baking party

This past Saturday I was lucky enough to be invited to a Baking Party at John's house. What is a Baking Party you ask? It's kind of like a clothes swap, except with baked goods. Everyone picks out a recipe and brings the ingredients they need to the host house. Then you take turns baking and divide up the spoils. Genius! It was the perfect way to spend one of our coldest fall afternoons yet, and at the end of the day I had a full tin of cookies, muffins, and bars to take home.

Here are all the things we made. I will add links to the recipes, since typing them up here would be a little tedious.



Me: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and Pecan Cookies
These turned out tasty, but I think the recipie called for way too much chocolate chip and pecan. It made the cookies too crumbly, and more importantly I want to taste the oatmeal in an oatmeal cookie. Next time I would half the portions for both.



John: Fruit and Nut Bars
It's like you get to eat all the toppings and fillings for other baked goods in one treat. Be warned, the fact that this uses almost no batter means they are pretty delicate. The trick is to eat them extra fast.



Christopher: Pumpkin Muffins
When you see yogurt and bran in the same recipie you can fool yourself into thinking these are actually good for you. I definitely ate one of these for breakfast this week, despite the fact that it's basically a cupcake in disguise.



Gigi: Pumpkin Cookies
These cookies were probably my favorite of the day. If I could eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner I would.

And in case you were worried that all we did was eat sugar for a full afternoon (Mom and Dad-- I know you read this blog), John also made this delicious lentil soup:



Since he did not have garam marsala or cardamom at home he substituted curry in equal amounts and also added a touch of cinnamon and half a tablespoon of seasoned salt. He also suspects that he may have messed up the tsp and tb measurement and added too much cayenne. Accidental or not, I thought the spiciness was perfect.

mac and cheese

I have to come clean about something-- this is actually a photo of reheated mac and cheese. I got so excited about eating the night I made it, that I completely forgot to take a picture. I'm surprised that hasn't happened more often.

This recipe uses half of the proportions of the one I found online. If you make the full recipe you end up with one of those extra large 8x16 pans. The half version makes a smaller 8x8 pan, which is still enough for dinner and leftovers.

ingredients:

1/2 box of pasta (I like whole wheat rotini or penne)
4 tbs butter or futter
1/8 cup flour
2 cups milk
I tsp spicy mustard
cayenne, salt, pepper, to taste
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cook your pasta. I wont insult you with pasta boiling directions.

In a heavy saucepan melt butter or futter on low heat

Add flour and whisk. Let this cook for about 5 minutes to get out the floury taste. Congratulations, you just made a roux!. Now it's time to make up some roux puns. Your freebie is, 'I roux the day I ever bought mac and cheese in a box'.

Ok fine, moving on...

Start adding your milk in small sections (about a 1/2 cup or less). Keep whisking to avoid letting the milk burn. Your milk will start to thicken up and turn into more of a cream sauce. Each time it thickens you can add another portion of milk. Continue this until all the milk is added.

Season your cream sauce with mustard and spices, tasting as you go. The recipie I use says 'mustard seeds', which I never remember to buy and keep using spicy mustard every time. I don't see any intensive to change over now.

Add your cooked pasta to the cream sauce pot if there's room (or use a large bowl). Mix in chedder and parmesian.

Pour mac and cheese into casserole dish. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and a few more slabs of butter or futter (yes, more butter).

Bake until breadcrumbs get brown and the sauce is bubbling.

lunch box: quiche

contents:

fennel mushroom quiche
sweet potato home fries
white rabbit salad


Quiche is one of my stand by meals for when I don't feel like cooking and/or when I have annoyingly small amounts of veggies leftover from other dishes I need to use. I buy frozen crusts, which make the whole thing that much easier. The basic formula is 2 eggs + 3/4 cup milk and then whatever veggies, cheese, and spices you want to add. This time I cooked some chopped fennel and mushrooms stove top first before adding it to the eggs. Some other favorite quiche combos are: sweet potato chili pepper cheddar, broccoli swiss, and tomato spinach parmesan. Just be careful you're not adding in lots of water or juice from the veggies into your egg mixture. Bake your quiche at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the eggs are cooked through. Let the quiche cool for a few minutes before you start cutting slices.


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There are a lot of recipes for White Rabbit Salad online, and each one is a little different. My final salad included:

2 cups cottage cheese
2 mackintosh apples
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 tsp honey
juice from 1/2 a lemon

I think this is is going to be my new favorite snack, at least for as long as apple season lasts.


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Because I was trying to time it with quiche I pre-baked the sweet potatoes in the microwave first, then peeled and chopped them. If you have more time you can start with the raw potatoes and let them cook fully in the oven. Toss potatoes with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, paprika, and one chopped onion. Cover a cooking sheet in tin foil and lay out potatoes in a single layer. Bake until crispy.

gingerbread cookies

As a rule I try to stay clear of baking because I always seem to mess it up, and failing at baking is the worst since you can never salvage it like something stove top. But this blog feels like a push to try some harder recipes -- and also, I just finished reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle and if you've ever read it you will understand why it was imperative that I start cooking gingersnaps on a Tuesday after work. I'm not really sure what the difference is between gingerbread and gingersnaps. The recipe I followed from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food said 'gingersnaps,' but they turned out very fluffy and cake-like even in cookie form.

So I'll give you a brief walk through of my baking "process" (if you can call it that), and you'll see why I try to avoid it at all costs.

The first problem started before I even took out ingredients, when I decided to half the recipe (the original yielding 30 cookies seemed like more than James and I were up for eating, even on a good week). This resulted in some shoddy math, and having to do things like make 3/4 of a teaspoon by using the 1/2 and the 1/4. Then my mind started wandering -- "wow, it's amazing how bad I am at simple fractions. You'd think this would come up more often . . ." -- and I accidentally mixed up the teaspoons and tablespoons. I had to start over on the dry ingredients.

I did a similar thing with the butter trying to convert 3/4 of a stick and a tub of Smart Balance into the recipe's required 'stick and 3 tablespoons' , only to remember after measuring it all out that the amount needed to be halved. Oops.

After finally winning the battle against batter, I got to the step where you wrap the dough in plastic to chill. Realizing I had no plastic wrap, I was forced to cut up a large ziplock bag instead. It worked...kind of.

Three hours later, when the batter was supposed to be cooled, it turned out to still be too soft. Something I only discovered after it stuck to my countertop.

Here's the thing though: after all that I still ended up with light, fluffy cookies that weren't burnt (not even a little!) on the bottom. This is a first. Did I actually manage the right ingredient proportions in spite of myself? Was it the magic of Alice Waters? Who knows. What I can tell you is that the opening to 'Darjeeling Limited, Hotel Chevalier, is exactly the length of time it takes to bake gingersnaps. Just in case that ever comes up for you too.


ingredients (original proportions):

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 stick and 3 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg

Combine flour, baking soda, and spices (ie: all your dry ingredients) in a mixing bowl.

In another large mixing bowl whisk butter (softened) with sugar until the mixture gets light and fluffy. The idea is to get air bubbles into the butter which will help the cookies rise in the oven.

Add egg, molasses, and vanilla to butter and sugar mixture.

Add your dry ingredients to the bowl and mix just enough that everything is combined evenly. Don't overdo the whisking or you will get rid of all those nice air bubbles you just put into the butter.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap (or apparently a large cut-up ziplock bag will work too) and chill for at least 2 hours.

When dough is ready, roll it into small balls (1 inch or so in size) and place on greased cookie sheet. Pour some more sugar (I used demerara sugar for this step) into a small plate. Wet the bottom of a glass and dip into sugar before flattening each dough ball on the pan.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.

lunch box: kale salad with spicy lentil-quinoa snacks

contents:

kale salad
spicy lentil-quinoa snacks
lemon ginger yogurt

This kale salad is a loose recreation of one I love from a health food store in Princeton. Usually I put tempeh in it, brown rice, or both, but I left it out this time because I figured I was protein covered already with the lentil-quinoa snacks. The kale absorbs dressing like crazy (maybe because its raw?), so if you're making a big tub to use over the course of the week you may want to add extra dressing at some point.

ingredients:

kale
carrot
red cabbage
flax seed
almonds
lemon juice
olive oil
tahini

Wash kale and cut or pull apart leaves with your hands into small salad like pieces. You are definitely going to want to remove the stalks and use only the leaves for this recipe since you wont be cooking it.

In a small bowl add one or two spoonfuls of tahini and equal parts water to make a paste. Then add a splash of olive oil and mix again until the tahini starts to thin out. If I had to guess I would say maybe a 1/4 cup of olive oil. Then add lemon juice to taste. I usually use about a half a lemon, depending on it's juiciness. This will make a very thick almost mayonnaise-like dressing.

In a large bowl pour your dressing over the kale and massage into the leaves with your hands. I'm not kidding, this is actually what people call it- massaging. If you have a wisecracking boyfriend at home, they will probably take this time to make a series of jokes about your kale being stressed. Also I'm going to admit something here, which is that I time most of my cooking to music instead of a watch. I think technically you're supposed to massage the kale for about 5 minutes or so until it wilts, but a medium length song is usually fine.

Add two or three grated carrots, red cabbage chopped finely, flax seeds, and almonds. I like to chop the almonds at least into halves to get them spread through the salad better, but that may be too picky for you. This is where you would add rice or tempeh if you're using it. Mix with your hands (why not? they are already covered in tahini dressing).

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I found this lentil snack recipe through JustBento.com and made it for the first time this past weekend. My process definitely needs some tweaking. The recipe called for bulgar wheat, but for some reason there wasn't a grocery store or bodega near me that had it, so I had to substitute with quinoa. I'm not sure if this is where the problem came from, but I ended up having to add more water after the lentils were done to make the quinoa cook in the same pot. The end result was delicious, but I think maybe a little too soft. I'm going to try this again either cooking the quinoa separately, or after I can get my hands on some bulgar (which for the record I didn't realize was so exotic), and report back to you.

Also a note about the cupcake paper system for storing yogurt: though adorable, it's not a good idea for anything wet. By lunchtime my precious little yogurt cup looked more like the Wicked Witch of the West- post water. For Tuesday's lunch I cut a plastic cup and used just the bottom for keeping yogurt in. Much better.

ingredients:

1 cup lentils
1/2 cup quinoa
3 tsp tomato paste
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves chopped
1 roasted red pepper (pre-made in jar)
chopped cilantro, cumin,curry powder, red pepper flakes, lemon juice

In a medium sized pot bring lentils and 2 /12 cups of water to a boil. Once boiling, cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until lentils are soft.

Add tomato paste and quinoa to pot. Now, the recipe says you can just let this sit for a half hour and if you were using bulgar it would absorb. I, with my usual inability to cook grains or beans correctly, had no excess water in the pot at this point and needed to add an extra cup and re-simmer the quinoa to get it to cook. Like I said, I'll get back to you on this one.

In a large frying pan saute onion and garlic until onion is clear. Add chopped red pepper and saute for a few more minutes. Add your quinoa lentil mixture to the frying pan and stir in spices, cilantro, and lemon juice. Remove from heat and let cool.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Now that your mixture is cool (you did let it cool, right?) roll into small golf sized balls and and place on a greased cookie sheet. Yes I'm making a stink about this cooling thing because, you guessed it- I was impatient and burned my fingers.

Bake for about 15 minutes until the balls get a thin crust to them.

The dressing is just plain yogurt with lemon juice and ginger powder.

pineapple tempeh stew

This recipe is a hybrid of African Peanut Stew from the Moosewood Cookbook, and a tempeh patty from a vegan Caribbean restaurant that has sadly gone out of business. Whenever I make this stew for someone for the first time, they invariably make a face at the ingredients list -- probably thinking, "pineapple, peanut butter, and Tabasco...seriously?" And then they gobble down the whole bowl once it's cooked. So for those of you nervous about cooking with pineapple in savory dishes, I mean this in the nicest possible way- get over it.

ingredients:

one small onion
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 red pepper
1/2 package of tempeh cut into small cubes
1 16oz can of pineapple chucks in pineapple juice (NOT syrup)
1/2 bunch kale
1/4 cup peanut butter
Tabasco to taste


Wash kale and chop or rip with your hands into small salad sized pieces. You can remove the heavy stalk if you want and use only the leaves.

In large pot saute chopped onion and garlic until onion is clear

Add tempeh cubes cooking until the outsides are slightly browned. Stir in red pepper and cook for another few minutes to let the pepper get soft.

Add whole can of pineapple chunks and juice. Bring to a low boil.

Add kale to pot and stir in well so that the hot ingredients can start to wilt down the leaves. If you've never cooked with kale before, right now you are probably thinking you've made way too much. You haven't. This is going to cook down to almost nothing in a few minutes (but this is why you need the much larger pot to begin with).

After kale has softened and turned a bright green color stir in the peanut butter and Tabasco sauce. Although I like spicier food as a rule, with this recipe I use a little less Tabasco then I normally would to keep the flavors balanced. Taste it and see what you like.

Serve over brown rice or another grain of your choice.

breakfast burrito

It is still a Breakfast Burrito if you make it for dinner? I'll leave this question to you. Breakfast Burritos (or maybe Dinner Burritos Featuring Egg) are one of those recipes that can get kind of expensive if you need to buy all the ingredients at once, especially since you only use a little bit of each. I generally wait until I have a few of them leftover from other meals. For speed I buy the Goya black bean and rice mix (be careful the other ones have pork or other meat flavoring in them) and salsa in a jar, but if you have some extra time making your own salsa or beans and rice mix is really nice.

ingredients:

tortillas
rice and beans mix
scrambled eggs (flavored with adobo seasoning)
fakin' bacon
salsa
shredded cheddar cheese
sour cream
sliced avocado

Cook, build, wrap, and eat. That's really all the instructions you need, right? If you're curious about burrito wrapping technique, it looks like someone set up a site just for you: http://howtowrapaburrito.com/