Bake Day

Last week was bloody hot.   It was between 85 and 95 degrees and humid for 5 days straight.  It's just plain wrong to use the stove or oven in this kind of heat.  

I had joined Swapbot Baking Week #13, but just couldn't bring myself to turn on the oven.  The weather finally broke but the next heat wave will hit on Sunday.   So, this evening Bill and I are having a baking marathon.    I made chocolate chip cookies, and Bill made baba ganouj (recipe follows) with gorgeous eggplants he bought at his favorite produce market for 39 cents a pound.

I decide to test a small batch recipe, adapted from Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Topped Cupcakes on the Not Eating Out Blog.  Oh yes, you must check out the post.  It's such a brilliantly evil idea to top cupcakes with cookie dough.  Someday I will make it as intended, but tonight I pressed the dough into a large disc and slid it into the oven.

Small Batch - Big Cookie
1/4 C brown sugar
1 T sugar
1/4 C butter, softened
1 tsp powdered egg whites + 1 1/2 tsp water (1 heaping T of beaten egg)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 C flourpinch salt
handful of mini chocolate chips
handful of walnuts

Combine sugar through vanilla in zip top bag.  Squish the bag to mix.  Add flour and salt.  Squish until it looks like cookie dough.  Add nuts and chips.  Squish to combine.  Form into one Great Big Chocolate Chip Cookie (or 6 "normal sized" cookies).  Place on a cookie sheet or small pan lined with parchment.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes (8 minutes for "normal sized") or until golden brown. 

Prep Ahead:  Combine all dry ingredients in a quart sized ziptop bag.  Label it with "add 1/4 C butter, 1 1/2 tsp water, 1/4 tsp vanilla."  Store in your cabinet until you are ready to bake a quick batch.

The Verdict:

The cookie rose a bit, but was crispy and chewy as a good cookie should be.  You could really taste the butter in this recipe.  It was delicious, and I will definitely make it again.  It's the perfect size for dinner for 4.  Prepping the dry ingredients ahead of time allows you to make a batch at the spur of the moment.  I decided to mix it right in the bag because Bill's baba project needed a bit more space, and we have limited countertops.  It really worked well though.  Baking it as one big cookie is less fussy.  I think I would make this for company.  Serve it family style: place the cookie in the center of the table and let everyone break off pieces.

The Dish Bitch

Measuring cup

Measuring spoon

ziptop bag (yes you can wash and reuse!)

7.5" baking pan

ABOUT A BABA

Bill loves eggplant, especially baba ganouj, a roasted eggplant dip of Mediterranean origin. He makes it in large batches. He likes to make it over a wood fire, or by burying the eggplants in the coals of a wood stove. Since we do not have access to a wood fire at the moment, he roasts the eggplants in the oven at 400 degrees.  He doesn't have a recipe, just adds things and keeps tasting until it's right.

It was late when we started, and I went to bed after taking this picture.  Unfortunately, he was too hot and tired to snap shots of the eggplants after roasting. 

Black Beauties ready for the oven.

Barnacle Bill's Baba
5 medium eggplants
tahini
lemons
garlic
salt

Prick the eggplants with a fork and place in a baking dish.  Roast the eggplants over a wood fire or in the oven at 400 degrees, until completely soft. Scoop the meat from the skin into a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients, and mash everything together with a potato masher. Serve with crackers, bread or matzoh. Yield: 4 1/2 cups.  More than enough for company and a week of no cooking.

The finished product.

Cherry Almond Oat "Cupcakes"

Stocking up for winter is one of the habits you develop living in the rural Northeast.  You never know when a snow or ice storm will make roads impassable.  Or there's a power outage.  Or you just don't want to run errands in the cold.  Although we now live in an urban area with relatively mild winters (rain not snow), some habits die hard.

Over the winter, during a trip to Costco, we purchased a jagunda (aka humongous, ridiculously large) quantity of oatmeal.  It's healthy but the quantity is intimidating.

The Feedbag

I hate to throw away food, so I'm on a mission to use these oats before they go bad.  I left "the Feedbag" on the counter for a couple of days, hoping for a burst of inspiration.  I finally came up with a recipe. 

Bill and I have been having yogurt shakes for breakfast.  Delicious and nutritious as they say, but by mid morning, I'm feeling a bit peckish.  This recipe is based on the no bake cookies that were popular when I was a kid.  This is in no way a low calorie snack. It is nutritious, has a boatload of fiber and satisfies like a cookie. 

Cherry Almond Oat Cupcakes
1 C rolled oats
2 1/2 C Kashi cereal
1/2 C slivered almonds
1/2 C pumpkin and sunseed mix
1/4 C ground flaxseeds
1 C dried cherries
6 dates, chopped
1/2 C apple cider
1/2 C almond butter
1/2 C maple syrup

Place oats, cereal, almonds, seeds and cherries in a food processor.  Pulse until everything (except fruit) has a uniform size.  Combine dates, cider, almond butter and maple syrup in a large pot.  Heat, stirring until everything is melted.  Pour oat mixture into pot, and stir until everything is coated in syrup. 

Line a muffin tin with paper cases.  Use a wide mouthed funnel and an ice cream scoop to fill cups, pressing to compact.  Let cool, then remove from pan and into a sealable container.  Refrigerate until firm, and store  in the fridge.

The Verdict
Pretty tasty and satisfying with nice texture.  It's a pretty big serving, though, almost too much.   Next time I will use a mini muffin tin, and play with the ratio of nuts. Maybe substitute carrots for the almonds. 

Based on recipe calculator, each regular sized muffin has 275 calories, 11 grams fat and 5.5 grams of fiber.  Compared to my favorite maple leaf cookie (220 cal, 10 gr fat, 0 fiber per 2 cookies) it has a more calories but a better nutritional profile and fiber.
 
The Dish Bitch
Food processor
pot
wooden spoon
measuring cups
muffin tin

Barnacle Brownies (Baking Week #10)

One of my favorite things: my grandmother's cake plate. I'm told it was a wedding gift, which would make it ca. 1939. It's got a few dents, from years of use and multiple moves.  Usually it sits on top of my refrigerator, empty.  I love the embossed oak leaves and the wooden acorn handle.  It's marked, "Product of the West Bend Aluminum Company" on the bottom.

In deciding what to bake this week, I rummaged through the pantry.  I found a box of Ibarra Mexican Chocolate that I bought when it was still cold enough to want hot chocolate.  It is a combination of cocoa nibs, sugar and cinnamon pressed into round tablets that are divided into 8 wedges, wrapped and packaged in an hexagon shaped box.  It is usually melted with hot milk or water to make a convenience version of traditional Aztec and Mayan chocolate drinks.

It has good flavor, but the texture is coarse and quite gritty. Chocolate is chocolate, but in this case, the application of heat is essential. It seemed to have potential for a good batch of brownies.

Ibarra table chocolate: in the box, the tablet, with and without wrapper.

1/2 stick butter

3 tablets (about 3 oz each) Ibarra Mexican Chocolate
2 eggs
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 C flour
1/8 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
pinch of cayenne

Melt butter and chocolate.  Let cool for a few minutes, then stir in vanilla.  Meanwhile, combine flour, salt cinnamon and cayenne in a small bowl, whisk to combine.  Beat eggs in medium bowl.  Add a spoonful of melted chocolate to the eggs, stirring thoroughly to combine.  Add remaining chocolate mixture, and stir to combine.  Add flour to chocolate and eggs.  Pour into buttered muffin tin and bake until your house smells like chocolate and the center is set to your liking, about 10 minutes.

Barnacle Brownies unveiled.

The Verdict
The brownies were chewy and pleasant without being overly sweet.  I think the recipe would benefit from a little more salt and cayenne.  And orange zest.  Also, I will take them out of the oven sooner. 

Dish Bitch
small pot for melting butter
2 bowls
whisk
measuring cup
muffin tin
disher (small ice cream/cookie scoop) to fill pan

Chocolate Cherry Pudding Cake

Today's recipe is adapted from Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Pear Pudding Cake.  I heard an interview with Ms. Lawson  on NPR in January 2009, in which she described this cake.  It was a cold January day, after the mania of the holidays.  She made it sound so inviting, so comforting without any pictures, that I went to the website and printed out the recipe.  I made the other recipes from the show, but for some reason didn't get to the cake. 

I'm on a mission to use up things I have on hand, so instead of pears, I used a can of dark sweet cherries, which are my favorite.  I made 1/2 the recipe for our small household, and fit to the ingredients on hand.  

1 can (15oz) dark sweet cherries
1/2 C + 1T sugar
6 1/2 T flour
2 T cocoa powder
5 T softened butter
1/2 t baking powder
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400.  Butter a 1 qt baking dish.  Drain the liquid from the cherries, and put cherries in baking dish. 

In a food processor, combine remaining ingredients. 

Process until you have a thick batter

Spread batter over cherries.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing

What I Learned
Very good, but a bit sweet.  Add a pinch of salt to the batter, and decrease the sugar by one tablespoon.  Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for added decadence.

Dish Bitch
Food processor
baking dish
measuring cup
measuring spoons
spatula

Maple Baked Apples and Pears

Bake this while you bake the squash for Buttercup Cavatappi. Serve warm with ice cream for dessert. Even better: refrigerate overnight and have it for breakfast with maple vanilla yogurt.

Maple Walnut Baked Apples and Pears
apples
pears
maple syrup
walnuts

Core fruit from the blossom end, using a melon baller. Stuff with walnuts and a drizzle of maple syrup. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Stoned Summer Betty

It has been brutally hot and humid for about a week. I have not been inspired to cook anything but salads. Very boring.

I have plenty of plums and peaches from last week's share. I considered making a tart, crostata or pie, but that requires and oven. I considered poaching the fruit with dumplings on the stove top, still too much heat.

Remember Apple Brown Betty from home economics class? Here's my version, made on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, and it doesnt require an oven.

Stoned Summer Betty
10 peaches and plums, stoned and cut up anyway you like
1/2 C brown sugar
4 T butter
1 C dry breadcrumbs
1 t almond extract
vanilla ice cream (for dessert)
vanilla yogurt (for breakfast)
toasted almonds (optional

Macerate fruit with sugar overnight (at least several hours).
In the morning, melt butter in a small pan, then add breadcrumbs and extract, stir to combine.

Sprinkle 1/3 of crumbs on the bottom of an 8" square pan or 1 - 1/2 qt bowl. Using a slotted spoon, top with 1/2 of the fruit. Repeat, top with a final layer of crumbs, then pour the juices over the top. Cover and refrigerate for several hours.

Peach Melba My Way and Weird Slaw

This week, it finally feels like summer.

Peach Melba My Way
2 peaches, peeled and cut up as you like
1 t sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 container of raspberries
cream
Divide peaches between two dessert dishes. Sprinkle with sugar and salt. Top with raspberries, cover and refrigerate. Just before serving, pour about 1 T cream over each portion.
Weird Slaw

• 
  
  White Radish
• 
  
  Red radish
• 
  
  kohrabi
• 
  
  carrot
• 
  
  snow peas

Shred the vegetables (use food processor) and toss with salt, sugar, and a bit of lemon juice. It will last a few days as is. Serve with salad, rice, make sushi rolls, or as a filling in summer rolls. If you want a more traditional slaw, add mayonnaise, more sugar and vinegar.
Other meals from this week:
-Codfish with Greens using black kale and red chard, served with pasta and pesto. Used this recipe, but substituted cod for the scallops.
-Salmon burgers, and green chard served with toast with smoked mozzarella.
-Pasta with pesto, Sicilian Squash Pickle, and steamed broccoli with a bit of julienned bresaola.
-Frittata with bresaola and BB Artichoke pesto served on bruschetta.

Happy Interdependence Day

Well, we went away for the holiday, and it's taken a bit of time to get back into the routine.

Before leaving, I made cherry amasake pudding. It's pretty good. Amasake is rice milk, so this is suitable for vegans or those who are lactose intolerant/ dairy allergy. The original recipe calls for unsweetened amasake, so it can be considered sugar free. I admit, I added a 1/4 C sugar for my sweet tooth.

Cool Amasake Cherry Pudding (from The Changing Seasons Macrobiotic Cookbook by Aveline Kushi and Wendy Esko)

1 quart amasake (rice milk)
pinch of salt
1/4-1/3 C kuzu (arrowroot starch) or scant 1/2 cup of cornstarch
1 c cherries, pitted and halved

Dissolve starch in a little amasake, then add to remaining amasake in a suitably sized pot (add sugar here if desired). Bring up to a simmer, slowly, whisking occasionally. Simmer for 2 or 3 minutes, until thickened. Let cool a few minutes then stir in cherries. Pour into dessert dishes and chill.

Dish & Bitch
Pot
measuring cup
cutting board
knife
wooden spoon
pot
6 custard cups