Every year my dad gets a box of these apples as a holiday gift.
Too bad the rest of my family tends to think of them as some sort of punishment. Why is that? Because what are we supposed to do with 50lbs of red golden delicious apples? They look really pretty, but they are not the best tasting thing you've ever had.
So, on the morning of the 25th, my mom was deciding what desserts she was going to make (yes, that's desserts, plural), and my dad said, "Why don't you make something with apples." We had tried to make apple pie with these bad boys one year, and the result was less than satisfying. But, I remembered that SK has an entire section of her blog dedicated to apples, so I figured I could find something useful there.
In the end, I settled on Deb's mom's apple cake. She is right. This cake is very moist and incredibly tasty. I dare say this is the best thing we've ever done with our annual inundation of apples.
Why then, did mine turn out to be more of a bread pudding (hence the casserole-like pan)? Well, there are many possibilities. Here are the two most probable. First of all, I used 6 apples like the recipe called for (heck, what else are we going to do with them) even though these apples weigh about a pound each. The result was a greatly extended cooking time.
Second, and I only realized this after I went back to the SK website to make this post, I mistakenly tried to flip the cake out of the tube pan instead of serving it upside down like the picture shows. The result? Well, the cake fell apart at the middle apple layer. And because I couldn't very well fix this problem with frosting, I decided to put the cake in a different container. At the time, I decided I would only repeat this recipe in a container like this to begin with. But now that I see that I was never supposed to flip it out of the pan to begin with, I think the tube pan method will produce a very manageable, delicious, and pretty cake.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Apple...Bread Pudding?
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A Nice Thing to Have Around
A couple days after Thanksgiving, I made these buttermilk biscuits because I didn't want to waste the leftover buttermilk. I ate one at the time and put the rest in the freezer. Since then, I've been eating them for dinner with eggs and cheese. I wouldn't call them the best biscuits ever, but I will say that the idea of having them in my freezer made me really happy. So, with this as the starting point, I would like to solicit ideas from you and yours on how to make the best biscuit.
The problem with these? They were good but they sort of tasted like pancakes in biscuit form. I guess more salt, less sugar (though I only used 1 tablespoon to begin with) is a starting point, but i am sure someone can give me the key to a homemade egg 'n cheese sandwich.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
S'more Bites Are My Winner
Look at those. Just look. Don't they look delicious? Aren't they pretty? And let's pretend you were a judge in a cookie contest. Wouldn't you vote for these amazing treats? Of course you would. You appreciate homemade marshmallows and graham crackers. Unfortunately, you were not the judges in my unsuccessful bid to win my office's first annual cookie contest. In retrospect, this choice may not have been the most appropriate for the audience, but that's okay because I loved them. And that's what matters. But next time, I will save my confections for a more appreciative audience.
Do you want to know how to do this? Fortunately, it's not that hard.
Ingredients:
- For the marshmallows, look here.
- For the graham crackers go here.
- One bag of good quality milk chocolate chips (11.5 oz?). I used Ghirardelli
- One big bar of bittersweet chocolate. Again, I used Girardelli.
A few notes on the ingredients:
In a recent trip to Penzey's HEB convinced me to buy double strength vanilla extract. The bottle says to use half the amount the recipe calls for or, for special baked goods, use what the recipe calls for. I decided to use the full amount from the original recipe in the marshmallows, and it was amazing. It's definitely worth the extra flavor there, but not in the graham crackers.
And as for the graham crackers, I had a mild disaster. I could not find any graham flour at 3 grocery stores in Chicago. I had to make one batch with graham flour and one without. This process actually taught me an important lesson - regular flour is superior for the limited purpose of making these s'more bites. Why? They cooked a little more solidly and generated many fewer crumbs, which made for better cutting. I'd still prefer graham flour for the graham crackers standing alone.
Finally, don't skip the bittersweet chocolate. You need it to cool down the chocolate when you temper it (more on that later).
Instructions:
1. Spray 13 x 9 pan with cooking oil. Line the pan with parchment paper. Spray the paper, paying particular attention to the sides.
2. Follow the graham cracker recipe to make the graham cracker dough. Instead of making them into round cookies, take about 2/3 of the dough and roll it out in the bottom of the 13 x 9 pan. You can't really use a rolling pin to roll out dough inside a pan, so I used a glass, and it worked great. You could even use your hands if you have to. Bake the graham cracker layer at 350 for about 12-14 minutes. Make the remaining dough into graham crackers that you can eat for instant gratification.
3. While the graham crackers layer is in the oven, make the marshmallows. Pour the marshmallow mix directly on top of the graham crackers and it let sit until the marshmallows are firm (at least 4 hours, I let it sit overnight). Sprinkle the top of the marshmallow with the potato starch/powder sugar mixture before you remove the layers from the pan.
4. Flip the marshmallow/graham combo onto a cookie sheet to remove from the pan. Remove the parchment paper. Flip again onto a cutting board. This second flip is important. I tried cutting these marshmallow-side down and the crumbs from the graham crackers stick to the marshmallows, which looks ugly.
5. Cut the m/g combo into 1 x 1 squares. A large serrated knife works best for this, and you will need to clean it off pretty regularly to keep graham cracker crumbs from sticking to it.
6. Dip the marshmallow portion of the m/g combo into the potato starch/powder sugar mix you made in step 4. Shake off the excess. Try not to get the mixture on the graham crackers. It doesn't do any harm, but it makes them less cute.
7. Prepare the chocolate. After some research and a couple failed tests, I decided the best method was to temper the chocolate. I read some instructions on how to do this online, and found myself pretty confused. I think the basic idea is to get the chocolate just hot enough to melt, and then to cool it down before you begin dipping. How do you do this? There is some complicated version that requires fast hands and a marble slab. Instead of that, I melted the milk chocolate in a double boiler and then added cold bittersweet chocolate to the melted chocolate to cool it off. This seemed to work out fine. Once your chocolate is ready (apparently 88 degrees is the temperature you want...), dip the bites and set them on a plate to cool.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Onion Tart
For an appetizer on Thanksgiving, we had this delicious onion tart. I think many of the diners found this to be the best part of the meal, which is sort of funny because it's the tart that almost wasn't. I asked my parents if we needed an appetizer several days before the meal. They both replied that they thought we'd have plenty of food. And then, a few days later, my dad called to ask what my "plan" was for a starter on Thanksgiving, leaving no indication that we'd had the previous conversation. Thanks to Deb, I had this recipe in my back pocket and wanted to give it a try.
We made the onion mixture the night before. We had more than we needed so my dad put the leftovers in the gravy. Then we made the dough as part of our baking morning. I tried to put this tray in my refrigerator, but it didn't fit so we covered it in foil and put it on the balcony until we were ready for it to go in the oven.
Sorry about these lack luster photos. This dish went from this:
to this:
in about 30 seconds (minus, of course, the baking).
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Pasta Salad w Chicken/Spinach/Peppers
As i said below (if you read bottom up), i made two things tonight, here's the second. much more chopping involved. nothing like a pasta salad for a potluck.
The recipe is from about.com, it came out pretty decent i think. I followed it fairly loosely, don't think it really matters in pasta salad and i definitely went a little lighter on the Mayo.
* 8 ounces fusilli or rotini pasta
* 1 cup coarsely chopped spinach
* 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
* 1/4 cup diced onion
* 1 medium clove garlic, finely minced
* 2 to 3 cups coarsely chopped chicken (i boiled it)
* 1 to 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
* 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
* 2 tablespoons lemon juice
* 1 teaspoon Dijon or a favorite gourmet mustard
* 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon dried leaf basil
* salt, to taste
Cook pasta following package directions; drain and rinse well.
Toss cooled pasta with the spinach, red bell pepper, onion, garlic, and chicken.
Combine 1 cup of the mayonnaise with wine vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, pepper, and basil. Toss with the pasta mixture. Add more mayonnaise, if needed. Taste and add salt, if desired. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving time for best flavor.
and since i'm proud of all my chopping, here it is:
Chicken wrapped in bacon
Well, tonight in anticipation of two more upcoming potlucks i went all out and made two dishes this evening. this one was pretty darn simple but it was also pretty good. how bad can anything be that has brie and bacon as part of the ingredients.
The real reason why i made this was that i bought a meat mallet at Ikea and really wanted to pound some chicken. Anyways here's the super complicated ingredient list:
Pound chicken to 1/4" thickness. Put brie in middle, put spinach in middle, fold over twice to keep Brie in the middle. Wrap in bacon, use toothpicks to secure if you wish.
Broil for 7 minutes, turn broil for 7 more minutes. take it out, let it cool a few minutes, enjoy!
and here it is raw:
Monday, December 7, 2009
You're So Damn Hot
A few months ago CH and I went to our new favorite southside restaurant and ordered a spit-fire-hot garlic soup. The soup was so spicy that they served it with a beer to help you cope. And, the chef even came over to warn us not to drink all the beer because we’d need it for the soup (we were sitting at “the kitchen table”). After the initial shock, the soup was delicious. It made your mouth burn, but the heat said “give me more” and not “kill me now.”
And then, at the beginning of soup season, CH decided to make this garlic soup. It was good, but it’s nothing like the fiery version we’d had. So, the next time we were at the restaurant, we asked about what they did with the soup. We wanted to know if the peppers were roasted, seeded, etc. The chef explained how to do it. And then he gave us these:
...along with a warning to handle them with care.
Having never received ingredients from a restaurant before, we decided to give it a whirl. If I do say so myself, I think we did a decent job of replicating the soup. In terms of special equipment, this soup may not need goggles, but rubber gloves would probably come in handy.
As for the recipe – We followed Smitten Kitchen’s recipe except we got rid of the thyme. We roasted two habaneros at the same time as the garlic, but in a different container. Once they were roasted, we took out the seeds and took off the stems. We thought about taking off the skin, but it was too much work, so we just put them in the pot with everything else and blended them all together with CH’s handy immersion blender.