Recipes

Lemon Tart with Rosemary Crust



When planning this year’s Thanksgiving menu – which, believe me, took over a month – my father and I went back and forth quite a bit on what recipes to include. We wanted to go with some less traditional recipes. For instance, instead of a regular stuffing, we stuffed onions; there were no sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes at our dinner, instead we had twice cooked stuffed delicata squash (I’m working on getting you that recipe…); our brussel sprouts were glazed with balsamic, tossed with pancetta, and sprinkled with breadcrumbs. It was heavenly. Dessert, for some odd reason, turned out a little lackluster. You know how you wait all year for those pies? Those perfectly creamy pumpkin pies, those apple pies so full of apples you don’t know if they’ll all fit in the pie dish, and the pecan pie with the perfect ratio of nut to candy-like filling? Yeah… we didn’t really get those this year. Probably because we went with the whole “let’s try new recipes!” idea. And hey, I’m glad we did. What’s the fun in cooking if you’re using the same recipes over and over, right?

In addition to the traditional pumpkin/apple/pecan pies, we also decided to add a lighter dessert to the menu. You know Pinterest, right? Well I had found this recipe for a lemon tart with rosemary crust, and without really reading the whole thing, recommended it as a light, fruity dessert. Only upon arriving in Seattle and reviewing all of the recipes did I realize that the crust was a spelt crust. Now, I don’t hate gluten-free things, but I am a little…doubtful, one might say, of their deliciousness when compared with regular gluten-filled things. So I was wary. But I made it anyway. And what I loved about this tart is that the crusty is really rosemary-y, unlike all those recipes where you add a little bit of whatever herb and can barely taste it. I also loved how tart the filling was. My family loves sour anything, so the filling (not as much the crust, but whatever) was a big hit. If I were to make it again, I would probably 1.5 times the filling and just add some fresh rosemary to my own pie dough for the crust.

Lemon Tart with Rosemary Crust

Ingredients

Rosemary Spelt Crust

1 1/3 cup spelt flour
3 Tbl sugar
1 Tbl fresh rosemary, chopped
pinch of salt
1/3 cup cold butter, cubed
1-2 Tbl ice water

Lemon Filling

1 cup plain Greek yogurt (I wouldn’t recommend non-fat, as you’ll lose some of the richness, but if that’s what you’re into, go for it.)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Instructions

Rosemary Spelt Crust

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch tart pan and set aside.

In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, rosemary, and salt a few times. Add the butter and pulse until crumbs start to form. Add the ice water, 1 Tbl at a time, pulsing in between. When the dough holds together when pinched between your fingers, it is done. Don’t add any more water than is absolutely necessary.  It will seem crumbly, but trust me, it’s fine.

Dump the dough into the prepared tart pan. Press the dough into the pan, starting in the center and working your way outwards and up the sides (evenly!). Pierce the crust with a fork a few times and bake for 15 minutes. Allow to cool at least 5 minutes before you pour in the filling.

Lemon Filling

While the crust is baking, you can prep the filling. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the yogurt and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, then the lemon juice and zest. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and well combined. Pour the filling into the (at least slightly cooled) crust and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the center is set and jiggles only slightly when shaken. It is weird to me that shaking things and their jiggling is in a recipe, but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes.

Allow the tart to cool completely, and then stick it in the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour before serving. If you’re feeling fancy, serve it with fresh whipped cream.

Brussels Sprouts and Tofu

brussels sprouts
brussels sprouts and tofu

brussels sprouts, tofu, and rice.

I hated Brussels sprouts as a kid, as most kids do.  I remember my mom making them on occasion, usually steamed with butter melted on them.  She was the only one who ate them.

(Also, “Brussels sprouts??” I was under the impression until about 2 weeks ago that it was “Brussel sprouts.”)

Now that I am a so-called “adult,” I have only become slightly more receptive to these small green balls of vegetable. However, this recipe from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi has me almost craving them.  The best part about it is the way they are fried: with lots of oil and salt, face down on hight heat for a couple of minutes.  One side gets black and crispy, one side is still green.

Also, with the addition of tofu, this recipe makes a meal in one bowl!

Brussels Sprouts and Tofu

Ingredients

2 Tbs sweet chile sauce (the most common brand is Mae Ploy, we had a bottle in the fridge that was “borrowed” from our cafeteria back in college)
1 1/2 Tbs soy sauce
3 Tbs toasted sesame oil (don’t skip this! It makes the dish)
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 Tbs maple syrup
5 oz firm tofu
1 lb Brussels sprouts
about 3/4 cup canola oil
salt
1 cup sliced green onions
1/2 small fresh red chile, deseeded and minced (we used a jalapeño, so it was green.  Whoops.)
1 1/2 cups shiitake mushrooms, halved or quarted
1 cup cilantro leaves
1 Tbs toasted sesame seeds (optional, for garnish)

Rice for serving

Instructions

Find a medium bowl and in it, whisk together the sweet chile and soy sauces, 2 Tbs of the sesame oil, the vinegar and maple syrup. Cut the tofu into 3/8-inch-thick slices and then each slice into two squarish pieces.  Stir the tofu into the marinade and set aside.

Trim the bottoms off the Brussels sprouts and cut each into three slices from the top down.  Find a large frying pan, add 4 Tbs of canola oil, and heat up well.  Throw in half the Brussels spouts, or less than depending on the size of your pan (when I did this the oil spit like crazy, so watch out!).  You want most the sprouts in the pan to have at least one side touching the pan, so no sprouts are stacked on top of one another.  Sprinkle some salt on them and cook on high heat for about 2 minutes.  Don’t stir to much, but shake it around if necessary.  You want the sprouts to be almost burnt on one side. Remove to a bowl and add the rest of the sprouts to the pan with more canola oil.  Add more salt, and 2 minutes later, transfer the rest to the bowl as well.

Add 2 more Tbs of canola oil to the pan and sauté the green onions, minced chili, and mushrooms for 1-2 minutes.  Transfer to the bowl that the sprouts are in.

Leave the pan on high heat and use tongs to lift half of the tofu pieces from the marinade to the pan (again, oil spits!) (don’t throw away marinade!). Space them apart and leave in one layer so that they can fry properly.  Reduce to medium heat and cook for 2 minutes on each side.  Transfer to the sprouts bowl and repeat with the rest of the tofu.

Remove the pan from the heat and return all the cooked ingredients from the spouts bowl back to the pan.  Add the leftover tofu marinade and half of the cilantro leaves.  Toss everything together, and let the pan cool down a bit.  Then taste and add salt if needed.  Stir in the remaining Tbs of sesame oil and serve warm, garnished with sesame seeds and/or the rest of the cilantro.  Eat with rice or by itself.

Chewy Gingersnaps, Perfect for the Holidays

Gingersnaps

Gingersnaps
Gingersnaps

These are possibly the best gingersnaps I’ve ever had. Or maybe they should be called Gingerchews, because they don’t snap. Instead, these cookies are perfectly chewy in the center and crispy on the edges.

For my birthday, my co-workers – who know me incredibly well – bought me this Real Simple magazine/cookbook thing. It looks like a magazine, but is just full of fall and winter recipes. Jonah and I have enjoyed more than a few of the recipes from it, but it being gingersnap season and all, I wanted to share this one with you sooner rather than later.

Chewy Gingersnaps

Ingredients

2 cups flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 clove
3/4 cup vegetable shortening
2/3 cup packed (light) brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup granulated sugar, plus some for sprinkling

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (if you have 2 baking sheets, line 2 – these take a little prep time on the pan, so it’s nice to have time to get them ready while there’s a batch in the oven). In a bowl, mix together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cloves; put aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the shortening and brown sugar until fluffy: you’ll want to use at least a medium speed for about 3 minutes. Turn the speed down to low, and mix in the egg, molasses, and vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until combined.

Put the granulated sugar on a plate or in a shallow bowl. Take about a heaping tablespoon of dough, roll it into a ball, and roll it in the sugar to coat. Put the balls on the baking sheet at least 2 inches apart, and then, using the bottom of a glass, press the balls till they’re a little less than 1/2 inch thick. Sprinkle them with a tad more sugar and bake for 10-12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. Enjoy these gingernsaps by your holiday decorations (tree? menorah?) of choice with a glass of cold milk.

Beer Bread

This recipe is a bit famous in my family. And I wanted to be sure to share it with you while there is still Pumpkin Beer on the shelves because that’s my favorite kind of beer to use. We got this bread recipe from a friend of my sister’s from college, Graham. As soon as Emily introduced me to it, I was hooked. However, it’s not the healthiest (as you will see, you dump a melted stick of butter over the whole thing), so I try not to make it all too often. This specific one I made to take to the first rehearsal of a play I was just cast in. Baked goods always make a good first impression.

Beer Bread

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

3 cups of flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 can/bottle of beer (12 oz) – Having made this a few times, here is my take on what beer to use: Nothing too dark or hoppy, it gives the bread kind of a funny aftertaste. Seasonal beers are nice (think pumpkin ale or christmas beers), as are more fruity beers (back when the only beer I liked was apricot hefeweizen, that worked well), and anything on the lighter side. But I would steer clear of IPAs and reds.
1 stick of butter, melted

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add beer, stir to combine. Grease a bread pan, and dump the dough into it. Warning: the dough will be sticky. Put the bread pan on a rimmed baking sheet – this is important as you won’t want the butter to seep over and just end up in the bottom of your oven. In a small bowl, melt the stick of butter in the microwave. Pour the melted butter over the dough in the bread pan. Bake for 1 hour, turning halfway through.

Remove the bread from the oven, run a knife around the edge of the pan, and turn out onto a cooling rack to cool. This bread is pretty crumbly, so good luck getting it to stay in one piece when you slice it. But it’s so worth it. Enjoy!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies

When you have found possibly the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever, it is hard to find recipes for chocolate chip cookies that still inspire you. You know what I mean? It’s like, well I found the best ones, so why not just make those? I’ll tell you why: while they are delicious, they require buying fancy chocolate (instead of just using the perfectly good chocolate chips you already have in your kitchen) and sifting. I’ll sift for Thomas Keller, but only so often.

So when I wanted to make cookies a while ago but not the fanciest best ones ever, I went to one of my favorite (food) blogs: Orangette. I have used this blog before, but I have re-fallen in love with it since reading the author’s book, A Homemade Life. Now, I feel that Molly Wizenberg and I were meant to be friends, and I am determined to make it happen. If you like reading about food, I definitely suggest it. There are also recipes in it, so if you don’t like the story, you can at least make some delicious food. Anyway, she had this recipe for whole wheat chocolate chip cookies that just looked so simple and divine… So I made them.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. kosher salt
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped into ¼- and ½-inch pieces, or bittersweet chips

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or just butter them. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

Put the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (if you’ve got it. If you don’t, I advise bringing your butter to room temperature before you mix it). Bring the mixer up to a lower speed and mix JUST until the butter and sugars are blended (this should take about 2 minutes if your butter is cold). Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after adding each one. Add the vanilla, mix. Now add the flour mixture, and mix on a low speed until it is just mixed (have you noticed a key with this recipe is not over-mixing it? Honestly, that goes for most recipes. But moving on…) Add in your chocolate and mix. This is where it gets tricky, as the dough is fairly dry. Just do the best you can.

Using a spoon, put ~3 Tbl. sized scoops of dough on the cookie sheet, leaving plenty of room between the cookies (I would say at least 2 inches, 3 to be safe). Mine didn’t spread as much as the ones on Orangette, but always better safe than sorry. Bake for 16 to 20 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the cookies are evenly browned. I have found, when it comes to baking cookies, that I need to take the cookies out of the oven sooner than I think I do… I have a tendency to over-bake. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool. Enjoy with a nice glass of cold milk.

Butternut Squash Enchiladas

Squash for Enchiladas

Carmelle makes enchilada sauce
Squash enchiladas pre-cheese

Squash Enchiladas

Fall is a perfect excuse to put squash in, oh, just about everything you make. Squash ravioli? Yes. Squash cake? Absolutely. Squash enchiladas? Of course.

The inspiration for this meal came from 1) the abundance of squash at the grocery store, 2) the fact that I’d had something similar (some kind of squash taco) at a restaurant here in Portland called Oba, 3) there were people coming for dinner, and I wanted to make something easy that was basically a meal in a dish. This was exactly that, a delicious, relatively easy meal in a dish. I’ll also say this: this was loosely based on a squash enchilada recipe I found, but I was quasi-doubling it. Also, I bought too big of a squash because it was pretty. So we had lots of extra filling, which I just threw in a pan, covered with enchilada sauce and cheese, and baked on it’s own, sans tortillas. But I’ll try adjusting amounts below so that you don’t have that same problem.

Butternut Squash Enchiladas

Ingredients

One ~2 lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed
Olive oil & salt
1 can black beans, rinsed
1 medium onion, diced
mild green salsa (we used one of those little cans from the grocery store)
12 small corn tortillas
1-2 cans enchilada sauce (Carmelle made our enchilada sauce because she is a Mexican food guru… but I was prepping the filling, so I wasn’t paying attention. Dang!)
1 bag of mexican blend shredded cheese

For serving: sour cream and sliced avocado

Instructions

First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Spread your squash on a large baking sheet, toss with olive oil and salt, and bake for 20 minutes, or until squash is tender. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before putting into a large mixing bowl. Add the black beans and onion and mix to combine. At this point, you can lower the temperature of your oven to 350 degrees.

Cover the bottom of a large casserole dish with a layer of enchilada sauce and about half the can of salsa. Warm the tortillas a little bit, one by one, in a pan with a little bit of olive oil, just so that they won’t break when you stuff them. Take a warm tortilla, fill it with the squash/bean/onion mixture, a sprinkle of the cheese, and roll it up. The ends don’t need to be all nice and tucked in, but you want the tortilla to overlap enough… Does that make sense? Fill the dish with filled, rolled tortillas, and cover with enchilada sauce, salsa, and the rest of the cheese (or just however much cheese you want).

Throw that dish in the oven (don’t throw it, actually… that would be bad) for 30 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling and a bit brown. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving with sour cream and slices of avocado. Enjoy!

Delicious Chocolate Cupcakes (that also happen to be gluten-free)

Roza and cupcakes

Cupcakes
Frosted Cupcakes

If you read the title, let me preface this post by saying that I am not often a baker of gluten-free food… Actually, I’m not ever really a gluten-free (GF) cook, if I have anything to do with it. The GF baked goods that I have had in my life are generally sad, deflated looking little things, and usually don’t taste super. So, I try to avoid it.

As you may know, this past year, Jonah and I were nannying for a family, and they are gluten free. I had baked some things for them before (muffins, breads, even pie) and while they were impressed because it usually was pretty good, I was not. You’re going to tell me that pie dough that I made with potato and coconut flour and butter was better than my usual flour-butter-shortening? I don’t think so. But when Roza’s birthday rolled around (see photo below), I wanted to make her the best GF cupcakes I could find. How could you not with a face like that? And I must say, If you just gave me that cupcake, I would not know that it doesn’t have any sugar or flour in it. It is perfectly fluffy and dense at the same time, perfectly chocolatey without being too sweet… It was good. So yeah, these are, by non-GF standards, good cupcakes.

Now let me tell you a bit about Roza. She is the cutest 4 year old I’ve ever met in my life. With a voice like a cartoon character and an endlessly positive attitude, she always had the ability to make me howl with laughter. She was super into Curious George at the time, and we had been reading her this story where George is home alone and finds all these party favors and decorations and cake ingredients, etc. for a party, so he decorates and makes the cake, and then it turns out the party is for him! So Roza’s mom decided to do the same thing. All week, Roza cleaned the house with her little miniature broom for a party she knew we were having, and then she and I decided to make cupcakes for said party. Then, at dinner on Friday with her parents and me and Jonah, we surprised her with the fact that this all was her own birthday party! It was the most adorable thing ever. Their family doesn’t eat sweets a whole lot, and usually sweets aren’t things like chocolate cupcakes, so she was pretty enthused by the idea of baking sweets like these. While we were making them, we had this conversation about 20 times:

Roza: Annie, do you know what is yummy?
Annie: What’s yummy, Roza.
Roza: Chocolate… (Breaks into giggles).

Have I mentioned how much I love her? I have? Ok. I’ll stop.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Cupcakes

Note: A lot of GF recipes will not use just coconut flour. In fact, when I told Roza’s parents that this recipe only had coconut flour, they didn’t think it would be very successful. But the key is using LOTS of wet ingredients. Coconut flour soaks up moisture like nothing else, so in order to balance it out, the batter will seem pretty wet. But it works, I swear.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

¼ cup coconut flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ tsp sea salt
½ tsp baking soda
3 eggs
¼ cup canola oil (the recipe called for grapeseed, but I used canola because it’s what we had around)
½ cup agave nectar (we did a little bit less than this since their family is into less sweeteners)

Frosting

1 cup chocolate chips (preferably dark)
½ cup canola oil (again, the recipe called for grapeseed, but I still didn’t have any)
2 Tbl agave nectar
1 Tbl vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

Instructions

Cupcakes

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, combine coconut flour, cacao powder, salt and baking soda and stir. In a larger mixing bowl, blend together the eggs, oil and agave. Then mix the dry into the wet, and stir until thoroughly combined. Line your cupcake tin with liners, and scoop about 1/4 cup of batter into each liner. Bake them for ~20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Frosting

In a small saucepan over very low heat (or in a double boiler, if you’re feeling that it’s necessary), melt chocolate and oil together. Stir in the agave, vanilla, and salt. Then put the frosting in the freezer for 15 minutes to chill and thicken – mine took longer than 15 minutes to thicken up, but then it was a bit difficult to spread because I think I left it in the freezer for too long… I’m sure there’s a happy medium here, I just didn’t quite hit the nail on the head my first try). After removing from the freezer, whip it with a hand blender (or transfer from the pot you used to a standing mixer and use that) until it is fluffed up. Spread over the cupcakes and enjoy! Roza definitely did.

The Greatest Fish Tacos!

Filling for Fish Tacos

Fish Tacos

Hello all. Summer is tip-toeing out these days. And, while I’m sad that the warmth and long days are leaving, I must admit I’m excited to start wearing sweaters and scarves and boots – my fall uniform. The other nice thing about the very gradual transition this year – the temperature is slowly going from a high of 90 to a high of 72, and that’s great – is that it’s a gentle reminder to make all my favorite summer dishes I haven’t made yet.

These fish tacos are easily in my top 5 summer meals. They’re relatively easy and refreshing. I suppose they could be made year round, but to me they just seem to go with sunshine and shorts. I like to make some roasted corn for a side dish and wash it all down with a light summer ale.

Fish Tacos

Ingredients

Lime-Cumin-Dijon vinaigrette

2 Tbl fresh lime juice
2 tsp dijon mustard
3/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
6 Tbl olive oil

Fish Tacos

2-2 1/2 cups roughly flaked cooked halibut (about 12 oz)
3 Tbl mayonnaise
1 scallion, white and light green parts only, minced
1/2 cup minced celery leaves and stalks
1/4 cup chopped green olives (optional… I don’t usually include these. Another option is to prep them and not add them to the mixture, but to serve as a garnish/possible topping)
1 cup arugula, roughly chopped (or other “peppery green”)
1 cup cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
6 small corn tortillas (the 4 inch ones)
other serving options:  yogurt or sour cream, goat cheese, slices of avocado, and lime wedges

Instructions

To make the vinaigrette, put the lime juice, mustard, cumin, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Whisk together, and while whisking, add the olive oil in a slow steady stream. Whisk until the dressing is well combined.

Now onto the filling. In a mixing bowl, combine the fish, 2 Tbl of the vinaigrette you just made, the mayonnaise, scallion, and celery and mix gently. You want to be sure to be gentle because you don’t want to break up the fish too much. If you’re using the olives, mix them in as well. In a separate bowl (I know, another bowl!) toss the arugula and cilantro with just enough of the vinaigrette so that it is lightly and evenly coated. Now the recipe leaves the fish and the greens separate, which you totally can, but for the sake of not having a thousand dishes on the table, I usually just lightly fold the greens in to the fish so it’s all one big mixture.

When you’re ready to eat, heat the tortillas however you’d like (the recipe recommends over a gas flame, but that sounds a little frightening to me, so I am a fan of a dry pan or, if need be, a microwave). Put the tortillas on plates, put on a layer of the fish and a layer of greens (if you’ve left them separate; if not, just heap it all on there). Then top your tacos with whatever garnishes you choose, and enjoy! Be sure there are napkins around, because there are juicy little buggers.

Old Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake

Shortcake
Shortcake

A perfect scene for eating shortcake

Wow you guys. This is the longest I have gone without posting here. I’m going to do my best to get back on the horse, but I can’t make any promises. Here are a few reasons August was a little rough:

1) We travelled quite a bit. To Seattle twice: once for a farewell party for my sister (who just moved to Berkeley, CA to pursue her dreams), once for a wedding (congrats to Johnny and Sophie!), and then to Minnesota for Jonah’s family reunion.

2) I was nannying AND working at Pagatim. It was… a lot.

3) We moved! It’s official! We now live in a beautiful grown up house with friends. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to have doors between rooms (for example, there is not only a door between our bedroom and kitchen, but an entire floor/ceiling, which means Jonah can no longer wake me up in the morning by eating his cereal), a full sized kitchen (with a dishwasher!), big windows and lots of light, a patio out back… the list goes on.

But really, I know there is no excuse to leave you hanging like that, so my hope is to not let that happen again. One of the times I went to Seattle this summer, we went to see a viewing of The Princess Bride at the Mural Amphitheater right under the Space Needle. It was so fun, and we packed a wonderful picnic to bring along. I made these shortcakes for dessert, and they were so delicious.

Strawberry Shortcake

Makes 8 shortcakes

Ingredients

Shortcake

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2/3 cup granulated sugar, plus 1/3 cup to top shortcakes
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
4 tsp lemon zest
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

Strawberry Filling

2 pints ripe strawberries, hulled and sliced (I think we used raspberries instead)
2 Tbl granulated sugar
2-3 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
We also added a few roughly chopped mint and lemon verbena leaves

Whipped cream for serving, preferably homemade

Instructions

Shortcake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter a baking sheet. Mix together the flour, baking powder, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Then stir in the cream and lemon zest. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and form it into a ball, then knead about 12 times, or until the dough holds its shape (careful not to overwork it!). Cut the dough into 8 equal portions and form the portions into balls. Dip each ball into the melted butter, and then dip half of the ball into the (1/3 cup) sugar. Place each ball onto the baking sheet, sugared side up. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown on edges and baked through. Cool on a wire rack.

Strawberry Filling

While the shortcake is baking, you can get started on the fruit. Now, I didn’t follow the recipe when it came to the fruit. I combined the berries, sugar, lemon, and herbs in a pot and put it over low heat. Let it cook, stirring frequently, until the sugar is absorbed and the berries start to soften, then remove from heat. (You can also prepare the whipped cream while the shortcakes are baking.)

To serve, slice the shortcakes in half horizontally, spoon a heaping serving of the fruit over the bottom half, then put on as much whipped cream as you’d like, and put the top on. These are a lovely end-of-summer dessert, simple but really delicious. Enjoy!

Chicken with Plum Chutney – plus a give away!

Chicken with Plum Chutney

Chicken with Plum Chutney

Do you like chicken? I like chicken. It seems to always be a good backup dinner. For example… not feeling spendy/fancy enough to buy fish? But don’t want something as carb-y as pasta? Answer: Chicken. You can do so many things with it! Cut it up and use it in a stir fry, smash it and coat it in Panko. Roast it in the oven with root vegetables. Make soup. The list goes on and on.

One of my personal favorite chicken recipes is this recipe for chicken with plum chutney from Martha Stewart. When I was in high school, we used to get Martha’s monthly everyday food magazines, and I would always go through them one by one and dog-ear all the recipes I wanted to make. This one has been by far the best recipe I have ever made from those things, and has stuck around the longest. It became a family favorite when I made it at my family reunion, and I it was included in the cookbook of family recipes that I gave my mom for her birthday last fall. It also is one of the few meals I’ve made for Jonah’s parents (this one even got the honor of being served on his dad’s birthday), so you know it’s good. It’s perfectly summery: fruity and tangy, but also sweet and a beautiful purple color.

Chicken with Plum Chutney

Ingredients

4 (6 to 8 ounces each) boneless skinless chicken breast halves
Salt and ground pepper
2 Tbl olive oil
1/2 medium red onion, chopped
1/2 jalapeno chile, (ribs and seeds removed for less heat, if you want), chopped
4 red plums, (about 1 pound), halved, pitted, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/3 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 Tbl cider vinegar
3/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Instructions

Start by seasoning the chicken with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat. Put the chicken into the hot pan and cook until it’s opaque throughout, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer the cooked chicken to a plate and set aside for later use.

Now let’s make the chutney. Put the rest of the olive oil into the same skillet (No need to even rinse! Look at that, a one pot meal!), as well as the onion and jalapeno. Cook for about 3 minutes, or until softened. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the plums, sugar, vinegar, curry powder, ginger, and 1/4 cup of water. Now, I like to do a little less water so it isn’t quite as runny, but do it how you like. If you add too much water, you can always let it cook down a bit more (though everything in the chutney will get more cooked); On the other hand, if you add less to begin with, you can always add more later. Do whichever suits you. Bring the chutney to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the plums are softened and the liquid is slightly thick – the recipe says 8 minutes, but I always find that this takes a bit longer.

When the chutney is ready, add the chicken and any juices from the plate back into the pan and simmer until the chicken is heated through. Season to taste with S&P and serve the chicken with loads of chutney spooned on top. In college, I liked to make large batches of this chutney and then freeze it, and then all I really needed to do was cook up some chicken and voila, dinner. Or you can put it over some plain pasta. Really, any vehicle you need to get this chutney into your mouth is fine. But chicken is best.

Ticket Give Away!

Now, speaking of chicken, I’ve got my very first give away on the blog! Kind of cool, right? It’s really only for Portlanders, though… sorry out-of-towners. Last week, while on vacation, I was contacted to see if I wanted to offer FREE tickets to the Foster Farms Fresh Chicken Cooking Contest. Exciting, no? At this point in the game, this is the regional finals at the Art Institute of Portland. The contest takes place on August 10th (in a week and a half!) at 9:30 am. You would be able to attend the event, watch the contest live, and sample the contestants’ dishes. You also will have a chance to see the professional kitchen at the Art Institute, which will be pretty cool, I bet.

Now, I can’t attend because, you know, I work two jobs, but I want anyone who reads this blog and wants to go to please leave a comment below with your full name! We’ve got 10 tickets to give away here folks, so get going! On Monday (or Tuesday), I’ll pick 10 people from the comment section to give tickets to. Want more information? Go here.

Using those roasted tomatoes…

Tomatoes
tomatoes

tomatoes

Remember those roasted tomatoes I made a while back? 2 things about them.

One is that I’m reading Molly Wizenburg’s book, called “A Homemade Life,” and it’s lovely. She’s a fabulous writer, and there are recipes! I can’t wait to try them. I already loved her, but then I got to the part where she talks about her own roasted tomatoes, and how great and easy they are, and now I feel like we may be soul mates. Oh my goodness. Read her blog Orangette and also the book mentioned above. She’s working on another book, and I can’t wait to read it. Her writing is really lovely, full of nostalgia and a clear love for detail. She notices the little things.

The second thing about those tomatoes: pasta sauce. They’d been sitting in the fridge for a little while, and I thought to myself, “I won’t let these go bad! I must use them!” So I decided to do something easy with them besides just eating them cold. I threw them in the food processor, heated them up, and put them over some sauteed mushrooms and onions to make a sauce. Scoop the sauce over some noodles of your choice, and sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan and voila! Dinner. You can find the original recipe for the tomatoes here.

Flinsen (Or Pflinzen)

Flinsen

In honor of Father’s Day, Jonah and I made flinsen. Whenever we see Jonah’s dad, Randy, he makes us flinsen. Randy will stand at the stove and make these pancakes, handing them out one at a time, hot off the stove, until everyone is full. Then he will sit down and eat. What a caring dad, right? I love Randy. (Another awesome thing about Randy is that he makes cheese, and good cheese at that!)

Flinsen

Ingredients

1 egg per person
1/2 cup flour per person
milk

Toppings for serving: yogurt, maple syrup, jam, sliced fruit, butter, and cinnamon sugar are all good options!

Instructions

Flinsen are easy. Put one egg per person that will be eating in a bowl and scramble them. Now add 1/2 cup flour per person. Now add milk until it’s the right consistency. “Wow, Annie,” you must be thinking, “That’s a great instruction.” I know, I know. You want it to be like really thin pancake batter. Think crepes.

Throw a slab of butter into a 10 inch fry pan over medium heat. Spread the melty butter around, and take about a 1/4 cup measure full of batter, and dump it into the pan. Here’s the tricky part. While you’re pouring the batter into the pan, you need to pick up the pan and swirl it around so the batter makes a thin layer over the whole pan. It may take a couple tries to get the hang of it, but you can do it! Pile them on a plate (or a pan and put them in a low oven to keep them warm).

Now comes filling time. You can put whatever you want inside, kind of like a crepe. Jonah’s got me hooked on greek yogurt and a drizzle of syrup. Jam is also good, sliced fruit is too, and even plain ol’ butter and cinnamon sugar. Enjoy!