Adventures of the Kitchen Ninja

Winner winner (crockpot) chicken dinner

2012-02-28T09:58:00.001-05:00

Slow cooker chicken curry

Good golly, The Ninj won a Bloggie!

I still can't believe it. It really was enough of an honor to be nominated and then to be named one of the five finalists -- but to win?

So. Freakin'. Cool.

Thanks to everyone who nominated me or took part in the voting process. I'm happy to hear that y'all agree that this blog is the best-kept secret -- now maybe some others will discover it, too.

And you had better believe that I partied just like the Oscar winners -- that is, if the Oscar winners played with their dogs and went to bed at 11pm. (Oh yeah, it's a wicked glamorous life, being The Ninj.)

But enough about my major award ... what's for dinner?

This dish is officially called a curried chicken stew but I don't like the word stew. Sounds too gloppy and boring -- not to mention that it sounds like you're holding your nose when you say it. Steeeeeeeeeeeeew. See?

So we're going with Chicken Curry, as it tastes like something you'd expect to find in your favorite Asian restaurant.

As with many of my favorite recipes, you can turn this dish into a little something different each time you make it. For example, you could spice it up by using a hot curry paste, as opposed to the mild that I suggest. Or use bone-in chicken thighs or boneless breasts (just increase the cooking time a little bit). How about adding another onion or some potatoes? Or using peanuts rather than pistachios for the topping?

I serve this curry over brown rice, which absorbs the spicy sauce really well. Egg noodles would also be great, giving it more of a stroganoff presentation, if that's what you prefer.

I urge you not to skip the golden raisins, though -- they add a really special flavor and texture.

Give this one a try and let me know what you think. How would you change it up to make it a winner?

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Slow Cooker Chicken Curry (adapted from a recipe by Jill Lust in Better Homes and Gardens)

Ingredients:
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
8 oz. baby carrots or 4-5 regular carrots, sliced into chunks
1 onion, cut into wedges
1 cup unsweetened light coconut milk, divided
1/4 cup mild red curry paste
Chopped pistachios, golden raisins and cilantro or parsley for topping

Directions:
Add the carrots and onion to the slow cooker. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and lay the pieces on top of the vegetables.

In a small bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup of the coconut milk and the curry paste. Pour the mixture over the chicken. Cook on low for 6-7 hours.

When the chicken is done, stir in the remaining 1/2 cup coconut milk. Serve over rice or noodles, and top each serving with the pistachios, raisins and herbs.

Ginger fruit compote: a recipe

2012-02-23T09:09:00.000-05:00

Ginger fruit compote

Breakfast is my biggest challenge.

Well, not eating it, of course, but making it, and keeping it interesting and not repetitive.

(When I worked full-time, I ate oatmeal every single morning for nearly a year because I was always running late and could throw a packet in my briefcase to make at work. I really don't recommend this unless your goal is specifically to hate oatmeal for years afterward.)

My criteria for good breakfast recipes are quick, portable and non-frying-pan-dirtying. Apparently this is a pretty tall order.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited about this dried fruit compote when I realized how versatile it could be.

First, it's easy to prepare: just stew up any combination of your favorite dried fruits with some ginger beer (yes, ginger beer -- fun!) and -- voila -- you're done.

Second, it keeps for quite a while in the refrigerator, so it can made ahead of time (say, on the weekend) and used throughout the week.

Third, it's not necessarily just for breakfast. In fact, the original recipe recommends serving it over vanilla ice cream as a dessert (yes, that would be awesome, as would be serving it with pound cake). But I've been using it as a breakfast condiment by stirring it into yogurt and topping it with nuts and granola. And it is also excellent swirled into a bowl of hot oatmeal, giving it some extra zing and heartiness

As with so many others lately that you'll see here, this recipe comes from Bon Appetit. I cooked mine down quite a bit longer than the recipe called for, which is why mine doesn't really have the "ginger syrup" of the original (I think that would make it more dessert-y and less breakfast-y). So depending on how you want to use it, just cook it a little less or a little more.

You know, do the would-I-eat-this test.

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Ginger Fruit Compote (adapted ever-so-slightly from Bon Appetit)

Ingredients:
1 12-ounce bottle ginger beer
1 cup water
1 1/4 cups chopped dried fruit (I used apricots, prunes and golden raisins but you could go crazy here)

Directions:
Add all the ingredients to a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer until the mixture reduces and reaches your desired consistency, about 35 minutes for more of a syrup and closer to 50 minutes for a thicker compote. Cool and store in the refrigerator.

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: The Ninjino

2012-02-22T11:09:00.001-05:00

It has nothing to do with food, cooking, gardening or reading, but this week The Ninjette got a cute little brother ... which I guess makes him The Ninjino. Look for his mug in many future posts!

Onion bisque: a recipe

2012-02-20T08:42:00.000-05:00

Onion bisque

Despite the lack of snow here in Vermont, it's cold enough to still qualify as soup season.

And we have a real winner here.

Onion bisque: I think the best way to describe it would be that it's like fancy-shmancy pureed french onion soup.

Clearly "onion bisque" was a classier name choice.

This recipe comes from Bon Appetit. The magazine runs a column in each issue in which readers write in, seeking their favorite restaurant recipes, in order to try to re-create them at home. I love this feature because I get not only some great recipes but also some excellent ideas for where to eat when I travel.

The onion bisque recipe is one that Chef Justin Devillier makes at La Petite Grocery in New Orleans. (Pfft, like there is any bad place to eat in NOLA, really).

There's not much to it -- just a whole lot of standing around, stirring and watching the onions cook down and carmelize. I love the fact that at the very end you throw in some bread which, when the soup is all blended, gives it real body.

It eats more like a meal than a starter.

Carmelizing the onions

Not quite there yet...

And it is stunning topped with bacon. You will notice, however, that my photo shows no bacon. Truth is, we ate all the bacon before I could style and photograph a serving of the soup, so you got a fancier parsley garnish instead.

Don't skip the bacon (like you need ME to tell YOU that!)

But trust me, don't skip the bacon, no matter what my pictures look like.

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Onion Bisque (slightly adapted from a recipe by Justin Devillier via Bon Appetit)

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 cups sliced yellow onions (about 4-5 medium)
8 garlic cloves, smashed
6 cups chicken stock
tied bundle of thyme sprigs, fresh or dried
1 1/2 cups cubed stale bread (I used ciabatta because it was what I had) -- remove the crust if it's crusty
4-5 slices cooked and crumbled bacon
kosher salt and pepper
3-4 oz. crumbled goat cheese

Directions:
Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-low heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until translucent (about 20 minutes). Add the garlic and carmelize the onions -- that is, cook them for about 20 minutes or until they are a nice golden brown color, stirring often. Add the broth and the thyme bundle to the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for another 20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the bread. Let it stand for 10 minutes, then remove the thyme bundle.

Let the soup cool a bit, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve topped with some goat cheese and the crumbled bacon.

Vietnamese slow cooker chicken with bok choy: a recipe

2012-02-10T12:38:00.001-05:00

Vietnamese slow cooker chicken (I really need better nighttime kitchen lighting)

Even though I can see acres of grass and almost no snow, it's still winter here in Vermont. Which also means that it's still slow cooker season.

I won't wax poetic about the advantages of a slow cooker meal, as you've heard them all before. (Although I do pat myself on the back for making a convert out of reader Cristina who finally got one for xmas this year based on my nagging and is now hooked!)

So what could possibly make this slow cooker recipe that much more wicked than all others I have tried? Three things:

It has essentially three ingredients: chicken, bok choy and sauce.
Because it has so few ingredients, it is moronically easy and fast.
The flavor is HEAVENLY! (Not to mention the aroma that will fill the house -- ay yi yi!)

I also love how I found this recipe -- yep, Pinterest. It's been catching on like a house-a-fire within the past month or two, and so many more participants means so many more great recipes to check out (among other things, like decorating tips, new light fixtures, cool DIY projects ... it's endless).

While the recipe itself originally comes from an old blog standby for me -- Stephanie O'Dea's Year of Slow Cooking -- I found it via Pinner Literary Mom, who found it on the blog Mom's Kitchen Handbook. Roundabout, yes, but well worth it!

This chicken dish literally takes five minutes to prepare and about 4 hours to cook. And that's it. The flavor is ever-so-slightly sweet but not cloyingly so, really perfect. And the chicken is so tender you won't need a knife. Not to mention that there's a boatload of bok choy in this, so you've got the whole healthy, one-dish-dinner thing covered.

The secret's in the sauce...

All prepped ... in 5 minutes!

I served it over brown rice, but Mr. Ninj ate the leftovers without any rice and liked it just as much. I bet it would be good with Israeli couscous or egg noodles, as well.

So go plug in your dinner: it will leave you a whole bunch of free time to start pinning -- or at least to start following my pins.

(PS: Send me your email address if you need a Pinterest invite...)

Vietnamese Slow Cooker Chicken with Bok Choy (adapted from Mom's Kitchen Handbook and A Year of Slow Cooking)

Ingredients:
About 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs (note: you can use bone-in thighs but will need to cook the chicken about 1 to 1 1/2 hours longer)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar (divided)
About 1 1/2 pounds bok choy (usually 2 smallish or 1 largish head)
salt and pepper

Directions:
Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and arrange them in the bottom of a slow cooker. Combine the next five ingredients (through the canola oil) in a small bowl and add 1 tablespoon on the brown sugar; whisk until well blended. Pour the sauce over the chicken, cover and cook on low for about 4 hours.

Meanwhile, wash and chop the bok choy (you will use all the green part and some of the sturdier white part -- discard the base as you would with celery). When the chicken is finished cooking, remove it from the slow cooker temporarily and add the remaining tablespoon of brown sugar to the cooker liquid, stirring to dissolve. Stir in the bok choy until it is a bit coated with the sauce, then place the chicken on top of the bok choy. Replace the lid and cook on HIGH for about another 8-10 minutes or until the bok choy is tender.

May be served over brown rice.

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2012 Bloggies: The Ninj is a Finalist! Go Vote!

2012-02-07T18:25:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it but I've been selected as one of the five finalists for a 2012 Weblog Award (a Bloggie!) in the "Best-Kept Secret" category! I am so excited and so honored.

I hope you'll consider voting for me -- and suggesting that all your friends do the same. Go ahead, share it on Facebook and Twitter. I'll wait.

Follow this link or click on the the Bloggies badge in the right column of the page.

Have you been reading this blog, making the recipes, sharing in the Detox January love or just enjoying the witticisms? If so, please show The Ninj some love!

VOTE NOW -- VOTING ENDS SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19th.

Mwah!

Guinness ginger cake: a recipe

2012-02-07T09:43:00.001-05:00

Guinness ginger cake

Beer in cake -- how can you go wrong?

I have to admit that I do not like Guinness (now I will wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth to stop) ... as a standalone drink, that is.

I appreciate a good beer but not ones that are dark and heavy, like a stout. Or yeasty and wheaty like a Hefeweizen. (Clearly I'm choosy about my beer.)

While not my favorite drinking beer, Guinness is lovely for cooking -- rich and dark, very flavorful. I mean, just take a look at that cake! (Or bread, if you plan to eat it for breakfast as we did.)

Cakes/breads like this one, though, are the reason why I end up with a couple of random cans of Guinness in my refrigerator at various times throughout the year. You'd think that would mean that I would always have one on hand for cooking, but mysteriously someone winds up drinking them every time, leaving me to go buy yet another 4-pack when I only need one cup of the stuff.

Although, if you are a Guinness fan, that leaves you with about half a can to enjoy while you bake!

But back to the cake.

This is pretty much revved up gingerbread and, as such, I think it would be lovely served with a dollop of whipped cream or with a wintery fruit compote (stay tuned, I've got one in the works for later this week).

Guinness, molasses and ginger -- wintery goodness

Per the recipe, I baked mine in a loaf pan but you could also use a small Bundt or Kugelhopf pan for a very pretty cake presentation.

The Guinness mixture fizzes up mightily when you add the baking soda

Bake in a Bundt or Kugelhupf pan for a cakier presentation

I came across this recipe via Sassy Radish, but she just duplicated the recipe verbatim from the Epicurious site, so I shall just link you over there, rather than rewrite it a third time. The original recipe is from Claudia Fleming's book The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern.

Slainte!

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Baked sausage and grits casserole: a recipe

2012-02-02T10:54:00.002-05:00

Baked sausage and grits casserole

Now that Detox January is over for another year, it's clearly time to re-embrace some old favorites.

Welcome back, sausage. Oh, how we have missed you.

Regular readers will know that I extra-love any recipe that is yummy but also quick and easy to prepare -- and that has sausage or bacon in it, but that's just me.

Behold, the baked sausage and grits casserole.

I got this recipe from my friend Kristen, who got it from her friend Eric. And it appears that each of us makes it slightly differently.

Kristen uses andouille turkey sausage and Eric uses half sausage and half shrimp, which I bet makes a killer faux shrimp-and-grits. I chose to go with hot Italian sausage because it was local, fresh and plentiful this week at the butcher. Also, if you cook the casserole for the full time, it turns out like the consistency of a quiche or breakfast casserole (see photo above); if you want more of that traditional loose grits texture, just cook it a little less.

Now isn't that the hallmark of a good recipe? Modify the beejesus out of it and it still holds together as someone's favorite.

Don't forget to cook the sausage before you get started

Make sure your saucepan is big enough to add the extra ingredients at the end

Mmmmmm ... cheese

This one definitely falls into the comfort food category. And the quick-and-easy category. And the sausagey wickedness category. And I think it would be just as good as a breakfast casserole as it is for a weeknight dinner.

Just go ahead and make it and you'll see.

Baked Sausage and Grits Casserole (slightly adapted from Barbara Smith's B. Smith Cooks Southern-Style)

Ingredients:
1/2 pound hot Italian sausage, cooked and crumbled
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup uncooked quick grits
1 1/4 cups extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2 eggs, beaten
2-3 tablespoons chopped parsley
Tabasco sauce
salt and pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 2-quart casserole dish with non-stick spray and set aside.

In a saucepan, bring the stock to a boil. Slowly stir in the grits, lower the heat, cover the pot and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened (5 minutes). Remove from heat and add salt and pepper to taste, as well as 3/4 cup of the cheese, stirring until melted. Let the mixture cool for about 5-6 minutes.

Add the eggs, parsley and Tabasco (to taste), stirring to combine. Spread the mixture evenly in the casserole dish and top with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese.

Bake for about 45-50 minutes, or until slightly puffy and browned on top.

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Detox January, Week 4: tragic salted chocolate cookies

2012-01-31T09:16:00.000-05:00

Salted chocolate cookies

I thought long and hard about whether or not to write this post.

Why?

Well, firstly because I wanted this to be a celebratory "you-made-it-through-Detox-January-so-have-a-cookie" post, and it's not going to be.

Also, because generally these posts are about recipes or techniques that I have tried and tested and then recommend to you. But those cookies staring you in the face over there, regardless of their good looks, are not ones I would recommend very highly.

So is an anti-recommendation blog-worthy?

In the interest of being real, I decided it should be.

Lest you think that we eat awesomely all the time around here, with nary a slip-up.

Oh man, I started out with high hopes for these cookies. In fact, I was hoping they might rival the lauded salted oatmeal cookies, as they are billed as salty-sweet and there's a goodly amount of kosher salt in the recipe. But I was disappointed.

Now, in all fairness, these cookies are supposed to be a thumbprint cookie into which you pipe a blob of Nutella. But I wanted them to be transportable, so I decided to just make the cookie part.

Sugaring the salted dough balls

Where did it go wrong? It was something about the cooking time. The recipe calls for cooking each sheet a total of 10 minutes or so, at which point the edges should be set. Well, mine were still just dough (no setting at all) after 10 minutes ... and after 15 minutes ... and only just starting to set at the edges at 20 minutes! Jeez! I understanding adding or subtracting a few minutes to account for oven differentiation, but this seemed absurd.

And yet they ended up kind of hard. They are okay with milk or a cup of tea but are definitely more scone-ish (well, hard scones, anyway) than cookie-ish. Oh well. I guess I should have taken them out earlier, but I don't like nearly-raw cookies.

If you want to give them a try, by all means please do. Maybe ignore me and try taking them out after 10 minutes anyway. Maybe I just overthought the whole thing. Maybe the Nutella is really, really necessary. Maybe I have trust issues.

Maybe sometimes things just don't go according to plan.

Anyhoo, congratulations on your 2012 Detox January success! Have a cookie. A good one.

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Detox January, Week 3: "Chef Boyardee" Broccoli Pasta

2012-01-27T08:33:00.000-05:00

Broccoli pasta (it's like pesto!)

I realized that I've given you little other than dessert recipes during Detox January ("Let them eat cake!"), so I think that needs to end today.

But it doesn't end in a bad way, I promise. It ends with a lovely, easy pasta dish that I guarantee will become part of your weeknight repertoire, based on the easiness-to-awesomeness ratio.

Loyal reader Cristina turned me on to this one last year after hearing the story on NPR. Turns out "Chef Boyardee" was a real person: one Ettore "Hector" Boiardi (apparently there needed to be a phonetic dumbing-down of his Italian last name so that waspy America could pronounce it ... sigh).

Boiardi was an accomplished chef and had a successful restaurant in Cleveland when he decided, in true entrepreneurial fashion, to bottle and sell his popular sauce -- which eventually led him into a food manufacturing and importing business.

His whole family, apparently, were and are no slouches in the kitchen, his chef-niece Anna Boiardi included. Last year, she published a cookbook-cum-memoir, Delicious Memories: Recipes and Stories from the Chef Boyardee Family, which includes some of her family's best-loved recipes -- including this broccoli-centric one from her mother.

While I am a huge fan of crispy, barely-steamed broccoli or even raw broccoli, I like most people cannot stand brown, limp, over-cooked broccoli. Bleck. But, believe it or not, that's sort of the concept behind this pasta. Once the broccoli gets to a certain point (not over-cooked, just well-cooked), it completely breaks down and, when combined with olive oil, turns into a kind of pesto.

Did I mention that this all happens IN ONE POT? Ah yes, it's that easy.

Boil the water, cook the broccoli a bit, add the pasta and cook, drain, throw in the olive oil and stir like a fiend so the broccoli breaks down. Viola! Throw in some cheese and you're done.

Cooking the broccoli and pasta together

Stir thoroughly to break down the broccoli florets

No joke.

See? I told you Detox January was not painful. Here we are approaching the final and, so far, you've been eating dessert and now cooking in only one pot.

Stick with me and Chef Boyardee, kids.

"Chef Boyardee" Broccoli Pasta (adapted slightly from an Anna Boiardi recipe shared with All Things Considered on NPR)

Tip: Be sure to cut as much of the broccoli stem off the florets as possible, as the stems don't "melt down" as much and can end up as chunks in your sauce.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds broccoli crowns, stems removed and cut into small florets
1 box (13.25 oz.) multi-grain or whole-wheat pasta
2/3 cup olive oil
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Directions:
Boil a large pot of salted water. Add the broccoli and wait for the water to reboil, then add the pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain the pasta and broccoli and return both to the pot. Pour in the olive oil and stir thoroughly -- this is what causes the broccoli to break down into a pesto-like sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste and stir in the cheese.

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Detox January, Week 3: Chocolate Chip Banana Bombs

2012-01-25T10:27:00.001-05:00

Chocolate chip banana bombs (or, Da Bombs)

Trust me, I didn't come up with that name.

I found the recipe for these cake-like cookies via an iPhone app called Big Oven. (Mr. Ninj heard about it on NPR and suggested I check it out.) It's an online cooking community and repository of user-submitted recipes. One of its coolest features is called "Use Up Leftovers" -- you can enter up to three ingredients and it will suggest recipes using those ingredients.

This week I had a few bananas beginning to turn scary-brown. I thought about banana bread, but that just wasn't doing it for me. So I typed "bananas" into the Big Oven app.

I got many results for banana bread: Easy, Quick, Crazy-Healthy, Best-Ever, Dad's, Not Yo Momma's and more.

Then I came across Da Bombs.

I liked the recipe because its ingredient list was very detoxy (only 2 tablespoons of butter, folks) and its directions simple. Not to mention that each cookie has only 72 calories and 2.4 grams of fat! And the reviews were glowing.

Da Bombs are more like a small cake than a cookie (much like the pumpkin hermits or eggnog cookies you've seen here). They taste like a cross between banana bread and chocolate chip pancakes: no lie.

And, speaking of pancakes, if you omit the chocolate chips, I think these could totally pass as breakfast cookies. Or bake sale fodder.

Because Big Oven consists of all user-submitted recipes, I cannot be 100% sure of the recipe attribution on this one. Their site dictates that users should not submit recipes or photos which are not original but I have no way of knowing if everyone abides by the rules. So as far as I know, this recipe was created by Big Oven user "bjellison" -- if that's you, let me know. If this really came from somewhere else, sorry -- I do what I can.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bombs (adpated from a Big Oven recipe submitted by bjellison)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 small bananas (preferably very ripe)
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. Beat the butter and sugars in a mixer until smooth. Next, beat in the bananas, egg and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until it forms a doughy batter. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop dough by heaping teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper (they will spread a little so give them some room). Bake for 10-12 minutes or until springy. Cool on wire racks.

Note: my yield was 3 dozen cookies.
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Detox January, Week 2: Bake Sale Chocolate Muffins

2012-01-18T09:50:00.001-05:00

Chocolate muffins (or cupcakes, if you prefer)

Chocolate muffins, OK, but I bet you're wondering about the bake sale part, right?

There's a backstory...

I recently learned that there is a backlash developing against the resurgence of interest in domesticity or what we of a certain age learned long ago as "home economics." I know, I know, this shouldn't be news, right? I mean, every time something becomes popular or trendy, a backlash ensues, yes?

So now baking is under fire.

(Not to mention raising chickens, but that's off-topic right now. )

This all came to a head when a contributor in The New York Times bemoaned the fact that people have actually been offering up Oreos or other store-bought treats as fodder for fund-raising bake sales. She apparently started an online uproar (summarized excellently by Jennifer Reese over at The Tipsy Baker), which has spiraled into an attack on what one of her critics calls the current "anti-feminist homemaker fetish."

Yipes. All she suggested was that you might actually want to BAKE for a bake sale.

So, as an Anti-Feminist Homemaker Fetish-ite, I offer up the following as a peace offering for the two camps:

Delicious, bake sale-worthy, low-fat/low-calorie/low-Weight-Watchers-points* chocolate muffins (or cupcakes, if you prefer) that even the busiest CEO can find time to make.

As with last week's Nutella popsicles, the "recipe" is so simple that I don't need to give you a recipe. Simply combine one box of Devil's Food Cake Mix (I used Betty Crocker Super Moist) with one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree, mix it all up in a bowl, spoon into paper-lined muffin cups and bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

They came together so quickly that I had to wait around for my oven to finish pre-heating. And the taste will not let you down: the pumpkin gives the muffins and incredible moistness without any pumpkin-y flavor.

So why not join me in being "retrograde," "oppressive," "anti-feminist" and just a big old let-down to the female gender in general and whip up some of these yummy muffins?

Snort.

Many thanks to my foodie friend Maria for sharing this recipe via Facebook and letting me know that it came from The Hungry Girl Cookbook by Lisa Lillien.

* If you make 12 muffins (which will be large), each muffin contains 181 calories and 3.5 grams of fat and is worth 4 WW points. I made 16 medium-sized muffins, so each one would have fewer calories and grams of fat, but I'm too lazy to do the math for you.

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Orecchiette Bolognese: Homemade Pasta for Cook It! 2012

2012-01-16T12:53:00.003-05:00

Homemade orecchiette Bolognese

Homemade pasta -- so much easier than you think!

One of the bloggers I follow, Caroline at Grow It Can It Cook It, decided to issue herself a challenge for 2012: to try one new cooking technique each month during the year that she has always wanted to try. And now she's invited the rest of us to play along at home.

Can you guess what January's challenge is? Yep ... homemade pasta.

Since I do not have a pasta machine, I knew I'd have to try something that doesn't need to be rolled into sheets. I've made gnocchi before, but as it is largely potatoes, I looked around for something else, something with semolina.

Orecchiette!

In Italian it means "little ears" and you can see why: the little indentation that makes the "ear" is perfect for holding a nice chunky Bolognese sauce (recipe below).

But back to the pasta itself.

Very simply, it is semolina flour, regular flour and warm water mixed together to form a dough, which is then shaped and dried slightly. That's it! Sure, a bit more time consuming than opening up a box of dried pasta, but so much classier.

You can definitely do this. I'll even walk you through it -- with pictures.

Combine two parts semolina flour with 1 part all-purpose flour in a bowl. I used two cups of semolina flour and 1 cup regular, which ultimately made enough dough for about six very large servings.

Add warm water, just a little bit at a time, until the flours form a workable dough. I wound up using almost an entire cup of water but added it about 1/8 of a cup at a time.

Once the dough is formed, place it on a lightly floured work surface and knead it for about 10 minutes, until it is smooth. You can see the difference -- it will look a lot like a ball of pizza dough, although much stiffer.

(And yes, kneading for 10 minutes is hard but makes a great arm workout!)

Wrap the smooth dough ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for a few hours (at least 2).

After chilling, remove the dough from the plastic and pull off a small handful. Using a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough with your hands into a long tube that is about 1/2 of an inch thick. With a sharp knife, cut the tube into pieces about 1/4 of an inch thick.

Now you'll need to form the "ears." Place one piece of the cut dough into your cupped palm and, using the tip of your thumb, press lightly into the center, making a well. Be sure that both your palm and your thumb remain lightly floured during this process.

(Since I am both cook and photographer in my kitchen, I had no way of capturing this technique accurately. But you can check out the demo photos at Recipe Tips and Italian Food Forever, which gave me the basics for this whole process.)

Once the dough is formed into the "little ear", place it on a lightly floured pan. Repeat the rolling and forming process until all the dough is used up and you have a gajillion little ears resting on the floured tray.

At this point, you can cook the orecchiette right away or just let it sit on the tray until you are ready (being a little dried out is fine). Place the pasta into a pot of boiling water and cook until the ears float to the top, which should only take just a few minutes.

I served mine with a hearty, meaty Bolognese sauce, the recipe for which I've included below -- the recipe is adapted from a book called Perfect Italian, a collection of recipes published by Paragon Books Ltd.

So, have you made homemade pasta? Do you have any tips or techniques to share? I'd love to hear them.

Hearty Bolognese Sauce
Note: this recipes doubles easily.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, fine chopped
1 cup mushrooms, diced
8 oz. lean ground beef or turkey
2-3 thick slices of bacon, diced
2 chicken livers, chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup low-fat half-and-half
salt and pepper

Directions:
Heat the oil and butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery and mushrooms and cook until tender (about 5-6 minutes). Add the beef and bacon; cook until beef is browned.

Add the chicken livers and tomato paste; cook for 3 minutes. Pour in the wine, add the nutmeg and season with some salt and pepper. Add the stock and bring to boil. Reduce, cover and simmer over low heat for one hour. Stir in the half-and-half and simmer, uncovered, until reduced (just remove it from the heat when the consistency looks good to you).

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Detox January, Week 2: Nutella-banana popsicles

2012-01-13T10:04:00.000-05:00

Nutella-banana pops

Yes, you read that correctly.

Nutella-banana popsicles.

Yes, for Detox January.

Because each pop is only about 145 calories and 5 grams of fat (based on my getting 14 pops out of the recipe).

And they are loaded with fruit, which we all know is good for you and very Detoxy.

It's partially a size thing but also an ingredient thing; that is, the size is smallish and the ingredients are just two: yep, Nutella and bananas.

Making these pops really couldn't be easier. In fact, I'm not even going to both to write out a "recipe" because it's ludicrously simple.

Put six peeled bananas and 1 cup Nutella in a blender or food processor and whirl it all up until smooth. Pour the mixture into popsicle molds or the old dixie-cup-with-a-stick-in-it and freeze.

Of course, I have had popsicle molds for a number of years and just gave them away when we moved because I almost never used them. Figures. So I had to buy dixie cups and popsicle sticks, both of which for some reason come only in packages of 8 bajillion, which means I now pretty much have a lifetime supply.

But that's good because it means I can make 8 bajillion more Nutella-banana popsicles.

The other great thing is that I found this "recipe" (from Rumkihn Crafts) via Pinterest: if you're not using it, you should be. If you are using it, why not follow the Ninj?

You never know what kind of bad-ass desserts and such will turn up on my boards.

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Making hard cider: part 3

2012-01-10T10:25:00.001-05:00

Bottled cider, ready to drink (almost)

I did tell you you would have to be patient...

But it's ready! Two months of settling and our cider is beautiful, clear and golden, which means it's ready to bottle.

First, you're going to need some bottles. You can use beer bottles or wine bottles but I prefer the Grolsch-style, swing-top bottles with rubber-seal caps.

Yes, the bottles will require an initial investment, but the whole dealy is reusable each year (make sure you ask for the bottles to be returned if you give any of your cider away as gifts).

And hey, remember the bucket that you started fermentation with way back in October? And the siphoning equipment? You're going to need them again, because part of the bottling process is racking the clarified cider back into the buckets to separate it from the last bit of sediment sludge (i.e., what you've waited two months to be rid of). But you are a racking expert now, so no worries.

Now it's time to sanitize, just as we did the last time, with a capful of bleach for every five gallons of water. Given that for our 10 gallons of cider we'd have 36 liter bottles, the siphoning paraphenalia and two six-gallon buckets to sanitize, I opted to use the bathtub(s).

I found I could only fit about 25 bottles in the tub at one time

If you have a smaller amount, your kitchen sink is probably sufficient. Note: if you use bottles with rubber sealer rings, don't put the rubber rings in with the bleach (it can break down the rubber over time). Instead, pop the rings off and sanitize them separately by putting them in a bowl of warm water with one crushed campden tablet for about 15 minutes.

Once everything is sanitized, you'll siphon the cider out of the carboy and into the bucket, taking care to keep the bottom of your auto-siphon above the layer of glop in the bottom of the carboy.

Welcome back to my guest bathroom...

Look at that lovely color!

See that layer of sludge? THAT is what you waited two months NOT to drink.

At this point, you have two options before you bottle: still cider or sparkling / carbonated cider. If you don't care about the carbonation, you'll need to add some wine conditioner (about 1/2 oz. per liter of cider) to your bucket to once and for all kill off any residual yeast and stop the fermentation process. If you choose the still route, your cider is ready to drink RIGHT NOW! WHOOT!

If, however, you choose the sparkling route, you will need to add some additional sugar to the cider (to re-start fermentation / carbonation) and -- I know you're probably going to freak out -- let it sit AGAIN, unopened, for at least another 4 weeks. Last year, we did half our batch sparkling and half still and decided we wanted all sparkling this year. It's that good, so it's worth the wait. For sparkling cider, boil 1/2 cup corn sugar in 1 cup water for each 5 gallons of cider. Once it boils, stir the mixture into your bucket.

Whichever route you chose, at long last you are ready to bottle! Another tip: I highly recommend a bottle filler, which attaches to your siphon hose and releases liquid only when you depress it inside the bottle (when not depressed, it holds the liquid in place in the tube). Once you get your siphon going, it's easy peasy to just move the filler from one bottle to the next, with no mess. For sparkling cider, be sure to leave a little headspace in each bottle (for the gas); for still, fill 'er right up!

A bottle filler makes this job easy.

Lastly, affix the rubber seals onto the locking caps. If you're making still cider, your cider is ready to drink and is best kept stored in the refrigerator or a cold cellar. If you're making sparkling cider, store the bottles at room temperature for about another 4 weeks (I know, I know). Open one and check the fizziness: once you're satisfied with it, move it into the refrigerator (this will stop the carbonation).

Whichever finishing method you choose, your cider should be good for at least a year or two ... but I doubt you'll be able to keep it that long without drinking it!

So, did anyone play along at home? Show me your cider!

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Read the whole series:
Making hard cider: part 1
Making hard cider: part 2
Making hard cider: part 3
Note: In this series, I have included links to Amazon for all the supplies that you will need. If you have a local homebrewing store -- such as the Vermont Homebrew Supply which is local to me in Winooski, Vermont -- I'd urge you to purchase your supplies through it, so you can ask questions and get personalized advice both before you start and during the process.

Detox January, Week 1: Fruity Israeli couscous

2012-01-06T09:55:00.002-05:00

Fruity Israeli couscous with chicken

Detox January does not, I repeat, does not involve eating miniscule portions of carboard and kale.

Well, we eat kale but usually with some kind of snappy salad dressing, rather than cardboard.

Really, I'm just trying to point out that you don't have to go on a hardcore diet or cleanse to eat a little better and be a little healthier to feel a little better, which is the goal of Detox January.

(Sidebar: What the hell is up with the cleanse craze right now? It's like the hair shirt of eating. I mean, doing penance for a few weeks is not going to help you get healthier in the long run. As Jason Gay wrote in his recent humorous article in the Wall Street Journal, "There is no secret. Exercise and lay off the fries. The end.")

Enter this lovely pasta dish, which started out life as a side dish (perfect with roast chicken or pork tenderloin) but makes a wicked awesome main with the addition of some cooked chicken or turkey.

If you've never had Israeli couscous, you need to try it. It's not really couscous at all but a tiny round pasta that cooks up light and fluffy, very quickly.

Feel free to get creative with this dish, based on whatever you have on hand. Try substituting other dried fruits: I bet apples and prunes would be lovely. Leave out the onion and add a handful of herbs: lush. Or how about chopping up some fresh spinach and tossing it in just before serving, along with some chopped walnuts?

That's practically a salad cleanse!

Fruity Israeli Couscous

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup Israeli couscous
1 1/2 cups water
1/3 - 1/2 cup dried fruit (I used cranberries, cherries and apricots)
3/4 teaspoon salt
Zest and juice of one lemon (you will need 1 tablespoon of juice)
1 cup cooked chicken (optional)
3 tablespoons sliced green onion

Directions:
Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the couscous and saute for one minute (this makes it all nice and toasty). Add the water, dried fruit and salt; stir and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and cook for 9-10 minutes or until most of the water has been absorbed. Remove from heat and stir in the onion, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, zest and chicken, if using. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper.

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Detox January, Week 1: Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

2012-01-04T10:20:00.003-05:00

Peanut butter-oatmeal breakfast bars

"Mocktail Hour" with a virgin Bloody Mary is not quite the same as the real deal with a chartreuse vodka gimlet, but hey ... otherwise Detox January is not bad at all.

(Sidebar: Except for the annual mob scene at the gym. But I'm not worried: the resolution-breakers will be gone by the end of February. Cynical? Yes. But it's true.)

Take, for instance, these breakfast / snack bars. Wicked, wicked good! And no baking involved -- just some melting. And everyone can find time for a little melting.

Regular readers will recall that I am always on the hunt for good make-ahead, grab-and-go breakfast recipes. I think this one may be the best one yet: sweet yet salty, chewy yet crunchy. Perfecto!

Honestly.

Ninjas don't lie.

At least I don't think so.

These bars are definitely kid-friendly, too -- unless your kid has a peanut allergy. Then I guess they would be Death Bars. But I shall leave it to you to use your parental judgement.

So let's get melting.

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Breakfast Bars (from Cuisine at Home magazine)
Cautionary note: Beware store-brand cereal. One of the reasons many of them are cheaper in price is because they use high-fructose corn syrup rather than real sugar. I only discovered this recently and was quite dismayed.

Ingredients:
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup raw almonds (original recipe calls for whole, but I think slivered would work well, too)
2/3 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup Rice Krispies (no HFCS)
1/3 - 1/2 cup chopped dried cherries or cranberries
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When heated, spread the oats and almonds on a baking tray and toast for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned. (Honestly I think you could even skip this step.)

Heat peanut butter, honey and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until peanut butter melts.

Combine the peanut butter mixture, the oat/almond mixture and all the remaining ingredients in a large bowl, stirring well to coat. Press the mixture into a greased 8 x 8 baking pan and chill until firm (about 15 minutes).

Cut into 9 (breakfast size) or 12 (snack size) bars and wrap in plastic wrap.

PS: I entered these in a sweet treats linky party as well!

Detox January (and a lemon poundcake recipe)

2012-01-02T09:55:00.001-05:00

Lemon pound cake (really, it's light!)

Happy New Year! But, more importantly, Happy Detox January!

Regular readers will remember that each year Mr. Ninj and I celebrate (perhaps not quite the right word choice) a little something we call Detox January.

We started doing this a few years ago, as a break from the overindulgence of the holidays and to get the new year off to a good start -- and, quite frankly, to try to drop a few of those excess holiday pounds before we head off on our February vacation, which involves putting on a swimsuit.

Detox January is not some overly ambitious resolution that you know you won't be able to keep (new gym membership, anyone?); it's more like a short-term, mini resolution that you know you can achieve.

The rules are simple. For the entire month of January:

Abstain from all alcohol (but if a recipe calls for a little bit, that's OK)
Eat a bit healthier every day (I don't expect you to get crazy here -- we just try to eat more veggies than cookies and keep our recipes more Cooking Light than Julia Child)
Exercise more than you did in December

See? You can totally do this!

And, to ease you into it and prove to you that it's not some kind of wacky-ass cleanse that forces you to eat only bland, nasty food, here's a lovely recipe for a light pound cake.

Yes, Detox January encourages cake. So why not join us?

Lemon Pound Cake (slightly adapted from a recipe by Lori Longbotham via Eating Well magazine)

Note: Unless you are lucky enough to have access to sweeter Meyer lemons, Mr. Ninj and I found the candied lemon slices to be a little too bitter to eat with the cake and wound up picking them off. But they do look beautiful for the presentation.

Ingredients:
1 cup pastry flour
3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 lemons
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
3 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 egg whites (do not combine, as they must be added one at a time), at room temperature
1 egg, at room temperature
1/2 cup skim milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan with non-stick spray and set aside.

Whisk together the first four ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Finely grate 2 tablespoons zest from two of the lemons. In a stand mixer, beat 3/4 cup sugar, cream cheese, butter and zest on medium speed until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in the egg whites, ONE AT A TIME, then add the egg and beat well. Reduce speed and beat in the milk.

Add the flour mixture in two batches, beating just until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, and bake 45 minutes or until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan and place on the rack.

While the cake is cooling, slice the remaining lemon into thin slices and squeeze five tablespoons juice from the 2 zested lemons. Heat the juice and the remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a pan over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Add the lemon slices and cook (keep stirring) about 5 minutes, or until softened. Remove the lemon slices, and reduce heat; simmer the syrup for another 2-4 minutes or until slightly thickened.

Set the cake on the rack over a rimmed baking sheet or something else to catch syrup runoff. Poke holes all over the top of the warm cake with a toothpick or skewer. Spoon the glaze all over the cake (it will run into the holes) and arrange the candied lemon slices on top. Cool completely before slicing.

Double chocolate pistachio biscotti: a recipe

2011-12-30T13:48:00.003-05:00

Double chocolate pistachio biscotti

A little late for a christmas cookie recipe, right?

It's OK because you can make these bad boys anytime you want. Anytime.

Why not now, in fact?

One of the things I like about these biscotti -- besides the supreme yumminess -- is the beautiful contrast of the chartreuse of the pistachios against the deep brown of the chocolate cookie.

It must be the designer in me, as the patisserie chef who create these, Michelle Myers of Sona in Los Angeles, is a former graphic designer who likes her creations to be pleasing to the eye as well as the palate.

Tastes great and looks great. What a perfect combination.

Thanks, Chef Michelle.

Here's the link to her recipe in Food & Wine.

"Boozy Zenith" Bourbon Pecan Cake: a recipe

2011-12-20T14:20:00.000-05:00

Boozy Zenith Bourbon Pecan Cake

This post has been a long time coming. Three weeks, in fact. Three weeks of marinating in boozy Jack Daniels goodness.

The cake, that is, has been marinating. Not this post. Or me.

I'll start out this saga by noting that this is a recipe I got from my mother and, short of "I think I cut it out of a magazine a long time ago", she has no idea where it came from, only that it was my dad's favorite. So if you think your Great Aunt Tilly invented it or something, I don't want to hear it.

In my childhood home, this was "fruitcake."

Which should have been explained to me better as a child, as I used to tell people that I loved fruitcake. And they all looked at me as if I were bat-shit crazy. I could not understand why so many people hated fruitcake, when it was so amazingly yummy.

Then at some point I tasted a real fruitcake: how amazingly revolting!

But I still have a hard time not calling this fruitcake. When I mentioned a few weeks ago on my Facebook page that I was making fruitcake, I got all sorts of incredulous (and, frankly, kinda rude) comments. So I had to explain.

As I just did again in this post.

Trust me, this is NOT fruitcake; it is just a delicious dessert cake (or breakfast bread, since it doesn't have icing -- you know my rule). Very dense, very rich, very fruity very nutty and, after three weeks of marinating in bourbon-soaked cheesecloth, very boozy. In fact, it takes that long to reach what I have dubbed its "boozy zenith."

Soaking the fruit overnight in bourbon gives it extra zing

Lots of floury pecans

This is a large recipe. I can get at least three full-sized loaves out of it, although I have taken to making two big loaves and a bunch of mini loaves to give as gifts. It really makes the perfect gift.

Mini loaves make great gifts

Just don't tell anyone you're giving them a fruitcake. Tell them it is a special "Boozy Zenith Bourbon Pecan Cake."

(And, yes, I know that Jack Daniels is technically not a "legitimate" bourbon but I don't care, so don't leave any comments to that effect or you will never receive a gift-sized Boozy Zenith Bourbon Pecan Cake from anyone, I will see to it. Fa la la la la.)

Boozy Zenith Bourbon Pecan Cake (origin unknown)

Ingredients:
2 cups whole red candied cherries
2 cups golden raisins
2 cups bourbon (I use Jack)
2 cups unsalted butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
2 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
8 eggs, separated
5 cups flour
4 cups pecan halves
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

Directions:
Combine cherries, raisins and bourbon in large mixing bowl. Cover tightly and let stand in refrigerator overnight. Drain fruits and reserve bourbon.

Place butter in large bowl of electric mixer and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add sugars gradually, beating on medium speed until well blended. Add egg yolks, beating until well blended.

Combine 1/2 cup of the flour with the pecans. Whisk the remaining flour with the baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Add 2 cups of the flour mixture to the creamed butter mixture and mix thoroughly. Add the reserved bourbon and the remainder of the flour mixture alternately, ending with flour. Beat well after each addition.

Beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry; fold gently into cake batter. Add drained fruits and floured pecans to the cake batter. Blend thoroughly.

Grease several full-sized and/or mini loaf pans; line with waxed paper. Grease and lightly flour waxed paper. Pour cake batter into pan within 1/2 inch of the top. Place in 275 degree oven; bake for about 2 hours or until a cake tester inserted in center of cake comes out clean.

Cool cakes in pans on cake rack 2-3 hours. Remove from pans, peel off waxed paper. Wrap cakes in cheese cloth saturated in bourbon, then wrap in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and store in tightly covered container in refrigerator for several weeks, to allow the cakes to reach their BOOZY ZENITH.

Onion and bacon tart: a recipe

2011-12-15T09:44:00.002-05:00

Onion and bacon tart

You know it's getting to be holiday time when I allow myself to cook with bacon fat. A lot of bacon fat.

Regular readers will know that we start out the year with a little something we call Detox January, to get off on the right foot. So healthy! But somehow a downward spiral begins after that, gaining a little more momentum each month without my realizing it, until December rolls around and I have no qualms making a dish that swims in bacon fat.

But it's a lovely bacony dish, fat and all.

You wouldn't think that a dish with so few ingredients (besides bacon fat) could be so amazing. Really, it's just bacon, onions and a flour-egg-milk batter.

But it is.

Try not to eat the bacon before the onions are finished cooking

True to the description of it in the November issue of Saveur, the batter that you pour over the onions and bacon puffs up like a popover, encasing the bacon and onion in bready yumminess.

Before baking (wow, this picture looked better in iPhoto, I swear)

Bacony puffy goodness

It was heavenly, especially served with a spinach salad with tangy ginger dressing to complement the carmelized sweetness of the onions.

So, please, if you're planning to join us for Detox January in a mere few weeks (gulp!), make this puffy bacony tart now so you don't have to wait for the end of the 2012 fat spiral.

Onion and Bacon Tart (from Saveur)

Ingredients:
6 ounces bacon, sliced crosswise to form 1/4"-wide slices/pieces
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced
Kosher salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 1/4 cups milk (I used skim)
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Heat bacon in a large pan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until bacon is crisp (about 12 minutes). Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Pour the bacon fat into an 8" x 11" baking dish.

Return pan to medium-high heat and melt the butter. Add the onions and salt and pepper to taste; cook, stirring, about 10 minutes, until lightly carmelized.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, mustard and some black pepper. Add the milk and eggs and stir until combined. Let the batter rest for 10 minutes, during which time you should place the baking dish with the bacon fat in the oven to heat (10 minutes). Remove the baking dish from the oven, pour in the batter and top with the onions and bacon. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown.

Stracciatella (Italian chicken soup): a recipe

2011-12-12T09:18:00.002-05:00

Stracciatella

Don't worry, I had never heard of it either -- and I'm wicked Italian, on both sides.

I ran across this recipe in the December issue of Food and Wine, which refers to it as a "classic Italian chicken soup." OK, sounds good. More importantly, it looked like you could whip it up quickly and easily -- a perfect weeknight, last-minute meal.

It was almost too easy!

Honestly, I kept checking the recipe to make sure I didn't miss anything because the prep time is about 5 minutes and so is the cooking time. Literally less than 15 minutes until dinner.

It reminded me a little bit of egg drop soup, but with spinach and a little lighter. It's so easy to prepare, I don't think you can go wrong by giving it a try.

I served it (to myself) with some olive oil flatbread crackers but I think it would also be excellent with cheese toast.

Let me know what you think.

Stracciatella with Spinach (from Linda Meyers via Food and Wine)

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (plus more for serving)
2 quarts chicken stock
1 1/2 cups baby spinach leaves

Directions:
In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, parsley and nutmeg with a pinch each salt and pepper. Stir in the cheese.

Bring the stock to a bowl in medium pot over medium-high heat. Briskly whisk in the egg mixture then stir in the spinach. Cook over low heat, stirring a few times, about 2 minutes (egg and spinach will be cooked). Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add more cheese when serving.

Gingerbread cake: a recipe

2011-12-09T09:12:00.001-05:00

Gingerbread cake

It's December again and we finally got some fluffy snow here in Vermont, so I guess it's ninjabread time.

Last year, I made ninjabread men because of the ass-kicking cookie cutters that I got.

This year, it's a cake because who doesn't love cake? Pie, meh. But cake? Come on.

Not really much to say about gingerbread without just diving into the recipe. I don't have any waxing-nostalgic stories about holiday gingerbread growing up or anything like that. If you do, that's great. Please share them in the comments section.

I just like gingerbread. And I like cake. So there you go.

The original recipe for this one, from Bon Appetit, includes a lovely cream frosting infused with lemon curd, and I think that would be heavenly. But by now you know my rule:

If you put frosting on it, you can't call it "breakfast bread" -- at that point, you're just eating cake at 7 am.

Gingerbread Cake-I-Mean-Breakfast-Bread (slightly adapted from Janet McCracken via Bon Appetit)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons grated peeled ginger

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8" x 8" pan with nonstick spray and line the bottom with parchment paper (spray the paper as well). Whisk flour and next 5 ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Place butter in a large bowl and pour 1/2 cup boiling water over it, then whisk until melted. Whisk in the sugar, molasses, egg and ginger. Add the flour mixture and whisk to blend. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack. Remove the parchment paper before serving.

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: Holiday 2011

2011-12-07T11:24:00.001-05:00

I love visiting with my vintage ornament collection every year. Happy holidays!

Peanut soup: a recipe

2011-12-06T09:03:00.001-05:00

Peanut soup

This recipe was a challenge.

Not challenging, just a literal challenge.

I generally try to leave one night each week off the menu plan and then I challenge myself to make something for dinner based only on ingredients I already have: no grocery store trips allowed.

Since I had just made a bunch of turkey stock with the Thanksgiving bird, I knew I'd be able to whip up a soup this week. But other than the stock, the pickings were looking kind of slim.

I turned to the always-reliable The Joy of Cooking and combed through the soup section. Three recipes not only looked good to me but also could be made with my in-house ingredients:

Greek Lemon Soup
Georgia Peanut Soup
Chicken Noodle with Veg

Since I was truly torn as to which to choose, I posted the three choices to my Facebook page and asked my followers decide.

Apparently they were all torn as well, as they couldn't pick a clear winner!

So I chose peanut.

Results?

Very peanutty. The peanut butter lends a nice creaminess to the soup, as well as rich peanut flavor. Personally, while I enjoyed it, I found it a little too peanutty to add it to my regular soup rotation. But Mr. Ninj loved it and was sad that I didn't love it as much: as he said, "If you don't love it, I know I'll never see it again!"

I think I might try it again and possibly back off on the peanut butter a bit.

But it was another fun, successful challenge night! I'd encourage you to give it a try.

Peanut Soup (from The Joy of Cooking)
Note: The amount of red pepper and pepper sauce listed below makes this very spicy. If you're not sure how spicy you want it to be, I'd suggest starting with half of each and then add a little more to taste.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1tablespoon vegetable oil (I used canola)
1 small onion, chopped
2 medium celery stalks, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup half-and-half (I used low-fat)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons chopped dry-roasted peanuts
1/4 cup chopped green onion, chives or parsley

Directions:
Heat the butter and oil in a soup pot over medium-low heat until butter is melted. Add the onion and celery and cook until tender but not browned (5-10 minutes). Add the flour; reduce heat to low and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Stir in the stock and simmer, stirring often, until the soup thickens slightly (about 5 minutes).

Add the peanut butter, half-and-half, salt, pepper and pepper sauce. Stir and heat through (do not boil). Finally, stir in the lemon juice.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with chopped peanuts and onion, chives or parsley.

Turkey and bean gratin: a recipe and a revelation

2011-11-30T08:50:00.001-05:00

Turkey, bean and potato gratin with kale, un-Photoshopped

Maybe it was the flurry of Thanksgiving food creation -- planning, shopping, prepping, cooking and eating -- last week, but this week I've been feeling menu- and motivation-challenged.

Honestly, I sat with all the December foodie mags for hours and couldn't come up with a single thing I wanted to make this week.

It nearly gave me a panic attack.

Once I calmed down, I decided to wing it with some leftovers and wound up creating this hearty and yummy turkey, bean and potato gratin with kale. Quick, easy and very satisfying, and I even managed to get a couple of photos of it before we ate it.

But my near-panic attack made me stop and take a breath. Am I wound that tightly, I thought? Crap, I hope not. I mean, this isn't even a paying gig!

In fact, I've recently been feeling a bit depressed by the whole blogging adventure, which you may know I took on not only to give myself a creative outlet but also to get back to my writing roots with a goal of taking on some freelance projects. (As I said to someone recently, it's only "freelance" if someone pays you, otherwise, it's just free.) And it has been fun, no doubt. But the more I get involved in the food blogging community, the more inadequate it can sometimes make me feel.

Let me explain.

None of the bloggers I follow are professionals, so I assumed others probably follow the same kinds of guidelines I set up for myself:

I have a life, so only a small portion of my day (and not every day) can be devoted to this blog
I try to publish something new three days per week, to keep the blog from getting stale, so I plan my weekly menu to include a few blog-worthy dishes
Related to #2, what I blog about is what we eat, not stuff I create on an ad hoc basis
If I forget to photograph something because we ate it, well ... oops, guess I won't be writing about that one
I don't store up posts in advance, so if something comes up during the week, I may not always fulfill my personal goal of #2

With that thinking in mind, I made the mistake of comparing my product with those of fellow bloggers. Wow, so-and-so posts something new every day. Wow, so-and-so's photos are incredibly gorgeous and full of natural light, even at dinnertime in the winter. Wow... and so on.

And that made me feel a little depressed.

But then I read three posts that changed it all for me.

First, in a piece about the importance of author attribution, one blogger whose photos I really admire revealed that she spends hours or often days Photoshopping her food photos to get them perfect.

Wow.

I started this blog with a point-and-shoot camera set to full auto mode because I had no idea how to use it. I took a class and learned how to use the custom modes and I think my photography has improved quite a bit. In fact, I only got a "real" DSLR camera about 3 weeks ago. And the only thing I've ever retouched on my photos is the white balance because I often get stuck photographing dinner in real time under halogen kitchen lights, so things end up looking a little greenish.

So my photos will never look like hers because I can't devote that kind of time to perfecting them ... and I'm OK with that.

Second, another blogger posted a photo of his kitchen. It included giant lights mounted on tripods -- you know, the kind you see in professional photography studios. And they were a permanent part of his kitchen.

Wow.

I love my kitchen and most days I feel like I live in it. But that's kind of the point. I live in it and it's part of my home. It's not a photography studio, nor would I want it to be.

So my photos will never look like his because I want my house to remain primarily my home ... and I'm OK with that.

Third, another blogger addressed head-on the questions he often gets about "where do you find the time to cook and blog as much as you do?" In a nutshell, he spends every waking hour that he's not involved with his WFH day job and many hours into the night working on the blog, often getting no more than a couple hours of sleep each night.

Wow.

Color me decadent, but I consider spending time with my husband and sleeping to be pretty important parts of my day. And I'm not willing to give up either, especially for my current level of pay (read: $0).

So my blog will never be as fresh and current as his because I like to sleep ... and I'm OK with that.

In short, I realized that maybe I'm not committed or driven enough right now to enjoy the same level of success as the folks whose blogs I admire.

But I guess I'm OK with that.

The moral of this story? Have fun, take it light and enjoy the gratin.

Turkey and Bean Gratin with Kale
You could easily substitute spinach for the kale or leave it out altogether. Similarly, cooked ham, chicken, sausage or bacon could stand in for the turkey.

Ingredients:
Olive oil
1 large baking potato
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 can white beans
1/3 cup milk or low-fat half-and-half
3 ounces crumbled blue cheese
1 cup (or so) cooked turkey or chicken, chopped
1 1/2 cups chopped kale
salt and pepper

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Cook the potato in the microwave (or oven, if you prefer) until tender -- it usually takes about 8 minutes in my little microwave. Cool and peel, set aside.

In a small bowl, mix the breadcrumbs with a little olive oil and set aside.

Heat the oil in a medium-sized pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and rosemary and saute for about a minute. Add the kale and saute for about another 2 minutes, then add the potato, beans, milk and cheese.

Mash it all up until it reaches a consistency you like, then add the turkey. Heat though and season with salt and pepper.

Put the mash into a casserole dish and sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture evenly on the top. Bake for about 10 minutes or until bubbly and browned.

Thanksgiving menu

2011-11-22T09:31:00.001-05:00

Beauty shot from our recent trip to the Mount Washington Resort

It has been a little too crazy-busy this week to do a lot of food photography and, I'll admit, I'm not one of those bloggers that keeps posts in reserve for busy times. I write about what I'm cooking in the moment, if there's time.

And this week, there's not a lot of time.

But, since I'm excited about how our Thanksgiving meal is shaping up, I thought I'd just share the whole thing with you directly, in case you're still looking for ideas.

And you still might see some of these dishes show up in more detail next week.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Thanksgiving Day Menu

Appetizers / Antipasto
I like to do charcuterie or antipasto in the early afternoon, when everyone starts getting peckish
Charcuterie with Horseradish Cream
Giardiniera
Dinner
Deep-fried Turkey
Potato Casserole (courtesy of my sister-in-law)
Butternut Squash and Cornbread Stuffing Muffins
Nouveau "White-Trash" Green Bean Casserole (a real-ingredient take on the old standby)
Cranberry-Apple Congealed Salad (I'm making my own cranberry sauce to use in place of the canned called for in the recipe, as the canned is made with HFCS)
Desserts
Nutella Cookies
Salted Oatmeal Cookies
Eggnog Coffee Cake

Blueberry oatmeal muffins: a recipe

2011-11-18T08:53:00.001-05:00

Blueberry oatmeal muffins

After focusing my time on making lots of soups and desserts lately, I realized that I need to think a bit about breakfast again.

I'm back in a breakfast rut.

There are only so many ham-and-cheese mini paninis* that a person can eat in one week without crying uncle.

Uncle!

I found this recipe via Cooking Light (yes, I know, what a shock). I like it because it has quite a bit of oatmeal in it so I don't even have to use the cake-masquerading-as-breakfast ruse: this is actually designed for breakfast.

Sweet.

I dipped into my stash of frozen blueberries that I picked and put up in August, but any frozen berry would work here. Raspberries might be nice. Or even raisins.

Pulse the oats until they look like a coarse meal

Tossing the frozen berries with flour keeps the batter from turning bright blue

The batter should fill about 18-20 muffin cups

(* I put one slice of Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar and one slice of deli ham on one of those 100-calories thin buns and toast it in a panini press for about 3 minutes -- love it because it's portable!)

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins (adapted slightly from recipe by Jennifer Martinkus in Cooking Light)

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups quick-cooking oats
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk **
1/4 cup canola oil
zest of one small lemon
2 eggs
2 cups frozen blueberries
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Pulse oats in a food processor until they resemble coarse meal. Place in a large bowl. Add the flours and next 5 ingredients (through salt) to oats; stir well. Make a well in the center.

Combine buttermilk** and next 3 ingredients. Add to flour mixture; stir just until moist.

In a small bowl, toss berries with 2 tablespoons flour, then gently fold into batter. Spoon batter into paper-lined muffin cups; sprinkle 2 tablespoons granulated sugar evenly over batter. Bake for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Cool on a wire rack.

(** To make your own buttermilk for this recipe, just add 1 1/2 tablespoons of white vinegar to the milk and let stand for about 5 minutes.)

Scourtins: a recipe

2011-11-14T11:24:00.001-05:00

Scourtins

I've gotten hooked on the savory cocktail cookie this year. It's my hors d'oeuver of choice because, frankly, who doesn't like cookies?

And apparently I'm not only not alone in my new love but also late in coming to this particular party. Of course the French have been loving the savory-sweet combination for years. No where is this more evident than in scourtins, the traditional olive shortbread cookies from Northern France.

Yes, olives. In cookies. You have to trust me here.

I was first introduced to scourtins by my friend Cynthia, who thought that my wildly insane love of the salty-sweet flavor of salted oatmeal cookies (Best. Cookies. Ever.) might make me more than a little predisposed to enjoying the olivey-sugary scourtin goodness.

By golly, that Cynthia is a genius.

The recipe she sent me comes from a Brooklyn bakery called Ovenly. If you're in the neighborhood, let them know they've got a food blogger fan up here in Vermont.

I'm envisioning these cookies as perfect pre-Thanksgiving dinner nibbles for your guests to enjoy while sipping a nice chilled glass of white wine. Are you with me?

Vive le scourtin!

(I have really got to get my ass to France one of these days, don't you think?)

Scourtins (adapted from a recipe from Ovenly)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup black olives cured in oil (pitted and chopped)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
zest of one lemon

Directions:
Cream the butter using a mixer until it is light and fluffy. Add the sugar slowly and beat at medium speed until incorporated. Reduce speed to low, and add olive oil and lemon zest until combined. Still on low speed, add th flour and mix just until dough is smooth. Fold in the olives at lowest speed.

On a work surface, roll the dough into a log about two inches wide. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour (longer is fine).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice the dough log into rounds that are about 1/2 inch thick. You can put them fairly close together as they don't spread. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the golden. Cool completely on wire racks.

Creamy turnip soup: a recipe

2011-11-10T11:21:00.002-05:00

Creamy turnip soup

Regular readers here will know this is the time of year that I get a little soup crazy, given the onset of cool weather.

Although yesterday's 70 degrees was a bit confusing. Don't get me wrong, I'll take it, but it made it feel less like a soup day.

While menu-planning this week, I decided I want to add a new soup to the rotation, so I got my copy of The New York Times Cookbook (TNYTC) -- the old, Craig Claiborne one, not the new, Amanda Hesser one.

Funny story behind this one -- I bought the TNYTC in my early twenties as part of one of those 12-books-for-a-penny clubs. You remember those, like Columbia House was for music. Do those even exist anymore? Regardless, it seemed like a good value. But this is when I had no idea how to cook. Therefore, I was actually disappointed when I got the book because the recipes seemed way too complicated for someone who was just learning to master pan-frying a chicken breast.

So it sat on my bookshelf for years before I opened it again.

I'm starting to rediscover it and have already flagged a whole bunch of recipes that I'd like to try. I'm glad I held on to .

But now back to the soup.

I was intrigued by a recipe for turnip soup, as they are in season now and it seemed like an unusual choice for soup. Carrot? Sure. Squash? Please -- it's everywhere. Turnip? Nope, I've not seen that on a menu recently.

I modified Claiborne's recipe and the result was thrilling. Really. It was ridiculously easy and fast to prepare and the flavor is excellent: earthy and peppery while still creamy and filling.

Can't you just see this as a starter course for Thanksgiving?

Creamy Turnip Soup (adapted from Craig Claiborne's The New York Times Cookbook)

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups peeled and diced turnips (about 3 medium)
4 cups chicken stock
3/4 cup low-fat half-and-half
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon butter
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Bring the stock to a boil in a medium-sized pot. Add the turnips and cook until very fork-tender (about 8-10 minutes). Using an immersion blend, puree until smooth. Stir in the half-and-half and add salt and pepper to taste. Heat for a few more minutes, then remove from the heat and whisk in the egg yolk and butter. Serve immediately.

Making hard cider: part 2

2011-11-08T16:02:00.002-05:00

Racking the cider from bucket to carboy

After about ten days, our airlocks stopped bubbling, which means only one thing: time to rack!

"Um, WHAT?" you may be asking. Let me explain.

The lack of bubbling indicates that the fermentation process -- which we helped along in Step 1 by adding yeast and sugar -- has stopped. The cider has stopped being a "soft" sweet cider and is on its way to becoming hard cider. If you were to taste it at this point (I usually do), it's incredibly tart but also a bit boozy. Success!

Now the cider is ready to sit and clarify, so it will end up looking more like a clear hard cider than a cloudy soft apple cider. To start this process, the cider should be siphoned (racked) out of the existing bucket into a new, sanitized container, where it will sit for the next several weeks.

This is what it looks like when the cover comes off, after fermentation

Why the new container?

During the fermentation process, all sorts of yeasty, gloppy sediment ends up at the bottom of container. Clearly you don't want your lovely cider spending the next month co-mingling with this glop, so you must rack it (siphon it out) into a new, clean container and leave the glop behind.

Bottom-o'-the-bucket glop (I ran my finger through it to show the depth)

We rack our cider into five-gallon glass carboys (big glass jugs with skinny necks). You could use another food-grade bucket, but the carboys make it easier to see when the cider reaches its optimal clarity. (It's a pretty rewarding process because you can actually see all the yeast sediment and other particles falling down in the cider and settling to the bottom.)

One down, one to go!

Word to the wise here: buy an auto siphon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can siphon using the sucking method, but you run the risk of introducing bacteria into the mix which could wreck your cider. Bad. Or you can use the water-and-gravity siphoning method, which is what we did last year. We ended up arguing and getting water all over the floor. Very bad.

(Which is also why this year we did the racking in the bathroom!)

So one of the first improvements to our process I made this year was to buy an auto siphon. You simply attach food-grade plastic tubing to the siphon and put the other end in the container, give one or two pulls on the auto siphon and then sit back and watch it fill. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, my friends. No arguing involved -- unless it is over who gets to work the auto siphon.

Siphoning (yes, in the bathroom)

Speaking of which, one of the keys to good racking is to keep the the bottom of the siphon a few inches above the glop level at all times. This means that racking is easiest with two people. Thanks, Mr. Ninj.

Be sure to keep the auto siphon out of the glop (yep, still in the bathroom!)

Once you've filled your carboy, leaving a little headspace, insert a rubber stopper (bung) fitted with an airlock (just re-sanitize the one you used in the bucket) and place the carboy back in a warmish (60 - 75 degrees F) place to sit and clarify.

At least we've moved from bathroom to basement...

Again, prepare for more waiting, as the clarification usually takes about four more weeks.

But once the cider is clear and golden, it will time for bottling, so stay tuned for Step 3!

PS: As I mentioned in Step 1, if you're playing along at home, you can find a lot more detail about the specific methods discussed and the recipe via the Mother Earth News.

------------------------------------

Read the whole series:
Making hard cider, part 1
Making hard cider: part 2
Making hard cider: part 3

Apple Biscoff cookie bars: a recipe

2011-11-04T10:15:00.001-04:00

Apple Biscoff cookie bars

Why have I not made more cookie bars? WHY?

It's the perfect marriage of cake and cookie: it's like getting two treats in one.

Where has the cookie bar been all my life? WHERE?

I went trolling for an apple cake-ish kind of recipe the other day because I had a few Honeycrisp apples left. I didn't want them to go to waste, but they were a day or two past their crispiest point -- you know, the crispy point that makes you just want to eat it plain and not waste it by baking it.

And what goes better with apples, we all now know, than Biscoff spread? NOTHING.

Thank goodness the Internet Fates chose to throw an adaptable cookie bar recipe my way.

I doctored up a recipe that featured peanut butter and apples because I knew the Biscoff spread would just make it that much better (peanut butter is beginning to take a back seat in our house to Biscoff spread and Nutella -- how about yours?).

And I was right.

Just as an aside, I do find the Biscoff spread a little trickier to cook with than peanut butter. (Note: This does NOT mean I love it any less.) While it will melt down and become incorporated like peanut butter, it can quickly become stiff, unlike peanut butter.

So in this recipe, you'll need to not only work fast but also work a little harder than you might think to get the batter distributed evenly in the pan.

And, as you can see from the photos, initially the Biscoffy batter doesn't coat the apples very well, but once it begins to bake, it's smooth sailing.

So don't worry ... you will end up with chewy, Biscoffy, apple goodness that's part cake, part cookie.

Apple Biscoff Cookie Bars (adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod)

1 stick butter
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup Biscoff spread
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cored, peeled and diced apples (about 1 medium)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a pan, melt the butter and sugar, stirring constantly, over medium heat until smooth and combined. Remove from the heat, and stir in the Biscoff spread. Cool slightly.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.

Add the eggs, one at a time, to the sugar mixture, making sure to mix well, then stir in the vanilla. Add the wet mixture to the dry, and stir until smooth. Fold in the apples as best you can.

Pour the batter into a 9 x 13 pan, working the batter into the corners and to the edges of the pan. Bake for about 30 minutes. Put pan on wire rack to cool.

Once completely cooled, cut into bars.

Ginger dressing: a recipe

2011-11-01T14:38:00.000-04:00

Ginger dressing

I love sushi.

One of the best things about living in Southern California (when we did) was that there were at least eight bajillion good sushi restaurants within a two-block radius of wherever you were standing.

I'm nearly not kidding.

I miss sushi.

Up here in Vermont, it's a bit different, as you can well imagine. We've discovered one passable sushi place in downtown Burlington, but that's it. (If you can recommend another, please leave a comment below!)

Again, I miss sushi.

This also means that I don't get my fix of that ubiquitous yummy ginger salad dressing that every sushi restaurant serves on its side salad of iceberg lettuce and shredded carrots.

I found a similar bottled dressing a few years ago, but it's not quite the same -- a little too chunky. And I don't like being dependent on bottled dressing anyway, so I decided to explore making my own.

Of course, there are quite a few recipes for "famous Japanese restaurant-style ginger salad dressing" (go ahead, Google it for yourself, I'll wait). The one I chose to use as a baseline for my adaptation had an ingredient list that seemed to correspond pretty closely to the bottled version (without the additives), plus it called for blending, which I figured would eliminate the chunkiness.

Verdict (after a few tries)? A big hit!

Just the right blend of sweet and tangy with no chunks. It is especially good on a simple spinach salad. And I'd be willing to bet it would make a great marinade for grilled chicken, too.

Now I just need to find some good sushi to go with it.

Ginger Salad Dressing (adapted from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 heaping tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons celery, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2-3 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth.

Drying herbs: two techniques

2011-10-28T14:03:00.001-04:00

Sage, rosemary and thyme, dried in a food dehydrator

It's comin' for us.

Winter, that is. In fact, parts of our lovely state of Vermont already have some snow.

This means that it's time to call the garden done and get it prepped for a long winter's nap.

I don't have much left in garden, veg-wise, but I do have a crapload of herbs, so this week I harvested what was left and set about drying them for use over the cold winter months.

I have dried herbs using two different techniques, one fast and one slow, so I'm going to share both of them with you. Both are simple and will leave you with dried herbs that are much more flavorful than any you can buy.

Method 1: Dehydrator Drying

This is the fast method, but it does require that you own a food dehydrator. (If you don't own one yet, I'd strongly urge you to petition Santa for one this year.)

1. Rinse herbs in cool water; spread on paper or cloth towels to dry overnight.

2. Remove leaves from woody stems, where possible (e.g., sage and rosemary; leave thyme on the stem or you will drive yourself insane).

3. Lay herbs on drying trays, leaving some room for air circulation.

4. Dry in the dehydrator, set to 95 degrees F, for at least 4-5 hours or until fully dried. The length of time will depend on the type and size of the leaves (e.g., sage leaves take much longer than thyme sprigs).

5. Store in an airtight container, away from sunlight and heat. (Note: photo at top of page shows herbs dried using this method).

That's it for the short way. Now for the long way...

Method 2: Air Drying

No special equipment required here, just some rubber bands, a pair of wire cutters or metal snips and a wire hanger.

1. Rinse herbs in cool water, spread on paper or cloth towels to dry.

2. Gather like herbs into small bundles. Secure the bundle at the stem end with a rubber band (in a pinch, I've used clean hair elastics); set aside.

3. Using wire cutters, snip the long horizontal piece of a wire hanger in half in the middle.

4. Thread one or two herb bundles onto each side of the hanger by sliding the cut end through the stems just underneath the rubber band.

5. Twist the two cut ends of the hanger together to prevent the bundles from sliding off.

6. Hang in a cool, dark and dry place for at least 1-2 months or until fully dried.

Oregano, air-dried for 3 months (but not in front of this window!!)

7. Remove leaves from stems if desired and store herbs in an airtight container, away from sunlight and heat.

Either method will yield lovely aromatic herbs that you can use in recipes, potpourri, sachets, etc.

Apricot-tarragon cocktail cookies: a recipe

2011-10-26T08:05:00.001-04:00

Apricot-tarragon cocktail cookies

I love a nice cocktail, don't you?

We are famous (notorious?) for our evening cocktail hour, a la 1954, here at Chez Ninj. Corny, but it's a very relaxing way to end the day, like setting an appointment to sit down together and talk. But with cocktails, so it's extra festive and not at all therapy-ish.

I'm currently a ridiculously huge fan of the simple, perfect vodka gimlet, probably as much for it's beautiful celery color as anything. (I swear, one of these days I'm going to carry one, in a martini glass, into the Benjamin Moore paint store and see if they can color match it.)

So, given Cocktail Hour, I'm always looking for good recipes for accompanying nibbles. Nothing sweet, just a little salty-cheesy somethin'-somethin' -- you know what I mean.

Therefore, you probably heard me screaming in delight recently when I opened the November issue of Food and Wine and saw that the incomparable Dorie Greenspan (insert reverential bow) had seemingly answered my prayers.

Move over, crackers and cheese ...

Get out of town, spicy nut mix ....

Cocktail cookies have arrived.

I honed in immediately on the Apricot-Tarragon cookies: they looked so light and flaky, with beautiful flecks of green and orange. I just had to make them.

Result? Huge thumbs up from Mr. Ninj; "wicked awesome" even. (See? He's starting to fit right in up here in New England!)

I made mine with a heart-shaped cookie cutter to illustrate my undying love for Dorie. No, seriously, for some reason I do not own a circular cookie cutter and the heart was the closest I could find. I thought it more elegant and worthy of Cocktail Hour than, say, the ghost or the christmas tree cutters.

They're pure cookie love.

So break out that cocktail shaker and whip up some cocktail cookies. You look more like Don and Betty Draper already, I swear.

Apricot-Tarragon Cocktail Cookies from Dorie Greenspan
(Note: I'm including the full, word-for-word recipe here because there seemed to be some issue with the text of the recipe on the Food and Wine site)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup dried Turkish apricots, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped tarragon leaves
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg yolk
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:
In a small bowl, cover the apricots with hot water and let stand for 10 minutes, until they are plump. Transfer the apricots to paper towels to drain.

In another small bowl, rub the tarragon leaves into the sugar until they are moist and aromatic. In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter with the tarragon sugar at low speed until creamy. Beat in the egg yolk until just combined, about 1 minute. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil and beat until smooth. Add the salt and flour and beat until just incorporated. Using a large spatula, fold in the apricots.

Turn the cookie dough out onto a work surface and knead until it just comes together. Divide the dough in half and press each half into a disk. Roll out each disk between 2 sheets of wax paper to about 1/4 inch thick. Slide the wax paper–covered disks onto a baking sheet and freeze for at least 1 hour, until very firm.

Preheat the oven to 350° and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Working with one piece of cookie dough at a time, peel off the top sheet of wax paper. Using a 1 1/2-inch round cookie cutter, stamp out the cookies as close together as possible. Arrange the cookies 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake the cookies for about 20 minutes, until they are lightly golden; shift the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 3 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Making hard cider: part 1

2011-10-24T08:47:00.001-04:00

The result of last year's hard cider-making adventure

One of the things I really wanted to try my hand at as soon as I returned to New England last year was hard cider.

I love cider: the drier, the better (if you ever see a bottle of Farnham Hill Extra Dry, buy it immediately!). If it's on the menu in a pub or restaurant, it's my drink of choice.

I've been happy to observe that I'm not alone. Artisanal cider-making is growing in popularity, at least as evidenced by the number of articles about it that keeping popping up in the foodie publications.

So, armed with a love of cider but almost no knowledge, Mr. Ninj and I made cider last year.

And you know what? It was awesome. Wicked awesome, in fact.

I relied almost exclusively on a how-to article from the Mother Earth News and the advice of Vermont Homebrew Supply, the owners of which very patiently answered all my newbie questions as I took copious notes.

Given how successful and delicious our experiment was last year with five gallons of cider, we decided to double it this year, and I'm going to chronicle our efforts here so you might try to make some, too.

Welcome to Ninja Cider-Making, part 1.

We took our sanitized buckets to Chapin Orchard in Essex, Vermont, to procure some freshly pressed cider. We are fortunate in that Chapin does a special cider crush every year especially for those who like to make their own hard cider over the winter.

Apples are fed into the hopper from outside and then make their way to the press

Mr. Ninj fills our buckets with cider just pressed in the press directly underneath

Each year, the blend of apples used is a bit different. Here's the breakdown of what we got in our juice this year:

The apples used in this year's crush

Once we got home, we let the icy-cold juice come to room temperature by leaving the sealed buckets in the kitchen overnight. In the morning, I removed about a gallon of juice from each bucket, warmed it in two pots (one for each bucket) on the stove and dissolved a two-pound box of turbinado sugar in each pot. You can use a variety of kinds of sugar, or even honey, but whatever you choose will make the cider a bit sweeter while simultaneously helping the fermentation process along and increasing the alcohol content.

Adding the sugar to the cider

After returning the sugar-cider mixture to the buckets, I then added the yeast. This is the key ingredient, as it causes the fermentation process which turns sweet cider into hard cider. I added a champagne yeast normally used in wine making (this came recommended). I dissolved one 5-gram packet in about 2 ounces of cold water and added it to the first bucket, then repeated the process for the second bucket.

Yeast, dissolved in water (left) and yeast, undissolved (right)

After a quick stir, I re-sealed the buckets and added the airlocks. Airlocks are a gadget that allows the gas from fermentation to escape while also keeping out things like fruit flies (the enemy) and airborne debris, which could spoil the sweet cider. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to end up with 10 gallons of cider vinegar instead of hooch!

Buckets with airlocks installed (supervised by the Ninjette)

The buckets must be kept at a temperature of about 70 degrees F to ensure proper fermentation. The kitchen is an ideal place to keep them. Now we wait for fermentation to start ... and then finish.

Last year, fermentation took about three weeks, so be patient in looking for Part 2!

--------------------------

Read the whole series:
Making hard cider, part 1
Making hard cider, part 2
Making hard cider, part 3

Beer-and-cheddar soup: a recipe

2011-10-21T09:54:00.001-04:00

Beer-and-cheddar soup

One of the things I love about fall and the weather turning cooler is that soup is back in the recipe rotation.

Not that I don't enjoy summer soups, such as gazapacho or fresh tomato bisque, but the hot-and-hearty soups of fall and winter are pure comfort food.

And speaking of pure comfort, howzabout a beer-and-cheddar soup?

Beer-and-cheese soup recipes probably fall into the same category as homemade pasta sauce: every family has one and each thinks its is the best. So I'm not claiming this is the best-ever, ultimate, cheesiest or what have you: it's just the one that came across my path via the November issue of Food and Wine magazine.

But I had to modify it a bit, just to be able to live with myself.

I admit, I love cheese. And bacon. And cream. And beer. But when a recipe calls for all of those, in large quantities, together in one dish, I get a little scared. It's the Cooking Light devotee in me, I guess; I'd rather not be responsible for serving a stroke-on-a-plate (or in this case, in a bowl) to my family.

Don't be too alarmed, though. My version is still not all that healthy, it's just a wee bit less un-healthy. Still full of bacon, cheese and beery-creamy goodness, just a wee bit less.

Yes, I buy beer based on the label

I don't think you'll miss the excess. Mr. Ninj certainly didn't.

So if you want the full-fat, artery-clogging version, stick to the original recipe (from Jonathon Erdeljac's restaurant Jonathon's Oak Cliff in Dallas). If you'd like to only clog your arteries a little bit today and still enjoy a hearty, flavorful soup, enjoy The Ninj's version below.

Beer-and-Cheddar Soup (adapted from Jonathon Erdeljac and Food and Wine)

Ingredients:
4 oz. bacon, diced
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
12 oz. lager
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup half-and-half
4 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated
4 oz. smoked cheddar cheese, grated (I used a maple-smoked cheddar, which was even better!)
Salt and pepper

Directions:
In a soup pot or dutch oven, cook bacon over medium heat until just crisp. Using a slotted spoon, remove the cooked bacon and set aside. To the same pan (with the bacon drippings), add the celery, onion, jalapeño, garlic and thyme and cook over medium heat until vegetables are softened (about 8 minutes). Add half of the beer and cook until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add the broth and bring to a simmer.

In a small skillet or saucepan, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Whisk the flour mixture into the soup and bring to a simmer. Cook until thickened, about 8 minutes. Add the half and half, cheeses and the rest of the beer and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick and creamy, about 5 minutes. Stir in the bacon and season to taste with salt and pepper.

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: chard and a recipe

2011-10-19T08:38:00.000-04:00

Rainbow chard

This was what my happy chard looked like just before the deer attack.

If you're looking for a fantastic recipe for chard, which is also an easy and elegant one-pot dish, I'd urge you to try Melissa Perello's Chicken Baked on a Bed of Bread and Swiss Chard from Food and Wine magazine.

Tip: Use only about 1/2 to 3/4 of the chard called for and four or five drumstick-and-thigh chicken legs.

What's your favorite way to cook chard?

Chicken jerky: a recipe

2011-10-18T09:34:00.000-04:00

Chicken jerky

I already know that this won't be one of my more popular posts, but hey, I'm in charge here and I love jerky.

At least, I love homemade jerky. Do not call Slim Jims or that other crap that they sell at gas stations or the packy "jerky" -- bleeeeccckkk.

Jerky is nothing more than dried meat and spices, so if you like meat and have never tried it because you thought jerky = Slim Jim, I urge you to reconsider.

Jerky is a great snack to have on hand when you want something a little salty, and the portability makes it ideal for hikes, lunch boxes, road trips, etc.

Not to mention that jerky is an incredibly high-value dog treat -- the Ninjette will pretty much do any kind of trick you ask and never take her eyes from mine when I'm holding even the tiniest bit of this jerky.

I make my jerky in a dehydrator, but you could make this by drying the meat on cookie sheets in a low (200 degree) oven as well. The beauty of the dehydrator is that it uses very little electricity, so it's a more efficient way of making jerky than leaving your oven on all day.

Additionally, you can make a lot more than jerky with your dehydrator: veggie chips, dried fruit, sundried tomatoes and fruit roll-ups, just to name a few.

Moreover, if you're short on counter space in your kitchen, you can put the dehydrator in any room in which you have an electrical outlet and don't mind the fragrance of whatever you're drying. I used to run mine in the guest bathroom with the exhaust fan turned on.

(Can you tell yet that I'm a big fan of the dehydrator?)

I just helped a friend do a little dehydrator research. If you'd like to get started, you don't have to invest in a large-capacity dehydrator; reliable models can be purchased for around $50 (minus 20 percent, if you use those ubiquitous Bed Bath and Beyond coupons!).

A couple of other jerky tips, based on my experience:

Popping the meat into the freezer for about 15 minutes beforehand makes the meat much easier to slice thinly
The thinner you slice the meat, the less time it takes to dry
A ceramic knife is the absolute best tool for getting the thinnest possible slices
Place a new plastic trash bag on the counter before placing the drippy strips on the trays -- it will make your clean up that much easier
I store my jerky in large canning jars or ziplock bags in the pantry -- if you're paranoid about spoilage, though, feel free to store it in the refrigerator, for extra peace of mind

Marinating the chicken strips


Arranging the strips on the dehydrator trays

Jerky!

Store in an air-tight container or bag

Let me know by posting a comment below if you'd like some other jerky recipes for beef, turkey, venison -- even fish!

Chicken Jerky (adapted from Preserve It Naturally: The Complete Guide to Food Dehydration)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast tenders, sliced into strips about 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch thick
1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients except the chicken in a gallon-sized ziplock bag. Add the chicken strips, seal the bag and ensure that all the meat gets coated with marinade. Place bag in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.

Place the meat strips on dehydrator trays. Dry at 145 degrees for 5-7 hours or until completely dry (length of drying time depends on thickness of strips).

Biscoff cake: a recipe

2011-10-14T09:43:00.000-04:00

Biscoff cake

In case you haven't been able to hear me screaming with joy about it here in Vermont, Biscoff cookies are now available in a spread.

Nutella, you may have just met your match.

I love these cookies. Seriously love. Before they were readily available in grocery stores in the United States, I used to try purposely to book my flights on Delta Airlines because it meant I could get two little Biscoffs with my cup of water.

And I'm not alone in my obsession. I have a friend and former co-worker who, on a flight we shared from Seattle back to North Carolina, went out of her way to befriend the flight attendant solely for the purpose of scoring extra Biscoff.

I think she may have broken some kind of world record for Biscoff Snarfed in One Sitting.

If you've never tasted them before (and my heart breaks for you, really, it does), they have a unique vanilla cinnamon sugar kind of thing going on, with just a hint of spice to keep it interesting. So now imagine that in a spread that is the consistency of peanut butter.

Those Belgians, they are freakin' geniuses.

Since I was alerted to its existence by The Dweller, we've already had Biscoff toast for breakfast (amazing!), which I think could have been made even better if we'd slowed down enough to slice some nice apples to layer on it, but hey, it was all I could do to get Mr. Ninj to put it on toast, rather than just stand in front of the pantry, eating it out of the jar.

All hail the Biscoffy goodness!

Yesterday I realized I had the perfect vehicle for the spread: a favorite recipe for peanut butter bread that I adapted from What Julia Ate a few years ago.

Oh.
My.
God.

The cake did not disappoint. It doesn't overwhelm you with Biscoffiness, which makes it ideal as a breakfast or late afternoon coffee cake. Mine looks a little weird because I made it in a round cake pan, as my square pan was already occupied. I'd recommend sticking with a square pan.

What other things do you think we could create with all this readily available Biscoffy goodness?

Biscoff Bread (a Ninja original)
Best baked in an 8- or 9-inch square pan

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup milk
2 eggs
3/4 - 1 cup Biscoff spread

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, whisk together the first four (dry) ingredients. In another bowl, combine the milk, eggs and applesauce. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine, then fold in the Biscoff spread.

Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Baked apple, smoked turkey and cheddar strata: a recipe

2011-10-12T09:29:00.003-04:00

Foliage, not strata

We've been through this before, but some dishes simply don't photograph well.

Just in case you were wondering why there's a picture of some lovely fall foliage rather than some strata.

I tried, really I did. I even bought a cool new blue plate to add a pop of color. But three shades of beige are just three shades of beige -- albeit on a cool blue plate.

So you get foliage instead: colorful rather than colorless.

However, don't discount the strata itself. I decided to make it last Monday, as a tip o' the hat to Canadian Thanksgiving, and it didn't disappoint. Fall flavors wrapped up in baked custardy goodness: perfect for either dinner or brunch.

I'm happy to report also that it comes from Melissa Pasanen's and Rick Gencarelli's Cooking with Shelburne Farms, so it's a recipe right from my neck of the woods. As regular readers know, I'm lucky enough to have recently moved to Vermont, which is handily helping me fulfill my goals of eating locally daily.

Shelburne Farms is (and I quote) a "nonprofit environmental education center, 1,400-acre working farm, and National Historic Landmark on the shores of Lake Champlain" whose "mission is to cultivate a conservation ethic for a sustainable future." It is located on the original estate of William Seward and Lila Vanderbilt Seward and is a fun, interesting place to visit, especially with children (it is also the place where I got a chance to milk a goat, so I'm a big fan).

I was excited to pick up a copy of the cookbook, which is segmented by season, so, of course, the fall strata drew me in.


More foliage, still no strata (and I need a better camera to capture these colors)

The recipe below is for half the amount of the original recipe; you could easily double mine, bake it in a 9 x 13 casserole and have enough for a big brunch crowd. You could also try substituting ham or sausage for the smoked turkey. At least it would add one more color.

And, just so you believe me, here it is:

Just focus on the lovely plate

Don't hold it against the strata.

Baked Apple, Smoked Turkey and Cheddar Strata (adapted from Melissa Pasanen's and Rick Gencarelli's Cooking with Shelburne Farms)

Ingredients
1/3 - 1/2 lb country-style bread, hard crust removed, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 large shallots, thinly sliced
1/2 pound smoked turkey, cubed
2 eggs
2 cups low-fat half-and-half
kosher salt and pepper
2 medium apples, peeled, cored and diced
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Toast the bread cubes on a baking sheet in the oven for about 10 minutes; set aside. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook shallots until softened (about 3-4 minutes). Add turkey to the pan, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned (about 5 minutes).

In a small bowl, whisk together the half-and-half, eggs, salt and pepper (to taste).

To a prepared baking dish, add half the shallot mixture, half the apples and half the cheese; combine to make one layer. Place all the bread on top, then add the remaining shallot mixture and apples. Pour the egg mixture on top and push the bread down into the liquid until all is saturated. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.

Bake for about 45 minutes or until the top is golden and the custard is set. Let stand a few minutes before serving.

Salted lemon muffins: a recipe

2011-10-10T12:28:00.000-04:00

Salted lemon muffin

I blame the salted oatmeal cookies.

Ever since they came into my life, I've been obsessed with finding other mouth-watering salty-sweet combinations.

This time, I forced it.

When I saw "lemon salt lemon cupcakes" as a link in my RSS feed, I jumped on it. It was a post from Helene at her lovely lovely lovely blog, Tartelette (I aspire to taking such amazing yet simple photographs -- someday, when I've graduated from point-and-shoot, I think).

Helene's cupcakes look delightful, with a beautifully light buttercream frosting and just a hint of salt. But, you know me, if there's frosting on it, I can't call it "breakfast" without guilt, so I decided to morph the cupcakes into muffins.

Result? I thought they were perfect -- Mr. Ninj, not so much. He thought I was a bit heavy-handed with the salt on top but I guess it depends on how much of a salt whore you are.

If you ensure that each bite includes a little of the salted top and a lot of the lemony, airy muffin and you love salty-sweet, I think you'll be on my side.

Salted Lemon Muffins (barely adapted from Helene Dujardin of Tartelette)

Note: If you don't want to continue my breakfast scam, be sure to check out Helene's full recipe, which includes instructions for a buttercream frosting.

Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
zest and juice of one lemon
kosher or sea salt for sprinkling

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well in between each addition.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture and milk alternatively to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Add the zest and lemon juice; beat until smooth.

Fill cupcake tins about 3/4 full and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt or sea salt. Bake for 20 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Slow-cooker leek, potato and spinach soup: a recipe

2011-10-07T12:25:00.001-04:00

Potato-leek soup with spinach

We had our first major frost the other night: it went down to about 23 degrees.

Dag. That's cold.

I dressed the remains of my garden in some little blankies and they did just fine. I'd like to be able to harvest at least a few of the radishes and turnips that I planted last month before I have to say good-bye for the winter.

But the turn in the weather means that I have stopped thinking about tomatoes in favor of butternut squash. Fall things. Warm things. Casseroles and soups, for instance.

In other words: it's slow cooker season.

I love the set-it-and-forget-it nature of the slow cooker. This past weekend, we had houseguests and wanted to spend Sunday touring the area and visiting a local museum. So I put all the fixings of a chicken pot pie (of a sort) into the crockpot before we left and when we got home later, dinner was waiting.

Not to mention that the house smelled awesome.

And if slow cooker meals are easy, slow cooker soup is nearly effortless.

This spin on the class vichyssoise involves a little vegetable chopping in the morning, a whole bunch of doing nothing and then some immersion blending at the end: that's it.

I served it with simple prosciutto and cheddar paninis (this is my latest obsession, ever since I got a Cuisinart Griddler sandwich press; be prepared for the panini recipe onslaught).

So dust off that crockpot: winter's coming.

Slow-Cooker Potato-Leek Soup with Spinach (adapted from Beth Hensperger's and Julie Kaufmann's Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook)

Ingredients
4 cups thinly sliced leeks, white and very light green part only (3-4 leeks)
4 medium-sized russet / baking potatoes, peeled and diced
5-6 cups water or vegetable or chicken broth
2 cups packed baby spinach
2/3 cup half-and-halfsalt to taste (at least several teaspoons)

Directions
Put the leeks and potatoes in the slow cooker. Add enough liquid to just cover them (I used a full 6 cups). Cover and cook on low until the potatoes are tender, about 6 hours.

ONE HOUR before the soup is done, add the spinach to the crock and re-cover. When done, puree the soup using an immersion blender, then stir in the half-and-half. Season to taste with salt.

Pumpkin soup with Gruyere: a recipe

2011-09-30T09:45:00.001-04:00

Pumpkin soup with Gruyere

I love cooking from magazines but sometimes their ingredient lists send me on a bit of a wild goose chase.

Enter this pumpkin soup recipe from the October issue of Bon Appetit.

The soup is cooked in the pumpkin itself so the authors advise choosing a variety of pumpkin that will hold up well in the oven. Think about what a colossal mess you'd have if the pumpkin caved in on itself with all that liquid inside it. Yipes. So yes, great advice.

However, their recommendations for sturdy varieties include "Cheese" or "Jarrahdale."

Um ... say WHAT?

Now, granted, I live in the sticks so you'd expect I personally might not be as familiar with these varieties as our cosmopolitan recipe authors, but I do live in one of the locavore capitals of the United States and a place where heirloom varieties of anything can be pretty easily found at farmers markets, farm stands and even grocery stores.

So, undaunted, I headed off to a very large local farm stand, knowing that they supply not only local home cooks but also a lot of the high-end area restaurants and natural markets. Surely they'd have every kind of hip pumpkin that exists, right?

The owner had never even heard of these varieties. Great.

His advice was to use pie pumpkins. So I bought some, as a backup, in case I couldn't find a Mr. Cheesedale or whatever the hell the recipe called for.

To make a long story short, I drove around the Burlington area, stopping everywhere I could think of, and probably burned about $15 worth of gas but I finally found a freakin' LONG ISLAND CHEESE PUMPKIN (yeah, whatever) at the Healthy Living Market (thank you). They had four. I bought two.

Behold: the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin. Which isn't even orange.

Now, after making this soup, I'm slightly annoyed to tell you that I think a regular pumpkin would work JUST FINE. I'm basing this on the fact that the Holy Grail of Pumpkin Recipes called for normal pumpkin and held up under similar extreme oven roasting.

I tell you this because this soup is definitely worth making. It makes a great meal when you have guests, because you prep it, fill it and then forget about it for at least an hour and a half, leaving you free to be part of the party.

It's pretty cool-looking, too. The cheese and breadcrumb mixture puffs up and forms a nice cheesy cap. When you break through it with a serving spoon, you can scoop up the tender pumpkin flesh, along with the yummy broth and the cheesy goodness, all in one spoonful.

It's not quite the Holy Grail of Pumpkin Recipes, but it's a close second.

By the way, those pie pumpkins will make cute little decorations for my front steps.

Pumpkin Soup with Gruyere (slightly adapted from Melissa Hamilton's and Christopher Hirsheimer's recipe from Bon Appetit

Ingredients
1 (6–8 pound) regular old sturdy pumpkin
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, finely ground (use a spice grinder or mortar-and-pestle)
2 large pinches chili powder
salt and pepper
2 cups (packed) grated Gruyère
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs made from white bread (I put a day-old baguette, minus the crust, in a mini food processor)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 bay leaves
5–7 cups chicken stock (I used not quite 5 for a 6-pound pumpkin)
Parsley or chives for garnish (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut out a lid from the top of the pumpkin (like a jack-o-lantern), removing seeds. Scoop out seeds and strings from inside pumpkin.

Place pumpkin in a roasting pan or on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Rub interior pumpkin flesh with butter. Sprinkle all over inside with fennel, chili powder and some salt and pepper. Add cheese, breadcrumbs, garlic, and bay leaves. Pour in stock to come within 2 inches of the pumpkin's rim. Cover with lid.

Roast pumpkin for 1 hour. Remove lid; put lid flesh side up on pan alongside pumpkin and return to oven (if you don't plan to use it for serving, you can toss it at this point). Continue to roast until pumpkin flesh is soft when pricked with a knife or toothpick (BE SURE not to puncture the skin!), 30-90 minutes more, depending on size of pumpkin (note: I only needed an additional 30 minutes for a 6-pound pumpkin).

Discard bay leaves. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. To serve, gently scoop a big spoonful of flesh from sides or bottom of pumpkin into each bowl and ladle stock over. You can mash it up slightly, if you like. Garnish with parsley or chives (optional).

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: pear chutney recipe

2011-09-28T08:59:00.001-04:00

The original recipe uses this as a base for a bruschetta with blue cheese, pecans and herbs (which was awesome!) but it was so good solo that I'd recommend using as an accompaniment to roast pork or chicken, too.

Pear Chutney (from Cooking Light)

2 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
1 1/2 cups finely chopped peeled pear (about 2)
1/2 cup pear nectar
1/4 cup finely chopped dried apricots
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick

Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallots, and sauté for 2 minutes or until soft. Add pear and the remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; cook 20 minutes or until pear is tender and mixture is thick. Cool to room temperature. Discard cinnamon stick.

Apple-pear crumble: a recipe

2011-09-26T12:34:00.001-04:00

Apple-pear crumble

So I know I promised to have a bit more of a savory focus this week: apparently I lied.

But, come on, can you blame me? It's apple season and somehow I think you'd rather hear about a crumble than a pork loin.

At least, you only seem to comment on dessert posts.

I like this recipe (from The Joy of Baking) because it uses both pears and apples because I'd be hard-pressed to choose between the two if it was a one-fruit-only crumble. In fact, the original recipe calls for cranberries as well, making it a three-fruit crumble, but that just seemed like one fruit too many to me.

I have made this crumble several times now -- the second time necessitated by the fact that I forgot to take a photo of it the first time around and I really wanted to share it with you on this blog.

(Really, who could possibly object to a eating a yummy crumble twice? Not Mr. Ninj, I can assure you.)

The third time it just wound up being just an apple crumble because the vermin deer polished off all the delicious pears. (Another reminder that hunting season starts next week: yippee!)

Here's a tip, too: when recipes call for combining dry ingredients with chilled butter to make a crumbly topping, I urge you to use your hands. Pastry blenders just seem to make it more difficult than it should be. And the suggestion of using a fork or two knives? Perhaps if you have seven hours to kill but otherwise a fool's errand.

Git yer hands down in there and just squish squish squish away until it is all combined and buttery-crumbly. Besides, it's an excellent forearm workout.

Apple-Pear Crumble (adapted slightly from The Joy of Baking)
This recipe lends itself well to halving.

Ingredients

For the crumble topping:
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

For the fruit filling:
3-4 tablespoons light brown sugar (4 if your apples are on the tart side, 3 if they are sweeter)
1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 pounds apple, peeled, cored and cut into small chunks or thin slices
1 1/2 pounds ripe pears, peeled, cored and cut into small chunks or slices

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place all the topping ingredients into a large bowl and, using your hands, blend them together until the mixture is integrated and crumbly, with no clumps larger than the size of peas.

In another large bowl combine the sugar and cornstarch. Add the apples and pears and toss them in the sugar mixture. Transfer the fruit mixture to a prepared baking dish (about 2 to 2 1/2 quarts). Top with the crumble mixture.

Bake for approximately 40 to 45 minutes or until bubbly and the topping is golden brown and crisp. Cool at least 20 minutes before serving.

Bittersweet chocolate cookies: a recipe

2011-09-23T10:05:00.000-04:00

Bittersweet chocolate cookies: leaves, not trees

Another dessert recipe.

Is it too much for you?

I swear, I have made a whole bunch of other things to eat this week. We do not subsist solely on brownies and cookies.

I asked my Facebook followers to help me decide if I should make the Nutella cheesecake brownies or these chocolate cookies. They overwhelmingly voted for the brownies, but I felt I had to be fair to the cookies.

Especially since I just got these cute harvest-themed cookie cutters: pumpkins, turkeys and leaves.

The shapes seemed pretty obvious to me. However, we had a couple of plumbers in our house the day I made these and they thought they were balloons, chickens and christmas trees, respectively.

Right. Because nothing says "Happy Fall!" quite like chickens and balloons.

Next week I will get back into main-dish territory, but for now, enjoy these yummy chicken cookies.

Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies from Cooking Light

The original recipe calls for adding icing highlights to the cookies. I couldn't be bothered but if you're so inclined, follow the above link for the icing ingredients and instructions.

Additionally, recipes such as this one which call for rolling the dough out to a uniform size are the reason why I got the Joseph Joseph adjustable rolling pin that you see in the above photo. You just screw on the appropriately sized guides on either end and -- voila! -- perfect depth all the way around. Easy peasy!

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup unsweetened dark cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

Place the sugar, butter and oil in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and egg; beat until well blended.

Whisk together flours, cocoa, and salt. Add the flour mixture to sugar mixture; beat at low speed just until flour is incorporated.

Place half of dough between two sheets of plastic wrap; roll to a 1/4-inch thickness. Repeat procedure with remaining dough. Place dough (still wrapped in plastic wrap) on a baking sheet. Chill 45 minutes or until firm.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Working with one half of the dough, use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Bake cookies one sheet at a time on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (keep remaining cookies chilled). Bake at 375° for 9-10 minutes or until set. Cool on pan 5 minutes, then remove cookies and finish cooling on a wire rack. Repeat with remaining dough.

(This made about 3 dozen cookies for me, using 3-inch cookie cutters)

Nutella cheesecake brownies: a recipe

2011-09-19T09:28:00.001-04:00

Nutella cheesecake brownies

As is evident just by the name, these brownies were wicked awesome.

But this is less a post about the recipe itself than it is about how I found it. Behold, the power of the internet.

I know, I know, this is not news.

I'm fully aware that my food blog is one of about 8 gazillion others out there, with all of us hoping that something may come from it but odds being that nothing ever will, other than our having a good time cooking, writing about it and meeting other folks who like to do the same.

The twist here is that I did not find this recipe via the usual round of link-to's from other food blogs. I found it on a relatively new site called Pinterest (thanks to Kim Chang for introducing me).

The concept behind Pinterest is fun and a technique that most designers use: create inspiration / idea boards on which you can "pin" pictures from web sites that really get you jazzed. For instance, I'm going to create a board for light fixture ideas for our recently remodeled kitchen. And I've already created boards for food / recipes and DIY crafts and projects.

Here's the cool part, the part that makes it really webbish. You can see what the other Pinterest members are pinning and, if you see something you like, you can re-pin it to one of your own boards. And if you really find someone whose taste is similar or whose pins inspire you, you can "follow" them.

Creative community-building. I like it.

[So, Ninj, you may be asking, what the hell does this have to with brownies?]

I found this recipe via Pinterest, because another member posted a photo of it. Believe me, I don't think there's any other way I would have found my way to the cooking blog of a 15-year-old girl from New Jersey.

So go ahead and check out Pinterest; you never know where you'll end up. If you join, go ahead and follow the Ninj -- I'd love to see your food pins.

And thanks to Erika Rojek for the great brownie recipe!

Recipe link: Nutella Cheesecake Brownies from The Teenage Taste

Blueberry oatmeal cookies: a recipe

2011-09-16T09:39:00.000-04:00

Blueberry oatmeal cookies

Blueberry oatmeal cookies were not what I had planned.

Earlier in the week, I made a really yummy and easy apple and pear crumble -- so perfect for a Friday fall blog post. I even remembered to take some good prep shots, which I often forget to do.

I made it just after dinner, so there was insufficient natural light in my kitchen to photograph the final product. If I try to photograph food after sundown, it turns out looking like something you wouldn't want to see in the garbage, let alone eat, so I usually shoot post-sundown creations the next morning.

So we enjoyed half of it for dessert.

And then the other half for breakfast.

And only then did I realize I forgot the photo. Crap.

Very helpfully (and hungrily), Mr. Ninj suggested I simply make more, but by then the deer had finished off all the pears in the wee orchard (damned vermin -- be warned, hunting season begins in a mere two weeks and I've got big plans for venison jerky).

So, rather than leave you hanging on a Friday, because I know that you simply depend on these posts to learn what you should make over the weekend (insert snorting laugh here), I whipped up some lagniappe for you: chewy blueberry oatmeal cookies from Dinner with Julie.

She describes them as more like blueberry muffin tops than cookies, and I'd have to agree. I made a couple of slight modifications from her original recipe which will help hold the cookies together better, if you use frozen blueberries, as I did (after all the blueberry picking in August, we've got a ton in the freezer -- yay!).

And you can totally scam eating these for breakfast, what with the fruit and the oats.

The same holds true for the crumble. Sorry I don't have a picture to prove it.

Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies (slightly adapted from Dinner with Julie)

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2/3 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Beat the butter, oil and brown sugar until creamy, then beat in the egg ad vanilla.

Add the flour, oats, baking soda and salt and mix until combined; fold in the blueberries. Drop large spoonfuls on a baking sheet and bake for about 15-20 minutes, until set around the edges but still soft in the middle.

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: Put 'Em Up

2011-09-14T08:50:00.002-04:00

I received this Major Award in the mail yesterday; I can't wait to start making some of the great recipes.

I think I'll start with Cucumber Aqua Fresca...

What we ate last week: some recipes and some community love

2011-09-12T15:14:00.000-04:00

To be honest, I sometimes post these "retrospective" entries either when I've dropped the ball and not posted in a while, due to general busy-ness, or (more often) when all my recipe photos turn out like crap.

Not this time. Well, sort of, since most of my photos did turn out like crap this week.

But I thought it was a great reflection of the power of the blog community I'm working on being a larger part of that my creations last week all seemed to be linked to someone else in the community.

1. Ajvar
I harvested a bunch of red peppers from my fading garden (why do the peppers take so damned LONG?) and asked my Facebook followers for suggestions on what to do with them. Val suggested ajvar, a spicy roasted pepper and eggplant spread from Serbia, and pointed me to a great recipe featured on NPR.

Now this one is a keeper. We ate it both as an appetizer on french bread and then again alongside a lovely broiled halibut for dinner. Very versatile, very delish!

Recipe link: Ajvar

2. Pear and pecan bread
Regular Ninj readers will remember how excited I was that our new house came complete with a wee orchard ... and may be wondering why they haven't seen too many posts on the bounty. Well, it's because the house also came complete with fruit-loving deer that come out of the woods at night, butt themselves against the trees and eat all the fruit that falls.

They are just vermin with long legs, I swear.

As a result, I ended up with only a pitiful handful of pears ... but they were very juicy and yummy so I wanted to be sure not to waste them. I found a great recipe for Pear and Pecan Bread in the always-reliable Joy of Cooking and mentioned on Facebook that I was baking the bread.

Well, wouldn't you know it's a favorite of Eve's at The Garden of Eating? And she's modified it a bit to make it a little less sweet and dense, although I thought it was just fine.

Try it both ways and see which one you like better.

Recipe link: Pear and pecan bread

3. Preserved tomato sauce
I knew that the end of tomato season was upon us but, honestly, I was dreading the canning process because I didn't feel like skinning all the tomatoes. Lo and behold, I had just started following Grow It Cook It Can It and what should I discover but a post on preserving tomatoes "with almost no work" (hot diggity!), including NOT removing the skins and with an emphasis on freezing rather than canning. This was perfect, as I have a ton of freezer space available this year and not a lot of energy for canning right now.

I put up 18 pounds of tomatoes as a puree that will make a spectacular base for sauces and soups this winter, using the easy-peasy instructions from The Girls' Guide to Guns and Butter.

And I've even got some nice Sun Golds left over to try the cherry tomato bisque this week.

Recipe link: Tomato sauce for freezing

So, a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU to all the great bloggers and blog-followers out there, for all your inspiration, encouragement, instruction and support.

Now go bake some cupcakes or something.

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: VT's biggest zucchini

2011-09-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

Now that would make a lot of zucchini chips and pickles!

Lobstah mac and cheese: a recipe

2011-09-06T09:35:00.001-04:00

Lobstah mac and cheese

Labor Day: summer is officially over.

When I lived in the South, this thought seemed completely absurd. I mean, when it was still a gallion degrees outside and flip flops were perfectly comfortable and acceptable all the way through October, Labor Day seemed practically like a summer midpoint -- or maybe a two-thirds point.

But this is Vermont. And northern Vermont at that.

So, despite the unusually hot and humid weather we had over the long weekend and my sporting a snazzy white skort, it really does feel like it's over. There are already some leaves starting to turn on the trees in our yard, apples are beginning to show up at the farmers markets and everything except the collards looks pathetic in what's left of my garden.

Dag.

Therefore, what better way to give summer a final huzzah! than a decadent, big bang meal -- a big FAT meal that, based solely on the volume of cheese and butter, needs to be reserved for special huzzah-inducing occasions -- celebrating one of the best foods of a New England summer.

Enter lobstah mac and cheese.

My friend Liz made a passing comment on Facebook that she had eaten lobster mac and cheese and for the rest of the week I was completely obsessed with the idea of it. I found a whole variety of recipes online, all of which sounded good (and none of which was light or healthy, mind you), but I decided to go with the one that was the cheesiest and easiest. Who doesn't love cheesy and easy? (Hmmmm...take that in the spirit in which it was intended, please.)

Thank you, Barefoot Contessa. Decadent doesn't even begin to describe the cheesy goodness. And it truly was easy to prepare. Can you boil water and shell a lobster? You're in!

In Mr. Ninj's vernacular, this one's a keeper. Or, I should say, a keepah.

Lobstah Mac and Cheese from Ina Garten, via the Food Network

Note: Below is my ever-so-slightly adapted, half-sized version of the recipe above, and it still made four hearty servings

Ingredients

8 oz. cavatappi or other curly-ish pasta2 cups milk (I used 2%)

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups grated Gruyere cheese

1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

8-10 oz. cooked lobster meat (or whatever your yield is from 2 lobsters)

3/4 cup white bread crumbs (about 3 slices, pulsed in a food processor)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cook pasta according to package directions, less 1-2 minutes to maintain firmness.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan, being careful not to boil it. In a large pot, melt 3 tablespoons of butter and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. Whisk in the hot milk and cook for another minute or two, until thickened and smooth. Remove from heat, add the cheeses, pepper, nutmeg and 1 teaspoon salt. Add the cooked macaroni and lobster and stir well. Place the mixture into a 2-quart casserole.

Melt the remaining 1 tablespoons of butter, combine with the bread crumbs and sprinkle on the top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the pasta is browned on top.

Pickles: three recipes

2011-08-31T12:51:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: I'm thrilled to announce that my recipe for zucchini chips co-won the Can You Can It? preserving contest hosted by Eve at The Garden of Eating. Thanks to all the Ninj's followers who voted! I'm looking forward to tackling some new preserving projects from my prize, Put 'em Up!: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling

Three kinds of pickles

Three for the price of one today.

Let's get busy before the cucumbers and zucchini are gone for another year:

1. Best-Ever Dill Pickles
The first one, I will admit, is really just a repeat of last year's pickles.

However, they were my first foray into pickling and were billed by BHG as "Best-Ever Dill Pickles", so the recipe bears repeating. They were truly some of the best dill pickles I've tasted, so I'd encourage you to give them a try.

Recipe: Best-Ever Dill Pickles

2. Zucchini Pickles
Another great use for zucchini and ready in 24 hours. Slightly sweet and definitely spicy, this one is adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients
Zucchini
1 small sweet onion, halved and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, sliced
1 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions
Slice a large zucchini into rounds about 1/8" thick (a hand-held mandoline slicer makes short work of this task); you'll need 3-4 cups, depending on your jar. Pack the zucchini, sliced onions and garlic into a quart-sized jar.

In a small saucepan, bring the vinegar, sugar, red pepper, mustard seed and salt to a boil. Pour over the zucchini mixture. Let cool for about half and hour or so, then put a lid on the jar and pop it into the refrigerator for 24 hours.

3. Refrigerator Pickles
I am currently obsessed with making these refrigerator pickles from Eve over at The Garden of Eating. They are insanely easy and, as long as you can control yourself from eating them for the first 5-7 days, they taste like an awesome half-sour deli pickle.

Recipe: Refrigerator Pickles from The Garden of Eating

NOTE: I have added this entry to the Patchwork Living Blogging Bee -- check it out for more great sustainable living blogs and posts.

Gazpacho: a recipe

2011-08-26T08:19:00.002-04:00

Gazpacho

I'm a huge fan of soups, mainly because of how quick and easy they usually are. Even better? Cold soups -- perfect for summer, as no cooking is required.

Even better than better? Gazpacho.

There are very few other dishes so chock-full of all the freshest veg from the garden. Gazpacho lets you feel slightly smug that you are nourishing your body with a bajillion servings of vegetables with every spoonful.

The gazpacho recipe I use comes from my chef friend Liz Tarpy, who first crafted it in 2009 for the Maine Cottage newsletter.

(Sidebar: If you like this blog, you pretty much have Liz to thank for it. Not only did she give me my first-ever set of recipes, written out creatively on the waitress order pads that we used during our high school summer job, she also encouraged me to find my creative voice in the food world. Thanks, Liz!)

I like Liz's recipe because there all sorts of ways that you can vary it, based on what fresh ingredients you have on hand (or what you received in your CSA share).

For instance, I only had a couple of large tomatoes, so I used a handful of yellow pear and Sungold cherry tomatoes to make up the difference. And I was low on parsley so I added some fresh basil as well.

Like all the best recipes, you can customize this one to suit your own tastes while maintaining the basic greatness of the original.

Gazpacho from Liz Tarpy of Teaberry Productions

Ingredients
3 beefsteak tomatoes (about 1 3/4 pounds), coarsely chopped
1 English cucumber, peeled and seeded, coarsely chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1/2 yellow bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic
2 large scallions, halved
5 radishes, trimmed
1 cup packed fresh parsley leaves
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 cup cold water
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Chopped almonds and sea salt for garnish

Directions
In a food processor, puree the vegetables in batches, adding a little water as necessary to get the pieces well mashed. Remove each batch to a large mixing bowl. Stir in the parsley, oil, vinegar, water and kosher salt. Taste -- you may want more salt, vinegar, water or oil. Chill

Before serving, garnish with almonds, a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt, if desired.

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: goats

2011-08-24T08:48:00.000-04:00

The goat equivalent of licking the bowl. Some meals are just that good.

Blueberry crostata: a recipe

2011-08-22T11:44:00.002-04:00

Blueberry crostata

I almost feel like a cheater, posting this recipe.

Why? Because it's so close to my tried-and-true short-cut fruit galette recipe.

But I just had to post because not only was it a crowd-pleasing dessert, it also facilitated some cool moments / realizations.

First: I made them with my brother.

I can say with certainty that I have never before in my life made anything in the kitchen with my brother. Yes, we deep-fried a turkey in the driveway together last year but that's not really quite the same, is it? So this was a cool first-time experience, made even more hilarious when he said he felt "ninja-like" during the process.

Second: My 12-year-old nephew is interested in cooking so he joined in the action. I barely knew how to boil water when I left college, for cripes's sake, let alone make a snazzy dessert as a pre-teen, so I'm jazzed by his interest.

Third: We made the crostata with blueberries that we all picked earlier in the day at Owl's Head Blueberry Farm, so it was a great example of farm-to-table cooking for my nephews and niece. Hey, you can't start planting the seeds too early, right?

Fourth: I shared my kitchen and made a dish with other people. This is huge for me. What Julia Ate started a discussion on Facebook recently about whether or not her readers liked to team-cook or not. I was pleasantly surprised and secretly relieved to read that I'm not alone in preferring to cook for people but not with them. Always good to get validation that you are not just a freak...

So huzzah for a simple dessert full of achievements and insights.

Blueberry Crostata (adapted from Joy the Baker)

Ingredients
1/2 quart (or so) fresh blueberries
1 15-oz package refrigerated pie crusts
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
Sugar

Directions
Cut each log of pie crust dough into four equal pieces. Using your hands, roll each piece into a ball (you will have 8 balls). With a rolling pin, roll each ball out into a thin circle of about 6 inches.

Whisk the egg and the milk together in a small bowl. Brush the egg wash over the surface of each dough circle. Heap a generous amount of berries into the center of each circle, leaving about a 1-inch edge of dough all the way around. Fold the dough toward the center, pressing gently to seal at about 1-inch intervals. Brush the dough folds with the remaining egg wash. Very generously sprinkle sugar onto the dough folds and down into the berries.

Bake at 400 degrees on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 15-20 minutes or until the dough is golden and the berries are juicy and bubbly. Cool on a wire rack.

(Note: These are yummy topped with a little vanilla ice cream.)

Fresh tomato and sausage ragu: a recipe

2011-08-19T07:54:00.000-04:00

Fresh tomato and sausage ragu over cavatappi

Can you believe I was nearly 30 years old before I discovered the awesome glory of sausage?

[Seriously -- if you a regular reader of the Ninj, pick yourself up off the floor, as you know I tend to add sausage or bacon to nearly everything. Are you new? Go ahead, search on "sausage" or "bacon" in that search box up there. I'll wait ... get it now?]

Growing up, sausage to me meant an oily, hot sausage-and-pepper grinder (hero, hoagie, sub, whatever) -- and those just grossed me out (still kinda do). Therefore, in my mind I didn't like sausage. Period.

While Mr. Ninj and I were dating, he would occasionally cook for me, and once he made some dish that involve browning sausage as the first step. This is so sad to admit now, but I watched in utter amazement as he CUT THE CASING OFF and added just the ground meat to the pan to brown. Whhhhaaaaattt???? Crumbled sausage? Sausage that isn't in a log shape or drowning in soggy pepper juice? Pure genius!

It's been all down the pork hill from there.

Last weekend I found myself with a small bunch of yellow, gold and purple cherry tomatoes from my garden and a package of hot italian sausage I picked up from Maple Wind Farm at my local farmers market, so I decided to make a ragu.

This seems like more of a fall or winter dish, but the fresh tomatoes and herbs make it ideal for summer. Since we eat a lot of cold, veggie-heavy dinners during the summer, it's nice on occasion to sample those comfort-food dishes of fall just a bit early.

I'm going to freeze a lot of these little tomatoes, while they are still plentiful, which will allow me to recreate this one even in the dead of winter.

Wicked.

Fresh Tomato and Sausage Ragu (a Ninja original)

Ingredients
1 lb pasta (I used cavatappi, but any ridged or curly shape will work well)
1 lb Italian sausages (sweet or hot, but I used hot), casings removed and coarsely crumbled
Olive oil
8 - 12 oz sliced mushrooms
1 sweet onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup chopped fresh oregano
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 cup white wine
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes in puree
2-3 cups diced fresh tomatoes (any kind)
salt and pepper
2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions
Heat some olive oil in large pot; add onion and cook until just browned, about 5 minutes. Add the sausage and mushrooms and cook until sausage is nearly done (about 8-10 minutes). Stir in chopped basil, oregano, and garlic; cook for 1 minute. Add wine; cook for another 3-4 minutes. Add crushed tomatoes; cover and simmer over medium heat until thickened, about 15 minutes. Add diced tomatoes continue to simmer, stirring frequently, about another 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Add ragu to cooked pasta and stir in the cheese.

Zucchini chips: a recipe

2011-08-17T09:23:00.002-04:00

Zucchini chips

If you follow the Ninj on Facebook, you already know that my zucchini fell victim to the dreaded and disgusting squash vine borer this year, so I may be the only gardener in Vermont that actually has to buy zucchini right now. But I love the stuff, so I'm faking having an overabundance of it that I need to use up (shhh ... don't tell).

I made some zucchini refrigerator pickles yesterday that won't be ready for a day or two, so I'll give you an update on those next week.

I also made zucchini chips in my dehydrator.

If you don't own a dehydrator, go buy one. Seriously. It doesn't even matter if it's the lame-ass Ronco kind, it will still work. And it's amazing the stuff you can make with meat, veggies, fruit and more (the Ninjette is a big fan of chicken jerky and banana roll-ups).

Word on the street is that you can also achieve a similar effect by drying stuff in your oven at a very, very low temperature, but I can't vouch for that, as I've never tried it. Moreover, I doubt you'd want to keep your oven occupied for 14 hours in some cases.

Back to the chips.

I sliced one large zucchini very thinly with a mandoline, tossed the slices gently with some olive oil, sprinkled in some kosher salt and set the slices on the trays to dry. This batch, due to their extreme thinness, took about nine hours -- thicker chips might take quite a bit longer.

Sidebar on the mandoline: I use a handheld Kyocera ceramic slicer, which makes short work of the slicing. And, oh my gawd, I am crazy in love with ceramic! It's scary-sharp and stays that way. If I could do it safely, I might just carry my big Kyocera chef's knife around with me at all times, like a good ninja. (I swear I am not shilling for the company, I just love their ceramic.)

Back to the chips.

These are no substitute for potato chips to accompany your lunchtime sandwich, believe me. They are delicate, very nearly melting in your mouth. We enjoy them with a light cocktail before dinner. But note: they will rehydrate (read: wilt and get mushy) almost immediately if you take them outside into the humidity, so try to enjoy them indoors.

But they are so addictive most of them get eaten straight from the dehydrator. Trust me.

How are you preserving your zucchini? The Ninj wants to know.

[ BTW, I'm entering this chip recipe in Garden of Eating's Can You Can It? preserving contest!]

Zucchini Chips

Ingredients
1 large zucchini, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea or kosher salt

Directions
Gently toss all ingredients in a bowl until zucchini is well coated. Lay chips on dehydrator trays. Dry for 8-10 hours or until desired level of crunchiness is achieved.

Variation: add some additional dried herbs or red pepper with the salt for additional spiciness.

Banana cake for the Ninj's first birthday: a recipe

2011-08-12T09:16:00.000-04:00

Banana cake ... er ... bread?

Well, happy birthday -- the Ninj is one year old!

Yep, one year and 110 posts later, here we are. And of course we have to celebrate a milestone birthday with cake.

Yay ... CAKE!

Until it turns out to be bread in cake's clothing.

I got this recipe from sasasunakku (love her site and her understanding of hangrrr!) and was really excited: banana CAKE! Apparently an old-school New Zealand favorite! How international the Ninj's first birthday would be!

So I made said cake. And it looked beautiful, thanks to the flowery kugelhupf pan (look at it up there -- wicked!). I even broke out my rarely-if-ever-used snazzy cake stand for the photo shoot. Nice.

Then we ate the "cake."

It's banana bread.

It's very, very good banana bread, mind you, but still banana bread. Just in a cool cake shape.

I'm sure Sasa's chocolate frosting would have made it much more cake-like, but you know how I am: if I frost it, I can't scam and call it "breakfast" as well as "dessert."

So thanks to all of you who have been following along since the beginning. Make some of this yummy birthday bread today to celebrate!

Banana Cake from sasanakku

Ingredients
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
4 bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons boiling milk (I just heated it in the microwave)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 2/3 cups flour

Directions
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Grease and flour a 8- or 9-inch Bundt or Kugelhopf pan.

Cream butter and sugar in a mixer, then add the eggs, one at a time. Fold in the mashed bananas.

In a small bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the milk and mix into the batter.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder and mix into the banana mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Cool in pan until it can be handled, then finish cooling completely on a wire rack.

CSA Share Ninja Rescue: corn

2011-08-08T09:01:00.000-04:00

Cornbread muffins

Ah, sweet corn! Thank goodness you are back in season.

I don't even bother with plain corn-on-the-cob much anymore, since I discovered how amazingly sweet and awesome fresh corn kernels are when zipped right off the cob and used in salads, soups and sides.

(This OXO Good Grips corn zipper is the easiest, least messy way to strip the kernels from the cob, because it holds the kernels right in the built-in cup -- I love mine and can't recommend it highly enough!)

I would love to hear what your favorite corn recipes are. But for those of you who received corn in your CSA share or for whom the 8-gallion-ears-for-$2 roadside stands are popping up all over, here are some of the Ninj's current faves:

Fresh Corn Salad from Jeanne Jones via Cooking Light: I could eat a whole bowl of this salad by myself! The dressing is slightly spicy and tangy -- just perfect
Corn and Chicken Chowder from Better Homes & Gardens: Quick and easy but very satisfying
Cornbread Muffins from allrecipes.com: Following other commenters' advice, I used a bit less sugar and fresh corn kernels -- very moist and not too sweet!

Lastly is a recipe for a corn and tomato salad that I feel certain was inspired by Molly Wizenberg but, for the life of me, I cannot find the source or a mention of it anywhere -- so I'm just going to describe it to you but make sure she gets the credit!

Simple Tomato and Corn Salad with Shallot Vinaigrette
Arrange some sliced fresh tomatoes on a plate. Top them with fresh corn kernels and sliced basil and drizzle with a shallot vinaigrette.

Don't forget to leave a comment and let me know what you've been getting in your share, if you need help!

Cold cucumber and avocado chowder with shrimp: a recipe

2011-08-05T11:45:00.000-04:00

Now, all of you regular readers know that I love Mark Bittman. And this is another one of his great recipes from The Food Matters Cookbook.

But he refers to this as not only a chowder but also a cold soup. Really, Mark? It is neither.

What it is is a delicious, healthy cold salad, perfect for hot summer days.

So why no picture of said salad, you may ask? Because this is another one of those dishes that tastes better than it looks.

(But hey now, just take a look at my awesome little Kirby cukes there on the vine! I sense pickles in our future...)

This salad takes no time at all to prepare (if you employ my cheater's shortcut and use pre-cooked frozen shrimp) and is cool and crisp. The orange and avocado puree is just the right blend of sweet and tangy and tastes heavenly on the shrimp.

Chowder, soup, salad ... call it what you will, but I call it a summertime winner.

Cold Cucumber and Avocado Chowder with Shrimp (slightly adapted from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook)

Ingredients
5-6 Kirby (pickling) cucumbers, peeled and chopped (if they are very seedy, feel free to seed them as well)
2 avocados, peeled and pitted, 1 chopped
2 oranges, 1 peeled, seeded and chopped and the other juiced
8-9 oz. cooked shrimp (I used fresh-frozen but feel free to grill your own)
1/2 cup sliced green onion
Salt

Directions
Place the un-chopped avocado and the orange juice in a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Refrigerate this puree (about an hour is optimal).

Coarsely chop the shrimp and put them in a large bowl. Add the cucumbers, chopped orange, chopped avocado and green onion. Add the puree, toss gently and season to taste with salt.

(Not Even Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: kitchen refresh

2011-08-03T09:13:00.000-04:00

We moved into a new house this spring, and the kitchen needed a bit of an update.

There was nothing wrong with the layout and the cabinets and appliances were in fine condition. So why the update?

First, because it was very, very blue: countertops, sink, walls.

And it was also a little dated. And lastly, it had an electric range.

The Ninj doesn't do electric.

So we decided on a kitchen refresh, as opposed to a full-blown kitchen remodel: no ripping up floors or tearing out cabinets, just a little updating.

I'm happy to say that it's finally done -- and I'm proud that we did a lot of it ourselves.

We did our own demo, which is fun!

Waiting for the countertops

Laying out the backsplash template

Well, Mr. Ninj did it himself while I did a lot of supervising.

Backsplash installation -- last step!

I'm even prouder that we didn't go overboard. It's easy, once you get started, to want everything to be new or top-of-the-line. But I realized that, even though my last kitchen had very high-end appliances when we moved in, they never made me a better cook -- they just looked cool. So, in keeping with our refresh-not-remodel philosophy, you will not see any giant-ass Wolf, Dacor or Viking appliances. And I won't be getting a new refrigerator until the existing one dies.

What you will see is a cool and dreamy, contemporary kitchen unlike any other I've ever had. It's like living under the sea -- and yes, I keep singing that song, complete with that crab's accent ("undah da seeeeeeee!"), but unfortunately the only words I know are "under the sea" -- very annoying, even to me.

Some refresh lessons learned:

As the Dweller has also pointed out, don't be afraid to ask. I wound up getting a beautiful granite slab with awesome installation and a higher-quality sink from a local granite company rather than a big box retailer because I asked if the local guy would price match. And he did.
Tiling is a pain in the ass, especially on the walls, but it's not hard if you take your time and plan it all out in advance. And you will save tons of money on installation.
Just changing the knobs and pulls can give your cabinetry a whole new look -- cheap.
Cooking with gas is worth it!

Don't you just love before-and-afters? It's so HGTV.

CSA Share Ninja Rescue: zucchini

2011-08-01T08:50:00.000-04:00

Zucchini cornbread

Yes, it's that time, when the zucchini really starts to come in and most gardeners are up to their eyeballs in the stuff.

Most gardeners, that is, except the Ninj, whose crop -- for the third year in a row in three different locations and two different states 800 miles apart, mind you -- was attacked by the extremely disgusting squash vine borer.

Nasty. I wouldn't wish this bug on my worst enemy. Well, maybe my worst.

So while you are drowning in zucchini and perhaps even leaving large bags of it on your neighbor's porch just to be rid of it, I may just be the only gardener in Vermont actually paying for the stuff. Sniff.

Regardless of how you come by it, here are some excellent ways to use all that zucchini from this week's CSA share:

Zucchini Cornbread from Sarah Dickerman via Bon Appeitit: This is a great riff on your standard zucchini bread, a bit more dinner than breakfast. I bet it would make excellent muffins, as well.
Zucchini, Tomato and Ricotta Galette adapted from Smitten Kitchen: Adapted because I make the shortcut galette with refrigerated dough and use zucchini and tomato, but the filling and cooking instructions remain the same. Incredibly savory and delish -- pair it with a roasted chicken!
Zucchini Pecan Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting from In Praise of Leftovers: Yes, you've seen this one from me before, but I love it, especially sans frosting so it can double as breakfast.

Don't forget to leave a comment and let me know what veggies you want to see me cover next week in the CSA Share Ninja Rescue!

Panzanella: a recipe

2011-07-29T10:46:00.000-04:00

Panzanella!

One of the best things about cooking in the summer is that it often involves not cooking.

Sometimes it's just too damned hot out to think about turning on the stove or the oven.

Hot weather, coupled with the first harvest of sun-ripened, don't-taste-like-cardboard tomatoes, means one dish to me: panzanella, which is an Italian bread salad.

Now, to be honest, there are as many recipes out there for panzanella as there are for my-Italian-grandmother's-world's-greatest tomato sauce. But I am hooked on this one, which I have adapted a bit over the years from one that I received via the Splendid Table newsletter.

Can a person truly be in love with a salad? I say yes, because I am.

I could eat panzanella every day for a month and never get sick of it. I generally make the full recipe just for myself, even though it allegedly feeds four (ha -- four sickly birds, maybe, or people who hate salad). In fact, I love it so much I'm almost afraid to share the recipe with you -- because if you don't love it, too, it will break my heart.

So please, be kind to the Ninj: make this panzanella this weekend and love it.

Panzanella (adapted from a recipe by Hallie Harron and Shelley Sikora in Tomatoes and Mozzarella: 100 Ways to Enjoy This Tantalizing Twosome All Year Long)

Feel free to modify the amounts of each of the vegetables listed below, based on how much you love them. Also, this salad is just as good the next day, but best if brought back to room temperature first.

Ingredients
1 - 1 1/4 cups thinly sliced green onion (green and white parts)
1 medium-sized cucumber (or about half of an English cucumber), diced
1 1/2 tablespoons capers
3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz. day-old or slightly stale Italian bread
1/3 cup basil leaves, coarsely chopped
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

For the olivada dressing:
2 tablespoons jarred olive tapenade (I use black)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Slightly less than 1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
Dash of cayenne pepper or Tabasco

Directions
Whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl. Combine all the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Add the dressing, tossing gently to coat.

Quick pickled veg: recipes

2011-07-26T11:58:00.000-04:00

Pickled beets and radishes

According to the August issue of Bon Appetit that I just received, you should make some pickles because (and I quote)

Everybody's Doing It!

Yep, surely that's a good enough reason to do anything, right?

Regardless, pickling can be easy, especially if you're making a quick pickle, rather than a preserved pickle (which is still easy but takes more time).

So while waiting for the bumper crop of cucumbers to start pouring in so I can once again put up a whole crapload of Best-Evah Dill Pickles, I tried a few different quick pickle recipes this week, using vegetables that are probably showing up in your CSA share right about now.

Quick Cucumber Pickles from Rachel Ray: super easy -- make them in the morning and you can eat them for dinner
Cider Vinegar Pickled Beets from John Currence via Food & Wine: an interesting flavor from these, given the oregano and thyme -- I used golden beets, too, which are less staining and look gorgeous
Quick Pickled Radishes from Bon Appetit: heads up, these are super-vinegary so prepare to pucker!

What are your favorite pickle recipes?

Blueberry cobbler bars: a recipe

2011-07-22T09:19:00.000-04:00

Blueberry cobbler bars

Fresh, juicy fruits and berries are some of the best things about summer, don't you think?

Right now in Vermont, fresh means blueberries. But not from our yard, sadly.

Before we moved in to our new house, the wee orchard was invaded by rose chafer beetles, and it appears they did some irreparable damage to this year's fruit harvest. As an example, the previous owners told us they harvested a full bushel of peaches last year; this year, I can't even tell which trees are peach because they have absolutely no fruit.

Which is why I'm thankful for dedicated local farmers, who clearly are better at growing fruit than I will ever be!

Earlier this week, I used some of my berry haul to make a blueberry-peach shortcut galette. Late yesterday afternoon I decided I wanted to make a cobbler or something for dessert but was running short on time.

A quick search of the Dinner with Julie site (I love her, just LOVE her!) turned up Blueberry Cobbler Cookie Bars: quick and easy!

To be fair, I'm leaving out the "cookie" part of the title because I think they lack that cookie bar density and I don't want to mislead you. But barring that (ha ha ha), they are excellent -- denser than cake or cobbler but with that biscuity cobbler texture.

And, as with all my favorite desserts, you can justify eating this for breakfast tomorrow, too.

RECIPE LINK: Blueberry Cobbler Bars from Dinner with Julie

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: currants?

2011-07-20T11:27:00.000-04:00

Are these currants? Or something that will kill me if I eat it? There are tons and tons of bushes of them, as well as very old apple trees, along our road (former farm land). Can you help?

CSA Share Ninja Rescue: celery

2011-07-18T08:57:00.000-04:00

Wicked awesome macaroni salad

The CSA Share Ninja Rescue feature is back, this week featuring celery.

Yes, just celery. But that's OK.

All I can think is that everyone is inundated with tomatoes, with which you don't need any recipe help, as you are just eating them whole, with lots of salt, or in a fabulous tomato sandwich.

If that's you, shut up. We're still waiting on tomatoes up here in Vermont.

So, back to the celery:

Celery

Macaroni salad from Eating Well: I could go on and on and on about how amazingly delicious this pasta salad is (I ate the whole bowl by myself in two days -- THAT'S how good it is). As an added bonus, it is loaded with healthy veg and is low fat and low calorie (even WITH the cheese topping, which I didn't bother to add). Seriously perfect summer food! I added some cooked chicken which made it even heartier.
Braised celery with crunchy breadcrumb topping from Molly Stevens and 101 Cookbooks, by way of my cousin Susan: I think this would be perfect with a nice roasted chicken.
Celery and pear bisque from Bon Appetit and the Ninj: Super easy, wonderful flavor.
Bloody Mary tomato salad from Bon Appetit: The name is NOT an exaggeration! This is the perfect vehicle for fresh tomatoes and makes a lively accompaniment to grilled steak. Eat the pairing outside for the perfect summer meal.

So, whatcha gettin' in your box next week?

Lemon-lime basil shortbread cookies: a recipe

2011-07-15T08:48:00.000-04:00

Lemon-lime basil shortbread cookies

Even the name of these cookies sounds summery and refreshing, doesn't it? And look at those little flecks of green -- so pretty!

While lemon-lime-basil-shortbread may seem like an odd combination of flavors, it really works in this cookie. The shortbread is extra buttery but the citrus and basil give it just a little kick.

The recipe calls for finishing the cookies with coarse sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw) but you could leave it off if you wanted them to be more of a teatime treat.

(Photo-wise, please bear with me. My new kitchen has much cooler tones and light than my last one, so I need a little time to figure out the best places to take my food photos.)

Don't forget to leave veg suggestions in the comments for Monday's CSA Share Ninja Rescue!

RECIPE LINK: Lemon-Lime Basil Shortbread Cookies from Bon Appetit

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-13T10:29:00.000-04:00

The wee garden grows -- just a wee bit.

Moving hiatus

2011-06-13T09:01:00.000-04:00

Yes, those are my couches

The countdown has begun: we move in five days.

Along with all the joys of moving also comes all the stress of packing and coordinating.

And did I mention the four days with no internet access? And the lack of kitchen countertops and sink?

All this is to explain why I will be taking a week's hiatus from this blog. When I'm back and reconnected, it will be time for another CSA Share Ninja Rescue post, so please keep posting comments on what you're getting in your shares.

And don't forget to follow me on Facebook, as I will be trying to post some updates there during the hiatus.

See you next week!

Loaded oatmeal cookies: a recipe

2011-06-10T12:43:00.000-04:00

Loaded oatmeal cookies

We've been talking CSA veg so much lately that I figured it was time for some cookies.

I love cookies like these, that somehow manage to imply that they are healthful because they are "loaded" with good things like flaxseed, wheat germ and fruit -- apparently we should just ignore that they also include two kinds of sugar and chocolate. Heck, some people who have made the recipe have even gone so far as to refer to them as "breakfast cookies." Really?

Not that there's anything wrong with cookies for breakfast, of course.

Regardless, I think they are just plain wicked. In fact, Mr. Ninj, cramming in his fifth or sixth last night, proclaimed them to be in a tie with the salty oaties for best cookie ever. (Gee, funny how the dandelion cookies didn't even make it out of the starting blocks for him...)

Wow. Them's fightin' words.

I think you should make both this weekend and let me know which one wins in your house.

RECIPE LINK: Loaded Oatmeal Cookies from Better Homes and Gardens

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: fruit

2011-06-08T08:51:00.000-04:00

Apples in the wee orchard!