposed to be sweet.  However, the traditional powdered sugar and milk icings for cinnamon rolls can be just SUGAR and nothing else and I thought a cream cheese icing would be too strong a flavor for the delicate brown butter and vanilla beans.  So I used heavy cream, milk, powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste (so it would be pretty and flecked) and THEN I gradually added tiny pinches of kosher salt and stirred after each addition, until the edge of the sweetness was taken off and it was perfect.  I will henceforth salt all my icings.  Just a bit – it MATTERS!  I was amazed at how good these turned out and….

TA-DA!  Blue Ribbon!  I was quite giddy!

And then sad, because my husbands absolutely perfect bread didn’t place and my thoughts were that it was too sophisticated and the fair is a veritable sugar bomb.  I think it just depends on what you respect when it comes to traditional bread, and Matt is a purest.  4 or 5 ingredients at the most.  This guy is the most amazing baker I know!  Anyone can make a good bread if it’s slathered in sugar and butter, but only a true baker can make a bread SING with only 4 ingredients.
These were our submissions – Matt submitted his biscuits, baguette and traditional boule.  All perfect and the best I’ve tried, but sometimes in a sea of bundt cakes and chocolate sugar loaves, plain bread doesn’t get noticed. A shame, really.
Smorgasbord

Brown Butter Vanilla Bean Cinnamon Rolls with Vanilla Cream Icing
makes about 16 rolls, depending on how thick you slice them

For the Dough:

1 cup whole milk
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (bread machine yeast
1/4 cup sugar
4 TBS unsalted butter, browned and cooled
2 large egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 3/4 cups AP flour
3/4 tsp salt

For the Filling:
12 TBS unsalted butter, browned with two split vanilla beans
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 TBS cinnamon

For the Icing:
1 heaping cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2-3 TBS whole milk
a few pinches of kosher salt

Make your Filling first!  Brown the butter in a large, stainless steel skillet (non stick you can’t see the butter browning) with the split vanilla beans, mushing them around as they warm up to release their seeds.  Once browned, remove from heat and stir in your sugar until fully incorporated.  Then add in the cinnamon, stirring to combine.  You can do this a day in advance – you want this paste to be slightly firmed up so put it in the fridge and stir it once in a while until it’s the consistency of wet sand.

For the dough: brown your butter on the stove by swirling it around in the pan over medium heat until solids begin to form at the bottom and it’s giving off a nutty aroma.  Remove from heat and place in a medium bowl and let it cool for a few minutes.  Once cooled (about 5 minutes), add the milk, the egg yolks and vanilla paste.  Whisk to combine.  Then whisk in the yeast.
Whisk the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Make a well in the center and pour in the milk mixture.  Mix on low speed with a dough hook until thick and slightly sticky.  Knead on medium speed until the dough gathers around the hook, adding up to 2 more tablespoons of flour to get a nice, smooth texture.  Don’t beat it to death.

Remove the dough and shape into a ball.  Butter the mixing bowl and return the dough to the bowl, turning to coat in the butter.  Cover with a towel and put it in a warmish place (like on your dryer) for a couple hours until doubled in size.  This is a pretty slow-rising dough.  Don’t lose hope.

Roll out the dough on a floured work surface to a shape of about 10″ x 16″ (about 1/4″ thick all around).  Now comes the fun part!  Spread your filling all over the dough with an offset spatula until completely covered, leaving about 1/4″ all around clean for ease of rolling up the dough.  Starting on the long side, roll the dough up tight and then slice about 1.5″ slices and arrange them on a buttered, double lined rimmed baking sheet (if you don’t have one, you can always stack pans together to form a double wall) and cover with loose plastic wrap and set in that same warm place to rise about an hour until doubled.

Preheat the oven to 325 and bake about 30 minutes, until golden brown (mine were done in about 28 min).  Cool in the pan 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, make the icing by adding the cream to the sugar in a bowl and whisking till smooth.  Then add the vanilla and milk until a nice, smooth texture is achieved.  Then, little by little, tasting along the way, add pinches of salt till it tastes right.  I can’t really tell you how much I added.  Probably two and a half pinches!  Stir till fully incorporated and pour over the rolls!

Enjoy!

Cherry Almond Scones

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Cherry Almond Scones with butter

Dear goodness, I love a good scone.  Some people think they are too dry or would prefer a muffin, instead.  Cake is cake so there’s really no comparing it with a muffin.  Scones are meant to be enjoyed warm, with a sliver of cold butter and a hot cup of coffee or tea.  How very English.  Their merit of being on the verge of dry is that they pair well with butter and a warm drink.  And like their fluffy muffin-cousins, the varieties are endless.  I love a savory scone with cheddar and onion just as much as a sweet variety.  These particular scones have a magical pairing – almond and cherries!  I bought some hippie soap this weekend with that combination and I didn’t intend to buy soap if I hadn’t smelled it, but there it was, cherry almond soap, screaming, “I’M SO COMFORTING!  INHALE ME WHILE YOU DRIVE HOME!”  And so I did.  And it was a really great car ride.

When I received my copy of King Arthur Flour magazine, one of the first scone mixes inside was cherry almond.  I knew I had to make these on my own, instead of waiting on a mix to arrive on my doorstep.  So, I looked up the nearest recipe online and adapted it to be more almondy (there really is never enough almond-flavored things in the world) and got to baking!  They turned out soft on the inside and crispy on the outside – perfect!  I want to make them again, soon, and figure out a way to make them a little more cherry, too.  Perhaps a swirl of homemade cherry preserves in the dough!  They’re really great as is, though – just don’t forget the (real) butter!

Happy Beginning of the Week!

Cherry Almond Scones with Vanilla Bean

Cherry Almond Scones*
makes 8-10 scones, depending on the cut

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks cold butter, cut into pea size pieces
1 cup dried cherries, roughly chopped
1/2 cup toasted sliced almonds
1/2 cup milk with a tsp of vanilla and a tsp of almond extract mixed in!

In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add in the butter and rub with your fingers into the dry ingredients until a coarse meal forms. Add in the cherries and almonds. Add the milk and extracts and combine it into the butter flour mixture.

Form the dough into a 1-inch thick disk and cut it into 8 rounds with a biscuit cutter (You can really cut them however you like.)  Transfer the scones to a greased cookie sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 17 to 18 minutes, turning the pan halfway through.

*Adapted from Anne Burrell

Cinnamon Oatmeal and Yogurt Pancakes

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Cinnamon Oat Pancakes

I don’t believe in labeling food as “healthy” or “not healthy.”  I believe in good habits and bad habits.  I think it’s a bad habit to eat lots of refined sugar and processed junk that lives in a box on a shelf on a daily basis.  I think it’s a good habit to enjoy a totally sugar-laden cupcake once or twice a month and really enjoy the cuss out of it.  I think it’s a bad habit to eat fast food multiple times a week.  I think it’s a good habit to enjoy an amazing cheeseburger and fries on a weekend and have no regrets!   I think it’s a bad habit to let kids snack between meals on junk like salty fish shaped crackers and candy posing as “fruit.”  I think it’s a good habit to let your kids know what snack food is and that it is to be eaten once in a while and not every day and certainly not in place of a meal.  Good habits and bad habits – to heck with worrying about good foods and bad foods or worrying that I’m bad for having refined flour and sugar in the house.  If you really believe in the adage of “everything in moderation” you won’t run from these ingredients.  You’ll just put them in their time and place.

Because of the awesome blog by Dina Rose that I read on a regular basis, I am coming more and more into the understanding of focusing on conquering habits instead of worrying about the nutrition of each individual meal I cook.  I’ve developed a few habits I’m proud of and I’m working on changing the habits I’m not so proud to admit.  A bad habit I’m working on is eliminating my “adult right” to snacking throughout the day.  I have been bad about this in the past.  A piece of chocolate here, a cracker and cheese or seven there…I don’t want Olive to grow up snacking between meals and having her around has really shed light on my bad habits for randomly and mindlessly eating.  I’ve been tackling that problem this week and it’s getting easier and easier to wait till the next meal – just like I expect her to learn.

A good habit I really love is cooking a bit more indulgently on the weekends.  This Saturday it was just us girls as Matt was somewhere in the Colorado wilderness hiking and eating freeze dried gravy.  I love not camping.  So for breakfast, before Olive woke up, I looked up a recipe for yogurt pancakes and modified the one I found to have cinnamon, oatmeal and a splash of sweetened milk I had in the fridge from the tres leches cakes I made a couple weeks ago.  It was the best stack of pancakes I’ve ever made.  They were wonderful. These pancakes are by no means “healthy” in that you should eat them all the time, but they are filled with good ingredients and that just adds a bonus to getting to dig into a stack of pancakes on a weekend.  I topped them with banana slices and a bit of my favorite syrup – dark amber agave nectar (tastes like caramel) – and they were awesome.  And filling.  I threw the leftovers in the toaster this morning before church and they were magical all over again.  Three cheers for refined flour weekends and learning good habits!

Cinnamon Oatmeal Yogurt Pancakes

 

Cinnamon Oatmeal Pancakes
made about 8, 3 inch pancakes

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup plain yogurt
2 eggs
2 tbs melted butter
2 tbs milk or heavy cream or evaporated milk (I had leftover tres leches concoction in my fridge)

Heat a griddle or a non-stick frying pan over medium high heat.  Combine all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.  Then, in a separate bowl, combine all the wet ingredients and whip up the eggs in the mixture until smooth.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and blend with a fork until fully incorporated.  Spray the skillet with spray oil with each batch of pancakes and cook till browned on both edges, 2-3 minutes per side.

Serve with sliced bananas or peanut butter and syrup – whatever makes you happy!

Cinnamon Oatmeal Pancakes

Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches with Blue Cheese Slaw

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Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches with Blue Cheese and Celery Cole Slaw
In the Palmer house, we like to do things from scratch.  Sometimes we even go so far as to make the contraption that makes the food (thank you, Alton Brown).  But I would say our current favorite food-past time is eating a dish at a restaurant and saying, “I bet we could make a better version of this at home” and then going home and trying it out.  One of our favorite restaurants here in town is Crafthouse Gastropub.  They always have good brews on tap and they have a creative menu and generally execute things pretty well.  Matt was really excited to try their buffalo chicken sandwich and had been anticipating it for a long time, but it fell kinda short when we finally had it.  Maybe it was because we had this idea in our heads of what it would be and it wasn’t that way – sometimes you can really cheat a restaurant by doing this.  The slaw was really wet and ran down his arm and pooled onto the plate.  The chicken wasn’t “buffalo” enough and was also too big, so it was really hard to eat.  It was a good enough sandwich for what it was, but we said then and there that we’d try this one at home.

So we did.  And it was tremendous.  We used the recipe for the fried chicken sandwich from Serious Eats and I think they really have a perfect process.  Using chicken thighs instead of the breast makes for a smaller patty and a more flavorful one, and it’s easier to eat.  We used our very favorite buffalo sauce and Matt thickened it with a bit of roux and it worked perfectly.  We didn’t want the drippy situation and making the sauce thicker like buffalo gravy – if you will – was the right move.  Matt found a slaw recipe online from a girl who really knows her stuff, Carla Hall from Top Chef, that had celery and blue cheese.  What is more perfect with buffalo chicken than blue cheese and celery?  Then, we totally cheated and bought a nice jar of ranch dressing and mixed in some chunky blue cheese crumbles for the sauce.  And to finish everything off, Matt made outrageous potato rolls for the buns.  It was, by every definition, the perfect chicken sandwich.  Right size, right proportions, right flavor – right on.

I’ll post our thickened buffalo sauce recipe below, as well as Matt’s potato rolls.  There’s a lot of components to this sandwich, but you can improvise on pretty much all of it if you want.  I’d highly recommend keeping the fried chicken thigh the same, though.  I can’t imagine how to improve it.

Buffalo Chicken Sandwich

The Perfect Buffalo Sauce 

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 6 tablespoons Frank’s hot sauce
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter

Mix all the ingredients together in a medium saucepan over low to medium heat until well combined and heated through.  To thicken, like we did for our sandwiches, take two tablespoons of unsalted softened butter in a small dish and add about two tablespoons of flour to form into a paste (an uncooked roux).  Throw this little ball of buttery flour into your buffalo sauce and whisk until fully incorporated and thickened.  We dunked each crispy chicken patty into the buffalo sauce before assembling our sandwiches.

Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches

Potato Buns*
makes 8 sandwich-sized buns

  • 1 russet potato (big enough to make 1/2 cup mashed potato), peeled and chopped
  • 1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 tbsp. honey or agave nectar
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup milk, warmed
  • 1 1/8 tsp. instant yeast
  • 1/4 cup reserved potato water
  • 2 1/2 – 3 cups bread flour
  • 2 tbs salted butter, melted, for brushing the buns


Boil potato until tender.  Drain cooking water, reserving 1/4 cup for use in the rolls.  Finely mash the potato and measure out 1/2 cup.  Let cool to nearly room temperature.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the mashed potato, butter, honey, salt and egg.  Mix together on medium speed for about 2 minutes.  Combine the yeast with the warm milk and reserved potato water, and pour into the mixer bowl.  Mix on low speed until incorporated.  Gradually add the flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until a soft dough forms.  Switch to the dough hook attachment on knead on low speed for 5 minutes, adding more flour if necessary to achieve a soft dough that is slightly tacky but not sticky.  Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to coat.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 60-90 minutes.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Turn the down out onto a lightly floured surface and punch it down.  Separate into 8 equal pieces and shape into buns.   Place the buns on the prepared baking sheet, about 1 1/2 inches apart.  Brush each bun with melted butter.  Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let the dough rise again until the rolls have grown into each other, about 30-45 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until golden.  We started checking the buns for doneness around 12 minutes.  Serve warm.

*recipe adapted from Annies-Eats where we made bigger rolls, left out the sugar and brushed with butter instead of dusting with flour to make extra soft buns.

Coffee Can Bread

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Coffee Can Brown BreadBoston Brown Bread Loaf

I love this bread.  It’s definitely a bread meant for soup, butter, honey, a fried egg on top – something it can soak up.  It’s dense, smells like gingerbread and it bakes in an old coffee can.  How much more nostalgic or delightful can this get? We first made this recipe to accompany homemade clam chowder.  Both recipes came out of arguably the best issue of Bon Appetit in years – the November 2012 issue.  That issue had several recipes we’ve made countless times, AND an interview with Nick Offerman, a.k.a Ron Swanson.  Best issue ever.

This is called Boston Brown Bread.  It’s a classic recipe in New England and is typically made to go with clam chowder.  I love that it makes two loaves. I can freeze one right out of the oven, or give it away.  I think this time, it will travel with us this weekend to go see our friends, Matt and Anna in Dallas, who JUST found out they are having a baby GIRL in January.  We are so excited to go spend some time with our culinary soul mates and best friends.

So, call your nearest neighbor who you might suspect keeps everything and ask if they have any old coffee cans you can use.  I did exactly that with my friend, Ann, and she delivered.  🙂 One more thing that makes me happy when I make this bread – I think of Ann!

Have a wonderful weekend and bake something memorable!
Sliced Boston Brown Bread with Butter
Coffee Can Bread
makes two loaves

A few tablespoons of butter
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rye flour (this is the important one to not substitute – I think you could sub AP flour for the wheat and it would be just fine, but the rye imparts an important flavor to the bread)
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

2 – empty, clean coffee cans, 11-13 ounces

Preheat oven to 350F.  Cut two 6″ squares of foil.  Coat insides of the cans and one side of each piece of foil with butter.  Stir milk and brown sugar and salt in a small saucepan over low heat until sugar dissolves and mixture is just warmed (don’t boil).  Whisk whole wheat flour and the remaining ingredients in a large bowl.  Add milk mixture, whisking until smooth.  Divide batter between cans and smooth tops.  (note! if the cans still have a lip rim, simply take your can opener to the top and it will cut that lip right off).

Cover cans with foil, butter side down.  Secure foil with kitchen twine.  Place cans foil side up in a deep roasting pan or heavy, shallow pot.  Pour very hot water into pan to come about 2-3″ up the side of the cans.
Coffee Can Brown Bread out of the oven

Bake until a skewer inserted through the foil into the center of each loaf comes out clean, about 1.5 hours.  Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes.  Run a thin knife around the edges of the cans.  invert to release loaves onto a cooling rack.  Let cool for 20 minutes before slicing.  Serve with soft, salted butter and rejoice.

This is great salted butter.  We buy unsalted for baking, but for eating, salted is the way to go!
the only butter you need

Zucchini Bruschetta – Hold Off on Cardigans a Little Longer…

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Zucchini Bruschetta detail

The summer seems to be winding down, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we had 100 degree days well into October.  I’m getting in that cozy fall mood, already, though, and it’s dangerous because I want to wear cardigans and listen to jazz and eat pumpkin flavored things and it’s still 98 and muggy outside.  Sometimes if the summer goes on a little too long, I start protesting by wearing my sweaters, regardless of the temp.  I consider it my adult fussypants-ness.  Everyone’s got a cross to bear – mine is shorts-weather.

This recipe keeps me mildly okay with the fact that it’s still summer.  It’s so fresh and happy and has such bright, bold flavors and colors that it makes the perfect appetizer when your friends are keeping you company in the kitchen as you finish roasting the pig…or whatever it is you cook for your friends.  This is also a great way to use up the only thing you got to grow in your garden, this year.  What is it about zucchini?  Why does it:
1. Always grow
2. Grows as big as a Great Dane
3. Give you more yield than any one family could ever consume?

Zucchini gives false hope.  “Hey, you can grow me!  Now let’s see how you do with carrots!  Go on!  I want to see you try!  Loser.”

Or that’s how my zucchini plant makes ME feel…

zucchini bruschetta appetizers

Zucchini and Olive Bruschetta*
serves 6-8 appetizer sized portions

1 baguette, cut into 1/4″ slices
2 tbs olive oil, plus more for drizzling
4 small zucchini (about 12 ounces)
1 large avocado (ripe, duh)
zest and juice from one lemon
12 large mint leaves, chopped
1/3 cup toasted almonds or any nut, really
1/3 cup chopped catamala olives, or whatever floats your boat
2 ounces pecorino romano, parmesan or other firm cheese you enjoy

Heat oven to 375°F and arrange a rack in the middle.  Slice zucchini lengthwise into 1/3” slices and then stack the slices and cut into 1/3 “ matchsticks lengthwise. Once all the zucchini are sliced, cut them lengthwise into 1” pieces.

Place the zucchini in a colander and toss with ½ teaspoon of kosher salt, and set aside to drain for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, brush the bread on both sides with olive oil. Place on a baking sheet and bake until crusty and brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Turn once halfway through to toast evenly. Remove and cool.

Peel and pit avocado then cut into 1/2-inch dice. Place in a medium bowl and toss with lemon juice and zest. Roughly chop mint leaves and add to avocados.

Line a large plate with paper towels and spread out salted zucchini. Lay another layer of paper towels on top and pat off excess moisture. Add to the avocado bowl along with the almonds and olives and mix thoroughly. Taste and adjust salt to your liking.

Top each crostini with a heaping spoonful of the zucchini mixture. Drizzle over olive oil and fresh cracked pepper. Using a peeler thinly shave cheese and top each crostini with a few slices and serve.

*recipe adapted from aidamollenkamp.com

Stroopwafels – Your New Coffee Lid

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stroop008
My friend, Libby, and I first saw stroopwafel cookies at an outdoor market in the center of Haarlem, Holland.  We were having an “off” day from our Let’s Start Talking mission trip and decided to explore the town’s morning market.  I think it must have been the very first time in my life that I explored and ventured off so far away from home and with zero adult supervision.  We were technically adults as sophomores in college (are you done laughing, yet?) – I say “technically” because someone trusted us to go across the globe to teach English to non-native speakers, but in all other manners of speaking, we were babies.

While walking the streets of Haarlem (or trying our best to ride our bikes without getting killed after not being on a bike since the 90s) we discovered so many things we didn’t know existed.  Crazy street performers that came alive at the sound of a coin dropping into their hats, a sweet, old lady flipping tiny pancakes over with a spear in her honeycomb-style pan (ebilskivers), and probably the best of all – the Stroopwafel  (pronounced “strope”) – two waffle cookies sandwiched together with soft caramel. We smelled them from down the street – the air was cloaked in butterscotch.  We followed our noses to a little stand in the center of the street where a man was making salad-plate-sized waffles, pressing them with a hand-held grid patterned iron, and spreading each waffle with a thick caramel sauce before sandwiching them together and handing them to us, gooey and oozing out the sides.  They were warm, soft and crispy around the edges and we took one bite and with wide eyes, didn’t say another word until we were done eating.  It was one of those magical food memories that has cemented that time and space in my brain, forever.  A part of my heart will always be with my friend, Libby, on the streets of Haarlem, eating stroopwafels and wondering how we got so lucky.  Eleven years later in our toddler-run worlds of rushing around and enjoying quick cups of coffee in the wee hours of the morning, I like to go back to that place where nothing else in the world existed except our adventure.

When we got back from Holland, we started to see reproductions of these cookies in grocery stores.  A poor man’s stroopwafel, but better than nothing.  I don’t think most people know that you’re supposed to place the cookie on top of your coffee after you pour it, so that the room temp caramel softens with the heat and when bitten into, oozes out just a bit.  The ones we got in the market were obviously over-sized to sell to American tourists, but the true size is a perfect fit for the top of a coffee mug.

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I wanted to make my own for years, but had never attempted it till last weekend.  I found a basic stroopwafel recipe online and had some leftover butterscotch sauce in the fridge and it worked perfectly.  I recommend making the butterscotch because I think that salty note is just amazing with the sweetness of the cookie.  I also doubled the cinnamon the original recipe called for and was quite happy with the results.  If you’re not in the mood to make your own caramel or butterscotch, I thought the other night, while I was supposed to be sleeping, that those sheets of caramel sold in grocery stores for caramel apples would work perfectly because they’re already flattened out!  You really need a pizzelle iron to make these and if you don’t have one, I would suspect that you could be pretty successful if you have a handheld bacon press and just pressed them out on a griddle.  They don’t take long to cook at high heat (about one minute) and you have to split them in half before they cool down, so get ready to suck it up and act like a woman (I didn’t miss-type).   As I will say over and over again on this blog: nothing in this life worth having comes easy.

And homemade stroopwafels are definitely worth having.  Libby, my dear – can’t wait to have coffee with you, again in a couple weeks.  Of course, you’re always there, in my head, during my morning cup.  Always.

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Stroopwafels*
makes about 15-20

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water

For the filling:
Confession: I honestly don’t remember how I made the caramel/butterscotch in my fridge. It was a few weeks old and I’d gone on vacation since then, so I honestly don’t remember.  It was mighty fine, though.  I will share this link with you, though, because I’ve made this exact recipe many times and it’s pretty fail-proof.  You don’t be disappointed and it only takes about 15 minutes.  Or buy caramel apple sheets from the store.  But this will taste better.

Preheat pizzelle iron, or griddle, if you don’t have a pizzelle, and heat up the bacon press if you’re using that.
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.
Cut the butter into the flour either by hand (I did this whole recipe by hand and got a bit of muscle build from doing what Kitchen-Aid does 10x better but hey, I’m stubborn.)  Mix in the sugar, cinnamon, eggs and yeast mixture. Mix well (use your mixer with a paddle attachment unless you, too, want to build your muscles) and set aside to rise for 30 to 60 minutes. It might not double or even rise very much, but as long as you had it in a semi-warm place for that hour, it’ll be fine.  Mine didn’t rise much.  Roll dough into 15ish small balls (about a ping pong ball size), squeeze each ball into the preheated pizzelle iron and bake for about 30 seconds to a minute. Cut the wafels in two and spread with the filling.  Eat immediately or let it it come to room temp and enjoy them as lids to hot coffee.

And please, whatever you do, don’t eat these alone.  I think I shared these with about 5 different people.  That’s the key to happiness, I’ve found 🙂

*adapted from Diana’s Desserts

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Cooking on the Road

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They made up their minds, and they started packing.
They left before the sun came up that day.
An exit to eternal summer slacking,
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

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I think we might be crazy.  But we’ve made up our minds to drive from here to Seattle in an RV with some really good friends, good music, and good food.  We’re bringing the coffee maker, some good quality beans and our guitars, so I think we may survive. 🙂  We have  friends who live in Seattle, and so we decided to make the trip part of the vacation.  In preparation for a few days on the road, I decided to get to baking.  No one likes to decide what to have for breakfast, so I took it upon myself to make it a no-brainer.  I consulted Annie’s Eats, of course, because that woman knows how to prepare for anything.  She has a wonderful selection of baked goods on her blog, and when I grow up, I want to be just like her.  (I may be older but that’s not the issue, here.)

I chose from her blog, the peanut butter banana oatmeal muffins,(they looked so great but I refrained from taste-testing) the chocolate cherry muffins and the bacon and cheddar scones.  We were forced to taste-test the chocolate muffins because they looked too chocolately for their own good and so what else were we going to do?  Leave it to chance?!  They can hardly be called muffins, in my opinion.  They are nearly flourless chocolate cakes, but just enough flour to make them decadent brownies.  In fact, next time I want to make brownies, I’m using this recipe.  So they might be more for snack time instead of breakfast.

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Chocolate Cherry Muffins*
(I doubled the recipe and it turned out great)

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 tbs. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup dried cherries, chopped if desired

Directions:
Preheat an oven to 350º F. Line a muffin pan with muffin cups or grease wells.

In a small heatproof bowl, combine the chocolate and butter. Set the bowl over but not touching simmering water in a small saucepan and melt the chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally, until smooth and blended. Let cool slightly.

In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the egg, sugar and vanilla until light in color and doubled in volume. Whisk in the chocolate mixture and then the flour mixture just until combined. Stir in the dried cherries. Divide the batter evenly among the wells of the prepared pan and smooth the tops. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 25-30 minutes.

Makes 7-8 muffins.

*didn’t adapt this at all from Annie’s Eats, except for doubling it and using half dark chocolate, half milk because that’s what I had on hand!

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The scones I prepared up until baking and just froze them raw.  Then, I will put them in that tiny RV oven and add a few minutes on to baking time and we will have an amazing breakfast heading down the road!  I can’t wait for our adventure and I can’t wait for all the amazing food we will try and the sites we’ll see and the memories we will make.  And with any luck, we’ll all still like each other when we get home.  🙂  I’ll be sure and take lots of REAL, non-iPhone pictures and have a few posts about our gastronomical adventures when I return.

Bacon Cheddar Scones*
makes 8-10

For the scones:
3 cups bread flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1-2 tsp. ground black pepper (depending on your preference)
8 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1½ cups grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
10 slices bacon, cooked and chopped or crumbled into small pieces
1 cup buttermilk (plus up to ½ cup extra, if needed)

For the egg wash:
1 large egg
2 tbsp. water

Preheat the oven to 400˚ F.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and black pepper; mix briefly to combine.  Add the cubes of butter and mix on low speed until the mixture is crumbly and the butter pieces are about the size of small peas.  (Alternatively, this can be done in a regular mixing bowl, using a pastry blender or two knives to cut the butter into the dry ingredients.)  Add in the grated cheese and mix just until incorporated.

Mix in the green onions, bacon, and 1 cup of the buttermilk into the flour-butter mixture.  Stir by hand just until all the ingredients are incorporated.  If the dough is too dry to come together, mix in the remaining buttermilk a tablespoon or two at a time until the dough can be formed into a ball.  Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and pat the dough into an 8-inch disk.  Cut with a 3″ biscuit cutter into 12 circles, place on a greased cookie sheet, wrap in plastic and freeze till ready to eat.  Before baking, remove from freezer, brush with egg wash and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.

*slightly adapted from Annie’s Eats

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