Category Archives: Snacks

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

Happy Halloween!

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These cute little pumpkin tarts took about 30 minutes.  I had leftover pie crust in the fridge, and I only had enough to make three of these little guys.  But that’s all we needed, anyway!  Today was fun – lots of fall-ish events, the festival at the church, trick-or-treating at our friends house, having a greasy bacon cheese burger at Spanky’s – okay, so that last part wasn’t necessarily fall, but I associate that place with football season!

These little tarts could be made with any shape cookie cutter and of course, after tonight, jack-o-lanterns will be out! So use a leaf or circle and cut out some cute shapes – whatever you do, these are seriously fun and delicious!
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Pumpkin Tarts

half a recipe of pie crust (or just store bought – one circle)
1/2 cup pure pumpkin puree
3 tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Mix the puree with the sugar and spice and set aside.  Roll out your dough, cut into shapes and run your finger dipped in water around the edge of the bottom layer.  Place one to two tablespoons of filling on the bottom layer (will depend how big your shapes are).  Slightly roll out the top layer a little more than the bottom, cut out designs that you wish, and place on top of the filled bottom layer, pressing down the edges.  Brush melted butter on the tops of the tarts and sprinkle with coarse sugar, or any kind of sprinkles!  Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges.

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Strawberry Pots de Creme

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Strawberry Pots de Creme

Here’s a beautifully simple dessert that is silky and rich and bright with the last memories of summer strawberries.  Fresh is always best if you can find good ones, but if they’re out, or have already sky-rocketed in price, frozen would work just fine.  It’s a custard kind of week here on the Family Meal blog.  I get good use out of my cute little ramekins and I have really embraced them as they are a perfect little size for toddler hands.  Oh yeah, and that spoon is part of this set, which I really just couldn’t resist.  I love them for Olive and for dips and jams and even my morning coffee.  Plus, what little girl wouldn’t feel excited to get to eat her oatmeal in the morning with a gold glitter spoon?  Olive couldn’t really care less.  It’s for me.  🙂

Strawberry Cream Pots

 

Strawberry Pots de Creme (pronounced: poh-duh-crem)
makes 4-6 depending on your vessels

  • 8 ounces strawberries (7 or 8 large berries), hulled
  • 3 tablespoons superfine sugar
  • 4 large egg yolks
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
  • 1 tsp Cointreau (I left this out for Ollie)

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. In a tall cup or blender, combine strawberries, sugar and egg yolks. Process with your handy immersion blender (or regular blender) until pureed.

Bring a kettle of water to a boil. Pour the strawberry mixture into a large bowl.  Add 1 cup cream and the vanilla and Cointreau if using. Mix well. Divide mixture evenly among four 1-cup ramekins. Place ramekins in a baking dish, and add enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of ramekins.

Place baking dish in the oven, and bake until the custard is just set, about 1 hour. Check by jiggling the pan – if they still look pretty liquidy in the center, rotate the pan and let it go another 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven; place ramekins on a rack, and cool. Cover with foil or plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 6 hours. To serve, top with diced strawberries or whipped cream and enjoy with your sparkle spoons!  🙂

 

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!

Citrus Cured Salmon

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It’s Monday – time to scale back.  Drink more water, take a walk after dinner.  Eat lighter, eat simpler.  Undo what might have been done over the weekend of eating out with friends, drinks with co-workers or quick meals eaten on the run out of paper bags.  I am currently in a very scaled-back mindset.  This blog obviously has the most popularity when I post sugar and flour concoctions (don’t worry, there’s plenty in the queue) but for this week, I’m going to write about simple, clean, mindfully healthy recipes that are also incredibly fulfilling and delicious.

Over the weekend I dipped into Michael Ruhlman’s cookbook, “Ruhlman’s Twenty” and tackled the citrus cured salmon.  This is not the type of recipe that calls my name. I love cured salmon in the form of lox, but this type of do-it-from-scratch recipe is a direct influence of my husband.  He has made me see the joy in cooking for cooking’s sake.  Not just eating the food, but enjoying the process.  I can honestly say I thought he was crazy when I first heard him say, “I don’t even need to eat what I made, as long as I taste it and see that it came out well, I can move on.”  I used to think this was ridiculous because I used to be a quantity over quality type eater.  I used to think more was more.  More mediocre food is better than less high-quality food.  This is a mindset of an over-eater.  As Matt taught me the joy of the process of cooking, I began to see what he meant.  Just tasting that something you spent hours making came out well is beginning to be enough of a pay-off for me. And when you don’t eat as much, you have more to share.  Which puts you in the middle of what food should be: communal.

I know what you’re thinking: this stuff is pretty easy to buy in the store.  However, I never want to buy it because how old is that fish, anyway?  And where did it come from?  All these questions  are answered simply if you just do it yourself.  So, we bought a pound of salmon from the fresh fish counter, I grated lots and lots of zest and dumped kosher salt on it.  24 hours later – perfectly cured salmon with a HUGE citrus flavor.  Amazing with cream cheese and capers and diced shallots on top of Matt’s homemade, toasted bread.  This is eating simply and without regret!

Happy Zesty Monday.

Citrus Cured Salmon

Citrus Cured Salmon*

1.5 lb salmon filet
1 tsp orange zest
2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp lime zest
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar

In a small bowl, combine the salt and sugar and stir to distribute the sugar throughout the salt.  In another bowl, combine the citrus zests.  (Buy a Microplane.)

Lay a sheet of aluminum foil large enough to extend beyond the length of the salmon.  Spread a third of the salt mixture in the center of the foil to serve as a bed for the salmon.  Place the salmon skin-side down on the salt.  Distribute the zest evenly across the salmon.  Pour the remaining salt mixture over the salmon.  It should be covered.  Fold the foil up to contain the salt.  Place another sheet of foil over the salmon and crimp the sheets together firmly.  The idea is to have a tight package in which the salt mixture is in contact with all surfaces of the salmon.

Set the foil package on a baking sheet.  Set another baking sheet or dish on top of the salmon and weight it down with a brick or a few cans from your pantry.  This will help press the water out of the salmon as it cures.  Refrigerate the salmon for 24 hours.

Unwrap the salmon and remove it from the cure, discarding the foil and the cure.  Rinse the salmon and pat dry with paper towels.  To remove the skin, place the salmon skin-side down on a cutting board.  Holding a sharp, thin, flexible knife at about a 30-degree angle, cut between the flesh and the skin.  When you can get a grip on the skin, pull it back and forth against the knife to separate it from the flesh.  Set the salmon on a rack or on paper towels on a tray and refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours, to allow the salt concentration to equalize and to dry the salmon out further.  Wrap the salmon in parchment and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Serve sliced extremely thin on crackers, bagels, or with scrambled eggs for a hearty breakfast – the options are up to your tastes!

*adapted from Rhulman’s book in that we could only find 1.5lb filets of salmon and his recipe called for 2-3lbs.

lox

Spicy Roasted Chickpeas

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Spicy Roasted Chickpeas
I‘ve seen this recipe around the Pinterest/Facebook/Blog world for a while, now and the first time I tried it, it was one of those moments when I bitterly complained that what I made didn’t look at ALL like the picture.  Ever feel that way?  I think the second time around, without a recipe, I just followed my nose and used the spices I like and let them roast much longer and I had SUCCESS!  They turned out super crunchy, wonderfully spiced and a great little starter for our meal, which Olive claimed as the favorite part of her meal and kept saying, “Mes, hickpeas?”  over and over and over.  I really think she ate about a half cup.  I wouldn’t recommend that to other moms, but that’s what happened and since they were part of the meal, I let it slide.  But yeah, they eat like a snack and I would recommend this to anyone for a healthier option for a party snack, during a movie, etc.  And you can have fun with whatever spice blend you want!  Happy Monday and I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Spicy Roasted Chickpeas

2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp each of:
salt, pepper, onion powder, paprika
a sprinkle of garlic powder

Preheat the oven to 375. Spread out the drained, rinsed chickpeas on paper towels and dry those suckers out WELL.  Place the chickpeas on a rimmed baking sheet and add the olive oil.  Mess them around with your hands till every last wee pea is coated in oil.  Sprinkle the spice blend over the peas and roll them all around till they are all coated.  Place the chickpeas in the oven for 25-35 minutes until they are golden and when the pan is shaken, they sound hard and roll around easy.

Let them cool for a bit before transferring them to a bowl, just because you don’t want to enthusiastically grab a handful of glowing-hot peas.

Serve at the beginning of the meal or for a snack and enjoy!

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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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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Oatmeal Cookies – Welcome Home

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Oatmeal Cookie and Milk

We’re back from a two week vacation that spanned Moab, UT, to the northern most part of Washington, where from the top of a mountain, I could see Canada.  We drove all the way to Seattle in a rented RV with two of our best friends and our little redhead.  Once we were in Seattle, the worst case scenario happened to our traveling partners – a death in the family – and they had to drive the RV home early and we booked a flight for later in the week to come home on our own.  We sorely missed their company but had an amazing time with the friends we went to see – John and Courtney and their amazing children.  They graciously welcomed us into their home and gave up their beds and their schedules and the order of how they normally go about life and made us feel so welcome, we felt more honored than family!  I just feel so lucky to have such friends in my life.  Olive has such wonderful people to look up to and strive to become.

I will post a LOT of recipes in the coming days about our trip and mostly recipes INSPIRED by our trip.  Recipes that immediately come to mind will be: Raspberry Pavlova, Chocolate Cayenne Mousse, a traditional crab boil, the ultimate potato salad, and a traditional poutine, just to name a few.  I can’t wait to share these recipes with you.

But today is about coming home.  Coming home to familiarity, to the warmth of being in your own space with the view out the window you remember (let’s not talk about what our yard looks like after 2 weeks of neglect).  When I think about coming home, I think about oatmeal cookies.  They scream comfort and familiarity and nourishment.  And the recipe today is kind of perfect.  The original recipe card I had is from a generic set of cookie recipes that came in a funny little box that just says COOKIES.  Each card is a different recipe.  It’s a pretty fun jumbo-sized deck of cards for Olive to play with and I can imagine when she gets older, picking out a card for our weekend baking adventures.  I modified the recipe because it seemed extremely void of liquid.  The original recipe didn’t call for any egg, so if you want to leave it out, know that you’ll just have to work the dough a little more so that it holds together because it’s pretty crumbly.  Either modification is good, but the addition of the egg makes a softer fluffier cookie, which worked out really well for my gap-toothed toddler.

Enjoy being home.  Everything is fleeting.

Oatmeal Cookie

Oatmeal and Golden Raisin Cookies
makes 2 dozen cookies

1 1/4 cups AP flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 tbs light corn syrup
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBS boiling water
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 325F.  Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper, or spray well with spray oil.

Sift the flour into a large bowl.  Stir in the sugar, oats, coconut, and raisins.  Make a well in the center.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and syrup over low heat.  In a small bowl, dissolve the baking soda in boiling water; stir immediately into the butter.

Pour the butter mixture into the well in the flour mixture.  With a fork, mix thoroughly.  Mix in the egg until well incorporated.

Drop heaping tablespoons of the dough onto the cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.  Bake until lightly browned, 15-20 minutes.  Cool a few minutes on the sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Serve with milk.

Oatmeal Cookies and Milk

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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