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Granola by Orangette

March 10, 2012February 2, 2017

I am a big fan of homemade granola. I used to not like granola very much. The stuff you buy in the paper bags at the store was just too hard and crunchy for me, and I didn’t like not knowing what all the seeds and dried fruits in it were. This all changed when I had a roommate for a summer who made her own granola. The stuff used to make our entire house smell like heaven for days. It was amazing. So then I started using her secret recipe (secret being the operative word here, otherwise it would be on the blog, trust me) to make my own as well. I added some flax seeds here and some raisins there, and before I knew it, I became a lover of granola.

Remember those salted chocolate cookies I made last week? Well on the same blog, the post before those cookies is a recipe for Olive Oil and Maple Granola. That sounds…um…heavenly. Right? Am I right? You will, especially after I tell you the ingredients. Anyway, so I decided to make it. I love having granola around, it’s another quick alternative to cereal (try this granola with some Greek yogurt and slices of banana).

Olive Oil & Maple Granola

Ingredients

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup raw hulled pumpkin seeds
1 cup raw hulled sunflower seeds
1 cup unsweetened coconut chips
1 1/4 cups raw pecans, whole or chopped
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup olive oil (plus some for coating the pan)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it with baking oil or just pouring on a little olive oil and spreading it around.

In a bowl, combine the oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut chips, pecans, light brown sugar, and salt, and mix it all up. Add the olive oil and maple syrup, and stir until the dry ingredients are evenly and well-coated.

Spread the oat mixture onto your baking pan in one even layer. Put it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, stirring around every 15 minutes. When it’s done, the granola will be golden brown and toasted. Take it out of the oven (add more salt if you want to, but do a taste check first), and set the pan on a wire rack to cool. If you want to stir in any dried fruit – think cherries, raisins, or cranberries – now’s the time.

The granola will store well in an airtight container. It’s delicious, perfectly sweet, and nutty – try not to eat it too quickly. One great thing about this recipe is that it makes about 7 cups, so plenty of granola to last you at least a couple weeks. Enjoy with some rich greek yogurt!

Asparagus Salad with Prosciutto and Poached Eggs

March 9, 2012February 2, 2017

In the Ad Hoc cookbook (by Thomas Keller), there’s this delicious looking asparagus salad with croutons, prosciutto, and poached eggs. Sounds good, right? I don’t know about you, but I love all of those things. Jonah and I were in the mood for a light dinner, so we decided to make it the other night. The only problem? Neither of us had ever poached an egg before. It’s one of those things, like baking with yeast, that scared me even though it’s probably not actually that hard.

But I did it! And you can do it! I did! My first attempt was much more successful than my second attempt. After having some little egg bits in the pot from the first egg and then swishing it all around to create my whirlpool, the visibility was not so good, so I had trouble telling where my egg was in it’s cooking process. And then it broke when I removed it. Don’t worry, I made Jonah eat that one. Hahaha.

Fall Salad with Poached Eggs, Asparagus, and Proscuitto

Ingredients

2 eggs
1 bunch asparagus
olive oil
salt
8 slices of prosciutto
Croutons (fresh! our grocery store has some really delicious ones made in house. please don’t buy those gross ones in the resealable bags. blech.)
balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper for finishing

Instructions

Poached eggs

Put a few inches of water in it plus a dash of vinegar (white distilled, because that was the only kind I had that seemed reasonable), and started heating it. The important thing (it would seem, from my research) is to have the water hot enough but not so hot that it’s boiling or even simmering. Got that? No bubbles breaking the surface. While your water is heating, break your egg into a small bowl or ramekin. It’s good to not break the egg directly into the water because it gives you a little more control.

When the water is hot enough, take a wooden spoon or spatula (I would advise a spatula… I liked it better for helping the egg along later) and stir it so that it creates a nice little whirlpool. Pour your egg gently into the middle of the whirlpool. It will look, for a moment, like you’ve done something horribly wrong and this will never work and you’ll be asking yourself why you even tried in the first place. But just wait! After the egg has been in the water for about 30 seconds or so, you can start to help it along by nudging it with your spatula, pushing the bits together. After a minute or so, you may notice that your egg has stuck to the bottom of your pan. Gently slide your spatula underneath it to get it unstuck. I also liked to roll my egg over because the bottom of the pot is hotter (duh) and it helped it to cook a little more evenly. Now, after about 3-5 minutes, you should be done! Remove the egg with a slotted spoon and put it in one of 3 places: 1) an ice bath, and then reheat it in the pot of water when you’re ready to serve (Thomas Keller). 2) on a paper towel to dry a little bit (Smitten Kitchen). 3) If you are out of paper towels and don’t feel like preparing an ice bath and then reheating your eggs, a lint-free dishtowel (me).

Fall Salad

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Trim your asparagus, put on a baking sheet, and toss with olive oil and salt. Put it in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the asparagus is cooked to your liking (some people like it crunchy, some people like it soft). Note: Thomas Keller wanted us to grill our asparagus, but we don’t have a grill. Roasting it is a wonderful and winter-friendly alternative.

On a plate, arrange your asparagus, eggs, prosciutto, and croutons. Season to taste with salt and pepper and drizzle with oil and vinegar.

This meal was delicious and light. I can see it being lovely for a summer dinner party. It’s fairly easy too, once you get the whole egg poaching thing down (I’m still working on that part). Enjoy!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

March 8, 2012February 2, 2017

You’ll notice that this is my second chocolate cookie recipe within a week. I know, I know, why Annie? Why do you tempt yourself with these delicious chocolatey cookies? First, I can’t help it. Sometimes I just want something fudgy and gooey and crisp around the edges. Second, I don’t eat all of them myself. The first cookies (the salted chocolate cookies) were mostly consumed by a bunch of friends we had over, and the second cookies (the ones I’m about to tell you about) I brought to Jonah’s boss. We’ve started a little tradition that whenever I make cookies, Jonah takes some into work so that we don’t eat them all, and his coworkers are loving it. Jonah works at a great start-up company in Portland that does internet radio, and we may be hitting the airwaves ourselves soon with a food/cooking show. We’ll see what happens, but we’re talking about it. Thoughts?

Anyway, now onto some chocolate crinkle cookies. I wanted to make something that did not require me to buy anything since we have so much baking stuff in our apartment. So after some searching, I found this recipe on 17 and baking for these. Easy, delicious, and pretty. I halved the recipe because, well it supposedly yields 7 DOZEN COOKIES and let’s face it, we really didn’t need that many. So I’ll give you my miniature version.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Makes 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4-1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar

Instructions

In a bowl (or in the bowl of your electric mixer, if you’re using one) combine the cocoa powder, sugar, and oil. Scrape down the sides, and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add the vanilla. Now throw in the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix to combine. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. I let mine sit in the fridge overnight because I didn’t feel like starting the baking process at 11 p.m.

When you’re ready to bake the suckers, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and pull out the cookie dough. Put the powdered sugar into a shallow bowl, and roll the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter or about a rounded teaspoon. You’ll want to lightly oil your hands so the dough doesn’t stick to your palms when you’r rolling it. After making the balls of dough, roll them in powdered sugar to coat evenly, dusting off any extra, and put them on the cookie sheet at least an inch apart.

Now put them in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes (mine were perfect at 11). Let them cool on the cookie sheet for a minute before moving them to a rack to cool completely. These cookies look like cookies you see in the magazine. They cracked beautifully and looked so pretty with the contrast of the white powdered sugar and the dark chocolate insides. Enjoy these treats with a glass of milk!

Mexican Bowls

March 7, 2012February 2, 2017

The other night, dinner rolled around, and I was feeling incredibly lazy. Nothing that I could think of eating actually sounded good to me, so I put Jonah in charge. There’s a restaurant here in Portland called Por Que Non that has really good Mexican food. They have this dish called a Bryan’s Bowl that is just a bowl of delicious rice and beans and meat and cheese and guacamole and salsa and everything you could ever want in a little bowl. It’s incredibly good. So Jonah suggested making something like the Bryan’s Bowl, and I was not particularly optimistic, because usually when restaurants have something like that they have some secret delicious sauce they pour over it to make it so freaking good. And we didn’t. But…oh well. So he searched something or other on the internet and found this recipe for Cilantro Lime Rice to use as the base for our Mexican bowls. And man oh man, it made all the difference.

Mexican Rice Bowls

Ingredients

Cilantro Lime Rice

1 cup uncooked white rice
1 teaspoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp plus 1 Tbl lime juice, freshly squeezed is highly preferred
1 15-oz can vegetable or chicken broth
1 cup water
2 tsp granulated sugar
4 Tbl fresh chopped cilantro

Mexican Rice Bowl

Cilantro Lime Rice
Black Beans
Chopped Red Onion
Chopped tomato (or salsa)
Chopped avocado (or guacamole)
Sour Cream
Hot sauce
Lime wedges
Chopped cilantro
Tortilla chips

Instructions

Cilantro Lime Rice

Let’s start with the rice. Put the rice, butter, garlic, 2 tsp of lime juice, broth, and water in a pan. Bring the contents to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and cover and cook the rice until it’s tender (about 15-20 minutes). While the rice is cooking, mix the leftover Tbl of lime juice with the sugar and cilantro. When the rice is done, remove it from the heat and stir in the cilantro/lime mixture.

Mexican Rice Bowl

While the rice is cooking you can also prep the rest of your ingredients for your bowl. We drained the beans and just heated them in the microwave, chopped the onions, and got out the salsa, guacamole, sour cream, cholula, and some tortilla chips.

Now it’s time to assemble your bowl. I did mine kind of like you would if it were the filling of a burrito, making even layers of all the ingredients I wanted. I also used my bowl as kind of a layered dip and ate it with tortilla chips for an added bit of crunch. Oh man. I may not have been in the mood for this meal at the beginning of the evening, but it really hit the spot! Enjoy!