Summer

December 5, 2013February 7, 2017

Chipotle Pecan Brownies and “The Unofficial Girls Guide to New York”

Welp, it’s officially time to start making holiday treats and going gift shopping. Last night Jonah and I went to the Holiday Ale Fest, and it really got me into the holiday spirit. In thinking of holiday gifts, I want to tell you about this little book that I think would make a great present: The Unofficial GIRLS Guide to New York.

Now, before we jump in here, let me clarify that this book is the GIRLS guide, as in the TV show. Which I love. The past 2 seasons, my friend Erica has come over every week to watch it with us. The characters are fantastic (I think Shoshana is my favorite), the storyline is ever-entertaining, and it certainly captures certain aspects of being a twenty-something in a big city and not having any idea of what you’re doing with your life. Which I may or may not be able to relate to.

So when my aunt and uncle (of Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook fame) told me they were writing a GIRLS book, I was incredibly excited. Jonah and I rattled off interviews they could do, recipes, etc. But they had already thought of everything. This book is half fan-girl material, half guidebook, with some great recipes sprinkled throughout. Since receiving it in the mail, I’ve loved flipping through it, reading the stories of all the locations – not only because they make up the backdrop for this great show, but also because it’s New York, and there are so many interesting tidbits about all of these places. I’m just sad the book wasn’t out in time for our trip to New York!

I wanted to give you a little sneak preview by letting you in on one of the recipes. I decided to whip up “Agave’s Chipotle Pecan Brownies” a couple weeks ago, and dang were they good. More cake-y and less fudgy, the chipotle brings a really nice smoky and spicy flavor to these sweets. These would be a great unique treat to whip up for a holiday party! The recipe comes from Oberlin’s Agave Burrito Bar & Tequileria (Oberlin is where Marnie, Hannah, Jessa, and Elijah went to college, and where Marnie meets Charlie at the Oberlin College Galactic Safe Sex Ball 2007, which you can read more about in the book). I made half the recipe, and still had a 9×13 pan full of these bad boys, so I’ll give you the halved version, plus the full amounts in parentheses.

Chipotle Pecan Brownies

Ingredients

6 oz semisweet chocolate (12 oz)
1 cup plus 2 Tbl unsalted butter, room temperature (2 1/4 cups)
1 3/4 cups sugar (3 1/2 cups)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (1 Tbl)
4 eggs (8 eggs)
1 1/4 cups flour (2 1/2 cups)
3/4 tsp cinnamon (1 1/2 tsp)
3/4 tsp chipotle powder (1 1/2 tsp)
4 oz pecans, crumbled to your desired consistency (8 oz)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9×13 baking dish/pan (or 2 if you’re using the amounts in parentheses).

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate, stirring frequently. While the chocolate is melting, cream the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer on medium speed. Add the vanilla, mix again, and then add the eggs. Mix to combine – it should be “creamy and lemon colored.” With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour in a little bit of the chocolate. Let the mixer stir this small amount in, then slowly pour in the rest of the chocolate and mix until it’s just incorporated.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, and chipotle powder, then stir to combine. Remove the bowl of chocolate from your mixer base, and gently fold the dry ingredients into the chocolate batter until thoroughly combined.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan, and scatter the pecans over the top. Bake for 25 minutes, rotate the pan 180 degrees, and bake for another 10-15 minutes. The brownies should be just set in the center of the pan. Remove from oven, and allow to cool for an hour before cutting. Serve them up and enjoy!

November 19, 2013February 7, 2017

Mexican Feast: Chile Relleno with Shrimp

Chile Relleno with Shrimp // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

At the end of October, we took a trip to Mexico. My mom rented a house in Sayulita for a couple of weeks (we were only there for 1 week), and we spent our days swimming in the ocean, reading, swimming in the pool, and eating a lot of incredibly delicious Mexican food. Perhaps my favorite thing about our trip was all of the seafood, particularly shrimp. I am a big fan of shrimp, especially when they’re cooked to perfection and slathered in butter and garlic. Another amazing preparation that we ate (at least 3 times in a week) was chile relleno stuffed with shrimp.

Knowing that I love to cook, my mom asked one of the housekeepers from the complex to come over one night to do a kind of cooking lesson with us. Maria was fantastic – funny, smart, and an incredible cook. I think she was surprised that we a) wanted to help so much with the cooking and b) that, amongst us, we knew a fair amount of Spanish! She said that many of people she cooks for say they want to practice their Spanish, but don’t actually end up talking with her that much. But Jonah is fluent in Spanish, and my mom and sister aren’t half bad either.

Maria showed up to our house at 5 o’clock, and immediately got to work boiling tomatoes and peppers, roasting poblanos, and chopping away. I’m going to focus on the recipe for Chile Relleno stuffed with shrimp, but she also made us Mahi Mahi with garlic, 3 different salsas (one mild, one hot, and one pico de gallo, or salsa Mexicana, as she called it), beans, rice, guacamole, tortillas, and flan.

And thankfully, after cooking for us in the very hot kitchen, she joined us at the table. Maria made 6 peppers, so I’ll give you roughly that recipe. She didn’t measure a single thing, so a lot of this is my own guess work.

Chile Relleno with Shrimp

Ingredients

1 poblano pepper per person you’re feeding. 6 people? 6 peppers.
1/4 lb shrimp per pepper
~3/4 cup all purpose flour (for coating the peppers)
4 eggs, separated
Vegetable oil
Salt

Instructions

First things first. Roast the peppers. If you’ve got a gas stove, you can do this right on top of the burner. If you don’t have a gas stove, turn on your broiler, and put the peppers on a pan in the oven. Keep a close eye on them. Either way, you’ll want to turn them (with tongs) every minute or so. You want the skin to char and blister. Once they’re charred, you can either put them in a bowl and cover it, or use Maria’s fantastic technique: tie them up in a plastic bag. You want the peppers to steam up, which will help soften them and loosen the charred skin. After allowing them to sit for about 10 minutes, peel and seed the peppers. Seed them by making a lengthwise cut along one side, and cutting out the seeds with a small knife. You want to leave the stem in tact.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the shrimp, and boil until pink, but still tender. Drain and sprinkle with salt. Gently stuff the peppers with the shrimp. Put the flour on a large plate, and coat each pepper in flour. Set aside.

In a bowl, whip egg whites until foamy, but not quite till peaks form. Add the yolks, whip some more. Heat 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a (preferably non-stick) pan over medium heat. You’re going to cook your peppers one at a time, so it may not be a bad idea to set your oven to 200 degrees and put a pan in there to put the finished peppers on, so they’ll still be warm. When the oil is hot, coat a pepper in egg mixture, and place it in the pan. Now you’re going to kind of baste the pepper with oil. Using a spoon or a spatula, gently splash the hot oil up onto the pepper, so that even the part not touching the oil cooks a bit. Continue to turn the pepper and “baste” until the egg is nice and browned. Place in the oven, and repeat with the rest of the peppers.

Serve with salsa, guacamole, and sour cream!

November 13, 2013February 5, 2017

Earl Grey Madeleines

Elsa has discovered my secret.

My dear friend Elsa and I were hanging out quite a bit when she finally got back from her worldly travels this summer, as she was job hunting, so had her days free, just like I do. She came over one afternoon, and we decided to bake something. I started looking for recipes, and suggested rosemary shortbread, thyme/sea salt/chocolate chunk cookies, or these earl grey madeleines from Baking a Moment. She looked at me and said “Are we only allowed to make things that involve weird flavor combinations?”

She’s right. I like trying new flavor combinations. Why have chocolate chip cookies when you can add thyme? Or plain shortbread when you can add rosemary? Why not spice it up a bit? Plus, combinations like this are becoming rather mainstream. I think I’ve got her on the weird flavor combo train at this point, but she still teases me all the time. Anyway, on that afternoon, I convinced her to make earl grey madeleines with me. And dang, were they good.

For the record, Elsa made me zucchini, jalapeno, lime cookies for my birthday.

Earl Grey Madeleines

Ingredients

6 Tbl unsalted butter
3 bags earl grey tea
2 tsp light brown sugar
2 tsp honey
2 eggs
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a small pot on the stove, melt the butter. While the butter is melting, cut open the tea bags, and then stir the loose tea into the melted butter. Allow to steep over low heat for about 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and allow it to steep for another 5 minutes. Strain the tea butter. I used a mesh sieve that I overlayed with the tea bags (which I had cut to make sheets). If you have cheesecloth, you can use that.

Stir the brown sugar and honey into the tea butter. They may stay kind of separated, and you can slightly reheat to try to combine them better. Ours wouldn’t really combine no matter how much we reheated them, and everything worked out just fine. So don’t stress about it.

Here’s another weird step. In a (preferably metal) mixing bowl, combine the eggs and granulated sugar. Fill another bowl with very hot water, and put the bowl of eggs/sugar into the bowl of hot water. Mix this with your fingers (I know, I know) until the eggs feel slightly warm and the sugar has dissolved and is no longer grainy. When you’ve reached that point, you can remove the bowl from the water and whip the eggs/sugar on high until it has tripled in volume.

In another bowl (I know, it’s a bowl heavy recipe), sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gently fold the egg mixture in in two additions. Pour a little bit of this batter into the tea butter, stir it up, and then pour the tea butter into the batter. Again, gently fold until thoroughly combined.

Spoon the batter into a buttered and floured madeleine pan. You only need to fill up the molds about 2/3 of the way. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until they’re golden-brown around the edges. Remove the madeleines from the pan immediately and allow them to cool on a wire rack. Enjoy with a glass of milk, a nice coffee, or tea!

November 6, 2013February 5, 2017

Buttermilk Devil’s Food Cake

My Mom’s birthday was a month ago today, so it seems appropriate that I’m sitting in a tea shop, writing this post, looking at pictures of her with the birthday cake I made for her.

My mother is a pretty damn incredible woman. I don’t know if I’ve told you about her before, but let me. When we were growing up, she was always encouraging us to play. I don’t just mean my sisters and I playing with each other, or playing with dolls, or playing with crafts, but in the larger sense too. She encouraged us to be adventurous, boisterous, and reach for the stars.

If we wanted to make cookies, she was there to help. If we wanted to go out for the basketball team (a mistake I made only once, trust me), she was there at every game. If we wanted to be in plays (which we did… a lot) she drove us to auditions, sat with us while we waited nervously, drove us to rehearsals, helped create costumes, and was always in the front row on opening night, grinning from ear to ear, and often mouthing the words to the songs along with us. She pushed my creativity, she pushed me to try really hard, to do anything I wanted to do. That’s an incredible woman.

When I went off to college and my parents split up, my mom and I had a rough time. It’s been a hard few years of rebuilding, getting to know each other again, and finding the foundation that we had built when I was younger. But it seems since her birthday, my mother’s true unbridled joy and adventure and creativity has reappeared. It has been slowly creeping back for the past couple of years, especially since she has found David, but in the past month, it seems like she’s here to stay.

This year was my mom’s 60th birthday (hopefully she doesn’t kill me for writing that…) and we went big. Rather, David went big with many many surprises, and we all helped scheme and plan. She was surprised four separate times: by the arrival of me, my older sister, and Jonah on Friday afternoon; the arrival of her mother, sister, brother-in-law, brother, and sister-in-law on Friday night; by my little sister’s arrival on Saturday morning; and by a surprise party with all of her friends and a live band on Saturday afternoon.

It was the most pure joy I’ve ever seen her exude. It was a beautifully sunny weekend, and on Sunday we all made dinner together, like families do. When I asked my mom what birthday cake she wanted, she said “That buttermilk devil’s food cake I used to make you guys for your birthdays.” Emily, my older sister, immediately remembered this cake, but it took me a while. My mom dug around in her recipe box and pulled out this magazine page from 1985. Under the title it says “Makes 10 servings at $0.88 each.”

I didn’t remember this cake until I smelled the frosting, and then it came rushing back, which seems appropriate. The cake, and that weekend, reinforced the woman that my mother is and always has been. It’s rich, deep chocolate with an unexpected but welcome twist from the buttermilk and sour cream, perfect for a birthday, but especially perfect for my mother.

Buttermilk Devil’s Food Cake

Ingredients

Devil’s Chocolate Cake

Unsweetened cocoa powder (for dusting the pans)
2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 1/2 cups light brown sugar
3 eggs
3 1/2 squares (1 oz. each) unsweetened chocolate, melted
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup boiling water
2 1/4 tsp vanilla

Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting

15 squares (1 oz. each) semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
a pinch of salt

Instructions

Devil’s Chocolate Cake

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Butter 3 9-inch round cake pans. Line the pans with parchment paper, and butter the paper. Dust the bottoms and sides of the pans with cocoa powder.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer (or whatever) beat the butter until it’s light and fluffy. Beat in the sugar until it’s light and fluffy too. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Blend in the melted chocolate. My aunt (the cookbook author) had a great tip for this. Anytime I mix warm ingredients (like melted chocolate) into eggs, I get nervous that the eggs are going to cook. Her tip was to start with a little bit, blend it, and then add the rest of it. It makes a big difference. To me anyway.

Alternate adding the flour and buttermilk to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour, until it’s well combined. Stir in the boiling water and the vanilla and divide the batter equally into the 3 prepared cake pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a knife or toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool them in their pans for 5-10 minutes, then turn them out onto cooling racks and remove the parchment paper to cool the rest of the way.

Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting

To make the frosting, melt the chocolate in a double boiler over barely simmering water. Remove from the heat, and beat in the sour cream, vanilla, and salt. Beat until it’s creamy and holds it’s shape. Be warned though, once this frosting cools, it hardens because of the chocolate. So frost your cake while the frosting is still soft and warm.

You may want/have to trim your cakes. I didn’t and it work ok. Put a layer on whatever plate you’re using to serve, and spread evenly with some of the frosting. Repeat with the remaining layers, and then frost the sides.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk, family, and lots of laughs.

October 22, 2013February 5, 2017

Lasagna, of the cheesiest variety

Lasagna // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Sometimes you need to make those meals that yield a million servings so you can eat it all week. The week before the CD release concert we had for Jonah’s new album was absolutely one of those weeks.

We had a few guests staying with us, band practice almost every night, and I had work on the nights I wasn’t rehearsing. It was a busy time, to say the least. So the night of our Kickstarter team meeting, to discuss merch and social media, etc. I made this lasagna, so that we could eat it throughout the week. It was high up on the list of best lasagna I’ve ever made. What made it so good? The homemade sauce, the homemade noodles, and some absurd amounts of cheese.

I’ll admit, however, that this uses a lot of dishes, and has a fair amount of ingredients. But when you’ve got some time and you’re making a meal that will carry you through the week, it’s worth it. I like to think of it as an entire week’s worth of mess (and cleanup).

Cheesy Meat Lasagna

Note: I used a 13×9 inch baking dish, and filled it right up to the brim. I put a baking sheet underneath it to catch any overflow (which was minimal), but still, if you’ve got a slightly bigger baking dish, it might be a good idea to use it.

Ingredients

Noodles

3 eggs
2 cups flour

Meat Sauce

Olive oil
1 medium white onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
3/4 lb ground beef
3/4 lb ground italian sausage
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt, pepper, other Italian seasoning (parsley, basil, oregano, to your liking)
1 12 oz can tomato paste
1 28 oz can crushed (or diced) San Marzano tomatoes (yes, these are expensive, but I found it to be terribly worth it, and they weren’t THAT MUCH more than the other brands)

Ricotta Filling

3 cups ricotta
2 eggs
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 cup freshly grated parmesan
2-3 cups (preferably freshly) grated mozzarella

Instructions

Noodles

In the bowl of an electric mixer, or using a bowl and whisk, or a bowl and fork, mix up the eggs and flour into a dough. If it’s too wet, add more flour 1 tsp at a time. If it’s too dry, add water 1 tsp at a time. Dump the dough out onto floured surface, knead a few times, and wrap in plastic (or put in a bowl and cover with dishtowel) and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

Meat Sauce

In a large pot, heat 2 Tbl olive oil over medium heat, and add the onion and carrot. Cook until starting to soften. Add the garlic, beef, and Italian sausage, and cook until the meat has browned. Add 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp ground pepper, and whatever other spices you’d like (I did 1/2 tsp dried basil and 1/2 tsp dried parsley). Add the tomato paste and canned tomatoes to the pot (no need to drain them!) and stir to combine. Turn the heat to low and cover, letting it simmer for ~30 minutes.

Ricotta Filling

While your dough is resting and your sauce is simmering you can whip up the ricotta filling. In a bowl, combine the ricotta, eggs, pepper, and 1/2 cup of both the grated mozzarella and parmesan. Store in the fridge until you’re ready to assemble your lasagna.

Roll out your pasta into sheets for lasagna and set aside, covering so that the noodles don’t dry out. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and lightly coat your baking dish with oil. Spread ~1 cup sauce in the bottom of the dish. Here’s how you’re going to do this: noodles, ricotta, sauce, cheese. That’s your order. On top of the sauce in the bottom of the dish, arrange a layer of noodles; spread 1/3 of the ricotta mixture on top, then 1 cup sauce, and sprinkle with cheese (a mixture of the mozzarella and parmesan). Do that twice (now we’ve got sauce, noodles, ricotta, sauce, cheese, noodles, ricotta, sauce, cheese), and in the next layer, leave out the cheese (so just noodles, ricotta, sauce). Put another layer of noodles on top, spread the rest of the sauce on top, and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese. Phew! If you don’t feel like following my layering instructions, just do whatever you want. It’ll probably work, and you’ve probably eaten enough lasagna in your life to figure out how it works.

Bake the lasagna for 30-40 minutes, rotating it half way through, until the cheese on top is melted and turning golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool/set for 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

September 26, 2013February 5, 2017

Fig and Olive Oil Challah

Fig Challah // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

On Rosh Hashanah, I did something really un-Jewish and un-Kosher by making shrimp for dinner. But I kind of half made up for it by making fig, olive oil, and sea salt challah from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. And that makes things kind of ok, right? (Let’s not even talk about the fact that there was no fasting or breaking of fast on Yom Kippur as I had band practice and work, both of which require much sustenance. Don’t tell my Bubbe.)

This challah has been on my “to make” list for so long. I was waiting for figs to be in season (only to realize after I went to the store and bought fresh figs that the recipe calls for dried figs… oops… way to follow your own rules, Annie) AND I’d never made challah before. TERRIBLE JEW, I know. But you know, bread is mildly scary to me, and braided bread that’s supposed to look all shiny and pretty? That much scarier. But a holiday is a good enough reason to man up and do anything, so I went for it. And man oh man, it was good. This recipe is pretty much straight from Smitten Kitchen.

Fig and Olive Oil Challah

Ingredients

Bread

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 packet)
1/4 cup plus 1 tsp honey
1/3 cup olive oil, plus some for the bowl
2 eggs
2 tsp flaky sea salt (such as Maldon, which you really should have around because you should be putting it on everything because it is awesome)
4 cups all-purpose flour

Fig Filling

1 cup dried figs, stemmed and roughly chopped
1/8 tsp orange zest (I eyeballed this, because you know, who has an 1/8 tsp measure)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice
1/8 tsp sea salt
freshly ground black pepper (you’ll only need a few grinds)

Egg Wash

1 egg
flaky sea salt

Instructions

Bread

In a small bowl, combine the yeast and 1 tsp of honey with 2/3 cup of warm water. Stir it up, and let it sit for a few minutes until it gets foamy. In the bowl of your mixer with the paddle attachment (or you know, with a wooden spoon and a bowl if that’s your jam), combine the yeast mixture with the rest of the honey, the olive oil, and the eggs. Then add the flour and salt, and mix it until the dough starts to come together. Once it comes together, switch to the dough hook and let it run on low for 5-8 minutes. Put the dough on the counter for a moment while you coat the bowl in olive oil, put the dough back in the bowl, and cover with saran wrap for an hour, or until the dough doubles in size.

Fig Filling

While the dough is rising, it’s fig paste time. Put the figs, zest, water, juice, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook this fig mixture until the pieces of fig are soft, having absorbed the water and juice, stirring occasionally (should take about 10 minutes). Turn off the heat, and allow to cool for a while before putting it in a food processor and processing until it resembles a paste, like a relatively smooth jam. Set it aside to cool the rest of the way.

Once your dough has roughly doubled, turn it out onto a floured surface and divide it in half. Roll the first half out into “an imperfect rectangle,” spread half of the fig filling over the dough, and roll it up into a long log, trapping the filling within. You’ll want to be careful when you roll out your dough that it still has some thickness to it, as I had a few tears in mine which made everything a little tricky for me. Roll out/stretch the log as long as you can without breaking or tearing it, and then divide it in half. Repeat this whole process with the second half of the dough. You should have four fig-filled ropes of dough.

Next comes the weaving, which I’m not even going to try to explain. Instead, you should head to over to Smitten Kitchen to look at the pictures and read her instructions. I never could have woven it without those pictures. Oy. Once woven up into a beautiful mound of deliciousness, transfer the dough to a baking sheet prepped with parchment paper (or silpat, I suppose).

Egg Wash

In a small bowl, beat the egg for the wash, and brush it over the challah. Let it rise for another hour, but start heating your oven to 375 degrees about halfway into the rise. Before putting it in the oven, brush the challah again with the egg wash, and bake it in the middle of your oven for 35-40 minutes. If it starts to get dark (like mine did), you can cover it with foil for the rest of the bake (like I didn’t). Remove from oven and allow to cool before serving. Tear off pieces with loved ones, and add a dab of butter and jam, if you like. Enjoy.

September 18, 2013February 5, 2017

Blackberry Coffeecake

I do hope I’m getting you this blackberry coffeecake recipe before it’s absolutely impossible to find blackberries. Please don’t hate me if I’m not.

I’m feeling really torn about summer’s departure and fall’s arrival. I know earlier I said I was excited, but now that it’s happening, and there’s that chill in the air, and there have been a few days of drizzle, I find myself kind of having to mentally prepare myself for the gray that comes and stays for months and months and months. I like the chill, and I can’t wait to wear sweaters and drink tea and cook the food that comes with fall… but I don’t know. It doesn’t have that same carefreeness that summer has.

But I’ll live. This recipe came from my having leftover blackberries, and just really wanting to make coffeecake. I woke up one morning, Jonah was still in bed, the roommates were out of town, and I snuck downstairs and made a coffeecake (adapted from Tide and Thyme) on a Sunday morning. It was a lovely peaceful way to spend the morning. And everyone likes coffeecake. Everyone.

Blackberry Coffeecake

Ingredients

Crumb Topping

½ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp lemon zest
4 tbsp. (2 oz.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Blackberry Cake

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups fresh blackberries

Instructions

Crumb Topping

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 10-inch springform pan (which, by the way, I’m convinced might be the greatest things ever, if you grease it enough). Make the crumb topping by combining all of the ingredients except the almonds in a bowl and mixing it up to combine. It should be kind of crumbly. You can also add some oats if you’d like. Set the topping aside.

Blackberry Cake

In a large mixing bowl (perhaps maybe the bowl of an electric mixer), combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt. In a separate mixing bowl, use a whisk to mix together the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. Make kind of a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, pour in the wet, and stir it up just until it’s evenly combined and there are no flour patches or streaks. Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and make sure it’s evenly distributed. Place the blackberries gently on top, making sure they are evenly distributed (wow, can’t get enough of that phrase, huh?) and covering the top of the batter. Now sprinkle the crumb topping on top of the blackberries, and then top with the sliced almonds.

Bake the coffeecake until the top looks all perfectly golden brown, and it passes the clean toothpick/knife test, 40-50 minutes. Put the pan on a cooling rack, and let it cool for ~20 minutes, or as long as you can wait. Run a knife around the edge before removing the sides of the springform. Slice it up and serve with coffee or tea, and maybe a bowl of fruit.

September 12, 2013February 5, 2017

Corn Salad

Guys, it’s September, and I have a few summer recipes, like this corn salad, to get to you before the season slips from our fingers. At this point, it feels like summer might never end in Portland – it cooled off a bit last week, and this week hit a high of about 98 degrees (get it? like the band? ok. I’ll stop.). But this weekend, it’s supposed to rain, and the temperature is supposed to drop, and I am feeling strangely ready for that to happen.

I usually mourn the end of summer, but lately I have been craving heartier dishes and squash, specifically butternut and acorn. I’ll take peaches and tomatoes, but the hankering for those fall dishes is starting to nag at me.

But while it’s hot and there are still things like corn and nectarines, you should eat things like this corn salad. Inspired by a few different recipes, this is one of those dishes that uses corn as a base, but you can really toss in whatever you have around. Quickly cube and cook up some zucchini and throw it in, or add in some chopped tomatoes (seed them first), or chop up some basil. Here’s what I used.

Corn Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

3 ears corn, lightly cooked (boiled), and kernels cut from the cob
2 nectarines, cubed
1 bell pepper, cubed
1 jalapeño, seeded, chopped
1-2 limes, juiced (start with one, see how you like it)
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
Salt and pepper

Instructions

Combine ingredients in a bowl, stir it up, add more of anything you like, and eat with friends as the hot day starts to cool off, preferably accompanied by grilled chicken or fish or something like that, as well as some cold beers.

September 2, 2013February 5, 2017

The Rattlesnake: a cocktail

Sometimes, when you’re spending all day cooking, it’s important to spoil yourself with a cocktail break. And sometimes you are given an all access pass to someone’s liquor cabinet, and you have lots of cocktail blogs to choose from (There Will Be Bourbon, Spirited Alchemy, 5 o’clock cocktails…), and you finally pick one called the Rattlesnake, and whip up a batch for all the chefs in the kitchen. Just sometimes.

This cocktail is creamy and light, tasting kind of like a grown up lemon curd/lemon meringue drink. Adapted from There Will Be Bourbon, the recipe below makes enough for 6 drinks. When I’m making that amount, I like to use a trusty tupperware with a good seal instead of a shaker… it means you have to do less work by making all the drinks in one batch.

The Rattlesnake

Makes 6 cocktails

Ingredients

9 oz. bourbon
5 Tbl freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 Tbl sambuca (the recipe called for absinthe, but you can use any anise-liqueur)
2 Tbl powdered sugar (or simple syrup, if you’ve got some around)
3 egg whites

Instructions

Combine all of the ingredients in a tupperware (or cocktail shaker, if you’re only making 1 or 2) with ice. Shake it up! Until the egg whites get nice and frothy. If you want more froth, you can add more egg whites. I wasn’t initially going to add any but when I tasted it without them, it was VERY bourbon-y. So I added half as many as the original recipe called for (which is 1 per drink). I never really realized what egg white did to a drink other than create that frothy foam, but it really mellowed out the flavors. Add bits of whatever you like until it tastes how you want. Strain into glasses filled with ice. If you’re feeling fancy, you can garnish with a lemon peel, or a sprig of mint or rosemary.

August 13, 2013February 5, 2017

Peach Shortbread and changes

It has been a week since I last posted, and oh what a week it has been. The past month has been a time of change for me. We moved into a new house in NE Portland, which has been really great. While at first I was not happy to be leaving SE, our new location has surprised me.

Also, I have changed jobs. They company where I worked is undergoing some big changes, and while I am still going to be doing some contracting work creating Prezis for them, I am an account manager no more! At first, this was scary, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. I applied to some administrative and management jobs, but what I kept coming back to was food. I knew I was not easily going to get a job in a restaurant, as I have no experience whatsoever. But I sure as hell was gonna try. Within about a week and a half, I had a new job, hostessing at a restaurant in NE Portland. I won’t tell you which one yet, as I’m still kind of in my training period, but so far, I am really enjoying it. The people are great, the food is awesome, and it’s a completely different kind of job. I needed that change in my life.

Peach Shortbread // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler

Anyway, in the midst of all this, I went to what will probably be one of my last commune dinners for a while. Sadly, my new schedule has me working on Monday nights. I’m hoping to make it to dinner whenever I can, because I’ll miss all that craziness, all that good food, and all that company.

For my last dinner, I was asked to make something with the peaches I had recently picked. North of Portland, there’s a small island in the middle of the river called Sauvie Island. To make sure the island doesn’t get all developed and covered with mansions, in order to live there, a certain amount of your income has to come from the land you own. This means lots of farms, cattle, sheep, etc. One of Portland’s most popular summer activities is going to pick berries, peaches, veggies, and flowers on the island. While our friend Emilie was in town, Jonah, Carmelle, and I took her to Sauvie Island Farms to go picking! We picked 6 ears of corn, 2 tubs of blueberries, a tub of raspberries, and 14 or so peaches, and got them all for $30. It was so fun! Anyway, I had posted photos of our fruit picking adventures, so a fruity dessert was requested. I found this recipe for peach shortbread on Smitten Kitchen, and did a little adjusting (mostly, we didn’t have nutmeg, so I used cloves and did half the amount). It was a big hit, and they were so dang easy to make.

Peach Shortbread

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
a generous pinch of ground clove
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
1 egg
2 peaches, pitted and thinly sliced

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Butter (or somehow otherwise grease) a 9×13 pan or baking dish. In an electric mixer, or a good sized bowl, mix the sugar, baking powder, flour, cinnamon, clove, and salt. Using the paddle attachment, a pastry knife, a fork, or those finger things at the ends of your hands, cut and blend the butter and egg into the dry ingredients. It’s going to be dry and very crumbly, but that’s ok! Take 3/4 of the dough and pour them into the baking dish, pressing down so they’re firmly and evenly packing into the dish. Now, lay the peach slices on top. You want them to be evenly distributed, so make sure every edge and corner is covered. spread the remaining dough crumbs over the top of the peaches and bake for 30 minutes. The top should be slightly browned, and the edges should be golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before slicing up and serving. Enjoy!

July 29, 2013February 5, 2017

Risotto with Fava Beans and Corn

Wowee! What a whirlwind it has been lately. A few weeks ago, Jonah and I were in Chicago for the 4th of July holiday, and it seems like from there, things got crazy. The night we left for Chicago, we applied to rent a house, and the night we got back we found out we got it! We are now living in NE Portland, within walking distance to Porque No?, Tasty n’ Sons, and countless other places. Mississippi and Alberta neighborhoods are a stone’s throw away, and I’m discovering a part of the city of which I had only scratched the surface. It’s pretty sweet. Be on the lookout for reviews of some spots in our new hood.

It has been a while since I gave you guys a recipe. This is one I made a while back, but it is just as perfect for right now. This past weekend, we went out to Sauvie Island to go berry picking – we have blueberries coming out of our ears! As well as raspberries, peaches, and a few ears of corn. The corn reminded me that I STILL hadn’t posted this risotto recipe! I’ve discovered that risotto is such an easy meal to make and you can really throw in anything you have around. Saffron? Sure. Squash? Yup. Mushrooms? Why not. But this was a great spring & summer risotto with fava beans and fresh corn.

Risotto with Fava Beans and Corn

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs of fava beans, shelled and shelled again (to learn more about shelling favas, go here)
2-3 ears of sweet corn, the kernels cut from the cob
~4 cups of chicken broth (can easily be replaced with vegetable broth to be made a vegetarian dish)
1/2 cup white wine (Alice Waters told me (in her book) that if you don’t have any white wine, you can also use a light beer – I didn’t have any wine or nice beer around, so I used PBR… it worked just fine)
2 Tbl olive oil
1 small white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Instructions

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the broth to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low.

In a separate saucepan over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil, then add the onion, garlic, and salt. Cook them until the onions are soft but not browned, about three minutes. Add the arborio rice and stir to coat it in olive oil. Add the wine (or in my case, beer, because I’m classy like that) and cook until the liquid has been absorbed and evaporated, stirring constantly.

Now add the broth, one cup at a time (or one ladle full at a time). Stir the rice frequently after each addition, and only add more broth when the previous broth has been absorbed. When you have added half the broth (after about 15 minutes), add the fava beans and corn. Continue adding broth and letting the rice cook and absorb, until the rice is tender but still has some bite to it. You may not need all of the broth. When the texture seems good to you, add about 1/4 cup of broth, remove the pot from the heat, and stir in the parmesan, and salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

July 8, 2013February 5, 2017

Honeyed Broiled Apricots

Dear friends, I would like to share with you perhaps my favorite recipe of the summer season (thus far, anyways). I don’t know about you, but I am a big fan of apricots.

I love them in pies, tarts, crisps, and fresh as a perfect afternoon snack. I love how little and manageable they are, I love the color, and I love the tangy flavor. Most other summer fruits are incredibly juicy (peaches, nectarines, melons, berries), but I kind of like that, even at their ripest, apricots have a funny little dryness to them.

Anyway, I had this bag of apricots in the fridge a few weeks ago, and decided, after a little searching here and there for a quick apricot dessert, to make one of the world’s easiest and most delicious desserts. I kid you not.

You could eat them with a fork, but I recommend getting your fingers a little sticky and just picking them up. These are a few bites of heavenly goodness. The warm fruit with the cold creamy yogurt is a dream, sweetened by the broiled honey. Enjoy!

Honeyed Broiled Apricots

Ingredients

Apricots (think 1 per person)
Honey
Greek yogurt (sour cream, whipped cream, or regular plain yogurt will also work, but I like greek yogurt the best)
Pistachios (shelled and chopped)

Instructions

Heat your broiler. Cut each apricot in half along the seam, and remove the pit. Put the apricots, cut side up, in a baking dish (a brownie pan or a pie dish will work well), and fill each cavity with honey. You don’t want the honey to overflow, but you want the cavity to be full. Put the apricots under the broiler for about 5 minutes, rotating halfway through. You want the honey to be bubbling and the apricots to show some good color.

Allow the apricots to cool a bit (not all the way), then move them to little plates or saucers. Top with a dollop of yogurt and a sprinkle of pistachios.