This recipe from Fine Cooking magazine was delicious, fairly simple t execute and hearty enough to satisfy EVERYONE (the vegetarian, the carnivores AND the omnivore) in my house.
Back-to-School Raspberry Granola Bars
These bars, from Food & Wine magazine, are OUTSTANDING. They are loaded with fiber and the pecans add a little bit of protein. They do have a fair amount of fat (butter) and sugar, but aren’t as bad as some cookie/bar recipes. We LOVED it with the raspberry preserves, but it would also be great with grape, blackberry, blueberry or any other robustly-flavored preserve or jelly. I have a little bit of dulce de leche left over from another recipe and I’m tempted to make a batch with that…we’ll see!
The butter in these bars can go rancid/stale tasting pretty quickly, so I would refrigerate or freeze them if you’re not going to eat them all in 3 or 4 days. The recipe says 1 week, but I think that’s a bit of a stretch. I LOVE the little tang of saltiness that an entire teaspoon of kosher salt provides, but if you are very sensitive to salt, you might want to cut back a little.
Pasta/Pizza Seasoning
Pasta and Pizza Seasoning
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried oregano leaves
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1/2 tsp. dried basil leaves
1/2 tsp. dried chervil
1/2 tsp salt
red pepper flakes to taste
Stir all ingredients together and store in a small, airtight container. Sprinkle into any pasta dish as it is cooking or into any pasta sauce. Delicious to serve, at the table, to sprinkle over the completed dish. Stir into grated parmesan cheese (1 part seasoning to 5 parts cheese) to make a delicious pizza sprinkle. Yum. I usually add a little extra oregano into the seasoning when I’m using it for pizza, but I have an obsession with oregano on pizza, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Or a clove or garlic. Whatever.
Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins
Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins from Sweet Savory Southern
Easy and tasty, but also lowfat and loaded with fiber. The buttermilk gives a subtle tang and the tops are nice and crusty. If you’re in a hurry, the buttermilk and oatmeal can soak in the fridge together overnight, to eliminate the 15 minutes soaking time in the morning.
These would be good with lots of other adaptations, too. I’m not sure that the chocolate adds a whole lot, but cinnamon would be good or your favorite dried fruit or toasted nuts. Would be nice with some mashed or chopped banana, as well.
Spiced Pumpkin, Lentil and Goat Cheese Salad
I adapted this recipe from the October (2009) issue Bon Appetit. I added about 1/2 cup of toasted pecans and one chicken breast (grilled and then sliced) for the carnivores in the household to add into their salad. This recipe needed a bit of extra balsamic vinaigrette to really finish it, so I’d plan on adding a bit of extra, if you plan to make this.
This salad is very adaptable. You could substitute blue cheese, if you prefer. This could be a fabulous first course, or, if served in larger portions, it’s a great entree salad. Toasted pumpkin seeds would be nice, too. Substitute lettuce or spinach if you’re not a fan of arugula.
Roasted Brussel Sprouts, Vegetarian Edition
Holy cow, does our family ever love these brussel sprouts. Seriously, it’s a visceral thing. I could eat a pound of them. Every day. They are absolutely addicting. On the rare days when we actually have some left over, I’ve been known to have them for breakfast the next day. But…Girl is now a vegetarian. And that means no pancetta. Well, I’m not insane; it means no bacon for HER. The rest of us still have the original version, but I had to come up with a version for her that would be as tasty (well, close to as tasty…I mean, you can’t just leave bacon out of a dish and expect it to still be as tasty!)
So, anyway…this is the version that I came up with and it was actually quite nice and, with the added nuts and cheese, managed to give her a bit of much-needed protein.
Oven-Roasted Brussel Sprouts
1 pound fresh brussel sprouts, washed and halved
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced (or run through a garlic press)
1 – 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 -2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves (removed from woody stems)
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
(Bake at 250 degrees until fragrant and lightly browned)
2 Tbsp crumbled Blue cheese
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Toss sprouts with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and pour into a medium-sized baking pan (you don’t want the sprouts to be too crowded.) Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, or until soft and darkish brown around the edges, turning and tossing about every 5 minutes until uniformly cooked. Sprinkle with vinegar and thyme and stir in to incorporate. Cook for another 3 – 5 minutes, or until vinegar is thickened and absorbed. Remove from oven and sprinkle with the pecans and cheese. Serve.
Vegetarian and Carnivorous Sprouts, ready to go in the oven together.
Pumpkin-Nut Doughnuts
Pumpkin-Nut Doughnuts
For doughnuts:
2 3/4 cups flour
2/3 cups almond flour (finely ground almonds)
3 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup whole milk
2 heaping Tbsp sour cream
heaping 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 stick melted butter
For cinnamon-sugar coating:
1 heaping cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and salt.
In a medium bowl, stir together the pumpkin, milk, sour cream, sugar, eggs and melted butter. Gently stir this mixture into the dry ingredients until it begins to hold together as a soft, sticky dough. It’s OK if it’s a bit lumpy.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead just until you have a smooth dough. Sprinkle a little more flour over the top of the dough and roll it out to a 1/2 inch thickness. Using a doughnut cutter (or two round cookie cutters – one about 1 inch across and another about 4 inches across,) cut out the doughnuts and put them on a cookie sheet dusted with some flour.
Pour at least 2 inches of canola oil into a large, deep frying pan and heat it over high heat until it reaches 375 degrees (this takes a while!) Fry about 4 to 5 doughnuts at a time, depending upon the size of the pan. Do not crowd the pan. The doughnuts will sink to the bottom of the oil, then float back up to the top. When they float to the top, turn them over and cook them for another 1 to 2 minutes until uniformly browned. Be careful not to overcook them.
Fry the doughnut holes separately, watching them carefully, as they will cook VERY quickly.
Drain the doughnuts and holes on paper towels for a moment and then, while still hot, coat them with the cinnamon sugar. Coat the doughnuts a few at a time, as they come out of the oil, rather than waiting to coat them all at the same time.
Yummy spices!
Brown Butter Gnocchi with Spinach and Pine Nuts
From January 2009 Cooking Light magazine. Recipe here.
Meh.
Needed more brown butter than the 2 Tbsp specified to give it enough flavor. Pre-packaged gnocchi definitely leave a LOT to be desired. I would make this again, with homemade gnocchi (don’t get scared off by the recipe, gnocchi are EASY), adding a little extra browned butter.
A good vegetarian meal for Girl, though, and a good, easy and quick side dish to accompany Chicken al mattone for the rest of us.
Chicken al Mattone (Chicken under a brick)
When I saw this recipe on the cover of September’s (2009) Bon Appetit magazine, I knew that I would have to try it. I have an overabundance of pride about my ability to butterfly (spatchcock) a chicken, so I tend to get a little excited when I see a recipe that requires that particular technique. A recipe that also incorporates garlic, red pepper, rosemary and lemon? Well, where do I sign?
Going into the oven, under the foil-wrapped brick.
This was REALLY easy (the trickiest part is the butterflying, but it’s simple once you get the knack – there are lots of videos on YouTube – I’ll probably make my own soon) and absolutely gorgeous and delicious. I love cooking whole chickens, because everyone gets to pick their favorite: dark meat or light? drumstick or breast? The chicken stayed moist and had lots of great flavor. This will definitely be a “keeper.” If I make it again for adults only, I’ll up the level of red pepper flakes a bit.
Martha Stewart’s Citrus Sugar Cookies
As I have mentioned before, I am a sucker for anything citrus-y. I would choose a good lemon meringue pie or lemon bar over the fanciest chocolate dessert any day, so when I saw this recipe on Martha Stewart’s website (*), I knew that I had to try these.
These were absolutely DELICIOUS. The citrus flavor is nice and tangy, but still subtle enough for this to be a SUGAR cookie, not a LEMON cookie. This is the easiest dough to work with that I’ve ever seen in my life; it was smooth and soft, without being sticky at all.
The ice cream scoop directions made it VERY simple. My scoop may be a little bigger than Martha’s, though, because I ended up with only 24 cookies, rather than the 30 that she yielded. Actually, if I make these again, I will use a smaller scoop (1 inch?) and bake them for a few minutes less, because using the bigger scoop yielded massive, monster cookies almost 4 inches across (fun for a party or event, but a little big for an everyday treat.) The one good thing about the larger size, though, is that it gives more of the chewy cookie interior, while a smaller cookie would provide more of the crunchier exterior.
I’m not exactly sure about why the directions say to brush the unbaked cookies with water, but I did it and they turned out well, so why mess with a good thing? I used citrus-colored (orange, green, yellow) sanding sugar on a couple of them, just for grins. The water made an interesting glaze-y design on those cookies that wasn’t evident on the ones with the clear/white sanding sugar (I used coarse sugar, because that’s what we typically like on muffins, etc.)
* I came across the recipe because I bought some Boyajian lemon oil to make these cookies and was looking for other recipes that would call for it.
Pondering a purchase of the citrus oils, but not sure whether or not it’s worth it? If you love to bake and either LOVE citrus as I do or love experimenting with all different flavors, then you MUST buy them (you’ll need the orange oil for when I post my chocolate-orange truffle recipe soon). If you’re not a big baker, you may not find enough uses for the oils to justify the money and effort to buy them. They are a little hard to find, even in Austin, however you can order them directly from Boyajian’s website. Locally, the only place that I’ve found the 3-oil set (3 small bottles that will last a LONG time for about $10: one lime, one orange and one lemon) is at Sur la Table in The Domain. Central Market sometimes has the lemon and orange, sold individually, but does not carry the lime oil. Williams-Sonoma used to carry them, but no longer does.
A couple of the recipe commenters on Martha’s site complained about the fact that Martha specifies “drops” of oil, but the bottles don’t come with droppers. Check around at a craft store (or possibly even a drugstore?) for small little eyedroppers that can be washed and reused. Make sure to clean them thoroughly, if they’re plastic (a glass one is even better, if you can find one), because the citrus oils are VERY strong and acidic and can actually melt plastic (think about it – this oil is the active ingredient in those cleaners like Citra-solve, etc…it’s STRONG STUFF!)
